This weekend, I watched Medici: Masters of Florence on Netflix. It is a television drama series about the Medici dynasty starring Dustin Hoffman as Giovanni di Bicci de’ Medici, Richard Madden as Cosimo de’ Medici, and Stuart Martin as Lorenzo de’ Medici (The Elder). Florence is one of my favorite cities in the world. The series is set in the 15th century Florence, the protagonist is Cosimo the Elder, who was elected head of the Florentine Republic in 1434. Cosimo has inherited the Banco Medici from his father Giovanni, who has been mysteriously poisoned. Through various flash backs (20 years ago), we are introduced to a Florence at the time of Giovanni and his relationship with his sons, Cosimo and Lorenzo.

Historical accuracy is not one of the strong points of the series. During an interview at the Roma Fest panel in 2015, Frank Spotnitz, co-creator of the series, stated, “the season will be more thriller than historical saga . . . we begin the show with a ‘what if’ because we don’t know how Giovanni de’ Medici died. One of the questions that haunts Cosimo, is whether his father was murdered.”

I very much enjoyed watching this series. The beauty of the scenery is magnificent, while the drama is quite compelling. I don’t think anyone would guess the culprit of the primary mystery of the season. I certainly didn’t. It came as quite a shock, and I hope that doesn’t give too much away. If you love Florence, the Renaissance, or historical drama, this is a show for you. I loved it and hope you will too. It really does have a great cast and Richard Madden does not meet the same horrible fate as he did in Game of Thrones. He’s a lot smarter in this series.

I don’t know if any of you were a fan of the show Gilmore Girls but I remember watching it when it was first on. I was so happy when Netflix announced that it would be doing four more episodes of the show, and I spent this weekend watching those four episodes. I laughed, I cried, and I laughed and cried some more. It was a very satisfying end. If you were a fan, don’t miss it.

“How to Get Away with Murder” star Jack Falahee responded to Donald Trump’s surprise victory in the U.S. presidential election by coming out as straight.

The 27-year-old actor plays Connor Walsh, an openly gay law student on the hit ABC series, and has engaged in plenty of steamy, same-sex love scenes on the show. He’d previously dodged questions about his sexuality in interviews, noting that the subject seemed “reductive.”

On Tuesday, Falahee posted a snapshot on Twitter of a short essay he’d written, recalling how he’d watched the Nov. 8 election results with a group of dismayed friends. He said witnessing one pal, who identifies as gay, break down in tears after learning that Trump had been elected president, inspired him to offer his support to the LGBTQ community as a straight ally.

He wrote:

While I’m not gay, on HTGAWM I play a character who’s in a relationship with an HIV positive man. However, in the past I’ve declined to discuss my own sexuality in an attempt to try and dismantle the closet. Opponents to my ambiguous answers to questions surrounding my sexuality argued the importance of visibility. Ultimately, I think that may stance has been unhelpful in the fight for quality.

Falahee then added, “I feel that I’ve sacrificed my ability to support the community for a more theoretical discussion about sexuality. Now more than ever, I want to offer my support to the community as an ally.” You can read the full tweet here.

In a second tweet, he laid out his plan on how to get better educated about the country’s political system as well as issues pertinent to the LGBTQ community, and invited his fans to follow in his footsteps.

1. Educate: I’m going to be come more informed about our political system and its shortcomings. I’m going to read more about social equality and how I can help achieve it.

2. Engage: I’m going to engage in local elections and actions. I intend to participate in direct action more than once every 4 years.

3. Support: I will certainly mess this one up, but I hope to support the LGBTQ community, as well as other communities jeopardized by this election, to the best of my ability. This includes giving my time, money and body in support. As allies, I believe we have a duty to stand up to discrimination and hate.

4. Listen: I’m going to listen to the other side. I’m going to listen to opinions that challenge my own.

5. Donate: I’m going to set up monthly donations to a variety of statewide and nationwide organizations that help protect the rights of those threatened by the new President-elect.

We’ve always loved Falahee as Connor on “HTGAWM,” and his willingness to embrace the LGBTQ community, as well as other minority groups, outside of the confines of the small screen feels so refreshing as we move toward an uncertain future. Hats off to you, Jack!

Source: Huffington Post

I’ve recently been watching a new show on NBC called Timeless. There are several reasons this show appeals to me. First, I’ve always been fascinated with the idea of time travel. As a historian, who wouldn’t want to travel in time and see things as they really happened. Second, one of the main characters is a historian. It’s rare that a historian gets to be the exciting lead in something. Third, Matt Lanter (above) is one of the stars of the show. So far the shows have been fascinating. Small changes in history are shown to have a ripple effect and it’s a mystery as to how or if it is even possible to put things correctly.

