Is There Sex After Death?: A Gideon Gemstone/Scotty Steele story, with some random dicks

This story takes place after  Righteous Gemstones Episode 1.8, when Scotty Steele is killed. 

Link to the nude photos

April 21, 2019. Easter Sunday.

Light. Intense, golden light, surrounding him. Not bright, like sunlight, just warm, comfortable, loving -- how can light be loving? -- like sitting on your mother's lap when you are a kid. Scotty wonders if he is a kid. Maybe he has gone back to the womb?

No, there are others around him, some that he once knew, and loved or hated, some who are strangers. Except they aren't strangers now -- he sees the most important moments of their lives, and they, in turn, see Scotty's. At random, not in chronological or thematic order:

1. Going out to dinner at the Shem Creek Restaurant in Mount Pleasant -- pizza and beer -- and Scotty calls Gideon "Little Lord Fauntleroy." They smile and joke, and hold hands under the table, and the song on the radio, or in his mind, is "You Knock Me Out.” :

The way you talk when you say what you see

Your smile breaking my words – you knock me out.

The way you shake it, baby, the way you get when you get down -- you knock me out 

The memory of the song, of his smile, fills Scotty with so much joy that he he feels like he will burst. He looks around -- or the equivalent when you don't have a body -- and feels the others sharing his joy.

2. The Old Man, Jesse Gemstone,  takes them all out on his yacht, and in the glittering of the waves, while the kids sit in the wading pool -- a pool on a yacht? -- Jesse offers to become his Daddy, and they hug.  He eases into the hug, actually considering the crazy idea for a moment.  They could just walk away from the scheme to steal the Easter offering from the Salvation Center, $3,000,000, and settle into lives as a good Christian Gemstone and his boyfriend. 

 Then he laughs to himself.  No way will the Old Man ever admit Scotty to the family, knowing that his cock  has been down his son's throat or up his ass...sorry, Mom....the fact that Scotty has been intimate with his son every night. Evangelicals hate gay sex even more than they hate thinking for yourself. The Easter Offering plan is the only way they can walk side by side into the future.

3. Driving from California to South Carolina so they can blackmail his father, the world-famous Jesse Gemstone, with a video of his sex-and-drugs party, get even for a childhood of neglect and abuse, and fund their happily-ever-after life in Thailand. They spend the night in a Motel 6 somewhere in New Mexico. Lucy is snoring.  Scotty opens his eyes and sees that Gideon is propped up in the other bed, playing on his cell phone, his face illuminated, as if he is already in the plane of endless light.  He must be an angel -- nothing in this shithole world -- sorry, Mom -- could be so beautiful.

He knows that he's going to do it, he's known since the moment they met, but still, Scotty is terrified as he climbs out of his own bed and slides in next to him.  Gideon doesn't look surprised -- maybe he has always known, too.  He puts his cell phone away and scoots down so Scotty can hold him in his arms and kiss him.  

Then the world changes.  Scotty has never been kissed before, not like this. Minutes pass, hours, months.  It's more than enough for a lifetime. He doesn't even think about doing something more intimate -- is there anything more intimate? -- but eventually Gideon takes the lead, rolls him over onto his back, and moves down....he moves down...

To give him the best blow job of his life. Well, until the next night.  And the next. With Gideon, his orgasms are so intense that his yells wake half the county, and he has to lie there, panting, exhaused, not sure where he is or who he is, knowing only that they are together.

Cause you and me were meant to be. One heart, one soul, one mind, two of a kind. 

Whoever said that love is blind?  We're partners in crime.

Scotty retreats into himself, embarrassed, but the others draw him back. There's nothing to be embarrassed about now. They've seen the moments of his life, and he's seen theirs.

More after the break

Gavin Munn's Spring Break. With a gym bud, a shower bud, a Taino guy, and the Easter Bunny

Last year Gavin Munn, star of Raising Dion and The Righteous Gemstones, spent spring break in Puerto Rico.  He posted some pics to his Instagram, and I added a few of my own. The nude guys are all adults.

