Category Archives: General

His name is Gideon Yapp. Neither he nor his family wants this shared anywhere, which is precisely why I’m doing it. This is a bad week to piss people off, and I’ve had enough. If you’re going to act out like this in public, you don’t deserve forgiveness. Not until you clearly illustrate that you deserve it and have changed and grown. That doesn’t happen in a month or two, so until such time this is the lesson, and here is the video that Gideon Yapp and his family don’t want you to see or share:

Even if you want to think the best of the kid, even if he’s going through something difficult at home, or having a horrible time with some unknown ailment, that still doesn’t forgive this kind of behavior. My best friend lost her father when she was fifteen years old – she came back to school a few days later and never acted like this. Not because she wasn’t upset, not because things didn’t bother her, but because at that age, you know enough about how to behave. Even if you were raised in less-than-ideal circumstances, you still know. And if you genuinely don’t, well, let this be the learning experience and lesson to enlighten you.

Gideon’s father, Robert Yapp, and his soon-to-be-likely-defunct Twitter account, may give further clues as to how this kid was raised and why he’s acting like such a monster. Check out the screen shot I grabbed of his last tweets – they’re lovely:

After the video was posted, Gideon’s brother reportedly sent out requests that it be taken down because it could ruin a young man’s life. Hopefully this does the opposite and saves it. When you see yourself in such a light, when the world reflects an image of yourself from a perspective you clearly don’t always get, that offers the opportunity for change. For improvement. For forgiveness.

Hatred is learned behavior. So is swearing and disrespecting other human beings. So is using the n-word. And anyone who does that is a racist. Sorry Gideon Yapp, if you don’t want people to see you act like a racist, hate-filled asshole, then don’t act like one. You have the power to turn this around – not by pretending it never happened, but by facing the hate within you, examining why you have it, and showing the world that you can change.

Andy told me about them first. As is the case these days, I listened and then shoved it from my mind. There is too much sadness to think about it all right now. After a few minutes, the ploy worked: the story was gone from my head. His harrowing tale, more sad than frightening, was successfully purged, and in short order too. Thinking nothing of it, I hopped in the car and drove away, singing along to ‘Hamilton’ (the King of England’s trio of songs are my jams!)

Just as I rounded the turn, mastering my snooty British accent in song no less, I saw them. One dead, one alive. A pair of mourning doves on the road.

Andy had told me he had seen them. A flattened bird, and its partner, refusing to leave its side. Immediately, I burst into tears, as much for the sad lonely bird as anything else that’s been happening lately, and in my rear view window I watched the forlorn dove walk in a little circle. I cannot fathom the frantic desperation of death. My heart cannot stand it.

I returned home and tried to be kinder to Andy. That is all I know how to do when faced with suffering.

The world turned upside down.

The main news of this past week was the culmination and finale of The Delusional Grandeur Tour: Last Stand of a Rock Star. I had planned to put it to rest in Ogunquit, Maine, one of my favorite places in the world – though plans changed. That’s not all that happened. Let’s go back a bit…

There was perfume in the air.

There was passion, too.

There was the Solomon’s Seal.

There were reflections.

There was fruit salad.

There was sexiness.

There was a boy… before there was a man.

Finally, there were Hunks of the Day, including Parry Glasspool, Lucas Steele, Colt Prattes & Jared North.

It wasn’t until August that we got back on track with my first trip to Rehoboth Beach. It was a wonderful birthday treat, and while I’ve always hated traveling on my birthday, this time it was all right, and may have helped Andy out of a traffic ticket. The beach was spectacular, and I didn’t want our time there to end. Other ports beckoned, however, with returns to DC and Boston. Fall crept into holiday time for the latter, where I hosted a 2^nd annual children’s holiday hour.

The winter of 2017 saw the end of this tour in sight, but not before a lifelong dream was realized: a visit to the desert. I flew to Tucson, AZ and fell under the enchanting spell of the Southwest. The desert exerted a gorgeous force on a destination I’ve had since I was a child. From the wildlife to the vegetation to the beauty on hand at every turn, I was transfixed.

In March, we had the start of several full-circle moments as the tour wound down. First up was this spectacular return to ‘Sunset Boulevard’ and the guy who was never quite mine to get away. Second was my first trip back to Chicago in seventeen years, and a moment that surprised me with its emotional heft.

Fittingly, the final honors of this final tour go to two of my favorite people: my Mom and my husband. She joined me for a wonderful weekend on Broadway in honor of Mother’s Day, and he is joining me for our very last tour stop in Ogunquit, Maine (postponed for the moment, but we shall return!) After that, the next chapter begins…

This weekend, The Delusional Grandeur Tour was set to wind up its almost-two-year run with a very special stop. But before we delve into that, and the changes we had to make, let’s take a look back at all the places we’ve been. It began at home, with the Illuminati Party. I wore lacey underwear, a corset, and antlers. It’s what one does. Summer was high, the pool was open, and the party had just begun.

