Bradford Shellhammer Blog

At a packed Madison Square Garden, in front of an enthusiastic home audience, Cyndi Lauper said goodbye. Her autobiographical show was a tour down memory lane, and as compelling a political statement as it was a music concert.

It was an emotional night for me, one full of nostalgia, family, and even tears. Those who know me know how much Lauper has inspired me. From early childhood, she’s been my hero. She’s So Unusual was my first album, her poster hung above my grade school bed. From young adult to 48 year old man, I’ve followed her, showing up at tours, collecting rare remixes and vintage tees on eBay, inspired by the early message of being weird, colorful, childlike, loud, fun. 

So last night I gathered my family to see Cyndi for the likely last time.

I invited Eric, who I met via the Cyndi Lauper fan club, and who I saw Cyndi with in 1999. In our early 20s, we came of age, side by side, and I was a colorful, gay influence on him, inspiring him to come out. We share an obsession with Cyndi, a bedrock of an old friendship and I wanted him there with me.

I invited Denise, who in 1996, wearing handmade AIDSwalk/ribbon shirts she designed, watched Cyndi with me live in DC, where we pushed our way to the front row to meet her. She yelled at us for being too aggressive, but Denise and I did not care. That moment is in the origin story of our deep, decades’ long friendship and I wanted her there with me.

I invited my mother, who in 1984, drove me to Caldor where I bought my first 45 record, Cyndi’s She-Bop, and who bought me every tape, CD, poster I desired. She also allowed me to be unabashedly myself, weird, colorful, loud, a student of Cyndi’s philosophy and I wanted her there with me.

Last night, Cyndi’s voice bested the performance I saw in May in London. It was clear, strong, high, and riveting. On I Drove All Night, she held that note, on I’m Gonna Be Strong, she really held THAT note. She giggled and digressed, laughed, made jokes, declaring at one point that Christian Siriano told her the “gays want glamour.” We got it in spades. She even thanked the icons of WWF, Fabulous Moolah, Capt. Lou, RIP!

She ended the concert with Girls Just Want To Have Fun, and costumes, painted with red polka dots, a collaboration we did not know we needed, with Yayoi Kusama. However, it was three more introspective moments in the show which moved me most. 

On Sally’s Pigeons, an opus about abortion, from her brilliant Hat Full of Stars album, she sang of women and their bodies and their rights, while a large white fabric sculpture by the artist Daniel Wurtzel captivated the Garden. On I’m Gonna Be Strong, the Gene Pitney cover, one of her first recordings, her older voice commanded new attention and chills, and on True Colors, her love and dedication to queerness was celebrated with yet another Pitney fabric installation, this time painted in rainbow.

During True Colors, with my life flashing before my eyes, as these songs tell it more than any other catalog, and in the presence of my dear mother, and life-long friends, I cried my eyes out. A little sad this was a farewell tour. A little happy I have had such deep love in my life.

As a young man in the early 90s, I often escaped to downtown Baltimore, reading copies of The Village Voice, obsessing over Michael Musto's column, and imagining living with those people. I'd sit at Louie's Bookstore Cafe on Charles, sometimes indulging myself with their infamous brownie sundae. 

A few years later, I enrolled at Goucher College, just up the road on Charles. In my first year, I did way too many drugs and got average grades (not counting the embarrassing D in Russian, a class I took at Hopkins, Goucher's sister school). Baltimore just seemed too small. I was not happy. 

I decided to transfer and apply to the Fashion Institute of Technology. In the fall semester of my sophomore year, 1995, I remember collecting everything I owned, posters, CDs, a stereo, some toys, eye shadows, and some clothes, some of which I'd made myself, and I loaded them up in my grandfather's minivan the last week of August. I was finally going to NYC. 

Buildings are landmarks. For cities and for hearts. I walked today up Seventh avenue. At 8am the city was bustling. I was walking to the studio of the artist Lucas Michael to pick up Warhol-inspired Polaroids he'd taken years ago of Lady Bunny and Sasha Velour, which I'd recently purchased to add to my collection. On the way, I walked right by FIT's brutalist buildings and my hair stood up on my arms. I was instantly taken back to the day I arrived here. It was hot. 

The traffic was intense. When the Jersey Turnpike gave way to Manhattan's iconic, inspiring skyline, I remember feeling giddy.

As an adult l, I sit here now and think of that day. I think that my mother probably had 100 or so dollars in her bank account and still she, and my grandfather, who sadly I never really connected with as an adult while he lived, did what it took to set me up for a day where perhaps it's all started. Part of my origin story. 

That new me. The one who would be among the people in Musto's columns. 

Now that I'm contemplating being here less, and oddly spending more time in Baltimore of all places, that walk today contained just the right amount of symbolism for me to know that I'm tuned to something greater right now, my instinct, allowing the paths, tracks to appear and also reappear, with me aware and conscious of it all this whole time. 

Beyoncé's album release was oddly personal to me. I've always appreciated her as an artist. But she never spoke to me as directly as other pop heroines like Madonna, Lauper, and Gaga, all who made supporting gay men part of their package. Their brand. This was personal though today. When I arrived in nyc my first real job (not Planet Hollywood, hello Chad Ferris, Dominic Paolillo) was for a guy named Eric Eddy. He had a small pr agency called double e communications, and he hired me as a press agent. It was 1999. 

I was and had been going out to clubs since 1992, sneaking to Tracks in DC. Dancing with Denise Clement and Veronica-Jade Lane in those mid 90s  were pivotal times for me in finding my tribe and self expression. I'd start to drive to NYC with my friend Kate, Başar Akkuzu, and Harry Charles. Finding my people once again on bigger dancefloors in Manhattan. 