Link to the nude adults

1. With Seann William Scott of the American Pie franchise.

2. That's not a real pelican

3. Golfing on Playa Guajataca.

4. Gym bud

5. Shower bud

6. Riding his bike down the hotel hallway.

More spring break after the break

Adam Stevenson: Vampire's boyfriend, sailor's husband, ghillie dancer, possible bondage bottom, true Scotsman

 

Link to the nude photos

When I reviewed A Discovery of Witches, I was impressed by the overwhelming cuteness and strong gay vibe of Adam Stevenson, who plays the gay-tease boyfriend of the vampire Marcus.  He is killed off two minutes after he is introduced, and Marcus is turned straight, but that two minutes is loaded down with erotic and romantic moments.  So of course I had to do a profile.

Born in Glasgow in 1990, Adam is a major proponent of Scottish independence: "If we are truly heading into a society of tolerance and democracy, if we are moving in the direction of equality and harmony...then I see one obstacle in our way, and that is being bound to the United Kingdom."

Super-cute, and a political activist.  What else do you need?  

Oh, right -- nude photos.

After high school, he worked in the hospitality industry, engaged in political activism, and discovered an interest in acting.  He performed in Bordering on Shakespeare with the National Theater of Scotland, and started the theater company Little Bohems, bringing "modern and contemporary plays to small audiences in  unique settings throughout the Central Belt and Borders."  That's the region between Edinburgh and Glasgow.

Adam's passion for acting led him to the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland, where he received his degree in 2017.  He was immediately cast in Episode 2.5 of  The Crown: the Queen attends the traditional Ghillies Ball at Balmoral Castle. "Ghillie" means "Gameskeeper" in Scots Gaelic; you perform Scottish Highland dances.  In a kilt, of course.

Next came the gay-tease buddy in A Discovery of Witches, 2018

And a role as Urie Campbell, a young soldier who has a gay-subtext bond with his buddy Hector in Mary, Queen of Scots, 2018.  He has some lines in Scots Gaelic.

Andrew Rothney plays King James I. 

In 2019, COVID hit, and with the lockdown the acting roles dried up.

In 2021, Adam started a Kickstarter campaign to fund My Friend Jame,  a COVID-era film about the relationship between a homeless man and an autistic boy,  written by Marina McQueer, his boyfriend Paul's sister (not pictured).

Yes, McQueer is a real name. 

More Adam and Paul after the break.  

"The Resort": Paranormal murder mystery at a Mexican resort, with a gay couple and some nude dudes

  

The Resort, on Vudu, is a murder-mystery tv series set on the Mayan Riviera, where rich people go sunbathing and ignore the Mayan ruins. It features a gay couple, both named Ted, so I'm in.  I reviewed Episode 1, "The Disappointment of Time."

Link to the nude photos

Scene 1: The airport shuttle stops at Akumal, a tropical resort. Wait -- did it knock over a vase?  Noah (William Jackson Harper, right, kissing Tony Cavalero in another movie) and his wife Emma exit.  Manager Luna gives them bracelets that will "get you everything you need "Even heroin?"  I didn't know that this was a comedy; the previews make it look like a murder mystery.

It's their tenth anniversarym but they don't seem particularly lovey-dovey.  They don't even sit together in the golf cart.

Scene 2: In their room, they bump fists and then collapse onto separate beds.  No smooching?  Ok, one kiss, but Noah complains that Emma's breath stinks. 

Scene 3: Time for dinner, but Noah is asleep -- time lag, he says, although it's only a three hour time difference.  Emma watches tv, then examines a mysterious scar on her belly (this will become important later) and hits the pool.  She checks an online quiz to see if she should dump Noah. He's not cheating, so no....

Scene 4: Emma snoozing and hungover on a tour bus while Noah talks to an older gay couple, Ted and Ted (Parvesh Chena, left, Michael Hitchcock). They are obviously hot for each other, although they've been together for decades.  

Their secret: every seven years they visit somewhere they've never been before (Laos, Memphis, and now Mexico) to see if they want to stay together.  Maybe they've changed.  Maybe they no longer make each other happy.  So far, so good, 21 years. 

They arrive, and ride go-karts through the jungle. Darn, I thought they were going to Chichen Itza.   Emma lags behind.  Whoops, she crashes and tumbles down into a ravine. While down there, she finds an antiquated cell phone.  She hides it before the others come to rescue her.

Scene 5:  That night, in a bar.  Emma the Alcoholic wants a drink, but Noah insists that she can't have any alcohol due to the pain meds from her injuries.   The Teds arrive and ask how she's feeling.  She excuses herself and goes out to the pool to check on the fossilized cell phone.  Why so mysterious?  I'd be showing it to the others right away.

