Madonna's MDNA Tour video for "Nobody Knows Me" is pretty fucking cool, and a terrific example of how a popstar in a time crunch can do a compelling music video without spending days and days. Or even without lifting a finger! All she does is look good (amazing, actually, better than in most of her recent videos) and lip-synch her song while an artiste executes an eye-popping and mind-teasing concept.

More like this, please...

Bristol Palin is the last authority on parenting I would ever trust, considering the lousy parents she's got and the lousy parent she's been.

She's got brass balls inserting herself (maybe she'll pull out at the last minute, like her favored method of birth control?) into the marriage-equality debate, though.

Not that she wrote one word of that screed herself. She can barely string two words together.

Shut your Levi Johnston hole, Bristol.

I thought Julianne Moore and Woody Harrelson were good and great in Game Change, but I resented how the film portrayed Palin and McCain. Palin came off as manic-depressive but frighteningly motivated, yet the film still conveyed a sense that she just wanted to do right by her God, her country and John McCain when I think in reality she has been exposed to be thoroughly insincere and morbidly ambitious. Plenty of people in Alaska can testify that she and her husband ran their lives like mob figures, not like humble middle-classers thrust into the public arena. I'm not sure Moore, as good as she was in parts, ever really shed her innate intelligence and sensitivity, two traits Palin lacks.

Michael, Bristol & her writer

Boy Culture reader Michael from D.C. attended a Bristol Palin booksigning and was dying (rightfully so) to share the results and his reasoning for going:

So I just met Bristol Palin at a book signing, and I got her to sign my True Blue Madonna bag. I justified it by saying to her, "I think you're both such divas and feminine role models." You of course may realize that this means I'm walking around with the signature of teen pregnancy's top spokeswoman on the album with "Papa Don't Preach" on it! Also, it occurred to me as I was walking home—did she know about all the insults Madonna threw at Sarah Palin during the Sticky and Sweet Tour? (Not to mention the condoms with her mom's face on them she threw out.)

Anyway, I think this is a bit funnier than glitter bombing, and totally worth pretending to act like a conservative while I was waiting in line; there were like 25 people there—the first 100 got a free book.

The other thing I told her was that she was such a great role model to young teens, showing them that if they get pregnant, it doesn't matter—"You can still win Dancing with the Stars and be rich and famous. The baby doesn't get in the way!" I think the ghostwriter might have picked up on the trolling, but I got my picture and my free book just the same.

I also met Willow Palin when I was there. I asked her about that time on Facebook she called everyone "fags." She was pretty taken aback, but she apologized to me and said she has no problems with the gays. Closure?

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...

Participating in a recent forum on how to effectively market at-home HIV testing, I got a $200 gift card. Not wanting to spend it on a hustler, I instead gave $150 of that to The Daily Show co-creator Lizz Winstead's Planned Parenthood, I Am Here for You fundraiser that happened here in NYC last night—and it was not only a good investment but also a good investment.

Joan Walsh & Lizz Winstead

I showed up at 6:30PM at the Gramercy for the VIP reception to find a handful of non-famous women spiked with the evening's famous females—Winstead, Salon editor Joan Walsh, Sandra Bernhard and Lisa Lampanelli. I was the only dude for the longest time in a room filled with women and several womyn.

Adding Sandra Bernhard to the mix

Lisa Lampanelli (L) and Judy Blume (R) join a mom and her baby, Rosie

My new friends with the A-list

All together now!

Talking to a few attendees about the art of the photo op, I figured out we were supposed to meet and greet the stars on our own—there was no formal line happening. This makes it a bit awkward because you don't really want to shoehorn yourself between Winstead and Bernhard when they're engrossed in a conversation about their bodies/their selves. Especially when you're announcing that you blog at something called Boy Culture.

Oh, Fudge! Fawning over Judy Blume

Ms. messaging

But it was totally fine and the women were absolutely gracious and eager to pose for photos and chat. Winstead is the ultimate feminist to me—unswerving on principle, unbothered by political correctness, utterly hilarious. She was in boots and a dress that looked macramaed from a distance. She reminds me of Laurie Metcalf and Barrie Longfellow.

People were shaken—and stirred—by Dirty Martini

Had a blast with my buddy Jason last night at the party for Michael Musto's new book Fork on the Left, Knife in the Back (Vantage Point). I guess as I get to know more people and they get to know me, I'm less of a fly on the wall than one of the happy maggots feasting on the fame, quasi-fame and frivolity.

