Monthly Archives:

February 2011

27
February
2011
Tags: General, Madonna, Music
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The Madonna Timeline: Song #33 ~ ‘Sooner or Later’ – Summer 1990

{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.}

Sooner or later you’re gonna be mine,
Sooner or later you’re gonna be fine,
Baby it’s time that you faced it
I always get my man.

It is the ultimate call of the siren. A prediction, a demand, a hope ~ all in the subtle jazz shadings of a Sondheim song. ‘Sooner or Later’ is the next iPod selection, seductively vamping along from its opening coos to its climaxing almost-growls, and Madonna delivers a sparkling aural gem. Restrained, yet powerful, her slightly-girlish vocals belie a steely strength. That confidence, that determination, that unfailing belief in her own prowess and power of attraction ~ that was something I never had. Certainly not in 1990.

To be honest, the hunt for a man was the last thing on my fourteen-year-old mind. I was too consumed with the drama of my friends, trying to fit in to my first year of high school. The one thing the song did lend me was a belief in oneself ~ and if Madonna could will her want into being simply by using a few declarative come-ons, surely I could put one of Mr. Rosmarino’s math proofs on the chalkboard and talk my way through it.

I didn’t have a goal at the time ~ it was enough just to make it through an average school day ~ but songs like this, and most of them by Madonna, gave me a bit of purpose. It marked the beginning of a drive and ambition to not be ignored.

Sooner or later you’re gonna decide,
Sooner or later there’s nowhere to hide,
Baby it’s time so why waste it in chatter?
Let’s settle the matter,
Baby you’re mine on a platter
I always get my man.

‘Sooner or Later’ was also nominated for a Best Song Oscar (fortuitous timing today), which it won ~ and more importantly which meant that Madonna would perform the song on the Oscar telecast. I missed the show that year (see, I wasn’t always that gay), but made sure to see it a few years later when my Madonna obsession began to rage. (Most of the performance was captured on a VHS Oscar Retrospective.) Of course it’s now on YouTube, and we get to see the telescopic opening, as well as the very best ending and exit vamp in Oscar history.

Early on, the camera goes in for a tight close-up as Madonna’s gloved hand trembles in the spotlight ~ one of the first glimpses we get of her nervousness for some performances, and a compelling peek of her as a mortal being. It is an endearing moment: here is the woman who at that point was one of the most famous and successful of all time, at arguably the height of her power and adulation ~ playing to a house of jaded actors who had little to no respect for her, and she went for it. That takes balls. That takes determination. That takes a belief in oneself and a disregard for the opinions of those who would never like her. In my Freshman year of high school, those were attributes that I sorely lacked.

But if you insist, babe,
The challenge delights me,
The more you resist, babe,
The more it excites me
And no one I’ve kissed babe,
Ever fights me again.

I felt the need to don perfectly preppy garb in an effort to win the affection and approval of my fellow students. I looked interested in what every teacher had to say, finishing all my homework on time and studying for every test in an effort to please all the school faculty. I did everything my parents asked and recommended, starting music lessons and keeping score for the girls basketball team to round out my education with extracurricular activities. I did it all without the inner-confidence that Madonna exuded, shaky hand and all, and I did it well. It just happened that none of it made me particularly happy or content. But that’s another story for another song.

If you’re on my list it’s just a question of when,
When I get a yen, then baby amen,
I’m counting to ten, and then…

As far as the Oscar show goes, it is one of her best live performances ever ~ including tours and award shows ~ and she sounds incredible. Not that it was without its quirks and foibles ~ at one point near the end one of her earrings falls off – a cluster of diamonds costing ten times what my house is worth – and gets lodged in a lock of platinum blonde hair. It stays there magically, until she bows her head as the song ends. Plucking it from her tresses, she tosses it into the orchestra pit. That’s star power, that’s grit, that’s Madonna.

I’m gonna love you like nothing you’ve known,
I’m gonna love you when you’re all alone.
Sooner is better than later but lover,
I’ll hover, I’ll plan…

Seriously, watch that Oscar performance ending and tell me you don’t love her.

