Luke Benward: Fried worms, Disney movies, Christian music, gay friends, a j/o video, and a n*de Cameron Monaghan

How to Eat Fried Worms (Thomas Rockwell, 1973) is one of the classic novels of my childhood: Billy brags that he can eat anything, so when his friend Alan offers him $50 to eat a worm a day for 15 days...  He can prepare them any way he wants, but Alan will provide the worms. The parents are in on the scheme, there is no bullying involved, each of the boys has a buddy-bonding best friend, and the only girl is Billy's sister.  No one wins the Girl of His Dreams.

 Remembering the buddy-bonds and the absence of the heterosexist trajectory, I eagerly tuned in to the Disney Channel version (2006).  But now Billy (Luke Benward) is confronted by a gang of  bullies led by Joe (Adam Hicks), he fors a group of friend instead of a special buddy, and there is a Girl of His Dreams.  

A rather disappointing start to Luke Benward's career.  Let's see if he has redeemed himself since with some gay roles.

According to the IMDB, Luke was born in 1995 in Franklin, Tennesse.  

He first appeared on screen playing Mel Gibson's son in We Were Soldiers (2002).  

The infamous homophobe Mel Gibson?  That's even worse. 

After roles in the revamped Family Affair (2002) and Because of Winn-Dixie (2005), Luke hit Disney gold with Fried Worms (2006).  

His Disney stardom assured, he continued with Mostly Ghostly (2007): A shy boy (Sterling Beaumon) encounters a a ghost boy (Luke) and his sister, who has a crush on him.  He must figure out how they died before it's too late, and win the Girl of His Dreams. 

Left: Luke and Sterling Beamon strangling Miles Heizer.  Neither has actually worked with Miles Heizer.  Maybe they're friends?

Minutemen (2008): A teen nerd (Luke), his buddy, and the Girl Next Door become time travelers, allowing him to best the obnoxious jock who is dating the Girl of His Dreams. Guess who he ends up with.

Dog Gone (2008): A boy (Luke) rescues a dog from bumbling thieves, bests the school bully (Cameron Monaghan, left),  and wins the Girl of His Dreams.

Things are not looking good for you, Luke Baby.

Let's skip past Girl v Monster and Zombies and Cheerleaders to Luke's first major tv role in Good Luck Charlie (2013).  Charlie is a girl, not a boy, and she doesn't bring good luck; she's the subject of a video diary filmed by her father.  Luke plays Beau Landry, an employee at Bob's Bugs Be Gone who meets, falls in love with, and eventually becomes the boyfriend of Teddy (another girl.  What's with this show?).

Ok, what about Ravenswood (2013-14), a teen mystery series featuring dark secrets in a small town?  Luke plays Dillon Sanders, who is dating focus character Olivia but is secretly plotting to prevent her from discovering the dark secrets.  Oh, and he kills her father.  That sort of ends the relationship.

Cloud 9 (2014): A snowboarder and her obnoxious boyfriend are trained by snowboarding great Will Cloud (Luke).  The boyfriend gets dumped, and...well you know the rest.

Measure of a Man (2018): Dude gets a girlfriend.

Life of the Party (2018): Middle-aged Deanna, newly dumped by her husband, returns to college, and has s*x with a fratboy (Luke), who becomes obsessed with her.  Guess what?  He's the son of the woman Deanna was dumped for. 

I'm tired of this.  Let's see what else Luke has been up to.

He's done some music, such as the theme song for Cloud 9, and he has appeared in the music videos of several other artists, including Martina McBride and Jason Aldean.  

Wait -- he's the son of Christian country-western singer Aaron Benward, shown here with his boyfriend...um, I mean singing partner Scott Reeves -- and the grandson of Christian music producer Jeoffrey Benward.  They have won Dove Awards, and Jeoffrey was inducted into Christian Music Hall of Fame.  Why didn't anyone tell me this before?  Luke Baby is too fundamentalist to play a gay character, and if he's gay in real life, he's got to be extremely closeted.

According to the  Who's Dated Who website, Luke has been in several relationships with women, and is currently dating Ariel Winter (Alex Dumphy on Modern Family).  You know there were gay characters on that show, right?

More after the break.  Caution: Explicit.

My Date with Michael J. Fox. Plus Marcus and the Scary Bulgarian Bodybuilder.

