"In the Hand of Dante": Film noir about an original Dante manuscript, set in a 1950s-era 2001. And it gets more confusing. And homophobic.

 Link to the n*de dudes

I love the Divine Comedy, at least the Inferno, where Virgil guides Dante through the stages of hell.  He puts the sodomites in the Seventh Circle, where fire rains down on those who "do violence against nature," but at least it permitted me to mention LGBT people in an Italian class in the 1980s, when otherwise the rule was "Don't mention them, they don't exist."  

So I'm going to watch the new movie In the Hands of Dante, about the discovery of an original Divine Comedy manuscript.  Maybe there will be gay characters, probably not, but I'll still get to hear that beginning phrase again: Nel mezzo del cammin di nostra vita, mi ritrovai per una selva oscura (at the midpoint of life's journey, I found myself lost in a dark forest).

We've all been there.

Scene 1: Dante climbs a rocky cliff.  Meanwhile, sometime in the 1940s or 1950s, an obnoxious novelist (Oscar Isaacs) complains to his friend that his books are too brilliant to be edited. "I'd rather the stableboy f*ck my wife than see my work edited." Heterosexual identity established immediately after his obnoxiousness.

Oscar Isaacs' backside is on RG Beefcake and Boyfriends

"So, what's your book about?"

"It's a translation of Dante's Divine Comedy. I've been working on it for ten years." 

Friend squeezes his shoulder.  "You're still hot after ten years."  Wait -- are you flirting with him?

" By the way, who is Dante?"  Say what?  Who doesn't know Dante?

"An old dead guy.  But he got trapped in the cage of rhyme and meter.  I'm breaking out, so my translation will be far superior to the original."  The greatest work in Italian literature?  You planning to improve on "Hamlet" next?

Scene 2:  Newark, 1969.  A young boy enters a middle-class house and tells his Uncle, "I just killed some kid."  He explains that the boy (Gavin Weingarten) had a big knife, and asked if he wanted to die.  He tried to defend himself, they struggled, and he managed to stab Knife Boy.  

Since he doesn't know who the boy was, and no one saw them, Uncle says that he should forget about it.  But don't make "malarkey" a habit in the future.  Are you going to grow up to be Our Hero? But you're way too young. That would make the "I'm a better writer than Dante" conversation sometime in the 2000s, and it was obviously in the 1950s.  Maybe Uncle is Our Hero?

Scene 3: Bora Bora, seaside, 2001. Our Hero on a hammock, writing in his notebook about "creamy white gardenia blossoms" and "faded petroglyphs."  So you must be the Boy who killed someone, now middle aged, but it's a parallel world with the look and feel of the 1950s: no computers or cell phones, men wear hats and smoke constantly, writers use pencils. 

Our Hero tells us that the Nine Heavens of the Paradiso is a bad translation; It's really Nine Skies.  The last and rarest of them is the Sky of Illimitibleness.  Or you could say "Endless," if you weren't a pretentious jerk.

Cut to the Young Dante sitting under a tree, looking at the Illimitible Sky.  

Scene 4:  New York, 2001, "That time when the daylight sky was an oppressive, low-lying glare of white, and the dark of night was..."  So, summer.  Is this one of your stories, or really happening in-universe?    A greasy-haired guy named Louie (Gerard Butler, but blond and greasy) saunters into a closed bar and orders a Dewars and water.  He criticizes the bartender's moustache: "You see a guy with a moustache, he's either a cop or a (homophobic slur)."

I expected L'amor che move il sole e l'altre stelle, the love that moves the sun and the stars, and I'm getting Charles Bukowski, homophobia, and a parallel world where the 1950s never ended. 

"By the way, you ever take it up the *ss?" Louie asks.  "Might make a man out of you."  But then he calls him a c*cksucker.  Twice.  Are you homophobic or not, buddy?  

He criticizes the Bartender and his wife for being excessively ugly, and threatens his nine-year old daughter.

Next topic of conversation: the Bartender's Uncle, "a real fuckup," who opened the bar, but pissed his money away gambling.  Wait, is that the Uncle from 1969?  So the Bartender is Our Hero?  But he's supposed to be in Bora Bora, writing pretentious crap.  And the Uncle was elderly in 1969. No way he's alive in 2001.  

