Madonna breaks up with her 24-year-old boyfriend because they fought about...

... religion.

Judas, the guy on the motorcycle wearing a crown of thorns.

"I fell in love with Judas," sings Lady Gaga.

Because, you know, the girl always falls for the bad boy.

And Lady Gaga always tries to out-Madonna Madonna.

BONUS: Lady Gaga and Yoko Ono.

Are you excited about the new Lady Gaga single or did you feel compelled to hit pause and start singing Madonna's "Express Yourself"?

You can listen to Lady Gaga's "Born This Way" here. And here's Madonna over at YouTube, where there are lots of new comments about "Born This Way."

Gaga is singing about self-affirmation in this form:

Rejoice and love yourself today
'Cause baby you were Born This Way

No matter gay, straight, or bi,
Lesbian, transgendered life
I'm on the right track baby
I was born to survive

Madonna's "Express Yourself" had you expressing yourself and demanding that your man express himself:

What you need is a big strong hand
To lift you to your higher ground
Make you feel like a queen on a throne
Make him love you till you can't come down

Camille Paglia relives her burst into our consciousness in 1990 with her NYT op-ed about Madonna.

The anti-sex feminists are all gone, she says: "And I'm still here." And so is Madonna.

"Living in her gilded cage all these years, Madonna, once a frequenter of dirty Manhattan bars, clubs, and pizza joints, has lost touch with the Real New York...."

And then she encountered our Palladian!

If only he had stuck around. He might have heard a whispered "Thank you."

Ha ha ha ha.

"I yelled at Madonna today, and I didn't even realize it until later!"

So Madonna is filming this movie in Brooklyn... and our longtime commenter Palladian has an encounter:

I yelled at Madonna today, and I didn't even realize it until later!

She's apparently directing a film (!) and was shooting right in front of my house in Brooklyn on Wednesday. I came outside to do my morning walk and there were crowds of people all over the place: screaming black girls, curious Chassidim, hipsters in Ray-Bans feigning disinterest, irritated cops... I saw a bunch of Arri equipment boxes and realized it was a film shoot of some sort. I walked a few feet down my block and a chick with a headset held up her arm and said "You have to cross the street, sir!" I replied: "I don't have to do anything. This is my neighborhood, and a public sidewalk, and I'll go where I please!"

I walked a few more feet and another drone with a headset came rushing up to me and said "The sidewalk's closed. Please cross the street!" I replied: "This is a public sidewalk. I will continue to walk where I please."

I pushed past him and a I came upon a haggard woman in sunglasses, a baseball cap and a scarf printed with a stylized skull pattern holding a clipboard and looking into a hand-held monitor along with a couple of other people. Being a veteran of the terrible world of film production, I recognized that this woman was probably the director. I paused as I passed and said to her: "You need to inform your brain-dead P.A.s that they need to treat us residents a little better, honey." She looked at me, expressionless behind her sunglasses for a moment before one of the men with her said "Move along, sir." I replied "a hearty fuck you to both of you" and I walked onward.

Later, when I was on my way home, I stopped in the local market and the Korean guy who runs the place said to me: "what do you think of that mess out there?" I told him of my encounter with the production assistants and the director. He laughed and said: "do you know who that director is? Madonna!"

I smiled and said "No, I didn't recognize her.. but she looks like hell and sure runs a shitty location shoot."

Isn't Camille Paglia afraid of sounding geezerly?

Even as she led the way in Madonna appreciation, Paglia was behind the curve in lavishing attention on Lady Gaga. What to do? Go negative:

Gaga's fans are marooned in a global technocracy of fancy gadgets but emotional poverty. Borderlines have been blurred between public and private: reality TV shows multiply, cell phone conversations blare everywhere; secrets are heedlessly blabbed on Facebook and Twitter. Hence, Gaga gratuitously natters on about her vagina…

Negative about Gaga and modern life in general. These kids today. Get off my lawn.

"Who knows how many of [his] stories were thought up and written while Salinger sat on this throne!"

The uncleaned toilet of J.D. Salinger, on sale at eBay for $1 million.

