Monday, March 11, 2024

Nhut Le: Gay activist, potter, model, superhero

 



Vietnamese-American actor Nhut Le (pronounced "Nuh Lee") studied drama at the University of the Arts and honed his comedic skills in the Groundling.  

He has 15 credits on the IMDB, including several gay roles, such as Gay #2 on Los Feliz 90027.   He wrote, produced, and starred in Gey Gardens (2018), a gay parody of the tv soap Gray Gardens




 He played the Judomaster in 4 episodes of the Superhero comedy Peacemaker, one of which was directed by regular Gemstone director Jody Hill.  Judomaster is a mean-tempered, spiteful superhero who is trounced by John Cena's Peacemaker.  




Nhu is also a writer, a gamer, and a potter.  The bestsellers on 3CirclePotter, on Etsy, are a sweetheart mug and a ghost face mug.




He came to the 2017 San Diego Comics Con as Iceman.





Nhut is a gay and Asian activist.  In 2022, he presented on Diversity in Comics, TV, Film, and Games at Wondercon.

He is gay in real life, and currently single. 

More after the break










Sunday, March 10, 2024

Gemstones Episode 2.9: Who killed Thaniel? Will Keefe ever get a place at the table? Can we see some Gemstone alums naked?



Previous
 Episode 2.8, Continued: Macaulay Culkin grows up, the Cycle Ninjas break out, and Jussie Smollet shows his stuff

It's the last episode, time for answers to the big questions of the season:  Who killed Thaniel?  Who is trying to kill Eli?  Will Keefe ever be admitted to that family dinner? 

Title: "I Will Tell of All Your Deeds."  Psalms 9.1, NIV: "I will give thanks to you, Lord, with all my heart; I will tell of all your wonderful deeds."  Hopefully we'll hear about some of the Lord's deeds.

The Thaniel Answer:  A flashback: Thaniel Block (Jason Schwartzman), the snoopy reporter who was murdered in Episode 2.2, is yelling at Lyle Lissons, the megachurch pastor who wants Jesse to invest in his Christian resort!  How do those two know each other?

Ulp, Thaniel is forcing Lyle to dig up dirt on the Gemstones, but all he has provided so far is satellite church pastor Butterfield having a  three-way in the dance club restroom (See Episode 2.1)

Not good enough.  Thaniel wants Eli Gemstone, the most famous televangelist and megachurch pastor in the world.   Bringing down the Gemstones will win him a Pulitzer! 

But Lyle needs their money for his resort.  How about if he frames some of his own satellite church pastors for embezzlement? 

No, Eli Gemstone, "Or I'll do a story on your strange relationship with some of the boys at your orphanage."  Uh-oh, Lyle is a pedophile!  



Lyle goes out to his car, where the ministers he offered to betray are waiting. One is played by Chad Mountain, linked below. 

They brought hand grenades to kill Thaniel with.  But one of the idiots pulls the pin, and is exploded!   Thaniel investigates the noise and shoots another, then runs back into his house, where he accidentally shoots himself!

  

Lyle and the two surviving ministers hide when a car approaches. It's the Gemstone siblings, coming to tell Thaniel to back off. So this is all happening during Episode 2.2.   They see Thaniel's corpse and the other dead guys and run away.  To avoid discovery, Lyle tells his ministers to burn down the house.  Then, worried that the siblings may have seen them, he burns them to death, too.   OMG, this guy makes Eli breaking thumbs look like a church ladies' tea.  I'd call him a psycho, but I don't want to insult Freddy Krueger.

 So now we know who killed Thaniel and the other men, and I'm guessing that Lyle sent the Cycle Ninjas, too.  We just need the answer to the Keefe question.


Gideon jumps out a window
:  Cut to Gideon running through an office, chased by the police.  He jumps through a window and falls three stories.  He's dead!

Psych!  It was a stunt job!  Everyone loves it, including his visiting parents, who conclude that maybe doing stunt work in California isn't so bad after all.  Don't worry, he'll be back with the Gemstones soon.



Toxic father, toxic son: Then back to the Psycho: Lyle and Lindsey Lissons are visiting his elderly Dad Roddy (John Amos), who is not happy to see him: "You took everything I cared about, locked me up in this....prison."  "You mean an expensive care facility?"  Whoa, Lindsey actually slaps him and threatens him. Murder and elder abuse!  

They have come to give Roddy a permanent room at the Christian resort they are building  -- with some of the money the've stolen from him.  But since he's acting so snippy, they rescind the offer

Toxic father-son relationships this season: Roy Gemstone-Eli, Glendon Marsh-Junior, Lyle Lissons-Roddy, Baby Billy Freeman-Harmon, Eli-Kelvin, Jesse-Pontius. 

Personal note: John Amos and I used to go to the same gym in West Hollywood. We never became friends, but we had a sort of nodding acquaintanceship.  I did manage to see him in the shower.

More answers after the break

Saturday, March 9, 2024

Ten Hawkeye hunks: Mason City muscles, Bettendorf bulges, and Davenport dicks

 


From 3rd grade through college, I lived in Rock Island, Illinois, across the Mississippi from Davenport, Iowa.  It was the big city, where we went for culture: museums, art galleries, bookstores.

And shirtless athletes from St. Ambrose College.


Bettendorf, to the east of Davenport, was the wealthy suburb, where the property values were double those of Rock Island and the high school offered Russian and Mandarin in addition to plain old Spanish and French.  We hated the Betten-dorks. 

At least the athletes had a state-of-the-art weight room.


Decorah, in the northeast corner of the state, is known for Vikings and Lutherans.  I had my first real sexual experience at a music camp at Luther College.




Luther has a state-of-the-art gym, too.








The Vikings in a team-building exercise




Mason City is known for gay artist Grant Wood, who painted that American Gothic thing that everyone in Iowa hates, and for the Spirit of Mercury, a muscular art deco lighting fixture.  You can buy souvenir versions.


More Hawkeye Hunks after the break. Warning: explicit