Riley Polanski: Insane Girls, Xanadu, Ashes, Michael J. Fox, and the darkest demons of same-sex desire

Instagram recommended another guy I never heard of: Riley Polanski.  Be sure to include the -n, or you'll get a lot of ladies.  I checked the IMDB to make sure he's an actor.  But before looking at his work, let's check his Instagram to see if he is gay.

Over 150 posts, a lot of muscle-shots (nice swimmer's build), architecture, design, music. No girl-hugging in the first 100 or so, unless you look very carefully: notice the girl in the top photo on the far left, and just behind him next to the handbags in this photo.  

Nicely decorated apartment, but if you look carefully, you'll see a framed 1960 ad from Christian Dior, with a swimsuit lady in the forground.

The last 50 posts display girl-hugging all the way down.

And no guy-hugging. This looks promising, but Riley states that this is his best friend, not a boyfriend, and they're at the Hotel Cafe on Cahuenga, just south of Hollywood Boulevard, near the famous corner of Hollywood and Vine: one of the more heterosexual parts of Los Angeles, a good three miles from the border of West Hollywood.  Dudes are straight.

I pieced together a biography from the IMDB, Backstage, Facebook, and Linkedin.  Riley was born in Pomona, California in 2000, and started acting when he was 10 years old: the Western 6- Guns (2010),  starring 1980s staples Barry Van Dyke and Greg Evigan; Airline Disaster (2011), starring former Family Ties cast members Meredith Baxter-Birney and Scott Valentine; Baseball, Dennis, & the French (2011). 

Left:  In case you are interested, the first celebrity I met when I moved to Los Angeles was Michael J. Fox, who played Alex on "Family Ties,"  We just had lunch, but I told my friends that it was an energetic hookup.

  

When he was a teenager, Riley had to put his career on hold due to "family illness." He still performed, in Mulan at the Claremont United Methodist Church (2015) and Xanadu at Claremont High School (2017), and he won second place at the California State Thesbian Festival.

He graduated from Claremont High in 2018 and enrolled in Pasadena City College.  During the next two years, Riley worked as a production assistant on You're the Worst, with Stephen Schneider, and did a lot of acting, primarily in student films:

Worthless Words (USC): "A world where your words are controlled."

The Cup (St. Mary's University MFA): Two aspiring actors encounter a 1920s flapper.

Paz (Chapman University MFA): An abused girl finds strength in a spiritual connection.

Alice In/Somnia (2020): a girl in the Sleep waiting room has to deal with bureacracy.

More after the break.  Caution: Explicit.

"And Just Like That": Carrie's return has elitism, bisexuals, dongs, musems, marital spats, s'mores, and shoes. Lots of shoes.

I never watched Sex and the City when it first aired on HBO (1998-2004), although I knew about Mr. Big (Chris Noth), for obvious reasons.  Who wants to watch four super-entitled New York-centric ladies having lunch? The only episode I watched featured Carrie Bradshaw (Sarah Jessica Parker) investigating bisexuals for her "Sex and the City" newspaper column.  

Her conclusion: they are all gay, and fooling themselves.  Bisexuals don't exist. 

So much for bi representation. 

Researching this review, I discovered that Carrie has a stereotypic gay best friend with the incredible name Stanford Blatch (why, was Bruce Van Swishington taken?).  

Having never watched the original, I've never been interested in the 2021-25 sequel, And Just Like That (presumably the title means that 20 years have passed "just like that"). But I've seen n*de guys parading around on occasion, and the plot synopses mention several LGBTQ characters.  We'll see if the portrayals are cringy.

I'll identify the five main ladies by their careers.  From left to right, Filmmaker Lisa, Art Dealer Charlotte, Columnist Carrie, Realtor Seema, Lawyer Miranda. 

Episode 3.5, "Under the Table," has three main plot threads.

