Ryan Merriman: From gay-vague child star to "girls! girls! girls!" teen to man's man. With a gay kiss, a hot tub cuddle, and his backside

  

Link to the n*de dudes

During the late 1990s, Saturday night was home to the  ultra-conservative "God and family" series aimed at an audience of your grandparents: Walker, Texas Ranger; Doctor Quinn, Medicine Woman; and The Pretender (1996-2000)

No self-respecting gay guy was home on Saturday night (or would admit to it), but surprisingly a lot of guys in West Hollywood knew that it starred Michael T. Weiss, who starred in the gay movie Jeffrey (1992).  He played  Jarod, a genius who travels from town to town, taking on various jobs (pilot, physician, lawyer, lots of cops) to help people and meet girls. How does he get the credentials and references?

Left: Michael n*de on RG Beefcake and Boyfriends. 

And gay kids would have noticed the numerous flashbacks featuring the gay-vague Young Jarod (Ryan Merriman, top photo).  They knew that he was going to grow up to be the girl-hugging Jarod, but still, he had the whole "different from other boys" trope.  

Not a bad start for a 13-year old theater kid from "family friendly" Choctaw, Oklahoma.

Ryan achieved Disney kid fame with Luck of the Irish (2001), about a teenager who discovers that he's actually a Leprechaun (well, half-Leprechaun on his mother's side).  While questing for the maguffin, he gets a Leprechaun ally (gay actor Henry Gibson) and a girlfriend.

Like many teen actors, Ryan next moved into horror with Halloween: Resurrection (2002): he fights Freddie Krueger and gets a girlfriend.

The Ring 2 (2005): He and his girlfriend watch the cursed tape.

Final Destination 3 (2006): He and his girlfriend survive a roller coaster accident. But Death has other ideas.

Like many teen actors, a gay-vague childhood gave way to "Girls! Girls! Girls!"  But Ryan was a mainstay on the gay celebrity websites of the era.  I'm not sure why.  Is being cute enough?

I figured Veritas: The Quest (2003-04) was a fundamentalist project.  Who would entitle a tv series THE TRUTH?   But it was actually about a rebellious teenager (Ryan)  tracking down magical artifacts like Leonardo Da Vinci's notebook and a crystal skull owned by Hitler.

His Scoobies include Eric Balfour (n*de on RG Beefcake and Boyfriends) and The Girl. 

Next came some comedies that I'm too discouraged to research, but you can get an idea of their plots from the titles and Ryan's backside shots Wild Cherry, Elevator Girl, Cheesecake Casserole, Tomorrow's End, Attack of the 50 Foot Cheerleader...

Well, maybe not Tomorrow's End.  The title is completely misleading: it's not about the end of the world, it's a series of comedy shorts.

More after the break.

Gemstones Episode 3.6: BJ swallows a lot, Keefe learns about hard wood, and Kelvin gets a girlfriend. With n*de boxer bonus

 

Link to the n*de boxers.

In the last episode (before the interlude), we saw the family shattered, with Judy/BJ and Kelvin/Keefe breaking up and the Montgomery boys plotting against Eli.  Now we're going to see life amid the ruins.

Title: "For Out of the Heart Come Evil Thoughts." Matthew 15:19: "For out of the heart come evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness, blasphemies." We don't need to match the Gemstone with the sin: they are all guilty of false witness, lying to others or to themselves.

How to Make Things Right: BJ didn't move out, after all,  but the two are barely speaking. Judy asks what she can do to make things right. BJ doesn't know.  She is despondent. Remember that in 2000, she worried that she would never find anyone who would love her.  It took 18 years, but she finally found someone, and now it's over.

Gay joke: "I swallow a lot, but this may be something I can't choke down."  You just need a little practice.  Ask Keefe for some pointers. 

The Montgomery Boys Leave:  At Eli's mansion, the Montgomerys thank the family for "straightening them out."   Kelvin suggests that it happened "when we dressed them up."  That sounds like a gay reference.  

Jesse says "They're ready to f*ck": their next steps should be girlfriends,  wives and kids, the whole heterosexual trajectory.  To start them out, he gives them his monster truck, the Redeemer.

 As they drive away, Kelvin takes off his "wedding ring."  If he leaves it off, the relationship will really be over.  He'll be single again.  He puts it back on.  But maybe he is thinking of a heterosexual trajectory of his own. 

Taryn is Back: We cut to Kelvin introducing Taryn, who we last saw at Keefe's "wieners and ice cream" party, as his new assistant youth pastor.  A kid asks about Keefe, and he gets all bitchy: "He is leaving to pursue other opportunities.  Not even sure why you keep bringing that up!" -- while fiddling with his wedding ring again.  He continues to fiddle -- and look despondent -- as Taryn leads the kids in a dance. 

Paying off the Scandal:  The siblings meet with Stephen, his wife, and their lawyer.  They want $500,000 for "damages and emotional distress," or the affair goes viral.  So it's like the blackmail over Jesse's  party in Season 1, but this time there's no tape.  Judy could just deny that anything happened.  She could even sue him for slander.

