"F*cking Adelaide": Queer musician Brendan Maclean returns to his awful home town, shows his backside and a rando's d*ck

 

F*king Adelaide  (2017), now streaming on Amazon Prime, is a comedy-drama about a family drawn back to Adelaide when Mom makes an Earth-shattering announcement.  There are six 15-minute long episodes.  I watched the first, about Eli.

Scene 1: Adelaide, 1999.  A boy in drag is singing to his two sisters as they hide in a sheet-draped-over-chairs tent from their yelling, smashing-things parents.  He stumbles, but his older sister tells him to just keep singing: "One day you'll get out of here, and you'll be a massive star. I know it."

Scene 2: Sydney now.  The adult Eli (Brendan Maclean), wearing a weird headdress, is trying to perform on a broken keyboard.  Cut to him kissing his girlfriend in their apartment.  He's straight?  WTF?

It was a misdirection -- Eli is still trying to perform in a coffee house that looks like an apartment.  He is angry because the couple is kissing instead of paying attention. 

It probably wasn't a misdirection for Australians.  Brendan Maclean is a well-known queer musician, with six EPS, two albums, and a number of songs for tv episodes.    

He became infamous in 2017 with the music video for his song "House of Air," which pretends to be a training video on "homosexual encounters" around 1980.  Strangely, the performers actually engage in the more unusual acts, which may be gross to some viewers, but just simulate the everyday acts.

Brendan was interviewed in Issue 2 of You Otter Know, a queer zine produced by Harry Clayton-Wright during the COVID lockdown in 2020-21. He discusses "lip synching in a jock, hands tied to an over-hanging bar as I'm whipped by a gimp."

He has 14 acting credits listed on the IMDB, including Klipspringer in The Great Gatsby (2013) and How to Make Gravy (2024), "an adaption of Australian music legend Paul Kelly's classic song."

The song is a monologue: a man calls his friend from prison, saying he won't be home to make the gravy for Christmas dinner, so he's giving him the recipe.  

After a look at Brendan's butt, we can return to the episode.  

As Eli continues trying to perform in the apartment-shaped coffee house, Mom calls: she bought him a ticket home.

"Nope, I'm busy.  I've got gigs and a boyfriend and a life. I can't just go running off to Adelaide." 1350 km, a two-three day drive.

The woman in the snogging couple says she used to know a guy from Adelaide.  Maybe you know him?  That happens when I say I'm from Illinois.  

Scene 3: Eli heads to the pub and asks bartender Nathan (Drew Proffitt) to let him perform.  "Nope, I pay you to tend bar." 

"Ok, then, where are my wages?"

"Oh, I gave them to your boyfriend Peter."

They get into a fight over whether Eli can drink free, and bartender Nathan fires him.

More after the break

"It's Always Sunny," Episode 7.10: Mac gets fat, Charlie refuses sex, and Michael O'Hearn flexes. With bonus Sunny butts

Looking for Michael O'Hearn muscle, I found an appearance in It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia, Episode 7.10 (2011).  It's been on for like a century, so you've probably seen it: four sociopathic pals and their anti-father figure run a sleazy, always-deserted bar in Philadelphia, where they argue, fight, scheme against each other, and work together on elaborate money-making scams

Dennis (Glen Howerton, right), the bartender, prides himself on his attractiveness. .

His sister Dee (Kaitlyn Olson), the bar's waitress, fancies herself an actress.

Mac (Rob McElhenney, left), the bouncer, is obsessed with muscles, and rather homophobic.  He gets a lot of "is he or isn't he?" jokes, until he finally comes out, then goes back in, and comes out again.

Frank (Danny DeVito, the moon), Dennis and Dee's rich con-artist sort-of-father, bankrolls the schemes.

He and Charlie (Charlie Day, center), the bar's janitor, live together, share a bed, and get a lot of "are they or aren't they?" jokes, but it's also hinted that Frank is Charlie's biological father, not his boyfriend.

None of the cast is homophobic in real life. In 2018, they all appeared on a Paddy's Pub float at the LA Pride Parade, giving Mac a chance to show off his new ripped bod.

Scene 1: Mac is in a Catholic confession booth (where you confess your sins to the priest, who gives you a penance to perform).  His confession: he's fat. Not a sin, dude.

