Gideon moves out of the Friend Zone: A Gideon x Keefe Romance

 

I revised the sex scene to make it parallel Kelvin's date with Percy.

"This is it," Gideon Gemstone told himself as he stood at the entrance of Woodpecker's Carpentry, watching the workers inside, and trying not to be noticed.  "Enough stalling.  You make your move now, or forget about it."

Suddenly a burly middle-aged man in a blue worker's suit appeared. "Hello.  I'm Bishop, the owner.  Can I help you with something?"

"I was just admiring the wood carvings.  I like that Grinch in a Santa Claus suit, and the bobble-head Trump...."  Thinking fast, he added. "But I was really looking for a birthday present for my Granddad.  Eli Gemstone -- you probably heard of him."

"The pastor at the Salvation Center? Sure, half my crew goes there, or watches the Praise Be to He hour on Sunday mornings. He's retired, isn't he? Who's the preacher now?"

"Jesse Gemstone.  I'm his son, Gideon."

He chuckled.  "How about that!   We're having a run on Gemstones today.  Your Uncle Kelvin was in earlier, probably shopping for the same thing.  He was talkin' up a storm with our new guy, Keefe."

Uncle Kelvin!  Gulp -- maybe it was too late.

The full story, with NSFW illustrations, is on RG Beefcake and Boyfriends

200,000 Photos of Naked Harvard Men

From 1940 to sometime in the 1970s, all incoming freshmen at Harvard, Princeton, Yale, and some of the sister schools, including future presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush, were photographed.  Naked.  Three shots: front, back, and side.   No black boxes -- penis in full view.

Some were told that it was to check their posture.  Others, to check them for rickets. But actually it was the pet project of Columbia University Professor William H. Sheldon (1898-1977) and Harvard University Professor Earnest Hooten (1887-1954), who said they were interested in somatotyping.

Classifying human bodies by size and shape, and determining how those shapes influenced personality.

They had already taken nude photos of 400 undergraduate men at the University of Chicago and 200 juvenile delinquents in Boston.  Hooten died in 1954, but Sheldon continued, photographing men in the military, in hospitals, in colleges, in prisons, until by the end of his life he had accumulated 200,000 photographs of men and 2,000 of women.

During the 1970s, Harvard was embarrassed by the study, and hid the photos away in a storage bin.  Eventually most were destroyed. See, you can't go around just taking pictures of random naked guys, even with a "scientific" goal.  It's a violation of their privacy.

But you can see some samples online, and several hundred in Sheldon's book, Atlas of Men (1954), with clever little taglines comparing them to animals: "paleolithic tiger," "dugongs and manatees."

Sheldon divided male bodies into three types: endomorph (fat), mesomorph (muscular), and ectomorph (skinny), and discovered that juvenile delinquents were likely to be mesomorphs, while Ivy League freshmen were more likely to be ectomorphs.

Also, ectomorphs are bigger beneath the belt.  Or at least it shows better.

Nice to know when you're cruising.

An obsession with taking nude photographs of young men.  Were Sheldon and Hooten gay?

Neither married women, but Hooten spearheaded the famous purge of Harvard "homosexuals" in 1920, along with his friend and roommate Lester Wilcox.

Maybe he was protesting too much.

"Real Bros of Simi Valley": L.A. suburb bros seek romance, bromance, and career success. Not in that order.

The Real Bros of Simi Valley is a mocumentary series on Youtube and Facebook Watch,  parodying those over-the-top reality shows like Real Husbands of Cucamonga.  It features two brothers and their two friends pushing 30 in Simi Valley, a distant, distant suburb of Los Angeles. I guess the idea is that it's not at all glamorous.   I reviewed Episode 2.2, "Obnoxiously Depressed."

Scene 1: At Cal's Surf and Skate shop, Duncan (Nick Colletti) has just been dumped by his girlfriend, and calls to beg her to take him back: "You're  my angel, you're my sweet little vanilla bean." Tyler (Skyler Gisondo) asks him to run the cash register, but he gets ballistic and throws the keys away. Tylet asks if he's upset, and he denies it.

Next, Tyler is interviewed:  Duncan didn't tell him that he had been dumped, but it was obvious.  He is being obnoxiously depressed, not only collapsing behind the counter to cry, but throwing clothes around and yelling "F*ck off!" to a customer.  They're losing business, so Tyler has to call the owner, who also happens to be Duncan's dad.

Scene 2:  Dad bursts into the shop and finds Duncan crying in the stockroom.  He explains that his girlfriend broke off the engagement.  It seems that she didn't want to marry him, but when he asked, she said "yes" because she didn't want to "kii the vibe." Dad gives him the day off to mope, but then suggests he find a new wave to surf.

Scene 3: A Skate Park.  Bryce (Tanner Getter) performs, while his coach Brayson (Eric Walbridge) films him. They discuss skating in the Simi Valley Pro Am: it could be Bryce's comeback, the road to full-time shredding (skating). Besides, it pays $500. You can buy a lot of weed with that!

Cut to Franco's Tacos.  Xander (Jimmy Tatrom left)  and Johnny (Peter Gilroy, top photo) are eating and discussing Duncan (the dumped guy).  His social media posts have been suspiciously cheerful. Something is wrong.

More gossip:Xander's girlfriend, with whom he has a one-year old son, is avoiding him.  Something else is wrong. 

Scene 4: Community College of Moorpark ( a real place).  Like all college classes on tv, the photography class meets in a giant lecture hall. Wade (Cody Ko) tells us that his first assignment is to capture a moment in nature.  Plus there are some babes hitting on him. He loves the class!

