Dominic Albano heads into 2023 with a new underwear enterprise, after a year that found him heralding the return of Playgirl magazine with a sizzling cover shoot as their Man of the Month. For both those endeavors, he handily earns this first crowning as Dazzler of the Day. While many admire Albano for his philosophical contradiction of being a socially-introverted superstar, and the heavy weight that goes allow with such an often-tortured personality juxtaposition, he’s also quite easy on the eyes. Dazzlers that dazzle from within and without will always have a place here. Keep your eye out for his new underwear line launching next month – at which point we’ll do another feature on him.
Sometimes the silliest Christmas decorations make the most lasting impressions. Similar to this wooden mouse-house, the LED Christmas tree you see in the featured photo is about as ridiculous as one can get the it comes to holiday decorations. Procured on some holiday stroll in Boston years ago with Kira, it’s all plastic and snow-made-out-of-glitter (the worst snow of all). I normally wouldn’t have entertained any wisp of a notion of bringing it home, but for some reason its colors and charm spoke to me in that magical TJ Maxx in which we inevitably found ourselves. There was something so sad and tragic about it, I felt its pull like a Charlie Brown Christmas tree.
It took a single battery to operate its LED magnificence, and nestled on a shelf that houses a lime-green Crate and Barrel vase, it somehow worked, lending a modern twist to the holiday festivities at hand. Kira and I both laughed at it, but since then it has come out to illuminate its little corner for several years – a new and unlikely tradition that signals how silly the season can be, but also how magical if you start to believe. I’m not quite there, but this is the time for sentiment, so I’m feeling it out.
The second day of our Holiday Stroll weekend began in colder and grayer form. Andy slept in, and I made my way to downtown to get the supplies for the following week’s Children’s Holiday gathering – another planned return to something we once did with some semblance of regularity, and which now felt strange and new. I shuffled along the Southwest Corridor Park and noticed that flowers and berries were still showing off.
It recalled the Lenten roses I’d seen on our car ride home the night before – a row of them in ghostly bloom at this late date in December, somehow blooming on an evening when both Andy and I were too chilled to explore the city any further. On this day, the same chill was in the air, so I hurried along and finished all my shopping – both for the following week, and all the holiday shopping for friends and family. (Jaxon Layne was the last one I needed to find something for.)
Returning home to find Andy ensconced on his end of the couch and finishing up his cup of coffee, I joined him for an early afternoon siesta – a favorite part of visiting Boston now.
Dusk came quickly, and without wanting a formal or stuffy dinner scene we took a car to Chinatown and had another meal of comfort food. Miscalculating the timing, our early dinner plans ran into the matinee-ending crush of the nearby theater district, so traffic snarled and snagged, causing us to walk over to the Ritz-Carlton for a beat, where we found another fireplace that played a part on previous holiday strolls and visits.
One of those jewel-like moments that find their unplanned way into every holiday stroll, we paused there to get warm, then continued on through the chilly night, down Boylston and all the way to the Newbury.
Formerly the Taj, this was where we spent our wedding weekend, and as such holds special significance. We are accustomed to seeing this spot filled with flowers, but the Christmas version was just as spectacular. Across the street, a battalion of geese stood sentry on the pond at the Boston Public Garden. Maybe for our wedding anniversary we will return for a night in one of the suites.
And while I missed Kira this time around, I might have had a more heartfelt stroll being accompanied by Andy. When he’s not in Boston, his presence is always felt – in the Public Garden, at our favorite restaurants, along the Southwest Corridor Park – and when he is in Boston, it’s even better.
This is one of those scary transitional years that always feels like it’s going to wreak havoc with a Virgo’s desire for order and consistency, but teaches happy lessons in letting go and going with the flow. When Kira indicated she wasn’t yet ready to do a holiday stroll, I was disappointed but understood. It forced a change-up that’s been in the making for a few years. The last time we did an official stroll was in 2019, right before COVID hit, and nothing has been the same since. We squeaked out a time-traveling bit of holiday magic to make the Holiday Stroll of 2020, but in 2021 it fell apart completely. No stroll, no roll. And somehow, no drama. We’d all been too beaten down to care.
