This piece of music by the Danish String Quartet is titled ‘The Peat Dance’ and it recalls a windy day in Ireland when I was in some tour group marching across the peat bogs, pausing in a peat-thatched cottage for some Irish coffee to take the sting out of the cold. Humans are funny in the ways we walk through winter together, and apart.
Suzie enjoys the Danish String Quartet, and we are currently in the midst of planning for a dinner loosely called ‘Suzette’s Feast’ in an homage to ‘Babette’s Feast’. Ours will likely be a sad and silly approximation of the wonder that was Babette’s glorious meal (Suzie has already nixed the turtle soup, and I haven’t been able to locate any quails to stuff – we are having Mom do up some Cornish game hens for the latter) but this is how we traverse the final weeks of winter. Together.
Hope is on the swiftly-moving air currents (a clumsily-disguised description of wind because I’m tired of saying that word). It’s in the shift of the sun, and the disappearing hour this weekend. It’s also in the burst of new growth on our indoor plants – a sign that comes before the snow has melted, before the first cranky and crinkled unfolding of the Lenten rose.
This is a fern that we’ve had since I first met Andy – a descendant of one of his Mom’s original plants – and somehow we’ve managed to keep it alive for twenty-five years. It’s in our sunniest window (and if you’re having trouble with ferns, I advise trying them in a bit more light – when the literature says they can survive in deep shade, that usually means the deep shade of the outdoors – indoors is by its very nature already shaded). This fern, like most of us, has had good years and bad years, and right now it’s looking very lush and happy, thanks to a prime spot right beside the humidifier. Ferns always like high humidity, especially in bright light.
I sense spring in its verdant new growth. Promise, too.
Every time that I look in the mirror
All these lines on my face gettin’ clearer The past is gone
It went by like dusk to dawn Isn’t that the way? Everybody’s got their dues in life to pay
For the 10th anniversary of MTV, the music that once played, well, music, celebrated itself with a few powerhouse performances (and one glorious therapy session in noirish brilliance by Lady M herself). Strangely, for those who thought they knew me, my favorite musical portion was when Aerosmith took to the stage after a piano floated through the air and they launched into their classic ‘Dream On’.
I watched the performance in our basement rec room – lights off, the space lit only by the glow of the television – and with a full orchestra backing the band, the maelstrom of music and spectacle took me out of my miserable life for five minutes. Transported on the crests of musical majesty, I soared through the night, leaving behind the wretchedness of that basement, where I once hid as a child, where I carved out the only safe space I ever knew, and only because it was the space within myself.
This is it – this is the part. Listen as it builds, listen as it becomes salvation, listen as it becomes redemption. Then sing. Sing for your soul, sing for your survival, sing your way out of whatever your life has become. Sing with me…
Sing with me, sing for the year Sing for the laughter and sing for the tear Sing with me, it’s just for today Maybe tomorrow the good Lord will take you away
Another winter song to see us through the dimmest days, when being poised on the precipice of spring makes the icy setbacks that much more difficult to bear. I’ve often been called cold, or detached, and I always sort of wore that as a badge of pride. Better to be cold than to be hurt. Better to strike first than have your heart pierced and your life marred forever after. What a foolish attitude to have, or in my case to pretend. A song now for the supposedly-cold-hearted among us:
Come to me Run to me Do and be done with me Cold, cold, cold Don’t I exist for you? Don’t I still live for you? Cold, cold, cold
From the same exquisite album that brought us this winter song, ‘Cold’ was an ideal companion piece, a delicate ballad that gently ticks off a list of adoration and celebration of someone who may or may not be into you. The first person who gave me this song loved me more than I could ever love her. She probably still does. My heart remains icily indifferent.
Everything I possess, given with tenderness Wrapped in a ribbon of glass Time it may take us but God only knows How I’ve paid for those things in the past
Dying is easy it’s living that scares me to death, ooh, yeah I could be so content hearing the sound of your breath, ooh, yeah
Cold is the colour of crystal the snowlight That falls from the heavenly skies Catch me and let me dive under For I want to swim in the pools of your eyes
I wanna be with you baby Oh-oh, slip me inside of your heart Don’t I belong to you baby? Don’t you know that nothing can tear us apart? Come on now, come on now, come on now Telling you that I loved you right from the start But the more I want you the less I get Ain’t that just the way things are?
