In the immortal words of Miss Janet Jackson:
“Ain’t no acid in this house.”
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Author Archives: Alan Ilagan
04
December
2018
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December
2018
04
December
2018
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December
2018
How to Translate My Office Email
I saw these posted on FaceBook the other day, which is about the only thing that FaceBook is good for these days. These are translations of typical office email phrases, and I am completely guilty of using these all the time. (I may also have been guilty of using their translations at various points in my state career, but I digress.) Some days I think that working in Human Resources is just one big exercise in not-so-veiled passive-aggression. Emails like these are spot on, and I imagine it’s not only in the realm of HR.
On a serious note, in case anyone is stumbling upon this looking for real-world advice on how to write an office email, I have a system that works wonders for me. If ever I’m in doubt that one of my messages is too harsh or might be misconstrued (like, all of them) I write everything I want to say in a draft, then minimize it and get up and walk away from the computer. By the time I return, I will re-read it in the most negative way I can muster, and chances are I’ll have to severely edit that shit down into something that won’t result in tears. And I do. That’s how you don’t get fired. Anyway, enjoy these and see if you can relate.
03
December
2018
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December
2018
Tiny Threads: An Insignificant Series
How come only guys get caught with their zippers down?
03
December
2018
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December
2018
The 1st Recap for Dec. 2018
What a week!
This year’s Holiday Stroll should have concluded last night, but since I write this well in advance, who knows? Mercury is still scheduled to be in retrograde and there’s no telling what went down with Kira. This past week was a doozy – considering it included the release of this year’s incendiary Holiday Card. But I’m getting ahead of myself. Let’s go back first…
Finding joy at the utterly inept JoAnn’s Fabric Store.
Hold on for the holidays.
Portal of sunlight, into the past.
Joan Crawford gives us entertaining advice, and I suppose she should know.
November went bye-bye-bye.
A two-part look at Holiday cards from the past: Part One and Part Two.
In the words of songstress Paula Abdul…
A few #TinyThreads as we delve into the holiday season.
Hunks of the Day included Omari Hardwick, Arno Diem and KJ Apa.
02
December
2018
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December
2018
C-C-C-Cold Hearted, Ohh Ah, Ahhhhh…
When the rhododendron leaves disappear, curling into themselves for warmth, you know the day is a cold one. The shrubs you see here are actually a miniature version of their more common broader-leafed relative. We used to have one in front of our house, and whenever the temperature dropped well below freezing, this was their disgusted stance. It must be their way of survival, because being a broad-leafed evergreen in this climate zone is no mean feat.
We dug our rhodie out years ago; it simply got too big and unwieldy for its space. I rather naively planted a wedding cake viburnum in its place, which outgrew the area in a few years. Currently there’s a slow-growing umbrella pine in that spot, which looks to remain for the foreseeable future. It’s airy enough to allow for sightlines beyond its elegant whorls, and it too remains evergreen the year round. The neighbors across the street still have a few rhododendron shrubs, so if we need a quick gauge of how cold it is we have only to look up the road and see whether the leaves are in hiding.
02
December
2018
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December
2018
The Holiday Card 2018
I’m not going to explain this year’s Holiday Card. It is, quite simply, a reflection of our country and our world at a dim moment in our history. It is no longer enough to pretend that life is beautiful. It is time to bring the ugly things into the light, to examine and try to understand how we got here. We share this burden, and I hope we share a way out from under it. Let these images remind us of where we came from, of what we once allowed to happen, of what might possibly happen again. In this holiday season, may we find kindness and compassion and a desire to promote good in the world. May we treat each other a little better, may we find common ground, and may we reach an acceptance and reconciliation of our differences. We are all in this together.
“Those who are cannot remember the past…
Are condemned to repeat it.”
~ George Santayana
{The complete ‘PVRTD’ project may be found online on The Projects page.}
01
December
2018
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December
2018
Years and Years of Holiday Cards – Part 2
Continued from the first part, this post will bring us through last year’s Holiday Card before this year’s big reveal tomorrow. While 2010 had a sweet focus, the photo I used for 2011’s card was perhaps the sweetest one I’ve ever done, and was the first, and thus far only, time I’ve appeared with children. My niece and nephew – Emi and Noah – co-starred in this summer shot, as I pulled them along in their Radio Flyer. It personified family fun and was proof that they loved me in spite of my cut-off jeans.
Following a couple years of innocence and sweetness, the tiger in me was ready to unleash a more provocative card for 2012. With Janice Joplin’s classic ‘Piece of My Heart’ as inspiration, I staged this macabre holiday heart scene. I think I loved it most for the fact that I didn’t have to worry about my hair for the first time in forever. It’s the little things that matter. (This was also the first front and back photo card that I produced, and as such I wanted it to be striking.)
