#84: Madonna – Like A Prayer (1989)

Throughout the next however many months I’ll be counting down my 100 favorite albums, because why not. I’m up to number eighty-four.

My apartment was burglarized around this time last year. I came home from my morning walk with my pups, Winston and Ringo, to find my bathrobe missing. Not the bathrobe I got from Saks Fifth Avenue in the 90s when exchanging the wallet my dad’s wife gave me for Hanukkah. There was nothing wrong with the wallet, but I don’t care for the unsightly protuberance a wallet presents in one’s trousers, so I amble sans billfold. A robe I could use, and the robe I selected was a very soft Calvin Klein polyester/rayon blend, made in Turkey, and the color of an Eastern Fence Lizard. It now serves as my principle robe, as the thief didn’t steal that one, nor did they take the bathrobe my brother bought for me at Universal Studios when visiting from New Jersey, where we grew up, shortly after I moved to Los Angeles in 2003. That is a white cotton robe with BATES MOTEL stitched in black letters on the left booby area. I leave that one in the guest bathroom. Should I ever have an overnight visitor of a non-romantic nature, I want them to feel like they’re in a four star lodging.

I never have guests stay over.

The thief stole the bathrobe I got from work on Spa Day. It’s a soft, comfy, white terrycloth robe with a patch that reads RHINO on the left booby area. Rhino Entertainment was the record company I was then working for, and is not to be confused with Spearmint Rhino, a strip club I’ve yet to work for. I’ve been on one date in the last 15 years, and when the person saw on my Facebook page that I worked at Rhino, he thought the strip club. One date.

On Spa Day, the Rhino (Entertainment) employees went to the Toluca Lake Tennis Club and luxuriated in massages, manicures, pedicures, facials, and bikini waxes, plus we enjoyed lunch, mandatory participation in a music trivia contest (guess whose team won!) and each of us was gifted a robe. On further reflection, scratch that part about the bikini wax. That was a different day. Spa Day was as great as it sounds. Back then Rhino did things for employees to make them feel motivated and valued and appreciated, things I didn’t feel by the time I left the company seven years later. Then I had a boss who, besides being dishonest and blaming others for his mistakes, would yell and cuss at me and other employees. You would’ve hoped the head of Legal would’ve told him about California laws regarding a hostile work environment, but he was the head of Legal, so no go. I didn’t take out my frustration and annoyance on my blameless Rhino robe, which I continued to use daily until the day of the crime.

My morning routine was to wake up at 6:45 AM, go into the bathroom where the robe hangs from a hook on the back of the door, don it while brushing my teeth and making my hair presentable enough should that be the day I meet Mr. Right while taking my dogs on their morning walk, hang the robe back on the hook after primping, throw on a shirt and pants and take said dogs on said walk.

Following our walk it’s breakfast; then my shower. It was after stepping out of the shower and reaching for my robe that I discovered it missing. Your first thought, and my first thought: perhaps I misplaced it. Believe me, I looked. I searched every millimeter of this apartment. The robe didn’t fall on the floor. I didn’t absentmindedly hang it in the closet or throw it in the laundry basket or toss it in the garbage pail or hurl it into the washing machine or fling it on my bed or roll it into a ball and cast it under my bed. The shit was stolen.

I live on the top floor of my building, at the end of the hallway. My morning dog walks last approximately 23 minutes. One needs a key to get into the building, and another key to operate the elevator. I’m skeptical that in that amount of time somebody could break into the building, get to our floor, select my unit for their crime, enter my unit, walk past things of value – a 72” flat screen TV, high end hi-fi equipment, my Talking Heads album art autographed by ALL FOUR MEMBERS! – turn the corner to my primary bedroom, enter and turn another corner to the hall where my primary bathroom is, enter the bathroom, close the bathroom door, see my Rhino robe and my Calvin Klein Eastern Fence Lizard-colored robe, grab the Rhino one, and make a hasty exit, closing and locking my door behind them. Now you’re saying “It was an inside job!” Believe me, I thought of that, too, but I have no roommates, other than Winston and Ringo. My landlord lives in the Bay Area and isn’t a morning person, so it’s unlikely he stole my bathrobe. As far as I know, nobody else has a key to my place. Perhaps, unbeknownst to me, my landlord had given one of my neighbors a key to his unit, in case an emergency arises while he is up north, say a busted water pipe flooding the place that I couldn’t tend to as I’d been murdered and neither Winston nor Ringo know how to operate my cell phone or landline to call 9-1-1 to get someone to come over to feed them. But there was no flood the day of this offense, and sure as I’m sitting here I wasn’t murdered, so why would this neighbor with a key come into my apartment while I was walking the dogs and take my robe? It could be like the 1944 movie Gaslight, where my neighbor is Charles Boyer and I’m Ingrid Bergman, and Charles is trying to make me think I’m insane as part of his plan to steal my jewelry. It’s a theory that doesn’t hold water, as I haven’t any jewelry, and if my neighbor’s plot is to steal any items of value I may have, why not just do that? Charles Boyer was married to Ingrid Bergman (in the movie), which is why his plan made sense. I’m not married to anyone, so the idea that a neighbor stole my robe merely to gaslight me is bonkers. The only explanation that makes sense is that my robe was taken by a ghost.

