"Siblings," Episode 1.1 or 1.3: Dan tries too hard to win a guy who uses a wheelchair. With gay wheelchair guy bonus

Link to the n*de dudes

Siblings is a Britcom (2014-16) now streaming on Amazon Prime, featuring lazy, amoral siblings Hannah and Dan (Charlotte Richie, the sort-of-cute Tom Stourton).  Reminds me of The Other Two, so let's take a look at "Wheelchair Conference," which the IMDB calls Episode 1.1, but Amazon Episode 3.3

Scene 1: At breakfast, Dan is describing a bank robbery that "really happened," but it turns out to be a movie.  Hannah has to rush to work (at 10:30), because she has a new boss who might expect her to show up. The old one was always drunk, and didn't notice whether she was there or not.

But what is Dan supposed to do while she is away?  "Go out and make a friend."

Scene 2:  Hannah rushes into the office just as Drunk Boss is leaving.  He's been sacked for good for silly things like "gross incompetence."  Now she has to find a way to kiss up to the new boss

Cut to the coffee shop, where Dan approaches a Writer (Rob Carter, who is heterosexual) busily working on his novel (just work at home0.  He asks inane questions, and "jokes" that he's going to pour coffee on the guy's laptop.  But he slips, and actually does! (just work at home).  Friendship attempt thwarted, he leaves.

Scene 3: After a long day of trying unsuccessfully to make friends, Dan comes home to Hannah conducting extensive research on the new boss, looking for an angle.  The problem is, there are a lot of Annette Walkers online, so she has to learn about everything from Costa Rica to the University of Hull.

Ulp, there's a homeless guy named Biscuit in the house.  Time for a lot of jokes about how homeless people are disgusting, har har, and Dan is an idiot for inviting one home, har har.   About 40% of homeless youth are LGBT, kicked out by homophobic parents. A sizeable percentage are victims of physical and sexual abuse.

Scene 4: At the office, Hannah tries to kiss up to the new boss by demonstrating her knowledge of Costa Rica and the University of Hull, but this is a different Annette Walker.  She's been going through the reports, and discovers that Kevin's  job encompasses Hannah's job, so one of them is redundant.  Hannah lies that "Kevin is homophobic."  Interesting -- 20 years ago you would be fired for being gay, and now you're fired for being homophobic.

Kevin is played by Matthew Steer.  No intel on whether he's gay.

Uh-oh, Kevin is talking to the new boss about his report analyzing five years of appraisal statistics.  Hannah heads him off with "Weren't you saying last week that gay people shouldn't be allowed to live by the seaside?"  "Um...no."

Boss Annette can't work late tonight, because she's meeting her son for dinner, and she has to get the company car refitted for his wheelchair.  What a coincidence -- Kevin  had to get his car refitted for his mother-in-law's wheelchair!  Uh-oh, Hannah is out.

Or maybe not: "My brother Dan uses a wheelchair, too.  He's 23."

"My son is 23, too!  Why don't the two of you come to dinner with us tonight!" Setting them up on a date?

It takes a while to become accustomed to using a wheelchair, so Dan will doubtless be awkward and give himself away.

Scene 5: Dan falls head-over-heels in love with the son, Charlie, who is a video game developer -- his dream job! And Charlie is impressed by the jokes that everyone else hates.  Dan asks him out on a date:

"Sorry, I have a basketball game tomorrow night, but you can come and watch.  We're playing in the semis."

"I've got a semi right now!" Thanks for sharing, buddy.

Charlie is played by David Proud, who uses a wheelchair in real life.  He is famous for his role as Adam Best, a snobbish Oxford student, on EastEnders, and is heterosexual in real life.

Back at dinner, Dan explains how he had the "accident" that led to his needing a wheelchair: he was jet-skiing in Puerto Rico with this smokin' hot supermodel, and they were making out, and...dude, I don't care if your bi, but you won't attract gay men by talking about ladies with incredible bodies.

Scene 6: Boss Annette invites Heather to a business weekend, where they will be staying "in a hotel" (tell me more, tell me more)

Cut to Dan and the wheelchair basketball team in a bar after the game (hey, no fair -- I wanted to see some of the game).  He asks Charlie to stay with him "for the rest of my life."  Too soon, dude!

