"Santa Girl": Are You Really Expecting Gay Characters?

I've never understood movies and tv shows that make Santa Claus's toy distribution a business.  He gives away the toys for free, so where's the profit?  Unless...your parents secretly pay him, which is why the rich kids get the most presents, regardless of their naughtiness, and it's all a big lie....

In Santa Girl, the latest in Netflix's 30 days of schlock, The Claus (Barry Bostwick in a fat suit -- probably) is an uber-capitalist Robber Baron, running a global toy empire by exploiting his elf employees (or slaves? you seem to be born into elf serfdom), and forging deals with other titans of industry, like the Tooth Fairy's son, Larry Tooth.

He wants his 18-year old daughter, Cassie (Jennifer Stone of The Wizards of Waverly Place) to marry the son of mafioso weather don Jack Frost in order to combine their empires (is that how business mergers work?), but she has other ideas -- college.

Ok, Santa relents.  One semester at real-life Shenandoah University in Virginia, and then back to her forced marriage.

Wouldn't the Titan of Industry send his daughter to Vassar?

So Cassie and her house slave...um, servant....um, personal assistant head out for college and romance.  She is torn between two potential boyfriends:

1. The wealthy, sophisticated, super-hot JR (Josh Cody, who may be the guy in the top photo or the left, I can't tell.  There are 15 Josh Codys on instagram.  He only has one previous acting credit, a weird movie about a spy who solves crimes in rural Virginia with the help of her "home schooled" friends.)

By the way, JR turns out to be Jack Frost's son, being forced by his father to "keep an eye" on Cassie so she won't fall in love with anyone else before the arranged marriage.  .

2. The quiet, shy, unassuming, poor Sam (Devon Werkheiser, last seen on Ned's Declassified School Survival Guide).  You know who she's going to end up with, right?  Except Sam has a secret -- Jack Frost is also paying HIM to "keep an eye" on Cassie and make sure she doesn't fall in love.

Not even with JR?  Is it essential that you enter an arranged marriage with no feelings for your partner?

By the way, Dad Frost also arranges to dox Cassie with a meme confessing that she is Santa's daughter, resulting in her cancellation (see how adeptly I use contemporary slang?).

Fast forward to the wedding, with Dad Frost salivating over his son's union with Cassie (again, why does he care so much?).  Santa decides to do a good deed for once, and hauls Sam to the North Pole so Cassie can call off the wedding and date him.

Cassie to JR:  "I'm really sorry about this."
JR: "Are you kidding?  Good luck with Sam!"

Gay Characters:  I kept waiting for the gay best friend, but nope. Then I thought JR might be gay -- he swishes a little, and he really doesn't want to marry Cassie. But then, in the final scene, he flirts with an Elf girl.

Beefcake:  Josh Cody's jaw-dropping physique is on full display in a brief indoor pool party scene.

Other Scenery:  A lot of exterior shots of Shenandoah University.  This could be a feature-length advertisement for the college. Maybe it is.

Heterosexism: It's a Christmas rom-com directed by Blayne Weaver of Bossier City, Louisiana, filmed in rural Virginia, starring mostly actors who are attending college in rural Virginia, including Josh Cody, who was planning on a career as a football player, but "God had other plans for me."  What do you think?

"Why Don't Ya Come Ovah?": Tarik Hooks Up with a Ghost

Norfolk, July 2000

Tarik was 32 years old, working as a dietician in a hospital and cruising for older white guys, preferably cops.

Norfolk was a rough town, and rather homophobic, so you had to be careful: a lot of the cops would let you go down on them, then rob you or beat you up.  But there weren't a lot of gay venues other than the bars: he went to the MCC, the gay church, and wrote for Our Own Community Press, the local gay newspaper.

It was at the MCC that he met Mitchy: in his 50s, short, thin, greying, a bit on the femme side  (I have an image of Leslie Jordan), and something of a dollar-dropper (trying to attract guys with an ostentatious display of wealth).  Three minutes into the conversation, he had mentioned that he lived in Linkhorn, the wealthiest neighborhood in Virginia Beach, and that he owned a Rembrandt.  All in a thick Tidewater accent: "Hello theah, deah.  Ahm'm from Linhohn.  Ah own a pictuah by Rembrandt."

