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Madonna Got Me to Come Out as a Madonna…

In February 2023 I bought tickets to see Madonna.  I did so for two reasons. Reasons I kept having to provide to people for some reason. The first was because she is a living legend and the second was I need a Valentine’s Day gift for my girlfriend, who was just wrapping up a grueling, two month shift as my nurse as I recovered from two shoulder surgeries.  I wanted to get floor seats and then I saw the prices and was like, “the upper deck has floors as well!”  But my girlfriend, a usually fiscally prudent woman with her money and with mine who would normally say “oh the floor is too expense” pointed me to a site where there might still be some left, indicating that she really wanted to get good seats if it was at all possible.  And I found “reasonably” priced floor seats and waited for August (which is also her birthday month, which is clutch – get the tickets for Valentine’s Day and the double up the gift power of the tickets by actually using them near her birthday). But when I bought them I posted on social media something to the effect of, “Well concert is in 8 months, so I guess the J-L Jinx has 8 months to kill Madonna.” And apparently it almost did…

(Disclosure – a longer discussion of the Madonna concert will be the subject of next week’s Rain on Your Parade podcast)

The Delay

This past Summer, Madonna had to postpone some of her dates because of a life-threatening health issue.  Needless to say, I felt less angry about my special taking over 2 years to come out when I realized that my ability to jinx had nearly extended to Madonna’s life.  But the concert was rescheduled for January 2024 (which the girlfriend gift-giving committee said was no longer acceptable as a double gift for this year’s Valentine’s Day).

As the concert approached I felt many people I know wondering why I was going to Madonna.  I mean it is not a men’s locker room at an Equinox gym, right? So why can’t a heterosexual man, raised in the 1980s go to see Madonna in concert?  I did not need to use my girlfriend as a concert beard!  Madonna is a music legend, a cultural icon and a lover of beige men – why wouldn’t I go?!

The Arrival

When we got to Madison Square Garden at 830 (the show was slated for 8:30, but thanks to a pathetic lawsuit we were aware that Madonna was not starting on time – but most main acts do not come out right at the start time so no big deal to us) and entered the Delta Lounge.  I would not be the only comedian in attendance as I observed Big Jay Oakerson (I know who he is, but he has no idea who I am), and Sarah Cooper (the 2020 Earth to my 2020 Moon), among the luminaries in the floor lounge area.  Later in the show I also would be fairly close to Amy Schumer, a comedian who has had a different trajectory than me since our days of sharing the bill on open mics and bringer shows.  But the 300 feet between us involved a lot of security and sharing the stage with Madonna.  So close, yet so far.  There was a distinctive air of “look at me” douchebaggery in the Delta Lounge that I was unaccustomed to. For example look at this mash up of Bruno and Marilyn Manson:

We knew the show was beginning when Bob The Drag Queen (someone my girlfriend was familiar with, as a fan of RuPaul’s Drag Race) walked right by us dressed as Marie Antoinette. We followed Bob’s cell phone holding entourage and “took” our seats (girlfriend never sat, I sat only for knee breaks).

What followed was one of the greatest concerts, if not the greatest concert I have ever been too.  Based on actuarial charts I may not even live to 65, but what Madonna can do at 65 is nothing short of amazing.  Her vocals were good, her fitness is great, she looks great and the show was tremendous.  Bob The Drag Queen was an incredible emcee, the set pieces, the choreography, the flow of the show, everything was great.  There was a hiccup, however.

GLAAD AWARD

About 4 songs in, the security guard came up to me and before I could say, “yes I am G list comedian J-L Cauvin and yes we can take a selfie,” he informed me that many audience members behind me were asking if I could switch seats with someone on the end of my row so they could see Madonna.  Now I had paid for these front row seats and if they wanted a better view they should have been less poor!  But I promptly moved and received praise and thanks from the Gay men and their female companions/accessories for my kindness. My view was not much different, but I was now seen as an ally (hero is probably too strong) to the LGBTQIA+ community.

The Highlights (beyond the whole show)

Hung Up. La Isla Bonita. – Two of my 5 favorite Madonna songs.