Until that day, I didn’t believe in ghosts. I’ve never believed in anything I couldn’t see – ghosts, UFOs, God. At first the thought of ghosts in my apartment frightened me, for it challenged beliefs I’ve held for decades. It would make me sound like a nutter to those who still held those beliefs, such as 68% of people reading this post. I also felt shame, for if I had known ghosts would be in my home, I’d have cleaned. I’m not the tidiest. There are dust bunnies in various corners. All around the apartment there are boxes I haven’t unpacked from my move three years ago. There’s the clutter of many things I know I have no use for – my sneakers with the completely worn-through soles, the mounted fish that “sings” “Don’t Worry, Be Happy,” the feminine hygiene products I got in a gift bag at a charity fundraiser, but at the same time, something compels me to hold onto. That the ghost didn’t come in, look around, and say “Fuck this place; I’ll get a bathrobe at Saks” might be the most shocking part of this story.

After a couple of days, I accepted my cohabitation with spirits. More precisely, I welcomed it, as it explained a lot. Many things have gone missing over the years: numerous books; my stamp collection; my steel string guitar; my electric guitar and amp; my file folder of celebrity autographs, including beloved English chanteuse Kate Bush, legendary rapper and actor LL Cool J, and gifted pornographic thespian Lukas Ridgeston; the three dozen drinking glasses I purchased at Ikea; and my original vinyl LP issues of Prince’s Lovesexy, Michael Jackson’s Bad, The Cure’s Disintegration, and a Four Tops album that my older co-worker Richie gave me in 1993 so I may record it for him onto a cassette tape as he no longer had a turntable and for which I still carry guilt for never having done so and now I can’t anyway as the album has vanished, which is just as well as I have no idea where Richie lives now. I’m not saying ghosts stole all of these things. I think my parents tossed my stamp collection when we moved from my childhood home to my adolescent home, and I think my dad and his second wife discarded those guitars and amp and the missing books, assuming I forgot that they were storing those items for me as I moved about. I still have my nylon string acoustic guitar, with which I performed “Sabbath Prayer” from Fiddler on the Roof at my Bar Mitzvah. Though a non-believer was I, I went through all the good Jewish boy motions and at age 13 celebrated my bar mitzvah, the Jewish tradition marking one’s foray into adulthood. Rabbi Pinsky had no objections to my playing guitar in the temple, but Cantor Telpasi was very much opposed, and left that job soon after. One wonders what he would have thought five years later when, for my sister’s bat mitzvah, my parents hired as entertainment during the reception Mr. Jiggs, a trick-performing chimpanzee. Quipped my friend Kathy, “Today marks the day you transition from childhood into adulthood, and here to commemorate that milestone is a monkey riding a tricycle!” I don’t recall how we arrived at “Sabbath Prayer” being the song I sang. Teenage me was vehemently opposed to songs that reference a belief in an almighty being (John Denver’s “Thank God I’m a Country Boy,” excepted, as I’m not make of wood), but what else would I sing at a bar mitzvah? “Afternoon Delight?”

Four years later I was cast in my high school production of Fiddler on the Roof as Motel the Tailor. In the show I didn’t have to sing “Sabbath Prayer,” thank G – , um, whatever, and I got to marry Tzeidel, played by Laura M., my best friend then and now, though at present we live on opposite coasts.

I haven’t taken out that guitar in a while. It sits in my closet (still there – I just checked) with my Sanyo version of a Sony Betamax and my baseball cap collection. I so seldom wear baseball caps – only on those bad hair days I experience once every six years. Wearing a baseball cap makes me look like 81-year-old Paul Simon, which is not the lewk I’m going for. I would be more than alright with a ghost making off with one or more of my baseball caps, just not the brown velour one with the patch that says “Funkadelic,” probably the first word that comes to mind when someone thinks about me.

A couple of missing things, like disc two of my Strangers With Candy Season One DVD box, were removed from my home by a guy I met on MySpace. He was 22 and told me that he just came out as gay to his parents and they kicked him out of the house, so I offered him my guest room to use while he looked for a more permanent situation. Just two weeks in I realized his folks didn’t kick him out because he’s gay, but because he’s disrespectful of others’ possessions, like their Strangers With Candy Season One disc two DVD, which he brought to a friend’s home. I wanted to steal something of his in return, but I thought better of that when I rifled through his belongings when he wasn’t home and found nothing worth taking. I told him he needs to go.

I blame the missing drinking glasses and signed celebrity photos on the movers I hired to transport my belongings from my West Hollywood condo to my current home. I saw the glasses and glossies just days before the move, and never again. The appropriated glasses I could live without, as I can always sip my beverages from a saucer, but what are the odds I’ll again meet Kate Bush, Lukas Ridgeston or Karen Carpenter?

