Tim Tebow will be playing in today’s Superbowl game. I knew little to nothing about him, including this particular pose, for which he is apparently renowned. My brother taught me how to do it yesterday, so here’s my virgin Tebowing effort. PS – Turns out it’s nothing like Teabagging.
This year’s Superbowl may be the gayest one ever, with its attendant line up of Madonna, Tom Brady, and even an underwear commercial by David Beckham. To commemorate the occasion, I will be Tebowing and squeezing into a jockstrap for your viewing pleasure. Stay tuned… we tee off in a few short hours.
“If I was a drink I’d be a lemon drop.†~ Madonna, ‘SuperPop’
There’s really only one way I’m getting through the entire Superbowl, and that’s with the help of a little drinking game. I scouted around for good words to use – something that would be said with some frequency, but not so much that by the half-time show I’d be passed out. My friend Jen came up with ‘Blitz’ – which was perfect on a number of levels, and so it shall be. If you want to play along, take a sip of your beverage every time the word “Blitz†is used.
Contingency plan: should there not be enough blitzing after the first… half? quarter? How in the hell is this game divided again? – we will switch to the word “coverageâ€. Should that fail to ease the pain, we will drink every time the word “the†is used. And if that’s still not enough then get some help.
The libation of choice is, in honor of our half-time girl, the lemon drop – one of Madonna’s favorite cocktails. Here are the ingredients for one:
– 1 ½ ounces vodka (preferably citrus)
– ½ ounce triple sec (or preferably Limoncello)
– 1 teaspoon superfine sugar
– ¾ ounce freshly squeezed lemon juice
– Lemon twist (for garnish)
Since it’s the Superbowl (a rough and tumble event if ever there was one), we’re not going to be all FussyLittleBlog about this, so mix it up with some ice and simply strain into a cocktail glass of your choosing. Most lemon drops have a sugar rim to them, but there’s nothing I despise more than a sugar rim, hand to God.
So start your engines, because once the Superbowl begins we’re going on a tear, and there’s no telling where this game may take us.
Tom Brady will be on hand for tomorrow’s Superbowl, and because of that, so will I. (Okay, I’ll really only be there for Madonna, and will shut off the television promptly after the half-time show.) Check back here for special Superbowl treats tomorrow… and try some of Tom Brady’s water!
Aside from my pet-peeve for intentionally-misspelled and supposedly-cute versions of “words†~ i.e. “luvin†– I was initially otherwise unimpressed with the demo version of the new Madonna single that leaked a few months back. While not quite ready for a “comeback†(her career has never suffered the sort of post-Sex backlash of the early 90’s), she is due for a grand return (this new album will mark the first since 2008’s Hard Candy – a relatively lengthy stretch between new Madonna studio albums). As such, it is being hyped by fans as a big deal. As for the lead-off single, I’m not sure ‘Give Me All Your Luvin’’(GMAYL) delivers.
It certainly doesn’t come close to the majesty and pomp of ‘Like A Prayer’ or ‘Frozen’ – two lead-off singles from now-iconic musical moments in her career – but we’re living in a different world now, and quick flashes of catchy-if-empty tunes seem to be where all the radio-play and chart action is. Still, this is Madonna, and I was hoping for something a little less… trifling. GMAYL is almost a throwaway track – fun and instantly likable, but almost as instantly forgettable – and if there’s one thing Madonna does best, it’s the unforgettable.
The final version, however, has grown on me some. She certainly knows her way around a verse, and if the chorus doesn’t quite live up to her legend, it still manages to thrill in its own way. The cover art is nice, in a casual, fun, carefree way – we don’t often get unabashed and abandoned fun from her. While I love it when she goes serious and introspective, I can also appreciate that the world is not going to embrace a ballad a la ‘Frozen’. Once again, Madonna knows what she’s doing – and whether or not the song is a huge hit for her, she’s put herself in our collective consciousness almost three decades after she first entered it.
The new chapter has begun…
“In the End, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends.†~ Martin Luther King, Jr.
