• Turns out Lisa Kudrow thought HBO would give her at least two seasons to play Valerie Cherish. [LAT]

• The new FDNY calendar features Survivor winner Tom Westman — and other guys whose abs are more chiseled. [Towleroad]

• More PR trouble for Star Jones comes from today's Page Six, with a lead item documenting a late-night alleged gentlemen caller looking for Al Reynolds. [Page Six]

• Chad Allen's Shock To The System opens in selected cities today (read: Like always, New York and Los Angeles residents get to see the queer flicks before anyone else). [NYT]

• In the U.K., a man convicted of knowingly infecting his boyfriend with HIV gets sentenced to more than four years in prison. Now officials just have to find him. [BBC]

Rex Lee plays one of our favorite characters on one of our favorite shows: He's Lloyd, assistant to Ari Gold in Entourage. That's Lloyd, as in gay Lloyd. As in gay and Asian Lloyd. He might as well be missing his legs with all those Hollywood handicaps. But in the second season of the HBO show, he's the biggest comic relief behind Ari himself. And as an openly gay actor, Lee has the perspective on homophobia in Tinsletown most of the industry would rather not recognize.

Lloyd also helps viewers see what working in Hollywood might be like for an openly gay man. For Lee, however, the authentic reproduction of the world behind the camera includes a few aspects that he grudgingly admits belong there--notably the show's use of casual homophobia used as a conversational device.

“The truth is I wish there was less of it, but I also feel like it's pretty realistic,” Lee said of the stray remarks that occasionally pepper certain characters' dialogue. “As far as Ari making homophobic comments--and I know this doesn't entirely excuse it--he's kind of insulting everybody. It's just one comment among the enormous barrage of comments against everybody.

“As far as the boys are concerned, the show gives us a fly-on-the-wall perspective into these guys' lives and they're really uncensored. It's very realistic that these guys who grow up in New York and--and who, in their own way, are a little bit “street” --talk this way. And in the long run, I think I respect the writers for not censoring this element of dialogue.”

Lee is also quick to note that the homophobic sentiments the characters express to each other are never directed at Lloyd.

“Those same boys are very polite to Lloyd whenever they see him. They don't say ‘fag' or ‘homo' or any of that around Lloyd,” Lee said. “So again, I have to think that it's when they're confronted with the gay guy, they're sort of doing their best to be respectful toward him.”

Rex Lee: More Than Just the “Gay” One On TV's Entourage [AfterElton]

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With a summer TV slump, we're enjoying the air conditioning between two shows: So You Think You Can Dance (and so you think you can shut up and not make fun of us?) and Lucky Louie, the new Sunday night HBO sitcom where the cuss words fly as often as the (male) nudity. It's the un-P.C. sitcom you just with NBC could air during Thursday primetime. And it's episodes like last night's – where Louie and his two cohorts somehow turn a conversation about the Fourth of July into one about America's gay roots – that we're telling our friends about the show.

Lucky Louie [HBO]

• A dancing cowboys calendar looks so much hotter when you add the behind the scenes footage. [DC Cowboys]

• AT&T may offer domestic partnership benefits to its employees, but it no longer protects your privacy as a consumer. [CNN]

• We knew Showtime was a gay man's favorite network (sorry, Logo), but who knew HBO held so much appeal? [TV Squad]

• The gay community has come so far since the days of Stonewall — and now it's all but abandoned the historical venue. [The Villager]

• You like Christina Aguilera's new song, huh? Now watch her perform it (and a few others), live in a MollyGood Exclusive. [MollyGood]

The Sopranos enters its final season this Sunday, and gay fans are excitedly waiting to see what unfolds for mobster Vito Spatafore, played by Joe Gannascoli, after Spatafore was caught last seasonplaying the skin flute on a male construction site employee.

Spatafore's gayness hasn't been discussed since then, but obviously the writers had some ideas in store. And as this is the last season and writers have nothing to lose, there are rumors that plenty of daring plot twists-and-turns abound.

Gannascoli himself actually pitched to producers the gay-mobster idea, as an angle to make his character a bigger part of the show. And his pitch worked; while he can't specify what is planned, he says ""I'm certainly in it. And for that Vito would say, 'This could be the year of the queer.'"

Also in Sopranos news: Fergie of The Black Eyed Peas will play an undercover FBI agent, who takes Drea de Matteo's place as a server in the Soprano strip club. We think she's going to be delicious.

• Who would have thought that an iPod jacket actually could turn out to be somewhat fashionable? [Gizmodo]

• Liz Smith blackmailed Rock Hudson's blackmailer. This is why you never mess with a dirt-filled gossip queen. [NY Post]

• The Arizona tourist board is targeting people who have plenty of spending money: us queers. [USA Today]

• Colorado will have voters decide on domestic partnerships by the end of this year. It ain't marriage, but we'll take it if we can get it. [Denver Post]

• Michael Jackson is interviewing for a job and it isn't at a day care center. [Forbes]

• HBO keeps their queer programming coming. You don't get much gayer than Rosie O'Donnell on a gay cruise. [UPI]

"Devastated, I stood there and cried like a baby,"- Pepper LaBeija, in Paris Is Burning.

That pretty much sums up how we feel about Lisa Kudrow's The Comeback being cancelled. I guess the show was too smart even for HBO's elitist television viewer. We will admit it. It took way too long for us to get into the show, but once we did we were hooked like Kate Moss on coke. Kudrow was brilliant and always in character. Not once did you think of her as Phoebe, which is a hard thing to do when known as one character for so long. Want proof? Watch the episode where she sings "I Will Survive." Comic genius.

While Kudrow was the show's star the real reason we will miss The Comeback is Mickey, played by Robert Michael Moore. Not feeding into stereotypes of what gay hairdressers should look like (no pleather, highlights, or snapping fingers), Mickey was lovable and the show's heart. The show's big gay heart that is.

We just hope Valerie Cherish has yet another comeback. Perhaps Kudrow can switch to Showtime and use the cancellation as fodder for another season on another station. However you do it just please comeback.