Charlie Ritter: John Ritter's grandson? Any on-screen roles? How many n*de photos does it take to get through the girl-craziness?

  

Link to the n*de dudes

When Charlie Ritter appeared on my Instagram recommendations, I assumed that he was the grandson of John Ritter, whose Jack Tripper pretended to be gay on Three's Company in the 1970s: the first time many of us had ever heard the word.  

Grandson Charlie is obviously straight.  There are a few guy-hugging photos, but usually he's hugging, kissing, cuddling with, and frolicking with girls! girls! girls!

Just one girl, duck-lipping or peace-signing.

Two girls, one for each arm.

Four girls, two on his arms, one grabbing his shoulders, and the other on her knees for some reason.

When he goes to a museum, he photographs the statues of ladies.

Here he's just sitting in a restaurant.  Presumably being photographed by a girl, but none are visible...wait, there's one on the sidewalk outside. Even while sitting in a restaurant. You have to be within twenty feet of the Eternal Feminine at all times, don't you, Chuck Baby?

Come on, this is excessive, even for the Don Juan -- Casanova -- Arthur Fonzarelli of our generation.  How could you afford all the corsages?

At least he displays a nice physique, if you can find selfie shots, without the Girls! Girls! Girls!

You haven't seen most of the hugging, kissing, grabbing, pretending to strangle, duck-lipping, hand-holding, and bossom-gazing, but I have, and I need a few d*cks before going on to Charlie's acting career (on RG Beefcake and Boyfriends).

More after the break

Cloverfield: Come for the alien invasion, stay for Godzilla. With Vogel backside, Hud junk, and endless misdirection.

  

For movie night last night, we saw Cloverfield (2008).  I don't usually review movies from that long ago, but there are some nice n*de photos of the cast, the utter lack of LGBTQ representation requires comment (this scene is just a tease), and I have some questions.

The first is: we thought that it would be thematically linked to The Cloverfield Paradox (2018), about a space station that accidentally gets zapped into a parallel universe.  But there's no connection except the name.  Cloverfield (2008) is a "found footage" movie, presenting a videotape that was found in the ruins of what used to be called Central Park, no doubt dug up by archaeologists thousands of years after our civilization was destroyed by an alien invasion.

There's a prelude that is not connected to the rest of the movie in any way: An extremely wealthy middle-aged man films the ruins of New York from his apartment.  There are many fires below, so no doubt the Apocalypse has already begun.  He awakens his wife, and they discuss how much they love each other and kiss a lot.  He takes his shirt off, but this was a DVD, so I couldn't get a screen shot, and I can't find him in the cast list.  

We cut to an interminable party with a huge number of immensely rich young adults, all white except for the token black guy, having interminable boring conversations and being elitist (they're shocked when a lady knows who Superman is).  Are straight people's lives really this boring?  

The takeaways from the endless boredom are:

1. This is a going-away party for Rob (Michael Stahl-David, top photo and left).  He's moving to Japan tomorrow to take a huge, huge promotion with a massive, multi-million dollar pay increase.  We never find out what his job is, but I assume it will have something to do with saving the world from the alien invasion.  

2. His friends don't think he should go, because he'll have to leave his girlfriend, Beth, who is the most beautiful woman in the world, and way too good for him.  It's a miracle that someone that beautiful wanted to be with him in the first place, and he'll never find anyone close, so why would he give her up?

3. Ron and Girlfriend Beth argue, and she goes home.  Turns out that he had an affair with Lily. his brother's girl, so now Beth wants to dump him.  Fortunately his brother Jason (Mike Vogel, left) doesn't know. yet.

4. Rob's friend Hud (TJ Miller, below) is filming the party, and asking for testimonials from people, but mostly stalking the Girl of His Dreams, Marlena, who seems to be an extremely famous fashion model.   She is not at all interested, but he keeps trying.  All women have stories about that obnoxious guy who refuses to take "no" for an answer: that's Hud.

