Monthly Archives:

March 2013

05
March
2013
Tags: Food
No comments

The Bare-assed Contessa

Here’s a fun little thing I did on a recent day off from work, while stricken with that nasty stomach flu and on a strict BRAT diet of bananas, rice, applesauce and toast: I watched the Food Network. My favorite was the ‘Barefoot Contessa.’ Watching Ina Garten and her husband Jeffrey share a picnic of California BLTs (with avocado, thank you) on the docks of Montauk while waiting for Andy to get back with Gatorade from the local Price Chopper was my number one highlight. Seeing her tell Jeffrey that she was “ready to rock and roll,” and then calling him “babe” was a close second. They were laughing at me, I know it.

After the Contessa, that buffoon Paula Deen had a kid from the Disney channel on (Kenton Duty). Could the nightmare get any worse? Yes, because the precocious fuck soon began singing a song he wrote for her. Accompanied by himself on the guitar.

[Sigh] – I’m going back to my banana.

Continue reading ...
04
March
2013
Tags: General
No comments

A Mid-Day Monday Recap

It was an angst-ridden week, both mentally and physically, most of which I’d rather not re-hash, so we’ll keep things light and smutty. Really, there’s no better way to squeak through these final weeks of Winter than pretending nothing really matters, so let’s just pretend.

There were hunks to catch the eye, including Stuart Reardon getting his kit off atop Louis Vuitton, David Bromstad creating his own shirtless color splash, Eliad Cohen showing off a rather fine pelt of fur, and Mike Ruiz coming out from behind the lens in fine form.

I couldn’t quite wait for Spring to arrive to enjoy a big bouquet of daffodils, so I splurged on these. It was worth far more than what I paid, because you can’t put a price on temporary sanity, particularly if it saves lives.

Finally, and most importantly, this past week marked the fifteenth anniversary of Madonna’s ‘Ray of Light’ album. The title song itself just happened to be the next in line for the Madonna Timeline write-up, so I waited a few extra days to give it pride of place among the posts of March third.

On that happy note, let’s end the recap, because the rest of the week was as ugly as it was upsetting. Here’s to turning the corner…

Continue reading ...
04
March
2013
Tags: Gay
No comments

Ease Into It

After a rather explosive weekend, let’s ease on into the work-week with this rather simple commercial. I can totally see myself doing this, if I were into reading off a Kindle, if I were more handsome, if I were at a tropical locale, and if I were talking to a lady in a bikini. In other words, I’ll never do this in my life. But I wish I could… well, just the tropical part. Oh, and the handsome thing. And the husband getting me a drink… And if the lady was nice… just not the Kindle – which is sort of the point of this whole exercise, right?

Continue reading ...
03
March
2013
Tags: Madonna, Music
No comments

Fifteen Years of Light

No famous faces, far-off places, trinkets I can buy
No handsome stranger, heady danger, drug that I can try
No ferris wheel, no heart to steal, no laughter in the dark
No one-night-stand, no far-off land, no fire that I can spark…

The incantation came three-quarters of the way into the opening track of Madonna’s ‘Ray of Light’ album, celebrating its 15th anniversary today. As I listen to the song now, it resonates differently than it did then, in ways both wonderful and wistful. On this day, Spring seems light years away, as snow falls down coating the outside world in white. Back in 1998, the season of rebirth was in the air at the midnight hour of ‘Ray of Light’s release.

That enchanting evening, rife with mystical magic and musical majesty, has been well-documented in this space numerous times. Today, I listen to the album from start to finish as Andy sleeps and snow falls. It is, literally and figuratively, the morning to 1998’s night. The wondrous thing about the album is that it works so brilliantly in both.

It seems that everyone – even non-hard-core-Madonna fans – has a ‘Ray of Light’ memory. It is, far more than any other period in her career, the one moment when the world collectively came together in love and support of the Queen. Critical notices were glowing, sales were stellar (in spite of the fact that the album failed to reach #1, held down to the #2 spot not by that “damn Bodyguard soundtrack”, but by another cultural phenomenon, ‘Titanic’), and Madonna was back in vogue, ending the tumultuous 90’s as she began it: on top.

