In an effort to get me off my ass and back into the Madonna Timeline, I’m doing something different by telling you the next selection in advance – and it’s a good one: ‘Live to Tell’. To whet your appetite, here is a performance of the song on Madonna’s epic Blonde Ambition Tour. Let’s see if this provokes me into writing the next installment…
Monthly Archives:
January 2013
09
January
2013
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January
2013
09
January
2013
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January
2013
Matt Bomer Shirtless on ‘The New Normal’
I watched the first two episodes of ‘The New Normal’ and stopped. It wasn’t that I didn’t like it – I did – I just missed the third, and never quite picked it up again. Most of my friends love it, and continually advise me to return, but television isn’t my bag. At some moments, though, such as when Matt Bomer makes  a guest appearance and takes his shirt off, I do feel I’m missing out. However, there is always his stint as Hunk of the Day (where he appears practically naked) to make up for it.
09
January
2013
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January
2013
Bird in a Bush
A cardinal sits in the bare branches of a mock-orange bush outside our dining room window. It is unlikely that he is searching for peace – no, he is probably searching for seeds, or somewhere safe to sleep for the night. It is a different perspective, and a welcome one. The search for peace is a luxury when there are so many other vital components of survival that require seeking. Through the eyes of a cardinal, I am reminded of this. In the quick questioning tilt of his head before he flits away, I am faced with that challenge. All that seemed important suddenly vanishes in the crimson flash that is now gone.
The memory of his vivid plumage stays with me, like a smudge of red ink on my finger. It is a comfort in the barren expanse of Winter, a welcome stain of berry juice from a summer day culled from the past. I can hear the splashing of the pool, feel the beating of the sun – or is it the crashing of waves from the future, and the tickle of sand on my feet?
Outside, the night approaches. A January thaw has been predicted. The banks of snow will rise into the fog. Hold onto your hearts.
08
January
2013
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January
2013
The Press Release a Decade in the Making
It’s been quite some time since FaceBook forced us to write about ourselves in the third person, and I’ve missed it. There’s something very analytical about that, vain and vapid too, so it suits just about every part of me. In honor of that, and the ten-year anniversary of this site, I present to you the official Press Release on the decade which came before:
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Ten years ago Alan Ilagan invited the world to the virtual party of www.ALANILAGAN.com, and since that time the revelry has raged every day.  From writer to photographer, poser to pantomime, gallery manager to exhibitionist, and husband to Uncle, he’s tried on a lot of hats over the years, every one photographed, chronicled, and archived on this very site. Revealing a lot while revealing very little is the hat trick at which he is most adept, and beneath every revelation he has made is another tantalizing veil, a hint at ever more to come.Â
This is where his talent for combining the written word and the visual image comes into clear focus. This is where he gets to experiment, explore and play ~ unabashedly showing off no matter the risks or mistakes that might result. It’s a sight to be seen, a voyeuristic and clandestine adventure, one in which the sharing of a journey has become an art form unto itself.
Somewhere along the ensuing decade, the site became about more than Mr. Ilagan himself. It was a mirror of all sorts of things ~ celebrity, art, music, beauty, pop culture, gay rights, marriage equality, family, love, and friendship ~ not only in the way he saw the world, but in the way we saw the world. It was no longer about Alan as the sole attraction, but more of a community cocktail party. He’d make the drinks, but he wanted you to be a part of it. An integral part of it. In fact, the reason for it. Like the parties he’s thrown, it’s become less about the host and more about the guests. While it feels like an exclusive event, one never gets the notion that they are anything but included in the festivities. Sometimes the gathering is elegant, sometimes it’s raunchy, and sometimes it’s too much for words – but it’s always engaging, it’s often enjoyable, and everyone is always welcome.
08
January
2013
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January
2013
If I Could Melt Your Heart
Never one to wish for frozen temperatures, or a cold and cruel Winter, I do fear a thaw coming at this time of the year. A thaw is a dangerous thing. A thaw messes with the mind. I still recall a thaw that came in January of 1995. Walking in the melting snow, lost amid the fog and the feelings, I remember the yearning of my heart, the misdirected obsessions, the unrequited love – or the closest I could come to love at the time – and, swirling as it did in the mild water vapor, the fog of the snow banks matched the fog of the mind.