On the negative side, he doesn't like his roommate Aldis (Christian A. Pierce, left, also the show's co-creator).  He does yoga in the middle of the room and invades his Wade's body space. Plus he shaves his legs -- on Wade's bed! 

Scene 5: Bar. Four women are having lunch.  Xander's girlfriend explains why she is avoiding him: she hates his new soul patch; it looks ridiculous. Problem solved. 

Scene 6:  Xander (the one with the infant son) and Wade (the skateboarder), brothers, are hanging out in their parents' house, discussing Duncan's plight.  He comes in to announce that he is over the breakup and feeling great, but then he goes out to the porch and cries.

Scene 7: Duncan decides that his only option is to quit his job at the surf shop, so he goes to his Dad's house.  Dad is hooking up with two girls that Duncan knew in high school. He is invited to join in, but he refuses and goes to his room and listens to depressing music.  Dad stops in to see if he's ok; they hug. 

Scene 8: Community College of Moorpark.  Bryce's roommate Aldis invites him to come "burn" with him.  He refuses.  Aldis assures him that it's ok if you don't burn, but Bryce, his masculinity threatened, gets all defensive and yells that he burns all the time.

I figured that to "burn" was something sexual, in order to for Bryce to feel so threatened, but it seems to mean mix Ecstasy with amphetamine.  The end.

Beefcake: None.

Heterosexism: Two of the four plotlnes involve girlfriend trouble, and the third involves babes.  Only Bryce the Skateboarder seems to have another goal in life. I didn't like Dad having a three-way with two girls, and inviting his son to join in.

Gay Characters: Aldis exhibits a lot of gay-stereotype behavior, but searching for "Real Bros of Simi Valley" and "gay" yields nothing.  Maybe he's just a feminine straight guy.

Analysis: I kept waiting for something interesting to happen, but nothing ever did.  The first scene is sort of funny,expecially Skyler Gisondo's low-key performance,  but then it devolves into people having conversations about other people.

The Bloated White Caterpillar of "A Confederacy of Dunces"

When I was an undergraduate at Augustana College, I got bored to death with Southern Gothic. It was all any English major ever talked about, except for Ulysses:  I had my fill of The Sound and the Fury, The Heart is a Lonely Hunter, Light in August, The Grass Harp, A Streetcar Named Desire, the disgusting stories of Flannery O'Connor and Eudora Welty...

So when everybody began praising A Confederacy of Dunces, around the fall of 1980, my junior year in college, I wasn't interested.

But they kept up.  Spectacular!  A masterpiece!  A classic!  The greatest novel ever (except for Ulysses).

Plus, like all "great novels," it had an interesting origin story.  John Kennedy Toole (1937-1969), a gigantic mass of flab, an aspiring writer, a literary wit, a permanent student who never finished his Ph.D. (although he was much smarter than his professors), an avid heterosexual stymied by constant "just friends' speeches from girls  (maybe cut back on the cake?), an anti-Catholic teaching at a Catholic college, a prude who railed against the vulgarity of the 1960s co-eds who filled his classes, finally couldn't take it anymore, and committed suicide at the age of 31.

While cleaning out his things, his mother found a carbon copy of a novel called A Confederacy of Dunces (the original had been rejected by some publishers and finally destroyed).  She contacted writer Walker Percy, who at first refused to read it -- who needed another Truman Capote, especially a heterosexual one?  But eventually he gave in, loved it, and after 11 years managed to get it into print.  The rest was history:  Stupendous!  Colossal!  A masterpiece!

Prey to peer pressure, I bought a copy, read a few pages, and threw it out, not so much offended as disgusted, like when you touch a door handle and there's something gross and sticky on it.  40 years later, I don't remember what the problem was.  I remember that it featured a bulbous jerk who hated everybody and everything except Boethius, but why the visceral disgust?  Why does it come back every time I hear about Confederacy.

So I found a preview on Amazon and read the first few pages.

Page 1: In a godforsaken small town in the South, no doubt somewhere near Yoknapatawpaw County,  the bulbous Ignatius waits for his mother to finish shopping and criticizes the fashion choices of passersby (Ignatius is O'Toole. I get it).  He's wearing a hunting cap and boots too small for his bulbous feet.  He's so fat that movement is difficult.


Page 2: The town turns out to be New Orleans (not that small).  More about how fat he is:  when he tries to move, "in his lumbering elephantine fashion," he sends "waves of flesh rippling."  Even his boots are swollen to bursting from his swollen fat feet. (This guy isn't just fat, he's a disgusting bloated white caterpillar with a nearly human face..  That's what caused the disgust!  I feel my gorge rising even now!).

Plowing on:  the bloated white caterpillar is upset because his favorite game at the arcade is missing, which we hear about for several paragraphs.  (Boring, but it beats hearing how fat he is again).

 Page 3: More about the arcade game.  A police officer, seeing his bag of sheet music and spare string for his lute, saunters up and asks him for an ID.  Ignatious objects, complaining that the city is full of criminals, like sodomites and lesbians.  Why not target them instead?  (And he's blathering homophobe!  Help!)

Page 4: Meanwhile, Mom is buying macaroons and cakes.  More about how fat her son is. She talks to a friend, who complains about her feet (More about feet!  Was Mr. Toole a bit of a foot fetishist?).  They discuss the fact that Ignatius isn't married, and how he gets nasty when she doesn't provide enough cake (he's nightmarishly fat -- I get it).

