The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development awarded nearly $1.5 million to Greene County,Henry County, Knox County, Peoria, Rock Island and Rockford Housing Authorities (see chart below for individual amounts). These grants are part of $31 million awarded nationally today to public housing authorities, resident associations and non-profit organizations across the U.S. to help public housing residents connect to services available in the community to find employment to increase their economic independence.  The funding will also link the elderly and people with disabilities with supportive services that allow them to maintain independent living and age-in-place.  Read more about local impact of HUD’s grant funding.

“We need to take a wider view of the needs of public housing residents beyond just housing if we’re to be true to the goal of promoting self sufficiency,” said HUD Secretary Shaun Donovan.  “The caseworkers that housing authorities can hire or keep on staff help thousands of public housing residents connect to opportunities to obtain jobs or increase their incomes that lead to self-sufficiency and improve quality of life.”

“These grants will provide the springboard to a self sufficient and more independent life for Illinois residents of public housing,” said Midwest Regional Administrator Antonio R. Riley.

HUD’s Resident Opportunities and Self Sufficiency (ROSS) – Service Coordinators Program helps public housing authorities(PHAs), resident associations or non-profit organizations to hire or retain service coordinators who work directly with residents to assess their needs to connect them with education, job training and placement programs and/or computer and financial literacy services available in their community to promote self-sufficiency.  For an elderly or disabled resident, the service coordinator arranges supportive services that allow them to maintain their independent lifestyle.

The purpose of  this program is to encourage local innovative strategies that link public housing assistance with public and private resources to enable participating families to increase earned income; reduce or eliminate the need for welfare assistance; and make progress toward achieving economic independence and housing self-sufficiency.

When news of this morning’s internationally famed wedding between Prince William and some Kate chick seemed to focus on nothing other than the royally hat-headed, I thought it was a joke. But no, seemingly everyone from TMZ to The New York Times were reporting that exotically ugly and impractical headresses are where it’s at, and it was at Westminster Abbey earlier today.

So, some hemopheliac-carrying royal got hitched today, big deal? Who cares? Well, get me a press pass aboard the  Queen Mary 2 for Cunard Line’s Royal-Wedding Celebratory transcontinental cruise this week and I will. Not one moment will either of my hands be without a raised crystal flute, champagne toasting the royal couple’s health and happiness–be it a morning brunch at Sir Sam’s, during a heated darts match at The Lion’s Pub or alone in my suite, hysterically crying because I’m just so happy for Billy Blueblood and what’s-her-name. And of course, I’ll be modeling whatever marriage millnery her majesty deems appropriate to the specific occassion (Butterfly Bonnet at the Captain’s table is a must-do!).

Rest assured, however, the overstated straw hat atop Camilla Cornwall’s puffy peroxided pompadour this morning will not be included among my many awkwardly over-sized hat boxes for the week.  There’s not enough Veuve Clicquot in the world that could ever make that overgrown-carnation calamity ok.

Pictured above, left to right: Princess Beatrice, Camilla the Dutchess of Cornwall and pretty Pippa Middleton.

Earlier this week, the Social Security press office announced the launch of a Star-Trek punned campaign advising baby boomers to make use of the government agency’s online office, as promoted by spokespersons George Takei and Patty Duke. Their mission: “to tell Americans to boldly go to www.socialsecurity.gov.”

I can’t tell if this is out-of-this-world awesome or astronomically sad, but I eff-ing love it!

According to the press release, the campaign features eight television commercials, one of which showcases Takei asking Duke: “Won’t filing for Social Security benefits online be confusing?”

“It’s simple and easy,” Duke then assures the concerned Takei. “It’s so easy, even Kirk could do it.”

The full announcement, with all its campy one-liners, is posted here.

Oh—I was in the worst mood on Tuesday: Key people were out sick, everyone was telling me “no,” if they even bothered to take my calls. My right forefinger was red, inflamed and painfully throbbing because, at 8 a.m., my beau du jour dreamed I was aggressively pressing on his chest; so, mid-dream, he gently took my hand, lovingly put it to his mouth and chomped down on my finger in fantastical reprisal. And that hurt my feelings, as well as my finger! I thought I was getting a good-morning kiss, but no—just a permanent mark on my knuckle to forever rejoice in the forefinger-slighting sentiment of our shared bed.

So, yeah: Me—bad mood. And, after working all day, I sure as heck had no desire to remain in editor mode to go to some Lincoln-Park theater drag show. Forty-two city, national-tour Chicago opening or otherwise, I didn’t care. Dixie’s Tupperware Party starring Dixie Longate, big deal! A drag queen pushing plastic isn’t the most novel concept ever conceived. Besides, PINK already discovered this bitch back in 2006, when the magazine profiled the cruise-ship incarnation of her plastic-producer party in the summer ’06 issue.

