Balkan Beefcake: Twelve bulging Bosnians, hung Herzegovinians, and Croatian cocksmen

  

Link to the Croatian cocksmen

ILGA Europe ranks all 49 European countries on LGBT equality, and the Balkan states do surprisingly well: Montenegro scores 61%, higher than the Netherlands, and Croatia  51%, higher than Switzerland. Bosnia and Herzegovina 39.5%, and Serbia 35%, score higher than Italy.   

Of course, legal equality does not necessarily translate into gay-friendliness for the traveler. Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina, has only one gay-specific bar.  Guys meet through private parties and the internet.

Sarajevo boxing buddies

Mostar, two hours by train south of Sarajevo, near the Adriatic Sea, is famous for its old Turkish quarter, as well as the Museum of War and Genocide Victims.  Ok...well, there are three gay-friendly bars, and lots of guys posting selfies.

Nijvice, Croatia, a resort town near the Italian border.  But you have to go through Slovenia to get there, so it takes about three hours.

More sex gods after the break

One beefcake photo of Michael J. Fox and nine of other guys

Other than "that character can't be gay! He said hello to a girl in Scene 12!", the most common complaint I get is "that photo isn't of the obscure actor you're writing about!"

I don't understand the problem. Beefcake is beefcake.  Why is it essential that an article be illustrated by pictures of the actor listed on the IMDB?  Especially if they're so obscure that not one person in a hundred will be able to tell the difference.   

It's not intentional.  It's just that it's hard to recognize an actor after seeing him in just one movie.  There are usually a hundred other people with similar features.  Plus he might look completely different over time.

For instance, take Michael J. Fox, the famous star of Family Ties, Back to the Future, Teen Wolf, Spin City, and so on, the first celebrity I met  when I moved to West  Hollywood.  I'm going to pretend that I I've only seen him in Back to the Future, and google "Michael J. Fox" and "body." Here's who pops up:

1. Robbie Benson, a teen idol of the 1980s.  I'm definitely sure that this is Robbie Benson, because I had that same photo hanging on my bedroom wall.

2. Charlie Sheen in Full Metal Jacket. Michael J. Fox was not in it.

3. No idea

4. I think he was in one of those Friday-night TGIF sitcoms, Full House or Raising Dad or something.

5. No idea.

















More after the break

Spring break in Iceland: A hookup with a Nordic god

 

Link to NSFW version

Augustana, Junior Year

Augustana was a small college, so there weren't many choices for Modern Language Majors: Spanish, French, German, Swedish, Latin, Greek, and occasionally Russian. We had to "become fluent" in two languages and "competent" in a third, so I chose Spanish and French, which I studied in high school, and German, because I spent the fall quarter of my sophomore year in Regensburg. 

We also had to participate in at least one language club, but the Spanish, French, and German clubs were kind of boring, with bake sales, foreign-language films, and field trips to the Goethe Institut or the Alliance Française in Chicago.

Everybody joined the Scandinavian Club -- they had an endowment from a wealthy alumnus, and paid most of the way for members to go on annual field trips to Scandinavia!  A different country every year, alternating between Sweden, Norway, Denmark, and Iceland.

In my junior year, it was Iceland.  I would have preferred Norway, but I wasn't about to turn down ten days in the land of the Old Norse sagas and Nordic hunks.

There were 12 of us, eight boys and four girls, plus two chaperones. We stayed in a youth hostel, four to a room, but everyone got a single bed, so there wasn't any late-night fondling, just a couple of less-than-spectacular sausage sightings.

No one came out willingly in the 1970s, so if any of the other guys were gay, they didn't let on.

Iceland was interesting, but not quite interesting enough for six days.  After you see the National Museum and the  Árbæjarsafn, an open-air museum of Icelandic history, there's nothing but glaciers, geysers, rocks, and scraggly mountains.  I've never found natural wonders as interesting as museums.

We never made it to Akureyri, famous for its annual strongman contest.

One day we took a bus to Hveragerði, about 45 minutes from Reykjavik, to visit Reykjadalur, "Steam Valley,"  an unearthly-looking region of volcanic boulders, spurts of steam, rocks, waterfalls, pools of water, and hot springs with wooden footpaths around.

