It happens each year like clock-work. Right around this time I start getting antsy. Having been all but housebound for over a month, I feel like a caged animal, and woe to anyone caught behind the bars. To alleviate the matter, I tend to start traveling, as much as, and to anywhere, possible. This weekend that will bring me to Stormville, NY, to visit my friends Missy and Joe and their two-year-old boy Julian. Yes, another baby is on my horizon, but I’m told he’s gregarious and fun and likes to sing, so we have all that in common.
It’s been over a year since I visited them, which means it’s a year since I’ve been to the Woodbury Outlets. Sadly, I have not spent the ensuing time saving up any sort of money, so with any luck there will be a few good sales to offset such a lack of foresight and financial planning. All that is beside the point, as I really just need a relaxing weekend away with a couple of good friends – one of whom I’ve known since we were five.
That sort of lasting friendship is hard to come by, and I’m lucky to have a few such friends that have been with me through the decades. Those are the people who are family to me, the ones who survive distance and time to stick around for the long haul. So many of our friendships seem forged by proximity and convenience, employment and opportunity, FaceBook and Twitter – or simple circumstance. I’ve always demanded a bit more from my true friends, and like to think I’ve given just as much in return. It takes work to maintain a meaningful friendship with someone – work and effort and communication. The latter may seem easier in this day and age (I remember sending letters to all my friends when we were all at different colleges – and I still prefer a hand-written note to any e-mail or, worse, phone call) but that convenience is often an easy out. Luckily for me, the friends I’ve kept put the same effort and work into staying in touch as I do, and we all manage to see each other at some point or other during the year.
The older I get, and the more people that come and go in my life, the more I value the friends I’ve had for twenty, some even thirty, years. Those are the people around whom I can truly relax and be myself. Those are the people I don’t need to impress with fancy clothes or pricey bags or high-fashion shoes. That doesn’t mean I won’t put on a good show, but it does mean they wouldn’t mind if I didn’t.
{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.}
Just one of those things
When everything goes incredible
And all is beautiful
(Can’t get my head around it, I need to think about it) (Can’t get my head around it, I need to think about it)
And all of those things
That used to get you down
Now have no effect at all
Cause life is beautiful
(Can’t get my head around it, I need to think about it) (Can’t get my head around it, I need to think about it)
The day started out in the sunny Mission District of San Francisco, with a breakfast at a corner diner, windows open, the morning walking lazily by. My friend Chris and I were about to hit the road and the long drive South – to the Santa Barbara area. Being a Northeastern boy, I always underestimate distances in other states, particularly those as long as California. I was attending another friend’s wedding, so I asked Chris if he wanted to drive down with me, not realizing exactly how far of a drive it would be, especially when taking the scenic Pacific Coast Highway route.
Most of Madonna’s songs, particularly in latter years, are what I would consider evening songs – moody, dark, and dramatic – perfect for a night out, and doubly good for an evening in – but not many are made for the morning. ‘Incredible’ is one of her morning songs – for greeting the day with promise and excitement, especially when that day is sunny and overflowing with the anticipation of a happy destination and unforgettable journey.
Remembering the very first time
You caught that some one’s special eye
And all of your cares dropped
And all of the world just stopped.
(I hope) I want to go back to then
Got to figure out how, got to remember when
I felt it, it thrilled me
I want it, to fill me
Chris is a good guy, and a lifelong friend, and while he doesn’t hate Madonna, he’s certainly not her biggest fan. But for some reason, he loves this song. And he played it at least twenty five times in a row – no exaggeration. Suddenly I was being paid back by my brother and mother for all the car rides in which I played Madonna relentlessly. And I got it. I got it good. But at the beginning, it was just the California breeze in my hair, the sun up above, and the great Pacific to our right as we wound our way down the coast.
You don’t know what you got ’til it’s gone
And everything in life just goes wrong
Feels like nobody’s listening
And something is missing
Guy bonding is easier than girl bonding somehow – there is less pretense, less preening – and there’s an ease to being with one of my straight guy friends that I haven’t found in straight women or gay men. Maybe it’s the underlying fact that we’re not one another’s competition, theoretically or realistically.