Random n*de guy who uses a wheelchair on RG Beefcake and Boyfriends

Then Dan  invites Charlie for a sleepover: "Of course, we won't be doing much sleeping!"  Charlie balks, a straight dude not realizing that Dan has been hitting on him, so he backtracks "Because we'll be watching films and stuff, not s*x."

More after the break

The Castro Clone of 2025: Ethan Gosatti resurrects the 1970s South of Market gay cruising look for 2020s Perth. With Tom Selleck bonus

 

The late 1970s and early 1980s was the golden age of the Castro clone, a rebellion against the stereotype of gay men as swishy, lisping butterflies by presenting overt machismo: lumberjack shirts unbuttoned to display a hard chest, preferably hairy, close-cropped or bushy hair, and a huge handlebar moustache.

The look was everywhere: in magazines, in Donelan cartoons, and of course, in every gay bar in town during Saturday night cruising or Sunday brunch.  It eventually leaked into the mainstream: Tom Selleck sported an infamous Castro clone moustache in Magnum, P.I.,  (1980-88), though he lashed out in violent homophobia if anyone suggested that he was or knew any gay men. 

Like all fads, the look soon faded into a memory of bars heavy with the smell of cigarettes and poppers, dancing to the BeeGees while trying to catch the eye of that cute college guy.  It's been 40 years since the Castro Clone look was fashionable.

So it came as quite a surprise when I watched Population 11, about an American searching for his missing father in a quirky outback town, and found that Constable Rory Roberts sported the Castro Clone look. Well, he wore a constable uniform, but he had the hairy chest and ridiculously thick clone moustached down.  Who was this throwback to the 1970s?

His name is Ethan Gosatti, he's from Perth, Australia, and this was his only on-screen role to date. 

And he'e was only 23!  How on Earth would he know about the Castro Clone look? 

More after the break

"Man in the Orange Shirt": Despondent gay Brit hooks up, gets a boyfriend, plays cards with Gran. With some n*de Julians

 

   Link to the n*de photos

 Man in an Orange Shirt is a two-part BBC television series or coherent movie.  Part 1 features the "forbidden love" of two soldiers immediately after World War II.  It has a sad ending.  I don't want to watch that, so I'll skip to Part 2, about a modern-day couple, Adam and Steve.  Adam and Steve, like from the homophobic slogan: "God created Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve, therefore you shouldn't be gay"?  That's ridiculous! Is this a comedy?

No, a drama: "A minefield of internalized issues and dangerous temptations line the road to their happiness."  In 2018?

Scene 1: Long close-up of an eye as Adam (Julian Morris, who didn't come out until he was 38) scrolls through a hookup app while walking down the street.  He stares with a sinister expression, as if he's on his way to murder someone.

Cut to a long close-up of an elderly hand next to black-and-white photos of a man getting married and in a soldier uniform.  It turns out to belong to Mrs. Flora, a woman with a man's haircut, reading the newspaper while her attendant brings pills. If she was married to the WW2 guy, she'd be well over 90 now.

Psych!  Adam wasn't on his way to murder someone, he was just going to work.  He doesn't even seem to hate his job as a veterinarian. After returning a dog to its kid, he sees his next patient, a cat owned by Steve (David Gyasi)

Adam and Steve?  Come on, that's ridiculous.  

Some stuff about a sick, meowing cat that I'm fast forwarding through.

Scene 2: And then Adam (left) and Steve have sex, but blurry, in weird angles, with obstacles in the way.  The dialogue is "Yes! Yes! Moan." 

Mrs. Flora's attendant leaves, with shepherd's pie in the oven for later, while Adam walks down the street with a bouqet of flowers.  Either the sinister look is his natural express, or Adam hates everyone and everything. 

He sits down to dinner with his grandmother, Mrs. Flora, and compliments her plate warmers.  She thinks that he is mocking her. A bit paranoid, Gran?  Then she criticizes his jacket. 

They discuss how Gran did a good job raising him, as opposed to...his sister?...who is having twins and therefore reprensible?  I'm not catching these British insult/compliments.  

Gran notes that she deflects all of the busybodies who ask when he's going to settle down: "Some of us prefer our own company."  Or you could just out him.  You know that he's gay, right?

Dinner over, Adam leaves, but Gran stays at the table, looking despondent.  You left her to do the dishes?

Scene 3: In Adam's absurdly elegant London flat, he stands in the shower and tries desperately to scrub off a stain on his shoulder.  I don't get it.  This guy didn't appear in the last episode, so what is the significance of the stain?  A reference to "Macbeth"?