Scene 2: Next Mac asks the priest to have God smite his enemies...um, friends...well, friends who want to destroy him.  Not what confession is for, dude. He explains: they became wildly successful, which made them monsters (um...they've been monsters since Season 1), which made them want Mac to be fat. Confused?

Flashback:  Frank, the anti-father, returns from a trip to sell illegal fireworks in North Carolina to find the bar packed.  What happened?  Mac thinks that they just "tipped": if you make the right decisions long enough, eventually things tip in your favor.  Charlie thinks it's his cleaning, Dee her jokes, Dennis his hotness.  They don't know which it is, so they have to continue doing everything.

Scene 3: In bed that night, Charlie just wants to go to sleep so he can work tomorrow, but Frank wants to blow up a lamb with his remaining fireworks.  They argue until Charlie makes a barrier between them, so they can't have sex, which hurts Frank's feelings.  Mac calls and invites them to go on a rager, but they can't because they're fighting.

Left: Frank, Danny DeVito.

Scene 4: The next day, Dennis won't come out of the bathroom, so Charlie has to bartend, which he's not qualified for. Meanwhile, Dee tries to be funny, ignoring customers' orders to tell lame half-jokes and berating them when they don't laugh, and Mac comes late in after a rager involving three bottles of champaign and a stray dog. Everything is in chaos. 

They all go into the bathroom to see what's wrong with Dennis: he found a couple of gray hairs and tried to eradicate them, ending with a terrible haircut.  He's afraid to be seen in public. 

Scene 5: After bartending all night, Charlie is exhausted; plus he hasn't had time to clean. Frank has come up with a new prank: four stop signs at an intersection, so no one can move, har har. Charlie points out that he built a four-way stop, actually making the neighborhood safer. "Ok, then, why don't we go around and hit people with sticks?"  Charlie doesn't want to do that, either.  Not the best ideas for Date Night, buddy.

Scene 6: Mac is planning places to avoid when he sails around the world with the profits from their new successful bar.  He'll avoid Africa -- too poor, the Middle East -- too hot, and well, everywhere.  Meanwhile, Dennis applied a chemical peel to his face, and now looks disfigured, so he can't be the attractive bartender anymore.

Left: Dennis, Glenn Howerton

Dee suggests hiring  replacements, or avatars, to do all the dirty work, so they can concentrate on being attractive, funny, and successful.  Of course the avatars have to look like the gang.

More sunny after the break

Schitt's Creek: Quirky small town (in Canada, but don't tell anyone) has gay/bi guys and a lot of beefcake

In the Canadian sitcom Schitt's Creek (2015-20), video magnate Johnny Rose (SCTV alumnus Eugene Levy) loses his fortune to a shady business manager, and he and his former-actress wife Moira and adult children David and Alexis  are forced to move into a cheap hotel in the desolate small town of Schitt's Creek, where they try to adapt to such hardships as sharing a room and making their own beds.

They butt heads with many curious, eccentric, and passive-aggressive smiling-as-they-dump-on-you residents, like Mutt (Tim Rozon), the mayor's son, who lives in a barn and collects compost.

It reminds me a bit of Gilligan's Island, with the castaways trying to survive on a desert island, their plans to escape constantly falling through at the last moment.

Schitt's Creek is so small that it has only one hotel, restaurant, and "general store," and the same six people do everything.  But still, there's a lot going on, and the Roses throw themselves into town life, getting jobs, joining clubs, running for city council, dating -- a lot of dating.  David (Dan Levy) develops a friends-with-benefits relationship with a girl, Stevie (Emily Hampshire), who appears to be the hotel's only employee, and Alexis has a steady stream of boyfriends, like Mutt and  town veterinarian Ted (Dustin Milligan, left).

That's one of the things I like about Schitt's Creek -- it's overloaded with beefcake, hot guys in tight shirts -- or out of tight shirts -- everywhere you look.

The other thing I like is the writing.  The dialogue is witty, sardonic without being bitter.  There is no us vs. them, normal v. hicks or normal v. snobs.  Everyone has foibles, but almost everyone comes across as likeable.



What I don't like is:

1. David states that he is pansexual, and he is played by Dan Levy, who is gay, yet his relationships are exclusively heterosexual until the third season, when his ex-boyfriend Sebastian (Francois Arnaud) rolls into town. 

 Later he and Stevie get into a three-way relationship with Jake (Steve Lund, left).  

More bi/pan after the break