Oliver Arnold plays a gay Irish lad, Gatsby, and a lot of cowboys. Or at least models them. With his chest, two backsides, and two co-star d*cks

  

Link to the n*de photos

I was researching the upcoming movie Last House (August 2026), looking for actors who had played gay characters or were gay in real life, when Oliver Henry Arnold,  drew my attention.  This photo seems to depict two Irish immigrants of the early 20th century in a chummy pose.  Could they be boyfriends?  But what movie or tv show features a gay romance in steerage en route to Ellis Island?

Oliver's instagram posts consist mostly of beefcake poses accompanied by little inspirational quotations: 

"Pleasures, when they go beyond a certain limit, are but punishment." - Marcus Aurelius

“Don’t waste your time looking back. You’re not going that way.” - Ragnar Lothbrok, a Viking hero of the 9th century.

“Two are better than one because they have a more satisfying return for their labor; for if either of them falls, the one will lift up his companion." -- the Book of Ecclesiastes

“A mind troubled by doubt cannot focus on the course of victory” -- not attributed

Oliver also posts scenes from his roles playing a Jazz Age Gatsby type, the Irish lad in steerage, and cowboys -- a lot of cowboys.  He must star in a lot of Westerns.  But according to his resume, he graduated from Eastbourne College, Oxford (a secondary school) in 2018.  That doesn't give him much time for costume dramas.  

And his resume lists only one starring role, a short entitled The Two Gambits (2024):  Walter (Herbert Forthuber) tells his therapist that many years ago, his wife left him to live with her boyfriend, taking her five year old daughter, Ava. He told his young son Isaac (Oliver) that they died.  

Isaac grew up angry and resentful, and finally left home, telling him "Do not try to find me."  Years later, he returns, looks up his long-lost sister, and asks her to pose as a therapist to determine why "Dad killed our mother."

Isaac never expresses any heterosexual interest, so I'm going to list him as gay by default.

The IMDB lists three upcoming roles: 

The Caged (in post-production) is based on "true events" at The Cage in St. Osyth, Essex. In the 1580s, it was a holding cell for women accused of witchcraft; then it became the town lockup (for drunks and petty criminals); and in the 1980s it became a private home.  Residents complained of slammed doors, footsteps, strange objects appearing, disembodied voices, and a face with "an evil grin." 

 Edmund Kingsley, son of the suddenly-straight Sir Ben Kingsley, stars in the movie.  Oliver's character is near the bottom of the cast list. 

Wind of Change (completed): During the Cold War, Klaus Meine of the a German rock band called The Scorpions (Ludwig Trepte, left) wrote the titular song for his imprisoned friend Andrej (David Kross, below)  It became a symbol of hope during the Fall of the Berlin Wall. 

I follow the Moskva
Down to Gorky Park
Listening to the wind of change
An August summer night
Soldiers passing by
Listening to the wind of change

Both guys' backsides and David's d*ck are on RG Beefcake and Boyfriends.

Sounds like there will be a gay subtext.  Oliver plays Soldier #2.

More after the break

Fresh Off the Boat Episode 3.2: Musclemen flex, Walter is homophobic, Evan finds a new boyfriend, and Eddie is traumatized by d*cks

 

Link to the n*de dudes

Since identifying Hudson Yang as "probably gay," I've been going through his tv series, Fresh Off the Boat, about a "fresh off the boat" Taiwanese-American family in the 1990s.  There are a number of recurring gay characters, but I'm looking for gay texts and subtexts among the sons, Eddie, Emery, and Evan.  Episode 3.2, "Breaking Chains" (2016) has some, plus beefcake and homophobia.

I'm skipping the A Plot, where Dad Louis (Randall Park) hires a housekeeper, thus insulting his wife Jessica, who thinks that he thinks she is a failure as a woman (because her gender identity is based on her ability to clean up?) 

In the B Plot, Eddie (Hudson Yang) and his friends are about to enter eighth grade, so they'll need either great gear or great stories.

Trent (Trevor Larcom) has great gear: he went to a theme park and got a scrunchie depicting the mascot.

Walter (Prophet Bolden) tells him that it "looks like a gay raindrop." 

 Homophobic comment, buddy.

Brian (Dash Williams) has a great story: he had mono, so he stayed inside watching Cinemax.  Now he knows a lot about lady parts, and wants to become a pizza delivery boy.  Ugh, heteronormative girl-craziness.

