What would Madonna say? We may never know...

July 27, 2008

There is frustration at my fingertips. This space was reserved for my much-anticipated interview with Madonna Louise Ciccone Ritchie. I had been planning this interview since a family member called me last February to tell me she would be coming to Traverse City for a major event.
Now the fact that I ended up not getting an interview with Madonna should come as no surprise. It is not like the mega-pop-superstar is waiting around to be interviewed by a small-time newspaper journalist. So what ever gave me the idea that I would even have a chance to interview Madonna?
It goes back to something a college professor once said in a business class I had. “Ultimately the success in your life will come down more in who you know versus what you know.”
Well, I sort of know Madonna. I know several of her family members and some of them are my friends. A few years back I even interviewed her brother Mario for an Express cover story. For seven years while I was the spokesperson for the Leelanau wine industry, I worked very closely with Madonna’s father. I was even at his home the afternoon of 70th birthday, having lunch with him, when his birthday present arrived with a hand written note on an embossed card that said “Mrs. Ritchie.”

HANGING OUT
I have even met Madonna on a few occasions. A few years back when she came to visit with her family, my kids played with her kids. Her father asked if my family would go and spend the day at the beach with Madonna and her family. We did.
So I felt that I had a pretty good inside track on scoring this interview. My connections were all there -- unfortunately my colleagues ruined my opportunity. One of Madonna’s many handlers had arranged for a brief interview to be focused on her documentary and her career. The day of the interview was the same day of media reports of Madonna and matters that relate to her personal life.
Madonna -- through her handlers and publicists -- made a statement that she was not granting interviews.
So here I am at my keyboard, paying for the sins of my colleagues, and I do consider them sins. The state of journalism today from my perspective is somewhat in disarray. It is a sad state of affairs today to see our society reduced to such trivial matters as to what celebrity is sleeping with what celebrity. I think these pursuits are causing a “dumbing down effect” in America and I blame my media colleagues for contributing to this.

FOR INSTANCE...
A few years back I was contacted by a major magazine that offered me $7,500 to score an interview with Madonna’s parents. My connections to her parents would give me “unprecedented access to their relationship with their daughter,” the editor told me. I could get the “real dirt” and find out “exactly how they really feel about their daughter.” I declined and immediately called the Ciccones to warn them. Months later a journalist posing as a wine writer appeared at the winery they own in Suttons Bay and ended up writing the piece of half truths about the Ciccones and their daughter.
When Demi Moore and Bruce Willis were spending quite a bit of time in the area, various publications contacted us at the Express, asking if we give “coverage” to their publication during the celebrities’ visits to the area. One publication’s editor gave me a detailed description on how to tail the couple, hide in bushes to get photographs, and how to go through the garbage to get information about them. Again I declined.
Just in the past couple of weeks I have received inquiries from publications trying to get the inside track on Madonna’s visit to Traverse City this week. One publication called and asked if I knew where she would be hanging out (see Tastemakers). Another publication from London offered me a substantial amount of money to connect them with one of Madonna’s brothers, and I declined.

MATTER OF TRUST
I understand our fascination with celebrities. I have spent 30 years on and off writing about them. My interest has always been about their artistic pursuit and what motivates them. I want to capture their artistic side, their thoughts on their profession and share that with the reader. I have always felt as a journalist that my subject’s personal lives are off limits.
When I spent the day at the beach with Madonna, Guy Ritchie, their nanny, bodyguard, and daughter Lourdes and son Rocco, I took lots of video and photographs of my kids and their kids playing together. Obviously some of those included Madonna. When I shook Madonna’s hand and introduced myself, I told her I was a journalist as a courtesy. She smiled and responded: “Rick, I know who you are and you wouldn’t be here if my father didn’t trust you.”
I could have cashed in on my conversations, pictures and videos from that day with Madonna and her family. But I wasn’t at the beach as a journalist. I was there as a father with a beach blanket, hanging out with another family on their beach blanket. Madonna was there as a mom and wife enjoying her vacation in Northern Michigan; she was not there as media subject. While I consider much of our conversation from that day to be “off the record,” it was in many ways similar to any conversation you might carry on at the beach with a group of people who have kids near the same age.
I will never release those pictures or the video for the very reason Madonna allowed for me to be there in the first place: “I was trusted.”

