Maiden, Madonna, Crone- (or, How Madonna Taught Me to be a Fearless Writer)

Maiden, Madonna, Crone- (or, How Madonna Taught Me to be a Fearless Writer)

It’s hard to be a writer for many different reasons, but the fact that your parents might read what you write is no small censorship. The truth is, you often feel naked and exposed or embarrassed by a harsh opinion, a contentious phrasing, or good old- fashioned sex. But if you stopped writing those things just because someone might read it, well, that would defeat the whole purpose, now, wouldn’t it?

Well, I’ve always learned from the best. What if Madonna had run back to Michigan and given up the first time she met with opposition? What if she threw in the towel the moment she made a misstep? What if she had thought, gee, I can’t do that, my dad wouldn’t approve? Thankfully Madonna paved the way for us to be all we can be, and those who find her somewhat hard or brazen might do well to recall the tremendous drain of being the most famous woman in the world. It’s bad enough when they love, love, love you…but what about when they hate you?

Scandal is one thing, but that’s just a bit of blushing. It’s more difficult to stand naked in public with certain opinions, and find yourself unpopular. Contending with venom, or plain old hurt feelings, is hard for me to do- it is a fault of the sensitive bipolar to take everything very personally. It’s not easy to be super-sensitive and have a big mouth at the same time.

Of course, I had never anticipated any of this stuff, because up until I began to have a readership, however humble it still is, my idea of ‘fearlessness’ was getting my ears pierced fifteen times or wearing a Marshall Mathers t-shirt.  The writing part is easy- being read is far more difficult. And so I practice remaining open to

mixed-media by Lorette C. Luzajic

change: only a fool never changes her mind. I practice knowing you can’t please everyone all of the time. I practice standing firm for the convictions that aren’t negotiable. I practice drawing on a renewable resource of strength instead of buckling, because I’m going to be doing this for a very long time. It doesn’t matter if my bravado is just an act, and behind it lurks a very shy woman. I’m going to need it, so I best practice using it.

No fear, no fear, no fear. Recall that Madonna started insisting on women’s right, no, her obligation, to pursue full spirituality, sexual liberty, and creative recognition at a time when we were still supposed to submit to a man’s headship and vote for whatever he did. (Oh… we’re still there….) Today it’s commonplace to see naked women in the entertainment business, and so we forget. If Madonna had gone sobbing to her ladies knitting circle the first time they called her a slut, where would we be? Possibly nowhere. If she had faded into obscurity security the second they called her a faggot lover, where would civil rights be today? We can’t know.

Way back when, Madonna was a mouthy teenager in a billion rubber bracelets and not much else. Today she is blowing up that last frontier of stereotype. AGE. We razz her for trying to disprove she’s a washed up starlet, an aging rock star, for fighting her wrinkles with expensive creams promising the fountain of youth. We accuse her of trying too hard, being so over, of being past her prime, of being totally sexless, of being old enough to be a grandmother, bla bla bla.

Excuse me?

For those of you too dense to see the reign of Madonna as the mythic incarnation of the goddess, let me spell it out for you. Having been named Madonna by her mother, not by herself, she was born to the role. The role begins with maiden- you know, like a virgin. It continues to motherhood- you know, suddenly she started penning all those lullaby songs. Now it’s on to crone.

Maiden Mother Crone, the original trinity. It’s a tremendous duty to be the goddess in the public eye. Some still yammer such petty and ruthless idiocies like, “I don’t know why she’s so famous, when she has no talent.” Her talents clearly range from pop ditties to staying power to extreme yoga, to marketing, to choreography, to video making, to dancing…so what if she wasn’t the best actress? She tried. And so we, her minions, can be empowered to try new things, even if we fail. To explore the outer reaches of our powers, to discover our strengths and our weaknesses.

Now as Her Madgesty sails through fertility into menopause and older age, she shows us that we can continue to be productive, funny, creative, sensational, experimental, and fully sexual beings. She shows us that we may endure humiliations like divorce and disappointment, but not to just lay down and wait for death. Live, live, live.

