PLAYBOY

CHEVY
CHASE INTERVIEW

BUILD-YOUR-OWN
CANDIDATE

The
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PLAYBILL

ARE you TIRED of seeing the same old faces on the Presidential-
campaign trail, Bunky? And after months of looking at those
guys, do you sce them all kind of blended together in an indistin-
guishable mass of teeth and handshakes? Well, then, you have the
bug that seems to go around every four years: the election blahs.
Not to worry. We have the cure. [Us Lewis Grossberger's The Com-
posite Candidate (illustrated by Steve Brodner), an ariful satire
based on the premise that while a whole is generally greater thar
the sum of its parts, the opposite may be true when it comes to
politicians. Then again, if you don't like anything about any of the
candidates, Kevin Cook offers a few timely alternatives in Lets Get
Tough!, a guide to men and women on whom we can depend, if we
elect them, to win re-election the hard way: They'll earn i

In case you prefer your humor and politics neatly rolled up in

one package, check out John Blumenthal's Playboy Interview with

ian, actor, writer and all-round swell guy Chevy Chase.
Chase, whose political satire was onc of the highlights of the oi
nal Saturday Night Live, hasn't lost his touch. But then, when
your movies keep making mone sy to laugh.

Now that the weathers warm and the days are long, millions of
us are spending every spare minute on the golf course, and so, as
a public service, we're going to tell you the rules of the game. You
say, “I already know the rules, buddy; I've been playing it and
watching it on television for years.” О

comed

, then, so tell us: When
your ball lands against а half-caten pear, can you remove it with-
out adding a penalty stroke? That and other strange questions
about the Byzantine rules of dimple ball are answered by Warren
Kolbacker in /f Your Ball Lands on a Newspaper, Can You Burn It to
Improve Your Lie? If golf is hard to fathom for the English-speak-
ing, you can imagine how tough it must have been for the
Japanese. But, as in everything else they've tried, they got the
hang of it just fine, despite the fact that a small island with a pop-
ulation crisis isn't the ideal place to lay ош 18 holes. But the
Japanese have solved the problem, as you'll read іп A Yen for Golf,
by Chris Hodenfield.

It was more than a year ago that Associate Articles Editor Peter
Moore read an article in a newspaper about a Vietnam veteran
who returned to Vietnam on a secret mission to find the woman
with whom he had fallen in love and bring her home. * ht in
the middle of Rambo hysteria,” says Moore, “I thought, Неге)
guy who went back to Vietnam for all the right reasons.” The sol-
dier and hero is Robert Schwab and we think his first-person ас-
count of his dari attempt, Vietnam Love Story, with its
surprise conclusion, is one of the most romantic and courageous
tales we've ever published. As Moore says, “No bandanna and
oiled muscles here. He's a real man.”

Needless to say, this issue is also jam-packed with real women,
beginning with Claudia Dreifus' 20 Questions with sultry actress
Theresa Russell. If you're more into the, ah, visuals, you'll want to
see our pictorials on Phoebe Légére (with text by Contribu-
ting Editor Bruce Williamson), Playmate Emily Arth (photographed
by Contributing Photographer Richord Fegley) and our spectacu-
lar layout on the Playmate of the Year (we'll give you 12 guesses
who she is).

To round out the issue, Ben Fong-Torres chronicles the rise and
fall and rise of Capitol Records, the label that carried what were
‘once the world’s two hottest rock groups (the Beatles and the Beach
Boys), in Retooling the Hu Factory, illustrated by David Wilcox; David
Foster Wallace contributes a haunting short story titled Late Night,
featuring a certain gap-toothed talk-show host and illustrated by
Nick Backes; a special electronics round-up— Disc, DAT and the
Other Things—by Rich Warren, gives the low-down on the most ex-
citing new developments from digital audio tape to Super VHS;
and we have the latest in men's swimwear, photographed by tance
Staedler and featuring Olympic diving superstar Greg Louganis.
Which brings to mind a great idea: Take this issue and a cold six-
pack down to your nearest beach and, as the phrase goes, chill out.

a

BLUMENTHAL

GROSSBERGER

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PLAYBOY.

vol. 35, по. 6--ішпе 1988 CONTENTS FOR THE MEN'S ENTERTAINMENT MAGAZINE
PLAYBILL ....... T MO EGA E SESE а
DEARIPLAYBOY С ES SAR SS E 9
PLAYBOY AFTER HOURS. . css ene 13
САМ. RE RE am NUT GENE STONE 24
РОВЕР DAN JENKINS 28
MEN ыы ЕЕ .. АЗА BABER 30
МОМЕМ Loi E A IDEM са CYNTHIA HEIMEL 32 Winning Form.
THE PLAYBOY ADVISOR ........................... 39
DEAR PLAYMATES. ............ a puces Rt Seek ККУ КЕЗ Eve 43
THE PLAYBOY ҒОБЦМ............................................ e E
PLAYBOY INTERVIEW: CHEVY CHASE—candid conversation .................... ss
LATE NIGHT—fiction........ eere DAVID FOSTER WALLACE 66
MONDO PHOEBE-pictorial...................-.- text by BRUCE WILLIAMSON 70
THE COMPOSITE CANDIDATE—satire..................-- LEWIS GROSSBERGER 78
AET/S'GETTOUGHI о E KEVIN COOK 146
SWIMSUITS 88—foshion xs FED жэр 20070 A heran HOLLIS WAYNE B2
FANCY-FREE—ployboy's playmate of the month... eee 90
PLAYBOY'S PARTY, SOKES— humor E „Кок ра SI eR EU T ТО 102

VIETNAM LOVE STORY—article ROBERT SCHWAB 104

DISC, DAT AND THE OTHER THINGS—modern living...........-. RICH WARREN 106 Anis mph
RULES OF THE GAME—article .......................... WARREN KALBACKER 108
ANYEN FOR СОР CHRIS HODENFIELD 134
RETOOLING THE HIT FACTORY—article................... BEN FONG-TORRES 112
PLAYMATE OF THE ҮЕАЕ-рісюгісі................................. еее 114
20 QUESTIONS: THERESA КОЅЅЕЦ. ....................... осалы О! 126
FAST FORWARDS C oer SS 130
PLAYBOY ON THE SCENE ie =e ee E E LC 167 Super Sounds
COVER STORY

We smiled last year when December Playmate India Allen told us that
her mother was a psychic. But Mom predicted that India would be voted
Playmate of the Year and, hey, give Mom credit: She was right. India
was photographed by Contributing Photographer Stephen Wayda for
this cover, which was produced by West Coast Photography Editor
Marilyn Grabowski. The Rabbit, as you can see, is fit to be tied.

me Амо NO RESPONSIBILITY CAN BE ASSUMED FOR UNSOLICITED MATERIALS. ALL RIGHTS IN LETTERS SENT TO PLAYBOY WILL BE TREATED AS UNCONDITIONALLY ASSIGHED FOR PUBLICATION AND COPYRIGHT PURPOSES

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Sexually speaking, 1987
was something else. It
was the year of Jessica
Hahn and Donna Fice.
The year of Jim
Bakker's PTL slide and
Gary Hart’s weekend of
Monkey Business. It
was a year of erotic
show 'n tell, shocks and
slips, in the most
surprising places. The
year everyone around
the globe seemed to
have an Obsession with
опе subject. And now
it's all here, in a wild,
wacky, wonderful
Playboy Special Edition:
The Year in Sex, Relive it.
TO ORDER BY MAIL: Send

2750 par copy (nudes

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Очу. Sorry, no other

leroign orders can ba

accepted.

WACKY!
NY WONDERFUL!

AT NEWSSTANDS NOW

PLAYBOY

HUGH M. HEFNER
editor and publisher

ARTHUR KRETCHMER editorial director
and associate publisher
JONATHAN BLACK managing editor
ТОМ STAEBLER art director
GARY COLE photography director
С. BARRY GOLSON executive editor

EDITORIAL
ARTICLES: JOHN REZEK editor; PETER MOORE asso-
ciate editor; FICTION: ALICE К. TURNER editor
MODERN LIVING: DAVID STEVENS senior editor;
ED WALKER associale editor; PHILLIP COOPER assist-
ant editor; FORUM: TERESA GROSCH associate edi
lor; WEST COAST STEPHEN RANDALL editor;
STAFF GRETCHEN EDGREN senior editor; WALTER
LONE. JR. JAMES R. PETERSEN senior staff writers;
BRUCE KLUGER, BARBARA NELLIS, KATE NOLAN (1550C1-
ate editors; KANDI KLINE traffic coordinator; FASH-
JON: HOLLIS WAYNE editor; CARTOONS: MICHELLE
URRY editor; COPY: ARLENE BOURAS editor; LAURIE
ROGERS assistant edılor; LEE BRAUER, CAROLYN
BROWNE, DEBRA HAMMOND. JACKIE JOHNSON, BARI
NASH. MARY ZION researchers; CONTRIBUTING.
EDITORS: ASABABER, £. JEAN CARROLL, KEVINCOOK,
LAURENCE GONZALES, LAWRENCE GROBEL, CYNTHIA
HEIMEL WILLIAM J. HELMER, DAN JENKINS, D. KEITH
MANO, REG POTTERTON, RON REAGAN, DAVID RENSIN,
RICHARD RHODES, DAVID SHEFF, DAVID STANDISH,
BRUCE WILLIAMSON (movies), SUSAN MARGOLIS-WIN
TER, BILL ZEHME

ART

КЕКИ; КОРЕ managing director; CHET SUSKI, LEN
WILLIS senior directors; BRUCE HANSEN associate
director; JOSEPH TACZER assistant director; DEBBIE
KONG, ERIC SHROPSHIRE. junior directors; BILL BEX
WAY, DANIEL REED, ANN SEIDL arf assistants; BAR-
BARA HOFFMAN administrative manager

PHOTOGRAPHY

MARILYN GRABOWSKI west coast editor; JEFF COMEN
managing edilor; LINDA KENNEY, JAMES LARSON
MICHAEL ANN SULLIVAN associate editors; FATTY
BEAUDET assistant editor; POMPEO POSAR senior
staf] photographer; KERRY MORRIS staff photog-
Tapher; DAVID CHAN RICHARD FEGLEY, ARAY
FREYTAG. RICHARD IZU], DAVID МЕСЕ. BYRON
NEWMAN, STEPHEN WANDA contributing phologra-
hers; SHELLEE WELLS stylist; steve LevrrT color lab
supervisor; JOBS GOSS business manager

PRODUCTION
JOHN MASTRO director; MARIA MANDIS manager;
ELEANORE WAGNER, JODY JURGETO, RICHARD
QUARTAROLI, RITA JOHNSON assistants

READER SERVICE
CYNTHIA LACEYSIRICH manager; LINDA STRON.
MIKE OSTROWSKI correspondents

CIRCULATION

RICHARD SMITH director; BARBARA GUTMAN associ-
ate director

ADVERTISING
MICHAEL: CARR advertising director; OE XQUILLA
midwest manager; FRANK. COLONNO eastern adver
fising manager; KOBERT TRAMONDO category man-
‘ager; JOHN PEASLEY direct response

ADMINISTRATIVE

JOHN A. scort president, publishing group:
J.P TIM DOLMAN assistant publisher

EILEEN RENT contracts administrator; MARCIA TER.
RONES rights & permissions manager

PLAYBOY ENTERPRISES, INC.
CHRISTIE HEFNER president

BUSINESS

BEAUTIES

ШІП) Woron

MORE THAN „м

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MIC
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SURGEON GENERAL'S WARNING: Cigarette
Smoke Contains Carbon Monoxide.

DEAR PLAYBOY

ADDRESS DEAR PLAYBOY
PLAYBOY BUILDING
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BILLY, CRYSTALLIZED

The Playboy Interview with Billy Crystal
(March) is funny and sometimes touching
In many ways, he's still a smart-aleck
trying to be a man, but in others, he's wise
beyond his years. He's a better critic of co-
medians than he is a comedian, but
tiques are right on the money. Like that of
his buddy Albert Brooks, Crystal's future
will, I think, increasingly lie in his acting
ability— talent that helps both of them be
good comedians but has many other facets
besides comedy.

Alex Fetter
Taos, New Mexico

Lagree with most of Billy Crystal’s eval-
uations of comedians except for that of
Eddie Murphy. I'm not talking about Mur-
phy’s personality—he may be an ass, Cry:
tal may bean ass, George Burns may be an
ass, but that has nothing to do with
whether or not they're funny. I can under-
stand why Crystal isn’t crazy about Eddie
as a person, but Murphy is a very funny
dude, at least 90 percent of the time. I'm
not sure Billy Crystal is.

Frank Nichols
Chicago, Illinois

David Rensins interview with Billy
Crystal in the March issue is .. . is. . . oh,
по... here it comes . .. mahvelous!

Ofcourse, Crystal had a lot to do with it.
I think he’s a great talent. Thank you,
Playboy; and thank you, Billy Crystal.

Blumen Young
North Hollywood, California

SCHLESINGER, PRO AND CON

Thank you for Claudia Dreifus’ wonder-
ful interview, Seeing Daylight, with histori-
an Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr. (Playboy,
March). What a joy and a comfort to read
his views!

As long as there are philosophers with
his integrity, there is hope for the future ol
this country.

Waldo King
Sutherlin, Oregon

Thank you for your interview with
Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr. I hope it shows
your readers that Schlesinger is a better
spokesman for the Democratic Party than
he is a historian. He could be а more
effective historian if he accepted the fact
that Republicans have done a lot of good
for this country.

Joseph Spencer
Easton, Pennsylvania

NORTH POLL

As a former Marine officer and longtime
fan of Asa Baber, I was disturbed by some
of his conclusions in True North (Playboy,
March).

I have no quarrel with Baber's conclu-
sion that Oliver North is a man whose am-
bition has blinded him to the distinction
between means and ends. That North is “a
very strange anomaly, a two-percenter”
and a man “out on the fringe,” however, is
a gross underestimation of the issue. The
problem is a great deal larger than a mca-
ger two percent. The Oliver Norths of the
United States Marine Corps are a shell-
shockingly common phenomenon.

The average Marine Gorps sergeant has
very few fantasies about leading the Na-
tional Security Council up San Juan Hill.
The same is not always true when the
prospects of prestige grow morc tai ible—
often right after promotion to the rank of
captain. An irrevocable metamorphosis oc-
curs in the fourth or fifth year ofan average
officer's carcer, a change оГ perspective.
Гуе watched it happen a dozen times.
Most officers experience a great deal of
maturation during this period. Some of
them—a lot more than two percent—do
not. Seduced by a romantic though essen-
tially unfounded portrait of power and
glory, these embryonic Ollies are suffer-
ing from a potentially fatal disease called
blind ambition—fatal, that is, to nearby
subordinate personnel. More often than
not, the most common form of sacrifice i
today’s Marine Corps is not in the accom-
plishment of a viable and necessary mis-
sion but in a machine that squats like some

с ہہ‎

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PLAYBOY

Roman official at the Colosseum, indicat-
ing thumbs up or thumbs down. The des-
tiny of “a few good men” depends all too
frequently on how well they impress their
superiors.
The only difference between the Ollie on
pitol Hill and his various clones on
Okinawa and at Camp Pendleton is that he
had more opportunity. Lieutenant Colonel
North is not the first, and he is certainly
not the last, of the great blind mice.
Paul Lawrence Tremblay
Milwaukee, Wisconsin

Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr’s, Seeing Day-
light (Playboy, March) is stunning in its ig-
norance, outright stupidity and gross error.
For his information, “the notion that the
more you lower taxes, the greater the rev
1 be,” which he describes as folly, is
actually accurate, as is proved by the fact
that the past several years’ tax revenues
have been the highest ever.

But Г expect such ignorance from the
Kennedy-family historian. What 1 did not
expect was Asa Baber's utterly indigestible
True North. It is a classic example of char-
acter assassination by innuendo. Maybe
Ollie’s not all he's cracked up to be or says
he is, but I put as much credence in his
statements as I do in those of Baber's face-
less, à la Bob Woodward, accusers. If those
Marines are so tough, brave and honest,
why aren't they willing to attach their
names to their words?

J live in the Washington, D.C., area and
work on Capitol Hill. Every day, 1 see
Marines (along with Congressmen, Hill
staffers and other military). I've yet to ob-
serve the Marine consensus that Baber
found in his investigation. Гуе found that
some like North, some think he’s a hero; for
some, he’s a fascist military thug; for oth-
ers, he is a hot dog.

Brett Moss
Merrifield, Virginia

HEAVY WAITS
The 20 Questions with Tom Waits

(Playboy, March) condenses more informa-
tion (about not only Waits but a dozen oth-
er topics) in a relatively short space than
any other interview I've read in years. His
recommended tour of Los Angeles is price-
less, and his observation about hotels
named Tait is absolutely truc. ['ve stayed
in a lot of them from coast to coast, so 1
know whereof he speaks.

Ben Thomas

Palo Alto, Californi

I enjoyed the 20 Questions with Tom
its, one of my favorite songwriters of all
time. But, one wonders, how do his wife
and kids feel about his staying out all night,
riding up and down elevators with colorful
tobacco-chewing old men, or hanging out
ull the wee hours eating pickled eggs in the
bar next to the bus station? 1 guess it’s just
like any family where Daddy works the

ight shift, only Waitss kids say, "Dad's
not home tonight, "cause hes working on
real-life experiences for his music." А great
gig if you can get it

Albert Seiga
Long Island.

ew York

The 20 Questions with Tom Waits is a
masterpiece of egotistical fodder. That guy
has to be one of the most arrogant, name-
dropping, “wish I were a poet” types on
the streets. II bet the only films he ever
turned down were the ones in which he
couldn't blow his own horn.

Congratulations to writer Steve Oney for
keeping a straight face during the inter-
view. It must have been difficult.

Patrick Christian
Seattle, Washington

1 almost enjoyed your 20 Questions with
Tom Waits, but his perception of Barry
Manilow hurts, Anyone who knows Barry
knows that he's the furthest thing from “сх-
pensive furniture and clothes that vou don't
feel good in” that there is.

‘Tom, Barry's just as down to earth and
as real as you are. Within the past several
months, he has mentioned in an interview
that he is a great admirer of yours and
admitted that he would give anything to be
able to sing the way you do. To realize that
you, for all your professed sensitivities,
can't be bothered to look beyond the sur-
faces of things is an astounding letdown

STYLES VARY.

Keep on goin’, Tom. Someday, someone

you admire will kick you in the tecth, too.
Jackie Chute
Yonkers, New York

BULL PIT

Although 1 am not as sympathetic to-
ward pit fighters as is Scott Ely in Pit Bull
(Playboy, March), it is a reasonable story
with an imaginative outcome. However, I
object to Playboy’s packaging it with Braldt
Bralds's illustration of a black monster
with a bloody fang-filled mouth and a bro-
ken chain, suggesting that it had escaped
and mutilated some innocent. The only hu-
man being injured in the story is a willing
participant in a matched dog fight, and he
isn’t severely hurt.

A lot of pcople will get their impressions
from the picture rather than the story. By
frightening them, Playboy harms innocent
dog owners and their dogs.

Elliott Case
Alfred, New York

Scott Ely's Pit Bull made me sick. Any-
onc who enjoys reading that stuff is sleazy,
red-necked white trash
Larry White
El Paso, Texas

SUSIE MAKES 30 LOOK GOOD

As a regular Playboy reader for the past
15 years, Г must admit that I began to feel
my age as I grew older and your young,
beautiful Playmates stayed between the

ages of 18 and 24.

The women 1 once adored and wor-
shiped, who helped me through adoles-
cence into adulthood, seemed now to be
distant and incomprehensibly beyond my
aging grasp. They no longer spoke of fash-
ions and trendy manners but of careers,
breaking into middle management and
“finding their own space.” They were all
too often a subtle reminder that I am по
longer the carefree lad I once was.

You cannot imagine the surprise and
the revival of youthful exuberance I felt
when 1 discovered Playmate Susie Owens
(Playboy, March), a mature woman who is,
without a doubt, a true lady of the Eighties.

Here is a person who has experienced
life, set goals and followed them to achieve
a successful career; an individual with val-
ues and a sense ol purpose not found in the
young; a woman who is proud of her ap-
pearance and not ashamed of expressing it
with an openness that only nudity allows.

Maybe Гт not as young as I used to be,
but with a Playmate like Susie Owens, I
know Fm in good company.

Luis Neira
Uvalde, Texas

І am а 33-year-old registered nurse,
mom and wife who regularly reads Playboy.
One of my biggest gripes has been the fre-
quency with which you choose teeny- ES
pers as your Playmates. Therefore, it w:
great pleasure to read about 3l-ycar- “old

nurse Susie Owens, your March Playmate.
Not only is her physical shape inspiring but
she makes some illuminating observations
about the nursing profession. 1 especially
like the way she has directed her work to-
ward wellness instead of illness.

Now Га like to read about a 40-year-old
Playmate. That would, once and for all,
end any trend you might have established
that could be considered discriminatory to-
ward older women.

Emilic Budd
Dolores, Colorado

A buddy of mine once told me, “You
know you are getting old when the
Playmates are younger than you.” So when
I reached the age of 24, I gave up the
thought of ever seeing another Playmate
my age.

Thus, I was stunned to read that the
March Playmate, Susie Owens, with her
youthful beauty, is older than I am. I know
girls of 17, 18 and 19 who would kill to look
like her.

The real surprise was that when I looked
at Playboy's November 1983 issue, in which
Susie appears in your pictorial on nurses
(Women in White), I realized that she looks
even better now than she did then! I only
hope 1 will age as well in four years as
Susie has.

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Denton, Texas

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PLAYBOY AFTER

WHAT'S WRONG WITH THIS PICTURE?

TV advertising trend of the month—
cinéma vérité. You remember it from the
Fifties and Sixties: shaky pictures, extreme
close-ups and stray characters wandering
in front of the camera. Now, jerky hand-
held camerawork is selling everything from
Grape-Nuts to Levis. Call it ad vérité

You know the ads—AT&T’s grim folks
facing up to their bad phones, for example
But it’s so hard to care, what with the im-
age jiggling like Jason's point of view in
Friday the 13th. Your phones? Lady—get
out of the house!

Ad vérité began innocently enough in the
Seventies when political commercial maker
harles Guggi
Kennedyesque shirt-sleeved guys look dif-
ferent from the other guys shirt-sleeved
guys. Не hit on the hand-held camera, re:
cording the candidate with the folks, in a
sort of newsy-documentary sense.

“The concept behind doing that was to
make the viewer an observer,” Guggen-
heim says. “Sort of unannounced, someone
who'd happened upon the
scene.” And since we've all been educated
by the evening news to read jerky, newslike
camerawork as real, such ads tend to grab
our attention—which, after all, is the goal
of advertising. Never mind that the entire
nation has succumbed to seasickness.

nheim wanted to make his

in a sens

COUNTRY BOY?

Country singing star (five top-ten al-
bums, five number-one singles) Gary Mor-
ris says he’s contemplating another starring
role on Broadway in a revival (or is that а
resurrection?) of Jesus Christ Superstar
While Willie Nelson may bear a greater
resemblance to the original, Morris has
more experience on the Great White Way:
He first ditched Nashville in 1984 for a
New York Public Theater production of
Puccini's opera La Bohème and went on last
November to take over the lead in the
Broadway smash Les Misérables. We won-
dered whether Morris was threatening to
ruin his country credentials

“I am not, never have been nor have

purported to be a good ol’ boy,” he told us.
“I wear my hair long, I wear а beard, I
don't care about wearing spangles and 1
don't care about certain country traditions
that | suppose I should uphold with a cer-
tain amount of reverence,” he harrumphed
irreverently. “But it’s 1988 and why not be
a part of 1988? Country music is the only
musical format that clings to 2 30-year tra-
dition rather than grow”

Got it, Gary, Guess we won't be seeing
you at the Grand Ole Opry this year:

PETER PIPER'S PEPPER

A classified ad from a recent issue of
Organic Gardening aroused our interest
“Rare Peter Pepper— realistic shape, hot,
delicious. Seed, three dollars.” So that’s
what they mean by organic gardening

HEEL AND TOE

Tired of watching All in the Family re-
runs? Take a hike! Thats what good old
Sally (Gloria Bunker Stivic) Struthers says.
Perhaps tired of waiting for a new script

from Norman Lear, Struthers has taken
things into her own hands—er, feet. She's
now the host of Sally Struthers’ Walking
Video, a fitness tape that shows striders
how to put their best feet forward. The
method is based on “style, rhythm and re-
sults.” Archie would have loved the rhythm,

part

TURNING JAPANESE
His clients call him a miracle worker. To
the Japanese, he is the Swifty Lazar of

baseball, the agent extraordinaire of some
of America’s major-league stars, Maybe
stars is too strong a word. What Alan
Meersand does is take marginal or under-
appreciated U.S. ballplayers and recycle
them to Japan as baseball heroes

Meersand has placed some 20 former
big-leaguers there since 1980. One of his
players, ex-Twin, ex-Royal, ex-Expo, ex-
Padre, ex-Ranger first bascman Randy
has won two Japanese Triple Crown
awards (leading his league in home runs.
batting average and runs batted in), a
marked improvement over his flickering
major-league statistics: nine home runs
а 212 average іп six years. Mcersand's rc-
cent negotiations snagged Bass a historic
two-year $4,000,000 contract—the highest
ever given to an American in Japan.

It's easy to see why marginal major-le
guers are cager to play in Japan, but few
agents succeed in placing their clients
there. And Americans who do sign with
Japanese teams often end up quitting be-
fore their contracts expire

Meersand and his players are the excep-
tions. Why? "I teach them the ways of
Japan and of Japanese baseball,” he told us
from his headquarters in Marina Del Rey,
California. Meersand tutors his clients in
Japanese language, culture, geography and
food. He's proud that each of them has
stayed in Japan al least two years

Last summer, Mecrsand was sought out
by Brian Dayett, a Cubs outfielder making
$62,500. Meersand landed him a four-year
contract with the Nippon Ham Fighters of
the Japanese Pacific League. Dayett's net

and

13

14

RAW

DATA

[ SIGNIFICA, INSIGNIFICA, STATS AND FACTS] INSIGNIFICA, STATS AND FACTS

QUOTE

clevision has
a great boon to
Il and lonely, but

grec to which
npaired the
brain cells of the gen-
eral population has
not been meas-
ured." —Histo
Barbara W. Tuchman
in The New York Times
Magazine.

PAY LOAD
Median weekly in-
come for a full-time

cheats on income-tax
returns, 80; is a homo-
sexual, 62; cheated in
college, 43; has been
unfaithful to his/her
spouse, 28.

DISPLACED
PERSONS
In one year, av
age number of Ame
cans who change
lences: 46.500.000.
.
Percemage of the

total population that

West

ere m worker in FACT OF THE MONTH 191;
Р 2 The United Nations costs the
Median weekly in. CY of New York $16,000,000 Я
2 year in lost taxes, unpaid Percentage of men

come for a white
worker, $391: for a
black work

Median we c

come for an American
for an American woman,

al innuendoes, ten; kiss-
: hugs, five.

.

Average number of relerences to sex-
ual intercourse per hour: between one
and two.

.

Average number of relerenc
ually transm
to sex education, 06;
fewer than 02.

WHERE DID YOU CATCH THAT?

Percentage of single Americans who
pn about sexually transmitted. dis-
cases mostly from magazines, 51; from
television, 48; from newspapers, 40
‘om friends, 27; from pa
ex partners, ten; from hospitals, mi

THE LOW-DOWN

5. adults who think
€ a right to know whether
late drinks heavily, 90;

19 sex-

le;

they hi
political can

ing tickets and uncompensated
police protection. How much
does the UN spend in New York

million dollars.

who move, 21: of
women, 1

ht hundred

.
age of appointees who are
; who are women, 84.
.
Percentage of lawyers іп America
who are black, three; who are women,
3.

SPORTS TV

Percentage of Americans who tune
NEL. football, 37; major-league ba
ball, 37; college football, 29; colle
basketball, 21; professional basketl
20: bowling, 17; professional wrestling,
17; tennis, 16.

.
Top five "TV advertisers d
sports programs in 1987: Anhe

Busch ($96,100,000); Genera
Motors ($95,100,000); Phi
Morris ($89

400.000); Ford Motors
$45,500,000); and the United States
ned Forces ($34,100.00).

tage of personnel
who say that their employees
productive on Fridays: 59.

re least

take? A possible $3,750,000, including in-
centives. “I realized when I became a pl
er agent that there's more than just U.S.
baseball" Meersand said. Whats next?
Try Korea.

WHO WAS THAT MAX?

It wasn't the computer-generated wacko
of the airwaves, Max Headroom himself.
No, it was a masked impostor who broke
to local Chicago television broadcasts
and showed off his fanny, among other
things. In his first of two appearances,
mock Max interrupted a sports broadcast
for 20 seconds of cackling before the TV
station's engincers dumped him.

Later the same night, on a different
channel, the ersatz Max struck again with
a truly bizarre routine that lasted a full
minute and 28 seconds. The screen
flickered and then a guy in a Max mask,
shades and a tacky-looking rust-colored
sports coat appeared and cackled,
whooped, sang off key and rambled wildly,
at times wagging ап oversized rubber
finger—or was it a rubber penis? “Catch
the wave?" he wailed, throwing an empty
Pepsi can off screen. “They're coming to
get me!” he shricked. Turning around, he
stood up and bent over to reveal his bare
buttocks. Then a woman, visible only from
the neck down and wielding a flyswatter,
began spanking Mas until engineers man-
aged to reclaim the airwaves.

So far, Federal investigators have not
found the perpetrator, who faces a possible
sentence of one year in the slammer and/or
510,000 in fines. That’s the max, anyway.

THE FAST-FOOD CHAIN

We know we're supposed to be reveling
in the Reagan legacy about now, but w
cant help noticing that socially relevant
(dare we say "protest"?) pop songs are
making a comeback. In February, we men-
tioned Mr. Mister’s Dust, about Amerasian
orphans. Now The Jungle Pioncer, a song
about agribusiness, has popped up on
Manhattan Transfer’s new LP, Brasil.

Man Tran founder-member-producer
Tim Hauser says he got the idea for the
song from an article in L.A. Weekly‘about
the redevelopment of the Brazilian rain
forest, which involves cutting down the
forest to cattle, injecting them with
steroids and slaughtering and selling them
to fast-food chains in North America.
“They take this magical, mysterious place
and then make it into a hamburger,” he
said. Hauser got together with like-minded
lyricist Brock Walsh and composers Milton
Nascimento and Marcio Borges and pro-
duced the song, written from the perspec-
tive of one of the plunderers.

And so, “Day by day, life is eliminated—
God's own work, altered and uncreate:
sings the pioncer between swings of the a:
The moral of the story, according to
Hauser: “You put yourself in the place of
God, then you're in trouble.”

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Bel

© 1988 Cincinnati Microwave. Inc.

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Surkyong

16

By BRUCE WILLIAMSON

ENERGY AND exuberance must be burst-
ing from her genes. That would explain
why Carrie Hamilton, who is Carol Bur-
nett's daughter, galvanizes her feature-film
debut in Tokyo Pop (Spectrafilm) into a onc-
gamine spectacular. Granted, she has a
talented co-star in Yutaka Tadokoro, a dy-
namo on a roll in the world of Japanese
rock. But Hamilton, boyishly bobbed and
blonde and making music that seems to
well up like laughter, takes charge of an
otherwise unexceptional rock-to-riches saga.
The once famously wayward teenager
(now collaborating with her mom on a
book about her battle with drugs) has
clearly evolved into a seasoned pro. After
picking Carrie, co-author and director
Fran Rubel Kuzui's second-best idea was
to set this East-meets-West romance
pan, where a punkish singer named Wendy
goes to look for adventure, experience and
stardom. She finds all three with a rocker
named Hiro but has to come back home to
really find herself. Got it? Don't sweat й,
Tokyo Pop offers lots of amusing, exotic local
color to glitz up its clichés, while Hamilton
blithely carries the show. ¥¥¥
.

Like any film directed by Nicolas Roeg,
Track 29 (Island) may baffle audiences con-
ditioned by movies that let you see where
уоште going and leave you knowing just
where you've been. A screenplay by British
writer Dennis Potter (count Pennies from
Heaven among his lofter imaginative
flights) gives Roeg's roguishness even more
Iceway than usual. Tiack 29 leads headlong
into the psyche of a young North Carolina
matron, played by Roegs wife, sultry
Theresa Russcll (see 20 Questions else-
where in this issue), who drinks to forget
that she's childless, suflcring from the heat
and married to a boorish doctor (Christo-
pher Lloyd) with a passion for model
trains. The doctor also has a secret passion
for bondage games with his favorite nurse
(Sandra Bernhard, whose scenes vis
Lloyd arc black-comic gems). Catharsis for
the heroine coincides with the arrival in
town of a mysterious young Englishman
who may or may not exist, may resemble a
stranger by whom she was left pregnant as
a teenager, or may be the long-lost son she
gave up at birth. Whoever he is, Britain's
Gary Oldman snakes through the role with
insolent charm—reminiscent of his previ-
ous dark-side characters in Sid and Nancy
and Prick Up Your Ears. Oldman’s tantaliz-
ing collisions with Russell make Track 29
perversely funny, a hallucinatory comedy
that trips along from hints of incest to sim-
ple home wrecking and homicide. ¥¥¥

.

А merger of corporate ruthlessness and
cannibalism occurs in Consuming Passions
(Samuel Goldwyn). written by two other

Carrie shows her star
genes; Bright Lights
dim on screen.

guys but based on a play by those Monty
Python miscreants, Michael Palin and Ter-
ry Jones. Something vital must have been
lost in translation. The unabashedly vulgar
action starts in a failing candy factory,
where a nerdy young executive trainee
(Tyler Butterworth) accidentally pushes a
button that blends three fellow employees
into a vat of chocolate. While the resulting
bonbons come out yummy, the movies
taste level deteriorates fast. Freddie Jones
and Jonathan Pryce, both seasoned per-
formers, play the company heads who req-
uisition more corpses to meet public
demand for their flavorful new goodies.
Consuming Passions reaches rock bottom,
though, with the appearance of Vanessa
Redgrave, an awesome actress in a god-aw-
ful role as a horny Maltese widow who de-
velops a sweet tooth for our hero after her
late husband's chocolate-coated death. Try
this junk-food bundle from Britain and you
won't want to go back for seconds. 4%
.

Having lost his wife, his mother and his
job ata smart magazine, the muddled young
man about Manhattan in Bright Lights, Big
city (UA) secks to fill the void with nose
candy. Coke is his solace during an odyssey
marked by what he calls “D” words: disco,
dames and drugs. It all worked smoothly
in Jay McInerney’s pungent best seller, an
urban tale of downfall and redemption told
with keen, self-deprecating humor. Most of
the humor is missing from McInerney's
own adaptation, directed with little rhythm.
or momentum by James Bridges. Michael
J. Fox is engagingly carnest as the corrupt-

ible hero, Kiefer Sutherland engagingly
shallow as his fun-seeking chum, Tad Alla-
gash. The book's bones glow, yes, but the
instant high is gone. WWA

.

The strength of Da (FilmDallas) stems
from the carthy warmth and sensitivity of
Hugh Leonard's adaptation of his Broad-
way stage hit. Like the play, the movie is
blessed with a matchless performance by
Barnard Hughes. In the tide role, he’s the
deceased father (Da is for Dad, if you're
speakin’ brogue) of an Irish-born New
York playwright who flies home for his da's
funeral, only to find that the crusty old
bugger won't get out of his head, his gut or
his field of vision. Yet there's nothing truly
ethereal about Da. Under director (and for-
mer actor) Matt Clark's reverent and lo
ing hand, the flexible time frame of the
movie flows freely through flashbacks, with
past and present bridged in a wink by
Hughes as a very substantial ghost. In fact,
he's largely a memory in the mind of his
son Charlie, whose mourning reverics Бе-
come instant replays of old quarrels, old
hurts, universal father-son confrontations.
Martin Sheen plays a perfectly attuned
second fiddle as the returned prodigal,
nicely complemented by Karl Hayden as
young Charlie, who is not overly impressed
by his adult alter ego. William Hickey and
Doreen Hepburn shine among the Irish
types upstaging some glorious scenery
Brace yourself for chuckles, tugs at the
heart and salty tears as certain as an Irish
mist. YY

.

The tired formula for making movies
from Agatha Christie's collected works is
fairly simple: Just hire every available
celebrity who's willing to take the money
and run off to some exotic locale to flesh
out the list of suspects. In Appointment with
Death (Cannon), Peter Ustinoy turns up for
his third stint as the portly sleuth Hercule
Poirot, whose companions in transit in-
clude John Gielgud, Lauren Bacall, Piper
Laurie, David Soul, Carrie Fisher, Jenny
Seagrove and Hayley Mills. Lured off to
Israel by producer-director Michael Win-
ner, they all wind up shooting scenes at an
archaeological site where the Dead Sea
Scrolls were unearthed. Although ham is
not supposed to be kosher in those parts,
Appointment heaps generous portions atop
a turgid screenplay that should have been
buried with the scrolls but much deeper. Y

.

The place is Newcastle, England, look-
ing suitably dank and clammy for Stormy
Monday (Atlantic), a mean-streets B movie
with some class-A flourishes. Sting, who
was born there, fits right in as a local
night-club owner currently booking a Pol-
ish jazz ensemble. He's also resisting
take-over moves by a vicious American
tycoon (Tommy Lec Jones) who wants to

SURGEON GENERAL'S WARNING: Cigarette
Smoke Contains Carbon Monoxide.

E

=~
AME

FILTERS

buy up huge chunks of waterfront property

for redevelopment. British writer-director
Mike Figgis confidently sustains the
movies nervous improvisational mood,

while Melanie Griffith, as Jones's ex-mi:
tress, and Sean Bean, as Sting's funk
pair off during breaks in the action. Al-
though her connection to the plot is tenu-
ous at best, Griffith's camera presence
makes her seem to be the main event. If the
girl in every port were someone like
Melanie, sailor had best beware. ЖҰТ
.

s writer, director and co-star of A New
life (Paramount), Alan Alda scores highest
with his screenplay, an enlightened come-
dy about a middle-aged Manhattan couple
iscovers that life begins with divorce.
and Ann-Margret are the twosome
ich by inch into consciousness
raising. He fumes, fumbles—and, in the
carly scenes, often overacts—before he
finds a gorgeous, sensible woman doctor
(strongly played by Veronica Hamel) who

|!

drawn

9 politics: Richardson is Hearst.

OFF CAMER

Talk about irony. Guess who's
playing the plum title role in Patty
Hearst, director Paul (Taxi Driver)
Schraders upcoming drama about
the American heiress kidnaped by
radical militants? None other than
British-born Natasha Richardson,
daughter of outspoken leftist Vanes-
sa Redgrave. Natasha (her father is
director Tony Richardson) doesn’t
share her mothers political views,
5 potentially just as

’s Gothic and got the idea,
says between transatla
for some final chores on the psy
logical thriller shot in the San Fran
cisco Bay Arca, where Hearst w

tion Army. “Patty wrote about 1

pages of notes on the script, which
were

quite helpful. Making the
ays Natasha, “was a very
g experience for me as an
actress, living what she went
through. But I, at least, got to go
home at night.”

= =j

teaches him how to be a real husband the
second time around. Ann-Margret, that
Sixties icon who seems to age like the best
alifornia wine, excels as a long-neglected
wife and mother on the way to learning
that a possessive, passionate young lover
(John Shea) is not what she has been
ing after all. Alda's direction ranges from
sentimental-slick to wobbly, yet New Life
exudes an engaging warmth. ¥¥¥
.

British colonials steeped in depravi
Kenya while their countrymen brave the
1940 blitz make White Mischief (Columbia)
an explosively erotic spectacle. Freely
adapted from James Fox's book about real-
life indolence, infidelity and murder, the
movie hasn't a single admirable character.
Still. Greta aries Dance, Joss
Ackland and Sarah Miles are wickedly fas-
cinating zs privileged folk flamboyanuly
abusing their privileges. ¥¥¥

.

Ever hear of C.R.A.S.H.? It's a Los An-
geles police unit officially called Communi-
ty Resources Against Street Hoodlums,
and its beleaguered law enforcers are the
main men in Colors (Orion), a hard, brutal
and festering picture of gang warfare in
East L.A. Dennis Hopper dons his d
tor's cap to steer Robert Duvall and Se
Penn through the conventional format of
an old cop-young cop yarn, via chase:
vestigations and bloody shoot-outs. As the
feisty. quick-fisted junior member of the
team, Penn is obviously cast to type, but
both he and Duvall are tough-guy stars
whose ballsy charisma never dims. The
mostly black and Hispanic marauders,
dressed to kill—the film's title refers to the
identifying reds, blues or other hues they
choose as а fashion cment—look
dragged, dangerous and stubbornly resi
ant to reform. Cinematographer Haskell
Wexler sets the tone with vivid images ofa
gralliti-spattered limbo seemingly sealed
off from normal civilization. Colors’ world
is one where the macho ideal is Rambo,
where rap songs drone out anger and de-
spair, and its disturbingly real. ¥¥¥

.

Neil Simon's Biloxi Blues (Universal), di-
rected by Mike Nichols with his usual
showbiz savvy, retains most of the rowdy,
boyish charm and unabashed nostalgia
that made the play a major success on
Broadway. This is chapter two in Si
autobiographical trilogy—drawn from hi
memories of boot camp and basic training
midway through World War ‘Two, circa
1943. Matthew Broderick repeats his stage
role as Eugene, the quintessential Simon
youth, with Christopher Walken interes
ingly miscast as Sergeant Toomey, the ps;
chotic noncom, who comes on pretty str
for so mild a comedy. Yet the movie im-
proves on the play in spelling out Eugene's
awkward sexual initiation with a prostitute
(Park Overall) on the same day that he dis-
covers dreamy first love with a Catholic
schoolgirl named Daisy (Penelope Ann
Miller) at the U.S.O. ¥¥¥

MOVIE SCORE CARD

capsule close-ups of current films
by bruce williamson

And God Created Woman (Reviewed
5/88) Vadim retosses ВВ salad days
with mild sauce De Mornay. yy
Appointment with Death (Sce review)
Undoing another Christie Y
Biloxi Blues (Sce review) Neil Simon says
he's in the Army now. yyy
Bright Lights, Big City (Sec review) Like
the book, but dimmed a bii Wh
Broadcast News (3/88) TV anchors away
in a glib, wry romantic comedy. ¥¥¥¥
Colors (See review) Dennis Hoppers
front-line report from the barrio. ¥¥¥
Consuming Passions (See review) It's
pure dyspepsia, but, oh, Vanessa. Ж
uie) Barnard Bude hosts

Quaid, КОД AGE КЫ
Frantic (Listed only) Harrison Ford
combs Paris in so-so thriller. ЗА
Goodbye, Children (1/88) Jewish boys at
a French Catholic school in Louis

Malles moving wartime memoir, ¥¥¥
Good Morning, Vietnam (1/88) Неге?
why Robin Williams won his first Oscar
i NC yyy
(4/88) Teens on TV, with the
Wh
The Last Emperor (2/88) Bertolucci’s
majestic portrait of modern China in
the final throes of monarchy. vu
Midnight Crossing (Listed only) All at
sea, except for unsinkable Dunaway. ¥¥
Mondo New York (Listed only) Grim to

Hairspray
late Divine as stage momma.

Grand Guignol in Gotham. yy
A New Life (Sec review) Alan Alda and
Ann-Margret after Splitsville. yyy

Off Limits (Listed only) Willem Dafoe,
Gregory Hines stalk Saigon killer. ¥¥¥%
Patti Rocks (2/88) Sexy sleeper about
two dolts and a deserving girl. УУУУ
Shoot to Kill ( ed 5/88) Harrowing
adventure with Poitier, Berenger. ¥¥¥
Sister Sister (4/88) Evil de
things that go bump in the ba
Stand and Deliver (5/88) A dedicated
teacher brighter
Stormy Monday 5
well-weathered Miss Grillith. Wh
Switching Channels (5/88) The Front
Page again, frayed at the edges. vv
Tokyo Pop (Sce review) Another Carrie
who really makes things move. | VV.
Track 29 (Sce review) Roeg on a roll,
with Oldman hassling Russell. yyy
Travelling North (5/88) A geriatric duo
finding true love down under. yyy
The Unbearable Lightness of Being (5/88)
Men, women, politics—and so far, the
luli movie of the year. YYYY
ee review) World War
Two scandals, out of Africa WY

YYVYY Outstanding
YYYY Don't miss YY Worth a look
YYY Good show ¥ Forget it

17

Love often comes

E
1

| Reis сы сызады YI

|
Ё |

VIC GARBARIN!

ALMOST a quarter of a century after blues
fans began writing CLAPTON 15 GOD on Lon-
don walls, PolyGram has issued the ulti-
mate Eric Clapton retrospective. Crossroads
is a six-album (four-CD) digitally remas-
tered extravaganza ranging from his earli-
est demos to his latest solo material, All the
hits and highlights you'd expect are here,
from the Yardbirds’ For Your Love through
Cream, Blind Faith, Derek and the Domi-
nos (Layla) and Clapton's solo work. But
the real news is that more than a third of
the 73 wacks consist of rare and previously
unreleased material from nearly every
Clapton era. The newly released Derek and
the Dominos material is the real find here.
Spurred on by Duane Allman and an unre-
quited love for Patti Harrison, this is Clap-
ton's most incandescent playing since his
Mayall days. The slow-burn live versions
of Key to the Highway and Crossroads are
exquisite, as is the entire side of selections
originally slated for the second Dominos
record. After the deaths of Jimi Hendrix,
Duane Allman, Janis Joplin and others,
Clapton became more musically cau-
tious, toning down his y during the
Seventies. This laid-back Clapton-in-tht
doldrums period is represented by some
respectable efforts, including Motherless
Children and a live I Shot the Sheriff, plus
some rare singles. His somewhat-rejuve-
nated Eighties work is topped off with the
surprisingly effective remake of After Mid-
night that recently popped up in a Miche-
lob beer ad. Overall, Crossroads offers up
equal portions of the expected and the un-
expected from one of rocks seminal
figures. Now, will somebody do the same
for Hendrix?

ROBERT CHRISTGAU

Teenaged rock-and-roll stars һауе be-
come such a rarity that it was only after
their albums went platinum that grownups
paid Debbie Gibson and Tiffany any mind.
Now the fun is to compare and contrast—
which sexy ingénue would you like to date,
or һауе a heart-to-heart with? Well, псі-
ther, but on the turntable, Ill go for the
Californian who doesn’t write her own ma-
terial. Tiffany is convincing in the role of a
solid kid who knows the location of her
heart and her vagina. The strongest cuts
on Tiffany (MCA) are the side openers:
Should've Been Me, which has her pining
for her ex-beau’s jacket, and / Saw Him
Standing There, which adds new touches to
the Beatles’ teen dream. Neither had been
released as a single at the 2,000,000 mark.
More platinum, coming right up.

As for Gibson, I ask you, is it really pos-
sible to be independently wealthy and a girl
next door simultaneously? What an ambi-
tious miss, and what a phony. IF you're

Clapton turns silver.

Twenty-five years of
Eric Clapton; women
with staying power.

weak for the Latin-disco synth beats of
Only in My Dreams and Shake Your Love,
which are definitely the best Out of the Blue
(Atlantic) has to offer, try the real thing—
at least one third of Expos Latino.

While the females in the trio are even
flimsicr than Gibson _ personalitywise,
they're magnanimous enough to segue their
three best songs into one ten-minute
megamix on the Seasons Change (Arista)
12-inch EP, which I recommend.

The three New York lookers who make
up the Gover Girls aren't above sharing
production touches with both Exposé and
Gibson or putting real phony pop songs on
Show Me (Sever/Sutra), a debut album any
Svengali would be proud to have produced,
More platinum, coming right up.

NELSON GEORGE

Brenda Russell is a formerly missing
gem returned to her proper setting. As a
singer-songwriter on A&M in the early
Eighties, she made a few intelligent,
thoughtful albums, carning a cult following
and a minor hit: So Good, So Right. She
penned some outstanding songs, including
If Only for One Night, which was covered
memorably by Luther Vandross, but A& М
dropped her. Some said she couldn't write
hits; others, that as a black singer, she
would never be a viable pop stylist.

That was belore Russell wrote and co-
produced Dinner with Gershwin for Donna
Summer. Since then, A&M has re-inked
Russell, and Get Неге, coproduced by ех-

Rufus member Andre Fischer and bassist
Stanley Clarke, is my carly pick as 1988's
most important comeback album. Russell
turns in а series of bright, engaging and ul-
tramelodic songs. Piano in the Dark is a
honey-sweet piano ballad with a clever, re-
curring tempo change that provides its real
vitality, The mid-tempo This Time I Need
Yon is about the shifting weight of responsi-
bility in a relationship. The lyrics to many
of her songs deal with the realities of a ma-
ture love: sharing and, oh, yeah, pain

Some of these songs, even if they don't
become hits for Russell, are so good they're
likely to score for other singers. Lets hope
that the late Eighties prove that a thought-
ful musician such as Brenda Russell can
enjoy commercial success.

CHARLES M. YOUNG

avid Lee Roth’s an entertainer of enor-
mous charm, much in the tradition of his
hero, Al Jolson. He has the glitz and the will
to do anything to make you like him, even to
hang by a rope from a mountain, which you
can see in spectacular fashion on the cover of
Skyscraper (Warner). His lyrics are full of
warmth, happiness and confidence in the
physical world. Unfortunately, the album

GUEST SHOT

GLORIA ESTEFAN and Miami Sound
Machine hit big with the international
Spanish-speaking audience 11 albums
ago. Since then, they've conquered
North American pop with such hits as
“Bad Boy” and “Can't Stay Away
from You.” Singersonguriter Estefan
clearly enjoys trying uncharted lerrito-
ту, and thats why she reviewed David
Lee Roths "Skyscraper" (Warner

“To tell the truth, Fm surprised I
like this album. This isn’t a normal
part of my musical diet. Then again,
Roth is a stage performer I truly en-
joy, so perhaps my pleasure in this is
а gut reaction to a classic showbiz
personality, He's utterly confident
and makes no apologies for himself.
He knows how to laugh at himself,
too. Steve Vai plays ап incredible
lead guitar—lots of musical experi-
mentation and not a boring note on
the whole record.”

19

FAST TRACKS

OCKMETE

FT

|| ers | (өңез Marsh | Young

AC/DC

Blow Up Your Video | 3 | if 8 | Zi
Debbie Gibson | | |

Out of the Blue 3 6 6 5
Gladys Knight | | |

2

All Ou Love 2 5 6 6
David lee Roth | | |
are 3 7 5 6
Keith Sweat | |

Make It Last Forever 5 4 7 6

TELL IT LIKE ІТ 15 DEPARTMENT: When the
Housemartins split up this past winter,
we got what must be the most honest
press release we've ever seen. Said their
label, Go! Discs, “The band genuinely
feel that they have taken things as far as
they can without managing to break
through the “quite good’ barrier.’ We'll
really keep our cye out for those guys in
the future.