In my ‘Whimsy’ Project of the time, I sought out creative expression, hoping for some ease or relief, but finding only a mash and jumble of words and products ~ losing my way amid the fluff, getting carried away by the airy confections, anything to distract from the truth. The fog has that effect on the heart and the head. I wished for someone to appear on one of those nights, and maybe someone did. I knew who he was, but I didn’t know where he had come from, or if I had conjured him ~ whether he was real, whether his kiss had warmed or cooled my lips, or if the night had been so wet I had only to open my mouth and the whole universe left it moist from a thousand kisses. The coldest kindness can feel like the warmest embrace when the rest of the world is so frigid. Therein lies the risk of a thaw. Like the otherwise-perennial plants lost to the heaving that comes from such weather extremes, the heart can be irreparably broken when given sudden careless warmth in the midst of a barren tundra. The flowers that bloom there do not last very long, and are so small they are seldom even seen.
So save the brief reprieve and give me the real Winter. Batter me with the wilds of wind, the sharp sting of snow – pelt me with your ice and sleet and frozen shards on tips of lashing limbs – just do not tease with the promise implicit in a thaw. That promise is too far off. We’ve had our Fall. Let us have our Winter. There is no other way to get to Spring.
07
January
2013
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January
2013
Welcome to the Team, Matt Dallas
Everybody comes out differently. Most of us do it privately, to a few select friends or family, and then to the general public as our lives  unfold. Some of us do it boldly and unabashedly, defiantly appearing on the cover of Time Magazine (Ellen DeGeneres) or proclaiming it in a Letter to the Editor (me). Some are dragged out kicking and screaming after years of veiled avoidance (Ricky Martin and Anderson Cooper). And some people do it with a simple Tweet, announcing an engagement to a boyfriend. The latter was the case with actor Matt Dallas, who Tweeted the following: “Starting off the year with a new fiancé, @bluehamilton. A great way to kick off 2013!?”
Blue Hamilton would be a gay musician who is now the fiancé of Mr. Dallas. It’s refreshing how casual and simple this was, and all the more exciting because of it. No matter how you publicly come out, it’s always something to celebrate. It means a certain freedom from hiding, a liberation from fear. It also means you’ve finally accepted the person God made you to be. Best wishes and congratulations to Matt Dallas ~ welcome to the greatest club in the world!
(PS – Congrats on your engagement too. Sometimes – most of the time – love is more important than sexuality. )
07
January
2013
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January
2013
An Asset to the Abbey
“A family must never be a topic of conversation.” ~ The Dowager Countess, ‘Downton Abbey’
A more fitting quote could not have been conjured as I sit here on a Sunday night watching the Season Premiere of ‘Downton Abbey’. Following a day – well, a month – of family issues, I was on the verge of purging all that’s been going on, and writing it all out here, but they aren’t my issues at stake, and not my place to speak of them. Sometimes it’s good to have a reminder from a Dowager. Sometimes I’m too blunt, too coarse, for my own good. For the good of others too… perhaps more-so.
And so I find relief and escape in the fading aristocracy of a family, and world, very much removed from my own. A soap opera with British manners, and Dame Maggie Smith – I’ve missed this. It’s so much nicer when the intrigue and the drama is made-up – even if what goes on there mirrors what is happening here. Properties come under peril, histories come under scrutiny – the language of a family is rife with particular dialects, subtle nuances, tricky traps, emotional minefields, and hidden pockets of hurt. You can change almost everything about your life today – your friends, your lovers, your husbands, your wives – but you cannot change your family. A lot may have shifted in the world since the time of ‘Downtown Abbey’, but that much remains the same.
06
January
2013
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January
2013
Classic Shot Series ~ Global Wheat Harvest
This is one of the new features of the site – a brief collection of classic shots, culled from within the last ten years of www.ALANILAGAN.com. I’m starting with some of the older ones, as those are the ones that have already been forgotten, (and in which I look rather younger…) This particular batch is from a session for ‘The Divine Diva Tour: A Fairy’s Tale’ back in 2005. I think only one of them was actually used. As for that Project, I thought long and hard about putting it online, but determined that the world is not quite ready for me in drag – not like that. Perhaps one day…
06
January
2013
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January
2013
Project Yourself
In celebration of the 10th anniversary of www.ALANILAGAN.com, we have posted my last five Projects on ‘The Projects‘ page. Way back in the beginning, when I started all of my sinning, ‘The Projects‘ were the impetus for getting online – a repository of written and photographic work that the world could peruse. A decade later, they are still the main outlet for my creative passions, the works where all my energy, anger, desire, joy, and sorrow find release. If you’re lucky, you can find redemption in expression, and salvation in sharing. Like so much of the world, we recall most recent events first, and so the order of The Projects begins with the last project I did:
‘Bardo: The Dream Surreal‘ was a look at everything that fell in-between ~ the space between light and dark, the time between dusk and dawn, the moment between sleep and waking ~ and the tension maintained through the project is what I love most about it. There is no happy ending, no definitive finish, no easy understanding of what is really going on. It takes a very surrealistic look at the worlds we inhabit, particularly those that totter on the razor-thin edge of ambivalence. The photographs are manipulated to make one wonder what is real and what it not, and, like a dream, it feels just real enough to stir and disturb. Though there are hints of impending darkness, I tried to inject enough whimsy and wit into it to keep the loose narrative flowing and floating.
