Fast and Loosies #4

Stray 'Confessions II' thoughts, I interviewed Courtney Love, onion dip, and more

Happy Madonna day to all who celebrate. It’s absolute we are so back hours. Confessions II is an incredible work of art, rapturously good, a rare late-career achievement, a re-apex if you will¹. It turns out when Madonna goes back to working the way she works best, one-on-one with a trusted producer, the magic returns. 13 of these tracks are credited to her and Stuart Price (some with a credit for the featured artist) and it’s that synergy and deep mutual understanding that yielded her best work in decades.

I was sad when Bandsplain’s Madonna month was over but then I realized it’s kind of always Madonna month if you choose to be about that life (though I am still recovering from the fact that Garren laid his holy eyes upon a social clip in which I had my worst hair day in months).

Back to Confessions II - I cried more than once while listening to it today, moved not only by the incredibly personal, reflective lyrics, but also by the accomplishment of proving the relentless doubters wrong at an age where most women are barely allowed to publicly exist (the pink pussy hat is ON babe).

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I think my favorite track right now is “School” but I’m losing it at so many others - “One Step Away”, “Love Without Words”, "The Test (ft. Lourdes Leon)” (when she calls Lourdes “Little Star”!!!²), and of course, her Lou Reed moment,“L.E.S. Girl”.³ I keep hearing new things on each listen through and will be spending a lot more time with it this weekend, contemplating whilst throwing ass (as we do).

Patrik Sandberg and I are toying with the idea of maybe “going live” on Instagram on Sunday to discuss our thoughts on the album, will try to provide a reasonable heads up but also will maybe throw it up as a video, here or on IG. In the meantime, Shaad D’Souza’s review for Pitchfork is excellent.

Other fun Madonna stuff: Library180, a free (by appt only) vintage magazine reference library (aka heaven?) has recently acquired a massive collection of Madonna media and Liana Satenstein went to rifle through it and report back over at Neverworns, this oral history of Danceteria in Vanity Fair (ft. musings from Debi Mazar, Marc Almond of Soft Cell, Fab 5 Freddy, and more), and these gorgeous little images Willy Chavarria creative director Jess Cuevas made to celebrate the launch of the new album.

In other “women who shaped my life and entire personality” news, I interviewed Courtney Love about her film career for the Criterion Channel⁴⁵, who currently has a curation of six of her movies available to stream on the site. It’s a great interview if I may say so myself: she speaks about her friendship with Joe Strummer, pushing for Paul Rudd to be cast in 200 Cigarettes, and the iconic music biopic role she turned down. Here are a few of my favorite bits that didn’t make it into the piece, on The Pogues, Peckinpaw, Kevin Bacon, the Atkins diet, and more.

In 1982, when she was 18, Courtney visited set of the Sam Peckinpah film Osterman Weekend

Courtney Love: “I had been on a few sets before, notably Osterman Weekend. Just saying, that’s my first movie set. And I remember having lunch with Quentin [Tarantino] and he’s like, ‘what’s your first set?’ I’m like, ‘Osterman Weekend.’ It’s such clout. It’s so much cred. Like, yeah, Peckinpaw.”

Shane MacGowan in Straight To Hell

The Pogues would perform on set during the filming of Alex Cox’s Straight To Hell, but Courtney did not care because she was busy listening to Leonard Cohen alone.

CL: “The Pogues were on that set…I remember I had my own music in my Walkman that I liked. So I liked REM. I liked Leonard Cohen. I didn’t give a fuck about this weird Irish music. It was really closed-minded, and I would isolate. And I remember Joe [Strummer] coming out and they would have these incredible sea shanties and Elvis [Costello] would play and Joe would play and the Pogues would play. And I was like, ‘yeah, no, I’m going to go listen to Leonard Cohen in my corner’. Joe came over once and he took my Walkman and he threw it on the highway and he was like, ‘you need to come over here.’ I started like coming to their music things and drinking their sangria and having a really good time.”

Courtney gained weight when she quit drugs to be in The People Vs. Larry Flynt, and lost it by doing the Atkins Diet (so 90s!)

CL: “Milos [Foreman] made me give him my word that I would not do drugs, and I didn’t. And that was really hard to pull off because I had to lose [weight]. I generally roll around at like 130, 140. And if you want me to play a junkie, even though I was a junkie at that at the same weight, whatever, just tell me, I like that sort of thing. I remember at the same time, Matt Damon was doing Courage Under Fire with Meg Ryan. And he lost 20 pounds and he got more attention in Vogue magazine than I ever got. But I lost 30 pounds on Atkins and I quit doing drugs. Not an easy feat at the same time as losing that much weight.”

A young Dakota Fanning was terrified of Courtney on the set of the 2002 crime thriller Trapped

CL: Trapped was sort of like me knowing okay, I need to get my shit together and do a real movie. Charlize [Theron] was on the come up. Also Kevin Bacon. I could now play the Kevin Bacon game and actually be not even one degree from Kevin Bacon⁶. He was great, like I loved Kevin. Oh, who’s in that, little Dakota Fanning? I saw her in a Denzel movie called Man on Fire, literally doing the same thing. She plays a four-year-old screaming ‘Daddy,’ it’s the same shit. Anyway, you know, she’s a little kid on the come-up, and many years later, she played Cherie Curry [in the 2010 film The Runaways], and she told people, how much she liked me on that set? I’m like, no, you were frightened of me. I was a villain. Now you’re playing a rock star, so I get it. You’ve come around.”

She’s never seen Basquiat, though it’s not because she wasn’t told she’d be representing Madonna

CL: “[My part] was based on Madonna….I was not aware of the potential connection. Also I felt fat that day. I don't feel fat anymore but I've just never seen it.”

I really love interviewing Courtney - most brilliant mind, incredible stories from a fascinating life, so funny, no fucks. I hope to do it again one day soon.

Lastly, to take a page from the great Amanda Dobbins’s book (Substack), I leave you with the recipe for my favorite BBQ/pool day/celebration snack (or meal if you commit yourself): onion dip.

• Two packets Lipton Recipe Secrets Onion dip mix

• Two 5.3 oz containers of 5% Fage Greek Yogurt or if you’re feeling extremely Bon Appetit about it, real labneh from the Persian market⁷

• Mix together with fork

• Serve with RIDGED potato chips (they need to be hearty to carry the weight of the dip, none of that thin easily breakable stuff)

• Voila! You are basically the Barefoot Contessa

Have a great weekend and let me know in the comments what you think about Confessions II xx

1. Don’t make me get into the whole Imperial Phase/“cog theory” breakdown

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3. In verse 3 of “L.E.S. Girl” when she sings
He played guitar on St. Mark's Place
Had a Marlon Brando face
Painted nails the same shade as his boots
Bleach blonde dirty roots

she’s likely talking about Norris Burroughs, a writer she briefly dated in early days in NY who wrote a book about their situationship called My Madonna (no really) and looked like this:

4. Predictably, a great deal of the comments on the Criterion’s Instagram post are coming from mouth breathing brain damaged Gen X misogynists so if you feel so inclined, please go drop a comment to off set their worthless idiocy

5. like…okay??? You stick with TUBI honey!!!

6. I really miss the Kevin Bacon game…we used to be a proper country etc

7. normally I absolutely loathe a “healthy” substitution (it’s giving “zoodles”) but I genuinely prefer the taste of Greek yogurt or labneh to sour cream here - it’s the tartness