Dave (Evan Hanneman) argues they don't need gear or stories, because they'll be eighth graders, practically upperclassmen.  Eddie (Hudson Yang) agrees: "We'll be men among boys!"  Sounds like their middle school covers grades 7-9, and high school grades 10-12.

Cut to a fantasy of the guys as grown-up musclemen flexing and grinning. I count six girls and one boy swooning over them -- but the one boy acknowledges the existence of LGBT people. 

Eddie's brother Emery is also impressed.  He gasps, "Who are those MEN?"

"Nah, son," Adult Eddie answers.  "We're eighth graders."

Ok, two boys are swooning over the musclemen.

In case you were wondering, Trent becomes Chris Kimball; Walter, Cleveland Berto, Dave, Colin Owens (top photo); and Eddie, Chen Tang.  

Chris Kimball and Chen Tang are n*de on RG Beefcake and Boyfriends, and there are shower guy d*cks.

More after the break

Murder, They Hope: Terry and Gemma visit a village with weird rituals, dark secrets, dead Santas, former hunks, and Jack Carroll's d*ck

 

 Link to the n*de dudes

I haven't reviewed anything on Amazon Prime for awhile, because I'm annoyed by having to wade through two minutes of commercials before they'll let me check to see if it's awful. But a  Christmas-themed murder mystery in July sounds fun, and the title has two allusions: Blood Actually , a Murder They Hope Mystery (Love Actually, Murder She Wrote).

Scene 1: Santa Claus runs through the woods, terrified and bleeding.  We hear a squelch as he is murdered off-camera.  Cut to the opening credits.

An elderly man and his much younger wife or daughter discuss how this will be the best Christmas ever as they approach their Christmas holiday cottage.  The guy with the key popped down to the pub, but that's ok.  They love old-fashioned English pubs full of friendly villagers. 

Scene 2: The C*ck Inn.  I'd patronize that.  Carolers are singing "Ding Dong, Merrily On High," which I've never heard before.  Must be distinctly British.

When the Elderly Man and his Wife or Daughter enter, the carolers and pub patrons glare in anger and "cold contempt."  Are they acquainted with the couple, or do they belong to an evil fertility cult?

One of the villagers, Gavin, approaches to apologize: "We don't get too many outsiders here."  He is shushed by the head caroler-- wait, that's Jane Horrocks, the ditzy assistant Bubble on Absolutely Fabulous!  

And Jack Carroll from Coronation Street is one of the glaring patrons (n*de on RG Beefcake and Boyfriends)

The Elderly Man, Terry, is played by Johnny Vegas, who starred with Jack in Eaten by Lions. Tour bus driver Terry and guide Gemma (Sian Gibson) have stumbled upon murders in two movies, two tv miniseries, and two tv specials. By this point, they have married and started their own private investigation business, but they're just here for the Christmas holiday.

Creepy David, who owns the holiday cottage they're renting, takes them to get settled.  When they leave, the carolers and patrons glare and fuss; "What are they doing here?  They'll ruin everything!"  Are they planning a Midsommer-style human sacrifice orgy?

Scene 3: Tour of the cottage, with a huge kitchen.  Terry is happy; he can get some creating done here!  He means cooking: he's hoping to do a proper Christmas dinner, to make up for the horrible ones his mum and nan foisted on him.

By the way, Creepy David lives in the granny flat out back, but it has no kitchen, so he'll be popping in to do his own cooking, and he's coming to their Christmas Dinner, of course. 

Left: Creepy David is played by Peter Davidson.  Not the multiple-tattooed Peter Davidson; he was the fifth Doctor Who, appearing 1981-84, and in many movies, tv series, and podcasts thereafter.

When he leaves, Gemma notes a problem: she was busily eating a chocolate mousse, and left the turkey on the kitchen counter back home.  This freaks out Terry: "It's not Christmas, it's Nothing-mas!"

Scene 4: Terry rushes into the village to see if there are any turkeys left.  There are three in a shop with a sign: "All are welcome. Terms and conditions apply."

Uh-oh, the proprietor is Bubble, the most vicious of the carolers.  "We haven't got any turkeys for you.  Those are reserved for members of our community."

Terry notices a poster for the  Santathalon -- prizes for the best Santa Claus!  Anyone in the village is permitted to compete.  Aha, a loophole! If he wins the contest, he'll be accepted as a member of the community, and then she'll have to sell him a turkey. Bubble grudgingly agrees.

