Harrison Houde: It's Bowie! Plus gay-adjacent tv, synth-wave music, and a pink Ford. With Diego, Harrison butts, and Nemo d*ck

 School Spirits features a high school girl named Maddie Near, who becomes a "ghost" when her spirit is dislocated from her body.  In Episode 2.3 (2025), we meet Diego (Zack Calderon), the older brother of Maddie's friend, n the best possible way -- wearing just a towel. 

Well, maybe not the absolute best possible way...

And we learn that Maddie's body is now occupied by Janet,  the ghost of a high school girl who died in 1958. She goes on the run, bringing a satchel-full of stolen cash. When she stops for supplies, we met Carl (Harrison Houde), a clerk at the superstore.  He has long hair and femme multicolored bracelets, pinging my gaydar.  And he's 5'5".  

Which should I profile?

Sorry, Zack.

You may remember Harrison Houde from Some Assembly Required (2014-16), the Canadian teencom about a boy (Kolton Stewart) who sues his way into owning a toy company,   Harrison plays Bowie, his cute, quirky best bud, who is put in charge of the Jokes and Pranks Division.  (He's pictured with Dylan Playfair as the dimwitted hunk.)  

Although the gay-vague fashion plate of the series is Aster (Travis Turner), until he gets a queerbait girlfriend, Bowie only expresses heterosexual interest in one or two episodes. 

Harrison began his on-screen career as Darren Walsh, who becomes an outcast for touching cheese, in Diary of a Wimpy Kid (2010).  

Next came three episodes of Spooksville (2013-14), about teenage ghost-hunters.

42 episodes of the "how it works" series Finding Stuff Out (2012-14)

And the movie Pants on Fire (2014), with Bradley Steven Perry as a chronic liar who wins The Girl of His Dreams (not by lying).

More after the break.  Caution:Explicit.

Stranded on the Isle of Dogs, and Other Hassles, Horrors, and Hookups of My First Visit to England

 

Sorry if you love London, or call it home.  I'm not a big fan, in spite of the architectural marvels and fascinating history.  I always get lost.  It's cold.  The streets are all dirty.  Everyone is rude all the time;  I've never seen anyone in London ever smile.  And the food's not great.

In 1993, my partner Lane was a delegate to the World Congress of GLBT Jews, to be held in London.  He invited me along as his guest.

This isn't him.  I have lots of pictures, but no nudes.  But he was (and still is) a husky, hairy bear with nice arms, like this guy.

I had been to France, Spain, Germany, and the Netherlands, and Lane spent a year in Israel, but for some reason neither of us had ever been to Britain.  So we planned lots of sightseeing: The Tower of London, the Sherlock Holmes Museum, Stonehenge, The Rude Man of Cerne Abbas, Canterbury Cathedral.  Not to mention the Gay Village of Soho.

Customs

The problems started the moment I arrived.  At customs I was questioned extensively about my reasons for coming to Britain, who I was staying with, did I know anyone here, and again, why did I come here????  He wouldn't believe that I was a tourist.  No one ever came to Britain as a tourist.  It was a tiny, backwater country with absolutely no sites of historical or artistic interest!  I must be planning something criminal.

I still wonder why he was so suspicious.  Do I have the same name as a terrorist?  Was it my leather jacket?  

The Isle of Dogs

If you were planning a World Congress with delegates from all over the world, most of whom have never been to Britain before, wouldn't you pick a hotel that was centrally located?

Nope: The Royal Britannia Hotel was on the Isle of Dogs, an industrial sleugh on the East End of London, surrounded by the Thames on three sides.  No pubs, no shops, nothing but block after block of dark industrial buildings.  

And no subway.  You could catch a bus into town -- about six miles to the Tower of London -- but it stopped at different places, depending on the whim of the driver, anywhere between six and twelve blocks from the hotel.

So you were standing at a bus stop, and it would drive past you and stop two blocks away.

On Thursday and Friday, while Lane was busy with meetings, I chased after a bus getting into town, visited the Tower, the British Museum, the Sherlock Holmes Museum -- and Clapham Common, because I took the wrong metro and ended up in the far south.  

Saturday was Shabbat, so no meetings were scheduled.  Lane and I returned to London to visit Westminster Abbey, Buckingham Palace, a science fiction bookstore, and  a gay sauna (for a gay conference, there was very little hooking up).  

We missed the last bus, so we had to take a taxi back to the hotel.

On Sunday the buses didn't run, so another taxi into London, where we found almost everything closed, and a taxi back (straining our resources).  

The Gay Jewish Conference

I didn't realize that by signing on as a guest, not a delegate, I was forbidden to go to any of the meetings, or any of the dinners.  

On Thursday night, there was an evening boat tour of the Thames, with box dinner provided.  Except for guests.  I stole one to avoid starving to death.

