NYSocBoy's Beefcake and Bonding

When a movie with the odd title My Entire High School Sinkinginto the Sea appeared on Netflix, I figured it was based on one of those Japanese manga about horrible things happening to schoolkids. Maybe they are trapped in a high school floating around a desolate monster-infested postapocalyptic world, or maybe they have become trapped somehow in an airtight school beneath the ocean, forced to create a new society, as in Goliath Awaits.

Actually, it's an American high school, and what you read is what you get: it's built on a precarious cliff, which breaks off during an earthquake, sending the school plummeting into the ocean below. It sinks rather quickly, as a gigantic building would. The students and teachers scramble to escape submerged rooms and head to the roof to await the rescue helicopters.

No rescue boats? And they have to be near the shore, so couldn't they just swim?

And who builds a high school on a cliff?

Before the disaster, we see a crisis in the friendship of school journalists Dash (Jason Schwartzman) and Assaf (Reggie Watts). Editor Verti (Maya Rudolph) assigns Assaf a solo article, obviously intending to break the duo apart so she can have Assaf for herself.

Not that Assaf minds. He's more than willing to throw Dash under the bus in order to grin at Verti.

Dash, outraged, writes an article which disses Assaf, mostly claiming that his penis is inadequate. Sounds like a spurned boyfriend, right? But wait.

The misdeed threatens to tarnish his permanent record, so Dash breaks into the school archives in the basement to retrieve it. He runs into Mary (Lena Dunham), who is there to retrieve her confiscated cell phone. At that moment, the school falls into the sea, so they have to work together to get all the way from the basement to the roof. And fall...

Well, you know the rest.

Dash and Assaf reconcile during the disaster, but things will never be the same for them again. They can no longer be a pair. They've grown up into hetero-romance.

The story ends with the two couples, Dash-Mary and Assaf-Verti, at a party celebrating the publication of the book Dash wrote about the disaster. Assaf feeds Verti sushi. I looked, but it doesn't appear that her arms are broken.

In high school in the 1970s I heard over and over again that same-sex friendships are, mere placeholders, to be abandoned joyfully and without hesitation the moment a girl smiles at you. They are weak, passionless simulacra, shadows of the blinding light that is hetero-romance. Boys are to hang out with. Girls are the meaning of life.

Things haven't changed in 2018.

The animation is pleasant, a sort of stop action with a unique color palette. But the plot is ridiculous, and the underlying message disgusting.

My Entire High School is the work of Dash Shaw, a comic artist whose other work include Bottomless Belly Button and BodyWorld. He states that he disapproves of the strict classifications of male/female and gay/straight: he's had "strong relationships" with men and women both.

So maybe some day he'll drop the heteronormativity.

"Fan Reaction to National Wrestling Title."

The article goes on to say that Drake, from Fort Dodge, Iowa, claimed gold at the 2017 Cadet Freestyle National Championships.

Fan reaction was ecstatic, by the way:
"Natty Champ!"
"Unbelievable comeback"
"One tough SOB!"
"Congratulations for winning Fargo dominantly!"

But doesn't he look a little...um...thin to be a high school wrestler? Who is winning national championships? And has fans?

I looked him up: Drake has been attending Fort Dodge High School, where he's been very busy racking up championships in 2018, the War at West Gym, the Independence Graeco-Roman Tournament, the Northern Plains Regional, and so on.

I guess thin and scrappy is just as good as buffed.

Compare with some of his teammates.

Drew also looks rather on the thin side.

Harlan has a presentable physique.

Jonah looks rather thin.

Brody, too.

And Cullen.

Sam has a physique. That's 2 out of 7. I guess Fort Dodge wrestling goes for scrappiness rather than strength.

And football goes for bulk.

In Like Normal People (1979), Shaun Cassidy played a teenager suffering from what we used to call "mental retardation," someone with a low IQ, who was nevertheless amazingly talented, an accomplished swimmer, wordworker, and so on. The main draw, of course, was seeing the hot teen idol in a swimsuit.

Now the condition is called "mental disability" or "intellectual disability," an impairment in your ability to manage yourself, communicate, and engage in ordinary activities. Most people with intellectual disabilities require only minor assistance; they graduate from high school, get jobs, live by themselves. Others function best in a group setting.

The Special Olympics, founded in 1968 by Eunice Schriver Kennedy, gives the intellectually challenged an opportunity to demonstrate their athletic prowess. Over 3 million athletes from 180 countries compete in 30 sports, including alpine skiing, cricket, football, gymnastics, powerlifting, snowboarding, and volleyball.

There is no age limit.

Here are some photos of Special Olympics swimmers.

1. Cheyenne and Will, who also swim for their local team in Florida.

Matthew, a three-time gold medalist from New Jersey.

A Romanian gold medalist.

You're probably wondering, is it ok to notice their physiques, or should we concentrate on their athletic prowess?

Dating is probably out of the question,, unless they have only a minor disability.

But anyone can look.

Jason and Warren from Alberta.

Bronze medalists.

This group isn't happy.

Hi, Boomer,

This is Jeremy, Infinite Chazz's partner. I saw Bill Mumy on your hookup wishlist. I hope this is what you were looking for:

Summer 1991! There has never been another summer like it. Paula Abdul was at the top of the charts, Michael J. Fox and Keanu Reeves were at the top of the box office, and everyone was glued to the tv, wondering who killed Laura Palmer on Twin Peaks.

I was a 21 year old undergrad at Florida State, studying philosophy of all things, and I landed the best summer job of all time -- an internship at Universal Studios in Orlando, where I became a gopher and script boy for the Superboy series!