On a ghost I’m pinning the missing Rhino bathrobe and the missing original vinyl LP editions of the Prince, Michael Jackson, The Cure, and The Four Tops albums. Where was this ghost going with the robe and dance records? A party at the Playboy Mansion? Is it the ghost of Hugh Hefner invading my space? What would Hugh Hefner’s ghost want with me? Maybe he didn’t know the previous tenants, known heterosexuals, had moved. If I had a missing pipe I may believe it was Hugh, but I don’t own a pipe. I have only two items that constitute smoking paraphernalia. One is a white cigarette lighter with a green leaf on one side and the legend “Get Stoned” on the other side, a gift from a co-worker who was unaware that I don’t and never have smoked the marijuana. How do I come across at work that a co-worker would think of that as a gift for me? The other is a bong, a gift from my then boyfriend, Dr. Leon, who knew I didn’t and never have smoked the marijuana. Nor did he. He gave me this bong not knowing that’s what it was. I also didn’t know what it was. He thought it an amusing sculpture of a man with a Lukas Ridgeston-esque body part and a hole in his head. I thought it was an unusual vase. It wasn’t until my sister visited one day and asked me “Why do you have a bong?” that we learned. I don’t know how she knew what it was, but she likes The Grateful Dead, so draw your own conclusions.

It’s not just the missing items that proves the existence of spirits in my living quarters; it’s also the noises. When I’m in my home office I often hear quarrelling through the wall. My office is in the far corner of the domicile – two outside walls and two walls adjacent to elsewhere in my residence. No vents that connect to other cribs. Whose arguments am I hearing? Ghosts, obviously! I can’t make out what they’re arguing about, though I imagine it concerns what to filch next or moving to a place inhabited by a human who vacuums more often than every leap year. In my primary bedroom, noises come from the ceiling fan vent. I’m not speaking of the fan’s whirr. When the fan is off, squeaking sounds emanate. Not the cry of mice or squirrels or a tricycle-riding chimpanzee hiding from the Jewish community while jostling for a good view of my naked manliness as I take my shower. It’s a ghost in the ceiling, casing the bathroom to later steal my bathrobe, and hanging around post-thievery because they’re horny and like what they see.

A couple of weeks after the larceny I heard a loud clanging coming from the stairwell next to my unit. I was sure it was the ghost raising a ruckus, pissed-off that I was home and thus foiling their plans to pilfer my original vinyl issue of Madonna’s Like A Prayer. What’s that you say? Perhaps it was someone cleaning the handrail? On a Sunday? For hours on end? I suppose it could have been a cleaning person (sure, Jan!), but I wasn’t about to open the door to look. Between the pandemic and Trumpism and the police helicopters constantly overhead in this neighborhood, sometimes announcing through the world’s largest bullhorn “Everyone stay inside!”, my nerves are frayed. I couldn’t handle seeing what I was sure was a vexed ghost wearing my bathrobe.

If that ghost could get his temper under control, he could be boyfriend material. (I’m assuming the ghost is a he, as using another man’s robe seems like something a guy would do. A guy or an obsessed ex-girlfriend who can’t move on and accept that you now play for a different team. Eventually you have to block her number on your phone because the hysterical midnight calls got to be too much. You didn’t want to take out a no contact order but she left you with no other options. You haven’t seen her since Judge Gregory Harrison, no relation to the Falcon Crest actor, granted the order and you like to think she wouldn’t violate the no contact order now that she’s crossed over into the other side, so the ghost must be a he.) He likes Prince. He likes Michael Jackson. He likes watching me shower. That’s enough for me to date someone. I’ve been picky all my life up to this point, and what has it gotten me? I need to expand my potential dating pool to include the non-living.

Michael Jackson’s Bad came out in 1987. Prince’s Lovesexy came out in 1988. I came out in 1989, the same year Madonna released Like A Prayer, though I’m not sure how much cause and effect was at play there. It was early in my music biz career, having started at MJ’s record company in ’85. My future looked bright. At that time, there was no COVID. Donald Trump was merely a local punchline to those of us in Manhattan. Michael Jackson was alive. Prince was alive. I was ambitious, ready and eager to advance up the corporate ladder to be a top music biz executive. I’d meet Soloflex model Scott Madsen and we’d wed and live together forever in a seven-bedroom house just outside Manhattan with a dedicated music media room that I wouldn’t allow Scott in unaccompanied.

My life is now two-thirds over, statistically-speaking, and I’m missing more than a few vinyl albums and a bathrobe. I have the lost Prince and Michael Jackson and The Cure and The Four Tops albums on CD, and I can always listen to them via the music streaming service of my choosing, but still, I’m bothered by the missing record albums. It’s not because they’re vinyl and therefore sound “warmer,” to use the overused description hipsters who started collecting vinyl recently use. It’s not because of the material value of original issues. It’s the attachment I have to many objects of my life that remind me of a time when I was optimistic and my future felt long and wide open.

