Category Archives: General

26
March
2012
Tags: General, Madonna, Music
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Madonna ~ MDNA: The Album Review

Leave it to a current zeitgeist lightning rod like Nicki Minaj to proclaim, “There’s only one queen, and that’s Madonna.” It’s a pretty accurate summation of the latest album from our reigning royalty. Like its prismatic cover art, MDNA is a kaleidoscopic view into the mental and musical psyche of Madonna, thirty years into her unprecedented career.

Rich, complex, and thrillingly diverse, this album, perhaps more than any other Madonna album, offers the most varied vocal styling she has ever exhibited – literally and figuratively. She’s almost unrecognizable in some spots, and it’s a powerful indication of her powers of reinvention and phoenix-like abilities that she can still summon such surprising sounds.

The dark, twisted, sometimes tumultuous collection of tracks is as revealing as it is catchy. She has yet to lyrically match the majestic heights and musical cohesiveness she mastered with an album like Ray of Light, but this comes closer to the revelatory confessional aspect of Like A Prayer that serious fans have been clamoring for (both were crafted in the aftermath of ruined marriages). This time around, she finds salvation and strength in the music, using it as her guide, her escape, and her inspiration.

Fleshed out with the genius combination of Martin Solveig, Benny Benassi, and William Orbit (one of her greatest collaborators, and the genius behind Ray of Light) MDNA offers compelling evidence that Madonna is very much at the top of her game. Opening with the Act of Contrition (the same prayer that closed out Like A Prayer), ‘Girl Gone Wild’ starts things off with a gleeful sense of abandon. “I’m about to go astray/ My inhibition’s gone away/ I feel like sinning…” and suddenly we are back to where it all began – on the dance-floor and in glorious defiance. For anyone who dared wonder whether this changed world would cause her to kow-tow in any way, Madonna brazenly deflects all ensuing wanna-bes and ex-husbands with this introductory slice of dance-pop, and the racy video already has tongues wagging like it’s 1992 all over again.

Rather than reining things in after that gate-busting salvo, she drives full-speed into controversial territory, in the ultra-violent gun-happy ‘Gang Bang’ – a track that would have gone straight into the banned bin at any point in the 90’s. The bad girl of Erotica is back, with a sinister bass-line and a sick beat, and some hilariously disturbing lines and barely-glossed-over rage. Yet for all its over-the-top psycho-drama, it rings slightly hollow, especially when compared to the more mesmerizing ‘I’m Addicted.’

“When did your name change from a word to a charm?… When did your name change from language to magic?” she asks her apparent infatuation, voicing “somewhere between a prayer and a shout.” We’ve all had those nights-at-the-club when we can barely remember how we got there, or how we got home. They’re dim, hazy, and forgettable – they bleed into one another, until you meet that certain someone and suddenly time stills, and they burn themselves into your memory, into your consciousness, and you can’t tell if it’s the music or the moment or some other mind-altering madness. It’s a trippy rush, and even though you know you’re high and drunk on the drug or the love, when the music pumps this hard it doesn’t much matter. “Something happens to me when I hear your voice/ Something happens to me and I have no choice,” she sings, her voice both rising and deepening as the music builds, “I need to hear your name/ Everything feels so strange/ I’m ready to take this chance/ I need to dance.” As the song climaxes and the chorus smashes over it all, ‘I’m Addicted’ offers the sort of spiritual and physical transcendence that can only come about on the crowded floor of a collectively-sweat-soaked night at the club, when the mood is just right and the music rides that crest to the culmination of its breaking point. Most albums might pause for a breather of some filler at this point, but not MDNA.

‘Turn Up the Radio’ is the song that should, by all rights, return her to her former chart glory, but even if it fails in that quest, it’s bound to be the summer anthem for gay clubs the world over. An unabashedly joyous romp, tailor-made for blaring in the car with the top down, ‘Radio’ gives us the carefree Madonna that most of us grew up loving.

“When the world starts to get you down/ And nothing seems to go your way/ And the noise of the maddening crowd/ Makes you feel like you’re going to go insane/ There’s the glow of a distant light/ Calling you to come outside/ To feel the wind in your face and your skin/ And it’s here I begin my story.” It’s a story she’s told before, but it’s worth hearing again in this shiny and new form.

‘Some Girls’ is a sort of backhanded ‘Express Yourself’, where the unity of girl power finds an ambivalent critique as Madonna sassily sings, “I’m not like all the rest/ Some girls are second best/Put your loving to the test.” Sometimes it’s not only the guys who seem out to get her, and this adds a dimension of tension to the increasingly complicated path she’s set forth upon. Luckily, things get as sweet as they are sticky with ‘Superstar’. This saccharine-sweet sugary confection, with dreamy background vocals by Madonna’s daughter Lola (even if barely worth the credit) imbues the album with a sense of hopeful romanticism that balances the darker tracks.

‘I Don’t Give A’ borders dangerously on showcasing the fact that Madonna will never make a convincing rapper, but she keeps it just this side of decent, wisely allowing Nicki Minaj to take over the real deal. She ticks off a laundry list of bluntly-put tasks, “Wake up ex-wife/ This is your life/ Children, on your own, planning on the telephone… Gotta call the babysitter/ Twitting on the elevator…” (funny because she doesn’t even have her own Twitter account) – and in the quick patter drops the big admissions. “I tried to be a good girl/ I tried to be your wife /Diminished myself, and I swallowed my light/ I tried to become all that you expect of me, and if it was a failure, I don’t give a…” In the end it’s all about self-empowerment, and nobody does that better than Madonna. Single mother of four, a corporation unto herself, the embodiment of the modern woman – she is our warrior queen: “I’m gonna be okay/ I don’t care what the people say/ I’m gonna be all right/ Gotta live fast, and I’m gonna live right.”

The melodic magic and sunny sixties retro-vibe of William Orbit finds guitar-laden salvation in ‘I’m A Sinner’ – a swirling pop song that will challenge anyone not to move along to it. Both silly and serious religious references find her back in the church setting, only she’s preaching the gospel of the groove, testifying to the beat, confessing in the glory of the other kind of rapture – and here is where the album soars, almost matching the spiritual abandon of ‘Like A Prayer’. ‘Sinner’ is rife with whispered Hail Marys and a list of saintly men, before the singer cheekily challenges, “All the saints and holy men/ Catch me before I sin again”. Who else but a woman named Madonna, a woman who burst onto the scene looking and acting nothing like a virgin, could so stand up to such iconic religious figureheads? She does it all with an irresistible hook and beat to boot, and ‘I’m A Sinner’ is an engaging song on a par with her best bits of pop finery.

Things turn slightly sour on ‘Love Spent’, which deals with the monetary madness of her life, mistrust, and the desire to be wanted for more than her money. Starting with an instrumental folk intro (sounds of Mr. Ritchie echoing in the pub) it rounds a dim corner to the introspective, which is where Madonna does some of her best, if not always popular, work. It’s hard not to think of her ex-husband in this mixture of regret and longing – the wish for what has already been lost or, perhaps worse, already given away. For love or money, begs the once-material girl: “You had all of me, you wanted more/ Would you have married me if I were poor?” she questions. “You played with my heart/ Til death do we part/ That’s what you said.”

By the end, she’s not so much blaming anyone as wishing for a deeper, richer connection: “I want you to take me like you took your money/ Take me in your arms until your last breath/ I want you to hold me like you hold your money/ Hold onto me until there’s nothing left.” It reeks of sadness and regret, tinged with anger and resentment, and the wish for something that transcended money and worldly concerns – and suddenly she is like any other divorced person, wondering where the love went. (Here’s one of the only points where the dense production threatens to drown out the sentiment, and there is reportedly an acoustic version of this that would be well worth hearing.)

If it’s heartache you’re looking to find, ‘Masterpiece’ offers a break in the rushing beats with a melancholy tale of an out-of-grasp object of affection and perfection. “It seems to me that’s what you’re like/ The look-but-please-don’t-touch-me type/ And honestly it can’t be fun to always be the chosen one.” She may be singing to someone else, but chances are she’s also talking to herself.

