Category Archives: General

Season premieres always thrilled me. If there were new clips and an updating to a show’s theme song, that was even more exciting. (Who among my generation didn’t delight at every updating of the intro to ‘The Cosby Show‘? I still remember that tropical orchestral version that turned it on its head in the best way.)

We’re changing things up a bit here for the fall season of ALANILAGAN.com – which has its own premiere on September 23 – the official first day of fall this year. Don’t worry (well, go ahead and worry in this case) there will be regular posts up until then, including a fantastic summer recap for the few kind folks who have been clamoring for some pool shots these past few months. You got to skin it to win it.

The fall season of this site will begin where I have rarely gone – into my work history with the state of New York. It’s a bit of a dry start for anyone who isn’t in the drudgery, but it has some juicy tidbits for anyone who’s been part of the state system.

On a broader scale, we are also headed into the fall and/or possibly winter of this blog. At a whopping sixteen years of age, this thing is a dinosaur among blogs, and part of what has kept it going is not commercial or popular success – it’s just a simple need to create. That won’t change anytime soon, but blogs haven’t been hot in quite some time, and to do all of this takes time and work. The latter I don’t mind, but the former is in short supply these days, and doesn’t look to expand any time soon. But that’s for me to figure out, and no sense in saying anything other than I think we’re well beyond the halfway mark of this website’s lifespan, at least in its current incarnation.

To keep things interesting in this second act, I’m going to change up the general pattern of this site. A typical day of posts has more or less included a morning piece, a midday collection of #TinyThreads, and a Hunk of the Day happy ending to finish the evening. We are reshuffling this a bit. Fall demands change.

First up, I’m easing off on the Tiny Threads series. It was, to be sure, an insignificant series for this site, but will still crop up from time to time – just not on the daily schedule it used to occupy. You should totally check in now and then and follow the long linky trail that each of those posts has within it (just keep clicking on the #TinyThreads link to bring you back to a previous TT post).

I’m also moving the Hunk of the Day to the middle of the afternoon on most days, when I can shoot out a proper promo post on FaceBook and Twitter during my lunch break. Pretty people bring in appreciators of beauty, who may then (hopefully) peruse more posts. Or they can simply enjoy the prettiness in the middle of the day, when most of us need a jolt of inspiration to carry us into the evening hours.

The Madonna Timeline is most definitely into its own winter season, with the final quarter of songs I have locked and loaded and ready for random selection. There are a few gems yet to be excavated, though the main soundtrack of my life has already been pilloried for the series. [See ‘Crazy For You‘ or ‘Live To Tell‘ or ‘You’ll See’ or ‘Secret Garden.’]

As for the rest of it – the Naked Male Celebrities, the Tom Ford, the Fashion, the Flowers, the Family, and Andy – much will continue as it always has, at least for the time being. This is the stuff of my life, and I’ll keep trying to make sense of it here, with all its accompanying foibles and follies and frills.

It happened as I swirled the bar of ‘After the Sun’ Beekman 1802 soap in my hands and drew the lather over my arms. The shower was warm, the day had been long, and in this solitary moment of indulgence a simple bit of soap brought beauty and solace to the evening. It struck me that this was what the Beekman Boys had been talking about when they explained their vision not just for a cleaner and healthier lifestyle from their beauty products, but a happier one. As the captivating aroma of lavender filled the room and the softness of aloe and goat milk permeated my skin, I thought of the notion of happiness, and how gloriously contagious it could be. If you can be happy, do it. If you can be happy and naked and surrounded by suds, do that.

Having been a Beekman 1802 neighbor since this trip to Sharon Springs in 2012, I’ve been religiously using their products, and it’s enriched the way I take care of myself (and others, because these items make great gifts). The bar of ‘After the Sun’ soap has lasted since earlier in the summer – a glorious creation that perfectly soothes any angry bits of redness the sun may have inadvertently left on the skin. I place it back in the holder, where it leaves neither soap scum nor mushy residue, and once again wonder at the simplicity and enchanting properties of goat’s milk.

More than that, I experience a moment of euphoria – a moment of sheer happiness and comfort and joy culled from the beauty of the world, and the way in which the Beckman Boys so lovingly spread that message of happiness. It’s in the idyllic wake-up pictures of their farm that they post, in the uplifting way they give back to their local community on small and grand scales, and in the careful curation of products that eschew harmful chemicals. They leave their mark in a sustainable fashion, and share their message of happiness with neighbors around the world. There’s no better way to be a citizen of society. We are all in this together, and there’s something very poetic about finding all of that in a simple bar of soap. 

