Some dazzlers are so dazzling that the mere naming of them as Dazzler of the Day feels trite and a tad bit silly. (See Beyoncé, Dolly Parton, Madonna, Taylor Swift and Lady Gaga for example.) That points to something in humanity that afflicts the best of the best: whenever someone seemingly has their shit together, we forget to check on them or grant them the honor and adoration due their talent or art or mere existence. Meanwhile, the trouble-makers or perennially problematic people get all the glory and attention and support. Such is the case with artists like Carole King, who have amassed a breathtaking body of work (and if you look into all the songs she wrote for others it truly is epic) while remaining humble and true to their work. When they take on important causes like environmentalism, they dazzle us even more, and want no recognition for being good people. So here’s to those who have dazzled us for decades, asking for nothing yet always giving their everything.
{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.}
You say that you need my love And you’re wanting my body, I don’t mind Baby all I’ve got is time And I’m waiting to make you mine
You say you wanna stay the night But you’ll leave me tomorrow, I don’t care All of your moves are right We can take it anywhere…
I have absolutely no recollection of this song from when it came out. It was early days for Madonna, before I was even aware of myself, much less the latest pop star about to take the world by storm. We were both in our infancies then. Of course I become aware of it later on, but by then other songs and career moves held my attention, and this one never took on classic status in my eyes. That’s ok – not every single Madonna song is destined for epic effect, and others seem to have embraced this one from the get-go so it doesn’t lack for fans. I’m just not one of them.
Maybe we were meant to be together Even though we never met before We got to move before the sun is rising And you’ll be walking slowly out the door Out the door
Physical attraction (physical attraction) It’s a chemical reaction, ooh It’s a physical attraction It’s a chemical reaction, yeah
Last fall, when planning out 20th anniversary posts for this website, I asked all of my friends’ children to send me a few songs that embodied me and ALANILAGAN.com in their minds. Each response was fascinating because it revealed a few things about what they each thought of me, and unintentionally, perhaps, a few things they thought about themselves. I’m slowly working my way through them, and one of the first ones that spoke to me illustrated the intuition and unexpected clairvoyance of Suzie’s daughter Oona.
Always sharp on the ways of humans, thanks to keen and practiced observation, Oona has had a prescient brilliance that set her quietly apart from the rest. I remember what it’s like to be a little different that way – a little quieter and more self-contained – and it has a tendency to work against you in the very ways you most want to reach out and connect. That ended up saving me some serious heartbreak, however, and I’m sure Oona is turning it to her own advantage. As for this song, at first I wondered why she chose it, and then I decided to write what it meant to me before I asked. Here is ‘Death By A Thousand Cuts’ by Taylor Swift, and as I listened to it an understanding of stories I’d forgotten I’d written began to unfold…
Saying goodbye is death by a thousand cuts Flashbacks waking me up I get drunk, but it’s not enough ‘Cause the morning comes and you’re not my baby I look through the windows of this love Even though we boarded them up Chandelier’s still flickering here ‘Cause I can’t pretend it’s ok when it’s not It’s death by a thousand cuts
Upon first reading, the lyrics seem to indicate some sort of treatise on the demise of a romantic relationship, which is usually what Taylor does best. The first few listens I got some resonance from that, but then another relationship presented itself in my mind – my relationship with drinking – and suddenly this song became one of those flashpoints when everything comes brilliantly alive in frightening fashion. “I get drunk but it’s not enough…”
It’s been three and a half years since I last had a drink, and it’s not even something I think about all that often. So completely has my lifestyle changed in that time, along with the world, that it feels like a thousand years ago, but sometimes it’s good to remember, and to see how drinking might have become my death by a thousand cuts.
I dress to kill my time I take the long way home I ask the traffic lights if it’ll be all right They say, “I don’t know” And what once was ours is no one’s now I see you everywhere The only thing we share Is this small town
You said it was a great love One for the ages But if the story’s over Why am I still writing pages?
When you use alcohol as a method of dealing with your demons, it takes on aspects of a very toxic relationship – the kind of relationships that slowly kills you rather than ending it in one fell swoop. It doesn’t start out that way, and for a while – a couple of decades in fact – it seduced and made it seem like that was the best way to solve any and all problems. It was my way of dealing with social anxiety, and unfair situations, and anger and loss and happiness and joy and celebration… well, you get the idea. It feeds on itself, and I could feel myself heading down a darker path that was alienating loved ones as much as I was alienating myself. My sense of self grew hazier with every martini, my bearings and judgment grew shakier with every glass of wine, and when you start to lose those things, you sometimes hold onto yourself by drinking more.