Old news, I’m in a bad mood, I don’t care and I’m already over it, there was no way this red-wig wearing Tupperware-er was ever going to win me over. No way. And when she suggested I purchase Tupperware item number 787, in Chickadee and Snow White, in order to conveniently carry 32 Jello shots to my local church bazaar in front of the whole house, I certainly started to smirk. Later, I laughed out loud. At one point I was so moved, I almost started to cry. At show end, I couldn’t remember the last time my spirits were so high, and it carried me over for days. Dixie did me good.

Funny, insightful, original, engaging, compelling, motivating, encouraging—Dixie’s Tupperware Party is the most uniquely entertaining stage show I have experienced in my life, and the world needs to know it! But how can the world learn of this show’s marvel when the press release announcing the show doesn’t do it any justice, neither did any of pre-show Chicago interviews, or even the PINK profile back in 2006.

Not only does everyone need to see this show, but they need to understand the powerful, emotional and poignantly resounding reasons as to why, and I, Jason P. Freeman, Editor in Chief of PINK Magazine, have taken it upon me to educate the masses and do just that. I will do Dixie just as good as she did me by profiling Longate in the brightest, warmest and most brilliant of lights in PINK’s spring 2011 print edition. That is, of course, if she’ll let me.

Our last correspondence was left hanging on the auspices of her not being able to meet in person; she’d rather converse over the phone, like all the other lame-ass interviewers who penned all her lame-ass interviews prior—something about TV appearances, press cars and my not having either. It felt a lot like Tuesday again, when everyone was telling me, “no.” My right forefinger hurts just thinking about it.

Eh, the show’s still awesome.

Pictured above: Dixie Longate for Dixie’s Tupperware Party, running until May 15, at the Royal George Theatre in Chicago’s Lincoln Park.

With heavy, embittered, broken, black, festering and defeated heart, I admit that my 13 years of wading in the gay dating pool hasn’t exactly soaked my soul in the Gay American Dream: that of a lifetime of upwardly mobile, executive employed domestic partnership living amongst the urban, upper-middle class in a high-rise luxury-condo, with weekend getaways, champagne brunches on Sunday and of course planning the Bar/Bat Mitzvah’s of out three adopted children, rescued from only the most underprivileged parts of Asia, or Africa, or wherever—it doesn’t really matter so long as their emaciated and sickly and clearly three breaths from death if not for the rescue of our same-sex loving salvation. (But I digress)

No, if not completely stagnant, the gay dating pool just splashes me with sociopaths, depressive dudes with daddy issues, psychopathic control freaks, drug addicts, codependent clingers and your average, everyday character-disordered gay guy—psychologically instilled with social slight from having come of age in a world that dubbed them hell-spawn abominations at birth (yours truly included). Needless to say, I’ve kissed a lot of toads, and they gave me warts in the most inopportune places. I’m over it.

I’m giving up the M4M M.O. and will instead follow the advice of acclaimed dating, sex and relationship guru for straight girls Dr. Kenneth Ryan as documented in his latest romantic planning guide, Finding your Prince in a Sea of Toads: How to Find a Quality Guy Without Getting Your Heart Shredded. The title alone sounds promising in of itself because who wants to get their heart shredded? Seriously?

Also, it seems unlikely Dr. Ryan’s counsel might be swayed by personal bias as—being both veterinarian and father of teenage girls—his interests stand to favor the happiness of both toad and lovelorn lady equally.

Just Consider these (paraphrased) pearls of dating wisdom:

• “Don’t Be Too Passive: Some women feel helpless and hopeless because few men have shown interest in them … They are not helpless or hopeless.
• Don’t Be Too Aggressive: Women who come on too strong look desperate and may scare off quality guys.  Predatory males look for desperate women because they will do almost anything to get a guy…
• Don’t Be Naive About Men: If a woman does not understand the huge difference between men and women when it comes to sex and relationships, she will get burned.  If most of her guidance for relationships comes from popular media and peers, she is working from a position of ignorance. Movie makers couldn’t care less about your life. They just want your $14 movie ticket.
• Don’t Panic: Women become so fearful that they will never find a guy who loves them that they abandon their convictions and make irrational, dangerous decisions. Some painful effects are immediate, while some might not surface for years.
• Don’t Sleep with the Boyfriend: … It causes an avalanche of problems; many that the woman does not anticipate … You can’t put a condom on your heart.”

