Leading B.A.R.: We're getting all leather-y

What I'm reading in our little weekly today: LEATHER NATION. Folsom Street Fair weekend approaches and leather columnist Mister Marcus can barely keep a dry eye. To wit: "At approximately 12:30 p.m., the crew and spectators gathered in the area of the Harvey Milk Plaza to witness what is always an inspiring scene, the raising of the leather pride flag." (Oy.) CRIME & PUNISHMENT. A gun is seized, plus a rash of robberies and burglaries. WISH YOU WERE HERE. Florida tourism officials want a bigger slice of the gay market. KARRNAL KNOWLEDGE. Who knew? Porno producers unleash a raft of new flicks every year tied to Folsom Street Fair -- including this year's Folsom Leather, with newcomer Rick van Sant (shown above). OUT THERE. Our weekly's occasionally zaftig columnist notes: "It's such fun being clean!"

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]

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]

'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.

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.

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.

There'll always be naughty boys in France

If I only knew French better, I could maybe understand the serial killer theme behind the new issue of gay-boy glossy, Pref magazine, now heading to global newsstands. Maybe the point is: We love bad boys. In the era of Idaho Sen. Larry "Wide Stance" Craig, these are my kind of mug shots!

Diana, at 10; Craig resigning? Craig marrying!

Millions of folks worldwide are asking "Where were you when" today amid the 10th anniversary of the death of pop Princess Diana of Wales (left, top). (I was in a Chicago bathhouse, natch!) We're all grateful her son, Prince William, 25 (left, middle), second in line to the British throne, doesn't look like his dad. Across the pond, meanwhile, Idaho Sen. Larry "Wide Stance" Craig (left, bottom) is considering resigning as pressure builds over his guilty plea from charges he solicited sex from an undercover cop in a men's toilet at Minneapolis' airport. Breaking my heart, James Bond star Daniel Craig has gotten engaged to a film producer -- and she's a she! An Iowa judge struck down the state's decade-old gay marriage ban, saying it violated constitutional rights of due process and equal protection. Plus, actor and Mayflower descendant Richard Gere turns 58 today; more big birthdays here.

[Photos: top, Terry Hutt, 72, outside Kensington Palace in London today; photo by Lefteris Pitarakis, Associated Press. Craig arrest photo, Minneapolis police department]

Leading B.A.R.: Karr's sex-change of heart

What I'm reading today in our little weekly:

• TRANSSEXUAL KARR. Creepy-crazy one-time JonBenet Ramsey murder suspect John Mark Karr tells B.A.R. that he had sought a sex-change operation to evade the cops.
• FUR-SURE. The annual Lazy Bear Weekend grabbed $180,000 for charity.
• AIDS IN DA HOUSE. Developers are interesting in building housing for folks with AIDS on two city-owned parking lots in the Castro: one behind the Walgreen's at Castro and 18th, the second behind the Castro Theatre.
• CRIME & PUNISHMENT. Scads of burglaries, including an 18th Street house robbery while the victim was still home.
• OUT THERE. Esteban Sabar Gallery in Oakland is mounting (harr!) bare-naked art in "Full Frontal: a male view of the male figure" from Sept. 7-30.
• KARRNAL KNOWLEDGE. Although No. 1 sucked (harr again!), A Rim with a View Number 2 is a hit; "relish each wisp of corn-silk hair that rings the rosy rectums of the movie's blondes." Gorgeous!

[Drawing: Curious Glance, by Fernando Reyes; charcoal, white chalk on tan BFK Rives paper, 30"x22"; 2007. From "Full Frontal" exhibit]

Leading B.A.R.: Russian bears and alley cats

What I'm reading this morning in our little weekly: COPS HUNTING. Police have resumed their search for suspects in a June attack on two gay man where one was stabbed on 19th Street. BARE BEARS: Thousands of big hairy gay guys converge on the Russian River's Guerneville for Lazy Bear Weekend. HALLOWEEN TROUBLE? Efforts to move the violence-scarred Halloween night street party from the Castro to the waterfront took a hit when pop singer Pink pulled out of the event. KARRNAL KNOWLEDGE: Exploring the guilty pleasures of swallowing in Muscle Pit, where the actors "like men, period." MISTER MARCUS staggers across the finish line with an Up Your Alley roundup. [Photo: an Up Your Alley attendee, B.A.R.]

Leading B.A.R.: Counting down to Dore Alley

What I'm reading today in our little weekly: MISTER MARCUS says up to 20,000 leather queens are expected for this weekend's leather-palooza, Up Your Alley (above; inset left, from last year). HOMICIDE HELP? Police need help solving the S&M-related murder of a local man after finding a suspicious B.A.R. advertisement by a suspect arrested in the case. BLUE CHAIRS: Puerto Vallarta joins Palm Springs, Provincetown and Key West as a growing gay hot spot. CRIME & PUNISHMENT. Vandalism at a coin-operated laundry; and Albertine, a 9-year-old Saint Francis terrier, left his Dolores Park play group, ran up to a man, bit him on the right calf, "then ran back to the pack as if nothing happened." How rude! KARRNAL KNOWLEDGE. Fist and South, Part I stretches, uh, celestial boundaries: "The dildos used in two scenes have the circumference of small planets." Plus, OUT THERE begs John Travolta: Get off your knees!

