I need to do some more technical maintenance so there will be no more posts today.

But come back first thing in the morning! The Media Bar will be open, and I'll be serving up some Audio Espresso, too!

Pork here.

It’s a week where I am full of confessions. First, I’m not able to properly review any of the numerous, notable releases landing in stores today because I simply haven’t had the albums to do so. That being said, the next few days will find me happily ingesting new albums by Tracy Chapman (always a cherished occasion), Grace Jones, Seal and (here comes Confession #2) David Archuleta. Yes, Pork is an Archie . . . er, Arch Angel . . . or whatever people who swoon over Lil’ Davey want to call themselves. (Stay tuned for more in-depth analysis of David’s self-titled debut and Tracy Chapman’s Our Bright Future.)

One confession I’m not afraid to declare is my lack of excitement about one of today’s hottest acts, T-Pain. No matter how many words he can cleverly misspell or how many top 10 hits he stamps with his vocoded signature, I couldn’t be less interested in hearing Thr33 Ringz, his new full length which will most likely be this week’s biggest seller as millions seem to be captivated by this hip-hop clown with the midas touch. T-Pain’s not my cup of "T," and I’m not going to front that he is. I’ll just hope that he and his circus of crunk fall off the map soon so the R&B/Hip-Hop genre recover . . . like it has from reggaeton.

After the jump, Grace Jones, Seal, and, you guessed it, Vanilla Ice! Plus, The List of all new releases for Tuesday, November 11, 2008.

Enough with what doesn’t make my blood rush. It’s time to put some Grace in your face . . . and ears. Grace Jones storms back with a full-fledged Hurricane, her first album in nearly 2 decades. Get a taste of “Corporate Cannibal”, the lead single and video, and you’re likely to be as captivated and hungry for more as I was. Riding the perfect balance of sexy and scary, Grace quickly reminds you that it’s “[her] rules, you fools” with a delivery so slinky and distinct that you must submit to this “man-eating machine.” I can’t wait to see what else Grace has got on her plate. Check out “Corporate Cannibal” in today’s Media Bar as the featured Music Video of the Day.

I haven’t heard Seal’s Soul, but I must say that the idea of him spinning his vocal abilities all over some legendary soul classics is a no-brainer that has the potential to be a smash. I must say I’m more than a bit worried about his decision to give the production responsibilities to David Foster, famous for (over)producing Celine Dion, Michael Bolton and Barbra Streisand. This is supposed to be a soul classics record. Hell, it’s called Soul! I’ve got my fingers crossed that his bombastic, slick production won’t shellac the sessions with schmaltz and suck the soul out of Seal’s groove.

Proving that real cover-album dreams can come true, Vanilla Ice Is Back! gives you no less than 9 covers of “hip hop classics” (think “Baby Got Back” and “Jump Around”) by Mr. Van Winkle himself along with 4 “Ice Ice Baby” revisits. White hot.

(Take a little time and enjoy . . . ) The List:

All New Music Releases - November 11th, 2008

David Archuleta – David Archuleta
Robert Bradley’s Blackwater Surprise – Out of the Wilderness
Tracy Chapman – Our Bright Future
Deborah Cox – The Promise
Enya – And Winter Came
Grace Jones – Hurricane
Live – Live at the Paradiso (DVD/CD)
The Police – The Police: Certifiable (DVD/CD)
Musiq Soulchild – On My Radio
Seal – Soul
Smashing Pumpkins – If All Goes Wrong (DVD)*
Taylor Swift – Fearless
T-Pain – Thr33 Ringz
Vanilla Ice – Vanilla Ice Is Back! Hip Hop Classics
Butch Walker – Sycamore Meadows
Various Artists – Now That’s What I Call Music! 29
Various Artists – Zack and Miri Make a Porno(Soundtrack)

Greatest Hits, Box Sets, Re-Issues and Re-Masters by: Abba, Christina Aguilera, Patti Austin, Bad Company, Natasha Bedingfiled, Bee Gees, Big Mountain, Boney M., Cheap Trick, Alice Cooper, Dio, Hilary Duff, Aretha Franklin, Genesis, Enrique Iglesias, Jurssic 5, The Kinks, Led Zeppelin*, New Order* (5 Collector’s Edition Re-Issues!), The Osmonds, Gilda Radner, Cliff Richard, Carly Simon, Sister Sledge, The Smiths*.

Look any closer and you’ll find new music from Billy Bob Thornton and Kevin Costner. Yes, you read that correctly. Consider yourself warned.

