Outing. It’s not just for politicians, celebrities, pro athletes, and your dad anymore. You don’t even have to be three dimensional to have people wondering which way you swing.

Cartoon characters are facing the same laser intensity of gaydar as anyone else in the public eye.

What was the deal with Snagglepuss? Did little Jonny Quest have two daddies? Were Vanity and Hefty the gayest of the already queer manly commune known as the Smurfs?

And didn’t The Peanuts‘ Peppermint Patty and Marcie seem different than the frillier girl members of the Charlie Brown posse? On some level we’ve always suspected that the tastes of Scooby-Doo ‘s Velma Dinkley leaned more toward Josie & The Pussycats than Thundarr The Barbarian.

Few characters elicit the amount of near-unanimous speculation as the Reagan Era phenom He-Man does. For grade schoolers in the 80s more taken with Dick than Jane, He-Man & The Masters of The Universe was weekly catnip. Years later we’re sure the series meant to present us with a robust action hero who could teach us valuable life lessons. What we really appreciate it for are the curvaceous bodies- rotoscoped over actual bodybuilder models- swaggering toward the camera, the brazen flexing, rippling limbs grappling in combat, and shots being framed from the back between clenched asses and gigantic thighs. (read the full article)

We’re living in a world of stars and dust.

Between heaven –
and all that surrounds us.

We’re travelers here –
spirits passing through.

And the love we give is all that will endure…

Tears will leave no stain,
Time will ease the pain.

For every light that fades
Something beautiful remains.

Words are here, finally, superfluous. Let’s us listen then. Let us remember Pavarotti, both the Sacred and the Profane. (read the full article)

After working like mules through July to redesign Nightcharm’s front page and blog, we’ve decided to do what every sane art and nature-loving Frenchman does: take the month of August off.

Europeans are lucky that way. For eons August has been the time of year when folks retreat from their day-to-day grind and take time to contemplate other people, places and things. Traveling, or not. Catching up on literature, film and fucking.

Some of the more privileged and blessed on our staff — people like our dear editor-in-chief John Calendo — will take both August and September off (the bitch) for some deep soul rejuvenation. Expect miraculous things from him in October when he returns from the Promises Treatment Center. (read the full article)

By Zeus, Dick rules the heavens!

Yes, several sightings of the Celestial Phallus have made the news this month.

Certainly you’ve heard of, if not been visited by, the miraculous Divine Penis.

That Wing-ed Divinity, its proud erection and stiff little winglets so like those of the Christian dove or the Rococo cherub (its later appropriations) was beloved of the Ancients — and is still worshiped by many a Modern today, hey boys?

1. Down from Mount Olympus

First up this month was the rebirth of Zeus, Apollo and all the gang in the annual party dance-show Broadway Bares, a charity event to benefit Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS.

This year the theme was Myth-Behavior and so laurel wreathes and just a hint of toga, no more than a few shipwrecked shreds, covered Broadway’s most sensational boys and girls of the chorus. Everywhere gods, demi-god and just plain hunkeroonies stripped down to their raw, near-naked talent, in obedience to those tenets so oft repeated on Inside the Actors Studio, peel away the layers, serve the character. Yes, boys and girls, Art was in her temple.

Featured was a jaw-droppingly salacious number, Heroes, in which a roll call of the major Greco-Roman beefcake came to life (Hercules, Odysseus, Adonis) and went against humpy reimaginings of the Minotaur, the Cyclops and a campy Harpy played by a comic actor.

Our favorite moment: the Sirens, appearing in all their Neptunal, sea-weedy weirdness, singing — this, the genius touch — the theme from Love Boat (“Aw-hhh, Love. Exciting and new. Come aboard. We’re expecting you…)

In addition was the annual Stripathon, right, which needed no theme more eternal than cowboy hat, boots and a jockstrap. (More Myth-Behavior photos and details )

This year’s show was so successful (a record-breaking $740,000 haul) that Variety reports talks are now ongoing with an unnamed Las Vegas casino to bring the show permanently to the Strip, rebaptised for a less New York-centric audience, Peep Show. (read the full article)

Nightcharm: Hi Daniel. It’s Nightcharm calling.

Daniel Nardicio: Your timing is impeccable. I’m shopping right now.

Nightcharm: What are you shopping for?

Daniel: I’m at Michael Fina‘s which is pretty upscale. I’m looking at diamonds. I’m not actually going to buy diamonds nor do I wear diamonds but I like looking at them.

Nightcharm: I think I recall a picture of you having something to do with diamonds somehow.

Daniel: Really?

Nightcharm: I don’t know for sure. It seemed like maybe you had diamonds in your teeth, or you were wearing an enormous diamond necklace or something? (read the full article)

What to wear for Gay Pride?

Drag and leather are classic, of course. But our favorite look has always been as nude as possible. As chest rippling and ass-out as the law allows.

And each year, God bless ‘em, all the new models come out, showing off their baby-oiled bods and a winter’s worth of crunches, squats and NFL-strength steroids.

Still, not all of us are content with traditional.

Back in the day, when Gay Pride was more march, than parade, the spirit of protest was in the air and everywhere. Laughing in the face of enforced heterosexualism and defying the pearl-clutching propriety of those uptight and always mortified closet cases who imagined they were passing or fooling anyone — yes, that was the fire that lit up a thousand floats.

And you know? Look around. Everywhere your hear the sound of marching, charging feet, boy. Cause summer’s here and the time is right for fighting in the street, boy

And so we draw our inspiration and revolutionary costume this June from that S-T-A-U-N-C-H madwomen of the Hamptons, that lifelong debutante who had a way with any old rag wrapped around her head and fastened with a diamond broach, Edie Beale, as recreated by Christine Ebersole (to righteous Tony- winning acclaim) in the current Broadway musical, Grey Gardens. (read the full article)

OMYGAWD! OMYGAWD!

