NYSocBoy's Beefcake and Bonding

I don't hook up in public, period. No parks, no nature preserves, no secluded hotel restrooms, no booths at the Pleasure Palace. No way, no how.

But back in college in the Midwest in the 1980s, I didn't know much about gay culture and history, and I thought that the only possible way for gay people to meet was in bars and public places. So I wasn't so picky.

January 30th, 1982, my senior year at Augustana College. I applied to the Ph.D. program in Spanish at Tulane University in New Orleans. They flew me in for an interview, and now I was on my way back to Rock Island.

The day was bright and sunny when we took off from New Orleans at 2:15. The three hour flight to St. Louis was uneventful; we flew above the clouds in brilliant sunlight. Our descent was a little bumpy, but we landed at Lambert Airport right on schedule, at 5;15 pm.

I went to the monitor to check on my connection, a 6:30 flight to Moline, Illinois, and home.

Cancelled.

The board was lit with dozens of flickering "cancelled" lights.

My flights to Switzerland, Colombia, and Germany were in supervised groups. I had never flown alone before. I didn't know what to do.

Finally I found the American Airlines help desk. The line was endless. Forget it!

I called the American Airlines telephone number. On hold for half an hour. Forget it!

I walked through the terminal. Stores and restaurants were closing. I grabbed dinner -- a burger and fries -- at the Brewmaster's Tap Room just before it closed. No one explained what was happening.

Later I discovered that Saint Louis got 14 inches of snow overnight, the biggest blizzard in history. They closed the airport and sent most of the staff home, stranding thousands of travelers.

All of Saturday night and through Sunday afternoon, no flights came in or out, and none of the stores were open except a nacho place and Hudson Books. We lived on nachos and overpriced candy bars.

Food services began around 2:00 pm Sunday, and flights started going out around 5:00 pm. But there was such a backlog that I couldn't get out until 5:15 am Monday.

Get a hotel room for Sunday night? No credit cards, not enough money.

36 hours at Lambert International Airport.

In the era before smart phones, laptops, wifi, and DVDs.

How I passed the time:

1. Bought and read three best sellers (all that Hudson Books had): The Hotel New Hampshire, Gorky Park, and Red Dragon. They were all terrible.
2. Called my parents and asked them to come pick me up, but they were snowed in, too.
3. Vowed never to go to Saint Louis again.
4. Walked up and down the concourses, looking at the cute guys trying to sleep.

5. Had sex with strangers.

About 11:00 pm Saturday night, I was sitting in a stall in an out-of-the-way restroom at the end of an abandoned concourse, when someone went into the stall next to me.

Great! I'm too shy to perform now! I'll just have to wait it out!

So I waited and waited, and he waited and waited, and before I knew it, things were happening under the partition between the stalls.

Wait -- do people actually do these things in public restrooms?

I had lots of time to research the matter, and it turns out that they do. If you wait in a secluded stall long enough, things just happen. Or else you make eye contact with someone you like, head into the restroom together, and go into the same stall.

That night and the next, I hooked up with several other stranded passengers: a middle-aged businessman in a suit and tie; a young dad whose wife and kids were waiting outside; a guy who worked in the nacho shop; and a cute college boy from Minneapolis who liked to kiss, and gave me his phone number.

Don't try this at home! It's extremely dangerous. Undercover police officers are on patrol, hoping to make an arrest for "lewd behavior." It's gross, it's uncomfortable, and it plays into the stereotype of gay men as sexual predators. Besides, in the era of Grinder and internet chat rooms, who wants to be with someone so closeted that he resorts to pick-ups in public restrooms?

But in 1982, it made for a memorable 36 hours stranded at Lambert International Airport.

See also: Cruising at the Levee; Cruising in Oxford, Mississippi.

The King and I, the 1951 Rogers & Hammerstein musical, can be played as a heterosexual romance, like the 1956 movie version:

Young widow Anna Leonowens goes to Thailand in 1861 to tutor the many children of King Mongkut. Their culture clash results in romantic sparks, and they fall in love.

Or, with barely any tweaking at all, it can be played as two strong-willed people developing a non-romantic friendship based on mutual respect.

Which, by the way, was the case in the original novel, Anna and the King of Siam (1944), based on the memoirs of the real Anna Leonowens: she became language secretary to King Mongkut, but didn't fall in love with the man 40 years her elder, and in fact found him unpleasant to work with. She had quit her job and was on her way back to England when he died.

So it's worth checking out the nearest high school drama club, community theater, or summer stock production of The King and I, to see which direction they're taking it.

Also, the King and his son Chulalongkorn are usually portrayed shirtless, so they'll be looking to cast the actors with the most smooth, muscular chests they can find.

Sometimes the actors go for the full Yul Brynner effect and shave their heads, too. Sometimes not.

I hate tv commercials where women take a bite of yogurt, cereal, or chocolate, and then roll their heads back and stiffen in orgiastic ecstasy. Or kids see the cereal, macaroni and cheese, or hot dogs on the kitchen table before them, and they hug mom ecstatically in gratitude. (Men are expected to prefer quantity over quality, so they usually just shovel it in and say "Great meal, Honey.)

1. They're sexist, replicating ancient gender stereotypes.
2. They're heterosexist, replicating the nuclear family myth, Mom, Dad, and Kids as aggressively as A&W's Papa, Mama, and Baby Burgers (see "Bill and I Become a Mama and a Papa.")
3. If every bite causes a shuddering orgasm of joy, how do you ever get through a meal?

When I was a kid in the 1960s, print ads were even worse. Not dependent on real humans, they drew faces with bizarre contortions of ecstatic abandon that real actors could never get away with, except maybe in horror movies.

Who ever thought that this picture would encourage kids to ask Mom for Sugar Krinkles? I'd be worried that the clown would climb off the box and eat me.

Who wears hats to dinner? And why is the demon girl levitating her plate of human meat, peas, and orange things?

What, exactly, did she put in those drinks? And why is she serving four of them to one victim?

I've heard people say "O--oh-h Jeff!" before, but they usually don't follow with "It's a Schwinn!"

"Room for one more. Join us!"

The Liberace of the 1980s was Richard Simmons, a fey elf in an Afro who led millions of overweight middle-aged women in energetic dance-style aerobics.

Growing up obese, Richard was dissatisfied with the diet and exercise regiments available: he believed that exercise should be fun and uplifting, and diets should be a joyful celebration, not dreary deprivation. So he opened his own exercise studio, Slimmons, in Beverly Hills in 1969. He still teaches aerobics classes there every morning.

You can buy many of his Sweating to the Oldies DVDs, and about a dozen books, including Never Say Diet (you should say "live it!").

His program seems to be all about aerobics, or just getting off the couch and moving around. Not a lot of weight training.

His effervescent personality and success in reaching the middle-aged female crowd led to a story on Real People, followed by guest appearances on game shows and talk shows, a four-year stint playing himself on General Hospital, numerous tv commercials, and his own Richard Simmons Show.