Page 5: Back on the street, people are gathering around in defense of Ignatius, and the cop threatens to arrest them, particularly when they imply that he might be a "comuniss." Fortunately, Mom comes to the rescue, macaroons and wine cake in hand (I'm never eating a piece of cake again.  I may never eat again, period).

According to wikipedia, I'm not missing much plot.  Confederacy seems to be mostly episodic, minor adventures with various colorful characters, in fact, just about everyone from his opening-cop diatribe, including a sodomite, lesbians, strippers, onanists, and so on.   Meanwhile, Ignatius discusses how vulgar modern society is, and how much he likes Boethius.  The only major events:  Mom decides to get married, and to commit Ignatius to a mental hospital (good!)

There's a statue of Ignatius on Canal Street in New Orleans, to scare away the tourists. He looks rather svelte for a bloated white caterpillar.

There have been numerous attempts to film the book, but most actors who have agreed to play Ignatius died before they could sign a contract: John Belusi, John Candy, Chris Farley, Divine.  John Goodman is still alive, but getting a little old to play the 20-ish misanthrope. Will Farrell and Zack Galifianakis have also agreed to star in versions that never got made (good!)

Oddly, I have no problems with chubs or even superchubs in real life.  I find them rather attractive.  But the bloated white caterpillar was disgusting. And homophobic.

The Flowers of Evil: A Place Where Hercules and Christ are One

Back before there were shelves labeled "gay literature" in bookstores, when library card catalogs contained two books labeled "homosexuality," if that, you found gay books through key words in the title: something dark, dangerous, sinister was likely to be gay.

So one day when I was an undergrad at Augustana College, I found a copy of Les Fleurs du mal (The Flowers of Evil), by Charles Baudelaire (1821-1867).

A series of poems about a man who is an alien in his own society, searching for a beauty that the people around him cannot understand.  He remembers countless past lives of Arabian Nights opulence, living only for the pleasures of sight, sound, taste, and touch, surrounded by "nude, perfumed slaves." Male slaves, I assumed.

He longs for a "good place," the distant country portrayed by Michelangelo, where "Hercules and Christ are one."  Where they worship masculine beauty?

He tells the story of four boys charting out their futures. The first longs for the theater, the second, for God, the third, for women...and the fourth, for gypsy men "with enormous black eyes" who live together and make "astonishing music."

The fourth boy is obviously gay.

Turns out that most scholars disagree with my undergrad reading of Les Fleurs du mal.  Baudelaire was a precursor of the Symbolist Movement, whose main voice, Paul Verlaine, was indeed gay.  And he was a dandy, one of one of those flamboyantly feminine men who scandalized polite society in Paris and London.

But Baudelaire himself was apparently heterosexual.  He has a prurient, sordid interest in women's bodies, especially lesbian bodies -- his first title for Les Fleurs du Mal was The Lesbians.  But barely a glimmer of interest in male beauty.

No do we see any significant same-sex loves in his life.  He smoked and drank heavily, wrote in taverns, patronized prostitutes, and had a series of mistresses.

But we know that author's own identity is not necessary for a gay reading.  Nor is authorial intent.  The meaning arises in the interaction between the text and the reader's life experience, expectations, and desire. When you are erased from most literature and mass media, you find meaning where you can, and Les Fleurs du mal remains one of my favorite books.

See also: The Dandy and the Gay Cult; A Season in Hell

"Tell Me a Story," and be sure to include biceps, butts, bulges, shootings, and sleazoids.

Tell Me a Story (2018-), on CBS and Vudu. "A re-imagining of classic fairy tales."

Well, I've already seen Once Upon a Time, but ok, I'll give it a shot.

Scene 1:  "Three Little Pigs."  Close-up of a bare chest tattooed with the words "Fuck You." belonging to the uber-muscular Pig #1/Eddie (Paul Wesley, left), a low-life drug dealer.  

He is asleep in his underwear in his trailer, showing a nice bulge, when his friend Pig #2/  Mitch (Michael Raymond Jones) drops in. They discuss how much they need money.

Scene 2:  The Pigs' Big Bad Wolf/Jordan (James Wolk), a restauranteur, strips down to take a shower. He's with a girl, but still, bare chest and butt, and I think a bit of his penis. Wow!  They argue over whether to get married or just continue hooking up.

Scene 3: "Hansel and Gretel" Gretel/ Gabe (Davi Santos) and his roommate Billy (Luke Guldan, left), discuss their lives as gay strippers, hustlers, and druggies. Ok, they're promoting the negative stereotype that all gay men are sleazoids, but they are promoting the negative stereotype in their underwear.  Muscular physiques, underwear bulges!  Four in a row!  

I've never seen a tv show display so much male skin and so little female.  Just the way I like it.

Scene 4: "Little Red Riding Hood" High schooler Red/Kayla, mourning her dead mother, is smoking marijuana and acting out, so her Dad moves her to small-town Manhattan to get a fresh start.  

Scene 5:"Hansel and Gretel"  At a mixed gay-straight club, Billy and Gretel/Gabe meet the ultra-rich, cocaine-addled Dan (Paul Rolfes), and go back to his apartment for a three-way.  While Gretel/Gabe is...um...busy, Billy goes into the bedroom and steals from the guy's wallet.   Dan catches on, gets violent, and ends up dead.  Billy runs away, leaving his "friend" Gretel/Gabe alone an apartment with the corpse of a man he didn't even know.  He calls his sister Hansel/Hope for help.

