The Gay Connection of "Ronan Boyle and the Bridge of Riddles"

Ronan Boyle and the Bridge of Riddles.  An instant New York Times bestseller!  A cross between J. Rowling and Douglas Adams!  The next Harry Potter!

Ok, the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy is one of my favorite books, and the Harry Potter series isn't bad, either.  I'll give it a try.  Of course, I judge a fantasy novel primarily on gay subtexts: deep, passionate same-sex bonds, or at least a minimum of heterosexual interest.

How much do you want to bet that Ronan gets a girlfriend?

Page 2: Ronan Boyle is a 14 year old intern in the Galway, Ireland garda (police force).

Page 25: He is recruited by the Garda Special Unit, a secret police force dedicated to relations the faerie folk -- leprechauns, trolls, and others,who live in their own world, Tir Na Nog, but like to transfer over from their world to ours to cause mischief.

So far, so good.  No hetero interest, but no same-sex romances, either.

Page 35: Ronan is a big fan of Dame Judy Dench, and when stressed, imagines conversations with her.  The actress is 84 years old, so it's probably not a hetero-romantic thing.

Page 51: His parents are in prison after being framed for the theft of a  4,000 year old mummified Bog Man, the oldest artifact in ireland, so he's living with his guardian, Dolores, "an absolute delight." No romantic interest mentioned.

This sounds suspiciously like the plot of Artemis Fowl

Page 60: Ronan arrives at the training academy and meets the other recruits, including Log, a very tall, muscular, thick-limbed girl with the strength of a chimpanzee.  Doesn't sound like romantic interest.

And Dermot, a "dreamboat," who has broad shoulders and a square jaw, and is so tall he can block out the sun. Definite attractiveness. Ronan dreams of their "becoming mates," but he doesn't seem particularly interested in Ronan. Homoerotic interest!

Dermot is not pictured in the book illustrations, so let's imagine him as the top photo.

Page 115: He visits Lord Diamond Dooley, who he believes actually stole the Bog Man and framed his parents.  Not exactly Voldemort, but close.

Page 131: The Malton Hotel has been robbed of 30,000 euros of wine.  The suspect is probably Lovely Liam, a gancanagh-- everyone who sees him falls in love with him.

In the original folklore, the gancanagh is a male fairy who seduces only women.  Let's hope that "everyone" here is inclusive, men and women both.

Page 145: Ronan and Captain De Valera, must go to Tir Na Nog to investigate. Ronan respects her, but there is no heterosexual interest implied.

So far, so good -- inclusivity and no heterosexual interest.  But it seems that everyone important in Ronan's life is female: his guardian, Log, the Captain, even his police dog partner.

Page 156: The Bridge of Riddles is just the way into the faerie town of Nogbottom.  It provides a brief setback  -- not nearly worth naming the book after.  Someone is trying to emulate Harry Potter "and the Chamber of Secrets" or "the Prisoner of Azkaban."

Page 188: Ronan keeps his eyes averted, but both the Captain and a male troll get a glimpse of Lovely Liam and fall in love with him.

Score!  An inclusive love spell!

Page 220: While transferring the prisoners to Dublin, Log wants to take time out to visit the wax museum.  She wants to see the statue of Liam Neeson, whom she finds hot. Ronan states that he is open to the idea of "meeting a wax Liam Neeson," but would would prefer a wax Judi Dench. 

Page 237: They begin the next case, tracking down harpies in County Wexford.  There's a fight, and Ronan sees something that will propel the plot into the next book of the series.

More after the break

"The Haunted Hotel": A single mom, a ghost uncle, a demonic child, and a boy who likes to kiss boys. With Will Forte and Skyler Gisondo

We've had a lot of tv series and movies about ghosts and humans interacting in a haunted house, The Ghost and Mrs. Muir, Ghost (UK), Ghost (US), The Haunted Hathaways, and on and on.   Will The Haunted Hotel (2025), on Netflix, be unique enough to break away from the pack?