Vogue.  The ballroom set up of Vogue, the performance, the dancing from Madonna’s young daughter, the emcee work of Bob – all A+. Now my girlfriend would have probably definitely enjoyed the show more with one of her gay friends.  Me smiling in appreciation and tapping my feet for most of the show would likely not compare to the gay exuberance that I would imagine some of her friends would exhibit. But she looked at me during Vogue and said afterword she was surprised that I liked it so much. As I said then and said on the forthcoming podcast episode, I was witnessing greatness – even when something is “not your thing” when you see something great, only an insecure person or worse would fight that recognition. And it was also funny that a woman I did open mics with was judging with Madonna on stage. But it was fu*king incredible. This was actually me on NJ transit going home after the show:

 

And a side note – when Madonna started touring, people on Twitter were trolling her for using a grab bar with a lot of people offering “time to hang it up granny” type comments.  What the video and photos did not show was THAT SHE WAS LIKE 30 FEET IN THE AIR WHILE PERFORMING THAT PART OF THE SET!

A Sequel?

The only thing that ruined the night was (of course) comedy. I was checking my mentions after the show and saw someone make a comparison that they believed was flattering and that I promptly blocked them for (as bad as that sounds, it actually represent growth from the incensed artist-scorched earth response i wanted to deliver).  But as has happened after some great concerts in my life, a sort of malaise set in.  I felt like I had just witnessed something truly amazing and I felt my own emotions sort of crashing (after I first saw U2 in concert that is how I felt). It is a weird feeling, but a testament to what Madonna is still capable of at 65.  Now I am contemplating getting tickets to see the show again on Monday.  I probably won’t but if I do it is not for my girlfriend. It is for me. I am a Madonna fan. That is my truth. And forgive me if while at the Utah Jazz-NY Knicks game on Tuesday I spontaneously yell “Lauri Markkanen is serving cu*t tonight!”  That’s just the power of a Madonna concert.

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Another Michael Jackson Is Impossible

Muhammad Ali, Barack Obama, The Pope, Michael Jordan, Bill Clinton.  This is the group of people’s whose deaths could rival or exceed Michael Jackson’s in terms of worldwide newsworthiness and cultural impact (and Jordan is very iffy).  That is really it in my opinion.  (And it happened a few hours after I was complaining that Farrah Fawcett’s death, though sad for her family and friends of course, did not warrant huge media attention.  Jackson’s did and does. )  And notice there are no music people on the list.  Sorry Justin Timberlake, Usher, Ne-Yo and any other people who they are already trying to figure out who could take the mantle.  That sounds like a bad joke.

There is no “next” Michael Jackson.  There are a few reasons for this:

The Cultural Gap

Michael Jackson had an incredible talent and an abusive parent willing to beat it out of him (I had parents willing to do the latter, but quickly persuaded them against hitting me a lot with my “I don’t have much talent” defense).   Acrucible this toxic, but which generates such prodigious, one-of-a-kind genius could never occur in today’s over-exposed culture, where every other as-hole can actually become a star.  He’d either be scooped up by a reality show or taken away from his parents (unlikely if he’s famous since we revel in the exploitation of children every day on shows like Jon and Kate plus 8).  So there’s no sense talking about a “next” MJ because it is not really possible given our cultural landscape of low standards and quick fix need for new celebs.

The Innovation Gap

There is nobody with his talent for innovation in the music business.  His closest musical counterpart is Madonna and she’s not really close.  Today there is more imitation than anything else.  Not to draw a comparison, but that is one of the reasons Adam Lambert was so good on American Idol – he seemed to be somewhat original, but still he lived in the shadow of men like Steven Tyler and Freddie Mercury.  The best analogy I can come up with is sports related. The shadow Michael Jordan cast on basketball is so great that players like Kobe and LeBron are trying to be free of it today and cast their own legacy.  Now imagine Michael Jordan were put in a time machine and played in the 1960s instead of the 1980s and 90s.  Now imagine how much more incredible and awe-inspiring he would have been if he was in that era.  That is what Michael Jackson did for music.  And his breaking of major racial barriers goes without saying.

The Class Gap

As ironic as it may sound Michael Jackson is lucky to have lived until 50 with the media pressure and voyeuristic celebrity hunting that now goes on.  He was fortunate enough to be a fully grown man by the time people were really going psycho for him.  Nowadays with this exponentially growing blood lust we have for celebrities wouldn’t he be more likely to suffer a fate like Britney Spears?  Breaking down right before or after Thriller, thus denying the public of several years of quality music afterwards?  I even like You Rock My World, which he released 19 years after Thriller.