Richard had a few male fans. He helped the morbidly obese Michael Hebranko drop from 906 to 200 pounds in 19 months, a feat which got Hebranko listed in The Guiness Book of World Records (unfortunately, most of the weight came back; he died in 2013 at 550 pounds).

There are many parallels between Richard Simmons and Liberace:
1. Aggressively feminine mannerisms.
2. A penchant for flamboyant costumes.
3. A fanbase composed mostly of middle-aged and elderly women.
4. A loud, obnoxious refusal to identify as gay.

Liberace claimed to be straight, and sued anyone who implied different. Richard merely refuses to use the word "gay" in public, anywhere, anytime. He has never expressed any support of gay causes. When he is asked about his sexual orientation, he drops pronouns: "I don't have time to date anyone,""I'm not really looking for a relationship with anyone," and so on.

The major difference is: Liberace was popular in the 1950s, when to come out openly would mean career suicide. It's now 2015, 46 years after Stonewall. Does Richard really believe that most of his middle-aged female fans think that he is straight? And would abandon him en masse if he made a public statement?

Have you heard of Maxwell Caulfield? During my senior year in college, he was being hailed the Next Big Thing.

Born in Scotland, Caulfield moved to London at age 15 and became a nude dancer at the infamous Windmill Cinema. At age 18, he came to the U.S., and quickly got cast in the gay-themed stage farce Hotrock Hotel (1978), then the gay-themed Entertaining Mr. Sloane (1981), by Joe Orton.

In 1982, he won out over thousands of hopefuls to star in the sequel to Grease, the most popular movie musical of all time.

Grease 2 premiered in June 1982 to a huge hype campaign.

The box office wasn't exactly miserable, but it didn't match expectations by a long shot.

Singing "Rock-a-Hula Luau" was not exactly helpful to Caulfield's career.

In the homophobic 1980s, the gay rumors didn't help, either.

He starred in a few horrible-sounding tv movies, such as Electric Dreams (1984), about a guy and a computer both in love with the same woman, and The Supernaturals (1986), about an army of dead Confederate soldiers still fighting the Civil War.

And The Boys Next Door (1985), an intensely homphobic movie in which a straight guy (Caulfield) is lured into a mass-murder spree by his closeted-gay friend (future jerk Charlie Sheen) go on a killing spree because, of course, gay people are all psycho killers waiting to happen.

It could also be read as a commentary on Caulfield's career: "Look, I was lured into playing those gay roles by evil gay producers. It's not my fault."

He spent two years playing Miles Colby in the Dynasty spin-off The Colbys (1985-87).

Then it was back to bad, ridiculous, or homophobic movies.

Mind Games (1989): a couple goes camping, and encounters a psycho (Colby) who has sinister designs on their son.

Dance with Death (1992); Murders at a strip club.

Animal Instincts (1992): Porn.

He's been more successful on stage, with starring roles in Joe Orton's Loot, Tryst, Cactus Flower, female impersonator Charles Busch's Our Leading Lady, and Chicago.

At Stony Brook University in New York, the first-year grad students were a "cohort" who shared an office and took classes together. One was a lesbian, and most of others were nonchalant about the presence of gay people in their midst.

But not Jason: 22 years old, short, solid, with short black hair, a fiery intensity, and a cute Upstate accent.

He was what we call a "true believer": preaching, with the zeal of a religious fundamentalist, that sociology alone could unlock the secrets of the universe. All other religions, philosophies, and academic disciplines were a waste of time.

Once he was working on an essay, and he wanted to use the famous quote "If I have seen far, it is because I have stood on the shoulders of giants." He asked around the office to find out who said it. Obviously a sociologist, but which one? Durkheim? Weber? Pareto? Mead?

It was Sir Isaac Newton -- a mathematician.

He decided against the quote -- if a sociologist didn't say it, it wasn't worth listening to!

When I brought Yuri as my date to the department Christmas party, Jason finally figured out that he was sharing his office with a gay person. He turned as white-faced and trembling as any redneck Bible-thumper. But in liberal late-1990s Long Island, you weren't supposed to be homophobic, so he stayed in the closet. It came out in subtle ways:

1. If I was in the office alone, he waited in the hallway until someone else showed up.

2. When we were going on a car trip, he wouldn't sit next to me in the back seat.

3. Once I accidentally went into the restroom while Jason was at a urinal. He whitened, zipped up immediately, and rushed out.

4. We were all talking about our dream classes (to teach). Mine was Gay Studies 101. Jason said, "Get real! No student would ever enroll in a class like that!"
"Gay students would."
"Yeah, but there's like -- what, six gay students on campus."
Stony Brook had 24,000 students. More like 2,400.

5. We were all talking about our first sexual experience, and I said "Ok, my turn."
Jason asked: "Was it with a man or a woman?"
"A man, of course!"
He turned his head away. "Please don't!"

Two member of my cohort noticed Jason's homophobic discomfort, and helped me play it up.

1. "So, which of us has had bisexual experiences? Jeff, did you ever kiss a girl? Jason, did you ever kiss a guy?"

2. "It's the last day of the semester -- hugs all around. Jeff and Jason, you want to be alone together?"

3. "Jason, what do you think of Casper Van Dien from Starship Troopers? He's so hot, I'll bet you'd switch teams for him!"

In March 1999, several members of my cohort presented papers at the annual conference of the Eastern Sociological Society in Boston. I stayed at the gay Chandler Inn, but four guys shared a room at the Hilton, where the conference was held.

Mike, who was gay-friendly, shared a bed with Jason. He helped me design the mother of all pranks.

Our prank:

Jason liked to sleep in, past when the other guys left for breakfast, then take a long shower (we speculated that he was doing more than showering in there).

What if he came out of the shower and caught me and Mike "in the act"? He would conclude that Mike was gay, that he had been sleeping next to a gay person!"

On the third day of the conference, Mike pretended to be "still asleep" when Jason started his shower. I knocked softly, and he let me in. I stripped to my underwear, and we climbed into bed and put our arms around each other, poised as if we had been kissing.

And waited.

And waited and waited. It was a long shower.

Finally the door opened, and Jason came out, combing his hair.

No towel, no bathrobe. Completely naked.

This was better than I had hoped for! I had a great view of his solid chest and shoulders, still damp from the shower, his abs, his legs -- and his Kielbasa. Low hanging, ruddy, enormous.

He stopped and stared at us, agape.

"Oh, hi!" Mike said. "I invited Jeff over for a little morning session. I hope you don't mind."

"There's room for one more," I added.

That might have been going a little too far. Jason ran back into the bathroom and slammed the door, and wouldn't come out until we admitted that it was a prank, that we weren't really doing anything, that Mike was really straight.

He still refused to sleep in the same bed with Mike.

Oh, well. At least I got a memorable Sausage Sighting.

