Keeping Northwest High School Under Wraps

What's up with websites that refuse to tell you the venue's geographical location?

I found this photo labeled Northwest High School, and wanted to find out what town it was in, so I could research small town beefcake.

The school athletics website listed boys' sports (football, basketball, golf, wrestling, and something called MX).

 Activities like band, choir, debate, and drama (oddly, they had pages for coaches, schedules, varsity lineup, asif they were sports teams, too).

And the various summer camps (football, wrestling, swimming, volleyball).  But nothing indicating where Northwest is.  How are you supposed to get there to see the games?







There are Northwest High Schools in California, Georgia, Illinois, Indiana, Louisiana, Maryland, Nebraska, Ohio,  Texas, Virginia, and probably other states.  This one is from Georgia.

No way I'm looking through them all.

The high school website had an Academic Services Directory, with information on foster care and homelessness, gifted education, GED classes, title programs, tutoring programs, and Missouri Options (for kids who are at risk of dropping out).

Aha!  We're in Missouri! That narrows it down a bit.

The Community page lists partners in the community, including the Fenton Chamber of Commerce.

Ok, searching on Google Maps for high schools near Fenton, Missouri, I managed to find Northwest High School.  It's a long, low, dismal looking building 15 miles from Fenton, in an unincorporated area.  The nearest town is Cedar Hill, two miles away, a blip on the map, nothing there but the Big River Pizza Company, an Italian restaurant, a grocery store, and a Seventh-Day Adventist Church.

No wonder they emphasize indoor sports.  Who wants to go outside into the nothingness?

The High School is just off Highway 30, on a fork between Cedar Hill Road and  Local Hillsboro Road,   There's a Subway across the street, and a gas station and a bank to the west.

If you go north/east on Highway 30, you will go through House Springs, High Ridge, Parksville, Murphy, Fenton, Sunset Hills, and finally reach St. Louis, 35 miles away.

 If you go south/west  you will go through Cedar Hill, Dittmer, Grubville, Parkway, St. Clair, and eventually Jefferson City, 100 miles away.

Sorry for the meticulous detail, but I still don't understand why none of the high school websites lists an address, or even a city and state.

Maybe they don't want anyone to watch their athletes in action.

Charlie Gillespie: Gay Characters? Gay in Real Life? Beefcake? Or Not

I'm not going to let the 2nd Generation debacle dissuade me from researching Charlie Gillespie.  His Superman-cape photo was mega-hot, and I'm pretty sure his character was gay or gay-coded.

Any other beefcake photos?
Any other gay roles?
Gay in real life?

Unfortunately, I couldn't find any biography at all, not even a single line, and every time I search for a shirtless photo, Google Images tries to push a photo of someone else.  Like Austin Mahone.

Charles Melton of Riverdale

Or someone named Gronkowski who I've never heard of.

Social media has proven fruitless.  There are over 100 Charlie Gillespie profiles on Facebook, most elderly, some women,  over 20 Charlie Gillespie instagram pages, and over 15 Charlie Gillespie twitter accounts.  You'd think that the guy with 7,500 followers would be the right one,but no, that's an airplane pilot.

Do you think this might be him? It's a frame capture from a video uploaded to one of the Charlie Gillespie instagram pages.

How about this guy, sticking his tongue out at a girl? (Obviously his girlfriend: they appear arm-in-arm, hugging, or groping each other n 3,543 other photos on the page.)

Well, at least I can go through his film credits, to see if there are any gay roles.

1. Charlie played himself in the documentary Bienvenue chez nous - La gang à Richibouctou Village (2014), about a New Brunswick village (where they speak English) welcoming a film crew.

2. The film is La gang des hors-la-loi (The Outlaw League, 2014), a sort of French Canadian Bad News Bears, where the kids have names like Shogun, Charlemagne, and Pic-pic.

3. In 2015, Charlie appeared as a guest host on Galala, "un concours télévisé de jeunes talents qui s'adresse aux 5 à 15 ans."   They sought out local talent in a different city each week: Edmonton, Saskatoon, St. Boniface, Halifax.  Charlie's town was Dieppe, New Brunswick.

I don't understand why a French-language tv program is auditioning talent in English speaking towns.

4. Fast forward two years to July 2017.  Charlie has a two-episode story arc on Degrassi: Next Class, a teen soap about students in a fictional Toronto high school.   He plays Oliver, hospital roommate of gay kid Tristan (Lyle Lettau).  But Oliver is straight.

Only two years ago, and Charlie looks a little chunky.  That might explain the lack of beefcake photos.

5. Another guest shot, on a November 2017 episode of The Next Step, about a teen dance troup in Toronto.  Charlie plays Marcus, a member of the math team who becomes captain when Zara leaves.

