11
March
2025
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March
2025
11
March
2025
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March
2025
Gray Matter
My hair has officially reached Tom-Cruise-in-‘Collateral’ gray-wolf status.
Not entirely happy either.
But definitely not mad.
Amused more than anything else.
At life. And being alive.
11
March
2025
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March
2025
Dazzler of the Day: Josh Groban
Not to name-drop here, but I’ve been texting with Josh Groban.
Yes, that Josh Groban.
And there’s a good chance you have been too, as he posted his text number for anyone to sign up for announcements. So no, I’m not that special, and no, I don’t believe he’s personally sending out the automated messages, and no, I really don’t care. As a self-professed Grobanite, I came into his fandom kingdom when he was melting hearts on Broadway in ‘Natasha, Pierre, and the Great Comet of 1812’. Since then, I’ve revisited his musical catalog – richly varied and anchored with his incomparable vocal talent – and watched his entertaining appearances in live concerts and talk shows, as well as his social media feeds which reveal a hilarious, witty, and impressively-compassionate person.
Such a rarity these days, when most celebrities are afraid to be themselves because they either don’t know that for which they stand, or are simply too concerned with what others might think. Groban has seemingly and only ever been himself – a supremely talented performer with a love of theatrical arts who also happens to be a genuinely good person who cares for the well-being of others. Today he easily earns this Dazzler of the Day honor. Check out his official website here for all the excitement coming up (there are more than a few Gems on the way, and it’s gonna be alright.)
10
March
2025
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March
2025
A Shirtless Quartet in Shades of Gray
A quartet of four shirtless gents in shades of gray closes out this March Monday, and just in the nick of time. Mercury is headed into retrograde motion by the end of the week, and I will not be respombile for anything sensible come then. Continuing this year’s necessary bit of escapism, we turn to these four handsome creatures. Our featured pic above is Taylor Zakhar Perez, last seen in his Lacoste underwear here and as a Dazzler of the Day here.
Below is David Beckham, always ready for his shirtless close-up as seen here and here and here.
Next up is Antoni Poroski who cuts a striking figure in his underwear.
Bringing up the proverbial and literal rear is Dylan Efron, brother of Zac Efron, whose own backside has been on display here before. Dylan has been here nude as well, and in his crowning as Dazzler of the Day.
10
March
2025
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March
2025
Next FAFO Award/Victim: Jack Daniel’s Whiskey
Let me preface this by saying that in no way do I want you to stop buying Jack Daniel’s Whiskey just because of their political affiliation. That’s merely an ancillary reason – the main reason is that their whiskey sucks. The company also gave tons of money to Trump’s election campaign, ended its DEI initiatives before he was even elected, and then donated to his inauguration. The Fuck-Around-and-Find-Out moment comes now that Trump’s tariffs have pissed off the majority of the free world, including Canada, which has been pulling Jack Daniel’s products from their shelves and urging people to buy Canadian. LOL to that and to the CEO of Jack Daniel’s whining all about it. Go Canada!
And seriously, buy any other whiskey for your Manhattan.
FAFO – The Medicaid Recipients
10
March
2025
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March
2025
A Lost Hour Recap
Losing an hour of time is always a bit of a mind fuck. Gaining it back in the fall is fine, but the cost of later sunlight is some crankiness from one less hour of sleep. Especially at a time of the year when there is about to be so much more to do – so let’s take this sleepy Monday morning and do our usual weekly blog recap before we get busy…
Andy’s first take on a Filipino classic.
David Beckham, still a shirtless, sexy beast.
Music for winter impending end.
Approaching or departing Eden.
Mockarita madness at the start of #10.
Crystal snowlight shivering and glittering.
A gratuitously shirtless Patrick Schwarzenegger post.
Taking the crazy when it’s this pretty.
09
March
2025
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March
2025
A Brief Tease
You should see the underwear I don’t wear.
A brief list of underwear posts because it’s Sunday night and I’m lazy, but you might still be thirsty:
Taylor Zakhar Perez in underwear.
The Jonas brothers in underwear.
Jeremy Allen White in underwear.
09
March
2025
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March
2025
Stirrings in the Peat
This piece of music by the Danish String Quartet is titled ‘The Peat Dance’ and it recalls a windy day in Ireland when I was in some tour group marching across the peat bogs, pausing in a peat-thatched cottage for some Irish coffee to take the sting out of the cold. Humans are funny in the ways we walk through winter together, and apart.
Suzie enjoys the Danish String Quartet, and we are currently in the midst of planning for a dinner loosely called ‘Suzette’s Feast’ in an homage to ‘Babette’s Feast’. Ours will likely be a sad and silly approximation of the wonder that was Babette’s glorious meal (Suzie has already nixed the turtle soup, and I haven’t been able to locate any quails to stuff – we are having Mom do up some Cornish game hens for the latter) but this is how we traverse the final weeks of winter. Together.
