Sheldon L'Henaff's Blog

I was beyond elated when it finally arrived in the post. I had been waiting for what seemed like forever since I had made the online pre-order. However there it was, the day after the re-release. I had opened the parcel from the UK and there it was sitting in front of me.

It was the super deluxe edition boxset of Oasis debut album Definitely Maybe. 20 years older and just as fresh and irreverent as it was when it first was released to an unsuspecting public.

This album more than anything had not only shaken up a country out what appeared to be a musical and cultural funk, Definitely Maybe had struck a chord in me personally. It was a sonic reaffirmation that I could relate to, especially since all of the song’s themes had really in some way or shape had really reflected on what I was feeling.

My introduction to Oasis came in the form of my shift manager at McDonalds on the corner of Dewdney and Albert in Regina. One afternoon as I was listening to what was playing in the background of our staffroom, a girl by the name of LJ was proofing what would be the second issue to a well done fanzine called Splishin! After listening for a few minutes she had explained to me that she had just returned from Vancouver after seeing a band called Oasis at the Commodore Ballroom. Her energy around this band I had never heard of was infectious. The next week she had made me a few tapes which included the singles and B-sides that was released so far as well as two gigs. One of them included the Vancouver gig that was broadcast on CBC radio the following week.

Listening to the gig and the energy that poured out of my speakers had really spoken to me. And more than anything this was turning into one of the first bands that in my teens I developed a feverish passion for. It was different and familiar all in one. Different from grunge, as familiar as the rock that was imported from the UK in the 60’s and seventies. At that time my musical diet was from the extreme of metal to the other of old school hip-hop. And in particular, one of the songs out of the bootleg cassette really had hit home.

“Live Forever” had become the anthem, my personal anthem. School would be finished in five months, graduating was right around the corner, and after spending three and a half years being more emo than when it became fashionable, I suddenly had a song that took the light at the end of the tunnel and shone it in my direction.

Shortly after that I went and purchased Definitely Maybe and studied it from beginning to end. “Live Forever” became part of a heavy rotation on my playlist. Going back and discovering their singles helped me discover a zealous passion that translated into almost everything I did. As a writer for the campus newspaper at the time, I had put together a three page article, complete with pictures and quotes. Anyone who knew me also knew how passionate I was about five guys from Manchester and the sound that had turned a nation on its head.

April 95 saw the release of “Some Might Say”. If there ever could have been a song that summed up those last couple months in high school, and the newfound hope I was starting to feel that finally, I was getting out, “Some Might Say” had summarized the mood of escape I had craved so badly. In a way it felt like a bookend to a chapter of my life, the next one which would begin back in Saskatoon and in University.

Months later What’s The Story (Morning Glory)? had come out. Again the songs resonated along with me, especially “Wonderwall.” For the first time in university, the words, “there are many things that I…would like to say to you but I don’t know how…” had made sense as for the first time I experienced my first same sex attraction.

I met Noel Gallagher in 1996 in Vancouver when I’d flown out to experience the show. It was enough for me to be determined to start my own band and write lyrics that seemed to have a Noel-esque vibe to them (I didn’t get very far). In addition I started to work on personal writing projects that I thought I may never share with the world. One of these was a fictitious variation of the brothers Gallagher, the other one was the beginning of the first draft to the follow up to Drowned World. Along with Oasis also came the introduction into other British artists, including the techno and house music that eventually found me at Diva’s nightclub in Saskatoon, and for the first time admitting to myself and to close friends the thing that had been put in gear back in 1996.

Be Here Now came out in August of 1997. There was nothing else that could have summed up my mood. I would venture out to Edmonton on my own for the first time that November, truly fall for the first time, experience my first kiss…

Subsequently in 2000, Standing On The Shoulders of Giants was released. I thought of this more album as transitory. I was one year away from moving out to Edmonton. The album to me had felt uneven. I would feel the same way about Heathen Chemistry, because in 2002 I was feeling the exact same way. For whatever reason Oasis had mirrored my life with high and low points during that time. When they released Don’t Believe The Truth in 2004, I was two thirds finished my first novel, and slowly beginning the first draft of what would end up being at that point novel#3.

