Laura Linney and out Tony nominee Ben Daniels (Photo: Sara Krulwich for the NY Times)

In a continued effort to bring you all that is important in the world of gay entertainment and ensure that you are being spoon-fed images of gorgeous, commoditized manflesh, we present the newly-minted AfterElton Briefs. Following the usual assortment of carefully-selected news items, interested readers can find a refreshing pic of a hot man in underwear after the jump. Yes, we're serious.

• If it weren't on video, I wouldn't believe it: an old clip of Anderson Cooper reporting from Chelsea BDSM shop The Noose. (Now that's what I call "Headline Noose"! Bah-dum-bum.)

• We're not the only ones who find it interesting that As the World Turns is the only soap to post an increase in young viewers in the months since the Nuke storyline was introduced - The New York Times does, too.

• The Times also profiled gay actor Ben Daniels (Beautiful Thing), who recently snagged a Tony nomination for his breakout performance in Les Liaisons Dangereuses opposite Laura Linney. Though the sexuality of his character is center-stage, the piece fails to mention that the actor has been out since forever.

• here! Tunes (the music publishing arm of the gay television network) has announced their debut release for their first signed artist, NYC musician Stewart Lewis. To hear some samples of his pop/folk melodies, check out Lewis's Myspace page, and look for the album, in formation, in early June.

• Out in Hollywood has compiled some notable (and heartwarming) responses from celebs and such to repeal of the California same-sex marriage ban. My favorite has to be Governor Terminator's comment: "I will respect the court's decision." Brings a tear!

And today's Briefs are brought to you by...

Visionary gay designer Alexander McQueen and Miss Jackson at the opening of his new L.A. store

In a continued effort to bring you all that is important in the world of gay entertainment and ensure that you are being spoon-fed images of gorgeous, commoditized manflesh, we present the newly-minted AfterElton Briefs. Following the usual assortment of carefully-selected news items, interested readers can find a refreshing pic of a hot man in underwear after the jump. Yes, we're serious.

• Gossip Girl's Chace Crawford is cool with the gay rumors, saying that it means he's "made it" in Hollywood. (Yes, but made it with whom?) In related news, congrats! We've all made it in Hollywood!

• Here's the strangest press release for a faux memoir of a self-obsessed gay hitman who tangles with art thieves, alien invasions and "would-be vampires" that I've seen all week. (the novel is called Renaissance Killer)

• Hey, As the World Turns fans: Luke actually popped up out of the blue in one scene at the end of today's episode to tell Holden what happened between him and Noah on Monday. What, Holden doesn't have TiVo? Sheesh...

• The in-production prison romance I Love You Phillip Morris is getting some serious promotion already at the in-progress Cannes Film Festival. (Cinematical via Towleroad)

• A recent advertising study focusing on brand loyalty of gay consumers tells us what we already know: we prefer companies that don't ignore us or treat us like dirt. A spokesman for the firm that conducted the study noted that "gays and lesbians are fiercely loyal customers to brands they perceive as reaching out to them". Well, at least he said "fierce".

And today's Briefs are brought to you by...

Tony winners David Hyde Pierce are and Sara Ramirez are all smiles at this morning's announcement

In a continued effort to bring you all that is important in the world of gay entertainment and ensure that you are being spoon-fed images of gorgeous, commoditized manflesh, we present the newly-minted AfterElton Briefs. Following the usual assortment of carefully-selected news items, interested readers can find a refreshing pic of a hot man in underwear after the jump. Yes, we're serious.

• The other day we mentioned that Neil Patrick Harris and Rosie O'Donnell would be among the celebrity guests on the upcoming primetime Million Dollar Password. Here's a rather hilarious interview with NPH behind-the-scenes, compete with another excellent Regis impression.

• Hiding in Hip Hop author Terrance Dean will be reading from the tell-most book this week in NYC, and taking Q&A. Check out AfterElton.com contributor Clay Cane's site for details.

• Hey Freak Show fans: Check out this kinda hilarious video of author James St. James reading from his brilliant young adult novel along with several other Lambda Literary Award nominees at A Different Light bookstore, hosted by Christopher Rice.

• In case you missed it, Neil Patrick Harris wound up in bed with Britney last night ... so that we don't have to. Thanks for taking one for the team, NPH!

• Apparently actor Mike Epps is famous enough to be stalked and harassed into a verbal and physical altercation by the bottom-feeders at TMZ. Epps regrettably stoops the their level by calling one of the paps "a fag, homosexual". 