Scene 6: "Red Riding Hood"  Meanwhile, at the same club, Red/Kayla graduates from marijuana to Ecstasy, washed down with vodka, and picks up her Big Bad Wolf/Nick (Billy Magnusson).  After a lot of sex (showing us Big Bad's bare chest and butt, of course), she discovers that he is her new teacher. 

Well, I guess they couldn't help that, except  they continue the relationship.  Teacher-underage student.  Nice. 

Scene 7: "Three Little Pigs"   Pig #1/Eddie and Pig #2/Mitch visit Pig #3/Sam (Dorian Missick), a corrupt cop.  He suggests that they can pay off their massive debts by robbing a jewelry store wearing pig masks. 

Meanwhile, the pigs' Big Bad/Jordan finally talks his girlfriend into getting married, so they go ring shopping at the..um...jewelry store where...um...the three pigs...you know what happens next.  

I need a shower and about six hours of Workaholics.  There's a reason I don't do depressing crime dramas.

Instead of more plot summary, wouldn't you rather see the chest of Dan Amboyer, who plays one of Gretel/Gabe and Billy's go-go-boy coworkers?

Or the bulge of Rarmian Newton, who plays one of Red/Kayla's classmates who gets a crush on her, finds out about her relationship with her teacher, and goes ballistic?

"Ginny and Georgia, Season 2": 22 Dads, Moms, Gram-Grams, Pop-Pops, Aunties, Love Interests, Siblings, and Gay Guys at 3 Thanksgivings

 

Ginny and Georgia, a comedy series on Netflix, is about a mother-daughter team, like The Gilmore Girls.   I reviewed the first episode in March 2021, but I don't remember anything about it.  No doubt the three gay characters listed in its Wikipedia page had not yet appeared.  So I'll give Season 2, Episode 1 a shot.

By the way, the Wikipedia page was terrible, fraught with grammatical errors and overuse of the cliched term "love interest."  I fixed a little of it, but then gave up.  I have other things to do today.

Scene 1: Ginny and Georgia, Mom and Daughter, dancing in slow motion, experiencing that intense sort of ecstatsy that you see only on tv commercials when someone has achieved everlasting happiness by purchasing their brand of toothpaste or dishwashing liquid.  Daughter explains that when she was growing up, they were soul mates, so deeply in love that they didn't need anyone else.

Switch to Daughter as a teenager, no longer in love with Mom.  She's reading the Parable of the Sower, when Mom, who looks like she is around 15, comes into her room. "What the heck is this trash that you're reading?  I'm so stupid that I don't know what 'parable' or 'sower' mean."  

"It's about the demise of civilization through facist capitalism." 

 "Oh, I don't know what any of those words mean, so let's make out  We haven't had sex in ages."   Smothering Mother jumps into bed with Daughter/Lover but calling herself "Mommy" turns the girl off.  She refuses sex, so Smothering Mother ttries smothering her with a pillow. 

Scene 2:  Daughter/Lover wakes up.  It was all a nightmare, a metaphor for Mom's smothering. I may have exaggerated the incest subtext -- a little.  But it's still very obvious, and very creepy.

Her hunky Dad (Nathan Mitchell, left) bursts into her room, calls her "Gummy Bear," and asks if she's ok.  So she's left her smothering Mom for Dad.

Scene 3: A prim Southern Belle who looks like Melanie from Gone with the Wind, opens the door and yells "Welcome back, bitches!" to an elderly heterosexual couple.  A blond woman with a man's haircut  admonishes her to not call "Nanna and Pappy" bitches. So, a lesbian couple?

The elderly Nanna and Pappy enter, hug the couple, and ask Football Fan (Chris Kenopic), a middle-aged man, if he's ready for the Pats to lose.  The New England Patriots, so this is the Northeast.  I thought it was the South due to the Southern belle and the Mom named Georgia. Plus Nanna brought "whoopie pies," a Southern dish. 

Nanna asks Man's Haircut where Marcus is.  So both of the woman have heterosexual partners, and they're all living together?  "He'll be down in a bit."

Scene 4: Marcus (Felix Mallard), a rebellious teenager, is in his room, smoking and drawing bugs on the wall.  Southern Belle bursts in to tell him that Nanna and Pappy have arrived.  

"Too bad -- I'm not doing Thanksgiving this year, because it is a celebration of Native American genocide."

Ok, I'm completely lost.  How are these people related?  Wikipedia to the rescue: Southern Belle, who is "openly lesbian" is Marcus's sister, although she looks about 30 years older.  They are children of Man's Haircut, even though she looks younger than them, and Patriots Fan. 

Marcus wants to know if Southern Belle has talked to "her," because she hasn't been to school in a week, and she's stolen his bike.  Oh, great, not another person to fit into this extended family tree.

More note-taking after the break

Who's the Boss

Many 1980s sitcoms had an anti-nuclear family
message.  Moms and dads were utterly inadequate at raising children; it took an outsider -- a college kid (Charles in Charge), a proper English butler (Mr. Belvedere), a white guy (Webster, Diff'rent Strokes) -- or a hunky working-class schmoo from Brooklyn.

Who's the Boss (1986-92) transformed Taxi hunk Tony Danza into Tony Micelli, housekeeper to uptight Angela Bower (Judith Light) and her blond waif son Jonathan (Danny Pintauro, previously Puck in A Midsummer Night's Dream).  Tony's daughter Sam (Alyssa Milano) and Angela's horny mother, Mona (Katherine Helmond) filled out the household.

