Sage Ftacek: "Sweethearts" Short Brigade hunk from Anoka, with a BFA, some Tiktok videos, and some selfies

 

Link to the selfies

 I was interested in Sage Ftacek, because he plays a gay character in the Thanksgiving romcom Sweethearts (2024).  Newly out Palmer (Caleb Hearon) is looking for social contacts at a pre-Thanksgiving party.  He is standing in the kitchen.

A blond guy, maybe Kellan (Jake Bongiovi), yells: "Let's roast this s*cker!"

Kurt: "Yeah, babe! I'll be right there."  He takes a turkey from the refrigerator, and stops to ask Palmer "Do you know anything about cooking?

Palmer "Not really."  

He starts to walk away, but realizing that he could be a gay social contact, Palmer stops him: "Wait, Kurt.  I'm gay."

Kurt responds with a blank expression: "I'm Kurt."

"I know. We've gone to school together since kindergarten."

"I'm gonna try to cook this turkey on the bonfire."

Later Palmer and Lukas, a gay guy who's interested in him, watch Kurt and his boyfriend rip off their shirts and try to set the turkey on fire. 

That's all, just four lines, but look at him.  Extraordinary cute. 

And at 5'8", a a member of the Short Guy Brigade.

He has a very unusual name -- it's Czech, originally meanng "little bird" -- so he should be easy to track down.

First his Instagram.  It says "golf cart dealership," which may be a joke.

Lots of joke pics, like this one of Sage dismantling a mannekin.

A clever way to see three guys at once.

And a backside, which may be his or a friend's.

According to Facebook, Sage grew up in Anoka, Minnesota, a suburb of Minneapolis, where his Dad works at CostCo. He has a younger brother, and a relative who got a Ph.D. from Western Michigan University, specializing in transgender literary texts of the 18th century.  

Sage graduated from the St. Paul Conservatory for Performing Artists in 2018.

The Rutgers Actors Showcase says that he grew up in Minnesota, "sledding and throwing snowballs,"  fell into the "skateboarding and graffiti" scene when not taking the bus into Minneapolis for acting lessons,  and ended up at Mason Gross School of the Arts at Rutgers University, where he received a BFA in acting. in 2022.

More after the break. 

Gemstones Episode 1.6, Continued: Scotty flirts, BJ is spanked, and Kelvin says "Let's hook up." With bonus Kenyan guys

 

This is the censored version of the review.

Link to the bonus Kenyan guys

Earlier in this episode we saw a lot of innuendos about Kelvin and Keefe's relationship going to the next level.  Now it's time to concentrate on Gideon and Scotty.

They are very rude: Since the van is gone, Scotty has to live in a tent. Why doesn't Gideon spring for a cheap hotel?   Gideon tries to help him set it up, but he goes dark again: "I'm tired of this shit, and I'm tired of your f*cking family! They are very rude people!"  But at least he looks hot in a black vest with no shirt.

"It's in my uncle's garage," Gideon tells him.  Completely ransacked, with all of Scotty's stuff taken.  Scotty is irate: he needed that stuff!

Cut to Jesse and Kelvin informing the crew that they have the van. Inside they found a sleeping bag, tongs, a copy of L. Ron Hubbard's Dianetics (so Scotty is a Scientologist?), some potato chips, some beans, soiled Q-Tips, and yellow, crusty paper towels. Conclusion: the blackmailers are "f*cking amateurs."

Suddenly all of them get a phone call from Scotty.  He wants his van and his stuff back, or "I'm a f*ck your life in the *ss."  I'm surprised no one riffed on that.  "I'm a release the video."  Scotty and Gideon clasp hands.

Jesse doesn't think he has the video, and refuses to return the van.

My Slim 3: After scenes with Baby Billy and Judy at the Salvation Center, rehearsing. and Jesse and his crew (without Kelvin) throwing their ceremonial coins into the swamp, we return to the campground.  Gideon has brought lunch for the two of them (Subway-type hoagies). but Scotty goes beserk, destroys his sandwich, and yells that he's going over to the Compound right now to kill Jesse.  Gideon points out that this will keep them from getting the millon dollars.  Scotty gives up the plan, and grabs Gideon's sandwich, a "Slim 3."

Kelvin comes out on top: Meanwhile, no doubt as a reward for his success with Dot Nancy, Eli has assigned  Kelvin the job of learning enough Swahili to greet the Kenyan refugees who will be welcomed into the church on Sunday   He's already learned fuju karibu, which means "mess around."  (He wanted karibu, welcome."   Uh-oh.)  Judy disapproves, and physically assaults Kelvin. 

Why Kenya, when it's a haven for refugees, not a source  (it's the 13th largest asylum country in the world, with 650,000 refugees)?  Maybe because Swahili is the most well-known African language (viewers might not recognize Hausa or Xhosa). Or because it's 60% Protestant, so joining the Salvation Center makes sense. 

