Gunning for the sweet aural elixir of Sabrina Carpenter’s ‘Espresso’, this new song by David Archuleta explores a more sensual side of the guy who was named Dazzler of the Day here. It’s called ‘Crème Brûlée’ and the gays should be lining up for a taste. It’s never too soon to crown the next summer smash, even if things move light years faster than they ever did in my top 40 radio youth. This one would have been an ideal sonic addition to last summer’s ‘Coquette’ scene, but better late than pregnant is what I always say. Give it a listen, give it a whirl, give it a kiss and a demure twirl.
This is a lovely little tease for our summer theme, one which Emi has once again foretold and crowned as the official theme for next season. It’s nothing like coquette, and I love it for that.
Our theme for the season is Spring Dream. It goes perfectly with this dreamy doo-wop bop that sees us into the first evening of spring. Greeting the green season is this fluffy bunny doing double-time and preparing the way to Easter. The world awakens with life and possibility.
Life could be a dream Life could be a dream Do do do do, sh-boom!
Life could be a dream (sh-boom) If I could take you up in Paradise up above (sh-boom) If you would tell me, I’m the only one that you love Life could be a dream, sweetheart Hello, hello again, sh-boom and hopin’ we’ll meet again, boom (ba-boom)
Life could be a dream (sh-boom) If only all my precious plans would come true (sh-boom) If you would let me spend my whole life lovin’ you Life could be a dream, sweetheart (do do do do, sh-boom)
Every time I look at you Something is on my mind If you do what I want you to Baby, we’d be so fine
Oh, life could be a dream, sh-boom If I could take you up in Paradise up above, sh-boom You’d tell me, darlin’, I’m the only one that you love Life could be a dream, sweetheart Hello, hello again, sh-boom and hopin’ we’ll meet again, boom (ba-boom)
Every winter Andy and I wait for the bedroom lamp on his side of the bed to throw its rainbows against the wall, as it signals that spring is almost at hand. We’ve been watching these rainbows grow in strength and saturation the past couple weeks. Soon, the oak leaves will obscure the sun, meaning that summer is almost here, and the rainbows will go away until another winter.
Stars shining bright above you
Night breezes seem to whisper, I love you
Birds singin’ in the sycamore trees
Dream a little dream of me
Say nighty-night and kiss me
Just hold me tight and tell me you’ll miss me
While I’m alone and blue as can be
Dream a little dream of me
For now, spring has arrived, and the rainbows are here again. A covenant, a promise – just like spring itself. A feeling, a romance, a memory – and all in a song. While Andy eagerly plans the opening of the pool at the first sign of any stretch of warmer weather, I play the music that brings the season of hope to mind.
Sweet dreams till sunbeams find you
Leave the worries behind you
But in your dreams, whatever may be
You’ve gotta make me a promise, promise to me
You’ll dream, dream a little dream of me
This spring, the light and loose theme for the blog will be that of a dream. Especially in the earliest days of the season, there is still a winter haze that hangs over the cold nights and mornings, offset by the thrill of warming days and the bursting of spring bulbs through the wet earth. It is a dreamy sort of crux, where winter and spring do their awkward hand-off – one not quite ready to leave, one not quite ready to arrive. And us, not quite watching somewhere, all averted eyes and downcast gazes. The sheepish, happy conundrum of spring. Welcome…
One of my favorite date nights with Andy was when we got to see an advance screening of the HBO version of ‘Grey Gardens’ in a Boston movie theater. It was a magical spring evening, and we stopped for a night cap at a Copley bar that would only be around for a season or two. We walked back to the condo on a perfect April night, slower than usual, not wanting the spell to dissipate.
You cannot guess
What loveliness
Belongs to you
If you would dance
We’d have a chance
To share it too
On this last night of winter, I find solace in the springs we’ve had, and the one about to arrive. In dreamy entrancement, there is a giddy sense of possibility – the greatest gift that spring provides.
I am not gay enough
To share a waltz
Tonight I boast
One of my most, unhappy thoughts
I dream too much
But if I dream too much
I only dream to touch your heart again
What lovely thoughts as we see winter gently out the door, and what gratitude I feel for a winter that did what winter was supposed to do. She kept her chill, blanketed the gardens with a healthy cover of snowfall for most of the coldest days, and provided us the slumber needed to barrel through the rest of the calendar year. Winter, we bid you farewell, knowing you will come again when it is time.