REELING AND ROCKING: Kris Kristofferson
has been added to the cast of Big Top
Pee-wee, you-know-who's next film. -
Bob Geldof will direct his first movie,
Cowboys, a semiautobiographical talc
set in Dublin. . . . Drummer Carmine.
Appice will make his movie debut in
Black Roses, a horror flick about a drum-
mer in a satanic-rock band. . . . Patt
LaBelle will play a Brooklyn high school
teacher in Sing. . . . Gregg Allman makes
his movie bow in Rush Week, duc ош as
you read this. A Toronto-based
company, Norstar Entertainment, plans
to make a movie of a novel called Dear
Bruce Springsteen, by Kevin Major.

INEWSBREAKS: Elton John and Yoko Ono
have submitted pieces for a celebrity
AIDS book to be published by The Sat-
urday Evening Post Society. The book
will include poems, photos and other
writings and will also have a contribu-
tion from our own Hugh Hefner. . . . For
some good memories, keep on the look-
out for Martha and the Vandellas, who are
singing together for the first time
decad Devo is back together, too,
and recording an album due out this
month. . Suzanne Vega would like to
write music and lyrics for and star in
a musical about writer Carson McCul-
lers. . . . Fleetwood Macs spring Show-
ic special will be released as a home
video. . . , And speaking of TV specials,
Peter, Paul and Mary have taped a Christ-
mas 1988 one for public television

a

Their last PBS outing helped generate
more than $4,000,000 for the education-
al network. . . . Jody Watley is hard at
work on record number two, which she
says will definitely include a ballad. .
Van Halen will do a 25-date summer sta-
dium tour. The next Van Halen album
will include the warm, romantic song
Love Is a Source of Infection. . . . Led Zep
news and notes: Jimmy Page will do a
U.S. tour this summer following the re-
lease of his new record. On drums in his
band will be Jason Bonham, son of Led
Zep's late drummer, John Bonham. Page
is also featured on two cuts of Robert
Plants album Now and Zen. Plant did
some low-key performances in London
to prepare for his U.S. tour. For the first
time since he launched his solo career,
he’s playing some Led Zeppelin tunes
оп stage. . . . Kenny Aronoff has a home
video, Laying It Down, which stresses
the fundamentals of playing for aspiring
drummers, Aronoff uses his drum parts
on several John Cougar Mellencamp songs
as examples. A booklet is included:
Sounds Good Music Company is oller-
ing two special limited editions of
Songs, by George Harrison, with water-
color illustrations by Keith West. One
edition (2500 copies) includes a book
and a record or a CD signed by West
and Harrison, The other (850 copies) is
a series of lithographs of Piggies, Таз
man and Here Comes the Sun. For more
"formation, contact Sounds Good at
3355 West E zundo Boulevard, Haw-
thorne, California 90250. . . . And,
finally, our favorite marketing concept
of the month comes from the Swedish
postpunk band Leather Nun, which is
selling black condoms with pink skulls
and crossbones on them in water-soluble
ink at concerts. For threc dollars, any-
опе сап have a souvenir from a really
big night on the town. —BARBARA NELLIS

has nary a riff nor a melody that I want to
hear again, so I have to recommend that if
you're going to spend your money on Roth,
a concert ticket is a better investment.

The Swans’ Children of Ged (Caroline) is
the perfect antidote to warmth, happiness
and confidence in the physical world. Not
since Joy Division has anyone come out of
the despairing-puritan and/or existential-
ist tradition with such relentless guilt
and flagellation. Their minor-key powe
chords, played at dirge pace with Gregori
an chant-like melodies, are surprisingly
beautiful even if you're not planning to
commit suicide. If the economy collapses
and everyone is wondering why God is
treating us to a taste of hell, these guys will
be number one on the charts. They make
Kierkegaard sound like Tiffany.

Yanni's Out of Silence (Private Music) is
New Age that is more appropriate for
dancing than for meditation. It’s a couple
of technosteps beyond Chariots of Fire and
lots faster. No departure from Private Mu-
ion, but I like its tradition, and
ven has melodies.

DAVE MARSH

ince 19845 Buscando America, salsa
star Rubén Blades has been snatching his
influences and inflections where he finds
them to craft genuinely transnational pop
music. But since Blades sings—however
marvelously—in Spanish, most Americans
have never given him a chance.

On Nothing but the Truth (Elektra), en-
tirely written and sung in English, Blades
meets Anglophones more than halfwa
Several of the songs were written and/or
recorded with such stars as Sting, Elvis
Costello, Lou Reed and James Ingram
They won't storm the Top 40, but the
constitute a beautiful, literate and vi
ary album, as if Randy Newman had been
blessed with Michael McDonald's pipes.

The album’s strongest music is still made
with Blades's regular band, Seis del Solar.
The Hit, the opening track, is a brilliant
fable that wouldn't be out of place on an
early Springsteen LP, evoking both the
spokenness and the utter strangeness
of street Ше. Its chorus (“Don’t double-
cross the ones you love . . . “cause no one
can say when you'll need a friend out on the
strect”) is a hummable statement of com-
mitment to the salsa faithful: Blades is
reaching out, not selling out.

Nothing but the Truth also reveals a
potent knowledge of rock roots and how
to apply them. Ollies Doo-Wop deflates
Lieutenant Colonel North’s assertions as
adeptly as it caresses Frankie Lymon's har-
monies. Sting’s J Can't Say actually makes
credible the Policeman's Latin-inflected
-rock. Writing with Reed, Blades is an
y rocker; with Costello, he becomes a
moody balladeer. Not that the album is just
a superstar pastiche—cvery bit of it sounds
like nothing but Rubén Blades, who is, in
the age of Julio Iglesias and George
Michael, something better: a real artist.
Everybody ought to speak that language.

“I have created this
fragrance for the man who
understands power”

BUSINESS REPLY MAIL

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POSTAGE WILL BE PAID BY ADDRESSEE

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A fragrance for men. Parfums Lagerfeld - Paris
ee

PICO IYER SET OFF to tour the East— Bali,
bet, Nepal, China, the Philippines, Burma,
Hong Kong, India, Thailand and Japan:
and to find how American culture had
secped into those far—and somehow not-
so-far—away places. In Video Night in Kath-
mandu (Knopf), he loads up the striking,
sometimes hilarious contradictions that
obtain in lands where the natives have
adapted aspects of American culture
whimsically and sometimes nonsensically.
A kid who is likely to shout “Yankee go
home" is also likely to be wearing a Spring-
steen BORN IN THE USA, T-shirt while doing
so; a transvestite in Singapore, asked to
name the best restaurant in a town cele-
brated for its combination of Chinese, Indi-
an and Malaysian delicacies, answers,
without hesitation, “Denny's.” The Third
World responds well to the images and cul-
tural icons of the First World. But Iyer sees
that when Westerners invade little pieces of
paradise, their conquest is devastating: a
of Coca-colonizing. Video Night in
Kathmandu is an entertaining guide to
places most of us won't ever see and a re-
minder that we may not be able to investi-
gate a culture without changing it. Forever.
.

In William Kennedy’s adventurous new
novel, Quinn's Book (Viking), the dead dont
stay dead, the poor don't stay poor and
the plot is not at all predictable, A likable
self-taught journalist called Daniel Quinn
narrates, bringing a fresh eye to such
bread-and-butter literary themes as war,
freedom and true love. His quest is for the
last, specifically in the form of Maud
Fallon, whom Quinn rescues from drown-
ing at story’s beginning but is separated
from for most of the next 15 years until sto-
ту end.

Like Kennedy’s much-ad:
trilogy (Legs, Billy Phelans Greatest Game
and Ironweed), this book constitutes anoth-
er visit to 19th Century Albany.
And, like the carlier books, it boasts a
Dickensian cast of characters, plus a trove
of cultural details as compelling as the plot:
A stock speculator, for example, travels in a
huge coach carrying “five cuddlesomc
women,” drawn by six horses that follow
the German marching band he has hired to
travel with him for the week.

This time, though, Kennedy tries out a
new dimension—the supernatural. But its
not of the Rod Serling yikes-we're-in-the-
‘Twilight-Zone sort. Kennedy’s supernatu-
ral is much more playfully integrated with
real life, the way it is in the works of such
ers as Carlos Fuentes
Márquez. Неге,
Kennedy has dreamed up a female dancer
whose performances elicit thundercl
resurrection through sex and one man’s
fate glimpsed through the eyeball ofa dead
woman. Powerful forces are at work in

Pico Iyer's guide to the changing East.

Coca-colonizing the East;
spectacular new novels from
Kennedy and Garcia Marquez

Quinn’ Book, not the least being the
strength of Kennedy’s imagination.

б

Imagine Rocky filmed іп the style of
Fellini's Satyricon and you may be ready
for Harry Crews’s latest novel, The Knockout
Artist (Harper & Row). Crews has added
another eccentric character to his catalog
of Gothic heroes, a list that includes Gospel
singers, snake farmers, a side-show freak
who eats cars piece by piece and a karate
student whose dojo was the bottom of a
draincd swimming pool. The knockout
artist is Eugene Talmadge Biggs, a
washed-up prize fighter with a glass jaw
who turns himself into a human novelty by
knocking himself out at kinky parties. His
girlfriend, Charity, is a psych major whose
interview technique consists of turning on
a Dictaphone in the middle of a raging
fuck. The rest of the sick crew consists of a
girl who performs on stage with a Teddy
bear outfitted with a switchblade cock, a
red-headed lesbian named Jake and а
twisted businessman called The Oyster
Boy. It is a rich gumbo, not to everyone's
taste but memorable. One of the recurring
images of the novel. a BMW motorcycle
laid dangerously low to the point of scrap-
ing chassis to pavement, best describes the

uneasy, thrilling feel of this book.
.

Gabriel García Márquez, winner of the
Nobel Prize for Literature in 1982 and au-
thor of One Hundred Years of Solitude, has
weighed in with another novel of equal hu-
mor, imagination and craziness: Love in the

Time of Cholera (Knopf). The book begins
with the death of one of the major charac-
ters as he tries to chase and strangle his
parrot, a bird that can talk back in any
language and can also bark like a dog.
García Márquez weaves his unusual lc;
ends with his usual magic, and what you
get is a world all its own, filled with love,
sex, death and laughter. Just what we
might expect from the best novelist alive.
.

The thrill of the first tee shot of the U.S.
Open, the agony of the shank on the muni
course—they’re all here in Mike Bryan's
Dogleg Madness (Atlantic Monthly), an ас-
count of the author's love affair with golf.
"The book's title belies its low-key approach
to the game. Bryan is a calm, suitably
humbled hacker who details the horrid
frailties of his own game as well as he de-
scribes the strengths and weaknesses of the
pros. Whether addressing the holy coils
of Saint Andrews or the baked fairways of
a nine-hole ranch in Ozona, ‘Texas, he
evokes the spirit of golf as well as any cur-
rent writer.

e.

As Germany hurtles toward national
suicide in 1944, Scbastian Westland, 17, en-
lists in the Waffen SS. His father dead, his
mother unhinged, his best friend crippled
їп a freak accident, Sebastian leaves his
country village for a l3-weck military-
training course in a Bavarian castle. *
is the time for heroes!” exhorts the S!
ology” teacher. Neither hero nor ideologue,
Sebastian trundles off to the blood bath on
the Western front. Night over Day over Night
(Knopf), a stunning first novel by Paul
Watkins, is a triumph of detail: the scrape
of hobnail boots on cobblestones, a veil of
new snow in a bomb crater, the sound of
laughter “like a small animal choking.”
How refreshing to find a young author
tackling issues other than modern angst;
how gratifying that his talents are equal to
the task.

BOOK BAG

It's Anybody's Ballgame (Contemporary),
by Joe Garagiola: Baseballs other Joc
shows why he has never been (oo far away
from the bigs. Garagiola spins a baseball
Doctor K throws heat.
huster), by

Harry 51е!
an American Finally, an Erma
Bombeck for men. Stein's walk down his
personal memory lane reveals his slants on
life, love, ladies, family, friends and foibles.

Shooting from the Lip (Bonus), by Mike
Lupica: A chronicle of the very best
columns from the New York Daily News and
Esquire sportswriter extraordinaire. Call
Lupica the Hunter Thompson of sports
journalism and buy this book!

17 mg. "tar", 1.3 mg. nicotine av. per cigarette by FTC method.

SURGEON GENERAL'S WARNING: Cigarette
Smoke Contains Carbon Monoxide.

THE REFRESHEST,

© 1988 R.J. REYNOLOS TOBACCO CO.

24

By GENE STONE

THE story 1s that our dollar-a-chip boys’
night-out poker game went to Las Vegas
and destroyed the winner of the World
Series of Poker in half an hour. But first,
a few details

New York. Two am January 7, 1987.
Bob Asahina, David Blum, Richard Ben

Cramer, David Hirshey, Ron Rosenbaum,
Gil Schwartz and I. Candy wrappers,
pretzels and cigarette butts littered the

floor. So did chips, most of which were
Rosenbaum's, “I won $125; he said.
Rose п wins the most, as he is the
most single-minded, pokerwise. When he
plays, he pays attention

I won. too” Cramer id. He is
another frequent victor, as we deal a lot of
inventive games and Cramer has invented
many of their rules.

The rest of us counted our chips. “I
won, too,” we all said, The rest of us don't
win as much, particularly all in the same
game

And then, minutes later, from the poker
cloud that envelops his playing time, Blum
poke: “I won, too.” Blum has, on occa-
jon, mistaken his fingers for chips, claim-
ng to haye won hundreds of dollars.

Now, some might think our creative
accounting would throw us into disarray

Not so. We aren't guys who question truth
in the face of bare facts. Each one of us
makes his living as a writer and/or editor.

“You know,” Sch said, “we are
very good players.” He continued. “I won-
der just how good we are,” he said. “1
mean, we need to know how good we are.”
Schwartz talks a lot at the game, as he
doesn’t get much of a chance at home.

“One way to find out" Rosenbaum
said, with his clear logic. “Well call the
winner of the World Se of Poker and
challenge him. Then we'll see how good
wea

We looked at him and at one another.
We were speechless at our genius. Then
“A good idea,” he said.
‘That clinched it. Asahina scldom talks, so
when he does, we assume it’s the truth. We
agreed it was our destiny to face off against
the world's champion poker player. We
shook hands, left and forgot the whole
thing.

All оГиз except Hirshey. Our group is a
vous one, but Hirshey's condition is
most casily aroused, by events large and
small, such as traffic accidents in foreign
countries, or the dawn. Or, as it pertains
here, the absence of someone on the other
end of the phone, which is always in Hir-
shey's ear. Hirshey, falling back on the
charm he has developed over the years of
dealing with temperamental writers, con-
vinced the World Series’ publicist that we
deserved a chance to play the champ.

For some reason, Henri, the publicist,

Card sharks: Ruthless stakes in Vegas.

Seven aspiring poker studs plot
the ultimate boys’ night out
with the “Orient Express:

accepted. There we were, booked to play
the winner of the World Series of Poker.
‘The chance to challenge the best. We were
a little anxious.

‘The World Series of Poker was founded
in 1970 by Benny Binion (the owner of
Binions Horseshoe Hotel and Casino in
downtown Las Vegas). In 1971, the first
ar a cash prize was offered, the series
attracted six players competing for
$30,000 in prize money. This year, 152
gamblers from all over the world entered
the tournament to play for $1,520,000. As
soon as we got the chance to play these
guys, our nerves frayed, The first to go was
Schwartz. A month before the event, he an-
nounced he couldn't join us. “Its better
this way,” he lied, “Seyen makes for a bet-
ter game.”

We suspected he was having a problem
clearing it on the home front, but he swore
that such was not the case and whimpered
something about missing his kids, his dog
and his job. “My wife has nothing to do
with it," he said. “And you better not say
that she did in your article”

Then, just before the trip, Blum made
an announcement. “None of us can go,”
he said, “unless we sign a collaboration
agreement. We could be talking TV movie
here.” Without a formal agreement, an
offer made for our rights would expose us
to bitter negotiations.

But Blum never followed through on the
agreement, so by the time we showed up at

late in May, we weren't legal-
stead of squabbling over shares,

we watched the tournament. The champi-
onship game was being played at Binion
Horseshoe Hotel and Casino, in a pit
scorched by lights and surrounded by a
ing that was in turn surrounded by
fans; they looked as though they had all
been snatched fully clothed from their pre-
vious habitat, making the place resemble a
huge come-as-you-are party.

Thursday. Six men were left in the tour-
nament. We rooted for the one we thought
least likely to laugh at us: Howard Led-
erer, at 23 the youngest man to reach the
finals. we most feared м
press,” a Li
Vegas real-estate investor and restaurateur
originally from Houston.

Late that evening, Schwartz called Hir-
shey. "You want to know whats going
on?” Hirshey asked.

“No,” Schwartz said. “I heard about
the collaboration agreement. You aren
cutting me out of anything, are you?

David Letterman was finishing up a
week in Las Vegas, and Frank Sinatra and
Joan Rivers were scheduled to be in town
the next day. So was our game. But first
Henri had arranged a practice game with
three female players—Linda Ryke, С
Violette and Debbie Parks. Linda is the
1987 women’s champion; Cyndy is one of
the most successful players on the circuit.
Cramer asked Cyndy why she was pla
“I want you guys to introduce me to David
Letterman,” she said.

None of us knew Letterman, but we
didn’t tell her. Instead, Cramer explained
our rules, which took half an hour. When
he was finished, a dealer joined us. We
spent 20 more minutes explaining rules:
when we were through, she left. Another
dealer, Dennis, sat down. We intended to
explain the rules to him, too, but Linda
finally informed us that the dealers leave
the table every 20 minutes for a break

We started. Dennis explained some
house rules. “You can't hide the cards,” he
told Blum.

“Huh?” Blum asked from his fog. Den-
nis pointed to Blum's hand, curled over
my cards. He removed his hand.

“Put that in the piece,” Cramer said.

We played a few more hands before Hir-
shey called for Pass the Trash. Again we
ned rules for a while. By the last
|, the women were still trying to com-
prehend the rules, and they had lost.
“Well . . ." they said. They didn't want us
to explain anything else to them, so they
left, and we decided to go out on the town.
Cramer had befriended a few dealers; they
invited us to play poker with them, so we
took a limo to their house and, after
explaining our rules, we killed them. They
told stories of players’ debt, drugs, divorce
and despair. Worst, to us, many players
own pieces of other players, so when one
wins, others do, too. The players sounded

The man
Johnny Chan, the “Orient E

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less like the Cincinnati Kid and more like
us if wed signed Blum’s collaboration
agreement.

We ended up cutting the evening short,
because the game, indeed, turned into an
embarrassment. Somehow, perhaps be-
cause we had played only our games and
our rules, we annihilated them. When we
felt that we had won too much, we took off,
excusing ourselves, because we had to be
up early for the big game. But in the limo,
Hirshey decided that if we we
on a night out, we had to see gi
clothes; the limo driver overheard us and
volunteered to take us to a nude bar in
North Las Vegas. “Don't wander far from
the bar,” he said, as we passed cops and
drunks prowling through the streets.
Frankly, we had no intention of wandering
anywhere near or far from the bar; the
neighborhood did not leok like the sort of
place given to late-night fun. Neither did
the bar, where, as soon as we walked in,
Hirshey got neryous and wanted to leave
But we sat dutifully far from the stage so
we wouldnt have to get involved and
watched what turned out to be amateur
night. It was tragic, that amateur night, as
the novices couldn't dance, or do much
else, except reveal their bodi which
weren't much. They didn't receive much
applause, either.

The emcee yelled at the audience. “If
you didn't like that,” he said, “we've got a
real novelty act for you up on stage. Live,
Jim and Tammy Bakker, having sex—with
each other!”

We laughed and promptly left.

Friday. The players were still vying for
the right to play with us. We watched the
final game, which Johnny Chan won at
three o'clock. He was immediately envel-
oped by the media, giving interviews while
a man in the crowd heckled him. “You
look like that Chink in the movies, Charlie
Chan,” he kept saying until 2 cameraman
told him that Johnny was plugged into the
audible and couldn't hear anything. The
heckler moved aside, leaving a space for us
to move in and see that the table was being
reset—for us.

And so, after months of worrying, boast-
ing and playing hands over and over in our.
heads, it was time for the big game. Right
there, right in the pit, in front of all the
lights, the people, the cameras. No one
had told us we were to play in the pit. We
fled like cowards; when we returned,
Henri wandered over to consult. “Ready?”
he asked.

Hirshey yanked on his mustache. “John-
ny's been playing a long time. Doesn't he
vant to take a break?" he asked.

“You are his break.” Henri said.

“Put that in the piece,” Rosenbaum
told me.

“I guess Johnny's now the world’s best
poker player,” Henri added.

“Not yet,” Cramer said.

“Put that in the piece, too,” Rosenbaum
said.

So we sat at the table and waited for

Johnny. An hour later, when he drifted by,
followed by friends and fans, Henri inter-
cepted him and whispered into his ear.
Johnny frowned. It dawned on us: Had
anyone told this guy that he had to play
us? Regathering our forces, Rosenbaum
suggested that Henri had not mentioned it
so as not to hang such a heavy weight over
the players while they were concentrating.

Meanwhile, Henri and Johnny engaged
in an angry exchange of whispers until
Johnny shrugged, looked at his watch and
then sat down, asking about the stakes.
When we told him, Johnny frowned.
“More,” he said, so we doubled them. As
Johnny pulled out a wad of 81006 and we
reached for our tens, we started to explain
our rules. Johnny shook his head. “Not
interested,” he said.

“Who's Playboy?" he asked instead. We
we all were.

“No one is Penthouse?” Johnny frowned.
We shook our heads. “Let's start, then,”
Johnny sai

The first game was seven-card stud.
Johnny glanced at his cards and raised the
maximum. From then on, he bet the maxi-
mum on every bid, regardless of cards.
“Can I cheat?” he asked.

“Put that in the piece,” Cramer said.

During the second game, Johnny
became obsessively conscious of Blum’s
beer. “What is that?” he asked. When
Blum, oblivious, didn’t answer, Johnny
dipped his fingers into it and licked them.
“Beer,” he said and drank it.

The fourth game was Pass the Trash;
Johnny picked up his hand, passed his best
cards to Hirshey and then bet the maxi-
mum. During the next hand, Johnny did
not consult his cards but bet the maximum.
anyway. On the final hand, he handed his
cards to a man behind him.

Twenty-six minutes after it had started,
the big game was over. We had played six
games with Johnny and he had lest all six
We had defeated the best poker player in
the world, taking his entire $200. Johnny
shook our hands and walked off. As we
returned to our rooms, Asahina spoke—
and remember, Asahina speaks only the
truth. “We won,” he said.

So that’s the basic story of how our two-
dollar-limit game went to Las Vegas and
defeated the winner of the World Series of
Poker—and, for that matter, the women's
champion and the dealers, too. Now, there
may be some detractors out there who
would say that Johnny thought we were a
waste of time, or that he was just throwing
his money at us; but we have thought it
over, and we think Johnny knew when he
was beat. We have been told that good
players know when to fold.

And so, if anyone asks us what hap-
pened when we played the winner of the
World Series of Poker, we say that it was
OK but that the guy lasted only half an
hour against us. We are giving him the
extra four minutes.

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28

SPORTS

jne of the saddest things for me to
come to grips with is that some of
my best friends like pro basketball.

They don't like pro basketball so much
that they would actually go to an N.B.A
game in person. They would no longer be
my friends if they did that.

But the mere fact that they occasionally
flip around on TV and watch parts of
N.B.A. games has always bewildered me,
because | know how meaningless those
games are, at least for the first 29 months of
the season.

All any of my friends have ever been able
to tell me about this flaw in their character
is that a few moments of an N.B.A. game
are more interesting than the weather
channel. y

Recently, I got to thinking that there
must be something wrong with me, so 1
decided I would try again to watch an
N.B.A. game on TV. The last time I had
tried, all I had seen were these aliens
floating around in the air aboye a basket,
while down below, Jack Nicholson looked
like he needed a shave.

I was determined to watch the entire
game, though I knew what that would
mean. It would mean watching the first
two hours that lead up to the real game,
which is the last 23 seconds, and it would
then mean watching the two hours that it
takes to play the last 23 seconds.

The game I tried to watch was one of
those where Michael Jordan scores 67
points but his team loses by eight.

The last 23 seconds took a little longer
than two hours, and it seemed obvious to
me that Jordan's team wasn't going to
come back from 16 points behind, no mat-
ter how many time-outs the coaches called.
"The drama was in waiting for the possible
drug bust.

My friends tell me they've. watched
games in which a team has come from 16
points behind in the last 23 seconds to win
the contest.

If that's true, I have said, then I am very
happy for the players on the losing team,
because | can imagine how much money
they must have won on it.

In the first ten seconds of the last 23
seconds of the game I was trying to watch,
Jordan's team closed the gap to 13 points.

The most thrilling things about it were
the two meat-loaf sandwiches I made for
myself, the correspondence І got out of the
way, the income-tax returns I completed
and the 30-minute nap I took.

Over the next ten seconds of the last 23

By DAN JENKINS

HOOP-DE-DO

seconds of the game, while Jordan's team
narrowed the gap to 11 points, 1 cleaned
out my desk, went to the 7-Eleven, fed the
dog, cleaned out my closet and called a
friend long distance.

“Are you watching the game?” I asked.

“No, I was watching the weather chan-
nel; why?”

“Is fantastic,” I said. “Michael Jor-
dan’s team is only cleven points behind
with three seconds to play.”

“Oh, it's getting ready to start? I'll turn.
it on.”

In the first second of the last three sec-
onds, Jordan’s team cut the other team’s
lead down to six points.

But in the next second of the last three
nds, while I was taking a shower,
washing my hair, slipping into my robe
and rercading the first two chapters of an
old John le Carré novel, the other team
built the lead back up to eight points.

My friends tell me it's possible for an
N.B.A. team to make up eight points in the
last second of a game. They say they have
seen it happen.

It all has to do with the clock, they say.
The clock, apparently, doesn’t start after a
time-out until a player actually has two
feet on the floor and both hands on the

basketball, provided he is from the state of

Utah to begin with.

It is entirely possible, my friends say, for
a team to score a basket, foul, call time out,
score a basket, foul, call time out, score a

basket, foul, call time out and score anoth-
er basket, all in one second of play.

Nobody made a basket in the last second
of the game I was watching, but there were
three time-outs called, which enabled me
to dish up the peach cobbler.

Although the clock still showed that
there was one second to go at the very end,
an announcer explained during one of the
strategic time-outs that the official time
was probably less than three one-hun-
dredths of a second, so Jordan’s team was.
going to have to come up with something
pretty tricky if it were going to pull this one
out. But they didn’t, and that was it.

J called my friend back and said 1
guessed I didn't have to watch any more
N.B.A. games in this lifetime. I now
loathed the sport more than ever.

“I know they're great athletes,” I said.
“Doni tell me what great athletes they are.
Thats the problem. They're so great,
they're boring."

Unless you bet, I said. Then it’s a case of
guessing which team’s going to miss a free
throw on purpose in the last six one-hun-
dredths of a second.

I did accidentally stumble upon some-
thing that made me get slightly more inter-
ested in the N.B.A.

I happened upon one of those sports talk
shows on cable, the kind where the inter-
viewer is somebody you've never heard of,
and the athlete is somebody you've never
heard of, but they're both looking very
grim as they discuss a deadly serious issue
that’s going to change civilization as we
know it

And this athlete was saying, “Yes, Roy,
as you know, I have been a cornerstone
everywhere I have played. You know, I was
а cornerstone in high school, and I was a
cornerstone in college, and it has been my
custom to be the cornerstone everywhere I
have played in the league. I am looking
forward to being the cornerstone on this
team, and you know, I think with me as
the cornerstone, we can get the job done.
We almost got the job done when I was the
cornerstone on that other team, but the
management and ] had а diflerence of
opinion about the role of the cornerstone. 1
don’t let my brain worry about being a cor-
nerstone, you know. So I am going to be the
best cornerstone 1 can be when I’m on the
court, and the rest of the time, you know, 1
just plan to turn myself over to education.”

Suddenly, the sport wes irresistible.

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MEN

E: things first: They are always trying
to frighten us. Take that as a given. No
news affects us more deeply than news
about our health and longevity. The media
lean on that fact in all seasons. What better
way to get us to read the newspapers, buy
the magazines, watch the 'T V reports, than
to try to scare us? "You might dic any day
now from this disease we're telling you
about,” they say, “but if you listen to us,
there's a chance—just a chance—you'll be
OK.” It's great for ad sales and ratings, not
so great for us.

They got us with AIDS. We consumed
the screaming headlines and TV specials.
We suffered through years of hysterical re-
porting about AIDS (Playboy being one of
the few exceptions) that spared none of us
and injected a calculated hyperfear into the
national sexual imagination.

Anxiety is a growth industry. It perpetu-
ates itself, and the media know it. They pry
open our minds with the chisel of fear and
walk around in our brains and rearrange
the furniture. Supposedly, in the case of the
AIDS reporting, they were helping us. Ac-
tually, they were manipulating us with
one-sided war stories that exponentially ex-
aggerated the threat of the disease to het-
erosexuals. Only now, after almost a
decade of hand wringing and doomsday
predictions, is some sanity coming back in-
to the discussion.

From the front page of a recent New York
Times: “As the AIDS epidemic moves into
its cighth year in the United States, the evi-
dence grows ever stronger that the much-
feared explosive invasion of the general
population is not occurring, and never
will. . . . ‘We do not expect any explosion
into the heterosexual population,’ Dr. Otis
К. Bowen, Secretary of Health and Human
Services, said last month, in a striking shift
in views. Only a year ago he warned that
the disease was ‘rapidly spreading’ to the
wider population and would ultimately
make the Black Plague . . . seem ‘pale by
comparison.”

You might think that the quick-change
artists who yelled plague and then retract-
ed it would be ashamed of themselves and
quiet down, but health hysteria never
sleeps. How can it? There are still newspa-
pers and magazines and television spots to
sell. What's next? What's next is heart
case. We're being inundated with coronary
cautions. Its a particularly hazardous
curve ball for the American male, because,
in this case, the anxiety and fear created by
the hysteria can contribute to the discase

By ASA BABER

TAKING HEART

itself. And it’s a classic double bind. The
melodramatic treatment of the news adds
to the stress that we're told is harming us.
As is often the case, the people who are
trying to scare us are not our friends, even
though they pose as such. They want our
money, not our affection. The sooner we
recognize this and take steps to protect
ourselves from them, the better. Гуе got
some specific survival advice that boils
down to two simple thoughts: (1) Don't go
crazy; we've read a lot about heart disease,
we've absorbed the information, we know
generally what we should be doing to pre-
vent it and there's no need to pay heed to
all the hypesters out there who are preying
on our anxiety. (2) Several times a week,
cat soup instead of a full meal and you'll
probably find yourself losing a little weight
and staying nourished. l'm no expert, but
Гуе thought about the problem, and Pin
here to help, not hype. So here it is, from
nuts to sou
(1) Don't go nuts. You and I know a lot
about the problem. We don't have to pay
attention to every so-called health reporter
who whispers alarms in our car. The rules
are well defined: Eat a low-fat dict, stop
smoking, drink only in moderation, don't
load up on caffeine, take an aspirin cv
other day (with a doctors OK), exercise
aerobically several times each week (after
you get a physical exam), control the stress
in your life as much as you can. We're not
talking about the mysteries of Delphi here,

gentlemen. After that, it's up to self-disci-
е, genetics and circumstance to deter-
mine our longevity. Life has its risks, and
we'd be bored out of our gourds if it didn't.
So shape up, seize the day and enjoy a
mental attitude that avoids the hypochon-
dria being sold on every street corner.

(2) Eat soup. Y can't prove it, but I think
the mature male body takes in far too much
solid food these days. Our ancestors ate
much less meat, for example, and when
they did trek through the wild and make a
kill, the carcass they consumed was lean
and liquid—perhaps one percent body fat.
How can we get back to that kind of dict? I
made a grcat discovery a few ycars ago.
Most restaurants serve soup. You dont
have to order steak or lobster for lunch and
you don't have to nibble on rabbit food! You
can order a big bowl of soup. And then I
made another discovery. 1 сап make soup
at home! Healthy, casily digestible, іпех-
pensive soup that makes an excellent re-
placement for a main meal on the days
when I have lots of energy—or the days
when I feel heavy and out of shape. I make
a great lentil soup. Here's the recipe: Rinse
and boil a pound of lentils in four quarts of
water, add a sliced red onion, garlic, celery,
carrots, small potatoes, lecks, parsley, onc
bay leaf, a pinch of dry mustard; let it sim-
mer for a couple of hours, refrigerate it aft-
er it has cooled down. Eat lentil soup with
dark bread and it’s a hell of a nutritious
mcal.

Over time, we're going to think and
work and play our way out of heart disease.
We know where it comes from. Our forefa-
thers did not lead sedentary lives, but we've
been caught in a time warp. In the wink of
an evolutionary eye, men have been asked
to go from hunter to computer jockey, from
tribesman to office bureaucrat, from scav-
enger to couch potato. Time has chal-
lenged us more than it has women. The
role changes demanded of us have been
greater and our bodies have not always
been able to change as rapidly as our
styles. But guess what? We understand
that. And we're doing something about it,
so cut the doom and gloom, the dire predic-
tions, the media mesmerism.

Here's to a vigorous life for all of us, a life
in which we sweat hard, eat lightly, love
fiercely, hunt shrewdly, live long. And may
we also learn to ignore the siren call of the
health hysterics as they sing their dirges to
us, because the lives we save will be our

own.
B

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32

WOMEN

Е all had to havea hundred cups
of coffee. Then we had to admire Erin's
sweater. Then we had to have a boy (my
son) connect the VCR. Then we had to
decide how many of us had P.M.S. (two).
Then we had to tell how many of us were
estranged from our boyfriends (too many).
"Then we had to have my son start the
VCR. Then we started to scrcam.

High-pitched girl shricking, like teen-
agers did for Sinatra and the Beatles, ex-
cept horrified, as if we had seen Sinatra
murdered. That seems to be what women
do while watching porno movies. Eventual-
ly, we settled down to mere hysteria,
watching Dickman and Throbbin.

“I feel like I'm eight years old and my
friends like boys and I don't get it," said
Cleo.

“Those are fake tits,” said Rita. “She's
on her back and they stick straight up.
God, she doesn't have any pubic hair. And
what she does have is dyed.”

“I guess that’s ап OK blow job,” said
Erin.

“How does she not vomit?” asked Carla.

“He's so big,” said Marta.

“And it’s not even hard,” said Rita,
“which means it’s really big. Oh, look,
shes taking responsibility for her own or-
cum

“We've all faked orgasm better than
that,” said Erin.

“Look how she’s looking at him,” said
Rita.

“She's trying to get him to come any way
she can,” said Cleo. “She figures if she
gives him a sultry glance ——"

“A come-hither look,” said Sue.

“Forget the hither, just come,” said Cleo.

“She's not gonna age well,” said Carla.

“Why is she doing this with her life?”
asked Rita. “Were talking bladder infec-
tion with that.”

“This is worse than A Nightmare on Eln
Street,” said Cleo.

“This girl has a mother and a father
someplace,” said Sue.

“She grew up with a father who drank
and fucked her,” said Erin. "She thinks
this is OK.”

"Oh, my God, phone sex,” said Rita.
“Sure, like the phone-sex girl would be
dressed in a garter belt.”

"Did anybody have a boyfriend who
would call up and want phone sex?” asked
Sue.

“So tedious,” said Cleo.

“Pm always wearing my granny night
gowns and knee socks,” said Rita.

By CYNTHIA HEIMEL

GIRLS
WATCH PORN

“And he always asks what you are wear-
ing,” we all said.

“Is that Gael Greene’s boyfriend?” won-
dered Marta,

Total shrieking for cunnilingus close-up.
“I could never be a lesbian; that clinches
it,” said Cleo.

We all had our hands in front of our
eyes. “But aren't we supposed to have fe-
male pride?” said Erin. “Why do we think
this is gross?”

“I haven't seen a cunt so far that looks
like mine,” said Rita.

“Руе never seen mine,” said Carla.

“I have,” said Erin. “But I don't think I
would recognize it in a crowded room.
We've been socialized not to like this.
We've been trained to hate it; men have
been trained to love it.”

Dickman, a-k.a. John Holmes, unveiled
his shaft. Screams.

“That looks like a weapon!”

“That can't be real!”

“That's attached to his body?”

“That looks like an elephant!”

“Varicose dick veins!”

“OK, now,” said Rita, “you take this
premise: A girl’s a virgin and her mother
wants these guys to give her some experi-
ence. That could be really sexy if you did it
the right way, instead of like this, where
they're bludgeoning her to death with their
penises”

“Like, if it was only one guy and he was

Dennis Quaid,” said Cleo.

“Oh, I would like two guys,” said Erin.

“Yeah, the other guy could be Sean Con-
nery,” said Rita.

“Have you noticed that there’s absolute-
ly no kissing in this movie?" said Marta.

My son came into the room. “Don't look,
don't look!” we screamed.

He got a magazine. “Instead of watch-
ing that, I'd buy this,” he said, holding up
Sports Illustrated's swimsuit issue.

“That's a healthy attitude,” said Cleo.
“I'll make you want girls you could never
have in a million years.” He left.

We watched Three Daughters, a film al-
legedly for women.

“This is better; it’s not as offensive,” said
Cleo.

“But it's not sexy,” said Erin.

“Wait a minute,” said Carla. “We never
saw his penis!”

“It was negligible,” said Marta.

“Js anybody else looking at that wallpa-
per?” asked Rita.

“Who ever masturbates like that?”
asked Cleo.

“Т never even take my clothes off,” said
Rita.

“And I won't even talk to myself аПег-
ward," said Sue. "Turn this off. I don't
want to see a movie more boring than my
own life.”

“Why don’t they ever get it that boxer
shorts are the most sexy?” asked Cleo.

“Blue jeans are sexy.”

“When they roll up their sleeves is sexy.”

“When they work on cars.”

“When they concentrate on anything”

“A guitar goes a long way.”

“What about shopping in a stereo store?

Just kidding.”

“Never when they look like they’ve con-
templated what they're wearing.”

“Someone who looks like a smart Hell's
Angel?

“When they're a little bit dirty. Long
hair”

“Blue-jcan jackets, whaddya think?"

“Yeah!”

We absolutely didn’t get why they had to
show semen spurting. Two of us almost
gagged. A couple of us were turned on for a
moment or two but then upset by the
overkill. We all hated the close-ups. Three
of us had severe anxiety attacks. All of us
decided that we like sexy books much bet-
ter. So we ate lollipops and talked knitting
and calmed down.

El

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0 YOU LIVE NEXT DOOR TO
THE GIRL NEXT DOOR?

If So, We'd Love to Meet Her.
In Fact, We Might Even Award Her $35,000 and an Appearance in Playboy

4

NANCY CAMERON CANDY LOVING PENNY BAKER
2UTH ANNIVERSARY PLAYMATE 25TH ANNIVERSARY PLAYMATE 30TH ANNIVERSARY PLAYMATE

as the Winner of

THE 35th
ANNIVERSARY
PLAYMATE SEARCH

A lot has changed in 35 years—and Playboy's Girl Next Door is no exception. First of all, don't call her a girl anymore—call her a
woman. Second, you may have to look a little farther than next door to find her; these days, she’s doing anything from piloting her own
plane through the wilds of Alaska to building her own company on Wall Street.
But at least one thing hasn't changed: She's still beautiful. Playboy beautiful.
If you know someone who fills the bill, why don't you introduce her to us? And if she's selected as our 35th Anniversary Playmate, we'll
pay you a $1000 finder's fee.

(See reverse side for details.)

35TH ANNIVERSARY PLAYMATE SEARCH

DATA SHEET SEND US YOUR PHOTOS

NAME:

BUST:

HEIGHT: WEIGHT:

BIRTH DATE: BIRTHPLACE?

ADDRESS:

CIEE

TELEPHONE NUMBER(S) :

OCCUPATION:

AMBITIONS:

TURN-OFFS :

WHY I'D LIKE TO BE THE 35TH ANNIVERSARY PLAYMATE;

FINDER'S DATA BOX
NAME: —
ADDRESS:
CITY/STATE/ZIP:
TELEPHONE NUMBER(S):

ENTRY RULES FOR CONTESTANTS:

1. Fill out the above Oata Sheet in full

2. Enclose al least two recent photographs of yourself, one face shot, One full figure. The full-figure photo need not be nude but should give а clear
indication of your figure.

3. Fill out the Finder's Data Box il applicable

4. Mail entry blank and photos to Playboy Magazine, 919 North Michigan Avenue, Chicago, Illinois 60611, Att.: 35th Anniversary Playmate Search.

5. All photographs will become the property of Playboy and cannot be returned. Playboy will make no use of these photographs except for consideration
of the subject as the 35th Anniversary Playmate.

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THE PLAYBOY ADVISOR

[E ery day, we read another story of how
the AIDS scare has changed dating behav-
ior. Are there any real statistics to show
this change? Most of my friends, while say-
ing they are more cautious, seem to be do-
ing the same as a few years ago. Forget the
headlines. Can you tell us what's really go-
ing on?—W. F., Boston, Massachusetts.
‘Abbott Laboratories recently commissioned
a study of changing sexual mores of Ameri-
can singles aged 18 to 34. One in five said
they had fewer sexual partners than in years
past; one in four said they had more sexual
partners than in years past; the rest said that
things hadn't changed. The average number
of partners in the past 12 months for males
was three, for females, 14. Almost half report-
ed having only one partner in the past year.
Three out of four singles said they were less
likely to have casual sexual encounters (i.e.,
one-night stands). The survey asked, “How
many dates did you have with your last sexu-
al partner before you had sex with him/her for
the first time?" A third of the respondents had
sex afler one to four dates, 25 percent after
five to ten dates, 20 percent after more than
ten dales. Younger singles are more cautious:
Eighteen-to-20-year-olds averaged 11 dates
before sex; 21-10-29-year-olds averaged nine
dates; and 30-to-34-year-olds were in bed aft-
er seven. About 36 percent of concerned sin-
gles said they had gone as far as abstaining
altogether from sex with new partners, Al-
though four out of five said they were more
likely to use a contraceptive, only 26 percent
had increased. their use of condoms. The.
death of sex has been greally exaggerated.

For my birthday, my girlfriend gave me a
pocket square, or so she calls it. I always
thought it was a handkerchief. 1 don't want
to insult her, but to be honest, I don't know
what to do with it. How do I use it?—
W. Z., New York, New York.

‘Although you are correct in calling it a
handkerchief (either name is appropriate), do
try to refrain from blowing your nose in il. A
pocket square is an. accessory item like a tie or
a pai of suspenders. It is most commonly
made of cotton, silk or linen. Place the square
in the breast pocket of your suit jacket or
sports coat—that is, after all, what the pocket
is there for. Although а white-linen handker-
chief peeking from a lawyers breast pocket 15
almost considered part of his uniform, the
more fashionable printed-silk squares are
slowly but surely gaining acceptance in board
rooms and offices across the country. The eas-
dest шау to wear one is to round the center
out and push the corners down into the pock-
et, leaving no more than one inch of the
square showing, For a dressier, more conserv-
ative look, fold the square so that the corners
fine up in points and push the rest of the
square into the pocket, leaving one inch of the
points showing. You should try to complement
the square with the colors in your tie, but stay
away from the matching sets. Keep an eye on

the Playboy fashion pages for examples. If
your office is not ready for this look, use it lo
dress up a business suit or sports jacket fer an
evening oul.

Would you please answer some ques-
tions about autofellatio for an avid reader
of Playboy? Is it considered scxual perver-
sion? Is it autosexual, heterosexual or ho-
mosexual? In what position is autofellatio
performed by a male? Do more homosexu-
als perform the act than heterosexuals?—
С. L., Crystal, Minnesota.

Do you want to hear the only joke “The
Playboy Advisor” remembers? Its a great hit
al dinner parties. “Two guys are walking
down a street and they see a dog licking its
own genitals. One guy says, ‘Gee, I wish I
could do that: The other guy looks at the dog,
then looks at his friend and says, ‘I think
you're going to have to pet him first? ” Autofel-
latio has less to do with sexual preference
than with loose joints. We've seen porn movies
in which one of the stars could perform oral
sex on himself, and we've seen one female con-
tortionist who could perform cunnilingus on
herself. We don't recommend that anyone with
a normal spine, or, for that matter, a normal-
sized penis, try the contortions. Those who
can, probably do. The rest of us have to sub-
contract the job.

Äh the January issue, the Advisor recom-
mends several devices that allow опс to
store leftover wine. They make great sense
if you are trying to store only one bottle ata
time. What happens if you have two or
three half bottles at the end of a long din-
ner? Are there simpler devices?—J. R.,
Chicago, Illinois.

We received a letter from Jerry Outlaw, a
member of the Society of Wine Educators,
with several helpful hints, Here are his sug-

gestions: “The increased ratio of air to wine
in a partly consumed bottle is the spoile
Reduce that ratio in the following ways
(1) Keep a few clean half bottles (375
milliliters) handy. Decant wine into the
smaller container and close with a clean cork
or any of the commercially available bottle
stoppers. (2) Many wine merchants and ac-
cessory distributors sell marble-size glass
beads that are simply poured into the bottle
to increase volume and decrease air space.
(3) At least two nationally read wine writers
have recently suggested freezing leftover
wine. I will risk anathema by admitting that
T have been experimenting with the idea by
placing partially filled bottles in the freezer
for as long as a month. The wines were al-
lowed to thaw slowly and return to drinking
temperature. Tested wines included chardon-
nays with and without oak, Gewürztraminer,
Riesling, sauvignon blanc, zinfandel and
cabernet sauvignon. In blind tastings with
friends, no one has measured any difference
between frozen and fresh. Tiy it yourself
Small investment . . . fun . . . informative.”
What next? Wine Popsicles? Microwave
champagne? We tried freezing wine and
agree with Oullau. Most varieties can stand
cold storage.

F have been
14 months. Duri

ving with my boyfriend for
that time, we have had
an enjoyable sex life—that is, during inter-
course. My problem is that my boyfriend
finds foreplay boring. He is more the “Let's
get to it” type. Unfortunately, my body
does not react as quickly as his without
foreplay. I love this man very much and 1
have no problem coming to orgasm during
masturbation, but sex is usually rough at
first due to this lack of foreplay. How can 1
(or we) make foreplay more exciting for my
boyfriend so that he will spend more time
at it? He spends less than a minute licking
my boobs, then moves into position to enter
me. Needless to say, my body is seldom lu-
bricated sufficiently for comfortable pene-
tration. Is there something I can do to
make him enjoy foreplay?—Miss S. D.,
Scarsdale, New York.

You should take charge of the next few love-
making sessions. Tell your boyfriend that you
are going to make love to him the way you
want him to make love to you. Give him a to-
tal body massage, tease his nipples, brush
your lips along his thighs, the usual stuff
While you are doing this, position your body
so that you give yourself some indirect clitoral
stimulation. When you are lubricated, jump
his bones from a dizzy height. When you
switch back to your normal roles, make noise,
pull your hair, claw his back, etc. You can
give directions in bed without sounding like
ie, She-Wolf of the SS. Make a set of flash

: HIGHER. LOWER. HARDER. SOFT
ER. FASTER. SLOWER, LONGER, SHORTER. ОН. MY
GOD, гм соміхс. Or simply challenge him:

39

PLAYBOY

40

Let's see how many orgasms you can give me
before you enter. Anticipation is also an ef-
‘fective form of foreplay. Earlier in the day,
why not fantasize about your boyfriend? That
you won't have as far to go to catch up
when he starts making his moves. Finally,
don't think of it as foreplay. Think of it as
play. Put on a blindfold and play with the
nonvisual senses. Ask him to make a list of
fantasies. or sexual positions that he has
dreamed of trying. Make a list of your own.

Put them in a hat and draw them out, one at
a time.

Сел уол jus a к
lamps arc supposed to do оп a sports car? I
still don’t know if they should be amber or
clear, mounted low or high. 1 remember
your answering this question recently but
not in detail. Whats the complete pic-
turc?—D. E., Santa Fe, New Mexico.
According to Bill Condon, at Performance
Unlimited in Painesville, Ohio, heres what
you need 10 know about fog lights: “First off,
there is no light that cuts through fog. Fog
lamps are designed to be mounted low and
illuminate under the fog blanket. That is why
good fog lamps have a cutoff on the top and
the bottom—so no stray light goes up to be
reflected back into the driv eyes. It is the
lens design that makes it a fog light, not the
color. Regarding color: Amber does have a
benefit. It increases contrast, making light ob-
jects lighter and dark objects darker. Howev-
er, whenever color is introduced into a lens,

the light output is lowered. In the case of a
good fog lamp, we are talking about 20 per-
cent. In the case of the discount cheapies with
the very dark lens, we can be talking 50 per-
cent. Г would always recommend а clear fog
lamp in conjunction with a set of good Eu-
ropean halogen head lamps to handle almost
any normal driving situation. Please note, 1
always mention ‘good’ when referring to
lamps. These are usually of European manu-
facture and usually carry the EEC approval
code (a circle E followed by a number). Most
of the discount-store variety have little or no
beam pattern and are a wasle of money"
Enough said?

FRccently, I have been hearing a lot about
Chlamydia. How does it affect people? —
Г., Denver, Colorado.

According to Dr Donald McCarthy,
Chlamydia trachomatis annually infects al-
most 10,000,000 Americans, Slower in onset,
with milder, more easily ignored symptoms,
Chlamydia eludes the tests and resists the
treatment for gonorrhea, which it closely re-
sembles, In men, Chlamydia varies in severily
from slight morning itching of the penis to
discharge, painful urination, swelling of the
testicles, eye disease and arthritis, Only 40
percent of infected women show symptoms;
the others suffer damage without warning.
Painful urination, vaginal discharge, men-
strual disturbances, abscessed and ruptured
tubes, hepatitis and painless blocking of the
tubes leading to permanent sterility all occur.

Keeping safe distance

©1988, COMPAR, Inc.

Spain

Chlamydia is the leading cause of female
sterility and of the 60,000 tubal pregnancies
that claim 1000 lives annually. One in four
pregnant women has Chlamydia; their babies
are subject to conjunctivitis and а slow sim-
mering pneumonia. Because its symptoms are
so easily ignored, Chlamydia is becoming the
commonest sexually transmitted disease in
the country. When diagnosed, it is easily
cured by antibiotics,

easily Melle an
Playboy and I was hooked. It struck me
that if I could subscribe to foreign editions
of my favorite magazine, I could enjoy the
visuals while improving my language
skills. Can you help?—H. S, Detroit,
Michigan.