‘Cause saying goodbye is death by a thousand cuts Flashbacks waking me up I get drunk, but it’s not enough ‘Cause the morning comes and you’re not my baby I look through the windows of this love Even though we boarded them up Chandelier still flickering here ‘Cause I can’t pretend it’s okay when it’s not It’s death by a thousand cuts
On those mornings after I’d had too much, that was when it really hurt. It wasn’t the physical aspect of a hangover that was so debilitating and destructive – it was the emotional and mental state I’d be in, the incredibly depressing down that came from drowning myself in a depressant and thinking that would solve anything. The flashbacks woke me up… I looked through the windows of the boarded-up love I shared with liquor… and I knew that liquor would never be my salvation, it would only be my death, no matter how insidiously long it took. Deadened by a thousand cuts…
In that gray haze, I would look around me at the world and wonder why I couldn’t just be like everyone else, why I never felt like I fit in, why everything felt so much harder and more difficult, why I needed a drink to make it all bearable. Slowly, I began to make sense of things, and on the day that it finally and fully dawned on me that my drinking was self-medication for social anxiety and how ill-at-ease I felt with myself and my place in the world, I decided to work on that, and the need – the want – the desire – for all that annihilation instantly dissipated.
The bridge of this song hits harder when I think of all that I put myself through. A bridge is a powerful symbol – it can connect disparate places and parts, piecing things together that might not normally be joined. The rivers and ravines of our lives aren’t always without purpose, but when we create our own divisions and cuts and separations, sometimes we need a bridge. To heal, to join, to make us whole again.
My heart, my hips, my body, my love Trying to find a part of me that you didn’t touch Gave up on me like I was a bad drug Now I’m searching for signs in a haunted club Our songs, our films, united we stand Our country, guess it was a lawless land Quiet my fears with the touch of your hand Paper cut stings from our paper thin plans
Knowing that and stopping my drinking was relatively easy once I fully understood what was at work – the hard part was untangling all the things that my drinking had infiltrated and tied in knots. How to dismantle something that had formed such a pillar of my existence? Wasn’t the cocktail an integral part of what made me so fun? Wasn’t it the only thing that made me fun? A part of me that alcohol didn’t touch? A part of me that drinking didn’t take up? I was so mad at myself for not seeing it sooner, for letting it almost take over, I scream out the rest of the bridge in a rage.
My time, my wine, my spirit, my trust Trying to find a part of me you didn’t take up Gave you so much but it wasn’t enough But I’ll be all right, it’s just a thousand cuts
That’s the trick of drinking. It would never be enough, not for the reasons I thought I needed it. Once I saw that, and started to address the underlying reasons for it, I could let that relationship go. The clean-up and shift took some time, as it was a drastic life-change, but it felt so good that, as frightening as it was to deal with the real reasons for it, I knew it was worth it. Finding the way back to yourself after twenty-plus years of running away from that person isn’t easy. I’d hurt myself, and others, in all that time, and facing the man I’d become from a place of purity – from the place I was in before I started drinking – was uncomfortable and humbling – and precisely what I needed. It was good to see him again, to feel him still there, no matter how badly I hurt him just trying to do the best I knew to survive, to get us both through. We both did our best, and somehow we both came together, fully integrated all these years later, and ready to start again.
I get drunk but it’s not enough ‘Cause you’re not my baby I look through the windows of this love Even though we boarded them up Chandelier’s still flickering here ‘Cause I can’t pretend it’s ok when it’s not No, it’s not
It’s death by a thousand cuts (you didn’t touch) Trying to find a part of me that you didn’t touch My body, my love, my trust (it’s death by a thousand cuts) But it wasn’t enough, it wasn’t enough, no, no
I take the long way home I ask the traffic lights if it’ll be all right They say, “I don’t know”
Anyone who steps onto a country music stage and defiantly celebrates drag queens at this moment in time is way more than a Dazzler of the Day, but that’s all I have to offer Kelsea Ballerina right now, and she most definitely deserves it. Be sure to visit her website here to see how much she has already accomplished, and find all the signs of all the promise that is yet to come.
Andreas Wijk just released one of the most powerful songs of the past year, thanks to its public delivery to his parents, in which he plays what is basically a coming-out song for them. For that bravery and courage alone (because it’s not always easy to come out, at any point in history) Andreas earns this Dazzler of the Day. Aiding in the dazzlement is his musical talent and body of work, and that song.
The James Renaissance continues from this ‘Tomorrow’ post, with a preview of their new orchestral album ‘Be Opened By the Wonderful’ which sounds like it’s going to be aural ecstasy to my ears. ‘She’s A Star’ gains poignance and a more tender luster than its original incarnation through its orchestral treatment, and the lyrics come into greater focus without all the glorious guitar work and drum noise.