It’s too bad that Guy was such a fuddy duddy. Their relationship is not my business, but I always wondered what she saw in him in the first place. He seems nice enough, but far too average. Of course, in the mother stage you long for stability, and you fancy that it might be somewhere outside yourself. A nice guy seemed like a safe bet after so many torrential bad boys and whirlwinds. Madonna’s husband, whoever it would be, should surely have been intelligent enough to know he would always be Mrs. Madonna, and that he’d better take that like a man. Instead, we get a pub scruff mumbling about how her body is like a piece of gristle, and she’s not all cuddly and not a stay at home mom.

Er, no. To be a woman of this kind of power, you unfortunately do need to work out five hours a day. I’m grateful that to do my job, I merely have to tend to my carpal tunnel issues. To work the stage like Madonna does, you need the training of a professional athlete with the practice of an acrobat. I’d love to see her a bit softer, too, and we might in her last years. But remember what she said: “This is who I am, like it or not, you can love me or leave me, but I’m never gonna stop.” Not even old age is going to keep her from raising the roof every time, from being the centre of the biggest show on earth. She will never just stand there and sing- remember? she can’t sing anyway. She takes her limits to the limit every time, using her body in every conceivable way.

So what do you do when you are a fifty year old Madonna and your bland, smarmy husband dumps you? Well, you head to Brazil in the biggest hussy wig you can find, and take up a torrid affair with a boy named Jesus, of course. Perfect.  Brazilian porn actor and model Jesus Luz has the kind of muscle definition any cougar worth her salt dreams about. Rippling, tan, with intense eyes, he was the perfect accessory for her Old is Sexy campaign. Hear that girls? We get better with age, and won’t have to worry about making babies, amen! I bet Madonna is not as pretentious as some conclude- there is a great deal of camp in the things she does, a deep vein of humour. Indeed, she said so herself: “You only have to have half a brain in your head to see that I’m quite often making fun of myself.”

What’s not funny is that to live out loud for a female still means cruel whispering, and worse, death threats from men who are completely threatened by the power of the goddess. The crone is the most frightening of goddesses, because she cannot be bound by virginal naivety or biology/pregnancy. She outlives her consorts. You can’t lock her up or knock her up. She is too old to worry what people think, so social sanctions mean diddlysquat.

“I will have the honour of to be the first one to cut the head off Madonna,” said the Palestinian leader. While certainly Madonna’s nouvelle-ancienne Jewish mysticism must miff a country scorned by Israel, all evidence guarantees that if Madonna embraced Islam, the tables would be turned. Come on, now, are the ancient wars in the Middle East, raging since Bible days, entirely the fault of this one woman? That said, he is inadvertently acknowledging that she has many heads, like the timeless Hecate, if he should be the “first” to cut it off. Hecate: maiden, mother, and crone.

Now the only death threats I’ve received have been from that fount of compassion, the life-loving vegans, for some food writing where I had the audacity to suggest that the human heritage diet is omnivorous. That was unnerving enough, but it wasn’t an influential leader of a furious country threatening me, nor was it the public at large. It would be terrifying to face the public fury after such grand scale trespasses. Recall that there is no greater sin than blasphemy, a convenient way for the church or government to assert that their interpretation of mystic events is the only way.

The very idea that there’s only one faith, or only one way of interpreting The Book, sprung up because the patriarchs of Mesopotamia and the surrounding regions wanted to stop the goddess worship of the time. Think about it: Iraq, today’s battleground, hides beneath its blood soaked soil all the secrets of Sumer, the first civilization, where the goddess reigned supreme in temples miles long. Purging pantheism was never entirely successful, but in the old days, it meant the only god left was a thundering war God who avenged and smote every city and left no one alive except the virgins, whom his people could make use of as they willed. Whenever new (old) philosophies began to surface, the monotheists burned/looted/stole/destroyed the literature, but some survived because they were so busy warring over the finer points of their own faith, killing one another over an interpretation of the same damn god.

