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

  

Link to the n*de photos

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

More after the break

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

Link to the n*de photos

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

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

I'm only at 2013.

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

Wait -- RuPaul's Drag Race UK?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

More after the break

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

 

Link to the Jay and Carter c*ocks

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

For thirty years.

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

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

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

Three questions:

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

2. Any n*de photos?

3. Is he really gay?

1. What has he been doing?

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

And an under-the-covers e*rection.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Harold Monro: Lost Gay Poet

The 1960s was all about heroic fantasy; hippies were all agog over The Lord of the Rings and its precursors and imitators, especially those published in Lin Carter's Adult Fantasy Series: The King of Elfland's Daughter, The Boats of the Glen Carrig, The Wood Beyond the World.  Beyond the Fields We Know.

 But by the disco era, we preferred stories about big, bright spaceships hurling through the galaxy.  So when Elsewhere: Tales of Fantasy appeared in Adam's Bookstore in September 1981, the start of my senior year in college, I bought it for nostalgia only.

The illustrations by Terri Windling involved ample nudity, mostly female, but sometimes you could see the curve of a male backside or the hint of a penis.

The stories were usually heterosexist, but I found something evocative in "Overheard on a Salt Marsh."  It's about a goblin who begs a nymph for her beads.  She refuses.

Then I will howl all night in the reeds,
Lie in the mud and howl for them.

I kept thinking that there was something gay about it, but what?  It's a male goblin encountering a female nymph, complaining that the beads are "better than any man's fair daughter."

Is it his gender-atypical desire for the beads, green glass, stolen out of the moon?

Maybe it's the desire itself, desire with all of the trappings of civilization removed, raw, savage, and terrifying.

I could find out very little about the author, Harold Monro, in those days before the internet.  He was born in 1879, opened the Poetry Bookshop in London in 1912, and managed it for the rest of his life, except for a few years of service in World War I.  He married twice, was plagued by alcoholism and depression, and died in 1932.

But as I read his other poems, I found more hints of an openness to male beauty:

Man Carrying Bale:
And the same watchful sun glowed through his body feeding it with light.
The muscles will relax and tremble.
Earth, you designed your man beautiful both in labour and repose

And same sex desire:

 Children of Love, about Cupid and Jesus meeting:
And now they stand
Watching one another with timid gaze;
Youth has met youth in the wood,
Are you afraid of his arrows, O beautiful dreaming boy?

Then in 2001, a biography of Harold Monro appeared, and I discovered that my impressions were correct. Monro was gay, but closeted, and his earlier biographers either didn't know or didn't want to tell.  Like most gay lives of the past, his was hidden, requiring you to read between the lines.

See also: Golden Cities, Far: In junior high, we write a heroic fantasy novel with absolutely no connection to "The Lord of the Rings"

Manawyddan Son of the Boundless: a gay Theosophist writes about two gods in love

Justin Berti: The Movie Rewards Godfather finds his niche in Shakespeare and adult videos. We see his backside a lot, but what about his front?

  

Link to the n*de photos

If you've been to a movie theater within the last year, you've seen this commercial: A moviegoer stumbles upon three Godfather-parodies discussing what seems to be illegal activities.  The movie premiered over 50 years ago, but it's been parodied so often that the guys and their mannerisms are instantly recognizable.

She asks, "Are we going to make somebody sleep with the fishes?"

"Aee-oh," the Head Godfather protests. "We just do Movie Rewards."  He explains: "Maybe a free ticket falls from a truck.  Or the online fees just...disappear!"  Laughter.

They settle in with their voluminous snacks.  "It's an offer you can't refuse."

This commercial has made actor Justin Berti more recognizeable than anything else in his career.

Wait -- what else has this guy been in?

According to his resume, Justin was born in Connecticut, spent time in Texas and California, and then attended Columbia University. After graduating in 2003, he moved to Japan, where he modeled, played semi-pro baseball, and performed in Fiddler on the Roof, Little Shop of Horrors, and Macbeth.  

And he had a guest spot in The Ramen Girl (2008), about a woman stranded in Tokyo who trains to become a ramen and takes off her stuff a lot. 

