Say what you may about Whitney Houston, the lady at her best could sing better than anyone else in the world. Far more than that, I have to believe that she did the best she could do, and it couldn’t have been easy all the time. I remember the first time I saw the clip above – back then I was just starting to tire of the Bobby Brown antics and the drug rumors and all the rest of it, but then she walked out onto that stage all by herself, and at the 01:12 mark I felt the incredible power and loneliness she must have felt – alone on that stage in the glaring lights – what it was like to put yourself out there for the whole world to judge and ridicule and condemn – to have a family and a career and the incredible pressure to be absolutely perfect in every way. The camera angle at that moment somehow captures that more than any words could have, and the simple way she turns this Dolly Parton song into an anthem of determination, of loving who you are going to love no matter what – well, it moved me. From that moment to this one, I was a fan of her talent, despite its accompanying demons. We all have them.
September
2012
September
2012
Names & Faces
On a recent rainy night, I perused FaceBook and Twitter, seeking out friends or acquaintances, anything to alleviate the boredom and stagnation. A slice of life paraded before me ~ status updates, tweets, and posts of people I loved or knew or had never even met – and somehow we were all connected, loosely or tightly, in the fabric of existence, the tapestry of being online, of being in this world, of simply being ~ and I suddenly felt an ache in my heart. Typing alone before  a glowing computer screen, as Andy watched television in another room, I was struck with the sublimity and the absurdity of it all. Is this what we have been reduced to? Or is this evolution? I was torn. Music and videos and pictures, art and beauty and ugliness and hatred ~ all at our fingertips, waiting to entice, waiting to entrap – and through it all I hope for something more, for some human connection where this means more than the motions, more than the sum of its parts… and for all the bells and whistles and elegant design, I remember a summer day at the beach, dripping sand onto a sand castle just before it washed away, and how much more that meant – how much more that will always mean. And the very foundation upon which this entire site is built suddenly washes away with less grace than that sand castle did.
September
2012
Milo Ventimiglia’s Banging Butt
Sometimes an actor’s talent gets lost amid all the other assets he has on display. Such is the case with Milo Ventimiglia, whose performances tend to get overshadowed by other things.
It’s not a bad problem to have, and he wears it quite well.
September
2012
Now THIS I Have To See
A Filipino film that tells the story of a bitter, aging gay man. HELLO.
September
2012
September
2012
A Shirtless Andy Samberg
Continuing with our brief quirky-yet-sexy thread started by Paul Rudd, this is Andy Samberg, whose movies hold absolutely no allure for me whatsoever, but who has a certain sexiness that far surpasses the hit-or-miss essence of Mr. Rudd. He’s just dorky enough for me to adore.
September
2012
Is My Fly Down?
Whenever I do something foolish or absent-minded, Andy will say ‘McFly? Hello McFly?’ At first I thought my fly was open every time, then he explained it was from a movie, ‘Back to the Future’ – which I have, to this day, never seen. A time-traveling car? Not my scene. Apparently, I’m in the minority, for one of the big draws of the FireBall Run was this vehicle – the original one used in the movie.
Since I’m not the biggest Michael J. Fox fan, I don’t think I’m missing out. Having recently watched one of the Indiana Jones films from that same decade, I find that many of those classics just don’t withstand the test of time. Let’s face it, there’s only one ‘Adventures in Babysitting’ produced every ten years or so.
I will say that I did enjoy the interior lights, and the fact that the car played music both inside and outside. Still, if this thing somehow ends up in our driveway, I’m going to be pissed.
September
2012
Paul Rudd: Naked & Pixelated
Paul Rudd has never really done much for me, being one of those quirky guys that some people find incredibly sexy, while others couldn’t be less attracted to him. I’m somewhere in the middle on that spectrum, but when I saw the New York Times’ poster for his current Broadway effort ‘Grace’, I did a double-take because of how decent he looked. Then I found these other pics, from a Saturday Night Live stunt, and returned to my usual apathy.
September
2012
Team Ogunquit-A-GoGo
The Fireball Run is an eight-day, fourteen-city, 2500 mile adventure, where 40 teams compete on a life-size trivial pursuit type of game. While that alone would peak the interest of thrill-seeking types, this endeavor comes with serious mission: finding Missing Children. Each team is assigned a missing child, whose photo and information is disseminated on flyers along the journey. Though the advent of social media has broadened the reach in these cases, the number of people and places the teams touch in person is even more moving.
The trek runs from Independence, Ohio to Bangor, Maine – and it was on their stop in Schenectady, New York, that Andy and I caught up with them – the main reason being our pals on Team Ogunquit-A-GoGo ~ Leanne Cusimano and Robert Levinstein. Back in May, when we were last enjoying a delicious meal at Leanne’s restaurant in Ogunquit, ME – Amore Breakfast – she was debating the idea of doing this. We both encouraged her, saying it sounded like a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to challenge herself, all the while supporting a noble cause.