• RADAR takes Joel Derfner, the author of Swish, to the Hello Kitty store and out for ice cream. Given that the rest of the book's title is "My Quest to Become the Gayest Person Ever", I'm guessing "Swish" isn't a basketball reference?

And today's Briefs are brought to you by...

Birthday wishes go out today to two men who have used their talent to provide a generation of gay men with with wit, insight, and intelligent discourse.

First up is Armistead Maupin, who turns 64 today. It was on August 8th, 1974 that he first brought us the hilarious, shocking, and Madrigal magical world of Tales Of The City when it began running as a newspaper serial. Four years later, the first novel was released, and throughout the 70's and 80's, we were treated to the continuing adventures of the gang from Barbary Lane. When asked why his writing seemed to resonate in such a meaningful way with readers, he said:

"One of the things that I saw different about what I was doing was that I was allowing a little air into the situation by actually placing gay people in the context of the world at large. Most gay fiction that I was reading when I was coming out in the early 70s made me claustrophobic because it only dealt with the life of the gay bar and everybody in it was gay. Often gay and male and there weren't even any lesbians in the picture. That didn't make me feel the way I wanted to feel about life and it didn't correspond with the life that I was living in San Francisco which was wonderfully mixed up in terms of the people that came and went in my life and that was part of the enormous exhilaration of it. It felt revolutionary."

Last year, after almost twenty years, Armistead revisited some of the characters with Michael Tolliver Lives!, and though at first hesitant to call it a "sequel", he now says he's looking forward to even further tales in the future. In the meantime, we can look forward to a musical stage adaption of Tales Of The City, to be written by Avenue Q co-writer Jeff Whitty and featuring music by Scissor Sisters frontman Jake Shears.

And happy 51st birthday to Alan Ball, who has given us the ultimate dysfunctional family and hot undertakers, and who somehow survived Cybill.

He started out writing for Cybill Shepherd's sitcom, and allegedly based the Annette Bening character in his Oscar-winning American Beauty on the volatile star. But to us he's best known for creating the HBO series Six Feet Under and introducing us to one of the great gay characters in TV history, David Fisher, played by Michael C. Hall.

Currently, Alan is working on another HBO series, the adaption of Charlaine Harris's Southern Vampire Tales. The series will be called True Blood, and will premiere this fall. Given his track record, we can probably expect something gothic, twisted, and almost certainly of queer interest.

Spring has awakened, the flowers are in bloom and the boys jogging are wearing less and less! I like to call springtime "the battle of the bulge" ... or at least my battle to not get caught staring at them as they run by. It's like follow the bouncing ball, how can I not want to play along? 

Obviously I've got hotties on the brain and that could only mean one thing... 

The AfterElton.com Hot 100! There's still time to vote, so stop working (come on, the sun it out, no one expects much of you today) and vote for your Top 10!  If you're in need of a little inspiration or eye candy to get you started, check out these other Top 10's (Brian, Frank from !! omgblog !!). 

Here are the Top 10 guys I'm currently obsessing over.  It's really hard to come up with a list of just 10 because there are so many different reasons for picking each person (some intellectual, some musical, some just for being hot business...). The list could go on and on so I beg of you to not be all judgy-judge on my picks but rather to share yours in the comments section.  Happy viewing, boys!

Brad Neely

10. Brad Neely (Animator/Artist, Wizard People, Dear Readers)

9. Joel McHale (Comedian, The Soup)

8. Tom Ford (Designer, Hotness)

7. Chris Carrabba (Musician, Dashboard Confessional)

Chris Carrabba
 

6. John Hamm (Actor, Mad Men)

5. Lee Pace (Actor, Pushing Daisies)

Kyle Chandler

4. Kyle Chandler (Actor, Friday Night Lights)

3. Jamie Bamber (Actor, Battlestar Galactica)

Adam Levine

2. Adam Levine (Musician, Maroon 5)

And my current #1 Hot Guy is...

Gay musician Dan Gillespie Sells and his band The Feeling rock Radio 1's Big Weekend in the UK

In a continued effort to bring you all that is important in the world of gay entertainment and ensure that you are being spoon-fed images of gorgeous, commoditized manflesh, we present the newly-minted AfterElton Briefs. Following the usual assortment of carefully-selected news items, interested readers can find a refreshing pic of a hot man in underwear after the jump. Yes, we're serious.