Back in New York in 2015, Justin appeared in King Lear, Much Ado About Nothing, Troilus & Cressida, and the non-Shakespearean A Fool for Love, Glengary Glen Ross, and The Full Monty

His American on-screen roles begin with some video game voices and music videos, but he quickly finds his niche, as you can see from the titles: Submission, The Love Machine, His Secret Past, High Heel Homicide, Secret Life of the Surgeon's Wife, Forbidden Love, Lethal Desire, My Dark Romeo...

It's softcore, so no d*ck shots, and his backside is on display only when he's doing stuff with a lady.

I don't see a lot of gay content. The Stepbrother I Hate to Love (2026) is about two stepbrothers who get with each other during a  hookup with a girl, but Justin is far down the cast list, playing someone named Victor.  Matthew Campbell (n*de on RG Beefcake and Boyfriends) is far down the cast list, too.

Torn Between My Stepbrothers (2026) shows a bi encounter with two stepbrothers (not the ones in I Hate to Love), but the plot description is quite different: "a young man faces many challenges after losing everything."  Justin plays their dad.

 

His "known for" list on the IMDB has four movies:

 Secret Lives of Housewives (2022): Kendra starts an affair with the younger Erik (Bo Yokely)   When he is killed, she suspects her husband (Justin), but it turns out that he was doing stuff around the neighborhood, so lots of husbands are angry.

Divorce Bait (2022):  Alexis pretends to be divorcing her husband (Justin), to see which of her friends tries to move in on him. If they think he's divorced, what's the problem?  Meanwhile, an old flame (Erik Fellows) tries to move in on her! 

More after the break

The Fixers: A gay-vague Taiwanese hunk, a bi gambler, politicians, blackmail, mysterious monks, and n*de Chinese dudes

 

Link to the n*de dudes

The Fixers, on Netflix: "A mismatched pair...."  Good enough for me: let's find some gay subtexts.

Episode 1: "The Swamp Eel." 

Scene 1: A chubby eyeglassed guy awakens in the hull of a ship, chained to a bed.  A young guy (Jun Shuo-Lou) tells him that they've been kidnapped because "Your boss found out that you were sleeping with his wife."

"But I'm just his accountant.  I never even met his wife."

What other reason would he have to kill them?  

He has evidence of money laundering -- the Boss must think that he's going to leak it.  But it's hidden in his study.

"They're in the study," Driver says, tossing him the key to his chains as he walks out.  Huh?  

He wasn't in a ship after all; he was in a truck. We see the Driver changing clothes beside his ritzy car, while his partner is eating a sandwich.  "We just kidnapped you to get the location of the incriminating evidence.  You're free to go."

As they zoom off, the driver, who turns out to be a fixer named Gold, calls the Boss to say that they're on the way to get the ledgers.  His partner complains that they keep doing jobs for the police. 

Scene 2:  Establishing shot of a poor neighborhood.  A dice game. Uh-oh, Swamp Eel (Christopher Ming Shun Lee, right) uses a device to cheat, then gathers his money. "My beautiful wife has made me dinner, so I have to go."  Heterosexual identity established immediately.

Some gangsters led by Milky enter.  Swamp Eel asks "Coffee, tea, or me?" An old stewardess joke that implies gay/bi identity.

"Your debt's overdue. Time to pay."

"Um...er...uh...business is slow.  Let's play a dice game for it."

Milky (Sam Lin, left) bets a huge amount. Swamp Eel uses his device, but they catch him. 

"Now we're going to cut off your most valuable body part!"  No, not his p*enis, his finger.  

Swamp Eel runs away, across the housetops, and into a secret hole in a wall, across another rooftop, into an open-air market, where he swings a swamp eel like a lasso. They pellet him with cabbages. He jumps into a police car and blows them kisses.

Scene 3: He arrives at home to find "Scammers go away!" signs all over his house.  His son Howie reveals that his wife is live streaming about being scammed.  She used the house as collateral to take out a loan for five million Taiwan dollars ($16,000 USD) to invest in cryptocurrency, expecting to get rich.  Instead, she lost everything.

Left: the IMDB says that Howie is played by Chen-yu Sun, but he is voiced by Sebastian Sero.  Must be the English dub.

