Today is the final day in our coverage of the Bid 2 Beat AIDS auction! You know the deal by now. Queerty is helping raise money for LIFEbeat, the music industry fighting AIDS.

Two new items went up yesterday and they are pretty gay. So start bidding ladies. The first up is a Rufus Wainwright signed fan pack. The Gays love Rufus and this pack of promo materials is made for the ultimate Rufus fan. Snap it up for yourself or for someone you know.

Gwen Stefani is loved by The Gays and has graciously decided to meet and greet on lucky bidder. On December 21 you could be sitting in a pair of ultra-VIP seats within the first ten rows of the BankAtlantic Center in Sunrise, Florida. You'd think you'd never get the chance to be any closer to Gwen, but that's not the case — you will also be introduced to Gwen personally either before or after the show!

Meet Gwen Stefani and raise money for LIFEbeat? You do the math, silly. What you waiting, what you waiting, what you waiting, what you waiting for?

Aside from those few dozen Dolly Parton songs packed onto our iPod, we don't tend to listen to much country music. But we went ahead and plunked down the cash for the twangy soundtrack to Brokeback Mountain anyway. And we love it.

There are lots of familiar gay and gay-friendly artists on the disc.

Willie Nelson sets down a joint just long enough to record a cover of Bob Dylan’s "He was a Friend of Mine." But the song's inclusion among this collection instantly transforms it from a harmless buddy song into a gay love anthem. We can't help but listen to it over and over again.

Emmylou Harris kicks ass as always with an original new tune, "A Love That Will Never Grow Old." It's co-written by Gustavo Santaolalla and Elton John's old songwriting partner, Bernie Taupin. And as always there's the obligatory gay soundtrack entry or two from Rufus Wainwright.

But most impressive is Santaolalla's beautiful score. It'll make any fag cry. Except us, of course.

This disc isn't just for gay cowboys. It's for all queens. So you don't have to be Kenny Chesney to pick up a copy though we're sure he will.

The Empire State Pride Agenda, one of the country’s important gay lobbying groups, will hold its annual Fall Dinner on October 6th at the Sheraton New York Hotel and Towers. A VIP reception will be held at 6p.m. with the dinner and a live auction to follow at 8. Donors at the VIP level will have a chance to rub shoulders with celebs such as keynote speaker Al Franken, emcees Mario Cantone and Gina Gershon, entertainer Rufus Wainwright and special guests Randy Harrison and Billy Porter. You can purchase passes to the Fall Dinner here.

Meanwhile, if you can’t make the dinner, you might bookmark the ESPA website. A good resource for keeping abreast of advances and setbacks in gay rights, the site also allows you to volunteer for the organization. You can, furthermore, contact them through the site to arrange for a speaker to appear at an event you might be planning. Queerty joins you in wondering why they’re called rights if the right doesn’t want you to have them.

Rufus McGarrigle Wainwright once said: "Frank Sinatra has passed on the torch to me. But little did he know that he'd be passing it on to a gay opera queen."

We like to think Frank knew exactly what he was doing.

On Thursday, Sept. 8, you can see the torch holding Rufus perform in the "Opera for All" gala at the New York State Theater. To hype his performance, the New York Times allowed itself a Wainwright opera roofie.

Gay people should almost be tricked into loving it (opera). In the middle of the night at a rave, when all the revelers are peaking on Ecstasy, they should turn the music off and put on "Samson et Dalila," just to scare them sort of, and show the other side of bliss.

As much as we (and you?) might enjoy opera, we no more endorse that idea than would suggest a staid opera audience to drop Ecstasy while watching "La Traviata" and then dance their asses off as Violetta dies of consumption.

Rufus, meanwhile, confesses that in the dorm room at his upstate New York boarding school, he danced naked while listening to "The Dance of the Seven Veils" from Strauss's "Salome."

Which suggests a new book title: How to Tell When a Pop Icon is a Bottom For Dummies. As a reminder, the song Rufus sang for the Moulin Rouge, "Complainte de la Butte" does not mean "my ass requires something bigger."