Spencer Horsman, the Buffed Escape Artist

Spencer Horsman is not a character on Bojack Horseman.  He's a professional magician.

He learned performing at an early age from his parents, both circus clowns.  Kenneth Horsman (1958-2016) performed as Ken-Zo the Clown for the Barnum and Bailey Circus, and as Ronald McDonald.  Later he opened the Illusions Magic Bar and Theater in Baltimore. 

Spencer began touring as a ventriloquist and comedian at age 8.  By age 15, he had appeared on The Late Show with David Letterman, The Jerry Springer Show, and the Statler Brothers Show on tv, and with David Copperfield in Las Vegas.

He is also an escape artist.  He appeared on America's Got Talent in 2012. hanging upside down in a straitjacket, suspended from ropes that were set on fire, while a mouth-like gadget threatened to eat him if he fell.

It's very important for escape artists to display their physiques.  The audience wants to see muscles straining against the chains.

In 2015, Spencer almost drowned while rehearsing an escape from a water-torture cell, suspended in the air, chained with padlocks, while water poured over him.  He was briefly hospitalized, but recovered and now performs the perfected stunt.

Today he headlines at the Illusions Bar and tours with the Supernaturalists, Criss Angel's international troupe of 9 "mind-blowing" magicians.










I can't find any documentation on his Facebook or Twitter accounts, but I assume that Spencer is gay.

The Wizards of Waverly Place

Even Stevens, Hannah Montana, and The Suite Life of Zack and Cody are not unique. American tv programs aimed at a juvenile audience are strictly forbidden from mentioning gay people or ever suggesting that heterosexual desire, practice, and identity are not universal human experience.  So the Disney Channel has become very good at hints.

For example, take Wizards of Waverly Place (2007-2012), an "I've Got a Secret" sitcom about a family of wizards living in contemporary Manhattan.  Jerry (David DeLuise, far right) and Theresa (Maria Canales Barrera) and their kids:

16-year old Justin (David Henrie, second from left), 14-year old Alex (Selena Gomez), and 12-year old Max (Jake T. Austin, far left). (The others are supporting characters.)







All of the characters have opposite-sex dates and relationships. Not one is Wearing a Sign.  Therefore they are all heterosexual, and gay people do not exist. Are you listening, network censors?  Ok, then:

1. Alex is gay.  She and Justin are constantly fighting over girls that they both want.  She's constantly telling Justin, "I like this girl. You can't have her."  During the third season, she falls in love with a butch lesbian stereotype named Stevie (Hayley Kiyoko), but drops her upon discovering that she is a leftist revolutionary. Her main squeeze is Harper (Jennifer Stone); the two eventually move into an apartment together.  No one even tries to pretend that they are platonic friends.

2. Justin is a heterosexual ally.  In one episode, Alex spreads a rumor that he is engaged to a boy, Hugh Normous (Josh Sussman).  Justin is angry, not because of the accusation, but because now he won't be able to attract the girl he likes.  Besides, he could do a lot better than Hugh Normous.

3. Hugh Normous is gay.  Alex is hit on by lots of guys at school, so she befriends Hugh, knowing that he won't have any romantic interest.  In the last season, she invites Hugh to a party at her apartment, where he hooks up with a guy.









4.  Uncle Kelso  (Jeff Garland) is gay. He is masquerading as pop star Shakira.  Alex asks if it bothers him that millions of teenage boys have his picture on their bedroom walls.  He shrugs.

5. Max is probably gay.

His crush on Alex's boyfriend, Mason (Gregg Sulkin, left, with costar Dan Benson), is so intense that when they break up, Max falls into a deep depression, and when Mason re-appears to request a reconciliation, Max thinks that Mason wants a reconciliation with him.  

At age sixteen, Max turns into a girl, and hates it because now he has to hang out with other girls; he likes to hang out with guys.

6. Just about everyone else in the cast could be gay or bisexual.  In “Saving WizTech” (2008), the evil Ronald Longcape (Chad Duell) flirts with Alex in order to steal her powers.  He admits that he wasn’t actually interested in Alex, any of the Russo wizards would do, but she seemed more gullible.  Therefore he would have been perfectly willing to flirt with Justin or Max.

