Here's the New York Post's gossip column item about Cooper going to the "best hotel in the world" in India:

Anderson Cooper has been consoling himself over falling ratings by living it up in Jaipur, India, at one of the world's most opulent hotels. The CNN star was spotted Tuesday with his muscular friend, Benjamin Maisani, an owner of East Village bar Eastern Bloc, at the Rambagh Palace, named the best hotel in the world by Conde Nast Traveler. Cooper's $3,200-a-night room features a four-poster mahogany bed and views of the gardens of the former Maharaja palace. Our source said, "Anderson's room has a large round bathtub. On the first night it was filled with bubbles and sprinkled with red rose petals." CNN declined to comment.

Saying Cooper is gay is no longer a scoop. It's not a scandal. Even the humor involved in all the clever winking and nodding is past its expiration date. With today's item Page Six may have exhausted all the ways to say "He's GAY GAY GAY!": the room only has one bed, Maisani's "muscular," and perhaps most blatantly, he owns Eastern Bloc. Every 'mo in New York knows Eastern Bloc is a gritty, dirty gay bar ("a true man meat bar") that often has boy-on-boy porn playing on its TVs. (The stencil over the DJ booth offers "Free Moustache Rides" and one outside once read "One Gay at a Time, Sweet Jesus.") All the patrons know Maisani, because he's big, and know he's dating Cooper. Word on the street is that Madonna's recent appearance there had less to do with her getting back to her East Village gay roots and more to do with the fact that she was with Cooper, who wanted to play "whose boy toy is hotter" with Madge.

Cooper's see-through closet is such a joke that it doesn't make sense to call him in the closet anymore. If he won't say it, we will: Anderson Cooper is officially out. There's no difference between him and Neil Patrick Harris. They both play it straight at their day jobs and then openly go about town with their boyfriends and do TV interviews about how much they love Kathy Griffin and The Real Housewives of Atlanta.

It's not like Cooper's in a club all of his own, either. He is part of an increasingly large crowd of notables who won't come out but have given up trying to hide that they are gay. Queen Latifah denied that she was going to marry her girlfriend, a girlfriend who she tries to pass off as her "trainer." Kevin Spacey got busted lying about being mugged in a London cruising park. Ricky Martin has stopped even trying to fight the gay rumors. Jodie Foster has never said she's a lesbian out loud, but she basically came out when she thanked her partner in an acceptance speech.

These gay-not-gay celebrities are different from the Hugh Jackmans, John Travoltas, Tom Cruises, and Kenny Chesneys, who are all constantly plagued with gay rumors that they strenuously try to deny or deflect. If they're gay, they're doing it in secret. Cooper and his set of cohorts live openly gay lives — and that's a good thing — but they refuse to acknowledge what the public already knows.

In Anderson Cooper's specific case, we sort of understand why he won't open his mouth and let the rainbows fly. All the guy has ever wanted to do was be an old-fashioned newsman and unfortunately him coming out would make him a part of the story. Every time he tried to cover something having to do with gay civil rights (or Madonna or Fire Island) plenty of people would claim that his reporting was biased because of his sexual orientation. It's not fair: Katie Couric doesn't have to worry when she covers pay inequality for women, and neither does Harry Smith when discussing new medicine that will eradicate baldness.

Coming out would open Cooper up to irrational accusations from those waiting to pounce on the "liberal media" just as quickly as A.C. pounces on his muscle man in an Indian hotel room. That sucks, but it's the way it currently is. How does it get changed? Well, by having some major national news figures come out and show that they can still get blown over in a hurricane or report live from a war zone without breaking into a anti-Prop 8 rant.

That's right, Anderson, it's going to take you to change it. Rachel Maddow has paved the way, but all the baby gays out there need you to man up and be our Jackie Robinson. The first step is the easiest, you just have to say what everyone already knows.

