The new hangover is waking up to an e-mail notification that an order was received, with a little picture of an Egyptian headdress or other such nonsense telling me I sleep-ordered some ludicrous piece of trash that is being delivered in two days.
This pair of magenta blooms is currently lighting up the garden – the first is a brilliant rose campion – small of stature and size, its color is so potent it shows itself from any distance, piercing through the green surroundings with its clarion-call. The second is a smaller monarda – bee balm – that was a bit of a lark when I planted it a couple of years ago, and it’s come back again. I like a survivor. And I love this color.
You have your summer memories, I have mine. Let’s make a new one together to this classic Donna Summer cover of ‘MacArthur Park’; it fits into the Solid Gold Summer theme rather loosely, as Alysa Liu won her gold medal skating to this song. Consider it gold-adjacent via the Winter Olympics. A campy golden reference that is deceptively at odds with how deep this post may go. For now, let’s get lost in the cheesy drama of a pressed pair of striped pants or a cake being left out in the rain…
AND THE OLD MEN PLAYING CHINESE CHECKERS BY THE TREES
There is something both insanely ridiculous and incredibly moving about the words and imagery and music here. When you’re in the throes of heartbreak, when you find yourself suddenly left behind and out of love, you do what you have to do to cope and survive. Sometimes that’s in a cheesy pop song (see ‘Bye Bye Bye’ by N’Sync for how I got over one previous paramour) and sometimes that’s in more probing mind tricks.
MACARTHUR’S PARK IS MELTING IN THE DARK
ALL THE SWEET GREEN ICING FLOWING DOWN
SOMEONE LEFT THE CAKE OUT IN THE RAIN
I DON’T THINK THAT I CAN TAKE IT ‘CAUSE IT TOOK SO LONG TO BAKE IT
AND I’LL NEVER HAVE THAT RECIPE AGAIN
Can you force yourself to feel or not feel things? I used to think you couldn’t force your way out of either of them, but I don’t know if that’s entirely true. So much of life is in our perception and perspective – change those and you change what you might actually feel. Like grieving or lost love. Is it better to allow ourselves to feel all of it, to embrace the sorrow and hurt and get into it, or does that run the risk of diving deeper and possibly irreparably into an everlasting funk? The past few years I’ve leaned into feeling all of it, even when it sucked, even when it hurt, because I understood that burying it all inside wasn’t helpful or healthy.
THERE WILL BE ANOTHER SONG FOR ME AND I WILL SING IT
AFTER ALL THE LOVES OF MY LIFE, YOU’LL STILL BE THE ONE
‘Fake it until you make it‘ was how I made it through my college years and early 20’s. Sometimes you have to hang curtains of glistening gold material to hide the scaffolding and machinations behind building the bones and structure of self-worth. I know I can do that – I’ve trained myself to shift my perception and perspective, to coldly and analytically examine my feelings then take them carefully and resolutely apart, rendering them mere sections and segments, bits and parts and pieces of something that once constituted something grander. But do I want to do that anymore? I’m conflicted.
I WILL TAKE MY LIFE INTO MY HANDS AND I WILL USE IT
I WILL WIN THE WORSHIP IN THEIR EYES AND I WILL LOSE IT
I WILL HAVE THE THINGS THAT I DESIRE
AND MY PASSION FLOWS LIKE RIVERS FROM THE SKY
OH AND AFTER ALL THE LOVES OF MY LIFE,
AFTER ALL THE LOVES IN MY LIFE
YOU’LL STILL BE THE ONE AND I’LL ASK MYSELF WHY…
As we embark upon this Solid Gold Summer, it is worth noting that there is nothing solid about summer. There is only irony, hollowness, emptiness – the sheen, the shell, the facade. There is no sure footing here. Every step is perilous and you must watch for slips and falls, cracks and ruin, degradation and destruction like some marble faun sculpture falling to the ground and smashing into pieces. Fake gold, false gods, imitation metal – there is nothing real to this summer. Reality is dead.