Back to 1999. I'm obsessed with dance music. Obsessively posting on House of Joy and Rob Promotions, I was a press agent in NYC finding my way. And living for nyc nightlife and music. And the people. Eric, my boss, was friends with Kevin Aviance and he took Kevin on as a client. 

When Kevin launched his album Box of Chocolates I was his publicist. I was, at age 23, doing PR for a man who was so ahead of his time. With mainstream press picking up our pitches, TimeOut NY to Vibe, I knew, then, we were too early. For a year or two I would be backstage with Kevin. At Roxy. At Twilo. Up close and personal with his art. I saw his genius. I hated the world was not ready to receive his art fully. 

1995-2000 shaped me. NYC's gay house culture was electric then. Vasquez. Rauhofer. Roxy. Limelight. Twilo.  Palladium.  It was a special time. Still in the darkness of AIDS, but with hope from more and more acceptance. Many unsung heroes exist. Tenaglia. Kevin. Moi Renee. Peter. Junior, Alan T, the list goes on and on. Too many. Waking up today to an album from the world's biggest pop star, which gives Honey Dijon production credits and Kevin, Moi, Peter, others songwriting credit, and which is a love letter to 1990s gay, black, house, trans cultures shook me. 

That moment, those formative years, were important to me. I have used the inspiration from that time in my life, over and over to fuel my own professional and personal development. To see it, that moment of time, put on a pedestal, a stage, a speaker box by royalty, pop royalty, gives it the validation we did not need but we deserved. It's an album for those who were ahead of their time for those who have the privilege to enjoy their time. 

I dined at Cookshop tonight with Sandra Hansel like it was old times. Except it wasn't. 

Sure, Anna Marie comped glasses of Moscato, like the old days, but Sandra and I spoke of things which had a depth that our conversations in this very dining room, just a few years ago, never ventured. We spoke of leaving (sorta) New York. Much of our self worth is wrapped up in and on this island. We are making sense of that slowly changing. 

We spoke of Baltimore, family, and death. Yes, death!Divorce has a funny way of shaking you. And propelling you, and today I finally discussed setting up a trust with an attorney. You know, now that I don't have a husband, who will get what when/if I die? Who should make the call to pull me off life support? Who gets a Warhol!? These decisions are new, awkward, but necessary. They help us prepare for you know what. 

So at a dinner with my best friend and mentor, in a place both comfortable and not like it used to, on a day I discussed who gets what when I die, in a year where I'm moving cities, embarking on a new career, divorcing, and in a constant state of flux, movement, and change, I sat drinking orange wine and I was OK. 

Much of the what has guided me in life has been instinctual. There was a time, outside Andy and Cyndi's voices, where the only thing i trusted was my instinct, my gut. Dare I say, heart? Why stop now?My heart is saying be closer to your origin, your mother, your past. My heart is saying that now was the time to do something differently professionally. My heart tells me now is the time to contemplate and plan for retirement, a slower life, even death. 

As I float from Chicago to Brazil, Bushwick to Baltimore, West Village to Stuyvesant, I sometimes have and will feel like a a blown dandelion in the wind. 

With heavy heart  today is my last day working at eBay. I joined this amazing company and culture 6.5 year ago. During this time, I learned so many lessons. The most important to me are:  

1. Listen to your customer. Unlocking value, inspiration, ease, joy for them is way more important than complex strategy, business objectives, executive pet projects. It always works to build what your customers ask for. 

2. With scale comes great responsibility. The eBay platform literally puts food on the table for many sellers. That responsibility was never lost on me, and I learned so much about how to test and learn new features and experiences securely and thoughtfully. 

3. Give people a chance. Dave Lippman and @mohanpatt took chances on me. And it set the tone for my entire organization. I took many chances on people from diverse backgrounds over the years. Organically, what happened was a group of inspired, curious people learned together and those backgrounds, former engineers, marketers, consultants, designers, created a diverse mix of product visionaries. It made our work stronger. 

4. Be yourself. I wore the @clammy88 heels at eBay's holiday party my first year and it was a moment where I felt accepted and embraced by this very big company. I tattooed my neck while working at ebay. I was unapologetically gay and loud these 6.5 years. Through the years many colleagues told me my visibility as a weirdo, as a gay man, tattooed, at my level, was refreshing and created a safer space for others to be themselves too. 

5. Be kind. @nicole22inouye asked me yesterday what was my secret to success at ebay and I said  that I always tried to be positive, smile, listen, light up the room, be happy even when delivering criticism or within debate. Life's too short and people don't want to work with jerks. It's always sound policy to bring joy to work. 

In the 1990s I was obsessed with music and I still am: techno pop, new wave, indie rock, disco, industrial, electronic, singer songwriters, and house. I would have my mom drive me to DC to buy vinyl at 12” Dance Records, and I would read Billboard, scouring charts looking for records with bullets. I’d watch 120 Minutes with Dave Kendall, listen to WHFS, and would read Creem, Spin, Details, The Face, looking for new music. I would leaf through Sam Goody, looking for charting CDs and cassettes, and trying to find album artwork that spoke to me.

Back then, as many of you can recall, you would often times buy music based on what you read, and the cover artwork, taking a chance, never actually hearing the music before you bought it. I remember doing this twice with Billie Ray Martin. In high school, while shopping for Erasure and Depeche Mode, I stumbled upon her band Electribe 101’s debut album Electribal Memories. It's a seminal piece of work, blurring lines between techno pop, house, and soul. I found the album by chance, the graphic, arresting artwork, and the band’s name, drawing me to making a purchase. I had no idea then that she’d opened for both Erasure and Depeche Mode during that era. And I had no clue the band fell apart, and a follow up record went orphaned. All I knew was this voice was electric. It matched and honored my sadness and isolation.

