PLAYBOY

MIMI ROGERS ANNE RICE
EI , PLAYBOY INTERVIEW

мање

ERICA JONG GETS РА bar
MODERN LOVE

| 20 QUESTIONS
ITH
LAURA DERN

GERMANS CAN SIT THROUGH F
THEY OBVIOUSLY

The citizens of Germany pursue a curious national passion.
Contemplating the thunder of Wagner's epic Ring Cycle.

It's monumental stuff. But by the time the fat lady finally
tortures her last High C, the audience has endured four long
nights, and 15 hours, of music. And if уоште not in the
mood, it can be some of the most grueling punishment this
side of the Kalahari Desert.

But if you're someone who would frankly prefer the Kalahari

1993 вми of rn Ате төв Bow ва lego a rt ues емие

Desert, we suggest another form of German entertainment:
The legendary endurance motorcycles of BMW.

These are the R100GS and PD. Machines that are all guts
and glory. That dare to measure themselves against the craggy,
etemal truths of the world's most unwelcoming environments.

The engine they share is the famous boxer. A tenacious
980cc fire-breather that puts 60 thundering horses at your com-
mand. Fine-tuned to tolerances that would delight a diamond

WE-HOUR OPERAS BY WAGNER.
ETHING ABOUT ENDURANCE.

cutter, this powerplant has made history on the road and off.
Making the BMW enduros the fastest machines in their class.
If cratered rock and pockmarked deserts are your idea of
paradise lost, these are the machines to take you there. They
thrive on the roughest terrain ever carved by a glacier or brewed
by a volcano. Of course, they also handle interstates with the
easy grace you'd expect only of a BMW.
And while you're traveling mile after rugged mile, tucked

comfortably into the back of your mind will be the reassurance
of BMW's three-year, unlimited-mileage, limited warranty” A
sense of security that's reinforced by your automatic member-
ship in the BMW Motorcycle Roadside Assistance Plan**

You don't have to track the trackless wastes to find
mean machines. Just call 800-345-4BMW to pinpoint
the authorized dealer in your hemisphere. Then take a

seat and enjoy the performance. WORTH THE OBSESSION.

HS G-l:-R-L

JEANS THAT FIT YOUR LIFE
e

MADE IN THE U.S.A.

COLOGNE

PLAYBILL

GO AHEAD. GUYS. Admit it. You've thought how cool it would ђе
to work at MTV, hanging out with rock stars, wearing funky
clothes, checking out free concerts—kind of like a nine-to-five
party with after-hours perks. Wrong! Thanks to а new fiscal
sensitivity and a lot of disenfranchised youth, the cable chan-
nel is taking its rock and roll very seriously these days. Doug
Hill explains in Inside MTV (illustrated by Don Baum).

As МТУ plots the future, many Americans still cope with
the past. One of them is Ron Ridenhour, the Vietnam veteran
whose persistence prompted an Army investigation of the My ч
Lai massacre. Now, 25 years after that terrible morning in RIDENHOUR
Vietnam, Ridenhour remembers a few who risked death and
said no in Heroes at the Massacre.

Heroism is also the subject of Liberté, Égalité, Sexualité!, an
excerpt from Erica Jong's latest nonfiction book, The Devil at
Large (Turtle Bay Books). In this case, the man of honor is
novelist Henry Miller, whose lessons in love and lust, Jong
writes, are as meaningful today as they were five decades ago.

Sex and the supernatural are two of author Anne Rice's fa-
vorite subjects. Her best-selling novels, including Tale of the
Body Thief (excerpted in our October 1992 issue), feature ele-
ments of both. But in a fascinating Playboy Interview, our book
columnist, Digby Diehl, learns about her lesser-known works—
novels that she calls “pornography” and staunchly defends.

Books by Jong, Miller and Rice are probably all on the hit
list of the Christian Coalition, a right-wing political group
founded by televangelist Pot Robertson. In With God as Their Co-
pilot, Joe Conason warns us of the organization's puritanical
platform, and of its growing influence among conservative
voters. Puritans take note: The impact of religion—and poli-
tics—on sex is the focus of our advance look at The Janus GROSSBERGER.
Report un Sexual Behavior (Jolin Wiley & Sons). The excerpt in
The Playboy Forum may surprise you.

On a lighter note, in The Biodome Chronicles (illustrated by
Georganne Deen), Lewis Grossberger peeks at life inside a great
hothouse experiment where there’s nothing but bubble trou-
ble: The biofood stinks, the biobeach smells like cat litter and
there's а serious shortage of biobabes.

Mimi Rogers, the star of The Rapture and an cx-Mrs. Tom
Cruise, is making a big splash—make that waves—in Нойу-
wood. Find out why in Michael Angelis report. Or just enjoy ANGELI SE
the rapturous lenswork of Michel Comte. Then join Contribut-
ing Editor D. Keith Mano (author of Topless) in uncovering А
Club of Опеу Own. With help from Contributing Photograph-
er Byron Newman, Mano exposes the nation's classiest strip
joints—where go-go is respectable and, yes, they accept Visa
and Master Card.

Did wc forget Laura Dern? How could anyone forget the
sultry star of Smooth Talk, Wild at Heart and Rambling Rose? In
this month's 20 Questions, Margy Rochlin gets Dern fessing up
about her sexier moments on film as well as the advantages of
G-strings, mooning and meditation.

Ard lest you think our March issue is going out like a lamb,
Bob Schapiro tracks down Fifties pinup Betty Page in our Update,
Joe Haldeman offers a shocking piece of fiction called Feedback
(illustrated by Philip Castle), Peggy Knickerbocker talks to red-hot
celebrities about red meat in Men and Their Meat, Fashion Di-
Tector Hollis Wayne enlists actor John Turturro to showcase the
latest Italian menswear, Playmate Kimberly Donley talks about a
few of her favorite things and we show you more of ours in
The Playboy Collection. Roar!

EWMAN

HALDEMAN

Playboy (ISSN 0032-1478), March 1998, volume 40, number 3. Published monthly by Playboy in national and regional editions, Playboy,
680 North Lake Shore Drive, Chicago, Illinois 60611. Second-class postage paid at Chicago, Illinois and at additional mailing offices.
Canada Post Canadian Publications Май Sales Product Agreement No. 56162. Subscriptions: in the U.S., $29.97 for 12 issues. Postmaster:
Send address change to Playboy, PO. Box 2007, Harlan, lowa 51537-4007. 5

Guess
Who's
Holland's
+1

Premium
Beer?

ПД Non-Pasteurized
04 Triple Cold Filtered
ШШ All Natural Ingredients

EÛ Four Centuries of Family
Brewing Heritage

PREMIUM LAGER

» Excellence in Brewing Since 1615

Grolsch Importers, Inc., Atlanta, GA 30339

LAYBOY

vol. 40, no. 3—march 1993 CONTENTS FOR THE MEN'S ENTERTAINMENT MAGAZINE
PLAYBILL .. eigene AI US 26232 5
DEAR PLAYBOY. . Я Ёс 222 65 11
PLAYBOY AFTER НОЏКЅ............................ ا‎ ај 15
UPDATE: BETTY PAGE............ 3 Sela ..BOBSCHAPIRO 32
МЕМ: л, APE RUT ble Pe EN пика T. . ASA BABER 34
WOMEN ERIT у 3734 CYNTHIA HEIMEL 36
THE PLAYBOY ADVISOR ........... nob ено esc РАВНО tico do 39
THE PLAYBOY FORUM ....... оо 5 Duende shes 41
REPORTER'S NOTEBOOK: BEYOND CHOICE—opinion ......... ROBERT SCHEER 51
PLAYBOY INTERVIEW: ANNE RICE—candid conversation 53
FEEDBACK—fiction 45 шүт JOE HALDEMAN ев
SCREAMING MIMI! text by MICHAEL ANGELI 70
LIBERTE, EGALITE, SEXUALITE!—orticle ......................... ERICA JONG 78
ТНАТ”5 ITALIAN!—fashion .............. EE HOLLIS WAYNE 82
HEROES AT THE MASSACRE—arlicle ....................... RON RIDENHOUR вв
WITH GOD AS THEIR CO-PILOT—article ............... JOECONASON si
INSIDE МТУ--аг ен уун нуун see ee eee see sss sss an, DOUGHILL 82
EN GARDE!—playboy’s playmate of the month s
PLAYBOY'S PARTY JOKES—humor . |... 108
MEN AND THEIR MEAT—food 22 2) PEGGY KNICKERBOCKER 108
THE BIODOME CHRONICLES—satire ................... LEWIS GROSSBERGER 110
PLAYBOY COLLECTION—modern living 114
А CLUB OF ONE'S OWN—pictorial .................... text by D. KEITH MANO 121
20 QUESTIONS: LAURA DERN 134
PLAYBOY ON THE SCENE РЕ ОНА 165 Inside МТУ R92

COVER STORY

Mimi Rogers is cruising on her own in search of her next rapture. Writer
Michael Angeli dispels some gossip about this classy Hollywood beauty.
Kudos to Stephen Earabino of Visages Style, L.A., for our cover, shot by Michel
Comte. Thanks to Сета! and Joanne Gair of Cloutier for styling Mimi's hair
and makeup, respectively. The gloves are by Adrienne Landau, corset by
Anna Sui and skirt by Van Buren. Is that a feather in our Rabbit’s cap?

