We're in summer's home stretch, meaning that a slew of new shows and old favorites will be turning the corner in no time. Here in NYC, ads for new projects like Pushing Daisies and Dirty Sexy Money are on every corner and bus already despite being months away from premiere, and critical and audience darling Ugly Betty got into the marketing swing recently by shooting a fun new promo for season two.

Yes, the song (re-recorded specially for the promo) is by he-who-must-not-be-named, but here it's kind of impossible to not mention the fact, so we're sort of breaking our two-month-plus moratorium. Honestly, Ugly Betty could throw Isaiah Washington, Don Imus, and the ghost of Roy Cohn in an ad and somehow manage to make it fun, so we have no real complaints here.

You may have noticed by now that we have a bit of a bee in our bonnet over the way that Brit pop star Mika has chosen to market himself here in the US, particularly to gay audiences. To get you up to speed: Mika refuses to speak about his sexuality, whatever it may be (and again, we could seriously care less). But he is actively courting a gay audience and has enlisted the assistance of celebrity outer Perez Hilton to help him promote his album. It goes without saying that Hilton's silence on the matter of Mika's sexuality is the height of hypocrisy given his "the closet doesn't exist anymore" mantra. But that's another story entirely.

The story here is that we have a gay-vague celebrity aggressively marketing himself to us while telling us that we are a part of society with whom he would not want to identify. He constantly refers to not wanting to be "labeled", which is beyond offensive to those of us who don't see sexuality as being a label, but rather a fundamental aspect of who we are. Does it define us? No -- not any more than "tall", "Hispanic", "enthusiastic" or "big-boned" would.

But we wouldn't be who we are without it, and we have no interest in pretending it isn't there, or in supporting an artist whose coy public image sends a message that there's something wrong with identifying either as a gay man or a straight man or as a bisexual man or a man who has a sexuality of any kind. Even if Mika were to come out as a heterosexual eunuch it would be a relief given all this relentless peek-a-booing.

As we've noted several times in the past, rising pop sensation Mika kind of gets on our nerves. He's back again to tell us how positively boring it is to speak freely about one's sexuality, appearing on the cover of Out magazine with the text "Gay/Post-Gay/Not Gay?" blazing across his chest.

Mika, I don't care if you're gay, and neither do the people who enjoy your music, I'm sure. But I really am not interested in playing peek-a-boo with you while you try to sell me your record. Trust me -- if the dazzling display of PR sleight-of-hand shown above didn't fall squarely within this site's focus, I wouldn't be wasting my time with it.

As we've also noted, self-proclaimed celebrity outer Perez "the closet doesn't exist anymore" Hilton has curiously hung up his weapons of outing torture in the case of Mika, who seems to have cleverly dodged Perez's pink bullets by inviting him onto his PR wagon.

But even Perez's readers seem to be onto the game and over the lame attempts at mystifying Mika's sexuality in order to sell records. Check out the comments on this article, which range from:

"PEREZ HAS HIS HEAD SO FAR UP THIS MIKA'S ASS ... IT'S SICKENING"

To...

"Who cares what he is. He is about as interesting to me as a wet fart. What's so knew about his story anyway - young gay guy thinks he's got a shot at the big time and knows that coming out may not translate into big bucks. Elton John and George Michael did the same thing when they were young."

While we're on the subject, what the hell is "Post-Gay" anyway? Is that some fabulous new cereal? I wasn't aware that your sexuality was something that you could (or would want to) "move past".

Brit/Lebanese pop sensation Mika is confused. And I don't mean sexually confused, because even though he refuses to speak about his sexuality publicly, I'm quite sure he's got it all figured out, personally. Which is why the shaggy-headed chanteuse can't fathom why, with his Freddy Mercury falsetto and colorful clothes and defiantly flamboyant posturing, the gays haven't fallen for him hook, line, and swisher.

Just a thought: maybe gays don't like being pandered to any more than any one else does. And Mika's mixed signals have a whiff of opportunism about them, something that can turn off many gay folks faster than the words "Don Imus sex tape". He actively markets himself to a gay audience and yet won't acknowledge his own sexuality, be it straight or gay (does it matter? No -- and that's what makes his coyness so bizarre). He is notoriously tight-lipped about his personal life, yet has "Queen of all media" Perez Hilton -- who became famous for outing gay celebs -- on his promotional tour, and has somehow kept Perez from digging into his personal life and splashing it across his pages with hot-pink "HOMO!"s and "GAY!"s scrawled across it. Doesn't smack of collusion at all, does it?

While I myself find the guy's music catchy (almost annoyingly so), I'm not a fan of the accompanying feeling that he's patting my head and picking my pocket at the same time -- and maybe I'm not the only one, by the sound of it.

Maybe this just further proof that the gays are a more cautious audience (or "target market") than many people think (something that was touched upon recently in an article on gay-specific advertising). Otherwise, what could explain Mika's failure to grow a healthy gay following? He fed them, watered them, and did everything else it said to do on the box. Let's just hope he didn't feed any of them after midnight, because we all know what happens then!

We have no idea what the deal is with these guys, but we kind of think they rock. Gay, straight, bi, Thai, whatever -- four teenage guys lip-syncing to Mika's "Lollipop", doing full choreography (and well!), and substituting "Gay Love" for "Say Love" in the lyrics pretty much gives me hope for the future. And they say kids these days show no initiative...

Watch the full clip below:

Attention all teeny boppers, middle-aged gay men hip gay boys, and anyone else who likes pop stars possessing a vague sexuality: Mika is coming to America! Oh, my gawd! I might faint from the excitement!

Oh, wait. I already saw Mika in New York at a Barnes & Noble. Why that practically makes him yesterday's news. Yawn.

Okay, I don't really think that. I'm listening to Life in Motion pretty frequently even if I'm still annoyed over the whole Perez Hilton connection. So for those of you that just can't wait to cough up a ridiculous amount of dough, here are the "reported" dates (I just checked Mika's website and a US tour isn't listed so I'm slightly suspicious):

Fri June 8 Los Angeles Avalon
Sat. June 9 San Francisco/Fillmore
Mon. June 11 Chicago/Metro
Tues. June 12 Wash. DC/9:30 Club.
Wed June 13 Boston/Avalon
Fri. June 15 New York Nokia Theater
Sat. June 16 Atlanta Center Stage
Sun. June 17 Miami Studio A

And since we haven't had a Mika video in a bit here is "Love Today".

As anyone ever actually seen these two fellows photographed together? Is John Mayer possibly so prolific he simply had to create a Lebanese/English alter ego named Mika to up his output? I mean, come on! Look at those curls.

We make it up report. You decide!