Rooster, Episode 1.8: Are Rooster and Tommy boyfriends or father-son? Is Eli having a gay romance with a girl? With Jonah's backside and Noah's d*ck

 

Link to the n*de dudes

I've been watching Rooster on MAX, with Steve Carrel (left) as a trashy novelist who becomes Writer in Residence at a snooty private college -- to see if there's any development in the gay-subtext buddy bond between Rooster and his writing student, Tommy (Maximo Salas, right) 

And any more appearances from the extremely cute Eli (Jonah Beckett, n*de on RG Beefcake and Boyfriends).   

I'm reviewing Episode 1.8, "Nobody Spook It," which is not about Halloween.  But I'll skip the numerous plot threads that aren't about hot guys.

Scene 1: Rooster and Daughter watching tv.  She starts crying because the show is so sad -- it's Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer.  

Back Story: She was up for tenure in art history, until she was fired for accidentally burned down the house of her boyfriend Archie, a professor of Russian Literature, when he dumped her for a student, who turned out to be pregnant.  It goes on like that.

Cut to the President asking Rooster about his Thanksgiving.  "My Daughter was sad about something, but she wouldn't tell me what it was."  You watched a friggin' Christmas movie. Of course she was sad. 

Next up: the Dean's Secretary, Sidekick Tommy's mother, whom Rooster had an affair with, to the discomfort of all parties.  She's quitting, but she has a list of rules to endure their last eight days together: "no tight-fitting khakis," and so on.  His bulge would be too tempting?

Scene 2: In creative writing class, Rooster complains that his students' rough drafts aren't "page turners."  As an example, he cites a letter the fictional Rooster receives from an old flame.  They scoff: "Who writes letters these days?"  

Sidekick Tommy has returned after dropping out due to the trauma of discovering Rooster dating his mom. "My therapist is helping me imagine you with no stuff down there."  Yes, that would work to decreae your attraction to him.  

Wait -- a c*ck is a male chicken, a rooster.  I just got it.  The guy is named after his p*nis! No wonder Tommy likes him so much!  (Technically Rooster is the name of the character, but that's how Tommy always refers to him).

After class, Rooster offers to help Sidekick Tommy get back up to speed with his other classes.  "My office, 3:00 pm sharp?"  

It's very difficult to get screenshots of these two.  They're always separated by a vast blank space.  Maybe to highlight their trouble making an emotional connection?  After all, you meet a guy through a discussion of doing bedroom stuff with him, move in, and suddenly he starts seeing your Mom.  That's bound to raise issues. 

Wait -- Tommy's chapter is covered with red marks and statements: "Explore further.  Do more with this." And no grade.  His buddy got a check plus.  Why is Rooster so critical of his work?

Scene 3: At the President's sauna.  No beefcake.  He's advising the Pregnant Ex-Girlfriend that if the dad doesn't want to be invested in their baby's life, she should take the job at Biotech and move away.  

Cut to hockey player JD (Noah Grismer, not shown) telling his buds, Spooner (Evan Jachelski, left) and George (Xavier Beloved, right) that they should all wear bucket hats.  It could be their thing. 

They see through his obvious attempt to get them to drop the nickname Pig T*ts (because he has extra nipples).  No dice: "You'll always be Pig T*ts to us."

Rooster drops by to ask where Sidekick Tommy went.  He didn't make their 3:00 meeting, and he skipped Econ.  They don't know.

Scene 4: A lady who teaches the gay poet Garcia Lorca wants to talk to Eli's Girlfriend about her poem, "Cherry Pop."  She explains: "Eli is the cherry, and I'm the one who popped..."  

Whoops, Eli is right there. "You don't need to tell everyone that I was a virgin before you pegged me" (topped him).  She orders him to wait outside.

Lorca Lady loves the poem, and wants to publish it in The Review.  "It just needs a little tweaking."

"Sure, I'll go microdose my balls off and get busy."  You got metaphorical balls, and you're a top.  That's quite a homo*rotic relationship, for a boy and a girl.

More after the break

The 18 most gay-positive sci-fi/fantasy shows. Because if there's no ghosts, zombies, aliens, strange new worlds, or d*cks, why bother?

