The first week of summer came and went in typical 2020 form – a rollercoaster of weather, a still-broken-down pool, and some glimmers of hope and happiness amid the occasional gloom and doom. Mercury remains in retrograde, so hang onto your hats and harnesses because all we can do is hope for the best. On with the recap as we begin another week of madness…

A centerpiece for the day. 

My brother’s childhood friend released this amazing album and I can’t stop listening to it.

Only the hydrangeas are exceptionally happy this year.

You don’t need to tell me to stick my ass out once. 

We returned to our favorite Albany restaurant for dinner out. 

The smallest blooms can pack the biggest punches. 

Purple and prolific of bloom, the classic clematis comes through to save the day.

Let’s have a lazy summer moment. 

This pink petunia broke through the concrete to display its prettiness.

Summer break, in the blink of an eye.

The battle against perfectionism is still being waged. 

Happy Pride Month, now more than ever. 

When feeling blue is beautiful. 

Revisiting the delusional grandeur of this project from the past.

Leaning into the blues.

Sunday night looks Up.

Hunks of the Day included Josh Gordon, Paul Dennison, and Bobby Berk.

“That’s the whole point. We know the outcome, but we don’t know when, or where, or who will be there when it finally happens. It’s a suicide tour. I’m old, I’m sad – that’s on a good day. I want out of this mess. But I don’t want to fade away. I want to flame away – I want my death to be an attraction, a spectacle, a mystery. A work of art. Suicide is a weapon; that we all know. But what about an art?” – Jennifer Egan

Four years pass between ‘Bardo‘ and the next project, an indication that my artistic output was largely subsumed by what you’re seeing right here: this blog. Producing three posts per day for 364 days of the year (which was my schedule back then) was practically a full-time job, and as my day-job responsibilities took precedence during the day, my creative energy was finding its outlet here the rest of the time, making additional creative projects difficult to keep cranking out once a year. But 2015 marked a number of neat anniversaries that merited noting in a project – and it was time for my very last tour. 

It also marked the first time I was touring while blogging, which meant that the actual tour book itself would be augmented by a series of posts that delved deeper into the themes at hand. (Those can be find in their entirety here. Bookmark it, because it’s a doozy.)

2015 was the year I turned 40, and the year I crafted my last tour because it was time to stop pretending. “Touring” had been a delusional dream of mine since Madonna became my muse in the 90’s. It had gone through a number of iterations, but retained the essence of travel and seeing old friends (all it ever really was). And so I embarked upon ‘The Delusional Grandeur Tour: Last Stand of a Rock Star‘ – my final tour, and my first new project in four years.

“For if there is a sin against life, it consists perhaps not so much in despairing of life as in hoping for another life and in eluding the implacable grandeur of this life.” – Albert Camus

It touched on some classic themes from my forty years of living: exhibitionism, artifice, Norma Desmond, glamour, fashion, fairy tales, flowers, self-destruction, image, Tom Ford and the Easter bunny. It also represented the complete and total separation between artist and work. The annihilation of the link between artist and subject could have gone in more disturbing directions; hints of Zen Buddhism and a flower/nature finale lay the groundwork for where my life was headed, though it would take several more years to make such strides.

“Even now… after we’ve learned about how bad it really and truly gets, there is the glamour of self-destruction, imperishable, gem-hard, like some cursed talisman that cannot be destroyed by any known means. Still, still, the ones who go down can seem as if they’re more complicatedly, more dangerously, attuned to sadness and yes, the impossible grandeur. They’re romantic, goddamn them; we just can’t get it up in quite the same way for the sober and sensible, the dogged achievers, for all the good they do. We don’t adore them with the exquisite disdain we can bring to the addicts and miscreants.” – Michael Cunningham

‘The Delusional Grandeur Tour‘ was compiled from photos that I had accumulated for about three years, with shoots spanning across the country – Albany, Boston, Las Vegas, Minneapolis, Dallas, Ogunquit, Provincetown and Washington – as well as my hometown of Amsterdam. The latter’s forest shoot – taken on a path my brother and I used to walk as kids – would provide the cover art for the project (a twist on Little Red Riding Hood). It became the centerpiece of the whole journey, which is kind of fitting, because it harkened to my first tour when Amsterdam was sort of the home-base for my travels.

Childhood also formed a subliminal thread that ran through the tour book, sowing the first seeds of an awareness that would take a few more years to find a full realization and fruition. Back then, however, there was just an inkling of how one’s past informed their present, and how our demons stayed with us as much as we tried to shed them. I couldn’t see how those demons still held sway and dominion over everything I did, even if the journey of this project was ultimately intended to be a hopeful one. There is a tension that carries through the entire work, something I didn’t realize until looking back on it, yet there is also a sense of completion and finality. I knew I would never travel again like I had in the past, and I celebrated and mourned that in equal measure. All in all, the trajectory of ‘The Delusional Grandeur Tour’ was an act of destruction followed by a rebirth of sorts, with a lingering sense of a slightly unfinished quest. That hunger, and the search for something more, would provide inspiration for this blog, which would carry me through any driving need for creative expression. This last stand of a rock star was the end of a certain way of living. No longer would I thrash out a dramatic lifestyle for the machinations of a show – not even if that show was only in my head. Delusions are not only by their nature grand, they are dangerous as well.

