{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.}
There are some Madonna songs that are so fun and catchy they stand alone, not needful of any backstory, (and certainly not crying out for my own silly attachment to it). Being that I don’t have any distinctive memory attached to it, we’re going to let ‘Give It 2 Me’ run its own bass-pumping course.
What are you waiting for?
Nobody’s gonna show you how.
Why wait for someone else to do what you can do right now?
Got no boundaries and no limits,
If there’s excitement put me in it,
If it’s against the law arrest me,
If you can handle it undress me.
Sometimes a good Madonna song is all you need to dance in front of a mirror, in your underwear, throwing a party for one and having the time of your life.
[Insert cute picture of me dancing in my underwear in front of the mirror if it were possible to take a picture of myself while dancing in front of a mirror and looking cute in my underwear.]
Don’t stop me now
Don’t need to catch my breath
I can go on and on and on…
When the lights go down
And there’s no one left
I can go on and on and on…
Give it 2 me!
Yeah!
No one’s gonna show me how.
Give it 2 me!
Yeah!
No one’s gonna stop me now.
A brief interruption: How cool is it that Pharrell Williams features his gorgeous purple Hermes Birkin in the original video?
They say that a good thing never lasts and that it has to fall
Those are the people that did not amount to much at all.
{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 would have been a perfect song a little later in the year, as it is so strongly associated with Spring for me- but the iPod will shuffle as it sees fit, so ‘I’ll Remember’ is up for discussion now. Some Madonna songs are filler – light throw-away moments that pass the time on car rides – but others are more distinctive sign-posts, framing and freezing a certain period of life that will remain tenaciously tied to a moment. This is one of the latter, and I can’t listen to it without thinking of the spring of 1994 at Brandeis and in Boston, the last girl I ever kissed, and the loss of any final vestiges of childhood.
Say goodbye to not knowing when
the truth in my whole life began.
Say goodbye to not knowing how to cry
You taught me that.
And I’ll remember the strength that you gave me
Now that I’m standing on my own
I’ll remember the way that you saved me…
I’ll remember.
This was the very last time I walked into Tower Records, or any record store for that matter, without being keenly aware of a Madonna release – the Internet was just in the process of revolutionizing information – but for now, for this one final moment of ignorant innocence, I was oblivious to what I was about to find.
Making a quick flip through the Madonna section, I saw something called ‘I’ll Remember’.For the date, the photo on the cassette (yes, cassette) was questionable – it being a reused one from the ‘Rain’ video, grainy and sub-par, but there was the Copyright of 1994. I quickly purchased it, popped it into my walkman, and as the opening Patrick Leonard-produced melody began, my heart leapt at this secret surprise.
Having just had my heart broken, by a girl no less – and no more – the song resonated more than Madonna songs usually resonate with me (which is a lot on their most unaffecting level), and the underlying melancholy and lost-love lyrics were another powerful link I felt to the artist.
Inside, I was a child,
That could not mend a broken wing.
Outside, I looked for a way
To teach my heart to sing,
And I’ll remember the love that you gave me
Now that I’m standing on my own.
I’ll remember the way that you changed me,
I’ll remember…
– – – – – – – – –
Back on campus, my Freshman year continued. The winter was relenting, the last of the most tenacious snow was finally melting in dirty patches. This was the time of heaves, when the earth buckled between moments of freezing and thawing, and the hearts of romantics followed tumultuous suit. Thoughts of suicide ravaged my head, and one night I found myself on the roof of the observatory building, looking over its edge and wondering. A couple of students burst into my silent reverie, giggling as their eyes adjusted to the dark, and still snickering even after they noticed another person standing there. I walked back to the staircase and descended.
– – – – – – – – –
I learned to let go
Of the illusion that we can possess
I learned to let go,
I travel in stillness,
And I’ll remember…
Happiness.
– – – – – – – – –
A couple of weeks later it was time to leave Brandeis. Somehow I had made it through a year of college, and I was returning home for the summer. At the end of April, or the very start of May, there was a solar eclipse. I remember watching the crescents of the sun filtered through the canopy of trees already in leaf outside my dormitory. Somewhere there are a few photos of those shadows, and that day. I was leaving Hassenfeld, my Freshman dorm, and my first year of college, and I was ready.
