If you've been watching Bravo's guilty pleasure OCD real estate opera Flipping Out (I know I have), you may be wondering what the deal is with New Chris, the house assistant who was hired after Garbage Chris was promoted following the departure of the old lead assistant, who was apparently tired of being mauled by Monkey the Cat and headed for greener pastures.

Turns out New Chris has a last name (it's Keslar), he is a gay, and he was kind enough to answer some of our questions about how he came to the Lewis nest, whether or not things are as nutty as they seem on the show, and just what is up with the nanny-cam sting that was teased in the latest previews.

AfterElton.com: So tell us a little about yourself, for starters.

Chris Keslar: I’m 31 years old. I’m a double Scorpio – Scorpio sun, Scorpio rising. I grew up in western Pennsylvania, just outside Pittsburgh. I went to college at the University of Pennsylvania. I lived in Philadelphia on and off for about eight years after that and then I moved to West Hollywood in 2003 and I’ve been here ever since.

AE: Now you wanna do what Jeff does, right? 

CK: Yeah. My undergraduate degree was in English and theater, so when I moved to Los Angeles, my idea was to quote-unquote "get in the biz." And I had one of those LA stories: my first day I rolled into LA, I got a job working as a casting associate on a reality show. And so, for the next like two, two-and-a-half years I spent my time in the reality world as a casting producer and I also developed and had some shows sold and optioned. And then I took a break from that and went into scripted television and then worked on Ugly Betty for the first part of the second season, right before the writers’ strike.

So when the writers’ strike happened, I was out of work and looking for a job and I didn’t know where the writers’ strike was going to go so I was like, you know what? I think maybe exiting out of the entertainment industry for a little bit might be a good time. I’ve always loved real estate. I grew up with my Dad, who was a contractor and a land developer. ... So it had always been in my blood and I love interior design, like many a gay. ... And then I was led to Jeff through a friend and it was just one of those fated – I was looking for work and I was looking to do informational interviews with people in the field that I wanted to go into and my friend takes care of Jenny’s dog. ... He contacted Jenny and they were looking for body, so that’s how it happened.

Chris and Jeff
 

AE: So did Jeff pick you or did the show pick you? 

CK: No. My involvement with Jeff and Jenny was totally separated from the actual production of the show. Again, it was just like one of those fated coincidences. Ugly Betty ended, I worked up until the end of December and then we went on indefinite hiatus. And then I started working for Jeff at the beginning of February and so I had about a month down time and it was during that time one of their current assistants who you don’t see on the show – his name is Josh – he was leaving ... so it was just one of those things. My first day was the first day of filming, so the timing worked out perfectly, for them and for me.

AE: Are you still working for Jeff now? 

CK: You’re going to have to wait and see. I can’t talk about that right now.

Lots more after the jump!

As you are likely aware if you've been hanging out on the site lately, there's a bit of a firestorm going on right now regarding the lack of intimacy, physical contact, and general authenticity present in the relationship of Luke and Noah, As the World Turns' history-making gay couple.

Fans have been complaining about the kiss-freeze on fansites and messageboards for months, but in February an enterprising viewer took matters into his own hands and got the mainstream media involved, with stories popping up on CNN and various television news magazines. We got in touch with the man who started the Nuke media blitz (he'll go by Anthony G. here) and asked him to share how he pushed the story into the spotlight, and just what it was that marked the tipping point from devoted fan to PR nightmare.

AfterElton.com: So what was the straw that broke the Nukie's back? Can you pinpoint at what moment an everyday soaps fan turned into a media blitzer?
Anthony G.: The last straw for me and many others came on Valentine’s Day. After mistletoe-gate at Christmas, most people got extremely upset at Procter & Gamble’s decision to start censoring Luke and Noah. We wrote letters of support of the storyline, its actors, and its producers. We also sent in Hershey Kisses as a not-too-subtle way to get our point across that we wanted things to change. I believe, as a group, fans decided that we should give them time to see how they would react to our letters of encouragement.

When every other couple on not only the show, but ON THE ENTIRE PLANET, kissed on Valentine’s Day, and Luke & Noah hugged, that was the instant that our anger at the show regarding this issue went off the charts. Some of us had hoped that our letters and other things - such as one soap magazine poll finding over 90% of the respondents wanted to see Luke & Noah be more physical – would help to change Procter & Gamble’s mind. When that episode aired, and no kiss was in sight, that’s the point at which we realized that we had to do something else as nothing had changed, and nor would it, unless we acted. I thought it best to do that now, while we were all still quite upset. It was important to me to channel that negative energy into something positive, and that’s what I had hoped to do – and in the end, it is what we did - with the media blitz.

AE: How did you go about your campaign? Did you pick up a how-to book on media blitzes?
AG: Is there one? I don’t know. If not, there should be! I actually just did it off the top of my head. After Valentine’s Day, fans of the show at www.vanhansis.net were really peeved, more so than they’ve ever been, at the show. This is saying something too as we tend to be die-hards on that forum, very devoted and protective of the story and the actors. After the episode aired, there was discussion regarding what we should do next, but no one was taking the bull the by the horns and *doing* it quite yet, so I took it upon myself to get something going.

You might think that the best way to draw our complaints regarding this issue to the powers that be might be via the soap press. I had that same thought for about a second, and then dismissed it entirely. The soap magazines had not done much at all to point out this discrimination. They would much rather put Mr. Van Hansis in the difficult position regarding asking about the kissing ban than ask, say, Mr. Pat Gentile, head of Procter & Gamble Television Productions, about it. They never asked any P&G rep about this issue at all until after our media blitz was over, and then and only then did one of the three soap magazines get quotes from a P&G rep. Granted, the story was a half of a page and appeared buried in the middle of the issue, but that’s honestly more coverage than I thought the story would get in the soap magazines. I thought they would completely ignore it, and I guess what they did end up doing is *almost*, but not quite, that!

Considering there weren’t many other options, and that AfterElton.com had already tackled this issue by talking to Brian T. Cahill of Procter & Gamble TV productions, I thought it would be best if we took this to the mainstream press.