Our guide told us that some intrepid souls jumped into the hot springs, but you had to be careful -- in some of them, the temperature got up to 80 degrees (175 fahrenheit), and would scald you.

None of us was brave enough.  Besides, it was cloudy and damp, with a cold wind blowing -- who wanted to strip?

When it came time to get back on the bus, we discovered that Erik was missing!

The full story, with nude photos, is on RG Beefcake and Boyfriends

Peer Gynt: Your Grandfather's Heterosexism

Rock Island had a large Scandinavian population,  and our teachers, from grade school through college, felt it their duty to introduce us to "our" heritage (mostly Swedish, but also Norwegian, Danish, Icelandic, Finnish, and even Estonian). I liked Vikings and Norse mythology, but not much else:

1. The horrible fairy tales of Hans Christian Andersen, which usually ended with a kid dying
2. The Wonderful Adventure of Nils, about a boy who visits every single one of Sweden's 25 provinces.
 3. A Doll House, about a woman in an unhappy marriage
4. The Growth of the Soil, about a married couple trying to eke out a living on sparse ground.

Wait -- I could be reading The Lord of the Rings, instead of this stuff, or parked in front of the tv watching Erik Estrada on Chips. 

5. But the worst was Peer Gynt, the 1867 Ibsen play set to music by Edvard Grieg.  I had to read it, play it, perform in it. 

Peer Gynt is an irreverent rapscallion, like Tom Jones, whose adventures mostly involve sex with women.  After having sex with the sister of his true love Solveig, plus three dairy maids and a mysterious Lady in Green, Peer ends up in the Hall of the Mountain King, a haven of trolls.

The troll king offers to scratch his eye so that he can see clearly, know things as they are, but Peer refuses and runs away.  After many  adventures as a brigand and a businessman, he returns home, elderly and bitter, and reunites with his true love Solveig on her death bed.

The troll king asks "What is the difference between troll and man?"

The answer is the same as in Pippin: men don't aspire, don't dream, and certainly don't try to see things as they are.  They stay home and marry women, meekly accepting their destiny in job, house, wife, and kids. They aren't gay.

I got a B-.

In spite of my antipathy, Peer Gynt is very popular.  There have been at least 20 film and television versions in French, German, Norwegian, Dutch, English, and Hungarian.  Versions with street people as performers, with Peer as a young boy, with Peer as a hillbilly.

A 1971 German miniseries had 7 actors playing Peer Gynt in various stages of his life.

A 1941 student film had a very young Charleton Heston (future star of Ben Hur) as Peer Gynt (top photo)

There was a 1960 cartoon called Peer Gynt's Adventures in Arabia.

The 2006 tv movie was set in modern times. Robert Stadlober played a gay character in Summer Storm, but his performance was still entirely heterosexist.

Plus many stage versions and ballets.

There's a Peer Gynt festival every year in Vinstra, Norway, featuring a performance of the play next to Lake Gala, where Grieg found his inspiration.

Red, White, and Royal Blue: Romcom with the Prince of England and the President's Son in Love

 

I watched a season of Young Royals, about the crown prince of Denmark falling in love with a working-class boy. ("You can't be gay; it would destroy the monarchy!).  In Season 2, the guys break up, and the Prince starts smooching on a girl.  Ugh!  I don't care if they get together or not, I'm out.  

Next up: Red, White and Royal Blue, another gay royal romance, on Amazon Prime.   Here's hoping they won't use the "You can't be gay.  It will destroy the monarchy!" conflict.

Scene 1: The wedding of Prince Philip, future king of England.  His younger brother Henry waves and smiles.  Alex Clairmont-Diaz (Taylor Zakhar Perez), son of the U.S. President, is one of the guests.

Later, in the limo with his bff Nora, Alex scoffs.  He was a regular guy until his mom was elected; he's not used to all the pomp.  You know you can't get elected President unless you are mega-rich and powerful to begin with.  He's used to pomp.  He'll never fit in with the royals, he complains.  But she convinces him to go to the state dinner at Buckingham Palace: "Prince Henry is hot!" "Not my type -- too entitled," Alex scoffs.