TRUST OF THE PEOPLE
It is something that I feel in general the media has lost and that is the trust of the people. Sure there are a lot of great journalists and publications – I speak in general terms. During my interview with Phil Donahue we spoke to the new corporate direction the media in America has taken in recent years.
There has always been a separation between advertising and editorial, but that has been changing. Major media in most cases is controlled and owned by Fortune 500 companies interested in the bottom line versus editorial content. Donahue believes his show on MSNBC was cancelled because NBC executives were concerned that Donahue’s anti-war positions would turn off advertisers.
I am able to relate to that. Despite writing primarily fluff pieces and in many ways articles that make me an extension of the PR department of my subjects, I do ask investigative questions of my subjects from time to time. During an interview with a blues festival organizer I questioned how authentic of a blues festival he was hosting with virtually no African-American blues acts in the lineup. He felt threatened by the question and ended our interview. He called the publication I was writing for and threatened to pull thousands of dollars of advertising if I was going through with my story. The editor called to notify me I was no longer writing for them.
I feel fortunate to be here at the Northern Express. I have never been asked to write about an advertiser and I have written things that I am sure some advertisers have not been happy with. Never once has my editor here told me, hey we better not write that because we might lose an advertiser. We are old school here at the Express, a story is a story.

ALL TIME GREATEST
So lost here was an opportunity to have a serious conversation with the most important entertainer of my generation. For that matter, Madonna will go down in rock/pop history as probably the all time greatest. Why? Simply because Madonna is the only one since the invention of rock and roll who has been able to maintain creative staying power.
Sure, the Rolling Stones are still touring, but when was the last time the Stones released a hit album with new material? Madonna continues to reinvent herself as if she is on some endless pursuit of finding out her true artistic being. After almost 30 years Madonna is still able to produce a number one hit, something few if any of her colleagues have been able to accomplish.
In fact, Madonna just passed Elvis Presley this year for having the most top 10 hits in the history of the Billboard Charts. Basically Madonna came into the “boys club” and kicked ass. In a week she turns 50 -- which is the new 30 -- so one has to wonder: is the best yet to come from Madonna?
Female friends of mine, who, like me, are part of Madonna’s generation, have told me that they admire what Madonna has accomplished and that she has been a strong role model for them. For some, thinking of Madonna as a role model might turn stomachs, specifically when it comes to her much publicized sexual conquests. Meanwhile, Gene Simmons of Kiss and Wilt Chamberlain’s sexual conquests were celebrated locker-room talk.
For my female friends, Madonna was the first woman to cut through the double standard that has existed since the beginning of time between men and women. That double-standard Madonna broke through is not just in the bedroom, but in the boardroom as well.

QUESTIONS
I wanted to ask Madonna about whether she has given any thought to her impact on women? I had planned to ask Madonna about her reason behind inviting Iggy Pop and The Stooges to perform on her behalf this year at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame ceremonies. I have some thoughts as to her reasons. If you have followed any of her recent tours, then you would have noticed that Detroit has been left off, including her upcoming tour. Is there a reason for that?
I wonder what Madonna thinks is the driving force behind her work ethic -- what motivates her to succeed. I know from watching her parents’ labor in their retirement -- sometimes 15 hours a day to make their winery work -- that she was raised in an environment that taught her the value of hard work.
I would have asked her one question around the current media circus surrounding her personal life. Do you feel that all of this publicity is having a negative impact on your documentary? I wanted to ask her about how she became interested in the plight of the AIDS epidemic in Africa.
More than likely when Madonna comes to town, she won’t field questions from the media either. Why should she? Sometimes I wonder why any celebrity talks to us in the media anymore. It amazes me more and more that I get requests (which I say no to) asking to pre-read my articles before they are published. The reason, I am told, is so many of my subjects have told me “they have been misquoted or been screwed by a writer.”
I have other questions for Madonna; maybe someday I will get my chance. A friend asked me why I didn’t go to her father for assistance; after all, I had done numerous favors for him over the years. I have never worked that way; sure I pleaded my case to Madonna’s publicist and identified my connections to her. I even pleaded my case to Michael Moore, who said he would try on my behalf. But my relationship and friendship with Madonna’s father was never about her.
It is my understanding that Madonna will take the stage to answer questions from the audience. My hope is that those in attendance will do a better job asking her questions than most of my colleagues have done over the years.
Madonna will appear at the Traverse City Film Festival on Saturday, August 2 to introduce her documentary “I Am Because We Are” about the plight of children orphaned by Aids in Malawi, Africa. The event at the State Theatre is sold out. Madonna is scheduled to do a Q&A after the screening.