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

Brandon Spink: The young Batman, Jack*ss, and Baelfire takes a girl to the prom but comes out later. Maybe. With his stuff and Superman's backside

  

Link to the not fully clothed photos

Recently I profiled Mason McKenzie, who played Gideon in Once Upon a Time, where all of the Disney fantasy characters you've ever heard of are connected in a huge genealogy.  I thought I would research some of the other actors that gave me a gay vibe.  First up, femme boy Brandon Spink, who played Baelfire, son of Rumpelstiltskin and his first wife (making him Gideon's half-brother).  He is briefly swayed by the gay freedom offered by Peter Pan's Lost Boys, but in the end accepts his hetero destiny and marries Emma Swan.  Their son becomes the Chosen One. 

Let's see if the same thing happened the real-life Brandon (center).

Spink, by the way, comes from an Old English word for "finch."  It's not a bad word.

According to an article in Oz Magazine, Brandon was born in 1995 in Marietta, Georgia, and began acting on stage at age seven, playing Captain Hook's life partner Smee in Peter Pan.  After minor parts in Game of Your Life (2011), with Nathan Kress, and Devil's Knot (2013), with Colin Firth, he hit the big time in 2015, playing the young version of the Jack*ss star  a tv pilot called Untitled Johnny Knoxville Project. 

The young Johnny is a prankster and rebel growing up in the "outlaw culture" of 1980s Knoxville, Tennessee. 

N*de Johnny Knoxville is on RG Beefcake and Boyfriends.

That same year, Brandon was cast as the young Bruce Wayne in Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice (2016).  Playing the iconic figure was "a dream come true" for the boy.  Plus he got to work with Ben Affleck (grown-up Bruce), Henry Cavill (Superman, n*de on RG Beefcake and Boyfriends), and Jeremy Irons (Alfred the Butler).

Next came Game of Silence (2016), with childhood secrets threatening a successful lawyer; the teenage Baelfire in Once Upon a Time (2017); Berlin Station (2017), about CIA agents in Germany; and a few show that I've never heard of.

Brandon's next big break was in Fear Street: Part Two (2021), the second in a trilogy about paranormal events in a small town in different historic periods.  In 1978, it's a summer camp, with fear.  Brandon's character, Will Goode, is the mayor of the town, with wife and kids, in Part 1 (1994).  As a teenager, he bullies the other teens and survives the night.

There are lesbian characters in every Fear Street episode, but gay men do not exist.

In 2025 Brandon appeared in four episodes of the sports drama All American, as a random football player; and three episodes of NCIS: Origins, about the NCIS (Naval Criminal Investigation Service) in the 1990s, as the teenage version of agent Michael Franks (played by Michael Erik White, on RG Beefcake and Boyfriends).

Michael seems to be gay in real life, but the character is straight.  

In fact, all of Brandon's characters have been straight or straight-by-default. 

He'd better be gay in real life, or what am I doing this for?

More after the break

Young Farts RV Parts: Hunky Ukrainian-Canadian brothers sell rv parts, with Jim the Stripper, a lot of gay hints, and the World's Biggest You-Know-What

 

Link to the n*de dudes

When I saw Young Farts RV Parts on Amazon Prime, I figured it was a spin-off of the Canadian series Trailer Park boys, but it's actually a reality show starring Dawson (left) and Jagger (right) Glowatsky, brothers from Vegreville, Alberta, who run an rv salvage business.   Why is rv salvage a tv series?

They started posting videos selling their products on Youtube and Tiktok.  Soon they were doing comedy stunts and challenges: 

Golfing off the roof of a rv

Playing rv chariot races

Playing Twister in a moving rv

A truck pulls off Dawson's clothes

The guys in underwear rolling on a mattress

They slap each other's bottoms

Wait -- they roll around in underwear?

And show us their backsides? (On RG Beefcake and Boyfriends).

Is it getting hot in here?

Jacob Tierney was a fan, and approached to ask if they wanted to do a reality show.

Wait -- Jacob Tierney, the producer of Heated Rivalry, one of the most popular gay-themed tv series of all time? 

And Letterkenny and Shoresy? (backsides on RG Beefcake and Boyfriends).

Jacob Tierney who owns the production company Accent Aiglu with his husband Brendan Brady?  

Maybe there's more to these guys than meets the eye.

Scene 1: They introduce themselves and their schtick, and then the town of Vegreville, where "there's not a lot goin' on" (to quote Corner Gas).  It's flat.

Dawson has been gone for six days, having a baby (with his wife, I assume).   He explains: "We is who we is.  We smoke, we drink, we swear. We never had real jobs, and I dropped out of high school. That's what sets us apart.  We don't know what the f*ck we're doing."

Scene 2: A tour of the warehouse.  They introduce Jim the Stripper, who asks "Where's my pole, boys?", although he's not that kind of stripper: he uses his impressive biceps to cut up rvs.

I got your pole right here, Jim Baby

Dory, the Inventory Manager, who posts the parts for sale online. She enjoys saying "F*ck you, Jim."

Shipping Manager Tressa.  She enjoys weed.

Mom Teresa, "the glue that holds it all together."

Dad Cam, whose coffee mug caught my attention.  There are three reasons why a guy might own a cup with a blond hunk in a speedo on it, but only one reason why he would be filmed for television holding it. 

Scene 3: Time for a team meeting: They're down 30% in sales from last year, and since they are a seasonal business (people don't buy rvs or parts in the winter), they have to hustle and make this summer count.

Their yard is almost empty, because Dawson, who is in charge of getting rvs to strip (for parts) or flip (for resale), has been busy having a baby.  So he'll have to step up to fill the yard.

Cut to Dawson making some phone calls. 