Let's review: Tony Danza, who played a gay-positive character on Taxi and posed for the gay magazine In Touch. Judith Light, a tireless proponent of gay rights.  Gay ally Alyssa Milano. Katherine Helmond from the gay-positive sitcom Soap.  Sounds tailor-made for a gay-positive sitcom.

Nope.  No gay characters, no gay references.  At least Tony is cool with the kids' gender-transgressive interests; Sam's passion for basketball and Jonathan's for gymnastics. But the main plot arc involved everyone trying to set up Tony and Angela, who for some reason denied that they were attracted to each other.

Meanwhile everyone in the cast, including Jonathan, was busily falling for the wrong person, cheating on their partner, accepting and then rejecting marriage proposals, worrying about prom dates.

Fortunately, there was a lot of beefcake.  Angela kept stumbling across Tony in the shower or wearing only a towel. When Danny Pintauro became a flamboyantl gay adolescent, he got some shirtless and semi-nude shots in teen magazines.













Sam had a series of hunky boyfriends, such as Jesse (Scott Bloom left, with brothers Brian and Mikey).  And the super-stud Billy Gallo had a recurring role as "Mr. Al."

In 1997, five years after the program ended, Danny Pintauro was outed in The National Enquirer.  His tv family was supportive, except for Tony, who later said "The Danny I knew died last year."  But in 2005, they reconciled enough for Danny to appear on Tony's talk show. They discussed their memories of Who's the Boss, but carefully avoided any mention of "it."

"Time Freak": Asa Butterfield and his Boyfriend Get Girlfriends

 

Time Freak (2018) stars Asa Butterfield as mild-mannered physics student Stillman, who is so obviously in love with his gay-subtext life partner Evan (Skyler Gisondo) that one wonders why he wants a girlfriend at all.  Oh, right, this is Hollywood.  Boy meets girl, and all that. 

Stillman is also in love with the Girl of His Dreams.  Problem: she just dumped him.  Does he man up and move on?  Stand outside her window with a boom box?  Nope, he and Evan build a time machine and go back to see where things went wrong. Dude, maybe you're just not compatible.

Maybe it was that double-date where you insulted the Girl's bffs (she has one of each, girl and gay guy).  So they relive the moment, and other similarly prescient moments, a bazillion times. Every argument, every mior disagreement has to be ironed out.   Wait -- he's basically conning this girl. How would you like it if someone kept re-arranging your life events without your permission?

Meanwhile, Evan meets the Girl of His Dreams and keeps using the time machine to redo every less-than-perfect moment.  Guess what?  They're all less than perfect.  

Stillman finally realizes that going back in time was a bad idea: people get hurt, they hurt others, life is life.  How profound!  He wants to destroy the time machine, but Evan wants to keep it.  They argue, break up, and reconcile.

They end up stuck in the past, having to relive the events that they've been playing all over again.  But if they let life happen and not worry about making it perfect, maybe they can relax and have fun.  Fade-out boy-girl kiss. Darn, I thought Stillman and Evan would finally recognize their love.

Beefcake: None. 

Heterosexism: A double-dose of 1980s teen nerd Girl of His Dreams.

Gay Characters:   Remember the Girl's gay bff, Ryan (Will Peltz)?  He gets a boyfriend, too, and he doesn't even have to use a time machine.

My grade: D.  

But there are nude photos of Asa Butterfield on the NSFW version of this review.

Adam Devine's House Party, Episode 3.1: Hawaii gets gay marriage. With bonus nude Hawaiian dudes.

I'm not a big fan of Adam Devine's House Party, the Comedy Central series spotlighting up-and-coming stand-up comedians.  The two episodes I've reviewed were heterosexist, promoting "all boys like girls and all girls like boys" rhetoric. It's like crashing a party where you weren't invited, so everyone pretends that you're invisible. Plus Adam's persona is authoritarian, self-aggrandizing, and unpleasant.  But he takes his shirt off.

One more try: in Season 3, the party moves to Hawaii, where there's bound to be some muscle guys in Speedos.  In Episode 3.1, Adam marries a dude! No way they can do that without mentioning LGBT people. 

Link to NSFW version

Scene 1: Adam announces that for tonight's episode, he is taking over a resort in Hawaii.  Mary the Hotel Manager says no, he can't, because the space is reserved for a wedding. He'll have to do it tomorrow.  Adam claims that he's the one who reserved the space: he'll be getting married on the show tonight.  Ok, but he'd better get married, or she'll unplug the show on the spot. 

Intro: Beach babe, Adam kissing a girl, accidentally pouring ketchup on his pants. running out of the surf, a disgusting closeup of a girl's bare butt.  Guest comedians: Chris Garcia, Jacob Williams, Megan Gailey

Scene 2: Afternoon.  Darn, everyone is fully clothed except for a big-boobed girl at the drink stand.  Adam reveals to the comedians that he has to get married tonight.  Chris is married already, so it's down to Jacob and Megan.   

The two go off by themselves to discuss it: Jacob is heterosexual, so he's not attracted to guys in general, and Megan is heterosexual but not attracted to Adam at all.  But he's rich, so being his partner might be fun. They call him back: "One of us will marry you.  But you're gonna have to woo us." They act like this will be a forever marriage.  Why not just have a pretend wedding? 

Scene 3: Chris Garcia riffs on how boring soccer is, Hispanic-American culture, and comics who make fun of how their parents talk.  

