Author Archives: Alan Ilagan

I’m here because I wanted to talk.

About us.

About you and me.

It’s been fifteen years since this website first went live. Hard to believe I’ve been doing it for a decade and a half. Harder to believe that some of you have been visiting for just as long. What a long, strange trip it’s been! How many outfits, mood swings, stories, tours, photos, links, and social media feeds have we been through since 2003? Too many to name or count. (Remember MySpace? Thankfully I barely do, though some of these now-vintage photos may still be up there. The internet is forever.)

Most personal blogs don’t last as long as this old chestnut. In terms of a blog’s average lifespan, ALANILAGAN.com is a dinosaur. (Some of us prefer to think of it as a thoroughbred. But that suggests better breeding over longevity, and I can’t claim that. Sometimes it’s enough just to outlast the others.) In times of perhaps-excessive hubris, I like to think of this website as a long-running Broadway show: people come and go, some visit and love it, some visit and hate it, and some completely forget about it until some link reminds them that I’m still here and still posting all these years later. Whenever I think of those shows that I first saw years ago that are still running, I remind myself that those performers are up there on stage every night, doing what they do, while the rest of our lives go on. To that end, I will take some credit for keeping things going.

For the better part of a decade, I posted every single day (with the exception of 9/11). That arduous schedule was happily altered for the first time last summer, when I took a couple of months off for a summer sabbatical. I wasn’t quite ready to end the site completely, but I definitely needed a break. It was wonderful! I liked it almost too much, which begged my friend Skip to ask why I didn’t modify things to my own liking. It’s not like I was making any money off this, despite a decent amount of traffic. The small, non-quantifiable benefits of having a blog (an uncensored outlet for whatever I wanted to say) had long been available to anyone in the forms of FaceBook, then Twitter, then Instagram – and now there are too many social media platforms to mention here in whatever form one prefers. The tiny amount of cachet that having a popular blog occasionally affords has long been eclipsed by whatever small amount of influence I have on Twitter or FaceBook.

The riches of having such a creative outlet, however, proved greater than any monetary value anyone could give to this site (though I’m open to those numbers too if you’re interested…) It is largely enough to be able to write and have a few people read what I’ve written – that’s all I ever wanted from the very beginning. The act of writing and taking photos, of creating and conjuring flights of fancy or social commentary – it was and remains a process of love. Sometimes, it was survival. Always, it was my grounding space. No matter how much I fucked up in other areas of my life, this little URL was a sacred place to which I could return, safely and confidently, to be myself in ways I couldn’t anywhere else.

As years passed, and I found the genuine confidence and wisdom to make my real-life path a little easier, I had less of a daily need for such stability, but I always knew that it would be.

Just as importantly, I knew that you would be here.

Yes, you.

Whether you are one or a million, if you’re reading this I am speaking to you.

Without you, this website exists, but it doesn’t matter.

Without you, I will post, but it will mean less.

A website is nothing without its visitors. It becomes a hollow shell of record, an empty archive of faded memories, a stale catacomb of lives that have gone somewhere else. We both need to be here for it to work. To that end, I’m thankful for you.

Fifteen years is a long time for anything. I’ve had this website for longer than I’ve had my job. Longer than I’ve been married. Longer than I’ve had a niece and nephew. Longer than FaceBook and Twitter have been around. Longer than the iPhone’s been in existence. I’ve had it through a goatee and gray hair, a 30-inch waist, a 31-inch waist, and a 32-inch waist (and counting…) I’ve had it through the deaths and births of countless loved ones, though fifteen winters and fifteen springs, fifteen summers and fifteen falls. The head spins when I think of all the crazy costumes and outfits I’ve donned here.

Through it all, a few things have been consistently celebrated and nurtured in these parts. The most popular feature of this site is the Hunk of the Day feature. Oddly enough, this was a more or less recent addition (probably after 2011 or so). Who knew everybody was so thirsty? 

The other mainstay has been Madonna. She’s no stranger to anniversaries.