• "The password is ... gay!" CBS is running six primetime eps of Million Dollar Password with host Regis Philbin over the summer, with celebrity guests including Neil Patrick Harris, Rosie O'Donnell, and more.

• Sad: John Barrowman's dog Lewis died last week, after twelve happy years with John and Scott.

• There's a comedy show about off-duty superheroes called No Heroics in the works for British TV, and an eagle-eyed reader tipped us off that one of the heroes is gay. The character's name is Time Bomb, and he's played by James Lance. (t/y Ben Weldon!)

• Above, adorable gay actor Eric Millegan dishes to Michael Ausiello about the fate of his character (Zach) in the much-hyped Bones finale. Good news: he doesn't die. Bad news: he becomes well-acquainted with hospital pudding.

• Speculation abounds regarding the blind-item-outed figures in the forthcoming Hiding in Hip Hop gay tell-all.

And today's Briefs are brought to you by...

You didn't think we'd go into Mother's Day weekend without paying tribute to those wacky ladies (real and otherwise) that gave birth to our fabulousness, did you?  If you can't surprise your Mom with Sunday brunch or a T-shirt with your face on it, be sure to call her/them and express your love and gratitude for raising such a fierce child. 

It is, after all, Mother's Day so just remember, kiddies ... without Mothers there'd be no frakkers; without Mamas there'd be no Mia's, and the most important lesson of all: those lovely ladies that brought you into this world can take you out just as easily (sorry, I had to), so celebrate them!

Sit back and relax as I honor some of my favorite real-life Moms, as well as those from television and movies that represent the good, the bad and the ugly of memorable mamas.

THE NEWBIE
Lily Van der Woodsen (Gossip Girl)

Gossip Girl's Lily Van der Woodsen is a complex character who wants to be a better woman, Mother and lover than her upper crust gal pals and family will allow and I currently heart her. Sure Lily will marry any Tom, Dick or Bart for their money and she'll go to great lengths to save face amongst the Upper East Side elite and yes, she had a mini-meltdown when evil Georgina outed her son Eric at the dinner table but she came around in the end! Kelly Rutherford has taken what could have been a one-note rich bitch and made her a woman to root for. PFLAG will never be the same.

THE SEMI-OLD PRO
Nora Walker (Brothers & Sisters)

Nora Walker meddles and occasionally messes with her children's lives but she's always best friend and supporter to her gay son Kevin Walker (Matthew Rhys) on ABC's Brothers & Sisters.  Sally Field is a powerful presence on screen and she can dominate the drama like no one else but she always let's her character live and breathe the world of her children (often to a fault) and she's really embraced Kevin's relationship and soon to be marriage to Scotty (played by Luke MacFarlane).  Nora could teach Lily a thing or two about patience and acceptance.

THE TRUE OLD PRO
Debbie Novotny (Queer as Folk - US)

Debbie (or PFLAG The Clown as my friend Armando likes to call her) could school all other Mother's on how to support your gay child and every fey friend that makes up his/her gay gang.  She's been crazy involved in her son Michael's (played by the adorable Hal Sparks) social and sex life so if you have questions on which gay clubs to haunt or which lube works best she's your go-to-gal.  Debbie does the gays proud and I salute her efforts and enthusiasm in grounding the sometimes outrageous Queer as Folk.

THE LEGEND
Anne Bancroft (Torch Song Trilogy's Ma Beckoff | Home For The Holiday's Adele Larson )

Anne Bancroft played two of the most memorable Gay Movie Moms from two of my favorite films with gay characters. In the classic Torch Song Trilogy she was the conflicted, confused, and sometimes pain in the ass Ma to Harvey Fierstein's Arnold Beckoff. In the end she realized that no matter how you raise them, sometimes kids really do "come that way."  In Jodie Foster's Home For The Holidays, she was the Mom most in need of a Silkwood shower and a neurotic nag to her gay son Tommy (Robert Downey Jr.) but she was never anything but amazing.  Rest In Peace Anne Bancroft (1931-2005).

THE ASS KICKER
Sandra Gangel (Beautiful Thing)

Sandra's the kind of woman that's not afraid to stand up to an abusive Father, knock out a whacked out Mama Cass lovin' neighbor, and encourage her gay son to make his own kind of music. Linda Henry's multi-layered performance in Beautiful Thing has always forced me to stand up and cheer.  She's funny, intense, and ruthless but encouraging and nurturing to not only her gay son Jamie but his teenaged lover Ste.  The final scene of the film is one of endless hope and utopia made even more amazing by Sandra's fearless efforts to accept her son.