Maybe because he grew up poor and a member of the black-supremacist Nation of Islam, Tarik always found topping rich white guys very erotic, so he accepted Mitchy's invitation to "come ovah."

Not a great hookup.  A 45 minute drive, and turns out that Mitchy wasn't into anal; he was an oral top, and not even hung.  Plus his house was very cold, the Rembrandt was of a woman, there was another picture of a naked woman in the bedroom, he had torch songs playing constantly, and he was a bit racist: "Would you lakh to heah something else?  I know y'all lakh rap..."

But Tarik was not used to being pursued, so when Mitchy called two nights later and asked "Why don't yah come ovah?", he agreed.

More boring oral sex while a naked woman looked down on them and torch songs played, and it was so cold that they had to stay under the covers.

Three nights later "Why don't yah cove ovah for dinnah?"

Mitchy served pork chops!  Tarik didn't belong to the Nation of Islam anymore, but he still avoided pork.  He filled up on mashed potatoes and green beans, and then there was more oral sex right at the dining room table, before dessert.

And Mitchy insisted that he spend the night.

This was turning into a full-fledged relationship, except Mitchy never wanted to go out.  Apparently he was too closeted to go to the bars, and the day they met was the only time he attended the MCC.  He looked up in online chatrooms, and went out to First Landing State Park, the outdoor cruising area in Virginia Beach.

Great, an unwanted boyfriend who wasn't into anal, who wasn't hung and who was in the closet!

Tarik accepted "Why don't yah come ovah?" invitations two or three more times before getting the gumption to say "No.  Sorry, I don't feel like it tonight."

"But deah, I'm horney.  I have needs."

It was always about Mitchy's needs, wasn't it?  "Sorry, I don't feel like it."

"But deah, if you won't come ovah, I'll have to go to the park to meet a fella."

"Do what you want.  I'm not coming over."  Tarik hung up on him.

The next day when he went to the office of Our Own Community press, they were talking about a newspaper article. "Does anyone know if he was gay?  Was it really a bashing incident?"

Mitchy's housekeeper found him dead in his bedroom.  He had been beaten and strangled.  Nothing was taken. The police were baffled, but Tarik figured that he had gone out cruising and propositioned the wrong guy. 

Tarik felt guilty, of course.  If he hadn't said "no" that night.  But Mitchy made the decision to pick up rough trade.  He made the decision to stay in the closet.

A few weeks later, Tarik was lying in bed, just dozing off, when the phone rang. 

"Hello, deah.  Why don't yah come ovah?"

A prank call? But Tarik had told only a few people about his hookup/dates, and no one about Mitch's signature phrase or thick Tidewater accent.

Mitchy still pestering him for a hookup from beyond the grave?

The full story, with explicit sex and nude photos, is on Tales of West Hollywood.

Four Scary Swimmers from the Heart of Darkness

"All Area Boys Swimmers of the Year: Jefferson Forest 200 Medley Relay," an article in the News and Advance from April 2018.  Of course, nowhere does the article state where this 200 medley relay is, or who this Jefferson Forest is.  But I had some clues.

A medley is a combination of swimming styles (breaststroke, butterfly, backstroke, and freestyle), and a relay is a race performed by four swimmers. 

There were four muscular but oddly disturbing swimmers depicted.

1. Sutton, who is scowling at the camera as if he plans to attack at any moment,  lives in Roanoake, Virginia.










He looks nicer in this photo, taken at the  Lynchburg YMCA, an hour's drive away. 

Lynchburg, the Heart of Darkness, the site of the homophobic Liberty University and Jerry Falwell's Thomas Road Baptist Church, the scariest place in the world for gay people. Why would he go there to work out?













A nasty sneer on the face of the ab-worthy Connor. I couldn't find out anything about him. .

























Brian looks like a high school bully sitting in judgment.  He graduated from high school in 2018, and is attending Roanoke College, an hour's drive from the Heart of Darkness.

Matthew, the scariest of the lot in spite of his superlative pecs, is from Forest, VA.

A suburb of Lynchburg!























He is also a member of the Lynchburg YMCA Swim Team.  Gulp.

Apparently Jefferson Forest is a high school in Forest, Virginia.

 Swimming and wrestling are popular sports.  You can take AP English, History, and Physics. 

And there's a Gay-Straight Alliance.