The feeling of something missing infuses Madonna’s Like A Prayer album. In her case, it’s her mother. Madonna was only five years old when her mother passed away at age 30, the age Madonna was when she released Like A Prayer. That loss, and her subsequent feelings of loneliness despite having five siblings, informs Madonna’s work on this record.

Prior to Like A Prayer, her last studio album was 1986’s True Blue, my #97 album. After that album ran its course she released three singles – “Who’s That Girl,” “Causing a Commotion” and “Spotlight” (a promo-only single), my three least favorite of Madonna’s top 40 pop hits ever. Until those hit, Madonna, along with Prince and Michael Jackson, was my favorite music act of the 80s. I still change the station whenever “Who’s That Girl” or “Causing a Commotion” come on the radio. Luckily, nobody remembers “Spotlight” besides me, a guy named Matthew with whom I’m Facebook friends, and maybe Madonna. In 1988 I concluded Madonna was over.

I was very wrong. On Like A Prayer, Madonna’s songs touch on the death of her mother, religion, her strained relationship with her father, the unraveling of her marriage, and friends who succumbed to AIDS. It’s serious, yet fun, and ambitious, and risky. On Like A Prayer, Madonna, who has a writing credit on all of its songs, transformed from pop superstar to artist, and she did so while maintaining her hold on the charts. The album’s classic self-empowerment anthem “Express Yourself” went top ten around the world, and inspired a chapter in the book I wrote about the value of diversity to corporations, a book I swear will be published within the next year, so help me Non-Existent One. The album’s third single, “Cherish,” also charted high around the world.

However, it’s the title song, the record’s first single, that is the album’s centerpiece and my favorite Madonna song of all-time. Opening with a guitar lick rumored to be played by Prince –

I interrupt that thought to tell you that the only song on the album where Prince has a credit, for co-writing and co-producing with Madonna, is “Love Song.” It’s a slow song. A slow song! Madonna and Prince team up and instead of giving us the club banger we’d all die for, they gave us a ballad. It’s a decent track, but it’s not the first thing a ghost would steal. Far superior to “Spotlight,” though.

– followed by a church organ. Then a dance beat kicks in and by the time Madonna sings “Let the choir sing,” I’m in ecstasy. Heaven on the dance floor. Transcendence. There’s an obvious spiritual aspect to the song and elsewhere on the album – it’s called Like A Prayer and it’s by someone named Madonna duh! I had to let go of my ignoring songs not by John Denver that reference God and prayer ‘cause this song takes me there. There may be another layer of meaning. It wasn’t until the year of our Lord 2022 that I learned the lyric “I’m down on my knees, I want to take you there” is a double entendre. Never occurred to me, but that’s not the other type of meaning of which I speak. There are probably Catholic references that go over my head.

I’m a little jealous of those who buy into religion, as being a non-believer adds to the feeling of belonging that is missing from my life. Believers gather on Friday nights or Saturday mornings or Sunday mornings to worship together or harass those who don’t, while atheists don’t have a community space where they gather regularly to blaspheme. Maybe believing in ghosts is my dipping a toe into the water of spirituality. I wouldn’t go as far as to say I’m agnostic. I’m an open-minded atheist.

There’s more Madonna, and Prince and Michael Jackson, to come on this list, and more things that will undoubtedly go missing.

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A Sam Cooke Playlist

There’s the voice. In its 2008 survey of the greatest singers of all time, Rolling Stone placed Sam Cooke (born January 22, 1931) at number four.

There are the songs. “You Send Me,” “Wonderful World,” “Cupid,” and many others are classics, known to generations. Cooke not only sang these songs; he composed them as well. I think that when you listen to the Sam Cooke playlist below, you’ll recognize a lot more songs of his than you realized.

There’s the business acumen. Cooke was among the first African American entrepreneurs in the music business, starting his own record label, SAR Records, in 1961. Artists signed to the label included Bobby Womack, Johnnie Taylor and Mel Carter. He founded a song publishing imprint. He created a management firm.

There’s the civil rights activist. Cooke took an active role in the civil rights movement. Inspired by Bob Dylan’s “Blowin’ in the Wind,” Cooke composed and recorded “A Change Is Gonna Come.” Released as a single in December 1964, less than two weeks after he was shot to death at age 33, the recording is considered by many to be his finest work and a classic protest song.

There’s the legacy. Sam Cooke was among the charter inductees into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. He’s actually in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame twice – once as a solo artist and once as a member of the gospel group The Soul Stirrers. He’s in the Songwriters Hall of Fame. He’s a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award winner. He has a star on Hollywood’s Walk of Fame. In addition to his ranking on their Greatest Singers survey, Rolling Stone also placed him at number sixteen on their Greatest Artists of All Time list.

Today’s playlist pays tribute to the great Sam Cooke, with two dozen of his best recordings plus covers of a few of his hits.