* = acceptable Christmas presents for Pork.

Via Charmants some sexy Russian boys from Russian photographer Alex Bego.

Click thumbnails to enlarge.

Three NSFW-ish pics after the jump.

When I read this Washington Post article, the enormity of what Obama has done, once again, hit me. It's easy to get caught up in what's going on domestically because so much is going on, but here is a snippet of that Obama is facing outside of the U.S.

The day after Obama's victory, a leading Austrian television journalist said on camera that he "wouldn't want the Western world to be directed by a black man." A Polish lawmaker stood up in Parliament and called the election result "the end of the white man's civilization."

One of the milder gaffes came from Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi. On Thursday, during a visit to Moscow, he praised Obama for being "young, handsome and even suntanned."

. . . Jürgen Gansel, a party leader and an elected lawmaker in the German state of Saxony, blamed Obama's victory on "the American alliance of Jews and Negroes."

. . . In Austria, Obama's win prompted a harsh, on-air reaction from a well-known journalist, Klaus Emmerich. "I think the Americans are still racists and they must be very badly off to so spectacularly -- and that has to be said, no doubt -- send a black man with a black, very good-looking and clever woman to the White House." After saying that he "wouldn't want the Western world to be directed by a black man," he added: "If you say that is a racist comment, you're right. Without a doubt."

[Artur Górski, a legislator from the Law and Justice party said]
"This marks the end of the white man's civilization," he said. "America will soon pay a high price for this quirk of democracy."

Yeah, yeah. It's kind of funny to say "anal," but this is a real health issue for gay men. At my gym a few months ago I ran into an acquaintance I hadn't seen in months. He looked terrible. I asked him where he'd been, and he told me he had cancer, anal cancer, and had been in chemotherapy.

That was the first time I had heard of anal cancer, but since then it keeps cropping up in the news. Gardisil, the vaccine that protects women from cervical cancer, may also protect gay men from anal cancer. Pink News is reporting both on a new test to diagnose anal cancer and on new gay-focused Gardisil studies:

A new test that will detect the early signs of a cancer that is prevalent among gay men has been devised. The incidence of anal cancer is estimated as 37 per 100,000 in gay men. For gay men who are HIV-positive, the incidence is about twice as great – around 75 per 100,000.

"For gay and bisexual men who are at risk of anal cancer, these tests are an important medical breakthrough. They will help save lives. With this reliable screening test, signs of anal cancer will be detected earlier, leading to speedier, more effective treatment."

The research, carried out at the MRC Cancer Cell Unit in Cambridge, explores using minichromosome maintenance proteins (MCMs) to detect pre-cancerous and cancerous cells in the anus.

. . . "Two decades ago, I deduced that if the Human Papilloma Virus (HPV) causes cervical cancer in women, it must also have the potential to cause anal cancer in people who have anal sex, especially gay and bisexual men."

Continued after the jump.

"I lobbied the UK government for two decades to take action but was constantly rebuffed. The British Medical Journal and The Lancet declined to report the issue and Cancer Research UK dismissed it.

"We must also continue to raise awareness of the disease, particularly among people in high risk groups such as gay and bisexual men so they can take action if they have symptoms."

Last year PinkNews.co.uk reported that private clinics in London have been injecting gay men with a vaccine designed to reduce the risk of cervical cancer. The Gardsil vaccine provides protection from human papillomavirus (HPV) which causes the cancer as well as anal warts and cancer of the penis and anus.

The BBC reports that clinics in London have been charging gay men £450 for a three-dose course of Gardsil.

Roger Pebody, treatments manager at sexual health charity Terrence Higgins Trust, said it was unclear if the vaccine would be appropriate for adult gay males. "It may be of use but we need to see some research first - so far the research has been on women," he told PinkNews.co.uk. "There is a study going in America now which includes gay men."

It is likely that many sexually active gay men will already have PVT, so a vaccination would not prevent them contracting it.

The LA Times has a story on why Prop 8 passed despite polls suggesting that it would fail:

When comparing the findings from the Field Poll's final pre-election survey to the Edison Media Research exit poll of voters, the biggest differences related to the turnout and preferences of frequent churchgoers and Catholics.

This is pretty much what I've been thinking, too. And I think a new term is going to be coined (like "The Bradley Effect") to capture how one segment of a population can vote two way, simultaneously.

Nate Silver of fivethirtyeight.com projected that it would be close, but he also noted that ballot measures are notoriously difficult to forecast.