I got the chance to see Oasis live again in 2008, just weeks before Dig Out Your Soul came out. It in itself couldn’t have been a more perfect album to mirror what was going on. I had experienced Montreal for the very first time, and had just gotten Drowned World to the publisher. It would still be another ten months before the book would finally make it into my hands. Like the first three albums. Oasis’ last album had really struck many chords with me, especially “I’m Out of Time.” When Oasis took the stage in Edmonton that August. It was nothing short of perfect. My friend who went with me had teased me for not singing along. But admittedly I was in complete awe. It was the perfect show from beginning to end, and made up for the chaos surrounding the Vancouver gig.

Unfortunately that would be the last time I would get to hear them. Oasis split in 2009, which to me felt like the end of a musical dream. There would be no weeks of speculation afterwards, no grand reunion. Oasis had officially split up for good. In a lot of ways Oasis had grown up with me musically, but most importantly they had taught me to escape, celebrate, and most of all to be myself, “…I can’t be no one else…”

And L.J. if you’re reading this…thank you from the bottom of my heart.

     I know its been awhile since I’ve updated the blog. There are a few messages I get more often than not at all on Facebook, or on Twitter asking what’s been going on the writing front.

     Believe it or not when I do get those spare moments when I’m not working full-time, it’s been a ton of writing. Some of the ideas I’ve been tinkering with have been tangents that have grown into the beginning of a story. Some of the bits have been continuations of ideas that have been kicking around in my notebooks I’ve been carting with me for some time.

     I spent a good chunk of the spring working on a short novel idea that had been kicking around for a couple of years, centered around Christmas. I had the beginnings of a first draft closer to the beginning of December and worked on it diligently, even when I was on holidays back in Saskatoon. I‘d finally completed the first draft in early March, good intentions being I would start the second draft shortly after, and hopefully turn it into the publisher in time for this Christmas.

     Things fortunately did not quite work out that way. Once I’d finished that draft, I picked up the little tattered black duo-tang that housed what was supposed be the follow up to Drowned World. Numerous dollars and hours were spent at Starbucks editing, expanding, cutting and rewriting that first draft that was done so many years ago. Admittedly I was precious with it for the first seven years I’d had it done. When I finally sat down to look at it a few years ago after Drowned World, I’d cringed a little. So instead I wrapped up writing the follow-up’s second draft. My next post Montreal trip is to book a writing retreat to Toronto to disappear and then finally finish those pieces that were missing out of the story (believe it or not after as many years as it has been doesn’t have much left to it at all).

     Looking at it with a fresh set of eyes and approach really helped to give the story more fluency that it did when I’d written the first draft. When I’d finished revisiting that manuscript I then began to explore some of the other unfinished ideas that were still phrases, random characters and happenings.

     And like every year before it I’d planned a trip to Montreal for the Black and Blue party plus the chance to be inspired by the muse that has become weaved into the stories yet to be told. Montreal has become a creative muse that has helped to unearth new stories and become a palette for some of the many characters I can’t wait to introduce to the world.  This trip is not only a chance for me to finally relax and unwind after a year of double shifts, cinnamon dolce lattes, pretzels and filled notebooks, this “creative working holiday” is well deserved and warranted.

     This year is especially important as not only is it the fifth Black and Blue I’ve attended, or the fifth thanksgiving I’ve spent with my adopted family, but it’s also the fifth year since one of my close friends passed away. Rizzo, you’re never far from my thoughts and my heart. I miss you.

      Unfortunately, I’m already dreading that I’m going to be Christmas’ed out by the time December rolls around. However no matter my conflicted relationship is with the season, I have to admit that Christmas on the brain when you’re trying to write a novel about drunken Santa’s and drag queens performing “Santa Baby”, isn’t necessarily a bad thing. Wait a moment….

Pride is a festival that has many platforms and different elements which all contribute to the celebration of life, love and being yourself. Pivotal to this more than anything is the music that tends to inadvertently become the soundtrack to not only the celebration but summer as well.

