Category Archives: General

The attic glows with this bamboo light as I write a post that echoes this morning’s flimsy and feeble affair. As with all echoes, it is fainter and even flimsier than the first, which amounts to almost nothing.

Almost.

This will very likely be the final clematis flower of the season – it caught my eye as I returned home on a Sunday morning. Andy was mowing the lawn, and I saw this piece of purple, royally resplendent in the sunlight so I pulled the car into the garage and quickly grabbed this shot. It was the only one I got, as a friendly neighbor stopped to chat just at that moment. We had a nice talk, then I headed inside and forgot to get another pic. Happily, this one is enough – one last gasp of the prettiness that happens when the sun conspires to grant us a little more warmth. We’ll take it for as long as she gives it.

This post should have a meatier bit of prose to it, but I can’t provide that at the moment. Work and other obligations have me behind the eight ball, and I do not do well when I find myself behind an eight ball. Bear with me – this cowboy is spent, but he only needs a little recharge. He’ll be riding back, and riding high, in just a bit…

Our cowboy fall gallops full-speed and forward into October. Whatever happened to September is anyone’s guess, but a brief bit of its back-end glory may be found in our weekly blog recap, so read and click on…

A full Harvest/Corn moon kept things interesting even if no one wanted anything to get any more interesting.

A pink floral reprieve reminded that fall could hold beautiful blooms as well as summer did.

A semi-shirtless male celebrity post reminded of what this site used to be.

A cowboy dance that goes back decades.

A cowboy is often in contemplation, even when it seems he isn’t.

The haunting grace of Orville Peck’s majestic ‘Mule’.

Cowboy maintenance, for a link-within-a-link.

As if anyone here needed a reminder: cowboys are frequently secretly fond of each other.

Before a red barn, a memory.

An extra-long weekend in Boston provided friendship and reprieve.

Blooms before a Boston storm.

Boston naked noir, because you can take the clothes off of the cowboy but you can’t… oh never mind.

I don’t wish I wasn’t gay, and I never have.

It was October 3rd.

The heart of a cowboy is a thing of wonder.

The FALL of the COWBOY: Chapter One.

A gratuitous Orville Peck Playgirl post.

Dazzlers of the Day included Jesus Luz and Brooke Eden.

The dusty porch of Levi’s Feed Store wound around the front and sides of the rickety wooden structure that formed the nexus of all transactions in the little town where I grew up. Named after my great grandfather Levi, on my mother’s side, who opened the store back when there wasn’t even a main road, it was more of a general store now, providing supplies for all the neighbors, not only the farmers and ranchers. Much more than that, and in all its iterations, it was the central location where people gathered to talk and gossip about the town news, which in those days rarely amounted to more than weather warnings and health issues for the regulars. Occasionally a transiting cowboy would ruffle some feathers and they’d have that to occupy their interest – cowboys being the most exciting thing about our town – but for the most part it was just a place to pass a few minutes of each day socializing. Small towns accustomed to solitude sometimes forget how much humans enjoy interacting with one another until they have a place to gather. My great grandfather Levi, the man after whom I was named and christened, a man who was dead long before I was born, never intended it to be such a space – a joke that my mother loved to tell people who were barely interested. 

It was strange to see my name emblazoned in faded paint above the front door of the store once I learned how to read. No one else had such notoriety, and while everyone knew I wasn’t the Levi to which it referred, there it was – the same spelling, the same sound, the same family. To avoid any lingering or future confusion, my parents would call me ‘Leve’ – trading the last ‘I’ for an ‘E’, and pronouncing it like the word ‘leave’. Over the years it would come to be a wish, a command, and a promise, while in my mind it sometimes sounded like no one wanted me around. Leve. Just Leve.

Parents rarely mean to fuck up their children like that, and even more rarely manage to escape it. 

It was on this dusty porch where I sat in a rickety old rocking chair on one of the first warm days of spring when I saw The Cowboy for the first time. I didn’t see him approach – he simply was there, walked by, and then was gone. Did he nod or smile? I couldn’t tell you; I honestly don’t remember. Locals would later expand their tales and claim that he walked into town with a swagger, a certain spring in his step that set some immediately at ease and others instantly on guard. He never would be able to reconcile the two; we never gave him that chance. 

