After my Take That story from last month, I had a couple of emails from people asking me whether I'd ever write such a story about Madonna. The thought had crossed my mind a couple of times (just after I watched the life affirming "I'm Going To Tell You A Secret" which - as I'll explain later on - changed my life for the better in more ways than you could ever imagine), but I just wasn't sure of how I would relay ALL the moments. I mean, this was Madonna, a woman who is at the very least 50% responsible (oh look, probably more) for the person I am today. But over the last few weeks, I've thought it would at least be a blast to write, even if it ends up being read as a complete mess. I apologise for some of the personal mentions in this - they've not been thrown in as a cry for sympathy - far from it in fact. But more so to demonstrate just HOW much (even in my younger years), the melody of a Madonna song would help me through even the most difficult of times...

With each album, I've felt Madonna's position as the Queen of Pop only gets stronger. If "Like A Prayer" is the greatest album of the first half of her career, than "American Life" takes that title for the second half. "Like A Prayer" was a very personal album, an album of a woman scorned. Just coming out of a very public and very messy divorce to a man she had thought was the world, it was a record in which Madonna was questioning things around her. Yes, "Express Yourself" was a joyous cry for Girl Power long before Girlfriend or the Spice Girls would shout it out in their songs, but "Till Death Do Us Part" - a song which conjures up a ridiculous amount of emotion just talking about it even now - was a raw, heart-wrenching, sad and violently truthful look at a marriage facing its final days. "American Life" saw Madonna asking questions again, this time - disillusioned with the state of the world around her. "American Life" was Madonna having a mid-life crisis on record, basically frustrated with the goings on around her and demanding to know what was going on. For a woman who usually gets what she wants, hearing the passion, the hurt, the pain and the sorrow within some of the moments on "American Life" - Madonna asking the questions there seemed to be no actual answers to - was a deeply telling sign that the woman had finally grown up. It was roughly around this time in Madonna's career when my life began to change too...

If you were to ask any of my close friends what topic I most enjoyed discussing, they would all most definitely say "himself" "Madonna". There's not been an artist who's work has affected me quite the same. Whilst there are countless many musicians, vocalists, actors & actresses whom have embedded their print permanently on my soul, none have managed to acquire a larger amount than that of HRH Queen Madge.

My obsessive passion began for Madonna from an extremely early age. Having quite young parents, I was always around quite 'hip' music of the time. My parents would listen to all the last 7" Releases (which would - ultimately - later become MY 7" vinyls), and many of them were performed by Madonna. According to my Mother (who I had to require some memory recall assistance from for quite a bit of this article), Father and my Aunty, one particular song, "Burning Up", was to be played every time I was being fed. Otherwise, I would close my mouth shut. Once the record finished playing, my trap would shut tight until whoever feeding me went and put the needle back at the start. At this stage, I wasn't even walking yet, but was running about in a stroller. Unfortunately, I had no problem eating with music on later in life, but that's another story for another time.

By about the age of 4, my poor teenage Aunty was putting up with Pin-Up thievery. Whilst she was at school and my mother was visiting my Grandmother, I would go into my Aunt's bedroom and tear down all her Madonna posters. I would then frantically stuff the posters into my little Garfield Back pack, and put them up when I got home. Eventually, my Aunty gave up trying to put the posters higher and higher on her walls (the tall chair in her room was my friend at this point), and ended up surrendering all her Madonna posters to me, along with other cut outs I had not been aware of her owning. It was like a hundred Christmas' came at once. Who says crime doesn't pay?

As a kid I was never one for playing sports, riding my bike or, you know, being a "boy". I was much more concerned with buying (read: making my mother buy) Smash Hits Magazine (at an early age, I would tell people that it was a magazine I would one day write for), sticking up as many 'pin-ups' of Madonna as possible and collecting all of the Songfiles from TV Hits Magazine. I would spend hours listening to music whilst the kids I went to school with were riding around on their BMX Bikes. I wasn't very popular at school because of this very reason. I had a few female friends and maybe one or two male ones (one who is still my best friend today and shared/shares the same passion for music & posters as I), but I mainly spent my Primary School years alone. However, with my trusty cassette walkman and a tape of my favourite Madonna records, every Lunchtime & Recess was a good one with someone I considered a friend. When I got home, the same pattern. Any time I'd spend in my room was devoted to listening to music, mainly that of Madonna.

In 1989 (I was 6 years old), my obsession had grown to an obscenely large scale. I wasn't aware of Madonna's private life at all, I only knew she had 3 albums and hadn't had a new one for a while. Some adverts for Pepsi began to screen on our TV screens. They were going to be airing the world premiere of Madonna's brand new single "Like A Prayer". My mum recalls the absolute joy on my face when she told me about it. So when it happened, naturally, (as most of my Childhood Madonna experiences) my Mother sat with me, watching this amazing song called "Like A Prayer".

