Look Out for the Madonna Factor

That said, don't worry.

Unlike some DTH columnists I won't launch into a long column about my sex life and how Madonna fits into it. Still, I think the fact that Madonna is cool is something we can all agree on in one way or another.

Her "Like a Virgin" period was pretty nifty way back when. And who can forget the Marilyn Monroe look-alike phase, the "Sex" scandals, or the more recent "SuperStar" post-marriage phase.

If there was any doubt in anyone's mind about the coolness of Madonna, just point your favorite web browser over bmwfilms.com. Her brand new husband, Guy Ritchie, has made a short film for the Web site, along with Ang Lee of "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon" fame and John Frankenheimer, the director of "Ronan." Ritchie's new 6-minute film/commercial prominently features Madonna as a bitchy, self-obsessed rock star. If you haven't watched the series, go check it out as soon as you can.

Pay particular attention to the Madonna film and you'll get a new appreciation for her coolness.

Like I said, Madonna is cool.

Unfortunately, a new local retro-themed radio station threatens to kill all that coolness.

A professor once told me (and others have confirmed) that the quickest way to a Ph.D. is to make up a bunch of nifty phrases.

These phrases don't have to describe anything new. If you can come up with a new way to describe an old, well-understood phenomenon, it's all the better.

So, with an honorary degree in mind, allow me to introduce my new contribution to pop culture:

"The Madonna Factor."

The new retro radio station is an example of the Madonna Factor in action. Simply put, the Madonna Factor is the ability of multiple repetitions of a piece of music to make people want to drive their car into a tree at an extremely high rate of speed.

In other words, my Madonna Factor is a fancy new way of describing something that drives you crazy.

Hello Ph.D.!

I guess that the radio station only had 2 CDs when it opened. Apparently, one of the CDs was a copy of Madonna's Like a Virgin and the other was a copy of Phil Collins' Greatest Hits.

That was it.

24 hours a day it was either "Like a Virgin" or "Easy Lover." Phil Collins, and his shortcomings, will have to wait for a different column. There simply isn't room here to discuss all the reasons the man should be put down like a maimed horse. On the other hand, it was pleasant to hear Madonna on the radio - for the first hundred times.

I hadn't heard the album in a while, and it gave me a chance to look back on the ripped jeans and fingerless glove days of sixth and seventh grade.

But after hearing the song 1,000 times over the course of only a few days, something changed.

I became possessed by a strange inability to change the channel on my car radio. It was similar to the way that you can never avoid sneaking a peak at a car wreck when you drive by whether you want to or not, hoping to catch a glimpse of that arm or a piece of hair.

My radio sat on the same channel day after day, as the Madonna repetitions piled up. 10,000! 100,000! I wanted to change.

I realized that my health was in danger if I didn't, but I couldn't. I couldn't bring myself to switch the channel.

I was haunted. I knew I couldn't hold out much longer. At 1,000,000 repetitions I knew that I'd have to drive my car into a tree or off a cliff . anything to make the Twilight Zone-like possession of my radio stop.

Like a Virgin . Like a Virgin . The Madonna Factor could have kicked in at any point and that would have been the end of this guy.

Luckily, the radio station got a few more CDs. Now they mix a little Journey and REO Speedwagon into the Madonna and Phil Collins mix. I guess I won't have to crash my car just yet after all.

Madonna is still cool for now and Phil Collins should still be shot. Life is as it should be.

I'm not sure that 1980s nostalgia is such a good thing though. For those of us who are old enough to have been in middle school in the `80s, it wasn't really a great time. Divorce seemed like the "in" thing for parents to do among my peers and that's never fun.

Although we heard rumors about the cool kids doing drugs and having sex, no one in my circle of friends had any firsthand knowledge of such exotic fare. I tried sniffing model airplane glue once in 1986 but all I got out of it was grounded for ruining the carpet in my room.

I got beat up in sixth grade for going to school dressed as the lead singer of Duran Duran for Halloween, and since then "Hungry Like the Wolf" always makes me cringe.

So the `80s had its problems, at least as far as I'm concerned. There was no Woodstock for my generation, and no big issue like the Vietnam War to protest. Nothing except the music really got people going.

I guess that's what makes Madonna cool. She's something everyone from the 1980's can relate to .

In small doses that is. You can relate your middle school huffing experiences to Bill Hill. Reach him at wbhill@unc.edu.