The Subtext in Casper the Friendly Ghost

When I was a kid in the 1960s  and 1970s, my favorite comic book title was Harvey, with its odd jack-in-the-box logo and its fantasy characters (Casper the Friendly Ghost, Spooky the Tuff Little Ghost, Hot Stuff the Little Devil)

Harvey also produced comics about human kids, like Richie Rich, Little Dot, and Little Lotta.  Casper the Friendly Ghost was about a ghost boy who lives with three nameless adult guardians in the Enchanted Forest (Not to be confused with the inferior Charlton knockoff Timmy the Timid Ghost).

In Casper’s world, ghosts were not dead people, but beings in their own right, who are born, grow up, take jobs and houses, and eventually grow old and die.  Their main pastime and means to social prestige is scaring, but Casper refuses to scare. 

Gay-coded, but no sissy or milquetoast, Casper is a strong-willed nonconformist, a Vietnam-Era pacifist who refuses to follow the hawkish status quo of ghost society. So strong are his principles that even when his life is in danger, he refuses to “boo” his way to safety.

Casper has an ally and confidant in Wendy, a blonde-haired, blue-eyed witch girl in a red jumpsuit who lives with three guardians of her own. They are not romantically involved; they are merely friends and comrades, thrown together by their common disdain for the social institutions that tell them they must scare. Neither expresses any heterosexual interest. (The 1995 movie starring Devon Sawa turned Casper heterosexual.)

But occasionally Casper moves beyond a simple lack of heterosexual desire to offer a glimpse of that other world. His efforts to bond with other beings (almost always male) sometimes transcend the merely friendly, especially whe the objects of his attention are perfect strangers whose struggles may cost him his life.

He accompanies Oliver Ogre on a perilous journey to the moon (Casper 113, January 1968), and helps an ancient Egyptian pharaoh regain his throne from a villainous usurper in (Casper 117, August 1968).

 When his new friends are adult humans, pixies, or Greek gods, drawn with the hard tight chests and rippling biceps more commonly associated with the DC and Marvel lines, it is easy to locate romantic attraction among his motives.

We see similar gay subtexts in “The Evil Planet” (Casper in Space 6, June 1973): Casper dreams that he has joined the deep space expedition of Crash Hammerfist, a Buck Rogers-type adventurer drawn as a brawny muscleman. They land on The Evil Planet, where flying bird-men abduct Crash’s female companion, Gale. While Casper calmly evaluates their options, Crash goes to pieces:

Crash: This is a disaster! Look – my cape is ruined! I can’t explore this evil planet looking like this!

Casper: [Trying to keep him focused on the crisis.] Is Gale your girlfriend?

Crash: No. . .she’s my seamstress. She made this entire outfit. [Hand swishily on hip.] Do you like it?

Casper: [Looking decidedly suspicious.] Er. . .yes.

At Casper’s urging, they ignore the soiled cape and set out to rescue Gail. They discover that she is being forced to compete in a beauty contest; the winner will become the wife of Emperor Zinzang, a young, slim Castro Clone. 

 When Crash bursts in, flexing his muscles and issuing taunts, the Emperor seems quite impressed, if not downright attracted; he forgets all about the beauty contest and challenges the superhero to single combat. They spend several panels lunging, grabbing, and jumping on top of each other, in the process accidentally shredding their outfits so the interplay of their muscles becomes even more evident.

During a lull in the battle, the Emperor explains to Casper that he really likes Crash, and he’s not evil, he’s just crazed with power – he received a year’s worth of invulnerability for his 27th birthday, and he’s been behaving rudely ever since. But in a few minutes he’ll be 28, normal again, and Crash will annihilate him.

Casper suggests that he call a truce and apologize for abducting Gail, and then he and Crash could start over as friends. The Emperor agrees.

 Then, abruptly, Casper wakes up. We never find out if the Emperor selects a wife, or if Crash and Gail ever leave the Evil Planet. Should we attribute this sudden jerk into “reality” to the writer’ incompetence, to running out of space in the issue, or to the realization that the only logical conclusion to the story as portrayed involves Crash and the Emperor arm in arm, watching the sun set on the Evil Planet?

"The A-List": Bingeworthy "Lost" Meets "Riverdale"

I sat down to watch The A-List at 12:30, planning on watching one episode before going to work.  Two hours later, I said "Well, maybe one more episode."  And another.  And another.

