Maddyfest 2000 Brings on the Madonna Love

As Caty (now a "global strategist" named Cathryn) and I walk into the Downtown Athletic Center six years later, I realize that we never discuss the motives behind anyone's dress habits, our mutual philosophy currently consisting entirely of "if it feels good do it," and our one concern at the moment is whether or not Maddyfest will be laying on free booze. Madonna fans heavy drinkers? They must be!

On our way here Cathryn and I stopped off at Century 21, not because either one of us particularly needed anything, but because shopping is perhaps the ultimate and sometimes the last resort in female bonding. Even my mother, a woman whose favorite outfit was a t-shirt that said "no bullshit" and which she wore without a bra, took me into the city for a daylong shopping trip on my most memorable teenage birthday. Cathryn and I have been drifting apart for some time, but when she called my name from handbags and held up a black purse that was perfect, I knew she still loved me. I bought it, even though I was broke and it wasn't exactly what I was looking for, because I knew it would say I loved her back. Maybe the drag queens have it right after all.

We hadn't said all that much to each other since we left Century 21, and I was starting to feel uncomfortable, like we were on a bad first date. That's not how you are supposed to feel with your best friend. And if you do, you certainly are not then supposed to suggest they accompany you to cover a Madonna festival. "No, really, I wanted to come," Cathryn lied as she picked at the elevator's fake wood paneling. "I did!"

Soon we were sitting in the front row watching a relatively nondescript, 30ish Latino male lipsynch a song "from his new album." The fact that he was mouthing a few seconds off and his idea of "working it" was to hoist his left arm laboriously into the air every time he held a high note made him probably one of the worst performers I've ever seen. And because there were fewer than 10 people in the audience, he couldn't claim stage fright as an excuse. I was starting to notice that eerie whiff of death you'd get at bad high school parties, like "no one will talk about this one when we're gone?might as well be like we were never here."

I gently put my arm around Cathryn's chair and slowly turned to look at the rest of the crowd behind us. There was a set of 11-year-old twins drinking sodas directly to our right, in back of whom a very obese mother and daughter sat giggling. To their left a man in his 40s was sporting a black mullet with his hands clasped together and thrown to the side of his face, which was resting on a young teenage boy wearing complementary eye shadow and lipstick tones. I lingered a while on this last pair, although not for the obvious reasons, but because the older man was looking so intently at the person onstage it took me a few moments to recover myself. It was as if he were starstruck. Or lobotomized. In any event I expected him to begin weeping at any moment.

I turned farther in my chair and hit a table of goatee-clad, smartly dressed Latino men, who, I assumed, since they looked just like him, were with the man on the stage. Finally I took one last glance over at Cathryn, who was smiling like an encouraging soccer mom at the singer in front of her. Taking someone here who is drifting away is like handing them a motor and telling them if they strap that onto the back of their raft they will probably make better time. "I'm sorry," I mumbled. "It's okay, I'd turn and talk to you but the guy on stage is staring right me. I'm afraid of what he'll do if I look away," Cathryn said out the side of her mouth. "I can see him watching what I'm saying to you even now."

Somehow we escaped to the adjoining room, which turned out to be where the stalls were located. Peter Kantes, a dance instructor, was selling pictures of Madonna he'd taken when they were at the University of Michigan together. "I did her horoscope then and it said she was going to be rich and famous," Kantes told us after Cathryn prodded me to speak with him and "get some real quotes for God's sake."

When I asked Kantes if Madonna had changed a lot since she was 18, he got a nervous look on his face and paused for a long time. "She's very unchanged," he said finally. "She was always outspoken and aggressive. She used to write a lot of poetry, you know."

"Was she good?" Cathryn asked.

"Well, her poetry became her lyrics," he answered matter-of-factly. Always the diplomat.

"You know," I later told Cathryn, "one thing I always found cool about Madonna was that she moved to New York when she was only 19 and worked at a donut shop."

"Peter was trying to tell you about that!" Cathryn yelled. "He said he was the one who drove Madonna to the airport!"

"He did?"

"Yes! Then before he could finish you cut him off and said, 'So it sounds like you didn't know her too well, huh?' Didn't you notice how confused he looked?"

?

We sat in a daze at a dining table in the back and watched a couple of mentally challenged teenagers dance under the disco balls. "Are you Rebecca?" a rather heavyset Madonna fan with large black hair asked (most of the people I thought were drag queens there turned out to be women).

"No."

"Because I am supposed to meet Rebecca here, but I don't know what she looks like."

"What is she?" I asked. "Pen pal? Internet friend?"

We were, as at several other points during the day, on the verge of leaving, when something we couldn't seem to walk away from would happen. It was like watching that traffic accident show on tv?you just know a better wreck is right after commercial. This time it was a boy who appeared to be under 18 prancing around in front of the Stars and Stripes to Madonna's "American Pie," his designer shorts sliding down lower and lower to reveal more, or less, of the g-string beneath as he mouthed, "Can you teach me how to dance real slow?" I've said it before and I'll say it again?finding your identity is a long, difficult process. The two young girls swaying back and forth holding up either end of the flag behind him didn't look half as confused as they should have, and the framed portraits of Heisman trophy winners through the ages looking on from their places along the wall juxtaposed with that half-exposed, writhing g-string was by far the most surreal portrait of masculinity I've ever witnessed.

