Josh & Josh are Rich and Famous

Josh & Josh Do The US Open (Plus: Exclusive Video of Serena Williams Losing the Semifinals After Sassing a Line Judge)

When Josh and I got to the US Open all the games were being held because of the rain. We were holding out for the big show, the 8 p.m. game between Serena Williams and Kim Clijsters. We waited, but we wondered if we'd get to see any tennis at all.

One of Josh K's friends hooked us up with box seats for the game, so while we waited for the rain to pass we stuffed our faces with catered cookies, hot dogs, chocolates and diet soda. Honestly, it's not the worst way to have to wait out the rain. Secretly I think we would have considered the night a success even if we hadn't seen the game. But . . .

Then the rain finally slowed and a synchronized team of guys with blowers started drying off the court. It looked like we'd see some tennis after all.

We were happy Joshes. (Josh H, left; Josh K, right)

Finally: the game.

Okay, fine, and a little celebrity watching, too. 30 Rock's Alec Baldwin sat nearby. Love him.

But all eyes were on the court as a minor tennis scandal rocked the US Open when Serena Williams lost the game on match point because she ran her mouth at a line judge. . . .

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OUR EXCLUSIVE VIDEO Last night Serena Williams played Kim Clijsters in the semifinals of the US Open. It was an exciting, suspense-filled neck-in-neck game, riddled with sloppy playing by Serena, who threw her racket onto the court and busted it when she lost the first set (and earned a warning from the judges for her behavior).

Clijsters, who is 26 and only recently back playing tennis since she had a child 18 months ago, continued neck-in-neck play into the end of the second set. When it became match point, a line judge called Serena on a foot fault (which actually was a bad call and later determined to be inaccurate). However, instead of calmly asking for a review of the call, Serena lost it.

From our seats we could only see Serena getting up into the face of the line judge, waving the ball at the judge and looking ready for an all-out brawl, but The New York Times reports Serena yelled "you don't f**king know who I am" and threatened to shove the tennis ball down the judge's throat.

What's so interesting about the sport of tennis is that it's still a rather polite, gentlemanly (or in this case, ladylike) sport. The crowd began booing as soon as Serena lost her cool and continued to as her poor sportsmanship kept playing out on the court. If it were a hockey game the crowd would have been loving it; in a tennis match, the crowd won't abide by that kind of behavior.

VIDEO PLAY-BY-PLAY As the video begins Serena has just finished bawling out at the line judge from a few feet away, yelling "you don't f**king know who I am" and threatening to shove the ball down the line judge's throat (according to the NYT).

As the video begins the line judge approaches chair umpire Louise Engzell to explain what's going on. At 0:10 Serena also  marches up to the conferring line judge and chair umpire and continues the altercation, her face contorted. The tournament referee, Brian Earley, joins in the discussion at 0:20 and at about 0:55 Serena is officially issued a code violation point penalty for unsportsmanlike conduct. As it was match point at the end of the second set, that means Serena has lost the US Open Women's Semifinals.

At 1:05 Serena walks over to a confused Kim Clijsters, who hasn't been able to hear what's been going on from her side of the court, and Serena shakes her hand at 1:18. The match is over. The crowd is somewhat stunned by this finish to the exciting, suspenseful 91-minute game. It all didn't have to end like this if Serena hadn't lost her cool. Serena packs up her things at 1:38 and heads off the court at 2:00 as booing is still heard from the crowd.

PEREZ POST SCRIPT Our Serena video ended up on Perez Hilton! Crazy! It's the second time in a week that we've been on Perez after our Kathy Griffin post landed us on the site, too. Who knew?

--Josh H.

New York Times Endorses Hillary Clinton & John McCain

Today the New York Times announced that it is endorsing Hillary Clinton for the Democratic presidential nomination and John McCain for the Republican presidential nomination.

Read why they picked Hillary and why they picked John.

So, kids, what do we think?

Studies Find Gay Couples As Committed As Straight Couples

Via Reuters and Yahoo:

"Gay and lesbian couples are just as committed in their relationships as heterosexuals and the legal status of their union doesn't impact their happiness, according to new research.

In two new studies that compared same-sex and heterosexual couples using different factors and methods to assess their happiness, scientists found few differences.

"Among the committed couples, there were very few differences that we were able to identify either in terms of how satisfied these couples were, how effectively they interacted with one another or how their bodies responded physiologically while they were interacting with one another," Glenn I. Roisman, of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champagne, said in an interview.

He and his colleagues compared 30 gay male and 30 lesbian couples with 50 engaged heterosexual couples, 40 older, married heterosexual couples and dating heterosexual couples.

They found that regardless of sexual orientation, as the level of commitment increased, so did the ability to resolve conflict -- debunking the myth that same-sex relationships are not built on the same level of commitment as heterosexual ones."

[Read the rest of the story here]

Well, um . . . duh! I think that we're going to look back on all of this in a few decades and have a laugh and shake our heads.

