"Vida": Queer Characters, Female Empowerment. What's Not to Like?

In Vida (2019-), two estranged Mexican-American sisters, party girl Lynn and responsible Emma, reunite at their estranged mother's funeral in Boyle Heights (a Hispanic neighborhood just east of downtown Los Angeles).

 They discover that Mom has willed them each a third of her financially unsuccessful bar and apartment building, so they have no choice but to drop whatever they were doing and move to Boyle Heights to become bartenders and apartment managers.  They rename the bar Vida, after Mom (and, of course, it's also Spanish for "this is life, the one you get, so go and have a ball").

The other third of the bar and apartment building goes to Mom's extremely butch roommate, who has the extremely butch name Eddy.  Are we surprised to discover that Mom was a lesbian, and Eddy her wife?  The girls are.

Are we surprised to discover that Emma was estranged from her Mom because she is bisexual?  Turns out that Vida was gay and homophobic at the same time.  It happens.

After the initial sexual identities are established, Eddy, Lynn, and Emma, along with their friend Mari, settle down to their various crises: keeping the bar afloat, cleansing the apartment building of evil spirits, suffering from homophobic and anti-Hispanic discrimination, and especially fighting gentrification: they want to keep Boyle Heights the way they remember from their childhoods.

Meanwhile, they start telenovela-style romances, with lots of sex, lies, and videotape.

1. Mari has a troubled on-off romance with  Tlaloc (Ramses Jiminez).

2, Lynn has a troubled on-off romance with Johnny, Mari's brother (Carlos Miranda; this might not be the right one, but who cares?).

3. Later she moves on to city councilman Rudy (Adrian Gonzalez).

4. Emma has a troubled on-off romance with Cruz, a woke lesbian bartender, but she also hooks up with Baco (Raul Castillo) the building's handyman.

5. Eddy hooks up with Nico (a woman, of course).  Do all Hispanic lesbians have masculine names?

Two of the four central characters are queer, which is groundbreaking, and the Hispanic culture is pleasant (they even speak Spanglish, switching back and forth between English and Spanish as the mood strikes).

But this is definitely a woman-oriented, women-centric series, with men definitely in the background.  Not that there's anything wrong with that -- Goddess knows there are plenty of series with women in background roles.  But it makes the beefcake options sorely limited.  And would it kill them to have a few gay men wandering around?

Welcome Back, Mr. Iglesias

Gabriel Iglesias (no relation to Enrique Iglesias) is a plus-sized comedian ("I'm not fat, I'm fluffy") who has apparently been popular for 26 years.  He's got 40 acting credits on IMDB dating all the way back to 1993.  A very eclectic assortment: Magic Mike, Cristela, Family Guy, Annoying Orange, and Narcos

Plus 14 producing credits, including: Aloha Fluffy, The Fluffy Movie, Hey It's Fluffy, Fluffy's Food Adventures, and The Fluffy Shop.

Of course, his social media presence is much more important these days: 14 million followers, 370 million views of his youtube videos.

Not homophobic.  In his stand-up routine, he's thrilled that a gay man made a pass at him: "I turned on a man!  I called my girlfriend and said 'You'd better be careful. I've got options."

After all that, it seems rather a let-down to star in a Netflix sitcom, especially a copy of Welcome Back Kotter : a caring teacher tries to reach a class of underachievers (the blurb says overachievers, but it is mistaken).

Mr. Iglesias even teaches the same subject, American history.

The main difference seems to be:
1. A  mostly black and Hispanic cast.
2. An emphasis on the teachers rather than the students

The two main male teachers are Tony (Jacob Vargas, left) and Carlos (Oscar Nuñez, who played a gay guy on The Office)

3. The students seem much younger than the 20-something hunks who pretended to be 16 on Welcome Back, Kotter. The three main male students are Walter (Tucker Albrizzi), Mikey (Fabrizio Zacharee Guido, left), and Lorenzo (Coy Stewart, below)

Gay characters:  Not that I can tell.

Gay references:  The new inclusivity guidelines have proper terms to use for "gender and orientation."  Weirdly closeting the term "sexual orientation."

Beefcake: No

Annoyances:

1. Mr. Iglesias' lectures are oddly superficial.  The first was a riff on powdered wigs.  The second, on Abraham Lincoln, Vampire Slayer.