No I’ve never been afraid to cry,
Now I finally have a reason why…
No I’ve never been afraid to cry,
Now I finally have a reason why…
It strikes me as I write this – a rather late realization- that ‘ I’ll Remember’ was really the end of my supposed-straight life, and the very last remnants of my childhood. Try as I might, it was a losing battle, and that girl would prove to be the very last girl I ever kissed. We would have one more summer together, and then it would be the boys’ turn to break my heart.
After a whirlwind, bang-up shopping expedition (five bags of which I dropped off in the car), it was time to head back to the condo for a photo shoot and an early night. The side streets leading home were still enchanted by the snowfall.
This was a strange bout of snow that still clung to signs and trees days after it had fallen, even in the face of biting winds. I was grateful for that, to be able to catch what I might otherwise miss.
The entry-way to my street was framed with arching boughs holding snow. It creates a magical effect, matched only by the bright cherry blooms of spring that lend the same overhead wonder.
A bare dogwood tree to the right also carries its snowy load, like clouds hanging low in the sky. It is a frigid beauty, one that exemplifies the icy crystalline structure of all this snow, frozen in place with Winter’s numbing clarity.
The sun goes down over Southwest Corridor Park. Night will soon follow. And though the nights are brighter in the snow, there is a deeper sort of darkness in the Winter.
Not living in Boston full-time has but scant rewards. There is, however, one luxury that I get to embrace, and that’s the ability to pick and choose when I visit. When a snowstorm or stretch of rainy weather is forecast, I can stay home and wait until the clouds clear. Sometimes, though, when there are sales or special events or a bracelet that needs to be dropped off at Tiffany’s, one has to make the trip.
It’s been a number of years since I was in town to see this much snow. The last time was the weekend where Suzie, Chris, and I spent a night in Boston before driving up to Provincetown for a winter reading at the Fine Arts Work Center. The days prior had left most of Western Massachusetts covered in two feet of snow, and there was literally nowhere left for it to go. The streets were piled high, parked cars would remain buried for weeks, and walking all but required snowshoes.
This weekend saw a similar thick blanket of snow, which is why I waited an extra day for things to clear up a bit before driving in. It was a good decision, though I had no problems, and in fact the city was rather resplendent in its snow-covered mantle.
The wind was a bit cutting, but nothing a pair of scarves wrapped tightly around my neck and ears couldn’t handle. The sidewalks were all neatly plowed, and I managed to grab a few shots while hurrying between stores. It was, after all, a shopping trip to capitalize on the post-holiday slump sales (and given that I got 50% off everything I purchased, I managed to stay within budget).
One thing I previously laughed at but currently embrace is the use of long-underwear. I used to think they were for fools and skiers and the occasional isolated unabomber, but I am now a huge fan (pics of proof to be posted in due time). They are not as itchy as I remember them being, so perhaps in the last decade and a half they have made major improvements.
 {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.}
Hey Mr. DJ, put a record on,
I wanna dance with my baby…
In a vocoder-enhanced robotic voice of the future, the opening salvo of ‘Music’ found Madonna entering the new millennium ready to boogie-woogie. This song reminds me of my husband. Fun, funky, and instantly-classic. It came out just after I met him, and as such will always hold a special place in my heart.
It was September of 2000. I was traveling between Boston and Albany as Andy and I figured out what we were becoming. On a weekend alone, I heard this song on the radio for the first time. I sat there in the condo, ear up against the speaker, stunned and enraptured and slightly underwhelmed as I am the first time I hear any new Madonna song (it’s a good omen – see ‘Frozen’ and ‘Like A Prayer’). This was both a throw-back to her earliest R&B-dance roots, and an unflinching look to the future thanks to the computerized blips and stuttering booms of Mirwais. It was just before Internet leaks took over, and it was still possible to remain in the dark as to what a song sounded like until it premiered on the radio, and somehow I caught it at just the right moment. By the end of it, I was even dancing a little.
Do you like to Boogie Woogie?
Do you like my acid-rock?
