Oct 20, 2018

Chris Galya: Actor Slash Model

David DeCoteau directs horrible closet-gay movies in which lots of cute guys lounge around in their underwear while awaiting monsters or psycho-killers.  But none of them are gay. Like Playgirl, DeCoteau pretends not to know that gay men exist.  Even the reviewers pretend not to know, and say things like "the guys take their shirts off for the ladies."

 In his latest, 1313: Actor Slash Model (2011), you get what the title says: a disgruntled actor loses an important role to a beefcake body, and starts slashing some male models. Mostly amateurs, or professional models with only a few acting credits: Chase Bennett, Jared Edwards, David Flannery, Christian Lake, Wagner Sandoval -- and Chris Galya.




I thought I recognized that name from the Disney Channel's Jessie (2011-2013), about a girl who gets a job as a nanny for the adopted children of a wealthy couple (while waiting for her big break as a singer/actress, naturally).  Chris plays Tony, the teenage doorman at her building, and her main love interest.

I've only seen a few episodes: no nudity, so Chris is one of those unexpected Disney hunks.

And no gay subtexts.  In fact, it's one of the Disney Channel's more heterosexist vehicles, with all of the kids, even the youngest, expressing hetero-horniness.







Chris also appears in Isolated (2013), about a group of surfers and Ambassadors for Peace who visit New Guinea, discover human rights violations, and take their shirts off (also starring Booboo Stewart).

And on the teencom Jesse (2011-2015)

And he's a real model, with runway work in London, New York, and Milan, and photos in Saks Fifth Avenue Men, Ford L.A. Men, Chaos Magazine, and elsewhere.  Vera's Big Gay Blog has lots more pictures of his work.










His tweets don't say anything specific, but he's shown with guys often enough.  He's got to be gay or at least gay-friendly. 

















On the other hand, he's a big sports fan, clogging his twitter feed with play-by-plays of football and baseball games.. 

Oct 18, 2018

Can You Ever Have Too Many Tarzans?

Of course not.  The musical may be schmaltzy and uber-heterosexist, but it gives dozens of local hunks a chance to show off their pecs and abs.

Here are some of the Tarzans who swung across the stage during the last year.

1. Northridge High School, Utah.
















2. Palo Alto Community Players.























3.Somewhere in France.
























4. A Helena, Montana high school Tarzan without the dreadlocks.

















5. Vorheesville High School in New York. A Tarzan who hasn't shaved, quite an anomaly.




















6. Stratford High.  Where'd he get the 1980s hairstyle?


















7. A black Tarzan at Goodbody High School in Tallahassee.


















8.Painted-on abs in Marietta, Georgia.

Oct 16, 2018

The Answer to the Naked Man's Question

Garrett, Indiana, Summer 1970

The summer after fourth grade, when I am nine years old, lasts for months and months, hundreds of days, all bright green and dazzling.  A week in Indiana, visiting my parents' family.  A week camping in Minnesota and Canada.  Nazarene summer camp.  Swimming lessons at Longview Park Pool.

 The bookmobile every Tuesday.  The Denkmann School Carnival.  Malts at Country Style.  Sleepovers with Bill and Joel.

Gold Key comic books at Schneider's Drug Store.


Dark Shadows.  H.R. Pufnstuf.  Tarzan Theater.

David Cassidy.  Bobby Sherman.  Robbie Douglas.


 All on a golden afternoon, probably a Saturday, in my Grandma Davis's farmhouse on the south side of Garrett.  It's a big house, all white frame, the big rooms done up with flowered wall paper and thick drapes.

My brother and I are all alone.  I don't remember why.  Maybe Mom and Dad have gone off somewhere, on an expedition of their own, leaving Grandma Davis to babysit for the afternoon.

We have just come in from something or other -- puttering around in the apple orchard, exploring the old barn where Grandpa used to milk cows, or the attic where Grandma keeps hundreds of back issues of magazines, neatly bundled -- Look, Life, Better Homes and Gardens, Grit.  We kick off our shoes at the door.  Kenny heads toward the kitchen and the stairway leading up to our room.


I stop in front of the tv set, a big piece of furniture, wood-brown, with curved pillars on the sides, with a candy dish and a picture of my Cousin Phil on top.

At our house it's almost always on, whether anyone is watchng or not, a stable, comforting background noise.  But Grandma Davis keeps it off unless someone wants to watch a specific program.  It seems unnatural, wrong somehow.


I reach down and turn it on.

Kenny turns and asks "What's on?"

I shrug. "I don't know.  Maybe Tarzan Theater."  On Saturday afternoons in Rock Island, when there isn't a game on, you can see old Tarzan and Bomba the Jungle Boy movies.

The black and white screen flickers, and then pops on.  A game.


I turn it to the next channel.  Some people talking.

"Find some cartoons," Kenny suggests.

There are only three channels.  I turn to the third.

A naked man.


In my memory he's naked, although he was probably wearing a leotard.  Shirtless, though, with taut hard pecs and very thick hard biceps.

You never saw even shirtless men on tv in those days, except in Tarzan movies, so I stand dumbstruck, frozen in place, realizing that I will remember this moment forever.

"What's this?" Kenny asks.