Previous years and celebrations have warranted and adopted their own important soundtracks and many artists, gay or otherwise have made their contribution. We all know the familiar ones: Lady Gaga, Madonna, Cher, Adam Lambert, and Tegan and Sara. There’s a whole list of musicians whose music has been adopted as anthems for standing up, being yourself, and most of all being proud.

However there’s one artist that won’t get any play on any of the radio stations and won’t be as visible, however for many reasons have become just as important. That group was Suede, one of the precursors to the Britpop movement in the early 90’s. Influenced by the glam of Bowie, the grittiness of the Smiths and the art of the Pet Shop Boys, Suede’s musical start in the early 90’s garnered them a lot of attention from the UK press. And while Oasis was the brains and muscle of Britpop, Suede was definitely the sexuality of the genre. Anyone who listens to “The Drowners” and “Metal Mickey” would immediately get it. Suede’s self-titled debut was released to immediate fanfare, however it would be Dog Man Star that would be a game changer for them musically.

I was turned on to the sound in 1997, just before I’d begun the coming out process. I’d happened to hear the song “Beautiful Ones” from Coming Up, their most communicative record with a wider audience. There was something in vocalist Brett Anderson’s lyrics that just oozed sex, all for admitting that he was a “bisexual man who’d never had a homosexual experience” Coming Up was a phenomenal album. All encasing songs about lost weekends, lost relationships and more importantly the longing that summed up real life. I identified heavily with Coming Up. It was the right album at the right time, and while Suede was petitioning for a wider audience, I was slowly coming out a couple people at the time. The disc was always in heavy rotation on my discman, listening to it while studying, or while walking back and forth to campus.

In 1998 they released Sci-Fi Lullabies, a two disc collection of their best b-sides from the first three albums. It not only had a huge collection of songs that could have easily made up the tracklisting for any Suede album, it also served as a platform for me to write short stories based on the songs that made up the collection. Some of those stories became just that. While other stories came across as messy, incomplete tangents that didn’t seem as structurally cohesive. (However I’ve been thinking about dusting off some of these stories and maybe reworking them. You may get to see some of them soon.)

Head Music was released in 1999. And it was definitely a more groove oriented album, leaning heavier on the electronic side than Suede’s previous efforts. In 2002 they released their final album A New Morning. And while personally speaking it wasn’t a bad album (it still had a lot of top tracks on it such as “Lonely Girls,” “Obsessions” and “Lost In TV”), it served as a disjointed effort that ultimately signaled the end of the band.

I couldn’t help but be excited when I heard that Suede had released a new album. When I picked up Bloodsports, I’d felt transported back to a time where the only reason why Blur really mattered was because of their hot drummer Dave Rowntree. Suede was very much on my gay pride playlist. And because I probably will not hear them at an of the festivities this summer, I’ll just have to make do and play the new album and Coming Up cranked really loud on my system at home.

Happy Pride everyone!

It was with excitement a few weeks ago that I’d read on one of the gay news sites that a company was going to finally put all of the issues of XY Magazine online and make them available for public viewing.  It’s been quite a few years since the last issue of XY was published, and since then I’ve graduated naturally to Attitude magazine based out of the UK.

However, it was exciting to know that the magazine that had been there for the first few years of my coming out and figuring out who I was would be available completely, for me to check out the issues that I had missed before that point of coming out online. Apart from Attitude, there has been no other queer publication I have been religiously devoted to other than XY.

I bought my first issue in May of 2007. It was issue number 7, the body issue. There were features on Pansy Division, a quick blurb on the man who wrote Beautiful Thing (I had seen the film three months prior), and of course resources for coming out.  Another thing that caught my attention was the photos that were displayed insider the magazine. Full of life, color and many different locations, XY was repeatedly revered and dismissed as a publication more on the side of soft porn. Those people who had criticized it for the latter obviously didn’t read the articles on the inside as well.

I always bought the issues at Café Browse in Saskatoon, or when I wasn’t able to, picked it up at either my local Coles, or wherever I happened to be travelling. I had bought the Scene issue while I was in Denver. And more recently the last few issues I bought while I was in Montreal on work related trips. Sometimes I would be able to time it just right when I would make my way down to The Front Page, a magazine shop that remained open until 2008 in downtown Edmonton. Sometimes the issues came much later then they should have, however eagerly anticipating Tough Love by Abby Denson was completely worth it.

