Category Archives: General

Holy fuck, I’m 40. In what crazy-ass time-warped universe could I possibly be 40 years old? I was just 29 a few days ago… In some ways it’s unthinkable, in some ways it’s inevitable, but mostly the act of turning 40 is, for me, uneventful. It’s never been the number that’s bothered me. There are deeper forces than some arbitrary milepost at work, and that’s where my head is at right now.

‘The Big Chill’ was on television the other day, and watching that when you’re about to turn 40 is akin to watching ‘Leaving Las Vegas‘ when you’re about to turn 21 (I managed to do both, with various emotional landmines exploding around me). The first time I saw ‘The Big Chill’ I found it drab and dull, but what was once a big bore suddenly became relevant and relatable. The set-up is slightly contrived, but it provides the perfect backdrop for the ruminations of incontrovertible middle-age: following the suicide of one of their college friends, a group gathers and finds their lives far from where they thought they’d be. Here was a group of people who found themselves losing their way and grappling with the realization that while the time for dreaming went on forever, the time for action and for doing anything may have already passed. There’s a coldness to this, and a hardening of the heart that, once begun, is very difficult to slow or stop.

“I haven’t met that many happy people in my life. How do they act?”

~ The Big Chill

I’ve felt that chill recently. I don’t know if it’s turning 40, or simply the ripening of my situation. I’ve been with a loving gentleman since 2000, I’ve worked my way up to a decent position at work (after starting out as a Grade 5 Data Entry Machine Operator almost a decade and a half ago), I have a wonderful support group of close friends who’ve stayed with me for the better part of several decades, and I’ve been generally healthy for most of it. In so many ways, I have so much. Yet there’s been a gradual erosion of the spark and jolt of feeling alive, of new experiences and new places. I find myself looking back at previous periods of life and thinking how much more colorful and exciting they were, how much more passion and excitement and hope buzzed with the birth of each day.

Unaccustomed to such nostalgia, I was surprised by the worry and weight that was slowly building. There was a sense of general ennui, to the point of madness, in what followed a long, gentle, barely-discernible slope of sadness. Yet for all of that, I haven’t done much about it. I’ve been complacent, unable to muster the real ambition and drive to do anything other than vaguely complain or whine on occasion, finding substitute thrills in clothing or cologne or the same old trips to the same old places. I’ve wondered about those friends from high school and college, as I watch them expand their families on FaceBook, as I hear from them on birthdays, as we move further and further away from our youth, and from each other. I hope they are finding their own happiness.

“I just love you all so much. I know that sounds gross, doesn’t it? I feel like I was at my best when I was with you people.” ~ The Big Chill

Then I think the terrifying thought: what if it meant more to me than to them? What if everything I’ve ever believed in was a minor footnote in their lives? It’s so hard to tell whether we matter – whether we really and truly matter. A crippling doubt envelops everything then, and an insatiable insecurity – never quelled, never satisfied, never conquered – over-rides all the good I’ve ever tried to do in this world, and suddenly it all feels so pointless. We want so much to mean something to somebody. Anybody.

“A long time ago we knew each other for a short period of time; you don’t know anything about me. It was easy back then. No one had a cushier berth than we did. It’s not surprising our friendship could survive that. It’s only out there in the real world that it gets tough.”~ The Big Chill

I have to believe that it still matters, that we still matter, that what we went through together still means something, still holds a place of significance in our hearts. I have to believe that love doesn’t just disappear, doesn’t fade away even when time and place and circumstance keep us apart. I have to believe that even in the smallest, most mundane motions of a day there is meaning and magnitude and magnificence. If we don’t believe in that, if we don’t believe in something…

“Wise up, folks. We’re all alone out there and tomorrow we’re going out there again.” ~ The Big Chill

I don’t want to think that we’re alone. As much as I love my solitude, and as well as I do forging my own way, I don’t ever want to feel that I’m truly alone. I also don’t want to feel like nothing matters. If I’m dramatic or high-strung or over-the-top, let me be that way. The opposite is apathy. There’s nothing more cruel and damaging to the human spirit than someone who just doesn’t give a shit. That kind of coldness can crush the happiest soul.

And so I greet 40 with gleeful defiance and happy ownership of everything I’ve done up until now, and everything I have yet to do. I will still be here. I will write, and I will take pictures, and I will read and garden and sing along to Madonna songs as loud as I like. I’ve done it since I was a child, I’ve done it as an adult, and I’ll do it until the day I die. I’m taking all the foolish baggage that comes with turning 40 and turning it into something to signify the start of everything. We are far from done here – and we always will be.