I’ve always considered myself a rather reluctant gay activist. My main contribution to the cause is living my life openly and unabashedly. Granted, it’s in a way that most people would not dare to do, but I still don’t consider it all that much of an effort. This is me, take it or leave it, and fuck you if you don’t like it. That has made for some strides, but only within my close circle of friends and family.
To take it to a larger level requires much more time and effort, and a commitment that I am far too admittedly selfish to make. It requires an altruism and selflessness that I cannot even fathom, yet there are those who make the sacrifice, and do so when they seemingly have no personal vested interest in the cause.
These are our straight allies – those people who recognize that to deny the rights and equality of one person is to deny and diminish the rights of all. That takes a great deal of generosity, an understanding of our social standing in the world that I have but begun to touch. It is, among a great many other things, the ultimate act of humanity.
It humbles me in ways too numerous to mention. It lifts my heart and spirit in a way that little else does. It gives me hope and faith in a humanity that too often seems to let us down. I myself cannot claim half as much resolve and determination in helping others. I do not have what it takes to be such a giver. Yet because of them I want to be a better person. I want to try harder, I want to make the world a better place, I want to believe that together we can make it happen.
COMING SOON: The Straight Allies ~ A Series of Profiles
Let’s face it: we are in the midst of a cultural war. As the political year gears up for another Presidential race, as gay marriage slowly becomes legal state-by-state (and occasionally then illegal – California), as ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ crumbles, the fight for gay equality has never been as vociferous, and hotly contested, as it seems to be today.
Thankfully, the tides appear to be turning slowly in our favor. Great cultural shifts don’t happen overnight, but in the last few years the strides have been enormous, and largely unthinkable as recently as the 90’s. The good thing is that we have not had to do it alone – because we couldn’t.
The revolution, if we are to fully realize a revolution, is going to depend largely on our straight allies. There simply aren’t enough gay people willing to put themselves out there and fight for it. Luckily, the enlightened straight people are taking up that challenge, fighting just as hard and valiantly for equality, as they recognize that to deny the rights of one person is to diminish the rights of all of us.
The more I thought about it, the more it struck home. All of my best friends – the folks I’ve held close to my heart for fifteen, twenty, thirty years – are, across the board, straight. Granted there aren’t many – I can count on two hands the number of life-long friends I’ve maintained – but they are the people who matter the most – Suzie, Chris, Missy, JoAnn – they know who they are – and they have been there for all of it. Unconsciously, I’ve surrounded myself with straight allies all my life.
While the villains often get more notice, the good guys wage a quieter, more dignified fight – and they pay for it with less fanfare and bombast. I’m guilty of it myself – you’re more likely to see a rant against a homophobic person than a congratulatory message on someone’s efforts toward equality. In an attempt to rectify that, I’m going to make a concerted effort to feature those who are working to make the world a better place, instead of those aiming to divide and destroy.
In the coming months, I’m planning to do a number of profiles on Straight Allies – those who have fought in their own way against homophobia, and for a better world of equality.
According to my Uncle, the hardest part of painting was the prep work. He would say this every time we embarked upon a painting excursion – first around the house in Amsterdam when I was a little kid, then at the condo in Boston as I grew older. It was my Uncle who painted the latter when I first moved in, and then again when I returned from Chicago. Anyone can paint, and enjoy it – it was the work beforehand that was the difficult part. Such was his standard line as we began clearing rooms and sanding surfaces, and it always made me smile.
My Uncle was a painter, that was his job. Not of the John Singer Sargent kind, more of the Sherwin Williams sort, but he showed me there was nobility in every profession, if done properly and meticulously, without skipping steps or doing shoddy work. For all of his shortcomings and flaws, he was good at his job, even if he didn’t always like it.
I thought about him this weekend, as I painted the bedroom. Oddly enough, it wasn’t until the third day of painting that he came to mind, and then like a mad rush, as if he’d almost forgotten to visit. Maybe that’s the sign of getting over someone. Ten years after he died I can go three days without remembering. Not the most reassuring timetable for grief.
