Author Archives: Alan Ilagan

23
December
2023
Tags: Dazzler of the Day, Shirtless Male Celebrities
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Dazzler of the Day: Morgan Spector

‘The Gilded Age‘ just finished its sensational second season (and my fingers are crossed for a third, please, please, pretty please!). One of the stalwart stand-outs of this series is the wonderfully complex portrayal of George Russell by Morgan Spector, who earns this Dazzler of the Day. Magnificently managing to be ruthlessly Machiavellian and ingratiatingly charming at the same time he manages to be suave, debonair, and sexy (even in a three-piece suit and top hat), Spector is the ideal foil for Carrie Coon’s beguiling Bertha. Very much hoping we get to see another season of this indulgent piece of exquisite escapism, and much, much more of Mr. Spector. 

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23
December
2023
Tags: Tiny Threads
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#TinyThreads: An Insignificant Series

A little PSA for you and me (and please pronounce ‘me’ as in N’Sync’s ‘It’s Gonna Be Me’) to make it work: Mercury is in retrograde motion until January 1, 2024, so 2023 is gonna end on an appropriately sucky note. Forewarned is fair-warned, as they say in the retail biz. 

#TinyThreads

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23
December
2023
Tags: Family, Holiday
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Christmas Brotherhood

Once upon a happier time, my brother and I would pick up the family Christmas tree from Bob’s Tree Farm, winding through the back roads that lead out of then back into Amsterdam. It was something we started after I left for college, a small way of finding our way back to each other after the disturbing traumas of an average adolescence. Later, when he had kids, we would bring them along for the ride, and incorporate a dinner at the Cock & Bull. 

A few years ago we had a big fight on the night we went to get the tree, and haven’t been able to pick up the tradition again. It was, like so many fights among brothers, something that started off in silly and trivia fashion, then quickly blew up into something that must have triggered both of us, bringing up all 40 years of being brothers. There’s a lot of misunderstanding and hurt that happens over such a long span of time. A lot of love and familial history too. Somehow, we’re still ok, as ok as any brothers can be I suppose. I wish we could be closer, but I understand why we may not be – at least, I think I’m starting to understand. 

I texted him a few weeks ago to see if he wanted to go our for a dinner at the Cock & Bull with the twins again, as a way of reigniting our Christmas tradition. I never heard back, and I assume his calendar is booked with other events and obligations. Nobody texts back these days, and it’s simply something we can’t take personally. 

Our history came up at my last therapy session, and my therapist had asked whether we had been compared to each other while we were growing up. My memory on this was that my brother was often compared to me, particularly regarding grades and performance in school. It was a regular thing, and when you are on the ‘good’ side of such a comparison, you don’t take much stock in it. It didn’t feel bad on that side of it, but I never gave much thought to my brother’s reception of such comparisons. I do know it happened a lot, and looking back it makes sense that it might have left a mark. 

My therapist then asked if we had the same circle of friends, to which I replied we did not and never have. She said that might explain some things, as people who have been compared unfavorably with others tend to move away from those to whom the comparison has been made, finding their own circles and their own life away from the origin of such discomfort. 

A greater understanding and perspective clicked for me then. All these years of feeling like I had to instigate every get-together or engagement with my brother may not have been in my imagination, and while I still don’t believe it was overtly intentional on his part, perhaps this is part of an underlying reason why he seems less than interested in hanging out with me. After thinking of it that way, I can’t blame him. 

This isn’t the time of year for blame anyway, especially among families, and especially after losing our Dad. I don’t feel resentment for my brother’s apparent disinterest, and I can’t feel badly now for how we were raised. In many ways, neither of us had control over any of it, then or now. All I can do is be there if and when he needs his brother, and keep trying to be a better brother than I was the day before. 

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22
December
2023
Tags: Cologne, Tom Ford
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Every Season is Ford Season

Having been lucky and blessed enough to have amassed a sizable collection of Tom Ford Private Blends from birthdays and Valentine’s Days and Christmas Eves (and a few non-occasion days where I simply had to treat myself) I’m fortunate to have an arsenal of fragrances appropriate for every turn of the calendar. 

This time of the year, when things are filled with magic and sparkle, and when being extra is expected of everyone, I indulge in the intoxicating sweetness of sandalwood. At any other time of the year it might be a bit too much, but for the holidays it’s just right. ‘Santal Blush‘ is still sublime, and ‘Ebene Fume‘ is a smokier take on sandalwood that incorporates some Palo Santo to temper its sweetness. 

Winter wants something dry and cozy, a bit of ‘Oud Wood’ or ‘Tobacco Oud’. It also comes with the pink sickly-sweetness of Valentine’s Day, for which the rosy sheen of ‘Oud Fleur‘ (and its incense-like haze) or ‘Rose de Russie‘ and its more delicate floral enchantment, are tailor-fitted.