The only problem is, it's a stone's throw from the Heart of Darkness

See also: Cruising in the Scariest Place on Earth

The Underwhelming Beefcake of Virginia Tech

One of my cousins has moved to Blacksburg, Virginia.  She said "We love it there.  It's so beautiful, and the people are so friendly."

Obviously, my cousin is heterosexual.

I can't imagine that any gay person would even visit Blacksburg, Virginia.  Just look at its location: in the far southwestern corner of the state, near Lynchburg -- shudder -- with West Virginia on one side and Tennessee on the other, and mountains in between. 99% Baptist, 98% supporters of the Orange Goblin. The nearest gay neighborhood is probably in Pittsburgh, a 5 hour drive.

Plus it's the home of Virginia Tech, full name Virginia Polytechnic State University, where the students major in Aerospace Engineering, Agriculture and Poultry Science, Crop and Soil Science, Fish Conservation, and Sustainable Biomaterials.  

Yawn.

There is a LGBTQ+ resource center on campus.  A small, very closeted one.  When a gay student was interviewed for the school paper, they stayed anonymous, "due to the potential for retributive action."

Cru, the homophobic Campus Crusade for Christ organization, is much bigger, with a staff of five.

Plus Virginia Tech seems to be a big football school.  The Hokies (that's the team name) get national coverage. They just beat the Tarheels 22-18.

Yawn.

But I'm game.  I'll look for the beefcake of Blacksburg.

Here are two members of the VA Tech Swim Club.  I think that's the Hokie bird on their briefs.  With larger packages, they would be impressive..

Here they spell out "Frank" on their chests to show their solidarity with someone or other.  Don't worry, these are the biggest of the group.  So to speak.

There's an Olympic Weightlifting Club that meets in War Memorial Hall Multi-Room C.  Nice name.

Poultry science majors tend to be buffed.  And disappointing beneath the belt.

I think these are VA Tech footballers.  Well, footballers from somewhere.

A VA Tech wrestler.  Nice biceps, disappointing...um...everywhere else.

On to the high schools.  Only one in town.  No private schools or fundamentalist Christian academies.

The Blacksburg High Swim Team.  Rather unimpressive.

Not much wrestling going on.

And this is the crossfit: a boy, a man, and someone in a kilt.

Better stay in Pittsburgh.

See also: Halloween Horror: Cruising in the Scariest Place on Earth

William Faulkner and His Boyfriend Paint Robert's Penis Green

Call me Artie.  Your story about visiting Lynchburg, Virginia, the "scariest place on Earth," made me laugh.  I grew up in Marion, Virginia, about a hundred miles away, and Lynchburg was our beacon of culture and enlightenment!

This was long before Stonewall.  I graduated from high school in 1951  (don't do the math: I know how old that makes me!).   But we knew all about gay people; every town had its resident "queer," and there were private men-only parties where guys from 100 miles around would gather.

In Marion, the parties were held at the home of the high school drama teacher.  One of the regular guests was Robert Anderson: about 40, with a slim, slight build, a little moustache, a hairy chest, and rather big down there, but a complete bottom.  In those days, young guys were always the "trade," so it was quite a kick watching Mr. Anderson reverse the roles, bottoming for twinks and Cute Young Things.

Mr. Anderson was the mayor and the editor of the local newspaper, plus he had a wife and daughter at home.  You may wonder, wasn't it dangerous, in Virginia in the late 1940s, with gay sex being a crime?  You see, if anyone told on Mr. Anderson, he would report on them, so we were all safe.

It wasn't just about sex.  We were a circle of brothers, a bulwark against the homophobia of the outside world.  We joked, gossipped, and told stories about dates from hell and celebrity hookups, just like you did in West Hollywood parties years later.  Mr. Anderson liked to tell the one about his first three-way:

New Orleans, June 1925

New Orleans in the Jazz Age!  What could be more exciting for a teenager with an adventurous spirit, a famous father, and a stepmother who was trying to buy his love with endless gifts of clothes and cash?

Robert (never Bob) was fascinated by the new social and sexual freedom of the 1920s.  Women had the right to vote, and could drive autos, smoke, and wear pants with barely an eyebrow raised.  Men wore perfume and marcelled their hair, and called it the latest style.  Black, white, Creole, Italian, Jew: all races mixed with equality and passion.  There were proponents of free love, birth control, anarchy, Bolshevism, vegetarianism, and Buddhism.