The first traveling tour stop was Seattle, WA, which I hadn’t visited since 1997. It was just as enchanting as I remembered it, with delicious food, a glimpse at the whales, a garden walk, and the customary magic that comes from revisiting a far-away place.

Mainstays of Boston and New York provided easy get-aways for long weekends, as did our seasonal bookends in Ogunquit, Maine. The Cape Crew, helmed by JoAnn, made for a great stop in Cape Cod.

Madonna was also on tour, and Suzie and I spent a weekend in Boston for that very special ‘Rebel Heart’ concert. Before we knew it, summer was done, and we were closing out the warm and fuzzy season with our annual Ogunquit stop. Chris joined me in New York for a delirious weekend at the Standard, and then the long, cold winter began. Wisely, I avoided traveling very much in the colder months – having been stranded one too many times, and flights canceled and trips ruined due to snowstorms, I tend to lay low during January and February. It worked out well.

By April, I was back on the road, revisiting Washington, DC and then returning to New York for our annual Broadway weekend. It was spring again in Ogunquit, and then an early Red Sox game with Skip. I donned a party hat at the GLSEN Gala in Albany, and summer was off to a rollicking start by the pool, negating the need to travel much. But I wasn’t quite done yet…

GROWING UP, YOU DON’T SEE THE WRITING ON THE WALL

PASSING BY, MOVING STRAIGHT AHEAD, YOU KNEW IT ALL

BUT MAYBE SOMETIME IF YOU FEEL THE PAIN,

YOU’LL FIND YOU’RE ALL ALONE, EVERYTHING HAS CHANGED.

PLAY THE GAME, YOU KNOW YOU CAN’T QUIT UNTIL IT’S WON

SOLDIER ON, ONLY YOU CAN DO WHAT MUST BE DONE…

It began as a whim.

A one-off way to pass spring-break before I was old enough to drink, before I had my own car.

I called it a tour in the style of Madonna, my wanna-be tendencies in full effect, my dreams of being something better than I was that day. It was mostly just a few weekend jaunts to see my friends and stay with them in dorm rooms the size of closets, when I couldn’t afford or find a Super 8 or Motel 6. (I always did love a hotel, no matter how simple or plain.)

But as soon as I christened it a ‘tour’ the world seemed to change, to bend to this flight of fancy. Everything had a new kind of sparkle and gleam. It informed every moment. It changed the way I looked at the world, and in return the world changed the way it looked at me. It gave me an armor, and a character, and a way to maneuver in a shifting social landscape. That something so silly could become something so profound was one of the great cosmic jokes of my life.

YOU KNOW IN SOME WAY YOU’RE A LOT LIKE ME

YOU’RE JUST A PRISONER AND YOU’RE TRYING TO BREAK FREE.

I wanted to do it one last time. When you reach the age of 40, you don’t always know if you’re up for it again, but I had to try. Even if I failed spectacularly, it would be worth it. Even if it all came to nothing, I would have made the journey. Sometimes just going through the motions is enough. It gets you from one place to another. Sometimes that’s all you need to survive to the next morning.

I CAN SEE THE NEW HORIZON UNDERNEATH THE BLAZING SKY

I’LL BE WHERE THE EAGLE’S FLYING, HIGHER AND HIGHER

GONNA BE YOUR MAN IN MOTION, ALL I NEED IS A PAIR OF WHEELS

TAKE ME WHERE THE FUTURE’S LYING, ST. ELMO’S FIRE…

Contrary to the title of the thing, I was not delusional. That was the whole point of this exercise, and the point of it all over the past two decades. I’m not a celebrity, I’m not a star, and I never will be. But each of us has our own grandeur – the grandeur of our small, private lives – and each of us is afforded the ability to shine and burst and sparkle as much as any rock star. How will you access your own grandeur?

BURNING UP, DON’T KNOW JUST FAR I CAN GO

SOON BE HOME, ONLY JUST A FEW MILES DOWN THE ROAD

I CAN MAKE IT, I KNOW I CAN

YOU BROKE THE BOY IN ME, BUT YOU WON’T BREAK THE MAN.

Now that this tour is nearing its completion, I can look back at my touring days with a mixture of fondness, nostalgia, and absolutely no regrets. I did what I had to do, and saw it through! The supreme confidence and belief in yourself that it takes to put your own ass out there was something I’d always been missing – until I pretended I had it. The self-worth and self-importance that I purported to have grew from a mask into my genuine truth. I built things from the outside inward – the opposite and much more difficult path to self-acceptance, but I got there in the end, and that’s all that matters.

