The wooden paneling of our family room surrounded us with warmth. The couch, in an old ratty plaid fabric, sat against the wall facing the television set. It was the room where some of my earliest childhood memories were made. The time my brother threw himself off the couch in a tantrum and cut open his head on the corner of the coffee table. The time we were playing in the toy cabinet and I moved a lock of his hair so it fell to the other side, saying I liked him better that way, and the way he smiled and chuckled at such meticulous behavior. And the time that my Dad, when I was too little to know how precious the act was, peeled grapes for me so I didn’t have to eat the sour skins. My legs, chubby and far too short to reach the floor, fit on the couch cushion beside a bowl filled with grapes.
Like so many things about my Dad when seen through the prism of childhood, this was another moment of pure magic. He’d pluck the grapes from their shriveled vine and, with the delicate and sure maneuvering of a doctor, in a few quick motions he’d have them peeled and ready for devouring. They were so much sweeter that way, softer and smoother too, and for a kid that was divine. We sat there together, probably only going through about six or seven of them – how many grapes could a little boy eat? – and I would call out for more. I couldn’t even form the word yet – all I managed was “geeps” and my parents would echo that attempt whenever I wanted a grape.
A man of few words, my Dad said more to me in peeling those grapes than I could ever muster in years of blabbering and writing. With each peeled grape, a little ‘I love you’ was given from a father to his son. The very same love that was in our after-dinner walks for ice cream in the summer, or when he’d let me ‘help’ with mowing the lawn. Mostly I just stood there, at a safe distance, but feeling like I was doing something. A good father knows how to do that – to make his child feel safe and important.
It remains one of my happiest memories, and on this Father’s Day I wanted to say thank you to my Dad for filling my childhood with such treasures.
Not content to stay at ground-level, the clematis is one of those vines that likes to climb toward the sky before putting on its flamboyant show – all the better for us to see it up close. I’ve already made my apologies to this plant for not appreciating its hardiness and ability to withstand neglect while still putting on a decent performance, and this year is no different. In a forgotten and slightly-shaded corner of the yard it blooms reliably, each year sending out one or two more blooms and adding to its beauty. We’ve got another one in the front yard, up against a lamp post in the most cliched of places, where it winds its tendrils upward, seeking the sun and the warmth while its feet stay cool beneath a succulent groundcover of sedum.
These are classic plants for the home with good reason. Stalwart and pretty, defying winter and rising every spring, they don’t enough credit for that they do. May this post, and all the others I’ve done similarly in years past, make up slightly for such dishonor.
It’s been a while since we’ve had a torrid post of naked male celebrities or nude male models, so before anyone thinks this site has gone all PG on your ass, here’s a post to get the tongues wagging again. Several guys who have already been featured here are back in the shirtless game, starting with Dan Osborne, who models underwear like it’s going out of style. Given that he looks just as fine with no underwear on at all, that may be a good thing.
Our neighbor’s backyard looked down over a large rolling hill that led into what was called the ‘Four Diamonds’ – a set of four baseball fields sprawled over a broad plane of grass just above McNulty Elementary School. It was the perfect place for the neighborhood kids to gather on summer afternoons and evenings, usually after dinner, because it was a large property with lots of opportunities for hide and seek. They had a gym set, several gardens, and the entire expanse of green that was bordered by a forest.
The older kids would horse around, supposedly keeping an eye on the younger ones. I was somewhere in the middle, happy to disappear in the pack for a while. There were so many kids around that it was one big party, with groups breaking off into subsets, when one could flit from friendship circle to friendship circle like a butterfly or bee and no one was offended or bothered. It made it easy to disappear.
