Rainer Dawn: Was his kiss with Harlan real? Is Aidan his boyfriend? Is that really his d*ck? And three more questions

When I was researching Nickelodeon teencom star Robert Ri'chard, this photo of someone named Rainer Dawn (not Rainier) appeared.  Never heard of him, but he must have been on Nickelodeon at some point, and his Instagram features a lot of pictures with his boyfriend, Aidan, in formal wear, visiting Italy, having a romantic moment on their boat, and so on.  

An actor, gay, with abs.  That's enough for me.

Rainer and his partner have the same last name -- they must have chosen "Dawn" when they married.  Which will prove a problem for research, since most of their acting will be under their previous names.     

But I'm up to the task.

I have six questions.

Question 1: Is Rainer Dawn a Yale grad?

Here Rainer, wearing a Yale jacket and giving his husband his leg, is promoting  or about to see The Game, presented by the Yale Sigma Nu fraternity in 2023.  He must be a Yale man.

Time for a Google search. 

He is from Santa Cruz, he does runway and fashion modeling, and when he was 15, he sailed through Indonesia in his uncle's catamaran.  

So Dawn is his birth name.  The boyfriend must have adopted it when they married.

Rainer graduated from Santa Monica College in 2022 with an Associate's Degree in Economics. One doesn't usually transfer from a community college to the Ivy League.

Answer: Probably not

Question 2: Did Rainer star in a teencom on Nickelodeon?

No Nickelodeon.  Only two acting credits are listed on the IMDB: 

Noah in The Wrong Blind Date (2022), one of those "The Wrong ___"  damsel in distress movies directed by David DeCoteau.  Noah dated focus character Laura in high school, and now gets targeted by the "blind date" trying to kill off the competition.

Cody in five episodes of Wolf Pack (2023), a one-season teenage werewolf series on Paramount Plus starring Rodrigo Santino (left).  According to the blurb: "A teenage boy and girl get their lives changed forever when a California wildfire awakens a terrifying supernatural creature."

Answer: No.

Question 3: Was his kiss with Harlan real?

The fan wiki entry for Cody has him seeing main character Harlan (Tyler Lawrence Gray) at the gym, selling him drugs later, and then flirting with him at a party, causing another guy to get jealous and ask if he likes boys or girls.  Cody replies that he "doesn't like labels," which means that he's gay but doesn't want to come out.

But fans describe them starting a relationship, and the kiss as "perfect."  

Answer: Real

 

Question 4: Is Aidan his boyfriend?

Here's where it gets tricky.  There are so many photos of Rainer and Aidan acting like romantic partners, and they have the same last name.  Surely they're married.

But a post on X reveals a rumor that Rainer is dating Olivia Rodrigo, the singer/songwriter who got her start on Disney Channel teencoms, Bizaardvark and High School Musical: the Musical: The Series.  She has released 8 multi-platinum songs.  I never heard of her, but then, I don't follow popular music.

Left: Ethan Wacker, Olivia's costar in Bizaardvark

More after the break

Josh Fadem: From Tulsa to "Twin Peaks," with Groundlings, coffee, zombies, a glory hole, and his d*ck

 

We've been watching the 2017 sequel to Twin Peaks, the 1990s cult series about paranormal events in a quirky small town.  

The darn thing makes no f*king sense.  

The main plot, as far as I can figure out, involves the spirit of FBI Agent Dale Cooper (Kyle MacLaughlin), trapped in the Red Room 25 years ago with ghosts and demons who talk backwards and make cryptic statements.  Meanwhile, his body, named Dougie, took a job at an insurance agency in Las Vegas, had a wife and son, did something that got him targeted by the mob, and consorted with prostitutes.

After 25 years, Dale's spirit returns to Dougie's body, but can't perform everyday tasks, speak more than parroted words, or understand anything -- yet no one notices!  

