Harrison Houde: It's Bowie! Plus gay-adjacent tv, synth-wave music, and a pink Ford. With Diego, Harrison butts, and Nemo d*ck

 School Spirits features a high school girl named Maddie Near, who becomes a "ghost" when her spirit is dislocated from her body.  In Episode 2.3 (2025), we meet Diego (Zack Calderon), the older brother of Maddie's friend, n the best possible way -- wearing just a towel. 

Well, maybe not the absolute best possible way...

And we learn that Maddie's body is now occupied by Janet,  the ghost of a high school girl who died in 1958. She goes on the run, bringing a satchel-full of stolen cash. When she stops for supplies, we met Carl (Harrison Houde), a clerk at the superstore.  He has long hair and femme multicolored bracelets, pinging my gaydar.  And he's 5'5".  

Which should I profile?

Sorry, Zack.

You may remember Harrison Houde from Some Assembly Required (2014-16), the Canadian teencom about a boy (Kolton Stewart) who sues his way into owning a toy company,   Harrison plays Bowie, his cute, quirky best bud, who is put in charge of the Jokes and Pranks Division.  (He's pictured with Dylan Playfair as the dimwitted hunk.)  

Although the gay-vague fashion plate of the series is Aster (Travis Turner), until he gets a queerbait girlfriend, Bowie only expresses heterosexual interest in one or two episodes. 

Harrison began his on-screen career as Darren Walsh, who becomes an outcast for touching cheese, in Diary of a Wimpy Kid (2010).  

Next came three episodes of Spooksville (2013-14), about teenage ghost-hunters.

42 episodes of the "how it works" series Finding Stuff Out (2012-14)

And the movie Pants on Fire (2014), with Bradley Steven Perry as a chronic liar who wins The Girl of His Dreams (not by lying).

More after the break.  Caution:Explicit.

"The Way Home": Witchcraft, demonic beings, and curses are promised, family drama is delivered. With Sharma's abs and MacPherson's penis.

 I love time travel stories, so I was drawn to The Way Home (2025-) on Netflix:  "three generations of women have a time travel adventure."  Besides, the cover icon depicted a cute guy who turned out to be Al Mukadam, Neel on Ghosts.  If he takes his shirt off, I'm in.

Scene 1: Port Haven, Nova Scotia, 1816. A woman runs through the woods at night, chased by villagers with torches yelling "Get the witch!"  There were no witchcraft trials in Canada.  She comes to the lake and jumps in.

Scene 2:  Minneapolis, present day.  At an assembly, a high school student is singing "Crazy," by Patsy Cline (1961).

I'm crazy for feeling so lonely
Crazy for feeling so blue

What high schooler has even heard of that song?  Why not something contemporary, unless it's relevant to the story?

Alice waits backstage, anxiously peering out at men in suits milling through the crowd.  No doubt government agents wanting to weaponize her witchcraft powers.

When it's her turn, she goes onto the stage, but sees the men in suits and runs away, pulling a fire alarm to throw them off the trail.

Scene 3: Mom arrives at the school.  Turns out that one of the suit guys is Alice's Dad (Al Mukadam).  The other was a random parent in the audience, put in as a misdirection.  So why was she so scared of her father that she ran away?  

Left: Eventually we'll meet Dad as a teenager, played by Siddharth Sharma.

More back story: the parents are divorced (no doubt so they can get back together). and Mom just lost her job as a reporter.

Dad offers to pay the fine for setting off the fire alarm, and make "another generous donation" to the school, but it's too late: Alice is constantly causing trouble, and this is the last straw.  She's expelled.  Get out. 

Scene 4: Mom and Dad call all of Alice's friends, but they don't know where she is.  She's been "running with a different crowd," no doubt a witchcraft coven.

Turns out that Alice is at home, having a pizza party with the perfectly respectful looking "different crowd."

Plot hole: She just ran out of the assembly ten minutes ago, in the middle of a school day.  How did she have time to invite a dozen people to a pizza party?  How could they make it?

Alice is hanging out with a hipster dude, whom Mom voices strong disapproval of.  He seems perfectly nice.  What's your problem?