This time I’m not only getting, I’m holding my man.
Song #33: ‘Sooner or Later’ ~ Summer 1990
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23
February
2011
Tags: General, Madonna, Music
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The Madonna Timeline: Song #32 ~ ‘Hollywood’ – Summer 2003

{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.}

Everybody comes to Hollywood,
They want to make it in the neighborhood.
They like the smell of it in Hollywood,
How could it hurt you when it looks so good?
Shine your light now,
This time it’s got to be good,
You’ll get it right now, yeah,
Cause you’re in Hollywood.

It was my summer working at the Thruway Authority – where we had our own parking (30 feet from the building) and I could drive to Delmar while on lunch. Madonna had had a rather dismal lead-off single from her recent American Life album, so she followed up with a paint-by-the-numbers pop-like bore of a safety song. It didn’t matter, I drove around with the windows open, challenging speeding tickets, blaring ‘Hollywood’, and drinking Boston shakes from the local ice cream shack.

Despite that, this remains one of my least favorite songs on that album, an otherwise-under-rated electronic pastoral, with flourishes of folk tempered with flashes of brilliance. Heavily laden with guitars of all sorts, the album got shafted because of the politicized fervor of post-9/11 fear. It’s a shame, but not because of this song.

‘Hollywood’ is another woe-is-life-at-the-top type song that posits the banal question, ‘How could it hurt you when it looks so good?’ Possibly when it sounds this bad. Sorry, I’m just not a big fan of this one. It’s telling that Madonna used an instrumental version of ‘Hollywood’ on the Reinvention tour in support of the American Life album. Or maybe she just found the repetitive yet tricky lyrics too much of a challenge – I recall a few flubs on the mini-promo tour she did for the album.

The video, however, is why I have the song on the iPod. It is classic chameleonic Madonna – highly stylized, filled with iconic images, and an absolute homage to her mode-shifting nature. There’s also a slight ‘All About Eve’ reference that puts Madonna in the glamorous trappings of Margo Channing as a younger maid looks at her longingly. That concept could have been explored a bit more, but any reference is better than none at all.

Most people will remember this song only from its performance at the MTV Music Awards, where Madonna kissed Britney Spears and Christina Aguilera, then danced with Missy Elliott. The night it aired, I was in Ogunquit. Having heard whispers that she might be opening the show, I told Andy to go downstairs and make dinner reservations while I watched to see what might transpire during the opening. The snaky bassline of ‘Like A Virgin’ began and I held my breath. Britney and Christina did their rudimentary run-through of the song, and then there she was, rising from a wedding cake like the very first time, in groom/dominatrix drag, overseeing the proceedings and completely in charge of it all. Twenty years into her career, she was still the most highly-charged performance of the night, and all the world was talking about the next day.

Personally, I enjoyed that rendition of ‘Hollywood’ – and it left no doubt as to who the reigning Queen was, and remains.

Push the button, don’t push the button,
Trip the station, Change the channel.
Music stations always play the same song,
I’m bored with the concept of right and wrong.
Song #32: ‘Hollywood’ – Summer 2003
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15
February
2011
Tags: General, Madonna, Music
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The Madonna Timeline: Song #31 – ‘Another Suitcase in Another Hall’ – January 1997

{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.}

Gray shadows, one-night stands, the lost and the lonely, and the sad, unbearable waking of the morn. Such is the selection of the iPod shuffle, which has chosen ‘Another Suitcase in Another Hall’ from Madonna’s film Evita. It was early 1997. I was single and trying valiantly to be fabulous. (Sometimes being fabulous means being kind of slutty.)

I don’t expect my love affairs to last for long,
Never fool myself that my dreams will come true
Being used to trouble I anticipate it,
But all the same I hate it wouldn’t you?

I was on the road with The Royal Rainbow World Tour, and Evita had just opened. Visiting friends in snowy Rochester, New York, I wore a leopard coat and fuschia silk shirt to see the film with a few friends. A little touch of star quality in dismal upstate NY. I was running away from having to start my real life, going on this world-wide jaunt to put off settling down now that I had graduated from Brandeis. Boston was still my home-base, but I preferred the vagabond nomadic excitement of living out of my parents’ Blazer, a rack of fancy frockery in the backseat, a sequin purse of toll coins in the front, and a small collection of necklaces dangling from the rearview mirror. I drove all night just to get away from myself.