I mean, isn't this all very 1860s "Study Finds That Black People Are In Fact Humans, Too"?

And So It Begins . . .

Half an hour after her winning speech in New Hampshire, I put my money where my mouth, head, and heart are. Worth every penny.

Go get 'em, Hill.

Rain Derails New York City

Does anybody else find it interesting/tragic that a few inches of rain has the power to derail New York City?

Last night we had what seemed like a pretty mild storm, but apparently the rain flooded the subways and damaged trees and cars. If Manhattan is the heart, this morning most of our arteries were severed, with several of our most critical subway lines down or seriously delayed. The MTA is advising that people just stay home.

I walked to work this morning (Hell's Kitchen to Midtown East) and there was a stampede of foot traffic. It was like trying to walk through a state fair on a weekend (minus the morbidly obese people). A line for cabs in front of Grand Central went most of the way down the block.

This morning at work, around 10:30, it was a total ghost town. People trickled in, telling stories of two-hour commutes on buses and in cabs, or walking thirty or forty blocks to work. It doesn't help that it's 90 degrees out there and that there's a heat advisory this afternoon. (Three people have reportedly died from the widespread heatwave, and supposedly it's not ending anytime soon.)

Anybody have great commuting stories from this morning? Kvetch away, friends.

Update: Midtown West may have gotten it easy, but Brooklyn had its first tornado in 118 years. It tore the roofs of houses, shattered windows, yanked trees out by their roots, and overturned cars. Good times!

Busiest Bridge in Minneapolis Collapses into Mississippi During Rush Hour, 4 Confirmed Dead, 30 Still Missing

Josh H. and I have been in contact with friends and family back home and and want to report that all of our people in Minneapolis are safe, if a little shaken. Our hearts go out to all our fellow Minnesotans affected by the tragedy. My first-and-only girlfriend Brooke was on the bridge just an hour before its collapse, and my twin sisters inform me that a last minute change in plans meant that they missed the incident by a mere five minutes. For those who aren't familiar with Minneapolis, this particular expanse of I-35W is a crucial part of the already-overcongested road system in the city. It's like losing both the Lincoln and Midtown tunnels in New York City.

If you want to help by donating money (or blood),  Red Cross Twin Cities has the details.

More about the collapse:

Minnesota Public Radio
NY Times
CNN

//Josh K.

UPDATE: Here's a picture of the Mississippi River in downtown Minneapolis that I took last summer from the new Guthrie Theatre. You can see the bridge off to the right (see the enlarged section below).

Explosion in Manhattan

Last night at 5:57 p.m., about twenty minutes after I left work, an explosion at 41st Street and Lexington Avenue sent an eruption of mud, bricks, and debris 30 stories into the air, steeping surrounding blocks in steam and smoke.

A gaping hole opened in the intersection. The explosion caused a middle-aged woman to have a heart attack, which killed her. A truck driver in his twenties, crossing through the intersection, was swallowed into the hole with his truck and is now in a coma at a local hospital with 80% of his body covered in burns. Dozens of others were injured.

At first many suspected it was another terrorist attack. It turned out that the explosion was caused by the rupture of a nearly 100-year-old underground steam pipe after cold morning rain seeped into it.

I heard about the explosion just as I got home. Josh K. called my cell phone and asked if I'd heard about the explosion. I automatically assumed it was a terrorist attack, too, but he quickly explained that it wasn't.

My jaw did drop a bit when I found out the location of the explosion. I work close to the site of the explosion and missed being a bystander by a matter of twenty minutes.

This morning a few trains were still out of service, and I found myself walking across town to work with hundreds of other New Yorkers. When I got near Grand Central, however, I saw that most of the surrounding streets were blocked off.

I told a police officer standing outside of Grand Central where I work and he shook his head. "All these buildings are shut down. No work today."

It was bizarre seeing 42nd Street closed, and seeing the streets and avenues beyond closed as well. Construction crews ripped into the concrete, working on repairs.

Not knowing what else to do, I turned around and headed back home.

"Shock is etched on the face of a woman covered in blood and mud as she is led away from the scene of a steam pipe explosion near Grand Central Terminal yesterday. Hundreds of emergency workers rushed to the midtown hub to help terrified commuters and passersby after the blast. Debris from the geyser pelted some of the city's most famous skyscrapers. Then it rained on the streets like a sudden hail storm, striking some pedestrians." [via New York Daily News and New York Times]

Front-page coverage from the New York Times here and from the Daily News here.

Update: I just got word that our offices will be closed tomorrow, too, as ConEd works to reroute power and make repairs in the area so that people can return to work on Monday.

Brad Pitt and Archbishop Desmond Tutu Talk Gay Rights in Vanity Fair's Africa Issue

This month Vanity Fair dedicated its entire issue to stories relating to Africa. U2's Bono served as Guest Editor-in-Chief for the special issue, a first for the magazine. Annie Leibowitz shot 20 different covers for the issue, featuring Oprah Winfrey, Madonna, Barack Obama, Bono, Brad Pitt, Queen Rania of Jordan, Maya Angelou, and George Clooney, among others.

