21
December
2013
Tags: Home Design
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Stripped Bare

The kitchen renovation has not been mentioned here for a while, but since a few friends have been asking for pictures, here are a few from the early days of the project. Thus far, it’s been surprisingly, and happily, uneventful. There were no unexpected setbacks ~ no hidden asbestos or support beams in the soffit, no bearing wall issues, no crotch rot or something similar. We seem to be on track, and the company that is performing the contractor work is amazing – Skylands Services. (They even vacuum at the end of each and every construction day.)

To be honest, I was expecting something much worse (and perhaps, when I return from work at the end of this first sheet-rocking day, I’ll find it in inches of dust throughout the rest of the house) but to date there are no complaints. I had some concerns about the opening in the new expanded entry-way (which they explained as both a design and logistical necessity), and some questions as to the placement of the recessed lighting (also addressed), but every question was met with open-minded discussion and reasonable explanation. Also, contrary to popular belief, I’m a fairly easy-going guy when it really counts. I’ll take issue with the choice of crocs, but not with the placement of a wall when a venting duct is in the way.

I’m trying not to get used to all the space that suddenly seems so luxurious, because I know that once the cabinets come in it will close right back up again, but I’m counting on the removal of the wall that once separated the kitchen and dining room, and the expansion of the entryway, to alleviate the cramped feeling that previously caused problems. Sometimes, you just need a little more breathing room to feel good about things again.

I’ll post more photos as progress continues, but I also want to keep updates to a minimum, as I think a before and after post will be more than effective at expressing the changes than a gradual stop-by-step report. Of course, if things start falling apart, I may start a daily kitchen report, chronicling each setback and delay, but why dwell on the negative when things have so far progressed rather well?

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20
December
2013
Tags: Family
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A Family Affair ~ Keeping It Together, From Afar

The holidays are traditionally centered around family, and Christmas has always been about the kids (especially the big ones, like myself), so here are a few photographs of my niece and nephew, along with a couple of ornaments on my parents’ Christmas tree. I don’t know if it’s the most wonderful time of the year, but it’s pretty good.

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20
December
2013
Tags: Family, Holiday
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A Banister Adorned With Memories

It is the place that forms the backdrop to more childhood memories than I realized. It was here, at the top of the stairs, peering through the balusters, that my brother and I watched surreptitiously for Santa when we were kids.

It is the place where we searched for an imaginary bunny conjured by our cousin Grace, in her efforts to keep us occupied and out from underfoot. (Not calculating the obsessive, tenacious loyalty of children when given the benefit of attention and conversation.)

It is the place where I listened to my grandmother try to defend me to my father, saying, “He’s just different” to which my Dad replied with curt exasperation, ‘He’s mean.”

It’s the place where, when frightened as kids will sometimes be in the dark of night, I pleaded, begged, and screamed for my mother to not make me go into my bedroom alone, through fears and tears and an irrational and paralyzing terror, and where she was so mad she refused to let me come downstairs.

It’s the place where I watched with wonder the comings and goings of guests and visitors to our home, and the way they presented themselves to the world. I could peer around the corner and see the front door, watching from that undetected vantage point, though some people somehow knew they were being watched, their eyes traveling up and almost catching me. For the most part, I was good at keeping hidden; I knew which part of the top flight of stairs to avoid so it wouldn’t creak and reveal my presence. I knew that if I could see someone’s eyes, enough of my head was showing that they could spot me too. For the most part, though, I could do what I do best – observe – from an unknown and unseen location.

It’s the place I decorated with light-festooned holiday garland ~ first in traditional red and green, then making an unlikely detour into a Victorian-inspired rose and pink hued theme, accented by strands of white braided rope and pearls. (Yes, I was already that gay, way back when.)

So much of life played out on that staircase, but most people were usually too transitory to notice. I was never like that. I always noticed. I remembered the last few times my Dad carried me up those stairs, before I got too old, too big. I remember bounding down them on Christmas mornings, as well as trudging reluctantly up them on still-light summer nights. I remember being so mad – at the world, at my mother, at myself – that I jumped off the last four steps and pounded my heels into the landing so hard that I couldn’t walk for the rest of the day. I remember sliding down them backwards, stomach on the soft carpet, feet first – just like my nephew Noah does today. I don’t remember being part of anything, but I remember watching much of it unfold, all from that lofty perch.