Oh I more than liked it, I loved it. And I more than liked Andy. It was a time of celebration, a time of gleeful abandon, of giving it up to the beat, to the music, and to the prospect of loving and being loved.
And when the music starts, I never wanna stop,
It’s gonna drive me crazy…
Music…
Simple. Powerful. To the point. It was Madonna bringing it like only she could, staking another musical milestone with a memory that would burn brightly as one of the happiest in my life. As Summer ripened into Fall, and Andy and I felt our way into our relationship, Madonna was the soundtrack that formed the backdrop to all of the fun.
Music makes the people come together – yeah,
Music makes the bourgeoisie and a rebel…
That September marked our first trip together. We drove up to Ogunquit, Maine where Andy knew a few people, and it felt like we were a world away from everything else. In this fantastical place there was a beautiful ocean shore, a breathtaking seaside walk, a jewel-box of restaurants, and a couple of bars and dance clubs to fill the nights with adventure.
Don’t think of yesterday and I don’t look at the clock
I like to boogie-woogie.
It’s like riding on the wind and it never goes away
Touches everything I’m in, got to have it every day.
Andy’s friend Al ran MaineStreet at the time, and, while still relatively new, it had already established itself as a go-to spot for the good-time crowd. As the bar began to fill, and the lights flashed, the throbbing dance beat built to the first of many crescendos. Soon the dance floor was moving with the collective break-neck motions of the music-mad masses. It was then when I felt, more than heard, the opening strains of the Calderone Anthem Mix. Victor Calderone has a way with crafting a killer Madonna remix, steadily building and adding to his creation until it gives glorious way to the thundering pinnacle of its climax, and there it dangles for a delicious moment before its precipitous drop and heady whoosh to a racing conclusion.
I’ve got a bad-gay admission to make: I don’t go out to dance clubs a lot. I never have. I usually prefer the quiet atmosphere of a bar to the techno-deadened bass attack of a club any day. But once in a while I’ll have a night out when a club is exactly what I’m looking for, and if there’s a Madonna song on (as there more than likely will be) it makes it all the better, as if I’m meant to be exactly there, at that moment.
It’s happened a few times – a Calderone remix of ‘Frozen’ in the chilly Rochester winter, a transcendent bit of ‘Isaac’ and the exhilarating rush of ‘Vogue’ reborn in Chelsea, and Tracy Young’s whirling take on ‘Don’t Tell Me’ on a rare Saturday at Waterworks. This time it was ‘Music’ in Ogunquit, with a new boyfriend by my side, a new club in the midst of establishing itself, and a new Madonna album on the horizon. For that one moment, all was right with the world.
Music makes the people come together – yeah,
Music makes the bourgeoisie and a rebel…
On a technical side-note, ‘Music’ marked Madonna’s 12th Number One hit on the Billboard charts (and her last one, thus far). The album also debuted at #1 – her first number one album since 1989 (she’s been luckier in that of late, as every one of her studio albums since Music has managed to hit the top spot for at least a week: American Life, Confessions on a Dance Floor, and Hard Candy).
While spottier than its predecessor of perfection (the magnificent and yet-to-be-topped Ray of Light), Music was a more-fun companion-piece. I made my customary pilgrimage to Tower Records on Newbury Street (I think it was still Tower Records at that point – if not, then Virgin) for the midnight release, and got a free poster because I bought the Limited Edition special CD. The poster featured Madonna in high-cowgirl mode, a style that at first seemed jarring (she did once proclaim that she would never date a guy who wore cowboy boots) but ended up working better than even she probably anticipated. (Picture a smattering of pink cowboy hats at her ‘Drowned World Tour’ stops.)
As for the video, directed by Jonas Akerlund, Madonna also went back to old-school MTV fun, with a cheeky bit by Sacha Baron Cohen as Ali G, girl support from Niki Haris and Debi Mazar, and a requisite animated sequence that found a cartoon Madonna super-heroine in a Metropolis-like world with buildings and signs featuring the names of past hits. At that stage in her career, she could already look back with a wink, confident that the release of a new Madonna album was still a momentous event.
