Shaun Sperling was just another kid from the northwest suburbs of Chicago, until one day — March 14th, 1992 to be exact — when he stood before his friends and family at his Madonna-themed Bar Mitzvah and vogued the sacred vogue, thus officially becoming a man.

After six months of an uneasy ceasefire, Sir Elton John last night fired shots at longtime scratching post Madonna during an interview on Australian television.

What was supposed to be an "intimate" concert for Madonna fan club members ended in public outcry after audience members gathered at the 2,700-seat Olympia Theatre in Paris became disgruntled over the singer's abrupt departure just 45-minutes into her set.

That's Madonna performing "Like a Virgin" last week during an MDNA Tour stop in Berlin with tears streaming down her face. Why are tears streaming down her face? I don't know. She'd performed this song live for audience in this ballad style almost a dozen times at this point, and it doesn't seem that the song grabbed her like it did during this performance. (In other words, this doesn't seem to be a cry-every-night-at-the-same-exact-part Janet Jackson "Again" scenario.)

If the UK's Daily Mirror is to be believed, Madonna's MDNA tour rider includes one particularly apt request from each venue she visits: Do not enter her dressing room until after it has been scrubbed clean of her DNA.

Former Republican presidential candidate Mike Huckabee isn't afraid to express himself.

If you're one of the few people who has never seen Madonna's nipple, now's your chance.

This unreleased dub rips off Madonna's "Into the Groove" quite explicitly, and I suspect that is the point. Considering that it's coming from one of the most encyclopedia minds in dance music today, Dimitri from Paris, this track reads more like a reference to the small rash of musical Madonna wannabes in the '80s. In the hierarchy, I think "Headphones" sits somewhere below Regina's "Baby Love" but above Alisha's "Baby Talk." This guy knows what I'm talking about.

Now, you want to talk about reading? Let's talk about reading:

"There's nothing to say off camera," goes Warren Beatty's famous roast of Madonna in the 1991 documentary Truth or Dare. "Why would you say something if it's off camera? What point is there existing?"

On her 12th studio album, MDNA (out this week), Madonna sometimes talks about her life with Guy Ritchie ("Would you have married me if I were poor?"). But her self-fixation, the album's real theme, is generally career-focused. You hear it in the way the way that certain songs echo her past work — "I'm a Sinner" breaks with a guitar solo a la "Ray of Light" and sports the plastic psychedelia of "Beautiful Stranger," while the chord progression of "Beautiful Killer" is similar to that of "Die Another Day." There are overt references, too – "Like a Virgin," "Into the Groove" and "Lucky Star" are name checked. The album opens with, "Oh my God, I am heartily sorry for having offended thee and I detest all my sins..." which she previously said in Like a Prayer's "Act of Contrition."

To promote yesterday's release of her new album, Madonna joined Twitter for a single enchanting day. Using the clever album plug-handle @MadonnaMDNADay, Madonna fielded questions from fans who tweeted at her and used the augural hashtag, #AskMadonna.

As current beef goes, this one is almost as lame as The Weeknd saying that The-Dream looks like the Hamburglar on Twitter, but public name-calling is public name-calling, and so we will share this particularly stupid incident with you: Piers Morgan, CNN's premier ruddy-faced gasbag, is still really pissed at Kate Moss.

Plastic surgery is on the rise — and so is the economy, maybe. USA Today's Healthy Perspective blog has a story about an increase in breast implants, tummy tucks, face lifts, and the like. The American Society of Plastic Surgeons estimates 1.6 million cosmetic surgeries in 2011. This is good news for the nippers and tuckers, who were once concerned the crappy economy was making plastic surgery a thing of the past. So things are looking up for all of us, right?

Remember when M.I.A. flipped America off, and we pretended to give a damn? (Well, some of us didn't pretend.) Apparently this is a thing we're still talking about, because on Friday Madonna spoke to acclaimed journalist Ryan Seacrest about The Middle Finger Seen 'Round the World. MTV News has the full report.

Last night, a young British woman who goes by M.I.A. flipped the bird to 111 million Americans. Revenge for the Revolutionary War? Punk rock gesture? Involuntary muscle spasm? And who was that woman, anyway? We answer all your questions.

According to preliminary ratings reports, the most popular part of yesterday's Super Bowl broadcast was that crazy Cleopatra-goes-to-church-with-a-drumline-and-Japanese-schoolgirls concoction that Madonna performed in the middle. The game itself didn't rank higher than last year's record setting game, but it came close.

Calm down, everyone. Madonna has finally said what we needed her to say — when asked about Janet Jackson's boob-baring "wardrobe malfunction" in 2004, Madonna told Bob Costas, "This will not happen to me, I promise you."

The Super Bowl is a mere three days away, which brings us to that painful part of the promotion week where every single person who has even a remote involvement in The Big Game is granted a formulaic press conference. (Sample questions: "Excited about The Big Game?" "Who are you rooting for in The Big Game?" "Is this Big Game bigger than last year's Big Game?")

If you subscribe to the Twitter feed for Anderson Cooper's talk show, Anderson, then you have been subjected to a barrage of tweets about his interview with Madonna today. He even changed his Twitter avatar. He's acting like, well, a gay person who is about to meet Madonna.