The Charlotte/Lisa Plot:

Scene 1: The Guggenheim.  I love that museum.  Wait -- they didn't visit, they're just walking past. Art Dealer Charlotte's boyfriend Harry (Evan Handler) reveals that he has been diagnosed with prostate cancer, but they found it early, so he has a 98% chance of full recovery. 

In other news, they're going glamping (glamor camping) with the kids at Governors Island this weekend.

Scene 2:  Nuclear family breakfast in a huge, super-elegant kitchen. Filmmaker Lisa won't be back from filming her documentary until late Friday, so she tells her husband, Herbert Wexley (wow, what unrealistic entitled name), to take their children to Governors Island for glamping with Charlotte and her boyfriend. 

Husband is played by Chris Jackson

Wait -- this is the first he's heard of it. "No, I've told you several times." "No you haven't."

 

"Sorry, I can't do it.  I have a photo shoot for my campaign."  He has to pretend to be a "regular guy," eat one of those...um...frankfurter sausage things...and ride on the...you know, the poor people train...the subway.  

"You can do the 'regular guy' shoot on Monday, " Filmmaker Lisa commands. "This weekend we're going glamping with the Goldblatts."

Scene 3: Art Dealer Charlotte is trying to cook, but she's too distracted.  Her friend Anthony (Mario Cantone, left) asks if she's ok. 

Her children, a girl and a nonbinary person, ask if they can skip glamping.  "No, you're going" It's important because her boyfriend has prostate cancer, but he doesn't want them knowing that.

Scene 4: Governors Island (no apostrophe), just south of Manhattan, with views of the skyline.   The nonbinary child notes that there's a spa and go-karts. 

Art Dealer Charlotte's boyfriend complains about the mosquitos. 

 Filmmaker Lisa bursts in, and her husband criticizes her for being late. "Well, four hours ago, I was in Atlanta."  Then they bicker because one of them told the other to buy chocolate to make s'mores.  This couple is on the outs.

Scene 5: A tent big enough for three beds and a living room set. The boyfriend and the kids are lounging around, playing on their cell phones, when Art Dealer Charlotte bursts in and complains that they should be doing outdoor activities. They refuse. My parents used to say that on family vacations.  "You shouldn't be lounging around the cabin reading comic books.  Go enjoy the outdoors."  

How does one "enjoy" the outdoors? It's a place you go through on the way to enjoying things.

Meanwhile, Filmmaker Lisa and her husband bicker. She takes a photo of him and their kids.  When he looks at it, he accidentally scrolls to the last one she took: a selfie with her editor Marion (Mehcad Brooks).

"Are you having an affair with Michael B. Handsome?  Talk about getting your chocolate in Atlanta!"

"No, it's just a work crush."

He continues to growl, so Lisa stomps off, and runs into Charlotte at the pier.  They complain about their partners, and decide to ditch them and take a spa day. 

Cut to the spa. Close up of ladies in bikinis.  They're really pushing the heterosexual male gaze. 

Carrie/Miranda and Seema after the break

"The Prince": The actor claims that his flashy-femme prince is "just sensitive." See for yourself. With gay-subtext homies and Turkish d*cks

 

The Prince is unfortunately the title of about a dozen tv shows and movies, but the Turkish one (2023-25) stars Giray Altinok as the Prince of Bogonia, a fictional micro-kingdom somewhere in the Balkans during the Middle Ages.  The Prince (no other name because his father hates him) is so flashy-femme, and exhibits such a strong interest in men, that viewers began buzzing.  Altinok went on social media to clear up the "misunderstanding": The Prince isn't gay, he's just sensitive.  Funny, that's what my parents used to say about me.

Of course Altinok would claim that his character is straight: Turkey is the most homophobic country in Europe. It gets 4% on the Rainbow Map of LGBT legal status, while Russia gets 8%, and Poland 15%.  Let's take a look at Episode 1, and see how "not gay" the Prince is.

Scene 1: Establishing shot of Bogonia. Several n*de women, one chained up, snooze with semi-n*de guys (one butt shot).  Can you show naked ladies on Turkish tv?   