Save for the no-sex and the Christian derivative, Dr. Ryan’s advice is simplistic, basic, superficial, pretty-darn obvious and rarely ever, if ever, spoken aloud or even admitted to. And in that regard, it’s flipping genius. I’m totally going to go for it!

No more warts for me!

Read Reviews, browse the contents, “meet” and reach out to the  author Dr. Kenneth Ryan, obtain helpful resources and/or get your own copy of Finding your Prince in a Sea of Toads: How to Find a Quality Guy Without Getting Your Heart Shredded at the book’s website www.findingyourprince.com.

Pictured above: Is Panic! at the Disco’s [sic] Brandon Urie cruising for a prince or just into frogs?

Ok, I get it: my little brother Mike is a tall-and-toned, tattooed head-turner in construction boots. Coordinating a deer-head mounting sweatshirt with his camo-hunting cap and drinking canned Budweiser at the bar, he can emote the ruggedly masculine everyman archetype which makes many a ‘mo go gaga over the guy. But he’s my ‘lil bro-in-law, father to my godson, my nephew’s daddy and my baby sister’s husband—so please stop sexually objectifying him in front of me. It’s gross, and it makes me feel inadequate and then, subsequently, fat.

Baby sister, bro-in-law and my three baby nephews road-tripped out to Uncle Jay’s this week for seven days of Chuck E. Cheese, five-year-old fart jokes, runny nose/butt wiping, endearing family dinners at the kitchen table and a daily regimen of toddler tantrums, backtalk and spoiled-bratty outbursts. But once the boys were in bed, Mommy, Daddy and Uncle Jay regressed back to our adult selves, forsook family life (just for a few) and shared some good times for grown-ups.

Following Brother and Sister-only night on Tuesday,  Mike and I hit up Wrigleyville on Wednesday for a night of one-on-one brotherly bonding. Yet, when Clark Street got lame (which an expanse of sports bars is apt to do) we headed down to Halsted where, for a brief moment, I felt really good about myself; it seemed I was getting way more looks that night than I did the night before—until I realized it wasn’t me who was getting the looks.

Three times, some random gay felt compelled to let me know how attracted he was to my brother’s appearance, and once was in Little Jim’s bathroom. One even asked me on the side if my baby brother had a big baby maker. And when I reacted with the aghast that anyone asked to sexualize their sibling would, this guy acted as though I were being unreasonable. “Come on,” he said, “you must have seen it at some point, like, in the shower or something.” No. Never. Not once, and eeeeeew!

So I spit in his drink when he wasn’t looking.

Of course, my inner co-dependent quickly started to feel guilty for not gratifying some stranger’s sibling/straight-man fetish at my family’s expense. So when Mike and I were passing him up as we were leaving the bar, I leaned in and whispered in his ear, “Yeah, it’s big, kind of huge actually. It looks like a Coke can.”

He then took a sip from his drink and smiled. “I knew it,”  he said.

I smiled too. It turned out to be such a great night. Everyone got what they wanted.

Pictured above: Little brother (left) and big brother in Boystown, Wednesday February 23, 2011

________________________________

The Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD) “applauded” Facebook.com earlier this week for adding “In a Civil Union” and “In a Domestic Partnership” to the relationship status options of user profiles. According to GLAAD’s press release, the option is now available for users in the U.S., Canada, the United Kingdom, France and Australia.

“Today, Facebook sent a clear message in support of gay and lesbian couples to users across the globe,” GLAAD President Jarrett Barrios noted in the organization’s official announcement. “By acknowledging the relationships of countless loving and committed same-sex couples in the U.S. and abroad, Facebook has set a new standard of inclusion for social media. As public support for marriage equality continues to grow, we will continue to work for the day when all couples have the opportunity to marry and have their relationship recognized by their community, both online and off.”

In January 2011, Facebook reported having 600 million active users worldwide, likely making the online networking portal the leading and largest social site in the known universe today—which indirectly stands to make Civil Union/Domestic Partnership-Facebook-profile, relationship-status updating one of the biggest gay trends to hit the world wide web since Grindr [sic]. So, of course, I’m going have to jump right onto that bandwagon—in order to maintain trendy airs and appearances and all. Now I’ll just need to get me one of those domestic partners to make the civil unionization with. Any takers? Anyone?

Please.

February 10, finds yours truly donning his fancy salmon-colored couture—a la Oscar de la Renta—for the very first time in 2011. It’s not really, actually-exactly pink per se, but it passes.