PLAYBOY

Now It TAKES ONLY 12 WEEKS To
Get FROM “BEFORE” T

Don — Age 27

2% Body fat
115%

% Body fat:
А

Waist
33 inches

Waist:
31 inches.

Arms:
155 inches

Arms
125 inches

Chest Chest:
405 inches | 445 inches

YOU СЕГ RESULTS FASTER.

The patented isokinetic resistance
of NordicFlex Gold” is so effective,
you can build muscle 70% faster
than ordinary strength trainers,

You can see impressive results like
Don did in only 12 weeks!

Since there are no awkward rubber bands or
weights, your changeover time between
exercises is up to 40% faster than other systems!

Plus, the NordicFlex World Class” Edition offers
additional features 10 enhance your workout
including the electronic performance monitor.

FREE Video and Brochure
Call: 1-800-445-2360 Ext. 26KB3.

NordicTrack, Dept. 26К83.
104 Peavey Road, Chaska, MN 55318

U Send mea free brochure Û Also a free VHS videotape
Name

Street

City —
Phoe( 1

YOU GET A FASTER WORKOUT.
The patented isokinetic resistance
of NordicFlex Gold automatically
adjusts to your strength level for a
fast, effective workout

la: Best of all... it’s
home trial from NordicTrack!

1992 Nordic Track, Inc, A CML Company
Ай rights reserved!

T ormrite:

State Zip

Meteo

TE you and your lover to turn

а simple caress into a work of art. In
seductive instructional scenes, attrac-
tive couples show you how to apply the
techniques of touch, from setting the
mood to enjoying total relaxation to
ultimate ecstasy. VHS. 55 min.

Was $39.95

ORDER By Ma
Use your VISA, MasterCard, Optima, American
Express or Discover. Include your account number
and expiration date, Or enclose a check ог money
order payable to Playboy. Май to Playboy, P.O.
Box 809, Dept. 39510, Itasca, Illinois 60143-0809.

Onper Tot
1-800-42)-9494
Charge to your VISA, MasterCard, Optima,
American Express or Discover. Most ordei
Shipped within 48 hours. Ask for the item num-
ber NJ1628V (VHS) for $29.95. (Source Code:

There is a $4.00 shipping and handling charge
per total order. Illinois residents add 6.759 sales
tax. Canadian residents please add/83.00 addi-
tional per videos Sorry, no other lareign orders or
Currency accepted.

39510) 2193 Playboy.

PLAYBOY

HUGH M. HEFNER
editor-in-chief

ARTHUR KRETCHMER editorial director
JONATHAN BLACK managing editor
TOM STAEBLER art director
GARY COLE photography director
KEVIN BUCKLEY execulive editor

EDITORIAL

ARTICLES: JOHN REZEK editor; PETER NOORE
senior editor, FICTION: ALICE К. TURNER editor;
FORUM: JAMES R. PETERSEN senior staff uriler;
MATTHEW CHILDS associate edilor; MODERN LIV-
ING: DAVID STEVENS senior editor: ED WALKER 050:
ciate editor; BETH TOMKIW assistant editor; WEST
COAST: STEPHEN RANDALL editor; STAFF: BRUCE
KLUGER, BARBARA NELLIS associate editors; CHRIS.
TOPHER NAPOLITANO assistant edilor; JOHN LUSK
traffic coordinalor, DOROTHY ATCHESON publish-
ing liaison; FASHION: HOLLIS WAYNE disector;
VIVIAN COLON assistant editor; CARTOON:
СНЕШЕ Ояну editor; COPY: LEOPOLD FROEHLICH
editor; ARLAN BUSHMAN assistant edilor; MARY ZION
lead ‘researcher; CAROLYN BROWNE Senior re-
searcher; LEE BRAUER, JACKIE CAREY, REMA SMITH
researchers; CONTRIBUTING EDITORS: ASA
BABER. DENIS BOYLES, KEVIN COOK, GRETCHEN
EDGKEN, LAURENCE GONZALES, LAWRENCE GROPEL
KEN GROSS (automotive), CYNTHIA HEIMEL, WILLIAM
J. HELMER. WARREN KALRACKER, WALTER LOWE, JR.
D. KEITH MANO, JOE MORGENSTERN, REG POT
TERTON, DAVID RENSIN, RICHARD RHODES, DAVID
SHEFF, DAVID STANDISH, MORGAN STRONG,
BRUCE WILLIAMSON (Movies)

ART
Pore managing direclor; BRUCE HANSEN,
CHET SUSKI, LEN WILLIS senior directors; KRISTIN
KORIENEK associate director; KELLY O'BRIEN assis-
tant director; ANN seii. supervisor, keyline/
paste-up; PAUL CHAN, JOHN HOCH, RICKIE THOMAS
ап assistants

PHOTOGRAPHY

MARILYN GRAROWSKI west coast editor; JEFF COMEN
managing editor; LINDA KENNEY, ИМ LARSON
MICHAEL ANN SULLIVAN senior editors; PATTY BEAU
DET assistant editor/entertainment; STEVE CONWAY
associate photographer; DAVID CHAN, RICHARD ЕЕС
LEY, ARNY FREYTAG, RICHARD 1201, DAVID MECEY,
BYRON NEWMAN, POMPEO FOSAK, STEPHEN WAYDA
contributing photographers; SHELLEE WELLS stylist;
TIM HAWKINS librarian; ROBERT CAIRNS managen,
studio/lab; Lorrie FLORES business manager,
studio west

MICHAEL PERLIS publisher
JAMES SPANFELLER associate publisher

PRODUCTION
MARIA MANDIS director; RITA JOHNSON manager;
JODY JURGETO, RICHARD QUARTAROLI, CARRIE LA RUE
HOCKNEY, TOM SIMONEK associate managers

CIRCULATION
BARBARA GUTMAN subscription circulation director;
LARRY А. DJERE newsstand sales director; CINDY
RAKOWITZ communications director

ADVERTISING
PAUL TURCOTTE national sales director; SALES
DIRECTORS DON SCHULZ detroit, STEVE MEISNER
midwest, JAY BECKLEY, SEAN FLANAGAN пеш york,
WILLIAM. M. HILTON, JR. northwest, STEVE THOMP
SON southwest

READER SERVICE
LINDA STROM, MIKE OSTROWSKI Correspondents

ADMINISTRATIVE
ERIC SHROPSHIRE computer graphics systems direc-
tor; EILEEN KENT editorial services manager; MAR
CIA TERRONES rights & permissions administrator.

PLAYBOY ENTERPRISES, INC.
cuustie HEFNER chairman, chief executive officer

Beginners?
засна.

Individually numbered by
hand with 24 karat gold.

A Limited Edition Collector Plate.
Hand-Numbered and Bordered in 24 Karat Gold.
Please mail by March 31, 1993.

The Franklin Mint
Franklin Center, PA 19091-0001

Please enter my order for Beginners’ Luck by James Killen. I need
SEND NO MONEY NOW. I will be billed $29.50" when my plate is
ready to be sent. Limit: one plate per collector.

decoy, instead. чы duck!

America has always had a warm spot in its heart for sporting,

dogs—for their energy, their breeding and their unwavering loyalty.

Now renowned wildlife artist James Killen portrays that incomparable

canine spirit in a Limited Edition collector plate, Beginners’ Luck.

Crafted in fine porcelain, then hand-numbered and bordered in 72102

24 karat gold, this magnificent imported collector plate also bears. | ae

the artist's signature mark on the reverse side. ADDRESS APTA
Priced at just $29.50, it will be closed forever after just 45 firing CITVISTATEIZIP

days. Available exclusively from The Franklin Mint, Franklin Center, AT

BA 19091 0001. mon б : 15594-6тт-237

Satisfaction Guaranteed. If you wish to return any Franklin Mint purchase, you may
dosa within 30 days of your receipt of tat purchase for replacement Credit or refund

"Plus my шиг sales tax.
amd $2.95 for shipping and handling.

SIGNATURE

INTRODUCING PLAYBOY'S

407 perso

PLAY ME, S PAGO

«a че

Enter your favorite girl in our
search for the 40th Anniversary
Playmate with an all-in-one camera
that's a snap to use.