There have been a number of memorable live performances of ‘Music’ – most notably its limo-centric free-for-all at the Grammy Awards, an incredible Live 8 version, and the finale to the Drowned World Tour. But I think it was her mash-up of ‘Music’ and ‘Disco Inferno’ from the ‘Confessions Tour’ that holds status as my favorite performance of the song:
{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.}
Make love not war we say, it’s easy to recite,
But it don’t mean a damn unless you’re gonna fight;
But not with guns and knives, we’ve got to save the lives,
Of every boy and girl that grows up in this world.
Here’s a little secret that I may or not have shared in the 25 Madonna songs that have been chronicled thus far on this Timeline: my brother is the person who actually brought the ‘True Blue’ album into our home. It was 1986, and I found it in his room. It was a cassette tape – remember them? – and I have no idea why he purchased it, except it was the 80’s, and back then our tastes occasionally overlapped. Obviously I listened to it much more than he ever did, and ‘True Blue’ was the first album I loved, listened to, and learned from start to finish. (Prior to this I was a singles guy, selectively limited to the pop hits of the radio and never taking the time to investigate or buy (or afford) an entire album. My musical library consisted of 45s if I liked a song enough and could figure out the artist.) This was way before the Internet, way before I had any reliable form of transportation, way before my awakening to the pop world, if you will. My main source of music was taping it off the radio, commercials and tattered intros and exits all intact. And somehow ‘True Blue’ forged its way into my world – crisp, clean, and complete, without the panicked tune-in-tune-out static of a recorded radio broadcast.
There’s hunger everywhere, we’ve got to take a stand,
Reach out for someone’s hand, Love makes the world go round.
It’s easy to forget if you don’t hear the sound
Of pain and prejudice, Love makes the world go round.
It was the 80’s – the big, bad, flashy, trashy, oh-so-modern, angular 80’s. I did my best to fashion my room into the bright neon glow of the new store on ‘The Facts of Life’ (after Mrs. Garrett moved out and Cloris Leachman moved in, with a few guest appearances by George Clooney). Swatch and Benetton ads were taped over the wallpaper, a blinking stop light stood in the corner, and a few gimmicky plastic items (including a neat ‘rolling wave’ piece of moving pop art – no, it literally moved) were rather garishly assembled. I was attracted to anything “modern” and in the 80’s that meant a lot of cheap trash. Novelty stores were where I found much of my inspiration, and the Top Ten at Ten of Fly 92.3 kept me attuned to the warblings of Samantha Fox, the Bangles, and Madonna.
They think that love’s a lie, but we can teach them how to try,
Love means to understand, reach out for someone’s hand.
Cause everything you do comes back in time to you,
We have to change our fate before it gets too late.
The song is, let’s admit it, a trifling of a silly thing, with somewhat banal lyrics, a totally programmed 80’s track, and just a bit of processed Latin flavor left over from ‘La Isla Bonita’. (I think I recall one writer dismissing it as a “feed-the-world fiesta.”) I didn’t care, nor could I tell at the time that it wasn’t a lasting bit of pop music. I was just happy to dance around the bedroom, choreographing elaborate routines and envisioning how my classmates might one day marvel at my dancing ability. I pictured either a talent show, or a benefit, that had me center stage, and a few of my favorite friends would be in supporting dance roles. The boy(s) on whom I had a crush would somehow be a part of it, teased but ultimately embraced with a knowing wink, as if we had a shared secret that the audience would never know, but somehow still thrill to.
Don’t judge a man ˜til you’ve been standing in his shoes,
You know that we’re all so quick to look away,
Cause it’s the easy thing to do,
You know that what I say is true.
In reality, I would be too scared to ever dance on stage. The boy I crushed on would find me mean and intolerable, completely missing the ‘girl-teases-boy-she-likes-most’ game, probably because I wasn’t a girl. And all the while Madonna kept on singing, imploring us to, “Make love, not war,” and reiterating that “Love makes the world go round.” The twenty-something soul I felt I had as an eleven-year-old boy wanted to believe this – did, in fact, believe it – and held onto the hope as the march into adolescence commenced.