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Forty Years Of Glenn’s Ten

In 1980, my friend Lydia, who preferred I call her Candice, gave me a diary for Hanukkah, which I prefer to spell Chanukah. Adorning the cover of the diary was a drawing of Paddington Bear, about whom I knew nothing except he appeared to go out wearing only a coat and a hat with the price tag still on it, an ursine Minnie Pearl who reminded me of that guy I saw in Times Square five years earlier. My parents had taken me to see Broadway’s The Magic Show starring Doug Henning for my eleventh birthday. On our walk from the restaurant to the theater we passed a man with no pants sitting on a mailbox shouting about “the system.” I sensed that man made a wrong turn at some point in his life.

I’d never kept a diary, but not being one to throw away a gift, I gave it a try. “January 1. I woke up at noon. Had bacon for lunch. New England clam chowder for dinner.” I cherish that memory of my most festive New Year’s Day ever.

On January 10 I listed my ten favorite current songs:

That constituted the beginning of a habit I’ve upheld every Saturday since. This week Glenn’s Ten begins its 41st year.

Despite the initial Glenn’s Ten consisting solely of national top 40 hits that one could hear on Casey Kasem’s countdown way too early on Sunday mornings, the other kids in school never talked about them. My fellow seniors at New Jersey’s Saddle River Country Day School talked about the greatness of The Doors, Led Zeppelin and The Grateful Dead, but never discussed the brilliance of Eddie Rabbitt employing alternating finger snaps and hand claps to mimic raindrops hitting the ground in “I Love a Rainy Night.” Led Zeppelin didn’t do that in “Fool in the Rain.” The Dead didn’t do that in “Box of Rain.” The Doors’ “Riders on the Storm?” Nope. It was Eddie Flippin’ Rabbitt, and there’s more precipitation from whence that came. My favorite rock and roll singer during my high school days, Barry Manilow, connected with me on “I Made It Through The Rain.” Whereas Mr. Rabbitt sang about his passion for actual rain, Barry “The Man” Manilow’s rain was a metaphor for adversity and everyday struggles. High school’s social scene was a struggle for me. Already shy and introverted, my fondness for the most popular music of the day exacerbated my feeling of not belonging, which is ironic, don’t you think?

From the late summer 1981 to spring 1985 I attended Brandeis University in Waltham, Massachusetts. Shy me made a few friends there, such as Kathy, who was my platonic date for the school dances. I so enjoyed dancing, and our college years were a furtive time for dance music, with the release of Michael Jackson’s Thriller and the rise of Madonna and Prince, plus all those new wave bands hailing from the UK. Kathy was especially taken with them. She studied in London one semester, and when she returned to the States she gifted me a mixtape of the music she discovered abroad. I was particularly taken with The Smiths, whose singer, Morrissey, recognized what I was feeling. (We didn’t yet know about his racist leanings.) The Smiths weren’t well-known in the United States. I recall Interview magazine’s Glenn O’Brien writing that the only people in the US who heard of The Smiths were some “pretentious yuppies at Brandeis.” I’m famous!

In the spring of 1985, The Smiths released their single “How Soon Is Now?,” with its lyrics:

There’s a club if you’d like to go
You could meet somebody who really loves you
So you go and you stand on your own
And you leave on your own
And you go home and you cry
And you want to die

It was like he read my diary, if my diary was more than song lists. I desired a girlfriend so badly, but my shyness prevented me from asking girls out, and on the one or two occasions where I mustered the courage, I was rejected.

When you say it’s gonna happen now
When exactly do you mean?
See I’ve already waited too long
And all my hope is gone.

A few months after graduation I landed a job in the Accounting department of CBS Records. Me at a record company! The record company that distributed Michael Jackson and Cyndi Lauper and Bruce Springsteen and Barbra Streisand and flippin’ Deniece Williams! I got the job through my skills and know how – I’m a math geek and great with numbers. Let’s hear it for this boy!

By the way, as you’re looking at my top ten lists, the column on the right is the position that song held the previous week. Under “Average” I list the songs that dropped out of Glenn’s Ten that week. The parenthetical lists that song’s peak Glenn’s Ten position, the number of weeks at that position, and the total number of weeks in Glenn’s Ten. The number to the right of that is the sum of every position held by the song, plus 11 for every week of the year the song was not in Glenn’s Ten, which number I then use in December each year to compute my tally of my favorite songs of the year. That’s the skills and know how that got me my job. Math geek!

I’m gay. My first clue was that I had been attracted to men with muscular physiques for several years, though I attributed that to envy, as I was so skinny. It turns out it was more than envy. I admitted that to myself in 1988, and from then on I was open about it. Interestingly, none of the artists in the Glenn’s Ten of January 9, 1988 were openly gay publicly. Nope, not him. Nor him. Nor him. I’m still not sure about him; do you know?

In other big news, in 1988 I moved from the suburbs of New Jersey into Manhattan. Just two years earlier I couldn’t envisage me living in the big city, with all its noise and activity and men donning only a coat and a hat. Now I loved this concrete jungle where dreams are made of. Let’s hear it for New York New York New York.

In even bigger news, I changed the verbiage denoting the scores of songs that fell from Glenn’s Ten from “Average” to the more accurate “Total.” What a year! Break out the bacon and chowder and make way for 1989!