See also: My Top 15 Sausage Sightings; The Truth about the Formosan Penis

Speaking of singers that you couldn't avoid hearing during the 1970s, I spent my entire high school career running in the other direction while Barry Manilow's syrupy love! love! love! love! crooning spewed forth from a transistor radio or car radio, or over the p.a. at school, or at a record store, or on tv... but there was no escape.

Ninth Grade:
"Mandy": I remember all my life, raining down as cold as ice, sending Mandy away.
Well, he got that right -- all my life, I've remembered that song, no matter how much I don't want to.

"It's a Miracle": It's a miracle, a true-blue spectacle, that he is in love.
At least he's over Mandy.

"Could it be Magic": baby take me, high upon a hillside, high up where the stallion meets the sun...come, come, come into my...
This is the first song I heard that I knew was about having sex, although I wouldn't be asking anyone to come, come, come for a few years.

Tenth Grade:
"I Write the Songs": I write the songs that make the young girl cry...I am music, and I write the songs...
Rather full of himself, isn't he?

"Trying to Get That Feeling Again": he sees a doctor to get a pill, because he's gone up, down,all around, trying to get that feeling again.
Don't worry, Barry, many men have problems going...um...up and down.

"This One's for You": This one will never sell, they'll never understand, I don't even sing it well.
He's got that right.

Eleventh Grade:
"Weekend in New England."Last night I waved goodbye, now it seems years -- I'm back in the city, where nothing is clear.
I'd rather be in the city than stuck in a small factory town in the Midwest.

"Looks Like We Made It": Do you love him as much as I love her, and will that love be strong when the old feelings stir?
What they've made is a successful breakup, but then the old feelings come back. Mandy, again?

Twelfth Grade:
"Daybreak"It's daybreak if you want to believe, it's daybreak, no time to grieve.
Repeat 38 times. Don't try to figure out what it means.

"Can't Smile without You": can't laugh, can't sing, finding it hard to do anything.
I'd rather concentrate on my upcoming graduation and college plans, thanks.

"Even Now": Even now I think about you when I'm climbing the stairs, and I wonder what to do so she won't see.
You still thinking about Mandy? It's been four years!

"Copacabana": this one has a plot, about a showgirl with two boyfriends who shoot each other, so she goes crazy, and continues to come to the Copa, even though thirty years have passed and it's now a disco. Sort of a Miss Haversham thing. Cool.

When I was in college, his new songs started moving down the Top 40 charts.

Freshman:
"Somewhere in the Night": You're my song, music too magic to end.
Wait, I thought Barry was music, and wrote the songs?

"Ships": We're just out of sight, like two ships that pass in the night.
He's saying this to his father as they walk along the beach?

Sophomore:
"I Don't Want to Walk Without You."
We already know that without you he can't smile, laugh, or sing, so walking is a logical extension.

"Bermuda Triangle." It's a region where planes disappear and weird things happen. So Barry sings about losing his girlfriend in the Bermuda Triangle, except he means she got stolen away by another guy.

Junior:

"I Made it through the Rain."And I found myself respected by others who -- got rained on, too.
At Augustana, we didn't say "I got rained on." We had an earthier expression.

I don't remember hearing any more Barry Manilow songs after that, but apparently he's been releasing an album every couple of years: Greatest Hits, Greatest Hits of All Time, A Swinging Christmas, Barry Manilow Sings Sinatra, Night Songs, Duets, The Essential Barry Manilow. And performing live. And not using the word "gay."

Oh, didn't I mention it? He sang about ladies, but he never was seen on the arm of a lady. Everyone assumed that he was gay, but he never said anything, for fear that his fans were homophobic.

According to People magazine, in 2014 he married his manager, Garry Keif (not pictured; this is just a random muscle hunk walking along the beach with him).

See also 12 Songs I Hated.

My Fair Lady (1956) is one of my all-time favorite musicals, but there is no beefcake, so I'll illustrate it with some nude shots of actors who have played Henry Higgins in their other roles..

It's about an elderly gay couple in London at the turn of the twentieth century, Henry Higgins and Colonel Pickering,

Henry, an instructor of elocution, claims that language is the key to social status; he bets Pickering that he can take anyone of the lower class, give them elocution lessons, and pass them off as nobility.

Ok, why not try Cockney flower girl Eliza Doolittle?

Henry doesn't have much use for women, even as friends. He is definitely a man's man.

Henry: Would you be slighted if I didn't speak for hours?
Pickering: Of course not!
Henry: Would you be livid if I had a drink or two?
Pickering: Nonsense.
Henry: Would you be wounded if I never sent you flowers?
Pickering: Never.
Henry: Well, why can't a woman be like you?

But he agrees. Eliza moves into their house, and the lessons begin.

Everyone thinks that Eliza and Henry have an amorous relationship. Henry's mother, who has suspected him of being gay for years, is delighted.

Eliza soon becomes indispensable in the household, keeping track of Henry' appointments and performing secretarial tasks. She even gets a little crush on him. Though he doesn't share her romantic inclinations, Henry begins to think of her as a friend and confidant. He expects that, when the contest is over, she will stay on.

I've grown accustomed to her face
She almost makes the day begin
I've grown accustomed to the tune
She whistles night and noon

Eliza wows London society at the contest, and is proclaimed "of noble birth." Everyone congratulates Henry, not Eliza, who concludes that she was being used an experiment, and leaves in a huff. But she is persuaded to return.

Henry, never one for apologies, or hugs, says "Eliza, where the devil are my slippers?" Curtain down. The end.

That's right -- no fade out kiss. There are hints that the two might become lovers, but they remain only hints, a heterosexual subtext in what is a rarity in musical theater, a plot about male-female friendship.

The 1964 movie adds a little more heterosexual subtext, but the original play, Pygmalion, by George Bernard Shaw, has substantially less.

Of course, heterosexual critics and audiences try their best to force the text into the trajectory of a heterosexual romance. Sometimes they don't even notice that Henry and Pickering are a gay couple.

Henrys: Jack Gwillam, Reg Livermore, Ian Richardson, Rex Harrison.

See also: Sherlock Holmes, Gay Icon and The Gay Connection in The Sound of Music.

In an old science fiction story by Robert Heinlein, a man discovers that the world is a lie. Every building in every city is a movie-set fake, constructed for his benefit and disassembled when he passes on.

His friends, family, and even passersby are actors, staging scenes for his benefit and then going home to memorize tomorrow’s script.

He uncovers the lie only after years of living in what he thinks is the real world.

One day he is scheduled to go away for the weekend. It is raining outside, so he opens his umbrella. Suddenly he realizes that he has forgotten something upstairs, and rushes up to get it. But it is not raining upstairs! “They” neglected to produce sufficient rain to cover the entire house, and in that small detail their entire deception was revealed.

