{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.}
Peeking out of the turret in Usen Castle, I envision whirling dervishes spinning in the sky, all crushed purple velvet and tiny darkened spectacles – wisdom in motion, divinity enthralled. They spin and spin, leaping from crescent moon to star in some astrological dance intent on rearranging the firmament as we know it. Like cardboard scenery, the sky shifts, impossibly painted on paper in the most outrageous shades of blue and indigo, ocean and air and the bottomless and topless abyss called space. Future and past clash in fantastical surreality, and the dream of the latest Madonna song, ‘Bedtime Story’, plays out as if this was all actually happening, as if it were all actually real. Looking back at that March pocket of 1995, I’m no longer what did or didn’t happen. All that feels true is simply that – a feeling, a notion, the causing of a commotion.
Inspired by Madonna’s touring persona, I ambled around upstate New York and called it a Friendship Tour, stopping to see friends at Potsdam, Rochester and Ithaca – just as March proved to be mostly winter instead of spring. Bandages around my wrists, and adorned with golden charm bracelets, accentuated the silk pajamas I wore to bed: the madness of Norma Desmond coupled with her frail sadness, and an indefatigable battalion of earnest if misguided hubris. What kingdom was this? On what throne did I pose while Ann took my picture and her mother laughed at my nonsense? It was wooden and high-backed, and I feel it solid and real in my hands, immovable beneath my body. An actual throne, to kick off anything but an actual tour, and in my head the two blurred, and I began to believe the myth I had made for myself.
TODAY IS THE LAST DAY THAT I’M USING WORDS
THEY’VE GONE OUT, LOST THEIR MEANING
DON’T FUNCTION ANYMORE…
LET’S…
LET’S…
LET’S GET UNCONSCIOUS HONEY…
Ann and I drive north, into the snowy land of Potsdam, winding through the backroads and braving the snow and ice and brutal sun. It’s the tail end of my sophomore year at Brandeis and I’m already spent. Reading Rabelais has put me in a foul and mischievous mood, at odds with many of my friends and family, and so I rely on Ann, who loves me no matter what comes out of my mouth (or goes into it). We laugh and sing along to Aretha Franklin’s ‘Freeway of Love’ and Belinda Carlisle’s ‘I Feel the Magic’ while the snowy banks rush by in a blur. When we arrive at our friend Missy’s dorm, she is nowhere to be found, and this being in the time before cel phones, we simply hunker down in the hallway and wait. I spin in a circle for a few more pictures, my ridiculously shredded red sweater flailing about in tattered strips – some vague homage to Salome via Norma Desmond – and all the while Ann lifts my sunken spirits, heals my wounded wrists, and brings me back to life.
TODAY IS THE LAST DAY THAT I’M USING WORDS
THEY’VE GONE OUT, LOST THEIR MEANING
DON’T FUNCTION ANYMORE…
T R A V E L I N G . . .
LEAVING LOGIC AND REASON
T R A V E L I N G . . .
TO THE ARMS OF UNCONCIOUSNESS
Madonna does her part too, though I’m not sure if her new song is a help or a hindrance on my emotional state of mind. ‘Bedtime Story’ is the title track from her latest album, ‘Bedtime Stories’ – a trippy little nugget of music penned by Bjork and eons away from anything Madonna had ever done. It was a cosmic left-fielder on the R&B/New Jill Swing sound of the rest of the album, and a thrillingly new sonic adventure from a woman whom some had already written off in the aftermath of ‘Erotica’ and ‘Sex’. Here she was, bravely and defiantly moving forward, holding onto her pop crown, and not for nearly the last time, as she put out a spectacular video of instantly iconic poses and looks. If the song itself wasn’t a #1 smash like its predecessor ‘Take A Bow’, it held a special place in the hearts of her die-hard fans. It also informed this very tender time in my life, when I sought solace in the arms of friends, forgoing lovers as much as I might have liked one. When on the brink of self-obliteration, first-time lovers are not usually much help.