He drops in to give Steve his dead cat's ashes, and finds a super-elegant apartment and a fey older boyfriend, Casper the Friendly Ghost (Julian Sands), who is annoyed but accepts the hookups as a necessary evil, required to have access to Steve's penis. 

Adam tries to complement Steve's apartment and his job as an architect, but Steve find something wrong with each. Come on, dude, look on the bright side. You've got a great job, a great apartment in downtown London, a boyfriend who doesn't mind hooking up, and a tripod between your legs.  Cheer up!

Scene 4: Adam having dinner with female friend Claudia and her husband David (Eddie Arnold, who died in 2008, leaving over 140 classic country-western songs.  Aspiring actors might want avoid naming themselves after famous names, to make internet searches possible).   They want to fix him up with swishy American drama teacher Dwight (Hal Scardino):

"So, how do you know Claudia?"

"She was my girlfriend at uni."

"Oh.  I thought you were...um..."  The word is "gay."  Why is it so hard to say it?

"Um...,yeah...but..."  "I turned him!" Claudia chirps in.  Girl, don't say that, even as a joke.  It gives the homophobes ammunition for their "Being gay is a choice" arguments.

Adam continues to be despondent, and sneaks in the back room to check his hookup app contacts. Just date the swishy drama teacher.  He wants to ditch his friends for a hookup.  Claudia checks his face and dick shots to make sure he's worth it -- "yeah, hotter than Dwight, go on." 

Meanwhile, Gran is playing cards with her old-biddy friends.  One leaves to use the loo, and the others gossip about "two dates" with a man -- to a hotel!  Gran doesn't get it -- she hated sex, and was thrilled when her husband died and she didn't have to do it anymore.  Maybe you just hated sex with men, dear. Try out the Daughters of Bilitis.

Scene 4:  Adam trudges despondently through the busy streets as if he's on his way to a funeral instead of a hookup.  Cut to him topping the guy, Bruno (Phil Dunster) -- all dark, nothing showing.  Afterward Bruno complements him on his passion and tries an introduction, but Adam isn't having it: no names, no overnights, no "I'd like to see you again."  While Bruno is in the bathroom, he zooms away to trudge despodently through the streets of London. I get the impression that the showrunner strongly disapproves of recreational activity.  Even the participants hate it, and have to take six-hour long showers afterwards.

Scene 5: Adam fixes Gran's router while she heats up the food that her attendant prepared -- and complains about it, of course. I like complaining, too -- "here are the things I hated about it" is much more fun than "it was good."  But lady, there are limits.   

In other news, the letting agency said that the cottage needs too much work to be lettable (rentable?), so Gran wants to give it to Adam.  In Britain, a cottage is a small house in a rural area with no land around.  

"Besides, it will get you out of the city!"  You got it backwards, Gran: gay men move into the city.

Cut to Adam walking despondently and then being despondent at work.  He calls Steve -- for a date?  No, to help him renovate the cottage.  He's an architect, yeah?  

The place is a horrible dump, with moldy wallpaper, holes in the ceiling, a hole in the bedroom floor, no heat, and depressing furniture from the 1950s. But Steve thinks it's "brilliant," a perfect fixer-upper.  He's bored with "tarting up kitchens" and is desperate to "get my hands dirty."

More after the break. 

John Cena: playing the first canonical bisexual superhero in DC tv history?

 

John Cena began his career as a professional bodybuilder, but switched to wrestling,.  Originally he played heels, such as a foul-mouthed rapper, the Doctor of Thuganomics, but soon he switched to heroic characters.  He was named world champion in the WWE 16 times before moving into semi-retirement and starting a new career in acting.

Like many muscular men, Cena found his niche in comedy.  He guested in teencoms like True Jackson and Hannah Montana, and played the Dad in all three of the Fred movies (remember Fred?).

Roles in feature films followed: Cool Dad in Daddy's Home, Pazuzu (a drug dealer, not the demon) in Sisters, cyclist Gustav in Tour de Pharmacy.

But his breakout role was probably Peacemaker, in The Suicide Squad (2021), a DC Cinematic Universe film about misfit superheroes sent to South America to take down an alien threat. Peacemaker was a "douche-y dude-bro" with little character development, but his comedic bits (and his underwear scene) led to a tv spin off, Peacemaker (2022).  He got a new set of allies and enemies, a lot more underwear shots, and, amid a lot of hetero-romances,  a gay subtext romance with his best friend/roommate

Cena decided that he wanted his character to be openly bisexual, not just in subtext, so he comes out.  In one line, never mentioned again, but that's the way skittish tv producers do things.  It's a start.