{This weekend, the Beekman 1902 company will be hosting the 10th anniversary of their annual Harvest Festival in Sharon Springs and if you’re in the area you should absolutely check it out. I don’t think we’ll be able to make this one, but we will be watching their televised HSN event and being neighborly that way (while also stocking up on holiday gifts… ok, and maybe something for me because the giver needs some pampering too).}

Do you remember that now-classic Steven Spielberg scene at the start of ‘Jurassic Park’ where the suspense is built upon a single ripple in a glass of water? It portends the arrival of the Tyrannosaurus rex and is chilling in its simplicity and power. I was reminded of that when I looked out the window and saw bits of bark and leaves fluttering down from the sky. Up until then the day had been a lovely one and there was still light in the sky. But falling debris out of nowhere meant that the winds were high nearby, and strong enough to carry such lofty detritus down to the earth. A metaphoric substitution of a coming storm for the coming fall. Such dramas, if they stay so little, have always thrilled me. I went outside to the backyard to await its arrival…

Tomorrow this site goes dark, as it has since I first started posting things in 2003, in honor of those lost on 9/11/01. The beauty of September has been marred ever since that date, but it also marks a time to remember all the love that is still in this world. I forget about that sometimes. Here are a few posts that remind us of the capability of the human heart, and what we can do when we pause to see the beauty of the world. At least, it’s what I try to do – and what I need to do more often. 

Walking in the woods.

Looking up at the moon.

Breaking the day.

Smudging a home. 

Holding hands. 

Wedding love. 

Babysitting adventures. 

Painting memories. 

Wording.

Falling for Shirley.

Returning to beauty.

Holding the ocean.

Finding woodland peace.

Posing in a tree.

Milking the goats.

So many nines in the date today, let’s hope they bring us luck. In the meantime, as some fall-feeling nights have snapped us into school-time awareness, we shall look back at the first full week of September, already over, as the rest of the month charges ahead at full speed…

It began in the finest of forms – Maluma and Ricky Martin to be precise.

Morning visitors and afternoon storms. 

The category is Tom Daley in skimpy attire.

#FuckingVirgos.

Ghost objects.

We want and want and want.

I ate a hot dog with peanut butter, bacon, cheese, and scallions. 

Twelve years ago I found FaceBook and vice versa.

Can’t be mad about it now. 

The moody magnificence of Madonna’s ‘Music’ album. 

Do I have ‘Google’ written on my ass?

Hunks of the Day included Mark Cirillo, Max Parker, Ryan Russell, Daniel Franzese,  James Heatly and Theo James.

From what I can tell, September 25, 2007 marks the date that I joined FaceBook. Back then our posts were written in the third person, a tactic I loved and still miss. It’s just so much easier to deal with myself in the third person. Crazy people do that, some say. [Alan shrugs.] As for the rest of FaceBook, I’ve taken part and engaged in it mostly on my own terms. Even when they censor my ass – or my dick as is more often the case – I still do exactly what I want within the scope of its admittedly-limited parameters. (I let all of it hang out on this website, so you’ve come directly to the source.)

Twelve years of anything is a substantial chunk of time, and in social media time it feels even longer. There was a time when FaceBook provided a destination and diversion unto itself, particularly in the early years, and a nifty way to cross-promote online projects and such. (To this day, its main function, for my purposes, is to alert people to a new blog post here.) For those without their own personal website, it also could act as a sort of mini-website, where photos and notes and communications could eventually come to coalesce into a monument to oneself. A repository of items that, taken together, comprised a body of work that stood up as some Frankensteinian effigy. Everybody could be a star. Yet in the very egalitarian act of allowing each of us a platform, it worked to negate itself. Everyone was still no one, we just all had bigger megaphones to shout about ourselves. Still, substance and consistency would win out in the end, and quality users who maintained a modicum of originality and interesting content have sustained themselves.

At this point, my use of FaceBook is somewhat limited. I always enjoy seeing what my real-life friends are doing or planning or thinking. In an age where phone calls long ago died out and face-to-face meetings are a quaint thing of the past, FaceBook is where most of us go to keep up with friends and family who have found their way to the periphery of our lives. (And a very welcome reminder of when everyone’s birthday is – the most life-saving feature of FaceBook.) With other social media diversions such as Twitter and Instagram taking up my time – both of which require far less concentration and follow-up – I’m no longer quite as engaged on FaceBook as I once was. That sort of ennui actually bleeds into all of online life of late, which is a much healthier stance, and makes for a much happier countenance. It’s also a sign of summer, when outdoor enchantments take precedence over a computer screen. Fall will shift that a bit, so perhaps it’s time for a FaceBook Renaissance. And perhaps it’s not…

Most people don’t pay much attention to the litter on the street, but that’s where I find a lot of inspiration. At least some fodder for imaginative yarns and make-believe stories. We’ve all seen the errant hair extension or sock, and the other day I found this echo of a shoe in downtown Albany. What is the story behind it? Where did it come from and how did it happen to be in such a state of degradation? What its abandonment intentional or accidental? Ghost items bring up all sorts of deep questions – that’s part of why they fascinate me so much.

As for this shoe skeleton, the merest hint of its structure whispering of pedestrian tales and travails, I wonder at its origin. I’d like to think it was the result of excessive decadence and debauchery, the proof of an evening of glamorous impiety. Yet I fear (desire?) a more sordid and sad tale of hard-won dilapidation. Some sort of fight, some sort of drama – something to make it worthwhile. Something that would have made the life of a shoe matter. Something to mark its expiration with a memory.

