Mountain Man

For several years if not longer, I’ve passed this billboard on the Pennsylvania Turnpike:

I’m extremely excited that I finally got this picture. Credit to my brother for playing a photographer on the internet! I’ve often wondered about the Mountain Man character. Is he supposed to be like McGruff the Crime Dog, Gus the groundhog for the Pennsylvania lottery, or my favorite short-lived character G-Hog for the Pennsylvania Department of Labor?

I searched for the Pennsylvania Dairy Promotion Program, and the website is all about the Dairy Princesses. The cold (milkshakes) never bothered them anyway! So was or is Mountain Man ever used in any campaign other than billboards around Pennsylvania? More importantly, is DJ Khaled getting any royalties for the resemblance?

Milk Closing Credits

Over the weekend, I saw and enjoyed the film Milk, the story about the country’s first openly gay elected official, Harvey Milk. The acting was terrific especially by Sean Penn (although he was better in Mystic River), but I am not going to provide a full movie review. Instead, I want to point out something that has little to do with the movie: the closing credits.

The credits start with Sean Penn as Harvey Milk, Emile Hirsch as Cleve Jones, and Josh Brolin as Dan White and continues through the characters with less screen time. Near the end of the cast credits, Brian Yates Sharber is listed as Gay Man.* To state the obvious, Milk features many gay characters. I don’t think I’m giving anything away by saying that Harvey Milk was gay as was the characters played by Hirsch, James Franco, and, well, nearly everyone else. So why do the credits distinguish "Gay Man" from the other gay men?


* No, I didn’t write the name Brian Yates Sharber down in the theatre. IMDB comes through again!