In 1995, while at Sam Goody in Baltimore, I saw in Billboard a record ascending the #1 Dance Record chart. The singer, Billie Ray Martin, I assumed was a man. I found the 12”, black and white, with a moody woman, draped on Corbusier, dozens of roses all around, dominating the sleeve. This was Billie and it was the first time I ever saw her. That record, “Your Loving Arms,” is triggering for me. It’s quite possibly the most perfect vocal performance ever recorded to tape, and captures the high and low of love in ways no purely happy or purely sad song can. It’s lyrics and that voice tell of love’s honest nuance, how good it makes us feel and how bad we feel because we compromise ourselves because of its strength at times. I listened to it day and night, and later on, when it crossed over to radio, I read about her: German, and former lead singer of Electribe 101. I stan is how the kids today would say.

In 1996, when I first moved to NYC, I went to Rebel Rebel with my friend Kate, and bought Billie’s debut solo album, Deadline For My Memories. I remember, oddly, it was the German version, and I also remember oddly that is was $27. This was a lot then! That album shook me. Every. Single. Song. It was on Sire, home to Depeche, Erasure, Madonna, kd lang, and others I listened to religiously. I assumed Billie would become the most famous woman in the world. I drove to Tracks in DC to see her perform in cowboy hat, and gobbled up every single. I remember listening to the song “Deadline For My Memories” in the car with my mother days after my father’s death. I lost it.

The internet was nascent then. And Billie had an early website. I reached out via email, assuredly clumsily, and to my surprise Billie wrote back. It started a 25 year friendship. Our first date, seeing Varla Jean Merman in Chelsea, would eventually become laughs over wine in cities like London, Berlin, Paris, and New York. Our obsession with Warhol, and his Superstars, fueling much of the art we’d both make in life, including the few times we performed together in Tom Dixon’s band.

Last summer, over more wine and sardines, in a garden restaurant in West Berlin, she told me that she’d found, and remastered, Electribe 101's second album, which had been shelved over 30 years ago. She’d also brought back to life the original artwork, which was what inspired me first finding her. This week that album, Electribal Soul, finally, saw light of day. It contains many of the songs she rerecorded for her first solo album, but there’s something different here. It feels innocent. It feels younger. It has a bit more soul. It’s a postcard to me from that time, where I too was more innocent and much, much younger. Listening to it has me shaking. In good ways. Thinking of that boy I was, her journey, my youth, her pride, my dad, our lives. It’s nice that in this moment of closure for her,I am finding a bit of my own.

Nine years ago Billie brought tears to eyes when she sang “Your Loving Arms” at my wedding. Now, in the midst of divorce, I am once again finding meaning in her lyrics, and voice. “Sometimes the way that you act makes me wonder what I am to you.” Crying again, this time for different reasons.

For 19 years straight I wrote a recap of my year until Christmas of last year. This tradition started with my blog, youngbradford.com, then graduated to Facebook Notes, and then ended back up on my blog and on Facebook both, but now as a long-ass post, not a Note (their blog product that's since been 86ed). Writing always heals me and has for decades and I have been lucky to have audiences read my words. But for the past few years I have written less. I am unsure if that's a good or bad thing or just a thing, a fact.

Every Christmas I wrote this note, a love letter to the year before, and last year I just did not have it in me. This, obviously, is no surprise to anyone. 2020 was really tough and I just needed to focus on other things: my sanity, my work, my life.

But here I am in Icarai de Amontada in Ceara, Brazil, a green watered, peaceful village, with my friend Jaime Tanner and I am drinking Bordeaux in bed, mustering the energy and courage to write again. And I am going to try to honor both years, as they both had significant impact on me and my friends and family, so here goes.

On January 1, 2020 Georgi Balinov and I were in Brazil, this time in Rio in typical party fashion. We had just finished a magical cruise of the Galapagos, where a childhood dream of mine was realized, swimming with turtles and sea lions. We danced and beached with besties, unaware of what was about to happen.

Later in quarter one of 2020 I traveled to Berlin, London, Zurich, and Tel Aviv for work, Amsterdam to visit Alireza Massoumnia, and witnessed the beautiful wedding of Miron Mironiuk and his husband Jaco in Cape Town. I wore pink Helmet Lang cowboy drag (before Lil Nas X) and stayed in Africa with Peter Wish, later sunning in Zanzibar, and sitting in camouflage while in awe of gorillas in Rwanda. The gorillas moved me, and the world seemed so big, warm, welcoming then.

Then Covid came and NYC locked down and our offices closed and the world closed and gone were the flights and friends and faces of colleagues and strangers in bars and restaurants. I was scared.

The first few months of COVID lockdown/quarantine saw me as a crazed person. Georgi and I never left the apartment ordering bulk vegetables and meats from Baldor, wearing goggles and masks to get the mail, spraying everything down with bleach. Looking back on that second quarter of 2020 I have to say I don't have regrets. Obviously, I am sad for the lives lost and jobs lost, etc. But Georgi and I made the most of it, and our newly designed and built apartment, and we adapted and cooked many meals, baked cakes, watched movies, worked out in parks, rode bikes, and we enjoyed being together and sleeping soundly and not living hotel to hotel, plane to plane.

We reset.

In the middle of chaos, we found some peace. In the retreat of what had become normal, traipsing the globe, port after port, we found solace in slowing down, living more simply. I grew my hair to reach a ponytail, gained 25 pounds, physically changing as the world around us did too.

But then I got itchy. I wanted space and room and safety, so I convinced Georgi to look for a house upstate with me. One weekend during the summer of 2020, wIth Brian Babst, Sandra Hansel, and Charlie Currie we saw 20 homes and made an offer that week on a 13 acre property just north of Hudson, a former farm overlooking the Hudson river. We spent a few weekends in an altered Fire Island share with Corey Reese and Andy Shoulders, and finally moved into the house in September 2020. We more or less have lived in Stuyvesant, NY for the better part of a year. We have renovated several buildings, Luis Urribarri painted a spectacular mural in our pool house, we painted the many barns shades of red in collaboration with Lucy Swift Weber and the Albers Foundation, and Georgi, with the help of Matthew Kelleher, Austin Connor, and Tessa Edick, built his dream garden.

