Category Archives: General

The last time I was in Central Park, it was sweltering hot, and all I wanted was a bowl of peach ice cream. I was with Suzie and Chris and neither was very helpful in finding a place, even with their not-so-smart phones. Suzie suggested Chinatown, but I was not moving that far from the rock upon which I sat, tired from the heat and the day. I never did get peach ice cream that day. The point being, however, is that I’ve only seen Central Park in the high heat of summer, or the end of fall.

On this trip, I got to see it when the Park was at its most beautiful. Waves of Narcissus held onto their blooms, as did several swaths of tulips. Forget-me-knots en masse formed clouds of blue at ankle-height, and cherry blossoms and redbud blooms lit up the gray sky. Around all of it were the brightest shades of green, the epitome of spring. This is the New York that everyone loves.

Even a squirrel posed nicely for this quick series. Spring has that effect on everything.

We are entering the final stretch of the Give Out Day fundraising session this year – have you clicked on this link to donate to such a worthy cause? It doesn’t look like I’ll be going full-frontal… unless a miracle of donations occurs before the midnight hour… Ahem. Tick tock, tick tock.

The towel comes off when you Give Out enough… 

If everyone who reads this gives just ten dollars toward the Give Out campaign, we’ll easily match and surpass last year’s numbers – and if I make it to my personal goal of raising $1000 I’ll post a full-frontal photo of myself – no lie. (The odds of the funds I raise reaching $1000 are safely impossible – but let’s go for it anyway.) Go ahead, put your money where your mouth is.

Donate HERE.

It was a fall day in Cape Cod. I was visiting JoAnn, shortly after her friend Lee had moved in with her. While JoAnn set up a stunning home, she didn’t do much with the yard, which is where Lee came in with her gardening expertise. Most of the flowers had finished their show and started their autumn slumber. The highlight of the garden – with flames still burning brightly – was a patch of red dahlias, staked and climbing up into the sky. Brilliant against a deep blue backdrop, they were like starbursts – big, glorious, hearts of scarlet, beating beautifully in the air. I asked Lee if she lifted them in the fall, to save them for the next year. She nodded. “Yes,” she said, “I’ve kept these going for a few years now.”

I am always impressed with those who save their tender bulbs until the next year, bringing them into their basements or garages each fall for survival every winter, then re-planting them when it’s safe to do so in the spring. She weeded a bit more, then stood up. It was, after all, almost time to put the garden to sleep. The remaining weeds would wait until next year too. We went inside to find JoAnn.

That weekend I got to know Lee a little better. I’d met her years before, at one of the many Cape gatherings JoAnn put on, and she was always gregarious and outgoing – the life of the party who knew how to make everyone else feel like they were having the time of their lives. In the house at North Beach that she shared with JoAnn, that spirit wasn’t dampened when there wasn’t a party going on. The next morning she joined in one of JoAnn’s famous brunches, crafting the most beautiful Bloody Mary I’ve ever seen or tasted – stacked with a toothpick of olives, celery, even a shrimp. This was a meal and, more than that, a work of art. I took a photo of it – it remains one of my favorite photographs.

Later that day she took me into Mashpee Commons for the afternoon, where I tried a plate of steamed oysters for the first time, looking out onto a Cape Cod inlet. Fall had arrived. The wind was strong. Inside, I was making a new friend – and, as with most of JoAnn’s Cape friends, it was fast and easy and comfortable. We talked about work, about the future, about the loves in our lives, and by the time we got back to the house, it was time for another party at North Beach – one of JoAnn’s traditional fall gatherings, around a fire pit, with her brother Wally’s cider, and her roommate Lee beaming and enjoying herself and teaching us all how to laugh a little louder.

I don’t think she realized how much she taught us, or maybe she did. On another visit, she was dog-sitting a pair of poodles for a friend – yippy, high-strung little things that required more tenderness and patience than either JoAnn or myself had. For some reason, Lee entrusted us to take them for a walk along the beach. We looked at each other incredulously, but she didn’t give us a choice. The dogs were placed in the back of a car, and we were on our way. At first we laughed at the situation, struggling to get them on their leashes, running through scenarios of how we might explain losing the things should the worst happen to happen, but after a few minutes we settled into it. The sun was just starting to lower itself in the sky, and the breeze kicked up over the water. Our restless hearts calmed a little, the dogs enjoyed themselves, and we took in the moment. Neither of us was very adept at that.