6. Next comes the 6 horrible episodes of 2nd Generation (2018), which required long hair for the androgynous effect. I think his character is gay-coded,but I can't be sure; that would require watching the tv series.

7. Speed Kills (2018) starred John Travolta as an aging speedboat racer (based on real-life speedboat champion Don Aronoff).   Charlie played his son, Andrew.  Since Travolta is 65 years old, his son must be in his 30s.

8.  A two-episode story in October 2018 on the new Charmed: he plays a college student who is dating Maggie until she dumps him.  When he's possessed by a demon, she saves him, but they still don't get back together.  There's a lot of kissing going on.

9. In January 2019, he appeared in the 6-episode miniseries I Am the Night, something about the Black Dahlia murder case in modern L.A.  Charlie appears only in the pilot as "Surfer Hank."  You can probably figure out what he's doing.

I'm sorry I started this research.  Not many beefcake photos, not gay in real life (if the tongue-wagger is the right Charlie), only one gay-coded role.

And I had such high hopes. The 2nd Generation  bait-and-switch strikes again.


See also: 2nd Generation: the Worst TV Series I Have Ever Seen

Duke Van Patten's Beefcake and Romance Photos

Duke Van Patten (the one on the left) was recommended to me as a Facebook friend because we have one "mutual friend," Christopher Atkins.

Could he be related to the famous Van Patten brood of 1970s hunks?

Maybe, but before I click on "Yes! Add me!" I always check to see if the prospect is gay.

I've never met a gay guy named Duke, but that's probably not his fault.

He's an actor living in New York.  Otherwise his "likes" are empty: no music, no tv shows, no sports, friends other than Christopher invisible.

Not much to go on.

A lot of photos of Duke with guys.  This one may be joke.  He comments "I love snapchat captions."

But not this one under the Christmas tree.

Or this one.  They're engaging in the macho sport of fishing, but look -- seven guys, no girls.  My kind of vacation!

There are about a thousand pictures posted of Duke in a boy-boy pair.  Or in this case, a trio.

But what am I to make of this meme? Granted, there's a nice chest and biceps, and the girl is far in the background, but she's still a girl.

Ok, time to check Duke's other social media.

Instagram: 2 pictures of Duke in a group that includes girls, and 85,000 of Duke with guys, including this take on the "On top of the world!" scene from Titanic.  Comment; "10% of our brains?  I think we use only 10% of our hearts."

Twitter: He watches a lot of movies, he saw Angels in America in London, his dream dinner guest is Aslan, and he states "I'm glad I'm not a 12-year old girl anymore."











One more place to check.  If he's an actor, maybe he's on IMDB.

Hey, he's the son of Vince Van Patten, the 1970s movie hunk and tennis player, part of a whole show biz dynasty.

Five on-screen credits: two walk-ons, The Adventures of Velvet Prozac (sounds campy), The Guest House (about a guy with a gay stalker), and The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills (playing himself)

I'm convinced.  Sign me up.  I don't have any friends left in New York -- maybe he'll invite me for a visit. 

I could tell him my Vince Van Patten hookup story.

See also: The Van Patten Brothers.

A Frustrating 3:00 am Search for a Blond Swimmer

I get up at 3:00 am and start searching for beefcake photos to accompany a story about Western Illinois University in Macomb.

1. I am drawn to this extremely handsome, apparently buffed blond in a blue suit, who appears in a search for "Macomb swim team."

The site says: Macomb County Division 1 all-star sw, and swm dakota Colo all county.

Macomb, Illinois is in McDonough County.  Who knew there was another one?  But the guy is cute, and swm sounds like a personal ad (Straight White Male), so I click on the original article.

2. My screen freezes.

3.  dakota Colo sounds like a place name.

No, there's a Dakota Ridge, Colorado, about 15 miles south of Denver.   Dakota Ridge High has boys' and girls' swim teams, but a search reveals only photos of girls.

Here are some wrestlers carrying a slingshot and a sword, with the byline "Valor defeats Foothills."

So I imagine they're especially courageous?

4. Maybe dakota Colo is someone's name?

All I get is the Air Force Academy's swimming/diving schedule.  One of their opponent is North Dakota/Colorado.

The Air Force Academy Swim and Dive Team's Facebook page contains 2,344 photos of the swimmers fully clothed and 1 photo of them in swimsuits.

5.  Back to the other clue about the mysterious dakota Colo: Macomb County.  Maybe I can do a search on local high schools?

It's on the shore of Lake St. Clair, just north of Detroit.  The main town is St. Clair Shores, population 60,000 with 15 high schools!  Who needs so many high schools?  In Rock Island, population 50,000, we had one.

