World Premiere: "Aplaudida" from La Gagis

Lady Gaga, for all of her undeniable talent, has always provided ample fodder for humorists and parodists and I don't think there is anyone better at that than artfully trashy Mexican performer La Gagis.  Here we present you with the U.S. premiere of "Aplaudida" which, of course, parodies the Gaga single "Applause".

La Gagis' parody video for Lady Gaga's "Judas" has earned more than half a million views.

To reach La Gagis:

• Twitter here
• YouTube here

ARTISTEADAPOP!

OMG: "Police are confused by the tradition of Puerto Ricans gathering outside their homes..."

"Police are confused by the tradition of Puerto Ricans gathering outside their homes or storefronts. In Puerto Rico, that's how people socialize" and "Police officers should not assume that ALL Asians are new immigrants" and "People from Central and South America may also be insulted if police make an assumption that, if they look Hispanic or speak Spanish, they must be from Mexico" and "Be sensitive to transgender dress!"

"Mexicans" you will be glad to know "are NO exception!"

I kid you not! From a Chicago police department's "sensitivity" training video as posted by Everything is Terrible and picked up tonight by Andrew Sullivan. I. Just. Had. To. Share.

Marga Gomez at the anti-Prop 8 rally in San Francisco

Yes, there was a rally against the California Court decision yesterday in San Francisco as well. And - guess what! - Marga Gomez was there.


"Unfortunately the Supreme Court has upheld the ban on gay marriage: I think these are the same judges that voted Adam out of American Idol..." and "...she's just trying to get an NEA grant." HA!

I love Marga! By the way, Marga blogs here for those of you who want to keep up with her.

I'll also leave a recent clip from one of her shows titled "I was a No on Prop 8 Volunteer" (warning: some salty language).

Colombia: A question for Miss Antioquia

From Monday's Miss Colombia Beauty Pageant in Cartagena during the Q&A segment...

Host:
Do you believe that a woman is the compliment of a man?

Miss Antioquia:
Good night to everyone
I believe that a man himself compliments a man
Woman with woman
Man with man
And also, woman to man, in the same manner, in the opposite sense
And we exist to give each other care
[audience members start to giggle]
To give ourselves love
And...
A woman is the compliment of a man
In a very beautiful sense
Because love is given
And also provides care
Eh... the world is evolving
And each time we give more love to the men who... in the case of Colombia... used to be machistas once upon a time...
[audience applauds]

I could not have said it better myself! At the end of the night, Miss Antioquia emerged as the 3rd runner up. She was robbed!

And now: A message from the next president of the United States

Gotta love this guy!

Barack Obama at the Alfred E. Smith Memorial Foundation dinner tonight

Argentina: "Touch and go" sex (or "agujeros gloriosos") in Buenos Aires

At least online, the portal for Argentina's Perfil newspaper has never been the most objective observer of LGBT issues in the country choosing to focus on sensationalistic stories verging on the homophobic.

So it's not surprising that on Tuesday they ran an shocking expose on what they call, in English, "touch and go" sex (which they helpfully translate as "I touch you and I leave").

Still at a loss? Well, perhaps the article's title will clarify things for you a bit more ("Glory-hole: Sex through a hole in the wall"). Yes, glory-holes - or "agujeros gloriosos" as they are called in Spanish - which Perfil describes as "a trend that is growing in the world and that has landed in Buenos Aires" (don't mind me I am still cracking up over the whole "I touch you and I leave" deal).

But wait! There's more! So far only two gay male sex clubs have installed this imported international wonder but now WOMEN WANT THEIR OWN!!!

"There are many women that come out of curiosity, but this is only for men," says Zoom Buenos Aires club owner Nicolas, "There are yet to be in Buenos Aires places with glory-holes also for women" [Genius! Their site has an interactive online glory-hole! Then again, it's sorta lame in execution].

And what do the experts say? "A glory-hole is a way of bringing virtual-sex to reality, because cyber-sex is, precisely, anonymous," says Any Krieger, member of the Psychoanalytic Society of Argentina, "It's the own reflection of a postmodernist society: Quick, impulsive encounters where all that counts is the anonymity in which we are all submerged in some way or another."

Saaaaaxeeeey! Where can I buy my very own agujero glorioso? If you find out, please let me know. Maybe I can hang it somewhere in the kitchen so I can watch some TV while I do the dishes.

Cuil-lessness

The fun game of the day has been to check-out the new search engine Cuil and see how many things it actually gets wrong. Launched with much fanfare and promoted in just about every morning show I saw this morning, the expectations were so sky-high that there was no way but down.

Anyhoo, tonight I followed Joe.My.God's lead and, hm, Cuil'ed myself (click above for a larger image to see results).

First. All-important first upper-left block gets it wrong! Pablo Andres is another Andres altogether and they even upload that geeky image of an Univision interview I did years ago to enhance confusion! What's jpmag anyway?

Second. One search block below they get the Fotki info ok but WTF! Who's that La Mega stud? We all hope to become that dark and swarthy, specially us Latinos, but that ain't pale, geeky me!

Third. OK, they also get the shot taken by my friend William for Out Magazine in the box on the upper right but that was from 2001 or so (trust me, I'm not as pale now, though I'm just as geeky!).

I guess search results will improve with use but count us underwhelmed.

