Parting words of the Price Chopper cashier: “No gas. No savings.”
Parting words of my moody-ass self: “No shit.”
Author Archives: Alan Ilagan
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September
2018
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September
2018
26
September
2018
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September
2018
The Monster Bash
A month from today – October 26, 2018 – the BOO-jolais Monster Ball will roar into the Albany Capital Center for the annual BOO-jolais Wine Celebration to benefit the Alliance for Positive Health. It’s one of my favorite parties of the year, as much for the cause as for the fabulous collection of attendees it draws, some of whom I’ve known for as long as I’ve known Andy. It’s also one of the best nights to dress up, and this year’s Monster theme gives a whole new slew of sartorial possibilities. A monster can be many things, which gives me some wonderful ideas. (I’m told there may be a prize for the best monster costume, so go all out.) Here’s the official invite:
Calling all werewolves, witches and other frightful creatures of the night to the BOO-jolais Monster Ball. BEWARE! A great time awaits you at the season’s premier Halloween event. Dress as your favorite monster and you just may win a prize. Feed the hungry beast within with a decadent selection of food samplings from local restaurants and caterers, and complimentary wine tastings. Bask in the fun of live entertainment from Grand Central Station, dancing, a silent auction and much more!
{To purchase your ticket(s), visit allianceforpositivehealth.org or directly at this link, or call 518.434.4686.}
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September
2018
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September
2018
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September
2018
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September
2018
Hello From Tuesday Morning
It’s been a while since I’ve posted on Tuesday.
Give me a bit to get back into the groove. (I’ll let you prove your love to me.)
Tuesdays were always worse than Mondays when I was a kid, mostly because of Religion class that extended the day for an extra hour of Catholic chaos. At 2 PM we’d ride the bus to the old St. Mary’s school, and walk into a dusty room where everything – the carpet, the walls, even the chalkboard – felt frozen in an amber glow of outdated travesty. An ancient copier was put to further shame thanks to the pile of copied prayers – a hand-written version of the ‘Act of Contrition’ on the weird paper where if you scratched the print with your fingernail it would come off in the most grating and upsetting fashion – a variation of fingernails on the chalkboard.
We went through prayers and Bible stories as the sun moved slowly across the floor. I remember watching the dust fall through the sunbeams as the minutes slowed in excruciating fashion. Sometimes when the teacher left, the boy behind me would kick my chair, then look around with a stupid grin when I turned around. From an early age, I found religion to have an inescapable air of torture to it. While a nun headed up the program, it was usually a student’s mother who did the actual teaching. I was too young to understand that my (and others’) non-enjoyment of the classes might have been due to the poor field of candidates from which the church chose to appoint as teachers. Not that there were any cruel or mean ones – these were Catholic people for Christ’s sake – but there’s a different kind of menace that comes from supposedly-well-meaning people.
I was never a badly-behaved child, and most of those teachers doted on me since they knew my parents. That didn’t ease the drudgery of having to stay in a dull and dank classroom while our sinful, non-Catholic counterparts got to run outside and play. It ruined religion for me, even more than being forced to be an altar boy a few years later, but it also ruined Tuesdays.
I don’t suppose this post has helped anyone as far as the latter goes.
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September
2018
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September
2018
Cosmos Past, Cosmos Present
The dusty town of Hoosick Falls is where my grandmother was born and raised, and in which she spent about 80 years of her life. When we were old enough to stay on our own, my brother and I were each allotted a couple of days each summer to spend with her, and they were golden memories that remain woven in my heart. Summers were hot and humid then, but I was young enough not to mind. Gram had a couple of fans that oscillated near the windows at night, when I was camped out on a gorgeous green tufted velvet sofa.
This was the second apartment I would know in Hoosick Falls. The first, scene of childhood Easters, was right near the railroad. The train would charge through and shake the entire house – a thrill to us children, especially in the middle of the night. All Gram’s music boxes and whimsical tchotchkes would rattle and clink, while my brother and I would pretend an earthquake was rocking the land like some cheap ratings ploy on ‘Our House’.
