Michael Provost: Perennial heterosexual boyfriend with some nude pics and maybe a coming out video

Now I'm collecting Michaels.  

Remember the butts identified as "Michael Provost" in the Gavin Munn photo collection?  I did some research, and discovered that he is an actor born in 1998, in Atlanta or Bridgeport, Connecticut, depending on who you believe, known for Insatiable, The Holdovers, Lucifer, and Fear Street.  

Also he's apparently gay.  TikTok has a number of videos dedicated to "Michael Provost" coming out.  So let's check for gay roles or subtexts.

The Case for Christ (2017). Probably not.

Lucifer Episode 4.8 (2019).  Reformed Big Bad Amenadiel(D.B. Woodside) mentors Michael's Nate Mifflin, whose parents are divorcing. Nope.

Insatiable (2018-19): a girl who is bullied for being fat becomes thin and sets out to get revenge and win a beauty pageant Bob Armstrong(Brett Rice), her beauty pageant mentor, has a long, slow, painful coming-out. and begins dating long-term antagonist Bob Barnard  (Christopher Gorham).  

Michael plays Brick Armstrong, Bob's son, who is heterosexual: he has an affair with an older woman before settling down with the formerly-fat girl.  He does get several semi-nude and rear nudity scenes.

Saving Zoe (2019).  A girl named Echo and her boyfriend, Michael, investigate the murder of her older sister.  Nope.

Most Guys are Losers (2020). College boy Michael seeks the approval of his girlfriend's dad, who wrote a book, Most Guys are Losers.  Nope.

Plan B: When a girl's crush, Michael, leaves a party with another girl, she gets even by having sex with a loser, and has to track down a Plan B, post-coitus contraceptive, before she gets pregnant. There's a lesbian character, but Michael is straight.

Fear Street:Two sisters at a summer camp in 1978.  One has sex with Michael.  

It's not looking good so far.  I'll just check one more.

The Holdovers (2023). "Holdovers" are people who have to stay at a fancy prep school during the 1970  Christmas holiday: A cranky Classics teacher, a grieving cook, and some students, including jock Jason (Michael).  Two youtube guys with the bizarre name "the gay homosexuals" promise spoilers, but the first 10 minutes of their 30-minute review didn't reveal any gay subtexts. But Jason gets a girlfriend, quite a feat in an all-boy school.

More Michael after the break.  Warning: Explicit

The naked press bro on the bus with "The Girls on the Bus"

 

I wasn't planning to watch The Girls on the Bus, on Netflix:  a political satire about lady journalists covering a flawed presidential campaign.  Politics are at the bottom of my list of interests, and four ladies bonding won't leave much time for guys. But then I found a scene in Episode 1.6 where Peter Kendall, playing a "Press Bro," jumps out of a stalled bus naked and runs around, giving us frontal and rear shots. 

I wanted the full story. Is he being chased?  Did he see something he shouldn't have?  Did a jealous boyfriend catch him in the act?

The girls are Sadie, who writes for the New York Times...um, Sentinel; Grace, a seasoned career journalist from a previous generation; Kimberly, who works for the racist Fox...I mean Liberty News Network, even though she's black; and social media influencer Lola.

Scene 1: The scene of the guy running naked from the bus while the voice over tells us about the importance of debating issues: "This country was founded on argument."  Inside the bus, the journalists are drinking, screaming, bouncing into each other, eating sandwiches, squirting whipped cream, and laughing hysterically, like a frat party on crack.  

Scene 2: Six hours earlier. Sadie the print journalist and Grace the veteran are in a hotel room, examining billionaires for scandals that they can use to take them down.  Meanwhile, Lola the social influencer and her girlfriend are smooching and discussing the clothes they will need for the upcoming trip to a candidate debate in Minnesota. Hey, when I searched for gay or lesbian characters in this show, Autostraddle complained that there were none!   

Lola's manager calls to ask why she hasn't posted for six hours: she needs to be pushing the alcoholic whipped cream, or she'll lose her sponsers, and her $5,000 a week spot at the Clubhouse.  Lola tries to explain that she's been networking, as her girlfriend smooches all over her.

How many girls are there on this thing?  IMDB says that there are only four, but I've counted six so far, and no boys.

Scene 3:  Sadie the newspaper journalist is interviewing Benji about how he is going to capitalize on Walker's victory in South Carolina. He answers with vague doublespeak. Malcolm (Brandon Scott), her ex-boyfriend, accuses her of trying to make him look bad by interrogating his boss. 

She explains that their romance was a conflict of interest, so now everything she says about Walker, the presidential candidate, is suspect.  She can't  be seen talking to him, or she'll be fired.

Left: Brandon Scott's backside.

Scene 4: Waiting to board the bus for the Minnesota presidential debate, Kimmy, the racist-news broadcaster, tells her on-air partner how they can get more airtime: show her boobs.  He disagrees. The other girls discuss their romantic entanglements. 

Uh-oh, Malcolm is getting on the bus. There are lots of other ways to get to Minnesota, so his ex Sadie concludes he is there just to mess with her.