The property, called Rode Barns, Dutch for red, is a love letter to our lives, collections, and friends and family. For the past 1.5 years it's served as an oasis for many people dealing with the fallout of a global pandemic. In the reasonable safety of being away from Manhattan, we had friends from all over the world, and new neighbors too, bringing this place to life with afternoons swimming, working in the garden, sipping wine on the porch, making meals together, and the occasional drag show. I spent more time with my mother Peg Kendall the past 1.5 years, then probably the past 20 combined. And Georgi and I too learned to live with each other really, as some weeks in the previous 13 years we were ships passing in the night, traveling out of NYC as he often arrived and vice versa.

Life threw us lemons, so we made lemonade, a rich, warm, safe, welcoming home. We did this in a single year, renovating and decorating a compound with nine buildings and with numerous hours a week working on the house in addition to our actual jobs. It was a labor of love for us both, and one of the things I am most proud of doing in my life so far. I look back and I am amazed at Rode Barns.

But, in true Gemini fashion, the upstate life too lost its luster. Luckily, this itch coincided with the world opening back up a bit and getting vaccinated. I spent a month with Eric Lee in April 2021 in Palm Springs, working from a rented house and picking back up tennis. I would return to Columbia County, taking two lessons a week, and I have to say, I am wickedly good now. I even got a tennis tattoo, in addition to about 25 others these past few years. Thank you Michelle Tarantelli

In June, I threw a party upstate for my 45th: the theme was Clue and it was a masquerade ball. My best friends joined me and Ongina, Detox, and Raja performed in our flower garden. A family reunion, and reunions with Denise Clement, Lauren Foster, Khadyon Reid, Natalie Kim, Jen Barrett, and Erin Gatling filled the summer upstate, roasting meats, watching movies, drinking wine.

With only some travel, to Berlin where I did Taekwondo for the first time, California where I got to hug my eBay peeps, and England where I saw Manchester finally, the lighter travel load coupled with the serenity of the farm, made most of this year lovely, if not downright enjoyable.

In the fall we picked pumpkins with Andrey Lunin and Jose Esperon, danced in the disco barn with Giri Suarsana, and spent quality time with locals like Jesse Cozart, Bobby Beard & Bibhu Mohapatra, Andy Sforzini & Duncan A. Johnson, Mariano Testa, Shawna. Heading back to Manhattan we watched Corey and Andy get married, I jetted off for a weekend in St. Barths for Lucy's 40th, and finished a rewarding, challenging, and transformative sixth year at eBay.

For Thanksgiving we feasted with twenty friends and family, my mom, Matthew Kelleher's mom, and our neighbors. It was the perfect ending to a year of building, staying safe, and rediscovering the joy of friends and family just doing nothing more than playing games, making dinners, and relaxing. I lost some people I loved the past two years, most notably my grandfather and Alan Heller, but both lived full lives, so I am at peace with this and think of them often. I am thankful for my health and the health of most in my life.

eBay awards all employees a sabbatical every five years. This year, I qualified and I am now in week five of six and a half, writing this. I am sun-kissed and carefree, having not worked once in over a month. I decided to escape to Brazil, where I have traveled to Rio, São Paulo, Brasilia, Ceara, Goiania, and Caraiva, with Jaime and Jose Seronni. I have immersed myself in Brazilian culture, food, festivities, flora, and fauna and I am at peace. Deep peace.

Friends all over are testing positive for Covid this week. The world feels on the brink of another lockdown, another catastrophe. And yet, I am oddly optimistic, convinced of the resilience of people, family, my husband, myself. I know we will get through whatever is about to happen.

Life's thrown many a curve ball at me, and to quote the late, great Stephen Sondheim:

"I've run the gamut, A to Z

Three cheers and dammit, c'est la vie

I got through all of last year, and I'm here

Lord knows, at least I was there, and I'm here

Look who's here, I'm still here!"

And rest assured, I am having more tonight in the northern coast of Brazil than pretzels and beer.

Merry Christmas, Peace & Big Love,

At the Union Square Cafe, in 2006, I first met Alan Heller. I had just moved back to NYC and Alan was courting my then fiance Benjamin Dixon to come work for him. With Alan's wife Barbara, the four of us laughed and indulged at NYC’s top restaurant. It was indulgent, fun, and prophetic.

Ben had known Alan from Design Within Reach, as Ben had been the brand’s controller during their IPO era, a time when design seemed on the brink of mass appeal, when this idea of being a design brand could be mainstream. Huge, even.

Ben did not take the job with Alan, but I kind of did. Not officially. But I did befriend Alan as I enrolled at Parsons, a New School branch, at which Alan graduated in the 1960s. This time in my life, I became the top seller at DWR, while I went to school part time, under the influence and guidance of Sandra Hansel. Ben moved on to banking. I immersed myself in design.

A lot happened in those years around 2009. It was explosive! First, I met Georgi Balinov, which disrupted a lot and altered my course. And then came the professional combustion. Jason Goldberg called me and asked me if I wanted to found a tech company. At Eisenbergs, during this time with Alan, and on the phone, with Sandra (and Eric Lee, Eric Riley, Peg Kendall), I made peace with change in my personal and professional life. I embraced it.

During this time, I remember eating a reuben with Alan and I told him about my dream of Fab.com. It was going to be a place where people who loved design and color and other people would shop, where design was inclusive, and sometimes fun. Where it was actually within reach. And joyous.

He said do it.

