Eldon Jones: Dancing Atreyu, drawing penguins, learning to snap, bringing gay promise. With n*de co-stars and Patrick Swayze's bum

 

Link to the n*de dudes

Eldon Jones as Cody,  grandson of focus character Sam Cooper (Alfred Molina) , was the one bright spot in the overwhelming heterosexism of  the Netflix paranormal series The Boroughs.  While enduring the endless "My wife! My wife! My wife", it was a relief to check out the photos his mom posted of Eldon in feminine outfits, hanging with his gay brother, and attending Pride events.  Maybe the kid is gay in real life, maybe not, but he provides a reminder that LGBT people exist, no matter how aggressively they are erased.

Eldon was born in 2011, son of Neal Jones, best known for Dirty Dancing (1987): he plays the "kind-hearted" Billy, who gets his cousin Johnny (Patrick Swayze, left) a job at the Borscht Belt resort, and introduces him to "dirty dancing."   

The family lives in Albuquerque.  Older brother Jax (right) graduated from the University of New Mexico with a degree in fine arts in May 2026.  Mom often posts photos of him and his boyfriend.  

Eldon is remarkably accomplished.

A member of the permanent company of the National Dance Institute of New Mexico.

Studies piano at the New Mexico School of Music.

An artist, interested in penguin comics and watercolors.

A chef, baking bread and making soup for the family.

A fashionista.  He attended the Copenhagen Fashion Week in 2023.

Literary.  When they visited London, he checked out the bookstores (that's the first thing I look for, too).  He was reading Herman Hesse at age 12.

I've read some Hesse (Siddhartha and Steppenwolf), but I never even heard of the book he's reading: Knulp, about a "carefree vagabond who lives outside societal rules." 

And of course Eldon is an actor.

He started as a background player in three 2022 episodes of Walker: Independence, about a woman in the Old West searching for the guy who murdered her husband. Apparently there's a gay character.

I couldn't find the gay guy in the cast list, but I found Jeff Pierre, who played Cameron Monaghan's boyfriend on Shameless (n*de on RG Beefcake and Boyfriends).

More after the break

Austin Lindsay: The casually n*de roommate on "Overcompensating" has a BFA and a lot of depressing shorts. With bonus n*de fratboys

  

Link to the n*de dudes

In Overcompensating Episode 1.1, the gay-but-in-denial Benny is trying to heterosexualize with his buddy Carmen, when his lacrosse-player roommate Trey bursts into the dorm room, knocking them over.  He glances at their n*de bodies and casually walks around them to grab his stuff so he can spend the night elsewhere. 

He returns in Episode 1.2 to be nonchalant about Carmen's pink-eye, and inEpisode 1.3, to casually walk around the dorm room in his birthday suit, disconcerting Benny (who still annoyingly thinks that he's straight). 

Wait -- Trey shows his d*ck

Twice?

He also shows his backside, but  Overcompensating is a backside fest.  We also see the rear ends of Benny, his sister's boyfriend, and the entire fraternity (below).  I'm more interested in the d*ck guy, Austin Lindsay.

Research is a bit difficult. Austin Lindsay is also the name of a University of Missouri wrestler, an actor in Boise, Idaho, a photographer in Salt Lake City, and a baseball player at TCNJ (I clicked on several home pages, and still couldn't find any indication of what it is.  A college in New Jersey?).

But I found our Austin's Facebook, Linkedin, and Backstage resume.  He was born 2001 in North Bay, Ontario, on the north shore of Lake Nipissing, about four hours north of Toronto.  

He studied dance and performed with the Performers Dance Company in North Bay.

In high school he appeared in Catch Me if You Can (2015), West Side Story (2016), and Mama Mia (2019), and wrote/directed the short Querencia (2019).  In spite of the title, it has no queer content: an elderly musician reunites with his dead wife.

 More after the break

"Best Foot Forward": Boy negotiates middle school with a prosthetic leg, a h*ng dad, a bodybuilder brother, a gay buddy, and no annoying girl-craziness

  

Link to the n*de dudes

We just dumped Peacock in favor of Apple Plus, so now we can watch Best Foot Forward (2022), based on childhood experiences of  "Paralympian, comedian, author, disability advocate, and Halloween enthusiast" Joshua Sundquist (underwear photo on RG Beefcake and Boyfriends) 

Focus character Josh has been home schooled since he lost his left leg at age nine, but he finally convinces his parents to allow him to start seventh grade in public school.  He faces the standard junior high problems of friends, math tests, soccer practice, movie night, and school dances.

