Dan Shor: Tron, Star Trek, an Excellent Adventure, the South Pacific, and the Butt that Changed the World.

Sometime during the days of Blockbuster Video, we rented Strange Behavior (1981), mainly because the cover blurb said something about Galesburg, Illinois, which is near the Quad Cities. 

We weren't aware that it was written by a gay man (Bill Condon), it stars a gay man (Dan Shor), and it features something that would change movies forever.

It's got a silly plot about a crazed college professor named Dr. Le Sange (Dr. Blood), who mind-controls the town teenagers into blood-crazed monsters.

No Galesburg sites are appear mentioned; Apparently they just picked a random town in the Midwest so there would be cornfields and stereotyped farm folk. It was actually filmed in New Zealand.

The focus character is named Pete Brady, which no doubt caused a lot of eye-rolls and derisive laughs in 1981: Viewers would instantly think of the kid from The Brady Bunch (Christopher Knight, who grew up into a muscle hunk.)

This photo teases a gay-subtext buddy bond between focus character Pete Brady (har har) and Oliver (Marc McClure), but the movie is actually heteronormative, with boy-girl romance all the way down.  

I'd rather date Marc McClure, loveable nerd Jimmy Olsen in Superman (1978).

 And Dan Shor, the guy who plays Pete, is not handsome. He's got a long face, a Romanesque nose, and a lantern jaw.

But none of that is important.

What's important is a scene early in the movie where Pete Brady (har har) and his father (not Mike Brady, darn it) have just gotten up in the morning.  Pete approaches him to discuss something.  Naked.  He then moves toward the shower.  We get an extended shot of his butt.

 

It wasn't the first nude butt on film, but it was the first extended butt shot that wasn't for a comedic purpose.

There is no other nudity, male or female, in the film, not even a shirtless shot.  What was the directorial decision to film Dan Shor nude?

In an interview, Dan said that it was a political act, an acknowledgement of gay potential in the homophobic 1980s. It disrupted the heterosexual male gaze and paved the way for movies to present images of male beauty.

"And it sealed my popularity in West Hollywood," Dan joked.  Or maybe he wasn't joking.

Born in New York in 1956, Dan Shor studied acting in England, then moved to Hollywood, where he landed small parts in some serious, "artistic" movies: Young Studs in an adaption of James T. Farrell's Studs Lonigan (1979).

Enoch Emery in an adaption of Flannery O'Conner's Wise Blood (1979).

Eric in the After-School Special The Boy Who Drank Too Much (1980), starring Scott Baio as an alcoholic teenager named Buff Saunders (Buff?).

More after the break

Gemstones Episode 4.2: Baby Billy's dong, BJ's pole, Kelvin's pipe, and the Clobber Verses

Previous: Gemstones Episode 4.1: Elijah scoundrels, Winston dies, and Kelvin screams

Title: "You Hurled Me Into the Depths, Into the Very Heart of the Sea." Jonah 2.3: Jonah is in the belly of the great fish, praying for deliverance (not a whale -- there are no whales in the Mediterranean Sea).

Gemstone Roll Call: A gold-and-purple Baby Billy announces Jesse, Judy, and Kelvin in angel costumes.  The rest of the family joins them on stage for the Aimee-Leigh Birthday Give-A-Thon (in case you're interested, she was born on September 21, 1955).

Keefe does a high kick.  The siblings appear in jetpacks, and rise up over the stage, but things go wrong and they crash.  Fortunately, it's just a rehearsal.

Baby Billy's Dong:  In the dressing room, the siblings refuse to continue with the jetpack bit, but Baby Billy insists: this is too important. So he's in charge now? And where the heck is Eli?   Somewhere in Florida. He won't answer their phone calls. 

Baby Billy then drops his trousers to flop his dong around: "This is what a real man looks like.  I booked all these people to the Give-a-Thon, so Eli has to be there!"   Fans were complaining that the stunt cock guy had no balls.  Who's looking for balls?

