October 11 marks National Coming Out Day, and since I’ve written many a gay post here over the past seventeen years, I’ll not regale you with the tale of my own coming out because it’s been done before. Rather, I’m asking a simple question that hangs in the air with the idea of a new Supreme Court justice taking Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s vaunted place. How would you feel if your marriage was suddenly up for a vote, and if it went the wrong way would be deemed null and void? Or better yet, how would you feel if you grew up in a world where you weren’t allowed to marry the one that you loved? National Coming Out Day is about coming out and being true to who you are. That’s a relatively new luxury – and for many it’s still not a luxury at all. We met remember that. We must safeguard it. And we must work to protect the rights we’ve earned when hate and homophobia make motions to rise again. No one is equal until everyone is equal.
Author Archives: Alan Ilagan
October
2020
October
2020
Halloween Movie Choices: Bloody Binary Battles
Presenting a binary choice in anything these days seems rife for complaint and fuckery, so of course I had to put up some of these polls on Twitter for the Halloween season! (That’s just the kind of dick I am.)
‘Hocus Pocus’ or ‘Practical Magic’? This is an easy one for me: ‘Practical Magic’ all the way, mostly for that magnificent Victorian and setting, that glorious little greenhouse where the starry paperwhite narcissus get a guest shot, and the cute little soap store that Sally opens.
‘Hocus Pocus’ has Bette Midler, it’s true, but I feel like you had to experience it growing up to truly love it, and I simply missed that. On FaceBook, this one generated the most heat, with people mostly demanding both because it was too much like ‘Sophie’s Choice’. Twitter seemed decidedly in favor of ‘Hocus Pocus’.
‘Rocky Horror Picture Show’ or ‘Clue’? Tim Curry plays the main parts in both, so maybe it’s a question of whether you prefer him in a butler get-up or garters. Strangley, I’m going with the former, as ‘Clue’ will always be a favorite (again, because I grew up on it and recall watching it on rainy Saturday afternoons with my brother).
I came to ‘Rocky Horror’ much, much later than just about everyone else, and I’m weird in that I really don’t like getting water and rice thrown at me in a public theater (or anywhere for that matter). [At my first public viewing of it I had more rice in my underwear than I put in the rice cooker on certain nights. Luckily I’m so hot and wet that some of it was edible the next morning.]
‘Sleepy Hollow’ or ‘The Nightmare Before Christmas’? Tim Burton gave his weird and wonderful directorial touch to both, and Danny Elfman composed his hauntingly atmospheric music for both as well. I’m a big Burton fan, again largely through nostalgia and growing up to some of his classics.
Though ‘Nightmare’ brought an instantly iconic character to animated life and is undisputedly the more artistic endeavor, I fall prey to the enchanting upstate New York setting and classic story of Ichabod Crane in ‘Hollow’, even if it was more grossly and blatantly commercial, so my preference leans to that. (Christopher Walken does another chilling turn that is so indelible you feel his menace even when he’s missing his head – I don’t even care if that wasn’t him in those scenes).
Based on all the polls, my picks are three-out-of-three not the favorites of the majority of those who frequent my Twitter account, and I’m ok with that. Good taste doesn’t always translate to mass appeal. To each their own.
October
2020
Another Generation of Babies on the Way
Her name is Shelly 2. (Shelly 1 met an all-too-early demise when we think someone poisoned her.) The wonderful news is that Shelly 2 is about to have a baby. Two in fact.
Shelly 2 is a Spider plant that I have from the office, now residing in our guest room as she wouldn’t get enough water with my limited office hours these days. She came from a parent plant that did quite well in its bright office corner but suddenly got stricken with something that ended up killing her. I saved a few plantlets in some water just in time to produce Shelly 2, who is now sending forth a couple of plantlets of her own. Even in this crazy state of the world, there is still hope to be found.
October
2020
Dynasty: The Fall Song 2020
Pulling his yellow raincoat on and rushing out with the rest of his classmates, the boy looks up into the gray sky and feels the sting of rain. Looking further up the hill, he searches for his mother’s station wagon, always there on the days when it rains. He pulls his hood over his head and hurries the pace. The rain comes down steadily and as he reaches the top of the little hill outside school, he still cannot locate her station wagon.