Later, he told me that Milton Glaser would love the idea of Fab and that he was so happy I wanted to make design accessible, affordable, and fun (which he too had done). With tuna, hanging from my lips, in a diner, crowded with pearlized plastic tumblers of Coke, and plates of pickles, Alan scribbled Milton’s phone number on a napkin. I was stunned. This was how Alan rolled.

Hours later, at the Fab(ulis) offices, I summoned the courage to call Milton. A receptionist fielded the call, which was fine, I was calling as a friend of Alan Heller’s. Milton took the call, obviously.

The rest is history. It was a turning point in my life.

I visited Milton that afternoon on the east side of Manhattan. We talked of “I Heart NY,” New York Magazine, and life in general in his studio basement. He, like Alan, and Sandra, saw something and believed in me. He said, for the first time, he wanted to sell these works online.

A month later Fab.com launched. We sold $1Million in our first 20 days and Milton was featured on the day of our launch. Many years later, I would meet Milton. We sold and created more items together, and he welcomed me back to his studio when I dreamt up Bezar. It was like being in the company of kings those days. He embraced me as a peer in his 80s.

Milton died in June of 2020 at 91 and I was punched in the gut, left with relics of our partnership, signed, in rainbow pencil, posters and prints to Georgi and I. Alan, around this time, took a turn for the worst too health-wise.

We’d meet, he’d be slower. He’d watch what he ate (I kept eating too much tuna salad). We communicated via email a lot. He was a big eBay fan, admired Casper, and we had fun poking at specific design retailers, certainly not within reach. He always asked about Georgi (he did attend our wedding, the oldest, yet one of the kindest, attendees), and Sandra, who we all knew via that design retailer. He always asked who he should hire and was obsessed with innovation. He sent silly jokes. With Jae Hah, sometimes, and alone with others, I’d venture to the UES, where we’d dine in Breuer Buildings or holes in the wall. He was far less mobile. Yet, moving fast in his head.

A few weeks back, I emailed Alan, as we always did, on or off, for the past 15 years. This time, I wanted gray Gehry cubes for my pool area. I have outfitted the Pool Bar with Vignelli Hellerware and I had inherited a few Gehry cubes from the previous owner of Rode Barns, but in blue and white they did not match my black-tonal palette. Alan responded quickly, he would take care of it.

Then silence. I emailed again. Again. Again. And I knew what was happening. At dinner I told Sandra I was worried something had happened to Alan. Then I got the note from Barbara, Alan’s companion, who had been there in 2006 at the Union Square Cafe: Alan was in his final days. I told her to tell him what he meant to me, believing in me, a person who gave me a big break. She replied “Just read your beautiful email to him. He smiled and said ‘tell him I did it out of love.’” Alan died a week later. He was 81.

A week after that, at the Gramercy Tavern, another Danny Meyer haunt, I met up with two women, both recently diagnosed with breast cancer. Both I worked with at the retailer Alan and I often lambasted at Eisenbergs. And both were doing this cancer thing, their way. One, I am especially close to, the other, I know less, but admire greatly. And it was she who dropped the wisdom of the evening. Over Sichuan Slushies, she told us of how she’s handling cancer. She painted a picture. Her life is like a house, as she drew a square in the air with her hands. “Some people are always inside.” “Some are in the yard, some, sometimes, have the key to the gate, some are on the outside.” It was her way of sectioning off the sympathy she’s receiving, who she wanted to engage with, verses who were engaging with her to actually make themselves feel heard. It was a wise observation I thought, one that provided space and protection to manage life and it’s curve balls, her way. It stayed with me even after she left.

Today, at a gay restaurant in Rehoboth, my mother Peggy and I discussed her mother, my friends, and life in general. I told her the story of my friends’ cancer, about the house metaphor, and other recent observations I’ve found profound. Last month, Jesse Cozart told me people have two choices, to be interested in people or be interesting to people. Some people have both! No one has the luxury to be neither. A week later, Mark Silver told me he wanted to be around people who made him feel full after encountering them, not those who deflated him, sucked his blood, his energy.

I have been lucky enough to feel this fullness from friendships. And as I grapple with the death of mentors and cancer of loved ones once again, I whisper the advice I gave my best friend with cancer a few weeks back, and my mother too tonight: it’s gonna be alright.

And here we go, my 19th annual year-end love letter online …Georgi Balinov and I rang in the new year at a giant party in Bangkok, halfway around the world. That foreign location, its beauty and tastes, set the tone for my 2019, a year of seeing the world, while stabilizing my life. Though often in flux or movement, 2019 was a year many things normalized over the year.

In January, almost immediately after arriving stateside, I crossed the pond and saw Michelle Visage perform in the West End with Peter Wish. Afterward, I played with her wigs backstage and walked her towards the queer kids lining up for selfies and autographs. I am very lucky to have Peter and Michelle in my life, kindred spirits both. One reminding me that fame, fortune, ebb, and flow, but that being real is what matters most. The other, a reminder to stay forever young. I visited Berlin yet again and did the usual, working, and playing, hard.

February appeared and I traveled to Philadelphia with Sandra Hansel, Georgi, George Sapio, and Anthony DeFilippis. We toured Lisa Roberts’ house, saw a Dieter Rams exhibit, dined with George Alley. In Lambertville, that Sunday, I bought vinyl and vintage hats. Later that month, I got a swallow tattooed on my hand, a symbol of flight and travel, and Warhol’s knives, blackened into my shin. An Eames exhibit in Oakland was a sweet way to end the month.