Friday, July 5th:  Two days after I arrive in West Hollywood, after my terrible year in Hell-fer-Sartain, Texas, I am sitting in the human resources department at Paramount Studios, waiting to interview for a job as an administrative assistant, when Marcus comes in to drop something off.  He's my age, African-American, with very light skin, freckles, and a hairy chest.  I get his phone number.

You're probably wondering how I got a job interview two days after arriving, when one of those days was a federal holiday.  I had been applying for jobs for weeks, using my friend Tom's address and telephone number.

Saturday, July 6th: Our date, an inside tour of Paramount Studios (yes, we saw more stuff), followed by cruising at the Gold Coast and dinner at the French Quarter in West Hollywood.  He came to Los Angeles to become an actor five years ago, and has had some guest spots in tv shows and movies.

"Do you know anyone famous?" I ask with tourist zeal.

"Nobody really famous.  I mean, some guys on tv.  Robin Williams.  Tom Hulce.  I know Michael J. Fox from acting class."

I'm not impressed.  I've barely heard of Michael J. Fox -- he plays Alex P. Keaton, Reagan-loving son of liberal hippie parents on the sitcom Family Ties (1982-1989),  But I've only seen the show a few times.

Back to the Future, which will propel Michael to fame, premiered on July 3rd, but I haven't heard of it.

Marcus is a good kisser, with a nice physique and a respectable size.  But he likes nude wrestling: I have to pin him before I can go down on him.  Then he doesn't reciprocate, he just grabs me, puts me in sort of a headlock, and falls asleep.  Not my idea of a romantic evening!  

So no more dating.  But we stay friends (that's actually how we made friends in West Hollywood).

Wednesday, July 10th: I start working at Muscle and Fitness, two days a week as a "contributing editor," aka gopher.  '

Wednesday, July 17th: I meet Ivo, a stringer for the magazine, about 30 years old, a Bulgarian bodybuilder, with short brown hair, a boyish open face, massive shoulders, and slates for abs.

Saturday, July 20th: My first date with Ivo.  I'm curious about Back to the Future, the new time travel comedy starring Michael J. Fox.

"No way, man!" Ivo exclaims.  "That Mike Fox thinks he's a big deal, but he's terrible in bed.  They should call him Princess Teeny-Tiny!"

Weird coincidence!  I think.  I've been in town less than a month, and already I've met two people who know Michael J. Fox, and one of them is his ex-lover!

But Ivo is apparently better in bed -- very passionate, a top but open to doing interfemoral instead of anal -- kissing during interfemoral is a new one for me.  And open to oral -- twice before the night turns to morning, and again before breakfast.  

Sunday, July 21st: I have brunch at the French Quarter with Marcus, and tell him about my date with Ivo.

"Strange," he says.  "I'm completely out to Mike, and he's never said anything about being gay.  Sounds like Ivo is one of these celebrity name-droppers who claims to have been with everyone from Harrison Ford to Arnold Schwarzeneggar."

"But he wasn't bragging.  He got upset.  He said Michael was bad in bed and should be called Princess Teeny-Tiny."

Marcus laughs.  "Well, I don't have any information on Mike beneath the belt.  But tell you what -- he's in London right now.  When he gets back, we'll all get together, and you can ask him yourself."

Ask Michael J. Fox about his size?  I don't think so!  But it would be fun to meet him.

I date Ivo three or four more times, but his stories become more and more bizarre.

His father was the Bulgarian ambassador; he used to hang out at the White House.  

He has a degree in economics from Harvard, but turned down a professorship because he wanted to be a writer. When he returned to Bulgaria to help his cousin, he was arrested and imprisoned for six months. He has a book on his experiences coming out next year.  

Paramount is producing his screenplay about a college student who discovers that he is half-alien.  Scott Baio will be the star. They dated for awhile.

Saturday, August 3rd: Marcus and I see Back to the Future.  I'm not impressed with the heteronormative plotline.  But, he says, Michael is back in town.  Could we have lunch next Saturday?

Monday, August 5th: Ivo has me over for dinner.  While he is chopping celery, I tell him about the lunch.  He freezes, and his face turns bright red.  "Can't you ever talk about anything but Michael J. Fox?  Day after day, hour after hour, nothing but Michael J. Fox!  And now you have a date with him!"

I try to remember when I last mentioned him. "No, no, it's just a lunch.  Marcus is coming, too."

"Bah!  If you love him so much, why don't you move in with him?"

"It's just..."