So what happens now?
So what happens now?
Where am I going to?
Where am I going to?

In Rochester there was a poster store that carried a nice selection of postcards. A black and white image of a naked man, sitting on the edge of a bed in the morning light. Head down, clothes scattered on the floor, and the rumpled sheets of a duet or solitary struggle. It is hard to tell which is which, and the light of day doesn’t do much to aid in recovery. I had been in that position, had hung my head that low, and I would do so again and again in the years to come.

Time and time again I’ve said that I don’t care,
That I’m immune to gloom, that I’m hard through and through
But every time it matters all my words desert me
So anyone can hurt me and they do.

I preferred to stay in hotels rather than at my friends’ dorm rooms or apartments. Even then solitude was comforting to me, my natural state being one of distance, slight detachment – always separate from the rest of the world, even from my friends and family. And then again… distance lends enchantment…

So what happens now?
So what happens now?
Where am I going to?
Where am I going to?

And now the saddest part of the song, the refrain that rang in my head on so many mornings after:

Call in three months’ time and I’ll be fine, I know,
Well maybe not that fine, but I’ll survive anyhow
I won’t recall the names and places of each sad occasion,
But that’s no consolation here and how.

How many times had I calculated the number of months the pain would last? I tried all sorts of equations – usually it was half the length of the relationship, if there even was a relationship. It was more tricky when there were sudden feelings after just a single night. Yes, decidedly more tricky, and somehow inversely more painful. It was the apathy and general disregard that used to hurt the most. I could never understand – not then – how one could not feel anything.

So what happens now?
So what happens now?
Where am I going to?
Where am I going to?
Don’t ask anymore…

Song #31: ‘Another Suitcase in Another Hall’ – January 1997

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12
February
2011
Tags: Bulge, Shirtless Male Celebrities, Sports, Underwear
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Novak Djokovic Strips to his Underwear

This is Novak Djokovic on some Montreal runway. He is a tennis player, I believe, from Serbia. Personally, I’ve had a thing against tennis ever since Wimbledon pre-empted ‘Days of Our Lives’ one summer. I also have a thing against short robes on men. Luckily Mr. Djokovic didn’t keep this one on for long. The black briefs are much better.

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10
February
2011
Tags: General
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Winter Wanderlust Among Friends

It happens each year like clock-work. Right around this time I start getting antsy. Having been all but housebound for over a month, I feel like a caged animal, and woe to anyone caught behind the bars. To alleviate the matter, I tend to start traveling, as much as, and to anywhere, possible. This weekend that will bring me to Stormville, NY, to visit my friends Missy and Joe and their two-year-old boy Julian. Yes, another baby is on my horizon, but I’m told he’s gregarious and fun and likes to sing, so we have all that in common.

It’s been over a year since I visited them, which means it’s a year since I’ve been to the Woodbury Outlets. Sadly, I have not spent the ensuing time saving up any sort of money, so with any luck there will be a few good sales to offset such a lack of foresight and financial planning. All that is beside the point, as I really just need a relaxing weekend away with a couple of good friends – one of whom I’ve known since we were five.

That sort of lasting friendship is hard to come by, and I’m lucky to have a few such friends that have been with me through the decades. Those are the people who are family to me, the ones who survive distance and time to stick around for the long haul. So many of our friendships seem forged by proximity and convenience, employment and opportunity, FaceBook and Twitter – or simple circumstance. I’ve always demanded a bit more from my true friends, and like to think I’ve given just as much in return. It takes work to maintain a meaningful friendship with someone – work and effort and communication. The latter may seem easier in this day and age (I remember sending letters to all my friends when we were all at different colleges – and I still prefer a hand-written note to any e-mail or, worse, phone call) but that convenience is often an easy out. Luckily for me, the friends I’ve kept put the same effort and work into staying in touch as I do, and we all manage to see each other at some point or other during the year.