A chained up man who has been cuddling with a man and a woman both awakens to a rap on the door, and yells at the Slave Köle (Canberk Gültekin, top photo and left).  Surprise -- he's the Prince!  Identified as bi in the first scene. Maybe Altinok meant "not gay, bi/pan."

 The King has summoned him.  "So what?"   "So what?" He returns to his orgy.

Scene 2: As everyone waits impatiently, the Prince bursts in.  He touches the cheek of one of the courtiers: "Come here, my black lamb."  He lectures against Turkish masculinity: to compete in the modern world, we need to be hugging and touching.  

The problem: The Hungarian army is at the border, and Bogonia doesn't have a big enough army to defeat them.  

"So, get help from our neighbors, like Bosnia?" "No, they all hate us."

Uncle Kalish (Serdar Orçin) suggests just surrendering and paying the tribute.  "No, we'd lose our proud history." "But this country is only twenty years old!"  This enrages the Prince's Older Brother Tenyo (Çagdas Onur Öztürk, left),  who threatens to kill Uncle Kalish for treason.

King to Older Brother: "I'm lucky to have you as a son.  Without you, my name would die with me."  So the Prince isn't going to have any kids.  Maybe he is gay, not bi. 

They decide to fight the Hungarians.  Older Brother gets the horses ready for their 50 soldiers.

Scene 3: The King meets with the Prince in private: "Everyone has some regrets in life.  Mine is you.  I can't find the words to describe my hatred of you." You're just homophobic, Dad.

The King orders Slave Kole to bring his Very Important Sword  to the Blacksmith to get the handle fixed. "The Blacksmith is my oldest and dearest friend, and only he can fix my sword."  The Prince asks him to also fetch the "big ruby necklace" that the jeweler has for him.  Dude is into drag.

Whoops, the King decides to humiliate the Prince by making him take the sword in instead of the slave.

Scene 4: Older Brother Tenyo's Wife has just taken a home pregnancy test (the Medieval version).  Still not pregnant! He is not upset: "Don't obsess over it, it will happen in due time."  But the Queen has been putting pressure on her; she sent a gigantic crib, hint, hint.   Older Brother suggests trying again now.

Scene 5: The Prince and Slave Kole in the market.  He stops to look at some fabric.  Dude is gay.  A commoner complains that the people are starving while the royals live in luxury, "especially that Prince."  "Which one?" "The ugly one."  

Upset, the prince orders him executed.  Slave Kole suggest  they could give him a chance to apologize.  Nope, he's hanged.

Next stop: the Blacksmith, the only person who can fix the King's Very Important Sword.  Except he's the guy they just executed!

Scene 6: The Prince's Sister is practicing swordsmanship when her stepmother, the Queen, bursts in and throws her sword out the window.  "Act like a Princess!"  "No -- I don't want to be a princess!"

"Too bad -- I've arranged for you to marry the Duke of Saxony!"   

"What?  No!  This is the modern world.  I want to be more than just a wife!"

Ok, the main conflicts are established: Older Brother can't get his wife pregnant, Sister wants to be a liberated woman, and the Prince is gay.

Scene 6: The royal family eating together and glaring at each other. 

Uncle  Kalish: "We can't fight the Hungarians! We'll be massacred!"  I've been checking the Prince for queer codes, but look at Uncle Kalish: 35 effeminate rings, no wife.  Dude is gay.

King: "Princess, you are going to get married whether you want to or not." 

Sister: "No!"

Queen: "The Duke of Gaul has had a son.   wish I had a grandchild."

Older Brother's Wife: "You're Older Brother's stepmother, not his mother, so any kids we have will not be your grandchildren.  Besides, how do you know it's my fault?  Maybe Older Brother's not doing his job properly."

Older Brother: "Let's fight the Hungarians right now!" 

King: "Prince, how is my sword repair coming?  The Blacksmith is a very old, dear friend of mine." Uh-oh, the Prince had him executed. 