A major Madonna Timeline is on the horizon, so get ready for that glorious return too. Another regular inspiration around here is Tom Ford; in fragrance and style, there is no better. David Beckham and Ben Cohen have been relatively quiet of late, or maybe I just haven’t been paying attention. Tom Daley and Nick Jonas and Zac Efron may have stolen a bit of their thunder, but Hunkdom is ever-evolving, and we are always open to new forms of beauty. 

If anything, that’s one of the main things I’ve tried to convey and share here: beauty. Beauty in all its forms – challenging, raw, dangerous, charming, exquisite and impossible beauty. 

Somehow, the evolution of a human being has seeped into these web pages, intended or not. Sometimes the most revealing posts happened almost by accident, while others were intentionally confessional in the hopes that someone else might be touched or moved by it, or better yet see something of resonance in their own life. If you have visited and enjoyed one of my stories, or a photograph, or some song I posted, I thank you. No one exists in a vacuum, and though I spent years fighting it, I do need other people. I should be too lonely if no one said hello. 

As for the future fate of ALANILAGAN.com, I don’t intend to go away anytime soon. There will be another summer break this year because it was so awesome, but there are a few more projects I’d like to post as well, and I have quite a bit more to say before I pack it in for good. And even then, the words will live on. The photographs will circulate. The internet will live forever, and everything we’ve put here has the potential to last. For now, it’s happening in real time, and I invite you to join in the fun as it happens. 

Happy Anniversary, Dahling. 

{They said we wouldn’t last.}

March the first.

In like a lion…

When the lion sleeps tonight…

I tend to jump the gun in my mind when it comes to March, foolishly assuming that since this is the month that spring begins again all will be sunny and warm and lovely. The truth is that march is often the harshest of the months, coming with its wintry mixes when our last winter-weary nerve is frayed beyond all recognition. This year we will hunker down in the basement by the fire until the month passes.

But let’s take a look back at the other firsts that this month has provided in the past. It’s a nice way to ease back into the blogging swing of things as we enter the official month in which spring returns. That lends a happy sort of feeling to the proceedings, regardless of any impending snow.

• March 1, 2013
• March 1, 2014
• March 1, 2015
• March 1, 2016
• March 1, 2017

In the past, I may have been too invested in some of my creative endeavors, living out each theme in was that weren’t always healthy or helpful. Hell, my first two projects were ‘Sex’ and ‘Depression’ and God knows I’ve delved deeply into those wells. But that was all long ago, 1993 to be exact, and in the ensuing years I’ve learned a more sensible way of creatively fulfilling my passions without necessarily thrashing my emotional state in the process. It’s the choice many artists have to make at some point, and while I can’t speak for anyone else, I find a bit of separation from the work is the best way for me to exist.

I’m at my happiest when I’m working on a new project, whether that’s in writing or photography or the simple design of a garden. When my interest veers into darker territory (as this new one does), there’s the potential for emotional spillover if I’m not being careful, or if I were unable to disconnect the work from my own state of mind. That has been a key to a happier existence, and a creative fulfillment that comes from the various outlets I’ve culled over the years. It also helps that I have an understanding and patient husband like Andy, who keeps the home, and our lives, in fine form while I undertake any creative endeavors. That’s the real secret of how I’ve been able to integrate the wild fire of artistic passion into a life that doesn’t involve jailtime.

This new project is in its infancy, so the earliest it’s going to come out will be fall 2018 or winter 2019. Until such time, I offer a look back at some of my more recent works. See if you can tell which fun ones drove me (and possibly others) to the brink of insanity before I figured out how to do it right.

• The Delusional Grandeur Tour

• Bardo: The Dream Surreal

• A 21^st Century Renaissance: The Resurrection Tour

• A Night at the Hotel Chelsea

• The Circus Project

• StoneLight

Unlike the summer, when the rabbits would brazenly munch on our garden in the light of day, winter seems to make them more naturally nocturnal. We do not catch them during the day, but we find their tracks and their droppings. Maybe they hide in the day because the backdrop of snow makes them too easy to be spied by hawks or owls. The pool may be covered, but danger still lurks in the backyard, especially if you’re little and furry.