I remembered the first time we painted the condo together, back in January of 1996. Over the radio Whitney Houston sang that ‘Exhale (Shoop, Shoop)’ song, and my Uncle would mimic the “shoop” part, always a beat or two behind. It cracked me up so much that I had to buy the damn CD and play it just to hear him do it. That was one of the charming aspects of my Uncle – that someone so world-weary and cynical sometimes could have such an unintentionally-innocent, child-like moment.
It was a frigid January, nothing like the cake-walk we’ve had this year. The winds were brutal, and the quick walk from Copley Place to the condo was wicked. No matter how bundled up you were the icy air went through everything, cutting indiscriminately to the core. My Uncle, small and thin from a steady diet of coffee and cigarettes, hurried along, a scarf tied tightly around his head like some Russian peasant-woman. If I hadn’t been so cold I would have laughed more hysterically than I did, but my jaw wouldn’t move that much in such awful weather. The image of him like that has happily haunted me all my life.
Once inside, we cranked the heat and put on a pot of coffee. It was night, but not too late to begin the prep work. He went about setting up the ladder, and I moved the furniture into the bedroom. The smell of smoke and coffee filled the rooms, and to this day there is comfort in both. I asked for one of his cigarettes, then lit it in the bathroom, watching myself in the mirror, seeing if I could fascinate with a cigarette any better than with a fancy coat, but only a dull stare looked back. I would do this periodically throughout the following days, trying to entrance with the trails of cigarette smoke, but never did I learn the enchantment my Uncle had mastered. The most nonchalant flicking of ash in his hands would forever be cooler than my most studied Bette Davis smoking moves. Amid the smoke and the clutter, I slept. The next day, the painting would begin.
Armed with an arsenal of bordello red, kelly green, and the deepest blue, I aimed to attack the dull white walls with a blitz of super-saturated color, eradicating the stale memories of any former owners. My Uncle didn’t believe in taping things off – so steady and sure of hand was he that tape was an unnecessary step. And, to my amazement, he was right. That was not the case with me, however, so I stayed clear of cutting in, opting instead to run errands and pick up whatever supplies we were lacking, along with something to eat.
It was one of those crisp January mornings that seemed to light up the whole world, a prism of brightness lending hope to the gray winter. The sky was blue, and the sun was doubly redolent, reflecting off snow and ice in a blinding symphony of whites and mirrors. The nearest hardware store I could think of was on Newbury Street, and though it was small it had what I needed, and was close enough to Tower Records to afford a quick browsing session. While there I realized that far more interesting things might be happening at the condo, and I could browse these CD aisles at any time. Quickly, I made for home.
After returning for weeks to empty rooms, stillness, and silence, the sense of company was a strange relief. It was like somebody had revealed a hole in my heart that I’d never known was there, but that I’d been functioning without all these years – and part of me would always rue the knowledge imparted then. It would make the emptiness that followed so much worse.
At that moment, though, coffee gurgled in the kitchen, and tendrils of smoke mingled with the smell of fresh paint. It was transformation in action – the kitchen was turning into a striking patch of green, and the first bold border of red was slashing its way across the living room. A ladder reached for the ceiling while a dirty drop cloth, stained with the drippings of paint jobs prior, covered the floor.
I dropped the bag of supplies on a bit of empty counter-space, and began plotting the ragging-off effect I wanted for the living room. Working in tandem, my Uncle rolled the red paint on, as I pressed and mottled the area with a wet rag, leaving a rough, textured look. From a distance (and in most photographs) it only looked bright red, but up close there was detail and interest and no two areas were exactly the same. My Uncle seemed surprisingly impressed – the usual reaction when I did something right. There would be years in which to prove myself to him, but still not enough time.
The day drew too swiftly to its close, the last of the early-to-bed-sunlight disappearing out the bedroom bay window. The front two rooms were complete – only the bedroom and bathroom remained. We would finish in a day or two, and then it would be over. I didn’t want it to end. I wasn’t ready to be alone.
To the bedroom then. First, the ceiling was coated in blue. Deep, rich, blue – where oceans and sapphires crashed below an azure sky. The walls would be the same, but I needed the ceiling done first so I could start sponging on the clouds. (Yes, I had clouds on my bedroom ceiling. There’s no accounting for the questionable taste of a barely-twenty-something gay guy on his own in Boston.)