Then there was the monthly check-ins by Peter Ian Cummings. He always had something  important on his mind, which would later make their way into the beginning pages of the issues. One of the things that I always and admired about him as well as the magazine was that it was brave in its articles and bringing issues important to gay youth to the forefront, without the influence of a major corporation or a parent magazine company censoring the material that some of us needed to know.  Peter made it very clear that the magazine was about us, and for us, with no plans to compromise. And issue after issue, there was no doubt of that in my mind.

Another important issue that they published was the XY survival guide, a guide on relationships, coming out, sex and being comfortable with being gay. I bought the guide, in addition to the different photo issues that they had spun off to compliment the main magazine. In a lot of ways, XY was my sanity for the time it was out. I’d even submitted a short story to the magazine, in the hopes that it would make its way into its storied pages.

Then in 2008, issue 49 became the last issue, and the magazine vanished. I would continually check any of the gay bookshops as well as Coles/Chapters for the next issue, however nothing appeared. Later down the road I’d discovered Peter Ian Cummings online on Myspace and sent him a message on how much the magazine meant to me, etc. I also offered any help that I could to keep it going. I never heard from him, and I assumed since he had left the magazine with that last issue, I’m sure that he got that message a million times over from everyone. It was a shame that it didn’t see life beyond its 49th issue, because I still view it as an important tool for any teenager who still is figuring him/herself out. More than any other North American queer publication XY truly was an important magazine on a continuously evolving queer landscape.

And even though  I’ve said this a few times already, thank you Peter and company for making the coming out phase that much easier. You can view the magazine archive by following this link.  https://www.vfiles.com/users/xymagazine

The sad truth is that today there are few honest pop artists out there. And tack clever onto that too. (As much as I like Carly Rae Jespen, really who’s going to categorize “Call Me Maybe” as a smart pop song?) I guess part of this has all stemmed from the recent release of Tegan & Sarah’s latest album Heartthrob. Every newspaper and blog have made it a point to highlight that the duo, indie darlings from Calgary have traded their indie cred for mainstream success.

As a casual listener, I have to admit I do like the new album. It’s still the smart songwriting that I’ve always come to expect from them. However being more intuned  to electronic dance, this album to me feels very much like a natural progression from their earliest work. And hey, we all want an artist to progress naturally, right?

Truth be told however I’ve had another pop artist on my mind for the past few weeks. Whether it’s just waiting for the new album or that he handcrafts everything so meticulously, George Michael has very much been on my collective consciousness for the past few weeks. He’s a prime example of honest, and smart pop music without being over anyone’s head.

Don’t get me wrong. Wham was not necessarily smart pop music. But given the early 80’s, they were a lot more adventurous than most pop out there. But it was “Careless Whisper” that really made Mr. Michael come into his own as a pop artist. Faith was a stellar album, and a solo debut album that any pop artist would kill for nowadays.

However he completely changed the game with Listen Without Prejudice Vol. 1. I was only twelve when this album came out. And to be honest a lot of the themes of loss on the album, while I could relate to some of them, it would still be a few more years before I would be able to clue into the subtext. I instantly clicked with “Praying For Time” and “Freedom 90”, as I’m sure everyone else did. But digging further into the album songs like “Waiting For That Day” and “Heal The Pain” left me with a nagging feeling inside. It was a sense of loss that resonated with me, like those songs were an interpertation.

When I finally started the coming out process in 1997, I listened to the album again. And it definitely made more sense to me, even though George wouldn’t come out until end of 1998. And he would become a soundtrack to most of my failed romances, interests or near- relationships years over.

When Patience came out in 2004, it in a way felt very much like a soundtrack to my life. It was songs like “Please Send Me Someone To Love,”  “Precious Box,” and “Amazing” that had really spoken to me. The rest of the album was phenomenal and a pleasure to listen to, and a keen reminder of the “Freedom 90” days. Patience to me represented people, heartbreak and again felt like an interchangeable soundtrack of how my life was moving at the time. I was also finishing the first draft of Drowned World at the time. The feeling of being nearly completed was really starting become apparent, so much so that I’d started picking apart the sequel and penning the first draft to novel number three.