On Saturday night, they held a dance for conference delegates -- no one else, not even the partners.  I spent the night watching television -- the "Crazy Americans" hour, with four episodes of a tv sitcom that I never heard of (and don't recall the title of; it takes place in an office, but in one episode they're on a life boat for some reason).

On Sunday night they had a dinner -- for delegates only.  I'd have to make do with the hotel restaurant.  Whoops, it was closed on Sundays.  I would have starved to death again, but someone with a car drove into town and brought me (and the other guests) some fish and chips.

Is this any way to run a gay Jewish conference?

At least Lane brought a hookup back from the dance, so I got a little cock action.

It gets better after the break.  Sort of.

Gemstones Episode 4.2: Baby Billy's dong, BJ's pole, Pontius' private parts, and the Clobber Verses

Title: "You Hurled Me Into the Depths, Into the Very Heart of the Sea." Jonah 2.3: Jonah is in the belly of the great fish, praying for deliverance (not a whale -- there are no whales in the Mediterranean Sea).

Gemstone Roll Call: A gold-and-purple Baby Billy announces Jesse, Judy, and Kelvin in angel costumes.  The rest of the family joins them on stage for the Aimee-Leigh Birthday Give-A-Thon (in case you're interested, she was born on September 21, 1955).

Keefe does a high kick.  The siblings appear in jetpacks, and rise up over the stage, but things go wrong and they crash.  Fortunately, it's just a rehearsal.

Baby Billy's Dong:  In the dressing room, the siblings refuse to continue with the jetpack bit, but Baby Billy insists: this is too important. So he's in charge now? And where the heck is Eli?   Somewhere in Florida. He won't answer their phone calls. 

Baby Billy then drops his trousers to flop his dong around: "This is what a real man looks like.  I booked all these people to the Give-a-Thon, so Eli has to be there!"   Fans were complaining that the stunt cock guy had no balls.  Who's looking for balls?

Eli Hooks Up:  Somewhere in Florida (actually the Keys), a grotesque long-haired Eli awakens on his boat, Nice Mussels, and cooks eggs for the lady he "69ed for 45 minutes" last night.  She wants more of his "thick breakfast sausage" instead, but he explains that he is not ready for a relationship.  He's still trying to figure out what he wants.  Dude, you're 73.  Better hurry.  Besides, "I don't like you."  

She rushes off, but Eli struts down the dock, smoking a cigar, cruising the ladies.  Easter Egg: he has a cap from Adams College, a call-back to "Revenge of the Nerds"

Uh-oh, it's the siblings, for some reason dressed in their Cape and Pistol society costumes.  Judy has an unexplained bandaged hand.  They yell at Eli for drinking too much, and when they find a bra, hooking up with ladies.  "Am I supposed to be in mourning all my life?"  "Yes!"  They had the same argument in Season 2, when Eli hooked up with a lady after Bowling Night.

He refuses to go to the telethon.  The siblings annoy him by saying "p*ssy" over and over, and making the tongue-through-fingers gesture, until he consents.  How does Kelvin know about that?

Time to set up the sibling conflicts for the season:

BJ's Pole:  BJ (not pictured) is in a pole dancing class otherwise occupied entirely by women (the casting call asked for men, too, but I guess none showed up).  Judy disapproves of him spending so much time aroiund hot ladies, or having any life outside of her, but he explains that the "physical rigor and slightly taboo nature of pole dancing" has keyed into his obsessive nature, like pickleball in Season 3 and skating in Season 2.  BJ's story arc always involves trying to become his own person, distinct from Judy.

It turns out that pole dancing is a competitive sport, with men and women participants.

Living Loud and Proud: Kelvin and Keefe in glittering green hold their all-inclusive Bible study in a glittering green hall.  Applause by a drag queen, a butch lesbian, a couple of gay guys.  He explains that Prism, "where diversity sparkles," involves "looking at the Bible in a different light."  They talk all around it, but they don't say "gay."  I'm concerned. 

They see the Bible differently from "older, lamer generations."  They omit the yucky stuff and concentrate on the good stuff, with the Kelvin Gemstone Edition Bibles.  So they're censoring the text?  Why not discuss the contemporary scholarly consensus that the Five Clobber Verses have nothing to do with contemporary LGBTQ identities:

1. The story of Sodom: their sin was being inhospitable to strangers, not being gay.

2. "Thou shalt not lie with man as with woman": A reference to temple prostitution.  Anyhow, the next passage says that eating shrimp is an abomination, too.

3. "Men, leaving the natural use of women, burned with lust."  It's a story about lust, not a condemnation of gay relationships.

4. "Strange flesh."  Dating angels.

5. "Homosexuals," a mistranslation of arsenokoitai and malakoi: slang swear words like motherf*ker, not meant to be taken literally

Back home, Keefe helps Kelvin de-flamboyant himself by taking off his shirt and rings. Kelvin is happy that he can finally "be myself and be worshipped for it," and their success is something that he can "throw in Jesse and Judy's faces."  I liked you better when you were buying dildos, buddy.

