Famed soft core porn peddler Hugh Hefner will be among the Lifetime Achievement Award winners at 2011 Kennedy Center ceremonies. The announcement immediately stirred controversy, since it marks the first time the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts has honored a person outside the strict definition of performing arts. Reaction was equally swift; KCPA media spokesman Adam Lambert did a press conference to explain the choice, and Agriculture Secretary Vilsack fired Aretha Franklin.
Mr. Lambert, wearing a stylish red leather Versace jacket said, “The Kennedy Center, part of our mission is to re-define the meaning of performance art for our culture. Mr. Hefner’s entire life has been a performance. It’s one thing to sing a song or do a little dance and then go home. It’s quite another thing to be Hugh Hefner, inventing some wacky libertine shtick, and having to perform that role for fifty years. For such determination and discipline, Mr. Hefner deserves this award; I think it’s long overdue.”
Answering questions, Mr. Lambert explained to a disappointed People Magazine correspondent that the Lifetime achievement award has nothing to do with the Lifetime channel. The press conference took an unexpected turn in Lambert’s response to Popular Mechanics reporter Janet Blake-Flaverhaven, who later said she only came for the buffet.
Asked why KCPA would honor a person whose career has been about objectifying half the US population into nothing but fodder for masturbators, Adam Lambert kicked back, wearing a stylish red leather Versace jacket.
“Damn it Janet, will you let the process work? Here at the Kennedy Center, we’re seriously engaged in raising the cultural quality of this nation. KCPA honors people for three specific reasons. First, because they’re really talented. But most often it’s awarded to somebody who’s been big part of our lives, and they’re about to croak. Third category is people we wish would croak or just go away.
Hell, we’re considering giving Willie Nelson a second Lifetime achievement award, hoping he’ll get the hint. Obviously Mr. Hefner falls into category three; reading the articles in Playboy is like being trapped in an episode of ‘Mad Men.’ We just want him to go away. What is he, like 85 now? He’s in a time warp and America doesn’t want to do the time warp again.”