A few months later it was a kick to see it all come to fruition, and to watch their I-Love-Lucy-like adventures as they traversed the country. As I mentioned, it’s one thing to have fun and meet a great group of people on such an expedition, but quite another when it’s for such a great cause. For further information, check out their website, www.FIREBALLRUN.com.
September
2012
Make A Wish & Blow
These are the ashen remnants of my Fall wishes, lying on our Boston windowsill, waiting for the wind to whip them away. On the first day of each season, in a tradition that Andy taught me when we first met over a dozen years ago, we make a list of our hopes and wishes for the season ahead, then burn them as an offering to the universe. It is a ritual I have come to love, if only to remind us of the passing of time, the demarcation of the days, the way the hours wait for no one. My wishes, oddly enough, are not for material possessions as one might assume – there are no Prada bags that make the list, no Tom Ford Private Blends inked out upon the page. They are far more basic and, again at odds with what the world thinks of me, far more selfless. In those wishes hides the truth, and by burning them I keep it safe.
September
2012
The Battle of the Butts Redux: Channing vs. Joe
When I posed the question of who had the better butt between Channing Tatum and Joe Manganiello earlier this week, I got a few responses, but it ended up in a virtual dead heat. I hate a tie, so I’m re-posting the challenge, this time with a couple of GIFs to give a more realistic view of their assets. So, do you still stand by your original man? Once again, Channing is on your left, Joe is on your right. Choose wisely.
September
2012
The Madonna Timeline: Song #75 – ‘Oh Father’ – Fall 1991
{Note: The Madonna Timeline is an ongoing feature, where I put the iPod on shuffle, and write a little anecdote on whatever was going on in my life when that Madonna song was released and/or came to prominence in my mind.}
It’s funny that way,
You can get used to the tears and the pain
What a child will believe
You never loved me…
A boy, who can’t be more than ten years old, is running around the house wearing five of his mother’s nightgowns, one on top of the other. Anything to lessen the sting, dull the impact. A silly child’s reasoning, whipped out of him soon enough – and a lesson that if you pretend enough that it hurts, it stops sooner. If you pretend the pain, it goes away. Sometimes, you don’t have to pretend. Sometimes the pain is only pretend because you no longer feel anything.
. . . . . . . . . . . . .
The years fly. I am no longer quite a boy, but nowhere near a man. I’m a petulant, trapped teenager, and we’re a dime a dozen, but I’m also different, and I don’t know why. On the mirror of my bathroom, I leave a note, scrawled in bold black marker, before I depart for the school day:
I WILL LEAVE THIS PLACE AND NEVER COME BACK.
It is my only way of survival. The thought of going away. The head game. It works. It gets me through the day. I return to find it there, still taped to the mirror. No one has seen it. I rip it down, and crumple it up. My body follows suit, crumpling to the floor, and I cry.
You can’t hurt me now
I got away from you, I never thought I would
You can’t make me cry,
You once had the power
I never felt so good about myself.
. . . . . . . . . . . . .
The day is dim. It must be November. The expanse of my parents’ backyard stretches out, running into a forest high with oak trees that have finally littered the ground with their brown mess. Piles of leaves dot the landscape, along with a scattering of filled bags like ghostly totems rising from the ground, but there is more to be done. I pause in my raking, surrounded by sudden silence in the descending darkness. I work alone. My brother is at some sports game or practice. I don’t play any sports. Looking up into the gray sky, I want to cry out. Under the burden of being a gay boy just coming of age, not knowing what the hell it was that I was feeling, what the hell might be wrong with me, I stand there in the darkening afternoon. The air feels like it might snow at any moment. My fingers grip the rake tighter. Anything to hold on.
What unnamed terrors lurked in the past to make me so weak? Maybe I was a sissy after all, maybe I was just a stupid faggot. When you’re a teenager, any of it might be true. All of it might be. You grasp whatever bits of flotsam float by in the most basic and desperate way of survival. You discard the rest, hoping you won’t need any of it later on in life. Who can foretell what kindness or cruelty will get you in the end, when all that matters is making it through the night?
Seems like yesterday
I lay down next to your boots and I prayed
For your anger to end
Oh Father I have sinned
Over the bathroom sink, my nose bleeds in torrents. Unstoppable blood flow, draining of strength, draining of worry, and some strange, sick comfort in the sight of all those bright red drops so vividly contrasting with the white ceramic sink. The taste metallic in my mouth, the liquid so ready to coalesce at the touch of air, yet not managing to clot on its own, on the inside, where I need it. I let it drip for a while, tired of trying to make it stop, leaning my cheek against the cold shiny veneer, and it runs down my face. I taste it again in the back of my mouth, gagging on the dissolving mess I have become. In the mirror, the watery, cracked vision of my face stares back, the eyes that will always look that haunted peer in on themselves.
