Boxers and Boyfriends: Joe Palooka

The most famous fictional boxer of the 20th century was probably Joe Palooka in the long-running comic strip (1930-1984).   Tall and immensely strong but gentle, Joe Palooka was the creation of Ham Fisher, who observed lots of young Polish immigrant boys hanging around boxing arenas, hoping that their muscles would bring them fame and fortune.

In slang of the era, a "palooka" was an incompetent boxer, but Joe Palooka was a star.

In his heyday, Joe was appearing on the radio, in movies, in big-little books, and in comic books.

Left: Tab Hunter lookalike Joe Kirkwood played Palooka.

You could buy Joe Palooka toys, gum, lunch boxes, board games, and a cut-out mask on Wheaties cereal.  

Pop quiz: Joe or Tab?

 In 1948, the town of Bedford, Indiana  (near Bloomington) erected a statue in his honor.  It was moved to nearby Oolitic in 1984.

More after the break

It's a "Different World" than where you come from. There are gay guys at Hillman College now, with muscular physiques and stuff

 

Link to the N*de Dudes

In 1987, daughter Denice (Lisa Bonet) of The Cosby Show spun off into college, "A Different World than where you come from."  It aired between Cosby and Cheers, so we had no choice but to watch.  But no problem: there was a lot of beefcake -- I especially liked Short Guy Ron (Darryl M. Bell) -- and some gay-subtext buddy bonding; the snobbish aristocrat Whitley stole the show; and the historically black Hillman College was interesting, "a different world" to many viewers.

It wasn't actually a comedy, at least not after the first season, when Denice left and Whitley was promoted to the focus character. The world became a cold, dark place, with episodes about s*xual assault, abusive relationships, AIDS, and a lot of racism. I especially disliked the constant victimization of math major Dwayne Wayne (Kadeem Hardison), who for some inexplicable reason starts dating Whitley, his polar opposite. Eventually we stopped watching. No point in getting depressed every Thursday night.

Nearly 30 years later, a new generation of first-years has arrived at Hillman for a rebooted Different World on Netflix. The focus character is Deborah Wayne, the daughter of now-divorced Dwayne and Whitley.  Hillman is her safety school, even though her dad is provost or something --- all of the old gang have stuck around, and now have important jobs at the college.

A homophobic Redditer complained, "Why do they have to make 99% of the characters on every tv show gay? It's like straight people don't even exist anymore."  So let's look for the gay characters.  The character and episode descriptions on Netflix and Wikipedia offer some clues.

There are seven main male characters.  Five are identified as heteros*xual:

Superstar basketball player Shaquille Johnson (Cornel Young IV, left), son of Short Guy Ron, chose Hillman against his dad's advice that he go to a Big 10 School and then turn pro. He starts dating Deborah.

Jalen (Elijah J. Roberts, left) is a "s*xy point guard" on the basketball team, who starts dating Deborah's friend Hazel.

Ghanian-Nigerian fashion design major
Koji (Chbuikem Ujike, left, underwear on RG Beefcake and Boyfriends) is in college only to please his parents. He actualy wants to drop out and start his own fashion company.  Sounds promising, but Netflix says that his main pastime is "charming girls."

On RG Beefcake and Boyfriends: I went through the cast list, looking for n*de ptos of the male stars, and found Michael Vargas in an adult video.

More after the break

Jake Silbermann: Coming out on a soap, crushing on a dude off-Broadway, with some film roles and a beautiful, humongous...

  

Link to the beautiful, humongous...

Two Jakes with familiar-sounding names had impressive photos on the celebrity d*ck  subreddit.  Yesterday I profiled the first Jake, McDornan, from Quints, Greek, What We Do in the Shadows, and Mrs. Davis. The second Jake, Silbermann, is not instantly familiar, but I know him from somewhere.

Researching him proves problematic: a comedian/ musician named Jake Silbermann is much more famous, and gets 99% of the internet search hits.  I'll have to go with the IMDB biography for our Jake:

Born in New York City in 1983, and received a B.A. in Theater Arts from Syracuse University in 2004.  After some commercials and guest spots, he landed his most significant role to date, Noah Meyer on 222 episodes of As the World Turns (2007-10).  

Noah and Luke were praised as soap opera's first gay power couple, Nuke.  But it doesn't seem like they were together very often, or for very long.  I'll try to piece together their convoluted storyline.

1.Noah is a student at Oakdale University and intern at WOAK television, dating fellow intern Maddie.  he thinks that Luke (Van Hansis) is after his girlfriend, until the dude reveals that he is gay.

2. Noah and Luke start dating on the downlow.  Maddie finds out and dumps Noah.

3. Noah's Dad (Daniel Hugh Kelly) finds out and disowns him , tries to "cure" him, and finally tries to end Luke.  He ends up paralyzed, but eventually recovers.

4. Noah marries a young Iraqi woman so she won't be sent back to her country, but she falls in love with him and wants to make the relationship physical.  Then she disappears, but it turns out that she has been kidnapped by Noah's Dad.  In the ensuing confrontation, Dad is killed.  Or is he?

5. After some skulduggery, Luke realizes that he still has feelings for his ex, Kevin (Karl Girolamo), and breaks up with Noah.

6. Later Luke starts dating Reid, but when Noah is in critical condition in the hospital, he rushes to his ex-boyfriend's side.

7. Luke gets back together with Reid, who then has a car accident and expires. Meanwhile, Noah gets back with his ex-girlfriend, Maddie.

