Aggressive Intimacy: Lovers

This is what it looks like when men take a break, surrender to their nature, fall in love.

Glee Vs. Gotye

I've admitted it before somewhere: I don't watch Glee. I never bought into the hype, the glitter, the uber-gay chic that it stands for. Maybe I am missing out, but what do I know: I'm a Discovery IDdict and proud of it. I'm much more at home with shows about forensics than Bright Young Things singing about what Bright Young Things sing about. What I do know is that I follow pop music and whenever Glee does a cover of a song, suddenly that artist gets a giant boost in sales and voila: single reaches new heights on the Billboard charts and stays relevant for far longer than it might have on sales and radio airplay alone.

Case in point: fun.'s We Are Young. I hadn't heard of the song until it hit Glee, and the song's been around since the late summer of last year. [And you're talking about someone who scours the music field for new music to listen to.] Glee picks it up from the pile, uses it in one of its segments, the song does much better than the original who after dropping out of the Billboard Hot 100 (after a low entry, which was its peak) it shot back up into the top five and remained on the number one spot for what, six weeks? Right.

Now Gotye has a beef it seems with Glee because they botched his current (global) number one song Somebody that I Used to Know. This considering their cover kinda helped him crack the number one spot in the only country that was holding him back (although to be fair, airplay and strong sales would have eventually ceded him the spot alone).

I actually like the cover. While Kimbra isn't around to counterbalance a storm the emotional turmoil - applied this time to two brothers who don't get along - is still there. So what's the big deal?

Sunday Hotness

Dis is a hot guy who's missing a left arm. Or maybe he can grow it out like the ever-resilient starfish. Yum, scruffy. Nice abstract painting in the background, though. Even yummier.

[source]

The Gayest Commercial, Ever: Liquifruit

You won't catch this one on any American television in between sports segments or CSPAN. Where can I get this product? And by that I mean the disgusting amount of beef that's on display. Hubba-hubba. I suddenly have a taste for South African fruit.

Occupy . . . A Newsstand? Only in New York

Someone's having the best week ever, and it ain't me. It so happens that some blogs and e-zines have pictured what seems to be a crazy (or very hungry) lady perched like a cat on top of a newspaper stand, eating a pickle like she owned the place. "WTF?" you go, and so does a guy on the left pictured from the waist down who's standing in the middle of the street, seemingly facing her. I can only surmise his look of sheer confusion . . . or perhaps he's just cheering her on. After all, it takes guts to pull this stunt off. Let me rephrase that. Gurl, you go and you chow down on your pickle on that newsstand convertible sofa. You go down in style because you are one badass bitch. And while you're at it, give us a shot of something pink and fleshy. Or brown and stinky. And scream at us: "Occupy this, motherfuckers!"

Dick Clark Has Died

Too soon?

Gotye ft. Kimbra - Somebody that I Used to Know

It took it a while, but Gotye's global hit Somebody that I Used to Know finally has hit No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 Chart for the week ending April 26, 2012. Taking advantage of a minor slip fun.'s We Are One suffered in digital sales (it falls one position to No. 2), and a significant increase in Radio Airplay where it rose four spots to No. 8 guaranteed its success. It's quite a song - I'm surprised I hadn't reviewed it before. I'd listened to it last August and paid little mind to it. The tune was just too folksy and didn't seem to register more than it being a new song from an unknown artist who sounds and looks a little like Sting. However, as I saw it first rise in the Alternative charts, then the UK Charts, I paid a little more attention. It's mournful tune of love or friendship that has gone sour compounded by the powerful vocals of Kimbra, made it almost intoxicating to listen to over and over again.

Yolanda Be Cool ft. Crystal Waters - Le Bump

Crystal Waters can do anything. Twenty-two years ago she came into my life singing about the homeless gypsy woman who still fancies herself beautiful. Now she guest appears on Yolanda Be Cool's follow-up to their 2010 smash "We No Speak Americano" with another explosive dance number. Le Bump has Waters in all her jazzy, smoky glory, purring about, well, doing the Bump as the song tears forth like the Charleston with a disco beat. Take notice: it's very new, but it'll be a big, big hit for Yolanda, who seems to have a knack for reconfiguring the Roaring Twenties and turning it cool again.