MONEY QUOTE:
“It is a beautiful moment in the book, full of…RAW…RAW …honesty.”

Of course, this is another wicked spoof from the Onion

Your mother was right when she told you to be nice to everyone.

The people you meet on the way in are the same people you meet on the way out. It’s just that sometimes those people are not exactly the same person but that person’s son or grandson.

In honor of Mother’s Day and the Wisdom of Mothers, we present this reminder.

Bitchy may be cool in a bar if you’re a drag queen doing a dead-on imitation of Bette Davis (right). Cruel but Fair may really hit the spot if you’re a judge stuffed into a black t-shirt on American Idol. But mother leans over your shoulder once again to whisper the cautionary word, to impart the wisdom of survival:

Be nice! O ye fearsome beauties, ye long-limbed youths! Be nice to those many Mr. Wrongs that waste your time. A simple “No thanks” accompanied by a warm, understanding smile is all that is needed.

Be firm, of course; be blunt if you must; but always be (all together now) …

For behold! The Evolution of Hot (read the full article)

Straight at last! Straight at last!

Good God Almighty, Pastor Ted is straight at last.

Ted Haggard, of whom we have written copiously (link) (link) (link) (link), has just stepped out of a reprogramming center and has gotten all those filthy thoughts about tweaking and rimming out of his perky blond head. The dizzy little smile has returned in all its Happy Holy Jesus insanity.

From today’s Denver Post [with choice Nightcharm commentary added]:

The Rev. Ted Haggard emerged from three weeks of intensive counseling convinced he is “completely heterosexual” and told an oversight board that his sexual contact with men was limited to his accuser.

That is according to one of the disgraced pastor’s overseers, who on Monday revealed new details about where Haggard has been and where he is headed.

The Rev. Tim Ralph of Larkspur also said the four-man oversight board strongly urged Haggard to go into secular work instead of Christian ministry if Haggard and his wife follow through on plans to earn master’s degrees in psychology. [Pul-eeeze! We're gasping!].

In the [email] message [to members of his church], Haggard revealed that he and his wife, Gayle, intend to leave Colorado Springs and pursue master’s degrees through online courses. (read the full article)

Join us in our holy crusade to put the triple-X back into Xmas! Here is what we want — what we’ve only ever wanted — for Christmas.

And kids, it’s not peace on earth. (That’s the second thing on our list.)

It’s this fan-tastic coverboy on the 2007 Dieux Du Stade calendar, at left : Julien Arias.

Jesus — the face, the chest, the arms, the ass (unseen, but you can tell!) — and all he speaks is French!

Oxygen, please! The cabin is rapidly losing pressure!

Natch, he’s a French rugby player or something: the Dieux Du Stade series specializes in rough-and-tumble Euro sportsmen, all of whom have L’Uomo faces of the most florid, full-blown beauty, as well as those high-and-tight footballer arses and lovely half-concealed (but we’re sure, uncut) packages.

Oh, it’s a pricey little import, this calendar. Beautifully executed, of course — more like a high-end photobook, with the months divided in half, so you get double the boy for the buck. At about $37, we think it makes a great gift for that special someone. (Surely it’s too deliciously indulgent to give to yourself!)

Below the jump is a vid of the studly Julien from his maddeningly naked photo shoot featured on the Dieux du Stade: Making of the 2007 Calendar DVD. But we must warn you: Not since Kubrick’s 2001:A Space Odyssey, have we seen Johann Strauss’ magnificent Blue Danube Waltz so lushly, so unforgettably complemented. (read the full article)

But enough about you…let’s talk about us.

It’s official! Nightcharm is a cultural phenomenon. How do we know? Well, we’ve just been on Oprah.

I was munching a burrito and channel surfing when the face of a tear-streaked blonde brought me to a complete standstill. The woman was talking about the shock — the disorienting shock — of finding out that her marriage had been a sham.

A wail went up from the audience. The camera dove into the crowd and settled on a gaggle of housewives, all misting up and getting ready to blow.

I settled back into the couch with delight! Yep, I had stepped into the middle of a big ole Oprah Cry Fest.

The remote dropped from my hand and I hunkered deep into the couch, as rapt as a cat.

Just then the show broke for a commercial and the title of the episode came up — It was then that I knew I would be there for the entire fucking hour. The title?…

My Husband Is Gay!

I counted the minutes as the feminine hygiene commercial ran its course in a burst of animated daisies and butterflies. Then the episode resumed. The gay husband was speaking. No more than four words were out of his mouth when his image faded into one of those famous Oprah reenactment montages. There he was, banging away at a computer keyboard, hungrily searching the monitor for — something. (read the full article)

Everything was going so great in the Garden.

Then Steve showed up.

Are you ready to rumble? Film after the jump. (read the full article)

They’re written for teenage girls, right? (Over 18, of course.)

For little pink things with pink cell phones text-messaging each other about parties and the proper way to give a blowjob (in a nutshell, girls, watch the teeth. Men are real crybabies about shit like that.)

Yet why do gay men — fully grown ones well, well out of their late-onset teens (which for a gay man means he’s about 30) — why do gay guys often quote these twiddling, diddling lyrics at you like they are bridging some shimmering chasm of profundity, which mere words, un-levitated by string sections, could never span?

Why, you chucklehead 30-year-olds — why?

And why do the same soppy lyrics crop up in farewell letters and over long-distance phone lines and in coffee shops where first-lovers stare sadly– and with such large, glistening corneas — into each other’s eyes?

Must the lyrics always come from the songs of innocence, never the songs of experience? Never from say, that snappy little toe-tapper by Peggy Lee, Is That All There Is? (read the full article)