There were swaths of gooseneck loosestrife, with their white flower spikes gracefully curving with bowed heads, a patch of herbs by the brick garage, dominated by chives and curly-leaved parsley, and a grand mound of bridal wreath spirea on the corner of the property, right before it turned into field. The spirea was so immense and full, it created a hiding spot haven: its arching branches went up and flopped over, forming a hollow tunnel that a small child could hide within. There was magic in that for a plant-lover like myself, and I confess I was more interested in the gardens and what they held than any social-mixing with the kids in the neighborhood. Beside the loosestrife was another semi-invasive species, lily of the valley, which spread its sweet scent along a shaded portion of the house, running to a formal stone step-entrance to the back door. In the side yard, two trees stood, signifiers of spring and summer: a pussy willow and a pear. The former would magically drape itself in gray cat paws every spring, while the latter would offer a few hard pears later in the year that were never quite ripe enough to be sweet. We climbed those trees as kids, dangling our feet high in the air and calling out to one another whatever kids say at such moments. I liked the vantage point and the view, taking in the Mohawk Valley from behind a curtain of white pear blossoms.
The other kids seemed largely unaware of the treasure-trove of horticultural finds, just as they passed by the staghorn fern inside or the majestic ponytail palm that filled a window in the back without so much as a pause to admire their beauty.
Despite my love of plants, I wasn’t immune to a little adventure and fun, so I joined the others in their escapades. We’d play loosely organized ball games, races, hide and seek, and all sorts of silly things that we’d make-up on the spur of the moment. There was a lot of running and playing on the gym set – swinging and pulling ourselves across the wooden bars with our hands, hanging there as long as we could without letting go. I was doing just that, dangling in the air and looking out over the fields that led all the way to the river when an older kid came up behind me and pulled my pants down. It was so sudden and unexpected, I just froze there, not knowing what to do. It wouldn’t have mattered so much if I hadn’t gone commando that day. I was in such a rush to get out of the house I had pulled on a pair of loose shorts without bothering to put on any underwear. Even as a kid, I liked to be free.
Mortification and exhilaration burned red across my face as my ass hung mid-air, framed by a jungle gym and backed by the verdant valley of the Mohawk River. No one was in front of me while my cock rocked out; a full-frontal tease from the very beginning. I dropped and quickly pulled my shorts up. Laughing, the kid who did it came up to me and apologized, saying he had no idea I didn’t have underwear on. I laughed it off too. I could do that then. Maybe the exhibitionist side of me was born at that moment. I’d been naked for the world to see and a bolt of God’s lightning hadn’t struck me down. No shame of original sin stained my bare bottom, and everything up front was intact and doing just fine. Not that any of this played upon my mind as I adjusted my shorts and went on to the next game.
It was the summer of ‘Top Gun’ and ‘Danger Zone’ was blasting over every radio.
As the light in the sky slowly faded and we approached the 8 PM bewitching hour (our curfew), the June bugs would arrive, swarming the trees and street lamps. They looked as I imagine the locusts would look in biblical times, and they always freaked me out, but as long as they stayed high in the sky it was all right. Our games slowed, our shouts softened, and the hush of the day’s end lent those last moments a certain reverence. We looked down over the field, and the bank of wooded land that stretched out to the right of it. Later in the night, teenagers would gather in a little clearing hidden by a bend in the forest, smoking and drinking beer. Teenyboppers, we called them derisively. Someone even created a little song for them:
Teenyboppers, oooh, teenyboppers (neer, neer)
Teenyboppers, showing off their rear (neer, neer)
That was it. (I played no part in writing it, thank you.) But it was catchy enough and I sang along. Apparently there were whispers that the teenagers would come out and moon those who spied on them, as if it was the most scandalous thing that could ever happen in Amsterdam. And maybe, in those days, it was. It would be years before a classmate shot himself, years before the tribute pages of dead kids would show up in our yearbooks. Our dangers were mostly imagined then, and how we thrilled at them.
In the daylight, we’d walk down into the field where the teenyboppers had gathered. Hidden by the foliage at the edge of the woods, we’d whip out our dicks and pee, giddy at the freedom of that insignificant act of rebellion. We would inspect the little pit of what had been a fire, the charred wood and ashes in shades of gray and black. Crumpled beer cans and bottles filled with cigarette butts littered the space. Once, we found a beer ball – a magnificent orb of dark amber plastic whose opening smelled vaguely of skunk. We could scare ourselves into feeling like we were being watched, as though the teenyboppers might suddenly appear and attack us. At such times we’d let out a warning cry that they were coming, then bolt out of the wooded area, running as fast and as far from the danger-zone as possible.
