Madonna showed you what gay was before you know what gay is completely.
Donna, I think probably is like the gay to way drag for a lot of gay people.
She's sheen a.
Me, no me, not my name?
Yo?
What is your childhood? Us?
I am chok a.
Your life's going down the floor like.
Round.
This conversation feels a long time coming because our podcast is literally named after a Madonna song, and when we launched it, we asked her please not to sue us, and she hasn't, so oh thank god.
Madonna is not a super litigious person, although I think she could be proven wrong. We could be proven wrong at any moment. There could be drones waiting outside all of our homes right now, And lucky for us, we also have noted scholar of Madonna ology, Lewis Frattel, I actually am so scared to talk about Madonna with you because you know so much about her. Is that an understatement?
Well, once upon a time I would have said I'm in the top point one percentile of Madonna super fans, but in the past few years have become less encyclopedic about like every track she's released, every album she's released, because you know, they're like not as good. Yeah, but no, no, No, I'm like, it's like it, would you say that started with MDNA?
I honestly will. I'll say this.
I feel like most Madonna albums gain like credibility in time. Like I remember when music came out and thinking, oh, this is like a little annoying that she's doing a cow boy thing. Is she's just doing it because she hasn't.
Done it before.
It didn't feel organic to her brand at the time, And now I think it's like an amazing album. That said, and the album since, like like hard Candy even that's gained something for me in the time since.
But m DNA m DNA has not really, even though I like about five or six of the songs on it.
Do Madonna Stands have a name?
No, because obviously it predates the idea of standing right, you know what I mean? You really just start a gay guy who's thirty eight?
Yeah, white guy.
I guess Madonna Stands are just faggots. But could we retroactively give Madonna stans a name like Little Madonasters or something.
Yeah, I think it has to be less cute in the Lady Gaga realm and just more you know, like it also has to pertain to an era of Madonna that all gay fans are obsessed with. Something I'm always fascinated with is that you will never meet, specifically a gay Madonna fan whose favorite song is like a Virgin, you.
Will never you know, and that's still like her not.
I think Take a Bow is technically her biggest song, but like like a Virgin is maybe her most definitive.
So it would have to do something with voguing or posing or something like that. I don't know, posers.
As someone who okay, well put that in Wikipedia.
As someone who didn't really experience like Madonna's like single singles in real time, or like just to understand a lot of like the arc of her music trajectory. Why is La Isla Bonita one of her most famous songs? I don't it's so good?
It's so good.
No, it's not, it's one of her best. Guys are making me feel crazy, It's it's not a good song. I'm yes, no, no, no, I knew. I'm scared. I was scared of this moment. I'm going up against two Madonna stands about how this is categorically just like a boring song in comparison to the rest of her discography, Like why is it so popular?
So when you're wrong, are you often long like this because you should really like slow it down and listen, get to the right.
Yes she is, that's what this whole pomecast. Okay, it's just Fran being wrong.
Finally enough love Hi. I want to know why? Like what so when this when this song came out? Like what was the moment in her life? I kind of want to paint a little bit of a picture of like who she was, But like Lasla Blonita, what era was that?
That's so that's true Blue And that was not the first single or the second single on True Blue, but it had been this blockbuster album and so it was the follow up to I Believe, even the title track and Open Your Heart and pop it on't Preach and uh it's on the Immaculate Collection, and so it got chosen over actually bigger hits like the number one Who's That Girl is not on the Immaculate Collection, but while
Bonita is. This is also just the beginning of Madonna being obsessed with other cultures and sort of intending to be among them.
Right right right, right, right, right right I was just curious because it's like she's a woman of the world, always like in her like top three songs and like like that people list, and I'm always confused. I was like, did it come with a movie soundtrack? Like what was the deal? Yeah, because I don't get it, but I respect it. I respect I'll spend some more time with la Isla Bonita. Do you guys have a favorite Madonna era?
I guess or should we? For the Virgins maybe talk about like there's really no one place to start with Madonna, whether it's her music or like who she is as a star in creating this like archetype of stardom, her eras, her fashion, like whatever.
Like I guess, like favorite Madonna album might be a good ya.
To start favorite era? Can Yeah?
Well, I mean I think her eras are so tied to her album because Madonna is kind of one of one of those artists who I and like, correct me if I'm wrong, but like, I think she's one of the artists who started this pop star tradition of having the era be very tied to the album and oh sure cycle reimagining her looks. Yeah, yeah, I'm very interested to know Lewis, what's your favorite Madonna album.
Well, it's interesting because I actually would separate my favorite album from era, like Okay, for me, the era would be the Blonde Ambition Tour and and Vogue and the Subs because that's when she was both the biggest star in the world and also I would argue the coolest star in the world, like.
She was pushing the most buttons.
She was like her celebrity orbit was crazy. She's obviously with like Warren Beatty at the time. She had the Sex Book come out right afterwards, so it's just all this attention was paid to her, you know.
You know, it's the early nineties.
Like things like like Donald Trump is huge in the New York celebrity way, and she's sort of adjacent to that anyway. But my favorite album of hers is her first album because I feel like, even pre fame, you can hear the X factor that makes Madonna still unparalleled, which is the like unquenched ambition, the I'm gonna have the time of my life in front of everybody.
Everybody's gonna want to watch me, you know.
I'm like, I'm like the girl at dance Maeteryria, who like everybody's gathered around. There's just something about me and my stupid like you know, uh, flimsy men's wear and bangles and uh just nerve that people can't get enough of and so on that record. You know, she's not famous at all yet. In fact, you know, there's some rumors that a lot of listeners didn't even know she was white, which feels crazy to me.
