NCIS: New Orleans: The "Quantum Leap" guy and the "Wings" guy are kidnapped by the "Oz" guy. And they're all nekkid.

I don't usually watch crime dramas, but "Father's Day," Episode of 2.14 of NCIS: New Orleans, stars some of my beefcake favorites: Lee Tergesen (Oz), Scott Bakula (Quantum Leap), Steve Weber (Wings), and Lucas Black (Southern Gothic).  The premise: "Pride and Mayor Douglas are abducted from their Mardi Gras events."  Is Pride named after Gay Pride?  Nope, it's the last name of Scott Bakula's character (left).   

Link to the NSFW version.

Scene 1: A big Mardi Gras party full of heterosexual couples, the men in fancy tuxedos.  Sleazoid Mayor (Steve Weber) takes the stage and says a few words while eyeing a lady in a red dress.  He congratulates his chief of staff, Tom (James Dumont), for being married to such an incredibly hot woman. Pay attention to that necklace.  It will become important later.  He then follows the Lady in Red out into the hall, quoting Oscar Wilde: "I can resist anything except temptation." His staff groans: not another one!  The hookup wants to have sex right there in the hallway.

Meanwhile, Pride (Scott Bakula) is told that he must go out back for a liquor delivery (he must own the place).  He goes, not at all suspicious, and gets tranquilizer darted. 

Scene 2: They both wake up tied to chairs while a mysterious Masked Figure peers at them. Sleazoid Mayor wonders if his hookup was an accomplice (ya think?).   But Figure ain't talking. 

Meanwhile, out on the street, everyone is waiting for Sleazoid Mayor to shake the hand of the Mardi Gras Parade King.  Where is he? Agent LaSalle (Lucas Black) points out that Mardi Gras began in Alabama, not New Orleans, and gets yelled at.  

Uh-oh, there's a drugged security guard (Chris McKenna, top photo) and a dead Marine inside the party venue (a hotel, not a bar).  The Security Guard saw the Sleazoid Mayor's Hookup running past after he was darted.  And the dead Marine was darted, too.   

(NCIS is the Naval Crime Investigation Service, so they have to have a dead sailor or marine in there somewhere.)

Eventually they figure out that the Mayor and Pride have both been darted and kidnapped.

Scene 3: The victims try to bargain with the Masked Figure. Mayor: "I got a lot of rich friends.  They can get you anything you want." Pride: "I'm a NCIS Agent!" (I thought he was a bar owner.  Side gig?).

Mysterious Figure starts recording them, and tells them that they are here "To confess." 

Scene 4:  The tech guy found no terrorist chatter or threatening messages aimed at the Mayor or Pride. He starts working on a partial license plate number provided by an eyewitness.  Meanwhile, the agents reason that it's Mardi Gras, the streets are clogged, so the kidnapper couldn't have gone far.  They must be holding the guys near the party venue..

Left: Scott Bakula in underwear

Scene 5:   Back at the party, rich white people are dancing ludicrously. The Agents grab the Mayor's Hookup (identifiable because she's the only Lady in Red).  Why didn't she scram after hoodwinking the Mayor?

Her story: a guy said he was playing a prank on the Mayor, his old fraternity brother, and paid her $500 to get him alone.  Wait -- how did she know for sure that the Mayor would choose her for his hookup?  If he latched onto someone else, the whole plan would be ruined.

More underwear after the break

Mario Lopez: The hottest celebrity, the nicest celebrity, or both? With bonus butt, bulge, and maybe more.

I first saw Mario Lopez on March 14, 1987, on an episode of The Golden Girls  He played one of Dorothy's students who is in danger of being deported to Mexico.  He was fourteen years old, but he already had the hair, the dimples, and the impish smile that made you want to smile back. It was impossible to be in a bad mood while looking at that smile.

Link to NSFW version

The beefcake came later -- when Mario played A.C. Slater, the sullen working-class athlete who paired with smooth-talking operator Zack Morris on Saved by the Bell and Saved by the Bell: The College Years (1989-1993).  Why wasn't his character Hispanic? Because nearly the only Hispanic characters on tv had names like Drug Dealer #1.

