Category Archives: General

After all the trouble we could have gotten into with the beer and mayhem of a Red Sox game, all the possibilities of a night out in Boston, and two back-to-back trips speeding along the Mass Turnpike at roughly 80 miles per hour, I get stopped for a ticket literally two minutes from my home. We were in the very last stretch of our Sunday morning arrival when the lights and siren sounded behind me.

“Do I pull over here?” I asked Skip, trying not to panic. Even having been in this position a number of times before, it still frazzled me.

“Yes,” he calmly instructed. “Turn the car off.”

“Off? All the way off?”

“Yes. And turn your hazards on.”

It should go without saying that I had no clue where or how to turn on any hazards, Dukes or otherwise, and I was too flustered trying to figure out how to roll my window down to worry about a light show at that moment.

A blonde-haired, blue-eyed police officer strode to the side of my car and smiled as he peered in. “How are you doing? That’s a different color! What do they call that, seafoam blue?”

Was he really talking about my car? The Ice Blue Show Queen? I chuckled nervously, “Yeah, I think so!” He could call it prairie dog diarrhea bullshit brown for all I cared, just as long as he didn’t beat me.

“Ok, I stopped you for going 45 in a 30,” he said as he walked to the front of the car to get a closer look at it. My lime green stripes must have caught his eye again as he made another comment on how different the color was before asking politely for my license. I handed it to him and he walked back to his car, all smiles and Sunday morning cheer.

Skip said there was no way I was getting out of it. 45 in a 30? No way. I asked how much the ticket would be. $200? MORE?!? We were just about to get into the odds of getting a ticket in the final minutes of a two-and-a-half hour ride home (during which I probably broke the speed limit much more than this little residential romp) when Officer Handsome strode back.

He made yet another comment on the color, “It’s just registered as ‘Blue’!” He exclaimed, laughed a little and then said he was letting me off with a warning. Then he smiled and said to have a good day. I thanked him. Aside from Andy, this was hands down the friendliest of Colonie’s finest that I’ve ever encountered. I wouldn’t have even minded if he gave me a ticket after all. (Ok, that’s totally not true, but I can pretend to be so magnanimous… because I got off.)

A happy ending to a happy weekend.

Never under-estimate the power of a new haircut. I’ve always maintained this adage. In times of feeling down, I find that a new haircut can be completely exhilarating. Occasionally, it’s life-altering. Such is the case with my friend Kira. She has had the same hairdo for the better part of her life. That’s almost four decades. This last year, however, she finally cut it all off as I’ve been advising her since we met (that would be 15 years and counting). The transformation has been a big and glorious one, and it’s happened just as much on the inside as on the outside. I will always defend the fact that appearance shouldn’t really matter, but it carries its own set of powers, and whether we like it or not it defines who we are. You don’t have to agree with that, but you do need to acknowledge it.

For Kira, it’s instilled her with a new confidence, and for someone who was so quiet and timid when we first met a decade and a half ago, that’s a pretty fantastic thing to witness. Recently she competed, by herself, in one of those Color Runs (wherein you get coated with colored chalk and run a 5K course) and this summer/ fall she wants to go skydiving. I’m trying to work up the courage and craziness to join her, but she may have already surpassed me in being brave.

As I write this, the Tony Awards are on right now, and Kelli O’Hara just won her first Tony. (I was lucky enough to see her on stage in ‘The Bridges of Madison County’ last year.) And since the show is still going on, this recap will be brief (and woefully without a nude Adam Levine). A busy week ensues…

With an arsenal of photos from the past decade, it’s somewhat of a lazy entry to throwback with old photos and favorite quotes, but too damn bad.

From now until June 21, ‘Sister Act’ is raising the rafters of the Ogunquit Playhouse.

Scott Eastwood took his shirt off to get doused in cool water for Cool Water.

It was a week bookended with Boston moments, beginning in the night and waking up in the morning. Soon, it will culminate with a recounting of my first time at Fenway Park in two decades.