She sounds like a white why she's not like the whitest woman.
Okay, but but you know, it's like it's it's hard disco, you know, everybody, You've got Holiday, You've got Lucky Star, Borderline. These are all such indelible songs, and I feel like they fit so well and unpretentiously together, Like the whole theme of the album is just Madonna, Like you know, you want to be with her at the club and she's cool and kind of laughing at your dance moves while everybody hits on her.
You know, honestly that that like star quality is something that she just had from the very beginning. And honestly, this is like why she always gets the Gaga comparisons, because Gaga was also one of those people that, like she treated herself like an a lister when she was like performing at like you know, pubs or whatever to like rooms of fifteen people, and that was like very Madonna too, But like I'm trying not to jump around.
I want to stay in your era. But like when I just watched Truth or Dare for the first time, and watching her in in that is like you understand why everyone is so immediately attracted to her. You can't stop watching her. She's not even like an amazing vocalist like her. I mean she is, but like her voice isn't the thing that brings her stardom. I think her voice has like a kind of a very specific quality that you know, lends itself to the music that she makes.
It's unmistakable. It's like Rihanna. You hear Rihanna? You know it's reality.
Yeah, yeah exactly. And like also like I yeah, it's like a lot of the songs that she does, or rather a lot of the songs that she's famous for on page or could be like really boring, but like she adds something to them with her vocal quality that I think I guess completes the package.
Yeah wait, okay, well that's kind of soulfulness and like undeniable, like I will get in your face, it will be me.
You think about kind of.
Yeah, Rose, what was your what was your favorite era or rather favorite I guess that what were we different? Different favorite era and favorite album?
Yeah, I think I'm kind of similar and not. The two are a little different from me. For me, I think Ray of Light Madonna is my favorite era, like Kabbala, like earth Mother Madonna I very much vibe with. But then my favorite album is Confessions on.
A Dance for I really am proud of Faggots for just saying that's gonna be our album, like we're going to play that now forever. Like at the time, I liked it, and I still obviously do like it, but we've really anointed it like the definitive two thousands, like gay pop album.
Yes, and it is. I have said this before.
If I could go back in time, if I had a time machine, I would go back to see the Confessions tour because it just is to me like that solidified. You know, I grew up always being aware of Madonna's music.
I think in the way that we all were.
She wasn't really someone that you know, my parents were really like featuring when I was younger, but I like absorbed her through cultural osmosis and then like I think I became more aware of her around American life, and American Life is one of my favorite Madonna albums, and like Die Another Day was a big moment for me.
I was still one of the most expensive music videos of all time.
I kind of wish that we would go back to that genre of Bond themes, like I want a poppier song.
They don't all need to be balanced.
Yeah, it reminds you of being in a spy thriller. Yeah, like dynamic totally.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I love how she kills herself in that video. It's so fun. But I really think that Confessions was the first time that I chose Madonna. I think Ray of Light is when it started like percolating for me, and then Confessions, I was like, oh, I am an active participant in this album and it is the one that I revisit the most often. Although I would say, you know, Ray of Light, Confessions and maybe like Erotica are very close behind in terms of the actual music.
What's upon a time you would have really like Erotica defensive Gays being like that's her definitive era, her gayest era, and now I feel like those people have evolved into Confessions. People like that's our version of the Club Madonna. We defend the most, you know.
I feel like Confessions came at a time where there had been a handful of like lack luster albums or the albums that people just like weren't as excited about following, just like the multiple peaks in madonn on his career. And so when she re emerged with the fucking Abba sample, everyone was like, oh, like, oh, this is like a song for pop music, literally defining pop music.
Yeah.
No, actually it's comparable to Ray of Light in that way where, Yeah, part of the excitement about that was she did have Bedtime Stories had its hits and I love that album, and she had the Vida soundtrack, which of course is memorable in certain ways, but neither of those things felt definitively her. And so when she kind of came back into her own and Ray of Light, there was this new like I remember, that's when I
became a Madonna fan. And for a moment there, we really treated her like a Kennedy Center honoree, like We're like, oh, she's back and important and Confessions is similar because it had been preceded by American Life, which, though I like the middle four through seven on that album, was an album that utterly baffled people and also really became.
Like Ray of Light, you can tell when Madonna writes the lyrics.
Yeah, and.
She was going for a statement make on that album in a way where I found them a bit circuitous and a bit baffling. It's just just it wanted to be important and it came up with confusing.
Wait did you?
Madonna does often, I think that's very true, wants to be important, and it's usually when she's not trying to be that she most effectively.
That is so te Oh my god. Yes, that's because.
Because I think ultimately she kind of took the wrong lesson from the critical praise heaped on Ray of Light, which was, you know, obviously that album is kind of full of moody and occasionally pretentious statements like yeah, she's sort of like she's.
Like, oh I've been so selfish.
Oh I you know, she's like renouncing the naughty parts of herself.
Yeah.
Well it's like no, no, no, no, no, no, we love that. No keep that, keep that, keep that.
And instead she became this like MOODI or lyricist this you know again attempts at statement making, and they're just not as fruitful as her being again a bitch in front of everybody.
You know, yeah, I Madonna.
Madonna loves to make a statement, like when in twenty twenty when she performed at the Boom Boom Room and wore a harness that said not my President on it.
Yeah, y yes, things like yeah, or like there are just times in her like the third quarter of her discography where she's just like war is bad, right, like you know what I mean, Like she just has a handful of songs like that. But wait, I'm going way back. You use the word circuitous, and I need to know what that means.
