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Bad Dream On

This entry for ‘The Divine Diva Tour: A Fairy’s Tale‘ was written as a recent night crossed into the midnight hour, and should probably be read at a similar time. Some writing is too moody, some music too weighty, to be read or heard in the hours of the day. Daylight is powerful stuff, even when it’s overcast. The cloak of night helps us reveal things that would never be whispered if there was the threat of the sun lurking. Let us share our songs in the darkness.

Every time that I look in the mirror
All these lines on my face gettin’ clearer

The past is gone
It went by like dusk to dawn

Isn’t that the way?
Everybody’s got their dues in life to pay

For the 10th anniversary of MTV, the music that once played, well, music, celebrated itself with a few powerhouse performances (and one glorious therapy session in noirish brilliance by Lady M herself). Strangely, for those who thought they knew me, my favorite musical portion was when Aerosmith took to the stage after a piano floated through the air and they launched into their classic ‘Dream On’. 

I know nobody knows
Where it comes and where it goes
I know it’s everybody’s sin
You got to lose to know how to win

Half my life’s in books’ written pages
Lived and learned from fools and from sages
You know it’s true
All the things come back to you

I watched the performance in our basement rec room – lights off, the space lit only by the glow of the television – and with a full orchestra backing the band, the maelstrom of music and spectacle took me out of my miserable life for five minutes. Transported on the crests of musical majesty, I soared through the night, leaving behind the wretchedness of that basement, where I once hid as a child, where I carved out the only safe space I ever knew, and only because it was the space within myself.

Sing with me, sing for the year
Sing for the laughter and sing for the tear
Sing with me, if it’s just for today
Maybe tomorrow the good Lord will take you away

This is it – this is the part. Listen as it builds, listen as it becomes salvation, listen as it becomes redemption. Then sing. Sing for your soul, sing for your survival, sing your way out of whatever your life has become. Sing with me… 

Sing with me, sing for the year
Sing for the laughter and sing for the tear
Sing with me, it’s just for today
Maybe tomorrow the good Lord will take you away
Dream on, dream on, dream on
Dream until your dreams come true
Dream on, dream on, dream on
Dream until your dreams come true
Dream on, dream on
Dream on, dream on
Dream on, dream on
Dream on

~ The Divine Diva Tour: A Fairy’s Tale ~

  1. Pink Frilly Fairy: Part OnePart Two, and Part Three
  2. Homage to Herb: Part One, Part Two and Part Three
  3. A Purple-Hued Interlude
  4. Style & Panache: Part One, Part Two, Part Three and Part Four.
  5. Purple Puff Confection: Part OnePart Two, Part Three and Part Four.
  6. A Blue-Hued Interlude
  7. Fuchsia Fabulousness: Part One. Part Two and Part Three.
  8. Bad Boy Bangs – Part One and Part Two.

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Bad Boy Rock Poseur

What is life but a series of poses?

What is a pose but a snapshot of a moment?

What is a moment in the grand scheme of life?

The whooshing rush of a smoke machine – …I see you through the smoky air… – the sparkling light shards of a mirror ball – …I’ll show you every version of yourself… – and the curtain of glittering mylar shimmering in the nightmarish nightclub of dream and fantasy – …so get up on the dance floor

“It’s hard to sing and cry.” – Madonna

~ The Divine Diva Tour: A Fairy’s Tale ~

  1. Pink Frilly Fairy: Part OnePart Two, and Part Three
  2. Homage to Herb: Part One, Part Two and Part Three
  3. A Purple-Hued Interlude
  4. Style & Panache: Part One, Part Two, Part Three and Part Four.
  5. Purple Puff Confection: Part OnePart Two, Part Three and Part Four.
  6. A Blue-Hued Interlude
  7. Fuchsia Fabulousness: Part One. Part Two and Part Three.
  8. Bad Boy Bangs – Part One 

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Bad Banging Style

Boomeranging back to this bad-bangs rock-star wannabe scene, ‘The Divine Diva Tour: A Fairy’s Tale’ gives slight whiplash as we give eyeliner and rouge a bad name. The diva may be divine, but she’s also an admitted hot-mess, with the emphasis on the messy. Still, she gives a good time, a chuckle, and sometimes a guffaw. You’ve never had more fun and you know it.

You… [finger-pointing]… you. 