8. Noah is blinded in an accident. Luke starts dating Brian (Lawrence Lau), the doctor in charge of restoring his sight.  

Or is Brian his grandmother's new husband?  Wikipedia and the fan wiki give different stories.  I guess it doesn't matter: everybody that Luke dates is a goner. 

So naturally Noah calls off the latest attempt to start a relationship and leaves town. Just before the soap opera ends, cancelled after 54 seasons.  But at least they got to kiss twice.

More after the break

The Fixers: A gay-vague Taiwanese hunk, a bi gambler, politicians, blackmail, mysterious monks, and Chinese dudes

  

Link to the not fully clothed dudes

The Fixers, on Netflix: "A mismatched pair...."  Good enough for me: let's find some gay subtexts.

Episode 1: "The Swamp Eel." 

Scene 1: A chubby eyeglassed guy awakens in the hull of a ship, chained to a bed.  A young guy (Jun Shuo-Lou) tells him that they've been kidnapped because "Your boss found out that you were dating his wife."

"But I'm just his accountant.  I never even met his wife."

What other reason would he have to kidnap them?  

He has evidence of money laundering -- the Boss must think that he's going to leak it.  But it's hidden in his study.

"They're in the study," Driver says, tossing him the key to his chains as he walks out.  Huh?  

He wasn't in a ship after all; he was in a truck. We see the Driver changing clothes beside his ritzy car, while his partner is eating a sandwich.  "We just kidnapped you to get the location of the incriminating evidence.  You're free to go."

As they zoom off, the driver, who turns out to be a fixer named Gold, calls the Boss to say that they're on the way to get the ledgers.  His partner complains that they keep doing jobs for the police. 

Scene 2:  Establishing shot of a poor neighborhood.  A dice game. Uh-oh, Swamp Eel (Christopher Ming Shun Lee, right) uses a device to cheat, then gathers his money. "My beautiful wife has made me dinner, so I have to go."  Hetero identity established immediately

Some gangsters led by Milky enter.  Swamp Eel says "(censored)" An old stewardess joke that implies gay/bi identity.

"Your debt's overdue. Time to pay."

"Um...er...uh...business is slow.  Let's play a dice game for it."

Milky (Sam Lin, left) bets a huge amount. Swamp Eel uses his device, but they catch him. 

"Now we're going to cut off your most valuable body part!"  

Swamp Eel runs away, across the housetops, and into a secret hole in a wall, across another rooftop, into an open-air market, where he swings a swamp eel like a lasso. They pellet him with cabbages. He jumps into a police car and blows them kisses.

Scene 3: He arrives at home to find "Scammers go away!" signs all over his house.  His son Howie reveals that his wife is live streaming about being scammed.  She used the house as collateral to take out a loan for five million Taiwan dollars ($16,000 USD) to invest in cryptocurrency, expecting to get rich.  Instead, she lost everything.

Left: the IMDB says that Howie is played by Chen-yu Sun, but he is voiced by Sebastian Sero.  Must be the English dub.

Swamp Eel yells at her for losing the money. "You're obsessed with getting rich!"

"Well, what do you do all day? Nothing!  I think you have a  romantic partner"

"Ok, ok, I'll take care of it.  I'll get the money back."

Scene 4: A girl enters Chiu Cha Temple, a second-story the Xinzhuang District of New Taipei City. She prays, then fills out a consultation card and selects a fortune stick.  In a hidden room, the monk looks up her information online, comes out, and tells her that Mr. Chao should go to a different temple, Ching He- by himself. 

Cut to the middle-aged Mr. Chao, photo on RG Beefcake and Boyfriends) with an unbrella walking up steps in the rain to reach the fictional Ching He Temple. A Monk leads him through several rooms to a meeting with the Head Monk, who asks "How can we help you?"

Scene 5:  This is confusing.  Mr. Chao is seeking re-election, but his son's drug arrest is ruining his chances.  But then another extremely important guy appears at a re-election fundraiser, and while he is being photographed by the press, his estranged son appears.  Everyone is shocked.  But it's not Mr. Chao and his drug-bust son.  It's someone else. Why confuse viewers like this?

Scene 6: The Eel gets a phone call from his Friend Jung: Gangster Milky is telling everyone that his games are rigged, and everyone knows that they're out 5,000,000 NTD, so he needs money, right?  Friend Jung has a debt collection job that pays 300,000 but he'll have to flash a gun around.  The Eel refuses: "I don't do that anymore," but changes his mind and retrieves the tin box with his gun.  

Cut to the fundraiser, where the New Guy is schmoozing.  His estranged son, whom everyone was surprised to see, turns out to be the Driver from Scene 1, actually Louis Hsieh or Fixer Gold, who works for the monks of the Ching He Temple (where Mr. Chao asked for assistance).  He approachesd a girl at the bar, flirts with her, talks her into drinking, then asks her for a date:

That turns into an interrogation: "I can't believe that a woman with a Ph.D. had to date her boss's husband." Hey, that's the line he used in his first scam.  Turns out that she works for Mr. Chao's opponent, Lu Shu-Jung (not listed in the IMDB), who hired a tough named (Censored) to frame Mr. Chao's son, thus ruining his campaign.

"Why did the Tough agree to do it?"

More Taiwanese dudes are on RG Beefcake and Boyfriends.

"We promised to get his own drug charges dropped.  But we're going to frame him for kidnapping and human trafficking.  He's going to prison regardless, evil laugh."

"Ok, I recorded the conversation. You're free to go."  So Fixer Gold wasn't really into her.

More after the break