Making amends with those who weren’t enthralled with the bloody turn of 2012, I offered this saccharine throwback, which was the easiest card I’ve ever done because it had been created in the early 1980’s and all I had to do was scan the thing in. It’s me and my brother in our sleeper pajamas, gleefully surveying a Christmas morning from our childhood. I miss those pajamas.
From childhood innocence to adult/illegal activity, the Holiday Card from 2014 – aptly entitled ‘Let It Snow!’ – found me sniffing the white stuff (baking soda, if you must know the truth) – and was part of the rollercoaster journey of ‘The Delusional Grandeur Tour: Last Stand of a Rock Star‘, hence the rock-star antics on display. This might have been disliked even more than the torn-out holiday heart card as seen above.
Veering from illicit powder to lumberjack beefcake, the evergreen-backed card from 2015 was a simple and quick one-off shot from our backyard. Fun fact: that ax has never been used to chop wood, nor would I know where to even begin.
Easily my most-hated Holiday Card thus far (though this year may give it a run for its money), my image from 2016 was inspired by the birth of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, but nobody seemed to get the baby-in-cheek humor. Hey, child-birth isn’t all rainbows and roses, and the fact that I have to explain this to people is wonky in itself. I happen to love everything about this card, especially the misunderstood reactions and across-the-board refusal of everyone to display it. In all likelihood, it will never be topped.
Finally, we have arrived at last year’s card, which was classy and tasteful and all sorts of tired and dull adjectives. It was shot in the Boston condo, and that’s a real Negroni in the gold-rimmed cocktail glass. I took about fifty photos to get this one – and when I got back to Albany to go over the goods, my fly was down in every single photo. I was going for the profile anyway, and I can finally say that I got my cock out for a Holiday Card. Meant to be.
{Come back here tomorrow for the reveal of this year’s Holiday Card…}
01
December
2018
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December
2018
Years and Years of Holiday Cards – Part 1
Tomorrow I will unveil this year’s Holiday Card (which most of you have already seen if you bothered to look at the PVRTD Project). In anticipation of that, here’s a quick look back at all the Holiday Cards I’ve sent out since 2004. (There are many others that were made before we went digital, but for the complete collection I need to do some serious archive digging, and that’s not happening this week. Besides, all that went down from 1995-2004 is best left in the past.)
The featured ice queen pic is from 2004, which was printed in black and white – an unintentional oversight on my part, but one that worked since color wasn’t key to the experience. Here it is as originally intended.
For 2005 and 2006, we went skintastic – first with a mirrored-jock cup and nipple clamps, then with the whole crucifixion scene to go with ‘The Revelation‘ project of the time (definitely a holiday project worth revisiting at this time of the year).
From not clothed to overclothed, 2007 brought my version of Santa Claus by the dumpster. Some Jack and a smoke made this a strangely beloved card. (It’s one of my least favorites, of course.)
If I’ve done something saucy like that Bad Santa, the next year I usually go in the opposite direction with something sweet or somber. The latter was in play for 2008, when I chose this simple photo that Andy took in Ogunquit. At the Beautiful Place by the Sea, this remains a sentimental joy.
The pendulum swings back to some skin in 2009, as viewers get a glimpse of upper-ass glory and a pair of wings that would play a part in ‘A 21stCentury Renaissance: The Resurrection Tour’.
2010 was a very special year for us, as Andy and I got married in the Boston Public Garden. We celebrated a few months later in Amsterdam, New York, when I wore this extravagant coat sewn by Marline’s Momma. I put it back on for this poolside shot with Andy, as that year marked our tenth anniversary as a couple, and our first as a pair of husbands.
{Come back in a few hours to see the Holiday Cards from 2011 through 2017…}
30
November
2018
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November
2018
Fare Thee Well, November…
Thirty days hath September, April, June and November…
We’ve reached the last of the latter, so let’s look back at some of the highlights of this past month. It will be remembered in these parts mostly for the PVRTD Project – my first official project in three years, and one which has me hankering to get started on the next. That’s a very good thing. Anyway, the bulk of the PVRTD Promo posts are encapsulated here, so give it a whirl.
Actually, I’m not going to do all that work. Here are the recaps for the month – do your own homework! I have holiday preparations on the agenda…
The first recap included the tail end of October, which is fitting since some of my behind was included in this post as well.
The second recap consisted of a mask-bound photo and all the requisite perversion one might expect.
For our third recap, we entered the week of Thanksgiving. No going back now.
Finally, if it seems like we just had a recap, you’re right. Here it is. And another one is on the way in just a few short days.