The older I get, and the more people that come and go in my life, the more I value the friends I’ve had for twenty, some even thirty, years. Those are the people around whom I can truly relax and be myself. Those are the people I don’t need to impress with fancy clothes or pricey bags or high-fashion shoes. That doesn’t mean I won’t put on a good show, but it does mean they wouldn’t mind if I didn’t.

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09
February
2011
Tags: General, Madonna, Music
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The Madonna Timeline: Song #30 ~ ‘Incredible’ – September 2008

{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.}

Just one of those things
When everything goes incredible
And all is beautiful
(Can’t get my head around it, I need to think about it)
(Can’t get my head around it, I need to think about it)
 And all of those things
That used to get you down
Now have no effect at all
Cause life is beautiful
(Can’t get my head around it, I need to think about it)
(Can’t get my head around it, I need to think about it)

The day started out in the sunny Mission District of San Francisco, with a breakfast at a corner diner, windows open, the morning walking lazily by. My friend Chris and I were about to hit the road and the long drive South – to the Santa Barbara area. Being a Northeastern boy, I always underestimate distances in other states, particularly those as long as California. I was attending another friend’s wedding, so I asked Chris if he wanted to drive down with me, not realizing exactly how far of a drive it would be, especially when taking the scenic Pacific Coast Highway route.

Most of Madonna’s songs, particularly in latter years, are what I would consider evening songs – moody, dark, and dramatic – perfect for a night out, and doubly good for an evening in – but not many are made for the morning. ‘Incredible’ is one of her morning songs – for greeting the day with promise and excitement, especially when that day is sunny and overflowing with the anticipation of a happy destination and unforgettable journey.

Remembering the very first time
You caught that some one’s special eye
And all of your cares dropped
And all of the world just stopped.
(I hope) I want to go back to then
Got to figure out how, got to remember when
I felt it, it thrilled me
I want it, to fill me

Chris is a good guy, and a lifelong friend, and while he doesn’t hate Madonna, he’s certainly not her biggest fan. But for some reason, he loves this song. And he played it at least twenty five times in a row – no exaggeration. Suddenly I was being paid back by my brother and mother for all the car rides in which I played Madonna relentlessly. And I got it. I got it good. But at the beginning, it was just the California breeze in my hair, the sun up above, and the great Pacific to our right as we wound our way down the coast.

You don’t know what you got ’til it’s gone
And everything in life just goes wrong
Feels like nobody’s listening
And something is missing

Guy bonding is easier than girl bonding somehow – there is less pretense, less preening – and there’s an ease to being with one of my straight guy friends that I haven’t found in straight women or gay men. Maybe it’s the underlying fact that we’re not one another’s competition, theoretically or realistically.

Chris winds us along the Pacific Coast, which is now lined with fog, affording only brief, tantalizing glimpses of the rocky shore and the ocean beyond. We make a few stops – including a break at the naturally majestic Post Ranch Inn (where we could just barely afford an appetizer, much less a night at the Inn – which runs up to $2285 – yes, per night).

When the fog parted, we took a moment to pull off the road before dusk descended. Groups of seals and sea birds huddled on the shore. Sharks inhabited these waters, and as the wind picked up and the light went, I shuddered at the thought of their dark world, equally enthralled and repelled. Then it was back on the road, and the darkening way South.

I remember when
You were the one
You were my friend
You gave me life
You were the sun
You taught me things
I didn’t run
I fell to my knees
I didn’t know why
I started to breathe
I wanted to cry
I need a reminder
So I can relate
I need to go back there
Before it’s too late

After about eight hours of driving (or riding as the case may be), I was over it – the song, the car, the traffic, and even the Madonna Inn, which we passed. We stopped for dinner around San Luis Obispo, recharging for the final stretch, and as we pulled into the hotel, I think we were both a little crazy.

It’s time to get your hands up
It’s time to get your body moving…

Some Madonna songs are great for driving, and while the 50th play of this one pushed it, ‘Incredible’ is the perfect driving song, especially along the shore of California with one of your best friends.

Let’s finish what we started
Incredible
You’re welcome to my party…
I don’t want this to end
I am missing my best friend
It was incredible
There is no reason…
Song #30: ‘Incredible’ – September 2008
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08
February
2011
Tags: Food
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Beet It

Andy loves the beets. Personally, I was never really into them, eschewing them at every offer, not getting my head around what they really were. My mind wanted to make them into a cross between a radish and a potato, and it never sounded very appetizing.