BV O E RES ofche woman in your life with our
40th Anniversary Playmate Camera, Get them developed and send
them to us. If your girl is chosen and becomes our January 1994
40th Anniversary Playmate, she'll receive a modeling fec of
540,000 (yes, really!) and the person submitting the photos (that's
you?) will receive $2,500.

About the Playmate Search

With your camera, you'll receive; Photo Tips from the Pros аг
Playboy, How to Use thc Camera and the 40th Auniversary
Playmate Data Sheet. Kecp in mind that your photos, in order to
be submitted, must include a flattering head and shoulder portrait
and a full figure photo against a neutral background. Photos will
not be returned. Cut-off date of submission of photos is April 1,
1993. Make sure your Playmate Data sheet is filled out in full, and
send along with your photos to: Playboy Magazine, Attn: 40th
Anniversary Playmate Search, 680 North Lake Shore Drive,
Chicago, Illinois 60611.

зо.

MERA

(1) Photos must be of women 18 years of age and older.
Q) Proof of age must accompany photos (copy of a picture ID).
(3) No nude photos.

About the Camera
At only $14.95, it’s a great deal. We suggest that you buy two; one
to use for your Playmate photos and one to keep as a collectible.
This all-in-one Fuji Quick Snap Camera includes the film and flash
built right in—use indoors or out. When you're done shooting (24
exposures plus 3 extra shots) take the entire camera to your photo
developer who will develop and print your full color shots.

Order Toll-Free 1-800-423-9494
Charge to your VISA, MasterCard, Optima, American Express ог
Discover. Most orders shipped within 48 hours. Ask for the item
number NQ4072 (1 Camera) $14.95 or NQ4077 (2 Cameras)
$26.00. (Source Code: 39515)

Order by Mail
Use your VISA, MasterCard, Optima, American Express or
Discover. Include your account number and expiration date. Or
enclose a check or money order payable to Playboy. Mail to
Playboy, P.O. Box 809, Dept. 39515, Назса, Illinois 60143-0809.

There is a $3.00 shipping and handling charge per total order.
Illinois residents add 6.75% sales tax.

-

61993 Playboy

DEAR PLAYBOY

ADDRESS DEAR PLAYBDY
PLAYBDY MAGAZINE
680 NORTH LAKE SHORE DRIVE
CHICAGO, ILLINOIS 60511
OR FAX 312-440-5454

SHARON STONE
Contributing Editor David Sheff’s

Playboy Interview with actress Sharon
Stone (December) is a league above any
other interview with her I've read, Stone
is smart, witty and purely amazing. Her
comment about the ways in which we
bury things about ourselves out of po-
liteness or fear of facing who we might
actually be (which she discovered while
doing Basic Instinct) is wise and true. 1
propose that Stone become a spokesper-
son for blondes. She's the living antithe-
sis to dumb-blonde jokes.

Michael McCarthy

Dracut, Massachusetts

Sharon Stone not only shows us just
how intellectual the “ice-pick princess”
really is but also contributes a powerful
voice for a nonbitter, pacifist feminism.
Stone never comes across as a vindictive
or unhappy person, yet she has a clear
and unromanticized perspective on the
problems of being a woman in the film
industry.

Brandon Radisic
Mount Airy, North Carolina

Um from Meadville, Pennsylvania,
Sharon Stone's hometown. Sharon's
done great things with her life, and I'm
proud that she grew up in this area
(home of Dad's Dog Food and the Zip-
per). I only wish she weren't so negative
about us. She should be proud that she
came from a «тай town and has risen so
far in the world. I admire her.

Kim Lesher
Meadville, Pennsylvania

GENERATION X

Thank you for your Generation X pack-
age in the December issue, fcaturing
Generation X, by Dean Kuipers, and Love
Among the Xers, by Anita Sarko.

People my age (34) often feel lost in all
the media attention directed toward
baby boomers. A few more articles for
Xers, including some by music and

movie critics with our taste, and you will
have a most excellent magazine.

Tom Arnold

St. Paul, Minnescta

Im writing to tell you how much I
love the articles on Xers. I love Robert
Tilton. 1 love Tribbles. I hate boomers
and their fucking baldness and pathetic
auempts to glamourize their youth. 1
Harly refuse to sell out to anyone or апу-
thing. The only thing 1 think Kuipers
and Sarko missed (at least in my case) is
our stunted attention span and our fasci-
nation with young pale English bands (I
love P. J. Harvey and Revolver).

“Joshua D. Saitz
San Francisco, California

What a surprise when I pulled me De-
cember PLAYBOY out of my mailbox.
"There I find a sliver of my own psyche
mirrored in your feature on Generation
X. There is my Ouija, my formidable
Charlie's Angels, Brady Bunch and
Bionic Woman

ОР course there is more, much more
To the baby boomer, we're wily, we're
arch, we're detail oriented—all that is
correct. Our true nature and potential
have only barely begun to show, though
our majestic and growing power was felt.
in the recent voter turnout. And мић the
election of Bill Clinton, it's now our dad
in the White House. Watch us grow as
we heal the extended dysfunctional fam-
ily called the U.S. of A.

Tracy LeGrand
"Tulsa, Oklahoma

1 found your section on the X Genera-
tion to be one-sided and biased. A more
appropriate term would be the Whiner
Generation. There are many of us from
the post-boomer generation who are sick
and tired of our whining contempo-
raries blaming their miserable lives on
the baby boomers and Reagan and
Bush. We detest having multiculturalism
shoved down our throats. We don't eat

AD SUNSET BOULEVARD, WEST HOLLYWOOD. СА 83000: WET 3 S REPRESENTATIVES

PLAYBOY

and

Schick

present

THE 1993 SPRING
BREAK
3-ОМ-3 BASKETBALL

TOURNAMENT
DAYTONA BEACH, FLORIDA

Join Playboy and Schick at the
basketball center located
between The Bandshell and
Holiday Inn Boardwalk
(beachside) for three wee!
3-on-3 basketball tourn

long

ents.

A New Tournament Each Week
Monday through Friday
March 8 - March 12
March 15 - March 19
March 22 - March 26

Grand Prize
A $3000 Scholarship For The
Overall Winning Team
Each Week
Hundreds of Other Prizes

*FREE REGISTRATION DAILY
ON COURTS FROM
9AM - 11 AM

*TOURNAMENT TEE SHIRT TO
ALL PLAYERS

*DAILY FOUL SHOOTING

Meet Playboy Playmates

participation subject to
tournament rules

n

tofu for breakfast, and we're tired of be-
ing called out of touch if we believe in
traditional family values. We believe that
we control our own destinies, and we
refuse to blame anyone except ourselves.
It's time these whining Xers took control
of their lives instead of sitting around
waiting for someone to do it for them.
Dominick J. Swinhart
Raymond, Washington

PLAYBOY

I NEVER PAID WHAT BILL?

If ever a PLAYBOY article corresponded
with the circumstances of my life, it is
Robert Scheer's Reporter's Notebook in the
December issue, “I Never Paid What
Bill?” Like Scheer, just as 1 was about to
make a major purchase in my life, I dis-
covered that my credit record was “bad.”
11 was filled with inaccuracies, false in-
formation, the history of someone whose
name is the same as mine who once lived
in this city and several debts that should
have been removed years ago.

Like Scheer, I went to work with all
the energy of righteous indignation to
clear up my record. My sympathies to
Scheer, as well as my heartfelt congratu-
lations for an article that everyone who
has ever been in undeserved credit hell
and battled it out will appreciate.

Robert Johnson
Scranton, Pennsylvania

Robert Scheer was right on. I followed
his advice and cleared an inaccurate
credit report Thank you.

John Fall
San Diego, California

THEY STILL LOVE BETTY PAGE
Thank you, rLAYBoY and Buck Henry,
for The Betty Boom in the December issue.
When I was growing up in the mid-
Fifties, one couldn't open a “girlie” mag-
azine without finding a photo of Betty.
For a while she was the Fifties’ Cindy
Crawford, Cher and the Snap-On Tool
girl allin one. Your nude photos showed
a side of her career that this (at the time)
youngster never knew existed.
Charles Р Hall
Chicago, Illinois

When 1 was 14, Betty Page got my
hormones racing. I wondered if anyone
could actually be that beautiful. Even
now, her slightly naughty image and pure
sexual ooze give Madonna competition.