There are n*de photos of John Cena on RG Beefcake and Boyfriends

"Jasper Jones" promises Levi Miller in love with a boy. Does it deliver? With Dan Wylie and the "Priscilla, Queen of the Desert" guy

 

The IMDB description of the Australian movie Jasper Jones (2017): "In the late '60s, two teenage boys join forces to solve a chilling mystery and navigate the prejudices and secrets of their small Australian town." 

 It's usually a teenage boy and girl, so two boys together identifies them as a gay couple.  And "prejudices and secrets"?  Homophobia and closeting!  

The first partner is Levi Miller, who I recall from in A Wrinkle in Time (2018).   He also starred in Witch Mountain (2022), apparently a remake of the Disney classic.

The second boy is either Kevin Long, who appears only in Jasper Jones, or aboriginal actor Aaron L. McGrath.  From the poster, I'm thinking Aaron.

But I'm not going to invest without doing some research.

The trailer:

Scene 1: Levi is reading a book in bed.  His mother comes in and kisses the top of his head, an Australian custom that makes me cringe.

Scene 2: It's too dark to make out much, but it looks like Aaron peering through a fence and then grabbing Levi as he walks through the woods. 

Scene 3: Levi at the breakfast table, being depressed.  Mom touches his head again. 

Scene 4: Um...it's not two teenage boys joining forces, it's Levi and a girl!  

Scene 5: A roomful of rabid bigot in the Corrigan Town Hall.  I guess they're bigoted against Aboriginals.  Levi, depressed, sits in the audience and gazes at The Girl, on stage, next to Cooper Van Grootel.  

Scene 6: Out in the woods, again too dark to see anything, Levi talks to Aaron, who points out the word "Sorry" carved into a tree trunk.

Scene 7: A montage of Levi walking through town while bigoted townsfolk glare at him, past a farm where a bearded guy yells angrily at him, his dad (Dan Wylie) yels angrily at him, riding bikes with Kevin Long, and then sitting on the grass with him.  So is the second partner Aaron or Kevin?

More after the break

Wes Stern (sigh): Was the cutest teen idol of the 1970s gay in real life, or just pretending? With bonus Sal Mineo and Dustin Hoffman

 

 Link to the n*de dudes

Sigh.  Isn't this most groovy, ginchy, dreamy, outta sight dude to ever have his name written amid little hearts in a chemistry notebook?

Er...I mean he's a hot snack.

Wait -- not Bobby Sherman.  I meant his boyfriend, Wes Stern (sigh).

In the spring of 1971, 27-year old Bobby Sherman was probably the #1 teen idol in the country,or maybe #2 to David Cassidy of The Partridge Family.  He had released 10 albums and 23 singles, includiing hits "Easy Come Easy Go" and "Julie Do Ya Love Me."  His shirtless photos were plastered all over the teen magazines, actually more often than David Cassidy's.  And he had displayed acting talent as the "allergic to girls" beach movie star Frankie Catalina on an episode of The Monkees, plus two seasons as Troy Bolt on Here Come the Brides (1968-70).

The minds of ABC executives started churning.  Why not give him his own tv series?  He could play "himself," and sing a different number every week.  Surefire hit, right?

They based the premise on the singer/songwriter team Boyce and Hart.  Bobby would play Bobby Conway, a struggling singer. They just needed an awkward, "girl-shy" dude to provide the comic relief and tight jeans as his nerdish lyricist Lionel Poindexter.

Thousands of groovy dudes showed up for open auditions, but Bobby really, really liked 23-year old Wes Stern (sigh).  

Soon they were seen together at Hollywood hot spots, preparing for the deep, deep, deep romance (um...friendship) that would characterize their series.  

Everybody idolized Bobby Sherman at the time, but Wes (sigh) really pushed  up the lovelorn gaze.  He was definitely up for some snogging, and I'm sure that the nearly-openly bisexual Bobby Sherman obliged. 

Interestingly, Bobby married Pat Carnel that summer, and published an introduction to Wes (sigh) claiming that he "loves girls."  Protesting too much, buddy?

Bobby hasn't revealed much about his male loves, but we almost know he dated almost-out actor Sal Mineo.

