"Another Life": 3 Shirtless Men and 3,300 Women in Bikinis

I've completely run out of tv programs to watch on Netflix, when I get an email: "We added a program you might like, Another Life."  

So I start watching.   Juliet from Lost, or someone who looks like her -- a middle-aged woman with scraggly blond hair -- is standing on the bridge of a spaceship, wearing black bikini underwear, talking to a fully-clothed man.

Definite sign of trouble.

Juliet (Kalee Sackhoff, who is only 39 but looks over 60) wears that bikini underwear a lot during the first episode; plus, we see Alyssa Milano, or someone who looks like her, reading a magazine with her breasts showing, talking to a fully-clothed guy who looks like Hurley from Lost.

Trouble with a capital T, which rhymes with B, which stands for Boobs.

I'm not going to watch this hetero male gaze monstrosity, but I'll fast forward in case a guy takes his shirt off, or -- dare I hope?  -- a gay character shows up.

Episode #1: Across the Universe.  Nope.  An alien artifact lands on Earth, and renowned elderly astronomer Juliet is assigned to go find its homeworld and make first contact.  She leaves her young trophy husband, Erik (Justin Chatwin, top photo) at home to research the artifact further.

By the way, the fully-clothed guy is actually a hologram, William (Samuel Anderson, left), who is in love with her, naturally.

Her crew consists of three or four black bikini underwear clad women, including Alyssa  and a butch blonde with a man's haircut.  Maybe a lesbian?

Hurley is actually Bernie (A. J. Rivera), the ship's chef and morale officer-type.

There are a couple of other guys in the background.

Episode #2: Through the Valley of Shadows.  Nope.  They wear space suits and walk around in tunnels on an alien planet that's not the right one.

Episode #3:  Nervous Breakdown.  Nope.  The ship is damaged, so they bicker, the  men fully clothed, the ladies in boobalicious black tank tops performing random calisthenics.

To alleviate the boredom, here's a photo of Alex Ozeroff, who plays crewman Oliver.  He has also appeared in the Canadian sci-fi series Freakish, about high school students dealing with radioactive mutants.  Not zombies?

Ok, back to the boobs.

Episode #4: Guilt Trip.   Finally!  One of the guys appears shirtless amid the ladies in black bikini underwear when they're roused in the middle of the night by Juliet's bad dreams.

I think he's Jake Abel, playing Sasha, the diplomatic liaison on the ship, whatever that is.

Episode #5: A Mind of Its Own.  Nope. They find a second artifact, with all the men in orange spacesuits and the women in boobalicious tank tops.  The men stay fully clothed even when having sex with boobalicious ladies.

Episode #6: I Think We're Alone Now.  Nope.  The ship is in trouble again, and there are women displaying their breasts.  I wonder why director Mairzee Almas thought it was a good idea to zoom in for closeups of breasts during moments of crisis.

By the way, Greg Hovanissian plays Beauchamp McCarry, Juliet's second-in-command who doesn't appear in many scenes, and never takes his shirt off. But he seems to have nice abs. You can see more of them in Cupid, a short about Cupid in a sleeveless vest and wings shooting love-arrows at people.

Episode #7: Living the Dream.  A shocking development! A guy has his shirt off (actually, he's completely naked) in a room full of space suits.  I think he's Erik, Juliet's husband who stayed back on Earth.

Episode #8: How the Light Gets Lost.

There's a disco party on the ship, with a lot more crew members than have ever appeared before dancing and hooking up.  Young, innocent, virginal Charlie Brown (I can't figure out which character he actually is) takes off his shirt while bumping foreheads with Alyssa.

Later, he stumbles on Alyssa and another guy drinking peach vodka (I can' figure out who he is, either, but he's sort of shirtless, bearded, with a hairy chest).  They have  a three way!  With same-sex kissing and everything! So there's at least a few bisexuals aboard.

But that's all you get.

Episode #9: Heart and Soul.  The battle for control of the ship comes to a head.  No nudity, boy or girl.

