jack antonoff I never said anything bad about you pic.twitter.com/fwfXaaPr5c
— leon (@skyferrori) April 12, 2024
ABOVE: The above is NOT Jack Antonoff, but this dude.
Bonus: This should have been handed out in Oscar gift bags. (Image via vintage book cover)
BELOW: History made, Trump fails (again) and more ...
The book's cover image is by Deborah Feingold, from the same session that graces the rare 1984 The Quiet Storm Thai magazine. (Image via Little, Brown)
Reading is ... hard. It takes a lot for me, English degree be damned, to sit quietly and read a book. For years, having my constantly active and attention-craving dogs, and then dog, was enough to keep me judging books by their covers alone. Then, I became as addicted to inst-ernet gratification as a person a couple of generational alphabet letters down the line from me.
At some point, I joked that I don't read at all anymore, and I may have even said so to Mary Gabriel, the acclaimed writer who has set her sights on Madonna with her new biography Madonna: A Rebel Life (Little, Brown, October 2023), because she teased me when she sent me a signed copy of her work — “I know you don't read Madonna books. But read this one. You might learn something.”
!!!
I did and I did. The book is not filled with shockers for diehard fans/addicts, though I'm sure there are things you didn't know or forgot you know, but it is something that has been missing from the hundred or more Madonna books out there so far — a serious, sober, all-inclusive, biographical look at Madonna's life and career executed with scrupulous attention to contextualizing who she is and why that worked and works for us.
There have been a couple of interesting biographies, but I always felt they were lost in the long shadow of Christopher Andersen's dreadful best seller from 30 years ago. It was time for Madonna: A Rebel Life.
And it was time for me to quiz Ms. Gabriel about her gigantic endeavor ...
ABOVE: It's Male Model Monday.
Vintage image from Peter Miller of New York — hostility and something else between WWI soldiers (Image via Peter Miller/New York)
BELOW: Keep reading for a bubble, trouble over the word GAY, a Gay Games anniversary and more ...
He's bisexual, he's sexually fluid, he's Paulie. (Images via video still & Instagram)
ABOVE: Paulie Calafiore comes out as bisexual. See BELOW.
BELOW: Keep reading for Lil Nas X, Patrick Swayze, the lesbians of Asia and more ...
Foot-longing (Images via Instagram)
ABOVE: Maluma offers up tits, feet and basket.
BELOW: A very good date, a trigger word for Republicans, some inexpensive tail and more ...
ABOVE: He was a real swinger.
Flashback — they don't make 'em like this anymore ... (Image via AVO)
ABOVE: Start spreadin' the news ...
ABOVE: Do look back.
BELOW: Remaking *NSYNC and Elton, New Groom on the Block and more ...