Along those lines, there is no such thing as a stable summer either. The atmosphere is too volatile, the conditions too prime for tornadoes and hurricanes – the peaks and valleys too high and too deep for a smooth base of stability or permanence.
Only one song will do for this day – and it’s the ‘Second Night of Summer‘, literally and musically, as we do our annual post of this ditty that somehow grows in resonance with each passing year. Summer is maddening and magical like that. It reeks of ambivalence and doubt, while emitting heady hope and impossibly intoxicating fantasies.
It’s also the time for short shorts and thigh-high breezes.
This summer will never be what you think it’s going to be, especially in these parts.
I don’t even know what’s to come – how could you?
Still, summer is fun, and that’s all we can do – have fun.
Only the second day of summer is at hand, and we are already recapping things, which means the tail-end of spring (and my tail end) is also encapsulated here. Have at the links within this weekly blog recap, and as fronted by a golden sunflower.
This first day of summer also happened to be Father’s Day, something we haven’t really celebrated since losing Dad three years ago. There’s no longer an overwhelming sadness or despondency that comes from that, though my melancholic mood of late didn’t help matters. To combat that, I made a day of driving and exploring and keeping busy to keep my mind off darker thoughts.
First, I made a pasta casserole and dropped it off for Mom, who had taken a spill on Friday, resulting in a bad black eye and cut head; my incredulous annoyance at her not going to the doctor was likely expected as she didn’t bother to tell me any of what happened until Saturday. Nurses often make the most obtuse patients; if this had happened to her children or grandchildren it would have most definitely been checked out by a doctor, but what can I do? It’s too upsetting to do anything more than keep my distance and hope that people do right for themselves.
I then stopped by the hospital to visit Dad. The cemetery would have likely been busy with others visiting their dead dads, and I didn’t want to share misery. Besides, I never really feel like my Dad is there – if he is, it’s on the periphery, in the shade of the evergreens, not wanting to be bothered. Instead, when I want to feel closer to him I go to the hospital where he worked, where I have many memories of him being vibrantly alive and beloved by his co-workers. I sat in the chapel and spoke to him a bit, then stopped by the cafeteria, near the room he once had me stay in when he had to pick me up on a day I got sick at school. I feel him more keenly there.
Afterward, I took a long drive. This weekend I’ve been doing a lot of driving – it affords solitude, and time and space to think. Mourning the end of spring feels rougher this year. I drove along the backroads outside my hometown, where the corn was barely knee-high, the hills were gently rolling, and the clouds and sky were making scenes primed for painting. I forget how beautiful the world can be when spring departs.
When I finally returned home, Andy had just put a couple of burgers on the grill – an ideal dinner for a fatherless household on this first day of summer. Later in the afternoon, while Andy was napping, I went for a swim. I haven’t been swimming as much since the summer of 2023. I went today in honor of my Dad. That was his habit when we were little kids.
Despite owning an in-ground pool and maintaining it meticulously during the summer months, my Dad didn’t enjoy swimming. He never went in the water on any of our vacations – not at the beach, not in the pools, and not in his own backyard. The one day he would deign to swim with us was Father’s Day – a noble act that was more of a gift to his kids than anything he actually enjoyed. The signs of a father’s love are often hidden, often deep, and often deeply held. That was always one of them.
At the end of today, I went in our pool and thought of Dad. I wasn’t sad about him – there were more other pressing matters to be sad about – and I wasn’t overcome the way I was earlier in the car listening to some of his favorite songs. It felt peaceful, it felt calm. It was a good ending to the first day of summer.
A little 70’s/80’s summer magic for your listening pleasure as we enter the Solid Gold Summer of 2026. Olivia Newton-John and the Electric Light Orchestra bring us this classic golden nugget from ‘Xanadu’. Haters shall hate at their own disgruntled peril.