Sometimes it’s difficult to muster up much compassion for our younger selves, for the people we once were who didn’t know any better, or who did but simply never acted on it. The clarity of how those aspects differ is something we never want to admit. How much easier on our conscience would it be to just pretend confusion, to act like we never knew we were doing the wrong thing? I always knew, and to my shameful acknowledgment, I did the awful things anyway. When shielding the heart, you run the risk of wounding others with your armor, and at a certain point that risk became a reward. The warped masochistic tendencies of a young man lost in the turmoil of not knowing who he was – the casualties left on love’s battlefield – the coldness, the precision, the detachment…
The sake of survival.
Winter has frozen us Let love take hold of us (Cold, cold, cold) Now we are shivering Blue ice is glittering (Cold, cold, cold)
Cold is the colour of crystal the snowlight That falls from the heavenly skies Catch me and let me dive under For I want to swim in the pools of your eyes
In this the year that I turn fifty years old, I find myself indulging in bits of nostalgia here and there, something I don’t do all that often mostly because of how messy it can be. I look back at some pictures where my smile is big and my outfits ridiculous, anything to disguise and distract from the bandages on my wrists, and I ache for what we do to ourselves just trying to get through it. For some reason, these recent days have returned my mind to my senior year of high school, an eerie echo of another transitional period of life. Winter music put my youth to slumber then; it breaks my middle age now.
We are the roses in the garden, Beauty with thorns among our leaves.
To pick a rose you ask your hands to bleed. What is the reason for having roses When your blood is shed carelessly?
It must be for something more than vanity.
‘Our Time in Eden’ is one of those formative music albums of my youth, thanks to epic cuts like ‘These Are Days’ and ‘Candy Everybody Wants’ – and this one – ‘Eden’ – which is one of the saddest songs I’ve ever heard, in the best possible way. Back in those final days of high school, I felt the quickened rush of time – the clock as another demon – and I struggled to hang onto whatever I could even as I felt it all slipping away. Most of my classmates and friends wanted to grow up as quickly as possible – despite how old my soul felt, or perhaps because of it, I understood that we should not have been in such a rush, that those days, that Eden, would never come again. I didn’t want to let it go.
Believe me, the truth is we’re not honest, Not the people that we dream.
We’re not as close as we could be. Willing to grow but rains are shallow. Barren and wind-scattered seed on stone and dry land,
We will be. Waiting for the light arisen To flood inside the prison.
And in that time kind words alone will teach us, No bitterness will reach us.
Whenever I hear this song, it makes me pause and remember. There’s a pit in my stomach – not the usual angst-ridden pit, but a stirring of great and overwhelming emotion. It brings back that tender time when the world was first imprinting itself on my soul, when music meant so much, when beauty could break the heart and the first flush of romantic love hinted at all the exquisite torment to come. Had I known everything that would unfold, I wonder if I’d have bothered with the bandages at all, or simply embraced the pain, knowing how integral it would be to finding the happiness.
Reason will be guided another way. All in time, But the clock is another demon that devours our time in eden, In our paradise. Will our eyes see well beneath us, Flowers all divine? Is there still time? If we wake and discover In life a precious love, Will that waking become more heavenly?
The last few weeks of winter are always the toughest. They require music that is both somber and bordering on hope, something that soothes the soul and quells the restless heart. One of the best albums for this is Annie Lennox’s magnificent ‘Diva’, which became the soundtrack to the last winter of my high school years.
How many times do I have to try to tell you That I’m sorry for the things I’ve done, But when I start to try to tell you That’s when you have to tell me Hey… this kind of trouble’s only just begun
During that winter, I was just starting to feel the pangs of leaving our youth behind, and with the very real sense of such impending loss suddenly some of our lifelong grudges softened a bit. One of our teachers pointed out the phenomenon, explaining that it happened to most seniors, before trailing off wistfully. She seemed as moved as I was at that moment, when understanding and realization aligned with a rare recognizance of growth at the exact instant it happened.
I told myself too many times Why don’t you ever learn to keep your big mouth shut That’s why it hurts so bad to hear the words That keep on falling from your mouth Falling from your mouth Falling from your mouth Tell me Why…
I may be mad I may be blind I may be viciously unkind But I can still read what you’re thinking
And I’ve heard is said too many times That you’d be better off Besides… Why can’t you see this boat is sinking (This boat is sinking this boat is sinking)
The end of winter is an icy space. A frigid place. It trends toward the thaw of spring, but at its heart it remains frozen. Those first days of melting, when the heat of the sun is enough to finally cut through the snow, there are cracks and fissures, especially when the nights freeze everything again. The push and pull of this time wears on the strongest of us.