Having no one to talk to about it at school, it was my family that copped it. "How's School Adem?" "Yeah good! Did you see that Madonna thing on TV last night?!?!" I would shout excitedly. Sometimes, it was followed with a response of delight, but mostly, with hidden groans. I never understood it - how could people NOT want to hear about Madonna, or talk about her? It puzzled me to no end, and to this day (not a great quality, mind), I've never been able to really, er, "get", anyone who says they hate Madonna. It's a biased way of living, yes, and it most certainly has something to do with my childhood. I'm a Taurus who can be quite stubborn, but I'm more than open to change. I very much doubt my opinions of people who hate Madonna will ever change though, and if that makes me a typically stubborn Taurus then BY GOD I'll wear the title loud and proud. The thought of anyone not seeing Madonna for the Icon that she is, I must admit, still floors me - thought not as much as it did when I was younger. Are they blind? Are they deaf? Do they not have a soul? When I was a kid, I used to think that explaining to people WHY *I* thought she was so amazing would ultimately 'turn' them. It never worked, and I was left in a state of confusion every time. During my Primary School Years, Madonna came to tour Australia for the first time ever. I had front row tickets but - sadly - due to a family issue, I ended up not going. I can't begin to tell you how much - or for how long - I cried.

Years later, whilst in High School, liking Madonna was most certainly not the coolest thing at all. People weren't entirely into music in my year level, and the ones that were all listened to so called "cool" music, sung and performed by Grunge bands or safe-cock-rockers who were in the charts. So I became close with a guy in my year level who was as obsessive about Michael Jackson as I of Madonna. We both copped a lot of shit, I was constantly teased and called a poof (by this point, I was quite used to it from Primary School) & so was he, which is hilarious looking back on because only the one of us ended up being Gay. The taunts, teasing, and downright bullying continued, but I didn't care. Why would I pretend to not like Madonna, just so I wouldn't be teased? Why were these people making fun of me for the music I listened to? Looking back on it, the first 4 years of High School were probably the most disgusting and damaging years of my life. I'd go home, mortified and depressed, and would listen to Madonna and Take That for hours on end. Madonna's music was always there for me - no matter what had happened, whoever I was upset with, whatever friend had back stabbed me today, or whatever happened at school, the minute I walked in through my front door, I knew that in my bedroom, Madonna would be waiting to cheer me up. And every single time she did exactly that.

The Internet was brought into my life in the year of 1997. I flipped out. It was the most spectacular thing I'd ever experienced. I'd only ever used the Internet at High School, and begged my parents for months to get the net. My parents had the Internet all set up upon my return home from a disastrous and viciously cruel High School Camp Excursion (for some reason, no one in the bus on the trip home would talk to me, not even a bulk of my "friends"). All the worries of what had happened instantly escaped my mind, and the first thing I did was do Internet searches on Madonna. I spent hours investigating all the various websites in dedication to her, saving pictures and printing them off. The Internet became just as big an obsession as Madonna did. The two things saved me from what was to happen in the next stage of my life.

As school commenced, people still weren't talking to me. Eventually I'd found out that a supposed female "friend" of mine felt it necessary to - whilst we were all on camp - tell the High School Jocks (whom, oddly enough, I was striking up a friendship with) that I was gay. Their Girlfriends were turned against me, I was thrown up against lockers and had "FAGGOT" spray painted on my locker (quite original considering it was shortly after an episode of "Dawson's Creek" in which the very same incident occurred.) It was an absolute fucking nightmare. I skipped school for days. I'd get dropped off out the front of school by my Mother, convince a friend to skip class with me and we'd head off behind the Milk Bar near our school, sitting there in our uniforms, smoking cigarettes. When I got home, Madonna's music (and the Internet) helped me escape from the horrors of High School. It was a constant hellish battle, but that didn't stop the songs of Madonna from making me forget all about it. Mind you, I had some spectacular friends in high school as well, two of whom I'm still close with (and one of them who - like my friend from Primary School - will be one of the select few Best Friends I'll have for life) who also helped me through the madness. We were just crazy together, all going a bit mental in high school, and leaned on each other for support. There were things we couldn't tell our parents about, or discuss with older people to find out how to deal with things, so we confided in each other. High School is a fucked up experience for most people, but we may have made things slightly worse by drinking, smoking, and taking drugs - not exactly the greatest things to be doing at that time of your life. But we sure did have a lot of fun which - in turn - made us forget about the bad times awaiting us once the weekend was over.

