He's gay, and he's got a big, big, big...

. . . brokerage account! That's Peter Thiel (left), uber-investor, resident of San Francisco's posh Pacific Heights 'hood, and employer of a butler, Silicon Valley gossipeuse Valleywag is now reporting.

"By now, you've likely heard how Peter Thiel parlayed a $500,000 investment in Facebook to a stake now worth $750 million,'' the Wag says. "There's been a crush of coverage on his $220 million Founders Fund, which may well change the way entrepreneurs get paid in the Valley. We know about his mansion (he rents it -- clever!), his butler, his early-morning jogs. But what no one ever says out loud: Thiel is gay."

What are they drinking in the Menlo Park venture-capital firms along Sand Hill Road? Thiel would be at least the second high-profile outing this year of one of these famously stuffed-shirt financiers.

You talking about facial hair or Reese?

That's a Jezebel reader's response to the fashion blog's question, "Jake Gyllenhaal: Better with a beard or without?" As faithful Castro Confidential readers know, I'm quite convinced that dear Jake is only dating Reese Witherspoon so he can get that much closer to her ex-squeeze, the hunkalicious Ryan Phillippe.

Quelle surprise: The French wear underwear!

The usual suspects have condemned a Folsom Street Fair poster (above)portraying Jesus Christ and his disciples as "half-naked homosexual sadomasochists." A new book, 50 Reasons to Hate the French, cites a government survey that found 40% of French men and 25% of French women don't change their underwear daily. Australian gay glossie DNA launches its newest issue (left) with the winner of its model search, Dennis, on the cover. More photos of boxer Oscar De La Hoya in drag have surfaced; check him out in a pink miniskirt. Plus, arrestingly (har!) sexy Kent McCord, one-half of the Adam-12 cop show team, turns 65 today; more big birthdays here.

We're desperate for more gay characters

A new study found the number of gay characters is falling on network TV shows -- but rising on cable ones like Desperate Housewives, where Tuc Watkins (left) is joining the cast. A New York man accused of murdering a gay guy is defending himself against charges it was a hate crime by insisting he's gay; his proof: he's introduced as evidence his own stash of gay porn. Plus, Silicon Valley is definitely in a bubble, says wee San Francisco lesbian blogger Kara Swisher (she's only 5'2''!), if social networking site Facebook -- led by cute CEO Mark Zuckerberg -- is valuing itself as high as $15 billion.

[Photo: Watkins, who with actor Kevin Rahm, plays a gay couple moving to Wisteria Lane when the new season of Desperate Housewives debuts Sunday]

His huge hose can now be bought

Absurdly well-hung Brooklyn fireman Michael Biserta (left), whose schlong starred in a Guys Gone Wild video, is up for bids tonight at a dinner-with-a-celebrity auction in New York. The Great Media War, a new book by escort-turned-secret-conservative White House press reporter Jeff Gannon, is bombing at the newsstands. Semi-hot Hercules TV series actor Kevin Sorbo turns 49 today; more big birthdays here. Plus, definitely hot-daddy actor Bruce Willis and his entourage of eight got no respect at 1940s-era Havana-themed club Socialista in New York.

Euro maxes; schoolboy sex, Wilson's 36

Just in time for my upcoming trip to France, the euro hits another new high against the dollar. A new book out next week, Restless Virgins, says top-drawer Milton Academy is a hotbed of kinky, casual teen sex; the authors describe acts of sodomy and claim that to the Boston-area prep school's hockey team, "group sex acts were just like showering together after practice." (Uhh: Yeah!) Plus, actor Luke "The Butterscotch Stallion" Wilson turns 36 today; more big birthdays here. [Photo: A Gallic hunk at Paris gay pride 2007]

It's a bankers' holiday!