Tentatively pushing forward through the rain, he is unsure whether to wait, or keep moving. Time travels differently for children. He doubles back, suddenly doubting himself, and passes the same cars he did before. She is not there. He returns to the way home, passing each car and looking down in shame and embarrassment. He’s done nothing wrong, but he doesn’t feel that way. Surely there is shame in being forgotten?
The initial flash of abandonment is replaced with a sudden prickle of anger, which is quickly subsumed by a feeling of guilt and worry – what could have happened to his mother? The worry and the stress stays with him as he walks to the end of the block and turns up the long hill that brings him closer to home. His eyes wet with rain and strain, and the nagging fear of guilt gnawing on his heart, he walks into the rain, letting the hood fall from his head, letting the rain sting his face, giving in to the dimming of the day. Halfway up the hill, his Mom’s station wagon speed into view. He gets in, wet and a bit of a mess, relieved and hurt and mad and silly. By dinner, he pretends he’s moved on to something else.
It’s strange the way hurt seeps into the soul, and it’™s different for everyone. One person’s sensitivity barely registers a forgotten ride in the rain while someone else feels it so acutely it stays with them for life. First world problems, some would snarkily suggest, but if it’s your very first first world problem, and you’re only a child, who can say what scars will be wrought in the end? Who can say how deep they will run?
The most frightening moment of my life thus far was not when I let a stranger bring me back to Brandeis from Boston in a big white van, which he pulled off the road on some dark, desolate stretch of Waltham only to park and negotiate questions on when he might see me again, but when I was five or six and holding my mother’s hand in the Amsterdam Mall. I let go for a second to look at some storefront, not letting her silhouette out of my peripheral vision, and when I reached up again to the hand beside me it wasn’t my mother’s. Immediately I panicked. I didn’t see her right away, and the terror was intense. It lasted a few mere seconds – my mother didn’t even know I was gone – but the fear was instantly crushing, crippling and debilitating. When I saw her just a few feet up ahead, unaware and unconcerned with our separation, the world returned to normal, but my heart had been stricken forever. It’s something I recall vividly to this day – one of my first memories, seared indelibly on whomever I was about to become.
I’M LOSING MYSELF
IN THE DARKNESS OF THE WORLD
CATCH ME BEFORE I FALL
SAVING MYSELF
IS ALL I REALLY KNOW
SEEN IT BEEN DONE BEFORE
The Fall Song of 2020 has been selected and it’s called ‘Dynasty’ by the amazing Rina Sawayama. With its familial themes and defiant streaks of rage and independence, as well as its dramatic musical bombast, this is a perfectly powerful statement in an age when families are being rendered apart thanks to things as light as politics and as deep as four-decades of mistakes and angst.
Those relationships with family members are what run the deepest, my therapist confirms after I recount a childhood memory that has haunted me for years. Almost inextricable, they have hooks that are intertwined and entangled with the entire history of a human being, conveyed from the moment of birth and running through the formative stretches of a person’s existence. They are the most difficult patterns to change, and their chasms run deeper and darker than we usually realize. Our families mark us from birth – they know our most vulnerable weaknesses, they know our most formidable powers, and if we’re lucky they only want what’s best for us. Yet it’s never quite that easy, at least not for me and mine.
“All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.” ~ Leo Tolstoy
I’M A DYNASTY
THE PAIN IN MY VEIN IS HEREDITARY
DYNASTY
RUNNING IN MY BLOODSTREAM, MY BLOODSTREAM
DYNASTY
AND IF THAT’S ALL THAT I’M GONNA BE
WOULD YOU BREAK THE CHAIN WITH ME?
In the midst of my teenage years of turmoil, when social anxiety was heaped on the impossible fact of being gay, I was the oldest child in a family where I did everything I was supposed to do, was the perfect son in every way I knew how to be, and still felt the chill of being different and never quite belonging, sensing even then that love was contingent upon how proud I made my parents, and one wrong misstep would result in punishment or desolation. Whether or not it was all in my head is a question that creeps into my mind to this day, a lasting effect when stability is rocked, such as when you come out as gay and it’s not greeted with a hug or instant love and assurance, but rather concern and worry and the desire to keep it secret and silent.
Every dynasty has its outcasts. Every dynasty has its rebels. And every dynasty has its stars who rise above the binding shame of history and biological bonds to ascend to something they deserve. Call it survival, call it independence, call it the righteous rage that results from a person finally refusing to be anything less than beloved – the human spirit will forge a way and we will craft our own families when the ones we’re given cannot or will not play fair.