Suddenly there's a news story about an oil tanker that overturned in New York Harbor, near the Statue of Liberty.  The apartment is in Lower Manhattan -- they can see Harbor from the roof, so they all go up to look.  There's a power blackout, and rockets zoom over the city, some exploding.  They're being invaded!

Rob says "I know what started this. I saw it."  We flash back to the subway, where he's filming his girl, and accidentally catches a sinister-looking bald man, who gets up from his seat. That scene is repeated several times, but it is never explained.  It's an alien invasion, not a terrorist attack. 

Everyone runs outside.  Suddenly the head of the Statue of Liberty crashes onto the street!  With a stick up her nose.

More zaps from alien spacecraft zooming across the sky.  Plus a giant monster is  smashing into buildings, and smaller, human-size spider-beings are killing people.  This seems like an inefficient weapon for an  invasion.  

Everyone runs into an all-night bodega. That is, Rob, Brother Jason, Lily (Jason's girl, whom he had an affair with), Cameraman Hud (left), and the Famous Model. The promo says that there are six friends; this is just five.  Will they be joined by someone else later?

The other party guests scatter. 

The police or military tell everyone to evacuate the city by crossing the Brooklyn Bridge.  Except it is bombed by the aliens, and they have to return to Manhattan.

Rob talks on his cell phone to someone, but all we hear are clicks.  Then he says "I know what I have to do," and heads toward the monster!  Obviously he was talking to the aliens, and now is under their control.  This is never resolved.

They try to take subway tunnels, where they are attacked by the spider-monsters.  The Famous Model is bitten.  Fortunately, they find a triage unit set up in a department store, but it's too late for the Famous Model: she starts coughing blood, and dies.  

Brother Jason has already been killed, I forget how. So only Rob, Cameraman Hud, and Brother's Girlfriend Lily are left.

More after the break

Angel Mock Curiel: LGBTQ and Latinx roles culminate in Lil Pappi on "Pose." Not much after except n*de modeling and Denver.

Link to the n*de photos

It's the late 1980s in Manhattan, the era of Reaganomics, Tough on Crime, and the AIDS crisis.  It's cold outside.  Especially if you're poor, a racial minority, and femme, trans, or gay: "the world hates you.  When you die, it breathes a sigh of relief."

All you have is a "house," a family of choice with a "mother" and her children.  And ballroom.

 Pose (2018-21) is set in the ballroom subculture, where African-American and Latinx trans women, drag queens, and occasionally gay men "posed,"modeled, house against house in the quest for realness.  Some brought home gigantic trophies, and became legends. 

Li'l Papi (Angel Bismark Curiel) was living on the streets, surving through drug sales and hustling  (he preferred women, but accepted male clients).  After stumbling upon the ballroom subculture, he was entranced, and petitioned Blanca of House Evangelista to "adopt" him, even though he wasn't gay or trans.  She agreed, with the rule that he stop dealing, and pose occasionally as a muscleman. 

In Season 2, Li'l Papi starts dating Angel (Indya Moore), a s*x worker whose previous plot arc involved an affair with a married man (Evan Peters).  After various arguments and breakup-reconciliations, they get married.  He opens a talent agency specializing in LGBTQ models, with Angel as his top client.  They have a happy ending (sort of), a welcome relief in a show that too often emphasized people being rejected by family, murdered, or dying of AIDS.

 This was Angel's first exposure to trans people.  In an interview with Attitude, he notes that he grew up in a "very cis, very heteronormative, very rough" Afro-Dominican community in Little Liberty, Miami.  He was bullied for being short and artistic, and for having asthma, and escaped into the world of the theater.  At the Miami Arts Charter School, he performed in The Rose Tattoo, A Midsummer Night's Dream and Jesus Hopping the A Train, and upon graduating in 2013, he enrolled at Pace University in New York as a drama major.

He dropped out in 2015 due to inancial problems, was homeless for awhile, survived anyway he could (he doesn't specify, but I imagine that hustling was one of his survival jobs), and finally found a job in a hotel.  But he still auditioned, and in 2016 landed his first on-screen role in America Adrift.  He played a middle-class teenager on Long Island who drifts into heroin addiction and drug dealing.