Scene 7:  Slave Kole fixes the Very Important Sword with glue.  It will take a day to harden, but the King is coming for it now! 

 The Prince asks Slave Kole to hide in the closet (har har), and presents it to the King, who is pleased: "This is the first tim ein your life that you've followed through on a task." Whoops, he puts it in the scabbard with the resin still wet -- he'll never get it out again! A painting of a naked man is in the foreground of every bedroom scene, and there's a fresco in the back that looks like a Roman woman.  Dude is gay or bi.

The King finds Slave Kole in the closet (har har), and becomes angry at the Prince for having s*x with a slave. He has no problem with his son dating men, but they should be upper class.

 Slave Kole starts to explain that he was just fixing the sword, but the Prince cuts him off: "Shut up, Love.  He's onto us.  It's fine."   The King stomps out.  

More after the break

Harry Jowsey: New Zealand reality star, Boyfriend Dick Podcaster, Onlyfans nude model, "Call me gay."

22-year old New Zealand-based fitness model Harry Jowsey first appeared on screen on Heartbreak Island, and gained international fame on the Netflix reality series Too Hot to Handle (2020). It was based on the Seinfeld episode "The Contest": hetero hunks and babes had to live in close quarters without hooking up.  Proven "Master of his Domain," Harry split the $100,000 prize with the other  winners.  His "smouldering s*xual tension" with some of the ladies spun him into 4 million social media followers.  

And several podcasts. In Boyfriend Material, Harry and his guests give humorous relationship advice based upon his experience of hooking up with about 200 women.

It is notable for the viral term Boyfriend Dick, based upon Harry's description of his penis: No too big, not too small, looks nice, gets the job done.

More reality tv followed: Match Me If You Can, The Amazing Race Australia, Dancing with the Stars, and Perfect Match.  

Plus the upcoming movie The Wrong Paris (2025): a woman joins a reality tv show in "Paris," thinking that she's going to France, but it's the one in Texas. The women outnumber the men in the cast three to one, but there are a few hunks: Pierson Fode, Torrance Coombs, Kaden Connors (left), and William Wilder.

Harry seems to be veering back and forth between ally and homophobe. 

In September 2021, youtuber and trans activist Nikki Dragun included a picture of him in her video "Dick."  Fans got upset: "You hooked up with a dude, man!"  

Harry had assumed that the relationship would be private, but now that it was open, he explained, Nikki Dragun is a woman.  Trans or cisgender, what's the difference.

Sounds like an ally. except in October 2021, on his Tap It podcast, he complained that "some f*ggot" was trying to hook up with him.  He was referring to makeup youtuber James Charles.  Later he apologized, and stated that he supported the LGBT community.

In 2022, Harry demonstrated his support by posting some photos wearing a dress, and fans again became irate: "That's wrong, man." 

Boyfriend dick after the break

"Killing It," Episode 1.8: Does the Kingmaker like-like Brock? Are the Flo Boys brothers or boyfriends? And whose d*ck is that?

 

Killing It (2021-23) stars Craig Robinson as a Florida schlep who tries to get rich by hunting pythons in the Everglades.  Scott MacArthur plays his frenemy, a seasoned python hunter.  The two have a sort of love-hate gay-subtext relationship, but I'm going to review Episode 1.8, "The Kingmaker," which gives us Brock's back story.

Scene 1: 2016. Brock and his wife are celebrating their anniversary, discussing how much hot sex they're going to have tonight.  Whoops, they forgot that their son Corby (Wyatt Walter) is sitting at the table with them. Why bring your son to your anniversary dinner?  Have him order a pizza.  

Brock is a manager now, so they'll be able to buy a house.  Everything will be perfect from now on. Never say that on tv, or you're doomed.

 Uh-oh, phone call: It's the Boss, firing him for incompetence.  Brock switches from begging not to be fired to yelling "Fuck! Fuck! Fuck!"

