Currently making his cross-country way back to the Northeast, Woody Woodbeck is returning to his hometown (and mine) to engage in a multi-pronged heroic enterprise: taking care of his mother and reopening the shuttered cinema in Amsterdam.

I vaguely remember him from school; he was a grade younger and back then age was more of a divider than almost anything else. More memorable were his on-air turns for Fly 92.3, followed by his successful move to California where he would end up producing a number of Bravo shows. One on of his visits, I ran into him in the old Barnes & Noble bookstore in Colonie. He was kind, mentioning something I had written and being extremely generous with his praise. I was more in awe of him and the way he had charged out of Amsterdam to follow his dream.
We are all rooting for this hometown hero to make good in the place from where he came, and anything that touches Amsterdam touches my heart, so I’m definitely pulling for him. This is one instance where we can actually have an impact, as he’s set up a GoFundMe page to tackle the lift of reopening the cinema.

There’s a lot going on around the section of Route 30 where the cinema stood, so it’s rather a shame that we don’t have a place to see movies anymore. Driving to Albany or Schenectady is a lot to ask, especially in these nastier months to come. Having a cinema right there would make dinner and a movie an Amsterdam event again. Our hometown deserves that. Here’s the full story in Woody’s own words:

Growing up in Amsterdam, NY had its ups and downs but the one thing I remember is a very large sense of community.  Everyone knew everyone, lots of family ties, and love for the events that brought everyone together. The city was first founded in 1885 but has a history dating back to 1710.  Currently the city has about 20,000 residents and sits along the Mohawk River in Upstate NY. This city has an abundance of history and was once home to Cabbage Patch Dolls and Coleco. Needless to say it’s a city with some character.  

I got a job working at the movie theatre when it first opened as “Norma Jeans” in 1995 and the theatre was booming.  The lines around around the building front and shows sold out weekend after weekend. The atmosphere there was something special and once again I had a new blended family in my life.  Though I was in radio at the time, working at the theatre sparked the want to work on a larger platform of entertainment. It was truly something special. After graduating in the Class of 1999, a lot of us went our own ways but somehow when something brought us back together…we were like family all over again.  I moved to California to pursue a dream of working in Television and have always been supported by my hometown. Since moving to California, I’ve been back and forth to visit and whenever I came home it was like I hadn’t left. Familiar faces, tremendous spirit, and lots of love & support. 

Just a few months ago, my mother had a massive stroke after having a double knee replacement and I flew home immediately to be at her side.  While home, the outpouring of love that my family received was tremendous. People came to our aid, offered up rides back and forth to see her since my mom doesn’t have a car, making meals for me, etc.  It was truly something special and still is. Over my multiple trips home there was something I kept hearing from everyone I saw; “Did you know the theatre closed? We really miss it. We have to drive pretty far now to see a movie and there really isn’t much else to do with our families locally.”  

So I decided to post a picture on social media in front of the theatre asking the question; “Should I reopen this theatre?”  The post instantly went viral! We’ve been on the news, radio, newspapers, etc. Everywhere I went after posting that picture, members of the community came up to me showing their support to me reopening the theatre.  So that’s what sparked this journey. In addition to moving back to NY to be closer to my mom and help take care of her as she isn’t set to make a full recovery from her stroke, I want to fight to reopen the theatre for our community.  To some the theatre may not seem like much but to this community it means something much more. 

So let’s do this together.  Please spread the word, share the link, encourage a conversation and of course….MAKE A DONATION TODAY!  Thank you in advance. Much love from myself and Amsterdam, NY! 

Something in the summer and fall must have set the ideal conditions for ornamental berries, as this December there was a proliferation of all sorts – beauty-berry, holly-berry, almost every berry. They came into their own and set the sky aflame when suspended in mid-air. In the photos here, I believe it was a hawthorne tree that provided the dramatic fire vs. sky scene.

For some reason, I’ve never quite cottoned to the idea of growing berry bushes for ornamental purposes, mostly because the payoff and the show came at the tail-end of the season. By that point I needed a break and the long slumber of the garden was a welcome rest. That’s one reason I don’t think I’d fare well in a monotonous climate without room for dormancy. A spell off is necessary to recharge the batteries, to realign what’s important. And to refresh all the energy needed to create all these berries. Making fruit is one of the most draining things a plant or tree can do.

In Boston, there are a couple of beauty-berry bushes in the Southwest Corridor Park that have matured in the last few years, and their gorgeous showing of bright purple berries in October is delightful to behold. I’m still not quite in enough adoration to reserve space for them in our yard, but having them in Boston is a treat. It’s the same sort of home-away-from-home planting that gives me great enjoyment from afar – like a magnificent magnolia tree, or a clump of spiderwort in full bloom. Glorious to see in their brief show, but not worth the majority of time they spend simply taking up space and storing up the energy needed to put on such a show. For now, I watch from a distance.

Cher was just in Boston.

Celine Dion was just in Albany.

And Madonna was just in Philadelphia.

I missed them all.

And I’m ok with that.

This is a brave new world.

How to survive without the aid of an icon?

Follow me and I’ll show you the way…

While winter approached, Steve Grand kept this website warm and toasty with his new line of underwear, Grand Axis. Enjoy these promotional photos that went along with it, and then have fun clicking on the links of this double week of recaps, since some may have missed last week’s. 