You want to tell your girlfriend that you
read Playboy for the articles, in Turkish? We
have a dozen foreign editions (how would you
like to learn Australian?), and each handles
subscriptions differently. For a complete list,
you can write to Playboy Reader Service.
Here are the ones you may be interested in:
Playboy Germany (write lo Heinrich Bauer
Verlag, AVG—Mr. E. Blank, Burchard-
strasse 11, 2000 Hamburg 1, West Ger-
many); Chinese Playboy (PBI Publications
[HK] Lid., 20th floor, Shiu Lam Building,
23 Luard Road, Wanchat, Hong Kong,
Altn.: Circulation Department); Playboy
Italy (Edizioni Lancio S. Р A, Via
Roccagiovine, 267, 00156 Rome, Italy,
Attn.: Subscription Department); Playboy
Editorial Origen, 437 Avenida

Scoping

Diagonal, Piso 5, 08036 Barcelona, Spain);
and Playboy Japan (Sheuisha Publishing
Co. Lid., 2-15-10 Fujimi, Chiyoda-ku, Tokyo
102, Japan). You might also check news-
sands in your area that sell international
papers. The better dealers stock some of our
Joreign editions.

5002222:
buying batteries? The flash on my camera
seems to chain-smoke them. Гус tried
heavy-duty batteries, different brands, the
works. Do gold tips really make a dif-
ference?—T. P., Boston, Massachusetts.
Americans spend two and a half billion
dollars a year on baiteries—slightly less than
they spend on X-rated videos or dope, but
they're closing in. We prefer alkaline batter-
ies: They can power a flashlight for 20 hours,
compared with seven hours for a general- pur
pose (zinc-carben) t; Your own experience
with flash units is even more telling. Alkaline
batteries are usually good for about eight 36-
exposure rolls, while heavy-duty (zinc-chlo-
ride) batteries average one and a half rolls,
and general-purpose about half a roll. Re-
chargeables, if used properly, can power
about three rolls. (Exhaust them completely
before recharging.) The second consideration
is shelf life: General-purpose batteries are
susceptible to heat and can leak a corrosive
paste. Heavy-duty batteries are slightly more
enduring; both last longer if stored in a re-
frigerator. Alkalines check in with a two-to-
three-year shelf life, So the vibrator you left at

your ski lodge will still be working next win-
ler, Lithium batteries are starting to appear
on the market: They hold power for eight to
ten years and are said to last twice as long
as alkalines. We can't recommend a specif-
ic brand. As nearly as we can tell, all batter-
ies within a certain category perform about
the same. Don't mix batteries (alkaline with
heavy-duty or new ones with weak ones).

E have a problem. I don't know how many
other men share it and 1 dont care. The
only concern I have is giving as much sexu-
al pleasure as I can to those few women
who lower their standards enough to let me
slecp with them. The problem is my refrac-
tory period. It is much too long. I can make
love for 30 to 45 minutes, on a regular ba-
sis. No matter what it takes, Lam willing to
do what I can in order for my partner to
come before I do. But my last encounter.
was a disaster. My partner was three times
as horny as usual. Г had an intense orgasm,
the best I have ever had. But she didnt
come and still wanted to—she tried every-
thing to get me up again: sucking, touch-
peu SPON mio nie
cube, but all to no avail. 1 could not get
hard. She passed out while talking to me
and 1 went to sleep. The next morning, we
made love and 1 was successful; she came
I should be happy, right? Wrong. As a
healthy 32-year-old male, I ought to be able
to screw as often and as long as the woman
[am involved with wants to. I'm nothing

but an instrument, designed to bring physi-
cal pleasure. | am sensitive when it comes
to my lovemaking. I don’t want to haye any
doubts about whether I'm good in bed
When I make love to a woman for the first
time, I want her to know that the next en-
counter will be better, longer and even
more fun. Finding out that | didn't please a
female would be a very serious blow. How
can I decrease the time between orgasm
and erection? —N. J., Oakland, California.
You ate a problem waiting to happen. If
you think that you are responsible for your
partners orgasm and that the only proper
orgasm is the one she receives from your erec-
tion, you are setting yourself up for disaster.
How would you cope with a woman who
could not reach orgasm from iniercourse?
Lasting longer is not the only way to improve
lovemaking. Try to be more flexible: Use your
hands, tongue, toes or one of those devices
that require alkaline batteries. You are not
just an instrument. You are а normal male.
Relax. She respected you the morning after.

All reasonable questions—from fashion,
food anddrink, stereo and sports cars to dating
problems, taste and etiquette—avill be person-
ally answered if the writer includes a stamped,
self-addressed envelope. Send all letiers to The
Playboy Aduisor, Playboy Building, 919 N.
Michigan Avenue, Chicago, Што 60611.
The most provocative, perlinent queries
will be presented on these pages each month.

Double take

Drop dead gorgeous

SPORT. Play by your own rules.

The fresh, new sport spray by Paco Rabanne.

Macy's

41

SURGEON GENERAL'S WARNING: Quitting Smoking
Now Greatly Reduces Serious Risks to Your Health.

Qing nicotina = b.
rette, FIC Report Feb, s
an

DEAR PLAYMATES

The question for the month:

Has your awareness
changed your sexual habits?

of AIDS

W feel pretty lucky that I'm in a long-term
relationship. If I weren't, I'd be very care-
ful these days. Pd want to know my part-
ner pretty darn well before I went to bed
with him. Га
go for honest
conversation
and use protec-
tion. But I also
don’t think that
we should all
live in constant
fear. You pro-
tect yourself.
and your part-
ner; then, if you
reach the point
where marriage
is a consideration and you're still worried,
you go for blood tests. It isn't a good time
io be a single person. It isn't a good time
for unnecessary risks.

LAURIE CARR
DECEMBER 1986

Thm monogamous. I'm busy and I have
time for only one person in my life. More
than one would be too confusing. If 1 were
single and on the loose out there, I’d look
for a recently
divorced man
who swore he'd
been faithful to
his wife! Seri-
ously, the kind
of man Га
want in my life
would also
want just one
partner. The
bottom linc?
Yes to condoms.
I have recently
moved to L.A. from Maryland, where I
didn't know anyone who even knew anyone
who had AIDS. Then to come here, it's
reality time. I'm very careful

SITE

JULIE PETERSON
FEBRUARY 1987

[| think that anyone who is planning to
have a lot of relationships has to protect
him- or herself. AIDS kind of makes you
stop taking things for granted. If you sleep
with someone and don’t know his history, it
can be a death ticket. You have to take care
of yourself, too, which means getting test-
ed. My partner
and І went to
be tested, and I
think that is go-
ing to be a re-
sponsible part
of being in a
relationship
in the future.
It brought me
closer to him,
because we did
it together for
each other. We
faced our past and we got the facts; the
doctor we saw got the results back in a day
and we tested negative. I think even mar-
ried people should get tested, because they
each had a life before marriage.

аса

CHER BUTLER
AUGUST 1985

Pye always been a one-man kind of person
and I never slept around, even before
AIDS. I am more aware now. I'd ask him
to take an AIDS test and Га take one, too.
Гуе been in a relationship for a while now,
but if I were
suddenly single
again, Га get to
know him first
and then Pd
wait for the re-
sults of the test
before I got in-
volved. For
something
that's as impor-
tant as my life, 3
I can wait. I've
talked to my E
mom a lot about AIDS. In fact, she is the
one who suggested the test. I wouldn't take
any in-between precautions, like condoms.
Pd just wait.

Brod) Brandt

BRANDI BRANDT.
OCTOBER 1987

Drastically. When I was growing up,
buying a condom was not a matter of life
and death. They were considered kind of
dorky. But after my boyfriend and I broke
up, I didn’t care how dorky or how much of
an interruption
they were. I
wasn't going to
do it without a
condom. And I
haven't. Гус
never had a
one-night stand.
Ever. Pm not
going to start
now. This is not
the time for
that kind of
thing. ІГІ were
to get involved with someone completely
new, he’d have to understand and feel the
way I did. If he wanted to go without the
raincoat, he'd have to take the AIDS test.

LUANN LEE
JANUARY 1987

For a long time, Гуе been paranoid
about sexually transmitted diseases. It
hasn't changed my behavior much, because
I'm selective
about my part-
ners. Here’s the
rule: Unless you
have only one
partner, you
use condoms
every single
time you haye
sex. Period. I
don't have
AIDS. Гуе had
atest. Га ask a
man if he had
been tested. Always. It isn’t about whether
or not I do or don't believe his answer. I
ask. And ІІ use condoms until I find my
one and only.

A CLARK
APRIL 1987

Send your questions to Dear Playmates,
Playboy Building, 919 North Michigan Ave-
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able to answer every question, but we'll try.

43

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HE WHO LAUGHS LAST...

In 1985, Attorney General Edwin
Meese ІП started a joke that started the
whole world laughing. Unfortunately,
Meese may get the last laugh.

The joke? The Attorney General's
Commission on Pornography, a.k.a. the.
Meese commission. And why was it so
funny? Well, who could take seriously
the titillating testimony, the erotic ех-
hibits, the Keystone Cop quality of the
proceedings—other than the prudish
antipornographers? The New York Times
didn't even sec fit to publish reports of
the New York hearings.

When the punch line was finally de-
livered in the form of The Final Report
of the Attorney General's Commission
on Pornography, the Meese commission
was clearly on the defensive. Social sci-
entists disputed its conclusion that por-
nography causes violence; indeed, two
commissioners disputed the conclusion
and severely criticized parts of the re-
port. Playboy and others sued Meese
and the commissioners for using a kind
of official blackmail to try to get certain
magazines off the shelves of convenience
stores (The Playboy Forum, August 1986).

In fact, once the commission issued
its report, it dropped from the
news—out of sight, out of mind, a
dead subject.

It was far from dead, however.
Quietly behind the scenes, the Jus-
tice Department was reviewing
the commission's 92 recommen-
dations—and preparing t

In October 1986, crusader
Meese was ready; he outlined
his plan of attack. He would
create a National Obscenity
Enforcement Unit (NOEU),
headed by Robert Showers, a
well-known — antipornogra-
pher; he would open a Jus-
tice Department Center
for Obscenity Prosecu-
tion; he would introduce
a number of anti-obscen-
ity bills in Congress;
and he would urge the
law-enforcement com-
munity to focus its
attention on obsceni-
ty-law violations.

Oddly enough, after Mecscs an
nouncement, the commission gained re-
spectability. Because skeptics refused to
deal with it, the true believers were able

By CHRISTOPHER M. FINAN

to push their view of the Meese report
as Gospel.

Those law enforcers who believed in
Mcese's program (or thought
politic to do so) went into action. The
National District Attorney Association,
for example, issued a policy statement
urging its 6000 members to vigorously
enforce obscenity laws.

Legislators listened, too. Early in
1987, numerous obscenity bills were in-
troduced in state legislatures. South
Carolina enacted an obscenity law that
mandated that any offense of publishing
or selling an obscene book or magazine
be a felony punishable by as much as
three years in prison with a fine of as
much as $10,000. Other states have
anti-obscenity bills pending.

In February 1987, Meese ordered
that one attorney in each of the 93 U.S.
Attorneys’ offices must specialize in ob-
scenity prosecutions—and he put pres-
sure on them to perform. The pressure
paid off. Among other cases, a Missouri
Federal prosecutor sent letters to St.
Louis video retailers warn-
ing them not to
rent or

sell obscene tapes, and an Ohio U.S. At-
torney joined a civil suit to prohibit the
distribution of obscene video tapes in
Columbus.

In April 1987, the Federal Communi-
cations Commission believed that the
political climate was right to put into
force a new generic definition of obscen-
ity (The Playboy Forum, August). That
was a direct attack on disc jockeys who
specialize in “shock radio,” and it also
served to make all radio personnel more
cautious about erring in what they
aired. Meese followers expressed full
support for the new Ё standard.

Meanwhile, the NOEU began its roll.
It aided Federal prosecutors in the
Traci Lords casc; it wanted the produc-
ers of Lords's movies to be held liable
for using a minor in pornographic films
(Lords had reportedly lied to them
about her age.) The NOEU was also in-
strumental in the Dennis and Barbara
Pryba case (The Playboy Forum, May).
‘The Prybas, owners of a chain of vidco
stores and adult bookstores, were con-
victed of obscenity under Federal racket-
cering laws. Convictions under those
laws allow prosecutors to seize all the
assets of a company, even those that
have not been judged obscene,
hence putting

46

store owners out of business conceivably
even if they had sold only two “ob-
scene” tapes. Federal prosecutors have
vowed to prosecute more obscenity
cases under the racketeering laws.

NOEU was also involved in the con-
viction of two Los Angeles companies
that provided dial-a-porn services in Utah.

“Мг. Meese elevated obscei
inal-justice priority,”
icd. “We're not just prosecuting
kiddic porn and violence,”

A US. Attorney in Utah predicted,
“E would expect that within the next 12
months, there will be literally an explo-
sion of cases on the Federal level."

.

The Meese commission's influence
didn't stop with Government agencies. It
also had a serious impact on the for-
tunes of antipomography groups.
groups belicved that they had received a
Government directive (via the commis-
sion report's encouragement of private
action) to boycott places of business that
offended their extreme rig!

The members of tl
tion for Decency (N.E.D.), headed by
Donald Wildmon, pi any store that
displays adult maga у Holi-
day Inn that ollers pay-per-view adult
(The Playboy Forum, April). The

porn; the

altimore group fights adult magazines
and videos.

Another antiporn group, ns for
Decency through Law (C.D.L.), ac-

“ue F€

N fo
оғ 1HE ОТОО ا0‎
r^ cpuse No CENSORS

“THE JUSTICE DEPART-
MENT Is IN THE PROCESS
Nor ONLY OF CHILLING
THE DISTRIBUTION OF
Books, MAGAZINES AND
VIDEOS WITH SEXUAL
CONTENT BUT OF
FREEZING IT.”
quired Alan Scars, executive director of
the Meese commis ion, as its legal counsel.
local lawmak-

ers models of obscenity laws and provides
legal advice to prosecutors.

Me-

ed an all-out campai nn-
sylvania to urge law officers to increase
their efforts in enforcing obscenity laws. If
the drive is successful, Morality in Media

he Reverend Jerry Kirk, head of the
ional Coalition Against Pornogra-
phy, has worked hard to bring his fringe
group to the “average American’ —and
the Meese commission helped bring
him legitimacy. He also organized the
Religious Alliance st Pornogra-
phy to add rel a way to bolster
the believability of antiporn groups.
Kirk now claims that the fight

зоб М?Ч
Р...

against pornography has become main-
streamed and, indeed, that is another
legacy of the Meese commission.
б

е commission has had an-
ious effect. Retailers, know-
ing that Federal, state and local
prosecutors are keeping an cagle eye
out for obscene material, will censor
their own stock in order to avoid legal

тз of adult books, videos and
will shy away from dealing
l with sexual content. The
Department is in the process not
only of chilling the distribution of books,
magazines and videos with sexual con-
tent but of freezing it.

.

In two years, the Meese commission
went from being a laughing matter to a
serious matter. As a result of the com-
mission, retailers and publishers аге
censoring themselves, antiporn groups
are flourishing, the number of obscenity
cases has increased, more antipornog-
raphy laws are being considered in state
legislatures and a major obscenity bill is
before Congress (see following article).

Two years after the release of the
Meese commission's report, the laugh-
ter has stopped.

Christopher М. Finan is director of
Media Coalition, Inc.

"NEXT QUESTION. "

The Reagan Administration recently
proposed legislation tited the Child
Protection and Obscenity Enforcement
Act of 1988. President Reagan rounded
up Representative William Hughes of
New Jersey and Senator Strom Thur-
mond of South Carolina to introduce
the bill to Congress.

lo feature child protection in the title
is a good PR ploy—but that's not really
what the bill is all about. Some sections
discuss child pornography, but most of
the bill is concerned with obscenity—
and incorporates all of the most radical
anti-obscenity measures suggested in
the Final Report of the Attorney Gener-
al's Commission on Pornography.

Let's hope that members of Congress
read the bill carefully before they vote,
for if they do, they will sce that First
Amendment and privacy rights will be
severely curtailed if it passes.

The following are the most seriously
flawed portions of the bill.

Section 301 assumes that a person is
in “business” if he offers for sale, or
gives away, two or more copies of any
obscene publication. Therefore, ifa con-
sumer gives his adult-magazine collec-
tion to his neighbor, he is criminally
liable. The penalty mandated for such
an action? A fine—and as much as five
years in a Federal penitentiary.

If passed, this section also will
amend the Interstate Travel in Aid of
Racketeering (ITAR) statute to make
obscenity an offense covered under it (in
addition to arson, gambling and nar-
cotics). For example, a magazine whole-
saler could be brought into court if he
telephoned a retailer in another state to
discuss the purchase of magazines. If a
jury subsequently found those maga-
zines to be obscene, the wholesaler
could receive a jail sentence and a fine.
If this amendment is added to ITAR,
there will be virtually no difference be-
tween constitutionally protected activi-
ty, such as the buying and selling of
magazines, and dangerous criminal ac-
tivity, such as arson.

.

Scetion 302 permits the courts 10
seize not only material found to be ob-
scene but also any property that might
have been purchased from the proceeds
of the sale of obscene merchandise or
that is an “instrumentality” of obsceni-
ty. For instance, if a retailer sells a tape
‘on Monday that is later deemed obscene
and on Tuesday purchases Star Wars,
Star Wars can be seized by the courts—
because it was purchased from the pro-
ceeds of an obscene tape. And {Га radio

AUGHING MATTER:

THE REAGAN
WAR ON
OBSCENITY

By Barry LYNN

station plays a record later declared ob-
scene, из broadcasting cquipment can
be seized by the courts.

Such Draconian sanctions make it
likely that bookstores, video rctai
stores and radio and TV stations
steer clear of selling or broadcasting
sexually oriented material of any kind.

.

Section 303 is designed to strengthen
existing laws regarding obscene pro-
graming on cable television. Did the au-
thors of the bill consider that the edited
cable versions of X-rated movies would
not be deemed legally obscene in any ju-
risdiction? Did they consider that, cur-
rently, there is no demonstrable basis
for concluding that existing statutes
could not handle obscene interstate ca-
blecasting if it did exist? Nonetheless,
Section $03 states that “the harm
caused by obscene television program-
ing, combined with the interstate nature
of such programing, requires that the
Federal Government must assist the
states in their efforts to combat it.”
Lawmakers should note that at this mo-
ment, there is no pending prosecution at

any Government level against a cable
operator.

Furthermore, when Congress passed
the Cable Communications Policy Act
of 1984, it clearly did not intend for ca-
ble operators to be liable for obscene
material disseminated on the statutorily
required access channel, nor did it in-
tend that a cable operator be forced to
act as a censor for every program di:
tributed on his system. And yet the Jus-
tice Department insists that a cable
operator should be prosecuted if he
knew that a movie contained “explicit
visual depictions of sexual acts"—cven
if he didn’t know that it was obscene.

.

Section 304 would create a new Fed-
eral statute prohibiting “obscene live or
recorded commercial telephone serv-
ices,’ that is, dial-a-porn. The bill
would make the transmission of obscene
messages —even to adults in the privacy
of their own bedroom—a felony.

.

Section 305 criminalizes the simple
possession of an “obscene visual depic-
tion,” which includes undeveloped film
or video tape, is on Government
property, This section concedes that if a
Person possesses an obscene picture of
an adult at his own residence, there is
no crime, but that there should be a
crime if a person possesses an obscene
video tape or magazine ейһег in his
desk drawer at work (if he is a Govern-
ment employee) or in the back seat of
his car if he drives through a military
base.

.

Section 306 adds obscenity to the
list of crimes for which the Govern-
ment may seek court-approved wire
taps or surveillance. If this section
passes, law-enforcement officers will
have an increased authority to scruti-
nize, perhaps even to video-tape, citi-
zens who purchase sexually oriented
material—which must be presumed to
be constitutionally protected.

e

Members of Congress must thor-
oughly examine this bill and be aware
of its ramifications. They can readily
approve some provisions that can pro-
tect children from sexual exploitation,
but the portions of the bill that affect
adult consumers of adult material will
need radical surgery if they are not to
infringe on the First Amendment and
our constitutional guarantee of privacy.

Barry Lynn is the American Civil Lib-
erties Union's legislative counsel.

47

48

R E

DEVILISH BEHAVIOR
Jim Bakker's dad accused Jer-

ry Falwell of engineering the Jes-
sica Hahn affair and now Pat
Robertson intimates that George
Bush set up Jimmy Swaggart.
What ever happened to “The
Devil made "em do їс”?

J. Kelly

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

ГЇЇ give you one reason I will
vote for Gary Hart. When he
was questioned about his liaison
with Donna Rice, he didn’t say,
“The Devil made me do it.”
Ernest Miller
Auburn, California

OBSESSIVE BEHAVIOR
Its a well-known fact that
people who go on diets become
obsessed with food. Friends of
Swaggart's claim that he prayed
and fasted to get rid of his desire
to look at pornography. Maybe if
he hadn't denied his desire, he
wouldn't have become obsessed
with it.
G. Weber
New York, New York

GUNNING FOR GUNS
My thanks to William J.
Helmer for “Go Take Your Guns
to Town” (The Playboy Forum,
February). Finally, an article on
guns bereft of the usual right-
wing rhetoric or ultraliberal hys-
teria. No amount of legislation
will change the fact that guns
are available. What must change
is the lack of public education
on the uses and handling of
weapons.
Mark Brady
Round Top, New York

Your essay on the new Florida
gun law is disappointing. In-
stead of making an appeal for
the right of law-abiding citizens
to bear arms, you propagate the
lies of both pro- and antigun ex-
tremists.

Cheri Montagu
San Francisco, California

Florida is not the first—or on-
ly—state to have a “concealed-
carry” permit law, that is, a law
allowing its citizens to carry a
concealed weapon if they pur-

FOR THE RECORD

UNPLANNED JS.
PLANNED PARENTHOOD

“Margaret Sanger, the founder of Planned Parent-
hood, was an advocate of what was called eugenics.
She and her disciples wanted to sterilize blacks, Jews,
mental defectives and fundamentalist Christians. I
certainly don't favor getting myself sterilized. And I
certainly don't favor the programs of the Nazis. But
some of her literature undergirded the genetic exper-
iments of Adolf Hitler. The long-range goal of
Planned Parenthood . . . in my estimation, is to
provide a master race.

“I believe Planned Parenthood right now is very
heavily involved in sterilization as one of their means
of birth control.”

--РАТ ROBERTSON, when asked whether or not he

would support Federal funding for the nonabor-
tion programs of Planned Parenthood

“Margaret Sanger worked on the Lower East Side
of New York in the Twenties. She saw many poor
women struggling to support their large familics.
Her own mother died at the age of 48 after her 18th
pregnancy.

“Eugenics was a popular concept in the Twenties
and Sanger rode its popularity in order to advance
her own beliefs in birth control. Her philosophy was
simply that people should be allowed to choose
whether or not they want to continue to bear chil-
dren.

“Pat Robertson is poorly informed. Planned Par-
enthood supports sterilization only for those who
choose it.”

—FAYE WATTLETON, president of Planned Parent

hood, in response to Pat Robertson's comments

E R

chase @ permit. Many Western
states have had this law for
years—and have much lower
crime rates than states with
more restrictive gun laws. We
should focus on preventing
crime, not on entrapping those
who are simply trying to protect
their lives and property.

Alan King

Olympia, Washington

Helmer calls the Florida con-
cealed-carry law the first of its
kind in a high-crime state. High
crime is the operative phrasc—
for many other states allow thi
citizens to carry guns with or
without licenses. In any case, the
new law isnt really new, for
Florida had a concealed-carry
provision under a previous law.
The “new” law merely changed
a vaguely worded law into onc
that spelled out the details and
requirements of carrying a con-
cealed weapon. One of the rea-
sons that the revised version got
so much attention is that the
press picked up on the phrase
“license to kill" and now strains
to connect any shooting with the
new statute. So far, there hasn’t
been a single incident as a result
of this statute, much less a
“blood bath.”

What really shocked big-city
folks was the sight of Floridians
carrying guns openly. But the
loophole that allowed them to
flaunt their weapons was quickly
closed.

What's interesting is to drive
through Arizona and notice
Hell’s Angels bikers with large-
caliber handguns strapped on
their hips. This “open carry,”
though unlicensed, is perfectly
legal and has never been a prob-
lem. The bikers don't bother you
and you, for sure, don't bother
them.

David Trevallion
Kittery Point, Maine

INSULTED IN UTAH

1 read your feature “Adding
Insult to Injury at Orem High”
(The Playboy Forum, March) to
the Alpine, Utah, school board.
According to the board, its poli-
cy is dictated by state law, which
is currently being reviewed by

R E S

P O

N S E

the state legislature. We can only hope
that the legislators will be enlightened
enough to allow AIDS education in high
schools.
Michael Barth
Orem, Utah

The Alpinc school district does have a
bizarre policy concerning AIDS educa-
tion, but keep in mind that Utah is a
Mormon state. Salt Lake City has no
adult-movie theaters and almost no adult
magazines—Playboy included. Why
should anyone think that a course on sex
education would be acceptable in Utah?

T. W. Morzelewski
Salt Lake Gity, Utah

LOVE FROM MISSISSIPPI
Гуе read Playboy for 34 years. I always
picked it up at the newsstand or at a con-
venience store, When Southland Corpo-
ration stopped carrying it, I went two
miles out of my way rather than patronize
its stores. Now I've found an casier way
to beat the likes of Attorney General Ed
win Meese, Jerry Falwell and Pat Robert-
son. I subscribe.

James Love
Ridgeland, Mississippi

MORMON'S MONEY

When the U.S. Congress was holding
hearings on television evangelism and in-
vestigating how the TV preachers use the
money donated to them, it should also
have taken a look at the Church of Jesus
Christ of Latter-day Saints. In order to be
a Mormon in good standing, a person
must contribute ten percent of his i
come. The contribution can then be de-
ducted from the person's income tax as
a charitable deduction. The Mormon
church uses this money to purchase stock
in companies—sometimes to gain a con-
trolling interest. 1 think the Mormon
church should be investigated to see if the
ultimate use of investment income from
those contributions is for charitable pur-
poses.

Theador V. Rogers
Salt Lake City, Utah

ATHANKS TO THE COURT

1 don't often congratulate the Supreme
Court, but Га like to do so now for its
refusing to hear the appeal of the seven
evangelical Christian familics who claim
that the Tennessec public schools violated
their children’s religious freedom by re-
quiring that they read textbooks that
promote “godlessness.” Catholics, main-
stream Protestants and Jews don't seem

to have any problem with the schools’
curriculums—and if they do, they enroll
their children in private schools. Why
should evangelicals get special treatment?
E Gonzales
Miami, Florida

AND JUSTICE FOR ALL

Isn't it grand that even a suspected
criminal such as Edwin Meese IH is enti-
tled to an impartial investigation and a
fair trial? Maybe he'll change his mind
about the statement he made a year ago:
“If a suspect is innocent of a crime, then
he is not a suspect.”

Russell Brown
Blanding, Utah

‘CANNED IN CANADA

He Shoots, He Scores is a Canadian tele-
vision series about a hockey team. In one
episode, the writers took the title too seri-
ously—at least for some people. They in-
cluded a scene showing a hockey player
embracing a naked woman prior to their
tumbling into bed. The scene was shot so
that only the woman's bare back and the

In 1913, an organization from Los
Angeles set up two tents on a small
plot of land in Duarte, California. A
fledgling medical center was born. Its
purpose was to help people with the
incurable disease of tuberculosis.

Seventy-five years later, the tents
have become 50 buildings, the small
plot of land has grown to 93 acres and
the medical center has 500 support
chapters throughout the country.

The centers name? The City of
Hope. |.

е

‘Thanks to modern
medicine, tuberculosis
is no longer an incur-
able disease. Re-
searchers at the City
of Hope are currently
working to make that
Statement true of an-
other incurable dis-
ease—AIDS.

In order to help
cure the incurable,
Chrisie Hefner, іп
conjunction with the
City of Hope, has es-

sides of her breasts could be seen. When
word of the scene hit the streets, the
Canadian Broadcasting Corporation was
besieged with calls and letters demand-
ing that it not be shown. Because of the
controversy, the CBC news program
aired the scene on the nightly news.
“Then, deciding that it really was too
offensive to show, the CBC cut the scene
from the episode. Talk about having your
cake and eating it, too.

Barry Brown

Toronto, Ontario

BAN THE BIBLE
Treland is well known for having strict
censorship laws and one of its citizens is
fighting back. Anne Spicer, from Dublin,
asked the censorship board to ban the
Bible because of its graphic sex and vio-
lence scenes. She probably won't get too
far with her request, but maybe procen-
sorship people in the U.S. should take
note—their censorship-mindedness may
come back to haunt them
5. Kent
Omaha, Nebraska

tablished the Christie Hefner Fellow-
ship in AIDS Research. She believes
that “it is important for people to sup-
port AIDS research. We have to take
the position that AIDS is neither nec-
essary nor acceptable in a society as
technologically advanced as ours.”

If you would like to help cure
AIDS, please send your contribution
to Christie Hefner Fellowship in AIDS
Research/City of Hope, 1500 East
Duarte Road, Los Angeles, California
91010.

4 The City of Hope
recently aworded
Christie its Spirit of
Life aword in recogni
tion of leadership in
"odvoncing lifesoving
reseorch іп AIDS.“
Christie presented
those who ottended the
owords bonquet ond
contributed to AIDS
reseorch with o moga-
zine, Playboy and City
cf Hope: The Fight
Against AIDS.

49

o MATE

Was Jimmy Swaggart a self-righteous
hypocrite? Or was he the victim of sexual
repression? Playboy has long argued that
repressive altitudes toward sex cause
harmful behavior The writings of Jimmy
Swaggart reveal a mind-set that all but
guaranteed a liaison with a prostitute in a
cheap motel. His philosophy blames televi-
sion, counseling, movies, pornography,
the Devil and masturbation and never
once allows for individual responsibility
Here is a man with a tortured soul and a
Teflon conscience.

“Everyone recognizes the obvious
dangers of the lusts of the flesh, so few (if
any) Christians wander naively into sit-
uations that will involve them with
adultery, witchcraft, murder or drunk-
enness,

“Ah, but the lusts of the eyes. These
are sins that are far less easily recog-
nized—especially in ourselves. Is it
good Christian concern for the image
our brother is projecting with his new
possessions—or is it overt envy? Do we
offer advice to a brother because we're
concerned with his immortal soul—or
is it sheer malice that prompts our ac-
tion? Is it for the good of the church that
we discuss a sister’s shortcomings—or
is it a simple love of gossip? The lusts of
the eyes are, for some reason, exceed-
ingly difficult to recognize and root
out—especially in ourselves.”

— The Evangelist, February 1987
.

“The mind is the battleground of
right and wrong. It is an open door and
it has no lock on it. It is impossible for
one to keep thoughts from coming into
one's mind.

receive letters constantly from in-
dividuals wanting to know how they
can prevent evil thoughts from coming
into their minds. It canı be done. If
a person could stop the evil thoughts,
he could also stop any good and whole-
some, even Godly thoughts from
coming in. So, the door that is open to
good thoughts is also open to evil
thoughts.

“So, when masturbation takes place
in conjunction with mental images that
depict a sexual situation forbidden by
the Word of God, as it often does, then
according to His words in Matthew
5:27-28, it is wrong. The essential
prohlem is not that the body is being
stimulated by its owner but that the
mind is engaging in lustful thoughts.

“This is the reason that in what little
counseling I do 1 always tell the indi-
vidual that masturbation is wrong.
While it is not entirely impossible for
masturbation to be engaged in without
sinful mental imagery, any mental im-
agery involved would border very close
tosin.....
“One of the reasons that pornogra-
phy has become a multi n-dollar
business in this nation—and is becom-
ing bigger almost by the hour—is, at
least in part, because of masturbation.

“Once the individual engages in this
practice, the next step is mental im-
agery, and then pornography—this in-
cluding printed matter, books with
pictures and dirty movies. You would be
shocked and surprised at the number of
Christians who are ‘hooked’ on these
things" — —The Evangelist, June 1986

.

“There is no ministry on the face of
the earth any cleaner than this Min-
istry—Írom any angle that you would
desire to look at it.”

—The Evangelist, June 1987
.

“I once heard А. N. Trotter say that
itis not God's will or the Bible way for a
preacher of the Gospel to sit for hours
listening to one sordid tale of woe after
another. He went on to say that these
endless stories of perversion, sin and
immorality come to permeate right
down into the subconscious of the coun-
selor and will eventually take their
deadly toll.

“Brother ‘Trotter was right. Hun-
dreds (perhaps even thousands) of
preachers (and others) are falling into
immorality and sin—simply because

they are trying to take the place of the
Holy Spirit.”
—The Evangelist, November 1986
.

“What is the difference, when you get
right down to it, between the purveyors
of porn—70 percent of which, we are
told, ends up in the hands of minors—
and street-corner sellers of drugs? Both
are peddling death and destruction, and
no amount of legal posturing can
change that. Pornography, you sec, is
not about sex, any more than rape is
about sex. Porn is sex out of control, sex
without commitment or passion, and
those who make their livelihoods off of it
represent the worst our great nation has
to offer, the scum on an otherwise tran-
quil pond. They are not ‘beautiful pco-
ple? not the ‘smart set They are
wretched, disgusting and dangerous.”

— The Evangelist, June 1987
.

“How сап we expect our children to

believe anything but that sex is valuc-

less and without consequences when

the heroes and heroines are hopping

from bed to bed in excited, breathless

frenzy?" —The Evangelist, April 1987
б

“When boys see women who аге in-
decently dressed, or when they look at
erotic pictures or read books of this na-
ture, they become sexually stimulated.
And then one of several things may
happen.

“If the young man is unsaved, he
possibly will visit a prostitute or go to
bed with his girlfriend (which has be-
come overtly common), or he will en-
gage in masturbation. I think it would
be very simple to see how then mastur-
bation becomes very wrong. It becomes
an outlet for lust.

“Ifa Christian reads material that is
not wholesome, or looks at movies—
most movies being sated with innuendo,
indecency and filth—or attends places
where suggestive dress is worn, he is go-
ing to fall. And it must be hastily added
that after masturbation is engaged in,
little by little the moral fiber is weak-
encd until fornication and adultery will
follow. As we have said repeatedly, sin
always escalates.”

—The Evangelist, June 1986

N E WS ЕК ON Т

whats happening in the sexual and social arenas

DEATH IN THE DESERT =="

MINNEAPOLIS—Forty-eight wild mus-
tangs died after they were used in an ex-
periment testing horse contraceptives. No,
they didnt die in the line of duty; they died
of dehydration in the Nevada desert when
they were unable to find their way back to
their water supply and pasture. The Hu-
mane Society of Southern Nevada came

down hard on the University of Minneso-
ta researchers who conducted the experi-
ment and threatened to sue the university.
An official of the Federal Bureau of Land
Management, however, excused the deaths
as being the result of unforeseeable cir-
cumstances.

= CONDOMS, CONDOMS == =

Los ANGELES—A UCLA-USC condom-
safety research project discovered a batch
of condoms with glaring defects. A пит-
ber of Protex Contracept Plus condoms
with an expiration date of November 15,
1990, were so fragile that some of them
broke when being removed from their
package. Researchers informed the U.S.
Food and Drug Administration, which is-
sued a recall.

Las vEGNS—The Nevada Board of
Health adopted a regulation that makes
the use of condoms compulsory іп the
states 35 legal brothels. The president of
the Nevada Brothel Association comment-
ed, “We are already doing it оп a volun-
tary basis. We are 100 percent in support
of the requirement.”

к. экеа xpo—Deborah: Volkert recently
won a $60,000 settlement in a suit she
filed against the cily after the police de-
partment rejected her application to be a
police officer—and it wasnt a sex-dis-
crimination suit, She won on the grounds
that the city had invaded her privacy
when she was tested for the job. Volkert
was required to lake a polygraph lest in
which she was asked a number of ques-
tions, including: "When was the first time
you ever had sex?” “Have you ever had
‘an abortion or miscarriage?” “Who was
the father?” “What kind of birth-control
devices do you use?” During the question-
ing, she acknowledged that she had had
an affair with a police officer When Volk-
ert was rejected for the job, she was told
that the assumption was thal she “would
be out in the field, fooling around with the
other men.” Her lawyer commented, “As a
result of Ms. Volkert legal battle, employ-
ers may no longer engage in unrestricted
fishing expeditions into a prospective em-
ployees private sex life”

Los ANCELES—A 33-year-old vice officer
Lost her job recently in part because of al-
leged misconduct involving a minor. The
L.A.P.D. claims that the officer was hav-
ing sex with a 17-year-old West German
exchange student. Meanwhile, the woman
filed a $10,000,000 lawsuit purporting
that the police had illegally searched her
home to support the sex charges. Her at-
lorney contends that “there is a leering
preoccupation with the sexual conduct of
female Los Angeles police officers.”

`
ENNA PARE

рлкіз-50 much for the French lover. А
recent poll of French women found that 31
percent of them are ofien or occasionally
bored during lovemaking. The study, pub-
lished in the weekly magazine VSD, at-
tributes the results to, among other things,
the pressures of modern life.

GANADA LEGALIZES "ABORTION =

ovrrwsi—Afier 16 months of delibera-
tion, the Supreme Court of Canada voted
five to tuo to strike down the restrictive
1969 abortion law, saying that u “clearly
interferes with a womans physical and
bodily integrity” and violates the national
constitutions guarantees of "life, liberty
and security of the person.” The law per-

mitted abortions lo be performed only in a
hospital, only in cases where a womans
life or health was in jeopardy and only
after approval by an abortion committee.
One justice wrote that the 1969 law “lakes
a personal and private decision away
from the woman and gives it to a commit-
lee. . . . It asserts that the woman's capaci-
ty to reproduce 15 to be subject not to her
own control but to that of the state"

MS | |

NEWARK—A second AIDS virus, dis-
covered three years ago in Africa, has now
made its way to the United States. Re-
searchers at the University of Medicine
and Dentistry of New Jersey say that the
virus, HIV-2, was contracted in Africa by
a patient but that there is no evidence that
it has spread to anyone else in the States.
They refused to release details about the
patient who subsequently developed the
disease. A screening test for HIV-2 is
awailing approval by the Federal Food
and Drug Administration.

-— ARMED WITH PLASTIC ~

In order “to fight against those who
would take ашау our rights to protect
ourselves and our families against crimi-
nals who attack, rob, rape and kill,” The
Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep

and Bear Arms struck an agreement with
a bank lo issue a VISA credit card in
which the bearer can donate one half of
one percent per transaction to the pro-gun
organization. Have card, will travel.

51

52

ШШ DAZE

Schoolhouse gates should bear the warning
‘Abandon rights, all ye who enter here”

In 1983, Cathy Kuhlmeier, a Hazel-
wood, Missouri, high school student and
editor of the school paper, picked up the
May 13 issue of Spectrum and found two
of the six pages missing. It took some
investigation before she identified princi-
pal Robert Reynolds as the person who
had killed two articles before the paper
went to press. What did he kill? Stories
about teenage pregnancy and the im-
pact of divorce on Hazelwood students.

Kuhlmeier went to court, charging

that Reynolds had
violated her First
Amendment
rights. A Federal
district court judge
ruled against her,
then that judg-
ment was over- j
turned by the 4
court of appeals.
Finally, four years
later, the case was
heard by the U.S.
Supreme Court.

In a iremen-
dously controver-
sial and troubling
decision, the na-
tion's highest Court.
ruled five to three
that Kuhlmeier’s
rights had поі
been violated. It
was a green light
to public high
schools’ intellectu-
al traffic cops.

“Students in the
public schools do not ‘shed their consti-
tutional rights to freedom of speech or
expression at the schoolhouse gate,”
declared Justice Byron White, writing for
the majority. “[Nevertheless], the First
Amendment rights of students in the pub-
lic schools ‘are not automatically сосх-
tensive with the rights of adults in other
settings.”

That decision will no doubt be applaud-
ed by conservatives who grant a person full
constitutional rights for the nine months
after conception and then none whatever
for the ensuing 18 years. Those same
conservatives, however, should take note

of a recent Colorado incident in which
three high school students were suspend-
ed after distributing a Christian newspa-
per to other students. Those students,
too, are suing for their rights.

Kuhlmcier and other student editors
who have fought for freedom of speech
are not the only minors who have been
frustrated by the Court. In the past
years, Justices have ruled that many
rights of students “аге not automatical-
ly coextensive with the rights of adults

IT LOSE LIKE NOU WONT
RE KELE Yo PANT NOUR

PENERTED AND OSSCENE | |,
UNTIL GY BEC |
Қата
EDITORIAL САКОО

in other settings.”

Enter the schoolhouse and here are a
few of the rights you lose:

FIRST AMENDM! You do not have the
right to protest an insult, A Federal ар-
pellate court upheld the suspensions of
black students who walked out of a pep
assembly when Dixie was played.

FOURTH AMENDMENT: Your desk and
locker may be searched without war-
rants. Students may be searched with-
out warrant based on “reasonable
suspicion.” In California, merely look-
ing young is enough to justify question-
ing on suspicion of truancy—which can

lead to a search for contraband.

FIFTH AMENDMENT: You do not have the
right to know that you have the right to
remain silent. Principals or other school
administrators are not police officers and,
therefore, do not have to give a Miranda
warning before asking incriminating
questions. Also, they may give a student's.
answers to those questions to the police

SINTH AMENDMENT: You do not have the
right to take an attorney or witnesses to a
hearing involving a short suspension (of
up to ten days).

EIGHTH AMEND
мезі: In some
states, school of-
s may inflict
corporal punish-
ment—even with-
out your parents”
consent. Accord-
ing to the Court,
“The prohibition
against crucl and
unusual punish-
ment was de-
signed to protect
[only] those con-
victed of crime.”

Some students
have resorted to
circumventing the
rules. High school
journalists at Ever-
green High in Syl-
mar, California,
published a survey
of attitudes about
drugs, sex and oth-
er social issues.
The principal pulled the newspaper from
publication because hc judged one sen-
tence to be obscene. The student editors
quit the paper and published a privately
financed alternative paper called Off the
Record. Ws unfortunate that not all in-
fringements of rights lend themselves to
such relatively easy solutions.

The authors of the AC.L.U. hand-
book The Rights of Students (a la-
mentably thin book) note that in 1930, a
Tennessee court ruled that a “child in the
public schools . . . is entitled to as much
protection as a bootlegger." How times
have changed. JOHN DENTINGER

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By CORNING OPTICS

ano wa. CHEVY CHASE

a candid conversation with the actorlcomedian about great mugging,
lousy movies, his days at “saturday night live” and his life since betty ford

More than a decade ago, when МВСУ
“Saturday Night Live” was still being regard-
ed as anything from “sophomoric” to “subver-
sive," one of the casts resident loonies look it
upon himself to make his presence on the
show even more bizarre. "Good evening,” he
began his ly mock-newscast segment,
“I'm Chevy Chase, and youre not.” Then,

with the slightly off sobriety of a Dan Rather
on acid, he would deliver a smug, hip run-

down of the weeks lop news stories.

Conceived and largely written by С
himself, “Weekend Update” was one of many
segments on “Saturday Night Live" that of-
fered a brand of political satire not seen before
on network television, Bul even though the ir-
reverent sketches spotlighted each of the other
talented cast members as well, there was
something about the TV clown’ preppie-hip
persona that tickled viewers’ funny bones. No
matter what he did—artfully pratfalling in
mimicry of the accident-prone then-President
Gerald Ford, or gingerly picking his nose on
camera—he became the shows mainstream
favorite.

Within a few weeks of ils premiere, "Satur-
day Night Live" was a runaway hit, but by
October 1976, after just one season, Chase
got restless and left the show to write, produce
and star in а series of specials fur NBC.

Inevitably, Chase decided movies were the

lase

“The more I see good actors, the more I un-
derstand. What Te been doing is mugging,
getting laughs. Its great entertainment, but
theres another way to go. I could, for in-
stance, learn how to act. That would be nice.”

way lo go. Paramount signed him to star op-
posite Goldie Hawn in a romantic adventure-
comedy called “Foul Play," in which he was
cast as a San Francisco police investigator:
Although the rei
did well at the box office, grossing about
$45,000,000. It was followed by “Caddy-
shack,” in which he played a wealthy but
strange country-club golfer. That, 100, was а
hit, and suddenly Chase—dubbed by some
media pundils as “the new Cary Grant"—
was Hollywoods most sought-after leading
man for light comedy.

Then something happened: By the carly
Eighties, the heady momentum of his meteoric
career hit a snag. A series of mediocre pic-
tures—“Under Ihe Rainbow Modern
Problems" and “Oh! Heavenly Dog"—
caused many critics and fans lo question
whether Chase had sold out to Hollywood.
Reviews were generally scathing and, to add
injury to insult, "Under the Rainbow” was a
boxoffice turkey. In the midst of all that, he
was beset by a series of personal tragedies, іп-
cluding the breakup of his second marriage
and the deaths of two of his closest friends,
Doug Kenney and John Belushi. He turned
to drugs and alcohol, put on weight, mouthed
off on talk shows and became a popular
target among tabloid journalists.

Then came “National Lampoon's Vaca-

ws were mixed, the movie

“Nowadays, anybody can be raked over the
coals on TV. Except Ronald Reagan. You
cant with a guy who has lost his prostate and
half his nose. Nice fella. But it never occurred
to him he might be running the country"

tion,” in which Chase portrayed the bumbling
but enthusiastic Clark Griswold, a typical
middle-class family man who takes his kids
апа wife on an ill-fated car trip across Amer-
ica. A box-office smash (it earned about
$63,000,000), “Vacation” put Chase back on
top and “Fletch.” which came out two years
later, won over his critics, who dubbed it his
comeback film. Here, finally, was a movie
that best took advantage of his good-natured
charm as well as his agile comic characteriza-
попу. “Fletch” did well and, for the first time
in his erralic movie career, Chase was gelling
spectacular reviews.

His next three films —"National Lam-
ons European Vacation,” “Spies Like Us"
and “¡Three Amigos!" —were not greeted
with as much critical enthusiasm, but that
didn't seem to faze the film industry business
machinery: Today, Chase is one of a handful
of leading men able to command more than
$5,000,000 for a picture.

Although he became famous announcing
that he was Chevy Chase and we were not, he
wasn't Chevy Chase, either. He was born Cor-
nelius Crane Chase in New York City оп Oc
tober 8, 1943, but while still a newborn, his
paternal grandmother started calling him
Chevy—perhaps after the Washington, D.C.,
suburb, though no one is quite sure—and the
name stuck. His father, Edward Tinsley

PHOTOGRAPHY BY TONY COSTA
^I thought "Saturday Night Live’ was in the
dumper after just one year. The quality of
writing was never as good. But the present
cast is the best one since the first year. The
girls are better than any we had."

55

PLAYBOY

Chase, a writer and book editor, taught him
the singular importance of a sense of humor.
while his mother, a concert pianist, gave him
an enduring interest in music.

Growing up amid comfortable middle-
class surroundings, Chase attended а num-
ber of prep schools (where, not surprisingly,
he developed a reputation as a class cut-
up) and entered Bard College with the dass
of 1967. There, he took up music—mainly
jamming оп drums—and teamed up with
two fellow students to write and perform
“Channel One,” a satirical stage revue that
lampooned all aspects of TV—including
commercials, kiddie shows, newscasts and
documentaries.

After graduating from college, Chase
wrote spoofs for Mad magazine and ap-
peared as a white-faced mime in public televi-
sions “The Great American Dream
Machine" He made his theatrical debut in
“National Lampoons Lemmings"—an off-
Broadway musical revue satirizing the foibles
of rock-and-roll culture—and later wrote
and performed on the “National Lampoon
Radio Hour,” the cast of which included John
Belushi, Dan Aykroyd, Gilda Radner and
Bill Murray.

In 1974, Chase moved to Los Angeles,
where he wrote material for comedians Alan
King and the Smothers brothers. It was dur
ing that period that he got the big break.
Standing in line to see “Monty Python and
the Holy Grail,” he struck up a conversation
with producer Lorne Michaels, who was
putting together the first cast and crew for
"Saturday Night Live” Michaels was so im-
pressed with Chases impromptu patter, he
offered the 31-year-old comedy writer a job as
the new show's head scribe.

To illuminate the twists, turns and prat-
falls of Chases career, we sent free-lance writ-
er John Blumenthal (who had co-conducted
the “Playboy Interview” with the cast and
writers of “Saturday Night Live" in Мау
1977) to talk with Chase following the com-
pletion of his 14th film, “Funny Farm? His
report:

he last time 1 interviewed Chevy, he had
just left the cast of ‘Saturday Night Live’ and
was about to embark on a new career, At that
time, he seemed a bit uncertain as lo whether
or nol leaving the show had been the right
decision. He was an articulate interviewee
then, quick with the glib repartee, outra-
geously funny and not shy with acid-dipped
put-downs. I was curious to see, ПІ years and
millions of dollars later, if he were still the
same Chevy Chase or if film stardom and
family life had altered his perspective.

“Our first meeting took place just before
Christmas. Chevy, his wife, Jayni, and their
two daughters, Cydney, five, and Caley, three,
live in a modern security-gated complex in
Pacific Palisades. The house is not a man-
sion—just a simple, well-appointed, con-
ventionally comfortable dwelling, mercifully
free of the usual Hollywood trappings; the
sort of place Clark Griswold would buy if he
won the lottery.

“Chevy greeted me on the front lawn and
led me inside. I noted that the intervening 11

years had not aged him much, though he
pointed out a few gray hairs at his temples.
We strolled through the kitchen—which was
alive with pre-Christmas hubbub—managed
not to trip over either of his children and took
a tour through an elaborate recording studio
that had recently been installed in his guest
house, Admilting that he had no idea whatso-
ever how to use the studio, Chevy sat down
near a gargantuan Christmas tree and began
talking.

“Over the course of our conversation, it be-
came apparent that Chevy had mellowed. Al-
though still sardonic, the years had softened
the outrageous, sassy edge. He seemed mis-
trustful of the press and, at limes, guarded,
occasionally even conservative. Nevertheless,
I found him to be candid about his mistakes
and weaknesses, eager to refute some of the
negative legends and more than a little self-
deprecating about the ups and downs of his
checkered film career.

“Since he had just come off the set of his
14th movie, a retrospective look at his films
seemed like an appropriate place to begin.
But first, we had to clear something ир”

PLAYBOY: Whats the biggest misunder-
standing about Chevy Chasc?
CHASE: A lot of people th

I'm shorter

“I felt embarrassed
that I wasnt doing
the heady, edgy,
hard-hitting stuff Га been
doing on ‘S.N.L?”

than 1 am, and that has always bothered
me. Most people think I'm around 57107.
PLAYBOY: And instead?

CHASE: I’m actually 5'11".