Cut to Terry modeling the makeshift Santa Suit that he made from the clothes of Creepy David's dead wife. This causes David to tear up. Heterosexual identity established at Minute 9. 

Scene 5: Terry at the pub with the other Santa contestants, including Martin Kemp of EastEnders (n*de on RG Beefcake and Boyfriends). Robert (Ed Kear of Nasty Neighbors) brags that he has made runner-up seven times, but his opponent points out that he's lost seven times. Plus his wife is cheating.  Heterosexual identity established immediately.    Robert counters that this is not a big deal, because every wife in the village is cheating. 

"You've just made the Naughty List," Eaten By Lions points out.  And you'll be the first victim, I'll bet.

While they are bickering, a muscular Green Man enters (Samuel Anderson of Emmerdale Farm) and announces that he is Centaur Klausenhof, a Scandinavian Santa Claus (no such being).  He insults Terry by calling him Klausenhoff's Empty-Headed Servant, Rupert.

Scene 6: The first challenge: Give a gift to a ceramic child, judged by your kindness and your ho-ho-hos.

Terry suggests using a real child, which causes everyone to glare, stare at the floor, and hug each other in despair. "There are no children in the village," Bubbles says ominously. Have they sacrificed all their kids?

Perpetual runner-up Robert goes first, but is disqualified for using an inhaler.  Next Terry, but when he opens the package, a head in a Santa hat drops out!  

"It's going to be that sort of Christmas," Terry says resignedly.  You're an amateur.  Jessica Fletcher of "Murder, She Wrote" stumbled upon murders 264 times.

More after the break. 

Sawyer Nicholson: A dimly lit chest shot leads to Kit Connor, Colby College, a croc monster, Wally's d*ck, and some n*de Sawyers

 

Link to the n*de dudes

In Batwoman Episode 3.1, two college students sneak into an indoor swimming pool at night. Derek takes off his shirt and pants and tries to kiss the girl, but she playfully tosses him into the water.  He's under there for a long time.  Suddenly he emerges, being tossed around by an unknown force.  The pool fills with blood.   Turns out that he has been eaten by a newly-created crocodile monster.  

The monster takes the girl back to its lair to eat later, giving her a huge amount of screen time and a Batwoman rescue, while Derek is on-screen for like ten seconds and never interacts with the main cast.   Apparently tv writers can't imagine that a man would ever need rescuing.  They must be strong, powerful, in control; only women get to be damsels in distress.  Even in a show that has to date featured two lesbian superheroes.   

We don't even get a clear picture of Derek during his ten seconds.  This photo is as clear as I could get,  and still half in shadow, there's a brief face shot -- which makes him look like Kit Connor of Heartstopper -- and the tossing-about is too fast for a good look.  

It's like the director has to film a pool scene, so the croc monster can get them, but wants to obscure Derek's body as much as possible.  The Girl is sequestered in a brightly-lit sewer, with everything clearly on display.

Dang it!  To assuage my disappointment over the Derek erasure, I'm going to research the actor, Sawyer Nicholson.  

He has four acting credits listed on the IMDB:

"Child in Meadow" in The Last Mimzy (2007)

Derek in Batwoman (2021).

Huge Football Player in How to Win a Popularity Contest (2026): Elle and her archnemesis Nate team up to win back their exes, and end up in love with each other.

And Walters in two episodes of Off Campus (2026), with Hannah using a jock (Belmont Cameli, n*de on RG Beefcake and Boyfriends) to make her crush jealous.  I couldn't find him in the two episodes, and he's not mentioned in any synopsis.

Sawyer seems to be pursuing a career as a stunt performer.  He has 14 stunt credits, mostly from 2025 and 2026, including Tron: Ares and Playdate (which has gay subtexts), and episodes of Black Mirror, Upload, The Last of Us, and Every Year After.

He stunt doubled for Luke (Lachlan Quarmby), an "arrogant" rookie constable, in the Canadian police procedural Allegiance (2024-26).

And Wally (Milo Manheim) on School Spirits.  So we can assume that the backside on RG Beefcake and Boyfriends is actually Sawyer, but the d*ck belongs to Milo. 

Next I'll check Sawyer's social media.