At the reception line, Prince Henry (Nicholas Galitzine) is complaining about the expense of this fancy wedding.  The cake alone cost 75,000 pounds. His escort, his sister Beatrice, points out that Alex is hot.  They've met: the Prince doesn't like him, and snubs him in the line.

Scene 2:  Nora has gone off somewhere with Princess Beatrice, leaving Alex alone, miserable.  Don't lots of people want to talk to the U.S. President's son?   

He gets sloshed, insults Prince Henry for being a snob, and accidentally smears him with cake frosting.  They tussle, and both end up under the toppled 75,000 pound cake.  Chekhov's Gun: I knew that would happen.

Scene 3:  The President yells at Alex for causing yet another incident.  This one will jeopardize U.S.-Britain relations.  Haven't we been allies since like World War I?   She notes that before the incident ruined things, she was out-polling the Spice Girls.  What year is this?   Whatever the year, the Prime Minister is a black woman, and the President is a white woman with a Hispanic son.  We got us some diversity.  

Damage control: he has to fly back to London for a joint summit that explains that he and Prince Henry weren't actually fighting (well, they weren't).  They are, in fact, close friends (that will be difficult to pull off).   And no hookups while you're there.  Ok, so Alex and presumably the Prince are out to everybody.  It's not a problem in this homophobia-free world.

Scene 4:  Alex on Air Force One, drinking Diet Coke, being interrogated by his bodyguard on the royal family.  He's got to know all the details if he and Prince Henry are close friends, right? Not really -- I've never met the parents of any of my friends, and usually not boyfriends, either.  

Scene 5:  After the usual establishing shots of London, Alex arrives at Kensington Palace, the residence of the Prince of Wales (and I guess his brother).  He meets the Prince's snively personal assistant Shaan (Akshaye Khanna).  The Prince comes zooming in, and they try to smile for a photography, while Alex says "My NDA is bigger than yours."  Non-disclosure agreement? 

Time for an interview.  They have to "scooch" close together, as looks of disgust...ok, they don't like each other, I get it.  They'll be falling in love, some obstacles, standard romcom stuff, except it's a gay couple in a world where no one cares.  I'm bored.  Can't they think of any other conflict except rich/entitled and regular guy?

Spoiler alert:  Alex can be gay, but the Prince has to be closeted.  "If you are gay, it will destroy the monarchy!" I guess they thought of another conflict after all.   But at least they stay together.

My Grade: I can't grade a movie when I've only seen the first 15 minutes, but audiences like it: 94% on Rotten Tomatoes.  So if you like romcoms, go for it. I'm going to look for n*de photos of Akshaye Khanna.

Jason Schwartzman: Lots of quirky guys winning The Girl of Their Dreams, two gay/bi characters, one penis

 

Jason Schwartzman broke into film with Rushmore, 1998, which I didn't see: the plot synopsis sounded decidedly creepy, not to mention obsessively heterosexist.  A 15 year old boy tries to get with one of high school teachers, but she refuses to sexually assault him, so he fixes her up with his older buddy and finds an age-appropriate girlfriend.  Shudder.

He played a few more disaffected, deviant, and dangerous teenagers, in  Freaks and Geeks, Slackers, and Spun, then moved on to some well-received independents, such as I Heart Huckabees and The Grand Budapest Hotel

Link to the NSFW version

Looking through the list on the IMDB, I realize that out of Jason's 87 movies and tv shows, I've seen four: 

Scott Pilgrim vs. the World, 2010:  An adaption of the graphic novel, with Scott (Michael Cera, who I watched to see) trying to win the Girl of His Dreams by clobbering her evil exes.  One is a girl; plus Scott has a gay roommate, played by Kieran Culkin. Jason plays one of the exes, Gideon G-Man Graves.

Wet Hot American Summer, 10 Years Later, 2017, reunites the gang from the movie and add some new characters, such as Deegs, "the new Andy" (Skyler Gisondo, who I watched to see). Jason plays Greg, the head boys'  counselor at the summer camp.