Wall Street investment tycoons have even more big bucks to shower on their naughty boy toys as stocks keep going ga-ga today over the Federal Reserve's surprisingly steep rate cuts; the rally even sucks in shares of fucked-up PlanetOut, corporate parent of Gay.com. Supermodel Twiggy, known for the mod look created by British fashion designer Mary Quant, turns 58 today; more big birthdays here. And it was love at first stick-up: Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid committed their first robbery together 107 years ago today. [Photo: Men at Play]

Barneys beckons; Mapplethorpe remembered

Led by Wednesday's opening of the city's first Barneys, San Francisco is about to get a host of new and expanded retailers, including diamond king De Beers; Prada, and Helmut Lang. The Minneapolis airport toilet stall where Sen. Larry "Wide Stance" Craig was busted for soliciting sex has become a tourist attraction. Edward Mapplethorpe tells New York magazine he was drawn to the creative universe of his famous photographer brother Robert (left), "a world of subversive sex and hard drugs, obsession and ambition, darkness and beauty." Sounds like fun! Even though Edward says he isn't gay! Plus, it takes three hours to style Michael Jackson's "freaky coif,'' says the ever-reliable Page Six.

[Photo: Robert Mapplethorpe in a self-portrait, 1980]

Arnie veto expected; plus, a new office sweet

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger is expected to veto the latest same-sex marriage bill approved by the state legislature, the San Francisco Chronicle says today. Those naughty boys at business-attire-themed porn producer Men at Play have released their newest waggishly-titled concoction, KamaSuitra Gold (left). Smack down! Chris Crocker, the over-the-top, 19-year-old way-fey Britney Spears fan, goes after Fox News in a new YouTube video: "Mention me again and there will be a problem, Fox News." Crocker's original video screed attacking Spears' critics continues to climb YouTube's charts. Meanwhile, oldie and definitely moldy disco group The Village People plans to sue YouTube over a video featuring Hitler and a coterie of prominent Nazis singing YMCA.

Becks won't do gay for pay; Gallo's penis envy

Desperate Housewives star Eva Longoria has put the kibosh on wishful rumors that skirt-wearing British soccer stud David Beckham (left) is being considered for a role as one of the two new gay neighbors on the hit TV series. Plus, strange-looking actor Vincent Gallo says: Yessiree bob! That was my cock in indy film The Brown Bunny. (Gallo, BTW, was awesome with Christina Ricci in Buffalo '66!)

'Ass' is arrested; plastic lust, a cowboy's b-day

New York gay nightspot Mr. Black, host of one of my favorite websites, was busted as a big drug den; among those taken in: "The Ass," aka Luke Nero, a waiter who goes bottomless. San Francisco Chronicle sex columnist Violet Blue probes (har!) the ethics of fucking inflatable dolls. Plus, Randy Jones (above), the original cowboy in the Village People, turns 55 today; more big birthdays here.

Next stop, rehab? (And not for Spears...)

Hard to tell whether this is a genuine -- or fake -- defense of Britney Spears after her disastrous comeback on the MTV Video Music Awards Sunday night. It was posted yesterday by Web celebrity Chris Crocker, 19, who describes himself as "The Queen of Ghetto" in his YouTube profile. "The game is positivity,'' Crocker writes. "I believe the best way to educate and spread positivity is through entertainment, which translates to edutainment. Which just so happens to be my speciality." In any case, this video's been viewed more than 420,000 times in less than 24 hours. Oy.

What makes the opera so gay?

A little skin, in the form of this hunk dressed as a temple guard at the San Francisco Opera's 85th opening night gala Saturday night . . .

. . . and a lot o' fur and jewels, in the form of the city's top moneybags socialite, La Dede Wilsey (wearing Oscar de la Renta!). The San Francisco Chronicle has all the bold-face names here. [Photos: Laura Morton, Chronicle]

Penn plays Milk; Becks fights, Phillippe ages

Sean Penn will play gay 1970s San Francisco supervisor Harvey Milk, and Matt Damon his assassin, in a long-planned movie by director Gus Van Sant; filming could start in December. Soccer god David Beckham, worried about losing his gay fans, says Britain's Daily Star, denies he called an ex-teammate a "poof." Plus, major cutie-pie Ryan Phillippe (left), now being thrown overboard by his clearly insane soon-to-be ex-wife Reese Witherspoon, turns 33 today; more big birthdays here.

Macho men go gay, Nolan suits us fine

From Latin America to Africa, the growing maturity of the gay-rights movement in the western world is now spreading to developing nations, Newsweek magazine says in a new cover story (left), "Sex and the Macho Man." In San Francisco, football coaching dreamboat Mike Nolan gets the best-dressed award when the 49ers face off in their season opener against the Arizona Cardinals Monday night, the San Francisco Chronicle says. Plus, Syliva Miles, fabulous as the kept woman boinking Jon Voight in Midnight Cowboy, turns 75 today; more big birthdays here.