I spent my childhood in the 1960s and 1970s in a lie of my own, told over and over again that I, like every boy on Earth, would spend my life yearning for feminine curves and smiles, that same-sex desire did not exist.

But I kept noticing momentary lapses, tiny mistakes, unguarded moments that revealed that it was not raining upstairs.

Captain Kangaroo and Mr. Green Jeans living together in the Treasure House.
Rich and Sean smiling at each other in The Secret of Boyne Castle.
Robbie Douglas singing about boys holding hands among the candles.

The first unguarded moment came very early in my life, when I was still a toddler. Probably in the summer of 1964, when I was 3 1/2 years old. We were living in Garrett, Indiana.

I woke up late at night, but I thought it was morning because it was light out, so I walked into the living room, where my parents were watching our old black and white tv. On the small, flickering screen, I saw two men. They looked like a cowboy and Indian, but in modern clothes. They were hugging.

My mother noticed a moment later and rushed me off to bed, but it was too late. I had seen two men who weren't swooning over women. They wanted men.

I never saw that "cowboy and Indian" again, and over the years I concluded that I had dreamed it. But recently I did some detective work with wikipedia and a phone call to my mother:

It was an episode of of The Real McCoys (1957-63, but rerun through 1964): a hayseed comedy about a farm family in rural California. The hugging "cowboy and Indian" were eldest son Luke (Richard Crenna) and farm hand Pepino (Tony Martinez).

Luke was married, and Pepino had girlfriends. They weren't "really" gay in the series.

But it doesn't matter. As I grew, and the what girl do you like interrogations began, and the you'll find the right girl someday pronouncements, the constant hysterical insistence that no boy has ever liked boys, not once in the history of the world, I thought of the hugging men.

A glimpse through the machinations and dissimulations and lies.

It wasn't raining upstairs.

In the early 1990s, everyone in West Hollywood was watching the Nickelodeon cartoon series Ren and Stimpy (1991-1995), a parody of the idiotic animated cartoons of the 1960s.

Including the puerile commercials, like "Log" and "Powdered Toast." Powdered Toast Man became a cultural icon of his own.

The main stars were Ren the viciously psychotic chihuahua and Stimpy the excessively stupid cat, who parodied cartoon duos like Ruff and Reddy and Yogi Bear and Boo Boo,

Except they were entirely obsessed with farting, nose-picking, and body fluids, often drawn in nauseatingly grotesque detail.

It was rather hard to watch, but we watched anyway, for the obvious gay subtexts.

Ren and Stimpy are presented as an overtly romantic couple. They share a house and a bed; they reminisce about their wedding, and Stimpy gives birth to a sentient fart, a product of their sexual union.

In some episodes, Stimpy is a stereotypical 1950's wife, passive and nurturing, responsible for cooking, cleaning, and ironing Ren's underwear.

Ren is socially and sexually the aggressor; in "Son of Stimpy", he tries to seduce Stimpy into the bedroom, but is rebuffed with "is that all you ever think about?"

Sexual activity is also implied when Ren's cousin Sven Hoek visits, and Stimpy is instantly attracted to him.

But there was something off about subtexts.

It took awhile to realize that they were deliberate, and vicious.

The hints of same-sex activity and same-sex romance are presented as gross, disgusting, hard to watch. Like sentient farts and "magic nose goblins."

Expected to elicit an uncomfortable laugh.
"Two dudes banging each other! Sick!"

Stories about animator John Kricfalusi's homophobia began to emerge. He made homophobic jokes and slurs constantly, and refused Robin Williams as a voice artist because "he's a fag."

After two seasons, he was fired -- not due to homophobia, due to his horrible working relationship with Nickelodeon.

In the summer of 2003, the Ren and Stimpy Adult Party appeared briefly on MTV. This time there was no question: the duo was presented as a gay couple.

In cartoons that were unwatchable, unfailing grotesque and disturbing. Ren and Stimpy live in a homeless man's mouth and then in a spittoon.

When I was living in West Hollywood in the 1990s, I used to work out at the Hollywood Spa with a ex-soldier named Marshall -- mid-twenties, shorter than me, very pale, with a military haircut and a hard, smooth chest.

After working out, we sometimes stopped at the Hamburger Hamlet -- maybe not the best option for after-the-gym, but the hamburgers and fries were amazing!

One night we were talking about old boyfriends, and Marshall revealed that he had never been with a guy before!

"Are you newly out?" I asked in surprise.
"No."

"Terrified of AIDS?" No.
"Self-conscious about your size?" No.
"Suffering from a urological condition?" No.

"None of those things. I'm just waiting for Mr. Right"

"I was raised to wait until my wedding night," Marshall explained. "But since we can't get married, I'll wait until we have a permanent commitment. Bound together for life. Forsaking all others."

"How do you handle dating? Most guys want you in the bedroom by the second or third date."

"If he really loves me, he'll wait," Marshall said firmly.

Has anyone waited so far? I thought. But I said: "So, no cruising? No tricks (one night stands)?"

"Oh, no. Sex is too precious a gift to waste on just anyone!"

"Um.. it's not that precious. Most guys our age are good to go two or three times a day."

Marshall reddened. "When it's true love, you never even look at another guy. Like you and Lee. You have a solid, loving relationship, right? None of this sharing nonsense?"

Actually, Lee and I often brought home a guy to "share." What right did Marshall have to imply that our relationship was therefore not solid or loving?

"Oh, sure," I lied. "I would never agree to sharing!"

"And sex with complete strangers in bathhouses! Sick!"

"That's nothing!" I said. "In Europe, every gay bar has a darkroom where you do things without even seeing what the guy looks like!"

"What sex-obsessed scumbag would want to do that? Disgusting!"

Lee and I loved the dark rooms of Europe. So now we were sex-obsessed scumbags?

I decided to do something with this self-righteous little twit -- like introduce him to the joys of cruising.

First I asked what kind of guys he found attractive.
"Well, guys like you, actually, No offense -- I know you're with Lee. But tall, goodlooking, nicely built, facial hair."

"I have just the right guy for you. Tall, goodlooking, nicely built, and a total romantic, looking for Mr. Right. He'll be at the Bear Party this weekend -- I'll wrangle you up an invitation."

"What's a bear party?"

"Oh, just a party where a lot of gay guys get together. There's swimming, snacks. Sometimes we watch a movie."

I didn't mention what went on in the dark room.

The bear party:
It was held in a big house in the Hollywood Hills. Socializing in a gigantic lounge that opened onto a patio with a swimming pool. Downstairs, the family room had mattresses scattered around a big fireplace, and two of the bedrooms were converted into dark room-mazes.

Lee, Marshall, and I walked through the lounge, scanning the crowd of bears, daddies, Cute Young Things, and semi-celebrities.

"I guess your guy hasn't arrived yet," I said. "Why don't we go in the pool while we wait? It's heated."

"I didn't bring a swimsuit."