In her second apartment, we were far from the railroad, but at the bottom of the main street that came into town. It was the home of a retired doctor, though ‘doctor’ meant variable things in my grandmother’s day. He was an irascible old man, who sometimes rubbed Gram the wrong way, but it was a decent enough space, so she stayed there for a number of years. I remember the summer most in that space.
We would spend the day walking the block or two into the main stretch of town – where the antique store was, and the old drugstore, and the church that Mom made sure we attended if we happened to be there on a Sunday morning. Gram would have taken us anyway; the way she constantly worried her rosary was a continual reminder of her Catholic faith and fears. Just up the street was where my Mom had attended Catholic school.
We would walk to see Gram’s relatives and friends, and on shopping days we would travel quite a distance to get to the Grand Union, which was over a bridge and across a busy stretch of road and I always marveled how she did it in the winter. We took things slow in the summer, happily settling into a routine of daytime television, a daily excursion, and then a homecooked dinner or meal at a relative’s. Mostly, though, I remember short walks around her house, and the little patch of dry dirt bordered by a worn wooden fence where a small stretch of pink cosmos rose and gave glad tidings to those of us lucky enough to pass. Occasionally the doctor would be nearby, waiting in the shade and watching, and as much as I distrusted him (I would always side with Gram in all her personality conflicts and peccadilloes), he was kind enough to me. Not all adults were so inclined.
I brushed by the feathery leaves of the cosmos, and peered into the happy yellow center of each vibrant pink bloom, while overhead the sun beat down and the sky was light blue and the world seemed to stop for a moment. Like the goodness that was an endless summer, so too was my grandmother, whose love knew no bounds, and who could be counted on to give her grandchildren the childhood she had rebuilt in her memory. Her past was painted over in shades of rose and pink, as if she had uncovered the secret to making a summer in Hoosick Falls no less beautiful than the perfect patch of cosmos around the corner.
This summer, I planted cosmos for the first time in a long while. They didn’t come up as well as I remember those from my grandmother’s place. Maybe the soil was too rich and damp. Maybe they liked it dry and unwelcoming. A bit of hardship to make them feel alive. Like my Gram, they were survivors, and had no need for the pampering and care I so badly wanted to provide. Yet I managed to coax a single bloom from the packet of seeds I’d scattered and raked gently into the soil back in the spring. It winked at me like a Grandmother might, then went on its way being pretty just for the sake of being pretty.
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September
2018
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September
2018
Return of the Monday Recap, Fall-Wise
You may be noticing a slight change in our posting schedule right about now. Last year when I came back from my first summer sabbatical, I took off two days – Tuesday and Wednesday – in the middle of the work week. But those days are tough enough, why should I make anyone suffer more by denying you fresh content and entries when this is my joy as well? That means we are returning to our original daily programming, with a slight twist.
Given that I have more job responsibilities, and that by the time I get home I’m pretty much spent (especially on those nights when I have to cook myself dinner – God how I wish Andy could work his culinary magic with fish) I am not going to promise long-winded or exceptionally meaningful words, but rather punchy, smaller entries that are just as good as hanging out with me over a glass of wine. (Minus all the nasty judgment of your clothing!) But I still like the idea of a Monday where the main posting may be spent ruminating over what came before, so we’re going to keep the Monday recap for the start of the week, then return a bit later in the day for the whole thing to start up again. This first one is going to be shorter, since we only just returned on Thursday and how much can you expect to happen in a weekend? Stick with me, kid, and I’ll show you.
It began with a trio of return posts: Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3.
A new Tom Ford for a new season: Fougere D’Argent.
The newest feature is a tiny little thing.
Beginning with my rear end.
Summer Speedos and such.
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September
2018
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September
2018
Speedo Catch-up/Catch-all
Summer is traditionally the time when the guys and gals get all naked. Since this website went dark during that sunny season, however, we lost a look at some of the Speedos that were donned. Let’s do a little retroactive Speedo search and see who got in (and out of) their banana hammocks. (And a few who didn’t deign to show off their bulge but were too cute not to include.)
