When a current project dies down, I look around in the ground.
Often enough, inspiration has sprouted up surrounding the ashes of an old one.
If there are no upstarts, I simply wait.
It used to make me antsy. Sometimes, I probably forced things to happen sooner than they naturally would have.
Nothing good is forced.
Well, maybe paper-white narcissus.
This time, I may have found the next batch of inspiration in Chicago…
It’s Easter Monday, chickens!! We had a tiny Easter Sunday massacre, but I’ll divulge the details in another post. For now, our traditional Monday morning look back on the last week, in case any of you want to hang onto the weekend one wee bit longer. I know I do…
Food glorious food, because it’s almost margarita season.
Some rabbits are sexy, some are just dicks.
A New York adventure seeking closure…
A happy ending two decades in the making.
I did not get into a fight at the grocery store. I did not.
And with its arrival, Easter brings terror.
Hunks of the Day included Parker Young, Alex Bowen, Alexander Abramov, Matthew Noszka, and George Shelley.
I’ve got to get some new Easter pics.
Maybe another crucifixion scene.
Or some Playboy bunny bit.
Until then, it’s the posting of the annual terrorize-your-kid-with-a-ridiculously-terrifying Easter bunny photo that so many people love so much.
(And don’t do this to your kids or they’ll turn out like me. Fair warning.)
My Easter traditions have changed and evolved over the years. Unlike Christmas Eve or Thanksgiving or New Year’s, which have more or less remained the same, Easter has proven far more malleable. We used to go to Gram’s in Hoosick Falls. In our starchy plaid suits and clip-on ties, my brother and I would fidget for the entire hour-long ride over, but the Easter baskets and Gram’s welcoming embrace were always worth it.
After that we ended up at my parent’s home, and then my brother’s in-laws one year, and finally I decided that Andy and I needed to do our own thing and we went to Boston to exorcize my bunny issues. It was one of my favorites, and the night before we watched ‘Easter Parade’ to set the scene for the next morning. It has since become a new tradition, and seeing Judy Garland in all those glorious costumes and hats always puts me in an Easter mood.
Tomorrow, we have no morning plans, so we’ll watch that again, and maybe make a Ramos Gin Fizz (it has an egg white in it – the reason for the season). Anyway, I hope your Easter Sunday is fabulous.
Let’s get the frightening one out of the way first thing: Sean Spicer as the White House Easter bunny (and long before he transformed into the Mouthpiece of the Anti-Christ.) I’ve read reports that this year’s White House Easter egg hunt is being bogged down in confusion and ineptitude – the perfect embodiment of this joke of an administration.
Far more preferable to the devil in the bunny suit is the sexy shot below of a shirtless Andy Cohen getting chummy with an anonymous Easter bunny. This is still the stuff of nightmares (or fantasies, depending on your kink-level preference). Mr. Cohen makes a fine companion to that lucky bunny. Here comes Peter Cottontail indeed.
Hippity hoppity Easter’s on its way!
The holiday I dread, with all its accompanying images of fright, is almost upon us.
Here we have a bunny from Arizona hopping down the bunny trail.
Stayed tuned for far scarier variations on this theme.
(And I don’t like it any more than you do.)
In certain specific circumstances, a wedge of fruit is appropriate. A small one to slip into a bottle of Corona. A chunkier one for squeezing into a gin and tonic. But for instances where it’s mainly a garnish, and even when it’s used for fragrance and flavor, a wedge is simply too much. It’s obnoxious. Overbearing. Rude. The worst sort of look for an elegant cocktail.
A twist is much preferable.
A twist makes all the difference.
A twist can change your life.
Once upon a time I had a lava lamp. It was in the basement, in our little make-do recreation room where I’d watch soap operas and paint hieroglyphics on the walls. A brown vinyl beanbag provided a malleable surface for marble mazes. A tattered set of plaid furniture from upstairs formed the seating area, and we covered a lightweight wooden storage crate with a small blanket to make a coffee-table. A throwaway coffeemaker stood on a pedestal; I would put potpourri into it and the hot water would spread the scent throughout the small space. The gay boy in me would always find a way. (I’m not sure that my Uncle, who lived on black coffee and cigarettes, was as impressed by the double-duty of said coffeemaker, but he never said anything about the floral coffee that would later result.)
The lava lamp of my youth was a standard red and yellow version, glowing warmly on its stand, unlike the modern-day version you see here. I’m not sure which appeals to me more – each has its merits, each conjures and conveys a different mood. I’ve seen riveting purple versions, and if I were to get a new one, it would probably be that. Not that I’m getting a lava lamp. Some ships are better off not returning to port.
Yet they remind me of that crazy childhood basement room, where extra pieces of unused carpet made for a patchwork floor, and a fold-up cot was mounted on a former kitchen cabinet, rising almost to the ceiling in fun, if slightly dangerous, fashion. We were kids then, and my brother and I didn’t care about cohesive design or sensible furniture. Instead, I worked to create little pools of beauty – in a bouquet of dried flowers, a swath of colorful fabric, or the psychedelic bubbles of a lava lamp.