Scene 4: Jacob is excited about the wedding, and the honeymoon: he has booked them the bridal suite at the hotel.  Hey, bait and switch writers: when the comedians say "you'll have to woo us," there have to be unny bits where Adam tries to woo them. Ever hear of Chekhov's Gun?

 Adam reveals that he's decided on Megan because she's a girl, and, you know, he is into girls.  

Wait -- Manager Mary is watching, so they have to act like they're in love. They should kiss.

Adam recoils in disgust at the idea of kissing another dude. He's always hugging guys, pressing foreheads, grabbing butts, even on this show. Here he has a group massage with Jak Knight and Brandon Wardell.  But kissing is another matter entirely.  I would never kiss a girl, no matter what the script said.

Jacob suggests that they move their faces together as if they are kissing, and grab butts.  Mary is satisfied; "They're boyfriends."

Scene 5: Jacob riffs on having sex with his girlfriend, and finishing too soon. I fast-forwarded. 

Scene 6: Manager Mary wants to know where Adam's fiance is.  He shoves Jacob out of the way and explains that they are ex-boyfriends. It's hard to get over him -- "I love cock!"  -- but Adam is with Megan now. She won't kiss him, but Manager Mary is satisfied.

Scene 7: Megan riffs on being attracted to men in boat shoes and the problem of doing female-centered humor.

Scene 8: Blake is performing the Adam-Megan wedding.  When he asks if anyone objects, Jacob comes forward: "We're both heterosexual men, but I need money."  

Adam objects that if he marries Megan, he'll get to have sex, but she is disgusted by the idea, and backs out.  So it's Jacob.  

Blake: "It's freakin' sick (good), Dude.  Love rules. I now pronounce you man and another man, they're both men, men together." 

Jacob and Adam shake hands and walk into the crowd, Adam grimacing in disgust.  At that moment, the real couple arrives.  Manager Mary says "I knew something was up," and pulls the plug.  The end.

Beefcake: Only in the opening shots.

Gay Characters: Never.

My Grade:  This episode, which aired in March 2016, is a riff on same-sex marriage, which was legalized in Hawaii in October 2013, and everywhere in the U.S. in June 2015. Everyone is completely nonchalant about it, which is a plus, but how about having some real gay people at your party, Adam?  And lay off the graphic display of bikini babe butts. C.

Nude Hawaiian dudes on RG Beefcake and Boyfriends

"Justified": Kentucky cowboy has gay-subtext romance with unhinged thug. Plus bonus nude thugs.

 

I was recommended Justified: City Primeval (2023). a "neo-Western crime drama" that shoves countrified U.S. Marshall Raylan (Timothy Olyphant) into Detroit.  But I haven't seen the original Justified (2010-2015), with Raylan as a marshall in Harlan County, Kentucky.  

I don't usually do crime dramas; I like my entertainment light, comedies or science fiction.  Besides, they hardly ever include gay characters.  But my mother was born in Magoffin County, about 100 miles north of Harlan, and I've visited several times, so maybe the original Justified will be good for nostalgia. 

Link to NSFW version

Scene 1: A rooftop-pool party full of guys cruising bikini babes.  Rylan gave Thomas Buckley, who is an old friend (they ate crab cakes in Managua) until 2:15 to leave the state (Florida does have banishment as a judicial sentence, but I don't think Rylan is a judge).  Big Bad refuses to go, so Rylan shoots him. 

Scene 2: As the coroner takes away the body, Rylan's boss wonders about the legality of shooting Thomas Buckely.  "I gave him a chance to leave.  He didn't take it." Rylan has been shooting a lot of guys, but this one was rich and white, so there's going to be scrutiny.

Cut to a Department of Justice Inquest. "Is it true that you shot a rich white man?"  Rylan, who is now named Dan, shrugs. "He drew his gun on me. Self-defense.  Besides, he deserved to die.  He was evil."

Dan's punishment: Being re-assigned to the wilderness of Eastern Kentucky. "But I'm from there!  I finally escaped!  Please, anything but that!"  Dude, why the cowboy hat?  Kentucky is Appalachia,  You want Montana, 150 years ago.

Scene 3: Dan, who is now named Raylan, arrives in Lexington, a big city with glitz and culture rivaling that of...um, Dayton.  But all we see is the inside of the police station.. The Chief, who is an old friend, has Western movie posters all over his office.   He notes that the Love of Raylan's Life also works here.  So this guy is old friends with everybody?  

Raylan is assigned the case of Boyd Crowther, an old friend who has turned evil.  They're trying to get enough evidence to arrest him -- but no shooting! It's a small town.  People talk."

Scene 4: Boyd Crother (Walton Goggins) and his Boyfriend (Ryan O'Nan, left) discuss a Date Night activity. Boyfriend wants to blow a federal building under construction. Boyd dismisses it as unfeasible.  Instead he blows up a church in a black neighborhood -- without even checking to see if it is empty. Boyfriend protests.

Cut to Raylan explainng Boyd's back story to the Chief. Wait -- he's been working on the case for years. Shouldn't he know everything already?  Back when they were coal miners, Boyd was an explosives expert.  He would yell "Fire in the hole!" to warn them of an explosion coming.  Then he got involved with the white supremacy movement.  

Scene 5: Back to Date Night.  The guys are parked on a narrow country bridge (weird pkace to make out). Boyd wonders if Boyfriend chose a federal building because it would rile the feds enough to arrest him.  And why did he protest blowing up the black church. "I don't see any white supremacy tattoos. Are you even a racist?".  Boyfriend tells him to call his buds in Oklahoma to verify his racism.  His goons are calling Boyfriend's references, but Boyd is tired of waiting and shoots him.  I hate it when Date Night ends like that.