No, I’m not implying that the days of primitive cults and goddess worship were not bloody. That’s a utopian dream. We’ve always used mythic names and ritual stories to explain things we don’t understand, and so her many names were also associated with storms as well as with fertility and harvest. War would rage regardless, with or without religions, but the danger of a ‘god said so’ kind of religion is that people are willing to kill and die for some apparent reward in the afterlife, without instead sorting out the issues here and now, whatever they might be. No era has ever been perfect, but with what we have evolved to become, with the information and affirmation we have, it is feasible to have an egalitarian society at long last without one gender or one ethnic group or one religion being threatened.

It was Madonna’s fate to carry out the terrifying and monumental task of encouraging society to evolve until the point where women would feel their power. While stuffy governments were still deciding whether it had been wise to let black people sit at the front of the bus, and church elders were squabbling over whether unbaptized babies go to heaven, Madonna was blasting the airwaves with empowerment and unity for all. She was unafraid to touch a black man, an AIDS patient, or herself. She put racist, sexist, homophobic garbage in your face, and then threw it in the dumpster where it belongs.

Dismantling the cumbersome terror of sex was no small task. Women have been the gateway of the devil for so long, disposable garbage, good for nothing but ensnaring godly men, that it’s high time the world had a mama who taught us how to use it or lose it, all the while engaging the rest of our brains and imaginations, too.

Listen:

Woman is man’s destruction, Tertullian said. “Woman is a temple built over a sewer, the gateway to the devil. Woman, you are the devil’s doorway. You led astray one whom the devil would not dare attack directly. It was your fault that the Son of God had to die; you should always go in mourning and rags.” Thanks a lot, Tertullian. Or the ‘great’ Augustine: “Only man is in the image of God.” So much for protestant “reform”- John Knox wrote, “Woman was made for only one reason, to serve and obey man.” His follower, John Wesley: “Wife: Be content to be insignificant. What loss would it be to God or man had you never been born.”

It’s 2009. Now that we know that famines and plagues and the crucifixion of Christ did not happen because women were screwing Satan, we can carry on with our evolution.

And so, Madonna, the angel of apostasy rose forth, carrying the name of the only surviving goddess in the monotheist tradition, disguised as a bratty dance student. Who knew she would be known the world over as the whore of Babylon, even as the hatred toward the fountain of life was dissipating, slowly but surely. Oh, it’s still out there- we are, after all, only in the first century of equal rights for a paltry few countries of the whole world, for the first time in about five millennia. And though Christian Dominionists want to restore Old Testament law and enforce the death penalty for apostates, unchaste women, adulteresses, and homosexuals, perhaps Madonna has taught us well and we won’t let them have us back. Freedom of religion, freedom of sex, freedom of race- these are basic human rights, and Madonna’s been mixing and matching ‘em for quite some time, now. And we’ve been front row centre for her private spiritual journey, too, from spoiled megalomaniac to mistress of Malawi. Madonna insists you can be old, sexy, fit, rich, and still follow the true words of Christ: feed the poor.

Some have said Madonna has a hardened heart, but if she were as vulnerable as I am, she would have offed herself a long time ago, against that constant barrage of fury and controversy, and the exhausting drainage of giving everything you’ve got and us all wanting more. To carry out her fate, she’s had to have ruthless moments, and she’s also human, a particularly ruthless species if I recall correctly. In fact, she’s strong enough to carry out the role, and has asked generations of fans and foes alike to question everything, to vote, to ‘don’t go for second best,’ to

Pretty AND smart!

take control of our bodies and sexuality, to flaunt what we’ve got, to explore spirituality, to fix our mistakes, to accept our bodies, to push them, to refuse limitations, to speak against racism, to refuse sexism, to refuse homophobia, to use our wits and our brains, to grow and learn, to read, to love without fear.

Maybe her ex-husband has personal and realistic reasons to see her as hardened ‘gristle,’ as a tin woman with a tin heart. But I see that as only one guise in the thousands of facets of Madonna/Ishtar/Hecate/Luna/Aphrodite/Venus/Medusa/Artemis/Ashera/Shakti/Freyja/
Sophia/Inanna/Kali/Isis (her names unto infinity).

