boy culture

You'll Need More Than 4 Minutes

From MadonnaOnline.com.br comes this spectacular Madonna-through-the-ages megamix video. It's really creative in many instances; I love "Fever" blending into "Get Together." Reminds you of why you love her:

The Gay Boogie

Here come the brides.

I've always liked Ellen—I even sat through her sitcom, which was brilliant in fits and unfit for television in bits. I liked her more than I ever could have thought possible when she came out, was disappointed when I saw her in person and she did not radiate warmth (to be fair, I was with a camera crew and she probably thought we were after her, which we weren't) and have enjoyed her talk show to an extent. The extent to which I don't enjoy it is that every once in a while, it bugs me that the smart, hip, 50-year-old lesbian has to dance to engage her adult audience. I don't despise the dance, and I see it as a smart branding thing that she probably tripped into, but it comes off as phony. For me.

The rest of her show isn't phony; her bubbliness—unlike when Rosie had her talk show, whose fake persona I loathed—seems to be genuine. And while I sometimes wish she were more political (I hate when people say they're not political...we all should be since politics affects every facet of our lives), I have to give her credit for being openly, unapologetically gay. That is really enough.

But beyond that, she spoke passionately about Lawrence King this year in a move that really blew me away. And now that the conservative-heavy (so much for "activist judges") California supreme court has ruled that gay marriage should be legal (possibly going into effect within 30 days), Ellen has not let us—or herself—down: She's announced on her show that she plans to marry Portia de Rossi.

I think Ellen, with her visibility and her appeal to citizens from eight to 80, is probably the most important, directly impactful (even if it's not a word) figure in the gay-rights movement. And for that, I can overlook her cloying dance routine. In fact, her stealthy success at making a difference helps me understand what all that dancing could be about in the first place.

What A Day To Be Gay In The Sea!

One of those gays!

We had tickets to City Center’s limited-run Encores! show No, No, Nanette! for tonight; we got them even before we had the idea of getting two puppies, or we might have thought twice. I mean, they would be alone for quite a while. So I dashed home twice to exhaust them and shower them with puppy treats for the long haul, and met José at the theater. Let me tell you something—No, No Nanette! is the equivalent of puppy treats for rich, old broads. I saw canes, walkers, wheelchairs and gurneys filled with classy carcasses sporting giant-framed glasses and tasteful bobs. More plastic surgery than the cast of Desperate Housewives. Oh, and Polly Bergen and Fran Drescher (complete with parents and gay-seeming ex-husband) showed, too.

The show has gotten raves. It grew on me (the first couple of songs are so stupid and forgettable I was rolling my eyes hard) as a good example of how—if not why—to stage a period show with style and energy. The star is Sandy Duncan, in a role that brought Ruby Keeler out of a four-decade retirement in 1971, but both Beth Leaven as her frenemy and the titular Nanette (Mara Davi) probably have meatier roles in this frothy romp about a young girl tired of hearing “no” and the Three’s Company-style shenanigans encompassing her aunt, uncle and pretty much everyone else in the vicinity.

Still, there was something heartwarming about seeing Sandy Duncan, a familiar face absent for a while, doing two elaborate tap-dancing, high-kicking routines at the age of 62!

Equally winning was Rosie O’Donnell as wise-cracking maid Pauline. She gets the best one-liners and delivers them with far better comedic timing that she seems to have at her disposal if you judge her based on her stand-up act. And when she emerges toward the end and performs a nifty tap routine, it nearly brought the house down. What a pleasant surprise! I’d gotten tickets in case she wound up being a spectacle and she turned out to be spectacular.

The show is a little creaky, but if done this energetically works fine. There were several phrases that sounded surprisingly more modern, making me wonder if they’d been inspired by the show—Michael Berresse as Billy Early exclaiming, “Get busy!” comes to mind.

I can’t say this would be a Broadway smash, but a lot of work obviously went into it, and if Thoroughly Modern Millie could soar, why not this? (Just go from two intermissions to one, please.)

Before the show, Patti LuPone gave an award to Douglas S. Cramer, whose name you’ll recognize from schlocky TV shows (Love Boat, Dynasty, you name it) yet whose real passion has always been the stage. I found the story created by her speech and his acceptance more interesting than the show itself—a gay man who makes multi-millions in bad TV only to spend all his free time sponsoring the revitalization of classic Broadway scores. Plus he’s ancient and openly gay, all the more inspiring.