Mario broke away from teen hunk-types with the homoerotic (but gay-free) horror movie The Journey: Absolution (1997).  His character was not Hispanic.

In 1997, he played gay athlete Greg Louganis in Breaking the Surface: The Greg Louganis Story.  Playing a gay character was quite brave in the 1990s; Hollywood insiders warned that it would end his career.

But he went on to play Dr. Mike Hamoui on Nip/Tuck (2008-2010), getting naked in the shower room and causing unexplainable longings in the ostensibly heterosexual plastic surgeons.

And lots more.  I could post a thousand beefcake photos of Mario Lopez, but really, there aren't many people in the world who aren't familiar with his physique.  It's the most photographed in Hollywood.

But I'm still fixated on that smile.  Has anyone ever seen Mario not smiling, except when he's acting on screen?  He even smiles at the papparazzi who follow him on his morning jogs.

For that matter, has Mario ever said a bad word about anyone?  Has anyone ever said a bad word about him? (Ok, I criticized him for making a heterosexist statement on his website, but he has certainly made up for it by being a long-term gay ally.)

He's on lots of lists of "Hottest Celebrities," but he probably should be on the list of "Nicest Celebrities," too.

In case you haven't seen them for awhile, I posted some bulge, butt, and possibly more on RG Beefcake and Boyfriends

Mosaic: Two gay guys, one a villain, a bunch of alligator skulls, and Pee Wee Herman. With bonus nude dudes.

In Mosaic (2017), con artist Eric (Frederick Weller) has been convicted of murdering his latest con victim, famous children's author Olivia Lake.  His sister Petra thinks he's innocent, and begins investigating the other men in Olivia's life: "she liked to surround herself with young guys." 

Link to NSFW version

First up: Joel (Garrett Hedlund, left), an aspiring artist who used to live on Olivia's property.  He's not a suspect -- he was at a 10:00 pm showing of The Hobbit with male friend at the time of the murder.  Or was he?  Maybe the buddy lied to protect him.   Wait -- male friend?  Is this guy gay?

Cut to Joel living a "normal" life in backwoods Slidell, Louisiana, running a company called Big Bayou Gator Guides. He motors a man and his two kids (James, Kelton, and Sinclair Dumont) into the swamp to look at alligators.  Scratch that -- he helps Kelton shoot one!   

Violent rite of passage, I guess.  Then he helps them pack the meat into a chest marked "Not for Sale," and gives them the name of a taxidermist. 

Petra intrudes upon Joel's alligator-skull-filled shop with questions about her brother and the dead author: "Look, I hardly knew him!" he exclaims. I heard that before.  Were they dating?  Joel is living with a guy.  He is definitely gay.

Nope.  I shouldn't watch these episodes out of order.  In Episode 1, Olivia the famous author and her gay bestie JC (Paul Reubens, best known as Pee Wee Herman) compete for the attention of handsome bartender Joel.  He chooses the old lady over the old dude.  Plus he hooked up with a girl on New Year's Eve.  Straight.

But there's more gay content: Petra and Joel investigate the "story walk" with pop-up from Olviia's book, Whose Woods These Are.  When he lived on her property, Joel used to take walks there, and one night he stumbled upon two guys going at it.  One turns out to be Cameron, the chief suspect. 

Two gay guys, and one isn't even a suspect! I may have to watch the rest of this. 

The NSFW version, with lots of rears and a frontal is on RG Beefcake and Boyfriends

"Barry" on HBO Max:: Two Gay Stereotype Characters are Not Queerbait!

 

HBO Max recommended Barry to me, about a hitman turned actor.  But I can't take any more "are they or aren't they" couples, so I did some internet sleuthing.

Variety: Antony Carrigan and Michael Irby play "the cutest gay mobster couple on tv."

No-Ho Hank (Antony Carrigan) gets 4th billing on IMDB, appearing  in 30 episodes across four seasons.   Is No-Ho short for No-Homo? I desperately hope not. 

Christopher Sifuentes (Michael Irby) appears more sporadically: 2 -3 episodes per season.  He must be part of No-Ho Hank's story arc.