“You’re singing an aria and they’re building scenery in the wings.” – Terrence McNally

“My fire comes from here… It’s mine… It’s not for sale. It’s not for me to give away, and even if I could, I wouldn’t. It’s who I am. Find out who you are.” – Terrence McNally

“This isn’t a freak show. I’m not a performing seal.” – Terrence McNally

~ The Divine Diva Tour: A Fairy’s Tale ~

  1. Pink Frilly Fairy: Part OnePart Two, and Part Three
  2. Homage to Herb: Part One, Part Two and Part Three
  3. A Purple-Hued Interlude
  4. Style & Panache: Part One, Part Two, Part Three and Part Four.
  5. Purple Puff Confection: Part OnePart Two, Part Three and Part Four.
  6. A Blue-Hued Interlude
  7. Fuchsia Fabulousness: Part One. Part Two and Part Three.

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Fuchsia Frills

The Divine Diva Tour: A Fairy’s Tale‘ lives up to its ‘All Is Vanity‘ theme with this ridiculous set of photos which features a bad dress, a pair of awful shoes, and the worst wig in the world. Thankfully, the garish and the god-awful are part of what this project was about, and things will get a whole lot uglier before we approach prettiness again. 

In the physical format of this project, the words that accompanied these photos were the lyrics of ‘Glitter and Be Gay’, but those have already been used to greater effect in the earlier stages of this presentation. We needed music then, and a more substantial post, whereas this is but a brief blip better forgotten as soon as possible.

I love the armpit hair, and the push-and-pull tug-of-war between perceived masculine and feminine motifs. That underlying tension gets lost in the funnier aspects at work here. It’s all part of the show, and rather than ruin it by analyzing it to a Virgo’s content, I’ll take my verbal leave and leave you to it. 

~ The Divine Diva Tour: A Fairy’s Tale ~

  1. Pink Frilly Fairy: Part OnePart Two, and Part Three
  2. Homage to Herb: Part One, Part Two and Part Three
  3. A Purple-Hued Interlude
  4. Style & Panache: Part One, Part Two, Part Three and Part Four.
  5. Purple Puff Confection: Part OnePart Two, Part Three and Part Four.
  6. A Blue-Hued Interlude
  7. Fuchsia Fabulousness: Part One and Part Two

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I’ll Take the Crazy Right Now

Our now-non-holiday cactus has decided to grace us with a smattering of blooms, long before we could even consider it an Easter cactus, and so far removed from Thanksgiving or Christmas that it gives up any chance of holiday affiliation. I don’t appreciate it any less, however; in fact, it may have sensed our wish for spring, and flowers, and any glimpse of hope in this gray and barren world, and thus delivered a show out of sync with any human-sanctioned holiday. Those are often the best shows anyway – the unexpected, the unhyped, the unpredicted. The reminder that life is so often a whim that defies planning or expectation. I need to heed that lesson more, to embrace the moment at hand and not attempt to set some rigid outline of what’s going to happen. That takes up way too much space in the brain, and my brain needs what little space remains just to get me through the damn day. 

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A Gratuitous Patrick Schwarzenegger Post

You’ve probably already seen Patrick Schwarzenegger naked here, so this is just a bonus post for those who want a bit more. We see you, we honor you, we give you these GIFs. (And other naked male celebrities here.)

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Crystal Snowlight Shivering and Glittering

Another winter song to see us through the dimmest days, when being poised on the precipice of spring makes the icy setbacks that much more difficult to bear. I’ve often been called cold, or detached, and I always sort of wore that as a badge of pride. Better to be cold than to be hurt. Better to strike first than have your heart pierced and your life marred forever after. What a foolish attitude to have, or in my case to pretend. A song now for the supposedly-cold-hearted among us:

Come to meRun to meDo and be done with meCold, cold, coldDon’t I exist for you?Don’t I still live for you?Cold, cold, cold

From the same exquisite album that brought us this winter song, ‘Cold’ was an ideal companion piece, a delicate ballad that gently ticks off a list of adoration and celebration of someone who may or may not be into you. The first person who gave me this song loved me more than I could ever love her. She probably still does. My heart remains icily indifferent. 

Everything I possess, given with tendernessWrapped in a ribbon of glassTime it may take us but God only knowsHow I’ve paid for those things in the past
Dying is easy it’s living that scares me to death, ooh, yeahI could be so content hearing the sound of your breath, ooh, yeah
Cold is the colour of crystal the snowlightThat falls from the heavenly skiesCatch me and let me dive underFor I want to swim in the pools of your eyes
I wanna be with you babyOh-oh, slip me inside of your heartDon’t I belong to you baby?Don’t you know that nothing can tear us apart?Come on now, come on now, come on nowTelling you thatI loved you right from the startBut the more I want you the less I getAin’t that just the way things are?