2022 felt like it might be the return of something normal, the rekindling of something good, but after a few months, the year proved to be just another dud, so when Kira canceled this year’s planned stroll, I turned to Andy and asked him to join me and lift my spirits. Good guy that he is, he agreed to come along for his first holiday stroll, and save a Christmas weekend that might have been lost to sadness.
If you look closely at the bottom center of the above photo, you will notice a gentleman making his way through the Southwest Corridor Park – that’s Andy, returning from dropping off the car in the garage. Out of my many years spent in Boston, one of the happiest sights is seeing Andy walking along this path. It was an auspicious beginning to a peaceful stroll.
My first order of business was decorating the condo, so I lit a few festive candles that soon spread their spicy, warm scents of cinnamons and balsam and cloves and pine throughout the rooms. Andy pulled a stool over to his spot on the couch and set up his coffee, while some quasi-holiday-music played on the stereo from a favorite movie.
Curtains went up, the mantle was decked out, garlands were lit, and pillows were switched out for the Christmas season. A welcome sense of coziness swelled just as the temperature went down and the day dimmed. My only real strolling plan was a walk through the Seaport Holiday Market – it would be my first time visiting it, so Andy and I would experience another first together, like we did so many years ago, and so many years since.
The market was cute and quaint, and more extensive than we expected – with local artisans offering their goods. Walking but we hurried through it because it was also much colder than we had anticipated.
I’d made reservations at The Smoke Shop for some warm comfort food – another first that turned out to be another happy moment. After any sort of walking expedition, especially in Boston, one works up an appetite, so I ordered the ‘Pit Crew’ with two meats and two sides and all was well with the world. Andy started with a cozy little cocktail called ‘Saving Daylight’ which consisted of bourbon, honey, lemon and a touch of cinnamon, while I opted for a tall glass of ginger ale. It was a very good meal, and we finished it off with some egg nog butter cake.
The walk across one of the bridges bringing us back from the Seaport section was brutal – windy and cold and biting – so we paused by a fireplace at the Intercontinental Hotel before getting an Uber home.
The fading remnants of a recently-full moon hung low in the sky, sparkling on the water and lending an aspect of holiday magic to the end of the evening. We returned to the cozy condo scene, and after a hot shower I slipped into the bed, where Andy joined me for the showing of ‘The Man Who Came to Dinner’ – a Holiday Stroll tradition that somehow was still intact.
Grammy-award winning musical artist Bad Bunny earns his first Dazzler of the Day crowning, as I admire anyone with such an uncanny sense of fashion, one which extends to his carefully manicured fingernails, which can often be found painted and polished in all sorts of fine designs. This past year, he may best be known in these parts for boldly and brilliantly kissing a male band member in an awards show performance, but he was also named top touring artist for 2022 by Billboard, so it’s all working. That sort of confidence in one’s own self and sexuality is ever-dazzling.
This year’s Holiday Stroll had a very special guest, as Kira was unable to join. Come back here tomorrow to see who it is, and how we strolled the merry streets of Boston to celebrate the Christmas season. It was a welcome return to a happy tradition, and one of my favorite people in the world was there to join me.
Another holiday semi-tradition – the Boston Children’s Holiday Hour – will be taking place this weekend, as I haul my niece and nephew to that fine city by the sea for a gathering of some of my oldest and dearest friends. Having not seen most of these wonderful folks since before COVID, this will prove an interesting affair. Our lives have changed irrevocably during the past few years, and that has affected everything, and everyone. Most of their kids aren’t even kids anymore, soaring into their mid-to-upper teens, and skyrocketing beyond my height, so it will be quite a sight to see how we all fit into the small condo. If it can handle a party of fifty, as it once did in holiday times long ago, it can handle this crowd.
