Michael Seater: The "Life with Derek" guy grows up, gets a boyfriend, and displays a Derek dick

 

Born in Toronto in 1987, Michael Seater first appeared on screen in Night of the Living (1997), a short about a guy whose father turns into a zombie.  Two years of minor roles followed, and then Michael hit YTV/Nickelodeon gold with The Zack Files (2000-2002)

What gay teenager  didn't rush home from school to watch yhe dreamy Zack(Robert Clark), and his buds Cam and Spencer (Jake Epstein, Michael) face bizarre paranormal events?  Like shoes that make it impossible to stop running, a cereal that makes him age rapidly, or an overdue library book that turns him into Alice in Wonderland. 

He went on to play paranormal investigator Lucas in Strange Days at Blake Holsey High (2002-2006). Noah Reid, later Patrick's boyfriend/husband on Schitt's Creek, played his best buddy Marshall, and he also had a love/hate relationship with school bully Vaughn (Robert Clark again).  They are sucked into a wormhole, turn invisible, repeat the same day over and over.  In my favorite episode, a chemistry accident sends Marshall through the periodic table: he becomes hydrogen, oxygen, neon, and so on.  Meanwhile, his older brother Grant arrives at the school and turns into sodium.  Marshall has changed into chlorine, so they stabilize as salt. Just go with it.

Left: Robert Clark's brother Daniel.

Next Michael moved into the more traditional teencom Life with Derek (2005-2009): He has a sibling rivalry with his adopted sister Casey (Ashley Leggat) and, in the first season, an intense, passionate, joined-at-the-hip best buddy, Sam (Kit Weyman).  Then it's girls, girls, girls every second of every day.

In Regenesis (2006-2007), Michael plays homeless teenager Owen, who moves in with paranormal investigator David (Peter Outerbridge, left), but ends up mentally damaged after an experimental treatment to cure his drug addiction 

Michael's adult roles have involved fewer subtexts:

18 to Life (2010-2011): newlywed 18-year olds move in with their parents.

The "virgin getting laid" comedy Sin Bin (2012).  

The "virgin getting laid before the world ends comedy" Sadie's Last Days on Earth (2016).

In 10 episodes of Bomb Girls, 2013, set during World War II, Michael's bomb engineer Ivan dates closeted lesbian Betty, then Betty's crush Kate, then Nazi spy Helen.  Then he dies in a bomb factory explosion.  No gay male characters.

In The Wedding Planners, which aired for seven episodes in March-May 2020, Michael and his sisters plan weddings.  It doesn't look like any of them featured same-sex couples.

Most recently Michael played a gay-coded villain on The Murdoch Mysteries.  In 2009, gay student James Gillies and his boyfriend murder a professor in a reflection of the Leopold and Loeb case.  In 2023, he returns to torment Murdoch, kidnap The Girl, and survive various lethal stunts.  The show features a gay couple, so it's not just queer villains, but still, one doesn't expect such a blatant stereotype in 2023. 

And in Life with Luca, 2023, he returns to Derek as a grown-up.  He and Casey each have children who replicate the sibling-rivalry of their youth -- Luca is Casey's son.

More after the break. Caution: Explicit

Workaholics Episode 4.13: "Do you think the guys having sex upstairs might be gay?" With bonus bear cocks

Workaholics Episode 4.13, "Friendship Anniversary," is an excellent illustration of heteronormativity, the assertion that heterosexual desire, behavior, and identity are universal human experience, and LGBT people do not exist, or at least there are none here.   

You ask a new male acquaintance if he has a girlfriend, forgetting that he could be gay or bi.

The teacher tells the class, "If you boys got your minds off girls, you'd get better grades," forgetting that some of them might have their mind on boys.

TV viewers insist that a same-sex pair cannot be gay unless they actually say so on screen.  Otherwise everything they say and do is what heterosexuals say and do. "So they hold hands. Can't a straight guy hold his buddy's hand?"

On to the show. 

The Dude Husbands: After a scene where the guys, Anders, Blake, and Adam, play American Gladiator,  they discover that they have been living together for seven years, so they are "common law husbands."  To celebrate their anniversary, Blake gives them homemade gifts: seashells on Ders' headphones and macaroni on Adam's weight belt, ruining them!  Ders serves horrible Norwegian food hidden in a bait-and-switch KFC box.  They argue, have a food fight, destroy each other's stuff, and criticize Adam's weight: "You're a chubby bitch, as fat as John Candy and not half as cool."  Finally they break up. Everyone leaves the house.

