The Snaps of Poston Butte High School

Poston Butte High School is not in Butte, Montana.  It's in San Tan, Arizona, in the far south of the Phoenix metro area, 43 miles from downtown. 

There is no person named Poston Butte.  The high school is named after a nearby hill (a "butte"), which contains the pyramid-shaped tomb of Charles DeBrille Poston (1825-1902), who petitioned to create Arizona Territory and served as its first representative in Congress.  He also wanted to build a Parsi (Zoroastrian) fire temple, but ran out of money.

There is no saint in the Catholic schedule named Tan.  The town is named after the San Tan Mountains, which may be a corruption of Santa Ana, or maybe the name of an early post master.  Residents wanted Belle Vista (that's rather a misnomer), but San Tan won out in 2009.

The town is on the radar for paranormal and miscellaneous weird mysteries, like the 500 year old petroglyphs, and a 2019 sighting of a UFO with "tendrils" that made it look like a jellyfish

It's also newsworthy because:

In 2014, a Poston Butte math teacher was arrested after coming to class drunk (blood alcohol level .205) and swearing at students.

In 2014, Poston Butte student Tyler Kost was arrested and charged with sexual assault and sexual abuse of 11 high school girls over the course of 5 year.  He spent three years in prison.

In 2017, the school apologized for publishing 15-20 "inappropriate" quotes from students in the yearbook: references to sex, drugs, and death.   The yearbook advisor was removed from her position.  The school offered new copies with the quotes expunged for free, but no one took them u p on the offer.

With all of that weirdness, I was disappointed to find no "there" there.  The high school is surrounded by flat, desolate scrub land and a Mormon chapel.  The nearest restaurant is a McDonald's, 1.6 miles away.  No city center, just a few gallerias with a Walgreen's, a Bank of America, Papa John's Pizza, and Fry's (supermarket).  No museums, no historic sites, no gay presence other than a Gay-Straight Alliance at the high school.

But a lot of beefcake.

I do it for the snap, too.

Snap.

Snap.

He's second from the left, but who's the new guy with the abs and flag?

I like the big hair.

Even bigger hair.

Cute coach with a Mormon haircut and a barber-shop-quartet striped bowtie.

"Daybreak": Saving the Non-Gender Specific Person in Distress

I was definitely planning to skip the new Netflix drama Daybreak, about teenagers surviving the apocalypse while the adults are all zapped. Riot Girls, The Last Kids on Earth, Nowhere Boys....I've seen it all before.

More importantly, the promo is all about Josh (Colin Ford) trying to reconnect with the Girl of His Dreams. What does that even mean? It's heterosexist brainwashing.  How about a new mantra: so many girls, so little time, how can I choose?

Plus Colin Ford has nice abs, but attended a evangelical Christian school, has starred in heartwarming productions, and "has never been accused as a gay."

So I was noping my way out of there when I read that his sidekick in the show is gay.

It wouldn't hurt to take a look.

Episode #1:  A narrating Josh, aka Ferris Bueller, thinks that the post-apocalypse is awesome.  Sure, everyone over 18 (and, one assumes, under 10) melted into goo  or turned into trudging "ghoulies," roving gangs are kidnapping kids to "turn into hummus," and Sam, the Girl of His Dreams, has vanished, but you can get all the fast cars and glitzy gear you want.  It evens out.

Josh hears a girl screaming as Golf-Team cannibals prepare to eat her, and rushes to the rescue.  "Let the girl go," he says, "and I'll leave you to whatever circle jerk you have planned for tonight."

"That's tomorrow night," the gang leader, Terry (Chester Rushing, left), tells him, pointing out that gender norms don't exist anymore, so gay sex is no longer shameful.

Not to worry,they still throw around homophobic slurs.  Gay sex is still shameful.

So Josh rescues the foul-mouthed 10-year old Angelica. Then they encounter Wesley (Austin Crute), a gay black bully (I've never seen those three words together before) turned Asian-wisdom spouting street samurai. 

After battling the Mad Max-style Turbo Jock, the trio heads to the  mall, where reputedly Sam is being held captive by the evil Baron Triumph.  No Sam, and the evil baron turns out to be Eli (Gregory Kashyan), a former poor kid now holed up in the mall.  The only other resident is The Witch,  aka Mrs. Crumble, a deranged, semi-zombified former biology teacher.