Let’s go down to the water’s edge And we can cast away those doubts Some things are better left unsaid But they still turn me inside out Turning inside out, turning inside out Tell me Why… Tell me Why…
When those last of that winter’s days began to dovetail with the very beginning of the last of my high school days, this was the music that saw me through the tender time. We were just starting to write the stories that would become our own history books of life – the first chapters of whatever was about to unfurl. I put mine down literally, a practice I’ve maintained through this very moment.
This is the book I never read These are the words I never said This is the path I’ll never tread These are the dreams I’ll dream instead This is the joy that’s seldom spread These are the tears… The tears we shed This is the fear This is the dread
These are the contents of my head And these are the years that we have spent And this is what they represent And this is how I feel Do you know how I feel? ‘Cause I don’t think you know how I feel I don’t think you know what I feel
I don’t think you know what I feel You don’t know what I feel
{Note: The Madonna Timeline is an ongoing feature, where I put the iPod on shuffle and write a little anecdote on whatever was going on in my life when that Madonna song was released and/or came to prominence in my mind.}
Gearing up for her first major return to the music scene since 2019’s ‘Madame X’ (by far the longest stretch of time between Madonna albums since she first appeared on the scene in 1983), Madonna is set to release what she has described as ‘Confessions on a Dance Floor Part 2’, which makes this Madonna Timeline particularly timely, as it centers around ‘I Love New York’ from the original ‘Confessions on a Dance Floor’ album.
Personally, I always found this one of the weaker tracks of the album (I’m not even going to include the lyrics as I usually do – let just say “I don’t like cities but I like New York/ Other places make me feel like a dork” will not be remembered as one of her finer couplets), but as an emotional homage to her adopted hometown, the sentiment carries the song, and it worked as one of the more rock-like moments of the Confessions Tour. That’s the memory I have of this song – watching it being performed live at Madison Square Garden as the NY crowd ate it up.
As proof of her enduring relevance, the photos here are from her recent spread in CR Magazine, hinting at what might come with the next album. We are more than ready for the Confessions to land again.
If there’s one thing that people who have been oppressed for years know, it’s how to operate within such oppression. If you’ve never been part of a marginalized community, count yourself lucky, and don’t be too upset if you can’t fully comprehend what that’s like. For the rest of us, you find release and fulfillment by being the most uniquely yourself you can be. And when all else fails, and you long to be something better than you are today, I know a place where you can get away…
I don’t give a fuck no more If people think I am a whore I just wanna dance Oh, I just wanna dance.
Things are going bad for me I am feeling sad for me So I just wanna dance Oh, I just wanna dance.
I’m tired of laughing And I’m tired of crying, I’m tired of failing And I’m tired of all this trying.
The story of ‘Grey Gardens‘ came to musical life on Broadway a number of years ago, and Andy and I were lucky enough to see the original cast perform their wondrous magic on a frigid January night. Near the end of that show was one of the saddest songs ever written for a musical – ‘Another Winter in a Summer Town’ – and it opines on the misery of living in a resort town on the shore during the winter months. While it’s undeniably a sad scene, there’s a spirit of resilience to it, one that embodies those who survive a winter in a place known mostly for summer.
One little leaf adrift in the breeze Refuses to fall from the sky Blown by the wind It clings to the trees Unwilling to wither and die
I think of that song whenever I see an artifact of summer covered in snow. There’s such a element of sadness and loss to it, and I don’t know why. There is always another summer to come, whether we will be here or not. Time moves regardless of people.
Yesterday’s dreams are faded bouquets (Only a rose) Roses that died on the vine (just a memory divine) Yesterday seems more real than today (of love, when sweet) It’s difficult drawing the line (youth was mine)
The slumber of our backyard seems deceptively calm. Even in the storms and wind and endless nights, it feels quiet and still from behind glass doors. And I can remember – the splashing of pool water, the laughter of kids, the frogs singing in the humid nights – I can remember summer.
My season ended (ended) A long time ago But no one took the party tent down (alone now) The pink paper lanterns still twinkle in place My young Navy hero, his tender embrace That sapphire blue ocean; oh how can I face Another winter in a summer town?
Just when the world looked to be lacking in inspiration and jolting thrills, Lady Gaga releases a banger like ‘Abracadabra’. While I adore most of what she has done over the years, the past few projects have failed to move me much. I can appreciate her acting prowess; at the same time I first fell in love with her through her music, and one never forgets their first love.
‘Abracadabra’ offers the driving melody and beats that characterize the best of her work, while an intricately-choreographed video recalls the glory days of the medium. The costumes, the drama, the dancing, the looks, the hair, the operatic phantom nature of it all… it’s giving everything, and I’m giving myself over to the spell.