Floyd W. Brown
Belmont, Massachusetts

A thousand thanks to PLaYBoY and
Buck Henry for the pictorial article on
Betty Page. However, as to Henry's ob-
servation that Betty's hips are beyond
the current criteria of acceptable beauty,
that is so for only those men who have

no imagination and taste.
Betty is nota hard-rock-video star. She
is, instead. autumn leaves, rolling coun-
12 tryside, a brownstone building where

friends sit and talk together. She is a
Mozart concerto. She has lefi, at least for
me, the legacy of a woman you want to
know and whose opinions you value: the
smile of friendliness, the love of goofi-
ness, the sense of human vulnerability
that eludes us today. This is Betty to me.
David |. Van Meer
Mount Vernon, Washington
Betty to us, Dave, is alive and well in south-
em California. To find out how we found her,
check our "Update" feature on page 32.

BARBARA MOORE

Thanks for yet another great Play-
mate, Miss December, Barbara Moore
(The Moore, the Merrier). She fits naturally

into the Fifties backdrop. This beauty
from the Volunteer State is one for
whom I would volunteer to go back to
the Fifties or any other time.
Robert Smitherman, Jr.
Norway, South Carolina

Barbara Moore’s radiant beauty is
matched only by her brilliant outlook on
life. Many thanks to Contributing Pho-
tographer Stephen Wayda and everyone
at PLAYBOY for delivering my Christmas
present early this year.

Eric |. Keller

Seaule, Washington

I just had the opportunity to meet
Barbara Moore at a local autograph ses-
sion. Wow! Not only is she completely
gorgeous, she has a personality that
matches her sweet smile. Barbara is easi-
ly the brightest Nashvillian Ive seen
since moving here. She gets my vote for
Playmate of the Year.

J. В Weir
Nashville, Tennessee

HELMUT NEWTON

When photographer Helmut Newton
(20 Questions, PLAYBOY, December) says
he's looking for a smart secretary, what

exactly does he mean? I'm а secretary
and have been one for 12 years. My cdu-
cation is in secretarial sciences. Every
boss 1 have ever had has said, “You аге
the most valuable person on ту май,”
and yet I am always the lowest paid.
Maybe I'm not so smart, because I
continue to stay in a profession that gives
me about as much respect as a prosti-
tute. And even though Га like to feel
that this is a somevhat worthwhile pro-
fession, so long as people like Helmut
Ncwton continue to imply that secre-
taries aren't smart, 1 will continue to be
confused as to whether I should be
proud or ashamed of what I do.
Mona Lee Soderberg
Leo, Indiana

Someone should tell Helmut Newton,
with his fascination for Amazons, that
Amazons display one breast because they
have only one breast. The other, accord-
ing to myth, is removed (burned off with
a hot iron, if I remember correctly) so it
won't interfere with their bowstrings
when they hunt or fight.

Paul A. Alter
Hyattsville, Maryland

JESSICA HAHN
"Thanks to Contributing Photogra-
phers Stephen Wayda and Richard Feg-
ley. Your December photo essay on Jessi-
ca Hahn (My Fifteen Minutes of Fame Are
Up. Not!) is fabulous. Hahn should be
striving toward the future instead of
clinging to the demons of her past (Jim
Bakker, among them). Ironically, in the
same issue you recount Betty Page’s
rags-to-almost-riches-to-rags dream. 1
hope that in Hahn's case, history doesn't
repeat itself.
Donald Dreh
Browerville, Minnesota

Аз someone who was impressed with
her first visit to your pages, I must agree
that Jessica Hahn looks better each time
she appears. Her photos reveal a woman
who has become comfortable with her-
self and the direction her life has taken.
I wish her the best of luck as she contin-
ues her career.

William E. Ferguson
Overgaard, Arizona

AUTO MAG CRITIQUE
Bob Garfield’s observation on auto-
motive journalism (Media, PLAYBOY, De-
cember) is naive. Car and Driver isn't any
more in bed with GM or Nissan than
Stereo Review is with Bose. Car and Driver
has been one of the Big Three's harshest
critics, urging them to downsize and pre-
pare for the Japanese onslaught since
the mid-Sixties. Detroit ignored its
warning, and the rest is history.
Vic Oberhaus
Liberty Center, Ohio

1 277, ЖЭ , ! ^
| ч MIS Р 4 4 “Ч
y Clul

р
ч 2 | \

a

A

4
mo
> \
% |
NW Ñ
N

PLAYBOY AFTER HOURS

HOW DO YOU SPELL ART?

Buster Simpson has cultivated a name
for himself in the art world for his sculp-
installations and earthworks. Back
he was part ofa team that creat-
ed an environmental sculpture in the
town of Woodstock, New York. Almost
immediately after the piece was in-
stalled, it was taken apart and used for
fuel and shelter by the 400,000 partygo-
ers who converged on the town during
that summer. Since then Simpson has
remained busy. His oeuvre includes a
wind-powered sculpture that smashes
bottles for recycling, dinner plates cast
at a Wisconsin toilet factory that are
steeped in sewage (which forms a color-
ful glaze when kiln-hired) and River Ro-
laids—43-pound limestone antacid pills
he places in rivers. The stones slowly dis-
solve, helping to neutralize acidified wa-
ter supplies. His latest project involves
placing a commode over a pit and, when
it is full, planting a tree in the enriched
urban soil. The work gives the homeless
а place to find relief and provides a sym-
Бој of a society suffocating in its own
waste.

We see London, we see France. Karl
Lagerfeld has designed white cotton un-
derpants for Chanel—which look very
much like the Carter spankies we all
have admired in the past. His version,
however, costs $165. And that's not for a
three-pack.

PILLOW TALK

In the midst of fierce competition
among New York hotels, down means
up at the Mayfair Regent. As part of a re-
cent renovation there, general manager
Dario Mariotti instituted the hotel's pil-
low bank—a collection of extra pillows
available from room service. The bank
lends down facial pillows with smooth
cotton centers, down-and-feather head
cradles and substantial body pillows
Eighty percent of the guests order spe-
cial pillows, with men preferring king-
sized foam ones or back bracers. But the

one most requested by women, not sur-
prisingly is the snore stopper.

EXHIBITIONISTS

Artwear Collection, an apparel com-
pany, has come out with a line of T-shirts
with artwork by William Wegman, Keith
Haring, John Lennon, Herb Ritts and
Albert Watson, with proceeds going to
the American Foundation for Aids Re-
search. We're pretty blasé about T-shirts,
but these are well-made (of thick, beefy
cotton), sufficiently oversized so that
your girlfriend can swim in them and
the images are funny (Wegman), sweet
(Lennon) or both (Haring). They're
available at aware shops around the
country.

NOT IN THE U.S.S.R.

А new business venture in Russia
catering to the vodka-for-breakfast
bunch now offers business cards that
read: LAM DRUNK TODAY. IF 1 FAIL TO FIND MY
WAY HOME, PLEASE TAKE ME TO THE FOLLOW-
ING ADDRESS. The cards cost about two
cents each and sales have taken off like,
well, a shot.

ILLUSTRATION BY PATER SATO

WHERE THE KORAN MEETS THE ROAD

Japan's Yokohoma Rubber Company
pulled hundreds of off-road tires from
the market in Brunei after complaints
from the Muslim community. It seems
that the tread leaves a design that resem-
bles a verse in the Koran.

YOUR TAX DOLLARS AT WORK

Another salty taste of pork in the mil
tary budget: On a list of recently ap-
proved projects at the Naval Hespital in
San Diego was a study titled "Manage-
ment of the Human Bite to the Penis.”

MEET MARKET.

When the De Paul University business
school throws a costume party, its mar-
keting department asserts itself. Last
year it encouraged guests to dress up as
trademark and product characters. This
was the brainchild of marketing profes-
sor Robert Pitts—who dressed as the po-
litically incorrect Frito Bandito, while his
wife came as a Hostess cupcake. Other
participants donned the finery of the
Jolly Green Giant and Litle Green
Sprout. Brett Boyle, done up like a Кес-
bler elf, couldn't name any of the elves—
not even the head elf, Ernie—provoking
comments that he should work more on
his brand character identification. David
Klenosky and his wife, citing leaner
times, dressed as generic products, not-
ing, “We'll have the basic black and white
and we'll be priced lower than the com-
petition, but we should be the same high
quality.” Joel Whalen had to change his
original idea of going shirtless and
greased, as the Butterball turkey. He
opted instead to go as the Ty-D-Bol
man—which reinforces the notion that
marketing and academe can coexist in a
taste-free environment.

SUPER SOAKER

Andrew Meredith, a third-grader
from Council Blufis, Iowa, took first
place in a national inventor's contest
with Toilet Targets—litle floating giz-
mos designed to improve boys’ aim. He

RAW

DATA

SIGNIFICA, INSIGNIFICA, STATS AND FACTS |

FACT OF THE
MONTH

According to a
survey in the Annals
of Internal Medicine,
62 percent of the
pharmaceutical ads
in medical journals
aimed at doctors
were grossly mis-
leading or down-
right inaccurate.