Caitlyn who? This is Brody Jenner, shirtless and hunkified.

Ben Cohen got down to his briefs in honor of his new cologne.

Do I make you porny?

The magic torsos of Magic Mike.

The sparkle is back at Starbucks.

Hunks of the Day included Nikita Gutsu, Dominik Persy, Jeff Tomsik and Justice Joslin.

The night is black

And I am excited about you.

My love climbs in me, and you ask

That I should climb to the higher room.

Things are hidden in a black night.

Even the dream is black

On the black-lacquered pillow,

Even our talk is hidden.

– Geisha song

This is a culture in which hedonism, sensualism, and the art of the erotic, not at all the same as sex, were uninhibitedly developed in very sophisticated ways. In the floating world of the geisha, it was love, not sex or sensual pleasure, which was taboo. ~ Lesley Downer, ‘The The Secret History of the Geisha: Women of the Pleasure Quarters’

The whole thing was a game. Like any game, you had to play it to the best of your ability and you had to stick to the rules; but in the long run it was not to be taken too seriously. And whatever went on in the licentious night-time dreamworld of the Yoshiwara was always forgotten the next day. It never infected the world outside those enchanted walls. That tradition carried over into the world of the geisha. Mystery was of the essence.

It was all show biz. But in the floating world, nothing could continue unchanged for long…

To play at love was one thing, really to fall in love quite another – and in the supercharged world of the geisha it was always a danger…

Often the only solution was death.

~ Lesley Downer, ‘The The Secret History of the Geisha: Women of the Pleasure Quarters’

How cruel the floating world

Its solaces how few –

And soon my unmourned life

Will vanish with the dew.

~ Saikaku Ihara

June is here! Glorious season in which summer returns, filled with roses and sunshine, signifying the end of the school year, the start of vacation, and all that is right with the world. We begin with… cold and rain. Whatever. Let’s look back over the last few sunny days in which we fast-forwarded to the onslaught of summer.

It began in a depressingly demon-like way, with this post about child molester Josh Duggar. It’s hard to bounce back from a story about a guy who molested his own sisters, and whose parents covered it up and then went on to preach about how sinful the gays are, but we’ll try.

And what better way to try than with a trip to Ogunquit, where the cares of the world seem to melt away like lemon drops.

It was a quiet and sleepy visit, exactly what we were looking for, and it gently restored us to our senses.

The lilacs were in full bloom, fragrantly blazing a delightful trail from nose to nose.

Shh, don’t tell!

Somebody certainly seems to enjoy a pearl necklace.

What a beautiful pansy and…. AAAAAUUGHHHHHH!!!

All good things must come to an end, but there’s a full summer to be had before we return.

Take this, doomed Duggar brood – the Hunks are coming back to reclaim this space.

A tick, a tock, a moment on the T.

Summer is on the way. Have faith.

And last but not least, Adam Levine’s naked ass. Yup, a very nude Adam Levine shut down the month of May in most winning fashion, with nothing but his bare butt.

Whether or not I can summon regular installments of the ‘Summer Memories‘ series I half-heartedly started a few years ago remains to be seen, but that is my intent to keep things fresh on the blog. Summer burns both music and memories into one’s consciousness, searing such indelible moments into the mind due to a combination of heightened temperatures and heightened emotions. It’s a deliciously heady time, thanks to the sensual delights of sun and water, fragrance and light.

Water and light have formed the critical crux of many a summer moment. I can still remember an oppressively hot weekend in New York City when the simple sound of running water seemed to cool everything down. Most of the hotels were booked (and this was before the median night cost $350) but a little place in Chelsea still had a room available. It was an interesting few floors – typically cramped, with a shared bathroom down the hall, and a strange little room on the second floor, which had an open-top hexagonal aquarium/terrarium in the middle of the space. I’d never seen such a set-up before, both an architectural piece and a place for a pet, with seemingly no other point for the room’s existence.

