Neil gets Bruce: NPH and Vilanch co-presenting at the Academy of Magical Arts Awards

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.

• Neil Patrick Harris was the call-in trivia guest on last weekend's Wait Wait ... Don't Tell Me! show on NPR. (You can listen to it via the link.) The hosts asked him about his coming out before grilling him on obscure facts.

• Melbourne news anchor Peter Hitchener recently came out as gay in an interview, for no apparent reason other than that he felt like sharing it after more than 20 years of delivering the news every evening to hundreds of thousands of people. Awesome! (t/y Chris for the tip!)

• Americans for Truth's Peter LaBarbara (and I'm sorry, that's a drag name if I've ever heard one) take Out's naming of Anderson Cooper as an opportunity to bash gay media AND call Coop's integrity into question. All your bases covered, Pete? Yep, two corpses, everything's fine...

• Loath though I am to get anything close to excited about an Adam Sandler movie after the disappointing Chuck & Larry, the above You Don't Mess With the Zohan preview actually made me laugh once. And I'll take more Alec Mapa, even as a sassy hairdresser sidekick.

• This one slipped by us: Van Hansis will be among the soap stars on-hand to announce the Daytime Emmy nominations on The View on April 30.

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

Kathy Griffin and me a porn star at the gay porn awards

On Saturday night Andy took me to see Kathy Griffin at the Madison Square Garden WaMu Theater (the WaMu part was new to me ... but then the manhole covers in this city will probably have corporate sponsors before Bloomberg's done with it). As we approached the theater, the transient Midtown crowd started more and more to resemble what Noah's Ark might have looked like had he opted not to repopulate the world with animals but instead to preserve paired examples of the many species of gay men who live in New York City.

"Look, it's a pair of Prada-footed Guppies!" "Hey, a Muscle Mary ... and his matched mate! They do tend to travel together ..."

And of course whatever Andy and I would qualify as, other than old, boring, and probably not nearly fabulous enough for a classy event like this. Would they make us sit in the back? What if I went to the gift stand to buy a "MAIN GAY" t-shirt and they told me I wasn't fun or pretty enough?

The night was only beginning and already I was shame-spiraling into disaster. You can take the boy out of the Catholic Church, step-ball-chain, step-ball-chain, repeat...

Fortunately, the minute that Kathy's show started, I forgot about all that (and almost forgot about the private atmosphere of suffocating perfume that hovered over our section, courtesy of the 300 or so women drinking red wine out of plastic cups all around us). Clips of Anderson Cooper calling Kathy "Bitch!" from The Celebrity Mole?! Clips of Kathy on Seinfeld? Clips of Kathy having her face beaten in with a hammer by her pregnant lesbian lover from the white-hot B horror movie The Unborn?!?! 

Okay, this is where I belong after all.

Kathy's act was what you'd expect: polished, wonderfully serpentine, and selectively ruthless. In the show that we saw (which she presaged with the promise that it was ALL NEW), Kathy's main targets were Oprah, Britney, Barbara Walters, the Christians ...

... and Marie Osmond.

Lance Bass appeared on The View this morning to promote his new book Out of Sync, and came across as a very balanced, well-spoken, and pleasant young gay fella.

The chat also gave Whoopi the opportunity to weigh in on the whole "God isn't cool with the gays" argument (she thinks He or She is just fine with them), which was then echoed by Sherri Shepherd, who noted, "Jesus loves you, baby" at the end of the interview. Now, given the whole "flat Earth" situation that went down not too long ago, I'd imagine Sherri would probably agree with Whoopi if she told her that the Pope was a Belgian waffle ... but it still seemed a genuine gesture.

The whole clip's after the jump -- enjoy!

