Today is Andy’s birthday, and while he has explicitly stated he does not want a big deal made of it, he deserves a little shout-out on his special day. He is always here in myriad ways, informing every day and grounding it, adding an unexpected comment of biting wit or sly humor. After two decades, he still has the power to surprise and charm just when I think I’ve seen and heard it all.
As we get older, and the world grows sadder with each passing loss, I think we have learned to be kinder, and more appreciative of what we have. We’ve also, sometimes slowly, come to be more understanding of each other. Where once we may have striven to be independent and hold stubbornly on to who we were before we met, we now bend a little, compromise a bit, and make our way in the world as a team.
On this day, he’s earned a little relaxation and fun, and if he wants a quiet uneventful birthday, so shall he have it. (Of course, if you have his number and want to reach out, he would never be mad about it.)
Racing through the backroads of upstate New York on a rainy night, I can no longer tell the difference between my tears and the rain on the windshield. With visibility low even absent my crying, the salty water further muddles the obscured view I had. It feels only right since everything else in life feels so wrong. The car careens to the side of the road, rain still beating against the windshield, while the wipers do their best to stave off blindness. I do not mind in the least. Destruction is welcome here.
I am on a self-appointed date with death, driving on one last journey before I’d return home to end my life, while the remnants of some hurricane wreak their weakened havoc on inland New York. In a couple of days Madonna will release her ‘Erotica’ album – the album that formed the culmination and central-crisis of a career that has always defied the odds. So it was that as my heroine was bringing me along on a sexual journey, I was on a path toward self-annihilation. Sex and death were instantly and irrevocably intertwined at that moment, as if entering adolescence under the specter of AIDS hadn’t fucked enough of us burgeoning gay boys up. Determined to be in sole control over how it all ended, and despondent for any number of closeted reasons, I’d made the determination to end my life… immediately after I heard the new Madonna album.
The whole world knew it was coming. More than ‘Like A Virgin‘, more than its follow-up ‘True Blue‘ – even more than the ‘Like A Prayer‘ brouhaha – ‘Erotica’ was probably the most-hyped album of her career, coming as it did with the never-before-or-since-duplicated ‘Sex’ book. Madonna fans especially watched and waited with keen anticipation, and back then radio stations had early copies to play as they wished. The local station was playing it as I drove along on that rainy night – if I got to hear it all, there might not be anything left to wait for.
Maple leaves fluttered messily down as the wind and rain ripped them from their perches. The air was filled with debris and it felt like the whole world was bearing down on the car as I slowed and pulled off the road. Sitting there, I listened as the song ‘Rain’ came on, its calming harmonies and steady ticking momentarily quelling my tears.
Somehow, I survive the next week.
{Here I have to pause. That sentence contains more than you will ever know – more than I will truly remember – and leaving it there like that, or even less, is all I can muster.}
Somehow… I survive.
I don’t remember getting back on the road, or sneaking back into the house. I don’t even remember which Madonna song they ended on (they didn’t end up playing the whole album after all). I only know I made it back home, back into bed, back into the impossibly forlorn state that a teenage boy just barely 17 years old could uncomfortably inhabit. I couldn’t feel more out of place and alone – and somehow I understood that it was only the beginning. Maybe that’s why I wanted so badly to give up then and there. The totality of such a difficult journey presented itself in full. I didn’t know enough to take it one minute at a time, to focus on that present moment, to feel the joy, however hidden or obscure or absent. The only time I came close was when a Madonna song was playing.
But something kept me from going through with the planned execution process I’d marked in the book ‘Final Exit’ that week, and it was enough to see me through the night. And the next day. And the next. And when at last Tuesday, October 20th arrived, my friend Ann and her Mom drove me to Rotterdam Square Mall to pick up the ‘Erotica’ album and the ‘Sex’ book.
At that scary time in my life, my friends, and often their parents, indulged me in such nonsense. It was as if they could tell, sometimes more than I could tell at times, that I needed something to hang onto, to keep going, to not give it all up. If that came in the form of a new Madonna album, maybe it was enough to get me past the danger zone. The expanse of an entire life looming before a teenager is more daunting, taunting, and debilitating than most of us as adults ever seem to remember. But some do, and they held out a hand for me at key moments. By the time Ann and her Mom dropped me off at my house, half of the album had been played, and all of our laughter had helped.
