Jason Schwartzman: Lots of quirky guys winning the Girl of Their Dreams, with two gay/bi roles and one penis

Jason Schwartzman broke into film with Rushmore, 1998, which I didn't see: the plot synopsis sounded decidedly creepy, not to mention obsessively heterosexist.  A 15 year old boy tries to get with one of high school teachers, but she refuses to sexually assault him, so he fixes her up with his older buddy and finds an age-appropriate girlfriend.  Shudder.

He played a few more disaffected, deviant, and dangerous teenagers, in  Freaks and Geeks, Slackers, and Spun, then moved on to some well-received independents, such as I Heart Huckabees and The Grand Budapest Hotel

Looking through the list on the IMDB, I realize that out of Jason's 87 movies and tv shows, I've seen four: 

Scott Pilgrim vs. the World, 2010:  An adaption of the graphic novel, with Scott (Michael Cera, who I watched to see) trying to win the Girl of His Dreams by clobbering her evil exes.  One is a girl; plus Scott has a gay roommate, played by Kieran Culkin. Jason plays one of the exes, Gideon G-Man Graves.

Wet Hot American Summer, 10 Years Later, 2017, reunites the gang from the movie and add some new characters, such as Deegs, "the new Andy" (Skyler Gisondo, who I watched to see). Jason plays Greg, the head boys' counselor at the summer camp.

In The Righteous Gemstones Season 2, Jason plays Thaniel, a sleazy journalist digging up dirt about "sexual impropriety" among clergy.  He is especially interested in taking down Eli Gemstone, the most famous televangelist and mega-church pastor in the world. Eli's children, hoping to talk him into backing off, go to his cabin, and find him shot to death!  "Who killed Thaniel?" is one of the main mysteries of the season.

Jason plays a gay guy in Asteroid City, 2023: Augie Steenbeck, a World War II photojournalist who stars in the play based on the movie we're watching, and dates the playwright, I think. It's all very confusing, and not really worth it: the two are on stage for only about 30 seconds, and vanish after a single, so-distant-that-you-can-barely-see it kiss.

More Jason after the break

Brad Hallowell: A decade of dicks. The rest is silence.

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Robert Oberst and the World's Strongest Men. Yes, some of them are naked

Robert Oberst, whose motto is "Strong and Pretty," grew up in Aptos, California, graduated from Western Oregon University in 2008 with a degree in history.  He moved to San Francisco, and like most history majors, found work as a bouncer in gay bars.  

But soon he discovered that being huge was good for more than attracting guys: he began competing on the strongman circuit, and racking up awards:

First place, San Francisco Fit Exp, 2012.

Third place, America's Strongest Man, 2012. Second place, 2013 and 2014

Third place, All-Amerca Strong Man Challenge, 2013.

And it goes on like that.  Meanwhile, he sold "Strong and Pretty" products and appeared as himself in two tv series dedicated to the strongest men in the world.

In 2022, after placing in nearly 20 competitions, Robert retired from strength competitions, just in time to break into an acting career.  He stars in Season 3 of The Righteous Gemstones as Chuck Montgomery, one of the backwoods cousins of the mega-rich Judy, Jesse, and Kelvin Gemstone.  

Strongman contests differ from bodybuilding in their emphasis on strength rather than definition, so bulk is fine.  Many strongmen find that a belly is an asset, as we see with Tom Stoltzman, World's Strongest Man in 2021 and 2022.

Bodybuilders are drawn from the elite class, who can afford to spend thousands of dollars on protein supplements and fancy gym equipment.  Strongmen are drawn from the working class, so their feats of strength often involve everyday objects: lifting boulders, logs, and tires; pulling or flipping over cars; tossing beer kegs.  Here Oleg Novikov, the World's Strongest Man in 2020, lifts a barbell made of tires.

Robert Oberst specialized in the log lift: in 2015 he broke the American log lift record of 211 kg -- 465 pounds.

Strength competitions are super-macho, drawing a lot of heterosexual alpha males.  Although Robert likes to hint that he is gay, he has never made a public statement. Besides, I think he might have a wife.

In fact only one professional strongman is out as gay: Rob Kearney, who coincidentally broke Robert Oberst's log-lift record in 2020.

Nude strongman bonus after the break

Joel Rush's Hot/Hung Photos, Part 1: Why does everybody else in his movies get naked?

 

It's difficult to research Joel Rush: no instagram or personal website, only a minimal Facebook page, a Twitter page that hasn't been updated since 2012, a wikipedia page that just tells us that he was born in Logansport, Indiana on August 26, 1981, worked as a software salesman in Tampa, did some modeling, and broke into acting after being runner-up on the reality show True Beauty in 2009.  

He's been in several gay-themed movies, including Eating Out: Drama Camp, Eating Out: The Open Weekend, and Love or Whatever, but I can't tell if he's gay in real life. True Beauty judged your inner beauty; it didn't hook you up with a romantic partner.

I noticed something else unusual about Joel: he's been in a number of movies and tv shows where other guys got naked, but he did not.

In Eating Out: Drama Camp, we see Aaron Milo's cock and Ronnie Krell's butt, but Joel just takes his shirt off.

In Eating Out: Open Weekend, we see Michael Vera's butt and Alvaro Orlando's dick, but no Joel.

In Love or Whatever, Corey, played by Tyler Poelle, is distraught when his boyfriend John, played by David Page, dumps him.  They get naked, but new romance Joel Rush does not.

We do get a butt  in the anthology series Femme Fatales, but Jon Fleming gives us the Full Monte.

More Joel after the break. Caution: Explicit