The Real Zack Gottsagen gets n*ked with Shia LaBeouf, plays a lot of gay-adjacent dudes. With Shia and Eli Roth d*cks and Dashiell's boyfriend

 

Link to the n*de photos

Football player Sam Roush is the last guy I researched for this profile, but I'm putting him first because why wouldn't I?

Now down to business: I don't have enough profiles of disabled actors, so I checked some lists of deaf, CP, and Down Syndrome actors, looking for someone cute, male, and gay.  The Real Zack G popped up, wishing us Happy Pride.  Notice the "Love is Love" pillow behind him. 

Promising, but  he also marched in a Martin Luther King Day parade, so maybe he's just an ally.

After I figure out the guy's last name, I'll check the usual: Any gay roles?  Gay in real life?  Any n*de...

Looks like that one's been taken care of.  There's two n*de and underwear photos on RG Beefcake and Boyfriends.  

His name is Zack Gottsagen, and his most famous role is in The Peanut Butter Falcon (198().  I didn't see it, because who cares about falcons made of peanut butter, or guys running around with watermelon rind helmets?

Actually, it's about a guy who breaks out of an assisted living facility to attend a wrestling school -- his pro name will be the Peanut Butter Falcon of the title.

He befriends a fisherman on the run from his rivals.  Eventually they hook up with sympathetic social worker Eleanor, and "start a new life as a family," so I'm assuming that it's a fraternal bond, not a gay-subtext romance.

The fisherman buddy is played by the homophobic Shia LaBeouf (d*ck on RG Beefcake and Boyfriends),  so definitely a fraternal bond.

Zack Gottsagen grew up in Boynton Beach, Florida, with two moms -- who "have nothing but good things to say about Shia LaBeauf," according to a profile in The Sun-Sentinel.  Maybe the dude has changed?

More after the break

Jonathan Taylor Thomas: The teen idol superstar plays gay characters, retires from acting before he can show us his d*ck. Probably

Link to the n*de photos

During the early 1990s, ABC offered a "family-friendly" lineup on Wednesday nights, beginning with The Wonder Years, with Fred Savage courting the Girl of His Dreams in the 1960s.  We sang a parody of the theme song, the Beatle's "With a Little Help from My Friends":

What would you do if I spat on your shoes?
Would you get up and kick me to the moon?

Before turning the channel to CBS, with The Nanny and Melrose Place.

But we knew about each of the shows, because you knew about every show in the era. They included:

Doogie Houser, with Neil Patrick Harris (n*de on RG Beefcake and Boyfriends) as a 13 year old doctor named Doogie.

Coach, with Craig T. Nelson as a coach.

And Home Improvement, with Tim Allen as a grunting, sweating macho man who hosts a tool-themed tv series and tries to instill grunting, sweating masculinity into his three sons.  Zachery Ty Bryant (playing Brad), the eldest and most muscular, was promoted as a teen idol to draw in teenage girls (they weren't aware of gay boys).  But oddly, it was Jonathan Taylor Thomas (playing Randy) who took off, causing millions of teenage and preteen girls to tune it (again, no gay boys exist).  It quickly jumped to #2 in the ratings.

Wait -- Brad is a jock, a football star, a letterman who every girl in the school swoons over.  Randy is soft, bookish, somewhat femme, playing "a fairy" in the school play, an aspiring actor and journalist.  How did Jonathan Taylor Thomas do it?

The showrunners were stumped. They should have realized that straight girls and gay boys just starting to recognize their romantic interests prefer soft, cuddly, and relatable: Malcolm, not Reese (Malcolm in the Middle), Chris, not Drew (Everybody Hates Chris); Adam, not Barry (The Goldbergs). 

In the mid-1990s, Home Improvement moved to Tuesdays, in the hope that its popularity would help stragglers like Spin City.  We still steered clear of the grunting, sweating Tim Allen, quickly changing the channel to Frasier (CBS) and then back for Drew Carey (ABC).    

But we could hardly ignore JTT; he was on every magazine cover, in every talk show.