And Wes (sigh)

Tie-in novels and comic books were ordered, gushing teen magazine articles were written -- Wes (sigh) lives in a "bachelor apartment in West Hollywood.".  Then, after a "meet cute" episode of The Partridge Family, Getting Together premiered in October 1971. 

We must have watched -- the alternative was All in the Family, which Mom and Dad didn't allow because of the atheists.  But I don't recall anything except Bobby and Wes (sigh) smiling at each other.  My description comes from nostalgia articles:

In the first episode, Bobby becomes the guardian of his orphaned younger sister, but she runs away when she thinks her presence is interfering with their romance...um, I mean friendship. Don't they have their own room?  

Most episodes involved their parenting problems rather than the singing-song writing stuff - dig, a teenage girl in 1971 likes The Lawrence Welk Show!

Co-parents in an alternative family, plus the guys lived in an antique shop. They couldn't be more gay-coded if they plastered their bedroom with pictures of Steve Reeves.  

Except Getting Together didn't air on  ABC's Friday night block of kid-friendly programs.  It aired on Saturday night, where it failed to make a dent in the juggernaut of Archie, Edith, and the Meathead.  14 episodes appeared through January 1972, and then the duo disbanded.  But the memory of a gay romance lingered.

Was Wes (sigh) gay in real life, did he and Bobby have a platonic-pal bromance, or was their relationship purely manufactured? I knew almost nothing about him then, and I still don't.  He is almost absent from the internet.  All I have is a few details about the show and 13 acting roles listed on the IMDB. 

He was born in New York City on July 25th, 1947.  "Stern" means "star" in German and Yiddish, so I'm assuming Jewish, although "Wesley" is a Methodist name.  No info on his education.  In 1969 he hit Hollywood and joined the Groundlings comedy troupe.

He turned down the role of Benjamin Braddock in The Graduate (1969) to star in The First Time (1969): Three teenage boys on vacation in Niagara Falls mistake Jacqueline Bisset for a lady of the evening, and request her services.  Wes (sigh) is into it, but his gay-coded friend is not.

More after the break

Gemstones Episode 2.3: Kelvin topples, Keefe cuddles, and Titus is caged. With bonus s* loads

 

This is a continuation of Episode 2.2: Kelvin clenches,Keefe dances, and everybody flirts with Eli. 

Link to the NSFW version

Episode 2.3 explores the darkness behind Eli and Kelvins' empires.  

Four guys in the steam showers:  A montage of the God Squad in their compound outside Kelvin's house, working out with wooden equipment, shaving with an axe, growing crops.  Performers that Kelvin hired would have apartments in town and ordinary social lives, with friends and families.  This is a whole society, a homoerotic alternative to the mundane world of men constrained by wives and children, imprisoned in small square houses "made of ticky tacky."  

In literature and film, the adventure ends with marriage.  The hero is domesticated, exchanging his battles and intrigues for a mortgage and a briefcase, his band of brothers for the Eternal Feminine.  The God Squad offers an escape: "no women allowed," either in the Squad or hanging about outside, hoping to "civilize them."

Kelvin congratulates Keefe on his leadership, then says  "I'll meet you in the steam showers, but bring Titus and Odd Chris.  I could smell them during worship."  Every guy working in the hot sun all day will be pungent; in-universe, he is obviously inviting the other men so he and Keefe can each have a sex partner.  The leaders of many messianic cults require sex with random members.  

No one named Odd Chris appears in the cast list, but Titus will be the first God Squad member to rebel. Interestingly, in the Bible the Apostle Paul set Titus to Corinth to deal with a challenge to his authority.

After Keefe leaves to prepare the orgy, Jesse drops by to reveal his theory that Eli murdered Thaniel Block and the other men.  Kelvin refuses to hear it, and wants to defend Eli's honor.  "You ain't as tough as you think, boy!" Jesse exclaims, putting up his fists.  Then he sees the God Squad preparing to defend Kelvin, and backs off.  Messiah Kelvin has some loyal followers!

Junior Threatens Brock:  We cut to Eli at home, putting his bloody pants from last night into the hamper and watching a news report about the murders. Security guard Brock calls to tell him that Junior wants in.  "Tell him I'm not here." Was Junior his partner in the murders, or did he do the job on his own?

