Category Archives: General

Closing out this first full week of summer, let’s do a quick recap before we head into the high summer holiday week ahead. June has its enchantments, but July is when things really start to heat up. For now, let’s bask in the heat of what just came before.

Before the recent Cape Cod family vacay gets posted in detail, this end teaser hinted at what you are about to see.

Between sun and shade in the garden thoroughfares of Boston.

Summer means Tom Daley stripping into a Speedo and Novak Djokovic stepping out in boxer briefs.

Better than drops of Jupiter?

At first I got kind of pissed at Grady Smith, then I got kind of sad, and then I just got over it.

The sweetest scent of summer may not belong to Tom Ford… but then again, it just may.

Flowers fit for a wedding cake in Boston.

“No man needs a vacation so much as the man who has just had one.” ― Elbert Hubbard

Truer words were never spoken. Having just returned from a family vacation in Cape Cod, I am in no mood to start cranking out blog posts. It was a grand time, including a number of fun moments with the family, and some relaxing days on the beach. We could have done with a few more, but alas, there is work to be done, and parties for which to prepare, and the incessant parade of the internet marches onward with little room for slowing.

Fortunately, this is all by choice, and my website is done mostly for myself. The moment it becomes less than enjoyable is the moment it goes dark. I haven’t gotten there yet, but after being away from a computer and this blog for five days, I’ve realized that the best part of life goes on off-screen. So, for a while, the summer perhaps, I’m taking a bit of the vacation mentality back with me and employing it here in the form of two posts a day versus three. Trust me, you won’t miss that third one – and if you do, then you’re doing something wrong with your life too. Let’s live a little… in the real world… just for a summer.

Barely a couple of days into the summer season and we’re already recapping. Well, that’s what Mondays are for, so let’s dive in and get it done. My first family vacation in two decades comes to a close today, so you have those posts to look forward to, but in the meantime, things stayed relatively steady here, with a week of events that included the following:

The Albany Gay Pride Parade and Festival, to which I wore sequins – lots of sequins – and in which I wasn’t alone, came and went in a sparkling flash.

We attended one very long dance recital for my four-year-old niece. As antsy as we may have been, it was nothing compared to the behavior of my four-year-old nephew.

Haunted by a ruthless rhododendron.

It’s always hot when Harry Judd takes his clothes off, as he did here.

No summer start would be complete without Tom Daley in his Speedo.

There were a couple of Hunks who kept things as hot as the weather, like the unconventionally-attractive Adam Driver, the more conventionally-pretty Torben King, British swimmer Mark Foster, Danish model Ken Bek, the commonly-monikered Kevin Smith and, last but certainly not least, my pal and webmaster Skip Montross.

Here’s to the start of summer – let’s rock!

Only the first flush of foliage in the first few days of growth on an evergreen is soft to the touch. Soon enough, it will harden and darken and become the prickly but hardy form that will see it through the coldest winter. Of course, I like its fleeting form the best, when the colors are the brightest, the texture is still pliable, and the coarseness is not yet in evidence.

For All State Insurance no less, and bloody brilliant.

(Yes, I teared up, as I tend to do these days.)

The song is by singer-songwriter Eli Lieb, who will no doubt be featured quite a bit more here – in a couple of short hours in fact…

Can we talk about dance recitals for a moment? Not in a politically-correct and kind way, but in a blunt, honest, hard-truth kind of way? I don’t want to hurt anyone’s feelings, but some things need to be said. I just attended my first, and very possibly last, dance recital for my four-year-old niece. Let me say upfront that she was great – I have to say that as her Uncle, and as someone who loves her dearly. She executed her dances well – all two that were in the early part of the program – and finished in relative unison in the finale. It was the intervening couple of hours that had me questioning my sanity, and the very existence of humanity.

First of all, two and a half hours is a long time for any production – but I’ve been told that this is relatively short for this sort of thing. All I can say to that is that if I have to sit through a recital longer than this, I’m taking a hostage or calling in a bomb threat. Either way, there will be people thanking me for it.

Second, there’s a rule against leaving once the kids you are there to see are finished, right? I’m certain that this is a rule, or at least polite protocol. I’m also guessing that this is why every single person, no matter how briefly or how early they appear in the program, is in the final number. As Madonna once remarked, “That’s one of life’s little fuck-overs.”