Later, as Noah snores, she sneaks out to an all-night cell phone store and buys a phone like the fossilized one she found.  She transfers the SIM, charges, and voila, it works!  Pictures of Sam (Skyler Gisondo)  being licked by a dog, watching fireworks, meeting a girl in a UCLA sweater, drawing cartoons, and at the Oceana Vista Resort!

Messages from 12/26/07, the day after Christmas 15 years ago. "Call me," from Mom. "Where are you?" from Dad.  "I am so sorry," from Hanna.  

Scene 6: A cabbie takes her to the Oceana Vista Resort.  It's deserted, locked up, overrun with vegetation.  He could have just said that.   "People died in there," he explains. 

More after the break

A Discovery of Witches: Some lesbians, a gay tease, a very important book, and Matthew Goode's goods

 

On to the next of the new paranormal tv series on Netflix, A Discovery of Witches.  

But it's nowhere near Halloween.

Link to the nude photos

Prologue: "It begins with absence and desire.  It begins with blood and fear,  It begins with..." Coffee and bagels?  No, "a discovery of witches."

Scene 1: Nice establishing shots of Oxford.  Matthew (Matthew Goode) complains that this was once a world of wonder, but it belongs to the humans now. Demons, vampires, and witches have all gone into the closet.

Cut to a blonde woman rowing in the Thames, then running through the university, taking a shower -- gratuitous nudity, at Minute 2, no fair! --  eating breakfast, packing up her stuff, and pausing to gaze despondently at a photograph of her and her boyfriend.  Actually, the lady in the photo seems a year or two older, so maybe it's her lookalike sister or mother.  Looking at her makes Rowing Lady extremely depressed, so she must be dead.

Biking across town, locking up her bike -- whoops, her papers fall out and scatter, but she uses her magic powers to retrieve them. Fortunately, no one sees her.

Scene 2: Rowing Lady, Diane, is a Visiting Research Fellow who took her D.Phil. in the History of Science from Oxford, published two prize-winning books, and got tenure at Yale.  In the History of Science? 

In her powerpoint presentation, she theorizes that the Renaissance alchemists were actually describing real chemical processes.  She's going to research the manuscripts of Elias Ashmole , after whom they named the Ashmolean Library. A lady rushes up and offers her a position at Oxford, and wants to know if her book is ready yet.  She hasn't started the research yet, nitwit. 

Scene 4:  Diane has coffee with an old friend from Oxford, who gazes at her -- ex-girlfriend?  She was trained in classical history, where there are no jobs, so she's just an adjunct.  And there are jobs in the history of science? 

The friend invites her to the coven tonight, but Diane isn't comfortable around magic after what happened to her parents.  Witch burning?

Scene 5: In another building, a guy -- maybe Matthew?  -- is praying with his rosary.  Um -- Oxford is Anglican

Cut to Diane in the Ashmolean Library, ordering books from the hunky library guy, played by Ezra Idun.  But the book whispers at her, and some pages have been cut out.   And the Praying Guy hears a heart beat!  In other news, her needy friend drops by to flirt with her some more.

As Diane types her notes, the lights flash and everybody hears the whispering.  Praying Guy gets a call from a woman, who explains that their blood is reacting to something.  They must be vampires.  Catholic vampires who go out in the daytime.  He uses his super-hearing to locate the disturbance

Meanwhile, Diane finds that touching the pages burns her!  She returns the book and rushes out of the building, bumping into a passerby who looks like her dad! Praying Guy is watching her suspiciously.

Scene 6: Two guys walking down the hall.   Marcus, played by Edward Bluemel, right, asks his buddy James, played by Adam Stevenson, to get together later, but he's too tired: "last week was a mistake."  The sex was too energetic?  This suddenly became interesting.  

They'll go midweek, where they can get a booth and listen to R&B.  More romantic that way.

"How come you never look tired?" Adam asks. Cause I'm a vampire, buddy.   They say goodbye with a hug.  A gay couple!

More after the break

Brock Cock, Part 1: Brock O'Hurn's boyfriends and bulges, pigs and penises, cowboys and...well, you get the idea

Everybody needs a little Brock O'Hurn now and then.  At least his 1.7 million instagram followers think so.  Brock has played any number of muscle-hunks, including Hulk Hogan, Thor, Tarzan, a "swole Mel Brooks," and guys named Horse and Ragnar Stormbringer.  