Gorgeously ending the standard edition of the album is ‘Falling Free’ – a timeless tale of lessons learned and freedom found – and lost and gained again. Madonna weaves a folk-like enchantment over sparse instrumentation, offering pure blissful relief and release from the previous wall of racing, breakneck beats. This is music that aches and weeps, quietly and beautifully. “Deep and pure, our hearts align/ And then I’m free, I’m free of mine/ When I let loose the need to know/ Then we’re both free, we’re free to go…” It is a mournful, elegiac note of acceptance, of forlorn forgiveness, of forging onward in the face of heartbreak. As the closing note of the main album, it rings of resignation, and as much as she wants to dance and distract, it’s an exquisite signifier that her real freedom might be found solely in her music – where it has resided for almost three decades. It’s the one thing she has yet to change.

The additional tracks of the Deluxe Edition offer further glimpses into her emotional state, and a few of these should have made it onto the album proper. Overlooking the relatively tame-in-context f-bombs in ‘I Fucked Up’, this is actually a very pretty bit of regret: “I made a mistake, Nobody does it better than myself/ I’m sorry, I’m not afraid to say/ I wish I could take it back but I can’t.” For the woman who made ‘I’m not sorry’ her mantra for so many years, this is a startling, and moving, admission. Owning up to her mistakes finds her in an uncharacteristic state of vulnerability, and as the drums carry her away amid a sea of “we could’ve”s, you realize that despite the glamorous benefits that likely come from being Madonna, she’s still just a middle-aged woman grappling with the end of a decade-long marriage. That she failed at something that once gave her such happiness and fulfillment puts her on the dangerous axis of self-love versus self-hatred, as exemplified by ‘Beautiful Killer’. It finds her straddling obsession and self-annihilation, and a character who would give up her life for an object of beauty. Nobody ever said Madonna wasn’t dramatic, and the whole thing plays out richly over a taut run of strings and a killer disco beat.

‘Best Friend’ is a sorrowful, skittering track that finds her pondering, “Maybe I challenged you a little bit too much/ We couldn’t have two drivers on the clutch.” Going further she reveals, “Every man that works in that door will be compared to you forevermore.” The non-stop beats and musical whirligigs can’t completely mask the sadness and regret at work here. “It wasn’t always perfect, but it wasn’t always bad,” she admits over a tension-laden cacophony of bleeps and blips.

An argument could be made that she should have switched out some filler on the standard album and substituted a couple of stellar deluxe tracks noted above to make an indomitable collection of immaculate perfection, but the entire song cycle is a ride well-worth taking. As Madonna herself once said, “You can’t get to one place without going through another.” MDNA reasserts her rightful place in the pop world, proving once again that music forms the most basic make-up of her being.

Grade: A

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25
March
2012
Tags: General, Madonna, Music
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The Madonna Oeuvre ~ Part II

 

Bedtime Stories ~ 1994: A comeback album of sorts, following the backlash and fall-out of Erotica and the Sex book, this one find her returning quietly, in more gentle form, starting off with the subtle swing and crafty simplicity of lead single ‘Secret’. The strumming guitar lends a grounding aspect to this, while follow-up ‘Take A Bow’ raced up the charts with its saccharine Babyface-produced melodies and lovelorn lyrics. Overall, the album reverts to R&B over dance pop, and it works better than it should thanks to Madonna’s ability to uncannily produce a cohesive sounding record. In the beginning of her career she was not unrightly pegged as a singles artist, but by this time she knew her way around creating a proper album, and Bedtime Stories is a solid effort. Lullaby-ish sleepers like ‘Inside of Me’ and ‘Forbidden Love’ lent a gauzy beauty to the brokenhearted, while ‘Human Nature’ and ‘I’d Rather Be Your Lover’ offered convincing shades of defiant hip-hop. With its quieter agenda and more timely musical influences, it was an ingenious way to re-enter the pop scene.
Grade: B

 

Ray of Light ~ 1998: Gorgeously conceived, fully realized, and sonically sound, this is Madonna’s best album to date. From beginning to end, there is not one missed note, not one bad song, not one moment of irrelevant filler. Everything here is vital and necessary, and it is a musical journey founded as much on William Orbit’s chilly musical landscape as by Madonna’s somewhat uncharacteristic warmth and tenderness. The two combined for a combustible yet perfect alchemy of musical magic. Lead single ‘Frozen’ was one of her most stirring ballads, setting the soundscape for a spiritual journey of unprecedented proportion. The racing title track zooms along at break-neck pace, but with more worldly concerns than a simple turn on the dancefloor (though there was time for that too). The remaining singles (‘Power of Goodbye’ and ‘Nothing Really Matters’) were trickier to choose, only because there were so many good songs on the album, and most were more like art than pop music. As such, there’s a richness to this album that she has yet to match. From the moving opening salvo of ‘Drowned World/Substitute for Love’ to the grandiose chorus of ‘Sky Fits Heaven’ and the mesmerizing rush of ‘Skin’, this cycle of songs is her true masterpiece, weaving in questions of fame, desire, and one woman’s soul-searching journey through the world. It posits intensely personal questions of doubt and wonderment amid universal concerns, and remains intoxicating for its entire duration. Its quieter moments (‘To Have and Not To Hold’ and ‘Little Star’) absolutely shimmer, but it pulses and throbs too (‘Candy Perfume Girl’ and ‘Shanti/Ashtangi’). Whenever anyone questions Madonna’s musical ability, or wonders why I love her, I point them to this album.
Grade: A+

 

Music ~ 2000: Unwilling to completely let go of William Orbit’s magic, she held onto him for a few cuts on her 2000 album, but this one was mainly grand for its introduction of Mirwais to the Madonna canon, and they manage to make some beautiful Music together. That title track is epic and iconic at once, simple, direct, and to-the-point pleasing, finding Madonna at her most carefree and fun since the 80’s. This is when her vocoder phase began, and for the first time she allows her voice to be manipulated in the name of sound and effect. It works, for the most part, but it’s still when she sings plainly that she makes it matter, as in the brash ‘Don’t Tell Me’ and the moving ‘What It Feels Like For A Girl’. A bit of repetitive musical redundancy bogs down the album in some stretches (‘Nobody’s Perfect’ and ‘I Deserve It’), and she ends things on a decidedly dull note, ‘Gone’. All in all, a bit more filler than usual, and a bit of gliding on the glory that was Ray of Light.
Grade: B-

 

American Life ~ 2003: A controversial companion to Erotica, this one found Madonna at odds with the cultural war climate, and while she enjoyed acclaim and success by channeling such a perch in the past, this time it didn’t work in her favor. In some ways, radio turned against her here and never quite returned, even if it was for all the wrong reasons. In retrospect, this album got a bad rap, even if it contained a pretty bad one (I’m drinking a soy latte, I get a double shotte?) The title track was a little too jarring, and not entirely indicative of the electronic folk pastoral that was contained within, the majority of which is far better than most people want to admit. Mirwais helms most of this excursion, and his stuttering beats drive ‘Hollywood’ and ‘Nobody Knows Me’, as well as American Life’s only real hit single ‘Die Another Day’ (which came out well in advance of the album and avoided its war-tainted death-knell). Notably, the meat of this album was in its acoustic downtime. Songs like the choir-uplifted ‘Nothing Fails’, ‘Intervention’, and ‘X-Static Process’ give Madonna an almost folk-like platform to sing along with a guitar or two and make beautiful, if simple, melodies. In some ways, the whole thing may have been too serious and too earnest for its own good, but there are some stellar things going on regardless, and it’s worth a revisit.
Grade: B

 

Confessions on a Dancefloor ~ 2005: The dance diva returns to reclaim her throne, in top form, and carrying an Abba-sample to boot. ‘Hung Up’ heralds a disco throw-down for a new era, while ‘Sorry’ tears up the dance-floor more gleefully than anything since ‘Ray of Light’. The whole album is sequenced without pause, though the songs still manage to distinguish themselves from one another. The lightweight pop and soft-focus disco of ‘Get Together’, ‘Forbidden Love’ and ‘Jump’ are interspersed with a few serious moments (‘Isaac’, ‘Let It Will Be’) but the beat doesn’t slacken. Even with a clunker like ‘I Love New York’, the album chugs cohesively along, driven by the dance – the one thing (along with her music) that has been Madonna’s stock in trade all these years. The abandonment of American Life may have re-energized her – she sounds hungry again, and on the prowl – and no one finds her prey better than when Madonna is stalking with a dance beat on her back.
Grade: A

