Back to the Beginning

I thoroughly enjoyed the time I spent over the last two weeks in the company of the queen of my universe, Madonna. Listening back through her catalog reinforced why she's played such an important role in my life for the past 15 years and why she's influenced the world the way she has for the past 30. She's an innovator, an experimenter, a trend-setter, a perfectionist and just generally kicks ass in every way possible (you can read more about my feelings about her Madgesty here).

There's no better way to sum up everything that Madonna is and does than through her performance of "Like a Virgin" from the 2006 "Confessions" tour. Having recently survived a horrific horse riding accident that left her with many broken bones, Madonna took to the stage in riding gear and road a carousel horse while singing about "being touched for the very first time" as X-rays of her broken bones showed on screens around the stage. She won't be knocked down.

Now that I've made it through the Madonna CDs, I've decided to go to the start of my CD collection and wind through the remaining 295 discs. Here's what I have on the list for the next few days:

The Doors "The Best of the Doors"
Guns N' Roses "Appetite for Destruction"
"Lies"
"The Spaghetti Incident"
"Use Your Illusion I"
"Use Your Illusion II"
Motley Crue "Decade of Decadence"
"Too Fast for Love"
The Eagles "Their Greatest Hits"
Don Henley "Actual Miles: Henley's Greatest Hits"

I did listen to The Doors this morning, which sent me on a nice trip down memory lane, back to junior high and high school when the band's music and Jim Morrison's everything reached out to me across all the anxiety, awkwardness and general low-self-esteem wonderfulness of being a young teenager. I thought about the words I'd memorized and wrote, the books I poured through, the number of times I saw that terrible movie, the Jim Morrison poster in my room, the Com 101 speech I made, listening to the music in the dark.

Henry Rollins, a fellow Doors fan, had a line about being young and thinking you're so deep, "Jim Morrison would dig me." I used to think that, think I could have connected with him over poetry, philosophy, art, music, but the truth is I never could. Growing up and being exposed to more healthy people and more damaged people, I've realized that charismatic, addictive, destructive people rarely dig anything, least of all themselves. If they did, they wouldn't be so keen to tear everything down.

On that front, Guns N' Roses epic "Appetite for Destruction" is now playing. I'm sure I'll have some reflections to offer on Axl & Co. in the next installment.

'Get Up on the Dance Floor!'

After a little bit of contemplating and a whole lot of procrastinating, I've finally moved onto the second chunk of my listen-to-every-CD-I-own project (still don't have a catchy name, suggestions welcome) and am now tackling my sizable Madonna collection.

I listened to "Erotica," the first Madonna CD and second Madonna release I ever bought (the first being "True Blue" on cassette), on the ride into work this morning. I'll go into this more at the end of the stack, but "Erotica" is a tragically underrated and wrongly vilified album that marked one more step on Madonna's path from pop tartlet to artist.

"Immaculate Collection" is currently keeping me company at work. It's hard for me not to be staggered by this package, the amazing number of hits she created over the last four decades that still hold up and the massive amount of other gems she recorded that didn't find their way onto the CD. Listening to songs like "Holiday," "Into the Groove," "Express Yourself" and "Vogue" sitting at a desk and not somewhere that I'd have the space and freedom to dance and sing out is more than a little wrong.

So here's what I have in store over the next week or so:

Erotica
The Immaculate Collection
Original Soundtrack: Evita
Ray of Light
Something to Remember
True Blue
Like a Prayer
Bedtime Stories
Madonna
Live a Virgin
Music
You Can Dance
I'm Breathless
GHV2
Original Soundtrack: Who's That Girl?
American Life
Remixed & Revisited
I'm Going to Tell You a Secret
Confessions on a Dance Floor
The Confessions Tour
Original Soundtrack: Vision Quest
Hard Candy
Sticky & Sweet Tour
Celebration
Glee: The Power of Madonna
MDNA (clean and deluxe versions)

Television Out of the Box at The Paley Center

I really do adore television. Because the stories are serialized and spread out over years, it's so easy to get attached to characters and locations and storylines. A favorite show is comforting and inspiring. It can connect you to other people and define an era.

My infatuation with television has really grown over the last few years. Though the total number of hours I spend watching television is currently at one of the lowest points of my life, the intense excitement I feel for the shows I do take the time to watch is strong. Getting to attend three PaleyFest panels this year (detailed previously here and the "Parks & Recreation" event at the Television Academy last year (detailed previously here) seemed to seal my new identity as a TV fanatic.

Fanaticism needs to be charged. Luckily, TV has delivered with stellar seasons from "Community," "New Girl" and "Parks & Recreation." I've gotten into interesting discussions with friends and online about what shows are cutting and what shows aren't at the moment. And, last weekend, I visited the Paley Center in Beverly Hills for Television Out of the Box, an ongoing exhibit celebrating Warner Bros. television.

The exhibit features costumes, set pieces, props, scripts, artwork and memorabilia from a number of Warner Bros. television shows and cartoons. Because the exhibit is going to be at The Paley Center for the next three years, the displays are going to keep changing so it's worth visiting over and over. Currently, the exhibit features displays from shows including "The Big Bang Theory," "Chuck," "Friends," "Fringe," "Gilmore Girls," "The OC" and "Smallville."