Please, someone tell me the blond flapper looks like a dead ringer for Ellen Barkin.

Madonna, Nicki Minaj, and a Mythical Kiss

I wasn't sure if it was real. Heck, it could have been one of those rumors that start on the Internet and take a life on their own until one or all of the parties involved, or Snopes, de-mythifies it. Nicki Minaj - the only female hip-hop artist I listen to because she is brilliant and witty - has been asked repeatedly about the kiss between her and Madonna whilst on the making of the Give Me All Your Luvin' video. Minaj has been somewhat coy about it but also states that Madonna has 'soft' lips and is real tiny. I wasn't sure if she was perhaps paying some kind of diplomatic lip service since in the industry it's best to always smile and never quite admit to this or that, but apparently, it's true, and here is the video to prove it.

I don't know. I would have hoped to see a little more involvement in the peck. Madonna isn't exactly shy of other women's mouths if you remember her eager tongue war with Britney Spears. I thought, maybe there might be a little too much passion - some frenetic saliva exchange mixed with growls of angry cats and a mini-make out scene, you know, the stuff strangers do when they first bump into each other - but alas, this is all that there is, so there you have it. A peck. Much like the peck Christina Aguilera received oh so many years ago, when she had a career.

Inspiration

"The untold want by life and land ne'er granted,

Now voyager sail thou forth to seek and find."

Happy Easter, Bitches!

She's so modest.

Springtime Brights

It's a lovely spring evening, Good Friday, and this is exactly the mood I'm feeling.

Social Networking - A Global Shift

Related to the post below. Fascinating video.

Welcome to the Revolution

Ten years ago, my Nokia phone had an black on olive display and texting was still unheard of, much less sexting. Cyberstalking wasn't even a term you didn't have to separate and bring into the world of cellphones. I bought physical CDs and books. TiVo, while available, wasn't yet the norm and DVR was still a concept. Watching online TV was in its infancy and I knew back then it would be only time before I could be my own cable network, watching what I chose to watch, whenever I wanted to watch it, from the comfort of my time.

Radio was still dominant, but AOL and XM had started a trend towards live-streaming and listening to songs with minimal ad intrusion. Better yet - they had introduced musical genres that Jazz CD 101.9 and 103.5 KTU would relegate to late-nights for a hardcore few. Out went my tastes in forced pop, in came my already deep interest in chill-out, trippy electronica, and electroclash.

If I wanted to keep in touch with a friend near or far I would get their email. Of course, sharing the same email handle (AOL) was preferable because then one could chat, but Skype changed that, fast - now one could video-chat and to hell with the handle. Facebook was still yet to be born. Even so there were crude forms of the social-media monster in a laundry list of forums and pages - PhpBB pages that still exist with minimum traffic, and of course the nascent MySpace.

Blogging was a thing I thought only extreme diarists got into. What could I bring into blogging? What stories could I tell? Never in a thousand years did I envision the possibility that blogging could be a driving force of neo-journalism, of political consciousness - a tool to change the world from my perspective, the gay/queer perspective. Or at least to make or break an artist (in record time, if not see Lana del Rey who has experienced highs and lows in less than 6 months) and use to expose the foibles of others. If only established stores knew then what they know now - a blogger is force to be reckoned with. Especially when he reviews movies and products. Hell hath no fury than a mommy blogger with a itch on her fingers because she used some badly made diaper on her baby and the rash that came after that. Ads, while an essential part of blogging and the Internet, are figureheads. No one buys from them anymore. You only go by word of mouth - actual recommendations.

I came late-ish into the world of Social Media, but I think I was always somewhat in - just not quite. Perchance, I was in my own closet - enjoying it in the dark but not fully immersed. And that was okay.  Already in 1998 I was watching TV online through the then-superfast DSL (oh, brother), and not since the early 2000s have I actively used the radio on my entertainment center to look for stations. I don't email people, I facebook-message them. [As a matter of fact, my Facebooking isn't limited to the site proper - right now I'm Facebooking. Through YouTube, Blogger, Pinterest, CNN, and on and on.]