Top pic of Cooper and Maisani snapped in June by Pacific Coast News; pic of Eastern Bloc via Alice Bartlett's Flickr

• Oh, god. A billion teenage brains are going to spontaneously combust today. Apparently, Zac Efron and Vanessa Hudgens are going to get married. Their union will be officiated by the Minister of Happy somewhere around Tomorrowland and they're going to ride off on a Monorail of Pleasure sometime after for their honeymoon, and teenagers all across the land will be miserably depressed. [Showbiz Spy]
  
  
• Some guy wrote a novel about uberflack Lizzie Grubman, and she said the book isn't about her. Especially the part where she plows into a bunch of people in the Hamptons with her SUV. [US Weekly]
  
  
• Amy Crackhouse wants to get back with Blake, the subject of all her songs, lawsuits, and various addictions. [Showbiz Spy]
  
  
• What's Robert Pattinson's life like living through right now? A bong? A strange prism through which all perceptions of normal proportions are heinously warped? A bunch of fans accosted him dressed as aliens the other day. Seriously. Now I feel bad for him. [Showbiz Spy]
  
  
• Meanwhile, Pattinson's co-star, Kristen Stewart, is about as famous as the penny: everyone knows who she is, and could care less. Sad. That's what she gets for not being a vampire. [Showbiz Spy]
  
  
• Rexo preggers Nicole Richie and Ellen Pompeo are now homegirls! They need to think of a name for their duo; tragically, The Rexo Preggers Club didn't make the first cut. [Page Six]
  
  
• Does Paula Abdul want back in on American Idol? Maybe! And I would like to go back into my sensory deprivation tank! Or the womb! [TMZ]
  
  
• Stellar! Kevin Spacey just wrapped on Casino Jack, the new Jack Abramoff biopic. Apparently, the movie portrays Bush and Abramoff as chummy, and makes a real ass out of Tom DeLay by portraying him as a cigar-chomping Tammany Hall type. This ought to be good. [NYDN]
  
  
• Good to know: Alaskan man-meat Levi Johnston will pose nude "for the right price." At this point, I think it's safe to say he's just a tool of the Democratic Party. [US Weekly]
  
  
• Big-dicked movie star Jamie Foxx may have impregnated more women than previously assumed! He will try to blame it on the a-a-a-a-a-alcohol and it will not work. [NYDN]
  
  
• Alyssa Milano, after dating a long lineage of rock stars, movie stars, and baseball players, ended up getting married to an agent. Go figure. Remember when she was married to the lead singer of Remy Zero? Those were the days. [NYDN]
  
  
• New Gossip Girl character: Vanessa's mom! Whee. [EW]
  
  
• Jermaine Jackson's looking for pricey new digs in Hollywood, i.e. apartments to the tune of $15M. Where's he getting his money? Come on, where do you think? Out of the pockets of his dead brother. Naturally. [Page Six]
  
  
• Why is Mariah Carey canceling events? Easy! Because Nick Cannon is broke. [People]
  
  
• TMZ thinks Britney spears copped her weave from Dog The Bounty Hunter. I laughed. Heartily. [TMZ]
  
  
• Brooklyn Foodies, beware: Tyra Banks is encroaching on your storied grounds with her financier boyfriend. So goes the item: they were at Peas and Pickles in Brooklyn Heights, and they had to have everything rung up at the register item-by-item. Lots of frozen dinners! And energy bars. It was paid for with a Black AmEx. The next time you scrape up enough nickels to hit up your corner bodega for a box of bootleg Parliament Lights, remember this. [Page Six]
  
  
• Martin Scorsese hasn't even started work on the new Sinatra movie, and Tina Sinatra is pissed at Marty's potential portrayal of her dad. She wants the movie to be about the music, and Scorsese's probably dreamed about making what should be the Goodfellas version of a musical biopic for years, now. Wonder who's gonna win out on this one. [Page Six]
  
  
• "I feel your love!" screamed Madonna as a bunch of Polish fans sung her happy birthday. She's 51! Jesus, Madge. 51, and you're still kicking around with Jesus and feeling the love of various foreigners and wearing that ridiculous kabbalah bracelet around. Here's my favorite bad Madonna video. Let's celebrate together!!1!! [NY Daily News]

This obviously didn't go very well as Spacey, who posted a tweet to his Twitter page during the demonstration, got this response from Letterman after he'd concluded his tutorial: "You know what it reminds me of? Oh yeah, a waste of time!"