I sat at the top of that unforgivingly uncomfortable metal ladder, shifting the weight on my sore butt and dabbing on swirls and puffs of cumulus cloud formations. I looked to my Uncle only once for his opinion: “If you like it,” was his cryptic response, meaning he hated it or thought it foolish, but knew enough not to challenge me for the earful of a tongue-lashing he’d get.
All the blue was darker than I realized, but the afternoon sunlight flooded that room. I didn’t think of the nights, otherwise I might have stopped us then and there. For that moment, it offered cooling relief from the bold, blazing red of the main living room, and at that time I only wanted contrast and extremes.
As my Uncle finished up the quick work of the bathroom, and its questionable peachy tone (chosen for its pleasing proximity to the clay-hued brick wall), only a little clean-up and a few final touches awaited the next morning. My Mom would arrive to pick my Uncle up, leaving me by myself to return to school and work.
That first coat of paint – so emblematic of my world then – instantly made the condo a home. My Uncle helped me realize that, along with several other realizations. Our relationship was maturing – I was no longer a kid. The days of merry pranks and transparent acting-out were over, and I was, I hoped, becoming more of a friend to him. For the rest of that snowy winter, I clung to the memories of those days of painting, and the home he helped create cradled me in its color and warmth.
Every once in a while I’d steal a cigarette on my own, breathing in the memory of my Uncle, re-living those precious days, sitting calmly in the swirling smoke and wondering if he ever wondered about those moments.
A decade and a half later, I don’t need a cigarette to remember. It is a part of me, as implacable as the scar on my shoulder from a summer dive, irrefutable as my middle name. As I put my bedroom back together alone, taking in the way the afternoon sun falls upon the new accent wall, I am struck with the strange march of time. I am an Uncle now. Maybe one day soon I’ll have lessons of my own for Noah and Emi – and more than likely they’ll have lessons for me.
{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.}
Early evening, in the midst of an endless and snowy winter. In the hallway of my childhood home, the television in my parents’ room glows, and MTV – a relatively recent addition to our lives – is playing Madonna’s ‘Open Your Heart’ video. I am alone upstairs, looking into the mirror above my mother’s bureau, while anonymous men look into the peep-show of Madonna’s video world.
The carpet in the room is blue, the bedspread a faded pastiche of pastels. Pale white-washed furniture stands on elegantly carved feet, while two candelabra lamps glow on each end of the bureau. It is one of my strongest childhood memories, and I don’t know why, for nothing other than Madonna and my solitude was happening, yet I distinctly remember that moment, that scene, the way the light fell – more than I remember most of my birthdays. It must have been early 1987, which made me all of eleven years old.
As a kid, I wasn’t the most social of children – preferring to entertain myself in solitude, far more interested in walks in the woods or the pursuit of solitary projects in my room. Yet part of me longed for company, to be a part of something, even as I pushed my contemporaries away. It was the essence of this song – yearning for someone to open their heart and include you in their life. I couldn’t see that then – I only loved a catchy hook and a decent beat.
Back then, I never really hung out with people. School was my social scene, and it was enough. It was more than enough, actually, and it was like work. As such, it was tainted with the drudgery of forced labor, lacking in the joy and play that I wanted to surround social activities. I was well-liked enough, but I left those friendships and relationships at school, and was happy to do so.
I took the easy way out and just hung out with the friends my brother brought home. It was easier that way, and I could get away if I got bored, without being expected to provide entertainment, any sort of babysitting, or the awkward exit strategy.
My brother’s friends, younger than me by a year or two, were good enough for companionship, for the boyhood camaraderie that I simultaneously sought out and rejected. I always wanted for adventure, for some ‘Stand By Me’/’Goonies’ journey filled with exciting twists and turns, and a small, measured dose of danger to keep us on our toes – but such travails work best when you’re not alone.
We did the best we could, finding thrills in night-time games of hide-and-seek, now and then embarking on the planning of a fort in the woods (which would never see any real building), or enacting bike chases in front of befuddled neighbors.
