Withering Glance: The year in gay

Rick Nelson and Claude Peck dispense unasked-for advice about clothing, relationships, grooming and more in a weekly dialogue.

RN: So, was this the gayest year ever, or what?

CP: It weren't no "Brokeback Mountain," peanut, but there were plenty of noteworthy GLBTish occurrences. Locally, Sen. Larry Craig and his wide stance goo-goo eyes turned our little flyoverland airport into a tourist hotspot. Who knew it would take a "straight" man to familiarize a mainstream audience with the notion of the tearoom tryst?

RN: The four most famous words of the year have to be Craig's "I am not gay," hissed in a tone remarkably similar to the one Bill Clinton used in that career high-point quote of his: "I did not have sex with that woman." Glad the good senator from Idaho straightened that out.

CP: In other Twin Cities news, archbishop-in-waiting John Nienstedt decided to out-pope the pope in a published statement, that said, in part, "Those who actively encourage or promote homosexual acts or such activity with a homosexual lifestyle formally cooperate in grave evil and, if they do so knowingly and willingly, are guilty of mortal sin." This divisive ultra-orthodoxy does not appear to have played that well with anyone outside of Opus Dei.

RN: I may be a lousy Congregationalist, but after reading the archbishop's commentary, you can also count me a happy one.

CP: Formerly fat Mike Huckabee rocketed near the top of the pack in the GOP presidential race despite (or maybe because of?) his assurances that no one hated the notion of gay nuptials more than he. Mitt Romney's not much better, but after shedding all those pounds, Huckabee is the race's Biggest Loser.

CP: In Congress, they stripped "genda" from ENDA, and caused a firestorm -- and a stalemate. In order to help pass the Employment Non-Discrimination Act, some gay leaders OK'd removing transgendered folks from protection. Others thought that was a cave-in, and opposed the bill altogether.

RN: My eyes are glazing over. Could we please move on to the infinitely more scintillating topics? Fashion, for instance.

CP: Clothier Thom Browne, the Monty Clift ringer whose "oops, I accidentally washed everything in hot" look ascended to the acme of American men's dressing at Brooks Brothers. Though not carried, yet, in the Twin Cities, his Black Fleece line for BB is a combo of radical and tradish, and will be knocked off soon at an H&M outlet near you.

RN: Did you read the hilarious magazine piece -- was it Details? I read it on a plane, during turbulence -- about a writer who walks the streets of Manhattan in a calf-baring all-Browne ensemble? Bug-eyed hilarity ensues. Maybe I'm getting this part wrong, but I believe the author likened his high-watered self to Elroy Jetson.

CP: On television, "Mad Men" dropped us smack into 1960, complete with Nixon TV ads, ashtrays on every office desk, bullet bras and men in Thom Browne-looking suits. The gay character (Salvatore, played by Bryan Batt) is closeted, but that's actually a bit refreshing in the new era of gays exploding all over the small screen. Oh, yeah, the AMC series gave us, in Jon Hamm, a hunk of mixed-up but smoldering manhood.

CP: For me, the gayest movie of the year may have been "Superbad," in which three high-school seniors obsess about buying alcohol and hooking up with girls. So what's gay about it? Only the way Seth (Jonah Hill) and Evan (Michael Cera) are inseparable, the way they sorta hate it when the other actually gets with a girl, the way they fight about their impending separation, the way Fogell (aka McLovin, played by the delightful Christopher Mintz-Plasse) threatens to come between them, and the fierce way they profess their undying love and friendship in the final sleepover scene.

RN: What about "300"? Or does that just the earn the soft-core gay porn vote?

CP: Didn't see it, but together with "Beowulf," was it the Year of the Breastplate? My fave TV lesbian, though she's only about 13, was Isabelle Hodes, the plump tween (played by Allie Grant) in "Weeds," whose mother (the hilarious Elizabeth Perkins) rides her mercilessly about her figure. Though Isabelle may just be acting gay to get her mom's goat, it's brill.

RN: Remember that scene where Perkins -- TV's version of Lynne Spears -- tells her daughter, "OK, you cannot become a lesbian just because you don't want to lose weight. The only girl you should be seeing is Jenny Craig." Yikes.

CP: Meanwhile, on Sunday nights. ...

CP: When gay guys talk about "KG" they always mean Kathy Griffin, and not Kevin Garnett.

RN: Who?

CP: Also highly amusing is whiny-voiced ex-smoker David Sedaris, whose State Theatre show in October at least equaled his quietly uproarious one a few years earlier.

RN: At least to those who were lucky enough to get a ticket. I guess I'll have to wait for the album.

CP: Album? How old are you? Mika, the ambiguously gay Brit-popper, had the gay-pride soundtrack of the summer in his "Life in Cartoon Motion," sweet as candy and equally addictive. Plus he was like the Artful Dodger channeling Freddie Mercury. Don't tell anyone how many burned copies I gave to friends with instructions to play "Grace Kelly" or "Lollipop" loud on their car stereos the entire final week of June.