And loses his clothes.

Davi Santos, who is gay in real life, played his older brother, giving Angel his first close contact with LGBTQ people.  

Next came the short Louie's Brother Peter (2017).  Peter (Andrew McLarty) has Asperger's Syndrome, but that doesn't stop him from helping his brother with the drug deliveries.  Angel plays Zeke, one of their customers.

Andew McLarty is gay in real life.  .

Night Comes On (2018) is a "slow, painful, grim" indie drama about an African-American, lesbian girl nameed Angel, who is released from juvenile detention at age 18 with no money and no place to stay.  She gets a girlfriend, tries to find social connections, and seeks out her father to punish him murdering her mother.  Dad is played by John Earl Jelks, who often plays gay characters

You're pushing up the LGBTQ representation, Angel buddy

Our Angel played a store clerk. 

Monsters and Men (2018) is not about James Whale and the Frankenstein movie - that's Gods and Monsters.  It's about an incident where six police officers corner a black man and "accidentally" kill him during an arrest.

You're pushing up the Black/Latinx representation, too.

When Angel saw the casting call for L'il Pappi, he thought, "That's me!  Those are my experiences!"  He got the part, and since he had so little exposure to trans people, tried to educate himself, hang out with them, ask about their lives -- and he ended up in a relationship with producer/writer Janet Mock, an African-American transwoman -- while she was still married to her husband.  She is the one who suggested expanding Papi's role by giving him a romance with Angel Evangelista. 

Pose turned out to be the high point of Angel's acting career.  He was starring in a popular tv series, but more importantly, he  had found a community.  

More after the break

Finn Kaifur: Icelandic college student studies ballet, takes a polar plunge, shows his stuff. With Pete White and bonus n*de model Shaun Ross

  

Link to the n*de photos

This guy drew my attention on Instagram with a photo of swimming in an ice-covered lake.  Not just a polar plunge -- he was floating in there!

"Comfort kills your dreams."  But ice water kills your body.

He's Finn B__, originally from Iceland, 19 years old as of this writing. I don't usually post the full name of non-actors, so I'll change his last name to Kaifur, Icelandic slang for "Big D*ck."

Finn notes that growing up, he was subjected to bullying and had few friends, which led to depression and low self-esteem.  He only came out a short time ago.

Wait -- bullied for being gay?  In Iceland?  Are you sure they weren't bullying you because you hang out with your shirt off in sub-zero temperatures?  Not that I'm complaining.

For someone who wants to make friends, Finn doesn't reveal many personal details.  He's attending college in the U.S., but he doesn't say which college.  Or his major.  He posts that he's in love with his philosophy professor, but also does ballet routines.  And he's on the hockey team.

Back home in Iceland, he lived with his grandmother and cat.

In the U.S., he has a dog.

He thinks American guys are handsome.  Dude, I've been to Iceland.  The guys are totally hot, although I actually prefer cut cocks (n*de Icelander on RG Beefcake and Boyfriends).

His American friend, Thomas, is leaving to join the army, "So I need to spend time together in a way that makes him remember me for a long time."

Be sure to hydrate, guys.

"I've been in two relationships.  Both ended in heartbreak.  Why?"  It's not you, buddy, it's the nature of relationships.

More after the break

Meet Me Next Christmas: Romcom with a drag show, a queer cousin, Pentatonix, and a dancer's d*ck

Link to the n*de photos

I fast-forwarded through the first 20 of the Christmas movies streaming on Netflix, Amazon Prime, and Hulu, and found only one with probable gay characters: Meet Me Next Christmas.  Plus there are two hot guys on the icon, so there's bound to be some beefcake.  

Scene 1: It's snowing in a Chicago with no recognizable landmarks.  Pentatonix is singing on holograms and store cams everywhere: "It's the Most Wonderful Time of the Year."  The Girl, Layla, is in the airport with her luggage on Christmas Eve.  Who flies on Christmas Eve?  You won't get there in time for anything.  But all flights out are cancelled.  