He presented at the Emmies and the Golden Globes.

We saw him waving in Thanksgiving and Christmas parades

He appeared in specials honoring Tom Cruise and Lauren Hutton

He praised James Bond in a documentary about the super-spy.

Elton John hugged him.

He played Tom Sawyer opposite Devon Sawa's Huckleberry Finn in Tom and Huck (1995), with a story only vaguely related to the original novels.

An adventure boy opposite Devon Sawa (right) and Scott Bairstow (left, n*de on RG Beefcake and Boyfriends) in Wild America (1997).

More after the break.  

November 22, 1963: Failed writer goes back to practically perfect 1960. Does he buddy bond, or meet The Girl? With Franco d*ck but no gl*ry holes

 

Link to the n*de dudes

I love time travel stories.  I've read all the classics: "All You Zombies," "A Sound of Thunder," "By His Bootstraps," "Mimsy were the Borogoves."   Time travel movies, not so much: they all seem to be about meeting, winning, and finding infinite happiness with The Girl. But when 9-22-63 dropped on Netflix, I saw that the disillusioned writer and his buddy work together together to prevent the Kennedy assassination.  Gay subtext -- ok, I'm in.

Scene 1:  Elderly Adult Education student Harry (Leon Ripper) reads a story about a boy whose his father murdered his mother and siblings on Halloween night, 1960.  Teacher Jake (James Franco) gives him an A+ -- right in front of the class.   What if he got an F?

Then Jake goes to the run-down diner near a horrible closed factory and orders a burger from elderly Al (Chris Cooper, backside on RG Beefcake and Bonding), who complains about his eating habits.  Not a good idea to diss the food you sell, buddy.  

The ex-wife comes in; they discuss his father's death, and then he signs the divorce papers.  This woman acts as if she is deeply -- very deeply -- in love with him, so why are they getting a divorce?  So they can reconcile later on, or just to establish that he's heterosexual?

Al goes into the kitchen for a few minutes, then returns, pale and haggard, and collapses.

Scene 2: Jake takes him home.  Big reveal: He's got cancer. "But you were fine five minutes ago."  "Come over tomorrow, and I'll explain everything"  

Back to class: A film about shock therapy in the 1930s, while students laugh and are bored.  So are we establishing that Jake is an awful teacher, or that kids today are awful?  

Scene 3: At the diner, Al says he'll explain everything  if Jake goes into the closet, looks around, and comes back.  I'd be suspicious -- there could be bodies in there, or he could lock you in and keep you a prisoner.  But Jake goes in...

And...plop!  He's outside the diner, but back in the early 1960s.  There's a billboard for Moxie Cola, and kids playing softball instead of scrolling on their phones.  So it's like the wardrobe that leads to Narnia, You can also go back in time via a secret staircase  (on Dark Shadows) or in an elevator (Time at the Top).  

It's a wonderful, joyous, absurdly idealized world.  I couldn't get a screenshot that would do it justice. Everything is very bright, with primary colors dominating. Delighted factory workers file out for their lunch break.  A milkman (Colin Doyle) drops a bottle, and exclaims "For the love of Mike!"  No profanity in 1960, har har. Three girls drive past in a pink convertible.

An old guy notices that Jake is from the future, and yells "You shouldn't be here!"   So he runs back into the diner, and ends up in the present day.

"You were just in October 21, 1960," Al explains.  The time portal always goes back to the same moment.  He doesn't know where it came from or how it works, and he hasn't told anyone about it. But now that he's dying, Jake has to take over his goal: to prevent the assassination of John F. Kennedy on November 22, 1963.  So he wants a random stranger to do the job?

Scene 4:  Jake accepts time travel instantly, but wonders why Al is interested in the JFK assassination.  "Because if JFK lived, he would have stopped U.S. involvement in Vietnam, all those boys would be alive, and the world would return to how it should be, always summer, primary colors, food that tastes good, polite kids, no divorce (hear that, Jake?), white men in charge (isn't your boss a woman, Jake buddy?), no gay people, and everyone joyful all the time."