 

Hard Candy ~ 2008: Back into the R&B groove, if R&B even exists as a term or musical form anymore. Safely (and somewhat disappointingly) aligning herself with Timbaland, Pharrell, and Timberlake, she makes an album of music of the moment, with enough pop know-how to make some of the songs last. The jury’s still out on whether one of them will be lead single ‘4 Minutes’ that features Mr. Timberlake and a sassy horn blast. More likely to stand the test of time will be pop throwbacks such as ‘Heartbeat’ and ‘Beat Goes On’. She slows the pace and deepens the mood with ‘Miles Away’ and the devastating ‘Devil Wouldn’t Recognize You’, but almost blows it with the opening of ‘Candy Store’ – unremarkable both for its lackluster melody and silly lyrics. Fillers like ‘Dance 2Night’, ‘Voices’, and ‘Spanish Lesson’, while enjoyable, don’t add up to a classic Madonna album, but she puts the rest of it across on the strength of something like ‘Give It 2 Me’. It buys her some time, but that’s about all.
Grade: B-

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25
March
2012
Tags: General, Madonna, Music
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The Madonna Oeuvre ~ Part I

This week sees the long-awaited new album by Madonna, and that’s all that really matters. In anticipation and honor of that, I’ve compiled a quick collection of mini-reviews on all her full-length studio albums. (Meaning I’m bypassing soundtracks and greatest hits collections – which admittedly excludes some notable work, but this is not the final say. One exception – I’m Breathless, which is both a bit of a soundtrack, and a proper full-length studio album that she co-wrote.) To begin, we’ll focus on the first decade of music (and I’ll even give them some Entertainment Weekly-like grades, based solely on my personal preference.)

 

Madonna ~ 1983: For her self-titled debut, she introduces herself as a dance-friendly R&B artist, a role she would return to again and again. Oddly enough, this may be my least favorite album. It came out just before I was cognizant of music, so I missed this first flush of fame and glory, and the only songs I still enjoy are the classic ‘Holiday’ and a little bit of ‘Borderline’. Some will argue that ‘Lucky Star’ is one of her greatest, but I disagree. Never liked it and never will.
Grade: C+

 

Like A Virgin ~ 1984: For many, this is the one and only Madonna album, and I believe it remains her best-selling album in the US. This was what made me, and countless others, fall in love with her – only it wasn’t the sexy come-ons or titillating titles, it was the pure gold of a few genius pop songs. From the jaunty opening sass and irony of ‘Material Girl’ to the racy title track, from the creamy-smooth coos and luscious laughter of ‘Angel’ to the cheeky, sartorially-sexy vibe of ‘Dress You Up’, there are myriad highlights here of an artist who defined the 80’s and made them her own. A few uneven moments (‘Pretender’ and ‘Shoo-Bee-Doo’ perhaps) slightly mar the genius at work, exposing an occasional reliance on rhyming clichés, but as a whole Like A Virgin remains a vital, and potent, collection of songs.
Grade: B+

 

True Blue ~ 1986: Worldwide, I think this was her best-selling album, though in the US it slightly paled in comparison to the white-hot Virgin. Personally, I liked this even more than her sophomore effort, and though steeped in the limits of 80’s synthesized instrumentation, it is a more cohesive album. The unlikely lead single was a ballad, ‘Live to Tell’, and to this day, it stands up as one of her finest. Followed by ‘Papa Don’t Preach’, the songs on True Blue were our first hint that Madonna could get serious and thoughtful, and make pop music that mattered. Solidifying the album’s status were two more stellar singles, ‘La Isla Bonita’ and ‘Open Your Heart’ – both examples of how to craft the perfect pop song. Even the filler (‘Where’s the Party’) astonished.
Grade: A-

 

Like A Prayer ~ 1989: Musical majesty at its finest. This is easily her best album of the 80’s – and probably her second-best of all time. The title song alone stands in history as one of the greatest, and most enduring, examples of musical pop art, and the entire album is a keystone of Madonna’s legacy. Lyrically confessional, musically adventurous (LAP largely eschewed the synthesized sounds of the 80’s for live, organic instrumentation, and even a Gospel choir), and emotionally charged, it found Madonna getting real while getting down. Like in ‘Express Yourself’ – a clarion call for girl power and an instant Madonna mantra, the song brought the bass and the funk, staking its independence in the wake of her divorce. Soul-revealing cuts like ‘Til Death Do Us Part’ and ‘Oh Father’ were buoyed by the sunnier sides of ‘Cherish’ and ‘Dear Jessie’, and the album brilliantly manages to balance light and dark, happiness and sorrow, and love and loss. Even the dud of its last song, ‘Act of Contrition’, can’t take away from its luster and glory.
Grade: A+

 

I’m Breathless ~ 1990: Not technically the soundtrack to the movie Dick Tracy, it was “From and Inspired By” the film, which explains the 180 degree turn to a jazzy, musical pastiche of 20’s and 30’s slanted music. Lead single ‘Vogue’ stood on its own, and grandly so (largely apart from the rest of the theme), while Madonna sings some songs by Broadway master Stephen Sondheim and makes them her own. Vocal lessons apparent, her voice extends deeper and far beyond the chirps of her first album, and her breathing and lines are more assured. Highlights include the Oscar-winning ”Sooner or Later’ and the saucy (though-by-now-quaint) ‘Hanky Panky’. This would be the closest Madonna would get to Broadway until Evita, and it marked a promising beginning, even if the fans weren’t so quick to embrace it. Personally, I loved it all – even ‘I’m Going Bananas’.
Grade: B+

 

Erotica ~ 1992: Dark, chilly, sexy, and adventurous, Erotica was under-rated from the start, and remains so to this day. It actually offered a more varied take on sex and love than it’s given credit for, with thrilling titles that delved into deeper and more complex themes than a roll in the hay would ever support on its own. From the vamping title track to the giddy racing dance-romp of follow-up ‘Deeper and Deeper’, Erotica found Madonna doing dance-pop as only she could, even as her themes scared off the less-experienced. There should have been more singles than ‘Bad Girl’ and ‘Rain’, two of the softer (but no less beautiful) ballads, but I think she may have wanted to rein things in at that point. It’s too bad, as ‘Thief of Hearts’ and ‘Words’ were hook-filled and bridge-tastic, and even an overdone cover of ‘Fever’ or a silly throw-away like ‘Bye Bye Baby’ sounded better than most of what was on the radio. Erotica closed her first decade of music with a dark, challenging flourish ~ alienating some, winning over others, and setting the stage, in ways both good and bad, for what was to come. The album, though, was a winner.
Grade: A-

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16
March
2012
Tags: General, Madonna, Music
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The Madonna Timeline: Song #66 – ‘Rain’ ~ Fall 1992/Summer 1993

{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 feel it
It’s coming…

It turns out I’ve already written about the next iPod selection for the Madonna Timeline, ‘Rain’, but it was before the official Timeline came into existence, so I’m putting the original up here now. It was written a couple of years ago, but it’s a memory that’s true, a memory that has lasted, and a memory that still matters.

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,
Your love’s coming down like rain.

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.

When your lips are burning mine
And you take the time to tell me how you feel
When you listen to my words
And I know you’ve heard, I know it’s real
Rain is what this 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 mountain top

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,
Your love’s coming down like rain.

The rain was tearing the leaves from the trees – dark brown ones from the lofty reaches of grand oaks 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 the suicide manual ‘Final Exit’ was marked, its instructions strangely void of emotion, no guidance on what to feel.

When you looked into my eyes and you said good-bye,
Could you see my tears?
When I turned the other way, did you hear me say,
I’d wait for all the dark clouds bursting in a perfect sky
You promised me when you said good-bye
That you’d return when the storm was done
And now I’ll wait for the light, I’ll wait for the sun…

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’ (back when radio did that sort of thing). 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 math 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.

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,
Your love’s coming down like rain.

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?

Here comes the sun, here comes the sun
And I say, never go away…

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.