No way I can search all of them for someone named dakota Colo.

6. How about a search on Macomb County Division 1 All Star SWM?

That yields another article.  It's clogged with "Care about your community? (Yes/No)", "Subscribe to Our Newsletter?", a video about a golfer, and various ads for cars, "Single Women Want to Have Sex with You", photo storage clouds, and Macomb Community College.  But eventually it loads.  It's just a list of 50 names of various swimmers from Macomb County.

Wait -- I found a  Ricky Colo, Dakota.  (Name changed to preserve the athlete's privacy.)

7. There are two Dakota High Schools in Macomb County, in Algonac and Macomb.  Either one could yield the elusive Ricky Colo

A search for the swim team of Dakota High in Macomb, MI yields the swim team of Duncan High in Duncan, Oklahoma, about 90 miles south of Oklahoma City.  Four skinny guys standing on a "Second Place" platform.

8. 1 found a photo of the actual Dakota High, Macomb County, Michigan swim team.  It says 1800x800, but when I download it, it turns out to be a 100x100 thumbnail.

I don't care anymore.  I'm so frustrated that I take a screenshot, crop it, and blow it up to double size.  Does any of them look like Ricky Colo?










8.  I look up Ricky Colo on Facebook.  There are three.  The first attended Kittaning Senior High in Kittaning, Pennsylvania, which closed in 2015, and now works as a sales rep for a food company.  Obviously not the right one.


The second is actually the same guy with a different account, concentrating on his years in the army.  It says "I'm orange on Saturdays and a Falcon on Sundays."

This is actually a photo of his friend.  Ricky himself has posted no beefcake photos.

The third profile is empty.

9.  Wow, I found Ricky Colo's twitter account! The right one -- a swimmer from Michigan, graduated in 2019, planning to join his college swim team in the fall.

No beefcake on his twitter feed, but here's a fully clothed photo.

Wait -- straight dark hair.  dakota Colo has blond hair.










10. Back to the original article.  This time it loads -- slowly.  No, I don't care about my community.  No, I don't want to subscribe to the newsletter.  No, I don't want to meet Russian women who want to have sex with me.

The original image was mis-labeled.   The blond guy is actually Aiden B. from Lakeview!


11, There are three Lakeview Highs in Michigan, but no doubt he's from the Lakeview in St. Clair Shores, Macomb County.

Searching for "Lakeview High" "St. Clair Shores" "Swim team"  yields a photo of the Linganore Lancers swim team in Frederick, Maryland, 500 miles from St. Clair Shores.

The team consists of 387 girls and one boy.

12.  There are two Aiden B. profiles on Facebook.  Both empty.

It's 5:00 am, and I'm tired.  Here's a photo of a shirtless blond guy.  Close enough.

The Mysterious Time Traveling Wrestler from Thunder Bay

Sometimes our ability to use the internet to find out almost everything about almost anybody leads down some curious rabbit holes. 

The person in the middle is striking, too tiny to be real.  He doesn't have the right proportions to be a dwarf or a child, yet he must be about 4 feet tall. I figure the photo must be a photoshop trick or some deliberately staged optical illusion.

It's from a 2013 newspaper article, "Thunder Bay Wrestlers Gold Medal Winners," which they received at the Canada Summer Games.  No evidence of photoshopping or deliberate staging: the middle person is just very tiny.  His name is Marco, and he volunteers as a coach and referee in youth wrestling tournaments.

Coaches and referees are always adults, so he's not a child or a high school student.  He must be over 18.

This is the beginning of a mysterious journey through conflicting, constantly shifting ages.

1.  Marco is 24-26.  The Canada Games, held every two years, are like a national Olympics, with 1700 amateurs representing their province in athletics, baseball, basketball, diving, wrestling, and so on.  You have to be ages 13-20, so Marco was 18-20 in 2013.

2. Marco is 17-20.  There aren't many Marcos from Thunder Bay, Ontario, so it was easy to find his Facebook page.  Lots of beefcake photos, but no specific age information.

A post from 2018 does state that he got a silver medal at the Junior Pan-American Championships in Fortaleza, Brazil.

The Junior Pan-American Championships, sponsored by United World Wrestling, are held every two years.  They are for athletes 16-19 years old.

So 17-20, or 24-26?  Which is it?

3. Marco is 20-21.  This post from May 2016 shows him at Prom with someone named Nikolas, who is now studying for his nursing degree.

Wait -- is Marco gay?

I don't know, but this isn't his prom date.  St. Patrick, a Catholic high school in Thunder Bay, would never allow same-sex dates at senior prom.  Nikolas must be just a bud.  But anybody who goes to senior prom in 2016 has to be 20-21 now.