Chris winds us along the Pacific Coast, which is now lined with fog, affording only brief, tantalizing glimpses of the rocky shore and the ocean beyond. We make a few stops – including a break at the naturally majestic Post Ranch Inn (where we could just barely afford an appetizer, much less a night at the Inn – which runs up to $2285 – yes, per night).
When the fog parted, we took a moment to pull off the road before dusk descended. Groups of seals and sea birds huddled on the shore. Sharks inhabited these waters, and as the wind picked up and the light went, I shuddered at the thought of their dark world, equally enthralled and repelled. Then it was back on the road, and the darkening way South.
I remember when
You were the one
You were my friend
You gave me life
You were the sun
You taught me things
I didn’t run
I fell to my knees
I didn’t know why
I started to breathe
I wanted to cry
I need a reminder
So I can relate
I need to go back there
Before it’s too late
After about eight hours of driving (or riding as the case may be), I was over it – the song, the car, the traffic, and even the Madonna Inn, which we passed. We stopped for dinner around San Luis Obispo, recharging for the final stretch, and as we pulled into the hotel, I think we were both a little crazy.
It’s time to get your hands up
It’s time to get your body moving…
Some Madonna songs are great for driving, and while the 50th play of this one pushed it, ‘Incredible’ is the perfect driving song, especially along the shore of California with one of your best friends.
Let’s finish what we started
Incredible
You’re welcome to my party…
I don’t want this to end
I am missing my best friend
It was incredible
There is no reason…
Andy loves the beets. Personally, I was never really into them, eschewing them at every offer, not getting my head around what they really were. My mind wanted to make them into a cross between a radish and a potato, and it never sounded very appetizing.
After a decade of hearing it, I finally relented and tried them – and it was well worth the wait.
In this beet salad, assembled by Andy, there are some greens, cherry tomatoes, beets, goat cheese, and walnuts – all topped with a raspberry vinaigrette. My favorite part, aside from the flavor, is the bit of beet color that bled onto the ruffled edge of the goat cheese as seen below.
This past weekend I made a pretty damn good version of Bistek Tagalog – a Filipino dish that I don’t remember having as a child, but I’m sure it was at some of the big family gatherings at Auntie Naty’s. The version pictured here called for 4 tablespoons of kalamansi juice – a native lemon-type fruit – but since we didn’t have any in our local (read: crappy) Price Chopper, I substituted the juice of 3 limes and 1 orange. To the juice, I added about half a cup of soy sauce, three cloves of crushed garlic, and salt and pepper. Marinate 2 lbs. of sirloin slices (about 1/4 – 1/2 inch thick) in the mixture for about an hour in the fridge.
Slice two large red onions into thin rings and fry lightly in a good amount of oil (I used vegetable with a couple drops of sesame). Remove these to a paper towel and pan-fry the beef slices until done. This is when things in the kitchen start to get smoky and greasy and just the tiniest bit fire-hazardous. If you have a husband, it’s probably best to remove him from the site until it’s time for the clean-up.
I still don’t get how all these other people manage to fry things without the huge frying mess I almost always end up having. Is it because our kitchen sucks? (I mean, I know it does, but is that why the frying thing doesn’t work?) Is it our dismal ventilation, or complete lack-there-of? How come one never sees the Barefoot Contessa jumping back from little drops of burning oil, or splashes of grease lining her entire counter?
Regardless, the dish turned out deliciously. Once the beef is cooked and removed, add the marinade to the skillet and boil for about a minute – it turns into this amazingly rich brown sauce. Place the beef on a serving platter, the onions on top of the beef, and pour the sauce over it all. Good stuff.
One of the first magazines that ever published my work was xy. Yes, that glossy gay youth publication that everyone read but no one admitted to reading. For me, xy was, quite literally, a lifesaver. In my childhood bedroom, I would stay up late into the night, poring over the words of other young gay boys and finding hope and solace in their coming out stories. I would forever be altered and moved by the simple plea of one story, whose writer (like me) worked at Structure, and wondered, ‘Why should I be hated for loving?’ In that one question was all the angst and hidden hurt that had been coursing underneath everything I had done up to that point.