2. The teachers spend a lot of time flirting with each other.

3. The boys spend a lot of time being hetero-horny.  In Episode #2, Mikey can't do his oral report properly because the female teacher evaluating him is too hot. Mr. Iglesias advises "Concentrate on what's up going on up here (points to his head), and forget about what's going on down there (points to his crotch)."

What's the Point:

Well, at least there are a lot of anti-Trump jokes.

"Pose": Let Your Body Move to the Music

I was around in 1987, but almost nothing in Pose (2018-) is familiar.  In retrospect, I was enjoying a lot of privilege: white, middle-class, conventionally masculine, HIV negative, able to escape from the homophobia of the mainstream Reagan-Jerry Falwell society. I visited my parents twice a year.

Meanwhile, many LGBT people were racial minorities, drag queens or transwomen, sick, poor, eking out a living through sex work and petty theft, rejected by their birth families, rejected even by other LGBT people. They had nothing but each other.

So they lived together in "houses" under the care of a "mother," and when the lights went down, they vogued.

Look around, everywhere you turn is heartache
It's everywhere that you go 
You try everything you can to escape
The pain of life that you know
I know a place where you can get away
It's called a dance floor, and here's what it's for, so
Come on, vogue

They compete in gigantic drag contests with judges and scores, their acts involving not lip-synching but "posing," often not in dresses but in the Park Avenue drag of the rich and powerful, critiquing the culture of excess and exclusion that would eventually lead to the Orange Goblin being elected president.

Real house members act as series consultants and take small roles, so the series has an air of authenticity. The nostalgic 1980s soundtrack helps: "Heartbeat," "In My House," "On the Radio," "I Wanna Dance with Somebody," "It's Raining Men," all of those old songs that we heard constantly at the bars but have since forgotten.

Feuds between houses occupy a substantial part of the plot, but there are also stories  about conflicts with the outside world.

1. Damon Richards of the House of Evangelista (Ryan Jamal Swain) is neither drag queen or transwoman, just a rather feminine gay man who aspires to become a dancer.  He begins dating fellow Evangelista Ricky (Dyllón Burnside),

2. Angel Evangelista (Indya Moore) begins dating Stan (Evan Peters): white, married, middle-class, employed by the Trump organization (which was sleazy even back in 1987)

The cast consists mosly of transgender actresses, so one doesn't expect a lot of beefcake. But there are a few conventionally masculine physiques:

1.Dyllón Burnside

2.Evan Peters

3. Angel Bismarck Curiel as drug-dealing house member Lil Papi.

4. Johnny Sibilly, Costas, the lover of ball m.c. Pray Tell (Billy Porter), who is dying of AIDS.

5. James Van Der Beek as Matt Bromley, Stan's completely odious boss.

6. Matthew Carter as "Walkman Wally).

But aren't muscles themselves a type of drag, a costume we wear to hide who we really are?

My grade: A+.

Searching for the Gay Characters on "On My Block"

Netflix keeps pressuring me to watch On My Block, about four high school friends in a Hispanic neighborhood in Los Angeles.

"You like quirky comedies with gay characters, right? Then watch On My Block."
"You watched Special, right?  Then you'll love On My Block!"
"All of the cool kids are watching it.  You want to fit in, don't you?"
"If you don't watch it, we'll raise your rates."

Surely there must be some gay characters for Netflix to be pushing it so aggressively.  But, I recall, Netflix also pushes endless dramas with descriptions beginning "After the death of his wife....", so I'm wary. 

I watched one episode, entitled "Chapter Fourteen," about the Valentine's Dance.  If there are any gay characters, they'll certainly be out here.

1. His older friend Cesar (Diego Tinoco) has just become homeless, so Jamal (Brett Gray, left) takes him in.  They share a bed, which results in a humorous montage of problems: snoring, feet in face, and so on.

No gay subtext here, but at least the two aren't homophobic.

Later Cesar is trying to make out with his girlfriend, but they have problems meeting all of Jamal's rules, like "you can't wear outside clothes on the bed, too many germs."

2. Monse (Sierra Capri) and Ruby (Jason Genao, center) discuss the upcoming Valentine's Day dance.  Monse seems surprised that the ultra-feminine fashion plate Ruby wants to go, but he explains that he wants to win the dance contest.

Slicked-back hair, fashion-plate ensemble, girl's name -- this guy is definitely gay!

3. A big,boisterous, lesbian-coded girl  appears and tells Ruby that she has some potential dates lined up.

Oh boy, a whole roomful of cute guys for Ruby to choose from.