When Boyd calls headquarters (a trailer full of redneck dudes), they say that the references checked out; Boyfriend is a big racist.  "So, how was Date Night?" "Um...er...um...we broke up."   "Was it because he wasn't racist enough, or was his dick too big?"  "Um...er...a little of both."

Scene 6: Raylan wakes up (chest shot) and goes to court to gaze at the typing hands of the Love of His Life, working as a court reporter. She pauses to touch her hair.  Whoa, that's one of his fetishes!  But before he can orgasm, he's called to investigate Boyfriend's body. The police have already found a cap that goes to the rocket launcher used to blow up the black church!  

Cut to the site of the bombed church. A lady pulls her man out of the way of the police.  75% of black parents instruct their kids on how to avoid being killed by the police when they're stopped for "driving while black."  

Detective Gutterson (Jacob Pitts) has already interviewed the eyewitnesses: they said that it was two white guys.  One of them yelled "fire in the hole"  Uh-oh, it was Boyd!

More Boyd after the break

"With Love" Episode 2.4: A gay bachelor party in Las Vegas With lots of bonus butts

  

With Love is a tv-series with an impossible to remember name, about an extended Hispanic-American family, including a gay son and a trans aunt.  In Season 1, each episode was set during a major holiday.  Season 2 seems to be about the wedding of Jorge and Henry (Mark Indelicato from Ugly Betty, Vincent Rodriguez III from My Crazy Ex-Girlfriend,), so I reviewed Episode 2.4: "The Bachelor Party."  Which of the guys is getting one? And, more importantly, will there be male strippers?

Link to NSFW version

Scene 1: Santiago (Rome Flynn, left)) opens the door at 4 am.  Dre (W. Tre Davis) and his girlfriend Annie criticize him for bulging in boxer shorts. Well, he can hardly help having morning wood.  They're going to get married today because Dre has a lump on his testicle, and he needs Annie's insurance to check it out.  But they want to get married in Las Vegas, and they have to drive because Dre is afraid of planes.

Scene 2: Establishing shots of Las Vegas. Jorge and Henry (left), plus two women and a man (maybe Nick, played by Desmond Chiam, top photo), walk in slow motion into their hotel suite.  It has a crystal sculpture of a male torso. 

They rush to claim their bedrooms.  Jorge complains that he likes the credenza in Room A but the view in Room B, so...they move the credenza.  What a diva!

Woman #1 asks Nick to share her room.  He refuses because it would be too awkward, but she shows her boobs and says "No sex," so he agrees.

Scene 3:  Dre, Santiago, and Annie from Scene 1, who are all black, driving through redneck country. They discuss the weird stuff about the girl Santiago was dating. then Annie criticizes for not wanting to get married: "it's not normal."  Geez, lady, why so judgmental?  Granted, there are two weddings in this episode, but still, some people don't experience romantic attraction, and some just like living alone. 

Santiago wants to normalize people being single, but Annie disagrees: "You want a partner, you want kids."

Dre has to pee, so they pull into a scary redneck gas station.  The attendant glares at them; they change their minds and drive away.  Hey, where's the next scene where he posts his Black Lives Matter sign?

Scene 4:  The guys in their suite. Suddenly "the gays arrive!": James and Jauvier (Scott Evans, Adrian Gonzalez, left).   Why are the friends of a gay couple on tv always flamboyant stereotypes?  They flirt with the one straight guy in the room, give Henry a penis-hat (he doesn't like it because it's too bushy; he likes his pubic hair trimmed), and zoom to the booze. Why are they always drunks?  

Back in his partying pre-couple days, whenever Henry drank tequila, he turned into a loose cannon named Hank.  "He's the reason I'm permanently banned from the Gap)." "He's the reason my wrist cracks when I make a limp-wrist gesture."

Everyone wants to go to the pool, except Hank: with his muscles and bulge, women are always hitting on him. They talk him into it anyway.  Nick the Straight Guy acts as his anti-wing man, blocking all of the drink and sex offers.  Hank suggests that he get with some of the girls himself, but he's mooning over one of the girls they came with (he gestures at them standing together, so I can't tell which).

Scene 5:  The three driving to Vegas stop at a non-redneck place to pee.  Santiago imagines that he sees his ex-girlfriend Lily (who is now in Vegas, being "just friends" with Nick the Straight Guy), walking in slow motion, her hair blowing in the wind. She gives him a flirty glance, then drives away forever.  Maybe she'll show up in Vegas.

Scene 6: Everyone hanging out, the gays wearing pink bunny ears and having no trouble with the limp wrist gestures. They criticize Henry for not drinking. Hey, some people don't drink for religious reasons, some have an alcohol problem, and some just don't like it.  It's his choice, jerks! 

Cut to Nick the Straight Guy in the pool with his crush, discussing how people who are not right for each other can still be friends.  They're shoved together and almost kiss.  That has never happened to me once.

Back to Henry -- they peer-pressure him into drinking tequila, and he turns into Hank.  It makes him horny, so he and his fiance Jorge rush into the room to have sex.  But Jorge gets doused with booze, and while he is cleaning up, Henry/Hank rushes out to sex up some other dudes.  They split up to look for him.

Scene 7: In the casino, Woman #2 sees the penis hat-- but another guy (Jeff Meacham) is wearing it!  He tells a long story.  Henry/Hank also orders a seafood tower in the casino restaurant, then leaves.  We see him next at a disco, dancing with Bob the Cowboy and complaining about all the special treatment Jorge needs. "I need to be watered, too, Bob.  Let's go!"   I would consider that a hook-up invitation, but Bob doesn't.