Waiting is the hardest thing
(It’s strange I feel like I’ve known you before)
I tell myself that if I believe in you
(And I want to understand you)
In the dream of you
(More and more)
With all my heart and all my soul
(When I’m with you)
That by sheer force of will
(I feel like a magical child)
I will raise you from the ground
(Everything strange)
And without a sound you’ll appear
(Everything wild)
And surrender to me, to love

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. It was the night a Madonna song saved my life.

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

Song #66 – ‘Rain’ ~ Fall 1992/Summer 1993

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09
March
2012
Tags: General, Madonna, Music
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The Madonna Timeline: Song #65 ~ ‘Where’s the Party?’ – 1987

{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.}

Working Monday through Friday
Takes up all of my time
If I can get to the weekend
Everything will work out just fine
That’s when I can go crazy
That’s when I can have fun
Time to be with my baby
Time to come on down…

The year was probably 1987. A young boy dances around his bedroom to Madonna’s ‘You Can Dance’ remix album. He doesn’t know exactly what it’s like to work Monday through Friday, but school is a good approximation. When the weekend arrives, he has nowhere to go but his bedroom, and he has nothing to do but dance.

Where’s the party?
I want to free my soul
Where’s the party?
I want to lose control

A complete product of the 80’s, he is superficial, colorful (some might say gaudy), and just a little bit cold. There would always be something coolly clinical about him, something glossy and frigid, like the modern doo-dads being sold at the store that replaced Edna’s Edibles on ‘The Facts of Life’.

Couldn’t wait to get older
Thought I’d have so much fun
Guess I’m one of the grown-ups
Now I have to get the job done
People gave me the business,
I’m not living in fear
I’m just living in chaos
Gotta get away from here.

How he loved that silly show, even if his Mom thought it crass and crude. He just saw a group of girls growing up, and he always wanted to be part of something like that. For the rest of his school years, he saw himself as Blair, searching for the friend she found in Jo, all to no avail. At that age, friendship was all – friendship was everything. He hadn’t quite reached the era of romance.

Where’s the party?
I want to free my soul
Where’s the party?
I want to lose control

And so he danced – alone in his bedroom, with the door shut and the world blocked out. He roamed the canyons of his mind, while lost in visions of his favorite Swatch, mesmerized by the blinking of a decorative stoplight, lulled by the mechanical movement of a wave machine – surrounded by the bells and whistles of the 80’s. Dub versions, 7 inchers, 12 inchers, and more – he spun wildly round and round over the dirty cream-colored carpet before collapsing in an out-of-breath heap.

Don’t want to go on too fast
Don’t want to let the system get me down
I’ve got to find a way to make the good times last
And if you show me how,
I’m ready now…

The party was there, the party was then, and even if it was a party of one, the party still raged. On a Saturday night (I guess that makes it all right), he played and rewound and played again that gray crystal-like cassette, watching the rolls of glossy brown filament spin in tandem like some simple yet intricate clockwork. Outside, the dark night stood watch, as the dancing shadows of a boy played upon the blinds, and the safety of a well-lit childhood bedroom begged for a few more carefree years.

Song #65: ‘Where’s the Party?’ ~ 1987
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25
February
2012
Tags: General
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It’s Never Too Late to Learn How to Wash Your Hands

When I go to the men’s room, I’m all about business. I like to get in and get out, with neither a word nor a social scene. I stand, head down at the urinal, eyes on my own thing, and as soon as I’m finished I shake it off, stuff it back in, and zip up. At the sink, I turn on the water, wet my hands, get some soap, and do a quick scrub – paying little to no attention to those around me.

(One of my biggest pet peeves is when someone talks to me at the urinal. I’m all for a simple curt ‘Hello’ but when you start asking questions that demand more than a yes or no, the urinal is not the place for it.)

Yet by minding my own business in such a manner, I’ve apparently not noticed (until recently) that most guys put the soap on their hands first, then turn the water on. This is earth-shattering to me; I’ve always been one to wet my hands first, then apply the soap. Have I been doing it backwards for thirty six-plus years? That’s a major re-calibration to muster, but I’m game to try.

The things one learns in the men’s room… it truly is a font of knowledge.

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24
February
2012
Tags: General, Madonna, Music
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The Madonna Timeline: Song #64 ~ ‘Nothing Really Matters’ – Late Winter 1999

{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.}

Nothing really matters
Love is all we need
Everything I give you
All comes back to me.

At the time, I was deep into my first serious adult relationship with a boyfriend. We were driving South – to Tennessee – to visit his home and family. It felt like a big deal, but also the most natural thing in the world. We left the Northeastern Winter, traveling into the spring of the Southern mountains. We arrived as dusk settled on a balmy but cool late-winter night.

This has always been one of my favorite times of the year in which to travel, the stultifying stagnation of winter usually has me beat down by this point, and I’m antsy and bursting to go somewhere – anywhere – and there’s no better where than a road trip.

The year of ‘Nothing Really Matters’ had been a snowy one in Boston, but as we drove deeper into the warmer climate zones, the dirty snow melted away, so that by the time we reached Tennessee, the ground was barren of winter, even if spring had not yet broken.

Looking at my life,
It’s very clear to me,
I lived so selfishly
I was the only one.
I realize that nobody wins
Something is ending
And something begins…

I don’t remember much of my meeting with his Mom. We got along well, talking for a bit in the kitchen after I put my bags in Paul’s childhood room. A walking iris bloomed in the front window of the living room. For the first time in my life, it was a plant I didn’t recognize.

(Later, years later, I’d find a walking iris in a local greenhouse and bring it home. They’re a strong breed, multiplying at the end of their blossoms like a spider plant, each one a new baby waiting to send forth roots once in contact with soil. The blossoms come at the tail end of Winter, just in time to soothe a snow-weary countenance.)

Nothing really matters
Love is all we need
Everything I give you
All comes back to me.

As I went to bed, alone, in my boyfriend’s old room, after he kissed me goodnight and went to sleep on the couch, I felt the daunting task of possibly entering a whole new family. It was a happy worry though, and I had the hope of one day belonging.

Sleep took a while to arrive. The room was bluish gray in the dim night, the shadows of toys and books were long and deep. Lying in his bed, I wondered what he’d been like as a boy. Would we have been friends? I breathed in the scent of the pillow, curling into myself, trying to forge into his past and his dreams.

Nothing takes the past away
Like the future
Nothing makes the darkness go
Like the light…

For the next few days we explored Chattanooga – visiting a cave and the historic sites of war battles, posing in front of waterfalls and cannons. We had dinner with his Dad and his girlfriend. At an imported furniture store we examined a Japanese tansu, and I bought a collection of heavy marble spheres, polished to a high gloss. (To this day, they sit in a green bowl in my living room, an echo of the past, a pleasant reminder of that almost-spring week.)

As we walked through the town of his youth, thoughts of a future life together rolled out before me, like some long hallway runner, and I felt warmed at the thought. Everything about my boyfriend warmed me at the time – it was my heart that held a chill.

You’re shelter from the storm
Give me comfort in your arms…

In all, it was a very pleasant visit. As in much of our relationship, I was in a somewhat hazy space of not quite letting my guard down, but that time together was a happy one. As for Madonna, this song marked the last single from the ‘Ray of Light’ album, and it was a bittersweet close to that heretofore-unmatched musical era. To accompany it, she shot one of her most ravishing videos, based loosely on the book ‘Memoirs of a Geisha.’

It was a spectacular image overhaul – her hair black, shiny and bone straight – and fifteen years into her long line of transformations, it was a glorious reminder of her power to surprise and find new inspiration.

The video features a vivid, red-accented, kimono-draped atmosphere with a striking Japanese motif – a slightly disturbing clip of high-pop-art that shows what video can, at its best, achieve. She performed this song live on the Grammy Awards – her first-ever Grammy performance.

(Vocally, not her best, as nerves seem to have gotten the best of her, but visually a stunning echo of the video.) She deservedly won a few golden gramophones that night, for the ‘Ray of Light’ album, and looked radiant doing so.

Nothing really matters
Love is all we need
Everything I give you
All comes back to me.
Song #64: ‘Nothing Really Matters’ – Late Winter 1999
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22
February
2012
Tags: Gay, General
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The Secret I’ve Kept for Almost Twenty Years

It is a secret I’ve kept for almost two decades.