Mario Cantone came onto The View to share his thoughts on The Emmy Awards and of course proceeded to do what he does best: overreact, scream and offend (and I mean that as a compliment, seriously). After ribbing the ladies for not giving him a full-time gig ("Thanks for the job, bitches!!"), Cantone launched into a litany of nit-picks about the broadcast, including the following:

• In discussing Joan Rivers' coverage of the Awards... from her living room sofa, on the Internet: "What is she gonna do, go door-to-door next year?! Ding-dong, 'Hi, it's me Joan! Did you see Aida Turturro-' SLAM! Ding-dong, 'Hi, it's me, Joan! Oh my God, The Sopranos-' SLAM!"
• In response to Robert Duvall's acceptance speech claims that all actors want to be in Western: "I'd be the first homosexual to star in a Western since Montgomery Clift," referring to Clift's role in Red River. He insisted, "John Wayne hated him in that movie, he was like "What is this homo doin' in a Western?!'"
• On Helen Mirren's comment that Americans are a lot of things, "some good, some bad": "Oh no you didn't! How would you like it, Helen, if I got up at the London Palladium and said, 'You British people have a lot of teeth ... some good, some bad.'?"

In case you missed out actor Cheyenne Jackson and in all his beefy, cutoffed glory on The View recently (where he and Kerry Butler performed "Suddenly" from the stage smash Xanadu), the video is right here. One look and your wheels will be in motion, too.

In case you missed Tim Gunn's appearance on The View this morning, it was pretty much what you would expect — and by that, I mean Gunn was his usual fabulous self. In presenting his essential pieces for a woman's wardrobe, he praised the fashion sense of hosts Whoopi Goldberg and Elisabeth Hasselbeck: "I have to say, Elisabeth, you and Whoopi epitomize the core of the book (Gunn's A Guide to Quality, Taste and Style). You own your look. You look very different, yet you look confident and fantastic because you know who you are."

Gunn heaped more praise on Whoopi, telling her, "You are so fabulously dressed always. You understand your body. You understand the semiology of dressing and the message of your look." The closed captioning for that moment cut that down to "... You understand dressing" because phrases like "the semiology of dressing" can only roll off the tongue of someone like Gunn — that's one of the many reasons we adore him — and whoever writes the captions wasn't adequately warned, apparently.

After the segment, Barbara Walters commented to Whoopi, "You were on Mister Blackwell's worst dressed list. Now, you're a fashion icon!" Oh, Barbara, are you trying to start a battle of the fashion pundits? Just be glad Tim had the restraint not to comment about The View's new set.

The View (ABC) Check local listings
Mario Cantone is scheduled to guest host today as Joan Rivers shows up to dish. I'll be keeping my fingers crossed that we don't have to hear his story about the friend's daughter trying to play peek-a-boo under his glass coffee table. I know Barbara loves it, but I've heard it enough times.

Big Brother (CBS) 9:00 PM EDT
The drama is ramping up right now thanks to a bit of outside interference. Judging from what I'm hearing, there's reason to (finally) give Dustin some attention in tonight's episode, as he tries to keep his alliance (and his prospect of winning) from falling apart. It'll be interesting to see if the show's producers find his actions interesting enough to put on the show.

Without Prejudice? (GSN) 9:00 PM EDT
Tonight's episode includes a married gay man as one of the contestants with a gay man also on the panel that decides who will win the $25,000. I'm curious to find out how much more there is to learn about these two gay men, as this game show is all about unpeeling layers, even that of its panel.

Flipping Out (Bravo) 10:00 PM EDT
More house-flipping, hair-flipping and general flipping out in Bravo's newest reality offering. For a preview, just look down...

• Former Liverpool and Sweden footballer speaks out against homophobia at Stockholm Pride, as well as his own touchy anti-gay incident.
  
• Elton John wants the Interwebs shut down because they are destroying music. (Note: this website and my paycheck are in no way affiliated with Elton John)
• Notorious art-porn Caligula gets a loving special edition DVD release, coming this October. Gay author Gore Vidal (who tried to disassociate himself from the final, penetration-embellished, Penthouse-produced product), Helen Mirren, Malcolm McDowell, and director Tinto Brass will all be featured in bonus materials.
  
• Why I will always love Tim Gunn: (in discussing the recently-wrapped Project Runway season four) "I can tell you this with affording impunity: It is the most talented group of designers [yet], in terms of point of view and execution."
• As was rumored last week and confirmed yesterday, Whoopi Goldberg has joined The View. Based entirely on my love for Jumpin' Jack Flash and the way she gave it to Perez, I celebrate this choice.