Eli Hooks Up:  Somewhere in Florida (actually the Keys), a grotesque long-haired Eli awakens on his boat, Nice Mussels, and cooks eggs for the lady he "69ed for 45 minutes" last night.  She wants more of his "thick breakfast sausage" instead, but he explains that he is not ready for a relationship.  He's still trying to figure out what he wants.  Dude, you're 73.  Better hurry.  Besides, "I don't like you."  

She rushes off, but Eli struts down the dock, smoking a cigar, cruising the ladies.  Easter Egg: he has a cap from Adams College, a call-back to "Revenge of the Nerds"

Uh-oh, it's the siblings, for some reason dressed in their Cape and Pistol society costumes.  Judy has an unexplained bandaged hand.  They yell at Eli for drinking too much, and when they find a bra, hooking up with ladies.  "Am I supposed to be in mourning all my life?"  "Yes!"  They had the same argument in Season 2, when Eli hooked up with a lady after Bowling Night.

He refuses to go to the telethon.  The siblings annoy him by saying "p*ssy" over and over, and making the tongue-through-fingers gesture, until he consents.  How does Kelvin know about that?

Time to set up the sibling conflicts for the season:

BJ's Pole:  BJ (not pictured) is in a pole dancing class otherwise occupied entirely by women (the casting call asked for men, too, but I guess none showed up).  Judy disapproves of him spending so much time aroiund hot ladies, or having any life outside of her, but he explains that the "physical rigor and slightly taboo nature of pole dancing" has keyed into his obsessive nature, like pickleball in Season 3 and skating in Season 2.  BJ's story arc always involves trying to become his own person, distinct from Judy.

It turns out that pole dancing is a competitive sport, with men and women participants.

Loud and Proud after the break

Ben and Matt Royer: Disney /Nick teencom twins grow up, become journalists, one dates guys. With Matt and bf d*cks

 

If you were watching the Disney Channel or Nickelodeon between 2015 and 2020, you saw twin brothers Ben and Matt Royer.  They were everywhere, playing conniving, mischievous, silly, or virtuous twins.

The brothers were born in Tarzana, California in 2003 and began acting in 2013, playing Vince and Vance Hodges in the sports comedy Back in the Game.  Griffin Gluck also appeared.

Next came the Nickelodeon teencom 100 Things to Do Before High School (2015-16) had the standard three friends, white male (Owen Patrick Joyner), black male (Jaheem Toombs), and female, giving advice like "say yes to everything for a day," "stay up all night," "adopt a flour baby," "meet your idol," and "get your heart pre-broken."  Ben and Matt played Benji and Enzo Froman. 

Chazz Nittolo played Gorgeous Eighth Grade Boy. In 2025, he's 25 years old.  Not bad.

While working on 100 Things, the twins were cast on the Disney Channel's Best Friends Whenever (2015-16): Two teenage girls and their buddy Barry (Gus Kamp) jump back in time, mostly to the recent past so they can determine why their new lab partner is a jerk or Barry can meet his science hero. Ben and Matt play Brett and Chet Marcus, the younger brothers of one of the girls, with crushes on the other. 

I don't know if the actor Gus Kamp (left) is the same as the trans singer August Kamp.

A lot of twin guest spots followed, including episodes of Pickles & Peanut (as Crabmeat and Umbrella), White Famous (Milo and Otis),The Guest Book (Henry and Hank), and Night Court (as Grant and Brant)

Ben also got non-twin roles on Young Sheldon and American Born Chinese, and in the movie The Happytime Murders (2018).

The twins hosted a podcast, Twinger Talk, where they interviewed celebrities.  I don't recognize the names of their guests, but the top photo looked cute: Jerry Hairston, a baseball player.

Plus they supported a variety of charities, like an anti-bullying initiative and YSB Now ("You're So Beautiful" Now).

They graduated from UCLA in 2024, Ben majoring in Communications and Matt in Political Science.  In 2025 they received their M.A. degrees from the Annenberg School of Journalism at USC. 

Ben (no beard) is now a sports reporter for the Los Angeles Times, and Matt (beard) a graduate fellow at ABC News in New York.  I imagine that they don't have a lot of time for acting.

You're probably wondering: 

1. Are they gay?

2. Any n*de photos?

More after the break.  Caution: Explicit.