Josh is played by Logan Marmino, fifteen years old in 2025 and thinking about college.  Maybe Johns Hopkins?

He's an accomplished athlete, competing in Paralympics track and high school basketball and baseball.  Plus surfing and skateboarding. 

When showrunner Joshua Sundquist invited him to audition for Best Foot Forward, he had no acting experience, not even a school play.  And he doesn't really seem interested in an acting career -- he hasn't appeared in anything since. Sports and disability activism keep him busy.

While Josh is experiencing the joys and hassles of junior high, Dad and Mom (Stephen Schneider, left, Joy Suprano) have B plots of their own, like when they tried to order two pizzas, and accidentally ordered twenty. "Sometimes older people can't see the order screen very well," the delivery guy explains, to Mom's consternation.

Stephen Schneider may be best known for a five-minute long n*de fight scene in The Righteous Gemstones, but he has 37 acting credits on the IMDB, including three tv series reviewed here: You're the Worst, Broad City. and Nobody Wants This, 

Josh's younger brother Matt (Roger Dale Floyd) mostly tries to help, or feels left out when Josh gets all of the attention.

Roger Dale Floyd, 13 years old in 2025, has appeared in The Walking Dead, Doctor Sleep, Greenland, and Stranger Things.  He is a junior bodybuilder, interested in promoting fitness among teens and tweens. 

In Greenland (2020), Roger and his Mom and Dad (Gerard Butler) must flee cross-country to safety after a comet-Apocalypse.  Whoops, they forgot to bring his insulin. 

N*de Gerard Butler on RG Beefcake and Boyfriends

Josh makes two friends, Kyle (Peyton Jackson, left) and Gabriella (Trinity Jo-Li Bliss).

Peyton Jackson has 14 acting credits on the IMDB, most recently Pet Investigators (2025), about three teens who crack a pet-theft ring.  The baddies are played by former teen idols Sean Astin, David Faustino, and Corin Nemec, and the hunk by Mike Markoff (on RG Beefcake and Boyfriends).

I have bad luck with junior high and high school comedies.  They invariably present their male characters as absurdly girl crazy, their every action designed to meet, impress, or win Girls! Girls! Girls!: "Let's join chess club -- there will be girls there!  Let's buy a new skateboard -- we can use it to get girls!  Let's jump out of an airplane -- maybe a girl will see us!"

I'm reviewing the "School Dance" episode with my "heteronormative erasure!" complaints ready.

Review after the break

The Mickey Mouse Club: Which Mousketeer was the cutest? Which was gay?

When Annette Funicello died on April 8, 2013, the world mourned one of the iconic figures of the Boomer generation.  She was the first crush for many heterosexual boys and gay girls who watched her every week on The Mickey Mouse Club, and later in comedies co-starring Tommy Kirk and Frankie Avalon (left).

The Mickey Mouse Club (1955-59) was the first children's television program that starred real children, "the Mouseketeers."  They wore wore mouse ear-shaped caps and white sweaters emblazoned with their first names, and performed song-and-dance numbers interspliced with Disney cartoons, amateur talent contests, and dramatic serials.

In the early 1980s, the original series was broadcast on the Disney Channel.  My sister watched every day after school, and I saw a few episodes.  Girls outnumbered boys three to one, but if you could find them, the boys were exceptionally cute.  And in the 1950s, singing and dancing were widely labeled "sissy" pursuits, so they were all gay coded.  Turns out that only two were actually gay.

1. Bobby Burgess (born 1941), who was very tall, well-scrubbed, and always smiling. Straight. 

He went on to dance on The Lawrence Welk Show.

2. The short, sandy-haired Lonnie Burr (born 1943) was the intellectual of the group (his website commemorates Annette Funicello's death with the Latin phrase "ave atque vale"). Straight.

He was a poet and playwright as well as an actor.

3. Tommy Cole (born 1941) was hired primarily for his singing ability, though had a handsome face and the hunkiest physique among the Mousketeers (left). Straight.

After MMC, he had a stint in the air force and then became a makeup artist.

4. Cubby O'Brien (born 1946), the kid of the show, became a professional drummer. Straight.

More after the break

More Nutcracker Beefcake

When I was a kid, our church forbade movies, theater, carnivals, circuses -- basically anything that had a plot.  And my working-class parents disapproved of anything "long hair."  So ballet and opera were completely alien.

