Category Archives: Music

05
October
2010
Tags: Gay, General, Madonna, Music
3 comments

The Night Madonna Saved My Life

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

I feel it
It’s coming…

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

– Alan Ilagan, 2008

———————————————————————————-

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Song #5: Stay ~ Sometime around 1985

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26
September
2010
Tags: General, Madonna, Music
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The Madonna Timeline: Song #4 ~ ‘Future Lovers’

{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’m gonna tell you about love.
Letâ’s forget your life,
Forget your problems, administration, bills, and loans
Come with me…

The iPod seems to be on a Confessions on a Dance Floor trip, selecting ‘Future Lovers’ as the next random song. While this one was never a single, it opened her Confessions Tour in 2006, and as such is embedded in my memory on those how sweaty nights at Madison Square Garden and the TD Banknorth Garden in Boston.

This was probably her greatest concert entrance (no mean feat considering the brilliance of her Blonde Ambition ‘Express Yourself’ opening). Descending in a giant glittering disco ball (okay, not-so-secret behind-the-scenes reveal – she never came down in the ball, it descended and she entered it from below before it opened up). The effect was still spectacular.

When the disco ball opened up like some gorgeous hot-house flower unfurling its magical splendor, there was our Lady of Perpetual Provocation, resplendent in a horsetail top hat and whip, corseted satin and lace, and every bit the ring-leader of another amazing spectacle.

‘Future Lovers’ is a great way to open the show – playing to the die-hard fans who know the non-singles, while being familiar and groove-heavy enough to thrill anyone who didn’t memorize the track listing of the Confessions album. She inserts a bit of Donna Summers’ ‘I Feel Love’ into the live version, and it’s pretty amazing, setting the course for one of her most fun shows.

On a personal note, I saw this with my two favorite people – Andy in Boston and Suzie in New York. I think Suzie’s breasts were leaking as she was still breast-feeding Oona at the time, but she was a trooper and our Madonna concert tradition remained unbroken. As for Andy and Boston, I just remember dancing along with the sweaty masses and loving every minute of it.

In the demonstration of this evidence,
Some have called it religion.
This is not a coincidence.
Would you like to try?
Song #4: Future Lovers ~ Summer 2006
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23
September
2010
Tags: General, Madonna, Music
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The Madonna Timeline: Song #3 ~ ‘Push’

{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.}

The iPod is telling me to ‘Push’. Not much to say, as this wasn’t a big memory maker. A track on Madonna’s otherwise-brilliant ‘Confessions on a Dance Floor’ album from 2005, it was never a single, so most people won’t know it. To be honest, it’s mostly filler, something that comes on when I’m in the shower and can’t reach the stereo. 

You push me to go the extra mile,
You push me when it’s difficult to smile,
You push me, a better version of myself,
You push me, only you and no one else.
Song #3: Push – Winter 2005/2006
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16
September
2010
Tags: Boston, Brandeis, General, Madonna, Music
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The Madonna Timeline: Song #2 ~ ‘Bye Bye Baby’

{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 the iPod shuffles along to ‘Bye Bye Baby’, from 1992’s ‘Erotica’ album. I don’t think this got a proper US release, but I believe it was released overseas in the latter half of 1993, while Madonna was on her “Girlie Show” Tour, and that’s the period of time that comes to mind. She did perform it on the MTV Awards, opening the show with one of her less-than-enthusiastically-received moments at a time when her career was sagging thanks to the ‘Sex’ backlash. 

I was entrenched in my first semester at Brandeis University, so I missed the whole show. While all my hometown friends had returned to Amsterdam for homecoming or other nonsense, I stayed away until Thanksgiving. It was just something I had to do – I was not ready to go back. My girlfriend and I had tried to stay together when we left for school, but the long-distance (and gay) factors didn’t really give us a fighting chance, so emotionally things were messy and rather difficult.

Of course, I was the bad guy in the whole scenario, a not wholly unfair categorization, and so I was left feeling attacked and ostracized – which is not unfamiliar territory for me. But in late Fall, when the leaves were down and the wind was cold, it was even more lonely, and rather than throw myself into the Brandeis social scene (cue laughter), I withdrew into myself. 