She may not be the cuddliest grandmother ever, but not a piece of “gristle.” She’s a lean, mean dancing machine. I see bravado, courage, audacity, power, discipline, fury, determination, creativity, and persistence. Madonna’s mission isn’t over- and it’s hardly just her own career at stake, in my mind. She has come to fulfill something much larger, a terrifying and exulting fate. Perhaps I give one woman too much credit? Doubtlessly, there are many forces of freedom at work, in the law, in the home, in big and small ways. Yes, yes, yes. But Madonna reaches the masses in ways of considerable power, and her inspiration is huge. Who would I be if I had not hidden the True Blue cassette under my pillow, sneaking it along when I went babysitting? We were fundamentalist Baptists, and all I had to look forward to in life was listening to a man bark orders while I changed diapers. The Mother Goddess wouldn’t be allowed into my home or heart, even if I were to become a mother- which is, after all, the most sacred art, one that somehow got twisted into property and service to the man.

Instead, Madonna told me a secret- I could be anything I wanted to be. If I had courage, I could live the wild heart that was inside me, and become an artist and a writer with a progressive spirituality of reason. I could answer my calling instead of suffering through the cookie cutter life that society had planned for me. And I’d have to be brave enough one day to make mistakes in public, to tell the truth as I knew it, to speak against injustice, and not to be afraid to be naked, in more ways than one. My fate is to write, and I’m committed to that, to writing as if my parents aren’t reading it, even if they are.

It’s the height of tongue-in-cheek that Granny Madonna is now cavorting with a 21-year-old man named Jesus, in all his Adonis beauty and power. Is Madonna making too much of sex again? I don’t think so. I don’t think she’s trying too hard to be young again. That’s bullshit. She’s breaking down that last frontier, that old women are used up, washed up, frail, powerless, sexless beings just because their baby bearing days are over. It was one thing for her beauty and power to change the world while she was still like a virgin, and then like a harlot. Yes, she is showing the world that she’s not desperate, and nor is any other old lady. Sex and beauty are powerful at every stage of life, and a wrinkle or two can’t change that.

My critics will say it’s easy for Madonna to be sexy when she can afford surgery, makeovers, and clothing that we can only dream about. But I think she has worn so many various disguises (‘reinventions’) of mythology, from waif to whore to cougar to soccer mom for the very simple reason of revelation, revealing that artifice and masks may simply be ways to show us the soul. In theory, I could blame every Playmate model for appearing without a stretch mark or surgically fixing their sagging breasts. But I don’t. Instead I see the simple power of taking off my clothes, and see the possibility that stretch marks and lard and all, it might leave a man speechless instead of sending him running.

Indeed, it has.

We, too, are free to experiment with all of the guises and masks- and I for one love to play dress up, and dress down, and yes, I do have to put cover-up on my varicose veins. But I’m not going to hide in a potato sack because I’m overweight. Nor am I going to marry a Baptist boy because I should. I’ve been over both those things for a long, long time, thanks to Her Madgesty. Maiden, mother, crone- I embrace all three. It’s not over ‘til it’s over. Life begins at fifty.

Do not regret growing older.  It is a privilege denied to many.
-author unknown

Not bad for an old bag!

Visit writer Lorette C. Luzajic at www.thegirlcanwrite.net.

Shut up and Dance

An ambitious, attractive, intelligent man I respected deeply was shocked to find out that a big ol’ intellectual like myself has a penchant for celebrity culture. While I’m sure not immune to the junky, addictive qualities of glossy gossip rags touting the latest infidelities, rehab trips and rivalries that are none of my business, I do believe celebrity mania has much more to offer. It’s not just about superficial pleasures like the latest Oscar gowns- celebrities are arguably more important to the people than politicians, and to some extent, they always have been.

Being famous is not a job I would do well, and while my friend argued that overpaid celebrities are a huge part of the wealth distribution problem, something I can’t disagree with, there’s also tremendous inspiration from our public pantheon. This criticism of those who are wealthy for ‘doing nothing’ came from a man who supports sports. I might argue that acting and singing are valuable arts and that sports icons earning millions for shooting a puck are the true leeches of our gladiatorial bloodlust, but I won’t. Millions enjoy watching sports, even if I don’t.