Link to the NSFW photos

He may be most famous as  Torsten, the "gentle giant" of the God Squad, a homoerotic muscle commune, in Season 2 of The Righteous Gemstones.  Presumably Adam Devine isn't in character here, or he'd be much more interested in the muscles pressing against him.

Here Brock is a shirtless cowboy in the video Wild West Showdown.  

Brock is a co-creator and model for Kane Comic Universe about an immortal muscleman who travels through time, fighting demons, evil gods, madmen, and so on. Warning: Issue #2 features women's boobs rather than Brock pecs.

Taking his pet pigs to the beach.  He also has dogs and cats.

More Brock Cock after the break

Mayfair Witches: Two of them, with interlocking stories, a swishy straight guy, and some demon dicks

  

Link to the demon dicks

Netflix has just dropped a lot of paranormal tv shows: A Discovery of Witches, Interview with a Vampire, The Preacher...I'll start with Mayfair Witches, which is based on a trilogy of books by Anne Rice, so there's bound to be some gay characters.

Scene 1: A sagging Gothic mansion. A man in a Depression-Era robin's egg blue suit appears on the front porch to give a staring, catatonic woman her Thorazine shot.  He's new, and can't believe that this is the patient: her file is so big, he thought she was elderly.

He reviews her file, and snoops among the weird books and artifacts in her library, including a photo of her as a 1920s flapper.  So she's immortal. Out on the porch, a man is talking to her, but when the doctor comes out, he is gone, and the maid says there was no man.  Eerie!

The rest of the episode juxtaposes stories of two women who look alike, so the only way to tell them apart is by their timelines: the first is contemporary, and the second looks to be in the 1950s. I don't know which is the catatonic one.

The Story of Woman #1: Rowan

Scene 1: Rowan pilots a boat into San Francisco Bay.  Her girlfriend arrives via Uber.  Nope, it's her mother.  

Scene 2:  A surgeon, Rowan is comforting the young boy she'll be operating on. Wait -- a male surgeon, Dr. Keck, took over the case to impress the sexist Board, but he's not operating right. She argues, but to no avail, and the boy almost dies  "Keck is a menace!" she exclaims. 

Scene 3: More tearjerking: Mom's cancer is back!  Plus we've only seen two male characters, neither cute.

Rowan tells the menace Dr. Keck that David Lemle was observing the surgery.  His company does research with stem cells for cancer patients, so could Dr. Keck arrange an introduction, so she can apply for a job as his research associate, so she can get her mother into the trials?  That sounds unethical, and really far-fetched. But Dr. Keck thinks she's arrogant, with a superiority complex.. As he is tearing into her, she hears whispers, something happens inside his brain, and he falls over dead!  

Scene 4: Rowan thinks she caused Dr. Keck's death.  Maybe her powers are genettc, but she's adopted, and there's no way to determine who her birth parents were.  

But the moment she leaves the room, Mom calls a facility and asks who Rowan's case worker is now: Ciprian Grieves, played by Tongayi Chirisa, left. That's a totally made up name.  She leaves a message: "My daughter is hurting people.  I need to know if something has changed."

Scene 5: In a bar, Rowan asks the bartender, Max (Jordan Cox) to have sex with her, but he has a date tonight.  So she goes after a random guy, and he relents.  

After sex, he wants to stick around, cuddle, and discuss their feelings, but she kicks him out: she's only in it for sex, not a relationship.  That's why she never sees the guy a second time.

Scene 6: Caseworker Ciprian Grieves goes to a house in New Orleans and uses his magic powers to look at the spirit world.  A mysterious spirit, played by Jack Huston, is lurking in the back yard.  He calls Rowan's Mom and tells her that He is nowhere near her daughter.  That's a good thing, right?  

Mom notes that she's dying of cancer, so who will protect Rowan when she's gone?  Ciprian volunteers.

More after the break

Burr Tillstrom: The Gay Puppeteer of 1950s Children's Television

Before The Cartoon Network, before Sesame Street, even before The Mickey Mouse Club, in the earliest days of television, kids (and adults) rushed home every afternoon to see the adventures of Kukla, Fran, and Ollie, two puppets and their human host.  They may never have realized that there was a hunky 30-year old man behind the set, manipulating the puppets and providing their voices.

They certainly never knew that he was gay.

