There’s something magical that happens when Pietro Boselli strips down to a pair of white briefs, but you don’t have to take my word for it. Scroll down for some GIFs that clearly exhibit that magic. And then try this link, and this link, and this link to witness even more.
As Andy and I decompress from a fun, if wet, anniversary weekend in Boston (more on that to come), here’s a quick recap of the week that came before. It’s a cool Monday morning in May, and we wait for the temperatures to match our spirits.
Our annual Broadway tradition is almost in motion, and Mom and I are ready to The Towers at Lotte New York Palace.
The Met Gala is always about Madonna for me.
Naked bedlam, white sheets.
An amazing production of ‘The Bridges of Madison County’ at the SpeakEasy Stage Company.
Hunks of the Day included Nathaniel Buzolic, Matt Adlard, and Christiaan Smith.
This is the first (and last) tour that documented my wanderings more or less as they happened. It was a rare mix of present and past, as I posted what was in the Tour Book, then followed it up with where I had been in real time. That’s a lot of work, and I don’t get paid for this, but it was a labor of love for one’s last tour. The final delusions must be honored. Respect must be paid. Now, as I wind down one more time, a look back at the places I’ve been.
Everything kicked off at The Illuminati Party in August of 2015. That same month I made the first tour stop to Cape Cod, to visit JoAnn and the Cape Crew, along with the visiting Brits for a weekend of fun introductions. My 40th birthday was part of this tour, and I spent it at the Judy Garland suite of the Lenox Hotel in Boston. It was a definite highlight, and I still have the stuffed lion who greeted us with a bottle of champagne. (The champagne is long since gone.)
The next month brought the first major air jaunt of the tour, as I made my way west to Seattle, and my first return there since the late 90’s. It was better than I remembered it – more verdant, more delicious, more beautiful, more everything. And I got to see the whales.
At the end of September, Suzie and I made our way to Boston for Madonna’s Rebel Heart Tour. Some things are meant to be, as when Andy and I closed out the 2015 season in Ogunquit, Maine. By November, Chris and I were living it up at the Standard High Line in New York.
Knowing that this tour would be a long and extended one, I deliberately took it easy travel-wise for the winter, and aside from a few trips to Boston, there was no real movement until I flew to Washington, DC for a long weekend in April 2016. The following month my Mom and I made our annual trek to Broadway to see a few shows (one, two, three), and the next week Andy and I returned to Ogunquit to start the spring/summer season all over again. Skip and I made it to see another Red Sox game in Boston, and I got back to Albany in time to dazzle at the GLSEN Pride Gala.
My birthday last year was spent traveling to Rehoboth Beach, which turned out to be a spectacular trip for us, and another tour highlight. I’d forgotten the simple wonders and pull of the beach. In September 2016 I was back in Washington, DC before Chris was slated to move to Detroit (where I enjoyed a favorite watering hole and some sweet solitude), and then in Boston and Ogunquit for weekends in the fall. When winter arrived again, the tour stayed relatively stationary between Albany and Boston, but I was merely gearing up for its grand finale.
A lifelong dream of visiting the desert came true at the tail end of winter, as I visited Tucson, Arizona and the wonder of the Sonoran Desert and its Saguaro National Park. Words can’t convey the might and majesty of it. There was enchantment, there was magic, there was wonder, and there was peace. As we turned the page to spring, I returned to ‘Sunset Boulevard’ in New York, and closed a circle in brilliant fashion (with a little help from Glenn Close). In other full-circle moments, a return to Chicago was rife with drama and denouements, and a fitting near-finale to the entire essence of my touring years.
That brings us to this moment. Stops in Boston, New York City, and Ogunquit will complete this journey, and while part of me is sad to see the delusions end (we find our safest comfort in the wilderness of our imagination) I am more than ready to let it go. It’s time. In some ways it feels like I’ve been running since my very first tour in 1995. I’m tired. But more than that, I want to start something new. Something real. Something provocative. Something true.
Until then, may all our delusions be grand…
{THE DELUSIONAL GRANDEUR TOUR: LAST STAND OF A ROCK STAR wraps up its run at the end of May.}
There’s a reason hotels use white sheets for their bedding, and it’s not merely a matter of simplifying design decisions. Studies have shown that sleeping on a cloud of white bedding produces a more peaceful and happy night of sleep. Being that such sleep is the main goal of our home, I’ve switched out our winter sheet set for a crisp, cool white collection just in time for the warmer seasons. Whether it’s a psychosomatic trick of the mind, or the phenomenon is a real one, I already feel a bit better about the bedroom. It’s brighter. Cleaner. Softer. All the things you want a bed to be.
