Monthly Archives:

October 2010

30
October
2010
Tags: General, Madonna, Music
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The Madonna Timeline: Song #10 – ‘Sky Fits Heaven’

{Note: The Madonna Timeline is an ongoing feature, where I put the iPod on shuffle, and write a little anecdote on whatever was going on in my life when that Madonna song was released and/or came to prominence in my mind.}

Traveling down this road,
Watching the signs as I go,
I think I’ll follow the sun,
Isn’t everyone just traveling down their own road,
Watching the signs as they go,
I think I’ll follow my heart…

Finally! This is the first Madonna song that the iPod has chosen from her Ray of Light album – my favorite, and in many opinions the best, record she’s ever made. ‘Sky Fits Heaven’ is one of its stellar tracks – for the wondrous traveling images, and the metaphysical musings she proffers.

I can’t say that there is a definitive memory I have of listening to this song (though the whole Ray of Light time period was an emotional one) it’s a welcome reminder that we’re all on this journey, and it is the journey that matters.

This is also a great driving song if you have a long way to go – shifting (some might say jarring) changes in tone, time signature, and style keep it always interesting, while the glorious soaring chorus makes you feel like you’re taking flight, that anything is possible, and the road you’re on is the only road you’ll ever need.

Madonna gave a rousing aerial performance of this song on the Drowned World Tour in 2001 (see below) – where she flew around the stage in the kick-ass Geisha portion of the show. Yes, actual flying – because she can.

It’s a very good place to start.
Song #10: ‘Sky Fits Heaven’ – Spring 1998
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26
October
2010
Tags: General, Madonna, Music
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The Madonna Timeline: Song #9 – ‘Promise To Try’

{Note: The Madonna Timeline is an ongoing feature, where I put the iPod on shuffle, and write a little anecdote on whatever was going on in my life when that Madonna song was released and/or came to prominence in my mind.}

Keep your head held high, Ride like the wind,
Never look behind, Life isn’t fair,
That’s what you said, so I try not to care…

Before the specific memories of this song are expounded upon, a brief history of my relationship with Madonna – as fan and admirer – must be written first. The iPod has shuffled to ‘Promise To Try’, from 1989’s ‘Like A Prayer‘ album. It was a non-single, and to be completely honest, I must have skipped quickly past ‘Promise’ when I first heard the album. See, I wasn’t always the superfan I am today. In fact, the cassettes of ‘Like A Virgin‘ and ‘True Blue‘ both originally belonged to my brother. It’s true – I was more of a singles guy back then, and while Madonna is quite possibly the greatest singles artist there was and ever will be, I didn’t bother with her albums much. It’s strange to think of that – and it makes little sense, because hers were the only albums I ever learned inside and out, loving each song, filler or not. So when ‘Like A Prayer’ was released, it was the first full album of hers that I bought myself. And on first listen, I didn’t like it. Not only did I not like it, I was actually offended (scared) when I heard ‘Act of Contrition’. The whispered prayer opening, the blast of electric guitar, and the closing bit of blasphemy – it was all too much for this Catholic altar boy to take, and I thought for sure that God would punish me for even listening to it. Now here’s the bit that makes me sound a little crazy – even for me: so scared was I that God would not be happy with me even having the cassette in my house, I took it outside to the backyard, found a large rock, and was about to smash it to pieces. I lifted the rock over my head, ready to bring it down on the sad little cassette tape, but stopped. I cannot say why, or what prevented me from going through with it.

Maybe it was the memory of innocently dancing around the bedroom to her songs, or maybe I thought there was something holy in that tape itself, but I went back inside and pushed the tape to the very back of my desk drawer, and to the back of my mind.

A couple of hits later (‘Express Yourself’, ‘Vogue’) and I was ready to forgive, so when I heard her Blonde Ambition Tour was being broadcast on HBO, I asked my brother’s friend to record it for me. And it happened all over again – the performance of ‘Like A Prayer’ was just too much, and Catholic guilt and fear rushed to my head. I quickly taped over it.

{Moment of silence}

(Father, forgive me for I have sinned, it has been an eternity since my last confession, and this is my sin: I taped over my recording of Madonna’s only Blonde Ambition broadcast.)

Again, time passed, and a few hits later (I loved ‘I’m Breathless’ cause it was basically a Madonna showtunes album) I was back on board, but I didn’t become a superfan until I heard ‘Promise to Try’ in ‘Truth or Dare‘. To show you that I wasn’t a proper fan just yet, I had no idea what the song was, or where it might be found. (I actually asked for the ‘Truth or Dare‘ soundtrack at one record store.)

