The star of Tom Ford's directorial debut, a gay love story that's out today, says he's unhappy about the Weinstein Co's efforts to "sanitize" the gay content of the film in the trailer and promotional posters to widen its appeal.

For real, Rastas believe all types of weird shit. Bob Marley thought the Emperor of Ethiopia was basically Jesus. That's crazy! Great music though. What have we learned? People who hold psycho political beliefs can make jammin-ass music. Surprise!

Onetime TV star Bronson Pinchot has some not-so-nice things to say about Tom Cruise. Fate will bring Octomom and Jon Gosselin together. Salman Rushdie is still pining for Padma. Presenting your Tuesday morning Gossip Roundup!

Now here's a scandal we sink our teeth into: Herman Thomas, a judge from Alabama, will stand trial for allegedly spanking inmates with paddles and, also, having sex with them. The putrid tale's a collection of sensational twists. Or devices.

Regulators! Mount. Up. Warren G got interviewed by Eric Spitznagel (Read: NILLA) for Vanity Fair. Spitznagel's interviewed lots of celebrities for lots of Nilla publications (The Believer, anyone?) and is a likable writer. But he'll remember this for a while:

"It's stupid to be homophobic," mused a guy working in a downtown bar last night. "And it's really stupid to be homophobic if you're in the restaurant business. And it's really stupid to be homophobic if you're in the fashion business." The subject of his rant: Taavo Somer, the 35-year-old owner of faux-rustic LES hipster haven Freemans and faux-nautical bar The Rusty Knot and proprietor of his own fashion line of $88 t-shirts. Somer was anointed by New York magazine this year as "the next groovy thing," the embodiment of forward-thinking hipster cool. But this ex-employee was of the opinion that Taavo is an ass [UPDATE: Even more opinions now, below!]: According to this guy—who worked at one of Somers' places for an extended period of time—Somer is not just a homophobe; he is dumb. I believe the approximate descriptor was, "big, idiotic bigot." He described Somer as an "idiot savant," able to build successful restaurants while being, simultaneously, "one of the stupidest people I ever met." He also said just about everyone who's worked in Somers' establishments can't stand him. The conversations, he said, go like this: "Oh, you used to work at Freemans?" (*Shakes head in dismay*). Of course, Taavo can always escape to his upstate estate if things get too negative in the city. Just one ex-employee's opinion! Feel free to email us a rebuttal, Taavo. UPDATE: We've received two additional notes about Taavo. The first comes from restaurateur Ken Friedman, Taavo's business partner:

THe L Word doesn't show any ads, because it's on Showtime. But now the show popular with lesbians and non-lesbians alike has done something that will either become the future standard of television, or destroy the show forever: it has given its writer and creator the power to "control all brand integration" in the show. That means the writer, rather than the ad people, will be selling the product placements and determining how they play out. And it may become the de facto place for bad companies looking to make sweet $300,000 advertising love with the gay audience:

Perhaps you've heard the news that Nike has pulled its "That Ain't Right" balls-in-face ads after an outpouring of outrage sparked largely by this very website (though we weren't the first to address it). Are you proud of yourselves, commentariat? You are feared in all corners of corporate America. But the larger point here is that advertising is getting to be a very touchy business; companies are making fools of themselves nearly every week because of the crackheaded work of one of their ad agencies. After the jump, we look at five ads that had to be yanked recently, where they went wrong, and who came out ahead. Read and learn:

The PC joke police are steamrolling testosterone-based advertising! First Nike had to pull its "Air Stab" sneakers out of stores in the UK because people thought they were encouraging unrestrained knife crime. Not a week later, Nike found itself under assault by gays and their internet sympathizers over an ad showing a basketball guy hanging his nuts in another guys' face, with the slogan "That Ain't Right." And now the rising pro-homo chorus has forced Snickers to pull its ad in which Mr. T shoots a speed walker (and gay caricature) with a gatling gun while screaming, "Get some nuts!" Oh, some people get insulted by every little thing. Couldn't they just have digitally inserted a thought balloon on the guy saying "NO HOMO"? Watch the too hot for PC ad yourself, after the jump:

Nike's new ad campaign for its Hyperdunk shoes features a series of pictures of basketball players getting dunked on in what's considered the worst way possible: the dunker dangling off the rim, his balls dangling in the face of the man being dunk-ee. They all have dynamic slogans like "That Ain't Right!" The company has been plastering them around NYC's most famous streetball meccas, like Harlem (home to The Rucker) and West 4th St. Their rollout coincides with a big foofaraw this week (which some critics say is stupid oversensitivity) over whether the ad industry is making blatantly homophobic ads. All of which raises the question: Are these Nike ads a new low in homophobic advertising? Or do the gays just not understand basketball?

Oh Shia LaBeouf. That actor who we find so mysteriously over-hyped has landed himself in a bit of hot water. A video surfaced a couple of days ago on YouTube of a younger LaBeouf drunkenly calling his friend a 'faggot' and telling the kid to slap him. He does, in fact, get slapped and it is very satisfying. Then the videographer (Roger Deakins, we assume) urges Shia to take another shot of tequila. Now Shia is telling us that he's sorry.

Jerry Lewis, who is either a French comedian or the guy who sang "Great Balls of Fire" and married his cousin, we forget which, called someone an "illiterate fag" during his annual Labor Day MDA telethon on live TV. Now he will never guest-star on 'Gray's Anatomy'! Also, did you know "fag" is the new "f-bomb"? [TMZ]

As far as we're concerned, one of history's all-time greatest ledes comes from the pen of Edna Buchanan. Calvin Trillin described it in a 1986 New Yorker profile of the then-Miami Herald reporter: