Emotional Rescue

Johnny Depp from "The Lone Ranger" 2013

Have you ever wished you could go back in time and make different choices?  For sure every human that has ever lived has entertained such thoughts.  We have all had grandiose fantasies of, say, going back to pre-war Germany and assassinating Hitler.  But on a more personal level what if we could go back and make a more subtle change?  Take a slightly different path like in one of those children's novels where you flip ahead to a certain chapter depending on which road you choose and each has a completely different ending.
     I was never one of those kids that always knew exactly what I wanted "to be" when I grew up.  Sure, at age 6 I thought I'd be a veterinarian simply because I loved animals so much.  I'm pretty sure most kids had the same thought at one point - at least the girls and the gay boys did.  My life as a child was so fraught with deep and intense emotional turmoil that I really didn't have time to imagine my future.  It was such an insurmountable task just to make it through each day without completely unraveling.  I was so horribly bullied and tortured by other kids that my inner life was like World War 3 all day long.  I don't say this to illicit sympathy but just to paint a picture of what my youth was like.  My inner war was so intense that it caused me to double over in pain in the middle of class as I was constantly stricken with a "ghost" illness that could never be properly diagnosed and was always improperly treated.  I consumed an unearthly amount of prescription Mylanta as a child - the chalky thickness of that liquid is something I can still taste if I think about it for too long.
     Because of the seemingly never ending, gut wrenching pain that I was in I started very early on to look for my own remedy.  Something that would save me from what ultimately was myself.  I got temporary relief from sugar and it gave me a rush to steal candy as often as I could.  I also used to spend hours after middle school in the local arcade and, that too, was a good escape from reality.  Really, anything that let me live outside of myself was welcomed with open arms so it was no surprise that I turned to booze as soon as I found out what it did to my inner (& outer) world.  It soothed  the pain, eliminated the grief and let me become an extroverted version of my shut down, depressed and gloomy child self.  Of course, I eventually graduated to the hard stuff and once I found heroin it pretty much was the end of the line.  I was off to the races and THANK BOWIE (I have decided to permanently name the deity I pray to after the one and only David Bowie) I got sober before someone had to pick out my casket!
     Even in sobriety I was still constantly looking to be rescued.  I carried this Disney-fied idea in my head that someday MY prince would also come and whisk me away gallantly on his beautiful, muscular steed and together we would ride off into the sunset and live in a beautiful castle on a hill.  For a young, rebellious, goth-y gay boy from Schenectady that took pride in living on the fringe I still was riddled with this BS societal fairy tale about being rescued.  Part of it came from an unwillingness to take responsibility for my own happiness, which, honestly, I didn't know was possible for many years.  I knew that the circumstances in my childhood that lead to such deep & troubling emotional pain were not my fault but I also, falsely, thought that the world owed me everything because of it.  Another grandiose, spoiled, yet not uncommon belief.
     I finally had an epiphany after almost 4 years of amazing, terrifying, and life-changing group therapy that I WAS the prince on the white horse!  I was the only man that could and would truly resuce myself.  I spent decades looking outside of myself for something that was inside me all along. I call that situation standing on one's (G)spot - it's like when you are searching everywhere for the sunglasses that are on top of your head.  If you are standing on your own spot then you can't see it and will never find it.  All off this seems like "New Age 101" or "Self-Help For Dummies" but it caused an amazingly intense and glorious shift within my self.  Once I realized that I could be my own hero and resuce my own damn self it left me open to truly learn how to love.  1st to love myself then to love others and let them truly love me.
     Now, I'm quite certain I wouldn't go back in time or if I could I wouldn't change a damn thing except, perhaps, buying certain concert tickets, ha.  Taking responsibility for my own happiness and well-being is the best and most beautiful lesson I have ever learned.  Sometimes I don't do a great job of it and I let myself be down n the dumps for a little while.  But, for the most part I feel like the luckiest guy alive and I know that love is the only rescue.

New Year!

Street walking cheetah.