Left: 1960s guys, n*de on RG Beefcake and Boyfriends.

"Then why haven't you prevented the assassination already?"

Al tells him to go back to 1960, carve something in the tree outside, and see if it's still there today.   

Scene 5: Jake goes back -- same moment. He pushes off the "You don't belong here!" guy, carves JFK while locals glare at him, and rushes back to the present.

Left: Josh Duhamel, who plays Adult Education Student Harry's father, the one who murdered his family on Halloween, 1960.  Yeah, I thought it was fiction, too.

Yep, the carved JFK is still there. But then it fades away.

"When you return to the present, time will reset. You can stay for years, but when you get back, it resets. And no matter how long you're away, only two minutes have passed in the present." That's a lot of very precise rules for a magical gateway.

Oh, the reason he suddenly got sick: he went through for two years while Jake was signing the divorce papers.

"So if everything resets, how can I prevent the JFK assassination?"

"You have to go through, and never come back."   

I guess we've established, that Jake hates his job, he has no friends, his wife has divorced him, and his father is dead, so he has nothing to stay in 2016 for -- except the internet, global travel, medical breakthroughs, gay neighborhoods, cultural diversity....but it's a trade-off: life is perfect in the 1960s.  Um...I know this is Stephen King's nostalgic memory, but still, it's a little naive. Ok, a lot naive. Life wasn't perfect in the 1960s, even for straight white men. Remember "Growing Up Absurd"?

Al has prepared a fake id for him, a lot of early 1960s money, and a notebook full of sports matches to bet on, so he can support himself.  

Jake thinks he is crazy and runs off.

Scene 6: The Adult Education Program graduation.  Everyone is bored, not-engaged, not joyous, and the principal disses Harry, so Jake says "Screw it!  I'm going back to 1960!"

Al's dead, so Jake grabs the stuff, goes to the diner, and heads through the portal.

More after the break. Caution: Explicit

Benjamin Ainsworth is possessed, kidnaps Dream, dances with a drag queen, rides a dragon. Plus his nose grows. With Champion and Elf d*cks

  

Link to the n*de photos and art

Benjamin Ainsworth (left) was born  in  Nottingham in 2008, and later moved to Lund, near Hull in Yorkshire.  He scored his first professional acting job in 2016, in the musical Priscilla, Queen of the Desert on the Norwegian Epic Cruise Line, six weeks in the Mediterranean and then six more in the Caribbean.  He played Benjy, son of the drag queen Tick. who sings "Say a Little Prayer/Always on My Mind."  

The same year he was cast as "a cheeky schoolboy" in an episode of the soap Emmerdale.

His next major role was the troubled boy Miles in The Haunting of Bly Manor, loosely based on Henry James' The Turn of the Screw, with the two troubled children and ghosts bedeviling the nanny.  I stopped watching in the first episode after a particularly nasty trigger (hint: "does the dog die?"), but according to a review there's a lesbian romance "drowned in sad and tired tropes" like Bury Your Gays. Yuck.

On RG Beefcake and Boyfriends: n*de Oliver Jackson-Cohen as Peter Quint, who is possessing Miles and forcing him to do bad things.

In  the first season of The Sandman (2022), Roderick Burgess captures the Dream of the Endless and imprisons him in a glass jar.  His son Alex (Ben as a boy, Laurie Kyaston as a young adult) has many opportunities to free him, but refuses, worrying that Dream will harm him or his boyfreind (Christopher Colquehon).  

So far one gay and two gay-adjacent roles.  Good job, buddy. 

There have been dozens of movies based on Pinocchio, the 1883 novel by Carlo Colladi. The 2022 version, with Ben as the puppet boy, Tom Hanks as Gepetto, and Joseph Gordon Levitt (n*de on RG Beefcake and Boyfriends) as Jiminy Crickett, is supposedly a live-action remake of the classic 1940 animated movie, with a lot of queer codes.  But in some versions Pinoke gets a girlfriend, so I wouldn't be surprised if he is changed into a real boy through a glimpse of the Girl of His Dreams.  