PLAYBOY: A serious problem. And the sec-
ond-biggest misunderstanding?

CHASE: 1 think Гус gotten a bad rap from
people who think I'm a smart-aleck, a wise
guy who doesn't care about other pcople's
feclings. But its quite the contrary. Actual-
ly, there aren't too many deep dark secrets
about me. Га also like to state here that 1
am not a bimbo.

PLAYBOY: Noted. With all your popularity
as an actor, there are very ed feelings
about your movies. Ifyou were reviewing a
Chevy Chase film festival, which ones
would you like best?
CHASE: The first Vacation movie was a
great A very funny
picture. Fletch was a good picture.
PLAYBOY: And your least favorite?
CHASE: Modern Problems was awful.
Under the Rainbow. Yo this day, I haven't
seen Oh! Heavenly Dog in its entirety.
PLAYBOY: Let's review the rest, briefly.
What about Caddyshack?

CHASE: Caddyshack was great fun to make,
but every time I see it, E think it's worse. I

ure in many wi

just don't understand my performance, 1
went in thinking I was the funniest man in
the world and could do anything. But when
I saw Caddyshack, 1 realized I couldn't act.
PLAYBOY: Deal of the Century?

CHASE: A piece of shit.

PLAYBOY: Seems Like Old Times?

CHASE: Mediocre.

PLAYBOY: Spies Like Us?

CHASE: I liked it, but a lot of funny stuff
was cut out by the director, John Landis,
which pissed me off.

PLAYBOY: ¡Three Amigos!?

CHASE: Very funny, but again, a lot of the
funny stuff was cut out and replaced with
scenes of lots of Mexicans shooting guns.
PLAYBOY: But most did well at the box of-
fice. Why is your audience so faithful?
CHASE: Beats me. I can’t figure it. No mat-
ter what I do, they keep coming. And I
don't know for sure who my audience is.
PLAYBOY: You don't?

CHASE: Well, children are a big audience
for me. Ten-year-olds. Which is great, be-
cause as I get older, they get older and
they'll stick with me. And I suppose there's
still a band of people who remember me
from Saturday Night Live who enjoy the
stuff I do. So there's a broad base. I'm not
sure I understand why, but it just may be
that my audience expects a certain thing
from me and they usually get it. Even
though they didn’t get it in Modern Prob-
lems or Deal of the Century and those did
well at the box office, too. . . .

T do know this; Pve met a lot of the big
movie stars—the Jack Nicholsons and the
Warren Beattys. Before 1 met them, 1 al-
ways wondered, What makes them such
great actors? And the answer is that what
you get on the screen is pretty much what
you get when you spend time with them. In
other words, they are all pretty much the
same in real life as they are on the screen.
So whatever draws you to people like that
may be an intrinsic part of what they are:
No matter how much they act the crap out
of something, no matter how much m;
up or how many hairpieces they put on,
something about them that's coming out,
their individual charisma. And that may be
why, regardless of what I do, my audience
keeps watching me.

PLAYBOY: You didn't include your first ріс-
turc, Foul Play, in the Chevy Chase film
festival, Any particular reason?
CHASE: 1 was embarrassed when I first saw
that picturc. The audience liked it, but 1
was embarrassed.
PLAYBOY: Why?
CHASE: Because I hated seeing myself uy
to act. At the time, it didn’t feel natural.
What felt natural to me then was Saturday
Night Live, writing sketches, appearing
live, winging it and having fun. Playing a
character who was supposed to be able to
shoot a gun and know about detective
work—actually acting—was а horrible
thought to me. It was very tough. There
was a line in that movie that I'll never for-
get, where I had to say to Goldie Hawn,
You have the most beautiful green cyes

Гус ever seen.” And as I said it, on the
close-up, my mouth would twitch; 1 was so
frightened. I was thinking, God, how do 1
do this? How do I pretend to be something
I'm по?

I felt embarrassed that I wasn't doing
the heady, edgy, hard-hitting stuff Pd been
doing on S.NL. Instead, I was doing ап
easy, romantic role that maybe I could fall
into doing for the rest of my life, and I was
thinking, God help me if that’s what it is
and there’s big money in it.

PLAYBOY: That's what we're getting at: Why
haven't your movies reflected more of the
“heady, edgy, hard-hitting stuff” you
started out with on Saturday Night Live?

CHASE: If you think that I could do in a
motion picture what I did on Saturday
Night Live, you're
nuts. Its a dif
ferent audience, а
different medium, a
different form of ex
pression. "The very
topicality of a show
like Saturday Night
Live changes the ap-
proach. It was polit-
ically oriented and it
put the medium of
down. I
cant do the
things in movies.

The point is,
there's no way to
know what quality
is. It's a subjective
question. I can't tell
you that the quality
of my work on Satur-
day Night Live was
better than the qual-
ity of my work in

television

me

Oh! Heavenly Dog
andards?

By what s
PLAYBOY: I

a kind of movie that

someone like Tim
Conway docs and
theres a kind of

movie that someone

like Albert Brooks

does. There's a dit ААТ ОЯ
ference.

CHASE: Sure, there's a difference. But peo-

ple don't go to the theater to see what a
"Tim Conway movie is about or what an Al-
bert Brooks movie is about. They go to sce
Tim Conway or Albert Brooks. The per-
sonality and charisma are stronger than
the subject of the movie itself. And it hap-
pens to be the same in my case.
Incidentally, Tim Conway and Albert
Brooks are two of the funniest guys in the
world. In fact, Tim Conway probably gets
me laughing harder than Albert Brooks
ever will, but whenever I'm asked who I
think is funny, I always forget Tim Con-
way and end up mentioning Albert Brooks.
PLAYBOY: Most of your movies have also
been criticized as being relatively safe.

Have you made a conscious decision to
stay away from certain topics?

CHASE: Гус made a conscious decision to
stay away from movies that call for nudity
or the use of foul language or drugs. But
that has to do with my private life. 1 have
two little girls and a wonderful wife who
are going to see these pictures. Why take
the chance that you might hurt the people
you're closest to by taking your pants down
and showing off your body like, let's say,
Richard Gere? On the other hand, if I had
Richard Gere's body, I might well take my
pants off.

PLAYBOY: How do you decide which pic-
tures to do and which ones to turn down?
CHASE: It depends. I picked ¡Three Amigos!
because I had always wanted to work with

Whats the

perfect Scotch
to help you

face the
world?

See Page 60

Steve Martin. And I did Spies Like Us be-
cause I had always wanted to work with
Danny Aykroyd. Interestingly enough, I
didn't find Danny as good an actor in
movies as he was in Saturday Night Live.
Acting doesn't come easily for him. But I
wanted to work with him, anyway.
PLAYBOY: What about Under the Rainbow?
CHASE: God knows why I decided to make
that film. I read the script and thought it
Incidentally, it was sup-
posed to be a 55-day shoot, but it turned
into a 110-day shoot, because it was all lit-
tle people, midgets.

PLAYBOY: Why would midgets double the
time?

CHASE: They're half the size of normal peo-

was hilarious.

ple, so everything takes twice as long. It
takes twice as long for them to run across
the set in a chase scene

PLAYBOY: We'll take your word for it. How
do you feel about making sequels—such as
the Vacalion movies?

CHASE: The trouble is, 1 loved the first Va-
cation and hated the second one—Eu-
ropean Vacation. 1 thought it was awful. It
was poorly written, the performance
weren't particularly good and the directing
was crap. As for a third one, we have to
come up with something particularly fun-
ny and different, and the only idea we've
had so far is something {Monty Python
actor] Eric Idle came up with. He thought
it might be funny to set a sequel in Aus-
tralia. That Paul Hogan movie, Kangaroo
Dundee, had just
come out
PLAYBOY:
Dundee.
CHASE: Right, and it
sounded like it might
be fun to do а Vaca-
Поп movie іп the
wilds of Australia—
until Eric started
describing what fun-
nel-web spiders can
do to you.

PLAYBOY: What can
spiders

rocodile”

funnel-web
do to you?
CHASE: Apparently,
if a funnel-web spi-
der bites you, you
have just enough
time to Excuse
me, I have to leave
the room.” And then
you're dead. It
seems they have a
tremendous number

of poisonous ani-
mals in Australia.
But unless the script

is hilarious, I don't
sec it happening. On
the other hand,
should my career
suddenly plummet,
you can be sure that
ГЇЇ be back doing as
many sequels as
possible.

PLAYBOY: What about Caddyshack 11 and
Fletch П?

CHASE: It looks like I will be doing another
Caddyshack, but it will just be a cameo ap-
pearance, as an accommodation to the stu-
dio. As for Fletch II, I don't know; it
depends on the script. Fletch feels very
much like me, so he’s easy to play

PLAYBOY: How is Fletch like you?

CHASE: There's a certain tongue-in-cheek,
cynical attitude about Fletch that is me in
many ways. The way in which he handles
people, the way in which he talks, the way
in which he performs are not unlike the
way Lam with people.

PLAYBOY: Fletch was one of your few critical

57

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successes. In fact, a lot of critics called it
your comeback film. Did you see it as that?
CHASE: I never really understood what they
meant by that. There hasn't been a picture
for which my salary didnt go up a million
bucks cach time. And most of them have
been hits. So when they say comeback, I'm
not sure what they're talking about
PLAYBOY: We assume they mcant it in terms
of the film's critical acclaim.

CHASE: In which case, it wasn't a come-
back; it was actually my first picture, be-
cause Гус never had critical raves. Гус
never been treated well by critics.
PLAYBOY: How do you react to that?
CHASE: I don't particularly care for crit-
ics. There's an ad running now on one
of the local L.A. stations promoting a
movie critic—Steve Kmetko—and it
shows him sitting back and saying, “1 can't
write, I can't act, I can't sing, I can't dance,
so I'm a critic.” And its supposed to be
funny and charming. But basically, that's
the way I sce it. These are guys who can't
do it, so, instead, they bust down a guy
who spends two years of his life making a
picture. In two minutes, on television!

The critics 1 do like are the ones who
write the best. For example, I'll read
Pauline Kael on occasion and IH find that
she’s completely off the beam, but she
writes beautifully. Lovely writing.

I remember saying something about an-
other critic, Rex Reed, on David Letter
man, but I asked Dave to delete it and he
did. It was a typical Chevy Chasc-ism.
PLAYBOY: What's a typical Chevy Chase-
ism?

CHASE: Something better left unsaid on na-
tional television.

PLAYBOY: You want to tell us what it was?
CHASE: No, because it’s better left unsaid in
Playboy, too. It was thoughtless and it was
silly and I'm glad it didn’t come out.
PLAYBOY: But it’s fair to say you don't care
much for Rex Reed?

CHASE: Frankly, I don’t know why Rex says
the things he says. He's hurtful. He's always
saying things about my mo ЕТ
don’t know what they're smoking out there,
but Jesus Christ!” He's generally been per-
sonal about his aflronts and has said on
many occasions that he can’t understand
how anybody could like a guy like me. 1
don’t understand how a guy with that kind
of power can abuse it so thoroughly.

Recently, I saw Rex Reed. I was getting
out of a cab somewhere. 1 hadn't seen him
in years and he knows there's something
going on between us. Anyway, I was with
Steve Martin and his wife, Victoria, and
Jayni, my wife, and Jayni said, “Look,
there's Rex Reed." In my heart of hearts, Ї
was thinking that what Га really like to do
is pick him up with my left hand and slap
him across the face with my right hand, the
way Rod Steiger slapped the guy in In the
Heat of the Night. Bam, bam, bam, bam,
bam. That was my thought. What, in fact, 1
ended up saying was, “Rex, I think you're
going to like my next movie a lot better.”
And I think he will. But I also think that E

understand why there has been so much
bad criticism.

PLAYBOY: Why is that?

CHASE: Because the more I see good actors
and good movies, the more I understand
there has to be an clement of truth in what
you do on the screen. And what Гус been
doing on the screen is mugging. getting
laughs. There's nothing wrong with that;
it’s great entertainment. But there's another
way to go. 1 could, for instance, learn how
to act. That would be nice.

PLAYBOY: Surely, you're not thinking of do-
ing a serious film?

CHASE: Not in the near future, but in my
new film, Funny Farm, 1 don't do any of the
traditional pratfallish, mugging things that
Um known for doing in my movies. And it
changed my view of acting, because the
movie is funnier because of it. It'll either
ruin my carcer or give me a new one.

I just saw my dog walking up the strcet
He shouldn't be out there. Hes a puppy.
OK, he's dead; that's it.

PLAYBOY: Our condolences. What about
your career as a writer? You began by writ-
ing all your own material. Aren't you inter-
ested in writing a movie for yourself?
CHASE: I’m not sure I can. And I'm not
sure I have the time. I don't know how to
usc a computer. 1 have children, a family,
and 1 try to spend most of my time with
them. Also, I just don't have any major film
in my head that's bursting to come ош. Га
probably die trying to finish a script—I'd
be holed up somewhere writing and think-
ing, This is terrible; this is terrible.
PLAYBOY: You wrote the original “Weekend
Update” scripts on Saturday Night Live
Don't you miss doing that kind of political
satire?

CHASE: Yeah, I miss it a lot. Back then, in
1976, it was an clection year and you
couldn't have had better material than
Gerald Ford and all the other guys who
were running.

PLAYBOY: This clection year has had
its share of comedy. Have you followed 1
CHASE: As closely as 1 can. I was trying
very hard to like Gary Hart, alter he came
back into the race. I watched him on 60
Minutes and Nightline and he didn't im-
press me. It was like watching a kid who's
not telling the truth. The way he second-
guessed the question before it came, the
way he would get ready to not quite tell the
truth. Then theres Michael Dukakis. I like
his eyebrows. Everybody does. But, in fact,
I feel sorry for the guys who are running
this yea
PLAYBOY: Wh
CHASE: Because a precedent was set with
Hart, then with Biden. The press wouldn't
have touched those personal things years
ago; they'd just have stayed out of it, Now
they go after anything. Look at Robert
Bork—he was probably more qualified
than he was given credit for, but the media
came down on him and he lost. Of course,
he didn’t look like the kind of guy you'd
want on the Supreme Court. That

Ahab-werewolf beard didn’t help any
PLAYBOY: Isn't your cri
ironic considering your
"Weekend Update” anchor, during which
you savaged practically everybody?

CHASE: No. I think that's good fodder for a
satirical television show, but as the "Week-
end Update” guy, І wouldn't have gone out
and followed Gary Hart around to find out
who he was screwing. What I did was read
the newspapers and make funny remarks
actly an in-

ism of the media

career as the

about the news. So it wasn't es

vestigative situation for me

The problem is, nowadays anybody can
be raked over the coals on television. Any-
body. Except Ronald Reagan, for some
reason, You can’t rake over the coals a guy
who has lost his prostate and half his nose
Hes а granddad
He's a nice fella. But
I don't think it ever
occurred to him that
he might be running
the country
PLAYBOY: Have you
met him?
CHASE: Actually, I
did once. Jayni and I
met the Reagans at
a Kennedy Center
awards ceremony
We went through a
line. It
seems to me that
that is all those guys
do, stand in recei
ing lines. So by the
time we got to him,
he was pretty much
aslecp. It was up to

receiving

about him on Saturday Night Live
PLAYBOY: Such as what?

CHASE: Like when I said that looking into
Ford’s eyes was like looking into 15 milli-
grams of Valium. Actually, that was one of
Michael O'Donoghue' lines, but I said it
on “Weekend Update." It was a funny line,
but making fun of Ford was easy сһсар-
shot stuff. In some cases, I think it might
even have hurt his feelings, and it had little
to do with his effectiveness as President. It
was really just comedy, easy chcap-shot
comedy. Having met the man and gotten to
know him and his family somewhat, I re-
gret some of it, because it’s kind of em-
barrassing to see him now. He's very sweet,
almost grandfatherly. On the other hand,
І loved doing it and would probably

Whats the
perfect Scotch

after a

close shave?

ly?” I went to Michael and said, “You
зу?” So 1 had to send

mean he was a real с
out a form letter apologizing to everybody
whose feelings I'd hurt.

PLAYBOY: That wasn't the last time you got
in trouble for something you said on na-
tional television. There was also the time
you called Cary Grant a “Кото” on the old
Tomorrow show.

CHASE: Now, there's an example of some
fine thinking on my part. It was a typical
wise-ass remark that was misunderstood
PLAYBOY: So he sued you for $10,000,000.
CHASE: And I don't blame him. It was a
stupid thing to say, and I could easily have
had it cut out of the tape, but I thought
maybe he'd laugh. 1 certainly have nothing
against being gay and it wouldn't have
bothered me one
iota whether or not
Cary Grant һай
been as gay as the
day. It didn't have
anything to do with
that

PLAYBOY: How did
the subject come up?
CHASE: Tom Snyder
asked me a question
that Pd been hear-
ing repeatedly from
interviewers for the
past two or three
years, and the qui
tion was, “Has any
body ever told you
you're the next Cary
Grant?” So I simply
lom that no-
"s ever going to

to say hello. be Cary Grant. 1
I think there's an emulate him, but
element of scnility Im nothing like
creeping in there him. Then, for the
PLAYBOY: Did you laugh, I said, “And

talk with him?

CHASE: Yeah, a little

It was the Christmas
season and there
was a Christmas

tree and | made a
comment about the
big, nice
choo-choo train that
going around
the tree and how it reminded me of a child-
hood nobody I knew had ever had. He was
acious enough, but I don't think he had
the slightest idea who I was. Later, when 1
was performing up on stage, he laughed a
lot. He was sitting next to Bob Hope and
when I looked at him, I think Bob was try-
ing to tell him that I was the comedian
who had made fun of Jerry Ford. I don't
think he really remembered, but that’s all
right. It’s hard enough for him to remem-
ber where to go next

Incidentally, Гус gotten to know Jerry
Ford over the past few years, and I find him
to be

wooden le

© 1988 Faberge USA, Inc.

was

n honest person, a terrific guy. Not a
lot of bullshit there. In fact, PIL псу
give myself lor some of the things 1 said

г for-

See Page 60

do it again

By the way, O'Donoghue was also the

writer who gave me the
wards line that got me in a lot of trouble.
PLAYBOY: Refresh our memory.
CHASE: It was a “Weekend Update” item
that Michael wrote about this guy named
Professor Backwards who was killed, shot
to death. I had never heard of Professor
Backwards, but apparently, he was a night-
club entertainer who could speak back-
ward. And Michael wrote that his last
words were “Pleh! Pleh!”

Well, I thought that was fucking hilari-
ous. I said it on the air, and the next thing I
knew, I had letters up the wazoo, saying
“How could you do this to this man’s fami-

Professor Back-

I understand hes a
homo.” And it got a
big laugh, such a big
laugh that when
Tom said, "Let's ed-
it that out,” I said,
“No, let's leave it in;
hell laugh." Had I
picked anyone else,
he would have
laughed. I unfortunately picked a man
who, I guess, was once thought to have
been gay. It hadn't really even occurred to
me that that was an issue, but apparently it
had been an issue in his life and a rather
hurtful one.

Well, somebody showed Grant the
tape—and this man was relatively liti-
gious, anyway; always had a lawsuit go-
ing—so he sued me. And he kept it alive for
about three years. Once he realized I felt
awful about it, he should have forgiven me,
but he just kept it going. Ultimately, I paid
somewhere in the vicinity of $100,000 as a
settlement
PLAYBOY: Did he ever
on-air apology?

ask for a formal

59

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CHASE: As a matter of fact, he did. It was
supposed to be part of the settlement that I
make a public apology. Which Pve never
done. І always thought that that was a very
strange request. I mean, why would he
want me to remind everybody on national
television that Га said he was а homo? I
kept wondering, How would I do that?
Would I go on The Tonight Show and say,
“By the way, Johnny, there's something I'd
like to say. Recently, I called Cary Granta
homo. I'd like to take it back”? What
would that do for Cary Grant? Anyway, I
never did it. But I hereby formally apolo-
gize. Here it is, on paper, at least.
PLAYBOY: Did you ever mect him?

CHASE: At the deposition. It was very fun-
ny, actually. The lawyer asked him, “Mr.
Grant, what were your feelings when you
saw the tape and heard Mr. Chase say that
he understood you were a homo?” And
Grant replied, in his Cary Grant voice, “I
felt I wanted to sue.”

In retrospect, I don't think the whole
mess ingratiated me much with the gay
populace. So my films don't do great in San
Francisco.

PLAYBOY: Here’s a question that should in-
gratiate you with the heterosexual popu-
lace: Have you ever gotten romantically
involved with a co-star?

CHASE: Actually, the only one who stands
out is Goldie Hawn. We were infatuated
with each other. I fell absolutely head over
heels in love with her. And I don't think she
would take offense if I said that she felt al-
most the same way about me.

PLAYBOY: Any other romantic flings?

CHASE: Yeah, Gregory Hines. It really be-
innocently. We were dancing and
hand down the back of my pants.
It was a big surprise to me. And I found it
to be surprisingly delightful. Greg and 1
went out together for a while, maybe two or
three уса
PLAYBOY: Sounds as if you're trying to win
back that gay audience. That's it for ro-
mances on the set?

CHASE: No. There was Benji, of course, but
I don't really want to discuss that relation-
ship. Filthy little mutt. All I can tell you is.
his mouth was very small.

PLAYBOY: Onward. Do you still watch Sat-
urday Night Live—the current version?
CHASE: Yeah, sometimes.

PLAYBOY: Are you surprised that it’s still go-
ing strong?

CHASE: No, I’m not surprised. I thought it
was in the dumper after just one year. I still
think that the quality of the material and
the writing were never as good as they were
the first year. There were some interesting
characters, some better actors, some very
funny moments, but it just got weird. It
wasn't as edgy. And, basically, it had done
what it had set out to do in the first year,
which was to parody television. That had a
real part in my deciding to leave. To this
day, I've not seen any “Weekend Update”
that I've liked as much as the ones we did
the first year.

On the other hand, I think that the

present cast is the best one since the first
year. Phil Hartman is a genius. Jon Lovitz
is brilliant. And the two girls—Jan Hooks
and Nora Dunn—are better than any of
the girls we ever had.

But I think the writing has suffered. It's
not as good, and I’m not sure why. Maybe
Lorne Michaels is not as excited by the
show as he used to be. It’s old hat for him,
and I don’t think he spends as much time in
the area that he’s best at, namely, editing
and rewriting material. So the material
simply isn't honed the way it used to bc.
Plus the staff is too big. You go to a stall
read-through now and there are 50 people
in the room and the material is chosen on
the basis of how many of them laugh.

"They're also missing the kind of weird-
ness that people like Aykroyd and
O'Donoghue and Belushi gave the show in
the old days.

PLAYBOY: There has been some controversy
recently about the old days at S.N.L. In a
book titled Saturday Night: A Backstage
History of “Saturday Night Live,” published
last year, the authors devote a chapter to
you and they don't paint a very pretty pic-
ture.

CHASE: I cried when I read that book. I lit-
crally cried! There were things that were
said about me in that book that were just
total bullshit!

PLAYBOY: Such as what?

CHASE: I don't remember the specifics. If
you'd like to refresh my memory. . . .
PLAYBOY: The authors claim that your early
fame turned you into an “obnoxious ego-
centric,” that you bragged about how much
money you were making, used cocaine
heavily, tried to attract attention to yourself
by riding around in convertibles, took over
the show
CHASE: АП lies. First of all, I was not mal
ing more money than anyone else. So the!
was nothing to brag about. I was not a
heavy cocaine user. That first year
1976—none of us were making enough
money to be heavy cocaine users. Sure,
cocaine was there sometimes and some of
us liked it, but we were pretty moderate in
our use of ft. I understand that after I lefi,
it became horrendous.

As for the other accusations—how can
you try to attract attention to yourself when
you're already getting so much? It’s just not
true. One thing I do recall is that Belushi
used to have his own limo, and sometimes
after the shows, he'd ride around with the
windows open to see if anybody would ге
ognize him, But Jesus Christ, I was spend-
ing most of my time in the studio or the
offices. As for the “obnoxious egocentric”
business, Pd like to know exactly where
they got that quote.

PLAYBOY: It’s unattributed.

CHASE: Right. The authors obviously
talked with people they could get some
spice from, people who had been fired or
who were jealous or who couldn't get their
work on the show. Those guys weren't
there. They have no idea. I'd love to see
them in a dark alley. And Га like to have a

63

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large pair of pruning shears with me.

The fact is, that year was one of the hap-
piest times in my life. And I was never an
“obnoxious egocentric.” Just the opposite.
I was very sensitive to the fact that I was
saying my name every week
PLAYBOY: “I’m Chevy Chase and you're
not"?

CHASE: Right, and that it was a name peo-
ple could easily recognize, more easily than
the names Belushi or Aykroyd, which were
rarely heard and hard to remember. I was
very sensitive to their wants and needs and
to their egos as actors. And the fact is, they
were better actors than I was. So I may
even have been overly cooperative. In my
writing, I would consistently put other peo-
ple into my news items and sketches, people
who had less to do on the show, So it hurt
me to read shit like that.

PLAYBOY: The book also implies that
Belushi resented being upstaged by you.
CHASE: Which is really a put-down of
Belushi, the worst kind of put-down. John
wasn't like that at all. He tended to be bel-
licose about everything, but we all had that
in common, being arrogant young sprouts
at the time. But John was never loud about
my stardom, unless he was being satirical
or sarcastic about it.

PLAYBOY: How did he feel when you left the
show?

CHASE: I think he was probably delighted,
gratified because he would get more atten-
tion and maybe a little bit frightened that
he would have to live up to something.
Which I think he lived up to. Danny, on
the other hand, couldn’t have cared less. He
was upset because he loved me and I loved
him, but he wasn't as ambitious as John.
John was clearly, at the time, ambitious. In
а very natural, human way. There was
nothing mean or bad about John.

Incidentally, it was O'Donoghue and I
who pushed Lorne Michaels into audition-
ing Belushi for Saturday Night Live. Lorne
didn’t really think he wanted John on the
show, because John had made some re-
marks about hating television or something
and Lorne was afraid he would be a down-
er. I don’t think he knew how funny John
could be.

PLAYBOY: Did your relationship with
Belushi change after you left the show?
CHASE: After I left, I moved to California,
got married and attempted to start a new
life. John was still in New York, so we
didn’t see much of each other. When I did
see him again, he was finally getting his
share of the fame and was pretty high on
the hog.

I remember one time I went to sec him
at the Beverly Hills Hotel. It was just after
Animal House came out, and he was quite
famous. He had a bunch of his cronies
around him and I could barely get into his
hotel room. Those guys were huge Hell's
Angels types with beards, pusher types.
And when I finally got to talk with John, 1
found him to be a little upset with his fame.
PLAYBOY: How so?

CHASE: It was funny, really. He said,

“Jesus, Chevy, when people see you on t
street, they go, ‘Hey, Chev, how ya doin’
When they эсс me, they hit me.” It was
funny to me that people just considered
him to be a human punching bag.

John also got more deeply involved with
drugs than I did. As involved as I was dur-
ing that period, it was toa lesser extent and
with a different crowd. So we didn't really
have much of a relationship after that,
though there were a few occasions when he
visited me and my wife and was distraught
over his use of coke and said that he want-
ed to get off it but didn’t know how. I felt
that he had a real problem.

But at the time, I was taking it and 1
didnt feel that 7 had a problem. By the
time you think you have a problem, you're
half dead.

PLAYBOY: There were rumors that during
that period you were doing $4000 worth of

inc a wee

That's ridiculous. I never spent that
kind of money. 1 took it in small incre-
ments, a little at a time, over a period of
years. At the time, we didn’t know it was
addictive. We just knew that we had money
to spend and that it was a great high.

And there were other reasons—I was
pretty badly shaken over my separation
and divorce and I tended, during that peri-
od, to take drugs to dull my feelings. 1
didn’t know at the time that that was what
I was doing, but basically, I was keeping
my feelings from being seen or felt. And it
always seemed that I could drink more and
do more drugs than anybody else and still
appear to be straight.

John, on the other hand, was alw;
the line when it came to taking an;
drug, He was like a brick. He could take
more than anybody and still, somehow, re-
main upright, like some sort of Bozo doll.
Once in a while, we'd have to carry him
around, but he was about the same height
lying on his side as he was standing on his
feet, so it didn’t matter.

PLAYBOY: When was the last time you saw
him?

CHASE: A couple of months before he died.
He had a bodyguard with him, a guy
named Smokey, who had been one of Presi-
dent Ford’s Secret Service guards. John
had hired him to keep him off drugs and
get him in shape for a new movie, a roman-
tic comedy called Continental Divide. lt
was, incidentally, a script I had turned
down.

Anyway, whenever John and I got to-
gether, we were very warm and loving. But
whenever there were other people around
us, he tended to be more jealous, more
anxious, more sarcastic, sometimes even a
litle pushy. Quite frankly, over the last
couple of years of his life, he was an ass-
hole. And I think a lot of his friends were
put off by it.

I remember one time, I went back to
New York to see one of the shows and there
was a party afterward in the Village. It
was around the time Animal House had be-

come a hit. John was in a bathroom stall
and he was yelling to me something to the
effect that he now made more money than I
did. It was a little strange for John, but 1
wrote it off at the time, figuring he was just
оп a cloud. Not necessarily from drugs but
from all the attention he was getting.
PLAYBOY: What were your reasons for not
going to his funeral?
CHASE: I was against going to his funeral
because I thought it would become a media
event and a shambles, which I found per-
sonally distasteful. 1 cared too much about
him. I loved him. And I did not want cam-
era shots of me and other Saturday Night
Live people shedding crocodile tears.
PLAYBOY: Another one of your close friends,
Doug Kenney [cofounder of The National
Lampoon and one of the writers of Animal
House}, died two years before Belushi.
CHASE: That's right. Doug was the first of
the casualties. To this day, no one’s really
sure exactly how he died. A lot of people
think he committed suicide. But I just don’t
believe that.
PLAYBOY: What's your theory?
CHASE: Doug and I had gone to Hawaii to
dry out. I left Hawaii and Doug stayed on.
I got a call from him a couple of days later
and he sounded sad and depressed. I don’t
know why. But the last thing you'd have ex-
pected Doug to do was to take his own life.
There's a possibility that it was an acci-
dent, that he fell. That makes a little more
sense to me, because if you stepped too far
out on that cliff, the dirt would give way.
And that was the explanation the police
had given us, that the dirt had given way.
On the other hand, if I recall correctly,
his shoes were apparently still at the top of
the cliff. Which is a little odd, because I re-
member a joke I'd pulled on Doug at the
Hyatt Regency on Maui before 1 left. I was
on the balcony and I had my cowboy boots
on. He was in the other room and I just
went “Abhhhbhhhhh,” like I was falling,
and he rushed out to the balcony. I was
hidden behind the curtains and all he saw
were my boots. So it looked like 1 had
jumped out of my boots. So, naturally, 1
‘wondered if Doug had pulled some incredi-
bly strange suicide joke, but as I said, I
can't believe that he was ever that unhap-
py. So I tend to doubt that. Which leads me
to the conclusion that maybe somebody
gave him a push. I have nobody to accuse
of it, but there's the possibility that he got
mixed up with the wrong kind of people.
PLAYBOY: Pushers?
CHASE: Maybe. We met some strange types
on Maui. And Doug was not afraid of
meeting people like that. So it’s not unfath-
omable that he might have wanted to buy
something and someone took his money
and pushed him. On the other hand, 1 have
no evidence to support that, I just can’t be-
lieve he committed suicide. I mean, what
did he do, take his shoes off and walk
through the briars to the edge of the cliff?
PLAYBOY: You've been fairly open about
your problems with coke and alcohol, but

you also became addicted to painkillers.
CHASE: That was a few years later. I got
hooked on psychoactive drugs—Percodan
and Percocet—which I was taking for my
back. As you know, I've spent much of my
career pratfalling without padding up or
taking any other precautions. Over the
years, I’ve really worn myself down, so I
have an illness called degenerative-disc
disease, which once you have, you can't get
rid of, and which is rather painful. And I
got hooked on painkillers.
PLAYBOY: When did you first realize you
had a problem?
CHASE: At Gerald Ford’s Humor and the
Presidency Seminar in 1986. It was one of
the worst times Гус ever had.
PLAYBOY: How so?
CHASE: I was a nervous wreck. I was hav-
ing panic attacks and I couldn't stop sweat-
ing. I was scared to death. I was shaking in
my boots. At the time, I couldn't under-
stand what it was. And what it turned out
to be was withdrawal from the painkillers
Pd been taking. Ї had run out of pills. The
problem was, I was hooked

When we got home, Jayni got me and my
doctors together one afternoon. We were
ostensibly all going to play tennis, but only
onc of my doctors had his tennis clothes on.
‘The other one was in a suit. And I had this
strange intuitive sense that something was
going on, some sort of “intervention.” And
that’s exactly what it was. Jayni appeared
in the room in tears, and then they were
saying, "Chev, we think you've got a prob-
lem with prescription drugs and theres on-
ly one way to get out of it. We know a place,
the most private place in the country. . . .”
PLAYBOY: The Betty Ford Center?
CHASE: Right. Only it's not the most private
place in the country. Far from it. In fact, it
wouldn't surprise me if everybody there is
on the National Enquirers payroll. | got
there and registered under my doctor's
brother’s name, and within an instant,
there was a photographer outside my win-
dow. The next day, Jayni was followed by
two reporters from the Enquirer.
PLAYBOY: How had they found out you were
there?
CHASE: Somebody called my home, my pri-
vate line, pretending to be Tim Hutton and
saying he needed to get in touch with me to
wish me a happy birthday or something. I
hardly knew Tim Hutton—I°d met him
once on a plane—but Jayni didn't know
that. So she got conned into giving him the
Betty Ford Centers phone number. He
asked if 1 was there, they said yes and he
hung up. And the next thing I knew, it was
all over the papers.

CHASE; We called the therapy
ding” They get you to believe that you're
at death's door, that your family is at
death's door, that you've ruined it for ever
body, that you're nothing and that you've
got to start building yourself back up
through your trust in the Lord. Lots of
(continued on page 162)

FICTION

In DAVID FOSTER WALLACE

\

“he likes to make himself
look as ridiculous
as the guest,” i said to
rudy. he answered, “that's
what makes him
so dangerous”

лм А woman who appeared in pub-
lic on Late Night with David Letler-

man on March 22, 1989.
In the words of my husband,
Rudy, | am a woman whose face
and attitudes are known to some-
thing over half of the measurable
population of the United States,
whose name is on lips and covers
and screens. Whose hearts heart is invisi-
ble to the world and unapproachably hid-
den. Which is what Rudy thought could
save me from all this appearance implied
he week of March 19, 1989, was the
week David Letterman's varicty-and-talk
show featured a
the private activities and pastimes of ex-
ecutives at NBC. My husband and I sac-
rificed sleep and stayed up late, watching,
My husband, whose name in the enter-
tainment industry is better known than
his face, had claimed at first to be neu-
trally excited about the call Ва gotten
from Late Night, though by the time he'd
been driven home, he was beginning to
worry that this particular public appear-
ance could present problems. He knew
and feared Letterman; he claimed to
know that Letterman loved to savage
female guests. It was on a Sunday that

ILLUSTRATION BY NICK BACKES

PLAYBOY

Rudy told me we would need to formulate
strategies for my appearance on Late
Night, March 22nd was to be a Wednes-
day.

On Monday, viewers accompanied
David Letterman as he went deep-sea
fishing with the president of NBC’s news
division. The executive, whom my hus-
band had known and who had a pappus
of hair sprouting from each red ear,
owned a state-of-the-art boat and rod and
reel, and apparently deep-sea fished
without hooks. He and Letterman fas-
tened bait to their lines with rubber
bands.

"Hes waiting for the bastard to even `

think about saving holy mackerel,” my
husband said, smoking.

On Tuesday, Letterman perused
NBC's chief of creative. development's
huge collection of refrigerator magnets.
He said, "Is this entertainment, ladies
and gentlemen? Or what?"

I had the bitterness of a Xanax on my
tongue.

We had Ramon haul out some video
tapes of old Late Night episodes, and
watched them.

“How do you feel?” my husband asked.

In slow motion, Letterman let drop
from a roof 20 floors above a cement
lot several bottles of champagne, some
fruit, a plate-glass window and what
looked, for only a moment, like a piglet.

“The hokeyness is vital,” my husband
said as Letterman dropped a squealing
piglet off what was obviously only a pre-
tend roof in the studio; we saw something
fall a long way from the original roof to
hit cement and reveal itself to be a stuffed
piglet. “But that doesn't make him be-
nign." My husband got a glimpse of him-
self in our viewing room's black window.
“I dont want you to think the hokeyness
is real.”

*] thought hokeyness was pretty much
by definition not real.”

He directed me to the screen, where
Paul Shaffer, David Letterman’s musical
side-kick and friend, was doing a go-
figure with his shoulders and his hands.

We had both taken Xanaxes before Ra-
mon set up the video tapes. I also had a
glass of Chablis. I was very tired by the
time the magnets were perused and dis-
cussed,

My husband, watching, said, “This
could be very serious.”

.

The call had come from New York the
Friday before. The caller had congratu-
lated me on my situation comedy being
picked up for its fifth season and asked
whether Га like to be a guest on the next
"s Late Night with David Letterman,
ng Mr, Letterman would be terribly
pleased to һауе me оп. 1 tentatively
agreed. I have few illusions left, but Pm
darn proud of our show’s success. I have a
good character, work hard, play her well,

and practically adore the actors and peo-
ple associated with the series. I called my
agent, my unit director and my husband.
I agreed to accept an appearance on
Wednesday, March 22nd. That was the
only interval Rudy and I had free in a
weekly schedule that denied me even two
days to rub together: My own series tapes
Fridays, with required read-throughs and
rehearsals the day before, Even the 22nd,
my husband pointed out over drinks,
would mean leaving LAX very early
Wednesday morning, since I was con-
tracted to appear in an Oreo commercial
through Tuesday. My agent had thought
he could reschedule the cookie shoot—
the people at Nabisco had been very ac-
commodating throughout the whole
campaign—but my husband had a rule
for himself about honoring contracted
obligations, and, as his partner, I chose
also to try to live according to this rule. It
meant staying up terribly late Tuesday to
watch David Letterman and the piglet
and refrigerator magnets and an unend-
ing succession of eccentrically talented
pets, then catching a predawn flight the
next morning: Although Late Night's tap-
ing didn’t begin until 5:30 E.S.T., Rudy
had gone to great trouble to arrange a
conference with Dick beforehand, to help
me prepare to handle and be handled by
Letterman.

Before I fell asleep Tuesday night,
David Letterman had Teri Garr put on a
Velero suit and fling herself at a Velcro
wall. That night, his Late Night Bookmo-
bile featured a 1989 Buyers Guide to New
York City Officials, Lettcrman held the
book up to view while Teri hung behind
him, stuck to the wall several feet off the
ground.

“That could be you,” my husband
said, ringing the kitchen for a glass of
milk.

Letterman offered up a false promo for
a cultural program ABC had supposedly
decided against inserting into next fall's
line-up. The promo was an understated
clip of four turbaned Kurdistani rebels,
draped in small-arms gear, taking time
out from revolution to perform a Handel
quartet in a meadow lush with purple
flowers. The bud of culture flourishing
even in the craggiest soil was the come-
on. Letterman cleared his throat and
claimed that ABC had finally submitted
to conservative PT.A. pressure against
the promo. Paul Shaffer, to a drum roll,
asked why this was so. Letterman
grinned with an cmbarrassment Rudy
and 1 both found attractive. There were,
as usual, ten answers. Two I remember
were “Gratuitous Sikhs and violets” and
“Gratuitous sects and violins.” Everyone
hissed with joy. Even Rudy laughed,
though he claimed no such program had
been commissioned by ABC. I laughed
sleepily and shifted against his arm,
which was along the back of the couch.

David Letterman also said, at various
intervals, “Some fun now, boy.” Every-
one laughed. 1 can remember not think-
ing there was anything especially
threatening about Letterman, though the
idea of having to be peeled offa wall up-
set me.

.

Nor did 1 care one bit for the way the
airplane's ready, slanted shadow rushed
up the runway to join us as we touched
down. By this time, I was quite upset. 1
even jumped and said “ОМ” as the
planes front settled into its shadow on the
landing. I broke into tears, though not
terribly. I am a woman who simply cries
when she’s upset; it does not embarrass
me. My husband touched my hair. He ar-
gued that I shouldn't have a Xanax,
though, and I agreed.

“You'll need to be sharp,” was the rea-
son. He took my arm.

The NBC driver put our bags far be-
hind us; I heard the trunk’s solid sound.

“You'll need to be both sharp and pre-
pared,” my husband said. He ran his
arm, which was well built, along the top
of the leather back seat. He invited me to
rest my head against him.

But I was irritable by now. Much of my
tension about appearing, I knew, was
Rudy's own fault. “Just how much prepa-
ration am I supposed to need?" I said.
Charmian and I had already conferred
long distance about my appearance.
She'd advised solidity and simplicity. I
would be seen in a plain blue outfit, no
jewelry. My hair would be down.

Rudy's concerns were very different.
He claimed to fear for me.

“1 don't see this dark thing you seem to
see in David Letterman,” 1 told him.
“The man has freckles. He used to be a
local weatherman, He's witty, So am 1,
Rudy.” I did want a Xanax. I turned in
the back seat to look at him. “I honestly
don't sce what about me is savageable.”

As we were driven up through a bor-
ough and extreme southeast Manhattan,
my husband became anxious that the
NBC driver, who was young and darkly
Hispanic, might be able to hear what we
were saying to each other, even though
there was a thick glass panel between us
in back and the driver up front, and an
intercom in the panel had to be activated
to communicate with him. My husband
felt at the glass and at the intercom's
grille, The drivers head was motionless
except to check traffic in mirrors. The ra-
dio was on for our enjoyment; classical
music drifted through the intercom.

“Why do you insist Letterman is
mean? We watched the show. He didn’t
seem particularly mean.”

Rudy tried to settle back as serious
Manhattan began to go by. “This is the

(continued on page 88)

ga |
n
Li i |
. 2

PHOEBE

manhattan's a meltdown for this plymouth rocker

text by BRUCE WILLIAMSON

HE MAY look like the
queen of camp, but dont let the far-out threads fool

you. Phoebe Légère is a pulchritudinous pop-rock phenomenon

who presents herself
gaudily gift-wrapped in a

style she likes to call “my

insane-Pilgrim look
The Pilgrim reference is
well taken, because
Phoebe, a Mayflower de-
seendant and Vassar
graduate who studied pi-
ano at the New England

Conservatory of Music,

VU NH t Amaretto di

7%.
demilegend among the

night people of New York's downtown underground cultural scene.
She rocks, she shocks, she shakes the rafters playing piano, accor-

dion or hot-pink guitar. And she sings—with a pure, remarkable

four-and-a-hal-octave range that makes Madonna sound tone-
deaf. There's no reason to suspect that the sultry blonde Légère
preening in those ads for Amaretto liqueur is a bombshell of tal-
ent as well, yet Phoebe has wowed audiences from Manhattan's
Carnegie Recital Hall and the trendy ‘Tramps to the Hilton Hotel

in Nairobi. Backed by her band, Blond Fox, she's currently steam-

ing up movie screens in Mondo New York, a celebration of the bad

and beautiful downtown entertainment world, where drag queens,

PHOTOGRAPHY BY RICHARD FEGLEY

71

one da

a ver
very Оо v
Frog noa д Com.

perverts, nudists, masochists, rap
singers and legitimate perform-
ing artists mingle. Phocbe's show-
stopper is Marilyn Monroe, her
own composition, released as a
single by Great Jones Records
and inspired by a dream she had
after watching Some Like It Hot
on TY, But let Phoebe tell it: “In
my dream, I was swimming with
Marilyn, and she sang a lovely
song in my car... . | woke up,
and as the sun came over the hill,
I wrote the song.” Fanciful, may-
be. Typical, also, of the pearls is-
suing from the painted crimson
lips of a free spirit whose life liter-
ally began with a bang. “I was
born on July 4, 1961, in Lexing-
ton, Massachusetts. Légére is my
real name, and I am obsessed
with music and beauty; can't you
tell?” She paints, sketches, dc-
signs crotic lingerie, undaunted
by any art form. Says Phocbe, “1
never met an art 1 didn't like.”
Phoebe credits Vassar for
outfitting her with aplomb as an
articulate sex symbol who can

rattle on about the works of Plato,

The protean Phoebe Légère, on а
stairway to stardom (right), sketches
a storyboard all her own (starting at
left). “This is my sexual fantasy. I'm
dying to make it come true, if some-
‘one will just book me on the Riviera.”

Her story goes on, and so does Phoebe the unstoppable, who has
mastered seven musical instruments and overcome her New England
inhibitions. “Rock and rollis a virile art form," says she. “I'm glad that
when І see men looking at Playboy. | know they're looking at me.”

Kant, Darwin and Count Basie without
missing a beat. “The art director who does
the Amaretto ads fell in love with me from
a song I sang, Sex Object, which I had writ-
ten as part of a performance spectacular
called Folies Légère. That 1 describe as total
art synthesis. І had with me the tallest,
most beautiful nubile women I could find,
all undulating through the creation myth. I
took the audience through five billion years
of earth's history in half an hour. . .. Well,
of course, you put Darwinism together with
high-fashion tits and atonal music, you have
the makings of a big flop. Everybody hated
it.” Except the art director from Amaretto.
Nowadays, her mixed reviews are more

often mixed (text concluded on page 132)

ЕГІЛЕ,
Яш shams,

UCI
AMD, PEL, е Zell
J шы him om
ses and be asks” iF he com

2-
bey 7

Phoebe wraps ир both fictional and photo fantasies in her own

5: “I'd perform nude if I could. But | try to leave as much
of my body showing as possible. It's one of the most beauti-
ful things God ever made, don't you think?" Who's to argue?

hand painted M

SEU.

to produce presidential timber, we've resorted to graft

The

COmPosITé
CANDIDATE

satire by

Lewia Gnosabengen

тох 1988 is nearly upon us, with its challenge to choose a President
of bold vision, courage and leadership, a challenge that will be ren-
dered even more difficult than usual by an appalling field of candi-
dates

“The two major parties find themselves in differing circumstances. While the
Democrats have fielded one scandal-ruined unelectable spoiler and multitudes of
tiny, irritating mouselike ciphers whom по one cares about, the Republicans have
two well-known, distinguished leaders of great stature and accomplishment
whom no one can stand.

What does all this portend? An clection so dreary that not even three fully
pufled-up network anchors can make it interesting. A country governed by a
President elected by maybe 16 voters.

Is it ever time for a change.

Which is why. in the name of public service, we have come up with the Emer-
gency Gomposite Candidate Replacement Plan.

And quite a nifty little proposal it is, the kind of idea doable only in a hip,
forward-looking, solution-oriented nation like ours. Enlisting the aid of modern
medicine and science fiction (if, in fact, there is a difference between the two), we
selected the best bits of the present mediocrities (whether running, formerly run-
ning ог coyly nonrunning) and constructed two glory-bound supercandidates.

So cast off those preconvention worries and look to the following pages, where
the brightest and the best meet the genetically impos

ILLUSTRATIONS BY STEVE BROONER

Albert Gore's Pot—Ap-
DEMOCRATIC CANDIDATE peals to baby boomers.
(Caution: Candidate must

not have taken more than
опе puff, long ago, and

Gay "Hats. ӘЕКгіп- must be terribly sorry.)

spired Hair.
The Dukakis Proboscis—
With the ethnic vote, you
could win by a nose.

Paul Newman's Eyes.
The Thoughts of Joe

Biden—For those ringing
oratorical flourishes that
set a campaign apart.
Paul Simons Character-
Building Accessories—
Sincerity package рго-
vides instant integrity and
dispels slick, manufac-
tured image.

Jesse Jackson's Rappin'
Rhythm—Helps win over
minority audiences.

Jimmy Carter's Common
Touch—An inexpensive
but endearing prop.

The Kennedy Charis-
ma—Fading but still po-
tent.

Tip O'Neill's Pot—Reas-
sures traditional blue-col-
lar constituents.

Gary's Heart—Voters
want a Prez with lust in
his heart, or wherever.

Mario Cuomos Mona
Lisa Smile—For that oh- 2
so-intriguing ambivalence. - <<

Dick Gephardt's Legs—
Flexible, to support іп-
Bill Bradley's Sneakers— stant shifts of position.
Everyone loves an intel-

lectual jock.

%
K
lee SRN |

REPUBLICAN CANDIDA’
Pat Robertson's Direct

Line to God—No evange- Charlton Heston's Ғасе-
list can resist. Is this guy Presidential or
Jack Kemp's J.FK-inspired Hair. what?

Jerry Ford's Trusty Par-
doning Pen—A G.O.R
necessity due to surfeit of
Reagan Administration
figures facing convictions.

The Kissinger Drone—Evokes
G.O.P's golden era in foreign
policy and war crimes.

“Vemustachieve hegemony
but vid rapprochement,
uddervise our deterrence vill be
` compromised by de strategic,
etc., and de nuclear vhatcha-
macallit vid de geopolitical
blah, blah, blah. . . "

| /
Al Haigs Backbone—
Affirmative strategy factor
for electioneering mode.

Clint Eastwood's Mag-
num—Guarantees vital
redneck-geek vote.

Robert Borks Beard—
Signals solidarity with tar-
right lunatic fringe.

Ollie Norths Medals—
Suck in the superpatriots
every time.

Richard Nixon's Never- Presenta Polyps—
$ gain sympathy
Say-Die Heart—Allows en 10
Candidate to recover from 2 and distract from flaws.
fatal blows.

Famous Reagan Shield —
Wards off accusations
of incompetence.

5

S

George Bushs Record —
For the multitudes who
are more impressed by Pierre du “Pont IV's
quantity than by quali Croquet — Mallet—Blue-
blood tool for smacking
down upstart masses.

Arnold Schwarzenegger s
Physique—Subtly dis-
pels negative image left Bush Ball Bearings—
over from partys Bush/ Quick-escape system
wimp identification. from press questions on
Iran arms deal.
Jeane Kirkpatrick's Chutz-

pah—Toughest man in
the house. i

We've come into possession of a memo designed to get the new Administration off to a flying start.
Peek if you must, but this is classified, so, please keep it quiet, OK?

FROM THE DESK OF THE GIPPER

Dear George or Bob . . . gosh, I sure hope it's
one of you guys. Well, whoever:

I guess you're wondering why I'm not here to shake
your hand and help you drive down Pennsylvania
Avenue waving to the cheering crowd.

I know it's supposed to be a big tradition and
all, but, doggone it, I'd just had it up to here
with Washington, so I said to Nancy, "Say, what's
the harm if we bug out for the ranch a little
bit early?"

So we left eight months ago.