Junior blusters and threatens him, but finally he drives away. You may recall that in Season 1, Scotty flirted with Brock to gain access to the Gemstone compound.  But Junior has moved away from his gay-subtext flirting; he is pure threat. 

The Human Pyramid:  We see the God Squad perform before an audience of teens.  Kelvin introduces the strongest member, Torsten, who dated a "female" in high school before she tried to seduce him, and he had to decide on "his celibacy or his soul."  It is clear that by "celibacy," Kelvin means much more than avoiding sex with women.  You must reject the entire heterosexist trajectory of job, house, wife, and kids, the nuclear family myth, the domestication and civilization threatened by the "female."  The way to salvation lies in the beauty of male bodies, in homoerotic desire unhindered by emotional connection. 

But when they move on to a human pyramid, with Kelvin on top, it topples.  The House of Cards collapses.  Maybe it can't be all about the penis after all.  Keefe behaves like a concerned boyfriend, rushing onto the stage and embracing Kelvin  -- to protect him from plummeting musclemen?.

Kelvin Wants to Spoon: After a scene with Jesse and his family discussing whether Eli is a murderer, we cut to Kelvin in his dressing room.  What follows is very difficult to read. Fans are likely to shake their heads and say WTF?  during their first, second, and third viewing. The showrunners want us to be unsure whether the guys are in fact gay, but that's obvious to anyone who pays the slightest attention to queer codes.  The real question: is Keefe Kelvin's assistant and acolyte or his romantic partner?  Are they friends with benefits, or are they in love?

On the surface, it seems easy enough.  Kelvin, in underwear, is looking out the window at the God Squad below. Keefe enters, having drawn him a bath, and tells him that both Liam and Titus were injured in the human pyramid debacle.  Kelvin thinks that it's their own fault for being soft on the fundamentals and skipping leg day.  "Something might have to be done about Titus," he says menacingly, an action-adventure movie villain.  

Keefe: "I completely agree."  Note that he is not an assistant, or his opinion would be irrelevant.  They are equal partners in the God Squad Cult.  "But some of the others have been questioning their place here as well. That's the downside of assembling an entire group of alpha males.  As they grow stronger, they grow more defiant."  The men are not content with being mere objects of desire; they want autonomy and control. 

Kelvin slips off his underwear and hands them to Keefe, who helps him put on his bathrobe -- from behind.   He has to press his body against Kelvin, crotch to butt.  Then he caresses Kelvin's thighs instead of breaking away. It would be much easier from the front.  Why does he go in from the rear?  

When he is finished, Keefe walks over to the mirror, but Kelvin isn't having it, and moves in front of him to get into the butt-to-crotch position again. 

Their gestures and positions are blatantly erotic.  Kelvin is in physical and emotional distress, and wants to be comforted.  In a society where romance is forbidden, this is how lovers cuddle.

"Brother, what's troubling you? " Keefe asks. "Your mind seems dark and black."  It's a secret.  Keefe promises not to tell anyone.

Kelvin turns around to reveal that his Daddy may be a murderer.  Their faces are only a few inches apart, far too close even for lovers, unless they're about to kiss.  One of them must back up to a comfortable conversational distance.  Kelvin is right against the mirror, so it's up to Keefe to back up.  Why doesn't he back up?. 

We see here Keefe struggling with his desire to move the relationship from "erotic partners" to "boyfriends," struggling with his urge to kiss Kelvin. Notice that he says "Are we in trouble?", not "Are you in trouble."  Again we discover that he is not an employee, who could just find another job if the church went down.  They are romantic partners; they are in this together.

Eli lays down the law: In the next scene, Eli notes that Liam (Peter Kaasa), who was injured during the human pyramid stunt, is suing the Gemstones. They don't need another scandal right now. 

He tells Kelvin to "stop acting like a child" and "grow up."  It's time to "put on your big boy pants, and stop playing with your muscular boys."  Kelvin yells "They're muscle men, Daddy," but he has missed the point.

 Eli thinks that Kelvin's erotic play is immature and childish.  Adults can't be all about desire, about doing things behind closed doors; they need connection to the greater society.  His talk omits the usual "find a girl, get married, and have kids" part of the heteronormative litany, since he knows that Kelvin will never relate to a woman in that way.  But he still needs relationships based on love as well as desire.  He needs to be part of a family.  