QUOTE

“Strutting, preen-
ing, flirting, court-
ing, dazzling, then
capturing one ап-
other. Then nesting. Then breeding.
Then philandering. Then abandon-
ing the fold. Soon drunk on hope, we
court anew.” —ANTHROPOLOGIST HELEN
FISHER ON THE ORIGINS AND NATURE OF
HUMAN SEXUAL CONDUCT, FROM Anatomy
of Love

CAR POOL RUNS DRY
Percentage of Americans who com-
muted to work on mass transit in
1980: 6.4; in 1990: 5.3. Percentage of
Americans who drove to work alone
in 1980: 64.4; in 1990: 73.2.

Average cost of a gallon of regular
unleaded gas in 1980: $1.24; in 1990:
$1.03.

DON'T WALK
Number of people killed in traffic
accidents in New York City in 1990:
643; percentage who were pedestri-
ans: 52.4.
.

Nationally, percentage of pedestri-
ans in traffic accidents in 1990 who
were under the influence of alco-
hol: 72.

15РУ
According to U.S. intelligence
sources, of all the U.S. spies stationed
in East Berlin since World War Two,
number who were not double agents
for East Germany: 0.

INTERESTING RATES

Percentage in-
crease of the median

mortgage payment
in the U.S. during
the Eighties: 26.9;

percentage increase
in median monthly
rental payment: 16.1;
percentage drop in
median household
income: 18.5.

TRICKLE DOWN
AND OUT
Among Americans
earning $1 million ог
more a year, percent-
age of income they donated to charity
in 1981: 10; in 1990: 4.

DRUG USE

Amount that American Cyanamid
charges for a year’s supply of the
drug Levamisole for treating worms
in sheep: $14.95; amount that John-
son & Johnson charges for a year's
supply of Levamisole for treating
colon cancer in humans: $1495.

Number of prescription drugs on
the market in the U.S.: 25,000; num-
ber of prescriptions written by Amer-
ican doctors each year: 1.7 billion.

Total cost of prescription drugs in
the U.S. in 1991: $67.3 billion.

GOVERNMENT SPENDING

According to The Government Racket,
by Martin L. Gross, the number of
Americans employed in manufactur-
ing jobs: 18.1 million; the number of
Americans employed by government:
18.7 million.

б

At the turn of the century, number
of farms in the U.S.: 5 million; num-
ber of employees in the Department
of Agriculture: 3000. Number of
farms today: 2.1 million; number of
Department of Agriculture employ-
ees: 60,000. — PAUL ENGLEMAN

said he got the idea when he noticed the
boys’ room at school “smelled bad.”

NO MORE SALAD DAYS

High finance in the airline industry:
Delta says it will save $1.4 million in food
and labor costs by eliminating the deco-
rative piece of lettuce served under the
vegetables on in-flight meals.

The Simon Wiesenthal Center point-
ed out that Iran's philatelic contribution
to 1991's International Day of the Child
commission was a stamp picturing a
young boy throwing a rock through a
window bearing the Star of David.

ON THE RUNWAY AGAIN

Any time now, Willie Nelson's Hemp
Clothes Collection should be hitting the
stores. A line of backpacks, shirts and
caps, the collection is woven from
hemp—the plant from which marijuana
flowers. The shirts have the feel of soft
burlap, and this high-fashion statement
vill cost about $75—or about the price
ofa quarter ounce of Oaxaca ditch weed.

BRAVE NEW DUDE

After 12 years of Republicanism, it
seems logical that 46-year-old psychedel-
ic guru Terence McKenna. author of the
autobiographical True Hallucinations, is
enjoying success in the real world after
years of underground culthood. At the
core of McKenna's theories—he sees
Adam and Eve's fall from grace as the
first drug bust—is the concept that
ancient humans ingested regular doses
of psylocybin mushrooms that caused
monogamy, among other things, to take
a backseat to a more orgiastic social
order. These early acid trips by our hom-
inid ancestors sparked moral conscious-
ness and created language, religion, phi-
losophy, art and just about everything
else that distinguishes us from apes. The
bad news, according to McKenna, came
with the climatic changes 12,000 years
ago that made magic mushrooms scarce.
Mankind's chemically induced enlight-
enment gave way to the cold reality of
the war-mongering, possession-based
world we've erroneously dubbed civiliza-
tion. Thankfully, though, sex is what
provides the real underpinnings to soci-
ety. Unlike other animals, "we bring our
past experiences and expectations to
each of our sexual encounters," says
McKenna. Man also spices up his sex life
with fetishes, rituals and costumes—as
well as the obligatory dinner and movie.
And that leads to McKenna's truly work-
able definition of perversion: “Someone
doing something you wouldn't do."

DAVE MARSH

ASLUCK would have it, 1 first heard Ice
Cube's The Predator (Priority) right after
listening to a speech, The Last Message,
on The Malcolm X Story LP (Sugar Hill).
Malcolm delivered it the night after his
home was firebombed, only weeks be-
fore his assassination. He worried that
his life was in jeopardy, partly because
his split with the Nation of Islam had
been misunderstood by almost every-
body. Yet his oratory was at its height. Ice
Cube raps a year after the fire storm
caused by 19915 Death Certificate, and
only a few weeks before his second fea-
ture film was released. He is undisguis-
edly fearful that his carcer is in jeopardy,
partly because his on-and-off association
with the Nation of Islam has been mis-
understood by almost everybody. Yet the
music ranks with his most powerful.

Ice Cube boasts that Death Certificate
prophesied the L.A. riots (and damns
Rodney King for trying to stop the ac-
tion); motherfucks Billboard and its edi-
tor (a music industry first) for condemn-
ing his album; defends the beating of
Reginald Denny; proclaims he'd like to
pop a cop; and asserts his right to use
“the | word" to describe his ex-manager
Jerry Heller (a Jew).

My problem is that irs ай so defen-
sive. Unlike Malcolm, who unyieldingly
pressed a proactive agenda, Ice Cube
spends his whole album licking old
wounds and, no matter how 4еШу he
interweaves huge rumbling beats and
smart samples, that's oppressive. The
Predator suggests that the person most
injured by the censoring of Death
Certificate was not Cube's targets but the
artist. Here's hoping that The Predator
liberates him to move forward again.

FAST CUTS: Bushwick Bill, The Little Big
Mon (Rap-A-Lot): The most terrifying
humanist on the planet effectively dra-
matizes the gunpoint demise of his own
eyeball. An ardent buttman, bitter ene-
my of racism and, possibly, the most un-
derestimated artist of his generation.

Willie D, Goin’ Out Lika Soldier (Rap-A-
Lot): Not since the Beatles has a group
produced three solo artists as strong as
Geto Boys Willie D, Bushwick Bill and
Scarface. Willie's the toughest and fun-
niest of the bunch—the one who raps
Fuck Rodney King. Not recommended for
fainthearted liberals.

NELSON GEORGE

Morris Day is a victim of his carlicr
successes. In the Eighties he was a funny,
double entendre-spouting front man for
the Time, the last great self-contained

Ice Cube's powerful Predator.

Oppressive rap, an
impressive debut and
some Irish Therapy?

progressive R&B band. Immortalized in
Purple Rain and as thc kad voice on a
slew of signature hits (777-9311, Cool,
Jungle Love), Day is as associated
those exciting first years of the Min-
neapolis Sound as Prince himself.

Fast-forward a decade and listen to
Guaranteed (Reprise), a ten-song collec-
tion on which the singer struggles and
fails to lose the ghost of his past. On
material like Gimme Whatcha Gol, Day es-
says thc tonguc-in-chcck approach of his
glory days. Droll and self-consciously
chauvinistic, Day always sounds more
like he's doing stand-up comedy than
singing. That's not a put-down—it's part
of his appeal. But despite the best efforts
of producers such as Bernard Bell, Guar-
anteed plays more like a mediocre sitcom
than a hit album.

In contrast to Day, Sade has worked
with the same band for cight ycars and
four albums; cach has differed slightly in
arrangement and subject matter, but all
are unified in their sophistication and
mellow intensity. Her albums seem more
like chapters in a novel than separate
Stories, Love Defuxe (Epic) is another sup-
ple balance of funk-jazz grooves and
Sade's sexy vibratoless vocals. Feel No
Pain and Bullet Proof Soul are two stand-
outsina beautifully consistent ninc-song
package.

rast CUTS: Booming funk grooves and
hard rhyming attitude mark Redman's
impressive debut, Whut? Thee Album

(RAL/Chaos). Produced by the crew bc-
hind EPMD, Redman's first release has a
tough New York edge that's both old
and new school.

