We’ll admit, we’re not huge fans of Madonna the musical artist.  Sure, there’s been a couple of songs we didn’t completely hate (“Beautiful Stranger” and “Ray of Light”) but overwhelmingly, her music is the height of suckitude, dating back to the crappy songs that rhymed ‘love’ with ‘of’  and ‘girl’ with ‘world’ (a particular annoyance of ours).   Ok, there are plenty of crappy pop artists, so why pick on poor little Maddie?  Because while we always found her world-beating chutzpah amusing, the fact that she wants her morning bagel spun into a worldwide news story makes us want to kick her in her Kaballah (“FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: MADONNA SHOVES LOX IN HER BOX”.  Hmmm, maybe that would make a good press release?).

So, Madge, why is your unquenchable and relentless desire to be stay famous worthy of such cynicism?  Because it undermines everything you do and makes you seem completely disingenuous (thought we heard the name “Bono” pop into our head…nah, must be the wind). 

Madonna refuses to live her life outside of the spotlight and won’t allow us the distance to (perhaps) appreciate things such as her work ethic.  So all positives go out the window when dealing with this self-important whore-de-fame.

That faux British accent makes us want to shove a bumbershoot up your arse.  You’re from MICHIGAN!

Your fixation on Jewish mysticism is creepy. 

Stop parading around with Latin boy-toy idiots half your age (btw…GREAT example for your kids, douchebaguette).

Leave the African people alone—haven’t they suffered enough?!?

And please, PLEASE, no more movies!  We’d rather watch badgers gang rape a poodle than have to sit through The Next Best Thing again. 

And we’re truly looking forward to seeing your scrawny, 78-year old arse writhing on stage in a bodysuit.  Lord (and Lourdes) knows you’ll still need the attention then.

Madonna…you are our least favorite person today.

Dear Britney,

Your relentless pursuit of the spotlight won’t allow us a moment of rest.  You’re like that chatty, annoying know-it-all we get stuck sitting next to on a 22-hour trans-Atlantic flight to Papua New Guinea who won’t let us fall asleep, thereby forcing us to make subtle stabs at our jugular with the complementary airline pen.  The blood marks on the Sky Mall catalogue are simply collateral damage. 

Your self-engineered ubiquity attacks our senses like a jackhammer to the temple.  Or what we imagine a threesome with Joan and Melissa Rivers to be.

Your continued habit of releasing crappy music assaults our aural sensibilities (“If U Seek Amy”?  How about “If U Seek Vincent Van Gogh Tell Him To Call With Detailed Instructions On How To Slice Our Ears Off”?).

Your ability to earn more money than many small countries yet STILL remain poor white trailer trash is nothing short of magical.  I’d go so far to say you are the Criss Angel of suck.  No wait, Criss Angel is the Criss Angel of suck.  You are the Some-Magician-We-Actually-Like of suck.

You are so addicted to public attention I’d expect you to attend the opening of a manhole cover.

The next time you have a day off, please don’t:

• shave your head
• marry an oaf
• have any contact with Paris Hilton 
• stumble drunk out of a car
• flash your beaver in public
• give your sister life advice
• launch another freakin’ perfume, or
• accidentally spike your baby’s formula with Maker’s Mark

Do you realize that choosing Madonna as a role model makes us hate you more because we hate Madonna MORE than you? 

And we hear you have a ghostwriter for your Twitter.  What, it’s too difficult for you to type “I 4got my kids’ names again…LOL”? 

How can we miss you, if you never go away?

Britney Spears…you are our least favorite person today.

With Love (and hate),
Takeout Magazine

p.s. If you feel the need to date any Dominican baseball players in 20 years just make sure you do it somewhere far, far away from here.  Maybe Papua New Guinea.  They might even have a Kaballah temple by then.

After watching the Alex Rodriguez steroids-in-the-past press conference, my first thought was ‘Thank you for your comments, Alexander.  They were carefully chosen, well-spoken and -ahem- sincere.  They will be placed in your permanent file under “ALEX RODRIGUEZ: WORDS OF AN ENORMOUS MORON”‘.

For the unaware, Alex Rodriguez – the most heralded baseball player of his generation who previously claimed on national television that he never, ever used performance-enhancing drugs- was outed for, well, using performance-enhancing drugs.  In an attempt to regain lost credibility, Alex scheduled a press conference to set the record straight.  No follow-up questions were allowed, but this worked in A-Rod’s favor as many of these would have been questions such as “How much is a gallon of gas on your planet, Alex?” and “HAHAHAHAHA!” (oh wait, that’s not a question). 

