Category Archives: General

This is one of those photographs that can make me smile and lift the darkest mood, at least when it’s not cracking me up out loud as I recount the circumstances under which it was taken. The year was 1994. The setting was a cruise ship somewhere south of Florida. And the night was… windy. Very windy. Like, no-other-fools-were-on-deck-windy. And Suzie and I were trying to pose and keep our clothes on while our Moms snapped pictures. I think by the time this one was taken we were both laughing so hard and fighting against the wind so badly that it’s a miracle we were even upright. Suzie is clearly terrified that her peasant dress is going to fly away and my two-sizes-too-large gauze shirt from International Male is hanging on by a button and a prayer. And yet it remains one of my favorite photos ever taken.

Let’s be honest. (There really is no other way for me to be.) I was expecting a bit more from the last week: I was expecting an early turn into spring. And it never happened. Fortunately, there were things to heat up the winter doldrums, including a visit from my friend JoAnn, and a very special new Straight Ally Profile. Without further ado, here is the recap of what came before, as I prepare for  a Boston reunion with my pal Kira in the next weekend…

• The Straight Ally Profile series had its second installment featuring the magnificent Scott Herman – a straight ally super hero whose exterior was almost as gorgeous as his interior.

• Throw in some Justice, black & white artsy-fartsy shots, and Madonna with Anderson Cooper, and you have the last week. In a nut-sack.

With the time change and the shift in weather, this may be the week we finally turn the corner. I would like nothing more than to say farewell to this winter, the sooner the better. And while we won’t technically be there for a couple of weeks, I’m planning for the arrival of spring. First, however, a quick look back at this last hum-drum week:

• It was a week of food obsession – featuring everything from a rather dour dahl, to an exceptional kimchi fried rice (thanks to the Barefoot Contessa), some Lenten fish, and even a bit of movie popcorn.
• The men were brought and shown as the Hunk of the Day parade progressed, with the likes of a naked James Franco, Kellan Lutz, Jamie Foxx, Scott Caan, Todd Sanfield, Matt Carr, and, one of my faves, The Beekman Boys.

• Andy and I saw ‘Oz: The Great and Powerful‘, but thought it was more like The Beautiful and Empty.

It’s not often that I look back at old photo albums. That can be a very dangerous thing to do. I’m fortunate in that, for all my many failings, living in the past is not one of them. Yet every once in a  while I’ll crack open a blast from the seemingly-distant past, and I’ll chuckle at the many foibles and stumbles I’ve made over the years. The beauty of life – and, more especially, time – is that it is the greatest instructor. Mostly of what not to do. (And what not to wear. Ever again.)

In 1997, however, I was embroiled in ‘The Royal Rainbow Tour’ and its none-so-subtle-and-cringeworthy subtitle ‘Alan Is King!’ – and don’t you dare omit the exclamation point. The photos here were taken on one of the plentiful Ithaca stops, where – thanks to Suzie – I met a great group of friends, to whom I remain close to this very day.

As for my outfit, and this is where a certain distance comes in handy (I was a different person then, I swear…) I was on tour. I wanted to be golden, I wanted to be sparkly, I wanted to be a genie manifested to grant your every wish. And for that brief moment of time – in that sensational sliver of youth – I believed I was.

While at the movies the other day, I noticed a nifty way of getting around those ridiculously exorbitant popcorn prices. Since Andy doesn’t eat popcorn (he’s a Candy Man), it would be fruitless for us to put such a plan into employ, but the next time I’m in a group, it might be worth a shot. There was a trio to our left: a woman and her daughter, and a guy who appeared, by all indications of his over-the-top and overbearing attempts to be funny and loud and gregarious, to be dating the woman and trying out for the role of fun step-father (but only ended up looking foolish, boorish, and idiotic). They had a large popcorn (the size that gets you free refills) and a tray with something else on it (nachos maybe? Who on earth orders nachos at the movies?) He removed the nachos or whatever other foul item that was there, and poured the bulk of his popcorn into the tray. He then went back out to the lobby and refilled it before the movie started. I thought it was an anomaly, until it happened again.

The family to our right, an interracial couple with three kids (and these kids were gorgeous, especially the oldest girl – the magic of an Asian father and a Caucasian mother) also had a large popcorn, then proceeded to produce several large plastic ziplock bags. The father filled the bags with popcorn, and each kid got one of their own. He then went out to get the bucket filled for him and his wife.

Is this what we’re doing now? Is this the only way to combat the ever-rising price of popcorn at the movies? Because I’m game. The only problem is I can barely finish a medium popcorn, much less a large – and much less two large buckets of the stuff. This is the stuff of group enterprises.

