The mystery of Genoa leads me to collegiate brothers Gavin and Michael M. One is a swimmer, one has n*de photos.

Link to the n*de photos

Often I find a few beefcake photos of an actor online, and download them into a folder to research later.  But this time I have a lot of photos with no identifying information but "Genoa."  Is that his first name, last name, or city?

The file contains several photos of swimming and football teams, all labeled "Genoa."  It looks like our guy is second from the right, in the back row.   

He's not in this photo at all, but the second from the left looks like Christian from New Orleans, whose n*de photo I may have used in an illustration before.

The Genoa football team.  Our guy may be second from the left. 

More Genoa football.  

More after the break

Kyle Pacek: Satanic bass player, sea monster, Estrada fan, horse-sized mystic. But how much in real life? And is he into dudes?

 

Link to the n*de photos

 In American Horror Story, Episode 13.4, the Satanists have resurrected 13 evil women from history, such as Margaret Thatcher and Eva Braun, as well as some who were just into bedroom stuff. in order to sacrifice them to Satan.  Before the ceremony, they are entertertained y the resurrected Elsa Mars, the 1930s performer from "Freak Show" (Season 4).  She sings the Peggy Lee classic  "Is That all There Is" (which she can't know about, since it came out in 1969), accompanied by her band of sideshow performers.

I didn't notice during "Freak Show," but the bass player, Kyle Pacek, is very muscular.  I need to conduct more research. 

Kyle was born in New Hampshire in 1988, and attended Keane University, graduating with a degree in Occupational Safety and Technology in 2011.  He started a business "selling parts, gear, and accessories for Powersports," which are not actually sports: they're motorized all-terrain vehicles used for zooming up and down mountains and such.

Shortly after graduation, Kyle was spotted by a Disney recruiter, and asked if he would be interested in playing a Munchkin in Oz, The Great and Powerful.  

I reviewed it a few years ago: awful, heterosexist to the max.  Not a good start to a gay-friendly career, buddy.

He was only supposed to work for two weeks, but while filming he was asked to perform in two more movies.  He still does the Power Sports thing, but acting and stuntwork have taken over.  He's been in dozens of commercials and music videos, eight films, and 33 tv shows, including The Middle, The Gilmore Girls, The Last Ship, and Agent Carter. 

And the Sigmund and the Sea Monsters reboot (2016-17). I always thought that the title was a misnomer, since Sigmund (Mark Povinelli) is a sea monster, ejected from his family group for not being scary enough. Kyle's role is not specified.   

He is best known for:

The Romanoffs (2018): An anthology about reputed descendants of the Romanoff dynasty.  In Episode 1.1, Kyle plays the mystic and charlatan Rasputin in a stage show on a cruise ship. Jack Huston (d*ck on RG Beefcake and Boyfriends) plays Rasputin in a later episode.

By the way, Rasputin's horse size is reputedly on display in a  St. Petersberg Museum, but experts say that it is probably from a real horse.

The I-Land: 10 people, including Kyle Schmidt (n*de on RG Beefcake and Boyfriends),  awaken on an island with no memory or who they are or how they got there. As far as I can tell, all are straight. Kyle does stuntwork in seven episodes.

More after the break

Cal Tolentino: Bodybuilder dates "Best Medicine's" Liam, rooms with Martin Herlihy, kisses a ninja. With two Cal d*cks.

 

Link to the n*de photos

I've been watching Best Medicine (2026) on Netflix: Josh Charles plays a gruff physician in a small town in Maine, where there are a surprising number of diseases with weird symptoms.  Turning blue?  Suddenly seeing birds?  I like the gay characters fully integrated into the community, like sarcastic teenager Liam (Josh Hoon Lee).  

In most episodes, Liam hangs out with two girls, Harley and Amelia.  But in Episode 1.9, at a high school "sleep-in," Amelia is replaced by Kyle (Cal Tolentino), joining them for a giant-sized Connect Four and a "Skeeter" game.   

In Episode 1.13, Kyle appears as the third of the rude teenagers again, protesting the plan to bring a salmon farm to the city, which would destroy the ecosystem. They're arrested for trespassing, which they find thrilling.  Later, they sit together at the wedding of gay couple Greg and George.

