Category Archives: General

Some days, especially hot ones, should require no more than a quick glance at the computer screen. I’ll make it easy for you – and for me – and just supply this summery Enya song. It was used in an Iced Tea commercial I think, and Iced Tea always reminds me of summer days spent in air-conditioned quiet, watching the NBC soap operas and lazily waiting for the night to come.

Let the temperatures soar and the recap begin! We’re gearing up for some summer traditions – such as our anniversary this week – and some new twists as well, like my new baby (news and pics of that coming shortly). In the meantime, a look back at an average, and therefore perfect, week in mid-summer.

A reunion with my pal Kira made for a fine weekend in Boston, highlighted by her very first performance of ‘The Phantom of the Opera’ (whose reinvention was reason alone for me to attend too.)

As had happened with George Michael, Ricky Martin, and Anderson Cooper, I was the last one to believe that Ian Thorpe was gay (and, quite frankly, I’d never even heard those rumors.) Well, it turned out he was playing for my team all this time, and recently came out, so he was honored with the ultimate glory – a crowning as Hunk of the Day.

The unheralded yet stalwart hosta was a reminder that consistent perfection is rarely if ever honored.

My turn as a spandex-bound gay disco hero, which is all I’ve ever wanted to be.

Grilling something that apparently serves as a home under the sea.

The Madonna Timeline will be back, and until then we wait in joyful suspense.

The Hunks were hotter than ever, thanks to the likes of Todd Finlay (who is one of the three colorfully-clad SPeedo guys in the featured pics here), current touring Phantom Cooper Grodin, writer J.W. Harvey, and male models Sung Jin Park, Bryan Thomas, and Andre Hamann.

One more naked Michael Phelps shot.

Finally, how’s this for homoerotic: Zac Efron and Bear Grylls, going down together. Literally – and on video.

There’s not much to say when the weather is fine and the living is easy, so I’ll keep this recap brief and to the point, filling it with eye candy over cumbersome words. My attention must turn to the gardens – mostly keeping them watered and well, which in 90 degree weather is a perpetual job, but a good one. There’s nothing more fulfilling than taking care of a plant and seeing it respond in kind. Here I am droning on about things when I promised something brief. I hear you. Here we go…

Gardening did indeed form an integral part of the week, with beautiful begonias and other little flowers.

Roses, and memories of roses, played a pretty part in the proceedings too.

Michael Phelps gamely gave Tom Daley a run for his Speedo-less money as he got naked and showed off some stellar tan lines.

A boy named Rat brought me back to Russia.

Gratuitous pool shots, but the booty pop will have to come later. (And believe me, it will.)

The heat was on, thanks to the Hunk of the Day. Adding shirtless sparkle to the summer parade were Daisuke Ueda, Hector Peña, Rodrigo Guilherme, Jose Pena, Diego Sans, and double-dipper Ronnie Kroell.

Finally, Zac Efron – shirtless and riding a horse, as one does.

It’s not just the water, it’s the light. The way it glistens on the crests of tiny ripples, the way it wavers through the limbs of trees. Caught in a drop, reflected off a window, mottled by a passing cloud, it is the light that informs the water. The sun warms the pool, then the pool holds onto the heat after the sun goes to bed. Working in tandem to produce such a sensual experience, one always pales without the other.

It’s a reminder of the primal building blocks of this world, the basic requirements for life. There is play involved whenever water and light get together, and it’s a happy meeting, always.

The mad rush of giddy molecules in the way water follows water, and the undeterred path of light, not bothered or broken by such transparency, conspire to make the most grumpy soul smile and laugh with pleasure.

Sometimes the simple act of swimming can be a soul-stimulating experience. Let that not limit the fun involved. Splashing is not solely the province of the young and brave.

The water, and the light, will laugh if you know how to listen.

And if you know how to laugh, well, you’re more than half-way there.

The 4th of July came and went without much notice here, which doesn’t mean I’m a bad American, it just means that I hold it closer to my heart and away from this blog. Instead, the most patriotic thing some of us can do is revel in who we are, and where we came from. For me, that’s my family, a living embodiment of the American Dream – and the last week was filled with a look back at our first family vacation in almost two decades.

It started off in Boston before moving not-soon-enough to Dennisport, a cute little portion of Cape Cod that held a beautiful shore and fine weather. We played on the beach, and ran on the beach, and buried brothers on the beach.

I built a sandcastle before the golden hour and its accompanying tide washed it away.

The flowers of Cape Cod never fail to disappoint, and neither did the seafood.

No Cape vacation would be compete without a round of miniature golf and ice cream.

It was one of those perfect meetings of sun and fun and family that made us all wish it didn’t have to come to a close.

When we returned to summer in upstate New York, things were all wild and sweet.

Once the wholesome family recap was done, it was back to all the smut that most of you have come to expect and demand. Bringing the Hunks back to the fore were Joe Manganiello, Sesamir Yearby, Darrell Thomas, and two guys you may be quite familiar with: David Beckham – whose new set of sexy H&M photos put him back on my FaceBook feed, and Tom Daley, whose dressing and undressing for Wimbledon was an exercise in exhibitionism. I know that exercise.

Making sandcastles was my favorite thing to do when we visited the ocean as kids. I could sit at the shore for hours, devising moats, dripping wet sand into artfully ornate turrets, populating little pools with sand fleas and seaweed, and waiting for the inevitable destruction of high tide. It was the only time I didn’t mind watching all my hard work get washed away. In fact, that was an integral component of my enjoyment: the finite period of time in which the creation lived. It made it all more precious somehow.

