NYSocBoy's Beefcake and Bonding

Bunks appeared on Disney XD Canada in 2013, but has just made it to Netflix. It stars teen idols Dylan Schmid (left) and Aiden Shipley (below) as troublemaking brothers Dylan and Dane masquerading as counselors at Camp Bushwack.

They are assigned a cabin of non-athletic, intellectual, bullied boys who they bond with, Meatballs-style.

There is a Revenge of the Nerds-style competition with the Golden Boy cabin.

Plus there is a book of urban legends that come to life when you read them. I don't remember which movie or tv show had this plotline. Maybe Are You Afraid of the Dark?

They accidentally read a story about zombies, who begin to lumber about, Walking Dead-style, infecting counselors, until they are cured by either an electronic slave collar or a dose of orange juice.

The zombie-camper battle effectively resolves the other plotlines.

Sounds like a terrible pastiche, but somehow it manages to work.

Especially for gay viewers:

1. Hetero-romance is minimal. Dylan briefly chats with someone who I expected to become The Girl, the goal of his journey,but no romance occurred. The nerd campers discuss going to visit the cheerleaders in the camp next door, a plan which Dane fully approves of.

And that's it. The main pair is definitely Dylan and Dane.

2. There are no shirtless scenes in the movie itself, but most of the counselors are played by very cute actors who have spent last five years taking their shirts off.

Dylan Schmid has starred in Shuteye and Beyond.

Aiden Shipley has appeared in Clusterf*k and Edging (which is not about what you think).

Chief zombie Atticus Mitchell (left), known for My Babysitter is a Vampire on the Disney Channel, has also appeared in Young Drunk Punks, Stonewall, and Killjoys

Markian Tarasiuk, who plays the rival counselor, has appeared in The Magicians, Status Update, and Shuteye

In the book Familiar Faces, Hidden Lives: The Story of Homosexual Men in America Today (1976), Howard Brown expresses horror over a gay friend's decision to move away from Baltimore to a small town: "How could a 35 year old, well-educated [gay man] put himself in such a position? Didn't he know that he was choosing a life that would afford no chance of love?"

In the 1980s and 1990s, the moment you figured out that you were gay, you made plans to move to a big city. Small towns and even medium-sized cities were sites of lies, secrets, and silence, where gay people were assumed not to exist, and probably didn't.

There might be one or gay people left in Crawfordsville, Indiana, or Danville, Illinois. They were deeply closeted, living in constant fear, isolated, lonely, desperate.

Yesterday I was traveling with my brother and sister-in-law on I-74 through the desolate nowheres of Indiana and Illinois, past Crawfordsville and Danville, Veedersburg and Westville, Mahomet and Farmer City and Leroy. I turned on Grindr, and watched the names and faces come and go, and listened the voices of gay men. Were they still isolated, lonely, desperate?

Here are 14 of their profiles. Decide for yourself.

1. Gaymer. Weirdo book lover. I don't drive. Sometimes mean, sometimes boring, but if I'm on here, I'm horny, so send some men.

2. Mystic. Running, animals, anime, gaming, having fun, stargazing. Passing time on Earth, making friends along the way. I'm an old soul in a modern age, dreaming of things that might never be. Hookups ok.

3. Tonka. Like the toy trucks, I have big wheels. Other things are big, too. I try to laugh at whatever life brings: conversation, cuddling, sex. Can host. Hablo Espanol.

4. Funfun. Living life at level 10. Hit me up for a night of Netflix and pizza. If you have holes in your ears big enough to see through, no thanks. No one over 26.

The full post, with nude photos and sexual content, is on Tales of West Hollywood

In the movie Maya (1966), Terry (15-year old Jay North, formerly Dennis the Menace) travels to India with his father, runs away after an argument, and meets Raji (14-year old Sajid Khan) and his elephant, Maya. Not for the first time. The white European or American paired with the Indian jungle boy is commonplace in post-War movies and tv, probably deriving from the work of Sabu in the 1940s.

After many adventures, nude shots, and buddy-bonding moments, including a scene in which the two literally hold hands, Terry and Raji are reunited with Terry's father and go back to America together.

When the beefcake-heavy Flipperended in 1966, its Saturday night timeslot was filled by a tv version of Maya (1967-68). It was retconned a little: now Terry goes to India in search of his missing father, and though he never displays a bare backside, he apparently forgot to pack any shirts. He meets the androgynous, gay-coded Raji, who also owns no shirts, and they spend the next 18 episodes caring for each other, rescuing each other from danger, and gazing deeply into each other's eyes.

Gay kids were ecstatic -- it was like Jonny Quest and Hadji come to life, or Andy's Gangin color! But producers must have found the homoerotic romance a little too overt. In the next season, the time slot was taken over by the macho cops of Adam-12.

Sajid Khan looked like my friend Bobby in Rock Island: brown and firm-bodied, with soulful black eyes and full lips. There hadn't been a South Asian in teen culture since Gunga Ram of Andy's Gang(and even he was played by a Caucasian), so Sajid got some play in the teen magazines.

After Maya, he tried his hand at singing, performing on It's Happening in 1968 and releasing a teen idol album in 1969.

He returned to India during the 1970s, starred in a few films there, and then retired from show business.