CHARLES M. YOUNG

Hailing from Belfast, Therapy? has re-
leased Nurse, its third album (its first on
A&M), to a lot of hype that suggests the
band's going to bc the Irish Nirvana.
Which isn't all that far off as a comp:
son. A power trio, they sound like civil
war, they howl about alienation and they
have good riffs. Especially recommend-
ed here is Neck Freak, built on a pound-
ing octave riff that will inspire all hu-
mans under the age of 80 to pound their
heads on the nearest sharp object. Also
nearly as cool are Nausea, Teethgrinder
and Perversonality, plus thc tosscd-in oc-
самопа! dialog from grade B horror
movies. If you see “em live, prepare
yourself for an evening in the slam pit.
Five-Eight, 1 Learned Shut Up (Sky), is
another power trio, but nonmetal hard
rock, equidistant between Neil Young
and Hiisker Du. Songs amount to short
stories in free verse, and the short stories
are good, mostly about acid casualties
(God Damn It Paul), falling in love with a
suipper (Shes Dropping the Bomb) and
reconciling the spiritual with the physi-
cal (The Ape). Not recommended for
sing-alongs, but it does have hooks.

FAST CUTS: Joanna Connor, Fight (Blind
ig): The obvious comparison is Bonnie
„ since she's female and plays blues
guitar. I say Connor's a soprano Johnny
Winter. The thunderous distortion bar-
rage that opens Robert Johnson's Walkin’
Blues should dispel all doubt that women.
can’t play as hard as men. Most blues
records miss the passion that made the
original stuff so compelling. This one re-
claims it all.

VIC GARBARINI

Nirvana's Nevermind revitalized and
transformed rock as dramatically as did
the Sex Pistols, or even the Beatles. After
a decade of droning alternative thrash
and moan, Kurt Cobain reminded us
that cathartic intensity and irresistible
melodies could be allies instead of ene-
mies, while chronicling the fractured in-
ner lives of his generation as tellingly as
rap reveals the anguish of the inner city.
Incesticide (DGC), Nirvana's second ma-
jor-label release, is more prequel than
sequel to Nevermind’s teen spirituals.
‘These B-sides, live obscurities and carly
demos are a fascinating glimpse of a
great band's growing pains. They grind,

20

FAST TRACKS

OCKMETER

Ice Cube
The Predator 6

Whut? Thee Album.

9
8
Redman 6
Й

Christgau | Gorbarini
8 8 8 6
5 6 8 6
8 7 5 8
6 8 6 6
7f 7 5 7

YOUR TAX DOLLARS AT WORK DEPART-
ment: According to a 120-page report
recently made public through the
Freedom of Information Act, the FBI
tried in vain during the Sixties to
figure out the lyrics to Louie Louie.
The feds apparently played the Kings-
men's hit record both backward and
forward, using filters, computers and
cryptographers, to no avail. They
should have saved their money for
PLAYBOY music critic and author Deve
Marsh's upcoming tome, which traces
the song’s long and colorful history—
and provides the lyrics. We'd print
the words, but we'd rather you went
out and bought Dave's book.

REELING AND ROCKING: The Commit-
ments are filming a sequel that will be
set in New York. Expect another
sound track LP. Documentary
filmmaker Robert Mugge (who made
Deep Blues with Dave Stewart and Robert
Palmer) has another movie currently
making the film-festival rounds: Pride
and Јоу: The Story of Alligator Records,
featuring Elvin Bishop, Koko Taylor, Lon-
nie Brooks and Katie Webster, among
others. . . . Look for country заг К.Т.
Oslin to havea starring role in the new
Peter Bogdanovich movie, A Thing
Called Love. . . . House of Pain's Erik
Shrody will play a bad guy in Judgment
Night, starring Emilio Estevez.
Madonne's company is making Snake
Eyes, fcaturing the Material Girl and
Harvey Keitel. The low-budget movie is
about the movie biz.

NEWBREAKS: Blues lovers alert: The
Grove Press Guide to the Blues on CD, by
Frank-John Hadley, is out. . . . Paul Me-
Cariney is finishing up his new LB and
he had so much fun touring the last
time, he plans to do it again. . . . Pro-
ducer Phil Ramone is working with
Bloodline, a blues-based rock band fea-

turing the sons of famous musicians,
including Waylon Krieger (son of the
Doors' Robbie), Aaron Davis (son of
Miles) and Berry Oakley, Jr. (son of the
Allman Brothers’ bassist). . . . Nirvana's
LP of new songs will be recorded in
Seattle for release this spring or sum-
mer. . . . Neil Young and John Mellen-
camp have set the date for Farm Aid
1993: April 24th, in Ames, Iowa. . . .
Аз we've already told you, Pete Town-
shend's Tommy will hit the Big Apple in
April. The Broadway run will be fol-
lowed by a national tour. . . . Look for
a 25th-anniversary CD boxed set and
tour by Jethro Топ... . A new World Par-
ty LP and a solo outing by Paul Wester-
berg are also on the way. . . . Phil Collins
will host the 1992 Billboard Music
Awards and Genesis will perform. .

"Ihe U2 Zoo ТУ tour may provide the
basis for a CD-I scheduled for the fall.
The band got together with Philips
Interactive Media of America to de-
velop a version of interactive рго-
gramming fans can play at home. If
all goes well, it will cost less than $40
for do-it-yourself interviews, a music
video, animation and "bogus TV"
from the show. The classical LP
The Juliet Letters, recorded by Elvis
Costello and London's Brodsky Quartet,
precedes an American tour. Don't
worry too much about this new wrin-
kle. One of the new classical numbers
is titled Dear Sweet Filthy World. . . . Fi-
nally, Yuri Komilov, general director of
the official Russian Music Archives,
says there is more than dassical music
in the archives, and he plans to check
it out. The general director is cur-
renily searching for an exclusive Roy
Orbison concert tape from Bulgaria
made in 1984. The new Russia knows
its Wilburys. — BARBARA NELLIS

howl and thrash around as flashes of
brilliance pop out: the melody line in
Slain, some meaty bass meshing with
shifting rhythms on Turnaround and the
fully enlightened Been a Son. Those
sweet crunching chords, pungent har-
monies and poignant vocals sound like
nothing you've ever heard before and
everything you've ever loved. OK, Son
may be the only masterwork here. But
watching them slouching a bit more
toward Nirvana on each tune is worth
the trip.

FAST CUTS: Stevie Ray Vaughan and
Double Trouble, In the Beginning (Epic):
Posthumous primal blues-rock from a
master in the making.

The Allman Brothers Band, The Fill-
more Concerts (Polydor Chronicles): Pol-
ished primal blues-rock from masters in
their prime.

ROBERT CHRISTGAU

Madonna's Sex is sexier than the re-
viewers clim. Both the pictures and
writing are smart and well-observed
enough to prove, yet again, that when
critics say porn is boring, they're proba-
bly lying, blocking or both. Madonna's
Erotica (Maverick/Sire), on the other
hand, is less sexy than the artiste pre-
tends. Only the title tune, the rap boast
Did You Do It? and Where Life Begins, an
invitation to eat her pussy, are as risqué
as run-of-the-mill steam-bath disco. But
again, you can ignore all reports of how
tedious it is.

The latest line on Madonna makes her
a full-time celebrity whose musical inter-
ests are now the sideline they deserve to
be. You know how it goes: She can't sing,
isn't much of a dancer and plays fewer
instruments than the Monkees. Some-
how, the scheming bitch revitalized
dance music and got her name on a
string of dynamite singles before turning
album artist in the Nineties. Her сх-
ploitation of prerock pop on I’m Breath-
less was a playful tour de force. And on
Erotica, the sexier beats establish a quiet
vocal attack that undercuts her tendency
to overemote on the AIDS ballad In This
Life and the brother-and-sisterhood an-
them Why's It So Hard. Combining the
understated disco sawy of her ground-
breaking early music with the pop ambi-
tion that followed, Frotica packs unprec-
edented strength and staying power.
Boring, my foot.

rast cuts: Ya Niesa Dalienst & Le
Maquisard, вео (Sango Music): Fran-
co-Zairean soukous at its most sinuous.

Orchestra Marrabenta Star de Mo-
cambique, Independence (Piranha): Dance
music from Mozambique, and every-
where. (Both available from Stern's
USA, 598 Broadway, New York, New
York 10012.)

Silver. Gold. Onyx.

*A Winning Combination" Danny Sullivan

Some say winning isn't everything...but
somehow ycu know...they're probably not
the winners. | say—go for the best
in everything you do.

For me, the best is The Winner's Circle
Ring. Pure power in solid sterling silver and
14 karat gold. Centered by a jet black onyx.
All captured in a bold design. Real mate-
rials. Real style...and real value at just $195,
payable in convenient monthly installments.
Exclusively from The Franklin Mint.

RETURN ASSURANCE POLICY _

If you wish to return any Franklin Mint pur-
chase, you may do so within 30 days of your
receipt of that purchase for replacement,
credit or refund.