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19
December
2013
Tags: Family, Holiday
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A Cozy Cock Dinner

A number of years ago, when I was on winter break from college, my brother and I traveled to Bob’s Tree farm to pick up the family Christmas tree. We were finding our way back into each other’s lives as adults, after a few tumultuous years of adolescent angst directed more or less at one another. We hopped in the Blazer and drove out of Amsterdam, along the winding back-roads to Galway. The day was cold, but bright. A wind whipped over the exposed landscape, and we hurriedly made our selection. Once the tree was tied to the top of the car (normally we’d have placed it in the back, but neither of us wanted to vacuum needles out later) we turned back onto the windy stretch of road.

I forget who was driving, but I remember looking in one of the rear-view mirrors and seeing the tree dangling precariously off the side of the car. I tried to warn my brother but it was too late ~ the next moment I watched as our tree rolled over the side of the road into a field.

At this point I started cracking up. My brother was less amused, which only made me laugh harder. We backed up and stepped out into the wind. I could barely move for laughing so much, but somehow we got it back on the car, tied more securely down, and made it home without further incident.

This year, I told him that we should pick up the tree again. It was a bonding experience, and a happy memory – one that I hoped would remind us that we were brothers no matter what. We’ve been through a few issues in the past year, and it was my small, unsaid way of moving past things, of trying a bit of forgiveness. Plus, he could bring my niece and nephew, who had been talking of nothing but picking up the tree over the last week.

I drove from Albany, coming in the opposite direction, and taking a different set of winding roads that ultimately led to the tree farm. It was a brutally cold night, black too, before the recent snow cover. The darkness comes so much earlier at this time of the year. After miles of scant houses and no street lamps, I entered a more populous area of Galway, where most of the homes glowed with Christmas lights, and a few restaurants and shops lent a happy and unexpected visage of civilization.

When I arrived at the tree farm (a few minutes late due to an unmarked road), my niece and nephew were playing amid the trees and reindeer (apparently reindeer are real – they just don’t fly, or having glowing red noses so bright). I watched their eyes filled with wonder, and Emi led me around to see the one that was resting near the back of the pen. Noah was more concerned with running about with his plastic saw, ready to take down a tree at a moment’s notice. Given the frigid night, I recommended bundling back into the car and heading over to The Cock & Bull, a cozy restaurant filled with fireplaces and decent pub fare.

My brother and I had gone there last year, and I always wanted to return at holiday time. It used to be a barn, and retains many of those trappings, offering a warm, rustic respite from the cold and the night. We were seated next to a Christmas tree and a roaring fire, and the kids ran about a bit as my brother and I talked. Sometimes I think that when left to our own devices, without the maelstrom of family or the influence of others, my brother and I would do just fine. This night proved that.

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18
December
2013
Tags: General
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See Me, Feel Me, Touch Me, Reveal Me

December of 2006 was when I released ‘The Revelation’ at a big 80’s theme party. Revisiting that story has become a holiday tradition here, so carve out an extra-long section of the day if you want to be dazzled, amazed, or simply go back to sleep. It was, please keep in mind, entirely a work of fiction – and while I always post that disclaimer, this time I really mean it. (I never had sex with a priest!)

The Revelation ~ Part I

The Revelation ~ Part II

The Revelation ~ Part III

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17
December
2013
Tags: Holiday, Madonna, Music
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The Madonna Timeline: Song #102- ‘Masterpiece’ ~ Holidays 2011

{Note: The Madonna Timeline is an ongoing feature, where I put the iPod on shuffle, and write a little anecdote on whatever was going on in my life when that Madonna song was released and/or came to prominence in my mind.}

It was holiday time in the year 2011. I walked the streets of New York, visiting Chris and Suzie, but for this moment between day and night I was alone. Twinkling Christmas lights glowed in shops and restaurants. People hurried by with gifts and shopping bags. The gorgeous panoply of a night in New York, and all its noise and quirks, its glimmer and shimmer, its heartache and gorgeousness. How could such beauty and sadness coexist so closely together?

