I grew my hair out really, really long last year. It took about six months, and that’s saying something, since (like most people in L.A.) I’m a little vain.

One of my clients at the time was, John, a native of France who’s undergoing training to become a shaman. In case you don’t know, a shaman (especially among tribal peoples) is a person who acts as intermediary between the natural and supernatural worlds, using magic to cure illness, foretell the future, and control spiritual forces. He’s an incredibly intuitive guy, and coincidentally, John also happened to be growing out his hair.

During the process I began to understand how much patience it took, so I’d often encourage John along the way complimenting him on his current incarnation of length and style. I even developed a theory, which I shared with him one day.

“I think letting your haircut ‘hang out there’ is a spiritual exercise,” I said. “It requires patience, a measure of mastery and discipline, and a certain loss of self-control.”

“Strange,” he replied. “That’s why I’VE been growing mine!” He’d even been doing spiritual research on the topic, discovering that hair symbolizes the “father energy” of a person’s masculine energy. Conversely, he found, the removal of hair is feminizing, associated with the mother energy. He told me that in many cultures, the length of your hair is linked to your power, and often associated with the quality of your relationship with your father. In some spiritual traditions, having long hair indicates a level of healing, acceptance and completion with the father energy. In the Hebrew scriptures, Samson’s brute strength is derived from his hair (which he loses when Delilah tricks him, cutting if off and rendering him impotent).

If you’re a regular reader of my blog, you may know that for the past couple years I’ve been working to reconnect with my biological dad. Well, in 2007 the reconnect finally happened and we’re both enjoying a new e-mail relationship between “long-lost” father and son.

Is it just a happy coincidence that the year I finally mended fences with my father was the year my hair was the longest ever? And that the one time I shaved my head was during my years at Gonzaga University, so overcompensating for being gay that I joined Army ROTC, became a Promise Keeper and rowed on the crew team just to prove what a macho guy I was? How about that in the gay ghettos, short hair is almost a prerequisite. There’s even a barber shop in Los Angeles devoted to it!

I shared with Bronson (who also grew out his hair) this photograph of a young Arnold Schwartzenegger, training in World Gym, in his early 20s. Arnold had long hair too, as did his training partners. I wonder if he knew back then that he was on to something.

As for my long hair, I’m thinking about growing it out again. I kinda miss it.

The late Chad Presswood (1969-1999) was Bronson’s best friend. For those of you who have spent a bunch of time here on PLL, you may know that I’ve referred to him as my “guardian angel” for some very special reasons which I spoke about at the Spirit of Hope Awards last year.

Last year, our friend Christine in Naples sent us Chad’s sparkly aluminum tree, which had remained in her possessions after his death, as a Christmas gift. It’s become a very special part of our holiday tradition. (I joked with Bronson yesterday how pleased Chad would be that we have not one, not two, but THREE Christmas trees at our house—and all of them sparkle like a disco ball).

This week as we commemorate World AIDS Day, I’m thinking about Chad, wishing his personality was still here to reflect and grace the many lives he touched, and who miss him very much.

Friends are always amazed at how much food I can put away. And by put away, I don’t mean into cupboards and refrigerators, I mean eat. I’ve always had what I thought of as a “healthy appetite,” and as a kid I was regularly encouraged (weren’t we all?) to “finish everything on your plate” after all, there are “people starving in Africa.”

Only recently, I’ve made the startling realization that I’m an emotional eater.  I eat sometimes because I want to be comforted, or feel safe. I eat because it “feels good.”  Until recently, I’d drink caffeine for a similar reason: the energy it provided was great “fuel” for my afternoon workouts when I feel sluggish or tired.  Upon quitting caffeine, I’ve observed a new tendency toward sugar emerge.

“Any person who is trying to lose weight really has no business eating sugar,” one of my clients mused bluntly today.  I think he’s right. Other people do, too: After years of unsuccessful dieting, the no-sugar approach is what Jerry O’Connell attributes to his transformation. (more…)

he last time the stock market crashed like this, in 1987, it was a cold splash of water in my 13-year-old face. Back then, I was Sam Francis: the teen tycoon behind Sam’s Candy, a little candy shop in Bountiful, Utah. It was a jarring first lesson to a kid who’d wind up being a lifelong American entrepreneur. While my candy store was somewhat “recession proof,” my high school years brought constant worry about whether I’d have enough money to go to college. I wondered if the recession would wipe out my fledgling venture altogether. Heavy topics for a 13-year-old.  Pretty heady for a 34-year-old, too.

I don’t usually wax esoteric about French philosophy, but my own journey from an idyllic small town into a very Real World filled with unpredictability and danger is not unlike that of Voltaire’s Candide:

Candide, ou l’Optimisme (1759) is a French satire by the Enlightenment philosopher Voltaire. It’s the [story of] a young man, Candide, who’s living a sheltered life in an Edenic paradise and being indoctrinated with “optimism” by his tutor, Pangloss. The work describes the abrupt cessation of this existence, followed by Candide’s slow, painful disillusionment as he witnesses and experiences great hardships in the world.