It's incredible the tiniest things from shows that are held onto. One display from my much-beloved "Gilmore Girls" had a room key and postcard for The Dragonfly Inn, the bed-and-breakfast Lorelei started with Sookie and Michel. The "Friends" display included a bag of Smelly Cat cat litter and The Geller Cup.

Looking through all these familiar pieces was a little comforting. I spent seven years invested in the world of Stars Hollow, the lives of its residents, so seeing a room key from The Dragonfly brought all that back—the fantastic writing, the lines I'd scribble down during commercial breaks to quote back to friends, the music bits, the clothes, the endless cups of coffee and on and on. It reminded me again how much I loved that show and made me miss it a bit, too.

Luckily, I have every season of "Gilmore Girls" on DVD and Verizon hasn't pulled the plug on SOAPNet yet, so I can revisit Stars Hollow any time I want to. Next time I do, I'll keep an eye out for one of those room keys.

Props from "Gilmore Girls," including a room key for The Dragonfly Inn and the engagement ring Luke gave Lorelei

Rory Gilmore's Chilton uniform

Central Perk from "Friends"

The Geller Cup

Sheldon and Leonard's roommate agreement from "The Big Bang Theory"

The Shelbot

A Chrismukkah card from "The OC"

Clark Kent's jacket from "Smallville"

Falling Under Russell Brand's Spell

I'm a fairly cautious, personally (not politically) conservative person so it takes me a while to warm up to anything. I don't jump on bandwagons; instead I sit back and carefully consider whatever new song, movie, TV show, major personality is rolling down the road and look to make a personal connection before committing.

And I do commit. I enjoy being a fan, collecting useless facts and amassing stuff—books, magazines, CDs, DVDs and so on. I didn't get into Madonna until the end of high school, more than a decade after she'd arrived on the scene, but proudly adore her to this day. My true love for U2 didn't solidify until 2001 because it was that album and that tour that found their way into my system and clicked.

It doesn't always take that long for me to catch onto or catch up with an artist. Maybe it took a year for my John Mayer enthusiasm to take hold with me slowly warming to the singles being released off of "Room for Squares" until the first time I heard "Why Georgia" and was sold. A similar thing happened with Alanis Morissette and Fall Out Boy. I've been disappointed by so many "next big things" that I prefer the frenzy to die down and the artist to prove him/herself to me before I buy the CD, book, watch the show, whatever.

My current late-to-the-party fascination is with the lovely Russell Brand. He's been known in the UK for more than a decade and has been gaining stature in America for about five years. I first heard him on NPR talking about his first book, "My Booky Wook," and his role in "Forgetting Sarah Marshall." I saw "Get Him to The Greek" in the theater (so rare to shell out to see a movie in the theater these days when it's so easy to catch something on near-repeat on cable).

He made a bit of an impression on me, I definitely thought he was interesting, but didn't give him much more consideration. That's changed this year, though I'm not entirely sure why. I saw him for the first time in February at the incredible Largo doing a run-through for his upcoming FX show "Brand X." Since then, I've sped through and adored both of his memoirs ("My Booky Wook" and "Booky Wook 2: This Time It's Personal"), dug up videos online (including his recent testament to a Parliamentary committee on the failed war on drugs), listened to his WTF interview several times, saw him in Eric Idle's star-studded "What About Dick?" (featuring the amazing cast of Eddie Izzard, Tracy Ullman, Tim Curry, Billy Connolly, Jane Leeves, Jim Piddock, Sophie Winkleman and Eric Idle) and pounced at the opportunity to see him again at Largo Wednesday night for another "Brand X" rehearsal.

I like Russell Brand because he's clever, he talks really fast, he moves all over the place and he makes amazing sense. On stage he'll talk about compassion for the homeless, throw in an aside about his own checkered past and play at being Morrissey in the span of a few seconds, and it's natural and sweet and funny and thoughtful. I could watch him and listen to him for hours.

His books have that same energy, which is why I think I was able to read through them so quickly. I started a journey with him in a rehab center near Philadelphia, wound back through his rough childhood, teenage years, the drug use, the drinking, the girls, his emergence as an artist, failure, success, burgeoning fame, growing notoriety, into drug rehab and onto a promising future so fluidly. Naturally, I highly recommend both books (particularly the first, for which he helpfully provides British-English-to-American-English translations).

I hung out in the Largo courtyard after the show hoping to get my copy of "My Booky Wook" signed and get a minute to express how impressed I am with him. I was fortunate to do both. In person, Russell Brand is so much more than I imagined him to be in words and pictures. His life experiences have led him down a yogic/philosophical/theological path that has made him so warm.

Most of the 200-ish people who came to the show also hung out in the courtyard hoping to get their moment with him. I think he stopped to talk to and hug every single one. I got a bit of time with him, telling him how fantastic I thought he was in "What About Dick?" (he did properly hold his own against that amazing cast) as he wrapped an arm around me to hug me. I talked to him about how much I enjoyed both books, how easily I could hear him reciting the words as I read along. He held my shoulders, locked eyes, thanked me for telling him that I enjoyed his books and gave me his full attention for that bit of time before he was off to be fully present to someone else.

Yeah, I'm sunk, sunk by this truly lovely man and his many, many words, his long legs, introspection, beautiful skin, fantastic cheek bones, throaty laugh and general cleverness. It took me a while to catch on, but I'm solidly a Russell Brand fan now. I must make a space for him on my cubicle wall with my other favorite boys.