While she is waiting in the VIP lounge, James (Kofi Siriboe, top photo), a hot guy with a cancelled flight, sits next to her.  Her flirting bio: she runs a charity that gives scholarships to deserving youth to attend Historically Black Colleges and Universities.  She shows him a photo of Derek, who graduated from Langston College in Oklahoma last year. 

Named after Langston Hughes, the Westernmost HBCU is advertised as an "excellent value," with a lot of white kids on its website. and no mention of LGBT people.

"Right now Tanner and I would be going to the Pentatonix Christmas Eve Show."  You're flying on the same day as the show?  Idjit!

James doesn't know what Pentatonix is, even though they've been singing all through the airport, so Layla tells him. 

They decide that, if they're both single next year, they'll meet at next year's big Pentatonix Christmas Eve concert. 

Scene 2: The next year, three days before Christmas, Layla is at work, busily placing students at HBCUs, when her bff calls -- not a gay guy, darn it, but she talks like a drag queen.  Layla is going to pick up boyfriend Tanner's favorite dinner -- takeout Italian with a Christmas twist.

She arrives at her stunning Victorian -- in Poughkeepsie?  Why not near a HBCU college? -- screams -- and a half-n*ked lady runs out, followed by a shirtless Tanner (Brendan Morgan, left).  What idjit has a hookup when he knows his girlfriend will be home any minute?

Layla wants to know that too.  He explains that this is the day the maid comes, so he couldn't hook up at his place. So she dumps the Italian food on his bare chest,  slams the door, and looks out the window, miserable. 

Scene 3: In New York, staying with her bff, Layla drinks wine and stares out onto the city.  Girlfriend says that she always picks the wrong guys -- successful, muscular, well-hung -- but forgets to find out if he's into her.  "Is he your ride or die?"  

"Hey, maybe I can fall in love with my airport hookup from last year, James." They said they would meet at the big Pentatonix concert, but Tanner the idjit ordered Macklemore tickets this year! 

No problem; they'll just go to the Rockefeller Center website and buy a ticket for Pentatonix. Sold out!  "But you can go through a concierge service to get them." I thought a concierge worked in a hotel, but it's a general service that rich people use for help of all sorts, like getting sold-out tickets.

Scene 4: In New York,  two days before Christmas, concierge Teddy (Devale Ellis) passes out Christmas fudge to his coworkers, and cioppino to the boss lady.  I'll bet that Layla gets with him instead of James. 

Layla has hired him, after sending a lot of emails and showing up at the office. His job is to get her Petatonix tickets by tomorrow night.  "Your client reviews suck," Boss lady snarls,"So get this one done or you're fired."

In Teddy's office, Layla explains that she's freaking out because she's tried everything to get that ticket: Ticketmaster, Tickpick, Stubhub...none available.  Girl, just text the guy and offer to meet him somewhere else. 

Nothing in the company databases, but Teddy knows a guy who might have one. "He has a kiosk.  I'll go get it.  No, Layla wants to go with him, to make sure there are no screw-ups. And fall in love, of course.

Scene 5: Out onto the streets of Toronto masquerading as New York.  The kiosk is closed, but Layla found a guy on Dave's Tickets who has a couple, and wants to meet in the Village.  Tony resists -- he's the professional with the contacts, so this guy must be a scam -- but she drags him on.  Squabbling- they'll be smooching in the last scene, 100 to 1

Gay characters after ther break

The 5 Most Horrible DMVs

The DMV is the Department of Motor Vehicles, the most horrifying, soul-destroying institution every invented in the board rooms of hell.  Its sole function is to cause you as much pain and torment as possible.

Every time you move to a new state, you must devote at least one full day, probably more, to being tortured at the DMV.

And I've moved to a lot of new states.