Scene 4: The brothers go on an Alberta Field Trip.   They visit theWorld's Largest Sausage in Mundare.  If you look it it from the right angle, it turns into the World's Largest You-Know-What.

"I wanna have a beer with the guy who made this thing," Jagger notes, grabbing his own.  I wanna have a beer with the guy who modeled for it.

They're actually searching for rvs rusting in backyards, that they can buy and strip or flip.

More after the break

Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Greg's Last Straw. Cartoon mayhem with a few gay hints, at least one gay actor, and a pleasant absence of The Girl.

 Diary of a Wimpy Kid, with the illustrated adventures of self-centered, accident-prone middle-schooler Greg Heffner, began as a web series in 2004.  It spun into a series of chapter books, 20 to date,  plus seven movies and a stage musical.  While author Jeff Kinney is a gay ally, he has kept LGBT characters and most of the gay subtexts out of Greg's life, instead making his buddy Rowley too weird for romance, and giving them both regular crushes on girls.  

The movies are a mixed bag of gay-subtext, heterosexism, and downright homophobia: Diary of a Wimpy Kid (2010) doesn't give the guys girlfriends, but moves into gay panic when Greg and Rowley (Zachary Gordon, left, Robert Capon)  accidentally touch hands and spring away in disgust: "I touched a dude!  That means I'm...ugh!" 

Rodrick Rules (2011) features Greg's attempt to win the Girl of His Dreams, but his brother Rodrick (gay actor Devon Bostick) has no interest in girls.

But in Dog Days (2012), both Greg and Rodrick pursue the Girls of Their Dreams. 

So I'm approaching the latest animated film, Last Straw (2025) on Disney Plus, with some concern. But I'm reviewing it just in case (besides, it's been sitting in my "to review" file since early December).

Scene 1: Unreliable narrator Greg (Aaron Harris)  discusses his problem: Dad (Chris Diamantopoulous) likes everything to be organized, and Greg likes to "go with the flow." On Christmas morning, he takes his time in the shower, making the family late for church.  As they are waiting, in the car Mom and Dad discuss Greg's woeful lack of life skills.  He can't even use the house key to lock the door.  Rodney, however, is fully competent.

Left: Now Rodney is played by gay actor Hunter Dillon.  I wonder if it's significant that they keep casting gay guys to play Rodney, even though nothing can be stated in the movies.

Scene 2: The church has some nondescript stained glass windows and a lot of Christmas trees, but no crosses anywhere.  The priest mentions the Wise Men but not Jesus. There are medallions of a horned stag and a rabbit, and a giant statue of a female angel behind the altar. What religion are these people, Manichean?  (In the novel, it's a regular Christian church, at Easter).

Uh-oh, Greg sat on chocolate in the car.  He tries to keep covered, but everyone can see, and thinks that he pooped his pants.

Scene 3: After the chocolate disaster, Dad worries that he hasn't taught Greg the things he needs to know to become a man. Sounds like you have some old-fashioned ideas about masculinity, buddy. Mom says not to worry, Greg is fine: he and his friend Rowley are starting a snow removal company.  Capitalism solves everything.

Scene 4: It's Beefcake Snow Removal, with a drawing of the Greg and Rowley as muscular, shirtless grown-ups: "pamper yourself with our service."  

Their first customer expected two grown-up hunks to shovel with their shirts off (so he's gay?), and angrily rejects the two kids.  As do others on the block.   When they finally find an old lady willing to hire them, they don't have snow shovels.Plan ahead?  Rowley scrams, and Greg tries to use a lawn mower, with slapstick mayhem results.

More after the break

The "Righteous Gemstones" Episode 2.6 s*x scene, a frame-by-frame analysis

 

In case you're new here, The Righteous Gemstones is a HBO Max sitcom about the famous, ultra-rich televangelist Eli Gemstone and his three children, who live in separate mansions on his compound and get into constant squabbles and scrapes.  But of course they love each other deep-down.  Kelvin (Adam Devine) is the youngest son, 29-34 years old during the four seasons, a muscle enthusiast who usually works in the low-prestige teen ministry, and has to constantly prove himself.  Keefe (Tony Cavalero), a former Satanist whom he saved, is his boyfriend.  

Kelvin has a standard fiction coming-out process, one that we've seen a hundred times in movies and tv-shows.

Season 1: Falling in love with his best friend, sexual experiences, feeling guilty, denial, then recognizing that he is gay.

Season 2: Becoming obsessed with the *rotic, refusisng to admit that he and Keefe are romantic partners, eventually coming around and coming out to the family.

Season 3: Trying hard to stay in the closet, refusing to call Keefe his boyfriend, leading to their breakup and reconciliation, and a kiss.  

The problem is, up to the Season 3 kiss and even after, many viewers insisted that the two were straight buddies.  The queer codes were all misdirections or misreadings.

Which brings us to Season 2, Episode 6: Kelvin is standing n*aked in front of the mirror; distraught:  he has lost the respect of the God Squad, his cadre of muscle men; his father hates him; he is worthless, nothing, no better than a beast.  Keefe suggests that he will feel better if he gets dressed for the day.  His hands are broken, so Keefe will have to dress him.

What happens next is about as explicit as a s*x scene can get on television, yet some viewers insisted that Keefe is just helping Kelvin on with his underwear.  Even after Season 4, when they two are out as boyfriends and eventually get married, viewers insist that they didn't do any bedroom stuff until the after the wedding.  

Maybe a frame-by-frame analysis will convince them.

The frame-by-frame analysis is on  RG Beefcake and Boyfriends

Or see my review of the whole episode: Gemstones Episode 2.6: Yep, they have s*x. Plus Judy grows a heart, Torsten a brain, and Amber the noive.