Blake's Night:  Crashing with his work friend, Jillian, Blake has a fun evening planned: beer, listening to the Yin Yang Twins (a rap duo), and "artsin' and craftin'"  But she's engrossed in a dog show on tv (that she is betting a lot of money on).  He makes her a "thanks for letting me stay here" gift, arts-and-crafting her favorite dress, ruining it. Plus he makes fajitas with sour cream, enraging her (that's a little harsh, girl). 

Jillian puts him to bed in the bathtub, and when he casually mentions that she is acting crazy, goes ballistic: "We leave the shower on and the lights off."  

Ders' Night: Apparently he has no credit cards to get a hotel room, and no friends, so Ders tries to sleep in the back seat of his car.  He hears some teens drinking beer at the play station in the park -- after hours!  He tells them to scram, but they just make fun of him, so he gives them an ultimatum: they have to be gone by the time he finishes taking a dump, or he's calling the cops. 

Once he gets into the porta-a-potty, the teenagers knock it over, dousing him with a flood of blue toilet water

Adam's Night: He goes to a bar to drink and look for friends who won't reject him for being overweight.  It turns out to be a gay bear bar (no one says so, but watch your heteronormativity; how do you know it's not?). He comes on too loud and too strong for the first guys he approaches: "50 beers for my new friends, who I love now!"  When Trevor (Stephen Kramer Glickman) calls him a "rowdy little bear cub," he insists on a full-body bear hug, and accepts an invitation home. Heteronormativity: Adam has no idea that these guys are gay, or that he has agreed to a hook-up.

At home, they go right to bed.  When Trevor presses his hard cock against him, Adam thinks that it's just morning wood, and congratulates the guy for being so virile.  Trevor is about to go downtown, when Adam reveals that he just broke up with a partner of seven years, like a few hours ago.  A rebound hookup would be a bad idea; Trevor announces that he's going to masturbate in the bathroom instead. Heteronormativity again: a guy climbs in bed with you naked and presses his hard cock against you, but same-sex desire does not exist, so you must find a heterosexual explanation.

The guys start texting but change their minds, look for texts from their partners, and are miserable. 

The Rat Catchers: The next day, they have cordoned off their cubicle, and aren't speaking to each other, except to brag about how great their nights alone were and criticize their performance as husbands.  They decide to go back to the house, split up the security deposit, and part forever.

Except the house is overrrun with rats.  They have to get rid of them, or they won't get the security deposit back.  They try various gross and unhygeniec strategies which allow each to use his skills: Anders' organizational ability, Blake's arts-and-crafting, and Adam's muscles.  Afterwards, although they are splattered with rat blood and will probably die of rabies, they realize that they enjoyed the adventure, and decide to stay dude husbands. 

More after the break

Workaholics Episode 3.7: Bodybuilders for the Lord turn out to be gay, so the guys try to help. With Kali cock

Adam Devine said on his podcast that Workaholics Episode 3.7 inspired Danny McBride to offer him the role of Kelvin on The Righteous Gemstones.   I'm not so sure: this episode aired in 2012, long before the Gemstones,     Unlikely, since it aired in 2012, long before The Righteous Gemstones was ever conceived of.  But there are certainly parallels between the Gaylord's Force and Kelvin's God Squad.

Scene 1: The guys are hiding in a supply closet at work, watching The Lord's Force, bodybuilders who perform strength stunts.  "How did these buffed dudes escape my radar?" Blake wonders. Their interest in hot guys has never been more obvious.  

The Lord's Force is performing in town tomorrow. Adam wants to watch the show, then try out.  Der protests that the show is religious, and Adam doesn't believe in anything. 

"I'm very religious!  Father, Son, whatever.  Noah's ark, two animals having sex."

Scene 2: The show is sold out. They try to get in by claiming to be bad people who need salvation:  Doesn't work. Darn, I wanted to see the actual show.

Scene 3: They wait outside until two members of the Lord's Force, Ram and Samson (Adam Dunnells, Scott Connors), come out.  Adam begs them to go out for a beer with him.  Wait -- Evangelicals don't drink. 

Scene 4: At the bar, drinking shots. Ram and Samson go out to smoke. The guys don't smoke, but decide that it would be cool, so they rush out to find Ram and Samson.. .kissing?  They are shocked.

Of course, bodybuilders can't be gay, so the guys figure that they're just good buddies, checking o each other's breath, so they are ready to "kiss hot chicks"?  Strangely, I heard that on fan boards after the Kelvin-Keefe kiss. 

