Maxwell Jenkins: The "Lost in Space" guy and his boyfriend visit Paris, with travel tips and n*de Parisian dudes

 

Link to the n*de dudes

When I last profiled Maxwell Jenkins, in April 2025,  the former Lost in Space Will Robinson was starring in The Bondsman with Kevin Bacon and majoring in Global Studies at UCLA.  He had a lot of beefcake and guy-hugging photos on his social media, leading me to conclude that he is "probably gay."

The Bondsman is finished, leaving Max free to concentrate on his studies, plus cheerleading and acrobatics.  In August 2025, he posted some cute and romantic photos of his holiday in France with his boyfriend (so we can move from probablement to sans doute)

I've been to Paris several times, so I immediately recognized the Pompidou Centre, an event venue and art museum. in Les Halles. The Krash Bar, two floors of cavernous corridors full of guys anxious to hook up, is right around the corner.

Everybody who visits Paris for the first time has to see the Eifel Tower.  After that, you give it a miss.

Same with the famous Moulin Rouge in Montmarte. But they have an interesting artists' market nearby, in the Place du Tertre.

Max's boyfriend is Shawn J., a Global Studies major at UCLA who runs the program Refugee Connect, offering direct assistance to refugees around the world.

You're supposed to do that with wine glasses, guys.

N*de Parisian dudes and travel tips after the break. 

One Night in Bangkok, Three Hundred Nights at Mugi

From 1985 to around 1993, I was in Mugi, the gay Asian bar in Hollywood, at least once a week, sometimes twice.  Probably 300 times in all.   And every single time I was there, they played "One Night in Bangkok."  It was ingrained into my brain; even today I often catch myself singing:

One night in Bangkok, and the world's your oyster.
The bars are temples, but the pearls ain't free.

Oddly enough, when I visited the real Bangkok in 1988 to "rescue" Alan, I never heard the song once.

I guess the owner was a little short on Asian-themed pop songs.  "One Night in Bangkok" was composed for the musical Chess (1984).

Yes, there was a musical about chess.  It was based on the match between chess superstars Bobby Fischer and Boris Spassky at the 1972 World Chess Championships,an American and a Russian, one of the epic battles of the Cold War.

I haven't seen it -- reviews complain that it is over-long, over-wrought, clunky, and exceedingly dull.  And it sounds rather homophobic. .

Chess champion Freddie Trumpeter (played by Murray Head in the British version and Philip Casnoff in the American) must face gay "accusations."  His father states that he's "probably queer," and his Soviet opponent, Anatoly (Tommy Korberg, David Carroll) calls him a "fruit" (a "nut" in the American version), and steals his girlfriend.

"One Night in Bangkok" appears on the night before an early match between Freddie and Anatoly.  Freddie wanders around town, trying to stay focused.

He dislikes Bangkok, "Oriental city," with its "muddy old river," its decadence, and its evil: "I can feel a devil walking next to me."

He disapproves of the drag queens: "the queens we use would not excite you."

And especially the feminine gay men: "you'll find a god in every golden cloister, and if you're lucky, then the god's a she."

Not the message you want to send to patrons of a gay Asian bar!

But at least gay people and transvestites are mentioned, a rarity in the 1980s.


See also: The Theme Song of 1000 Nights in a Leather Bar.

"English Teacher" Episode 1.8: Birthday party at a leather daddy bar, with Evan deciding between two boyfriends

Link to the n*de photos 

English Teacher, on Hulu, stars Brian Jordan Alvarez as an old-school gay guy in a world that's moved on.  He doesn't understand nonbinary, asexual, pansexual, and the other "queer" identities of his high school students, and expects everybody to be homophobic. And they are, sort of, expressing stereotypes and misinformation but completely nonchalant about the gay teacher in their midst. I reviewed Season 1, Episode 8, the season finale: "Birthday"

Teaser:  Student Eddie (Blaise Reyes, right) reveals to Evan (Brian Jordan Alvarez) that he's gay, but afraid to come out to anyone. Evan is dumfounded: It's 2024, just go out in the hall and say "I'm gay." Talk to one of the 200 out gay students.  Living in a fantasy world, dude?  Over 90% of LGBT students report hearing homophobic slurs at school. over half bullying and harassment, and 12% assault.  

"But not the unspecified queer students -- they're mostly straight.  Find a real gay, queeny."  It's a gay guy giving him this homophobic advice.

Evan doesn't want to go out: Evan's queeny ex-boyfriend Malcolm (Jordan Firstman) -- think Jack to Will on Will and Grace -- is planning a birthday blowout at a "leather daddy bar,"  because he'll be 35, and somebody needs to "s*ck your d*ck."  (that's how the subtitles phrase it).  Evan doesn't want to go, for reasons.  

