A pair of ducks has appeared in our pool for the second year in a row, and that’s no April Fool’s joke, despite the date. Last year it was more quaint. Until it really wasn’t, at which point I made this futile plan. And now we greeted their return with a weary laugh, because running out and scaring them three times on a rainy day is not how I want to spend my time. Such is our work, however, if we don’t want them to nest poolside. This isn’t ‘The Sopranos’, so we simply don’t have the space.
Primed by this workout photo, might this finally be the day it happens for real? After all the years of wishing, waiting and hoping, might this be the morning it all slips out?
To prime the pump, check out this Zac Efron shirtless post,
this Zac Efron underwear post,
this Zac Efron naked ass post,
this Zac Efron Speedo post,
this Zac Efron sexy work-out post,
and this Zac Efron cock-tease post.
Oh wait, look at the date…
Nevermind!
In the bird world, it’s usually the males who have the brightly colored plumage, while the females settle for drabber feathers and fuller figures. Such was the scene in our front yard the other day, when a scarlet male strutted across the lawn while his partner waited in the shadows, blending into the background and hopping about before joining him in flight. These grainy pictures don’t do them justice; their beauty cannot be captured or stilled. It’s a beauty that can only be experienced in fleeting form, the way most beauty exists only as a passing fancy.
It’s been part of my elaborate plan not to binge on every film Bette Davis has ever made, in order to draw them out and enjoy them as something new and undiscovered from time to time. Hence my willful ignorance of the gem that is ‘Dead Ringer’. It came after her success in ‘Whatever Happened to Baby Jane?’ which makes it particularly interesting for those of us who enjoyed that period of her film work. This isn’t the greatest movie, but Davis gives it her usual bravado, and wears two of the greatest feather-fringed robes that cinematic history has ever witnessed. That alone makes it worth the watch.
She portrays twins, so you get double the bang for your Bette buck, and there’s even a grand staircase which she ascends and descends several times – another hallmark of every great Davis film. While such artifice and superficial-posturing is what initially draws me to most Davis movies, there’s a bit of a riveting storyline at work too, and it drew me in until the very end. Check off another box for my Gay-of-a-Certain-Age Card.
My eyes had been watching the Lenten rose outside our bedroom window for a few weeks now – ever since the snow melted actually. It’s trampled mound of evergreen foliage had remained a vibrant green throughout the winter, and was the only spot of color for quite some time. New growth would emerge in a reddish-tinged maroon color that matched the flower color, before slowly turning green. I was watching the oak leaves that covered the plant for signed of movement, hinting at life beneath, but it took a day of rain to push them completely to the side.
This is how our garden wakes each spring – fed from the rain and ignited by the warmer days – yet every year it thrills as if happening for the very first time. The doldrums of winter can harden the warmest hearts.
As much as many hate the rain, and it’s admittedly not my favorite weather event, it’s still a vital part of the life-cycle of the garden – a regular requirement for things to grow. At this time of the year, it jump-starts the appearance of these flower buds, promising nourishment and sustenance – promising the end of a barren winter.
There were more than a few tragic turnings of the past year of COVID, but the one that may be most regrettable is the time we have lost with loved ones. That feels especially sharp when I think of the fact that the Ilagan twins turned eleven today, and I feel like I’ve only see them two or three times since they turned ten – and that’s literally the truth.
There was this day of spooky fun around Halloween, and a rustic garage Thanksgiving, and that’s been about it before the weather turned and bound us indoors and without social distancing. That’s about to change, as their birthday alway indicates the shift to spring – a shift to hope and outside gatherings and the chance to re-connect to my niece and nephew. People have occasionally commented on what kind of influence their crazy fun Uncle can have on them – sometimes I wonder if their influence on me is more important. I think we can be of benefit to each other, and lately I’ve been missing their fun, rambunctious adventures.
The good news is that we are rounding the seasonal turn, and outside get-togethers will once again allow us to be together, where we last explored treasure hunts and Smashburger lunches and Starbucks siestas. Happy birthday, Emi and Noah – eleven is one of the last childhood years, so let’s make it a memorable one!
The majesty and magnificence of Tina Turner is in full display in the HBO documentary on her life, though by rights any single moment in her glorious career could have justified this Dazzler of the Day honor. Her reach and influence over the pop culture landscape looms large and widely varied, most recently as the backdrop for one of the most poignant scenes of ‘Schitt’s Creek’. Her energy, talent, and endurance – not to mention an uncanny knack for reinvention before it was de-rigeur for pop stars – combine in combustible fashion to make for one of the most legendary icons in music history.