For all my enjoyment of solitude, part of me wanted to be some integral part of a pack, an instantly-assimilated team player, even as my otherness made it impossible. On one night, my brother was invited over to his friend’s house for a sleepover. I desperately wanted to go too, but pride prevented me from asking outright. Instead, I called over to the house, inventing some lame easily-seen-through excuse to talk to my brother. We spoke briefly, and then he had to go. About half-an-hour later I called back. I asked for my brother again, and his friend’s Mom asked if I wanted to come over. A quick feigning of surprise and utter interior relief, and I was soon part of the sleepover, running around the wood-paneled basement and hiding from their huge dog.
I’ll probably never know what my brother and his friends thought of me, other than some sometimes-bothersome tag-a-long, or funny older brother – he claims to not remember much, and even my perfect memory has suffered a little deterioration. But whenever I hear ‘Open Your Heart’, the memory comes back – the memories, I should say – and instantly I’m that little boy again, begging to be asked, to be invited.
‘Open Your Heart’ was, looking back, one of the major themes of my boyhood. As much as I fought against it, all I really wanted was to belong, and to be welcomed. All of my acting out, all of my strange behavior, all of the weird attention-getting antics ~ they were my convoluted ways of pleading for acceptance and love.
The strange thing is, the very ways I went about finding friends and companionship were so odd, and my interests and passions so atypical of an eleven-year-old boy (plants, flowers, tropical fish, Madonna, unicorns, dolls, glitter) that I alienated as much as I sought. It would be a conundrum that haunted my way through adolescence and into adulthood, and in so many key ways is with me to this day. All I can do to counter it, to vainly strive to show what it all means, is to put up a Madonna post and have her plead my case.
Song #62 – ‘Open Your Heart’ ~ Winter 1987
One of my biggest fears of coming out as a gay man was the difference in the way I thought I’d be treated, especially by straight men. For the longest time, I was frightened by most of the heterosexual men in my life. I had no real reason to feel this way – it was more of a dangerous generalization I needed to work out.
The men in my strictly Catholic and machismo-fueled Filipino family were not always the most supportive role models for someone unconsciously searching for an ally. The straight guys in my school also did nothing to set my worrisome mind at ease, and while they generally left me alone, I saw the way they taunted others with the f-word. Being a small, slight boy, I had nothing to protect me should the attacks come my way.
Oddly enough, it would be a few straight men who emboldened me with the confidence to come out. In the summer of 1997, I was hanging out with Matt and Greg at Structure (the hetero anomalies of my retail world) and Chris in California (the metro anomaly of the rest of the world) – and they accepted me for who I was. My being gay wasn’t a big deal to them, they weren’t uncomfortably curious about any of it, and they let me be myself without judgment, derision, or ridicule. They also had my back, and said as much on several occasions (or I never would have known). They became, over the course of that summer, my closest friends at a time when I was just beginning to come out. Instead of any overt rainbow-flag-waving show of support, they offered their friendship ~ a far more powerful and potent talisman against feelings of inequality.
The importance of straight allies cannot be underestimated. Those men opened my own mind, broadening my wary views on the world, and paved the way for my friendships with other straight men, like Skip and Joe and Wally– some of my closest straight-guy friends, whom I met through their wives and sisters, but who have become friends in their own right. Whether they know it or not, they are my straight allies, and in offering unconditional friendship in return, they give me hope that one day being gay will be a complete non-issue, a simple matter-of-fact facet of one’s life, and a rather minor one at that. I see it in the way they raise their children, and as hard and jaded as I may be, it still inspires a vision of a better world to come.
My friend and co-worker Lorie, having heard of my unsuccessful quest for a pomegranate, brought one in from her recent excursion to Trader Joe’s. Until we get one of our own, that appears to be the closest supplier of the elusive fruit.
Price Chopper had rather rudely tweeted to my husband that it is no longer the season for pomegranates, and even the Fresh Market was out. Lorie mentioned that Ryan’s Produce might have some, so we may try that next. For now, we have this one glorious specimen – the perfect pomegranate – and I couldn’t wait to dig my fingers in and extract the little globules of goodness.
