The biggest Yahoo search of the day today was Britney Spears for her new CD titled Blackout.  We are excited for Britney and hope it goes to #1.  The album has many hot songs including “Gimme More” which is a sexy dance song you can move to at the clubs.  We even have our own Britney dance we do at the clubs when it comes on!

The fact she is so talked about in the media from sites such as TMZ.com and Perez Hilton you just know Blackout will be hot.  Blackout goes on sale this Super Tuesday, October 30th.  Yes, the day before Halloween.

The gay bars in Houston are having a Britney Halloween where they will feature a contest for the best impersonator.  That will be hawwwt!

So if the new Blackout CD takes off on Itunes ond tops the billboard charts then Chris Crocker will be proud and so will some of the gay bars that Britney supported such as Tigerheat and Piranah in Vegas.  We love you Britney!

Madonna has helped change our culture and openness about sex and now she is about to open up the world of the old-school record labels. With Madonna back in the news again signing a mega-million deal with Live Nation it made me do some downloading of all things Madonna including books and video media. I came across a .pdf file of a book of culture some may not remember.Think back to 1992. October 21st to be exact: was it a coffee table photo book? A publicity stunt? A personal view of sex? Whatever it was, it’s a fact that the world was shocked by its appearance. Actually I like to think of it as a coffee table photo book – which was what it was intended to be and even today I am still a little shocked by it.

I am talking about Madonna’s infamous book simply called “sex”. Looking at it again now in retrospect I don’t find it as shocking as when I first saw it and that’s because the world has moved on – and because I spend a lot of my time reviewing and writing about all things gay. But that doesn’t mean I find Madonna’s book pornographic, though that was one of the arguments against it when it came out. The thing that shocked everyone so much back then was that a mainstream artist, as Madonna no doubt was and still is, had never revealed themselves so much in print before.

The book contains a mix of text and images. The photography is by the same guy who photographed Madonna for the cover of the ‘Like a virgin’ album in 1984, a guy called Steven Meisel. He was also responsible for most of the photos of the superstar during the early 1990’s. Along with Herb Ritts, in the 1980’s, they have created some of the most iconic images of Madonna to date. The text is by the great lady herself though comes from the point of view of a character. Dita, inspired by silent film actress Dita Parlo, a character who appears in some of Madonna’s work of 1992/93, tells us of her lust and longing for sex in a kind of journal form where she fantasises about another fictional character, Johnny.

The publicity for the book, I remember, was enormous and the fact that it came in a sealed, silver mylar-wrapping made it all the more intriguing to the hyped up public. Everyone was clamouring to get a view inside without having to buy it but, in the end, the only way to see what all the fuss was about was to buy a copy. And when you did…

It is not only Madonna who makes an appearance inside. There are images of her engaged in sex acts, and other erotic and non-erotic poses, with guys like Vanilla Ice, Tony Ward and Daddy Kane. Naomi Campbell and Isabella Rossellini make an appearance too. The images, and the text for that matter, often have a dark, urban quality to them so should you ever get your hands on a copy don’t expect to see the kind of images you would see on an adult website for example – you may even find some that you find disturbing. I’m not talking about the three-way sex poses or the erotic lesbian images, in fact most of the pictures are what you’d call ‘classy’ and ‘arty’ – but there is something raw and undefined beneath all of that which leaves you with a sense of having seen something not only unique but somehow forbidden too.

Actually several organisations tried to ban the book, when first published, because of the imagery involved. Not least of all the religious ones. But the 1.5 million, limited edition print run sold out within a couple of days. Each copy was numbered and that was that. As far as I know there are no plans for a re-release and you’ll be very lucky to find a copy in good condition and for sale. You may have some luck at places like E-bay or specialist on-line stores but be prepared to spend mega bucks getting your hands on such a rare and sought after item.

So we turn it over to MTV on a normal day and on TRL all the videos you will find are mostly hip hop artists or rap “artists” that dance around shaking their booties with highly sexual content. They are also screaming out curse words and saying bitch this and nigga that. Then you have bigot uneducated idiots like JaRule who know nothing about real values saying MTV is bad because its corrupting kids with a gay friendly message.