Scene 5: Having cleared out the house, Dad returns to work, and Mom lays into Alice: "Why did you duck out on the talent show?  You are so talented!  You have such a gift!"  

She explains that she doesn't want to sing anymore, and "you're never there for me," yada yada yada.    When does the witchcraft show up?

Mom checks her mail: A letter from Del Landry in Port Haven, Nova Scotia (where the witchcraft chase in Scene 1).  No doubt something sinister, like "The Reckoning has begun!  Bring the Chosen One and three chickens for the sacrifice!"

Darn, it's just her mother, asking her to come for a visit.  Why am I writing a more interesting story in my head?

Scene 6:  Establishing shots of nowhere, Nova Scotia.  They're not just visiting, they're moving back home.  Back story: Mom lost her little brother, Jacob, at a young age. That's why she left.  I'll bet he was just sucked into a time vortex.

Left: I was right.  Young Jacob is played by Remy Smith, and Grown-up Jacob by Spencer Macpherson, who shows us his butt here and his dick after the break.

They arrive at the huge picket-fence farmhouse.  A very scary lady with a flat face and Medusa-hair meets them.  They don't hug, but she is impressed by Alice.  Inherited your witchcraft powers?

Scary Lady -- Grandma! -- is played by Andie MacDowell, best known for another time-slip movie, Groundhog Day (1993).  She's almost unrecognizable under the scary makeup.

Scene 7: While Grandma gives Alice a tour, Mom goes inside and hears her little brother laughing as his feet rush upstairs.  A ghost or just a memory? She also sees his toys and such.

Scene 8: As Alice leaves the house, she sees the gardeners working on a flower bed.  One of them (Kataem O'Connor) glares at her.  He is overwhelmed by hatred, either because he actually hates her, or because he realizes that they were meant to be together, and the relationship will be very difficult.  It's sometimes hard for actors to distinguish.

He says hello.  She flashes a look of utter disgust, and rushes back inside.  Why are you so disgusted by the thought of dating him, girl?  Because he's a mortal, and the other witches will disapprove?

Inside, Grandma is laughing.  "You did that on purpose!" Alice exclaims.  Did what, hired a cute guy?  I don't get why Alice is so upset.  

More after the break.  Caution: Explicit.

Oliver Atherton: Mennonite, Wannabe, and Boy Next Door, then nothing. With Mennonite and some co-star in law cocks

 

This guy appears in Episode 1.1 of The Way Home,  singing the ridiculously old-fashioned song "Crazy," by Patsy Cline, at a high school talent show.

I'm crazy for feeling so lonely

Crazy for feeling so blue

I knew

You'd love me as long as you wanted

And then some day

You'd leave me for somebody new

When he's finished, he smugly pushes past focus character Alice, who is waiting to go on next.  

She gets stage fright and rushes off,  and he gives her a final zinger: "I knew you were just a one-hit wonder."

Who doesn't feel like punching this guy in the nose?  Or kissing him?

There was considerable fan discussion about the character's name.  The cast list for the episode lists several actors with no photos, playing Jasper, Student 1, Student 2, Teen 1, and so on.  

Turns out he is Wannabe, played by Oliver Atherton.

Researching Oliver presents some problems: An Oliver Atherton has worked as a visual effects supervisor on many movies, and actress Natalie Oliver-Atherton (no relation), crowned Miss Senior America in 2024, has a much stronger internet presence But I found our Oliver's Linkedin.

 He grew up in Etobioke, which sounds very exotic but is actually just a suburb of Toronto, and attended the School of the Arts, a specialized high school where you can concentrate in art, dance, music, or film.  

He has a brother named Vid V__, from Serbia, so maybe he has a Serbian heritage. 

After graduating with a concentration in film in 2018, Oliver enrolled at the University of Toronto.  There he competed in the North American Debating Championship, interned with an English professor (researching 18th century English law, literature, and politics), wrote for the student newspaper, and worked as a bartender at Stackt ("an artsy industrial-chic complex" that offers queer events).

I'm surprised that he had time for auditions.

Maybe he didn't: there are only three acting roles listed on the IMDB.