India is not known for being gay friendly, so Sajid was surprised to discover that there were rumors that he was gay. In an 2011 interview with The Times of India, he acknowledged the rumors and said "I have not gone out and tried to change people's perceptions. I have never done things to try to win brownie points in my life."

Jay North, tall, thin, and blond, didn't get much attention from the teen magazines -- they already had Dean Paul Martin, Davy Jones, and the Cowsills. But gay boys still liked him.

After Maya, he moved into voice work, live theater, and The Teacher (1974), in which he seduces his older teacher (and if you look closely, you can see him getting into the scene).

Today he works with Paul Petersen on A Minor Consideration. He has been married to women twice, but remains a gay ally.

There's a Jay North hookup story on Tales of West Hollywood.

When I was growing up in Rock Island, Merle Haggard's "Okie from Muskogee", released in 1969, was a favorite of the country-western crowd.. The lyrics are quite dated now, criticizing hippies and anti-Vietnam War protests.

We don't smoke marijuana in Muskogee
We don't take our trips on LSD
We don't burn our draft cards down on Main Street
We like livin' right, and bein' free

But the messages have endured:

1. Men and women should follow strict gender norms.

2. Obey authority without question

3. Support every government policy without question

4. Sex is only for married heterosexual couples.

Haggard was actually born in California, but his parents were Okies,-- refugees from the 1930s Dust Bowl. He chose "Muskogee" just because of the rhyme.

Whether deserved or not, Muskogee, population 39,000, has become emblematic of a certain type of person who refuses to protest injustice because he sees no injustice. Racism, sexism, classism, and homophobia are perfectly justified, the way life is, the way life should be.

Muskogee has one of the highest poverty levels, and one of the highest crime rates, in the U.S. News reports: "Muskogee man charged with attacking teen"; "Muskogee man convicted of killing two Oklahomans; "Two brothers from Muskogee shot in Tulsa"

It has no gay bars, no gay organizations, and only one welcoming church, Grace Episcopal. There isn't even a gay-straight alliance at the high school.

The main tourist draw is the Oklahoma Music Hall of Fame, a tiny building, formerly the Frisco Freight Company, which commemorates such country western stars as Merle Haggard, Woody Guthrie, Patti Page, Gene Autry, and -- well, that's all I've heard of.

It's the home of Bacone College, an "Indian University" with a B.A. degree in Tribal Languages (applied linguistics, curriculum develop, teaching methods, not any specific language).

Is there any beefcake potential in the "Okie from Muskogee" central?

1. Quite a lot of swimmers from Muskogie.

2. Caleb from Muskogee.

3. A selfie from Muskogee.

4. A wrestler from...Fort Gibson, a town next door.

5. Ok, this wrestler is from Muskogee. The team is name dthe Roughers.

More after the break

6. 18% of the population of Muskogee is African-American, and 16% Native American.

7. Muskogee bodybuilders.

8. A shirtless car wash, a Midwestern tradition.

9. I don't know what this guy's connection to Muskogee is.

10. Checotah, about 20 miles away, is the steer wrestling capital of the world. Lots of old-time cowboys present, like three generations of Duvalls.

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Before He-Man, there was The Mighty Hercules, part of the 1960s sword-and-sandal fad. He appeared on Saturday morning and sometimes Sunday morning tv from 1963 to 1966, and occasionally afterwards, in five-minute segments with stiff animation that seemed amateurish even to little kids. With his square jaw, expressionless face, and black curlicue hairstyle, he looked exactly like the Filmation Superman, but in a toga so his muscles would be visible.

Unlike the Hercules of Greek mythology, this Hercules ruled the kingdom of Caledon along with his two sidekicks: a teenage centaur boy who repeated everything twice ("Be careful, Herc!""Be careful, Herc!"), and a young satyr boy who only tooted his panpipes. Some commentators have found a romantic subtext in the interactions between Hercules and the centaur-boy, but I don't remember enough episodes to be sure.

But I do remember the thrilling theme song (sung by gay-friendly Johnny Nash). It was a tad risque, and it summed up all of the characteristics gay boys in the 1960s were looking for in boyfriends.

Softness in his eyes,
Iron in his thighs,
Virtue in his heart,
Fire in every part,
Of the Mighty Hercules.

When I saw this photo,and figured out that CD stood for "Central Dauphin," my first instinct was to run away.

In high school we were inflicted with Saint Joan (1923), by George Bernard Shaw, the most depressing, disheartening, soul-destroying playwright before Ionesco. In this bloodfest, peasant girl Joan Dark (John of Arc) is so adamant about her visions that she coat-tails the heir to the French throne, the Dauphin (later crowned Charles VII), in his bedchamber.

Only she calls him "Dolphin."

Yada yada yada, everybody dies, and I throw the Signet paperback across the room.

I always why Joan was stupid enough to mispronounce Dauphin as "Dolphin." Turns out that the words are identical in French. The heir of France is called Dauphin because he has a dolphin on his crest.