Well in advance of her upcoming album, Madonna had leaked ‘Masterpiece’ in support of her new film ‘W.E.’ which she directed. It played over the end credits (not soon enough for Oscar consideration, but it did end up winning the Golden Globe for Best Song). Upon first listen, I was hooked, in the same way that some Madonna songs have of instantly capturing my attention and love, speaking to me as if I was the only one who could truly understand.

The impossibility of loving something so perfect, or of loving someone so beautiful that they exist only on a pedestal, is something most of us experience at one point or another, but mostly from afar, never as the recipient of such adoration. We all think we want that, and maybe some of us really do.

On the street is a different sort of beauty, an intangible one. New York during the holidays can be really stimulating, or really depressing. Hovering somewhere between the two, my evening began, and ended. It was a jewel of a moment – hard, gorgeous, impenetrable, striking – buffeted by friends and loved ones, but isolated in the middle, and maybe the end too.

If you were the Mona Lisa
You’d be hanging in the Louvre
Everyone would come to see you
You’d be impossible to move
It seems to me that’s what you are
A rare and priceless work of art
Stay behind your velvet rope
I will not renounce all hope

A week or two later I found myself in Boston, walking through the Public Garden as dusk fell. It was just after the golden hour, when brave artists would have been packing up their easels in the spring, if people still tried to create, if they still tried to make something of beauty. The branches that once held leaves and spring blossoms were barren – the only adornment being a few light-catching segments of ice, and some stalwart crotches of snow. The last vestiges of the day faded quickly, and soon it was dark.

That weekend, to escape the cruelty of the cold, I went to find respite in the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, its center garden courtyard filled with greenery, backed by the soft fall of water, cushioned by a blanket of moss. Potted tree ferns arch finely reticulated fronds over gravel walkways. It would be an ideal place to get married, if they allowed it. Instead, couples can merely hold hands, or steal quick kisses. No ceremonies or receptions are allowed. No matter – today there is no one to hold my hand.

And I’m right by your side
Like a thief in the night
I stand in front of the masterpiece
And I can’t tell you why
It hurts so much
To be in love with a masterpiece
Cause after all
Nothing’s indestructible

Several works of art were stolen from this museum back in the early 90’s. It happened right before I started at Brandeis, and I remember it being in the Boston papers whenever a lead was followed. A couple of men dressed as police officers convinced the security team to let them in late one night, then proceeded to tie them up, and steal several priceless works, cutting them rudely and crudely out from their frames.

To date, the crime has never been solved, nor the stolen pieces found. The empty frames remain hanging, as Ms. Gardner’s orders were that nothing in the museum be touched or moved no matter what. I walk by those spooky frames, eerily empty of all the beauty they once held, and want to cry at the state of the world. It turns out that beauty can be robbed ~ cut out, rolled up, and stuffed into the night, never to be found again. Not yet, anyway.

From the moment I first saw you
All the darkness turned to white
An impressionistic painting
Tiny particles of light
It seem to me that’s what you’re like
The look-but-please-don’t-touch-me type
And honestly it can’t be fun
To always be the chosen one

Across the room from one of the missing works, I walk to the window looking down into the courtyard. Where were you, Ms. Gardner, when your painting went missing? What tears did you cry when they tore out your heart? A carpet of baby tears spilled onto stone far below, while delicate orchids drooped their weeping colorful cargo. Sometimes beauty made the heartache.

And I’m right by your side
Like a thief in the night
I stand in front of the masterpiece
And I can’t tell you why
It hurts so much
To be in love with a masterpiece
Cause after all
Nothing’s indestructible

Christmas Eve at my family home in Amsterdam, NY, that same year ~ 2011. Candles flicker on the piano, stockings hang from the mantle, and Christmas music plays softly in the background. Decked out in holiday finery, and the scent of Tom Ford’s Santal Blush, I am unimpressive for any of those reasons, at least for those assembled here tonight. My niece and nephew bound down the hallway in their diapers. The family is together, intact. It will be the last time. I want to cry for how beautiful it is, how wonderful life can be. I want to cry because I know it cannot last.

