Madonna and Me (30 page)

And he . . . did! He ran from me like a roach from Raid, and I was awesome because of it! I was strong and I was badass and I was tall, suddenly, for no reason. Armed with that new invincibility, I walked around for months high on the idea that I could defeat anyone—anytime, anywhere, anyhow.

Until, I was about to learn, it involved a gun pointed at me. Whether I was dressed like Madonna or not.

It was five in the morning, I was twenty yards away from my house, and I was looking back and forth between Greg and these two guys—the one who was doing all the talking, and the one who had the gun, so he didn’t have to do any of the talking. I must have been in shock, because I heard Greg sharply whisper, as though he was repeating it, “They want your purse.”

Then I remembered—
I didn’t have my purse
.

I’d left it at home because it didn’t go with my designer imposter version of Madonna’s lady-pimp costume. So I reached into my pocket and pulled out everything I had—my keys, fifteen dollars, and a half-full pack of Parliament Light 100s. The talker started to frisk Greg, going in and out of the pockets of his three-piece suit (I guess Greg modeled his pimp on “investment banker”), and eventually retrieved two dollars and a blister pack of Eclipse gum. Before I could even
give him my fifteen dollars, he snatched it out of my hand, and I immediately assessed the situation with more than a slight feeling that I was going to wet my pants.

Between the two of us, he had taken seventeen dollars and gum. It had been my understanding that it sometimes irritates muggers when you don’t carry enough cash and prizes. So I thrust the one thing of value I had left at him—my half-empty box of Parliament Light 100s.

“Here,” I coaxed him, my voice raspy.

And he turned, looked at me and said, “Oh, no thank you.”

The thug holding the gun wasn’t nearly as refined, and for the first time since the episode began he piped up and said to his partner, “Did you do her yet?” asking, I’m assuming, if he’d frisked me. There I was, dry-mouthed and terrified, and for some reason in the next moment, I reacted to the frisker the only way I felt was right. I did the only thing that made sense to both my brain and my body.

I stood there in silence and looked him right in the eye.

A coworker once told me a story she had read in the paper about a woman who was walking alone at night when she saw this guy making a beeline for her. Her intuition kicked in and she sensed he was bad news, so when he got close enough that he’d be able to hear her, she looked him square in the pupils and said, “How’s your mom doing?” The question was so bold and so unexpected that he hauled ass out of there and didn’t look back. I don’t remember thinking about that story in this moment, and I certainly didn’t ask this guy how his mom was, but I remember that standing there, and holding that person’s gaze for as long as I could, was the most natural thing for me to do. And he had no choice but to mirror me.

It was the first time all night that I felt as strong as the person I was trying to look and act like.

The gun thug must have been very uncomfortable with all the silent staring, and he clearly had places to go, things to
do
, because he repeated himself—“Did you frisk her, motherfucker?” His partner,
never breaking his gaze with me, just slightly shook his head and barely whispered, “No.” Well, now the gun thug
really
had had enough of this scene, which was straight out of a bad Lifetime movie, so he gave up and said to Greg and me, “Fine. You two, turn the fuck around and run.”

We turned around and . . . walked briskly. Which was not the instruction we were given.

“I fucking said
run!”
he yelled, and as I turned to bumble, “Right, yes, we will,” I saw that he was standing with his feet shoulder width apart, gun raised and pointed at us as he started to count—One! Two! Three!

Now we ran. We ran up the block and around the corner to hide behind a building, lean against the wall, and exhale for the first time in ten minutes. Greg tried to lighten the mood, and said, “Have I told you how much I love that hat?”

He had, only about a million times that night. But when he said it this time, it dawned on me that if I had not been wearing it, I wouldn’t have been dressed up like Madonna as a pimp. Which in turn meant that I very likely would have had my purse on me, and these two guys would have made off with a lot more than they had—and then some. I also realized that if I hadn’t let this boy walk me home because I wanted to avoid an awkward situation, I would have been alone for this. I grabbed Greg and hugged him and we eventually let go to peek around the side of the building to make sure the men were gone.