Whenever her face is frozen, Unable to fake it anymore
Her shadow is always with her, Her shadow could keep her small
So frightened that he won’t love her, She builds up a wall
Oh no, she knows where to hide in the dark, Oh no, she’s nowhere to hide in the dark
She’s a star… She’s a star
If this is any indication of how the new album will transform some classic James songs, I’m already on board. In the 20th year of this website, I’ve been indulging in some nostalgia of late. The advancing march of time feels especially swift these days, as I watch my parents, and now my friends, go through their health obstacles – mostly due to the simple act of getting older. I feel it in myself too – the blood pressure pills, the stubborn paunch, the more-salt-than-pepper hair, the failing eyesight, and the frustrating way I can’t remember anything that happened in the last five years, or five minutes. (I can still give you stellar and detailed examinations of what went down from 1996 through 2002, however – more than anyone needs to know, and largely useless in 2023.)
In this nostalgia, I find pockets of time when I see how badly I treated some people, and how badly I’ve treated myself. There is empathy for everything we went through, rather than the mean and arch way I’ve confronted discomfort from the past. When I look back at the young man I used to be, I find myself shaking my head and giving off the smallest laugh at what we did to each other, and at the guarded ways I tried so valiantly, and foolishly, to protect my heart. All the while, I failed to find the goodness there, and the real power in being open and vulnerable. Too concerned with being perfect, too afraid of losing love by not being perfect, I walked a tightrope with all the requisite tension and carefulness involved. There should have been more happiness, and a little part of me will always mourn that I didn’t allow myself to feel that.
She’s been in disguise forever, She’s tried to disguise her stellar views
Much brighter than all this static, Now she’s coming through
Oh no, she knows where to hide in the dark, Oh no, she’s nowhere to hide in the dark
She’s a star… She’s a star
How often do we dim our lights or silence our speech so as not to be the lighthouse or the foghorn? They have real purpose and meaning – how dare we act like we carry the same right to be here, the same right to shine or scream? The caution we craft and create is the very thing holding us back, and so we play into the grand scheme designed to keep us quiet, to keep us behaving, to keep us exactly like everybody else. How dare we be different…
Don’t tell her to turn down
Put on your shades if you can’t see
Don’t tell her to turn down
Turn up the flame
She’s a star… She’s a star
The older I get, the more myself I feel, and the out-of-place awkwardness that peppered my youth has largely dissipated. Those years were helpful – they held their own lessons and imbued me with their own power – I just wish I had learned it all a little faster. But that’s no real reason for regret – it happened when it needed to happen. It happened when it was supposed to happen. If I look back with a bit of bitterness for not knowing better, it’s only because I’m a little happier with where I am today.
And so the star-like journey of a life is played out, and like the real stars, each one is different and unique, each has its own lifespan and trajectory designed by destiny. Each of us finds our way to our own enlightenment like we find our way home.
Jake Shears just released a dance floor bop that brings me back to those full-throated dance divas of the 90’s, thanks to a featured vocal tour-de-force by Amber Martin. It’s the perfect antidote for a rainy Saturday night, when you need some inspiration, and a reminder of how fun Saturday night could and should be. Turn this one up, let go your mind and inhibitions, and set yourself free on the dance floor – even if it’s the kitchen these days.
Everyone thinks the winter wind is the one that cuts the deepest, but it’s the wind of early spring, when things are heaving and breaking and melting, that carries the biggest risk of pushing you off the edge of a building. As I walked toward the moon, I felt the wind at my back, and the ledge of the observatory roof was a dim line straight ahead. Carrying a heavy heart, one that had already been broken before I could leave my teenage-years, and mostly by my own machinations, left my walk slow but deliberate. Resigned and intent. The seductive spell of a spring night had been whispered to me from the wind, and I moved away from my classmates, nearer the edge, nearer the forbidden space the professor had warned us against.
I see you falling How long to go before you hit the ground You keep on screaming Don’t you see me here Am I a ghost to you?
Ahh, spring. Your treacherous offering of hope when what you really have to give is heartache. But you do it wrapped in a cherry blossom, nodding in the cheery self-obsession of a glade of narcissus, teasing from the tip of a tulip petal. Spring and all your madness, stripped in a storm, rendering all of us naked and tender and ill-equipped for the cold that’s still deep in the night, and still waiting for us in the morning.
Now your grip’s too strong You can’t catch love with a net or a gun Gotta keep faith that your path will change Gotta keep faith that your luck will change tomorrow Tomorrow…
Back then, whether admitted or not (and for the most part I never admitted it to anyone) my only goal in life was to find a partner ~ a companion. I just didn’t want to go through it all alone. I was tired of being alone.
I don’t think I’ve ever said that out loud.
Not that I wasn’t good at being alone. Not that it had ever been a choice. I was simply ready to find someone with whom I might share a life – with whom I might make a life. And while I never put that into words then, as even I understood that wasn’t first date banter, my actions and desire spoke more than I ever could, frightening would-be suitors and maybe-friends away. Maybe, too, I knew that I wasn’t ready for it, and sabotaged myself before letting anything happen, before getting too carried away. But oh, what spring could seduce from the merest hints of connection, and oh how badly I wanted to be with someone.
