Gemstones Episode 3.2: Kelvin's buddies, gay Percy, two toxic families, and some n*de soldiers

Link to the NSFW version

Episode 3.2 introduces Eli's estranged brother-in-law Peter Montgomery, his sons, and a disturbing super-macho mirror of Kelvin's God Squad.

Title: "But Esau Ran to Meet Him," from Genesis 33.4.  Jacob has tricked his father Isaac into giving him the inheritance.  Esau is furious and vows to kill him, so he flees.  When he returns after 20 years, Esau behaves as if he is happy to see him, but....

Stephen's abusive wife:  Stephen, who was fired as Judy's guitarist after her brothers discovered their affair, is trying to tell his wife Kristy that he was "laid off," not fired.  She doesn't buy it.  It's a highly abusive relationship: she calls him "an unemployed, cokehead piece of sh*twho sulks all day."  He screams "Fuck you!", and she hits him with a glass blender.  Shattered glass all over his face and head, in front of the kids!  Whoa, scary.  The Gemstones and their partners argue, but they never use abusive language or physical violence.  Except for the time that Amber shot Jesse in the backside 

Later, Judy meets Stephen at Spanky's Cafe, a real restaurant in North Charleston, and offers him $10,000 to leave her alone: "I don't want to see you no' mo'."  But he still wants her.  Judy points out that he's married, but it doesn't matter: "I'd leave my family in a second if I could have you.  I'd murder them." Say what?  This guy is a psycho. Of course, he should leave his abusive wife, but murder her...and the kids?

Kelvin's Buddies:  Jesse and Amber's adult son Gideon, who moved to California to become a stuntman, is back, lying on the veranda in a bathrobe, smoking a cigarette, holding a box of Lucky Charms cereal, and sulking.  The background song by Buddy Knox tells us: "I think I'm going to kill myself."  He injured his neck, and may never do stunt work, tumbling, or martial arts again.  At least he's displaying a nice chest.

Background alert: Skyler Gisondo injured his neck in real life in 2022, when his hair stylist gave him a "little neck massage."  They wrote his injury into the script.

In a much, much nicer parallel to the Stephen-Mandy confrontation, Gideon's parents order him to stop feeling sorry for himself, get off his backside, and go to work for the church.  But he doesn't want to preach.  Ok, so he can become Eli's driver. Remember that the long-term driver, Walker, was fired.

We cut to Gideon on his first assignment, driving Eli and the siblings to see if May-May's kids are ok.  They are living with her estranged husband, Peter Montgomery, and his militia, the Brotherhood of Tomorrow's Fires: they expect end of civilization, like Eli's Y2K scare back in 1999.   Eli calles them preppers: "They want to make sure they don't run out of toilet paper."

Usually Evangelicals believe in the Rapture, when Jesus zaps everyone who is saved to Heaven, leaving the unsaved to suffer through seven years of the dystopian Tribulation before being sent to hell.  To this day, I will not let anyone stamp my hand for re-entry into an event, because  the Mark of the Beast was drummed into my head.  But Eli and Peter apparently have a different belief system.

On the way to the compound, at the defunct Boy Scout Camp Wooden Feather, the siblings discuss their cousins, Karl and Chuck.  Kelvin says that he always found them "kind of dumb and strange."  But you haven't seen them since 2000, when you were ten or eleven.  How much do you remember?

Judy: "That's why I'm surprised you weren't b utt buddies with them."  

He gets annoyed, not because she alludes to him being gay but because she implied that he's also "dumb and strange," and therefore perfect for the Montgomerys.

Not the God Squad:  Bizarre signs like "Now we will see" greet the family, along with multiple armed guards.  They pass Jacob (Stephen Louis Grush) cutting up a deer.  Kelvin smiles at him -- think he's hot, buddy?.  Then a military-style obstacle course;  guys practicing martial arts; a guy taking a shower outdoors (no beefcake); and finally the mess hall, where about thirty militia men are having lunch.

Wait -- no women and children?  The actual far-right militia movement has many female participants, but this is a male-only space, like Kelvin's God Squad in Season 2, but with scruffy guys in military fatigues instead of flexing musclemen.  It is dedicated to phileo instead of eros, buddy-bonding instead of homoerotic desire. An article on Doomsday Preppers notes that these male-only groups "cultivate a dangerous vision of apocalyptic manhood that consummates a fantasy of national virility in the demise of feminine society."  Women are weak and fragile, their civilization doomed. Only the "manly love of comrades" can survive the Apocalypse. 

