Jake Connelly: Delightful Derek from "Stranger Things" hugs Steve, dates Young Will. With a nude footballer and some ginger chub dicks.

 

Luke Kokotec, who I profiled earlier, notes that his date at the Stranger Things premiere in December 2025 was Jake Connelly, who played Derek. I thought I'd check to see if it was an actual date, or just two buddies who attended on-set school together. 

Maybe it depends on who you ask.

Jake was born in Arlington Heights, Illinois, a suburb of Chicago, and appeared in commercials like "Two for one windows at Feldco!" and "Don't let your roof ruin your summer!", and a short, Between the Silence, about two elderly ladies becoming friends. Showrunner Matt Duffer saw him in a furniture commercial and cast him as one of the next generation of kids who fight the evil Vecna in Stranger Things, Season 5.

He starts out as Dipshit Derek, a bully who harasses Holly Wheeler (younger sister of the first generation's Mike, played by Finn Wolfhard).  He trips people, yells at his mother, and tells various kids and adults to "suck my fat one." 

Left: Artist's interpretation of Mike.

That was supposed to be the end of his character, but the Duffers were so impressed that they gave him a plot arc: he is being groomed by a mysterious being called Mr. Whatsit.

Mike and his friends discover that Mr. Whatsit is actually Vecna in disguise, and recruit him into the battle.  He becomes a hero and rescues Holly, earning the new name Delightful Derek.  Rescuing a girl is a hetero cliche.

When Vecna is finally defeated, Derek hugs Steve Harrington (Joe Keery) and waves excitedly at Mike, whom he calls his "best friend."  Two queer codes.

In the epilogue, he attends Will and Mike's high school graduation (sitting with Holly), then plays Dungeons and Dragons with the new generation (a boy and two girls). Two hetero codes.

A fan favorite, Delightful Derek  goes to a lot of conventions, and is interviewed on a lot of podcasts. He was a guest on The Tonight Show.  His home town decreed February 17th "Stranger Things Day."  In May 2026, he got to throw out the first pitch at a Cubs game.

 

 

With fitness trainer Chase Bandolik. I thought they were pretending to be a romantic couple, but apparently Chase does the "I got invited," "I didn't" stuff with many people.  I don't know what it means.

.
Derek's next project, Holiday Touchdown: A Bears Story,  air in December 2026,  It's a Christmas romcom with Robert Buckley as a firefighter whose grandmother has attended 500 Chicago Bears football games (NFL teams generally play 17 games per season, so that's 30 years worth).  He falls for the female reporter assigned to the story.  Presumably Jake plays one of their sons.

More after the break. Caution: Explicit.

"I Would Rather Die": Zombie outbreak in Argentina, with a retro teen nerd plotline, some obnoxious jocks, and some Mendoza dicks

This summary is not available. Please click here to view the post.

Rick Gomez: What has Endless Mike of "Pete & Pete" been doing lately? Is Steve Zahn his boyfriend? Is he really endless? With Rick d*ck

Remember this?

Hey smilin' strange
You're lookin' happily deranged
Can you settle to shoot me?
Or have you picked your target yet

It's the theme song of The Adventures of Pete and Pete (1991-95), the first of the Nickelodeon "adults are insane" teencoms.  Two brothers, both named Pete, negotiate the weirdness of the city of Wellsville, where no one is really well. 

A bowling ball has mystical powers.

A garage band vanishes overnight.

Little Pete accidentally erases baseball from existence.

I liked Rick Gomez as Endless Mike, who knows more about the town's weirdness than he lets on.  He sometimes bullies and humiliates Big Pete, and sometimes acts as his ally and protector. You might even find a gay subtext in their interaction.

No one ever explains why his name is Endless.  Maybe the teenage boy is a manifestation of a transdimensional being who exists beyond time and space as we perceive it.

Or maybe he's got a big one.

When Pete & Pete ended, I moved on to other things, and thought about Endless Mike rarely, if at all.  And the years passed.

Recently we started watching Silo (2023-), a dystopian science fiction series where 10,000 people, all of surviving humanity (that they know of) live in a huge underground helix.  They can't go outside, or ever open the single door, because the air is poisonous (or so they are told). 

And there in the cast list was Rick Gomez!

He plays Patrick Kennedy, a maintenance worker with a dead wife (of course) who sells strictly-forbidden relics from the Before Time.  He starts to suspect that they are being lied to (they are, sort of), and joins the Resistance.  

Right: Steve Zahn plays Solo, who survived a rebellion in his own silo, where everyone went outside and died.  They buddy bond in Season 3.

A few years have passed, but you can still see that insoucient, all-knowing smile.  

I wanted to check what Rick has been doing since 1995, whether he is actually gay in real life, and if he is really endless.

Searching for "Rick Gomez," "actor," and "nude" yields a lot of photos of Rick kissing guys and showing his butt (left) in at least three movies, but it turns out to be a Google Images misdirection.  The gay/nude actor is Ricardo Gomez.

Our Rick starred in five tv series between Pete & Pete and Silo.

1. Hitz (1997), about workers at a record company (remember records?)

2. Band of Brothers (2001), about World War II soldiers. Rick plays George Luz, who does some buddy-bonding during the War, but then returns to Rhode Island and does the married-with-children bit.

Not much of gay interest so far.

More after the break

"The Terrors of Jordan Mendoza" mostly involve guys hitting on him. With Marc Maron's butt and a lot of Pinoy cocks

 

The Terrors of Jordan Mendoza, written, directed, and starring Jordan Mendoza playing himself, popped up on Hulu.  He mentions pranking a girlfriend so he must be straight or bi, but he's produced episodes of the gay-inclusive Chad Powers, Big Mouth, and Neon, and the gay-themed Overcompensating. There may be some inclusivity.

Scene 1: Jordan calls Steve Buscemi to ask him to be the host of his new sketch show illustrating his nightmares.   Steve refuses, so Jordan guilts him: "This will be the first ever Asian sketch show.  It'd be racist if you didn't do it."  

Is that your boyfriend sitting at the table in your back yard, buddy?

Cut to Steve introducing the show a la Twilight Zone: "You're about to enter a realm of desire, dread, fantasy, dreams, and nightmares, hopes and horrors."

Before starting on the dreams, let's take a look at Jordan's bulge.

And a nude Pinoy guy. 

First Dream: Jordan is a bank robber bank holding five customers hostage. The police bring in Steve as a hostage negotiator.  

Jordan's demand: "I want to be a famous snake."  Steve tries to clarify what he means, but he gets upset and starts shooting people. They start naming famous snakes, like Kaa from The Jungle Book, but Jordan changes his mind: now he wants to be a hostage negotiator.

More after the break.  Caution: Explicit.