That full length album had a lot to say, and it one of the few albums that deeply resonated with me as a person and a writer. Three years later George released his career spanning 25. And it couldn’t have come at a more pivotal time. “A Different Corner” had managed to seamlessly paint the picture of a hurt that would soon manifest itself. For something that was written and released in 1986, it had never felt so clear and current…and heartbroken.

It’s probably for that reason that I still snap up any little bit of output of his as few and far between as it has been. In the meantime I guess I’ll just have to make do with the fantastic new offering from Tegan And Sara. Geroge, the music world awaits your triumphant return…

One of the biggest reasons to be excited film-wise in 2012 was the excellently crafted film Laurence Anyways, by Quebec wonderkind director Xavier Dolan (Anyone who knows me, knows about my ever-growing soft spot for Canadian cinema). It took me the flight home from Montreal to finally get a glance into a film that was garnering excitement since my last visit there in October 2011. It’s clever use of 80’s and 90’s new wave pop against a backdrop of urban Montreal, along with rich colors reflected in location and costume all made the film another breathtaking slice of cinema. Xavier Dolan also has the gift of conveying a difficult tale, and giving it the right amount of tenderness in the exact spots. Well worth the wait…

This year Tracey Thorn also released a solo album. What made is especially unique was that it was a Christmas album. And while I’m cautious when it comes to Christmas albums (admittedly, Boney M Christmas Album is the perennial favorite which all others are judged), two complete listens was all it took for it to become a legitimate contender to be holiday favorite.

For those of you who have no idea of who I’m talking about, Tracey Thorn is one half of UK duo Everything But The Girl. In the 80’s they invented moody. In the 90’s they embraced electronica and with the help of DJ Todd Terry, remixed “Missing” from their album Amplified Heart (see you remember already.) “Missing” became a dancefloor anthem and if it wasn’t for that, they may still have been relatively unknown up until this point.

What was also on Amplified Heart was a song called “The 25th of December”, a light and simple tune about that exact subject. When I heard that she had done an album of Christmas songs this year, I couldn’t help but feel a twitch of excitement. Tinsel and Lights is more than a collection of standard Christmas favorites, it’s also a selection of those songs that seem like they’re least likely to be on rotation on your Ipod (Those of you who have seen The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas will understand why).

However it’s the opening song “Joy” that really has tugged at my heartstrings the most. Admittedly it was a reminder of all of the things that make Christmas great. While I’ve been busily working on the Christmas novel, it’s an original song that has completely grown on me. Shamelessly it’s been on heavy spins on my CD player. The beauty of her voice is that if you don’t bother to look at any of her photos, you could be forgiven to think that she was not a white female with a booming, soulful voice. I made that mistake when I first heard her pour her heart out as guest vocalist on Massive Attack’s “Protection.”

Tinsel And Lights indeed evokes Christmas in a pure sense, loaded with memories of light displays, hot chocolate and walks along a snow-capped Spadina Crescent. It feel partially weird to be waxing about such an amazing album seeing now that Christmas has come and gone. And even though this blog is running a little late in the Christmas department, I just couldn’t let the holidays pass by and not recommend this album.

 It’s sometimes surprising when a story idea just suddenly comes together.

I had spent the good portion of two years hammering out an idea for a Christmas novel.  Most books that focus on the holidays tend to be ones that were specifically geared towards the children’s market, or  accounts of non-fiction that serve as self-help or inspirational. In honesty, the idea of writing a novel or a book of short stories had been in my mind for a few years. So when I started to think of an idea, I decided to start a journal deconstructing, and eventually reconstructing Christmas and what it meant to me.

One of the biggest things I remembered most about Christmas of course was always about the music. Growing up the Boney M Christmas album was the album that played in our household. Eventually, other artists would crop up making Christmas interpretations of their own. They would be added to the music collection, but in the end it was that Christmas album that would be the mainstay memory mentally.