Problem: There's a female Sawyer Nicholson, a very famous runner who gets 99% of the google results, even when my search string ends with -female -girl -lady absolutely -ladies, men  only.  Piecing between them for Sawyer Nicholson male actor men only,  I found no online resumes, no newspaper or magazine articles, and only three social media sites:

A Sawyer Nicholson Male Actor Men Only  on Facebook is from Brunswick, Maine, and graduated from Colby College in 2021.  The Batwoman episode was filmed in 2021 in Vancouver, quite a distance.  Besides, this Sawyer is currently  Operations Director for U.S. senator Angus King (Independent).  I doubt that he is doing much acting or stuntwork on the side.

More after the break

Akuma Kun: The Chosen One and his half-demon sidekick roam a soggy, decaying world. Are they boyfriends, buddies, or too-soon-to-tell?

 

Akuma Kun (2023), on Netflix, drew my interest because of its excellent animation, all soggy, decaying opulence, and because of its blatant buddy bond between the two paranormal investigators.  Most of the anime we see on streaming services expect you to have known and loved the characters throughout your life, after buying the hundreds of manga, video games, comic strips, and tie-in toys and going to fan conventions to meet the stars of the live-action movies, but I'm going in fresh, with no research.  Episode 1.1: "Demons."

Scene 1:  A shabby office full of old furniture, books, papers, and weird bricabrac.  A big-headed boy named Mephisto complains that a lanky, gray-haired boy summoned him to deal with a toilet clog, and then ate all of his ramen! 

"It would have gotten soggy just sitting there, so I ate it," the boy responds, his nose stuck in a book. 

"If you want me to come over, why don't you call me on the telephone instead using a summoniing spell?"

"You come faster this way."

"But I'm half human, half demon, so I never cross over properly."  So Mephisto has been roped into becoming the Boy's servant, like a genie in a bottle?

 

The Boy is named Ichiro Umoregi, and titled Akuma Kun.  Akuma is translated "Demon," but it refers to any type of supernatural being, and Kun is a diminuitive used for close friends and little boys, so "Little Demon."  He is actually an adult -- everyone in this anime is drawn as a child.  He is voiced by Yuki Kaji, top photo in Japanese, Michael Johnston, left, in English, and Aidan Vallejo, below, in Spanish.  Both Michael and Aidan are gay.

Scene 2: Night.  A young college student walks down a dark, deserted street.  Suddenly a shadowy monster with glowing red eyes attacks!

Cut to a young woman named Hina walking toward the Millenarianism Research Institute.  So a cult?  Up a flight of wooden stairs to a courtyard with scary, ornate doors beyond.   She enters a drawing room cluttered with creepy skeletons and skull candleholders. Mephisto enters from the kitchen, exclaims "We have a client!  We can pay the rent!", and changes into a purple suit with a top hat and magician's cane. 

So they live together?  Then why does the Boy need to summon Mephisto?

Hina's case:  Two of her college classmates died two nights ago, at exactly 2:23 am.  And she discovered that three other people in the Kamichoufu Sector also died at the same moment.  Also, she's been plagued by nightmares.

Scene 3: They arrive at Hina's house to conduct some research.  The Boy immediately goes to her bedroom, angering her mother: "You can't just barge into a lady's room!  It's rude!"  

"Is this how your partner usually behaves?" Hina asks.

"He is a once-in-10,000 years genius, but he's sort of lacking in social skills." I'd put him on the autism spectrum.  The English, French, and Spanish voice actors speak in a monotone.

Mom recovers from her shock and brings them tea, but the Boy demands hotcakes ( hottokēki), not pancakes (pankēki).  He needs the sugar to get his brain cells active.  "Ok...um...I'll make you some hotcakes, I guess."  Ok, a little research.  Hotcakes are thicker than Western pancakes, with a custard-like texture.

Scene 4: The Boy rates the hotcakes the 18th best that he's had.    

Mom is a professor of European history.  The Boy has read her book, Lives and Sins of Kings, and found her interpretation of the Medieval monarchy "banal."  Way to insult your hostess, kid.

Hina tells them that the murdered people were all college students, but some went to other universities, and one had just graduated.

While Mephisto tries to discuss payment with Hina, the Boy looks under the bed  and sees a red-eyed monster.  No one else can see it.  He draws a mysterious Eye in the Pyramid on a scrap of paper and tells her to keep it close.  They'll be back tomorrow.

Scene 5: That night, while Hina is asleep, a red-eyed monster sneaks out from under the bed, but she holds up the Eye, and it vanishes.