In March with my crew, Georgi, Khadyon Reid, Luis Urribarri, Anthony, and George, descended upon Salvador for Carnival. It was insane! I watched Anitta live, and danced in a sea of pushing, fighting, kissing Brazilians for days upon days. I felt unsafe and alive, threatened and excited. It was intense. Back home I got my other hand tattooed, again honoring my love of seeing the world. I traveled to Portland, came back to NYC at the end of the month, finally moving into our apartment, the one we bought 1.5 years before, that I designed, and had renovated head to toe. Finally, we had our dream home. The weekend we moved in, the place was still not ready, but we were sick of living without our things and in other people’s beds. Peg Kendall and Georgi’s mom came, and we worked our asses off unpacking and starting to make the 2800 square foot loft on west 13th street a home. We’d lived in Airbnbs and friends’ places for 19 months and it was tiring not having a home, not having most of our things. My art! My toys! My shoes!. Those months taught me how important a home, a safe place, and the oasis of my collections is to my mental health. From March on I felt more on solid ground and dedicated more energy to my career and friendships as a result.

In April we went to Coachella, seeing Ian and Jose Seronni, JJ and Andrey Lunin, and dancing in the desert of California. Multiple trips to San Francisco, catching glimpse of old friends, scaling my team at work, as I took on more and more responsibility.

In May, George Sapio and I celebrated (me a little early) a shared, fun birthday weekend at Soho Farmhouse. Joined by Matthew Kelleher, Mark Silver, Jaime Tanner, Matt Lynch, and others, we went shooting and feasted on pheasant in the English countryside.June was really busy, insanely so. 

For my 43rd in early June, I had a 30-person dinner party in our new place! We ended up at Club Cumming after, but before friends, new, and old, showered me with a vinyl record, the admission fee I’d set for my party. Lauren Foster, who has shared her home with us, was, appropriately, our first overnight guest. London, again, Berlin, too. Then home for Pride. Willam Ralphie hosted Bingo at eBay, Zach Augustine, David Mason Chlopecki, other loves attended. That weekend danced to both Madonna and Grace Jones on the pier and danced with 15K others at Javitz, where my favorite singer, Cyndi Lauper, belted “I Drove All Night,” her best song, at midnight. I stayed until the sun came up. NYC was electric that weekend. Parties, icons, friends from the world over … the city has an energy you could literally see and taste. I caught a few moments of the parade, overtaking lower Manhattan, and I smiled really big. God, it can feel good being gay! God, the world has improved for gay people (and yes, I know, we still have ways to go, especially for more marginalized LGBTQ groups). But I still took a moment to acknowledge the things that are better, that I have seen in my very gay lifetime. NYC that weekend was the ultimate place to reflect.

July 4th I went to Hamptons, with Ricardo, Brian, Felipe L. Mollica, others, guests of Anthony. Hosted Fab.com reunion, walked the Brooklyn Bridge, and took my team to Korea (where I shared a traditional Korean meal with Jae Hah), China (where I ate bird’s nests, jellyfish, sea snails, saw a Yves Klein show with Adnan Abbasi, and danced to 90s pop in a packed gay club), and Moscow (where I was amazed at how clean the city was and where I went to a traditional sauna and was whipped, naked, with tree leaves in front of dozens of Russian dudes in the nude). While in Russia a protest erupted, literally below the rooftop bar I dined in. Russia seemed freer than I’d expected, way more Western, up until this moment. I ended the weekend at a club at 3 AM, Russian women in high, high heels, dancing on the bar, vodka flowing like water. 2020 saw me traveling to places I romanticized as a child. Russia, one such place. I thoroughly enjoyed the friendships formed in Moscow, the food, and history. I want to return.

August, I was back in San Jose and Portland for work, then off again to Europe for vacation. We started our trip in Croatia, where Georgi and I kayaked around Dbruvnik’s harbor. Croatia’s cliffs and turquoise water did not disappoint, as we boated to islands and swam in caves. Driving south into Montenegro, the architecture reminded me more of Polish, Bulgarian trips, the water, greener. At the Amman we laid out next to The Beckhams, watching David kick a soccer ball with workers of the hotel, and watching Victoria read a book. Georgi and I then ventured to Mykonos, sunning til sunset and dancing til sunrise. A weekend trip upstate with our besties (including a guest appearance by Eric Lee, riding rides at the Colombia County fair, cooking pies, and grilling meats, ended our summer.

In September I went to Berlin and did Folsom and a speaking gig in front of 1K eBay sellers. I went again to Tel Aviv, meeting gay Israeli technology workers and a bevy fo Israeli start-ups. In Jerusalem, I returned to the wonderful Machneyuda with Gilad Ayalon, where they remembered me from my birthday the year before.

October saw us hosting my mother and my niece for a visit. We fell in love with Company XVI, a dance/burlesque/performance art troupe in Brooklyn. I took my mother to see Madonna, a night I will cherish forever. And we saw Dear Evan Hanson. A weekend in Miami with Lauren Foster and K was needed warmth. I took Georgi to see both acts of The Inheritance (so good!).  Then off to Berlin, again, and Paris, where I looked at art and went shopping for fall clothes. Halloween, in NYC, was brilliant and over the top; I went as white Pierrot clown. In Brooklyn, to Honey Dijon, we danced all night. Ralph Rucci, the American couturier reposted our photo on Instagram, calling it high-fashion, however, it was Georgi who won the night as Spock.

November I was in NYC early on, shopping with Thomas Cawson (who hooked me up with pink denim Helmut Lang), eating Christmas cookies, and being interviewed by Buzzfeed, a segment on 90s toys. I imitated a Furby. Then a week in Portland (I glow-in-the-dark-miniature-golfed), and off to Helsinki, catching up with former friends from Fab, One Nordic, Hem. Then to Lapland, with Georgi, George, and Anthony, lapping up wine, winter wonderlands, and dining on reindeer and elk. Dog sledding, snowmobiling, Northen lights! Another childhood desire checked from the list. Dinner with Michelle Case in London closed the month.