The parking lot: Tom of Austin, with a gigantic sign. Evan is wearing a ridiculous vinyl shirt and gym shorts, afraid that one of the parents will see him and get upset.  Any parent that sees him in a leather daddy bar will be fine with it.  He's about to call it off and go home, when he's cruised by a muscular hippie -- maybe it will be ok. 

Left: the hippie is not listed on the IMDB

Surprise!  All of his work colleagues are there.

At the bar:   The standard straight-person-at-a-gay-bar things happen.  The Principal (Enrico Colantoni) gets groped repeatedly by a leather guy who won't take "no" for an answer, and tries not to look at the videos on every tv set: "it's two men!"   What did you expect, dude?

It's actually not a leather bar.  Some shirtless daddies around, but also some swishy twinks, and the bartender is a woman wearing cat ears.

The homophobic-ish Coach (Sean Patton) -- the kind who says "you can't help being a swishy queen.  I got your back" -- runs into his old high school teammate, Chuck (David Shae), and is shocked to discover that he is gay, or as he puts it, "I sleep with men."  Running into a gay guy at a gay bar?  Shocking!  

 "Wait -- you weren't gay in high school.  You had a hot girlfriend.  What happened?"

"I was closeted."

"It's hard to believe that a swishy gay guy made the winning touchdown in the big game."

More after the break

"Bangkok Love Stories": Lots of cute Thai guys, but no temples or gay bars

Of course I'm going to watch a tv series in the Thai language, which is not related to Chinese, Vietnamese, or any other of the major languages of East and Southeast Asia.  Even if it has a stupid title: Bangkok Love Stories: Innocence.

My first thought: there's nothing innocent about these twinks falling in and out of love with each other.

My second thought: where did the rest of the world get the idea that Bangkok was just about s*x? Sure, it's is an essential part of any trip, but Bangkok has enough cultural treasures for a month of sightseeing:  the Grand Palace, home to Thai monarchs from 1782 to 1925; the Suam Pakkad Palace: Wat Pho, with its 148-foot long Reclining Buddha.

None of which appear in the first episode.  There are no interesting location shots.

My third thought:

So no one told you life was gonna be this way
Your job's a joke, you're broke, your love life's D.O.A

(I often have no choice but to watch Friends on the treadmill at the gym).

This group of zany friends are:

1. Rachel...um, I mean Claudia (Nida Patcharaveerapong), who has a terrible job at a salad bar, where she has to fend off handsy customers all day.

2. Joey...um, I mean JC (Kawin Manonukul, top photo and left),who has a terrible job at a KFC, but his real passion is parkour (urban acrobatics).  He's into Claudia.

More after the break

Why Everyone in West Hollywood Listened to Madonna

When I first moved to West Hollywood in 1985, Madonna was everywhere, part of the backdrop of everyday life, as universal and taken-for-granted as working out, drinking Perrier, and reading Frontiers magazine.

When a Norwegian con artist stole my boyfriend,  "Material Girl" was playing.

When Alan met my boyfriend Raul, we were listening to "Open Your Heart."

When we ran into Fred and his Cute Young Thing during brunch at the French Quarter, "Live to Tell" was blaring from a car stopped at a red light on Santa Monica Boulevard.

During 300 Saturday nights at Mugi, "One Night in Bangkok" was always followed by "Papa Don't Preach"

When I was teaching  Gay 101 at Juvenile Hall,  three guys at a party started lip-synching to "Vogue."

But in the early 1990s, the Madonna fad started dying down.

In 1992, the book Sex bombed in West Hollywood.  I knew only one guy who actually bought a copy.

By 1993, record store commercials had people complaining "I'm bored with Madonna!", and all of the cars stopped at red lights on San Vicente were blaring "I'm too sexy for my shirt!" instead of "Bad Girl."

Madonna is still expressing herself, still recording songs and performing for millions of fans, but she is no longer an inevitable part of daily life in West Hollywood.

Nearly thirty years later, I wonder why Madonna became a gay diva.  Her songs had no gay subtexts: they were all about heterosexual women being touched for the very first time, living in a material world, picking up boys on the street, and asking "Come on, girls, do you believe in love?"

Maybe her hot male backup dancers, like Victor Lopez, Jull Weber (top photo), and Mihrab (left).  Many of them were gay, and worked out next to us at the Hollywood Spa.  They were family.

Maybe because she was a gay ally, outspoken in her support of LGBT people, a rarity in the 1980s.

Maybe because she was constantly offending 1980s conservatives with her frank lyrics and suggestive dance moves.  Gay people were constantly offending 1980s conservatives just by existing.  It was a match made in heaven.