It was like Lee knew that it would do us good, that it would help not only the dogs (who needed to get out) but also JoAnn and myself, who needed to think of someone and something other than ourselves. To see what it was like taking care of an entity that was completely reliant upon us for survival. Somehow Lee understood that, and to this day I remember that walk on the beach, and those dogs, and I wonder at how she knew.

I never once saw her down or depressed. She didn’t even get moody or groggy in the mornings. When the rest of us were in the worst spirits, Lee was always smiling and bubbly and ready for the next adventure. She had an indefatigable love of life, of always being open to happiness and joy. She loved to have a good time, and it was impossible not to be drawn into the happiness when she was around.

When JoAnn told me that Lee was pregnant with twins, I smiled. No one would make a finer mother. Those kids would grow up knowing what it was to love, what it was to live, what it was to make a difference in the world.

It’s not right that someone so vibrant should be taken away so early. She had just given birth to her twin boys before she passed away, and it won’t ever make sense to any of us lucky enough to know her. A great light has gone out in the world, and though there are now two little legacies who will grow up hearing stories of how wonderful their mother was, it won’t ever fix the broken hearts she leaves behind. I like to think that she had gone to sleep happy and content, filled with nothing but the hope and joy that her new babies had given her. It is a thought that gives just the faintest of solace.

She was on my mind as I planted this year’s garden a few days ago. I thought back to that fall when we talked in the garden. Lee was one of those special people who saved the dahlias, who took the care to see them through the winter. She’d cut them back, brush the dirt from their tubers, and package them up for safe-keeping in the basement. Who will save the dahlias now? We needed more people like her in the world – the ones who would take the time and make the effort to help, to save, to celebrate, to love. We needed her here.

Yesterday we had some web issues with the site, so it was down for a few hours. I was unaware, as I’m not online during the day (aside from FaceBook and Twitter on the phone) but as soon as I got home I managed to get it back online. This sort of tedious talk is what I try to avoid at all costs. And so, since I didn’t have time to do a proper post based on this, here are a few links to what was going on here…

One…

Two…

Three…

and Four years ago.

The way out is more often the way through. Any time I think I’m going through something usually means I’m getting out. Corridors and hallways and passages from here to there. The ways we connect are infinitely fascinating. Such connections are the stuff of life. From the most basic synapse-to-synapse bridge, we survive by going from one place to another. Traveling. Life is movement.

Sometimes it ends with another passageway.

Sometimes it ends with a barrier.

Sometimes it ends with fire…

and sometimes it doesn’t end at all.

After a weekend in New York, with my Mom no less, one wants a little calm and quiet, even if it’s not set to be so for very long. Upcoming promotional jaunts for ‘A Breakfast at Tiffany’s Formal Affaire’ put on by GLSEN as well as this week’s Give Out Day on May 15, 2014 will occupy my radar in the next few days, and our annual pilgrimage to Ogunquit for Memorial Day weekend is less than a couple of weeks away (yes folks, the holiday is a bit early this year.) For now, though, a look back before I get a few New York posts together. Don’t rush me!

This is what happens when you leave it to the men to shine, and Madonna can’t make it.

Shirtless royalty, and naked Broadway hunks.

A bittersweet good-bye, hoping we get to spread some seed.

Our wedding anniversary, its sky-high cake, and all those glorious peonies.

Quite possibly the Best Video I Have Ever Seen.

Straight guy bone, and lesbian treat, Scarlett Johansson posing provocatively, with a peek of female nudity.

A tease of ‘Hedwig’…

And a Mother’s Day moment, or two, or three.

Last but not least, early May, though on the drab and cool side, was made a whole lot sexier thank to the Hunks of the Day, like Kenzie Roth, Ryan Terry, Girish Taurani, and Callan Bergmann.