The premise: When her older brother Nathan (Will Forte) dies, single mom Katherine (Eliza Coupe) inherits his hotel -- which is haunted by numerous spirits, some fully sentient, some just repeating the moment of their death, plus goblins, demons, a Cthulhu-being -- and Nathan!  They try to fix up the hotel and bring in some human guests, which is problematic with ghosts bursting out of every crevice.  

The kids are 

1. Preteen Esther (Natalie Palamides), who wants to exploit the ghosts for profit (think Louise on Bob's Burgers).

2. Abaddon, Prince of the Dark Realm, currently trapped in the body of a 17th century boy ("This vessel requires Froot Loops").

3. 13-year old video-game nerd Ben (Skyler Gisondo).  After five photo collections, I've about run out of shirtless photos. 

In Episode 1.1, Ben is heterosexualized when he falls for a ghost girl who has been stuck in the hotel for 90 years "in a dress I hate."  When they touch hands, they explode in...well, you can figure it out.  

But earlier, when his sister teases the ghost Stabby Pete, Ben yells after him "I'd let you stab me!"  Why does he invite a ghost to stab him?  Is he equating stabbing with penetration of another sort?  That's the sort of potential queer code that requires further research, so I'm reviewing  Episode 7: "Seven Deadly Bens."

Scene 1:  While his sister Esther teaches Abaddon, Prince of the Dark Realm, to play Connect Four, Ben and Mom are going through the bills.  They have enough money to pay the dentist.  "Did he say anything about me?" Ben asks anxiously.  "He doesn't respond to  my texts."

"You shouldn't be texting your dentist so much," Mom cautions.  Trying to discourage his crush on the older man?  Another queer code!  

In the B Plot, Uncle Nathan keeps falling through floors.  Ghosts should be corporeal enough to walk on floors, sit on chairs, lie on beds, and so on, so this is a big problem. I won't have enough space, so I'm skipping it.

Scene 2: Ben is trying to impress the hunky handyman who is replacing the front door after a ghost problem.  Uh-oh, he says the door will "settle," but it's obviously still broken.  

Mom yells at Ben for not forcing the guy to finish the job.  "How was I to know?  I've never fixed a door before."

"Why can't you be more confident?"  When she leaves, Stabby Pete appears: "That was brutal.  I stab people's bodies, but your mom stabbed your existence."

Depressed, Ben goes into a forbidden room, looks in a mirror attached to an old wardrobe, and wishes he was more confident.  Suddenly a Confident Ben pops out!  "These calves are my best feature," he tells Original Ben, "Followed by hair, eyes, and personality."  Dude, you have no calves.  You have straight cartoon legs.

Scene 3: They explain to Mom that there are now two of them.  She insists that they merge, but they have no idea how.  Going into the wardrobe doesn't work. 

This could be a problem.  What if Original Ben is slowly dying?

Suddenly Scared Ben emerges.  And others.

More after the break

Gay Comics of the 1980s

When I moved to West Hollywood in 1985, I was astonished.  There were no gay characters in any comic book or comic strip I had ever seen before, even in gay magazines, except for an occasional Donelan cartoon or Tom of Finland erotic drawing,  but here there were entire strips with all-gay casts (except for the occasional heterosexual villain). In Frontiers, the weekly news magazine. In the monthly anthology Gay Comix (1980-1988), by Kitchen Sink Press.  In the Meatmen anthology of trade paperbacks, edited by Winston Leyland (1989-1999).

During the late 1980s, they stopped being called "comix" (underground, radical) and became "comics" (mainstream).

Here are my favorite gay comic titles:

1. Murphy's Manor (Kurt Erichsen), about a regular guy who works as a librarian in Black Swamp, Ohio, and his various gay and lesbian friends.

The Sparkle Spinsters, led by the flamboyant Duchess (right), sometimes appeared in a separate feature.