Swamp Eel yells at her for losing the money. "You're obsessed with getting rich!"

"Well, what do you do all day? Nothing!  I think you have a lover."

"Ok, ok, I'll take care of it.  I'll get the money back."

Scene 4: A girl enters Chiu Cha Temple, a second-story the Xinzhuang District of New Taipei City. She prays, then fills out a consultation card and selects a fortune stick.  In a hidden room, the monk looks up her information online, comes out, and tells her that Mr. Chao should go to a different temple, Ching He- by himself. 

Cut to the middle-aged Mr. Chao (Jui Hung Ma, n*de on RG Beefcake and Boyfriends) with an unbrella walking up steps in the rain to reach the fictional Ching He Temple. A Monk leads him through several rooms to a meeting with the Head Monk, who asks "How can we help you?"

Scene 5:  This is confusing.  Mr. Chao is seeking re-election, but his son's drug arrest is ruining his chances.  But then another extremely important guy appears at a re-election fundraiser, and while he is being photographed by the press, his estranged son appears.  Everyone is shocked.  But it's not Mr. Chao and his drug-bust son.  It's someone else. Why confuse viewers like this?

Scene 6: The Eel gets a phone call from his Friend Jung: Gangster Milky is telling everyone that his games are rigged, and everyone knows that they're out 5,000,000 NTD, so he needs money, right?  Friend Jung has a debt collection job that pays 300,000 but he'll have to flash a gun around.  The Eel refuses: "I don't do that anymore," but changes his mind and retrieves the tin box with his gun.  

Cut to the fundraiser, where the New Guy is schmoozing.  His estranged son, whom everyone was surprised to see, turns out to be the Driver from Scene 1, actually Louis Hsieh or Fixer Gold, who works for the monks of the Ching He Temple (where Mr. Chao asked for assistance).  He approachesd a girl at the bar, flirts with her, talks her into drinking, then invites her up to his room:

For an interrogation: "I can't believe that a woman with a Ph.D. had to hook up with her boss's husband." Hey, that's the line he used in his first scam.  Turns out that she works for Mr. Chao's opponent, Lu Shu-Jung (not listed in the IMDB), who hired a tough named Noobs to frame Mr. Chao's son, thus ruining his campaign.

"Why did Tough Noobs agree to do it?"

Four random n*de dudes on RG Beefcake and Boyfriends.

"We promised to get his own drug charges dropped.  But we're going to frame him for kidnapping and human trafficking.  He's going to prison regardless, evil laugh."

"Ok, I recorded the conversation. You're free to go."  So Fixer Gold wasn't really into her.

More after the break

Yuchi Chiu: The n*ked man on Leighton's couch teaches special education, plays gay guys, likes p*nises. With three examples.

  

Link to the p*nises

We're watching Dark Matter (2024-26), starring Joel Edgerton as Jason, as a struggling physics teacher who is kidnapped and zapped into a parallel world -- by himself! The Parallel World Jason invented a device that can zap you between worlds. He wanted Our Jason's wife and kid (the show is aggressively heteronormative), so he decided to force a switch). 

In Episode 1.4, Imposter Jason visits Leighton (Dayo Okiniyi), who funded the device back home. Here he's a partyboy living on his grandpa's trust fund.  As they talk in his swanky apartment, a n*ked person gets up from the couch and walks toward the bedroom.

"That's a n*ked man!" I exclaimed.  "Leighton is gay!"

"No way -- this series is entirely heteronormative," my partner countered. "It must be a woman." But he rewound the sequence.

"Look -- short hair, no hips."  

"I'm not sure.  They're in the background, and the scene lasts for a second."

I had to agree that it was very subtle, easy to miss if you weren't looking for it, but still, a queer code.

The n*ked man is listed on the IMDB as Yuchi Chiu.

Who has a beautiful physique.

According to his resume, Yuchi was born and raised in L.A., but moved to Chicago for college.  After receiving a B.A. in Communication and Commercial Music from Northwestern in 2015, and a M.A. in Special Education from Dominion in 2017, he became a teacher.

