My sister’s boyfriend teaches theatrical set construction at La Guardia High School for the Performing Arts. There’s always a new “somebody” in the incoming class and this year it’s Madonna’s kid, Lola. When asked what she’s like he responded, “What they’re all like: Full of energy and you’re afraid they’re going to cut off their thumbs.”

Which makes sense from the lips of someone paid to supervise a roomful of fourteen year old aspiring actors as they wield electric drills and table saws. Ironically the only person who’s ever lost a thumb in his classroom is him. It got sewn back on but it looks like a Frankenthumb and so now we all ask after its health by saying, “How’s Frank?”

Although the kids are technically responsible for building the sets for their productions he puts in a lot of after-hours time actually getting shit done so that when the curtain goes up there’s something more than one half-painted flat behind it. He was putting in some of these hours a few days ago when his iPod clicked over to his Madonna Mix. 

He figured it wasn’t a big deal because there weren’t many other people left in the building. But about four songs in, while he was bent over a problematic set of risers, the volume suddenly increased to maximum level.

He swung around to dress down whatever little shit was messing with his stuff and there she was, smiling and pulsing a bit with the deafening beat of “Ray Of Light.” She let him recover from the shock and then she said, “That’s better!” and turned and went out of the shop and back to whatever celebrity-parent-at-school thing she was dealing with.

“Well that’s pretty embarrassing!” I said when my sister told me the story this weekend. 

“Yeah, I know,” she said. “Ray Of Light! Christ! He said it took three songs for Papa Don’t Preach to make its way up and by then she was probably gone.”

Moral: What’s on your Madonna Mix matters.

Alternately: Always play at full volume.