Still, this silly trifling of a song about self-empowerment was a welcome distraction, even if the tiresome vocal distortion was just this side of annoying. The remixes were a riot – with an added-on ‘Star Spangled Banner’ ending to one of them. All in all, an insane song for an insane point in my life.

I don’t want to keep the bright flame of your ego glowing, so I’ll just stop blowing in the wind – to love you is a sin. Adios!
Song #2: Bye Bye Baby – Late Fall, 1993

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12
September
2010
Tags: General, Madonna, Music
3 comments

The Madonna Timeline: Song #1 ~ ‘Who’s That Girl’

This is a sad confession of fanatical devotion to a woman I’ve never even met: I tend to remember events in my life based on what Madonna was doing – specifically if I’m trying to recall the date of something. For example, if you ask me what I was doing in October of 1992, it brings me thrillingly, chillingly, and achingly back to that fall when Madonna was releasing ‘Sex’ and ‘Erotica’, and my combustible final year of high school.

With that in mind, this is the first part in a long series of Madonna memories and moments, whereby I put the iPod on shuffle and whichever Madonna song comes up is the one I’ll write a brief memory on what was going on when it was released and/or came to prominence (memories evoked by songs don’t always have a definitive singular date, so I’m keeping it loose).

Here we go, let’s shuffle the iPod deck and get right to it…

First up – ‘Who’s That Girl’ – (yes, I have that on my iPod – and to all the naysayers it went to Number one in 1987). Let’s see, the summer of 1987 – I can just barely remember this song playing as my cousins, my brother and I were crammed into the backseat of our station wagon, en route to a family wedding or some summer vacation. The hot wind blew through the windows, and we were traveling with our parents. They sat in the front, but they might as well have been worlds away, so concerned were we with the fact that we were hanging out with our cousins. This song came on the radio and I lost track of the kid stuff and listened.

The ‘Who’s That Girl’ music video flashed across my mind, the image of Madonna running down the streets of New York with a cougar hot on her tail etched wondrously in memory, and always invoking a longing for some sort of madcap adventure of my own. That summer it was just us kids being kids, getting into minor trouble at weddings and loving every minute of it.

When you see her, say a prayer and kiss your heart good-bye…
Song #1: “Who’s That Girl” – Summer 1987

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26
June
2010
Tags: General, Madonna, Music
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Summer Memories: Has to Be Madonna

The official start of summer is upon us, and though it’s been many years since I had summers off, I still get a thrill when the season arrives. There are many summer memories I could share, but most fall flat in the retelling because they don’t so much encapsulate an extraordinary event or interesting happening as much as they evoke the feelings I had at the time.

I remember the summer of 1998 quite distinctly, though I wasn’t working full-time. Staying with my parents was the easy way out of a hot city summer in Boston. I think it was during the last few weeks of my retail stint at Structure, and I was in and out of the Malls constantly. The sterile white-washed brightness of Crossgates, so cool despite its roof of windows, offered respite from the heat, and though I spent many moments walking in its endless hallway with countless other shoppers, I often felt alone and isolated.

Madonna’s ‘Ray of Light’ single had just dropped and I picked up the CD-maxi with the B-side ‘Has to Be’. It was from her ‘Ray of Light’ sessions, ambient and moody, and perfect for the purgatorial summer doldrums that were about to set in.

Outside, the car was an oven. I opened the windows and cranked the AC before stepping back out into the sunshine. A wave of heat escaped, rising above the steaming roof. Tearing off the plastic wrapper, I pulled the CD out and examined the artwork. A bright multi-pointed star spun around its axis, the same minimalist fare on an aqua background that signaled the ‘Ray of Light’ release.

In the CD player, Madonna’s voice intoned, “Breathe in, breathe out… I say a little prayer.” A dirge-like plaintive delivery with the cool, watery, electronic vibe provided by William Orbit, the song was rightfully a B-side, but like most of her throwaway work, there were a few glimmers of brilliance.