Their manager, Rev. Troy, pulls up.  This is a homophobic squad -- the guys are busted!  They claim that they are playing "gay chicken," where straight guys try to out-gay each other. Der demonstrates by moving in for a kiss with Adam, who backs away. "You lost!"

Rev. Troy asks God what to do about "the gay thing."  God says "Fire them." But they'll be stranded in a strange town in the middle of a tour. 

Scene 5: The guys are letting Ram and Samson stay with them.  They offer a "proposition." Misunderstanding, thinking that they want sex, Samson insists that they are not gay.  "No, of course you're not gay, Dudes with giant muscles are never gay." 

"Maybe I am gay," Ram says.  "I'm just really confused right now." Is he really "questioning," or pretending so he can stay in the closet.

Easy way to find out if you're gay: kiss.  If you don't feel anything, you're not gay.  Ram and Samson start kissing, and end up pawing all over each other. The guys are shocked, but double-down. "Ok, you've proven that you're not gay.  You can stop kissing now."

On to the proposition: let's start a Lord's Force. Samson and Ram aren't sure.

Scene 6: A montage of the guys going about their daily activities, running into Ram and Samson getting it on, and being embarrassed.  No one can sleep because of the bed-squeaking and moaning ("You're injuring yourselves working out").

 Adam catches them showerng together ("to conserve water"), and notes that they have monster dicks: "Chicks must love sucking those." 

Scene 7:   Finally catching on, probably because Ram and Samson are having sex right in front of them, the guys propose the Gaylord's Force, with a bicep-and-penis logo and and the motto: "If you can take the pain of a man's unit pressing into your butt, you've got the strength to do anything."  This is homophobic: not all gay men are anal bottoms, and those who are don't see it as an ordeal, but as an enjoyable sexual act. Plus "Gaylord" is often useds as a slur.  But the guys seem to believe that they are helping.

Der has had enough: "I don't mind the sucking and screwing, but are you going to be part of this show are not?"  That's not what I expected him to say.  Ok, they agree.

Scene 8: The guys are setting up a "gay stage" for the show, when Rev Troy pulls up in his van. He wants Samson and Ram back.  He'll offer up to $38,000 per year. A terrible salary!

They decide to go back.  They explain that they're not gay anymore: it was just a phase. They're actually just hypocrites, willing to stay in the closet to promote their career.  But the guys are welcome to come to their show tonight.

Scene 9: Rev. Troy begins the show: "We are the Lord's Force, and we are going to murder the devil." David (Kali Muscle) breaks a baseball bat in half. The Wolf breaks concrete blocks. Samson and Ram try to lift a 1,000 pound cross over their heads, but struggle.  Notice the parallel with the much-bigger cross in Kelvin's God Squad.

"I should never have asked you back, you pillow-biters!" Rev. Troy sneers.

Adam comes to the rescue, suggesting that they use "the Gaylord's Force."  They are able to lift the cross. Then they kiss!  Everyone in the congregation is shocked and storms out, but the guys rush onto the stage to congratulate them.  

Scene 10: At the house, some gay guys are waiting for the Gaylords Force show.  But Ram and Samson aren't coming: they're moving to Vermont to start a new life.Vermont legalized same-sex marriage in 2009.  The guys have to perform themselves.  

Adam notes that he's had sex with over five women, but he can still channel Gay Strength.  He pretends to break some pre-broken bricks and beans himself with a board, but then tears a real phone book in half.  The crowd applauds.  "I will sign your dicks!" he exclaims. The end.

Beefcake: Adam is constantly on display, plus some chest and pixilated dick shots of the muscle men.

Heterosexism: Excellent depiction of heteronormativity: "whatever Ram and Samson do must be what straight guys do, because gay people do not exist."

Homophobia: Again, the guys are gay allies, but the depiction of Ram and Samson is problematic.  Gay men are hypersexual, doing it constantly, and utterly unreliable,  selling out their friends twice.

My Grade: B

Bonus:  Cock shot of Kali Muscle, bodybuilder, actor, and best-selling author.

See also: Gemstones Episode 2.6: Torsten gets it up, Keefe holds Kelvin's dick, and Sky is skyclad

Join Kelvin's God Squad: Recruitment video gives us the dirt on the God Squad

The top photo, of Adam groping Ders, is an outtake from Workaholics 1.9: Adam kisses a cougar, gets frisky with Ders, and raps as a bodybuilding fairy wizard

Michael Yerger: Bragging incessantly about being heterosexual while doing gay porn.