Kind of derivative, with boring flashbacks, and why did Josh rush to rescue a girl, when a moment before he just watched while a boy was dragged to his death.

Right -- the Girl.

I'll just sample some other episodes.

They turn the mall into a free zone, for kids who didn't belong to a clique before the apocalypse, and try to live as normally as possible.  They even hold a "welcome to being alive" prom, with a gender-neutral ruler instead of a king and queen.

Although ostensibly the "good guy" leader whom everyone loves, Josh is rather jerk-like.  When a new Asian refugee is admitted to the sanctuary, he tells her that he's the new ICE, and she has to vote for him in the upcoming election or he'll have her deported.

Not approp, dude.


There's a lot about power struggles in the Turbo Jock tribe.

Wesley turns out to be dating one of the jocks, Turbo Bro Jock (Cody Kearsley, Moose on Riverdale), who is partially melted and cannot speak.

Principal Burris (Matthew Broderick), who somehow survived being melted, wants to finish "cleansing" the world by setting off a bomb.

Fade out kiss?  Well, Wesley and Turbo Jock Bro get one, but not Sam and Josh.  She rejects him in the end.  Turns out that she never needed rescuing, and she never wanted to be his girlfriend; all of this  dreamy romance-stuff was in his head.

Who'd have thought, Josh as unreliable narrator?  How postmodern!  I might have to go back and watch this after all.

"The Politician": Gay-Light Sociopaths in a Hunk-Infested High School

In The Politician on Netflix, Payton Hobart (how's that for a 1% name?) lives with his absent dad, clinging "I love you so much" mother, and psycho older brothers in a ridiculously elegant mansion in Santa Barbara, California.  He attends a ridiculously elegant prep school that looks like an Italian villa, where all of the boys are 30-year old fitness models and all of the girls tall, statuesque blondes.

And he wants to be President.  Oh, sorry, he will be President, he says repeatedly; it's not a dream or even a goal, it's a simple fact.  He tells the Harvard admissions board, "After my second term in office (which I will win by a landslide), I can build my presidential library here in Cambridge or in Palo Alto.  It's up to you."  Strangely, the board admits him.

Payton is a textbook sociopath, experiencing no empathy but good at pretending to, with grandiose visions of his own importance, willing to do anything to reach his goals.

This season's goal is to be elected school president, a necessary step en route to the White House.  His campaign staff (he already has some) suggest someone who is disabled.  He latches onto Infinity, who has cancer.

Problem: she really doesn't.  Her grandmother has been making her sick in order to get attention and free stuff.

Another problem:  Payton's best friend/occasional sex partner River throws his hat in the ring.  But then River commits suicide.  Problem solved.

That's right, there's a suicide in the midst of the first episode of a "comedy" series.

One of the tall, statuesque blonde girls throws her hat in the ring.  She may also be his girlfriend: they're both tall, statuesque blondes.  So are his campaign manager and River's girlfriend.  And they all have the same manipulative, self-serving, sociopathic personalities.  I can't tell any of them apart.  For all I know, they could be the same person.

I understood from the early reviews that Payton is gay, but he actually straight.  His only same-sex relationship is with River, and that quickly becomes a menage-a-trois with the girlfriend.

The show's attitude toward gay people is paradoxical.  Payton also threatens to out River unless he drops out of the election, implying that being gay is something scandalous (um...wouldn't he also be outing himself?).  But characters throw terms like "heteronormative" and "nonbinary" around, Payton actively courts the gay vote, and a gay slur in one of Infinity's old tapes is enough to derail his campagn.

Oh, well --- there are lots of plot twists, the sets are amazing, and the plot calls for lots of shirtless, underwear, and swimsuit scenes:

1. Payton (top photo), played by Ben Platt.

2. David Corenswet as River.  Dont worry, he may commit suicide in the first episode, but there are a lot of flashbacks.

3. The androgynous but heterosexual James, a member of Payton's campaign staff, who also sleeps with his girlfriend/future first lady, is played by trans actor Theo Germaine.