May-May's son Chuck ushers Eli and the siblings in. They are greeted by Cousin Karl (Robert Oberst), who is delighted to see them; and Uncle Peter (Steve Zahn, below), who is not.  It's time for church, so get out!  No, the siblings offer to help lead the service: Jesse will preach, Judy will sing, and Kelvin will  perform some "feats of strength" for the kids -- the only time he references his muscles during the season.  No kids around, but maybe the militia guys would like to see some masculine beauty.   

Uncle Peter rejects the siblings' offer.  They are "phony fakers," entertainers, interested in making money rather than saving souls. 

More military guys after the break

Derrick Burbage: Stunt driver, soldier, cop, realtor, hombre muy hombre -- or not.

When I was in college, I brought a friend home for spring break, and pointed out my father's flower garden.

Friend: Your father is not a man.

He was not defining man as someone with a d*ck.  He meant man as someone who meets the expectations of hegemonic masculinity: 

Muscular, hairy chest, beard or five o'clock shadow.

Aggressive, assertive.

A fan of sports, Tool Time, huntin', fishin', and classic cars.

Experiencing no emotion except anger.

Ok with his kid being gay. to an extent.

Fleeing from any hint of anything feminine-coded, from flowers to flowery adjectives. 

In Spanish, we say un hombre muy hombre. 

When I first noticed Derrick Burbage, he struck me as a perfect example of an Hombre Muy Hombre

He appears in Righteous Gemstones Episode 1.1 as Jesse's driver, taking him from the private airfield through our first glimpse of the Gemstone Compound, with its private police force and security guards.  How hombre muy hombre can you get?

Derrick returned several times during Seasons 1 and 2 as a stunt driver and Danny McBride's stunt double.  He was honored to crash "a classic 1970 Cadillac."

And in Season 3 as a stunt driver.

His IMDB biography talks about military convoys, Afghanistan, light and heavy weapons training, tactical combat vehicle operations, and "real-life high-speed vehicle pursuits." 

I'm getting a testosterone overdose just writing those words.

Derrick's stunting and acting work begins in 2014, when he was 38 or 39.  I pieced together his early life with LinkedIn, Facebook, his stunting resume, and speculation.

Baseball: He was born in 1974 or 1975.  No information on high school, but he's a baseball fan today, so I imagine that he was on the baseball team.  After graduation, he probably joined the army. 

Policing:  Derrick graduated from the South Carolina Criminal Justice Academy in 1998.  

He worked as a South Carolina State Trooper (1998-2009) and Charleson County Deputy Sheriff (2009-2010).

Back to school: Troy University, in Troy, Alabama, which is not as bad as it sounds -- they have a LGBTQ group on campus.  

He graduated in 2011 with a B.S. in Computer Science and Criminal Justice (3.95 GPA, Phi Beta Kappa).  I imagine anyone would do well after working for 13 years as a criminal justice professional.

Geek Squad:  For the next few years, Derrick worked as a regional manager at Geek Squad, plus  manager of a liquor store and a private investigator.  It's a gig economy.  Everybody has three jobs.

Realtor: He got a MBA in 2016 and became a licensed realtor in 2017.  

Acting: Derrick started acting as the cop who arrests Terry (Shawn Hatosy) on a 2014 episode of Reckless.

Next came Office Don in the short Lucky Luke (2018), about two beach pals (Michael James Daly, Rodney Smith) reminiscing.

Some guest spots on The Righteous Gemstones (2019).

Stunting:  The Righteous Gemstones was his first stunting gig.  Next came: 

Black Adam (2022), with Dwayne Johnson as the Marvel superhero.

The Walking Dead (2022, where he doubled for Season 4 antagonist Jason Butler Harner, left)

Echo (2023-24), with Alaqua Cox as the Marvel superhero.

And Suncoast (2024), about a teenage girl who befriends an activist.

 

See also: Austin Seifert: Cycle Ninja, Gisondo double, stuntman

Shane Gray: Stunt performer, pole vaulter, boy scout, man's man

Shane Michael Parker: Soldier, stuntman, wolf fan

Sad Sack

When I was a kid, I loved Harvey comics' supernatural titles, Casper, Spooky, and Hot Stuff having science-fiction and espionage adventures in the Enchanted Forest.  In a pinch, I didn't mind the kids-with-crazy-obsession titles, Little Dot, Little Lotta, and Richie Rich.  But I never even picked up Sad Sack.  

Military humor -- gross!  It was the middle of the Vietnam War.  Our fathers and older brothers were dying in Vietnam, or burning their draft cards and going into exile in Canada.  Who wanted to be reminded of all that?