My first officially E.I.C donning of the passably pink-colored sport coat occurred  this past summer at the 2010 VIP PINK Party—a swank, fundraising affair  benefiting the city’s LGBT cultural hub. It was such a salmon-y smash, I decided I’d put it on to get it on at every PINK party to come—the next of which is the soon-to-be Pretty in Pink: An Evening of Beauty and Wellness. This novel night intends to raise operational funds for select Chicago nonprofit, social-service organizations while pampering its guests with intimate experiences via the likes of chiropractic medicine, massage therapy, facial and body skincare, fitness therapy—and all things beauty and wellness—as demonstrated by locally renowned specialists in those respective fields. So it’s kind of awesome.

Inspired by the summer-y sentiment of the VIP PINK ’10 Party PINK Magazine’s 2011 New Year’s resolution is to even more-so actively and directly serve its community’s needs AS WELL as that of its constituents—that includes all readers, advertisers and any other professional affiliate alike. “Pretty in Pink” is the first incarnation of this new objective taking place Thursday, February 10, at Relax the Back’s Lincoln Park location (1925 N Clybourn Ave) from 6:30-9 p.m. There’s going to be an open wine bar, complimentary hors d’oeuvres, several chances to win faboo high-end gift baskets through the fundraising raffle and free PINK gift bags, chock-filled with classy kitchse, for the first 50 confirmed guests to arrive. It’s totally free to attend and everyone’s invited.

All you got to do to get on the guest list (and conversely a chance at PINK gift bag-getting) is drop your name, and the names of those in your party, in the body of an email addressed to rsvp{at}pinkmag.com. However if you’re the kind of person who needs a personal invitation to ever do anything, see the image posted below or hit me up at jfreeman{at}pinkmag.com, I’ll send you a personalized invitation and see you there; you’ll recognize me as the guy wearing the “‘Renta” in the new-school salmon style.

Pictured above: Jason P. Freeman (right) putting on the passably pink at the 2010 VIP PINK Party while also warming up to a little Dustin Steva fev-ah (left). Pictured below: Everyone’ s invited to join PINK at Pretty in Pink

If I were a god-faring fundamentalist radical, I might be inclined to find married, heterosexual men taking the male leads of famed Broadway Musicals as an abomination against god—I might even be so bold as to blame them, their supportive casting directors and society’s rising acceptance of wannabe Hugh Jackmans for natural disasters like recent airport-closing blizzards in New York, a la Pat Robertson.

But I’m not a god-faring fundamentalist radical. And frankly, a world where gay and straight men can’t come together through song-and-dance musical theater is not a world in which I wish to live. That’s why I chose to feature the work of Chicagoland song-and-dance musical theater star John Michael Coppola in the “Staged” section of PINK’s online portal this week—his living with his wife and kid in Skokie, IL notwithstanding. Plus, he’s lending his time, talent and angelic-but-macho singing voice to fundraisers for Chicago-area school kids, so you just got to give the dude his props.

Besides, he ain’t bad to look at (he’s got a gorgeous smile for days); and anyone whose caught Coppola’s “Forbidden Broadway” performance or seen him singing in the rain in Hofstra Gray Wig’s 2003 production of “Singin’ in the Rain,” it’s clear that Coppola is down, and probably totally rolls with LGBT camaraderie. What straight, stage-musical star couldn’t, or wouldn’t for that matter? So, he’s cool. We like him.

[Editor’s Note: The title of this post, “I did it for Johnny,” was taken from the last line in pop-parody icon Julie Brown’s 1984 music video “The Homecoming Queen’s Got a Gun,” which admittedly has nothing to do with the actual content of this post.]

John Michael Coppola headshots by Janna Giacoppo, 2009

…Please stand by.

Wondering why PINK’s 2010 summer issue is still showcased on the homepage of www.PINKmag.com? Yeah, well, frankly, so is PINK.

While adapting to the many changes PINK’s making in 2011 (like renovating a new office and transitioning into a new sales department) PINK’s website is also being revamped to accommodate the weekly updates and gift giveaways through the publication’s online portal. Yet, in doing so, we hit a bit of a snag when the website’s homepage–where the print edition is primarily featured for user download–froze. The web admin is completely shut out of it. We can’t access it; we can’t alter it and that pretty much means, it’s still summer at www.PINKmag.com.

Kindly bare with while we work to correct this issue.

However, in the meantime PINK Editor in Chief and your best friend Jason Freeman has got you covered. I’m making a point to pass along the 2011 winter issue editorial–with Lily Tomlin on the cover–to all you big PINK fanatics out there: Click here for PINK Magazine’s 2011 Winter issue and read you a nice pdf.

Enjoy!