Oh Hell, I Knew That

I've been saying Madonna sucked ass since 1983.

Turns out I was right all along:It's not felching, it's gay ventriloquism.At least that was back when her looks were still worth looking at (for some people).But hey, that live EP Granny at the Grammys is pretty good.The blank stare would indicate that she

forgot to turn on her hearing aid. In my continuing quest to age gracefully and with some vestige of dignity, I at least have role models for how notto act. Wow, Phyllis Diller's lost a lot of weight. I realize some of you may be fans of Madonna. Well, go ahead.It's a free country, though you do have to pay taxes.

I was never a fan of her music, and I very much resent Madonna and anyone else who claim to be 'empowering' women by teaching them to lead with their crotch, as it were.

She didn't challenge the status quo, she fulfilledit.

Maybe I just don't get it because I'm a guy, but I've always found Madonna willing to trade the cheapest of behaviors for fame, whether its nudity, willful raunchiness, or her nonstop binging at the Religion Buffet.

Never mind that fake f@#$ing accent phase.

One of my absolute favorite words in the English language is meretricious. Both for what it connotes as well as the definitions you find:

mer⋅e⋅tri⋅cious –adjective 1. alluring by a show of flashy or vulgar attractions; tawdry. 2. based on pretense, deception, or insincerity. 3. pertaining to or characteristic of a prostitute

That about sums it up. Although I think prostitutes are not only more honest and straightforward, but more sincere.

From what I've read, anyway...This woman has aggravated me for decades, for reasons both micro and macro in nature. I think her rise to fame in the all-too-shallow 80s occurred at both the best and only time it could have.

I, for one, was never taken in by the whole thing. My dislike for her style of music in general (and hers in particular) borders on resentment; I once told someone who asked if I was going to see Madonna in concert that I would rather floss my testicles with razor wire and douse the resulting wounds with mouthwash.

Although, if I am to be scrupulously honest, I was entertained once for approximately 30 seconds by a clip fom Truth or Dare that a friend played me with the following dialogue:How could Sharon not know what happened to her? She thinks someone drugged her. She said she was at the club dancing. The next thing she knew was that she woke up... in her room, nude, and her stuff was stolen. She went to the bathroom. Her butt was bleeding.That is virtually the only thing with which Madonna entertained me.

Other than that, I pray that the cruel and vituperative God who took Cliff Burton and Randy Rhoads but left us Gloria Estefan would see fit to visit some manner of 'bus tragedy' on Ms. Ciccone.

Then again, it would have to be a Lear jet tragedy; some people fly above, rather than mingle with the great unwashed masses.

Madonna is rich like that. Pretentious like that too.After all, she's rich and she's famous.

She's also an aging skank with less and less to offer us (or herself) as each passing year (and gravity) inevitably rob from her that which she traded for her 'accomplishments'; the corporeal vibrancy of youth and flagrant, confrontational sexuality for nothing more than shock value and its own sake.

Please do not attempt to manipulate this into some half-baked "Oh, older women can't be sexy???" That's not my point. The 2009 version of Susanna Hoffs is just as good, probably better, than the 1989 version.

My point is that Madonna's whole career has been driven by the same concept as Sharon Stone's display of herAnd much like Madonna, Ms. Stone felt she needed to repeat such behavior at an advanced age.

I'm not interested in the aesthetics here.

But I am interested in the rather sad reality of any person, regardless of gender, allowing (much less encouraging or demanding) sexuality or matters sexual to be the defining aspect of their public persona.

We (rightfully) laugh at the aesthetics of the Male Mid-Life Crisis, titillating ourselves with the guilty pleasure of asking questions like "Oh, did you bring your niece to dinner?"

Now, I admit that I wouldn't mind being the winner of a Hugh Hefner for a Day contest, but I also rather pity Hef, because the whole smoking jacket-and-martini-with-twin bimbos (twimbos?) schtick looks rather pathetic on a man in his 80s.

Not saying old people should be celibate.

I'm saying that several decades of adult life should ideally (even pragmatically) provide someone with at least one other facet of a personality.

Sharon Stone is a lousy actress.

Even though she's had several decades in which to try and get better.

That's the real reason why we were led to believe Wally Cleaver's brother had another cameo in Basic Instinct 2.As sad as a 50-something David Lee Roth makes me, at least he had the sense to see the innate humor of being an aging frontman and former sex symbol. Nobody laughed at Dave more than Dave.  I'm also saying that basing fame on a temporary thing like youth can have disastrous results. Just ask Macaulay  Culkin.

Think about it: how would you respond to Mr. Culkin desperately trying to hang on to his image from Home Alone?

Pity and laughter. I wish more people laughed at Madonna. I un-ironically believe it would make her a better person. Because she's become a pardoy of herself, and her original self was nothing to scream about anyway.With any luck, her increasingly desperate lunges for fame will lead her to the only place she now belongs: Las Vegas. Think about it; it's very aproposOne last thing: I hope her daughter Lourdes stabs her mother in the neck with a pencil for reducing her child's name to a virtually transparent provocation of the Catholic Church. Why not name the poor kidFuck the Pope and be done with it?------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ No, I don't know why I went off on this tear. But I did, and I'm glad.

Thank God Alanis Morrisette has vanished off the radar...