If I were able to put my finger on an exact moment, I'd say that was when things started to get Lynchy. Because instead of being appalled, I began hollering shouts of approval. I mean, let's face it, everyone gloms onto something to help them through periods of growth. Madonna was for this kid what the Clash was for me in high school, or what George Sand is for me today. If "Ray of Light" helps make the g-string boy realize that he is never going to marry one of the girls holding his stage prop (we hope) a little easier, fabulous! If wearing a tweed gentleman's walking hat when I write helps me feel more like a novelist, who gives a fuck?

The next thing I knew the fat girl with the black hair and I were chanting, "Karaoke, karaoke!" The older Cuban gentleman who was manning the buffet table in a white tux looked scared, and I could have sworn I saw the middle-aged, Upper West Side couple at the next table over raise a glass of red wine above their heads.

?

The last time Cathryn and I were into Madonna being her Desperately Seeking Susan stage, we were torn between "Express Yourself" and "Material Girl" when a nice DJ named Rio handed us the karaoke sheet. He said we could go on in 20 minutes. As Cathryn was relearning the lyrics to "Like a Virgin," we were shocked to hear Rio announce, "There's some live entertainment coming up, so don't go away," and realized he was referring to us.

"Maybe I should grab my breasts and scream, 'These are real, boys!' as I get onstage," Cathryn suggested.

"No I don't think that's necessary," I said, adjusting her shirt collar. "I've tried that line before in drag bars and it never quite has the same effect you think it's going to have."

"Well, where's that kid with the American flag and the g-string?" she demanded. "I need a go-go dancer!"

One thing I can say about Maddyfest, there was a comparatively short line for the ladies, which Cathryn used as a sanctuary until Rio called her. "What's my opening line to get the crowd excited?" Cathryn whispered to me. "I want to make these people dance."

I turned around in my chair again to gage our audience and saw the same 40ish man in a mullet leaning against the same teenager still looking at the stage (although now it was empty) with the same expression he'd had on his face a few hours ago. "Tell them that asses were made for shaking, not sitting," I said as she got onstage.

"All right people! Those abogles wble hagde..." Cathryn said, nervously flubbing her line as the intro began. "I mean," she added, "those asses were made for shakin', not sittin'! Now get up!"

A young boy with a Tommy Hilfiger jumpsuit and a size-B cup glided past in front of her on the dancefloor.

"All right people, get the fuck up off those chairs and start fucking dancing!" Cathryn threatened from the stage. I shot up like a bolt and began waving my hands over my head. She worked the room well and, despite the fact that her 20-cig-a-day habit made a couple of the higher notes sound like a car stalling, it was a success. I and the young black woman on my right?into whose face Cathryn had ground her pelvis while looking at the crowd as if to say, "You're next"?clapped wildly as she finished.

"Okay people! We're kicking off the karaoke portion of the evening," Cathryn announced, or should I say decided, as there was nothing on the program about a karaoke portion. "Now I want to see some motherfuckers get on this stage and sign up for some karaoke! Come on you fucks. I want... I've been cut off," she said looking down at me. "I think they turned off my fucking mic."

"Easy sailor," I mumbled, helping her off the stage and into a seat. "Let's calm down."

Not shockingly, there were quite a few people in the audience with a song to sing, and before the promoters could stop it another motherfucker, and another and another climbed onstage and grabbed the mic. Even better than the karaoke was the grandma who got up front and danced to every song. I'm not sure why, but no doubt there's an explanation: it's rare to see a woman who's also a true drunk. I mean a lush. A bum. Well this old gal, wearing a red, white and blue oxford in accordance with Maddyfest's patriot theme, was the female version of those old-timers you find at Doc Holliday's on Memorial Day. I thought she'd fallen in the middle of "Vogue," but it turned out she was just dropping to her knees for effect. She definitely went down in "Express Yourself" (during which the fat girl declared "love sucks"), but it wasn't until "Like a Prayer" that she hit the floor for good, and even then she kept rolling around in time to the music.

The showstopper by far was a shorter version of John Leguizamo in gold-chrome, Elvis-style shades (whom I'd pegged as mentally disabled earlier) doing "Material Girl." The number climaxed with him chanting "I am/the material girl" over and over. Periodically he would throw his head back, scream, "What's that smell?!" and simulate cunnilingus on the air in front of him with his outstretched tongue. It was one of those Cartesian moments when you're just sure you have to be making it all up in your mind, because there's simply no way it could be real.

?

Cathryn and I left shortly after "Material Girl," mainly because we were frightened we'd stayed that long. By the time we made it back out to the lobby there was a shooting pain running up the side of my jaw from laughing, and I was still wiping the tears off my cheeks. It was now Saturday night and both of us had planned on going out, but we decided to go home and watch a movie, because what were we gonna do that would top that? I for one walked away shocked to discover that a Madonna festival is the perfect place to take a best friend who's drifting away, although I've decided I prefer the term lifelong friend.

"God, can you imagine if Madonna would have seen that?" Cathryn gasped. "She'd be mortified."

"I know," I laughed. "That's almost the best part."