They were.

We were alone, the both of us in ridiculous, ill-fitting costumes that surely made us stick out like Mormons at a truck stop. Greg looked nothing like a pimp. I looked nothing like Madonna as a pimp. And this hat and crushed velvet coat did little to deflect fear, fight off the bad guys, or make it appear that I’d been in charge all along, as I’m sure Madonna would have been.
But it’s okay
,
she was with me anyway
, I reassured myself as I let Greg walk me to my door.

Wendy Nelson Tokunaga

 

 

 

 

 

I FIRST HEAR her voice on the in-flight entertainment program during a United Airlines flight from Tokyo to San Francisco. I like the song; it’s got a catchy pop-rock, New Wave feel. Nice guitar solo, too. This girl’s singing about how she’s bending over backward, down on her knees, begging for some guy’s attention. She’s not the same. She’s got no shame. She’s on fire.

Who
is
this? I check the listings in the in-flight magazine: “Burning Up.” Artist: Madonna. Madonna? I’ve never heard of this group. Kind of a cool name, though.

Back home in San Francisco I forget all about Madonna until I read a blurb in
Rolling Stone
. Madonna is not a group, but a she. Who names their kid Madonna? Must be a stage name. A fake.

One Saturday morning I’m watching
American Bandstand,
and at last I see Madonna. She’s singing a song called “Holiday,” and it couldn’t be more different from “Burning Up.” This sounds like dance music. Can’t she make up her mind what she is?

Madonna’s kind of cute but she’s no Deborah Harry, I’m thinking as I watch. She’s not the best dancer either; she kind of just shuffles and bops around. And her voice—well, Pat Benatar has nothing to worry about. And neither does that new girl Cyndi Lauper, who I’m certain will outsell and outlast this little flash in the pan.

And she doesn’t play an instrument like Joan Jett or Chrissie Hynde or me. I pride myself on my strong voice. I’m a belter. But I started playing bass guitar in my band because I refused to be just the “chick singer.” And since I write the songs, I want to be considered a real musician. I want to be taken seriously. I don’t want to be a bimbo like this chick Madonna.

“What are your future plans?” Dick Clark asks Madonna on the TV. “To rule the world,” is her answer. I roll my eyes. Could she be any more full of herself?

The next thing I know she’s at the movie theater. On the screen. Some little film called
Desperately Seeking Susan.
So now she’s an
actress
, too? Well, I have to admit that she steals the picture from that Arquette girl. It’s impossible to take your eyes off her.

I’m too poor to afford cable, but when I catch glimpses of MTV at a friend’s house, I find that Madonna is all over the little screen, too. In things called music videos. MTV shows a clip of her at a music industry conference. She’s on a panel with John Oates of Hall and Oates. He doesn’t know who the hell she is. She states with confidence that image and a video presence are imperative for pop musicians to succeed today. There’s no avoiding it. Video is indeed killing the radio star. John Oates scoffs at her, saying music videos are a passing fad. He vows to have nothing to do with them.

While my band plays in little shitholes in North Beach and the Tenderloin, Madonna’s performing on something called “The MTV Music Video Awards.” She’s a slutty bride in a wedding gown, humping the floor and singing “Like a Virgin.” Is she serious? Has she no shame?

I know the truth. Madonna has to be a producer’s creation. She must have slept with the right guy and then
Voilà!
A record deal. She
didn’t slog through the endless band break ups, drunk guitarists, psycho drummers, cockroach-infested rehearsal spaces, and crappy gigs playing in front of three people like me in my modest and failed attempts to release just one single. She simply waltzed into instant success and fame without paying her dues.

Later I learn that Madonna grew up in a small Michigan town, then bought a one-way ticket to New York, a place where she didn’t know a soul. She played guitar and drums in all kinds of bands before she made it. She worked hard. She was determined. She didn’t give up. She was on fire.

But she’s just a singer, I sniff. She doesn’t write her own songs. But then I discover that she does. She’s written lots of them. “Burning Up,” “Lucky Star.” She cowrote “Into the Groove,” “Like a Prayer,” “Live to Tell.”