In The Righteous Gemstones Season 2, Jason plays Thaniel, a sleazy journalist digging up dirt about "sexual impropriety" among clergy.  He is especially interested in taking down Eli Gemstone, the most famous televangelist and mega-church pastor in the world. Eli's children, hoping to talk him into backing off, go to his cabin, and find him shot to death!  "Who killed Thaniel?" is one of the main mysteries of the season.

Jason plays a gay guy in Asteroid City, 2023: Augie Steenbeck, a World War II photojournalist who stars in the play based on the movie we're watching, and dates the playwright, I think. It's all very confusing, and not really worth it: the two are on stage for only about 30 seconds, and vanish after a single, so-distant-that-you-can-barely-see it kiss.

More Jason after the break

Schitt's Creek: A small town (in Canada, but don't tell anyone), with some gay guys and a boatload of beefcake

In the Canadian sitcom Schitt's Creek (2015-20), video magnate Johnny Rose (SCTV alumnus Eugene Levy) loses his fortune to a shady business manager, and he and his former-actress wife Moira and adult children David and Alexis  are forced to move into a cheap hotel in the desolate small town of Schitt's Creek, where they try to adapt to such hardships as sharing a room and making their own beds.

Link to NSFW version

They butt heads with many curious, eccentric, and passive-aggressive smiling-as-they-dump-on-you residents, like Mutt (Tim Rozon), the mayor's son, who lives in a barn and collects compost.

It reminds me a bit of Gilligan's Island, with the castaways trying to survive on a desert island, their plans to escape constantly falling through at the last moment.

Schitt's Creek is so small that it has only one hotel, restaurant, and "general store," and the same six people do everything.  But still, there's a lot going on, and the Roses throw themselves into town life, getting jobs, joining clubs, running for city council, dating -- a lot of dating.  David (Dan Levy) develops a friends-with-benefits relationship with a girl, Stevie (Emily Hampshire), who appears to be the hotel's only employee, and Alexis has a steady stream of boyfriends, like Mutt and  town veterinarian Ted (Dustin Milligan, left).

That's one of the things I like about Schitt's Creek -- it's overloaded with beefcake, hot guys in tight shirts -- or out of tight shirts -- everywhere you look.

The other thing I like is the writing.  The dialogue is witty, sardonic without being bitter.  There is no us vs. them, normal v. hicks or normal v. snobs.  Everyone has foibles, but almost everyone comes across as likeable.



What I don't like is:

1. David states that he is pansexual, and he is played by Dan Levy, who is gay, yet his relationships are exclusively heterosexual until the third season, when his ex-boyfriend Sebastian (Francois Arnaud) rolls into town.  Later he and Stevie get into a three-way relationship with Jake (Steve Lund, left).  

Eventually his coworker Patrick (Noah Reid) comes out and they begin dating.  Eventually, like in the Season 6 Series Finale, they get married. I get so sick of men who are canonically bisexual but only involved with women, or in this case only involved with women until the showrunners were quite sure that outing David wouldn't cause a mass exodus of horrified homophobic viewers.

2. They go to great lengths to erase everything Canadian from the show.  No loonies, no maple leaves, no jaunts to Toronto.   

Hello, CTV: for those of us who live elsewhere, half the fun of a Canadian sitcom is that it's set in Canada. I want to see multicolored money and Tim Hortons on every corner.  Corner Gas could not take place anywhere but Saskatchewan; Trailer Park Boys could not take place anywhere but Nova Scotia.  Schitt's Creek wants you to believe that it's set in Iowa.

What's wrong with a small town in Manitoba or Ontario?  Especially with all that beefcake going on.

There are some bulges, butts, and at least one Francois dick on RG Beefcake and Boyfriends

"Turn of the Tide": Four buds, one gay, find a cache of cocaine. In the Azores. With bonus drug dealer butt

 

When I'm looking for a tv show or movie to watch for entertainment, I avoid boring dramas about people falling in love or sitting by the bedside of a dying relative.  I want something interesting: time slips, parallel worlds, zombies, intricate capers, comedic mishaps, or an unusual setting. And what could be more unique than the Azores, those volcanic islands in the Atlantic, nearly 1000 miles from Lisbon? 