And then one night in the Fall of 1991, when insomnia was having its way with me again and adolescent angst was threatening to end my very existence, I thought maybe… just maybe… that song is here somewhere. I found the ‘Like A Prayer’ album and put it into my walkman (yes, walkman – it seems so long ago). I fast-forwarded through ‘Express Yourself’ (okay, I probably listened to some of it) – but I definitely fast-forwarded through ‘Love Song’, and almost all the way to the end of ‘Til Death Do Us Part‘, though I listened to its fade-out, and all of a sudden the piano chords that I knew so well from repeated rentals of ‘Truth or Dare’ rang out, in their entirety and without Madonna’s gravesite voice-over, and I was hearing the plaintive words of a little girl who missed her long-lost mother. In an instant I was a superfan – whose love and passion for all things Madonna would not waver for the next two-plus decades.

Back then, ‘Promise to Try’ became the theme for that lonely Autumn. Suzie had gone away to Denmark, and on every mix tape I made her (and there were many) I included this song at some point. I remember listening to it on my walkman as I raked piles of brown oak leaves in the forest behind our house. The air was bitter, the sky was gray, and I didn’t even want to be – but I listened to Madonna, and there was solace in her longing, hope in her loneliness, and inspiration in her strength.

A somewhat-comical side-note on this song: one of the lines almost made it as my yearbook quote, but wiser heads fortunately prevailed and I did not use one. (Though looking back at the Guns ‘N Roses and Tesla quotes of the time, mine would have held up far better.)

I fought to be so strong,
I guess you knew I was afraid,
You’d go away too…
Song #9: ‘Promise to Try’ – Fall 1991 
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24
October
2010
Tags: Theater, Travel
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A Broadway Ballet (And A Bear or Two)

It was a Russian weekend in New York City, as Andy and I took the train down to see the return of Matthew Bourne’s Swan Lake at the City Center. Hotel rooms are insanely priced these days, and even with the combined bidding wars of Priceline, Expedia, Hotwire, and Kayak, the best I could do was $275 for a night at the Essex House on Central Park South. It actually worked out for the best though, as the hotel was in close proximity to the theater.

The Essex wasn’t bad, and the flowers in the lobby were certainly nothing to sneeze at (unless you’re allergic to that sort of thing).

I wore the tree-of-life pendant that Andy got for me in Ogunquit this past summer. (I don’t know why this merits mention, other than for the photo below that I snapped in the bathroom, and the bartender at the Oak Room who complimented me on it.)

In keeping with the Russian theme, we had dinner reservations at the Russian Tea Room. I had eaten there many years ago with my parents, and the chicken kiev had been something to behold. They then shut down for a while, but re-opened, so we decided to try it (plus the online cocktail menu looked like heaven).

We probably should have stopped at the cocktails, because while dinner was passable, the prices were a bit on the ridiculous side. Also, after asking the wait-person for their smoothest Russian vodka (she recommended the Jewel Of Russia), I had a martini that was rather rocky going down.

The chicken kiev did still burst with butter, and the decor is as red-gold-and-green as ever, so we’ll leave it at that.

After dinner we walked around the block and looked in the windows of closed shops and galleries while waiting for show-time to approach.

Matthew Bourne’s Swan Lake joins the small pantheon of shows that my husband and I have seen together on Broadway. It began with Wicked (and that original, incomparable pairing of Kristin Chenoweth and Idina Menzel), and continued with Grey Gardens (and the uncanny and amazing Christine Ebersole), and now we have the return of Matthew Bourne’s Swan Lake. On their own, these shows were each great – seeing them with someone I love just made them that much more special and memorable.

I still recall the early November night we saw Wicked when it first opened (yes, I wore green that first time, though I’m a pink girl at heart) as well as the bitter cold of January’s Grey Gardens with a dinner at Gallagher’s steakhouse (that included a warming Manhattan and a seat by the gargantuan wood stove).

Swan Lake itself was spectacular. I knew I would like it; I did not know that I would absolutely fall in love with it. Having seen the DVD of the production a number of years ago, I knew the gist and the gimmick – but to see it in person gives it a life that can never be reproduced on screen.

