Male nudity, gay romance, and queer codes in movies and television, especially "The Righteous Gemstones"
Gavin's Spring Break. With a gym bud, a shower bud, a Taino guy, and the Easter Bunny
Last year Gavin Munn, star of Raising Dion and The Righteous Gemstones, spent spring break in Puerto Rico. He posted some pics to his Instagram, and I added a few of my own. The naked guys are all over 18.
Is There Sex After Death?: A Gideon and Scotty story, with heartwarming scenes and oral sex
1. Going out to dinner at the Shem Creek Restaurant in Mount Pleasant -- pizza and beer -- and Scotty calls Gideon "Little Lord Fauntleroy." They smile and joke, and hold hands under the table, and the song on the radio, or in his mind, is "You Knock Me Out.” :
2. The Old Man, Jesse Gemstone, takes them all out on his yacht, and in the glittering of the waves, while the kids sit in the wading pool -- a pool on a yacht? -- Jesse offers to become his Daddy, and they hug.
Then he laughs to himself. No way will the Old Man ever admit Scotty to the family, knowing that his cock has been down his son's throat or up his ass...sorry, Mom....the fact that Scotty has been intimate with his son every night. Evangelicals hate gay sex even more than they hate thinking for yourself. The Easter Offering plan is the only way they can walk side by side into the future.
3. Driving from California to South Carolina so they can blackmail his father, the world-famous Jesse Gemstone, with a video of his sex-and-drugs party, get even for a childhood of neglect and abuse, and fund their happily-ever-after life in Thailand. They spend the night in a Motel 6 somewhere in New Mexico. Lucy is snoring. Scotty opens his eyes and sees Gideon, propped up in the other bed, playing on his cell phone, his face illuminated, as if he is already in the plane of endless light. He must be an angel -- nothing in this shithole world -- sorry, Mom -- could be so beautiful.
Scotty retreats into himself, hating himself for hurting so many people, fearful that Gideon's grandmother has come to judge him. But all he feels from Aimee-Leigh is love. She nods -- or its equivalent -- and the memory continues.
On Easter morning, Gideon comes down the elevator alone and says "It's over." He chose the ritzy Gemstone world over the dream of Thailand, the Old Man over the love of his life. The smiles, holding hands under the table, the kissing, the orgasms that burst across the universe -- all ignored. But Gideon isn't the one who ignored it -- Scotty could have said "It's ok, I don't want the money, all I need is to be by your side." He didn't.
After that Scotty sees nothing but red rage. He retrieves his van, beats up Granddad Eli, forces Gideon and Jesse to open the vault, ties them up. He yells "You made your choice, and you broke my heart!" Then he zooms away from the estate, not sure where he is going, nowhere, anywhere, into the abyss. He doesn't care; his life is over already.
Aimee-Leigh waits patiently for his despair to wash through the others. Then she asks "Are you ready to go, darlin? We've got work to do."
Calling him "darlin'," as if she is really his grandmother! Wait -- of course she is. There are no lies in the endless light. "But how? He must hate me. There's no coming back from what I've done to him."
A Discovery of Witches: Some lesbians, a gay tease, a very important book, and Matthew Goode's goods
On to the next of the new paranormal tv series on Netflix, A Discovery of Witches.
Prologue: "It begins with absence and desire. It begins with blood and fear, It begins with..." Coffee and bagels? No, "a discovery of witches."
Scene 1: Nice establishing shots of Oxford. Matthew (Matthew Goode) complains that this was once a world of wonder, but it belongs to the humans now. Demons, vampires, and witches have all gone into the closet.
Cut to a blonde woman rowing in the Thames, then running through the university, taking a shower -- gratuitous nudity, at Minute 2, no fair! -- eating breakfast, packing up her stuff, and pausing to gaze despondently at a photograph of her and her boyfriend. Actually, the lady in the photo seems a year or two older, so maybe it's her lookalike sister or mother. Looking at her makes Rowing Lady extremely depressed, so she must be dead.
Biking across town, locking up her bike -- whoops, her papers fall out and scatter, but she uses her magic powers to retrieve them. Fortunately, no one sees her.
Scene 2: Rowing Lady, Diane, is a Visiting Research Fellow who took her D.Phil. in the History of Science from Oxford, published two prize-winning books, and got tenure at Yale. In the History of Science?
In her powerpoint presentation, she theorizes that the Renaissance alchemists were actually describing real chemical processes. She's going to research the manuscripts of Elias Ashmole , after whom they named the Ashmolean Library. A lady rushes up and offers her a position at Oxford, and wants to know if her book is ready yet. She hasn't started the research yet, nitwit.