Jambo instead of Karibu: After a scene where Jesse tries to reconcile with Gideon (they admit that they "like" each other), we cut to the church.  As the Kenyan refugees file onto the stage. Kelvin says "Jambo!" and tries to make small talk with each ("I like your outfit!"), and Keefe hands each a white rose.  Two takeaways here: Kelvin is pushing up the flamboyance, and he and Keefe are already inseparable. 

Meanwhile, Eli yells at Baby Billy for stealing his daughter ("Just like you took Aimee-Leigh").  The incest runs hot and heavy with these guys.

Judy assaults BJ:  Judy is in her dressing room, preparing to perform with Baby Billy at the satellite church.   BJ offers her some tea to calm down, but instead she pulls down his pants and wants to spank him.  He refuses, so she slaps his front side: "Let's see that d*ck!  I need a release, dude!'  

He refuses again,  but he does gift her with a soda machine (a parallel to Kelvin's), and retreats to the car so she can have some alone time.

This scene is parallel to the "mushroom head" scene earlier in the episode. Both partners become n*de, BJ by design, Keefe by accident.  Judy's response is aggressive, masculine-coded, while Kelvin's is passive, feminine-coded. Judy's attempt to make everything about s*x, and Kelvin's attempt to ignore his erotic desires, create the conflicts with their partners that will lead to their breakup and reconciliations.

Scotty visits: Jesse's house, family game night.  They are all playing Jenga, when the phone rings.  It's Security,  for Gideon: "A guy here says he's your buddy all the way from L.A: Scotty Steele."  Funny, I never knew until now that he had a last name. He's all cleaned up, hair slicked back, wearing a suit and glasses, looking indescribably evil.

Gideon is shocked: he doesn't want the guy who threatened to kill his Dad in his house, but if he says no, Scotty will tell everyone about his involvement in the blackmail scheme.  Will he, though?  He would have to implicate himself! "Ok, send him in."

Scotty flirts with the security guard: "Hey, you're kinda ripped. You ever think about doing stunt work?"   

Why flirt?  Gideon has already given him permission to enter.  Does he want to be able to enter the compound anytime, without getting Gideon's permission first?  Whatever his reasoning, it is obvious that Scotty is familiar with homoerotic desire, and knows how to use it.

Next: Gemstones Episode 1.7:  Keefe is in love, Gideon dumps Scotty, and everybody does it.  

See also: Cullen Moss: Two drag queens, two homophobes, a security guard, a fairy, and a frontal

Matisyahu's Hanukkah Gift: Tony Cavalero, Alfonso McAuley, Antiochus, Santa Claus, and some bonus Jewish guy

Matisyahu ("Gift of God" in Hebrew), born Matthew Paul Miller, is  -- or was -- a Hasidic reggae artist (he has re-invented himself, and no longer identifies as Hasidic).  Tony Cavalero and Alphonso McAuley  starred in the music video for his song "Miracle" (2011).

At Hanukkah time, Matisyahu is skating with his kids, when Tony accidentally knocks him over! While unconscious, he dreams that he is bed with King Antiochus (Tony ), the evil Greek emperor who was defeated by the Maccabees. Afterwards there was only enough oil in the lamp to light the Temple for one night, but miraculously it stayed lit for eight days: thus we celebrate Hanukkah.

Link to NSFW review

In bed, Antiochus invites Matisyahu to a party: "there's going to be babes, food, chocolate stuff."  He agrees to go, but then Mattityahu (Alfonso McAuley), the priests whose refusal to sacrifice to the Greek gods started the rebellion, convinces him to rebel instead. 

Left: Alphonso McAuley.

They skate through a forest of Christmas trees and rap:

You look so down, look so puzzled. 

 Huddle round your fire through all the rubble.

Bound to stumble and fall but my strength comes not from man at all

More after the break

Sweethearts: Thanksgiving romcom proving that there's gay life in rural Ohio, so don't move to New York

Link to the n*de dudes

Sweethearts, on MAX, is a rare Thanksgiving romcom about two best friends who are going to the same college but distance-dating their life partners: Ben is with Claire, still in high school.

Ben is played by Nico Hiraga, left, a former semi-pro skateboarder from San Francisco. He has appeared in Booksmart, Love in Taipei, Goodrich, and The Power.

His best friend Jamie, a girl (Kiernan Shipka), is with Simon (Charlie Hall, left), who is dumb as a fence post but got into Harvard on a football scholarship.  Say what? 

 The long distance relationships  aren't working out, so the two make a plan to break up with their partners when they all go home for Thanksgiving.  