The freshness of spring finds barber-shop beauty in ‘Fougere D’Argent‘ and ‘Beau de Jour’.  That’s merely a warm-up for the heat of summer, when the Portofino collection comes into its own glory with ‘Neroli Portofino‘, ‘Costa Azzurra’ and ‘Mandarino di Amalfi‘. Then there is the warmth and light of ‘Soleil Blanc’. 

Turning into fall, some of Ford’s richest offerings shimmer with the advance of colder nights, such as ‘Amber Absolute‘, ‘Bois Marocain‘ and ‘Japon Noir‘. And then it’s holiday time again, when the sparkle show returns… 

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22
December
2023
Tags: Tiny Threads
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#TinyThreads: An Insignificant Series

Every year they put less and less tape in a roll of Scotch tape. 

This is not a conspiracy theory.

Facts.

And every year we have a surplus of Scotch tape until the month of December when it all suddenly disappears right before we need to wrap gifts. (See also ‘birthday‘.)

#TinyThreads

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22
December
2023
Tags: David Beckham, Underwear
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David Beckham By Victoria Beckham

Victoria Beckham has blessed us not only with Posh Spice, but also with these BTS pics of her husband David Beckham doing various routines in nothing save his Calvin Kleins. (Strange, for someone who has his very own underwear brand, but to each their own.) Victoria has gifted us with a glimpse at David Beckham’s naked ass in this post, and occasionally appeared with him in underwear ads over a decade ago. 

Getting a “private” view of what M. Beckham gets to see on the daily is always a thrill. 

It’s been far too long since we’ve had a proper David Beckham post. Let’s look back at some previous appearances at the links below. Click away!

David Beckham in boxer briefs.

David Beckham in bodywear.

David Beckham basically busting out of his pants.

David Beckham in a basic gratuitous post.

David Beckham in his own scent.

David Beckham in his new underwear.

David Beckham: bulge or butt?

David Beckham in brief, and briefs.

David Beckham in budgie smugglers.

David Beckham, almost definitively.

David Beckham bonus shots.

David Beckham out of his shirt.

David Beckham giving glimpses of skin.

David Beckham’s bum.

David Beckham as the Sexiest Man Alive.

David Beckham getting back to basics.

David Beckham’s butt peek.

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21
December
2023
Tags: Madonna, Music
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The Madonna Timeline: Song #173 – ‘God Control’ ~ Summer 2019

{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.}

Everybody knows the damn truthOur nation lied, we lost respectWhen we wake up, what can we do?Get the kids ready, take them to schoolEverybody knows they don’t have a chanceTo get a decent job, to have a normal lifeWhen they talk reforms, it makes me laughThey pretend to help, it makes me laughI think I understand why people get a gunI think I understand why we all give upEvery day they have a kind of victoryBlood of innocence, spread everywhereThey say that we need loveBut we need more than this…

One of the absolute highlights of Madonna’s somewhat-underappreciated (and some might say somewhat-underwhelming) ‘Madame X’ album is ‘God Control’ – a masterpiece of a sonic journey, complete with choir and tongue-in-cheek rapping, that comes with the last great video she’s given us. Give it another listen and viewing below:

We lost God controlWe lost God controlWe lost God controlWe lost God control

This song, and the entire thought-provoking ‘Madame X’ album, brings me back to the summer of 2019 – in so many ways a last summer of innocence, and a last summer before the world went bonkers. Maybe it’s just me getting old, and maybe people always say this as time moves on, but I do genuinely feel that things are different. Society – especially American society – has changed, and it doesn’t seem for the better.

This is your wake-up callI’m like your nightmareI’m here to start your dayThis is your wake-up callWe don’t have to fallA new democracyGod and pornographyA new democracy…

The rise of America’s gun culture, and the apparently unswaying way we are all letting people, including children, just succumb to something that could be so easily stopped is one more tell-tale sign of these changes. Madonna tackled the subject in this song and video, switching out ‘Gun Control’ for ‘God Control‘ because religion plays its part in where we have been, and where we are headed. A hypocritical religion, perhaps, but a religion nonetheless. 

People think that I’m insaneThe only gun is in my brainEach new birth, it gives me hopeThat’s why I don’t smoke that dopeInsane people think I amBrain inside, my only friendHope it gives me birth each newThat dope I don’t smoke, it’s true…

Only Madonna could turn such a controversial topic into a video that is transfixing, enthralling, entertaining, disturbing, and impossible-not-to-watch. At four decades into an unprecedented career of entertainment domination, she’s mastered the art form of the video – hell, she practically invented it – and it remains one of the most vital methods of communicating her message. Images aligned with music, backed with meaning and significance, taking us on a journey of light and dark… this is what Madonna does best. 