Yes, there were also cute twinks who doffed shirts and pants, but xy never went too porny – I don’t even think they showed butt, and certainly nothing fully-frontal. It was the simple fact that gay youth were living out their lives openly and proudly that shook everyone up so much at the time, particularly the gay community, which was always more up-in-arms over the publication than anyone else.
Personally, I will always have a soft spot for that magazine. In 1999 I flew out to San Francisco to meet with its founder Peter Ian Cummings and one of his editors, Mike Glatze, and discuss possible writing opportunities. I was living in Chicago at the time, and only starting to get published in the local gay rags. Even though I had graduated from Brandeis with a degree in English, I didn’t truly feel like a writer yet, and hesitated to call myself such.
After the plane touched down in California, Peter and Mike met me at the airport and drove me into the Castro. We shared a lunch and some fun conversation, then Peter walked me back to my hotel. Along the way his phone rang, and after a brief exchange he told the person that he couldn’t talk at the moment because he was meeting with a writer. I almost had to look around to see who he was talking about, and when I realized it was me I could not stop a smile from stealing over my face. Suddenly, there it was. He had named me, and though I had written for my entire life, it took the creator of a national magazine to make it real. For that, I will always be grateful.
I did not end up working for xy, though they did publish a few of my pieces. I think at the time I said that they were the most unorganized group of guys I had ever met – and it was true – but their love and passion for making the world better for gay youth was admirable and honest, and I was just glad to be a small part of it.
Now I see the magazine is making an online comeback effort. I wish them the best, because no matter what you want to say about it, and no matter how silly and salacious it may appear to some of us, there is still very much a need for it. Somewhere there is a boy hiding in his bedroom, searching for some small way out, some small chance to connect and believe in something better, some small bit of hope. Sometimes the one thing that stands between that boy hanging himself and waiting out one more night is a magazine that puts a picture of two boys kissing on its cover.
{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.}
It was the summer of 1990 – the summer of ‘Dick Tracy’, the summer of Blonde Ambition, and the summer of my trip to the then-Soviet Union. It was a summer of intrigue, of mystery, of wooded night walks, whispered secrets, and thick, hot days in which the sun beat down relentlessly and made one wonder whether the cool of night would ever come again.
All work, and no play, makes Dick a dull, dull boy…
Career gets in the way…
Square jaw, such a handsome face,
Why do you have to save the human race?
Life of crime, no it never pays,
Clean up the streets and make your secret-get-away,
All alone, in your room with your radio,
No one to hold you, had to let her go…
At this point, Madonna was still the only artist whose entire albums I learned inside out. ‘He’s A Man’ was the lead track on her ‘I’m Breathless’ album Music from and Inspired by the Film Dick Tracy. It was heavenly. And the album marked the first time she went in a Broadway/show-tune direction. Madonna singing Sondheim? Sign me up, and sign me up fast. I was just becoming a show tune queen, and this certainly helped to cement the deal. Sondheim was a hero to me for ‘Into the Woods’. I know most of his adoring public hearkens back to ‘Sunday in the Park with George’ or ‘Sweeney Todd’, but my first Sondheim experience was ‘Into the Woods’, and I loved it. Follow that with the three songs Madonna did with him on ‘I’m Breathless’, and this album was on non-stop rotation for the entire summer of 1990, much to the chagrin of my brother whenever he was trapped in the car with me.
You’re a man with a gun in your hand,
Waging a war between good and evil can be a bore.
If you don’t take time, it’s not nice,
So here’s my advice,
Take your love on the run,
Oh God let me be the one,
A man with a gun.
‘He’s A Man’ is a seductive, slow-burning introduction to the whole feel of the ‘Dick Tracy’ movie and that entire glamorous/gangster era when everybody was holding out for a hero named after a penis. Myself, I had not yet joined the hunt for Dick, so I watched the adventure from the periphery, all of fourteen years old and not quite ready to give up the childhood ghost. For that moment, listening to Madonna sing about it was all I needed. The rest took place in my head.
