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.

"The Almighty Johnsons": Norse Gods Kissing Girls in New Zealand

On the eve of his 21st birthday,  Auckland boy Axl Johnson (Emmett Skilton) and his mates are out buying beer, when they stop to watch a meteor shower.  Suddenly a car almost runs him over.  A lady emerges to "apologize" (the viewer sees that it was intentional).  Instead of yelling "You stupid bitch, watch where you're going!", Axl flirts with her and invites her to his party.

Next scene: Axl's older brother Mike (Tim Balme) and his wife emerge from their house to look at the meteor shower.  They discuss lovey stuff and hug and kiss.  

Two establishing-that-they-are-heterosexual scenes in a row? 

But...The Almighty Johnsons, on Amazon Prime, got good reviews.  A mythological-fantasy-comedy, an amiable take on the old "supernatural beings living among us" trope.  It's set in New Zealand, which automatically makes it interesting.  And the tiniest of googles of the cast members reveals countless beefcake photos.  I'll keep going.

Next scene: Axl's quiet, shy brother Ty (Jared Turner)  is being rejected by a girl, who wants to be "just friends."  

Ok, I get it.  He's not gay, either.  Geez, do you have to shove it down my throat?

Next scene: Axl's final brother Anders (Dean O'Gorman) is kissing a girl.

Really?  Four of them?  Is this heterosexual porn?  Five seconds of Norse gods stuff, ten minutes of sex?

Apparently so.  The next three scenes:

1. Axl is having sex with the woman from the car accident, when they are interrrupted by an earthquake.

2.Mike is having sex with his wife, same thing.

3. Anders is having sex with the girl, same thing.  The girl jumps up from the bed.  Naked girl butt.

Lord have mercy!  I'm outta here!

If you have the stomach to continue, you'll find Axl's improbably buffed grandpa having sex with a girl (of course!), then tearing himself away long enough to tell Axl that he is the reincarnation of the Norse god Odin.  

All of his family, and a good number of his mates, are also reincarnated Norse gods, but Axl is the Chosen One: he is destined to find the reincarnation of Frigg, his wife back in Asgard, and thus restore the gods to power.

That's right, it gets even worse: the goal of the quest, the theme of everyone's dreaming, is the Everlasting Feminine.

There are apparently some gay and bi characters, such as Bryn (John Leigh), an exceptionally short giant, and Jacob (Arthur Meek), an exceptionally tall dwarf, the adopted parents of Axl's flatmate/girlfriend Gaia.  Or maybe they're just pretending to be gay to fit in.  The plot synopsis is confusing.

And Zeb (Hayden Frost), Axl's other flatmate, a mortal who isn't aware of the Big Secret.  Or at least he dates girls only when under a spell.

Again, the plot synopsis is confusing.  And I'm definitely not sticking around to find out.

The Top 3 Hunks of "Star Trek: Voyager"

I'm being forced to watch Star Trek: Voyager (1995-2001):  the aptly-named starship goes off in search of Maquis rebels, when both are zapped to the other side of the galaxy, 70,000 light years from home.  The crews are quickly integrated, and they sent out on the 40 year long journey back.  En route, they encounter various species that are depressingly identical to us.  Some of the murder-mystery episodes  could be sent in modern day Los Angeles with almost no changes in dialogue.

No gay characters or references to same-sex desire, or even many gay subtext.  When fans suggested one, the actors vehemently denied it.  I still remember a TV Guide article in which Jeri Ryan, who played the ex-cyborg Seven of Nine being humanized by Captain Janeway (Kate Mulgrew), yelled that "Middle America" wasn't ready for gay characters.  This some 20 years after a gay character starred on Soap.

Heterosexist "when a man and a woman fall in love" rhetoric occurs with depressing regularity, and one of the male characters is an annoying horndog who actually dates twins, "The Delany Sisters."  Remember when Fonzie used to date the Del Rubio Triplets?

Well, what about beefcake?  One of their favorite hangouts is a Caribbean resort holodeck program, where the speedo-clad men are hidden in the background, behind the bikini babes.  And the main cast:

1. Robert Beltran (top photo, although he looks more buffed in his Starfleet uniform) as Chakotay, one of the Maquis rebels who becomes second in command on Voyager.  A Native American, he is always talking about ancestral wisdom and going on vision quests.  He's got a thing for Captain Janeway.