"That's ok, neither did we." We led him out to the patio, showed him where to strip and place his clothes, and jumped into the pool.

Marshall was too busy gawking at the dozens of naked guys to notice that I moved his clothes perilously close to the side of the pool, where divers were sure to splash them.

After awhile, he did notice. He climbed out of the pool and stood naked and shivering in the cool October evening. "My clothes are soaked!" he yelled. "And I'm freezing to death!"

I handed him a towel. "Sorry about that. But don't worry -- Lee will go pop your clothes in the drier. They'll be good as new in 30 minutes. While we're waiting, let's go downstairs -- I hear there's a fireplace down there where you can get warm."

All of the mattresses in the family room were occupied with naked guys, in pairs and groups, grabbing and fondling and exploring.

"Hey, you didn't say this was an orgy!" Marshall whispered angrily.

"I had no idea! I've never gone downstairs before. But we don't need to do anything -- we can just sit and warm up. Come on --." I sat him down by the fireplace and put my arm around him. "Besides, there's nothing wrong with just looking."

So we looked, and looked, and Marshall became more and more obviously interested. He began stroking my knee. I reached out and grabbed a passing muscle bear, who smiled and tried to grope us.. Marshall declined, but I didn't.

"Lee doesn't mind you...doing that?" he whispered, eyes wide.

"Doing what? I was just being polite, not planning a romantic dinner for two."

"Just...being polite...."

"Sure...it's like a kiss. Just how you say 'hello' in gay circles."

Soon Marshall and I were kissing and groping.

When Lee appeared, he jumped away. "Sorry -- I'm...I mean...I mean, I know you're together."

"It's fine. Jeff likes to kiss. So do I," Lee added with a leer.

Soon they were kissing and groping.

The guy I had in mind for Marshall was a young gym rat with a short beard and a dusting of chest hair. But he never showed up.

Marshall didn't seem to notice.

He was busy in the dark room.

See also: Cruising the Orthodox Cute Young Thing.

When I was growing up in the 1960s and 1970s, heterosexual desire was assumed a constant, a universal of human experience. Same-sex desire was not only never mentioned, it could not be mentioned.

It not only didn't exist, it could not be conceived of.

It wasn't just a certainty that no boy on Earth had ever longed for the touch of another boy, not once in the history of the world.

We were unable to even think of the question.

Boys who obviously longed for boys?

They were looking for a buddy or a role model.

Boys who obviously didn't care for girls?

They were shy, or immature, or hadn't found the right girl yet.

Boys who were derided as "fairies" and "fags"?

Their interest in art and ballet, their inability to catch a ball, obviously represented deficient masculinity, but they desired girls as heartily as every other boy.

The question could not be asked, or thought of, or conceived of as a possibility.

It was easier to conceive of hobbits.

But there were hints, mysteries to mull over, to contemplate like zen koans, to puzzle out like cryptograms.

Men on tv or in movies who cared for each other, fought for each other, and walked side by side into the future.

Men who didn't marry, who lived alone or with other men in a house.

Men who hugged.

Who smiled at me, or touched me on the shoulder.

The sight of a muscular frame that filled me with inexplicable joy.

Small subtle signs.

Through the looking glass.
Take the red pill.
With a bit of a mind flip, you're into the time slip, and nothing can ever be the same.

Sometime in junior high, I read an one-page story in an Archie comic book. Big Ethel's friends criticize her for being indiscriminate, accuse her of accepting dates with anyone, anytime, anywhere.

On the contrary, Ethel says, she has very exacting standards.
1. Her date must be a boy.
2. He must be breathing.
3. He must be a slow runner (so she can catch him as he's running away in terror).

It was just a throwaway joke with the punch line of "slow runner." But I was mesmerized. There was something -- a logical fallacy -- a paradox -- a hint.

Slowly it dawned on me: Ethel has a rule about dating only boys.

Such a rule is necessary only if there are other groups of people whom she could date.

Does she only date teenage boys, and not adult men?
Or only date boys, and not girls?

Could a girl date a girl?
Could a boy date a boy?

It's not raining upstairs.

As social media makes everyone's life a fishbowl, an ongoing issue becomes: should I read this book or comic strip or see this movie after the author or director has made a homophobic comment?

There are really 3 questions:
1. Should my money go to help support someone who is homophobic?
2. Will other people think I'm homophobic, too?
3. Will the product contain homophobic scenes, situations, or comments?

I don't care about #1 and #2. After all, there are dozens or hundreds of people involved with every movie, tv show, and novel. Some are homophobic, some are not. My money is going to support all of them.

But I draw the line when they let homophobic scenes, situations, or comments leak into their products.

So why do I read Pearls Before Swine (2001-)?

It's an acerbic newspaper comic drawn by Stephan Pastis (top photo), who grew up in the Bay Area and worked as a lawyer in San Francisco before breaking into cartooning.

Not the background you'd expect in someone who is intensely homophobic.

The characters are crudely drawn stick figures:
1. The misanthropic Rat
2. The goodnatured Pig
3. The pompous Goat

4. Larry the Crocodile
5. Zebra, who is surrounded by predators ineptly trying to eat him.

There are frequent gay subtexts in the relationship between Rat and Pig, who live together and behave like romantic partners.

And between Zebra and his predators. Their lame attempts to eat him can easily be read as attempts at seduction.

But universal heterosexual desire and behavior is assumed throughout. "How about a man hug?" the lion asks, suggesting a hug between two heterosexual men with nothing homoerotic involved.

Rat claims that is impossible for men and women to be platonic friends, since the man will always want to have sex with the woman. Pastis later explained that he wanted to specify "straight men," but the syndicate nixed it, because "kids read the strip" and might ask their parents what "straight" meant,.

Traditional gender roles are promoted throughout. When Zebra is found with a People magazine, his lion friend tells him that the female lions (who do the hunting) will think he's "weak, effeminate. An easy mark."

Wait -- aren't those female lions strong and powerful?

When Pastis wants to identify a character as gay, he throws in antiquated stereotypes about fashion and show tunes. Once he congratulated himself over including an up-to-date reference to the movie Brokeback Mountain (but he was careful to specify that he would absolutely never, ever, ever see it himself)

Ok, Stephan, you don't like gay people. I get it.

There have been occasional "pansy" and "fairy" slurs, plus a pun on gay men as "queens."

And when Goat discovered Rat and Pig in bed together, and concludes that they are...you know, Rat screams in a homophobic agony that has to be seen to be believed.

So, after all that, why do I continue to read the strip, and buy the collections, including the big treasuries with Stephan Pastis' comments?

1. I like the idea of Pastis learning that gay people read his strip. They actually put their hands on the treasuries! Even worse, the treasuries are on a bookshelf in the room where they engage in their sickening, disgusting sexual acts!

2. There are plenty of unintentional gay subtexts.

3. I love the Croc accent.

4. There are a surprising number of muscular guys with their shirts off hanging around the strip. Pastis loves drawing hunks.