Robert's father was Sherwood Anderson, the literary flaneur whose Winesburg, Ohio (1919) is still required reading in schools.  Their apartment in the Pontalba Building, off Jackson Square, was a bona fide literary salon, a gathering-place for writers and artists of all sorts, from Carl Sandburg to F. Scott Fitzgerald.  But the writer who most fascinated him was Bill Faulkner.

William Faulkner is famous today for Southern Gothic classics like The Sound and the Fury, As I Lay Dying, Light in August, and Absalom, Absalom!, but in the spring of 1925 he had only published poetry, and only in college magazines.  He was working on his first novel under Sherwood Anderson's tutelage.

He was 28 years old, a short, small man, not a Charles Atlas "physical culture" type, soft-spoken, rather fey; yet his dark eyes and intense energy were immensely attractive.  Robert assumed that he was queer.  He wondered what queers did in the bedroom, and resolved to find out.

When Faulkner first moved to New Orleans in November 1924, he stayed with the Andersons, but by March 1925 he had fallen in love with Bill Spratling, a 23-year old instructor of architecture at Tulane.  He moved into Spratling's apartment in Pirate's Alley, about a block away [now it's the home of Faulkner House Books], where they held court with a large group of artists, writers, bon vivants, and intellectuals, most of them queer men or women.

Robert barged his way into some of their soirees, and was disappointed to find no sex going on, just a lot of drinking, piano-playing, and discussions of Valentino, Kandinsky, Thomas Mann, and "Rhapsody in Blue."

Maybe if he caught them alone, they would be in the middle of an act, and he would be invited to watch -- or join in.

The rest of the story, with nude photos and explicit sexual situations, is on Tales of West Hollywood.

Halloween Horror: Cruising in the Scariest Place on Earth

Hell, October, 2017

We're only 30 miles from Hell.

I'm spending fall break with Jonathan Peng Lee, my hustler/engineer/paranormal enthusiast/gym rat friend who I met 12 years ago at Alan's funeral.  It's two days before Halloween, and he has promised to bring me to the scariest place on Earth.

I expected a haunted house, but no: we're spending two nights in Lynchburg, Virginia!

How did I let Jon talk me into this foolhardy trip?  Over an hour driving through the Shenandoah Valley that General Sherman burned, through Arkham...I mean Amherst...Stonewall -- no connection to the birthplace of gay rights -- Greif (grief misspelled by rednecks).

Now it's only 20 miles to Hell.

The site of Thomas Road Baptist Church, where Jerry Falwell, the biggest homophobe in the world, spewed his venom.  The site of Homophobia University, where the top homophobes in the country send 15,000 of their kids to be indoctrinated into how to hate us more.

We're going undercover as fundamentalists, but still, I doubt we'll make it out alive.

""Why would anyone name a city after the mob murders of thousands of African-Americans in the years after the Civil War?" I wonder.

"It was named before that, after its founder, who ran a ferry in the 1780s," Jon reads off wikipedia. "Hey, guess what?  He was an abolitionist.  Progressive, huh?"

"Oh, very.  I'll bet he was pro-gay, too."

We cross nameless suburbs, then the River Styx (I mean James).

My first view of Hell: Eerie yellow lights, a dark stormy sky, the dark tower like something out of Mordor.

We have a reservation at Craddock Terry Hotel on Commerce Street, "steeped in history."  There's a giant woman's shoe over the lobby.

"Fabulous, isn't it?"  Jon says sarcastically.

"Don't use that word.  Remember, undercover -- one room, two beds, and call me 'Brother.'"

"Whatever you say, darling."


We have dinner at a place called Bootleggers, a couple of blocks away.  You enter from the basement: "like you're entering a speakeasy."  There's a gigantic mural of old-time rednecks.  I order a turkey burger and truffle-laced french fries.

Rather elegant for Hell, I have to admit.

Afterwards we return to our hotel room and go on Grindr to look for a hookup.  I expect a lot of married closet-case-angst types, but we end up inviting over a student from one of the local colleges -- not Homophobia University.  He's a Humanities major, and on the swim team.

"You must be closeted among your teammates," I say.

