Clik here to view.
A Catholic Priest in Love: The Little World of Don Camillo
During my sophomore year in high school, I became obsessed with all things Catholic. Most likely it was due to a "forbidden fruit" thing: Nazarenes thought that Roman Catholics were the epitome of...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Naked in Antartica
Before global warming started melting the ice cap and threatening to kill us all, Antartica was the coldest place on Earth, and it still gets rather cold. On the coast, temperatures average around -40...
View ArticleClik here to view.
The Gay Erotic Postcards of Pops Pullum
Born in 1887, William A. Pullum grew up in Camberwell, a poor neighborhood of south London. He was a slim, sickly boy, suffering from tuberculosis and a host of other ailments. As part of his...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Spectros: Scary Japanese Ghosts, Drag Queens, and Muscle Shirts
Talk about high concept: Spectros:"A group of teens become involved in a conflict between Japanese Shinto gods and Brazilian witchcraft."It's set in Liberdade, a neighborhood of Sao Paulo with a large...
View ArticleClik here to view.
13 Reasons to Hate Dartmouth -- Ugh -- College
There aren't many places that I hate, but I hate Dartmouth --ugh -- College in Hanover -ugh -- New Hampshire. Even though I've never been there.When I was studying for my stalled Ph.D. in Comparative...
View ArticleClik here to view.
"Star Trek: Discovery: Any Gay Characters or Bicep and Bulges?
I've seen every episode of the original Star Trek series, The Next Generation, Deep Space Nine, Voyager, and Enterprise, over 500 hours of television, plus several of the Star Trek movies. I've...
View ArticleClik here to view.
A Dream Weekend in Kearney, Nebraska
"I want you to come to Kearney, Nebraska on December 1st for the Varsity KHS Invite."I don't know what that is, but I might take him up on the offer if:1. He shaves off that stupid moustache.2. The...
View ArticleClik here to view.
How to Pick Up Bodybuilders in Nine South Asian Languages
1. TamilSouth Asia is dominated by India, a land of 1.3 billion people speaking over 700 languages, mostly Indo-Aryan in the north (Hindi, Bengali, Punjabi, Assamese) and Dravidian in the South (Tamil,...
View ArticleClik here to view.
TV in 1980 vs TV in 2020
I now have an index page for "Modern TV." There are a lot of shows. I do one or two per week, sometimes after watching a single episode, sometimes after watching all 8. Which leads me to ruminate on...
View ArticleClik here to view.
The Swimmers of Calvin University: Touch Not, Taste Not, Handle Not
When I was in high school, back in the late 1970s, my parents forbade me from applying to a secular university -- full of Catholics and atheists! I'd be brainwashed! It had to be a religious...
View ArticleClik here to view.
The Pretty Dudes of "Pretty Dudes"
Pretty Dudes, on Amazon Prime, is Friends for gay men: five dudes have relationship and job trouble, mostly relationship. And talk about diversity: they are straight, gay, bi, and pan, black, white,...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Why Is Bomba the Jungle Boy Always Tied Up?
Johnny Sheffield (1931-2010) spent the first 24 years of his life being filmed in a loincloth cut to the thigh, first as "Boy," son of Tarzan Johnny Weissmuller in 8 movies (1939-1947), and then as the...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Scared to Death Ten Times in Vidor, Texas
Vidor, Texas, population 10,500, is a suburb of Beaumont in far east Texas, near the Louisiana border, where the air is hot and damp as a sauna, it smells like oil all the time, and every second car is...
View ArticleClik here to view.
A Weekend with Canadian Gaelic and Caber Tossing
Scots Gaelic is the most endangered of the Celtic languages.with only about 40,000 native speakers, and one of the most difficult to learn, even for those with a working knowledge of Irish or Welsh.How...
View ArticleClik here to view.
10 Things I Hate About the Wizard of Oz
From 1959 to 1991, The Wizard of Oz, was shown on tv every year, on CBS until 1968, and then on NBC.Nazarenes weren't allowed to go to movie theaters, but watching movies on tv was fine, so our parents...
View ArticleClik here to view.
"Dropping the Soap": A Soap Opera Parody with Gay Characters
I was turned off immediately by the title Dropping the Soap, which alludes to the homophobic myth that prison is undesirable solely because gay men will rape you there. But it originally streamed on...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Athens, Georgia: Post-Gay but Pro-Queer
Recently the Mama's Boy Restaurant in Athens, Georgia got into a dispute with its neighbor when one of its employees took down a pro-Trump sign that straddled the two properties. People were thinking...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Steve Sandvoss: From Gay Mormon to Goat Farmer
I liked Max Sandvoss back when he was Steve: Latter Days (2003) is #3 on my list of the 10 Gay Movies I Love. Maybe because he was playing a Mormon missionary, and I have a thing for clergy-types.But...
View ArticleClik here to view.
The Boys and Spuckies of South Boston
South Boston or "Southie," 3 miles from Boston Common (15 minutes by car), is traditionally a working-class Irish neighborhood (the site of Boston's St. Patrick's Day Parade). It's also the site of the...
View ArticleClik here to view.
When Jim Rockford Went to Bed with a Boy
I have had this conversation more times than I can count.Guy I'm Trying to Pick Up: Where are you from?Me: Rock Island, Illinois.Guy I'm Trying to Pick Up: Rockford! You must have loved The...
View Article