That's almost as good as this:

The female female impersonator.

An interesting category, but who would we put in it? Guy Trebay starts with Wendy Williams. (It's an article about Wendy Williams.) But who else? He suggests Phyllis Diller, but then he backs off:

But Diller was a comedian...

(Ahem. Diller lives. Born in 1917 and alive.)

... and so are her spiritual descendants, people like Kathy Griffin and Margaret Cho, women sharp enough and shrewd enough to wade into the cultural scrapheap that is gender and recycle all the trashy signifiers they find there for laughs.

Williams is different, Trebay says, because she's a talk show host.

Like a kooky media divinity, a god in a comic book myth, Williams, 45, is permeable, superpotent and with no observable boundaries. She performs tricks on the air that involve her surgically amplified bosom. She suggests to guests like Omarosa Manigault Stallworth, the confrontational star of “The Apprentice,” that she look into facial fillers to correct the marionette lines that frame her stiff, practiced smile. She vows to keep her audience up to date on her vaginal toning. She cries, but then on television lately it’s hard to shut off the waterworks.

“You just have the audacity and the unmitigated gall to say what you think and let the chips fall where they may,” Williams said.

Nice. But I'm more interested in the general idea of the female female impersonator. The first person who sprang to mind for me is Dolly Parton. And Marilyn Monroe. And then Courtney Love, Madonna, Lady Gaga.

And as long as I'm in YouTube, here's the great Phyllis Diller:



And here she is with Groucho Marx — and she's the one with the drawn-on eyebrows — and here she is with Liberace.

Anyway, the topic for discussion is female female impersonators. And Phyllis Diller. And eyebrows...

The Daily News deftly juxtaposes pictures from the American Music Awards.

Check it out. It's like panels of a comic strip:

These pictures don't really relate to each other in the manner the sequence suggests, but the apparent story is hilarious.

In the first panel, Taylor Swift — the perfectly popular girl from whom a man once famously grabbed a phallic symbol — clutches her throat and looks with shock toward the second panel. In that second panel, American Idol also-ran Adam Lambert, clutching a phallic symbol, is angling back to get a look at the head going at his crotch. And, in panel 3, Jennifer Lopez, clutching a phallic symbol and looking quite angry, is falling backwards.

Juxtaposed, it looks like a story of sex and betrayal. In real life, the only intentional sex, simulated of course, came from Adam Lambert. He'd like you to believe he's fighting against discrimination:

"I do feel like there's a bit of a double standard in the entertainment community, on television, on radio... I feel like women performers have been pushing the envelope, especially, for the past 20 years. And all of the sudden a male does it and everybody goes 'Oh, we can't show that on TV.' For me, that's a form of discrimination and a double standard. And that's too bad."

The head in his crotch was female, by the way. Lambert subsequently canceled that discrimination by kissing a male.

Swift and Lopez weren't being sexual at all. Swift was expressing surprise — whether she felt it or not, we don't know — for beating out, as Artist of the Year, an artist whose big achievement this year was suddenly dying. And Jennifer Lopez was about to fall on what everyone feels compelled to refer to as her famous ass.

ADDED: The prime example of the womanly pushing of the envelope — in 2003 — reference by Lambert:

A typo — in a year-old comments thread — amuses me.

"The real problem is that he became enamored of that Kabbalah horeshit that Madonna's into."

ADDED: And then there are the comments of my future husband, which I just noticed.

Oops, Letterman really is the lecher he seems to goofily pretend to be.

Letterman has to admit it, because he needed to testify about an attempt to blackmail him over his secret sexual affairs with women who have worked with him. D'oh! And now it is revealed. How does that undermine his sweet, inept, self-mocking lecher he's been on the show all these years.

Here's video of the confession he did on the show last night. "I had to tell them how I was disturbed by this I was worried for myself, I was worried for my family, I felt menaced by this, and I had to tell them all of the creepy things that I have done that were going to be exposed. [Laughter.] Now why is that funny?"