Twenty fourteen has definetely been a roller coaster ride to say the least.  My drama-queen, only-child, alcoholic, Scorpio self wants to believe it was the worst year of my life.  That's not exactly true. So I went through a break-up,  boohoo.   I'm not the 1st and certainly not the last person on earth to have such an experience.  I got over it.
     I've always had this knowledge in my mind that love is not available to me.  I don't mean this in a woe-as-me kind of way. What I mean is that as a child, feeling and knowing that I was different from most people I got many clear cut messages from society that who and what I am was wrong.   Things that are unsaid are actually worse and more hurtful than things that are said out loud.  So, as a young gay boy in suburbia there were absolutely no positive role models for me.  There were a few obviously gay clowns that epitomized the hyper-flamboyant type of gay in the media but no one that I wholeheartedly related to.
     Even the most outrageously girly rocks bands like Duran Duran & Motley Crüe turned out to be all hetero. Thier style was just surface it wasn't dictated by sexuality. Then came Boy George and the regular world had never seen anything like that before.  The big question everyone always had was "is that a boy or girl?" Not only did I never question that I always wondered why anyone cared.  I thought he was beautiful but it was too embarrassing for the fruity, gay boy to admit he liked him.
     For these reasonss I never, ever imagined myself in love or with anyone romantically let alone getting married.  I understood that society didn't believe in gay love so I internalized this knowledge and locked it away deep inside myself.  I honestly believed this was true for a long, long time.  I turned 44 in October and my previous relationship was the longest (4.5 years) of my life - by 4 years!!!  It took a lot of deep, discovery and work to dispel my own false beliefs.
     I don't regret any of it.  In fact, I learned so much about myself in that time and we did a lot of amazing things together.  Mainly, I learned that I'm capable of a long-term, romantic relationship. This one wasn't meant to be and I'm not so sure any relationship is meant to be forever.  Forever doesn't exist, nothing lasts forever our time here is fleeting.  Perhaps this last one was practice for something super fabulous that's coming next?  Or, maybe, that was my big long-term relationship for this lifetime?  It doesn't really matter either way, if I stay in the present and don't project some prearranged future onto myself then all is fine and dandy.
      I had some of the best experiences of my life in 2014 as well - thus, contradicting my false drama-queen exaggerations.  I saw friggin Kate Bush, in London! A lifelong dream come true - I have the pictures to prove it.  I saw the David Bowie Is exhibit in Chicago during a trip generously planned by an amazing friend of mine.  I saw the original line-up of Fleetwood Mac.  I attended 2 glorious weddings that were both the sweetest testimonies of love.  I also had 2 fabulous trips to Palm Springs this year also generously planned by another amazing friend who spoiled me rotten.
     The good really does outweigh the bad and if you really look closely the bad isn't even bad at all.  After enough time passes you realize that even the most painful experiences are lessons taught and they are necessary for the next leg of your journey.  Bring it on 2015 - I'm gonna have a fabulous time in you!

Desert Kisses

Desert Fashion

I had an amazing modeling job yesterday in the middle of the desert.  It was for Frontier's Magazine's 2nd annual weddings book which is described on their site as "Your all-encompassing guide to same-sex weddings in Southern California."  Frontiers was founded in 1982 and is a free, bi-monthly magazine all about gay culture in Southern California.  I had the pleasure of being their cover model about 6 years ago.

     For this shoot we all had a call time of 3am (yes, you read that right!) and we were driven by old-school, prom-style limo equipped with indoor neon lights and a bar out to the desert.  We arrived at El Mirage Dry Lake around 4:45am just as the sun was beginning to rise.  If you've never seen the sun rise in the desert I highly recommend it.  The desert already looks and feels like a lunar landscape and as the sun is rising there is a hint of blue on the horizon while the rest of the world is still under the cover of the blackest night.  Eventually, the blue and the black meet in the middle and then the day has begun.  Magical.  Once the sun is high in the sky there's a crazy mirage (hence the name) of water at the edge of the dry lake.  Seeing as it once really was a lake it's as if the ghost of the water is still surrounding and beckoning you.  When you look toward the horizon it sparkles and ripples as if you were still looking at an active lake.  Nature is incredible.

     Last year's Frontiers Weddings was a huge hit and the theme was very traditional.  It was shot on and near the beach and had a sophisticated, classic feel.  This year they wanted to go in the complete opposite direction and have it be edgy and cool.  The amazing photographer Ryan Forbes referenced Mad Max and said he wanted it to be like high fashion set in the future in a post-apocolyptic world.  Perfect.  There were 6 male models, 2 of whom were my age including Super Model Tosh Yanez, and 3 female models including Laura Ellen James  who was a winner on America's Next Top Model.  Crazy as it sounds none of the younger models had a clue what Mad Max was and I tried my best to explain it's cultural relevance - even went as far as singing a few verses from Tina Turner's  "We Don't Need Another Hero."

     It was a really awesome cast and crew and even though it was freezing cold and windy as hell up in that desert we all managed to have a great time.  The clothes were modern and cool and my talented friend Dax Savage supplied all the jewelry and accessories as well as modeling himself.  If it wasn't for the way we were dressed we would've felt as if we were filming a lost episode of Breaking Bad - the hair/makeup/wardrobe was even in a Winnebago!  But that's the desert for you, no matter where you stand you get the feeling that something crazy happened there at some point.