The show isn’t perfect though. The changes to the timeline are hard to believe when there is no apparent connection to the events that are changed. Maybe this will be a mystery that is solved later in the series. Furthermore, the historian on the series is able to recall the dates of important events in history, no matter how insignificant. Historians have specialties, usually very minute items in history, but the historian on the show seems to be a master of all of history. Unless she’s a savant, I don’t see how she can know all these dates without doing a minimal bit of research, yet she seems to know dates and facts right off hand. The last thing that isn’t perfect is that Matt Lanter seems to always be fully clothed. That really should change. He’s a gorgeous man, and I want to see more of him.

Does anyone remember the cartoon character Snagglepuss? Snagglepuss is a character created by Hanna-Barbera in 1959. He’s best known for his famous catchphrase, “Heavens to Murgatroyd!”, along with phrases such as “Exit, stage left!” (or stage right, and sometimes even up or down), a phrase used in theatrical stage directions. Finally, Snagglepuss tends to add the word “even” to the end of his statements.

He first appeared in several episodes of The Quick Draw McGraw Show and became a regular segment on The Yogi Bear Show. Daws Butler based the character’s voice on Bert Lahr’s Cowardly Lion in The Wizard of Oz, which at one point caused some confusion to the point where Mr. Lahr threatened legal action against Hanna-Barbera and Kellogg’s. To resolve the matter, it was decided to include the on-screen message “Voice of Snagglepuss–Daws Butler” during the commercial segments.

I remember Snagglepuss mostly from his appearance on Scooby’s All-Star Laff-a-Lympics in 1977 and 1978. Of course all of these were seen in reruns, as I was born in 1977, but I was always a big fan of Hanna-Barbera cartoons, especially Scooby-Doo. My love for Scooby-Doo probably is the reason I still love to read mysteries.

The thing about Snagglepuss is that he was an effeminate, pinkish lavender lion who many have assumed was gay over the years. While gay-pride and gay-rights activists and folklorists will like to use Snagglepuss as a gay icon because of his pinkish lavender fur color, his lisping speech and his fondness for the theatrical, Joe Barbera was once quoted as denying the likelihood, insisting that the character (and voice) were modeled on Bert Lahr (adding that Lahr “once beat up on his wife!” which I guess was supposed to make Lahr more manly, but seems cruel and silly to me). Too, there were at least two episodes involving a would-be girlfriend, Lyla, who rejected Snagglepuss as too boorish. Haven’t we all (gay men, that is) though had “a would-be girlfriend” to hide our sexuality.

On a Season 34: Episode 8 “Weekend Update” segment on Saturday Night Live (November 15, 2008), Bobby Moynihan appears in costume as Snagglepuss to comment on California’s ban on gay marriage. During the segment Snagglepuss is outed by anchor Seth Meyers and then confesses that his domestic partner is fellow Hanna-Barbera cartoon character The Great Gazoo, who also makes a cameo.

I know that I am behind the times on this, but I have begun binge watching Downton Abbey. I had never watch the show before because my local PBS station never really advertised when it first started being shown. I tried watching an episode out of sequence, but I just couldn’t get into the show. I recently started from the beginning and I’m totally hooked.

First of all, I’m a big fan of several of the actors in the show. How can you not love Maggie Smith? I am also a big fan of Penelope Wilton who played the recurring role of Harriet Jones in Doctor Who. 

However, for years I have been an admirer of Allen Leech. In 2003 Leech played gay fashion designer Vincent Cusack in a little known gay movie called Cowboys & Angels. n 2007, Leech appeared in the HBO drama series Rome (another favorite show of mine) as Marcus Agrippa, Octavian’s top soldier and friend. In 2010, he appeared on the small screen in The Tudors as the doomed Francis Dereham, former lover of Catherine Howard. Leech, of course, appears  as chauffeur Tom Branson, whose political ideologies clash with the upper class, on Downton Abbey. As an Irish actor, I figured it was appropriate to pay homage to Leech in this post on St. Patrick’s Day.

I am about halfway through the third series, but I’ve fallen in love with the show. Each time I say how much I like the show someone asks me if I have seen the finale, but like I said, I am only halfway through the third series, so no spoilers please.

Happy St. Patrick’s Day! I hope you are wearing your green.

Last weeI, I talked about the popular TV/web series “Hunting Season,” created by Jon Marcus and starring Ben Baur, is set to debut its second season on Tuesday, May 5th at Vimeo.com/OnDemand/HuntingSeason. A new episode premiered every Tuesday for four weeks.

The show is available on Vimeo On Demand with a ninety-day exclusive window, but hopefully they will keep it online for viewing even after the ninety-days is up. After my post was published, I was told over Twitter that they want to make a third season, but I’m guessing that they are waiting for the ninety-day exclusive window to be over before they decide what they will need to do to make more episodes.