In December I went back to Berlin (my second home) and hosted a fundraiser for Single Step in our home. In one night Georgi and I helped raise $50K to help build Bulgaria’s first LGBTI center. It was also an impromptu holiday party: so many old friends together again in one room. And now Georgi and I sit in an airport lounge, awaiting our flight to Baltra, in the Galapagos. Once we land, we’ll board a 7-day cruise on a mega-yacht/small cruise ship. This, I feel, I have been waiting my entire life for.

I often write about how I was lonely as a kid. I was gay, I had a drug-addicted father, I grew up very poor. I oftentimes say music saved my life. But, I don’t write enough about the joy animals gave me too. I had so many pets: newts, turtles, tortoises, tree frogs, geckos, crabs, salamanders, etc. Caring for them, feeding them, gave me peace and allowed me to love. One turtle I had had a cracked shell. He lived in my room for many, many years. I always preferred him, with his defects, to the others. I think I feel the same about people.

As a child, I became obsessed with the Galapagos Islands, and mostly the tortoises. I would read about them in encyclopedias and race to see them at zoos. I always felt connected to turtles. They were my spirit animal. Later in life, I’d bloom, my feathers growing, my pride, alive. I’d no longer consider myself a turtle, my spirit animal changed. I told this story to my colleague Eben Sermon, who runs eBay’s German business: I always wanted to be a turtle. But I ended up a cockatoo. Eben brought this up last week in Berlin and it made me think a bit more about affinities for animals and how I have not had that connection as often as I probably should.

So this week, before we ring in New Years in Rio, I will honor the old me, the kid, the quieter Bradford, the sadder Bradford, by visiting those turtles, finally.

And I’ll marvel at the wonder of nature and evolution, both the evolution of animals and this world, and also the very real and dramatic evolution of my spirit and happiness.

“I go round and round just like a circle I can see a clearer picture When I touch the ground I come full circle To my place and I am home I am home”

I went home last night.

Drinking Gamay with my mom last night, in my new home, which has finally come together, she remarked on my life’s journey and how I got here: Manhattan, marriage, success, happiness. And of all the hurdles I had to clear in my 43 years.

She spoke of working too many hours when I was young, to escape from my father. She apologized to me for allowing me to grow up in a home with an abusive, drug-addicted father, who’d hock my stereo, or CD collection, and, at times, literally stole my car from my high school parking lot to go shoot up. I thanked her for the remarks but told her they were unnecessary. My turbulent childhood was actually full of love. From her, grandparents. But also that the pain and horror I saw early on forced me to find solace outside of our, oftentimes, broken home. I did that via music. I would covet and collect songs and CDs, 12 inches and cassettes, and I found my place in other’s thoughts, melodies. I learned the words. I made sense of my feelings of sorrow, abuse, coming out, via the language of pop singers. I translated my heart through the chorus and refrain.

And I still do.

My mother and I had a remarkably deep conversation last night, that moved from my apartment and to the restaurant down the block, where red wine was replaced with Mescal margaritas, and discussion of my childhood pivoted to my adulthood. There, my mother opened up about her recent opening up and I shared with her how important music was to me. Many artists, Bell to Tennant, Smith to Lauper, gave me hope. But one, only one, was the supreme.

Madonna.

A few weeks back, on a whim, I bought my mother and I tickets to see Madonna’s Madame X show in Brooklyn. I’d seen every tour since Blonde Ambition, and was unable to make the date Georgi had secured, so I opted to treat my mom, killing two birds: I’d get to see Madonna and we’d have something fun to do on her trip. I had no idea, weeks back, that the night I took my mom to Madge would also be a night we’d dive into nostalgia and try to make sense of our steps to get here. So, as we ate snapper and octopus, the discussion of my childhood became a discussion of this idol, of gay rights, of politics, of family.

From dinner, we drove in the rain to BAM, drank more, this time gin and tonic, checked our phones, and sat down for the show. Michael Kors and Amanda Lepore, visible from our 4th-row seats, made the night feel even more quintessentially New York. The lights went down the audience up on their feet.

Madonna was spectacular. Her banter was vulgar and weird, but endearing. Her look, minus the Pete Burns eye patch, that seems to be, even for me, a bit forced, was at times vampy (“Vogue” recalled “Justify My Love” stylings), chic (the entire Portugues/Spanish moment), serious (“Frozen”), and ethereal (“Come Alive”). The music was great. The setlist, which was most of Madame X, her spectacular new album, a dramatic return to electronic-form, with some greatest hits thrown in. Madonna’s 3 best, and consecutive albums, Ray of Light, Music, and American Life have found their rightful follow-up, as Madame X feels like those records. And Madonna’s voice, often panned, was the surprise hit of the night. When the vocoder, turned up for effect, not disguise, stopped, a fragile, nuanced voice emerged. “Frozen” was a revelation, showing off her lyricism and musicianship in bold display. “Future” was the most symbolic, of our time, but of her career too. Madonna, definitely coming to the future, obviously learning from the past.

My past was a perfect foil to Madame X. Madonna danced with her children while I danced with my mom. The joy of these songs. The connection to these lyrics. The love of dancing and art and song and New York even James Baldwin. All made the intimate show even more intimate. I stood on the edge of the 4th row and she and her band danced down it, with Madonna literally right next to me.

I was unphased sandwiched between her and my mother. The woman to my right has been next to me for 30 years, almost as long as the woman to my left, who I have known for 43 years.

At one point Madonna sat in the audience and sipped a beer of a gay man working in criminal reform She made small talk with him. And it was funny. He was from Oklahoma, she made cowboy jokes.

But things got serious, quickly. He thanked her on behalf of the gay men killed by the plague. For being one of our first advocates. For loving gay people. For celebrating our culture. She was stunned a bit, humbled. Then he went on, thanking her for the suicidal little boy he once was, for giving him hope. For inspiring him to believe that it gets better. It was the heartfelt thank you I have owed her my entire life.