Goldfish swam languidly in the expansive tank, and I crouched down to peer in at them. Somehow, some light managed to penetrate the alleyway behind the building, filling the space and reflecting the iridescent scales of the fish. The sound of the tank’s running water, and the bright oasis in the middle of the city, soothed me. Summer, and the heat bouncing hard off the cement and the buildings, can be trying in New York. This moment made it all right. During my weekend there, I’d pause whenever I passed the second floor, rejuvenating heat fatigue and calming frayed nerves.

That’s the beautiful conundrum of summer – so much gorgeousness, so much heat, so many attempts at cooling off. It makes the head concoct all sorts of strange scenarios, such as stalking. It also affords moments of respite, high above the city. There are walks to more water, and music that is giddy and innocent, or imbued with an underlying darkness. It’s the season of the sun… even if we’re not quite there.

The labyrinth of previous posts on this blog runs long, wide and deep. Go to town with that metaphor until you’re raw and sore, but it’s the truth. Here’s a look back at two previous Memorial Day posts, which are all recaps given that the holiday is traditionally celebrated on a Monday – our look-back day.

In 2013 a sexy spread of Matthew Camp enticed readers to click away.

Last year, Ben Cohen and David Beckham tag-teamed the post – the former bulging through his briefs, the latter chilling in his sweats.

Stay tuned for this year’s Ogunquit recap, coming up as soon as I rest from this vacation.

Let the unofficial start of the summer season begin! This is the real ‘most wonderful time of the year’ for me, as it signals the sweetest weather is about to arrive, and the gardens are still relatively fresh and green. It’s a time of promise and hope and all that has yet to come – the time of possibility. Anticipation will always trump execution in my warped mind. That said, a dose of recent nostalgia with this look back at the previous week’s events will make this vacation Monday an easy one.

Kicking up the heat with his cooking acumen, Chef Michael Chernow was named Hunk of the Day earlier in the week.

Yet another record-breaking week for Madonna. Bow down, bow down, bow down.

Meet the newest bulge of Armani underwear: Fabio Mancini.

Get a load of this dick-wad.

Digg this: Hunk of the Day Taye Diggs.

John Irving, Master of Words.

A recommendation from a straight guy: Hunk of the Day Toby Kebbell.

A pink pansy (and I don’t mean me.)

Exposed my naked ass, and I did it with a smile.

Where we were.

Talk about your hot nuts, this is Hunk of the Day Morris Chestnut.

Within the realm of Hunkdom, a look at some of the finest.

“We said earlier that the trickster simultaneously represents the animal and the divine in humanity. In societies like those of the Western world in which sexuality is given high priority and organized religion depreciated, entry into no other sphere of activity than sex is so much desired. No other channel for desire offers so many people the gratifying illusion of power. They seem to sense that though its ecstasies sex might let them breach the limits of the body to touch immortality. Power seems even to many of the powerless to be within reach here.

Of course the search for power tends to corrupt no matter where it is found; and for every sexual relationship that empowers its partners, delivering them to ecstasy, there are others dogged by misery. Far from being a romantic, lyric or even comfortable figure, the trickster invariably presents us with an awkward uncomfortable personality as well as a persuasive and amusing prankster and sexual polymorph.” ~ John Izod

“Significantly, he cannot be tied down: he is a shape shifter, appearing at one moment in one form, only to transmute and make his next entrance in quite another. Such versatility matches his function in running counter to the orientation of the individual’s conscious mind.” – John Izod

This lovely month of May continues as the gardens are just beginning to return to form after a winter more brutal than I realized. Thanks to the excessive snow, rabbits were able to reach the stems of shrubs that normally would have gone unnoticed, resulting in the loss of a prized variegated Wolf’s eye dogwood specimen, and the desiccation of a climbing rose (whose roots were the only thing that remained intact). Additionally, there was unprecedented damage to a wisteria standard and a coral-barked maple tree. But while all that is of interest to me, you probably just want to get right to the shirtless guys whose nipples and ass cheeks you may have missed over the last week. Well, let’s do it.