Related, the post-Prop 8 world is playing itself out. LA's KUTV is reporting:

Gay and lesbian spokespersons asked for help from the LDS Church in winning gay rights in Utah, but not for gay marriage, in the wake of the passage of Proposition 8 in California. "While we disagree with the Church's position on Proposition 8," said Stephanie Pappas, Chair of Equality Utah at a news conference on Monday. "We respect that their position is based on the guiding principles of their faith" . . . "We're looking for reconciliation," said Utah State Sen. Scott McCoy a gay Democrat.

You have to start somewhere . . . .

The AP reports:

MILWAUKEE (AP) -- A gay arts group has sued the city of Milwaukee in federal court for violating its free speech rights three years ago when officials shut down a musical revue featuring nudity.

The city temporarily shut down performances of "Naked Boys Singing!" in August 2005 while it considered the Milwaukee Gay Arts Center's application for a theater permit. The group later received a permit and reopened the show.

. . . the city's law does not require officials to approve or deny theater permit applications in a timely fashion. If they don't like a show's content, they can simply not act, he said. "It could be used to discriminate," Dupuis said, "and we suspect that there was some sort of discriminatory thinking that went into the decision-making somewhere along the line."

. . . "Naked Boys Singing!" has run into trouble with authorities before in such cities as Provincetown, Mass.; San Juan, Puerto Rico; and Atlanta. Eventually, all three cities held performances of the show.

The lawsuit does not name a specific damages amount.

Wake Up With These!

The Rachel Maddow Show
1) Obama on Afghanistan 2) Obama Visits White House 3) Howard Dean setps down 4) Why Keep Lieberman in the Democratic party? 5) Prop 8 protests

The New York Times
NYT The Front Page 11/11
NYT The Science Times 11/11

NPR
Tell Me More
1) California Gay Leaders Assess Marriage Defeat 2) An Emotional Election Night For Journalists Of Color 3) Music World Mourns 'Mama Africa' 4) Is Barack Obama Really That Special?

Audio player after the jump. Or click here to launch the player in a new window so you can browse while you listen. Or, head over to The Media Bar and listen there.

Click below to jump to the full size players or click here to launch them in a new window. Or just hang out and watch them in The Media Bar next door.

Daily Song:
Seal
"A Change Is Gonna Come"
From today's Listen Up! (New Release Tuesday)

Television:
The View discusses Prop 8. With all the shock surrounding the passing of Prop 8, watching the women of The View talk about this is like watching the entire country grapple with the consequences of bigotry. Black women discussing this issue brings to mind the emotional struggles that the dominant members of our society must have felt when they were granted the power to change and improve the lives of others. How did slave owners really feel about being slave owners after the Emancipation Proclamation? How did men really feel about giving the right to vote to women after keeping it from them for so long? How did white people feel about segregation? How do the people who oppose Prop 8 really feel about taking away the right for gays to get married?

They must struggle with themselves. They must. And it is our responsibility to show them that their struggle is worth resolving.

Politics:
Keith Olbermann's "Special Comment" on Prop 8. I haven't been a big fan of Olbermann, but we owe him a big "thanks" for stepping up and saying this. With this "Special Comment" he has done something that not even Rachel Maddow has done.

Movies:
"Chris and Don: A Love Story"
The documentary about Christopher Isherwood and Don Bachardy was just nominated for best documentary in the Gotham Independent Film Awards. The legendary gay couple was born thirty years apart and stayed together thirty-three years.

Music Video:
Grace Jones "Corporate Cannibal"
From today's Listen Up! (New Release Tuesday)
Also from today's Listen Up! (New Release Tuesday)

Click below to jump to the full size players or click here to launch them in a new window. Or just hang out and watch them in The Media Bar next door.

Daily Song:

Seal "A Change Is Gonna Come"

Television:

Prop 8 follow-up (11/10/08 - clip via Good As You.)

Politics:

Keith Olbermann's "Special Comment" on Prop 8. I haven't been a big fan of Olbermann, but we owe him a big "thanks" for stepping up and saying this. With this "Special Comment" he has done something that not even Rachel Maddow has done.

Movies:

"Chris and Don: A Love Story"
The documentary about Christopher Isherwood and Don Bachardy was nominated for best documentary in the Gotham Independent Film Awards. The legendary gay couple was born thirty years apart and stayed together thirty-three years.

Music Video:

Grace Jones "Corporate Cannibal"