Gerran Howell: The hot doc from "The Pitt" plays a vampire, troubled teens, and Ozma's boyfriend, speaks Welsh, drops his trousers.

If you've been watching The Pitt on MAX, about emergency room staff and patients, you've certainly noticed Dennis Whitaker.  The fourth-year medical student moved to Pittsburgh from a farm in Broken Bow, Nebraska, which causes a lot of derision from the big city doctors, and got a degree in theology before going to med school. Don't you need a lot of courses in biology and chemistry?   He gets squelchy scenes where he is splashed with the body fluids squirting out of patients, but also heart-tugging scenes where he establishes an emotional connection with a dying patient.

So far Dennis hasn't expressed a romantic interest in anyone, although fans on the Pitt Reddit eagerly pair him with Nurse Kim, because she offered to find him new scrubs after a patient urinated on him, or the wife of a dying burn victim whom he comforts.

Plus when Dr. Robby (Noah Wyle) is treating the victims of a mass shooting, he flashes back to treating COVID victims and the death of his beloved mentor and has a panic attack.  Dennis helps him out, and the two hold hands.  About 1,700 fan stories on Archive of Our Own move the relationship forward into romance (and explicit sexual activity).

Left: Artistic interpretation of Noah Wyle. 

That's enough to warrant researching the actor, Gerran Howell.

Well, being 5'7" and exceptionally cute helps.

Turns out that Gerran is not Nebraskan, he's Welsh, born in Barry a resort town near Cardiff, in 1991.  He's bilingual in the Welsh language, and got to speak it as a fan service during Season 2 of The Pitt.

Nice bulge, mate.

After attending Barry Comprehensive School, Gerran studied at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts.  His first on-screen roles came in 2006, in a PSA about the dangers of swimming in the Welsh Reservoir and the short Mummy's Boy, about a boy traumatized by his brother's death. 

Next he starred in Young Dracula (2006-2013), as the teenage Vlad, The Chosen One (of course) who moves from Transylvania to Wales with his family.  According to the episode synopses, he may have gotten a few gay-subtext buddy-bonds along with the usual assortment of girlfriends.  

The role brought Gerran a lot of fame in Britain: talk-show interviews, cooking on Blue Peter, a tutorial on how to spot a vampire.

In The Spartacle Mysteries (2011-15), everyone over age 15 is zapped into a parallel dimension.  It's up to the kids to survive -- and bring them home. So, was it a one-time deal, or does everyone who turns 16 zap over?  Gerran plays Ernesto, the leader of a rebel gang who doesn't want the adults back: the world is better and safer without them.  He gets a girlfriend.

Emerald City, the dreary, depressing take on the Wizard of Oz mythos (2016-17), stars .Oliver Jackson-Cohen (left) as Dorothy Gale's boyfriend.  Gerran plays Jack (based on Jack Pumpkinhead), who helps Tip escape from the witch Mombi, and falls in love with her after she turns into a girl. But she's not into him.  Being into trans women makes him a LGBT ally.

Gerran has many more acting roles, everything from Doctor Who to Xenoblade Chronicles.  Many have gay interest:

More after the break

Bentley Storteboom: Dutch, 25 years old, or gay? Or all of the above? With KJ Apa's dick, Karl Urban's butt, and Gavin Munn

 

When I saw this photo of someone named Bentley Storteboom (censored for reasons that will become apparent), I concluded that he was obviously Dutch, about 25 years old, and gay.  Turns out that I was wrong about two of the three conclusions.

1. Is he Dutch?   Storteboom means "Fallen Tree" in Frisian, spoken by 400,000 people in the northern regions of the Netherlands, like these shirtless guys watching ice skating in 20 degree weather (-10 C). 

No, he's Canadian.

2. Is he 25?

No, according to the IMDB, as of this writing he's 13 1/2! 

  

He may look 25 in the top photo, but here he looks like 16-year old Gavin Munn of The Righteous Gemstones.