Born in 1917, Burr Tillstrom began the art of puppetry in college, and created the perpetually-surprised Kukla in 1936. Other characters followed, but it was the laconic Ollie (Oliver J. Dragon) who became the clown in the comedy team, a formula that extended from Laurel & Hardy to Martin & Lewis, Abbott & Costello, and in children's tv, Rocky & Bullwinkle.

In 1947, he teamed up with the vivacious Fran Allison (1907-1989), and they began the Kukla, Fran, and Ollie tv series, a daily half hour (later diminished to fifteen minutes) on Chicago's WGN.

Themes and storylines were compelling, and not necessarily for kids. They performed mysteries, science fiction, and even the Gilbert & Sullivan operetta The Mikado, with Kukla as Nanki-Poo, Ollie as Ko-Ko, and Fran as Yum-Yum.

The program drew many adult fans, including Orson Welles, John Steinbeck, Lillian Gish, James Thurber, Judy Garland,  Talulah Bankhead, and Broadway composer Stephen Sondheim, who wrote Kukla and Ollie a song, "The Two of You."

 During the tv season, Tillstrom lived in Chicago, in an old coach house that he remodeled with the help of his partner, Joseph Lockwood Jr. (left), also the stage manager and the costume designer.  They spent the summers in Europe or in the gay resort of Saugatuk, Michigan

After the program ended in 1957, Tillstrom and Allison continued to perform with the Kuklapolitan players.  They starred in a Broadway show, appeared in Side by Side with Sondheim, hosted the CBS Children's Film Festival, and appeared live at the Goodman Theater in Chicago every Christmas.

Tillstrom died in 1985, before gay identity was regularly acknowledged, so his New York Times obituary and his Wikipedia entry both keep him closeted.  But the gay communities of Chicago and Saugatuck knew.  In 2013 he was inducted in to the Chicago Gay and Lesbian Hall of Fame.

By the way, gay people seem particularly drawn to puppeteering, perhaps because they often live in a world of masks. 

Ten nude dudes from rejected reviews, from Matt Bomer to Tom Goodman-Hill

 

Link to the nude dudes

I find potential movies and tv shows to review on my streaming service recommendations, the social media of actors I follow, and if I have just completed a profile of someone, like Cory Chapman or Michael Provost, their work on the IMDB.  If the premise is interesting, or there are two guys together on the icon, I might just click "play," but usually there's some research involved.

Do the episode synopses mention a same-sex friendship or rescue?  Is there minimal man-woman kissing in the trailer?  Are there any beefcake or nude photos of the male cast members?  

Sometimes I collect nude photos for illustrations, and then decide against the review after reading a plot synopsis or Rotten Tomatoes score, or after watching for a few minutes.  The result is a folder full of naked guys from rejected reviews.  I hate to delete them, so I'm posting them for their aesthetic value.

1. Adam Rayner in Tyrant: An American family drawn into the politics of a fictional Middle Eastern nation.  A gay guy eventually comes out and finds a boyfriend, who is killed,  I don't do the Bury Your Gays trope.  Next!

2. I was planning a review of "The Unicorn and the Wasp," a Doctor Who episode with gay characters, so I searched for "Christopher Tennant." 

"Christopher Benjamin" popped up,  nude on stage doing The Fairy Queen. But the full-sized photo was behind a pay wall, so I tried someone else in the cast, Robert Burt.

Except this isn't Robert Burt the stage actor. The link goes to a set of pictures illustrating the works of poet Robert Hamberger, models unknown. 

3. Turns out that the Doctor I was looking for was actually played by David Tennant.  A new search on "David Tennant" yielded Harry Lawtrey in Industry.

The British drama about job applicants in a finance firm had two gay characters, but the opening sequences were boring, so no review.  Next!

4. A reader recommended The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare for its buddy-bonding and beefcake.  As of this writing it's in theaters only, so I scanned its cast list and found Hero Fiennes Tiffin -- great name -- which led me to The Loneliest Boy in the World.  The boy appears to be falling in love with a boy zombie.   But it's not available on any of my streaming services. Next!

5. Depressing disease-of-the-week medical dramas are usually a resounding "No!", but The Good Doctor had a gay character played by Noah Galvin, so I researched him.  A former Hasidic Jew, conflicted, confused, self-doubting, guilt ridden, who finally gets a boyfriend -- only to have him killed on the day they become engaged.  