The Advocate review is upset becaue "No Ho Hank" is an "unsavory character," a ruthless killer.  Well, who would you expect to be a hitman's friend, a florist?

Reddit has the usual: "Is he gay?", with about half of the responses saying "Obviously" and the other half saying "Obviously not."

Newsweek notes that his big gay reveal comes in Season 3, Episode 1, so I reviewed that episode.

Scene 1:  The wilderness.  While someone named Jeff begs for forgiveness, Hitman Barry (Bill Hader, top photo) eats a sandwich.  His bulky associate Charles asks for  for a tool to cut his eyelids off with, so Barry rummages around in the trunk for some pliers. 

"Did she tell you how big your cock is, Jeff?" Charles asks. Odd question -- why would Jeff need to be told the size of his own cock?  

Suddenly Charles decides that, since Jeff asked for forgiveness, he's not going to kill or torture him.  After all, his wife is partially responsible, too.  This annoys Barry, so he shoots them both.  Wait -- now you won't get paid.

Scene 2: Sally, who helpfully keeps a Hollywood sign on her desk, is reading the script for the latest episode of the tv series Joplin.  She moves into the living room, where Barry is playing a video game (about a hit man?), and asks why he didn't come to bed last night.  

This is Season 3; no doubt Barry's heterosexual identity was established  way back in Season 1. It's only the gay guys who get a few seasons of hints and "is he or isn't he?" disputes.

After some conversation about today's shooting on her show, she says "Love you!" and leaves.

Scene 3: The helpful sign "Plants!" tells us that we are at a plant nursery.  A guy who was identified as Chechen in the "previous episode" montage is spraying water in a way that looks like he is peeing, har har.  Three detectives approach and ask to see No-Ho Hank. The Chechen offers to fetch him, and runs through the greenhouse, yelling "Hide everything!" 

Cut to the office. No-Ho Hank (Anthony Carrigan), a bald Lex Luthor type, is talking business with his bulky bald associate: they need more guys.  I could use a few more guys, myself.  The Chechen warns him about the cops, but he isn't upset, just a little nervous: "This is my first interrogation."  A little swish in your walk, Dude, and that pinkie ring is rather flamboyant.  These must be some of the "is he or isn't he" hints.  

Scene 4: At the police station, No-Ho Hank claims that he knows nothing about the monastery shooting, or a dead detective with a pinback that says "The debt has been paid" in Chechen.  "They hand them out at banks back home."  Then he admits that the two cases are linked, and points out the man responsible in a photograph: The Raven, a Chechen mob enforcer: "The Raven lives in shadows.  Who knows where he is?"

Scene 5: The Raven in a desert cabin in Chechnya, in his undershirt, pouring a bowl of cereal (Flaky Critters). But he's out of milk, so he goes out to milk his goat.  He and his younger, bulkier boyfriend have breakfast and discuss how to get better tv reception: he hasn't missed an Ohio State game in 25 years.  Boyfriend says that he can return to L.A. as soon as things cool off.  

Scene 6: Whoa, Fonzie has grown up.  The Elderly Fonzie, aka Gene Costineau (Henry Winkler), is at the police station, deciding which of the men in a photograph showed him Janice's body.  Janice must be his Dead Wife.  He points out the Raven. 

"But the Raven must be working with Barry!" Fonzie insists.  "Barry is responsible for everything bad that has every happened to me: my Dead Wife, my failed acting career..." All downhill after you jumped over that shark, huh?   "But we cleared Barry."  "He's working behind the scenes..."  Ok, Boomer, time for your nap. 

Scene 7:  At home, Barry is scrolling through a hitman website, looking at the various ads from customers wanting someone to kill their friend, spouse, or boss.  He answers one from a lady who wants her cheating husband offed, and asks what different colors mean in flowers.  Weird!  Dude, call a florist, or just google it.  

Meanwhile, a middle-aged woman is watching one of Girlfriend Sally's scenes.  She asked if Sally's character and another woman live together. Why, is there a lesbian subtext in the show? :No, they're mother and daughter."

More stuff about Sally that I'm skipping over. Eventually it's lunchtime, and Barry arrives with flowers.  I'm skipping again, to the next No-Ho Hank scene.

