Tristan Strong Punches a Hole in the Sky

Teen Tristan Strong's father and grandfather were famous boxers who want him to follow the family tradition -- he has the physique for it --but he would really rather do nerd things with his best friend Edward.  They make up stories, which Edward records in a journal.

You've got my attention.  

When Edward dies,Tristan is so distraught that he starts to hallucinate, seeing a green light glowing from the journal.  No one else can see it. His parents send him to Grandpa's farm in Alabama, hoping that a change of scenery will help.

Definite gay subtext!  I'm listening.

On his first night on the farm, a strange doll-like being, the Gum Baby, appears in his room and steals the journal.  Tristan pursues her to a Bottle Tree, and accidentally punches one of the bottles, opening up a hole in the sky.  They fall through into a scalding-hot ocean, pursued by ships made of human bones.  They are rescued by Ayanna, a girl-warrior...

Uh-oh.  The Girl!  I'll just skip ahead to the last chapter to see if they fall in lo--ooo---ove.  

All clear.  Tristan is talking to the Gum Baby and someone named High John (High John the Conquerer Root from African-American voodoo?)

Ayana is piloting a boatload of survivors from a disaster of some sort, including humans and talking animals. Like Brer Fox....

What the heck is going on? 

Tristan is trapped in the Midpass, a world populated by figures from African-American folklore. Such as the old trickster god Brer Rabbit.  And John Henry, the super-muscular 19th century railroader with the powerful...um...hammer.  

His story actually involves convict leasing (African-American men were arrested for the crime of being black and put to work on railroads and in coal mines, basically slavery by another name).

Whoa, heavy.  African-American folklore was born in adversity.  

When Tristan meets John Henry, he has to stop himself from asking to touch  his..um hammer.  

Nudge, nudge, wink, wink.  Is this kid canonically gay?

That would be telling.  It's a nonstop race, with things trying to kill or eat them every moment, to the Warren, a temporary haven against the darkness that threatens to encroach all of the land.  There a council consisting of Brer Rabbit, John Henry, and a lesbian couple from the folktale "The People Could Fly" discuss the Book (which has been lost) and discover that Tristan is...guess what...the Chosen One.  

Tristan has to be the Chosen One, or else he couldn't participate in the adventure. The adults would just say "Wait here where it's safe."

He has to travel to the other side of the world to convince Anansi the Spider to come out of hiding and repair the hole in the sky. But there are complications.  

Of course.  Otherwise be lousy story.

When he meets High John the Conqueror, the ultimate Power, Tristan finds him him obnoxious, irreverent, and arrogant.

Whoa.  Now I know Tristan is canonically gay!  I'll check out the author, Kwami Mbalia.

Ok, but that's another story: he's  "a husband, father, writer, New York Times bestselling author, and pharmaceutical metrologist, in that order."  He grew up in the Midwest, graduated from Howard University, and now lives in North Carolina. This is his debut novel.

Nothing jumps out at me saying "I'm going to make the protagonist of my young adult novel gay."  But you never know....

The Great Cock of the Darking Wood, and Other Hunks from "The Magicians"

Back in 2015, I watched half of the first episode of The Magicians, now in its fourth season on Netflix.  Quentin and his childhood friend Julia are invited to apply to Brakebills University, a secret magical academy that's not Hogwarts. 

Quentin is admitted.  He meets various eccentric classmates and teachers, plus he discovers that the fantasy world from his favorite childhood novels, not The Chronicles of Narnia, is real.

Meanwhile Julia fails the exam.  Failed applicants get their memories erased, but in her case the erasure doesn't work (for Reasons)  so she starts learning magic on the downlow in a dream world.  Plus she wants to find out why her brother died at Brakebill five years ago. 

That was enough.  I just didn't have the patience for yet another mythology-heavy, secret-agenda-filled series.  Besides, it was way too heterosexist, with men and women constantly glimmering at each other.