First up is Nyle DiMarco, who has made a few splashes here in his almost-altogether. He gets his cocktail on by the sea in these shots, recalling the glory that is summer.
Next is a pair of hunks who merge two of my favorite passions: dancing and nature. Check out Bear Grylls and Derek Hough in one of Bear’s underwear adventures. They made it through the wilderness.
Getting his splash on is Matthew Wilkas, because when you’re that hot you need to find ways to cool down.
Sometimes naked arms are enough when the rest of you is as super as Henry Cavill. And if you’re Ben Cohen sometimes all you have to do is smile.
Two words: David Beckham. He may not be wearing a Speedo here, but he gets a pass because he wore one here.
A double dose of Ricky Martin in his Speedo is always a summer treat. He’s done it before, and with any luck he’ll do it again.
Strutting into the Big Brother house like a peacock, Dan Osborne does some impressive bulge work as per usual. Some may think he looks better naked, so make your own comparisons with this nude Dan Osborne post.
Opening his arms and flexing his pecs, Jake Quickenden personifies summer glory.
Finally, Pietro Boselli is too big for one GIF, so here he is in three. There’s no one better to bring up the rear, especially when it’s Pietro Boselli’s bare-naked butt.
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September
2018
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September
2018
Tiny Threads: An Insignificant Series
Say what you may about Cynthia Rowley, she knows how to design office supplies. She provides the pizzazz that adds some sparkle to my office space. A bright spot of color in a sea of gray.
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September
2018
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September
2018
Madonna Dreams
This summer, I had a dream about Madonna. As much as I love her, this was maybe only my third or fourth actual dream about her. In it, we were finding our way through an old warehouse. Boxes of all my Madonna memorabilia were stacked all around, but they were rotting. A pile of pulpy mush was topped with her ‘Sex’ book: the aluminum covers and spiral binding the only things that remained intact from that cantankerous career period that remained such a favorite with die-hard fans like myself. She was walking through barely glancing at my collection, mostly because she was with her family, and I felt like I was encroaching. Yet somehow she didn’t mind my following along.
She spoke quietly to her children, in a gentle fashion slightly at odds with the brash persona she so often peddles in public life and artistic projects. She also spoke a bit to me, and I tried to sound like a human being in spite of my star-struck awe, while still conveying how much of a devoted lifelong fan I was. Friends have asked me what I would even say to her if I had the chance to meet her, and I still have no idea. It’s so far from the realm of possibility, I never bothered to entertain such a dream. Here, in an actual dream, I must have said something she liked, because she kept speaking to me as we walked through a dirty warehouse littered with the products of her artistic past. It made me giddy to realize it was my past as well, and somehow, after all these years, I could see that we were intertwined, in the way that her artistic output intertwined with all of her fans. We shared something that way. Isn’t that the purpose of art?
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September
2018
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September
2018
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September
2018
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September
2018
Bits & Baubles: #TinyThreads
Good things come in small packages. Some might disagree, but there’s something to that adage. That’s also going to be the guiding force for some upcoming posts, and a new feature that will hopefully be a regular one (famous last words). In my time off, I did some website-soul-searching. Most of the sites that I’ve visited over the past few months (there haven’t been that many) feature posts that are punchy, quick, and far less substantial than the 1000 word essays I tend to put up here. My rambling knows no character limits. That’s all well and good for a creative outlet, but it does take some work and effort and time. As my home and career responsibilities increase (as they tend to do as we get older) I find myself less able to keep up the pace I once had. There’s also no one forcing my hand, so I can do what I want to do on this site. (Check the damn name.) That said, silly filler and fanciful fluff is on the way, darlings! Watch for the new ‘Tiny Threads: An Insignificant Series’ feature for all the fierce frivolity.
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September
2018
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September
2018
J & C: A Tale of Two Brothers
He stood at the edge of the yard, rather a long distance away. Arms crossed in front of him, his eyes squinting into the high sun of noon, he seemed determined. Sometimes, even on sunny summer days, the hardest thing to be is a boy. As the initial minutes of our visit wore on, he got closer to the house, until he was peering in, watching us and waiting for the right moment to enter.