Scene 8:  No-Ho Hank arrives at a large house in the hills, enters the tiny living room, and sniffs a flower. 

 Someone is taking a shower; he sneaks in to the bathroom, opens the door -- and surprise!  It's a guy, boyfriend Cristobal (Michael Irby), all shrieky and feminine: "You scared me!" he lisps.  Geez, I'm watch a 1930s pansy character.  If this guy has appeared in a number of episodes previously, why would anyone be shocked that he's gay?   

"Guess who finally got a police interrogation?" No-Ho Hank asks proudly.  "I think I aced it!"

"I told you, Hank, you've got to envision your future." Hank undresses and climbs into the shower with him (the scene cuts abruptly).

Scene 9: Hank and Cristobal are cuddling in bed, watching something on a laptop. They discuss buying property in Santa Fe, but Cristobal can't afford it until they rebuild: "Your boyfriend Barry killed all of my buddies."   So Barry is working for a rival gang?  

"He killed some of my buddies, too."

"Yeah, but you have a few left.  I don't have any." 

Scene 10: Late at night, No-Ho Hank goes out to the balcony to blow out some candles, and Barry is there!  "I didn't know where else to go?"  Hank orders him to leave...it's not a good time.  Then they hear Cristobal's voice.  Is Hank cheating on Christobal with Barry, or is Cristobal just angry because of the loss of his buddies?  

Barry wants to know if Hank and Cristobal are an item now.  "Yeah -- why, you jealous?"

"I just need a job.  You don't have to tell anyone." 

"But you shot most of my buddies, and then framed me.  Why would I give you a job?"  I agree: that's very weird.   Barry pleads and cries, but Hank will have none of it, and tells him to "fuck off."  

He leaves.  Barry immediately gets a text from Elderly Fonzie, asking for some help "packing."  A job!  From someone who hates you?  Be suspicious, Dude.

The camera pulls away from Elderly Fonzie, revealing that he has a gun.  Uh-oh, Barry is a goner.

Scene 10: In the morning, Elderly Fonzie kisses an adult man (Andrew Leeds), presumably his son, and a little boy, presumably his grandson, and says he'll meet them in the park later, if he has time.  Ominous music plays as he grabs his briefcase.

Barry appears at his office.  They discuss how his acting studio is closing after 15 years, and it's Barry's fault.  Why, did he kill the students?  Then Elderly Fonzie brings up the memory of seeing his Dead Wife's body, and being told that Barry was responsbile.  

He pulls out a gun to kill Barry, but it falls apart!  Barry takes the opportunity to grab him, take him into the desert, and kill him.  He begs, pleads, and says "it's me!" before and after being shot in the head.   Then Barry changes his mind, rolls back time, and says "I think I know how to make it up to you. Get back in the trunk."  The end.

Beefcake:  No-Ho Hank and Cristobal are shirtless.  

Gay Characters: The big reveal, but No-Ho Hank has some gay-stereotype qualities, and Cristobal is a big ole screaming queen, so I'm surprised that anyone is surprised.  There's also an intentional gay subtext betwen No-Ho Hank and Barry, played as a joke, which might help with the surprise: viewers would assume that the gay hints were just queerbaiting.

Left: Another episode shows Yandar  (Nick Gracer), one of the Chechens, in the sauna.  I assume that he's about to have oral sex wtih that guy, but google searches do not suggest that he is gay. Wikipedia reveals another flamboyant gay stereotype, a student in Elderly Fonzie's acting class.

Acting Stuff:  Sally's story is the B-plot, taking an inordinate amount of screen time.  

My Grade: C.

A Season in Hell: Gay Poet Abandons His Art...and Men

When I was in college , I thought that Charles Baudelaire was gay, because he named his book The Flowers of Evil, and because he was an outsider, looking in on Paris.

I read Arthur Rimbaud's Bateau ivre (1871) and Un Saison en Enfer (1873) -- mostly in English translation, as the French was impenetrable -- and found them both loaded down with homoerotic imagery.

He was definitely gay.