 Here are the worst DMVs, in order:

1. Ohio.  There are two places to go, one to get your new license and the other for your registration, on opposite sides of town, neither with titles that sound like what they are ("Assistant County Examiner" or something).  The registration one is only open on Tuesdays and Thursdays, but not if it is raining: "The license examiners will not examine your car in the rain."  Which make sense, I suppose, but if you have only one month from the date you move to the state, finding a free Tuesday or Thursday when it's not raining is difficult.  And finding several (they always send you back for more documents) is almost impossible.

2. Texas.  When I moved to Texas for my horrible year in Hell-fer-Sartain, everybody was brand new at their jobs, having just moved down from the Rust Belt (80% of the population of Hell-fer-Sartain was from Michigan, Ohio, or Indiana. So the clerk filled out the form wrong, and six weeks later my driver's license arrived at a house down the block, with the address wrong and my name spelled wrong.  Six more weeks later, a "replacement" driver's license appeared.

3. Pennsylvania.  At the entrance, there are two lines, with signs stating "With a picture id" and "Without a picture id."  I don't know why I thought they would be telling the truth, after my experiences in California and Ohio, but like a idiot I pulled out my picture id card and waited.  An hour later, I got to the front of the line, and was told "This line is for people who are getting their driver's license for the first time.  That line over there is for people who want to transfer from a new state."  Go wait over there for an hour and a half.

Did I mention that Pennsylvania requires two exhaust emission tests?  From different places on the other side of town from each other.

4. California. Make an appointment in advance, but even then, you are going to be waiting for six hours, until they close and tell everyone to go home and come back in the morning.  Where they say they will take those with appointments yesterday first.  Maybe they do, but it still takes four hours to go through the various lines.  Ten hours altogether.  I hope you packed a lunch.

5. New York.  Don't even think about moving to New York.  The DMV is a nightmare of epic proportions.

Every time I stood in one of the interminable lines, the clerk would invent some other document I needed.

Birth certificate.

The title (it's a leased car, so I don't have the title).

A form sent by the person sitting at a desk in an archive in Vermont who actually has physical access to the title.

My proof of insurance.

No, not proof of insurance coverage that began three months ago; it has to be a form indicating that you have insurance coverage on this exact day.

I went back day after day, talked to different clerks every time, and got different and contradictory information about what forms I would need to fill out.  Finally, after jumping through hoop after hoop,  I was waiting for one last form for Grace from my insurance company to fax the fifth insurance form that they wanted directly to Debbie at the DMV.

"When this one comes in, we'll be done, right?" I asked.  "You'll allow me to register my car in this state?"

"Yes, that's the last document we'll need," Debbie said.  Then: "Well, I'm going home for the day.  Someone else will help you."

"No!  No!" I yelled.  "Someone else will just invent more documents that I need, and I'll have to start all over again."

"Well, my shift is over.  I'm going home."

"Could I come back tomorrow and see you then?  Every DMV clerk has different requirements, so someone else will make me do different things."

"You'd have to step to the back of the line and wait for another hour. Just go to the next person when your form comes in."

I waited.  20 minutes later, Grace faxed over the fifth insurance form .  I wanted in line for the next clerk.

"Oh, you have everything you need, except for the afidavits that you don't have any DUI convictions at any of the previous states that you have lived in.  Just call the local police department at each of the cities you lived in, and have them send you the forms...."

I just noticed that there's no specifically gay content in this post.  So here's a cute guy to tide you over.

See also: DMV: Workplace comedy set in the Department of Motor Vehicles, with Keefe, the guy from "Peacemaker," and a hung archaeologist

Skyler Gisondo's Hot/H*ng Photos, Part 4: a baseball bat, a hickey, a little dog, and a chub with a chubby

  

  Link to the n*de photos

This is a collection of cute/cool or hot/humorous photos of  Skyler Gisondo, star of The Santa Clarita Diet and The Righteous Gemstones, and Jimmy Olson in Superman. 

1. Are those bi pride swim trunks?

2. Long-term bud Wyatt Oleff.  The two starrred together in the tv pilot Middle Age Rage (2013), and stayed friends, bonding over abs.