#1: Murdoch Mysteries Episode 16.6 (2022): A man is brought to the hospital badly injured, and dies before the doctors can find out who he is.  Murdoch and Ogden track him down: Enoch Snider (Oliver), from a Mennonite community.  Turns out that he was murdered because he didn't want to marry the girl he was assigned.  The transcript says that "he didn't fit in with the other boys," and he had a buddy named Mervin (Liam Green), but I couldn't determine if he was gay.

Left: A nude Mennonite man.  

#2: The short Most of the Time We Are Just Waiting (2022), written and directed by Molly Sheers:  Her town is evacuating, so 13-year old Nora and the Boy Next Door go out looking for her older sister, last seen with a boy "with questionable intentions."  There are only two male actors, Oliver and Piers Bijvoet, so which plays which is up for grabs.  

More after the break

Dakota Taylor: Prom kings, soap studs, model, and ghost. Plus Justin Berfield, Justin Kirk, and the problems of searching for Dakota's cock pics

In Ghosts Episode 1.17 (2020), Jay and Samantha, the owners of the heavily-haunted Woodstone Mansion, meet mean girl ghost Stephanie.  In 1987, she and her prom date Tad (Dakota Taylor) were parking on the estate, when a serial killer murdered her. She has unfinished business, so she is stuck on there (but only appears once a year, on the anniversary of her death).  We assume that Tad was murdered, too, but "sucked off" to the afterlife right away.

Until Episode 4.20, when he re-appears as a middle-aged man (played by Justin Kirk, below) using the tragedy in his mayoral campaign: he announces that he bravely tried  to protect Stephanie, but was knocked out.

"Bull hockey!" Stephanie exclaims.  "He ran away like a little coward."

So of course Jay and Sam have to call him out with "I know what you did 37 years ago!"

But some of the other ghosts observed the attack, and corroborate Tad's story.  It turns out that Stephanie just wants to "get even" because Tad started dating her best friend shortly after the murder.  

Dakota Taylor (the teenage Tad) is extremely cute, and a brief internet search revealed this photo of two guys on a date.  He must have played gay  characters.  

Plus there are some very revealing modeling photos.  Maybe there are cock shots out there as well.   

Dakota grew up in Grimsby, Ontario, near Niagara Falls.  He graduated from the Blessed Trinity Catholic School in 2017, and then studied at the Toronto Academy of Acting and York University.  His first on-screen roles came in 2017: a World War I soldier in an  episode of Canada: The Story of Us, and a teenage drug addict in an episode of Teens 101. 

He seems to specialize in proms:

Homekilling Queen (2019): Whitney will stop at nothing to be elected Homecoming Queen. Dakota plays a cute boy that she uses to catfish her chief rival, Natasha.

 

Fear Street: Prom Queen (2021).  Same plot.  Dakota plays the boyfriend of one of the contenders. Dale Whitby plays another.

Left: This is who you get when you search on Dale Whitby.  Not him.  Not that I mind.

More after the break.  Caution: Explicit.

Austin Lindsay: The casually naked roommate on "Overcompensating" has a BFA and a lot of depressing shorts. With bonus nude fratboys

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Jamie Mayers: Absurdly hot Short Guy, LARPer, ghost, with a trans mom, a gay dad, a BFA, and a boyfriend. And maybe a cock

 

We've been watching the American version of Ghosts (2021-26), about a disparate group of ghosts who are trapped between worlds in a bed-and-breakfast in upstate New York.  I'm not happy with the way they approach the Revolutionary War soldier Isaac being gay.  At least in Season 1, he'll say that a man is attractive, and the other ghosts will stare, mystified, as if same-sex desire cannot possibly exist.

But I like the buddy-bonding and the beefcake. 

In Episode 1.7 (2021),  Samantha, who can see ghosts because she was dead for a few minutes, encounters early 20th century newsboy Winky.  He was only 12 years old when he died, but the actor is obviously an adult --- 21 year old Jamie Mayers, now 25, and at 5'3", an outstanding member of the Short Guy Brigade who deserves a profile.

Well, he's also absurdly hot,  and gay in real life.  But mostly because he's 5'3". 