After a decade of hearing it, I finally relented and tried them – and it was well worth the wait.

In this beet salad, assembled by Andy, there are some greens, cherry tomatoes, beets, goat cheese, and walnuts – all topped with a raspberry vinaigrette. My favorite part, aside from the flavor, is the bit of beet color that bled onto the ruffled edge of the goat cheese as seen below.

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07
February
2011
Tags: Food, Philippines
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Beefing Up

This past weekend I made a pretty damn good version of Bistek Tagalog – a Filipino dish that I don’t remember having as a child, but I’m sure it was at some of the big family gatherings at Auntie Naty’s. The version pictured here called for 4 tablespoons of kalamansi juice – a native lemon-type fruit – but since we didn’t have any in our local (read: crappy) Price Chopper, I substituted the juice of 3 limes and 1 orange. To the juice, I added about half a cup of soy sauce, three cloves of crushed garlic, and salt and pepper. Marinate 2 lbs. of sirloin slices (about 1/4 – 1/2 inch thick) in the mixture for about an hour in the fridge.

Slice two large red onions into thin rings and fry lightly in a good amount of oil (I used vegetable with a couple drops of sesame). Remove these to a paper towel and pan-fry the beef slices until done. This is when things in the kitchen start to get smoky and greasy and just the tiniest bit fire-hazardous. If you have a husband, it’s probably best to remove him from the site until it’s time for the clean-up.

I still don’t get how all these other people manage to fry things without the huge frying mess I almost always end up having. Is it because our kitchen sucks? (I mean, I know it does, but is that why the frying thing doesn’t work?) Is it our dismal ventilation, or complete lack-there-of? How come one never sees the Barefoot Contessa jumping back from little drops of burning oil, or splashes of grease lining her entire counter?

Regardless, the dish turned out deliciously. Once the beef is cooked and removed, add the marinade to the skillet and boil for about a minute – it turns into this amazingly rich brown sauce. Place the beef on a serving platter, the onions on top of the beef, and pour the sauce over it all. Good stuff.

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03
February
2011
Tags: Gay, Writing
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Once I Was A Twink Who Wanted To Be A Writer

One of the first magazines that ever published my work was xy. Yes, that glossy gay youth publication that everyone read but no one admitted to reading. For me, xy was, quite literally, a lifesaver. In my childhood bedroom, I would stay up late into the night, poring over the words of other young gay boys and finding hope and solace in their coming out stories. I would forever be altered and moved by the simple plea of one story, whose writer (like me) worked at Structure, and wondered, ‘Why should I be hated for loving?’ In that one question was all the angst and hidden hurt that had been coursing underneath everything I had done up to that point.

Yes, there were also cute twinks who doffed shirts and pants, but xy never went too porny – I don’t even think they showed butt, and certainly nothing fully-frontal. It was the simple fact that gay youth were living out their lives openly and proudly that shook everyone up so much at the time, particularly the gay community, which was always more up-in-arms over the publication than anyone else.

Personally, I will always have a soft spot for that magazine. In 1999 I flew out to San Francisco to meet with its founder Peter Ian Cummings and one of his editors, Mike Glatze, and discuss possible writing opportunities. I was living in Chicago at the time, and only starting to get published in the local gay rags. Even though I had graduated from Brandeis with a degree in English, I didn’t truly feel like a writer yet, and hesitated to call myself such.

After the plane touched down in California, Peter and Mike met me at the airport and drove me into the Castro. We shared a lunch and some fun conversation, then Peter walked me back to my hotel. Along the way his phone rang, and after a brief exchange he told the person that he couldn’t talk at the moment because he was meeting with a writer. I almost had to look around to see who he was talking about, and when I realized it was me I could not stop a smile from stealing over my face. Suddenly, there it was. He had named me, and though I had written for my entire life, it took the creator of a national magazine to make it real. For that, I will always be grateful.