I met Tommy in 1989 at a dance at NYC’s Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Community Center. I went with my friend Frank, who knew the friend with whom Tommy went, so while those two were catching up on the dance floor, I was dancing with Tommy. We became a couple. We’d go out dancing every other weekend. I can still picture him throwing his hands in the air during the chorus of Black Box’s “Everybody Everybody,” when they sang “everybody” for the fourth and eighth times. Or perhaps that was me with my hands in the air. I get us confused. Like Tommy’s mother said to him after meeting me, “He’s like a Jewish version of you.” (Does that make me a self-hating narcissist?)

I broke up with the gentile version of me. Tommy was and is a good guy, though I was missing the massive amount of support I required to counter my insecurity. It was that insecurity that kept me with him for three-plus years, as I thought I’d never encounter another guy as cute or who possesses all of Tommy’s positive qualities who felt the same about me. Eventually I realized I was cheating myself and broke it off to discover where life takes me.

Career-wise, I moved from CBS Records’ (now Sony Music’s) Accounting department into the division of the company that licenses their music. Brought in to manage their accounting functions, I asked my boss if he could teach me about licensing (negotiating deals for music to be used pretty much anywhere music is used – on albums, in movies, playing above your head at the Piggly Wiggly, etc. That greeting card your mother sent you that plays “We Are Family” when you open it? You’re welcome.).

I learned a lot, and when a position opened up in the International Licensing department, I applied for and got it. The job included several trips to Europe to meet with and do presentations for Sony’s affiliates.

I was still shy. I was still introverted. I also was a perfectionist who needed to master his job. I had to conquer my shyness. I had tried therapy in the past, but it didn’t work for me. My therapist would assign me homework – “Go to a bar or a club and say hello to someone. Just hello.” “Hello, therapist! I’m here because the thought of saying hello to a stranger is mortifying.” He may as well have told me to wrestle an alligator. Afraid of needles, I’d let the dentist drill cavities without first injecting me with Novocaine. That I could handle. Talking to a stranger was too painful. This demanded radical action.

When people got to know me they’d tell me I’m funny. That’s it! I’ll become a stand-up comedian. I’ll be on stage in front of strangers, expressing my thoughts, and they’ll have to listen to me, because I have a spotlight and a mic. I took courses at The New School and the American Comedy Institute. I studied improvisation at HB Studios. I made my stand-up debut at a meeting for singles at the Jewish Community Center on Manhattan’s Upper West Side. I think the only one who scored that night was me. I got laughs. I got more bookings. Over time I won comedy contests. I was favorably reviewed in several publications, with Backstage newspaper featuring me in a front page story. Within a few years I performed for a sold-out crowd at NYC’s famed Caroline’s on Broadway. During my years of performing stand-up comedy only one audience heckled me – a group of senior citizens during a fundraiser for a Catholic hospital. The only ones there who appreciated my “Glenn’s Tips For Meeting Guys” routine was a table of nuns and priests, one of whom was taking notes, I swear to whomever he believes in. That gig aside, stand-up boosted my self-confidence.

I met with Sony’s affiliates. I did presentations. I made them educational and fun. I enjoyed doing them. At a conference in Athens, my fellow employees awarded no-longer-as-shy me a bottle of ouzo for my mastery of Greek dancing, which I think had less to do with my dancing than it did with the consumption of ouzo by the judges. Still, I welcomed the recognition. To this day I have that bottle. I don’t drink yet I’m not one to throw away a gift.

In the fall of 1996, I was dating Dr. Leonid, a nice-looking Russian dentist I met through a personal ad he placed. I liked him, though I knew he wasn’t “the one.” And he knew that I knew that he wasn’t “the one,” though I was “the one” to him, a sentiment he drove into me by singing along to Madonna’s “You Must Love Me” from the Evita soundtrack while we were baking the potato.

My #1 song was BLACKstreet’s “No Diggity.” When the CD single was released, I went to buy it at Nobody Beats the Wiz in Union Square. On my walk over I thought “I wonder if that cute salesguy who was there on Father’s Day still works there.” As I approached the top floor, where the CDs were sold, my eyes locked with that salesguy. No-longer-as-shy-yet-still-very-shy me immediately looked away and headed to the section for CD singles. “May I help you?” I heard from behind me. That’s how I met Michael. We chatted for several minutes about the music we liked, a conversation I found far more pleasant than having a cavity filled. Nobody Beats The Wiz didn’t have “No Diggity” in stock, so I left with “Macarena Christmas” and Michael’s phone number.

Michael and I went on our first date the following Friday, when he revealed that he kept a weekly list of his favorite songs. What kind of wackadoo does that? I liked him. Dr. Leonid, who was away on vacation when Michael and I went out, called me the moment he was back (This was in the pre-cell phone days), and I broke the news to him. He didn’t take it well. “Who is he?” “His name is Michael.” “How old is he?” “He’s 23.” “Where does he work?” “At a store.” “What store?” “I’m not going to tell you where he works.” “I feel like someone stabbed me in the heart!” A popular song on the radio at that time was Toni Braxton’s “Un-break My Heart.” If Dr. Leonid maintained a top ten, that record would have then jumped to #1 with a bullet. Needing a copy of this song that so adequately expressed what he was feeling, he went to Nobody Beats The Wiz in Union Square. While looking for it, a voice from behind him asked “May I help you?” Dr. Leonid turned and saw the salesguy’s name tag. Michael. “How old are you?” Dr. Leonid asked. “23,” the salesguy replied. They made plans to go on a date.