I can meet anyone I want from the GPS system that is Grindr and Scruff and then add them to my Facebook friends only to delete them if it doesn't work out so to hell with bars for meeting people: I go to them to mingle with friends. I buy, sell, bank, blog, and even write - yes! - through my phone. I still buy the occasional physical book, but I prefer the layout of an e-book - more practical, less space-taking. Music is all digital to me and I can pick an entire album or just a song.

However, ten years ago, had anyone told me that the way I live my life would be drastically different only in my access and dependance to the latest technology . . . I'd have laughed.

Thought For Any Day

An every day mantra. Too many people wander the streets looking for that special person not knowing that the best way to be happy, uncomplicated, and free to love and be loved is to be alone and love every second of it. I speak from experience. And I'm happy.

[Okay. End sappy, Hallmark mode.]

MDNA: A Review

Despite some hoopla surrounding its release - minor controversies of demos leaked before their time and some title choices - MDNA arrives rather quietly - even timidly - onto the pop scene, which is something I can't believe was on Madonna's agenda when she created it. After all, this is the Queen of Controversy, and who better than Madonna to rile up the masses with some cleverly placed statement that she will obviously not apologize to? Does anyone remember her book of faux-raunch Sex that accompanied Erotica and her travesty of a movie Body of Evidence? Or the dizzying array of neo-Kabbalistic, yogaic mumbo jumbo that came with Ray of Light? Anyone? Hello?

[ . . . crickets chirping . . . ]

Alright, alright already. A musclebound diva-loving freak like me can get a hint. She's yesterday. She's passe. She's on autopilot and no one's at the helm. She's your parent's pop singer and who the fuck cares if she continues to invoke faux prayers while telling God that she likes to be bad, even now, in her 50s? She's become what every other rock and pop singer has and will turn into: Adult Contemporary, singing to their devoted crowd, those who care, those who have been there from their inception as pop wannabes. Their sound is careful, meticulous, but not thrilling and rarely burn up the charts.

Whether she wants to admit it or not, and while she soft-lands at number 1 on the UK charts and might either make the same spot or come extremely close come Thursday's edition of Billboard magazine, the product she is selling for the first time has a slight sound of repeat and actually sound dated if not outright expired on arrival. Yes, some songs are interesting, but there's a vague sense that if this was a concept album - divorce, and the feelings accompanying it - somehow it's unfocused. Which is okay for an artist of a lesser stature, but glaring for someone like her.

Which is not to say the album sounds old, or dated, or plain recycled: far from it. It's sort of the equivalent of a party that is just starting to show its strain. Songs like Turn Up the Radio and Superstar sound positively dated alongside the more progressive, italo-disco I'm Addicted and the Deadmau5-sounding Some Girls.  Girl Gone Wild is as straightforward a Madonna blueprint. It shamelessly phones itself in while managing to sound wicked, and you gotta love that man-laden video. Gang Bang is a menacing electro-thumper about a revenge fantasy that doesn't quite have the grit it deserves because Madonna herself goes into cartoonish lapses reminiscent of Breathless Mahoney ("if you're gonna ACT like a bitch/you're gonna DIE like a bitch!"). Love Spent comes across as an anti-love song: it is cynical, angry despite her shrill singing, and is Madonna at her most confessional. If not, check the lyrics "hold me like your money / tell me that you want me / spend your love on me, spend your love on me." Masterpiece, the standout love ballad, sounds like something out of her Something to Remember album, and works except for that awful opening lyric. And it seems Madonna's time in England opened to the sounds of neo-soul. I'm a Sinner channels Duffy's Mercy without the smoke and desperation of the latter, instead keeping it entrenched in hazy, safe 60s fluff with tired religious motifs that almost sink it.

Even with collaborations by Nicki Minaj (I Don't Give a - ) and M.I.A. on the terrible, lazy, boring B-Day Song - which only appears on the deluxe edition - , MDNA is solid and has no other pretensions than to be heard and appreciated by those who still love Madonna and appreciate her music. Even if it's become her favorite word: reductive.