Shirtless Sports Fans

I've never been to a sports match except for a couple of baseball games, but I understand that it's customary for fans to take their shirts off and spell out their team with letters on their chests.

Looks like there's more beefcake in the stands than on the field.

They can also spell out the name of their favorite player.

Or miscellaneous sentiments.

It helps to get the letters in the right order.

Two letters on a chest isn't really fair.

More after the break.

Jan-Michael Vincent: His n*de photo was the talk of West Hollywood

  

Link to the n*de photos

In the 1990s, you rarely saw male actors with their shirts off, and seeing them n*de was a once-in-a-lifetime experience. So when this photo appeared in the gay magazine In Touch, it was a sensation.  Everybody bought a copy.  Everyone having brunch at the French Quarter was speculating on it.  The blurb told us that he was Jan-Michael Vincent in Buster and Billie (1974), but was it a gay movie?  Was it adult?  Was Jan-Michael Vincent one of us?

Some of us remembered him from Danger Island, a serial on the Banana Splits Saturday morning show (1968-69): An archaeologist, his daughter, and his assistant Link (Jan-Michael)) are shipwrecked on a desert island, where they befriend a stranded gay couple -- nearly overt, with lots of "we've been together for years" and "I won't leave you." 

And Big Wednesday (1978), with Jan-Michael, William Katt, and Gary Busey as surfer buddies.

But otherwise we came up blank. In the days before the internet, you couldn't look up an actor's works easily, and Jan-Michael's movie and tv appearances weren't of much gay interest.

The Mechanic (1972): Assassin Charles Bronson takes on his buddy's son (Jan-Michael) as an apprentice.

The World's Greatest Athlete (1973): Coach John Amos goes to Africa and recruits a Tarzan-type (Jan-Michael) to be a track and field star.  He falls in love with a girl named Jane. 

This p*nis and backside scene does not appear in the movie.  It must be an out-take.

Bite the Bullet (1975): A newspaper sponsors a 700-mile horse race across the Old West, and a group of misfits, including Gene Hackman, Candace Bergin, and Jan-Michael, compete.

Vigilante Force (1976): Um...Jan-Michael fights Kris Kristofferson while The Girl serves drinks?

More after the break

Oliver Sawell: A Surrey boy plays two gay guys, posts a shirtless Spiderman, and throws it. With three n*de co-stars

Link to the n*de photos

I got another guy on my Instagram recommendations who is very famous outside the U.S. but unknown here.  Actually, two guys: Alan Carr (middle) and Oliver Sawell (left).  Here they are being interviewed by Chatty Man. The question: "Would you eat a brussels sprout curry?"

Alan is a comedian and presenter with over 200 appearances on British tv, beginning in 2002.  A few that stand out: The Law of the Playground, 8 of 10 Cats, Jool's Hootenany, The Friday Night Project, Spexy Beast Live...

I'm only at 2013.

Playing it Straight, Alan Carr's New Year Specstacular, Alan Carr: Chatty Man, Good Morning Britain, There's Something About Movies, The Celebrity Traitors, This Morning, Alan Carr's Picture Slam, RuPaul's Drag Race UK, The National Television Awards...

Wait -- RuPaul's Drag Race UK?

Yep, Alan is gay.  His ex-husband is comedy writer Paul Drayton, whose Ride or Die Trying was published in 2026. 

I'm surprised that a gay person is such a major media figure, but maybe Britain is a little less homophobic than the States.

In 2023-2026, Alan narrated Changing Ends, an autobiographical comedy about growing up gay and femme in the 1980s.  He starts out unaware of the existence of gay people, but soon figures it out. There are plotlines about coming out and getting a boyfriend.

Shaun Dooley (right) plays his macho Dad, who manages a 4th Division football club, and wants Alan to become a footballer, too.

I couldn't begin to profile Alan Carr in 12 photos and 300 words, so I'll profile Oliver, who plays the young Alan.

The bald dude is Richard Franks, host of Enquiries, interviewing the super-famous 16-year old: Royal Television Society Award, nominated for two BAFTAs, presenter at the British Soap Awards and the National Television Awards.