Obviously they're going to get together or it wouldn't be a romcom.  I'm fast forwarding through their scenes to get to Palmer (Caleb Hearon), the flamboyantly feminine "third friend" pictured in the animated opening. He's probably the standard romcom gay best friend who facilitates the romance, but maybe he'll get a boyfriend of his own.

Correction: I'm also interested in Ben's college roommate Tyler, played by Zach Zucker , a "Bad Bi Boy Clown" -- literally. He trained for two years at the Ecole Philippe Gaulier.  

On his Facebook page, Zach notes that "Bi Visibility Day is cool because it forces all of the people who have caused you pain by denying your existence to look at your pics."  

His character is introduced smooching a girl in bed, but maybe he's bi:

He looks at Ben's fake id and comments: "I'll go out with you.  Just kidding."

Ben has his hands full, so he asks Tyler to take his cell phone from his pocket.  "Whoops, wrong phone.  Just kidding."  

He seems to be dancing with Ben in the closing party scene.

And that's just when  I paused the fast-forwarding.

Paris: "Third Friend" Parker is introduced at Minute 15, calling the duo, wearing a striped shirt and beret, sitting in front of an image of the Eiffel Tower.  He took a gap year after high school to move to Paris, and he is working at a fast-food place near Euro Disney.  Why would visitors to Euro Disney want to see fast-food workers in clichéd French costumes?  

He announces that he is no longer "vaguely pretending to be straight." Really?  Who would think you were straight after talking to you for 30 seconds? 

He'll be coming out to a select group of former classmates at a party at his house on the night before Thanksgiving.

More after the break, including a rural Ohio gay community.  Caution: explicit.

Lesbian Subtexts in the Harvey Girls: Little Audrey, Little Lotta, and Little Dot

When I was a kid, I loved Harvey supernatural comics: Casper the Friendly Ghost, with his brave nonconformity to ghost society; Spooky the Tuff Little Ghost, who had a homoromantic back story; and Hot Stuff the Little Devil, who had homoerotic potential.

I didn't care much for Richie Rich, until he began bulking up in the mid-1970s, and I never bothered with the "girl only" titles: Little Dot, Little Lotta, and Little Audrey.

But I recently bought an anthology of Harvey Girl comics in the interest of completeness (I already had the other volumes), and in retrospect, those girls had a lot to offer.

No quiet, sweet, well-behaved "little ladies,"  they were intelligent, resourceful, and daring.  They gleefully surpassed the boys in every masculine-coded activity, from playing football to catching crooks, and their adventures usually had a satiric edge.

1. Little Audrey was named after a series of 1930s jokes about a girl who got into a terrible, morbid, or dirty situation, then "laughed and laughed" before delivering the punchline.

She had an African-American friend, Tiny, a first in 1960s comics, and a working-class boyfriend:  Melvin, who wore a spiked fedora and spoke Brooklynese.  Middle-lower class friendships were often forbidden, lending their bond a queer subtext.

2. Little Lotta was fat, a compulsive eater, yet very strong and athletic.  She had a small, eyeglass-wearing, feminine-coded boyfriend, Gerald, reminding one of the old blues song "Masculine Women, Feminine Men."

Some stories involved Lotta saving the day from bullies, but mostly they were extended gags with the gay symbolism that must have appealed to preteen lesbians:  Lotta's parents, teachers, or friends complain that she is inadequately ladylike so she unsuccessfully tries to "femme" it up.  In the end they decide that she's just fine the way she is.

3. Little Dot had two claims to fame: an obsession with dots, and an endless proliferation of uncles and aunts, who took her on secret-agent and science-fiction style adventures.

 In the 1950s stories, she had a boyfriend named Red, but by the 1960s, Red was forgotten, leaving Dot the only Harvey Girl who doesn't display any heterosexual interest.  She is the most feminine-coded of the trio, however, interested in "girly" fashion.

Dot and Lotta were best friends; the two often shared a story as well as a bed, giving them a nice butch-femme lesbian subtext.

See also: Richie Rich joins a gym, with bonus Kieran and Rory Culkin

Gavin's hunky dad, brothers, and cousins show their stuff

    

Link to the n*de photos

Gavin Munn (Jonathan on Raising Dion and Abraham on The Righteous Gemstones) is lucky to have two supportive parents, willing to drive him as far as Atlanta, six hours away, for auditions and scenes. 

1. Dad Johnny is the president of Coastal Built Construction an aviator, an avid fisherman and motorcyclist, and an actor.  His screen credits include two locally-produced Pirate Kids movies, an episode of Good Behavior,  Domestic Disturbance with John Travolta.

Did I mention that he's also a mega-hunk?

2. Here he is starting to do a backflip into a very rocky pool.

3. Fishing.  You can see the family resemblance: Gavin is a freshwater fishing champ.

4. A few years ago. 

5. Gavin's brother-in-law.

6. Not sure

More after the break

Kevin Zegers: Two gay roles, two gay teases, two dicks, and a lot of beefcake

  

Link to the dicks and butts

Born in 1984, Kevin Zegers was a child star well known for the Air Bud series, about a basketball-playing dog; and Treasure Island, where he played Jim Hawkins to Jack Palance's scary Long John Silver.  