It begins as Riverdale on an island.  Some British teens show up on Peregrine Island for a summer holiday:

1. Rich bitch Mia (Lisa Ambalavanar)

2. It-boy Dev (Jacob Dudman, whom no one can look at without imagining taking him to senior prom)

3. Heterosexual life partners Brendan and Zac (Micheal Ward, Jack Kane), who can bench press 100 kg (220 pounds).  Big deal; I do 300, and I'm twice their age.

4. Genderqueer but female-presenting Alex (Rosie Dwyer)

5. Clutzy Harry (Benjamin Nugent)

And the rest, all led by over-chirpy counselors,Dave (Cian Barry) and Mags (Nneka Okoye).

Mia is quickly overshadowed by a new It-Girl, Amber (Ellie Duckles), who gathers a coterie of followers with her mind-control powers.

And the weird things keep happening:
1. A mysterious bunker in the woods, like the one on Lost.
2. A growling beast like the Smoke Monster on Lost.
3. A mysterious stalker.
4. A sobbing sound coming from nowhere.
5. Human teeth on a tree.
6. Memories of things that haven't happened.
7. An older photograph of the campers.  This has all happened before!

The mysterious stalker turns out to be Luka (Max Lohan) who has been living in the woods on his own since the camp closed down!

I didn't want to give away that spoiler, but I had to get in a picture of Max Lohan.  It's impossible to look at him without wanting to kiss him.

This actually isn't Lost.  The mysteries within mysteries are eventually resolved.  Well, maybe not the final WTF cliffhanger.

Nor is it Riverdale.  Not a lot of nudity: a shirt off here and there.  No one goes swimming (Peregrine Island is in the Scottish Highlands, where it's cold).

 But, on the bright side, no sex: the most these  teenagers do is kiss. 

No gay male characters, that I can tell; the Brendan-Zac pair is subverted by their hetero-horny exploits, and they don't even hug.

But the genderqueer Alex points out the heteronormative bias in selecting a Midsummer King and Queen, and gets a girlfriend, after struggling to come out. (A genderqueer person has a problem with being attracted to girls?).

The A-List certainly has got its share of "WTF!!!!" cliffhangers.  Don't start watching unless you have a free afternoon.

See also: The 9 Worst Finales in Tv History

"Los Espookys": Who You Gonna Call?

I've been posting about a lot of disappointing tv series -- gay teases that don't follow through, gushing praise that masks endless boy-girl kissing.  It's high time we get to a series that it's actually good -- interesting, humorous, gay inclusive -- Los Espookys (well, that title could use a little work).

In an unspecified Latin American country, one of those magic-realism places where weird things happen so often that they're normal, Renaldo (Bernardo Velasco) creates a horror-themed quinceañera for his little sister.  It is so impressive that his Uncle Tico (Fred Armisen), the world's greatest car parker (he can even park two cars at the same time), suggests that he make a career out of creating horror-themed events.

Renaldo conscripts his best friend, the weird blue haired Andrés (Saturday Night Live writer Julio Torres), into the business.

Andrés is the heir to a chocolate empire, immensely wealthy and powerful (what if they started making sugar-free chocolate? every dentist in the country would be unemployed).

His parents and his bulging swimsuit-clad trophy boyfriend (telenovela star José Pablo Minor, top photo) disapprove of his interest in horror, but he agrees to participate.

Next they conscript their friend Úrsula (Cassandra Ciangherotti), a Goth dentist's assistant; and her delightfully obtuse sister Tati (Ana Fabrega), who has a variety of odd jobs (literally), like running a hand-cranked fan or breaking in people's shoes.

They expect to plan horror-themed parties, but for their first gig, Father Francesco (Luis Grieco), the priest at the local orphanage, complains that his new, hot, hip associate Padre Antonio (Cristobal Tapia Montt), is stealing all the glory of running orphanages.  If he were to conduct an exorcism, he would be back in the spotlight again.  So Los Espookys create an exorcism for him.

Next up: a millionaire's dying wish is to give his fortune to whoever can spend the night in a haunted house.  They are hired to create the house, and ensure that the millionaire's son does not win.

They have found their niche: creating fake paranormal events: a sea monster for a seaside town to use as a tourist attraction; an alien autopsy for a UFO researcher to show her bosses; a magic mirror for "the American ambassador"; a fake dream for an insomniac.

Along the way they have the usual daily hassles of magic-realism life: Andrés is pressured by his family to marry his trophy boyfriend (so his cookie empire can be combined with their chocolate empire).

Renaldo is pressured by his mother to get a girlfriend, even though he has explained that he's not interested in women.

Ursula, who is interested in women, has any number of hookups.