It’s basically a gay fantasy brought to thrilling, and disturbing, life. I can only imagine what my own life might have been like had I seen this production as a young boy. How different would my journey have been, and what would it have meant? I will never know. That it exists today is a blessing, and an unforgettable night of theater. Seeing two men dance together is just as potent and powerful now as when it first opened over a decade ago – mostly because I just don’t get to see that very often – and partly because the world hasn’t changed all that much. As the curtain came down on the crushing final scene, I did not want it to end.

But there will be other curtains, and other shows, and yes, Suzie, even other swan umbrellas, so have faith.

The next morning we headed out for a brief (Andy would say interminable) shopping excursion, and then it was time to depart (without the $100 hotel robe).

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21
October
2010
Tags: General
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A Walk in the Woods

Believe it or not, there was a time when my John Fluevog-clad feet liked nothing better than to walk in the woods. As a kid, my favorite past-time was to disappear in the wooded area behind our house and travel the forested banks that ran all the way down Northampton Avenue.

As a kid, I was wedded to the forest, and all natural things. Plants and animals, streams and seas, flowers and fossils – they each thrilled me – and while my gaze could be captured by a fancy feather or glittering bead, my heart belonged to what was in my own backyard.

Somewhere along the way, I lost touch of that connection, though threads of it saw me through – gardening, potted plants, a tank of tropical fish – and every once in a while, a glimpse of the sublime. A stream running through the County of Kerry in the Irish countryside ~ a damp, gray afternoon of spotting waterfowl through the fog of Big Sur ~ or a simple walk through the fern-blanketed forests hidden in my hometown.

These photos were taken on a recent trip to Amsterdam, NY to visit my parents. There is a park behind an old elementary school that has trails leading down to a small stream. I used to explore these woods when my brother had baseball practice in the field next to them. (Though I don’t remember all these invasive horsetail plants taking over the watery basin.)

I got turned around only once, for a brief time, though I never felt truly lost, and if I had to I could simply follow the way from which I had come and re-trace steps – instead, I forged ahead and rejoined another trail that led me back to where I began. (The only real danger here would be running into the golf course that borders these woods, i.e. no danger at all.)

Sometimes the simple running of a stream is enough to calm the spirit. I need to remember that more often.

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20
October
2010
Tags: Andy
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My Husband’s Birthday

Today is Andy’s birthday, the photo at the end of this post was taken during his police officer days. (Hot, I know.) He’s comes a long way since then, and for the past decade I’ve been lucky enough to be along for the ride. There’s no way to put into words what this guy means to me, but here are some of the best things about him.

He is kind and compassionate to everyone and everything, especially animals (even the chipmunks that are over-running our backyard).

He is able to change and grow (when we met he had never tasted Thai food, now he makes his own chicken yellow curry that rivals the best restaurant).

He knows cars (and when such pesky items as gas and registration renewals are needed).

He still misses his Mom.

He is generous with his cooking and baking, always making an extra batch for family or work.

He loves to laugh at comedies that I sometimes find funny (Carol Burnett) and comedies that I don’t (National Lampoon’s Anything).

He is always up for a Broadway musical.

He wears cashmere sweaters, which makes it extra fun to hug him in the Winter.

He is always a gentleman, but not afraid to ‘Get Wicked Tonight’, even in front of my parents.

He treats my family like his own (because they are).

He’s not big on going out, but always has a good time when we do.

He has the integrity of a cop, without the power-trip attitude.

He is never ashamed to be seen with me, even when I look like Mrs. Peacock.

He’s a good guy. It sounds so simple, but it means so much, and these days they’re not easy to find. Come to think of it, they never were, and that’s why I’m the luckiest husband in the world.

Happy Birthday Andy ~ I love you.

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19
October
2010
Tags: General, Madonna, Music
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The Madonna Timeline: Song #8 – ‘Cherish’

{Note: The Madonna Timeline is an ongoing feature, where I put the iPod on shuffle, and write a little anecdote on whatever was going on in my life when that Madonna song was released and/or came to prominence in my mind.}

This is one of my favorite Madonna song memories because it captures a specific period of time when the world was just opening up to me. The year was 1989, and I had just turned fourteen when Madonna released the third single from ‘Like A Prayer’ – ‘Cherish’. To be honest, it wasn’t nearly my favorite song from the album, and the video (though brilliant in hindsight, and the first foray of Herb Ritts into the medium) seemed rather ho-hum, especially after the inflammatory riot of ‘Like A Prayer’ and the S&M-tinged sexiness of ‘Express Yourself’.