It’s always better when the danger is only in your head. That’s what summer is, at least for the lucky kids: controlled excitement and adventure within the safe confines of neighborhood backyards.
Truth be told, I’m not a big fan of this penstemon plant that I put into the perennial bed last year. I was much more looking forward to the coreopsis that was next to it, but of course that one didn’t make it through the winter, and so we are left with this straggly thing that looks better in photos than it does in real life. If you examine it closely, you can see its messy nature: the faded flowers stick to the same stem on which new blooms are borne, lending it an unkempt feel. I’m a notorious Virgo, and that’s extremely troublesome to me.
Less troublesome, and the reason why I haven’t excised it to the hidden side yard yet, is the coloring. It’s a gorgeous hue somewhere between fuchsia and purple, and it gets set off brilliantly by a backing of lady ferns currently in their early-season chartreuse shading. That combination alone sets off fireworks, and saved this little penstemon for the moment.
(Word of warning: I’m not promising anything when the flowers fade for good, so enjoy this moment while it lasts.)
All I wanted was some peach ice cream. Chasing after a childhood memory that probably never even happened, Suzie and I were with Chris on a hot summer day in Central Park. We’d scoured a nearby Whole Foods Market for a carton of peach ice cream, finding nothing but frozen yogurt which is most definitely NOT an acceptable substitute for ice cream. Chris looked quickly online and said there was talk of peach ice cream in the Chinatown area, but it was too hot to move from our rock.
We sat on a large piece of native stone, something that had been here before the city went up all around it, something that would likely remain after it fell. The day was sweltering, but in the shade of a few plane trees and the company of a couple of close friends it was all bearable. It might have even been beautiful. If only we’d found the peach ice cream.
The original memory, sketchy and problematic as it may be, was of a restaurant in New York City – something like Serendipity. We couldn’t even have been teenagers yet, as Suzie and I were traveling with our Moms. We had been in town for a couple of plays – ‘Lost in Yonkers’ and ‘Six Degrees of Separation’ – and were finding a brief respite from the pounding heat of a New York sidewalk in the middle of the day. We had our lunch while whimsical lamp fixtures fascinated from the ceiling. When it came time for dessert I played it safe and ordered a hot fudge sundae or something similarly plain. Suzie ordered a bowl of peach ice cream. It was the prettiest, most luscious-looking dish. Peaches dotted the creamy mound of ice, wonderfully crunchy in frozen form in the spoonful that Suzie offered me. A perfect treat for a hot day. It was a summer memory made instantly, one that I have held onto and probably morphed into some more than it ever was, especially seeing as how Suzie doesn’t even recall it happening. But I know it did. The details may have been different, but that bowl of peach ice cream was real. To this day, it symbolizes childhood, summer and New York City all at once.
And so we found ourselves, years later, sitting on that Central Park rock and dreamily contemplating an elusive bowl of peach ice cream, making a new summer memory while simply passing a hot, sunny day.
Andy’s Dad passed away one year ago today, and the weather of this afternoon seems to match the mood: ambivalent, cloudy, peaks of sunshine, and dramatic winds. Dark patches of sky threatened to cry down upon us, but for the most part remained peaceful. The pounding thunder of last night has been replaced by something calmer.
In the same way that his Mom’s passing is now a part of the early holiday season, his Dad has become part of our early summer remembrances – not only because of Father’s Day, but because his birthday falls right now as well. It is a bittersweet time of the year, one that completes a poetic full-circle of life.
It’s still too soon for his memory to be much more than sad, but as the years pass I hope we can move to happier reminiscences, and that June will be a time to celebrate and honor everything he did as a father. For now, we mostly mourn, and miss the guy who brought his family such fun and amusement.