Hope is on the swiftly-moving air currents (a clumsily-disguised description of wind because I’m tired of saying that word). It’s in the shift of the sun, and the disappearing hour this weekend. It’s also in the burst of new growth on our indoor plants – a sign that comes before the snow has melted, before the first cranky and crinkled unfolding of the Lenten rose.
This is a fern that we’ve had since I first met Andy – a descendant of one of his Mom’s original plants – and somehow we’ve managed to keep it alive for twenty-five years. It’s in our sunniest window (and if you’re having trouble with ferns, I advise trying them in a bit more light – when the literature says they can survive in deep shade, that usually means the deep shade of the outdoors – indoors is by its very nature already shaded). This fern, like most of us, has had good years and bad years, and right now it’s looking very lush and happy, thanks to a prime spot right beside the humidifier. Ferns always like high humidity, especially in bright light.
I sense spring in its verdant new growth. Promise, too.
09
March
2025
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March
2025
Winding
Wind has been vicious the past few days. Messages and meanings crash against the house in the middle of the night. When I sit in the attic and write I can leave the music off and listen to the raging tantrum outside. Somewhat strangely, there is comfort in the dull cacophony, muted by the roof and walls and windows. The howling and whistling still seeps in, but the thunderous whirling roar is blunted to soothing form. Background noise, like the rhythmic call of the ocean, so dangerously pulling the unaware to sleep.
The end of winter doesn’t want to arrive, like some reluctant child clinging to the womb. I watch the pine boughs in wild sway as the sun struggles to set the land ablaze, and listen to the avalanche of air – invisible, omnipotent beast.
And then I hear something playful at work, some presence that lets me know things will be ok, that everything will be all right in the end. Maybe it’s hope. Maybe it’s faith. Maybe it’s someone I miss from the other side.
Maybe a whisper of a God so powerful and angry it comes as a gale and a gust for all the things we’re currently doing wrong. Superstition works both ways; magic and fairy stories serve their purpose in attempting to explain the unexplainable. We believe what we want to believe – sometimes what we need to believe – to get through, to survive, to weather a windy night.
The plastic bag scene in ‘American Beauty‘ was a way to capture wind on film. It’s always haunted me for that, and for other things.
08
March
2025
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March
2025
Bad Dream On
This entry for ‘The Divine Diva Tour: A Fairy’s Tale‘ was written as a recent night crossed into the midnight hour, and should probably be read at a similar time. Some writing is too moody, some music too weighty, to be read or heard in the hours of the day. Daylight is powerful stuff, even when it’s overcast. The cloak of night helps us reveal things that would never be whispered if there was the threat of the sun lurking. Let us share our songs in the darkness.
Every time that I look in the mirror
All these lines on my face gettin’ clearer
The past is gone
It went by like dusk to dawn
Isn’t that the way?
Everybody’s got their dues in life to pay
For the 10th anniversary of MTV, the music that once played, well, music, celebrated itself with a few powerhouse performances (and one glorious therapy session in noirish brilliance by Lady M herself). Strangely, for those who thought they knew me, my favorite musical portion was when Aerosmith took to the stage after a piano floated through the air and they launched into their classic ‘Dream On’.
I know nobody knows
Where it comes and where it goes
I know it’s everybody’s sin
You got to lose to know how to win
Half my life’s in books’ written pages
Lived and learned from fools and from sages
You know it’s true
All the things come back to you
I watched the performance in our basement rec room – lights off, the space lit only by the glow of the television – and with a full orchestra backing the band, the maelstrom of music and spectacle took me out of my miserable life for five minutes. Transported on the crests of musical majesty, I soared through the night, leaving behind the wretchedness of that basement, where I once hid as a child, where I carved out the only safe space I ever knew, and only because it was the space within myself.
Sing with me, sing for the year
Sing for the laughter and sing for the tear
Sing with me, if it’s just for today
Maybe tomorrow the good Lord will take you away
This is it – this is the part. Listen as it builds, listen as it becomes salvation, listen as it becomes redemption. Then sing. Sing for your soul, sing for your survival, sing your way out of whatever your life has become. Sing with me…
Sing with me, sing for the year
Sing for the laughter and sing for the tear
Sing with me, it’s just for today
Maybe tomorrow the good Lord will take you away
Dream on, dream on, dream on
Dream until your dreams come true
Dream on, dream on, dream on
Dream until your dreams come true
Dream on, dream on
Dream on, dream on
Dream on, dream on
Dream on
~ The Divine Diva Tour: A Fairy’s Tale ~
- Pink Frilly Fairy: Part One, Part Two, and Part Three
- Homage to Herb: Part One, Part Two and Part Three
- A Purple-Hued Interlude
- Style & Panache: Part One, Part Two, Part Three and Part Four.
- Purple Puff Confection: Part One, Part Two, Part Three and Part Four.
- A Blue-Hued Interlude
- Fuchsia Fabulousness: Part One. Part Two and Part Three.