Like many gay men, I was saddened by the death of the larger-than-life Tammy Faye Messner last year. I remember being shocked by how frail and gaunt she was she she showed up on Larry King, and when learning that she died the very next day, thinking to myself, "Well, at least she got one more moment." Despite all the shady PTL business with her ex-husband, I always believed that Tammy Faye was good at heart, and she was always supportive of the gay community. Even in the early days of AIDS, when every other televangelist was talking about "God's punishment", she was crying out (literally) for compassion and understanding.

That compassion for others has been handed down to her son, Jay Bakker, a preacher in his own right, who has taken up the cause as a gay ally. This weekend, Jay will spend the first Mother's Day since Tammy Faye's death at an event sponsored by SoulForce, who fight religious discrimination of LGBT people. They will be trying to persuade Joel Osteen, the televangelist and John McCain supporter, to join them in a non-traditional picnic on Saturday. It's obvious this weekend is going to have a special significance for Jay:

"I want to celebrate my mother's life," said Bakker, pastor of Revolution New York City, "and help spread the message she lived and preached. We need to stop thinking of ourselves as 'us' and 'them.' We hope the families of Lakewood Church will open their hearts and minds to us and sit down and have a conversation and share a meal. ... Let's put our differences aside and share the love and hope of Christ."

It's not the first time that Jay has come out in support of gays. On the Sundance reality series One Punk Under God, he jeopardized his entire ministry when he decided to take a stand in favor of gay marriage. It's clear that the spirit of Tammy Faye is alive and well in her son.

In order to be sure that we are providing you with an appropriately varied pool of beefcake suggestions for the ongoing AfterElton.com Hot 100 poll, we've reached out to a few of our favorite man-crazy blogs for their picks for this year's all-thoroughbred team.

Today we're pleased to share with you the top ten of Frank from the illustrious (and illustrative), award-winning !! omgblog !!. If you're familiar with Frank's work, you already know that he's got quite an eye for the mancandy. And if you're not ... well, you don't know what you're missin'.

So without further ado ... Frank's picks!

Gossip boy Penn Badgley

10. Chris Evans (Actor, Sunshine)

9. James Franco (Actor, Milk)

8. Penn Badgley (Actor, Gossip Girl)

Jamie Dornan

7. Jamie Dornan (Model, Actor)

6. Ryan Gosling (Actor, Lars and the Real Girl)

5. Heath Ledger (RIP)

Justin Theroux: Full Throttle

4. Justin Theroux (Actor, Six Feet Under, The Broken Hearts Club)

3. Adam Brody (Actor, The O.C.)

2. Andy Roddick (Tennis player)

And Frank's top pick for the year...

Sean Penn and his Milk men

In a continued effort to bring you all that is important in the world of gay entertainment and ensure that you are being spoon-fed images of gorgeous, commoditized manflesh, we present the newly-minted AfterElton Briefs. Following the usual assortment of carefully-selected news items, interested readers can find a refreshing pic of a hot man in underwear after the jump. Yes, we're serious.

• Above, the first official publicity still released by the studio for Gus Van Sant's Milk, with Sean Penn as the slain gay civic leader. The star power and subject are getting the pic a good deal of mainstream advance press, and it's not of the gay cowboy joke variety.

• Here's a rather funny moment from the UK Friday Night Project show in which David Tennant, after being read some Doctor Who fanfiction, asks if it might not have come from castmate John Barrowman's blog. Heh.

• If you happen to be around the house tonight, you might want to tune into SyFyPortal radio to catch AfterElton.com editor Michael Jensen and Torchwood recapper Steven Frank as they discuss Torchwood!

• Time Out New York is featuring 19 NYC men who are willing to take it all off, and letting their readers vote on which fella will strip for a future issue. Thoughts?

• The troublemaking gay penguin daddies of And Tango Makes Three are public school (and library) enemy #1 for the second year in a row. I think The Daily Show's Samantha Bee pretty much summed up the ridiculousness of the whole gay penguin controversy in the above clip.

• Apparently, gay websites linked so much to the Cayman Free Press's story about the American who was arrested for kissing another man in a Cayman club that it crashed their website. Ya mess with the bull, ya get the horns, kids.

• Martin Freeman, the "Jim" of the original The Office, wonders why more gay men in show business don't come out, noting, "there are more poofs in it than you can have hot dinners thrown at you." I guess that's ... a good thing?

And today's Briefs are brought to you by...