All boss and no brains,
Bullies and thugs, they take up all your time in vain.
Can’t let go, someone cries and you hear the call,
Who’s gonna catch you, don’t good guys ever fall?
It had a lounge-like bar feel to it, and though the hard stiff stuff stung my lips and burned my tongue, the atmosphere called to me in the seductive plucking of a bass and the languid runs of a smoke-addled pianist. A jazzy undertone ran throughout the record – and that summer – and in the midnight talks of adolescence, in the longing and the confusing want, Madonna sang her siren songs for a Dick, and I listened and pined along with her.
All alone, in your room with your radio,
No one to hold you, I would never let you go…
This is, obviously, Christian Bale in his iconic title role of American Psycho. Arguably, this is when Mr. Bale was at his most prime form, chiseled and cut to the perfection that Patrick Bateman demanded. (Bateman is even more physically fit than Batman.)
Mr. Bale also reveals his soaped-up bottom in the film, and this in no way hurts his image in my eyes. In fact, it’s sort of the reason for 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.}
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.
Last week I attempted to cook a Filipino dinner ~ adobo, pancit, and baby bok choy. (Inspired partly by an adobo recipe and story that appeared in the New York Times, as well as fond family memories of the dish.) All but the pancit turned out exceptionally well – the pancit was slightly disappointing because I couldn’t find the Chinese sausage that my Mom uses in hers, and the chorizo substitute lent the dish a more smoky flavor.
The kitchens of my aunts, and the crowded houses of extended relatives, always revolved around one thing: food. My favorite childhood memories are of those special gatherings that were crowded with family, crowded with love, and crowded with Filipino food. Several women occupied the kitchen, cutting up vegetables, frying something on the stove-top, shoving dishes into the oven. It was a maelstrom of culinary activity, with insanity and raised voices, and I loved it all.
My own parents would create the same excitement when we had family visiting, whipping the kitchen into its own fun frenzy of food, culminating in dinner each evening, where we would quickly eat then hide under the dining room table or scurry off to play with our Uncle.
Since losing my Aunt and Uncle, cooking Filipino food is one way to keep them close to me. It’s never quite the same, but if I close my eyes, breathe in the steam coming from the dishes, and listen to the sounds of the kitchen, I can almost hear the Tagalog again.
{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.
Full-disclosure: If they weren’t in their underwear, I’d have no idea who these two men were. I don’t follow soccer/football/American soccer/American football (these are apparently four different things), so if it weren’t for Armani (and the skivvie-trailblazing by David Beckham) I honestly wouldn’t know Ronaldo from Rafael. However, being that they are in their Armani underwear (Mr. Nadal recently took up the shorts previously filled by Mr. Ronaldo and Mr. Beckham), I can bring my more substantial knowledge of fashion to the floor and offer my take on who better wears them. First, a look at the contenders:
Above is Mr. Ronaldo. Kudos to him for following the ballsy choice to wear briefs in some of his ads. The original underwear star, Mark Wahlberg, in all his iconic poses of the 90’s, never once wore briefs. Boxer briefs, yes, but they don’t count as true briefs. It wasn’t until David Beckham crotch-rocketed his bulge onto billboards the world over that briefs became acceptable for the big names to wear. That gives Mr. Ronaldo a rather impressive edge over his follow-up:
In his first ad for Armani, Mr. Nadal is wearing a pair of trunks, shorter and more revealing than boxer briefs, but still not a true pair of briefs. This is only the first glimpse of the ad campaign, however, so I’m guessing there is more revealing fare to come.
If I had to choose at this point, (and it would be a gun-to-the-head choice as I find neither of these men all that appealing – just not my taste), I’d have to go with Ronaldo, but only because he’s had a chance to grow on me. (Truth be told, I found his ads horrendous the first time I saw them – I don’t care enough to post them here, but Google his Armani work and tell me his eyebrows don’t freak you out.) But like all savvy advertising, they were so ubiquitous that I came to appreciate his body and its curves, even if I never could bring myself to say I found him attractive. Perhaps the same will hold for Nadal, provided he steps into a pair of briefs and goes balls-out to the world.
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
