A date with Kris (who may not be Jeremy Renner's boyfriend) leads to Christopher Atkins' dick

When I was living in West Hollywood in the mid-1990s, my friend Infinite Chazz began dating Kris, a 19-year old baby-faced ginger boy who had been in Los Angeles less than a year, but had already been in some movies and tv shows.

I'm not implying that he was Kristoffer Winters, who would go on to play Zilbor in Dude, Where's My Car (2000) and Clayton Gallagher in Shameless (2011-2012), and who is reputedly the boyfriend of  Jeremy Renner.

This Kris, whoever he was, soon broke up with Infinite Chazz, but we all stayed friends, as one does in gay communities. 

Kris had just landed his first starring role, in what turned out to be a very bad Smokey and the Bandits rip-off called Smoke n Lightnin, about two auto mechanics named, naturally, Smoke and Lightnin (no g), who get involved in a caper involving car chases and girls.

"It's not exactly King Lear," he admitted, "But it could lead to bigger things.  And you'll never guess who my costar is -- Christopher Atkins!  I had such a crush on him when I was a kid!"

We all had a crush on Christopher Atkins when he played a boy growing up on a desert island in The Blue Lagoon (1980) -- a thoroughly heterosexist movie famous for several nude frontal shots of the tanned young actor.

More movies with frontal nudity followed, notably A Night in Heaven (1983), about a male stripper, plus a story arc on Dallas (1983-84).

Christopher's star had waned a bit -- now he appeared mostly in sleazy, low-budget productions like Mortuary Academy and Bandit Goes Country. -- and Smoke and Lightnin.  But what actor wouldn't jump at the chance to work with such an iconic star?

And maybe get a glimpse of the most famous penis of the decade.

It was a low budget movie -- three weeks of shooting at a real auto repair shop in the San Fernando Valley and a house in Mission Viejo, and then off to Florida for two weeks of shooting the Miami locations and car-chase stunts.

One day Kris invited me out to lunch, and to meet Christopher.  I was sort of disappointed -- I didn't expect the lithe, tanned teenager of Blue Lagoon, but the cragginess, long hair, and moustache was a bit too redneck.  If I saw Christopher walking toward me on a dark street, I'd be worried about a gay-bashing.

But he turned out to be very friendly, very gay-positive.  He knew about Infinite Chazz -- even about the nickname "Infinite" -- and asked about the date of Christopher Street West, our Pride Festival, as if he intended to come.

More after the break

Leif Garrett: Nude photos of the teen idol who out-swished Liberace in the glam 1970s.

Every gay boy in the late 1970s knew teen idol Leif Garrett, whose two albums, Leif Garrett and Feel the Need, were getting gushing reviews in the teen magazines: the greatest singer who ever lived!  And the cutest boy in the universe!

Or not.  He was way too swishy, even in that era of androgyny, to be an object of homoerotic desire.  But they followed him anyway, because he was the first gay person they had ever seen on stage.  Maybe they weren't doomed to sad, lonely lives in the closet after all.

Of course, he wasn't openly gay. The teen magazines tried to push his macho interests, like skateboarding and cars, and interviewed him incessantly about what kind of girls he liked.  But come on.

 

The penis you're looking at is called a club-bulge, an effect created by a combination of very tight pants and shoving a rolled-up sock down there.  It was a standard accessory for every actor at the time, and still in use in gay clubs.  Leif's is actually understated; you should see what Shawn Cassidy was wearing. 

I'm just a sweet transvestite from transsexual Transylvania.

Explicit photos after the break

Lee Doud: "I'm Fine," random nude dudes, and anti-Asian prejudice in the gay community

 Lee Doud starred in the Doku series I'm Fine, about some twenty-ish friends looking for love in West Hollywood. I lived in West Hollywood for twelve years, sigh.

He also appeared in Good Trouble, Lucifer, and SWAT, and wrote/produced the documentary series OUTLOUD: Raising Voices   

In 2018, Lee  published The Gay Community's Fear and Loathing of Asian Men Must End" in The Advocate, about his experience as a mixed-race Asian/white guy in Hollywood ("you'll get more roles if you downplay the Asian part) and in the gay community ("So, which half of you is white, har har")..  Guys think that he is Hispanic, and actually lose interest when he tells them that he is part-Asian.  Hookup app profiles regularly say "No Asians.  Not racist, just a preference."

Um...it's a preference because they think that all Asian men have traits that they find undesirable, like being femme,anal bottoms, or having small dicks.  On the flip side, some guys like those traits, and fetishize Asian men. That's the definition of racism.

So let's take a look at some photos that highlight Lee's physique.  

Morning mimosas

Halloween at the Pailhouse.  I miss West Hollywood.

Working out on a pole.

More Lee after the break

Phil of the Future's future: Former Disney Channel teen Raviv Ullman on the Torah, wearing dresses, and his penis

 

On an uncomfortably humid episode of Broad City, set during a sopping-wet New York summer -- I've been there -- besties Abbi and Ilana try to beat the heat by buying, borrowing, or stealing an air conditioner.  Humorous or uncomfortable excursions follow, such as sex with a sopping-wet Seth Rogan, and holing up in a dorm room at New York University, smoking weed with -- and making out with -- two boys.  You'd think that someone hanging out in a college dorm room would be a college student, right?  No, they're high school students, age 16.

And one of them is Phil of the Future!

If you weren't watching the Disney Channel on Friday nights in 2004, you might not have noticed, among the girl-centric teencoms like That's So Raven, Lizzie McGuire, and Kim Possible, the boy-centric Phil of the Future.  A time-machine mishap strands a family from 2124 in our century, where they must adjust to primitive technology while keeping their secret. Phil, played by Ricky Ullman, immediately meets a girl, with whom he shares adventures while falling in love. Careful, dude, she could be your great-grandmother.

No gay subtexts here: hetero-romance is the beginning and end of everyone's story.  But there were a lot of cute guys, or guys who would grow up to be cute, like Evan Peters, whose butt you have seen many times on American Horror Story.  It was certainly better than watching Raven's psychic flashes.

After Phil, Ricky moved on to teen sex comedies like Prom Wars, grown-up sex comedies like How to Make Love to a Woman, and Rita Rocks, a Lifetime sitcom about a middle-aged lady who starts a garage band.

The straight-to-DVD Driftwood, 2006, was a change of pace dramatic role: David is sent to an "attitude adjustment camp." He befriends Noah, there to be "cured" of being gay, and helps him solve the murder of his boyfriend.  

This also marks the moment that Raviv dropped the stage name "Ricky" and came out as Jewish. He's actually Orthodox, and devout; his grandfather was a rabbi.

Contest, 2013, features a bully and his victim working together to win a contest.  I haven't seen it, but it appears to be all gay-subtext: the victim also gets a girlfriend. 

Strangers, 2017, not to be confused with Strangers, 2018, is a Facebook series about a young woman who makes extra money by renting out a room.  Isn't that called having a roommate?  She gets a girlfriend -- or two -- it's hard to tell from the trailer. Raviv plays Rory in three episodes.

I thought Raviv starred in Newsies on Broadway, but I can't find any reference. His theatrical credits include Bad Guys, The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner, Death Trap (which features a gay kiss), and Usual Girls. 

This is from Spring Break 83, a "raunchy comedy" set to be released in 2012, but shut down by the actors' and technicians' union because they weren't being paid.

In 2020-21, Raviv hosted a weekly podcast on applying the Torah to everyday life.  His topics included the X-Men, student debt, the afterlife. tattoos, and the "clobber passages" that are often used for homophobic rants.

More after the break