I’ve kept it a secret because it was the ultimate sign of weakness, and it’s so far removed from who I am today that a different sort of shame began to attach itself – the shame of having felt shame in the first place. That’s the insidious nature of shame – it builds upon itself, wrecking and destroying as it goes, eating up energy and taking up more space as it feeds upon itself.

It’s the real reason I didn’t attend my high school graduation.

In June of 1993, I was set to graduate from high school. While all my classmates were being fitted for graduation gowns and rehearsing our final ceremony together, I stayed away and kept to myself. As I missed the last rehearsal, I had sealed my fate: while graduating near the top of my class, I was not going to attend the graduation ceremony.

I’m sure I came up with some lame excuse, some self-aggrandizing notion of not believing in such pomp and circumstance, some rebellious stance of going against the masses – and in some small way each of them may have been true. Contrary to popular belief, I’ve never been comfortable with big accolades, especially those accompanied by ceremony and public displays of congratulation.

Yet that wasn’t the real reason I didn’t go.

Here, almost twenty years later, I am ready to reveal it.

It wasn’t pride, or that I thought I was better than anyone else.
It wasn’t a statement of any kind.
It was the simplest of reasons for why we do so many things: it was shame. I was afraid someone would yell out ‘fag’ as I walked across the stage to pick up my diploma.

That was it. That was all. That was everything.

It was and it wasn’t such a far-fetched notion, and the only reason it became such a fear is that it had happened a couple of times on a lesser scale. In band, whenever I had to play a solo in front of the class, one or two guys would shout/cough as they said, ‘Fag’ almost-but-not-quite under their breath. We all heard it. If you’ve never been called something like that, you can never know the instant shame that you feel when it happens. It’s visceral – it burns the face, it catches the heart, it takes your breath away. It’s a feeling of panic, of being found out, of being accused and guilty all at once. It’s something no teenager or child should ever feel – not for that, not for something so innocent.

And so I created a list of excuses and reasons for not going. I knew it would be a disappointment to my parents, who would not get to see their first-born child pick up his diploma, but I couldn’t face the possibility of being called out. I wasn’t that strong. I wasn’t that resilient. And I wasn’t ready to face the fact that it was true.

There had been no one to tell me that it was all right.

There had been no one who lived openly as a gay person in high school then to show me it could be done.

Instead, there had been a boy I didn’t even know, over a foot taller than me, stronger and full of fury, who came up to my lunch table, slapped me across the face, called me a ‘fag’ and asked what I was going to do about it. I hadn’t even known his name, and had never had a single exchange or interaction with him. That’s one of the most fearsome parts of hatred and ignorance. It comes out of nowhere, from people who don’t even know you, without reason or sense, and it instills a constant suspicion of the world, a mistrust of fellow human beings, a sorrowful disappointment in humanity.

There would not be a chance for anything like that to happen in public again. I sat at home while the rest of my class graduated. I never turned a tassel over (how many ensuing tassels would I wear over the years to make up for it?), I never shook hands with a smiling figurehead, I never tossed a silly black cap in the air. There was no official end to my high school years. I departed in the dark of night, with no good-bye, no bittersweet ritual of ending, no proper way to move on. I gave up a rite of passage, and to this day it’s impossible to calculate the cost of that. Yet as much as I want to regret all of it, I can’t.

While part of me cowered, part of me grew crafty enough to create a way around it, a path that led people to believe I was removing myself from the situation due to loftier goals, and a holier-than-thou opinion of myself. If that’s what it took to set up the smoke-screen, that’s what I would do. It would be a safety mechanism where I would assume the posture of rising above everything, as if I didn’t care, as if it was all nothing to me.

Only now can I admit how much I did care, and how much I hurt. The one thing I thought was a sign of weakness to say is what I am now able to publicly put out there: yes, it hurt me. Yes, it embarrassed me. Yes, as a seventeen-year-old kid in high school, it scared me. And because of all of that, it silenced me. I banished myself from my own high school graduation. I was defeated. The kid who slapped me and called me a fag walked across the stage and got his diploma, while I sat home alone on that sunny day in June.

It was a secret created in shame, and kept as such because of shame. A secret that festered and grew inside my heart – there and only there, in the worst possible place to keep it – and my efforts at subterfuge and disguise built a strength and fortitude I knew I needed but never thought I’d have. Somehow, I did it.

Through sheer will-power and a belief in myself founded utterly on delusions and illusions, I created the persona of the egocentric embodiment of aloofness, where nothing or no one could ever touch me. No one could slap me or call me a fag – and if they did it would have absolutely no effect on me ~ so far above and beyond did I so desperately wish to appear, and it worked.

It brought me to where I am this very day, and has served me well. Eventually we are all just the image we have presented to the world, even when we are not. Still, it was built on shame and fear, and while I want to think I’ve turned it into something good, it’s always bothered me, and I don’t want it to be a secret anymore.

Let this be my small way of taking back a bit of what I allowed others to take away from me those many years ago. Let it also be a sign of hope that it’s never too late to fight – never too late to acknowledge injustice and pain – never too late to try to make it better for someone who might be going through the same fear and trepidation.

My high school and college years could have been so different, so much happier, so much more of what they should have been, if I’d only felt comfortable, if I’d only felt safe. I think that’s the greatest regret of my childhood: that I didn’t feel safer. No child should have to feel the terror that most gay kids feel at one point or another. In my college years, I pushed people away, not so much overtly as unconsciously. How could they get closer to someone they could never know? And how could I let them know me when I was so afraid they wouldn’t like me because I was gay?

People can usually tell, maybe not specifically why, but they can sense when you’re not being genuine or honest, either with them or with yourself. It lends an insurmountable distance, a barrier that keeps others at bay. It may seem safer that way, but it’s lonelier too, and much more debilitating than any pain that might result from being true to yourself.

It’s a little late in the game, and a little emptier and less brave now that I’m married and don’t have to fear high school anymore, but for what it may be worth to someone else, I offer the secret on why I missed my high school graduation.

I know it’s not easy. I know that not everyone has had the advantages and privileges I’ve been afforded (and even with them, look at how little I’ve actually been able to accomplish). But I also know that things are changing.

Part of me will always be angry for what I allowed them to take from me, those two decades ago, but it’s time to move on. It’s time to let it go. Twenty years is long enough.

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16
February
2012
Tags: General, Madonna, Music
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The Madonna Timeline: Song #63 ~ ‘Bad Girl’ – Winter 1993

{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 those songs that has a number of memories attached to it, adding to its resonance over the years, evolving into something that morphs to the scene at hand. That’s the way it is for many of Madonna’s best songs – they open themselves up to multiple-readings, myriad meanings, and in so doing operate on many levels. ‘Bad Girl’ was released in the rather snowy winter of early 1993, a rocky time in the aftermath of the ‘Erotica’ brouhaha, and over the years all I have left of the song is a pastiche of rather shaky memories, without narrative or structure – mere wisps of images, elusive as smoke, and as hard to grasp.

Something’s missing and I don’t know why
I always feel the need to hide my feelings from you
Is it me or you that I’m afraid of?
I tell myself I’ll show you what I’m made of
Can’t bring myself to let you go…

Scene 1:
The back roads of upstate New York. Holding my high school girlfriend’s hand, not knowing if we would make it through the coming summer – our last at home – not knowing how to hang onto the night, I sit in the backseat of a friend’s car. The snow muffles the evening, as our friends sit in the front and talk of other things. Beneath amber street lamps, it glows an eerie yellow. On nights like this, the snow is a frigid comfort. As the wheels spin on a slippery patch, it seems as if even in the case of a crash, the snow would cushion the blow, blunt the impact, gently toss the car back on track. Luckily, there is no crash that night, just the soft crunch of white stuff beneath the wheels. I look out the window, gaze up into the falling flakes, peer at receding eternity, and squeeze her hand a little harder.

Don’t want to cause you any pain
But I love you just the same
And you’ll always be my baby
In my heart I know we’ve come apart
And I don’t know where to start
What can I do?
I don’t want to feel blue…

Scene 2:
The snow has turned dirty. The years have clicked ahead. The messy end of another winter leaves mud and salt swirling on the streets. A new girlfriend, an end to innocence, and the difficult duplicity of adulthood.