This isn't good: in 2017 Yuchi goes to church to hear one of his special education students sing, and hears Christian rapper Chancer give his testimony.  Sounds like our boy is on the fundamentalist side, which usually means homophobic.

Chance the Rapper's p*nis is on RG Beefcake and Boyfriends, in case you're interested.

While teaching, Yuchi starred in the short Audition: a down-and-out violinist (Amy Meek) gets with a conductor (Yuchi) to get a chair in his orchestra.

Rather a heteronormative start to your career, buddy. 

And BJ's Mobile Gift Shop: A young hustler (not that kind of hustler) makes the rounds in Chicago.

He also did some Calvin Klein modeling.

In 2022, Yuchi moved into full-time acting, with guest spots on Chicago Med and Stuck in Reality.

In 2023, the shorts Kairos, which seems to be about a father and daughter, and ba.la, about a competitive swimmer with PTSD.

In 2024, the shorts Parting Piece and The Coder, and N*ked Man on Dark Matter.

His backside, anyway.  His p*nis after the break

Mustafa from Gharbia: Egyptian teen bodybuilder flexes, kisses guys, shows his frontside. With some n*de and gigantic Mustafas

  

Link to the n*de photos

My latest Instagram recommendation is actually from a gym in Gharbia Governate, Egypt, about two hours north of Cairo.  The star, the guy who appears in most of the photos, is a teenage bodybuilder named Mustafa. 

His coach, also his brother or son (unless it's an honorific), comments.  I've tried studying Arabic several times, but never make it much farther than the alphabet, so I have to depend on Google translate: "Empire of Elite, Egypt IFFB."

IFFB is the Egyptian Fitness and Bodybuilding

The comments get weirder. And the photos more *xplicit.

"I thought you were going to put it in their (censored)."  The way Mustafa wiggles and struts, I thought so, too.

 A younger Mustafa.

"Scientific methodology for juniors Judge Squad First Team in the Republic Champion from Dakahlia Sports Sciences Captain Mustafa."

This one is easy to intepret. Dakahlia is a governate on the Mediterranean, near Port Said. For the rest, we just need some periods.

"The professional and creative curriculum. Foundation of womanhood to be the champion of champions of the continent, the Republic, and the world."

I have no idea what "foundation of womanhood" means.  Dude doesn't really look like a lady.

"The judge is a methodology that placed young people from a local village. The historical and scientific touches shield the region.The highest modern entity is a Super Gym judge for online training with us send me preparation or train."

Whatever.  I think we're supposed to be lookiing at Mustafa's beneath-the-belt parts.

More after the break.  

The Real Zack Gottsagen gets n*ked with Shia LaBeouf, plays a lot of gay-adjacent dudes. With Shia and Eli Roth d*cks and Dashiell's boyfriend

 

Link to the n*de photos

Football player Sam Roush is the last guy I researched for this profile, but I'm putting him first because why wouldn't I?

Now down to business: I don't have enough profiles of disabled actors, so I checked some lists of deaf, CP, and Down Syndrome actors, looking for someone cute, male, and gay.  The Real Zack G popped up, wishing us Happy Pride.  Notice the "Love is Love" pillow behind him. 

Promising, but  he also marched in a Martin Luther King Day parade, so maybe he's just an ally.

After I figure out the guy's last name, I'll check the usual: Any gay roles?  Gay in real life?  Any n*de...

Looks like that one's been taken care of.  There's two n*de and underwear photos on RG Beefcake and Boyfriends.  

His name is Zack Gottsagen, and his most famous role is in The Peanut Butter Falcon (198().  I didn't see it, because who cares about falcons made of peanut butter, or guys running around with watermelon rind helmets?

Actually, it's about a guy who breaks out of an assisted living facility to attend a wrestling school -- his pro name will be the Peanut Butter Falcon of the title.

He befriends a fisherman on the run from his rivals.  Eventually they hook up with sympathetic social worker Eleanor, and "start a new life as a family," so I'm assuming that it's a fraternal bond, not a gay-subtext romance.

The fisherman buddy is played by the homophobic Shia LaBeouf (d*ck on RG Beefcake and Boyfriends),  so definitely a fraternal bond.