Except at Christmastime, when we would go to see "The Nutcracker" at Centennial Hall on the Augustana College campus, or at Rock Island High School, or both.  One year the Youth Symphony participated, so I got to be in the orchestra pit for eight full performances.

The plot is heterosexist -- Elsa receives a nutcracker shaped like a toy soldier for Christmas.  He comes to life, fights an army of mice, and reveals that he is actually a prince.  They return to his kingdom, the Land of Sweets, where he makes Elsa his queen.

But who pays attention to the plot?  No matter what people tell you, they go to ballets for one reason, and one reason only: to celebrate male or female beauty.  Dances in form-fitting tights, swaying and twisting, making every curve and muscle visible.

No other art, not even bodybuilding, displays the male physique so openly and extensively.  You don't just get a glimpse or a hint -- everything is out there, through the entire performance.

No wonder every gay kid in town, even those who were otherwise obsessed with sports, couldn't wait for Christmas.

Ballet dancers have mixed feelings toward The Nutcracker -- it is so darn cliched. "Dance of the Sugarplum Fairies" over and over and over. 

And the costumes are rather uncomfortable. 

More after the break

15 gay facts about "White Christmas": gay actors, beefcake dancers, drag, Spartacus, and the source of your holiday depression

I'm not a big fan of the Holiday Season -- too big, bright, and noisy, with forced exuberance, and way too much melancholy.  I try to stay away from Christmas songs, movies, trees, holly, mistletoe, parties, and depression.  But I'll make an exception for White Christmas (1954).

1. It's not a Christmas movie.  It's a backstage musical that just happens to end at Christmastime.  Backstage movies were well-known for gay subtexts.

2. The song "White Christmas," by Irving Berlin (who was Jewish), first appeared in the backstage musical Holiday Inn, with Big Crosby and Fred Astaire. 

3. It's been covered by everyone, including gay favorites Bett Midler and Lady Gaga.

4. White Christmas is about two showbiz partners, Bob and Phil (Bing Crosby, Danny Kaye), who find their relationship threatened by women.

5. A musical based on the movie, Irving Berlin's White Christmas, opened in St. Louis in 2000. Lara Teeter (a guy with a girl's name) played Bob, and gay actor Lee Roy Reams played Phil Davis.

6. Phil has also been performed by Tony Yazbeck (top photo) and David Elder, who Google Images thinks is cowboy star Clint Walker (left).

7. The women in the movie, Judy and Betty (Vera-Ellen, Rosemary Clooney), are sisters.  At least, they perform as sisters, although their numbers would work well in a drag act.

God help the mister who comes between me and my sister
And God help the sister who comes between me and my man!

More after the break

Gemstones Episode 2.2: Kelvin clenches, Keefe dances, and everybody flirts with Eli. With a n*de Texas dude bonus.

 

Previous: Episode 2.1 Review, Continued: Keefe's kiss, Kelvin's b*ner, and a thug with broken thumbs

In Episode 2.1, while we establish the Kelvin/Keefe, Judy/BJ, and Jesse/Amber conflicts of the season, Eli's old friend Junior stops by, and acts very much like an ex-lover.  They go out to dinner and beat up a tough.  Now we see the aftermath.

Link to NSFW version

Eli Gemstone indicted! Thaniel Block sits on the porch of his rental house in the South Carolina woods, reading some news stories from 1993: Gemstone Family Studios to close due to "a financial and rumors of  sexual scandals," with $4 million missing.  Another article: "Eli Gemstone indicted on charges of fraud and conspiracy." But Episode 2.5 takes place at Christmas 1993.  When did all this happen? Geezer Tim drops by to criticize him for living in New York and having a "nasty attitude." 

A Hot Piece of Tail: Judy and BJ visit Eli to ask him to officiate in BJ's baptism.  They find him asleep on the couch in the parlor. Junior enters and asks "Who's this hot piece of tail?"  He's actually looking at BJ, but Eli assumes that he means Judy and says that she is his daughter.  He apologizes and asks if BJ is her lesbian partner. BJ starts to answer, but Judy cuts him off.

There are several takeaways here.  First, Eli and Junior did not sleep together; Eli fell asleep on the couch. Weren't there any guest rooms in his mansion? 

Second, check out Junior's magenta bathrobe, jaunty hand on him, and pinky ring: he is deliberately presenting as queer.   