According to Nikki Finke, Spacey and George Hickenlooper are visiting Abramoff right now. "The story is described to me as a modern day GoodFellas set in Washington DC." Ugh.

I'm told that Kevin Spacey is set to star as Jack Abramoff, Hayden Christensen will play Abramoff's closest associate Mike Scanlon, Spencer Garrett (Public Enemies) will play Majority Leader Tom DeLay, and Arrested Development star David Cross will play Abramoff crony Adam Kidan. The production is also in talks with Tea Leoni as Abramoff's wife.

Ok, sure! Kevin Spacey and Tea Leoni as Jack and Pam, can't you just see it?

If there's one part Kevin Spacey was born to play, it's an incredibly self-pitying, whiny sociopath. It's no surprise that Abramoff agreed to meet with the actor: he has a pathological obsession with portraying himself as a tragic figure to anyone who'll listen. And he loves the movie business!

Spacey has always conducted extensive research for his roles. In preparation for his role in Beyond the Sea, he went insane. (Watch that clip. It is child Bobby Darin singing to old Bobby Darin, who just died, on stage.)

• Gwyneth Paltrow tried to post a blind item on her Goop.com, not realizing that when people know you're half of the blind item, it's pretty easy to figure out the other half. People are reasonably sure Paltrow's ex-roommate Winona Ryder is the "frenemy who... was pretty hell-bent on taking me down." [P6]
• Jesus Luz, Madonna's Brazilian model and double rebound partner, reunited with the singer at a New York restaurant and shared a car after. He also landed a slot in Dolce & Gabbana's fall-winter men's wear campaign. Yes, we're stuck with him.
  
• When Kevin Spacey finds himself in the secret back room of a shoe store, he watches Kill Bill with his buddies. Uh, perhaps that is one element of what goes on. Sure. [P6]
• A 26-year-old woman in camouflage fatigues was arrested for peeping into Britney Spears' windows. The best part is she was initially asked to leave, but balked. Who do you security people think you are? [Us]
• The woman who was supposedly sleeping with Bruce Springsteen denied that she's been sleeping with Bruce Springsteen. But the pair do work out together, supposedly. Raising eyebrows! Because it's not like seeing Bruce Springsteen work out at your gym with anyone would raise eyebrows. It takes a harlot. [P6]
  
• Rihanna may have texted Chris Brown about his purported new girlfriend. He wrote back, "it's none of your business." Which is true. More of a case for social services. [Scoop]

Steve Carell will star in another sadsack man comedy. This one is called Dumped and is about a man who is... dumped. [Variety] Kevin Spacey will star in and produce a new indie comedy called Father of Invention, about a crazy inventor's fall from grace and subsequent comeback. A man whose biggest credit is directing a Larry the Cable Guy movie will helm. [Variety]

O.C. and Gossip Girl blunderkind Josh Schwartz will be making his directorial film debut with an adaptation of Jay McInerney's landmark 1984 novel Bright Lights, Big City. There was a Michael J. Fox movie based on the book made about twenty years ago, but... oh well. Schwartz's Lt. Riker, Stephanie Savage, will co-produce. [Variety] Pineapple Express buddies James Franco and Danny McBride will team up again for a new comedy, also to be directed by art-house auteur turned sly comedian, David Gordon Green. It's set in medieval times. Its title? Your Highness. Sigh. [Variety]

AMC, flush with successes Mad Men and Breaking Bad, is now turning itself into a regular old TV network. By developing reality programming! They've got a show called True West in the works. No, it's not about a production of the Sam Shepard play. It's about modern-day cowboys navigating the terrain as their industry fades. Sounds like a riot. [Variety] Fox, meanwhile, has rehired Wanda Sykes to host a Saturday night talk show. It'll sort of be a panel series, like the Bill Maher show. Hmm. [Variety]

SAG and AFTRA signed off on a three year commercials contract early this morning. The agreement includes a $36 million increase in wage rates and a $21 increase in contributions toward both guilds' health plans. [THR]