I know there’s someone out there
Waiting for me,
There must be someone out there
There just has to be… 

I should be glad that I’m alive,
It could have been much worse.
I might have never loved at all,
And never known what I am worth

In the heat of the afternoon, summer left me feeling haunted, and restless. I went back to Boston, walking the steamy streets at night and waiting for love to reveal itself.

 

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23
March
2010
Tags: Music
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The Girl I Almost Married

{This forgotten gem by Tiffany (‘Could’ve Been’ – her second of two hits) wasn’t out until the end of the following recollection, but it’s a reminder of my childhood, and seems fitting here – ignore the cheesy video and just listen to the music – not that that isn’t cheesy in and of itself, but you get the idea – and it was the 80’s after all…}

Her name was Rachael. We met in Mrs. Green’s first grade class at R.J. McNulty Elementary School. She had beautiful naturally-blonde hair that was always shiny and clean. She wore matching clothes that must have been selected by her Mom (as mine were). We sat together at lunch, where she introduced me to the revelation of sour-cream-and-onion potato ships. She always gave me the cheese off her pizza too. (For some reason I hadn’t yet acquired a taste for pizza, just the cheese.) We were inseparable at recess and anytime the class was free to choose partners or scatter into groups. I think Rachael was the first girl who had a crush on me, and like many of my crushes, I was completely oblivious.

She had a neighbor, Ryan, who liked her a lot, and likely in that way. They had grown up together (well, if you call getting to age nine growing up…) and naturally he hated that I had won her attention, and therefore hated me. (I guess he was the first in a long line of people who would come to hate me, and I dealt with him as I’ve dealt with them all – a blind eye and a disdainful dismissal to disguise a puzzled hurt.)

I think it was during the summer after first grade that we decided to get married. We were playing at her house and it just seemed like the thing to do. Her sister would act as maid-of-honor, and Ryan, well, while I couldn’t have him as my best man, he could act as a witness (much to his chagrin). The side yard would serve as the location, beneath a vine-covered arbor. We were this close to actually going through with it (at least as close as almost-second-graders can get to being married) but for some reason we both paused and decided to wait. Oddly enough, it didn’t change our friendship.

It was adolescence that did that, and the inevitable way that most boys and girls have to stop being friends after and before a certain age, lest anyone think they “liked” each other (the bane of a boy’s existence, and the number one way to insult or embarrass someone). For that reason alone, I lost, or pretended to lose, many of my best friends who happened to be girls. (How odd that back then I was trying to hide my relationship with a girl while flaunting my friendships with boys.)

But Rachael was undaunted, and we went out to Pizza Hut and High Rollers (again, it was the 80’s and roller skating was big). I was terrified that people would see us together, and at the same time scared to hurt her by saying no, so these outings were stressful on just about every level, save for the fact that she always seemed to enjoy them, and was agreeable to everything.

I played ‘Material Girl’ for her in the car as my Mom drove us to the Amsterdam Mall. (A word of advice for girls hoping to find boyfriends: if he plays Madonna (or Lady Gaga for instance) he could be your best friend, but he’ll probably never be a boyfriend.) Alas, we didn’t know that then.

She was the first of a few select girls who liked me more than I could ever like her back, and for that she will always be dear to my heart. Rachael saw something in me that was worth loving, and because she was so sweet and kind, it made me think I might actually be worthy of such love. That I could not return it fully must have wounded her deeply, as deeply as it did me.

By seventh grade, we had left McNulty behind, and with it our withered romance. Things were getting messy in our adolescence, and girls still weren’t supposed to hang out with boys unless they were dating. There was a guy in my Home Economics class (does such a class even exist anymore?) whose name was Chad. He was one of the first friends I had at Wilbur H. Lynch Middle School and he was, well, a bit of a dork. Not in the smart, nerdy, one-day-he’ll-make-millions kind of dork, just a bit of an awkward not-quite-teen whom I treated rather poorly (despite the fact that he was two times taller than me). That first week in class he confided that he liked a girl who came from McNulty, and he told me her name was Rachael. I smiled to myself, then told him he should ask her out. We always want the ones who don’t want us.