My friend was especially horrified that I had fallen for Angelina Jolie, the suicidal wrist-cutter who kissed her brother at an awards ceremony. He was definitely ‘team Aniston’, which even from a sex-appeal only perspective, I don’t get. I don’t wish the nicety Miss Aniston any ill, but I couldn’t believe that “Joe” didn’t see Jolie as a woman of substance. While critics have opposed adoption mania as an attention-grab, I can’t judge the intents of a woman who puts her hordes of dough into dozens of charities, and travels to the places we’ve forgotten in order to help the sick and the hungry. Sure, Mother Teresa was appropriately poor- but then we judged her, too, for being too religious. Jolie admits that her film work is ridiculously paid, and that’s why she gives a third of her income to charities. In addition to endless human rights advocacy, she’s currently helping to rebuild New Orleans.

Diana was walking through landmine territory hobnobbing with the legless, giving gloveless touches to AIDS patients, and hugging Bosnians who had lost all their sons in war. She paved the way for the powerful to use their luck and talent to help influence those of us with less to do the same. Though the princess definitely liked sympathetic attention, who doesn’t? I can’t imagine paparazzi snapping at me every time I finally make it out to yoga or finally get a date. If that were my world, I’d want to lap up some positive press that might actually benefit someone.

We all fell into jeering at MJ (found innocent over and over again, yet we’ve ruined him forever-was he innocent? I’m not God). But the headlines forgot to announce his constant and generous donations to children’s funds- giving the term babylover a whole different meaning. Landmine, amnesty, and environmental advocacy groups might all be bankrupt if we relied on our leaders to fund and publicize them. We may criticize stars for their generous deeds, but we should start criticizing our leaders for their inactivity, rather than judging Oprah and Madonna for funding whole orphanages in a fell swoop. Through the years, Bono has single-handedly made charity work manly, not just the realm of chicks and cheese-ball metrosexy megalomaniacs like Sting (I say such things tongue in cheek, for despite my loathing for smarmy, ‘adult contemporary’ music, I respect all of Sting’s charity work.)

The rich and famous may still party like its 1999, but they’ve always been at the forefront of philanthropy. Josephine Baker began the whole adoption thing long before Jolie or Oprah were born. The richest black woman in the world before the big O became everybody’s mother, Baker was deeply eccentric. While she lavished diamonds on her pet cheetahs, she was also prone to paying the coal bills for whole villages, speaking out against racism next to MLK, and she gained notoriety for adopting 12 children from all over the world, her ‘rainbow tribe.’ Perhaps Baker was luckier than we are, being a millionaire and all, but she wasn’t just a lottery winner- she was an amazing icon, a pilot like Jolie, and a dancer of rare beauty, talent and drive. As a little girl from extreme poverty who once made her bed next to her master’s dog, she rose (and fell) publicly, and the intents of her heart are not mine to judge.

But I do judge, and recently fell into the fun of Paula-poking, as the world’s second favourite American Idol judge got speared time and time again for showing up drunk, slurring words, and sleeping with Idol hopefuls. It’s not just charity that celebrities move us to: what dancer, singer or writer grows up dreaming without their favourite inspirations? Famous people may be luckier than other talented people who remain undiscovered, but we wouldn’t keep working if we didn’t aspire to anything. It’s easy to blast Madonna for being loaded, but she sure wasn’t loaded when she got off that bus in NYC with $35 in her pocket, and neither are the minions who keep singing or painting through their own poverty, working on their art against all odds.

Paula’s motherly warmth on American Idol often conjures up public criticism that she’s a wash-up or has-been, a second-rate celebrity relegated to sitting on her big butt passing judgement, so we think we can do so at home, too. And we can, and we do, and that’s part of that gladiatorial instinct we all have.

It’s fun to make fun, but recently I was reminded of something I believe in but had forgotten- you can’t really know anything about a person unless you actually know them.