And that's not even counting the constant gender-shifting and transvestism.

As stated earlier, every character expresses heterosexual interest, and not one is Wearing a Sign. Therefore they are all heterosexual.  Therefore gay people do not exist.  Is that clearly understood?

The story of my date with one of the stars is on Tales of West Hollywood.

Toddler TV

Adults think that gayness is something that "happens" to you late in life, after a childhood of girls mooning over teen idols and boys grinning at the girl next door. But we know that they are wrong.  In every kindergarten classroom, in every preschool classroom, there are some boys who gaze at girls, and some boys who gaze at boys.

But what are they looking at?  Is their desire erotic, romantic, or something else entirely, something that we have forgotten as adults?  When gay boys watched Blue's Clues (1996-2006), did they think of Steve Burns as a cool big brother, or as a hot fantasy boyfriend with killer biceps?














Or Donovan Patton, who took over for Steve in later seasons?






















When they watched Barney and Friends (1992-2010), did they want to hug and kiss Michael (Brian Eppes), or did physical intimacy never enter their minds?

When I was three or four years old, there wasn't a lot of toddler tv. On Saturday morning I probably watched what the older kids watched: The Alvin Show, Tennessee Tuxedo, Underdog, Beany and Cecil.  On weekday mornings I probably watched Romper Room, with a female host, and Captain Kangaroo, with an elderly male host.  And in the early evening, there was probably Yogi Bear and The Flintstones.

I was drawn to the homodomesticity (same-sex partners living together) and to the same-sex rescues. But did I think anyone was hot?
I have very vague memories of liking The Magical Land of Allakazam (1960-64), a live action series featuring a magician (Mark Wilson actually one of the most renowned magicians of the twentieth century), his wife, and a clown. There was no homodomesticity, no rescuing.  In fact, it was somewhat heterosexist, Wilson constantly referring to his "lovely assistant."

I remember not liking the magic tricks.  You could see lots better on any tv cartoon.

But Mark Wilson was cute.

See also: Burr Tillstrom, the gay puppeteer behind Kukla, Fran, and Ollie.

Kaliman and Solin: Magician and Boy Pal

Spanish class didn't offer a huge selection of teenage adventurers with boyfriends, or teen magazines featuring frontal nudity, but it did give gay students some spectacular beefcake and a Batman and Robin-like adult-juvenile relationship.

Kaliman, el Hombre Increible, an orphan adopted by Prince Abul Pasha of Kalimantan, Indonesia, grew up to immensely muscular, gifted with magical powers, and dedicated to fighting injustice.

He first appeared on Mexican radio in 1963 (where his program still runs), and soon moved into weekly comic books.  Over 1,000 issues have been published to date. There is also a Colombian version read throughout Latin America.

Kaliman wears a turban emblazoned with a K and an all-white outfit, though he often takes his shirt off before fighting the bad guys.

He has antecedents in Mandrake the Magician and other magical superheroes of the pulps, but he is a distinctly Latin American creation, with the colorful enemies -- the vampires, aliens, mad scientists, and evil cultists -- that one would expect of a Santo or Blue Demon.

Sometimes he rescues attractive women, but he rarely expresses any romantic interest in any of them.

Most often he rescues his youthful companion, Solin, whom he picked up in ancient Egypt.  Solin's age is not specified, but he looks 12-14.  Because he is depicted with black curly hair and a cute girlish face, because he wears eyeliner and mascara, and because he becomes "the damsel in distress" nearly as often as Robin, fan fiction writers sometimes transform him into a girl.

But when he must rescue Kaliman or perform some other act of bravery, Solin proves more than capable.  There are hints that he will take over the job of protecting the world from evil when Kaliman retires.

There have been two movies (1972, 1976), with a third in the works.  Kaliman was played by the American Jeff Cooper, who unfortunately wasn't as buffed as his comic book counterpart.

Solin was played by Nino del Arco and Manuel Bravo.

Harry Houdini and the Gay Ghost

Born in 1874 in Budapest, Harry Houdini was a magician, escape artist, and showman.  And one of the few men of his generation for whom we have beefcake photos.

