I did not end up working for xy, though they did publish a few of my pieces. I think at the time I said that they were the most unorganized group of guys I had ever met – and it was true – but their love and passion for making the world better for gay youth was admirable and honest, and I was just glad to be a small part of it.

Now I see the magazine is making an online comeback effort. I wish them the best, because no matter what you want to say about it, and no matter how silly and salacious it may appear to some of us, there is still very much a need for it. Somewhere there is a boy hiding in his bedroom, searching for some small way out, some small chance to connect and believe in something better, some small bit of hope. Sometimes the one thing that stands between that boy hanging himself and waiting out one more night is a magazine that puts a picture of two boys kissing on its cover.

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03
February
2011
Tags: General, Madonna, Music
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The Madonna Timeline: Song #29 ~ ‘He’s A Man’ – Summer 1990

{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 was the summer of 1990 – the summer of ‘Dick Tracy’, the summer of Blonde Ambition, and the summer of my trip to the then-Soviet Union. It was a summer of intrigue, of mystery, of wooded night walks, whispered secrets, and thick, hot days in which the sun beat down relentlessly and made one wonder whether the cool of night would ever come again.

All work, and no play, makes Dick a dull, dull boy…
Career gets in the way…
Square jaw, such a handsome face,
Why do you have to save the human race?
Life of crime, no it never pays,
Clean up the streets and make your secret-get-away,
All alone, in your room with your radio,
No one to hold you, had to let her go…

At this point, Madonna was still the only artist whose entire albums I learned inside out. ‘He’s A Man’ was the lead track on her ‘I’m Breathless’ album Music from and Inspired by the Film Dick Tracy. It was heavenly. And the album marked the first time she went in a Broadway/show-tune direction. Madonna singing Sondheim? Sign me up, and sign me up fast. I was just becoming a show tune queen, and this certainly helped to cement the deal. Sondheim was a hero to me for ‘Into the Woods’. I know most of his adoring public hearkens back to ‘Sunday in the Park with George’ or ‘Sweeney Todd’, but my first Sondheim experience was ‘Into the Woods’, and I loved it. Follow that with the three songs Madonna did with him on ‘I’m Breathless’, and this album was on non-stop rotation for the entire summer of 1990, much to the chagrin of my brother whenever he was trapped in the car with me.

You’re a man with a gun in your hand,
Waging a war between good and evil can be a bore.
If you don’t take time, it’s not nice,
So here’s my advice,
Take your love on the run,
Oh God let me be the one,
A man with a gun.

‘He’s A Man’ is a seductive, slow-burning introduction to the whole feel of the ‘Dick Tracy’ movie and that entire glamorous/gangster era when everybody was holding out for a hero named after a penis. Myself, I had not yet joined the hunt for Dick, so I watched the adventure from the periphery, all of fourteen years old and not quite ready to give up the childhood ghost. For that moment, listening to Madonna sing about it was all I needed. The rest took place in my head.

All boss and no brains,
Bullies and thugs, they take up all your time in vain.
Can’t let go, someone cries and you hear the call,
Who’s gonna catch you, don’t good guys ever fall?

It had a lounge-like bar feel to it, and though the hard stiff stuff stung my lips and burned my tongue, the atmosphere called to me in the seductive plucking of a bass and the languid runs of a smoke-addled pianist. A jazzy undertone ran throughout the record – and that summer – and in the midnight talks of adolescence, in the longing and the confusing want, Madonna sang her siren songs for a Dick, and I listened and pined along with her.

All alone, in your room with your radio,
No one to hold you, I would never let you go…

Song #29: ‘He’s A Man’ ~ Summer 1990

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03
February
2011
Tags: Gratuitous Nudity, Male Nudity, Naked Male Celebrities, Shirtless Male Celebrities, Underwear
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Christian Bale Naked

This is, obviously, Christian Bale in his iconic title role of American Psycho. Arguably, this is when Mr. Bale was at his most prime form, chiseled and cut to the perfection that Patrick Bateman demanded. (Bateman is even more physically fit than Batman.)

Mr. Bale also reveals his soaped-up bottom in the film, and this in no way hurts his image in my eyes. In fact, it’s sort of the reason for this post.

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