It was about a college-age Clark Kent studying journalism at Shuster University. Played by Gerard Christopher, aka Jerry Dinome, 30 years old, a strong romantic-lead type, a former physique model, tall, tanned, and buffed, with a bulge that wouldn't quit. Hot!

I sidled up to Gerard, bringing him coffee and bagels, telling him that I wanted to be an actor (I actually didn't), trying to tease out whether he was gay or not -- and more importantly, whether he was into 21-year old philosophy majors!

Season 4 began with a two-parter (aired October 6th and 13th, 1991), in which Superboy runs afoul of Adam Verrel (Michael Des Barres), a stereotypic British-sophisticate villain. Hey, I didn't write this stuff.

Adam blackmails eccentric inventor Tommy Puck (Bill Mumy) into creating a super-weapon to take Superboy down.

Michael Des Barres was big, bold, and flamboyant, an androgynous glam rocker who had his own band in the 1970s, and had since performed with everyone from Blondie to Duran Duran. He was newly divorced but still friends with Pamela Des Barres, quintessential groupie whose tell-all book, I'm with the Band (1987), details wild nights of sex wilth everyone from Don Johnson to Mick Jagger.

Unabashedly bisexual, or I guess pansexual -- he liked sex, period. And rather aggressively into me, with the hand on shoulder and accidentally-brushing-the-bum bits. He wasn't at all my type, so I just kind of ignored him.

Bill Mumy was quiet, a little more reserved. I never saw Lost in Space: I knew him from the old Twilight Zone episode where he plays a kid with eerie superpowers, and from his musical group Barnes and Barnes: "Fish Heads" on the Doctor Demento radio show.

He was skinny, almost gaunt, with a long face and crazy hair, not really my type.

Also rather conservative; Michael and Gerard went out drinking and "raising hell" after the table read, but Bill went back to his hotel to call his wife on the telephone.

We shot for two weeks. During the last day, Michael wrapped his arm around my shoulders and said "Gerard and Bill and I are popping down to Fort Lauderdale tomorrow for a quiet little gathering at my mate Tico's house. It's an overnight. Fancy coming along?"

An overnight party would certainly mean sharing Michael's bed. But Gerard would be there, too -- showering, going to the beach, stripping down, all of those things that could lead to male-bonding and hand jobs. Maybe I could convince Michael to "share"! So I agreed.

Some quiet little gathering! Tico turned out to be the drummer for Bon Jovi, and he had this marvelous five-bedroom house near the beach in Wilton Manors, the gay neighborhood of Fort Lauderdale. He wasn't gay -- he had a live in girlfriend -- but half the guests were gay men.

The other half were famous musicians -- Jon Bon Jovi, George Michael, Blondie, Nikki Sixx of Motley Crue!

The rest of the story, with nude photos and explicit sexual content, is on Tales of West Hollywood.

Most of Missouri thinks it's in the North, but about the southern third of the state -- everything south of Rolla -- is distinctly country-western music, Confederate flags, Bible Baptist churches, and sweet tea. And Joplin is the most distinctly Southern of them all. At the far edge of the state, so a few miles' drive will put you in Oklahoma or...shudder..Arkansas.

If you happen to be stuck in Joplin, you can visit the hideout of infamous spree killers Bonnie and Clyde, the museum of minerals, or any of the 300 Baptist churches. There are several evangelical Christian high schools and college, including Ozark Christian and Messenger, where you could get Leviticus quoted at you.

Ozark Christian, by the way, only offers crosscountry, soccer, and basketball. I found no beefcake photos from them.

Or from anywhere in Joplin, for that matter, except the suburbs.

Like these two from nearby Marshfield.

I'm getting to like that Marshfield.

Quick, where do I sign up?

Turns out that Marshfield, MO is nowhere near Joplin; it just popped up during my search because Google couldn't find any swimmers, wrestlers, bodybuilders, or powerlifters in Joplin.

It's a small town of 7,000 about 20 miles east of Springfield, known for its replica of the Hubbel Telescope and a Wild Animal Safari. Lots of Baptist churches, a Christian high school. No Christian colleges, but you can drive into Springfield to get yelled at at Evangel University, Drury University, and Baptist Bible College.

More or less the same as Joplin, but with one essential difference.

I'm fine with drag now, but in 1966, I was freaked out by Mary Martin's portrayal of Peter Pan,a monstrous conflation of male/female and child/adult (Peter is traditionally played by an older woman, in the tradition of the British Christmas pantomime).

Three years later, in 1969, my uncle took me to the theatrical re-release of the Disney version (1953), with 15-year old Bobby Driscoll voicing Peter Pan. Although I was older, I was still freaked out by the dog wearing the nanny cap and the Lost Boys in bear, wolf, and skunk costumes, monstrous conflations of the human and the animal.

And the heterosexism, nearly as intense as in the Disney live action adventures like Light in the Forest with James MacArthur.

There's a story about Bobby Driscoll's date with Joe Dallesandro on Tales of West Hollywood.

Peter is subjected to the amorous flirtations of Tinker Bell and the mermaids, all of whom try to kill his current gal pal, Wendy. He goes beyond flirting with Princess Tiger Lily, whose kisses make him redden and tremble with erotic ecstasy. Meanwhile, the Indian men explain how they "became red": they're all reddened with erotic ecstasy after being kissed by Indian women.