3. And stuff.  Actually, Wyatt says that he doesn't remember who he's giving a hickey to. It could be Skyler, but then, he makes out with so many guys....

4. Skyler grooving on some stars and stripes.  And his little dog, too.

5. Skyler's "just guys" vacation in New York.  He didn't say who he went with, but they look very comfortable together.  Hanging out in their underwear.

6. And out of their underwear.

More after the break

"The Cat and the Moon": An almost-canonical gay couple and a gay-subtext romance on the Mean Streets of New York

 

Link to the N*de Photos

The Cat and the Moon (2019) was advertised as a "coming of age" movie with Alex Wolff (left) playing an updated Holden Caulfield.  So I  went in expecting depression, drugs, suicide, heterosexual machinations, and rampant homophobia. I found lots of drugs, suicidal ideations, insanity, and heterosexual romance, but no homophobia, and so many gay subtexts that I couldn't keep track of who was in love with whom.  

New Guy (Alex Wolff) moves to New York City while his mom is in rehab, stays with his dad's old buddy, and gets involved in a lot stuff.  This review will only cover the gay subtext scenes.

Scene 1: New Guy's first day in school.  Skyler (Giulian Yao Gioello), hot for the new guy, befriends him and shows him around.

Scene 2: In algebra class, two stoner buds are playing a game involving fluttering their hands together. 

Scene 3:  New Guy is in the restroom, trying to get high with a bong made of a toilet paper roll, when the stoner buds come in, bickering like an old married couple and talking like "he got into my motherf*ckin' grill, yo."  

One stands at the urinal; the other doesn't have to go, so he just stands nearby to get a peek at his bud's d*ck

They find New Guy and introduce themselves as Seamus and Russell (I'll call them Gay Guy and Straight Friend).  They invite to a party Friday night.

"Wait -- will your girlfriend be there?"  Gay Guy asks.  

"Yes."

"Fuck!  You never pay attention to me when she's around."  To New Guy: "His balls just evaporate when she's around." That must make sex difficult.

Scene 4; The party was cancelled, so Gay Guy (Tommy Nelson, far left) invites New Guy to go to a club with him and his good buddy Skyler, who cruised Nick in Scene 1.  Straight Friend and his Girlfriend will also be there.  So when they go out, it's Skyler-his girlfriend and Russell-his boyfriend, get it?  

On the way, Gay Guy and Straight Friend argue and break up.  The Girlfriend tells New Guy not to worry: they break up all the time, but get back together again. "Honestly, I think they just secretly want to fuck each other."  Ok, so it's not a subtext.

They end up partying on the roof. Gay Guy and Straight Friend kiss.  Wait, I thought you had other partners.

Later, while the two are dealing with a drug overdose, New Guy and The Girlfriend bond.

Scene 5: New Guy has lunch with Straight Friend (Skyler Gisondo, left), who reveals that he cheated last night, before his overdose: he was with "someone."  He doesn't say who, and neither of the guys use gender pronouns, leaving open the possibility that it was with a boy .

Scene 6:  A roomful of guys hanging out.  Straight Friend asks Gay Guy to rap about buttholes. Apparently everyone knows that he's a butthole expert.  

He starts out: "This my boy Seamus, fucking on an anus."  Tell me more.  

"Young Russ, I'm reckless, I wreck chicks."  He pauses. "No, that's not right."  Of course not.  You meant "wreck dudes."  

Scene 7: The Girlfriend invites them to another party  The four head out, engaging in youthful hijinks.  On the subway, Straight  Friend pretends that he is getting oral s*ex from Gay Guy.  Everyone laughs.

They try to pick up some drugs for the party, but almost get shot when Gay Guy refers to the dealer (Quincy Chad, left) as "My N....."  He tries to explain that it's a rap term, but the dealer pulls a gun and asks if Gay Guy would like it in his mouth. Ok, a reference to oral activity.  Figures that it would be Gay Guy.