A few posts in the works: my recent trips to New York and Chicago, reviews of ‘Sunset ‘Boulevard‘ and ‘Hamilton’, and all kinds of closure and emotional mayhem. Somehow, I also need to begin the spring cleaning of the yard, a task that usually requires 40 lawn bags by the time it’s done. Spring is technically here. The air is warm, for now. Excitement is in the atmosphere.
The bad news? Mercury is once again in retrograde. Hang on to your hats.
Tricky month you are, April. Trying us with your incessant showers, keeping us hanging on with your promise of future flowers, why do you tease and displease so? All we want is some sun and fun, and maybe we’ll find some sooner rather than later. I’m due back from Chicago, so this post is a tidy little place-stopper until I resume real-time blogging. Hang on, little tomatoes.
Last April, not unlike this April, was all about The Delusional Grandeur Tour.
April 2015 was all about the Hunks (and a nearly-nude Zac Efron).
Minneapolis provided the backdrop for the bulk of posts from April 2014.
Cocktails, flowers, and shirtless guys – all the usual for April 2013.
April 2012 was more of the same – Madonna and bulges and the like.
Finally, all that remains from April 2011 are Madonna and Tom Ford. The way it should be.
Our first full week of April has come and gone, and if early predictions of temperatures today are correct, we seem to be skipping straight to summer. Ahh, the roller-coaster ride of the Northeast. And they wonder why I’m moody as fuck sometimes… On with the recap!
Simon Dunn exposed his naked ass to get things off to a rollicking start.
The Madonna Timeline returned with a whimper at first, with this unimpressive ditty.
Zac Efron and the dreaded camel toe.
Nyle DiMarco exposed his naked ass too. (I’m sensing a theme…)
Spring in a single photograph.
Seth Fornea churned butter in nothing but an apron, and it must have simply melted.
My shirt was on, but my pants were off for a new profile pic.
Holding onto the delusions a little while longer.
The Madonna Timeline returned again, this time in good, old ‘American Pie’ fashion.
Hunks of the Day included Aaron Lee Smith, Fabio Fognini, Braeden Wright, Guillaume Cizeron, Andrew Harris and Jake Jensen.
When pressed for a tablescape for a recent dinner (an admittedly first-world problem, but since I don’t live in the third-world we’ll just have to make do), I bypassed the traditional flower bouquets and went with two small pots of ivy. We need green more than ever right now, as winter refuses to limp away. There are dirty patches of snow everywhere, and even with all the rain nothing is getting those eyesores to budge. This was a bandage on that, and it lasts longer than any ten-dollar bunch of flowers.
Soon I will see if I can force some cherry branches, or possibly a dogwood, to hasten spring along. Some things are better rushed.
On the cover of her classic ‘Like A Prayer’ album, Madonna wore a pair of denim jeans and a rope of beads. I searched for a comparable set for years – decades actually – before I simply made my own. They came out decently enough, even if they are a bit fragile. It adds an element of carefulness that I must abide if I want to wear them. I like that.
Most of us need a reminder to be more careful at times. The human mind is a sensitive receptor, and I tend to forget that. Everyone around me seems to forget that too, and I pretend it doesn’t bother me.
“The sensitivity of men to small matters, and their indifference to great ones, indicates a strange inversion.” ~ Blaise Pascal
It’s not a big secret that showing some skin gets a lot more notice than not showing skin. That’s basically what has fueled this website for the past decade and a half. When people kept telling me to put my shirt on in my Twitter profile, I scoffed at their insistence and laughed at their tens of followers. There’s a method to my naked madness. Besides, I like to transform from time to time, taking cues like a chameleon, donning different guises that include more than skin.
When I was ready to change things up, people were still telling me, in ways far from polite, to put some clothes on, so I kept the shirtless pose up simply on principle (and my own admittedly annoying stubbornness). It was more fun to ask them why they kept looking than to kow-tow to foolish supposed propriety. And again, traffic. Hits. Followers. Skin is always in. Yet I was getting bored with it, and as soon as the complaints stopped, I did it on my own. (Oddly enough, I quickly gained a couple hundred followers once I lost the nipple. Go figure.)
PS – I may have my shirt and jacket on, and even a pair of socks, but rest assured I was NOT wearing pants.
When the days refuse to yield anything spring-like, when the skies refuse to give up any glimpse of blue, and when the sun refuses to come out of its hiding place, I turn inward. I keep the days quiet, padding softly through them so as not to startle or disturb the sleeping sun. I’ve long known that threats or demands won’t work on such a giant. Why should the sun do our bidding?
A look back, then, at this favorite photo taken from my favorite place ~ Ogunquit, Maine. I find myself seeking this one out, taken as it was at the end of May many years ago, when the summer spread out before us, and the sun was not quite so timid. We will get there, I’m sure we will. For now, though, it exists in the mind, and in this photo.