Zack Gottsagen grew up in Boynton Beach, Florida, with two moms -- who "have nothing but good things to say about Shia LaBeauf," according to a profile in The Sun-Sentinel.  Maybe the dude has changed?

More after the break

Jonathan Taylor Thomas: The teen idol superstar plays gay characters, retires from acting before he can show us his d*ck. Probably

Link to the n*de photos

During the early 1990s, ABC offered a "family-friendly" lineup on Wednesday nights, beginning with The Wonder Years, with Fred Savage courting the Girl of His Dreams in the 1960s.  We sang a parody of the theme song, the Beatle's "With a Little Help from My Friends":

What would you do if I spat on your shoes?
Would you get up and kick me to the moon?

Before turning the channel to CBS, with The Nanny and Melrose Place.

But we knew about each of the shows, because you knew about every show in the era. They included:

Doogie Houser, with Neil Patrick Harris (n*de on RG Beefcake and Boyfriends) as a 13 year old doctor named Doogie.

Coach, with Craig T. Nelson as a coach.

And Home Improvement, with Tim Allen as a grunting, sweating macho man who hosts a tool-themed tv series and tries to instill grunting, sweating masculinity into his three sons.  Zachery Ty Bryant (playing Brad), the eldest and most muscular, was promoted as a teen idol to draw in teenage girls (they weren't aware of gay boys).  But oddly, it was Jonathan Taylor Thomas (playing Randy) who took off, causing millions of teenage and preteen girls to tune it (again, no gay boys exist).  It quickly jumped to #2 in the ratings.

Wait -- Brad is a jock, a football star, a letterman who every girl in the school swoons over.  Randy is soft, bookish, somewhat femme, playing "a fairy" in the school play, an aspiring actor and journalist.  How did Jonathan Taylor Thomas do it?

The showrunners were stumped. They should have realized that straight girls and gay boys just starting to recognize their romantic interests prefer soft, cuddly, and relatable: Malcolm, not Reese (Malcolm in the Middle), Chris, not Drew (Everybody Hates Chris); Adam, not Barry (The Goldbergs). 

In the mid-1990s, Home Improvement moved to Tuesdays, in the hope that its popularity would help stragglers like Spin City.  We still steered clear of the grunting, sweating Tim Allen, quickly changing the channel to Frasier (CBS) and then back for Drew Carey (ABC).    

But we could hardly ignore JTT; he was on every magazine cover, in every talk show.

He presented at the Emmies and the Golden Globes.

We saw him waving in Thanksgiving and Christmas parades

He appeared in specials honoring Tom Cruise and Lauren Hutton

He praised James Bond in a documentary about the super-spy.

Elton John hugged him.

He played Tom Sawyer opposite Devon Sawa's Huckleberry Finn in Tom and Huck (1995), with a story only vaguely related to the original novels.

An adventure boy opposite Devon Sawa (right) and Scott Bairstow (left, n*de on RG Beefcake and Boyfriends) in Wild America (1997).

More after the break.  

November 22, 1963: Failed writer goes back to practically perfect 1960. Does he buddy bond, or meet The Girl? With Franco d*ck but no gl*ry holes

 

Link to the n*de dudes

I love time travel stories.  I've read all the classics: "All You Zombies," "A Sound of Thunder," "By His Bootstraps," "Mimsy were the Borogoves."   Time travel movies, not so much: they all seem to be about meeting, winning, and finding infinite happiness with The Girl. But when 9-22-63 dropped on Netflix, I saw that the disillusioned writer and his buddy work together together to prevent the Kennedy assassination.  Gay subtext -- ok, I'm in.

Scene 1:  Elderly Adult Education student Harry (Leon Ripper) reads a story about a boy whose his father murdered his mother and siblings on Halloween night, 1960.  Teacher Jake (James Franco) gives him an A+ -- right in front of the class.   What if he got an F?

Then Jake goes to the run-down diner near a horrible closed factory and orders a burger from elderly Al (Chris Cooper, backside on RG Beefcake and Bonding), who complains about his eating habits.  Not a good idea to diss the food you sell, buddy.  