George Can't-Stand-Him Shaw also wrote a lot of other anti-religious, pro-anarchy, radical plays, which played havoc on my fundamentalist genes in high school, and even in college: Man and Superman; Major Barbara: Arms and the Man. I was assigned all of them at one point or another, but I only actually read Pygmalion, when we were performing My Fair Lady. Except in the George Horror-Nard Shaw version, Liza Doolittle and Henry Higgins must respect class divisions, and so dating is out of the question.

Meh. On to the beefcake.

I figured "Central Dauphin" would be somewhere in Louisiana, where there is a strong French influence, but no, it's a school district near Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, serving students of Central Dauphin County.

There are actually two high schools in the district:

1. Central Dauphin East, with 1350 students. Its mascot is a black panther.

The middle school and elementary school are next door, and across the street is Bishop McDevitt High School.

Harrisburg High School and the Cougar Academy (a private 9-12 school) are less than a mile away.

2.Central Dauphin Senior, is actually to the east of Central Dauphin East. with 1700 students.

Both are only a short drive from the Pennsylvania Capitol, with its series of beefcake-heavy murals. This one is entitled "Science Reveals the Treasures of the Earth" to naked men.

When I was a kid in the 1970s, Chuck Acri's Creature Feature broadcast a lot of very loose adaptations of Edgar Allan Poe stories: The House of Usher, The Pit and the Pendulum, Tales of Terror, The Raven, The Masque of the Red Death, The Tomb of Ligeia. They were all terribly cheesy.

I loved them.

And the original short stories, which I first encountered in a Scholastic Book Club edition of Ten Great Mysteries by Edgar Allan Poe, edited by Groff Conklin, with a drawing of a naked man (by Irv Doktor) illustrating "Metzengerstein."

It's about a man killed by a ghost horse. The nudity was completely unnecessary, but certainly welcome.

Even without the nudity, the stories were amazingly homoerotic, male narrators visiting male friends to hear their tales of murder and madness, with few or no women around, except for a few husbands who hate their wives.

The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym (1838). Pym and his boyfriend Augustus stow away about a whaling ship and have adventures. After Augustus dies, Pym hooks up with Richard Parker. The two have more adventures.

"The Fall of the House of Usher" (1839). Roderick Usher and his sister are killed by the evil house. His sister, not his wife!

"The Murders in the Rue Morgue" (1841). The narrator and his buddy solve a murder.

"The Pit and the Pendulum" (1842). The narrator is tortured by the pit and the pendulum, but rescued by the strong arm of a French soldier.

(Left: New ABC series with Edgar Allan Poe as a paranormal investigator.)

"The Tell-Tale Heart" (1843). The narrator (played on film by Stephen Brockway) "loves the old man," but kills him anyway.

"The Gold-Bug." (1843). The narrator, his buddy, and their servant search for buried treasure.

"The Cask of Amontillado" (1846) Montresor gets revenge on Fortunato by walling him up. But why is he so upset?

No wonder he was not mentioned in my class in American Renaissance Literature at Augustana, though he lived at the same time as Melville, Hawthorne, and Emerson.

But why was so much of Poe's poetry -- "Annabel Lane,""To Helen,""Lenore,""The Raven" -- about men mourning dead girlfriends? (Left, Jeremy Renner in The Raven).

Maybe because if the women are dead, the men don't have to worry about any of that icky hetero-romance.

Poe certainly spent a lot of time courting women through his life, but usually they were sickly or dying, like his 13-year old cousin Virginia Clemm, whom he married in 1836, when he was 27.

Maybe he found some solace in glimmers of same-sex desire.

See also: The Gay American Renaissance.

Nashville and Atlanta both have presentable gay communities, but if you're driving between the two cities, be prepared for mile after mile of homophobic "family values" desolation and despair. .

1. Mount Juliet (20 miles). Not incorporated into a city until 1972. No mountains or Juliets around. City Hall is in a strip mall. Best restaurant in town is Chick-Fil-A.

The Mt. Juliet High School Bears are "like one big family"

2. Murfreesboro (34 miles). Home of the World's Largest Cedar Bucket, a civil war battlefield, and Middle Tennessee State University, where I taught as an adjunct while living in Nashville. My office was in a trailer..

Murfreesboro Crossfit

3. Tullahoma (77 miles), "Tennessee's Rising Star," population 18,000. Its main claim to fame is the Jack Daniels Whiskey brewery, 12 miles away (in a dry county, paradoxically). And two martial arts schools where you can study Thiai boxing, MMA, and judo

4. Sewanee (93 miles), which is nowhere near the Suwanee River, is home to the prestigious University of the South and the St. Andrews Sewanee Prep School. Definitely worth a visit for the ornate Gothic architecture.

And the wrestling team.

5.Chattanooga (134 miles), in the heart of the Smokies, is the only big city on the road. 170,000 people, of whom 90% are Southern Baptist. It's got museums devoted to the railroads and the tow trucks.

This is the swim club at the Baylor School, an exclusive private school in Chattanooga. They have a Gender Committee but no Gay-Straight Alliance.

6. Dalton, GA(163 miles). You've made it into Georgia. Still in the mountains, though. There's a state college, a civil war battlefield, and the Georgia Coaches Hall of Fame.

7. Sonoraville (190 miles)

Not much in Sonoraville except a church (Baptist, naturally) and Sonoraville High School, which has 1400 students. No Gay-Straight Alliance, but there is a Chick-Fil-A Leadership Academy.