Except it's a roomful of girls. 

Ok, is Big Girl unaware that Ruby is gay, or are same-sex dates not allowed?

Ruby rejects all of them.  He would like to have sex with the girls, he explains, but in order to win the dance contest, he wants to go with Big Girl

Foul!  Ruby is straight!  Big Girl might still be a lesbian, though.

4. Jamal is watching football practice, when the Coach appears and says "I need you tomorrow night."

"Are you asking me to the dance?" Jamal asks.

No, the Coach wants him to work off his debt by chaperoning.  Jamal doesn't have a date, so why not?

No date, awareness of same-sex relationships, no outrage over the possibility that a guy might be asking him out -- .Jamal must be gay!


5. Monse's Mom, who is white, shows up and wants to take her away to Brentwood because South Central L.A. is too dangerous.

6. Monse and her boyfriend, who looks like Cesar, discuss what to wear to the dance.

7.  The Coach and Jamal bond.

8. Cesar and Jamal's Dad bond.

Lots of male bonding on this show,but does it always have to be adult-teen, thus precluding gay subtexts?

9. The Dance. One of the dance contest pairs is Javi and Javier, but I don't think they're a gay couple, since one grimaces when the other kisses his cheek.  We don't actually see their dance.

10.  Jamal accidentally breaks the Coach's cell phone.  Then he runs into Tyrone in the hallway and hugs him.

Wait -- he's hugging a guy?  Definitely gay.  Even if the hug is just an excuse to plant the phone on Tyrone, so he'll be blamed for stealing and breaking it.

11. Ruby has a flashback to when he was shot at another party.  Everyone is upset.  Monse says "One day the world's a dream, the next day it's a nightmare.  I can't believe she's gone."  Cesar is crying.  Jamal hugs him.

Wow, bummer.  This is definitely not a comedy, it's a drama with jokes.

So, is Jamal gay for real?  According to fan wiki, he's never been in a relationship.   In an interview, Brett Gray states that he hopes Jamal finds a special someone this season.

"Special someone"!  Definitely.....

He continues "A sexy lady..."

Straight.

Bummer.

"Hialeah": Gay Panic TV Series

Hialeah is a short comedy series (6 episodes, each about 10 minutes long) now streaming on Facebook and Youtube, produced by and starring Melissa Carcache.

She wanted to celebrate her home town with a series something like Que Pasa, USA, where English and Spanish were used interchangeably.

The premise: uptight Jewish photographer Kay (Jordan Wall) and Cubanita Mari (Melissa Carchache) meet and get married in Chicago.

Lacking money, they decide to move back to Hialeah, Mari's home town, and move in with her estranged Cubano family.  But they must keep the marriage a secret, so Mari introduces him as a mere boyfriend.

Her parents and grandparents are still upset over Mari's decision to abandon the family and "study abroad," and now they are even more upset at her choice of a Gringo, who doesn't speak a word of Spanish (he keeps confusing Kay his name with que?)  Besides, he's Jewish, so he doesn't even have a full-sized penis  -- they cut the tip off, as Grandma mimics with a butcher knife

Although Jordan Wall is quite muscular, he plays Kay as a nebbish, intimidated by the vigor, muscularity, and aggressive physicality of the Cubanos, worried that he doesn't measure up as a man, in his penis, his muscles....

And his lack of homoerotic desire.

Each episode introduces a tidbit of Cubano culture, which somehow gets Kay in trouble.  Three involve homophobic panic:

He shares a bed with Mari's bodybuilder brother (Noel Mirabal), who wants to cuddle

He is discomforted when her bodybuilder ex-boyfriend (Danell Leyva) wants a hug.

While practicing an energetic dance, he accidentally ends up partnered with a boy.

Plus the secret that Kay and Mari are hiding from the family, that they are actually married, could just as easily be the secret that he's gay (although I suspect that la familia is less homophobic than Kay himself).

I really don't see why Mari likes Kay.  He comes across as an insensitive jerk, looking down on Cuban culture, complaining about everything, rude to everyone, even people trying to be nice to him.

The cinematography is very bright and colorful, but I would have liked more location shots in Hialeah, to give us an actual feel for the city.  Almost every scene takes place in the Sanchez house.

I would have also liked an actual gay character.  It would have been interesting to see how Kay and la familia respond when the gay subtext becomes text.