As for the holiday stroll about to be recapped tomorrow, it was a lovely, if slightly subdued, excursion – fitting for these delicate times. See you then, I hope… in the meantime, some Christmas music to set off a Friday right proper.
Billy Baldwin was one of those 90’s hunks who formed my early understanding and appreciation of handsomeness and beauty, and who grew to impress with his consistent talent and refusal to be defined or limited by his good looks. Instead, he made quirky turns in theater and indie films like ‘Three of Hearts’. Today I’m most impressed by his voice for truth and justice on what remains of the Twitter site, fighting off the horrid MAGA siege with wit and aplomb. For that alone he earns this Dazzler of the Day.
My love of snowstorms was likely inherited from my mother, even if never voiced it until we were both adults. In our childhood, my brother and I loved snowstorms as much as any other kid, especially the way they gave the opportunity for a missed day of school. Back then, Mom and Dad were more concerned with shoveling and getting to and from work to enjoy them much, but in recent years Mom has explained how she loved being inside during a snowstorm, especially in the Boston condo.
I think she always felt that way, as a snowstorm provided a pause in the hectic pace in our daily life. It suspended and arrested the non-stop velocity of a working mother’s many jobs, the way it stopped and stilled the world. Nature wins out in the end, and if the lesson is to slow down and inhabit the moment, the lesson will be learned, from one Mother to another.
On a recent late-afternoon where one of the first snowstorms of the season arrived, my Mom and I were texting to see how the other was doing. It was almost evening, but the snowfall lent the night more light in that way of solace that makes up for winter being winter. The snow nestled into the outreached arms of the pine trees and dogwoods, which would hold until the winds arrived the next day. For all night and morning, the snow stayed this way – a beautiful way for winter to announce its impending arrival.
One of the most hilarious comedy specials I’ve seen in a while, ‘The Intruder’ introduces Atsuko Okatsuka to a whole new audience, including myself, so I’m very glad I caught it. Okatsuka will also be on tour next year, with shows scheduled through spring of 2023, so check out her website for shows that might be near you, and act accordingly. This marks her first Dazzler of the Day crowning.
No, this isn’t a post about 3M Scotch tape, which many of us are struggling to find now that it’s present-wrapping season. I always buy some ridiculous 96-pack of the stuff and still somehow never have a roll on hand when I really need it. Also, did Scotch tape originate in Scotland? Just another seasonal question to ponder while you’re wrapping a pair of fitted sheets and wondering how they came to be so perfectly-folded in their package, never to be again. So many digressions, I’ve almost forgotten the point of this post.
Ahh, yes: 3M. As in three ‘M’ words that form the memory core of this post. The first being Madonna. As illustrated in the accompanying pics, she is the main thrust of what we have here, and the last one below is from her ‘Sex’ book anniversary in Miami. Her hairstyle echoes the one she wore to the premiere party of that book way back in that heady autumn of 1992. We’ve all come a long way, baby. Another digression.
The second ‘M’ is her song ‘Masterpiece’, a shuffling little ballad from the days leading into the ‘MDNA’ period – Holiday 2011 or thereabouts. Aside from a questionable ‘Santa Baby’ cover in the mid-80’s, Madonna hasn’t really done a Christmas-themed song (and the decidedly-non-Christmas ‘Holiday’ is NOT a fucking Christmas song) but for me, ‘Masterpiece’ will always come the closest thanks to my incessant playing of it on a holiday weekend in New York.
The third and final ‘M’ for the moment is Messiah – a majestic ballad from her under-rated and under-appreciated ‘Rebel Heart’ album. That too came along in a winter, post-holiday, but Christmas is supposedly all about the big M himself, Jesus Christ, and so ‘Messiah’ took on a Christmas slant, and its dramatic and slightly-forlorn feel mirrored some similarly depressing holiday moments. It ain’t all angels and holly.