5. Bottom line: it's funny.

See also: R. Crumb, from Fritz the Cat to Gay Marriage.

With all of the movies, tv series, books, comic books, and toys surrounding Edgar Rice Burroughs' Tarzan since his first appearance in the October 1912 issue of All Story Magazine, it makes sense that someone would attempt a musical. One appeared in 2004, but based on the 1999 Disney animated feature, not on Burroughs.

The plot follows the movie: his parents shipwrecked on the coast of Africa and then killed, Tarzan is raised by apes. He and young naturalist Jane Porter meet and fall in love, in spite of the opposition of the ape tribe and the jealous interference of her guide, John Clayton. The ape-human conflict is resolved in a monumental battle, Clayton goes back to England, and Jane stays in the jungle with Tarzan.

It is very heterosexist, but there is one queer spot: Terk, Tarzan's best friend in the ape tribe, is a girl in the movie, but in the play, a flamboyantly feminine, gay-vague buddy whose emotional attachment to Tarzan matches anything Jane could provide.

You're one of a kind, I can't explain it.
You're kind of cool, in a wonderful way.
Struggling along for years and years, until I came along for you.

The original Broadway production, with Josh Strickland as Tarzan, played for 486 performances in 2006 and 2007. There have been many regional productions in the United States, plus international productions in the Netherlands, Germany, Sweden and the Philippines, with such stars as Anton Zetterholm, James Royce Edwards, and Isaac Gay (left, playing Tarzan in the Children's Theater of Charlotte, North Carolina).

It's a favorite of high school, college, and community theaters, giving audiences all over the world the opportunity to see major loincloth-clad hunkage.

When I was growing up in the Nazarene Church, I hated the hymns even more than the screaming, Bible-pounding sermons: we sang three during every service, nine per week, all chosen from the same 40 or 50 in the Nazarene hymnal.

They were all slow, creaking antiques with archaic language, deadly dull, repetitive lyrics, and simplistic marching-band melodies.

I will sing the wondrous story of the Christ who died for me.
How He left His home in glory, for the cross of Calvary.

Leaning, leaning, safe and secure from all alarms.
Leaning, leaning, leaning on the everlasting arms.

What can wash away my sins? Nothing but the blood of Jesus.
What can make me whole again? Nothing but the blood of Jesus.

And those are the liveliest. I felt like stripping off my Sunday suit and tie, just to mix things up a bit.

So it was a relief to go to NYPS (Nazarene Young People's Society) every Sunday before the evening service, where we got to sing "contemporary gospel," mostly songs by Bill Gaither:

If there ever were dreams that were lofty and noble, they were my dreams at the start.
And hope for life's best were the hopes that I harbored down deep in my heart.

The marketplace is empty, no more traffic in the street.
All the builders' tools are silent, no more time to harvest wheat.

Interesting images, a vocabulary larger than 10 words, and melodies that didn't put you to sleep. Not exactly Led Zeppelin, but a thousand times better than "Leaning, leaning, leaning."

Born in 1936 in northern Indiana, Bill Gaither worked as an English teacher before nearly single-handedly introducing contemporary musical styles into the staid tradition of Christian music.

At first he was met with resistance: parents refused to allow their children to attend his concerts, and pastors denounced his songs as Satanic. But by the 1970s, the new hip Jesus People-Campus Crusade crowd of evangelicals latched onto him, sometimes even the more progressive Nazarenes.

He performed in the Bill Gaither Trio, with his brother Danny and his sister Mary Anne and friend Gary McSpadden (the one with the whitest teeth).

Eventually their children, grandchildren, and various hot guys with bulges and very, very white teeth got into the act.

Ok, so what's the gay connection?

1. Did you see the way these guys hung all over each other?

2. Speaking of hung, live performances were always...um...interesting.

3. Bill Gaither singing "He touched me."

4. Mark Lowry, former member of the Gaither Vocal Band, is reputedly gay.

5. Marsha Stevens, the gay Christian songwriter who wrote the classic "For Those Tears I Died" (second left, with her lover Caroline Pino), appeared on Gaither Homecoming in 2002. Gaither said "I appreciate your ministry," apparently referring to her ministry to gay Christians.

6. Son Benjy Gaither wrote and performs three songs in Bridegroom (2013), about the legal and emotional hurdles faced by a gay man after his partner dies.

See also: The Sanderson Boys Get Naked.

Ok, my last hookup in a public place. Seriously.

Summer 1987: 26 years old, in grad school at the University of Southern California, I had a paper on "Boccacio and the Jews" accepted at a Medieval Studies Conference at the University of Notre Dame in Indiana.

I flew into Rock Island to visit my parents for a few days. Then they dropped me off on the way to visit their relatives in Garrett, Indiana, about an hour's drive away.

I loved Notre Dame! It was like a Medieval university, with archways, pillars, Gothic buildings, crucifixes, small side chapels, and statues of saints everywhere.

I expected Duns Scotus to walk by at any moment, discussing De consolatione philosophiae with Thomas Aquinas, while St. Hildegard of Bingen sang "O nobilissima viriditas!"

And did I mention the beefcake? Hot Catholic boys walking around, their scapulars gleaming against their hard brown chests, talking about the Bangles and Robocop and last night's baseball game like any students at any secular college.

There were no conference activities scheduled for Saturday night. Most of the participants went out to dinner with their husbands and wives and boyfriends and girlfriends. My roommate went to the Linebacker Lounge, hoping for a heterosexual pickup. My Gayellow Pages listed one gay bar in South Bend, but it was too far to walk. I was stuck on campus.

Lonely, bored, I wandered into the library, like I used to at Augustana on Saturday nights, when I felt overwhelmed by my friends' chants of "girls! girls! girls! let's get some girls! let's look at some girls!"

Nostalgic for Augustana, I walked into the stacks and browsed through the PD section (Scandinavian Literature). Nathan was sitting at an isolated study carrell, surrounded by thick books.

No, he wasn't naked. But he was cute -- 20 years old, short, slim, pale, with curly brown hair and a boyish face.

"Studying Norwegian?" I asked.

He looked up and smiled. "Oh -- no, Spanish. This was just a quiet place to study."

"Yo hablo Espanol tambien. Podimos discutir cosas intimas, si?"

"Whoa, whoa, I'm just first year!"

"Sorry. I'm in grad school in Spanish. In Los Angeles."

"Wow, Los Angeles -- that must be great! All the movie stars everywhere. Who's the biggest star you've met?"

Every heterosexual guy who found out that I lived in Los Angeles inevitably asked me about "hot girls." Nathan was gay!

"Met, or saw naked?" I asked with a leer. "I could tell you some things about Tom Cruise..."