The IMDB description of Son of a Critch (2022-26) tells us that "Mark is 11 going on 70," and "tries to make connections with the small group of people in his limited world."  Sounds like he's got that syndrome where you grow old as a child, or maybe he's aging backward, but it's a misdirection: Mark (Benji Boy) is just smart, and his "limited world" is Newfoundland in the 1980s.  He's heterosexual; no gay people are mentioned in the series.   

Ben is posing here with the real-life Mark Critch, who plays his dad, and Colto Gobbo, who plays his older brother.

Everything is Going to Be Great (2025) covers a year in the life of the Smart Family, as they negotiate "over-sized dreams, identity, ghosts, and regional theater."  Trigger alert: this is advertised as a comedy, but Dad (Bryan Cranston of Malcolm in the Middle) dies halfway through.  

He leaves two sons, the athletic Derrick (Jack Champion), who has a girlfriend, and Lester (Ben), who wears flashy outfits, aspires to a career in musical theater, and has conversations with the ghost of gay playwright Noel Coward. Those are sizeable queer codes.  Google AI says that he's "openly gay," but according to the plot synopsis, he gets a girlfriend. 

More after the break. 

Graham Martillo: Ritzy private school boy plays lacrosse, takes his shirt off, hugs his boyfriend, buys a Porsche. With n*de dudes from Newport .

 

Link to the n*de photos

I think Instagram recommends pages based purely on beefcake photos.  One of these guys is a civilian named Graham, RI AOF.  I don't post the real last names of non-actors, so he'll be Graham Martillo ("hammer" in Spanish).

Graham is the cute one on the right, in a pink suit with a blue tie.  The guy in the blue suit with the pink tie may be his boyfriend.  Is this a real date, or staged for fun?

Graham has a rather thorough biography available online.  Granddad was an artist, and dad is an architect in Newport, Rhode Island. He attended St. Philomena , a ritzy Catholic grammar school, and then St. George's, an even ritzier private boarding school.  He graduates in 2026 or 2027, depending on which profile you believe.

I like how they pose in front of the Church of St. George, an incredible Gothic Revival chapel, as if it's no big deal, just the background of their lives.

Graham plays football and lacrosse for the Fighting Clams, and works as a caddy at the Newport Country Club, where the super-wealthy come to play.

I assume that he's gay based on the many guy-hugging photos and absence of girls.

Since I'm not sure of Graham's age, I won't be looking for n*de photos, but I posted three other Newport n*de dudes on RG Beefcake and Boyfriends. One has a tree-trunk.

More after the break

"Crew Girl": Private school girl on the rowing team must choose between two boyfriends. With a gay character and crew stuff

 

Crew Girl is the #1 tv show on Netflix.  I'm not really into sports, but maybe it will have some beefcake and other stuff.

Link to the n*de photos.

Scene 1: Teagan Tao introduces her parents, Dad David, who owns boutique hotels, and Mom Ella, who is deeply in love with him.  During her rowing competition, Dad gets a phone call.  "I have to take this." But before he leaves, he and Mom mention how deeply in love they are, and kiss. Do they do this every time they part? "I have to go to the bathroom.  I'm deeply in love with you. Back in a minute."

She wins the competition!  But Dad isn't there.  He texts "I'm sorry." Sorry for missing the competition, or... 

Turns out that Dad defrauded his investors out of millions, and scrammed before he could be grabbed by the FBI.  Teagan and Mom, newly impoverished, have to leave L.A. to move back to her home town in Massachusetts.

Scene 2: Establishing shot of the small town of Eagles Cove, established 1791.   Mom points out the Fudge Store ("nobody actually likes fudge"), the Crab Shack where she got her first job, and finally their new house, which actuallly belonged to Nanny and Grandpa.  Her grandmother was named Nanny?

Fortunately, Dad left an education trust, so Teagan can go to the ritzyEaston Prep.  "But their team isn't even on a Top Ten list. Coaches from Stanford were scouting me.  Who's going to see me out here?"  Everywhere in Massachusetts is less than two hours from Boston, New York, and Philadelphia. 