"F** Mike Fox, always stealing everybody's lovers!  Well, let me tell you what happened to the last guy Mike Fox stole from me -- I cut him good!"  He stabs the air with his knife.

I am shocked -- and terrified.  Ivo is twice as strong as me, and carrying a weapon. "Fox sounds like a real jerk!" I tell him.  "I'm definitely cancelling that lunch!  Um...you know what?  I forgot to bring in the dessert -- there's a peach pie in the car.   I'll just go get it." 

 I clatter out the door and down the stairs.  

Wednesday, August 7th: He comes into the editorial office at Muscle and Fitness to drop off a story, and pretends not to know me.

Saturday, August 10th: The promised lunch with Marcus and Michael.

Marcus picks me up and drives me to a small, bare-brick cafe on Melrose.  We are just ordering drinks when Michael comes in, wearing a white shirt, buttoned down to reveal a soft smooth chest, tight bulging jeans, and sunglasses.

He's my age, short, slim, androgynous  The feminine teen idol type.

He hugs Marcus and reaches out to shake my hand, then says "What the hell" and hugs me, too.

I feel a definite bulge pressing against me.


"So, are you guys together?" Michael asks as he scans the menu.

"No," Marcus says.  "We dated once, but you know some guys can't handle ten inches."

"They just need a little practice, like that one night after acting class."  He nudges Marcus affectionately.

What night?  Did Marcus and Michael hook up?  Michael is either gay or amazingly gay-positive!

"So..I was dating another guy who claimed to know you," I say.  "Ivo the Bulgarian bodybuilder."

Michael frowns. "Doesn't ring a bell.  But you know how it is, you get a tv show, and suddenly every guy you have ever said hello to claims to be your bosom buddy."

"Or your ex-lover," Marcus adds.  But if he was making it up, why did he get so upset?

More after the break

Riley Polanski: From Xanadu to Silverlake, with n*de photos and bonus Michael J. Fox

Instagram recommended another guy I never heard of: Riley Polanski.  Be sure to include the -n, or you'll get a lot of ladies.  I checked the IMDB to make sure he's an actor.  But before looking at his work, let's check his Instagram to see if he is gay.

Over 150 posts, a lot of muscle-shots (nice swimmer's build), architecture, design, music. No girl-hugging in the first 100 or so, unless you look very carefully: notice the girl in the top photo on the far left, and just behind him next to the handbags in this photo.  

Nicely decorated apartment, but if you look carefully, you'll see a framed 1960 ad from Christian Dior, with a swimsuit lady in the forground.

The last 50 posts display girl-hugging all the way down.

And no guy-hugging. This looks promising, but Riley states that this is his best friend, not a boyfriend, and they're at the Hotel Cafe on Cahuenga, just south of Hollywood Boulevard, near the famous corner of Hollywood and Vine: one of the more heterosexual parts of Los Angeles, a good three miles from the border of West Hollywood.  Dudes are straight.

I pieced together a biography from the IMDB, Backstage, Facebook, and Linkedin.  Riley was born in Pomona, California in 2000, and started acting when he was 10 years old: the Western 6- Guns (2010),  starring 1980s staples Barry Van Dyke and Greg Evigan; Airline Disaster (2011), starring former Family Ties cast members Meredith Baxter-Birney and Scott Valentine; Baseball, Dennis, & the French (2011). 

Left:  In case you are interested, the first celebrity I met when I moved to Los Angeles was Michael J. Fox, who played Alex on "Family Ties."

We just had lunch, but I told my friends that it was an energetic hookup.

  

When he was a teenager, Riley had to put his career on hold due to "family illness." He still performed, in Mulan at the Claremont United Methodist Church (2015) and Xanadu at Claremont High School (2017), and he won second place at the California State Thesbian Festival.

He graduated from Claremont High in 2018 and enrolled in Pasadena City College.  During the next two years, Riley worked as a production assistant on You're the Worst, with Stephen Schneider, and did a lot of acting, primarily in student films:

Worthless Words (USC): "A world where your words are controlled."

The Cup (St. Mary's University MFA): Two aspiring actors encounter a 1920s flapper.

Paz (Chapman University MFA): An abused girl finds strength in a spiritual connection.

Alice In/Somnia (2020): a girl in the Sleep waiting room has to deal with bureacracy.

More after the break.  Caution: Explicit.

Gemstones Episode 4.3: Keefe does stuff with the Devil. So does Eli. With a pole dancer's dick and the Groundskeeper's butt

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