To see Madonna frolicking on the beach with a child and some mermen? Tame, if not outright dull. But like all good things, it would grow on me, from the girl-group harmonies of the song to the simple, slow-mo beauty of the video. And what was taking place in my young life at the time was simple, but memorable.

So tired of broken hearts and losing at this game
Before I start this dance, I’ll take a chance
In telling you I want more than just romance…

My Mom took me, my Gram, and my brother up to Maine for a last vacation before school started. We went to the beach, but it was already too cold to go in. We stopped at some of the Kittery outlets, and I remember getting a navy cable-knit sweater for fall. (I was still in my preppy mode but just beginning to break free.) ‘Cherish’ played on the radio, and to this day it’s one of the few Madonna songs that my brother actually liked a bit more than me. At the time, there was something too soft-focus about it – I preferred my pop songs to have a bit more power to them. But like all slow-burners, this one forged its way into my memory.

You are my destiny,
I can’t let go, Baby can’t you see,
Cupid please take your aim at me…

It was the start of my first year of high-school, and I had to attend practices with the Amsterdam Marching Rams. It was ridiculous, insane, and practically dangerous to march with an oboe, but I adamantly refused to learn another instrument, so I strapped a clarinet lyre to the bottom bell and proceeded to practice choking myself with a double reed.

After my eighth grade shenanigans, I wasn’t sure if anyone would even talk to me (that was the year I happily stepped into the villain’s role, so dull and boring was Wilbur H. Lynch Middle School for me). Now, the girls I hurt the most were the only ones I wanted to talk to – and somehow I worked my way, through wit and humor, back into their good graces again.

All the while, ‘Cherish’ bubbled over the radio, and on MTV, but never from my own CD player because I wasn’t obsessed with Madonna right then.

I can’t hide my need for two hearts that bleed with burning love,
That’s the way it’s got to be.
Romeo and Juliet, they never felt this way I bet,
So don’t underestimate my point of view…

I hadn’t lost my heart to any boys yet – in fact, I was still holding out hope that I’d find a girl and settle down with a wife and a home, and a family. I found men attractive (as I had since I was a little boy) but I put those feelings into the recesses of my heart, willing myself to focus on the girls instead, even though it seemed that I was destined to remain in the friendship circle, with no hope of romance.

Cherish is the word I use to remind me of your love…

To be honest, it didn’t bother me much at the time. Somehow I knew I was only meant to be friends with women – that I was better at being friends with women – and it was a safe and comforting thought. (Oddly enough, the drama and trauma I witnessed in many messy boy-meets-girl scenarios seemed more upsetting and depressing than anything I was going through – one of the strange bonuses of flying under the radar as an unknown-even-to-myself gay kid.) And still the chords and yearning chorus of ‘Cherish’ strummed in my head – a wistful unfulfilled longing for something, for someone.

Cherish – give me faith,
Give me joy, my boy,
I will always cherish you…

As September bled into October, ‘Cherish’ peaked on the airwaves, an autumnal call to romance that subliminally fueled the innocence of my adolescence. It was a song that held onto summer, despite all the pushes and pulls of a new school, and a new school year, and the slow awakening of a boy who, despite all direction, was headed on a journey all his own.

Song #8: Cherish ~ October 1989
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11
October
2010
Tags: General, Madonna, Music
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The Madonna Timeline: Song #7 ~ ‘Heartbeat’

{Note: The Madonna Timeline is an ongoing feature, where I put the iPod on shuffle, and write a little anecdote on whatever was going on in my life when that Madonna song was released and/or came to prominence in my mind.}

Today the iPod has shifted to the insistent thumping of ‘Heartbeat’ from 2008’s Hard Candy, Madonna’s most recent studio album. This was reminiscent of the 80’s, as much of Hard Candy was, and in the best possible way. Another song without any specific memory, other than driving along Albany Fucking Shaker and blaring it in the car. A filler, indeed, but there’s nothing else I’d rather be filled with.

Madonna performed it on her Sticky & Sweet Tour, in a serviceable, if unmemorable way. (I don’t think I liked the shorts she wore during it.)

See my booty get down, see my booty get down…
Song #7: Heartbeat~ Spring 2008
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06
October
2010
Tags: General, Madonna, Music
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The Madonna Timeline: Song #6 ~ ‘Keep It Together’

{Note: The Madonna Timeline is an ongoing feature, where I put the iPod on shuffle, and write a little anecdote on whatever was going on in my life when that Madonna song was released and/or came to prominence in my mind.}

I GOT BROTHERS, I GOT SOME SISTERS TOO

STUCK IN THE MIDDLE, TELL YOU WHAT I’M GONNA DO

GONNA GET OUT OF HERE, I’M GONNA LEAVE THEIS PLACE

SO I CAN FORGET EVERY SINGLE HUNGRY FACE.