Soon we were eating hamburgers in the Student Center, while Nathan told me about growing up in an all-Catholic neighborhood of Buffalo, New York, not knowing anyone who was black, Protestant, or gay. He came out during his freshman year, but he only knew three gay guys on campus, two students and a professor, and he had never had a boyfriend.

"There's lots of sex at Notre Dame," Nathan said. "I could get a dozen guys a night, if I wanted. But just once, I'd like one of them to say hello to me the next day." He reached under the table and took my hand. "Is that the way it is in Los Angeles, too? Lots of secret stuff with straight guys who are thinking about girls the whole time?"

"Oh, no. Everybody in West Hollywood is gay, so we don't need to trick with straight guys. We date. We fall in love. We have permanent partners."

He quickly moved his hand for a brief grope. "So, wanna make out?"

"Make out? Um...where? I have a roommate."

"Me, too. Let's take a walk."

He led me across the dark, quiet campus to a footpath that led around St. Joseph Lake. It was heavily wooded, but I could still see the Basilica of the Sacred Heart across the lake; St. Mary, who topped the Golden Dome, had her back turned to us.

Nathan pointed out the Moreau Seminary, a priests' residence.
And the Sacred Heart Parish Center.
And the Our Lady of Fatima shrine.
And the Solitude of St. Joseph, a retreat house for monks.

"This must be the most Catholic place on Earth!" I exclaimed. "Except maybe the Vatican."

"Yeah. And the woods are busy all the time. Not a lot of college kids, but priests, monks, professors. I swear I had a Cardinal one night." He grinned in the darkness. "Creepy old guy, but Italian, you know. Gigantic."

We started kissing and groping. Once we had to move aside as a fratboy and his girlfriend passed, giggling with erotic anticipation, but otherwise we were alone. Soon my pants were down.

It felt weird, being semi-naked in the summer night. It reminded me of when I was a kid, and Uncle Paul showed us how to pee against the side of the barn.

Nathan and I stayed in contact. The moment he graduated from Notre Dame in 1989, he fled to the gay haven of San Francisco, where he went to work at the Macy's in Union Square. It wasn't exactly the career his parents intended for him, but at least he was home.

See also: The House Full of Men

An orphan, the son of a mahout, Sabu Dastigir was riding a real elephant around Mysore when he was signed to star in Elephant Boy (1937), an adaptation of the Kipling tale "Toomai of the Jungle." Wearing only a dhoti and turban, his last name deleted to make him seem more savage, he became a media sensation. He was transplanted to England as a ward of the state and enrolled in school, but he found little time to study when he was receiving almost as much publicity as Johnny Weissmuller.

After a starring role in the pro-colonial Drum (1938), he was cast in The Thief of Bagdad (1940), set in the mythical past, an "Arabian fantasy in technicolor." In the 1924 silent version, Douglas Fairbanks plays a thief who wins a princess, but Sabu would not win any princesses. Instead, the spunky, enterprising thief Abu falls in love with Prince Ahmad (John Justin), who has been deposed by an evil uncle. The two escape together, steal a boat, and plan to sail downstream from Bagdad to the ocean, where they might find a safe haven in the wilderness. But then Prince Ahmad falls in love with a princess from another kingdom, and insists that they stay in Bagdad. The rest of the movie involves the prince ignoring, endangering, or simply abandoning Abu to make time with the princess. In the throws of unrequited love, Abu often looks hurt but never complains.

After starring in a loose adaptation of Kipling's Jungle Book (1942), in which Mowgli befriends both a native girl and a British officer but falls in love with neither, Sabu moved to Hollywood and signed on with Universal, where he starred as a dhoti-clad Jungle Boy in three Technicolor romances, all set in distant lands where no one had ever heard of Hitler. Sabu was in a rather precarious position. Although he (or rather, his body) was the top-billed star, he was irrelevant to the plots, about swarthy adventurer Jon Hall wooing cool, mysterious Maria Montez.

Sabu became a darling of World War II beefcake photos. His torso, v-shaped, barrel-chested, bronze-skinned, sculpted but softening slightly at the stomach, is often displayed in a bright light against a black backdrop, so that every muscle will stand out. The only problem is, he has no one to desire; in movie after movie, his same-sex loves go unrequited.

He courts Jon Hall's character aggressively -- hugging, grabbing, taking his arm, pressing against his chest, unbuttoning his shirt, mussing his hair, offering him flowers, chasing away other suitors with a barking "Get back, he's mine!" Hall's characters respond with amusement and affection, but no longing.

Sabu is captured once, and once he and Hall are captured together, but otherwise Hall is tied, struggling, about to be drowned or fed to cobras, and the jungle boy comes swinging down on a rope or galloping up on a white horse to save him.

And Sabu's characters never expresses any heterosexual interest. In Arabian Nights, Ali (Sabu) enters a harem to deliver a message, and the sex-starved girls engulf him, groping and fondling. He screams "Please stop! Stop it!" with shrieks of terror. They back off, bewildered, as if no man or boy had ever resisted their advances before.

At the end of each movie, Sabu practically shoves Hall's characters into the arms of Maria Montez. Then, after the final clench, they offer to adopt him. It seems absurd to emphasize Sabu's muscular physique, have him approach Jon Hall with blatant homoerotic desire, and then claim that he is just a little boy, not yet able to understand "adult" desires.

After the war, when Sabu was too old to play teenagers, he played heavily muscled, usually half-naked Jungle Men who get girlfriends. He appeared briefly in his own comic book title. Later in the 1950s, he invested in a real estate business and took whatever roles he could find that did not require wearing a loincloth.

Days after filming A Tiger Walks in 1964, Sabu died of a heart attack. He was in perfect health and only 39 years old. He left a legacy of superbly homromantic movies, and influenced two generations of dhoti-clad Jungle Boys, from Gunga in Andy's Gang, Hadji on Jonny Quest, Haji of the Elephants, and Raji on Maya, to the various Mowglis of the 1990s.

We've all had this problem:

You see the Man of Your Dreams at the gym or sitting by the pool, or at a cruise bar, standing by himself and glaring out at the world. Physical perfection! Exactly your type! But when you try to make eye contact, you get cold, deadly Attitude.

Or he with a group of friends, so lively and animated that he brightens the room. But when you go over and introduce yourself, he gives you a quick, dismissive "howsitgoing?" before turning away forever.

Chances are you'll move on, embarrassed, sad, angry, wondering "What's wrong with me?" Maybe you'll latch on to the nearest guy to boost your self-esteem.

Don't. Keep trying.

In 30 years of cruising and dating, I have not yet met a guy who was not available.

Literally. Every guy who is gay, single, and over 18 is available. Sometimes they just take a little work.

The key is to work on them without seeming obnoxious or desperate.

If you are interested in a hookup (not a romance).

1. It will take several weeks, so find some way to see him regularly.

2. Watch him for a few nights, noting how he interacts with other guys. This will give you an idea why he rejected you.

3. I was tired, not in the mood, or interested in someone else. Simply approach again.

4. You were too aggressive or not aggressive enough, too physical or not physical enough. Modify your technique and approach again.