So little lasts… least of all a forgotten shoe, no matter how many tales it has to tell.

At the other end of this day, a storm moves in. Bands of dark gray move toward the backyard and the wind picks up. Undersides of leaves on distant trees flutter and reveal their lighter color. The goldfinches of the still morning have disappeared. Other birds are restless, and a group of crows appears briefly, high in the sky, swirling in the clouds before shrieking and escaping.

I take refuge beneath the canopy. It will be the last year for this one – it’s tattered and torn and had a good run. Not unlike the end of summer. We’re all a little bruised and battered. Work hard, play hard, die hard, and hopefully we are better for it. Summer can be exhausting – the heat, the fun, the activities – and it sometimes seems to go against its own rules of relaxation. There is effort in constantly trying to be lazy.

And so I welcome the storm. The rain begins and the wind picks up. Suddenly the air is cooler. Though the summer wasn’t a lengthy scorching one, it is a slight relief. The garden needs its rest. To ask for it to keep up a continual show would be to ask for too much. And really, I’d appreciate it far less if it did this the year-round. 

Some mornings are made out of stillness. In the hour before I have to step into the shower and begin the regimented routine that will run like clockwork and ultimately deposit me at the office, I sit in the dining room and stare out the window at a scene made mostly of this stillness. Without even a breeze, not a single leaf moves, not one blade of fountain grasses twists in this silence. Then a happy commotion: a trio of goldfinches alights on the cup plant, disrupting the eerie scene with happy abandon. They are there for the seedheads which are finally beginning to ripen and fall. I pause to watch the three of them there, their bright-yellow feathers accented with splotches of black, almost like a mirror and camouflage beside the similar color scheme of the fading flowers.

All the beauty of the world, right there in my backyard.

A breeze picks up and the grasses begin to sway. Still, the finches peck away at their breakfast, the towering stems of the cup plant moving gently with their weight and the arrival of wind. I thought it was going to rain today, but it hasn’t started yet. Taking in the moment is nourishment for the soul.

The unofficial demise of summer is said to be today, but screw that – summer has a few more weeks yet. Let’s not rush it off so quickly, let’s hold onto its warmth for as long as possible. It never lasts long enough… whatever enough may be. Rewind to the week before, in this hopeless endeavor to perpetually repeat a summer that I am loathe to leave. 

The cry of these summer trumpets was angelic to say the least. 

A letter of love to Betty Lynn Buckley. 

Who will win this race?

More first world problems for those of us in the first world. 

Grandstanding like the old man I am. 

Sunny surprise. 

Happy ending, fig-style. 

Cuckoo, cuckoo…

18 years ago I was just getting started.

When the truth stings. 

My birthday took place in Boston this year.

(And it was pretty splendid.)

Finally, my naked ass, set to beautiful words. 

I can stop traffic!

Hunks of the Day included Travis Wall, Blake McGrath, Chuando Tan, Richard Fleeshman, and Roberto Bolle. 

On this date exactly 18 years ago, Andy drove me to the Department of State, then at the bottom of State Street, at the corner of Broadway in downtown Albany, where I began my career with the State of New York. Nervous and scared and unsure of where it would take me, I stepped into the role of Data Entry Machine Operator, the very lowest on the totem of entry-level positions, and began the journey that would become my state career.

When this blog has its fall season premiere – tentatively slated for September 23 – I’ll expound upon that journey – and all the various twists and turns it has taken over the years. It probably won’t appeal to anyone outside of fellow government workers (and probably not even them to be honest), but it seems as good a place as any to begin our 16^thfall season on this website, when we look to re-set the stage, when others are going back to school and getting another chance to begin again. School and work, comedy and tragedy, yin and yang – we will be right where we need to be – and hopefully you’ll come along for the ride.

Before that, however, a few more weeks of summer are at hand, and a couple days of summer wrap-ups since I stuck around for the sunny season this year. Whether you liked it or not…

Our glorious brown turkey fig tree, which made such a showing already this year, gave me two delicious birthday presents when we returned from Boston (more on that trip in a bit). A pair of figs was finally ripe, and I hastened to cut them up and devour them in case we don’t get any more. The tree has been producing a multitude of fruit, but none of it looked close to being ripe, so I’d been researching tricks to hasten the process along.

The first was an instinctual one: to cut off some branches and pinch off a few growing tips to signify that the plant may be in peril and fruit production should commence to ripening as soon as possible. I also wanted to save a few stems in case our lovely pot doesn’t survive a winter in the garage.

The second was less well-known, and slightly more controversial. Like bananas, figs require a certain gas to ripen fully, and by sealing off the bottom of a fruit with some olive oil, it is said that this gas stays within the fruit, thereby impelling the ripening process. The controversial part is that fruit ripened in this method is said to be a little less sweet. Personally, I didn’t care – I just wanted something ripe regardless of how it was done. And it seems something worked – at least for two.

Oh, and these tasted simply divine.