Sorry, I ran out of space.  Titus will be caged, and do the coming, in the next section.  But I included some bonus s* loads on RG Beefcake and Boyfriends 

"A Real Pain": Cousins have wacky adventures or a Dark Night of the Soul in Poland. With Kieran Culkin's backside.

     Link to the n*de dudes

A Real Pain (2024), on Hulu, is advertised as a wacky buddy comedy with Kieran Culkin and Jesse Eisenberg, touring Poland, with a lot of exteriors.   No doubt they are both absurdly heterosexual and will meet The Girl of Their Dreams, but it will be fun to see how quickly their heterosexual identity is established. 

 Besides, I'd like to see some of the sights, like the Jewish Museum in Warsaw and the University of Krakow. .

Not to mention Kieran's backside.

Scene 1: Benji (Kieran Culkin, left) is sitting in the airport waiting for David (Jesse Eisenberg), who is just walking out the door of his Manhattan brownstone.  He keeps calling: heavy traffic...no, it lightened up...Ok, so David is the Stick-in-the-Mud, Benji the Free Spirit.

At the airport, Benji grabs him and makes him twirl so he can see his cousin's butt.  Um...an interested in a guy's butt is a sign of gay identity.

He brought yogurt, and some weed for when they reach Poland: "They're not going to arrest two Jews for a little weed."

He chats up the TSA lady: "Her Dad does security for the Knicks."  This annoys David. Doesn't count as heterosexualizing him.

Priya made some trail mix for them.  Doesn't count: she could be an aunt or a sister.

Scene 2: On the plane, David has to take the middle seat. Bummer.

They discuss their back story: David works in digital ad sales, and Benji is a deadbeat. They haven't seen each other for a while.  They're going on a Heritage Tour of Poland.. wait, they're Jewish...is this a tour of the sites of pograms and concentration camps? 

Naw, who would want to see those?  Poland has 1000 years of Jewish history.

Later, David takes his prescription meds and gazes at a video of his daughter. Heterosexualized at minute 6.30. 

It's actually Jesse Eisenberg's real-life son, Banner.  I was confused by his long blond hair.

Scene 3: At the Warsaw airport -- "Welcome to Warsaw" sign in English.  They meet their driver. Some nice location shots as they drive through the city, but David is still gazing at that video of his son.   Why the heck aren't you looking out the window at this major European capital that you've never been to before?

They check in, retrive a package of weed from the desk clerk, and head up to their room. When David kicks off his shoes, Benji complements him: "You have really nice feet.  Graceful as fuck. Reminds me of Grandma's feet."  Foot fetish? Benji is giving off some gay vibes.

Scene 4: Tour Guide James (Will Sharpe, top photo) introduces himself: Not actually Jewish, but a degree in Eastern European Studies from Oxford.

The others in the tour are:

1. Marcia Kramer, recently divorced, from New York.  Her mother survived the camps. One of the cousins is obviously going to fall in love with her, but I'm not sure which.  Maybe David is divorced, and Benji's interest in men's butts and feet is supposed to be wacky, not homoerotic.

2.-3. Diane and Mark (Daniel Oreskes), an elderly couple. 

Daniel Oreskes has 40 acting credits on the IMDB, including The Sopranos, Law & Order, Ray Donovan, The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, and Only Murderers in this Building.  He is heterosexual.

4. Eloge, from Rwanda, converted to Judaism.  He's a survivor of the Rwandan genocide.

The Cameroon-born Kurt Egyiawan is a British theatrical actor who has appeared in The Exorcist, House of the Dragon, Bodies, and Kaos.  No intel on whether he's heterosexual or not.

More after the break

Daria: Sparks of Humanity in the Craziness of Modern Life

After appearing as a minor character on MTV's animated Beavis and Butthead, sardonic high schooler Daria spun off into her own series in 1997.  You could tell by the theme song that this would be no Beavis redux:

Excuse me...EXCUSE ME...You're standing on my neck!

Daria is a super-intelligent, anti-social, outcast student at bourgeois Lawndale High, negotiating horribly incompetent, glory-grubbing teachers and idiotic students.

Lke squeaky-voiced Kevin, a football quarterback in spite of his less-than-spectacular physique, and his ditzy girlfriend Brittany.

Home is no better.  Mom Helen is a high-power attorney who is constantly taking phone calls from work, too busy to notice her daughters.  Dad Jake is a high-strung moron with a traumatic past.

Sister Quinn is super-popular, a member of the vacuous Fashion Club, dating a dozen guys, including the trio Joey, Jeffy, and Jamie, afraid to let on how smart she actually is.