Now, just like well literally on American Life, the last song easy Ride, the lyrics go in a circle, but just it's like she's attempting to go for something provocative and instead is coming up with like a loop of cliches you've heard before. That's the number one thing that bothers me about Madonna right now as a writer, is I still feel like she's gunning. You know, she'll have a song about gun control or whatever, which great by
all means do it. Yeah, but at the same time, it can't just be filled with sentiments I've heard a million times before that are novel to you because your ear is not to the ground, like you don't know what other people are already saying.
Like that's that's what bothers me about her child.
She is kind of her politics are, I mean now, they're definitely like still kind of Trump era, if not Obama era, Like Madonna's power actually used to be that, like her and her team did have their finger on the pulse of culture like that, like when we think about something like Vogue, like that obviously feels like reductive or appropriate if now, but like at the time, it's
just like nobody was doing that. Nobody was assembling like a cool like under like undercurrent like subcultural group of people that had never been amplified before, which is something that pop stars.
Do now all the time, like and like put them at the forefront, bring them along with you with you on tour, create a whole song around an art form that has not been appreciated like whatever. And even outside that, like outside of the Vulgera. In so many different parts of her life, she knew what was cool. She knew the stars that were cool, she knew the people that
were cool. She was in all these circles with you know, Keith Herring, Andy Warhol, right, all these different folks, and now it just feels like, yeah, she's in her castle and she doesn't know what's going on, Like it's sad.
Well, what I want to say is that I do think that Madonna's politics were progressive when we actually needed them to be, Like I think during the AIDS crisis, like the way that she was a true ally to queer people and would not stop talking about AIDS and like using the platform that she had in a useful
way like she did that. I don't know that we need Madonna to be like, you know, the kind of like transgressor now like I think we maybe have moved We as a society have moved past the need for Madonna as like a political activist.
I guess right.
No, I definitely agree with that.
I mean, when you she's somebody like Elizabeth Taylor or Diane Warwick, are those people who at the time were like seemingly randomly speaking of you know, like there just wasn't a cultural dialogue about these things and these people who like you. From the beginning of time, you associate Madonna with gay men. They're around her in every video, you know, you watch the Open Your Heart video, and she's like kind of performing being a fabulous woman for
a young gay boy. Like there's just something embedded in her that was always I'm orienting this towards gayness, you know, even if other people didn't detect it.
I'm thinking a lot now about how you said that the average Madonna fan is like a white thirty eight year old gay man, and now I'm thinking about how Madonna's politic is that of like a white thirty eight year old gay man like her, well.
Older than that, honestly, right, Yeah.
But it's like her, it's like her brain is like trapped in this, you know, in this era.
I think the deal is she her instinct is to lead with sort of agro politics, right, she went, like in your face whatever, But she doesn't always back that up with like the credulity, like the knowledge of exactly what is happening at that given moment.
So I do miss that a little bit.
I had a friend once who said Madonna used to be the Groucho Marx and now Madonna tends to be the woman groucho Marx is duping you know no, which is like a little rough, but at the same time, like that was part of her power, that like witty, subversive, righteous babe thing.
I kind of want to, like for the virgins, like maybe paint a picture of like who she was as a pop star when she emerged on the scene or in like the first eras of her life. I want to know. So I don't even know how to start doing that. I honestly, if anybody listens to DJ Lewis of the fourteenth podcast Pop Pantheon, he has this amazing breakdown of like all her different eras, but like when she emerged on the scene with like everybody from Michigan.
Is there any way that you could describe Lewis like just Madonna who she was at the beginning?
Yeah, Well, she was like the definitive New York club urchin. So she was this person who she had classically trained dancer, She went to University of Michigan, came to New York. I mean, as she will now repeat fifty thousand times at nauseum, had only thirty five dollars in her pocket, and I was like, what is this like like dime novel thing she has invented about herself. There's no way she only had thirty five dollars, but anyway, moving on.
She should maybe have third thirty five hundred, yeah.
Right, something right. But you know, she was in bands for a while. She's a band called The Breakfast Club. She was in a band called Emmy and So, and she did like nude photography on this so she just had this sort of she really resembled the character in Desperately Seeking Susan, and it remains crazy that that movie was not written for her. The list of actresses it almost was is so bizarre, and then you think of Madonna and it feels like a biopic of hers almost.
So I mean she she kind of became like a pop star, I don't want to say accidentally, but had to move into it from this like band place she was in, from this dancer place she was in. But it was all oriented around like her passing like audio tapes to like DJs and stuff, and then finally signing with seymour Stein at Sire right, and then it was like she really just jumped from the cool girl that you maybe noticed once in a while in the club to the cool girl everybody noticed, right, you know.
And Okay, so like through like like a Virgin I guess True Blue nineteen eighty VMA performance material Girl, Rose, do you have like a favorite kind of like vintage Madonna moment? Like is there like obviously she's like forever mood board, but is there something about like preliminary Madonna that you were attracted to, either retroactively or like at the time.
I guess so much of my experience of what we would consider early Madonna is like so retroactive, like Sam, so late in my like discovery of her that it is more like it does come a little later, like Blonde Ambition. Tor is for me like quintessential early Madonna, even though I know it's not, you know, the earliest Madonna.
And also I guess, like you know that VMA's Vogue performance of when they're all like in Marie Antoinette Drag and you know, I think like the same things that that everyone the same like cultural impressions that everyone has of her, like the kne boom, like that.
That's not the only thing about her as a little kid, the co cone boom.
And I think I I think I knew it because of how focus Oh right, right, because the mom is dressed up as Madonna and she has the cone boobs and the headset.
Mic, wait, it's actually costume, still would work, it's.