20-21, 17-20, 24-26.  Curioser and curioser.

4. Marco is 22-24.  He must have graduated earlier, and went to someone else's senior prom.  Here is a photo of Marco from 2017, a year later, as a member of the wrestling team at Lakeland University, a public research university with 8,000 students.  He's in his third year, studying business commerce, hoping to become an entrepreneur.

A junior in college in 2017, but 16-19 in 2018?  Something does not add up.

5. Marco is 20-21.  In 2015, he initiates a  "Go Fund Me" that raises $3,777 to send Team Canada to a European competition.  He states that he's 16 years old and has been wrestling for the Lakehead Wrestling Club for 5 years.

So he coached youth wrestling as a child, played at the Canada Games in 2013 at age 13 (thus explaining why he's so tiny surrounded by adults), graduated from high school in 2016 at age 17, spend through college to be in his third year by 2017, and competed in the Junior Pan Am games in 2018 at age 19.

That's quite a career.  Still a few unexplained questions.  How did he rush through college so fast?  What was he doing as a coach at age 13?  And what's with the hat?

Beefcake in the Brackish Pools of Santa Rosa de Cabal

A friend from Colombia sent me this photo.  At first I thought that this was a photo of a disabled guy with no legs.

But other photos show him with legs and other beneath-the-belt parts.

Upon closer examination, I realized that he is standing in brackish, disgusting, lime-green water, so dark that his legs are obscured.

Here he is in bed, no doubt recovering from the toxic chemicals he absorbed while being dunked in green goop.















The caption says "In Santa Rosa de Cabal," no doubt the site of the green goop.

I had to find out what this town was all about.

It's in western Colombia, about 300 km from Bogota (but the route is so mountainous that driving takes 7 hours), known for its termales, hot springs with pools of brackish green water.

So, like a hot tub with algae.

If you want something more cultural and less...um...smelly, there's the Basilica of Our Lady of Victories, the Sanctuary of the Miraculous Medal, and the Monument to the Machete.

I'm not kidding.

No gay bars or bathhouses, but I suppose that the pools of brackish slime-green water offer many opportunities for physique-watching, cruising, and invitations back to hotel rooms.

And some of the men even have legs.

Even More TikTok Stars

Ok, I went out to dinner, saw a performance of The Two Gentlemen of Verona, and got a good night's sleep.  I'm ready to tackle more of the endless list of TikTok Stars, teenagers who are famous for lifting their shirts while sticking their tongues out or giving themselves puppy dog snouts.

1. Blake Gray, born 2001 (American). I don't know which, but I imagine the one without the physique.

2. Joseph Birlem, born 2002 (American).  I think you start out with the puppy dog snout, and then graduate to the shirt-raising and tongue-sticking-out.

3.  Duhitzmark (Mark Thomas), born 2001 (American).  His shirt lift was so aggressive that it resulted in a "nip slip."

4. Jovani Jara, born 1999 (American).  You don't mind if I include some of their other photos?  Endless shirt-lifting tongue-out and puppy dog snouts become annoying.

5.  I forgot a marked preference for big hair, usually in a gigantic frontal wave.

Jackson Felt, born 2003 (American).

6. Elmo O'Dwyer, born 2000 (British).  You forgot the tongue action, dude.

7. Nick Pallauf, born 1994 (American).  The oldest of the lot, and the most buffed.  He did a shirt-lift but no puppy dog snout.

8. Theo Harraldson, born 2005 (Swedish).  The youngest of the TikTop stars, only 14. Notice the hair by Frank Lloyd Wright.

"Nu ska jag bada" = "Now I'm going to swim."

That explains the swimsuit pics.

9.Vitallyboo, born 2002 (American).  Forgot the shirt lift, but he certainly has the big hair.

Seriously, what's with sticking your tongue out?  In some cultures, it's an act of aggression.  Is it supposed to be sexy?

10. Woody Mabbott, born 2002 (British).

Oh, no.  I thought I had paged through to the end of the 100+ stars.  But there was a click button: "See more stars."

How many guys born between 1999 and 2002 can there possibly be who have big hair and look good with their shirt lifted and their tongue out?

Oh, well.

11. Chase Keith, born 2002 (American)

Remember when there were at most six teen idols?  And everyone bought their records and watched them on tv?  And none of them ever stuck out their tongues while lifting their shirts?

Sigh.


12. Robbie Burlow, born 2001 (American).

13. Zephan Clark, born 2000 (American).  Big pink hair, nice touch.


















14. Raegan Beast, born 1999 (American).


I could go on, but I have other things to do today.