I’M GONNA TAKE THE THRONE THIS TIME
ALL THE WORLD’S ALL MINE, ALL MINE
IT’S BEEN WAY TOO LONG, TOO FAR
TOO GONE, TO CARRY ON
YOU CAN’T HIDE IT IN THE WALLS
SWEEP IT UNDER MARBLE FLOORS
IT’S BEEN LIVING IN OUR LIVES
BEST TOLD DAMN FAMILY LIE
I remember a morning in high school, trying to rush my way out and feeling utterly defeated by something someone did or said – I don’t even remember what it was, but I remember throwing open a desk drawer, ripping out a sheet of paper, and violently scribbling in bold, black, smelly marker: ONE DAY I WILL LEAVE THIS PLACE AND NEVER COME BACK.
Every dynasty has its drama queen. I taped it to the mirror of my bathroom, hoping someone would find it, hoping someone would try to help. No one did. I took it down when I got back from school. It was still hanging there from the mirror, the same dejected face peering behind it, only the tears had dried and the rage had dissipated. I had to let go of the anger, and the notion of fairness and equity. The world was not fair or equitable. Families weren’t either.
ANYTHING YOU GET, RETURN TO
DYNASTY
THE PAIN IN MY VEIN IS HEREDITARY
DYNASTY
RUNNING IN MY BLOODSTREAM, MY BLOODSTREAM
DYNASTY
AND IF THAT’S ALL THAT I’M GONNA BE
WOULD YOU BREAK THE CHAIN WITH ME?
Families beg for forgiveness, over and over, and if you happen to be the one who continually gets hurt, who continually must forgive and forget, it does start to feel a bit personal. You feel a bit paranoid. You wonder if it’s you, and what might set you apart from everyone else. When you’re gay, you wonder if that’s the difference, because what else could it possibly be? You’ve done everything else right, you’ve done everything else perfectly, you’ve never messed up, and still somehow you stumble enough to be the one who gets hurt.
When parents try to correct things in the past by doing better in the present, it’s rarely with the original cast, even if we’re still around, only older. Back then I didn’t see that, so I fought harder, even as I understood less.
MOTHER AND FATHER, YOU GAVE ME LIFE
I NEARLY GAVE IT AWAY FOR THE SAKE OF MY SANITY
HURTING INSIDE, NO END IN SIGHT
PASSING IT DOWN, I’M NOT LOSING THIS FIGHT
MOTHER AND FATHER, I KNOW YOU WERE RAISED DIFFERENTLY
FIGHTING ABOUT MONEY AND THIS INFIDELITY
NOW IT’S MY TIME TO MAKE THINGS RIGHT
AND IF I FAIL, THEN I AM A DYNASTY
Every dynasty has its trials and tests, those moments when you decide whether to stay or go, whether to keep working at it or to give up and find an easier path. Every person has their own journey to take, in whatever dynasty they find themselves, and even if their family isn’t the one they would have chosen, there is no denying the bonds and the love that almost every family has at its heart. We don’t always do it well, we don’t always do it right, but we are still there, repeating some mistakes, making new ones, hoping that this time it will be better, that this time it will all work. Humans have that basic primal need – the need to belong, to be part of a tribe, to be a valued member of a family. And luckily for us, we can make our own families, because that’s what you sometimes have to do to survive.
DYNASTY
THE PAIN IN MY VEIN IS HEREDITARY
DYNASTY
RUNNING IN MY BLOODSTREAM, MY BLOODSTREAM
DYNASTY
AND IF THAT’S ALL THAT I’M GONNA BE
WOULD YOU BREAK THE CHAIN WITH ME?
October
2020
Fall Kicks Summer to the Curb
The view seen here was ripped to literal shreds with our recent storm, but it was such a pretty scene over the summer I wanted to put up one last look on this fall Friday morning. After the storm, I cut down the sweet potato vines which had put on such a stunning show, and clipped out the purple salvia which was equally impressive. I’ll take the awning down this weekend if weather allows – the final motion that will transform the patio into its bare winter look. I much prefer nakedness when it involves skinny-dipping rather than the bare bones of a summer canopy gone into storage, but we don’t always have that choice.