Turn of the Tide is a 2023 Portuguese tv series about four friends in the Azores who find a cache of cocaine, with ensuing complications. I doubt that any are gay, but it's a , so who cares?

Scene 1:  July 2001.  A little boy runs through a small, colorful Azorean village, to a kitchen drug lab, and finds Hunk Protagonist Eduardo (Jose Condesa), a cocaine dealer, wearing a muscle shirt;  Silvia, who has pink hair; and BFF Rafael, who wears a backwards baseball cap.  He yells that the priest started bleeding and collapsed during the mass.  "Fucking hell!" Eduardo exclaims.

Narrator: I could say that the story begins here, but let's go back and talk about the Azores, nine islands in the "middle of fucking nowhere," a 2 1/2 hour flight from Lisbon, with no gay bars and a conservative Catholic population that often exhibits rude and harassing behavior toward gay tourists.  Centuries of poverty, isolation, storms, volcanos, earthquakes.

Scene 2: Ten days before: the guys and their swishy blond friend Carlinhos (Andre Leitao, left) load their fishing boat and head out into a stormy sea. Edwardo is surprised that the Gay Guy knows about soccer: "I thought our little lady here only knew about ice skating."  Ok, that's mildly homophobic, but at least there's a (probably) gay character. 

  They head back due to a storm. We don't get to see them fighting the storm?

Scene 3: Silvia dancing and displaying her boobs for five minutes.  I knew that would happen.

Scene 4:  Eduardo cooking fish for his grungy, not-all-there Dad. Then he takes Dad to the hospital for eye surgery.  

He says he's going to the bathroom, but instead runs to the American embassy: his visa application has been rejected due to his lack of education. When he returns to the hospital, he discovers that they gave him the wrong time, so no surgery today.  As the great Gilda Radner said, "It's always something." 

Meanwhile pink-haired Silvia is applying for the "2001 Miss Ponta Delgada Contest."  Why is it Miss and not Senhorita?  One of the application questions is: "Who should make the first move, the man or the woman?"  How heteronormative.  Maybe there are two men or two women!  

Scene 5:  Back to the storm, with an Italian boat tossing in the waves. The rudder broke; they're in the middle of nowhere.  The cabin is swamped; packets of cocaine float about.  

Narrator: "This is where it began, with Italian mafiosi crossing the Atlantic with a boatload of drugs."  The mafiosi are Gianluca (Filippo Fiumari, left) and Francesco (Marcantonio Del Carlo). One of the mafiosi wants to radio for help, but they can't let anyone rescue them and find the cocaine.  And if they lose the cocaine, their bosses will kill them.  Suddenly they sight land!

After all the bad news, Eduardo's car breaks down in the storm.  And you thought you were having a bad day.

Cut to Silvia at a video store, dancing seductively with her boobs hanging out. Eduardo comes in drenched from the storm, gazes at her with Girl-of-His-Dreams horniness, and asks if any new movies are in.  That's what you're worried about? She complains about how horrible the Azores are, and flirts with him a bit.   

Scene 6:  Eduardo in bed in a muscle shirt.  He looks at risque photos of Silvia and imagines doing sexy stuff with her.  

Meanwhile, the Gay Guy presses-foreheads and hugs but doesn't kiss his older, bald, married boyfriend.  Whoa, Gay Guy  has a six-pack!  Boyfriend turns him around so they can have sex. 

The Italian mafiosi have reached the rocky shore and stashed their cocaine.

Scene 7: Morning.  Eduardo asks aanother fishing pal) (Rodrigo Tomas) to lend him some money so he can get his car fixed, but the Fishing Pal is poor, too.  He offers to give Eduardo a cut in his delivery of hashish to some drug dealers.  Uh-oh, Fishing Pal is dating Silvia, the Girl of Eduardo's dreams.  The plot thickens.