Everybody knows the damn truthEverybody knows the damn truth (wake up)We need to wake up, wake up, wake up, wake up, wake upWake up, wake up, wake up, wake up, wake upWe need to make up, make up, make up, make upMake up, make up, make up, make up, make up, make upIt’s a hustle, yeahIt’s a hustleIt’s a conIt’s a hustleIt’s a weird kind of energyA bizarre thing that happens to beAn abnormal fraternityAnd I feel more than sympathy

A message that was depressingly resonant and needed in 2019 has become a message that rings with even greater loss and rage in 2023. Thoughts and prayers have done nothing over the past four years, and will continue to do nothing. Gun violence is the number one killer of children in America. So while you’re worried about drag queens reading books to your kids or an imaginary war on Christianity, ask yourself what Jesus might do when confronted with an epidemic like guns. Pretty sure he wouldn’t be arming himself with an AR-15. 

A new democracy!
Everybody knows the damn truthOur nation lied, we’ve lost respectWhen we wake up, what can we do?Get the kids ready, take them to schoolEverybody knows they don’t have a chanceGet a decent job, have a normal lifeWhen they talk reform, it makes me laughThey pretend to help, it makes me laugh…

And so we laugh, and so we float along… In that summer of 2019, my niece and nephew join us for a swim in the pool. Laughing and splashing, the carefree memories of childhood encroach on the present moment, and I remember a time when kids weren’t getting shot in schools. The water is warm, the sun is strong, and, based on all outward appearances, who can tell a summer day by the pool today from a summer day by the pool forty years ago? A disco tune still spins in the background, the gleeful squeals of kids having fun punctuate the beat, and that funny juxtaposition of laughter and tears reminds me that the world has gone mad, and I no longer know how not to go mad along with it. 

Song #173 – ‘God Control’ ~ Summer 2019

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21
December
2023
Tags: Tiny Threads
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#TinyThreads: An Insignificant Series

New rule for my old self: do not put things down. Whether it’s the car keys, reading glasses, a bottle of cologne, the phone, a jockstrap, the mail, a laptop, your office ID card, a cup of tea – just keep it in your hands until you need it. The moment you put it down is the moment you forget where you put it down.

#TinyThreads

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21
December
2023
Tags: General, Music
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A Whisper on the First Day of Winter…

Winter then … let us have our winter now.

With pause and hesitance and … slow deliberation …

With wait and stop and still and false …

With the eternal ellipsis indicating that something is missing …

With something more …

“Depending on their context and placement in a sentence, ellipses can indicate an unfinished thought, a leading statement, a slight pause, an echoing voice, or a nervous or awkward silence.”

I like the idea of winter beginning with an ellipsis …

So much mystery, so much possibility, so much left out, so much left to come …

So much left …

“An ellipsis may also imply an unstated alternative indicated by context.”

I also like the idea of winter beginning in bright bombast, in the cacophonous tumult and zany, electrified excitement of the holidays. Christmas!! New Year’s!!! And then the inevitable letdown and arrival of the doldrums … that’s what I truly seek this season.

The emptiness.

The aloneness.

When the noise is done, when the parties are over, when the resuming of school and work and life quickly renders this next week or two obsolete and soon forgotten, I will embrace the quiet and the stillness. 

The dark night of winter descends – may it also be a cloak, wherein we find healing and growth. I don’t want to pretend the pain away, I want to be fully present, to go through all of the hurt and ache of a winter, the prick of an icy wind, the sting of a frigid morning, the deluge of a winter snowstorm. But I want to do it with a cloak, or at the very least a veil. We all need a little bit of protection, no matter how strong or bullish we might appear. 

“The sign of ellipsis can function as a floor holding device, and signal that more is to come …”

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20
December
2023
Tags: Music
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Found Song Echoing For the Final Day of Fall

We have arrived at the end of fall, and so we bracket this day’s end with the same song we played at the beginning of fall. Often, this is the post when we might have looked back at the fall season and all the things we did, but I’m not feeling nostalgic this soon – it’s too fresh, and I’m a bit too tired. If you’re truly interested in going back, scroll all the way to the bottom of the post, and look on the left for the little link labeled ‘Older Entries’. Repeat that until you find something approaching summer, then keep going… 

Another compelling reason not to recap anything here is the simple fact that I just don’t remember much of it. That’s a bit of a problem, indicative of my gaining years and losing faculties. So much of this fall has been simply going through the motions, setting myself on autopilot, days moving swiftly by in habitual, ordered fashion, anything to maintain momentum, even if the momentum is the bare minimum required to sustain, to survive, to get up one more time. 

I want to drown in your moonbeam…

This fall was partly about faking it, about pretending that I’d made it through the wilderness of this past summer and was beginning again, and that it was ok. But I don’t think things are ok. No. In fact, I know they are not ok, and there’s a likely possibility that they will never be ok again. I wasn’t quite ready to admit that at the start of fall. Leaving the options open for something to change my mind felt like the right thing to do. It gave me the spark of hope, even if nothing ever ignited or came of it. Maybe this winter I will learn to face it, to accept and somehow embrace the predicament of not being ok. 