Daria has a gay-subtext buddy relationship with fellow outcast, the artistic Jane ("we'll always be freaking friends"), and there are a few other people in Lawndale who she can stand the sight of:

Trent, Jane's brother, an aspiring singer in the punk group Mystic Spiral (left, fan pic from Deviantart.com)

Tom, Jane's boyfriend, who Daria eventually steals (below).

Mack, the only black male student at Lawndale High (second below), and his overachieving girlfriend Jodie, are allies.














It's not just "aren't most people idiots" 1990s angst.  Daria has many faults of her own -- she is judgmental, temperamental, inclined to jealousy, terrified of rejection.  She often gets her comeuppance.

All of the characters are flawed, but they all demonstrate some redeeming traits, too, moments of kindness, anxiety about the future, sparks of humanity that shine through the craziness.

A lot of beefcake -- cute animated guys, that is.  But rarely shirtless.  These photos are all from the opening montage of the movie Is It Fall Yet?  

Not a lot of gay content, other than the Daria-Jane subtext and the three inseparable J's.

 An occasional homophobic aside:

Daria notes that in Medieval England, King John made Robin Hood his "special friend."

One of the J's suggests that Mercutio from Romeo and Juliet is gay, and therefore should be banned from the locker room.

A predatory bisexual woman tries to convince Jane that she's a lesbian in order to get into her pants.

Not nearly as bad as other animated sitcoms of the period, or today. Have you seen Family Guy lately?




Plus it is amazingly well-written, funny without being vulgar, and that rarest of creatures, sarcasm with a heart.  Well worth getting ahold of the complete series on DVD (65 episodes and two movies).

"F*cking Adelaide": Queer musician Brendan Maclean returns to his awful hometown, shows his backside and a rando d*ck

  

Link to the n*de dudes

F*king Adelaide  (2017), now streaming on Amazon Prime, is a comedy-drama about a family drawn back to Adelaide when Mom makes an Earth-shattering announcement.  There are six 15-minute long episodes.  I watched the first, about Eli.

Scene 1: Adelaide, 1999.  A boy in drag is singing to his two sisters as they hide in a sheet-draped-over-chairs tent from their yelling, smashing-things parents.  He stumbles, but his older sister tells him to just keep singing: "One day you'll get out of here, and you'll be a massive star. I know it."

Scene 2: Sydney now.  The adult Eli (Brendan Maclean), wearing a weird headdress, is trying to perform on a broken keyboard.  Cut to him kissing his girlfriend in their apartment.  He's straight?  WTF?

It was a misdirection -- Eli is still trying to perform in a coffee house that looks like an apartment.  He is angry because the couple is kissing instead of paying attention. 

It probably wasn't a misdirection for Australians.  Brendan Maclean is a well-known queer musician, with six EPS, two albums, and a number of songs for tv episodes.    

He became infamous in 2017 with the music video for his song "House of Air," which pretends to be a training video about "homosexual encounters" around 1980.  Strangely, the performers actually engage in the more unusual acts, which might be gross for some viewers, but just simulate the everyday acts.

Brendan was interviewed in Issue 2 of You Otter Know, a queer zine produced by Harry Clayton-Wright during the COVID lockdown in 2020-21. 

He has 14 acting credits listed on the IMDB, including Klipspringer in The Great Gatsby (2013) and How to Make Gravy (2024), "an adaption of Australian music legend Paul Kelly's classic song."

The song is a monologue: a man calls his friend from prison, saying he won't be home to make the gravy for Christmas dinner, so he's giving him the recipe.  

After a look at Brendan's backside, we can return to the episode. 

 As Eli continues trying to perform in the apartment-shaped coffee house, Mom calls: she bought him a ticket home.

"Nope, I'm busy.  I've got gigs and a boyfriend and a life. I can't just go running off to Adelaide." 1350 km, a two-three day drive.

The woman in the snogging couple says she used to know a guy from Adelaide.  Maybe you know him?  That happens when I say I'm from Illinois.  

Scene 3: Eli heads to the pub and asks bartender Nathan (Drew Proffitt) to let him perform.  "Nope, I pay you to tend bar." 

"Ok, then, where are my wages?"

"Oh, I gave them to your boyfriend Peter."

They get into a fight over whether Eli can drink free, and bartender Nathan fires him.

More after the break