Jamie has several well-stocked social media pages, plus Linkedin and a professional website, so we can piece together a biography:

He was born in Montreal in 1999, and began acting in 2010, with some shorts, commercials, and Lies My Father Taught Me at Theatre Calgary: a Jewish boy's bittersweet memories of 1920s Montreal.

In 2012, Jamie played the son of gay-vague werewolf Ray (Andreas Apergis, left) in an episode of Being Human, about ghost, vampire, and werewolf roommates.

And he voiced the young Connor in the Assassin's Creed III video game.  He returned in 2017 to voice Pharaoh Ptolemey in Assassin's Creed: Origins.

Teencoms followed: the bratty little brother of Live Action Role Playing Gamer Brittany in seven episodes of LARPERS (2014-15)

The gay-vague best friend of a teenage boy whose life is narrated by sportscaster-like beings in Game On (2016-17).

And a drama: four episodes of This Life (2015-16), about a woman dying of cancer while her teenage sons have soap opera problems.

But his most famous role is in Venus (2017):  Indo-Canadian trans woman Sid (Debargo Sanyal) is just starting to transition, when a teenage boy shows up on her doorstep, a son from a high school girlfriend.  He's fine with having a trans mom, but what about her conservative Indian parents?   She also finds the time to fall in love with Pierre-Yves Cardinal (butt left).

In high school Jamie spent several summers at Stagedoor Manor, a performance camp for youth in Loch Sheldrake, New York, playing:

Patsy in Spamalot: the one who makes the sound of horses' hooves.

Arthur in Half a Sixpence: the draper's assistant who gets rich and finds love.

Otto in Grand Hotel: a dying bookkeeper who wants to spend his last moments in luxury.  He gets a girlfriend. (Played by Daniel Evans, probably not this Daniel Evans, in the West End revival).

Tobias in Sweeney Todd: the mentally challenged assistant to the murderous barber.  Played by Neil Patrick Harris on Broadway.

Jamie graduated from high school in 2017, and spent his gap year in London, where he performed in two plays with the St. George's Players, Avenue Q and Into the Woods.

Life after high school after the break.  Caution: Explicit.

Fin Burke: A little shop of horrors, a certain school of magic, and a grave in the clouds. With his boyfriend, some artistic dick pics, and Cole Sprouse

 

I spend over an hour looking for beefcake photos of cast members of Welcome to Derry, and all I found was a potential Chad Root and two of Fin Burke, in his underwear and hugging his boyfriend. He's definitely getting a profile.

Fin, aka Finley, was born in Toronto around 2006.  His mum Dawn worked in the script and continuity department for 125 episodes of Murdoch Mysteries (2008-25), about a 19th century detective (Yannick Bisson).  She has also worked on Goosebumps, American Psycho, Wind at My Back, The Listener, and Children Ruin Everything.

Fin attended Greenwood College High School in Toronto, where he took classes in acting and musical theater and starred in a lot of plays:

Troy Bolton in High School Musical

Wayne Hopkins in Puffs: an orphan boy who is invited to attend a certain school of magic (not that one).

Seymor in Little Shop of Horrors. Who is he dancing with?

Tyler in Public Enemy, about a family dinner "with a surreal twist."  If I'm reading the French correctly, playwright Olivier Choinière is queer, so I imagine there is some gay content.  

He also starred (as a voice on the telephone) in the 2023 short Clara is Awake: A teenage girl gets texts from someone who claims to have met her last summer; "I really miss you.  I know you better than you think."  Ulp.

She texts back: "Leave me alone. I don't know you, and you're being weird."  He doesn't leave her alone.  

He graduated in 2024, and enrolled in the National Theatre School of Canada in Montreal as an acting major.

Two on-screen acting credits since:

The first episode of Welcome to Derry (2025): the snarly, critical older brother of "bury your gays" Teddy.

The short Grave in the Clouds (2025): a Jewish man (Steven Hobé) discovers that his teenage son (Fin) has written an essay denying the Holocaust, and introduces him to a survivor. 

Here Fin and his buddy meet former Disney Channel teen Cole Sprouse.  I cropped out the girls; most of Fin's Instagram photos have him hugging a girl.