“Hunting Season” was enormously popular in its first season, racking up two million views across multiple platforms. However, LogoTV, where censored versions of the first season episodes aired, announced on February 21, 2012, that it would shift its programming strategy. Citing research that indicated that LGBT people were becoming increasingly less likely to prioritize highlighting their sexual orientation or identity, the channel entered into partnerships to produce programs that focused less on LGBT-specific interests and more on general cultural and lifestyle subjects. Sadly, “Hunting Season” premiered during this transition period in which Logo ceased its programming away from primarily gay-centric shows.

While the first season was funded by the producers of the show, the second season was funded with a $150,000 Kickstarter campaign backed by its enthusiastic and loyal fan base. If we want better quality gay programming then we’re going to have to show networks that we want it. But not only that, we’re going to have to show networks that it’s worth hiring the talent, in every aspect of the production. I’m not sure there are any fully LGBT specific shows airing right now, though LGBT television characters are becoming more common.

I personally would like to see HBO, Showtime, or Starz produce more gay centric shows, as Showtime did with “Queer as Folk.” One of the criticisms of “Hunting Season” was that it had too much gratuitous full-frontal male nudity. First of all, how is that a fucking criticism? Second, if you are going to have a sex scene, penises are going to be shown. When the penis and other parts of the male body are covered up artificially for sex scenes, it takes the reality of the situation away. I think it’s safe to say that all of us who have had sex didn’t hide our private parts during, before, or after sex sex (well probably during, but you know what I mean). Nudity was part of it, and when I have sex with my boyfriend, I’m not going to immediately cover up or slip on boxers to go to the bathroom, I’m going to get up and do that naked. The same is true with a shower scene or any other situation that calls for nudity. It is part of life and we should celebrate it.

The thing is that we do need to show networks that we need more shows that focus on us. If we want to prove that it is viable, we must support shows like “Hunting Season.” It’s a good and fun show, with great writing, and excellent and sexy actors. When I hear of whether or not, “Hunting Season” or another show like it will be using crowdfunding, I will be sure to let you know, in case you want to contribute. In the meantime, if you want to contribute to a good cause or know someone who does, please consider my own GoFundMe campaign:

http://www.gofundme.com/z837bk

I’ve raised about 15% of the funds and would like to raise the bulk of the money before the start of the Fall Semester of the Museum Studies Certificate Program which begins September 21, 2015. Thank you to all who have contributed, and as I said, if you know of someone who’d like to contribute, please spread the word.

About a week ago, a friend of mine told me that he had been watching this great little web series, and he thought I’d like it. The show is called Hunting Season and he described the show as a gay version of Sex and The City. In many ways that is exactly what it is, but it’s also a whole lot more. As he was talking about it, I googled the show to see what it was all about, and I was shocked at what I found. Hunting Season was inspired and largely based on the popular blog “The Great Cock Hunt” by “Alex” and the novel of the same name published by Kensington Books.

Alex chronicled his sex life in the blog “The Great Cock Hunt” from 2005 to 2008. I loved reading the blog and even read the book. I have missed Alex, and once I read that Hunting Season was based on his blog, I couldn’t wait to watch the series. I watched all of the first season in one day, almost in one setting, and then watched season two with the friend who introduced me to the series.

The basic premise of the series is that “Hunting Season” tells the story of Alex (played by the engaging and incredibly sexy Ben Baur ), who has been keeping a secret sex blog and enjoying all the benefits of being young and single in New York – where take out, dry cleaning and sex can be at your door in 15 minutes. The series also involves his best friends are Tommy (Mark Sinoway) and TJ (Jake Manabat) – both also grappling with their own ups and downs.

Written and directed by Jon Marcus, Hunting Season started out in 2013 as a censored version airing on LogoTV and an uncensored version available for purchase on Vimeo. The first seasons episodes ran for about 12 minutes each. The second season, which premiered in 2015, has notably abandoned its short web series format for a longer, cable TV –like “half-hour” length, consists of four episodes, and will cost $4.99 each to purchase and $2.99 to rent. Unlike Season 1, there is not a “censored” version. Both seasons have a slick, professional feel, with sharp, snappy dialogue, and grown-up gay sensibilities.

These are characters that may seem a little unlikeable at first but once you start to get under their skin a little it’s fascinating to see what makes them tick – a lot like real life to be honest.

As well as talking a lot about sex, and showing its characters having lots of sex, Hunting Season embraces the bodies of its characters – taking a realistic approach to how the world works and not shying away from full-frontal nudity when it makes sense within the context of the narrative.

I don’t live in New York City, and my life and experiences are a long way from those of these characters, but the questions, the conversations, the doubts, hopes, fears, and aspirations that all form part of these stories have a universality that most gay men will be able to identify with in some way.

Hunting Season is a grown-up gay series for grown-up gay men. Well worth watching. I hope they will have a season 3, and hopefully it will not take two more years.
 It needs support though, so please go watch it.

Website: http://huntingseason.tv

Season 1: https://vimeo.com/ondemand/huntingseason

Season 2: https://vimeo.com/ondemand/hs2/126528348