The ex-wife comes in; they discuss his father's death, and then he signs the divorce papers.  This woman acts as if she is deeply -- very deeply -- in love with him, so why are they getting a divorce?  So they can reconcile later on, or just to establish that he's heterosexual?

Al goes into the kitchen for a few minutes, then returns, pale and haggard, and collapses.

Scene 2: Jake takes him home.  Big reveal: He's got cancer. "But you were fine five minutes ago."  "Come over tomorrow, and I'll explain everything"  

Back to class: A film about shock therapy in the 1930s, while students laugh and are bored.  So are we establishing that Jake is an awful teacher, or that kids today are awful?  

Scene 3: At the diner, Al says he'll explain everything  if Jake goes into the closet, looks around, and comes back.  I'd be suspicious -- there could be bodies in there, or he could lock you in and keep you a prisoner.  But Jake goes in...

And...plop!  He's outside the diner, but back in the early 1960s.  There's a billboard for Moxie Cola, and kids playing softball instead of scrolling on their phones.  So it's like the wardrobe that leads to Narnia, You can also go back in time via a secret staircase  (on Dark Shadows) or in an elevator (Time at the Top).  

It's a wonderful, joyous, absurdly idealized world.  I couldn't get a screenshot that would do it justice. Everything is very bright, with primary colors dominating. Delighted factory workers file out for their lunch break.  A milkman (Colin Doyle) drops a bottle, and exclaims "For the love of Mike!"  No profanity in 1960, har har. Three girls drive past in a pink convertible.

An old guy notices that Jake is from the future, and yells "You shouldn't be here!"   So he runs back into the diner, and ends up in the present day.

"You were just in October 21, 1960," Al explains.  The time portal always goes back to the same moment.  He doesn't know where it came from or how it works, and he hasn't told anyone about it. But now that he's dying, Jake has to take over his goal: to prevent the assassination of John F. Kennedy on November 22, 1963.  So he wants a random stranger to do the job?

Scene 4:  Jake accepts time travel instantly, but wonders why Al is interested in the JFK assassination.  "Because if JFK lived, he would have stopped U.S. involvement in Vietnam, all those boys would be alive, and the world would return to how it should be, always summer, primary colors, food that tastes good, polite kids, no divorce (hear that, Jake?), white men in charge (isn't your boss a woman, Jake buddy?), no gay people, and everyone joyful all the time."

Left: 1960s guys, n*de on RG Beefcake and Boyfriends.

"Then why haven't you prevented the assassination already?"

Al tells him to go back to 1960, carve something in the tree outside, and see if it's still there today.   

Scene 5: Jake goes back -- same moment. He pushes off the "You don't belong here!" guy, carves JFK while locals glare at him, and rushes back to the present.

Left: Josh Duhamel, who plays Adult Education Student Harry's father, the one who murdered his family on Halloween, 1960.  Yeah, I thought it was fiction, too.

Yep, the carved JFK is still there. But then it fades away.

"When you return to the present, time will reset. You can stay for years, but when you get back, it resets. And no matter how long you're away, only two minutes have passed in the present." That's a lot of very precise rules for a magical gateway.

Oh, the reason he suddenly got sick: he went through for two years while Jake was signing the divorce papers.

"So if everything resets, how can I prevent the JFK assassination?"

"You have to go through, and never come back."   

I guess we've established, that Jake hates his job, he has no friends, his wife has divorced him, and his father is dead, so he has nothing to stay in 2016 for -- except the internet, global travel, medical breakthroughs, gay neighborhoods, cultural diversity....but it's a trade-off: life is perfect in the 1960s.  Um...I know this is Stephen King's nostalgic memory, but still, it's a little naive. Ok, a lot naive. Life wasn't perfect in the 1960s, even for straight white men. Remember "Growing Up Absurd"?

Al has prepared a fake id for him, a lot of early 1960s money, and a notebook full of sports matches to bet on, so he can support himself.  

Jake thinks he is crazy and runs off.

Scene 6: The Adult Education Program graduation.  Everyone is bored, not-engaged, not joyous, and the principal disses Harry, so Jake says "Screw it!  I'm going back to 1960!"

Al's dead, so Jake grabs the stuff, goes to the diner, and heads through the portal.

More after the break. Caution: Explicit