2. Jayson, by Jeffrey A. Krell.  Jason Callohide is an underemployed liberal arts graduate sharing a single apartment in Philadelphia with his straight gal pal, Arena Stage. They are drawn in the clean, spare style of Archie Comics.

 Jeffrey A. Krell has published several trade paperbacks of Jayson's adventures, the most recent in 2012.  He also produced an off-Broadway musical, Jayson

3. Poppers, by Jerry Mills, set right in the heart of West Hollywood, starring Yves, a regular guy who works in a bookstore, his hunky best friend Billy, and the flamboyant Andre. It features all of the glitz, glamour, sex, and drugs that you expect in the pre-AIDS era of sexual liberation (it's even named after a psychotropic drug, amyl nitrite)

But beneath all that it's about friends sticking together in a hostile world, about the search for a place where you belong.

Jerry Mills died of AIDS in 1993.

You can get gay comics now on Amazon -- they arrive in mail, hidden from view in a brown box -- but that can't match the immediacy of walking down to the Different Light Bookstore on Larrabee and Santa Monica and grabbing them right off the shelf.

See also: Donelan; Howard Cruse; and Tom of Finland.

Skyler Gisondo's Hot/H* ung Photos, Part 3: Basketball, beach boys, wrestling, giving a guy his leg

 

This is a collection of cute/cool or hot/h* ung photos of  Skyler Gisondo, star of The Santa Clarita Diet and The Righteous Gemstones, and Jimmy Olson in Superman. As far as I know, he's over 18 in all of them.  

Link to the n*de photos

1. Why is Skyler the only one with his shirt off?

2. "Homie wouldn't help me put sunscreen on my back."  

3. Why not?  Is the dude homophobic, or does he want you to lie on your back so he can see your abs?

4. Obviously they've been wrestling.  I have absolutely no idea what else they could be doing that leaves them on the floor, out of breath.

5. But we're not playing shirts vs. skins, buddy.

6. I dig the lesbian haircut, Sky Baby, but your sweater shrank in the wash.

More ginormous Gisondo after the break. 

Eric Brody: Fashion model from Florida shows his d*ck in his first acting gig

  

Link to the n*de photos

If you've seen Minx, the series that HBO cancelled after one season and STARZ after a second, you know that it's a p*nis paradise, but uncomfortably closeted about the possibility of male viewers.  Ironically, it's about a 1970s Playgirl-type magazine which is also torn between its huge male readership and the need to pretend that it has no male readers.

The "problem" comes to a head in Episode 2.3, "It's Ok to Like It," Eric Brody and Taylor Byron Barr play the models in the proposed centerfold, n*de cowboys tired to railroad tracks. Two men together?  The editor scoffs: "Not playing to our demographic," by which she means "they look gay."

Taylor Barr fills his instagram with pictures of him hugging ladies and a promo for something called the "Ladies' Patrol," so let's do a profile of Eric Brody instead

You can see his junk in the previous shot, but here we see mostly hair. 

Minx was Eric Brody's first acting role. His second, in 2024, was Max the Driver in the short Deuces Wild.  It also starred Jake Locrotondo, who graduated from Centennial High School in Port St. Lucie, Florida, in 2021.  This will become important later in the research. 

More Eric after the break

Husbands, Wives, and Lovers: The opening theme of a short-lived sitcom offers an escape from the "job, house, wife, kids" mandate

During the spring of my senior year in high school.  I devised a clever scheme to avoid having to date girls: I would ask out a supermodel-cheerleader, way out of my league.  Then, when she laughed hysterically and hung up, or more graciously had to wash her hair that night, my parents would "console" me by letting me borrow the car anyway.  So on Friday nights I went out with boys, to movies, to get pizza, to Leonard Bernstein's Mass at Augustana College, to the spring musical.

We would get back to my place or his place about 9:00 and turn on the tv set just in time to hear the jazzy, risque theme song to Husbands, Wives, and Lovers ("and luuv-errrrs"), produced by gay-friendly comedian Joan Rivers.

