Author Archives: Alan Ilagan

Cuchi, cuchi and ooh la la and everything sexy Frenchie…

This is Poussez and I’m having a 70’s summer disco moment!

It is not my habit to employ many exclamation points because they are too often misconstrued, departing from what I originally intended to convey – and since that changes from point to point, with varying degrees of exclamation, it’s as much my fault as the reader’s. You are exonerated, assuming you’re still with me and reading these words. That will hopefully get harder if/when you press play on the song below. Go on, click it – you know you want to… spin us back to the disco and the dance-floor.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AN8j4hEe3gQ

We need some sort of release right about now. It’s Friday – we have arrived at the front door of the weekend – and ooh, la, la let’s just get down and dirty from the very damn beginning. Since I was but a baby as the 70’s were ending their storied tacky fabulousness, I hold no memories of dancing in some ‘Saturday Night Fever’ disco ball hall, but I did my fair share of imagining, and these days that’s the safest way to participate.  

By the way, ‘Poussez’ loosely translates as ‘push’, and if you don’t know what the bussy is, well, you can look it up on your own computer. I won’t sully these pages with such gorgeous atrocities. Besides, my bussy is already all over these parts. See my Insta. See my Threads. Wait, don’t… 

Are you old enough to remember when Calvin Klein got into all that heat and controversy for those 70’s-inspired porn/heroin chic ads featuring super-young almost-models? Troye Sivan‘s latest video for ‘Rush’ is like one of those brilliant ads brought to magnificent life – a slice of glorious abandon and divine debauchery to match the spirit of summer. Just when you think the gays had already found their summer anthem (‘Padam, Padam’ by you-know-who) Sivan comes out with this scorcher which has an even hotter video and sound, absolutely resounding with summer vibes and sweaty nights. 

‘Rush’ unabashedly takes its name and inspiration from the well-known brand of poppers (you know – the one with the lightning bolt on it). For the bad-gay record, I’ve never tried poppers. In some ways, I’m as square as they come. For those who have, and for anyone who wants to approximate that fabled euphoria, this song and video are a way to access the high without the risk. You do you. 

{See more of Troye Sivan in this Dazzling post.}

Burning the candle at both ends, rather than running the risk of using the midnight oil, I sit in the attic and write these words, knowing you won’t read them until the next morning, and slightly hesitant because of that. Night-writing usually results in something moodier than what we typically want during the day, and I try to keep an ear open to what this will sound like when the light is in the sky again. 

My schedule has been edging toward less and less sleep, which tends to run me into the ground, and I’ve found myself dozing off around 6 PM, whether I’m in a chair, or couch, or bed. The damn Wordle streak I’m on (122 and counting!) has me slightly obsessed and half-hoping it ends soon so I can let go of the stress and pressure, and start missing days again. Oh the silly things we put ourselves through, the silly things we humans do. All to pass a day, or a night. Why can’t we simply sit and be?

A song then, for such a sentiment.

A song for putting me to bed for the night, and for greeting you first thing in the day. 

Maybe it’s a little sad for one or the other, but even summer has its tinges of sadness, and sometimes they are worse than the winter because the world now feels at odds with the heart. 

A meditation followed by a night swim – this is how I get my kicks, and it’s more glorious than any of those wild nights of my 20’s. Fine for their time and place, and completely repellant and disagreeable to me in thought and deed now. Our capacity to grow and change and keep doing it year after year is one of my favorite parts of being human. It almost makes up for all of our failings and falterings. 

I wish a meditation and a night swim solved the pain and the problems that plague any average adult living in this world. I wish I knew better how to handle the sorrows that creep across our paths on any given day. I wish there was more to do than offer a hug or a word of encouragement. I wish…

It isn’t that I don’t want to be forgotten. 

That’s the big fear, isn’t it? Being forgotten. Being here for as long as you have been here and not being remembered for any of it. As if being here, then, were entirely meaningless. As if being is meaningless.

The artists who acknowledge and own up to their egos will admit to this being part of their art. 

It isn’t that I don’t want to be forgotten. 

Having loved, and having been loved, is, I think, the purpose of any purity in our lives. We can pretend there are loftier aims and goals, maybe some greater meaning and altruistic impetus to get us into heaven, but I really think it’s smaller and more finite than that. Such a little thing – love – a four-letter word to rival all the other four-letter words. 

Artists want to think the work is what will remain, the work is what will endure, and then only if it’s good and true and authentic. 

I am not a good artist.

All I will ever have to leave is a little bit of love – but if I leave a little each day then I will be happy with my life, and none of it will have been wasted or wanting. 

Sometimes I get too wrapped up in the day to remember this. 

Sometimes I fall into the trappings of just getting through the damn drama of the day.

Sometimes I simply refuse. Defiant to the noble cause, impossible to the very end, and insisting upon hurting my own heart and taking the rest of the world down with me. 

And I, sometimes, Aspire Instead.