Category Archives: General

Is there anything more gaudy and self-glorifying than a 4th of July celebration? I hope not, because this country can’t handle any more gaudiness or self-glorification right now. Of course, both of those are cornerstones of my wheelhouse – even if a wheel doesn’t technically have corners. Welcome to the more fun Independence Day post (as opposed to this more serious one where I still manage to front with an ass-shake, and will do again below). 

Happy Birthday America. You are all sorts of messy right now, but you remain beloved, and you will come back to your ideals and the dreams that made you possible in the first place. To return to a more serious and somber sentiment, and a hopefully hopeful note, here is a stunning poem by Amanda Gorman to close out the day.

“New Day’s Lyric” by Amanda Gorman

May this be the day
We come together.
Mourning, we come to mend,
Withered, we come to weather,
Torn, we come to tend,
Battered, we come to better.
Tethered by this year of yearning,
We are learning
That though we weren’t ready for this,
We have been readied by it.
We steadily vow that no matter
How we are weighed down,
We must always pave a way forward.

This hope is our door, our portal.
Even if we never get back to normal,
Someday we can venture beyond it,
To leave the known and take the first steps.
So let us not return to what was normal,
But reach toward what is next.

What was cursed, we will cure.
What was plagued, we will prove pure.
Where we tend to argue, we will try to agree,
Those fortunes we forswore, now the future we foresee,
Where we weren’t aware, we’re now awake;
Those moments we missed
Are now these moments we make,
The moments we meet,
And our hearts, once all together beaten,
Now all together beat.

Come, look up with kindness yet,
For even solace can be sourced from sorrow.
We remember, not just for the sake of yesterday,
But to take on tomorrow.

We heed this old spirit,
In a new day’s lyric,
In our hearts, we hear it:
For auld lang syne, my dear,
For auld lang syne.
Be bold, sang Time this year,
Be bold, sang Time,
For when you honor yesterday,
Tomorrow ye will find.
Know what we’ve fought
Need not be forgot nor for none.
It defines us, binds us as one,
Come over, join this day just begun.
For wherever we come together,
We will forever overcome.

Born down in a dead man’s town

The first kick I took was when I hit the ground

You end up like a dog that’s been beat too much

Till you spend half your life just covering up

Most people seem to have missed the deeper and darker meaning to Bruce Springsteen’s ‘Born in the U.S.A.’ Far from a celebratory anthem, it’s more of an indictment for our country and some of the atrocities its committed over its history. That feels more relevant than ever, as our Supreme Court recently robbed our women of their right to choose, gutted our environmental protections, and allowed for guns to be all but given out to any and all white supremacists who choose to carry. (It appears white men can choose, but no one else can.)

While I remain quietly hopeful that our country will do the right thing, and that this relatively small group of hateful people with hypocritical and heinous ideologies doesn’t end up running America, I’m also realistic, and I’ve seen how selfish and awful people can be. So I will celebrate America in a quieter way today – the America my parents taught me about – where freedom and acceptance are the true orders of the day – and I will pray for her speedy recovery. 

Daisy, Daisy

Give me your answer do

I’m half crazy

All for the love of you…

The small group of us sat huddled in a line, ordered by the notes we each held in our hand – one musical note from each little piece of a deconstructed marimba-like instrument. We were in fifth or sixth grade, and we sat in a side room to the main music room in the basement of McNulty School. The rest of the class continued with their musical studies while the few select students chosen to play ‘A Bicycle Built For Two’ in a mini-concert for the class. 

How I absolutely abhorred group activities.

Almost as much as I abhor ice-breaker activities. 

Such social anxiety wouldn’t be named or understood until decades later, and by then what did it really matter? Back then was when I needed to know, and I didn’t, but I trudged through, confident in my limited musical skills and well-liked enough to sail through this exercise in corn-dog musicality. 