But at least there's substantial beefcake.  Even the older generation is rather buffed.

Hialeah: Hispanic Beefcake in the Most Boring Town in America

The comedy series Hialeah (2018-) stars the mega-buffed Jordan Wall as a Jewish gringo who marries a Cubanita (Melissa Carcache) and moves in with her extended family (but fails to mention that they're married).  He's told by the mega-buffed Joel (Noah Mirabel), "You're not in Miami, ese.  You're in Hialeah."

The series is so bright and colorful, with so much superlative beefcake, that I wanted to look up the real-life Hialeah.

It's a Nevada-shaped piece of land about five miles northeast of Miami, squeezed between other suburbs.  In the 1920s it was a center of silent movie making, with a famous horse racing track and posh hotels that attracted the glitterati.  But the movie industry moved west.  Today Hialeah's main employers are retailers, health care, and public education.  It has a relatively high unemployment rate but a low crime rate.

It sounds like a paradise of Hispanic beefcake. Population 240,000, 95% Hispanic (mostly Cuban), 96% of the residents speak Spanish at home.

But it is also the fourth most conservative city in the United States, heavily Republican (Hispanic Republicans in the Trump era?  Go figure).   No gay bars.   It only had its first Gay Pride Parade in 2018.











Plus every photo of a guy has him standing next to or hugging a woman.

Hialeah has been  named the most boring city in the United States.  According to Trip Advisor, the top things to do are: the park, the mall, the antiques mall, the racetrack, a shooting place, another shooting place. a fish camp (whatever that is), and a movie theater.  I'm torn between yawning and running far away.

A drive down Main Street (aka 49th Street) reveals endless blocks of familiar chain restaurants (Olive Garden, Papa John's Pizza, Krispy Kreme Donuts, McDonald's, Burger King, KFC), banks, pharmacies, retail centers, and almost nothing that suggests a Hispanic heritage.  No street signs or building signs in Español.   There's an Arts District with space for local artists.

While we're looking up superlatives, Hialeah has also been named the city with the 4th worst drivers in the U.S. (#1 is Washington, DC).

Three high schools:
1. Hialeah (team: The Thoroughbreds)  No GSA
2. Hialeah-Miami Lakes (team: The Trojans).  No GSA.
3. Westland Hialeah (team: Wildcats).  No GSA

Plus Miami Dade College, Hialeah Campus.  No GSA.

Plus various charter and religious schools.  I'm interested in the Christ-Mar School, which doesn't mention God, Christ, or religion anywhere on its website.  Could Christ-Mar mean something else?  The website gives no explanation.






All in all, I think I'd drive the five miles to Miami, which is 70% Hispanic and has gay bars.

Laredo, Texas, the Worst City in the U.S.

Worst-City.com has named Laredo, Texas the worst city in the U.S., due to its high unemployment, high rate of alcoholism, high crime rate, and minimal number of people with college degrees. Plus its Jamboozie Festival.

I looked it up, but I still don't know what a Jamboozie is.

Wait -- every city in Texas is Hell on Earth.  I hated every minute of my 9 months stuck there.  It was a big, giant, unending morass of misery and despair, where I spent my time counting the seconds until I could leave.  And never go back.  How can Laredo be significantly worse than Texas in general?

Let's look at the stats:

Violent Crime Rate: 322 per 100,000.  Better than Texas in general.
Property Crime Rate: 2,484 per 100,000.  Better.
Average High School Test Scores, 69%. Worse.
College Graduates: 17.9%.  Worse
Annual per capita income $16,000.  Much Worse.
Under poverty level 31%.  Much Worse
Unemployment 3.3%.  Better.
Voted for Trump: 22%.  Much Better.
Evangelical Protestants: 5%.  Much Better.
Municipal Equality Index (how many rights LGBT people have):  6%. Much Worse

Doesn't sound awful, comparatively.

Plus:

1. Museum of the Republic of the Rio Grande, consisting of three Mexican states that seceded in 1840. The independent nation lasted for 9 months. Laredo didn't become part of the United States until the Mexican-American War of 1846.

2. The Second and Charles Used Bookstore.

3. A dozen Mexican restaurants.

4. 85% of the population is Hispanic.

5. Mexico is right across the river.

6. Beefcake: Texas A&M International University, Laredo College (previously Laredo Community College) and a lot of high schools: Alexander, Cigarroa,  Nixon (not Richard), Johnson (Lyndon), Martin, Saint Augustine, United, South, plus a Christian Academy.

