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Pretend You Don't Notice the Wrestling Singlets of Baker University
I want to know who designed these wrestling uniforms. Didn't they realize that we can see everything God gave these players, and more?Not that I'm complaining. But geez, as the old queens in West...
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Was Cousin Buster Gay?
When I was growing up in Rock Island, we visited my parents' family in Indiana two or three times a year, and I always wanted to spend the night with my Cousin Buster, who lived in the Trailer in the...
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The Most Heterosexist, Tone-Deaf, Annoying Song of All Time
For the last three days, every time I've gone to the gym, the local Top 40 radio station has bleated out the most annoying song in history. I remember it from a few months ago, but I thought its moment...
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Firesign Theatre: We're All Bozos on This Bus
The youth counterculture of the 1960s listened to Boomererson Airplane, Donovan, -- and the Firesign Theatre.They were a comedy troupe consisting of Phil Austin, Peter Bergman, David Ossman, and...
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The Beefcake of the Phantom Zone: Moriarty, New Mexico
Who's going to name a town Moriarty, after the evil criminal mastermind in the Sherlock Holmes mythos? It's like naming a town Lex Luthorville. Do residents walk around twirling their moustaches and...
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Covington Catholic High School
The administration of Covington Catholic High School is in trouble after video emerged online of some of its students wearing "Make America Great Again" gear disrupted the Indigenous Peoples March in...
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The Wizard of Id
During the early 1950s, Brant Parker, a political cartoonist living in Binghamton, New York, befriended high school student Johnny Hart, and encouraged him to submit his cartoons to magazines. Hart...
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The Tripods on TV
John Christopher's Tripod series (The White Mountains, The City of Gold and Lead, The Pool of Fire) was one of my childhood favorites, so I eagerly watched the 1984-85 British TV series when it...
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Top 10 Beefcake Horror Movies: The 1970s
Horror movies in the 1970s upped the blood, guts, and overall grossness content to compete with tv, but unfortunately backed away from the nonstop nudity of the swinging 1960s. Still, there were...
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Star Trek
Star Trek (1966-69) represents the beginning of a franchise that eventually encompassed 6 tv series, 12 movies, and an infinite number of tie-in novels, comic books, games, and toys. But at the time I...
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Beach Volleyball
Beach volleyball has a sleazy, heterosexist reputation, all about girls in bikinis jiggling while men leer. But actually it's a legitimate sport, more difficult than regular volleyball because the...
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Shawn Stevens: The Teen Idol that Failed
In the 1970s, Shawn Stevens had the soft, cuddly, puppy-dog cute, aggressively feminine presence that pushed Shawn Cassidy, Leif Garrett, Scott Baio, and many others into teen idol heaven. Why did he...
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Doug Davidson: Failed Teen Idol turned Soap Superstar
Speaking of forgotten teen idols, who is this "Doug Davidson" photographed next to Shawn Stevens as the latest Tiger Beat fave raves circa 1978?According to IMDB, the 64-year old actor's most memorable...
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What's a Peddie, and Why Did They Name a School after It?
I found this photo with the name Peddie School attached, and thought, "What the heck is a peddie?"Must be British slang. They're always shortening words, like "Uni" for "University" and "Telly" for...
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Savage Sam: Disney Adventure Kid
The Disney Adventure Boy was usually a teenager (Tommy Kirk, left, James MacArthur, Roger Mobley, Kurt Russell,Jeff East) who demonstrated his all-American masculinity by taking off his shirt (as...
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Waltons: The Gay Connection
It's been off the air for over 30 years, but people still point to The Waltons (1972-81) as emblematic of "good tv" about "family values," by which they mean it had no bad words, parental disrespect,...
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"Once Upon a Time" in Camelot
I'm ten episodes into Season Five of Once Upon a Time, about fairy tale and legend characters interacting in real life, and it's a heavy slog. I was looking forward to the heroes (Snow White, Prince...
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Tracking Down My Jewish Cousins
When I was growing up in Rock Island, almost every kid in my class had grandparents or great-grandparents from the Old Country, so"where you came from" was a constant classroom assignment."Bring some...
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The Town Named Man-ville
Growing up, I spent a week every summer at Manville, the Nazarene church camp in the wilds of eastern Illinois. I have a lot of bad memories: boring baseball every afternoon, endless sermons every...
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Norwood Young America: Homophobia in the Heart of Minnesota
Minnesota tends to be a liberal state, sort of. It only repealed its sodomy law in 2001, and an attempt to do the same for fornication (sex outside of marriage) resulted in strengthening the law....
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