Unc owes the gang a lot of money, so his nephew the Bartender is going to provide it.  Louie takes tonight's proceeds, $1,200, then orders the Bartender to go downtown.  But he shoots him as soon as he gets on his knees.

What does this have to do with Dante?

Scene 4: Our Hero crying as he looks at the picture of a little girl.  Is this the Bartender's daughter, who was just threatened?

 He tells us that a young adult lady called him Nick, and then "Daddy."  So you were dating the Bartender's daughter -- but she was nine years old in 2001.  Have we jumped ahead to 2026?  Or is she a different person, and you were looking at a photo of the bartender's daughter to confuse viewers?  He kisses her goodbye as she is crying.  I'm crying, too, in  frustration over this nonsensical plot.

 Cut to the EMTs taking her body away. 

Cut to Our Hero, drunk and injured (a bloody bandage on his leg), climbing the rocks of Bora Bora.  He falls into the water, delighted: "I feel nothing of these open rocks."

More after the break.  Caution: It gets even more confusing, but there are d*cks

Paxton Booth: The "Coop and Cam" brother likes girls' clothes, unicorns, and c*ck sparring, but does he like guys? With Galvin d*ck

 Link to the n*de photos

Earlier I profiled Dakota Lotus. Coop of the Disney Channel teencom Coop and Cam Ask the World.  Now it's time for 16-year old Paxton Booth, who played little brother Ollie.  He has a femme presentation and a quirky fashion sense, and check out his photos of theater marquees:

"C*ck Sparrer Sold Out."

If that means what I think it means, get me a ticket, too.

"Circle J*rks Live on Stage."

 Looks like Paxton and I share several interests.

Actually, those are both hardcore streetpunk bands from the 1970s.  I don't know if Pax is a fan or just expressing an interest in the names, but it's worth a closer look.

Ok biceps for a beginner, and the duck lips are rather femme.

Paxton Booth was born in Pomona, California in 2010, and started acting at age three, in a series of national commercials.  His on-screen work began with the short Greener Grass in 2015, and continued with guest shots on Hack My Life, Teachers, Brooklyn Nine-Nine, and Adam Ruins Everything.

He played the Young Kenny on a 2016 episode of The Real O'Neals.  Kenny is the gay son in a conservative Irish-Catholic family, played as a teen by gay actor Noah Galvin (backside and d*ck on RG Beefcake and Boyfriends).

A promising start, buddy.

Paxton's most significant role to date was on Coop and Cam Ask the World (2018-20).  The titular siblings (Dakota Lotus, Ruby Rose Turner) host an internet show, Would You Wrather, in which fans vote on which prank they should do, or later which solution to a problem they should choose. 

Younger brother Ollie (Paxton, left) has a gay-subtext buddy (Fred Tsai), and non-heterosexist plotlines: he pours garbage into a classmates desk in order to impress him (say what?); gets lost in the mall while his siblings are babysitting him; is bullied by a boy at the ice rink; is trapped by a rock slide on a camping trip...gets a crush on a girl...

Dang, I knew it couldn't last.  First rule of teencoms: every boy, regardless of his age, must demonstrate that he is heterosexual.

A 2020 article in Jejune Magazine tells us that Paxton is "seriously woke" for a nine-year old.   He notes that he buys from girls' and guys' sections of the clothing store,and prefers pink, which results in a lot of bullying.  He wants to start a gender-neutral clothing line that will fight bullying and "give other youngsters a chance to fully embrace who they are."

He uses "who they are" as a closeted term for "gay," but later he (along with other Disney kids) wears  purple to note that he opposes LGBTQ bullying.

 More after the break

The Amazing Digital Circus: Gay, trans, ace, and nonbinary humans trapped in a sinister video game.

 

The Amazing Digital Circus is an adult animated series where humans are zapped into a virtual reality pocket universe that looks like a 1990s circus-themed video game.  They forget their names and their human lives, except for a few random details.  Every day a crazy AI named Caine sends them out on "adventures," some frightening (explore a haunted mansion), some just soul-destroying (work a shift in a fast-food restaurant).  

Showrunner Gooseworx notes a debt to the Harlan Ellison story "I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream,"where a sentient computer kills almost all humans, leaving a few alive to torture forever.  But here Caine does not intend to torture the "players," unless he gets angry: most of the time he is honestly trying to provide them with fun and excitement, but he has no idea what humans like. 