While Mom is unpacking, Teagan grabs a bike and heads into town.  She's so busy gawking at the rubes that she hits a pickup truck and plunges into the bed.  The owner is a cute teen boy, Cam Dillinger (Kyle Clark)  I'm guessing that this is a meet-cute with her Love Interest.  After a few minutes of yelling and some Boy-of-My-Dreams gawking, he offers to fix her bike.

Scene 3: Off to school.  It's a  huge Tudor-style castle (actually filmed at Hatley Castle, a 1906 Tudor Revival mansion in Victoria, British Columbia).  "Can a school have a British accent?" Teagan asks.

The student body president and dance committee chair introduce themselves. "I'm glad the school isn't all horse girls," Teagan says.

"Um...I'm captain of the equestrian team. What school doesn't have horses?"

A long haired person wearing a tie and sportscoat draws her aside. "I've never seen anyone unalive their social status so quickly."  I turn the sound on to determine their gender. It's a girl, her "first day buddy."  

Founded in 1798, Easton Prep is the "Harvard of high schools," mostly boarders, but some townies commute by helicopter. "Looks like a Skarsgaard convention," Teagan muses. "Who's the hunk?"

The guy in the blazer is Arrogant Josh (Samuel Braun), sixth generation Easton Prep, Prom King when he was freshman.  His buddy is Ryder, who has made out with half the girls in the school.  Heterosexual identity established immediately.  

"They only started admitting girls two years ago.  Great if you're straight, less cheer if you're queer." Sounds like the androgynous girl has come out to her new friend.

Next we meet the equally arrogant Leon.  "Stay away from him.  He's arrogant!"

"I noticed, sigh." So, will it be Josh, Ryder, Leon, or the guy with the truck?

Scene 4: Mom sees a "help wanted" notice on the door of a store that sells glasses and pillows.  The manager, Heather,  recognizes her from high school, and from "that photo of you lying by the pool" in New York Magazine.  So you thought she was hot?

Now she can't admit that she wants a job, so she pretends that she came in to shop.

Cut to English class, discussion of Byron's "She Walks In Beauty." The blackboard has "rebellious," "charisma," "melancholy," but not that he was bi.   Arrogant Josh comes in late and disrespects the teacher, Mr. Wu (not in the imdb or end of episode cast list).

Mr. Wu makes Josh read it aloud, and Teagan falls in love with him.

"What do you think it means?" Mr. Wu asks.

"It means Byron was trying to smash."

Mr. Wu doesn't like this answer -- "Just because you're the famous star of the rowing team" -- but it's completely accurate. Wait -- rowing team?

More after the break

Travis Turner: Short Guy Brigade, gay subtexts, cutesy cartoons, Christmas romcoms, and hip-hop. With n*de photos and Drake Bell

Link to the n*de dudes

In Final Destination: Blood Legacy (2025), a 1960s Elevator Operator encourages the soon-to-be-skewered couple to squeeze into his already overcrowded elevator, in a scene reminiscent of the "Room for one more, honey" episode of The Twilight Zone.  Then, when things start crashing, he tries to take everyone down the elevator again -- and ends up splattered. 

Look at this guy! He's shorter than Noah Bromley, who plays the evil Penny-Throwing Kid.  Of course I've got to research him.

He's Travis Turner, born in Oliver, British Columbia, in 1987,  raised in nearby Penticton in the Sylix Okangan Nation, although he doesn't mention being First Nation.  Cody Kearsley, Moose in the Riverdale series, is from Oliver also.  Maybe they knew each other.

After high school Travis painted oil rigs and sold vacuum cleaners, then moved to Vancouver to study film at Langara College.  He received his diploma in 2009.  .

He appeared in a lot of shorts in 2009-2010, such as "Henchin'," "Scars," "Snow Tramp," and "Dream a Little Dream," plus the Vancouver-based  Easter Bunny Bloodbath (2010), as one of the victims of a psycho-killer dressed as the Easter Bunny.  Here he appears in an illustration in the novelization.  There was a novelization?