They never did go on that date. Dr. Leonid relayed the story to me a week later when we met up for dinner, revealing that he asked out Michael merely to hurt me and make me upset. I wasn’t upset. I thought it was hilarious. That made Dr. Leonid upset. As far as I was concerned, Michael could see who he wants. He doesn’t belong to me. I was happy that someone as attractive as him would even date me. I recognize that sounds like low self-esteem talking, but that’s only because it’s low self-esteem talking.

I only saw Dr. Leonid once more after that, a few years later at a cabaret show. The friend who invited me also invited another friend of his, who it turns out was Dr. Leonid’s then boyfriend. Dr. Leonid lit up when he saw me and we caught up for a few minutes. His boyfriend did not care for the obvious affection Dr. Leonid still felt for me. They departed before the performance started and broke up the next day.

Michael and I have long since stopped seeing each other, though we still discuss music and share our lists.

Speaking of …

My four years working in Sony Music’s International division were the longest I’d gone without a promotion in my 14 years at the company. I reckoned this was the end of the line of my career. I could remain there and suck it up or end up in Times Square wearing only a coat and a hat with the price tag still on it. Neither was optimal. Enter Macy Gray.

Don’t let the days of your life pass you by
You got to get up, get out and do somethin’
How will you make it if you never even try?

A woman with whom I was working on a license deal invited me to a dinner party. I did as Macy Gray suggested and pressured myself to go. While there I asked folks if they knew of any record company that is hiring. “I think Zomba is.” Zomba was the home of Backstreet Boys, A Tribe Called Quest, and a young performer who at that moment was enjoying her first hit – Britney Spears. I sent my resume to a former Sony employee who was now at Zomba. She passed it on to her boss. Her boss called me. “We just created a new head of licensing position and you’re exactly who we’re looking for.” And so, off I went. My optimism returned. And to think, all I had to do was put myself out there and talk to people. I learned a valuable life lesson: always listen to Macy Gray.

My four years at Zomba were great. I got promoted two years into it, and under my leadership, the company’s licensing revenue increased 400%. A few other companies reached out to me to get me to jump ship over to them. One was Warner Music Group. An executive from Warner asked me “how much would it take for you to relocate to LA and be our Vice President of Domestic and International Licensing and Contract Administration in our Rhino Records division?” LA, with their traffic and smog and healthy dining? Yuck! I proposed a salary 60% more than I was presently making. The executive called back two days later. “Your salary was approved.” At the same time, my boss at Zomba told me “You are now in charge of film and TV licensing for every BMG label – Jive, RCA, Arista, etc.” BMG had purchased Zomba some months earlier. BMG was unable to match the Warner salary, and thus, I said goodbye to New York and Bobi, the handsome Dutch soccer player I was dating, and off I went to breathe in smog while sitting in traffic and munching on a carrot stick. I made it. The week I started at Warner, Zomba recording artist Justin Timberlake fell out of Glenn’s Ten, and Warner recording artist The Streets was #1. Could this be a sign? Don‘t be stupid.

Most of my years at Rhino/Warner were good. Under my leadership the licensing team had several record-breaking fiscal quarters. Rhino’s General Manager/later President told me on several occasions “I don’t know how you do it. Sales continue to decline, yet licensing revenue keeps going up.” I’ll tell you how I did it. I know how to negotiate lucrative deals and I hired and developed good teams. The rise in licensing revenue year over year wasn’t enough to compensate for Rhino’s declining sales, and every year we had layoffs. In September of 2013, one month shy of my fiftieth birthday, I found myself an out of work bitch. (See what I did there!) Rhino’s former GM/now President told me “Licensing receipts are declining.” No shock, Charlotte! That’s what happens when you prune a staff of 27 down to a staff of four. I’m outstanding at my job but I ain’t Doug Henning!

While being laid off is rude and insulting, the reality is I was ready to leave. In my last year at Rhino they had me reporting into a different senior vice present. This SVP would yell at me (and other employees), cuss at me, and blame me for some poor licensing deals made by an outside party he hired, deals he failed to review and that had no oversight by me or anyone on my team. I now recognize that his conduct likely stemmed from his own insecurities. People deal with their insecurities in different ways. I turned mine inwards. My boss lashed at people and didn’t accept responsibility for his mistakes. I understand. I have sympathy. Still, what an asshole!

My friend Martin urged me to quit. I was stressed. I was unhappy. At this point in my career, I had proven my abilities and had 27 years of stellar employee reviews to back me up. As soon as I exited that meeting with the company’s president and Human Resources I went to my office and immediately texted my friend Martin: “My birthday present came early this year.”