The child molestation charges and odd behavior of Michael Jackson will forever be linked to his legacy.  I have a friend who believes child molesters should be castrated.  I am one of those people that hopes that Michael was just strange and never did anything sexual to the children, but that feels unlikely.  But I look at a guy who was abused by his father, and lived a public life for 40 years that no one besides Obama over the last 2 years can even relate to I think.  I feel bad for him.  People feel bad for victims of abuse when it occurs, but when they turn into monsters themselves, no one cares anymore.  This is not a defense for his actions, if he did abuse children, but just maybe a moment of compassion is warranted, even if you do find him despicable.  When you look at pictures of this cute talented kid and then at the recluse alien he became you have to know this was a deeply troubled person not in full control of what he became – his family exploited him and society smothered him.

So I am happy to own a bunch of Michael Jackson records and in a show of class I only told one Michael Jackson joke (it was the entertainment elephant in the room) last night (at one of the most difficult shows of my career – nothing compared to the massacre at Medgar Evers College a few years ago, but bad):

With Ray Charles, James Brown and Michael Jackson dead I’d be scared sh-tless if I was Stevie Wonder.  If diabetes doesn’t get his chubby ass, then apparently the ghost from Final Destination will.

I will write some funnier stuff on Sunday or Monday about my Florida trip (let’s hope the worst is behind me), but I wanted to write something about the biggest entertainer in the world.   And at least “kids these days” can see that there was something just a tad bigger than The Jonas Brothers and Lady Gaga.  After all, even I had a Michael Jackson figure – I believe it was the Billie Jean one (modeled on the 1983 Motown Special).  Music didn’t just lose a giant.  It lost THE giant.

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Another Sense Of Decency Bites The Dust

Tonight on Bravo, one of the many channels quickly destroying art, taste and the soiled remnants of American culture will debut a show called NYC Prep.  The show is supposed to be the “real” compliment to the popular show Gossip Girl, which shows what a bunch of horny and spoiled teenagers attend New York City private schools, or at least lets high school kids know that if they aren’t spoiled or having sex they are probably doing something wrong.  As Oscar Wilde said (and I often quote): Life imitates art.

I have a theory on the degredation of pop culture over the last 10 years.  Much like how Thomas Friedman has written that the fall of the Berlin Wall and the creation of the Internet were two of the main factors in creating a “flat world”, I proposethat the rise of Britney Spears and the cancellation of Sex and the City have created an irreversible and negative trend in television.  Sort of like the force that keeps getting Kal Penn work in Hollywood.

Britney Spears may idolize Madonna, but I think it was her pimp parents who allowed her to have the far more influential role on pop culture and be a sex object for men worldwide at 16 years old.   I may risk sounding like the Christian Right here, but teenagers are the most susceptible group to peer pressure and cultural influence, from smoking to violence to sex.  The question of whether shows are reflecting current behavior or influencing it is not so important when speaking of soda choices , but is important when it comes to other matters like drug use and sexual activity.  The problem is that these shows create an irreversible trend.  Just like guys of my generation could not go back to watching Charles in Charge once they saw Nicole Eggert get railed by the Coreys in Full Blown, you cannot expect young teens to go back to to the days of Happy Days once the kids on WB are getting happy endings.   Parents still have the big responsibility for sure, but I think that experiment has failed. Parenthood, I mean.  Parenthood is like the Robin to Home Ownership’s Batman in the American delusion that has been propagated.  If you can’t afford a home you should not be brainwashed into trying to buy one; if you don’t have the time or desire to raise kids you should try not to have them.

Then there was the elimination of Sex and the City.  The most popular show not named The Sopranos in cable television history is a landmark.  Regardless of whether you like it or not it is a defining show for modern women.  But then it was off the air and has been followed by Desperate Housewives, Real Housewives, Kardashians, etc.  It is as if Sex and the City was the Saddam Hussein of television – a necessary evil (that I watched) that kept ridiculous show concepts that focused on four to six women, with “really different personalities” on the shelf or in the level of hell they were stored in because there was no market for them.  Now, with Sex and the City leaving a huge void it has been filled by a cornucopia of loud-mouth failed actresses.  Not to mention the fact that Sarah Jessica Parker had to go back to fronting for Twisted Sister.

