What’s With Music These Days?
Recently at the MTV Video Music Awards, Lady Gaga showed her schizophrenic side by showing up as her grease ball male alter ego, Joe Calderone. We couldn’t decide whether he looked more like a reject from a casting call for “Grease,” off broadway, or the character Andrew “Squiggy” Squigman from the 1970s sit com Laverne and Shirley — but whatever the case, Gaga was clearly off the mark. Many in the LBGT community (for those of you who don’t know what that stands for, no, it is not the name of a new lettuce and tomato sandwich; it stands for lesbian, bisexual, gay, transgender) lauded her characterization, seeming to take it as some sort of banner event for their kind while completely overlooking the fact that it was a hideous performance overall and was ridiculous looking. -Later in the show, Gaga tried to top Madonna by attempting to steal a kiss from Brittney Spears, but even the Brittster looked a little freaked out by Gaga’s goofy looking, overblown character. She wore a “not in a million years” expression on her face as she turned her cheek to Gaga and squinted uncomfortably. Good for you, Brittney! Incidentally, you know something’s pretty bad when someone like Brittney Spears turns it down. In Brittney’s defense, however, it should be noted that she does seem to be doing better lately. She’s having a successful tour, behaving in public by treating her children responsibly and not revealing her panties to photographers. Could this be “comeback Brittney” at last? We shall wait and see. -Gaga’s Joe Calderone spent most of his time on stage swearing, talking junk about Lady Gaga, and repeatedly insisting that she wasn’t there. He kept unnecessarily reminding the crowd that he was Joe Calderone, when the single introduction would have been quite enough really. The musical performance was not that great, either, as Calderone sat down to the piano and wailed out some song fully in Gaga’s voice, but still looking like a caricature of a 1950s Italian stud muffin, an excessively greasy looking one who chain smoked, dropped the F-bomb more times than would have sounded cool, and just generally made me embarassed for Lady Gaga, which is saying quite a mouthful given my general apathy towards her. Let’s all hope that something comes along to help ground Lady Gaga, before she goes totally from being a wildly innovative star to the laughing stock of the music industry. She seems perilously close to it now.