Back home, in the safety of our unfurnished basement, beneath two brightly clinical bulbs of fluorescent light, I open up the ‘Sex’ book while the ‘Erotica’ single played in the background. This was Madonna’s grand project – the ultimate union of music and visuals – and as I unzipped the book from its mythical mylar encasement like some enormous condom, feeling the cold metallic covers in my hand, I was grateful for being alive in that month of October in the year 1992. I knew I almost wasn’t.
Linking sex with death isn’t the healthiest way of discovering your sexuality, but we don’t usually get to choose the way sex enters our lives, we just have to make the best of when it does. In this case, the detached artistic take on the subject was the safest way to get down and dirty in the age of AIDS, and exploring the topic with the vastly varying songs of the ‘Erotica’ album was a roller coaster that included life and death moments, such as on ‘In This Life’, a ballad dedicated to two friends Madonna had lost to AIDS.
Those two gay men, long gone by the time Madonna released ‘Erotica’, had taught her the power and importance of art and beauty, and their memories had stayed with her. The majesty and might of making a piece of art was suddenly understood as a way of survival, even in the face of death. The rest of the ‘Erotica album was soaked in further brilliance ~ the whirling escapism of its greatest single ‘Deeper and Deeper‘ or the cinematic masterpiece of ‘Bad Girl’ or the psychedelic melodrama of ‘Secret Garden‘ – it was all waiting there for further exploration. That kept me going for the next few weeks and months. With each new video and performance, I sat mesmerized and enthralled by what this pop icon goddess would do next, watching and waiting and finally finding something on which to grasp to make it through the rest of the wilderness.
Thirty years later, the scratch of a vinyl record still evokes that iconic opening of the ‘Erotica’ album, and then that insinuating bass-line brings it all crashing back – a baptism and rebirth and the very point ‘Where Life Begins’ – and the first furtive, fumbling motions to finding my own sexuality as I writhed through equal parts desire and destruction. Madonna led me down the rabbit’s hole, and I willingly followed, needing sexual fantasies to distract me from suicidal fantasies, and even if it was a profoundly fucked-up way of beating one set of demons, it worked and got me through that rough patch. To this day, I am grateful to Madonna for that, as silly as it sounds. You never know what little thing might serve such a pivotal role – in this case it was a woman breathily singing the word ‘erotic’.
There would be other attempts at self-destruction to ensue, even as I understood the stupidity of what I was doing, even as Madonna survived her own reckoning in the fall-out of the ‘Sex’ book and ‘Erotica’ album. She would help save me then too.
At that time, however, the only way to make it through some nights was by putting on a song like ‘Rain’, imagining what a future might look like, and letting Madonna lead me away from the sadness and loneliness I felt. Thirty years later, she still casts that spell.
While my favorite books remain ‘The God in Flight’ by Laura Argiri and ‘The Great Gatsby‘ by F. Scott Fitzgerald, the inspirational work that has most informed my creative output in projects and how I present my artistic work to the world is easily Madonna’s infamous ‘Sex’ tome. Flashy and trashy, cheeky and freaky, low-brow and big-wow – ‘Sex’ was salacious, sultry, seductive, silly, and scintillating in all the best ways.
The promotional roll-out was christened by a topless runway walk at a Jean Paul Gautier fashion show by the Mistress of Ceremonies herself, and as Madonna as Dita smiled a golden-tooth-accented smile she sent the entire world into salivating anticipation for a book. That the woman who had made the art of the music video into a vaunted exercise in cinematic glory would put forth a book of sexual fantasies was a novel idea in many ways, starting with its metallic covers and spiral binding, and ending with its ridiculous comic book coda. In-between the aluminum was Madonna in all states of undress and erotic scenarios. As she had done for all her career, she was playing a part, or a series of roles, in an artistic expression on a theme – that the theme was sex heightened the allure and controversy, and the way she executed this mass-seduction of the world’s attention was a master-class in provocation to get one’s point across. As we moved into the digital age, it would become increasingly difficult to make such an imprint and impression on such a grand scale, but the lesson had already been learned.