And somehow born of this perfect storm of voyeuristically-exposed, unrestrained teenage libido and talentless skanks is NYC Prep.  Now I went to a New York City private school and attended the school with many wealthy kids (the kind of school where your friend with a Park Avenue apartment marvels at how rich the other kids are), but I don’t think I had an experience akin to NYC Prep.   For one I think my parents had me because they wanted me, not because they needed an accessory to complete their social profile.  As exhibited by one girl on NYC Prep, she and her brother have free reign of their Manhattan apartment because their parents live in the Hamptons and only come into the city one day a week.  Wow – that is the metaphorical equivalent of having your kid at the prom, but leaving the baby in a Gucci bag instead of a trash bag.

But we can’t sterilize people, poor or rich, no matter how terrible they will be as parents, but do we have to put these kids on television?  If my future/possible sons want to act as kids I will let them do school plays, right after I ask them if they are gay.  But they will not be on shows as kids.  End of story.  I mean when is there going to be legislation criminalizing putting your minor kids on reality television?  (Or the death penalty for all of those kids who were on My Super Sweet 16?)  It’s per se bad parenting.  Like a parent who buys their daughter breast implants because her self esteem is low – how can her self esteem improve if her Dad is buying them?

“What’s wrong honey?”

“Well, Dad, with my small boobs guys just don’t want to fu-k me…”

“Well let’s turn that frown upside down sugar tits!”

But I think my main question is why are we watching this stuff?  Are we really that stupid and shallow as a people?  Or have we just lost our sense of shame?  Greg Giraldo has a great bit about people on shows like Jerry Springer having no sense of shame, in fact being proud of having made objectively terrible decisions in life.  But we are predisposed to laugh when the people are white or black trash, but not when they come from the upper crust of society.  Oh well,  I guess I do not have an answers to theses question, so I will leave them open to comment.  But hopefully this trend stops before we get to Bravo’s eventual reality show: My First Period.  And no, it’s not about early classes at school.

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Wolverine and A-Rod Must Pull a “McGreevey” To Save…

In case gay men were still fuming (flaming?) over Proposition 8 in California they were just dealt two more blows (can the unintentional gay puns ever stop?) in the form of Wolverine and Alex Rodriguez’s latest scandals.

Although I have already blasted it on Facebook – if you can help it do not go see Wolverine.  I am more guilty than most with going to see blockbusters.  After Batman Forever I swore that I would not see another Batman (the new franchise does not count), but there I was a couple of years later watching Batman and Robin, one of the 10 worst films I have ever seen.

Well last night, since I did not have to be up until 4 pm today for work, I went to see a midnight show of Wolverine.  This is a really really bad movie.  So many cliche moments (did he really just scream up at the sky at the death of someone?, is he really walking with CGI fire behind him? – what a badass!), such bad acting and writing have not been crammed into one film since Sophia Coppola starred in a re-make of Castaway (not true, but wanted to show how easy it is to write Family Guy-style jokes).  Now Hugh Jackman shows up jacked as ever (I question the legality of his training methods at this point), but this steroided up Rupert Everett is not enough to carry the movie beyond a rating or “piece of crap,” which is the only rating before “a Paul Blart.”

And faster than you can say gay man on steroids, here comes repressed Alex Rodriguez back into the news, with more revelations about his “doth protest too much” womanizing and his playing the Matt Damon to Derek Jeter’s Jude law in his baseball version of The Talented Mr. Ripley (does that make Joba Chamberlain the Phillip Seymour Hoffman of the Yankees?).  I have defended A-Rod, not because I think his womanizing or cheating or annoyingly overdone PR image are good, but because I am starting to think this guy is really repressing something.  I mean the guy is a pretty, tan, well-groomed Latin guy from South Beach with a taste for muscular pop singers – I am not sure if Perez Hilton is that gay?  Throw in his alleged obsession with Derek Jeter and his alleged cheesy pick up lines and you might as well not as look at his iPod because I am sure Freedom by George Michael is playing on repeat.

