Robert Silverberg: Buddy-bonding adventures in outer space shift to "Girls! Girls! Girls!, ruining my childhood.

During the 1960s and 1970s, space exploration was everywhere, on the news, in the toys we unwrapped under the Christmas tree, in our favorite tv shows, and in our before-bed reading.  Robert Silverberg was one of the deans of  juvenile science fiction, presenting us with novel after novel about teenage boys caught up in outlandish outer-space adventures, with intense buddy bonds and girls barely mentioned.  Good beyond hope. 

I read them long after the publication date, and not in chronological order:

The Lost Race of Mars (1960), from my junior high library: a brother and sister living in a colony on Mars get lost, and are rescued by the Older Martians hiding in caves (because they know what happens to the aboriginal population when colonists arrive?) 

Revolt on Alpha C (1955) came from Scholastic Book Club, catalogs that were passed out in class several times a years: you ordered up to five books, and they arrived a few weeks later (my parents disapproved of reading, so I claimed that they were all "for school"): On a colony on a planet orbiting Alpha Centauri, 20-year old Larry rejects his father's plans for his life and rebels against the Establishment. Groovy, man!   The cover art, a boy floating through space upside down, was reminiscent of Will Robinson in the opening credits of Lost in Space.

Left: the modern Will Robinson and his boyfriend

Starman's Quest (1958): Twin brothers buddy-bond in space.  The version I checked out of the Rock Island Public Library was generic, line-drawings of the two boys in space suits, with no Martian beefcake statue or muscle-suits.

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Michael Sayfou: Ethiopian-American model/theater major with a cat, a physique, and a lot of queer codes. Plus some Ethiopian d*cks

Link to Michael and the Ethiopian d*cks

Michael Sayfou played Ash, one of Pontius' skateboarding friends, on two episodes of The Righteous Gemstones.  I don't think he had any lines, but Gideon Gemstone called him by name and hugged him, and he was standing directly behind  Gideon's brother Abraham at the opening of the new Christian skate park.  That was enough for me to write an Ash-Abraham romance, "My Dad Can't Know That I'm Gay"  

According to his IMDB page, Michael is straight, but I'm not so sure.  He's wearing a lot of jewelry for a straight guy.  Maybe he closeted the listing because:

He is of mixed race, with one side of his family from Ethiopia.

Wow, Ethiopia!  The ancient city of Axum!  

The rock churches of Lalibella! 

The Ethiopian Orthodox Church, one of the oldest in Christianity!

The Amharic language!  The second most widely spoken Semitic language in the world, after Arabic, with its own distinctive alphabet.

Those dinners where you tear off a chunky of spongy injera bread and use it to scoop up the various dishes.

And the men!  In West Hollywood, I met an Ethiopian guy from the Tigrinya ethnic minority group.  One of the biggest ever.

But Ethiopia is extremely homophobic.  I can understand why Michael, immersed the Ethiopian immigrant subculture, might want to put "straight" on his IMDB profile,  where everybody from his priest to his Uncle Orono can read it. 

Michael was born in New Jersey in 2002, but went to high school in Mint Hill, a suburb of Charlotte, North Carolina, where he was on the swim team.  

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Atticus Mitchell: "My Babysitter's a Vampire," "Stonewall," "Now I can be who I am," and n*de photos, but has he done anything gay lately?

  

Link to the n*de photos

When I was researching Star Trek, Strange New Worlds, I looked for nude photos of various cast members, and found several of Atticus Mitchell, who played an ensign "scared by a dog" in one episode.

You are probably more familiar with him as Benny Weir of My Babysitter's a Vampire (2010 movie, 2011-12 tv series):  teenager Ethan (Matthew Knight)  battles demons, zombies, and various paranormal perils with the help of his buddies, Benny (Atticus, left) and Rory (Cameron Kennedy), plus his sister's vampire babysitter. 

 

 Everyone was intensely hetero-horny, but there was a lot of beefcake. Here the guys agree to be sacrificed so an ancient Aztec goddess can be reunited with her boyfriend.  She's not interested in them, and they're going to die, but that's not important.  She's a girl, so whatever she wants, she gets. 

My earlier review of the series pointed out a lot of gay subtexts, although this is probably a back-stage shot of Atticus and Cameron hugging.  