By the way, I’ve often wondered this with those free refills: let’s say you finish your large popcorn by the end of the movie – can you then get a refill on the way out? And if so, how come you never see people leaving the theater with full buckets of popcorn? I mean, even if you don’t want to eat it then and there, people will take free shit they don’t need or would ever use simply because it’s free. Just a thought for a Sunday morning.

… but not as awful as the more atrocious reviews and commentary would have one believe. ‘Oz – The Great and Powerful’ – a new telling of ‘The Wizard of Oz’ story focusing on the Wizard and how he came to be ‘The Wizard’ as well as how the witches related before Dorothy arrived – was actually a visually-arresting, but not entirely spellbinding event movie. I have yet to see a Sam Raimi film I loved enough to see again (not even the oft-lauded ‘Spiderman’) and this was par for that plodding course.

I’d say at least 45 minutes could have been judiciously excised (there is no need for munchkins to sing except in the original film version – their song and dance routine stopped this movie completely for me) and as much as I love Mila Kunis, (spoilerish bit straight ahead…), she did not translate well to the Wicked Witch of the West. As integral and indelible as that character has become (thanks to the movie, the musical, and Gregory Maguire’s masterful novel ‘Wicked’), the Disney version is just that – too Disney and white-washed, when what we need is a green terror.

The screechy, cackling, and fire-ball-hurling temper was wholly lacking in any tangible bit of the terrifying, perhaps because of the nearly-humanless CGI-heavy form she inhabits after her transformation. It’s an odd choice, given that the story tips on the ingenuity and resourcefulness of humans and our ability to conjure illusions so convincingly. Raimi would have done better to take note of his own lesson.

As it stands, it’s a nice, if slow at-times, re-imagining of that well-tread yellow-brick road, even if it ultimately rings hollow. But nice, as Stephen Sondheim once noted, is different than good.

It may seem strange to some, but I don’t eat meat on Fridays during Lent. My last bit of Catholic-raised guilt finds a home here, and it’s difficult to explain since I’ve been rather vocal about my issues with the Catholic church – particularly under the homophobic regime of the don’t-let-the-door-hit-you-on-the-way-out Pope. For me, though, it’s less about the religion and more about the ritual. It’s an act of sacrifice (I love me some meat, on a daily basis), but not in any real way (I also love me some fish – or lobster – or pizza). It’s more about just being mindful of something, and making a motion in honor of something I once believed.

In a way, it’s my own show of love for God – no matter how trivial or trifling. Not unlike giving something up for Lent, it’s an act to mark this time of year in the Catholic calendar. It doesn’t mean I subscribe to the dogma or the hate in any way. At its heart, it’s the one ritualistic remnant of faith I’ve retained – a largely inconsequential covenant that is more of a reminder of the story of Jesus – a story rife with love and forgiveness – two things we could all use – and two things that have always proven difficult for me to master. Whether or not one wants to believe in the big JC, there are valuable lessons to be learned from his story, and God knows I need them more than most.

For a few weeks at the end of Winter, when my faith and sanity are usually tested the most, I give up meat on Fridays. It just makes me more aware of things – the time of year, the state of my life, the condition of my spirit – and how can something like that be wrong? Andy rolls his eyes before diving into his ham sandwich, and I’m intelligent enough to understand there may be more than a little bit of superstition involved in my actions, but sometimes the heart over-rules the head, and a lifetime of tradition is tough to break.

In those days, did I know, then? Did I know what was to come, how it would all unfold, how it was futile to worry about what could not be changed? Of course not. How could anyone? A vague sense of worry or unease came with every thunderstorm, a gnawing, nagging bit of fear with every front. Yet after the storms always came the sudden sun, sometimes unexpectedly, and always welcome, and we rejoiced in it. How I wish I’d known then how easy it would be, at least as far as the things I worried about. There would be heartache more real and damaging than anything imagined at that point.

But we did not know that then.

It was an angst-ridden week, both mentally and physically, most of which I’d rather not re-hash, so we’ll keep things light and smutty. Really, there’s no better way to squeak through these final weeks of Winter than pretending nothing really matters, so let’s just pretend.

There were hunks to catch the eye, including Stuart Reardon getting his kit off atop Louis Vuitton, David Bromstad creating his own shirtless color splash, Eliad Cohen showing off a rather fine pelt of fur, and Mike Ruiz coming out from behind the lens in fine form.

I couldn’t quite wait for Spring to arrive to enjoy a big bouquet of daffodils, so I splurged on these. It was worth far more than what I paid, because you can’t put a price on temporary sanity, particularly if it saves lives.