This was, even more-so than the glorious ‘Like A Prayer’, the album that solidified Madonna’s musical legacy, defining her once and for all as a serious artist, with a lasting body of work. Listening to the album now, it sounds as classic and pure as it did fifteen years ago, with nary a notion of nostalgia or dated-ness. In fact, ‘Ray of Light’ may be the most timeless of Madonna’s albums, thanks in no small part to its marriage of guitars and electronica, the latter of which might have worked against it, had electronica not been around since the 70’s.

The album also found Madonna at her most melancholy and contemplative, which is where I’ve always felt most connected to her. Sure, there were racing highlights like the title track, and the classic-Madonna-backed-by-Niki-and-Donna dance of ‘Nothing Really Matters’, but at its heart, this was a dark, moody, moving album – less concerned with getting people on their feet, and more intent on getting into their hearts.

It was a spiritual journey, which sounds a lot more lugubrious than the melodies would have you believe, and it’s a testament to the alchemy between Madonna and William Orbit that it worked so well. With its extreme themes of love, death, fame, desire, heartbreak, childhood, and even sanskrit, it’s amazing how cohesive the roller-coaster of emotions ends up being, but Madonna’s voice encapsulates it all, backed by the guitar-based delicacies of Orbit’s music.

For me, the lightning and thunder will always be found in the first track, ‘Drowned World: Substitute for Love.’ Nowhere else has Madonna sounded more genuine, more heartfelt, more emotionally open than on this song. For anyone who has ever searched for purpose in love, or who has been left unloved or unwanted and tried to fill that emptiness with something else, this is the song that should matter most.

The entire album is a movement of meditation. It can be as light and airy as an ambient breeze, or as heavy and rich as a centuries-old tapestry of woven filaments of valuable metals. It opens up to you when you are ready to receive it, changing and evolving with the years, minding your shifting consciousness, touching you in new ways upon every listen. Many of us have that one artist we love more than all others – the one who speaks to you in ways that no one else ever could – whether it’s Bach or Beethoven, the Beatles or Bon Jovi, Billie Holiday or Britney Spears – for me, that artist has always been Madonna, and ‘Ray of Light’ was the record that confirmed it.

Continue reading ...
03
March
2013
Tags: Madonna, Music
No comments

The Madonna Timeline: Song #88 ~ ‘Ray of Light’ ~ Spring 1998

{Note: The Madonna Timeline is an ongoing feature, where I put the iPod on shuffle, and write a little anecdote on whatever was going on in my life when that Madonna song was released and/or came to prominence in my mind.}

Copley Square, Boston, MA ~ On a beautiful Spring night, the very start of the season, he glides in front of Trinity Church. A flowing black coat billows behind him, and it makes him look like a night creature soaring forth from some Frozen video. The throbbing bass pumps through the headphones on his ears, and he cannot hear the drone of blades upon pavement. He flies in front of the statue of Phillips Brooks, taking sharp turns among the rockier cobblestone, then gaining speed as the space opens up before the square. Whizzing by some late-night straggler, he cuts a wide curve, approaching midnight and the expansive green that leads to the library. In the night sky, clouds hover between earth and stars, and the mottled glow of the moon peeks through the wispy blanket. A gentle wind from the West lifts him, and he is flying…

Zephyr in the sky at night I wonder
 

 

Do my tears of mourning sink beneath the sun?
 

 

She’s got herself a universe gone quickly,
 

 

For the call of thunder threatens everyone.

Standing in the midnight release line at Tower Records on Newbury Street a few minutes before the calendar marked March 3, 1998, I listen as her voice fills the space. From the opening of ‘Drowned World: Substitute for Love‘ to the undulating guitar currents of ‘Swim’, this is the premiere of Madonna’s new album, ‘Ray of Light’ ~ her first since the vocal calisthenics of ‘Evita’, and a bit of a proper pop comeback. (‘Bedtime Stories’ had gone some way toward mending the implosion of ‘Erotica‘ and the ‘Sex‘ years, as did her turn in ‘Evita’, but it was ‘Ray of Light’ that would bring her back to the pinnacle of critical and commercial success to which she was rightfully accustomed.)