Tati keeps expecting the guys she meets on dating apps to look like their photo.

Only 6 episodes, but fortunately Season 2 is already in the works.

My grade: A+

"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.

"Boys in the Trees": My Favorite Movie of the Year

Boys in the Trees (2016) turned out to be my favorite movie of the year, but I would never have known from the trailer.  It's another one of those misleading trailers that makes a drama look like a comedy or a tearjerker look like a fantasy.

 In this case, it looks like supernatural horror will be released on Halloween and terrorize two boys on their walk home.  The movie is not about that at all.  It's about gay kids.

Halloween in Australia is in the spring, near the end of the school year, and Golden Boy Corey (Tobey Wallace) is going to be graduating.  He has been offered a scholarship to study photography at the University of New York, but he plans to stay home to be close to his friends, especially Janko (Justin Holborow).

On Halloween night, Corey and his pack go out, like they always do, to wear scary masks and brutalize the weaker kids.  During a break in the wilding, Corey walks through an abandoned skate park, and finds Jonah (Gulliver McGrath), a former friend who he abandoned for his clique of jerks.  Jonah is injured, bleeding, staring.

Does he need first aid?  Does he need an ambulance?  No, Jonah just wants one thing: "Walk me home," he demands, apparently a practice that they engaged in many times in the old days.  Corey agrees, for old time's sake, because he's worried about Jonah's injury, because he feels guilty.  Because he has no choice.

On the way home, Jonah forces Corey to act out ghost stories:
1. In a tunnel: A girl was murdered there, and doesn't realize that she's dead.

2. In an abandoned house: A boy abandoned his dreams, and years later they came back to haunt him.

3. In their school: Jonah himself discovered that most of the boys in class had turned into wolves.  "And for those who didn't change, those left behind,those that didn't develop the taste for blood, there was only one thing you could do...run."

Suddenly the years melt away, and Corey and Jonah are friends again. They visit the Wishing Tree, where all of their childhood dreams are hanging from branches, and wonder why they ever gave up so much.

For some reason, Corey insists on taking a break from their walk home to have sex with his girlfriend.  When he returns, Jonah is missing.  Corey goes to his house, but there's no one there but an old man who won't speak.  Finally he finds him at a strange Dia de los Muertos festival, and chases him into the woods. 

Then Jonah tells one last ghost story, about a man you meet twice in your life.  The first time, you don't remember.  The second, you never forget.

Eventually they will have to finish the walk home.  Corey resists, knowing what he will find there (we viewers know, too, of course.  It's been obvious since Story #1).  Maybe he could change the ending? No, it's too late.  They share a hug before Jonah shows him where he lives.

Jonah is gay -- we know because the bullies refer to him as a "fag" (the director cut scenes that show him actually dating boys).  Due to the sex-with-girlfriend interlude, we're expected to think of Corey as straight, their friendship as platonic.  But with the hugs and almost-kisses of Jonah and then Janko, I'm sure that Corey is gay, the possibility of same-sex desire abandoned on that Wishing Tree as the "adult" world of heteronormative responsibility encroached.

Besides, there's a coda with Corey living his dream in New York, having a video chat with girlfriend-turned-gal pal, talking about a freelance photography gig, then putting on a hot gladiator costume to head down to Halloween in the Village, the second gayest festival of the year.  His apartment features a gigantic photo of Jonah.

The movie is beautifully produced, with stunning imagery and stunningly evocative dialogue.  Of course, many of Jonah's lines would never be spoken by a real person, but then, Jonah isn't actually a person, is he?

"They won't let us go forward."
"Then let's go back, where the dreams are true."

The Gay Ghosts of Southern Iowa

Taking Interstate 80 through central Iowa is a straight shot of 300 miles from Rock Island to Omaha, five hours on an unbroken line of bright, glittering modern freeway passing through green rolling hills, with the occasional farmhouse or water tower of a distant town.  The stops are all familiar and homey:  West Branch (home of President Hoover); the Amana Colonies; Iowa City; Des Moines; Council Bluffs.

But if for some reason  you have business in southern Iowa, in Ottumwa or Osceola, you have to go south to Burlington and then take State Route 34 through some of the country's scariest cities.

1. On the way south to Burlington (80 miles south of Rock Island), you pass Stony Road Hollow, just north of town, where a police officer was killed and decapitated while making a traffic stop in the 1950s.  The murderer was never found.  He is still driving around, looking for head...I mean, looking for his missing head. 