My friend JoAnn was the one who got me hooked on pomegranates. She said the best way to remove all the seeds was to cut it in half and submerge the fruit in a bowl of warm water. This prevents the blood-red juice from any broken seed pods from staining your skin, while allowing for easy separation from the surrounding membrane, which floats to the surface.
A ritual that involves a bit of work for a reward is a good past-time for the winter, and there is indeed something cleansing and calming about separating seed from flesh beneath warm red water.
The end result is a pile of sparkling ruby capsules, each one ready and waiting to burst open in the mouth like some refreshing pop of tart candy. Someone likened them to champagne, which I could just barely make out. They really are their own animal, to which I’ve already grown a fond attachment. Now if we could just find a decent supplier in the local area…
Until then, their elusiveness adds to their appeal.
I’ve always been fascinated by the whispers that people leave behind – sometimes even more-so than the people themselves. Granted, if I’m seeking out the remnants of you, you’ve likely left a larger imprint on my heart, but even in strangers I find the notion of their essence more intriguing than their presence.
The state of a hotel room that a person leaves, for instance, when they depart for the day. Have they left a book on the table? Has the remote been touched? In what sort of array are the sheets and pillows? Did they sleep on just one side of the bed? Are towels left on the floor, or hung to dry, to be used again?
We sometimes tell more in our absence than we could ever reveal in person, but what is told often leads to more questions, and assumptions, and suddenly a whole world with a conjured persona has arisen from the discarded candy wrapper that has fallen just short of the garbage can.
Personal articles lend a more solid glimpse. The pair of glasses left on the night-stand table, or carefully returned to their carrying case. They lend a vague bit of a possible appearance. A favored bottle of bath gel carefully nestled in the corner of the bathtub, the fragrance of which still lightly taints the bathroom air, evinces what might be one’s scent. Frequent travelers may even carry a small framed photo of a loved one, smiling back from the past, and from the distance ~ an unlikely bit of home in an otherwise sterile environment.
Even then, with perhaps the most important people of one’s life looking on, it is impossible to gauge a person. All we have are fragments, tiny pieces of the whole that may or may not make much sense, that could, for all we know, have nothing to do with who that person is, but if we care enough, if we are invested enough, it becomes an obsession.
I used to do this when my Uncle left after a visit. I’d hunt down the places he’d been in throughout the house, leaning over the desk where he kept his bottle of cologne, inhaling the lime-like scent mingled with scarred wood, trying to hold onto him a little bit longer. I’d traverse the paths he took in the basement, holding the ashtray of wrinkled cigarette butts and bringing it to my nose to take in the already-stale remnants of smoke. A still-damp towel hanging over the shower door from that morning’s wash or the stained coffee-cup suddenly gone cold teased and lingered there, their presence both a taunt and a comfort. The ones we love most seem to haunt with greater resonance, but maybe that’s just the way we want to believe.
In my hotel room, if I do leave anything telling, there is no one to care enough to look. A rumpled pair of boxer shorts on the floor, the swath of a scarf dangling from a chair, a tiny bottle of cologne on the tile of the bathroom window ~ none of it is really me. And when I am there – in the room, on the bed, at the sink – fully present and accounted for – I am alone, with nothing and no one to prove I even exist.
Except for the camera…
On one of the coldest days of the year, a little boxwood in a tall black planter shivers in the wind outside of the lobby of 6 Columbus. Tufted leather banquettes sparsely populated with bursts of bright pillows afford a bit of seating while I wait for my room to be ready. Two complaints of rooms with no heat have already been lodged at the front desk, and as the wind whips by the window this doesn’t seem to bode well.
The lobby, fronted by two very friendly door-men, is a balance of light and dark – coolly modern in style, like the rest of the hotel, but warmed by the staff. A sushi restaurant (Blue Ribbon Sushi Bar & Grill) is set off to the side, affording a tantalizing glimpse of a light wooden bar.
While Columbus Circle is not usually an area in which I’d stay while visiting New York, an online special ($140 a night, before taxes) lured me to 6 Columbus, and I’d heard good things about the parent company that runs it (Thompson Hotels).