AND IF ALL YOUR HOPES SURVIVE DESTINY WILL ARRIVE I’LL BRING ALL YOUR DREAMS ALIVE FOR YOU I’LL BRING ALL YOUR DREAMS ALIVE FOR YOU
As someone who very much embraces and enjoys solitude and alone time, I’ve also come to realize that we simply cannot do it alone. And as Winnie-the-Pooh once proclaimed, “It’s so much friendlier with two.” So for this summer, I’m going to endeavor to be a bit more social, a bit more friendly, a bit more open to speaking with people. This life can be difficult enough; if someone wants to share some of the burden, I’ll always be grateful for that. A summer of kindness and camaraderie doesn’t sound half-bad, and summers spent with friends are the very best sort of summers.
FROM WHERE I STAND YOU ARE HOME FREE THE PLANETS ALIGN SO RARE THERE’S A PROMISE IN THE AIR AND I’M GUIDING YOU THROUGH EVERY TURN I’LL BE NEAR YOU I’LL COME ANYTIME YOU CALL I’LL CATCH YOU WHEN YOU FALL I’LL BE GUIDING YOU
THE MORE THAT YOU LISTEN TO AND SLOWLY IT TURNS INTO GOLD…
Our summer theme ‘SOLID GOLD SUMMER’ takes its name somewhat ironically, as there will be nothing solid about the gold or the summer you are about to experience here. From its disco soundtrack to its sparkling metallic sheen, this kind of gold is superficial, surface, and hardly even skin-deep. It’s a gilded sort of decadence – empty of anything substantial, deceptively glowing as if it was something more – when sometimes summer is just a flash in the pan. It’s best to prepare for the letdown, to be ready for the fall when it comes, because it always – always – comes.
SOLID GOLD – FILLING UP MY LIFE WITH MUSIC
SOLID GOLD – PUTTING RHYTHM IN MY SOUL
THERE’S A SONG THAT’S UNREELING
TO FIT THE WAY THAT I’M FEELING
MY HEAD KEEPS SPINNING TO MUSIC, SPINNING TO GOLD…
And so the smoky voice of Dionne Warwick sets the scene and the stage for a summer of golden glory – just because it’s empty doesn’t mean it won’t sparkle and shine – and a gilded cage is as pretty as it is dangerous. Summer is a time ripe for that sort of ambivalence. It gives giddy hope, then dashes it into oblivion, the way it burns an early morning fog away. You’re left wondering what the hell actually happened, and how much was all in the foggy recesses of your head.
Summer is as much the sweet and juicy watermelon as it is the gleaming knife that cuts it all into dripping pieces of blood-red wreckage. It burns its golden suns into each day, gold melting into gold, becoming one and returning to the cauldron of night and heat.
I’VE COME TO DISCOVER
THAT MUSIC’S A LOVER
ITS HEAT KEEPS ME WARM WHEN I’M COLD
THE BEAT STARTS TO BEND ME
THE MELODIES SEND ME
AND EVERYTHING MELTS INTO GOLD…
This summer we shall dip ourselves in the gold, letting it burn and cover our bodies like the spinning sun, letting it light our hearts aflame and afire – burning with the kind of intensity that only lasts for a single summer. Dare we fly so close and approximate the risky trajectory of Icarus? How dare we not? Better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all…?
A telling question mark to end that one. I’m too old to completely believe in that anymore, but I’m too young to entirely give it up. The knife of summer cuts many ways. What will this one bring? Only the rise and fall of many suns will tell… and some summers simply hurt.
SOLID GOLD – FILLING UP MY LIFE WITH MUSIC
SOLID GOLD – PUTTING RHYTHM IN MY SOUL
THERE’S A SONG THAT’S UNREELING
TO FIT THE WAY THAT I’M FEELING
MY HEAD KEEPS SPINNING TO MUSIC, SPINNING TO GOLD…
SOLID GOLD!
“Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day? Thou art more lovely and more temperate: Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May, And summer’s leash hath all too short a date.” – William Shakespeare
The spring of 2026 marked my 50th spring on this earth, yet for all those years behind me, I still somehow felt like a giddy virgin on the cusp of piercing my rose-budded flower for much of this season. A shift in view-point perhaps, or a subtle new way of viewing things as if for the very first time – whatever the reason, this spring was a renewal, fueled in part by a fun mid-life crisis (my fourth if anyone’s counting, and I most certainly am because this will be the last if I have to end it myself). That made for some interesting inner-turmoil, largely left unsaid on this blog because the world gets enough of a kick out of seeing me in any sort of duress. As the final post for this spring, here’s a linky look back at some of the more memorable entries of this lilac-themed spring season.