Almost exactly twenty years ago this month, I was taking these photos on a Sunday afternoon in winter, when I hoped for empty industrial spaces that evoked the garages of Herb Ritts and a man named Fred holding onto a couple of tires. It was freezing cold, but something impelled me not to waste any more time. I understood on some level that I had to capture the magic of the last few months of my twenties. Even then, I felt the tug of age on a gay man’s body, the way time tears away at the very things that would make it necessary to stay even marginally attractive. The majority of my thoughts were that I didn’t mind aging if I was more or less happy in my life, and if I wasn’t happy in my life, then not aging certainly wouldn’t change that. Bottom line: I was contentedly resigned.
That would ebb and flow differently over the years, and now that the years are piling upon one another faster and faster, thanks to my own perception of time after going over the middle-age hump, I find pockets of space where I look back at the person I used to be.
Now you know you’re a cute little heartbreaker You know you’re a sweet little lovemaker Hey
I wanna take you home I won’t do you no harm, no You’ve gotta be all mine, all mine Oooh, foxy lady
Andy said this is the song that presented itself in his mind when he first saw me walk across a crowded bar floor – ‘Foxy Lady’ by Jimi Hendrix. I wasn’t even aware that he was there or watching, so I could not have been putting on a show for him. It was his first impression, coupled with a mental assessment of ‘Bitchy queen‘. He’s usually spot-on in his initial readings of people. Foxy and bitchy and everything-but-nice ~ and I won’t pretend that wasn’t me way back when.
I see you down on the scene
You make me wanna get up and scream
I’ve made up my mind I’m tired of wasting all my precious time You’ve gotta be all mine, all mine Foxy lady
I’m gonna take you home I won’t do you no harm, no You’ve gotta be all mine, all mine Ooh, foxey lady
Here I come, baby Comin’ to get ya Foxy Lady
Some nights I can still summon that spirit and energy and attitude, some days too, if I work hard enough at it. Mind over body at this point, and the latter is becoming slower and slower to follow. For ‘The Divine Diva Tour: A Fairy’s Tale’ I channeled what it was like to inhabit the body of a man on the verge of thirty – and what once felt impossibly ancient now feels impossibly young. How were we ever so old, and ever so young, all at the same time?
One of the dangers in presenting a project from twenty years ago is the inevitable comparisons that crop up. I must remind myself that, ‘Comparison is the ultimate thief of joy.’ Words worth remembering and honoring. Would you switch your mind and body so as to maximize when they were at their best? I’d rather not risk it – the way we age is designed in the way it’s meant to unfold. Fighting that has its fun, but is always a battle that can only be lost.
Right now, I’m looking back at these photos of me at the age of 29 and I’m mildly amused, lightly impressed, and mostly grateful for having had the youth not everyone is afforded.
A favorite scene from ‘Schitt’s Creek’:
Moira Rose: I am suddenly overwhelmed with regret. It’s a new feeling for me, and I don’t find it at all pleasurable.
Stevie Budd: You regret that embarassing photos of you aren’t online?
Moira Rose: No, I regret that they’re lost. They were the one perfect memorial to who I once was. And I should’ve appreciated those firm round mammae and callipygian ass while I had them.
Stevie Budd: If you’re talking about your body, uh… I think you still look amazing.
Moira Rose: Then allow me to offer you some advice: Take a thousand naked pictures of yourself now. You may currently think, “Oh, I’m too spooky.” Or, “Nobody wants to see these tiny boobies.” But, believe me, one day you will look at those photos with much kinder eyes and say, “Dear God, I was a beautiful thing!”
This post may be the most powerful piece of counter-programming that the Super Bowl has ever seen – and I’ve made more than my fair share of counter-programming posts for Super Bowl Sunday. Here we continue the magnificently opulent opening of The Divine Diva Tour: A Fairy’s Tale which finds a stripped-off and stripped-down before-and-after scene, where ruffled lace bloomers stand-in for more hidden lace and ruffles. The essence of a woman intersperses with the essence of a man – and who can tell which is which? We each play a part, usually several, in any give day. To even attempt to dull the shine and sully the sparkle of another creature because you do not fully understand them… is a certain destroyer of one’s karma. There are places in hell for that kind of behavior, even when you don’t realize you’re doing it. Ignorance is not bliss, nor is it an excuse for hatred.