Song #25: ‘Love Makes the World Go Round’ ~ 1986/1987
It arrived with slight fanfare and the usual winter storm warnings. A predicted eight to fourteen inches, granting us something in-between, meeting expectations, and wreaking only slight havoc with the Friday night traffic.
It was light, fluffy stuff, and without any wind it fell softly and quietly – the kind of snowfall that gives snow a good name. Like clumps of cotton, it clung to the trees and plied itself upon every surface. Above, it nestles in the crooks of a dogwood tree, a blank white canvass against which next Spring’s buds offer a stark contrast of tightly coiled black arrows pointing upward.
A patch of pesky weeds dangles white powder puffs before a weathered wooden fence. This is the magic of snow, the enchantment of winter, and it exerts a subtle, solemn solace.
The windless day left the snow suspended on branches and power lines and fences – the bleak gray and brown landscape of January suddenly and instantly transformed overnight. A blanket is a most apt term, wrapping the world as it does in a gauzy cocoon.
{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.}
What can one say about this bit of sung Sanskrit from 1998’s brilliant ‘Ray of Light’ album? Personally, not much. And yet… and yet. There is something about this song that I’ve always liked. No idea what is going on lyrically, but I forced myself to learn the words and sing along (which is a nifty car-ride trick to impress, or in my case underwhelm, any friends in trapped earshot).
It’s a bit of chanting to ease the soul, and for a number of years whenever I felt stressed or scared (I distinctly remember repeating the mantra silently to myself while riding up in the elevator to my first state job) it offered a small piece of peace, or at least a welcome distraction to whatever I happened to be dreading.
Om shanti, Om shanti
Shanti, shanti
Shantay Om
Om shanti, Om shanti
Shanti, shanti
Shanti Om…
But what does it all mean? It’s been a while since I’ve brushed up on my Sanskrit (and by ‘while’ I mean forever), so here’s how it supposedly translates, by way of the internet:
I worship the gurus’ lotus feet
Awakening the happiness of the self revealed
Beyond comparison, working like the jungle physician
To pacify loss of consciousness from the poison of existence
In the form of a man up to the shoulders
Holding a conch, discus and sword
Thousand headed, white
I bow respectfully
Peace
I don’t know about you, but the only thing I got out of that was ‘Peace’. No matter, the music and the Sanskrit combine for a mystical experience, the beat and melody make for an irresistible combination of hooks and bait, and the whole thing is better than it has any right to be.
I’ve always thought that Madonna should make a world music album. This seemed like it might mark the jumping off point for that, until I heard its descendant, ‘Cyberraga’, a B-side from the ‘Music’ sessions. Maybe one song in Sanskrit per career is enough.
I spy a bracelet made of buttons of red and green, even though Christmas burnt, flared, and faded weeks ago. It is wound around the wrist of a lady at the table next to me. I can only hope it is a gift from child or grandchild or someone else’s altogether. On the same hand are two chunky rings in gold, both of which hold large dark stones, while on the other hand are a couple of twists of intertwining silver rings. I’m not usually a fan of silver and gold worn together. These rings seem to weigh her hands down as she struggles with her flourishes.
A collection of bracelets runs further up along her arm, beside the buttons. There is a string of putty colored stones, buffed and polished so they shine, and multiple bands of gold that must be a part of her, a part of who this woman is, and I wonder if she ever takes them off. How could she? Who has that kind of luxury? Excessive accessorizing takes money and time, and this sort of display is an investment of one or the other – sometimes both but more often not. I would doubt it in this case.
On the radio, the Beatles’ ‘Something’ comes on. She is talking animatedly and intently to the man who is sharing a lunch-time with her. He is younger, has a face full of hair, glasses, and an unfortunate pair of khakis that have ridden so far up they might be mistaken for man-pri’s. She seems to be filling the role of guide or teacher, asking him questions and occasionally jotting something down on a tablet of rainbow-colored paper. Though I am a sucker for decent stationary, I find certain designs on lined notebook paper far too precious, in the worst possible way. A background of rainbows is one such bit of preciousness.