Apparently Shane Mumford is a hot beefy ball player from Down Under, not a member of Mumford & Sons.

I think I’ve got one more tour in me. Sound the alarms.

The rather lovely Luis Santaella bulging through his underwear.

With all the (supposedly) racy images I post on FaceBook and Instagram and Twitter, how does it happen that this is the one that gets reported? I’ve been far more naked than that before.

Everyone loves a gay porn star, so Chris Harder was a popular selection as Hunk of the Day.

Sometimes Tom Ford fails, but more often than not he succeeds (see below).

Soft and sweet, but no word on sticky.

Please not go bang-crash in the middle of the night.

Pop these cherries.

One of my favorite memories ever involves sequins, Winnie-the-Pooh and a blonde lady from Florida.

Jesse Jackman and Dirk Caber formed a rare Double Hunk of the Day.

Finding love in an unlikely box of chocolates.

Leave it to Cosmo to get television actor Nick Wechsler naked but for a towel.

Case in point of a Tom Ford stellar success.

If you’ve ever doubted your worth, either from a childhood of conditional love or a string of failed romantic relationships or a simple period of feeling down, then you might have an inkling about what I’m talking about in this post. Despite the often-obnoxious front I put up on this website and in my daily life, it’s still sometimes difficult for me to fathom that I have an effect on people, and that people might actually value me. I will occasionally marvel that someone in my office building, whom I’ve never met before, knows who I am. Part of it is because I’m so bad at remembering names and people that I just assume others do the same, but part of it comes from a deep-seeded disbelief that I matter. The smokescreen of all the fabulousness that surrounds me is only proof of this underlying fallibility.

I recently transferred offices, moving back to downtown Albany after a little over a year at an office in Rensselaer. As much as I loved the people in the office, and as integral and valued as I felt, it still took me by surprise to see and realize the bonds that I’d made in that relatively short time frame. I’m not one to require a pat on the back or regular acknowledgment of accomplishments (if I did, I wouldn’t have made it beyond childhood), but when it happens I do my best to be gracious and appreciative. I know how rare it can be.

During my time in that office, I came to know and adore the people with whom I had the privilege of working. I also hoped I added something to the office that went beyond the capable performance of my job duties. I’ll never be the greatest or most technically proficient at my job, but I’ve always felt I bring something else to an office environment that raises morale and makes it a little more enjoyable to come to work. It’s not something that can necessarily be evaluated in a job review or put down on paper with any measurable units of output – but you know it when it’s there, and you realize it even more when it’s gone. Even with this awareness, however, I was completely caught off guard with the parting gift of that office across the river.

Having asked that no big party or to-do was in the works, I relaxed on my last day, counting on the fact that nothing like a tearful going-away scene was about to be enacted. (For the cajillionth time, I honestly do not do well when the focus of all attention is directed on me. I wilt in that limelight. Disbelieve at your own peril.)

As we were enjoying a lunch for Administrative Assistant’s Day, my supervisor presented me with a box of Whitman Chocolates. I thought I disguised my lack of enthusiasm for the present pretty well (I’m not a box-of-chocolates kind of guy) though later I was told my distaste was quite apparent. Not wanting to make a production, I said a quick ‘Thank you’ and tried to move the attention on toward someone else. Instead, they insisted that I open it. Now, if I’m not a box-of-chocolates kind of guy, I’m even less of a let’s-open-the-gifts-and-ooh-and-ahh-like-we’re-at-a-baby-shower type of guy. But they had always been good to me in that office, so I obliged in this one last act of appreciation.