Travis' first high-profile role was in a 2010 episode of Caprica, the Battlestar Galactica spin-off.  He played Ashok, a resident of a virtual world who briefly interacts with Tamara and Heracles ( Richard Harmon).

According to the IMDB, Travis is best known for Final Destination: Blood Lines (2025).

A 2024 episode of Wild Cards, a Canadian police procedural featuring a "will they or won't they" couple, Max (a lady) and Cole (Giacomo Gianniotti).  They investigate a missing butcher in a small town, and find a murderous cult.  Travis plays Daryl, who doesn't appear in the plot synopsis.

A 2023 episode of Upload, where you can be uploaded to a virtual afterlife when you die (if they get to your body right away).  Focus couple Nora and Nathan (Robbie Ammell) have returned to the real world, look for jobs, and discover that Nathan has a duplicate (apparently you can return to the real world multiple times).  Travis plays Tom, who does not appear in the episode synopsis.

The anime Dead Dead Demons Dededede Destruction (2024): Two high schoolers (a boy and a girl, of course) face an alien invasion.  He voices the English dub of Makato Tainuma, a boy who dresses in girls' clothes.  According to TV Tropes, he denies being gay or trans; he just wants to look cute. 

Some Assembly Required (2014-16), a Nickelodeon teencom starring Kolton Stewart as a teenager who becomes CEO of a toy company, and hires all of his friends. Travis played Aster Vanderburg, the snobbish, snarky, fashion-obsessed head of the Design Department (named after the Gilded Age Mrs. Aster).  He's gay-coded for 45 episodes before queerbaiting viewers with The Girl of His Dreams.

More after the break

The Leneave Brothers: Three Catholic swimsuit models with gay-positive ads, contradictory biographies, and model d*cks

  

Link to the n*de photos

When Chris Leneave, aka Chris Luquin, appeared on my Instagram recommendations, I figured that he was French.  But he appears to be an American model, one of these two.  I'm not sure which yet -- all of his posts show duos or trios.

An ad from 2021. Chris (or his Mom) says that this advertises "environmentally friendly luxury swimwear" with his brother and MZ.   I still don't know which brother is Chris.

I looked for MZ, but can't find a model with that name.

Google AI thinks he might mean the Model Zone, MZ agency, based in Mexico City but with branches in Florida.  I checked the six male actors on their website, and found a n*de photo (on RG Beefcake and Boyfriends), but no one who looks like the dad above.

"The perfect shorts do exist. Community and family values etched into every line."  Family values usually means homophobia, but this looks very much like two dads and their sons frolicking on the beach.

Again, he doesn't tell us who the grown-up models are, but at least he identifies himself: Chris is the older brother.

I had even less to work with in an attempt to track down the adult models.  The closest I could come was "black male model Florida" (n*de on RG Beefcake and Boyfriends).

More after the break

"Dark Matter": Family Man physicist is trapped in a parallel world. With Edgerton backside, Styx d*ck, and Cass chest

  

Link to the bottoms and d*cks

After finishing Silo Season 3, we checked the other high-concept programs available on Apple Plus, and decided on Dark Matter: a "family man" changes places with his non-family man counterpart in a parallel world. Season 1 premiered in 2024, and Season 2 in 2026.  Sounds ok.

Episode 1.1: "Are You Satisfied with Your Life?"

Scene 1:  A guy with a flashlight walks through a deserted warehouse space, and approaches a triangular structure which is presented as extremely important.  

Cut to "family man" Jason (Joel Edgerton). He wakes up (shirtless shot), kisses his wife Daniela's shoulder, eats breakfast, criticizes his son Charlie's homework, tells Wife Daniela how much he loves her, and kisses her extremely passionately right in front of his son.  They discuss who will drive Charlie to school; he wants to drive himself, with Family Man Jason monitoring. 

Cut to the drive, with the boy not noticing a stoplight and getting yelled at by the driver almost smashed.  