Twenty years ago, the only freedom I knew was the outward kind. Freedom to roam, freedom to dress up or down, freedom to speak and shout and scream. All superficial, all vain, all relatively meaningless. At the time, while I felt the literal freedom, I also felt entirely bound and tied up inside. This is the most insidious sort of imprisonment – the self-lockdown that some of us inflict upon ourselves, and so often not intentional or deliberate or even noticed or acknowledged. I certainly didn’t see it or feel it then – I felt only and ultimately entirely free. How was I to know there were prisons that weren’t made of concrete and steel bars?
Heaven knows I was just a young boy Didn’t know what I wanted to be I was every little hungry schoolgirl’s pride and joy and I guess it was enough for me
To win the race, a prettier face Brand new clothes and a big fat place on your rock and roll TV But today the way I play the game is not the same, no way Think I’m gonna get me some happy
I think there’s something you should know (I think it’s time I told you so) There’s something deep inside of me (There’s someone else I’ve got to be) Take back your picture in a frame (Take back your singing in the rain) I just hope you understand Sometimes the clothes do not make the man
All we have to do now Is take these lies and make them true somehow All we have to see Is that I don’t belong to you and you don’t belong to me, yeah yeah
Freedom (I won’t let you down) Freedom (I will not give you up) Freedom (Gotta have some faith in the sound) You’ve got to give what you take (It’s the one good thing that I’ve got) Freedom (I won’t let you down) Freedom (So please don’t give me up) Freedom (‘Cause I would really) You’ve got to give what you take (really love to stick around)
Even without chains or shackles, even without armor or clothing, it’s possible for one to be weighed down and tied up with the inner constraints of our own minds. You can throw away all the bags and coats, kick off all the shoes and jewelry, and strip out of everything, even the cologne, but the ties of a fettered mind won’t be undone until you’re ready to truly examine yourself and acknowledge who you are. Twenty years ago I wasn’t nearly ready for that, so I hid myself with a naked vanity that proved too good a mask for my own benefit. Not only that, but such vanity would prove a different kind of prison of its own; I was shackling myself with an image I wouldn’t ever be able to entirely shake.
Well, it looks like the road to heaven but it feels like the road to hell When I knew which side my bread was buttered I took the knife as well Posing for another picture everybody’s got to sell But when you shake your ass, they notice fast And some mistakes were build to last
That’s what you get, I say that’s what you get That’s what you get for changing your mind That’s what you get, and after all this time I just hope you understand Sometimes the clothes do not make the man
These days I can look back and wanly smile at the shenanigans of my youth, the things I felt I needed to prove, the stories I needed to write and live out, the mark and legacy I wanted to leave behind. It all feels so foolish and still so precious. And I have much of it documented here – in what I’m posting now, in what I’ve posted before, and in all I have yet to post – ripe for examination, consideration, and exoneration. There is a fatigue to the well-documented life – but it’s the best kind of fatigue.
My husband, retired police officer and former upholder of rule and law, seems to have had a thing for bad boys, at least judging from his line up of formers and one terror of a hubby. He may have been the one wearing a ‘Get Wicked Tonight‘ t-shirt the first time he met my parents, but I got buzzed on a high ball with his Mom the first time I met his.
Being that this year marks our 25th anniversary of meeting (and 15th of being married) our early days have been on my mind of late. That kind of nostalgia is warm and sustaining, and sometimes it’s been what’s seen us through the rough days. As Andy once said to me at a difficult moment, “There’s history there.” I don’t think he realized how much I took that to heart, and how much I took him to heart.
The good girl in your dreams is mad you’re lovin’ me I know you wish that she was me How bad, bad do you want me? You’re not the guy that cheats and you’re afraid that she might leave ‘Cause if I get too close, she might scream, “How bad, bad do you want me?”
‘Cause you like my hair, my ripped-up jeans
You like the bad girl I got in me She’s on your mind, like, all the time, but I got a tattoo for us last week Even good boys bleed How bad, bad do you want me? ‘Cause you hate the crash, but you love the rush And I’ll make your heart weak every time You hear my name, ’cause she’s in your brain and I’m here to kiss you in real life ‘Bout to cause a scene, How bad, bad do you want me?
