I watched the old Eastwood flick "The Eiger Sanction." Not a fan of condemning old movies for expressing old values — context! — but 1 grotesque sentence/scene after another. Almost parody! Here, real-life bi Jack Cassidy's dog is "Faggot," jokes about rape w/a woman named Buns. pic.twitter.com/BNUhuvwCG5

— Matthew Rettenmund (@mattrett) November 27, 2023

I watch old movies fully aware of context. I don't expect them all to be progressive! But I was mindlessly watching some Eastwood movies (In the Line of Fire holds up, Absolute Power is laughably bad) when I came upon The Eiger Sanction, which came out in 1975.

It honestly feels like a parody of an un-PC movie of the past. It has women of color throwing themselves at Eastwood (including a Black woman named Jemimah, whose name and race are the butt of quite a few jokes, though he falls for her and they end up together) and just one aggressively offensive line after another.

The Native American babe who screws Eastwood (in order to deceive him) at one point is working his ass off on a preparatory hike and he actually sneers, “Fuck Marlon Brando,” mocking the then-relatively recent Oscars flap with Brando and Sacheen Littlefeather.

I couldn't look away!

The worst was real-life bi queen Jack Cassidy playing a mincing queen with a dog named “Faggot,” making the movie's second rape joke to a ski bunny named ... Buns. Cassidy is killed off mercilessly by Eastwood's character — left to roast in the desert. But — as Vito Russo's The Celluloid Closet pointed out decades ago — it was not insignificant that the dog was allowed to live.

Fascinating.

ABOVE: He'd be 63, still fine and DEFINITELY not a Trump supporter.

BONUS PHOTO: An 1800s cabinet card with a group of stage sailor boys:

(Image via Peter Miller/New York)

BELOW: Keep reading for a hot cowboy, obit for an LGBTQ+ rights figure, hostage swaps happening and more  ...

(Images via video stills)

Yes, I sometimes watch old reruns of The Price Is Right and develop crushes on male contestants. This one, Patrick from 1982, had a soft clone thing going on ...

@boyculturedotcom TV Casts: Who's Alive (Color), Who's Dead (B&W) — THE ORIGINAL #tv #friends #matthewperry #threescompany #glee #ilovelucy #nostalgia ♬ original sound - Matthew Rettenmund/BoyCulture

You are not hallucinating — I posted a version of this weeks ago. However, when I  posted this to TikTok, TikTok wouldn't let me due to the sound, even though I scrupulously used the site's own okayed music. So I stuck with all the other usual places.

Then, yesterday, a so-called CREATOR (!) totally ripped off my entire concept. Shamelessly. Ultimately, this does not take money out of my pocket or anything, but it was so dispiriting. Simple concept, but all mine, and one I was working on, off and on, for months. Had the folder on my desktop and finally decided to post after Suzanne Somers died. Then, I even updated it for Matthew Perry (I really thought a 90-year-old would make it dated first.)

Anyway, just dispiriting.

If you like it, please do share.

The book's cover image is by Deborah Feingold, from the same session that graces the rare 1984 The Quiet Storm Thai magazine. (Image via Little, Brown)

Reading is ... hard. It takes a lot for me, English degree be damned, to sit quietly and read a book. For years, having my constantly active and attention-craving dogs, and then dog, was enough to keep me judging books by their covers alone. Then, I became as addicted to inst-ernet gratification as a person a couple of generational alphabet letters down the line from me.

At some point, I joked that I don't read at all anymore, and I may have even said so to Mary Gabriel, the acclaimed writer who has set her sights on Madonna with her new biography Madonna: A Rebel Life (Little, Brown, October 2023), because she teased me when she sent me a signed copy of her work — “I know you don't read Madonna books. But read this one. You might learn something.”

!!!

I did and I did. The book is not filled with shockers for diehard fans/addicts, though I'm sure there are things you didn't know or forgot you know, but it is something that has been missing from the hundred or more Madonna books out there so far — a serious, sober, all-inclusive, biographical look at Madonna's life and career executed with scrupulous attention to contextualizing who she is and why that worked and works for us.

There have been a couple of interesting biographies, but I always felt they were lost in the long shadow of Christopher Andersen's dreadful best seller from 30 years ago. It was time for Madonna: A Rebel Life.

And it was time for me to quiz Ms. Gabriel about her gigantic endeavor ...

(Image via Internet)

I hope if you've seen the urine-lady story online you've at least questioned it. It is AI-generated (image and story) by an AI site, yet it's been shared endlessly as real. Why this matters.

First of two towel photos in this post ... (Image via Instagram)

ABOVE: He is about to discover some Hot Ways to Die.

BELOW: Keep reading for beefcake, murderers getting their due and more ...

As a supplement to the written list HERE, my long video of 70+ TV casts, visually depicting who is alive (in color), and who is not (in B&W).

Hug your favorite TV icon today.