Nico the Unicorn (1998) is not a heroic fantasy, as the title suggests, but about a oddball outsider boy, crippled when his leg was shattered by a drunk driver, whose horse gives birth to a unicorn.

He took his shirt off in Komodo, 1999, beginning a long beefcake career.

Teen magazines gushed, and shirtless photos began to bounce around the internet. 

He impressed one fan so much that they devoted a website to him, back in the 2000s when such things were uncommon.  There were hundreds of pictures, and article on topics like "Kevin's Biceps."

Wait, it's still there.  This photo illustrates an article telling us that at age 14, Kevin could bench press 200 pounds.  If true, that is quite impressive: the average for a 14 year old is 65 pounds.

During the 2000s, Kevin moved easily between lighthearted child fare, like the contining Air Bud series,  and teens having troubled lives or meeting monsters. In Four Days, 1999. a bank heist goes wrong; in Sex, Lies, & Obsession, 2001, his dad has a sex addiction. Wrong Turn, 2003, is a teenkill. Dawn of the Dead, 2004, is about zombies; The Hollow,  2004, is about the Headless Horseman.

But he managed to take his shirt and pants off in almost everything, such as when sex with his girlfriend made him sick on an episode of House MD.

Kevin's big social-commentary movie was Transamerica, 2005.  He played Toby, a teenage drug dealer and hustler.  After his mother commits suicide, he takes a road trip with a "Christian missionary" who turns out to be a trans woman Bree. 

He tries to seduce her, with a butt shot, whereupon she reveals that she is his biological father. They have some rough times, but the movie ends happily with Toby working in gay porn and reconciling with Bree.

Today most trans people dislike it: "absolutely horrible from beginning to end"; Bree "reinforces just about every single worst stereotype about trans people."  But in 2005, it was lauded for its "sensitive" portrayal of gay and trans people.

More after the break

Michael Welch: Flying starships, fighting zombies, getting baked, showing his physique

Link to the d*ck pics

You probably remember Michael Welch from the Twilight saga, about a girl torn between vampire and werewolf boyfriends (Robert Pattinson, Taylor Lautner).  He plays a human who has an unrequited crush on her.

Michael had sharp features and striking eyes that make him look angelic, demonic, or alien, so he was often cast as a  gay-vague outsider, even if his characters sometimes experienced unrequited heterosexual passions.

He began his acting career at the age of 10 in Star Trek: Insurrection (1998)  as Artim, a boy from a non-technological planet who bonds with the android Data.  performance won him a Young Artist Award.

Next came a series of paranormal and science fiction roles, including a clone of Colonel Jack O'Neill (Richard Dean Anderson) who just wants to be a normal teenager, on Stargate SG-1.  

He guest-starred in a number of sitcoms and dramatic series, including a memorable role as a new neighbor who falls for the brainy Malcolm in Malcolm in the Middle.

On Joan of Arcadia (2003-2005), Michael plays Luke Girardi, genius brother of the girl who talks to God,  He has a homoromantic buddy-bond with his best friend Friedman (Aaron Himmelstein), although he's also girl-crazy.

In The United States of Leland (2003), his mentally-challenged Ryan is murdered by classmate Leland, Ryan Gosling, who is dating his sister.

The Grind (2009) is about a grifter, Luke (C. Thomas Howell), who depends on his friends Josh and Courtney (Michael, Tanya Allen) to get him out of a jam. They start a sleazy website, but things go sour, and Luke has to rescue them from the Mexican mafia.

In Lost Dream (2009), college student Perry (Michael) falls for nihilistic free-spirit Giovanni (Shaun Sipos), who is involved in risky sex, drugs, and games of Russian roulette.  He must save Gio before it's too late.

As we often find, teenage gay-subtext roles give way to a thoroughly heteronormative adulthood.  Hansel and Gretel Get Baked, 2013, about a witch who lures teenagers into her house and drugs them with marijuana before literally baking them for dinner.  

More after the break

"Eric": Drunken puppeteer, missing son, gay cop, and a boyfriend with AIDS. Life as usual in 1980s New York

Link to the n*de photos

The Netflix series with the one-word title Eric is drawing my interest because it's set in the 1980s, so there will be some nostalgia, and because it's about a missing boy  -- 99% of the time, it's a woman or a girl.   

But...it stars Benedict Cumberbatch, hated for his role in the aggressively queerbaiting Sherlock and the execrably heteronormative Doctor Strange. 

Oh, well, let's give it a try.