The result is terror, pain, and a lot of existential angst.  What are we doing here?  How can you find meaning when you are "just a sort of thing in a dream," or in this case a video game?  

When the angst becomes too great for the characters to maintain consciousness, lucidity, or body shape, they are "abstracted," reduced to a monstrous formation of eyes and spikes, and sent to the Cellar. 

The main players are:

Focus character Pomni, a court jester, a supermarket accountant in her old life. She tries to keep the others coherent while searching for an escape.

Pomni is voiced by Lizzie Freeman (cishet).

Jax, a tall, purple anthropomorphic bunny.  As a human, he was 22 years old, living with his abusive mother.  One day she insulted him for 40 minutes, then tried to hug him; he pushed her away and ran, and ended up at the Circus.  He is condescending, sarcastic, sometimes cruel, and claims to not care about anyone or anything -- except for his abstracted chum that the others are not supposed to ever mention.  Their human form came out as transgender and began using she/her pronouns.

Jax is voiced by Michael Kovach, left (ace, heteroromantic).  In the live action shows, he is played by actor/model Izatillo Ishonov (gay), who also goes by Nizatillo and Izat (top photo).

Ragatha, a Raggedy Ann doll with a missing eye.  In her human life, she had a wealthy farming family and an abusive mother.  She tries to be optimistic and friendly to everyone.

Ratha is voiced by Amanda Huffman (nonbinary).

Kinger, a chess piece with a purple robe and wobbly eyes.  A computer programmer in his old life, he was the first to enter the Circus, and is now unstable and prone to amnesia.  He spends most of his time hiding in a pillow fort.

Kinger is voiced by Sean Chiplock (cishet).  In the live shows, he is voiced by Ben Bishop (gay, n*de on RG Beefcake and Boyfriends).

Gangle, four red ribbons arranged in a humanoid form, with a tragedy or comedy mask (but the comedy keeps breaking). As a human, she was shift supervisor at a fast-food restaurant.  One night she was hit by a truck, and awoke in the Circus. She is timid and self-conscious.

Gangle is voiced by Marisa Lenti (agender, ace).

Zooble, a constantly changing assemblage of random parts resembling a ZoLo toy. As a human, they were a nonbinary tattoo artist, and worked at a LGBTQ-friendly bar.  They often rebel against the AI Caine, and refuse to go on adventures, causing him to send them to therapy (with Caine playing the psychiatrist).

Zooble is voiced by Ashley Nichols (nonbinary).

More after the break.  

80 Years of Archie Beefcake, Part 2: The Comics

Archie Andrews was introduced in Pep Comics 22 (December 1941), and practically invented the image of the American teenager, with countless thousands of comic book stories, plus cartoons, tv series, radio series, movies, and songs.  Preteens look to Archie for a glimpse of their future, and adults, for a nostalgic look at their past.  And gay boys can find in Archie Comics more shirtless and swimsuit-clad hunks than anywhere else on the comic rack.

Archie and his pals change year by year to keep up with contemporaryh fashions, slang, and pop culture, and so has the beefcake.  In swimsuit and locker-room shots, the guys  become more or less buffed, defined, depending on the interest of the comic artist and the changing expectations of masculine beauty.

1948.

Archie is thin, even underdeveloped, with little attention to realism in his arms and shoulders.  In the 1940s, svelte men like Cary Grant were iconic.

1959.

Archie and Jughead appear in the Dan Montana house style, with some indication of pecs and maybe a line down the stomach to indicate abs.

1973.

When I was reading Archie comics as a kid, there was a lot more attention to the detail of pecs, shoulders, and biceps, particularly in the "muscle bound" Big Moose.

1989

The guy's got a chest and well defined abs, in keeping with the muscleman craze defined by Schwarzenneger and Stallone.

More after the break

My 16 favorite Gemstone d*cks, displayed on the show or off

The Righteous Gemstones was unique in its enthusiastic portrayal of men's frontsides, in nearly every episode. Plus a number of the actors who didn't get a chance to show their stuff on the show have obligingly posted pictures on the internet.  Here are my favorites, some huge, some not, but all a pleasure to watch.