Scene 2: 2018. Brock is lying in bed, talking to himself about how great he is: "I can kill a python with my bare hands!" But he's also sensitive; he cries when he thinks of his mother passing -- "women eat that stuff up."  He appeals to all four quadrants: kings, queens, teens, tweens, and men."  Aren't the kings men?  He just needs a partner to help monetize his fan base.

Son Corby asks why he's been sleeping in the guest room for the last month, and suggests marital counseling, but nope: "Your mother and I are fine."

Scene 3: At breakfast, Brock suggests a video where he's out catching pythons in free-balling jeans, so viewers can see his butt -- a tactic sure to draw followers.  His wife thinks that his goal of becoming an influencer is misguided, but he insists: one guy makes $190,000 a year letting spiders bite him.  

"Is he hot?"

"Um...yeah, incredibly hot, but...is that important?"  Brock is bi.

He's got a meeting with viral marketing pros today that will make his career. 

Scene 3: While driving Corby to school, Brock tries to bond by bragging about the big car they're going to get when he's internet-rich, but "I don't care what kind of car you drive."  This depresses Brock: "WHen I was a kid, I worshipped my Dad."

Scene 4: Brock giving his pitch at the Viral Marketing Agency.  "We want you to be sponsored by a major tobacco company."

"Fine, no moral qualms here. I'm not some fucking weird-ass pussy."  I forgot to mention that Brock is a terrible person.  They all are.

Actually, they want him to cast negative social attention on vaping, so kids will try cigarettes instead: use a vape pen all day, while secretly taking poison, so: "Your liver will give out, but you won't die, as long as you get to the hospital in time."  It pays $8,000.

"Don't you have any regular advertising, like gloves?"

You need a million followers for that, and he only has 150,000.

Scene 5: A depressed Brock looks at one of his python-hunting Youtube videos, and wonders why it has only 150 views. He accidentally clicks on the Flo Boys (Chris Mason, Luke Mullen), whose video got 1,000,000 views in an hour.  They're a Christian prankster team: after they pray, they dare Intern Kyle (Trey Best) to eat some mace-covered chicken wings. He runs away sobbing.

Left: The d*ck of someone named Chris Mason (there are a lot of them).  

Luke Mullen played the first identified gay character on a Disney Channel program, in Andi Mack.  He mentions a girlfriend in an interview, but his Instagram is full of pictures with male friends.

Back to Killing It:

Brock calls his son Corby and shows him the video.  "Look who's sitting with the Boys -- Kevin Brailing, the Kingmaker!"  He's got 120 million subscribers; he can make or break online influencers.  

Cut to the Kingmaker being interviewed. "I can get anyone 2 million followers," he announces.  The downside: he's making content constantly, with no time for shopping or having friends.

The Flo Boys are based in Miami, which means that the Kingmaker is in Miami right now!  

Scene 6: While on the way to the Flo Boys' house, Brock gets a call from the Viral Marketing people: some boys in Ohio got poisoned from vaping, so theyr'e going to use them instead. 

He yells: "Lose my number.  My life has value.  I have a family, I have talent, and I'm on my way to a meeting.

Crash, explosion!

More after the break

Pernille: Norwegian angst comedy with a gay dad, a bi nephew (probably), a gay wedding (almost), lots of funerals, and nude Vikings

I did my undergrad at a Swedish Lutheran college, where everyone had to read Ibsen and Strindberg (ugh!), and listen to Peer Gynt (shudder), so I don't trust Scandinavian fiction.  Even the comedies tend to the dark and dreary.  So, when Pernille (2021-24), renamed from the Norwegian Pørni for obvious reasons, appeared on Netflix as a "triumph of Norwegian television," I decided to do a little research before jumping in:

1. Any gay characters?  

2. How many deathbed scenes?

The premise: Pørni, a single mother (until she starts dating Bjørnar  in Episode 1.2), works for child protective services. After her sister's tragic death, she becomes responsible for her teenage nephew Leo (Jon Ranes)

Left: Gunnar Eiriksen plays Bjørnar, but I think this is a different one.