But recently I came across an old book, The Sad Sack.  Apparently the character existed before Harvey Comics, in a pantomime strip published by Sergeant George Baker in the military magazine Yank during World War II.  The Sad Sack (short for "Sad Sack of Sh*) was a classic schmiel, beset-upon by bad luck, but tough, masculine, and sexually active (although here he's paying a woman to iron his pants).




Two hardcover compilations of Sad Sack strips appeared in 1944 and 1946.  There was a radio series (1946) starring Herb Vigran and a movie adaption (1957) starring Jerry Lewis.

Harvey took over the franchise in 1949, giving Sad Sack a voice, a nebbish personality, and surprisingly, a lot of shirtless and semi-nude shots (although he didn't have much of a physique).

 He was now a permanent private at Camp Calamity, so he would never go to war (like Beetle Bailey and Gomer Pyle), and he had a coterie of friends and superior officers, notably Sarge.

Sad Sack and Sarge have a "antagonistic best friend" relationship similar to that of Beetle Bailey and Sgt. Snorkel, with the same homoerotic subtext.

There were many spin-off titles, including Sad Sack's Funny Friends, Sad Sack's Gobs n Gals, Sad Sack and the Sarge, and Sad Sack Laugh Special.  Sounds like Archie spin-offs like Pals n Gals, and Laugh.

I never knew whether Sadie Sack was Sad in drag or just his girlfriend, but she turns out to be his female identical-twin cousin.  Rather a gender bender.

The Sad Sack title continued to be published for over thirty years, ending only when Harvey Comics folded in 1982.   so somebody was interested in Sad's chubby physique and buddy-bonding with the Sarge.

Just not me.

Beetle Bailey's Boyfriend

In 1950 Mort Walker started the newspaper comic strip Beetle Bailey, about a lazy, inept student at Rockview University.  The large cast of characters included students, faculty, and Beetle's longsuffering family (his sister eventually married and spun off into her own strip, Hi and Lois).

College humor didn't attract many reader, so on March 13, 1951, Walker had Beetle join the army.  He was stationed at Camp Swampy in South Carolina, where he has stayed ever since, still lazy and inept, still surrounded by a colorful characters: girl-crazy Killer, intellectual Plato, dimwitted Zero.

And Sarge -- Sergeant Orville P. Snorkle, Beetle's platoon leader.

Their relationship was antagonistic -- Sarge often yelled at Beetle and pounded him into a pulp -- but affectionate.  They were often shown hanging out together as friends.

Or more than friends.

As the years passed, and especially after Mort Walker's sons, Neal, Brian, and Greg, took over the writing in the 1980s, the homoromantic subtext became increasingly important to the plotlines.

Many gags involved Sarge's total lack of interest in women.

Beetle dated girls, but less and less frequently, as strips hinted that his main interest lay in the masculine as well.

Beetle exhibited a freedom of speech and action that no other soldier had, relishing his special place in Sarge's life.

They used blatantly romantic vocabulary and themes.

A number of strips hinted that Beetle regularly shared Sarge's room, or his bed.  Left: why are Sarge and Beetle in their underwear, in a room with a couch and a tv?  

Other characters treated them as a couple.

For instance, the top photo: "What do you see in Sarge?"  That's an odd question to ask about someone's commanding officer, but not at all odd if you are wondering why Beetle finds him attractive.

Or below, when the camp chaplain asks 'Can't you find better things to do than fight all the time?", overtly engaging in couple's counseling.  They consider some options, like going out to dinner and exploring the bright lights of the city, but can't think of anything more fun, exciting, and erotic.  At least, nothing that you can show in a family strip.

Their fights became the standard squabbles of comic-strip couples, where physical violence demonstrates affection rather than hatred.

The question is, were Mort Walker and his sons aware of the subtexts?


Doubtful -- bickering buddies are a comic strip staple.

Still, we have to wonder about the August 19, 2013 strip, with Beetle looking for the blue skies over the rainbow.  Sounds like he's coming out.

"The Pale Blue Eye": A Murder Mystery with Edgar Allan Poe and a Cadre of West Point Cadet Hunks

 

The Pale Blue Eye, on Netflix, is a murder mystery set at West Point Military Academy  in 1830, with Edgar Allan Poe as one of the players!  Poe was obviously a devotee of the feminine, but queer studies scholars have found homoerotic subtexts in his works, and the original novel by Louis Bayard was placed on a list of must-reads by The Advocate in 2016, so it must have queer content.  

Scene 1: A snowy, dark winter in the Hudson Valley, New York, 1830.  Augustus Landor washes his hands in a creek, and returns to his cabin to mourn his Dead Wife.  Captain Hitchcock of the controversial West Point military training school is waiting for him. 