Unfortunately, one of those Christmases also yielded a bad memory. I was younger and quite keen on what I was developing at the time what was going to be a long career writing and at the time poetry was what I had been drawn to. I had the bright idea that I would include a Christmas poem in every card I wrote. And for the majority of the cards I had written that particular Christmas, each one had a different poem related to the season.

Until my father opened up his Christmas card and read what I had put together inside. His first question was if I had written a poem in every Christmas card I wrote out. When I answered yes, and asked what the issue could have been, his reply was “if I was a parent of the friend that you gave that card to and would have read that I would be thinking things.”

(Keep in mind that these were Christmas poems, nothing else. I mean really who fucking says that to a kid anyways?)

It left me stuck in sharing my writing with the rest of the known world for quite sometime. To be told that my poetry about Christmas would be misconstrued as something else, made me put down the pen. It would be longer before I’d be able to share my writing again for some time. It also made me thankful for the people that did believe in my writing, who pushed me to work harder and keep up with the craft.

Keeping the Christmas journal helped bring out some small story fragments, all unfinished, all still fragments. It wasn’t until I had coffee with a friend of mine only a few weeks ago that the first part of the story finally came together. Two people, the Christmas season, having a serious conversation on Christmas Eve. With the characters already partially in place and being developed, it was enough to begin the creative process. I finally had a point A. Now all I needed to do was get to a point B. And while it probably won’t be ready for awhile, it’s reassuring to know that it sometimes happens in the least likely of places.

To be continued….

Dear Elton,

I just wanted to say first and foremost that I think you are an exceptionally talented performer. You have managed to make your way from the seventies, all the way up to this current year and still churn out music, and dip your hands in all facets of creativity. In addition you’ve snagged yourself a pretty great husband in Canadian film director David Furnish. You’ve spoken out on many different things in relation to the gay community and our issues. You’ve stood up for us, and hell you’ve also churned out a classic, timeless song or few along the way.

My first brush with you was when my parents used to play you in the car on trips home from Saskatoon (I was living in Prince Albert at the time). My mother owns Too Low For Zero (my favorite song is “It’s Cold as Christmas”), and I think your version of “Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds” is superior to the original (Dr. Winston O’ Boogie’s reggae guitars et al). And through the years, you’ve managed to really surprise me with songs that have become contenders in your catalog. And while you weren’t one of my influences when it came to coming out, I was always glad you were in our corner. And while it took you a few years to accept yourself and mature into the queen you are today…you are in part a gay role model.

Except as of late, in which I have been highly disappointed in you. Because despite the music, your marriage and your adopted child, you really come across as a sad vicious queen desperately clamoring for your next fifteen minutes. What exactly am I talking about?

The comments in reference to your  feud with Madonna, most recently the vile comments that her career is over. For someone who’s career is like a glass house, and has referenced that it couldn’t happen to a bigger cunt, I do have to stand up and take issue with that. Because see Elton, the sad truth of it is you’re the bigger, sadder cunt if that is the case.

M.D.N.A was a brilliant album, and while you’re probably some fickle, flighty homo whose music listening attention span is probably…oh say five minutes, there’s something to be said about a music artist who is known for pushing the envelope and moving forward instead of moving back. In actuality, she could not have done another Ray Of Light. Maybe you would have enjoyed a rehash, but this album is what you would call a progression. And just because it makes your fucking ears bleed does not mean the rest of the world agrees. And to be honest….when was the last time YOU released music that was relevant?

And no Elton, re-writing  a song for a dead blonde doesn’t count. You should have left that one alone.

Saying that Madonna looks like a “fairground stripper” also begs the question, was sticking coke up your arse in the seventies and eighties a plausible excuse for all of the fashion fuck-ups you committed? I mean I guess not everyone can pull off trampy Vegas act as well as you. Well that’s not completely true, David Lee Roth comes a second close…

At the end of the day Elton, dissing Madonna really isn’t going to earn you relevancy points. With the amazing success of her latest tour it’s a no-brainer that Madonna’s career is far from over. Even if her latest album is by commercial standards a flop, she will always land on her feet because she is the queen of pop.