You can’t hurt me now
I got away from you, I never thought I would
You can’t make me cry,
You once had the power
I never felt so good about myself.
It is strange the way we hurt each other, I think, the way that parents hurt their children, the way children hurt their parents, and how, if we’re extremely lucky, if we’re blessed enough to escape adolescence without serious harm or lifelong scars, we may find our way back to each other.
Oh Father
If you never wanted to live that way
If you never wanted to hurt me
Why am I running away?
There is so much pain in this world. How youth overcomes itself has always moved me. But in that time, at that moment, I couldn’t see that. The enormity of growing up is a burden that should never be placed on children. Such is childhood’s conundrum. It seems so unfair, and for a kid who never wanted to be a kid, doubly so.
Oh Father
If you never wanted to live that way
If you never wanted to hurt me
Why am I running away?
Some nights all you want is to be held and told that it’s going to be okay. That no matter how bad you’ve been, no matter what you’ve done, and no matter how little you might deserve it, that everyone will one day find their own happiness. Even if it never turns out to be true. But I didn’t have a voice to say all of that, or the ease of letting it out. I didn’t know how to put it into words, and boys didn’t say things like that anyway – especially if the boy is trying at any cost to hide who he might really be. From Father to Son we pass along the secret Code of Men. We don’t cry. We don’t talk about it. We don’t let anything bother us.
Maybe someday
When I look back I’ll be able to say
You didn’t mean to be cruel
Somebody hurt you too…
But there is secret sorrow then, hidden purging of tears in musty closets, in the woods behind the house, in the blanket-wrapped womb of night. Holding in that sort of angst, relentlessly pushing it back down inside, is a ruinous way to grow up. It eats you up. It hollows you out. It leaves you haunted.
You can’t hurt me now
I got away from you, I never thought I would
You can’t make me cry,
You once had the power
I never felt so good about myself.
I played this song over and over, daring my parents to listen, begging for someone to hear, to break through to me, to explain what was happening. I so desperately needed to be told that there was nothing wrong with me, but all I got – and all that I could give back – was silence. In the snowfall of that winter, when my best friend was halfway around the world, when I wasn’t speaking to my parents, a little bit of me died. I buried him beneath the frosty leaves, in the dark cold of the earth, where not even the worms or the centipedes of centuries past dared to burrow. Sometimes, in the spring, beneath the snowdrops and the bloodroot flowers, I look for him there.
I have not found him yet.
The Madonna Timeline #75: ‘Oh Father’ ~ Fall 1991
September
2012
Tomorrow She Returns…
A very special Madonna Timeline… Coming tomorrow morning.
September
2012
A Good Guy With A Great Cause
My generation grew up without the Internet. We learned how to find information through a card catalog in a library – both seemingly foreign to most kids today. While I may sometimes lament the way the Internet has reduced simple social interaction, it is invaluable as far as giving otherwise-isolated kids a way to connect and feel less alone.
Back in the 90’s, I found my escape through magazines and books, and the limited entertainment that offered a peek at the possibility of a gay life. Whispers of being gay were shrouded with the most horrendous connotations, and there was no greater insult than calling someone a ‘faggot’. If only there was a way to see that being gay wasn’t a bad thing, that there was no need for all the shame. That would have made all the difference.
One of my lifesaving discoveries was xy magazine. Say what you may about its porny-leaning tendencies showcasing young guys, it was the only thing I had. It wasn’t so much the stories or the photo lay-outs that resonated, it was the letters from other young men like myself, those who were searching for something that made sense, something that unlocked all the other issues that arose from being gay.
Today, there is easier access to information and to others who are going through the same thing, and for all those young gay men and women feeling sad and alone, it’s a great thing. My pal Dan recently alerted me to a new site aimed to offer a centralized source of information and help for gay kids everywhere  EqualizeYouth.org ~ (http://equalizeyouth.org). Started by Derek Gerson (who himself was inspired by the ‘It Gets Better’ video project), it will contain stories, blog posts, memes, videos and more of other gay youth and supportive allies. Right now it’s still in the infant stages, and looking for those willing to lend a helping hand in getting it off the ground. Check out its fundraising efforts at indiegogo.com/equalizeyouth, and then get involved directly with the site. The only way that this endeavor will succeed is if we help to spread the word. That’s what I’m doing here, in some small way. Now it’s your turn. On behalf of Dan and Derek, I thank you.
For further information, you are welcome to contact Derek directly at Derek@equalizeyouth.org.
September
2012