The moment was not lost on me. The circle of life. The boy I once was and the man I am now, in New York Fucking City, living the life I wished for myself, inspired by this woman and her song and punk rock attitude. And it was not lost on me that his and my experience with her was not unique. She touched, inspired, and protected an entire generation of gay men this way. I am one of many.

Having a fucked-up childhood was not all bad. It allowed me to find my siren and find my own voice, which I am still finding.

I sat alone, again. Late in the office and coming down from the joy of dancing and make belief, gay New Years, Saturday before Halloween, I wanted to eat alone and catch up with the world.

I read the news. Finally, I soak up stories, shot-up synagogues, sad tears fill my lids. I read more, homophobic leader elected in Brazil. 5,000 troops headed to the border. Depressing. What’s going on?

I chew charred peppers and swig Spanish vino and I actually try to think of happy thoughts. Husband in air, to-do list the size of a novel, I struggle for a second to find that smile.

Then I remember yesterday. Hungover, at 1pm, I finally faced the day. Luis Urribarri and Georgi Balinov and I walk to brunch and an Asian man behind us, calls. He asks us to stop.

On 46th street, people passing, grumbling hunger in my belly, we oblige. He bluntly asks where people like us can go to meet? He tells us you cannot be gay where he lives. That he does not know the rules of engagement. That he needed help. He even asked Georgi how to talk to someone gay. We suggested Boxers and told him to simply talk to strangers. Order a drink and see where it goes, and then we walked away. It happened so quickly.

Yesterday this interaction bummed me out. A grown man asking where to meet other gay men in 2019 in NYC? Even in my younger days, before gay marriage and the shift toward acceptance, I took my slice of freedom for granted it appears.

I chomp churros and think of that synagogue and of Pulse and that how I bet many Jews feel a similar sorrow I felt post-Pulse. I thought of that Asian guy on the street and if he met anyone at the bar, did he hook up. I get mad at myself for not inviting him along with us. For not asking him which country he was from. For not taking him to a bar and buying his first drink.

“Go West” was never my favorite Pet Shop Boys song. At the time, I found the tune oddly out of place on Very, the buttoned orange cd that every gay kid had in the nineties. That album was super icy. What did disco have to do there?

It was not until many, many years later, when I found out the song’s prominence during days of communism’s collapse, and I grew a new affinity to it. The thought of my round-eyed love, suddenly excited his world was bigger, singing this song, was enough to make me love it. Twenty years after I first heard it and likely forty years after the Village People charted it, I was a fan.

Last night at London’s Royal Opera House, in the orchestra pit with only 80 others, dancing with my Brazilian friend Jaime, I was literally right underneath Neil and Chris, the Boys.

They kept to their usual, perfect routine. Lights, dancing, fashion, costumes, avant-garde at times, serious at others, and sometimes camp, but not overtly. In pops within the seriousness. Smart is how I describe them.

Their music is serious. Don’t let the disco beat full/fool you. I often times write of my own life, one that is not uncommon to many gay men, but one that has brought me pain but mostly joy. Via blog at first, and now here on Facebook, I’ve tried to catch the moments I’ve said “a-ha!,” those times life made sense. And I try to write them down.

The older I get, the more I have had these moments when I connect the paths I’ve walked and see it’s all making sense.

As techno boomed in London last night and as breakdancers danced and fans bopped, I watched a show by a pop duo. It was their show. I have their shirt. I have the videos I filmed of them. But, it was also my show.

The pet shop poetry, their catalog, is a fine volume of the outtakes of gay urban life from the 80s to today. Listen. Really listen.

“It’s A Sin” is about chasing religion’s guilt in our gay lives. “When I look back upon my life, it’s always with a sense of shame.” “New York City Boy” is a monument to my first years in Manhattan, when searching for white label remixes were more important than any career. “Vocal” is a record about those records. “Pop Kids,” about my friends back then. About me.

Their catalog is a recorded history of drugs, clubs, affairs, guilt, pain, joy, losing caution and virginity, making art and writing, dining and fighting, living in my favorite cities, dancing, reading, coming of age. It’s the Gen X urban gay male story. And for a second last night, when I put my phone down and closed my eyes and really listened, I was moved that for decades someone has told a story so similar to mine with such style, drama, humor, and seriousness. And scale. I shook.

“Go West” was there too. And in this setting it seemed profound. PSB had honored Village People, another band who sang of gay experiences and just happened to make the top 40 without people even knowing what it meant. It made more sense now. A gay disco song about San Francisco’s hedonistic freedom was borrowed by Europe’s people to symbolize a brand new day. Then they left the stage. I breathed heavily, looked to the heavens, grabbed Jaime’s hand, and started back dancing.

They returned. The song they sang upon coming back to stage for an encore was “Domino Dancing.” Middle aged fans, many, many who were straight women, chanted “all day, all day,” and I wondered if they knew what it meant. Wrapped in techno, pop, and freestyle, the song’s about a lover’s desire to have an open relationship in the 80s (sooner or later this happens to everyone) and that choice’s potential tragedy in an era of AIDS. The lyrics literally tell of gay men dying (watch them all fall down). And for a second I was saddened: so much of Pet Shop Boys weight is lost within the pop. People sing and hear and love these songs, but do they listen?

I was again reminded why gay people are awesome. Called fag, kicked, beat up, killed by families, strangers, governments, AIDS ... my kind often times gets hit hard. And my favorite thing about being gay is that we get up. We laugh. We then make you laugh. We dazzle. We sing. And sometimes, many times, we make art that is in your face about this pain. Or we write essays a dozen people will read.

And whether those people know the darkness lurking underneath, or they/you don’t, I/we don’t care.