You could not turn on the radio before without a rap song. I think all these rap artists are all crying and complaining because their music has finally reached its peak and they know that. It’s time to move on to better pop music, dance music, and hip hop. There are so many better artists now like Rihanna and Chris Brown who are more talented than JaRule will ever be.

I have read so many blogs and seen so many E! type news reports that keep saying one thing and gossiping about another. It is hard to get the real facts. All we do know is that the MTV Awards will be on live from Las Vegas for the first time this year and only airing one time instead of the mass re-runs we normally see.

Who will be performing at the VMA’s? The usual suspects of the chart topping songs we are all tired of hearing on the radio every 15 minutes. Also, the ones we never get to see on MTV in actual videos because all they show is teenage soap opera “reality shows” 24 hours a day. That is unless you have MTV Hits on your cable which actually shows videos.

The buzz about this years awards is a little different than the last two boring years of MTV VMA’s. There is talk that Madonna or Britney Spears could be performing on the show. Neither artist has performed at the moon man’s Video Music Awards since their big kiss back in 2003. I believe Madonna was on there to present an award but not actually perform. That performance shocked everyone and was pure entertainment from all the divas at the time. The hottest part was the kiss between Madonna and Christina Aguilera. I loved their dance moves as well.   We have had fairly lame awards shows ever since Justin Timberlake pulled out Janet Jackson’s breast.  I think we can finally spice things up once again.

One rumor states that Madonna will show up with Justin Timberlake and Britney will not even be at the awards. I have also heard that Justin and Britney were supposed to perform together but we all know that is highly unlikey even though they are on the same record label. There is major talk about the Vegas magician Chris Angel and Britney working together along with Madonna’s choreographers. Hmm… Maybe another Madonna and Britney performance? Or will Madonna be using Justin’s choreographers for her performance?

I have a feeling that Britney is about to do something big though so my bets are on both. If you get on myspace you notice that everyone is sending out bulletions of a new song from Britney every single day for almost a week now. Her songs have all been leaked on Myspace and file sharing sites… even the dance remixes from TI among other hot dance remixes. Surely she would not be leaking music like crazy if she is not going to show up and make a comeback performance to go along with it. We all know her House of Blues performances earlier this summer were 15-min long and highly dissapointing.

Everyone is pulling for Britney Spears to make a comeback at the VMA’s according to all the hype on myspace and other blogs but if she backs out she will look really desperate. We can only watch Sunday night to find out if any of our favorites show up. I will be looking forward to seeing Rihanna (Please dont stop the music, Umbrella) who has had many hits this year and Nelly Furtado (All Good Things, Promiscuous). I am also keeping my fingers crossed Madge and her out of control daughter Britney take stage.

If you are like me you currently have an Apple iPod with the ability to download music from iTunes and may soon be ready to buy a new iPhone to bring more interactive with your cell phone and music.  A live on-air radio station is so much more fun sometimes because you are not picking every song and can be surprised when you hear an old dance favorite.  No one listens to old school radio anymore on the FM or AM airwaves because it is all junk music and too much advertising.  If you have upgraded your car stereo you could get a new HD Radio station from Clear Channel called Pride Radio.  It is part of a new mix of high definition stations to hit your car and home stereo.

The most popular gay friendly stations are on Sirius satellite radio where you have OutQ and the Beat.  The Beat plays dance music 24 hours a day with no commercials but you have to pay a monthly fee to get this luxury.  I have listened to the Beat since our local dance station was taken away on the FM dial and love satellite radio.  It does go in and out under bridges sometimes but it may be my setup in my car.

There are also online gay stations to get your party started.  GayDar was a popular radio network but it only plays for the UK recently because of license issues.  Although, here in the U.S. you can hear Clear Channels Pride Radio online and there is lots of great choices listed on Queers.cc.

Queers.cc seems to have the largest choice of gay friendly stations.  Netscape radio also has a gay pride channel.  It seems a newly active gay radio station is gayinternetradiolive.com where you can hear streaming dance hits.  They also provide a lesbian lounge around 9pm CST.  If you can put this in your Winamp and listen it might be nice but if you have to have that big popup going and refreshing I would just listen to one of the Winamp channels on Queers.cc.