More after the break. Caution: Explicit.

North of North: Inuit lady, her gay bestie, some paranormal, some Inuk culture, and a lot of Inuk hunks. With Jay's junk and a bonus n*de dude

North of North (2025) appeared without warning on my Netflix list: a woman feels stifled in her tiny village in the Artic.  I can relate to that, so let's go.

Scene 1: While showering (only shoulders visible), a young woman  named Siaja explains that she's from as far north as you've ever been.  I think that's Calgary in the Western Hemisphere, and maybe Oslo in Europe.  Then much farther north than that: Ice Cove, Nunavut.  

A quirky Canadian small town and Inuit culture?  I'm there. 

Siaja has achieved the Canadian Dream, with a husband and child.  Only now husband Ting (Kelly William, top photo) is the Golden Boy of the town, and she's only known as his wife.

First up: he gets to drive the car to the Spring Festival, while she has to haul the supplies on a lame Ski-Doo (snowmobile).

Scene 2: She drops in at Mom's very nice house -- lots of windows -- and announces that because it's a new year, she's going to apply for a job.  Mom dispproves: you're a wife and mother.

Mom opens the store next door, which sells artisanal soap and miscellaneous stuff.  Suddenly her hookup from last night walks in, shirtless.  Siaja asks where he was in 1998 -- he could be her father!  He scrams.  

Mom criticizes her for scaring all of her hookups away.  How many hookups could she get in a town of about 2,000 with no tourist trade and the nearest neighbor 300 miles away?

Left: I think the Handsome Man is played by Jeff Roup. who shows his d*ck or a prosthetic here. 

Scene 3: Siaja leaves her child for Mom to babysit and heads for the town headquarters, which has a restaurant, some offices, and the radio station: DJ announces the seal hunt this afternoon and the naming of the festival king and queen this evening.

A blond woman named Helen, apparently the town mayor, comes in complaining about the 14-hour days that supervising the festival takes, while other town business just sits there.  Siaja butters her up with coffee and suggests other cultural activities spread through the year.  Didn't you just hear her?  And she wants to be hired as a full-time cultural manager. 

"Nope.  You have zero work experience and no leadership skills."

"But I see life and beauty in everything!"  At that moment, a guy walks in, wanting to know where to put the fish heads.

Scene 4: While Radio Announcer Colin (Bailey Poching) and a purple-haired woman are discussing how much partying to do tonight, Siaja comes into their office and screams.  Helen didn't even look at her job proposal.

Left: Bailey Poching is gay in real life.

"Why do you want a job anyway?"

"To make our community a better place...ok, I want something of my own."  

"But Inuit culture is all about community.  Your own needs are irrelevant."

When Helen comes in to order the others to get back to work, Siaja asks for a chance.  Couldn't you get a job, like, somewhere else?   Ok, a petition to prove that the town wants a cultural director.  500 signatures -- but that's a quarter of the town! -- by tonight!

More after the break

Dylan Everett: The depressed Degrassi teen buddy-bonds with three gay guys, wears tight jeans, joins the army. With a lot of backsides and a Dylan dick.

 I'm not usually into backsides -- I prefer the side with pecs, abs, and beneath-the-belt stuff -- but isn't this the cutest thing?  It belongs to Dylan Everett, then 26, who you probably know as Campbell Saunders on the Canadian teen soap Degrassi: The Next Generation. 

 Cam appears in Season 12 (2012-13) as a "good-hearted, gentle, nice, shy, cool, and sweet" hockey player who rejects an offer of friendship from the gay kid Tristan, for fear of being assumed gay himself, but then apologizes.  They hang out, and he begins dating Tristan's friend Maya.  But anxiety and depression take their toll, and his plot arc ends with suicide.

Born in Toronto in 1995, Dylan began acting in commercials at age ten, and moved into television with The Doodlebops, "the ultimate rock n roll band for kids."   He first played the friend of a gay kid in Breakfast with Scott (2007): a "straight-acting" gay couple (Tom Cavanaugh, Ben Shenkman) become the guardians of a flamboyantly femme boy (Noah Benett).