 Episode 1.3, "Don't Get a Boyfriend, Please":  "When Leo has an angry outburst during a match, Pørni urges him to deal with the elephant in the room." 

The elephant must have something to do with the request to not get a boyfriend.  Leo must be gay, and Auntie Pørni disapproves.

Nope, the elephant is: His dad killed his mother, and wll probably go to prison, but Leo hates him, and thinks that he should have died. 

Pørni advises that, regardless of the anger he feels, Leo owes the kid he attacked an apology, and he shouldn't have called him "mongo."  Not a gay slur -- it refers to a mental disability.

Episode 1.6: Leo has a "Big Day," but when I checked, it turned out to be his confirmation (joining the Lutheran Church).  And the guy sitting next to him is a family member, not a boyfriend.

Leo next appears in the plot synopses in Episode 2.3, when a girl named Rains comes into the kitchen, and everyone is shocked: "I thought they broke up."  "No, they're just open to seeing other people."  Heterosexualized in the second season!

But in Episode 5.6, which I skimmed through for another reason, Auntie Pørni asks Leo, "Have you seen Lukas lately?" with that eager gleam that you doubtless recognize from your childhood, when your parents were playing matchmaker.  He responds, "Not since I picked up the t-shirts for the bachelor party.  Why?"  "Oh, no reason."  Gleam, gleam, knowing smile. 

They use he/him pronouns: Lukas is a guy.  And it sounds very much as if Pørni is trying to push them together.  Maybe Leo has come out as bi.    

Actor Jon Ranes plays a youth gang member in the concurrent Flus (2022-24), and sings under the name Loverboy.  I don't know if he's gay in real life or not, but I have my suspicions.

I was so invested in skipping over the darkness, depression, and unyielding agony of life in Scandinavian comedies that I missed the elephant in the room:

Episode 1.1: While dealing with the grief over her sister's murder, Pørni learns that her elderly father (Nils Ole Oftenbro) is dying of an incurable brain tumor.  As he will be dead soon, he reveals a secret that he has been keeping for 70-plus years.

Yep he's gay.  And the brain tumor was a misdiagnosis.  He's fine; well, terribly depressed, but in a Scandinavian comedy, who isn't?  

Left: Nils Ole Oftenbro, early photo.  He's been acting since the 1960s.

 

More after the break. Caution: Explicit.

Ryan Potter: Nude and j/o photos of the Supah Ninjah, Beast Boy, Hiro Hamada, mystic, gamer, and bisexual buddy

 

Ryan Potter is best known as Gar Logan, aka Beast Boy, in the DC Comics Universe series Titans (2018-23).

These aren't the Teen Titans from your Daddy's comics collection.  The original Robin the Boy Wonder is still around, but the team also includes two oof his successors, Jason Todd and Tim Drake, as well as Connor Kent, the clone of Superman and Lex Luthor.

Plus there are gay and trans characters, and quite a lot of backsides on display, including Ryan's.

Born in 1995, Ryan lived in Tokyo for the first seven years of his life, and then moved to Los Angeles.  He started his acting career in Supah Ninjas (2011-13), spelled wrong on purpose, playing a shy, quiet student who discovers that he is...um...a super Ninja.  His best friend and the Girl of His Dreams join the team, tutored by his grandfather, George Takei.

More movies about shy, quiet students who learn martial arts followed, plus some Disney teencoms and a lot of animated series about martial arts.

In the various Big Hero 6 movies  and tv programs (Baymax and..., Big Chibi 6, Baymax Dreams, Big Hero 6: The Series, Baymax!), Ryan plays Hiro Hamada, a teenage robotics genius who creates a snowman-like inflatable robot named Baymax.  He and his friends and the Girl of His Dreams form the superhero team Big Hero 6.

One of the versions has a gay character named Mbita, and  another has Brooks Wheelan as Fred, "team mascot at SFIT."

