The shirtless parking valets: A shock of joy on "Suburgatory" on the night before Thanksgiving. With Mohr and Parker butts and a lot of bare chests

When I was growing up, you almost never saw a bare chest on tv.  On the rare occasions when it happened -- Denny Miller surfs to Gilligan's Island, Ponch and Jon hit the beach on CHIPS, Kevin poses for an art class on Mr. Belvedere -- you felt an intense, palpable joy.  Not desire so much as understanding.  This is it, what we were made for. Beauty.  Truth.  The Eternal Masculine. 

With the advent of cable and then streaming tv, nearly every actor took off his shirt frequently, and some even put their butts and cocks on display.  And of course we can go online and see 100 naked men before breakfast. When you see it all the time, that shock of joy vanishes.  

But it returned on Wednesday, November 23rd, 2011, the night before Thanksgiving, when Suburgatory aired Episode 1.8, "Thanksgiving."

Suburgatory (2011-14) starred Jeremy Sisto (left, showing his sausage) as George Altman, an architect who moves his teenage daughter Tessa (Jane Levy) from Manhattan to Chatswin, Connecticut.  She is not pleased, but she tries to find some semblance of cool amid the Mean Girls, Dumb Jocks, and Ladies Who Lunch.

It was not our favorite show -- mostly women in the cast, a lot of heterosexism, and some low-key gay stereotyping -- but it aired between The Middle and Modern Family, so we had no choice.

Left: George's butt.

In Episode 1.8, it's Thanksgiving in Chatswin, and Tessa is upset because Dad George has rejected their traditional Manhattan activities for dinner with the ultra-rich Dallas Royce.  In the B Plot, Tessa's friend Lisa is upset because her middle-class Mom, Sheila Shay, insists that she wear a "Puritan dress" to their Thanksgiving Dinner.

 When Tessa and Dad George arrive at the Royce mansion, they see shirtless valets parking the guests' cars.  

Whoa, that shock of joy came rushing back!  

Maybe because it was so unexpected.  Who hires shirtless valets?  Especially at Thanksgiving, when it's in the 30s and 40s out?  And there are twelve people at that party. Why do they need four valets?  

Director Alex Hardcastle was not even trying to be realistic. He presented us with a vision of masculine beauty to counterbalance the feminine vibe of the rest of the episode (spoiler alert: Tessa's friend Lisa spends about ten minutes of air time naked, in protest of that Puritan dress). 

The first Indian Valet vanishes immediately, but when George's friend Noah hands his car keys to the second, we get a bare chest and shoulders close-up.  He looks like a college athlete.

He disappears, but as Noah walks toward the door, we see the two Pilgrim valets, one extremely muscular, the other a rather thin twink.  No closeups, but they are visible for several seconds, organizing the various parking slips.

Later we get quick glimpses of the two Indian Valets at the Royce table,  so they must be Royce relatives co-opted for the job.  The Pilgrim Valets are visible at the middle class Shay table, so presumably they were hired. 

But who are the actors?  In 2011 I let the scene slip into memory, but last night I saw it again during a rewatch. With15 years of experience on this website, Nysocboy's Beefcake and Bonding, and Tales of West Hollywood,  I was equipped to research their other acting roles,  look for nude photos, and check their social media to see if they are gay. 

More after the break.

A high school boy gives me his underwear

When I was growing up, we visited my parents' home town in northeastern Indiana about twice a year, at Christmastime and during the summer.  My favorite part of the visit was when Grandma announced "Let's go to Fort Wayne!"

When we were very little, Mom and Dad came, too, and when we were older, my baby sister came with us, but for about five yeares it it was just Kenny and me, fighting over who would get to ride "shotgun" in Grandma's brown Chevy Impala as she drove down country roads through Butler Center and Laotto and Huntertown, and finally  Fort Wayne:

The biggest, brightest, most exciting city in the world.

It was unimaginably huge, bigger than Rock Island, Moline, and Davenport put together, and it had the most fascinating places I had ever seen.  There was always something new: a gigantic County Courthouse; a candy factory much nicer than that scary one in the Willy Wonka movie; a Children's Zoo with its own train; an art museum; the history museum at Old City Hall; Kern's Toy Store; a memorial to Johnny Appleseed.

Somehow Grandma always knew where there were a lot of cute boys:  playing basketball in schoolyards, crowded into booths at the soda shop, building snowmen at Lakeside Park,  running around in groups at street fairs.  Sometimes she let us play with them, while she sat on a bench, reading a magazine.

We usually stopped for lunch at the Famous Coney Island on Main Street: hot dogs with chili, cheese, and onions, and steamed buns.   Plus french fries, onion rings, and root beer floats (vanilla ice cream floating in a gigantic mug of root beer).

And a never-ending supply of cute high school boys in white shirts, black pants, and black bow ties who brought out your orders.