Kevin Rahm, who you'd recognize from a bunch of stuff, Rob Huebel, who you'd recognize from Human Giant, and Alison Brie, who you'd recognize as Pete's wife on Mad Men, have all landed TV pilots. Sadly, none of them sound good. [THR] Veteran CNN producer Kathy O'Hearn will be teaming up with veteran correspondent Christiane Amanpour for a new half-hour news program for the network. [THR]

And The Simpsons will be immortalized in postage stamp form, the Postal Service (the government thing, not the band) announced today. They'll be unveiled next week, timed well with the series' 20th anniversary. Sheesh. [THR]

Variety reports that vocal strike authorization supporter Frances Fisher recently forwarded an email, to a "significant number" of Screen Actors Guild members, which encourages voters to cast their SAG Awards ballots for anyone but the several notable nominees who have publicly opposed the union's possible strike, some citing the troubled economy. The emailer wrote:

If I were a regular, ordinary, not-rich-and-famous actor, and if I wanted my union to be strong so it could fight for me ... would I want to give any of these rich-and-famous UNION-UNDERMINERS my vote?

He or she was referring to: Steve Carell, Michael C. Hall, Kevin Spacey, Susan Sarandon, Alec Baldwin, Tony Shalhoub, Sally Field, and Josh Brolin. In, sum, all of these rich and famous folks are nominated for SAG awards this year, and the anonymous actor doesn't want them to win a beautiful trophy. That'd be showing 'em!

What's a bit strange is that some of these richie rich actors against the strike—which would, in part, fight to guarantee a residuals system for online content—are noted godless lefty progressives who should be down with the union's struggle against big bad corporate-minded producers! (I'm looking at you, Susan Sarandon and Alec Baldwin.) It's a tricky matter when the industry's myriad behind-the-scenes workers are considered—workers who would be, like they were during the WGA strike early last year, shit out of luck if a work-stoppage (which even those who support the authorization referendum are hoping desperately to avoid) were to go through. That's probably the concern of these eight people, though they may, overall, not feel quite as adamant about heckling over residual dollars as some of their lesser-known peers who, like, need to pay the rent and stuff.

Fisher had asked that her name be removed from the email if any of the recipients decided to forward the missive on to anyone else, but, well, oops! Former SAG president (and Veda Sultenfuss' uncle) Richard Masur compared the email to a blacklist and said that Fisher should publicly condemn the boycott, by way of an apology. The glittery, beautiful TNT-aired SAG awards shouldn't be sullied by politics!, the argument seems to be.

Meanwhile the 90% of SAG members who are out of work and not invited to the awards show and don't know these fools from Adam, shrug their shoulders and say "spare a quarter?"

Proposed Voting Boycott Irks SAG [Variety]

KEVIN SPACEY shocked revellers at a wild party in Croatia when he pulled a male pal’s trousers down and groped his buttocks.

The American Beauty star was snapped on holiday in Hvar getting to grips with the bare butt as his friend lay across his lap.

An onlooker said: “Kevin looked like he was a having a brilliant time.

“Most of his friends were laughing, but I couldn’t see the face of the man whose butt it was.”

A mystery! Could it have been the shirtless Ryan Gosling lookalike Spacey's recently been sighted with in Sarajevo? A penitent Bryan Singer, apologizing for the impending, possibly Spacey-less Superman reboot? Or, somehow, was it Spacey spanking himself, and the clues were there all along? Though logistically unlikely, we wouldn't put anything past the former Keyser Söze. After all, as Benicio Del Toro's Fenster would say, "Mmmfmfmsmmahhh."

[Photo Credit: Bauer-Griffin]

• A Bum Deal for Kevin Spacey [The Sun]

• It's not that Kevin Spacey wanted to pull down his friend's boxer shorts so much as that Croatian nightclub tradition basically required him to do so. [LA Rag Mag]
• Anti-Scientology group Anonymous plans to picket the Oct. 16 opening of Katie Holmes's Broadway Debut, All My Sons. [Scoop]
• Lindsay Lohan skipped the wake of her grandfather on her crazy dad's side to do some shopping. [Sun]
• Helen Mirren quit cocaine once she had a good reason to, and not a second before. [Guardian]
• Drunk John Mayer told an audience, "I had a conversation recently, and a lot of tears were exchanged." Then the Jennifer Aniston ex went to a club with a blonde cocktail waitress. [People]
• Hugh Grant has been squiring a new fashion designer girlfriend around the Hamptons. [OK!]
• Madonna's roadies don't like staying in seedy hotels and flying coach. Now they know how her brother felt! (Entitled.) [Fametastic]

fileunder's new line beats the original, "And Then I Had to Kiss Kate Bosworth! Ick!!"