My Name Is Dita, I'll Be Your Ticketmistress Tonight

Getting Madonna tickets this a.m. as part of the Madonna fan club (Icon) "legacy" member pre-sale was not as stressful as I'd imagined, nor were the tickets astonishingly great...but they're all really good floor seats, so that is a plus. I think the front-row seats I had last time MIGHT have come when a fellow fan wrote me to say MSG had just released a new batch of tickets, and that I got them by being near my computer and hitting Ticketmaster fast and furious. No matter, I'm for sure going to see multiple nights.

Ironically, the images above and below were two of the codes I had to type in on Ticketmaster—note Madonna is "Esther" and I think, with tix topping out just under $400 after all the extras, "shattered wealth" is self-explanatory!

P.S. I'm pretty sure to have extra tickets for NJ and NYC when all is said and done, and am not a scalper, in case anyone wants to put out feelers to me.

Fernando's Hide

Forty-two-year-old Mexican sun-worshiper Fernando Colunga looks like a polished brass totem in TV y Novelas (Mayo 6, 2008)...he's a bit much without going over:

Two more after el jump...

...Who Need People

The marrying kind.

The May 19, 2008, edition of People almost got left behind in the grocery store—I hate to contribute to Mariah Carey's blatantly sham marriage and she's on the cover—but I did find some good stuff in there. I've been semi-oblivious to Brothers & Sisters, but did catch the sweet proposal between Matthew Rhys and Luke MacFarlane. I can only imagine what this kind of thing on TV does for youngsters who are realizing they may also be gay. All I remember having was An Early Frost, which was a whole lot of good news wrapped in a whole lot of bad.

I also thought the Mother's Day-themed Dierks Bentley pic was adorable:

A face a mother and everyone else could love.

I would only see Mamma Mia! if it were free and slid into my sked easily, but I'm dying to see Julie & Julia, a comedy coming in 2009 that stars Meryl Streep as Julia Child:

Now she's cookin'.

Finally, if Mariah—so famously controlling of which side of her face is photographed—was the person who sold these images of her wedding to People, you'd think she would sooner die than release this one. She looks pretty great lately, but in this shot she looks like something out of The Dark Crystal or a sea monkey:

Own a BOWLFULL OF HAPPINESS—Instant Pets!

Gettin' Pussy

From the Edicion USA of TV Notas (Mayo 13, 2008), this is a person—a man—who has used tattooing and surgery and piercing to make himself into a catman. This might be the most nightmarish visage I've seen yet, even if it makes Jocelyne Wildenstein raise her tail.

A Phyllis Dilly

Some people trace Cloris Leachman's erratic behavior to the time when she publicly harangued Mel Brooks for not casting her in the Broadway version of Young Frankenstein. I think it started when she agreed to appear in Spanglish in 2004. But whenever it started, it started—she apparently behaved a bit bonkers on a recent Oprah MTM reunion...asking Oprah to step out of a cast picture on her own set! How Phyllis of her.

Madonna's Tour: Sticky & Sweet

This legit image from here.

FURTHER UPDATE: Finally—it's a done deal.

UPDATE: She may hit Chicago October 26...

All credit to Dave for the following scoops! It looks like Madonna's tour will be called the Sticky & Sweet Tour. Here's the rest of the low-down:

"www.stickyandsweettour.com was registered to "Ultrastar Entertainment ATTN: STICKYANDSWEETTOUR.COM c/o Network Solutions P.O. Box 447 Herndon, VA. 20172-0447 "the same people who run iconmadonna.com and madonna.com "And a few days prior to that the following was posted: "THE STICKY & SWEET TOUR.

"On Sale: Mid May

"*The tour will be announced towards the end of this week.

"*The tour logo at least at this point is the same font as the hard candy album font, with a rainbow effect to it, meaning its a bunch of different colors across the text.

"This is what I know about the US/Canadian Leg: I cant give exact cities, but this is the gist....

"*She will start in the north east beginning in Oct and then work her way west across canada (3 canadian cities/shows)

"*Then move down the west coast of the US, then hit 2 cities she doesnt normally do while making her way back to the east coast to hit the rest of the east coast dates, ending in Miami at the end of November.

"Most shows will be Stadiums.

"Presales for some initial shows (North East) will start towards the end of this month."

Once You Have It All...

Hard magic.

The Chopard necklace Madonna wore at her Roseland gig was "a white gold necklace...set with 315 diamonds (1.5 carats)." It featured "the jeweller’s signature design: a Happy Diamond, moving freely in the letter 'd'."

I wonder how many M-Dollas that cost? Maybe nearly as much as Justin Timberlake's appearance fee?

Don't be fooled by the rocks that she got.