According to Alex, however, we should just let all of this pass as he didn’t know any better and he didn’t know exactly what he was putting into his body.  After all, he was “young and stupid”.  Did you hear that, world?  He was YOUNG AND STUPID.  How many times did he inject these words into his speech?  (See Alex, all that practice injecting finally came in handy for something!).  Ok, maybe we can all swallow a mea culpa based on the irascible youth of – oh, I don’t know- a fifth-grader.  Hell, I’ll even give most post-pubescents a performance-enhancing stupidity pass.  But when your behavior in question happens three years shy of the age of THIRTY, its hard to swallow a throw-down of the youth card.  Plus, A-Rod is notorious for being paranoid about what he consumes (he apparently won’t eat processed foods).  So, you mean to tell me, someone who won’t eat a Keebler cookie would put a illegally-obtained substance into his body without knowing what it is, especially while he was uncertain that it had any benefits?  Halloween 5 was more believable.

And as for the neck injury which he claimed scared him straight and made him give up his steroid-enhanced ways, he continued to use the illicit substance(s) for NINE MONTHS after this epiphany.  For the rest of humankind, an emotional discovery such as the one he claimed leads to an immediate change of behavior.  Not in Alex’s world.  I wonder if his wife also had an epiphany when she found out she was pregnant, since she gave birth nine months later.

About the only truth I could discern was when Alex said he wanted to put this behind him.  Really, Alex, do you?  Do you really want to lock this treasured time away, simply to be forgotten?  Of COURSE you do, because all the revelations have proven you to be a card carrying member of Stupid.   My favorite part of the press conference was his fake choking-up when addressing his teammates, as if his script read “[ALEX, INSERT REAL EMOTION HERE]“.  The funniest part of all is, he couldn’t even muster a tear during this emotional detour of silence that seemingly lasted 2 minutes, although he did look like was trying really, really hard to reach maximum waterworks.  A for effort, A-Rod.

The comedy of errors that is Alex Rodriguez’s life actually hit a high point last year when A-Rod hired Madonna’s manager, Guy Oseary, to create a profile for him beyond baseball.  Guy then seemingly concocted a grand plan involving his 2 biggest clients.  I could almost hear the pitch meeting for this super-scheme now:

A-Rod:  I am the greatest baseball player of all time and I have zero endorsements!
Guy O:  Don’t sweat it, baby. I’ll have you in every supermarket rag in America.
A-Rod:  Is this gonna involve me having to speak to the public?  Because I have tendency to lie on camera.
Guy-O:  Nah, baby…all you have to do is come out of Madonna’s apartment and have your picture taken by a photographer I tip off.
A-Rod:  Madonna is down with all of this?
Guy-O:  Hell yeah!  You just have to assign 130% of your annual salary to some unspellable Jewish religion involving wizards and dragons or something.
A-Rod:  Ok.  Ummm…wait…isn’t 130 more than 100?
Guy-O:  Hell yeah!
A-Rod:  Sign me up!

Ok, the logic of this plan is, get middle American housewives to know A-Rod’s name, send his profile recognition into the stratosphere and this would translate into huge endorsement opportunities.  Only thing is, the only person who came off as remotely sympathetic was his wife Cynthia, who “ran” into the waiting arms of has-been rocker Lenny Kravitz, another Guy Oseary client, who coincidentally -just coincidentally- had an album and tour to publicize at this time.  Oh yeah, US Weekly readers sure knew who A-Rod was now.  Only thing is, he looked less like a famous ballplayer and more like a lying, cheating, pampered, egomaniac with a fetish for faux-British accented AARP members.

So all this misguided effort led to A-Rod getting a blink-and-you’ll-miss-him appearance looking like a doofus in a Rock Band video game/Risky Business parody with 3 other stars who have no problem getting endorsements (Tony Hawk, Michael Phelps and Kobe Bryant). Oh, and if you think Alex had trouble getting endorsements before, its more likely now that the cast of The L Word gets paid to shill Levitra.  And since he claimed (initially) that he bought the steroids over-the-counter from GNC, then perhaps we can now persuade GNC to sign him up to push their new over-the-border line of Dominican Tic-Tacs.  Who would’ve thought you could pack so many hormones in a one and a half calorie breath mint?  I love science.  But seriously, Alex, I have a brilliant endorsement idea for you:  create a line of #13 branded-gear and call it the “Wear My IQ” line.  Now mail 20% of the proceeds to me.

And just a tip, Alex. Next time you decide to come clean on a massive lie, it might be wise to tell the crisis management company you hired NOT to send a representative to your press conference–that kinda, sorta kills your cred.   Alex, even Kobe is laughing at you now.  Speaking of which, how many diamond carats will Cynthia get for standing by you through this?

A final thought: what’s going to happen when Selena Roberts (who has a LOT of credibility right now) releases her book and a whole lot more is revealed?  Like maybe how you juiced in Seattle (when you were even younger and stupider!).   A liar lies.  But at least Alex Rodriguez told the truth about being stupid.

-John Lavallo