The last time I’d seen Julian he was barely able to walk, much less speak. Now he was a boy, walking and talking and, as he would show us later, mastering the ukulele. His Mom is one of my closest friends, whom I’ve known since I can remember, having met her at Suzie’s birthday parties in the Junes of our childhood. There’s a bond that a childhood friendship carries that is like no other, and in many ways it is as unbreakable as the bonds of family. Sometimes more. As her son Julian walked in and sheepishly said hello, I was flooded with memory, happiness and warmth.
His younger brother Cameron hid behind Mommy for a while, with a shy but irrepressible smile across his face. He would break into giggles periodically and I hoped his happiness would last. I think that should be the goal of all the world: keeping that childhood happiness for as long as possible. The lucky ones among us never lose it. Most of us do at some point, then spend the rest of our lives trying to get it back, with varying degrees of success. Or maybe I’m just conflating happiness with innocence. They are both too often fleeting, as was our visit to Connecticut.
The days were idyllic. It was hot and sunny – perfect for some time in and beside the pool. The house lent itself to easy relaxation, with its large windows and airy layout. Still new enough to be uncluttered, and lived-in enough to be comfortable, it was the perfect backdrop to a reunion with friends we hadn’t seen in far too long. On our way in, a swath of evening primrose lifted their bright canary faces next to the brick walkway. Nearer the front door, a clump of shasta daisies was at the height of its bloom, as if welcoming us with its greatest finery. Behind them, waves of shrubs softened the long lines of the house. Everything whispered ‘home’ and erased the recent bout of traffic we had to endure to get there. More than an oasis, this was a very real realm of respite, and as the door closed behind us, so did the troubles of the world.
We enjoyed our brief time there immensely; it was exactly what Andy and I needed to start the summer off, and I’m hopeful we left a little something behind too (besides the proliferation of feathers that remains the tell-tale sign of a visit). We’d been warned that Julian would ask a million questions, but the inquisitive nature of children was never an annoyance to me. Quite the contrary: seeing that insatiable curiosity, when one question leads to another, as if he already understood that the process of getting to knowledge was its own fulfilling journey, was a balm on my own soul, a reminder of another kid who had nothing but questions and a world unwilling to be bothered.
As for his fabulous younger brother Cameron, there were other happy reminders of my childhood mirrored in him. He liked feathers and sequins and all sorts of fancy items that lend magic to an unadorned summer day. He liked dressing up and expressing himself in costume and theatrics. He was on the verge of being exactly who he was meant to be, and yet also on the verge of drawing back into himself.
No matter what the rest of their lives brought, they had this summer – the first time in their pool, the first time in those pink pumps, and the first time we got to visit them. I know a thing or two about brothers, especially brothers who are dramatically different in so many ways. Brotherly love is almost unbreakable, but it doesn’t happen without tensions and traumas. Still, it’s best to dwell on days like this, when your brother is your best friend.
No one else will go through the exact same things you go through.
No one else in the world will experience the exact same basic upbringing, remember the same house, the same worries, the same resentments, the same triumphs, the same love.
I hope they hold onto that above all else. Not everyone does.
By the time we were reluctantly ready to leave, Julian was willing to sing us a song. It encapsulated our time there, and in many ways our entire summer.
{Check out Julian’s other videos here.}
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September
2018
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September
2018
Tom Ford’s ‘Fougere D’Argent’
No other plant exudes quite the same feel of freshness and bright greenery than the fern. The genus is so expansive and diverse that almost every shade of green is found within it, as well as every texture and size. From the smallest and daintiest button fern to the grandest tree fern, the fern world is vast and varied. Yet across the board, each fern carries a certain old-world elegance and refinement that belies its hardier qualities.