This week adds to the pile-up of physical upgrades my middle-aged body demands, with an eye-exam since I am due for one. Down to my last pair of contacts, it’s now or resign myself to a few weeks of spectacles. I have my share of eyeglass headaches from those moments when I need these readers – no need to turn it into a full-day affair.
Such upkeep is the stuff of all humans. We battle and hold back the lines of age as it encroaches evermore on our bodies – a lost cause, but we fight it because it’s the essence of survival. It’s what humans have always done – something more primal and innate than planned or fully understood. Though I suppose there are those who do give up. I’m fortunately not there yet, and so we go, on with some new contacts, in with some new blood pressure pills, up with some sun salutations. Being alive is a good thing, no matter how much work it takes.
When you get lampooned in a Beyonce skit on ‘Saturday Night Live’ then you have truly made it. Add to that a number of years of entertaining the masses in ‘Hot Ones’ and you have the makings of a Dazzler of the Day. This one honors Sean Evans, who helms the ‘First We Feast’ series, where his underrated skills as an interviewer (chicken wings have a way of obscuring true talent) belie a way of getting genuinely closer to beloved celebrities. That takes skill, along with a steel stomach and a formidable digestive tract. Evans has it all. Witness his episode with Awkwafina and then indulge in all the rest.
Ladies and gentlemen and those who have yet to make up their minds, Holy Week has begun! Palms up for the Big JC Show coming your way! Before all that hoo-ha begins, however, let’s have our usual Monday morning look-back at what happened last week…
Hidden paintings on a pinecone.
Shirtless Superman Henry Cavill.
Do not schedule a Zoom call on a Saturday. Please. I only get two days off per week.
A chartreuse start, Adam & Eve style.
Pricked by the fragrance of hope.
Dazzlers of the Day included Jonathan Capehart, Carmie Hope, Pete & Chasten Buttigieg, Eugene Lee Yang, Dionne Warwick, and Lil Nas X.
For the ‘Montero’ video alone, Lil Nas X deserves an instant crowning as Dazzler of the Day. Add it to his Hunk of the Day honor, and get ready to assemble a shelf for all the awards to come.
Arriving as a preamble to Easter week, Palm Sunday always held an almost-dearer place in my heart than the big resurrection day – partly because I’ve always enjoyed the anticipation more than the actualization, and partly because palm fronds were a part of that morning’s church service. After every winter, their essence of newness, their bright but quiet canary color, edged with the freshest and slightest sliver of green reminding of how recently they had been cut. The palm fronds were a tangible bit of the hope of spring, the hope of Easter, there to be held in our hands and blessed by a Holy-Water wielding priest.
When I was an altar boy and serving on this day, I’d follow the priest around carrying the bucket of Holy Water as he traversed the entire church, dipping and swinging his wet scepter over his eager audience. It felt healing and hopeful, and at that young age I readily believed in such magic. That belief was enough, that trust was a source of confidence even if none of it turned out to be true, even if we had all been duped. The belief was what mattered, and there would be nothing to shatter it for years to come. I was lucky that way.
Today palms no longer represent the Sunday before Easter. They’ve gone back to their plant kingdom, assumed places of artifice and background beauty. They signal California sun and shadowy noirish films of sepia-toned warmth and decadence. A far cry from the innocence of Palm Sunday – and maybe it wasn’t never all that innocent anyway. The story of Jesus begins taking its darkest turns this week. Maybe the palm was a signal of warning, or portent. Such drama is always appreciated in these parts, particularly when it’s the drama of appearance. The world is harsh enough. Let’s cloak it in palm fronds, in freshness and green and all things spring.
“I came to this country in 1952, arriving by boat in Seattle. It was cold and wet the day that I arrived in the United States from Korea. I spent the first night here in jail (or some kind of detention center) because my papers were not right and I could not speak English well enough to explain anything.” ~ Sok Nam Ko, ‘The Way Back Home‘
This is a story of an immigrant from Korea, who came to America and forged a new life for himself while retaining the essence of his homeland.
This is a story of how we form our families and communities, and how we celebrate and reconcile our differences and disparities.