More after the break

Michael Fassbender and Rainier Fassbinder: The unbearable agony of gay life, with dicks and butts

Through an internet rabbit hole too convoluted to explain, I set about to research David Boreanaz, and ended up with nude photos of Michael Fassbender -- from 2007.

Every gay person coming out in the 1980s knew about Michael Fassbender, the German director who specialized in movies about the "unbearable agony of gay life" -- thieves, hustlers, derelicts, outcasts, wandering through industrial wastelands in search of sex or death, both unattainable, hooking up with straight men in the hope that this time, finally, they have met their murderer.

Who could forget Brad Davis, ripped, sweaty, and bulging, as the doomed sailor/murderer Querelle.  "Each man kills the things he loves".

Then there were Fox and His Friends, Despair,  In a Year of 13 Moons, Germany in Autumn, Berlin Alexanderplatz...

Whoops, sorry, that was Rainer Werner Fassbinder, who died in 1982.

Although he does show his penis in Germany in Autumn(1978). 

The new guy is Michael Fassbender -- no connection -- born in Germany in 1977 and raised in Ireland, with 63 acting credits on IMDB, including two Oscar nominations. 

I think I've only seen him in the X-Men franchise, where he plays Erik Lensherr, a Holocaust survivor who has a gay-subtext romance with Charles Xavier before becoming his enemy as the supervillain Magneto.  But he has played several canonical gay-ish characters.

In Shame, 2011, Michael plays a business executive who has sex with multiple female partners several times a day, even when he should be doing other things, like helping his sister out of a jam.  One night after he is beat up by the boyfriend of the woman he just screwed, he goes to a sleazy, decadent gay bar and gets a blow job from a guy in the back room.  

Got it, gay men are still wandering through industrial wastelands, eternal outsiders, eternally depressed. But we see his dick.  And his butt, top photo.

More agony after the break

Eight staunch Scotsmen with right proper stauners under their sporrans

Since Baby Reindeer features a Scotch comedian trapped in London, and one of Robert Oberst's strong men was Scottish, I figured it was time for some Scots studs. 

A kilt malfunction in Edinburgh.

Pub mates in St. Andrews, site of the most prestigious university in Scotland.

Pub mate stauner -- a semi. 

St. Andrews prof explores his kinky side.

There are about 60,000 Scots Gaelic speakers in Scotland, mostly in the Hebrides.  You often hear it spoken in Stornoway, on the Isle of Lewis.

Vietnamese-Scots chub from Stornoway, skittish about showing his tadger.

The Callanish Stones, Lewis

More Scotsmen after the break. Warning: explicit.

Gavin's Cute/Cool Photos, Part 2: splashing in puddles, diving in Tulum, surfing in Costa Rica. With grown-up bonus

 

This is a collection cute/cool photos of Gavin Munn, who plays Jonathan on Raising Dion and Abraham on The Righteous Gemstones, his dad Johnny, and a few friends. 

1. Nice sunset.

2.  Interesting mural at the Charleston airport.

3. Gavin's idea for a rainy day activity: sit in a giant puddle and invite passing cars to splash him.  Then he filmed the splashes.

4. In Tulum Gavin is ten feet underwater.  Hopefully he checked out some Mayan ruins, too.,

5. Muscle bud

6. Running through the house with a banana in my mouth.

More magnificent Munns after the break

Gemstones Episode 3.6 Continued: Kelvin and Keefe fight, BJ and Stephen fight, and nobody likes hologram Aimee-Leigh

Previous: Episode 3.6: BJ swallows a lot, Keefe learns about hard wood, and Kelvin gets a girlfriend

In the earlier scenes of this episode, Kelvin attempts a reconciliation, but when he sees that Keefe is doing fine without him, he gets all bitchy and flubs it.  Later, he "works some things out," apparently decides to pursue the heterosexual trajectory, and prepares to ask Taryn for a date. As they are putting away gym mats and flirting....

The Second Reconciliation Attempt: Keefe enters with a rocking chair carved with Kelvin's name on a tree. This is way too much for a "let's stay friends" gift: he is attempting a reconciliation. You're the one who left, dude. You could just ask to get back together.

He is not wearing a sexy outfit; actually he is sweaty and rather disheveled, as if he rushed over the moment he finished the chair.  

Why a rocking chair for an athletic 34-year old?  "This is true love: we'll be together forever."  I am reminded of Robert Browning's famous lines from "Rabbi ben Ezra": "Grow old with me -- the best is yet to be."  But viewers may be more familiar with John Lennon's version:

Grow old along with me. Two branches of one tree.

Face the setting sun when the day is done

Or Tom Odell's:

Grow old with me. Let us share what we see, and the best it could be

You'll be the one who makes me hurt, makes me come

Makes me feel like I'm real

Keefe expected Kelvin to be alone to accept his gesture.  Nope, Taryn is there.  He knows that the youth group has just ended out, and that Taryn is the new assistant youth minister; why wouldn't she be there?

