‘The Choice’ premieres June 7 on Fox.

PHOTO: David Butler II-US PRESSWIRE

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Kate Levering and Serena Williams on set of 'Drop Dead Diva'

Pro tennis legend Serena Williams guest stars on this season’s Drop Dead Diva on Lifetime, and Outsports snagged an exclusive photo of her with one of the show’s stars, Kate Levering. Williams plays a lawyer representing Brandy Norwood’s character in a custody case against law firm head honcho Jay Parker (Josh Stamberg). Fresh off his win at the GLAAD Awards last Saturday, show creator and executive producer Josh Berman told Outsports:

It was amazing.  She was a total pro.  The actors loved having her on set.  In fact, I hear that one of the actors is going to the gym with her after she’s done shooting.

The season premiere of Drop Dead Diva is June 3 on Lifetime.

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Chris and Steve talked about New England, motorcycles and the Marines. Tyler was with his biker friends but took time out to pose with Chris, still wearing his league jersey.

One of the perks of living in a place like L.A. are these random kind of meetings, and one way to get some pub for a gay flag football league.

Steven and Chris:

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The obvious draw for NASCAR is the speed, cars going up to about 500 miles per hour, right? And so that’s going to burn a lot of fuel.

Oy.

He obviously doesn’t know what the Indy 500 is, thinking it’s cars going 500 mph and not a 500-mile race. Plus, the Indy 500 isn’t even a NASCAR race. L. O. L!

For the record, a jet flying from New York to Los Angeles goes about 500 miles per hour. That’s really, really fast. Very few land vehicles have ever achieved that speed going straight forward (see: Nevada desert), let alone a few dozen of them racing against one another around a circular track. Completing the race in about three hours, Indy 500 drivers average around 170 miles per hour. NASCAR racers can peak around the 200 mph range.

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The Sault Ste Marie Greyhounds of the Ontario Hockey League (a top junior ice hockey league in Canada) also took a stand against homophobia with a video featuring their general manager and two players. It’s so low-budget it’s actually quite cute, and the fact that it is so rudimentary actually drives home the message. The reaction shots are hysterical; They’re laughing through half the video. It’s quite endearing.

Four broadcasters from TSN, which is Canada’s version of ESPN, teamed up to create a video saying they will not make sexual orientation a focus of their coverage.

We will evaluate you on your athletic abilities. We will not turn your sexual orientation into your defining characteristic.

It’s an interesting choice. Certainly athletes want to be judged by their performance in games. However, reporters refusing to ask questions about sexual orientation is one of the main reasons there hasn’t been more ground broken on this issue. It’s a defense we hear thrown up from reporters all the time: “It shouldn’t matter if someone’s gay, so I’m not going to talk about it.” Many athletes are ready and willing to talk about these issues, but the reporters won’t ask the questions.

I appreciate the sentiment behind what they’re trying to say. We hear that gay athletes might be afraid they’ll be labeled “the gay athlete” after coming out (though, we never hear pro gay athletes say that – we just hear people speculate about that). Either way, guess what: They’re right. For a time, anyway. Whether that player likes it or not, it will be and should be (from a journalist’s perspective) the angle from which he’s covered for days if not weeks after he comes out. At some point it stops being the story, and it’s back to only sports stats and performance.

Again, I appreciate the sentiment: “We don’t care if you’re gay, we just want you out on the ice.” They didn’t have to make the video, but they did, and that’s awesome! What they actually said, as both a journalist and a gay man, made me cringe just a bit.

Interestingly, I couldn’t find the video anywhere on the TSN Web site. I searched the site and the video library: Nada.

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I was an odd creature in high school because I was a target but also I was popular, and that’s because on the sly, I was dating a lot of the football players.

“A lot of the football players?” I’d consider “a lot” to be like six or seven. So Murphy wants us to believe he was dating six or seven football players when he was in high school in the early 1980s? One football player I can believe. But once you get past two he loses all credibility…and “two” is not “a lot.”

In case you hadn’t noticed, guys are pretty territorial when it comes to dating. You look at somebody’s “woman” the wrong way and you’ll get punched in the face. Yet Murphy wants everyone to believe he went from player to player? Or maybe he’s saying the football team passed him around like a peace pipe? It’s just not believable.

Maybe Murphy is confusing reality with fantasy…or wishful thinking.

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Hat tip to Towleroad. 

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You can see the full video at USA Today.

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Patrick appeared on John Buccigross’ podcast earlier this week and talked briefly about his new charity. Details to come. Story developing…

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