Scene 1: The ten-year old Edgar -- is that a 1980s male name? -- has been missing for two days.  His Dad addresses him on tv: "I'm sorry, buddy. Prove to everyone that you're not dead.  Come home"  Sorry for what, dude? Did you do something? 

48 hours earlier: Edgar wanders around backstage as his dad and others film Good Day Sunshine, a marionette show with full-sized human figures.  The puppeters sit under them, apparently visible on screen.    Their closing motto is "Be good, be kind, be brave, be different."  In the Reagan-Thatcher 80s?  As if!  

A live orchestra-- this is a big deal.

Edgar waits while Dad Vincent -- Benedict Cumberbatch -- criticizes the producers for trying to "switch it up" with a beatbox number. The director explains, "We need to get some elementary school viewers, the cool kids." 

"What's next? Slime?" That was a Nickelodeon thing.  He insults his fellow cast members until they make excuses and leave.

Meanwhile, Edgar wanders around wardrobe.  He cuts some aquamarine fur from a muppet "for Eric."

Scene 2: Dad Vincent grabs Edgar, snarling, and pushes him across the street, against traffic, and onto the subway.  Edgar tries to discuss his idea for a  new character, a monster named Eric.  But Vincent isn't paying attention; he's glaring at some beatboxing teens. The kidnappers?

Nope. Next Dad makes Edgar wait outside while he buys booze in a liquor store. Customers glare at him. Uh oh, here's where he vanishes. 

Nope. Next he angrily insists that Edgar race him home, through the busy streets of midtown Manhattan.  Uh oh, here's where Dad zooms ahead and Edgar vanishes. 

They make it home ok. 

Scene 3: Edgar's Mom, who has a man's hair cut, complains that the city is going to close another homeless shelter.  Where are they supposed to go?  Edgar goes up to his room, decorated with art and comic books, while Dad criticizes Mom for withholding sex, and Mom criticizes Dad for being a drunk.  Whoa, drama. 

Upstairs, Edgar can hear them arguing and yelling "Fuck you!" at each other.  He escapes into his art.

Scene 4:  At dinner, Edgar tries to talk about his puppet idea again, but Dad Vincent is too aggressive: "Sell me on it!  You're not being enthusiastic enough!  Don't be a wimp!" Emotional abuse, Dad.

Edgar goes up to his room again and puts on headphones, but it doesn't help.  He still hears the parents arguing:  "You're out all night!" "Fuck you!"  Is this going to be paranormal?  Is he going to escape into Eric's world?

Mom comes in to hug him and check under the bed for monsters.  They discuss how much they love each other.  My parents never once spent five minutes whining "I love you so, so , so, so much!"  when I was trying to read a comic book and fall asleep. 

Scene 5: Morning.  Dad makes French toast to smooth things over, but Edgar is still afraid of him.   Closeup of one of those "missing kid" milk cartons.

Edgar heads out to school.  Men glare at him.  A guy in a van glares through his rear-view mirror. Maybe he'll be kidnapped now? I'm tired of the misdirections. 

Edgar is played by Ivan Morris Howe in his first screen role, but he has done theater, including "Oliver."  Looks rather femme.

Cut to the police station.  Detective Ledroit comes in.  A woman asks "Who's the lucky lady?" due to his after-shave.  That's heterosexist!  How do you know that he likes ladies? Oh, because he gazes at you with a sultry expression for five minutes. 

Adequately heterosexualized, he can go on to the Missing Persons case. 

Wait -- the Detective is played by McKinley Belcher III, who is gay in real life and has a husband.  Why isn't his character gay?

Scene 6: Vincent at the studio.  Today's filming is big deal, with network suits watching, so he promises to not have a meltdown or tell people to "fuck off."  A coworker notices that he's bleeding, but he covered it with a headband.  Uh-oh, Vincent killed his kid.

When the filming starts, Vicent goes off script: "Let's play a new game.  It's called 'Spot the Pile of Trash.'"   He stomps off, gets ten messages to call his wife, ignores them, gets some fan photos taken, snarls at the network suits.  Just fire him, and get someone else to voice the puppet.

Scene 7:  Back home, Vincent finally learns that his son Edgar didn't show up at school this morning. Detective Ledroit is here, wanting to talk to him.  He runs in the bathroom and examines his head injury.  I think it's a misdirection -- he got it from beating up his wife, not from killing his kid. 

The Detective asks what Edgar was wearing and his route to school.  He is suspicious of the way Mom and Dad snipe at each other. 

He starts canvassing the building.  First up: Mr. Lovett, an old man who was glaring at Edgar as he left this morning. Ledroit -- Lovett.  Too similar!  "He was a good kid."  The detective is suspicious of a tricycle in his apartment and the use of the word "was." 

More after the break

Wayland Flowers and Madame: TV's first drag queen puppet

During the 1980s, there wasn't much of gay interest on television.  An occasional "old friend comes out as gay or transgender" episode of The Jeffersons, One Day at a Time, Alice.