Ahh, August. Favorite month of all the months, for so many reasons – and not just birthday ones. August is the last full month of summer. August is the last month with no school. August is the last month when there are more days in the pool than out of it. August is heat and sun and fading flowers. Most of all, August is happiness. Contentment. The calm before the storm. And I don’t want it to end, so let’s go back in time, just a week, and do it all over again.

We held a retirement gathering for my new publicist Gin-Gin, and she wore a head-dress that was simply stunning. Let me see your peacock. (Don’t forget to follow @CircleOfAlan on Twitter!)

Zac Efron and his man-purse, even if I employed that look years ago.

Summer poem for a summer night.

There was beauty in the form of male models, including Genaro Perez, Norbi Novak, Joshua Joles, Jake Jensen & Ellis McCreadie.

There was something more serious from the mouth of my own brother.

The latest, and last, for Hermes from the brilliant Jean-Claude Ellena.

Take a colorful toke.

The Delusional Grandeur Tour picks up steam, with some support from my naked ass and Louis Vuitton.

Somebody else has an August birthday, and she’s one of my favorite people in the world.

Finally, some sangria, for summer.

THE HOUSE WAS QUIET AND THE WORLD WAS CALM

The house was quiet and the world was calm.
The reader became the book; and summer night

Was like the conscious being of the book.
The house was quiet and the world was calm.

The words were spoken as if there was no book,
Except that the reader leaned above the page,

Wanted to lean, wanted much to be
The scholar to whom his book is true, to whom

The summer night is like a perfection of thought.
The house was quiet because it had to be.

The quiet was part of the meaning, part of the mind:
The access of perfection to the page.

And the world was calm. The truth in a calm world,
In which there is no other meaning, itself

Is calm, itself is summer and night, itself
Is the reader leaning late and reading there.
~ Wallace Stevens

Like my wit at its best, this has been a dry week. The gardens are scorched. Stretches of ostrich ferns have browned up and shriveled off. We are headed incontrovertibly into fall. Sorry, but it’s true. Face the facts or extend your denial. Still, it’s summer, and it will be for a number of weeks, so I’m stepping outside by the pool and soaking up every last moment. August is a beautiful month.

The last week saw a fitting Speedo post, as that’s the preferred attire for certain men of a certain build.

It also saw the first glimpse into Madonna’s Rebel Heart tour. My excitement was waning, but now it’s back to where it always was, and there’s no better reminder of that than this collection of previous openings.

The male model was a staple of the August Hunks of the Day, thanks to Bryce Thompson, Nyle Dimarco and Kevin Baker.

Green beans hanging like bulbous garland.

The delectable Joe Zaso got his second crowning as Hunk of the Day.

It’s tricky to rock around August.

Plans for a 40th birthday celebration in Boston were set into motion, thanks to the Lenox Hotel and their Judy Garland Suite.

Still on tour, still delusional, and still intrigued by the underside of life.

One city that the Delusional Grandeur Tour will NOT be visiting is Las Vegas. Though several pages of the Tour book were shot on location there, I do not enjoy the city in the least. It had some good points: for a hotel worshipper like myself it was a treat to visit the ornate lobbies and extensive grounds of some of the finer hotels (even if they were miles apart and one had to trek in 110 degree heat to get there). The Wynn and Encore were two of my favorites – even more-so than the Bellagio and the Venetian. On my last day in the sinful city, I spent much of my time roaming the hallways of the former, and winding down my trip with a quiet cocktail at the relatively hidden Parasol Lounge.

This secret gem was lit by the bright afternoon sun, but offered shady respite (in fitting fashion given its namesake). Enormous parasols in rich jewel tones hung overhead, and one descended in a curving escalator to reach the secluded space. Had I discovered the place earlier in my stay I might not have ever left it. Perhaps it’s better that I didn’t.

There are surely ways to make Las Vegas magical, but I didn’t have enough money to find them. Instead, I found sanctuary from the heat beneath a bunch of parasols.

The second question (after the more obvious,’What exactly do you do on a tour?’) is always, ‘Where are you going?’ For my final tour I’ll be keeping things relatively open as far as destinations go. I’ve made a life of planning far into the future, but this time I’m flying by the seat of my pants. It’s produced a feeling of exhilaration and terror, and I’m digging it. That said, there are concrete plans for the next few weeks, and a couple of Tour Stops already etched in the itinerary. First up is a Boston and Cape Cod jaunt to meet some new friends from Britain. JoAnn is hosting the Brits, and this will mark my first time meeting this wonderful group of people I’ve heard so much about. Following that is my 40^th birthday weekend in Boston, a quiet affair with Andy in the Judy Garland Suite of the Lenox Hotel.