And a wrestling team with these singlets.

One more.

8. Emerson, GA (213 miles). 1600 people, a resort town on the shore of Lake Allatoona, where you can go fishing. It also hosted the 2016 Summer Showdown weightlifting contestn.

9. Kennesaw (225 miles), a suburb of Atlanta known for its law that every head of household must own a gun. Sounds cozy. There's a civil war battlefield (is there any town in Georgia that wasn't blitzed during the Civil War?). a museum combining Civil War and railroad artifacts, and the Pigs and Peaches Barbecue Festival.

Ugh.

But don't worry, Piedmont Avenue in Atlanta is only 25 miles away.

When I was living in West Hollywood during the 1980s, we didn't go to movies much, due to the rampant homophobia. Nearly every movie featured a discussion of how much the main characters hated gay people. In Teen Wolf, Michael J. Fox protests that he's not a "fag." In American Werewolf in London, David Naughton calls Prince Charles "a fag." In Breakfast Club, Judd Nelson writes a warning on his school locker: "Keep out, fags."

But in spite of the homophobia, there was a lot of beefcake. Men took off their shirts regularly, in frat houses, swimming pools, locker rooms, on wilderness treks. Some famous, others obscure. Here are 10 forgotten beefcake boys, actors who surprised us by displaying impressive physiques in one or two movies, and and then vanished.

Or at least never took off their clothes again.

1. Dan Shor talking to his dad nude in Strange Behavior (1981).

2. Anthony Edwards (above) stripped down to his rather impressive underwear by customs agents in Gotcha (1985).

3, Ilan Mitchell-Smith, now a history professor, in underwear in Weird Science (1985). Also starring a semi-nude Michael Anthony Hall and a bare-butt Bill Paxton.

4. Kevin Van Hentenryck running down the street naked in Basket Case (1982).

5. Don Michael Paul (left) in The Brotherhood of Justice (1986).

6. Jsu Garcia, killed while naked in Nightmare on Elm Street (1984).

7. Robert Bryan Wilson as a muscular, naked killer in Silent Night, Deadly Night (1984)

8. The super-muscular Anthony Starke in Return of the Killer Tomatoes (1988). You heard me.

9. Keith Gordon (right) as a college swimmer embarrassed by his dad, Rodney Dangerfield, in Back to School (1986).

10. William Zabka (left) as Chas in Back to School. He also played a shirtless bully in Karate Kid (1984, 1986)

11-12. Tom Hodges and Jeremy Piven as locker-room bullies in Lucas (1986), the guys Corey Haim refers to as "fags."

See also: Gay Nerds of the 1980s

There were special Olympic-style competitions for disabled war veterans as early as 1945, but the first Paralympics open to all disabled athletes was held in Rome in 1960. Today thousands of athletes from over 150 countries compete. They have cerebral palsy, muscular dystrophy, visual impairment, and a variety of missing and malfunctioning limbs.

There are 22 paralympic sports, everything from canoeing and badminton to wheelchair basketball. In search of beefcake potential, I just looked at the swimmers.

Scottish swimmer Andy Mullen has won silver and bronze medals in freestyle, backstroke, and butterfly events. Very nice hairy chest.

Josef Craig won the gold medal in men's freestyle. His pecs, abs, and basket all win gold medals, too.

Mattheus Angula from Windhoek, Namibia.The absence of legs doesn't detract from the aesthetic beauty of his arms and shoulders.

More after the break.

Ibrahin Al-Hussein, a Syrian refugee. Buffed physique.

Malik Mohammed, a double amputee from Afghanistan. Even more buffed.

Arnost Petracek from the Czech Republic, a gold medal winner in the 50 m backstroke. Nice abs and basket, and have you ever seen a neck like that?

That's a lot of muscle. Oh, and inspiring stories, of course. But mostly muscle.

Next I'll check out the rowing team.

And maybe the powerlifters.'

See also: Dating an Amputee

The Fosters (2013-2018) was a groundbreaking drama on ABC Family, now on Netflix, about a lesbian couple (Stef and Lena) with five children, biological, adopted, and foster (Brandon, Jesus, Jude, Callie, Mariana). Biological parents show up, and the kids have friends and romantic partners, so it gets a little crowded.

Episodes are pretty grim and angst-y. There are drinking problems, psychological problems, incurable diseases, deaths, battles with bullies and homophobes. But the remarkably open gay content makes it worth the gloom and doom.

Besides, there are endless teenage boys with their shirts off to draw in the gay boys and straight girls, plus a few shirtless adults thrown in for the adults in the room.

Here are the top 12 Fosters fav raves, plus one honorable mention:

1. David Lambert (left): Brandon, the oldest son in the family. an aspiring pianist whose dreams are dashed when an injury paralyzes his hand. He also becomes the victim of statutory rape by hooking up with his father's girlfriend.

2. Danny Nucci: Mike, Brandon's biological father, a cop who has a drinking problem, shot an unarmed suspect, and has a girlfriend who hooks up with Brandon.