The lazy drum rolls of the song, and its unmistakable guitar intro, are part of my musical lexicon, formed on rides with Mom as she tuned in to the easy-listening station (95.5 back then – is it still around?) before my brother and I had developed words to request otherwise. Still, the Beatles are nothing to sneeze at, so some good did get through.
You’re asking me will my love grow?
I don’t know, I don’t know…
Stick around and it may show,
But I don’t know, I don’t know.
On my table a pair of scarves, two for the cold, sits beneath a pair of gloves. I wait there, biding my time, lapping up the scraps of other writers, better writers, and honing what limited skills I may or may not possess. I leave the lady and her lunch co-hort there, grateful for the distraction and rumination to fill a lunch hour, sad for her little collection of jewelry, and hopeful that she is happy in her life – too few of us can claim that.
{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, luckily, one of those Madonna songs I have no real personal connection to, but it’s one of my favorites for her riveting musical portrayal of a marriage gone way off the mark. Written at the time that her relationship with husband Sean Penn was hitting the skids, this may be one of her most brutally honest, and jarringly unsentimental, songs.
You need so much, but not from me,
Turn your back in my hour of need,
Something’s wrong but you pretend you don’t see.
I think I interrupt your life,
When you laugh it cuts me just like a knife,
I’m not your friend, I’m just your little wife.
Powerful, gripping, profoundly sad, and all the while the beat is relentless, driving and pushing towards an inevitably tragic conclusion. Madonna said Sean Penn actually loved the song, embracing such unflinching, if unflattering, honesty. A brief glimpse into the madness of a marriage winding down, ‘Til Death Do Us Part’ offers hints of the personal terror of a destructive relationship. Whether it’s exactly Sean and Madonna may never be known to anyone other than the two of them.
Our luck is running out of time,
You’re not in love with me anymore,
I wish that it would change, but it won’t, if you don’t,
Our luck is running out of time,
You’re not in love with me anymore,
I wish that it would change, but it won’t,
Cause you don’t love me no more.
In honesty there is sometimes forgiveness, and maybe this was Madonna’s first step to letting go. It is certainly one of her finest artistic moments, and a highlight of the classic ‘Like A Prayer’ album. I think it’s the next set of lines that is the most heartbreaking:
The bruises they will fade away,
You hit so hard with the things you say,
I will not stay to watch your hate as it grows.
You’re not in love with someone else,
You don’t even love yourself,
Still I wish you’d ask me not to go.
I rediscovered the song in the Fall of 1991, following the ‘Truth or Dare’ splash that reignited my Madonna passion that subsists to this day. In that dark Fall, this had a bitter resignation to which my soul responded, finding some bit of a heroine in the rush of music, the downward spiral, fighting valiantly in a losing battle – the kind of battle that ends with no winner, that only serves to destroy.
How is it that some scarves are such works of art while others serve no more than utilitarian function? Why, if it doesn’t alter the purpose of the object, can’t we make all things beautiful?
This is the time of the year when I seek solace in beauty. This is when I make trips to Boston to visit the Isabella Stewart Gardner museum, when I seek out the verdant canopy of humid greenhouses, dreaming of undulating palm fronds in great rooms, lacy tree ferns and their husky, fibrous trunks.
This is when I inhabit my visions of a garden room, surrounded by panes of glass, basking in bright, airy winter glory, stealing sanctuary from the coldest winds, laughing off the falling snow. Lemon trees stand in aged earthenware, grown not for their fruit but their flowers. The echoes of ancient civilizations linger in crumbling pottery, wiry pedestals, and the same sky-path of the sun.
Such dreams of beauty are but that. There is scant consolation in the fading straps of an amaryllis or the smoky skeins of yarn mounded in an antique wicker basket. Yet this is what we are given, this is what we must endure, and the winter has not even begun to rage.
One of the best aspects of a personal website, at least of those that I frequent, is the fact that you never quite know what you’re going to get. Because our blogs are so personal, and the human instrument so variable, it is unlikely to feature the same exact post twice. If anything, that is the underlying impetus of much of my life – it’s the reason why boredom and stagnation are my number one enemy. Things can get awfully dull when there is no room for growth or evolution or change or improvement. I will never understand those people so blind and set in their ways that they cannot open themselves up to new ideas, new ways of looking at the world, new experiences, and new hopes and dreams.