The comforts of fall grow even more scant in winter, but I’m not afraid of that. Discomfort is often the only way to grow, and even though 48 years old feels closer to the end than the beginning, I’m giving myself some room, and time, to get better. Let’s see what this winter will bring…

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20
December
2023
Tags: Tiny Threads
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#TinyThreads: An Insignificant Series

The world needs more biblical humor, especially at this time of the year.

PS – I would have gone with Joseph over God based on this depiction, but whatever Mary.

#TinyThreads

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20
December
2023
Tags: Albany
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Albany’s Nipper Tastes A Rainbow

This post was originally entitled ‘Albany’s Nipper Pukes A Rainbow‘ but then I remembered it’s almost fucking Christmas so I wanted to show a little respect. Just a little bit. (Just a little bit.) 

Rainbows in December – for all the charm and wonder and beauty of them, something disturbing and foreboding lingers in the queasy light and rain. On a recent afternoon, following a day of drizzle and gray clouds, the sun peeked out, and a multitude of rainbows filled the December sky. One landed right outside my office window, another seemed to emanate from the mouth of Nipper. (Strangely enough, not the dog’s first nip at a rainbow.) Andy sent me photos from his doctor’s appointment, where a full rainbow arched over the entire sky. Social media lit up with all of them – a world of rainbows on a December afternoon – signifiers of peace or something much more sinister, like climate change, and none of us caring to be any wiser. 

So we put our pictures up and write our blog posts and go on our merry ways, thinking how wonderful and enchanting it is to have rainbows at this late stage of the calendar year. Would Noah have gone through all that trouble if he knew how little humanity would care for any of his creatures gone extinct? The planet in peril perhaps… the rainbows a plea…

And somewhere over the rainbow a heaven that may or may not exist, along with whatever might become of our souls. When you’ve seen the dust we all become, you understand what little substance makes up a rainbow, along with how pure it must be. Maybe the rainbows are angels, messengers of God, telling us when we’re getting it right, and, probably more often, when we’re getting it wrong. 

Driving home through the rainbows, I do my best to live in some sort of grace, so as not to ruffle the universe’s feathers too much. Invoking the wrath of any entity, human or otherwise, is rarely a wise motion. Silent reverence, then, in honor of all that we do not know, and a little respect. Just a little bit… 

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19
December
2023
Tags: Tiny Threads
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#TinyThreads: An Insignificant Series

Is three the ideal number of episodes in a series? I think it is. Enough for some decent suspense, and, more importantly, not quite enough to draw it out. 

#TinyThreads

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19
December
2023
Tags: Naked Male Celebrities
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Of Salacious Bits & Bobs

Fans of Edison Fan may fawn over his Dazzler of the Day crowning, and the featured photo here may provide further fodder for such fanning and fawning. It’s the ideal kick-off to a rather salacious collection of semi-naked bits and bobs to act as counter-programming for all the family-friendly safety of the holiday season. 

The unabashed ferocity of Lil Nas X is one of the most brilliant happenings of pop culture in the last couple of years, as evidenced by his own crowning as Dazzler of the Day, and this naked album cover. 

Joe Jonas only recently earned his first Dazzler of the Day honor here, and had also appeared in underwear-clad posts like this one or that one. (See also Nick Jonas.)

A nude Glen Powell made a super-splash with his Dazzler of the Day crowning, at least his butt did, which it does all over again here. 

Another rear-view, this time from the wonderfully-bizarre film ‘Saltburn’ and a revelatory performance by Barry Keoghan, brings up the penultimate pic of this post. Keoghan’s Dazzler of the Day may be found here. 

Finally, taking up pride-of-place in the parting shot, Noah Beck sets the stage for a future Dazzler of the Day crowning. Always leave them wanting more…

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19
December
2023
Tags: Holiday
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Christmas By Fanny

Do a deep dive on Fanny Cradock on YouTube and feel ten times worse about your Christmas cooking and planning. This is the sort of person who would have scared the bejesus out of me as a child, almost as much as she would have enthralled me. These days she simply provides fascinating holiday fodder in a season that needs a little blunt trauma to take the edge of the saccharine sweetness of it all. 

“May I say how much I admire the housewives of Britain, in these appalling present conditions, for their courage in trying to give their families another super Christmas,” she says with haughty grandeur.

Her personal story is tinged with controversy, and in today’s cancel-happy culture, she’d likely be smeared and dragged and left for obscurity. Instead, she lives on in these video clips, at the most wonderful time of the year, when we most need a frightening specter.

“I have always been extremely rude, and got exactly what I wanted.” – Fanny Cradock

Tell it, Fanny. Tell it.

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