     The magazine will be out in Sept and if you live in Cali it's available all over for free.  If you don't you can go the Frontiers Magazine website and download a PDF file of it and check it out.  They may publish a few teaser pics in the Gay Pride issue of Frontiers as well.  I saw a lot of the photos on the monitor as the shoot was happening and they look amazing.  Everything is so real in the desert that it looks fake.  Every pic has the sky from the opening credits of The Simpsons in it and it all looks so cool in pictures.  There's one shot of me walking and Ryan managed to snap the pic while I was in mid-air - neither foot is on the ground and it appears that I am floating over a dry riverbed.  Somehow there's a twisted Jesus reference in there but I'll let that one go.

Kate Bush

     Today seemed like a good day to start a blog.  It's something I've wanted to do for a while now and after receiving a rather exciting email this morning I thought "today is the day."  Yesterday was a crappy day both figuratively and literally.  I've had an upset stomach all week and I was having a real pity party about my whole life in general - often, I tend to get too inward when I'm not feeling well and I start judging myself harshly.
     After an entire day of feeling hopeless and unaccomplished I woke up to an email from Kate Bush! Well, not actually Kate Bush but an email from her fan site stating that she would be playing a series of shows this summer after a 35 year absence from the stage.  If you are asking yourself right now "who is Kate Bush?" please, I beg of you, PLEASE Google her, download her albums, look on the interweb - educate yourself to this mystical, musical master (http://www.katebush.com)!  After the shock of the news, and the fact that I'm a big enough nerd to be registered on her fan site, wore off I felt a strange feeling of elation and excitement and, well, hope.
     People always say that music saved their lives and I really, truly must concur.  As an awkward and strange, gay child growing up in upstate NY I didn't have much to identify with or look forward to.  Discovering music was like opening a magical Pandora's Box (not the drag queen) and riding on a magic carpet to amazing new places where there were like minded souls - and unicorns, of course!  When you "discover" a new band as a kid you feel like you have found the key to something special that no one else has.  Listening to an album for the 1st time makes you feel like you are the only person who has ever been lucky enough to hear these particular sounds.
     Kate Bush is a strange and magical creature.  She's the strangest kind of strange because she looks pretty normal but, in fact, is kookier that the kookiest.  She's kind of like the Marilyn Munster of music.  I use words like strange and kooky as a reverence because I LOVE the strange, the kooky, and the queer.  She found a way to express outwardly the swirl of kaleidoscopic emotions that I was feeling inside even though I was a far cry from an English, country girl with a seriously musical family.  That's the thing about music, it's universal.  Kate could play a heartbreaking melody on the piano and sing words that caused tears to spill and then switch to a braying donkey howling in possession.  Perfection!
     I even used to perform lip synch numbers of her songs when I was a young drag queen in NYC.  For a while I worked as a waitress at a place called Stingy Lulu's on St. Mark's Place in the East Village.  One time I was performing "Wuthering Heights" (a song Kate wrote at school when she was like 16 or something crazy like that) and I decided to run out the front door of the restaurant onto the icy, winter streets wearing a see-though, flow-y gown.  Right on queue I pressed myself up to the plate glass window from outside just in time to lip the words "Heathcliff, it's me -- Cathy. Come home.  I'm so cold.  Let me in-a-your window." The patrons of the restaurant went wild as I ran back inside, teetering on strappy-stilletos, onto the stage in time to finish the song!
    Some people don't "get" Kate Bush or they feel like she's too much of a girly, emotional singer.  She clearly didn't fit into the punk scene at all - I mean, she trained under Marcel Marceau and is probably the only person ever to make mime not detestable.  That being said her album "Hounds Of Love" is on every single list ever compiled of the best albums of all times.  I would have to say that "Running Up That Hill (A Deal With God)" is the most perfect song ever written, or one of them at least.  Personally, her album "The Dreaming" is my favorite because it is, well, the weirdest one.
     The tickets for her upcoming 15 shows in London have not even gone on sale yet.  She does not travel and most likely will never play in the US.  I may not even be lucky enough to score any tickets for those gigs.  The idea that she's playing and the possibility that I may actually see the only living idol of mine left that I have not seen live yet fills me with hope.  Just receiving that email alone gave me the nudge I needed to realize that life is a grand and awesome journey.  Music really does save lives.  It sure saves mine.