"Oh, no, not at all.  Everyone on the team is completely supportive. The captain is majoring in Human Services with a concentration in LGBTQ Advocacy."

LGBTQ Advocacy?  WTF?

"Not everybody in town is as backwards as that other university," he says.  "Too bad you won't be here next spring.  They're doing The Laramie Project at the Renaissance Theater."

He spends the night, but doesn't go out for breakfast with us: waffles at the White Hart Cafe, which is also a used bookstore. No gay books per se, but I do find a biography of Truman Capote.

"What do you want to do today?" Jon asks.  He reads the possibilities from Trip Advisor: "A children's museum, the city museum, a historic mansion, the old cemetery with a Confederate Monument, the Pest House Medical Museum..."

"Have a lot of pestilence in Hell, do they?"

After breakfast we visit the old mansion, the Point of Honor, and go hiking at Blackwater Creek, where I could swear I am being cruised by a cute twink  AND I see what looks suspiciously like a couple of gay dads with their kid.  Lunch is Szechuan Shrimp (surprisingly not terrible) and Collector's Lair to look at new comics and graphics novels.

Then we hit Randolph College, a fine old brick college where the news magazine has an article about an alumnus who has returned to teach mathematics.  He's "involved with LGBTQ Advocacy Programs like the Change Project."

Change?  Uh-oh.  Sounds ex-gay.

We seek out his office hours.  Turns out the organization is meant to "elevate the voices of LGBTQ people throughout the Deep South."

"Most people in town are pretty progressive," he says.  "We try to distance ourselves from that university down the pike.  For instance..."  He closes his office door and points out the calendar.

Shirtless, muscular firemen!  WTF??

"Twelve local firefighters posed shirtless for this calendar, to raise money for cancer research." {Photo by Allison Creasy]

"Hmph!  For ladies only, I suppose. Heterosexist tripe!"

"Oh, no, it's for everyone.  'Everyone is welcome.'"

"So....I'll bet there are no gay organizations in town except for some closeted 'support groups.'"

"Well, there's the Diversity Center on Jefferson, sort of our gay community center. They have movie nights and First Friday art shows.  There's a gay community choir...."

"Yeah, sounds dismal...."

We just have time to check out the campus gym, to gawk at the muscular, bulge-worthy college students lifting weights and playing basketball before "Meditation Monday" at the Maier Museum of Art, led by a practitioner in Buddhist meditation.

Several of the regulars look like they could be Friends of Dorothy, including a tall, ripped guy in his 30s.  He introduces himself as Zeke, an IT director for a health care service in town.

"My...um...friend from the Midwest and I are visiting for the day," Jon says. "Maybe you could recommend someplace that's active on a Monday night?"

He grins.  "There aren't any bars in Virginia, really, but a lot of the restaurants draw an eclectic clientele.  Have you heard of the Kegney Brothers?  I'll be happy to show you..."

It's another brew pub in yet another historic building downtown (established 1879).  Practically deserted on a Monday night, and the few patrons are all male-female couples.  Our waiter is wearing a rainbow flag lapel, though.

I order the shepherd's pie.  Zeke, who is vegetarian, surprisingly, orders the curried vegetables.

"Sorry," Zeke says.  "I thought it would be more active.  Maybe later."

We decide that it's safe to out ourselves.  "Any gay activities in town?"

"They have a LGBT queer-e-oke at the Unitarian Church on Wednesday nights," Zeke says, "And I don't know if you're into it, but there's a sex party at a guy I know's house every other Saturday."

"We're leaving tomorrow, unfortunately," Jon says.  "But if you want to call the guy you know, we can have a mini-party."

So we visit the guy Zeke knows, an organist at the Holy Cross Catholic Church -- there are Catholics in Hell?  In his 40s, rather portly, collects spoons, of all things.  With a rather hot twink boyfriend.

After a five-person mini-sex party, we stumble back to our hotel room and go to bed.

In the morning, we have breakfast in the hotel and a brief workout at the downtown YMCA before it's time to head back to Charlottesville and a gay Halloween party.

"Boy, am I glad to be out of that place!" I say.  "I couldn't have stood it for another minute!"

"I know -- it was awful!"  Jon exclaims.  "Now I know what Hell feels like."

An explicit version of this story, with nude photos, is on Tales of West Hollywood.

See also:  Alan's Gift From Beyond the Grave.