Life with My Sister Madonna (38 page)

My consolation is my art. And on June 26, 2004, at the opening of Gay Pride Week, the Booty Collection (twenty-five color Polaroids, blown up to eleven by fourteen, of my friends' backsides) is shown in San Francisco at the Phantom SF Gallery, to great fanfare. Alan Cumming, Armistead Maupin, and Graham Norton all attend and are extremely complimentary about my work.

I continue with my paintings and photography, and on August 15, 2004, the Mumford Gallery in Provincetown, Massachusetts, also shows the Booty Collection. It's well received, but my sister makes it clear she doesn't approve of it and doesn't consider it art. The subtext is that she assumes that the photographs are the product of a couple of drug binges. Totally untrue.

 

M
EANWHILE
, M
ADONNA LAUNCHES
her
Re-invention Tour.
I don't go to see it, but afterward view the DVD:
I'm Going to Tell You a Secret
. The show opens with “Vogue,” distant and cold, which sets the note for the rest of the show. Throughout, she attempts to force-feed the audience. The show is confrontational, unsubtle, angry. I am amused, though, that in the documentary she features scenes from our father's vineyard and says that she grew up there. Not so; she merely visited a few times. The scenes featuring Lola and Rocco both touch and sadden me. I am sad, as I have seen so little of them. I am touched at how much Lola reminds me of Madonna. And I miss not knowing her or Rocco.

 

I
AM VIRTUALLY
destitute, save for the largesse of a few friends, especially my long-term friends Daniel Hoff and Eugenio Lopez, as well as Dan Sehres, who is kind enough to let me stay with him for the duration. His kindness and hospitality will continue for the next two years.

One night, however, back in L.A., as fate would have it, I am invited to a dinner party where I meet Andrea Greenberg, the head of marketing for Fortune International Properties. She offers me a job designing the lobby of their Miami headquarters. The job is projected to last six months, and intensely relieved at getting out of L.A., I relocate to Miami temporarily and begin work.

After I've been in Miami for only a few days, a friend invites me to dinner at China Grill, where I see Ingrid. My impression is that Guy may have attempted to edge her out of Madonna's life, but he hasn't completely succeeded. The moment we meet again, she tells me that she knows Madonna and I aren't talking.

“You should definitely email her right away,” Ingrid says, giving me one of her intense looks.

“I don't have anything to say to her. I won't speak to her until she treats me with the respect I've earned and deserve.”

Ingrid looks shocked. The thought of not speaking to Madonna is clearly anathema to her.

“Anyway, I'm out of her life now. And I'm doing fine,” I say.

There is more, and if, by the time I get home, I've forgotten much of it, an email from Madonna is in my inbox, reiterating every word I've just uttered to Ingrid and refreshing my memory.

I haven't spent time with Ingrid for so long that I've forgotten that one of her geniuses is seducing me into having a conversation about Madonna, getting me to spill my guts, letting my guard down. Whereupon she reports back to Madonna. I promise myself never to let my guard down again with Ingrid.

It takes me a while before I decide to open Madonna's email. She never puts a subject, so I have no warning whether an email will be friendly or not. This email is neutral. She insists that she does treat me with respect, but she doesn't say she was wrong or apologize for the hateful things she said in her email. I answer her in polite terms.

Toward the end of my job with Fortune, I am offered the chance to be the interior design director for the Calypso at Caribbean on Thirty-seventh and Collins, a luxury condominium development, a new and an existing building by architect Kobi Karp.

Along the way, a friend sends me an article about Madonna, featuring her move to the twelve-hundred-acre Ashcombe House in the English countryside—and depicting her in her latest incarnation: English country lady. A lifetime's distance away from Madonna the modern dancer, Madonna the punk pop star, and all the other guises my kaleidoscopic sister has assumed in the past. I look at the pictures of Madonna in her manor house, think of my new life in Miami, and am sad at how far apart we now are, how far from each other we have traveled.

 

I
AM DOING
well in Miami and L.A., carving out a life as an artist, interior decorator, and designer on my own merits, not on the back of my sister's name. On my birthday, in November 2005, I make sure to invite Ingrid to my party, just so she will see for herself that I'm thriving and report accordingly to Madonna.

At a friend's house, I meet the co-coordinator of the White Party, given each year to benefit AIDS research. He asks me if I know someone who might like to host a benefit dinner at the Versace mansion. I suggest supermodel and
America's Next Top Model
judge Janice Dickinson, whom I had met at Central. He loves the idea. I open negotiations. Initially, Janice demands five first-class tickets and luxury suites for herself and countless members of her entourage. At which point, my experience in handling divas kicks in. Janice ends up toning down her requirements and flies down to Miami to host the dinner. I am grateful to her for her participation.

 

W
HILE
I
AM
working on the Caribbean, I design and manufacture a line of T-shirts that I name Basura Boy.
Basura,
Spanish, loosely translates to “trash.” The T-shirts each feature a symbol from either Kabbalah or Buddhism. The slogan of the company is “Spirituality Is Our Business.”

In June 2006, I film two episodes of the Bravo show
Top Chef,
advising on restaurant designs. With the producer's consent, I give full rein to my acid tongue and observe of one chef's culinary creation, “If this is a vegetable medley, I'm a monkey.”

When the show is aired a year later, the reviews of my appearance are extreme and veer between love and hate, but even the negative ones don't sour me on the experience of making the show. I loved it.