3. Tom Williamson: AJ, Mike's foster son. Where does he find the time to be a foster parent?

4. Jake T. Austin (left): Jesus, the second son, who has Attention-Deficit Disorder.

5. Brandon Quinn: Gabe, Jesus' biological father, who didn't tell Jesus because he didn't want the boy to know he's a registered sex offender.

6. Hadyn Byerly: Jude, the youngest son, who becomes mute in angst over coming out as gay (with lesbian parents?), but eventually learns to accept himself and starts dating, with probably the youngest same-sex kiss on television.

7. Gavin McIntosh (top photo): Connor, Jude's boyfriend, who has a homophobic father.

8. Tanner Buchanan (left): Jack, a shy boy with lots of angsty problems who Jude befriends.

More after the break.

9. Chris Bruno: Adam, the homophobic father.

10. Alex Saxon (left): Wyatt, the boyfriend of daughter Callie. They ran away together, causing angst.

11. Kerr Smith: Robert, Callie's biological father, who wants custody.

12. Jordan Rodrigues: Mat, the boyfriend of daughter Mariana. He doesn't have any angsty problems so she dumps him.

Honorable mention: Noah Centineo, who took over for Jesus after Jake T. Austin left. He looks like he's doing fine. But wait until he finds out that he will be tearjerking week after week.

See also: Jake T. Austin, Danny Nucci

When I was a kid, we had arcade games (for which you went to an arcade), but no video games.

In college we played Asteroids, in which your space ship shoots asteroids and flying saucers.

Mario Brothers appeared in arcades in 1983, and the Nintendo home game Super Mario Brothers in 1987. Oddly enough, my parents were fans. I have fond memories of summer nights in the 1990s, living in West Hollywood but back in Rock Island for a visit, the screen door open to let in a breeze, hearing the theme music coming from the living room.

There was also a Super Mario Brothers All-Stars in 1993, a Super Mario Brothers Deluxe in 1999, and various games devoted to other characters in the Mario universe, but by that time my parents had lost interest.

Nearly all of the game plots are sexist. A princess is kidnapped, and the brothers Mario and Luigi, drawn as stereotypic Italian-American plumbers, must rescue her.

They are sometimes accompanied by Yoshi, a sentient dinosaur, and Toad, a sentient mushroom who wears a turban.

The only game without a princess to rescue is Yoshi's Island (1995), in which Baby Mario, accompanied by a clan of Yoshis, must rescue Baby Luigi.

However, none of the games involve a fade-out kiss: neither Mario nor Luigi display any heterosexual interest, leaving them open to gay subtexts. Maybe they're a gay couple, not "brothers."

Mario cosplay is common, with some muscular Marios, Luigis, and Toads strutting about.

A film version, Super Mario Bros., appeared in 1993. It stars Bob Hoskins and John Leguizamo as Mario and Luigi, plumbers in real-life Brooklyn who are zapped into a parallel Earth run by the descendants of dinosaurs, They rescue Princess Daisy, as expected.

Of course, Hollywood movies must always have a heterosexist plot, so Luigi and Daisy fall in love.

But, on the plus side, John Leguizamo has a shirtless scene (top photo), before he got all craggy and bizarre.

If you want to survive the zombie apocalypse, your best bet is Leadville, Colorado. 2 miles up in the mountains, too high for the zombies to reach, with 67 deserted mines around to hide in, and a fishery so you won't starve.

If it's not a zombie apocalypse, I don't recommend Leadville. It's an old mining town, with some ornate homes built by mining barons, but it's so high up that physical exertion is difficult.

And there's nothing much to do there except exert yourself: camping, hiking, fishing, hunting, biking, and running.

Every August it hosts the Leadville Trail 100, a 100-mile race up and down the mountains, including the 12,500-foot Hope Pass (scaled twice on the route). . And you thought a regular 23-mile marathon was gruelling.

Professional distance runner Matt Carpenter is currently the record holder, finishing in 15 hours and 42 minutes (that's more than 6 miles an hour).

Lake County High School has a wrestling team.

The historic Tabor Opera House features live performances, but it seems to be mostly musicians, not theater.

So back to wrestling.

Occasionally broken up by a swim meet.

And working out at the Crossfit.

If you can take the high altitude.

Gay boys all but ignored 20-year old John Stamos when he was playing streetwise Blackie on General Hospital (1983-84). Not many watched soap operas, and his pleasantly slender physique seemed bit too androgynous as Nautilus-toned man-mountains came into style. Besides, he had a girlfriend.

Some started to notice when John starred as aspiring rock star Gino Minnelli on Dreams (1984-85), which aired after Charles in Charge on Wednesday nights. It offered lots of shirtless shots -- by this time John had joined a gym -- plus buddy-bonding episodes like "Friends" and "Boys are the Best." But it only lasted for 12 episodes.

After 25 episodes of You Again? (1986-87), playing Jack Klugman's estranged teenage son -- which was switched around so often that no one saw it -- John finally found a place in gay teenagers' hearts in Full House (1987-95) on the TGIF ("Thank God it's Friday) block of kid-friendly Friday-night shows.

He played Uncle Jesse, who moved in with his brother-in-law Danny (Bob Saget) and another male friend, Dave (Joey Gladstone), to help raise Danny's three daughters after his wife died.

