Author: Randy Slovacek

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Jake Pavelka to be celebrity guest host for Chippendales in Las Vegas

Chippendales, the ultimate Las Vegas “Girls Night Out,” is about to get even hotter when reality show star, Jake Pavelka (ABC’s “The Bachelor” and “Dancing with the Stars,”) takes the stage as the celebrity guest host for a Spring residency (February 23rd – March 18th, Thursdays through Sundays).

During his limited engagement at Chippendales, Pavelka will use his charm, sex appeal and hosting skills to keep the women entertained while leaving the dancing to the men of Chippendales.

Pavelka will be joining an exclusive roster of guest hosts at Chippendales including Ronnie Magro of “Jersey Shore” and Jeff Timmons of the platinum-selling group 98 Degrees.

The addition of Pavelka, who is still touted as one of America’s most eligible bachelors, will add to the four-week long frenzy as Chippendales celebrates its 10th Anniversary at the Rio All-Suite Hotel and Casino as the venue’s resident “Diamonds in the Buff” (on Friday, February 24th) with nearly 4,000 performances.

Even though Jake won’t be dancing at Chippendales, we all remember he does has a great body and some sexy moves. Check out his “Risky Business” routine from “Dancing With The Stars.”  (Coincidentally, Chippendales currently has their own “Risky Business” number.  Maybe Jake might join in one night if they crowd gets wild enough?)

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Ellen Degeneres on the so-called “Million Moms” boycott

On a show taped today for broadcast Wednesday, Ellen DeGeneres praised the 9th Circuit’s ruling on Proposition 8, and then addressed the AFA organization ‘One Million Moms’ for calling for her firing.

As you may know, the hate group ‘One Million Moms’ called for JC Penney to fire ellen as spokesperson because she is, in their words, an “open homosexual”.

Wrote the group:

“Funny that JC Penney thinks hiring an open homosexual spokesperson will help their business when most of their customers are traditional families. More sales will be lost than gained unless they replace their spokesperson quickly. Unless JC Penney decides to be neutral in the culture war then their brand transformation will be unsuccessful.”

Says Ellen: “Normally, I try not to pay attention to my haters — but this time I’d like to talk about it, because my haters are my motivators. This organization doesn’t think I should be the spokesperson because I’m gay,” DeGeneres continued. “They wanted to get me fired, and I’m proud and happy to say that JCPenney stuck by their decision to make me their spokesperson. Which is great news for me because I also need some new crew socks. I’m really going to clean up with this discount.”

Ellen then read some of the comments from her supporters on the ‘Million Moms’ Facebook page – which really only has 40,353 followers, so I think the “Million Moms” thing is kind of false advertising.

Said Ellen: “I usually don’t talk about stuff like this on my show, but I really want to thank everyone who is supporting me. Here are the values I stand for. I stand for honesty, equality, kindness, compassion, treating people the way you’d want to be treated and helping those in need.To me, those are traditional values. That’s what I stand for…I also believe in dance.”

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A very special celebration at Gaia Retreat & Spa in Australia

I spent January 21, 2012, at a wonderful, fantastic and perfectly appropriate birthday celebration for my dear, fabulous Gregg Cave. Spectacular doesn’t begin to describe the evening. I’m so happy so many close friends came together from all over the world to celebrate Gregg Cave’s birthday in the most perfect setting in the world, the award-winning Gaia Retreat & Spa.

Gregg is one of the owner’s of Gaia Resort and Spa, and he’s the man who makes it all move and flow so seemingly effortlessly on a day to day basis.

Beyond that, he has the most wonderful spirit and makes everyone around him feel at ease in whatever setting he is in.

This is how to have a birthday,  If you have special event coming up, you can’t do better than Gaia Retreat & Spa.

Happy happy birthday Gregg!

Me with Michael, Olivia, Louise from ONJCWC and Rowina Thomas of the Lyall Hotel
at Gregg Cave’s birthday celebration
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Color me ‘blown off’….

A few months ago I reached out to a prominent cabaret performer I admire to promote her new CD on my blog because I believed in it. I really loved the CD.  We’re talking free promotion to 100K readers.

The artist responded, and I emailed a few interview questions to accompany the proposed blog post promoting the CD.

Result? Blew me off and never sent back responses.

Kind of hurt my feelings – ‘who cares about your little blog’ – but I guess I can get over it….

You fabulous “Randy Report” 100K readers can do without news about the artist I guess.

Oh well….

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Broadway’s Sutton Foster has a new TV series

ABC Family has picked up Bunheads, a dance drama series from Gilmore Girls creator Amy Sherman-Palladino, Deadline reports.