More than roses or clematis, the flowering of the Chinese dogwood tree is my official marking of the arrival of summer. Blooming much later than the American variety, and after their own handsome foliage has filled out in bright green form, this is the perfect personification of the purest summer day, with their creamy white bracts (the actual flower is insignificantly hidden in the middle of those lovely bracts). They last a little longer than typical flower petals do too (think of how long those red poinsettia ‘blooms’ last – same principle, same architectural structure).
The branches also make great cut flowers, so if you need to do any pruning, now is the ideal time. A single stem can make an entire bouquet of blooms that seems to float like a collection of butterflies. I’ve had guests over solely for the purpose of showing off one of these bouquets. (Don’t tell them that though.) For that reason, the blooming of the dogwoods has always recalled happy gatherings of friends near and far, the same sort of giddy remembrance I get when thinking of summer parties and pool days. A joyous thing indeed.
When there are rainy summer days, or mosquito-infested summer nights, I retreat to the basement, where there’s a new sofa, a television that always has lots of trash playing, and a pristine desk for prime project development. As we get ready for our summer hiatus, this is where I’ll be working on some new things, and when we return in the fall this site will (hopefully) reap the fruits of that labor. As much as I may love summer, there are always those moments when one needs a respite from all the heat and haze. The cool below-ground calm of the cellar provides just such an oasis.
These little pockets of space are important during the summer months, and I find myself seeking them out when I’m in Boston or New York. It’s not just the place itself either, it’s the frame of mind. Summer, the season that’s supposed to be such an escape, has its confines as well.
Whether it’s a stifling heat-wave or a drought that devours the garden, there are stretches when relief is not at hand. A line of summer storms that hits every weekend is equally mentally debilitating, when the world refuses to grant us a break. Summer cuts both ways.
I’ll put on ‘Gosford Park’ or a black-and-white oldie like ‘The Women’ – each lends comfort to a gray or sickly-hot day in their own way – and I’ll languidly lounge in some ridiculous robe and a pair of underwear. If I had children (God forbid) this would be the state in which they’d be mortified to show their father off to their friends. Thankfully, we remain happily unburdened by children, so there’s no danger posed to anyone other than a wayward Jehovah’s Witness that dares to ring our bell.
Moments of respite and underground escapes – these cool jewels keep my mind mentally collected in a season hellbent on making us all loopy. Not that I’d have it any other way; the shackles of winter leave scars that run deeper than summer’s brief lapses in loveliness.
I’d been reading raves about Dominique Ropion’s ‘Cologne Indelebile’ and its lasting power, which for a neroli-based scent is a striking aspect, worthy of note. It announces its name definitively, without asking or requesting, content to state itself without any other option for dispute. Yet it does so in the most elegant and refined manner, not flopping excessively about with its sweetness, or departing after one whiff. Its neroli notes are reminiscent of any number of similarly-themed scents, but this has a surprisingly long life on my skin (consider it the powerhouse version of Tom Ford’s Neroli Portofino, with a more masculine slant).
Don’t ask me why I paired the packaging with a peony for these photos, other than the simple fact that I loved the pink juxtaposed beside the fiery orange. I suppose in certain peonies there is a hint of tea and spice, just as there is the slightest hint of such elements in the Cologne Indelebile, so perhaps they are bound together in ways not initially or outwardly detectable after all. Everything happens for a reason. There are no accidents.
For the summer of 2018, this is an auspicious beginning, and a signature scent that recalls summers past with anticipation and citrus vibrations of what’s yet to come. A nod to the before and after.
Two words that hold power and meaning, no matter how awful.
Two words that, when put together, are going to cause a lot of trouble.
Two words that Robert DeNiro said on last night’s Tony Awards:
Fuck Trump.
And I couldn’t agree more.
It’s time.
It’s time to resist everything to do with Donald Trump.
It’s time to stop all that he’s trying to do. There are no more passes to be given. There are no more opportunities to meet him halfway. He has burned all those bridges, and now he’s burning our standing in the world.