And you know the funny part? Nobody noticed!
What most folks don't realize is that the country
pretty much runs itself. Heck, I didn't realize
it myself when I first came in. Ed Meese said

to me, "Ron, you just keep your eye on the big
picture; let me and Mike Deaver and Ollie North
worry about the details." Well, I have, and you
know how well it worked out.

Of course, there's no way I would duck out on

my responsibility to brief my successor. The
world's just too complex and dangerous for that.
So I got on the horn and dictated this note to
Howard Baker, and he promised to leave it on your
desk, right next to that big red button, where you
can't miss it. (And, for heaven's sake, be sure
not to touch that thing. The Pentagon will send
someone around to explain it before long.)

So here's the low-down:

Now, I've heard all the nonsense about what a
jam the next President's going (concluded on page 147)

fashion By HOLLIS WAYNE
IT TAKES approximately two seconds
for Olympic gold medalist Greg Lou-
ganis to go off the deep end. The time
he spends airborne may be golden in
the eyes of his fans, but hitting the
water at 35 miles per hour off the ten-
meter (33 feet) board still “hurts
some,” Louganis confided in an aw-
shucks-it's-no-big-deal-to-do-this-50-
to-80-times-a-day kind of way Now

28, Louganis, of course, was the di
ing darling of the 1984 Olympic Sum-
mer Games in Los Angeles, where he
picked up two gold medals while
redefining the expression personal

best. Other accolades: a silver medal

ouganis descends in a trim nylon-and-
Lycra racing tank suit with а handsome
ted, yellow and blue stars-and-stripes print
on the front. a nylon-Lycra lining and a handy
drawstring waistband, by Speedo America, $23.

PHOTOGRAPHY BY LANCE STAEDLER

in 1976 (when he was 16 years old), five
world championships, 21 world titles in
three-meter springboard diving and 26
world titles in ten-meter platform diving.
Plus, he is the only diver to score a per-
fect ten in national and international
competition. A singular accomplishment.

What's a typical workout day in the life
of a diving superstar? Louganis begins
with stretching exercises, followed by one
hour and a half of video-taped diving at
the Mission Bay Aquatic Training Center
in Boca Raton, Florida (where our fea-
ture was photographed). Then comes
weight lifting, then back and front somer-
saults to quicken his reflexes and, finally,
an aerobics class.

Staying fit also means cating right. “I
watch my intake of fat,” says Louganis,
who sometimes struggles to keep trim.
“Му major weakness is Häagen-Dazs ice
cream, but I eat it only once a month.”

The moment of truth comes, naturally,
when Louganis has to slide his 160-
pound, 5'9” frame into a form-fitting tank
suit or brief—like those pictured on these
pages. Since he is sponsored by Speedo
America (as is the rest of the U.S. diving
team), the brand of bathing suit he'll be
wearing this summer at the Olympic
games in Seoul, Korea, is no secret
(we're betting he'll qualify at the trials in
August). But from the variety of suits
shown here, it’s obvious that there’s no
shortage of styles to choose from; trim
guys like Louganis will probably opt for

swimskins (swim versions of cycling

erial perfection (left) in a silver nylon-
Lycra swim brief with multicolor abstract
print and an elastic waistband, from
Swim by Darling Rio, $25. Right: Multicolor cotton
trunks with a geometric print, by Paul Smith, $80.

9777777

shorts), bikinis and volleyball-length
trunks in hot colors and splashy prints.
Those who are built more like John Can-
dy, however, may feel more comfortable
in.a pair of looser-fitting boxer trunks—
very trendy these days.

Even Louganis, of course, does not
spend all his time in a swimsuit. “When
I'm not vegging out in front of the TV,
I'm working on my book, which is tenta-
tively titled A Single Obsession. It’s about
what Гуе learned about competition and
myself. Despite all those long hours of
training, diving is only part of my life.
There are other things out there.”

But out on the board, ready to launch
himself into space, Louganis doesn’t let
anything get in the way of his concentra-
tion. “I visualize a dive to music,” he
says. “I definitely don’t sce a dive as lines
and angles, I look at it as a fluid perform-
ance. Janet Jackson’s Control is inspira-
tional: I can relate to it since I’m also
taking control of my life.”

Louganis, a bachelor, does have a spe-
cial lady, though they haven't revealed
any plans to marry. When he’s not train-
ing or writing or vegging, he makes
personal appearances іп California,
campaigning in schools against the use
of drugs. Louganis’ major public ap-
pearance, of course, should come in
Seoul. Judging from his past perform-
ance and his form on these pages,
the champion should be looking good.
(Additional reportage on Louganis by
Phil Cooper and Elizabeth Owens.)

ives don't get any better than this. Left:
Louganis performs a dive in the pike posi-
tion wearing a nylon-Lycra swimskin suit,
by Speedo America, $29. Right: Louganis’ suit is
a pair of nylon Supplex trunks, by Leggoons, $28.

APPROVED BY U.S. DIVING

PLAYBOY

88

ШІ

(continued from page 68)

“Rudy smiled grimly. ‘She thinks Letterman's really

going to be like what she sees.

man, Sue, who publicly asked Christie
Brinkley what state the Kentucky Derby
is run in."

I remembered what Charmian had
said on the phone and smiled. “But was
she or wasn’t she unable to answer cor-
rectly?”

My husband smiled, too. “Well, she
was flustered,” he said. He touched my
cheek, and I his hand. 1 began to feel less
jittery.

He used his hand and my cheek to
open my face toward his. “And Sue,” he
said, “meanness is not the issue. The
issue is ridiculousness. The bastard feeds
on ridiculousness like some enormous
Howdy-Doodyesque parasite. The whole
show feeds on it; it swells and grows when
things get absurd. Letterman starts to
look gorged, dark, shiny. Ask Mary
Moore about that. Ask Charmian or
Dick. You've heard them. Dick could tell
you stories that'd curl your toes."

I had a compact in my pursc. My skin
was sore and hot from on-air make-up for
two straight days. "He's likable, though,”
I said. “Letterman. When we watched, it
looked to me as though he likes to make
himself look ridiculous as much as he
does the guests. So he’s not a hypocrite.”

We were in a small grid lock. A dishev-
eled person was trying to clean the limou-
sine's windshield with his sleeve. Rudy
tapped on the glass panel until the driver
activated the intercom. He said we
wished to be driven directly to Rocke-
feller Center, where Late Night taped, in-
stead of first going to our hotel. The
driver neither nodded nor turned.

“That's what makes him so danger-
ous," my husband said, lifting his glasses
to massage the bridge of his nose. “The
whole thing feeds on everybodys ridicu-
lousness?"

The vagrant fell away as the young
driver leaned on his horn. We were driven
west and slightly uptown; from this dis-
tance, I could see the building where Let-
terman taped and where Dick had an
office on an upper floor.

“It will be on how your ridiculousness
is seen that whether you stand or fall de-
pends,” Rudy said, leaning into my com-
pact's view to square the knot of his tie.

Less and less of Rockefeller’s skyscrap-
ers were visible as we approached. I
asked for half а Xanax. | am a woman
who dislikes confusion; it upsets me. 1
wanted, after all, to be both sharp and
relaxed.

E

“Appear,” my husband corrected,

“both sharp and relaxed.”
.

“You will be made to look ridiculous,”
Dick said. He and my husband sat on a
couch in an office so high in the building
my ears felt as they’d felt at take-off. I
faced Dick from a mutely expensive chair
of canvas stretched over steel. “That's not
in your control,” Dick said, raising his
glass to his little mouth. “How you re-
spond, though, is.”

“If he wants to make me look silly, I
guess he's welcome to try,” I said. “I
guess.”

Rudy swirled the contents of his own
glass. “That's just the attitude Гус tried
to get her to cultivate,” he told Dick. His
ісе made a sound as he crossed his legs
and looked at Dick’s white cat. He smiled
grimly. “She thinks he's really going to be
like what she sees.

The two of them smiled, shaking their
heads.

“Well, he isn’t really like that, of
course,” Dick told me, Dick, who is
NBC's vice-president in charge of broad-
cast resources, has maybe the smallest
mouth I have ever seen on a human face,
though my husband and I have known
him for years, and Charmian, and they've
been dear friends. His mouth is utterly lip-
less and its corners are sharp; the mouth
seems less a mouth than a gash in his
head. “Because no one's like that,” he said.
“That’s what he sees as his great insight.
That's why everything on the show is just
there to be ridiculed.” He smiled. “But
that’s our edge, that we know that, Susan.
If you know in advance that you're going
to be made to look ridiculous, then you're
опе step ahead of the game, because then
you can make yourself look ridiculous, in-
stead of letting him do it to you.”

I cocked an eyebrow. “I’m supposed to
go out of my way to look ridiculous?”

My husband lit a cigarette as his old
superior stood. “It has to appear that
way, yes.” Rudy’s brand is that foreign
sort that lets everyone around know that
something is on fire. “It’s got to be clear
it’s your choice,” he exhaled. The couch
he sat on was in a slant of sunlight. The
light, this high, seemed bright and cold;
his smoke hung in it like ink in water.

Dick is known for his tendency to
fidget. He will stand and sit and stand.
“That’s good advice, Rudolph. There are
definite dos and don'ts. Don't look like
you're trying to be witty or clever. That
works with Carson. It doesn’t work with
Letterman.”

“Carson would play along with you,”
my husband said. “Carson's still ‘sin-
сеге?”

“Sincerity is out,” Dick said, “The joke
is now on people who're sincere.”

“Or who are sincere-seeming, who
think they're sincere.”

I asked whether it might be all right if I
had just a third ofa Xanax.

“That's well put, Rudolph,” Dick said,
looking me up and down. His head was
large and round, his knee up, elbow on
his knee, his foot on the arm of another
thin steel chair, his cat swirling a lazy
figure eight around the foot on the floor.
“That's the cardinal sin on Late Night.
That's the Adidas heel of every guest he
mangles. Just be aware of it.”

I smoothed my blue dress. “What I
want to know is, is hc going to makc fun
of me over the Orco spots?" I told Dick. I
was truly worried about at least this. The
Nabisco people had been a class act
throughout the whole negotiations and
campaign, and 1 thought we had made
some good, honest, attractive commer-
cials for a product that didn’t claim to be
anything more than occasional and fun. 1
didn't want Oreos to be made to look
ridiculous because of me; I didn’t want to
be made to look as though I'd prostituted
my name and face and talents to Nabisco.
“Т mean, will he go beyond making fun?
Will he get savage about it?”

“Nal if you do it first" Rudy and Dick
said together, looking at each other. They
laughed. Dick turned and made himself
another small drink. I sipped my own.
My cola's ice kept hitting my teeth.

“In other words, appear the way Let-
terman appears on Letterman,” Dick ges-
tured, as if to sum up, sitting back down.
“Laugh in a way that’s somehow dead-
pan. Act as if you knew from birth that
everything is clichéed and hyped and
empty and absurd, and that’s just where
the fun is.”

“But that’s not the way I am at all.”

Dick’s cat sneezed in the sunlight.

“That's not even the way I act when
I'm acting,” I said, looking from onc man
to the other.

“At least she’s looking terrific,” Dick
said, smiling. He felt at his sharp little
mouth, his expression betraying what
looked to me like tenderness. Toward me?
We weren't particularly close.

When tense, my husband always rubs
at the red dents his frames impose on his
nose. 1 looked at the watch I'd received
on my birthday.

I am a woman who lets her feelings
show rather than hide them; it’s just
healthier that way. I told Dick that when
Charmian had called, she'd said that
David Letterman was a little shy but
basically a nice man. I reminded them that
I was a professional, had done three Car-
sons, a Cavett, a Donahue, and felt that 1
knew how to handle an appearance. I said

(continued on page 156)

“Who is she, Robert? You've been tripling your daily dosage of vitamin E?

ovely miss june, emily arth, is

FANCY-FREE

In her 27 years, Emily
Arth has lived in eight
states and has criss-
crossed the globe. These
days, she works as a
secretary in Connecticut
and explores New Eng-
land: Here, its a watery
weekend in Maine.

92

"I'm so adaptable, I'm
almost like a chameleon.
And | like to do a voriety
of things—listen to
opera, cook a gourmet
meal, ski, camp, sail,
swim and, once in a
while, just relax."

PHOTOGRAPHY BY RICHARD FEGLEY

ROUND THE WORLD IN EIGHTY Days is а book

Emily Arth has read. And it's a book

she has lived. OK, it took her more than

80 days to sec the world, but she did it,

nonetheless: Japan, the Philippines,

Hong Kong, Indonesia, Mexico, Ger-

many, Czechoslovakia, Saipan, France,

Hungary, Switzerland, Haiti and

Kenya are only some of the fantasy

lands she has visited. The daughter of a man who has held

jobs all over the world, Emily had ample opportunity to

travel—and she grabbed every chance. She has explored

places as disparate as Bali (“an island paradise”),

Salzburg, Austria (“1 went there for the music”), and

Nairobi, Kenya (“It’s so different, it's like everything in Out
of Africa and more. It’s onc of my favorite places").

Globe-trotting has made Emily versatile, open-minded

and eager to learn more about other cultures and other

times. She reads constantly. But don't imagine it’s all light-

hearted fare. We encountered her at breakfast one morning

during a visit to Chicago engrossed in Doctor Faustus, by

Thomas Mann. Also on her night table: The Idiot, by Dos-

toievsky. “I’m on a classics binge,” she admits. “I wouldn't

call myself cerebral, really, but intellectual things do
appeal to me.” Who says beauty precludes brains?

- = Occasionally, Emily’s

books clash with her

treks. “I was reading

James Clavells novel

Shögun on the subway in

Tokyo and the Japanese

were very disapproving.

They said that Shogun

96

should not be considered true Japanese history. I don't know
whether or not any of them had even read the book.” She laughs.

What else tops her reading list? Cookbooks. At one time, Emily’s
ambition was to be a cordon bleu chef, but now she’s content to have
quiet dinner parties with menus that include vichyssoise, saddle of
veal stuffed with spinach páté and raspberry tarts. “І can't draw, I

can’t write short stories, I can't compose music, but I am a creative

cook. Eventually, ГЇ develop my own recipes.” She's happiest when

preparing an intimate dinner. “Cooking, for me, is a labor of love.”

Another love is music, a passion inherited from Emily’s mother,
who was an opera singer before she married. Emily was only 16
when she was accepted at Oberlin College as a piano student.
However, hours and hours of solitude at the keyboard didn’t
suit her style. “I’m far too social to bury myself in a practice
room for years on end, and I really didn't want to give my life

to the piano. There are too many other things I want to do.”

PLAYMATE DATA SHEET

mor: Emily Ah _

BUST: $5" WAIST: d" нүр. 35"

HEIGHT: I l“ вісн: HMO =

BIRTH DATE: lO] 1#/60_srrrupLace:_Euenston, TL.

anerrions: To have a family kon hig te held in my arms —

all at once

TURN-ONS: Music, arcat restaurants, Dinner parties

TuRN-oFFs: . Si iki à nd)
—Peliticians _

I'D MOST LIKE TO MEET: Julia Child Carl Sasan ‚Diedrich
сь акаа, Itzhak Reiman _

FAVORITE Foops:. IY]il Seat chocola}

THE ONE PLACE IN THE WORLD I'D MOST LIKE 10 vistt: Eayoet
FAVORITE BOOKS: T he Persian ee ns,

аш Five

IDEAL EVENING; Ё ESI Dinner, a ara at concert anda R

Bewore TERE Те Baskin- Robbins
Monkey Forest | in Tokyo

PLAYBOY'S PARTY JOKES

A member of a regular golfing foursome told his
buddics that he would have to miss the following
week's outing because of scheduled surgery.

“Hope it's not serious,” one friend said. "Ev-
erything OK?”

“You guys may have noticed that I never show-
ered with you,” he said. “That's because, through
some fluke, I was born with both male and female
genitalia and I was too embarrassed to let anyone
see. The doctor is going to sew up the vagina.”

“Are you crazy? Have him cut off your balls—
then you can hit from the red tees!”

During a recess in the proceedings, three dele-
gates to an international ale) convention
sat down for cocktails, and before long, they be-
gan to discuss methods for driving their wives
wild.

The French delegate volunteered that he al-
ways picked a few roses from the garden, spread
the petals on his wife's body, then gently blew
them off before making love.

‘The Englishman declared that before making
love to his wife, he would massage her with hot
oil.

‘The two Europeans then turned to the Texan
and asked him his secret. "Well," he said, “after
the wife and I get it on, 1 hop outa bed and wipe
sn fick on the curtains. That, gents, drives her
wild?”

What do you call oral sex between two Yuppics?
Sixtysomething.

While shopping, a young socialite recognized a
classmate from her finishing school days. She was
shocked at her friend's appearance: skintight
miniskirt, black mesh stockings, high-heeled
boots and skimpy halter top.

“Blair,” she said after their initial grecting, “1

hate to say it, but you look like a hooker.”
“I am.
“But why?”

“Honey, it was either this or dip into princi-
pal.”

How many Reagan Cabinet members does it
take to change a light bulb? Nonc—they like to
keep Ron in the dark.

А preacher who advertised himself as a great
healer set up a tent in a small rural town. That
evening, a man came in on crutches and said to
him, “Ain't no doctor been able to cure my leg
Can you heal me?”

“Whats your name, brother?"

“Bob.”

“Bob, you just go behind that red curtain.”

A moment later, another man walked in and
said, "S-s-sir, с-с-Сап you help m-m-m-me with
m-m-my s-s-stuttering?""

“What's your name, brother?”

“John.”

“John, you just go behind that red curtain.”

After ten minutes of frenzied preaching and

ing, the healer threw his hands in the air,
raised his eyes to the ceiling and dramatically
shouted, “Bob, drop your crutches! John, say
something!”

A few moments passed before a voice behind the
curtain said, “B-b-bob just ££fell on h-h-his ass."

How many stockbrokers does it take to change a
light bulb? One hundred. Ninety-nine to climb
the ladder and one to claim he wasn’t hurt in the
crash.

Two retired banking colleagues were enjoying a
few martinis over lunch when one suddenly
mused, “You know, when I was thirty, my erec-
tion was so hard that I could grip it with both
hands and not be able to bend it.” His friend поб-
ded in understanding. “When I was forty, I could
bend it ten degrees with the greatest of effort. At
fifty, I could bend it maybe twenty degrees, And
now that I'm past sixty, I can bend it in half with
one hand.” He paused to take a sip of his drink.
“Harry, I wonder just how much stronger I'm go-
ing to get.”

Heard a funny one lately? Send it on а post-
card, please, to Party Jokes Editor, Playboy,
Playboy Bldg, 919 N. Michigan Ave, Chicago,
11. 60611. $100 will be paid to the contributor
whose card is selected. Jokes cannot be returned.

2220

103

you think, Little Willy—is this guy gualty or not?”

“So, hey, what do

VIETNAM
LOVE

x Оа

one war veteran's
ten-year quest for lost
honor and the woman
he left behind

article By Robert Schwab

O. April 10, 1985, Robert Schwab

left Subic Bay in the Philippines in a small
sailboat. His destination was Vietnam, and
his goal was to win the release of his Viet-
namese fiancée, from whom he had been
separated during the fall of Saigon ten
years earli

Schwab had been deeply involved in the
evacuation effort, helping thousands of
Vietnamese escape from the surrounding
chaos. But his fiancée, too weak to travel,
was not among them. For much of the next
ten years, Schwab, a warzone adventurer
who had served six years in Vietnam and
had made several covert forays into Laos
and Cambodia, investigated legal, and then
illegal, ways of gaining her release. That is
what led him to the small boat Hubris and
the 13-day voyage to Vietnam.

.

HUBRIS WAS NEWLY FINISHED and anchored
in Subic Bay, in a cove near the huge U.S.
Navy base there. The seas rocked her
gently, but then, sailboats at anchor re-
semble themselves under sail the way 12-
year-old girls resemble themselves at 16
The gentle waves of the bay were nothing
compared with what Hubris would face
on the South China Sea as she carried me
on my clandestine return to Vietnam

I had paid (continued on page 136)

ILLUSTRATION BY ROY SCHNACKENBERG

DISC, DAT AND THE OTHER THINGS

digital audio tape, high-definition tv, super vhs—you ain't seen or heard nothing yet

modern living By RICH WARREN A generation
ago, we thrilled to the sight of the NBC peacock unfolding
on a 21-inch color TV set and marveled at the sonic sock
that stereo brought to our hi-fi systems. If we adjust yes-
teryears dollar to what's left of today’s buck, that vintage

video cost as much as, if not more than, today's best moni
tors, and the venerable Garrard turntable of early stereo sys
tems cost more than a basic CD player does now. Well.

Start saving pennies to boost your audio/video budget, be
cause the consumer-electronics (continued on page 148)

108

N COUNTRIES around the
world, aiming a 1.68-
inch-diameter ball at a
four-and-a-quarter-inch-
diameter hole is a sacred
ritual that millions prac-
tice each Sabbath. As in
other religions, golf embodies high ide-
als—play the ball as it lies, play the
course as it’s found, do what’s fair—and
exhorts adherents to enter not into temp-
tation. Of interest to theologians, moral
philosophers and students of human na-
ture, perhaps even to those trying to cure
their slice or improve their putting, is a
peculiar moral
Golf demands
punishment for transgressions
ofits rules.

Such rules require, at the
very least, Talmudic scrutiny.
One's ball may come to rest in
a bunker against a half-eaten
pear (with no pear trees in the
vicinity) or manage to stick in
an orange that has obviously
dropped from the tree above.
Can the player obtain relief,
move the ball without penalty?
Or the player’s drive may slice
from the tee back into the club-
house. Naturally, he'll wish to
know whether he can open a
window and play his second
shot out of the locker room.

The conscientious golfer will
equip himself with the 1988
edition of Decisions on the Rules
of Golf, a 450-page paperback
that fits neatly into any golf
bag. For those who dare to tee
off with something a bit more
condensed, there’s the 136-
page pamphlet. Unwieldy?
Hardly. These publications
represent nothing less than a
major effort to enumerate and
explain the Rules (upper-case
R). Before a major 1984 revi-
sion, golfers had to contend
with a two-volume 900-page
affair, about as accessible as
the minutes of the Roman Cu-
па. That becomes all the more
poignant when you realize
there are only 34 rules.

The Rules emanate from the font of
wisdom and the ultimate authority of the
game, the United States Golf Association,
whose stately Georgian Golf House is lo-
cated in Far Hills, New Jersey. There, the
Rules of Golf Committee thrashes out de-
cisions that weigh upon every golfer who's
tempted by what Frank Hannigan, senior
executive director of the U.S.G.A., terms
“the national inclination to nudge the
ball to a better lie.”

Hannigan, an affable man who, with
Tom Watson, wrote The New Rules of
Golf and whose Labrador retriever shares

his office, claims that the system for
decision making is "surprisingly demo-
cratic,” with a 12-member committee de-
ciding on questions referred by amateurs
and professionals. With five members
from the U.S.G.A. board and seven con-
sulting members, including representa-
tives of the P.G.A., the P.G.A. Tour and
the L.P.G.A. and “distinguished elders,”
the Committee's (with a capital С) deci-
sions become precedent for the sport,
akin to law in the nongolfing world. Ma-
jor tournaments have been decided on ar-
cane questions that percolate through the
system, as Craig Stadler discovered at the

If your ball lands on anews-
paper, can you burn it to
improve your lic?

Can you move a dead land
crab? A live rattlesnake?

no question, the biggest hazard
on a golf course is the rulebook

artule By WARREN KALBACKER

1987 Andy Williams Open, He knelt ona
towel to hit a shot from under low-hang-
ing branches and was disqualified for
turning in an incorrect score as a result of
unknowingly “building a stance.” The
rule had been decided upon just two
weeks earlier to resolve a question raised
in the 1982 N.C.A.A. championship tour-
nament. Stadler’s infraction would prob-
ably have gone unnoticed (he knew
nothing of the rule), except that someone
Hannigan describes as a “Rules of Golf
nut” had spotted it on a video replay.

Just how high a stance does the thick-
ness of a towel afford, anyway?

“That question irritated a lot of people,
because the circumstances seemed so re-
mote,” Hannigan admits. Alas, somebody
must make the Rules, so the Committce
eventually “throws up its hands and puts
things to a vote.”

“On some of these goddamn decisions,
no answer is going to make any sense,”
says Hannigan. “What's really important
is that you have answers and that people
accept the answers.”

But back to the course. If golfers have
trouble accepting dirty trousers, they can
accept a penalty. If they spread a towel
when no one is looking, they will, of
course, inflict that penalty
upon themselves. The Com-
mittee has also judged the half-
eaten pear in the bunker to be
forbidden fruit; it is a natural
object and a player may not
move it. The fact that there
was a bite in the pear and no
tree in the neighborhood did
not sway the members into
granting it the status of an ob-
struction and therefore provid-
ing relief to the golfer. The
golfer whose ball became em-
bedded in the orange was of
fered the option of “playing it
as it lies” or declaring it un-
playable and suffering a penal-
ty stroke.

“Critics would accuse us of
having a tortured set of rules,”
says Hannigan. “But don’t for-
get the nature of the game and
the nature of the playing field.
You're talking 125 or 150 acres
out there and balls bounce and
rest in screwy little places.
This is not like a tennis court.”

Of course, golf does demand
creative play, the ability to in-
vent a shot. Top money winner
Tom Watson offers an illustra-
tion: “Yon have to think out a
problem when you don't have a
swing for it. Your bal] may be
up against a fence and you
can't swing right-handed. You
may have to play it out left-
handed with your putter.”

On the other hand, the
Rules forbid certain options that some
may construe as creative. If the ball lies
оп a discarded newspaper, it is not рег-
missible to burn the newspaper and cre-
ate a better lie. The golfer whose drive
landed back in the locker room may, how-
ever, open the window and attempt to hit
itout onto the fairway. He should be wary
of kneeling or standing on any towels,
though.

The U.S.G.A’s goal is to achieve
universal acceptance of the Rules, and
success depends on, well, universal ac-
ceptance. The U.SG.A. is an amateur
body and its enforcement of the Rules

PAINTING COURTESY OF THE GOLF SHOP COLLECTION, CINCINNATI

PLAYBOY

110

extends only to the 13 tournaments it
sponsors each year. (The most famous of
these, the U.S. Open, will be held this
year at The Country Club in Brookline,
Massachusetts, June 16 through 19.)
However, the U.S.G.A.’s moral authority
extends from the idyllic hilltop in New
Jersey over courses in the United States,
Mexico and the Philippines. The rest of
the world’s golfers defer to the Royal and
Ancient Golf Club of St. Andrews, Scot-
land. Just how that demarcation was es-
tablished is lost in history. Perhaps it had
something to do with the advance of the
British Empire. What is clear is that as
golfers ventured forth from the original
St. Andrews links, the Rules had to adapt
to new terrain and new ecology. To wit:

Balls encountered anthills (the anthill
may be removed without penalty; if it is
home to fire ants, however, thc player
may take relief) or came to rest in
bunkers alongside the remains of dead
land crabs (the dead crab, as a natural
object, may not be shifted). During the
1987 Women’s Mid-Amateur Champi-
onship, the Committee afforded relief to
the player whose ball came to rest against
a dead squirrel, which, though a natural
object, was feared to carry disease.

Over the years, the U.S.G.A. and the
Royal and Ancient have become quite
chummy about the entire Rules process.
Their joint negotiating committees meet
regularly and at four-year intervals issue
revised rules for the game. The Rules will
become uniform throughout the world in
1990. Until then, the one remaining dif-
ference is small but basic: the size of the
ball. Americans tee off with a 1.68-inch
ball; Brits may hit the smaller 1.62. And
in a generous departure from Anglo-Sax-
on tradition, motivated, no doubt, by
their responsibility to the entire world,
the bodies began issuing metric measure-
ments in 1984.

‘Transatlantic harmony reigns on such
matters as the troubling ice question. Ifa
ball lands in a pile of ice cubes, as distinct
from one that comes to rest in a clump of
ice caused by the climate, what are the
golfer’s options? The former impediment
is considered “manufactured” and there-
fore an “obstruction” that may be moved
without penalty. Prior to the Rules’ revi-
sions in January of this year, ice cubes
were considered either “loose impedi-
ments” or “casual water.” Casual water
wouldn't have required a penalty stroke;
the player could simply have moved the
ball a club length away. However, if the
player had chosen the loose-impediment
option and had inadvertently moved the
ball while clearing away the ice, he would
have been penalized a stroke.

Of course, actually getting a ruling
poses other problems. If a foursome in a
quandary queries the club pro or the local

governing body, called the Committee,
and the question cannot immediately be
resolved by a reading of the Rules (which
the local governing body has no power to
waive), the U.S.G.A. stands ready, if not
necessarily eager.

“You should be around this place on a
spring Monday morning,” bemoans Han-
nigan. U.S.G.A. staffers have long recog-
nized the voice of “that pro from
California” on the line. And there was the
Japanese gentleman who repeatedly sub-
mitted exotic circumstances in overly
polite letters composed in fractured
English. When politely reminded that
Asia, with the exception of the Philip-
pines, lay within the sphere of the Royal
and Ancient rules, he responded by show-
ering the US.G.A. staff with gifts of
small electronics.

Lest the Rules of Golf Committee be
accused of being a crotchety body (one
member, a leading attorney, once asked
that a petitioner withdraw a question
rather than subject the Committee to the
pain of deliberating it), Hannigan insists
it is capable of “bursts of humanity.” It
once ruled a rattlesnake an “outside
agency” and didn’t penalize a player for
moving her ball outside fang range. The
golfer’s partner had insisted she play the
ball where it lay and had graciously vol-
unteered to ward off any attack. The
eventual ruling clarified language that
had dealt with only worms and insects
and had made no mention of a possible
life-threatening situation. A worm poking
out of the ground may be removed with-
out penalty, by the way. Environmentally
concerned golfers whose drives land in
birds’ nests may also move the ball with-
out penalty, a gesture perhaps to endan-
gered avian species.

In addition to its environmental aware-
ness, the U.S.G.A. was one of the earliest
converts to arms control. A 1938 rule lim-
its a player to 14 clubs; at the time, some
pros were buiding arsenals of as many as
25 per bag, Nevertheless, golfers have en-
couraged weapons development—sorely
testing the patience, if not the moral au-
thority, of the U.S.G.A. The precise de-
sign standards for balls and clubs are
determined at the U.S.G.A. laboratory at
Far Hills, a place packed with instru-
ments, a wind tunnel and a mechanical
golfer dubbed Iron Byron (its swing is
patterned after that of legendary pro
Byron Nelson), which hits shots out onto
an instrumented test range. A legal ball,
for instance, may fly and roll no farther
than 297 yards when hit by Iron Byron.
Real live golfers, of course, are permitted
to milk all the distance they can out of the
ball. The building is a favorite of camera-
toting Japanese golfers; the guest book is
filled with Oriental calligraphy.

“We scientifically address the issue of

performance characteristics,” says Dr.
Ronald E. Philipp, who manages the re-
search-and-test center па we go about
it in a rigorous manner.” Dr. Philipp uses
both hands to set a huge binder on a con-
ference table. The several hundred pages
contain the data gathered in the
U.S.G.A.s third groove study, completed
just this past January. For those who have
been consumed by the Iran/Contra affair
or the Presidential primaries or who may-
be don't play the game, the groove ques-
tion has been golf's major controversy of
recent times. U- or box-shaped grooves
on club faces have become more popular
ever since the V-shaped-groove require-
ment was eliminated in 1984. U.S.G.A.
specifications require that the minimum
distance between grooves be at least three
times the width of the grooves them-
selves. If the grooves were closer together
on the club face, players presumably
would be able to put more spin on the
ball and vastly lower their scores.

Karsten Solheim’s Ping Eye 2 clubs do
not meet the U.S.G.A.s specifications.
But more of the maverick designer's clubs
have been sold than any other manufac-
turer’s in recent years: Solheim’s corpora-
tion sells 500,000 sets in 66 countries each
year.

Hannigan offers the U.S.G.A’s posi-
tion: “Manufacturers are invited to sub-
mit samples to us when there's any doubt
as to their meeting standards. In this
case, the clubs were produced and sold
before we even knew about them.”

Hannigan admits that the U.S.G.A.
was a bit slow off the tee with its ruling.
While club-face standards were set in
1984, an exact engineering method for
implementing them was not specified un-
til 1987. The Ping clubs still do not mect
the U.S.G.A’s requirements.

To resolve the groove question, the
U.S.G.A. conducted studies. According
to test-center manager Philipp, “We did
30,000 hits with balls fired by an air gun
against 60 club-face plates of various
groove arrangements. These were corre-
lated with Iron Byron hits at three club
lofts.”

The lab even grew its own grass to
mount on the club faces to emulate fair-
way and rough conditions. The result,
says Philipp: “On ‘grassy hits’ there was
a direct correlation between the amount
of space between grooves and spin rate.”

Not that the average golfer would no-
tice. According to Hannigan, variations
in performance are hardly measurable in
everyday golf. But there is a different per-
ception among another class of golfers.

“Tour players аге paranoiac;’ Hanni-
gan insists. “They see things that are not
really there. There are some amazing іп-
tellects on the pro tour who really feel

(concluded on page 134)

“Lam a hedonist—if found, please administer hand job.”

111

the beatles
and the beach

=ч ШШ

records a

ce ТЕҢ

depends
on a man M IN
named smith

y xrrscuy Hollywood
standards, its an
architectural land-
mark—a round build-
ing 13 stories high
that looks like a stack
of records with a
needle on top. True,
that wasn’t the intent
of architect Welton
Becket, designer of the
Cairo Hilton, when
Capitol Tower opened
in 1956. Instead, he
claimed he was look-

ing for “economy of construction, opera-

tion and maintenance, plus maximum
utilization of space.” Round buildings, or
so it seemed at the time, were the coming
trend, and if they didn’t exactly catch on,
the company that commissioned the tow-
er, Capitol Records, was destined to be-
come one of the legendary names in
music. Today, the Tower is more than just

the only round building in town, its a

major tourist attraction, complete with a

beacon that has blinked out H-O-L-L-Y-

W-O-O-D for more than 31 years. It has

been on postcards, in movies and on TV,

and it’s arguably the only building in the
world that makes an onlooker automati-
cally think of music.

As well it should. It is, after all, where
Frank Sinatra and Nat “King” Cole and
Peggy Lee and Nelson Riddle used to
hang out and make their music. It is
where, a generation later, the Beach Boys
first rode a musical wave, and where the
Beatles, in mid-mania, found an Ameri-
can home.

Like movie studios and television net-
works, record companies seldom generate
brand loyalty (continued on page 151)

article by
BEN FONG-TORRES

ILLUSTRATION BY DAVID WILCDX

PHOTOGRAPHY BY STEPHEN WAYDA AND RICHARD FEGLEY

LAYMATE

OF THE YEAR

N
\ ў
К \ ;
- AL
К ч

INDIA ALLEN
GETS HER FONDEST
WISH AND A
BRAND-NEW TITLE

ESS THAN A YEAR AGO, things weren't working out all that well for
India Allen. She was thinking of retiring from the hectic world of
modeling without having achieved her goal: getting her picture on
the cover of a major magazine. “When уоште in fashion and in your 20s,
its all downhill," she reports. At the age of 22, India thought her only
chance to save her career was moving to New York, but that meant giving

up both the active, outdoorsy California lifestyle she loved and leaving her

fiancé, Bill Garfield, a Lawndale, California, veterinarian. Today, however,
things are looking up. For one thing, India’s dream, gracing the cover of
a major magazine—this one—has come true, and her financial worries
are things of the past, thanks to the $100,000 check from Playboy

Enterprises that goes along with being named Playmate of the Year.

fter receiving a custom-built California Countach Roadster valued at
$60,000 from Exotic Dream Machines of Rancho Cordova (above)
and a $100,000 check from Playboy and spending a week in Ca-
reyes, Mexico, shooting this pictorial, India says, "I'm still stunned.”

17

"m still walking around in a daze,” India confesses. “It hasn't hit me yet.” Of course, being
in a daze didn't stop her from making her first major purchase. She plucks a photo from the
pile of papers on her dining room table. “This is the house J bought with the money,” she
says, showing off a color picture of a two-bedroom home in Lake Arrowhead, California. “It’s an
oasis in a rat-race,” she exclaims. “And it’s only two and a half hours away from Los Angeles.”

hat took only part of the money, India is quick to point out, and she’s busy making plans for the rest. Which only
shows what a difference a year can make. “I was struggling as a model,” she remembers of the not-so-distant past,
“but I kept getting work in TV, which was not what I wanted.” On one of those TV jobs, she became friends with

actress Monique St. Pierre, Playboys Playmate of the Year in 1979. After looking at India’s portfolio, Monique personally

called Marilyn Grabowski, Playboy’s West Coast Photo Editor, who scheduled a test (text concluded on page 132)

THERESA RUSS

heresa Russell gives off strong sexual

heat and magnificently intelligent per-
formances in interesting films. She is mar
ried lo film director Nicolas Roeg and lives
with him and their two young sons in Lon-
don. Claudia Dreifus caught up with Rus-
sell while the actress was passing through
New York City on a recent afternoon. She
reports: “All the men I know are crazy for
Theresa Russell—and when you meet her,
it’s easy to understand why. The woman is
bright, sensuous, funny—and wonderfully
candid. Incidentally, she wears black-
leather minidresses better than anyone alive
except Tina Turner.”

1.

PLAYBOY: You seem to have a quality in
your movies that says, I’m sensuous, 1
like being that way and I’m totally in
control of my own sexuality. Is that some-
thing you're looking to project?

RUSSELL: [Laughs] No. 1 mean, it’s noth-
ing that I work for. If I give off a kind of
self-determined sensuousness, that’s just
something I happen to have, something I
was born with, a lucky gift. You know,
there have been critics who've accused
me of overplaying my sensuous side.
Well, that’s just not true. If the role calls
for something else, I'll work against that
part of me. Now, a couple of years ago,
when I played a Marilyn Monroc-like
character in Insignificance, of course 1
tuned up my own qualities—exaggerated
them. And if in some of my other films a
sexiness was projected, well, that just hap-
pens to be part of who I am. In real life, 1
am very aware of my own sensuousness.

And, yeah, it is a bit on my own terms.

Saks 2.
the thinking Gases Minn
mans sex Dess oe
symbol on nificance, did you
E do much thinking
jealousy, dix ih pne
H find sexy?
recreational russer: Yeah, be-
underwear and — 5 іе томе, 1
the impact of
being mooned
by robert
mitchum

thought that most

guys were turned
on by natural-
PHOTOGRAPHY BY BYRON NEWMAN

looking women.
One afternoon, I
decided to go out
into the street in
my Marilyn drag
and see what kind
of effect it had
on men. My plat-

inum-blonde hair was teased a mile high
and my make-up was about an inch thick.
I was very plastic-looking. Underneath
my dress were a pair of artificial breasts
the costurner had planted there to make
me look enormous. Wherever I went,
guys did double takes. They started fol-
lowing me around; they went crazy. The
fact that men looked at me when I was
dressed up like that was a shock: I looked
like some tart! But then, men still do look
at tarts, don’t they?

3.

PLAYBOY: In Insignificance, your Marilyn
made a list of the ten men in the world
she most wanted to sleep with—Albert
Einstein was her first choice. Who would
be on such a list if Theresa Russell were
drafting one for herself?

RUSSELL: Please—I’m a happily married
31-year-old mother of two. I don't have
thoughts like thal! [Laughs] Well, OK,
we'll do this as an exercise, Obviously,
Nick Roeg is number one—and that's be-
cause he's clearly the guy in the world I'm
attracted to most. Now, about the others,
І don't mean this all that seriously, but
number two, I'd say, is Norman Mailer.
He's such a tough guy and he's kind of
cute. A man’s man. I like his work, also. I
think he's probably a good fuck, toc. Next
on my list is Sam Shepard. He's just the
cutest leading man around. Also, l'd be
interested in the young Brando. Oh,
yeah, like my character in Insignificance,
Га like to go to bed with Einstein, be-
cause, obviously, it would be fun to fuck a
genius. Or Mozart—my favorite compos-
er. And Joseph Conrad, my favorite au-
thor. After that, John Kennedy. Robert
Kennedy. Any Kennedy male, dead or
living. Their aura intrigues me.

4,

PLAYBOY: Rumor has it that John Kennedy
was no prize in the sack—a one-poke
man. Are you sure you want to leave him
on your list?

RUSSELL: No! Well scratch him off. Be-
sides, we need to put some more living
people on this. Let's add Paul Theroux. I
know him. He's really cute and neat and a
really good writer. Let's see, also Ian
Botham—he's a cricket player in Eng-
land. He's really good and plays great
cricket. l'm madly in love with him. Also
Walt Disney— because he was one of the
first men I ever loved —a big daddy. Al-
so, finally, any Marlboro man. Now, I
don't want you to think from this that I
appreciate just macho in guys—there are

0 N $

ELL

quite a few brains on my list. That's more
than ten, isn’t it?

5.

rLAYBOY: How did you meet Roeg?
RUSSELL: Through work, what else? He
had come to Hollywood to read actresses
for Bad Timing a Sensual Obsession, and 1
had a million questions and notes for
him. Instantly, there was some kind of
magic connection. God, I wanted that
part like nothing I'd ever wanted in my
life—and I got it. Actually, nothing hap-
pened between us until later—when we
were in Vienna, shooting the picture. In
Vienna, we'd go out for drinks or din-
ner—a lot. Step by step, things gota little
more intense. After about two or three
months, 1 absolutely knew this was the
man for me. It wasn't all that easy being
together. He was married. There’s a big
age diflerence between us. None of it was
all that feasible. But here we are, in 1988:
We're real happy, we have two little boys
and we've made five real interesting pic-
tures together.

6.

PLAYBOY: What did you do to make this
relationship become "feasible"?

RUSSELL: We went through a long pe-
riod of indecision about what our future
would be. 1 remember sometime around
1980, after we'd finished shooting Bad
Timing, things between Nick and me
were very on-again and off-again. I was
living in New York—and Nick was in
England, cutting the picture. We were
flying back and forth. One day, I
couldn't stand not seeing 1—50, on an
impulse, without telling him, I just
got on a plane, took a taxi to Pine-
wood Studios and headed straight to
the lavatory there. Then, without even
thinking about it, I took all my clothes
off and put on my overcoat. After that, 1
went to his office, told his secretary that
Thad to see him. When he got to his pri-
vate office, I ripped open my coat and we
fucked madly for the rest of the day.
[Laughs] Right there in the office! I
mean, I didn't plan it. But it was great.

ТА

rLAYBOY: Before Roeg, you lived with a
shrink, right?

RUSSELL: No, I was alone when 1 met
him. Га been alone for a year at that
point. But before that, I lived with a
psychologist—again, he was a man
much older than me. He was an associate
of Arthur Janov, the primal-scream

PLAYBOY

128

therapist. That was a relationship 1 had
begun when I was 16, and there were some
problems between us. When 1 made Bad
Timing, it was interesting to have that rela-
tionship in my past. The movie was about a
love affair between my character, Milena,
and a shrink played by Art Garfunkel.
Given my own experiences, I was able to
use a lot of my own life for the characteri-
zation. Now, my real-life lover wasn't like
the Art Garfunkel character, but there
were certain superficial parallels that I was
able to bring to my part. Shrinks do try to
get into your brain a little too much and
mess about with it. They try to manipulate
you all the time. In the real-life relation-
ship, 1 was constantly battling against that,
and after a while, it was tiring to me. So by
the time I got to Bad Timing, there were
enough experiences in my own background
to give me plenty of openings to really iden-
tify with Milena. In its own way, acting in
Bad Timing was an exorcism for me. I
needed to get that part of my life dealt with
and get on with what was coming next.

8.
riaveoy: Donald Sutherland says that Roeg

demands total obedience from his actors,
that an actor has to become his complete
creature. As Roeg’s wife and leading lady,
do you give him that?

RUSSELL: Yes, but only when our ideas are
the same. We do have moments when our
ideas clash and we get into our little
difficulties. And, yes, it does pose a prob-
lem being married to the director. If I'm
working in one of Nick’s films and 1 dis-
agree with something he says, I can’t exact-
ly just Ay off the handle and abuse him in
front of the crew. On the other hand, when
Donald says that Nick requires surrender, 1
agree. Nick has very definite ideas of what
he wants, and an actor must capitulate to
them. Actually, I want to please my direc-
tor—Nick or whomever.

9.

PLAYBOY: Do you take your characters home
with you?

RUSSELL: I try not to—though people com-
plain that I do. When I did The Razors
Edge, I had a four-month-old baby at home
and I had to do a scene where my charac-
ter loses her husband and her baby. The
horrible fecling that I had to conjure up for

“Go out and give it your best shot’—for this
he gets a doctorate?”

my performance was something I couldn't
shake for days. I put myself into that place,
and it was unbearable. The same thing
with the rape scene in Bad Timing. My
character has taken an overdose and has
tried to kill herself and she’s called the Art
Garfunkel character for help. He waits un-
til she’s almost dead to go to her, and then,
just before she’s dead, he rapes her. Rape is
really horrible, and if you start thinking
about how you might feel being raped,
well, you can't push it away so easily. After
I did that scene, I felt kind of dirty for a
long while,

10.

PLAYBOY: You seem more comfortable than
a lot of actors with doing nude scenes.
RUSSELL: I've never been that modest a per-
son. So I don't have that to overcome.

PLAYBOY: Is it hard to achieve a sense of in-
timacy ona set?

RUSSELL: It’s not easy. But it's very con-
trolled. It’s one of the least horny things you
can imagine doing. In fact, it's not horny at
all—or at least 1 don’t find it horny. They
usually clear the set—but there's still the
cinematographer and the director and oth-
ers standing around. The lovemaking is al-
most choreographed. When you first get
onto the set, it’s tremendously embarrass-
ing. The crew is thinking, What does she
really look like nude? But then they start
shooting you from every angle and every-
one loses both curiosity and modesty. After
you've been doing it for a few hours and the
crew has seen you from every angle, you
cant be bothered with modesty. Basically,
you get into a room and you work out ideas
about what you're going to do. You go from
A to B. You roll over and maybe you go
down and do this and do that. And a lot of
the time, there is this really noisy camera
going bbbzzzzzzzrrr and there's the director
yelling, “Now, roll over this way. Oh, that’s
great. Now lift her up.” And, meanwhile,
youre trying to make it look natural—as if
you've thought of each motion right then
and there.

12.

PLAYBOY: What's the most interesting thing
that’s happened to you while doing a nude
scene?

RUSSELL: When I was making Straight
Time, with Dustin Hoffman, we had a love
scene. We got to the rehearsal and I'm
there in my robe and he’s there in his un-
derwear and we're going through what was
to happen: whether we'd go up and down
or sideways—the usual choreography that
one works out for those scenes. All of a sud-
den, 1 look down and there's this big dildo
there! It must have been 100 feet, or at least
12 inches, long—and it's sticking out of his
underwear. Boy, that broke the tension.
You know, it’s usually so boring when you
do love scenes.

13.

PLAYBOY: Does it help to be attracted to
your co-star?

RUSSELL: That's totally unnecessary! You're.
an actress, for Chrissake, you act. A lot of
times, when you sce a love scene between
two people who are really having an affair,
it’s, like, stinko. They’re mooning over each
other and there’s all that crap in the scene
that doesn't work and that isn't necessary.
Real sexual chemistry doesn’t matter in a
movie. Sometimes it's even destructive to
the film.

м.

eravsov: Does Nick get jealous when you
do nude scenes?

RUSSELL: Not if they're in his films. Interest-
ingly, he doesn’t like it if 1 do them in other
people's films. My position is that I will do
a nude scene if I feel its nonexploitative,
and that's that. If Nicks reaction is just
personal jealousy, ГЇ say, “I feel I have to
do this and you'll just have to live with it?”
I mean, he’s just finished making a film
called Castaway, and his two leading char-
acters were nude for most of it. I wasn’t
thrilled with his being away and the lead-
ing lady's having her tits out all the time.

15.

PLAYBOY: Can it be that Theresa Russell is a
jealous woman?
RUSSELL: I’m very jealous and possessive.

And I don't apologize for it. It's a part of

passion, and life. Jealousy is one of the
main emotions. Now, when Nick went off to
do Castaway, 1 had to accept that—even
though I was jealous. But you develop a
kind of emotional intimacy with the direc-
tor and the other actors. Nick knows that I
have my priorities straight about our rela-
tionship. Sometimes—on a set—things
can get a bit fuzzy. I don't do that, though.
I can't fool myself into falling in love with
the leading man or the director.

16.

PLAYBOY: What's the strangest thing you've
ever had to do for a part?
RUSSELL: That scene in Bad Timing where I
had to get dressed up in a very weird outfit
and basically cut the nuts off Art Gar-
funkel’s character. My character is scream-
ing, “Is this what you want?” Also, in
urcka, | got dressed up in а solid-gold
bikini, That was pretty strange.

17.

т.лувоу: The character played by Rutger
Hauer in that movie looks at you in that
outfit and says, “You look fantastic.” Did
you feel fantasti
RUSSELL: Sure. Once I was over the embar-
rassment of it. I mean, sure, 1 like dressing
up. 1 prefer it in the privacy of my own
bedroom, of course. I see nothing wrong
with mens and women's dressing up for
cach other and having fun. As long as no-

body gets hurt and everyone agrees with
whatever is happening and theres no ele-
ment of humiliation—why not? It’s prob-
ably healthy, And it has nothing to do with
being an actor. Every woman should be
able to do that.

18.

PLAYBOY: Any personal preferences in
outfits?

russert: I'm keen on suspender belts and
stockings and nice push-up bras. A little

G string, maybe. That always is fun.
19,

PLAYBOY: What's the funniest thing that has
happened to you while making a movie?
Russert: This didn’t happen on camera, but
in The Last Tycoon, V have to laugh hysteri-
cally when my fathers secretary falls out of
the closet. I was drying up and I couldn't
do it. So I said to Robert Mitchum, who
played my father, “When you come out of
the bathroom, do something funny to make
me laugh. Tell a joke or make a face or do
something.” So, on сис, he opened the
door, came out of the bathroom and
mooncd me!

20.