Actually all three of us. Only thing I retained about Madonna was cone boobs. But like, it's so funny that something that reductive actually does encapsulate Madonna perfectly, like it is who she was doing something totally out of the ordinary, totally bizarre, completely sexual and yet not you know what I.
Mean, like bury both of those things like in your face sexy and also laughing at the idea of sexuality, which I think is like the core thing I love about her, like loves men yet laughs in their faces.
Like Madonna is definitely like a sex icon. But that's also something about Gaga that I think is true, is
that Gaga is like something of a sex icon. But like guys aren't like looking at Gaga and being like, yeah, Gota is really fucking hot, right, you know what I mean, Like it's I some of them have to be, right, I mean, obviously there's gotta be guys out there who have jerked off to Madonna and Lady I don't know what, I don't know what men think both of them to I don't know what men think, but I do I think that it's like Madonna and Gaga. What I'm trying to say is just that they do have this thing
that's like sexual but not sexual quality. I think Madonna was like more overtly sexual, like she was fucking you know, she was a sex mom like her whole life.
I want to say about Lady Gaga.
When I was an intern for The Advocate in like two thousand and eight, one of the weird amazing things.
I got to do.
I got to interview Lady Gaga right when poker Face was coming out and so like already by then, like she had a crude, like a real gay following. But I didn't know that much personal information about her other than she was allegedly a huge Madonna fan. So I said to her, I was like, do you have a favorite Madonna era? And she goes, definitely Erotica because they couldn't even.
Play it at two am.
And I was like, what a faggoty response Like that really like legitimized her as somebody who was paying attention, like knew the history really well. She talked about how she loved Shnad O'Connor and I think, you know Marilyn Manson. Of course they did the Love Game remix set time after that, but I was like, all right, this is
somebody who really pays attention to the past. And by the way, that is also something from Madonna's early earliest eras that I always loved about her, which is her obsession with like old influences was very apparent, and that really appealed to me, like the the Marilyn Monroe in the Material Girl video, the like Marlena Dietrich and the Erotica era. Just the idea that like stardom meant something to her already even without her being a part of it.
So that really attracted me to how huge she became. And then I mean, what do you think changed when she did become the star? You know, because there was a time when Madonna was the most famous woman in the world, And like, how do you think that?
Because I think that's interesting to see when you have these celebrities, I think, especially pop stars who like start their careers, like you know, creating that fantasy of fame, like I mean Gaga is and like I have a much more depth of knowledge on Gaga than I do Madonna, but obviously there's so many parallels.
But like Gaga in her early career, like her out first albums literally called the fame, like it's about like, you know, cause playing fame, and then I think it's very interesting to see what happens to these women when they actually become super famous, and like I do think one of Gaga is like the thing that happened to her is like she got a little high off her own supply. But so like, what do you think happened to Madonna when that switch happened and she.
Was like the girl, Yeah, I want to concur on Lady Gaga, by the way, because when that when the fame dropped. I just love the daffiness of the appreciation of fame, of being like, isn't fame hilarious? Isn't fame amazing? Look what you can do with fame? And she would,
you know, just show up to construction of fame. And then once she became famous, I do think she had to have a moment of what now, and I I feel like she's still kind of navigating that in a way, which is you know, you have to become humorless in a way because you're such a huge brand, you have a whole other thing you have to mind.
Well, that's why she I mean in like Star is born, Like she's just cause playing a different kind of thing. She's caused playing you know the movie Star right, which Madonna also right, Yes, lady got got a little bit more successfully.
But in terms of Donna being famous, I mean, like, I think once she got kind of to the top of the world is when she became extra interesting. Like you know, that's when she's suddenly on dateline doing things like saying kids aren't educated about sex or you know, if if her presentation of sex is so offensive, why are they doing you know, why is it's such an epidemic among like young people, Like she was like, like she said, I can't be any worse than how the
way people are already taught about sex. For example, I felt she was very observant about people, like she she was superstartim as a perch. I think she took it as a way to be able to look at the bigger picture and sort of sharpshoot problems.
Yeah, yeah, it is that, And I think like post material girl, there is something like in the Truth or Dare era, the erotica sex book era we're in, she really is genuinely like she is genuinely like controversial. She's genuinely like like going against the grain of like what culture is telling her and like challenging ideas that people just were not challenging at the time, and suffering for
them to some degree. I mean, obviously the controversy just like blew up her stardom, but like her, you know, concerts were being protested and her books, her book was banned everywhere and like all these different complents. She lost her I don't remember when she lost her pepsi dealer, her Coca Cola dealer, whatever the fuck. Yeah, yeah, that
was also because of sex stuff. Like she was, you know, constantly animized and and and I think that that is just like a big part of like the arc where because.
Like, yeah, it's like Enema's that was recently amazing.
It was so circuitous, and I was I was gonna I was gonna say that, like I think that there's this thing that happens to a lot of stars. I'm thinking about RuPaul honestly, wherein you hit the kind of like sophomore era of your life, and all of a sudden you realize how many people fucking hate you, and and you felt like that your whole entire life, and so you're gonna let that embolden you and make your presence bigger and bigger, and then you become an asshole,
you know what I mean? And I don't know if that I don't think that really. I think Madonna was kind of always an asshole if you ever watch footage of her, and I mean asshole. Yeah, I'm like using that term loosely because she's just a woman that that knew her own worth and people kind of had a problem with that or her whole life.
I also do think she's from stories I've heard, like, I do think she is a little mean.
Oh, I think to to.
It would be disappointing, as like, oh, please don't be genteel with me, Madonna.
Unzip your pants and take your fucking dick out right now.
Okay.
