Pep Rallies

When I was in junior high, every Friday they forced us to go to the gym for a so-called "pep rally."

Cheerleaders (all girls) forced us to yell "Boy, am I enthused!", jump up and down, and scream as loud as we could.

The mascot danced and did gymnastic stunts.

Then we had to sing our fight song.  I still remember most of the words.

Our T-E-A-M is the best.
We will fight with all our M-I-G-H-T.
W-A-S-H-I-N-G-T-O-N, that's our school, all right.

There were pep rallies in high school and college, too.  They weren't required, but I went anyway, even though I had no intention of going to the game later.

I didn't understand the point of pep rallies.  If you liked sports, singing wouldn't make you like them more, and if you didn't like sports, singing wouldn't help.

Apparently they were recommended by educational authorities of the 1960s and 1970s.  Singing and stomping produces "cohesion," a sense of belonging to a group, and students with high cohesion work harder on their schoolwork, get better grades, and are less likely to drop out.

But I went to them for another reason altogether.

I hated the noise, the crowd, the shouting, and the bouncing pom-pom girls.  But it was all worth it when the team came on stage.

First the captain talked about how prepared they were and how much they planned to trounce their opponents.

Then they demonstrated their size and strength by doing push-ups, performing gymnastic stunts, or playing exhibition games of sports other than their own.

Football players would play basketball, basketball players would wrestle, baseball players would play volleyball.






There were lots of bulges and biceps on display, and sometimes players appeared shirtless.

Not very often, but often enough to build suspense and anticipation: would we see the jocks half-naked today?

When it happened, it was a golden moment, a lot better than actually going to a game.

10 Hunkiest Scrubs Patients, Part 2

I'm being forced to watch the awful medical "comedy" Scrubs, which apparently lasted for 9 whole seasons.  I usually keep my eyes on my computer screen or book to avoid the gross medical procedures, annoying characters, and jaw-droppingly horrible plotlines, just pausing to nod when my friend turns to me and asks "Isn't this the best show ever?"

The only redeeming feature is the beefcake.  The male physique is on display far more often than the female.

The regular cast strips down constantly (this is Robert Mascio as The Todd, a surgeon horndog who drools, leers, and makes gross sexual propositions to every woman he sees, yet is not fired.  At least he has a physique).

And there is a constant stream of musclemen in hospital gowns playing patients.  They usually die, but still...

Here are the 10 hunkiest patients from the last half of Scrubs (Seasons 5-9), arranged in order of the seriousness of their disease.


1. Joseph (Tony  Tambi).  Appendectomy.

2. Roger (Tim Munday, left). Amnesia.

3. Alex (Peter Holden). Porphyria (a blood disorder, makes your pee purple).

4. Emery (Michael Mitchell, left), Mysterious burns.

5. Joe (Kevin Rahm, left), Lyme Disease.  I don't know what that is, but it sounds serious.

6. Tom (Scott Rinker).  Kidney transplant.

















7. Brian (Michael Weston), brain damage, no short term memory.

8. John (Scott Holroyd, left). Breast cancer.  The "comedy" involves the demasculation of a guy getting a disease that's "just for women," to the consternation of his macho brothers.

9. Eric (Henry LeBlanc), paralyzed.

10. Cole (Dave Franco).  A medical student with skin cancer.  Survives.

See also: The 10 Hunkiest Scrubs Patients, Part 1

Forrest Millard, the First Gay Physique Model

During World War II, Forrester Dorlac moved from Missouri to Los Angeles with his parents.  He went out for gymnastics, and used to work out on Muscle Beach in Santa Monica with the other bodybuilders.  A lot of gay men used to come down to watch -- Forrester was straight, but he loved the attention -- and one day in 1946, Bob Mizner invited the 16-year old to his mother's house in downtown Los Angeles for a photo shoot.  It was fun to put on a skimpy posing strap, and recreate the poses of a classical Greek statue.  And it was gratifying to realize that guys found him attractive.

Forrester returned again and again for 15 photo shoots during the next 14 years, using the stage name Forrester Millard.   Bob sold the photos by mail order through his company, the Athletic Model Guild, and, beginning in 1951, Physique Pictorial, the first magazine aimed at a gay male audience (although it claimed to be for fitness enthusiasts).

He also appeared in a Mizner film.

Branching out, Forrester became the "mascot" for the Table of Contents of Tomorrow's Man beginning in 1954.

Mizner photographed thousands of men, including professional bodybuilders Ed Fury and Chris Dickerson, and film and tv stars like Sammy Jackson, Glenn Corbett, and Nick Adams, but he loved returning to Forrester, his first, and favorite, model.

In 1958, Forrester posed with  John Tristram for several openly homoerotic scenes, giving many gay men their first glimpse of same-sex desire and romance.  They were reprinted frequently during the 1960s,

In 1960 Forrester left Los Angeles and retired from modeling.  Eventually he married Barbara, and they had a son, Forrester Jr.  They lived in Rochester, Washington, near Olympia, for thirty years.

In 2009, Dennis Bell, head of the Bob Mizner Foundation, sought Forrester out for an interview.  He was surprised that he was still remembered, and gratified that he had a profound impact on gay culture, helping thousands of men come out.  He agreed to recreate some of his classic poses.

He died in 2011.

There are nude photos on Tales of West Hollywood.

10 Hunkiest Scrubs Patients, Part 1

I'm being forced to watch Scrubs (2001-2010), about medical interns at Sacred Heart Hospital, told from the point of view of nebbish medical intern J.D. (Zach Braff).  The rest of the main cast consist of two other interns (his best buddy and on-off girlfriend), two established doctors, and some nurses.

I usually keep my eyes on a book or computer screen, to avoid the gross medical procedures, people dying, the world's most annoying characters, and jaw-droppingly bad plotlines.

The one I saw last night had doctors actually disapproving of exercise!  Turk (Donald Faison) worries that he's getting a little pudgy from sitting on the couch every night, eating donuts with his girlfriend, so he begins to work out.  But then he realizes that guys who exercise, notably Dr. Cox (John C. McGinley), are pathetic losers who have no lives.  At the end of the episode, he "comes to his senses," abandons his exercise program, and returns to the couch to each donuts with his girlfriend.

That's right -- a medical program disapproves of exercise but approves of eating donuts!

But there is ample beefcake.  J.D. and Turk are shirtless more often than not, and there's a constant stream of hunky patients.  Some of them even live through the episode.

Here are the top 10 hunks of the first half of the series (Seasons 1-4), arranged in order of seriousness of their disease.

1. Sean (Scott Foley, top photo).  Irregular heartbeat.  Turns out to be a false alarm.

2. Will (John Ducey). Tested for lung cancer.  Turns out to be negative.

3. Another Will (Michael Hagerty, left).  We don't learn what's wrong with him, but he makes Turk uncomfortable because he's gay.

4. Mr. Foster (Ron Ostrow), who drove his golf cart into a tree.

5. Mike (Jason-Shane Scott, left), who wrapped his car around a telephone poll.

6. Sam (Alexander Chaplin), a drug addict.

7. Ben(Brendan Fraser, left). Leukemia. Survives.








8. Unnamed Patient (Paul Connor).  Coma, brain dead for two months, but wakes up in a Christmas miracle.

9.  David (Travis Wester, left).  Comes into the hospital with a hernia, but they find cancer.  Dies.

10. Jack (Adam Harrington).  Went into a coma just before his wedding. Dies.

See also: 10 Hunkiest Scrubs Patients, Part 2.