Alternative families are a standby on tv, but aside from the basic non-heteronormative family structure -- and John's smile -- there was little for gay teenagers to like.

He rarely took off a shirt -- when he did, the moments were mostly cute rather than hot. Only one episode showed him in a swimsuit.

Nor did the friendships result in much buddy-bonding. The guys all got girlfriends, and the daughters got boyfriends, and gay people were not mentioned, ever, even though the show was set in gay mecca San Francisco.

In an Advocate interview, John states that he wasn't really aware that he had gay fan at the time -- "people weren't as out back then." But he's made up for it since, as one of the most gay-friendly actors in Hollywood, even when depicted in TV Guide. He played a gay wedding planner in the tv-movie Wedding Wars (2006). He engaged in a same-sex kiss for charity at the GLAAD Awards.

When The Office refused to air a joke in which a character pretends to be gay by imagining that he was "in a steam room with John Stamos," the blogosphere assumed that the screen hunk had objected -- but he quickly proclaimed that he had nothing to do with it, he loved the joke, and he would be more than happy to film any attendant fantasy sequence.

There's a John Stamos sausage sighting on Tales of West Hollywood.

In the summer of 1992, the five Crane children, Steven, Nell, Shirley, Luke, and Theo, and their parents, move into the gigantic, long-deserted Hill House to fix it up for resale.

Scary things start to happen. Luke sees a strange floating figure in a bowler hat. Nell sees a lady with a crooked neck. There are imaginary friends and dead kittens. One night they all rush out, except for Mom, or whatever Mom turned into.

They never return.

No one ever returned to the house except for the police.

26 years pass, and the kids grow up.

1.Steven (Michiel Huisman, left) has become a writer, specializing in paranormal nonfiction, although he doesn't actually believe in ghosts -- he thinks the events of that summer were all the power of suggestion, bad dreams, and Mom's insanity. The other children are angry with him for capitalizing on their trauma.

2. Nell has been most affected by the trauma, suffering from sleep disorders and strange visions. She marries sleep disorder tech Arthur (Jordan Christie, left), but "the house" kills him. Then she decides to return to the house for the first time in 26 years.

3. Luke (Oliver Jackson-Cohen, left), Nell's twin brother, is a heroin addict in and out of rehab. He is troubled by visions of the Man in the Bowler Hat. He has a friend who is a girl, but no romantic relationships. As a child he dreamed of a tree house with "no girls allowed" except for Theo. Maybe he's gay.

4. Theo is a child psychologist with "sensitive" powers. She is a lesbian horndog, going through a series of one-night stands, afraid to open up to a relationship. She appears in the original novel as well, although as a sad, pathetic "freak of nature." Here she's out and proud.

5. Shirley is a mortician, along with her husband Kevin (Anthony Ruivivar, left). She also believes that the events were caused by mental illness and suggestion.

None of them are speaking to their father, Hugh (Timothy Hutton), due to his refusal to tell them what really happened that night.

The Netflix tv series The Haunting of Hill House (2018) is inspired by on the Shirley Jackson novel, but not based on it. There are a few characters retained, and a few other nods here and there. The entire first paragraph is copied into Michael's book, and Mrs. Dudley, the caretaker, gives her famous speech about being alone "in the night, in the dark." But she follows it with a plea to accept Jesus -- Mrs. Dudley is an evangelical Christian!

The juxtaposition between the 1992 and 2018 is effective, I like the sibling interactions, and there are many scary or disturbing images.

However, I found myself fast-forwarding past many of the "cute kid hugging a teddy bear" and "mom climbing in bed to tell her everything's ok" scenes, especially those that were not related to the primary plot. For instance, a foster parent brings his little-girl charge in to see Theo because she claims that a monster named "Mr. Smiley" comes into her room every night. The answer isn't supernatural. It's exactly what you're thinking.

There is a surprising amount of beefcake, a lot of men asleep in their underwear when scary things happen.

And Theo the horndog lesbian.

Definitely worth a look.

One of my cousins has moved to Blacksburg, Virginia. She said "We love it there. It's so beautiful, and the people are so friendly."

Obviously, my cousin is heterosexual.

I can't imagine that any gay person would even visit Blacksburg, Virginia. Just look at its location: in the far southwestern corner of the state, near Lynchburg -- shudder -- with West Virginia on one side and Tennessee on the other, and mountains in between. 99% Baptist, 98% supporters of the Orange Goblin. The nearest gay neighborhood is probably in Pittsburgh, a 5 hour drive.

Plus it's the home of Virginia Tech, full name Virginia Polytechnic State University, where the students major in Aerospace Engineering, Agriculture and Poultry Science, Crop and Soil Science, Fish Conservation, and Sustainable Biomaterials.

Yawn.

There is a LGBTQ+ resource center on campus. A small, very closeted one. When a gay student was interviewed for the school paper, they stayed anonymous, "due to the potential for retributive action."

Cru, the homophobic Campus Crusade for Christ organization, is much bigger, with a staff of five.

Plus Virginia Tech seems to be a big football school. The Hokies (that's the team name) get national coverage. They just beat the Tarheels 22-18.

Yawn.

But I'm game. I'll look for the beefcake of Blacksburg.

Here are two members of the VA Tech Swim Club. I think that's the Hokie bird on their briefs. With larger packages, they would be impressive..