The Winner's Circle Ring
The Franklin Mint • Special Order Dept.

Please mail by March 31, 1993.

Franklin Center, PA 19091-0001 MA — (о

Please send me The Winner's Circle Ring in solid MRIMRSIMISS TEAS PRAT CELT

Sterling silver and 14 karat gold, set with a genuine ADDRESS. APT #

jet black onyx.

| need SEND NO MONEY NOW. Please bill me for Gin

а deposit of $19.50* prior to shipment of my spe- STATE — Бэ? ipee er:

cially imported ring and for the balance, after ship- : iv

ment, in nine monthly installments of $19.50" each, 9518170 TELEPHONE МО.) — =
"Pus my state salas tax Lr 13318-6TKB-366.

anda one-time charge of $3 fer shipping and har dir
Mia ore tinc старао! Ea br inna and hank. To assure a proper fit. a custom ring sizer will be ser! prior to shipment

MOVIES

By BRUCE WILLIAMSON

STRETCHING his talent in fascinating new
directions, Michael Douglas plays a Los
Angeles man on the slope of civilization
in Falling Down (Warner). Divorced, out
of work and generally feeling screwed
over, he abandons his car, his scruples
and his fragile sanity to go on a ram-
page. Detective Robert Duvall, about to
enter early retirement, takes it upon
himself to track Douglas down. They
don't meet face-to-face until the stirring
climax of director Joel Schumacher's
taut, штеју drama about a modern
world in decline. Complementing them
are a trio of scene-stealers: Tuesday
Weld as Duvall's neurotic, housebound
wife, Rachel Ticotin as his policewoman
pal and Barbara Hershey as Douglas’
overwrought ex-wife. Falling Down finds
a subversive streak of humor in its un-
heroic Everyman who challenges a pair
of muggers, holds up а fast-food joint
that offers indifferent service and begins
to flail away at the status quo. He is fear-
some but hard to hate. ¥¥¥/2

Four young businessmen sharing a
pad in Chicago are addicted to practical
jokes in Watch 1t (Skouras). The tide of
this lightweight comedy is also the victo-
ry cry shouted each ште a guy succeeds
in putting one over on an unsuspecting
chum. They're pretty juvenile for their
age, which appears to be 30, but that is
more or less the point. Jon Tenney, John
C. McGinley and Тот Sizemore are the
original threesome, with Peter Gallagher
аза cousin who joins the fun and games.
Finally cuz wakes up to the fact that
there may be more to life than jumping
out of a refrigerator to say boo or con-
vincing a habitual womanizer that his
latest conquest is pregnant. Adroitly
playing the young women whose pa-
tience is tested while the guys grow up
are Cynthia Stevenson (as a forthright
teacher), Suzy Amis (as a veterinarian)
and Lili Taylor (as her tart receptionist)
Writer-director Tom Flynn builds to a
satisfying comic payoff. зүүг

Like Water for Chocolate (Miramax)
comes from Mexico with love, subütles
and even a few tantalizing recipes. Based
on a novel and screenplay by Laura Es-
quivel, producer-director Alfonso Arau’s
offbeat romantic fable has a heroine
named Tita (Lumi Cavazos) whose cook-
ing has aphrodisiac properties. Her be-
loved Pedro (Marco Leonardi) is forced
by family tradition to marry her elder
sister. A year later, Tita whips up a dish

22 of quail with rose-petal sauce and has all

Duvail keeps from falling down.

Angst and ardor from
all over, plus some
last-minute Oscar bids.

the guests in heat. Another sister is so ЄХ-
cited she strips off her clothes and rides
away on the back of a wild rebel’s horse.
Decades pass before Tita and Pedro
manage to get together. All in all, the
years go quickly in an сгойс, bookish
and delectable vintage tale of unrequited
love—Mexico's choice for Academy
Award consideration. ¥¥¥

"There's so much good work in Chaplin
(TriStar), particularly by Robert Dow-
ney, Jr—taking giant steps in the title
role—that you keep wishing the movie
would soar. Unfortunately, the miracle
never happens. Director Richard Atten-
borough's conventional star-studded
tribute to the great Charlie Chaplin has
Кемп Kline as Douglas Fairbanks Sr.,
Diane Lane as Paulette Goddard and
Geraldine Chaplin as Hannah Chaplin
(her own grandmother). But excerpts
from Chaplin classics upstage everyone
and everything, including Downey's deft
imitation of the legendary clown off-
screen, young and old. Despite Atten-
borough's earnest effort, Charlie just
can't be successfully recycled or cut
down to size. УУ

A ditzy peroxide beautician from Dal-
las also happens to be an ardent fan of
the Kennedys. On the day of JFK's 1963
assassination, she dons а pillbox hat,

defies her couch-potato husband (Brian
Kerwin) and drives off to see the pre
dent and first lady. Thus begins Love
Field (Orion), acted by Michelle Pfeiffer
as the impulsive Lurene with a down-
home drawl to complement her blonde
roots. Don Roos’ unabashedly sentimen-
tal screenplay, subtly directed by Jon-
athan Kaplan, evolves into a road movie
named for the Dallas airport, but with
double meanings galore. Aboard a Grey-
hound bus bound for Washington to
attend Kennedy’s funeral, Lurene meets
a black man (Dennis Haysbert making
waves in a role Denzel Washington de-
cided against) and his little girl (Steph-
anie McFadden). Wrongly suspecting
that she has come upon an abducted,
abused child, she phones the FBI and
the movie gains momentum as a cross-
country odyssey about cops, the color
barrier, stifled lives and a nation in crisis.
Briefly premiered last year on both
coasts to qualify for Oscar consideration,
Love Field stretches logic here and there
but gives Pfeiffer front-runner status in a
year with a short list of winning roles
for women, ¥¥¥

A surprisingly subdued Madonna, of-
ten more believable than beautiful in
Body of Evidence (MGM), ccrtainly knows
her business. Her business here is a pure
pulp melodrama. Director Uli Edel
takes the girl out of Sex and puts her in-
to a negligible screenplay about a slow-
burning bombshell charged with mur-
der. Looks bad when her lover, a wealthy
older man, leaves her $8 ion after
dying flagrante delicto and in handcuffs
Madonna woos her defending attorney
(Willem Dafoe) in tiüllating interludes
of bondage, sodomy and cool wine over
hot wax on a nude torso. Their law-
yer-client relationship moves from stair-
way-groping to floor to bed to a car roof
covered with broken glass. As the prose-
cutor, Joe Mantegna grills top actors
such ás Frank Langella and Jurgen
Prochnow, who testify to the lady's sexu-
al proclivities. Body qualifies as quintes-
sential Madonna: flashy in-your-face en-
tertainment that pushes the envelope of
mainstream amorality, ¥¥¥

•

Crippled by а New York taxi accident,
а soap-opera star (Mary McDonnell) re-
tires to her old home in Louisiana's Ca-
jun country. Angry and self-pitying, she
behaves like a bitch and can't keep the
help she requires because her bad tem-
per drives them away. Finally, a young.
black woman (Alfre Woodard) with а
questionable past shows up. This has to
be the beginning of a beautiful friend.
ship, and Pession Fish (Miramax), written

e |
бето ol cherry Compery. ver Islend. Lousiana 70513 Зи a

га |

Yimou: the envelope, please.

F CAMERA

Winning a third successive Os-
car nomination this year for The
Story of Qiu Ju seems a safe bet for
Zhang Yimou (pronounced јомс ee-
mo) The 42-ycar-old Chinese
filmmaker's eligible new comedy is
likely to be an Academy entry on
the heels of his erotic ји Dou and
Raise the Red Lantern, the first С
nese Oscar candidates ever. Both
were, until recently, banned in
their horneland. “Sex is still a very
taboo subject,” says Zhang, who
feels his previous nominations
helped break the ice.

In New York, wearing casual
threads like any hot director,
Zhang doesn't dream of big finan-
cial rewards. "In China, if you
drive a car or become wealthy,
people look funny at you. Making
а lot of money abroad doesn’t
mean anything. What would I do
with it?" Austerity suitsa man who
normally resides in studio-owned
houses costing "three to five dol-
lars monthly from a salary of about
forty dollars a month.” Major
perks such as free cars are re-
served “for Olympic athletes—
maybe.”