While looking for beefcake photos of Joel Rush, I stumbled upon lookalike Michael Yerger, center:born in 1998 in Knoxville, appeared on the reality shows Survivor and Survivor: Ghost Island  in 2018, now a real estate broker and model,  represented by DT Model Management.  

He's bulked up a bit since 2018.

The first photos I saw of him were nudes, for gay sites like MMScene and Instinct. 

 First a rather tame semi-dick shot.

And a side-view, covering his cock.

More after the break

"Doctor Who," 2005 Series: Hints, hunks, subtexts, surprise, and off-camera penises

 

Doctor Who has been wildly popular in Britain for 60 years: 26 doctors in 39 seasons (1963-present), plus spin-offs, over 200 novels, and enough tie-in products to rival Star Trek in the U.S.  

I've tried watching at various times, but it's like trying to read a Marvel comic: you're dropped into the middle of a long story, with references to characters and situations from years ago or different series: "But I thought you returned to the sub-galactic empyrion in Episode #1314!  How's Jenna?"  I even bought a history of Doctor Who to try to figure it out, but it was all studio gossip about why this or that doctor was cast.

The 2005-2021 series just dropped on MAX, starring Christopher Eggleston (below) and then David Tennant (top photo and below) as the Doctor (he keeps regenerating). This one is different: most episodes are self-contained, with the occasional call-back to previous series actually explained, instead of assuming that viewers have watched every episode since 1963. We even find out who the doctor is.

The premise: The Doctor is a Time Lord, able to zap through time and space on his Tardis vehicle (which looks like a 1960s British police box from the outside). He has a tragic back story which might be new to this series: he is the only surviving member of his species.  They were all wiped out by the evil ("Exterminate!") Daleks, but he destroyed their species in retaliation (until they return).  

Now he travels around for fun or to seek out and fix time/space anomalies that threaten to destroy London or the universe:

Zombies plague the Victorian London of Charles Dickens.

Evil aliens are masquerading as Members of Parliament

In the year 200,000, an alien is controling the Earth.

The Doctor is in the habit of saying "It's hopeless!  There's no escape!  There's nothing I can do -- we're all going to die!"  Or "the universe will collapse at any moment!  There's no way to stop it!"  Or 'we're stuck forever on this parallel world where Britain has a president instead of a prime minister, and they've invented helicopters but not airplanes!"  Then, after the commercial break: "I've figured it out!  All we have to do is recalibrate the time coordinator and push it backwards through the space-time continnum!"  

I'm reminded of the old Star Trek series, where Captain Kirk says "The odds against us getting out of this jam are a million to one!"  Then he does it easily, and starts deciding what to wear for his promotion to Admiral.

The companion:  In the first episode, the Doctor meets Rose Tyler, a working-class shop girl from 21st century London, and invites her to join him.  Rose has a tragic back story, too: her father was killed in a traffic accident while she was a baby.  Somehow the Doctor's missions often put them in parallel worlds where he's still alive (but she can't see him, or time/space will collapse), or back in time to the moment of the accident (but she can't rescue him, or flying gargoyles will destroy the world).

I don't know if the Doctor fell in love with his previous female companions, or this is a new innovation, but he and Rose are definitely falling in love.  It's a slow burn romance -- we're halfway through Season 2, and they haven't kissed yet.  Of course,  Rose has a boyfriend, and the Doctor is busy falling in love with the lady alien or distant-future babe of the week (even Madame de Pompadour, when he tries to prevent distant-future cyborgs from stealing her brain).   

Occasionally they pick up a second companion, a guy, but the Doctor resents the competition and quickly boots him.

The Guys: While they are in 21st century Utah, investigating an underground museum of alien artifacts, they pick up  "boy genius" Adam Mitchell (Bruno Langley).  He is fired in the next episode, when the Doctor catches him  transmitting technology from the year 200,000 to his Mum's answering machine back home.  Langley also played Todd Grimshaw, the first gay character on the long-running soap Coronation Street, from 2001 to 2003. He is heterosexual in real life.

Next, the Doctor and Rose end up in blitz-besieged World War II London, where alien technology has transformed a dead boy into an "empty boy," wandering around and asking "Are you my Mummy?"  If he touches you, you turn into an "empty boy," too.  During this adventure, they hook up with Captain Jack Harkness (John Barrowman, left and below), a loveable rogue time-traveler, and openly bisexual, flirting with men and women.  Rose is shocked by this -- apparently LGBT people do not exist in 21st century London -- but the Doctor points out that Jack is from the 51st century, when "anything goes."

More hints and hunks after the break