2. Robert Duncan McNeill (second photo) as Tom Paris, a young pilot who was sprung from a New Zealand prison to serve on Voyager (I'm not sure what his crime was).  When he's not piloting, he's having sex. He states that he fought to get a gay-themed episode, and when he directed an episode, he hired gay actor Scott Thompson, but was forbidden from making the character gay.

3. Tim Russ (left) as Tuvok, Star Trek's first black Vulcan character, who is always talking about his wife and kids back home, and getting hit on by alien babes ("I've never met anyone like you before.  So...logical.").''

That's all the shirtless photos I could find.  But the 1990s was before Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and selfies, so we can't expect a lot.

Here's the rest of the main cast.  See if you think any of them are cute:

4. Garrett Wang as Harry Kim, an ensign just starting his first job when he's zapped across the galaxy.  Tom Paris big-brothers him and tries to get him laid.  This might suggest a gay subtext, but they're too girl-crazy.

In 1993, Wang played a gay Chinese teenager who shoots his lover in the stage play Porcelain: he notes that playing a gay character "was controversial" at the time.

5. Ethan Phillips under a ton of makeup as Neelix, the ship's morale officer, cook, and comic relief.

6. Robert Picardo (older, chunkier, and balder) as an emergency medical hologram who has to transcend his programming to become the ship's full time doctor.  He also learns about human relationships and hooks up with any number of hologram and alien babes (apparently male holograms have penises).

7.  Manu Intiraymi as Icheb, a Borg  boy adopted by the Voyager crew later in the series.  He hangs out with the son of the omnipotent alien Q, and in a 2015 interview states that it would have been cool to have a gay romance blossom.  But gay teenagers?  In 2000?  No way!

8. Alexander Enberg as Ensign Vorick, a Vulcan crewman who appears in 9 episodes, mostly to get a crush on chief engineer B'Elanna Torres.  Who knew that Vulcans got crushes?

Enberg, who ranks at 51,510 on the website Man Crush Monday, played a gay character in the stage play Big Love (no connection to the tv series).





9.  We're getting down to the 3-, 2-, and 1-episode appearances now, with characters named German S. S. Officer and Leonardo Da Vinci, and lots of aliens with k in their names: Brok'Tan, Donik, Korok,  Kejal, Kelis, Rettik.  Does K make someone sound alien?

I've been working on this for 1 1/2 hours, and it's time for breakfast.  So let's finish up with singer and voice artist Hamilton Camp, who played a Ferengi.  I'd date him.

Dave Draper Doesn't Get the Girl

Dave Draper, "The Blond Bomber," was the go-to guy for movie bodybuilders during the 1960s, when most of the bulkers had moved to Italy to do sword-and-sandal flicks.

He never appeared in the gay-vague Physique Pictorial or similar physique magazines; in fact, some of his magazine covers are rather heterosexist, sandwiching him between two women, who are lusting after his biceps.  Inside, however, we see some homoerotic subtexts, as when fellow bodybuilder William Smith gazes at Dave's biceps.

After a minor role as a guy who takes his shirt off in Who's Been Sleeping in My Bed (1963), he capitalized on the sword-and-sandal crazy anyway, showing old Steve Reeve movies as Dave the Gladiator on local L.A. TV (1964-65).

In 1966 he landed a starring role in Lord Love a Duck, a comedy about a gay-vague Mephistophiles, Alan Musgrave (gay actor Roddy McDowall), who concocts wild schemes, including murder, to grant the wishes of his friend Barbara (Tuesday Weld).  Dave was one of her wishes, but not the man she married. Alan is supposed to find him intimidating, but instead approaches him with barely-restrained eye-bulging desire.

After more minor roles as guys who take their shirts off and scare people in Three on a Couch and Walk Don't Run, Dave starred in Don't Make Waves (1967), about New Yorker Carlo Cofield (Tony Curtis), who moves to Southern California to "Turn on!  Stay loose!  Make out!"  and romance a skydiving model named Malibu (Sharon Tate).  Dave played her boyfriend, Harry Holland, who also befriends Carlo.  There's a significant gay subtext, as in most of Tony Curtis's movies.

In 1967, Dave appeared as musclemen on episodes of The Monkees and The Beverly Hillbillies.  No significant gay subtexts, though it is interesting to watch the lesbian actress Nancy Kulp pretend that she is swooning over his physique.

Disillusioned at always been cast as bullies, objects of derision, and guys who don't get the girl, as if the bodybuilder was somehow inadequately masculine, Dave retired from acting to concentrate on bodybuilding and writing, and on managing World's Gym in Santa Cruz.  His personal website features many interesting articles on the history of bodybuilding, but doesn't mention gay people.