Before I noped out of there, I found some nude photos of Noah Galvin's real-life boyfriend, Ben Platt

More after the break

"Raising Dion": Gay kid with superpowers and his Scoobies fight monsters, deal with a helicopter mom

 

There are lots of movie and tv shows about teenagers discovering that they have superpowers, but not many about eigh-year olds. In Raising Dion, single mom Nicole must deal with her own problems and her son's superpowers, which draw the attention of the usual medical specialists, dark-government agencies, and monstrous supervillains.  Gavin Munn plays Dion's best bud.  To see if they have a gay-subtext relationship,  I reviewed Episode 2.2, about a new boy in school, figuring that this was the episode where Gavin first appears.

Link to the NSFW review

Prelude: Mom and Dion off a giant smokey monster in naked human form.  So far, so good.  The monster leaves, and a guy named Pat (Jason Ritter, left) is left (fully clothed).  He explains: "It took a whole day for my body to completely reform, and another to walk to the nearest town, where I decided to start a new life."

Scene 1: Zoom out: he's being interrogated, claiming that he did unspeakable things because the Crooked Man was controlling him.  And now it is controlling someone else!  Big Boss Suzanne doesn't believe him.

Scene 2: Guys in Hazmat suits investigating a giant crater.  There are footprints down there -- maybe the security guard. They call him to check, but he's at home with a disgusting pustulating growth on his neck.  They block off the crater so no school kids fall in.

At that moment, Mom and Dion (Ja'siah Young) drive past. Dion, now ten years old, is troubled, but Mom tells him that there is nothing to worry about.  He praises his superpower trainer, Tevin (Rome Flynn, top photo). Mom says "I'm glad you like him."  Next subject of conversation: the upcoming musical, which Esperanza is counting on him for.  Does Dion have a girlfriend?  TV writers are hesitant about portraying gay pre-teens or even teenagers, but they'll happily have toddlers expressing heterosexual desire.

Scene 3: At school, Dion is drawing in the abs on a muscular superhero.  Questioned by his friend Jonathan (Gavin Munn, already a regular), he claims that they are power stabilizers to help him go faster.  "Um...ok," Gavin says, rather obviously pretending not to know that Dion is gay.  I'd better take another peek at Dion's interest in his superpower trianer.

Their third friend Esperanza (Sammi Haney), who has a unique body type and uses a wheelchair, wants to know when they're going to investigate the mysterious crater. How about today after school?  Next, she has picked out the songs they're going to use for their auditions for the school musical.  BFF Jonathan says there's no need: he has his song picked out, and it's going to be awesome!

During class, the new kid Brayden (Griffin Robert Faulkner) keeps glaring at Dion. 

The full review, with nude photos of the adult men, is on Righteous Gemstones Beefcake and Boyfriends.

Ragneron: Hung guys, a glowing orb, and the first gay black superhero is born. Or so says Milan Christopher

 = 

Ragneron is a comic book series about the first gay, black superhero, written by gay, black rapper Milan Christopher and illustrated by Michael Luster, dedicated to the memory of Nigel Shelby, who committed suicide to escape homophobic bullying in 2019.

The premise: mild-mannered Chris Smith accidentally touches an extraterrestrial crystal, and gets superpowers, including super-strength and the ability to manipulate atoms and molecules.  He has an evil nemesis, Algor. 

A short based on the comic book series, Ragneron: The Guardian of the Crystal, 2019, is impossible to research because Google always thinks that you mean "Ragnerok," but it's on Youtube.

A kid, Glenndale L. Taylor III,  is knocked over, punched, and beat up, then grows into the buffed, Speedo-clad Chris, Milan Christopher, hanging out with his friends in a hot tub.

They play a game of truth or dare.  Truth first: have you ever done it with a girl?

More after the break

"Proper Gym Etiquette": Robert Oberst tells you the gym rules, and demonstrates the punishment for breaking them

In 2015, Robert Oberst wrote and starred in Proper Gym Etiquette, a six minute comedy video directed by Charlie Rice. I would definitely like to show it to some of the guys at my gym.

Link to NSFW version

The premise: If you see a breach of etiquette, you can call for The Monster (Robert), who grabs, throws, pummels, and yells at the offender. (The examples are all g-rated; I added the nudes to the NSFW version, and a few of my own rules).

1. Keep the noise down!  Don't you hate those loud grunts?

2. Re-rack your weights!  It's really annoying to have to rack somebody else's before you can put yours on.

3. No food in the gym!  Who wants to lift while sitting in someone's Dorito crumbs?

4. No curling in the squat bars!  What if somebody is waiting to use the equipment properly?

5. No groups taking turns on a machine!  A workout partner is fine, but wants to wait 20 minutes while four guys go through their sets?