There was dust in his beard and hat, the way dust was everywhere that summer, and every summer. That’s what I thought I would remember about this spring and summer – the heat and the dust – the way they followed everyone everywhere, the way they got into the ground, into the air, into all the crevices and spaces might think could be spared – and the way they held there, stubbornly lodging and adamantly refusing to go. What I would remember instead was the middle-aged man who changed my life, striding into town for those all-too-brief seasons, and whose absence would never be filled for as long as we both lived. I remember the way his jaw moved with the steadied practice of a long-time tobacco chewer. That scent of menthol still prickles my skin, the strange phenomenon of smell triggering a physical response like no other I’ve experienced since. It makes me tear up as much as it raises my cock, and I’m powerless against both. Lately, it’s actively brought bile into my mouth – strange and awful the way memories morph over the years, turning the stomach and churning the mind until you forget what joy you ever felt in someone, or what thrill they ever brought into your existence. 

He didn’t have a name – none that he revealed. The town came to know him as the Beasley Boy – the Beasleys were the childless couple who rented him a small room kitty-corner to their old unused outhouse – even if the lines of his face told all of us how far he was from boyhood. (I would come to discover he was ancient for what he was – all of forty – precisely twice my twenty years on earth, making me precisely half of him.) To me, he would always and only be The Cowboy. 

On that first day he walked into town, he turned to survey the porch but I honestly can’t remember what he did first. A nod? A smile? I didn’t think to remember, but I was instantly transfixed on his countenance, and the strange feeling it gave rise to somewhere in my body. He had the look of certainty to him, like he knew exactly who he was and nothing would sway him otherwise. I aspired to have a small amount of such surety, but even all these years later I’m not sure of anything.

He couldn’t know it then, not consciously, but a few weeks after this he would tell me his senses were on alert as he walked by me on that first day, the way a dog pricks up its ears when the trouble or danger isn’t fully known, only felt. He would say his heart stirred a little but attributed it to the beans from breakfast, and then he laughed it off, and I’d never know what was real and what wasn’t. 

Once he passed the porch my head turned to follow his; he turned around and gave a me a slightly grim smile. Too grim to make me smile back, so I looked down instead. When I lifted my eyes to find him again, he was no longer looking.

The ocotillo patch down the road from the store was barren of all but its spikes. Soon the leaves would appear for their brief season, and the scent of creosote would rise from the earth, perfuming the air like some enchanting fog. For now, there was still just dust, lifting from the porch as The Cowboy walked into the distance, into the sun.

~ The FALL of The COWBOY ~ Autumn 2026

• The Preamble

… that Aaron Samuels asked Cady Heron what day it was.

She responded: “It’s October 3rd.“

Happy Mean Girls Day!

Another bit of a break from our cowboy’s tale, this is a pink floral post, recalling a Coquette Summer from several years ago. (And if you need more summer, check out ‘Island‘ and ‘Solid Gold‘.) Having just spent an extra-long and half-rainy weekend in Boston, I’m a bit behind on everything, in the best way. It means I’ve been living instead of posing, experiencing instead of documenting, being instead of blogging – and I’d like to keep that going, just for a bit longer. Have no fear, the cowboy shall be back very soon – his tale has only just begun.

Cowboy fever has consumed the bulk of this blog since last week turned the page to fall. We also had a full Harvest Moon happen over the weekend, so this seems a good place to pause for a moment and reflect on where we are. It’s easy to just keep galloping and charging ahead, especially when our horse is on full-speed autopilot, bringing us to all our appointments and due dates and requisite responsibilities. Life doesn’t slow down or stop until we insist – and that insistence is an integral component of happiness.

The photos here capture the moon just as it was about to enter its full Harvest/Corn status – the anticipatory days leading up to a full moon – which are sometimes just as crazy and headache-inducing as the day/night of the full moon itself. The days following might be equally fraught. During such times, I tend to give myself some additional grace and space in dealing with whatever might arise, reminding myself not to get upset or emotional about things, to let go and let Madonna do her thing. It’s the closest I’ll get to being any sort of spiritual. In the Material Girl We Trust.