LET’S GET UNCONSCIOUS HONEY
LET’S GET UNCONSCIOUS
LET’S GET UNCONSCIOUS HONEY
LET’S GET UNCONSCIOUS…
While Ann is staying with Missy in her dorm, I’ve secured a hotel room nearby. I’m still not quite ready to be around people, even those who love me most. Wrestling with personal demons, in the deep dark of night, is not a communal affair. Such battles must be fought alone, if they are to be won for good. I cannot explain it then; I cannot explain it now. Ann understands, and leaves me to the war in solitude.
WORDS ARE USELESS, ESPECIALLY SENTENCES
THEY DON’T STAND FOR ANYTHING
HOW COULD THEY EXPLAIN HOW I FEEL?
Alone in the hotel room, after friends have departed, I lower the lights and confront the silence. The appalling silence. The silence that dares to try to comfort me after all its betrayals. And after banishing everyone from my space, I suddenly panic at the thought of not marking this time, and so begin the nagging attempt of immortalizing the moment on 35 mm film. Sinking down to the floor in a silk robe, I sit in the shallow pool of light that falls from the bathroom door, looking at the ground, pondering the position of a young man willing himself out of the world.
T R A V E L I N G . . . T R A V E L I N G . . .
I’M TRAVELING
T R A V E L I N G . . . T R A V E L I N G . . .
LEAVING LOGIC AND REASON
T R A V E L I N G . . . T R A V E L I N G . . .
I’M GONNA RELAX
T R A V E L I N G . . . T R A V E L I N G . . .
IN THE ARMS OF UNCONSCIOUSNESS
My sleep, when it finally comes, is restless. It feels like it snows a bit as my eyes wander to the window, but I don’t know if I’m dreaming that. Pulling the curtains open and closed and open again, as the gray light of a dying winter seeps into the room, I’m no longer sure if I’m sleeping or awake, whether it’s night or morning, if I’m actually there or actually not.
The room should feel cold on such a night, and maybe it does. Physical sensations have always been secondary to emotions, and it’s already made a mess of my young life. If we only knew to survive first and feel things later, so much danger might have been avoided.
LET’S GET UNCONSCIOUS HONEY
LET’S GET UNCONSCIOUS
LET’S GET UNCONSCIOUS HONEY
LET’S GET UNCONSCIOUS…
That next day, we rise early. The sky is overcast but bright – the lightest of grays that is a cover of clouds but doesn’t quite look like it. It is simply as if the sky has drained itself of color, leaking every bit of sacred blue into some hidden sea. Whatever I had hoped to find or discover on the previous night’s voyage of solitude proved annoyingly elusive. As my friends arrive, I have nothing to show for it. Still, I remember that night. To this day, I remember it, and remarkably better than so many other nights with so many other forgotten people. Maybe I made peace with at least one of my demons. Maybe I had too many then to even notice.
We climbed into the car, a rack of costumes hanging in the back seat. We were heading to Rochester for the next stop. A mosaic-patterned scarf in reds and purples flew like a flag from the car antenna – the closest we would get to any sort of recreation of the bus extravaganza from ‘The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert’. It took flight, and in its silly way lifted my spirits.
AND INSIDE WE’RE ALL STILL WET
LONGING AND YEARNING
HOW CAN I EXPLAIN HOW I FEEL?
LET’S GET UNCONSCIOUS HONEY
LET’S GET UNCONSCIOUS
LET’S GET UNCONSCIOUS HONEY
LET’S GET UNCONSCIOUS…
Rochester, future city and site of a multitude of sins and mistakes, was right then a refuge, and Ann’s dorm room at RIT felt like home. With her band of misfit friends, I settled in and simply allowed myself to exist. The show would go on, and I would start assembling a vision of myself that wasn’t quite there yet, one that wasn’t quite real, filled with dramatic pomp and manipulated circumstance, which would carry me through the next few difficult years, as on the wings of a dream. With Ann by my side, I took off, and all those grand delusions would prove more than ephemeral ghosts.