A betrayal of the heart. A betrayal of the body. A betrayal of the sacredness of sex. The scent of another woman on her fingers, the impossibility of it, the slutty suspicions confirmed and quickly sent into oblivion with a smile. We had both been bad then, and we both smiled to ease the double blow. We took the pain we inflicted and felt and ran with it, delving deeper into our mutual destruction, powerless to salvage more than a slow-fading disdain.

The snow soon melted, dirt unto dirt, and the winter went away. The women of my romantic life were filing into the past, into the dim but warmly-remembered history of a somewhat messy path to the man I always was but never acknowledged. The age of women, at least for me, had come to its conclusion, and the only question was how much trickier might men prove to be?

Bad girl, drunk by six,
Kissing someone else’s lips
Smoked too many cigarettes today
I’m not happy when I act this way.
Bad girl, drunk by six,
Kissing some kind stranger’s lips
Smoked too many cigarettes today
I’m not happy, I’m not happy…

Scene 3:

A stranger’s bed. A morning after. A dim gray glow of dawn. He has had his drunken way with me, and I with him. Untangling my limbs from wrinkled sheets, I sit on the edge of the bed, rubbing the sleep from my contact-irritated eyes, blinking to see clearly, and wondering at another mess I’ve made. I seem to recall a third guy – yes, there were three of us – and it was never as hot as it’s made out to be. Even in the supposedly-fun and unattached debauchery, there are jealousies and entanglements, but somehow I had been the one to last, to win, to stay the night – though in the rising sun it felt anything but a victory. One cannot win through submission. One cannot triumph in degradation. One merely survives, if one is lucky, and moves on.

Something’s happened and I can’t go back
I fall apart every time you hand your heart out to me
What happens now? I know I don’t deserve you
I wonder how I’m ever gonna hurt you
Can’t bring myself to let you go
Don’t want to cause you any pain
But I love you just the same
And you’ll always be my baby
In my heart I know we’ve come apart
And I don’t know where to start
What can I do?
I don’t want to feel blue…

As for the song, it was a commercial dud, adding to the perceived failure of the ‘Erotica’ album, but it came with one of the best videos Madonna has ever made. Directed masterfully by David Fincher (yes, that David Fincher), it tells the dark story of a woman losing herself in wine and cigarettes and one-night-stands. We’ve all been that woman at one point or other – at least I certainly have – and it’s a frightening place to be.

It doesn’t seem so at the time. I mean to say, it’s a long spiral downward – and not all of it is bad – so when you’re finally looking up from below, it can come as a shock to see how far you’ve descended.

Bad girl, drunk by six,
Kissing someone else’s lips
Smoked too many cigarettes today
I’m not happy when I act this way.
Bad girl, drunk by six,
Kissing some kind stranger’s lips
Smoked too many cigarettes today
I’m not happy, I’m not happy…

This is an epic video – cinematic in scope and visuals, with just enough intrigue to drive the narrative, and it features one of Madonna’s strongest performances. Her blank face beautifully framed by the softest of bright blonde curls, she gives off the emptiness of her character while fighting for feeling. Through it all, her hurt is palpable, her pain apparent, and her trajectory bound solidly to imminent destruction. It is the perfect almost-apology for the ‘Erotica’ period, a video capsule of self-punishing come-uppance, in which Madonna may be sending her naughtier-self into an exile from which she has never returned.

I’m not happy, I’m not happy this way
I’m not happy this way
Kissing some kind stranger’s lips…

Song #63: ‘Bad Girl’ – Winter 1993

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14
February
2012
Tags: General
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When the Bathroom Floor Becomes a Life-Changing Experience

If there’s one thing you want on one of the windiest and coldest nights Washington, DC has seen this year, it’s a heated bathroom floor. Having never had the pleasure of experiencing one until my recent stay at the Dupont Circle Hotel, I can whole-heartedly say it is a life-changing experience. The rest of the hotel offered a similar eye-opening pleasure, starting with the friendliest hotel staff I’ve come across in a long while.

From the doorman to the check-in clerks to the ever-present Concierge, everyone was exceptionally, and genuinely, attuned to the needs and comforts of their guests. Service in the attached Bar Dupont and Cafe Dupont would prove just as gracious later on in the stay, but for the first impression, the hotel staff made check-in a pleasure, even for a disheveled traveler straight off the plane and Metro.

The Dupont Circle Hotel manages the tricky balance of blending a very modern and chic style with an elegant warmth. So many hotels sacrifice the inviting and welcoming for the cold and clinical in the name of being cutting-edge. This is that rare breed that successfully melds contemporary panache and classic comfort (and I seriously cannot extol the virtues of that impressive heated bathroom tile floor enough).

The room itself is expansive, with an almost-open bathroom plan that makes impressive use of strategically-placed frosted glass. It’s sufficiently private for those who are shy, yet open to the extent that it adds dramatically to the open-space feel of the room.

One of the successful design tricks the hotel uses to great effect is the varying textures found throughout – a suede-like gray wall covering in the hallways, a glossy dark burlap-like texture backing the bed, a cream-colored leather chaise, the smooth marble walls of the bathroom, the mottled dark stone of the floor -it all works together to embrace and cushion, so the whole experience is one of sensual delight and constant discovery. From the crimson ginger and anthurium blossoms of the lobby to the fiery velvet pillows on the bed, there are judiciously-placed pops of color that set this space apart from so many modern rooms and their unwavering beige/brown/black palettes.

Oddly enough, most hotels today make rudimentary use of the most important piece of design – the lighting – settling for standard floor and table lamps, and one lonely entry-way ceiling light. The Dupont Circle Hotel offers a variety of lighting sources, and, perhaps most important, a dimmer switch on the extensive but never overbearing overhead spots. While one bedside reading lamp was not working, it seemed a small issue in the overall scheme.

There is an electric ‘Do not disturb’ light that goes on when you lock the door (that also illuminates the room number outside your door) – unless the light isn’t working, which in this case made for an earlier-than-wished-for knock from housekeeping, but other than that the experience was perfect.

As the winds barreled down and the snow squalls swirled, it was easier to stay on-site and check out the popular Bar Dupont (loud and crowded, but bustling with happy revelers) and the Cafe Dumont (better than standard hotel fare, with a French twist). I would definitely stay here again, without hesitation. (And did I mention the heated bathroom floor? Good, because it bears repeating.)

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07
February
2012
Tags: General
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Thanks for the Massage, Tim Tebow

On my last trip to Washington, we had the privilege of staying at the Mandarin Oriental for a family wedding. For some of our down-time, I ventured into the spa, which was the very first time I’d done any sort of spa thing. I didn’t get any treatments – it was relaxation enough to swim a few laps in the pool and spend some time in the sauna and steam rooms. I raved orgasmic over the experience here, and have been wanting to go back ever since.

The Mandarin Oriental in Boston offers a 16,000 square foot spa facility that looks amazing, so I’d been toying with the idea of getting a day pass on one of my Boston trips and recapturing that nirvana, but never quite got around to it. Their FaceBook page occasionally offers photo contests where you could win a day at the spa, or a dinner at their restaurant Asana – and I’d entered a few over Christmas, with some pretty Boston Public Garden photos that never made the cut.

For the Super Bowl, the contest was to submit a photo showing your love of the Patriots, and the prize was one of their Oriental Essence massages. Now, as a general rule, I don’t have many sports-themed photos – certainly not anything I’d consider entering – but since Madonna was at the game this year I’d gone and taken a few silly shots with my brother’s Patriots’ helmet. I figured why not send one in – I love all Boston teams – so off went this ridiculous shot of me Tebowing in the aforementioned headgear.

Lo and behold, as with all whims I carry out without much thought or hope, it worked, and yesterday I got an e-mail saying I had been chosen to receive the massage certificate. The comical uncanniness of this is not lost on me. Five days ago I didn’t even know what Tebowing was. Only when my brother mentioned it and (jokingly) said I should take a picture of me doing it did it enter my radar. The notion of me Tebowing in a football helmet is ludicrous on levels far too numerous and complex to mention here. But the Lord works in mysterious ways, and apparently the power of Tebowing cannot be denied.

Thank you to Tim Tebow, thank you to the New England Patriots, thank you to my brother – and most especially thank you to the Mandarin Oriental. I can’t wait for you to get your hands on me.