He did a good job of damage control, I think. He made it sound as if it was just sex — which implies that you're a prude if you don't give him a pass. But sex with the women who work on his staff? This is the atmosphere of sexual harassment. What are the details that made the blackmailer think he could extort $2 million? Did some women get jobs and promotions because they were sexually available while men and other women lost out? 

***

Meanwhile, here he is with Madonna, in a cute bit where they go out for a slice of pizza in the Italian restaurant next door to the theater. Madonna, it turns out, has never had New York pizza-by-the-slice and she's quite fussy about cheese... and not fussy at all about touching hands all down the aisle of the theater and in the crowd outside and then eating with her hands. What a dame!



Earlier in the show, Madonna talked about her famous 1994 appearance and attributes her strange behavior to marijuana smoking. I'm not sure if that counts as promoting marijuana or warning against it, but it bothered me to hear the icon admit to doing it (even 15 years ago).

Madonna: I am Michael Jackson.

Jackson died, and — don't you see? — it's all about Madonna. Her 5-minute speech at the MTV Video Music Awards:

Michael Jackson was born in August 1958. So was I. Michael Jackson grew up in the suburbs of the Midwest. So did I. Michael Jackson had eight brothers and sisters. So do I. When Michael Jackson was six, he became a superstar, and was perhaps the world’s most beloved child. When I was six, my mother died. I think he got the shorter end of the stick. I never had a mother, but he never had a childhood. And when you never get to have something, you become obsessed by it.

I spent my childhood searching for my mother figures. Sometimes I was successful, but how do you recreate your childhood when you are under the magnifying glass of the world?

She tells about the time she tried to befriend the ultra-strange superstar:

I asked him out to dinner, I said “My treat, I’ll drive — just you and me.”

I'll drive. Ha ha.

He agreed and showed up to my house without any bodyguards. We drove to the restaurant in my car. It was dark out, but he was still wearing sunglasses.

Just one more reason why you need to do the driving.

I said, “Michael, I feel like I’m talking to a limousine. Do you think you can take off your glasses so I can see your eyes?”

I feel like I’m talking to a limousine. Ha ha. Brilliant. I wonder if Madonna really does come up with  lines like that in real time or some great comic writer punched up the dialogue. Dead men correct no quotes.

Then he tossed the glasses out the window, looked at me with a wink and a smile and said, “Can you see me now? Is that better?”

[I]n that moment, I could see both his vulnerability and his charm. The rest of the dinner, I was hellbent on getting him to eat French fries, drink wine, have dessert and say bad words. Things he never seemed to allow himself to do. 

What a goody-two-shoes that guy was! Imagine getting lessons in how to be bad from Madonna.

Later we went back to my house to watch a movie and sat on the couch like two kids, and somewhere in the middle of the movie, his hand snuck over and held mine.

It felt like he was looking for more of a friend than a romance, and I was happy to oblige. In that moment, he didn’t feel like a superstar. He felt like a human being.

Who knew the peak moment of Michael Jackson's life was the moment Madonna made him feel — at last! — human?

We went out a few more times together, and then for one reason or another we fell out of touch. 

Dead men tell no anecdotes.

(Here's video of Madonna's speech.)

How much of Madonna's money should Guy Ritchie get?

There's no prenuptial agreement. Yes, Guy's a guy and maybe it seems wrong for the guy to take the lady's money, but think about what that lady did to his film career:



"Swept Away" was one of the worst-reviewed movies of the last decade. Ten years ago, "Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels" got fine reviews, and what has he done since then? Madonna drained the man of all his great promise. Did you watch that clip up there? Did you see what she did to him? Gruesome.

Payback!

IN THE COMMENTS: Crimso said:

To Hell with Ritchie. I'm shifting into full Age of Obama mode. I want to know how much of Madonna's money I'm going to get. Need to spread that wealth around.

Chip Ahoy said:

I'm with crimso. That's a great idea. I want to know how much Madonna's money I'm getting. She's a big Obama supporter and its important for us to know exactly what an Obama administration means by spreading around other people's wealth. I can only benefit from a full-on class war. And I want to know how much Obama's money I'm getting too. He's got a lot. And especially how much Pelosi money I'm getting. She's loaded. Kennedy's money too. And Reid, I really want his money. He owes me. I want some of that. Obama keeps saying "It's fair. It's fair. It's fair. It's fair. It's fair." JUST GIVE IT TO ME! I earned it by listening to this bullshit for over a full year. Yay! Obama! Gimme sum a dat.