The animated Jurassic World: Camp Cretaceous (2020-22) follows teens at a summer camp on Isla Nubar who get stuck when the dinosaurs take over.  There are two lesbian teens among them, but Ryan's character is straight.

That's a lot of straight guys, but in his private life Ryan is a gay ally:

He was the youngest celebrity to speak out on the No H8 campaign in 2012, favoring the legalization of same-sex marriage

In 2021, he tweeted that his Titans character, Gar, was bisexual.

In 2022, he came out as bisexual himself.

More after the break

Bill Cable: 1980s nude model and gay porn performer, boyfriend of Elvira and Pee-Wee Herman, rock star in "Basic Instinct"

If you grew up in a heteronormative desert, like most gay boys in the 1970s, with nude and even shirtless guys vanishingly rare in magazines, movies, and tv, West Hollywood in the 1980s was a Paradise.  You could buy a dozen glossy, full-color magazines aimed at gay men with every conceivable taste and interest:

Drummer for leather and BDSM

Blueboy for dating advice

Mandate for muscle

In Touch for humor 

Inches for...well, you get the idea.

All of them were illustrated by full-page and centerfold photos of men, artistic and raunchy, always naked, sometimes aroused.  

You saw this guy everywhere, but probably didn't realize that Cable, Stoner, and Bigg John were all the same model.  Now we know.

He was Bill Cable, born William  Laurence Cumpanas in northern Indiana in 1946.  His grandparents were from Dalmatia (now part of Croatia), and he grew up with a strong sense of his Croatian identity,   

His family moved to Los Angeles in 1950.  He played football at North Hollywood High School and the University of Nevada, but a  massive head injury forced him to quit.  In 1970, he returned Los Angeles to pursue a new career as a model.

Bill modeled in all of the famous gay magazines of the 1970s and 1980s, plus gay porn pictorials for Colt Studios and The Athletic Model Guild.  

He also appeared in straight porn pictorials, mainstream fashion ads, and the influential After Dark magazine.  And in gay postcards, which you bought with no intention of actually mailing.

He posed nude in Playgirl three times, for:

"Long Cool Summer" (July 1973)

Victoriana (November 1974)

"Beauty and the Beast" (May 1975)

Bill's movie career began with a non-speaking role as a leatherman with a whip in the gay porn Bijou (1972).  Next came some collaborations with straight pornographer Carlos Tobalina: Last Tango in Acapulco (1973), Jungle Blue (1978), and Flesh and Bullets (1985).

Sometime in the early 1970s, Bill and Carlos wrote, directed, and starred in  What's Love (restored in 1987), "which deals with the themes of romantic obsession and Christian blasphemy."  From the various synopsses, it appears that, Carlos plays a cop who gets in touch with a magical self.  Bill as Jesus seduces him and his wife. 

More after the break

Max Casella after dating Doogie: Christian Bale's buddy, Tony Soprano's driver, Timon, Bottom, bi. With a small d*ck bonus.

 

In the early 1990s, if your parents belong to a certain socioeconomic class, you were required to watch ABC's ultra-conservative programming block on Wednesday nights: 

The Wonder Years, with Fred Savage as a boy winning the Girl of His Dreams in the 1960s.

Home Improvement, with Tim Allen grunting with tools.

Coach, with Craig T. Nelson as a...football coach.

And Doogie Howser, MD, with Neil Patrick Harris as a 16-year old who somehow managed to finish medical school, become a doctor, and get girls.

I wasn't of a certain age, I was not living with parents of a certain socioeconomic class, so on Wednesday nights I was watching Seinfeld.   Not Doogie Howser, because of its ridiculous premise and "Girls are the meaning of life!" ideology.  

 But I did notice Max Casella, who played Doogie's buddy: 22-26 years, "cute as a bug's ear," as the oldsters would say, and a member of the Short Guy Brigade at 5'7".