We ran through the song what felt like a bazillion times, and someone always screwed it up. ‘This shouldn’t be so difficult,’ I thought to myself. What I voiced out loud was probably (definitely) more cutting. Social anxiety or not, I had my store of patience, and it wasn’t plentiful. When that was gone, I tended to go brazen and blunt. 

Yet I was not immune to the charms of working with a smaller group of people I’d have considered my friends at the time. As difficult as it sometimes was for me, I was also capable of ingratiating wit and charm, even as I cut down others – sometimes precisely because I could so deftly poke fun at others. In other words, I could be a hoot, and people genuinely enjoyed my company, if only to be entertained. It was apparent then that it wasn’t necessarily affection or adoration I could elicit – it was a sense of people waiting to see what I might say or do. There was a certain power in that, and a certain emptiness. 

We worked through that silly song, over and over, until we had a pretty good grasp of it. Of course when we performed it for an audience we inevitably fell apart – not horribly, we just weren’t perfect – an early lesson on accepting imperfection, and one that I fought against for the ensuing years, foolishly and regrettably. 

Anyway, the daisy will occasionally bring back those memories of grade school, and banding together with my classmates and friends, left briefly on our own to work toward something as a group.

I still prefer to bloom on my own.  

While this blog swims slowly into the likely fall and winter of its lifespan, there is still room for a gratuitous tease and skin-friendly post for summer. Still time for shirtless male celebrities, or gratuitous nudity, or other such click-dick-bait. Still time for summer to shimmy and sweat and dive into the coolness of a day by the pool. Still time… still time… 

A fitting final image for the end of Pride Month, this collection of hand washes from Stonewall Kitchen marks a subtle nod to the rainbow, while reminding of our last trip to Ogunquit. Anything that brings back such a happy memory is worthy of a blog post, no matter how brief. Happy Friday – and Happy Pride!

The bridge between the FaceBook/Twitter crowd and the SnapChat/TikTok crowd seems to be found in a single name and space: Instagram. Somewhat regrettably, I don’t focus much on my Instagram account, but I’m trying to change that, especially since so much of my previous creative endeavors have focused on visual elements. 

The lagging interest in my Instagram account is indicative of a larger lagging in much of my social media lately – and quite simply I’m just not that interested. Most of my posts are in service of this website and any new blog entries. 

Both FaceBook and Twitter have gotten mired down with the awfulness that is so prevalent these days (and I am guilty of Tweeting the hell out of our present political predicament) so Instagram is usually a safer space for viewing flowers and pretty things, and for keeping things light and whimsical. We need more of that. 

So go on and follow my foolish ass on Instagram here. (You know you want it!)

After a glorious weekend, it seems the weather has caught up with the general sentiment of the sane and humane people of our country. These are dark times, my friends – a worldwide pandemic rages on, the rights of women are being stripped and set back fifty years, and one whole political party would rather see guns available to all than safe and affordable healthcare. Whenever the world deals us a blow against human rights – and as a member of the LGBTQ+ community I have personally felt more than a few of them over my lifetime – I tend to turn to my chosen person, hunker down in our home, and shut the outside world out. So it was that we spent this weekend by the pool, working in the gardens (mostly watering to keep things alive in such heat) and watching a movie to lighten the mood (in this case it was ‘Spotlight’, the one about the Catholic priests who molested thousands of kids in Boston). On with the rainy recap…

Do you remember how we used to live?

A song for a summer night, because music hits differently in the heat. 

A summer friend returns. 

Little drops of sun on the ground. 

Finally enough love, but never enough Madonna. 

A trio of summer smiles. 

Because Pride still matters – perhaps now more than ever. 

Lulled by the sea and drawn by the undertow of downtime, this year’s BroSox Adventure was everything Skip and I wanted it – and needed it – to be. 

Speaking now or forever hold your rights.

An old love rekindled. 

A simple but divine summer dinner. 

Dazzlers of the Day included Billy Reilich and Fabio Bonavento. 

It was the summer of 1987 and at the ripe old age of twelve I’d already fallen in love. 