Madonna becomes a permanent fixture in our collective face, a major force with which to be reckoned. No one can escape her. She is everywoman: a virgin, a vamp, a proud unwed mother, Marilyn Monroe in
Gentlemen Prefer Blondes
, a boy toy for a black Jesus. By now I have no choice but to give her props. My admiration. My respect.

I have even begun to like her.

The years pass and I burn out and eventually give up on my musical dream. I trade in my band, my songs, and my bass guitar for a different creative pursuit. I turn to writing short stories and novels. I spend years honing my craft, querying literary agents, garnering nothing but rejection after rejection. But I don’t give up. There’s something in me now that won’t allow for that. And Madonna’s still here. On the radio, in the movies, on the television, in the concert halls. She’s been here all along.

Some two decades after I first heard Madonna on that flight from Tokyo to San Francisco I find myself in a writing workshop, still a couple of years away from when I will finally get one of my novels published. I don’t remember why, but somehow the topic of Madonna
has come up. After all this time she’s still on top of her game, still causing trouble and creating controversy by just being herself. Some guy in the group says something disparaging about her. “You call that
talent?”
he asks.

My face flushes. My chest becomes hot, as if something fierce is emerging from deep inside me. I’ve got no shame. I’m on fire.
“You
try making number-one records for the last three continuous decades,” I seethe.
“You
try maintaining that kind of staying power in something as fickle as the music business.”

And later I wonder; where did
that
come from?

Thanks, Madonna. For everything.

“To me, the whole process of being a brush stroke in someone else’s painting is a little difficult.”

“I’d like to think I am taking people on a journey; I am not just entertaining people, but giving them something to think about when they leave.”

Susan Shapiro

 

 

 

 

 

MADONNA’S IN THE headlines again—with a new scandal, inappropriate lover, and baby. I knew she’d be back. That’s because the Material Girl and I are sisters, kindred spirits, one and the same. We both lost our virginity at fifteen. She did it in the back seat of a Cadillac, and I did it in a dorm room at the University of Michigan—where she also went to school. And I didn’t get straight A’s either.

Madonna’s from a Catholic home and I’m from a Jewish home, so we’re into guilt. She had crucifixes, rosary beads, and saints. I had menorahs, mezuzahs, and Aunt Sadie. She had nightmares about Mother Superior. I couldn’t get rid of Rabbi Schwartz. Maybe that’s why we moved to Manhattan the same year to begin very similar careers—hers as a singer/dancer/slut and mine as a freelance writer. Although she’s size-3 petite and I’m an 8 ½ on a good day, and she’s now a multizillionaire megastar whose books sold 350,000 copies the first hour and I’m in the middle of a ten-year poetry book in progress, we’re uncannily connected.

I first realized we were bonded when she starred in
Desperately Seeking Susan.
My name is Susan—but what’s more, one of the girls in the movie orders a rum and Diet Coke—which has been my drink since the Korean grocery on the corner stopped carrying Tab. When I saw
Truth or Dare
I was amazed that she named her movie after the game I played at camp and she and I both practiced giving blow jobs by going down on a Coke bottle. That’s because Madonna and I were never afraid to be strong and sexy at the same time. We’re women who don’t hesitate to use the “F” word when we feel like it. I too said it to David Letterman several times in a row (though from the other side of the screen).

Since being healthy can be a drag sometimes, Madonna and I have self-destructive doppelgangers. She went through her Marilyn phase. I have a thing for Sylvia. In fact, the night she was gyrating around in a white gown making a fool of herself at the Academy Awards, I put on all black, lit candles, stuck my head in the (unlit) oven and swooned around my one-room apartment moaning, “Oh Ted, how could you? Oh Ted.”

I completely understand Madonna’s relationships with Michael Jackson, David Geffen, Sandra Bernhard, Courtney Love, and Gwennie. I too have had troubled friends. Madonna and I took care of younger siblings so we both tend to surround ourselves with loony-tunes to nurture—she with her dance troupe and film directors, me with my Tuesday night writing workshop.