One of the most invigorating things you can do for a domicile is switch up the bedding. In Boston we have various sets depending on season and whim, but I’ve neglected to invest in such things in upstate New York for the past few years. We’ve found a winning combination this time around, however, so we should be set for a while. Now, if you’ll excuse me, it’s time to rest easy and go back to bed.
One of my most favorite moments of the past few months was not a crazy jaunt across the world, or a last minute second-row ticket to ‘Hamilton’ – it was a simple snippet of time that happened in the most unlikely of places: my own bedroom. (Calm down, perverts.)
I had spent the day working outside. Somehow the dirt manages to be partly muddy, and partly dry – making for the worst of all worlds – mucky stuff on my shoes and hands, and a dusty layer of airborne soil in my hair and on my clothes. My nose was running, and sweat was carrying dirt to all sorts of fun places. (Mostly my eyes; sorry again, perverts.) The day was cool and breezy, but after spreading cow manure and grappling with patches of pachysandra that have somehow persisted for over a decade, I was a sorry sight. After a winter of relative stagnancy, the stretches involved in preparing the yard for another spring season were a re-awakening of things that had assumed I’d given up on ever stretching again. My body felt sore, my hands and arms were scraped with the cuts and bruises of stubborn plants and incorrigible tools, and my allergies were just beginning to win the battle of pushing me back inside. You would not know it to look at me, but I was happy as a hooker eyeing a vessel docking for shore leave.
My runny nose ran me to the shower, and I let the hot water and soap work their magic in removing the grime of a day from every crevice of my aching body. This was the good kind of pain – the sort that nodded its acknowledgement of a day of work well done. I scrubbed my skin until it glowed like a ‘Peace’ rose, then dried off and combed my hair before sliding into a white terry-cloth robe. I padded barefoot into the bedroom and laid down for a moment, looking out the window where the sun was still shining on the backyard.
That, right then and there, was the moment of happiness and contentment that had eluded me all winter. The comfort after the exertion, the softness after the strife – it was blissful. I promptly fell asleep, which was not my intent, but that was ok too.
It was the sort of simplicity that I so often try to orchestrate, but never quite achieve – and here it was, without even trying.
Another gift of spring.
On this first of May, as we begin one of my favorite months, a look back as is our Monday tradition. The Delusional Grandeur Tour culminates this month with its final flourish. I closed out April in Boston, and we shall return a couple more times before the end is at hand. For now, the week in review:
It began in the Windy City, where beauty and forgiveness found a way, and an artful lunch proved a formidable balm.
A very pretty post of Bryce Thompson.
Sexy blokes, Round one.
Sexy blokes, Round two.
Hunks of the Day included Francois Imbeau Dulac, Aaron Renfree, Frankie Cammarata, Dan Murphy & Charlie Carver.
The most exciting news, however, happened in the dark of night, on a blissfully warm evening: the first swim of the season.
The day started off rainy and cool, but steadily warmed as the hours ticked on. Andy had begun heating the pool as soon as we heard the weather report was calling for the possibility of fine weather. It paid off as the water reached a perfect 87 degrees, and the outside flirted with the 70’s. I slipped in for the first swim of the year, and it felt divine.
The scent of a wood fire carried over the water – someone in the neighborhood was burning for heat or atmosphere, and it smelled both of fall coziness and a spring night. Torn deliciously between seasonal worlds, I floated in the deep end, momentarily free from the usual gravitational burden of walking through life. April hadn’t even ended, and I was already in the pool. I savored the moment quietly, not wanting to tempt the fates with hubris.
Is it “morning dove†or “mourning dove� I’m literally too lazy to type a few words into Google to research this for you, so have at it and leave condescending comments on my FaceBook or Twitter feeds. I love that so much. This is the antidote for that other bird post, the one that didn’t have such a happy ending. Here, a bird sits on its offspring (which had poked its head up just for a moment before the photo was taken).
The nest resides in the upper branches of a climbing hydrangea, against a brick chimney, and I didn’t notice it until the fledgling was already hatched. Unlike the robins, these birds made no sound and gave no attacks, even though I’d been working beneath them clearing debris and pruning the branches of the very vine in which their home rested. Had this been a robin’s nest, we would have been pummeled and driven off by a scene straight out of Hitchcock’s ‘The Birds’ – and I am NOT in a Tippi mood.
My general resistance to beer is being put to the test with this surprisingly moving advertisement from Heineken.
(Though to be honest I’d be happier discussing our differences over a bone dry martini.)
It happened in the night, right before the weekend.
Out of the corner of my eye, I noticed the patch of light gray, lit up by the bright sun, and resplendent against the drab brown ground. When subtle tones and typically-dull colors are combined, the results can be spellbinding. Upon closer inspection, it was a pile of feathers. It looked like a bird had exploded, like some violent but comical explosion in a cartoon.