Fall is here. There’s no going back. Embrace the morning chill and let it toughen us up for the winter ahead.
October
2020
Doughnut Hole in My Heart
After a few rough days of non-stop news-watching, I awoke just before my work day at home was about to begin, checked my phone, and saw that my friend Lorie had sent a message that her husband Cal had dropped off doughnuts. Rushing to the front door, I saw the bags from Bella Napoli and my heart jumped with joy and gratitude. My stomach rumbled as I hurriedly brought them in, setting them out on a plate for these pictures before devouring one in giddy glee.
The initial flush of excitement and happiness was tempered, however, and not in a totally bad way, as I thought of all the dinners and gatherings with Cal and Lorie that we normally would have had over the past few months were it not for the Covid state of the world. A brief pang of melancholy came over my quick sugar high. The sweetness still on my tongue, I was touched that Cal had stopped by to leave breakfast – a reminder that friendship can still hold true and steadfast even in the tenuous times of connection in which we are currently immersed.
It was a sweet start to the morning, a flavorful souvenir from dear friends, and a happy pause for memories of our time together. I sent up a silent wish and prayer for the chance to do it again someday soon. Thank you Cal and Lorie!
October
2020
After Stormy Weather
Remember when the tornado dropped Dorothy and her house in the middle of Oz? There was all this loud mayhem and whirling and detritus flying through the air, and suddenly the big thud of a landing. Then there was quiet. An eerie profound stillness and silence that momentarily made you wonder if you’d gone deaf or been struck dumb. Slowly, you came to a consciousness both literally and figuratively, waking and walking into a brave new world that was as colorful and grand as it was dangerous and deceptive.
We tentatively stepped outside after our recent storm, to examine the damage (nothing major) and find our way in the altered landscape. This was a bend in the road, a place where the next part of our journey was still not fully seen, when mystery and unknown parts still waited just out of sight.
I walked in the space where the Eastern white pine and the Coral bark maple met the mighty oak – a triangular convergence that formed one somewhat secretive corner of our yard where no one ever goes. It is a sacred space made for special summer days when company is expected or those fall afternoons when you need a little shaft of secret sunlight to make everything feel right again even when everything is wrong. It is utouched by human footsteps in the winter; only the squirrels and birds enjoy its beauty then.
October
2020
Storming the Fall
It came upon us quickly. One moment I was hosting my very first Webex meeting and the next the outside world was tumbling down, the electricity went out, and the house was plunged into darkness and silence. Typical 2020.
Out of the corner of my eye I’d been warily watching the outside turn steadily darker as my video conference progressed. The window was cracked open a little to let the air in and the rush of the wind sounded an early warning. Yet it was still a surprise when the sky was suddenly filled with falling pine needles. Like some Steven Spielberg bit of filmmaking, it was the onslaught of falling debris that signaled something larger and more ferocious at work.
Bigger boughs of oak and pine soon flew through the air and suddenly the deluge came down. Rain and wind collided, the electric went out, sputtered weakly on for a moment (never enough to connect for a quick Webex goodbye) and then went out for a couple of hours.
Gusts of wind clocked in at 68 miles per hour at the airport down the street while we hesitantly peered outside at a yard now filled with wet debris. All the potted plants had been felled – both fig trees, the immense angel’s trumpet, two containers of tomatoes, and the salvia, still blooming at this late stage of the game. Clumps of sweet potato vine had been torn from their perches and were strewn about the patio. Everywhere there were pine needles which had apparently been waiting for their chance to jump because there they all were. Even the mighty oak, always the last to let it its leaves go, had given up lots of little leafy ghosts.
There was something poetic about it all – the final reckoning of the sweeter season, torn asunder in dramatic form. Left in its wake was an instantly colder atmosphere. The warmth and humidity of earlier had been replaced by a chilly cousin. The world turned upside down.
October
2020
Hugh Jackman Naked But For These Shoes
It seems to be a week of male celebrities getting naked for commercial pursuits, and I’m not complaining. Here is Hugh Jackman getting nude for R.M. Williams Boots. Mr. Jackman has been half-naked here before a number of times (click here, here and not here but it’s so worth a click) and it’s always a treat.