The series stars Tony award-winner Sutton Foster as a Las Vegas showgirl who moves to a small town with her new husband and becomes a teacher at her mother-in-law’s dance school.

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11th Circuit Court of Appeals rejects former CDC employee’s claim of discrimination

A federal appeals court has rejected arguments from a former counselor at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention who claims her religious rights were violated because she was fired for refusing to counsel a gay woman.

The 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals on Tuesday upheld a judge’s decision to dismiss Marcia Walden’s lawsuit against the CDC.

Walden worked as a contractor for the CDC in 2007 when a woman came to her for advice involving a same-sex relationship. She was let go after she told the woman she couldn’t help because her “personal values” as a devout Christian prevented her from offering any assistance.

Walden said her firing was a result of religious discrimination, but the three-judge panel said it was not persuaded by her arguments.

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CNN’s Roland Martin tries to end his “twitter-gate” issue

CNN contributor Roland S. Martin was accused of bullying and encouraging violence against the LGBT community after tweeting on Sunday that any man at a Super Bowl party who’s psyched for David Beckham’s H&M underwear ad should be smacked, posted his final thoughts on the controversy to his website last night.

“That is furthest from the truth, and I sincerely regret any offense my words have caused,” he wrote. “I have consistently said on television, radio, and in print, that I am steadfast against bullying.”

He maintained that his tweets were directed at soccer fans and not related to anyone’s sexuality. “To those who construed my comment as being anti-gay or homophobic or advancing violence, I’m truly sorry. I can certainly understand how someone could come to a different conclusion than the one I meant,” he said. “I’m disheartened that my words would embolden prejudice. While public debate over social issues is healthy, no matter which side someone takes, there is no room for debate as to whether we need to be respectful of others.”

GLAAD issued this response: “Yesterday afternoon a video of a young man being brutally assaulted after exiting a grocery store was posted on LGBT news sites. As they beat and kicked the man, his attackers screamed “Fa**ot” and other anti-gay slurs. Watch the video below. This is what ‘smacking the ish’ out of someone for being gay can look like. Speaking out against anti-LGBT violence on his site is a start, but Martin should use his other platforms to fight against the very things he says he himself experienced.”

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Large majority supports ending war in Afghanistan by 2014

Last week Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said that the U.S. and its allies are hoping to scale back from taking the lead in combat operations in Afghanistan by the end of next year.

While the announcement caused quite a stir in the media, Army Chief of Staff Ray Odierno noted that it “has been our strategy all along.”

Nevertheless, a new poll out today found that, by a large margin, Americans support it. According to Rasmussen, 67% favor the plan Panetta outlined last week, while only 22% opposed ending combat operations by that time.

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Mitt Romney on today’s Prop 8 verdict

In 1994, Mitt Romney called for “full equality” for LGBT Americans, but this afternoon his presidential condemned the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeal’s ruling against Proposition 8.

“Today, unelected judges cast aside the will of the people of California who voted to protect traditional marriage. This decision does not end this fight, and I expect it to go to the Supreme Court,” Romney said. “I believe marriage is between a man and a woman and, as president, I will protect traditional marriage and appoint judges who interpret the Constitution as it is written and not according to their own politics and prejudices.”

Romney, who’s name has become synonymous with “flip-flop” has changed his position with the LGBT community many times in the past several years.

In 1994, Romney met with the Log Cabin Republicans and pledged, “I’m with you on this stuff… I’ll be better than Ted Kennedy.” Romney promised, in writing, to fight for “full equality for America’s gay and lesbian citizens,” co-sponsor a federal employment nondiscrimination act, and characterized Don’t Ask Don’t Tell as “the first in a number of steps that will ultimately lead to gays and lesbians being able to serve openly and honestly in our nation’s military.”

While serving as head of the 2002 Utah Olympics, he approved an amended workplace nondiscrimination policy that covered sexual orientation and “later reached out to Salt Lake’s gay community as part of the committee’s effort to enhance diversity in the Olympic workforce.”

As a gubernatorial candidate in 2002, he promised to “promote tolerance and fight discrimination….[and] proposed a thorough review of state laws to see where lifelong gay and lesbian relationships were negatively affected, and how the state could change its practices to make them nondiscriminatory.”

Still, from the very beginning there were signs that the embrace of gay equality represented a calculated attempt to win over votes in a moderate to liberal state, rather than a principled belief in civil rights. Several 1994 accounts published in the Boston Globe reported that just before launching his senate run, Romney told an audience of Mormon Church members that homosexuality was “perverse” and “reprehensible.”