Scene 4: Diane has coffee with an old friend from Oxford, who gazes at her -- ex-girlfriend? She was trained in classical history, where there are no jobs, so she's just an adjunct. And there are jobs in the history of science?
The friend invites her to the coven tonight, but Diane isn't comfortable around magic after what happened to her parents. Witch burning?
Scene 5: In another building, a guy -- maybe Matthew? -- is praying with his rosary. Um -- Oxford is Anglican.
Left: Matthew's butt.
And his cock. It's not much, but he's an upper-class straight white man, so he'll be in a position of power regardless.
Cut to Diane in the Ashmolean Library, ordering books from the hunky library guy, played by Ezra Idun. But the book whispers at her, and some pages have been cut out. And the Praying Guy hears a heart beat! In other news, her needy friend drops by to flirt with her some more.
As Diane types her notes, the lights flash and everybody hears the whispering. Praying Guy gets a call from a woman, who explains that their blood is reacting to something. They must be vampires. Catholic vampires who go out in the daytime. He uses his super-hearing to locate the disturbance
Meanwhile, Diane finds that touching the pages burns her! She returns the book and rushes out of the building, bumping into a passerby who looks like her dad! Praying Guy is watching her suspiciously.
More after the break
Mayfair Witches: Two of them, with interlocking stories, a swishy straight guy, and a demon dick
Netflix has just dropped a lot of paranormal tv shows: A Discovery of Witches, Interview with a Vampire, The Preacher...I'll start with Mayfair Witches, which is based on a trilogy of books by Anne Rice, so there's bound to be some gay characters.
Scene 1: A sagging Gothic mansion. A man in a Depression-Era robin's egg blue suit appears on the front porch to give a staring, catatonic woman her Thorazine shot. He's new, and can't believe that this is the patient: her file is so big, he thought she was elderly.
He reviews her file, and snoops among the weird books and artifacts in her library, including a photo of her as a 1920s flapper. So she's immortal. Out on the porch, a man is talking to her, but when the doctor comes out, he is gone, and the maid says there was no man. Eerie!
The rest of the episode juxtaposes stories of two women who look alike, so the only way to tell them apart is by their timelines: the first is contemporary, and the second looks to be in the 1950s. I don't know which is the catatonic one.
The Story of Woman #1: Rowan
Scene 1: Rowan pilots a boat into San Francisco Bay. Her girlfriend arrives via Uber. Nope, it's her mother.
Scene 2: A surgeon, Rowan is comforting the young boy she'll be operating on. Wait -- a male surgeon, Dr. Keck, took over the case to impress the sexist Board, but he's not operating right. She argues, but to no avail, and the boy almost dies "Keck is a menace!" she exclaims.
Scene 3: More tearjerking: Mom's cancer is back! Plus we've only seen two male characters, neither cute.
Rowan tells the menace Dr. Keck that David Lemle was observing the surgery. His company does research with stem cells for cancer patients, so could Dr. Keck arrange an introduction, so she can apply for a job as his research associate, so she can get her mother into the trials? That sounds unethical, and really far-fetched. But Dr. Keck thinks she's arrogant, with a superiority complex.. As he is tearing into her, she hears whispers, something happens inside his brain, and he falls over dead!
Scene 4: Rowan thinks she caused Dr. Keck's death. Maybe her powers are genettc, but she's adopted, and there's no way to determine who her birth parents were.
But the moment she leaves the room, Mom calls a facility and asks who Rowan's case worker is now: Ciprian Grieves, played by Tongayi Chirisa, left. That's a totally made up name. She leaves a message: "My daughter is hurting people. I need to know if something has changed."
Scene 5: In a bar, Rowan asks the bartender, Max (Jordan Cox) to have sex with her, but he has a date tonight. So she goes after a random guy, and he relents.
After sex, he wants to stick around, cuddle, and discuss their feelings, but she kicks him out: she's only in it for sex, not a relationship. That's why she never sees the guy a second time.
Scene 6: Caseworker Ciprian Grieves goes to a house in New Orleans and uses his magic powers to look at the spirit world. A mysterious spirit, played by Jack Huston, is lurking in the back yard. He calls Rowan's Mom and tells her that He is nowhere near her daughter. That's a good thing, right?
Mom notes that she's dying of cancer, so who will protect Rowan when she's gone? Ciprian volunteers.
More after the break