Bentley was born in August 2012, in Maple Ridge, a suburb of Vancouver.  According to his mom, “He wasn’t your typical boy that wanted to play soccer or sports,” but he was interested in movies and the theater, and started asking about how kids got on tv.  His parents had no experience in performing arts, and had no idea.  Kudos for not trying to push him into sports, Mom and Dad.  My parents never let up.  "You're a boy!  Boys like sports!  Try out for football!"

They did some research, enrolled Bentley in the LeClerc School of Acting, and found him an agent, and he started auditioning at age six.  Soon he was appearing in commercials, and got the starring role in the student film Small Boy (2020): "After getting left out during a hide and seek game, a small boy realizes what he wants is different than what he was seeking from others."  So, different from the others?  Gotcha. 

That fall he won two Joey Awards (for Canadian youth): best actor in a commercial and best actor in a student film. 

In 2020 he won an iconic role in the series finale of Supernatural (2020).  As Dean is dying, he tells his gay-subtext partner Sam that he must "carry on."  The time for the "manly love of comrades" is over; it's time to accept his heterosexual destiny.  A few years later, Dean looks down from heaven and sees that Sam has acquiesced: he's got a wife and kid (Bentley). And the kicker: they're playing ball!  Bentley might not be "like the other boys," but his son is.  We hear the Kansas song:

Carry on, my wayward son. There'll be peace when you are done.
Lay your weary head to rest.  Don't you cry no more.

Funny, I feel like crying at this negation of the gay experience. 

Episodes of Nancy Drew (2021) and YoShowBiz (2021) followed, but Bentley's big break  (at age eight) came with what the local papers breathlessly praised as "a recurring role on a hit tv show!"  It was Riverdale (2017-2023), the campy, over-the-top, NSFW adaption of the Archie comics world. 

Left: KJ Apa, formerly Archie.

Bentley played Dagwood, one of the twin children of Betty's older sister Polly and Cheryl's brother Jason (Trevor Stines, left), in Seasons 5 and 6 (2021-22).  Who names their kid Dagwood?  He gets the worst of both families: the Blossom curse that kills all firstborn children (he manages to live), and the darkness that plagues the Cooper family, which turns him into a bully.  According to Bentley's Mom, this was a lot of fun for the "gentle child" who sometimes got bullied himself.  Gay kids are often bullied, Mom.  

More after the break

Gemstones Episode 1.5: Baby Billy and Eli compete for Aimee-Leigh. Plus water sports and donkey dicks

Title: "Interlude."  The interludes, set halfway through each season, are designed to clarify the conflicts and back stories, and to keep you in suspense after a major crisis. Here we flash back to 1989. when Eli and Aimee-Leigh were rich but not mega-rich, Baby Billy was hoping for a come-back, and young Jesse was jealous of his soon-to-be-born brother Kelvin. 

A Hot Piece of Tail:  This is the golden age of televangelism, with Pat Robertson, Jimmy Swaggart, Jim and Tammy Faye Bakker, and Jerry Falwell eating up the airwaves -- and blaming homa-sekshuls for everything from teen pregnancy to hurricanes/  They were especially eager to proclaim that homa-sekshuls were trying to destroy society by infecting straight people with AIDS.  In 1989, the number of new cases peaked at 80,000. 

Before the broadcast,  Aimee-Leigh walks around, being friendly to the crew.  Very diverse crew: -- old and young, black and white, women in jobs traditionally held by men, probably gay people.  She compliments Eli as "a hot piece of tail," and he agrees: "I'm sizzling hot."This seems a little gender-transgressive.  Men aren't typically referred to in this way.  Just before the curtain rises, Aimee-Leigh tells Eli, "I'm pregnant."  How playful, and borderline mean!