Accompanying the ‘Sex’ book was the ‘Erotica’ album – and while ‘Sex’ may have brought about all the bombast, it was ‘Erotica’ that made the sounds that mattered. A work of edgy brilliance that remains a provocative slice of 90’s vibes, the album was strangely maligned by some, and recognized by others as the genius stroke of art-pop that it was. In anticipation of tomorrow’s 30th anniversary of this extraordinary period in Madonna’s legendary career, and a blog post that is slightly more somber and serious than the topic at hand might otherwise demand, here’s the track-listing of the ‘Erotica’ album and the Madonna Timeline entries that have been written thus far.
A staunch and valiant advocate for the LGBTQ+ community, Mufseen Miah also knows how to make a scintillating podcast come to life, as evidenced by his ‘Queer Talk’ series which is currently in its third season. More importantly, he has been giving a face and voice to the Muslim LGBTQ+ community, navigating what can often be a difficult intersectional crux of identity with hopeful and engaging idealism. To be brave and to celebrate one’s authentic self is the primary component of the Dazzler of the Day, and Miah easily earns his first crowning. Visit his website here for a more comprehensive collection of his many accomplishments and projects.
This wasn’t my first time walking along the Sassafras Trail in my hometown of Amsterdam, NY in the fall. For some reason, I usually find myself making the trek at this time of the year, though I’ve made promises to return in the spring when the leaves are more chartreuse than golden. Fall is often when I find myself drawn into the woods – one last chance at mingling with whatever life remains out and about (and there is lots, as evidenced by the many stands of ferns, the clusters of asters in full bloom, and great swaths of horsetail reed enjoying the damp conditions by the stream).
The light was different on this day, brighter and warmer than it was on my previous visit in the fall. The further down the path I went, the dimmer it got, but it was early enough in the afternoon that the sun always maintained its touch on the trees.
It helped that the leaves were so bright and brilliant, adding to the illumination and setting the forest aflame. This was a soothing fire, a calm and contemplative burning that felt like a balm upon the soul. Beneath my feet, the leaf-laden forest floor was spongy and soft, lending further comfort to the walk.
Gradually meandering downward, the path led to a stream bed, sunken lower into the earth. As the forest rose around me, there was an even more hushed aspect to this space. Every step and snap of a stick resounded through the air, and the sounds of the stream water felt wondrously amplified. There was occasionally the cry of a bird, and at one point a distinctive knocking, jarring at first, until I discovered the origin was a woodpecker coaxing its dinner out of a tree.
More life revealed itself as my eyes adjusted to the subtlety of the woods. Mosses and mushrooms made their homes between the reaching roots of tree trunks, lichens lined fallen branches and stones, and ferns dangled their lacy fronds with delicate grace and elegance. The forest was refined in its reserved way.
Midway on this journey, as I stopped to listen to the gurgling stream and watch the water flow, it struck me that this was its form of meditation, and I decided to try my daily practice right there and then. It was a bit of a mixed bag – going into deep breathing while moving along an undulating forest path does not quite make for easy meditation, but I was able to be momentarily mindful of where I was and what I was experiencing, and that was a start.
It’s best not to force such a thing, and my slow and thoughtful walk was meditative in its own way without needing to formalize the process. A walk in the woods has always been a cathartic experience for me, going back to the many afternoons in my childhood when I would come home from school and rush into the little stretch of forest behind our house, getting almost lost for hours until it was time for dinner, until the light drained from the sky and the woods felt suddenly dangerous. I was keenly aware of that switch, because it came on quickly, and if you were too deep into the forest the walk back could instantly be fraught with fear.
No such fear gripped me on this day, as the sun’s light never wavered. I took my time coming back up along the trail, gazing upward every few steps to witness the lofty wonder of the trees in all their colorful sorcery. Their magic will manifest itself differently in just a few weeks, when they will rise bare against the stark sky – a magic that will have to carry them through the winter.
The shifting of the seasons was brought to mind as I came upon this surprising re-bloom of a witch hazel tree. It hung in the air at eye level like some canary-hued spider, or a yellow star confirming my direction, and I took it as a symbol of hope that spring would return. Normally witch hazel is the first bloom to appear after winter, often bravely unfurling its wrinkled beauty in the midst of late-season snowfall. Seeing it here now was a way of tying such disparate-seeming times together, a little cry of hope as some seasonal Pandora’s box closed itself tightly in preparation for the upcoming winter.
