An Audience with Her Madgesty

Tonight is Madonna at the Staples Center and I could not be more excited. Nearly 30 years of listening to her (not an exaggeration - horrors. Someone please pass the sunscreen and a tequila chaser, stat) and I've never seen her live!

Some may say her cryogenic state does not count as "live". Save it, haters. Your crafty cynicism means nothing to my 9-year old self, who is bursting with anticipation because all I wanted in the whole world was True Blue on cassette but I wasn't allowed to listen to Madonna because her music was "inappropriate" and everyone owned it but me and it was agony that anyonewhowasanyone got to rock out to it in their bedrooms WHENEVER THEY WANTED while I had to huddle cunningly over my boombox and listen to American Top 40 on the lowest volume possible, record the forbidden hits on a blank tape and then hide the tape under my bed, to be listened to only when my parents went out for the night. This deception was exhausting (but necessary, because who can live in a world without Papa Don't Preach?) and it went on for months until finally, almost a year after True Blue's release, I arranged for Liz Peloso to give it to me for my birthday, fully confident that good Christian values would prevent my parents from refusing a gift. And I was right! They didn't say anything and for the remaining 30 minutes of my birthday party I held my prize and even got to unseal the plastic and breath it in (remember how fantastic new cassettes smelled?) and expand the paper insert to marvel at the pictures and dedications. I had won! A coup for Manipulation! I squirmed impatiently as my friends said their goodbyes. Leave, you ninnies! Can't you see I have a victory to celebrate? As soon as the last of my friends was picked up, I slipped out of the kitchen to bolt up to my bedroom but was promptly intercepted at the bottom of the stairs. With a stern look from my father that set my cheeks on fire - I knew he knew I'd wagered their good graces - I handed the cassette over. True Blue was confiscated. 

I eventually found it in my parents' room and held on to it, careful not to advertise that I was listening to it but keeping a well-rehearsed argument on the tip of my tongue should they ever confront me about taking it back. They never did. When I was younger, I assumed this was because they had seen the error of their ways; that somehow my reasoning had penetrated and they realized the music was harmless after all but didn't want to admit that I'd been right all along. As an adult, I'm pretty sure they just forgot :) 

But none of it matters tonight, my loves! Tonight this Material Girl is gonna Get Into the Groove and oh forget it, this wordplay is way too much trouble. I have drinking to do!