Kelvin looks nervous and decidedly guilty, as if he has been caught cheating; he pulls Keefe into a bro-hug, asks inane questions ("Is that chair made of wood?"), and stammers "We were just...um...we..." until Taryn takes over and explains that they are just working together.  

Platonic pal advocates, pay attention:  Taryn wouldn't think it necessary to inform Kelvin's buddy that he has nothing to worry about, they are not having an affair.  Either she has inferred that they are lovers, or one of the guys told her.   

Keefe turns on the jealousy, and asks if Taryn has replaced him. As assistant youth minister, of course. But he means as a romantic partner.

Angry at the implication, maybe feeling guilty because he was planning to start a relationship, Kelvin plays along: he asks Taryn to give them a moment alone, touching her affectionately on the back to usher her out, exactly as you would ask your girlfriend to give you a moment to talk to your ex.  

Keefe continues to lash out, demanding to know if Kelvin and Taryn have had a "physical connection."   Romantic but not sexual partner advocates, pay attention: Kelvin and Keefe must have had a sexual relationship, or Keefe wouldn't think to ask about sex with his "replicant."  

More fighting after the break

"Ripley": A slow, artistic version of the gay-subtext con artist/murderer, with Tom's bum and Dickie's dick

 

The Talented Mr. Ripley (1999) stars Matt Damon as the charming con-artist Tom Ripley, who has a gay-subtext romance with Jude Law's Dickie before murdering him and adopting his identity.  The 2024 version is a tv series, and reputedly overtly queer, taking the gay subtext into text.  I reviewed the first episode.

Scene 1: Rome, 1961, atmospheric black and white.  Having just killed someone, a man with his face obscured puts on his shoes and hat and starts dragging the body down a palatial staircase.  

Scene 2: Six months earlier, New York. Tom (Andrew Scott) gets up in his run-down room in a residential hotel, walks the mean streets, steals someone's mail, and writes out a fake "payment overdue" notice

Then he goes to a bar and starts one of those highly-closeted 1960s hookups with a guy named Al (Bokeem Woodbine) Whoops, no, Al is a private detective, hired to find him and hook him up with the wealthy Mr. Herbert Greenleaf.  Tom refuses, then leaves to ride the subway and walk the mean streets some more.  

Back home, someone left his business card: From the IRS!  

Scene 3: Tom continues his scam: he steals payment checks, then calls or writes the sender, claims that it was lost in the mail, and has them send a new check to his own post office box. Nice establishing shots of the art deco post office and bank.  

Uh-oh, the clerk thinks something is wrong, and goes to consult the manager. Tom has to run away, and close down the whole collection agency scam!  What to do next?  Maybe Herbert Greenleaf's job won't be so bad...

Scene 4: Greenleaf Shipbuilders.  Tom is escorted past the big ships to the office, where Herbert Greenleaf tells him about the job: his son Dickie,  Tom's old acquaintance, has been living in Italy for years, pretending to be a writer or a painter, but really just goofing off.  Greenleaf wants Tom to convince Dickie to come home.

Why Tom?  They didn't know each other well.  Because none of Dickie's other friends wanted the job. Why would someone on the bottom of Dickie's friends list, who he doesn't know well and doesn't care about, be able to talk him into leaving Italy?  Tom must have a really big dick.

Scene 5: While he's considering the job, Tom has dinner with the Greenleafs. Back story dump: He went to Princeton. When he was young, his parents drowned. Uh-oh, maybe he killed them. Then they look at some photos of Dickie when he was young, in college, and now, in Atrapi, with Marge -- "girlfriend, friend, who knows?"  So Dickie is gay.

Scene 6: Tom at the tailor's, inspecting the clothes the Greenleafs bought for him. He gets his passport, signs travelers' checks, throws out his scam checks, and we're on the Orient Express!  In the Swiss alps; I guess in those days you flew in through Paris?   

He writes to his Aunt Dottie, who is getting a dental procedure -- which we see, for some reason: "You're free of me now, and I of you." I like the slow, moody structure, with the beautiful, weird shots of fire escapes, catwalks, and sculptures, but it's a little too slow.  How much time do we need to devote to Tom brooding?.

Scene 7: Naples. Tom gets off the train, changes some travelers' checks, and asks for a bus to Atrapi.  He is pushed into a cab instead, and arrives at a darkened station in the middle of the night.  Nothing to do but wait until morning, then get on the real bus -- for a trecherous drive through the mountains!

Atrapi, finally!  He asks someone, in bad Italian, for Richard Greenleaf, and is directed up endless stairs, through arches and corridors, up more stairs. to a villa.  Where he is told that Richard is down on the beach!  Is this supposed to be a comedy?

Scene 8: Tom at a shop, trying on a very bulging swimsuit, while ladies giggle at him. He asks for something a little less revealing. 

The beach is deserted -- oh, there in the distance is Dickie, lying down, fully clothed, with Marge's head on his thigh.  Tom wakes them and introduces himself, pretending that this is a chance meeting. Dickie doesn't remember him, but invites him to go for a swim.  Uh-oh, Tom is afraid of the water, since his parents drowned.  He won't set foot into the water.

More Dickie after the break