Crossfit.

The annual Mr. Laredo Bodybuilding Competition.

The Laredo Tritons Swim Team

And boxer Orlando Canizales

Maybe I'll have another look at that Jamboozie Festival.

My First Hispanic Guy

Rock Island, November 1977

I began taking Spanish in fifth grade, and by high school I was relatively fluent. During my senior year at Rocky High, I took AP Spanish with Mr. Blomberg, who assigned the novel Nada menos que todo un hombre and the poems of Garcia Lorca (La luna viene a la fragua con un bolison de nardos: I can still remember that line without having to look it up).

But I had never heard Spanish spoken outside of the classroom  Today 6% of the population of Rock Island is Hispanic, but in 1977, none that I knew of.  I had never met a native speaker, not even one of my Spanish teachers.



I knew, intellectually, that millions of people spoke Spanish every day, in Spain and Latin America, but it might as well have been the language of a long-dead civilization, or one of the invented languages in The Lord of the Rings.


Then, on November 13th, the Sunday before my birthday, I was was walking down the hallway from the Sunday school rooms with the other high schoolers, on our way  to sit in back rows during church (God forbid any teenagers sit in the middle section with their parents!).  As we approached the foyer, I saw a Hispanic guy standing uncomfortably by the rack of tracts.



Incredible!  He was in his 20s, tall and broad-shouldered, with very dark skin and shaggy black hair, thick square hands jutting uncomfortably from his blue leisure suit.  An Adonis!  A dark-skinned Erik Estrada, a muscular Freddie Prinze!



And a visitor to the church.  That meant he was fair game for soul-winning!



As Nazarenes, we were judged on how many souls we brought to Christ by importuning friends, starting conversations on the bus, knocking on strangers' doors.  A visitor was an easy target.  I was surprised that the Hispanic guy hadn't been mobbed already.



I hadn't figured "it" out yet, so I just thought of him as a soulwinning target.  I would explain the Gospel to him -- in Spanish -- lead him to the altar -- wrap my arm around his shoulders while he prayed through to victory -- embrace him in a warm, sweaty hug -- feel his hard chest against mine, his dark, uncut cock....



"He's mine!" I told the others, breaking away from the group and rushing toward him.



"You mean Juan?" a voice called behind me.  It was Sarah, an 12th grader.  Her father was Brother Geoge, the Sunday School superintendent, which made her church royalty, holier than Jesus and more stuck-up than a French poodle.  She had never spoken to me before.  .



"You know him?"



She swished past me.  "Dad invited him.  He just started working at the auto shop."  Brother George also owned his own business and had employees, a rarity in a working class church.



"Well, I don't see Brother George anywhere around, so.." I started walking faster, trying to pass her, but we both reached the tract rack at the same time.  Juan turned and smiled at us.



Sarah took his arm and said "I'm so glad you could make to the Lord's House today."  Then, giving me an evil glare, "Oh...and this is Boomer.  He's one of the children in my Sunday school class."



"We're the same age," I shot back.  Sarah might be the boss's daughter, but I had an ace in the whole (whatever that is -- Nazarenes don't play cards):  "Que tal, Juan? Bienvenidos a nuestra iglesia!"



"Tu hablas Espanol?"  he said, taking my hand.  "No he encontrado nadie in America con que puedo hablar!"



He spoke so fast that I could barely understand him, and his grammar was awful, but I was speaking to a real Hispanic guy in Spanish.  "Yo lo estudio en mi escuela, pero nunca hay encontrado a una persona que lo habla in actualidad."



"That's not necessary!" Sarah exclaimed.  "Juan speaks English perfectly. Now if you'll excuse us, the service is about to start"  She grabbed his arm and led him into the sanctuary, toward her parents' pew, away from the teenagers' section.  But I wouldn't be dissuaded.  I planted myself next to Juan and spent the service whispering to him in Spanish, explaining when to pick up his hymnal and when to bow his head to pray, and what an altar call was for.



He didn't get saved at the altar call.  He said that the service was "Very cool.  Like pentecostal.  Maybe I come again sometime."



Uh-oh. That meant he wouldn't come back.  I had lost my chances of soulwinning -- and getting with -- the Hispanic hunk.  Meanwhile, Sarah drop by after school every day...invite him to Thanksgiving dinner next week...ask him out on a date...hug and kiss him in a darkened car parked at the levee...feel his hard chest beneath her hand...feel his....