Four seasons later, The Magicians has become as complex as Lost meets Buffy the Vampire Slayer, with endless secret agendas, people who are not what they seem, parallel worlds, poltergeists, dragons, and maguffin piled onto maguffin.  Just listen to this plot synopsis from Season 3:

Elliot and Fen, along with their now-grown child Fray (who is secretly a spy for the Fairy Queen) try to retrieve the First Key from a priest on Alter Island.  Meanwhile Quentin realizes that Emily has the last of Mayakovsky's batteries, but Kady steals it before he can get to it.  Then the Lamprey posseses him.

Whatever happened to The Golden Girls?  Season 3, Episode 5: The girls have to fly to the Bahamas for a funeral, but Rose is afraid of delivering the eulogy, Dorothy is afraid of flying, and Blanche is afraid of bald men.

But if you want to stick with it, The Magicians has been acclaimed as "the queerest show on tv."  Most of the main cast has been revealed as bisexual -- starting in the second season, after the homophobes get invested.  There are same-sex liasions and relationships. 

Personally, I don't have the time for it.  I'll make do with a list of Top 10 Hunks.

1, Hale Appleman (top photo) as Elliot, the world-weary, well-seasoned, hookup-happy upperclassman.  Later he becomes the Monster at the End of the World.

2. Jason Ralph (second photo) as Quentin, the newby who has an unrequited crush on Julia but also falls in love with Alice and Elliott.  Later he becomes The Beast.

3. Arjun Gupta (third photo) as Penny, an upperclassman who becomes Quentin's rival/best bud and later Librarian of the Neithrlands (don't ask).

4. Adam DiMarco (left) as Todd, a miscellaneous student at Brakebills.

5. Arlen Escarpeta as Prince Ess of Loria.

6. Mackenzie Astin as Corrigan, a member of a free trade alliance who is taken over by Reynard the Fox, a trickster god who is searching for his mother, the Greek goddess Persephone. Huh?

7. Jesse Lukan as a miscellaneous hunk who shares Elliot's bed.  Aren't you glad he's not the Mercurian Azaroth who is taken over by Seth the Unyielder?

8. Charles Mesure as Martin Chatwick, one of the kids from the not-Narnia books who became High King of Fillory, then turned evil and started breaking through to Earth in order to cause havoc.

9. Markian Tarasiuk as Prince Micah in the episode where Quentin and Elliot go to a parallel world and grow old together, or else see each other in a parallel world, or else...

10.  Darien Martin as Lunk.  I just like the name "Lunk." 

The cast also includes characters named Tick Pickwick, Bender (not that Bender), Our Lady Underground, the Stone Queen, Santa Claus, Bacchus, Fairy Ambassador, and:

The Great Cock of the Darkling Wood.

That's who I want to invite to my Christmas party.

Why I Walked Out on Tony Danza

October 10th, 1978, a Tuesday night.  I'm 17 years old, a freshman at Augustana College, studying in the tv lounge at the student union.  It's crowded with jocks and their girlfriends, Dungeons and Dragons nerds, future Lutheran preachers, and ironic-artsy types. Tuesday is the power night of must-see tv: Happy Days, Laverne and Shirley, Three's Company, Taxi.

I figured "it" out last summer, but I haven't met any gay people yet, and I know nothing about gay life.  Except one thing: no straights must ever know.  At best they will never speak to you again.  More likely they will attack. You will be kicked out of the house, expelled from the college, arrested.

So watching tv in a group presents a problem.  You have to feign disinterest in the hot male actors and pretend to find the "hot chicks" attractive.  If you make a mistake, and accidentally express an interest in an "uggo," it will all be over.

And what about the occasional gay characters? If you seem too interested, act as if you want to hear about "fags," the straights will suspect.  But they wil also suspect if you bellow with outrage ("Why do you care so much? Are you that way?)

You have to express just the right level of disgust: "I don't care what they do in the bedroom, as long as they don't try anything with me."