This is a story of a journey through a life cut short, a journey that for so long felt somehow incomplete, but that in retrospect was a journey that completed itself in its accomplishments, and everything it left behind.
Above all else, this is a story about love: love for one’s family, love for one’s adopted country, love for one’s homeland, love for the homelands we each make around the world, and love for the ongoing journey of making connections across cultures and countries and differences.
This is a story of my best friend’s father, Sok Nam Ko, and his incredible and all-too-short journey on this earth. As a legacy and testament to him, the Sok Nam Ko Foundation works to continue Dr. Ko’s passion for connecting cultures and people around the world by providing support for students looking to travel to other countries and enrich their lives.
In so many ways, over so many years, Dr. Ko – ‘Uncle Sok’ in my childhood memories – has become like a ghost to me. This is my way of rediscovering the man I knew when I was just a kid, and finding a way back to him as an adult. Even though he is gone, there is still much to be learned, new stories to be heard, and new connections to be made. I invite you to join us on this journey as it continues on the new social media accounts for the Sok Nam Ko Foundation.
FaceBook: https://www.facebook.com/SokNamKoFoundation
Twitter: https://twitter.com/foundation_ko
“I was born in Kaesong, Korea. It is impossible to say whether it was a happy occasion or an unexpected accident that I came into this world on November 5, 1934…” ~ Sok Nam Ko, ‘The Way Back Home’
Sok Nam Ko was born in Kaesong, Korea on November 5, 1934, during the Japanese occupation. Eleven years later, the United States and Soviet Union divided his homeland, setting the stage for Korea’s bloody civil war. Separated from his family by the fighting, Ko left in 1952 at the age of seventeen to begin a new life in a small American town. There he found a home with the Harrington family and the people of Castleton, Vermont. Ko immediately embraced America and its patchwork culture, participating in the political, educational ad social life of his chosen country. He adopted a distinctly American sense of individualism and a belief in the fundamental equality of all people, while retaining a strong sense of Korean identity, imbued by his childhood experiences. He died on March 16, 1991, but his spirit remains strong in the purpose and mission of the Sok Nam Ko Educational Exchange Foundation, which fosters the connections and exchanges between all the cultures of the world.
“What is most intimate is what will speak to others. Perfumers build the labyrinth in which we lose ourselves out of all those secret harmonies and connections. They bring out its beauty: reinvent it so that it can be felt by all.” – Denyse Beaulieu, ‘The Perfume Lover’
For the occasion of my first COVID-19 vaccination shot, I chose a very special cologne – ‘Straight to Heaven’ By Kilian – and despite its awful, cheesy name, it held exceptional meaning. This is the fragrance I was planning on bringing to New York for our weekend at the Plaza, which was not to be. As part of Skip’s birthday celebration, it harkened to his 40th birthday party – at which I also wore this scent. As such, it’s imbued with happy memories of friends and celebrations, and days that feel a little to far away. It’s precisely for that reason that I sprayed it on before heading to SUNY for my first vaccine shot: this was a way of clearing the path back to such happy celebrations and gatherings. It was the fragrance of hope.
It brought back a lot of sorrowful thoughts as well, of all the time and moments we might have spent with loved ones over the past year. If we’d only locked down and all worn masks for three months or so – but we couldn’t do that. If only everyone was getting the vaccine and working toward herd immunity – but we aren’t all doing that. If only we’d have the sense and made the sacrifice for the greater collective like they did in New Zealand, where they can be open and hug and go the movies and sporting events. Instead, we have a rip in our country with the ignorant and selfish that take their spring breaks, defy the sense and factual information of science, and take the law into their own armed hands.
But on this day, when the sun rose and the temperatures along with it, when the scent of spring was on the wind, and this magical cologne rose from the inner crook of my elbow, I chose the side of hope. I chose to celebrate the first step toward returning to the normal we once accompanied by the wisdom we have gained.
A majestic career that spans and conquers several decades is not something that happens often, particularly in the entertainment world, and those who manage to do so earn their place in the celebrity firmament. When that is sustained by talent as well as a knack for endearing yourself to the world, you instantly become a Dazzler of the Day – and today that honor belongs to Dionne Warwick. Her string of musical hits – culminating with the classic ‘That’s What Friends Are For’ – cemented her place in pop culture, and now she is conquering new lands with her hilarious Twitter feed, earning her a new generation of fans and enthralled adorers. Count me among them.