By the time we reached the Justin Bieber medley, my patience was tried, my brain was fried, but I still hadn’t died. FaceBook friends had told me to pray for death at the start but I didn’t listen. Now it was too late, and no one was going to smite me.

And yet… and yet… watching my little niece doing her toe taps and singing the final song of the evening, I was almost moved to forgive all that came before. Almost.

It’s been a whirlwind of non-stop fun, and work, for the past few weeks, especially this last one, and a bit of exhaustion has finally caught up with me. Let me try to catch my breath and recap some of the events, before we slow down a bit.

Suzie celebrated her birthday – I won’t name which one, even if she wouldn’t mind, as mine is just a couple months away. Her Mom also got some well-deserved accolades with a New York State Liberty Medal.

I got behind the wheel of a Pontiac GTO, but didn’t really go anywhere. These two, however, did.

There were a few evenings of family fun, including this one celebrating a pre-school graduation.

It was a week of Pride, and all the accompanying outfits, highlights of which included the GLSEN Formal Affaire with its ‘Breakfast at Tiffany’s’ theme.

A return trip to NYC was made for this amazing production of ‘Here Lies Love’ – a musical about Imelda Marcos and the Philippines – and a reunion with Suzie and Chris.

The Hunks were on display as always, including Ryan Phillippe, Malachi Marx, Ayden Callaghan, Jose Llana and several DILFs.

Advance word on Fifth Avenue is that attendance at the ‘Breakfast at Tiffany’s Formal Evening Affaire‘ as put on by GLSEN is at near-capacity, which means that tonight’s party will be hopping with the best and brightest of Albany’s sweet and elite. As soon as I finish work, I’ll be making a mad-dash home to primp and preen for the event, which begins at 5:30PM, making it the prime jumping-off point for a weekend of Pride parties and the big parade.

Please join us at the Washington Park Lake House, where the black tie is formal and the feather boas are always encouraged…

“It’s better to look at the sky than live there. Such an empty place; so vague. Just a country where the thunder goes and things disappear.”

Every year at this time we tend to get a little crazy. Maybe it’s the residual antsy-ness from school, or the delayed effects of a long winter of cabin fever, or just simple revelry in the sun and warmth. It makes you want to get into the car, roll down the windows, and burn some rubber. So that’s what my brother and husband did in this ’69 Pontiac GTO, while I clung to the backseat, hanging on for dear life.

Suffice to say, once around the block was more than enough for me.

It defies everything we thought we knew…

My mid-life crisis is going to last forever.

Doesn’t Every Poet Write a Poem About Unrequited Love?

By Mary Oliver

The flowers

I wanted to bring you,

wild and wet

from the pale dunes

and still smelling

of the summer night,

and still holding a moment or two

of the night cricket’s

humble prayer,

would have been

so handsome

in your hands —

so happy – I dare to say it –

in your hands –

yet your smile

would have been nowhere

and maybe you would have tossed them

onto the ground,

or maybe, for tenderness,

you would have taken them

into your house

and given them water

and put them in a dark corner

out of reach.

In matters of love

of this kind

there are things we long to do

but must not do.

I would not want to see

your smile diminished.

And the flowers, anyway,

are happy just where they are,

on the pale dunes,

above the cricket’s humble nest,

under the blue sky

that loves us all.

Today is Suzie’s birthday, and after Andy she’s probably the person I get asked about the most, based on what I write in this blog, and put up on FaceBook or Twitter or Instagram. I like that, the way that the people who are most important to me have become a cast of characters that other people care enough to inquire about.  As for Miss Thang, she will likely be spending her special day working and taking care of the family as per usual (we will have celebrated in NY at dinner and an Imelda Marcos musical by the time this gets posted.) Whenever I start complaining about how much I have to do or wonder where I’m going to find the time to do it, I think of Suzie and instantly shut the hell up.

She’ll be moving out of Brooklyn this month, which is something she’s been waiting and wanting to do for a while, but without a definitive plan or destination in mind, she and the family will probably be staying with her Mom for a bit. Selfishly, I’m a little excited, as we haven’t lived this close to each other since the 90’s.

Happy Birthday, Suzie! Here’s to fried clams, Mary Poppins, grape taffy, red lobsters, ham-bone, and Pinocchio. (I only really remember five of those references… what was ham-bone again?)