He has endangered our citizens, our country, and our earth with his utter ineptitude at being President. It wasn’t enough that he lost the popular vote, that he gleefully welcomed intrusion by Russia in the election, in the e-mails, in all the things we don’t even know about yet, he then had to take the vaunted office of President – an office once respected and honored the entire world over – and burn it to the ground. He’s destroying our economy and bankrupting America like he’s done with all his companies. Our deficit is the largest it has ever been. He’s stoking division and inciting hatred among our people. He is morally corrupt, mean, petty, and abusive.
What’s worse is that we have let it happen.
And we continue to let it happen.
It should have been stopped in the Republican primaries.
It should have been stopped in the general election.
It should have been stopped every day he has occupied that office.
But it hasn’t been.
The only way to do that is to resist everything Trump. The media needs to stop writing him free passes. The GOP needs to stop being silently complicit in what he has done and stop their support. The Democrats need to stop playing the traditional political game and realize he will never play fair. The American people need to stop excusing and normalizing what he has done.
We all must stop him at every turn.
It’s the only way.
This is how you deal with a dictator.
And so I say, “Fuck you, Donald Trump.”
Fuck you for all the evil you have unleashed in our country and in the world.
Fuck you for all the hate you have condoned, promoted and released.
Fuck you for all your lies, your hypocrisy, your racism, your intolerance, and your ignorance.
Fuck you for defiling the office of the President and making posts like this necessary.
Joe’s Pub at The Public, June 9, 2018 – 9:30 PM
The slightly restless sonic soundscape of ‘Ecotopia’ signals that this won’t be the usual night of standards by a typical Broadway chanteuse, but Betty Buckley has always been much more than that. Never content to tread the same old boards, she tries death-defying vocal aerobics and challenging interpretations of songs she loves, story songs in which she believes. If you’re brave enough to come along for the ride, the rewards are rich and ample. She’s also got a backing band that does justice to her wide-ranging selections, as evidenced in that opening piece of evocative, contemplative and deliciously moody music. The only way to find hope is to go through some dark places, and dark places have always inspired some of the best songs.
She kicks things off with the ambivalent ‘Any Major Dude Will Tell You’ in which she struts the stage in her high-heeled black boots and enough swagger to knock out any Scoundrel-in-Chief; clearly, Ms. Buckley came to slay, and we came to swoon. More than just telling a story with music, Buckley absolutely inhabits her songs, evidenced by moments when she was clearly moved – and we are moved in return.She has mastered the art of connecting to an audience on an emotional level and at such times, as in the transcendent and exquisite ‘Chanson’, she manages to turn Joe’s Pub into a church, stilling the bustle and holding the room absolutely rapt at this wonder of an artistic vessel. (A simple ‘Mmm-hmm’ near the beginning of Lisa Loeb’s gorgeous ‘Falling in Love’, a throwaway sigh that might be barely noticeable if sung by anyone else, is given a world of emotion in Buckley’s heartbreaking reading.) Complemented by a band that seems to have an innate understanding of Ms. Buckley’s wide-ranging musical skills and styling, the evening is anchored by the brilliant Christian Jacob, whose intuitive arrangements and piano work prove a marvelous extension of Buckley’s own musical instincts.
The hymn-like ‘Hope’ by Jason Robert Brown is the centerpiece and elegiac heart of the show, an antidote to our ever-dimming world, even as it struggles with its primal ambition: how does one find hope in such a world?
‘I come to sing a song about hope
I’m not inspired much right now
But even so
I came out here to sing a song
So here I go
I guess I think that if I tinker long enough
One might appear
And look it’s here
One verse is done, the work’s begun’
In a year in which so many have been left hopeless, the mere act of trying, of getting up and getting dressed is its own act of rebellion and resistance, its own form of fighting back. When one looks back upon Buckley’s astounding career, and the many curves and unlikely roads it has taken, it is clear she knows of what she sings. When she pauses, and Mr. Jacob’s piano work carries Mr. Brown’s sweet sounds and melancholy lyrics across the night, it is a moment of delicate bittersweet joy. This is the Artist, come to grieve, and come to heal. She didn’t even need to explain; every person in that room understood.