Episode #10: Hello.  They reach their destination and are "staggered" by what they see on the planet: a cave and a green limber-limbed alien.  They realize that the alien artifact is not a gesture of friendship, but a precursor to invasion and Season 2.  There's some kissing and death.  And boobs.

Aren't you glad I went through on fast-forward, so you won't have to?

See also: Lost

10 Things You Should Know about Sportsball Player Rob Gronkowski

I don't usually do sportsball players, but apparently everybody knows about this one, so I have to do a 10-things article to get up to speed.

1. Rob Gronkowski was born in 1989 in New York.

2.  After college (University of Arizona), he started a career in sportsball for some team.

3. His position was "tight end," which I'm sure has a sexual connotation.

4. His nickname is The Gronk, which sounds like a bad guy in a 1970s Sid and Marty Krofft kids' show: "In today's episode, the evil Gronk tries to steal the ice crown and bring chaos to the Land of Shadows."

5. He's photographed nude a lot, but I have found no actual penises.  It's always a tease, with his genitals covered by a football or a picture of himself.

6. He's photographed with bikini-clad ladies a lot.  Apparently he likes women.

7.  He seems quite full of himself.  I've never seen him on film, but in nearly every photograph, he has an annoying smirk: "Don't you wish you were as good as me?  But you're not, are you?"

8. There are 537 articles in various newspapers and magazines exclaiming, with utter surprise, that Gronkowski would be fine with a gay teammate.  Since when is this newsworthy? Would he also be ok with a black teammate?  How about a Jewish one?

9. There's that annoying smirk again.  I don't care if he is ok with a gay teammate, I don't like him.

10. He's not playing sportsball anymore.  He retired at age 30.

Bowling Green: Popular Culture and Beefcake

You've probably wondered through your whole life about Bowling Green State University, the only university in the U.S. where you can get a Ph.D. in Popular Culture.  I wonder about the job prospects in an academic climate where you will be ostracized for admitting that you own a television set or have heard of the X-Men.

Of course, it's not just watching tv.  The most recent issue of the Journal of Popular Culture had articles on:

"The Motion Picture Trailer and Problematic Synecdoche"
"Quilts and Community in Barbara Graham's Southern Cozies"
"The Multimodal Appeal of Instagram Poetry"
"Patrick Bateman, Donald Trump, and the Hermeneutic Maelstrom"
"Authenticating Identity Claims in the Craft Beer Inudstry"

Well, what did you expect?  Chemistry and physics have a specialized vocabulary, too.

But aside from the PhD. in pop culture, the biggest question of Bowling Green is, where did the name come from?

It was settled in 1832, named after Bowling Green, Kentucky.

Bowling Green, Kentucky, settled in 1778, was named after either Bowling Green, Virginia or Bowling Green, New York

Bowling Green, Virginia, founded in 1803 -- wait a minute -- was named after the plantation of founder John Thomas Hoomes.

Bowling Green, New York is a park built in Dutch New Amsterdam in 1733 for the purpose of outdoor bowling.

Bowling Green, Ohio is a typical college town with a depressed downtown area and a lot of brewpubs and pizza places, but only one bowling alley.  It's known for the Black Swamp Arts Festival and the National Tractor Pull Competition. 

Kurt Erichsen's gay comic strip Murphy's Manor, which is still being published online after all these years, is set in a gay neighborhood in Black Swamp, Ohio. I had no idea he was reflecting Bowling Green.



Not much beefcake in town.  Bowling Green High School offers wrestling, swimming, football, lacrosse.

And of course bowling.

There's also a swim club. 300 pictures arranged boy-girl-boy-girl.  I couldn't decide on a boy, so I just removed the girl.

But Bowling Green State University doesn't have a wrestling team, a swim team, or any powerlifters, at least none who get photographed.

For that matter, they don't have a bowling team, either.

I guess everyone is too busy studying popular culture.

See also:Gay Comix of the 1980s