A "guy accused of being gay tries to commit suicide" episode of WKRP in Cincinnati.

Some "murderous, psychotic" drag queen episodes of cop dramas.

A few gay subtext shows, like The Powers of Matthew Star (with Peter Barton, left)

And Madame's Place (1982-83).

Gay actor and puppeteer Wayland Flowers (1939-1988) began voicing Madame in the 1970s.  She was a new twist on the drag queen persona, an elderly former movie star who had a potty mouth and told outrageous stories about her exploits with men.

Wayland was fully visible behind Madame, and openly saying her lines instead of keeping his mouth shut, like a ventriloquist.  But you didn't notice him.

Young adults, who thought of the older generation as skittish, easily-scandalized, and sexually repressed found Madame's bawdy humor mesmerizing, and soon she became the most famous puppet since Charlie McCarthy.

Wayland and Madame were everywhere in the 1970s and early 1980s, on  Andy Williams, Merv Griffith, The New Laugh-In, The Chuck Barris Rah-Rah Show, Playboy's Roller Disco and Pajama Party, and Solid Gold.  They hosted the 1982 Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade.  They were regulars on the Hollywood Squares game show.

A tv series was inevitable, a throwback to the old "celebrity home life" sitcoms of the 1950s, with Madame as a talk show host asking inappropriate questions of real celebrities like William Shatner and Peewee Herman.  At home, she interacted with her butler (Johnny Haymer), uptight assistant (Susan Tolsky), dumb-blond niece (Judy Lander), and kid next door (Corey Feldman, left).

There were no references to gay people, but it was easy to imagine Madame as an aging drag queen.  In fact, it was expected.

  You can see clips on youtube.

Wayland never came out, for fear that a public statement would "cost him a million dollars a year."  When asked directly, he said he was "not into labels."   It was the 1980s -- who can blame him?  He died of AIDS in 1988.

More after the break

"Dashing in December": Campy Christmas romcom with a Big City Money Dude and a hunky ranch hand, but no Neil Patrick Harris

 

I was recommended Dashing in December, a Christmas romcom advertised on Amazon Prime as a tv series, for some reason.  The blurb gives the standard plotline: Big City careers are stupid, go home for Christmas and find love.  The twist: Big City is a guy!  It will take about 10 minutes of screen time for the big reveal: he's gay!

Link to the  NSFW version

Scene 1: Establishing shot of NYC.  Big, Important Financial Planner Wyatt (Peter Porte) is at an office Christmas party, miserable amid the talk of husbands and wives.  He and Lindsey broke up in October, so he'll be alone!  At Christmas! Hey, I thought Wyatt was gay.  Has he not figured it out yet, or is Lindsey a made-up girlfriend? 

"What went wrong?" the Big Boss wants to know. "I thought you and Lindsey were perfect for each other."  So they've met?  Maybe Lindsey is a beard? Or maybe he's bi?

 "The nonstop trips to the Cape, the five-star restaurants every night. I want someone with simple, down-home tases."  Should have thought of that before you moved to the Big City, Dude. 

More plot: this is the first Christmas since Dad passed away, so Mom is depressed, so he's going back to the ranch in Colorado.  10,000 to one he finds love there.

Hey, the hot bartender (Eric Meroño, left) grins at Wyatt!  If you came in cold, this would be your first clue that Wyatt might not be straight, but I'll bet not one viewer in 100 catches it

Scene 2: Establishing shot of a beautiful ranch in Colorado. Wyatt's Mom brings tea to her workers: a girl and Heath (Juan Pablo de Pace, below).  She announces that Wyatt is coming home for Christmas, for the first time in five years.  Heath has only been working there for three years, so they've never met, but the girl is his High School Girlfriend. Whoa, Wyatt really racks up the babes.  

"Won't your husband, who is out of the country working for Doctors Without Borders, be jealous of your ex-boyfriend visiting?" Heath asks. 

High School Girlfriend, grinning: "I...don't...think so."  Her certainty is another clue.

Heath leaves, and High School Girlfriend interrogates Mom: "Heath doesn't know about Wyatt?" 

 "Well, I couldn't just tell him, could I?"  Tell him what, Mom?  What about your son is such a problem that you're afraid to tell your employee about it?

"Well, does Wyatt know about Heath?"  

"What could I say: you guys are both gay?"  The big reveal!   Why all the circumlocution and misdirection?  Probably the same rationale as not revealing that a tv character is gay until Season 2: you want the viewers to become invested in the story first, so they won't run away in homophobic horror. 

Wait -- Ranch Hand Heath is gay, too?  So what's the problem? This will be a very short romcom. Wyatt's plane lands, sparks fly, mistletoe, the end.

