Madonna Rocks the Land

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It can be hard, now, to get her to talk about her scroungy years in New York. She recalls being fired from a long succession of ratty jobs. She resents suggestions that she slept her way to the top. That is not because she didn't learn her trade from a succession of musicians and deejays, some of whom she slept with, but because the idea that she couldn't make it to the top on drive and talent alone is insulting. In fact the men in her life talk about her now % without rancor; it seems to have been obvious even then that Madonna was just passing through. Mark Kamins, deejay at the Danceteria, a funky, four-floor Chelsea disco that caters to purple-haired punks in leather and other exotics, is credited with "discovering" Madonna in 1982, although like America before Columbus, she was there all along. "She had this incredible sense of style," says Kamins. "She had an aura." She also had a four-track demo tape she had made with another boyfriend, a musician named Steve Bray. Kamins played it and got great response from the disco crowd for a song called Everybody. Madonna's career began to gather momentum, and Kamins at one point thought she had agreed to let him produce her first album. Madonna instead chose a professional producer, Reggie Lucas. "At the time, I felt stepped on," says Kamins. "But I don't think there's a mean bone in her body. Maybe a mean knuckle but not a mean bone."

Madonna's current boyfriend is Actor Sean Penn (The Falcon and the Snowman), whose name she shouts out with joyful exuberance when an interviewer asks her a plonking question about favorite actors. But Penn, 24, is about to start shooting a new movie in Tennessee, and she is grinding through her tour, and they do not see each other much, though Madonna calls for half an hour every night after her show. The dreary fact is that stars sometimes lead lives of chaste exasperation.

For Madonna on a show night, work begins at about 5, with a sound check at the arena to make sure the roadies have the equipment adjusted correctly. At about 7:20 the Wanna Be's start to file in. All of them head directly for the ladies' rooms, for a last mirror check on their getups. They are delighted with the two brand-new ancient games, dressing up and sexual teasing, that Madonna has taught them. Their dates look confused. Nobody under 40 has teased anyone sexually in the U.S. for something like 20 years. New Yorker Robert Shalom, owner of the video club Private Eyes, says, "The guys are scared of these girls. 'What do I do?' they ask. The girls come on so strong, dressed in their mothers' best fake jewelry, saying 'Don't touch me, I'm the material girl, spend money on me.' " Waiting for a concert to begin, some of the boys who have tagged along will say that Madonna is, um, yeah, real sexy, but the cleverest, even as they scrape the ground nervously with one hoof, suspect that they are being kidded.