JUST ONCE IN HIS LIFE, A MAN HAS HIS TIME

AND MY TIME IS NOW, I’M COMING ALIVE!

I think back to the young guy who embarked on his first ‘tour’ in 1995. At nineteen years of age, he’d only ever kissed one other man. He knew little to nothing of love, yet found himself falling into it at every turn. His hair was jet black, and a little unruly. He drove his parents’ car, with a silk scarf billowing from the antenna, and a clumsy car phone he never did quite learn to use. He would travel to his college friends in upstate New York – Rochester and Ithaca and Potsdam – and he would find the only family who instantly accepted him for who he was – not for who he was trying to be or who the world wanted to see. He wore crazy outfits that he found pretty – shape-shifting and image-drifting whichever way the wind took him. His writing was often sad and serious, and his image sometimes reflected that, but on tour he acted like a star – above everything, shining brightly in the sky, and acting as beacon and bringer of all that sparkled. He was a man in motion, too scared to stay too still for too long, afraid that he might freeze there, afraid that it might mean something, afraid, perhaps, that he might mean something to someone, even if that was all he ever wanted.

I CAN HEAR THE MUSIC PLAYING, I CAN SEE THE BANNERS FLY

FEEL LIKE YOU’RE BACK AGAIN AND HOPE RIDING HIGH…

I CAN CLIMB THE HIGHEST MOUNTAIN…

CROSS THE WILDEST SEA…

…and the way my body once was.

[Sigh]

When you hit the age of 35, the metabolism begins to slow.

When you hit the age of 40, the metabolism comes to a standstill.

And when I turned 41, it seemed my metabolism started to go backward, or whatever causes a person to gain weight and inches, and all I did to battle it was eat more stuff. Hey, I head in the opposite direction of conventional wisdom. Now I have to try to undo the laziness and the poor eating habits and try to get back into swimsuit-wearing form. (I have too many pants to lose…) Summer inspiration, here we come!

Is this the saddest sign ever? Whatever happened to something a little more hopeful? How about “Looking for a good home” or “Is this the next member of your family?” Instead this poor pooch gets a ‘For sale’. I didn’t even bother turning the sign over for further information – I didn’t want to know.

Stealing hearts and forming the catalyst for the romantic pyrotechnics on display at ‘Natasha, Pierre and the Great Comet of 1812’, this is Lucas Steele, who plays the swashbuckling and slightly devilish Anatole (described quite succinctly in the prologue as simply ‘hot’). Mr. Steele preens and swaggers his way around the Imperial Theatre in one of the season’s flashiest and most entertaining performances. It easily earns him his first Hunk of the Day status. He joins fellow castmates Nicholas Belton and Josh Groban as the third member of the Great Comet to be named a Hunk of the Day. (By the way, I must find a way to get a copy of that green coat that Anatole wears in Act II, so if anyone knows someone with some Comet pull – Groban, I’m looking at you – hook a guy up!)

Flying through the month of May entirely too quickly for my liking – make it last, make it last, make it last – we find ourselves at the end of one week and the start of another. Hence this recap, a little later than usual due to the New York posts, but if the reason is always so good, let’s have it be late again.

Art, magic, and nature.

Memories of valley flowers.

Ostrich green.

Cuteness.

The Hemingway Daiquiri.

More cuteness.

A Broadway weekend with Mom begins.

A room with a view.

Awakened by a Great Comet.

A fabulous lunch and a double-diva evening.

A Manhattan in Manhattan.

Mother’s Day in New York.

hunks of the Day included Jay Byars, Douglas Sills, Gleb Savchenko, Ross Williams Wild, & Nicholas Belton.

A typical spring sight: a baby robin stretching for a worm from Mama.

These babies are not to be troubled, however, as their watchful parents will swoop and jab if you get too close and they feel threatened. It’s why we can’t allow them to make a nest near any outside living space. This nest was made in a young evergreen in the front yard, where we don’t usually hang out, and by the time we noticed it, the eggs were already hatching. The little one will soon be on the verge of leaving the nest, and then we will be out of harm’s way.

At certain times, when the light is just right and the vantage point works out, a photograph can turn itself into a painting. Unaltered and unfiltered. Such was the sky last night as the storms swept through the area.

This little creature was seen in my parents’ backyard, cowering in the garden after suffering some sort of trauma. While I’m not fans of the rabbits because of all the things they eat in our garden, they are adorable, and this baby bunny wins a slot in the somewhat-regular mid-day dose of cuteness.