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

 

The Argentine tv series I Would Rather Die, Prefiero la Muerte (2026),  just dropped on Amazon.  Yet more zombies?  There'd better be a fascinating new twist, and some gay characters.

Scene 1: Archie  (Diego Bernal) is chased through a convenience store by Mr. Rodriguez, a zombie.  Flashback to pre-zombie times, coming in with Goth Girl Kris, "the sister I never had."  Pre-zombie Rodriguez is "a pervert," but he makes the best strawberry popsicles in Mendoza."

Mendoza, population 115, 000, is a "welcoming, safe, queer-friendly" city in the wine country of Western Argentina, known for its annual Vendimia Para Todos, a LGBTQ wine festival.  

Left: Argentine nude dude.

The pervert demonstrates his creepy intent by caressing Arch's hand as he takes the money.

Creepy gay or creepy pedophile?  Archie is in high school, so 16-18.  Generally pedophiles like younger teens or children, but Argentina never had a sodomy law, and got gay marriage in 2010, so I'll probably say "pedophile."

Cut to class, where Arch tells us that he's a straight A student, but fails at making friends and winning the Girl of His Dream.  She's...sigh...Brenda!  Close up of her hair blowing in the wind, even though they're inside.  Heterosexual identity at Minute 2.25. Unfortunately, she's dating Domino, an obnoxious jock who no one could possibly be interested in, except that it's necessary for the plot.  Wait -- they're on a break.  This is your chance, buddy -- go for it!  

Scene 2: The Girl drops by to invite Archie to a party that her Obnoxious Jock Ex (Leonardo Avila) is holding, but he refuses.  She just asked you for a date, Arch.  That's a pretty blatant sign of interest. Say yes or give up and find someone else. 

Goth Girl Kris agrees: "Find someone else, so you can stop being a virgin, and people will like you."  Apparently "virgin" is the worst thing you can be in western Argentina.  

Next the Obnoxious Jock grabs Archie. "The Girl invited you to my party, but don't come.  We may be on a break, but I hate you regardless, because it's required for the plot."

Scene 3: After school, Archie drops by the convenience store.  If there's a creepy pedophile or gay guy inside,  why go there?  Uh-oh, Mr. Rodriguez has zombified!

The door is right there, Arch Baby.  Just run away!  "No, I think I'll run into the storeroom."  

Left: There are several Diego Bernal actors out there.  This might be our Archie.

Mr. Rodriguez follows, trips, and gets his leg impaled on a pole -- which protrudes through his thigh like a phallus.  He's aroused, got it.  Some heavy-handed homophobic symbolism.  Anyway, he bites Archie, thus recruiting him into the homos*xual...I mean, zombie lifestyle.

Scene 4: The next day at Tae Kwon Do class, Archie chats with Leopoldo (Gabriel Fritsch de Anda), who shows him something disturbing about Goth Girl Kris.  Archie rushes to school and confronts the Obnoxious Jock.  Turns out that he posted semi-n*de pictures.  I thought it would be a lesbian "slur."  "Leave her out of our beef!"

"Nope! I'm going after you and your friends, because my palatable hatred is required for the plot."

More after the break

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 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.

Luke Kokotek: The young Will from "Stranger Things" has gay friends, throws shade. With Noah bulge and Croatian cocks

 

Instagram recommeded The Luke Ellison Kokotek, "you can call me Bear," an actor known for playing the young Will Byers in two 2025 episodes of Stranger Things.  

Episode 5.1: The young Will, hiding in the Upside Down parallel world, is captured by the monstrous Vecna.

Episode 5.4: Vecna makes the teenage Will relive the capture and says that it made him realize that he could kidnap more kids and use them to take over the outer world.

That's enough for Luke to be interviewed on podcasts and invited to a lot of fan conventions, and to become friends with Noah Schnapp (the teenage Will).  Luke's mom writes: "Thanks for always being a call away...our family loves you."

Left: Noah Schnapp's bulge, in case you haven't seen it recently.

Will drops some hints about being gay in earlier seasons, and finally comes out in Episode 5.7.  Noah himself came out in 2023.  Could they have cast a gay kid to play the Young Will?

It wouldn't hurt to check.

Luke was born in Chattanooga, Tennessee, the youngest of the five children of May Miles H., "a beekeeper, biologist, teacher, animal rescuer, chess junkie, and actress."  I haven't found her on the IMDB, so she must be in the theater.

All five of her children are actors.  The oldest, Finnan, is over 18 and rather cute.

Their last name is Croatian, a diminuitive of kotek, "cock," as in "rooster." 

So: "Small cock."  It's not that small. (Explicit after the break).

Luke has nine acting credits on the IMDB, beginning in 2023 with 115 Grains, about a police officer dealing with the trauma of his past.  Pilot Bunch co-stars.

In 2024:

Game of Heirs.  No description available, but it's not a Game of Thrones parody.

Scared to Death.  Some ghost hunters stake out an abandoned children's home, where the ghosts of the kids terrorize them.

More after the break.