If you’re looking for a fix for the fall weather, might I suggest lighting a few candles and putting on Shirley Horn’s magnificent ‘Here’s to Life’ album, which formed the soundtrack to many a fall season in my long/short life. This song, ‘Quietly There’, is a pretty good indication of the languid but inspired delivery of Ms. Horn and the luscious string arrangements by Johnny Mandel that weave their gorgeous way through that entire album.
A bit of an ambivalent love song, this is sparse of words, but oh what such wicked economy can conjure when coupled with a dramatic imagination. There is just enough here to tell your own specific story, or create something for someone else to live out.
This post comes later in the day, after the sun has gone down, as the music is a little too deliciously moody for anything as vulgar as daylight. Dusk comes quickly now. These are bewitching hours, made more-so by music like this.
This is one of those seasonal mid-points that too often go unnoticed, those in-between classic days of a season that pushes time forward without us realizing it. With the sun and relatively warm temps, it felt like a holding pattern this past week even as we clicked the calendar days past the mid-point of October. Usually I don’t pause to notice this transition, and when I stop to take stock of fall we have moved into the dreary end days of November. This weekend, I felt the shift, and stopped for a walk in the woods. More on that later… for now a recap of the previous week as is our Monday morning ritual (well, with the occasional exception).
Dangerously ahead of its time, Stephen Sondheim’s musical “Assassins” may have missed its mark when it premiered Off-Broadway in 1990, but finally came into its own with the currently-ill state of the world. At no other time in our history has a musical felt as eerily prescient and indicative of what ails us more than this show right now. That makes it less of a feel-good extravaganza, and more of a deeply-troubling treatise on what motivates the killer of an American President. As brought to glorious life (and death) by the Playhouse Stage Company at the Cohoes Music Hall, this production of “Assassins” hits all of its marks, taking deadly aim at what our society has become, and offering scant solutions other than the hopeful way art can sometimes transform history and ignite some sort of healing.
Directed tautly by Owen Smith, each assassin gets a turn in the spotlight, literally living out on stage the fame and notoriety that may, or may not, have been their purpose all along. In a brilliant stroke of casting, John Wilkes Booth is portrayed by Sam Perwin, whose towering stature is a nifty nemesis to the man whom his character took out in a theater (Abraham Lincoln). So begins a vaudevillian exploration of a series of assassins, or would-be assassins, that grabs the audience by the throat and never lets loose.
Offering much-needed comic relief are the two women who hatch a plan to kill Gerald Ford. Defying her character’s infamous history, Michelle Oppedisano as Squeaky Fromme is a devious joy, while Brittany Martel as her would-be partner in crime, Sara Jane Moore, even manages to imbue an unfortunate dog incident with uproarious hilarity. Stealing the show with a musical theater emotional breakdown on a par with ‘Rose’s Turn’, Dan Costello gives an absolutely devastating turn in his climactic number as Charles Guiteau.
Winding his guitar-playing way through the evening, The Balladeer posits questions for each of the assassins. Played by Daniel Jameson, who becomes Lee Harvey Oswald in a chilling, almost sympathetic transformation, it is a grounding and earnest performance in an evening of stellar across-the-board work.
Sondheim’s music is at times a cross between the patriotic American bands and a circus show, perhaps the greatest embodiment of the current state of politics any writer could conjure, and when it premiered in 1990 perhaps it was too soon for the world to see just how bad it could get. By today’s standards, the musical feels almost tame, but just striking enough to be powerfully compelling. In fact, the many shots of modern-day news madness form the backdrop to the start and finish of the program, lending it an immediate gravitas that belies the gorgeous work in something like ‘Unworthy of Your Love’, which could have almost been an 80’s power ballad – not at all inappropriate as sung by Marc Christopher’s John Hinckley Jr. and Oppedisano’s Fromme.
Without offering forgiveness or excuses, or even working overtime to make its titular characters too sympathetic, the musical does lend them new voices, soaring voices, that illuminate how each may have been a victim of loneliness, religion, poverty, or simply living in America at any given time. Our ills have caught up with us in the same way this show has caught up to the present moment. This production of “Assassins” is a must-see event for anyone who is discovering the musical for the first time, or revisiting it in the very moment it feels most resonant.