Gaybriel's favorite stereotypes about gay Latino men

An excerpt:

Gloria Estefan was popular twenty years ago, but you’d think she’s published relevant music every day since. Let me break it to you dear reader: Gloria is an average singer at best. I hate to get all the Cuban-American glittery g-strings in a knot, but por tu vida, please get a new gay idol.

More at Guanabee

My New York: "No beards allowed," City tells cops

Been a bit busy at work so, while I get back to blogging, here's some dismaying news... At least they can keep the mustache.

Manhattan Offender flushes the toilet

Ok, I realize this is a rather jarring entry considering today is "Blabbaeando is Orange for a Day" day (if you read this post after Nov. 11th that whole sentence won't make too much sense anyway) BUT how genius is this:

Manhattan Offender just finished live blogging from - err - one of the brand new $100,000 public bathrooms that the Bloomberg administration has bestowed to the City of New York (they might well be the most complicated public bathrooms in the world as well - see buttons, right).

In chronological order: Intro, Tolitet Live Blog I, II, III, IV, V, VI (NSFW), VII, VIII, IX, Outro, and Post-Mortem.

My favorite live blogging observation: "Passersby are fascinated. By a toilet. This is the future of news."

Be forewarned, though:

Black dispenses toilet paper. One will quickly familiarize oneself with that button, because the designers have deigned a little 16-inch strip the standard helping of paper. A word to the wise: There is a maximum of just three helpings.

That, according to The Times this morning.

Return to sender

I guess it might serve as my drag name - if I did drag. But how do some of these companies sometimes get my name so wrong?

Dominican Republic: Belky's Salon

Youtube ad for Belky's Salon
Off-camera: Hey Apolinar! Since when did you come out with a beauty salon!
[Title: Apolinar Martinez de la Rosa, President and Administrator]
Apolinar: Well, my daughter, this one here, I always saw her come back... [off-camera, a rooster's call interrupts him, Apolinar looks annoyed] ...from the salon with the flu. I decided to open a salon that had hot water. Zero flu! beautiful hair!
Off-camera: And what services does Belky's Salon offer?
Apolinar: Hair washing and drying, manicure and pedicure, dying, normal trimming of pointy and curly hair, we also cut men's hair... [reading from sign on the wall] ...for make up and bows for 15th birthdays and weddings please make advance reservations... [Apolinar is then shown in the kitchen next to the oven] ...and always remember that we wash your hair with warm water! If the electricity fails? We boil the water!
BELKY'S SALON LOGO IS SHOWN ON SCREEN (hm, seems familiar): BELKY'S SALON: WE WASH YOUR HAIR WITH WARM WATER!
Apolinar's daughter: Belky's Salon, we wash your head with warm water [wink!]
Apolinar to customer: Isn't it warm?
Customer raises her hands to heaven: This water is DIVINE!

Then again, as my friend Mariano from Buenos Aires has asked, could it be a hoax? The sign that is shown on the wall has some tidy grammatical errors that ads to the hilarity but it also has a sticker that reads tingola.net (the image is prominently featured on Salon Belky's website). If you head there you'll see that they're a t-shirt company and they prominently display the iconic shirt.

Smart promotional ploy? Seems like it!

Jaws: The Grizzlies attack Las Vegas

To end the evening on a funny note: I'm not one to promote events and the like but I just love this promotional flyer for a KUMA bear pool party taking place in Las Vegas tomorrow. Not that I'll be able to make it. But thought I'd share.

Photo of the day: Sperm dance against gay marriage, abortion

Ok, there was, like, a massive demonstration in San Juan, Puerto Rico over the weekend where conservative political leaders like Congressman Jorge De Castro Font and some religious leaders were joined by thousands in a protest against same-sex marriage (and, on a ligher scale, against abortion rights).

This in light of proposed changes to the island's civil code that would allow same-sex couples to have access to civil unions.

Movingly, some of the organizers saw it fit to dress their kids as - ehem - sperm and, hm, teach them sperm choreography by the look of the photo above (from El Nuevo Dia). At least they were painted with the rainbow colors although I'm not so certain that it was in honor of gay pride month.

I'm also not so sure they meant it in jest. No, I'm pretty sure they were pretty serious.

So is it so damn wrong of me to be rolling on the floor laughing?

• Dance of the Puerto Rican sperm children (Gawker)
• Puerto Rican Kids perform Sperm Lake (Guanabee)
• Children of the Sperm (Nerve: Scanner)
• Every Sperm is Sacred (Feministing)
• Sperm Party!!! (Bil*eri*co)
  

Marga Gomez comes home: Los Big Names

It's nice to see Marga Gomez get some props in today's New York Times.

She is featured in the "One to Watch" section of their annual Spring theatre season preview. The amazing actress will be bringing her auto-biographical one-woman show "Los Big Names" to New York on April 9th. It's the latest in a series of solo performances in which she explores living in the United States as a Latina lesbian and her relationship with her family. Often hilarious, she also mines deeply personal and emotional universal themes. Currently, "Los Big Names" is playing at the Magic Theatre in San Francisco's Mission District before its Broadway debut so if you're in San Francisco, check it out!

As for her big-time Hollywood movie debut as "military personnel and computer expert Jane Edmund" in "Sphere," check out her thoughts here.

KY = KY Jelly or Kentucky?

Hm, so this is funny and I wish I could have thought of it first but my friend MackDaddy (ehem, Mr. Mackin) certainly got a kick of it. So, without further ado, I present to you the practical joke of the day (three months in the making!).