вілувоу: How did his butt look? Droopy?
RUSSELL; He looks great! I mean, he'll prob-
ably look great until he drops dead.

livelier rum — Capt:
Its subtle Puerto

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makes Rum&Cola

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If you want a livelier rum & cola, try the
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wand see for yourself.

erence Trent D'Arby isn't
your ordinary expatriate. Last
year, his debut album, Introducing the
Hardline According to Terence Trent
D'Arby, with its unique blend of
Gospel-derived dance rock, made
the 26-year-old son of a Florida
preacher Europe's—and now Ameri-

co’s—Next Big Thing. Along the way
to making Hardline a hit, D'Arby

EASTFORWARD

discovered a knock for
inciting controversy. He bit-
terly denounced America’s
rampant racism and refused to
play Vienna as long as Austria was
ruled by “a known Nazi conspira-
tor" D'Arby also boasts that һе
"become known as this habitual
womanizer.” He doesn't seem to
bear much of a grievonce about it,
pointing out, perhaps needlessly, “1

don't want to be the
boy next door" He's
more worried, he says, about
ry America, “which feels so threat-
ened by black mole sexuality it
needs to emasculate its stars—Lionel
Richie became everybody's uncle
and Michael Jackson's been neu-
tered. | really had to think for a long
time if | was willing to go through
that.” — DAVID MARSH

CATCHING THE

s Los Angeles grows in importance as an art
center, more attention is being focused on
figurative painter D. J. Hall. Her la
like oil paintings of beautiful Southern C.
nia women lunching beside swimming pools have been shown
in more than 30 exhibitions as far away as West Germany and
have been sold to major corporations for sizable prices. “1 paint
blondes because they are everyone's idea of what a successful
woman is,” says Hall, smiling. "I look for women with great
clothes, great tech and a wonderful pair of sunglasses.” Hall,
] 36. a graduate of USC, works from a montage of photographs
| taken of her attractive models in such moneyed locales as Palm
Springs, Marina del Rey and Las Vegas. “I'm creating a fanta-
y of the ideal life for myself,” she admits. “ІГІ paint beautiful
women enough, ГЇЇ be a beautiful woman. If I paint blondes,
somehow [ll stay blonde. If I paint young women, ГЇЇ stay
young.” Halls New York City representative, О.К. Harris
Works of Art, thinks she's eccentric, “My stuff is wacky,” she
says with a shrug. “My models and I poke fun at everybody's
idea of the L ° Working out of her Venice studio,
Hall is finishing a series of paintings destined for a one-woman
show in New York this fall. “Painting the human figure is the
hardest thing you can do,” she maintains. “I'm less vicious in
my painting now, because I'm accepting myself more.” Shes al-
so more secure: “A hundred years from now, when the current
anging in museums.

ROBERT CRANE

¢ photo-

woman.

curators are gone, | expect my work to 1
115 not going to end up in the trash ћсај

МАЯК HANAUER

WAYNE WILLIAMS

BARONS

Dont call Stacy
Peralta (far right),
31. chairman of the
board, unless
youre talking skale
boards. Along with

THERE'S
SMOKE

“There have been times in history when smoking
was punishable by death, and other. times when it
has been mandated as a remedy for everything
from the common cold to impotence,” muses
Gary Blumenthal. “If the Surgeon General
Called to get my opinion, I'd tell him he's not th

first person to go on a crusade about smoking.

George Powell, Per-

alta has created a

mini empire thats built
on a rolling foundation
of maple wood and
polyurethane wheels. In
nine years, Powell-Per

alta has gone from 500

skate boards per month REID ASHTON
to 28,000, maturing trom a wild idea into a $10,000,000 business. That is
not to say that the partners are guided solely by sales. “We approach
this as the combination of a business and something we really love.”
claims Powell. 43, who designed the better skate board atter taking a
spin on his son's decidedly interior model Spurred Бу its success, the
company has branched out into clothing, skate-boarding video tapes
and a company-backed team thats coached by Peralta, a former
skate-boarding champ hirnselt. In fact. Peralta keeps his

Not that the С.Е.0. of Tinder Box International,
the nation's largest chain of tobacco stores, is
waiting by the phone. In three years, Blumenthal,
33, has dragged his company into seven-figure
profits—at a time when lighting up is sometimes
seen as the moral equivalent of clubbing a seal.
His most inspired move was adding upscale gifts
to his inventory. But while he'll wax eloquent
about Lladro collectibles and many other noncar-
cinogens in his stores, Blumenthal's true love is

TONYCOSTA

“tobacco. “Like wine, a cigar is a natural product,
blended from different crops and enjoyed for its
texture, aroma and flavor. When you have a
cigar, you close the world off for a little bit and
enjoy yourself,
“It’s statement. |

For o stond-up comic, Rita
Rudner, 32, is pretty strait-
loced. In fact, she’s
straighter ihan most ac-
countants, insurance salesmen and
an occasional Supreme Court nomi-
nee. "| wos put on earth to make
people feel guilty about the way they
live their lives,” she explains, almost
apologetically, “I've never been wild.
The worst thing I’ve ever done is read
in a bad light." She started her show-
business career as a dancer, leaving

hand in with his own back-yard skale-boarding
ramp. “I ride the ramp and thoroughly enjoy it." he
admits. “Its something 1 expect to be doing for at

least another ten years.”

„GUILT ON ҮКҮ |

home in Miami and moving to New
York at the age of 15, two years after
her mother died. She worked steadi-
ly, doing commercials and dancing in
six Broadway shows, including a
long stint in Annie, before switching
to comedy. “I was petrified the first
time | performed [at New York's
Catch a Rising Star], but | knew I'd
never be that scared or that bad

MICHAEL KAPLAN

again,” she recalls. "I don't
know whot possessed me,
but | just had to keep at it.”
She's now using the same
determination to break into film, and
while she hos landed a couple of
small parts, she's still learning the
Hollywood way of doing business.
"Ive had so many lunch meetings
about my career," she says with a
sigh. “At first, | got excited when
people called. Then | got a little less
excited. Now I jus! hope the food is
good.” — ERIC ESTRIN

PLAYBOY

132

| PHOEBE

ННІ

(continued from page 75)
with superlatives calling her fabulous,
charismatic, extraordinary and compara-
ble to Edith Piaf. She has also been labeled
“the Mae West of rock and roll," and one
critic rhapsodized that Phoebe's act com-
bines “the virtuosity of Jascha Heifetz with
the showmanship of Lucille Ball.” Still
with us? The air gets heady up here in the
glowing ionosphere of showbiz hype

Still, nobody knows better than Phoebe
that hype may be helpful, but music is the
name of the game. In a published essay,
she riffs esoterically on “the 19th Century
and a genius like Chopin, who probably
had ап І.О. of 270. You're talking about
some tremendous cultural achievements,
like the Parthenon. Chopin's ballades and
études are like the greatest Praxitelean
marble sculptures and stand for all
time. Tt seems that musicians arc trav-
eling in the Concorde, and the public is on
an old bus, behind somewhere.”

Phoebe’s verbal flights zoom right down
to terra firma when she talks about creat-
ing a Playboy pictorial with photographer
Richard Fegley. “People get mad because 1
don't buy into the patriarchal bullshit that
the female body is disgusting. When one
gazes appreciatively upon the female form,
it's a religious act, . . . It all depends on the
mental attitude you bring to it. For my
money, the ancient reverence for the volup-
tuous magic of woman is the way to go.”

Her own synthesis of blatant eroticism
and art may account for Légere’s becoming
a local celebrity almost before she had
shaken the New England dust off her spike-
heeled shoes. New York's artiest writers
and artists liked her style. She studied jazz
with John Lewis of the Modern Jazz Quar-

|

=|

tet. She became a chum of artist Larry
Rivers and sang with him and a scholarly
combo known as the East 13th Street Band;
Rivers also painted her several times, most
memorably as Diana the huntress. While
Phocbe's anything but а one-man woman,
she expresses lasting affection for aspiring
film maker Nile Southern, writer Terry
Southern’s son. “Nile comes from a movie
family,” she notes. “His father eats, sleeps,
drinks and breathes movies.”

‘Appropriately, Phocbe has movies on
her mind as well. She did a walk-through
in Jonathan Demme’ Something Wild, car-
rying one of her large nude paintings into
camera range. On the heels of her Mondo
New York success, she’s up for the lead fe-
male role in a sequel to The Toxic Avenger,
the pop-schlock classic that cultists revere.
“I'm really excited about it, because the
script is very funny. Pd play the blind
girl. . . . The Toxic Avenger borrows mon-
cy from the Devil to have her eyesight re-
stored.”

The rest of us may relish her as a con-
stant source of surprises, but the Légère
clan up in Boston, she confides, shudders to
think what Phoebe will or do next.
“Both my parents are artists, but very con-
servative. My three sisters arc all married
and work for a Boston bank. They worry
that Pm not married. Of course, just being
a female musician or a woman of any kind
is a great psychological handicap. 1 be-
haved like a boy until I reached puberty,
because my parents had wanted a boy. By
then, though, 1 understood what boys
liked, and that made me what І am. But 1
enjoyed being a boy. I intend to have a sex
change in about ten years. Maybe. Not
necessarily the surgical kind." Huh? Say it

isn't so, Phoebe.

“Well, gosh, I guess I do feel Sal using
a condom, bul... 1

PLAYMATE OF THE YEAR

(continued from page 123)
shooting. Shortly thereafter, India was
Miss December.

“I really didn't have any time to think
it,” remembers India. “Normally,
when you make that kind of decision—like
whether or not to pose nude—you want to
think about it for a few minutes. But once I
walked through the doors at Playboy, I felt
like, This is where I belong. I never had
any doubts.”

Neither did anyone else in her family.
Bill, a physical-fitness buff, was proud of
the body India was getting to show off, and
her parents, who are divorced, were equal-
ly pleased. In fact, India’s mother, a full-
blooded Algonquin Indian and part-time
psychic, had both encouraged her to pose
for Playboy and predicted that she'd be ac-
cepted. When the pictorial appeared, Mom
called. “Do you want to go in with me on
an apartment complex in Florida?” she
asked. India explained that Playmates
don’t exactly make that kind of money. “I
mean when you're Playmate of the Year,”
replied Mom nonchalantly.

India and Bill currently share a new
house only blocks from the ocean in Her-
mosa Beach with two dogs (Stinker and
Jack) and а cat (Mr. Kitty). Its a life that
has virtually no glitzy trappings. For fun,
India and Bill ride motorcycles or have
small dinner parties for friends, most of
whom are other veterinarians or computer
whizzes from nearby TRW, the advanced-
technology giant. “I don't party and I don't
go to bars," maintains India. "And I try
not to squander my moncy. I like to work
out and to ride my bike. I like to rent
movies for the VCR and I love to cook and
bake. I could spend a couple of hours in my
kitchen every night making something.”

Now that India has been named
Playmate of the Year, she and Bill have
agreed to postpone their scheduled spring
marriage, at least until fall. For the next
few months, India's hands will be full with
promotions and appearances both for the
magazine and for her special Playmate of
the Year Video Centerfold, on sale soon. But
India insists that nothing, not even being
P.M.OY., will change her life. “Му pri-
vate life keeps this from going to my head.
When I get home from a shooting or an ap-
pearance, 1 still have to find my dogs, take
care of my cat and look after the house. I
still hang out with the same people and
they go out of their way not to treat me any
differently.”

Bill has been particularly supportive. “I
think he’s more excited by this than I am,”
India admits. "Bills a very secure man. As
long as I come home and act like the same
person Гус always been, he’s fine.”

PLAYMATE
OF THE
YEAR

INDIA
ALLEN

in VIDEO

You've enjoyed her as PLAYBOY’s Miss
December, 1987, and in this issue's
Playmate of the Year pictorial. Now, take
her home and watch her come alive on her
own exciting Video Centerfold program.
Plus... you'll see a daring and delightful

Update report on one of your favorite
Playmates of the past

Video Centerfold Special Edition — Playmate
of the Year is one program you'll want to
own and enjoy again and again. So, get in
on the fun and ORDER NOW!

CALL TOLL-FREE
1-800-228-5444

MAIL TO: Playboy Video, P.O. Box 1143
Elk Grove Village, IL 60009

YES, please rush me the following:

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Illinois residents add 7% sales tax for each Video*
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Also available wherever video is sold.

134

A YEN FOR GOLF

handicapped by crowded courses back home,
the golf-mad japanese are buying ours

TEE FOR 200: Tokyo hookers and slicers bang away ot o high-rise practice range.

hen the talk turns to Japanese money, the figures begin to sound

inflated, impossible, absurd. Yes, it is true that memberships in Tokyo’s

mest prestigious golf spread, the Koganci Country Club, are now trad-
ing for $2,600,000. Ads brokering membership to Koganei and a dozen other clubs
requiring at least $1,000,000 can be found in golf magazines. (As with heavily
armed fortresses, such as the Los Angeles Country Club or Augusta National, don’t
even bother to apply if you sing or act for a living.)

And, yes, Japanese collectors have pushed the price of antique sticks to ghastly
levels ($4000 for a set of MacGregor 945 Eyc-O-Matic woods or $10,000 for a
George Lowe Wizard 600 Sportsman putter, the kind Jack Nicklaus uses). Those
are the people, after all, who decided that a Van Gogh might be worth $40,000,000.

Behind these breath-taking prices, however, is the hard economic fact that the
yen has doubled in value over the dollar in the past three years. That rate change
means that Japanese shoppers can charge through the U.S. as if it were one big
half-price red-tag sale.

A two-bedroom apartment in Tokyo's suburbs can easily cost $2,000,000. Why
spend another few mil for a golfing membership when you can go to America—
home away from home for Japanese businessmen—and buy an entire country club?
In Hawaii, ten courses have been purchased by Japanese companies, with a like
number going in California. Close to Los Angeles, the semipublic Valencia course
was bought by Japan's Uniden Corporation, which turned it into a private club
catering specifically to an Asian membership.

'ometimes, you can get one for $3,000,000," said the sales manager of Focus
Enterprises, who helps buyers find the courses. “That's cheap. In Japan, just one
hole of a golf course would cost that much.”

Even if you owned a hole, when could you play it? In Japan, a weekend round
must be scheduled a couple of months ahead; the average fee is now around $200,
but that includes caddy, insurance and lunch between nines. The duffer who just
wants to keep his hand in at the driving range may spend $25 for the privilege—
unless he goes to one of those layer-cake three-tier driving ranges.

Bur that's business. And business in Japan is volcanic. It's where a flashy Aus-
tralian golfer such as Greg Norman will get a few million to represent a golf resort.
Or where the wee Welshman [an Woosnam can get $2,000,000 to swing Maruman
golf clubs. In a country smaller than California, where only 1300 golf courses serve
more than 122,000,000 people, the mantle of exclusivity is draped heavily and luxu-
riously over anyone lucky enough to get onto the course. — CHRIS HODENFIELD:

RULES OF THE GAME

(continued from page 110)
that God put them on earth to win and if
they don't, then something is wrong

Hannigan notes that pros will often
blame their equipment for high scores—
or insist that the competition has disco
cred a magic club. Nevertheless, the
U.S.G.A. will prohibit Ping clubs in its
own 13 events at the end of 1989, Other
golfers who fecl magic in their Pings will
be able to enjoy them until 1996, when the
clubs will be prohibited from all play. After
that date, a golfer may presumably take
them out on a course, but the U.S.G.A. im-
perative becomes a moral imperative, and
to paraphrase a Watergate tape, “It could
be done, but it would be wrong.”

And how about dimples? An organiza-
tion that is capable of differentiating worms
from burrowing animals (and pronouncing
that one’s own saliva is “foreign material”
when applied to a club face) has not, oddly,
ever debated how many little depressions
there should be on the surface of a golf ball.
Although dimple arrangements dramati-
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U.S.G.A. standards for weight, symmetry,
initial velocity and distance, those balls
will be approved for play.

Several years ago, а pair of entre-
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The U.S.C.A. promptly prohibited the ball
from play by all the power not really vested
in it. The developers immediately brought
suit against the U.S.G.A. for conspiring
against them with golf-ball manufacturers.

After a protracted court battle, the
U.S.G.A. settled with the complainants.
But the Rules had survived

The Rules are not puritanical. If the
U.S.G.A. finds high-tech balls abhorrent, it
tolerates betting with little trouble. Rules on
amateur status include a section on wager-
ing, which does specify a few conditions.
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Courtesy is paramount, but beware: A
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Make no mistake about it—those are not
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136

VIETNAM" LOVE» STORY

(continued from page 105)

“Their front command element surfaced like the fin
of a shark. We waited for the strike”

the owner of a local fishing banca for 24
hours of towing, enough to get me out to
dependable winds. As we left the beach, 1
watched the dim shape of Subics high
northern headland slide behind me a mile
to starboard and remembered the last time
I had sailed past it: going the other way
onc hot morning almost ten years before,
standing on the deck of the carrier Han-
cock in clothes Га worn for six days, my
only possession a .38-caliber pistol.

For an exhausting week before my voy-
age on the Hancock, I had been working
оп the evacuation of Saigon. In the end, I
had been extracted by a Marine helicopter
from the roof of the U.S. embassy, driven
from the country to which I had given six
years, a citizen of a country shown at last to
be incapable of keeping its promises. And 1
thought of Mai, the Vietnamese woman I
loved, standing there, emaciated, clutching
her sides and crying, and I wondered if I
had done any better than my country.

As I made my way out of Subic Bay un-
der tow, I remembered that day and my
feelings well, and 1 remembered re-estab-
lishing contact with Mai in 1982 and my
promise to do all I could to get her out.
Alone among the hundreds of thousands of
Americans who served in Vietnam, I was
being given a chance to recover my honor.
All I had to do was go back and get it.

Simply put, my plan was this: I would
sail back to Vietnam alone in an 18-foot
open boat, no motor, no weapons, along the
same track on which the Seventh Fleet had
retreated after our defeat, and I hoped to
come away with Mai, my kept promise and

my victory. My plan was neither simple-
minded nor arbitrary, and the hard part
would be over when I reached the coast of
Vietnam. It was all so perfect.

.

1 met Nguyen thi Mai (I’ve changed her
name to protect her) in 1972, when she was
18 and I was beginning my fourth ycar in
Vietnam. That was in Kontum, a moun-
tainous tribal province in central Vietnam
as rugged in its beauty as Mai was serene
in hers. All but a few isolated parts of Kon-
tum had been lost, U.S. ground forces were
gone and we watched the infiltration of the
North Vietnamese. Finally, their B-3 Front
command element surfaced like the fin of a
shark, and we waited for the strike.

In this atmosphere, the Nguyen family’s
rustic café, 100 yards from our compound,
was a harbor for me. It was quiet, the
home-grown coffee was good and the three
beautiful Nguyen sisters, who floated
among the tables when they were busy,
would sit with me when they weren't. Tra-
ditional Vietnamese girls had both a fasci-
nation with and an aversion to Americans:
Any girl seen in public with one was pre-
sumed to be sleeping with him, and tradi-
tional Vietnamese practice the cult of the
virgin as religiously and as chauvinistically
as Spaniards. That the girls would sit
down and talk comfortably with me was a
real compliment.

GIs who remember the debased side of
Vietnamese women—the Tu Do Street
bars, the Saigon teas, the roving hands, the
five-dollar short times—will laugh, but
there was an entire Vietnamese world they

229 greiten

NIA Side Mirrors

never got to see, just as the Vietnamese
usually saw the roughest side of the GIs.

Mai was the youngest of the sisters, and
the quietest. It was her older sister, a strik-
ing widow of 25, who first attracted my at-
tention. A casual affair might have worked
out with her, but that kind of thing would
have been unconscionable with Mai. My
first year in Vietnam, a girl much like Mai
had left her family for me, and then I had
left her. She was dead to her family the
minute she walked out the door, and a tra-
ditional Vietnamese girl without a family
and abandoned by the man she has chosen
is a flame trying to burn without a candle.
I didn’t know that at the time, but after
learning the rules, I was determined not to
be the cause of anything like that again
There were plenty of liberated girls
around, not to mention the professionals,
who were just as pretty as the traditional
girls and immune to their kind of grief. I
enjoyed them. They were a necessary in-
gredient of the life 1 saw myself livi
aficionado of The Zone.

Michael Herr wrote that “Vietnam was
what some of us had instead of happy
childhoods.” So it was for me. People lived
because of my successes and died from my
errors. 1 whistled up helicopters like other
men call ducks, and information I gathered
diverted B-52 strikes. I had myself dropped
into tribal villages where Га get soused in
the company of men who drank from the
brainpans of old enemies. Marriage didn’t
go with my spurs and my horse, and Mai
was a girl for marriage. But I kept going
back to the café.

After cight months in Kontum, 1 was
transferred to another province. Mai was
supposed to be a pretty young girl who
would fade into a memory, but she didn't.
Maybe because my background was as
traditional as it gets in the United States—
Southern, Catholic, Jesuit-prepped, old-
school liberal arts—the virtues of the
classic Vietnamese woman, antediluvian
by contemporary American standards,
were overwhelmingly attractive to me. Mai
seemed to have become the archetype in
both memory and imagination, and the re-
moteness of my subsequent postings kept
her in place. I didn’t meet many other
women, certainly none as beautiful. I saw
her only a few times more before the coun-
try started to collapse in 1975.

After Ban Me Thuot fell, wholesale
terror hit the highlands. Military units
and discipline collapsed. All ethnic Viet-
namese—civilians as well as deserting and
leaderless military—began a horrific 100-
mile exodus toward the coast.

For a week of that hell, Mai was there.

I kept trying to find people from Kon-
tum and finally ran across someone who
knew the Nguyens and where they were:
Most of the family had made it to Saigon,

I had heard about some closc-held plans
to evacuate Vietnamese employees of vari-
ous US. agencies and asked if | could help.
At the same time, I had located Mai's fami-
ly and had made up my mind: The Zone

was dying and the intense, indulgent life I
had there was going to fade. But I could
still have the best of the Vietnam that was
disappearing if I could take Mai with me.
Marriage made sense now, selfish sense,
and she would be a wonderful and cher-
ished wife, But would she yo?

Mai wasn't there when I tracked down
the address in Saigon. The family was
crowded into one room and a small loft and
had lost almost everything. I told her par-
ents I wanted to take Mai with mc to
America if she would go, and if they would
agree. They said yes and that they would
ask her for me when she came back. I told
them how she could find me.

A few days later, Mai and her older
brother, a priest, appeared in the chaos of a
crowd of evacuees at
what had been an
officers’ ^ quarters.
Mai, always thin,
was now skeletal
and was crying so
hard she could say
nothing. Her brother
told me that she had
been that way since
the horror of the
highlands exodus,
but she had made up
her mind to leave
with me. He saw the
shock on my face.

“Shell be beauti-
ful again as soon as
she can eat. She
doesn't eat,” he said.

It wasn't her
beauty I was wor-
ried about but her
physical and emo-
tional condition. She
looked ready to
snap.

“She can’t leave
the family if shes
in that condition,”
I told him. “Thats
the worst thing she

could do.”

“Take her, take
her, she wants to go
with you.”

But I knew, or I

thought I knew, that permanent separation
from her family would be the worst possi-
ble thing for her just then—Vietnamese
family ties are much stronger than ours
and emotionally exhausting when broken.
I thought that the worst was over for the
family and for Vietnam and that Mai's
hcakh and peace of mind would comc
back a lot faster with them than without
them. I also thought that there would be
some way to get her out once the new
regime had settled down. I tried to say all
this. There was chaos around us. I was
trying to get the right Victnamese families
оп an evacuation bus and keep others off.
It was a time of desperation, noise, ex-
haustion, stretched nerves.

“Mai, you can't go like this,” I said. “1
can’t take you away like this.”

She cried and cried, and 1 don’t think
even she could have sorted out all the rea-
sons she was crying.

I left Mai and her brother there and
headed for the next busload, hurting but
certain I was right. After a tense half hour,
I worked my way through the embassy
gates, the teeming country locked out be-
hind me.

The next day, Saigon fell, At President
Ford's orders, we evacuated the embassy. 1
climbed up to the roof and onto a heli-
copter, which beat away into the darkness.

.

I went back to Southeast Asia and found

things to do that were solitary, hard and

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worth while. They were approximations of
the life I had led, but I got little from them
but good stories and the cold comfort of
having done my best. Even the few successes
led to nothing. I didn’t stay single because
of Mai, but I did stay single. Always, always
I thought this: If I was wrong to leave her
behind as the country collapsed, I owed her.

In late 1981, 1 was in Thailand. A
refugee in a camp for Vietnamese boat
people heard 1 was looking for Mai and
wrote to me. He said she had suffered a
nervous breakdown after the fall of Saigon,
had spent about two years in the hospital
and had recovered mentally but was physi-
cally weak. She was unmarried. He could
put us safely in contact via his family, still

in Kontum, but, of course, it was up to Mai
whether or not she would respond.

I heard nothing from her for months.
Then, in the spring of 1982, I got a wonder-
ful letter, and many more alter that, full of
bravery and heartbreak. She didn’t blame
me for anything (which made me blame
myself), she had heart and stomach prob-
lems, her life was hard and unhappy, she
wanted to leave Vietnam and she wanted
to be with me. “What should 1 do?” she
asked. She had tried twice to escape by
boat and had been caught and jailed both
times. Did I want her to try again?

I had already heard plenty about boat
escapes from Vietnam: It is estimated that
between 15 and 25 percent of the boats are
lost at sea, and virtually every surviving
boat is hit by pi-
rates, who routinely
abduct and rape any
young women
among their victims.
Further escape at-
tempts would be
worse than foolish.
And yet there was
no hope through
official channels, ei-
ther. There меге
500,000 people al-
ready waiting to join
relatives in the U.S.,
and Mai and I
werent even mar-

in
Indochina, Pd never
get an exception for
Mai.

At that point, I
had to choose be-
tween giving up or
planning something
on my own. That is,
there wasn't any
choice.

My first idea was
to try a run and
snatch from Thai-
land or Malaysia,
using a high-speed
boat to make a ren-
dezvous with Mai
By the time I had

abandoned that impractical plan, though, 1
had a dossier on Vietnamese coastal secu-
rity that was so thorough it seemed a
shame to waste it.

My reluctance to let the adventure go
was what led me to Hubris. I would sail to
Vietnam in a small boat, approach land
and arrive ashore in such a way as to be ob-
served but not stopped, having meanwhile
communicated the fact of my imminent ar-
rival to the news media as I neared the
coast. The difficulty of the voyage and the
nature of its purpose would be newsworthy
and would ensure widespread interest.
‘That would have several effects.

First, the fact that news stories would be
on BBC and Voice of America broadcasts

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at the time of my arrival would prove to the
Vietnamese that I had no secret purpose:
No spy announces his infiltration. Second,
both Mai and I would be protected by the
international awareness of my presence
and innocent purpose. Third, the interna-
tional attention would persuade the S.R.V.
(Socialist Republic of Vietnam) to put us
together and let us go—it would be good
public relations for them and cost them
nothing: I wasn’t “rescuing” Mai but sim-
ply asking them to make a bureaucratic ex-
ception for her, because she didnt meet
administrative requirements for the Order-
ly Departure Program. Hubris was not one
among many possible ways for me to win
Mai's release—it seemed like the only way.

.
When you are the only thing on it,
there's nothing as enormous as the sea.
Even under fire, I’ve never felt my mortali-
ty more keenly than 1 did staring at so
much huge and potentially desıru
difference so few inches away.

I thought a lot about this during my first
two days at sea, because the northeast
monsoon, supposedly on its way out, start-
ed blowing again as if it had eminent do-
main. The wind stuck about 30 knots.
Because the waves were steep and con-
fused, breaking close together, Hubris
couldn't be sailed. I helped her the only way
I could: I put her under jib and wedged
myself beside the centerboard trunk to
keep my weight low and to windward.

I couldnt believe the g would
stand the strain, even ifby some miracle we
weren't swamped, but Hubris stood it.
When the wind dropped to a reasonable
rate, I let out a yell that rolled right off the
sea’s back. I strung everything wet out to
dry and ate for the first time in two days.

Besides an air-communications trans-
ceiver, I had one for ship-to-ship relays.
My course was perpendicular to several
major shipping lanes. I had planned to use
freighters as a check on my navigation, and
also as a backup for establishing my dis-
tance from Vietnam. Fixes from the two
ships І did reach by radio showed me that
my navigation was better than I had
hoped. The second one, which I reached on
April 20, 150 miles east of Nha Trang, was
an Evergreen Lines ship out of Hong Kong.
The affable Filipino officer said that he
would pass a message on to my friend, Tom
O'Donnell, a commodities broker in Hong
Kong, when the ship got to Singapore on
the 22nd. That turned out to be the only in-
dication the outside world could have had
that Hubris and I were near Vietnam and
in good shape. Tom never got the message.

The ten days between the high winds
and reaching the Evergreen ship had been
fantastic: ten-to-15-knot steady, beam-
reaching winds that died for a while every
afternoon about five so 1 could dry my
sleeping slot and put everything straight
before dark. 1 luxuriated in the grandeur 1
awoke to every morning and sailed through
all day. Those bounding blue acres and
that shining sky were mine: Crossing the

South China Sea that way gave me title—I
owned that sucker.

Then came the 13th day.

Things went bad about ten in the morn-
ing. A front headed by line squalls as far
north and south as I could see was closing
astern. [ still remember the particular
cloud that did us in. It had an extraordi-
nary aspect as it bore down, its base just
above the water, a towering face that drew
itself up higher and higher, blotting out the
sun, then burst with a roar of thunder,
lightning and wind. The black-green
bruise color under the cloud and the white-
caps like teeth had warned me, and I was
in a panic to douse the mainsail before the
wind blast hit. When those things strike,
there's always a wind shift the second the
force hits you that can tear your rigging out
by its roots. In an instant, the jib collapsed
on one side of the mast and exploded
drum-tight on the other with a sound like a
shot; but Hubris held.

She held all.day while 1 was down shiv-
ering and bruised, wedged against the
centerboard again, worrying. Not just wor-
rying about whether or not Hubris would
get us through it but about where we were
headed—which was in the wrong direction
at the wrong time. The storm was driving
us southwest, toward Cam Ranh Bay,
when we were already close to Vietnamese
territorial waters. Cam Ranh is the billion-
dollar naval and air base America left be-
hind after the war. It’s now used by the
Russian navy, a strategic and sensitive
place, one where neither Hubris’ clearly
innocent appearance nor outside radio ге-
ports could prevent spying charges.

Contacting airliners on my radio was a
crucial part of my plan, to advise friends of
my progress. | had tested the sea-to-air
transceiver on my second morning at sea,
and the captain of a Singapore Airlines
flight came up so clearly he sounded as if he
were in the bow of my boat. On the 12th
day, the day before the storm, I went on the
air again. I passed under an airlines cross-
road, where there should have been five or
six flights within hailing distance. Looking
up, I could see the flights; checking my
flight chart, 1 could name them, But my
transmissions drew no response. Except for
being adrift or dead, I was near the worst
circumstances ['d envisioned.

Without communications with the out-
side world, I became obsessive in my deter-
mination not to land anywhere near Cam
Ranh. I decided 1 had to get the informa-
tion I needed from the next Vietnamese
fishing boat I saw—Fd already seen about
ten—and to get it in such a way as not to
show that I could speak Vietnamese. I also
developed a story about being on my way
to Singapore from Manila. My reason for
approaching Vietnam was stomach trou-
ble, which would be easy to mime.

I sailed up to a 40-foot fishing boat at
nine in the morning of the 14th day, point-
ed to a map, said “Nha Trang? Nha
Trang?" then pointed questioningly south-
west, west and northwest. I figured the

PLAYBOY

140

fishermen would answer by pointing;
the comparison between my compass and
the direction they indicated would give me
a rough relative bearing of Nha Trang.

They did point, and a compass check
told me I was actually north of where I
wanted (0 be, having overcompensated
after the storm by sailing northwest, head-
ing toward my lesser evil, Qui Nhon.

One of the fishermen had hold of Hubris’
forestay to keep their boat from dama:
her as both of them rose and fell
choppy sea. The fishermen were
among themselves in a heavy accent I
couldn't understand. The one at the fore-
stay didn't let go. More talk. They started
motioning me to lower my sails. I realized
he stupidity of giving them control of
Hubris—for a small sailboat, a hand on
the forestay is all it takes—and also real-
ized that their heavy boat could be used as
a weapon to disable Hubris if I got out my
diving knife and forced the man to let go.

1 lowered the sails, They motioned me to
go aboard their boat. One man jumped
down onto Hubris and began searching
through her lockers, pulling out all my
equipment. It was as if she were being vio-
lated. I felt shamed, having to stand there
and watch it.

They asked me what country I was
from. “England,” I said. That must have
isfied them, because they left me alone,
talking among themselves. 1 don't remem-
ber much of what happened next. The lifi-
ing of the nervous strain of the voyage hit
me like depressurization and I went to
sleep in the wheelhouse.

I woke up a few hours later, held fast in
the grip of my fixations. Christ, I thought,
my story is that Pm on my way to Singa-
pore, but there are documents on Hubris
that prove I’m headed for Vietnam. My
only idea was to get rid of them.

It was a mania, and I wasn't careful how

ing for dark, I began
pers and charts and tossing
them overboard. No one tried to stop me.
At the time, the Singapore story seemed
e a necessity, Then, when the officials
in Qui Nhon let me call my parents or
my friend ‘Tom, or at least talk with the
Australian consul (Australia helps with
diplomatic affairs for the U.S. in Vietnam),
everything would be back on an even keel,
and with the press alerted, Mai and 1
would have our guarantee of safety and our
assurance of success. Everything wasn’t
lost, not by a long shot.

We came into Qui Nhon harbor about
10:30 at night and docked beside a stone
quay that had been broken up by US.
bombs or Vietnamese artillery during the
war and never repaired, On the low head-
land above it was a small stone-block
house. The scenc—lit by a single bulb on
the wall of the building—looked like a
stage set. A young officer in charge of the
small detachment took me up to the build-
ing and struggled to match his few English
words with the needs of his forms. Punchy
with fatigue, I ached to shorten things by

the

then

speaking Vietnamese, but according to my
cover story, | wasn't supposed to know
how. Finally, he finished and invited me to
walk n and a few soldiers to town.
Some invitations can't be refused.

That was how I made my return to Viet-
uam. 1 never thought crossing over into
hell would be such a quiet process, or that
Га be guided there by a polite young
officer pushing a bicycle.

б

Despite the international treaties рго-
tecting seamen of all countries, especially
those taken at sea, my captors refused me
a ide contact and did not notify the
U.S. that I was alive, much less that I was
in custody. This extraordinary treatment
convinced me that divulging my six years
of wartime experience and the fact that 1
had planned to go to Vietnam, not Singa-
pore, was more dangerous than ever. For
three days, I refused to eat unless allowed
10 contact someone, and I maintained my
Singapore story. A year later, I learned that
my interrogators had known of my past
and my plans since the first day: They'd
found and translated my letter requesting
Mai's release and were letting me spill my
cover story while their suspicions of espi-
onage grew into certainty.

After the third day, there were no signs
that my hunger strike was having an effect.
When a higher official came to question
me, a man іп civilian clothes who [ was
told was the province chief, 1 decided my
only hope was to tell him the truth. But I
withheld Mai’s name.

My admission had no positive effect. At
midnight, I was moved north under heavy
guard to Da Nang.

‘The city is directly below the air corridor
commercial airlines use between Bangkok
and cast Asian capitals. From my cell, 1
watched the planes fly over; that might
have been the worst part of my first days
prison. In an hour, people would be step-
ping down from those planes, awash in
freedom they didn’t even feel, annoyed
with the heat and customs formalities and
pirate taxis. I would have given anything
to be annoyed about those things again.

‘They put me on the second floor of a
building at China Beach that used to be an
orphanage supported by U.S. Marines.
Now it's a Spartan R&R barracks for the
S.R.V. army. From my window, from time
to time I could see Russian advisors and
their huge wives on the beach. The Viet-
namese seemed to avoid them.

For two or three weeks, nothing official
happened. Then an old man who spoke
careful, perfect English showed up to beg
nterrogation. His looks and manner
strangely reminded me of Alec Guinness.
We sat in a small room at opposite ends of
a small table, an overhead fan going list-
lessly through the motions of dispelling a
heat that had nowhere to go. Before he left
the first day, he said, “Many of my superi-
ors are convinced you area spy.”

“If I tell you my бапсёсѕ name and
where she is, and you find out she's real,

y see I'm not a spy?” I asked.
“That will help you in the short run but
not in the long run. It is necessary, you sec,
but it is not sufficient.”

I answered the old man’s questions for
three more weeks, assuming that I was go-
ing to be imprisoned for the rest of my life,
however short, and planned an escape. |
knew the odds were astronomical against
my ever reaching Thailand alive via the
Montagnard highlands and Laos, but I
decided I would rather dic trying to escape
than live in their prisons and die according
to their whims or their laws. Then, too,
there was always the chance that I'd make
it. On top of everything, God help me, was
that voice telling me, What an adventure,
boy, what an adventure just to try it

‘There was no lock on my door. At night,
a chair was pushed against it, not so much
to hold it closed as to make a loud noise on
the stone-tile floor if moved it. After mid-
night, the guard on duty was usually
asleep. The top half of the door was made
of glass panes, and one panel was missi
When I realized I'd have to lift the chair to
escape, І added isometric biceps work to a
daily exercise routine so I could lift it. Aft-
er ten days or so, 1 could lift it

From my door, it was only two steps to
get over the parapet and onto the ledge. I'd
seen the outside of the wall when the
guards walked me to another building to
wash; there were construction rods and lat-
ticed brickwork under the ledge that would
get me the 30 feet to the ground. It was
about 75 feet from there to a urinal built in-
to the perimeter wall above the beach. The
concrete side of the urinal was a couple of
feet high; that would get me over the wall.

Finally, one night, the conditions were
perfect, the moon was down and I could
hear the guard snoring. I got up noiselessly
and eased my way to the door. He was
stretched out on a mat right in front of me,
and to open the door, I would have had to
lift both the chair and the guard. The next
night, another guard brought a friend and
they stayed awake. The dim glow of their
cigarettes burned up the hours, and when
they finally went to sleep, there wasn't
enough time to give my plans a chance.

The next morning, a group of hard-faced
men in civilian clothes arrived and ordered
me downstairs, into a three-car entourage
that carried me back to Qui Nhon.

This time, I was to be held in the prison
of the Cong An—Viemam's K.G.B. The
loss of the chance of escape on the verge of
my attempt was demoralizing: It was the
only way I could have got out of the night-
mare without involving Mai. Now her cor-
roboration of our relationship was my last
hope—“necessary but not sufficient," as
my captors had told me.

I knew that sooner or later, they'd find
Mai no matter what [ told them. Praying
that the information I gave would not re-
sult in her arrest, I gave my questioners her
name and told them where she lived. The
Cong An would press its interrogations
about my “secret mission” for another

industries. Му master's thesis con-
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year, never believing I'd already made the
only betrayal that was mine to make.
.

It's the job of any country’s security serv-
to be skeptical. Given the fact that the
Vietnamese Communists have been contin-
uously involved in warfare since World
War Two, with real spies in large numbers
to look for, and given my background and
the fact that the Vietnamese see China and
the U.S. as enemies in league against their
regime, their skepticism about me was logi-
cal (if they could overlook several points). 1
had lied about being headed for Vietnam
when I was first questioned in Qui Nhon; I
had had a radar detector on board Hubris
(to keep me from being run down by
freighters) and, in theory, it could beused to
pinpoint coastal radar emplacements; I had,
in the past, worked in Laos and Cambodia
withanti-Vietnamese resistance movements
and could be doing the same thing now.

Supicious that I was a spy, the Viet-
namese had the option of using physical
torture to compel my cooperation, but they
used it only once. They did, however, use
mental torture, and it hinged on their
declaration that they were keeping my cap-
ture a secret, exploiting my fear that no
one—Mai, my parents—knew where I
was. Over and over, they repeated the
questions: “Why isn’t anyone asking about
you? We haven't had any questions about
you from your parents or from your Gov-
ernment. Why are they silent?” At first, 1
was puzzled, then I got worried. Could my
letters have been lost, the ones I’d sent ina
large envelope to Tom O'Donnell from the
Philippines, to explain what I'd done and
why, in case something did go wrong and
no news ever broke? And Tom was sup-
posed to talk with reporters if he hadn't
heard from me in a month; I thought news
stories might still have proved my true pur-
pose to the Vietnamese, even if they hadn't
appeared as soon as I landed.

But if the letters were lost, and if, for
some reason, Tom hadn't talked with re-
porters, a deadly silence would fall over my
case. Nothing could have been worse for
me. Silence about a possibly captured
agent is standard procedure on the part of
the Government. It would have been strong
evidence to the Cong An that I was a spy.

The envelope with the letters had been
lost. Tom never got it, and he waited three
months before he told anybody—my par-
ents or the press or the Government—that
I was gone. The delay was bad luck and my
fault, not "Tom's. I hadn't been explicit
enough, except in the lost letters, about
what he should do and when he should do
it. So there was silence for three and a half
months, until an article appeared in The
Wall Street Journal and an A.P. dispatch by
my friends Jon Swain and Denis Gray.
Then the U.S. had asked questions.

‘The Vietnamese said they knew nothing
about me. Of course, they never told me
there had been inquiries

.
Subconsciously, you get to know the sen-

sory patterns of any place you spend time
in. In solitary confinement, it takes only a
few days. I was aware of a new set of foot-
steps outside my cell, the smell of a
different kind of cigarette smoke, a light
that stayed on 20 minutes longer than usu-
al, five extra beats in the cadence count of
the guards' morning exercise. It reminded
me of thc way I would wake up at sea when
the slap of the waves changed against the
hull of my boat.

A week after the first interrogation ses-
sions ended, there was an ominous shift in
the routine. Normally, the only voices 1
heard were those of the guards, in small
talk among themselves or in battle cries as
they slammed their pieces around in Со-
Tuong, Vietnamese chess. But on that par-
ticular morning, there were more voices
outside the cell than usual, and they were
lower and more serious.

Then there was a shifting of furniture,
uncertain footsteps on the stairs as more
pieces were carried in and repeated small
scrapings of wooden legs on the tiles,
minute alignments, as if they were prepar-
ing for a conference of VIPs. "Tomorrow"
I heard one guard say to another.

Three long days later, a guard told me to
“get ready to work.” They call interroga-
tion “work,” with no sense of irony. I put
оп a pair of trousers and a T-shirt they'd
left for me and walked into the next room,
which was packed with about 20 men
wearing the expressions the Romans must
have worn when the first Christians stum-
bled into the ring. I was ordered into a
chair. There was silence for a few seconds.
Then an old man leaped up and yelled,
“Tie him up! This man is CIA! Tie him up.
now!” 1 held my hands in front of me, hop-
ing at least for that much, but two men
forced them behind my back and hand-
cuffed them. The interrogation began and
the faces around me got that glint—the
lions had started their work.

That went on for about five days. The
constant dread of painful death, plus the
behind-the-back position and pain of
handcuffs, made sleep impossible.
e, for me, was reduced to drifting in
and out of consciousness. In desperation, I
decided to try to shock my captors into
treating me humanely, and the only way I
could see to accomplish that was to make a
convincing attempt at suicide. I'd never
thought of myself as the suicidal type, but
at that point, a quick death—if I lost too
much blood and my fake turned uninten-
tionally real—scemed preferable to the
slow, painful death I thought I faced.

I'd Icarned how to loop my arms up un-
der my buttocks and bring them around to
the front. It was a useful, if painful, skill. 1
waited till late at night, when the guards
checked on me only about once an hour.
Right after a shadow moved away from the
door, I got my hands around to the front
and pried the frame off a small mirror in
my cell. I have prominent veins, and I
started sawing into my forearms, pressing

the biggest veins against the bone to sever
them. When the grisly task was done, I was
able to annoint myself and much of my сей
with blood. When the guard arrived, he
saw one of the more memorable tableaux in
his young life.

It was dark when I came to. A doc-
tor was sewing up my forearms. The head
officer of the prison facility was there, alter-
nately angry and worried. His worrying
was just what I had been hoping for.

Instead of daily visits with the interroga-
tors, I was now under the care of a doctor,
who came every day to check lor infection
and change dressings. The handcufls were
gone and the quality of my food improved.
‘There was no sympathy, but there was a
kind of cover-your-ass attitude. They did
not want a dead American on their hands,
especially one who hadn't confessed.

About a week later, I was called to work
again.

“We have been to sce Mai in Saigon and
her parents in Kontum,” they told me.
“Her parents say they were friendly to you
under the puppet regime. But now, after
studying their past behavior, they realize
you deceived them. They don’t want their
daughter to have anything to do with you.
You didn't come back here for Mai. The
Socialist Republic of Vietnam is lenient to
those who confess but hard on those who
run away. Go back to your cell and think
about that.”

It was clear what had happened. Mai’s
old parents had already had problems be-
cause of their being Catholic, and appar-
ently, their son, the priest, had got into
serious trouble. Questioned about their re-
lations with an American “imperialist,”
they naturally tried to distance themselves
and their family from me. Who could
blame them?

The heartening thing was that the inter-
rogators didn’t claim any wavering on
Mai's part. In fact, they didn't, at first, say
anything at all about her. It was clear to me
that despite the risk to hersclf—and to her
parents—she must have confirmed our re-
lationship. By putting herself and her fami-
ly at risk to protect me, she had shown
tremendous courage. That realization gave
me new Strength against my captors.

.

At four o'clock one morning, three
months into my imprisonment, I was
awakened, told to get dressed, taken
downstairs and put into an old Toyota
sedan. Oddly enough, my escorts were at
pains to be affable. I came to understand
that their attitude was that of men ordered
to deliver a volatile element from Qui Nhon
to Saigon without an explosion

At one point along the coast, we stopped
ata snack bar that was trying for all the
world to be a tourist attraction. It was built
on rocks near the sea, but for some reason,
it turned its back on the water and gave pa-
trons a view of a dirt road scrambling up a
bare hill. The guards put a Russian ver-
sion of an English country-squire hat on
me and said, “If anything happens, if

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anybody talks to you, you are a movie star
from Czechoslovakia. Keep this hat on. Do
not speak Vietnamese.”

Seated in the café, I couldn't believe my
good fortune. 1 was among people again,
people who didn't wish me harm, who
probably would have been sympathetic
had they known my story. Completing the
strange experience was a large cassette
player that was propped on a window sill,
banging outa tune by Jerry Lee Lewis. De-
spite everything that had happened since
my capture in the South China Sea, Pd
been able to keep my composure. But what
my interrogators failed to do through hours
of questioning and mental and physical
torture, Jerry Lee Lewis, open air and
friendly faces accomplished in a moment: I
wept openly and uncontrollably, which is
hardly what you'd expect from a visiting
Czechoslovakian movie star.

By the time we hit Saigon—that is what
the eastern part of the city is still called—it
was dark. I tried to sneak past the memo-
ries that lay in ambush at every corner, but
it was useless. Worst of all was the knowl-
edge that I was within a mile of Mai. I
learned to deal with the memories, but I
couldn't get over being so close to her yet
farther than if I'd never left the Philippines.

They put me in a large cell on the third
floor. There was a plank bcd, no mattress,
a small table and a chair, There was a big
window, but because there was no other
opening, only a little fresh air drifted in. In
a separate cubicle was a crumbling toilet
and a faucet. There was room to sit under
the faucet and bathe, but usually, water
was short, and cach day, I'd have to choose
between a three-minute wash or dumping
all the water down the toilet to flush it.

Although the cell itself was decent, it
had one feature that preyed on me mental-
ly at a time when I was least able to handle
it. Scratched into the paint on the walls and
the door, along with a lot of Thai and Cam-
bodian writing, were crude pictures etched
by men who had occupied the room before
me. ‘There was a drawing of a man in leg
irons and handcuffs and a sketch of a man
with his biceps tied excruciatingly behind
him, a torture many POWs suffered.

But most disturbing ofall was a drawing
next to the peephole in the metal door. It
showed a man holding sticks in his hands
out before him; there was a lightning bolt
beneath him, and he looked as if he were
dancing. In place of his head was an elec-
tronic haze that graphically indicated the
scrambling of his brains. The sticks, of
course, were electrodes.

Pushed to the point of desperation, I
found a thin piece of metal with sharp
edges that had been used to fasten an elec-
tric cable to a wall in my cell. I worked it
until I could break a small rectangle off. I
sharpened it against the cement step under
the faucet and kept it near my back teeth
between my gum and upper lip, should sui-
cide—not the counterfeit kind-—become
my only option for escape. It was the only
weapon I had against my interrogators.

And I could use it against only myself.
.

The key part of the investigation cen-
tered on my relationship with Mai. What it
came down to was my having to prove that
my motivation was sufficiently compelling
to cross the South China Sca in a sailboat
for a woman.

Because the various components of my
motivation depended so much on my own
character, and on the American tradition
of rugged individualism, which is diametri-
cally opposed to the Vietnamese (and par-
ticularly to the Communist) concept of
collective behavior, the investigators found
it easy to disbelieve me.

Finally, one morning, they said, “We
have talked with Mai and her parents sev-
eral times. She’s waiting for you. But her
story and yours are only similar; they
aren't the same. And her parents contradict
most of the things you say. The committee
has decided we do not believe you came
here for Mai.”

And then he began to scream, “You are
a snake! You are an American snake and
we will kill you.”

I was taken down to the interrogation
room two or three more times after that
and handed small pieces of paper with
questions on them. The interrogators:
themselves were gone. 1 was in complete
despair again, and the questions were de-
signed to keep me that way during the
empty months that followed:

“Name the French, British and Ameri-
can secret agents you met during the war”

“Explain the intelligence functions of the
Orderly Departure Program.”

“Tell all you know about the supervisory
influence of the CIA over the Peace
Corps”

“Uuunngahhhhhhhh. . .

They took me back to the cell. It would
be eight months before I walked through
that door again.

.

In the cell, shutters and blinds were ar-
ranged and bolted outside the window so
that light came in but there was no view—
except for a few square inches below one
shutter. Ironically, I could see the front
gate and the life passing through it. Some-
time in the fifth or sixth month, one of
the children in the compound—some of the
staff's families lived there—tricked the
(o going outside the gate, then ran
le and shut the gate and locked
him out. I started to laugh out loud, but at
the first sound, I caught my breath in as-
tonishment. I hadn't heard my own laugh-
ter in a year.

.

My mind watched for the slightest
changes in conditions and from them di-
vined salvation or dived deeper into de-
spair. In the eighth month of isolation, the
13th of my captivity, there were signs and
miracles. I got toothpicks and a broom—
both on the same day! A few days later,
they began letting me out for exercise
again. Something had changed.

‘A few days later, I went back to work
with a new set of interrogators: a tough old
man of about 70, a sarcastic young hot-shot
and an interpreter of about 30 who spoke
perfect, idiomatic English and wore West-
егп shoes and cologne.

In the beginning, they concentrated
minutely on questions about my voyage
and especially about where I had been
caught. In a legal sense, it was crucial: If
Га been seized outside Vietnamese territo-
rial waters, then the fishermen would have
been guilty of piracy and the S.R.V—or at

. Its nothing, Ма... the
dishwasher is on.”

мз

PLAYBOY

144

least the Cong An—would have sanctioned
it by imprisoning me.

We reached a compromise of sorts: 1
agreed that Га planned to come to Viet-
nam without a visa and would have been
arrested on land, anyway, as part of my
plan, and that lacking a detailed log, 1
couldn't prove that 1 had been in interna-
tional waters when seized

‘That in itself was encouraging, beyond
the point of law: They scemed to accept the
idea that coming ashore and being arrested
was what I had had in mind. Did that
mean the “secret purpose” idea had been
shelved?