October
2020
Painting With Light & Ferns
These beautiful Japanese painted ferns overcame their own 2020 horror story, as early on in the summer season some animal ate them down to the ground. As evidenced here, they recovered in a valiant, and gorgeous, show of defiance and resilience. The afternoon sun of October shows them off to great splendor, and is a reminder that somehow nature endures, no matter how much awfulness humans, and non-humans, may attempt to inflict.
The Japanese painted fern’s delicate beauty belies its hardiness. From a single small specimen planted several years ago, this clumps has expanded, notably by spores – popping up in damp unexpected places (such as around the pool pump) and I’ve managed to transplant them successfully. A couple now populate the side yard garden, lending an additional Japanese element to a space now planted with bamboo, Japanese aralia, and a Japanese maple. It is the peaceful portion of our yard, shaded from the hot afternoon sun, filled with subtle performers who express themselves in soft shades of green and architectural interest rather than boffo-blooms of hot pink or fiery orange. That sort of quiet and respite is necessary in the summer months.
October
2020
Another Bloody Look
Here’s what the Phony Negroni looks like when you use a blood orange – it’s a bit deeper and richer in hue than the one that uses a typical orange. I prefer this, as it steers the color closer to the traditional, where Campari adds such a rich shade. We will stock up on blood oranges this season. Such prettiness deserves to be repeated.
October
2020
Rob Gronkowski Reveals His Balls
Rob Gronkowski has come close to this before, posing naked here and here and here, and in this manscaping commercial he pretends to expose a bit more. It’s a nifty little reminder that manscaping matters, even in the age of COVID.
October
2020
End of the Rope
“When you reach the end of your rope, tie a knot in it and hang on.” – Franklin D. Roosevelt
Some of the angst I’ve been feeling was explained in the weekly recap yesterday, but not all of it, and I’ve felt so icky about the past few days that I’m going to excise a bit more here. Since it was supposed to start with a once-a-year-get-together with a family friend and end with a fun couple of days in Boston, sitting glued to the television and watching the news was probably a poor idea, and I have no one to blame but myself.
I ended up staying home due to Boston’s rising Covid numbers, our family get-together was cut slightly short, and the Harvest Moon was in full effect. For three days I mostly watched the news, and it was the perfect recipe for a run-down funk. Wallowing in the misery of our country, I broke through my vegetative state only for meditation, a couple of meals, showers, and a smudging. I’ll get into that another time, I think, as it was a minor point in the weekend. Better than that was sausage and pasta dinner Andy made on Sunday afternoon, and the shared commiseration as we watched the news together.
Those quiet moments took the place of dinners out and shopping excursions on Newbury Street. The occasional walk around the yard, when the sun was slanting low in the afternoon, punctuated my lounging, but the extensive inactivity fed upon itself, and I gave in to the laziness of the weekend. And it was such a pretty weekend, it felt like a bit of a waste, and a bit like it played out exactly as it needed to play out.
October
2020
Lenny Kravitz Shirtless
Lenny Kravitz should have been featured here a few times before now, because he’s simply amazing. Today he gets a post because a recent fitness magazine spread has everyone envious about the abs he’s showing off at age 56. I should be so lucky to find such muscles at 45. Anyway, let this be an inspiration to all of us.
October
2020
A Recap Filled with Fuckery
A full Harvest Moon is nothing to fuck around with, and so the insanity of the past week was not wholly unexpected. I did not take that into consideration when I planned to spend the weekend in Boston, so when the COVID numbers started to rise, I decided against the trip, but took the day off from work anyway. That turned out to be a good thing, not only because I honestly didn’t realize how badly I needed a break, but I also didn’t know Andy and I would be glued to the television seeing Trump being transferred to the hospital and watching his team of doctors spew lies and tales of obfuscation. A good doctor will not lie or give a rosy account of their patient; these are not good doctors. But that’s on them, and deceiving the American people about the health of the President rarely works out well.
As far as days off go, it wasn’t quite as relaxing as I would have liked, but I have a number of vacation days I need to use before the end of the year, so we will try this again soon enough. The moon exhibited its tumultuous full-force in more ridiculous family drama, but you’ve heard it all before so I won’t get into that yet. On with the recap…
Keeping with the craziness of 2020, here is an azalea in bloom right now.
Floral preparation and planning.
Unimpressed with snickerdoodles.
All lives won’t matter until Black Lives Matter.
