After Landlord Insists Club Attracted “Strange” People Uganda’s First Openly Gay Bar Shuttered, After Odd, Sometimes Homophobic Public Meeting Manhattan Community Board Votes Against Allowing Gay Bar To Open Near Chelsea Public School, Panic By Former Agents That Clint Eastwood Film J. Edgar Will Portray FBI Head’s Long-Rumoured Homosexual Relationship With Clyde Tolson, Henry Cavill Scruffy Sexiness, Ryan Kesler Nude

The owner of Uganda’s first openly gay bar says her establishment has been shut down, the latest setback for gays and lesbians in this conservative East African nation. The Associated Press reports that Jacqueline Kasha said Thursday that her Sappho Islands bar was padlocked by the landlord on Sunday. The landlord said the bar was noisy and attracted “strange” people. The bar’s closure comes months after parliament adjourned without acting on a bill that would mandate the death sentence for some gays and lesbians. Last year, a tabloid newspaper in Uganda published the names and photos of men it alleged were gay. One cover included the words “Hang Them.” Shortly afterward, a prominent gay rights activist whose picture was published was bludgeoned to death.

Boxers is the name of a gay sports bar in Chelsea that is seeking to open a second location at 766 10th Avenue near 52nd Street in Manhattan, just down the block from Public School 111. And Wednesday night, reports The New York Times, at a debate at Community Board 4 in Hell’s Kitchen, dozens of residents said the bar posed a threat to the health and moral well-being of their children. And after three hours of heated discussion, the community board voted to recommend that Boxers not be granted a liquor license. The matter now goes to the State Liquor Authority, which will make the final decision. “The kids don’t need exposure to another alcohol establishment,” the school’s principal, Irma Medina, said at the meeting, held in a community room at St. Luke’s-Roosevelt Hospital Center. She said the students, who are often at after-school activities until 6:00 pm, would have a direct view of the bar and would be harmed by smoke blowing onto the schoolyard. “They should change the name of the bar to Schoolyard,” said a resident, James Wallace, echoing a line heard throughout the night. Bars are not allowed to open within 200 feet of a school or church, but both the bar’s lawyer and a community board committee leader said the two-story establishment would be just outside the limit. Some residents complained that Boxers would make an inappropriately “Hooter-esque” neighbour for the school, with its promotional campaigns that include “Show us your boxers.” The bar’s supporters, including men wearing red “Boxers” ball caps, praised the Chelsea location for its sponsorship of gay and lesbian sports groups like Frontrunners New York and Out Cycling. David Schneider, a gay rights advocate, called Boxers a “class joint” that “gives back to the community more than many bars do.” Others said the bar’s presence on the block would actually enhance safety, by bringing people to an often empty street. Bishop James A. Johnson, 71, from the Metropolitan Spiritual Churches of Christ, called the Chelsea Boxers a “safe environment” where he goes with his aging friends. “A lot of us go there because we don’t like senior centers,” Mr. Johnson said. “And you can’t tell if we’re gay or straight by looking at us!” The community board’s letter to the liquor authority will include stipulations that the board would support the bar if it shortened its hours so that it was not open when children were at the school, erected a wall on the rooftop patio to prevent visibility, and increased security. Boxers has already submitted plans to open a taco shop without a liquor license in the part of the building closest to the school in order to place the bar itself at the required distance. After the meeting, Boxers’ co-owners, Bob Fluet and Robert Hynds, said that they appreciated the process that went into discussing the bar.

The director and star of the upcoming Hollywood film on J. Edgar Hoover sought information from officials at FBI headquarters about disputed aspects of the iconic former FBI director's sexual life while preparing the movie. USA Today reports that Assistant FBI Director Mike Kortan said that in separate meetings this year with director Clint Eastwood and actor Leonardo DiCaprio, who plays Hoover in the film scheduled for release next month, both men broached the issue of Hoover's sexuality. They were told, "Vague rumours and fabrications have cropped up from time to time, but there is no evidence in the historical record on this issue." Kortan said that Eastwood and DiCaprio requested the meetings, and that the bureau did not attempt to shape the outcome of the movie, titled J. Edgar. "We provided information so that their story could be accurate," he said. "What they did with it, as with any production, has been entirely in their hands," he said. Groups of former agents have campaigned forcefully against any depiction of the long-rumoured sexual relationship between Hoover and former top aide Clyde Tolson. "There is no basis in fact for such a portrayal of Mr. Hoover," William Branon, chairman of The J. Edgar Hoover Foundation, wrote to Eastwood this year. "It would be a grave injustice and monumental distortion to proceed with such a depiction based on a completely unfounded and spurious assertion." The Society of Former Special Agents of the FBI fired off a similar missive, saying a "rumoured kissing scene," reported in early media accounts involving the actors portraying Hoover and Tolson, "caused us to reassess our tacit approval of your film." Eastwood and DiCaprio were not available for comment. Eastwood and producer Robert Lorenz responded to the foundation in a letter in April, saying they gave no "credence to cross-dressing allegations" that also have shadowed Hoover and did not intend to portray "an open homosexual relationship" between Hoover and Tolson. William Baker, a former agent and Hoover foundation vice president, characterized Eastwood's letter as "polite, but non-committal," and added that “Concern still persists.” None of the agents interviewed has seen the film. What alarms them is what Baker has heard from people familiar with the movie and a suggestive image in the movie's trailer: Hoover's character clutching the hand of Tolson, played by Armie Hammer. "We're caught in a dilemma here," Baker said. "We don't want to support something not based in fact, but we're not against the new FBI and diverse workplace." Cartha "Deke" DeLoach, a former top aide to the FBI director, said he and DiCaprio discussed Hoover's private life as part of the actor's three-hour visit to DeLoach's South Carolina home. "When the subject of homosexuality came up, I made it very clear that I never saw any evidence of it whatsoever," said DeLoach, 91, who served as Hoover's deputy director for more than five years. "I traveled with him, I ate in his home and he in mine. I knew Clyde Tolson to be Mr. Hoover's companion and best friend. When you are somebody like Mr. Hoover, I guess you need somebody to talk to."

A scruffy, smoking sexy Henry Cavill seen on the Vancouver set of the Superman re-boot Man of Steel (Indeed!).

Via Puck Buddys the yummy Vancouver Canucks centre Ryan Kesler, naked, naturally, a part of the upcoming Body Issue portfolio in ESPN Magazine.