Link to the uncensored list

1. Stephen Schneider (left) as Stephen had an affair with Judy Gemstone in Season 3.  Her husband BJ burst into his house, and fought him to reclaim his manhood. The actor was offered a prosthetic, but he wanted to perform with au naturel.  I can see why.

2. Blair Jackson played the boyfriend of Dot Nancy, whom Kelvin Gemstone is trying to draw away from Satan, in Season 1.  Off-camera, he has shown us his stuff.

3. Walton Goggins.  In our first view of the elderly grifter Baby Billy, he stands up in his bathtub to reveal superheroic proportions.  It re-appeared so often in Season 4 that even gay male viewers got tired of it.

4. Stephen Dorf,  who played the nasty, homophobic, and probably gay megachurch pastor Vance Simkins, goes big in a movie from 2005.. 

5. Jak Kriskowski appeared in a scene where Pontius enrolls in military school.  His scene was cut, but Jak joined the army in real life, and has given us a peek..

6, Kelton Dumont, as wild child Pontius Gemstone, was caught with girlfriend and jumped up and tried to hide it. After a lot of photo manipulation, you still can't see much, but I found a few other possibilities.

7. Adam Devine: To our disappointment, Kelvin Gemstone showed his backside quite often, but never his front. Probably because the dude is canonically small, and the actor is obviously not. We've seen it several times in his movies.

8. Cullen Moss as the security guard hot for Gideon's boyfriend Scotty.  He is on display in a 2021 movie.

More after the break.  

Ryan Buggle: The youngest LGBT character on tv, star of a gay play on Broadway. But is he gay/bi in real life? With Drayer and Meloni d*ck

  

Link to the n*de dudes

I've never seen any of the 586 episodes of Law and Order: SVU (1999-) , because who cares about the Crime of the Week?  So I had no idea that it was so soap-opera like. It took a lot of plot arcs to for Noah Porter-Benson (Ryan Buggle) to get around to coming out as the youngest LGBTQ character on tv. And a lot of trauma:

Bon in 2013, after Mom Elle is assaulted by trafficker Johnny Drake.

She keeps the baby while working for Little Tino, but when she overdoses, he sells little Noah to a p*rnographer couple.

After detective Olivia (Mariska Hartigay) arrests them and rescues Noah, he is placed in several abusive foster homes.

Mom Elle turns up and tries to get custody, but she is murdered.

Olivia decides to foster Noah, but when she pulls him out of the way of a speeding car, he is bruised, and CPS thinks that she is abusive.

He is kidnapped, nearly kidnapped, and hospitalized with life threatening diseases (twice).

His biological father shows up for a custody battle, and is murdered.  I'm looking at you, Olivia.

Finally, a queer code: In 2019, ADA Stone (Philip Winchester, left, n*de on RG Beefcake and Boyfriends) decides that Noah needs a "father figure," and teaches him to play baseball.  

After a few episodes, he gets tired of baseball and says that he would rather take ballet lessons.  This was Ryan's idea.  He tells Dance Magazine: "Dancing is my favorite thing, so I wrote a script over the summer and gave it to the writers, and they were happy to do it."

Although Noah mentions his ballet lessons and his competitive dance team on occasion, and has a plotline where Olivia hangs up on him when he announces that he got the lead in The Nutcracker (not because she disapproves), it's mostly back to trauma, diseases, an unspecified "family emergency," vaping, and getting to know Olivia's estranged brother Simon (Michael Weston), who dies of an overdose. How many parental figures have died on you, buddy?

On January 11, 2022, Olivia finds Noah in his friend Hudson's house, wearing a dog collar, eating dog food, and barking on command.  At first he claims that it was just kids being kids, but then he admits that Hudson was making fun of a nonbinary friend, using homophobic slurs.  So he defended them, and told Hudson that he was bi: "There's no shame in being true to yourself."  The bully didn't respond well.

Olivia praises him for standing up to Hudson.  

He explains: "Well, it's my truth.  I just haven't told anybody before."

Olivia: "Well, thank you for telling me." And they go on with their day. (Yes, she comes down on the bully.)

The episode received nearly universal praise (excluding the usual homophobes), and got Ryan a dozen interviews in everything from Cliche Magazine to The Today Show.  He was twelve years old, but Noah was nine, thus becoming the youngest self-identified LGBTQ character on televsion..  The runner up is Jude on The Fosters, who says that he is "not into labels" at age twelve, and "gay" at age thirteen.