This website is what I often wish I was at my very best – and sometimes very worst, because in order to live up to the dizzying heights we ascribe to, it is necessary to wallow from time to time in the very muck from which we wish to rise. It’s contrast, the nice word for inconsistency and human frailty.
And so, as the year begins, the 8th year of www.ALANILAGAN.com (which roughly translates to 80 if we convert blog years to human years), I look to bring you more of the things that interest me, from David Beckham in his underwear to Ben Cohen in his, from Madonna in and out of her underwear to Shirley Horn alive again only in her extensive catalogue, from the safety and warmth of my marriage to the recalled journey of a young man mostly alone.
There will be travels and adventures at home and in lands far away, tales both remembered and yet to be lived, and always there will be the spring and the summer to come. It will be a journey of family lost and gained, loved and recalled and never forgotten, of friendships that have lasted through the decades, and new ones forged along the way. People will come and go, certain friends fade, certain friends renew, but ever and anon the love endures, the loyalty burns, and a laugh lingers forever.
So too will there be art – words to read, photography to see, music to hear, theater to experience, movies to watch – and somewhere in between is the art of this blog – and every blog – for there is indeed an art to sharing what we share with the world. In some ways it is the most accessible form of art – open to all, open to any, and relatively free from constrictions. It is still an art in its infancy, rife with failure and experimentation as it finds its own way. There is something raw and unfettered about it, and therein lies its potent of-the-moment glory. Perhaps its might is in its very temporal nature – both immediate and forever. Once put out there it is just as likely to be lost as it is to be forever embedded in someone’s files and spread and saved a billion times over. Who can foretell the lasting scope of this technology?
That’s where I’m headed – and you are invited to come along. No blog exists on its own. It took about eight years for me to realize that, proof that no one is too old or too stubborn to learn, no matter how much they think they know.
I thought about doing a year-end newsletter, like some proud Mama extolling the drab virtues of her children and grandchildren, but seeing as how we have neither children nor grandchildren, it would just be filled with the fluff and nonsense that constitutes my life – which would turn it into a sarcastic bit of bile that really isn’t quite appropriate for holiday newsletter fare.
Some of my favorite things when I was a teenager were those end-of-the-year Best and Worst lists – especially the one compiled by ‘Entertainment Weekly’. Back in the 90’s, there were sure to be a few notable Madonna references (I still remember the year of ‘Sex‘ and ‘Erotica‘ – 1992 – and the various year-end quips at that time.) For some reason, I grew out of my enjoyment of those time capsules, gradually focusing on what was to come rather than what had already happened, and now I find looking back more of a hindrance than a proper way to live. However, there are some years that deserve a moment of hindsight, and this is one of them.
While every year has its ups and downs, there is just one thing for which I will remember 2010: this was the year Andy and I got married. Everything else was just gravy and frosting, preferably separated out by a few hours of digestion.
Ten years ago it wasn’t legal for us to get married in any state – now there are at least a few, and I’m hopeful all will follow through eventually. The day will come – it is inevitable – and I’m proud to be one of the first to forge the way. We did not do it out of a sense of activism or obligation – we did it purely out of love. The greatest acts of any life are those manifested by the noble notion of love.
There are mysteries to every marriage, safety and comfort too, and the journey of any couple is its own unique love story. As we embark on the dawn of our second decade together, we’ll be pulling open the curtain on a bit of our daily lives, and you’ll be invited to join us. Here Come the Grooms.
As for Andy’s take on the year, there will be platform enough for him to make it known, as some of you have already seen, and everyone is about to find out… Get ready for a whole new year.
{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.}
Bitch!
This is one of the most unintentionally hilarious songs Madonna has ever written! In keeping with that theme, I’m going to go very liberally on the exclamation points because I find them as unintentionally funny as this song! From 1992’s ‘Erotica’ album, ‘Thief of Hearts’ is a catty bitch-fight which finds Madonna going after the woman who’s going after her man.
You’re a thief of hearts, and now you have to pay!
How many licks does it take?
You’re a thief of hearts, and now you have to pay!