This song arrived just as I found myself without a girlfriend or boyfriend, and I sought out solace in my platonic friends, calling them late at night, wondering if they could sense my desperation, the terrifying need to not be alone at those dangerous hours. Anything but lonely…
Why are you phoning? What am I to do when you’re miles away? You’re always calling from the darkest moods and we’re both scared…
Life then existed in letters and late night phone calls, hushed conversations held in indulgent secrecy, hidden from flatmates and strangers alike – that was how we kept in touch, how we made connections. There wasn’t texting or FaceBook or seeing someone’s whole life history. We only knew what we were told, and what we could read in between the laughter and sighs, much of it was made-up – and all of it better than the false-transparency of what we put out on social media today.
Back then you had to trust your friends to stick with you despite distance and time, and it didn’t always work. Even the closest among us found ourselves growing apart – it couldn’t be helped – but I railed against that, struggling to stay in touch, wrangling us together for parties and gatherings, even when no one knew what to say. Because it mattered, didn’t it? That we had been through it together. That we had been through that formative part of life, that we knew each other before we knew ourselves. It had to matter. As soon as the thought formed, I knew that time in our lives had passed. I knew also that I would not let it go so easily, finding the nets and guns and forces to keep us intact and together. That was my purpose.
Now your grip’s too strong You can’t catch love with a net or a gun Gotta keep faith that your path will change Gotta keep faith that your love will change
Every spring, I listened to this song, and every spring seemed to get a little less lonely. It revealed different meanings as the years passed, changing from a lesson in how to get through a lonely night to a lesson in learning how not to force things, especially love. That was a lesson I needed more than most. My friends could always keep their heads when it came to crushes and obsessions – I lost mine, and willingly gave away my heart in the process. I listened to ‘Tomorrow’, as I listened for tomorrow, and slowly I began to understood the mantra:
Now your grip’s too strong Can’t catch love with a net or a gun Gotta keep faith that your path will change Gotta keep faith that your love will change tomorrow
It was on a summer evening – and even though I certainly didn’t feel like I had any semblance of shit together, looking back, that was the beginning of when I started to pull it together. Or at least put forth the appearance of keeping things together. Getting by, and getting on with it. The first steps in being ok with being alone. I knelt down to tie my sneakers, then grinned at the light still pouring into the bedroom window. Summer in Boston beckoned, and I ran into the South End as neighbors took their dinner plates onto their front steps.
Running every night was my little way of getting out in the world. Too socially-anxious to prowl the bars or clubs on a regular basis (and certainly never on my own when everyone else had departed the city for the summer) I connected to people from the distance of speed and flight, as I raced the streets of Boston, running away as much as I was running toward something. I spent most nights spent and heated, a late-night shower to cool off, and then a spell of reading in the bedroom. Slowly, I was learning to love being by myself. Something told me I needed to do that – genuinely and authentically – if I was ever going to learn to love someone, and let them love me in return.
I’m just out of your range Tomorrow All your suffering’s in vain Tomorrow
“This song was written as an attempt to stop a close friend jumping off the roof.” ~ James
I didn’t know that this was the origin of this song. It never meant that to me, but it makes sense about why it spoke to me on so many levels, and so deeply. This has always been one of my favorite songs, one that has withstood time and place. And James has always been my favorite band. (Relax, Madonna is not a band.) I loved them since they wore dresses and ate bananas for the cover of their absolute best album ‘Laid’. That song cycle informed my life at its most crucial and influential moments – when the soul was solidifying into what it will always be.
Now your grip’s too strong You can’t catch love with a net or a gun Gotta keep faith that your path will change Gotta keep faith that your love will change tomorrow
This song reminds me that it’s ok to sink low sometimes, to walk toward the ledge and wonder about jumping off. No sane person would witness what we do to each other and not wonder at the futility of this world. How could we not want to off ourselves now and then? We weren’t designed to withstand such cruelty, but here we are, doing our best, doing it together whether we realize it or not. It’s there in a late-night phone call from a friend, an unexpected letter in the mail, a FaceBook message from a stranger just checking in – all these little ways we show that we care, that people are worth a little suffering and pain, that we are alive in this exquisitely imperfect and fucked-up world, and for the most part we are each doing our best to be better for each other.
I got out of your range Tomorrow All your suffering seems vain Change tomorrow Some forgiveness now Tomorrow Love’s no sacred cow
Back when I was on the cusp of becoming a teenager, this cheeky song by Samantha Fox battled Madonna’s ‘Crazy For You’ on the Top Ten at Ten on our local radio station. I’m not sure how that happened, as they were released at such different times, but things worked differently in the 80’s. I was very much an 80’s child, for better and mostly worse, and I was just coming into my own, waking to the world around me and my place and presence in it. On the radio every other song was about sex, and while I had no idea what sex was, what a virgin might be, and how love did and didn’t always fit into the equation, I was fascinated by the forbidden aspect of it, the way it made the adults squirm whenever I would bring it up.