See, I also thought Paula was a cheesy wash-up with a secret pill problem (and people who are wash-ups with pill problems are people, too- people like our mothers, husbands, and children). I’ve changed my mind, though, because Paula’s story reads like Greek tragedy, though she refuses to harp on it for public sympathy or acclaim.

Her career began cheerleading for the Lakers when she was 18, and she was such a feisty team leader that she became choreographer for the cheer squad. The Jacksons picked up her dance expertise and leadership qualities when she was only 20. Abdul went on to choreograph just about everybody who had anything to do with the 1980s. Prince, Duran Duran, the Pointer Sisters, Dolly Parton, George Michael, INXS, ZZTop, Luther Vandross, and Michael Jackson sought her out for video work.

I’d thought Abdul’s only claim to fame were the cringe-worthy blockbuster hits Straight Up and Cold Hearted Snake- I thought wrong. It would serve me well to remember that a lot of work goes on behind the scenes, and not all artistry is visible. After all, only a small few have heard of me, and it may be that I never write a New York Times Bestseller (I’m not ruling it out, though). Still, I work without ceasing on my art and writing, and have for decades.

Of course, I’ve never had to type with broken fingers and hope I never do. I complain that I’ve had some rotten luck in life and I’ve felt strong and courageous for forging forward when I felt I was dying. But we might all take a lesson about strength and courage from Abdul, who didn’t cancel her concert tours when she had a broken leg.

While the syrupy pop formula of her singing work has never been my cup of tea, millions disagreed with me and made her into a platinum-selling artist. I can acknowledge her lovely, sugared vocal tones and admirable persistence without being fond of that style of music. Her concerts were about more than singing hits, though- Abdul is a dancer, and she got out there and danced with a broken leg and no one knew it. (Paula’s second album was called Shut up and Dance!)

She also survived after being hit by a drunk driver, and she survived a plane crash as well. This remarkable woman’s body took an endless chain of batterings from all kinds of unrelated incidents, and I don’t feel quite as sorry for myself as I did before I knew all this. How inspiring that a woman who was told she would never dance again time after time keeps on going. I can’t imagine the heartbreak of everything I have to offer the world being taken away.

In fact, after more than 14 major spinal and neck surgeries (for starters) Abdul was paralyzed and unable to speak. She was told she would never sing again. She still sometimes has trouble formulating thoughts or speaking correctly, spawning all kinds of cruel assumptions and speculations about her being drunk on set. To make matters worse, she was diagnosed with a rare disease called Reflex Sympathetic Dystrophy Syndrome, in which every part of her body is in extreme pain, all of the time. Some of the symptoms of this disease include pathological changes to the bone and skin, tissue swelling, and severe, burning pain.

Considering that I’m incapacitated every single month with the ordinary curse (and I still think that’s valid, given that I can barely walk) I give full kudos to someone who can be so kind and generous when she is constantly suffering. I give even more respect because she never whines about it, and rarely speaks publicly about her private pain. She did defend herself, much to public laughter, this year, saying she has never been drunk in her life, but she lets truth speak for itself if someone is willing to find it. She never whines or acts like a martyr. She just carries on finding new ways to work and never stopping.

It’s definitely part of the deal as a celebrity to have a rumour mill spin endless accusations, including the one where Paula (allegedly) inappropriately seduced a helpless teenage contestant (yeah, those helpless horny teenage boys). Of course she was cleared. Abdul is squeaky clean and it always comes out that way in the wash. There was that ‘hit and run’ incident that made nice headline follow up to the ‘hit and run’ lyric in Straight Up. Abdul spoke honestly of the incident as a side effect of the various treatments she tried in managing her physical pain. Laugh if you like, but the stuff you pop for fun on Fridays is a living hell for the people who need it (pain is why these things were invented, remember, and a perfectly noble reason for using them. Should Dilaudid not be available to cancer patients, but only to recreational users who later want to judge people who are truly suffering?)

Paula has lived much of her life in confusion, pain, paralysis, and exhaustion. Yet she never complains and constantly forges forward, mothering the nation with her warmth and wit, working behind the scenes in television, video, and film. She brings her extraordinary spirit into our living rooms each week. She could have long retired with her money to relax on endless beaches with endless fruity island concoctions and justify all manner of illicit drug use when the rest of us would have to confess we just did it for fun.