Scene 3:  Heath giving two moms and two kids (a lesbian couple?) a tour of Santa's Workshop. By horse-drawn carriage, not sleigh: there's no snow on the ground. 

Meanwhile, Wyatt arrives. pulls out his luggage, and grimaces. Yuck, back at the place I found so oppressive as growing up!   Mom hugs him and immediately envisions him having kids. Geez, Lady, wait until he's in the house before pressuring him to get married and have kids. 

Wait -- if Wyatt is gay, what's up with the ex-girlfriend Lindsey?  Mom references them with he/him pronouns -- yep, he was a guy with a girl's name, a misdirection to fool us before the big reveal.  Or Wyatt has a thing for gender-bending names: his High School Girlfriend is named Blake.   

Mom points out Heath: "He keeps the place going."  Wyat notices the lack of customers for Santa's Village, and criticizes him for not doing his job.  Yeah, Heath, get busy and make with the snowfall!

Scene 4: Heath and High School Girlfriend are heading to dinner, and to meet Wyatt.  Heath worries that he will be homophobic, but she reassures him: that won't be a problem.  So the guy who escaped Colorado, with its long history of homophobic legislation, for the freedom of a gay mecca, is homophobic?  

At dinner, Wyatt snipes at Heath, misnames him Hank, criticizes the terrible wine he brought, and ignores him to chat up High School Girlfriend. This isn't going well, but then neither of the guys knows that the other is gay.  

Then he brings up the real reason for his visit: he wants Mom to sell the ranch!  "It's prime real estate today, and Santa's Workshop isn't making any money."  The others act as if he's proposing eating babies.  

"This is your mother's home," High School Girlfriend says through gritted teeth. "This is all she has." Calm yourself, Girl -- Wyatt isn't kicking Mom out onto the street.  I checked current listings: Colorado ranches go from $2-15 million.  

Mom starts crying.  "So this is why you came home -- to destroy my life?  To spit on your father's grave?"

"Well, that's not the only reason.  I wanted to eat some babies, too."

More after the break

Gemstones Episode 1.6: Kelvin sees Keefe's d*ck, and gets a big head. Sounds like a fun evening.

 

  

Link to the n*de dudes

Episode 1.5 is a  flashback to 1989, when Aimee-Leigh is pregnant with Kelvin.  She's over 40, so she calls him her "miracle baby." Episode 1.6 shows us that "miracle baby" as a grown-up gay man interacting with his boyfriend or soon-to-be boyfriend Keefe.

Title: "Now the sons of Eli were worthless men." From 1 Samuel 2:12.  Eli was a high priest during the era of the Judges. His two sons did not perform the sacrifices properly, and had illicit sexual relations, so the Lord punished Eli by killing them. Uh-oh, Jesse and Kelvin are doomed.

Keefe's Mushroom Head:  After their Friday night encounter with the blackmailers, Jesse has their van towed to Kelvin's garage, talks to Kelvin, then fetches Judy. Jesse is wearing the same clothes, but Kelvin has changed out of his Faith Factory t-shirt. 

As they are talking, Keefe comes out of the house, wearing only a shirt and socks, eating cheese.  "What's going on?" he asks.

Jesse: "Sickening!"; Judy: "Cool mushroom tip"; Kelvin: "That shirt's not as long as you think, Bud.  Just go back inside."  We see his mushroom tip peeking out from below his shirt, and then his back side as he turns around.

Structurally, this seems to be a joke on Keefe being drug-addled, combined with a view of his privates that leads us to ask "are they or aren't they?" But in- universe, it becomes much more significant. 

First, notice that just a few episodes ago, Kelvin was terrified by the sight of Keefe's testicle.  Now he is embarrassed but not alarmed.  He is used to seeing Keefe.

Second, why is Keefe wearing only a shirt and socks?  Was he in bed?  No -- when you get dressed, you put on your pants first. Getting ready for bed?  No, when you get undressed, you take off your shirt first. 

A likely scenario: After the Club Sinister rescue, the guys drop Dot off, then go home and change clothes.  Some time later, Keefe decides to move forward with the relationship that Kelvin has been suggesting,  Since he rejected a bj offer earlier, it makes sense that he would want to start with a bj.  He takes his pants off, and his shoes have to come off, too.  Kelvin is so overcome by passion that he doesn't have time to take his clothes off -- he just drops to his knees.  

As they are getting busy, there's a knock on the door.  Keefe waits for Kelvin to return, gets bored, goes to the kitchen, gets some cheese.  Then he hears everyone talking and, assuming that his shirt is long enough to cover his privates, investigates.

It makes structural sense: Keefe looks for love in Episode 1.4, rejects the Satanists to follow Kelvin, and ends up in Kelvin's bed.  If Kelvin's "celibacy promise" was real, tonight he broke it, thus making his later despair more realistic.  And it would lead into the isolation tank rescue.