This was the first time since I started at CBS Records in 1985 that I found myself without a job.

Not only was I unemployed; I also was single. I went on a fair amount of dates when I got to LA. Early on I met a great guy named Carlo. We went out a few times and seemed to click. We decided to be a couple. I haven’t seen him since we made that decision. I hope he wasn’t kidnapped or killed wrestling an alligator or in a home invasion. None of those possibilities occurred to me until today. Hopefully he’s alive and well and merely decided he doesn’t like me and chose to ghost me. What an assh—no. He’s a good person. I don’t know where he went, though I sincerely hope he’s happy and doing well wherever he is. I wish that for everyone I’ve ever dated.

Only three of the song’s in this week’s Glenn’s Ten are in the national top 40. One is my #1, Megan Thee Stallion’s “Body.” I discovered a group of friends who share my love of it, and we fan boy over the cleverness of Ms. Stallion’s lyrics, to wit, “saucy like a barbecue but you won’t get your baby back.” If that doesn’t win M.T. Stallion the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry then their voting process is shoddy oddy oddy oddy oddy oddy oddy oddy oddy oddy oddy oddy oddy oddy oddy.

Over the 40 years I’ve been writing down my favorite songs of the week, my tastes have evolved, though what gravitates me toward certain songs hasn’t. Over the 40 years I’ve evolved, though I retain many core traits. I’m still an introvert. I still consider saying hello to a stranger terrifying and painful (though I do now let the dentist shoot me up with Novocaine before drilling.) While the past year of living through a pandemic has caused my anxiety to spike, the bright spot I find in it is I no longer have to come up with excuses to avoid social gatherings. As my friend Angel said, “It’s like you’ve been practicing for the stay at home mandate your entire life.”

Speaking of man dates, a love life doesn’t exist for me. I went out with a few good guys my first seven years in LA, including the aforementioned Carlo, as well as the gorgeous bodybuilder attorney and the adorable high end furniture salesperson with the rash, though at some point I gave up. I’ve gone on only one date in the last ten years, though four guys went on dates with me due to miscommunications. It seems a relationship isn’t in the cards for me. I’m too old. I’m not fit enough. If that sounds like low self-esteem talking, that’s because self-esteem is a journey, not a destination. I still have work to do on myself, though there has been progress over the years. I now like myself enough to relish solitary time and not spend it pining for a boyfriend, though who doesn’t like a baked potato?

But hey, anything can happen. Forty years ago, I didn’t conceive I’d have a successful career in the music business. I didn’t think I’d feel comfortable speaking to hundreds of people. There may exist someone out there for a funny, smart, music-obsessed math geek. Until he shows up, I’ll continue doing what I do and await further instructions from Macy Gray.

I still often feel I don’t belong, though I found a group of guys who also feel like they don’t belong, so we “don’t belong” together. I suppose that’s the primary difference between 17-year-old Glenn and 57-year-old Glenn: my shyness and feelings of otherness are not frightening or debilitating. They simply are there, and while I wish I didn’t feel these feelings, I do and life goes on. I’m less insecure. I made it through the rain.

My initial plan after departing Rhino was to decompress for two weeks and then search for a job. That plan was quickly nixed when I realized after two weeks not working that I was the most relaxed I had ever felt. I looked at a job posting for a VP of Licensing position at another major record company and found my stomach turned. I don’t want to run the licensing department at a big company anymore, but what to do? It didn’t make sense to work for 28 years straight and then relax for only two weeks. I extended my break and set to work on myself, exploring what makes me happy, which, aside from listening to music, is being creative. I attended more improv classes and writing classes and joined two public speaking clubs. As evidenced previously by the joy I took in performing stand-up comedy and doing business presentations, I enjoyed public speaking. Maybe there’s a fresh career there. What would I talk about? I don’t think I’ll secure many bookings discussing the brilliance of Eddie Rabbitt (but seriously, those alternating finger snaps and hand claps!). I guided my staff to great success, so perhaps I’ll talk about leadership. My staff was made up of men and women of varying ages, races, nationalities, sexual orientations and religious beliefs. When I exited Rhino, its senior management was all men, all white, all straight, all cisgender, and all in their forties. Well, one guy was in his fifties; he got laid off the week after me. I decided to pursue corporate speaking about the value of diversity to organizations and how it’s not only the right thing to do morally; it’s also the right thing to do fiscally. It’s taken me awhile to get it going – I’m still working on my perfectionist tendencies – but I anticipate my diversity book and online course to launch this year, and I’m confident they’ll perform well. Not over-the-moon confident, but reasonably confident. If they don’t work, I’ll attempt something else. I’m smart. I’m resourceful. I’m still evolving. I’m not ready to head to Times Square and sit on a mailbox wearing nothing but a coat and a hat with the price tag still on it.

Forty years of Glenn’s Tens

Today’s playlist consists of my top song from every year I’ve been doing Glenn’s Ten, courtesy of my math skills:

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