Body and bones were missing, but in the endless number of feathers blowing around the background, it seemed all the bird’s feathered finery had been left behind. Who or what could have done such a thing?
Andy summed it up thusly: the bird went poof.
I hope it was quick and relatively painless.
The results, while pretty, were also pretty macabre.
Our backyard is Thunderdome for birds.
Fowl play indeed.
After the darkness, morning came. Chris had only been asleep a few hours, so he skipped out on going to the Art Institute with me. There were only three things I wanted to do on this Chicago trip, and he opted out of all of them. I was more than a little miffed, but it wasn’t because I was left to my own devices. It was just disappointing to think about all that he was missing. (That’s the clean, pretty version of events, anyway.)
The day was perfect. It had warmed up and the sun was shining brightly in a blue sky. I arrived a few minutes prior to the Art Institute opening, but there were already people in line, so I joined the assembly between the two sentinel lions. The last time I was here was for a story I had been assigned on gift ideas from the museum gift shop (they provided a bag of goodies including a lion-topped pen that I have to this day). I hadn’t known at the time that my relationship was going to end, so it had been a happy occasion. This was another one, as I embraced another opportunity to brush up against beauty. Art museums, and beauty in general, will always calm, or at least mollify, a raging mind.
This balm began before I even entered the main building, with the spring bulbs in bloom around the nearby courtyard. So many people think that the art on the walls is the main draw for a museum – for me it’s always been the whole experience – all the incidental space and architecture – that serves such a satisfying end. On this day, the flowers and the sun and the sky conspired to craft a memorable entrance to the Art Institute, and I was grateful to witness the co-mingling of prettiness.
I’m never quite sure what to make of some pieces, even the classics. Do we like them because we were basically told to like them from years of historical adulation, or simple ubiquity? A Social Psychology professor once said that if your first reaction to an entity is indifference, or a non-feeling one way or another, upon repeated views we grow to like it more. Familiarity as a designer of friendly feelings, or at least more positive ones than indifference. I sometimes doubt my taste, unsure of whether to give in to my instinct to love one piece over another or shoot a middle-finger to the whole damn process.
Today, those conflicts are far from my frame of mind. I take it all in, wandering leisurely through the Sunday morning crowd, which is rather thin around some of the better-known works.
Is this what the big deal is? I wonder to myself as I wander.
Strolling.
Contemplating.
Discussing memories evoked, techniques employed, historical context, or simply whether or not one likes something or not.
I do it all in my mind.
‘Nighthawks’ by Edward Hopper.
Is this loneliness or happiness or apathy?
And then the most famous piece in the Art Institute (at least for fans of musical theater).
So many things are at work here, so many layers over which to puzzle and solve, and just as I’m enjoying the play of shadows and light, I realize I need a new bustle in my life. And a parasol for sunny days. The use of it has gone out of fashion for shade, and I cannot fathom why.
A requisite Monet, filled with waterlilies, as my mind fills with recent remembrances of spring flowers just outside the doors. Everything is connected. The larger questions of life, however, are put on hold as I seek out the restaurant on premises for an early lunch.
While our Chicago journey pauses for the traditional Monday morning recap, we also pause for spring cleaning. I’ve filled 40 lawn bags of yard debris – a typical number for what it takes to rid our yard of a year’s worth of growth. There is still much to be done – lots of mulching and amending the soil, along with some ruthless editing to keep everything in check. I find my sanity, what little is left of it anyway, in the garden. This year proves no exception. On with the past…
It began in glorious fashion with Zac Efron in a Speedo.
Betty Buckley sings several beautiful stories.
My review of the ‘Sunset Boulevard’ revival.
On the last legs of a last tour.
Beneath the blue water of the belugas.
Hunks of the Day included Telly Leung, Trevante Rhodes, and David Hernandez.
In the bubbling saltwater aquarium of my youth, the anemone unfurled its flowery tentacles in the night.
We didn’t know about protein skimming and biological filtration back then, and in a month or two that poor anemone succumbed before I could find it a companion clownfish.
It died alone, far from its home, surrounded by skeletons of coral and bone-white sand.
The night haunts…
The Delusional Grandeur Tour: Last Stand of a Rock Star is closing in on its final dates. I’ve extended it and drawn it out for as long as possible, not wanting to let it all go. Yet we are very near the end, and after a dramatic visit to Chicago (which came with its own moment of closure – and a surprise second-row visit to ‘Hamilton’) it’s almost time to put an end to this final journey. First, though, the Windy City.
—————————————
We were entering spring.
As I entered Chicago, I realized I was entering the past.
Dangerous territory. Treacherous traveling. The tricks of the mind.
Seventeen years ago I left the only man I’d ever lived with up to then in the city where we’d moved.
This was the first time I would go back.