In Episode 1.5, his wife dresses him in a ridiculous lime-green suit and drops him off at his office, where of course he just stands there until gopher Philip Bisby (Josh Fadem) notices, gives him a cup of coffee, and escorts him to his staff meeting, where he just stands there.  

Coffee guy Philip appears again in Episodes 1.6 and 1.7, luring Dougie with coffee and escorting him to the boss's office.  I found something homoerotic in the exchange: Philip sort of likes Dougie. 

He is cute -- and short, 5'9" to Kyle's 6'0" -- so I started looking for the other work of actor Josh Fadem, and maybe some n*de photos.

I thought he was a recent college graduate, new to Hollywood, on his first acting gig, it turns out that Josh Fadem was in his mid-30s in 2017.  He now has 159 acting credits, 40 writing credits, a wikipedia article, and a number of n*de photos.

He was born in Tulsa, Oklahoma in 1980, and  graduated from Booker T. Washington High School.  Imagine being Jewish in Bible Belt, Oral Roberts University Tulsa. 

He moved to Los Angeles in 2000, trained with the Uptight Citizens Brigade and the Groundlings, and appeared in countless comedy shows, including It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia, The Whitest Kids U Know, UCB Comedy Originals, The Bank Room, The Midnight Show, Key and Peele, Superstore, Minx, and American Dad.

And a lot of heterosexist shorts, like The Do It Up Date and I Think She Likes You.

On the other hand, The Gory Hole sounds provocative.

He is best known as Simon Barrons, assistant to Tina Fey's Liz Lemons on three episodes of 30 Rock (2009-2012).

And as Marshall Dixon, also called Joey, a University of New Mexico film student/teacher hired by unethical lawyer Saul in 14 episodes of Better Call Saul (2015-22).  Marshall doesn't seem to get any plot arcs of his own, but according to the Google AI, he has a gay subtext.

More after the break. Caution: explicit.

The top 15 hunks of "The Twilight Saga," with some nude vampires and werewolves

Twilight, a series of four young adult paranormal fantasy novels by Stephanie Meyer, was published between between 2005 and 2008, with sequels in 2015 and 2020. They have been translated into 49 languages, with worldwide sales of 140 million.  The movie series, which appeared between 2008 and 2012, grossed $3.36 billion worldwide.

The premise: teenager Bella moves to Forks, Washington with her parents, and falls in love with the vampire Edward.  When he leaves town, she falls in love with the werewolf Jacob.  Eventually she has to choose between them: she chooses Edward, and they get married and have a daughter. 

There were lots of sexy, tortured vampires before, on Dark Shadows and Buffy the Vampire Slayer, in the novels of Anne Rice, but never whole tribes of them.  And uber-muscular, macho vampires, not sophisticates and androgynes.  Perfect for erasing the gay symbolism from the vampire mythos and producing a totally gay-free world.

And it is.  There are dozens of vampire, werewolf, and human characters, but not a single gay one, in the books or any of the movies.

Are you really surprised?  The series is aimed at an audience of teens, who are never allowed to know that gay people exist.  It's fantasy, and gay people appear almost exclusively in comedies set in the real world.   Kristen Stewart, the actress who played Bella, claimed that the series had a "gay inclination...it's all about oppression."  

Big deal.  This was in 2012, not 1965.

But that doesn't mean that gay teens must be content to watch actors looking sullen with their shirts off.  There are always subtexts, either intentional or accidental, especially among the gay or gay-friendly members of the cast: 

The Vampires:

1. Robert Pattinson, left, as head vampire Edward.

2. Peter Facinelli as Carlisle, his Dad.

3. Kellan Lutz, left, as Emmett, his brother.

4. Jackson Rathbone, left, as Jasper, his younger brother.

5-6. Christopher Heyerdale and Cameron Bright as Marcus, leader of the Volturi vampires, who have lived in Italy since Etruscan times.

7. Xavier Samuel, left, as Riley, companion of the evil vampire Victoria, who is trying to kill Bella.

More after the break. Caution: Explicit.