Morning Meme: Gareth Thomas Tops Pink List, NPH Loves Silly Bandz, and Alec Mapa Is Fighting Mad

Plus Kristen Chenoweth loves Christianity and gays, Brothers & Sisters sheds dead weight, and Sir Ian McKellen has always been hot.

I had originally missed this Comic-Con interview with Sasha Roiz, who plays our gay gangster Sam Adama on Caprica. Like we saw in the trailer for Season 1.5 last week, things get more exciting. What the trailer didn’t show was that Sam becomes a much more frequent guest on our screen, at least according to the actor. Whether that’s as a surrogate father or as a shirtless killing machine is unclear. Either works for me.

This is a 70 gigapixel photo of Budapest you can pan around. It’s supposed to be the largest picture ever taken.

Vulture has a feature in which they take a star in a leading role in a movie and try and determine his monetary value to Hollywood. They take in to account, age, past box office, looks, and typecasting, management, etc. This past week it was Charlie St. Cloud star Zac Efron, who probably saw his value go down due to his movie’s weekend performance. It’s funny – they say he’s too pretty to be handsome, and that makes him less bankable.

Well before you need them for Halloween, you can buy the Officially Licensed Lady Gaga Costumes. Four to choose from!

These tourists had a great time visiting Buenos Aires, until they ended up at a club on gay night. Or maybe just “gay friendly night.” But they were traumatized by seeing drag queens and shirtless men – “The idea of friendly gays was, if anything, an even more scary thought.”

A source close to actor Tom Hardy says the sex quotes in the article we discussed last week were “taken out of context” and that he was “discussing a role” and not any personal experience. I’m a little confused by this unnamed source trying to correct the record – that’s not the Hollywood standard. The standard is lawyers and agents coming out in full force.

Old terror: golf ball sized hail. New terror: soccer ball sized hail.

Dario Villanueva, Secretary of Real Académia Española says that the 2013 edition of their Dictionary of the Spanish Language will contain new definitions of marriage to “reflect the new gay reality”. Huh. Maybe we are trying to redefine marriage. At least he is.

A lot is happening at the Television Critics Association in Los Angeles. Of course our intrepid editor is bringing you in-depth pieces, but he can’t do it all. SyFy, for instance, announced seven new series in development. But to me the two gems are comedies, with Legendary starring Kevin Sorbo playing a former syndicated action star who has to battle real monsters attacking Los Angeles. There’s a similar piece with Lee Majors called Me and Lee about him giving a young man a bionic body.

But Amber Benson (Tara, Buffy the Vampire Slayer) is curious at how similar SyFy’s comedy Human Relations sounds to a concept she’s been shopping around Hollywood. SyFy even ran the trailer for her concept back in January, so she knows they've seen it. For now she just wants answers, because she doesn’t want to get Dark Willow involved in the disagreement.

It should be noted that Allison Iraheta, who finished fourth on American Idol in the Adam Lambert/Kris Allen year, is doing major bits for the gays. She’s touring with Adam, and she headlined Long Beach Pride. Some are calling her a new gay icon, which is premature, but as young as she’s starting, she could become one, for the ages. h/t Josh

This list of 5 Movie Directors Who Used To Be Awesome But Now Suck lumps out Bryan Singer in with the likes of M. Night Shyamalan. To be fair, it also dumps Francis Ford Coppola in the same bunch.

Not only does NBC say they’re open to Conan O’Brien being a presenter on the Emmy Awards airing on their network this month, they’re reportedly considering letting him use old bits like the Masturbating Bear on his new show, which are legally their property.

Kristin Chenoweth gives great interview. She talks Glee, Wicked, the new sitcom she’s developing, and how in her view Christians have given Christianity a bad name. It’s impassioned and heartfelt, and worth reading in its entirety.

Balthazar Getty is leaving Brothers & Sisters for good. He’s joining Rob Lowe and Emily VanCamp in the exit line from the series.

The Gay Games have kicked off with 10,000 athletes in Cologne, Germany. We’re going to team up with OutSports.com to provide more coverage all week, but here’s a primer on the games.

Diversity is a big topic at the Television Critics Association. When the producers of My Generation got grilled on how their show about nine friends over ten years didn’t have a gay character, I assumed it was our intrepid editor, Michael Jensen. But he swears someone else beat him to the question.

The Independent released their annual Pink List of influential GLBT persons spanning media, politics and entertainment. Number one on the list was out rugby player Gareth Thomas. Falling from #14 to #64 was Russell T. Davies. They made a special update to the list at #100 for the newly out X-Factor winner Joe McElderry.

And finally, if you follow Alec Mapa on Twitter, you know he’s fired up about Target’s donation to anti-gay politicians. He’s changed his icon, and he’s tweeting a lot of truth, including this piece about the fact that Target builds its upscale cachet on the backs of gay designers like Zac Posen, Jean Paul Gaultier, and even the late Alexander McQueen.  On a side note, said anti-gay politician, Rep. Tom Emmer, seems to think that the gays are out of line, and Target has free speech rights. He’s right, Target does. Just like gays and their allies having the right to not spend our money with Target is both free speech, and free market – both of which are Republican principles.