Gemstones Episode 4.6: Kelvin cruises teen idols, Jesse hangs dong, and Cobb gets his cobb bit off. With Ricky Martin and the Italian Stallion

 

Previous: Gemstone Episode 4.5, Continued: Kelvin crashes, the Monkey fumes, and Eli gets a wake-up call

Title: "Interlude IV."  The Interlude is usually Episode 5, but this season started with a stand-alone.  We're halfway through the action in the present day, with Kelvin's meltdown, Judy's jealousy over the monkey, and Eli and Lori dealing with violence.

The New Parking Lot: 2002.  Eli is standing before the County Zoning Board, discussing his plan to build a 10-acre parking lot at the Salvation Center, which would involve buying and demolishing neighboring houses.   He claims that they bring thousands of people to town, who spend money, so it's a "win-win" situation.  Aimee-Leigh points out that they're also bringing in jobs.  The townsfolk growl and complain.  So am I.  Zoning restrictions?  How boring can you get? 

Cute council member Terry Cook is eating a donut.  A background player notes that they did several takes, asking him to convey anger and eat an egg.  

The cast list is not yet up on the IMDB, and googling "Terry Cook" doesn't work, but he looks like Jamie McGuire, the creepy-grin creature on "From." 

 The council president yells: "You may be able to buy out desperate people, Dr. Gemstone, but that doesn't make it right!"   She notes that the county board usually rubber-stamps their crazy plans, but not this time: "The crowd of people behind you is voiceless, and someone has to be their voice!"  

The plan is rejected, and the couple leaves in defeat. Aimee-Leigh wonders why they're even doing this ministry stuff.

Eli: "For the lake house."  That is, for the money. Um...serving God?  Spreading the Gospel? Helping people?

They walk out into a huge demonstration.  Someone shoves pies in their faces.

Writers: This sequence has no connection to the plot.  In Season 3, the Y2K scandal caused Peter's meltdown and enmity toward the Gemstones, but Cobb's enmity has nothing to do with the new parking lot.

Corey Defends Daddy: At the lake house, Lori's husband Cobb (Michael Rooker) is trying to water-ski, but Eli drives too fast, and he capsizes. His manhood challenged, he splutters and swears. 

Meanwhile, on a raft-slide, Young Judy and Jesse laugh at him, which upsets Young Corey.

Young Kelvin defends him, pointing out that at least Cobb is trying, whereas Jesse spends all his time "being bad, having sex."  This has resulted in Amber getting pregnant.  The enraged Jesse tries to attack, but Corey stops him.

A New Album: While Lori and Aimee-Leigh watch their husband in the water, posturing to see who will become the Silverback, they advise the very pregnant Amber that she should go inside and take a nap.  She refuses, so they discuss how much they dislike their kids until Amber gets tired of it and leaves.

Then they discuss recording a new album; they haven't recorded together in years. 

Cut to the studio, where they are making up song lyrics while Judy listens.  Kelvin eavesdrops from outside the door. 

More after the break

Skyler's Hot/Hung Photos, Part 5: Bathtub pic, glory hole pic, hanging with Scotty pic. With Corenswet and Hoult backsides

 

This is a collection of cute/cool or hot/humorous photos of  Skyler Gisondo, star of The Santa Clarita Diet and The Righteous Gemstones, and Jimmy Olson in the upcoming Superman: Legacy.  

1. "Another photo collection?  Haven't you seen enough of me?"

I can't help it, buddy.  You keep posting homoerotic pics.

2. And now that you're starring in Superman, we have David Corenswet to worry about, too.

3. And Nicholas Hoult/Lex Luther

4. "Hey, I thought this was a photo collection about me."

Sorry.  How about a long-hair bathtub pic?

5. "Have you met my girlfriend?"

Odd time to introduce her.

6. I don't care what you do in private, but let's get back to the homoeroticism.  Tell me about your relationship with Scott McArthur when you were filming "Righteous Gemstones" Season 1.

"We really carped the diem… from frisbee golf courses to to swamp tours to bondage... I mean bluegrass concerts to cock...I mean chasing down the best fried chicken sandwich in Charleston."

More after the break.  Caution: explicit

Jay R. Ferguson: The "obviously gay" teen idol of the 1990s moves on to play a 1960s sleazoid and the dad of gay sons. With Jay and Carter cocks

In the early 1990s, I was living in West Hollywood, and completely immersed in the LGBT community.  Media from the Straight World was suspect, if not homophobic than heteronormative, presenting men and women gazing at each other as the meaning of life.  So we chose our television programs carefully. On Monday nights, it was Fresh Prince of Bel Air (Carleton, sigh!), Blossom (Joey Lawrence, sigh!), and Designing Women (drag queen inspiration Suzanne Sugarbaker).  Certainly not Evening Shade (1990-94), with Burt Reynolds as a football coach (ugh!) in a small town (ugh!) in Arkansas (ugh!).