Here they spell out "Frank" on their chests to show their solidarity with someone or other. Don't worry, these are the biggest of the group. So to speak.

There's an Olympic Weightlifting Club that meets in War Memorial Hall Multi-Room C. Nice name.

Poultry science majors tend to be buffed. And disappointing beneath the belt.

I think these are VA Tech footballers. Well, footballers from somewhere.

A VA Tech wrestler. Nice biceps, disappointing...um...everywhere else.

On to the high schools. Only one in town. No private schools or fundamentalist Christian academies.

The Blacksburg High Swim Team. Rather unimpressive.

Not much wrestling going on.

And this is the crossfit: a boy, a man, and someone in a kilt.

Better stay in Pittsburgh.

See also: Halloween Horror: Cruising in the Scariest Place on Earth

"All Area Boys Swimmers of the Year: Jefferson Forest 200 Medley Relay," an article in the News and Advance from April 2018. Of course, nowhere does the article state where this 200 medley relay is, or who this Jefferson Forest is. But I had some clues.

A medley is a combination of swimming styles (breaststroke, butterfly, backstroke, and freestyle), and a relay is a race performed by four swimmers.

There were four muscular but oddly disturbing swimmers depicted.

1. Sutton, who is scowling at the camera as if he plans to attack at any moment, lives in Roanoake, Virginia.

He looks nicer in this photo, taken at the Lynchburg YMCA, an hour's drive away.

Lynchburg, the Heart of Darkness, the site of the homophobic Liberty University and Jerry Falwell's Thomas Road Baptist Church, the scariest place in the world for gay people. Why would he go there to work out?

A nasty sneer on the face of the ab-worthy Connor. I couldn't find out anything about him. .

Brian looks like a high school bully sitting in judgment. He graduated from high school in 2018, and is attending Roanoke College, an hour's drive from the Heart of Darkness.

Matthew, the scariest of the lot in spite of his superlative pecs, is from Forest, VA.

A suburb of Lynchburg!

He is also a member of the Lynchburg YMCA Swim Team. Gulp.

Apparently Jefferson Forest is a high school in Forest, Virginia.

Swimming and wrestling are popular sports. You can take AP English, History, and Physics.

And there's a Gay-Straight Alliance.

The only problem is, it's a stone's throw from the Heart of Darkness

See also: Cruising in the Scariest Place on Earth

Speaking of Nickelodeon teen hunks, Jack Griffo (left) was both a Nickelodeon and a Disney Channel teen hunk, with a guest spot on Jessie and a starring role in The Thundermans.(2013-2018).

Born in December 1996, Jack got his first commercial contract at age 2, and soon began modeling and acting in community theater in his hometown of Orlando, Florida. A talent agent spotted him, and convinced him and his family to relocate to Los Angeles in 2010.

In 2011, he appeared in the movie Sound of My Voice, and on the Disney channel teencom Kickin' It (as a dancer) and Nickelodeon's Bucket and Skinner's Epic Adventures.

In 2012, in the short What I Did Last Summer: First Kiss and the music video American Hero.

In 2013, in Nickelodeon's See Dad Run with Scott Baio and Marvin Marvin with Lucas Cruikshank.

He starred as a gay-vague supervillain in training in the Nickelodeon teencom The Thundermans.

Currently he has a recurring role on the Nickelodeon teencom Alexis & Katie, as the gay-subtext bff of series regular Emery Kelly.

Not to mention live theater and a youtube page, where Jack posts covers of popular songs by Justin Bieber and One Direction. The music video "Hold Me" received 4 million page views.

And lots of shirtless, bicep-flexing, and swimming pool shots.

His gay connection:

In his onscreen roles that I've seen, he doesn't display any heterosexual interest, and he has a series of gay-subtext bffs.

His homophobic connection:

He attends the fundamentalist Ecclesia Church in Hollywood.

Could go either way:

On his facebook page, Jack reposted a youtube video entitled "Don't Say Gay," about a little boy convincing his big brother that "gay" is a bad word. I agree with discouraging kids from the all-purpose insult "that's so gay," but not with the idea that it's a bad word that must never be spoken. I've been there.

Garrett, Indiana, Summer 1970

The summer after fourth grade, when I am nine years old, lasts for months and months, hundreds of days, all bright green and dazzling. A week in Indiana, visiting my parents' family. A week camping in Minnesota and Canada. Nazarene summer camp. Swimming lessons at Longview Park Pool.

The bookmobile every Tuesday. The Denkmann School Carnival. Malts at Country Style. Sleepovers with Bill and Joel.

Gold Key comic books at Schneider's Drug Store.

Dark Shadows. H.R. Pufnstuf. Tarzan Theater.

David Cassidy. Bobby Sherman. Robbie Douglas.

All on a golden afternoon, probably a Saturday, in my Grandma Davis's farmhouse on the south side of Garrett. It's a big house, all white frame, the big rooms done up with flowered wall paper and thick drapes.

My brother and I are all alone. I don't remember why. Maybe Mom and Dad have gone off somewhere, on an expedition of their own, leaving Grandma Davis to babysit for the afternoon.