2. Mount Pleasant (30 miles west) has no mountains (this is Iowa). But it does have Iowa Wesleyan College, high school wrestlers, and Giblin Bridge, which sounds a lot like "goblin."  It's a favored place in town for suicides.  People crossing the bridge report an inexplicable urge to throw themselves into the dark waters of the Skunk River.  Maybe there are goblins.

3. Fairfield (23 miles west), the site of Maharishi School of Management, formerly Maharishi University, run by the "drugged out cult" (according to my parents), Transcendental Meditation.  In the 1970s everyone was terrified of the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi.

4. Ottumwa (25 miles)  The home of Tom Arnold, Edna Ferber, and Radar O'Reilly.  The Hotel Ottumwa is haunted by a man in a business suit who asks "Have you seen Charlie?" or "Where's Charlie?"  But when you answer, he vanishes.

I'm guessing that Charlie is a long-lost boyfriend.

Interesting Ottumwa High School wrestlers, but I'm not sure what we're supposed to be thinking.  Nice butt?

















5. I've never gone past Ottumwa, but I understand that if you keep going, you hit Osceola (70 miles).  At Osceola High School, a boy died during a hazing incident, and still appears in the bathroom mirrors.  himself in the bathroom. 

Hazing? Maybe a long-ago homophobic hate crime.

6. Villisca (70 miles), where a family of four plus two overnight guests were murdered in 1912, is doing everything it can to capitalize on the tragedy.  The sign "Ax Murder House" is almost as big as the house itself (508 2nd Street).  Tours are $10 per person, and include a photograph of yourself carrying an ax. 

You can also stay overnight ($428 for up to 6 people; reservations fill up fast, so book early).

Sometimes the overnight visits have to be cut short when the guests run out of the house screaming.

7. Malvern (40 miles) is the site of Malvern Manor, a home for the disabled, insane, and others, doubtless a lot of LGBT people institutionalized under the old "psychopath" laws.  It's so haunted that it doesn't allow overnights; tours are held only during the daytime.

There's also a recreational haunted house in Malvern, the Gateway of Chaos.

And a prep school.

Next stop, Omaha.

A Paranormal Tour of San Jose

San Jose is 55 miles south of San Francisco, about 1 1/2 hours by BART, or an hour if you rent a car. 

In the high-tech Silicon Valley: its top employers are Adobe, Apple, and Intel.  Yet, with all the STEM math, science, and techno going on, it is a paranormal hot spot.  There are ghosts wandering the corridors of nearly every school, cryptid monsters lurking behind dumpsters, weird cults chanting in the park, and half a dozen haunted highways.  Perfect for a paranormal day trip from Gay Heaven.

9:00 am: Winchester Mystery House, 525 S. Winchester Blvd.

Sarah Winchester, who was earning the modern equivalent of $25,000 per day from her Winchester gun company, began work on her house in 1884.  Construction continued without stopping until her death in 1922.  She kept making changes, often stopping workers in the midst of one project to start on another.  There are rooms within rooms, staircases that lead nowhere, doors too small for a human to get through.

Contrary to popular belief, Sarah wasn't responding to instructions from the ghosts of people killed by her rifles.  In those days people weren't particularly sensitive to gun violence, so the ghosts would not have held her responsible, nor would she have felt guilty about it.  She was just an extremely wealthy woman with a lot of architectural ideas and no master plan.  The result is a fascinating, beautiful house, with a few stray ghosts wandering around.

10:30 am. Santana Row, just across the street, is a pedestrian mall with some interesting shops and restaurants.  I like brunch at the Village California Bistro.  "Santana" is actually derived from "Santa Ana," and means "holy," but it sounds uncomfortably close to "Satanic," so it always gives me a shiver of wrongdoing.

12:00 pm  The Rosicrucian Egyptian Museum, 1660 Park Avenue

The Ancient Mystical Order Rosae Crucis is a secret society devoted to the preservation of esoteric knowledge, some of which dates back to the mystery cults of ancient Egypt.  But they have an impressive collection of real Egyptian antiquities in their museum.

Be sure to walk in the Rosicrucian Park afterwards.

2:00 pm: Del Mar High School, 1224 Del Mar Avenue.  The fieldhouse is haunted by a boy who was murdered by his best friend in 1942.  He can be seen running up and down the bleachers, and every night at 3:15 am, he lets out a blood-curdling scream.

Stories like this always make me wonder if there is a gay angle: maybe the boy told his friend that he had a crush on him, and the friend responded with murderous "gay panic."