One of his favorite tricks was the "overboard box escape": he was handcuffed and manacled, then nailed into a box, which was thrown into the ocean.


No doubt seeing his powerful, muscular body nearly nude in chains was half the fun.





Several contemporary movie hunks have replicated the famous pose, including Paul Michael Glaser (in The Great Houdini, 1979) and Johnathan Schaech (in Houdini, 1998).

But Houdini has a gay connection other than his beefcake appeal to both male and female audiences:

1. He married Bess Rahner, in 1894, and remained married to her until his death in 1926 (she died in 1943). They had no children, reputedly because she had a problem that kept her from ovulating.  Some people speculate that she was intersexed.

2. He starred in several silent films produced by his close friend and fellow magician Arnold DeBiere. They were not financial successes, and one of them caused him near-bankrupcy.  He blamed DeBiere,  leading to a loud public "breakup."

3. He developed another close friendship with Arthur Conan Doyle, author of the Sherlock Holmes stories and an avid spiritualist.  They, also, had very loud, very public "breakup," and the resulting bitterness led Houdini to spend the rest of his life as a spiritualist debunker.

4. He purchased -- or at least was a frequent guest in -- the Laurel Canyon mansion owned by R.J. Walker, a furniture magnate whose son killed his male lover by pushing him off a balcony.  The lover continued to haunt the mansion until it burned down in 1959.

5. He died of peritonitis while performing in Montreal.  He was entertaining some young male fans in his dressing room, when McGill University student J. Gordon Whitehead punched him repeatedly in the stomach.  Eyewitness accounts are contradictory; no one knows why.  Did Houdini invite the blows to prove his toughness?  Or was Whitehead responding in homophobic rage to some gesture or statement?

Johnathan Schaech: Playing to His Gay Fans

This is one of the iconic images of the 1990s, a bodybuilder with a Superman hairdo oiled up and flexing against an indeterminate background.

It burst onto the scene in 1994, and suddenly appeared on bedroom walls across West Hollywood.  We all thought that the model was gay, or at least aiming his biceps directly at a gay audience.

Wrong on the first count, maybe not on the second.

He was 25-year old Johnathan Schaech, a fitness model who had just broken into acting with a recurring role on the Melrose Place spin-off Melrose Place (1994-95).

During the mid and late 1990s, Schaech's biceps could be seen everywhere.  Everyone in San Francisco assumed that he was gay, even when he starred in the hetero-romance How to Make an American Quilt (1995) and The Doom Generation (1995), Greg Araki's tale of a three-way romance between alienated, homophobic teenagers.

Everyone in New York assumed that he was gay, even when he starred in Welcome to Woop Woop (1997), about a con artist in a colorful town in the Australian outback, and Finding Graceland (1998). A guy who thinks he's Elvis, a girl who thinks she's Marilyn Monroe, and Las Vegas.

Plus the usual tv movies about evil boyfriends who terrorize their exes and poor boys who find love with rich women.

Finally, in 2001, he married Christina Applegate, formerly of Married...with Children, and was interviewed in The Advocate, and we discovered that he was heterosexual.  But an ally who was fully aware of his gay fans, and even played to them.

Schaech continued to work in the 2000s, appearing in a couple of movies every year, but he never managed to quite find his niche.  He was too pretty to play Man-Mountains who take out small countries with their bare hands, too buffed to play New Sensitive Men who learn to cry and care.  His roles became increasingly small, hetero-erotic, and fully-clothed.

They Shoot Divas, Don't They?
Mummy an' the Armadillo
Living Hell
Sex and Lies in Sin City
Chromeskull: Laid to Rest 2
Hidden Moon

Plus two kind-of gay roles:
Splendor (1999), about two guys in love with the same girl who decide to share

If You Only Knew (2005), in which a heterosexual guy pretends to be gay so he can share an apartment with the girl he is crushing on.

More recently, Schaech has been starring in tv series like The Client List and Ray Donovan, and become a writer/director/producer.


See also: Harry Houdini and the Gay Ghost.