Along with a growing group of Madonna fans running around the perimeter of the store, I am giddily awaiting to get my hands on her first original studio album in four years. Advance word was that this record was brilliant, and as I listened to her crystal-clear tone, it felt like she had just returned home, to the place where we’ve always wanted her to be: in the music.

And I feel like I just got home
And I feel…
And I feel like I just got home
And I feel…

At that point, working in retail and living in Boston, I was still not sure of where my own home might be. It certainly felt like Boston, but it also felt like Amsterdam, or Rochester, or wherever I found my suitcase and my friends. Sometimes I felt most at home in a strange land, an unremarkable hotel room, an airport gate, or a pair of empty train seats. At other moments I felt home was in the arms of a stranger, a nameless body and a handsome face, a nightly delight of transitory in-between states, both the people and my mind. The ‘Ray of Light’ album informed this period of my life, becoming the soundtrack to one of the most soul-evolving transitions in my life.

Up until that album, I’d made a mess of things in every romantic endeavor I attempted, falling for guys who weren’t interested in me, or acting a fool with those who were. Romance was a scene of repetitive trauma, where the same obsessive mistakes and ill-fitting acts went on, without resolution or improvement, where I poured my heart again and again into situations that today I would balk at, or at the very least laugh. Back then it all seemed so serious, and I was too young to be such an earnest individual. When the opening guitar chords of ‘Ray of Light’ rang out over the speakers at Tower Records, I felt my heart on the verge of bursting ~ for regret, for hunger, for happiness and for hope. It was the moment of an audible shift in perspective. There, in that song, was an instant of sheer joy, as the bass pounded and the beat kicked in, rendering and revealing the moment as both the miniscule role we play in the bigger picture, as well as a representation of the immensity of our place in it. Suddenly it all clicked, and those years of hurt and frustration were left in the dust. I could cry over the sorrows of the past, dwell on the shame and embarrassment, and wallow in the pain of everything I could not control, but the only person who was harmed in all of that was me. In the words of another wise woman, “Ain’t nobody got time for that!”

 
 
Faster than the speeding light she’s flying

 

Trying to remember where it all began.

 

She’s got herself a little piece of heaven

 

Waiting for the time when Earth shall be as one.

 

It was a turning point in the way I saw life. The enjoyment of the present moment could now be seen as a flower in full bloom ~ tomorrow it might fade and fall apart, but that was no excuse not to enjoy today ~ in fact, all the more reason to make the most of it. Romance, once the heavy stuff of dusty Victorian novels, the impossible-not-to-be-dashed hopes of ill-fated suitors, was rechristened into something lighter, far more fun, and thrilling in a giddy way. Men ~ those strange, wondrous, enchanting figures that drifted so dreamily across my mind ~ lost a bit of their hold over my sway. And the moment you stop the search, the moment you really and truly come into your own, when you realize that you don’t need anyone to be all right, is the moment you become tantalizing to others. No one liked a cry baby, and no one wanted a wimp. All those years of moping around and going on about losing out on love were seen at last as a foolish waste ~ the indulgent sort of pain that those in true peril instantly dismiss.

It didn’t happen over the course of this one song ~ though it played a helpful part. It played out over the Spring and Summer of that year ~ and the next time I entertained a relationship would end up being one of the great loves of my life. For now, though, for the summer of ‘Ray of Light’, I was light-hearted and happy and fulfilled by some light play, some unexpected cuddling, and some sexy, sultry nights. It was an awakening.