Generations of Del Mar students have taken the dare to go to the fieldhouse at 3:00 am, only to be pranked by a confederate dressed in white, running up and down the bleachers and screaming.

While you're at Del Mar, you might as well look at some swimmers or wrestlers.

















4:30 pm.  Hicks Road. About 7 miles south of Del Mar High, Hicks Road winds around a reservoir and some hilly woods, with some dirt roads leading who knows where.   According to the urban legend, cars driving through at night are chased by "blood albinos," pale people with blood-red eyes who scream at you.  Some parapsychologists think that they're creatures from another dimension, screaming at you from a space-time portal.  Or maybe they're demons. 

Or just local residents resentful of outsiders.

If he looked like this, I might let him catch me.

5:30 Mac's Club, 39 Post Street, in the heart of San Jose's gay neighborhood. Late at night you can hear someone sobbing in one of the stalls in the bathroom, but when you investigate, there's no one there. 












7:00 pm.  Time to get back to San Francisco, unless the person sobbing in the stall has invited you home.

The Gay Enchanted Forest of Spooky the Tuff Little Ghost

When I was a kid in the 1960s, my favorite comics by far were the Harvey supernatural titles: ghosts, witches, and devils roaming an oddly-Medieval Enchanted Forest where same-sex desire was commonplace.

I preferred Casper, but in a pinch, I would read about Spooky the Tuff Little Ghost, a ghost boy with a Brooklyn accent, freckles, and a derby (or, as he pronounced it,  “doiby”).  (Not to be confused with Charlton's far inferior Timmy the Timid Ghost).

But while Casper was a 1960s nonconformist with a gay-coded softness and sensitivity, the hawkish Spooky had no aversion to booing.

 In Spooky’s wild region of the Enchanted Forest, ravenous bears, ogres, monsters, and evil wizards leapt out from behind every boulder, so booing was an essential form of self defense.  But for Spooky, it was an all-consuming passion.  He specialized in complex, artistic boos, creating statements similar to the happenings and guerilla theater of the 1960’s art scene: he might boo a horse and rider into trading places, so that the rider runs off with the horse on his back, or he might boo a lake out of its bed so precisely that the fish remain, swimming in mid-air.

In “Once upon a Scaresday," Spooky explains how he took up booing in the first place.  As a child, he was a coward and a sissy, always running away from danger.  One day he was walking in the hills beyond Spooktown with some friends, when cannibalistic monsters called Ghostcatchers attacked.  Spooky managed to run away, but his best friend Googy was captured and dragged off to be cooked and eaten.  Distraught with guilt and mourning his loss, Spooky asked his grandfather for advice, and the elderly ghost taught him how to defend himself by booing.  He proved to have a great gift for this ghostly martial art, and soon he was able to seek out the monsters and rescue his friend just as the cooking-fire was being lit.

A same-sex relationship originally motivated Spooky to boo, and a heterosexual relationship now compels him to stop.  Spooky and Poil (his pronunciation of Pearl) are quite an adult couple, dating, dining at each other’s homes, and even kissing on couches.  Pearl forbids him from booing.  She claims that it is immoral, but her real reason is class-based snobbery: she considers booing boorish and vulgar, a working-class pastime likely to offend her high-society ghost friends (but they usually turn out to be closet booing fans).

Spooky is constantly promising to refrain from booing, to keep Poil from brow-beating or even leaving him.  Many stories involved his frantic but quite clever schemes to continue booing after such a pledge, either for self defense or to assuage his addiction: he throws his voice, writes “boo” in the sand, spells it out with smoke signals.  But why would Spooky even agree to cease a useful, artistic, socially-praised, and strategically necessary activity, just because Poil disapproves?  Obviously she offers something more valuable than any of these things, more valuable than any love, but what?  I was mystified; I could imagine giving up a bad habit or even an innocuous hobby at the admonition of a friend, but a career, a passion, a veritable calling?

I knew it had something to do with the girls who jumped their ropes and played their singsong games in the shadow of the school.  At recess, we boys were herded far away to fields to play baseball and dodge ball, and if ever once we tried to play jump rope, or merely sit on the steps nearby to avoid the midday sun, a teacher would scream wildly at us to stay put.  What danger lurked there, against the cool bricks?  What threat did girls pose that could force Tommy Kirk to forsake his buddies at Midvale College, or Alec to forsake the wonders of the Earth’s Core, or Spooky to forsake his booing?

Michael Seater: Buddy for Life

Born in 1987, Canadian actor Michael Seater was on tv nonstop from 2000 to 2010, with a series of homoromantic buddy-bonding roles.