As everyone knows, Neil Patrick Harris came out a few years after Doogie, and for some inscrutable reason agreed to play "himself' in the homophobic Harold & Kumar movies and heterosexual horndog Barney on How I Met Your Mother (2005-14).  More recently, in Uncoupled (2022), he played a gay man dealing with the death of his partner and suddenly becoming single at midlife. 

But what has Max Casella been doing?

I'm researching the three standard questions: 

1. Any gay roles?

2. Gay in real life?

3. Any n*ude photos?  

1. Any gay roles?

In Newsies (1992), a Disney movie about the newsboys' strike of 1899, Max plays Racetrack Higgins, who may be gay or bisexual.  When focus character Jack (Christian Bale) says that they can't beat up the newsboys who refuse to join the strike, he "jokingly" suggests kissing them.

In Ed Wood (1994), the biopic of the director known for crossdressing, Glen or Glenda? and Plan 9 from Outer Space, Max plays Paul Marco, the gay actor who often starred in Wood's films.  His sexual identity is not mentioned here.

Later Max moved into animation, voicing characters on Pepper Anne, Courage the Cowardly Dog, Kim Possible; and video games such as Jak and Daxter (a humanoid elf and his previously-human otter-weasel buddy) and Grand Theft Auto: The Ballad of Gay Tony (he doesn't voice Gay Tony).

He appeared in 28 episodes of The Sopranos (2001-07) as Benny Fazio, who is partnered with Chris Moltisanti and sometimes works as Capo Tony's driver.  He's married with children.

Inside Llewelyn Davis (2013) depicts a day in the life of the folk singer (Oscar Davis) in the early 1960s Greenwich Village scene.  Max plays Club Manager Pappi Corsicato, who has sex with Llewelyn's girl.

Tulsa King (2024-): Sylvester Stallone plays a mob boss who tries to start a new cosa nostra among the Oklahoma cowboys.  Max plays Manny Truisi, formerly a soldier in the Invernizzi Family, who tried to assassinate Stallone's Dwight, then fled. and started a new life working on a horse ranch.  He's got a wife and kid.

More after the break.  

Who is Bradley Cooper, and why is he "ultra-famous"? With his gay/sort of bi characters , backside, and d*ck

 

Danny McBride promised an ultra-famous guest star for Righteous Gemstones Episode 4.1, the Civil War prequel, but kept him a super secret, so his appearance would be a shocking reveal.  I watched the entire episode, wondering who the ultra-famous guest star was.  

Turns out that it was....BRADLEY COOPER!!!!!

Who the heck is that? 

It's such a generic name, it could belong to anyone.

The main Bradley Cooper has  75 acting credits on the IMDB. I've seen six:

Wet Hot American Summer (2001), watched to review.  Bradley plays Ben,  a gay guy at the summer camp who gets a boyfriend.  His peers are horrified: "Ben is a fag!" But they give him a wedding present anyway.

Guardians of the Galaxy, Guardians of the Galaxy 2, Avengers: Infinity Game, and Avengers: Endgame, where he voices the the sentient raccoon character.  

Dungeons and Dragons: Honor among Thieves, where he plays a loveable rogue.

No wonder I didn't recognize him, or his name.

You can't really blame me. Who'd want to see Alias (2001-06), about a lady spy with a  "you're arrogant!" bickering partner?

Or Bending All the Rules (2002), about a woman juggling two boyfriends, David Gail and Bradley?  Even though he shows us his backside.

Or The A-Team (2010), a remake of a 1980s tv show that I never saw.  Even though it shows us Bradley's impressive physique.

Or Wedding Crashers, He's Just Not Into You, The Hangover, or The Hangover II?  They sound like nontstop heteronormative sleaze fests.

I might have gone to see Valentine's Day (2010), if I knew there was a gay plotline in the ensemble: Holden (Bradley) dumps his boyfriend, pro football player Sean (Eric Dane) because he's closeted, but after his career is over, the guy comes out, so Holden takes him back.

More after the break, including some c*ocks