{“Assassins” is running at the Cohoes Music Hall through October 30. Find tickets here.}
Closing out our autumnal trip to Ogunquit is always more difficult than ending our Memorial Day weekend in that Beautiful Place by the Sea. This will be the last time we set foot here until next year, and next spring. The whole rest of fall lies in the way, along with the entirety of winter, and so it is sally with heavy hearts that we say goodbye. This year, however, there was a certain peace to it, and a certain sense of hope as we talked over returning sometime in the winter, as well as our definite rendezvous come May.
Maybe we’re just more resigned and accepting of the winter, and it doesn’t hold the same fright and sorrow as it once did. Maybe we are just resigned to life. And maybe we soaked all the calming beauty and wonder of Ogunquit into our souls so that we know we can bring some of it back to see us through the months until our next visit. I’m going with the latter.
One thing that we already miss is the daily breakfast by Anthony, which is easily the best part of the Scotch Hill Inn (and there are more than several great parts). Every day brings another masterpiece, culminating with this decadent butternut squash risotto. I was in absolute heaven.
Andy is entirely enamored with Anthony’s mother Rita, who is sometimes on hand to help out when things get hectic – she is also a highlight of staying at the Inn. Good company makes for a great vacation.
As the weekend wound down – and a full Harvest moon shone all her beauty over sea and shore – we soaked in every last minute of being in Ogunquit together.
The looks back will be fond ones, and the looks ahead will be hopeful.
After all these years, Ogunquit remains a treasured sanctuary for us, a little place where we are at our best and most content, and when you realize you can access that here, in some small way we can bring a little bit of it everywhere.
Most good vacations blend into one happy amalgamation of bonhomie and giddy memories, and I wouldn’t give you a hour-by-hour playback of our time in Ogunquit anyway – no one likes looking at someone else’s vacation photos. Of course, that is precisely what I’m showing there, but it’s my blog, and it makes me happy, and that’s the whole point of this place. Come back tomorrow if you don’t want to see the majesty of our favorite seaside town. No offense taken. For those who remain, come along for the sunny days of a fall weekend in Maine, touched by beautiful scenes, delicious food, and the best company a husband could ask for.
One of the grounding mainstays of any trip to Ogunquit is the Marginal Way. Come rain or shine, we usually find our way to this rightfully celebrated stretch of shoreline, where a two-plus-mile path meanders along the Atlantic Ocean, lending beautiful vistas and calming places to pause and take it all in.
This year we walked in through the back door, starting from the Perkins Cove end as we’d driven down. Normally we walk the whole thing, stop for lunch, then walk back again. That was in our youth. We aren’t that young anymore, and so we did about three quarters of it, then turned back to return to the car and pick up some pottery for Mom from Perkins Cove. It was a lovely twist on a tradition that lasted for twenty years, and we are at the point where we must celebrate departures from tradition as much as tradition itself.
Ogunquit is a small town, and after visiting for over two decades there isn’t always that much new under the sun. Sometimes simply starting a journey at what was usually the back end lends a new jolt and a new perspective. The last part of the Marginal Way is our favorite section anyway, and this isn’t the time to delay gratification.
Enough talk from me. Enjoy the views… one more post on Ogunquit to come…
Last May marked our first time back in Ogunquit after a few years away, and we so thoroughly enjoyed our bed and breakfast that we went back for a fall encore over a long weekend, the way we did before COVID derailed things and life got in the way. It was good to be back, and I’ll do my best to keep the writing to a minimum and let the photos speak for themselves.
Ogunquit in fall was just as I remembered it, if slightly more crowded. The weather was stellar (which isn’t always the case) and when we arrived the temperatures were in the mid-70’s while the sun was shining brightly. It was the perfect re-entry for the place that always brings us such peace.
Innkeeper Anthony checked us in to the Scotch Hill Inn, and we settled into our favorite room. Ogunquit works its magic quickly and efficiently, and by the time we were all unpacked, we’d left the concerns of daily living behind and instantly ingratiated ourselves into vacation mode.