[Photo inset: That sexy alley cat is from dram's Flickr page]

This stripper's gay for (collection plate) pay

Goodness gracious! A Catholic priest doesn't molest a young man -- and still gets in trouble! Rev. Mark Sorvillo (left) admitted stealing nearly $200,000 from parishioners and spending oodles on himself and a married hottie who stripped at Man's Country and other gay clubs in Chicago. The Chicago priest gave cars, plane tickets and thousands of dollars in cash to James Sosnicki of Louisville (right), the Chicago Sun-Times says. [Photos: Sun-Times]

Leading B.A.R.: Serving up a 'Shirley Temple'

What I'm reading today in our little weekly: HALLOWEEN RUMBLE. The only person charged in the Halloween night shootings that injured nine people in the Castro last year has pleaded guilty. KARRNAL KNOWLEDGE. The new porn video Rich Kid (left) overflows with the sort of sex this reviewer loves: "It's like Shirley Temple's animal crackers -- I gobble it right down." OUT THERE. Dishing up a tale about the late, great Beverly Sills "that makes Eve Harrington look like a girl scout." MISTER MARCUS. An East Bay leather beauty pageant features a contestant pulverizing beef steaks to the tune, I Beat My Meat. (Does PETA know about this?)

Six degrees of Andrew Cunanan

Fashion designer Gianni Versace's Miami mansion surrounded by yellow police tape (above) and Time magazine's cover (left) as cops hunted for his killer. Andrew Cunanan, 28, had already murdered four men and was on his way to killing a fifth, the police said, when I arrived in Provincetown that July. There were "wanted" posters in shop windows along Commercial Street -- and in San Francisco, New York and other places with lots of gay men. It would be a little while before I knew Cunanan had visited the West Side Club in Chelsea within a week of my being there. That was the game we played: six degrees of Andrew Cunanan. It ended when Cunanan, holed up in a Miami houseboat, killed himself as police apparently drew closer. But not before he murdered his fifth victim, Versace, 10 years ago today, on the front steps of the designer's South Beach palazzo.

'Sex' to the big screen; Lachey's lusty

Sex and the City is about to become Sex and the City: The Movie, with all four principal cast members from the HBO series appearing on the big bad screen after Kim Cattrall (left) resolved a contract dispute. Al Gore III, son of the eco-friendly former VP, was arrested yesterday after driving a Toyota Prius -- hah! -- about 100 mph on the San Diego Freeway. Sheriff's deputies found less than an ounce of pot in his car along with Xanax, Valium, Vicodin and Adderall. Plus, we can now see sorta-hot singer Nick Lachey demonstrating how doggies do it -- in a hot tub.

In which Paris reveals pain of being deloused

Did Paris Hilton join a girl gang? Is she now all tattooed-up? Last night's "clash of titanic intellects'' -- Larry King gently prodding Hilton for details of life in the slammer -- gets the blow-by-blow treatment in New York magazine. Meanwhile, Desperate Housewives hottie Jesse Metcalfe denies he's back on the sauce. And, we see anew the mammarian hold that surly Victoria "Posh Spice" Beckham wields over her delicious soccer-throb husband, David. [Photo: New York]

Photo fuss; name-calling, a leather 'disaster'

The lowdown in today's B.A.R.: CAUGHT WITH PANTS DOWN: Castro resident Steve Baechtle (left) is suing AutoErotica after that 18th Street shop displayed his nude photo in the window; the store's owner found the photo on the Internet. (Imagine that!) And his lawsuit's really not just a $20,000 shakedown, either! OUT THERE: An epic pub-crawl in the Spanish beach resort of Sitges, found "dripping with gays'' and various poofters. PC ALERT: Some people are whining that someone used the word fag to promote a party. Mean! CRIME & PUNISHMENT: Stabbing near 19th and Sanchez streets. MR. MARCUS: The leather gays are hyperventilating over a Mr. SF Leather Contest change that "would spell disaster in capital letters.''

Leading B.A.R.: Hammer time?

DOG MAULING: Studly former prosecutor Jim Hammer, now in private practice, wants to be reassigned to the case after a court ruling overturning second-degree murder conviction of Marjorie Knoller. Prelude to a Kamala Harris re-election challenge? HALLOWEEN: With less than five months to go, city officials struggle over how to tell Halloween revelers to stay away from the Castro this year. KARRNAL KNOWLEDGE: A new Bel Ami series makes us think "every lad in Bulgaria is a massively-boned, handsomely-faced and sturdily-built young thing of beauty." So? Castro Confidential calls that truth in advertising. CRIME & PUNISHMENT: A Dolores Street church is ransacked, cellphone thief at Badlands, assault and attempted robbery at 18th and Castro.

Wouldn't it be easier just to shop at Prada?

A German man tried to jump into Pope Benedict's popemobile today and held onto it for a few seconds before being wrestled to the ground by security officers. No details, however, on whether El Popo was wearing the red Prada loafers and Gucci shades he loves so. Of course, papal fashion hasn't been the same since the Vatican's Public Relations Department decreed that those lovely tiaras conveyed the wrong image for an enterprise devoted to the poor. (Not!)

Moore's law; Fierstein b-day; Collins camp

Actor and Oakland native Shemar Moore (left), so good-looking I'm left slack-jawed, faces a court date later this month after getting arrested for suspected DUI. (Confidential to Shemar: I'm already baking a cake with a file hidden inside.) Gravelly voiced gay boy Harvey Fierstein turns 53; more famous births here. Joan Collins guest stars as BBC America starts the fifth and final season of the soccer soaper Footballers Wives (8 p.m. tonight). Her character: magazine editor Eva de Wolffe. (Cue sound of dog baying.) Collins "should send the already elevated camp levels soaring,'' USA Today says. How campy? Watch how naughty boys get punished in this clip (NSFW hint here):