Kevin Smothers gets New Austin. He realizes that creative — at times glamorous — industries such as movies, music, fashion and fine dining need different strokes than the traditional Austin giants like government, education and high tech. How those new fields can be knitted with the old — and with deserving charities — is Smothers’ passion. That’s why, this week, he’s started a new public relations firm called Pulse. (Well, for graphic reasons, he insists on “pulse,” but even on the blog, we defer to AP style on capitalization.) Smothers has worked for bigger, more established firms on more than ...

Tune into KOOP Radio 91.7 FM at 6 p.m. today (Aug. 24) to hear “OutCast,” the public affairs radio program by, for and about the LGBT community of Austin. Host Heath Riddles and guest co-host Stephen Rice will interview your Out & About columnist. We guested on Lonny Stern’s sterling version of the show back before the first studio fire. Should be a sparky meeting of the two formats. Interesting promo on the show’s Web site, given some recent subjects of this blog: “Michael stops in to talk about keeping up with Austin’s beautiful people.” ...

Australian Mathew Mitcham, the Olympics only openly gay athlete to win a gold medal, upsets China’s full sweep. Mitcham takes it all home in his near perfect Men’s 10M Platform dive. Mitcham’s openly gay status is a landmark itself in the international world of sports. It is rare that an athlete comes out while still performing in sports. The stigma of being gay and an athlete at the same time can be tough. Because of that, gay sports fans and the community alike consider Mitchman a role model. Winning the gold medal more than celebrates his hard work as an athlete. ...

Ahead of other onsite Olympics reporters by a mile was Anthony Lane of The New Yorker. For the Aug. 25 issue, the magazine’s wit-stained film critic dove deep into the Beijing scene, using his falcon eye to discern connections few other journalists would even notice. During the crash course for audience participation before the opening ceremony: “‘The world has given its love and trust to China, and today China will give the world a big warm hug,’ one of the masters of ceremony said. While admiring their faultless English, you had to wonder why they had chosen to learn ...

"It's perfectly true, of course, that the worship of the old pagan gods survived long after Europe was presumably Christianized. Jupiter, Minerva, Venus, Diana, Pan, and the others were old, old friends, particularly to the peasants, who saw no conflict between them and Christ. After all, it was just as the priests said: the old gods were gods of this world, while Christ was the god of the other world. "But the church had no intention of allowing this to go on. The old gods had to go. The psychologically smart move would have been to Christianize them as ...

• Poll: Most Americans Would Support Gay Presidential Candidate  | News | Advocate.com How ironic that a lot of the same people probably voted for constitutional amendments in their states banning gay marriage. (tags: gay glbt politics queer)

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[Photo Source: Cisoto Fotos and RCTV] Venezuela’s Hector Pena leaves his day job as a reporter to pursue other interests as an actor. In August Pena posed for a photo shoot to be featured in his upcoming 2009 calendar. ...

[Source: Flickr by jusfun] I found it very interesting to discover that one of the top search phrases on Google for gay related keywords is the phrase, “Am I gay?” I am not the only person that owns a website who is aware of this. There are hundreds of gay quizzes out there. Most are just silly and just want your email address for marketing. I’ve ran across these quizzes before. You can find them anywhere, especially on personal pages like MySpace. I’ve always taken them lightly because usually it’s just another form of a joke being played on it’s ...

So hot, he’s cool… good read! This photo is from blglads and is of a hot guy reading at the beach. I find candid photos like this best because it depicts guys in their own world rather than posing which usually lends to an element of falsehood. Shots like this are the real deal and, yeah, the guy is super hot. The question remains; What is he reading that demands his attention so intensely? ...

‘Equality U.’ Three stars The set-up sounded a bit pat: A group of young Christians travel on a Soulforce Equality Ride to Christian colleges and universities to discuss with students and administrators their institutions’ rules against homosexuality. Of course, there would be the parallels to the Freedom Rides of 50 years ago in the South — the fiery activists, the advocates of nonviolence, the participants who preferred a little on-campus dialogue to media-grabbing civil disobedience. The Riders would face evasive or abusive school leaders; young people willing to exchange ideas and, ultimately, allies among the student bodies of the 19 universities ...

[Source: Partial screen capture from hocdfree.com] A New York website, HOCDfree.com, owned by Patrick Ortner promises to cure HOCD, Homosexual Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder. The product, an e-book pamphlet for a mere $12.99, in that the author claims uses positive energy in the form of EFT, Emotional Freedom Techniques, to dissolve those annoying thoughts that you might be gay. Ortner claims: . . . So I decided to use EFT on my remaining programming. Within a matter of a a couple weeks my inner and outer behavior had been cleared of HOCD. I was free to be me. Free to flirt and date girls. Free ...