Finally, the iPod has reached the magnificent ‘Like A Prayer’ album, albeit it with one of its weaker songs. ‘Keep It Together’ was the last single from the 1989 album, and I have one distinct Boston memory of it. We were in the city staying at the Copley Marriott or the Westin -I can’t remember which (back then they blended into one, and were actually affordable). I was old enough to go off on my own, as was my brother, so we had gone our separate ways. 

I’M TIRED OF SHARING ALL THE HAND-ME-DOWNS,

TO GET ATTENTION I MUST ALWAYS BE THE CLOWN

I WANNA BE DIFFERENT, I WANNA BE ON MY OWN

BUT DADDY SAID LISTEN, YOU WILL ALWAYS HAVE A HOME.

It was near the end of winter, and just starting to get warmer. I found myself in the Downtown Crossing/Chinatown area as dusk settled, and it was starting to get dark. There were a few brief moments of panic, when I got a bit turned around, and for a barely-teenage kid that can seem harrowing, but I held it together and kept walking, sure I’d find something familiar, and soon enough I did. 

Back on the T, I arrived at Copley and went into the Copley Mall, all brightly lit and warm with its clay-colored tiles. At the time, there was a card/gift shop where the back of Louis Vuitton now extends. I went in there, browsed the novelties, and ‘Keep It Together’ came on over the radio, filling the store with Madonna. It was the perfect end to the day.

I HIT THE BIG TIME, BUT I STILL GET THE BLUES

EVERYONE’S A STRANGER, CITY LIFE CAN GET TO YOU

PEOPLE CAN BE SO COLD, NEVER WANT TO TURN YOUR BACK

JUST GIVING TO GET SOMETHING, ALWAYS WANTING SOMETHING BACK.

When we returned to Amsterdam from Boston, it was time to head back to school for the long stretch of days to spring and hope. As always, on that first day back I felt a bit homesick for my family, echoing the sentiment of ‘Keep It Together.’

Madonna went on to perform the song as the encore/finale to her Blonde Ambition Tour (which also closed ‘Truth or Dare’) in a ‘Cabaret’-inspired bondage-costumed extravaganza (as outfitted by the great Jean Paul Gaultier).

WHEN I LOOK BACK ON ALL THE MISERY,

AND ALL THE HEARTACHE THAT THEY BROUGHT TO ME,

I WOULDN’T CHANGE IT FOR ANOTHER CHANCE

CAUSE BLOOD IS THICKER THAN ANY OTHER CIRCUMSTANCE.

Song #5: ‘Keep It Together’ – Winter 1990
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05
October
2010
Tags: Gay, General, Madonna, Music
3 comments

The Night Madonna Saved My Life

{This is a repost of something I wrote in October of 2008, but given the news of late it seems a good time to resurrect it.}

I feel it
It’s coming…

Sixteen years ago I did not have my driver’s license. I was old enough to drive, I just hadn’t gotten around to making it officially legal, mostly because I didn’t care. Still, I loved sneaking out at night when my parents had gone to bed, putting the car in reverse, and starting it as the wheels eased out of the driveway.

That Fall was difficult for me on a number of levels. It’s not worth going into depth about it – it was simply a lonely time, and the onslaught of dreary gray weather did nothing to abate my melancholy. As a cold rain began to come down, I drove out of the small city and onto the back roads of upstate New York.

Rain,  feel it on my fingertips, hear it on my windowpane,
Your love’s coming down like rain,
Wash away my sorrow, take away my pain.

The rain was tearing the leaves from the trees. Dark brown oak leaves were driven down by the wind. The car sped along the messy road. Back in my bedroom, a plastic bag, a large rubber band, and a bottle of sleeping pills awaited my return. A page of Final Exit was marked, its instructions strangely void of emotion, no guidance on what to feel.

