Here is the opening performance of Lady Gaga as Jo Calderone from last night's MTV Video Music Awards. I love her in drag! She's a smoking hot butch! Gaga sings "You and I" and she almost makes me forget that Stefani Germanotta was on stage. I'm buying this Jo Calderone hype, which may be because I think Gaga looks better as a male than a female, but as long as someone's belting out Gaga's songs with emotion, I don't care what Stefani's wearing. She makes a very boring pop music industry exciting again.

Jo Calderone You and I

Lady Gaga opened the 2011 MTV Video Music Awards in full character as her male alter ego, Jo Calderone. Lady Gaga's character performance was impressive.

Jo, like Gaga, enjoys pushing the envelope. Calderone's opening monologue was laced with profanity and shocking commentary. After Jo stopped, uh, ranting?, Gaga then performed "You and I" on the piano before she stood on top of it and fell right off. Adele looked shocked.

Gaga's performances continue to live up to the hype simply because she puts her heart into it.

Photos: MTV and Wenn

Because you can’t get enough of her IRL, Lady Gaga’s coming to the small screen as an animated (literally) guest on The Simpsons. Mother Monster will be playing herself in an episode titled “Lisa Goes Gaga,” in which she comes to Springfield on the Gaga Express train trying to save the town from low self-esteem.

The singer won’t just be dispensing musical numbers and inspirational sayings--she’ll definitely be making her way around town. That, by the way, includes kissing Marge Simpson. She says, "I play a little bit of a slut. The apple doesn't fall far from my artistic tree.”

Even though Gaga’s playing herself, give or take a few levels of sluttiness, she admits the experience was “a little nerve-wracking.” This, coming from the the girl who arrives at awards shows in eggs and wears 10-inch heels on a normal day. 

"I make music, but I don't do voiceovers every day of the week...I had to remind myself constantly of the sincerity of the humor. That's what I was trying to focus on--not putting on a character too much and really being as sincere as I could with the lines."

So Lady Gaga struggles with...playing herself? This is kind of a mind f*ck of epic proportions.

Lady Gaga spends most of her life having her picture taken in some state of undress, so when Vogue Japan got the Mother Monster to strip down completely for a photo shoot back in June, they decided to not even release the revealing pics until now.

Now that the outtakes have been revealed, we're getting our first glimpse at full-frontal Gaga, but the world is still responding with a collective, "Meh." These have gotta be the most anti-climactic nude celeb pics in history. Gaga's been giving us peaks for so long, she can't blame us for not being too excited that she's finally giving us the whole show. Not only that, but hostage-style Polaroids? Booooooring. Gaga set the weirdo bar so high, so long ago that there's no way she can shock us anymore. She could release a sex tape in which she acts out the entire Kama Sutra with an array of barnyard creatures, and we'd still just shrug and hold out hope for a Kate Middleton nip slip.

That said, Gaga actually looks pretty good in most of the shots. Her main goal in life is to distract attention from her face, and the best way to do that is to totally strip down. So mission accomplished, I guess. But if she really wants to get our attention, next time she poses nude, she'll photoshop a wang on herself.

Jump in to see Gaga in all her NSFW glory.

Lady Gaga is best known for wearing all kinds of crazy crap, but she also looks for any excuse to get naked. The Gaga shot a series of promos for the MTV Video Music Awards, in one of which she rips of her bra while performing with an old timey jazz trio, because...that's what jazz singers used to back in the day? Sure, why not?

Lady Gaga VMA Promos

All three of the ads are actually kinda cool, particularly the one where she talks about the right conditions for writing songs, "Sometimes I'm really drunk, or sometimes I'm super sober," Gaga says. Unlike us normal folk, the Gaga can reach a state known as super sobriety. If you ever experienced it, you'd start taking off your bra at random moments, too.

Anyway, you can check out all three ads above and watch Gaga perform at the VMAs on August 28th. We're sure it will be an everyday, straightforward performance with nothing unusual or unexpected taking place.

Stefani Germanotta goes hard with her Lady Gaga public persona almost every single day. When she's shopping, she dresses like this; when her sister graduates from high school she puts on this, but when she gets on a surfboard, she isn't dressed like a freak show.

One day after Lindsay Lohan was photographed trying to surf, Stefani got on a board and did the damn thing. Gaga was photographed in Mexico where she was attempting to ride some waves. Gaga looks like she's tried surfing before. She'll only get better if she keeps at it.

Lady Gaga is inspiring. I don't think there's anything she won't try or do, as if we couldn't tell by her music videos. Keep it up LG!

GAGA'S SURFING PICTURES

Photo: Wenn

Lady Gaga's "You & I" video feels like an artistic masterpiece. This one woman makes me excited about watching music videos. Jo Calderone, Gaga's male alter ego, is featured throughout the video and he is so damn hot! Gaga is a mermaid and an albino chick playing the piano and some modern witch woman wearing black on the street, and a hooker in a long blue wig. I love this video! Just when you thought Gaga couldn't possibly get any weirder, she does and she does it well.

You & I

Lady Gaga isn't planning to unveil the video for her song "You and I" until Thursday, but she teased fans with a sneak peek of the clip on Twitter yesterday. So what part of the much-anticipated video did Gaga feel was important enough reveal to her Little Monsters? Her own bruised and bloodied feet! Sure, why not?

Apparently, the feet Tweet makes more sense in the context of the video, which features Gaga walking from NYC to Nebraska to hook up with her man, Luc Carl, who may or may not appear on screen (but who is from Nebraska). "I knew I wanted the video to be about me sprinting back and walking hundreds of thousands of miles to get him back," Gaga said recently. "I'm walking with no luggage and no nothing and it's just me and my ankles are bleeding and there's grass stuck in my shoes."

In Gaga World, it's hundreds of thousands of miles from NYC to Nebraska, and there are no such things as sneakers (or planes, for that matter). I'm sure it will all make more sense when we get to see the whole video. Or not. Making sense is not really Gaga's strong suit.

Collaborations between celebrities who actually do things--and do those things well--can go one of two ways: absolutely anticlimactic or totally spectacular. According to the British tabloid The Sun, Lady Gaga and Britney Spears are working on a duet together. Get pumped (or prepared for the letdown), y'all!

When Gaga saw Britney perform on her Femme Fatale tour stop in Atlantic City, the two also met backstage and discussed the possibility of singing together. They were deep in conversation and already throwing songs ideas back and forth. Or maybe that was just Gaga.

The source says, "They sat for around an hour gossiping and talking about collaborating together on a track. GaGa already has two songs in mind."

Yeah, well, we all know who’d be the dominant force in this relationship. Brit-Brit’s just gonna be dragged along for Gaga’s wild ride because she doesn’t have a strong enough personality on her own. But Britney’s pretty good at doing what she’s told and Lady Gaga’s pretty good at making pop songs, so hopefully good things? I want some catchy uber-pop that will stay in my head forever. Ke$ha only goes so far.

She's 3 for 3 now. The freakshow that is Lady Gaga has been toning down her crazy outfits lately and she's been actually looking attractive.

Gaga usually looks like an albino drag queen from outer space, but she's been simplifying her ensembles from head to toe and the results have been very flattering to Stefani. She almost looks like she did a few years ago, minus the bow, which was arguably her best look!

Photos: Fame and Wenn