With the man who helped inspire my move to NYC 19 years ago!

A Russian doll, an Italian-American princess and a Countess go into a bar...

Murray Hill at the precipice of Dirty Martini

Michael's a New York institution, like the Empire State Building or that weird smell you keep telling tourists you don't notice. He's also a fabulously funny writer, and his new book has fresh stuff in it, making it a must-buy. (No, really, I must buy it—it wasn't given away for free at his party unlike the Bacardi.)

I'd never been to the Copacabana on W. 47th, but I loved it. It felt like a throwback to the disco era—like 54, or maybe 47—and was oozing with cheesetastic outfits, semi-boldface names and genuine merriment. The love Musto engenders from certain circles is shocking considering his ability to cut a bitch with his words. He's embraced because he's unafraid to cut deserving bitches but is generous to those who haven't earned the scythe yet. He's authentic, and if his book is anywhere near as fun as this party was, you should check it out. (And not ...of the library.)

Fabulous detail

We arrived and ran into my friend Kenneth, who was waiting for artist and designer Scooter LaForge. They'd both turned on Madonna during (actually, before) HydrangeaGate but I have to stick with my gays even over my diva, so I was looking forward to chatting with them more later on. When I caught up with Scooter, he confessed that Madonna's response to HydrangeaGate had won him back. He met Madonna during the American Life era and said she'd been really nice, which is saying a lot since that was the era of, "I'm hot!"

Inside, the low lighting and kitschy decor helped to distract from the fact that most of us were dreaming we were 40 again, and the alcohol made quite a few of the attendees act like 20-year-olds. Mike Diamond, who doesn't need to have lighting on his side in order to make a splash, was interviewing as well as dancing with the kinda-stars.

The awkward moment when you both shriek, "I love your drag!"

Geri and I meshed well

My first celebrisighting was Geri Reischl, who dubs herself "Fake Jan"—she replaced Eve Plumb when Plumb refused to return for those godawful/gotta-love-'em Brady specials. She was decked out in the fishnets she'd worn at Chiller Theatre, when I first met her, and was traveling with her personal publicist/photographer. Nice chick! She'd apparently originally met Musto bar-hopping one night.

Random piece

A Guy Named Wayne

Mike Diamond in a cheap setting

I met up with Joe of Joe.My.God. and also one of his most vitriolic commenters, World of Wonder's Wayne, who I hadn't realized was the dude sitting two down from me at yesterday's screening of The Strange History of Don't Ask, Don't Tell. Wayne was in Versace delecto and like me was roving about looking for good photo ops. He found some.

Does his smile give you an Eddie Rabon-er?

It was also a pleasure seeing Eddie Rabon, one of (one of???) Broadway's finest dancers. (And he dances well, too.) He was there with a friend, enjoying his last month or so as Mr. Gay U.S.A. I then spotted Paul Iacono from (the new) Fame and The Hard Times of R.J. Berger (on which he played a horse-hung nerd), but he was chowing down on the amazing food so I didn't want to give him indigestion by introducing myself over a meat course.

"This old thing???"

What were they thinking in this moment?

Then things got nuts when hostesses Countess LuAnn de Lesseps and Lisa Lampanelli arrived. The clusterfuck around these women and guest Jerry Springer was a nightmare! I mean, Downtown groupies with cameras were unselfconsciously elbowing me to get their shots. But it was unnecessary as all of the stars were beyond accessible and gracious, posing for like an hour, even when they got frighteningly cornered on the second floor.

Three girls three

A new tell-all book on Sarah Palin alleges (again) that she used cocaine and fooled around with hubby Todd's business partner, but also that she used 6'8" basketballer Glen Rice (pictured with wife) for a single night. Yes—gasp!—a one-night stand. Will Tea Partiers be more upset that she had a one-night stand, committed adultery or indulged in miscegenation?

Globe (August 29, 2011) claims that Sarah Palin snorted coke in an Alaskan dive called the Mug-Shot Saloon. The accusation comes in a story that accompanies Levi Johnston's sister Mercede's "no-holds-barred nude photo shoot" in an upcoming Playboy.

Mercede herself talks about Palin's son Track and his drug addiction.

I guess Globe hasn't caught up and figured out Michele Bachmann is the new Sarah Palin.