 They run away, and divide into two couples to cuddle and recuperate:  Gay Guy/his Boyfriend and New Guy/Straight Friend.  So Russell and Skyler are like canonical boyfriends, and Nick and Seamus have a gay-subtext friendship?  Or are they falling in love?

The Girlfriend and her friend arrive.  Straight Friend tries to kiss her (because he feels bad about doing things with other people?) but she won't let him.  She wonders why he's so interested in kissing, all of a sudden. "Since when do you care about that?"  Yeah, kissing girls, yuck!

More after the break

Here at the New Yorker: homophobia, elitism, long-ago homework assignments, and a scary 18th century dandy

I've spent most of my life on college campuses, as student, grad student, and professor, but still, I often feel out of place.

When I'm not out, there's constant heterosexism:
"Will your wife be coming with you?"
"There will be a lot of single women at the party."
"There's not a man alive who wouldn't want to be with her!"

When I'm out, it changes to homophobia:
"How do you know you're gay if you've never tried it with a woman?"
"Why do gay men act so feminine all the time?"
"Are you the boy or the girl in your relationship?"

And the elitism is constant:
"How could you stand growing up in Illinois?  Nothing to do but ride tractors and milk cows!"
"Why did you go to Augustana?  Why didn't you go to Harvard, like everyone else?"
My favorite: "Television?  Ugh!  Mindless drivel.  I haven't watched a television program in 30 years."

Elitism and homophobia come together in The New Yorker, a weekly magazine for people who think that Manhattan is the center of the universe, regardless of where they happen to live.

I lived in Manhattan for three years, and none of the gay people I knew read it.  But all heterosexual college professors did.  And quite a few outside of New York, in California, Florida, and Ohio.

Why is it required reading for elite heterosexuals but anathema for gay people, regardless of their elitism?

1. It's the height of insularity.  Manhattan is the center of the universe, California is full of wannabes, the rest of the U.S. is a "flyover" full of cows and rednecks, and the rest of the world doesn't exist.

Gay people know that West Hollywood is the center of the universe.

2. It's the height of heterosexism.  Endless stories about elite heterosexuals agonizing over failed marriages and dying relatives.

Endless cartoons about heterosexuals saying things that make sense to them, but not to gay people.  This guy tells his date, "I want Chardonnay, but I like saying 'Pinot Grigio."  She is shocked.  What's going on?

3. Gay people appear only as subjects of heterosexual discomfort.  In a similar restaurant, perhaps the same one, two feminine stereotypes are arguing (notice the limp wrist).  One says: "I wouldn't marry you if you were the last gay person on Earth."

Why is this funny?  Because he specifies "last gay person?"

Because it's rather disquieting for a heterosexual to think about gay people discussing marriage?

4. The stories are about men and women having relationship problems. Some of my least favorite writers, those who made me shudder when I was forced to read them in college, were published in The New Yorker:  J.B. Salinger, John Updike, Philip Roth, James Thurber, Joan Didion.

"A Perfect Day for Banana Fish."  What the heck is a banana fish? All I know is that someone dies.  Somebody always dies in these stories.

More after the break

Nathaniel Choate: Gay African-American Sculptor of 1960s New York

When I was living in New York, I had a friend who lived near the  Klitgord Center,  at the corner of Jay and Tilly Street in Brooklyn, the heart of the New York City College of Technology.  Every day he, and thousands of other people, walked past its gigantic 2-story mural memorializing some of the joys of college: Art, Drama, Music, Recreation, Health, and Recreation.

"Health" was a muscular man on the parallel bars, naked or wearing a skimpy jockstrap.

The Klitgord Center was demolished in 2013.

Recently I investigated the mural, and tried to find out something about the artists.

Sculptor Nathaniel Choate (1899-1965) was one of the few African-American men to graduate from Harvard in the 1920s.  Afterwards he studied in France, and traveled extensively in Morocco and Sudan, perhaps looking for the "good place" that drew dozens of gay men to North Africa.  He returned to the U.S. in the 1930s, and taught in Pennsylvania and New York.  He never married.

