Falling Asleep To Madonna, and the Sister Sue Book Club
Dare to Tell the Truth: Madonna Album Flop
I hate marketing. And I must admit, I’ve been an inflictor of the first order during my youth, on behalf of many publishers and studios.
I couldn’t always make a living writing, so I turned to the dark side. I have flogged other people’s work for money.
What a racket.
Madonna Ciccone has a new album relase with a 8-figure marketing budget. Nice, right? I have been in the corridors of expensive market manipulations myself, in book publishing and feature reporting. With all the hoop and la.
I understand quite well how the actual “product” (a music recording in this case) can be mediocre, unmemorable— and yet dominate the culture news for weeks, as a real triumph. It sucks all the air out of the room.
I remember crying to my editor Bill Tonelli once about getting a harsh review in Esquire for my newest title, and he chided me: “Please. Only 12 books will get reviewed this year, and yours was one of them.”
He’s right, it’s a miracle to get a widely-read review. And that was back when America had thousands of book reviewers.
It kills me how much unheralded good music, was released or performed this last month, NOT by Madonna, and no one wrote about it, in the national press. I feel so lucky when someone passes a rare word-of-mouth recommendation to me.
Madonna’s Confessions 2 will not be anyone’s closely-held shared secret. The record is boring, especially if you insist that this is about, DANCING. Or “confessions,” of which there are none. I fell asleep playing it.
Have you seen anyone dancing to the Madonna album in the streets on a hot summer night? No, you have not. And you will not. This slop is no C+C Music Factory.
Madge and I are the same age; I was a club dancer and sex radical when she was a hustler; I remember those days and those clubs. I love that she is finally enough of a big girl to admit that fucking her brains out with the DJ, et al, and doing coke was all part of the game of getting ahead for the determined young star. No one cool holds that against her. She was an earned-it enfant terrible.
I loved the Madonna that we saw in Desperately Seeking Susan. A conniving little bitch, fag hag of the first water, ingenious, and soooo cute. Running the bus station restroom air blower on her pits. I liked that girl, even if you knew she would wear you out.
Of course we heard, early on, of all the bodies Madge climbed over, all the originals she ripped off, but for the casual queer onlooker, she was our generation’s Lana Turner. She was trained by Martha Graham, she had good taste in beats, and Vince Lombardi’s skill in exploiting talent. There are so many interesting things she could be doing at 68 years old— (hello Patti Smith, hello everyone) — but she is only in the news for plastic surgery, bullying her producers, family and friends, and nursing narcissistic wounds. Music? Transcendant Dancing? Please.
How do publishers/producers convince the press to make them look good? That is what I’m delving into on my podcast today.
The details are always various, but the media can be bought off with “access” to celebrity smoke, in exchange for a warm welcome, glowing reviews, etc.
And by smoke, I mean the actual “time” any reporter will get with Madonna (or any celeb) is vaporous. No, she doesn’t write her own press. All the “poignant backstories” to the various songs are copy-written months earlier.
Yeah, more details on my ‘cast.
What am I listening and dancing to, of great quality?
the best thing that ever happened in Santa Cruz Club life. This saved my July 4th weekend. Yes, the Catalyst is being shuttered, the rumors are true.
early San Jose recording of Sly and Family Stone is to die for — I got this on vinyl too
like a Texas version of You Can Keep Your Hat On: J. Plank and G. Rhodes
First reissue of the pioneering Hiroshi Yoshirmura’s 1986 ambient blowout
Sister Susie Book Club - Strangers Up Next
Okay, great idea; you asked for it:
My in-person library book club now has a online sister! No need to cry you can’t get to Santy Cruz. We’ll do it together on Zoom, too.
Susie’s Zoom Book Club and Story Hour
July 19th, 4pm PST
Every third Sunday thereafter until Xmas
We will open with Strangers, by Belle “Big Bucks“ Burden. Talk about a marketing rollout. Interesting though, because her book got grass roots traction because as a work of craft, of mystery, it’s good. It will be read, after the circus rolls on.
I don’t think Belle had any idea that her memoir/mystery would open up a scorched conversation about heterosexuality and the nature of money itself — let alone why “making a sandwich” can be the last straw before the dam breaks.
What would Ibsen‘s Nora say?
As soon as you register for our online bookie-club, I’ll send you the tips sheet with all the critical hot takes I’ve been reading on Strangers, the conspiracy ghost writer theories, publishing dirt, and titles from centuries ago that generated the same scandal.
HOW TO REGISTER FOR SISTER SUSIE BOOK CLUB
All annual paid subscribers are invited. If you’re on board, you don’t need to do anything!
I’ll email you a Zoom link a couple days before club time, with a reminder.
If you aren’t YET an annual paid subscriber, just start one up, or upgrade your plan.
(By upgrade, I mean, if you are a monthly subscriber, I’d like you to switch to an annual plan. ==And yes, of course you can cancel at any time).
What do you bring to club?
Bring your third camp analysis, off-color questions, anything! No, you do not have to read the whole book; let’s get real.
Video
Below is a a video telling you EVERYTHING about our monthly book party . . . all the books we’ll be reading and hashing together. Thank you for the inspiration.
In Case You Missed It
My Little Runaways
I’d never forget the day my ex told me to check out the trailer for The Runaways.
It’s a privilege to be able to promote something brilliant. The times I got to do that? The Autobiography of Malcolm X, Che Guevara’s backlist, Margaret Atwood’s oeuvre, Charles Bukowski, Frank O’Hara. i mean, I was SO LUCKY to produce and promote such incandescence.
What’s something that was dumb that I flogged?
Nothing really awful. One time I promoted a James Gandolfini biography that SHOULD have been a proper homage, but it wasn’t. I felt bad for his memory!
I promoted many romances on audio that make me cringe. They make their own authors cringe.
I was a force in promoting a Canadian scientist’s work that described the contemporary understandig of carbs in diet — very insightful— but I felt terrible that it became a bestseller because everyone is so hysterical about losing weight. Ugh.
The reviews for Madonna’s new album have been sensational from the usual suspects. I was the first newspaper writer in NYC to interview her when she had just released “Holiday” as a 12-inch. I used to write about modern dance as well as music, so took note when she said she danced with Pearl Lang. i mistakenly wrote she studied with or spent time with Lang’s dance company. She exaggerated; she took a few classes at Lang’s studio. Her whole public life has been like that. And it didn’t have to be. For many years she delivered the goods. A legacy soured by extreme narcissism.