4. Benjamin Barrett with blond hair as Ricardo, Infinity's dimwitted but well hung boyfriend.



















5.-6. Trey and Trevor Easton as Martin and Luther Hobart, Ben's older brothers, who hate him because their mom likes him best.





















7. Luis Avila as Amir, the gay kid who Hobart tries to woo by claiming an interest in the musical Hamilton.  Because all gay men are into musical theater, right?

8. Russell Posner as Elliot, who gets a whole centric episode: both sides actively woo him, but he couldn't care less.  He's all about gazing at girls' breasts and looking for a private place to masturbate.

9. Koby Kumi Diaka as the school's only Haitian student, wooed by the other side to become vice president after the nonbinary African-American lesbian fell through.

10.  For #10, no one in particular comes to mind -- the woods are full of hunkoids.  So I just picked a name from the cast list at random: Brian Nuesi as a miscellaneous student.

And I haven't even gotten to the adults yet.

The Gay Tease of "Bixler High Private Eye"

Bixler High Private Eye (2019), no comma, appears on my Vudu and Amazon Prime recommedations.  Doesn't this guy look gay?

I've got a free hour, and maybe he's gay, so why not?

It's one of those pieces advertised as a tv program, but there's only one episode, an hour and six minutes  long.

First scene:  Bixler High is not his name.  He's Xander DeWitt, played by Jace Norma, unrecognizable from his role as the uber-swishy gay-coded superhero sidekick on Nickelodeon's Henry Danger (2014-).

So far, so good.






Here Xander tries to grift a very attractive car salesman (Eddie Aguirre) out of information that may lead to his missing father's whereabouts.  He almost gets away, but in the end the police escort him home.

I'm not liking Xander.  He's got one of those smarmy, smug, borderline-sociopathic personalities that make you want to take him down a few notches.

However: his well-stocked room contains no photos of girls.   A good sign!

Xander discovers that Dad (Rick Peters) was visiting his hometown, Bixler Valley, on the morning of his disappearance.

Coincidentally, Mom is concerned about his slipping grades and frequent truancy, and suggests a change: how about going to live with Grandpa in Bixler Valley?

So Xander heads out.

Bixler Valley is a ridiculously depressed old mining town in the mountains, and Grandpa (Ed Begley Jr.) a ridiculously curmudgeonly geezer ("How can I tell kids to get off my lawn when one is living here?).  He also happens to be a retired private eye.

Here's an idea: Have Grandpa investigate his son's disappearance.

Xander tries to hug Grandpa, but the geezer pushes him away.  Men don't hug!  How about a handshake?

Xander is obviously gay.

All he has to do is enroll at Bixler High and find a boyfriend.

Or a male friend.

Or a group of friends, some male....

Or...

Uh-oh


He teams up with school reporter Kenzie (Ariel Martin).

Time to fast-forward, looking for beefcake and incidental buddy bonding.

No dice.

Lots of hunky actors, like Eddie M. Myrick (standing behind his boyfriend) as a cop. But no one even fumbles with a button.

And there appear to be no boys at Bixler High, just female cheerleaders with pom poms.  Xander never even talks to a boy his own age.

Final scene:

Grandpa: When are you two going to kiss?
Xander:  Grandpa!  We're partners (apparently they have opened a private eye business). Partners don't kiss.

My final hope: Xander means it.  He's not into girls.  Kenzie is a friend and business partner.  They won't....

They lean in for the kiss.  Fade out.

Ugh! Another gay tease!

10 Beefcake Boys of "Riot Girls"

The premise of Riot Girls (2019): most of the population of Potter's Bluff has been killed by a mysterious plague, leaving only teenagers and a scattering of 10-year olds.

So many questions:  How long has it been?  Why are teenagers immune?  Do they succumb when they reach a certain age?  Are there other communities, or are they all alone?  Are they surviving on canned goods, or have they developed agriculture? Why is the electricity still on?

Not to worry, it's not important; the goal is to get the teens alone.  They have divided into two societies, as over-the-top good and evil as Boulder and Las Vegas in The Stand.

 The East Side  is a laid-back hippie commune, run by the saintly, "we're all in this together" Jack (Alexandre Bourgeois). He keeps admitting refugees, such as Sony (Ajay Friese, left), but for some unexplained reason, he doesn't like dogs.