As far as I can tell, Noah's bi identity never comes up again.  He  bonds with his half-brother Connor (real-life buddy Tre Ryder), gets a potential father figure in Olivia's ex Stabler (Christopher Meloni, n*de on RG Beefcake and Boyfriends), and continues to suffer from soap opera traumas.  But there's always the future; Ryan hints that there are some "exciting plotlines ahead" for his character.

Ryan Buggle is now sixteen years old, with biceps.  I'm going to check the usual: any (other) LGBT roles?  Gay or bi in real life?    

More after the break

Dougray Scott: Gruff, gravelly-voiced macho man gets tied up a lot, plays four gay guys...no, three...wait, just one. With Denton and Lucas n*de

Link to the n*de photos

We're watching Batwoman (2019-22), with Bruce Wayne's cooler cousin Kate Kane taking over the cowl.  Dougray Scott plays her father Jacob Kane, whose ICE-like Crows "protect" Gothan City instead of the police. Jake is perfectly accepting of his daughter being a lesbian, but virulently anti-superhero, so she is unlikely to come out asthe Bat. Her ex-girlfriend Sophie, now in a lavender marriage, happens to be Jake's chief officer, so when he orders "find Batwoman, and shoot to kill," she's conflicted.

It gets more complicated: when Kate was twelve years old, Mom and sister went over the bridge into the Gothan River.  Sister survived, but was imprisoned by a face-extracting serial killer for 11 years before emerging as the "Why did you stop searching for me?" supervillain Alice.  You know, the one with the Cheshire Cat, the Queen of Hearts, the magic mushroom.....

Well, let's not go down that rabbit hole.  I'm more interested in seeing the gruff, gravelly-voiced macho man tied up.  Which he is, a lot.  And maybe checking out his gay roles and beneath-the-belt equipment.

Dougray is Scottish: he was born in Glenrolthes, about an hour by car from Edinburgh, in 1965.  After secondary school he attended the Welsh College of Music and Drama in Cardiff, and started his career on the West End.  His plays include Beckett, Welcome Home, The Power and the Glory, The Rover, This Island's Mine, and most recently Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?

His on-screen acting begins with episodes of tv series like Zorro (1990), Lovejoy (1992), and Stay Lucky (1994), but fame came with Ever After (1998): The Grande Dame tells us about the real Cinderella, her great-great grandmother, the liberated Age of Reason Danielle de Barbarac. Dougray plays Prince Henry, her love interest and equal partner.

Some popular movies followed:

Mission Impossible 2 (2000), starring famous homophobe Tom Cruise. He plays the villain Sean Ambrose.

Ripley's Game (2002), a sequel that heterosexualizes the gay killer of  The Incredible Mr. Ripley (1999). He plays the main victim.

My Week with Marilyn (2011).  He plays playwright Arthur Miller. Spoiler alert: he dates Marilyn Monroe. 

Dougray shows his backside in Enigma (2001), about British spies during World War II.

And in Things to Do Before You are 30 (2005), about some 20-something buds facing "adult" problems like a pregnant girlfriend (Dougray) , a "crippled step-dad" (Danny Nussbaum) and being gay  (Shaun Parkes).

Both backsides are on RG Beefcake and Boyfriends

Dougray's major tv roles:

Desperate Housewives (2006-07).  He plays Ian, who dates main character Susan until her boyfriend (James Denton, n*de on RG Beefcake and Boyfriends) wakes up from his coma. 

Doctor Who (2013) as Alec, a ghost-hunter who helps the Doctor (Matt Smith) explore the haunted Caliburn House.  

More after the break

"Monsters at Work": 20 Years after "Monsters, Inc.", Has LGBTQ Representation Increased?

 Monsters, Inc. (2001) suggested that monsters have an economic motive for crawling out from under your bed: the psychic energy of children's screams is the main source of power for their society.   But scream-harvesters Mike and Sully (John Goodman, Billy Crystal) discover that children's laughter is more powerful, so the monsters change their tactics.  The two monsters are presented as a classic straight man-buffoon comedy team, like Abbott and Costello, and one of them has a girlfriend, but they still have a strong gay subtext.