5. You look like you're into sexual acts that I wouldn't enjoy. I get this one all the time. Approach and complain about how hard it is to find a top, or a bottom, or someone who is just into cuddling.

6. You're not the type I usually find attractive. This is the most common reason for rejection. It requires you to convince him that he actually does find you attractive.

7. Return with a wingman -- guys feel less threatened when they are approached by a pair.

8. Have your wingman play up the qualities that he will find attractive. Physical (exceptional beneath-the-belt gifts), social (maybe you're both recovering fundamentalists), or intellectual (maybe you speak five languages).

9. Approach him on another night, and seal the deal.

10. If he still rejects you, introduce him to a guy who is his type, and include yourself in the bargain. Few guys will turn down a chance to go home with a muscle god, even if it means sharing with the unattractive friend,

If you are interested in romance (not a hookup):

1. This will also take several weeks.

2. As with the hookup, watch him interact with other guys. Determine the reason he rejected you.

3. I was tired, not in the mood, or interested in someone else. Simply approach again.

4. You were too aggressive or not aggressive enough, too physical or not physical enough. Modify your technique and approach again.

5. I just got out of a bad relationship, or I'm not ready for a relationship. Pretend that you just want a casual hookup.

6. I want a relationship, and you acted like you wanted a hookup. Approach with a wingman, with whom you will discuss your romantic inclinations.

7. You're not the type I usually find attractive. This requires a different approach than with a hookup. Make friends with one of his friends and casually find out about his social, political, and intellectual interests.

8. Develop a sudden interest in golf, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Italian opera.

9. Soon you will find yourself set up on a date with him, without ever asking.

10. If that doesn't work, you may have to settle for a hookup only. But who knows? Hookups often develop into something more.

This only works if he's gay. If he's straight, see 15 Simple Rules for Cruising Straight Guys.

When I was a kid, all of the grown-up men I knew worked in the great smoking factory that my Dad called "the goddam hellhole." And all of the grown-up women were their wives, cooking and cleaning and raising their kids in the small square houses that stretched out to infinity in all directions. Everyone assumed that this was my destiny, too. When I grew up, I would spend every day in the goddam hellhole, and come home every night dog-tired and cursing to my small square house, where my wife and kids would be waiting.

Most of the tv programs I watched offered an escape: Gilligan and the Skipper didn't work in a goddam hellhole, they were sailors, and Robbie Douglas' Dad and Uncle Charlie lived happily together without wives. But if I got up too early on Saturday morning, or dared to watch tv on Sunday, a series of badly animated cartoons pushed obedience to Big Brother:

Tooter Turtle longs to escape his dreary pond in the woods, so he asks Mr. Wizard to hook him up with a new job: firefighter, lumberjack, pilot, astronaut, college student. Catastrophe strikes, and Mr. Wizard returns him to reality with his chant: "Twizzle, twozzle, twozzle, twome, time for this one to come home."

Tennessee Tuxedo, a penguin voiced by Don Adams of Get Smart, thinks he is just as good as any human, so he and his friend Chumley get jobs as weathermen or movie producers, or start a rock band. Catastrophe strikes. Inevitably. The theme song tells us: "He will fail, as he vies for fame and glory." (Later it was changed to the less depressing "he may fail").

The message was clear: don't dream, don't aspire. Conform. No escape is possible.

Commander McBragg, a retired British army officer, told an unwilling visitor about his adventures in India, Africa, China. But was he telling the truth, or making it all up?

At least they didn't have wives. But the superhero Underdog (voiced by Wally Cox) had a girlfriend, Sweet Polly Purebread. And his alter ego wasn't a cool journalist, like Clark Kent, or a millionaire, like Bruce Wayne -- he was a shoe shine boy!

The cartoons were produced by Total Television. Some originally appeared on King Leonardo and His Short Subjects (1960), and some on Tennessee Tuxedo and His Tales (1963) or Underdog (1964), but by the time I was watching, they were relegated to the ghetto of early Saturday or Sunday mornings.

At least they were better than Rocky and Bullwinkle.

The Desi in the1960s boy band Dino, Desi, and Billy was Desi Arnaz Jr., of course, and the Dino was Dean Paul Martin (left), the 13-year old son of Rat Packer Dean Martin. Dino was very rich, very famous, and very talented, but not very focused. He was good at so many things that he couldn't decide on one.

After his group disbanded, Dino played professional tennis and semi-pro football; he got his pilot's license; he studied medicine and joined the National Guard. He started calling himself Dean Paul instead of Dino. He changed into a blond. He developed a spectacular physique.

And he acted, of course. Not a lot -- he was too busy. 7 movies, mostly in roles as playboys or a woman's illcit lover; some guest spots on tv shows (including his Dad's Dean Martin Comedy Hour), and some "as himself" appearances on talk shows and game shows.

Dean's least heterosexist role was in Misfits of Science (1985-88), part of the mid-1980s fad for science fiction comedies (others included Automan, Max Headroom, and The Greatest American Hero). He played Dr. Billy Hayes, a young scientist who travels around in an ice cream truck with a group of mutants with weird powers. 15 episodes appeared during the 1985-85 season, and another in 1988. A lot of homoerotic buddy-bonding (notice the number of people who can't keep their hands to themselves in this photo), and not a lot of heterosexual machinations.

Dean was married to women twice, briefly, but rumor has it that he enjoyed the company of men and women both. He appeared in a 1979 issue of After Dark, the interview-and-revealing photo magazine aimed primarily at an audience of gay men.

He died in 1987 when the small plane he was flying crashed. His son, Alexander Martin, is also an actor.

See also: The Gay Rat Pack

Spring 1982: 36 Hours of Cruising at Lambert International Airport

The King and I: Bare Chests and Shaved Heads

Scary, Heterosexist Ads of the 1960s

Richard Simmons: Fitness Guru Who Has Never Said the Word "Gay"

Maxwell Caulfield: Responding to Gay Rumors with Homophobia

Sausage Sighting #6: the Homophobic Student in the Shower

I Spent My High School Years with Barry Manilow

My Fair Lady: A Gay Couple in Edwardian England

Spring 1964: Two Men Hugging

Ren and Stimpy: Nickelodeon's Disgusting Gay Couple

Fall 1994: Marshall the Virgin

Spring 1973: My Date Must Be a Boy

Why I Read "Pearls before Swine," Homophobia and All

Tarzan, the Stage Musical: Major Loincloth-Clad Hunkage

The Gaithers: The Gay Connection in Christian Gospel Music

Summer 1987: Notre Dame, a Catholic Boy, and a Summer Night

The Original Jungle Boy and His Boyfriend

10 Easy Steps to Getting Any Guy

Totalitarian Television: Underdog and Friends

Dean Paul Martin: Bisexual Rat Pack Kid