Glitter and be gay That’s the part I play Here I am in Paris, France Forced to bend my soul
To a sordid role
Victimized by bitter
Bitter circumstance…
Let us not be saddened by worldly wear and cynical tear; let us instead escape on clouds of ruffles and lace, lit by lamps of beaded glass fringe, and hung by ropes of diamonds.
Pearls and ruby rings Ah, how can worldly things Take the place of honor lost? Can they compensate For my fallen state? Purchased as they were at such a, at such an awful cost? Bracelets, lavallieres Can they dry my tears? Can they blind my eyes to shame? Can the brightest brooch Shield me from reproach? Can the purest diamond purify my name?
When questions of a darker time plague the mind, and shadows elongate into the fierce and deadly, the sparkling lot of a jewelry box is sometimes the only thing that will pierce the blackness. We’ll make our own damn stars if the universe refuses to deliver. We’ll don our own starlight – and we’ll stay in the glorious fight.
“During the darkest days of the AIDS crisis, we buried our friends in the morning, we protested in the afternoon, and we danced all night. The dance kept us in the fight because it was the dance we were fighting for. It didn’t look like we were going to win then and we did. It doesn’t feel like we’re going to win now but we could. Keep fighting, keep dancing.” – Dan Savage
Eartha Kitt provides her signature cheeky glamour in this song selection for the next installment of ‘The Divine Diva Tour: A Fairy’s Tale‘. It reminds me of that hilarious time one of my, shall we say ‘critics’, voiced their claim that I married Andy for his sugar daddy status, which Andy actually found more riotously funny than me. All these years of joking about being a ‘Material Girl’ somehow left an impression that I was actually a material girl, but when you know something isn’t true it doesn’t really leave a sting. An amusing anecdote perhaps, never a sting. There are scorpions far more skilled than issuing such amateurish accusations. And so I play it up, giving the people what they want and indulging in the very image with which they find such bothersome fault. Eartha had this playbook down pat.
I’m just an old-fashioned girl with an old-fashioned mind Not sophisticated I’m the plain and simple kind I want an old-fashioned house with an old-fashioned fence And an old-fashioned millionaire
I like the old-fashioned flowers, violets are for me Have them made in diamonds by the man at Tiffany I want an old-fashioned house with an old-fashioned fence And an old-fashioned millionaire.
I like Chopin and Bizet and the songs of yesterday String quartets and Polynesian carols But the music that excels is the sound of oil wells As they slurp, slurp, slurp into the barrels.
My little home will be quaint as an old parasol And instead of carpets I’ll have money wall to wall I want an old-fashioned house with an old-fashioned fence And an old-fashioned millionaire.
My very favorite part of any endeavor: the anticipation.
A quick tuning of the orchestra – arpeggios and scales and troublesome stitches of difficult passages – and then the lights go down.
An-
ti-
ci-
pa-
tion…
A lone figure stands at a podium. The music laid out before them. Everything has already been written. Every piece of the story is already in place. All that is left to do is follow the leader.
The overture begins… and this one has been heralded as the overture to end all overtures.
The comical drama of the flawed ‘Candide’ was more fitting for this opening than I cared to realize at the time, full of folly and beauty and poignancy, all amid a world of wicked waywardness and the worst of humanity. Glimmers of the best surface too, little sparks in the blackest night, and you too may be surprised at the might of one candle’s flickering flame.
A figure shrouded in layers of lilac tulle steps onto a golden chair – a fairy on the precipice of flight or fall…
Forming the Preamble to ‘The Divine Diva Tour: A Fairy’s Tale’, the following playlist was actually burned to CDs and sent out to my friends before that fateful tour even began. Hey, it was 2005 – I’m not even sure we had playlists then. The musical selections for this portion of the Divine Diva project were designed to be quietly enchanting, with an element of whimsy, highlighting the fairytale aspect of what was to come. This is very much moody music, conjured for atmosphere and ambiance, to set a tone of dream-like intrigue and fantasy. It’s also night music, for drifting off to sleep on clouds of sheep and rolling hills of cotton candy. Compile and play accordingly, tomorrow we tour…
Shades of lilac and lavender in a tulle puff of a strapless dress, flitting about like a cloud of fairy dust – not wholly solid, more of a wisp, a whisper, a hint of something purple in the air.
In Tchaikovsky’s ‘Sleeping Beauty’ ballet, “the Lilac Fairy is a benevolent fairy who represents wisdom and protection” and ultimately helps Sleeping Beauty find her happy ending. My own fairy’s tale doesn’t come to such joyful fruition, but a story isn’t told from the end to the beginning…