 

Link to the n*de version

Ever since I was a kid, 99% of my television viewing has consisted of either comedies or science fiction/fantasy.   Because if there's no ghosts, zombies, curses, vampires, werewolves, spaceships, or strange new worlds, just people having conversations and shooting at each other, why bother?

Here are the top gay-positive science fiction/fantasy shows that I've reviewed here, with prominent gay characters or gay subtexts.  Usually there are pecs and p*nises, too. 

1. Khemjira: Thai guy falls in love with his shaman. With demons, reincarnation, spirits, several gay couples, and real Thai culture. Everything I like in one intriguing package.

2. Surreal Estate: A real estate agent and his scoobies clear houses of cursed, vituperative spirits.  With a gay male couple.

3. True Blood: Vampires come "out of the coffin" in rural Lousiana, along with shapeshifters, werewolves (Joe Manganiello, left), and other paranormals.  Many of whom are n*ked. With several prominent gay characters.

4. Dead Boy Detectives: Dead teenagers, one gay and the other bi, solve afterlife mysteries.  

5. Ghosts  (American version; I didn't like the British): The mansion is haunted by a gaggle of wacky ghosts, including a very muscular Viking, a hippie, a pantsless 1990s stock broker (Asher Grodman, left), and a gay Revolutionary War soldier. 

6. School Spirits.  This time the ghosts are trapped in the high school, where the gay guy's romance is treated as the exact equal of the hetero-romance.

7. Doctor Who. The 2010-2022 series had a lot of LGBT representation, with gay walk ons and guest stars. including John Barrowman (left) as a bi/pan rogue.  But I didn't like the 2023-25 series, where they made the Doctor gay, even gave him a momentary boyfriend, only to turn him straight.

8. Solar Opposites.  In spite of fans saying "They can't be gay!  They're aliens!", the space explorers shipwrecked on Earth developed into a loving couple  And check out the strong gay subtext episode with Skyler Gisondo and Kieran Culkin.

9. Ghost Island: An "Are You Afraid of the Dark" miniseries with a gay romance and a lot of fan disputes about "was it a date?" 

More after the break.  

Nicolas Hau and the mystery of the glowing cattle. With his d*ck tree-trunking, a n*de man in my room, and unrelenting gloom

 

Link to the n*de photos 

I started watching Half-Man (2026), starring Jamie Bell as a sort-of gay guy who has a sort-of homoerotic relationship with his violence-crazy "half brother" (Richard Gadd of Baby Reindeer),  but I had forgotten the intensity of Mr. Gadd's internalized homophobia -- until the depiction of gay desire as unrelentingly dark and destructive began.  So I dropped it. What's so horrible about liking guys?  

Next, in search of light entertainment, I checked the n*de celebrity subreddit: a morose white-haired young man sitting on his bed while tree-trunking.  In another shot, he's manipulating.  

I was fascinated.  What was the context?  How could anyone be morose while doing that?

 The caption said that he was Nicolas Hau, from the French movie  Like Cattle Towards Glow (2015).   You can't move toward "glow."  It would have to be a glowing object. 

A mystery to solve!  Was it a bad translation, or an old folk saying changed to gibberish with the passage of time?

According to his IMDB biography, written by himself,  Nicolas Hau "has collaborated with international directors and continues to develop a diverse body of work across film and artistic projects, with a strong interest in character-driven and visually distinctive storytelling."

This extremely pretentious bio is matched by two acting credits on the IMDB: the glowing cattle movie and The Aspern Papers (2018), based on the novel by Henry James: An American novelist wants to get the letters that Romantic poet Jeffrey Aspern sent to his mistress, but she has them sequestered in her decaying Venetian mansion. 

Jonathan Rhys Meyers (n*de on RG Beefcake and Boyfriends) stars. Nicolas plays the bi poet Lord Byron.

It grossed $9,700 in the U.S, and got reviews like "Awful!" "Pretentious drivel!" "Boring!"

Well, it's Henry James.  What do you expect?

