Dane's Polar Plunge: a 365 day Lake Tahoe Challenge, with Scott Gaffney, Danish d*cks, and the n*de dudes of Notre Dame

  

Link to the n*ude dudes

I've been following Dane G. on Instagram.  He doesn't post much, but in August 2026 he complains that he just arrived at the University of Nevada Reno for his freshman year, when he had to evacuate due to the wildfires.   

Back when he was a student at North Tahoe High School, Dane posted a lot: he was doing a challenge where he jumps into Lake Tahoe every day for a year. Even on Day 190: Water temperature 39.3, air temperature 32.  That's Fahrenheit. 

 

Day 173: Gray, cloudy. Water temperature 37.3, air 33.0.  Dane walked through the snow-- barefoot! -- toward his icy plunge.

On Day 184, he brought his Dad, professional skiier Scott Gaffney Water temperature 48.5, air 55.

He invited Tony Cavalero of The Righteous Gemstones, but Tony ended up ignoring him to flirt with Scott.

On Day 120, he brought the North Tahoe High School Varsity Basketball Team -- at least the ones brave enough to try. Water temperature 39 degrees, air with wind chill 19.  

The Wildflour Baking Company in Tahoe donated some donuts.  How about space heaters?

I can't imagine being interested in the aesthetics of the p*enis after all that icy plunging, but there are some guys running n*aked through the snow on RG Beefcake and Boyfriends

Plus n*de Danish dudes in the snow outside an ice cream stand. 

An ice cream stand?

More after the break.  Caution: Icy.

Matthew Beem hitchhikes n*de takes a polar plunge, builds secret rooms to spy on his internet star friends. With four of their d*cks

 

Link to the d*cks

I grew up before the internet, so I instinctively think of entertainment as books, movies, and tv programs written and performed by professionals and distributed by corporations. But there's a whole world out there of short form, amateur videos that I had no idea existed. 

Topper Guild posts stories about saving his friend from an evil cult, surviving the strictest school in the world, and so on to his 88 million subscribers.

Matthew Beem, who has "only" eight million subscribers, does wacky DIY projects, like turning his room into a fishbowl, or a building a minecraft maze for his hamster. 

The first two episodes of his Hulu series, Matthew Beem Creator Essentials, introduced me to more multi-million subscriber Internet stars.

 

Episode 1: Matthew renovates iShowSpeed's tour bus, and adds a secret room so he can spy on the dude as he...um...does things.  He's discovered almost immediately, but still, I have to wonder, what was he hoping to see?

IShowSpeed, real name Darren Jason Watkins, Jr. started with gaming, and moved into livestreaming and rap music, gaining 53 million subscribers. He has livestreamed in 67 countries. The Speed Goes Pro tour ended with a concert at the Hollywood Bowl. 

Plus he's won about a dozen Streamer Awards.  And posted pictures of his d*ck. Maybe that's what Matthew wanted to see in his secret room.

In Episode 2. Matthew and his crew do some home improvement projects for his internet star friends:

A custom dog house for Salish Matter, who started with posts about her daily skincare routine, gaining 3.5 million subscribers.  She started her own skincare brand at age 16, and also posts about gymnastics and family "matters" with her father, Jordan (n*de on RG Beefcake and Boyfriends).

Next Matthew and his crew create a gaming room for the Costco Guys, including mock-ups of their Juiceful packages, a giant chocolate chip cookie, and the world's biggest Pokemon card. 

More after the break

"We Bury the Dead": Tasmanian zombies, oppressive heterosexism, and Brenton Thwaites' junk. What else do you need? Gay people? Tasmania?

 

This week's Movie Night movie was We Bury the Dead (2025), for some reason, I guess because there are zombies in it.  But the heteronormativity is so thick and heavy, you can actually feel it, like an oppressive fog.

Link to the n*de photos

The premise: An experimental weapon backfires, zapping the entire island of Tasmania just as everyone is sitting down to breakfast.  Every being with a brain dies instantly, 500,000 people plus all the cows, horses, pets, and birds.  

A few days later, hundreds of volunteers come in from Australia to help the army clear out the dead.  The men in line, such as David Genat (left), all tell the registration officer, "I need to find my wife," and women, "I need to find my husband!"  Sometimes they're looking for their kids, instead. 