I actually feel like the thing that kept her kind of genuinely controversial during that those like halcyon days is also what really attracts gay men to her, which is that like controversy starting thing. I don't think is oriented in calculations so much as she is obsessed with not being bored. And I feel like that is like a crucial gay man thing, you know. It's like she's like, are we really just sitting here doing normal fucking pop music?
What if we were actually amazing?
What if actually like I didn't have to act like whoever the other raining pot like like I'm not fucking Paula Abdul, I'm you know, it's like it's gonna be harder than that, and it's gonna be in your fucking face.
You know.
And I think that, I mean, that served her well for so long.
I do think it now. I mean, and like we said, we don't want to harp too much on Madonna's current era because I'm sure it's none of our favorites. But I think that's part of why she's releasing so many of these fucking TikTok remixes of her classic songs, because it's like she's bored with her own catalog, which is why it's so absolutely interesting. Which, yeah, which is why it's so interesting that she's about to embark on the greatest hits or something she famously said she would never do.
And I'm like, I mean, I I don't currently have tickets. I would like to go. I'm sure we'll figure out a way somehow, but I don't really want to go and hear like two hours of TikTok remixes of you know Madonna songs.
I want to hear. I want I want to see her perform them, even though, you know, like I trust her when it comes to you know, live performance because I think that's one of the things that she does the best. I talked about this.
Recently on the show, But I've seen Madnna twice, once at World Pride and then I saw the amounam X tour and it is the best concert I've ever seen. And I do believe that whatever Madonna does, and I've watched like so many of her you know, tour films, and I think that's what she does better than maybe any other like living performer, is live performances. So I do kind of trust that. What have you how many times have you seen her live?
I've only seen her twice, and I saw her on m DNA and Madam X, and I saw did you see her at the Wiltern in La No?
I saw her at bam in Brooklyn.
See.
I wish I had seen her there. I think it's more appropriate for that venue. The Wiltern is this sort of stodgy place for this tour. It like it did, like it was literally stuffy in the room. You know, she's obsessed with how the air is whatever. You don't have your phone, so the it just was not a slagh. I was happy to have seen it. She made me laugh a couple of times. I love the version of Vogue on that tour, but otherwise, like my problem is
madamex also contains some of her worst ever songs. So if I'm sitting there with and it's also it's so it's so annoying because Madonna is such a name that like even non fans are going to go see these like weirdo concerts in person, and so in my head empathically, I'm thinking, oh my god, you know, like literally I
work for Jimmy Kimmelive. Jimmy was at the show one night, and I have I'm thinking Jimmy is literally sitting there as she thinks killers who are partying, Like I'm just like, you know, it's like skin crawling, you know.
Okay, Well, how was the MDNA tour, though.
Some parts of it were amazing, as you said, like who else is doing like a shootout in a small cabin where she's like choreographing this big again kind.
Of spy oriented number.
Had great moments, but of course it was m DNA, so I didn't love every single line.
Yeah, yeah, there are there are some tours, like obviously I said I would love to go back in time and see the Confession's tour. I also one night during like peak COVID in La, I did some ketamine and watched the Reinvention Tour, which I think is a really.
Great and I love just the audio CD of it. It sounds great.
Yeah, I you know.
First, I mean, I know, I like was a little county about her voice earlier, but I do think she does sound she does sound great live and obviously like she's not she's not she's singing live to tape.
Yes, you know. I've only seen her once and it was at the Boom Boom Room during the Boom Boom Room's return for Pride. I think last last year, or there was that the year the summer twenty twenty one when she wore the not My President. A couple of year, a couple of years. To me, it was it was.
Just packed in that room.
Yes, I remember looking at the footage and just being like, oh, looks sweltering in that I've.
Told part of the story on this podcast before, but yes, packed to the brim with thirty eight year old fagots and I you know, and and tons of like you know New York celebrities like Andy, Andy Cohen and Anderson Cooper, like like you know, packed into this like little room, like Adam Lambert with huge shoulder pads like spikes sticking out like like poking people like every sort of like
you know New York socialite person there. And then like Madonna, it wasn't like a real performance because it's the Boomer Room.
So she did like you know, five six songs. But the best part of the kind of performance so to speak, and I don't know if this is the case for y'all, was like when she was talking like literally just performing, walking around, moving around, there was a moment where like at the end again she went on late, of course, and so like all these like coked out fagots were like it was two o'clock in the morning, We're waiting
for Donna. Madonna's concert is over, and instead of all of us going home, she was like, my friend Zachary Quinta is gonna come on here and we're gonna have an auction for queer homeless youth. And we're like, no, Like, that's the that's the one thing that a bunch of coked down faget's at two o'clock in the morning at the top of the boomom room do not want to do. And the room was not really that receptive to it. And Madonna was pissed, and it was amazing. It was so incredible.
Nobody is more impatient with her own fans and audiences than the Yaha.
There was like scolding people.
There was a moment where some faggot was like where some faggot tried to touch her? And she goes, did somebody just tried to touch my leg? She's like, that's ten thousand dollars if you want to touch my leg. And then and then some other faggot was like, I'll pay ten thousand dollars for a selfie, and she was like, ten thousand dollars for a selfie, fine, get up here, and she.
Was David Russell, my good friend, Oh my manager.
Oh my god, that's so funny. It was like such a wild experience and the old The thing that I remember the most from the evening was her her like kind of presence, her virtuosic, untouchable presence as a celebrity that feels like like it's been there since the beginning.
Yeah, that really is similar to the oldest days of Madonna, just the like like scoffing, Like has anybody scoffed like Madonna?