‘Then my hopes took a dive again. The
interrogators started on my infiltrations in-
to Laos and Cambodia with anti-Viet-
namese resistance forces. They read me an
astounding law: It’s against Vietnamese law
to enter Laos or Cambodia without a visa.
My protest that these "crimes" had taken
place five years carlicr made no difference.
They added up the years and the fines and
told me that my punishment might amount
to 80 years and $800,000.

“But the policy of the Socialist Republic
of Vietnam allows you to apply for clemen-
cy to the chairman of the council of minis-
ters,” they told me. “There is no guarantee
you will get it; anyone may apply. Every-
thing depends on your attitude.”

At the next session, the old man said,
“Well, do you want to write your request
for clemency?”

“Yes, naturally.”

“Here's what | suggest you say.”

I wrote what they suggested, including
the fact that Га been a soldier in the U.S.
Army of aggression (that made me, ac-
cording to early interrogators, liable for
Prosecution as a war criminal). At the end,
I added something of my own: that I hoped
my reason for coming to the S.R. V. illegal-
ly, to get permission to marry a Vietna-
mese girl, would enter into the minister's
consideration for clemency.

“We accept that that was your purpose,”
the interpreter said.

Now he tells me.

Then they looked at one another and
started beaming in a kind of complicity.
“Do you know Dick Childress?”

Christ, I thought, Dick is the National
Security Council's highest ranking official
for Southeast Asia and in charge of all
dealings with Vietnam. And he's one оГ
my best friends. For his sake—that is, for
the sake of the delicate M.I.A. discussions
he has regularly with the Vietnamese and
the Laotians, and for my own, since 1 was
sure the Cong An would see our friendship
as sinister—1 had never mentioned Dick.
They're really going to nail me now, I
thought.

The old man handed me a letter. Surely,
that was the first time a letter from the Ex-
ecutive Office of the President had been
seen in that prison.

“Dear Rob,” the letter said. “Гус been
officially notified by the Vietnamese gov-
ernment that you are being held by local

authorities. Your family is fine, have never
given up hope and look forward to your
safe, speedy return. Be patient and ГЇЇ buy
you a meal when you return. As ever,
Richard T. Childress, Director of Asian
Affairs.”

.

Му release was due to Dick’s never hav-
ing given up trying to learn what had hap-
pened to me and his eventually coming
across accounts from boat people in
refugee camps that an American had gone
to Qui Nhon in a small boat, had asked for
his fiancée and had been arrested. Too
close to my story to be coincidence, that, in
effect, proved I had made it to Vietnam
Dick suggested to the foreign-ministry
officials with whom he worked that they
might check with their local officials again,
because it sure did look as if 1 had made it,
and maybe a new look would turn up some
news. A month later, they determined that
those old boys out in the provinces did have
me after all... . A hell of a surprise.

At the end of the week, there was noth-
ing. Another week. Another. And then a
month, I was beside myself. What was
happening?

Then one morning, “Get ready to go to
work.”

We didn’t go to the interrogation room
but to a larger one down the hall. It was
filled with people, some seated around a U-
shaped table, others standing up and tak-
ing pictures and video-taping.

Mercifully early in the proceedings, it
was announced that the prime minister
had granted clemency. Those formalities
were an “administrative settlement? by
the People’s Committee of Nghia Binh
Province.

When I got back to the cell, it had been
cleaned and there was a load of food big
enough to feed three men and piles of fruit
arranged like a hotel welcome basket. Sev-
eral jailers stood around like waiters, urg-
ing me on, as if I needed it. Then the man
with the video camera walked in and said,
“Don’t mind me.”

Later, a jailer came back and said I'd be
put on the first plane out when my parents
paid the several-thousand-dollar fine im-
posed. Hubris and everything except the
few things I had with me would be
confiscated. He gave me a shirt and a pair
of shoes.

About eight o'clock the next morning,
they told me to get ready to leave. I walked
out of that cell for the last time an hour lat-
er. They put me in a VIP lounge at the air-
port; there was a bevy of officials on hand,
pushing lots of forced bonhomie. I was
given assurances that if I wished to return
for Mai, I would simply have to apply for a
visa to do so. A tall man walked up and
said in Oxford English with all the unction
due a respected guest, “I have the honor to
inform you that Colonel Dick Childress
will be arriving in a few minutes to take
you to Bangkok.

Dick walked in and I hugged him as if he
were life itself, and he was. When no one

was looking, I slipped the sharpened piece
of metal out of my mouth and dropped it at
my feet.

.

Not long after I arrived in the U.S., I got
a letter from Mai. She had learned from
news reports about my attempts to gain her
release. She wrote: “Dear Rob! I write to
you in the greatest happiness ol mind. Free-
dom was given back to you! All the worries
and longing overloading my heart flew
away. I felt as if I personally was released.
As soon as the speaker announced the
hero's name, I wanted to run through
mountains, valleys and oceans in search of
him so that I might offer him my admira-
tion, gratitude and love. I was all the more
determined in my love and desire to be
with you and to care for you. I heard your
‘own voice, too, which I thought I should
never hear again in my life.”

.

T had gone back to Victnam for Mai and
my honor. I had achieved nothing tangible
for Mai, bur at least she now knew that I
had done all there was to be done. I sup-
pose I had got my precious honor back, but
without success to go with it, honor meant
very little.

Was I wrong to have tried? I think the
question is meaningless. I don’t see how
there ever was a choice—giving up is not a
choice; it’s only giving up.

Perhaps that is why my return to the
United States in the late summer of 1986
was so frustrating. I took Dick's advice and
waited for the slow rounds of diplomacy to
secure Mai's freedom. But waiting is not
what I do best. Nor Mai: Since 1975, she
had tried twice to escape by boat and was
caught and jailed both times. I knew she
would try again, But even jail is better
than what can happen to young women
when a refugee boat is hit by pirates.

As it happened, my fears were well
founded; in December 1987, I learned that
Mai had made a third attempt to escape
from Vietnam.

Ever since my release, I had been trying
to persuade Mai and her brother not to go
through with their plans: for her to escape
overland, then board a small boat that
would try its luck among the pirates and
other perils in the sea. | kept hoping, and
writing to Mai with no real conviction of
my own, that the Communists would act
on their 1986 assurances and let me go
back for her, working things out through
paperwork and patience.

But late last fall, her letters stopped. I
knew then that she had gone underground
to begin her escape attempt. As the silence
persisted, I railed at her brother, who had
made the arrangements from outside Viet-
nam. As the weeks went by, even he
seemed to lose faith in his dangerous plan

In the end, the silence was broken. Mai
literally surfaced, wading ashorc at night
from where her boat had dropped her 100
yards out. Exhausted, helpless and unpro-
tected, she was met at knife point by one of
an army of thicves who go down to the

shore every night, waiting for the sea to de-
liver the next wave of victims.

A man she'll never know saw what was
happening, drove away the attacker and
led her to the local police station. She
stayed there with other refugees from other
boats for ten days, when she was sent to a
refugee. camp. (Because of circumstances
in the camp, it’s best not to say where it is.)

Her brother relayed the joyous news to
me, and suddenly our impossible reunion
was just a plane flight away.

б

Two weeks after her placement in the
camp, Mai was looking for some sewing
materials at the refugee market place. A
friend of hers pushed through the crowd
and said, “Come outside quick, quick;
someone is here to see you.”

She went out into the light, shielding her
eyes against the bright sun. She saw me
just after I saw her, and there was a look on
her face that no man deserves. In a mo-
ment, her head was on my chest.

Everybody around us—all refugees who
had lost home, country, spouses, children,
parents and everything they owned—was
standing in the dust of that strange land
smiling for two people who had won.

.

We had one day together. I will probably
not be able to see Mai again until she
leaves the camp. It’s a tightly controlled
place, and I got permission to go in only
through the intercession of the U.S. em-
bassy. Even now, 13 years after the war
ended, the rate of new arrivals is up, and
the governments of Southeast Asian coun-
tries—responding to emigration caps
placed by Western countries—have or-
dered their navies to begin driving the
refugee boats back out to sea.

Mai was fortunate to have made it when
she did. As it is, she must wait a minimum
of five months while her immigration pa-
pers are ground through the bureaucracies
of two countries.

.

Looking back on our few hours together
in Mai’s narrow, curtained space in the
camp, it strikes me how strangely our story
mirrors the larger story of the war.

America went into Vietnam with such
good intentions, but then, to its own great
cost in every sense, it became partners
with the enemy and destroyed the country
it set out to save. I sailed to the remnants of
that country to help Mai and managed
only to put her and her family into danger,
my own parents through the grief of believ-
g that they had lost their only child and
myself into a situation that could well have
made that a reality

But when I think back on my time with
Mai and remember how she had laughed
as she told me how the Cong An had tried
to convince her that 1 had a wife and three
children back in the States, I figure that
right there—in that dusty refugee camp—
is where the awful parallel ends. The war is
long over, but Mai and I live on.

AT JACK DANIELS DISTILLERY we make
our whiskey with iron-free water from a
"Ienneessee cave spring.

Our spring doesn't look very big, but it ж
us with all the good water we need.
And since every drop flows from an
underground cave, what we use is never
exposed to outside impurities. Iron-free
water (and oldtime methods) account in,
large part for our whiskey's rareness.
A sip, we believe, and you'll see
why we're so proud of our spring.

SIMO TOME al РА ТИХЕ
Е СОВЕ Е ESE

PIU Soo
WHISKEY

Tennessee Whiskey + 40-43% alcohol by volume (80-86 proof) + Distilled and Bottled by
Jack Daniel Distillery, Lem Motiow, Proprietor, Route 1, Lynchburg (Pop 361). Tennessee 37352

145

LET’S GET TOUGH!

c’mon, guys, how
about some candidates

with cojones?

By KEVIN COOK
MADISON was a runt. John Adams was a
pain in the butt. Washington brushed
his teeth with Lemon Pledge. None of
them would be elected today. They
weren't cuddly. The founding fathers
were stubborn s.o.b.s who called honor
sacred and fought for what they be-
lieved. In 1804, our third Vice-Presi-
dent, Aaron Burr, shot and killed
ex-Treasury Secretary Al Hamilton in
a duel.

Of our current crop of Bushes, Doles,
Harts, Gephardis, Simons and Dukaki,
whom can you even imagine in a
fistfight?

“Hair styles masquerading as states-
men,” Adams might call the airbrushed
leading men of Campaign 788.

“Am 1 lying? Washington would
say, “or are these dudes the Spuds
MacKenzies of governance?”

Somewhere between the Cuban Mis-
sile Crisis and the Super Bow! Shuffle,
we screwed up. We adapted a TV for-
mula to politics. We learned to settle for
the least objectionable candidate, and
candidates learned to be guys we'd be
comfortable having over for wine cool-
ers. Goodwrenches, Whipples and
Thickes. Where in Article Two, Section
One, did they find the words “less
filling"?

I lost interest in Campaign 88 in the
middle of December 787, watching the
opening minutes of Gary Hart's rerun.
This is what we've come to, I thought—
the spectacle of Hart, a political Thicke
if ever there were one, exhuming him-
self at a press conference shown on a
news update sponsored by a “No Ex-
cuses” jeans commercial that just hap-
pened to feature the bimbarella who
roped and branded him in thc first
place. The next day, the polls showed
Hart leading the race for the Democrat-
ic nomination. Pulecease.

“Make my day, Gary,” Burr would
growl.

Hart claimed he was the hope of to-
morrow. Millions of Americans appar-
ently agreed, but I think they did it out
of Presidential burnout. They figured
that if we survived the consecutive Ad-
ministrations of an ex-offensive line-
man, a peanut farmer and a chimp's
second banana, we could settle for any
cabin-cruising lothario, bow tie or
chimp's second banana's sccond banana
who comes along.

I'm not sure. Fourteen years of dip-

stick leadership have left us looking like
a high-tech Weimar Republic. The
deficit doubles every five minutes. The
Pentagon can't make a tank that would
survive a collision with a Hot Wheels.
The dollar is burning, the whole world
hates us and Gorbachev looks like a
Commie J.F.K, If we don't want to get
our geopolitical doors blown off in the
Ninctics, we had better get off our na-
tional duff. What this country needs is
the cojones to scrap Campaign 788, go
back to square one and run stubborn
workaholics for President—men and
women with some of the gusto that
made the founding fathers famous.

I have them. Ladies and gentlemen,
the next Presidents of the United States:

Clint Eastwood, 58, Republican,
Lame-Duck Mayor, Carmel, California.
Here's a candidate with the guts and the
ammunition to get a big job done. He
has more governmental experience than
Jesse Jackson. Не kept Carmel's streets
free from psychopathic scum, repealed
its oppressive ice-cream-cone laws and
still found time to explore the sexual
confusion of the modern male in
Tightrope. How could we lose? He asks
Gorbachev if he feels “lucky.” President
Eastwood offers a deal—the U.S.S.R.
out of Afghanistan if the President can
shoot a ruble out of the air. ‘The first sec-
retary tries to fake him out; the Presi
dent shoots the ruble out of Gorbachev's
hand. A few rubles more and the world
is at peace. Roll credits,

Ted Koppel, 48, Independent, Inter-
locutor, АВС News. Young, brilliant,
fair—a workaholic with a national con-
stituency and a strong resemblance to
great Americans Jefferson and Howdy
Doody, Koppel has forcign-aflairs expe-
rience as ABC’s Vietnam correspond-
ent, Hong Kong bureau chief, Miami
bureau chief and chief diplomatic corre-
spondent before holding our hands and
talking us through “America Held
Hostage” in 1979 and 1980. He would
sweep the womens vote, having put his
career on hold to be a houschusband
while his wife went to law school. He
has fab hair. Koppel says he has no in-
terest in the job, but he might reconsider
if 10,000,000 of us called Nightline’s
900 number and pleaded.

Kenneth Olsen, 62, President, Digital
Equipment Corporation. Boring, maybe,
but if Dukakis is a manager, this guy
is a manager. The ideal President for
the New Info Age. When the personal
computer was still a slide rule, K.O.
bought a used textile mill and launched
Digital. In 1986, it boasted revenues of
76 billion dollars, and today, Digital is.
all that stands between ІВМ and world
conquest. He would not win the labor

vote: He eliminated 6000 jobs in 1985
and ended up with a 4.2-billion-dollar
cash reserve the following year. That's
enough to pay slugger Mike Schmidt's
$2,000,000-a-vear contract through the
year 4088. Olsen would have to take a
killer pay cut to be President, but we
could offer him free rein to sic the FTC,
IRS and NLRB on IBM.

Nancy Reagan, 64, Republican, First
Lady. Call this one a sop to the right,
but the woman has qualifications. She is
tough and smart. She never took drugs.
She banished the villainous Regan from
the White House and is a permanent
member of the Fashion Hall of Fame.
She spawned a Contributing Editor of
this magazine. 1 personally would have
some trouble voting for a woman whose
skirts cost more than the school-lunch
program, but she kept her husband and
the country running for seven years.

Arnold "Red" Auerbach, 70, Celtic,
President, Boston Celtics. Tough, smart,
driven, smokes cigars with Churchillian

He rose through the ranks before
taking over the Celtics in 1950 and lead-
ing them to nine N.B.A. titles. He is a
philanthropist—the Auerbach Founda-
tion funds parks and sports programs
for poor —and a World War Two
vet. He is a fiscal conservative—players
say a true Celtic never рісі
He would name Bill Russ
of Defense, leading to a blocked-shot
gap in favor of the U.S. He would carry
Massachusetts unanimously.

Barbra Streisand, 46, Democrat, Star.
My personal choice. The only candidate
with Oscar, Tony, Grammy and Emmy
awards. The diva of democracy. She
once hitched rides to Manhattan dives
where she sang for five dollars; she
made $5,000,000 for Nuts. A fierce ne-
gotiator, she bucked the Hollywood sys-
tem and became the first modern female
star to produce her own films—a trend
followed by Fonda, Lange, Field, Hawn,
et al. The most intelligent person in the
state of California. She would look great
on Mt. Rushmore. She never backs
down, or even slows down. La Presi-
dente would probably make the best
President in 123 years.

A dream? Perchance. I think it’s no-
bler to take arms against the insolence
of office, and by opposing end it, than to
suffer pinhcads. I would rather scratch
“None of the above” on my ballot, and
write in Eastwood, Koppel, Olsen,
N. Reagan, Auerbach, Streisand, or even
Tartikoff, Knight, Cougar Mellencamp,
Streep, Prince, Nicklaus or Woody,
than buy the dandied yams now on sale.

This year, when you go to the polls,
at least consider Streisand/Koppel.
They kept us out of war.

COmPosh TE CANDIDATE

(continued from page 81)
to be in. I've heard the blubbering about
the budget deficit and the economic mess
and the trouble in the Middle East. Гус
heard about all the “impossible” questions
facing the new President. Where do we get
the billions to build Star Wars? How do
you keep from staring at Gorbachev's
birthmark? When you meet Mrs. Thatch-
er, do you have to give her a kiss? Could it
give you AIDS? Why, I've even heard some
gloom-and-doomers say that after my
term, our entire economic system will col-
lapse and throw us into a monster depres-
sion that could spell the end of Western
civilization.

And | know you're wondering, What on
earth should I do about all that?

Well, buddy, that's your problem, not mine!
Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha!

OK, just kidding. Seriously, though, of all
the problems ahead, the worst by far—no
question—is the press. Lick that one and
you've got it knocked. Those goof balls will
just drive you batty if "em. So don't
let "em! Wheneve
stampeding at you, do what I did. Just cup
your ear and squint so it looks like you can't
hear their que m a big
smile and a wave and walk away!

that media herd

It always worked for me. In fact, I wouldn't
be surprised if history recorded my media
policy as one of my biggest achicvements,
right alongside Star Wars, joking after
surgery and, of course, proving that you,
too, can cut taxes and boost the budget at
the same tin
would ruin the economy. That's a laugh.

which the liberals claimed

Which reminds me: Has
about the mouse who has a date with a

l giraffe? Well, he comes home a

wreck, and when his pal asks him if he
scored, he says, "Oh, sure, no problem
and screwing her,

e you heard the

you know, that's exactly what it's
like running America. 1 mean it. You keep

that in mind and you'll never go wrong,

ош do, why, come on out to the
ranch and I'll let you touch me for luck. As
you know, that was the real secret of my
nd maybe it'll rub off. Nancy and
I are always here (except when I'm in Ve-
gas headlining at Caesars) and it's such a
5 say that nothing helps the
inside of a man like the outside of a ho
less, as Gary Hart says, maybe the
Oops, Nancy just walked in,
so I'm signing off now. Break a leg, Mr.
Presid

success,

Your pal,
Ron

Dictated but not comprehen

RR:hb
[y]

01948 Hada Laboratorio, е.

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EVERY DAY YOU WAIT
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Redken scientists learned that calcium build-up
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As a result, Vivagen was formulated to reduce the
level of calcium deposits in the hair,
thus decreasing hair loss.

79% of those testing Vivagen experienced a
decrease in hair loss after just two months.
They reported “more hair,” “fuller hair,”
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It’s true there is no cure for baldness,
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PLAYBOY

148

DISC, DAT (continued from page 107)

“Virtually every record label jumped aboard the CDV
band wagon in 1987. . . . They jumped off just as fast.”

industry—which had been struggling un-
der the burden of a sluggish economy—is
about to rise again and tempt you with pre-
viously undreamed-of viewing and listen-
ing experiences. In 1959, Rod Serling
figuratively welcomed viewers to a new di-
mension in his Twilight Zone series. In
1988, we invite you—literally—into the
new dimensions of home electronics.

DIGITAL AUDIO TAPE

Digital audio tape (DAT) delivers what
office-copier companies only promise: per-
fect copies. A tiny cassette, about half the
size of the standard audio cassette, can
hold as much as two hours of compact-disc-

quality sound. In other words, it shrinks
the CD to shirt-pocket size, For the first
time, you can walk around with an entire
‘opera or rock concert in your pocket.
Being digital, DAT performs many of
the same tricks as CD. Slip a recorded tape
into the deck and а display automatically
tells you the number of tracks and their
length. Skip forward or back to the desired
tracks by touching the appropriate buttons,
or program only the tracks you want to
hear. These functions may resemble CD's,
but they happen much more slowly, since
the tape has to physically shuttle back and
forth, compared with the quick flick of the
laser on a CD player. Unlike CDs, which

FLIGHT aun
TUDE

“Last time, you accidentally sent my luggage to
Hong Kong: This time, if at all possible, Га prefer
to have it accidentally sent to Paris.”

should never wear out, DATs, like all tapes,
will ultimately deteriorate. Ignore rumors
that DAT will supplant CD.

Although both DAT and CD use similar
digital systems, they are not identical. You
won't be able to make direct digital copies
from CD to DAT, Should some technical
genius come along with a black box that
matches CD to DAT, copies would still be
impossible, since most CDs incorporate a
digital copy-prevention code that doesn’t
impair the audio.

All the subtle differences in the digital
system, and the digital copy-prevention
code, don't affect analogue copying. You
simply copy as you do now from the line
outputs of the CD player (or amp or receiv-
er) into the line inputs of the DAT recorder.
Even this method results in remarkable
transfers with inaudible sonic losses.

The ability to make near-perfect copies
has piqued the ire of the recording indus-
try. Since the announcement of DAT, rec-
ord companies have attempted to stifle
sales by requesting that an integrated cir-
cuit chip be incorporated in every machine
to block recordings of discs and prerecord-
ed tapes. But after extensive testing, the
National Bureau of Standards (NBS) found
that the copy-code system audibly degrad-
ed sound quality and could be circumvent-
ed. Those findings removed а major
roadblock to DAT sales in the U.S. As we
go to press, it is too early to tell the imme-
diate effects of the finding, but, more than
likely, some DAT recorders will be on sale
by the time you read this. One company
that jumped the finding is Harman Kar-
don; its machine, along with others, is in
the $1500-10-82200 range.

Since the main controversy concerned
РАТУ recording ability, the first models
that became available were DAT players
designed for the car. Several small record
labels have rushed to fill the void with pre-
recorded РАТ. Kenwood and Clarion re-
leased players this past spring, and Ford
offers one as an option with its Ford/JBL
Sound System in the Lincoln Continental.
DAT fends off bumps and vibrations on the
road better than CD. That also applies to
Walkman-style personal portables smaller
than a paperback novel from Technics and
Casio. Don't postpone buying a good CD
player, but perhaps you ought to put that
analogue cassette deck on pause.

SUPER VHS

To corrupt the lyrics of that old pop hit,
“We can sce clearly now/The grain has
gone” sums up the biggest video break-
through since the VCR. Most household
products debasc the word super through
hyperbole, but not Super VHS (S-VHS). If
any doubts still exist about the supremacy
of VHS in the world of home video, S-VHS
settles the question once and for all. Even
Beta’s stalwart developer, Sony, announced
that it would begin marketing VHS ma-
chines this year.

Recent developments in technology
enabled JVC to electronically “stretch”

half-inch video tape. That greater hand
width permits recording more video infor-
mation and, thus, more lines of resolution.
S-VHS tape, conceived by ЗМ (Scotch),
marks a dramatic improvement over con-
ventional video tape. As you may know,
color TV consists of both color information
(chrominance) and black-and-white infor-
mation (luminance). Broadcast TV and
conventional home VCRs mix the two, re-
ducing the quality of the picture. S-VHS
keeps them separate. Some new TV sets
include a special Ү/С or S connector,
which keeps the signals apart, resulting in
the utmost picture quality. But even if your
set lacks this new connector and mixes the
chrominance and the luminance, the pic-
ture you'll enjoy with S-VHS is still 90 рег-
cent better than what you've seen before.
S-VHS decks remain compatible with
older VHS decks and tapes. The S-VHS
deck automatically senses tape type. Insert
а standard VHS tape into an S-VHS ma-
chine and it records or plays in standard
VHS. You can even use S-VHS tape as a
high-grade tape in your standard VHS ma-
chine, but the recordings won't be S-VHS.
The one impossibility is playing tapes re-
corded in S-VHS on a standard VHS deck.
S-VHS decks sell in the $1000-to-$1500
range, with prices already falling. Blank
two-hour S-VHS ST-120 tape, at $15-$20,
costs about triple the price of high-grade
1-120 tapes. That only sounds expensive,
since recording at the slow EP speed on
S-VHS equals or exceeds the picture quali-
ty of the faster SP speed on regular VHS.
S-VHS faces one main obstacle, similar
to owning a high-performance track car
and not being able to find a gas station that
sells premium racing fuel. Software com-
panics and commercial duplicators say
they are waiting until enough people pur-
chase S-VHS machines before releasing
S-VHS movies. A tiny trickle of S-VHS re-
leases began this year, but it looks as if it
will be a while before it turns into a flood.
Meanwhile, you can enjoy the remarkable
picture of S-VHS by making your own
videos with one of the many S-VHS and
VHS-C camcorders on the market.

HIGH-DEFINITION TV

High-definition television (HDTV) wid-
ens your horizons. It stretches that almost-
square TV scrcen to a rectangle, similar in
ratio to a movie screen. But there’s more
With HDTV, TV looks like the movies,
with a picture that’s solid, displaying al-
most no lines of resolution. The news is
that HDTV won't be receivable on your
present TV set, or even on the one you buy
next year Taping HDTV requires a spe-
cial VCR, souped up beyond even S-VH

RCA has developed an HDTV system
or, more accurately, an improved-defini-
tion TV system, called advanced compat-
ible TV (ACTV). Existing TVs will show
the normal picture, while new, specially
designed TVs will have a wider screen
and improved picture quality Since
the system works within the standard TV

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ready early in the next decade.

While it may be the 2lst Century before
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Europe and Japan are laboring to develop
converters that would make HDTV sys-
tems compatible with existing TVs.

CDV AND CD+G

Compact disc-
pact disc plus graphics (CD+G) promise
more confusion than an election year. Both
offer pictures from CDs. That's where the
similarity ends.

A CD, of course, is a 4.75-inch digitally
encoded audio disc that holds about 70
minutes of music. It’s on its way to becom-
ing the standard for music reproduction.
LaserVision, on the other hand, started as
12-inch video discs and added eight-inch
cs along the way. It recently added the
ability to include CD-quality digital sound
tracks. LaserVision developed a small but
loyal following in the U.S. and Japan for
its superlative 420-line video quality, un-
matched until the recent introduction of
S-VHS.

Last year, the electronics industry de-
cided to fuse CD and LaserVision together
under a single family name: CDV. In
Europe, Philips, a prime proponent of the
system, introduced а 4.75-inch CD that in-
cluded five minutes of full-motion video as
well as 20 minutes of audio. The LaserVi-
sion-quality videos sounded as good as CD.

Virtually every manufacturer and rec-
ord label jumped aboard the CDV band
wagon when it rolled into the spotlight at
the summer 1987 Consumer Electronics
Show in Chicago. They jumped off just as
fast when the consumer response to audio/
video discs fizzled. Now about 100 titles
have been released on the small discs and
about 2000 titles on the 12-inch ones, in a
dition to the hundreds of existing LaserVi
sion titles. By the end of this year, there
should be a few hundred more releases.

When Sony and Philips designed the
CD, they built in a hidden bonus. The full
70-plus minutes of music occupies only 95
percent of the disc. The remaining five per-
cent, called the subcode, provides space for
still graphics. Hundreds of still pictures
can be encoded on the CD without af-
fecting the quality or quantity of the music.

So guess what was introduced at the
1988 Consumer Electronics Show in Las
Vegas this past January? Something called
CD+G. Users select from as many as 16
channels of graphics, with a switch on the
CD player or the CD+G adapter, just as
ona TV or a VCR. Warner New Media,
the power behind CD+G, suggested song
lyrics in several languages, sheet mus
guitar chords and fingering, opera libre

tos, photos, interviews with the performing:
musical artist, extensive liner notes, disc-
jockey cues and creative art graphics as
many of the visual possibilities to match
the music. The cost of creating all those
graphics may be substantial, but the e
pense of encoding them on a disc is mir
mal. Warner New Media will release as
many as 50 CD+G titles of its own this
year and has extended the offer to encode
for other record labels for a modest fee.

It's rumored that JVC plans to introduce
a CD+G player this summer for an esti-
mated price of $400. Adapters, which
Warner New Media calls Graphics Tuners,
for already existing CD players with sub-
code outputs, will cost about $100 to $200.

Two sizes of CD, three sizes of CDV,
16 CD+G possibilities from a single disc
and various permutations of these add up
to more candidates promising more good
times than the Presidential primaries.

SURROUND SOUND

A good magician shades the line be-
tween illusion and reality. Dolby Surround
enhances the illusion of reality. Movie the-
aters exploit Dolby Surround, seducing you
to return for the “theater” experience.
Most recent films encode the Surround on
the sound track. Now here’s the big secret:
The same encoded Surround information
survives the transfer to video tape.

Dolby, the company that popularized the
Dolby Stereo System for theaters, does not
manufacture home Surround products but
rather licenses the process to other elec-
tronics companies and, until recently,
home-movie bufls enjoyed only the mildest
form of Dolby Surround. But this year,
Dolby's theater system, which utilizes an
analogue computer that steers dialog to the
center channel while increasing stereo sep-
aration, became available for home use un-
der the name Dolby Pro Logic Surround
Shure, an electronics company located
Evanston, Illinois, licensed Dolby's bas-
Surround process but improved upon it
with its own logic circuitry. Shure's newest
model, the HTS-5200 (shown in the illus-
tration), is currently considered by many
to be the state of the art in Surround pro-
cessors. The nifty graphic red display indi-
cating the position and intensity of the

sor (Lexicon, NEC and dbx also make
excellent ones), you'll need a pair of front-
channel speakers, a pair of rear- or side-
channel speakers, a center-channel speaker
for above or below the TV screen and a

subwoofer. The rear-channel speakers and
the center-channel speaker need not match
the extreme low-end and high-end capabil-
ies of the front-channel speakers. You'll
also need three stereo amplifiers to power
all those speakers. Table-d’höte Surround
begins around $3000 with the processor.

More than 100 years have passed since
the invention of the phonograph. New Age
music arrived early, but New Age electron-
ics arrives now.

Ej

THE HT FACTORY

(continued from page 112)
among their customers. Few people scan the
movie ads and say, “Honey, I’m in the mood
for a Paramount picture. What about
you?” Fewer still go into their local record
store and say, “Got any new Atlantic
albums? What about A&M?” So it should
come as no surprise that the problems
that have existed on and off for 17 years in-
side the Capitol Records tower are largely
known only within the industry, and that the
general public, seeing the building and hear-
ing the name, might be shocked to know
how the once-mighty Capitol Records has
fallen on hard times, even in the midst of a
record-business resurgence. And they're
most certainly unaware of the attempts to
salvage the trouble-torn company.

“It’s so wormy in there,” mutters one ex-
ecutive who turned down three job offers at
Capitol after checking out the company.

Horrendous is how a ten-year employee
describes the conditions before the new ad-
ministration took over. “There was not a
lot of pride inside the Tower,” she explains.

Nor was there any reason for pride
Workers were abused, burned out or run ой
the property. The company was lethargic
and out of touch when it came to signing
new acts, and the old acts got older, broke
up or simply lost their appeal

Management blunders were compound-
ed by episodes straight out of Ripleys Be-
lieve It or Not. There was, for instance, the
cattle-prod incident of 1986. A Capitol pro-
motion man accused his boss of berating
him in the office, poking him with a bat-
tery-operated cattle prod апа yellini
“You're dog meat. Go back to your stall.”
That one’s in the courts.

And then there’s the tale of a past execu-
tive who, upon taking office, was perturbed
to see a veteran female singer still with the
label. “What's that douche bag doing on
our roster?” he demanded loudly at a meet-
ing. He was talking about Tina Turner,
who was, at the moment, poised for a
comeback that would give Capitol onc of its
few shining moments.

Despite Tina, sales fell, and the once-
proud name of Capitol became a pathetic
industry joke, the Harold Stassen of the
music world. But, like Tina, Capitol
Records, under the guidance of a new
team, is poised for a comeback, and in the
world of show business, there are few sto-
ries that tantalize the imagination like that
of a down-and-out performer, or company,
emerging, once again, as a contender.

Not very long ago, insiders like to point
out, NBC was considered to bea terminal-
ly ill network, until Grant Tinker came on
as chairman and started the resurrection.
Now Capitol Records has its own Tinker in
the form of a square-looking, wisecracking
record-industry legend with the unassum-
ing name of Joe Smith

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PLAYBOY

152

the Tower early last year with the title of
vice-chairman and chief executive of Capi-
tol Industries-EMI, Inc., he encountered a
mood so dark that when he made his first
speech in front of 600 employees, he found
himself urging them to be “a little looser, a
little funkier, a little less neat, a little less
orderly.” It was, to those who heard about
it later, a telling example of what had been
wrong at Capitol. Even by laid-back L.A.
standards, a record company is a casual
place to work, with Hexible hours, outra-
geous dress and idiosyncratic behavior the
accepted norm.

But Smith went further, reminding the
group that Capitol Records was not Pru-
dential Insurance, suggesting “a little more
music playing in the place.” And “on those
interminable elevator trips,” he said, “you
can speak up—and laugh. All of that’s
fine.

Smith got a standing ovation that day.
His work, however, was just beginning.

.

It's not as if Smith had wandered into 13
unlucky stories of emptiness and despera-
tion. Capitol-EMI was still a going con-
cern, and it included Capitol Records, two
smaller pop-music labels (EMI America
and Manhattan) and a classical label (An-
gel). Capitol-EMI is a subsidiary of Thorn
EMI, the London-based electronics and
entertainment empire. Big names ге-
mained on the roster, among them the
heavy-metal bands Poison, Great White,
Tron Maiden and Megadeth; newer bands
such as the Pet Shop Boys and Crowded
House; rock war horses Bob Seger, Steve
Miller, David Bowie, Joe Cocker, Heart
and Paul McCartney; the singular Tina

Turner and the new soul hero, Freddie
Jackson; country crooners such as Barbara
Mandrell, Anne Murray and Tanya Tuck-
ег; and, to round things out, Natalie Cole,
daughter of Nat “King” Cole himself.

In the record business, however, a roster
doesn’t tell all. And history—even if it ii
cludes Sinatra and the Fab Four—means
nothing. “Image is key,” admits Smith,
who had created extremely successful im-
ages for Warner Bros. and Elektra-Asylum
when he ran those labels. “At Capitol, it
was like, ‘Who are those guys? " he re-
members. “We'd see records on the charts,
but the company was anonymous. I’ve em-
ceed dinners for every conceivable disease
over the years and I almost never had any-
one from Capitol to introduce at the head
table. Either deliberately or by coincidence,
Capitol kept a low profile.”

That hurt. MCA Records chief Irving
Azoff was once one of the town's pre-emi-
nent managers. “1 had this perception that
if you could get an act from zero to gold
yourself, CBS Records was the place to be.
If you were looking to sell an act based on
image, A&M was the place to be. And if
you were looking for just an all-around
great label, Warner was it,” says Azoff “I
stayed away from Capitol, because there
were always rumors of impending execu-
tive changes and “Will the company be
sold? I stayed away based on instability.”

Azolf was hardly an isolated case. Bobby
Colomby, a former drummer for Blood,
Sweat and Tears who spent five years as a
producer at Capitol, recalls a conversation
he had with a prominent rock manager.
“He asked me, ‘Did you ever notice that

“I approve of their putting on the new exercise cars.”

the most powerful managers in the busi-
ness don't have acts there?’ He was talking
about men like Frank DiLco [Michael
Jackson], Freddy DeMann [Madonna,
Lionel Ric Billy Idol] and Jon Landau
[Bruce Springsteen]. 115 because the kinds
of managers who are successful ar Capitol
are very passive, people who do not make
waves, who just allow that system to go un-
altered.”

Smith's first order of business was to
change that image. “Smith is a great per-
sonality,” says Bob Merlis, a Warner Bros.
vice-president. “Before him, the building
had more personality than the staff.”

Capitol was the archetypal sleeping gi-
ant. Having come of age in the Fifties, it
was stuck in the Fifties. It was an old boys’
club—girls typed and fetched coffee, and
when one dared ask about advancement,
she was told by a senior executive, “It will
be a cold day in hell before you see a wom-
an vice-president in this company.” When
music changed, Capitol failed to change
with it. Rock and roll and R&B were over-
looked, and in more recent years, Capitol
was slow to check out alternative rock, or
to start up a department to service college
radio stations, or to get into dance music.
Such vital departments as marketing and
public relations were understaffed.

Even when it came time for all record
companies to band together—to honor an
industry big shot, to join ranks against
bootleggers, home taping or Tipper
Gore—Capitol stood to the side, becoming
vulnerable to derision from its peers. In
1971, for instance, when Capitol was going
through its third president in about four
months and was in the painful process of
cutting its artists’ roster of 280 down to 80,
Warner Bros. Records sent out a newsletter
with a front-page illustration of the Capitol
‘Tower leaning precariously. “Whats
wrong with this picture?” asked the cap-
tion. Tronically, Smith was then executive
vice-president of Warner Bros.

The sales figures were in keeping with
the image. In 1984, the company’s total
market share was a miserable 6.7 percent;
and when the 100 top-selling pop albums
for 1986 were tallied, only five came from
the flagship Capitol label. Worse yet, Capi-
tol was considered a major financial drain
оп its parent company, with one report
pegging the loss at $1,000,000 per month.
Ugly rumors have haunted Capitol for
years.

A record company's strength may be in
its artists, but within the industry, the im-
age comes from the top. Most successful la-
bels have chief executives who act as super
A&R men. A&R stands for artists and
repertoire, a term coined in the carliest
days of the record business to describe the
department responsible for finding, signing
and recording artists.

In the late Sixtics, when rock exploded,
a new breed emerged: the record exec as
star. He would be at the clubs, checking out
the hot new bands, or trekking to Boston or
San Francisco, or to the Monterey Pop

Festival, to snap up the latest rage. These
guys became such a part of the rock land-
scape that, as rock became a fascination for
the media, they were profiled in The New
Yorker, Esquire and Rolling Stone. We're
talking Clive Davis, during his CBS years,
when he signed Janis Joplin, and Ahmet
Ertegun of Atlantic, who signed the Stones.
We're talking Walter Yetnikoff, who now
heads CBS and is а high-bidding player
who hangs out with Cyndi Lauper. We're
also talking Joe Smith, who, before he took
over Capitol, had joined John Lennon, Bob
Dylan and Little Richard as a subject for a
Rolling Stone interview.

We're not talking about Capitol Records,
whose chairman, Bhaskar Menon, is from
India, speaks with a pronounced accent
and, while warm at
heart, comes off stiff
and awkward іп
public appearances.
What Menon lacks
in charisma he
makes up for in
brains. He's the man.
who hired Joe
Smith.

"I came here to
fight the big two,”
says Smith, referring
to GBS and Warner.
“My intention is for
there to be a big
three.”

Smith is a short
man who looks a
decade younger
than his 57 years, a
sweater-and-slacks
man with a sales-
man’s smile. He's al-
ways in motion,
roaming the hall-
ways, darting in and
out of offices, talking
with the troops.
"He's a saint,” says
one former em-
ployee. “He's classy
and honorable, and
hes a publicists
dream.”

When Smith was
president of Warner
Bros. and Reprise Records (the label
Warner bought from Frank Sinatra in
1963), the company signed and/or worked
with Joni Mitchell, Van Morrison, James
Taylor, Jimi Hendrix, Fleetwood Mac,
the Faces, the Kinks, Neil Young, Randy
Newman, Van Dyke Parks, the Grateful
Dead, Captain Beefheart, the Mothers of
Invention, Black Sabbath, the Doobie
Brothers and Tiny Tim. It was an ideal
list—full of mass-appeal showmen but
with enough offbeat artists, such as Cap-
tain Beefheart, to give the label an all-im-
portant reputation for hipness.

“With the Fugs and Van Dyke Parks, we
indicated that we were ready to take a
chance on any kind of music; explains

Smith, admitting that the idea was to give
the company an image that said, “That's
cool, that's what's going on.” He once told
another executive that he had signed Alice
Cooper and Black Sabbath to pay for sign-
ing Van Dyke Parks and Randy Newman.

In 1975, Smith was named chairman of
Elektra-Asylum records, a division of
Warner Communications. E-A was
known as an old folkies’ home but Smith
turned it into an eclectic avenue populated
not only by Joni Mitchell, Linda Ronstadt,
Jackson Browne and Tom Waits but also by
the Eagles, the Cars, Queen and Mötley
Crüe.

Of course, neither company was as trou-
bled as the one Smith now runs, and the
music business went through some enor-

56 proof © 1987, Imporied БУТА Paddlgion Cérporatlon, FortLoe, NJ Photo: Ken Nahoum.

mous changes, from music videos to com-
pact discs, while Smith was out of the busi-
ness. That leaves one important question
Can he work the same magic at Capitol
Records?

.
Capitol Records was founded in 1942 by
three music fans: Glenn Wallichs, owner оГ
two record shops in Hollywood; Johnny
Mercer, a singer who could also write
songs; and B. G. “Buddy” De Sylva, a
songwriter and movie producer. De Sylva
put up $10,000, and Capitol became the
first major record company on the West
Coast
he infant Capitol did things none of the
established majors—Columbia, RCA and

Decca—ever considered. It changed the
face of record promotion by sending ad-
vance copies of records to disc jockeys. Be-
fore Capitol, record companies figured that
radio airplay discouraged people from buy-
ing records, and most stations had to buy
what they broadcast. As Alan Livingston,
a GI who walked in off the street looking
for a job in 1945 and stuck around long
enough to become president, says, “It took
anew, small company to break the rules.”

In the mid-Fifties, with Sinatra joining
Cole, Dean Martin and the Jackie Gleason
orchestra, the company was firmly in the
majors. “Capitol was probably the num-
ber-one record company in the business,”
says Livingston.

By then, it had become the first Ameri-
can company to sell
out to a foreign in-
terest. In 1955, EMI
Ltd. bought 964
percent of Capitol
Records’ stock for
$8,500,000. And the
next year, the revo-
lutionary Capitol
‘Tower was complet-
ed.

Still, Capitol
"wasn't exactly action
central. Sure, Liv-
ingston shrugs,
Frankie, Dino and
Nat used the
ground-floor studios
for cutting records,
and they'd visit their
producers on the
12th floor. “But we
took the stars pretty
much for granted,"
he recalls. “They
were close friends,
mostly. We'd have
lunch with them or
deal with them on a
one-to-one basis.
There was no excite-
ment about it.” And
when one of them
scored a smash hit?
“We took them as
they came," says
Livingston. “You
know, there were plenty of failures, too.”

Livingston confesses that his company
missed out on the greatest explosion in the
history of popular music: rock and roll.
Why? The top brass simply hated it. “I
think if you go way back to the Sixties,”
says former president Don Zimmermann,
“Capitol was probably one of the last com-
panies to recognize rock-and-roll music.”
The only exception was a kid from the
country division, Gene Vincent.

“When rock and roll hit,” says Dan
Davis, who began at Capitol in 1964 writ-
ing liner notes, “we weren't there. We were
still selling Kingston Trio records.”

Livingston, who left in 1955 for a job in
television, returned in 1960 and became

153

PLAYBOY

president in 1962. He was there when the
Beach Boys signed, but he wasn't an active
player in the acquisition that dragged
Capitol into the world of Top 40 radio. It
was Nick Venet, Capitol's token kid—he
was 21 in 1962 and had produced hits by
the Lettermen and the Kingston Trio—
who heard a demo recording of Surfin’ Sa-
fari and wanted the Beach Boys but had to
argue with executives to get them to pay
the group a $300 advance for each master
recording they could provide. His actions
were quickly justified. The Beach Boys
were an immediate smash with Surfin’ Sa-
Jari, Surfin’ U.S.A., Surfer Girl and all the
Test, and Capitol began rushing the group
for so much product that by the end of
1964, the band had produced seven al-
bums, and Brian Wilson, declaring himself
“so mixed up and so overworked,” was on
his way to his first nervous breakdown.

By then, the Beatles were on Capitol—
even if it was almost by accident. As Liv-
ingston tells it, his A&R chief kept
rejecting them when EMI, which had
signed them in England, offered them to its
American partners. “He'd say, ‘Aw, they're
nothing.” The band’s first records were
distributed by several small labels. Shortly
after Livingston signed them, the Beatles
blossomed and injected life into Capitol;
along with the Beach Boys, they made
Capitol dominant in the mid-Sixties. The
Beatles—who once occupied all ten spots
in the Top Ten in 1964—blinded Capitol,
made it lazy about pushing its other acts or
signing up new ones.

“It was hard to avoid,” says Livingston.

“There were only so many records your
plants could press and so many orders your
salesmen could take. They dominated our
operation, which made it difficult to break
new artists.”

When the Beatles fell apart, so did Capi-
tol. Albums by the various solo Beatles
kept the cash flowing into the Tower, but by
1971, it was in trouble, The company, as
several old-timers now admit, got too fat
and lazy on its two meal tickets and didn't
bother to sign and develop new acts.

In 1967, Capitol observed its 25th an-
niversary. In a special issue of Cash Box, a
lead story reprised the glory years and then
listed the current roster. There were, of
course, the Beatles, along with a few other
British acts signed by the EMI arm. On its
own, Capitol named under "newcomers"
the Beach Boys, Nancy Wilson, Lou
Rawls, Buck Owens, the Lettermen,
Wayne Newton, the Four Preps, the Stone
Poneys (with Linda Ronstadt), a flash-in-
the-pan group called the Outsiders and a
couple of no-hitters. That’s a padded list,
when you consider that the Four Preps had
been with Capitol since 1956 and that the
Beach Boys, Wilson, Newton and the Let-
termen all dated back to the early Sixties.

That year, Livingston followed a migra-
tion of record executives to San Francisco
and roped in the Steve Miller Blues Band
and Quicksilver Messenger Service, and he
signed Bob Dylan's backup group, the
Band. Merle Haggard and Bobbie Gentry
joined Capitol. But that was about it.

The problem, in Livingston's estimation,
was a shortage of good ears. “I think it

“The food is excellent, but the ambience
leaves something to be desired."

was a lack of A&R-oriented people,” he
says. Like talent itself, good talent scouts
are hard to find, and while there were
plenty of people willing to put their ears
up for sale, the good ones were rare.
"When you do find them,” Li
complains, "they're usually totally irre-
sponsible fiscally. They'd be off the wall,
getting into а studio and spending
$200,000 an album.”

In the first boom of the record industry,
that kind of spending was affordable. By
1967, sales had passed the one-billion-
dollar mark, and by 1972, they had dou-
bled. By the early Seventies, artists and
managers were boosting royalty rates and
triggering bidding wars. Capitol turned
conservative. As one interested observer—
Joe Smith—points out, the label not only
failed to develop acts, it let its bread and
butter get away: “They had all these artists
under contract. I’m talking about all the
Beatles, Linda Ronstadt—a bunch of ma-
jor artists. All they had to do was give
them a little better royalty. They lost
them.”

Capitol went on a belated signing binge,
made deals to distribute smaller labels’
artists and built up an A&R staff of some
30 people. The overhead, combined with
the breakup of the Beatles, amounted to a
$15,000,000 loss for the fiscal year ending
in June 1971.

“They were backing up some bad A&R
and sales judgments,” says Smith. “And
shipping records like crazy, saying, “This is
a hit and if we put another 100,000 out on
the streets, it'll automatically be a hit?
That was part of a philosophy in the Sev-
enties for many albums: “Ship platinum!”
“Ship double platinum" ”

The records kept getting shipped back
as plain old vinyl. Towers of unsold
records. In 1971, a perplexed EMI shipped
Bhaskar Menon in from London. “1 would
be ashamed that I had let my company go
down the toilet like that,” said one em-
ployee, directing his comment at Menon.
“Where has he been all these years when
all this shit’s been going on?”

Menon, now 53, is a 31-year warrior in
the ranks of Thorn EMI. He is chairman of
Capitol Industries-EMI, Inc., and chair-
man and chief executive of EMI Music
Worldwide. When he arrived at the Tower,
he cranked up the executive turntable, or-
dered a drastic cut in both the employees’
and the artists? rosters and moved Capitol
back into profit. He even tried to get Joe
п 1972, but Smith was tied up with
Warner. Regardless, Capitol enjoyed a
healthy few years through the mid-Seven-
ties, with loads of thanks to Grand Funk
Railroad and a Pink Floyd album that nev-
er left the Billboard charts, and began an
expansion program, buying up United
Artists Records (which gave the company
Kenny Rogers), Screen Gems Music and
starting up a new label, EMI America. In
the early Eighties, Capitol-EMI enjoyed
record profits—and then crashed again.

Meron is a cool, philosophical man

whose values are deeply rooted in his
birthplace. “АШ organisms face this chal-
lenge,” he says in a benign way. “There is a
general balance in the universe that deter-
mines the course of affairs.”

Don Zimmermann has an earthier ap-
praisal. “Our artists’ base seemed to
erode,” he says. A number of stars—Ken-
ny Rogers, Kim Carnes, the J. Geils Band,
the Motels and the Stray Cats—lefi the
company, lost their power stroke or broke
up.

In 1984, Menon began a new assault. He
opened a New York base with Manhattan
Records; he reactivated the bountiful jazz
catalog of Blue Note Records; he put new
life into the country operation out of Nash-
ville and into the classical label, Angel.
And he reached out,
once more, for Joe
Smith.

This time, he got
him.

.

Smith is at his
corner table at Le
Dome on Sunset
Boulevard, doing his
job, seeing people
and being scen. He
greets friends and
talks basketball—
about how he has
been a junkie for the
game for 30 years

now, from the
Celtics to the Lak-
ers, and how he

spends something
like $40,000 for side-
line seats alongside
Jack Nicholson and
a galaxy of showbiz
stars and star mak-
ers. Look, he says,
“what do people do
with their money?
Houses, Rolls, Fer-
raris, Mercedes
Some buy art; some
buy wine. І buy four
seats at the Lakers
games. And I key
my trips to where
the Lakers are
You're П years old again, and why not?"
His office has a framed photo on display,
showing himself gesturing with out-
stretched arms to Magic Johnson. Johnson
has inscribed the picture: “Joc, thanks, I
needed that advice

After dinner, Smith aims his red Mer-
cedes 560 SL toward Beverly Hills, where
he lives with Donnie, his wife of 30 years.
Their house, which they’ve occupied for 17
years (two kids are raised and gone), is
spacious but by no means lavish. In many
ways, it feels like your average upper-mid-
dic-class home. On a kitchen counter,
there's even a booklet of discount coupons
from a local chain drug store

“The fascination,” he says, “is that in

the top ten a year from now will be three
names we never heard of today. And we'll
wonder whatever happened to some of the
names in the top 20. What's constant is the
executives. Ahmet Ertegun is a star. David
Geffen's a star. Walter Yetnikoff's a star.
Stars burn out, but Red Auerbacks still
there in Boston; he’s got a new group of
guys, but his talents were never subject to
the vagaries of the public. He doesn't make
the money those guys make, but, as they
say, it's steady work.”