Keefe wants to be more open, like "kissing more in public," or maybe... getting married?   Keefe's story arc always has him trying to push a resistant Kelvin to the next stage in their relationship. Doubtless there'll be a Kelvin/Keefe wedding in Episode 4.8.

Kelvin is alarmed by the idea of marriage. Maybe if you did it right, on one knee, with a ring?  

Being more open would hurt their ministry.   What about Sigfried and Roy? "They were lickin' each other's wieners just like you and me do, but they didn't...put in the pipe with each other in front of the audience."  He wants to kiss you on stage, not put his pipe in  you.  It's not the same thing.

Siegfried and Roy performed magic acts with a white tiger in Las Vegas from 1967 to 2003.  They never  denied that they were romantic partners, but they never actually came out either.  When Roy died of COVID in 2020, Siegfried announced that "I have lost my best friend."

To assuage Keefe's hurt feelings, Kelvin becomes "the kissy monster."  Annoyed, Keefe complains that he doesn't have time for the kissy monster right now, but Kelvin chases him across the room.  He starts climbing, presumably onto the bed. Dude, he said no, and that "kissy monster" shtick is not at all sexy.

Bonus: In case Baby Billy's dong isn't enough, here's another.  

Pontius' Private Parts: Jesse taping a commercial for his new line of Prayer Pods, like privacy pods except that inside you can pray, play Bible Bonkers, listen to a sermon, and so on.  He forces the entire family into one.  It's a tight fit: Pontius, sitting on his lap, deliberately farts in his face.

In the dressing room, we get some back story:  Pontius (top photo and left) got kicked out of the Citadel for low grades, and  because he was posting videos of his buddies sticking firecrackers up each other's butts.  

That sounds like slang for homoerotic activity, but apparently it's a real thing: people put fireworks in their friends' butts as a prank.  

I still think Ponty is hinting at homoerotic interests..

Amber notes that you can "hurt your privates doing things like that," but Pontius insists that his privates work fine, disgusting his parents.  Darn, now you have viewers checking out your bulge.

More after the break

Jonah Beckett: Sean Hayes' godson does bottom stuff, faints, sucks, gets nekkid. And that's just on tv. With Trevor's cock and Milo's butt

When I was looking for gay actors in Rooster, the MAX comedy with Steve Carell as a trashy novelist roped into becoming Writer in Residence at an elite private college, I identified Jonah Beckett.  He gives his pronouns (he/him), which seems to be an LGBTQ identifier, and he says that he is the godson of gay actor Sean Hayes of Will and Grace.  No doubt he means the comedic godson.

Besides, he's cute.

In Rooster Episode 1.2, creative writing student Eva tells the class that she writes about "real life," by which she means "three-ways, girl on girl, MILF, DILF....Eli!"

She is addressing Eli (Jonah), who has just come in late.  "Hey, do you want to be pegged?" (Have a dildo inserted into his butt).

"I have asthma!" he exclaims, embarrassed.  Why would that be a problem?

"Well, bring your nebulizer."  He glares at her and takes a seat.

Later, the trashy novelist attacks his former son-in-law while he is being interviewed live on the BBC.  "Want to be pegged" Eva, watching in bed on her laptop, starts laughing, and invites Eli to watch.  He's lying naked beside her.  Apparently he did want to be pegged.

It was a heterosexual act, of course, but if he likes dildos up there, maybe he wouldn't object to a cock.  I'm going to identify him as bi. 

I'll profile Jonah with the standard three questions:

#1: Any (other) LGBTQ Roles?

He has five acting credits listed on the IMDB:

A 2012 episode of the sketch comedy series Sketchy.

The short Suck Hard (2022): After she is dumped, a girl prepares to return a box of her ex boyfriend's stuff, with the help of her three friends, two girls and a boy (Jonah).  Presumably he's gay.

A 2025 episode of The Sex Lives of College Girls.  In a subplot, extremely femme college student Norman (Jonah) keeps complaining to Resident Advisor Bela that the guy in the next dorm room changes the "chore wheel" to "chode wheel," and plays his music too loud. The offender doesn't hear her knocking because he's wearing an Oculus headset -- in his underwear.

He's not mentioned by name, but I've narrowed him down to Trevor Tordjman (left), Roby Attal, or Derek Chadwick.

In a 2025 episode of St. Denis Medical,    college student Kyle (Jonah) collapsed during a frisbee game.  Doctors Serena and Matt (Mekki Leeper, left) test him for everything, then discover that he faints every time he sees his crush, Jeff (Jeremiah Brown).  "Well, tell him how you feel," they advise.  

He was just shy? 

At least two gay roles on screen.  Let's check Jonah's theatrical work.

More after the break