The Fall of the Cowboy is in full gallop – both the fall theme of this website and the fall project – so hang onto your hats and saddles, because you don’t want to fall off or miss a day of what’s to come. On with the weekly blog recap, cowboy-style…

Our Solid Gold Summer concluded with the sparkle and pizzazz in which it began – and what a fucking summer it was…

The Fall of the Cowboy rode in with this midnight post to give hint and heed of what was – and is – to come.

This theme for autumn fits surprisingly well for the most unlikely of bloggers.

My first pair of cowboy boots also fit surprisingly well.

The pose of a punk-ass cowboy – because all of life is a pose.

Squashing it like a gourd.

A cowboy fall in a beautiful song from a beautiful album.

Tom Ford’s latest release ‘Ombre Leather Reserve’ coincides perfectly with our fall theme.

Yet another one of the perils of my middle-late-age: sound the alarm!

A berry fine post for the mayhem of the harvest season.

A kind of cowboy trouble, because cowboys have more than their fair share of trouble.

The spooking season is just about upon us.

This two-cowboy waltz pulls at all the right heartstrings, but don’t get too hopeful for a cowboy romance.

Walking after midnight is not solely the province of cowboys – I’ve been doing it since I was a kid.

A full moon was had by all – whether you call it the Corn Moon or the Harvest Moon or the Full Fuck-Ass Moon in honor of all the mayhem it brings.

‘The FALL of the COWBOY‘ is more than the theme at work here – it’s a new project I’m working on, the tale of which begins in this post.

This cowboy’s conundrum isn’t exactly limited to cowboys – these are questions that find most of us at some point.

Dazzlers of the Day included Brian Falduto and Chris Housman.

The full moon arrives today. Called the Harvest Moon or Corn Moon for self-explanatory reasons, it’s the first full moon of the fall season. Not a reason to entirely lose one’s cool, but likely to contribute to it, if that’s the way one was already headed. Ideal set-up for walking after midnight, however, especially if you are without streetlights.

The spooky season is almost at hand. We will need all the light we can get.

The first weekend of Fall 2026 is about to kick off, and tomorrow brings a full Corn/Harvest Moon, so get ready to howl and bray or whatever sort of noise you want to make. Full moon madness is no joke, and the only way I know how to successfully deal with it is by preparing yourself to simply go with the flow. There will be mess-ups and mistakes, and it may feel like the whole world is trying to gaslight you. Welcome to my average day. We will get through it. Fall wants to seduce us, then trip us up. A basic awareness of difficulty in the air makes it easier to accept.

My first fall visit to Boston is scheduled for this weekend, so I’ll be celebrating in cowboy style there – will report back next week if I feel like it – or maybe this will be one of those low-key quiet trips that doesn’t get a full write-up. Let’s not decide anything now – it’s not wise to make planning decisions when the moon is near full. Just go through it to get through it. Hang onto your cowboy hats!

My latest middle-to-late-aged move has been forgetting to shut off the oven or stove-top when I’m done “cooking“.

That’s always fun.

Thank God for Andy.

‘Tis the season of gourds and squash and harvest items, oh my! The ones seen here are mostly decorative, and around these parts we don’t scoff or diminish the merely decorative – in fact, the decorative is what gives this site its lifeblood. Attractiveness and appearance and window dressing are our stocks in trade – image leads substance, prettiness comes before politics, and beauty is the law of the land. 

Magnificently, beauty comes in all sorts and kinds, and one person’s idea of beauty could well be another’s idea of ugly. That’s the wonderful part of life as a human, if you allow it to be – we are all so inconceivably different, even when we think we are the same. The inexpressible infinite expanse of being a human being – the same way every gourd is one of a kind, never to be exactly duplicated or reproduced in precisely the same way. The marvel of that should never go unnoticed or disrespected.

“Death was never far from a cowboy. He may have submerged the possibility in the youthful bluster of supposed invincibility, but every time a cowhand dug his boot into the stirrup, the ride could carry him to trail’s very end.” – Patrick Dearen

Sitting across from me at the table overlooking Braddock Park in Boston, my nephew opens the envelope I’d just handed to him – the envelope that contains the very first promotional items for this very website’s fall theme – a selection of pictures scented with ‘Purple Suede’ by Goldfield & Banks. (A few days later, my niece Emi will play ‘Cowboys and Angels’ by George Michael – the universe conspiring as it does to confirm themes and ideas and the overall trajectory and story arc for life.)

