Manhattan Offender

Lourdes' Celebration has everyone yet again talking about Madonna

It's the shortest of video teases, but the appearance of Lourdes in the new Celebration clip has everyone back on Team Madonna.  Who'd believe that a mere month ago everyone was on the fence?  Don't doubt Madonna again, for Mercy's sake.

New Madonna song creates existential crisis for gays

You would think that a song titled "Celebration" would be a cause for good times, but for local gays, it is a cause for consternation.  Factions are split between the "It's Madonna, so you like it" camps and those not falling into lockstep.   Part of the problem is it's initial release by Paul "popular in the previous century" Oakenfold, who put a trance-dub feel to it, harkening back to the days of massive clubs and glowsticks.  Further releases (like that of Benny Benassi below) have done nothing to assuage the feeling of "I've heard it all before".

From Facebook statuses to beaches in Provincetown and Fire Island the topic is up for debate and emotions are running high.  At the end of the day though, there is self-reflection, and the decision is upon the individual listener.  No suicides have been reported as yet.

If Madonna and A-Rod become the tabloids' "Rodonna" I will need to change my drag name.

Not that I even have a drag name, but if I did it would certainly inconvenience me.

As for the scandal itself?  Yoga'd out cougar hits it with sort of homely baseballer?  Seriously, Madonna, follow the Tina Turner model.  Find a wealthy man and retreat to the Alps, or wherever it is that Turner hides away.

Link: Scandal: Madonna And Alex Rodriguez.

Madonna on New York/Me on Madonna

Madonna's back in Vanity Fair this month.  Says she of New York: 

It's "not the exciting place it used to be. It still has great energy; I still put my finger in the socket. But it doesn't feel alive, cracking with that synergy between the art world and music world and fashion world that was happening in the 80s. A lot of people died."

Isn't this a case pot and kettle blackness?  The following would also hold true: 

Madonna is not the exciting person she used to be. She still has great energy; I still put my finger in her socket. But she doesn't feel alive, cracking with that synergy between the art world and music world and fashion world that was happening in the 80s. A lot of her has died.

Vanity Fair has an online slideshow in which you too can track the progression from when eyes were glued to her to the present when eyes sort of roll at her.

(Via New York via Gawker)

Past, Over: Madonna on Ludlow

This week on that Gawker thing, a look back to life on Ludlow Street in the gay 90's.  All at the convergence point of Madonna, bodegas, and Dominican boys.  For this piece a quick trip with the camera was needed to see if my memory was true, that Madonna's proposed new Kaballah center was on the site of the bodega where my Tropical Fantasy's were found.  Turns out that it was not, and that the former bodega is now an organic food shop.  Meanwhile, Max Fish, Pink Pony and Las Venus are safe and sound where they were almost a decade past. 
Enjoy.  Or hate, or, be indignant.  All good.

YouTube Tuesday: Election Day

Unfortunately the Dee-Lite ditty isn't posted to YouTube.  Surely you remember "Vote, baby, vote.  Are you registered, baby"?  But Madonna also did her Rock the Vote piece and the resulting publicity surrounding her actual non-voting was telling.  Both clips are fun ("Cher wears stuff like that to vote"), but apparently the second clip is the more well-known.  Fun-fact:  the clip below is flagged on YouTube as "objectionable".

More important is the message.  Vote today, as it may be the last election ever.  Not that there is going to be a military junta by the Bush administration in the next two years.  But just in case, when we're all in the Gaytanamo Jesus Camps with our good friend Ted Haggard, it will be nice to reminisce about the old days when we could vote.

Madoprah

Taking the picture away from the story, here's what a re-interpretation:

Oprah:  Mirror, mirror on the wall, who's the fairest of them all?
Madonna:  I am.
O:  Madonna?
M:  Hi, Oprah!
O:  What are you doing in my mirror?
M:  You asked for the fairest and here I am.  I'm all about tolerance,world peace and cultural hegemony.
O:  I was more going for fair as in beautiful.
M:  Lucky you!  Here I am!
O:  Wait.  I borrowed this self-affirmation mirror from my good friend John Travolta.  I don't underst...
M:  I'm quite self-affirmed.
O:  [flustered] Get out of my self-affirmation!  Do you ...  Do you even know what hegemony means?
M:  What does it matter?  I pronounce it beautifully.

... and scene.

(I originally posted the above as a comment on Gawker, but it seemed good enough to stand on its own.  Granted Gawker probably owns said comment now and will probably sue me.  Since my only investment over the years has been Helmut Lang clothing, here's hoping that someone there is a 42 chest and 31 waist.)

YouTube Tuesdays: Madonna Get Together

Did anyone else watch Madonna with the Gorillaz at the Grammy's this year and not think to themselves:  I wonder how quickly Madonna will have an animated video out?

The Manhattan Offender Interview: Tracy, the deejay

Number twenty-six in a series.

Interview after the jump.

Madonna determined to increase gay fan-base

Sharon Stone showed hers in Basic Instinct 2.  Now Madonna is going topless too.  Her latest collaboration with photographer Stephen Klein in a 58-page spread in W includes shots of a topless Madge in fishnets.

At about seven or eight, from my grandparents' livingroom and could hear my grandmother yelling in the kitchen.  Dutifully, I ran to be assistance to be confronted by a topless Grandma who had apparently been yelling, "Don't come into the kitchen!" 

Although this encounter did not make me gay (born that way, thanks), it may have produced my first cognizance of that fact.  My grandmother at the time was just about Madonna's (and Sharon's) age now.  Due to the miracles of modern science, Madonna probably definitely has a rack more impressive than Grandma did at the time.

Still, any exposure  to Madonna or Sharon's granny-boobs is likely to bring out  the same inklings to today's youth as it did for me years ago.  As artists that have always had a strong affinity to the gay community, it is sheer genius to create a new generation of gay fans by exposing their ta-tas to the masses.  Brilliant, ladies, brilliant!