Nicolas' resume also lists three theatrical credits:

Bottom in A Midsummer Night's Dream

Benjamin in The Graduate, the part originally played by Dustin Hoffman.

And Einar Wegener in Danish Girl.  In 1920s Copenhagen, Einar develops a female persona named Lili, and with the support of his wife, gradually acknowledges a female gender identity.  Lili was a pioneer in transgender history as the first person to undergo gender reassignment surgery.  In the 2015 movie, she was played by Eddie Redmayne (n*de on RG Beefcake and Boyfriends).

Nowadays Nicolas is mostly a model.  His credits on Models.com include Vogue, the covers of Stylist and Beauty magazines, walking for Ferderico Curradi and Peuteray, "Bizarre Love Triangle" (behind a paywall), and whatever this is.

The samples he uploads to his Instagram mostly show him looking bored and pretentious while hugging a semi-n*de lady.  This is one of the few where he's alone, putting on a Gaucho outfit for a shoot.

The glowing cattle and the tree-trunking photo that sent me down this internet rabbit hole after the break

Ben Pajak plays the gay kids of Wolverine and Paul Blart, Harvey Milk, Max von Essen's buddy, and a gay Corey Haim. But is he...

Link to the n*de photos

The Lost Boys (1987) starred teen idol Corey Haim as Sam, a teenager trying to save his older brother (Jason Patric) from a pack of motorcycle-riding, leather jacket-wearing vampires. Sam is as gay as you could portray in the homophobic 1980s:he takes a bubble bath, has a poster of heartthrob Rob Lowe on his bedroom wall, wears a "Born to Shop" t-shirt, and sings that "I'm a lonely girl, ain't got a man."  That's not enough for most fans, of course, who proclaim loudly, "Straight guys do that!  It doesn't make him gay!"

Jason Patric n*de on RG Beefcake and Boyfriends,

A musical version of the iconic film opened on Broadway in April 2026, with the same plotline: single Mom Lucy and her two sons move to Santa Carla, the murder capital of the West Coast, where older brother Michael (LJ Benet, left), falls in with a crowd of rock star vampires. 

 But 40 years have passed, and his relationship with the vampire David (Ali Louis Bourzgui) can be openly homoerotic:

Wanna get you alone / Caress your collarbone / No preacher would condone / What I would do to you, baby

And now younger brother Sam (Benjamin Pajak) can be overtly, obviously, coming-out speech gay:

Maybe I can be a hero here/ And make it cool to be queer/ Maybe that's my superpower.

Wait -- Benjamin Pajak.    Wasn't he in Playdate?   Paul Blart is trying to de-gay his shirt-raiser stepson Lucas  (Ben) by teaching him football, when they run into Reacher and his sociallly awkward son CJ (Banks Pierce).  The two boys hit it off instantly, so the dads arrange a playdate.  But government agents or evil corporate clones are after CJ, and...it gets weirder and weirder, with multiple plot holes, but dang it, those boys are obviously into each other.  They do everything but kiss.  

That's one gay and one "an inch away from flying a Pride Flag" role.  I need to do a profile of this kid.

Benjamin Pajak was born in March 2011, in Westfield, New Jersey, about 20 miles from Manhattan.   The family is Jewish but not observant.  The Paper Mill Theater was across the back yard, so acting and singing were an ever-present part of life. 

He made his Broadway debut  in The Music Man (2021): con artist Harold Hill (Wolverine Hugh Jackman, left) wooes the prim-and-proper Marian the Librarian.  Her younger brother  Winthrop (Ben) rejects a date request from a girl and speaks with a gay-stereotype lisp, which he overcomes with Harold's mentorship. If I was writing a scholarly article about musicals, I'd have a lot of fun queering that text.

Three gay and gay-light roles so far.

In June 2023, Ben performed as the Young Harvey in the oratorio I am Harvey Milk, about the assassinated gay rights leader. 

Four for four, Ben Baby.

He has also performed in Oliver!, Golden Rainbow, Nine, and Ragtime.  His songs appear in four albums: Rails, Figaro, The Music Man, and Christmas Time in the City.

More after the break.