Captain Hook, one of Disney's standard gay-vague sophisticated villains, dislikes women and has an arguably erotic interest in Peter Pan. He stays in Neverland year after year, in spite of the advice and near-mutiny of his crew, with only one goal: to "get" the boy.

Homoerotic desire is evil, unwholesome, and destructive. Heterosexual desire inflames you. A monstrous perversion of the original novels and plays by J. M. Barrie (who was gay in real life), where Peter Pan inhabits a homoerotic Eden, free from the constraint of "growing up" into heterosexual marriage.

But it gets worse.

In Hook (1991), Robin Williams plays a Peter Pan who grew up, forgot his identity, graduated from law school, and married Wendy's granddaughter. When his children are kidnapped by Captain Hook (Dustin Hoffman), Tinkerbell (Julia Roberts) appears to restore his memory and his powers so he can rescue them. She accomplishes this task by reminding Peter of the hetero-erotic Eden he abandoned:
"You know that place between sleep and awake? The place where you still remember dreaming? That's where I'll always love you."

In Peter Pan (2003), Peter (13-year old Jeremy Sumpter, top photo and left) is dressed in wisps of leaves that lay bare unexpected bits of his body, like a prepubescent strip tease, as he struts about, emblematic of heterosexual eroticism.

He doesn't just flirt -- he desires Wendy, and the stories she tells, which all end with a kiss. He wrests her from her parents ("Sorry, we both can't have her), and their prepubscent passion ignites into a power that can defeat Captain Hook (who, by the way, is no longer gay-vague)

Let's not even mention the depressing Death of Peter Pan (1988), about the "impossible love" of J.M. Barrie's adopted son Michael and his schoolmate Rupert Buxton.

See also: Jeremy Sumpter: A Normal Kid

I've shown many classes the 1936 film Reefer Madness. It was originally released as Tell Your Children, a cautionary tale about the dangers of marijuana. But it was so off-the-wall, with atrocious acting and a ridiculous plot, that it was placed on the exploitation-film circuit, and later rediscovered by the 1970s college student crowd.

There's a strong gay subtext: drug dealer Ralph (Dave O'Brien) sees high schooler Jimmy (Warren McCollum), murmurs "Nice!", and practically licks his lips in anticipation. Wrangling an introduction, he says "Nice to meet youuuuuu!" with a lascivious leer, then invites Jimmy to the soda shop, where he will try to get him hooked on the psychosis-inducing weed in a parallel to how gay men were accused of recruiting boys.

In 1998, Reefer Madness: The Musical appeared off-Broadway, eliminating the redundant characters and upping the camp. Christian Campbell (left) played Jimmy, lured from his "wholesome" heterosexual chastity by drug dealer Jack (Robert Torti, top photo) and cohort Ralph (John Kassir). In addition to the gay subtext, there was a lot of beefcake, with the super-muscular Jimmy stripped down to his underwear and a chorus of semi-nude male and female devils.

The musical is a bit too racy for the high school drama club crowd, but it has made some impact in colleges and community theaters.

The film version, Reefer Madness: The Movie Musical (2005), star Christian Campbell as Jimmy, Steven Weber as Jack, and Robert Torti as Jesus. It adds some characters, such as John Mann as Satan, ups the gay subtext by removing all pronouns from the seduction scenes, and adds an explicit connection between the anti-marijuana crusade of the 1930s with bigoted attacks on gays and lesbians:

And once the reefer has been destroyed
We'll start on Darwin and Sigmund Freud
And sex depicted on celluloid
And communists and queens!
When danger's near, exploit their fear
The end will justify the means!

Once Upon a Time is a pastiche of feuding figures from fairy tales (mostly Disney versions), mythology, novels, folklore -- you name it. The main characters are Snow White, Snow's daughter Emma, her grandson Henry, Regina the Evil Queen (who turns into the Good Queen), Rumpelstiltskin, Prince Charming, Captain Hook, and Belle from Beauty and the Beast.

But many other recognizable faces from your childhood appear.

With physiques that are the stuff of legend.

1. Michael Socha as Will Scarlett, Robin Hood's chum.

2. Liam Garrigan as King Arthur, the mythical king of Dark Age Britain, seen here schtupping his bff Lancelot (just kidding)

3. Deniz Akdeniz as Aladdin (the one from the Disney movie, not the one from the 1001 Nights).

4. Charles Mesure as Blackbeard, the real-life pirate, aka Edward Teach (1680-1718)

5. Sinqua Walls as Sir Lancelot from the Arthurian legends.

6. Hank Harris as Henry Jekyll, from the Robert Louis Stevenson novel (Sam Witwer as Mr. Hyde).

More after the break

7. Faran Tahir as Captain Nemo, from the Jules Verne novel 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea.

8. Chad Michael Collins as Gerhardt Frankenstein, the monster from the Mary Shelley novel.

9. Craig Horner as the Count of Monte Cristo, from the Alexander Dumas novel.

10. Chad Rook as Captain Ahab, from the Herman Melville novel Moby Dick.

11. Jonathan Whitesell as Hercules, from Greek mythology (I guess there was a Disney movie, too).

12. Thomas Cadrot as Aesop, the real-life storyteller from Ancient Greece.

Tom Sawyer, Zeus, Poseidon, Hansel (from Hansel and Gretel), and Pinocchio show up, too.

The cartoon universe is full of anthropomorphic animals, but I can't think of any anthropomorphic foods, other than the candy people of Adventure Time.

Enter Apple and Onion, a Cartoon Network program about a world occupied almost entirely by food with arms, legs, and faces, and personalities reflective of their type. Most are cooked, well seasoned, grown-up.