Martin suggests paying the money, along with an apology.  Kelvin must be wondering: if it's worth $500,000 to keep an extramarital affair under wraps, how much damage would he cause the church by coming out  -- or being outed.  He doesn't like Taryn in that way -- he doesn't like women in that way -- but what choice does he have?  

After scenes where Baby Billy and Jesse discuss the hologram Aimee-Leigh idea, and BJ stalks Stephen, Kelvin tries to find out if the relationship is really over.

The First Reconciliation Attempt:  We find Keefe working at Woodpecker's Carpentry.  Wood-pecker, har har, the first of many ph*llic references in this scene.  His earing, necklaces, and rings are gone -- for safety, or to keep closeted?  

Suddenly Kelvin appears. Looking around nervously, Keefe asks "Brother Kelvin, what are you doing here?" Note that he uses formal titles to reaffirm that they have broken up: they are just pastor and parishioner.  No doubt he's worried that Kelvin will out him by referencing their relationship or just being flamboyant.  Kelvin does try his usual titty-tweak, but Keefe doesn't respond.  You're broken up!  You're not allowed to take liberties anymore!

Gay joke: "Master Bishop has taught me a lot in the ways of hard wood." Tell me more about your...um...hard wood.  The odd title "Master," not used for master carpenters, led some fans to speculate that he and Keefer were involved in a b*ndage relationship. 

 Wait -- how long has he worked there?  Surely it's only been a few days since the breakup.

Kelvin asks "Have you found happiness?" An odd question. Why not just ask if he likes his new job.?  Keefe says that he has, but of course he's lying.  He's busy working on a reconciliation rocking chair.  He uses the  punching gesture that straight guys sometimes use to ward off physical contact: a bro-hug would be too painful.

Apparently Kelvin expected Keefe to be crying and miserable, lost without him, like in the Season 1 breakup.  Seeing that his ex is doing ok, he becomes bitchy, denigrating the carpentry job and declaring that he's having lots of fun with Taryn: "everybody loves her...no one misses you at all." The happiness facade fails: Keefe frowns and orders him to leave. 

We cut to Judy asking Eli for the bribe money. He exclaims "Can't you children figure out your lives?" and refuses.  

Then the Montgomery Boys zoom the Redeemer into Peter's new militia compound, claiming that they stole it.  But in Episode 2, he sent goons to kill them.  When did they start working for him again?

BJ Trains: BJ bursts into tears while working at his Church Welcome Center job. Jesse and his crew sympathize: Stephen has cuckolded him, taken away his power.  He needs to fight the guy, "knock his dick in the dirt, show him who is the man."  

They take him down to the basement for punching-bag training.

Top photo: Michael O'Hearn works out with boxer Paulo Costa.

After the Rain: At the youth group, Taryn is bouncing on the trampoline, while Kelvin looks on,  despondent.  Shouldn't the kids get a chance to play on it?  

Kelvin's turn: he bounces toward the ceiling, still looking despondent, while Nelson's "After the Rain" plays:

He never really loved you from the start.

The only thng he ever gave you was a broken heart.

Don't be afraid to lose what was never meant to be.

Only after the rain can you find true love again.

So Kelvin has to get over Keefe to find true love?  But there are no other gay guys around..just Taryn...uh-oh....  

Later, after the kids are gone, they are putting gym mats away.  Kelvin says that he was "working some stuff out" while somsersaulting. The staging suggests that he has worked out a way to stay in the closet by adopting a heterosexual facade.  The first step will be asking Taryn for a date.

 He's smiling, complimenting her, setting the scene.  They discuss how to get kids into physical fitness by making it fun, sort of like putting cheese on their broccoli so they'll eat it.  In a parallel, is he trying to use physical fitness to make a heterosexual relationship palatable?

But be careful, Kelv Baby.  In this universe, cheating on your true love is the worst sin imaginable.  It doesn't matter that Keefe broke up with you.  It doesn't matter that Taryn would save you from being outed.  If you stray, you will be punished. 

This is definitely the nadir of the Kelvin/Keefe relationship.  Even after seeing the entire season, knowing what is going to happen, I'm starting to get anxious.

But on the bright side, does anyone still doubt that they were a romantic couple?

Bonus: to reduce your anxiety, Gideon brought pizza.

More after the break

Yani Xander: Headless ghost, Speechless body double, Telugu cop, hottest guy on the planet has a boyfriend and a tree trunk-sized d*ck

  

Link to the n*de photos

I don't understand why the NSFW version is getting so few page views.  It shows one of  the hottest guys on the planet, and he has a huge d*ck.  Why would you not want to see it?

When I was researching the beefcake on the British Ghosts tv series,  I found Yani Xander listed as Headless Humphrey: a Tudor nobleman who was accidentally beheaded, so as a ghost his head keeps falling off his body.  Except Humphrey's head is played by Laurence Rickard.  You never see the incredibly gorgeous Yani, because at 5'3", he is inside Humphrey's body. 