Scene 6: Kamichoufou Odeon Cinema, a run-down theater near the Boy's office.  Hina tells him about the monster.  He suggests that someone is trying to keep them from investigating the case.

When he pinppoints the locations of the deaths on a map, it creates a pentagram.  So someone is trying to protect the person or thing in the center.  Hina recognizes the building: it's the home of her college friend Ichika. 

As they approach the house, Hina reveals that her friend didn't know any of the murder victims, except as faces in the cafeteria.  She belonged to a club with a "seedy" reputation. And she hasn't come to class in weeks.

The Boy suddenly decides not to go in. "Come by the Research Institute tomorrow."

That night the red-eyed monster appears again, but Hina has laminated the Eye and tied it to her wrist, so it can't attack. She doesn't even wake up.

More after the break

Carter Ryan: Canadian soap boy likes farm equipment, works out, hugs Jaiven and other hot guys. WIth Carter and Kevin d*cks

Link to the n*de dudes 

The teen idol site has numerous photos of Carter Ryan, aka Carter Ryan Evancic and another guy, visible in the background of this photo, and elsewhere hugging, swimming, working out, hugging, and hugging.  Surely they're boyfriends.  But first, to make sure that Carter is actually an actor, I'm checking out his IMDB biography.

Whew, it's long and overblown with superlatives.  The greatest actor of our generation was born in 2006 to Dorlyn and Carol Evancic.  Don't get excited -- Dorlyn is just a guy with a girl's name.   His older sister inspired him to start acting at the age of eight months.  Really? 

At the age of eight, Carter booked the Lead in a Feature Film (Mom's capitalization, not mine), playing the son of "supermodel/actress Rachel Hunt" in Her Infidelity (2015).

Wait -- is Rachel the extremely famous actress, or the character?

She's the actress.  In Her Infidelity (2015), Rachel plays a bored housewife who has an affair with a hunky teacher (Grayson Chitty), but he turns out to be a psycho.  Presumably Carter plays her son.

 

Getting through the descriptions of Carter's wonderfulness is quite a slog. Here's another photo of Carter and his boyfriend to combat the boredom.  

After Her Infidelity, the great actor (according to his Mom) appeared in:

An episode of Impastor (2015) as Young Buddy.  The grown-up Buddy, on the run from a loan shark, steals a man's identity and takes over as the new gay pastor of a small-town church.  This may be a problem, since he's not really qualified to be a leader in the local gay community. Besides, he's got a tattoo of a n*ked lady on his hand. 

An episode of Travelers (2016), with Will and Grace star Eric McCormack playing a straight guy who sends his consciousness back in time.  Carter's character is not mentioned in the plot synopsis.

Two episodes of The Man in the High Castle (2015-16), a dystopian series where Germany won World War II. Carter plays the son of a lady dating American resistance fighter Joe Blake (Luke Kleintank).

Rupert Everett as resistance fighter Frank Frink is n*de on RG Beefcake and Boyfriends

But Carter is best known as Cody Stanton in the Canadian soap When Calls the Heart (2015-19) and the spin-off When Hope Calls (2021).

The Hoping Heart or The Calling Hope or whatever is set in a small town in Alberta in the 1910s.  Cody is homeless and hungry until he is adopted by Abigal Stanton, who runs the local cafe. His plotlines involve dealing with his sister's illness, dealing with his own illness, having trouble at school, and gay-subtext buddy-bonding with Robert Wolfe (Jaiven Natt).

Hey, Jaiven is the boyfriend! 

Off-camera, Carter buddy-bonded with several male cast members.  Here he wishes happy birthday to Daniel Issing, whom I assumed was a father figure on the show. But the actor is Kevin McGarry, who plays town constable Nathan Grant, with no particular connection to Cody.  Apparently Carter just likes hunky guys.

And who the heck is Daniel Issing?    

More after the break

Leonard Berstein, Aaron the Rabbi's Son, and a poem about masks on the verge of coming out

  

Link to the n*de photos

Sorry for two autobiographical stories in a row, but I'm trying to build up my Fiction/Travel Index, and there aren't many tv programs around in the summertime to review.

When I was a kid, my church had no problem with classical music, but my parents hated "that longhair stuff," so there was none in the house.  My first exposure to Bach, Berlioz, Beethoven, and Mozart came through a series of Young People's Concerts which appeared occasionally on Sunday afternoons, hosted by famous composer Leonard Bernstein.

