Josh & Josh are Rich and Famous

Because Your Front Yard Is Begging For It

This political season's must-have accessory?

The sod in your yard is positively parched for this darling showstopper.

Jennifer Hudson Tragedy

Our thoughts go out to Jennifer Hudson whose mother and brother were found shot dead in their Chicago home. When Josh and I sat down with Jennifer three weeks ago we met with a woman who was recently engaged, ready to release her first album, and preparing for the premiere of her third film. During the interview she exuded a calm, steady confidence and certain sense of purpose being fulfilled. It's impossible to imagine what she must be going through only weeks later.

An excerpt from our sit-down interview with Jennifer:

First of all, congratulations on your engagement.

Thank you, thank you! It was on my birthday, actually. It was a huge surprise. I was like, “What’s going on?” It was the biggest surprise yet, I have to say.

You’ve got the holy trinity of happiness: an engagement, a record, and a movie [The Secret Life of Bees].

Everything keeps coming like a huge big surprise, one after another. It’s a whirlwind, but they’re all very good surprises.

You grew up in Chicago. Was family important to you growing up?

Definitely, still is. I just grew up very close to my family and I have a huge family and they’ve always been real supportive and supportive of each other.

In The Secret Life of Bees you play the mother figure to Dakota Fanning. You’ve play a mother a few times now.

It’s interesting—I always end up with a little girl to mother, for some odd reason. I play Rosaleen who’s a nanny to Dakota Fanning’s character, Lily, and they have a sisterly bond as well.

Is it a natural instinct for you to play a mother?

Yeah, I guess I have it in me. Like, “Oh, I could do this, I could be a mother.” A fabulous one, though. A fierce, fabulous mom.

Would you like to have a family someday, too?

Oh yeah, no question about it.

Big family? Lots of kids?

Not a lot, but a few. [laughs]

Our thoughts are with Jennifer and her family.

A Blast from the Past: The Girl Who Turned Me Gay

We were both cute and ditzy. That was our thing, and that's why we became boyfriend and girlfriend. We made sense. We fit. Of course, I knew better. I knew she was everything a potential girlfriend should be and I knew that she liked me and I knew that, despite the nagging itch in my nether regions for the boys in my grade who had chest hair and played football, I liked her. But, mostly, I knew that if I didn't ask her to be my girlfriend that people would wonder why I hadn't and that if the question came up the truth would, well, out.

When I finally asked her we had already spent a year as friends playing trumpet in the marching band. We were in the 9th grade, so our knowledge of the ways of love and romance was limited to what we'd seen on UPN and Saved by the Bell: we hid love letters in each other's trumpet cases, ate lunch together, and occasionally talked on the phone. Our first kiss was at the intersection of Bunker and Round Lake on Valentine's Day '97 in the back of a forest green wood-paneled Chrysler minivan. It would be the final litmus test, I thought, the one act that upon completion would prove my suspicions to be right or wrong. Gay or straight. Sandals or mandals. The kiss wasn't unlike playing the trumpet: open mouths, tight lips, darting tongues, short bursts of energy followed by long bars of rest. I took that as a sign.

A few months later, after consulting her posse of girls at the lunch table, she dumped me. I knew what was coming when I sat down on the faux-wooden bench and at once everyone looked in my direction as if my tater tots had been garnished with a steaming pile of shit.

I was fine, though. I knew better than to dwell on the loss of a relationship based on false pretenses. Somehow I knew that it didn't really matter, and that she'd probably be the last girl I'd ever have to ask to the Homecoming dance.

She was.

But take a look at those dance photos. And that decorative wicker basket. And my girlfriend's waist and how I'm not holding it. You see how I don't really fit in? You see my gay collarless shirt? See my awkward, boyish smile? See me wishing those photos on the wall were of my older hunky football-playing boyfriend?

Yeah.  Everyone at the lunch table did, too.

//Josh K.

On A Random Note: Natalie Portman's Financial Plan, Brit's Teenagers Makeover, Miss Fancy Pants Does The Yellow Brick Road, J Hud, and Joshes in Dating Land

OMG you guys, Natalie Portman (whom we adore) has a solution for our financial crisis! Please fully expect John McCain, Sarah Palin, Ben Bernanke, and Henry Paulson to extol the virtues of Natalie's plan tomorrow in multiple press conferences, with lots of big, toothy, nervous smiles. ("Maybe this the answer? Is it? Is it?")

Natalie didn't graduate from Harvard for nothin', guys. Srrriously.

Meanwhile, speaking of Sarah Palin, we just loved reading her new interview in which she clarifies that she would like to see a federal amendment banning same-sex marriage, something which John McCain strongly disagrees with and condemned in a speech delivered on the Senate floor. Nice pick ya made there, John! Heckuva job vettin' her, too.

Um, okay. Don't judge us. We know it's very declasse of us and frighteningly pop-culturey, and maybe even on the verge of permanently damaging to our  campaign of positive cultural amelioration (ahem), but, um . . . We kind of like this remix that indie stars The Teenagers did of Brit's new single "Womanizer." We like it more than the original. What say you? We understand if you're gnashing your teeth and reaching for your Economist to roll up and bash us about the face and neck. But at least give it a listen before you do that. You might even find yourself clicking "play" again. Totally against your will and better judgment, of course, but there you have it. (We especially like what they did with the bridge. Go Teenagers.)

So Miss Fancy Pants (aka Josh K, seen at right in all his delicious dorkdom) is at Elton John's Yellow Brick Road fundraiser tonight, benefiting Broadway Cares/Equity Fight AIDS. Tickets are real cheap--just $250 to start and $2,500 for VIP action. (But it's an awesome cause and tax deductible to boot. And if you're smart like Josh K., maybe you'll find a way to get in free. Key word: favors. Lots.)

Anyway, Elton himself is performing, along with Rufus Wainwright and Jake Shears, among others. Nooo, I'm not envious. Nooo. (Well, okay. Maybe a little bit.) But some of that was assuaged when he promised to tell me everylastdetail as soon as he gets home. It's good to be Josh K.

Meanwhile, if he would just upload the video of our interview with Jennifer Hudson to Vimeo you could see how well it went. But, you know, the boy's been busy. We both have, evidenced by our (cough) mild paucity of posts.

But, the hot gossip? We both have dates this week. Booyah!

It's going to be a good fall.

P.S. A shout out to J&J reader Nolan, in town visiting from Texas, who stopped us on Fifth Avenue to introduce himself and say hello. And to Charles and Jason who spotted us having brunch at our favorite place in Hell's Kitchen and introduced themselves and -- OMG! -- may or may not have overheard us talking some serious biznazz about guys. But they're gentlemen. We know they'll be discreet.