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

Raphael Luce: Femme boy from a family of stunt doubles and skywalkers plays heterosexual demons, hangs out in France with male friends

 

I started researching Raphael Luce based on this photo: dude's got a physique.

And this one: dude has a femme affect, and cuddles with guys.  You could ask him to scoot over, unless you like being pressed against his butt for some reason.

Raphael has French and American citizenships and spends a lot of time in France.  Here he and his boyfriend are eating at the Five Guys in Paris.  On the Champs-Élysées, a short walk from the Arch de Triomphe?. What's next, a Burger King in the nave of Notre Dame?

"Fun times in France."  The two boyfriends playing cards?  Can't you think of anything more interesting to do on the bed?

Raphael was born in 2006 to a circus-and-stunt family. Dad Jade Kindar-Martin is a tight-rope artist specializing in skywalking (great heights) and firewalking (with the rope on fire).  He performed for the Cirque de Soleil for many years, then moved to Hollywood to follow his wife into stuntwork. 

 Dad has doubled for Joseph Gordon Levitt, Austin P. McKenzie, Sam Reid, and Hunter Douhan, and played the killer bunny Bonnie in Five Nights at Freddy's.

Mom Karine Mauffrey has stunted in over 50 movies and tv shows, from The Walking Dead to Hannah Montana.,

His sister Jophielle starred on General Hospital (2019-24)  as Violet Finn, the variously sick, kidnapped, and assumed dead daughter of the variously addicted, sick, poisoned, kidnapped, and falsely accused of murder Dr. Hamilton Finn (Michael Easton, left)

More after the break

George MacKay: The time-traveler's buddy chooses movies about endless pain, misery, and despair. Just because he has a small dick?

 

I've been watching 11.22.63: Jake (James Franco), disillusioned by how awful his life (and everything in general) is in 2016, takes a time portal to 1960 in an attempt to prevent the assassination of John F. Kennedy and make life perfect. In Episode 2, he hooks up with Bill (George MacKay), a Kentucky redneck with a standard Stephen King backstory -- abusive father, murdered sister.  

They have to live together for several years while waiting for Lee Harvey Oswald to show up, so they pass themselves off as...um... brothers.  Not much of a gay subtext--  Episode 3 is entitled Other Voices, Other Rooms, but it has nothing to do with the Truman Capote novel about gay awakening, and Bill's heterosexual identity is established very quickly, when the guys relax by going to a strip club.  But at least some people suspect that the two are a gay couple, and Bill is beaten up in what we would call a homophobic hate crime. Later he is institutionalized and given shock therapy, a common experience for gay men in the early 1960s.  And killed.

So, a queer-coded character, displayed in his underwear a lot.   Enough for me to check to see if George MacKay has played any other gay-subtext roles, or is gay in real life.

He was born in 1992, and broke into film as one of the Lost Boys in Peter Pan (2003).  Then he played a gang member in The Thief Lord (2006), which I recall as having a gay-subtext romance.

Next came a long string of angst dramas :

The Boys are Back (2009): man with a dying wife and estranged sons.

Private Peaceful (2012): Tommo (George) has a brain-damaged brother, sees his father being crushed by a tree, loses the Girl of His Dreams to his other brother (Jack O'Connell).  They go to war together, and Bro disobeys an order to abandon the wounded Tommo, and is executed.  Sounds delightful.  

How I Live Now (2013): Daisy, who has a dead mother (of course), survives a nuclear war, sees her friends massacred, finds her boyfriend (George) severely injured, and nurses him back to health.  Lovely.

 The Outcast (2015), a two-part tv movie: Lewis (George) sees his mother drown (of course), and grows up feeling responsible, so he self-harms and sets a church on fire.  He spends time in prison, then confronts his toxic family members (hint: every man is bullying and abusive),  and confesses his love for The Girl of His Dreams before...you guessed it...going to War. Ugh!  Or as one reviewer notes, a "relentlessly emotional, heart-tugging story of tragedy."

Does every single one of George's movie and tv roles involve crying over the endless misery of life?  I'm surprised someone doesn't start singing "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas."

Let's check his gay and gay-subtext roles:

I  already reviewed 1917 (2019).  The tragedies piled on World War I soldier George and his gay subtext boyfriend (Richard Madden) were laughably unyielding.  The darn thing was too grim even for torture porn. But the gay subtext lasted until the last scene, with a last-minute tacked-on reference to a girlfriend back home.  I can hear the writers panicking: "Wait, we forgot to establish that he's straight! Quick, add a line about a girl!"

Left: Richard Madden in Sirens. He's playing the gay Ashley Greenwick (stereotyped name, that) caught in the act.  I don't know who the disgusted buddy is. 

Pride (2014): Members of the gay group LGSM are raising money for the families affected by the British Miners' Strike (1984).  Joe (George) is so closeted that his out-and-proud boyfriend dumps him, and dies of AIDS two years later.  Bummer, but at least it's a gay role.

True History of the Kelly Gang (2019): George plays the notorious Australian bushranger (outlaw), who has a gay friend (Nicholas Hoult) and likes to hang out affectionately with his male crew, but also gets a girlfriend.  It ends badly.

In Femme (2023), George plays Preston, a homophobic gang member  who beats up and then starts hooking up with a drag queen.  But she gets revenge by filming their encounters and showing his friends, so they suspect him of being gay.  Preston gets angry and beats her to a pulp, but doesn't kill her.

OMG, George, what is this, Hee-Haw?

Gloom, despair, and agony on me
Deep, dark depression, excessive misery
If it weren’t for bad luck, I’d have no luck at all
Gloom, despair, and agony on me

More after the break