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Fall 1988: Picking Up Russian
I remember every class I took as an undergraduate at Augustana College (1978-1982), from Fiction Writing, which convinced me not to become a novelist, to Paleontology, taught by the professor with the...
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Hutch Dano: From Teen Idol to Bear
In this picture, Hutch Dano has the fey, androgynous, sultry look of a Tiger Beat centerfold from the 1970s. One expects to see Shaun Cassidy and Donny Osmond on the next page. And his name is...
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Jackson Odell: Gay-Positive Teen Idol
Speaking of teen idols growing up, have you run into Jackson Odell lately? When he was 14 years old, he filmed Judy Moody and the Not Bummer Summer (2011), based on the series of children's novels....
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The Penis Festival of Greece
In the Greek Orthodox Calendar, "Clean Monday" is the start of Lent, the season where believers give up something important to them to commemorate Christ's sacrifice on Easter. In the village of...
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The Naked Gods of Southern India
When I was visiting my friend Viju in India, I saw an occasional guy walking around naked, and figured he was an ascetic of some sort. Turns out that most of the naked guys belong to Jainism, one of...
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The King and I: Bare Chests and Shaved Heads
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...
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Saturday Night Live and the Ambiguously Gay Bill Murray
Chevy ChaseIn the spring of 1976, during my sophomore year at Rocky High, my friend Darry started talking about a new late-night tv program, with musical numbers and comedy sketches."A variety show!" I...
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The Inbetweeners: Classic Britcom About Homophobic Teens
The U.S. usually wins the prize for homophobic comedy. On tv, we have Family Guy, American Dad, Working, Two Broke Girls, The Game, and everything on Comedy Central. In movies, everything with Seth...
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Timothy Leary, the Homophobic Guru of the 1960s Counterculture
The Youth Counterculture of the 1960s turned on to psychedelic drugs, especially LSD, as a means of achieving higher consciousness and recognizing your connection with all beings. LSD trips were like...
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John Looney, the Gay Ganster of Rock Island's Past
Growing up in Rock Island, we had our share of local celebrities, but not only heroes -- anybody who we could use to fight our image as a "hick town" surrounded by cornfields. So not only writers...
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Death of Peter Pan: Michael and Rupert Fall in Love
I've seen many tv and movie versions of Peter Pan, and not liked any of them. A dog working as a nanny? Sewing a shadow onto someone's feet? A boy wanting a little girl to become his "mother"?...
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Christian Tessier: The Six-Pack Abs of Nickelodeon
The Tomorrow People (1992-1995), an early Nickelodeon sci-fi series about mutant teenagers (a remake of the British version), starred Christian Tessier as a super-genius named Megabyte.The 14-year old...
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Naadam: The Mongolian Festival of Manly Arts
When I was at Indiana University (1982-84), I was ostensibly studying for a M.A. in English, but there were so many options that I ended up rushing around all over campus, taking courses in Mandarin...
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Stan Brock: Man-Mountain, Adventurer, and Philanthropist
When I was a kid, we were in church ever Sunday from 9:30 to 12:00, and again from 6:30 to 9:00, with exceptions only during our annual family vacation or when we were sick. And don't try that "stomach...
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Fall 1970: Mouth-to-Mouth Resuscitation
Looking back to my childhood in Rock Island, it's hard to believe that we crammed so much activity into the 12 weeks of summer:Camping in Michigan or MinnesotaNazarene summer campVisiting relatives in...
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GBF: Gay Teen Movie Gets an R Rating
Hollywood is the last bastian of overt homophobia, where producers, directors, writers, and actors can blissfully say "Everybody hates gay people. Let's have our characters use lots of homophobic...
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Adam DeVine: Amazing Physique, Homophobic Past
If you've been watching Modern Family, you're probably wondering about Andy, the sweet, cheerful, ultra-feminine guy with a incredible -- repeat, incredible -- physique that Gloria hires as a nanny for...
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The Pearl: Nude Pearl Divers in Junior High English Class
When I was in high school and college, professors mostly ignored John Steinbeck (1902-1968). He wasn't from the Midwest, his stories were mostly set in California, and besides, he wrote screenplays,...
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Fall 1997: An Estonian Mountain Climber Invites Me to His Room
I was very busy in the fall of 1997, my first semester at Stony Brook University on Long Island. I was taking three graduate seminars in sociology; teaching an adjunct class at Hofstra University, 2...
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Cristian Letelier: From Romance Novel Model to Swishbuckler
Did you know that there are models who specialize in the covers of romance novels? It takes a special look -- they have to be super-buffed yet soft and sensitive, exotic yet down-to-earth, rebels...
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