The West Side is a heavily stratified, heavily militarized totalitarian dictatorship, where they kill refugees.  It is ruled by the Wicked Witch of the West.. um, I mean Jeremy  (Munro Chambers), who also kills his own people for such offenses as failing to meet work quotas.

The plot: Jack is captured by Westsiders, who intend to execute him.  His sister Nat (Madison Iseman), the butch Mohawk-haired Scratch (Paloma Kwiatkowski), and Sony rush to the rescue.

It's a surprisingly long way to the West Side; it takes them two days to get there, even with a car.

There's some blood, a lot of rock music, and some heart-to-hearts.  Dr. Evil is killed, and his successor promises "Things are going to be different around here."  The four friends head for home.  The end.

Hetero-horniness:  None.  No one seems particularly interested in sex except for a border guard who tries to rape Nat.  Sony tries to kiss her, but is quickly rebuffed with "I'm not..."

Gay characters:  You're not what, Nat?  The two girls are certainly gay coded, but at one point Nat clarifies: "You're not my boyfriend!", thus establishing her as both heterosexual and unaware that gay people exist.

Bondage: No one has ever heard of rope.  All captives, including Jack, just stand there.

Beefcake: None.  No shirts come off.  There are quite a few cute actors, so I'll try to find shirtless pics from othe productions.  Unfortunately, other than 1. Jeremy, 2. Jack,  and 3. Sony, I have no idea who is who.

4. Darren Eisnor as Todd, one of the Titans (the sports team that now serves as Jeremy's thugs)

5. Atticus Mitchel as Cracker.  Atticus Mitchel is 26.  What's the age range of this Apocalyptic plague?

6.  Darnell Bartholomew as a Westside Guard
















7. Jake Sim (not Sims) as Flick, who I think is second in command.

8. Chris Mark as Sean.  He couldn't have been shot in the locker room?

9.Carson MacCormac (left) as Spit.  Come on, one "frolicking in the river" shot for the gay male viewers?















10. Keanu Lee Nunes as a miscellaneous Titan.

I give up.

I'll give the movie a B-.  Points for its raucous energy and lack of hetero-horniness.  Demerits for the ludicrous villain and closeting the lesbian couple.

And closeting the physiques.

The 13 Hunks of "13 Reasons Why"

I'm not actually planning to watch 13 Reasons Why, the teen drama now starting its third year on Netflix.  I never understood the point of depressing "entertainment," and 13 Reasons is overwhelmingly dark and brutal, a cloud of gloom hanging over the hours between dinner and bedtime.

But if you don't mind "gloom, despair, and agony on end," there is also abundant beefcake, dozens of hunkoids (13 to be exact) who work out constantly, hoping that physical activity will alleviate some of their pain.

The premise: Hannah (Katherine Langford) commits suicide, and leaves behind a box of tapes at her friend's house, each a shrieking "J'accuse!" at one of the students and faculty responsible for her decision.  Flashbacks reveal all the details.  Meanwhile, Hannah's parents are suing the school for negligence.

Spoiler alert: the 13 reasons why are listed below:

1. Justin ( Brandon Flynn ) gives Hannah her first kiss, then uploads a sexy photo of her to the internet, and claims that they had sex.  She gets a "slut" reputation.

2. Next Hannah befriends the couple  Jessica and Alex (Miles Heiser).  When the two break up, Jessica blames Hannah, and spreads the rumor that she is a boyfriend-stealer.

3. Alex distributes a list of the best/worst in the school, and says that Hannah has the best butt, thus humiliating her.  There's no new hunk in this reason, so I'll add Clay (Dylan Minnette), who gets the box of tapes and is investigating the various culprits.














4. School photographer Tyler (Devin Druid) stalks Hannah, hoping to catch her in the act.  When he sees her kissing a girl named Courtney, he publishes the photograph, thus ending their friendship and giving Hannah the reputation of being a lesbian.

A lesbian slut boyfriend stealer with a nice butt.

5. Afraid of being outed (even though she has two dads), Courtney spreads a rumor about Hannah and another girl, thus...um, I guess adding to the lesbian rumor.