Full moon in the city and the night was young I was hungry for love, I was hungry for fun I was hunting you down, and I was the bait When I saw you there, I didn’t need to hesitate
The rainy month of March when this song first came out was filled with the usual paradoxes of this time of the year. Easter and Lent collided with the coming of spring, and all the birds and bees and dirty deeds that the less-spiritual part of the world got up into whenever spring arrived. On the windows of my bedroom, or the windows of the backseat of the car, I watched water droplets shape and warp the world. This song spoke to me with its over-the-top cheesiness, appealing to my love of the dramatic and histrionic, with more than a touch of sleaze. If Madonna’s ‘Crazy For You’ was the sweet little sister, innocently opining about a kiss and no more, ‘Touch Me’ was the sexier, raunchier cousin leading me into the night. Just a tween, I had no idea what any of it meant, nor any desire to learn. Instead, I felt the pangs of longing and yearning, the ache of a first crush on a boy who lived several streets away, and I had no idea why.
This is the night, this is the night This is the time, we’ve got to get it right…
Touch me, touch me, I want to feel your body Your heartbeat next to mine (this is the night) Touch me, touch me now… Touch me, touch me now…
When Samantha Fox sang this song, and whispers of her topless poses in certain scandalous magazines reached the boys, they felt something I simply didn’t. Immune to the charms of her ample cleavage, I had no desire to get into her ripped jeans either, but I watched other boys as they watched her, and I envied her transfixing hold on them. How could I cast such a spell? How to craft and conjure such rapt enchantment?
Hot and cold emotion, confusing my brain I could not decide between pleasure and pain Like a tramp in the night, I was begging for you To treat my body like you wanted to
This is the night, this is the night This is the time, we’ve got to get it right…
Touch me, touch me, I want to feel your body Your heartbeat next to mine (this is the night) Touch me, touch me now… Touch me, touch me now…
Later, years later, I would re-listen to this song and be horrified at the thought of me blaring it in the car while my parents gamely alternated between this and ‘Crazy For You’. It was just music and melody to me – the words meant nothing – but there was something primal and raw in it that appealed to my barely-burgeoning nature. As a tween, it wasn’t in any way sexual to me, just a bop on the radio that elicited thrills because I could see the reaction to it, not because I felt anything myself.
As a young gay man, that certainly changed over the years, but that’s another story for another song and blog post. This is just a quaint memory of S-S-S-S-Samantha Fox… because naughty girls need love (DUH-DUH-DUH-DUH) too.
Touch me, touch me now… Touch me, touch me now, yeah…
Touch me, touch me, I want to feel your body Your heartbeat next to mine (this is the night) ‘Cause I want your body, all the time…
From the outside, the little wooden storage shed sagged like a well-worn face, caving in on itself with years of weight and rot and worry. Inside, it looked no better, with crooked shelves only half-heartedly hanging on, and piles of debris and rusty tools dangerously strewn about. The air in the dilapidated structure was still and stifling. Bits of dust floated in the light that managed to intrude through the broken windows hung heavily with spider webs; any bits of glass that remained were coated with grime. It was the perfect hiding place for a kid, or for a dirty book, and both were present on this summer day. It was also an unlikely location for an introduction to sex, but most of us don’t get to choose how we first brush up against that. Dropping my bike at the door, I shut the rickety thing behind me and began my furtive exploration of that word which suddenly tingled with illicit thrill and danger.
There’s things that you guess
And things that you know
There’s boys you can trust
And girls that you don’t
There’s little things you hide
And little things that you show
Sometimes you think you’re gonna get it
But you don’t and that’s just the way it goes.
Earlier that day, we’d been hanging around with my brother’s friend, who lived a few blocks away. Back then, we’d hop on our bikes before we even had breakfast, jump from pool to pool and house to house, and not return home until it was time for an early dinner. We were roaming through his friend’s house – nobody’s parents were home during the day then – playing hide and seek or giving chase the way that kids do, and at one point I found myself upstairs alone. His sister’s bedroom door was open and on the wall was a poster of George Michael in a skimpy white Speedo. All that I was supposed to feel toward a poster of Kelly LeBrock hit me when I gazed upon the hairy, lithe body of Mr. Michael, squinting happily from some beach in Greece, backed by a blue sky and flagrantly displaying most of his skin in wet, glistening form. I was transfixed and bewitched all at once, and I remember standing there stunned, caught by the surprise of all that I was feeling, and not understanding any of it.