Hot Dog
Burger
Pizza
Root Beer Float
Kobeba

The exuberant Apple (George Gendi) and the skittish Onion (Richard Ayoade) are raw, childlike, new to the big city. In the first episode they meet, face the crises common to newbies, and become friends and roommates. They don't really have an odd couple vibe -- it's more of a Mordecai and Rigby, as they set out to bring joie de vivre to their friends and neighbors, one food at a time. Of course, everything goes wrong.

When their landlord Falafel (Sayed Badreya) gets homesick, they take him out for a fun day in the city.

They play basketball with Hot Dog and Burger (Paul Scheer, Eugene Mirman)

They invent a new game, which they play against the scheming Bottle Cap and Whey.

They are stuck with a duck as they are preparing for a block party.

No one is specifically gay -- I assume that this rainbow is not intended to represent a rainbow flag -- but there is always a gay subtext with buddy pairs, and hetero romance is minimal except in the pilot (where Onion has a crush).

Ten episodes plus some shorts are streaming on the Cartoon Network website, and more are reputedly in the works.

Between 1982 and 1984, I was studying for my M.A. in English at Indiana University. I did not do well. I couldn't focus on any one topic, or any one department -- I rushed around in the 3,000+ courses taught every semester, grabbing onto things like Mandarin Chinese and Russian Folklore, and ignoring my actual English classes

Besides, who had time to study? I had just discovered bar pickups. My friend Viju and I were out at Bullwinkel's, or a a gay bar in Indianapolis, two or three times a week, and we never came home alone.

Sometimes I brought a guy home, had sex with him, then went back to the bar to pick up someone else.

Meanwhile my classes faltered, and I squeaked by with B's and an occasional C+. But who cared? I was going to become a book editor, not a literature scholar.

In the spring of 1984, I sent out resumes:130 publishing companies, 48 newspapers, 34 television stations, and 16 translation agencies. No openings, no openings, no openings, no openings.

Classes ended. I received my M.A.. No job. I spent ten days visiting India with Viju, then a week in Rock Island, then returned to Bloomington.

I couldn't afford our apartment any more, so I got a room in Eigenmann Hall, and went back to my old job in the snack bar.

It was fun when I was a student. But as my life's work?. I imagined myself at age 50, still living in that coffin-sized room with the bathroom down the hall, still selling burgers and fries to undergrads.

All of my friends had graduated and moved away. And any new friends I made would graduate and move away, again and again, an every-changing blur of faces and cocks for the rest of my life.

That summer was an endless cold, dark night.

The lunatic in the White House (not as bad as the Orange Goblin, but still a lunatic) almost ended the world by "joking" that the U.S. had launched nuclear missiles at the Soviet Union.

The AIDS crisis was making national news for the first time, and dubbed "a gay disease." Fundamentalist churches latched onto it to decry the "clinically insane, disease-ridden homosexuals" coming for your children.

All four of the factories in Rock Island closed, doubling the unemployment rate. My father and brother were both laid off. I couldn't even fall back on a factory job.

The movies I saw (by myself) are now hailed as classics, but I found them depressing: Ghostbusters, Gremlins, The Karate Kid, The Neverending Story, Revenge of the Nerds, Bachelor Party, Conan the Destroyer

Laura Branigan's "Self Control" was playing on the radio:

I live among the creatures of the night.

I haven't got the will to try and fight.

I must believe in something, so I guess I'll just believe that this night will never go.

Then came my fairy godfather, aka Ben, who worked in the bank downtown. He was my teller when I withdrew some money (this was before ATMs), and two nights later I saw him at Bullwinkle's.

About ten years older than me, a chunky redhead with a long face, a smooth chest, and no biceps to speak of. Not at all my type.

And bisexual -- he mentioned watching Family Ties, not for the hot teen idol Michael J. Fox, but for Meredith Baxter Birney, who played his mother!

I couldn't help imagining Ben screwing the lady. His butt bouncing up and down, squeezing her breasts, kissing her. Gross! Complete turn-off.

But I was depressed, and I would have gone home with Boy George just to avoid going back to my coffin-sized room in Eigenmann Hall.

Ben had a house in Unionville, about 10 miles of dark, scary country roads from campus. An old-fashioned wood-and-plaster living room, a four-poster bed with black sheets, a drawer-ful of porn magazines, both gay and straight. Very cold for July.

[Sex scene is censored]

Afterwards, it was too early to sleep, and I didn't want leave, so we sat up and turned on Saturday Night Live. I told Ben about my master's degree, my dismal job prospects, and my future at the Eigenmann Hall snack bar. He said that he was working on a Ph.D. in sociology --- very slowly. This was his seventh year in the program, and he wasn't nearly ready to start his dissertation. The job at the bank took up most of his time. But he still planned to finish, and get a job as a college professor.

"I love being in front of a class -- it's an amazing rush. Hey, why don't you go to work at a college? They always need teachers."

"Yuck!" I exclaimed. "I taught during my first year. Ssurly students who didn't read their assignments, didn't know even the basics about...well, anything, and made homophobic comments."

"It beats making hamburgers, I bet. Besides, just think of the beefcake!"

"But it's July. Won't they have all the teachers they need for the fall?"

"Let's find out." Ben walked naked into the next room and came back with The Chronicle of Higher Education. 5 English teaching jobs available in the fall that required just a M.A.

A month later, I was heading for Hell-fer-Sartain, Texas, an English instructor. It would be horrible, but later, I would teach as an adjunct, then get my Ph.D. (not in English), and spend the next twenty years standing in the front of classrooms.