On this day of celebrating mothers, it seems a good time to revisit this review I wrote on the HBO version of ‘Grey Gardens‘ that Andy and I saw on the big-screen when it premiered back in 2009. (In an outcome that never happens when I play the lottery or enter the HGTV Dream Home contest, I actually won tickets to the ‘Grey Gardens‘ screening in Boston.) That was a magical night, and the movie celebrates two magical women – a mother and a daughter – whose love forms the emotional core of a sometimes-disturbing deterioration, and ultimate celebration, of humanity. To all the Big Edies out there, this one is for you:

Before saying anything else, let me preface this write-up with an admission: I was not prepared to like the new version of ‘Grey Gardens’. The original documentary has the untouchable quality of a classic to it, and who else but Edith Beale could play Edith Beale? In this case, the two women chosen to portray big and Little Edie, Jessica Lange and Drew Barrymore, have never been particularly impressive to me as actresses, and the thought of their taking a hatchet to my beloved ‘Grey Gardens’ was enough to make me, in the words of Little Edie, “apoplectic”. Perhaps because I was expecting so little enabled me to enjoy it so much – and this new take on the Beale women is “an artistic smash”.

The original ‘Grey Gardens’ premiered in 1975, the year I was born. I didn’t come to know the documentary myself until 1999, when I found a list of the “Campiest Divas” in the movies. The usual suspects were all there ~ Better Davis as Baby Jane Hudson in Whatever Happened to Baby Jane?, Gloria Swanson as Norma Desmond in Sunset Boulevard, Faye Dunaway as Joan Crawford in Mommie Dearest – but all these luminaries were listed below the number one choice – Little Edie as herself in ‘Grey Gardens’. Who was this obscure lady who topped the others I knew so well? A small grainy photo of a woman in a turban accompanied her number one status, and I set about on my search for the movie.

I looked like mad for the title, but at the time it was not available. I sent Suzie on a quest in New York City to see if she could track it down, all to no avail. It wasn’t until a year or so later that Criterion released it, and since then it has become a favorite – so the idea of tampering with such distinctive material was a risky move for all die-hard fans. Thankfully, Big and Little Edie have proven themselves worthy of re-interpretation, most notably in a Broadway musical and now the HBO film version. At first I was dismayed by the casting choices of Barrymore and Lange, but I now have to admit that I was wrong.

Both actresses acquit themselves admirably of their roles. As Big Edie, Lange manages to be both sympathetic as a prisoner of her own social construction, and manipulative as the prison guard of her daughter. Barrymore is beguiling and brazen, tough but tender, haplessly innocent one moment, wisely wary the next. Her Little Edie is able to win people over despite her unconventional behavior and demeanor, and in flashbacks we get to glimpse the beauty she once was, which adds an unexpectedly emotional layer that the documentary could never quite conjure.

Every time I see it I am touched by something new. This version is somehow sadder, more poignant in the way it fleshes out what possibly happened between the two Beale women. Of course, no one will ever know exactly how it all came to be except for the Beales themselves, and neither one is around anymore. (Big Edie died just a year after the original documentary was completed, and Little Edie passed away in 2002.)

This time I was struck by how the world treats – and ultimately ignores and neglects – those who are different. I saw the story of two women trapped in the societal norm of having to get married and give up their dreams – whether that’s singing or acting or dancing or simply existing without the help of a man. I also saw how two people in the same situation – mother and daughter no less – can sabotage, manipulate and destroy in the name of love and loneliness and desperation – but I also understood how love could be enough to sustain them and fortify them against the world. Theirs is a brilliantly complex relationship, based on equal parts of love and resentment, fulfillment and regret.

There is something so sad and chilling when big Edie delivers the crushing final blow to her daughter, after years of living together, telling her that she’s an “acquired taste” and that no one in the world would ever understand her. That’s the price of being different and believing in yourself, and Little Edie, to her credit, did both up to the very end.

It remains to be seen whether audiences will get this version – anyone who hasn’t seen and loved the original may have a tough time getting past the idiosyncrasies and extreme living conditions of the main characters, but for me this was an exquisite homage to two women more vibrant and alive and interesting than anything anyone could ever make up. That out of the ruin of a run-down and forgotten mansion, memories of songs and summers past have survived to this day is a testament to the enduring character of Big and Little Edie. Somewhere they are singing and dancing and celebrating that their dreams have at long last been realized.

A song for the city, a sip of the action, a stage for a show. In what Fitzgerald once referred to as the “enchanted metropolitan twilight,” New York can cast a powerful spell. Its energy is electric, its nights never end, and there is so much to do and see you have to remind yourself to stop and sleep.