Even more strange was that I hadn’t even seen the object of my desire in person – only pictures and images in catalogs and books – yet I knew what my heart wanted. 

It wasn’t Madonna, who was about to unleash the fabulous song (and wretched movie) called ‘Who’s That Girl’. It wasn’t the school jock who lived a few blocks away, though we’d shared a tender good-bye to childhood right about that time. It wasn’t even a person. 

My heart belonged to a flower – an iris. 

Enraptured by Lee Bailey’s stunning photos and descriptions of the various iris plants he grew, I’d been under their spell even though the only ones I’d ever seen in real life had been the common bearded variety, which bloomed rather early in the season. Suzie’s family garden had a big bed of them, and to this day their spicy fragrance brings me back to those idyllic days. 

While the bearded iris and their tubers were lovely, I longed for something more rare, and something that bloomed deeper into the summer months. I wanted the Japanese iris. 

As described by Mr. Bailey, these were magnificent plants that held butterfly-like blooms high in the air, elegantly and delicately swaying in the slightest breeze. They came in purple and white, and new hybridizers were working on pinks. Though I searched for them everywhere, the closest I could find was a Siberian iris, which more than happily filled the hole in my heart. 

My Mom allowed me two Siberian iris plants from Faddegon’s, and I planted them near the front of our perennial border that June. They already had buds on them, and I would eagerly return home from school and bolt to the backyard to see if they had bloomed. It seemed to take forever – almost the entire month went by before they deigned to open up. When at last they did, their dark purple flowers were as beautiful as I’d anticipated – a rare moment when expectation met reality, and the heart sang for such a gorgeous sight. Those Siberian iris would expand each year, and eventually I would separate them and re-plant them, sending some to friends, moving others to various spots in the yard, and to this day there is a big clump of them in my parents’ backyard, and one in mine as well. 

That is not, however, the plant you see pictured here. This is the long-sought-after Japanese iris, the original holder of my heart, and that first brush with plant love was rekindled this week when it finally came into bloom after years of neglect. 

When we first moved into our home, I couldn’t wait to try a Japanese iris. I planted it in a space off of the pool, but far from a hose or water source, and somewhat in the shade, which meant it didn’t get the wet and sunny conditions it thrives in. Other plants filled in and took over my attention, so this one blended into the background, its handsome sword-like leaves standing on their own and giving a striking vertical element to the space, but no blooms came, so I sort of gave up on it. 

As the best of perennials do, it came back year after year, producing a relatively small fan of leaves, but nothing else, until I was about to dig it out last year. Fortunately, there was a new space created by a cherry we’d cut down (shout out to George Washington), and with nothing else to fill it, I moved the iris there. It was close to the hose at last, and I decided to pamper it a bit for a year to see what it might produce. As the season progressed, and I kept the watering up, along with some fertilization, the leaves expanded and grew into a fine and impressive clump – much thicker and more robust than any other year. It must have liked all the new sun and nourishment it was getting, but it was too soon for a flower to show up, so I put it to bed last fall with the hope of something better this year.

The reward came this past week, when it unfurled these majestic blooms, beautifully veined and accented with little throats of golden sunshine, and my love affair with the iris was instantly rekindled. (I’m once again on the hunt for a pink variety…)

It is difficult to put into exact words the mix of anger, rage, weariness, fright, worry, and determination I feel after hearing of the Supreme Court’s rulings on abortion and guns this past week. That the highest court of our great country is now populated by a majority of people completely and entirely out of step with the majority of America is a problem many of us predicted when Donald Trump was running against Hillary Clinton in 2016, and these are the fruits of that disastrous election. The man who incited and executed an attempted coup of America, the man who refused to act like a true American and participate in the orderly transition of leadership, and the man who was more focused on illegally extending his role as President than helping us through the COVID pandemic, installed three of the justices who are now stripping Americans of their rights. All three of those justices lied under oath when they claimed Roe versus Wade was settled law and they saw no need to change it. 