Happy Days: "Happy days" in the 1950s.  Fonzie, motorcycle hoodlum turned role model, bonds with his ex-girlfriend's son, whose father abandoned him.  No references to gay people, no hot guys, a few murmurs about the hotness of the ex-girlfriend, no big deal.

Laverne and Shirley: More "happy days," with two working girls in 1950s Milwaukee.  Neither is presented as particularly attractive.  They go on a quiz show.   No big deal.

Three's Company:  Jack Tripper (John Ritter) pretends to be gay so the uptight landlord will let him share an apartment with two girls.  Usually not a problem: no actual gay people appear, and when Jack has to "be gay," he swishes and limp-wrists to elicit laughter rather than outrage.   He doesn't even swish in this episode: the gang mistakenly believes that Helen is cheating on her husband.

Taxi:  About a disparate group of drivers for the Sunshine Cab Company in NewYork.  This is only the fifth episode, but it's already a major hit.

Not a problem, except for trying not to sigh over the rock-hard hunkiness of Tony Danza.  This episode centers on Elaine (Marilu Henner), an aspiring artist who doesn't want her snooty friends to know that she drives a cab.

Then....

Elaine's fare (William Bogert) believes that she is deliberately driving the "scenic route," and refuses to pay.  She threatens to claim that he tried to rape her.  He says: "You may have a little trouble getting that story to stick when the police find out I'm the National Secretary for the Gay Liberation Force."

I blink in surprise.  Is there such an organization (no, there wasn't)?  Do gay people have groups, clubs, national organizations?  I thought it was just clandestine bars. 

Suddenly I realize that everyone is laughing. 

Should I laugh, too? Should I make a comment about how New York is full of fairies?  What if he turns out to be a major character in the episode, the owner of the art gallery or something? What if he turns out to be a recurring character in the series?

Should I stay or should I go?

I go.

See also: Taxi

Philip McKeon after Alice

Philip McKeon was one of the biggest teen stars of the 1970s, mostly for his role as Tommy Hyatt, son of single mom Alice Hyatt (Linda Lavin) on Alice (1976-85), and also because he was the brother of Nancy McKeon, the tomboy Jo on The Facts of Life (1979-88).   But he had a respectable career in buddy-bonding and gay-vague roles, without Linda and Nancy around.

Born in 1964, the tall, grinning blond got his start as a child model at age 4, and soon moved on to television commercials and theater.  Linda Lavin saw him in Jason and Medea, a retelling of the Greek myth, and recommended him for Tommy.

While working on Alice, Phil did the usual Love Boat/ Fantasy Island guest shots, plus Leadfoot (1982), a cautionary tale about a teen who drives too fast, thus jeopardizing his life and that of his best friend Murph (played by fellow teen star Peter Barton).

In an episode of Amazing Stories (1986), Phil plays a World War II solder who is saved, along with other members of his platoon, by the outcast Arnold (Larry Spinack), who may have been a ghost. There's some glimmers of buddy bonding.

In Red Surf (1989), a drug dealer named True Blue (Phil) is busted by the police, talks too much, and draws the ire of crime boss Calavera (Rick Najera).  So his two buddies, Atilla (Doug Savant) and Remar (George Clooney) must rush to the rescue.

He also starred in a few horror movies before moving into direction (Edge of Nowhere, The Young Unknowns) and production, including Where the Day Takes You (with David Arquette as a bisexual prostitute), Teresa's Tattoo (with a full contingent of 1980s hunks, including Matt Adler, C. Thomas Howell, and Lou Diamond Philips),  Murder in the First, and The Jacket. 

Both Phil and Nancy McKeon were the subject of gay rumors, but they never made any public statements.

Phil McKeon died on December 10th, 2019, after a long illness

See also: Pedro hooks up with Philip McKeon

Mid-City Modern, Episode 1.6: "Golden Girls" with gay guys, Bomer's butt, a Hunk's cock, and McKeon's hookup