Yeah, it's a scoff It's a reductive it's like, yeah, you know, I feel like honestly, like just to we're like we're talking I did, Like we're talking about Madonna's
flop era. And like the reason that Madonna's slap eras so disappointing is because she had all these like moments of subversion in her life, whether it was like her standing up for the AIDS crisis, whether it's like her concerts being like protested by like Canada being protested by like you know, Christian organizations, like like books being banned everywhere, and like I don't know, I just I I can't.
I'm always gonna think of that Madonna, Like even in that even when I see Madonna now and like we make fun of her because he're like she's got grills on now, or like her face is like filled the room with liquid.
Or it really is crazy, how been I really that would have been like a one album thing, and.
Just listening to her talk around them is horrible. But I do think the thing is and I think maybe fran this is like kind of where you're going is like I don't think that Madonna can destroy her own legacy, and I am so grateful for it, yeah, because she really has. It's like a couple of years ago when when Katie Perry like did some interview about how like all of her music flops now, and she's like, well, I've had all the hits, honey, I've rung all the bells.
And it's like Madonna like she built the bell and rung it and cracked it and then like hung it back up again, like she's she's literally done everything and and despite her very valiant attempts, she cannot destroy her own legacy.
And also again watch it, like a few years from now, we will look back on certain parts of this of this era and realize, like why were we talking about her lips so fucking much.
Yeah, she still is like kind I'm making a point, you know, like it's.
Yeah, well I like that.
She she tweeted the other day like do you how does my face look now that the swelling.
Is gone down? And I was like, that's okay, that's funny, Like finally, Yeah.
Sometimes sometimes like I'm worried about, like, oh, has she lost the funny component, you know, which is so I think critical to who she you know, in the early days.
There's this video of her on a panel for MTV and they're talking about the advent of music videos, and she, of course is advocating on behalf of music videos, how it's great for artists, you know, people who would normally never get to see you when concert get to see you on MTV, and one member of Hall and Oates, I believe John Oates says, I don't think rockstar should have to perform, you know, they don't have to be actors.
And she goes, she goes, and she looks at him and she goes, you're performing right now, and like like and just like he is baffled. He's never like been like talked back to, namely by somebody of her maybe age and you know type and it's like I missed that, you know that in like no, no, no, I'm funny.
Too, Madonna. Donna possesses the ability to say literally anything to literally anyone, like she. I'm thinking about the story where she met the which she met the writers of Like a Virgin. I can't is that right?
Oh?
Because we were we were listening to oh yeah, the the Immaculate podcast, Oh yeah, where they they talk about every episode they go in depth on a different Madonna song. And I think it was like a Virgin she met She she was at some party and the people who had written Like a Virgin.
Her biggest song at the time, like literally a life changing.
Song, and they went up to her and and like we're like, hey, like we wrote Like a Virgin.
She was like okay, great, like she said, she said to them, well now you've met me and walked.
Away too good.
It's it's Billy Steinberg, who's written a whole bit of songs.
Yeah, thank you? What were we gonna say? So?
Phoebe reminded us of Madonna. Madonna's Dyke era when she you know, her bestie Sandra Bert right their appearance on Appearance or appearances on Letterman.
People forget about the dynamics she and David Letterman, how that used to be kind of a crucial part of her every few years, thing she see, whether she was swearing in front of him or appeasing him with her new like acoustic era, or you know, like getting his goat with Sandra sitting there and they're both in the craziest gene shorts you've ever seen.
I think people don't also, I think the virgins rather don't also know that like this kind of like I'll
say anything to anyone. This kind of gumption, the fortitude she has when she like is on these late night interviews is something that comes through in her own ambition, Like she does her own work, Like the fact that she you know, had to send this like handwritten letter to like or this like this note to like Abba because they like famously never sample their songs or whatever, Like when she like begged the president of Argentina to like approve of her making a vita. You know what
I mean. There's so many different eras where she's just like I people don't believe in me, but I believe in me, And like you're telling me that I'm not gonna be able to do this, but I'm gonna do it. And it was the same like, you know, with when she chooses to put on a concert despite the fact that it's like if you put on this concert, we will arrest you, and she's like watch me, like I'm gonna do it. Yeah.
And that's also like it's so different than the way people are like famous now, I think I don't believe in things like cancel culture, et cetera. Like that's not me at all, but it is interesting. It feels like people now just because fame is so tight in with talking directly to your fans all the time, that there's like a general appeasing quality to like even the way people are funny, like you have to be kind of self deprecating, there's like a humility built into everything you do.
And Madonna's whole thing was like, my fans are over there, I'm not even looking at them. Yeah, you know, like they're gonna like me no matter what, and so I get to go harder. You know, really know anybody who's like that now, you know what I mean?
Yeah, zero humility except when she says god.
Yeah, there is there is an element of fame now where it's like you have to be surprised that that your that your work is being you know, lauded or praised, or that people love it. And Madonna, you know, Madonna has always believed in herself more more than anyone else.
Yeah, I just imagine. I like, I'm a super fan, and I know I do not need to go up and meet Madonna.
I don't need her to like roll her eyes in my face or be like you know, et cetera. So same that's part of appreciating her.
Same thing for me with Share, Like, I don't want Share to like ruin share for me. Okay, Like I don't need to meet her. I don't want to have a conversation with her. I'm gonna be good.
That said. I feel like that would go pretty well for you.
Share.
He impresses me, Yeah, okay, I mean she is another person who's just like you can just listen to her talk and talk and talk and talk, and like you'll always say, She'll always say something funny.
She's got a really good memory too, which they don't always. I'm also a stan of a Jane Fonda. Yeah, the degree to which Jane Fonda can remember everything in her life, Like you don't always get that from a superstar, you know, even Madonna.