‘A 21st Century Renaissance: The Resurrection Tour‘ was my project from 2010’s travels. For this one, I went back to basics, beginning with the very elements of this world, then fusing the scientific with the artful, melding the constructions of nature with the constructions of art, in an effort to foster a Renaissance of the time when discovery, and the arts, flourished. From the stars in the sky to the particles of sand on the shore, it was a rebirth of sorts of my fascination with how the natural world and its beauty informs the artist, and how the artist in turn creates and reflects such inspiration.
My first, last, and only stay at New York’s infamous Hotel Chelsea was chronicled in 2009’s ‘A Night at the Hotel Chelsea‘. Shot over the course of a single afternoon and evening in the stultifying heat of July in the city, it captured the raw grit of that now-defunct establishment, and the faded glamour of a hotel long since past its prime. Vestiges remained, and friendly ghosts wandered with us through the halls, but for me it was more a sign that my time in such places was coming to a close. I was too old to be okay with roaches and dirty corners and rickety beds. It did, however, make for some wildly textured and moody photographs, proof that the dirtier and grimier the surroundings, the more interesting for a photo shoot. It also inspired some of the more risque photos, because when you’re in the very hotel where Madonna shot part of her ‘Sex’ book, you can’t help but pay homage.
‘The Circus Project‘ from 2008 was the first, and thus far only, work that has the word ‘project’ in its title – and since I’ve been doing this stuff since 1993, give me a break on the creative dirge. Telling the tale of a young man who finds escape in a season with a traveling circus, it’s one of my more structured narratives, combining prose with pictures as the journey across the country, and through the seasons, reaches its harrowing, and questionable, conclusion. I wanted to posit what it would be like when someone who always felt like an outcast joined up with the most outlandish group of outcasts, and still managed to feel apart from it. In essence, what is it like to not belong anywhere? For anyone’s who ever felt on the outside, like they didn’t quite fit in, I wrote this with them in mind.
With the exception of a single parting shot, ‘StoneLight‘ was a collection of black-and-white photography from 2007. Shot in various cemeteries in Albany, New York, and the surrounding area, it was a study of contrasts – light and dark, stone and air, living and dead, mortal and immortal – and was one of my first projects that relied solely on visuals, with nary a word written or spoken throughout it. I like the hushed aspect that gave it, and if you ever just wanted me to shut up and stand still, this is the project for you. Relying on the sculptural aspects of headstones and burial plots, it explored the titular marriage of Stone and Light, and the nuances found there were, I thought, best exemplified in black-and-white images. (On a behind-the-scenes note, this is the project that got me the Gallery Manager position I held for four years, and in a way I attribute it to my coming into the art scene of Albany, NY.)
I invite you – nay, implore you – to take your time with these Projects. Bookmark them and come back if you can’t do it right at this moment – as they are the heart and soul of this website, and they are the work of which I am proudest, the work into which I poured everything I had. Some artists want money. Some artists want acclaim. Some artists want applause. All I ask is that you look, that you read, and that you take a little piece of me with you when you go.
06
January
2013
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January
2013
Now We Are Ten
Ten years ago my body looked like that.
And ten years ago I started www.ALANILAGAN.com.
Obviously, a lot has changed for both.
This month marks the tenth anniversary of this website. Back in January of 2003, we first opened the portal into my unruly patch of the internet – two months prior to its scheduled opening (thank you, Pat Troy) – and since then I’ve never looked back. At the time, it was nothing like it is today. There was no daily blog, there was but a scant collection of Photographs, and my Projects were in-flux and too ponderous to properly post in full. All I wanted back then was a repository for some of my work, a place to which I could point whenever someone asked me what I did and ‘Keyboard Specialist 1’ failed to encompass it properly.