“When I am on my deathbed, I don’t think I will be thinking about a nice pair of shoes I had or my beautiful house. I am going to be thinking about an evening I spent with somebody when I was twenty where I felt that I was just absolutely connected to them.” – Tom Ford

{See ‘The Delusional Grandeur Tour: Last Stand of a Rock Star’ in its tour book form here. A full listing of its accompanying blog entries can be seen here. Also see ‘StoneLight‘, ‘The Circus Project‘, ‘A Night at the Hotel Chelsea‘ and ‘A 21^stCentury Renaissance: The Resurrection Tour‘ and ‘Bardo ~ The Dream Surreal‘.}

I’m going to guess that if you’re straight and white and reading this, you don’t really know what it’s like for someone to want you dead. Maybe I’m wrong, and I have such a marvelously-varied coterie of friends that perhaps more than a few of you have. I’m not talking about an ex or a sworn enemy. I’m not talking about the person who cut you off for the second time in a week or the one who keeps getting your Starbucks order wrong. I’m talking about some stranger who simply wants you to cease to exist because they hate what they think you are – whether because of race or skin color or religion or gender or sexuality.

This isn’t about the general idea of being disliked or discriminated against. It’s not about the relative with whom you share a mutual and constant dislike – maybe even hate. In all those instances, I doubt those people ever genuinely wanted you to die.

There’s something different about that. And there’s something different about having such sentiments directed unequivocally at you. It’s one thing to read about it, or to try to put yourself in the shoes of some character of some historical scene, it’s quite another to actually be on the receiving end of a death wish.

I’ve gotten a disturbing cache of Twitter and Facebook messages that literally wish death upon me just for being gay. “Die faggot” is about as clear and direct as it gets. If you’ve never had that kind of language directed at you, if you’ve never had to really think about and ponder whether strangers want your life to end, then you can never know. That’s why we have a month of Pride. That’s why there’s a Black History month. That’s why you don’t say “All Lives Matter” or ask why there’s no straight pride month.

As this year’s Pride Month comes to a close, it feels like we need it now more than ever.

The time has come to say a quick goodbye, and we can do it in the Irish fashion if that makes you feel better, or we can do it with a big virtual hug and accompanying fanfare. However you wish to bid adieu, be my guest. For a couple of years, I took the entire summer off from blogging and it was, no offense, absolute bliss. Heavenly divinity. Fucking awesome. Like a summer vacation I haven’t had since I graduated from college way back in the 90’s. That probably says more about my piss-poor attitude than it does about your reading preferences. Regardless, it was a lovely break of rejuvenation that recalled the responsibility-free summers of my childhood.

The freedom.

The expanse.

The relaxation. 

Not bound by deadlines or postings or any self-inflicted schedule. 

Not restricted by story arcs or overarching themes.

Not tied or tethered to one port when a world of different seas beckoned to everyone else.

This year I kind of want that again, especially in the heat of the moment. Let’s face it, this heated state of the world is not a place for subtlety, nuance, intelligence or grace. I like to think that at my best I’m a little bit of all of those things. I like to think that at its best this blog is a place for such things. A place for play, for exploration, for salaciousness, for silliness, for beauty, for stillness, for fun. In order to have all these things, however, I have to work and create and write and edit and take photos and make an ass of myself. You might well imagine that being me comes with its own set of challenges, and you would still have little to no idea what it fully encompasses. This is not a complaint, merely a statement of truth. That too seems to have no place in the world anymore.

Yet as I write this, I realize that the act of creating, of writing, or making something, adds to the inspiration. It’s sort of the opposite of what happens when you get too accustomed to staying home and doing nothing. It zaps your energy, draining you of the impetus to keep going. For most of my life I swore if I could afford an existence of leisure where I didn’t have to do anything but lounge around and daintily feed myself bon-bons that I’d be happy. I realize now, perhaps just in time, that it’s not true.

And so, this goodbye is for today only. I’ll be back tomorrow. And back for most days of the summer. I haven’t quite decided to give up on everything just yet. I’ll keep on keeping on because in the face of all that’s wrong in the world, telling the truth – even if it’s the most insignificant little truth of my insignificant little life – still has value to some, and it still holds immeasurable value for me. Meet me back here tomorrow… and for the rest of the summer.  

As a plant lover, I tend to attribute human emotions and traits to the plants in our garden. They become like people to me, with the same human flaws and triumphs and feelings that we all have. As such, I’m especially touched when one of them goes above and beyond what is normally expected of them, surviving in difficult conditions or thriving when given the opportunity. Can win point is this tiny little pink petunia, which seeded itself unbeknownst to me, in a crack of cement between the patio and the pool. Generally that space is informally reserved by a thin line of weeds which, depending on how ambitious I’m feeling or how strong my back is on any given day, has been known to get occasionally out of hand. It happens sooner than you’d think, and by the time I get to the end of weeding the space, the place where I began is usually already well on its way to needing it again.

This year I hadn’t quite gotten to it when I noticed this little bright spot of pink – courtesy of a seed that must have remained from a container planting last year (this year’s pink petunias have not yet gone to seed). It touched me – even for weeds, surviving in the thin sliver of a crack between concrete slabs is a feat. For cultivated plants, the odds are even less. Fortunately for us, petunias don’t need to be coddled or pampered to put on a happy show, and this little guy was willing to do so in an unexpected moment when I needed it most. 

It reminded me of a tomato I once found growing on a sidewalk in Boston. There is something hopeful in the notion of that kind of survival. 

Let’s pause for a moment.

It’s hot outside.

Our pool remains out of commission (though things are in motion to change that…)

You don’t live in our home, so you don’t get to pass bouquets like this multiple times in a week. Even if you visited the first blog post I did about it, it was soon buried by other posts, and you likely didn’t bother searching it out again because, well, why would you? 

So this look-back is for you.

When there’s been a string of hot days, as welcome and appreciated as the sun may be, we all need a respite as the sun reaches its zenith. At those times, I sit down on the couch that is beside the table on which this bouquet once stood. It is cool there, out of direct sunlight, though the room remains bright. It is quiet there too, when the music is off, and quiet is important when trying to keep cool.