Two of my favorite songs are from Leonard Bernstein’s 1956 operetta version of Candide. The first, Glitter and Be Gay, is one of the most “fiendishly challenging” coloratura soprano arias ever written. The song’s a reminder that no matter how bad it gets, one always has one’s demented sense of humor. It’s a song befitting any Republican heiress, performed here brilliantly by Kristin Chenowith. It will leave you breathless:

The other great song from Candide is Make Our Garden Grow, an expansive duet so evocative of the ideals of the American West, it’s practically a Democrat’s manifesto:

We’re neither pure, nor wise, nor good / We’ll do the best we know.
We’ll build our house and chop our wood / And make our garden grow.

Pretty good advice then, and good advice now.

Isn’t this exactly what we do when times are rough?  Tend to our families,  chop our wood, try to improve our lot?  I’m no pol, but it seems to me that the best thing each of us can do for our country right now is hunker down and get serious about our lives.

So, please vote. And do whatever you have to, but get out of debt. Save where you can.  Consider urban homesteading: chop your proverbial wood, fix the things that need fixing, and make your garden grow. Or, if you’re all fed up, just get out already. The choice is up to you: Glitter and be gay, or make your garden grow. Whatever you choose, remember to laugh like hell. It’s still the best medicine.

My post, “My Greatest Fear of All” generated a lot of e-mail. One reader asked me to outline some practical tips on how to overcome the so-called Fear of Success.

Arguably the greatest yogi of all time, the mythical Yoda, said it best:  “Do or not do, there is no try.” But when it comes to overcoming the fear of success, I think there’s really no do—there is only be.  So, it’s quite impossible for me to “list ten ways to overcome the fear of success,” because it has nothing to do with doing and everything to do with being.

So instead of a list of things to “do” — here are five simple meditations that might illuminate what “being” feels like.

The first is riding a bicycle. Remember how training wheels were so easy, but how it paled in comparison to that first moment when your parent took them off the bike?  Even though you’d been given instruction on how to keep your balance and what to do, it still didn’t quite translate. You had to experience the wobble and tilt of the bike’s two tires for yourself to grasp how to keep your balance. And in that moment, when you finally “got it” — oh, the freedom! It’s like you never had training wheels in the first place.

Consider the great sculptors of the Renaissance, and how they started with one block of clay, making large drastic cuts to the giant mound. But as their work progressed, a finer touch and attention to detail was needed, resulting in the ultimate masterpiece.  Do you experience a fear of success? Then also be aware of your goals.  Be especially aware if you’re allowing your goals to become your limits.  Many times we create an arbitrary goal in our head or on paper.  Once we near the goal, we get freaked out, or we psyche ourselves out of achieving it.  A question to ask yourself if you are experiencing this:  “Do I believe my goal to be the limit of what I can achieve?”   In this sense, you are like Michaelangelo—don’t be afraid to redefine your goals as you get closer to creating your ultimate masterpiece.

You’ve probably heard the saying: “Luck is opportunity meeting preparation.” You can’t just sit back and imagine it (whatever “it” is) happening.  It takes disciplined effort, day in and day out.  When it does finally happen, everyone will marvel at your ability to manifest it with seeming effortlessness, but you’ll know that you just kept working at it, day in and day out.  Because you were “being” it all along. (more…)

the moment I let go of it…
was the moment I got more than I could handle.
the moment I jumped off of it…
was the moment I touched down

-Alanis Morissette, Thank U

“I HATE your SCALE,” my client, Sarah (not her real name) said. “What’s wrong with me? I just can’t lose weight!!” She was obsessing, a trait not uncommon to people who work out and care about our physical appearance.

A few weeks ago, I heard an economist talking about how economists determine if a country is in a recession. The decision is directly tied to the gross domestic product (GDP). The problem with that, this economist ventured, is that the GDP is only ONE indicator of a country’s economic activity. “You get what you measure,” he said. “If all you measure is the GDP, is it any wonder we go through largely fear-based economic cycles?”

The problem lies in what we choose to MEASURE. (more…)

“I am utterly tired of being your mother. Every time I see you, I have to say the obligatory ‘You need to lose some weight.’ But you swear you ‘don’t eat anything’ or ‘the weight just doesn’t come off,’ and the subject is dropped. Then you come in here complaining about your knees hurting, your back is killing you, your feet ache, and you can’t breathe when you walk up half a flight of stairs. So I’m supposed to hold your hand and talk you into backing away from that box of Twinkies. Boy, do I get tired of repeating the stuff most patients just don’t listen to.”

-Cardiologist, Brooklyn, New York, from Reader’s Digest’s
41 Secrets Your Doctor Would Never Share

Ouch.

Bronson (right) and I are off to a special location of the California clerk’s office in West Hollywood to get our marriage license today, the government’s recognition of our commitment ceremony which occurred on April 21, 2007.

My friend Melissa called last night to tell me to be prepared for the demonstrators she saw outside the Beverly Hills Courthouse. Luckily, I’m used to them by now — after having come out at age 21 to an “ultra religious” Utah family, and starting a national magazine about gay relationships — I’m used to dealing with those voices, which become [yawn] more unintelligible as the years pass.

But today is not about them. Today is about reflection and affirmation of our love and our relationship. It’s about celebration, because today, 39 long years after the Stonewall Riots, we finally have the same legal privileges and protections of every other Californian.

We are equal.