like a virgin

madonna popped my cherry. um, i mean, i popped my madonna cherry. er, um, yeah, i mean, i saw madonna for my first time!

what was meant to be an outing for the ladies of leisure became a sisters plus brother-in-law/husband plus children/niece/nephew boston extravaganza (by no means any less or more pleasurable than an outing with eva and tracy).

because tracy was broke and eva has strict requirements for her viewing pleasure (see exhibit A),

exhibit A: we were seated in section 327, yellow, nosebleeds #9-12. eva ended up buying $$ tickets in montreal where she was seated around oh section j, blue, #17.

because derek has a list of artists he would pay inordinate sums of money to see (see exhibit B),

exhibit B: and because one day jennie was rocking out to borderline, and decided that she must see madonna too, jennie, derek, suzanne (me), julie, baxter, paige, and cocoa left for boston on thursday, October 16 right around noon time. (we were supposed to leave at 11, but the lowell/poirier clan wasn’t quite ready (surprise, surprise) and we had to rock out to a few songs from the immaculate collection before we headed out).

after a therapeutic stop at target (incredibly i only spent $50), we arrived at our posh suite in burlington, MA. i donned my madonna ensemble, made julie put on some girlie earrings, and made jennie put on an about-to-be-baby-mama cleavage-revealing top (sorry jen, the grey t-shirt was just not going to cut it for gussying up to go out to see the original material girl herself). derek even tried on the blue feather boa i’d brought for him, but opted not to wear it on the T. marta, super-babysitter (by no means any less or more superb than ashley, the super-babysitter), arrived, and the adult siblings were off!

what could have been a disastrous wrong turn and what was a deathly slow T-ride (hampered by a misplaced garbage can?), turned out to be fine, and we weren’t late! i was a bit grumpy (like the grumpy that a person might get when she is climbing up the steep steep, what seems to be perpetual, and actually is never-ending staircase, that is camel’s hump), until we were finally seated in our nosebleed seats (eva, you might be on to something – read her blog about her night & see her close-up pics here). we were to the side of the stage, and although screens were there for our viewing pleasure, the images that were being projected were backwards for us, since we were actually behind the screen. fortunately, i’m an excellent sdrawkcab reader. i was still feeling grumpy and like i’d been duped by citicard's promise that they had “special," pre-sale madonna sticky & sweet tour tickets. again, it all turned out in the end – we had a neat behind-the-scenes vantage point, got to see madge get her mic fixed, going down to the depths of the pit on her descending platform, and got to see her get in place and practice some moves before her rotating screen was turned toward the audience.

the show was one big ADHD-riddled person’s dream -- lights, music, videos, dancers, props, jump ropes, cars, pianos, ascending & descending platforms, costume changes, and of course madonna herself, who actually went from having no bangs to bangs. I don’t know how she did it (though magical bobbie pins could be the answer). madonna danced with an illusion of justin timberlake (i’d like to reiterate how grateful i am to him for bringing sexy back), sang with the piped-in vocals of kanye west, tricked us by switching her image with britney’s, and made a shameless plug for voting for obama, and I think kabbalah, though i couldn’t be sure because the 85 degree temperature (which she insists her venues keep the temp set to) was slightly frying my brain.

i could go on and on about how madonna jump-roped and double-dutched in high heel wedged sneakers, how she shook her fanny in old 80s style exercise shorts (see exhibit C), how her voice kind of trembled in a not-so-good way during borderline (i never said she was a good singer), how she is totally hot and buff and i’m not sure, but am almost positive that she’s had some plastic surgery, how we danced and danced and screamed (but didn’t cry), but i think you’re getting the picture (unfortunately, i can’t show you because they wouldn’t let me bring my camera in, though there were plenty of people who were filming with their cell-phones. you can be sure to catch those quality vids on youtube.)

exhibit C:

this was the set list with a few details from yours truly:

~intro/candy shop: this is where the stage rotated and madonna was revealed sitting in a queen’s throne holding a scepter and wearing white laced black f*ck me boots.~beat goes on
~human nature

~vogue: this is where we put our hands up to our face to make kind of like a picture frame around our heads.
~video interlude – die another day
~into the groove: this is where we screamed the loudest.
~heartbeat
~borderline: this is where i felt slightly embarrassed for madonna.
~she’s not me: this is where 4 different women rose from the platforms dressed as different madonna-era madonnas – there was the lacy white bride, the cone boobed voguer, the marilyn monroe hot-pink dressed, white-gloved material girl madonna, and the pin-striped suit, short-haired express yourself madonna.
~music
~video interlude – rain/here comes the rain again
~devil wouldn’t recognize you
~spanish lesson
~miles away
~la isla bonita/lela pala tutedoli doli (live interlude - romanian folk song)
~you must love me: this is when a piano rose from the floor and madonna was laying on it in a huge black cape that revealed itself to be lined in hot pink when she finally flung it off of herself. this is also when I asked julie if this was the song from that argentina movie she was in.
~video interlude – get stupid (about saving the planet): this is when she asked boston if they’d registered to vote and told them to vote for obama.
~4 minutes
~like a prayer: this is when she let us sing.
~ray of light
~hung up: this is when the building started bouncing.

~give it to me (finale): this is when she left and the lights came on. i can’t believe she didn’t do an encore.

so, i’m no longer a madonna virgin. the highlight of my night could quite possibly be when i was recognized as the material girl. one, of many, gay guys cat-called out to me, “it’s madonna!” I guess my outfit was convincing enough for him. i struck a pose.