Jeff Graham, an Atlanta AIDS activist, won’t be one of the presidential hopefuls on Showtime’s ‘American Candidate,’ freeing him to continue activism close to his heart and closer to home. (Photo by R.O. Youngblood)
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Jun 18, 2004  | COMMENTS |   |  

ATLANTA’S JEFF GRAHAM found out last week that he won’t have to be ready for his television close-up.

The executive director of AIDS Survival Project, who had a recent turn in local theater in the gay play “Love! Valour! Compassion!,” was also vying for one of 12 spots on the Showtime reality show, “American Candidate,” which airs as a 10-episode set beginning Aug. 1.

The show, filming now, attempts to identify regular-folk candidates for president and follow their campaigns. The 12 finalists make fake runs for the highest office in the land, with someone being eliminated each week.

Some candidates will be kicked off the campaign trail based on how they perform in political scenarios, but viewers can also call in votes for their favorite candidates “American Idol” style.

At the end of the series, the final candidate wins $200,000 and the chance to address the nation through a major media outlet.

Even without Graham, gay candidates are in the mix, including political daughter CHRISSY GEPHARDT and activist KEITH BOYKIN. Boykin and Gephardt each sent out a written statement asking supporters and friends to show up to their first “campaign” event.

The candidates with the fewest number of attendees at their first event will be booted from the show.

For Graham, just trying to make the show was reward enough, he says.

“I can now devote the next several months towards working on the real issues I care so much about,” Graham says. “Fighting the anti-gay marriage amendment, working for single-payer health care and supporting the amazing work that transforms lives here at AIDS Survival Project every day.

“I certainly had fun,” he says.

Size tsars
The Cold War was basically the Soviet Union and the U.S. fighting over who had bigger, er, missiles.

OK, it was more complicated than that. But even though the war is over, there is still some Cold War penis envy floating about, at least when it comes to the “missiles” of RASPUTIN and NAPOLEON.

Yes, the preserved penis of Grigory Rasputin, the famous Russian cleric, court lover and adviser to tsar Nicholas II, is now on display in the Russian Museum of Erotica. The museum recently opened in St. Petersberg, according to the Russian newspaper Nezavisimaya Gazeta.

“Having this exhibit, we can stop envying America, where Napoleon Bonaparte’s penis is now kept,” Igor Knyazkin, chief of the prostate research center of the Russian Academy of Natural Sciences, told the paper. “Napoleon’s penis is but a small ‘pod.’ It cannot stand comparison to our organ of 30 centimeters.”

Dish is hoping that neither dismembered member can “stand” at all anymore.

For the curious, 30 centimeters is equal to about 12 inches.

Finding good help
Screen legend and AIDS activist ELIZABETH TAYLOR settled a wrongful termination lawsuit last week with her former gardener of 10 years, according to the Associated Press.

The gardener, Millem Van Muyden, claimed he was fired without being paid $294,000 that Taylor owed him. Van Muyden contended that Taylor’s butler, Jean-Luc Lacquement, urged her to fire him after he rebuffed Lacquement’s sexual advances.

Terms of the settlement were not made public, but Taylor’s lawyer told the AP that no monetary damages were awarded. A ruling on Van Muyden’s legal expenses is pending.