Finally, and most importantly, this past week marked the fifteenth anniversary of Madonna’s ‘Ray of Light’ album. The title song itself just happened to be the next in line for the Madonna Timeline write-up, so I waited a few extra days to give it pride of place among the posts of March third.

On that happy note, let’s end the recap, because the rest of the week was as ugly as it was upsetting. Here’s to turning the corner…

It’s a strange thing to hear your pulse running through your ear, but whether it was the sinus issue I’ve had, the stomach flu that finally caught me, or the deliriousness that resulted when both collided, I could hear my pulse in my ear, coupled with the steady, quick breathing I managed to muster through all the blocked passages. This is the worst bout of sickness I’ve had in a rather sickly stretch of winter weeks. For some reason, someone is telling me to slow down and take better care of myself, and truth be told I haven’t cared enough to do that. Better to thrash and crash and blaze the glory.

But this one is different – it feels different. It gave me pause, as I laid on the bed, blinking in the silence, staring at some obscure spot neither here nor there, and listening to my heart and my breath. It was telling me to stop. It was telling me to listen. It was telling me to learn. The secret is in the silence. In my breathing. In your heart. So let’s stop. Just… stop.

UPDATE #1: I spent an incredibly dissatisfying night tossing and turning, stuck smack dab in between the coldest bouts of shivering chills and the hottest, most uncomfortable sweating sessions, with no happy middle ground. My empty stomach burned, and I felt on the verge of throwing up, but how would that even have been possible when I’d expelled everything I had to give a few hours prior? There was nothing left to give the toilet.

I awoke in a state of slight confusion, mollified by the delivery of a Brooks Brothers order. But who can think of dressing up at a time like this? While not hungry, I knew if I didn’t eat then I’d probably pass out, or start sending texts that would rival the drunkest night, and nobody would stand for that, so I tried a small bit of soup and that stupid sickness stand-by – Saltines. So far, it has stayed down, but these are early days yet. Stay tuned…

UPDATE #2: Oh God, this is not over yet. There are rumblings from afar… getting closer. Someone just suggested that I have an abortion. If it would help at this point, I would, even if there are NO WIRE HANGERS in this house…

UPDATE #3: Good Lord, I think my stomach is about to recreate a scene from ‘Alien’ here…

UPDATE #4: Sweet Baby Jesus, my mother has just suggested I try the BRAT diet.  It consists of bananas, rice, applesauce and plain toast. I think it was her passive-aggressive way of telling me I’m a brat and kicking me when I’m down.

UPDATE #5: If the point of the BRAT diet is to run through you like a marathon, then yes, it works.

But not quite dilapidated and old yet. The resurrecting of former posts is a thing I usually save for year-end recaps or anniversaries, but when feeling under the weather, I occasionally delve into nostalgia, or simply scrape the barrel to find scraps of things that together will assemble into a proper post when I’m too light-headed and delirious to do it the right way. Hence this smorgasbord of previous posts, assembled and conveniently hyper-high-lighted to give you access to posts that otherwise may have gone mercifully unnoticed prior to this. It appears my sentences get longer and more convoluted as this post goes on, twisting and turning into… oh blah, blah, blah. Here, read some things that may make more sense:

Like the First Time I Kissed a Man…

Or the Madonna Timeline of the earliest of Spring…

And one of the first letters I wrote to my niece & nephew…

Long before Madonna got spanked by Instagram, I got spanked by FaceBook…

And an Ilagan tradition, that was supposed to be just between brothers.

Maybe it wasn’t ever easy being a man, but it was surely easier when what you were to wear, whether armor or the loincloth of a slave, was handed to you off the rack at birth, along with what you were expected to feel and do. ~ Mark Merlis, An Arrow’s Flight

He had allowed men to love him; he had never induced it.

Really, never at all? Not the way he had dressed, or the attitudes he had struck when he had sensed that an attitude was desired? All right, he was practiced in making himself lovable. Men didn’t just happen upon him in a state of nature and fall head over heels. Still, it was one thing to put forth your little generic flower of masculinity and wait for some bee to come suck it, and quite another to set your sights on one particular bee. ~ Mark Merlis, An Arrow’s Flight

I didn’t feel it until this week: the antsy anticipation for spring to arrive. Up until now I’d been keeping my head down and shuffling along, bundled up and trudging through the endless unfurling of winter, in the hopes that when I looked up again spring would be on the horizon. I looked up too soon. We’re nowhere near it. The frigid temperatures, the wind, and the snow and sleet are instead indicative of a winter not content to take flight anytime soon. This refusal to yield has proven problematic in the past. Usually it results in some last-ditch-effort at sanity-retrieval in the form of a trip South. I am looking into it as I write this, because there is nothing here that appeals to me.