20 years later, the Disney Channel is streaming Monsters at Work, an animated comedy set in the same universe: Tylor graduates from Monster University with a degree in scaring, only to find his skill set obsolete.  So he takes a job as a mechanic while studying comedy.  

Tylor is voiced by Ben Feldman, the Scott Baio lookalike best known for Superstore, who did a PSA in favor of marriage equality in 2012.  Could there be more open LGBTQ representation in the sequel?

I watched Episode 2, "Meet MIFT," in which Tylor goes to work for the Monsters Inc. Facilities Team.

Scene 1:  Tylor's first day on the job (last episode) was a disaster, so today Mom insists on driving him to work.  He doesn't care: the MIFT job is just a "temporary nightmare" while he is awaiting his move to the Laugh Floor (I knew lots of people like that in West Hollywood). 

Dimwitted tapir-monster Fritz (Henry Winkler) arrives and flirts with Mom. Then the orange blob-monster Val (Mindy Kailing), "Tylor's classmate at college and now his bff."  

She tries to hug him, but he shrugs her off.  I could do without the "Your Mom is hot!" stuff, but rejecting a girl is a nice way to start the day.

Scene 2: Tylor arrives at the Maintenance Department in the basement, where the team is waiting for an initiation ceremony: "When a part breaks down, we fix it.  If a machine needs maintenance, we maintain it.  We're the monsters behind the monsters!"   He protests that this job is just temporary.  "That's what we all thought. "

His first ceremonial task: "Wrench that nut!"  It sounds dirty, especially when he protests: "I don't want to wrench any nuts  I want nothing to do with nuts." Speak for yourself, guy.

Next he has to pass through the Doorway of No Return to the land of Infinite Commitment.  "But...this job is just temporary?" "That's what we all thought."

Scene 3: Mike from the original movie returns from an 18-hour shift of refilling laugh canisters. His boyfriend Sully, now the CEO, tells him to take a break, but there's no time: somebody has to keep the kids laughing.  Plus he has a comedy class to teach at lunch.  Sully: "You can't keep going like this." 

Scene 4: The MIFT team pretends that a break room table is Tylor's new office.  

Troublemaker Duncan (Lucas Neff) gives him an assignment: a cannister that needs refurbishment, or it will explode in 20 seconds.  It explodes.  Duncan laughs evilly.

Lunch time: Tylor goes off to his comedy class.  The others are upset: what does he need  to learn comedy for?  It's almost as if he doesn't plan to stay here forever.

Scene 5: The comedy class.  While Mike goes through a powerpoint presentation, "10 Rules of Comedy,"  Tylor complains about the MIFT team.  Surprise!  They followed him.

Left: Lucas Neff

Scene 6:  Mike leaves the rest of the lecture to the stern HR director, Ms. Flint,  and runs to a door portal.  His girlfriend warns him that it's not safe, but he goes through anyway, and is trapped!  His girlfriend? Mike is more obvertly heterosexual than he was 20 years ago.  That's not progress!

The MIFT team rushes into action.  They restore power to the portal and get Mike back, but now he's trapped on a conveyor belt.  The "reverse" lever is rusted shut; no one has the strength to turn it -- except -- Tylor!  The newbie saves the day!

Scene 7:  While they are celebrating, Ms. Flint arrives to pick up  coworker Banana Bread's things.  She was so impressed by his "nuanced insight into comic theory" during the comedy class that she is promoting him to the Laugh Floor.  

Ouch!  But at least now there's a vacant desk, so Tylor gets one of his own. And a wrench with his name on it. The end.

There's also a segment called Mike's Comedy Class, where Mike sings about the dangers of comedy: the kid could "bust a gut," shatter into little pieces, fall out of bed and hit their head, or have their butts fall off.

Mike and Sully:  The increased time given to the girlfriend reduce the gay subtext, although there is a glimmer  when Sully affectionately feeds Mike a cup of coffee.

Tylor and ?:  Tylor doesn't display any heterosexual interest, but I didn't see anyone for him to have a gay subtext with.  Maybe Fritz, who is very, very interested in welcoming him to the team?  But Tylor finds his attention annoying

LGBTQ Representation:  Still no open representation, just some tentative subtexts.