So when this photo of a shirtless, partying young man began appearing on all of the gay celebrity websites, we had no idea who he was. 

The photos kept coming.  We discovered that he was Jay R. Ferguson, who played Taylor, son of Burt Reynolds' character Wood.  Wood?  Really?

 Generally he was swishing it up, as in this iconic photo: apparently saying "Hey, Girl!" in a classic twink outfit, a short top. a bare midriff, and jeans with a club bulge.  Obviously gay!  

In the days when television was entirely heterosexist or homophobic,when even the most flamboyant actor stayed in the closet or saw his career fade away, seeing "one of us" was amazing.  

Unfortunately,the only way to conduct research was to buy a teen magazine -- and the Different Light bookstore on Santa Monica did not stock Tiger Beat.  

The show ended, the photo stream ended, and we forgot about the obviously-gay Jay.  .

For thirty years.

Until 2025, when The Real O'Neils (2016-2018) appeared on Hulu.  A conservative Irish-Catholic family has to deal with a number of problems: Dad wants a divorce; the daughter is an atheist; the oldest son (Matthew Shively) has an eating disorder; the youngest son (Noah Galvin) is gay.  

Yeah, I don't like "gay" being portrayed as a problem, either.  But I like Noah Galvin.

And the hunky dad is played by...Jay R. Ferguson!

Three questions:

1. What has he been doing in the years since Evening Shade?

2. Any nude photos?

3. Is he really gay?

1. What has he been doing?

Jay's first project after Evening Shade was Higher Learning (1995), which is not a teen sex comedy: Omar Epps (left) stars as a student experiencing racism at Columbia University.  But Jay did show us his butt (while sexing a girl).

And an under-the-covers erection, probably a prosthetic.

Next  Jay moved into teen horror (Campfire Tales, 1997),  sex comedy (Pink as the Day She Was Born, 1997), teen angst (Blue Ridge Falls, 1999), and dark secrets (The In Crowd, 2000), before finding his niche in television:

Glory Days (2001-02).  Oddly, it's not about soldiers, it stars Eddie Cahill as a writer who dished the dirt on residents of his home town, and is surprised when he returns to find that they don't like him.  Jay plays the sheriff.

Judging Amy (2003-4), which is not about a judge named Amy.  A woman has problems with her mother, husband, and child.  Jay plays a doctor.

In a 2005 episode of Medium, Allison realizes that her troubled half-brother Michael (Ryan Hurst) has a "secret."   One assumes that it's being gay, but it's actually that he shares her gift of seeing the future.  Jay plays his buddy.  That's as close to a gay character as he gets.

Surface (2005-2006):  Marine biologist Lake (Lake?): her "will they or won't they?" sparring partner, insurance salesman Rich (Jay), and a teenage boy (Carter Jenkins, left, recent photo) discover a "new and dangerous" species of marine life.  This one actually looks interesting.

By the way, Carter, who went on to star in Shadow Diaries, has a j/o video (after the break).

"The Treasure of Foggy Mountain": Enough beefcake and queer codes? With dicks and a random Adam Devine butt

 

Please Don't Destroy is a sketch comedy group consisting of  Ben Marshall (left), Martin Herlihy (right), and John Higgins (below), who have graduated from the short films of your dad's generation to TikTok videos.  They were hired to write for Saturday Night Live in 2021, and their first movie just dropped on Peacock: The Treasure of Foggy Mountain.  

It's recommended by Adam Devine, but I'd have to subscribe to Peacock to see it, so I've been checking trailers, synopses, and reviews for gay characters, gay subtexts, and beefcake.

The plot: Like Adam, Anders, and Blake of Workaholics, the three play "themselves" as clueless dudebros who live together, work together, and haven't quite made it to adulthood --  which in movies usually means hetero-romance.  Only Martin has a girlfriend.  

Ben wants to impress his Dad by being a business success, and John is content to play video games and drink beer.  They decide to go on one last adventure, searching for a lost treasure, a bust of Marie Antoinette worth several million dollars. 

On the way, they run afoul of a homicidal hawk (who becomes an ally), greedy park rangers, a gang, a cult, fireworks, fist-fights, and danger.  

Heterosexism:  Martin already has a girlfriend, and John falls in love with one of the cult girls.  As far as I can tell, Ben stays unattached.  

Gay Characters/Subtext: None that I could tell from the plot synopsis or reviews, but Bowen Yang, who plays the head cultist, is gay in real life and plays a lot of gay roles.  

There also might be a queer code in this scene of a communal bath: Martin and Ben are being soaped up by men, and John by a woman.  Or it could be a homophobic joke; it's hard to tell.

Beefcake: The guys are shirtless at least twice. Also, when they are learning to glide off mountaintops, with the help of their hawk buddy, John's suit busts open, and we see his penis swinging around.  

Penises after the break