See also: Mae West, Gay Diva of the 1930s and Let's Hear it for the Boy.

"Open Up the Closet Door": The Theme Song of 300 Nights in a Leather Bar

In West Hollywood, gay bars always had a theme song that you would hear over and over, at least once an hour, every time you visited.

From 1985 to 1993, I went to Mugi, the Asian bar in Hollywood, almost every Saturday night, sometimes Wednesday or Friday, too.  That means that I heard "One Night in Bangkok" at least 300 times.

From 1990 to 1995, I went to the Faultline, the leather bar on Melrose, near Los Angeles City College.  There were some Asian guys there, too, of course.

I was there almost every Sunday afternoon, sometimes Friday or Saturday, too.  So I heard their theme song over 300 times.

I never heard it anywhere else. I didn't know the title or the group, and I didn't bother asking.

It seemed to be a Gay Pride anthem:

Open up the closet door, watch out, here I come.

Although some of the lyrics seemed to involve a bar pickup:

You, I don't even know your name, baby.
You, something something, baby.

With a chorus:
Round, round, round, round, something something baby, round round round round.

Years later, I heard the song again, at the gym of all places, and it brought me back to those many nights and Sunday afternoons surrounded by shirtless and leather-clad men.  When I got home, I did an internet search.


It's "You Spin Me Round (Like a Record)", by the British band Dead or Alive, released in December 1984, peaked at #4 on the dance charts in January 1985.

Boy, did I get the lyrics wrong!  The "gay pride anthem":

Open up your lovin' arms, watch out here I come.

The bar pickup:

If I, I get to know your name, baby
Then I could trace your private number, baby

No specific gay content, although the lead singer of the bad was the fabulously feminine Peter Burns (bottom left), an androgyne in the mold of Boy George, who married a woman and then a man, but divorced him and declared in homophobic contempt that "gay marriage doesn't work.  It's better to marry a woman."

Other members were Mike Percy, Steve Coy, and Tim Lever.

I'm still trying to figure out why an androgynous dance number was the theme song in a leather bar with no androgyny and no dancing.

It doesn't really matter.  Even though I know the lyrics now, I still can hear in my head the gay pride anthem from 300 nights at the Faultline:

Open up the closet door, watch out, here I come.

See also: One Night in Bangkok

The Gay Werewolf of Steppenwolf

When I was an undergraduate at Augustana College in the early 1980s, I took three German classes with tall, gray-haired, constantly-scowling Professor Weber, who was obsessed with demonstrating that homosexualitat did not exist in modern Germany.

Stefan George, Thomas Mann, the Physical Culture Movement, Robert Musil, Magnus Hirschfield, the Kit-Kat Club of Berlin between the Wars?

"Posh!  Nonsense!  About friendship and the nationalist ideal, not homosexualitat!"

He would allow no discussion of current campus favorite Steppenwolf  by Herman Hesse: "Posh!  Nonsense!  A book of monsters!  Fit only for the Late-Late Show!"

So of course, I had to read it.

The cover illustration of two nearly-naked women nearly turned me away.

As did the clueless school librarian who kept trying to point me to the music section, insisting that the book was about the rock band Steppenwolf.

But finally I managed to get a copy.

I saw immediately why Dr. Weber forbade the class from discussing it.

The protagonist, Henry Haller, feels depressed, friendless, and alienated from the world he no longer understands -- what adolescent hasn't felt like that?  Especially gay adolescents.

The source of his alienation: he is a werewolf, a man with two natures, one civilized and stable and heterosexual, the other wild.

Wild, savage, untamed, homoerotic.

While wandering aimlessly through the city, he sees an advertisement for "Magic Theater -- not for everybody." (Or, in this Spanish sign, "for lunatics only.").

 Maybe in the Magic Theater he will find a way to reconcile his two natures.  Or maybe it will lead him to oblivion.  He resolves to seek it out.

En route, he meets two people.  Hermine nurtures his "civilized" side, introducing him to the pleasures and constraints of heterosexual normalcy, including sex with women.

Seductive saxophonist Pablo offers him a "walk on the wild side."

(In the 1974 film version, Henry is played by Max von Sydow, and Pablo by Pierre Clementi).

Eventually Henry kills his "civilized side," and Pablo announces that he is ready for the Magic Theater. He walks inside, through a narrow corridor into the future.

For the gay men of my generation, it sounds precisely like your first visit to a gay bar.  You circle the block a few times, then park, and walk slowly, terrified, to that door marked "Magic Theater: Not for Everybody."  Your future lies behind it.

Hesse envisioned several other close male "walks on the wild side," in Narcissus and Goldmund (1930) and Magister Ludi (1943).  

See also: Death in Venice; and Male Nudity in German Class;