Family Dinner:  Lots of gross closeups of 1980s food.  When Aimee-Leigh says that she has news to share, Jesse guesses that Judy has been put up for adoption, and she guesses that he has AIDS. In 1989 evangelicals -- and most of the general public -- thought that only gay men contracted AIDS, so she is "accusing" him of being gay. 

No, Aimee-Leigh says without disciplining them, she is actually having a baby. Jesse wishes that she has a miscarriage, again without discipline, then backtracks: : "I will never like them.  They will never be my friend."  This is a call-back to the Episode 1.1 scene where Jesse is upset with Kelvin because "we used to be friends."  

Judy hopes that it's a boy, so she can teach him how to pee standing up.  Is she accusing Jesse of being a woman?

The Misbehavin' Tour: At the office, Baby Billy tells the Gemstones about his idea for a Misbehavin' Comeback Tour this spring.  But she can't do it: she is pregnant, due in July (in Season 2, Kelvin says that his birthday is near Christmas, but never mind).

Baby Billy insists that they go on the tour anyway, but she insists that she can't.  How about waiting until after the birth?  Nope.

Billy blames Eli for ruining his come-back: "You're the one who splashed all that sperm all over her."  This is a very odd way of describing heterosexual intercourse, more accurate for guys beat ing off.  Billy seems very jealous; does he wish that Eli had splashed sperm all over him?

The screenshot shows Baby Billy in pain, behind window slats that look like bars. He is trapped, unable to move beyond his days of performing with Aimee-Leigh, blaming Eli for ruining his life. In Season 3, Eli's other brother-in-law will blame him too, with more violent results.  

The Birthday Party:  After scenes where Jesse is caught arranging little-kid fights and complains that his parents are never around, a we cut to Judy's birthday party.  Guests eating food in disgusting ways (a regular trope in this episode); riding a slip-and-slide; riding ponies.  

What Jesse is looking at after the break. Warning: Explicit.

Oliver!, the Boy with Soft Hands, and "Cocks, Glorious Cocks"

 

When I was growing up in Rock Island, Huey (not his real name) was one of my brother Kenny's friends.  Short, brown-skinned, a rarity among the pale Swedes and Germans of Rock Island, chubby, with black hair and soft black eyes, soft all over.  I especially remember his square soft hands with stubby fingers.

My brother was 2 1/2 years younger than me, and three grades below (so in 9th grade when I was in 12th).  His best friend was Todd, a sports nut with sandy brown hair and blue eyes.

Huey was in a grade below them, so three or four years younger than me, a kid who they tolerated because he was funny.

He told knock-knock jokes.

While eating orange sherbet, he stuck out his tongue to demonstrate that it had turned orange.

He made his belly talk, long before Jerry Seinfeld did it.

On cool autumn afternoons they played baseball in the school yard, and then burst into the house for snacks and sodas, sweating, laughing, gossiping.

At least once, maybe more, Huey exclaimed "Feel how cold I am!", and lifted my shirt to press an icy hand against my belly.  I jumped back, and he laughed. 

Once I tried to retaliate by tickling him.  He grabbed my hands with his hands, and we did a sort of struggling dance.   Suddenly we were rolling on the living room floor.  But the dog started barking, thinking that I was being attacked, so we had to stop.

I remember them pretending to do kung fu moves. Huey was shirtless, his belly bouncing as he jumped around yelling "Hai-ya!"   It must have been during a sleepover, but I don't remember the rest.

One spring when Kenny was in high school but Huey was still at Washington Junior High, the whole family went to see him in Oliver!  He was in the chorus of orphanage boys.  During "Food, Glorious Food," his comedic mugs and pratfalls stole the show.

Food, glorious food!  Hot sausage and mustard!

While we're in the mood, cold jelly and custard!

Peas, pudding and saveloys!

What next is the question?

Rich gentlemen have it,  boys:  Indigestion!

The whole family went to see Kenny's friend, who was just in the chorus, not even one of the stars? Why?

Was he closer to Kenny than I thought?

More after the break.  Caution: Explicit