Such a happy correlation comes with Tom Ford’s newest Private Blend pair: Fougere D’Ardent and Fougere Platine. The ‘fougere’ part is from the French word for fern, which is fitting for these verdant fragrances, which also have notes recalling traditional old-world barber-shops and the like. To my admittedly-failing memory, Ford has never done a classic gentlemen fragrance. I suppose an argument could be made that his first self-titled mainstream cologne could be counted as such, and I’ve long maintained that the original does veer into traditional Old Spice territory, and another mainstream offering, ‘Grey Vetiver’, was true to its timeless namesake. Most of his Private Blends, however, have been (more or less delightfully) all over the map. ‘Azure Lime’ was one that came closest to a typical gentleman’s cologne, with its fresh citrus take that veered into the masculine side of his Neroli Portofino line.
His recent Vert series touched on a green forest; my favorite of the lot, Vert D’Encens, is a veritable walk through a pine grove on a warm autumn day. Heavenly. Fougere D’Ardent brings that ferny woodiness and couples it with a barber shop finesse, merging into a refined delight perfect for seasonal transitions.
It’s something one’s grandfather might wear if he were especially jaunty and far ahead of his time. A classic with a bold flare, which is, when you consider most classics, what intrinsically makes something a classic. Containing components of some of the earliest gentlemen colognes, still used today as proof of their everlasting timelessness, this fougere fragrance is a clarion of elegance and sophistication.
Here’s the official description:
Fouere d’Argent is a bold reimagining of the classic fougere, a structure that traditionally revolves around lavender, oakmoss, and coumarin. With oakmoss no longer available, Tom Ford has re-worked the model in a provocative manner, substituting moss with Akigalawood, a Givaudan captive derived from patchouli that has a wonderfully spicy, woodsy bitterness. What emerges from Ford’s confident handling is a scent that smells truly masculine – earthy, herbaceous, and rich, with a radiantly spiced muskiness that billows around its wearer.
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September
2018
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September
2018
Oh Fall
Hello Fall, old nemesis and arch enemy of school-despising children. How have you been? It’s been a while since we’ve seen each other, hasn’t it? About 9 months – the time it takes to bring a child into the world. What’s new? You always have something new. So many people think Fall is the beginning of putting things to bed. They’re only right about the beginning.
I’m not sure why we never got along.
Wait, that’s not true.
We both know exactly why we never got along, starting with the school thing. How I dreaded what you signaled, how I loathed the turn of weather, how I hated you for accompanying it all with such flare and bright foliage. You couldn’t help but show off as you were instilling so much fear and worry. And I knew our schoolyard battles weren’t the end of it. You were far too tricky.
You always started out so pretty, with your gently-nodding goldenrod and cornstalk sunsets. You cajoled and cradled, but your heart was hidden, and no one has ever told whether something is there. You seduced with your coziness, with the promise of a fire, the scent of burning leaves… the hope of the hearth, but how insidiously you turn.
You know exactly what you did.
And you did it over and over again.
You made me fall in love.
Looking back, it was just the idea of love that I loved so well, but you made it an obsession. Maybe it was the cruel licks of the first few frosts, the way they made my lungs seize up when I rushed out unaccustomed to the cold. Maybe I just wanted someone to make me warm until I could do it myself. Maybe I wasn’t quite as grown up as I pretended to be. Whatever the reason, I lived for love, and you did your best to keep it ever elusive, ever out of my reach. You let it come close a few times, and you insisted that I did my part. You just never let it be returned.
As September ticked into October, and the days were increasingly marred with storms, you kept the hope dangling before me. Those golden days, when the sun still sparked joy, when you could believe that some shred of summer might linger a little longer than before, were always the cruelest, in retrospect. Or maybe they weren’t. The last full month of your season may hold that distinction.
Even the name ‘November’, with its vicious ‘V’ and the way it begins irrefutably with a declarative ‘No’ – so harsh, so unyielding, so absent of joy… we should know then that it won’t end well.
Oh Fall, ruthless masked marauder, taker and breaker of hearts, why should you be so wicked? Why leave such a trail of wreckage in your wake? Why make me make such a mess? Your indiscriminate nature does nothing to appease the pain. More devastation shall surely follow. We haven’t even begun to approach December, when the holidays might, if they’re being gracious, afford a bit of relief. We hang our hopes on that and plan accordingly.