Third, Eli may have mentioned that one of his children is gay, and Junior forgot which.

Execretions and Hep C Loads:  After Junior heads to the kitchen to make coffee, Judy wants to know what's going on.  Eli tells her that "things got a little carried away last night," which she interprets to mean that they are having rough s*x.  He grimaces in disgust, but plays along to mess with her.  

Her main criticism is that Junior is unattractive: "I always hoped that if you were gonna yank a pole, it would be someone hot."  So Judy has considered the possibility that Eli is bisexual for a long time. 

She states that the "hookup" signifies that Eli doesn't care about his family.  Remember that Jesse likewise complains that Kelvin "popping boners" with the muscle men is "selfish, not helping the family."  But it's not just gay s*x; on this show, having a partner of any sort is framed as a betrayal.  The family is aghast when Judy wants to move off the Compound with BJ; Baby Billy is still hurt over his sister Aimee-Leigh "leaving him" to marry Eli.  

As they storm out, Judy cautions BJ to not touch anything, as there are probably execretions and Hep C loads everywhere.  This is a call back to Abraham leaving his semen everywhere in Jesse's house, plus an awareness that Hepatitus C can easily spread through s*x, so it is particularly common in gay communities.

Good Sniffer Seats: After they leave, Eli joins Junior on the back patio, overlooking the reflecting pool that leads to Aimee-Leigh's shrine.  Eli invites him to church, but he worries about the cost.  Junior avers that he's been to enough strip joints to know that you have to pay for the "good sniffer seats."  I can't find the term "sniffer seat" defined anywhere, but I guess that it's a seat close enough to the stage to smell the performers.  There are male clubs, but he's probably referencing a lady's club, being a hetero horn dog, backing off from the implication of gay activity. 

But not entirely: Eli offers to reserve a good seat for him, and the guys hold hands!

On closer examination, it turns out to be a man and a woman holding hands. We have cut to a scene involving Jesse and Amber's marital advice group. But it is so abrupt that the misdirection must be intentional.  The man is even wearing a shirt the same color as Junior's robe.

After the group meeting, Matthew and Chad ask why Jesse's old crew isn't hanging out together anymore.  This is all marital stuff, heterosexual nuclear family stuff; what happened to the band of brothers, savage and free?  Gregory explains; "I love you guys, but happy wife, happy life."

This is becoming an ongoing question in this season: how do you balance phileo and eros, the fraternal love of family and friends and  desire that creates husbands, wives, and lovers?  The Bible says that we must abandon phileo for eros, "leave their father and mother and cleave to their husband or wife."  Kelvin is trying to combine the fraternal and the erotic by forbidding romance. BJ is trying to negotiate both.

You Got a Hound Dog Here: Cut to Thaniel visiting the Salvation Center, where he admits that he has s*xual-scandal dirt on Aimee-Leigh, gathered from household staff.  Well, at least Kelvin is off the hook.

The World's Most Famous Christian: Next, Jesse and Amber visit the Lissons in Texas for a party to celebrate the proposed Zion's Landing resort. Joe Jonas, the World's Most Famous Christian, leads everyone in a line dance.  He proclaims his heterosexuality, singing about the "beautiful girls" he's been with while wearing a formless leopard robe and pink bandana, the antithesis of Kelvin's tiger jacket and club bulge. Desire for women un-mans a man, renderng him soft and sickly; only in the manly love of comrades can a man be strong and free.

More after the break

Adrian Zmed After Dark

On an episode of The Simpsons, the family goes to a review featuring the once-famous:
     We are the stars that you thought were dead,
     Like Bonnie Franklin and Adrian Zmed.

People who weren't watching television or going to moves during the early 1980s probably thought "I didn't think Adrian Zmed was dead, I never heard of him."  But during that brief few years, the sultry black-haired Romanian-American actor -- and his amazingly ripped physique -- was everywhere.

He sang and danced as a John Travolta clone in Grease 2 (1982), also starring Maxwell Caulfield.

He partied with Tom Hanks in Bachelor Party (1984).

He bonded with William Shatner in the police drama T.J. Hooker (1982-85).

He hosted Dance Fever

He guest starred on Bosom Buddies, Love Boat, Hotel, Glitter, and Empty Nest.

He appeared in Battle of the Network Stars (a reality series that was really an excuse to get male tv stars into speedos).  He didn't win any awards, but he got to hug Scott Baio.