Sometimes it’s difficult to muster up much compassion for our younger selves, for the people we once were who didn’t know any better, or who did but simply never acted on it. The clarity of how those aspects differ is something we never want to admit. How much easier on our conscience would it be to just pretend confusion, to act like we never knew we were doing the wrong thing? I always knew, and to my shameful acknowledgment, I did the awful things anyway. When shielding the heart, you run the risk of wounding others with your armor, and at a certain point that risk became a reward. The warped masochistic tendencies of a young man lost in the turmoil of not knowing who he was – the casualties left on love’s battlefield – the coldness, the precision, the detachment… 

The sake of survival. 

Winter has frozen usLet love take hold of us(Cold, cold, cold)Now we are shiveringBlue ice is glittering(Cold, cold, cold)
Cold is the colour of crystal the snowlightThat falls from the heavenly skiesCatch me and let me dive underFor I want to swim in the pools of your eyes

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Mockarita Madness

Preliminary planning for this year’s BroSox Adventure began on a dismal rainy night at La Mexicana Restaurant and Grocery Store on Central Fucking Avenue. Sidling into one of several empty booths at this cheery hole-in-the-wall, Skip and I dove into brainstorming for what marks the 10th anniversary of our very first Boston Red Sox trip, so it’s got to be epic. Go Big or Go Home (Plate). See, I know baseball lingo. Strike! Dug-out! (The word says it.)

Here is some music to go with our food, and a mock-margarita that is just pure Jose Cuervo margarita mix minus any alcohol, rimmed with salt and adored with a slice of lime. Totally as awful as it sounds, but when in Rome! The company was good, and the food was delicious, so you take the wins when you can, and on a cold rainy night in March, a Mexican meal with an old friend is comfort indeed. 

My proposal for #BroSox10 is an ambitious two-page itinerary of box items that touch on classic moments and memories over the past decade of BroSox adventures, with the intent to check off as many as we feel up to doing. The expectation is that two or three might get checked off if we get off our lazy asses and front stoop – no promises for much more beyond that. Perhaps we’ll rally and drive through all of them, or perhaps we’ll meet somewhere in the middle – whatever the outcome, it’s bound to be fun and chill and just what my world needs in such dark times. 

Part of the fun is in the planning, so we’ll delve into details and cement game dates as we get deeper into spring. It’s a banner year for so many reasons… stay tuned. And if you have any suggestions what two mid-to-late-forty-something gents should do when in Beantown, send them my way. Skip is always up for a dare. 

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Approaching or Departing Eden

In this the year that I turn fifty years old, I find myself indulging in bits of nostalgia here and there, something I don’t do all that often mostly because of how messy it can be. I look back at some pictures where my smile is big and my outfits ridiculous, anything to disguise and distract from the bandages on my wrists, and I ache for what we do to ourselves just trying to get through it. For some reason, these recent days have returned my mind to my senior year of high school, an eerie echo of another transitional period of life. Winter music put my youth to slumber then; it breaks my middle age now. 

We are the roses in the garden,Beauty with thorns among our leaves.
To pick a rose you ask your hands to bleed.What is the reason for having rosesWhen your blood is shed carelessly?
It must be for something more than vanity.

‘Our Time in Eden’ is one of those formative music albums of my youth, thanks to epic cuts like ‘These Are Days’ and ‘Candy Everybody Wants’ – and this one – ‘Eden’ – which is one of the saddest songs I’ve ever heard, in the best possible way. Back in those final days of high school, I felt the quickened rush of time – the clock as another demon – and I struggled to hang onto whatever I could even as I felt it all slipping away. Most of my classmates and friends wanted to grow up as quickly as possible – despite how old my soul felt, or perhaps because of it, I understood that we should not have been in such a rush, that those days, that Eden, would never come again. I didn’t want to let it go. 

Believe me, the truth is we’re not honest,Not the people that we dream.
We’re not as close as we could be.Willing to grow but rains are shallow.Barren and wind-scattered seed on stone and dry land,
We will be.Waiting for the light arisenTo flood inside the prison.
And in that time kind words alone will teach us,No bitterness will reach us.