I know it’s real, rain is what the thunder brings
For the first time I can hear my heart sing,
Call me a fool but I know I’m not
I’m gonna stand out here on the mountaintop
Until I feel your rain…

The road turned, twisting itself along a line of trees. Rain pelted the windshield, a curtain of falling leaves parted for the car, and my sweaty palms and wet eyes glazed the glass between us. On the radio they were playing an as-yet-unreleased Madonna album, Erotica. I would never get to hear it in its entirety, not if everything went according to plan. It was the one drawback to ending it that night. I could bitterly rejoice at skipping all my homework due the next day, and defiantly put off cleaning my room- add it to the mess I was leaving – but I would not be able to hear the rest of Madonna’s music, not if I left tonight.

Waiting is the hardest thing,
I tell myself if I believe in you, in the dream of you,
with all my heart and all my soul,
that by sheer force of will, I could raise you from the ground,
and without a sound you would appear, and surrender to me, to love.

It was a simple ballad with a simple chord progression and a simple resounding theme of yearning, and if Madonna was having a rough go of it then how could anyone, much less myself, be expected to do any better?
So I decided to wait, at least until the album came out and I could get a proper listen, promising myself that I could always come back to where my head was at and do it right then.

I feel it,
It’s coming,
Your love’s coming down like
Rain.

There would be other attempts at self-annihilation, and there will always be that part of me that sometimes wishes to go away, but for that moment, that night, the simple promise of a Madonna song was enough to bring me to another day.

– Alan Ilagan, 2008

———————————————————————————-

This week I’ve pondered how I made it through, what it was that saved me all those times, and more often than not it was something as simple as a new Madonna album. I made it through the week waiting for that CD, and after dancing around the bedroom to “Deeper and Deeper” I realized that if I could make it through a week, I could make it through a month, and if I could make it through a month, I could last a year, and by then I would be out of high school, and maybe things would be better. And they were.

If you’re contemplating suicide, if you think you just cannot go on, please stop and wait a moment. Think it over for a day, for a week – it is never as bad as you think it is. And I don’t care if it’s Madonna, or Lady Gaga, or Justin Freaking Bieber, find something to hold onto. If you still feel alone, call someone. The Trevor Project is a 24-hour, toll-free suicide hotline for gay youth – there will always be someone there to listen. It may seem silly, but it’s not.

I grew up without The Trevor Project, but on another dark night when the world closed up around me I had the strength to call a local suicide hotline, and as foolish as I felt (and as sure as I was that they knew who my parents were) I poured my heart out to the woman on the other end, and it was all I needed to make it through that night.

There is always someone somewhere willing to listen to you, and though you may feel like there is nothing to live for, you have no idea what the next day or year will bring. Don’t deprive the world of everything you might one day become. You are not alone, so if you need to talk just call The Trevor Project at 866-488-7386.

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04
October
2010
Tags: Food
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Stuff It In

There are few things in life more satisfying than going out into your own garden and harvesting something you can use in the kitchen. Those days are about at an end, so this bunch of sage is probably going to be the last herb harvest we’ll get this year. It was just in time for a turkey dinner I made for Mom and Dad.

I supplemented the sage with rosemary and thyme, tying them all into a rustic bouqet garnis. This, along with the some salt and pepper and olive oil, was all I used to season the bird. (In the past, for a Christmas dinner for instance, I used to get very elaborate with the seasoning, crafting herb butters to slather into every crevice, rubbing garlic cloves over the skin, and other nonsense that probably had little to no effect on the end result.)

With all the talk of contamination, I’ve never stuffed a turkey with stuffing. (Andy makes it in a big pan, which I much prefer – it’s less slimy.) But rather than leave an empty cavity, I stuff the bird with lemon halves, onion quarters, the herb bouquet, and a head of garlic. It’s simple, quick, and easy – and those are the recipes that turn out the best.

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02
October
2010
Tags: General, Madonna, Music
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The Madonna Timeline: Song #5 ~ ‘Stay’

{Note: The Madonna Timeline is an ongoing feature, where I put the iPod on shuffle, and write a little anecdote on whatever was going on in my life when that Madonna song was released and/or came to prominence in my mind.}

Suddenly the iPod is begging for me to ‘Stay’ – from 1985’s Like A Virgin. Wow, talk about taking it back a few years (or decades in this case). Again, a non-single from those magical Virgin days, and the only memory I have of this is a Boston trip my Mom took me and my brother on, and this cassette just played over and over as we slept in the backseat of the station wagon. Neither my brother nor myself had any clue what a virgin really was, but when the grooves are this good it doesn’t matter.

Don’t be afraid,
It’ gonna be all right,
Cause I know that I can make you love me…

Song #5: Stay ~ Sometime around 1985

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