In the meantime, we hope to find some balm of beauty to ease the sadness of seeing those rotting apples left for dead beneath their trees, the ghoulish melting and eventual molding of a pumpkin massacred for its jack-o-lantern purpose. The crunch of desiccated brown leaves on the sidewalk coupled with the desolate branches of the hands that once carried and cared for them – this is the callous nature of what you are. This is the sorrow that you have reaped.
21
September
2018
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September
2018
The Banana Tree
They never struck me as all that striking until I grew one in my backyard. The banana tree, those tropical broad-leafed potted statement plants that some people grew in gardens or large pots on the patio, had always eluded my covetous glance. They felt like a tropical cliche, and destined for disappointment. Summers in upstate New York are not usually long enough for them to bear fruit, and the complicated burying process for the hardy varieties to survive the winters without rotting always felt too involved. For all those reasons, I never bothered with the banana.
But at the start of the very late planting season, there was a little banana plant at Troy’s Landscaping that called my name. It was just starting to leaf out, and it was so small and cute, and the foliage so handsome, I picked it up and nestled it into a relatively large pot in the backyard. The long and slow start to spring and warm weather meant that the little banana plant didn’t do much for a number of weeks. I looked at it without anguish or extreme disappointment – it was alive, and ever so slowly would unfurl a new leaf, but there were other things coming into bloom and taking off much faster. These took my attention while the banana, so small in its enormous pot, seemed to be merely in survival mode. My gardening style has been to abide the survivors, but thrill at the thrivers. It’s always been that way, and until a survivor proves that it can thrive, I’m the mean mommy with the stern gaze and unforgiving countenance. Worse, I tend to ignore the plight of those just getting by. Such was the case with this banana plant. Swimming in the gigantic pot – I thought they were supposed to get oh-so-big? – it looked lost, and barely required any water. All that moist soil with so few roots was a recipe for disaster, and for a while I was sure it would simply rot away before making the slightest tropical impression. As an angel’s trumpet plant took off and soared with the arrival of warmer weather, the little banana plant seemed to tremble in the slightest breeze. I pushed it off to the side, literally. Now and then I would notice a new leaf slowly emerging, the green underside wrapped tightly in an upward-pointing spiral was tinged with gray and the early veining of maroon. It was pretty enough, but I doubted it would ever put on a show. I favor the plants that put on shows.
A flowering maple shot skyward, to and beyond our canopy, and bloomed with an exquisite blossom of fiery red and yellow markings. A replanted lace-cap hydrangea that was an offshoot of an older plant came into its own thanks to a heavy helping of manure the year before. It bloomed extravagantly and courted bees and butterflies the entire time. A little line of Japanese painted ferns had happily appeared in a bare spot kept moist by the spring rain, taking quick hold once I took over the watering when the sky stopped. All the while, the banana slowly worked its way up and out. By the time the really hot weather arrived, I took new notice of it.
Watching a specific plant closely, one doesn’t always see or appreciate what is actually happening. One misses the roots and everything going on underneath the soil. One misses the gradual growth of leaves overall when focused too closely on height. When I had given up on such a close daily inspection, the banana surreptitiously made its advance. In the same manner that such visible changes only came into view after I returned from a vacation or time spent away, I noticed the banana anew. Suddenly it came into its own, filling its pot in pleasing proportions and rising to gain the glory of the sun.
In its growing season, and the right conditions, it is said that the banana tree will unfurl one large leaf a week. I like the marking of time that way, especially in the summer. Once we clicked into that tropical heat and humidity, the leaves got on schedule, one large magnificent work of art after the other. Some arched, some tore and fluttered in the summer storms, and some simply draped in gorgeous fashion, backlit brilliantly by the hot sun or basking happily in a warm rain.
And so the summer passed, in the ticking and unfurling of the banana leaves. I can’t think of a more pleasant way to mark the time. Next year I’ll be going totally bananas, because when a survivor becomes a thriver, I become a bit obsessed.