Later, when I joined the school orchestra, I learned more about Leonard Bernstein.

I saw his gay symbolism-heavy musicals, On the Town (1949), starring Gene Kelly and Frank Sinatra, and West Side Story (1961), starring gay actor George Chakiris and assorted high-stepping hunks.

And his Symphony #3, Kaddish, named after the Jewish prayer for the dead.

He appeared on tv, conducting Gershwin, Mahler, and Beethoven.

No one ever mentioned that he was gay, of course, and his works revealed nothing, except maybe the Serenade for Solo Violin, Strings, Harp, and Percussion, after Plato's Symposium (1954).  The Symposium contains Plato's famous defense of same-sex love.

In the spring of my senior year, Aaron, the rabbi's son who was gay (but didn't know it yet), invited me to a performance of Bernstein's Mass, a musical theater piece based on the Latin Mass.  

"Wait -- isn't Bernstein Jewish?"

He nodded.  "That's what makes it interesting."

Nazarenes weren't supposed to associate with Catholics, or have anything to do with Catholic music, so of course I wanted to go.

There are three acts.

Act 1: Devotion and Celebration.  The celebrant invites the congregants to worship.  They begin authentically, but then doubt creeps in.  Nazarenes were told that it was a sin to doubt the existence of God, the inerrancy of the Bible, or the fundamental beliefs like the Virgin Birth: the Devil's primary temptation was not to do bad things, but to doubt. But here it is celebrated as part of the worship experience.  How can God be with us when there is so much suffering in the world?

Originally the congregants mentioned war, but in more recent versions, they mention racism and homophobia.

Act 2:  Crisis and Collapse: The anxieties and doubts of the congregants take their toll on the celebrant, who has a spiritual collapse, breaks the sacred objects, and screams in rage against God.

What  I say -- I don't feel.
What I feel -- I can't show.
What I show -- isn't real.
What is real?  Oh Lord, I don't know.

Suddenly I realized that he was mirroring the interrogation that I received constantly from parents, friends, teachers, my brother, the preacher at church,  "What girl do you like?  What girl?  What girl?  What girl?" 

Every boy has discovered girls at your age.  Every boy has experienced True Love, that fills "the hearts of boy and girl with mutual flame."  If you haven't, you must pretend.  Smile, grin, flirt, talk about how much you long for feminine smiles, every day, every hour, for the rest of your life.

In the third act, Resolution, a boy emerges from the congregation and sings "I will lift up my eyes unto the hills, from whence cometh my help," offering hope in the midst of despair.  The celebrant is restored, and the Mass continues.

But I wasn't paying attention.

More after the break

Dad throws away my Book of Cute Boys

Link to the photos of n*de dudes with books

I love books.  I love browsing through used bookstores, driving home from the mall with a Barnes and Noble bag beside me, checking my recommendations on Amazon.

And reading every night before turning out the light, unless I'm on a date.

Well, sometimes the guy I'm dating has a well-stocked bookcase that distracts me from the bedroom stuff.

I've been buying at least two books per week since college.  That adds up to nearly 5,000,  but actually I have only about 2,000.  Every time I move, I pare down my collection.

Where did this bibliomania start?  Maybe with my parents, who disapproved of books.  They were at best a waste of time, and more likely sinful.  The only way I could get away with reading was to claim that it was a school assignment (evidently my teachers assigned a lot of science fiction and fantasy novels).

Or maybe it's all due to a traumatic incident that happened when I was about four years old, when we were still living on Randolph Street in Garrett,  Indiana.

 I had a Little Golden Book  I couldn't read most of the words yet, but the front cover showed two boys hugging and waving.  So I called it my Book of Cute Boys.

I think it was a retelling of the Disney movie The Swiss Family Robinson (1960), starring James MacArthur (left) and Tommy Kirk. I would not see the movie or read the original novel for many years, but I could tell that it was about a family living in the jungle.

One day we were driving somewhere on a scary country road, and I was reading in the back seat (this was before car seats, or even seatbelts).  Dad yelled back, "Don't read in the car!"  

He was afraid that I would get carsick and throw up.  It happened once, but I was never allowed to read in the car again.

