Robert's Hot/Hung Photos, Part 1: Burgers, bondage, butts, an oral lesson, and the love of his life

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Wes Stern (sigh): Was the cutest teen idol of the 1970s gay, or just pretending? With bonus n*de Sal Mineo and Dustin Hoffman

 

Sigh.  Isn't this most groovy, ginchy, dreamy, outta sight dude to ever have his name written amid little hearts in a chemistry notebook?

Er...I mean he's a hot snack.

Wait -- not Bobby Sherman.  I meant his boyfriend, Wes Stern (sigh).

In the spring of 1971, 27-year old Bobby Sherman was probably the #1 teen idol in the country,or maybe #2 to David Cassidy of The Partridge Family.  He had released 10 albums and 23 singles, includiing hits "Easy Come Easy Go" and "Julie Do Ya Love Me."  His shirtless photos were plastered all over the teen magazines, actually more often than David Cassidy's.  And he had displayed acting talent as the "allergic to girls" beach movie star Frankie Catalina on an episode of The Monkees, plus two seasons as Troy Bolt on Here Come the Brides (1968-70).

The minds of ABC executives started churning.  Why not give him his own tv series?  He could play "himself," and sing a different number every week.  Surefire hit, right?

They based the premise on the singer/songwriter team Boyce and Hart.  Bobby would play Bobby Conway, a struggling singer. They just needed an awkward, "girl-shy" dude to provide the comic relief and tight jeans as his nerdish lyricist Lionel Poindexter.

Thousands of groovy dudes showed up for open auditions, but Bobby really, really liked 23-year old Wes Stern (sigh).  

Soon they were seen together at Hollywood hot spots, preparing for the deep, deep, deep romance (um...friendship) that would characterize their series.  

Everybody idolized Bobby Sherman at the time, but Wes (sigh) really pushed  up the lovelorn gaze.  He was definitely up for some snogging, and I'm sure that the nearly-openly bisexual Bobby Sherman obliged. 

Interestingly, Bobby married Pat Carnel that summer, and published an introduction to Wes (sigh) claiming that he "loves girls."  Protesting too much, buddy?

Left: Bobby hasn't revealed much about his male loves, but we almost know he dated almost-out actor Sal Mineo.

And Wes (sigh)

Tie-in novels and comic books were ordered, gushing teen magazine articles were written -- Wes (sigh) lives in a "bachelor apartment in West Hollywood.".  Then, after a "meet cute" episode of The Partridge Family, Getting Together premiered in October 1971. 

We must have watched -- the alternative was All in the Family, which Mom and Dad didn't allow because of the atheists.  But I don't recall anything except Bobby and Wes (sigh) smiling at each other.  My description comes from nostalgia articles:

In the first episode, Bobby becomes the guardian of his orphaned younger sister, but she runs away when she thinks her presence is interfering with their romance...um, I mean friendship. Don't they have their own room?  

Most episodes involved their parenting problems rather than the singing-song writing stuff - dig, a teenage girl in 1971 likes The Lawrence Welk Show!

Co-parents in an alternative family, plus the guys lived in an antique shop. They couldn't be more gay-coded if they plastered their bedroom with pictures of Steve Reeves.  

Except Getting Together didn't air on  ABC's Friday night block of kid-friendly programs.  It aired on Saturday night, where it failed to make a dent in the juggernaut of Archie, Edith, and the Meathead.  14 episodes appeared through January 1972, and then the duo disbanded.  But the memory of a gay romance has lingered.

Was Wes (sigh) gay in real life, did he and Bobby have a platonic-pal bromance, or was their relationship purely manufactured? I knew almost nothing about him then, and I still don't.  He is almost absent from the internet.  All I have is a few details about the show and 13 acting roles listed on the IMDB. 

He was born in New York City on July 25th, 1947.  "Stern" means "star" in German and Yiddish, so I'm assuming Jewish, although "Wesley" is a Methodist name.  No info on his education.  In 1969 he hit Hollywood and joined the Groundlings comedy troupe.

He turned down the role of Benjamin Braddock in The Graduate (1969) to star in The First Time (1969): Three teenage boys on vacation in Niagara Falls mistake Jacqueline Bisset for a hooker and set out to lose their virginity.  Wes (sigh) is into it, but his gay-coded friend is not.

More after the break

"Population 11": Ben Feldman in an outback town with aliens, meat pies, secrets, lies, and dicks, doesn't get the Girl

Population 11, on Amazon Prime, stars Ben Feldman as a guy searching for his father in a paranormal-ridden Australian outback.  He teams up with The Girl, of course -- not once in a series like this does the guy team up with a guy.  But hey, Feldman is cute, it's Australian and there's paranormal.

Prologue: An old guy walks through the dark by a gigantic baobab and into a circle of giant termite mounds.  Suddenly he is illuminated by light -- from above!  He runs, stumbles, falls, screams.  Abducted by aliens?  I'll bet it's just a tease.

Scene 1: Andy (Ben) drives through the outback on the wrong side of the road, almost hitting a cop car!  The lady cop makes it very, very clear that she wants to have sex with him.  Her innuendos are extremely vulgar: "Breathe into my mouth, hot stuff...harder...harder..."  Not The Girl: slightly overweight.

After she gives him her phone number and answers the question "Can I go now?" with that annoying "I don't know, can you?", he continues on his way through the desert to Bilgudgee, population 12.  It has a park, a Chinese restaurant, and a pub in what looks like an old garage. A community board advertises trivia night and "Outback UFO Tours," hosted by the guy who was abducted by aliens earlier: "guaranteed sightings!"  