Someone I wish I'd known better died today.Because I did not know him very well this time around, I do not feel qualified to post a eulogy. Instead, I'd like to republish his response to a question first asked of him about 30 years ago.The question in question was: "Why Witchcraft?" To which he replied: "Why not the Craft?"And to that, all I can add is... exactly.Why not?Rest well, brief but true friend. I look forward to knowing you again. ...

See Parts 1 & 2 of “Pretty People Can Be Nice” to follow the narrative and thematic thread of Thursday’s killer parties. Bhawna Sharma, Gloria Callner We wound up the evening at Eliza Page, the jewel-like accessories shop on West Second Street, for the world premiere showing of new artistry from the Anthony Nak team. Our first impression was how tall and thin the guests were, though it turned out the tallest, dressed in black, were actually security staff, who could peer over the partiers to check on the safety of the innovative jewelry on display. Kelley Sullivan, Elizabeth Serrato We did ...

Every once and a while, Pause and Play has an actual tidbit of information that's remotely useful to me. Case in point: the upcoming new album by Wendy and Lisa. Pause and Play lists Sept. 9 as the release date for White Flags on Winter Chimneys. The duo has been working as composers for film and television since the early '90s, working on such projects as Crossing Jordan, Something to Remember, Bionic Woman and, perhaps their highest-profile gig, Heroes. When the writer's strike truncated the 2007-2008 television season, Wendy and Lisa used the time to write and record a ...

See Part 1 of “Pretty People Can Be Nice” to follow the narrative and thematic thread of Thursday’s killer parties. Adam Bloodgood, Paul Michael Bloodgood Party No. 2 took place at the never-dull Gruv on West Fifth Street. Sure enough, Hostess Suprema Jen Shoemaker greeted me at the door, looking sharper than ever. (And her hairstyle seems to grow higher on each greeting.) Ryan Rittenhouse, Nakisha Nathan Chinese ceremonial dragons shook and shimmied on the main club floor, while folks involved with the production of “Templar: Honor Among Thieves,” the martial arts movie directed by Rene Hinojosa and gang out at Spiderwood ...

Pretty people get a bad rap. Shallow? Petty? Inaccessible? Not in my experience. At least not in Austin. Of course, my marital status lowers any potential sexual tension while interacting with pretty people on the job. Not being particularly pretty myself actually works my behalf, too. When I approach someone at a party or club for conversation, I’m clearly not making untoward advances. Tasha McCarter, Sam Ryan Austin Under 40 is not an organization for pretty people. In fact, it recognizes high achievement in multiple fields as well as unusual civic benevolence. Yet the happy hour held for its volunteers at ...

Long may it wave.  (via) Today is mostly Gay Day ‘round here, with a smattering of politics thrown in for unequal measure.  • I guess my slap-upside-the-head-with-a-giant-dildo threat worked.  Seems that Obama holds a staggering 58-point lead over McCain amongst the gays.  Glad I could knock some sense into my brethren and sisteren out there.  I have that power - it’s handed down from the gay prophet Liberace.  • Is it time for the Clintons to grow up? Past time, I’d say.  Meanwhile, some Hills supporters are still relentlessly complaining that Obama is being “ungracious” for ...

A few portrait orders have come rolling in. I think I'm sitting with a total of 5 people now to complete. Who knows. Once the word continues to get out, I could be spending most of my evenings drawing rather... ...

Regular correspondent Jette Momant shares this conversation… Business Suit: Did you hear about Cal? Business Suit and Boots: No, what? BS: He’s moving into one of them downtown urban developments that are going up. BSAB: Really? BS: Yep, he must be one of them metro-sexuals. BSAB: Ye-up. ...

Brendan Puthoff is building a nightlife empire out there. Third Base sports bar hit a home run on West Sixth Street, and, Wednesday, a Round Rock edition opened. Sports bars can go very wrong — witness the otherwise promising Ringers on Colorado Street — but Puthoff has found a formula that appears to work. Meanwhile, he’s prepping the former Hard Rock Cafe on East Sixth Street as a chic nightclub, an even trickier gambit. We reported here a few months ago that the club would be called Aces. We now hear it will also feature a full-time burlesque troupe, jazz ...