The Weinsteins aren't leaving anything to chance, though, bringing out precautionary, surprisingly deferential big guns like producer Kevin Spacey just in case:

"I could not be more excited that Fanboys is being released this September and is the version of the film that the fans want," said Fanboys producer Kevin Spacey. "I am enormously grateful to Jedi Knight Harvey Weinstein for having allowed Trigger Street to restore Fanboys to its original story and am thrilled that it will first screen during Comic-Con. We believe in this film and are honored that George Lucas and all his team gave us permission to film at Skywalker Ranch and let us have so much fun with Star Wars. We also have a couple of surprises in the film that I think will bring added enjoyment to all the fans of Lucas' great and epic movies, and Trigger Street is proud to have produced this film and to have kept the dark side at bay."

"Jedi Knight Harvey Weinstein"? Great — so is this the part of Harvey's story where a disappointed Yoda is stuck raising his sunken business from the swamp? Goldman Sachs is asking for few spoilers, if so.

As SAG begins its 38th day of negotiations with the majors today, the pro-AFTRA forces have added Alec Baldwin and Kevin Spacey to their list of several hundred endorsers, led by Tom Hanks and Sally Field. ...

SAG announced Tuesday it had added high-profile supporters including Jack Nicholson, Ben Stiller, Josh Brolin, Ed Harris, Amy Madigan, Viggo Mortensen, Nick Nolte and Martin Sheen. It's also amped up its PR campaign via print ads.

The SAG-AFTRA brawling also raises the key question of clout. SAG has blasted the notion of the AFTRA deal serving as a template, because AFTRA's last primetime contract generated $40 million for members while SAG's last three-year feature-primetime pact generated $4 billion over the same period. Observers say the argument makes little sense, because SAG has so many more members working in the primetime and film arena.

Elsewhere in the paper, the AMPTP gets the backhanded benefit of the doubt: "Studios could stop haggling over pennies, but that's sort of like telling an insurance company to quit low-balling you. That's just what they do — relying on any sane person to give up first." Which suggests to us there's only one solution — a fun, unscripted, winner-take-all slugfest that would conveniently circumvent any potential work stoppage following AFTRA's ratification vote next month: Ladies and gentlemen, let's play the Feud!

• SAG, AFTRA in Spin Cycle [Variety]
• SAG Misses its 'Norma Rae' Moment [Variety]

boomp3.com


Magician/performance artist David Blaine cornered The Usual Suspects star Kevin Spacey at a William Morris party in New York City on Monday night. Spacey started off the conversation by asking about Blaine's most recent stunt, but Blaine immediately shifted the conversation to the film The Usual Suspects. Blaine explained that he had seen The Usual Suspects over fifteen times and still hasn't been able to fully wrap his head around the concept of Spacey's character being the infamous Keyser Soze. Spacey chuckled slightly and went on to explain how his character turned out to be the criminal mastermind. Blaine paused for a moment, then said he may have to sit down for a while because his mind had just been blown.

[Photo Credit: Getty Images]

First, we present the leading men we suspect Kate had no problems getting down and dirty with, from Brandon Routh in Superman Returns to surfer boy Matt Davis in Blue Crush (at right). And though Kate claims some booze was consumed before making out with Jim in 21, we're pretty sure she didn't turn to her stash carefully hidden in the wardrobe department just so she could get through the shoot, judging by this image of him from the movie, at center.