Nothing’s indestructible, Nothing’s indestructible…

Beauty swirls around me, glittering and sparkling from the Christmas tree, light bouncing among the crystals of a chandelier, and dazzling the eyes. I loosen the silk tie around my neck and slip off the suddenly-stifling pair of wing-tips from my feet. Years ago I would lie down in this very space, on this very carpet, and look up at the tree. I would squint my eyes until it went slightly out of focus, until the lights merged and danced and became abstract spots of color, orbs of illumination. I would feel overwhelmed by its beauty, and the first drops of moisture would splinter the images before my eyes, fracturing their pretty perfection.

I wanted company as much as I wanted to be alone.

And I’m right by your side
Like a thief in the night
I stand in front of the masterpiece
And I can’t tell you why
It hurts so much
To be in love with a masterpiece
Cause after all
Nothing’s indestructible
Cause after all
Nothing’s indestructible.
Song #102 – ‘Masterpiece’ ~ Holidays 2011
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16
December
2013
Tags: General
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Amazing Madonna Megamix

It stands on its own, with no need for my Madonna commentary.

L U V MADONNA! (Jack s 2014 Megamix) from Cr@zy4Mad*nna on Vimeo.

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16
December
2013
Tags: General
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Snowy Recap

Buried in a foot of white stuff, I’ve had my fill of winter and it hasn’t even technically arrived yet. That does not bode well. I’ve also had my fill of being without  kitchen, and that’s only just begun. We have at least five or six more weeks of it, and that’s a groundhog message that needs to be retracted before I beat it to death. For today, though, let’s look back at a week that brought about Dallas recollections, disparate music selections, and only a few hunks to heat up the night.

My adventures in Dallas were chronicled in posts that described (or showed) this amazing hotel room view, a cold visit to Neiman Marcus, a not-so-narrow escape from a fire, one rather disturbing museum, a freak ice storm, and an extra day. A few more Dallas posts are on the way, so stay tuned…

The wildly varied musical taste that makes any mix from me such a schizophrenic treat was on display in this gorgeous song by Norah Jones, this holiday chestnut by Mariah Carey, and a wondrous seasonal offering by Sarah McLachlan.

Shirtless males were in short supply this week, and viewers had to make do with the scantily-clad offerings of Masiano Di Vaio and one lone shirtless Santa.

The penultimate entry for my ’13’ project went up here. (Yes, that means there’s one more… I couldn’t very well call a project ’13’ and then stop at 12, could I?)

A quick bit of lead-up hype to the release of this year’s holiday card began here, and continued with this fun retrospective of almost every racy thing that came before.

And then it was time.

Finally, forget sugar plums and Turkish delight, I want chocolate.

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15
December
2013
Tags: General, Holiday
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The Holiday Card 2013

This year’s Holiday Card was shot on a Christmas morning in the very early 80’s, by my Mom, as my brother and I opened up our gifts. My fashionable ‘sleeper’ was likely by Carter’s, and my hair was by the grace of God. Our smiles were by innocence, and our happiness was by family. It was a simpler time, caught by a genuine old-fashioned shot not needing the vintage filters of Instagram.

 

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15
December
2013
Tags: General, Holiday
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Ghosts of Holiday Cards Past

The big reveal for this year’s holiday card is right around the corner, but before we get into that, check out this linky look back at former photos that made the Christmas Card Cut. As is befitting a chameleon-in-motion, I don’t like traditional Christmas scenes, and I don’t like repeating myself, so there’s a wide-ranging slew of themes that weaves its way through these cards, and to look for any rhyme or reason or even seasonal appropriateness is to wage a losing enterprise. Instead, enjoy them at face value, and imagine them on the fridges of my braver friends.

From 1995 until 2004, I used old-fashioned film for my holiday photo cards, which I’ll have to scan at some point – but not this year. The first digital shots came late in the digital game – around 2004 – when this Snow Queen/Ice Princess was birthed.

In 2005, I reverted to the racy stance of the very first 1995 card (which featured lots of latex and bondage garb). This one topped that one, I think, and everyone loves a mirrored jock cup.