30
November
2018
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November
2018
Tiny Threads: An Insignificant Series
To give you an indication of how much I’ve aged, I decided I need a long-handled shoe horn to get dressed in the morning. I’ll pass it off as a component of dandyism, but it’s really just age. (Mine will be much fancier than the one pictured.)
30
November
2018
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November
2018
Let’s Stroll Again
Like we did last Christmas… and the Christmas before… and the Christmas before…
This weekend marks my annual Holiday Stroll with Kira. I think it’s our sixth or seventh, maybe even our eighth, and clearly no one’s counting. It’s become one of my favorite holiday excursions, whenever we manage to do it, and every year we seem to add a few new components while doing our best to maintain a couple of traditions. One mainstay is the viewing of ‘The Man Who Came to Dinner‘ – an old Bette Davis film set at Christmas time. At one point, while ice skating, they purchase a pair of ‘hot sweets’ – apparently baked sweet potatoes were once sold like hot dogs at a baseball game. As a nod to that scene, we bake a few in the oven and pause the movie when the skating part comes on to try them. We are invariably disappointed and left wondering what all the fuss is about, but we do it for the ritual.
Another tradition is a bowl of soup, preferably pho, and often somewhere in Chinatown. The latest thing we’ve added is a walk in Cambridge, from Porter Square to Harvard usually, where we peruse a couple of Tibetan stores and find something warm to wear.
The one year I did a full-blown and intricately-detailed itinerary was a year when it rained on the parade, throwing the entire minute-by-minute production into a chaotic shambles. Since then, I’ve avoided such intensive planning. This whole tradition began on a whim, and is best executed in the same manner. I can’t wait to see where this year’s takes us…
29
November
2018
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November
2018
Entertaining by Joan Crawford
I wouldn’t advise taking parenting tips from Joan Crawford, but when it comes to throwing an adult party (or cleaning a bathroom, I suppose) you could do worse than by following her standards. Now that holiday party season is upon us, we need her wisdom more than ever. (The emphasis is everything.)
Joan Crawford on entertaining at home:
“The best parties are a wild mixture of people. Take some actresses, a bearded painter, your visiting friends from Brussels, a politician, a hairdresser, and then toss them all together. It’s especially important to have all age groups. Of course I wouldn’t want to have hippies come crawling in with unwashed feet, but all the younger people I know are bright and attractive and have something to say and they dress like human beings. Another important party secret is I always add a splash of vodka to everything. Nobody knows and everyone ends up having a wonderful time.”
29
November
2018
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November
2018
Tiny Threads: An Insignificant Series
I’m Wilhelmina Slater and I don’t get wet.
29
November
2018
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November
2018
Afternoon Sunlight: Portal to the Past
I paused in my brother’s childhood (and, well, adulthood) bedroom at my parents’ home. We had finished Thanksgiving dinner and I was lolling about upstairs in a turkey-trypto haze when I noticed the sunlight pouring into his room. At first, I couldn’t remember the afternoon light streaming in like it did. I have vivid recollections of the morning sun peeping in my bedroom at the northern side of the house, and of the moonlight coming through my window as well, but I couldn’t place this bright warm scene in my memory bank. Puzzled, I sat down on the bed and almost spoke aloud the words ‘I don’t remember this…’
I remembered dancing to ‘Dress You Up’ in this room, jumping up and down on the bed to Madonna’s early music. I remembered sneaking through the rust-colored shag carpet that used to be here in order to get to the guest room when our Gram was staying over for the holidays. I remember the whispered stories that my brother and his friend would tell when we would have sleepovers. But I couldn’t remember this sunlight.
As much a test for my failing memory and middle-aged forgetfulness, I forced myself to think back to my youth, but nothing was coming. I simply did not recall a time when the sun was this strong. It flowed through the window, in spite of the frosty panes. It roamed over the warm carpet, climbed atop the bedspread, and rose all the way up the wall. In spite of the cold, the sun heated the room. It was always warmer in my brother’s room. I wondered if that informed his disposition, whether that explained why he was sometimes sunnier than me. Cool and reserved, like my bedroom, which only saw the morning sun or the moonlight, I held my emotional cards closer to the vest. It was safer that way.
Then, as I watched the dust particles floating through shafts of sunlight, I began to remember. An old television, with the knob you had to manually turn to switch channels, once sat in front of the window. It didn’t broadcast anything but static, yet we still fiddled with it, hoping for a station to come in eventually. One never did. A box of stale dog biscuits, which we dared each other to bite. These were distant and dim memories, but still largely intact. Images and scenes without plot or point, they were there buried deep in my memory castle, and instantly I warmed at their presence.
Only then could I leave the room.
28
November
2018
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November
2018