Most people who lie on their job application or during their job interviews don’t end up getting the job, or are subsequently fired from the job. That’s how it works, unless you’re on the Supreme Court, where honesty and integrity and basic human decency no longer matter.

Many of us understand that this is precisely what the Republican Party has been working toward for years. It’s why I was so adamant that every Presidential election was also a Supreme Court election. These awful decisions are also enshrined in the current Republican platform, and the only way to begin righting the wayward ship that America has become is to vote them out in this year’s elections, and all elections, until they start speaking for the people they represent. 

I am lucky enough to never have been in a situation where abortion would have to be a choice for me, and if I were, I don’t know what that decision would be. But that should be a personal decision for anyone and everyone faced with that choice – because it is a choice. The right to choose doesn’t infringe on anyone else’s rights – taking away that choice absolutely does. 

For those who don’t believe abortion should be allowed, you absolutely have the right to those beliefs, and you have the right to not have an abortion. If you’ve been raped as a teenage girl, you have the right to carry the baby to term. If you have an ectopic pregnancy that will ultimately end up killing you, you have the right to see it through whatever might result. What you don’t have the right to do is tell another woman she can’t make her own choices. 

Our country must start to speak out against these decisions, and then we must vote against the party whose platform is officially against choice, against marriage equality, and against the very rights for which America was created. 

Our 2022 BroSox Adventure is now in the books, so while I recover and recuperate from a fun and relaxing weekend away, let’s examine the week that came before as we enter the week of Summer Officiale. On with the weekly recap…

Roses signified the month of June for one of my childhood heroes. 

How not to get a job in the future.

This homage to ‘A Streetcar Named Desire’ began a long while, but only last week did I find time to conclude its enchantment. 

I do love a sweet treat, even if they’re getting slightly less sweet as I get older. 

America’s favorite pastime and a return to a happy tradition. 

A toast to Andy’s Dad.

Pecking away at the pretty petunias.

A culprit caught in the act and saved by its own cuteness. 

Pass the popcorn and pay attention as this country documents history.

Happy Father’s Day!

A summer meadow, just before the season begins. 

Dazzlers of the Day included Joaquina Kalukango and Stuart Sox.

There was a time when we would walk through a meadow, admiring the wildflowers and lying down on soft mounds of grass, without worry of Lyme disease or fire ants, and the start of summer would signal nothing but hope and dreams. I can’t imagine lying down in a meadow now, and I mourn all those children who won’t have such a carefree sense of joy. Of course there are other joys that children today get, I just wonder how much of it is natural and how much is manufactured. Now I’m starting to sound like the old man I’m quickly becoming, and that was not the point of this post.

The meadow is the point. Because while the meadow may now have new inhabitants, good and bad, it remains largely the same – at least the idea of the meadow remains the same. These days, that’s sometimes all that remains, but it will have to be enough.  It is an idea of summer freedom, of carefree moments, of sun and heat and happiness. For me, it’s a collection of childhood memories, and some adult ones as well, as summer visits for three months of every year, and we are constantly adding to our memory vaults if we’re lucky. 

The meadows of my youth were mostly just fields that went unattended for a few months when school was out, but the glory of a meadow is how quickly it reclaims its form, even after being mowed down. I admire that resilience and ability to bounce back so quickly after attempted destruction. And even when shorn of her waving grains of future glory, the spirit of the meadow survives, locked in memory. Before this summer even arrives, I’m looking back at some summers that came before, and indulging in a little nostalgia. 

Are you watching the January 6 Hearings? 

Because you absolutely should be. 

This is our country’s history, happening and unfurling before our very eyes. 

It may be the last gasp of democracy as we know it.

If you don’t think that’s worth some of your attention, don’t be surprised if your vote, and your voice, are one day gone. 