I'm quite delighted this morning. Been reading about cameras and all the amazing things they do. Read about my own camera and learned a whole bunch of stuff. Boy, those manuals sure have a lot of information in 'em. Oh bloody wow, I'll be able to upgrade with somebody else's money !!!!!!

* dances *

and not pay any taxes!

* glees *

Being a socialist is going to be great! And to think how wrong I've been all along. Oh joy, my medical insurance premiums will go down. I'll owe all my new good fortune to my friends who wouldn't listen to me.

Oh Man, my head is spinning. I can't wait to get my grubby mitts on all those celebrities' cash.

Glenn Kenny said:

Ritchie will be fine. He's got money of his own (family-derived)—not Madonna-type money, but a good chunk. And his next movie's a big deal, a Sherlock Holmes adaptation with Robert Downey Jr. and Jude Law. Of course, the un-intertwining of the assets is going to be an unholy mess...

I had breakfast with Ritchie at Sundance when "Lock, Stock..." was there, and he struck me as an eminently reasonable fellow. Imagine my shcok when he married Ms. Ciccone....

Imagine Ms. Ciccone when she saw his shcok. And stop telling me to imagine your shcok or I will want compensation.

The Givhan of HuffPo is pretty sure her Women's Studies professor vomits whenever she sees Sarah Palin.

Karin Tanabe, who seems to be the Givhan of HuffPo -- which is nothing like the Mull of Kintyre -- takes a 2-week old Robin Givhan column -- which she quotes but doesn't link to -- and trashes of Sarah Palin's style.

Because it wasn't enough for Givhan to credit Palin with showing that "a woman can step onto the national political stage without having to manipulate her wardrobe into some torturous costume calibrated to make her look authoritative but not threatening, feminine but not sexy, serious but not dour."

Palin must be mocked.

Tanabe writes:

The point is, Sarah Palin and her hockey mom's, grandpa's and second cousins, don't want her to be authoritative.

It's funny when the Givhan of HuffPo falls prey to the grocer's apostrophe, is it not? Modeling haughtiness, she takes a pratfall.

Her bad highlights and her layers of puffy bangs scream "don't mind me, I've been filing my nails in a log cabin for the last decade and didn't know the bouffant was now reserved for burlesque dancers and women who think Vogue is a devilish jig invented by Madonna (cue giggle)." I'm pretty sure my college feminist literature professor is vomiting every time she sees bouffant Barbie. Don't worry Professor Hart, I am too.

Is that that what Women's Studies teaches these days -- inane snobbery? And when did throwing up become the preferred form of elite expression?

Spewing.

Camille Paglia, still a big Obama supporter, loves Sarah and Todd as "powerful new symbols of a revived contemporary feminism."

She writes:

... Todd and Sarah Palin... have emerged as powerful new symbols of a revived contemporary feminism. That the macho Todd, with his champion athleticism and working-class cred, can so amiably cradle babies and care for children is a huge step forward in American sexual symbolism.

... During her vice-presidential debate last week with Joe Biden (whose conspiratorial smiles with moderator Gwen Ifill were outrageous and condescending toward his opponent), I laughed heartily at Palin's digs and slams and marveled at the way she slowly took over the entire event. I was sorry when it ended! But Biden wasn't -- judging by his Gore-like sighs and his slow sinking like a punctured blimp. Of course Biden won on points, but TV (a visual medium) never cares about that.

Paglia says the anti-Palinists have "behaved like snippy jackasses." Snippy jackasses! Don't you hate when jackasses get snippy?

The bourgeois conventionalism and rank snobbery of these alleged humanitarians stank up the place. As for Palin's brutally edited interviews with Charlie Gibson and that viper, Katie Couric, don't we all know that the best bits ended up on the cutting-room floor? Something has gone seriously wrong with Democratic ideology, which seems to have become a candied set of holier-than-thou bromides attached like tutti-frutti to a quivering green Jell-O mold of adolescent sentimentality.