See also: "Population 11": Ben Feldman in an outback town with aliens, meat pies, secrets, lies, and dicks, doesn't get the Girl

Skyler Paulley: A Bible-quoting gay-positive Regal HOV gets a boyfriend in a "Hocus Pocus" reboot. With Dean's d*ck and a new n*de Gisondo

  

Link to the n*de photos

Instagram recommended someone named Skyler Paulley, who has an alphabet soup of acronyms in his tagline: SPH, 2x AFKA, 5 Star Ambassador, Regal HOV, JV, Christian, CPR.

It doesn't include much more information, just a lot of shirtless, sports, and hugging-buddies shots.

His Dad, Ronnie Paulley Jr. (Proverbs 3:6: "In everything you do, put God first."), translates on his Facebook page:

SPH is a casting studio.

AFKA: American Freestyle Karate Association. Two wins.

5 Star Ambassador: for martial arts.

Regal HOV: Induction in the Martial Arts Hall of Fame.

Junior Varsity in soccer, basketball, football, baseball, wakeboarding, and track.  When does the dude find the time to act?

And he knows CPR.

Skyler is also a model.  Here he poses for Dillard's, and tells us: "I truly believe that God gives us these journeys, and we only succeed when we let Him lead the way."

The teen idol website doesn't add any information.  More shirtless and sports photos, sometimes with cute companions.  He also posts two photos with his girlfriend (not kissing or hugging).

In June 2026, Dad Ronnie takes Skyler and his buddy to The Mandalorian and Grogu.  But if Skyler has a girlfriend, wouldn't he take her?  

Maybe they broke up?

So, quoting Bible verses and saying that "God gives us these journeys" usually means homophobic, and "girlfriend" usually means straight  .I 'd give him a miss except for his role in Hocus Pocus: The Mini-Series (2025). 

The Sanderson Sisters, three wacky witches from Hocus Pocus (1993), are zapped into the modern world, where they bedevil teenage Kevin (Skyler) and his family. Winifred, the character made famous by Bette Midler, is played by director Nathan Lampone in drag.

In Episodes 1 and 2, a zombie named Billy (Clayton Parks) comes to Kevin's rescue.  In Episode 3,  he gets a makeover to become "more handsome" in Kevin's eyes, and they are living together, and dancing together at a school dance.  In later episodes, they fight the witches together.

The romance doesn't last -- by the second season, Kevin has a girlfriend, and Billy has moved on to a guy named Noah (Connor Roden), who reveals a "secret" in Episode 12.  

These may be texts rather than subtexts.  According to the official website, the production company, Studio Lampone, is queer-friendly, with several queer members.  They perform at Pride events and in gay bars. 

Wait -- how did Bible-quoting Skyler get involved with a queer-friendly  group?

He's got ten acting credits listed on the IMDB.  In 2023 he appeared in Kelly Clarkson's music video I Dare You (to Love), which features a gay couple getting married, another with their baby, and several rainbow hearts. Everything else is from 2025 or 2026.

Shorts:

I F*king Hate Oranges: Brothers Skyler and David Hernandez hate oranges. Written and directed by students at the University of North Carolina School of the Arts.

N*de photo of David Hernandez on RG Beefcake and Boyfriends. Not the one who hates oranges.

Exterra: A young boy (Skyler) makes first contact with alien's (yes, they used an apostrophe as a plural). A local North Carolina production.

More after the break

The Season: Rich straight guys have problems, too. Even in Hong Kong. With some d*cks, yachts, and the dad from "Lost in Space"

Link to the n*de dudes

I've been fooled by two tv series and a movie today.

Voice mails for Isabelle: A guy sits by Golden Gate Bridge, complaining to his dead sister he can't find his people in San Francisco. Where are all the drag queens. It took me 20 minutes to figure out that it's actually a girl, not a gay guy.  She was wearing a hoodie and pants to trick you into watching.  

Booth Bangla: A guy plans his sister's wedding.  He doesn't express any heterosexual interest -- until halfway through the movie, when he meets the Girl of His Dreams.

Oasis: A family checks into an exclusive resort.  Two boys immediately meet the Girls of Their Dreams, and an established couple smooch.  I was holding out for the teenage daughter to be a lesbian because she keeps cruising girls.  Nope,  she meets the Boy of Her Dreams at Minute 12.  