His subjects were usually muscular African men, such as "Alligator Bender" at Brookgreen Gardens in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina.

Tile artist Francis Von Tury (1901-1992) was born in Hungary, had a studio in Perth Amboy, New Jersey, and was a leading proponent of ceramics as both an art form and an industrial tool.  He never married, either.

Most of his work is stylized, but there are some interesting male figures, like this fisherman on a blue tile.

I don't know if the two men were friends, or lovers, before they began their collaboration.

The Four Seasons: Elite New Yorkers discuss True Love, with a gay couple, a lumberjack, Vivaldi, and a n*de Len Cariou

 

Link to the n*de New Yorkers

I lived in New York for four years while studying for my Ph.D.  One thing that bothered me was the parochialism, like that New Yorker cover come to life ("View of the World from 9th Avenue," by Saul Steinberg).  Literally everywhere else in the world was a cultural wasteland.

 Everyone always asked "Where are you from?", assuming that the answer would be "Scarsdale" or "Astoria."  I said Illinois:  "Oh, Chicago!  Now that's a second rate city!  Did you eat hot dogs at (snicker, snicker).baseball games?"

"No, my town was on the other side of the state, on the Iowa border."

"Iowa!  Ma and Pa Kettle chawing tobaccy!  How old were you (snicker, snicker) when you first saw one of those newfangled auto-mobiles?"

So I started saying "Los Angeles":   "How dreadfully superficial!  All about mindless movies and puerile television!  Do you watch (snicker, snicker) the A Team?"  

The Four Seasons, on Netflix, gave me a similar vibe: parochial, elitist, condescending, so I never made it through an episode.  But from what I can gather, it features three couples who leave the City (there's only one city) for a weekend getaway Upstate (there's only one state) four times a year.  There they talk in Woody Allen witicisms and discuss romantic love.

The main question is stated in the first episode:  Does each of us get a soulmate, someone chosen by the Universe to make our lives infinitely happy forever, or do we fall in love based on physical attraction and social compatibility, and then work to maintain the relationship?   Each couple will face a crisis that illustrates some aspect of the question.  

As the clickbait links say, the answer will surprise you.  Or not.  It's the theme of every romantic movie ever made.

You may also be surprised to find that one of the couples is gay.

Couple #1, Nick and Anne (Steve Carrell of The Office, left, Kerri Kenney):  What if you no longer love your soulmate?

Nick shocks everyone when he announces that he no longer loves his wife.  "Impossible!  You're soulmates!  You're destined to be together!"

When he dumps her anyway and starts dating the much younger Ginny ("The p* enis wants what the p* enis wants), his friends are all devastated.  If a married couple can break up, how does anything have meaning?

 His daughter, who attends an Ivy League College Upstate, maybe Vassar, writes a play in which her callous, unfeeling monster of a father announces: "I hate my daughter so much.  What could I do to cause her the most pain?  I know -- I'll leave my wife, thus destroying the family and making my daughter's life meaningless forever!"

The universe also disapproves of leaving your soulmate, and retaliates by killing Nick.  This leads to the discomfort of having the ex-wife and the horrible trollope he destroyed her life for showing up at the funeral.  Such a negative attitude toward divorce seems extremely retro.   

Couple #2, Danny and Claude (Colman Domingo from Fear the Walking Dead,  famous playwright Marco Calvani, n*de on RG Beefcake and Boyfriends): What if your soulmate dies?

When Danny is diagnosed with heart disease, he leaves Claude to spare him the agony of seeing his decline and death, but Claude insists on getting back together: they're soulmates, in sickness and health. Someday one of them will die and leave the other alone, but the bereaved spouse will still find infinite happiness in the memory of their time together.

By the way, they have an open relationship, and have their "I'm leaving you so you won't feel pain" argument in the midst of a threesome with the Lumberjack (Jacob Buckenmyer).

Jacob Buckenmyer, seen here in Chippendales, is straight in real life.

More after the break.