Have You Had a Squirt Today?

When I was a kid, whenever I had the flu or an upset stomach, my parents would force-feed me 7-Up, the carbonated lemon-lime flavored soft drink.

As a direct consequence, I hated all lemon-lime flavored soft drinks.  I wouldn't go near them unless I was sick.

I still won't.

So I have never actually tasted Squirt, the grapefruit-flavored soft drink that gave 7-Up some competition in the 1960s and 1970s, before fading to the obscurity of the "off-brand" aisle.

But when I was going to Washington Junior High, my friends Dan and Darry and I had some fun with the name.  We were just becoming aware of some other things that squirted, so we greeted each other with dirty-sounding questions like:

"Have you had a Squirt today?"
"Want a taste of my Squirt?"
"Little Squirty has a present for you."

Little Squirty was the advertising mascot, a small blond boy carrying an oversized phallic symbol...um, I mean pop bottle.

Was the company aware of the dirty connotations of its product?

Little Squirty was quite attached to that bottle, wasn't he?

Maybe he was trying to figure out a way to get to the Squirt without a bottle opener.  Hint: treat it like Aladdin's Lamp.

See also: My Junior High Fantasies of Paul Getty Jr.; and He'll Eat Most Anything.

The Fabulous Bottoms Boys

The Last Picture Show (1971) starred Timothy Bottoms and Jeff Bridges as high school graduates trapped in a small-town hell, plus Sam Bottoms as a mentally-challenged street sweeper.  There were hugs, longing glances, and gay subtexts all around.

Born in Santa Barbara, California in 1951, Timothy made his acting debut in Johnny Got His Gun (1971), a dramatic tour de force about a soldier who loses his arms and legs.  He was very busy during the 1970s, but mostly in serious dramatic roles that I didn't see: Winesburg, Ohio (1973), based on the Sherwood Anderson stories; The Paper Chase (1973), about first-year law school students; A Small Town in Texas (1976), about a grifter in a small town in Texas.

During the 1980s and 1990s, he played mostly characters in small towns or the wilderness who hook up with women.  However, he made up for it by taking off his shirt a lot.  And by parodying President George W. Bush three times.

Sam, born in 1955, was only 16 when he starred in The Last Picture Show.  He was also known for taking his shirt off a lot during the 1970s.  In Savages (1974), the evil Andy Griffith steals his cloths and strands him in the desert, so he's naked through the whole movie.

Unlike his brother, he has appeared in some gay-subtext vehicles: The Outlaw Josey Wales (1976), opposite Clint Eastwood, Apocalypse Now (1979), opposite Marlon Brando, and Hunter's Blood (1986), a Deliverance clone about evil hillbillies threatening some city boys.

He died in 2008.

Timothy and Sam may be the most famous of the Bottoms Boys, but there are two more:

1. Joseph, born in 1954, appeared as a feral child in Stalk the Wild Child (1976), as a guy named Texas in the buddy-bonding comedy High Rolling in a Hot Corvette (1977), and in the buddy-bonding racing movie King of the Mountain (1981), opposite Harry Hamlin.

In 1975, he became the only one of the Bottoms boys to appear nude in the gay-themed After Dark.  

2. Ben, born in 1960, also appeared in Stalk the Wild Child, plus the anti-cult movie Blinded by the Light (1980), and a few more his brothers' vehicles.

Two or three often appeared in the same movies, but if you want to see all four together, the only place is the  tv pilot Island Sons (1987), about four brothers in Hawaii who display their chests and um...other things (this is an actual shot from the opening credits).

See also: The Fabulous Bridges Boys

Guys and Dolls:Musical with Mostly Guys

Instead of watching the execrable Chicago (2002), watch Guys and Dolls (1953), set during the same time period, but with gamblers instead of murderers, and a gay subtext.

It's about the friendship between gambler Nathan Detroit (Frank Sinatra) and Sky Masterson (bisexual actor Marlon Brando), triangulated by two very hesitant hetero-romances.

Nathan has been engaged to Miss Adelaide (Vivian Blaine) for 14 years, but has no interest in marriage, "old ball and chain." Sky is not interested in women at all.

So when Nathan needs $1000 to secure a garage for his illegal crap game (betting on dice), he makes a bet with Sky: Sky must seduce a girl that Nathan selects so thoroughly that she agrees to go to dinner with him in Havana, Cuba.  No way will Sky be willing, or able to do that!

Especially when the girl turns out to be the prim-and-proper Sergeant Sarah Brown (Jean Simmons) of the Save-a-Soul Mission (a take on the Salvation Army).

Sky knows his way around a bet; he tells Sarah that he will fill her mission with sinners in exchange for the dinner.   She agrees, and naturally they fall in love -- you can't have everything.

Nathan, meanwhile, goes through some machinations to hold his crap game, and ends up agreeing to marry Miss Adelaide -- you can't have everything.

There is also a group of gamblers led by the corpulent Nicely-Nicely (Stubby Kaye), who display no heterosexual interest.

No beefcake, but the period costumes are great.  So are the songs.

The stage version is even less hetero-romance-bound.  Nathan Detroits have been played by Robert Guillaume, Bob Hoskins, Nathan Lane, and Oliver Platt, and Sky Masterson by Robert Alda, Peter Gallagher, Ewan McGregor, and Craig Bierko.

It's also a favorite of high school and college drama clubs.

Nosferatu: The First Gay Vampire

According to the IMDB, the Transylvanian Count has appeared in over 400 movies and tv series since the publication of Bram Stoker's Dracula in 1891.

The first, other than the lost Hungarian Drakula halála (1921), was Nosferatu (1922).  Director F. M. Murnau changed the names and some of the details when he couldn't get the rights to the novel, but he kept the dread and disgust.

This is not the romantic figure in cape and tails who enthralls his victims with the hint of sexual ecstasy.  The nosferatu is a monster who smells of rotting corpses and brings pestilence and death.  To portray Count Orlok, Max Schreck drew on all of the anti-Semitic stereotypes common in the era, from the hooked nose and bushy eyebrows to the blood libel.

And on homophobia.

F.M. Murnau was gay, so he filled his movies with the most attractive male actors he could find, and made sure that they took their clothes off at least once (left: Tabou, 1931).

 Here he cast Gustav von Wangenheim as Hutter, the real estate agent who must visit Count Orlok on business.  En route he stays overnight at an inn, and promptly takes his clothes off.

At the castle, Count Orlok tries his best to seduce Gustav: "Can we not stay together a little while longer, my lovely man?  It's still quite a long time until sunrise, and I sleep by day, dear fellow!"  He approaches, while Gustav cringes in horror.

The next morning Gustav doesn't remember what happened, but he is filled with disgust.

Next Count Orlok sets his fangs on Ellen (Greta Schroeder), Hutter's wife, who has "a lovely neck."  But when she gives herself willingly to him, he bursts into flame.  This is perhaps the first time in history where a same-sex liaison increases one's vigor, but a heterosexual liaison is fatal.

Shadow of the Vampire, directed by E. Elias Merhige (2000) recreates the filming of Nosferatu, with John Malkovich as an aggressively heterosexual Murnau.

Costume designer Albin (gay actor Udo Kier) and cinematographer Fritz (Cary Elwes) discover that Max Schreck really is a vampire, and Murnau knew it all along.  Unfortunately, they are both killed before the vampire exploes.  But at least Murnau got his movie.