Heck with it.  I'm watching The Season on Hulu, about "the glittering world of super-yachts, sun, and scandal" in Hong Kong.  At least there will be some nice exterior shots.

Episode 1 Prologue.  A woman tells us: "Hong Kong is a city of bloodlines.  It will destroy you."   An elegantly dressed middle-aged woman floats in the water outside a burning yacht.  She sinks.

Scene 1: Six weeks earlier.  A young woman jogs through Hong Kong.  Nice exterior shots.  Someone named Carrie calls, and tells her that her job today is impress the Hexts.  Impress them, and you've got it made in Hong Kong.

A taxi takes her through the forest to her destination, a mansion or institution.   Carrie ends her cardio work out to greet her.  Back story: Her name is Cola (I love your parents' products, girl!), she has graduated with a degree in economics and maths, and her classmate Carrie, a wealth mover, has invited her to come out to Hong Kong as an intern.  "I'm willing to do whatever it takes to get a full-time job offer," Cola says.  Lie?  Steal?  Blow up yachts? 

The summer is Boating Season, where Hong Kong A-Listers decide who they will admit to their social network.  You have one chance to make a good impression; a single misstep, and you're out. 

Scene 2:  A lady, maybe Carrie, tells the staff that everything must be spotless, and asks Jon if he is ready for the maiden voyage.  "Bring on the Bacchanalia," he says in a bored/aesthete tone. He'll be telling the guests to "Diversity at your own risk."  He must be gay.

His teenage daughter sneers: "Great small talk, dad."  Nope. 

On the way upstairs to change, Jon asks a Male Staffer, "Is everything ready?"  Maybe they are having an affair. Wife, now calling him Christopher, says "I really need this to work."

Why the changed name?  It turns out that Bored Aesthete is Christopher (Toby Stephens, the Dad on Lost in Space).  Jon (Lee-Jai Yoon, on RG Beefcake and Boyfriends) is the Male Staffer.  Wife asked him a question while she was walking away from him, toward Christopher, who answered for him.

Scene 3: Cola and Carrie enter the yacht.  They're joined by a guy named Andrew Fung (Chris Pang of Crazy Rich Asians), who was in St. Tropez, but it's too hot in Europe. "Global warming is so inconvenient."

When Carrie introduces Cola, Andrew teases "A younger, hotter version of you?" Heterosexual identity established in his second sentence.  His "lovely wife" Niki arrives and is introduced.  Her family owns the Harbor Club, and are the bitter rivals of the Hexts, whom they are there to impress.  

Next Jay and Sara Byford (Jai Dai, top photo), from Melbourne, arrive and kiss up to Andrew and his Lovely Wife, but he doesn't like them.  

He does like Hong Kong's most eligible bachelor, David Ho (Justin Chien, left). Maybe he's.....

Confused by the plethora of names?  Don't worry; all you really need to know is that everyone is very rich, very bored, and heterosexual.  

Back story: the family from Scene 2 are Christopher and Fiona Hext.  This is their yacht.  Wait -- everyone is here to impress them.  Why are they concerned about the day going well?  Spoiler alert: they're having financial problems.

Sceme 4: Cola is introduced to the Hext Family.  "How nice to see some new faces!" Fiona Hext exclaims.

Cola is turned on by a semi-shirtlessC hunk with his lady, but Carrie warns her: "God, no, that's Matthias! Just a personal trainer, not rich.  Ignore." Heterosexual identity established at Minute 11.

Left: Lincoln Younes, n*de on RG Beefcake and Boyfriends, plays Matthias the Personal Trainer, Gigolo, Drug Dealer, and Actor.

Dirt on the Hexts: "Christopher's family practically invented colonialism, and Fiona's Old Hong Kong money fueled it."  

Scene 5: Eligible Bachelor is helping the Captain pilot the ship.  Christopher Hext takes over and asks how things are going since the divorce.  It must be rough.  After all, he and Lian were together for 13 years. Don't get your hopes up -- Lian can be used for any gender, but 2/3rds of the time, it's a girl.  And gay marriage is not permitted in Hong Kong, so he would have to establish residence somewhere else if Lian was a guy.

"You're right, I'm miserable.  How are you doing?"

"Miserable, too."  

More after the break