 It was the first time any man and woman on tv had lived together without being married, and hearing about it made us feel grown-up and sophisticated and sort of dirty.  Luuv-eerrrrs....

I just wanted to watch the beefcake-heavy opening credits,  in which five women approach men in the hope of amorous activity, and are rejected. (I don't know the names of any of the characters).

1. Cynthia Harris tries to get the elderly Stephen Pearlman interested, but he's listening to his own heartbeat with a stethoscope.

Stephen Pearlman (1935-1998) appeared on L.A. Law, Seinfeld, and Die Hard with a Vengeance.  He is not related to Michael Pearlman of Charles in Charge, starring Scott Baio (left)

2. The vain Charles Siebert wrests a mirror from Claudette Nevins' hand and uses it to admire himself.

Charles Siebert (1938-2022) appeared on Trapper John MD, Dallas, Matlock, and the Love Boat.  Although he posed for gay magazines early in his career, he was married to a woman for 19 years.

3. Lynne Marie Stewart tries to get  hunky, open-shirted Eddie Barth (left) interested, but he's busy eating a sandwich.

Eddie Barth (1931-2010) appeared in Alice, Magnum PI, Fame, Night Court, and Men in Black: The Series.  

4. Mark Lonow waits in anticipation while Randee Heller strips, but he doesn't like the results, and rejects her.

More after the break

Jordan Gavaris: Gay Degrassi teen, clone's brother, alien's boyfriend, Jerry O'Connell's date. With Jordan and Zach d*cks

   

In Season 8 of Degrassi: The Next Generation (2009), Riley Stavros (Argiris Karras) is introduced: a new student, a football star who has  "all the girls" crushing on him due to his muscles and "incredible good looks."  He becomes friends with Peter, and in Episode 8.5, kisses him.  They both spring back and run away.  

 Later Peter apologizes, saying that they can still be friends "even though" Riley is gay.  Riley denies kissing him, claims to be straight, and attacks in homophobic rage. 

In Episode 8.10, Riley arranges a hookup with Nathan (Jordan Gavaris), whom he met online, but when the guy arrives, he realizes that they hooked up at summer camp three years ago.  He runs away to take steroids, find a girl to date, and beat up another guy who implies that he might be gay.

In Season 9, Riley continues denying that he is gay, in spite of everyone's suspicions, including his girlfriend's, and beating up guys who offer to talk to him about it.  Episode 9.3, he runs into Nathan again while on a date with his girl, pretends not to know who he is, and runs away.  

Riley concludes that he is "confused," tries to find a therapist for a "cure," tries to get a girl to turn him straight, beats up more guys, and in Episode 9.18 comes out to himself.  Fortunately, there is a hot guy available (Shannon Kook-Chun) to become his first boyfriend. But he stays closeted for two more seasons, and suffers from both internalized homophobia and  homophobic harassment through the end of his plotline.

I didn't realize that this story would be so friggin' painful.  Degrassi High is in Toronto!  Canada!  The most gay friendly country in the world.  What we down here in the U.S. call Heaven.   What's with the angst?  But I already started a profile of Argiris Karras...

Whoops, no beefcake photos online, and he's straight.  Shannon Kook-Chun has beefcake photos, but he's straight, too.   Did they have a policy about not hiring gay actors to play gay characters?

Turns out that this is a profile of Jordan Gavaris. 

Jordan was 1989 in Brampton, Ontario, a suburb of Toronto, graduated from Mayfield Secondary School, and then enrolled in an actor's workshop.  His first on-screen roles came in 2008, in the cartoon series Got to Go and the movie 45 RPM:  In 1960s Canada, Parry (Jordan) meets a girl from Calfornia, and discovers "love, loss, and rock n roll."  Starting out rather straight, aren't you, buddy?