Now, I feel like it's sort of if.
You were to ask her about, like what was performing in Speed the Plow like on Broadway, would you remember any of that?
I don't know, but I don't think she would.
But I think she would make up a memory of that, sure, Like I don't think I don't think Madonna is ever caught out. Like if Madonna doesn't know the answer, she's gonna make it up and she's gonna.
Make you believe that She's Yeah.
I like, did you hear that? A couple of years ago? It must be like six or seven years ago.
Now.
She did an interview with Howard Stern.
I remember he asked her he like popped all around the eras.
I was very surprised.
But he asked her about in Truth or dare the woman who gets raped in the movie Oh Man. She ended up talking about Warren Batty, and she's like, I was just so he used to be with like Julie Christie. It's like, wow, you have a memory of being obsessed with like the celebrity Laura around Warren Beatty, Like I had never heard that, So it's I actually don't know what memory she still has lurking in her. You know, it's like we're about to get this giant barbar streisand memoir.
Oh my god, in her, you know, so excited, the one that Leah Michelle is learning to read so she can read.
Who would ghost write Madonna's memoir? Like that is just like no one, no one? Because as herself.
Yes, yeah, because as we have learned, she's not willing to let someone with everything that happened with her biopic, which thank god, it's not happening. She's not willing to let someone else tell her own story. I think that is a quality that has served her for most of her career. I think a couple times it's gotten her in trouble. But she's not willing to hand over control
of her own image. Like we talk a lot about, you know, pop stars who are like exploited and celebrities who are exploited, And I think the thing about Madonna is she was always the one exploiting herself. Yeah right, I think that's why she is this like sex symbol.
Yeah, this is sounding like a brag, but I'm staying to bring up a point. My best girlfriend is Diablo Cody, who broke like a draft of her biopic and when she was being kind of picked to.
Like start on the project or whatever.
I don't know who it is, like Warner Brothers or Amy pas Galer, whoever was in the orbit around that movie. They had some briefing period with Diablo. Brooke is her real name, And we're both huge Madonna fans, like always talking about her, obsessed with her, know everything about her. Like Brooke I believe has a book of dreams people
have had about Madonna. It's just like, you know, if you grow up, if you're like Brenn anywhere between nineteen seventy five and nineteen ninety, you probably have like a lasting impression of Madonna.
And we're both obsessed with her.
Anyway, when she was being oriented for this project, it was crazy how the people like briefing brook on how to deal with Madonna or how to talk to her or what to say, you know, just once you get in the room. They treated it like nobody knew how big a star she was. They were like, yeah, did you know that once upon a time she was married to Sean Penn and Brooks response to her Brooks response was, excuse me, I was flying the helicopter.
Over that wedding.
That's so funny I was.
I just remember being so shocked, like, yeah, we're all up to date on Madonna, like namely like Brooke, who's like soapop cultural anyway, like of course she.
Knows about Madonna.
I do think that makes sense though, you know, because I did. I interviewed Madonna once and like that does ring true with me that the people around her want you to always be cognizant of who you're talking to. Yeah, and that's that's not always true with celebrities. I think there are some celebrities like want this false sense of like we're just hanging out, like I'm just a normal person. They want you to feel super comfortable. No, if you're
talking to or meeting Madonna, it's around her. Wants you to know that you are having an audience with Madonna. Did you know her? Madonna? Like when when I interviewed Madonna, it happened because her publicists just texted me one day like.
That way, I was just gonna ask all this.
I don't know how she got my I don't know how she got my member. She just texted me and said, I heard you want to speak to Donna.
And you assumed it was God from God. Yeah, text a way.
Do you have a favorite Madonna film role, because we haven't really touched much on Madonna's movie star, which, as you said, she has not done as successfully as some other pop stars.
Right, I think I would have to say ultimately A League of their Own. And I think it's worth noting that Madonna's two best film roles, which are that and Desperately Seeking Susan, we're both directed by women, and in fact, like her kind of most fun moments in the movies are interplay with women. I love her friend ship with Rosie O'Donnell, which was like a towering thing about her in the early nineties. She's so funny in that movie and gets to be herself and also somebody totally different.
There's a big dance sequence in that movie that's so fun. She looks amazing, of course with really dark hair, so just plenty of things working in her favor at the lead time.
A League of their Own is unfortunately like three hours. It feels like it's three hours long, like it's it's as I've I've never made it through the whole.
Oh really, Oh my god, I love it.
I think my favorite Madonna film is the next best thing?
Whoa crazy answer? You can make it through that.
What's the next best thing?
I have special skills.
It's it's it's a movie where she and Rupert Everett are best friends and they decide to have a baby together.
Correct.
Yes, and she it's one of those movies in the early nineties or late nineties where she has a crazy rom com job that would never afford her the house she has. She's like a yoga instructor and lives in like a house with gables.
Yeah, yeah, it's that's not actually my favorite Madonna holme bro. I do think it's probably it's really seeking season. It's not Avita me neither.
Avita is the weirdest case of you know, at the time, it was like talked about like an Oscar snub, But honestly, I would compare it to the Elvis movie we have right now, where there's no scenes in it. It's filmed basically as a montage, so you don't even really get acting.
It's all a music video.
Yeah, and that's and she's really good at making music. Yeah. Well, oh do you have a favorite Madonna music video.
It will always be Vogue. It will never not be Vogue.
Also, it's just like something about that song fran you were just talking about, like you know how smart it was to illuminate the subculture, and you know how she gave voice to something that is so awesome that we all care about so much.
Now. I don't want to say it's only because of the song Vogue.