His full-body speedo shots were more than enough to draw the attention of gay fans, but his characters always had a blatant interest in same-sex chums, regardless of whether they got the girl in the end.

In Grease 2, for instance, the plot revolves around an "opposites attract" between greaser Johnny (Zmed) and uptight British newcomer Michael (Maxwell Caulfield).

And, unlike most beefcake stars of the 1980s, he was aware of his gay fans, and actually played to them.  He remains a strong gay ally, like his "bosom buddy" Tom Hanks.

By the late 1980s, the Adrian Zmed train had stalled, perhaps overloaded by overexposure.  Though he has never stopped acting, the era of speedo shots is long gone.

Nutcracker Beefcake

Heterosexist plotline aside, every year The Nutcracker gives us the opportunity to see traditional, family-friendly, school-sanctioned, Christmastime ballet written by a gay man.

And loaded to the brim with hot guys in tights.

Not only the Nutcracker-turned-Prince who woos Clara, but the Mouse King, the Cavalier, party guests, soldiers, sentinels, Arabian dancers, Russian dancers -- the list goes on.





















Not a lot of shirtless dancers -- it's set in a Russian winter, after all.  But wander backstage before or after the performance, and you can get a glimpse of Christmas perfection.















More after the break.

American Werewolf in London

There have been many gay-coded werewolves  on tv and in comics, but not a lot in movies.  David Kessler (David Naughton) in An American Werewolf in London  (1981) is the most famous, and the most evocative.

















Born in 1951, David Naughton became famous in the late 1970s for dancing, singing, and bulging in a series of energetic, well-choreographed tv commercials for the soft drink Dr. Pepper.  In the spring of 1979, he starred in Makin' It, an adaption of the hit Saturday Night Fever (1977).  Although the sitcom aired for only 8 weeks, David's rendition of the theme song became a Top 40 hit, and resulted in a teen idol album.


In American Werewolf,  American college students David and Jack (Griffin Dunne, son of Hollywood novelist Dominic Dunne) are hiking through the moors of Britain, when they're attacked by a wolf. Jack is killed, and David turns into a werewolf, destined to kill innocent people at every full moon.  Furthermore, Jack -- along with every werewolf victim --  is trapped in a limbo state, unable to go on to the afterlife until the last werewolf, David dies.  "Kill yourself, David!"  Jack pleads.

David is hesitant -- he has fallen in love with a girl, Alex (Jenny Agutter), so according to the myth of the "fade out kiss," his life now has meaning.  Besides, he reasons, maybe her love can tame the beast with in.  But after a killing spree, he is cornered by the police, shot, and killed.  He dies as Alex murmurs "I love you."

Sounds enormously heterosexist so far.  The same-sex bond represents death, and the heterosexual bond, life.  David himself is homophobic: trying to get arrested, he stands in Trafalgar Square and yells insults, like "Prince Charles is a faggot!"

So why was it so evocative for gay teenagers in 1981?

1. An enormous amount of beefcake.  Everyone in the movie is obsessed with David's body.  He's fully nude for an extended sequence, with both frontal and rear shots.

There's a graphic werewolf transformation scene, with David rolling around nude.

He's naked in a hospital bed, where the nurses all gawk at him, and one states "He's Jewish -- I've had a look."

The last scene zeros in on David's body, tastefully posed like a Medieval martyr, with the bullet wounds carefully placed to not detract from his beauty.

2. Jack is rather obviously in love with David.  He is jealous of "the girl"; he wants David to kill himself so that they can "be together."  In one scene, he berates David: "We had a good thing going, and you ruined it." David wasn't responsible for his death, so Jack must be referring to something else, like David abandoning their same-sex bond to go chasing after some girl.

After American Werewolf, David Naughton found himself famous for appearing fully nude on film.  He worked primarily in horror (Amityville: A New Generation, Body Bags, The Ice Cream Man).  Griffin Dunne went on to star in After Hours (1985).

See also: David Naughton: the cutest guy of the Disco Era tells us to "Be a Pepper" and shows his d*ck

Eight more hot/hung guys from Portugal

  

When I visited Switzerland for the Nazarene World Youth Conference in high school, I met two guys from Portugal.  We didn't stay in contact, but I've visited Portugal three times since, and met (or seen) more hot/hung Portuguese guys.

Link to NSFW version

An actor in Porto

Arab guy from Porto

Braga castle

Hot workman with wheelbarrow outside the art museum.

More hunks after the break