Andy took a nap to make up for the drive (on which I mostly slept) while I took a re-introductory lap around some favorite haunts. The town was decked out for the season, and the afternoon light played its illuminating part.
Though it’s an invasive bane to some habitats, the vining bittersweet provides fall interest and color, so I can’t be entirely mad at it – nor could I pull it all out even if I wanted to.
More gentle and welcome were all the asters, at the height of their bloom and taking their pride of place as the finale to the flowering season.
As I wound my way back to the guest house, past the crux where river met ocean, I paused on a little bridge to give gratitude for being back in this Beautiful Place by the Sea, thankful that I was still mostly intact, still mostly at peace. Ogunquit brings that out in a person…
I’ve been a not-so-secret Meghan Trainor fan for years. She’s got a new album coming out the same day as Taylor Swift, and Trainor has never been one to shy away from a challenge. When her songs are this catchy and fun there’s enough room for more than one musical impresaria in our midst. Trainor has been delighting fans for her entire career with an uncanny knack at crafting pop songs that feel both warmly nostalgic and surprisingly prescient. When there’s a message and meaning behind the music, that makes it all the more glorious. Her latest single, ‘Don’t I Make It Look Easy’ warns of the dangers of social media, but does so in such a sweet and aurally-pleasing manner that it does indeed go down easy. Currently I’m all about the next single about to drop, ‘Made You Look’ which is all the rage on Tik Tok. For making us all look, and listen, she easily earns this Dazzler of the Day. (Be sure to watch for ‘Takin’ It Back’, her new album out October 21.)
Perhaps you’re too young (gimme some!) to remember a time when teenagers used to lock their bedroom doors, turn down the lights, put on a record and lie there just listening to an entire half hour of Side A from some glorious music-maker. Perhaps I’m too young to remember such a time (I do recall the cassette tape), but we were both teenagers once, and we both found some sort of escape from this wretched world through music. Back when the whole universe felt wrong, when there was no viable way to get out, and when the meaning of life seemed so utterly lost and elusive…
Listening to your ‘Samsara’ recital last night I felt the same thrill I got back in those teenage days, when life and death were very literal choices in the course of any given evening, and the only solace was to be found in the kindred spirits who came calling with certain music and certain songs. Your work was a cathartic journey through many paths, offering different portals to multiple planes. Vast of scope and rich with densely-layered sonic details, this was a beautifully-bonkers roller-coaster ride of epic electronica. A fully-realized multi-media trip that was reminiscent of the very best albums, when the artist took the listener along on a shared adventure, it felt at times like I was experiencing life in the 1880’s, 1980’s and 2080’s all at once – a striking past/present/future moment melded into one brilliant pastiche of sound and sight.
The hours of work and editing, and trying and failing and trying again, that go into something of this magnitude are apparent. For just three seconds of imagery and music it could take three days of trial and error and dedication and craft. The immensity of layers and details, the consistent struggle to get things just right, and the ever-germinating seeds of doubt and dread – would this be good, would this be reviled, would this be ridiculed, would this be nothing? – and the resolve to trudge boldly ahead no matter the cost, no matter the outcome – you should know it was all seen and felt and keenly admired. It was all worth it.
In a weird way, it felt like you reached back in time to my teenage years, handed me a record to play, and saved my life for one night – a night that gave me all the nights that followed in a life I have come to honor and appreciate. There is healing in that, and healing something in the past is the stuff of only the most talented mystics and musicians.
You, my friend, are the mad genius who takes his personal turmoil and tumult, boldly faces them down, and turns the fight into the stuff of beauty and art. You interpret the ancient lessons of the sages and point their well-won wisdom at our present-day demons through the modern machinations of technology. Of course it’s a futile battle, it’s a losing battle, it’s the ultimate cancellation of cancellations, but there you are, nobly drawing your synthesized musical sword and striking at the very heart of the possibility that none of it matters. Amid all the brutal thrashing and death-throes, you conjure a work that reflects your most singular, darkest secrets and fears, and somehow that work speaks to others. What was once your story is now ours, and there’s no more reassuring comfort than finding such camaraderie in a work of art.
Thank you for sharing this powerful, challenging, thought-provoking recital with the world.