I swear I won’t tease you
Won’t tell you no lies
Don’t need no bible
Just look in my eyes
I’ve waited so long baby
Now that we’re friends
Every man’s got his patience
And here’s where mine ends
Eventually, I roused myself from my visual inquisition, but soon made excuses to go back upstairs, where I surreptitiously indulged in more lustful gazing and looking. My awakening to a physical attraction was confusing, but came in what felt like completely natural form. This wasn’t something I had been conditioned to experience – if anything, I was waiting for the day when I found the same reaction to a woman, and that day would never come. This was a primal, powerful impulse that drew my eyes and head and heart to a handsome man with a teasing smile, speaking to something deep within, speaking to something I’d never seen portrayed in fairy tales or books or television. It was the same stirring I was starting to feel when our neighbor – some blond high school boy who seemed so much older than us then – doffed his shirt and ruggedly strode into our pool on the hottest summer days.
I want your sex
I want your love
I want your sex
I want your sex.
The dim, shadowy recesses of that house fade into memory here, and our little band of boys moves back outside, into the sun, into the heat, rolling down banks of green grass, horsing around as boys do, making the most of summer by doing the absolute least, and somehow exerting all our energy in the process. We found our way into that barely-standing wooden shed that was set nearer the road and away from the house. My brother’s friend beckoned us in and showed us a pile of paperback romance novels, some pages of which had been earmarked, and we took turns reading what would likely amount to some very tame sex scenes today. At the time, however, they were gleefully scandalous to our naïve eyes. More than that, they made room for the imagination to take over, and mine was thirsty, boundless, and bold.
It’s playing on my mind
It’s dancing on my soul
It’s taken so much time
So why don’t you just let me go
I’d really like to try
Oh I’d really love to know
When you tell me you’re gonna regret it
Then I tell you that I love you but you still say no
Sex, then, began as a matter of the mind. That’s where it was taking place, that’s where my notions of it were forming, and that’s where it felt most exciting. When reading about it in some cheap paperback novel, my mind focused on the man. Unforced and unswayed by all the hetero-normative shit around me, I still wanted to connect with the guy instead of the girl. My body, my physical and mental make-up, and my own baseline of emotion were all drawn to the male form. It was natural, it was elemental, it was where my first inklings originated. Only when social constructs and pressures came into play did I realize what I was feeling would be deemed wrong. That sort of shame was almost irrevocably harmful, and it’s the sort of thing that would shade many of my subsequent romantic relationships.
I swear I won’t tease you
Won’t tell you no lies
Don’t need no bible
Just look in my eyes
I’ve waited so long baby
Out in the cold
But I can’t take much more girl
I’m losing control
Back then, it was more innocent. Before the shame, there was only curiosity and the inquisitive pinprick of wanting to know more. The boys left the shed, but I lingered, telling them I’d catch up later. This was forbidden treasure, and I wasn’t ready to let it go. I quickly thumbed through the pages of the scandalous tome, re-reading certain passages to better grasp what was going on in all the metaphors and coded descriptions – the way humans sometimes do their best to disguise and beautify sex. I don’t even think I got a hard-on (surely I didn’t hop on my bike with a chub and gym shorts and ride through the streets of Amsterdam on that summer day) because it was more fascinating than arousing at such a young age. Still, I knew what direction I was headed in, even if I didn’t fully fathom the ramifications, and my cock was pointing me to men. I speak so frankly not in an effort to demystify sex, but to celebrate its integral and healthy place in our lives. That my first sexual explorations would be found in a book is fitting for someone who finds enthrallment and passion in a chosen cadence of words.
It’s natural
It’s chemical
It’s logical
Habitual
It’s sensual
But most of all
Sex is something that we should do
Sex is something for me and you.
Sex is natural, sex is good
Not everybody does it
But everybody should
Sex is natural, sex is fun
Sex is best when it’s one on one
One on one
Leaving the book in its run-down shed, I got back on my bike and rode away, rejoining the boys for whatever our next adventure was, and returning to the cares of a summer that felt endless and all-to-brief all at once. At night, alone in bed, when the air-conditioning gave off the slightest, softest moans, and I still couldn’t cool down, my mind would return to that poster and that book, and ideas of men started the beautiful haunting that would dog me for all the days since.
Tore up and wore up from the floor up, this past week has been troubling and trying and totally typical of a full-moon week. While the proverbial shit hits the fan, I’m simply going to open up a rainbow-colored umbrella and carry on. That’s what the weekend affords: the nonchalant walk-away.
Don’t I make it look easy, baby
When I do what I do? (Uh-huh)
Don’t I make it look easy, baby?
Well, I’m foolin’ you
I just posted a picture, read all the comments Hearted the good ones if I’m bein’ honest, uh-huh I mighta spent an hour on it…
You won’t ever see me cry (I’m not cryin’) ‘Cause I’ve got a filter for every single lie
It’s not easy to make them look after all these years, even if it’s second nature by this side-to-late stage of my life. Still, it passes the time. It makes a day. And in this Meghan Trainor bop it forms the thrust of the narrative.
You think I live that lavish life, happy life? But you don’t know I’m up all night Worry ’bout my body type I wonder if I’m what they like? But I should just say “fuck it,” right?