He began his career at the age of 14, sending scandalous letters to established poets.  In 1871, at age 16, middle-aged poet Paul Verlaine invited him to visit, and they began a passionate but volatile affair.  For two years, they scandalized polite society by openly living together in Paris and London, drinking heavily, carousing in public, and writing scandalous poetry.  Finally, overcome with jealousy and despair, Verlaine shot Rimbaud, injuring him in the wrist.

Verlaine spent two years in prison on charges of sodomy (a more serious charge than attempted murder), then returned to his poetic life and had more gay relationships before his death in 1891.

Rimbaud abandoned his art altogether.  He was not yet 20 years old.

He joined the army, worked in a stone quarry, and finally got a job as a coffee merchant in Yemen, where he died at age 37.

Why did he abandon his art?  He never gave an explanation, but his life has has inspired many writers, artists, and directors, even in the days before same-sex relationships could be openly discussed.  Mostly they portray the relationship as inherently evil and destructive to both poets.

There have been two major film versions:

Una stagione all'Inferno (A Season in Hell, 1970) starred Terence Stamp as Rimbaud (left) and Jean-Claude Brialy as Verlaine.  It focuses on Rimbaud, seduced by the evil gay predator, then abandoning his art and the gay "vice" and getting a girlfriend.

Total Eclipse (1995) starred Leonardo DiCaprio (top photo) as Rimbaud and David Thewlis as Verlaine. It takes the opposite tactic, emphasizing Verlaine's downfall as he is mesmerized by the young poet and descends into a "hell" of self-indulgent evil.  They both repent and convert to Catholicism.

And get girlfriends.

My friend Farshad claims to have dated DiCaprio while he was filming in Brussels.

See also:  Nude Photos of Leonardo DiCaprio

The Top 10 Hunks of "The Great Gatsby"

The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald's classic novel of the Jazz Age, is loaded down with gay subtexts.  Young aspiring writer Nick Carraway moves into a house on Long Island next to the mansion of the extravagant Jay Gatsby, and falls in love with him, supporting him through an elaborate scheme to win his former lover Daisy, Nick's cousin.

The 2013 Baz Luhrman film version ups the gay subtexts, eliminating any hint of romance between Nick and lesbian-coded tennis pro Jordan, making Nick's affection for Gatsby palpably romantic, and suggesting that Gatsby doesn't want Daisy so much as Daisy-and-Nick.




There's also a gay subtext that isn't even in the book: Daisy's husband Tom has a palpably homoerotic interest in Nick and other men.  They go to a wild party attended by a gay-coded man and several women, and when it turns into an orgy, Tom grabs a bellhop and strips him out of his clothes.

There are a huge number of hunky actors in the production.  Unfortunately, most are kept under wraps, or appear in undershirts.  Here are the top 10:

1. Leonardo DiCaprio (right) as Gatsby.  He's played gay characters many times.

2. Tobey Maguire (left) as Nick.  He and Leo have a real-life bromance going on, and their real-life affection certainly added to the gay subtext.

3. Joel Edgerton as Tom, Nick's college buddy who likes men and women.  He played half of a gay couple in Saturn's Return (2001).

4. Jason Clarke as George Wilson, garage mechanic whose wife is having an affair with Tom.

5. Indian actor Amitabh Bachchan as the evil gambler Meyer Wolfsheim.  He has played a number of bare-chested romantic leads in Bollywood.

6.-7. I'm not sure exactly who plays the bellhop who gets his shirt ripped off in the bisexual orgy scene, but my best guesses are hot model Milan Pulvermacher (top photo), cast as "Waiter at the Hotel Sayre", or Australian actor Stefan Mogel (right), cast as "Bellboy" (uncredited).

8.-9. The casting director apparently scoured Australia for physique models to play even minor parts.  Check out Conor Fogarty as Gatsby's Butler, or Alex Lissine as a Cocktail Waiter.

10. Or Kai Pantano as one of Wolfsheim's thugs. He's done some modeling and had some small roles in Australian movies and shorts.  

See also: Nude Photos of Leonardo DiCaprio

"American Society of Magical Negroes": Gay stars, but is there any gay content?