Jobs aren't us; Gaynor gains, Bankhead redux

Yikes! We're all gonna lose our jobs because the economy's going into a total molto-meltdown. (Or not!) Answer: A gazillion. Question: "Just how many closeted, self-hating, violently repressed 'I-am-not-gay' totally gay hypocrites are there in the Republican Party?" Disco diva Gloria "I Will Survive" Gaynor (left) turns 58 today; more big birthdays here. Plus, Out There's dish, yesterday, on Tallulah Bankhead reminds me of a story from playwright Lillian Hellman's memoirs, Pentimento. While she was being considering for the role of Regina in the stage version of Hellman's The Little Foxes, Bankhead insisted on being interviewed in bed, with her husband, John Emery, by her side. "'Wait a minute, darling, just wait a minute. I have something to show you,''' Hellman quotes Bankhead saying. "She threw aside the sheets, pointed down at the naked, miserable Emery and said, 'Just tell me, darling, if you've ever seen a prick that big.''' Meanwhile, in other big-cock news, we have this debate. Mangia!

'Purple hairs' called out; Craig's waffling anew

San Francisco magazine dishes a bit of dirt on the new (apparently very straight) chief of one of the city's gayest groups: the San Francisco Opera. "Ah, the things we do for love, the things we do for money," the frank-talking David Gockley (left) tells the magazine. (Confidential to Dede Wilsey: How do you like being lumped in with the "purple-hair" set?) In an about-face, conservative Idaho Sen. Larry "Wide Stance" Craig hinted today that he won't finish out his term after all, following his guilty plea in a sex-sting operation. Plus, Jo Anne Worley of Laugh-In fame turns 70 today; more big birthdays here.

Leading B.A.R.: 'Justice with a snap'

What I'm reading today our our little weekly: MOVE OVER, JUDGE JUDY. Judge David Young of Miami will deliver "justice with a snap" when his half-hour syndicated TV show debuts Monday. BURNING DEATH. A man who committed suicide at Burning Man last week died in one of the event's gay camps. OUT THERE. Tallulah Bankhead (left) paved the way for Sen. Larry "Wide Stance" Craig (last item). CRIME & PUNISHMENT. A mugging near Sparky's Diner on Church Street, a pit bull is stolen, and a crazy man runs naked.

Will the real Sullivan husbear step forward?

I was surprised that blogger Andrew Sullivan's wedding last week didn't make Sunday's New York Times, given the high-profile position he's taken on gay marriage. Meanwhile, I may have sussed out a photo or two of Sullivan's elusive but very hairy hubbie, the artist and music re-mixer Aaron Tone. I'm confident that's him, above, with their two beagles; I'm less confident about the photo, left, presumably pre-beard. In any case, they've lived together two or three years. The vitals: Sullivan's 44; Tone, 31. Still no word on exactly how tall Tone stands; he looked about 6'3'' when I saw him recently. A quick glance at his websites here and here, though, shows he's kind of a big ol' poofter: He loves, loves, loves Madonna! Plenty of gossip on the newlyweds here. Some of it might even be true! Plus, don't miss the controversy over whether a Tone painting shows Sullivan's butt. Still, maybe I'm just sentimental, but I liked what Sullivan wrote about his pre-wedding jitters.

Hippies in big trip; Anna Nicole's lovers gay?

More than 50,000 aging hippies gathered in Golden Gate Park on Sunday to celebrate the 40th anniversary of the Summer of Love. Bongs were suddenly joining hearing aids and cellphones as must-have devices. Two men who competed to be declared the father of Anna Nicole Smith's multi-millionaire child were once lovers, a new book says; Larry Birkhead (top), who was eventually named the father, and Howard Stern (bottom), disputed the claim. A South Texas police chief has been arrested for having sex with passed-out-drunk male employees during parties at his home. My kind of boss! Plus, the New York Times dishes dirt about Leona "only the rich people pay taxes" Helmsley's Maltese pooch, Trouble, who inherited a $12 million trust fund after the Queen of Mean died.