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‘Portlandia’ gets a second season on IFC

Fred Armisen and Carrie Brownstein in 'Portlandia'

Well that didn’t take long. The Independent Film Channel used Valentines Day to express its love for newly running original Portlandia by announcing it would pick up the show for a second season. IFC must really be in love as this is the first time that they’ve ever agreed to a second season while the first was still running, according to senior VP of original programming Debbie DeMontreux.

Airing at 10:30 p.m. Fridays, Portlandia is averaging 235,000 viewers among adults 18-49, nearly quadruple IFC’s primetime average in a demo it has aggressively begun courting, and has built upon its lead-in, fellow original series Onion News Network.

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BRO takes marriage campaign to the national level

Basic Rights Oregon recently produced a great ad campaign called “Marriage matters to me” featuring several Oregon couples both gay and straight. Four of these couples will get coverage on CNN this Valentines Day as part of Freedom to Marry‘s newest national campaign.

Via press release, BRO executive director Jeana Frazzini lauded the decision to show the ads on Valentine’s Day of all days.

“Valentine’s Day is a time to celebrate love and commitment, and that’s true for all couples, gay or straight,” said Frazzini. “We’re reaching out to Oregonians to talk about the reasons we all want to get married: we want to publicly affirm the commitment we’ve made to the person we love.”

You can see the video below and more at a statewide themed website Marriage Matters Oregon.

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GLAAD’s 2011 Media Award nominees

'The Kids are All Right'

GLAAD (Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation) announed their nominees this past week for the 2011 Media Awards. GLAAD gives the awards to honor fair and inclusive media portrayals of the LGBT community. The GLAAD awards bring together leaders and members of the LGBT community,straight allies, media professionals, and celebrities.

Some of the categories include film, TV dramas, comedy series, music, documentary, reality shows, newspaper columnists, outstanding overall newspaper coverage, magazine articles, digital journalism, blogs, New York theater, LA theater, and comic books.

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Congratulating the LGBT themed Golden Globe winners

Producer Ryan Murphy, left, kisses actor Chris Colfer, both of television's "Glee," as they hold their awards at the Fox party following the Golden Globes. AP Photo

Although The Social Network took the top prize at last night’s Golden Globe Awards several LGBT themed shows and/or actors also took top honors.

Many of these movies also appear on my best gay movies list of 2010 as well as the best LGBT on TV over the years. There’s several that I hardly know at all and certainly didn’t know the queer connections the shows have on their staff.

A complete list is below.

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Watch ‘Portlandia’s first episode and listen to Carrie Brownstein talk it on OPB’s Think Out Loud

The Dream of the 90s is alive in Portland

Those of us that missed the special Portlandia premiere that Portland’s Hollywood Theater got this weekend may be sad, but we have this coming weekend’s television premiere to look forward to. And besides, web savvy qPDXers can watch the first episode now on Hulu (and right here below!) for 3 more days.

The early leaked opening video, Dream of the 90s, did end up being the funniest part of the first episode but it was a great first start. The sketch with SNL‘s Jason Sudeikis as a polygamous organic chicken farmer was pretty hilarious. I have faith that it will grow as we get to know our mirror town and its inhabitants.

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Best gay television of 2010

Lionel and Marshall in an embrace in United States of Tara

The gays struggled with the boob tube this year in part because there actually are a fair amount of decent characters and story lines to choose from. So we are on that cusp of counting down the best gay shows vs. the best gay moments.

It’s also a year where we start to shift judging from “a good portrayal of LGBT life” to simply the “best TV” that just happens to contain gay elements, or are even primarily gay themed. This list has a combination.

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Best public outings of 2010

Ricky Martin is gay?!

Celebrities, as powerful and rich as they are, still tend to remain in the closet. Here are the top 5 folks this year that had the courage to publicly declare their homo-love.

5 – Amber Heard

Actress from The Stepfather, The Joneses, Pineapple Express, spoke openly with AfterEllen.com about being a lesbian pioneer in Hollywood, during the GLAAD media awards.

4 – Chely Wright

There was a lot of hype leading up to this announcement which was largely met by a big “who?” when the information was finally released. We were all expecting someone really famous to come out, but Chely Wright is a country singer who has quite the following in the South. Oh yeah, and that Christian singer Jennifer Knapp came out too.

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2010’s most Googled gays

Perez Hilton was the most Googled gay this year. A blogger? Really? There's hope for me yet

Ah, it’s that time of the year when we stop writing about real news and just rehash everything that happened over the past year as if we weren’t there the first time. My own versions of the year in review and the best of 2010 won’t begin until next week, but that doesn’t mean we can start with remembering 2010 through the company that became an everyday verb. That’s right, I’m talking about Google, the ubiquitous search engine where all internet life begins and ends. And here’s a list of the most searched gays in 2010, according to the People’s Republic of Google.

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Clips and theme song from Carrie Brownstein’s upcoming ‘Portlandia’ comedy series

In episode 2 they fall in with a cult leader played by guest star Jason Sudeikis, center.

This summer the Independent Film Channel announced that it would be producing a sketch comedy show starring Saturday Night Live’s Fred Armisen and our own rock goddess Carrie Brownstein, called Portlandia. Now not only does it have an air date, but video clips to give us a sneak peek and Brownstein singing fantastically silly theme song.

Premiering January 21st and continuing every Friday at 10:30/9:30 central, Portlandia introduces us to ourselves, our adbsurd, PDX selves. Each episode’s character-based shorts draw viewers into “Portlandia,” the creators’ dreamy campy rendering of the town we know and love.

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Where we stand on DADT from Jon Stewart’s ‘Gaypocalypse Now’ perspective

Spotlighting John McCain‘s flip floppy nature of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell (as if that’s his only contradictory issue) Jon Stewart gives an update on DADT with his segment “Gaypocalypse Now” which I’ve embedded below. This comes directly after the release of an extensive Pentagon survey that found repealing the policy would have little to no negative effect on our armed forces. There is no “queer and present danger” to speak of but I like that bit of humor.

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