- Bad Boy Bangs – Part One and Part Two.
08
March
2025
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March
2025
Bad Boy Rock Poseur
What is life but a series of poses?
What is a pose but a snapshot of a moment?
What is a moment in the grand scheme of life?
The whooshing rush of a smoke machine – …I see you through the smoky air… – the sparkling light shards of a mirror ball – …I’ll show you every version of yourself… – and the curtain of glittering mylar shimmering in the nightmarish nightclub of dream and fantasy – …so get up on the dance floor!
“It’s hard to sing and cry.” – Madonna
~ The Divine Diva Tour: A Fairy’s Tale ~
- Pink Frilly Fairy: Part One, Part Two, and Part Three
- Homage to Herb: Part One, Part Two and Part Three
- A Purple-Hued Interlude
- Style & Panache: Part One, Part Two, Part Three and Part Four.
- Purple Puff Confection: Part One, Part Two, Part Three and Part Four.
- A Blue-Hued Interlude
- Fuchsia Fabulousness: Part One. Part Two and Part Three.
- Bad Boy Bangs – Part One
08
March
2025
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March
2025
Bad Banging Style
Boomeranging back to this bad-bangs rock-star wannabe scene, ‘The Divine Diva Tour: A Fairy’s Tale’ gives slight whiplash as we give eyeliner and rouge a bad name. The diva may be divine, but she’s also an admitted hot-mess, with the emphasis on the messy. Still, she gives a good time, a chuckle, and sometimes a guffaw. You’ve never had more fun and you know it.
You… [finger-pointing]… you.
“You’re singing an aria and they’re building scenery in the wings.” – Terrence McNally
“My fire comes from here… It’s mine… It’s not for sale. It’s not for me to give away, and even if I could, I wouldn’t. It’s who I am. Find out who you are.” – Terrence McNally
“This isn’t a freak show. I’m not a performing seal.” – Terrence McNally
~ The Divine Diva Tour: A Fairy’s Tale ~
- Pink Frilly Fairy: Part One, Part Two, and Part Three
- Homage to Herb: Part One, Part Two and Part Three
- A Purple-Hued Interlude
- Style & Panache: Part One, Part Two, Part Three and Part Four.
- Purple Puff Confection: Part One, Part Two, Part Three and Part Four.
- A Blue-Hued Interlude
- Fuchsia Fabulousness: Part One. Part Two and Part Three.
07
March
2025
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March
2025
Fuchsia Frills
‘The Divine Diva Tour: A Fairy’s Tale‘ lives up to its ‘All Is Vanity‘ theme with this ridiculous set of photos which features a bad dress, a pair of awful shoes, and the worst wig in the world. Thankfully, the garish and the god-awful are part of what this project was about, and things will get a whole lot uglier before we approach prettiness again.
In the physical format of this project, the words that accompanied these photos were the lyrics of ‘Glitter and Be Gay’, but those have already been used to greater effect in the earlier stages of this presentation. We needed music then, and a more substantial post, whereas this is but a brief blip better forgotten as soon as possible.
I love the armpit hair, and the push-and-pull tug-of-war between perceived masculine and feminine motifs. That underlying tension gets lost in the funnier aspects at work here. It’s all part of the show, and rather than ruin it by analyzing it to a Virgo’s content, I’ll take my verbal leave and leave you to it.
~ The Divine Diva Tour: A Fairy’s Tale ~
- Pink Frilly Fairy: Part One, Part Two, and Part Three
- Homage to Herb: Part One, Part Two and Part Three
- A Purple-Hued Interlude
- Style & Panache: Part One, Part Two, Part Three and Part Four.
- Purple Puff Confection: Part One, Part Two, Part Three and Part Four.
- A Blue-Hued Interlude
- Fuchsia Fabulousness: Part One and Part Two
07
March
2025
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March
2025
I’ll Take the Crazy Right Now
Our now-non-holiday cactus has decided to grace us with a smattering of blooms, long before we could even consider it an Easter cactus, and so far removed from Thanksgiving or Christmas that it gives up any chance of holiday affiliation. I don’t appreciate it any less, however; in fact, it may have sensed our wish for spring, and flowers, and any glimpse of hope in this gray and barren world, and thus delivered a show out of sync with any human-sanctioned holiday. Those are often the best shows anyway – the unexpected, the unhyped, the unpredicted. The reminder that life is so often a whim that defies planning or expectation. I need to heed that lesson more, to embrace the moment at hand and not attempt to set some rigid outline of what’s going to happen. That takes up way too much space in the brain, and my brain needs what little space remains just to get me through the damn day.
07
March
2025
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March
2025
A Gratuitous Patrick Schwarzenegger Post
You’ve probably already seen Patrick Schwarzenegger naked here, so this is just a bonus post for those who want a bit more. We see you, we honor you, we give you these GIFs. (And other naked male celebrities here.)
