{"id":104,"date":"2008-10-08T18:28:36","date_gmt":"2008-10-08T18:28:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/lifesapitch\/wp\/?p=104"},"modified":"2008-10-08T18:28:36","modified_gmt":"2008-10-08T18:28:36","slug":"every_playboy_bunny_with_her_b","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/lifesapitch\/2008\/10\/every_playboy_bunny_with_her_b\/","title":{"rendered":"Every Playboy bunny with her bleach blonde hair"},"content":{"rendered":"

Monday was a really sad night for me: Holly Madison and Hugh Hefner broke up<\/a>, and I cared because I feel like I know them. <\/p>\n

I have a sick fascination with The Girls Next Door<\/a>, <\/i>and
\nno, gentle readers, I am not a 22-year-old frat boy. How can I love a
\nshow and hate everyone on it, you may ask? [That’s not entirely true: I
\ndo enjoy Hef, who strikes a kind of ideal imbalance of obsession and apathy.]
\nI watch the show (and, in the interest of full disclosure, have Seasons
\n1 and 2 on DVD) because I, and, spoiler alert, many others, crave backstage passes to other people’s lives.<\/p>\n

Given circa 15 minutes
\nand a fast wireless connection, you could probably find out what
\nLindsay Lohan had for breakfast this morning. Given days\/months, you
\nprobably couldn’t find out what Joshua Bell had for breakfast, what
\nhe’s doing at this moment, where he likes to eat dinner, if\/who he’s
\ndating, so on, so forth. Why do we know everything about mainstream
\ncelebrities, and nothing about classical musician “celebrities”?<\/p>\n

Most
\nof the classical celebrities I know want to be mainstream celebrities,
\nbut I think they exist in a celebrity utopia: people generally
\nknow who they are, but no one cares what they had for breakfast. The
\ngrass is always greener, though, and because they can’t get on Letterman<\/i>, they’re not famous enough. <\/p>\n

In
\n2008, you can be a mainstream celebrity for doing absolutely nothing;
\nthe three girls “next door” date(d) an American icon…that’s it. Not
\nonly did three randoms become famous, but the show saved the Playboy<\/i> brand by exposing the (sanitized) behind-the-scenes elements of Hefner’s life. Pre-show, I would have never said anything nice about Playboy<\/i>, and now I’m buying DVDs about Hef’s girlfriends? I’m calling him “Hef” like we’re old friends? <\/p>\n

[Side-thought, is The Girls Next Door <\/i>anti-feminist or post-feminist?]<\/p>\n

My
\npoint: classical musicians need to expose their personal lives if they
\nexpect to achieve mainstream levels of fame. In doing so, they may\/will
\nlose their privacy\/happiness. <\/p>\n

We did a YouTube Q&A<\/a>
\nwith Hilary on Schoenberg’s birthday, and a lot of the commenters said
\nthey were surprised that she was so quirky and funny. Yup, she’s
\ntotally low-key, a bit strange (but aren’t we all?) and ridiculously smart, and yet has (had?) a
\nreputation for being an icy and stand-offish. When I saw the Marilyn
\nMonroe “Happy Birthday, Mr. Schoenberg” she recorded, I told her no,
\ncome on…that’s too weird! Hilary’s response? “Well, that’s me! Take
\nit or leave it.” Fair enough. She took a risk by answering strangers’
\nquestions and exposing her real personality online, but the channel has
\ngotten over 6,000 views in the past few weeks, and hopefully current
\nand future fans feel like they know her a little better, and will
\nconsequently enjoy her concerts and recordings more. <\/p>\n

I meet my
\nfair share of classical musicians, and most are really interesting and
\nsurprisingly down-to-earth. I love that I have to schedule my meetings
\nwith David Lang around his picking up his kids from school, for
\nexample, and that Eric Owens tells a story about how his aunt wrote a scathing letter to the
\neditor when he got a bad review in Miami at the start of his career.
\nEvery classical musician doesn’t need a reality TV show, but gestures toward exposing personalities and lifestyles must be made.<\/p>\n

Of course this is just one sliver of a larger discussion. Even if an artist was willing to expose his or her personal life and personality to the public, who are the interested parties and what are the media platforms on which to do it? I sat next to a woman from Inside Edition <\/i>at a party a couple weeks back, and of course I launched into, “There is so much classical music gossip you could cover! Violinists forget their Strads in the trunks of cars because they’re trying to hook up with girls!” Her response? “((smile\/nod\/blink, smile\/nod\/blink)).”  Okee. And would publicizing classical music gossip garner new audiences, or just intrigue the current ones?<\/p>\n

When Doug<\/a> asked me if I wanted to write an ArtsJournal blog, I told him what I really wanted to do was anonymously host a gossip and rumor site about the classical music industry a la Perez Hilton<\/a> – people would send me tips, and it would be amazing and juicy and exploitative.  Then I chickened out and did this instead. And now if I do it, you’ll all know it’s me! I might do it anyway, in the name of saving the industry from itself. <\/p>\n

Is this blog more (less?) meaningful because you now know that I watch trashy TV?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Monday was a really sad night for me: Holly Madison and Hugh Hefner broke up, and I cared because I feel like I know them. I have a sick fascination with The Girls Next Door, and no, gentle readers, I am not a 22-year-old frat boy. How can I love a show and hate everyone […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-104","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-main","7":"entry"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/lifesapitch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/104","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/lifesapitch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/lifesapitch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/lifesapitch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/lifesapitch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=104"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/lifesapitch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/104\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/lifesapitch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=104"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/lifesapitch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=104"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/lifesapitch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=104"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}