Now more than ever, Buckley’s message that no one is better, or, more importantly, less than anyone else informs her shows in ways that belie the multiple standing ovations she gets throughout the evening. That may be the essence of the ‘Hope album: honoring the experience of everybody. It’s there in the characters she brings to life, and the way her own life experience in turn informs her performance. It is, in essence, the very purpose of art. To resonate. To reveal. To connect.
That kind of connection begins with the close-knit group of musicans she has assembled. They are tightly in tune with her rollicking journey here, and each gets a little spotlight at some point in the evening. The most glorious moments, however, may be when everyone is working together in rockers like ‘Don’t Take Me Alive’, when all cylinders are firing away with locomotive-like might. It as at such times that the driving drums of Dan Rieser, the slinky fluid bass of Tony Marino, and the rapturous rock-star licks of guitarist Oz Noy coalesce with Jacob’s piano genius, finally getting their chance to let go as in the rousing ‘I Feel Lucky’. A difficult but wondrously-executed take on Paul Simon’s ‘Quiet’ demonstrates the trust within this group of musicians, with Buckley’s voice soaring over the meditative lyrics.
A touching memory of Gilda Radner sets up a moving version of ‘Prisoner in Disguise’ and she brings the audience through the heartbreak and loss with a brittle bit of beauty and a delicate balm of soothing vocals. Maybe that’s where we will find the hope that sometimes feels so elusive these days: in the way we share with each other, in the same way Buckley has shared her voice and her talent over the years.
Rather than keep it dangling there, however, she offers a coda of release and relief, and a wink at what happiness might just yet come. ‘Young At Heart’ was the requisite encore, and a neat nod to where she is heading. As she prepares to embark on a much-anticipated U.S. tour of ‘Hello, Dolly!’ Ms. Buckley ends on a positive and nostalgic note, a blissful ending to an evening of musical enchantment.When it dawns on her that she won’t be playing Joe’s Pub for a while, she pauses wistfully in the realization, and some of us felt the slightest twinge of sadness that there won’t be a fall show this year. But sometimes it is best to share such wonderful talent with others, to spread the message of hope that she so expertly managed to capture, if just for a night, with the sheer happy exuberance of doing what she loves and doing it so well. It is only fair for her to take that joy on the road, across a nation that needs it like never before.
Besides, a meadowlark sings best when she is free.
Every year it happens in the same way: as soon as the buds come out, I wonder why I originally envisioned them to be so much bigger than they appeared. It’s only with the lilacs, which makes it initially the most disappointing. My mind recalls the bodacious bouquets of my childhood, when the blooms filled and spilled out of their vases to perfume whatever lucky room got to show them off.
As is sometimes the case, I jump the gun in judgment and in disappointment. I always forget how much those buds fill out once they burst into bloom, the way a bunch of balloons becomes something glorious from a paltry pile of rubber.
With these Korean lilacs – smaller of stature but just as potent of scent – the buds are even smaller, but manage to blossom into something full and eye-catching. But don’t take my prose for it, see for yourself.
Of course, these are slightly airier than their American counterparts, which truly fill out into a solid pom-pom of bloom. I like the delicate display here, however, especially at a time of the year when everything is shouting to be noticed.
These flowers only shout with their perfume, and it’s a delicious noise at that.
It is less sharp than the American version, and not so instantly detectable. It’s sweeter in other ways too, particularly when it deigns to re-bloom nearer the fall – something that is an occasional surprise at a time of the year when it’s most needed.
The form and structure of these shrubs are more manageable and neat than the usual lilacs we have here, and they are ferociously resistant to the mildew that creeps into the American hybrids, making them quite useful in the landscape.
Though they are just finishing up, they’ve lasted for a decent time. Some years their show is hastened by hot weather. There are benefits to when the spring cools down and pauses.