More after the break

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

 

Link to the n*de dudes

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

More Boyd after the break

Hudson Yang: From "Fresh Off the Boat" to Harvard, cooking, dudes, and the best gay comedy of the year. With Hudson and Xu bedroom stuff

Link to the n*de photos

Fresh Off the Boat (2015-20) was a nostalgia series based on the memoirs of celebrity chef Eddie Huang.  Hudson Yang (left) plays the 12-17 year old Eddie, growing up in the 1990s in a Taiwanese-American family "fresh off the boat."  

Dad (Randall Park), who runs a cowboy-themed restaurant in Orlando, pushes him to embrace the best (and worst) of American culture, while Mom pushes him to embrace his Taiwanese heritage, resulting in conflict and plot complications.

Eddie has two younger brothers (Ian Chen, Forrest Wheeler, right) and a surprising number of gay friends and acquaintance: 

Officer Bryson (Alex Quijano), a regular at the family restaurant.

Oscar Chow,  Mom's college boyfriend, whom she helped come out (Rex Lee, playing about the same character as on Suburgatory).  He brings his dull-as-dirt boyfriend to Thanksgiving dinner.

Randy and Andy, who buy a house from Realtor Mom.

Next door neighbor Nicole, whom Eddie helps come out (after dating her)

A good beginning for a gay-inclusive career.  Let's check on Hudson's other roles.

While on the Boat, Hudson appeared in a 2016 episode of the Disney Channel's Liv and Maddie, either as a basketball player or an art student.

The short Hum (2017), about a preteen boy-girl romance.

A 2018 episode of Sofia the First, about a girl who becomes the Princess of Enchancia when her Mom marries the King.  Hudson's episode is about mermaids

Seven 2019 episodes of The Lion Guard, featuring Kion, son of Simba from The Lion King (voiced by Matthew Broderick, left in 1994, Rob Lowe here).  

After the Boat, Hudson appeared in Run & Gun (2022), with Ben Milliken as a criminal-on-the-run trying to live a quiet life with the heterosexist trajectory of job, house (well, trailer), girlfriend, and kid.   You know that won't work out well.  Hudson plays a college student interning at Ben's insurance company.

Next he played the Honor Student (2023), who loses his brother in a mass shooting, and gets revenge by holding a teacher hostage.  No indication that he's gay.

So, only one show with gay representation. That's  not....

Wait, I forgot to research Extremely Unique Dynamic (2024).

The premise: best friends (Harrison Xu, left, Ivan Leung) spend the weekend making a movie about making a movie.  Extremely Unique made the rounds of 17 film festivals and won five awards, plus a nomination from the Queerties. Reviews calls it "A new standard in LGBTQ and Asian-American representation" and "the dumbest, dopest gay meta comedy of the year."

More after the break

Bugs and Porky meet a Drag King: Warner Brothers Comics

When I was a kid, my favorite comic titles were Harvey (gay-vague Casper the Friendly Ghost), Disney (Donald Duck as macho adventurer), and the Gold Key jungle adventures.  If I had allowance money leftover, Little Lulu and Archie comics were ok.

Comics featuring Warner Brothers cartoon characters Daffy Duck, Porky Pig, and Bugs Bunny were low on my list.  Not as low as Charleton Comics, but low.

The art was amateurish, with minimal backgrounds, or just blank space.  This is one of the best covers,depicting Bugs opening a door leading to another planet, where a cowboy-rabbit is racing across the desert on a camel.

And instead of the anarchic outsiders of the cartoons, the characters were stable, stolid suburbanites, with houses and jobs and girlfriends. Porky was a single dad, raising his nephew, Cicero, like a Donald Duck knockoff.

But sometimes Bugs teamed up with Porky Pig or Yosemite Sam for adventure stories.  Maybe they stumbled upon a haunted inn.  Or they answered a job ad for "undersea explorers"  Or a telegram arrived about "trouble at the ranch."  Buddy-bonding, captures, and nick-of-time rescues followed.

A continuing series had Bugs and Porky working as Indiana Jones-style adventurer-archaeologists, investigating the myth of Pegasus or discovering a lost civilization hidden under the ice of Antartica.  With no girlfriends in sight, and no damsels in distress to be won.

Unfortunately, you couldn't find the adventure stories by looking at the covers -- almost all of them displayed one-shot gags.  Who could guess that this cover art, featuring Cicero using a pogo stick to steal a lick of Porky's ice cream, hid a story about the guys finding a mysterious artifact that leads them to lost Atlantis?  

And the clerks at the drug store frowned on looking inside.  You had to just buy the issue and take your chances.

More after the break