More Azores after the break

Robert Oberst and the World's Strongest Men. Yes, some of them are naked

 

Link to NSFW Version

Robert Oberst, whose motto is "Strong and Pretty," grew up in Aptos, California, graduated from Western Oregon University in 2008 with a degree in history.  He moved to San Francisco, and like most history majors, found work as a bouncer in gay bars.  

But soon he discovered that being huge was good for more than attracting guys: he began competing on the strongman circuit, and racking up awards:

First place, San Francisco Fit Exp, 2012.

Third place, America's Strongest Man, 2012. Second place, 2013 and 2014

Third place, All-Amerca Strong Man Challenge, 2013.

And it goes on like that.  Meanwhile, he sold "Strong and Pretty" products and appeared as himself in two tv series dedicated to the strongest men in the world.

In 2022, after placing in nearly 20 competitions, Robert retired from strength competitions, just in time to break into an acting career.  He stars in Season 3 of The Righteous Gemstones as Chuck Montgomery, one of the backwoods cousins of the mega-rich Judy, Jesse, and Kelvin Gemstone.  

Strongman contests differ from bodybuilding in their emphasis on strength rather than definition, so bulk is fine.  Many strongmen find that a belly is an asset, as we see with Tom Stoltzman, World's Strongest Man in 2021 and 2022.

Bodybuilders are drawn from the elite class, who can afford to spend thousands of dollars on protein supplements and fancy gym equipment.  Strongmen are drawn from the working class, so their feats of strength often involve everyday objects: lifting boulders, logs, and tires; pulling or flipping over cars; tossing beer kegs.  Here Oleg Novikov, the World's Strongest Man in 2020, lifts a barbell made of tires.

Robert Oberst specialized in the log lift: in 2015 he broke the American log lift record of 211 kg -- 465 pounds.

Strength competitions are super-macho, drawing a lot of heterosexual alpha males.  Although Robert likes to hint that he is gay, he has never made a public statement. Besides, I think he might have a wife.

In fact only one professional strongman is out as gay: Rob Kearney, who coincidentally broke Robert Oberst's log-lift record in 2020.

Nude strongman bonus on RG Beefcake and Boyfriends

Davey and Jonesie's Locker: A Canadian teencom "Sliders," with some gay characters and a bonus Jerry O'Connell

 Sliders (1995-2000) starred 90s heartthrob Jerry O'Connell as the leader of a group of castaways being zapped around parallel worlds, with a broken transporter device, so they can't control where they go, or how long they will be stuck there.  Sometimes they encounter lost loves, or find out that in this world they're famous, but more often it's dystopian horror that requires Jerry to take off his clothes for some kind of torture.

Like becoming a sex toy, or displaying his butt.

The Canadian teencom Davey and Jonesie's Locker -- super-stupid name!  - has about the same premise: due to a transporter malfunction, the two best friends at  Schroedinger High School (get it?) are being zapped among parallel worlds. Each is nearly the same as their home world, with the same students and teachers -- the Hunk, the Mean Girl, the Nerd, the Femme Boy -- but with a significant difference:

The Mean Girl has taken over the school and instituted a caste system.

Music is outlawed, because it turns the adults into werewolves.

A Hunger Games world, with Davey and Jonesie fighters "to the death."

A Glimmerdale world, a parody of Riverdale, with teen angst, serial killers, cults, vampires, and atrocious plot holes.

More after the break

"The Strongest Man in History": Robert Oberst and his pals recreate Viking challenges. With bonus Danish dick

Link to NSFW version

In The Strongest Man in History, on the History Channel, four contemporary strongmen try to recreate the stunts of legendary strongmen:

William Bankier, who lifed a piano in Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show.

Thomas Topham, who lifted three barrels of water weighing over 5,000 pounds in 1749.

Monte Saldo, who lifted a motorcar and five passengers in 1903.

The guys: 

1. Brian Shaw, "Shaw Strength"

2. Eddie Hall, "The Beast"

3. Robert Oberst, "Strong and Pretty"

4. Nick Best

I watched the first episode, where Nick takes the guys on a tour of Moorhead, Minnesota, across border from Fargo, North Dakota, the "center of Viking culture in the United States."