A lot of teencoms and tv movies followed, notably How to Be Indie (2009-2011): the Indian-Canadian girl has two friends, a teencom standard: Abbie (a girl) and Marlon (Dylan), who according to the fan wiki is "always full of bright ideas," but sometimes annoying.  He wears pants that are so tight, he can't sit down, has a gay-subtext boyfriend, John Lu (Jason Jia), and displays no interest in girls -- obviously gay.  At least until the showrunners decided to queerbait by giving him a girlfriend in Episode 49.

Next the busy teenager simultaneously appeared on
Degrassi and starred in the teencom Wingin' It (2010-13): To earn his wings,  apprentice angel Porter (Demetrius Joyette) must help outcast high schooler Carl (Dylan) become popular.  I'm not sure how much of an outcast Carl is, since he has the standard teencom two friends, Jane and Alex (Brian Alexander White), but most episodes involve crushing on girls, competing with Porter for girls, asking girls out, and so on.  Apparently popularity means having a girlfriend.

Dylan played Mark-Paul Gosselaer in The Unauthorized "Saved by the Bell" Story (2014), himself in Dylan (2015), the young Dean Winchester in three episodes of Supernatural (2013-15), and a heterosexual teenager in Undercover Grandpa (2017).  

He has a nude scene in All About Who You Know (2019): an aspiring screenwriter tries to meet his idol by arranging a romcom-style romance with the guy's daughter. Or you could just call him.

AusCaps has a scene where his friend Austin (Stephen Joffe) wakes up in bed with a guy, and looks surprised but does not recoil in homophobic horror, so maybe he has a gay plotline.

More after the break.  Caution: Explicit.

Atticus Mitchell: "My Babysitter's a Vampire," "Stonewall," "Now I can be who I am," and nude photos, but has he done anything gay lately?

 

When I was researching Star Trek, Strange New Worlds, I looked for nude photos of various cast members, and found several of Atticus Mitchell, who played an ensign "scared by a dog" in one episode.  

You are probably more familiar with him as Benny Weir of My Babysitter's a Vampire (2010 movie, 2011-12 tv series):  teenager Ethan (Matthew Knight)  battles demons, zombies, and various paranormal perils with the help of his buddies, Benny (Atticus, left) and Rory (Cameron Kennedy), plus his sister's vampire babysitter. 

Everyone was intensely hetero-horny, but there was a lot of beefcake. Here the guys agree to be sacrificed so an ancient Aztec goddess can be reunited with her boyfriend.  She's not interested in them, and they're going to die, but that's not important.  She's a girl, so whatever she wants, she gets. 

My earlier review of the series pointed out a lot of gay subtexts.  Here Benny distracts Ethan's girlfriend so he can smooch on Rory.  It's probably a behind-the-scenes shot. 

Born in Toronto in 1993, Atticus became interested in acting in elementary school, and performed in four plays while at St. John Elementary School:

The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe

Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs of the Black Forest

James and the Giant Peach

50 Below Zero

When he graduated to Malvern Collegiate Institute (a public high school, in spite of the ponderous name), Atticus switched to on-screen acting with the teencom How to Be Indie (2009-2011), which is about an Indian-Canadian girl, not indie rock. Dylan Everett (26 years old in this photo) played her best friend.  Atticus played a bully.

Next came Vampire, followed by the teen movie Radio Rebel (2012), about a shy high school girl with a secret identity as an underground radio dj. So she's Hannah Montana.  Atticus plays Gabe, a musician who tries to sneak and snark his way into air time, and his future boyfriend or good buddy Adam DiMarco plays as Gavin, the girl's "love interest."  

Aside from Vampire, Atticus is best known for his role as Mickey Hess on Fargo (2014): he runs a shady trucking company with his dad and brother. No girlfriend, but he is established as heterosexual by playing with a female "sex doll."

I was more interested in the role of Matthew in Stonewall (2015), about the 1969 riots that started the Gay Rights Movement, with Danny (Jeremy Irvine) as a white masculine Saviour from Indiana.  

Problem: Matthew doesn't appear in the synopsis, and I don't recall him from watching.  But surely he's gay.

Nude photos after the break.  Caution: Explicit.