No new hunk in this reason, so I'll add Christian Navarro as Tony Padilla, Clay's gay best friend and co-investigator.

6. Hannah accepts a Valentine's Day date with Marcus (Steven Silver). Believing that she is a lesbian slut with a nice butt, he assumes that she will be up for sex, and tries to sexually assault her.

Steven Silver is a little stingy with beefcake photos, so instead I'll add Timothy Granaderos as Montgomery de la Cruz, a school bully.












7.  Zach (Ross Butler, top photo), one of Marcus' friends, asks Hannah for a date, no doubt assuming that sex will be included.  When she refuses, he gets revenge by removing the "positive notes" from her in-box about a writing project, leaving only negative ones and squashing her self-image.

A lesbian slut boyfriend-stealer who is no good at writing, but has a nice butt.

8. When Hannah submits some extremely personal poetry to Poetry Club  (why submit it if it's so personal?), club president Ryan (Tommy Dorfman) publishes it without her consent in the school newspaper, humiliating her and doubling the attack on her writing ability.

9. Remember Hannah's on-off friend Jessica?  She is sexually assaulted by Bryce (Justin Prentice) at a party.  Hannah sees the whole thing, but doesn't intervene.  The culprit in this reason is Jessica's boyfriend Alex, for allowing it to happen.

Not Hannah herself?  She was watching, and didn't do anything?

10. On the way home from the party, Hannah  and her friend Sherri accidentally knock over a stop sign. Hannah wants to call the police, but Sherri won't let her.  Later Jeff (Brandon Larracuente), not seeing the downed sign, goes through the intersection and is hit and killed.

The culprit this time?  You guessed it -- Sherri.

11. Clay the investigator, who has an unrequited crush on Hannah, tried to help her at the party, but she rejected him, thus leading to the downed stop sign and Jeff's death. 

He's the culprit for not trying hard enough?  This girl is doing a lot of blaming.

No new hunks in this reason, so I'll add Henry Zaga as Brad, the boyfriend of Tony (Clay's best friend).









12.  Hannah goes to another party at Bryce's house, and he rapes her.  Whoa.

Bryce was already mentioned, so let's go on to Season 2, which is mostly about the trial.  R. J. Brown plays Caleb, whom Tony (the best friend) dates.

13. Hannah tells guidance counselor Mr. Porter (Derek Luke) about being raped, but he does nothing.  J'accuse!

Derek Luke is beefcake-shy, so let's include Bryce Cass as Cyrus, who, in Season 2, starts an anti-bullying campaign with Tyler (Reason #4)

There are several gay characters, and ample beefcake, but I'm still not watching.  It sounds awful.

Brainerd Boyfriends

Brainerd, Minnesota, population 13,000, is  on the Mississippi River about 2 hours north of Minneapolis and 2 1/2 hours east of Fargo.  It's in a lake-abundant resort area, as you can probably tell from the sights:

Paul Bunyan Land, featuring a 26-foot tall talking animatronic Paul.

Pirate's Cove Adventure Golf

Three Bears Water Park (what do bears have to do with sliding into water?)

Trip Advisor also suggests the Crow Wing County Historical Museum and the National Pacific Railroad Shops Historic District, a series of railroad repair buildings.

Brainerd High School, enrollment 500, has a gay-straight alliance.  There's an article in the Brainerd Dispatch on Valedictorian Bri Storlie, who is gay.  She states that when you put up 50 posters, all but two are torn downthe next day, and when they scheduled a Day of Silence to draw attention to homophobic bullying, some students showed up with anti-gay slurs on their t-shirts.

In addition to the homophobia, Brainerd beefcake is hard to find.  I found a few photos online, but most were from the Brainerd Dispatch, which prohibits downloading them.

So we're going to make do with "dreamy boys," fully clothed objects of romantic fantasies for the tween crowd, for whom faces are more important than physiques, and holding hands is the ultimate in physical contact.

Some bored-looking wrestlers.

The captain of the swim team, and his buddy.  If only I were 30 years younger.

A football player.  Is he benching only 90 pounds?  Oh, well, it's all about the face, not the physique.

The high school's best all-around athlete.  I like the little striped bow tie.