It’s Madonna’s world. We just live in it.

Don’t know how long Warner Music will allow this YouTube video to stay up but here for now is Madonna‘s new single:

I often make fun of the Material Girl’s awe-inspiring narcissism but no one can deny that it works — who else could turn an expensive reissue of old material into this fall’s biggest music event? Hell, you can even buy her workout playlist on iTunes. Not bad for a piece of gristle!

The Globe and Mail’s Lynn Crosbie is even defending Madonna’s haphazard political posturing which, I’m the first to admit, we gays have benefited aplenty from.

The woman’s gone to bat for us, even when we haven’t for ourselves.

And that’s my cue to introduce Andre Bauer, the newly outed Republican Lt. Governor of South Carolina — and the man in line to replace current Governor Mark Sanford, who infamously left his job, wife and kids to flee to his “soulmate” mistress in Argentina. I thought his story was oddly sweet, actually, but it’ll be fun to see whether conservative SC voters go with the adulterer or the closet homosexual.

Outing is never a pretty thing but when the rights of gay people are denied by homophobic groups that include gay people in them, I say we just tell it like it is and see what happens next. It’s the only path to progress.

And in a totally, utterly unrelated story, Conservative federal minister John Baird says a fall election would be totally “irresponsible.” Because when Canadians think “Stephen Harper government,” they think of responsibility.

 

In a perfect world, no one would ever be outed because they would just tell the truth to supportive friends and family, like on TV — check out yesterday’s episode of “One Life to Live:”

As idealized as that scene is, we’d never have seen it on daytime TV a decade ago. So keep mouthing off, Madonna — the world is bending closer to your will all the time!

A former editor of the late, lamented fab magazine, Scott has been writing for Xtra since 2007 on a variety of topics in news pieces, interviews, blogs, reviews and humour pieces. He lives on the Danforth with his boyfriend of 12 years, a manic Jack Russell Terrier, a well-stocked mini-bar and a shelf of toy Daleks.

Keep Reading

Kenya Pleaser with an up arrow behind her; Discord Addams with a down arrow behind her

‘RuPaul’s Drag Race’ Season 18, Episode 10 power ranking: The ‘Drag Race’ miracle

No one goes home, but we have one queen to discuss who has previously escaped our notice
Kenya Pleaser

‘RuPaul’s Drag Race’ Season 18, Episode 10 recap: Trash into treasure

The eliminated queens’ parting gifts serve as the materials for this week’s design challenge
Michael B. Jordan in Sinners; Leonardo DiCaprio in One Battle After Another

Will ‘Sinners’ win Best Picture at the Oscars?

“One Battle After Another” seemed locked in to win the film industry’s top prize. But a once-simple awards race has gone haywire
The cover of Staying Power by Zena Sharman; Zena Sharman

Zena Sharman’s new book stitches death, life and sex into a beautiful tapestry

In “Staying Power,” kink and community help Sharman navigate parenthood, divorce and the death of her mother