It definitely beats making hamburgers

The full story, with nude photos and explicit sexual situations, is on Tales of West Hollywood.

I found this in, of all places, a book on Alice in Wonderland. Male nudity in art is not a violation of Blogger policy, so it's ok to show.

It is actually a painting from A Midsummer Night's Dream (1851), now in the National Gallery of Victoria in Australia.

Queen Titania embraces Bottom with the ass's head, while fairy folk look on in amusement. The rabbit on the right may have inspired Lewis Carroll to include the White Rabbit character in Alice in Wonderland.

In the front foreground, we see a naked, muscular male fairy bathed in autumn light. .

The male physique is so striking, the nudity so incongruous, that I had to look up the artist.

Edwin Landseer (1802-1873), an artistic prodigy who began displaying his paintings at the Royal Academy at age 15. A darling of the Victorian age: he painted Queen Victoria, her family, and her pets, and was chosen to sculpt the lions in Trafalgar Square. But he made most of his money by selling engravings of his paintings, introducing fine art to the Victorian middle class.

He specialized in animals, mostly horses and dogs.

When he died, flags flew at half-mast, and shops closed for the day in mourning.

I looked at his opus -- mostly dogs and horses, an occasional person.

His painting Man Proposes, God Disposes, depicting polar bears eating the remains of Sir John Franklin's Artic expedition of 1845, now hangs in Royal Holloway College at the University of London. It is covered during exams, because according to rumor if you sit too close to it, you will go mad.

As far as I can tell, the illustration from A Midsummer Night's Dream is the only nude man. Could it be an eruption of hidden passion, gay desire come to light?

Here's my evidence:

Landseer never married, but he was always surrounded by men. He suffered from bouts of insanity through his life, and when he was incapacitated, the person who took care of his affairs was not his brother Thomas, but his friend Jacob Bell (1810-1859).

The two also went on an extended tour of Belgium, Germany, and Switzerland in 1840.

So who was this Jacob Bell?

Originally intending to become a painter, Bell dropped out of art school and became a chemist (pharmacist). He remained a patron of the arts, moving in artistic circles, sponsoring young artists, surrounding himself with...um...men. He was also an avid theater-goer and opera buff, sponsoring the first performances in England of La Traviata. And a dog lover, like Landseer.

He never married, either.

Two heterosexual bffs united through their love of animals and art?

Or boyfriends?

Or connected by a passion that neither understood or voiced, that erupted in a beefcake painting of Queen Titania?

Every September academic job openings begin to appear in the journals. I always check them out, to see if there are any gay studies positions in gay neighborhoods -- the impossible dream, I know -- and William Paterson University in Wayne, New Jersey always has job openings in my field. Year after year.

Meaning a high turnover, people staying for a year or two and then vanishing, a sure sign of toxicity in a department: hostile, gossiping, back-stabbing faculty, micromanaging dean. Run away!

I never bothered to check it out: the name makes it sound like a private, for-profit college, one of those diploma mills that give you a degree for $5000. Turns out that it is a public university with 10,000 students, founded as a "normal school" in 1855.

I still get a bad feeling about William Paterson University. Maybe some beefcake photos would make it more appealing.

There weren't any! No wrestling, and this was the only male swimmer. Nice physique, but it looks like he's wearing lavender panty hose. Just a little on the girly side.

Well, maybe I could find some beefcake possibilities in town.

Wayne, New Jersey, population 55,000, is in Passaic County, about 20 miles from Manhattan (an hour by bus).

There's a Crossfit, and an L.A. Fitness, but the only photos I found were of women.

There's a Boxing Club, but the only photos I found were of kids.

Where's all of the guidos, the insouciant muscle gods we saw on Jersey Shore?

Wayne has several parochial high schools: Al-Ghazali (Muslim), DePaul (Catholic), Pioneer (Turkish).

Nothing.

Wayne Hills High, on the north side, has 1300 students. It offers swimming -- photos only of girls.

And wrestling -- only long shots, no closeups.

Um...cross country? Track? Volleyball? Bowling?

Football? Here's a fully clothed player.

I even checked his Facebook page. This was his only shirtless photo.

Wayne Valley High School on the south side, you're my last hope.

Founded in 1952, it has 1,300 students. It doesn't even offer swimming.

But it has wrestling, with a Facebook page.

Mostly athletes posing with their families. At least you can see the hot dads and brothers.

But if you page down -- way, way down, to 2015 -- you get to the singlets.

Sky-blue, displaying some pecs and biceps, and very tight in the nether region.

Lots of them, with faces so similar, they might be the same guy.

Not that I mind looking at him over and over again.

Especially since he's apparently got the only gaze-worthy physique in the whole town of Wayne.

I repeat -- where are the guidos?

When I was a kid, you could occasionally see shirtless boys or men in Saturday morning cartoons, but it was rare, primarily on jungle or prehistoric adventure series like The Herculoids. Mostly you had to make do with an open shirt or a spandex superhero uniform, and of course Saturday morning live-action series.

Fred from Scooby-Doo seemed to have a nice physique, but not once in 10,000 episodes did he ever take his shirt off.

Times have changed. In Scooby-Doo: Mystery Incorporated (2010-2013), he flexes at poolside.

The Anime Boys with Their Shirts Off blog displays the shirtless boys and men appearing in a huge number of animated tv series, everything from adventure to comedy, and even some toddler tv. Did you ever want to see Dora the Explorer's brother Diego with his shirt off? Or Bill from Curious George?