I couldn't figure out why the showrunners replaced the girl in the trio with a boy, except to imply that Kyle was dating one of the other two.  In my headcanon, he's dating Liam.

When I started researching the actor to see if he is gay in real life, I got a surprise:

The dude is built.

Cal grew up in Chester Springs, Pennsylvania, about an hour west of Philadelphia.  He competed on American Ninja Warrior Junior, a reality show where you race through a multilevel obstacle course, beginning at age 11, then switched to the teen version, where he was a national finalist three times.  But he really wanted to be an actor, so the minute he got his driver's license at age 16, he started training at Playhouse West.  Also he changed his name from Caleb Plohoros to Cal Tolentino. From Greek to Italian?

While training, Cal was in three plays: A South Philly Christmas, Meisner, and Savannah. 

He broke into on-screen acting in 2025, with four short and a tv spot:

Hundred Dollar Brawler, about boxing. Cal plays the Hype Guy.

Guardians of the Outward Plain: A boy and his lion pal try to make human connections. Cal plays a Mechanic.

Godhead, not to be confused with the other 2025 Godhead short: A man searching for his lost brother stumbles into a sinister drug den. There are four characters other than addicts: Adam, Judas (Cal), and a Preacher (Sullivan Vaughan, backside on RG Beefcake and Boyfriends).

My Teenage Great Grandma, a vertical-format drama streaming on NetShort. A scientist dies in 1945 and re-animates as a teenager in 2025. Sounds wacky.  Cal's character appears halfway down the cast list.

Plus Cal and Peyton Carson wrote, directed, and starred in 4 AM: After a "rowdy Memorial Day Weekend," two guys try to go back to life as usual, but a text message results "in a painful test of trust." It's not available to stream, and I can't tell from the description and photos if they're buddies or boyfriends.

In 2026, Cal appeared in two episodes of Good Luck, Baby Girl, a short-form vertical series streaming on TikTok and Instagram.  It's about three girls trying to make it in L.A.

Two episodes of Best Medicine.

More after the break

"Hart to Hart": Hairy-Chested Robert Wagner and His Wife Solve Glitzy 1980s Murders

 

The whodunit Hart to Hart (1979-84) just dropped on Amazon Prime, bringing back a blast of memories of my undergrad years at Augustana College and my first years in grad school at Indiana University. Even though I never saw a single episode, or even a single scene, that I remember.  I  I didn't like mysteries in general, and this one seemed to be just keying in to the 1980s love of excess that we saw on Dallas, Falcon Crest, Dynasty, and Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous. So why do I remember the series intro so well?

  An extremely elegant man and woman (Robert Wagner, Stephanie Powers) zoom matching fancy cars down a road while holding hands. The voice over explains who they are:

"That's my boss, Jonathan Hart, a self-made millionaire.  He's quite a guy.  That's his wife, Mrs. Hart.  She's gorgeous."  So men are judged by the money, and women by their attractiveness?  How sexist.  And "gorgeous ladies" are a  major turn-off. 

In the second season, they added: "She's one lady who knows ho w to take care of herself."  So she knows self-defense?  Doesn't detract from the gorgeous lady turn-off.

"My name is Max.  I take care of them.  Which ain't easy, because their hobby is...MURDER!"  Apparently audiences believed that the duo actually killed people, so in the second season the line changed to: "When they met, it was...MURDER!"

It's not as if I watched the intro before turning off the tv or leaving the room.  On Tuesday nights we watched Three's Company  at 8:00 pm (John ritter pretending to be gay so his conservative landlord would let him share an apartment with two girls).  At 8:30, ABC always broadcast a terrible filler series that nobody watched (Too Close for Comfort, 9 to 5, Oh Madeline, Shaping Up)   So I was gone long before Hart to Hart started at 9:00. 

Maybe it was just part of the zeitgeist.

According to Decider, my refusal to watch Hart to Hart was misguided: it was actually designed "for the gays": "1980s elegance, hairy chests, deliciously bad puns, and campy action."  

Could we get back to that hairy chest part?

The executive producer and most of the writers were gay, including Boys in the Band Matt Crowley.  No gay characters, of course; they were simply not allowed on 1980s tv except in "very special episodes."  No significant buddy-bonding: the only regular characters were Jonathan, Jennifer, and Max (the guy who "takes care of them.").  But I'll give it a try.