Both of these songs have come to embody the holidays for me, as incongruous as Prince’s ‘Diamonds and Pearls’ perhaps, but no less lovely in my twisted heart. It always seemed that Madonna just wanted Christmas to be over so she could go back to focusing on herself and her career, but who knows – maybe she secretly loves the holiday, and has since way before Mariah made it her own. I kind of doubt it though – Madonna has never been one for sentimentality – one of the reasons I loved her in the first place.
When an actor finds himself inhabiting a shell of handsome and hard-won fitness-honed beauty, they are sometimes saddled with the image of not having any other talent. It’s not a very fair conundrum, and it’s always gratifying to see some pretty face defy that and consistently deliver wildly-varied and complex performances, stocking their career with indelible moments on-screen. Such is the case with Milo Ventimiglia, who offers an impressive list of roles that seem as disparate from one another as they are distinctly crafted and brought to life with chameleonic grace. Milo earns his first Dazzler of the Day here (after several runs as Hunk of the Day when we used to have that feature) and this gratuitous butt post because if you’ve got it, you should flaunt it.
This is the week when the holiday gatherings and celebrations begin in earnest, with office lunches and get-togethers on tap, and all of the social anxiety and distress that comes along with them. If history is any indication, this is when people tend to bring the drama, and understandably so – we are all taxed with extra burdens and told we should be having fun and enjoying the moment and the time together and bullshit, bullshit, bullshit…
After several years of therapy and working on my own anxiety issues, I’m happily at the point where I can genuinely say (and mean) ‘Fuck it’ when things get to be too much, and I’ll step out of anything at any point in time as needed. People will simply need to be ok with that. Thus far, my close friends and family have always been fine with it, mostly because I haven’t made a huge deal out of anything.
That said, there will be inescapable episodes where we don’t have the time or preparation to be ready for uncomfortable situations, and rather than stress or worry about it, I’ve adopted a better outlook and attitude when they rear their discomforting heads, one which embraces the imperfection of life, finding fun and laughter in the follies of what we as humans find ourselves doing at any given moment. When you consider what really matters, the friends and family we love, the rest of it doesn’t matter as much. Holding onto that levity and being flexible and open to new experiences are ways in which I’m staying calm amid the frenzy of holiday mayhem. It’s just the slightest tweak in how I’ve handled these couple of weeks leading up to Christmas, but it makes a world of difference.
At the time of this writing, I have no idea what might become of Jennifer Coolidge’s character on ‘The White Lotus‘ but I do know that her whimsical, irritating, and impossible-to-ignore performance for the past two seasons has been one of the highlights on any television show. It is just another feather in her cap of impressive performances, which run the gamut from hilarious to heartbreaking. I’m thinking of her work in ‘Best in Show’, ‘Legally Blonde’ and ‘Promising Young Woman‘, as well as her recent turn on ‘The White Lotus’. She seems to finally be getting her just due, with celebratory awards coming at last from a lifetime of indelible work. This is her first Dazzler of the Day, also overdue, so let’s rectify that immediately.
When I abruptly turned off my online world last week, it came before we ever got around to a proper recap of the week, and then being off for a bit there was nothing to recap anyway, so here’s what may have been missed, along with what hasn’t been missed at all. Careful readers who follow along in these posts may note the arc of feeling down and dealing with the resulting issues during the holidays, something that has happened to me for many years but only now do I feel ok writing about it. There’s some progress there. More, hopefully, to come. Happy Mondaying to all who are taking part, as if we had a choice…
Fresh off his fabulous Christmas special ‘Have You Heard of Christmas?’, Matt Rogers joins fellow ‘Las Culturistas’ podcast partner Bowen Yang in the pantheon of those who have been named Dazzler of the Day. His new special is a refreshing tonic for those of us already bored by the usual holiday trappings, putting forth his unique brand of artistry (and a killer wardrobe). Matt’s comical prowess cannot completely hide his vocal talent, and when working in tandem those two strengths become a powerhouse of hilarity and musical wonder – the very stuff Christmas dreams are made of. Check it out streaming on Showtime now.