 

 
 
And I feel like I just got home
And I feel…
And I feel like I just got home
And I feel…
Quicker than a ray of light…
Quicker than a ray of light…
Quicker than a ray of light…

Far more than romance, it also affected my friendships, and, more importantly, my ability to make friends. All my life I’d been almost painfully shy, even as I pretended otherwise. My barriers were always up, emotional weapons ever at the ready, for self-preservation and protection more than anything else, but the end result was the same ~ impenetrable coldness. The inaccessibility of the unloved, and the self-defeating/self-fulfilling whirlpool of swallowed feelings, of a perpetually downward spiral… well, at its most basic, I didn’t want to make a fool of myself. I didn’t want to be less-than-perfect. And perfection is both icy and wearying. It’s hard to love a perfectionist, and even harder to know what, if anything, about a perfectionist is real ~ because perfect people simply don’t exist. Once I stopped pretending, once I revealed my foibles and stumbles, admitted my ignorance, and loosened up on the hair product, I was much better company.

On a Spring night a few days after ‘Ray of Light’ was released, I had my friend Simon over for drinks. He was a straight guy ~ one of the few who worked at Structure at the time ~ and we shared a cocktail or two before heading out into the night. I asked if he wanted to come along while I tried out a pair of rollerblades (proof that I truly no longer minded making a fool of myself in front of people). I donned a ridiculously dramatic black coat that fluttered behind me in the breeze. I went slowly at first, as he was on foot, circling around as we chatted about work and other nonsense. This, then, was what others did ~ they talked with co-workers, they shared silliness, they slowed and accelerated to keep up with friends. We neared Copley Square, where Simon would get on the T, and I’d get to go as fast as I could in the open expanse of the space in front of Trinity Church. I turned my headphones up, and as the high-pitched scream near the end of the song sounded, I joined Madonna in falsetto-bitch madness, screaming at the top of my lungs. I couldn’t hear myself with the headphones on, but I saw Simon turn around, look at me like I was crazy, then bust out laughing.

Zephyr in the sky at night I wonder
Do my tears of mourning sink beneath the sun?
She’s got herself a universe gone quickly,
For the call of thunder threatens everyone.

I returned to my parents’ home in upstate New York for some of that summer, and Madonna was on the Oprah Winfrey show, where she performed ‘Ray of Light’ live for the first time. She looked radiant, relaxed, and gleeful. There had been tornado warnings that week, and thunderstorms stalked the area (there was even a Storm Watch warning that got recorded during the show, somewhere on that long-lost VHS tape), but at the end of the tumultuousness came the sun. That season of ‘Ray of Light’ found me having fun in Rochester, and Albany, and even Amsterdam. I bounced around to several places, taking Madonna’s cue for a more relaxed and less severe stance on life. I wore the remnants of some old beads I’d had from the ‘Like A Prayer’ days, lined my arms with ratty hemp bracelets, flirting with the ease of faded denim and hippy accents like a re-born flower child. And I found a glimpse of love here and there, not allowing myself to get bogged down with it, not allowing myself to stay anywhere for too long, but just enough to sustain the heart. In that way, I learned not to settle, even if not settling had its price too.

A few weeks later, I found myself walking along the tracks of a train terminal, coming or going from Boston, with this song running through my head. Luggage weighed down both my hands, but the sun shone brilliantly amid the departing and arriving trains, and my heart was light as the day. Perhaps this was my home ~ this perpetual state of journeying, this place of transitory transit ~ and perhaps home wasn’t a place, but a frame of mind. If that proved to be true, then maybe we’ve always been home all along, we just didn’t know it. It may not erase the terrors of the past ~ and that Wizard-of-Oz-like journey will never be completely forgotten ~ but it makes the way of the future a little easier to bear.

And I feel…
Quicker than a ray of light
Then gone for
Someone else will be there
Through the endless years
She’s got herself a universe
She’s got herself a universe
She’s got herself a universe

As a song, ‘Ray of Light’ was a momentous milestone in Madonna’s creative trajectory. It was an instant classic, and a high-point on her greatest studio album to date. While live performances have occasionally been spotty (a wretched VMA’s that year, and a dismal high note at a Live Aid event), she’s performed it admirably on a number of tours ~ perhaps too many, as its overexposure by the time ‘Sticky and Sweet’ came around almost made it feel like filler. I still think her straightforward reading of it (without playing guitar) on the Drowned World Tour was my favorite.