Scene 2: While they ride, Captain Hitchcock tells Landor his own back story: famous detective, solved many important cases in New York, dead wife, runaway daughter.

Scene 3: The Headmaster tells him that a cadet named Fry (Steven Maier) hanged himself last night -- a big problem for West Point, as it indicates that the harsh treatment of cadets isn't working out, and will give some senators in Washington their chance to shut them down.  

But to make matters worse, someone came into the hospital later and cut Fry's heart out!  The job would take considerable strength and some knowledge of anatomy, but no medical training.  It could have been one of the cadets.

Next Landor interviews Cadet Huntoon (Brennan Keel Cook), who found Fry,  and examines the body, both in the morgue and in a baththub, and concludes that he was struggling when he died: he was murdered. Also, he was clutching a scrap of paper with printed words on it.  

Captain Hitchcock warns Landor to not engage in his usual out-of-the-box shenanigans among the cadets.  Do tell...does he like twinks?  Later, as Landor examines the crime scene, a cadet approaches and tells him that the heart-carver must be a poet, because the heart is a symbol, and who trafficks in symbols? 

Scene 4: Landor interviews Cadet Cochrane (Gideon Glick), who was guarding the body at the hospital until 2:30 am, when he was relieved by an officer.  It was dark, so Cochrane didn't see his face.  He knew that it was an officer because he had bars on his uniform -- right side only.  Those on the left side were missing!

Scene 5: Landor at a inn: realistically lit by candlelight, that is, very dark.  He drinks with the bartender ("fuck the rules!")  and sees the shy, stuttering, over-eager cadet who had the poet idea, a Mr. Edgar Allen Poe (Harry Melling)! 21 years old, with two books of poetry published, and hating the academy.  In real life, he only lasted a few months.

They discuss the use of the heart as a symbol in great poetry and the Bible.  When Landor gets up to leave, Poe grabs his arm: "Investigate Cadet Loughborough.  He was Fry's roommate until they had a lover's quarrel...um, I mean argument/"

Scene 6: Cadet Loughborough (Charlie Tahan, top photo), Fry's roommate, denies that they had an argument..just "diverging paths. He'd fallen in with a bad bunch."  

Next Landor interviews an unnamed cadet, maybe Cadet Ballnger (Fred Hechinger), the last person to see Fry alive: they passed in the quad, and Fry asked if there were any officers about.  He said he was off on "necessary business."

Uh-oh, a cow and a sheep have been butchered, and their hearts cut out!  Someone is making a collection!

Scene 7:  Landon offers Poe a job gathering intel, "but keep our relationship a secret."  Have they been dating?   First task: decode the paper fragment found on the body.  Then Landor he goes home to look at a picture of his dead wife and wonder if it's ok to meet someone new.  She wouldn't mind, dude. 

Poe knocks on the door: he's decoded the last two lines of the message: "Come soon. Don't be late."  Landor decodes the others: "I'll be at the cove by the landing." But why would you meet a fellow cadet by the cove, when you can meet him anywhere?  The sender must be a woman, not allowed on the campus.  Darn, I thought for sure that Fry was gay.  In 1830, they didn't have a term for exclusive same-sex interest, but they certainly knew what same-sex interest was.

"I saw a woman!" Poe exclaims.  "Outside the mess hall the morning after the murder.  The most beautiful creature I've ever seen!"  I thought Poe was going to be gay-ish.. 

Scene 8:  Landor in bed with a woman. He asks for some intel on Poe.  I thought Landor was going to be gay, too.

I'm out of space, so I'll stop the scene-by-scene, but two more hunky cadets are yet to appear:

Cadet Marquis (Harry Lawtey) and his sister are prime suspects.  He doesn't express any heterosexual interest.

Cadet Stoddard (Joey Brooks) disappears after the second cadet is murderd (and his genitals cut out), presumably because he knows he's next in line,

There's a really silly plot twist, a WTF ending, and every indication that Poe is romantically interested in Landor, in spite of his interest in women.

Enlisted: "Gomer Pyle" meets "MASH," with Beefcake

 

Last night Bob wanted to check out the show on Hulu that stars "Kevin Keller (Casey Cott) from Riverdale and the guy from Imposters."  He meant Enlisted, which originally aired on Fox in the spring of 2014: a military comedy starring Geoff Stultz (7th Heaven),  Parker Young (Imposters), and Casey Cott lookalike Chris Lowell (Veronica Mars).

A military comedy?  In 2014?