A sweaty underwear post, gratuitously leading into this naked ass pic, fulfilling the ‘back end’ reference of the blog post title, and earning the ‘Gratuitous Nudity’ category click.
As I careen through this third or fourth mid-life crisis (how unfair that certain people should have more than one, enough to lose count) I find myself in a contemplative mood as we near the end of spring. On the day this is being written, a thrashing of wind with an occasional outburst of rain wreaks havoc with the outside world. I watch from the window, hearing the mad rush over the roof and through the trees, their branches waving wildly in the shifting air. This music feels apt for the moment at hand, when the heart yearns to be still and quiet amid all the noise, emotional and otherwise.
Tornado warnings have been issued for our surrounding area. The sky in the distance has an enormous bank of dark clouds – ominously churning and moving in ways that clouds don’t usually move – headed in our direction. Inside of me, the heart now churns too, in ways that my heart doesn’t usually churn.
Outside, another banana leaf unfurls in the humidity and heat before the deluge. A glimpse of sun suddenly and somewhat ominously appears – it feels sickly, it feels off. It feels so wrong. Spring, ending on a tortured note; summer, hesitant to appear. I’m not ready for either.
Holding on to this spring – or any spring for that matter – is folly and madness. I don’t know why we bother, other than to make the inevitable end more miserable when it finally does arrive. Perhaps I had it right simply celebrating all those starts to summer instead of mourning the stops to spring. Now I am lost, mourning and missing and moving toward something I can’t quite see yet…
This slow-burn of a song, ‘The Sky is Crying‘, feels like a fitting start to the finale of spring, which arrives in a pair of blog posts tomorrow. (Forewarned is fair-warned: there is some stripped-down nakedness in one of them to go along with the soul-baring.)
Matching the music’s agitated unrest, the weather decided to get all kinds of dramatic for spring’s penultimate evening. It is unsettled weather. The wind is chaotic – swirling out of nowhere one minute, departing and instantly dropping its power the next. The clouds are Cumulonimbus – enormously imposing, like some stretch of formidable mountains, or some impossibly deep, drowning sea.
Sunlight appears in patches, sometimes backed by a bright blue, sometimes disappearing behind gray. It’s not as uneasy as yesterday’s tornado warnings had us feeling, but it was distressed weather, and the sky wasn’t sure what it wanted to do other than warn us of something. Spring wasn’t quite ready to let go and summer was not sure she should appear. What are we to make of all this? It feels like too much.
Spring has traditionally been a tricky emotional time – thawing the brutality of winter with a tender bit of rebirth, and even if we’ve been here countless times before, it always feels fresh and exciting and new. It gives the heart a giddy spin, swirling on the sweet perfume of apple blossoms and Korean viburnum. The intoxicating magic of a spring evening. It swirls differently on the eve of its last day, portending of summer uneasiness, summer ambivalence, summer blues…
These days, when faced with adversity or setbacks or the simple/profound toll the years of life take on a person, I find myself able to put just about everything on autopilot until such time that I can finally find some safe sanctuary in which to cry or break down or feel all of the things. That means I can go to work, keep this blog updated on the daily (it helps to have a schedule of postings up about a week in advance), post social media promos, and hang with family and friends all while my inner existence is crumbling.
At somewhat odds with the above is the realization that thanks to several years of serious therapy, I’ve learned not to keep it all bottled up – and my friends will vouch and attest that I’m much more open about talking about the shittier parts of life. My therapist would certainly second that, as she’s heard it all. Sometimes, in fact, I’m too open and blunt about what I’m feeling – and that cuts both ways.
