Dear Madonna, This Is Dumb

In my neighborhood, there are a lot of people who feel compelled to communicate their left of center political views on either the doors of their apartments or their cars. I’m aligned politically with most of their sentiments, but their expressions are so heavy handed, simplistic and insufferable that I’m usually left irritated and wanting to slap some McCain stickers on their doors.

Such is the case with Madonna this week. I’ve liked some of her music a lot over the years (she’s a tremendous singles artist) and have a lot of respect for her. She works her ass off. But when I read the following, my respect begins to drain:





AP:

As Madonna kicked off her international “Sticky and Sweet” tour Saturday night, she took a none-too subtle swipe at the presumptive Republican nominee for U.S. president.

Amid a four-act show at Cardiff’s packed Millennium Stadium, a video interlude carried images of destruction, global warming, Nazi dictator Adolf Hitler, Zimbabwe’s authoritarian President Robert Mugabe _ and U.S. Senator John McCain. Another sequence, shown later, pictured slain Beatle John Lennon, followed by climate activist Al Gore, Mahatma Gandhi and finally McCain’s Democratic rival Barack Obama.

Dumb. Really fucking dumb. I’m supporting Barack Obama for president, too. But this simplistic, puerile and nauseating associative tactic is stupid beyond measure. John McCain may support policies that have been disastrous for this country – but he’s not in a league with genocidal dictators like Hitler and Mugabe. It’s the same kind of bad/good, evil/Godly duality crap that the Bush administration used to gain support for its disastrous post-9/11 policies.

It’s this kind of sophomoric crap that gives liberalism a bad name. John McCain may be a lot of things, but evil isn’t one of them. Madonna, you're a really smart woman. Why don't you cut this stupid shit out? It neither serves you or your cause. Unless your cause is really about stirring up some bullshit controversy and showing that you can still be at the center of the news. If that's the case, you're a bigger jerk than I ever imagined.

Remembering The Rules

A happy and soulful New Year to you all.

On New Years Eve I went to a great party at a friend's apartment in Brooklyn. There were a lot of great people, great food, great drink and great dancing. As it happened, I was asked to DJ, which is not an unusual occurrence amongst any gathering of my friends. So I took my iPod and made a playlist that I thought would work; a combination of old and new rock, soul, r&b I thought the revelers would get into.

It didn’t work.

I forgot one of the two cardinal rules of DJ’ing for a party. Play the music people know and love. I had cued up a lot of great, but obscure songs, the kind of tunes that if I was playing them in a car with friends, they’d all say, “Wow! This song is great. Who is it?” I’d explain what songs they were, and I’d get to wow everyone with the depth of my impeccable taste and musical knowledge. But at a New Year’s party with a crew of thirty-somethings, playing an obscurity like Candi Staton’s “Heart On A String” just ain’t gonna work, no matter how great the song might be.

So, needless to say, we quickly switched it up, and on came the Madonna (“Into The Groove,” “Holiday”), Prince (most of Purple Rain), Justin Timberlake and other more familiar favorites, and then it became a sweaty dance party. It cooked.

So next time I DJ a party, I will remember the following; it is my job to entertain the audience and get their asses on the floor, not to turn them on to anything they haven't heard before. It’s about them, not about me. Because if it was up to me, I'd be playing most of Otis Blue.

Oh – and the other cardinal rule of DJ’ing for a party? Make sure the women are pleased with what you’re playing. Make the women happy and you’ve got your party made.

Actually, that’s a pretty good rule for all of life.