Love you Elton, but please kindly, shut…the…fuck…up.

Sheldon

     I have a not so strange confession to make. I am completely in love with Madonna’s new album M.D.N.A. Maybe because it’s been four years since Our Lady of the Dancefloor has graced us with her musical prescence (that was Hard Candy). Or maybe because I am Gaga’ed out that this album really nails it for me. The truth of the matter is that despite what anyone says, Madonna is still relevant and still matters. (All due respect to Elton John & David Furnish but when it comes to Madge, I must politely ask you, to shut the fuck up.)

     Already over a month has gone by and since the album’s release everyone has been quick to write it off as Madonna’s musical failure and dismiss the album accordingly. I disagree with this point of view. Call it personal bias, but there are a few reasons why M.D.N.A definitely deserves our undying love as a musical listening generation.

      Despite what people say or care to admit, Madonna still has her finger on the pulse on music. Listeners forget that Madonna collaborated with William Orbit shortly before Molly became a club fixture (remember Ray of Light anyone?). She had tapped into the electronic dance music scene long before it was ever fashionable to do so, and pulled it off with amazing success. In my honest opinion M.D.N.A is a careful succession from not only Ray of Light, but Confessions On a Dancefloor. She’s pinpointed some pretty amazing musical moments over the course of her albums.  

     She is the innovator, not the follower. Lady Gaga has her to thank for her career. Keeping in mind that I am a Lady Gaga fan (massive respect for anyone who can fine the humor in the infamous Oil C-untry tweet gets massive love from me), it’s easy to see what parts of Madge’s career she apes in her music as well as in her music videos. (“Alejandro” was a video mashup of “Express Yourself”, “Justify My Love” and “Like a Prayer”) No one needs to look as far as the musical stomp of “Born This Way” to really see what’s going on musically with Gaga. She makes no secret that Madonna’s influenced her, and rightfully so. Lady Gaga is a condensed version of Madonna. What took Madge the span over a few decades to do, Gaga has rolled up into just the time-span of a few years.

      Further education should point to watching Truth Or Dare, the 1990 documentary that encapsuled her  Blonde Ambition tour. Long before reality television had invaded our homes and lives, she had opened herself up to a camera crew to peel away the layers and reveal herself on and off the stage. It was a very unscripted look into a pop star that at the time that had no limits.

     I didn’t get to see Truth Or Dare until summer of 1994. I have to admit that the documentary did make me realize a few things when it came to writing. One of these was that sometimes baring your soul and channeling it through the expression of your art brings out the best results. And truthfully back then, when my writing was only for me and maybe…oh one or two people, I thought that having the connection to my writing brought out some of my best work (at the time). Long before I realized Irvine Welsh and Stephen King would become my writing influences, Madonna  was an inspiration and inadvertently an influence in my writing. She possessed an edginess and rawness in her music that not only made for great conversation amongst my friends, but she also did something that very few musicians rarely do – she created a dialogue.

     I firmly believe that creating a dialogue is important. In fact one of the reasons why I write is just that, to create a dialogue that asks questions, and makes a reader think for themselves. There are not enough people that do this nowadays. Drowned World, my first novel is a testament and a curtsey to that. It was my goal to create a dialogue where people would talk about the issues that were prevalent in the first novel, and it was successful in that respect. Madonna has always had a penchant for creating a dialogue about the things that are on her mind at the time, and there have been a lot of them. She’s had an unflinching look at sex, at homophobia, at racism and at abuse. People may not have always embraced her views, however it’s gotten people talking, and that’s what’s most important.

     We’ve also all had our Madonna moments at one point or another. One that I personally remember was in grade 12 high school. Our vocal jazz ensemble had been given “I’ll Remember” to work on. I remember at graduation looking squarely into the crowd and given the line “Outside…I was a child who could not mend a broken wing” to sing, it couldn’t have summed up a better moment of my life. For three years I was that child. It took until Grade 12 to finally put it all together, and to realize I was leaving high school and not coming back. “I’ll Remember” was in a lot of ways one of the songs that I saw close the door on the part of my life that I did not want to revisit. In addition to Oasis, that song signposted that I was about to write the next chapter of my life and in a funny, subtle way reassured me that it does get better.