There's a lot of Japanese anime, like The Legend of Korra and The Daily Lives of High School Boys), but also a lot of Western cartoons, everything from Phineas and Ferb to Johnny Test.

There are even a few oldies, like these golden-haired preppy types (from Beverly Hills Teens and Attack of the Killer Tomatoes, respectively).

Apparently animators are no longer worried about kids being traumatized for life by the sight of a torso or two (like these from Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego).

See also: Saturday Morning Muscle

I'm trying to cut back on small-town beefcake posts, since they don't get a lot of page views. .

Obscure teen idol who took his shirt off in an after school special in 1978 and hasn't appeared on screen in 40 years, 2000 views.

Muscle guys who are full of life right now, 50 views. Go figure.

But this one is too interesting not to post. I found this amazing picture on tumblr. Perfect face -- chiseled jaw, dark eyebrows, black hair in a severe short cut. Thick neck, broad shoulders, amazing biceps. Smooth chest. And...well, let's just say he's perfect in every way.

Looks old. Maybe from the 1980s. A group shot, with different high schools or colleges. Behind him is a wrestler from "___SHO," maybe Bishop.

I'll never find the individual, but I can see if there are other high school and college Bears with similar physiques.

1. There are over 40 high schools and colleges in the U.S. with a "Bears" team, such as Shelbyville, Indiana. Not a great physique, but nice singlet.

2. Cambridge, Georgia. A little skinny, but, again, nice singlet.

3. White Bear Lake, Minnesota

4. Basha High School in Arizona.

5. Baylor University. They have a wrestling team, but I thought you'd like to see some swimmers for a change of pace.

More after the break

6. Black Duck High School in Black Duck, Minnesota has a bear as its mascot. I would have thought "The Mighty Ducks."

7. University of Northern Colorado

8. Truett McConnell University, a fundamentalist Baptist college in Cleveland, Georgia.

9. More Truett McConnell University.

10. The Golden Bear Invitational in Alberta.

Lawrence, Kansas is promoted as "a LGBT-friendly oasis in the middle of a prairie." It is the only town in Kansas with a gay rights city ordinance. The University of Kansas has a Women, Gender, and Sexuality Department, although I don't see any gay-specific courses. Several local bars have gay nights. There are six gay-friendly churches, three gay organizations, and even a gay neighborhood, Old West Lawrence, near downtown.

But it's also promoted as "the most family-friendly town in Kansas." "Family" is usually a buzz word for "homophobic."

Gay-friendly or family-friendly?

There must be a lot of beefcake at the University of Kansas. with 28,000 students, ranked #53 in public universities in the United States.

Wait -- when I searched, I kept getting Baker University and Kansas Wesleyan instead.

I checked the website -- the University of Kansas doesn't offer men's swimming or wrestling, just football, basketball, and baseball, the big team sports.

Haskell Indian Nations University in Lawrence enrolls 1000 students from 140 nations. It offers associate degrees in many fields, and four bachelor's degrees, including one in American Indian Studies. Its only men's sports are basketball, cross-country, and golf.

I like the guy sashaying across the finish line.

Ok, maybe the high schools, Lawrence High and Lawrence Free State High.

This popped up in my Lawrence, Kansas search, but it's actually three swimmers from Shawnee Mission High in a suburb of Kansas City.

The Ziegler boys are swimmers, one is a senior, but nowhere in the article do we find out what high school or college, or what city.

Finally I found a Lawrence Free State High School wrestler who became the Hy-Vee 41 Five-Star Athlete of the Week in 2016. I looked him up on Facebook, but didn't find any shirtless photos, just him posing with his little cousins.

Ok, maybe there are some amateurs.

There are several wrestling clubs in town, like the Sunflower Kids and the Elite Wrestling Gryphons (it's a legitimate alternative spelling). But their wrestlers seem to be a little young. And what are they taking their shirts off for?

At least there is some powerlifting in town.

And pro bodybuilder Keith Williams lives in Lawrence.

Every time I go to Boston, I have to visit Harvard University, the Oxford of the U.S., our oldest and most prestigious university, where 6,700 students, the elite of the elite, move toward the bright future mapped out for them before they were born. They may become the Bill Gates, Barack Obama...um, or Jared Kushner. They may found a new Facebook. They may write for sitcoms.

I am always surprised by how ordinary the campus looks. No vast Gothic quads, like at Oxford, or for that matter the University of Chicago. There are a few Colonial buildings, but mostly it's plain brownstone, with an occasional glass-and-steel science lab thrown in. The Widener Library could be any library in the world.

Cross Harvard Yard, and you come to a Tasty Burger, an IHOP, and a...a...Chipotle.

And how ordinary the students look. Not at all the children of the top 1% of the top 1%, with private yachts and guest houses in St. Moritz and Barack Obama in their phone contacts. They could be any rich kids from any college, except that they're majoring in Lithuanian Gender Politics and Akkadian Funerary Incantations, and taking courses like From Byzantium to the British Isles: The Materiality of Late Antiquity.

Who am I kidding? Most of them are majoring in economics or political science, necessary for their lives in halls of power.

I'm always surprised that Harvard has sports. What jocks want to study Medieval Catalan Poetry?

Actually, that sounds rather interesting.

Who knew that a brief google search would turn up 38 Harvard hunks?

1. A hunky swimmer (top photo).

2. A spandex-straining wrestler (notice the VE RI TAS on his side).

3-4 Members of the Harvard Crew (rowing team) getting dressed.