It's Andy's dad with a new scam!

A race car zooms in, almost hitting him.  Resident #1 is the lady who runs the pub/hotel.  Not the Girl: middle-aged.

She wants to know why Jimmy (Tony Briggs), Resident #2, isn't tending the bar.  A Catholic priest, he's trying to take confession behind a curtain.  20% of Australians are Catholic, but of course on tv it's almost everybody. 

Resident #3, a German-speaking guy named Cedric, doesn't mind: he has nothing to confess.

Andy claims that he came to town for the UFO tour, run by Hugo...not mentioning that Hugo is his dad.

They haven't seen him in a few weeks, but they take Andy to his house -- horribly run-down, with a lot of alien memorabilia.  Nobody home. Why not just say you're his son?  Then you could go inside and investigate.

Scene 2: The Sundew Caravan and Campground.  A caravan is a trailer in the U.S.  Usually you bring your own to the campground, but sometimes you can rent them.  

Andy goes to the office-trailer and asks Residents #4 and #5, a lesbian couple or mother-daughter, if they've seen Hugo. No, they don't speak with him, because "Mom's a drama queen." 

Next Resident #6, a bearded guy with a neck brace (Rick Donald), wonders if he's an FBI agent.  Andy says no, but the guy doesn't believe him, thinks he's a suspect, and starts yelling "I won't go down for this!"   Um...Australia is rather out of their jurisdiction. Maybe he's with the Australian Security Intelligence Organization, ASIO.

Left: Rick Donald's backside

Residents #7 and #8, an older guy with muscles (Steve Le Marquand), and his young wife or daughter, tell him that Hugo is a pain in the arse, but that's part of his charm.

Left: Steve Le Marquand frontal

So when is Andy going to meet the Girl of His Dreams?  He hasn't even been identified as heterosexual yet; that usually happens by Minute 2. Could he be....no way. I absolutely am not going to get my hopes up.

More after the break

"A Real Pain": Buddies have wacky adventures or a Dark Night of the Soul in Poland, but I'm off to the Horseman's Club

 

A Real Pain (2024), on Hulu, is advertised as a wacky buddy comedy with Kieran Culkin and Jesse Eisenberg, touring Poland, with a lot of exteriors.  

No doubt they are both absurdly heterosexual and will meet The Girl of Their Dreams, but it will be fun to see how quickly their heterosexual identity is established. 

 Besides, I'd like to see some of the sights, like the Jewish Museum in Warsaw and the University of Krakow. .

Not to mention Kieran's backside.

Scene 1: Benji (Kieran Culkin) is sitting in the airport waiting for David (Jesse Eisenberg), who is just walking out the door of his Manhattan brownstone.  He keeps calling: heavy traffic...no, it lightened up...Ok, so David is the Stick-in-the-Mud, Benji the Free Spirit.

At the airport, Benji grabs him and makes him twirl so he can see his cousin's butt.  Um...an interested in a guy's butt is a sign of gay identity.

He brought yogurt, and some weed for when they reach Poland: "They're not going to arrest two Jews for a little weed."

He chats up the TSA lady: "Her Dad does security for the Knicks."  This annoys David. Doesn't count as heterosexualizing him.

Priya made some trail mix for them.  Doesn't count: she could be an aunt or a sister.

Scene 2: On the plane, David has to take the middle seat. Bummer.

They discuss their back story: David works in digital ad sales, and Benji is a deadbeat. They haven't seen each other for a while.  They're going on a Heritage Tour of Poland.. wait, they're Jewish...is this a tour of the sites of pograms and concentration camps? 

Naw, who would want to see those?  Poland has 1000 years of Jewish history.

Later, David takes his prescription meds and gazes at a video of his daughter. Heterosexualized at minute 6.30. 

It's actually Jesse Eisenberg's real-life son, Banner.  I was confused by his long blond hair.

Scene 3: At the Warsaw airport -- "Welcome to Warsaw" sign in English.  They meet their driver. Some nice location shots as they drive through the city, but David is still gazing at that video of his son.   Why the heck aren't you looking out the window at this major European capital that you've never been to before?

They check in, retrive a package of weed from the desk clerk, and head up to their room. When David kicks off his shoes, Benji complements him: "You have really nice feet.  Graceful as fuck. Reminds me of Grandma's feet."  Foot fetish? Benji is giving off some gay vibes.

Scene 4: Tour Guide James (Will Sharpe, top photo and left) introduces himself: Not actually Jewish, but a degree in Eastern European Studies from Oxford.

The others in the tour are:

1. Marcia Kramer, recently divorced, from New York.  Her mother survived the camps. One of the cousins is obviously going to fall in love with her, but I'm not sure which.  Maybe David is divorced, and Benji's interest in men's butts and feet is supposed to be wacky, not homoerotic.

2.-3. Diane and Mark (Daniel Oreskes), an elderly couple. 

Daniel Oreskes has 40 acting credits on the IMDB, including The Sopranos, Law & Order, Ray Donovan, The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, and Only Murderers in this Building.  He is heterosexual.

4. Eloge, from Rwanda, converted to Judaism.  He's a survivor of the Rwandan genocide.

The Cameroon-born Kurt Egyiawan is a British theatrical actor who has appeared in The Exorcist, House of the Dragon, Bodies, and Kaos.  No intel on whether he's heterosexual or not.

More after the break