Early September will bring about a vacation in Seattle, WA -my first time in that fair city since 1998. Along with the flagship Nordstrom store, I always want to see some sea-life – whales or octopus – and perhaps a museum or two. Oh, and Starbucks. I need to see how their stores should really be operating, because I think the Albany locations have some serious issues.

After that, I’ll set up more definitive plans for New York, Washington, and Ogunquit. This tour is going places. Watch and see.

While The Delusional Grandeur Tour: Last Stand of a Rock Star is out of travel status until next weekend, a word on those portals and passages that bring us into other worlds. They are the doorways to different lands, the paths to new destinations. I’ve always been fascinated by such points – the transitory marks that bring us from here to there, and occasionally back again. Whether it’s a car or a plane or a boat, whether it’s a bridge or a road or a hallway – these are the hubs of transformation. A hotel lobby is the perfect, and infinitely fascinating, example of this. Airports, too. The places where people are in motion and flux, going or coming, running to somewhere or running away from somewhere else – these are the in-between states where most people aren’t really themselves, but in which I find myself most true and real.

At its worst, it results in what I see as a tourist’s frame-of-mind. Those frazzled or simply seemingly-mindless people who don’t know where they are or what they’re doing, who suddenly forget how to walk when out of their usual routine, who forget simple human decency because they’re so preoccupied with figuring out how to order a cup of coffee outside of their own kitchen. When I see stuff like that and I’m annoyed, I call it stupidity, but really it’s more of a distracted, out-of-place confusion that many people aren’t accustomed to coping with, at least not well.

Oddly enough, it’s a state I rather favor. I find comfort in not being bound to the usual trappings of home and tradition. Yes, it can be upsetting if you’re stuck in your ways and resistant to change, but if you open your mind to new experiences it’s nothing but exciting.

Those thresholds are my comfort zone. They are where and when I feel the most alive and energized. Part of me fantasizes about working in a job where the majority of time is spent in travel status, on a train platform or at an airport gate, waiting and anticipating the next rush of motion. It’s why I’ve never minded a lengthy layover (which are far preferable to the ten-minute gauntlets thrown down in an airport that’s five miles long) and why I consider a train ride or road trip a destination unto themselves.

It need not be a world-spanning flight or cross-country jaunt – sometimes the simple length of a pool is enough to clear the mind and bring about a new sensation. Sometimes it is even simpler: a doorway, the same doorway you’ve walked through your entire life, can be the starting point for a new beginning. It’s all in how you choose to go through it. The life you knew before can change in that single instant. Make it the one that you want, and don’t be afraid to leave certain doors behind.

Within the metallic mesh fence that protected the vegetable garden, I peered into the leafy jungle. Slightly fuzzy leaves rose along a bamboo framework, and nestled inside, dangling in the shady nooks, the green beans hung. Having been dispatched by my Mom to pick some beans for dinner, I’d ventured into the garden in the hour before eating. It was quiet and still. The morning cacophony of bird calls and waking had given way to the riotous pool splashing of high noon, but now the day had settled into itself. In other countries this would be the time for a siesta.

The act of harvesting instills a sense of contentment and accomplishment. I don’t usually grow vegetables, and there’s a difference between a decorative plant that produces beauty all season long, and a vegetable which produces something that physically nourishes you. Both have their purpose, both have their merits. I’ve just always sided with the prettier choice.

On this summer afternoon, however, I find peace in picking beans, in the stillness of the garden. My hands are soon filled with beans, which I drop into a bag which soon fills as well. I walk over to the tomato cages and rustle through their fragrant hairy foliage. The fruit (or vegetable, let’s not debate it) is not quite ripe. Same with the eggplants and peppers. For this day, the green beans will have to do. That’s the way summer goes.

This was when it began for the very last time. The Delusional Grandeur Tour: Last Stand of a Rock Star kicked off this weekend.

It was a hot week on all fronts.

Further hotness was found in the form of male model Clint Mauro.

Cool off with a little rain.

Closer to the end of the month marks my birthday. The Big 4-0. Get me something pretty.

Drama in Chatham!

This kind of heat goes for Miles.

Cross country summer heat with Suzie.

Eric Angelo is practically an angel. A hot angel.

The soft opening.

Steve Grand gets named as Hunk of the Day for the second time.

August 1, 2015 marked the first night of the last tour.

Things are about to get delusional… and dreamy.