On a cold day just before Christmas in fourth grade, we were having lunch at the Coney Island, and my brother and I were rough-housing, stealing fries off each other's plates, shoving each other, and laughing.  Grandma Davis told us to settle down, so I stopped and picked up my root beer float.

Then Kenny shoved me again.  I dropped the heavy mug onto my chest, drenching my shirt with root beer.  More root beer splashed onto my pants, and the clump of melting ice cream fell right onto my lap.

Gross!  Cold and wet!  I pushed it onto the floor.

Kenny laughed and pointed.  "You peed your pants!"  

"Oh, no, you're soaked!" Grandma Davis exclaimed.  She grabbed some napkins and tried to dab me, but the root beer and ice cream had already soaked in.  "You can't ride all the way back to Garrett like this -- it's freezing out!"

A high school boy came running up: short, compact, muscular, with brown hippie-hair and a bright smile.  He was carrying a little pad and pencil.  I don't remember his name, if I ever knew it, so I'll call him Jim.

"Don't worry, Ma'am, I'll take care of your grandson," he said.  "Come on, champ, let's get you cleaned up."

 He took me by the hand and led me past the staring patrons to a little door marked "Employees Only."  Inside it looked like a kitchen, with tables and chairs and a little refrigerator.  There was a bank of lockers on on side, and a rack with a lot of coats hung up on it.

More after the break

Lox Pratt turns the gay subtexts to texts in "Lord of the Flies" and "Harry Potter." WIth Flynn and Felton bums and Cornwall cocks

 

Lox Pratt is the breakout star of the 2026 Lord of the Flies tv series.  He brings a a sinuous, snakelike menace to the choirboy Jack, who rebels against Ralph's attempts to maintain order and civility on the desert island, and leads his choirboy/hunters into war-whooping, body painted savagery.

But there is a fragility to Lox Pratt's Jack that is missing in previous versions of the character.  As they prepare for the evacution, the other boys hug their parents, but Jack stands alone on a vast expanse, watching.  

He is so wounded that he can't reach out to others except through manipulation and control.  He treats Simon, who is obviously in love with him, as an underling rather than a partner, and he has no idea how to act on his explicit attraction to Ralph.  Even when Ralph takes the lead.

All versions of Jack are queer-coded, but Lox seems struggling to push it from subtext to text, from his first appearance in an androgynous choir uniform, to his last,wearing an animal skin that looks much like a mink coat, eyes downcast as Ralph explains to the rescuing Navy officer, "We were together -- before."

Next Lox is starring as Draco Malfoy in the upcoming Harry Potter tv series, premiering in December 2026.  He says that while the earlier movies and books were Harry-centric, this new series will expand on the Potter world.  He was able to dig deep  into Draco's character: he's "not just the sneering bad guy in the corner — he’s got a lot more depth.” 

Left: Johnny Flynn plays Draco's dad, Lucius Malfoy.

Draco doesn't express any interest in girls in the books or the movies, although he has a wife in the culminating flash forward.  Maybe Lox will be allowed to present him with even more queer codes.

According to Mr. Man, Tom Felton, the movie Draco, belongs to the butt on the left.

More after the break

Minute-by-minute research of Kue Lawrence: his gay codes, gay adjacent movie roles, and nude co-stars. With a big reveal that changes everything

 

5:00 am.  I begin my usual sweep of my n*de celebrity, teen idol, and Instagram feeds, looking for actors with gay codes for potential profiles. Kue Lawrence looks promising: no girl-hugging and lots of guy-hugging photos.  They just keep going.  Dude definitely prefers masculine company.  I download six, and prep them for posting.

5:15:  On to Kue's Instagram.  Many more guy-hugging photos (I download another five), mention of several movies, and no girls except someone named Jenna, who turns out to be his sister.  Here they are going to her senior prom together.  Weird.  What straight guy would do that?  Dude must be gay.

5:30:  Searching for Kue and "gay." I find articles saying that he played a gay character in Sneak Peek and Hell of a Summer, but they are both behind paywalls, and I find no evidence that movies with those titles exist.  Maybe are descriptions of movies, with the actual titles inaccessible. So I'll check Kue's acting roles on the IMDB. 

5:45: Marshmallow (2025).  Troubled teen Morgan (Kue) is sent to summer camp, where he is bullied by a boy (Sutton Johnston, right) and meets The Girl.  Kue notes that he and Sutton are friends off-camera. 

I check Sutton's Instagram: no gay codes.

There's also a monster (Pierson Fode, left).  Kue hugs him, too.

The School Duel (2024): A bullied boy (Kue) signs up for a program where kids are given rifles and permitted to kill each other without consequences.  It's an allegoryy on the school shooting epidemic.  Kue goes out to dinner with costar Rashaan Rondo and hugs Kalon Cox (left) and Hudson Meek (below).

I check their social media. Kalon has some gay codes. Rashaan (an adult) has cock pics.

More after the break