And it gives the siblings definitive proof that their brother and Keefe are boyfriends.  Notice that the gay implications immediately cease.

Saturday or Sunday: Rev. Seasons announces that his church is closing due to losing members to the Baby Billy's Locust Grove church.  We cut to Eli, Baby Billy/Tiffany, and BJ/Judy playing golf.  Wait -- shouldn't they be in church?  Or is this Sunday afternoon?

Personal note:  When I was growing up, our Nazarene church was across the street from a golf course.  The preacher ofter called down the wrath of God on those sinners who played golf on Sunday morning instead of worshipping Him.

Baby Billy gets BJ's name wrong, and then offers Judy a job singing with him. Since he was unsuccesful in drawing Aimee-Leigh from Eli, he's going to try it with Eli's daughter?

"This isn't normal":  Meanwhile, at Jesse and Amber's house,  Gideon comes down to breakfast with a black eye.  His parents are upset, but they don't make the connection to the car chase last night.  So it's Saturday morning?  Was the Rev. Season scene a flashback?

These timeline inconsistencies are annoying.  Let's just think about Keefe's mushroom tip again.  

More about Keefe: Kelvin's garage, several days later (queer code: there's a neon picture of a flexing bicep on the wall).  

Kelvin tells the silings that Keefe ran the van's plates -- stolen -- and got fired for it.  So he was living with Kelvin before he got fired?  Maybe he just spent the night of the Club Sinister rescue, because it was late and they wanted to be intimate?

Kelvin brags that the Nancys gave him a soda machine to thank him for bringing Dot back to the church.  Judy criticizes him for "getting all cocky," and Jesse agrees" "you have had a big f*cking head lately."  Both are double-entendre call-backs to Keefe  (unintentional in-universe, or are the siblings hinting?).  So, where did Keefe put his big f*cking head, Kelvin?   We're getting more and more structural evidence that the guys have been intimate.

See also:  Keefe's Capacious D*ck, Part 2: The Mushroom Head

Next: Gemstones Episode 1.6, Continued: Scotty flirts, BJ is spanked, and Kelvin says "Let's hook up".  With bonus Kenyan men

"Wellmania" Episode 1.5: Gaz cheats on his boyfriend, Chad shows his stuff, and Liv has yet another meltdown

Link to Chad's stuff

The 8-episode comedy/drama Wellmania, 2023, stars Celeste Barber as Liv Healy, a New York Times food writer who returns to her home town of Sydney to cover a food event and discovers that her dangerously high cholesterol level prevents her from getting a green card to return to the U.S.  She must lower it to continue her career.  

The premise and episode descriptions on Netflix give you no hint of gay representation, but according to Wikipedia, Liv's brother Gaz (Lachlan Buchanan), is gay, and appears with his fiancé Dalbert Tan  (Remy Hii) in every episode. 

Episode 1.2 says that Liv iefuses to attend the wedding.  I checked the scene: it has nothing to do with homophobia.  She just doesn't like the family thinking of her as a joke.  I reviewed Episode 1.5, "Hall of Mirrors."

Scene 1: Mom is retiring, so Liv gives a depressed speech: "You can have your colon cleansed and do your 450,000 steps a day, but it doesn't matter, because we're all going to die."  Gaz and Dalbert tell her to shut up and stop ruining Mom's day.

So she takes a bite out of the cake before it's cut and asks for more booze.

Mom's dining companion has heard that Gaz is getting married, and asks who the "lucky lady" is.  Mom doesn't divulge much, does she.  "Me, because we're homosexuals."  "So are my favorite patients!  They have such fascinating sexual injuries." Jerk

Uh-oh, Gaz gets a text from someone named Sebastian, lies that he has a lot of clients to see, leaves.  Cheating on the boyfriend?  

Liz runs into the bathroom to throw up.  Mom wants to know why she keeps doing such unhealthy things.  "You can't have two perfect children."  Gaz is perfect?  Just wait...

Editor Valerie call.  Everyone loves her Camille article. "It was gutsy!  It was real!" She wants Liv in New York to "be the third judge in the show," but Liv is trapped in Australia. 

From here there are three plotlines.  I'll review each separately.

Liv's Story: Liv accosts Chad, Guy Edmonds,  the American counsul, while he's in the men's room. She needs a new doctor to bribe to say her cholesterol level is ok, so she can get her green card back and return to New York -- she sort of attacked the old one, Dr. Singh. Couldn't you go on a tourist visa if you just want to be the judge on the show?

"It's a once in a lifetime opportunity.  Haven't you ever had a dream?"  While she is begging, she accidentally scatters paper towels, and gets on her knees to pick them up just as another man comes in.  "It's not what it looks like."  "No, it's worse," Chad retorts.

More after the break.