Spencer Sharpe, boyfriend of paranormal investigator Zack (Robert Clarke, left) on The Zack Files (2000-2002).

Paranormal investigator Lucas in Strange Days at Blake Holsey High (2002-2006), who has a love-hate relationship with school bully Vaughn (Robert Clarke again).

Homeless teenager Owen on Regenesis (2006-2007), who moves in with paranormal investigator David (Peter Outerbridge), but ends up mentally damaged after an experimental treatment to cure his drug addiction (I haven't seen it).

Derek Venturi on Life with Derek (2005-2009), who has a sibling rivalry with his adopted sister Casey (Ashley Leggat) and, in the first season, an intense, passionate, joined-at-the-hip best buddy, Sam (Kit Weyman).

As usual, his adult roles have involved fewer subtexts:

18 to Life (2010-2011): newlyweds move in with their parents.

The "virgin getting laid" comedy Sin Bin (2012).

Bomb Girls (2013): women work in a munitions factory during World War II. Engineer Ivan Buchinsky (Michael) is dating one of them.

He's written and directed two movies, People Hold On (2015) and Sadie's Last Days on Earth (2016), both of which deal with friends having relationships.

Michael is rumored to be gay in real life.  He hasn't said anything specific, but his tweets have a lot of gay content, like watching RuPaul's Drag Race and a claims that a party will be "gayer than a straight bar but straighter than a gay bar," suggesting that he is familiar with bars of both varieties.

7 Halloween Movies for Gay Kids

When I was a kid, Halloween was my favorite holiday -- no gifts of football equipment, no hanging out with boring relatives,  no Judy Garland singing "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas."  Instead, you got to do things that were usually forbidden: dress up, roam around the neighborhood late at night, and accept candy from strangers.

Halloween movies are as likely as Christmas movies to have heterosexist plotlines.  But here are 7 where the gay subtexts outweigh the boy meeting the girl:

1. It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown (1966).  Linus waits for the Great Pumpkin to rise from the pumpkin patch, Charlie Brown goes trick-or-treating and gets rocks instead of candy, and there's disappointment and heartbreak all around.

 2. Mad Monster Party? (1967).  Dr. Frankenstein invites all of the Universal monsters, plus his human nephew Felix, to a party to celebrate his discovery of "the secret of ultimate destruction": a nuclear bomb! Felix falls in love with the creature Francesca, and triggers the bomb, killing all the monsters and probably everybody else!  Oh, and he turns out to be mechanical too. But in spite of his strange hetero-romance and genocidal tendencies, Felix is "queer," an oddball outsider among both monsters and humans.

3. Hocus Pocus (1993). Teenage Max (Omri Katz, who would grow up to star in at least one gay-themed movie), fights three lesbian witches played by gay icons: Bette Midler, Kathy Najimy, and Sarah Jessica Parker.  Max gets a girlfriend, but the climax involves saving his little sister and two of his male classmates, a gay bully couple.  Plus "pocket gay" Jason Marsden as Binx, a boy transformed into a black cat.

4. Halloweentown (1999). Grand dame of campy movies Debbie Reynolds is the gay-vague grandmother of a teen witch who embraces her heritage in Halloweentown.  Plus Luke (Philip Van Dyke, top photo), a cute guy who was once a goblin, and the gay-vague brother Dylan (Joey Zimmerman, left).   The sequels are no good.

5. Underfist: Halloween Bash (2008).  The minor characters of The Grim Adventures of Billy and Mandy, including Fred Fredburger, General Skarr, Boomer the Giant Spider, Hoss Delgado, and Irwin, team up to fight giant candy monsters who eat trick-or-treaters.  Like the series itself, lots of gay subtexts: Boomer and Skarr are gay-coded, Hoss and Irwin have a thing going on, and there's a surprising amount of beefcake.  It's never been released on DVD, but you can see it on youtube.

6. Paranorman (2012).  It's not set on Halloween, but you've got zombies, ghosts, a witch, and a gay teenager.

7. Hotel Transylvania (2012).  Single Dad Dracula (Adam Sandler) and his teenage daughter Mavis run a hotel for monsters.  Lots of gay symbolism in the "we are a persecuted minority!" and "we can't reveal who we really are!" rhetoric.  The human Jonathan (gay-positive Andy Samberg, left) accidentally arrives and woos Mavis, but also shares a big gay subtext with the Dad. Check out the scene where he plops into Dracula's lap in the sauna.  And the PG-13 jokes about the Invisible Man's nudity.