When your heart’s in someone else’s hands
Monkey see and monkey do, their wish is your command
You’re not to blame, everyone’s the same
All you do is love and love is all you do
I should know by now the way I fought for you
You’re not to blame, everyone’s the same
I know you think that you’re safe, mister
Harmless deception that keeps love at bay
It’s the ones who resist that we most want to kiss
Wouldn’t you say?

Cowboys and angels, they all have the time for you
Why should I imagine that I’d be a find for you?
Why should I imagine that I’d have something to say?
But that scar on your face, that beautiful face of yours
In your heart, there’s a trace of someone before

Back to the table in Boston, where Noah is pulling out the pictures – the fragrance of leather and spices surrounding him like a lasso. At first his face is blank, which is generally the resting state of my nephew’s face. He’s not going to put up a front or a pose or even a smile unless you offer some inspiration first. As he peruses the promo items, his expression runs quickly through a succession of tells – a bit of a scoff, a slight confusion, a puzzled and quizzical query – before landing incontrovertibly on one of absolute amusement – the slightest slant of a reluctant smile and a glint in the eye that means his crazy Uncle managed to surprise him yet again.

When your heart’s in someone else’s plans
Things you say and things you do, that they don’t understand
It’s such a shame, always ends the same
You can call it love but I don’t think it’s true
You should know by now, I’m not the boy for you
You’re not to blame, always ends the same

I know you think that you’re safe, sister
Harmless affection that keeps things this way
It’s the ones who persist for the sake of a kiss who will pay

Despite my nephew’s eventual amusement, he remained wisely suspicious and wary of the pictures before him, because I’ve taught him well.

“Do you think you’re a cowboy?” he asked doubtfully. (This is also the guy who would ask, “Are you really too dainty to pick up a sandwich?” when he eyed me cutting up a breakfast wrap the next morning.)

We both laughed a little.

Choosing my words carefully, I took my time trying to get the explanation just right.

“I think… I share the same basic tenets of what makes a cowboy a cowboy: a ferocious independence, a tendency to buck against mainstream society, and the unwavering determination to march to my own drum – in the crazy things I wear, in how I act, in what I say and do. And I hope that’s one thing you and Emi have learned from me over all these years.”

My nephew thought about this for a bit, then said something that confirmed everything I’d been wondering and worrying about for this fall’s theme, setting me immediately at ease, and impressing me with his ability to cut through to the heart of the matter: “You’re like… a disguised cowboy.”

In that one sentence, I was genuinely moved – that my nephew had seen me, and that my nephew had understood.

Cowboys and angels, they all take a shine to you
Why should I imagine that I was designed for you?
Why should I believe that you would stay?
That scar on your face, that beautiful face of yours
Don’t you think that I’d know they’ve hurt you, before?
Take this man to your bed
Maybe his hands will help you forget
Please be stronger than your past
The future may still give you a chance.

Welcome to the autumn of 2026, and remember:

There is no more sensitive creature than a boy, especially a cowboy.

This summer sparkled and shone like some glittering golden disco ball twirling in the hot beams of a smoldering sun. Maybe there was nothing of substance of seriousness behind it, maybe there was no beating heart to the tin-man/gold-man parading prettily before us, and maybe what was going on inside my head made summer fun largely performative – we had our summer, and it has come to an end. Maybe we’ll make it better next year, or maybe we’ll realize how good we had it and reframe the memories we think we have made. The Solid Gold Summer of 2026 will not be remembered for what happened to us, but what we made happen for ourselves. That’s the very best kind of summer to make anyway. Here’s a link-filled look back at some notable blog posts, and some ridiculous posing to send this golden summer off with some pizzazz. I’ll get back on the horse for autumn – see you in a few…

Solid Gold Magic.

Father’s Days ring differently now.

Short shorts were the official summer wardrobe.

Someone left the cake out in the rain!

When time is golden. (And when isn’t it?)

Gratuitous He-Man post.

Summer frag by Guerlain.

Yes sir, Boston can boogie – and we got down at our annual BroSox Adventure.

