Multiple sources (with a shout out to Madonnarama) have said that the final setlist for The MDNA Tour is as follows (spoilers, duh)...

Nicki Minaj is someone I...really don't get. I want to get her, but I don't. I will say that my impression of her has a Lady Gaga clone (clown?) is only based on her fashion sense as none of her songs has sounded much like Gaga (right?), least of all "Beez in the Trap." With an impressive 6.5 million views in a few days, the video ballsily starts out with, "Bitches say shit and they ain't say nothin'" before...well...she says shit and says nothing:

But I wouldn't go this far—this is the top comment on the video at the moment:

Lovely. Nicki's Pink Friday: Roman Reloaded is out now and looks like it will be #1 on Billboard next week with over 220,000 or so sold. I wonder how many copies are due to the presence of this little number all over NYC:

Photo courtesy of Matt Mindlin/Liz Rosenberg Media

Madonna's MDNA is coasting to #1 on Billboard, her fifth album in a row to do this (poor Ray of Light got capsized by Titanic) and her eighth album to top the charts. (Lionel who???)

Improving on her sales from Hard Candy four years—and many bumps in the record-buying atmosphere later—is an unqualified triumph. Imagine where it would have debuted with a bona fide hit single at radio or with traditional promotion?

With thanks to Chris, some trivia for chart fanatics...

Prove it!

As of midnight last night, it was exactly six years since my first post. It's been a tough thing to keep up with a dayjob and outside activities, and just when I think I might walk away, a valuable connection or interesting opportunity or a kind word comes my way. Thank you all for reading me.

Of whom are you more jealous?

Here are my favorite 100+ posts out of nearly 11,000. Please take some time to read (or re-read!) a couple and tweet or Facebook any you like.

xoxo Matt

The pocket pool championships were intense this year

BOY CULTURE

Boy-crazy

FROM BOY TO MAN: BC B.C. (2007): The entire history of my novell and novel Boy Culture as well as the movie version; might be my ultimate post.

Jonathon Trent & Derek Magyar make an Allan Brocka sandwich

BOY ON FILM (2006): An account of the NYC launch party for Boy Culture as it played the TriBeCa Film Fest.

I was left "Reeling" by the experience

FRIENDS AND "FAMILY" (2006): The movie version of Boy Culture hits Chicago.

No one would've mistaken me for Taylor Lautner

RAPT PUPIL (2006): The final night of Outfest with Boy Culture; I was fat but on the other hand got to meet Bryan Singer.

 

MY ART

 

Construction worker (shot this week) vs. James Dean

GUYDAR (since at least January 17, 2008) & ENDS OF THE WORLD (since at least January 13, 2008): Attractive men of the world—I got your backs. Your fronts, too.

i-i-i (phone)

Not totally built

Unaltered iPhone image that still blows me away

"Your pictures suck" (2008): An art critic attacks me, but not without sustaining some hits in return.

Let's call it a draw

DRAWN TOGETHER (2008): How my desire to draw related to my secret desire. One of my absolute favorite posts.

The shirtless one

LOST ANGELES (2009): My favorite photographic travelogue of L.A.

Even then, New Yorkers feared 9/11 was the beginning of the end

ART IMITATES LIFE (2006): My 9/11 and my distaste for grief tourism.

ME

Death of the party—Jeff in high school, already halfway through his life

BURNING MAN (2007): Tribute to my late high school friend and first romance.

Signed, sealed (eventually) delivered

LOST BOY FOUND (2011): There is a book in here somewhere.

Be Italian

CIAO HOUNDS: OUR TRIP TO ITALY (2011): Finally got José to Europe.

Death becomes here

ILLINOIS DEATH TRIP (2007): Ruminations on death while revisiting a past home, and the past.

Life is short...and meaningful

PASSING BY (2008): Mourning the loss of a person I only met once.

Lots more...

A fan has taken it upon himself or herself to imagine what Hard Candy's cover art might've been had it retained the title Madonna longed for: Black Madonna (left).