Left: Charlie is played by Oakes Fegley.  His "girlfriend and pr manager," probably just a fan trying to deceive us, says that he "looks like a homos*xual." Make up your mind, is he into you, or is he a gay slur?

On  the show, Charlie's hetero identity is established immediately.    He's depressed because the Girl of His Dreams is dating another boy.

"Then she has bad taste," Dad assures him.  How do you know that her boyfriend is an obnoxious jock?  Wait -- if this won't be a plot point, why mention it?  You don't need to be that eager to assure fans that Charlie isn't gay. 

Next Family Man Jason gets a text from his friend Ryan (Jimmi Simpson, backside on RG Beefcake and Boyfriends), who has just won a major award for proving that consciousness lies in the prefrontal cortex. That's old news.  It comes with a million dollars and lots of grant money.  Family Man Jason is invited to the celebration tonight.

Left: Jimmi Simpson  makes a lot of gay references on his Instagram, but he has a girlfriend.

Scene 2: Family Man Jason teaching his class in bonehead physics at a horrible community college.  He draws a cat in a box to illustrate Schrodinger's paradox to his bored students.

Meanwhile, Wife Daniela is at work at her art gallery.  How gender polarized: men are into science, women into the arts.

Cut to a dude in a storage facility, keeping track of Jason's movements and holding up a vial of a purple liquid.

Scene 3: At home, Family Man Jason tells his wife how much he loves her, kisses her extremely passionately, and prepares to do stuff with her on the sink -- in front of their son.  Charlie protests, but they tell him to look away.  They're interrupted by a text from Ryan: "Where are you?"

"Oh, Ryan invited me to a celebration of his major award in the bar around the corner, but I love you so much that I'm going to skip it and do stuff in front of our son."

"Nope!  He obviously scheduled the celebration in the crappy bar around the corner instead of someplace nice because he is in love with you, and wants to ensure that you show up.  We can do stuff in front of our son later tonight.  Let's just kiss for ten minutes, and then you can go."

Scene 4: At the bar, Ryan introduces Family Man Jason to his Extremely Important Scientist friends, who look down on him for having a horrible job at a community college.  

Left: The cutest of the Extremely Important Scientists is Ivan (Sam Cass, top photo and left).

Later, Ryan takes Family Man Jason off by himself: "I'm starting a  neurotech company with my million dollar prize money, and I want you to come on board. We need a good physicist."  But none were available, so he's asking Jason? 

 It pay more than the crappy community college, but it's in San Francisco. (Oh, no!  Who would want to move to the center of art, music, literature, and gay culture?).

 A woman comes up and asks to do stuff with Ryan. "Sure, but I'm busy right now. I'll do stuff with you in a few minutes."  

Jason doesn't want to leave his life in Chicago, but he promises to talk it over with his wife.  Wait -- the having sex with a random woman isn't a plot point, either?  You guys are really paranoid about viewers thinking that characters are gay.  Sounds like showrunner Blake Crouch is homophobic, which means we won't get any actual gay characters.

Scene 5: As Family Man Jason walks to his car (wait -- I thought the bar was around the corner, walking distance), a man in a white mask grabs him and forces him to drive to a warehouse, take off his clothes, and walk a long way n*de (except for boxer shorts). 

Then he has to put on new clothes (couldn't you have made him put on new clothes before the walk?  Not that I'm complaining).  

He injects Family Man Jason with something to make him fall asleep, and asks questions like "Are you happy with your life?  Do you wish things would be different if you made different choices?" Shouldn't you have asked that before the guy got too groggy to answer?

More after the break

Michael Cade: California Dreams, Charlie Chaplin, Devils, and That Chest. With Aaron Jackson and the Greek God Pan

After Saved by the Bell (1989-1993) demonstrated that Saturday mornings didn't have to be all cartoons, every kid in the country suddenly started eating their Cheerios to impossibly buffed teenagers in impossibly affluent high schools.  California Dreams (1992-1997) may not have been the best of the Saved clones-- I don't know if "best" is operant here -- but it was the most beefcake heavy.  