For 2006, a change for the milder was expected, but not delivered, as this crucifixion scene proved.

Far from learning the evil of my sinful ways, 2007 saw this exemplification of bad Santa behavior.

By this point, people were salivating at what naughtiness 2008 might bring, so I shot this low-key surprise on location in Maine.

A softer, if still slightly cheeky, look was on display with the wings of an angel for 2009.

A rare shot of my wedding coat, and the first time I shared a card with anyone, seemed fitting for the year of my wedding, 2010.

One of the more surprising cards was the second time I shared photo-space, and with children no less – my niece and nephew in 2011.

And most recently, after a string of kinder, gentler scenes, last year marked a return to edgy, cheeky, naughty fun -in the Christmas massacre of 2012.

What will 2013 bring? Stay tuned…

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15
December
2013
Tags: General, Music
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Heal Me

The brilliant Casey Stratton brought this beautiful piece to my attention tonight, when I needed it most. It’s by Sleeping At Last. It’s amazing the power that a proper piece of music can have to transform, and heal, and help. And maybe tonight I will… sleep at last.

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14
December
2013
Tags: General
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What’s More Shocking Than This?

Perhaps you recall last year’s Holiday Card, and the bloody, disturbing visage of a cut-out heart seen below – or maybe you remember the drunken, chain-smoking Santa of several years ago – or the icy snow queen with white hair and blue glitter. Whatever your recollection of my holiday cards might be, I’m not sure it can prepare you for this year’s version. Up until now, the most shocking photo card may have been 2011’s shared billing with my niece and nephew, whereby I was pulling them in a wagon over a grassy lawn. That took most of my friends by shock and several family members as well. Last year’s was one of my personal faves, in the incongruous blood-bath that accompanied Santa season – but it was also one of my most reviled (which only served to make me like it more). Eat your heart out, indeed.

This year is something I’ve never done before, and since it’s being sent out this week, here are a few hints as to what is to come:

-       It was shot at my childhood home in Amsterdam, NY.

-       I am in the card, AND fully clothed.

-       Someone else took the photo.

-       There is an unlikely co-star, but it is neither a baby nor an animal.

-       My favorite Christmas ornament is featured.

-       It’s Zap Zap Zapping good!

 

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14
December
2013
Tags: Holiday, Music
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A Song for Winter

When the world turns quiet, and there’s a pause in the holiday hustle bustle, this is when I feel it. Like the grief that reveals itself in times of calm and contemplation, the memory rises to the surface ~ a memory of happiness and wholeness ~ a memory of you. Sunset rooms and summer songs always appear preferable, but winter holds her own charms, in a plaintive voice over a simple piano. The musical companion to falling snow. A song for the season.

 

The lake is frozen over

The trees are white with snow
And all around
Reminders of you
Are everywhere I go

The soft folds of white sheets form a different winter landscape. Feather-filled pillows, cool white light from the window, and the cradled warmth of the morning bed. Then, the jagged icy flow of memories, of the warmth made by two – so much more enveloping than the solitary heat of a single body. I miss it already, the heaviness of the heart like some stranger in a foreign city, walking alone and watched curiously by the locals. I pull into myself, tucking the blanket under my chin, bringing my knees up to my chest, and holding on tightly. In this fetal position, another winter is born.

It’s late and morning’s in no hurry
But sleep won’t set me free
I lie awake and try to recall
How your body felt beside me
When silence gets too hard to handle
And the night too long

A fireside perch. A cup of tea. A way to quell the cold of winter. And Christmas, coming as it always does to light up the shortest days, somehow making things sadder, more melancholy. So I think of something happy, of summer walks and lavender fields, of laughter and mirth and the merriment of a meal with a friend. I think of beginnings and firsts and starts of new journeys, the time when all is laid out ahead, when all has yet to happen ~ the endless and glorious thrill of possibility. Then I think of you, and of people at their happiest. You can’t be angry with the world when you think of people in their most genuinely happy moments – the light in the eyes of a parent watching their child walk for the first time, the wonder of a child bounding towards the tree on Christmas morning, the tender look of a person gazing through tears at another, at the moment two souls touch.