As I grew older, musical trends came along and flew off again. I was still buying Smash Hits & TV Hits well into my Senior High School years, even though Madonna was appearing less and less in them. I stopped buying the teen mags on a regular basis in about 1999, when I'd realised that the content (which I would read word for word, every single issue) had decreased to such a condescending level that it was clear it had all been written to cater to 7 - 10 year old kids only interested in free stickers and pencil cases. Not that I never enjoyed the free gifts, but I was a year away from getting my drivers license, so having a fluro-Pink pencil case with the Smash Hits logo on it wasn't exactly what I was looking for in a pop magazine. Thankfully, the Internet was in full swing by now and I had enough Madonna websites bookmarked to be kept up to date on her happenings and - most importantly - photo shoots.

In early 2006, Madonna's Re-Invention Tour Documentary "I'm Going To Tell You A Secret" aired on MTV in the US. Within a few hours, I had downloaded a torrent of the Doco, and by the end of the week I'd watched it about 10 or so times. With each viewing I wanted to change my life and the things around me that little bit more. With each viewing, I discovered something about myself that I wasn't even aware of. As the viewing tally grew larger, my thoughts, dreams, aims, missions in life, they grew higher and higher. I had remembered some of those very dreams I held as a child, and even discovered a few new ones. By the end of 2006, after not being at school for over 6 years, I decided I was ready to apply for a 3 year course, majoring in Media & Communication and Journalism at University. A decision I'd have not made were it not for Madonna's documentary. Watching her visibly changed and grown up on screen, talking about dreams, talking about life, talking about god - things I'd honestly lost sight of well into my teens - it was life affirming. I cry my eyes out every time I watch that documentary, but they're never tears of sadness, it's always tears of joy.

I wouldn't say I've turned into a Hippy. God forbid. But I'm certainly more aware of what's going on around the world now, am more interested in politics and reading about the tragedy of war going on around us. I'm more aware of Global Warming. I'm more aware of Environmental Issues. I'm more aware of the severe water problem we have in Australia - particularly in Melbourne - in which we currently only have 542 days of water stored in our reservoirs. Recycling paper, bottle and can goods is essential. I make note pads out of the scrap paper which would otherwise be thrown away at work. It's astonishing how many note pads I go home with each week. Saving water by cutting your showers down to a 4 or 5 minute time length is essential. Voting at the next Federal and State elections is essential. If I'm going to continue to grow as a person through the next few years, I want to be apart of selecting who's going to run my country. I want my voice heard in that respect. I've never felt that way before, but 2006 was the year in which I began to grow up. I honestly doubt it would have happened so quickly were it not for the visual aid of Madonna in that documentary, in which Madonna puts it brilliantly by stating "I don't miss being an idiot". And I really don't.

Watching the Confessions Tour DVD in full earlier this year is also a moment in which should be discussed. When it was shown over Thanksgiving last year in the US (and ended up as a torrent download on my PC), I watched that edited version countless amounts of times. Since the promo of the DVD release of the full, unedited show, I could probably tell you at exactly which moment the woman does a particular dance move. That's how many times I've watched it. I've probably listened to it more times as well, thanks to the audio recording of it on my work computer. Without any shade of doubt in my mind, her Confessions Tour is by far the best thing she has conducted stage wise in her career. I'm in absolute awe with each screening of it, picking up a new "favourite" thing within it every day.

I'm not one for children. The thought of having my own is not a thought I'd like to put into motion. Maybe when I'm older, but right now, it's a definite no. So you won't see me pushing a stroller with an African baby named David in it. But that hasn't stopped me from trying to help as much as I can. After viewing "I'm Going To Tell You A Secret" for the millionth time (and shortly after Madonna adopted baby David), I made enquiries into sponsoring a child in Africa through World Vision. Starting in April, I'll be donating a small amount of money each month in aid of a child in Africa who has dreams, hopes and wishes just as I did at that age. These wishes and dreams may not be the same as mine, but they're his or her dreams - everyone is entitled to seeing all their hopes coming to life, why not this little boy or girl I'll be sponsoring? Hopefully the little amount of money they receive from my pay cheque every week will help them grow into a positive, healthy person. One full of life and filled with dreams of living in a better world... of becoming a better person.

The same person Madonna has helped me become.

Labels: Madonna

• 1 comments

1 Comments:

• 7:42 PM | Kirkland said...
  That's no story, that's more of a good essay! I think it's easy for us fans to be labelled as nutters because we seem to accept whatever Madonna gives us BUT I totally agree with you when you say the following: [i]but "Till Death Do Us Part" - a song which conjures up a ridiculous amount of emotion just talking about it even now - was a raw, heart-wrenching, sad and violently truthful look at a marriage facing its final days.[/i]
  
  I was listening to that yesterday but sheer coincidence and it's really amazing isn't it? That and Oh Father always get me 'there'. I think as a love letter to Madonna, your column has that nice personal touch. The Grunge Years were not very kind to Madge as you say but she is always challenging the status quo and even at her weakest, she's still worth more than most.

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