I'm out of space, but here's what happens during the remaining 20 minutes; Everybody who is supposed to be together gets together. We see some bare chests.  And the bachelor party turned out to be the hanging-by-the-pool scene,  No male strippers.  The end.

Beefcake: Lots of Henry and Nick the Straight Guy.  The pool scene is beefcake-deprived.  I was hoping to see the beset-upon waiter, Gerard (Jared Wernick), but all I could find was a sort of side-butt while sitting on the toilet.

Other Sights: No.

Gay Characters: The guys and "the gays."  I didn't care for the limp-wristed stereotyping, especially since the most limp-wristed was played by a straight guy.

Heterosexism: Lily's got an ex-boyfriend and a "just friend" pining for her.

Judgey:  "If you don't like exactly the same things that I do, you're weird, stupid, or sinful." Ugh! Once I posted on Facebook about not liking mayonnaise, and the hate that came spewing from my friends! 

My Grade: I prefer a little more Vegas in my Vegas settings, and a little more sizzle in my bachelor parties. Henry/Hank even asked Jorge to "make out" rather than screw.  I suppose we should be happy when a tv show centers a gay couple at all. C+.

A lot of bare butts and at least one cock on RG Beefcake and Boyfriends

"Dream Corp LLC": A gay couple fights the Predator and a giant catfish in bizarre dream therapy. With Nick Rutherford dick.

Dream Corps LLC  (2016-2020), on Hulu, is an Adult Swim dark comedy about a run-down medical facility where a bumbling Doctor (Jon Gries) and his staff, notably Patient 88 (Nicholas Rutherford, left) solve people's problems through dream therapy.  

I looked up LLC: Limited Liability Company.  No idea what that means, but it sounds like a boring insurance term; not the best name for a show you want people to actually tune in to.  But I'm reviewing Episode 1.3, because it involves a gay couple. 

Link to NSFW Version

Scene 1:  A run-down storage facility. Technician Randy (Mark Prokbsch, who you may know from What We Do in the Shadows), looks for his vape, with the help of T.E.R.R.Y the robot.  He loses his shirt and his hand.

Scene 2:  The Doctor examines Patient 86, aka Brandon (Geoffrey Arend, left), who has hives due to relationship problems.  His boyfriend is late (Brandon tricked him into coming, saying it was "hot yoga").

Forced to "lick the truth plastic", Brandon, reveals that he gets dressed for the gym, then just sits in his car and drinks lattes, he doesn't have any black friends, and he doesn't know if his boyfriend still loves him. Aha, the crux of the issue!  A brief interview could have told you that without a gross "truth plastic."

Patient 103, AKA Rod (Dan Gill), arrives, angry because "You forgot your man again." 

Scene 3: They need Randy to begin the procedure.  Patient 88 finds him trying to re-attach his hand.  Disgusting!  The magnets he used push the hand into Patient 88's crotch and begin masturbating him. He tells TERRY "This is not what it looks like." Randy: "Yes, it is." 

Patient 88 breaks away, and the hand moves on to masturbate Randy.

Scene 4: In their animated dream, the guys are riding penis-shaped dolphins.  They reach land, and a golden staircase.  The Doctor tries to warn them that they are going the wrong way: the staircase will kill them!  But he was knocked out of the dream.  Patient 88 tries to get him back in.

Scene 5: Uh-oh, he's back in the dream, but fighting the Predator!   Meanwhile, the guys reach the top of the staircase.  It turns into a hot air balloon, with Rod hanging over the side!  He says: "If anything happens to me, I want you to know...." I love you?  No: "This was your idea." Darn!

He falls, apparently to his death!  Brandon screams and sobs. 

Scene 6: The dream shifts: Brandon is rafting in a scary swamp.  A giant catfish monster appears and starts yelling in a foreign language!  Outside the dream, Brandon is flatlining!  The staff discusses how to do CPR.  He awakens and yells for them to go save Rod! 

Technician Joey figures out that the murky water and foreign language signify a lack of communication.  Ten minutes of couple's therapy, or a scary, possibly lethal nightmare?  Your choice.

Scene 7: They put Brandon back in the dream, where Rod is running on a giant hamster wheel. Suddenly they are on a ferris wheel, and the Predator appears!  Rod tries to run away, but Brandon stops him: "This is our life, and you always run away! You run away from me!"

Left: Nick Rutherford and friend.

The Predator suggests that Brandon takes Rod for granted. He picks them up and carries them home, where they kiss (disgustingly, with 6-foot long tongues).  They wake up screaming.  But at least their problem is solved.  Wait -- was it lack of communication or taking Brandon for granted? 

Rod admits that, when they were on the hot air balloon, he let go on purpose so Brandon would feel guilty.  He proposes, but Brandon is in too much pain from being pounded on the chest by a robot.  The end.

Beefcake: None.

Grossness: Lots.  They appear to revel in it.

Gay Characters: They are treated like everybody else.  The plot synopsis doesn't even mention that they are gay.

I watched a few other episodes to see if there were any other gay characters. Jimmi Simpson (left) as a guy afraid to fall asleep looked like a good possibility, but the moment he fell asleep, he met The Girl.

My Grade: The dream is sort of cool, but the grossness outweighs it by a ton.  D

There are butts and dicks of Jon Gries and Nick Rutherford on RG Beefcake and Boyfriends