 Nick is a devotee of all things Viking, even going to Renaissance fairs wearing a horned helmet.  His signature stunt is the Viking Press.

They visit the stave church at the Hjelmkomst Center, go ice fishing, and hear about how the days of the week are named after Norse gods.  But for some reason they skip the biggest tourist attraction in Moorhead, the Hjelmkomst Viking Ship.  It's a replica built by Robert Asp in the 70s that sailed across the ocean to Norway before being housed in the Clay County Cultural Center

Most of the episode is devoted to the guys introducing themselves, explaining what they're going to do, discussing how difficult it will be, and then doing it:

1. Carry a 345-pound boulder. All Viking boys had to carry one to achieve fullsterkur, full strength, and be considered a man.  In Iceland, they still use the 409-pound Húsafell Stone as a test of strength.

Left: 18 year old Billy Crawford, the youngest person ever to lift the stone.

More after the break

Kim's Convenience: Korean family runs a convenience store in a gay-free Toronto. With some nude guest stars

 

Kim's Convenience (2016-21) on Netflix, features a Korean-Canadian family running a convenience store in a diverse neighborhood of Toronto.  For a change, they don't try to hide it: there's a Canadian flag over the counter, and frequent references to Toronto landmarks.

It seems a bit retro: LGBT people don't exist except in the first episode, when the curmudgeonly, old-fashioned Mr. Kim (Paul Sun-Hyung Lee) refuses to allow a gay pride poster to be placed in his shop window, because why do gay people have to advertise themselves with a parade?  Koreans don't march down the street yelling "I'm Korean!"  If they're gay, why can't they be quiet, respectful gays?

I started to cringe, having heard this complaint a dozen times, even from gay people.  It is a standard homophobic misconception that Pride is about proclaiming that you have gay sex rather than celebrating survival in a hostile world.

 Accused of being homophobic, Mr. Kim backtracks by offering a 15% discount to gay people during Pride Week. Through the rest of the episode, he gets to decide who warrants the discount and who doesn't.

He tells Boy Toy (Alexander Nunez) "You're not gay, you're just pretending."  Boy Toy returns with a flamboyant friend as proof, but Mr. Kim merely asks him what his favorite movie was in college.  Caddyshack.  Straight.

But when a guy (Andy Yu) drops in to apply for a job, Mr. Kim offers him the discount.  He protests that he is straight, but Mr. Kim wink-winks "Sometimes it takes awhile for the gay to come out."

He does give the discount to a drag queen after a conversation about "Why you dress like a woman?"  She actually seems pleased by the question, and replies: "It feels comfortable.  It feels like home."

The episode was not exactly offensive, at least not offensive enough to turn off, but it made me uncomfortable.  It was like watching people talk about me behind my back.

No gay people appear again.  Evidently the gays were the problem of the week, and the show moved on:

A friend asks Mr. Kim to become a "wingman" on a double date.

A kid runs wild in the convenience store, and the mother refuses to discipline him.

Mr. Kim gets a crush on the new female pastor, and insists on not charging her for anything.

After the first few episodes, the convenience store was relegated to the B plot, while the primary plot involved the problems and relationships of the two Kim children:

Janet (Andrea Bang), a photography student at OCAD University, struggles to achieve independence by moving out, getting a job, and refusing to "marry a nice Korean Christian boy," to the consternation of her traditional parents.

Jung (Simu Liu, top photo), who hasn't talked to his father in years, apparently just so they can reconcile.  He works at a car rental company, where he has a crush on his female boss.  He doesn't appear to own a shirt.  The writers play up Jung's hunkiness deliberately, as a remedy to the countless sexless Asian characters in media.

Simu Liu has also appeared in the play Banana Boys, about the stereotypes Asian Canadian men face, and in the movies Shang Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings, One True Love, and Barbie.

Other male characters include:

Kimchee (Andrew Phung, center ), a clownish slob, Jung's roommate, coworker, and bromantic life partner.  

Gerald (Ben Beauchemin), their nerdish, self-depricating coworker, and eventually Janet's platonic roommate.

More male stars after the break