Next came Degrassi (2009), and Unnatural History (2010): Henry (Kevin G. Schmidt, top photo) the globetrotting son of anthropologists, goes to live with his uncle in Washington DC.  His cousin Jasper (Jordan) and Maggie, the girl they are both crushing on, solve the mysteries surrounding weird artifacts like a pony express bag and...an atomic bomb built by Benjamin Franklin?  They also crush on other girls.  It's girl-craziness all the way down. 

Here Jasper is captured by thieves in a museum. 

Jordan is most famous for Orphan Black (2013-17), a science fiction thriller: con artist Sarah discovers that she is one of several clones produced by an evil biotech corporation -- and now someone is trying to eliminate all of them. She investigates with the help of some fellow clones, her hunky boyfriend (Dylan Bruce), and her foster brother Felix (Jordan, left), an artist and s*x worker.

He appears n*de several times on the show.

The episode synopses don't specify if Felix's clients are male or female, but the photos show a swishy gay stereotype, and according to the fan wiki, he starts dating morgue attendant Colin (Nicholas Rose) in Episode 1.5.  Colin appears in eight episodes. In the audio series, they are married, and in the spin-off Orphan Black: Echoes (2023), he has died.  

Jordan also appeared as Prince in The Coop (2019), a murder mystery where viewers get to decide whodunit.

 Love in the Time of Corona (2020), about finding love during the quarantine. His character doesn't appear in the episode synopses, but the four couples finding love are all straight.

More after the break

Alice and Tommy: There's a new girl in town, with a teen idol son

Most 1970s comedies involved people who lived in big cities like Minneapolis (Mary Tyler Moore), Indianapolis (One Day at a Time), Chicago (Bob Newhart), and New York (The Jeffersons). .  But not Alice  (1976-85). Linda Lavin played Alice Hyatt, an aspiring singer en route from New Jersey to L.A. to jump-start her career, when her car stalled outside Mel's Diner in "small town" Phoenix (it actually had a sizeable population).

She took a "temporary" waitress job that lasted nine years, and meanwhile bonded with her boss, gruff, beefy Mel (Vic Tayback) and fellow waitresses: gutzy Flo (Polly Holliday), whose risque catchphrase "Kiss mah grits!" became a phenomenon; and mousy Vera (Beth Howland).  Alice also had a cute, wisecracking son, Tommy (Philip McKeon, left). 

Three ladies, a kid, and a bear?  I wasn't impressed.  Besides, Alice ran on Sunday nights, after the oldster-favorites 60 Minutes and All in the Family, opposite Battlestar Galactica or Chips.  I didn't start watching regularly until about 1980, when it was squeezed between One Day at a Time and The Jeffersons. 

It was a pleasant surprise.  The banter between the four regulars was sharp and witty, the plotlines were not terribly heterosexist, and there was ample beefcake: cowboys and muscular truck driver patrons of the diner, the various men dating the regulars, and Tommy's school friends.  

Hunky Denny Miller even played a gay character, the school coach: after he comes out, Alice hesitates about allowing Tommy to go on an overnight camping trip with him, but finally relents. Score one for tolerance in the homophobic 1970s.

Left: Denny Miller flexes on Gilligan's Island.

Speaking of Tommy, during the last half of the series, he was 15-19 years old, the prime time for teen idols.  But he didn't get much play in the teen magazines, just a couple of shirtless and swimsuit shots.

This was the era of Scott Baio, Willie Aames, and Billy Warlock, so maybe he lacked the muscles to make a big splash.

Several of the cast members were gay or gay friendly.  Vic Tayback and Polly Holliday were both rumored to be bisexual, and Phil McKeon, who never married, was rumored to be gay (gay or not, he was more handsome as an adult than when he was playing Tommy).  He died in 2019.

 

His tv mom,  Linda Lavin, performed with the Orlando, Florida Gay Chorus.  She played the mother of gay sons in The Lyons on Broadway (2012) and Mid-Century Modern on Hulu (2025).

See also: "Mid Century Modern," Episode 1.6: "Golden Girls" with gay guys. Plus Bomer's backside, Adam's d*ck, and Tommy going downtown

Philip McKeon after Alice