I had only one hope.  Mom was letting me drive her car, as long as I chauffeured her to and from work...

The full story, with nude photos, is on Tales of West Hollywood

El Paso: Worth Stopping For

Speaking of places you may be tempted to drive through without stopping, let's take a look at El Paso, Texas.

Ordinarily I avoid Texas -- I'm still traumatized by my horrible year in Hell-fer-Sartain -- but El Paso is on the far western end of the state, with New Mexico one one side and Mexico on the other, and 80% Hispanic, so I'll give it a pass.

Besides, it has a lot of interesting cultural monuments.

Like the Ysleta Mission, the oldest continuously occupied mission in the U.S.,founded in 1680

The El Paso Museum of Art has an exhibit about the Mexican Revolution.

Plus more museums, ballet, theater, and a film festival. 

And 274 Mexican restaurants.  Fancy a chili relleno burger?

A gay neighborhood with a community center, a Metropolitan Community Church, and about a dozen gay bars.  No sauna.



















Five public high schools, Lutheran, Jewish, Catholic, and fundamentalist high schools, a community college, and the University of Texas at El Paso. 

This wrestler is from Franklin High (Copyright Wrestlingtexas.com).

More Franklin High.

I don't know where this one is from, but he's won some awards.

As has this Bodybuilder of the Week.

Andrew Keegan Breaks Boys' Hearts

Andrew Keegan was one of the more popular teen stars of the 1990s. He played mostly operators, rebels, and scallawags, Zack Dell in Camp Nowhere (1994), and "bad boy" guest roles on TGIF sitcoms like  Full House, Moesha, Step by Step, and Boy Meets World.

By the late 1990s, he was starting to bulk up, and the teen magazines started going wild.  They specialized in shots of his bare chest peeking out from his shirt, as if he had been caught in the midst of getting dressed (or undressed).

Lots of gay content:

1. Gay-vague  "not into girls" roles on Party of Five (1997-98) and Seventh Heaven (1997-2004)/

2. Broken Hearts Club (2000): Andrew played Kevin, one of a group of gay friends who hang out in West Hollywood (others include Timothy Olyphant, Dean Cain, and Zach Branff).

3. O (2001), an updating of Othello.  His Michael Cassio, a high school basketball player,  buddy-bonds with Odin (Mekhi James).

Chico and the Man: Anglo-Hispanic Gay Couple

There were lots of African-American characters on tv in the 1970s, but Hispanic actors continued to find themselves cast as Anglo or Italian.  Freddie Prinze was one of the first to be cast as Hispanic.  The stand-up comedian (actually half Puerto Rican, half German) entertained audiences with dialect stories and catchphrase like "Ees not my job!"  Appearances on Jack Paar and The Tonight Show led the 21-year old to a star vehicle, Chico and the Man (1974-78).

Auto garage owner Ed (Jack Albertson, Grandpa in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory) is elderly, crotchety, widowed, and depressed -- until Chico (Freddie Prinze) arrives, looking for a job and a place to live.  At first the bigoted Anglo  rebuffs Chico with ethnic slurs and general nastiness -- but Chico likes Ed -- a lot -- so he keeps coming back, keeps trying, until finally, his resistance lowered, Ed allows himself to love again.  Um...I mean, the two become friends.

Who were they kidding?  They were the most obvious gay couple in 1970s tv.  All they needed was a scene of the two holding hands.

Wait, there was one.

Freddie was handsome, and obviously gifted beneath the belt, but he gave fans few shirtless shots, not even when he was interviewed for Playgirl.  

The world was shocked when the superstar, who had just signed a multi-year, multi-million dollar contract with NBC, committed suicide on January 28, 1977.  Stories appeared about depression, drug abuse, marital estrangement.

NBC bizarrely tried to continue Chico and the Man without him.  They finished up the third season with Chico "visiting his father in Mexico," and then had Ed meeting and adopting the preteen Raul (Gabriel Melgar).  But their relationship was distinctly grandfather-grandson, not boyfriend-boyfriend.

When Raul finds Chico's old guitar, and Ed explains that it belonged to someone he loved who died.  He's been widowed twice.

A tv movie about Freddie's life appeared in 1979: Can You Hear the Laughter?  The Freddie Prinze Story, starring Ira Angustain.