rants & raves.

"Gay people are really the most chill people. They're also very artistic. They're just mellow."

--Mark Wahlberg, as quoted in the November issue of Us

* "A lot of girls came on to me [after the kiss with Kate Moss] ... real girlie girls you'd never think would be interested. It is quite flattering, but I am not interested. I think of myself as a sexual person but not in that way."

--Actress Anna Friel (A Mid-summer Night's Dream, Broadway's Closer), discussing her lesbian appeal after repeated tabloids reports of a sensual kiss she shared with model Kate Moss, as qouted in the October 29 edition of he Scottish daily Record

* "A gay American can be a bricklayer, an athlete, a lawyer, a doctor--why can't that person be a sergeant or a lieutenant colonel?"

--Democratic presidential candidate Bill Bradley, questioning the wisdom of "don't ask, don't tell," on the Today show, October 27 (comments Bradley repeated in a slightly different form at a debate with fellow Democratic candidate Al Gore later that day)

* "We'd drive around in the car, he'd play `Heart of Glass,' and I'd sort of mouth the words, pretend to be Blondie. Just a sign of many other things to come as well."

--Gay singer-songwriter Rufus Wainwright, discussing the influence of his father, folksinger Loudon Wainwright III, and Deborah Harry, as quoted in the November 11 issue of Rolling Stone