I used to think that it was kinda cool that Black Jesus from Madonna’s Like a Prayer video went to the same college in SoCal (allegedly) that I took a couple of classes at.

But, I’m kind of aloof with shit like that and no one seemed impressed with my unwillingness to accept that urban JuCo legend at face value.

“Show me” – Me

“Hey, where’s everybody going?” – pretty much also Me

Well, ya can’t win ‘em all.  So now I have that cool story for dinner parties.

It’s really a story that I’ll cherish for the rest of my days…

<eye roll>

But while I was be bopping along to Like a Prayer at home a while back – thank you, Pandora – I started to think about how many odd tangents I have concerning Madge from my days in LA back in the early 90s.  Again, I’m kind of aloof – or passively envious, too close to call – so when I ask a relative stranger what he does for a living (just in case it’s a blind date I’m not aware of) and he says, “I’m a storyboard artist for music videos” I’m intrigued, but don’t really want to pursue it…because you just know what’s coming.

I man up and ask, “Any videos I would know or are you allowed to even talk about it?”  

Was that rude?  The look my friends – I had found myself as part of a foursome at a movie with a couple of friends and this stranger – give me not only suggests that it was a set up but also that I’m blowing it.

Reason number 19 why I’m single, right there:  I’m still calling it aloof.

Turns out – like you need to be told – that he’d recently worked on a couple of Madonna’s music videos and was currently preparing to begin another.

“Well, I’m glad you could make some You time, that creative stuff can really be a rabbit hole!”

One of my friends does a minor palms up in his lap and lolls his head in exasperation.  I’m assuming there was a pretty hearty eye roll in there, too, but we’re in theater seats, so I’m getting all of this from the side and over my maybe-blind-date’s shoulder.

It couldn’t have gone that badly, because he ended up inviting the three of us to his birthday party later in the summer.

At Al Jolson’s house, no less.  Well, his old house.  He was still dead back then.

Naturally.

This is where I met her.

Donna De Lory, I mean.  One of Madonna’s backup singers and dancers.  

That’s her on Madonna’s left.  She and I played volleyball together in Al’s backyard. Niki Harris – on Madonna’s right side was on the other side of the net.

Madonna herself was a no-show.  She’d only RSVPed as a maybe (allegedly), so the writing was on the wall there…I mean, it wasn’t even the main house, just the converted carriage house.  It was still pretty damn cool.  

Sadly, this means that the closest I’ve ever come to her was at one of the Dance Your Ass Off events in LA.

Close enough for me.  I’m sure I wasn’t dancing what minimal ass I had off, too.  I was likely sitting on the sidelines with a drink in my hand being…aloof.

She was still pretty brassy back then.

Donna was perfectly sweet and fun.

Niki, a little less so, but she was on the losing team.  Just saying.

And then there was my most orgasmic – er, organic Madonna tangent.

I was judging people dancing at a bar and casually lifted up the tail on a cute boy’s shirt to give the ol’ caboose a check and that somehow got his attention.

I don’t know how he interpreted that action as an invitation to stop and chat.  Some people are so presumptuous.

But, he did.

So, we did.

And that went well, so then we did it.

Well, here’s how it actually went down:

We yelled at each other for a while near the dance floor upstairs at Ripples.  I think it was Ripples, it was my regular dance bar hang out.

What’s weird is that after that, we ended up at his place.

Ok, that’s not so weird.  He probably said something while we were talking about how he had worked on a Madonna video.

Cherish, no less.

In the back of my mind, I remember my imaginary Jewish grandmother saying, “Oh!  A merman!” like that was somehow on par with being a Doctor.

Me, being me, demanded – in a totally adorable manner – proof.

“Show me.”

Hey, when you look like this you can apparently act like a jackass and still get laid.  Not that I realized I had any actual sexual power at the time.

Plus, I kind of manipulated him into taking me home.  That totally sounds like me.

So we went back to his place on The Heights and then I pretended to be interested in all of his Madonna memorabilia in what I imagine he considered foreplay.

And then we did stuff that peeled paint.

To this day, I still think of this basic visual whenever the topic of mermen comes up.

Oh, and for those of you keeping track at home, this is my second consecutive post to mention mermen.  How about that?  Although, I can’t really count the first one since it was a reblog…still.