The naked man twirls and high-steps, bulging his bare calves, across a bare stage to a young blond woman.  Then, dancing a sort of tap dance, he asks "Who....are...youuuuuu?
She starts a tap dance of her own, dances in front of him, and says "I....don't...know. Who...are...youuuuu?"

He stops dancing and glowers at her, his eyes dark, and replies.  "I am the Magic Mushroom."

At that moment, Grandma appears at the window leading to the kitchen.  "There's nothing for kids on," she says. "Turn the tv off."

"Wait...I..."  I begin.   But Kenny obligingly turns it off.  .

"Now who wants to help me bake a pie for dinner tonight?"

All in a golden afternoon.

The naked man, dancing, darting, twirling across the stage, haunts my dreams, asking  "Who...are...youuuuu?" a hundred times.  I answer in a hundred ways:

I am a boy..

I am a Davis.

I am a Nazarene.

I am a fourth grader.

I am a brother.

I am a friend.

But no answer is satisfactory.



A few years later, I realize that the scene was adapted from Alice in Wonderland.  Except it's a hookah-smoking caterpillar who asks "Who are you."  The mushroom is not a speaking character.

So where did the naked man come from?

Over the years, I've read The Annotated Alice, Aspects of Alice, The Dream Child, and a dozen other books of criticism and analysis.  I've investigated dozens of Alice movies, stage plays, and ballets in search of the one with that scene.

There was a 1966 tv movie with Alice in a hippie wonderland, but no ballet scene.

And Alice in Acidland 1969 is a softcore porn with Alice taking LSD and engaging in lesbian sex before losing her mind.  I doubt that there's a ballet scene in that, either.

I've even tried to google the phrase "I am the Magic Mushroom."  No luck.

It remains a mystery.

Still she haunts me, phantomwise,

Alice moving under skies

Never seen by waking eyes.



The dark dancing naked man still haunts me, but at least now I know the answer to the perennial question:

"Who...are...youuuuuu?"

A version with nude photos is on Tales of West Hollywood.










Oct 14, 2018

The Haunting of Hill House

In the summer of 1992, the five Crane children, Steven, Nell, Shirley, Luke, and Theo, and their parents, move into the gigantic, long-deserted Hill House to fix it up for resale.

Scary things start to happen.  Luke sees a strange floating figure in a bowler hat.  Nell sees a lady with a crooked neck. There are imaginary friends and dead kittens.  One night they all rush out, except for Mom, or whatever Mom turned into.

They never return.

No one ever returned to the house except for the police.

26 years pass, and the kids grow up.

1.Steven (Michiel Huisman, left) has become a writer, specializing in paranormal nonfiction, although he doesn't actually believe in ghosts -- he thinks the events of that summer were all the power of suggestion, bad dreams, and Mom's insanity. The other children are angry with him for capitalizing on their trauma.


2. Nell has been most affected by the trauma, suffering from sleep disorders and strange visions.  She marries sleep disorder tech Arthur (Jordan Christie, left), but "the house" kills him.  Then she decides to return to the house for the first time in 26 years.




3.  Luke (Oliver Jackson-Cohen, left), Nell's twin brother, is a heroin addict in and out of rehab. He is troubled by visions of the Man in the Bowler Hat.  He has a  friend who is a girl, but no romantic relationships.  As a child he dreamed of a tree house with "no girls allowed" except for Theo.  Maybe he's gay.

4. Theo is a child psychologist with "sensitive" powers. She is a lesbian horndog, going through a series of one-night stands, afraid to open up to a relationship.  She appears in the original novel as well, although as a sad, pathetic "freak of nature."  Here she's out and proud.














5. Shirley is a mortician, along with her husband Kevin (Anthony Ruivivar, left).  She also believes that the events were caused by mental illness and suggestion.

None of them are speaking to their father, Hugh (Timothy Hutton), due to his refusal to tell them what really happened that night.

The Netflix tv series The Haunting of Hill House (2018) is inspired by on the Shirley Jackson novel, but not based on it.  There are a few characters retained, and a few other nods here and there. The entire first paragraph is copied into Michael's book, and Mrs. Dudley, the caretaker, gives her famous speech about being alone "in the night, in the dark." But she follows it with a plea to accept Jesus -- Mrs. Dudley is an evangelical Christian!

The juxtaposition between the 1992 and 2018 is effective, I like the sibling interactions, and there are many scary or disturbing images.

However, I found myself fast-forwarding past many of the "cute kid hugging a teddy bear" and "mom climbing in bed to tell her everything's ok" scenes, especially those that were not related to the primary plot.  For instance, a foster parent brings his little-girl charge in to see Theo because she claims that a monster named  "Mr. Smiley" comes into her room every night.  The answer isn't supernatural.  It's exactly what you're thinking.

There is a surprising amount of beefcake, a lot of men asleep in their underwear when scary things happen.

And Theo the horndog lesbian.

Definitely worth a look.

Whoops:  I just saw the last three episodes.  Family family family family family family family family family family family family family family family family family family family family family.

And the big reveal is a gigantic letdown:

When Dad is getting them out of the house, he goes to Steven's room and tells him that he'll carry him out, and to keep his eyes clothes.  We've been wondering through 10 episodes about what gruesome sight Steven may have seen. 

Spoiler alert:

Nothing gruesome at all, just a crazy Mom who wants to kill her kids to keep them safe from the world.


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