But what of these three? In the college sex 'n drugs flick Rules of Attraction, Kate had to go at it with spikey-haired, long-faced James Van Der Beek, who played a drug-addled violent kid causing trouble. We suspect pills in the benzo category were required; maybe a little Valium or Ativan to numb herself out take after take. And then there was that gruesome bathroom sex scene with Val Kilmer in Wonderland. Kilmer can certainly be a looker when he cleans up, but playing (yup, another) druggie with greasy hair and a ten-o-clock shadow, we're guessing Kate hit the gin hard before getting banged around for this scene. And finally we come to the lovely Kevin Spacey, her other 21 co-star. Personally we wouldn't mind making out with Kev sober, but that's only if we figure out a way to unplug our gaydar. We figure Kate just smoked a joint or two and imagined a parallel universe in which all those gay rumors didn't exist.

Cheers to Kate for proving that sex scenes, no matter who you do 'em with, can be one big high after another.

• KATE BOSWORTH BLACKS OUT HER STEAMY '21' LOVE SCENE [People]

• Anne Heche's soon to be ex claims that the actress is "delusional" and shouldn't be given full custody of their kid. Heche's lawyers fired back a statement claiming that the former cameraman just wants more of Heche's money. It's all so Federline-Spearsy! [TMZ]
  
• Heche also partied to a Lohanian extent at The Box the other night. [Page Six]
  
• A stylist has charged Oprah's Broadway production of The Color Purple with bias against "people of color." I know, right? [Page Six]
  
• Hilary and Haylie Duff rank above Coco and Ice-T in the celebrity hierarchy, in case you're making some kind of a graph. [Page Six]
  
• Mary Louise Parker is back on the market again. [R&M, 2nd item]
  
• "I do what I want to do. I just live my life and never give a shit how it looks," Kevin Spacey tells Cindy Adams. He's an open book, that guy! [Cindy]

Kevin! Kevin!

Hey actor man ha ha! Welcome back to New York Fuckin City, yo!

You look so much better than I thought you would! No it's just the British diet can sometimes add poundage to Americans. All that bacon.

Anywho...I just wanted to say I'm so so sorry.

About that annoying Ben Brantley review in the Times. Oh, you don't read reviews, of course of course.

No, it wasn't horrible, or a pan...but it didn't quite TRUMPET your return to the American stage like it should have, you know?

It wasn't all that bad. He just said that you go through O'Neill's speeches at the pace of a stand up comic and render his classic language meaningless. He DID call you "lively as a frog on a hot plate," which is kind of cute.

Anyway Brantley can be so prissy sometimes. You know how those theater queens are. I mean, of course you don't know exactly...about theater queens...

But you know, what does he know...those who can't DO, write about it, right? I mean, being a two time Oscar winner and one of our most gifted actors, you deserve better. He should be on his KNEES in front of you. So to speak.

Gay guys can be so pushy sometimes, you know? Roseanne Barr was right - they're always complaining and yawing about their rights, always wanting people to come out of the closet and claim their identities and be honest, like it's going to actually matter or move society forward in some way. (Oh I am being so politically incorrect right now. This is just between you and me...two stable heterosexuals.)

But hey. How are you, really? I was worried about you. If you have recovered from that summer night a couple of years ago in London when you had that terrible run in with that young man in a park at approximately 4:30 A.M, while walking your dog. That horrible horrible young fresh boy conned you into using your cellphone so he could call his sick mother, then ran away, and you tripped over your dog's leash and got bruises...! The youths in parks of London in the middle of the night are so untrustworthy! It's like you can't walk in peace in the middle of the night in parks anymore, you know?

Anyway, don't let the evil theater fags get to you. Just keep on keepin' on. It's funny...I was backstage at "Magical" getting stoned with Vanessa before she went on to do her acclaimed performance in Joanie's play. And we were just talking about you and how brave it is of you to bring "Moon" to Broadway and how it's always so hard to return to the New York theater. Mamma New York is a cruel yenta: you leave her for a minute, and she will make you regret it like only a Jewish mother can...Of course Vanessa like the greatest living actress so she sort of rises above this, but we were giggling about it backstage.

Well, anyway, I for one am so glad you are back in the city. You haven't missed much: wine bars are hot, creampuffs have replaced cupcakes as the hip sweet treat, and there aren't any poor people.

Oh and the Roxy closed!

I mean, not that you would care. Except didn't I see you...? Oh never mind.

Break a leg tonight!

Earlier: No Impact Whatsoever