I have detected more than a slight whiff of common identity between the Affordable Care Act and Lady Gaga. Or more precisely, between their audience--which grammatically does not make sense. But in America 2013 explains nearly everything wrong in the country today. Lemme explain, my little pumpkin. The other day as I was navigating like Amerigo Vespucci around the bad Cape Horn back in the day of fearless sea-going Italians unhappy with what they had and hellbent for leather in their pursuit of a two-horse-and-buggy garage with accompanying villa, I was somehow or other guided by the net to a telephone connection with Kathleen Sibelius's office. The phone message quite impersonally told me: "You have reached the office of Kathleen Sibelius. Our hours are nine a.m. to five p.m. Monday through Friday. Please hold." Lady Gaga's new album, the artless Artpop, clicked on. Ugh. Horrible. More re-fried, re-shat Madonna-meets-Barnabas-Collins-in-a-dressing-room-built-for-a-fool that Britney's too good for. I'd rather listen to Ted Nugent's "Little Miss Danger Ass"--now THERE'S a concept album one can get behind (unintended pun award). But to ponder the Gaga phenom is to ponder the Obama worship. There is no difference: each caters to an alleged "coalition of the oppressed" (now there's a good one--no one likes a victim better than his or her self, even if the victimhood is faint or imaginary), true niche marketing stolen from capitalism modern consumerism playbook...to topple white-supremacist power structure. Ha ha, I love to quote the loony left. No matter. In reality, sadly, thus it is how millions purchase or vote, respectively. The pathetic slavishness devoted to her is replicated by his base. I've witnessed them both, she at the Schott, he on the Oval. She channeled Sam Kinison between songs in concert, going from a whisper to a hateful scream? Who's Sam Kinison, asks the sons and daughters of baby boomers? Would it matter if you knew? Same response as to the question, "Who's Saul Alinsky?" which posed to Obama's base gets a shrug from those that don't know (most of them) and almost the same from those who do because they think "community organizer" means something noble, not something nearly sinister. Either way, a brick wall called reality both have crashed into. Even though they both shared the same algoryhythmic rolodex, if you know what I mean and I'm not so sure you do, Obamacare The Album is at the bottom of the charts. Artpop the concept, designed to be deep, is, like the ACA, designed so poorly one can only ask as they did back in the days of Sputnik--did our enemies the Russians design this educational system? This health-care fiasco? Did Britney switch Artpop's master tapes with her unreleased, Kevin Federline-produced Great Lost Britney album? As one listens to Artpop, the shared hollowness between our president's rhetoric and Gaga's lyrics, which in a way pass for rhetoric in the rainbow-flagged community of BLT's (what's more rainbow than a bacon, lettuce and tomato sandwich on toast with mayo?), is a stunning echo. Come to me in all your glamour and cruelty Just do the thing that you do And I'll undress you Give it time, sometimes the simplest move is right The melody that you chose, can rescue you A hybrid can withstand these things My heart can beat with bricks and strings My ARTPOP could mean anything Perhaps something--or someone (like Obama)--that can be anything (to anyone) means nothing? One similarity between her lyrics and maybe his governance is the screwing--Gaga's lyric pretense of foreplay before the act; Obama's entire spoken oeuvre, from the moment he declared his candidacy in American terrorist-turned-professor Bill Ayers's Chicago living room to, oh, anything he said up to and including ten minutes ago amounts to a successful humping of the electorate. Gaga's rave-ravenous minions' wet dream come true; his electorate mesmerized by the tingling in their legs, he just doing what the job requires. Screwing the public. Where I think Obama and Gaga diverge is that she's honest--and he lies. "I live for applause, applause, applause," she barks in "Applause", and no doubt quite truthfully. He: "If you like your health insurance, you can keep it." He knew full well that was false. And the part that bothers me most is that his base knows he knew. And they're not upset. But I do believe he loves applause. Who doesn't? And yet all the Lady's producers and all the Lady's collaborators couldn't put Gaga back on top of the charts again. Artpop is an Art-flop. Now the battle's not over for Obamacare, but...fuck all that. It's the economy that's wrecked, not just our health care system. Gaga the Monster I can handle. But her 'monsters' have created an unkillable Frankenstein with Obama and his ACA. Only America's animal spirits can return us to prosperity. Always have, always will. In the meantime, I will give Gaga her due: she has more integrity than our president. Not saying much, but still it's pretty true. Let me quote Johnny Cash, one of the great Americans who by the way is on a postage stamp nowadays. "That dirty old egg-sucking dog,"Cash once sang in a song of the same name. "You better stay out of my hen house." Too late for that. But hey, that's what elections are for, right? "You ain't woman enough for my man," Michelle might warn Ms. Gaga. Cage fight between those two broads, my money's on the lady with the broad Chicago shoulders.