All you wonderful people out there in the dark.

The Preamble.

This video always cracks me up, and on a day when it’s supposed to hit 96 degrees it’s a very fitting one. I want to hang out with this lady.

One question: Who the hell is paying for this damn meat??

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a6tKJvWWDP4

The first time I went to a production at the Mac-Haydn Theatre in Chatham, NY was the day I told my parents that I was gay. Well, it was the day they read the first draft of a letter-to-the-editor in which I said I was gay. It was also the day they told me they wished I wouldn’t publish it. That night, my Mom had tickets to some musical revue at the Mac-Haydn, purchased and planned at a prior time, so we took the long awkward ride into the beautiful rolling hills of Chatham. It was a quiet drive, one in which I contemplated keeping silent to appease my parents, while struggling with the very real need to reveal who I really was.

We drove along the verdant roads, past tall fields of corn on the verge of being harvested, by ponds dotted with wild geese. Nodding umbrels of Queen Ann’s lace drooped after the hot sun of the day. Fuchsia-tinged thistles lifted their sharp leaves upward. The sky was a bright blue, holding a few puffy clouds, and the air was still. In the heat of high summer, it was better not to move too much. It was easier that way. More comfortable. The effort of sending out ripples sometimes feels more onerous than letting things lie.

I don’t remember much of the performance that evening. One thing that does stick out in my head was the oppressive heat, still lingering even after the sun went down. Sweat was pouring off the performers. One must have wiped it off between numbers a little too quickly and carelessly, as he returned to stage with a big piece of paper towel still stuck to his forehead. It was all I could focus on; my mind was entirely elsewhere. Bothered by the expected, but still unexpected, lack of support by my parents, bothered by the confines of upstate New York, which seemed to stretch out and sprawl forever, but held onto its small-minded lack of acceptance as if it was all that mattered, I couldn’t pretend to care about singing and dancing. I wasn’t that strong yet.

At intermission, I mulled around the little lobby area, lingering until the last possible moment. The lights went down and we were shrouded in darkness. The show began again, and for another hour we could pretend that nothing was wrong. And really, what was wrong? The simple fact that I was gay? Or the act of me wanting to tell the world? It was probably a little of both.

The ride home, in the kind of all-enveloping darkness that can only be found in the country, was equally quiet.

The next day I hand-delivered my letter to the local newspaper. I was directly defying my parents’ wishes. I was deliberately disobeying the two people who raised me. I felt guilty, and sad, and hurt – and like the biggest weight had just been lifted from my shoulders. It was one of the best decisions I’d ever made in my life – and it saved me. When you can’t count on anyone else to do it, sometimes you have to save yourself.

The heat is on, and it’s not just on the street. It’s absolutely everywhere. Every-fucking-where. Like, there is no escape. It reminds me of a heatwave that swept through Chicago when I visited one summer. It was the kind of sticky heat that soaked you in sweat within minutes of walking outside. It literally took me hours to make it halfway through the Magnificent Mile, as I ducked into every store along the way for the sanctuary of air conditioning. I went into places I never wanted to see – Nine West, Escada, every single bank (because banks are the coolest places in the summer). Foot by foot I padded along in the oppressive Chicago heat, seeking relief wherever it could be found. (Notably in an extended stay within Crate & Barrel, where I think they began to fear I had moved in.) I’ve been in some hot places over the years – the Philippines, San Juan, Miami, and an overheated Volvo on a cross-country jaunt in August – but I’ve never been quite as hot as those few days in a Chicago heatwave.

This week looks to be a hot one here. My ties only last about half the day. My thoughts wander to water, to lapping waves, to a sparkling pool. Everything sweats in this heat. Windows, glasses, grocery bags. We seek out respites of coolness, shadowy spots of relief, and when we find them we pause. Summer has a way of stilling things like that. It’s one of its best secrets.

Though there are only four gifts I am really pining for the most this birthday season, I suppose I should put some filler gift ideas up here for more casual acquaintances and cheap-ass family members, or future friends I have yet to meet but would be glad to do so if they get me one of these beauties. THink of these as stocking-stuffers for the Big 4-0. As always, one can never go wrong with Tom Ford, and while most of his items are beyond the means of many, Gilt offers some of his items at a deep discount. A pair of sunglasses would be absolutely lovely. (And actually cost less than his Private Blend fragrances.)

There’s also my old standby Amazon Wish List, which has been updated and is once again current. Please make generous use of it. And, as I was once reminded of on a wedding invitation no less, money is always the right size and color. See, there’s always someone more crass and classless than me.