When he was a kid in Chelsea, Massa-
chusctts, Smith wanted only to be a
sportscaster. He did a bit of play-by-play
out of Yale, but in Boston, where he wanted
to work, he figured his chances at his
dream job were slim—'*In Boston, you

Amaretto

To send a gift of Amaretto di Saronnp
56 proof ©1988, Imported by The Paddington

almost had to be an Irish Catholic to do the
Red Sox”—and became a Top 40 dj. in-
stead. Fearful of being a d.j. forever, Smith
moved to Los Angeles and got into the
record business as a promotion man. He
was, of course, а natural, breezing into ra-
dio stations and getting hits as easy as Ted
Williams. At Warner Bros., then a tiny
branch of the film studio, he went from
promo man to president by 1972, before
moving over to Elektra-Asylum. He left the
record business in 1983.

Smith swears he didn’t miss the music.
He still saw his industry buddies—usually
at Lakers games or charity dinners. When
Menon called, he was working on a book—
an oral history of pop music—and he had

just taken on the presidency of N.A.R.A.S.
(The National Academy of Recording Arts
and Sciences), the folks responsible for the
Grammy awards. He was busy and con-
tent. He didn't need the pressures or the
money that come with running a record
company.

But as he started thinking about the
Capitol job, something dawned on him. He
knew what the company needed and he
also knew he was the only executive both
able and available for the job. That thought
saddens him, because it’s further proof that
his generation failed to recruit the next
group of leaders. “One theory is that drugs
were so much a part of our business culture
in the Seventies that people didn’t work as
hard. Those of us who were running the
companies were just
a shade ahead of
that. We grew up in
a relatively drug-
free culture, so may-
be we came from a
different ethic, and
we were very serious
and hard-working.
But the people we
thought were going
to be the leaders-
all of them failed in
one way or another.”

There were other
reasons, he admits.
Adding a third ma-
jor record company
to his résumé—most
of his peers have
topped out at two-
appealed to his ego.
And Capitol, with
its history, roster
and international
connections, held
special allure.

Smith has moved
quickly, grabbing
top-drawer execu-
tives from other la-
bels; realigning his
label and division
heads to give each
one autonomy and
accountability (a
theory he learned at
Warner); and, shades of Menon in 1971,
trimming the roster from more than 200 to
about 150 acts, while on the prowl for new
signings.

"It's no quick fix,” he concedes. The
days when you could force a group to crank
"em out every two months are long gone
‘The superstars are expensive, call the shots
and have long-term contracts. “Even if 1
signed Bruce Springsteen, he wouldn't have
a record for two years,” he shrugs, “What
you do is build a basis. I wanna build a
machine that’s gonna be attractive to tal-
ent.”

As part of that process, he has built a
higher profile. “Ifyou foster the perception

155

PLAYBOY

that you are hot, and you say it enough,
your records sound different to the radio
stations,” he says. That sense of heat саг-
rics into the record shops. “Right now,
Warncr's guy walks into a store, he’s got an
attitude: "We're hot, we gave you Madon-
na, here's Z Z Top. You better give us space
right above the cash register.”

Imagery is equally vital to the process of
getting the hot artists onto his labels.
“When I walk in to deal with an artist, I'm
as well known to him as he is to me. Гус
dealt with Crosby and Sinatra, so that car-
ries some weight. And it’s important to me
to establish everybody in the company as a
star, so the artists we sign have respect for

es the proven veterans on the ros-
ter, Capitol and EMI-Manhattan аге
rolling dice with recent signings like Rob-
ert Palmer, Thomas Dolby, ex-Go-Go Jane
Weidlin and Laie Night with David Letter-
тап maestro Paul Shaffer; fresher faces like
Melisa Morgan and the Kane Gang; in-
stant hit makers like Robbie Nevil, Richard
Marx and Glass Tiger; great pop and jazz
voices like Angela Bofill, Martha Davis,
Bobby McFerrin and Melba Moore; strong.
new country entries like T. Graham
Brown; and contemporary jazzmen like
Stanley Jordan and Najec.

True, every record made is a crap shoot.
Its good music and lots of luck. Smith cites
a handy example: “My company has
Heart, whom CBS paid to go away. They
had 200,000 on their last album there. We
proceeded to sell 4,500,000 Heart albums.
That would mean we were 20 times better
than CBS—which is nonsense. They made
a great record for us.”

Capitol was lucky with Heart. But,
Smith says, “when you have a good compa-
ny, you narrow the odds. I narrow the odds
immediately, because I will avoid doing
some of the stupid things like chasing buoz-

ers and making incredible deals with

artists just to put a name on the board

Late last year, nine months after Smi
joined, Capitol was still only a slight pres-
ence on the charts, and the rumor mill,
while quieted, continued to churn, None-
theless, Smith was confident. “15 ап up-
beat, effective operation. They just need
some records. It’s product flow.” He has re-
built the machine, he says, and it works.
“We've shown the ability to break new acts
like Crowded House and Poison. In the tal-
ent world, were told that we're a label of
choice. People will come to us along with
Warner Bros. and CBS. Theres a good
feeling here.”

Smith bounces up from his couch, He
has a new record he just has to put on. It’s
not the latest from Heart or Bowie; it's a
doo-wop ditty, clearly out of the doo-wop
Fifties.

“We're gonna rock with . . . Joe Smith,”
a group called the Valentines sings with
jinglelike repetition. “On his swinging
rock-and-roll show!”

It is, of course, the theme song from
Smith’s old WMEX radio show, and it has
just been released in a best-of compilation.
“Were gonna rock with . . . Joe Smith...”

“The lyrics are brilliant" he shouts over
the close harmony.

Give Joe Smith credit. He has a great ear
for music.

“Good night, and thanks again for your diligent attempts
to induce an orgasm—it was fun.”

ИСН

ІШ

(continued from page 88)
that if I was tense, it was really my hus-
band's fault, and now Dick's; and that I'd
appreciate either silence or a Xanax or
some constructive, supportive advice that
wouldn't demand that I be artificial or
empty or on my guard to such an extent
that | vacuumed the fun out of what was,
when you came right down to it, supposed
to be nothing more than a fun interview.

Dick smiled very patiently as he listened.
Rudy was dialing a talent coordinator. 1
looked at both of them. Dick instructed
Rudy to say that I wasn’t really needed
downstairs for make-up until after 5:30:
Tonight's monolog was long and involved,
and a skit on the pastime of another NBC
executive would precede me.

Dick said to me, “You could say it’s like
what happened over at Saturday Night
Live. It’s the same phenomenon. The cheap
sets that are supposed to look even cheaper
than they are. The home-movie mugging
for the cameras, the back-yard props like
Monkey-Cam or Thrill-Cam or coneheads
of low-grade maché, Late Night, S.N.L.—
they're antishows.”

“You'll just have to act, is all,” my hus-
band said, brushing the hair back from my
саг. He touched my check. “You're a talent-
ed and multifaceted actress.”

“So I'm to be a sort of antiguest?” I

.
It turned out that an area of one wall of
Dick’s office could be made to slide back
automatically, opening to view several
rows of monitors, all of which received
NBC feeds. Beneath a local weatherman’s
setup and the March 22nd broadcast of
Live at Five, the taping of Late Nights
opening sequence had begun. The an-
nouncer, who wore a crew-neck sweater,
read into an old-fashioned microphone that
looked like an electric razor with a halo.

“Ladies and gentlemen!” he said. “A
man who is, even as we speak, checking his
fly: DAVID LETTERMAN!” There was
wild applause; the camera zoomed in on a
tight shot of the studio’s APPLAUSE sign. On
all the monitors appeared the words LATE
NIGHT APPLAUSE-SIGN-CAM. The words flashed
on and off as the audience cheered. Da-
vid Letterman appeared out of nowhere in
a hideous yachting jacket and wrestling
sneakers.

“What a fine crowd,” he said.

I kept stabbing at the fur of Pepsi and
My finger Ieft a clear
in the dark fuzz. “I really don't think
is is necessary, Rudy.”

“Trust us.”
“Dick,” I turned, “talk to him.”

“Testing,” said Dick.

Dick and I stood near the room's broad
window, which was no longer admitting di-
rect light. The low faced south; I could
see rooftops bristling with antennas below
us. Dick held a kind of transmitting device,
compact enough to fit in his soft palm. My

husband had his head cocked and
thumb up as Dick tested the signal. The lit-
tle carplug in Rudy's ear was originally de-
veloped to allow sportscasters to take
direction and receive up-to-the-minute in-
formation without ever having to stop talk-
ing. My husband had used the transmitter
sometimes when he was at NBC and asso-
ciated with Saturday Night Live. He re-
moved the earplug and cleaned it with his
handkerchief.

The earplug, which was supposed to be
flesh-colored, was really prosthesis-col-
ored. I told them 1 emphatically did not

vear a pork-colored carplug and
n from my husband on not be-

ncere,

No? my husband corrected,
not-sincere.”

“There's a differ-
ence,” Dick said,
trying to make
sense of the trans-
mitter’s printed in-
structions, which
were mostly in Ko-
rean.

But I did want to
be both sharp and
relaxed, and to get
downstairs and have
this over with. I did
want a Xanax.

And so my hus-
band and I entered
into negotiations.

“being

А

“Thank you,
Paul Shaffer told the
studio audience.
“Thank
much.”

vou so

I laughed in

the wings, іп the
long, jagged shad-
ows produced by

lights at many an-
gles. I wanted a few
moments to watch
David Letterman in
the flesh. There was
applause for Shaffer.

The APPLAUSE sign
was again featured
on camera.

From this dis-

tance, Letterman's hair looked something
like a helmet, I thought. It seemed thick
and very solid. He kept putting index cards
in the big gap between his front teeth and
fiddling with them. He and the staff quick-
ly presented a list of ten medications, both
over-the-counter and ‘scrip, that resembled
well-known candies in a way Letterman
claimed was insidious. He showed slides
side by side for comparison. It was true
that Advils like orange
M&M‘ ight light, were
AAO inhibitor
called Nardil looked just like the tiny ci
namon Red Hots we'd all eaten as children.
Eerie or what?" Letterman asked Paul
aller.

looked just
Mourins, in the

And the faddish anti-anxiety medication
Xanax was supposed to resemble mi
tures of those borrible soft pink-orange
candy peanuts everyone sees everywhere
but no one will admit to having tasted.

Thad gotten a Xanax from my husband,
finally. It had been Dick's suggestion. |
touched my ear and tried to drive the
earplug in deeper I arranged my loose hair
over my ear. Agreement ог not, I was seri-
ously conside: taking the earplug out.

We saw a short veterinary film on dys-
pepsia in swine.

“Your work has gone largely unnoticed
by the critics, then,” the video tape showed
Letterman saying to the films director, a
veterinarian from Arkansas who was pan-
icked throughout the clip, because, Rudy’s

Sto di Armitage

аа gift of Amaretto di Saronno anywhere in the US. call 1-800-249-3787.
Ft Lee, NJ. Photo: Ken Nahoum.

by The Paddington Corporation, Fo

distant voice in my car maintained, he
couldn't tell whether or not to be serious
with Letterman about his life's work.

The е coordinator of NBG
ly fashioned perfect rings
of high expl his basement work-
shop, took them into his back yard, and sat
inside explosions; it was a hobby. David
Letterman asked the NBC executive to
please let him get this straight: that some-
body who sat in the exact center of a per-
fect circle of explosives would be completely
safe, encased in a vacuum, a sort of storm's
but that if so much as onc stick of dy-
mite in the ring was defective, the explo-
sion could, in theory, kill the executive?

“Kill?” Letterman kept repeating, look-

ing over at Paul Shaffer, laughing.

The Bolsheviks had used the
device ceremoniously to “
noblemen they really wanted to spare, the
executive said; it was an ancient and time-
honored illusion. I thought he looked quite
distinguished and decided that sense
played no part in the diversions of men.

As I waited for my appearance, I imag-
ined the coordinator in his Westchester
back yard’s perfect center, unhurt but en-
cased, as waves of concussed dynamite
whirled around him. I imagined something
tornadic, colored pink—since the dyna-
mite piled on stage was pink.

But the real-live explosion was gray. It
was disappointingly quick and sounded
flat, though I laughed when Letterman
claimed that they
hadnt gotten the
explosion properly

taped and that the
executive coordina-
tor of NBC Sports,
who looked as
though he'd been
given a kind of cos-
mic slap, was going.
to have to do it all
over again. For a
*montent, the coordi-
nator thought Let-
terman was serious.
.

“Terribly nice to
see you,” is what
David Letterman
said to me. Ї had fol-
lowed my introduc-
tion on stage; а
sweatered attendant
had conducted me
by the elbow and
peeled neatly away
as I hit the lights.

“Terribly, nay, gro-
tesquely nice to see
you,” Letterman said.

"He's scanning for
pretension,” crackled
my сағ. “Pockets
of naive self-import-
ance. Something to
stick a pin in. Any-
thing”

“Yas,” I drawled to David Letterman. I
yawned, touching my ear absently.

Close up, he looked depressingly young.
At most, 35. He congratulated me on the
series’ renewal, the Emmy nomination, and
said my network had handled my unex-
pected pregnancy well on the show's third
year, arranging to have me scen only
behind waist-high visual impediments for
13 straight episodes.

“That was fun,”
laughed dryl
ig, big fun,” Letterman said, and the
audience laughed.

“Oh Jesus God, let him see you're being
sarcastic and dry,” my husband said.

Paul Shafer did a go-figure with his

I said sarcastically. I

157

PLAYBOY

158

hands in response to something Letterman
asked him.

David Letterman had a tiny label affixed
to his check (he did have freckles); the la-
bel said make-up. This was left over from
an earlier joke, during his monolog, when
he had returned from a commercial break
with absolutely everything about him la-
beled. The sputtering fountain between us
and the footlights was overhung with a
crudely lettered arrow: DANCING WATERS.

“So then, Susan, any truth to the rumor
linking that crazy thing over at your hus-
band’s network and the sort of secondary
rumors? . . " He looked from
card to Shaffer. “Gee, you know, Paul,
says ‘secondary rumors’ here; is it OK to
go ahead and call them secondary rumors?
What docs that mean, anyway, Paul—
‘secondary rumors’?””

“We in the band believe it could mean
any of... really, any of hundreds of things,
Dave.” Shaffer said, smiling. I smiled. Peo-
ple laughed.

The voice of Dick came over the air into
my ear: “Say yes.” [ imagined a wall of an-
gles of me, the wound in Dick’s head and
the transmitting thing at the wound, my
husband seated with his legs crossed and
his arm along the back of wherever he was.

4... secondary or not, about your fine
comedy program moving over to that oth-
er, unnamed network?”

1 cleared my throat. “Absolutely every
rumor about my husband is true.” The au-
dience laughed. Letterman said, “Ha, ha.”
The audience laughed even harder.

“As for me,” I smoothed my skirt in that
way prim women do, "I know next to noth-
ing, David, about the production or busi
ness of the show, I am a woman who acis."

ZA

|

=

“Апа, you know, wouldn't that look ter-
rific emblazoned on the T-shirts of women
everywhere?” Letterman asked, fingering
his tiepin’s label.

“And was it ever a crazy thing over at
his network, Dave, from what I heard,”
said Reese, the NBC Sports coordinator,
on my other side, in another of these chairs
that seemed somehow disemboweled.
Around his distinguished eyes were two
tle raccoon rings of soot, from his hobby's
explosion.

My husband told me to prepare for di-
rection.

“In fact,” I said, “I'm not even all that
talented or multifaceted an actress.”

David Letterman was inviting the audi-
ence, whom he again called ladies and gen-
tlemen (which I liked), to imagine tam А
WOMAN WHO ACTS emblazoned on a shirt.

“That's why I'm doing those commer-
cials you're seeing all the time now,” I said
primly.

“Well, and now hey, I wanted to ask you
about that. Susan,” Letterman said. "Let's
see,” he rubbed his chin, “is there, maybe,
any way we could indicate to the folks at
home what they're commercials for without
quite hitting the nail right on the head, I'm
wondering.

“Sure,” I smiled. “Oreo.”

Letterman and the audience laughed.
Paul Shaffer laughed. My husband's elec-
tric voice crackled approvingly. I could
also hear Dick laughi the background;
his laugh did sound deadpan.

“That would about do it,” Letterman
grinned. He threw his index card out a pre-
tend window bel us. There was a clear-
ly false sound of breaking glass.

The man seemed utterly friendly.

“Forgive me, Carolyn. My left brain
knows youre not that kind of a girl, but my right brain

says “Со for и.

My husband transmitted something I
couldn't make out because Letterman had
put his hands behind his head with its hel-
and was saying, “So then I
iy is the thing, Susan. I mean I
know about the dollars, the big, big dollars
over there in, ah, prime time. They scribble
vague hints, allusions, really, is all, they're
such big dollars, about prime-time salaries
in the washroom here at NBC. They're
amounts that get discussed only in low
tones. Here you are,” he said, “you've had,
what, three fine comedy series? You've got
a series that's been on now, what, three
years? Four years? You've got a daughter
who's done several fine films and who's cur-
rently in a series, you've got a husband who
develops series. .. >”

“Remember Saturday Night Live back
when it was good?” said the NBC Sports
coordinator.

Letterman released his own head. “So,
series, daughter's series, husband's series,
Emmy nomination, one of the best mar-
riages in the industry, if nor the Northern,
ah, Hemisphere. . . 7” He counted these as-
sets off on his hands. His hands were per-
fectly average. “You're loaded, cookie,” he
said. “If 1 may.” He smiled. I smiled back.

“So then, Susan, a nation is wondering,
What's the deal with going off and doing
these . . . Oreo commercials?" he asked in
a kind of near whine that he immediately
exaggerated.

Rudy's small voice came: “See how he
exaggerated the whine the minute he saw
how——?"

"Because I'm not
David,” I said.

Letterman looked stricken. For a mo-
ment, in the angled white lights, I looked at
him and he looked stricken for me. 1 was

sitive I was dealing with a basically si
cere man.

"Be honest,” Rudy said, his voice slight
and metallic as a low-quality phone.

“Let's be honest,” I said. The audience
was quiet. "I just had a traumatic birth-
day, and I’ve been shedding illusions right
and left.”

Letterman opened his mouth to say
something, but then didn't.

"I ama woman with поі!!!

My earplug hissed a direct
say the word illusions.

"Thats sort of a funny, coincidental
thing,” Letterman was saying speculative-
ly. “I'm an illusion with no women. Do
you . . . detect a sort of parallel there,
Paul?”

Paul Shafier did a go-higure from the
bandstand.

“Doom,” my husband transmitted from
the office of a man whose subordinates
fished without hooks and sat in exploding
circles. I patted at the hair over my ear.

1 said, “I'm forty, David. I turned forty
just last week. I'm at the point now where I
ink I have to know what I am.” I looked
at him. “I have four kids. Do you know оГ
many working actresses with four kids?”

“There are actresses who have four

a great actress,

kids," Letterman said. “Didn't we have a
lovely and talented young lady with four
kids on recently, Paul?”

“Name ten actresses with four kids,”
Shaffer challenged.

Letterman did a pretend double take.
“Ten?”

“Meredith Baxter Birney?” Reese said.

“Meredith Baxter Birney.” Letterman
nodded. “And Loretta Swit has four kids,
doesn't she, Раш?”

“Jane Fonda?"

“I think Meredith Baxter Birney actual-
ly has five kids, in fact, Dave,” said Paul
Shaffer, leaning over his little organ's mi-
crophone. His large bald spot had a label
on it that said BALD SPOT.

“I guess the point, gentlemen,” I inter-
rupted them, si s that I've got kids
who're already bigger stars than I. I've ap-
peared in two feature films, total, in my
whole career. Now that I'm forty, I’m real-
izing that with two films but three long se-
ries, my mark on this planet is probably not
going to be made in features. David, I'm a
television actress.”

“You're a woman who acts in television,”
Letterman corrected, smiling.

Paul Shaffer, still leaning over his organ,
played a small but very sweet happy-birth-
day tune for me.

Letterman had put another card be-
tween his teeth. “So what I think were
hearing you saying, then, is that you didn't
think the Oreo-commercial thing would
hurt your career.”

Dick was asking Rudy to let him have
the remote transmitter for a moment.

“Oh, no, God, no, not at all; I didn’t
mean that at all,” I said. “Career consider-
ations didn’t come into it at all”

Letterman rubbed his jaw. He looked at
the sports coordinator. He scratched his
head. “Not a factor, then?”

“A decision without factors,” I smiled. I

leaned toward him conspiratorially. He
leaned over his desk toward me. 1 looked
furtively from side to side. In a stage whis-
per, I said, “I did the Oreo commercials
for fun.”

1 worked my eyebrows up and down.

Letterman's jaw dropped with glee.

“I did them for nothing,” I said.

“Oh, now, come now, really,” Letterman
said, laughing. He pretended to appeal to
the studio audience: “Ladies and gentle-
пеп...”

“In fact,” I said, “I called them. I volun-
tered. Almost begged. You should have
seen it, Not a pretty sight.”

“What a kid," Paul Shaffer tossed in,
pretending to wipe at an eye under his
glasses. Letterman threw his index card at
him, and the sound man, in his red
sweater, hit another pane of glass with his
hammer. Letterman seemed to be having
the time of his life. He smiled; he said, “Ha
ha”; his eyes came utterly ali he looked.
like a very large toy. Everyone seemed to
be having a ball. I touched my ear.

“This is inspired,” 1 heard Dick telling
Rudy.

We talked about the cookic commercials
I'd appeared in.

“David, there were more pcople on that
set taking care of the cookies than there
were taking care of me.” I laughed.

“Have to make those cookies look good,
I'll bet,” Letterman mused.

I heard my husband thanking Dick.

“God,” I said. “We'd be rolling, and Га
be hitting my stride, you know, really start-
ing to emote—and they'd all of a sudden
yell, ‘Cut! They'd come rushing out onto
the set: ‘Ohmygod, the cookie doesn't look
good. ” I looked at him. “David, the cookie
must look good.”

“Words, really, to live by, if we pause to
reflect just a moment, ladies and gentle-
men,” Letterman said, looking out at the
audience. 1 laughed. Everyone laughed.

Letterman smiled warmly at me as we
went to commerci;

.

It was then that I felt sure in my heart 1
was safe. Because, wh we cut to that
commercial message, David Letterman
was still the same way. The director, in his
cardigan, sawed at his throat with a finger,
a cleverly photographed bumper filled all
Six-A’s monitors, the band got funky under
Shaffer’s direction and the cameras’ lights
went dark. Letterman's shoulders sagged:
he leaned tiredly across his obviously
cheap desk and mopped at his forchead
with a ratty-looking tissue from his yacht-
ing jacket’s pocket. He smiled from the
depths of himself and said it was really
grotesquely nice having me on, that the au-
dience was certainly getting the very most
for its entertainment dollar tonight, that he
hoped, for her sake, my daughter had even
опе half the stage presence І had, and that,
if he'd known what a thoroughly engaging
guest Га be, he himself would have moved
molchills to have me on long before this.

“He really said that,” 1 told my husband
later in the NBC car. “He said ‘grotesquely
nice, ‘entertainment dollar’ and that I was
an engaging guest. No one was listening.”

Dick had gotten a driver and gone ahead
to pick up Charmian and would meet us at
‘The River Café, where the four of us try to
go whenever Rudy and I are in town. I-
looked at our own driver, up ahead,
through the panel; his hat was off, his hair
close-clipped, his whole head still as a photo.

My husband, in the back scat with me,
held my hand in his hands. His necktie and
handkerchief were square and flush. 1
could almost smell his relief. He had been
terribly relieved when I saw him after my
appearance. Letterman had explained to
the audience that I needed to be on my
way, and Pd been directed off stage to
much applause as David introduced the
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“Of course he really said that,” my hus-
bandsaid. "'It'sjustthesortofthing he'd say.”

“Exactly,” 1 maintained, looking at
what his hands held.

We were driven south.

“But that doesn’t mean he's really that
way,” he said, locking at me very directly.
Then he, too, looked at our hands. Our
three rings were next to onc another. I felt a
love for him and moyed closer to him on
the soft leather seat, my face hot and sore.
My empty ear did ісе! a bit violated. “Апу
more than you're really the way you
seemed when we were handling him better
than I’ve ever seen him handled" He
looked at me admiringly. “You're a talent-
ed actress,” he said. “You took direction.
You kept your head and did us both credit
and survived an appearance on an anti-
show.” He smiled. “You did good work.”

I moved away from my husband just
enough to look at his very clean face. “1
wasn't acting, with David Letterman,” 1
told him. And I was sincere. “It was more
you and Dick that I had to . . . handle,”
Rudy's smile remained. “Не wasn’t sav
age,” I said. “He was fun, Rudy. had fun”

just for fun?” he asked wryly. He pretended
almost to nudge my ribs. A high-rent dis-
trict that I had remembered as a low-rent
district went by on both sides of us.

And ГЇЇ say that I felt something dark in
my heart when my husband almost nudged
me there. I felt that it was a sorry business,
indeed, when my own spouse couldn't tell I
was being serious. And I told him so.

“I was just the way I am,” I maintained.

We both listened as something sweetly
baroque filtered through the limousine in-
tercom's grille

“It’s like my birthday,” I said, holding
my second husband's hand in minc. “We
agreed, on my birthday. We drank wine to
it, Rudy. We held the facts out and looked,
together. We agreed just last week about
the way I am.”

My husband disengaged his hand and
felt at the panel’s grille. The Hispanic driv-
ers hatless head was cocked. A part of his
neck was without pigment, I saw. The
lighter area was circular; it spiraled into
his dark hair and was lost to me.

“He leaned across right up to me, Rudy.
I saw freckles. A little mole, near that label.
I looked at him. I saw him.”

But we told you, Sue,” my husband
said, reaching into his jacket pocket.
“What put him on television in 1989 for
you to see is that he can't be seen. That's
what the whole thing’s about, now. That no
one is really the way they have to be seen.”

I looked at him. “You really think that’s
true.”

His cigarette crackled. “Doesn't matter
what! think. That's what the show is about.
They make it true. By watching him.”

“You believe that,” I said

“I believe what I see,” he said, putting
his cigarette down to manipulate a bottles.
cap. Its label read TAKE SEVERAL, OFTEN.

“Are you being all that you can be?”

161

PLAYBOY

162

“That strikes me as really naive.”

Certain pills are literally bitter. When
Га finished my drink from the back seat’s
bar, I still tasted the Xanax on the back of
my tongue. The adrenaline’s cbb had left
me very tired. We broke out of the tall
buildings near the water. I watched the
Manhattan Bridge pass. The late sun came
into view; it hung to our right, red. We
both looked at the water as we were driven
by. The sheet of its surface was wound-col-
ored under the March sunset.

I swallowed. “So you believe no one's re-
ally the way you sce them?”

1 got no response.

“Dick doesn't really have a mouth, I no-
ticed today. It’s more like a gash in his
head.” I paused. “You needn't defer to him
in our personal lives just because of your
positions in business, Rudy" I smiled.
“We're loaded, cookie.”

My husband laughed without smiling.
He looked at the last of the sun-colored wa-
ter as we approached the Brooklyn Bridge’s
system of angled shadows

“If no one is really the way we see them,
that would include me.” I said. “Апа you.”

Rudy admired the sunset. He said it

looked explosive, hanging, all round, just
over the water. Reflected and doubled in
that bit of river. But he was looking only at
the water. I saw him.
.
“Oh, my,” is what David Letterman said
when Reese the coordinator’s distinguished

but raccoon-ringed face had resolved out of

a perfect ring of exploded dynamite.
Months later, whenever Га come thr
something by being in its center, survi
in the stillness created by great disturbance
from which I,’as cause, perfectly circled,
was exempt, I'd be struck all over again by
what a real and simply right thing
for a person in such a place to say.
.

And I have remembered and worked
hard to show that, if nothing else, I am a
woman who speaks her mind. Itis, ves, the
way I'm forced to sce myself. To live.

And so I did ask my husband, as we were
driven in our complimentary limousine to
jein Dick and Charmian for drinks and
dinner at NBC’s expense, just what way he
thought he and I really were, then.

Which turned out to be the mistake.

“It’s our responsibility to preserve the best of the
sexual revolution. Not the conflict, not the rhetoric, not
the extremes. What we must preserve is the sex.”

CHEVY CHASE

(continued from page 65)
lectures and harsh reassessments of your
life. It’s a horrifying experience and you
end up coming out of it so raw, you can
never have any self-respect again. On the
other hand, I must admit it worked for me,
and I was there only two and a half weeks.
PLAYBOY: Its hard to imagine you playing it
straight and obedient for two and a half
weeks.

CHASE: I wasn't. I started raising hell. 1
was a little like Jack Nicholson in One Flew
over the Cuckoo's Nest. | didnt care for the
scare tactics being used there. I didn't
think they were right. So I became kind of
a rabble rouser, getting on their cases for
the way they were talking to the patients
and the amount of blame they were shovel-
ing out and the amount of crying they were
making people do. They used the phrase
“Thank you for sharing that with us” so
much it made me go nuts.
Were you the only celebrity there
at the time?
CHASE: As far as I know, it was just me and
Madonna. Just kidding! Seriously, though,
you'll never see me back in one of those
places again. Never. You could put one оГ
those pills in front of me right now, and Га
say, "No, I dont want it.” [Pause] You
don't, by any chance, have any on you, do

ч?
PLAYBOY: No, sorry. Your wife, Jayni, was а
top-class pentathlete, wasn’t she?
CHASE: Yeah, she's great, She's still fast as
hell, a great sprinter.
PLAYBOY: Has she inspired you to become
physically fit, now that you're cleaned up?
CHASE: I've always been physically fit.
PLAYBOY: What do you play?
CHASE: The piano.
PLAYBOY: Hmmm. Moving right along,
were you always a funny kid?
CHASE: I was never the class clown, but |
was funny in a subversive way. There was
always a class clown who would make loud
remarks and stuff, but I would do things
the teacher never knew were happening.
iat things?
getüng everybody in study
hall to cough at the same moment, stuff like
that. So all of a sudden, 50 guys would
cough and just about give the teacher a
heart attack. Or Pd walk into study hall
and keep dropping things on the floor,
making a lot of noise. But Га do it with a
straight face, so there was no way 1 could
be castigated. I was always trying
things to screw up the people in authority.
PLAYBOY: Where do you think you got your
sense of humor?
CHASE: My father, I was once asked to
write a school essay on the most valuable
quality of human behavior. When 1 asked
my father what he thought that was, he
said, “A sense of humor.” He explained it
as a sense of perspective, of prioritics.

And to this day, he’s the funniest man
1 know. He finds just about everything

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PLAYBOY

164

funny. Hes a well-respected book editor,
an editor emeritus at MacMillan, 68 years
old, a man who wears pinstripe suits. But
he’s the kind of person who will walk down
the street and suddenly stop by a hydrant
and lift his leg.

PLAYBOY: You come from a family with
money and social standing, don't you?
CHASE: Well, Mom's a plumbing heiress.
Her adoptive father was a guy named Cor-
nelius Grane, whose father was one of the
founders of the Crane Valve Compan
They made all their money in World War
One by making valves for ships and for
many of the toilets that, to this day, we
stand in front of. Although some of us
stand to the side.

Anyway, when Cornelius died, he had a
lot of money, a hundred and something
million bucks. But he had already remar-
ried and was no longer my mother’s moth-

ers husband. And his new wile—some
Japanese woman I've never met—encour-
aged him to disown all of his former friends
and family, and when he died, he left all his
money to the Zen Buddhist Foundation.
My mother got crap. A lot of people think I
come from a rich family, but we never saw
any of that money.
PLAYBOY: But your upbrin;
comfortable, wasn't it?
yeah. Up and down. I went to P.S.
New York for a while, but then I went
to private schools after that. It seemed to
me we were always struggling one way or
another, but there was always some money
somewhere. So we were never poor.
PLAYBOY: Your college years were 1963
through 1967, the beginning of the protest.
era. Were you involved in radical politics?
CHASE: To a degree. I went to a few march-
es, but I was never with SDS or SNCC. I

hg was at least

“I guess we just docked at the French Riviera.”

didn't affiliate myself with anybody in par-
ticular. But 1 suppose I was as radical as
the next guy. I never took any drugs in col-
lege either, which was strange, since Bard
was pretty well known for drugs. But I was
scared to death of pot and acid in those
days. It wasn't till later on that I took acid,
and it made me paranoid and afraid. I was
led to believe that 1 would get to know my-
self better, but I always felt that that was a
load. All it meant to me was that you got to
know what you were like as a psych
PLAYBOY: Did you avoid the draft?

CHASE: Yeah. There was this jazz pianist
named Soyce who used to hang around the
Bard campus a lot. He was а пісе guy, but
he was generally considered to be mentally
deranged. So just before my induction
physical, I studied Soyce, figuring I'd try
to be like him at my physical, sort of in-
communicado. His tongue would hang out
of his mouth and he'd stare at the ground
and he wouldn’t say anything to anybody
and his head would sway back and forth.

So I showed up at my physical acting
like Soyce. Also, Га been drinking a lot of
strong coffee and I hadn't showered in
three days, so I was just a teeming nervous
wreck, sweaty and stinky. On top of that,
I'd put about a tube of hair grease in my
hair. Basically, 1 looked like the kind of.
person you wouldn’t want anywhere near
you. When they made us take off our
clothes, I kept my wallet over my balls, as
if I didn't want anybody to see them. So E
was definitely not giving the appearance of
somebody you'd want to spend a lot of time
with in the barracks.

Next came the written exam. There were
questions like “Have you ever wet your
bed?” and “Have you ever had head-
aches?” and so on. I'd taken that same ex-
am at my preinduction physical the year
before and checked “No” for all the an-
swers. This time I checked “Yes.” Hell, ev-
erybody has wet his bed at least once.
Everybody has had headaches. Everybody
has had homosexual tendencies—the way I
beating off with a friend at the age of
13, just to learn how to do it, could legally
be considered a homosexual tendency.

So this time I checked “Yes” to all ol the
above and I was immediately ushered into
the office of a shrink, who turned out to
be—I’m not ki ig—the typical German
psychiatrist with a goatee. And he said,
with a German accent, “Mr. Chase, I see
there's been a tremendous change in one
year. How do you account for this?” And 1
didn't say anything; I just shook my head
and let my rongue hang out. “Do you like
girls?” he asked. “Yeah.” “Do you like
boys?" “Yeah.” “Which do you like bet-
ter?" 1 said “Boys,” meaning, of course,
that most of my friends were guys. 1 never
had a problem g men's genitals, but
Га be the last guy in the world who'd want
to have mine anywhere near another guy's.

So they gave me a card that said 4-F and
I was out of there.

PLAYBOY: What if your act hadn't worked?
Did you have a plan B?

CHASE: I probably would have started k
ing the guy next to me on the bus to boot

After college, you moved to Los

Thats right. I was encouraged to

to L.A. by a William Morris agent.
He said I was the place to be if I want-
ed to work in T V, which I did. Of course, I
went straight onto the unemployment line
for six months.
PLAYBOY: What was your initial impression
of L.A?
CHASE: I hated it. I saw myself adapting
like a cockroach. I felt that my brain was
going to slowly wither away and I wouldn't
even know it. And, of course, that’s exactly
what happened.
PLAYBOY: But at least you got yourself off
unemployment. You mentioned earlier that
your acting fee has gone up by $1,000,000
with each picture. That would put your
salary around $14,000,000 per movie.
CHASE: That’s righ
PLAYBOY: That's what you m; Fourteen
million dollars per movie?
CHASE: No. I meant it has gone up after
every picture. I have a price—its any-
where from $5,000,000 to $6,000,000 a pic-
ture. Plus a ten-point gross
PLAYBOY: Do you handle your own finances?
CHASE: No, my wife does, with a little cal-
culator.
PLAYBOY: You're kidding, right?
CHASE: Right. Actually, I have people who
do that for me. 1 don’t know where the
money goes. I keep seeing people who
make less than I do who appear to be much
wealthier than I am. I'm pretty frugal and
carcful with my investments, I don’t have a
lot of stocks. I invest in land. And I’m try-
ing to build up a huge pension plan for my
kids, so that everybody’s taken care of
when I pop off.
PLAYBOY: If you suddenly became box-office
poison, what would you do?
CHASE: I'd move in with Elliott Gould and
we'd open a pig ranch together.

Thats a terrible, frightening expres-
sion—“box-office poison —and I'm sure
my blood pressure shot up as soon as you
said it. Frankly, I have no idea what Га do.
It may happen. But I have to believe that
Fm good at what I do. There's obviously
some longevity here. A lot of people have
come and gone since I came onto the scene
"That's not necessarily to say that the quali
ty of my work has stood the test of time.
I'm sure someday people will grow tired of
me, and God knows, 1 ldn't blame
them. I'm just hoping my family won't
PLAYBOY: Chevy, any ideas for your epi-

Dig him up and give him

PLAYBOY: Any other hopes for the future?
CHASE: Yes. I'd like to live long enough for
everyone who reads this interview to have
forgotten it

PLAYBOY: Anything clse?

CHASE: Yes. Can I put my clothes bac

now?

you do to deser
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Zenith Data System's new laptop com- Fossil's “Paratrooper” watches

puter, the portable, personal are replicas of ones worn over
| SupersPort, meas- there by daring doughboys in
| ures a compact 12" World War One. The protective

b x12" and weighs cover is functional and the price is
| only about ten pre-Depression, only $50 each,
iL pounds; but don’t from Overseas Products, Dallas.
|. b be fooled by its

diminutive size. Its
sophisticated fea-
lures include two
720K floppy-disk
drives with 640K
RAM capability,
expandable mı
ory options; it
operates on A.C.
and attachable
battery, $2500.

The palm-sized Sports
Timer Stopwatch per-
forms like a heavy-
weight. It meas-

time, split time,
dual times and
plain old any
time—plus
day and date,
from NDQ
Marketing,
New York,
$9.95.

The perfect cork popper for
anyupscale event, the Cham-
pagne Cork/Ice Bucket is a
King Kong-sized chiller, 1B
inches high, plastic lined and
waterproof. The repli-cork
top is authentic Moët 8
Chandon Brut Impérial, from
Think Big, New York, $95.

PHOTOGRAPHY BY STEVE CONWAY AND JAMES IMBROGNO.

The Italian-designed and -assem-
bled Techno Ladder Shaving Set,
by Travex, is made of brass and
coated in matte-finish enamel.
Brush and razor are functionally
held and uniquely displayed оп
the deco-styled and -colored lad-
der, from Chiasso, Chicago, $160.

Snakers are
soft-leather
loafers with
a slithering
surprise. The
snakeskin
vamps are
made from In-
donesian and
Pakistani boa

and water snake,
and the shoes are
lined with soft pig-
skin and given a coat
of protective urethane,
from Snakers, Carlsbad,
California, $80 per pair.

Look, Ma, no wires! Re-
coton’s Wireless Stereo
Speaker System transmits
sound using your house
current. Nine-inch-high
speakers plug into any A.C.
outlet in the listening area,
and a transmitter connects
to your main stereo source,
$269 for the three pieces.

Is it a micro-
phone or а micro-
phony? On the
Air is a replica of
a Forties studio
microphone
that's really an
AM/FM radio.
The sign lights up
when the power
is on, the base is
made of solid
chrome and
brass, the mike
stands a foot high
and operates on
two nine-volt bat-
teries or optional
А.С. adapter,
from Leadworks,
Solon, Ohio, $90.

М

©1988 MARK LEIVDAL

Zara-Ra-Boom-Di-Ay

Actress ZARA KAREN salutes basic-black lingerie, and our photographer

is there to record the winning moment. Feast your eyes on this, guys, then

check out Zara's movies, Secret Contract, Mean Time and the upcoming

Tax Season. Want more? Use your imagination, take two aspirins and don’t
170 callus in the morning.

GRAPEVINE

The Joy of Sax

BRANFORD MARSALIS is just so cool. He plays the sax on a
recent jazz LP with Jeff Watts and Milt Hinton. He's touring with
Sting through 19B8. And you can see him in Spike Lee's movie
School Daze and last year's Danny DeVito/Billy Crystal comedy
Throw Momma from the Train. Cool, yes, and hot.

©1988 PAUL NATKIN PHOTO RESERVE INC.

Tender Loins
Maybe you saw
VICKI DAMANTE
in the music

video Gettin”
Closer or at

the movies in
Waxworks. If

not, take a

look at this!

Zp
Lr

968 MARK LEIVDAL

e.

King Sting

Look around. STING is everywhere this year.
You can catch his act on the big screen with
Kathleen Turner in Julia and julia and in
Stormy Monday with Tommy Lee Jones and
Melanie Griffith. You can also see him on
stage, after his European concert dates, as
part of the Amnesty International World
Tour. His feet don’t touch the ground.

E1988 РАШ NATKIN/ PHOTO RESERVE INC.

Make You
Love Me

Supreme
MARY WIL-
SON's life is
back on track.
Her book was
a smash, so
she's writing
another. The
Supremes
were elected
to the Rock
and Roll Hall
of Fame. An
album is defi-
i th

1988 EBET ROBERTS

can't hurry

A la Mode

Look out for DEPECHE MODE. The group will be
playingin your hometown soon. So get the album
Music for the Masses or the sound track

10 Bright Lights, Big City and tap your

foot until they arrive.

I'm Gonna

I She Ain't
Sweatin’,
She's Melton
Actress KAREN JOY
MELTON, that is.
She’s been seen on
TV in Magnum, Р.1.;
Tour of Duty; Mur-

| der, She Wrote and
Crime Story, but not
like this. We bring
you Karen the
Grapevine way, ready
for your bulletin
board, fantasy life
and dreams. It’s the
least we can do.

171

CONGRESSIONAL SLIPPED DISK

Want to write to your Congressman and bitch,
bitch, bitch? It's easy if you plug yourself and your
personal computer into the new 1988 Directory of
Congress on Disk, which Gabriel Publishing Com-
y, 1469 Rosena Avenue, Madison, Ohio 44057,
ing for $19.95, postpaid. The Directory, on a
single floppy disk, can be used with almost any
data-base manager or word processor. Info in-
cludes names, addresses, phone numbers, party
more. Do call.

(ЇЇ
ess f SEN

SENTIMENTAL JOURNEY

Sentimental Rail Journeys has wedded Amtrak
with the elegance and luxury of private-railroad
travel and come up wi inerary—from Los
Angeles to New Orleans, San Diego, San Francis-
со and other cities—that's affordable. The eight-
day New Orleans trip with vintage private sleeper
and dome car costs $1370—and that includes ho-
tel and air fare back to Los Angeles. Sentimental
Rail Journeys, Р.О. Box 4574, Thousand Oaks,
California 91360, has more info.

NICE GUYS FINISH LAST

“The city plans а new garbage-dump site in your arca. Property
value has depreciated. Pay $2,000,000." Tooooo bad, J.B., you've
just come a cropper and your dream of outtrumping Donald Trump
has faded like last week’s Palm Springs tan. That's the name of the
game—Tycoon, a board game in which players try to take over
Manhattan. To do so, according to its creator, RAM Innovations,
you must have a “thirst for revenge, a taste for double-dealing and
cutthroat tactics. . . . This is one game where nice guys finish last.”
And it’s all yours for only $24.95, postpaid, from RAM at 1161 East
156th Street, Bronx, New York 10474. Have a nice day, asshole.

EASTER IN NOVEMBER

Like Timbuktu, Easter-Island is the Holy Grail for those who quest
for faraway places with strange-sounding names. Located 2000
miles off the coast of Chile, it’s the home, of course, of hundreds of
huge stone figures that stand like silent sentinels frozen in time,
staring out to sea. In 1967, Hanns Ebensten went to Easter Island
with the first tourist expedition, and this year, his travel agency

at 513 Fleming Street, Key West, Florida 33040, has reintroduced
an expedition to the island. The dates are November 10 to 20 and
the tip (which is limited to 18 people and personally led by Eben-
sten) also includes three days in Chile’s lovely lake district. The
cost: $1985, plus round-trip air fare from Miami. We'll bet nobody
оп your block will have been there first.

SOMETHING TO TOY WITH

“The little toy soldier is red with rust,”
wrote Eugene Field in the poem Little Boy
Blue, and if he is, boy, have you lost a
nifty investment. Just check out The Art of
the Toy Soldier, by Henry 1. Kurtz and
Burtt R. Ehrlich, covering two centuries
of metal toy soldiers, and see for yourself.
It’s a huge $75 Abbeville Press hardcover
with several hundred photos (plus text)
devoted to war the way it should be
fought—marching across the counterpane

PLAYING BALL, NAVY STYLE

Maybe it’s because they're made in the
U.S.A. or maybe it's because they just look
neat, but official U.S. Navy ball caps—in-
cluding the official Top Gun style shown
here—have become the hottest headgear
going. A unique store called the Ship:
Hatch, 10376 Main Street, Fairfax, Vir-
ginia 22030, sells them for $11.50 and
$13.50, postpaid (the latter has “scram-
bled eggs” on the bill). One dollar gets
you a list of ships’ names available

EVELYN WOOD,
EAT YOUR HEART OUT!

According to the 1987 Guinness
Book of World Records, Taumata-
whakatangihangakoauauotamate-
aturipukakapikamaungahoronu-
kupokaiwhenuakitanatahu is the
longest place name on carth still
in use. It means, in Maori folk-
lore, “The place where Tamatea,
the warrior who slid down and
swallowed mountains, played on
his flute to his beloved.” You can
own a full-length, untorn T-shirt
in sizes extra-small through
extra-large for $19.95, postpaid,
sent to Kenward Design, РО.
Box 50412, Porirua, New
Zealand. Colors: blue, white,

green and gray. Wear it to your
next speed-rcading class.

GENTLEMEN, START YOUR POSTER COLLECTION

The price of vintage racing cars may have accelerated out of sight,
but it's nice to know that reproductions of vintage automobilc-rac-
ing posters are still affordable. Chuck Groninga, 8318 Avenida
Castro, Cucamonga, California 91730, has a list that includes the
21" x 13" 1922 Cotati Speedway poster pictured above. Its price?
Would you believe $5, postpaid? That's cheaper than wallpaper.

AS THE WORLD
TURNS—AND FLOATS

If you look closely at the TV
show Wiseguy, you'll sce a curi-
ous-looking globe that floats in
‘one of the sets—yes, floats in
space, supported by invisible
forces. It's the six-inch Magnetic
Levitation World Globe that’s a
spin-off product of Maglev Sales,
31-1030 West Georgia Street,
Vancouver, British Columbia
ХЕ 2Y3, a high-tech company
researching industrial applica-
tions for magnetic levitation and
frictionless magnetic bearings. A
cleverly positioned electromagnet
is the secret to the globe's
floating act, and the world can
be yours for $189, postpaid.
Give it a spin!

173

BATHING BEAUTES

NEXT MONTH

WEISKEYS GALORE

WORLD CLASSMATES

“THE JELLY-BEAN LEGACY”—SERIOUSLY, GUYS, HAS
THE REAGAN PRESIDENCY MADE YOU BETTER OFF,
OR WORSE? THINK ABOUT IT. WE HAVE

“SKINSUITS: A HERB RITTS PORTFOLIO"—EAT YOUR
HEART OUT, SPORTS ILLUSTRATED: WE HAVE YOUR
MODEL CINDY CRAWFORD IN HOTTER SHOTS THAT
PROVE LESS TRULY /5 MORE

“ON THE ROAD WITH ROBOCOMIC"—OUR BILL
ZEHME SHADOWS JAY LENO, THE HARDEST-WORK-
ING WHITE MAN IN SHOW BUSINESS, FROM BACK-
STAGE AT THE TONIGHT SHOW TO A LAS VEGAS
DRESSING ROOM, WHERE HE DISCOVERS HIS EVIL
TWIN

“RUN, SALLY, RUN"—WHILE INVESTIGATING AN IN-
SIDER-TRADING SCAM, TIMOTHY CONE, THE WALL
STREET DICK, LEARNS A LOT FROM A TRASHY BROAD.
A FEISTY CRIME YARN BY LAWRENCE (THE SECOND
DEAD#Y SIN, THE SIXTH COMMANDMENT) SANDERS

“REJUVENATION”—A SHEEPISH WRITER AND HIS
WIFE PAY A VISIT TO CLINIQUE LA PRAIRIE, THE SWISS
ANTI-AGING SPA WHERE LAMBS DIE FOR YOUR
SKINS—BY DAN GREENBURG

SAUY'S SCAM.

PAUL HOGAN, PROFESSIONAL AUSSIE, PUTS HIS
SHRIMP ON THE BARBIE FOR US WITH SIZZLING ANEC-
DOTES ABOUT “CROCODILE” DUNDEE ll, MACHO MOVIE
STARS AND THE DIFFERENCES BETWEEN YANKS AND
THOSE BLOKES FROM DOWN UNDER IN A TRANS-
PACIFIC PLAYBOY INTERVIEW

“THE ROOTS OF JESSE"—WHAT MAKES JACKSON
RUN? AMERICA’S PREMIERE BLACK POET/PLAY-
WRIGHT, AMIRI BARAKA, HITS THE CAMPAIGN TRAIL
WITH THE CHARISMATIC CANDIDATE

“MISS PLAYBOY INTERNATIONAL”—THERE HAS NEV-
ER BEEN A BEAUTY PAGEANT LIKE THIS. REPRESENT-
ATIVES OF PLAYBOY'S 14 WORLD-WIDE EDITIONS MET
IN HONG KONG TO COMPETE FOR THE TITLE, RESULT-
ING IN A LUCKY WINNER: YOU!

PLUS: “BUSTER TAKES MANHATTAN,” ENTERTAINER
POINDEXTER IN URBANE NEW YORK FASHIONS;
“WHISKEY AMÉRICAIN,” BY NOTED ENGLISH DRINK
AUTHORITY MICHAEL JACKSON; “20 QUESTIONS”
WITH JUDGE REINHOLD ON WHY STEWARDESSES HIT
ON HIM NOW THAT HE'S NO LONGER SELLING YO-
GURT TO THE STARS; AND, NATURALLY, MUCH MORE

REAL PEOPLE.
REAL TASTE.

per cigarette by FTC method! ei 4 A
i 200 =

ES
SURGEON GENERAL'S WARNING: Smoking

% G “ч. ы
Winston
By Pregnant Women May Result in Fetal

Injury, Premature Birth, And Low Birth Weight. f AMERICAS BEST.
Y ту: a c ?

£

y

GENUIN E

"

A

FORA 20"x28" POSTER OF THIS AD, SEND $2.50 IN CHECK OR MONEY ORDER (NO CASH), PAYABLE TO:
BUDWEISER LABEL CONSCIOUS/P.O. BOX 93292/ATLANTA, GA 30377.

OWE Pe or atmen: omer uetus MUS, MEE un, мо