Mostly though, I still process things on the inside, at least in the beginning, putting on a happy social media countenance and profile pic, a gleefully sardonic work persona, and a wise-cracking fun-guncle sidekick image for family and friend gatherings. It’s a state of autopilot and survival in one – and I’ve learned how to navigate the emotional storms in such a way as not to cause any damaging or long-term disruptions. Surely there’s a toll of some sort, and I’ll work it out in other ways. Being an adult of a certain age means sucking some things up, carrying on, and doing it all with a broken heart.
PS – Check out the new profile pic below – it’s only going up for a few days as our summer season on this website is about to change things up…
Astute viewers of the original ‘Sex & the City’ series may recognize the duvet cover here – the classic Calvin Klein ‘Bamboo’ pattern that once adorned Carrie Bradshaw’s bedroom was one of the first pieces I got for the Boston condo way back in the 90’s, and I put it back on the bed recently in a fit of 90’s nostalgia. Our recent BroSox Adventures will play a part in the first summer blog posts to come, so more on that later. For now, a more virtual return to Boston as I make plans for a few extended stays in that favored city – consider it retirement practice – for more than a weekend.
An earlier foray into a briefer retirement practice occurred in this post, and it concluded with a hopeful eye to the future. I’m even closer to it becoming reality (another five years or so) and after this month at work I feel that I’m already ready. To get into the habit, I’m going to take a few longer stints in Boston to see how it will work, and to acclimate myself to a schedule without a set schedule.
Something in your eyes, that tells me why I’m a fool for your own affection Only the love nothing more nothing less comes between us Temperatures rising my passion is burning inside
Embracing the rain is one key component to finding peace and happiness. We have no say in whether the day will be rainy or sunny; we do have a say – the final say – in how we react to the day. To find the joy and beauty in the rain is to unlock an easier way of maintaining joy. Sunny days make it easy to be joyful; enjoying the rainy ones ensures a more steady supply of euphoria.
You are my, My one true My world in lines You are my, My one true My world in lines
My world in lines saving all as one The love wich no-one can deny My one true light same for everyone A love we dare you to defy Only Rain
Catching cowboy fever was not on my fashion radar, but sometimes we become that which we resist. (I just found a summer cowboy hat in Boston, ordered my first pair of cowboy boots, and have big plans for cowboy/leather chic this fall.) It turns out that Western wear has some cheeky and brilliant undertones, as exemplified and explained by Cowboy Ed, owner and proprietor of London’s impressive Western clothing store Hey Cowboy!
Challenging and demolishing traditional gender boundaries, and turning the typical notions of Western wear on their head while embracing the intrinsically campy accoutrements like sequins, rhinestones, embroidery, and fringe, true Western wear has the spirit of defiance in its hidden history. Ed found his first Western hat while living in California many years ago, falling in love with the style and feeling at home whenever he found himself in said hat and cowboy boots. It was a love affair that led to a market stall of Western wear in 2021, and the Hey Cowboy! brick and mortar store which opened in London in 2023. If/when I finally make it back across the pond to visit London again, this place will be one of my first stops. Thanks to his eye for a classic cowboy look, coupled with a progressively-modern take on acceptance and harmony, Ed earns his first Dazzler of the Day crowning.
Our values are grounded in the West. There’s no denying that the Old West was the frontier of an aggressively expanding nation that mercilessly expropriated lands from native inhabitants. It was often lawless and violent. But it was also a place of accommodations, co-existence and freedoms. Black folk headed west to escape stricter racial hierarchies found elsewhere. Cowboys shared blankets and formed lifetime bonds. Many trans folk managed to live their gender identities as they pleased. Experiments with new ways of living from religious conservatives to labour movements to communes flourished in the west. Cowfolk always came in all genders, colours, sexualities and ways of thinking.
Cowboys are a masculine archetype. We’re okay with that, because we think masculinity is where much of the work needs to be done. Hey Cowboy! transmits an image of positive masculinity through the messages we put into the world and the pieces we design. A real cowboy treats all folks as equals. He stands against injustice, never goes back on his word and helps those who need it most. He speaks his mind, but doesn’t need to brag or boast. He mistrusts authority and has little time for status. He respects women. And of course, he always gets his man. Those are our values.
