The plants, the music, the clothing! There are three parts to this posting. Part 1 is about plants, specifically a Hydrangea macrophylla now blooming on my patio for the first time since 2017. Part 2 (which ends up with Randy Rainbow doing a fabulous barbershop quartet performance — just the music, ma’m) and Part 3 (which ends up with the superhot Argentine fashion model Maximiliano Patane posing shirtless) are tied to Part 1 by the color dusty rose (a type of pink), some mental association, and some sheer accident. The color, from the Color Codes site:
(#1) In actual practice, the color label covers a range of hues, some lighter, some brighter, some pinker
From dusty rose by association to the song “Lida Rose” and to Randy Rainbow’s performance of it. Also from dusty rose in a search for men’s clothing in the color (after a search for clothing in this color got tons of women’s clothing, mostly lingerie and wedding dresses, and nothing for men; the color is clearly highly gendered), by happy accident to a photo of an extremely steamy and wildly hirsute Patane modeling a suit in that color. Which led me to the model more generally; my ignorance of the world of high fashion is both wide and deep, but for Patane a 2016 spread on him (“hotter than California weather”) in Out magazine provided shirtless delight.
And then I was able to tie all three parts together in a brief parody of “Lida Rose”, in which the singer speaks to his lover Max using the pet name Dusky Rose for him.
Part 1. The plant part, about my bigleaf hydrangea plant, Hydrangea macrophylla. From my 6/2/17 posting “Pride Time #1: the pink and the purple”:
The red hydrangea. Well, neon pink. When I got it, it had blue flowers, with instructions to use acid fertilizer to keep it blue. Instructions I didn’t follow, so I discovered that the flowers were a deep pink, not your usual pink hydrangea, like this one:
(#2)
On the next blooming, the flowers were flaming pink instead of blue, and now, in season 3, the plant turns out to be a red cultivar. Well, deep screaming neon pink. On my patio yesterday:
(#3)
Now — today in June 2022 — I have the first flowers since 2017, these dusty rose flowers — modestly pretty, rather than screamingly pink, apparently through the miracle of soil and plant chemistry:
(#4)
(No big leaves, despite the macrophylla name, just bare stems with buds, thanks to powdery mildew. But at least the slugs, rats, skunks, and squirrels didn’t just strip the plant of its leaves, as they did for years and years. Unfortunately, the flowers aren’t lasting long under the onslaught of days of very high temperatures, in the 90s F.)
Part 2. The musical interlude. The color name dusty rose clanged with “Lida Rose” for me; I know, show tunes, show tunes, show tunes. This one’s sung in close harmony by a barbershop quartet. What is, for me the crucial verse:
Lida Rose, I’m home again, Rose
Without a sweetheart to my name
Lida Rose, how everyone knows
That I am hoping you’re the same
It’s from The Music Man (music and lyrics by Meredith Wilson), which opened on Broadway in 1957, with an excellent film adaptation in 1962. I can still do chunks of it from memory. So “Lida Rose” popped up right away.
I’d intended to insert here the YouTube video from the movie, but then I stumbled on some gold: “Lida Rose” / “Will I Ever Tell?” from the Randy Rainbow Show. Not doing his wickedly inspired gay-political shtick, just singing his heart out, beautifully, on all the parts:
(#5) You can watch the YouTubevideo here
Part 3. The clothing part, in which my efforts to find some dusky rose men’s clothing led me to this:
(#6) Hombre en rosa oscura: Maximiliano Patane modeling a dusky rose suit for the Mexican department store El Palacio de Hierro (photo: David Roemer)
Faced with this remarkable photo, I went on to investigate MP (apparently, he’s been world-famous for a long time, just not in my world). An Argentine model working the runway since 2011, for many different agencies, he’s now 41 years old. He’s tall — 6ʹ 1.5ʺ — and slim, almost gaunt, but very very hot, as you can see in this 2016 photo for Out magazine:
(#7) Wow, how a dusky rose is blooming!
All that remains is to sing to him:
Dusky Rose, I’m home again, Rose
Without my sweet Max in my arms
Dusky Rose, how everyone knows
That I am longing for your charms