Which leg do you want me to break?
Ha – Ha – Hilarious! My friend Ann and I cracked up over that last line every time we heard it. I mean, which leg do you want me to break? Oh Madonna “that’s rich!” To this day, I laugh a little whenever that line is sung, mostly because of Ann.
Here she comes, Little Suzie Ho-maker,
Thinks she’ll get respect if she screws him!
I am dying! I can still picture Ann and I laughing in Amsterdam High School, thumbing through Madonna’s riotous ‘Vanity Fair’ photos (the spread should have been titled ‘Boobs & Booty!’ not ‘Hot Madonna!’) It was a minor vacation from that cacophonous crest of adolescence, and abandoning oneself to the hokey hook-filled dance-filler of ‘Thief of Hearts’ was one way to make it through the misery.
You’ll do it, you’ll take it,
You’ll screw it, you’ll fake it,
Undo it, you’ll break it!
You’re over, you can’t take it!
{Repeat!}
Genius – simply mad genius! At a time when high school angst threatened daily to overwhelm, when the madness of hormones overflowed, there was Madonna, admonishing, “Someone please arrest her, she’s a thief of hearts! No one ever takes what’s mine!”
Bitch!
Saucy little minx, no? And as overly-dramatic as any other high school kid, which is why we could relate so well. Back then we spoke in song lyrics, and beats were our currency. We swam naked in the pool of pop music! Our heads bobbed to and fro like corks on the river of aural candy!
You’re a thief of hearts, and now you have to pay!
How many licks does it take?
You’re a thief of hearts, and now you have to pay!
Which leg do you want me to break?
Yeeowwww! Take me, break me, make me a man! Work it, perk it, freakin’ berserk it! Shake your booty to the ground and peek-a-boo-too! We will return to our regularly-scheduled sanity, such as it is, immediately following this post.
{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.}
She started dressing like me and talking like me
It freaked me out,
She started calling you up in the middle of the night
What’s that all about?
The iPod has shuffled along to the saucy and slightly scornful ‘She’s Not Me’, from 2008’s ‘Hard Candy’ album. On its surface, the song is a taunting tale of a person betrayed, but I liked Madonna’s blunt intro to it on the Sticky & Sweet Tour: “Hey ladies, did you ever have a best friend who wanted to do everything that you did, including fuck your boyfriend?”
In Madonna’s case, such wariness of wanna-bes is understandable, but this is the first instance (that I recall) where she actually puts those lines of would-be Madonnas to shame in a song.
She started dying her hair and wearing the same perfume as me,
She started reading my books, and stealing my looks and lingerie…
Someone once asked if I was scared of people copying what I did, or taking photos I posted, or something like that – and when I first started this blog (way back in 2003) I did initially feel a little territorial, but that soon dissipated.
No one else can do what I do. Just like no one else can do what you do. Even if we try to do the exact same thing, it will always be different in some way.
I may not be the most skilled writer, or the greatest photographer, or the best blogger, but there is something that I bring to everything that I do that no one else can bring – it is singularly mine, and mine alone. It is the essence that we all have, that is solely ours, that is ingrained indelibly in all our interactions with the world, in every step we take and every impression we make.
She’s not me,
She doesn’t have my name,
She’ll never have what I have,
It won’t be the same.
It’s somewhat reassuring to think that even someone as definitively strong as Madonna has those moments of doubt, when it’s necessary to remind herself that “It won’t be the same.” Wimps and wanna-be’s need not apply!
As for the song itself, it’s one of the stronger confections off ‘Hard Candy’, and I love how such seemingly simple lyrics can convey multiple meanings and readings. In this case, it’s a double entendre of proclaiming that no other woman will ever be ‘Madonna’, but also that Madonna herself is not the woman that most of us think she is – ‘She’s not me’ could be her refusal to own up to her public image or perception. Given her treatment of the song in the Sticky & Sweet Tour, which finds her harassing and dismissing various versions of her former selves (Material Girl, Slutty Virgin, Open Your Heart Peepshow Vixen, Express Yourself Glamazon), it’s a powerful indictment of the personae we have come to assume as her own.