After breaking through the outer plastic wrap, I lifted the top of the box. In the center of the chocolates was the familiar rectangular box of a Tom Ford Private Blend, ‘Oud Fleur.’ At that instant I was too much in shock to fully convey what I was feeling, but it was the closest I’ve come to crying in a long time. That someone had listened, and had made the effort to know me enough to make the perfect choice, touched me in ways that most gifts never could. Usually only Andy is adept, and concerned, enough to figure out what I really want. Here was a group of people I’d known just a year, showing that I had made an impression on the office after all, that my presence had not gone unnoticed or unappreciated. I was moved.

Though I’ve moved on to another office, I will always hold my time there, and the people I met along the way, close to my heart.

(Special shout-out to my friend Ginny, whom I know did more than her fair share to make this glorious miracle happen.)

Fortunately, the powers-that-be at the almighty censoring division of FaceBook agreed with me that this photo did NOT rise to the level of nudity and pornography that it needed to be removed. What’s more comical is that someone on FaceBook took the time to report it as pornography, and now has to deal with it not being taken down. I’ve had a photo or two removed in the past, but the majority of photos reported for violating their standards were deemed to be within the guidelines. (Newsflash: I will never engage in nor post pictures of porn, even if I champion the rights of others to do so – it’s just not my thing.)

As for the anonymous coward who reported this semi-innocent pool photo, I want to extend my thanks again for driving traffic to www.ALANILAGAN.com as that’s about all that is accomplished when one of my photos gets reported. It provides fodder for a blog post in which the offending photograph is featured yet again… with links that go to even more offensive matter. Like this. And this. And this. And this. So, thanks much!

Click-cock, click-cock…

Temperatures have soared, everything has burst into bloom, and the spring we so badly wanted and needed has seemingly been supplanted by a summer that has arrived all too soon. Absolutely no complaints here, as the pool has been open and heated to a comfy 85 degrees, and the longer the season the better. Before we jump too far ahead and start putting the pumpkins out, let’s go back but a week…

There was nothing frosty about Hunk of the Day Patrick Frost.

Rihanna stole Madonna’s thunder… for one night only.

A new Mr. Gay World was crowned.

This little piggy went to market.

Sam Smith is a Hunk, nobody how you want to spin it.

Happy Anniversary to us.

David Beckham vs. James Franco in the battle of the shirtless selfie.

 Spring has sprung!

Chris Hemsworth and his big fat fake bulge.

Tally ho.

An evening of jockstraps.

Fearless, when I’m with you.

 Happy Mother’s Day.

Don’t forget that your family is gold.

Warrior princess.

Immersing myself in new project work means less time for blogging. To throw you a bone, here are some out-takes from the new work-in-progress. The art of creation can often feel like a battle. The artist has to slay, so it helps to carry a sword. The artist must sometimes conceal, so it helps to don a mask. The artist must always be fierce, so it helps to wear a cape. The artist must also find time to create, so it helps to have a back-up post like this.

There’s a story to every picture, but it doesn’t always need to be told. The tales attached to these photos likely wouldn’t interest you much, and to be honest most of them are of little interest to me. (Trifles of anecdotes, and more a moment of memory than any substantial dramatic narrative, they are fragments of the in-between.) Rather than fill the viewer in on the mundane trappings of what the surrounding circumstances were for each of these photos, I’m inviting those who so wish to choose their own adventure and make up their own back-story for the images here.

Of course, I’m also lazy as hell this week, after a weekend of working my ass off. At last tally:

-        23 lawn bags filled and dragged to curb

-        14 blog posts written

-        9 patio containers planted

-        7 hanging planters filled

-        6 nursery runs made (to procure said plants and potting materials in tiny Mini Cooper)

-        3 cologne samples tested

-        3 sandwiches (and 1 salad) made for canopy assembly assistants

-        1 canopy assembled (with help from said assistants)

Now I’m distracting you with other thoughts and things which is the anti-thesis of what I was hoping to accomplish with this post. Apologies.