Before we ever met, Andy had seen me in Oh Bar when Suzie and I were out for a night of fun. I didn’t notice him, but he noticed me (and dismissed me with a ‘Bitchy Queen’ sizing-up assessment of my attitude. He would later tell me that when I walked by him the Jimi Hendrix song ‘Foxy Lady’ came to his mind.
Back in the beginning of our relationship, for one of our earliest get-togethers, I invited him for a pasta dinner at my parents’ home – they were out for the night. I made what I thought was a funny comment, but it was more cutting than anything else for him, and we had our first fight, which ended with him leaving. It was so early in our dating that I simply stood my ground and refused to yield or admit that I might have been wrong in what I said or how I said it. We didn’t know each other’s histories or trigger points then, and we didn’t quite know how special what we had would turn out to be.
You panic in your sleep and you feel like such a creep ‘Cause with your eyes closed, you might peek So hot, hot that you can’t speak You’re so fucked up with your crew but when you’re all alone, it’s true You know exactly what we’d do – How bad, bad do you want to?
I was a bit of a hellion in those early days – at the young age of 25, I was just beginning to figure out exactly who I was, and it wasn’t easy. I didn’t always make it easy for Andy, or anyone in my life in those days, and if being bad was wrong, I never wanted to be right. There was a razor-sharp edge to how I acted in those days, and while I tried not to cut Andy as soon as I understood his sensitivity, it couldn’t help but happen sometimes. Hurt people hurt people no matter how careful we try to be, and in those days everyone around me ended up getting hurt. Those streets ran both ways though, and it’s not entirely accurate to paint me as the villain in every scenario. Not that I’d have been averse to such a characterization, and something told me Andy secretly thrilled at some of my more diabolical machinations. As I said, he didn’t mind a bad boy.
Which brings me to this latest Lady Gaga song, ‘How Bad Do U Want Me?’ I’m completely obsessed with it and all of its layered meanings. There’s the literal reading of its title, which seems to be a simple question of how badly you want or desire someone. A slightly deeper digs brings out the more resonant idea of someone questioning how bad they want their paramour to actually be, and how bad the object of one’s affection may actually want to be. It also posits the question of what exactly is bad?
‘Cause you like my hair, my ripped-up jeans You like the bad girl I got in me She’s on your mind, like, all the time, But I got a tattoo for us last week Even good boys bleed How bad, bad do you want me? ‘Cause you hate the crash, but you love the rush And I’ll make your heart weak every time You hear my name, ’cause she’s in your brain and I’m here to kiss you in real life ‘Bout to cause a scene – How bad, bad do you want me?
Over twenty five years, I slowly, and mostly, grew out of my bad boy eras, and at times Andy had his own bad boy moments, flip-flopping our roles and jolting us into an awareness of how precious and precarious love could be. I also grew to realize, with friends who stuck with me for decades, that I couldn’t be entirely bad all the time; the truly bad and the awful among us simply do not maintain friendships for that long. Sometimes we mistake being young for being bad.
And sometimes being bad is the best thing you can be.
Uh-oh, oh, you love a good girl Uh-oh, oh, you love a good girl bad Uh-oh, oh, you make a bad girl Uh-oh, oh, you make a bad girl mad A psychotic love theme How bad do you want me?
Not to name-drop here, but I’ve been texting with Josh Groban.
Yes, that Josh Groban.
And there’s a good chance you have been too, as he posted his text number for anyone to sign up for announcements. So no, I’m not that special, and no, I don’t believe he’s personally sending out the automated messages, and no, I really don’t care. As a self-professed Grobanite, I came into his fandom kingdom when he was melting hearts on Broadway in ‘Natasha, Pierre, and the Great Comet of 1812’. Since then, I’ve revisited his musical catalog – richly varied and anchored with his incomparable vocal talent – and watched his entertaining appearances in live concerts and talk shows, as well as his social media feeds which reveal a hilarious, witty, and impressively-compassionate person.
Such a rarity these days, when most celebrities are afraid to be themselves because they either don’t know that for which they stand, or are simply too concerned with what others might think. Groban has seemingly and only ever been himself – a supremely talented performer with a love of theatrical arts who also happens to be a genuinely good person who cares for the well-being of others. Today he easily earns this Dazzler of the Day honor. Check out his official website here for all the excitement coming up (there are more than a few Gems on the way, and it’s gonna be alright.)
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.
