It begins, as most majestic things do, with the tiniest seed of an idea. Sometimes it’s a feeling, sometimes it’s an injustice, and sometimes it’s something you have to do or you know you’ll die inside. In the beginning, then, is the quietest rumbling, like a distant train in the middle of the night. You sense it before you really know what it is.

Fortunately, I’m a little beyond that early stage of a new project. At this point, that train is loud and insistent and about to arrive, and nothing is going to stop it. There’s exhilaration in that, but exhaustion and weariness too. Above all else, though, it is a labor of love, and I can’t wait for this train to really take off.

For now, there’s the merest whisper of turning wheels, the faintest light from afar, and the lightest wisp of smoke from an engine that can simply be sensed, within a vehicle that can barely be felt, on a voyage whose outcome can only be surmised.

You know what that means: smoke ‘em if you’ve got ‘em! While I’ve never been a big pot smoker – or a pot smoker period, I have been known to take a toke on the rare occasion it rears its head. (Mostly this happened in my early twenties, when a lunch break from John Hancock and a circle of towering rhododendrons in the Southwest Corridor Park invited such shenanigans… but I digress.) Onto a much less hazy week in review, where the only smoke was that created by the hotness of a few choice Hunks, and the burning fire of creative inspiration.

First, the Hunks. We got to see the wood-working of Tommy Mac, the son of Dirty Harry ~ Scott Eastwood, the mad musical genius of Diplo, the news reporter Gio Benitez, the man who made something out of his boy band legacy ~ David W. Ross, the comic creation of Will Arnett, and the luminescence of Bright Light Bright Light.

Second, a citrus-based cocktail, to tease the sun out of its hiding spot.

Third, a citrus-tinged chicken recipe that seems to fill the stomach with sunshine.

Fourth, the incandescent maker of a pair of golden shoes that fly on sunlight itself ~ the jocular Jeremy Scott.

Fifth, a coat of sunshine in the midst of Chinatown.

Sixth, a group of nude men.

Seventh, a collection of quotes from a favorite book.

Eighth, a visit to my hometown ~ Amsterdam, New York.

Outside of upstate New York circles, I have to clarify when I claim to be from Amsterdam. Apparently my little hometown is not on the international map, while some sex-and-pot-riddled place in the Netherlands has made a name for itself under the same moniker. Visiting the real-deal has always been a dream of mine, but until that day arrives I’ll have to do with the city that stood home for a single windmill (until it burned down a while ago.)

On a recent weekend, I traveled back to Amsterdam, NY to work on a new project. My brother’s been renting out a space in the Clock Tower, once the center of the busy carpet mills that put the place on the map. Those mills closed, leaving a shell of an industry in their wake. Now, it seems the city is trying to revitalize the spot with some trendy industrial loft-style spaces. Sky-high ceilings and enormous windows make for the perfect backdrop for an artsy-fartsy photo shoot.

It’s for a top-secret project which I’ve been working on rather loosely for the past few months, and it kicks into high gear now that spring has reinvigorated my drive. Let’s just say it’s a final lesson in delusional grandeur.

To that end, I’ll be busy with photo shoots and writing and editing and compiling, so this site will be on auto-pilot. (Not that anyone will notice, as I’ll program posts as I’ve always done, and there won’t be a blip in the Hunk of the Day parade.)

Behind the scenes, however, this bee will be busy flitting from inspirational flower to inspirational flower, as I work to create the final piece of a puzzle that’s been in the making for twenty years.

The year, after all, is 2015. A lot of shit went down twenty years ago.

Karma Chameleon, baby… and remember: karma is a bitch.

“Nothing he did or said was unpremeditated. He saw through everybody, but he saw through them precisely because the first thing he looked for in people was the very thing he had seen in himself and may not have wished others to see.” ~ Andre Aciman, ‘Call Me By Your Name’

How could anyone intuit the manner of someone’s thinking unless he himself was already familiar with this same mode of thinking? How could he perceive so many devious turns in others unless he had practiced them himself?

What struck me was not just his amazing gift for reading people, for rummaging inside them and digging out the precise configuration of their personality, but his ability to intuit things in exactly the way I myself might have intuited them. This, in the end, was what drew me to him with a compulsion that overrode desire or friendship or the allurements of a common religion.

~ Andre Aciman, ‘Call Me By Your Name’

Did his heart jolt when he saw me walk into a room?

I doubted it.

Did he ignore me the way I ignored him that morning: on purpose, to draw me out, to protect himself, to show I was nothing to him? Or was he oblivious, the way sometimes the most perceptive individuals fail to pick up the most obvious cues because they’re simply not paying attention, not tempted, not interested?

~ Andre Aciman, ‘Call Me By Your Name’

I’d never traveled in this world. But I loved this world. And I would love it even more once I learned how to speak its language – for it was my language, a form of address where our deepest longings are smuggled in banter, not because it is safer to put a smile on what we fear may shock, but because the inflections of desire, of all desire in this new world I’d stepped into, could only be conveyed in play.

~ Andre Aciman, ‘Call Me By Your Name’

Across the street from where I slurped a bowl of pho, I watched this gentleman step outside for a smoke. I was struck by his apron of bright yellow, and while it was more than likely a piece of utilitarian garb, for me it was the perfect spot of spring color. Like some striking canary in a sea of gray-backed robins, he shone like the sun, resplendent in a world of uninspired surroundings.

The wind blew his smoke down the street, and soon his quick break was over. Hunched over a bit, he shuffled back inside, while others hurried by ignoring his colorful outfit. My eyes followed until the door closed behind him.