 

And this is how I see you
In the snow on Christmas morning
Love and happiness surround you
As you throw your arms up to the sky
I keep this moment by and by

In the deepest, darkest corner of night, somewhere in the dimmest hours before dawn, I finally feel warm again. At least, there is the echo of warmth from all that came before. Somehow my solitary body made its own heat, carved its own niche into the universe, whether or not you wanted it here. I stay in bed longer than I usually would, turning over onto my side, gazing at another empty pillow. A day or a year or a decade has gone by, and when I try to find you again, when I foolishly roll over and smell the place where your head would have rested, of course it no longer carried your scent. Somewhere in the night that slipped away too.

Oh I miss you now, my love
Merry Christmas, merry Christmas,
Merry Christmas, my love
Sense of joy fills the air
And I daydream and I stare
Up at the tree and I see
Your star up there

I am trying to hang onto this. It’s too easy for these things to recede and fade away. I hold myself in the way I held you ~ tightly, desperately, close to my chest ~ like it was the last bastion of whatever was going to save us from sadness, from solitude.

And then something new, something less selfish, something I’d never wished for anyone without first wishing it for myself ~ the wish of happiness. With or without me, it’s all I want for you. In your smile and your laugh, in your contented sighs and relieved breaths, the thought of you at your happiest makes it all okay. Is that what true love is? Learning to let go…

 

And this is how I see you
In the snow on Christmas morning
Love and happiness surround you
As you throw your arms up to the sky
I keep this moment by and by.

Blankets of snow, showers of kisses, layers of laughter, wishes of cheer. The ever-revolving toy top, spinning infinitely while the rest of the world watches and waits for it to topple. Love twirling wildly, charged by some centrifugal force of the heart holding it all together. Dizzy, I fall back into bed, groggily trying to determine whether it really happened, or whether it was a winter dream. Outside the snow begins to fall again.

Christmas is coming, and all I can do is cry.

 

 

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14
December
2013
Tags: Bulge, Holiday, Shirtless Male Celebrities
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Another Shirtless Santa

Ho ho ho! This is Dan Osborne. Because we need a little Christmas. And nothing says Christmas like a guy in his underwear and bad, cheesy backdrops.

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13
December
2013
Tags: Writing
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12:13

He stands in the cold, hidden by the dark. In the early dusk near the end of the year the outside vanishes. His realm, his home, fades into obscurity, because when you have no home the outside is all that’s left. He also knows that inside is not as warm as it looks, not so inviting, and the coldness found there, in a place you are neither welcome nor wanted, is far more cruel than a life of kind strangers.

The ground crackles beneath his feet. Christmas is coming. At odds with the rest of the year, at odds with the rest of the world, it is an incongruous season that finally, after long being hinted at, is sadder and more upsetting than originally imagined.

He moves away from the house, away from the home, and realizes there is no home, not anywhere, not where there is safety. It is a freeing notion, but frightening to be so unleashed, like a floating balloon let go by the careless hand of a child. They always think you can get it back.

You always think you can get it back.

Once upon a time someone else’s balloon floated into his backyard, back when he considered it such. It was a Mylar birthday balloon, sparkling and bright, reflecting the sunlight on its impossibly shiny surface. He held it in his hands, ever-enchanted by the glittering flashiness of certain objects. It was limp, and barely floated along, caught by a trampled rusty fence, too weak to fly any further. He untangled the ribbon and carried it with him for a while. It was probably far from home, just where he would one day end up. He knew it then. He sensed it in the way things were changing, the way he was changing ~ the light gone from the house, the love gone from the eyes, and it would be that way with almost everyone. Almost. And he would be blamed for it. He knew that too.

In fact, he knew too much.

Maybe that’s what scared people. Maybe that’s what made him unlovable. Maybe it wasn’t who he became, but what he represented, and what he made them feel.

He walked around the house, circling, because he had nowhere else to go. Every home he thought he knew had been taken – they weren’t ever his from the start – and the realization stung and burned his eyes. It began to snow.

{See also 1:13, 2:13, 3:13, 4:13, 5:13, 6:13, 7:13, 8:13, 9:13, 10:13 & 11:13.}

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