COMING OUT PARTY

Credit: ABC

In The Face Of Shock & Praise, NBA’s Jason Collins Exudes Peace, Elation

By Jacob Wittich

AFTER EIGHT YEARS OF DATING NBA STAR JASON COLLINS, former fiancée Carolyn Moos found out the true reason he called off the wedding: her former love is gay.

“It’s very emotional for me as a woman to have invested eight years in my dream to have a husband, soul mate, and best friend in him. So this is all hard to understand,” Moos told TMZ.

“I care about [Jason] tremendously and only want the best for him. I want Jason to be happy for a lifetime and stay true to who he really is, inside and out.”

EARLY WARNING ALARM

Sen. Ron Paul: Militarized Police ‘More Frightening’ Than Boston Bombers

By Elizabeth C.

FORMER PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE RON PAUL says the “unprecedented” militarized manhunt for the Boston Marathon bombers is more terrifying than the pressure-cooker bombing.

“The Boston bombing provided the opportunity for the government to turn what should have been a police investigation into a military-style occupation of an American city,” the Libertarian-leaning Republican said on the Lew Rockwell website, which touts itself as the online news source for itself as conservatives and Tea Partiers. “This unprecedented move should frighten us as much or more than the attack itself.”

Nineteen-year-old Dzhokhar Tsarnaev is charged with using and conspiring to use a weapon of mass destruction for allegedly planting a bomb that killed three and injured hundreds during Boston’s Patriot’s Day holiday. His 26-year-old brother Tamerlan Tsarnaev died during a confrontation with police four days later.

TUB O’ MULARKEY

Tattooed Man Loses Life Savings, Gains Dreadlocked Banana, In Carnival Game

By Elizabeth C.

HENRY GRIBBOHM IS KEEPING BITTER COMPANY WITH A LIFESIZED DREADLOCKED BANANA after losing $2,600 in a carnival game.

It seems prudent to suggest that Gribbohm might suffer from impulse issues. But the New Hampshire resident says he was suckered out of his life savings when he set out to win a XBox Kinect while playing ‘Tubs Of Fun’ at a Manchester carnival.

The tattooed dad claims he was good at landing the balls in the buckets during practice. But then his luck changed when he he ponied up for real play. He quickly raced through the $300 he had with him, then dashed home for another $2,300 he had stashed away.

“You just get caught up in the whole ‘I’ve got to win my money back,’” he told Boston’s WBZ-TV.

PRETTY PETTY

Real Housewives Of Orange County: Alexis’ Shocking Self-Delusion

By Trisha B.

WE PICK UP WITH TAMRA telling Alexis to get the fuck out of her party; Alexis telling the group she’ll gladly leave; and Gretchen clapping her approval. Poor newbie Lydia says the entire argument was like “welcome to crazy town.” But that’s where all the housewives live, Lyd, and now, you do too. And with the continuous feuding between her close friends Tamra and Alexis, what’s a Vicki to do?

Lydia follows Alexis outside and Alexis immediately starts accusing the ladies of bullying her…again. She rails on and on. Lydia commiserates but doesn’t go full, yeah, it was their entire fault. In fact, she actually tells Alexis she wasn’t being bullied. Alexis looks stunned.

RAVING MAD

Daft Or Punk? This Dancing Cockatoo Wants It Both Ways

By Elizabeth C.

HERE’S A COCKATOO LITERALLY SHAKING HER TAIL FEATHERS — and her head feathers -to Daft Punk’s Phoenix. Even more impressive is that she keeps the groove going for nearly all of a monotonic 3:43 minutes.

In case you are wondering, the bird’s an electronica snob. She will only dance to Daft Punk, and to this song in particular.

WTF

By Karen Malmquist

OOn Sunday’s What Would Ryan Lochte Do?, our peeing poolman boozes and cruises on a golf course, tries to talk politics, and miraculously delivers a good speech in Washington, DC. We also find out why he has mush for brains: in a scene when his mind goes blank, he tells us he’s plagued with the image of a banana dancing through his head.

But let’s not get ahead of ourselves. Ryan gets a haircut because he wants girls to be like “Daaaaaaaaaaaaaaayum!” (his word) when they see him. He cheers himself on when the barber gives him a trim.

PLANET OF APES

Mad Men: Don’s Comfort In Chaos

By Miz J

“THE FLOOD” divides our characters into two groups: those who keep their feelings on lockdown, and those that wear their hearts on their sleeves. The assassination of Dr. King rocks the city, taking its toll on everyone in very unique ways.

Megan is up for an award – The Ad Club of NY – as a copywriter. At the award show, she runs into Peggy and tries to get Don to talk to her. Of course, the function is all about business talk, and Roger does a little wheeling and dealing with a potential new client named Randall. Ted tells Peggy, “Well, you probably already heard that you didn’t win…” As the host speaks, the news breaks about Dr. King’s assassination. Dishes drop. People gasp. Riots ensue. And yet, the advertising award show goes on. It says a lot about the industry.

EMOTIONAL WORKOUT

Real Housewives Of Orange County: Bully For You

By Miz J

IF THERE’S ANYTHING WE LEARNED IN COLLEGE, IT’S THAT when I white girl who’s had a few drinks loudly proclaims that she’s “DONE!,” she is far from it.

The Orange County ladies “voluntarily” attend Tamra’s gym opening, and it goes exactly how Bravo producers want it: horribly.

Alexis visits Vicki to give her a nice post-surgery gift: a mirror, so she can look at herself and realize how beautiful she is. Ugh, eye-roll. The mirror also has a rhinestone frog on it, so maybe Alexis that’s intended to be a symbolic meaning about Vicki’s surgery. Who knows? This is Alexis we’re talking about.

A LIFELINE?

Icelandic High Court Orders Visa To Resume Payments To WikiLeaks

By Elizabeth C.

IN A VICTORY FOR WIKILEAKS, Iceland’s Supreme Court has upheld a lower court ruling that the Visa contractor illegally halted payments to Julian Assange’s independent news organization.

The court ruled that Valitor must resume processing payments on behalf of WikiLeaks within 15 days or else face a fine of $6,830 per day.

Wikileaks hails the court victory as an “important milestone” in its battle against the West’s economic blockade. In December 2010, the organization’s economic lifeline was cut after it released a trove of diplomatic cables providing an unprecedented glimpse into U.S.’s diplomatic relationships around the world.

The U.S. Justice Department launched a criminal investigation of the records dump, which reportedly included a secret grand jury and indictment of Assange.

“This is a victory for free speech,” Assange said in a statement about the ruling. “This is a victory against the rise of economic censorship to crack down against journalists and publishers”

FRI-AWWW DAY

St. Tilda Swinton Rocks Eberfest’s ‘Spiritual Service’

By Elizabeth C.

IN A SEPTEMBER 2011 COLUMN HEADLINED “THE WORLD ACCORDING TO ST. TILDA,” revered film critic Roger Ebert penned a gushing love letter to the Oscar-winning British actress Tilda Swinton.

If more people were like Tilda Swinton, what a better world this would be,” Ebert swooned. “She looks people straight in the eye. She levels. She notices and cares about them-not just the big shots, but everyone. She still corresponds with Hilde Back, the 83-year-old Swedish woman who was the heroine of the great documentary “A Small Act” at Ebertfest 2011. She personally helps haul a trailer across the north of Scotland so that movies can be exhibited in towns without cinemas. She is formidably intelligent and forthright. She has a good heart. She freshens my faith in the cinema.

That’s effusive praise from a man beloved for his own genuine humanity — and that was just the first paragraph.