      Back to Drowned World, if it wasn’t for the album Ray of Light and “Substitute for Love”, it might have been a very different novel altogether. She inspired me to write, to be explicitly honest to myself and to those people reading me for the first time. It’s a pretty fair trade, don’t you think?

     So every morning I’ll continue to don my headphones and listen to “Gang Bang” and “I’m Addicted” until my Ipod decides to be temperamental and die on me just before I make it into work. Because in fairness M.D.N.A. definitely deserves a second spin…and a third…and a fourth.

    (And Madonna if you are reading this, I love you no matter what. Marry me ha ha.)

     In hindsight when I look back at it, 1997 was quite a good year. I look back at a lot of the things that happened over that year. For what it's worth there was a lot that happened over the year that would change the way I saw things forever.

     1997 was the year that Princess Diana was chased down and killed in a car accident which was caused by English tabloid paparazzi. In 1997, Sarah McLachlan released Surfacing, one of her most important albums ever . 1997 would be the year I would see two very important films, Beautiful Thing and The Hanging Garden (the latter film being Canadian). 1997 was also when Oasis released their seminal post Wondewrall effort Be Here Now.   

     1997 would also be the year three very important things would happen. The first one was I would finally carve an identity in the electronic dance scene in Saskatoon. I had stumbled into Diva's for the very first time on a PPM night and was introduced to electronic/dance music proper. This would be enough motivation for me to reignite the first to begin DJing, a silent love that had carried with me from high school. It would only be a matter of time before I started pegging the tracks and remixes that made my ass shake on the dancefloor.

     The second major event: I would start coming out, finally realizing after a years self-research. Depending on who you talked to and where I was, I was just either inching out of the closet, or in the case of a lot of my Edmonton friends I was pretty much full blown out. My newly discovered affection for the music gave me an excuse to explore a new city, make some new friends, and fall in love with another guy for the first time.

     Somewhere in between, a third major event happened. I'd started working on two novels. The first one was called Couples, the second being Karma:Voyeur.   Couples admittedly only to made it to page five, and Karma, the designated sequel actually ended up being written in a first draft that was finished a lot quicker then I had actually expected. Sadly, Couples would remain on the hard drive at page five, all while I told the sequel's story in first person. Eventually I printed off a copy of Karma and bound it together.

     It would take me a few more false starts to keep working on Couples. The story's title then transformed into The Screen Behind The Mirror, which then finally evolved into Drowned World. The first in a series of queer love in the age of sex, drugs, and techno was finally done in first draft as of 2004. It would take a few more years, but finally Drowned World was released in 2009. That being said, I would frequently delve back into the first draft of Karma when I wasn't working on Drowned World. As time passed not only was I busy working on books three and four, but I was beginning to see how sorely lacking book two was. The skeleton was there, however it was looking dangerously thin and underfed. Truth be told, my mentality then and now, in addition to my writing had evolved over time. So finally over the past few years I've been exhuming that first draft a little more, attempting to start to fill in the gaps caused by Drowned World's story line. Admittedly I couldn't help but chuckle at some of the story in its first draft. Seeing what I wrote then, compared with what I've written now it wouldn't be fair to leave it as is.

     Truth was I was scared to get my hands dirty and back into the manuscript. I had used the excuse of waiting to visit Toronto for geographic research as the reason why I was holding off until working on the manuscript. I had also distracted myself with The Heart's Filthy Lesson, a bit of an emotional exorcism that needed definite attention. And while I've been bouncing between two other first-draft manuscripts as of late, it was finally time to open that first draft this past week. The more I read, the more I began to fall in love with the story line all over again. There are some definite updates that need attention in the story, and when I start making the additions, it's going to resemble the story it was always meant to be. Just to give a little of it away, it's a story about Scott Riley's superstar DJ cousin…told in the first person. And with how things have been funneling out onto paper, I have the strange feeling my Starbucks card is going to be getting a massive workout…