Quivering green Jell-O mold? Is that what Obama had behind his ear? (Transcript: "Now, Sen. McCain suggests that somehow, you know, I'm green behind the ears and, you know, I'm just spouting off, and he's somber and responsible.") Or what McCain was trying to nail to the wall? (Transcript: "Well, you know, nailing down Sen. Obama's various tax proposals is like nailing Jell-O to the wall. ")

Back to Paglia:

And where is all that lurid sexual fantasy coming from? When I watch Sarah Palin, I don't think sex -- I think Amazon warrior! I admire her competitive spirit and her exuberant vitality, which borders on the supernormal.

Paglia must be overjoyed to have a real-live political figure who fits her theories so well. After 2 decades of analyzing Madonna, she must be ravenous for this new subject matter. No wonder she's sick of the media elites serving up candy-tutti-frutti-Jell-O. Finally, a full-course meal.

Paglia speculates that Sarah Palin may be part Native American and savages the people who think Palin might be dumb. I'll skip some of that and get to the part about feminism:

The next phase of feminism must circle back and reappropriate the ancient persona of the mother -- without losing career ambition or power of assertion. Betty Friedan, who had first attacked the cult of postwar domesticity, had long warned second-wave feminists such as Gloria Steinem about the damaging exclusion of homemakers from their value system. The animus of liberal feminists toward religion must also end (I am speaking as an atheist). Feminism must reexamine all of its assumptions, including its death grip on abortion, if it wishes to survive.

The hysterical emotionalism and eruptions of amoral malice at the arrival of Sarah Palin exposed the weaknesses and limitations of current feminism. But I am convinced that Palin's bracing mix of male and female voices, as well as her grounding in frontier grit and audacity, will prove to be a galvanizing influence on aspiring Democratic women politicians too, from the municipal level on up. Palin has shown a brand-new way of defining female ambition -- without losing femininity, spontaneity or humor. She's no pre-programmed wonk of the backstage Hillary Clinton school; she's pugnacious and self-created, the product of no educational or political elite -- which is why her outsider style has been so hard for media lemmings to comprehend.

Well said.

In a similar vein, here's what I said about why Palin is great for feminism:

[F]eminism is something that transcends party politics. Women have interests that the parties should have to compete for. I want a vivid debate about what is good for women. Sarah Palin represents one argument, and her feminism will require Democrats to improve their argument and not take women for granted. Sarah Palin brings feminism to a lot of people who've been scorning feminism -- because feminism has seemed like a strand of Democratic party politics.

"When you get older, you have to be ready to trade your ass for your face."

This is an old saying, possibly originated by Catherine Deneuve, according to Gawker, which adds "Madonna has chosen her ass, which is why her face looks sucked dry of any possible joy."

Madonna's first concert.

Very cool. (Via Metachat.) Now, there is a men-in-shorts issue here, but I'm going to give this one the okay, because it's clearly satirical fashion. And because it's Madonna! Anything Madonna does is automatically right, within the context of Madonna.

AND: Originally via the 50 greatest arts videos on YouTube. There is so much great stuff at that link that I can't pick one thing out to display. Talk about anything there that you like.

Adolf Hitler, Robert Mugabe, John McCain... and in sequence #2: John Lennon, Al Gore, Mahatma Gandhi, and Barack Obama.

With flashing images, Madonna is trying to tell you something.

Here's the part where we talk about Madonna.

Pay special attention to how concerned Bob is about Madonna's bra:



Here's the album cover that made such an impression on Bob:



Here's another album cover we talk about (which may evoke fond/embarrassing memories for some of you):



And I'll see if I can find that old album of my father's that had Anita Ekberg on the cover. BTW, a Google search for Anita Ekberg will give you a NSFW result, so if you want to see a picture, look here.

UPDATE: I made a little video showing those old album covers from my father, beginning with "You're My Thrill," showing Anita Ekberg.