Oh, and you won’t ever see me cry (I’m not cryin’) ‘Cause I’ve got a filter for every single lie
The faces and bodies we present on social media – the clothes and personae we present to the world – they make it look however we want it to look, but how much is real? How much is authentic? On our worst days, even on our only-somewhat-trying days, no one knows what’s really going on in our lives. Spouses and family members have only slightly more of a clue. Sometimes the mere act of showing up takes more effort and mental energy than performing in front of a crowd of thousands. You just never know when it comes to people.
Don’t I make it look easy, baby (Uh-huh) When I do what I do? (When I do what I do) Don’t I make it look easy, baby? Ah (Ah) Well, I’m foolin’ you Don’t I make it look easy, baby? (Ah; uh-huh) I’m good at keepin’ my cool (I’m good at keepin’ my cool) Don’t I make it look easy, baby? Ah (Ah) Well, I’m foolin’ you
So here’s to all the people who put on the pretend just to get through the day, the ones who make it look easy when they feel like it’s all crumbing on the inside, when they aren’t sure of anything other than how to make it look good.
I know I ain’t the only one who feels like this Gettin’ good at hidin’ all this mess (Gettin’ good) I’m tired (She’s tired) Oh, Lord, I’m tired (Yeah, she’s tired)
All of these informed the days of Madonna’s ‘Like A Prayer’ album, and in that incense and patchouli-scented period of time, a classic pop moment was born. At the age of thirteen I was just awakening to the world around me, and my place in it. Such a heady time needed a dramatic soundtrack, and ‘Like A Prayer’ was it.
Through the ensuing years, the album has matured and endured, growing more resonant with the passing of time, ageless with its themes of family, love, empowerment, spirituality, and self-discovery. With Patrick Leonard and Stephen Bray, Madonna crafted one of the finest pop albums of the 1980’s, topping off the decade that she ruled and setting up the pinnacle of her pop culture reign. ‘Like A Prayer’ was the first time the world began to understand her legacy and place in musical history.
Sometimes, though, that albatross of the past, and all the controversies that would come, weighed heavily on the heart and mind. It’s been over three decades since ‘Like A Prayer’ was released, and trying to encapsulate an understanding or summary of such a stretch is a daunting endeavor. Sometimes I just want to put on the music and let it take me there…
When confronted with the quest to find a defining song for this website, I turned to the children in my life – their answers will be forthcoming in the next few months, but it seemed unfair to task them with such a daunting challenge when they’ve only known me for the short duration of their lives thus far. How dare I ask someone else when I haven’t narrowed it down myself? And so let’s begin a little collection of songs that I would put on a mix tape if I’d met you when we were both teenagers in love. Up first, ‘Grace Kelly’. Ca-ching!
Do I attract you? Do I repulse you with my queasy smile? Am I too dirty, am I too flirty? Do I like what you like? I could be wholesome, I could be loathsome, I guess I’m a little bit shy Why don’t you like me, why don’t you like me, without making me try?
I tried to be like Grace Kelly But all her looks were too sad, So I tried a little Freddie, I’ve gone identity mad!
After knocking about this planet for forty-seven-and-counting years, I’ve got bruises and black-and-blue memories and tales of thrashing my brain and body against all sorts of odds and ends. At this point, perhaps a turning point, or a midway point, or a point of contention, I’m more willing to be unwilling to change for anyone or anything. The grace of Ms. Kelly and the brazen boldness of Mr. Freddie were never for me, despite my early Norma-mantra of ‘I can play any role!’ Wishful thinking, powerful enough for the younger years when one could coast on a wish and a prayer and the sheer will to make it so. One person’s confidence is another’s delusion.
I could be brown, I could be blue, I could be violet sky I could be hurtful, I could be purple, I could be anything you like Gotta be green, gotta be mean, gotta be everything more Why don’t you like me, why don’t you like me? Why don’t you walk out the door?
And so for many years – too many years – I tried to be everything I thought everybody else wanted. After several failed attempts at romance, and being too needy and quick to rush into a relationship, I learned all too slowly and painfully that people didn’t want that, and so I became someone who didn’t want or need anyone. Hardening off the heart and numbing the brain, I deadened my exuberant thrill and giddy excitement at meeting someone who fascinated me. Those were the rules, and to try to play outside of them simply didn’t work for me. Once I played that silly game, I could get the guy. Even if I couldn’t keep him. It was maddening.
Getting angry doesn’t solve anything…
So I became smarter. And harder. And cared even less. And I got a few more guys, and some stayed longer than others. And still I knew it wasn’t me. I couldn’t tell you what was me – I couldn’t even tell myself that then. I simply didn’t know, even if I was sure I did, and the blind-faith of youth was more blind than faithful. Left with gaping holes I covered with velvet and chiffon, in the manner of Grace Kelly herself, I hung the rusty sharpness of all my crooked nails and wonky screws with fancy duds and witty theatrics. Hiding in all the fantasy of black and white dramas, thinking I could outsmart the world and trap any bachelor with a penchant for other bachelors – I put myself above all others as a gambit, knowing full well there was nothing behind it. When there is nothing behind your image, you can be anything and everything – and it still amounts to nothing.