We have just come in from something or other -- puttering around in the apple orchard, exploring the old barn where Grandpa used to milk cows, or the attic where Grandma keeps hundreds of back issues of magazines, neatly bundled -- Look, Life, Better Homes and Gardens, Grit. We kick off our shoes at the door. Kenny heads toward the kitchen and the stairway leading up to our room.

I stop in front of the tv set, a big piece of furniture, wood-brown, with curved pillars on the sides, with a candy dish and a picture of my Cousin Phil on top.

At our house it's almost always on, whether anyone is watchng or not, a stable, comforting background noise. But Grandma Davis keeps it off unless someone wants to watch a specific program. It seems unnatural, wrong somehow.

I reach down and turn it on.

Kenny turns and asks "What's on?"

I shrug. "I don't know. Maybe Tarzan Theater." On Saturday afternoons in Rock Island, when there isn't a game on, you can see old Tarzan and Bomba the Jungle Boy movies.

The black and white screen flickers, and then pops on. A game.

I turn it to the next channel. Some people talking.

"Find some cartoons," Kenny suggests.

There are only three channels. I turn to the third.

A naked man.

In my memory he's naked, although he was probably wearing a leotard. Shirtless, though, with taut hard pecs and very thick hard biceps.

You never saw even shirtless men on tv in those days, except in Tarzan movies, so I stand dumbstruck, frozen in place, realizing that I will remember this moment forever.

"What's this?" Kenny asks.

The naked man twirls and high-steps, bulging his bare calves, across a bare stage to a young blond woman. Then, dancing a sort of tap dance, he asks "Who....are...youuuuuu?"

She starts a tap dance of her own, dances in front of him, and says "I....don't...know. Who...are...youuuuu?"

He stops dancing and glowers at her, his eyes dark, and replies. "I am the Magic Mushroom."

At that moment, Grandma appears at the window leading to the kitchen. "There's nothing for kids on," she says. "Turn the tv off."

"Wait...I..." I begin. But Kenny obligingly turns it off. .

"Now who wants to help me bake a pie for dinner tonight?"

All in a golden afternoon.

The naked man, dancing, darting, twirling across the stage, haunts my dreams, asking "Who...are...youuuuu?" a hundred times. I answer in a hundred ways:

I am a boy..

I am a Davis.

I am a Nazarene.

I am a fourth grader.

I am a brother.

I am a friend.

But no answer is satisfactory.

A few years later, I realize that the scene was adapted from Alice in Wonderland. Except it's a hookah-smoking caterpillar who asks "Who are you." The mushroom is not a speaking character.

So where did the naked man come from?

Over the years, I've read The Annotated Alice, Aspects of Alice, The Dream Child, and a dozen other books of criticism and analysis. I've investigated dozens of Alice movies, stage plays, and ballets in search of the one with that scene.

There was a 1966 tv movie with Alice in a hippie wonderland, but no ballet scene.

And Alice in Acidland 1969 is a softcore porn with Alice taking LSD and engaging in lesbian sex before losing her mind. I doubt that there's a ballet scene in that, either.

I've even tried to google the phrase "I am the Magic Mushroom." No luck.

It remains a mystery.

Still she haunts me, phantomwise,

Alice moving under skies

Never seen by waking eyes.

The dark dancing naked man still haunts me, but at least now I know the answer to the perennial question:

"Who...are...youuuuuu?"

"Agrupación Deportiva Fogar da Xuventude nace e legalízase en Carballo no ano 1988 como unha entidade privada deportiva, social e cultural."

I knew that was not Spanish, but I could read it, so it must be close. Portuguese?

No, the Portuguese word for "youth" is juventude,

Catalan? No, it doesn't look like Catalan.

One of the Iberian languages that are often labeled "dialects: Asturian, Valencian, Aragonese?

Turns out that it's Galician, a "dialect" that is actually closer to Portuguese than Spanish, 80% mutually intelligible.

I want to sleep in your bed tonight.
Galician: Quero durmir na túa cama esta noite
Portuguese: Eu quero dormir na sua cama a noite

Galician is spoken by 2.1 million people in the northwest corner of Spain, a poor region, its people stereotyped as backwards, even barbaric, like the hillbillies in the U.S.

So imagine Galician as Appalachian English.

Other than the infinite number of swimmers and triathlon competitors at the AD Fogar, the main tourist draw in Galicia is Santiago de Compostela, a famous pilgrimage site in the Middle Ages with a marvelously ornate Gothic cathedral.

You can still attend Pilgrim Masses several times a day. They are held in Galician, Spanish, French, German, English, and Polish, but not Latin.

Santiago de Compostela also has a water polo team.

And some bulgeworthy cyclists.

The biggest city in Galicia is La Coruna, a port and industrial center. Its main tourist draw is the Tower of Hercules, the oldest intact Roman tower in Spain.

Plus some semi-pro boxers.

Pontevedra has banned automobiles in the city limits. The results are a pedestrian paradise. It's easily the most beautiful city in Galicia, with an excellent museum displaying Galician and Spanish art from the middle ages to the present.

And, of course, there's a water polo team.

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Four Scary Swimmers from the Heart of Darkness

Jack Griffo's Gay Connection

The Answer to the Naked Man's Question

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