Thanks to everyone for sending me urges to post on Madonna's Mexican opening of her Hard Candy fitness chain. The truth is...it doesn't interest me much so I hadn't really thought about posting it. I do like the dress!

Here's some great video (thanks, Walter) from the event. The PR guy is sooo not having it! Interestingly, Madonna confirms she'll collaborate with someone secret on her new record. GaGa? It would be great, yet also wouldn't be terribly surprising. Maybe she has someone more WTF in mind.

As of midnight tonight, it will be exactly five years since my first post. It's hard to imagine it's been that long, and a lot's changed—the tone and subject matter are different, how often I post, my limits (no nudity in a couple of years due to ad constraints). I've devoted a crazy amount of time and money and energy to this blog for a very small financial return (you couldn't guess low enough), but it's always rewarding to have this forum with which to express myself, keep my writing ability fluid, perhaps influence a couple of people here and there, share obsessions with strangers (in both senses of the word) and learn new things.

Take That's Howard...can you believe this happened onstage at a pop concert?

Here are some of the posts that were most important to Boy Culture's history. For the uninitiated, some of the oldest ones refer to Boy Culture, the movie made of my novel; I started the blog at the time Boy Culture was being filmed as a way to keep people informed of the progress...and it all snowballed from there.

Subtle

Some of these posts are milestones when it comes to the hits they provided but most are filled with original writing and/or photography and video and are just the posts of which I'm proudest. I hope you'll take some time to click on them and send their links around to others—and some time is what you'll need...

MY ART

Boy-crazy

FROM BOY TO MAN: BC B.C. (2007): The entire history of my novella, novel and movie Boy Culture; might be my ultimate post.

From '07, one of my faves. Old iPhones were better because they were worse.

"Your pictures suck" (2008): An art critic attacks me, but not without sustaining some hits in return.

GUYDAR (since at least January 17, 2008) & ENDS OF THE WORLD (since at least January 13, 2008): Attractive men of the world—I got your backs. Your fronts, too.

i-i-i (phone)

TriBeCa is for Boy lovers...

BOY ON FILM (2006): An account of the NYC launch party for Boy Culture as it played the TriBeCa Film Fest.

I was left "Reeling" by the experience

FRIENDS AND "FAMILY" (2006): The movie version of Boy Culture hits Chicago.

RAPT PUPIL (2006): The final night of Outfest with Boy Culture; I was fat but on the other hand got to meet Bryan Singer.

Let's call it a draw

DRAWN TOGETHER (2008): How my desire to draw related to my secret desire. One of my absolute favorite posts.

ME

Death of the party—Jeff in high school, already halfway through his life

BURNING MAN (2007): Tribute to my late high school friend and first romance.

I had the Fever for Jon-Erik Hexum

AN OBSESSION IS BORN (2009): One of my best posts about my obsession with...obsession.

Death becomes here

ILLINOIS DEATH TRIP (2007): Ruminations on death while revisiting a past home, and the past.

Life is short and meaningful

PASSING BY (2008): Mourning the loss of a person I only met once.

I was given the red-carpet treatment

HAVEN'T WE MET? (2010): Celebrating my time with someone I've only met once—Madonna.

Via MadonnaTribe: The Hard Candy Fitness logo. Sticky or sweet? It's de rigeur to have a circular logo:

I like that her logo stressed the "Hard" part. I still wonder what "Candy" has to do with working out, especially since any sense that it might refer to the sweet results of hard work has gone out the window now that the logo has a literal piece of candy in it.

Of course, as my buddy Jason points out, isn't this an inevitable lawsuit?

Another Hard Candy leak, this time the rumored track "Latte". Hey, looks like she was playing with the gypsy stuff prior to scotching this and resuscitating parts for her live "La Isla Bonita" extravaganza on Sticky & Sweet.

Pretty, unassuming little song. Also hear some "Devil Wouldn't Recognize You" in there.

Madonna's Madeline Kahn era.

Madonna's "Across the Sky" from her Hard Candy recording sessions has leaked. It sounds pretty good to me; the music is too distracting (Timbaland overproduced) but the melody and the lyrics are good. Definitely better than a couple of songs that saw the aural light of day.