Are we golden? Not sure about this…

Sure we are – golden summer reflections.

Read my lips, shut my mouth? Never.

Get off!

Peek the pubic hair, if you dare.

A moment of summer melancholy.

Madonna provided the soundtrack to the summer with ‘Confessions II’ – and it was epic.

People are getting more stupid.

A Speedo moment of contemplation.

The spectacle of an ass peek.

Embodying golden splendor.

Solid gold summer realizations.

Golden 80’s glory.

Soleil summer hallucinations between my legs.

Summer turns sickly, starting with the sky.

Doffing the underwear in the pool.

This icebox cake though…

Cloudbusting. Still not sure I’m doing it right…

Pause for dramatic effect.

First harvest of the summer season.

Best donut shop ever.

Summer reading was a bit of a beast, but worth it. I think. Though I enjoyed this one a bit more.

Per my niece Emi’s decree, this golden summer had a few Egyptian accents to it.

The cutest godson ever turned four!

Meanwhile, our couple-hood turned twenty-six!

Summer pyramids.

A summer weekend in Boston is often spent scuttling between cool spots until the night opens up and provides respite and relief.

Don’t forget that your family is gold.

Dodging bullets.

Briefs and bulge as the years go passing by.

What is there to do in summer? Sometimes… only rain.

An Egyptian mood lent Emi’s recommendation a musical accompaniment.

At the hard turn of summer, another moment of melancholy.

A summer pyramid scheme finds fruition in channeling Cleopatra.

The crux of July and August somehow changes everything; in this case we had a Gold Rush.

A semi-solid gold summer playlist.

A letter to Dad three years later.

When summer feels somber.

All that glitters… or what to do when your crown falls off.

Ben Platt gives good briefs.

Nicholas Galitzine gives good He-Man.

Once you had gold.

Feeling my golden cheeky self again. (But not in this gown.)

Sing it Boney M!

Summer moves.

A cantina in my hometown.

Caught mid-metamorphosis.

It’s my party and I’ll cry if I want to.

Reading is fundamental.

The Madonna Timeline returned to match the summer boogie moment.

Summer is still for rainbows.

My secret super-powers revealed.

Throwing August away in a pile of garish accessories and golden beaded sparkle.

The final night of 50.

The almost-birthday-suit post. (With the requisite bit of navel-gazing.)

Golden friendship high.

A quiet birthday in Boston was precisely how I wanted to pass the marking of my 51st year here on earth. And thanks to Andy that’s precisely what we did.

September – that two-pump chump – came too soon.

A shirtless Harry Styles.

Tom Ford’s Noir Extreme closed out the season with a delicious bridge of fragrance.

Candles in the September rain.

Bit of a golden boogie because it’s not quite over yet.

A last golden dance of summer to elongate the season with an extended remix like only Donna Summer can do.

Autumn advancing.

A Boston weekend with my nephew Noah provided the first part of an Ilagan Twins’ Summer Send-Off as Labor Day marked its unofficial ending.

This final day of summer is going to be a day of recaps – as this weekly blog recap finishes off the season right before the main summer recap goes up later today. That’s a lot of reminiscing from a guy who just wants to get out of the heat of summer and into the frying pan of fall. To get there, however, we’ve got to go through here – our weekly blog recap. Hurry up and come back later to finish the summer off right.

Summer fireworks of the floral sort.

Summer Speedo release shots.

Floral fireworks reprise for the people in the back.

A dahlia solo dance for those who can’t help but bloom.

A flower that signals fall whether we like it or not.

A picture post, the way life used to be here.

A sparkling mess, the way life continues to be here.

Putting the nutter into the beaver – or, hats off to the parents and caretakers who did and do this bullshit on the regular.

Sweet hint of autumn, riding sweetly on the wind.

A bewitching weekend with my niece Emi kicked off the magic time between summer and fall.

A trip to Vermont and the new ‘Practical Magic’ sequel were further harbingers of fall.

Berry berry bo berry, in case you just managed to get ‘The Name Game’ out of your head.

A solid gold summer, tarnished and hollow?

A summer coming sputtering to a stop?

Dazzlers of the Day included Scottie Dwyer (Kemetic Mender), Daddy Dyl, Alexandra Eala, and Adam Johnson.