I’ve never been a big fan of it. Suzie says it’s because I spend too much time in Times Square. That’s only partially true, but I’m still waiting for the city to truly capture my wonder. For now, it offers the merest hint of a flirtation, the beginning of a courtship that’s long been promised but never followed through. Thankfully, flirting is often more exciting than deflowering, so until that blush is off the rose, let’s tease a while longer.

Start spreading the news…

The first few days of May proved rather rainy, with spots of sunshine providing just enough light to keep us all from slitting wrists as we anxiously await the definitive turn to spring. With such a late start, the gardens and yard are still messy from winter mayhem, but I did manage to get two new boxwoods planted beside our front entrance, and a couple of clumps of Solomon’s seal divided and moved to expand the range of that lovely perennial. The Lenten Rose and a couple of cherry trees are all that’s in bloom right now, but we’ll just shift a little deeper into the season and hopefully make it up at the end of summer.

Memories of Minneapolis lingered, with a walk to the Walker Arts Center, a view of my suite (and a favorite shirt), a second gallery visit, and a return to where it all began, before saying one more good-bye.

Two big gay dates are coming up: Give Out Day on May 15, 2014 and GLSEN’s ‘A Breakfast at Tiffany’s Formal Affaire’ on June 13, 2014. I’ll be partaking of both, and you should too.

Once in a while, I like to make things easy on Andy, especially when he works this hard.

My Mom and I will be returning to Broadway this week, and the shows and dining reservations are, as they say, all set.

Everyone was saying that James Franco posted a naked selfie on his Instagram account, but you’ll have to look for yourself.

I love a little Chiffon action.

My heart belongs to the poet.

How many times must it be said? Everyone loves a ginger.

Putting the lust in the lusty month of May were Hunks of the Day like Steve Jones, Marlon Teixeira, Thomas Roberts, and the scantily-clad male model Dan Murphy.

To be so economical with so few words demands more discipline and care than the mass assembling of prose in which I usually cloak my written shortcomings. It’s easy to create a colloidal suspension of description to mask the absence of any real substance, swirling unnecessary adjectives and adverbs around like so many emulsifiers in this mess of similes and metaphors and incorrect scientific terms in some cacophonous run-on sentence. I work wonders with such distractions, but at what cost? No matter how glitzy the show, a vacuous core will always be forgettable.

It’s far more impressive to keep things concise and clear with a few well-chosen words. The spare and sparse beauty of a poem is something to which I aspire, but rarely achieve. One word is a razor, one is the heart, and what comes between is either protection or destruction. That’s too dangerous for me. I’d rather leave it to the experts. Like Mary Oliver in her poem ‘A Pretty Song‘ that follows:

From the complications of loving you,

I think there is no end or return.

No answer, no coming out of it.

Which is the only way to love, isn’t it?

This isn’t a playground, this is

earth, our heaven, for a while.

Therefore I have given precedence

to all my sudden, sullen, dark moods

that hold you in the center of my world.

And I say to my body: grow thinner still.

And I say to my fingers, type me a pretty song.

And I say to my heart: rave on.

 

Somewhere a drag queen named ‘April Showers’ is basking in her time of the year. For the rest of us, we’re just scrambling to clean up the yard after a late start to spring. At last count, I’d filled 47 lawn bags with winter debris – about par for the clean-up course. There is still some more to go – a long-neglected bit of side-yard that never gets the care it so badly needs, for example. But I won’t bore you with that – drudgery is never very sexy. On with the last week…

It began with a pair of shoes by Tom Ford that were absolutely exquisite. I would sell my soul for shoes like that.

Beauty was apparent on more than feet, though, as proven by this bouquet of tulips.

 Scratch and sniff, without the scratch.

A poem.

Stuck in the past, frozen in my underwear.

The Minneapolis adventures began (and will continue soon enough), with the Mall of America and its accompanying aquarium. And the popping of my Minnesota cherry.

Are gay men just plain slutty?

Insecure… Alone…The human touch…

A different sort of April Shower may have been produced by a glimpse at the Hunks of the Day, thanks to Miguel Ortiz, Jose Parra, Andre Mull, Andrew Hayden-Smith, Karan Oberoi, Pedro Andrade and Matthew Terry.