Radio Gaga

I just finished successfully mowing the lawn with the non-self propelled mower that The Better Half thought I was too feeble to shove around the yard. Yes, well. The lawn is mowed, and I was able to remain (mostly) upright afterward.

Meanwhile, on the other side of the world....sales of Lady Gaga's 'Born This Way' cliff dived into the abyss last week. After selling close to 1.2 million copies during the first week of release (440k of those sales were of the Amazon.com 99 cent special variety), 'Born This Way' only moved 185k units week 2...that's an 85% decline. Does this mean the bloom is off the Gaga rose? Possibly...'Born This Way' the song was much better when it was called 'Express Yourself' and performed by Madonna. The other cuts on the album are even weaker. Take away the exploitation and pandering to her gay audience (a page out of the annoying and talentless Kathy Griffin playbook), the contrived spectacle, and her posing as a bullied outsider and all you have left is a mediocre pop singer that can't dance. She's a female version of Papa Doc/Clarence from '8 Mile', a prep school dandy going full reverse status. 'Poker Face' was a legitimately good pop song...everything since then has been crap. A performer with 10 million Twitter followers and 30 million Facebook fans that only sells 1.3 million albums should have one very nervous record label convulsing with fear.

ESPN's Bill Simmons, aka The Sports Guy, kicked off his new website yesterday. Grantland has been underwhelming so far, but it is most definitely brought to you by Subway, home of the pressed meat bits sub sandwich. Simmons used to be one of the few writers on the interwebs that would get a chuckle out of me...then he went and started working for Jimmy Kimmel and, as he himself would say, lost his fastball. His 'Book Of Basketball' was very good, but his Celtics bias was evident from page one. We'll see if Grantland reawakens Simmons the writer, or just be another outlet for his self-indulgent/congratulatory podcasts.

Go Mavs!