5-10. And what they look like dressed. How are we expected to keep our eyes above the belt?

11. A PETA protester, arrested in Harvard Yard. For trespassing or public nudity?

12.-14. Some miscellaneous semi-nude and nude guys in a story entitled "Who Can Go Naked at Harvard?"

Lots of guys, apparently.

15-17. Some guys getting "out of the Harvard Bubble" at the beach. Martha's Vineyard, no doubt.

18-20. "The Harvard Swim Team Cares." I don't know who they care about, but I'll count the three guys with chests.

I don't have network tv anymore, so I only learned through the grapevine that the 1990s "gay men are really women" fest Will and Grace was getting a five-episode reboot.

I just found out that it returned for a whole season, a full fledged Season 9 (2017-2018), with Season 10 to start in October. Curious, I dipped into a few episodes.

It's not awful.

Eleven years have passed, and the characters are pushing through middle age (Jack is 49 years old, Grace 51, Will is 52, and Karen 59).

They have been rebooted: the relationships they had at the end of the last series have been dissolved, and there are no children to grow up and get married to each other. Will and Grace are living together again.

Jack and Karen are still shrill and theatrical.

But Will and Grace are not quite as self-possessed. Remember: "We don't believe in anything?" Now they believe in things. I guess you could get by with complacency in the Clinton 1990s, but in the alt-right era, it's time to march.

And the Fab Four no longer seem to hate each other. The undertow of hostility is absent. There are few barbs and put-downs, except for the ubiquitous ones about Will being too feminine and Grace being too masculine.

The plotlnes are different. They face ethical dilemmas.

They face their mortality. Grace has a cancer scare. Karen's beloved housemaid Rosario dies. Jack has a grandson.

They are actually affected by current events, although sometimes with a weird twist. Instead of a bakery refusing to bake a cake for gay people, it's refusing to bake a cake for the President).

And being gay is different. In the earlier series, gay men were actually transgender bisexuals. They thought of themselves as women, referred to themselves as women, and displayed traditionally feminine traits, with skin care products and romantic comedies. They dated men (without kissing them), but they preferred sex with women and sought out female life partners.

Now gay men are still "girls," but they rarely express any heterosexual desire.

In the earlier series, gay men (or rather, transgender bisexuals) faced no homophobia. Even the ubiquitous "You're really a woman!" wasn't actually homophobic, since they agreed with the evaluation. There was no discrimination, no prejudice, no homophobic rage. There was no coming out: everybody always knew, everyone was always out (except no kissing). Now there is homophobic bias. There are guys on the downlow. You have to come out to friends and family.

There are some hunky guest stars and recurring characters, like Kyle Bornhammer (above) as a secret service agent.

Ryan Pinkston (left), one of my long-time favorite actors, as a closeted cop who dates Jack.

Ben Platt as a 23-year old who dates "daddy" Will (I know the feeling).

Another of my long-time favorites, Michael Angarano, as Jack's son.

I'm actually not hating it.

At least there's kissing.

See also: Ryan Pinkston; Will and Grace

The guy on the left, Travis, was a Nazareth College wrestler who won the PIAA Class 3A Northeast Regional in Lehigh Valley in March 2017. Whatever those words mean.

But I wanted to know about the guy on the right, the one who obviously dresses to the right. He wears a grey and yellow singlet with "IOTS." I'm guessing Patriots.

The article just tells about Travis: A Blue Eagle football MVP and #3 wrestler in the state, winner of the Walsh Ironman Tournament .

It does say that he "fell over Freedom's Ryan D_" and beat Easton's Jimmy S_

And that the Blue Eagles were trying to keep pace with Bethlehem's Catholic. And the Golden Hawks.

That's four teams and two wrestlers to research.

1. The Blue Eagles are definitely the team of Nazareth High School in Nazareth, Pennsylvania. Here's another player. Same style.

2. Bethlehem Catholic High School in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, known commonly as Becahi, has a team named Golden Hawks. Their wrestling singlets are brown and white, and look nothing like the top photo. Here's a picture of a shirtless guy in a crowd of Becari students.

3. And some rather buffed Nazareth swimmers. I can't explain the "Netherlands" on the Speedo.

4. There's an Easton College, but they probably mean Easton Area High School in Easton, Pennsylvania. Its mascot is a red bulldog.

5. Jimmy, taped here in 2015, graduated from Easton in 2017, and is now at West Point.

6. The only school left to research is Freedom, a public high school in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. It's colors are black and gold, and its mascot is the Patriot. Sounds about right, except their singlets don't look anything like the guy at the top.

I have to include this photo from the twitter feed, dated October 2017, with the caption: "These FHS wrestlers sure do clean up well for Homecoming. Look out!"

Am I to understand that they're going to the Homecoming festivities as a couple?

Or does "Look out!" mean something like "They will be attractive to ladies"?

7. The singlet is wrong, but could the top guy be Freedom's Ryan?

This photo is captioned: "Evan and Ryan Advance to PA State Wrestling Tournament." Apparently in Hershey, Pennsylvania.

Definitely the same guy.

8. Ryan is currently a criminal justice major at Roger Williams University in Rhode Island. Here being carried on the shoulders of exuberant fans, one of whom is pointing at the fact that he's now dressing to the left.

Maybe I should have looked up Ryan first. But then, think of all the small-town beefcake I would have missed.

American Horror Story: Apocalypse has gone to a toxic but beefcake-heavy place.

The last episode, "Could it Be...Satan," was the catch phrase of the Church Lady on Saturday Night Live.