Whenever I hear this song, it makes me pause and remember. There’s a pit in my stomach – not the usual angst-ridden pit, but a stirring of great and overwhelming emotion. It brings back that tender time when the world was first imprinting itself on my soul, when music meant so much, when beauty could break the heart and the first flush of romantic love hinted at all the exquisite torment to come. Had I known everything that would unfold, I wonder if I’d have bothered with the bandages at all, or simply embraced the pain, knowing how integral it would be to finding the happiness. 

Reason will be guided another way.All in time,But the clock is another demon that devours our time in eden,In our paradise.Will our eyes see well beneath us,Flowers all divine?Is there still time?If we wake and discoverIn life a precious love,Will that waking become more heavenly?
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A Funny Word on My Career Field

I don’t work in Human Resources because I hate people!

I hate people because I work in Human Resources. 

{Totally, almost, hardly kidding.}

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#TinyThreads: An Insignificant Series

You know who this is about. 

He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named because he’s such a fucking dick. 

{See also FOTUS.}

#TinyThreads

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Music for Winter’s Impending End

The last few weeks of winter are always the toughest. They require music that is both somber and bordering on hope, something that soothes the soul and quells the restless heart. One of the best albums for this is Annie Lennox’s magnificent ‘Diva’, which became the soundtrack to the last winter of my high school years.

How many times do I have to try to tell youThat I’m sorry for the things I’ve done,But when I start to try to tell youThat’s when you have to tell meHey… this kind of trouble’s only just begun

During that winter, I was just starting to feel the pangs of leaving our youth behind, and with the very real sense of such impending loss suddenly some of our lifelong grudges softened a bit. One of our teachers pointed out the phenomenon, explaining that it happened to most seniors, before trailing off wistfully. She seemed as moved as I was at that moment, when understanding and realization aligned with a rare recognizance of growth at the exact instant it happened. 

I told myself too many timesWhy don’t you ever learn to keep your big mouth shutThat’s why it hurts so bad to hear the wordsThat keep on falling from your mouthFalling from your mouthFalling from your mouthTell meWhy…

I may be madI may be blindI may be viciously unkindBut I can still read what you’re thinking
And I’ve heard is said too many timesThat you’d be better offBesides…Why can’t you see this boat is sinking(This boat is sinking this boat is sinking)

The end of winter is an icy space. A frigid place. It trends toward the thaw of spring, but at its heart it remains frozen. Those first days of melting, when the heat of the sun is enough to finally cut through the snow, there are cracks and fissures, especially when the nights freeze everything again. The push and pull of this time wears on the strongest of us. 

Let’s go down to the water’s edgeAnd we can cast away those doubtsSome things are better left unsaidBut they still turn me inside outTurning inside out, turning inside outTell meWhy…Tell meWhy…

When those last of that winter’s days began to dovetail with the very beginning of the last of my high school days, this was the music that saw me through the tender time. We were just starting to write the stories that would become our own history books of life – the first chapters of whatever was about to unfurl. I put mine down literally, a practice I’ve maintained through this very moment

This is the book I never readThese are the words I never saidThis is the path I’ll never treadThese are the dreams I’ll dream insteadThis is the joy that’s seldom spreadThese are the tears…The tears we shedThis is the fearThis is the dread
These are the contents of my headAnd these are the years that we have spentAnd this is what they representAnd this is how I feelDo you know how I feel?‘Cause I don’t think you know how I feelI don’t think you know what I feel
I don’t think you know what I feelYou don’t know what I feel

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David Beckham, Still a Sexy Beast

This is still David Beckham’s world, and we are just lucky to be living in it while he roams. Recent shots from a Men’s Health story, these remind of us of his latest underwear endeavor with Boss as seen here

That’s all.

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#TInyThreads: An Insignificant Series

Sending shit like this to people is why my list of friends is dwindling.

Not mad about it. 

#TinyThreads

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A Heartwarming Meal by Andy

Andy’s first attempt at chicken adobo – that classic Filipino dish – was a resounding success, despite my mis-remembering the exact ratio of rice vinegar needed (it’s a party forgiving recipe). Having him make this ancestral dinner was a surprising and heartwarming gift of a very long winter. When he took over the chicken curry dish I made early on in our relationship, he elevated and perfected it, so I’m looking forward to future adobo endeavors. 

These little things that spark joy in our day-to-day existence are the true jewels of a life. Too often they seem incidental or mundane – those in-between moments that tie bigger events together – but they are the real events, if only we knew enough to honor them as they came. 

My husband making a dish beloved by my father is just this sort of moment. 

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