Ten years later, an eternity for a personal website, I am taking a moment to give myself, and those who have helped out so graciously throughout the years, a little pat on the back. Look at The Projects. Check out The Pictures. Read The Writings. We’ve come a long way. I now post an average of three posts a day, occasionally less, and often more (catch us on a day like Super Bowl Sunday and you’re likely to see multiple posts on cocktails, jockstraps, Madonna, shirtless football players, and guys in their underwear – all in honor of America’s favorite game.) That goes seven days a week, 365 days a year. You know those other sites that take weekends and vacations off? I don’t. When I’m out of town, I have posts programmed. When I go out to a party on Friday night, knowing it will be a rough Saturday, I make sure to have something set up before I sip my first cocktail. It takes a lot of work to make it look easy. Why do I bother? Because I know what it’s like to visit your favorite website and not have an update in days, weeks, months, and I would never want to do that to someone who is good enough to stop by and give me a moment of their time.
I don’t get paid for this. I’ve never received one dollar for doing what I do here, and I never bothered to seriously look into that because it’s always been a labor of love, a creative outlet worth ten times the amount in therapy. There may come a time when ads start popping up (and if any advertiser wants in and can figure out how to get it all set up, shoot me a message) but even that won’t change the commitment and promise I’ve made to you. You’ve seen me through some of the most difficult, and some of the most happy, moments of my life. In ways, you’ve seen me through more things than my closest friends and family have, simply by being here more than any of them have, and that’s a strange and wonderful thing.
I’d like to thank the ongoing cast of characters that wanders in and among my online world here, including my  husband Andy, my parents, my brother, my niece and nephew, and the friends who have become like family – Suzie, Chris, JoAnn, Kira – as well as the webmasters who have kept this site going when I thought HTML stood for something, well, decidedly different than what it does – Pat Troy, who started it all, and Skip Montross, who made it into what it now is. I couldn’t have done any of this without all those people, and more. You would be part of that more – yes, you, who are reading this now and wondering if I mean you – I do. It always falls short when all I can muster is a ‘Thank you’, but it’s a heartfelt one, because as much as I want to believe I could do this alone, I couldn’t. Nor would I ever want to – this journey we’re on is meant to be shared.
With that, I invite you to relax, pull up a chair and a favorite cocktail, and settle in for another year of www.ALANILAGAN.com.
05
January
2013
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January
2013
And They Said We Wouldn’t Last…
A little ten-year anniversary present to myself. Indulge me… and come back tomorrow to help me celebrate.
05
January
2013
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January
2013
Housekeeping (Knock, Knock)
It is at this point where we take a brief pause and prepare for the tenth anniversary of this website. Work has been completed on retooling things for just such an occasion, and we are ready to begin the celebration just as soon as some minor housekeeping is finished. For the moment I need a little break. Hence the shirtless pics and the buying of some time while I sleep in and greet the day when I’m good and ready. Trust me, the wait will be worth it. Get ready for ten…
04
January
2013
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January
2013
Naked at the Window
You like to watch, don’t you?
One of the first sentences I ever spoke aloud as a child was, “I like to watch.”
We all do, especially the more inquisitive and curious among us. We might feel there’s something safe in being the watcher instead of the watched, but there are dangers inherent in both, and a risk to all showing, telling, and receiving. When the watcher becomes the watched, that’s when things get tricky. In watching you may feel you have the upper hand, but that’s mere deception. When you’re watching, you’re rarely living. You’re not the one performing the action being looked at, you’re not the one participating. You are observer, removed and impotent from involvement.
Dare you turn your gaze inward? Dare you put yourself out there? It’s so easy to watch someone else do it, so easy to judge and condemn, lurking and hiding from all the other eyes in snarky darkness. What would happen if you drew your own curtain back? Would you be brave enough to face such a chilly world?
04
January
2013
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January
2013
The 1st Day of the Year with the Twins
There is no better way to start off a New Year than with the hope and excitement of our littlest ones. Here are some photos of my nephew Noah and my niece Emi from New Year’s Day (with a special guest appearance from our littlest one of all, my cousin’s latest addition Phoebe!) It’s just enough to restore my constantly dwindling faith in the world.
03
January
2013
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January
2013
On the Cover of a Magazine
The amazing artist Paul Richmond is featured prominently in the current issue of the art magazine Noisy Rain, the entirety of which can be found HERE. It showcases a number of his Cheesecake Boys and other works, all of them gorgeous, colorful, and fun. I have to say that his rendition of me is one of my favorite of all-time – as much for its collaborative aspect as for its cheeky notion. It’s been a little over a year since he so generously immortalized me as one of his Cheesecake Boys. I’m in some great company (hello Michael Breyette!), of which I’m not at all worthy, but it’s totally fun to be part of his world.
