Madonna Vs. Time

Time is the great equalizer. For a long time, Madonna held Time by the throat. She’d figured out the score. Just when Time was about to encircle her, turn her into a one hit wonder, Madonna would shape-shift, evolve, or cause controversy, always onto the next big sound or style. She became the consistency of Jello. Have you ever tried nailing Jello to a wall? You can’t.

For a time, it was hard to keep up with her many transformations. From her Time Square, taxi cab arrival as a fame-hungry, punk-pop princess with a slight arm full of rubber bracelets and lacy, belly-exposing crop-tops to her “True Blue” 50’s glam to voguing it up in Marlene Dietrich-inspired, power pant suits to her naughty sexual escapades in the mid-to-late ‘90’s. Who can remember her infamous appearance on David Letterman? She laughed in the face of Time, proudly declaring “Absolutely No Regrets” at the end of her song for “Human Nature.” I wonder if Madonna has any regrets now? Has Time checked her chameleon-ass?

Time mocks most of us, time stamps our worst moments. Remember the big, Melanie Griffith Working Girl hair that seemed to consume the New York Tri-state area in the eighties? Somewhere in a box in my basement, I have photos of my 14-year-old self with teased-out bangs four inches high, frozen-stiff courtesy of Aqua Net. What were we thinking, like seriously?!

Ask Vanilla Ice about Time (and Madonna, wink), and while you’re at it, the surviving member of the “Girl You Know It’s True” song as well — Girl you know it / Girl you know it /Girl you know it …..lip-sync fiasco. Time seems to be selective though. Some get better with time. And some are dismissed altogether, overlooked, or flat-out ignored, and in time, reveal themselves to be the jewels they truly are.

Time is the great equalizer.

My daughters, who are eleven and almost ten-years-old respectively, have no idea who Madonna is. They like The Weeknd and Billie Eilish right now. The only music we can all agree on in the car is U2. I guess you can say Time has been better to U2, although Henry Rollins despises them, and I like Henry Rollins. Don’t get me started on Justin Bieber.