The premise: two Iowa teens, Matt (Brent Gore) and Jenny, move to California, where they form a band called California Dreams.  Wait -- why are you dreaming about California, when you live there?  

We pause this profile to quote the famous "California Dreamin'", which I heard many times during dark dank winters in the Midwest as I plotted my move to the gay freedom of West Hollywood:

All the leaves are brown, and the sky is gray. 
I've been for a walk on a winter's day.
If I didn't tell her, I could leave today.
California dreamin' on such a winter's day.

Most of the Saved clones had the same basic characters: the schemer, who works every angle yet fails every class, and still gets into Harvard; the surly outsider who resents the schemer getting everything so easily; the goofball who litters his speech with nonsequiters; the popular girl, who ends up with the schemer; and the smart girl, who ends up with the surly outsider.  In California Dreams, Michael Cade, left, is the schemer, band manager Sly Winkle (sly wink, get it?)

William James Jones, left, is surly outsider Tony Wicks, the band's drummer and sometime soloist. 

In Season 2, Aaron Jackson joined the cast as Sly's cousin Mark Winkle, performing the goofball role. 

William and Aaron were cute, but they didn't get a lot of teen idol attention. Michael and That Chest were the definite stars. Shirtless photos littered the teen magazines and the gay celebrity websites.

I didn't watch California Dreams often -- on Saturday mornings, we usually watched Joel and the Bots on Mystery Science Theater 3000, then had lunch, browsed bookstores, bought groceries at the Gay Safeway, and went to the gym.  In the evening, we watched Mama's Family and The Golden Girls, then went cruising at Mugi or the Faultline...uh-oh, I feel "The Way We Were" coming on.

Can it be that it was all so simple then, 
Or has time rewritten every word?
If we had the chance to do it all again
Tell me, would we?  Could we?

Sorry, these profiles from pre-2000 shows make me nostalgic.

Michael was born Michael Ocello in Elmwood Park, New Jersey in 1972.  He was interested in acting, but avoided drama club so he wouldn't be bullied -- "when I was in high school, being in the drama club wasn't cool," he notes in a teen magazine interview. Sounds like he was worried that people would think he was gay, which was a major concern in the late 1980s.

But the day he graduated in May 1990, he started taking acting lessons.  After a year, a few commercials, and a lot of bare chests, he moved to California where he could be open about his...um...acting.  It took only a few months for his chest to get a guest shot on Baywatch as Young Bobby, brother of focus character Eddie (Billy Warlock)

Michael also appeared in Chaplin (1992), the biopic of the silent movie star, as his nephew Sydney Chaplin Jr.

More after the break. 

"Bad Ideas with Adam Devine": When you need to f*k the Sadness in a hurry. With bonus buddy backsides

 

Link to the n*de  photos

Sometimes you need to f*k the Sadness in a hurry, and your best bet is Adam Devine.  Not (just) because of his hotness, because his stuff is always upbeat, with no hatred, no tragedy, no angst, not a lot of heteronormative mishegas, just whimsical problems, humorous braggadoccio, and homoerotic bonds. 

But you don't have time for a whole movie, or an episode of  Workaholicsor   The Righteous Gemstones. What do you do?

The reality series Bad Ideas with Adam Devine, streaming on Roku, is a perfect solution. In each episode, Adam. "the world's greatest movie star, the world's greatest lover, the guy who clearly writes his own intros," teams up with one of his comedian buddies to do something dangerous:

1. Compete in the World's Hottest Pepper Eating Contest, in the Bahamas. With Thomas Middleditch of Solar Opposites

2. Compete in a demolition derby, the Night of Destruction, at Perris Auto Speedway, near Riverside, California. With Blake Anderson from Workaholics

3. Become stunt performers in a Western movie (after seven minutes of training). With Rebel Wilson from Pitch Perfect

4. Drive an ice cream truck up highway P3 in Peru, called "the Death Road" for its hairpin turns and 1000 foot drops. With Anders Holm from Workaholics

More after the break