XM Satellite radio also has free streaming through their AOL partnership.  Just sign in with your AOL screen name and get free XM.  They offer a great channel with women musicians that I just love plus they have a dance station.  XM radio also has Air America which hosts progressive politics and keeps us in the know.

Ellen DeGeneres did the entire talk show today from her hospital bed. Her doctor was on there explaining her back injury.  You could tell she was spacey (and funny as always) but probably in some pain while doing her show. Said she was on very strong pain meds (norco), but she kept calling it Norelco.  All her guests were in a bed next to her.  A very creative way to do a daytime talk show.

Ellen has so much spirit and personality.  I would like to see her run for president.  Ellen is one of the only celebrities to donate such a big amount to charity including the $100,000 for American Idol Gives Back last week.  Ellen is the perfect role model for many reasons and I hope her show continues on for years unless of course she makes that run for president!

If you want to fill out the hospital experience form or see her show online check out this link to replay some parts of the show.

Rosie O’Donnell announced her departure from the view this week. We all kind of predicted this would happen but at least we know it is not due to the stoprosie.com campaign or because of Focus on the Family (extreme right-wing religious groups who discriminate against gays). We know now that the Rosie departure from The View was due to a contract agreement with ABC over the daytime show. Scarborough Country had been doing a real campaign against her even before the latest incident. I feel Rosie was picked on a little too much from the media and that our freedom of speech is limited these days especially when it comes to speaking up against Bush.

I am saddened to see Rosie leave the talk show but I am left with a bad taste in my mouth of a gay leader who is either being framed to say some of these things for ratings or really needs some lessons on respect. I disagree with Fox’s News Corp. and the conservative ideas of Rupert Murdock but for Rosie to make comments to him at a luncheon in front of so many high profile people during an introduction I begin to wonder what is going on. Why would someone give Rosie the podium to speak to such an introduction? It just seems to me that she is being setup to do this or she is clearly going too far at some points.

The View ratings have skyrocketed since she has took part in the show thanks to a feud with Donald Trump and standing up for Clay Aiken. Maybe its good someone stood up to Murdock who owns the Fox News channel but maybe in a way that makes him look bad (not the person speaking).

Rosie O’Donnell certainly has other businesses to run including a gay cruise and possibly a daytime show in the pipeline to compete with The View. I just hope she has not burned too many bridges in the post-Imus days that she cannot get herself back in sync.

Why Can’t Rosie be more like Ellen. We need some more gay and lesbian leaders and role models like Ellen Degeneres.

If you haven’t heard yet, there’s some shocking news (with photographic evidence) circulating around the Internet: it appears that Antonella Barba, one of the 20 current contestants of season 6 of American Idol, has given a blow job. (I’m sure none of the other contestants ever have.)

So now there are all these conversations regarding whether Barba should be thrown off the show for this “indecent behavior” taking place. Hell, why not start another one: Do you think Antonella Barba should be thrown off American Idol because she let the wrong person possess pictures of her giving a blow job? That is what she did wrong - it wasn’t the blow job.

Hineini: Coming Out in a Jewish High School is a film about a lesbian student’s fight to establish a gay-straight student alliance at a Jewish high school.

Shulamit Izen enters 9th grade at The New Jewish High School (now Gann Academy) longing to connect more deeply with her Jewish faith. She also starts school as an out lesbian. Using interviews with Shulamit, her family, teachers, and other students - both those who support her campaign and those who oppose it - the film allows the members of this community to tell their own story as it unfolds. What emerges is a potent story of Jewish pluralism and a community navigating the cross-currents of Jewish tradition and social change.

You can view the film’s trailer here. Locations of upcoming screenings are available at the film’s MySpace page.

The PlanetOut Short Movie Awards Audience Awards, that is.

Have you voted for your favorite short yet? If you haven’t, consider voting for Wrong Bathroom, a short documentary from Shani Heckman.

From Shani’s MySpace page:

Shani believes voting will close at the end of this month, so it’s best to get your vote in soon.