One of the hottest guys I've ever seen, and 5'3"?  Sign me up!

He was born in 1997 in Burgos, Bulgaria, a resort town on the Black Sea about 4 hours from Sofia, which gives me an excuse to dip into my photos of n*de Bulgarian guys.  

After graduating from secondary school, Yani moved to London to study at the City Academy ((2017) and Anthony Meindl's Actors Workshop (2018).  He started getting roles in short films, like A Different League (2017), Alice and Jack (2017), and Refugee Point (2018).

Hey You (2019), only about five minutes long, has gay interest:  (Noel Samuels, Dmitri Spodobaev, top photo) are arranging a hookup. Yani plays a third guy (I'm guessing a bottom).

In 2019, Yani starred a starring role in the Telugu series Erra Gulabhila Govindu.  He plays a cop.  Wait, Telugu, the Dravidian language spoken in South India?  What's Yani doing there?    What's he doing in southern India?  And learning Telugu?

Next came three episodes of Alex Rider (2020), featuring a teenage James Bond (Otto Farant), his goofy best friend (Brennock O'Connor), and the Girl of His Dreams.  Yani plays the son of a Russian baddie. 

And two episode of Dangerous (2020), a "bland and cliched" Bollywood crime series.  So you're still in India, but learning Hindi, not Telugu

And 21 episodes of Ghosts (2019-23).

Also Yani was the stand in for J.J. Dimeo, the Speechless guy (Micah Fowler) when the gang went to London, and a body double for Joshua McGuire (left) in Cheaters.  Yes, he showed his backside (on RG Beefcake and Boyfriends)

His most recent work is the British-Indian sci-fi movie IRaH (2024), a weird spelling because it's an app devoped by Hari Singh (Rohit Roy).  It falls into the wrong hands, and chaos ensues. Yani's character does not appear in the plot synopsis.

What else has he been up to?

A lot of traveling!

 Bali

Japan

Abu Dhabi

Denmark

Cambodia

Greece

Many more countries and c*ck shots after the break

The Muppet Show: a refuge for the head cases. With a g*y Scooter, a fluid Gonzo, a dr*g queen Miss Piggy, and Sylvester Stallone

How can this article, which is been around since 2020 and has no mention of anything inappropriate for a 5-year old, possibly get the blogger censors upset?   But it did!  The only thing I can think of is that the Orange Goblin must commanded them to censor the word g*y itself, so....

When I was an undergraduate at Augustana College, I spent most of my free time in a little bookstore off the Student Union lobby. It stocked some bestsellers and miscellaneous nonfiction, including The Little Prince and Dag Hammarskjold's Markings,  but mostly science fiction and fantasy, with some underground comics under the counter.

It provided a bright belonging place for "head cases," boy who were majoring in English or philosophy or music, who wanted something greater and nobler from life than carrying briefcases into skyscrapers.  We called ourselves the Bookstore Gang.

During any hour of the afternoon and early evening, half a dozen members of the Bookstore Gang could be found standing by the counter, or sitting on it, or browsing through the shelves, or reading in the armchairs or green couch that blazed with western sunlight.  We discussed classes, comic books, movies, ghosts, and politics, but for some reason never girls.  When the bookstore closed, we adjourned to the Rathskeller or to the TV Lounge, to argue and advise and review, discussing The Wizard of Id or Saturday Night Live, yelling "No one expects the Spanish Inquisition!" while stuck-up Business Majors stared.

 

Everything we watched or listened to or read was hip, anarchic, iconoclastic, but my favorite was The Muppet Show (1976-81), with Kermit the Frog from Sesame Street hosting a comedy-variety show, juxtaposing back stage bits with musical numbers and tv show parodies:

The Swedish Chef

Veterinarian Hospital

Pigs...in Space

 Meanwhile, obviously g*y couple Statler and Waldorf heckled everything, except for the famous guest stars, of course.

And what a cast of guest stars!  Everybody who was anybody stopped by:
Joan Baez
Milton Berle
Bert and Ernie
Joel Grey
Arlo Guthrie
Vincent Price
Tony Randall

Sylvester Stallone, post-Rocky and pre-Rambo, who sang "A Bird in a Gilded Cage" and "Let's Call the Whole Thing Off."  (He means ending the romance, not removing clothing).

When I moved to West Hollywood, I found that every gay man had a copy of Miss Piggy's Guide to Life (1981) on his bookshelf.  The diva, ghosted by Henry Beard, offered a combination of real and parody tips for diet, exercise, entertaining, and romance.  The only one I remember is "Miss Piggy runs only when she is being chased."

Other hip, anarchic, iconoclastic tv programs and movies -- Monte Python, Mary Hartman, Saturday Night Live, WKRP in Cincinnati, Blazing Saddles, The Cheap Detective, Silent Movie -- were loaded down with anti-g*y jokes and hetero stuff, but The Muppet Show had neither.  

More after the break