Manly P. Hall: Gay Psychic Murdered by His Lover

When I lived in Los Angeles, there was a University of Philosophical Research at 3910 Los Feliz, near the Silverlake gay neighborhood.  But it wasn't a university, and it didn't do any philosophical research, although it had a library of 50,000 volumes.  It was a mystical/occult organization founded by Manly P. Hall (1901-1990), who published The Secret Teachings of All Ages (1928).

I haven't read it.  It's a gigantic compendium of occult lore, thick, dense, and impenetrable, with chapters on "The Bembine Table of Isis," "The Hiramic Legend," "Hermetic Pharmacology," and "Fundamentals of Qabbalistic Cosmogony."  But it was immensely popular, on the shelf of everyone from H.P. Lovecraft to F. Scott Fitzgerald, and it has never gone out of print.

Hall became one of the biggest celebrities of the era.  In 1934 he founded the Philosophical Research Society, and stocked its library with thousands of rare occult volumes purchased for him by wealthy disciples, notably oil heiress Carolyn Lloyd.

He wrote many more books -- nearly 200 -- some with beefcake covers, like this rather buffed deity with a shining phallus creating the worlds.

He delivered over 7,000 lectures.

For all his erudition, Hall's philosophy was simple.  His Ten Basic Rules for Better Living include:
1. Stop worrying.
2. Don't try to dominate and control other people.
3. Learn to relax
4. Cultivate a sense of humor
5. Reign in your ambition.
6. Don't accumulate more than you need.
7. Believe in something bigger than yourself.
8. Never intentionally harm anyone.
9. Beware of anger.
10. Never blame others for your own mistakes.

Elvis Presley was a fan.  So was Ronald Reagan. He officiated at the wedding of horror movie great Bela Lugosi.

Disciples stood in line around the block on Los Feliz Avenue to hear his advice.  Astrologers, bodybuilders, magicians, actors, writers, philosophers.

A few -- the best and brightest, the most eager, the most muscular (see top photo) -- stayed on, to become his assistants.  Like future paranormal researcher Arthur Louis Joquel.

Hall was gay or bisexual.  He was married twice, but neither marriage was ever consummated.  His wives and disciples turned a blind eye to his interest in attractive male proteges, and quickly put a stop to any hint of scandal. Except for the last one.

In 1988, when Hall had become morbidly obese, almost unable to walk, and showed signs of dementia, he fell in with a salesman-turned-psychic named Daniel Fritz, who claimed to be a reincarnation of a prince from ancient Atlantis, and his son David, who regularly took spirit-journeys to Jupiter.

No different than the hundreds of other psychics, astrologers, occultists, and reincarnated princes that Hall had entertained over the years.  But his disciples suspected that these two were con artists.  

In August 1990 Hall rewrote his will to give Daniel his entire estate, worth some $52,000,000.  Six days later, he was dead.  Daniel and David were alone with the body for several hours.  Disciples believed that the two had murdered him.

An inquest found no evidence of foul play.  But the will was contested, and the estate reverted to Hall's widow.  Daniel and David moved on to other clients.

Jim Steranko: Escape Artist turned Comic Book Artist

Jim Steranko (born 1938) started out as a stage magician and escape artist, following in the footsteps of Harry Houdini.

With a beefy physique to match.

In the late 1960s, while Frank Frazetta was busily revitalizing Conan the Barbarian, Steranko revitalized Marvel Comics, drawing The X-Men, Captain America, Strange Tales, and Nick Fury: Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D.  He also wrote one of the first histories of comic books (1971).

I didn't read Marvel comics much when I was a kid, but I knew Jim Steranko's work from the covers of many paperback sword-and-sorcery novels that he illustrated during the 1970s.

His covers differed from the usual Conan and John Carter of Mars stuff: they usually pictured the mighty-thewed barbarian heroes without naked ladies attached to their thighs.

And the stories inside were often free of "rescuing the princess" hijinks.  David Van Arnam's Lord of Blood buddy-bonds barbarian hero Valzar and his servant Lynor.

Isn't Kelwin a rather silly name for a barbarian hero?  He should be winning science fairs, not battling the "yellow-skinned wizards of Hunan."

I bought The Mighty Swordsmen at a used bookstore in Paris without realizing that there was a naked lady on the cover.