The premise: War hero Pete Hill (Stultz), who has led 100 missions in Afghanistan, punches his commanding officer and is demoted (not court-martialed?).  He must train a ragtag bunch of misfits (fat, skinny, female) at Fort McGee, Florida, a base dedicated to cleaning equipment and taking care of military families.

The episode I watched was devoted to Pete meeting his "you're arrogant!" love interest, Sgt. Jill Perez, and getting assigned two tasks by his cliche commanding officer: 

1. Finding the lost dog of a military family (who explain that it's an important reminder of their husband/father overseas, as if you need to justify wanting to find your dog).

2. Playing in war games against the Italians, who are extremely muscular and therefore despicable.

The two tasks interfere with each other, requiring Pete to choose.

The ragtag band of misfits happens to include Pete's two brothers (so why does he resist the assignment so vociferously?  Doesn't he like them?).

1. The sarcastic Derrick (Chris Lowell), who hates the military (so why did he enlist?).   He also seems to hate his brothers.  Actually, he doesn't like anything.  He really belongs on MASH, not a No Time for Sergeants homage.

2. Randy (Parker Young), a dumb jock who is extremely emotionally unstable.  When he thinks he has let his brother down, he cries while doing jumping jacks for hours.  When he becomes agitated, the only thing that will calm him down is his brother Pete's hand on his head (which must have been a problem while Pete was in Afghanistan).  No way this guy should get anywhere near a gun.

Beefcake: The guys are hot.

Gay Characters:  No.

Heterosexism: According to the plot synopses, all of the brothers get girlfriends or have plots involving ex-girlfriends showing up.

Is it Worth It:   Fox has the habit of moving shows around, so you can't find them, then yanking them if the ratings aren't spectacular immediately. The 2013-2014 season also featured American Dad in two time slots, American Idol in three time slots, I Wanna Marry Harry (8 episodes), and Murder Police (1 episode).  Enlisted was cancelled after nine episodes, with an additional four "burnt off" in June 2014.  That's not enough time to get invested in the characters, particularly when they are so unlikeable.  I suggest watching Gomer Pyle instead,

The Civilian Conservation Corps: Depression-Era Beefcake

Picture it.

1933:  The heart of the Great Depression.  40% of the U.S. population is out of work.  President Roosevelt, just  inaugurated March 4th, promises a New Deal full of federal programs designed to get the economy started again.

Among the unemployed are many buffed young twinks, aged 18-25.  Roosevelt tries to think of a way to get them photographed with their shirts off in those days before the physique magazines.

He comes up with the Civilian Conservation Corps, the CCC, who would be housed in work camps while engaging in federal improvement projects.

The first CCC camp opened on April 17th, 1933.  By July there were over 1,400 camps with over 250,000 young men at work (that's 10 hookups per day for 68 years).

At its peak in 1935, there were 500,000 workers in 2,900 camps.  Among them were future actors Raymond Burr and Walter Matthau.

There were also a few thousand older men (experienced workers), veterans, and Native Americans.

The CCC workers were unmarried (i.e., available), usually living at home and helping to support their parents.  They signed on for six months, with the option of returning for up to two years.

Apparently they weren't provided with shirts.

Their projects were diverse, involving soil conservation, making trails and shelters in state and national parks, building wildlife refuges, fighting fires, Here the CCC boys are at work on controlling the Mormon crickets that swarm in Nevada and Utah.  (Mormon cricket is the name of the species.)

Here they're posing with shovels in Bradford, Pennsylvania.

More after the break

Fons Ianelli: Photographer of World War II Beefcake

Son of renowned sculptor Alfonso Ianelli, Fons Ianelli (1917-1988) grew up in Chicago, and opened a photographic studio in 1940.

I don't know if it's Ianelli or Iannelli -- it's spelled both ways in books and on websites.

During World War II, Fons worked for the Navy Aviation Photography Unit during World War II, charged with photographing the daily lives of the sailors.

Mostly he photographed strikingly beautiful men, often half-naked.

After the war, he continued to photograph everyday life, especially places where the American Dream of endless prosperity had fallen short, such as a well-received study of Kentucky coal miners.   He still managed to find strikingly beautiful men.

He also did physique photography, such as a series about bodybuilder John Grimek.  It was a private session, never published.

Yes, Grimek was nude.









Fons worked on cinema verite in the 1950s, filming Emergency Ward and The Young Fighter,  about a boxer who has decided to give up the ring.

He was a renowned photojournalist, with stories in McCall’s, Life, Fortune, Collier’s, and The Saturday Evening Post.

I don't know if he was gay or not, but according to his obituary, he was survived by a son.