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06
February
2012
Tags: General, Madonna
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Madonna at the Super Bowl: A Queen Reclaims Her Throne

She arrived like Cleopatra – carried in by an enormous troop of gladiatorially-garbed men. A wall of larger-than-life faux palm fronds parted to the opening salvo of ‘Vogue’ ~ What are you looking at? ~ a ridiculous question when all eyes were so clearly on Madonna, revealed in an extravagant head-dress and sparkling golden robe. Half Isis, Half American Goddess, Half Woman Warrior- she was here to stake her claim as rightful occupant to her once and future pop throne. And, by most accounts, she slayed it.

It was dazzling, it was stunning, it was like she transported us into a different world. I don’t know about anyone else, but it no longer felt like a football game to me – and God knows I couldn’t be more thankful for that.

As with most things Madonna, it was the overall effect that powed and wowed. Her vocals were mostly lip-synced. Without a proper sound-check for an avowed (and proven) perfectionist, there’s no way she was going to rely on a live sound-system, and there’s no way she should have done that for a show like this. She wasn’t there to impress with her vocal stylings and nuanced singing – she was there to entertain and put on a show – and I defy anyone to do it better.

It managed to be intimate and grand, theatrical and universal, intricate and epic ~ the most difficult balancing act pulled off by one of the greatest entertainers the world will ever see. When Madonna comes to play there is no better show-stopper.

After the brilliance of ‘Vogue’, she went into a rollicking version of ‘Music’, where her only (exceedingly minor) flub was when she couldn’t quite get up onto a bench on the first try – so small was it that I missed the misstep entirely on first viewing. Hey, I couldn’t do that in high heels.

Surprisingly I enjoyed the LMFAO segment – a mash up of ‘Music‘, ‘Party Rock Anthem’, and ‘I’m Sexy & I Know It’ – and Madonna was clearly having a good time by that point. The dance break finishing it was killer. ‘Every day I’m shuffling,’ indeed.

Going back to her cheerleader roots, she performed new single ‘Give Me All Your Luvin‘ with Nicky Minaj and M.I.A., the latter giving the camera the middle-finger (another thing that went so quickly by I didn’t even see it – and I have to wonder if all the hoopla over this isn’t just a desperate grab at some sort of halftime show controversy where none really existed – most people I talked to didn’t see it either). Regardless, it wasn’t Madonna, so let someone else take the heat for once. 

A couple of drum corps snapping their snares announced the arrival of Cee-Lo, whose presence I initially met with raised eyebrow and low expectations, but he delivered too. As she exchanged bits of ‘Open Your Heart‘ and ‘Express Yourself‘ with him as band-leader, it instantly became another highlight for me. That two lines from each could have such a thrilling effect is one of the wonders of Madonna. She can pull from her vast, rich history and instantly evoke a memory, an emotion, a smile – and suddenly the very best of what pop music can do is revealed then instantly shrouded in tantalizing mystique. It is a delicious sprinkling of the Madonna magic, manifesting itself right in the midst of America’s biggest sports night.

As well as Cee-Lo did with his brief intro, I had my doubts that he could step up to ‘Like A Prayer‘ – I didn’t know if he had the gravitas, having only known him from his novelty ‘Fuck You’ song. It was another thrill to see him don a sequined choir robe and bring his A-game to the magnificence that is ‘Like A Prayer’.

As the football field, markers and all, seemed to magically roll into the stage itself (the wonders of technology), Madonna had indeed managed to preach a world-reaching sermon in the sacred church of Middle America, thereby securing her hallowed place in pop culture for the umpteenth time.

Before you knew it, but after what felt like an entire concert rolled into 12 minutes, she was gone, having disappeared Wicked-Witch-like in a blast of smoke through the floor. Almost thirty years into this game, no one else can put on a more spectacular show. The Queen has returned, and this was her ultimate proclamation that she is nowhere near ready to abdicate the throne.

Witness the Wonder:

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05
February
2012
Tags: David Beckham, Gay, General, Madonna, Sports
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The Gayest Superbowl Ever

This year’s Superbowl may be the gayest one ever, with its attendant line up of Madonna, Tom Brady, and even an underwear commercial by David Beckham. To commemorate the occasion, I will be Tebowing and squeezing into a jockstrap for your viewing pleasure. Stay tuned… we tee off in a few short hours.

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24
January
2012
Tags: General
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Lessons in Painting

According to my Uncle, the hardest part of painting was the prep work. He would say this every time we embarked upon a painting excursion – first around the house in Amsterdam when I was a little kid, then at the condo in Boston as I grew older. It was my Uncle who painted the latter when I first moved in, and then again when I returned from Chicago. Anyone can paint, and enjoy it – it was the work beforehand that was the difficult part. Such was his standard line as we began clearing rooms and sanding surfaces, and it always made me smile.

My Uncle was a painter, that was his job. Not of the John Singer Sargent kind, more of the Sherwin Williams sort, but he showed me there was nobility in every profession, if done properly and meticulously, without skipping steps or doing shoddy work. For all of his shortcomings and flaws, he was good at his job, even if he didn’t always like it.

I thought about him this weekend, as I painted the bedroom. Oddly enough, it wasn’t until the third day of painting that he came to mind, and then like a mad rush, as if he’d almost forgotten to visit. Maybe that’s the sign of getting over someone. Ten years after he died I can go three days without remembering. Not the most reassuring timetable for grief.

I remembered the first time we painted the condo together, back in January of 1996. Over the radio Whitney Houston sang that ‘Exhale (Shoop, Shoop)’ song, and my Uncle would mimic the “shoop” part, always a beat or two behind. It cracked me up so much that I had to buy the damn CD and play it just to hear him do it. That was one of the charming aspects of my Uncle – that someone so world-weary and cynical sometimes could have such an unintentionally-innocent, child-like moment.

It was a frigid January, nothing like the cake-walk we’ve had this year. The winds were brutal, and the quick walk from Copley Place to the condo was wicked. No matter how bundled up you were the icy air went through everything, cutting indiscriminately to the core. My Uncle, small and thin from a steady diet of coffee and cigarettes, hurried along, a scarf tied tightly around his head like some Russian peasant-woman. If I hadn’t been so cold I would have laughed more hysterically than I did, but my jaw wouldn’t move that much in such awful weather. The image of him like that has happily haunted me all my life.

Once inside, we cranked the heat and put on a pot of coffee. It was night, but not too late to begin the prep work. He went about setting up the ladder, and I moved the furniture into the bedroom. The smell of smoke and coffee filled the rooms, and to this day there is comfort in both. I asked for one of his cigarettes, then lit it in the bathroom, watching myself in the mirror, seeing if I could fascinate with a cigarette any better than with a fancy coat, but only a dull stare looked back. I would do this periodically throughout the following days, trying to entrance with the trails of cigarette smoke, but never did I learn the enchantment my Uncle had mastered. The most nonchalant flicking of ash in his hands would forever be cooler than my most studied Bette Davis smoking moves. Amid the smoke and the clutter, I slept. The next day, the painting would begin.

Armed with an arsenal of bordello red, kelly green, and the deepest blue, I aimed to attack the dull white walls with a blitz of super-saturated color, eradicating the stale memories of any former owners. My Uncle didn’t believe in taping things off – so steady and sure of hand was he that tape was an unnecessary step. And, to my amazement, he was right. That was not the case with me, however, so I stayed clear of cutting in, opting instead to run errands and pick up whatever supplies we were lacking, along with something to eat.

It was one of those crisp January mornings that seemed to light up the whole world, a prism of brightness lending hope to the gray winter. The sky was blue, and the sun was doubly redolent, reflecting off snow and ice in a blinding symphony of whites and mirrors. The nearest hardware store I could think of was on Newbury Street, and though it was small it had what I needed, and was close enough to Tower Records to afford a quick browsing session. While there I realized that far more interesting things might be happening at the condo, and I could browse these CD aisles at any time. Quickly, I made for home.

After returning for weeks to empty rooms, stillness, and silence, the sense of company was a strange relief. It was like somebody had revealed a hole in my heart that I’d never known was there, but that I’d been functioning without all these years – and part of me would always rue the knowledge imparted then. It would make the emptiness that followed so much worse.