Though ridiculed when no one bid on her Meet Paula eBay auction for MS, perhaps that says more about our public inability to give than about this lady. The unstoppable Abdul also designs jewelry, works with kids who need more education, and speaks up for disaster victims.

I’m reluctant to call anyone’s public artistry or charity ‘a publicity stunt,’ even when it is. Considering, dear reader, that most of this is news to you, as it was for me, it’s hard to criticize Paula for attention-mongering. Let’s be inspired by stories like these to do our best even at death’s door. And let us also remember that celebrities may be public heroes, but there are plenty of similar stories right next door to us. How well do you know your neighbour? And who was it that said judge not, lest ye be judged?

Feud of the Gods

I missed what is now old news: Moby’s declaration of love to Eminem, after years of feuding between them over whether or not Moby’s music should be called “techno.” Seems the yappy rapper impressed the lily-livered sage with his anti-Bush rhetoric. I’ve been a fan of Moby’s music for a long time, but spent 2007 hopping around to Eminem and dreaming up ways that we could get together. Eminem used to offend me, too, and now I just can’t get enough of his dynamite. I think Moby is catching on, too, as he ages. Some gods are more theatrical, some more solemn. Each has his place. Britney and Kevin? Elton and Diana? Madonna and the rest? It’s just the feud of the gods.

Now Moby is more famous for his one minute on last week’s Daily Ten than he is for his baldness, unorthodox ethical life, and 20 years of innovative, exquisite music. “I love Eminem, and I decided if I’m gonna have feuds in the future they’re not gonna be with the most successful musician on the planet, who travels with people who have guns.”

Moby was not, of course, the only queer or woman to take offense at Eminem’s fag and bitch jabbery. Whole armies of human rights advocates were up in arms. So was Boy George.

Then again, Boy George and Elton John both made public their distaste for their own mother, The Madonna. Weird. It was just plain bizarre for Elton to poopoo Madonna’s live shows for lip-synching. Consider that if I am naked, dancing aerobically on the roof with acrobats and drummers, flying through the air, I may have to lip-synch here and there. But everyone knows Madonna does all the work that is humanly possible, all the time.

You would also expect a skinny white boy like Eminem to very realistically diss fags the way many cultural groups do- most certainly his demographic. It was refreshing to see Elton John get it right for once and join with Em at those infamous Grammy awards of yesteryear as if to say, “can’t we all just get along?”

I’m the quintessential fruit fly, born that way in my own way, and the view from here is this: Elton John performing with Eminem is building a bridge the way nothing else could be. Props to both parties for showing the truth: that showbiz is just showbiz. You gotta read behind the scenes. Music makes a world where Eminem and Elton can merge audiences in peace. In the Madonna era, we are the champions.

Hilarious that some of these same girls have got too big for their britches. That they dared to lash out publicly at Madonna! Oh, keep it to yourself. I mean, come on, Madonna made a world where I can spend my life in clubs with the fiercest and the finest. I can go to gay church on Sunday and watch Will and Grace with my best friends and their shih tzu Lola. I can drink frosted crantinis and still pick up men, because everyone mingles now like one big happy family. And those crantini girls? They’re a really married couple, because I live in an awesome country that affords my friends to make the same marital complications that I’m allowed. Elton was still in the closet until Madonna let him out. I mean, wow, ELTON JOHN tried to pass himself off as straight- kind of like Jodi Foster. Imagine.

So what was what’s his name? Yes, war is stupid, my silly bear. That’s why Eminem and Madonna put out powerhouse songs like Square Dance and American Life. So what was your sketch, honey? Oh, right- Madonna doesn’t do her own accounts and she should have dissed Eminem for saying ‘fag’ instead of giving torch to free speech.

Since when do we only hear what we want to hear? How little can we then know about human nature and behaviour? Besides, Georgia you’re a big girl now. You’re allowed to walk on the streets with those eyebrows without getting killed.