Born in Toronto in 1993, Atticus became interested in acting in elementary school, and performed in four plays while at St. John Elementary School:

The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe

Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs of the Black Forest

James and the Giant Peach

50 Below Zero

When he graduated to Malvern Collegiate Institute (a public high school, in spite of the ponderous name), Atticus switched to on-screen acting with the teencom How to Be Indie (2009-2011), which is about an Indian-Canadian girl, not indie rock. Dylan Everett (n*de photo on RG Beefcake and Boyfriends) played her best friend.  Atticus played a bully.

Next came Vampire, followed by the teen movie Radio Rebel (2012), about a shy high school girl with a secret identity as an underground radio dj. So she's Hannah Montana.  Atticus plays Gabe, a musician who tries to sneak and snark his way into air time, and his future boyfriend or good buddy Adam DiMarco plays as Gavin, the girl's "love interest."  

Aside from Vampire, Atticus is best known for his role as Mickey Hess on Fargo (2014): he runs a shady trucking company with his dad and brother. No girlfriend, but he is established as heterosexual by playing with a female adult toy.

I was more interested in the role of Matthew in Stonewall (2015), about the 1969 riots that started the Gay Rights Movement, with Danny (Jeremy Irvine) as a white masculine Saviour from Indiana.  

Problem: Matthew doesn't appear in the synopsis, and I don't recall him from watching.  But surely he's gay.

More after the break

Max Casella after dating Dougie: Christian Bale's buddy, Tony Soprano's buddy, Timon, Bottom, bi. With a small d*ck bonus.

 

Link to the n*de dudes

In the early 1990s, if your parents belonged to a certain socioeconomic class, you were required to watch ABC's ultra-conservative programming block on Wednesday nights: 

The Wonder Years, with Fred Savage as a boy winning the Girl of His Dreams in the 1960s.

Home Improvement, with Tim Allen grunting with tools.

Coach, with Craig T. Nelson as a...football coach.

And Doogie Howser, MD, with Neil Patrick Harris as a 16-year old who somehow managed to finish medical school, become a doctor, and get girls.

I wasn't of a certain age, I was not living with parents of a certain socioeconomic class, so on Wednesday nights I was watching Seinfeld.   Not Doogie Howser, because of its ridiculous premise and "Girls are the meaning of life!" ideology.  

 But I did notice Max Casella, who played Doogie's buddy: 22-26 years, "cute as a bug's ear," as the oldsters would say, and a member of the Short Guy Brigade at 5'7".

As everyone knows, Neil Patrick Harris came out a few years after Doogie, and for some inscrutable reason agreed to play "himself' in the homophobic Harold & Kumar movies and heterosexual horndog Barney on How I Met Your Mother (2005-14).  More recently, in Uncoupled (2022), he played a gay man dealing with the death of his partner and suddenly becoming single at midlife. 

But what has Max Casella been doing?

I'm researching the three standard questions: 

1. Any gay roles?

2. Gay in real life?

3. Any n*ude photos?  

1. Any gay roles?

In Newsies (1992), a Disney movie about the newsboys' strike of 1899, Max plays Racetrack Higgins, who may be gay or bisexual.  When focus character Jack (Christian Bale) says that they can't beat up the newsboys who refuse to join the strike, he "jokingly" suggests kissing them.

In Ed Wood (1994), the biopic of the director known for crossdressing, Glen or Glenda? and Plan 9 from Outer Space, Max plays Paul Marco, the gay actor who often starred in Wood's films.  His sexual identity is not mentioned here.

Later Max moved into animation, voicing characters on Pepper Anne, Courage the Cowardly Dog, Kim Possible; and video games such as Jak and Daxter (a humanoid elf and his previously-human otter-weasel buddy) and Grand Theft Auto: The Ballad of Gay Tony (he doesn't voice Gay Tony).

He appeared in 28 episodes of The Sopranos (2001-07) as Benny Fazio, who is partnered with Chris Moltisanti and sometimes works as Capo Tony's driver.  He's married with children.

Inside Llewelyn Davis (2013) depicts a day in the life of the folk singer (Oscar Davis) in the early 1960s Greenwich Village scene.  Max plays Club Manager Pappi Corsicato, who has s *ex with Llewelyn's girl.

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