He was born in Farnham, Surrey, one of those quaint English villages with cobbled streets, a castle, and...um...Domino's Pizza. 

More after the break

Jay R. Ferguson: The "obviously gay" teen idol of the 1990s moves on to play a 1960s sleazoid and the dad of two gay sons. With Jay and Carter c*ocks

 

Link to the Jay and Carter c*ocks

In the early 1990s, I was living in West Hollywood, and completely immersed in the LGBT community.  Media from the Straight World was suspect, if not homophobic than heteronormative, presenting men and women gazing at each other as the meaning of life.  So we chose our television programs carefully. On Monday nights, it was Fresh Prince of Bel Air (Carleton, sigh!), Blossom (Joey Lawrence, sigh!), and Designing Women (drag queen inspiration Suzanne Sugarbaker).  Certainly not Evening Shade (1990-94), with Burt Reynolds as a football coach (ugh!) in a small town (ugh!) in Arkansas (ugh!).

So when this photo of a shirtless, partying young man began appearing on all of the gay celebrity websites, we had no idea who he was. 

The photos kept coming.  We discovered that he was Jay R. Ferguson, who played Taylor, son of Burt Reynolds' character Wood.  Wood?  Really?

 Generally he was swishing it up, as in this iconic photo: apparently saying "Hey, Girl!" in a classic twink outfit, a short top. a bare midriff, and jeans with a club bulge.  Obviously gay!  

In the days when television was entirely heterosexist or homophobic,when even the most flamboyant actor stayed in the closet or saw his career fade away, seeing "one of us" was amazing.  

Unfortunately, the only way to conduct research was to buy a teen magazine -- and the Different Light bookstore on Santa Monica did not stock Tiger Beat.  

The show ended, the photo stream ended, and we forgot about the obviously-gay Jay.  .

For thirty years.

Until 2025, when The Real O'Neils (2016-2018) appeared on Hulu:  a conservative Irish-Catholic family having to deal with a number of problems: Dad wants a divorce; the daughter is an atheist; the oldest son (Matthew Shively) has an eating disorder; the youngest son (Noah Galvin) is gay.  

Yeah, I don't like "gay" being portrayed as a problem, either, but I like Noah Galvin.

And the hunky dad is played by...Jay R. Ferguson!

Three questions:

1. What has he been doing in the years since Evening Shade?

2. Any n*de photos?

3. Is he really gay?

1. What has he been doing?

Jay's first project after Evening Shade was Higher Learning (1995), which is not a teen sex comedy: Omar Epps (left) stars as a student experiencing racism at Columbia University.  But Jay did show us his backside (whilewith a girl).

And an under-the-covers e*rection.

Next  Jay moved into teen horror (Campfire Tales, 1997),  sex comedy (Pink as the Day She Was Born, 1997), teen angst (Blue Ridge Falls, 1999), and dark secrets (The In Crowd, 2000), before finding his niche in television:

Glory Days (2001-02).  Oddly, it's not about soldiers, it stars Eddie Cahill as a writer who dished the dirt on residents of his home town, and is surprised when he returns to find that they don't like him.  Jay plays the sheriff.

Judging Amy (2003-4), which is not about a judge named Amy.  A woman has problems with her mother, husband, and child.  Jay plays a doctor.

In a 2005 episode of Medium, Allison realizes that her troubled half-brother Michael (Ryan Hurst) has a "secret."   One assumes that it's being gay, but it's actually that he shares her gift of seeing the future.  Jay plays his buddy.  That's as close to a gay character as he gets.

Surface (2005-2006):  Marine biologist Lake (Lake?): her "will they or won't they?" sparring partner, insurance salesman Rich (Jay), and a teenage boy (Carter Jenkins, left, recent photo) discover a "new and dangerous" species of marine life.  This one actually looks interesting.

By the way, Carter, who went on to star in Shadow Diaries, has an adult video (on RG Beefcake and Boyfriends).