Here’s the deal: whatever our special subgroup, whatever our unique identity markers, we’re going to have to endure some blatantly irritating stories and insinuations, but we also get to tell ours. We MUST fight to keep free speech, not fight to censor the speech of someone we don’t like. It riles me up how much we take for granted: it wasn’t too long ago that I could not vote because of my pretty little head. I don’t have to be married or live as a man in order to paint. I might hear “bitch!” as I walk down the street. Bring it on. But don’t send me to a country where I would go to jail for showing my ankles. Come on, George, you should be going up to the guy and asking if he wants to talk about it, for crying out loud. Do you think there are ghetto kids home in from the streets, crying because Tupac said nigger?

The thing is, ladies, we need Madonna to remind us, like the great Mother that she is to all, that though gay music is indeed among her inspirations, the rest of the world is still breeder. And in that world is also eroticism, and oppression, and sorrow, and beauty, and those worlds must also tell their stories. I’m very happy to be among the shiniest gems in this city, but at some point I am also one of those fine breeder specimens (with a twist, of course!) with unique needs and stories of my own.

The point is, Georgie Girl, Eminem and Madonna are both a zillion trillion kabatetrillion times more spectacular, creative, talented, smart, and more adept at perceiving the world around them than you will ever be. Yeah, it was a blow to me as well, and I just had to accept that I will never be as celebrated as Madonna! And as soon as I understood that we have to have teachers, the easier it got for me to be humble. What could we learn if we were at the top of our game? Even Madonna learns, gleans, muses over and mulls. She knows she is not the only player in showbiz, even if she is the Lady Messiah.

Besides, if I were relegated to a life of nothing but the Pet Shop Boys and Erasure, I’d shoot myself in the eye. Don’t get me wrong, I believe the Pet Shop Boys are underrated and love their glossy, detached sardonicism. And Erasure is so happy and angelic, a true flame of positive energy making. But once in a while I’m going to have to mate. And when that happens, it’s either smoldering with Nina Simone’s blues, or Led Zeppelin maxed up on volume, or, well, Madonna’s Bedtime Stories.

I knew Moby was smart enough to come around, and that he’d come to agree to disagree and offer his respect. I’m not saying you have to love Eminem just because I suddenly do. I was very much of that mindset that I couldn’t tolerate the word ‘bitch’ and hence, I missed out on a lot. Then I figured it out. I do not have to endorse a certain headset toward any group just because I am capable of listening to elements of those groups through their cultural markers like music, film, art. But I sure as hell have to give props where props are due, and allow you space and audience to say your piece, so that I can also have mine.

Sigh- the last man I seriously considered running away with, the rippling army brat slash firefighter- expressed some surprise that someone of my awesome intellectual fortitude would give a flying flick about what Paris was wearing and whether Eminem’s 20 year relationship with his foster sister/wife was going to last.

Well, I wasn’t going to go anywhere if I wasn’t allowed to read my magazines! Most people are a little embarrassed about their celebrity fixations, perhaps guilty because they cannot name a dozen Nobel or Pulitzer winners. But I’m not ashamed. Guerrilla scholar and intelligence of the world, Camille Paglia, is also very candid about her worship of various icons, including Madonna.

By following the triumphs and tragedies of our stage and screen, we are merely re-enacting the great loves and the great feuds of the gods. Like Dionysus and Isis and Ganesh and Pan, like Medusa and Imanja and Thor- our pantheon is rife with vanities, insanities, jealousies, scandals, affairs, murders, adventures, broken hearts. Human beings have a profound need to deduce their world through the scandalous sagas of the gods and goddesses.

Ancient or modern, we do now and always will weave our stories within theirs. Moby and Eminem are just classical archetypes, finding their places after a dramatic rift. The escapades and sagas of the immortals are exactly the theatres we’re re-enacting. Academics can snivel at me, and turn into their soulless diagrams of the epoch of Horus or Tristan and Isolde.

But we live our life in archetypes, and today’s paparazzi zeitgeist is no exception.

November 2007
Lorette C. Luzajic
www.thegirlcanwrite.net
www.literaryaddict.wordpress.com
www.thegirlcanwrite.wordpress.com
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