I am also now managing a young singer named Julien. He's a little David Bowie, a little Freddie Mercury, but fresh and original. Most of all, though, he reminds me of the young Madonna. He has her passion and drive. I sense his potential and feel I can help his career. He agrees to let me manage him, and we make a nine-track demo to send out to record companies. He also has his first gig at the Roxy in L.A., then another one at Crimson in Hollywood. He receives great reviews and I am optimistic about his future.

In May 2006, Madonna's assistant calls and invites me to the May 21 L.A. opening of her
Confessions
show—a sixty-city tour that will go on to make $260 million. I haven't seen or spoken to her in two years. I'm sitting in the front row.

The show is lighthearted, and for the first time since
The Girlie Show,
Madonna looks as if she is enjoying herself.

Watching, I am overcome with a sense of nostalgia. I remember the past, when things were great between us. I miss the sister I knew so well, the closeness, the respect, the being part of something that was so great. Suddenly, I yearn to turn back the clock, to be on the road with her again, part of the show, part of her life.

After the show, I go backstage to the greenroom to see Madonna. As I walk in, a man with a full beard taps me on the shoulder. I assume he's a rabbi.

In a polite but distant voice, I say, “Hi.”

“It's Guy, dummy.”

I didn't recognize him at all. I stand in the entrance of the greenroom and wait to see Madonna. In a white T-shirt and jeans, light makeup, her hair pulled back, she is perched on the edge of a chair. She knows the show has gone well and looks relaxed.

A line of people wait to shake her hand.

Our eyes meet.

She smiles at me.

I bypass the line.

We hug.

I tell her the show was great.

She thanks me for coming.

“You look good. You look happy,” she says.

I tell her she does, too, and I mean it.

We have reconnected at last, and I am glad.

 

I
N
J
UNE
, I go to my father's seventy-fifth birthday in Traverse City. Joan throws a big party for him in a large barn on the property that holds five hundred. Madonna doesn't come. I'm pleased because otherwise the party would have been about her, not him.

During the day, my father comes up to me and asks what's going on with me and Madonna. I tell him we've had a disagreement and she's hurt me badly, but we're working on getting over it at last.

“I wish you would sort it out; it's making me unhappy,” he says.

I don't want to make my father unhappy. I love and respect him far too much. And I am glad to tell him that I feel that Madonna and I have almost sorted out all our differences and that I believe that there is hope for us again, at last.

 

W
HEN
C
ONFESSIONS
OPENS
in Miami on July 22, I ask for tickets so I can see the show again.

The atmosphere inside the arena is electric, if steamy, as Madonna, contrary to all the rules, has prevailed on the management to kill the air-conditioning.

I sit next to Gloria and Emilio on my left, and Dan Sehres on my right.

As Madonna is lowered onstage in the disco ball, I flash back for a moment to the disco ball at the Rubaiyat and feel nostalgic for that night, that time, and our shared past together. At that moment, Madonna looks directly at me and gives me a little nod and I smile at her.

I notice that Ingrid hasn't got a good seat and keeps craning her neck for a view of Madonna. Ingrid is wearing the slightly hangdog look she has when she feels she's been dissed. She keeps attempting to catch Madonna's eye, but Madonna ignores her.

I am wrapped up in the show and really enjoying it when—all of a sudden—Madonna announces, “This song is for my brother, who is in the audience,” and sings “Paradise,” which she has cowritten.

Although the lyrics don't contain a particular message, I am utterly stunned she has dedicated the song to me. As far as I know, she has only twice dedicated songs to someone: once to my father, and once to Martin Burgoyne. She has paid me a compliment and I'm happy.

 

A
FTER THE SHOW,
I am invited to the party in the Raleigh's upstairs room. Madonna is in black, Ricky Martin stands on one side of her, and Mickey Rourke on the other. Ingrid hovers behind her.

I say hello to Madonna.

We have a repeat of our Los Angeles conversation.

After a while, I take a look at the dancers in the room. All of them are straight. None of them is dancing.

I go up to Madonna and say, “You don't have any gay dancers!”

She thinks for a second, slightly puzzled. “You're right, we don't. Isn't that weird?”

The question is rhetorical.

The party is dull. I think back to all the after-show parties Madonna and I have had in the past, when everyone was dancing and having fun and the atmosphere was joyful.

This party is joyless and dull.

After an hour, I leave.

 

I
N
O
CTOBER
2006, Madonna and Guy fly to Lilongwe, the capital of Malawi, one of the world's poorest countries, with a population of 12 million, including an estimated 1 million orphans, many of them children whose parents have died of AIDS. As Madonna has put it, “I didn't choose Malawi. It chose me.”

From Malawi's capital, they travel to the Home of Hope orphanage, thirty miles away, where they will meet twelve children—one of whom they are considering for adoption. They take one look at thirteen-month-old David Banda and the choice is made. It is not difficult. He is adorable, intelligent, and healthy. And I am surprised at the tidal wave of world media outrage that hits her and Guy after they make their decision.

I respect that Madonna is trying to help a young child from an impoverished third-world country. But the cynic in me reads about the publicists and camera crews who traveled with her and Guy on their first visit to the orphanage and—remembering
Truth or Dare
—can't help thinking,
Madonna is competing with Angelina Jolie. So she isn't going to stop with one child, she is going to help an entire country, and she wants the world to know about it
.

I'd like to think her motives are entirely altruistic, but am slightly disturbed that she couldn't adopt David quietly, without all the concomitant press attention, and a documentary crew to record it.