It was a few months later, I think, that Rachael and her family moved away to Florida, and I never heard from her again until yesterday when she found me through FaceBook (the modern-day detective service for lost loves). She said she wasn’t sure I’d remember her, but I did immediately. It looks like she has three beautiful children and a happy, loving family life.

Rachael, if you’re reading this, I just want to thank you for being so kind to me for all those years. Even when I didn’t deserve it (and couldn’t possibly see what it was you liked in me) you never treated me badly. I didn’t know what to do with it then – and in many ways I still don’t – but you showed me how it was never a waste to get closer to somebody, that girls can and should ask out boys, and how tasting a sour-cream-and-onion potato chip for the first time can be a life-changing experience.

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08
January
2010
Tags: Music
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Fading Into Winter

While sitting in a cafe at lunch yesterday, a Mazzy Star song came on the radio ~ ‘Fade Into You’ ~ and brought me instantly back to January of 1995. At the time, I was living in a dorm room in the Usen Castle of Brandeis University (yes, a real castle, with turrets and drafts and birds in the eaves) so my forays into Boston were usually saved for weekends. I made the most of them by staying in the city until the last commuter train ran a little after midnight.

I want to hold the hand inside you
I want to take a breath that’s true
I look to you and I see nothing
I look to you to see the truth

I was in the midst of coming out to myself and to my friends, and it was a strange time – both lonely and raw and rife with possibility, hopes, and disappointment. The gentle tug of an unfurling future propelled me to seek out and explore the city streets, traversing the Back Bay area, or hopping on the T and getting out at any stop that sounded interesting. (On one subway map someone had written ‘Where the fags live’ by one of the stops. I’m sure I got off there (not sexually), but any grand expectations for love or even lust were repeatedly dashed by my ignorance of cruising, or a haunted trepidation to look back at those gentlemen who stared at me just a little too long.) Though my heart yearned for it, my head was filled with stubborn pride and a barrier of aloofness that kept me locked in my solitude.

You live your life
You go in shadows
You’ll come apart and you’ll go black
Some kind of night into your darkness
Colors your eyes with what’s not there.

On that night in January, there was a cutting wind, and a cruel dip in temperatures. Our January thaw had dissipated and all was frozen again. I bundled up with a scarf wound tightly up to my eyes and around my ears, the hood of my brother’s fleece-lined coat covering my head. In my bulky, top-heavy state, absolutely void of any sense of fashion, I felt more animal-like, and distinctly less human, and I eyed the few sleeping (dead?) homeless people who were camped outside with unenviable dread.

Fade into you
Strange you never knew
Fade into you
I think it’s strange you never knew

It was a vicious night, completely unforgiving in all its brutal aspects. Stripped bare of warmth, and even a single friend that evening, I felt emotionally barren as well, bereft of the simplest companionship, and it made the cold that much more unbearable. Loneliness is difficult in the most welcoming of climes; when coupled with an unrelenting winter night in the city, it’s debilitating. I’m not saying I felt lonely, but I was keenly aware of my solitude (which is the closest I ever came to real loneliness).

A stranger’s light comes on slowly
A stranger’s heart without a home
You put your hands into your head
And then its smiles cover your heart.

Though it’s been fifteen years since that night, I still remember it clearly. There was no one around to offer comfort or warmth, so I did my best to do it myself. Instead of the embrace of a cozy bed and the arms of a partner, I made do with an extra scarf and a tall Styrofoam cup of Dunkin Donuts coffee. Rather than a home and hearth warmed by a fireplace, I burrowed into wool socks and gloves, ducking into paper stores and galleries to escape the pursuing winter.

Fade into you
Strange you never knew
Fade into you…

I looked into crowded restaurants, peering in at people and watching how they interacted with each other. I’d listen to snippets of their conversations on the subway and commuter rail, marveling at the easy way some people had with each other, with anyone really, and wondering why I didn’t allow such simple interactions with potential friends and school-mates.

I think it’s strange you never knew,
I think it’s strange you never knew…

Looking back on that night, and those winter days, I am at a loss for the isolation I imposed upon myself. I am also grateful. It’s better to know you can be alone, and be all right with it, before you find a partner, or a lasting friend.

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