The pesky destroyer of our petunia patch was caught in the act of more destruction, as seen in this GIF and photo of a snack of ornamental sweet potato leaves. Cheeky and bold, this bunny has captured our hearts, and Andy and I are helpless to do anything but watch with amusement and adoration, even as it takes out half of the garden. Some things are worth sacrificing for a little joy, and a couple of petunias and a sweet potato vine are a small price to pay for such entertainment. And the culprit is so tiny and cute, who can be mad about it?

Concluding this little homage to ‘A Streetcar Named Desire’, a cloud of feathers lends fantasy and freedom to the caged bird motif. A choker of pearls closes tightly around the throat – another cage, another coat of prettiness. Floating on a cloud of sheer ruffles, inhabiting a character like Blanche DuBois is now merely an exercise of play and passing an hour. Such glamorous trappings, such rotten interiors – who could sustain such a real life? 

“I’ve been on to you from the start! Not once did you pull any wool over this boy’s eyes! You come in here and sprinkle the place with powder and spray perfume and cover the light bulb with a paper lantern, and lo and behold the place has turned into Egypt and you are the Queen of the Nile! Sitting on your throne and swilling down my liquor!” ~ Tennessee Williams

“What I mean is – he thinks I’m sort of – prim and proper, you know! I want to deceive him enough to make him – want me.” ~ Tennessee Williams

“It’s dark in here… I don’t think I ever seen you in the light… What it means is I’ve never had a real good look at you.” ~ Tennessee Williams

“Yes, I had many intimacies with strangers… So I came here. There was nowhere else I could go. I was played out… and I met you. You said you needed somebody. Well, I needed somebody, too. I thanked God for you, because you seemed to be gentle – a cleft in the rock of the world that I could hide in!” ~ Tennessee Williams

Turner Movie Classics was playing ‘A Streetcar Named Desire’ the other night, and I was once again drawn into the magnificent madness of Tennessee Williams, and the delicate treatise on the cruelty and kindness of humanity. The brute aesthetic of Marlon Brando’s Stanley Kowalski was echoed in this blog post, because it’s fun to get dirty for a photo shoot, while the rough and tumble shower scene was re-interpreted in this slightly-racy sequence. Trying on the guise of brutal physicality, of dense and impenetrable hardness, was a fun step out of my comfort zone, and I always intended to do an interpretation of Vivien Leigh’s Blanche DuBois, which is where most people assume my natural inclinations lie. But that seemed too easy, too simple, to don a wig and some macabre eye-make-up, and the truth is I simply don’t make a very pretty woman, of any age to be painfully honest. That doesn’t mean I can’t embrace my own middle-aged manhood and cloak it in feathers and ruffles and sheet gossamer wonder. In fact, that sort of hybridization is what has fueled this blog for almost two decades. 

Rather than a recreation, as I’m far too old to even approximate Blanche DuBois (who was actually only around 30, and already being urged out to pasture) I’m simply luxuriating in her silk and satin trappings – all feathers and lace and pearls. As a gay man, I empathize with Blanche’s race against time, when being attractive is currency and a means of survival. When that begins to fade, a certain panic sets in if you haven’t devised a life apart from appearance, or if your appearance has been your only way to succeed. And though I do not know that level of attractiveness, I know the chilling effects of age. We will all know that, sooner or later. 

“I never was hard or self-sufficient enough. When people are soft – soft people have got to shimmer and glow – they’ve got to put on soft colors, the colors of butterfly wings, and put a… paper lantern over the light… It isn’t enough to be soft. You’ve got to be soft and attractive. And I… I’m fading now! I don’t know how much longer I can turn the trick.” ~ Tennessee Williams

“Yes, I have had many meetings with strangers.” ~ Tennessee Williams

“I don’t go in for that stuff… compliments to women about their looks. I never met a dame yet didn’t know she was good looking or not without being told. And I’ve met some of them who give themselves credit for more than they’ve got.” ~ Tennessee Williams

“We’ve made enchantment!” ~ Tennessee Williams