Ava (Daisy Ridley) is looking for her husband: he was at a conference in Woodbridge, in the southern part of the island.  Unfortunately, she is assigned to a sector in the north, 200 miles away.

Scene after scene of breaking into homes, close ups of photos of smiling nuclear families, bodies of husbands, wives, and kids at the breakfast table, doing cozy family things, kids next to teddy bears.  Over and over and over.  It's smiling nuclear families everywhere.  I wanted to yell "Gay people exist!" 

Left: Gender-polarized pink and blue body bags.  

Ava is desperate to get to Woodbridge to see if her husband re-animated due to unfinished business.  A volunteer named Clay (Brenton Thwaites) offers to help her.

They steal a motorcycle and zoom through the restricted areas, past a lot of wrecked cars -- for some reason, the cars didn't crash when the drivers dropped dead, they just sort of stoppeed. 

   At the ruins of Hobart, smoke from the many fires is so thick that they have to find gas masks.  I guess a lot of people were cooking over open fires at the moment they died?   

Then they break into a diner -- it's only been a few days, so most of the food in the freezer is still good -- and have a heart-to-heart. 

Brenton Thwaites' backside is on RG Beefcake and Boyfriends

Ava: She can't get pregnant, which caused tension.  Then she had an affair, which caused more. Hubbie was thinking of divorce when he headed to the conference.

Clay: His girlfriend and child want nothing to do with him.  He thought that he could impress them with his patriotism by volunteering for the clean-up, but they told him to "f*k off."  

It is unclear why Clay is helping.  Maybe he wants to get with Ava, or maybe he's bonding with her due to their shared marital problems.

I forgot -- some of the dead come back as tooth-clicking zombies.  Mostly they just stare. Some attack (racism alert: most of the violent ones are black).  Some just have unfinished business, like a nuclear family father wants to bury his wife and kids before he finally crosses over. 

More after the break. 

Here the Whole Time: Brazilian "Heartstopper," with chub Felipe and athletic Caio trying to figure it out. Plus a hunky bully and dad

Quinze Dias (15 Days), or Here the Whole Time in English, is the Brazilian answer to Heartstopper.  The guys even met Kit and Joe when they visited London for the premier of Heartstopper Forever.

Chubby femme boy Felipe (Miguel Lallo) hasn't been in his apartment building's pool since he was bullied as a kid.  He's still being bullied by the same four guys, on the street and in class, so he's looking forward to a 15-day holiday, where he can stay in his room and imagine himself as the heroine in old movies.

Nope, not gonna happen. The next door neighbors are going out of town, so their son Caio (Diego Lira) must stay with Felipe and his mum.  They are homophobic -- "Miguel doesn't even try to hide it!" -- but there's no other option.

This is the worst!  Miguel tells his therapist that they used to be friends, until he stopped going to the pool.  Caio grew up to be...ugh...straight, and athletic.  He hangs out with jocks, plays soccer, and knows nothing about movie musicals.  How can he stand sharing his apartment with someone so crass for 15 whole days?

After an incident involving paint in the pool, Caio defends Miguel from the bullies (including João Pedro Chaseliov, top photo). At the community center, he is ok with taking dancing lessons -- and dancing with Caio.  He's even ok with watching a movie musical.

Maybe they could be friends after all.

When Caio invites him to a movie with his friend Beca -- "You'll love her!" -- Miguel imagines a wafer-thin supermodel girlfriend.  Surprise -- she's chubby, and a lesbian!  

Big reveal: Caio is gay!  "You didn't know?  Everybody knows."

"He can't be gay!" Miguel exclaims. "He's masculine!  He plays soccer!  He doesn't know who Lady Gaga is."

The therapist asks if Miguel is going to treat Caio differently, now that he knows that he's gay. 

"No...but...things are going to be awkward now."  Because athletic, masculine guys don't fall for chubby femme boys.  Miguel stalks Caio's social media, and finds that he has "liked" 30 boys, all of them athletic and masculine.

After another bully-rescue, the guys have a rooftop heart-to-heart.  Caio reveals that he not out to his parents because they're homophobic.  He wants to run away, find a gay mecca somewhere, maybe in São Paulo, but Miguel advises that you can't run away from your problems.

First kiss (actually second, third, and fourth kisses).

More after the break.  Caution: A bedroom scene.