More after the break

The Sonic Drive-In Guys Are Saving a Gay Kid's Life

These are the Two Guys (their internet name) who have been starring in commercials for Sonic Drive-Ins since 2002 (with a few breaks).

They are depicted sitting in their car at various times of the day and night, various months of the year, discussing hamburgers, chicken sandwiches, corn dogs, tater tots, or ice cream concoctions. Occasionally they get out of the car.

Their patter, mostly improv, is reminiscent of the classic comedy duos such as Abott and Costello and Martin and Lewis:  the clown, played by T. J. Jadodowski (left), says something ridiculous or wears an outrageous costume, and straight man Peter Grosz (right) reacts with grumpy dismissal.

And now I'm going to say something.  Listen carefully:

They are a gay couple.

They always eat out together.  They apparently live together.  They share finances.  They mention that they've been together for many years.  They don't refer to any other relationships, or display any interest in women.

Let the screaming begin.

Screamer #1:  Why can't they be friends?  Every time two guys appear together, they aren't gay!  Straight guys go to restaurants together!

Translation:  If there is any possibility, however unlikely, that a fictional character can be read as straight, he MUST be read as straight.  We will accept characters as gay only if there is no other choice, only if our desperate attempts to read them as straight have failed.

But you can do it the other way, too.  It's how gay people survived growing up in a world that denied their existence a hundred times a day, watching tv and going to movies that shouted, over and over, that "boy meets girl is universal human experience!"  They found a fictional character and looked for evidence that would support a gay reading. 

Two guys who go to a restaurant together could be gay.

Screamer #2:  What about when they settle a disagreement with a game of Horse (basketball)? They like sports!  They can't be gay!

Translation: Gay characters must be swishy stereotypes.  The slightest reference to a masculine-coded activity requires us to read them as straight.

But gay guys play basketball.

Screamer #3: What about when T. J. mentions his ex-girlfriend Janine?  He dated a girl!  He's straight.

Translation: The slightest reference to heterosexual behavior requires us to read the character as straight.

But lots of gay men date women before they come out.  They're bowing to societal pressure, the constant "what girl do you like?" litany of high school and college.  Remember this exchange:

T. J.: The last time we ate this good, we were in college.

Peter: No, I was in college, you were in denial.

He's not in denial anymore, he's come out.

Screamer #4: What about the commercial where Jane Krakowski and Ellie Kemper, the stars of The Unbreakable Kimmie Schmidt (not in character) wave at them, and they wave back.  They wave at women!  They must be straight!  

Translation:  Women are invisible to gay men, so any man who displays the slightest recognition of a woman, who says hello to a woman, who steps out of the way to avoid being plowed into by a woman, must be heterosexual.

But gay men are perfectly capable of seeing women, and of waving at famous tv stars, without being romantically interested in them.


Screamer #5:  Ok, now I've got you.  Peter Grosz is married to a woman, Debra Downing, and has a son!  Talk you way out of that one!

Translation: Heterosexuals are incapable of playing gay characters, so if the actor is straight, the character is straight.

But heterosexuals are perfectly capable of playing all sorts of characters, including gay people.

Besides, T. J. Jadodowski never mentions a wife or girlfriend in any interview.  But he does mention going on a trip to Italy with a male friend.

Screamer #6: What about when T. J. is pretending to be a car, and says "I'm going to go talk to her -- the little red coupe with the nice taillights."  He's going to flirt with a female car.  No gay guy would do that!

Translation: Gay men are incapable of playing heterosexuals, so if your character is straight, you must be straight.

But gay actors are perfectly capable of playing all sorts of characters, including straight people.  And straight cars.

There is no piece of evidence that will unequivocally "prove" that a character is gay or straight.  He doesn't actually exist.here is no single correct reading of fictional characters.  The signs are incomplete, open to interpretation.  All we know about these guys is what they say and do for a few moments in their car at a Sonic Drive-In.  We have to fill in the rest of their lives.

And it's ok to fill it in with a same-sex romance.

Many gay kids are still growing up in a society that denies their existence.  A Sonic Drive-In commercial starring the Two Guys may be trivial to us, but to them it could make all the difference.  It might be the one moment that gives them hope.