So I have the same advice for both Hugh Jackman and Alex Rodriguez to stem the criticism for atrocious behavior (making a bad movie, cheating on everything, respectively).  Pull a McGreevey.  This move, named after former New jersey governor and truck stop enthusiast Jim McGreevey, is when you make a shocking announcement about your sexuality to distract from terrible professional activities.

So my solution for them is that they both should come out and announce that they are gay Americans in the next week.  Sure, Hugh Jackman is not American, he’s Australian, but no one will be listening after he says gay.  And A-Rod could spice it up (Latin pun) and say he is a gay Latino-American thus adding an extra layer of minority protection to his announcement.  I think this is the only thing that can save their respective credibility.  My guess is that the entire cast of J.J. Abrams’ Star Trek will have to announce that they are a gay star fleet next week.

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Why I Feel Bad For A-Rod

The fact that he had sex with the senior citizen yoga champ is only one reason.

For years Alex Rodriguez has been the target of Haters.  There is no other word for them.

When he came into the league he was insanely talented.  From the age of 20 he was putting up big numbers and he just kept getting better.  He was more talented, better looking and when he signed his 10 year, $250 million contract, richer than anyone else in the game.  But he never had the cool guy appeal of Derek Jeter that would get him undying loyalty of fans, or the bad guy demeanor of Barry Bonds that would get fans because of an almost anti-hero status.  Alex just went about his business and treated the game just like that.  He was a self-conscious business man playing a sport for a living.    He is a corporate sports figure and people resent him for it (at least America is finally hating the actually corporate d-bags as well).  He was too perfect, or worse, looked like he was trying to be perfect.  And it seems that nothing annoys people more nowadays, than the guy who is trying to be better than others.  It reminds others of their failings and builds resentment and a desire to uncover some hypocrisy or fault within that person.  America’s motto might as well be, “If you can’t beat them, beat them down.”

When the steroid and HGH scandal began breaking I kept saying A-Rod could not be guilty.  He had so much natural talent coming into the league: speed, power, skills that it did not seem impossible by any stretch that over the course of 8 years he could get gradually bigger and stronger.  From 18 to 23 I went from 205 to to 248.  And that was just subway sandwiches, protein shakes and hostility at being a hoops team bench warmer that went into that growth.  So why was it implausible that a professional athlete of A-Rod’s caliber could not put on 40 pounds of muscle in 5 or 6 years?

His transformation was not the transformation that Mark McGwire or Barry Bonds underwent, which resembled the origin stories of superheros (Bonds/McGwire was once a normal baseball player and then after the nuclear spill he grew to the size of a house and could hit a home run just by looking at the ball).  Not to mention that everyone involved with A-Rod in baseball genuinely seemed surprised when the news was revealed.

But there was a sign that something was not right with A-Rod.  It was not his stats, his build, his self-conscious behavior.  It was the fact that he was banging a former pop star who’s body now resembled a yoga infused Iggy Pop.  While Madonna seems committed to going from pop icon to Cher, A-Rod has fast forwarded right past cougar land into the era of the saber-toothed tigers.  Wasn’t this a cry for help? Injecting testicle shrinking substances in your body is no danger compared to sticking your dipstick inside that kabbalah cesspool.  Who knows, may A-Rod is gay and he is just banging Madonna because she is a step away from women and a step towards men.  If this is the case, might I suggest the transition team, so to speak, for A-Rod (in increasing order of masculinity):

  • Madonna
  • Jaime Lee Curtis
  • Ricky Martin
  • Lance Bass
  • Macy Gray
  • Hugh Jackman
  • Janet Reno

But it seems the safest way to be a sports fan is to be cynical.  For years fans (me included) bought that the ball was juiced.  Major League Baseball actually convinced fans that tight stitching was leading to home run records getting broken and then they make a show of outrage while they leave their Frankensteins out to dry.  I don’t know what A-Rod will say as his excuse, if he says anything at all, but if he says that he used them because he was tired of seeing his natural talent unfairly eclipsed by a game that was allowing rampant drug use then I could be ok with that.  He has enough years left in his career that I think he could rehabilitate himself, if the Haters let him.

And assuming there is an inquiry into steroids into comedy, it should be noted that my personal high in bench press was achieved prior to my comedy career and before Carrot Top showed up with Dwight Howard’s shoulders.