It began in hot form with this shirtless holiday hunk post. 

My #TopNine were pretty evenly parsed between my ass and my junk. 

A last-minute plea for Tom Ford, in case you still haven’t gotten me anything for Christmas.

Turkeys gathering. 

And we wonder why people get bent out of shape at this time of the year.

Contemplating loss during the holidays. 

Yoga & the workday.

The casket that almost got away.

A conversation among owls at midnight.

Fuck yeah I’m in therapy. You would be too if it happened to you.

A melancholy holiday moment. 

As Kira and I celebrated this year’s Holiday Stroll (easily my favorite holiday tradition that’s still intact) we took a look-back at the ones that came before. 

My baking evolution continues with this batch of biscotti. 

One of these posts I’m going to do ‘The Twelve Days of Ass.’ Until then, you only have this. 

The week ended, or began, as so many have ended and begun, with a linky Madonna post to celebrate the eventual return of the Madonna Timeline. 

Hunks of the Day included Dwyane Wade, Neil Jones, Mike Colter, Louis Ferrigno Jr., and Ronan Keating.

A few weeks ago I started seeing a therapist to work some things out – a few of which, I soon discovered, went back decades into the past. I should have done this a long time ago, but I simply wasn’t ready. For the last year or two, however, I felt myself stumbling along this path, toward a place of greater understanding and peace, even if the ways I was going about getting there were wayward and, let me finally say it, wrong. It took a few instances of lashing out to realize that I had masked some foundational fissures from childhood up to now with various substitutes for love. Sometimes it was easier to wear those masks, and in certain situations and areas, those masks were so convincing I managed to build up some authentic courage and self-confidence in the process of all the pretending. That can only get one so far, however, and when some of those masks crumbled, I was left vulnerable and afraid. It’s a feeling that has haunted me since I was very young. Perhaps that’s why I’ve tried so desperately to escape – in words, in wardrobe, in whimsy and wanton abandon. In the guise of what you see and read here. In this very post, at this very moment you are reading it. I’ve just begun to look back in a meaningful manner. There are many memories I’ve conjured here, many posts which revisit eventful days of the past, but I never delve too deeply because on some level I knew how dangerous that could be. That said, sometimes in order to get over something you must go through it – the pain, the fear, and the muck of one’s history, one’s life. I’ve started that dive into the treacherous pond of therapy, and though it’s taking an emotional toll, it feels very much worth it. I just need to make it through these next few weeks.

When I was a little boy I loved water lilies. I’m not sure why – we didn’t have them anywhere near our yard, and the only ones I saw flew by at 65 miles an hour as our car passed some tantalizing water feature while heading across the country on a family vacation. My mother had grown up with access to ponds that had water lilies, and she told me about lily pads and their flowers, so they ended up feeling magical, like something out of a myth or fable, and ever out of reach. Their homes – those glorious ponds teeming with life seen and unseen – embodied summer and, in a larger context, childhood. Drawn to water, probably because we were too often landlocked, my brother and I were fascinated by seas and oceans and rivers and lakes and ponds. Even the smallest stream or brook held enchanting allure – the gentle gurgling of the water cast like some irresistible spell. A pond dispersed a different sort of charm.

Ponds could be placid and tranquil, smooth and clear as glass when the atmosphere was still, barely a ripple on those sultry, tranquil days. But dive deep and suddenly all sorts of murky possibility could be turned up. It was possible to make a pond in your own backyard if you wished, provided you had enough space and power. You could fill it with water and let nature take hold. You can plant water lilies (water gardens are gaining in popularity with each passing year) and soon those lilies will take hold, sending down roots into the dark pond bottom, before sending shoots back up to the surface. Soon you’ll have water lily flowers in the heat and sun of summer, and the lily pads will expand outwardly, providing a perch for frogs and toads and turtles. A couple of cattails might take hold at the water’s edge, or perhaps a stand of pesky loosestrife that you’ll have to watch or eradicate. All in all, it could be a very pretty scene, but if you hadn’t been careful in the beginning, if you hadn’t made sure that there was an adequate basin with adequate nourishment, and no cracks or holes, then you would have to revisit it later on. Could you leave well enough alone and hope that enough layers of detriment had landed over the years to bury whatever mistakes lurked in the deep? Could you let it all go, allow it to remain buried and hidden, and go on with blooming on the surface? Yes. You could. And you might get away with it. You might escape the scary stuff of the depths, dark as night. Your pond might survive and thrive, and no dragonflies would ever sense your secret sorrow. But there is danger in that. You run the risk of having one of those beautiful water lily roots reaching into a poisonous patch of what you thought was in the past, and once it taps into such darkness it will send it up to its flower buds, stalling them in their growth, stunting their bloom, aborting their promise of beauty. There’s nothing sadder than a bud that is stillborn, especially when it comes from the root.

My therapy has begun in similar form, as if I have just taken a drill to the bottom of my life pond and begun dredging up all the things that looked and felt so perfect a few scant months ago, only to discover the mess and the flaws that went unaddressed and unadorned. It’s not pretty, and I tried for so long to make everything beautiful that at first it’s a bit overwhelming. But I need to get through it. I need to make it through the muck and make sure I can live with what’s at the bottom of my pond.