But you know somewhat, yeah, But also just like the homage to old Hollywood, like that's so an important part of like my faggotry, just like her being like, no, you have to understand Greta Garbo and Betty Davis if you're gonna understand me, Like.
I've always always loved that.
And the song itself is just when it comes on at some gay club, like the tone changes like faggot's become you know, angles and poses and it's just its own vibe forever, like nobody will ever be able to do that.
I do think it's like the best music video ever mane yes.
Oh, and also what's his name? David Fincher made it when he was like twenty eight. What it's so disgusting.
Wait, I also didn't know that David Fincher made that.
Yeah, express yourself.
Guy exists in the Vogue, exists in the Girl with the Dragon time cinematic correct.
Yes, Rudy Mara was born of this video.
That's that That makes a lot of sense to me. That's crazy. Yeah, I that's wild to me. I I think you know when you said like people knew about the subculture because of the Vogue, that that really is true. Like like Ballroom has not had that many like placements in the mainstream, and it was like there was like America's next best dance crew, there was Paris Is Burning, and then there was the Vogue music video, you know
what I mean. The only thing that would like kind of put Ballroom on a platform after that was like
pose right like it it really crude people everyone. The way people talk about Madonna now, which is like fair, and the way people talk about Vogue now is like she was like exploiting like marginalized groups and like stealing from this culture and blah blah blah, and it really is just more nuanced than that, Like there there's so much more that happened between her and those kids that when you when you watch the Truth or Der video with sorry when you watch the Truth or Der documentary.
I mean, I know there's a lot of controversy about them feeling really abandoned after that, but it's like, there's no question that she was invested in the lives and stories and culture of like what she was inspired by at the time, and she wasn't afraid to put credit where credit was due and to take them all with her at the time. And that's just not something that
celebrities do at all now. And I think that what you know, Beyonce is doing with Renaissance is like unheard of, Like she's putting all the credit where the credit is due, and like people just haven't done that since Madonna. I feel no, right.
Also, it's like, I mean, I agree with criticism that, like, all right, it's a little weird that this like white woman at the top of the world is like, you know, kind of candy craning her arm down and picking this
thing and turning it into her thing. Yeah, But at the same time, it's like I've never seen her perform Vogue without like black and Latin men around her, who are certainly fagots, certainly like making the art form look like some wild, kind of addictively coordinated thing that you've never seen before.
You know.
It's like, I mean, all I can say is when you're growing up in like the suburbs of Chicago and like a Polish Catholic suburb and you see something like that, like for me, my brain changed. I'm like, how do I get to be that? Like I know that's for me and I don't even know what the word gay means yet. Yeah, she I would Actually I would say this about Margaret Chow, who is a comedian I was
really obsessed with pre coming up. Obviously still fabulous, but like Madonna was one of the first people who made me realize, like, oh, gay people, you just want to know them because like they're the most fun or like they know the most people, or they have like the parties you want to be at, or they're hilarious or whatever. Like she always had that sense of like, imagine not knowing gay people.
Yeah, but not faggots who hate women. I'd kill fagots who hate women. Oh so good, so fucking funny. Yeah, I uh, I think that that is just like it.
I think I said this earlier, but like pop stars now do what Madonna does like she created this template for pop star that like didn't exist, Like I think that the only other person that I think had a more big historic presence in like cultivating the pop stars, like maybe like Diana Ross, but she like did it in a very different way that like Beyonce might have like taken the template from right like it's but she people just don't what she does, similar to like maybe
Michael Jackson is now like omnipotent in pop music, Like pop music now sounds like Madonna kind of right.
All these bitches as yeah, okay, so so well, first I want to know, do you do you have your tickets secured for Madonna's Greatest Hits towards celebration.
My friend Jon Hatchwell, who is an obsessive Madonna fan also great pop music fan in general. If you don't follow him on Twitter, y A N N. Hatchwell, great guy. He got me the tickets. We are on the floor in Los Angeles floor.
Yes, I'm okay.
So, so what songs do you need her to do?
I mean, there are so many that I love that I know she will do. We'll get some form of Vogue, et cetera. But I would love to hear I'll Remember, which I think is the underrated Madonna ballad of all time, even though if it was, it was a huge hit at the time. Yeah, it's on the soundtrack for With Honors. I just missed like Indigo tinged ballad Madonna you Know You'll See and the Power.
Of Goodbye and things like that, So I hope you get I'll Remember. I've always love that song.
Any other deep cuts Madonna? Deep cuts are Madonna gems that people don't appreciate. Mmm.
I I love words from Erotica. I just love the like grunginess that album gets into. Even though it's like a pretty emotional album, people think of it as just naughty, and it really is more like this kind of burlesque where you think you're getting sex and instead you get intimacy.
Hmmmm, what about you?
I would really like if I make it to the tour, I would really love her to do Human Nature Sure, one of one of my favorites and such a good video, although you know the corn Rows right, the corn Roads are our corner. Yeah, and I would love her to do Candy Perfume Girl.
Oh Yes, which is a baffling song, but I love it.
Yeah, baffling.
No, absolutely, but I I would really love her to perform.
I want her to do her cover of Fever.
I love that. I'm on snl oh right, I wait.
I actually haven't. I'm realizing I haven't seen that performance that I want to see.
It's not among her best live performances.
And she also did a Bad Girl on that episode, and that's when she It was right after Snead O'Connor had ripped up the Pope and she did a parody of that where she ripped up a picture of Joey botafuco very nineteen ninety two tabloid stuff. Yeah, okay, okay, good to know.
Wow, Well, maybe y'all see y'all at the Eras Tour. Who knows not the Eras. That's what it's called, girl, That's what we're calling at.
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