On this recent trip to the beach, it took a while before I remembered the fun of it. Emi was asking me to help her dig a hole on the beach, and before we knew it we’d started building a castle. It was a highlight of the vacation, returning to the lost land of my childhood imagination, where mermaids occupied my moats and princes waited for other princes to drop by for tea.

All such fantasies must come to an end, and this one came at the hands of the crashing ocean. The incoming tide waits for no one, and spares no castle, prince or not.

There was beauty in its destruction, though. There is often beauty in destruction, if you know how to look at it.

Wind, water, and time – and a little pull from the moon – brought about the end to our temporary castle in the sand.

And then it was as if it was never there – as if we had never been there.

A sailboat drifted into the onslaught of early evening. Our last full day on the Cape was coming to its close, and no one was ready.

Safe upon the solid rock the ugly houses stand: Come and see my shining palace built upon the sand! ~ Edna St. Vincent Millay

Closing out this first full week of summer, let’s do a quick recap before we head into the high summer holiday week ahead. June has its enchantments, but July is when things really start to heat up. For now, let’s bask in the heat of what just came before.

Before the recent Cape Cod family vacay gets posted in detail, this end teaser hinted at what you are about to see.

Between sun and shade in the garden thoroughfares of Boston.

Summer means Tom Daley stripping into a Speedo and Novak Djokovic stepping out in boxer briefs.

Better than drops of Jupiter?

At first I got kind of pissed at Grady Smith, then I got kind of sad, and then I just got over it.

The sweetest scent of summer may not belong to Tom Ford… but then again, it just may.

Flowers fit for a wedding cake in Boston.

“No man needs a vacation so much as the man who has just had one.” ― Elbert Hubbard

Truer words were never spoken. Having just returned from a family vacation in Cape Cod, I am in no mood to start cranking out blog posts. It was a grand time, including a number of fun moments with the family, and some relaxing days on the beach. We could have done with a few more, but alas, there is work to be done, and parties for which to prepare, and the incessant parade of the internet marches onward with little room for slowing.

Fortunately, this is all by choice, and my website is done mostly for myself. The moment it becomes less than enjoyable is the moment it goes dark. I haven’t gotten there yet, but after being away from a computer and this blog for five days, I’ve realized that the best part of life goes on off-screen. So, for a while, the summer perhaps, I’m taking a bit of the vacation mentality back with me and employing it here in the form of two posts a day versus three. Trust me, you won’t miss that third one – and if you do, then you’re doing something wrong with your life too. Let’s live a little… in the real world… just for a summer.

Barely a couple of days into the summer season and we’re already recapping. Well, that’s what Mondays are for, so let’s dive in and get it done. My first family vacation in two decades comes to a close today, so you have those posts to look forward to, but in the meantime, things stayed relatively steady here, with a week of events that included the following:

The Albany Gay Pride Parade and Festival, to which I wore sequins – lots of sequins – and in which I wasn’t alone, came and went in a sparkling flash.

We attended one very long dance recital for my four-year-old niece. As antsy as we may have been, it was nothing compared to the behavior of my four-year-old nephew.

Haunted by a ruthless rhododendron.

It’s always hot when Harry Judd takes his clothes off, as he did here.

No summer start would be complete without Tom Daley in his Speedo.

There were a couple of Hunks who kept things as hot as the weather, like the unconventionally-attractive Adam Driver, the more conventionally-pretty Torben King, British swimmer Mark Foster, Danish model Ken Bek, the commonly-monikered Kevin Smith and, last but certainly not least, my pal and webmaster Skip Montross.

Here’s to the start of summer – let’s rock!

Only the first flush of foliage in the first few days of growth on an evergreen is soft to the touch. Soon enough, it will harden and darken and become the prickly but hardy form that will see it through the coldest winter. Of course, I like its fleeting form the best, when the colors are the brightest, the texture is still pliable, and the coarseness is not yet in evidence.

For All State Insurance no less, and bloody brilliant.

(Yes, I teared up, as I tend to do these days.)

The song is by singer-songwriter Eli Lieb, who will no doubt be featured quite a bit more here – in a couple of short hours in fact…

Can we talk about dance recitals for a moment? Not in a politically-correct and kind way, but in a blunt, honest, hard-truth kind of way? I don’t want to hurt anyone’s feelings, but some things need to be said. I just attended my first, and very possibly last, dance recital for my four-year-old niece. Let me say upfront that she was great – I have to say that as her Uncle, and as someone who loves her dearly. She executed her dances well – all two that were in the early part of the program – and finished in relative unison in the finale. It was the intervening couple of hours that had me questioning my sanity, and the very existence of humanity.

First of all, two and a half hours is a long time for any production – but I’ve been told that this is relatively short for this sort of thing. All I can say to that is that if I have to sit through a recital longer than this, I’m taking a hostage or calling in a bomb threat. Either way, there will be people thanking me for it.

Second, there’s a rule against leaving once the kids you are there to see are finished, right? I’m certain that this is a rule, or at least polite protocol. I’m also guessing that this is why every single person, no matter how briefly or how early they appear in the program, is in the final number. As Madonna once remarked, “That’s one of life’s little fuck-overs.”

By the time we reached the Justin Bieber medley, my patience was tried, my brain was fried, but I still hadn’t died. FaceBook friends had told me to pray for death at the start but I didn’t listen. Now it was too late, and no one was going to smite me.

And yet… and yet… watching my little niece doing her toe taps and singing the final song of the evening, I was almost moved to forgive all that came before. Almost.