By MARY HUDETZ

PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) — Portland became the nation's largest city with an openly gay mayor Thursday as a longtime City Hall insider took the oath of office.

Sam Adams, 45, was sworn into office at 12:01 a.m. New Year's Day at City Hall during a ceremony attended by a crowd of about 40 that included his mother and his partner.

Adams won the job seven months ago in a primary race by capturing 58 percent of the vote and therefore negating the need for a runoff election.

None of Adams' opponents raised his sexuality in the race. Neither did he.

It looks like there might be a job opening soon over at CNN. The bonehead who hired comedian Kathy Griffin could be facing the ax after her embarrassing performance as a co-host for CNN’s New Year’s Eve telecast with Anderson Cooper.

Griffin, who is known for her salty comedy act and spontaneous outbursts of off-color humor, was true to form. At the close of one segment, she made a particularly obscene remark, supposedly to an off-camera heckler that went out over the airwaves. But, wait, was she really channeling Cooper?

"Please don't divorce..." Courage Campaign community photo project

Infamous prosecutor Ken Starr has filed a legal brief -- on behalf of the "Yes on 8" campaign -- to nullify the 18,000 same-sex marriages performed in California between May and November of 2008.

It's time to put a face to Ken Starr's shameful legal proceedings. To put a face to the 18,000 couples facing forcible divorce. To put a face to marriage equality. Because, gay or straight, YOU are the face of the Marriage Equality Movement.

Well here we are kiddies. On the verge of yet another year ending and another year starting. YAY another transition. I am personally more than ready for the change. 08 will go down as a major year of change and emotion for me and a boatload of other people I know. Lots of crap has happened this year, but ya know what. I REALLY don’t want to think about that, much less talk about it. So I won’t. It’s my blog dammit and I will say what I want. LOL.

Life is filled with change. It is one of the things we can count on always. There should be a modicum of comfort in knowing that. But for those who cannot deal with change or refuse to, well I got news for ya. Get off the bus. The streets, smells, peoples and sights rolling by the window are not going to stop just because the bus does.

CLICK LINK TO READ MORE:
http://mosuniverse.com/nikki-dreams/

For those of you who did not get the privelage to see Madonna’s “Sticky & Sweet” tour, here’s a little treat for you. This is the new video to “Die Another Day” that she used as a backdrop during one of her costume changes. It features Madonna in a boxing ring, showing off her hot 50 year old abs! She’s also showing off her “Sticky & Sweet” hair style with the straight bangs. I love that look, she really needs to sport it more often.

CLICK LINK TO WATCH VIDEO:
http://mosuniverse.com/taj/

That is the question people from all over are asking me..well, here are the answers to this question, because it is not an easy one to give a simple response to.

First of all, I would not really recommend any visits to border cities. Here in San Diego, we are a border crossing to Mexico, like El Paso in Texas is. In Tijuana, there is a civil war type atmosphere…between the police and the drug war lords. Hundreds of innocent people have been killed, including Police Chiefs, Judges and even a Catholic Bishop.. It’s like a war zone and the last time I was there, I spotted Mexican Federal troops all over the place. Downtown Tijuana’s famous tourist and business streets are empty and many shops have closed down.

Singer who rose from poverty to captivate audiences around the world with her purring voice

Eartha Kitt, the American singer, dancer, actress and self-professed "sex-kitten" who has died aged 81, was one of the most remarkable and distinctive entertainers in the history of cabaret and the light musical stage.

Known as "That Bad Eartha" from the suggestive manner in which her rasping, reedy voice threaded its way through such songs as I Want To Be Evil, Just An Old-Fashioned Girl, Santa Baby and C'est si bon, she brought an exotic sensuality and feline verve to all her performances.

Although she played Helen of Troy for Orson Welles (who declared her "the most exciting woman in the world") and in stage plays, films and television programmes, it was as a chanteuse in revue or musical comedy or on records that the peculiar and brilliantly controlled vibrato of her voice, now purring, now growling, always sensually arousing, won greatest admiration.

This is a great movie for Christmas time! This is on our must see movie list and also on our video blog. CLICK ON PICTURE to see a clip from the movie. Torch Song Trilogy was released December 1988 with stars like Anne Bancroft, Matthew Broderick, and Harvey Fierstein. It was a ground breaking movie that deals with gay issues like marriage, bisexuality, and parent relationships. Torch Song Trilogy is a collection of three plays by Harvey Fierstein rendered in three acts: International Stud, Fugue in a Nursery, and Widows and Children First! The story centers on Arnold Beckoff, a torch song-singing Jewish drag queen living in New York City in the late 1970 and 1980s. The four hour-plus play begins with a soliloquy in which he explains his cynical disillusionment with love.

Each act focuses on a different phase in Arnold’s life. In the first, Arnold meets Ed, who is uncomfortable with his bisexuality. In the second, two years later, Arnold meets Alan, and the two settle down into a blissful existence that includes plans to adopt a child, until tragedy strikes. In the third, several years later, Arnold is a single father raising gay teenager David. Arnold is forced to deal with his mother’s intolerance and disrespect when she visits from Florida.

A month-by-month breakdown of the important LGBT news events of 2008.
Click the byline to view more stories by this author.
By the Editors
From The Advocate January 13, 2009
The Year in Queer

JANUARY

5: Threats to attack Paris’s Eiffel Tower and the city’s gay mayor, Bertrand Delanoë, are posted on a website catering to Islamic fundamentalists. The mayor -- who was stabbed in a 2002 antigay attack -- later announces his interest in running for president of France.

14: E. Denise Simmons becomes the nation’s first openly lesbian black mayor when the city council in Cambridge, Mass., appoints her to lead.

Meredith May,Leslie Fulbright, Chronicle Staff Writers

Friday, December 19, 2008

San Francisco's gay community, which threw its political weight behind Barack Obama's campaign, is protesting the president-elect's decision to invite an evangelical pastor known for anti-gay comments to give the inaugural prayer.

Rick Warren, pastor of the 20,000-member Saddleback Church in Orange County, was a major force in the passage in November of Proposition 8, which eliminated the right of gay people to marry in California.

Warren invited Obama to his church during the presidential campaign and more recently ignited a major controversy when he compared same-sex marriage to pedophilia, incest and polygamy during a video interview posted on Beliefnet.com and widely circulated on YouTube.