Apparently I missed a lot of the ladies in Steranko's work.

I didn't notice his compendiums of pin-up girls, or his comic book art, crowded with shirtless, muscular men and ladies in skintight leather outfits, like that of Mrs. Peel on The Avengers. 

But at least he was an aficionado of the male form.

And recent versions of his Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. title feature a lesbian character.

See also: Werewolf by Night; and Kamadi.

Dan Benson: Gay-Vague Beefcake of Waverly Place

With all the beefcake on the Disney Channel's Wizards of Waverly Place (2007-2013),  it was easy to ignore Dan Benson.  He's the one in the middle, squeezed between David Henrie and Greg Sulkin, with his pants undone.

Here's a closeup of a pic on the Wizards of Waverly Place post, with David Henrie and Jake T. Austin.

Dan is as buffed as his costars -- he tweets that he can do "100 pushups a second" --  and is just as fond of homoerotic horseplay, but onscreen he de-emphasizes his hotness so you'll notice his acting.

Born in Springfield, Missouri in 1987, Dan and his brother Nick  were discovered by a scouting agency in 2002 and flown to California, where they began working in commercials and feature films.  After a starring role was in Little Black Book (2004), Dan made the rounds of Disney/Nickelodeon teencoms, appearing on Zoey 101 and Phil of the Future (with Raviv Ullman).

In December 2007, he was hired to play "Zack," a boy that the teenage wizard Justin (David Henrie) encounters at the movies on a episode of Wizards of Waverly Place.   The producers were so impressed by the actors' chemistry that they made "Zeke" a recurring character, Justin's best friend to counterbalance the strong bond between his sister Alex and her bff Harper.

Bucking the tradition of the best friend being merely an unrestrained version of the main teen, Zeke developed into his own unique character, with interests that had nothing to do with Justin. In fact, in later episodes he began hanging out with Max (Jake T. Austin) more than Justin.   Gay-vague, he displays little hetero-horniness, except late in the series where he is hooked up with Harper, apparently in an attempt to heterosexualize him.

Outside of Wizards, Dan's work has also minimized heterosexual interest to up the gay subtexts.

Doers of Coming Deeds (2006) is about three members of the Hitler Youth in Nazi Germany who befriend a Jewish family.

In The Rig (2010), crew members of an off-shore oil rig fight a monster.  Dan plays Colin Brewer, a crewman who is killed after telling his brother (Stacey Hinnen) "I love you."

He also starred in Hanna's Gold (2010), a "family" drama about two troublemaking girls sent to a ranch run by Luke Perry.  His character, Luke, helps the girls search for buried treasure but doesn't romance them.  In fact, no one romances anyone, though the two bad guys they encounter could be a couple.

His brothers, Michael and Nick, are also actors (seen here at the Rig premiere).

Toran Caudell, Boy Wizard

Born in 1982, Toran Caudell followed in his father Lane Caudell's footsteps with the gay subtext Max is Missing (1995). On vacation in Peru, Max (Toran) encounters a dying man, who gives him an ancient Incan mask.  It doesn't have magic powers, but  does send him on a wild flight through the wilderness,  chased by the bad guys, accompanied by the Quechua boy Juanito (Victor Rojas).

Nick of time rescues and physical buddy-bonding moments ensue.

Toran's shoulder-length blond hair and feminine pretty-boy features got him cast as a as shy, sensitive, gay-vague boy in Johnny Mysto: Boy Wizard (1997): he finds a magic ring that transports him to King Arthur's Camelot (where he fails to get a girlfriend).

Between 1997 and 2001, he had a recurring role on Seventh Heaven, the preachy, heterosexist "family" drama about a minister with a large brood of hetero-horny kids. Goth kid Rod (Toran) enters the series by dating daughter Lucy, naturally, but he ends up running away from home and butting heads with his mother's psychotic boyfriend.

Otherwise Toran did mostly voice work on Nickelodeon cartoons: Recess, Hey Arnold, Rocket Power. 

Today he is a song writer and music producer. He composed music for The Osbournes and My Super Sweet Sixteen.  Still androgynous though no longer blond, he has made no public statements about his sexual identity.