In the issue Brad Pitt interviews South Africa's Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu, during which they discuss gay rights.

Brad Pitt: So certainly discrimination has no place in Christianity. There's a big argument going on in America right now, on gay rights and equality.

Desmond Tutu: For me, I couldn't ever keep quiet. I came from a situation where for a very long time people were discriminated against, made to suffer for something about which they could do nothing--their ethnicity. We were made to suffer because we were not white. Then, for a very long time in our church, we didn't ordain women, and we were penalizing a huge section of humanity for something about which they could do nothing--their gender. And I'm glad that now the church has changed all that. I'm glad that apartheid has ended. I could not for any part of me be able to keep quiet, because people were being penalized, ostracized, treated as if they were less than human, because of something they could do nothing to change--their sexual orientation. For me, I can't imagine the Lord that I worship, this Jesus Christ, actually concurring with the persecution of a minority that is already being persecuted. The Jesus who I worship is a Jesus who was forever on the side of those who were being clobbered, and he got into trouble precisely because of that. Our church, the Anglican Church, is experiencing a very, very serious crisis. It is all to do with human sexuality. I think God is weeping. He is weeping that we should be spending so much energy, time, resources on this subject at a time when the world is aching.

Brad Pitt: I couldn't agree with you more. Thank you for saying that.

[Vanity Fair, July 2007, p. 97-98]

Gay Parents, LGBT Master's Program, Lance and Reichen, and AIDS and Black America

Newsweek talks gay parenting. Says Newsweek of children of gay parents: "If these kids have a message for the rest of the world, it seems to be this: get over it."

First-ever LGBT masters program debuts at L.A. university.

Reviewer: Christina's new two-disc album is good, but could have been great.

Lance and Reichen insist that they are very, very, VERY happy, and not on the rocks, thank you very much.

Washington Post says Black America must confront AIDS: "The face of AIDS in the United States is primarily black. The majority of new HIV infections here are black, the majority of people who die from AIDS here are black and the people most at risk of contracting this virus in the United States are black. AIDS is now in our house. It's now our problem, and we must come up with solutions."

[We posted this so you could see a sample of what we've been doin' while helping out at Towleroad for the last few days.]

You're More Likely To Be Gay If You Have Older Brothers

Check out this study via Andy's blog.

The results of the study show that you're more likely to be gay if you have older brothers, and the more older brothers you have, the more likely it is that a younger brother will be gay.  It's intriguing stuff. Josh K. and I heard about this study a couple months ago on 60 Minutes and we were intrigued.

I'm gay, but I don't have an older brother.  Josh K. does have an older brother, though, and we began testing the theory by going through the list of our gay friends and looking at their brother status.  We were even more intrigued by the study when we realized that the majority of our gay friends had older brothers.

This is definitely a study to keep tabs on.

The Day Dick Went Postal

Is anybody else getting serious laugh mileage about Mr. Dick Cheney, our beloved vice president (gag, gag), shooting a fellow hunter over the weekend?  The laugh quotient grows as the White House uncomfortably acknowledges that President Bush knew about the shooting as soon as it happened and that the White House held the story as long as possible.

First of all, let's talk about what we all know is true: This was no accident.  You know that the hunter, a prominent Texas Republican lawyer, did somethin' that pissed off Dick Cheney.  All of the AP reports I've read about the story mention what a highly skilled hunter and gunman Cheney is.  So, if that's true, doesn't that make you wonder about a few things?  You know the guy said something Cheney so did not agree with, even if it was years ago, even the offending phrase was only gently implied and whispered one time over drinks in the corner of a room during a Christmas party in the mid-1990s. Cheney had it in for this guy.

What do you do when somebody pisses you off and he's hunting with you?  Why, you spray him with bird shot, that's what. It's only logical.

And now the news agencies are reporting that this septuagenarian lawyer who got shot is again in the ICU after suffering a heart attack related to the shooting.  They believe some of the bird shot got lodged in his heart and caused the lovely ol' infarction. 

Poor guy.  It sucks when the VP has it out for you.  Especially when the Veep is Cheney.

In other news, David Letterman shares my glee.  He did a Top Ten list last night, and #2 and #4 are my personal favorites.

Top Ten Dick Cheney Excuses

10. "Heart palpitation caused trigger finger to spasm"

9. "Wanted to get the Iraq mess off the front page"

8. "Not enough Jim Beam"

7. "Trying to stop the spread of bird flu"

6. "I love to shoot people"

5. "Guy was making cracks about my lesbian daughter"

4. "I thought the guy was trying to go 'gay cowboy' on me"

3. "Excuse? I hit him, didn't I?"

2. "Until Democrats approve medicare reform, we have to make some tough choices for the elderly"

1. "Made a bet with Gretzky's wife"