How can I help it, how can I help it? How can I help what you think? Hello my baby, hello my baby, putting my life on my brink Why don’t you like me, why don’t you like me? Why don’t you like yourself? Should I bend over, should I look older, just to be put on your shelf?
I tried to be like Grace Kelly, But all her looks were too sad, So I tried a little Freddie, I’ve gone identity mad!
The first whispers of humility, of acknowledging my failures and imperfections, sounded in the distance, but I didn’t heed them. Certain that I could be what everyone else wanted, if they would simply tell me what they wanted, I made a vow to mold myself into someone desirable. Shedding styles and modes from season to season, every new person was a chance to become someone new myself, and every time I gave something up, I moved further from who I was.
I could be brown, I could be blue, I could be violet sky I could be hurtful, I could be purple, I could be anything you like Gotta be green, gotta be mean, gotta be everything more Why don’t you like me, why don’t you like me? Walk out the door!
Let’s have an orchestral moment – for pomp and circumstance and the bombast of youth. We are so sure of ourselves for such a very short time. Only the very foolish keep their delusions. The very foolish… and maybe the very happy.
Say what you want to satisfy yourself, hey But you only want what everybody else says you should want You want
A moment of mourning, then, for that foolishness. For that innocence. For that young man who knocked himself about like we all do in our early twenties. Because once I knew a little more about life, and loss, I wanted to be a little better. Slowly, the awakening began, and every day I felt a little more awake, a little more like myself. Understanding that, and seeing for maybe the first time that every day would not bring more knowledge, but more questions, began informing the way I lived. It wasn’t the answers I needed to find, it was the acceptance of all that I couldn’t and wouldn’t come to know.
There would be days when I would get ahead of myself, when the hubris of history and all the beautiful barriers I’d erected for decades would get the better of my decent intentions and send me hurtling back to a place of cruelty and fear and smallness. And then there would be days when I made all the right decisions, when the world smiled back if I ventured to smile first, when I met someone magical like Andy who taught me things and allowed me to teach him things too.
I could be brown, I could be blue, I could be violet sky I could be hurtful, I could be purple, I could be anything you like Gotta be green, gotta be mean, gotta be everything more Why don’t you like me, why don’t you like me? Walk out the door!
Is there such a thing as a happy ending? I don’t know. The older I get, the more we seem to lose. Beauty. Youth. Health. People we love. The closer we approach our own ending, the less happy life seems to get. I think it may have to be enough to find a tiny bit of happiness for which to be grateful at the end of every day – whether that’s in a stubborn patch of snow that finally melted, a violet that throws off an unexpected bloom, or a cookie that a co-worker brings you. If we find our happiness in the simple and grand glory of living out an average day, then that may be our happy ending.
Well… this was not what I intended to write when I chose this song, but some songs guide you differently as you write things out. This was going to be as colorful and brash as the explosion behind me in the accompanying pictures. It was meant to echo the driving defiance of ‘Grace Kelly’ and Mika’s impassioned delivery. Instead it stands in stark contrast to that, a monument to my failures and mistakes, an ode to imperfection and everything wrong, and a reminder to embrace it, make it better, and then let it go.
I could be brown, I could be blue, I could be violet sky I could be hurtful, I could be purple, I could be anything you like Gotta be green, gotta be mean, gotta be everything more Why don’t you like me, why don’t you like me? Walk out the door!
There were works that came before and after which came close to perfection – ‘Confessions on a Dancefloor‘, ‘Erotica‘, and ‘Like A Prayer‘ are all solid entries in the Madonna canon – but ROL was a masterpiece form start to finish. Even her best albums have at least one clunker, while ROL has none. And so we hit play on the wondrously-whirling title track, which exuberantly reminds of all those moments when we feel like we just got home:
The ‘Ray of Light’ album taught me many things, and continues to do so. First and foremost was the idea of being present and living in the moment. For far too much of my life I’ve focused on planning and plotting and what was going to happen next. That makes for a well-organized existence, but zaps a lot of spontaneous enjoyment and fun out of each day, even if it was designed and planned to be enjoyable and fun. Some things in life cannot be planned, and if you’re a Virgo that’s always a little disappointing. Learning to appreciate the present moment was a key stepping stone on my road to becoming a little happier. The totality of the ROL album helped me to see that.
Twenty-five years have passed since this Madonna moment played out, and the work has stood the test of time. Its themes are universal and its lessons are continuously resonant. For all of its racing tracks, there is a Zen-like calm to its trajectory that makes ‘Ray of Light’ more like a musical meditation than a mere collection of songs. That journey is a trip worth making again and again.