It is mostly a flashback of Michael Langdon (Cody Fern) growing up, with hair length varying depending on his age. In the first scene, his Satanist mother asks the teenager to say grace to "Our Dark Lord" before dinner, with "amen" backwards.

Does anyone else hear "Michael Langdon" and hear "Michael Landon," star of Bonanza and Little House on the Prairie?

A few years later, Michael accidentally uses his powers to hurt people, and ends up in jail. He is discovered by the warlock Ariel (Jon Jon Briones)in a scene that looks very much like the discovery of Harry Potter's Voldemort, and brought to a warlock school, the Hawthorne School for Boys.

Hawthorne, which is the underground bunker in the present, looks very much like Hogwarts, except that it's boys only, and everyone dresses in 19th century costumes. We see campy instructor Behold Chablis (Billy Porter) teaching a class in how to levitate beads, and upbrading a student (Kai Caster, left) for forgetting his textbook.

Also, all four of the warlock teachers are gay (or at least played by gay men). That can't be a coincidence, but I can't figure out the reason. Except to imply that all warlocks are gay. You can't have magical powers if you're interesed in women.

The other warlocks complain that Michael's powers come from darkness, in another scene that looks very much like Voldemort at Hogwarts.

But Ariel believes that Michael is the Supreme, the prophesied warlock who will become the supreme leader of the witches and warlocks.

The women find this idea ridiculous. Men are physically unable to become powerful witches. They should stick to parlor tricks.

In other words, stay in the kitchen where you belong. And bring me a beer.

The warlocks are more hopeful.

See, men have endure oppression at the hands of women for generations. They are forced to take second-rate jobs and housing, forbidden from achieving positions of authority, decried as inferior, insulted, humiliated, harassed. But when the Supreme arrives, their oppression will end, and men will take their true place as heads of society.

Um...really? Women in general earn less than men, don't get promoted as often, get harassed and humiliated much more. They can't walk down the street without getting catcalls and propositions. 20% of women and 3% of men have been sexually assaulted.

This sounds like one of those wacky men's rights groups that feels threatened by the possibility of a woman in a position of authority.

I know it's just a coincidence, but the episode happened to air during the Kavanaugh hearings, where multiple allegations of sexual assault have been summarily dismissed.

It was nice, after the very limited cast of characters in the first few episodes, to see the cast expand, with a lot of beefcake potential: the students at Hogwarts...um, Hawthorne, some cops, a butcher who gets a knife in the head, and two "albinos."

But it was distinctly uncomfortable to watch all the "men are oppressed" rhetoric.

We didn't watch a lot of tv in West Hollywood, but we did manage to watch The Nanny (1993-1999), part of the "servant brings joie de vivre to a dysfunctional family" sitcoms that extends back to Hazel , "Somebody bellow for Beulah?", and probably back to ancient Roman comedy.

Here a "flashy girl from Flushing", the loud-mouthed, low-brow working-class Jewish Fran Fine (Fran Drescher) has no education or experience in childcare, but somehow manages to becomes the nanny for the children of the ultra-sophisticated, ultra-elite Broadway producer Maxwell Sheffield (Charles Shaughnessy):

1. Teenage Maggie (Lauren Tom)
2. Tween Brighton (Benjamin Salisbury. left)
3. Preteen Grace (Madeline Zima)

Filling out the main cast are Maxwell's business partner C.C. Babcock (Lauren Lane), who has an unrequited crush on him, and sarcastic butler Niles (Daniel Davis).

Episodes involve Fran's wild I Love Lucy-style schemes, Maxwell's play production problems, occasionally caring for the kids, and of course the ongoing question of "Will they or won't they?"

Of course they will, but it seems to take forever. Maxwell is concerned that, coming from different social classes, they are incompatible (has he never seen, like, every romance movie ever?).

Meanwhile the Sheffields get along swimmingly with Fran's family: stereotypic Jewish mother Sylvia, generally unseen father Morty, and grandma Yetta.

And Maxwell has an endless stream of relatives who demonstrate that it's ok to romance your servants. His sister marries her chauffeur. His brother even romances Fran.

Yet Maxwell proposes and takes it back, says the "L" word and takes it back, kisses her and takes it back, yada yada yada.

I would have told him, "show me a ring or I'm outta here," like 35 episodes ago.

Not a lot of beefcake. This is a distaff show, about women talking, scheming, commiserating, bonding. The few men around are seen from the perspective of the female gaze, desired for their charm, sophistication, and power, not for their physiques. They rarely if ever take their clothes off.

Not a lot of gay references. When a very occasional gay person does appear, everyone is surprised. Apparently the world of Broadway draws only straight people.

Then why was it such a hit among gay men in West Hollywood?

1. We were envious of New York. It was bigger, more sophisticated, more serious, the birthplace of Gay Rights.

2. It was unremittingly cheery, with few of the depressing "problem of the week" episodes that spoiled other 1990s sitcoms.

3. Fran is a flamboyant fashionista, a campy, corny drag queen.

4. Since Maxwell is a Broadway producer, every Broadway star, singer, and actor you ever heard of makes a cameo: Ray Charles, Steve Lawrence, Eydie Gorme, Eartha Kitt, Carol Channing, Patti LaBelle, Rita Moreno, Billy Ray Cyrus, Ben Vereen, Celine Dion, Lynne Redgrave, Elizabeth Taylor, Elton John,

And many you never heard of, famous at the time but now long forgotten: Joe Lando (left), Leslie Moonves, Donald Trump.

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