A slightly dim elevator and hallway, the textured navy blue walls and dark floors eating up much of the light, lead to room #77. Like most New York accommodations, the pod rooms here are on the slightly smaller side of things (175 square feet), so it might be worth it to upgrade to a larger one if possible.
The bathroom is more ample, backed by glossy navy tiles and brightly polished Waterworks fixtures. Bolstered by Kiehl’s hair products and white fluffy towels, it is a modern, elegant space, even if an over-hyped Frette bathrobe errs on the side of starchy rather than soft.
Above the bed is a large Guy Bourdin print, echoing the proclaimed“60’s modernist†inspiration point for the hotel. The bed itself is comfortable, but not laid out with any top sheets – only a duvet. I’m neither picky nor grossed out about such things, and, as long as the heat was working, didn’t have need for extra bedding.
A word about the heat: despite my concerns upon hearing the complaints of other patrons, the heat in my room worked just fine – but it didn’t make it into the bathroom, which was a great deal cooler (not the ideal situation for January). I had to overcompensate in the bedroom to warm the tiled space, but it was nothing a hot shower didn’t fix.
On a Sunday night, the room remains pleasingly quiet, affording an uninterrupted evening of sleep. The next morning, as I make my way to the elevator, the unmistakable odor of pot hangs lightly in the air, while knocks and calls of “housekeeping†go unanswered. Another average day in New York has begun.
I didn’t get to see her acceptance speech for Best Song (“Masterpieceâ€), but I did hear that several people thought she was narcissistic and arrogant. Well, duh. It’s Madonna, and she’s entitled. And as Matthew Rettennmund rightfully points out, she never wins anything, so I’m forgiving most of what she may have said.
Let’s talk, instead, about the dress. While I think it’s lovely enough, it feels like she settled for an in-between version of a full-blown ball gown (which I would have loved) and something far simpler. The diamonds do brighten it all up, though I have mixed feelings about the cross. Still, the whole effect is passably pretty, but once again I yearn, perhaps unfairly, for something more.
I like when she goes daring and edgy (as in her dramatic canary Olivier Theyskens gown, woefully under-appreciated at the 1998 VH-1 Fashion Awards, her brilliant bunny-eared Louis Vuitton ensemble at the 2009 Met Gala, or the glorious John Galliano get-up of the Evita premiere in 1996 – my favorite red-carpet look of all-time), and this one seemed to play it just a little safe – albeit in a gorgeous way.
It’s a nice soft set-up for what she’s going to wear for her next high-profile appearances: the Superbowl and the Oscars (assuming she attends the latter). I hope she removes the half-gloves before they become a sad trademark, or opts for a full-length formal version a la the Golden Globes of 1996, or the bombshell Marilyn Monroe-homage at the Oscars in 1991. Love it or hate it, the world is once again talking about Madonna. She wins.
Nine years ago this month, www.ALANILAGAN.com first went live. Back in 2003, it was a fledgling of a site, not much more than a few pages of a few projects and photographs, and visited by my Personal Manager and the few people who listened to her when she said to stop by. In the ensuing years, we’ve gained a few more friends and followers – and I use the collective “we” because I depend on a core group of good people to keep things running smoothly.
First and foremost among them is Webmaster Skip. He’s the main behind-the-scenes guy who both creates and troubleshoots as necessary. He also puts up with countless memos and e-mails, all with an affable, easy-going nature and an infectious enthusiasm. If there’s one good thing that has come of this website, it may be my friendship with Skip.
Second, there’s my Personal Manager Suzie, who also puts up with the delusional excess that spills into her FaceBook world and takes up space on her cel phone. She’s lasted far longer than the nine years of this site, and she’ll be here long after it’s over.
Finally, there’s you. If you are reading this, for whatever reason, you have contributed your time and energy for this one brief moment. In that, we have connected, however far apart, and however different our lives may be. I know many of you on FaceBook or Twitter, and some of us have corresponded through e-mail. I’ve even had the pleasure of meeting a few of you in person, and it’s always like greeting an old friend. For anyone who has visited here, I offer my heartfelt thanks.
I’m not going to make a big deal about this particular anniversary, because next year is going to be even bigger. You know what comes after 9…