At that moment, though, coffee gurgled in the kitchen, and tendrils of smoke mingled with the smell of fresh paint. It was transformation in action – the kitchen was turning into a striking patch of green, and the first bold border of red was slashing its way across the living room. A ladder reached for the ceiling while a dirty drop cloth, stained with the drippings of paint jobs prior, covered the floor.

I dropped the bag of supplies on a bit of empty counter-space, and began plotting the ragging-off effect I wanted for the living room. Working in tandem, my Uncle rolled the red paint on, as I pressed and mottled the area with a wet rag, leaving a rough, textured look. From a distance (and in most photographs) it only looked bright red, but up close there was detail and interest and no two areas were exactly the same. My Uncle seemed surprisingly impressed – the usual reaction when I did something right. There would be years in which to prove myself to him, but still not enough time.

The day drew too swiftly to its close, the last of the early-to-bed-sunlight disappearing out the bedroom bay window. The front two rooms were complete – only the bedroom and bathroom remained. We would finish in a day or two, and then it would be over. I didn’t want it to end. I wasn’t ready to be alone.

To the bedroom then. First, the ceiling was coated in blue. Deep, rich, blue – where oceans and sapphires crashed below an azure sky. The walls would be the same, but I needed the ceiling done first so I could start sponging on the clouds. (Yes, I had clouds on my bedroom ceiling. There’s no accounting for the questionable taste of a barely-twenty-something gay guy on his own in Boston.)

I sat at the top of that unforgivingly uncomfortable metal ladder, shifting the weight on my sore butt and dabbing on swirls and puffs of cumulus cloud formations. I looked to my Uncle only once for his opinion: “If you like it,” was his cryptic response, meaning he hated it or thought it foolish, but knew enough not to challenge me for the earful of a tongue-lashing he’d get.

All the blue was darker than I realized, but the afternoon sunlight flooded that room. I didn’t think of the nights, otherwise I might have stopped us then and there. For that moment, it offered cooling relief from the bold, blazing red of the main living room, and at that time I only wanted contrast and extremes.

As my Uncle finished up the quick work of the bathroom, and its questionable peachy tone (chosen for its pleasing proximity to the clay-hued brick wall), only a little clean-up and a few final touches awaited the next morning. My Mom would arrive to pick my Uncle up, leaving me by myself to return to school and work.

That first coat of paint – so emblematic of my world then – instantly made the condo a home. My Uncle helped me realize that, along with several other realizations. Our relationship was maturing – I was no longer a kid. The days of merry pranks and transparent acting-out were over, and I was, I hoped, becoming more of a friend to him. For the rest of that snowy winter, I clung to the memories of those days of painting, and the home he helped create cradled me in its color and warmth.

Every once in a while I’d steal a cigarette on my own, breathing in the memory of my Uncle, re-living those precious days, sitting calmly in the swirling smoke and wondering if he ever wondered about those moments.

A decade and a half later, I don’t need a cigarette to remember. It is a part of me, as implacable as the scar on my shoulder from a summer dive, irrefutable as my middle name. As I put my bedroom back together alone, taking in the way the afternoon sun falls upon the new accent wall, I am struck with the strange march of time. I am an Uncle now. Maybe one day soon I’ll have lessons of my own for Noah and Emi – and more than likely they’ll have lessons for me.

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23
January
2012
Tags: General, Madonna, Music
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The Madonna Timeline: Song #62 – ‘Open Your Heart’ ~ Winter 1987

{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.}

Early evening, in the midst of an endless and snowy winter. In the hallway of my childhood home, the television in my parents’ room glows, and MTV – a relatively recent addition to our lives – is playing Madonna’s ‘Open Your Heart’ video. I am alone upstairs, looking into the mirror above my mother’s bureau, while anonymous men look into the peep-show of Madonna’s video world.

The carpet in the room is blue, the bedspread a faded pastiche of pastels. Pale white-washed furniture stands on elegantly carved feet, while two candelabra lamps glow on each end of the bureau. It is one of my strongest childhood memories, and I don’t know why, for nothing other than Madonna and my solitude was happening, yet I distinctly remember that moment, that scene, the way the light fell – more than I remember most of my birthdays. It must have been early 1987, which made me all of eleven years old.

I see you on the street and you walk on by,
You make me wanna hang my head down and cry,
If you gave me half the chance you’d see,
My desire burning inside of me…

As a kid, I wasn’t the most social of children – preferring to entertain myself in solitude, far more interested in walks in the woods or the pursuit of solitary projects in my room. Yet part of me longed for company, to be a part of something, even as I pushed my contemporaries away. It was the essence of this song – yearning for someone to open their heart and include you in their life. I couldn’t see that then – I only loved a catchy hook and a decent beat.

But you choose to look the other way…

Back then, I never really hung out with people. School was my social scene, and it was enough. It was more than enough, actually, and it was like work. As such, it was tainted with the drudgery of forced labor, lacking in the joy and play that I wanted to surround social activities. I was well-liked enough, but I left those friendships and relationships at school, and was happy to do so.

I took the easy way out and just hung out with the friends my brother brought home. It was easier that way, and I could get away if I got bored, without being expected to provide entertainment, any sort of babysitting, or the awkward exit strategy.

My brother’s friends, younger than me by a year or two, were good enough for companionship, for the boyhood camaraderie that I simultaneously sought out and rejected. I always wanted for adventure, for some ‘Stand By Me’/’Goonies’ journey filled with exciting twists and turns, and a small, measured dose of danger to keep us on our toes – but such travails work best when you’re not alone.

We did the best we could, finding thrills in night-time games of hide-and-seek, now and then embarking on the planning of a fort in the woods (which would never see any real building), or enacting bike chases in front of befuddled neighbors.

I’ve had to work much harder than this
For something I want
Don’t try to resist me…

For all my enjoyment of solitude, part of me wanted to be some integral part of a pack, an instantly-assimilated team player, even as my otherness made it impossible. On one night, my brother was invited over to his friend’s house for a sleepover. I desperately wanted to go too, but pride prevented me from asking outright. Instead, I called over to the house, inventing some lame easily-seen-through excuse to talk to my brother. We spoke briefly, and then he had to go. About half-an-hour later I called back. I asked for my brother again, and his friend’s Mom asked if I wanted to come over. A quick feigning of surprise and utter interior relief, and I was soon part of the sleepover, running around the wood-paneled basement and hiding from their huge dog.

Open your heart to me, baby,
I hold the lock and you hold the key
Open your heart to me, darling,
I’ll give you love if you,
You turn the key.

I’ll probably never know what my brother and his friends thought of me, other than some sometimes-bothersome tag-a-long, or funny older brother – he claims to not remember much, and even my perfect memory has suffered a little deterioration. But whenever I hear ‘Open Your Heart’, the memory comes back – the memories, I should say – and instantly I’m that little boy again, begging to be asked, to be invited.

I think that you’re afraid to look in my eye
You look a little sad, boy, I wonder why
I follow you around but you can’t see
You’re too wrapped up in yourself to notice
So you choose to look the other way
Well I’ve got something to say…

‘Open Your Heart’ was, looking back, one of the major themes of my boyhood. As much as I fought against it, all I really wanted was to belong, and to be welcomed. All of my acting out, all of my strange behavior, all of the weird attention-getting antics ~ they were my convoluted ways of pleading for acceptance and love.

Don’t try to run I can keep up with you
Nothing can stop me from trying
You’ve got to open your heart to me, baby
I hold the lock and you hold the key
Open your heart to me, darling
I’ll give you love if you, you turn the key…

The strange thing is, the very ways I went about finding friends and companionship were so odd, and my interests and passions so atypical of an eleven-year-old boy (plants, flowers, tropical fish, Madonna, unicorns, dolls, glitter) that I alienated as much as I sought. It would be a conundrum that haunted my way through adolescence and into adulthood, and in so many key ways is with me to this day. All I can do to counter it, to vainly strive to show what it all means, is to put up a Madonna post and have her plead my case.

Open your heart with the key
One is such a lonely number
Open your heart, I’ll make you love me
It’s not that hard, if you just turn the key
Don’t try to run I can keep up with you
Nothing can stop me from trying
You’ve got to open your heart to me, baby
I hold the lock and you hold the key
Open your heart to me, darling
I’ll give you love if you, you turn the key…

Song #62 – ‘Open Your Heart’ ~ Winter 1987

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