Regis High School yearbook
Should NYU faculty and their dependent children receive full tuition remission?
Although Sunday night's Grammys were graced by some truly grotesque commodities — among them, Quentin Tarantino trying to talk black (paging Spike Lee) and a necromantic 3-D tribute to Michael Jackson — the show has prompted me to write a more personal Pretentiousaurus. I figure it's time to tell the world my sordid history with Lady Gaga: the highs, the lows, the lies, the blow. Actually, the puberty.
I went to Regis High School, an all-boys, full-scholarship Jesuit school on the Upper East Side. If you walk near 85th and Park, you can derive some idea of what I looked like as a freshman: back hunched under a million textbooks, baggy golf shirt, khakis, facial hair nonexistent. The school took pride in its academics and its debate team, which meant that inside you would find either charisma or a total lack thereof. I played in the band.
Because Regis put on plays but didn't want to gender-bend everything Shakespeare-style, the school used to essentially rent girls from the neighborhood Catholic schools for each production. When I was a freshman, the fall musical was "Guys and Dolls." I was in the band playing sax. Adelaide was played by Stefani Germanotta, a Convent of the Sacred Heart senior known today, in gay bars around the world, as Lady Gaga.
That's really the full extent of my story. Kind of lame, I know. Although I can claim — and have claimed in job interviews — that I once played backup for Lady Gaga, the band was separated from her by gaps in both space and, effectively, class. Because we were loud, large and out of tune, we played from the balcony above the audience, in the cheap seats.
But damn. Stefani. Anyone who was in that band at that moment can tell you about the effect she had on us from below, literally and figuratively speaking — the way she entranced us, distracted us, made "Take Back Your Mink" impossible to play. For minutes at a time, we abandoned the conceit that we were performing rather than watching. And she wasn't just appealing to a 14-year-old's desperation — she was a pitch-perfect Adelaide, fully embodying the high-pitched hysteria of Vivian Blaine in the film version. In our senior year, we were still talking about her. If I were a Masshole, I'd have poured a beer on the ground in her name.
Do I see the same girl in Lady Gaga's ubiquitous persona? Not at all. She's obscured; she's opaque. Layers upon layers of distortion guard her actual personality. It seems like the entire point of "Lady Gaga" — the name, to me, always sounding like stupefied baby talk — is guardedness in abstraction; the construction of a glitzy mask out of sparkle and myth. She's not like Taylor Swift. She's hardly a person.
Still, I remember how much of a sex symbol she was at 18, in a poofy blond wig, without even trying. I remember the effortlessness of her performance — of her state of being in performance. And I feel privileged to have been there in that balcony with the candy wrappers, the stern stares from Mr. Phillips and the pubescent feeling of awe. It's not often that you get to see the person behind the commodity — especially when she brands herself as performance art and may, indeed, have a penis.
Jarrod Klawinsky
Feb 02, 2010
2:45 p.m.
Pure f#!$ing genius. Everything about this article was amazing.
Theresa
Feb 03, 2010
4:13 a.m.
I love you, Matthew Margini. I was the frumpy one in the head-to-toe wool playing the stern Gen. Cartwright, how do you think I felt as a non-self-confident 16 year old next to her?! And no, she doesn't have a penis. I've been in the dressing room with her.
chuckjones
Feb 04, 2010
2:24 p.m.
Mr. Margini didn't know Gaga, he was only "entranced" with her from afar (using his word). His statements about who is a person and who isn't hardly qualify as an informed opinions. I do listen to people who know her. I haven't read a nasty word by someone who has actually spent time with her or worked with her. The nastiness only comes from people at a distance. She may be obscure to him, but she doesn't seem that way to her fans and the vast array of artists who adore her and want to work with her. She communicates directly with her fans and bares her emotions. She's not afraid to cry. Via her work, she makes herself very vulnerable as she explores intimate themes. This vulnerability, and her success, opens her up to attacks and ridiculous rumors. These attacks are not too different in nature from the high school meanness that she and many others have endured.
Blahblahblog
Feb 04, 2010
5:52 p.m.
@chuckjones: Dude, did you read the article before you wrote a paragraph-long rebuttal? Margini doesn't claim to have a personal relationship with Gaga, nor does he attack her.
FM Fats
Feb 10, 2010
7:15 a.m.
I was in the chorus of Guys and Dolls at Regis in 1967. The girls in the cast came from Marymount. None of them became famous, however, nor did I.
Andy
Feb 10, 2010
11:42 a.m.
Such a Regis-y article.
Regis Jazz Band
Feb 10, 2010
12:33 p.m.
Matt Margini, nicely done. It's nice to see the Regis education has served you well. As a member of the band during the four years that Stefani Germanotta performed, your article was on point, and I share your sentiments.
@chuckjones: Please read the article again. I'm with Blahblahblog, and I believe you may have misinterpreted. There was no attack.
I believe one of Matt Margini's points was that Stefani Germanotta was such a talented and striking performer in high school, before the Lady Gaga persona, that Lady Gaga does not do Stefani Germanotta justice. If you were really obsessed with Lady Gaga the artist, I guess I could see how in some twisted way you might take that as an insult. But to be honest, that seems to be more of a compliment as to how talented Matt Margini thinks Stefani/Gaga really is.
Another, probably more significant, point is that whatever perception Matt Margini (and the rest of us in the band at the time) may have had of Stefani, from our limited interaction with her and the rest of the Sacred Heart girls (hanging out during weekend rehearsals, after school rehearsals, grabbing pizza before shows, etc.), it is not nearly the same person that we see when we look at Lady Gaga. Now, we could easily get into a complex and difficult discussion about identity and how much a person is/isn't his/her persona, but I'll leave that for someone's thesis. Maybe Stefani has become only this character Lady Gaga, maybe Stefani is still Stefani but performs as Lady Gaga, maybe the two are so intricately intertwined that at any point she is a complex of both. You catch my drift.
Any way you cut it, much respect to Stefani/Lady Gaga. She has the musical talent to be a Sara Bareilles type, but has a global scope. I doubt the latter happens if Stefani Germanotta doesn't go over the top, throw on wigs and masks, and become The Halloween costume for 2009, probably 2010 as well. Another influential New Yorker once said, I dumb down for my audience and double my dollars.
Joe
Feb 24, 2010
6:12 p.m.
Does she walk?
Does she talk?
Does she come complete?
My homeroom homeroom angel always pulled me from my seat
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