The video is a hyper-kinetic sped-up view of a day in the world, the first of a relatively long line to be directed by Jonas Akerlund. For some reason, this effort always felt a bit hollow, especially for the title track of such an epic album. Madonna is almost a supporting player in the tapestry of life that moves at break-neck pace across the screen, but it works in showing that she’s just a bit player in the universe too, so I guess I’m just being selfish in wanting to see more of her.

And I feel
And I feel
And I feel like I just got home
And I feel…

As for me, ‘Ray of Light’ will always be remembered as the song of the summer in which I learned to let the past go, and to love and laugh and live in the moment. It will always be one of Madonna’s greatest lessons ~ finding the simple joy in music ~ and whenever I find myself bogged down by dismal dwelling or onerous worries of future events, I think of this song, it takes me away, and together we soar.

Quicker than a ray of light she’s flying…
Quicker than a ray of light I’m flying…
Song #88: ‘Ray of Light’ ~Spring 1998
Continue reading ...
02
March
2013
Tags: Madonna
No comments

In the Midnight Hour… A Ray of Light

Tonight I’ll be posting the next Madonna Timeline – at midnight. It’s a very special one, as the iPod has selected ‘Ray of Light’ as the next featured song, just in time to coincide with the 15th anniversary of that album’s release. Fifteen years ago tonight I was waiting in line at the Tower Records in Boston to pick up her greatest album to date (personal opinion of course). I remember the moment distinctly – they were playing the album as we waited, and as soon as I got home, I put it on the stereo, and listened to it in its entirety. It didn’t matter that I had to go to work the next day, or that I was lying on a cold hardwood floor – I listened and I dreamed and I took that musical journey. To this day, ‘Ray of Light’ remains my favorite Madonna album, spawning my favorite Madonna song, and a rather miraculous title track – coming up at midnight…

Continue reading ...
02
March
2013
Tags: General
No comments

You Make Me Sick

It’s a strange thing to hear your pulse running through your ear, but whether it was the sinus issue I’ve had, the stomach flu that finally caught me, or the deliriousness that resulted when both collided, I could hear my pulse in my ear, coupled with the steady, quick breathing I managed to muster through all the blocked passages. This is the worst bout of sickness I’ve had in a rather sickly stretch of winter weeks. For some reason, someone is telling me to slow down and take better care of myself, and truth be told I haven’t cared enough to do that. Better to thrash and crash and blaze the glory.

But this one is different – it feels different. It gave me pause, as I laid on the bed, blinking in the silence, staring at some obscure spot neither here nor there, and listening to my heart and my breath. It was telling me to stop. It was telling me to listen. It was telling me to learn. The secret is in the silence. In my breathing. In your heart. So let’s stop. Just… stop.

UPDATE #1: I spent an incredibly dissatisfying night tossing and turning, stuck smack dab in between the coldest bouts of shivering chills and the hottest, most uncomfortable sweating sessions, with no happy middle ground. My empty stomach burned, and I felt on the verge of throwing up, but how would that even have been possible when I’d expelled everything I had to give a few hours prior? There was nothing left to give the toilet.

I awoke in a state of slight confusion, mollified by the delivery of a Brooks Brothers order. But who can think of dressing up at a time like this? While not hungry, I knew if I didn’t eat then I’d probably pass out, or start sending texts that would rival the drunkest night, and nobody would stand for that, so I tried a small bit of soup and that stupid sickness stand-by – Saltines. So far, it has stayed down, but these are early days yet. Stay tuned…

UPDATE #2: Oh God, this is not over yet. There are rumblings from afar… getting closer. Someone just suggested that I have an abortion. If it would help at this point, I would, even if there are NO WIRE HANGERS in this house…

UPDATE #3: Good Lord, I think my stomach is about to recreate a scene from ‘Alien’ here…

UPDATE #4: Sweet Baby Jesus, my mother has just suggested I try the BRAT diet.  It consists of bananas, rice, applesauce and plain toast. I think it was her passive-aggressive way of telling me I’m a brat and kicking me when I’m down.