Members of marginalized groups -- racial minorities, religious minorities, women, and LGBT people -- are often stereotyped as mystical.  They may be presented as superstitious (the Italian "evil eye") or psychic (women's intuition), but sometimes they have fully-formed paranormal powers. like the "magical Negro" who zaps around time and space to help the white protagonist. There's a helpful Wikipedia page with dozens of recent examples: Bruce Almighty, Hitch, Sex and the City, The Dark Knight, The Matrix, The Martian, The Green Book, La La Land and Aladdin.   According to the conflict theory of criminology, the ruling class promotes these stereotypes deliberately, to justify the groups' lack of power and wealth -- they "can't function" in the hard, logical, materialistic world of goverment and business.

The American Society of Magical Negroes (2024) presents this stereotype as real. Aren (Justice Smith, top photo) is recruited into an Illuminati-like society of African-Americans with paranormal powers, which they use to control world events.  He is assisted by his white best friend (Drew Tarver, left).  Justice Smith is gay and Drew Tarver is bi, so this movie has to be LGBTQ-friendly.  

But, whenever possible, I watch trailers and read plot synopses before watching a movie, to check for nasty surprises like queerbaiting or deathbed scenes.

Link to NSFW version

Scene 1: Aren sees a lot of people standing in line outside a building, and is zapped into a magical space.  A woman says "I know you can feel their discomfort," as he sees a half-naked white girl looking at him.   He walks through a giant gallery space while white people stare at him.  The woman: "Watching you walk through a roomful of white people is the most painful thing I've ever seen."

Scene 2: David Alan Grier recruits him into the American Society of Magical Negroes.  We see a lot of classrooms where students are learning to use their powers, sort of like Hogwarts. Then Grier transports him to a streetcorner and asks "What's the most dangerous animal on the planet?"  The answer: "White people, when they feel uncomfortable.

Grier continues: The job of the society is fight white discomfort, because the happier they are, the safer we are."

I can see not wanting to get shot, but is it really the black person's responsibility to make white people feel comfortable?  If they feel uncomfortable, isn't it on them?  Maybe I'm being over-optimistic, but shouldn't the society be fighting the institutional racism that internalizes the stereotypes and results in perceiving the black person as a potential threat?

Scene 3: Aren becomes the coworker of his first client, Jason (Drew Tarver).  They bond over pingpong and video games.  He also meets his Love Interest. Unfortunately, Jason thinks that he is trying to set them up.  Drama! Hey, Drew Tarver is bi, and plays gay guys all the time.  Why is he straight here?  Boo!

The boss gets mad, too, because Aren won't be able to concentrate on making Jason comfortable with black people if he's busy courting Love Interest.  They're already best friends; he looks pretty comfortable.  

Scene 4: Well, Love Interest is white, so why take on her as a client instead?  She seemed fine, too.  Aren goes all out on his courtship.  Scenes of the two falling in love, while the boss warns that he could have his memory erased for breaking society rules.  Meanwhile the motto of the movie splashes across the screen: "Some connections are stronger than magic." 

Will I Watch:  Heck no.  I'm interested in the political implications of "making white people comfortable" as a social movement agenda, but this movie is actually just a regular heterosexist heteroexual romance, with the magical stuff just added to create a "forbidden love" drama.   And it's heterosexuals all the way down, to make sure that straight viewers don't feel uncomfortable. How ironic is that?

Justice and some others nude on RG Beefcake and Boyfriends

10 TV Hunks I've Never Heard Of

This post is from 2016.  Let's see if I know any of these tv hunks in 2024.

When I was a kid, if there was a hunk on tv, you knew about him.  His few shirtless photos became common knowledge, part of our shared gay memory.  But today, every actor goes to the gym and rips off his shirt regularly.  And with the proliferation of tv shows on cable networks and websites, you can't possibly hear about everyone.

Here are 10 celebrity hunks that I had never heard of in 2016:.

1. Andrew Triscitta, One Life to Live

2. Casey Moss, Days of Our Lives

3. Collins Pennie, Fame (the remake)

4. Craig Horner, Legend of the Seeker.  Must be a sword-and-sorcery program.

5. Daniel Henney, Confidential Assignment.  Must be a cop show.

















More after the break

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.