UPDATE #5: If the point of the BRAT diet is to run through you like a marathon, then yes, it works.

Continue reading ...
01
March
2013
Tags: Gratuitous Nudity, Literature
No comments

The Magic Mann

Morality? It interests you does it? All right – it seems to us that one ought not to search for morality in virtue, which is to say in reason, in discipline, in good behavior, in respectability – but in just the opposite, I would say: in sin, in abandoning oneself to danger, to whatever can harm us, destroy us. It seems to us that it is more moral to lose oneself and let oneself be ruined than to save oneself. The great moralists have never been especially virtuous, but rather adventurers in evil, in vice, great sinners who teach us as Christians how to stoop to misery. You must find that all very repugnant. ~ Thomas Mann, ‘The Magic Mountain’

The wicked dance in which you are caught up will last many a little sinful year yet, and we would not wager much that you will come out whole. To be honest, we are not really bothered about leaving the question open. Adventures in the flesh and spirit, which enhanced and heightened your ordinariness, allowed you to survive in the spirit what you probably will not survive in the flesh. There were moments when, as you “played king,” you saw the intimation of a dream of love rising out of death and this carnal body. And out of this worldwide festival of death, this ugly rutting fever that inflames the rainy evening sky all around – will love someday rise up out of this, too? ~ Thomas Mann, ‘The Magic Mountain’

Continue reading ...
01
March
2013
Tags: Madonna
No comments

In Like A Virgin Lion, Out Like A Lamb

And so we bid another Winter month good-bye – the last full one of this dismal season – but March has a way of lingering longer than we anticipate, and most of our worst storms seem to come at this time of the year, when we’re at the end of our rope. Luckily, March is also the time of the year when magical things happen, especially concerning Madonna. Rather than look back over the last month, let’s focus on what is about to come. My next Madonna Timeline will coincide with the 15th anniversary of the release of ‘Ray of Light’, and it just so happens that the iPod has shifted to the title track as the next selection. That album informed a number of momentous highlights so far, like ‘Frozen‘ and ‘Drowned World: Substitute for Love‘. This one will be a lighter take on things, as ‘Ray of Light’ is one of her most joyous cuts, and Spring deserves something buoyant, brave, and brilliant. Let’s see if I can rise to the challenge.

Continue reading ...
01
March
2013
Tags: Albany, Art
No comments

Truth, Beauty, Freedom and Love

One of the best parts of not having to host 1st Friday anymore is the freedom to see any and all of the shows that go on every 1st Friday in Albany. Today, that means getting to take my time and peruse the Upstate Artist Guild’s ‘Skin Show’. It is especially fun for me as the featured artist will be none other than one of my favorites, Newbold Bohemia, and his allegorical figure photography, which must be seen to be believed.

Check out his website at http://www.newboldbohemia.com/, where a more descriptive analysis of his work is explained:

For Newbold Bohemia, an image is not captured in an instant, it is cultivated over time. While other artists exploit the documentary nature of photography, Newbold subverts reality by creating falsified and forged documents. His images are openly staged and/or manipulated after being captured.

“Photos are just a material like paint, wood, or clay,” says Newbold. “I plan, create, and capture images in my studio or in the field. I color them, paint them, and combine them — either physically or digitally — to create something new. I try to create not only an image, but an entire world within my image,” explains Newbold, “a world that is fictional but hopefully truthful. As Emerson said, ‘Fiction reveals truth that reality obscures.’ ”

Even the name Newbold Bohemia is a fabrication. The name reminds Newbold to create art dedicated to the four pillars of Bohemian society — “Truth, Beauty, Freedom and Love.”

The Skin Show, with featured artist Newbold Bohemia, will be on display today at the Upstate Artist Guild, 247 Lark Street, Albany, NY 12210, from 6 to 9 PM. 

Continue reading ...