Zhang's main Western-style in-
dulgence is a relationship with
Gong Li, the traffic-stopping star
of all his films. “We are going
out but don't live together”
says Zhang, who's divorced. "Of
course, any relationship between
unmarried people is against the
law. But people do it.” He's now
producing a movie in Paris, with
Gong Li “as a Chinese artist who
painted many nudes.” Meanwhile,
he is cheered by reaction to her
atypical role as Qiu Ju, a pregnant
peasant fighting the bureaucracy:
"It's the first time I've heard peo-
ple laugh during my films. Qiu Ju
concerns the difficulty of getting
an apology. This is very Chinese.”

and directed by John Sayles, lifts its
soap-opera plot out of mediocrity with
an intelligent screenplay and superior
performances by McDonnell and Wood-
ard. Their testy encounters keep things
humming, with David Strathairn add-
ing helpful earth tones as an unhappily
married handyman who has hankered
for McDonnell since he knew her in high
school. The odd title is a reference to
marine life in the bayou, but Passion Fish
may hook you before you wipe the suds
out of your eyes. ¥¥¥

A critical hit down under, The Last Days
of Chez Nous (Fine Line) seems to pick up
where director Gillian Armstrong left off
with My Brilliant Career, which won her a
carload of awards—including Australia’s
Best Film—in 1979. The budding ca-
rccrist then was a bright young woman
who aspired to be a writer. Chez Nous
original screenplay (by a different au-
thor) concerns a successful novelist (Lisa
Harrow) living in a ramshackle house in
Sydney with her teenaged daughter, a
boarder, her Furopean second husband
(Bruno Ganz) and a flaky prodigal sister
(Kerry Fox) back from her rambles
abroad. While the writer is away on a
sentimental journey, trying to get closer
to her father, her husband and sister get
closer than anticipated. “If I had anoth-
er wife, I could love you better" is her es-
tranged husband's flimsy rationale for
infidelity. While the writer lets go of
everything but her self-esteem, Harrow
makes losing look like a learning experi-
ence almost worth the pain. ¥¥¥

Hot-wired, if a mite monotonous, in
Hoffa (Fox), Jack Nicholson plays the
"Ieamster boss through the years as а
bombastic but steadfast friend of the
working man. Period. His nemesis, At-
torney General Robert Kennedy (Kevin
Anderson), is depicted as a headline-
hunting pip-squeak who railroads Jim-
my into prison. Danny DeVito, promi-
nently cast as a Hoffa aide, also directed
the idolatrous biography by playwright
David Mamet—though only a screen
credit and a stream of four-letter words
suggest the Mamet touch. Hoffa's al-
leged Mafia connections shrugged off,
the labor leader seen here has no private
life—just a loving grandchild waving
goodbye and a generally silent wife who.
appears beside him at public functions.
And get set for yet another assassination
theory about Hoffa’s mysterious 1975
disappearance. At the strained climax—
music up and slow motion as Jimmy is
shot dead with a flourish—you can al
most feel Hoffa ascending to that big
truck stop in the sky. Honk if you believe
in Hoffa. ¥¥

MOVIE SCORE CARD

capsule close-ups of current films
by bruce williamson

Bad Lieutenant (Reviewed 12/92) This
urban outlaw is Harvey Keitel. ¥¥¥
Body of Evidence (See review) Love
kills, and exhibit A is Madonna. ¥¥¥
Chaplin (See review) So-so bio, with
Downey, Jr., superb as Charlie. УУ
The Crying Game (1/93) Irish acts of ter-
ror sabotaged by love. win
Damage (1/95) Jeremy Irons in the
fire with his son's fair lady. Wy
Ethan Frome (12/92) Infidelity on its fa-
mous collision course. Wr)
Falling Down (See review) Bad vibes
bring on a breakdown in L.A. УУУ/:
A Few Good Men (2/95) Courtroom dra-
ma with plenty of dazzle. Wy
Forever Young (2/93) They thaw Mel

Gibson but can't save the plot. УУ
Hoffa (See review) The glorified rise
and fall ofa labor czar. P

Intervista (12/92) The great Fellini re-
calls how movies used to be. wy
Into the West (Listed only) Dublin lads
on the lam with a horse. yy
Just Another Girl on the LR.T. (Listed on-
ly) Subwayward teenager. зу
The Last Days of Chez Nous (Sce review)
Domestic stress down under. wy
Leop of Faith (Listed only) As a con
man of God, Steve Martin has pizzazz
in a not-quite-credible tale. Wh
Like Water for Chocolate (See review)
Fantasizing south of the border. ЗУУ
Lorenzo’s Oil (Listed only) Medical
miracles, with Susan Sarandon and
Nick Nolte as heroic parents. wy
Love Field (See review) Romance in the

wake of disaster in Dallas. wy
Mac (2/93) Family affairs recalled and
directed by John Turturro. vvv

Malcolm X (2/93) Denzel Washington.
at his best in a monumental bio. ¥¥¥
Passion Fish (See review) Two women

bonding against all odds. wy
Peter’s Friends (1/93) Brits let it all
hang out on New Year's Eve. УУУ

Rain Without Thunder (2/93) Pro and
con оп criminalizing abortion. УУУ;
Riff-Ratf (Listed only) The lowdown
blueprint on a London high rise. ¥¥/2
Scent of a Woman (Listed only) As a
blind, suicidal Army veteran on the
town, Al Pacino hams ad nauseam. ¥
Strictly Ballroom (2/93) Corny drama
but spectacular body English. УУ
Used People (2/93) Several New York
women get second chances—mainly
Shirley MacLaine. Wh
Watch It (See review) Another comic
reminder that boys will be boys. ¥¥/2

YY Worth a look
У Forget it

УУУУ Don't miss
УУУ Good show

“Га

| edo ino

"әлә

L

UNE ^ WERL 522202 ee S MIR

MARLBORO
ADVENTURE
TEAMGEAR.

Next full, the Marlboro Adventure Team will take on the American West.
Not everyone can make it—but you can still be part of the action.
Collect Adventure Team Miles on specially marked packs of Marlboro
to get Official Team Gear—the gear designed to survive 600 miles of
the toughest terrain on earth—Hell Canyon, Outlaw Gap, Lizard Rock.
So go the distance. Getthe miles and деНће gear made for adventure.

| <> AR и B А ~ ===

ит Pre — n
> “Ч 4 Ti
» А

СЕТ THE GE
ADVENTURE.

OFFICIAL GEAR CATALOG

3 Th
"Ча
$. ,

DIRT JAK

The Anorak. Tough enough to handle

anything you can throw at it. 4-season

nylon, mesh lined for ventilation.

Rolltop hood converts into collar.

Y-joint sleeves for full range of motion.

Storm flapped zippers. 2 chest pockets, >

zip pocket hand warmers & inside ч
storage pocket. Red. 1, XL. 900 Miles.

PRESENTED BY
MARLBORO
CIGARETTES

"

16 mg "таг. 1.2 mg nicotine av. per cigarette by FTC method

SURGEON GENERAL'S WARNING: Smoking

Causes Lung Cancer, Heart Disease,
Emphysema, And May Complicate Pregnancy.

Out here is no place for

NG

anything wimpy. Carabiner
коти black anodized
aluminum & steel. 5пар
clasp holds tight around
belt loops. Webbed nylon
strip with ring for keys.

55 Miles.

This lighter cuts it where
wet matches & cheap
lighters can't.

the Lees flame.
Black h jh imp plastic.
Quick release to
Refillable with Көш.
150 Miles.

SERIES 2000 WATCH
The Original Swiss Army Brand Watch customized for
the Marlboro Adventure Team (M.A.T.), so you know
it's precise 8. rock solid. Glow-in-the-dark numbers
2 face. Stainless steel case with M.A.T. seal
engraved on back. Sweep second hand. Quartz
movement. Water resistant to 100 meters. Р
3 year warranty. 1,200 Miles. 4

Жа

у

РА ch
ая.
as 41
Р4 + 14 1,%.3
A 44131531
per уа У $ $i
k * VEA
LISTS
5 66551 ғ
î cigarette by FTC method. + $
4 à A 3*3 1» V 4$ Y

SURGEON GENERAL'S WARNING: Smoking
Causes Lung Cancer, Heart Disease,

Marlboro

Emphysema, And May Complicate Pregnancy.

/

FA

|
|

PRESENTED ВУ
MARLBORO
CIGARETTES

The gear bag is a full 24 inches of 840 Denier
nylon for good looks & toughness. Resists
water, mud, trail dust & snakes. Comes

with a plastic water bottle, shoulder strap,
1.0. tag & a pocket for wet gear. Ё
Red. 400 Miles.

WAIST PAK

The waist pak is a duffle for your waist.

1 full-length zip pocket & two smaller ones.
Ergonomic shaped water bottle. Adjustable
waist strap. Red. 170 Miles.

16 mg "tar; 1.2 тў nicotine av. per cigarette by FTC method

SURGEON GENERAL'S WARNING: Smoking

Mariboro Causes Lung Cancer, Heart Disease,

MUS SUE Emphysema, And May Complicate Pregnancy.
CIGARETTES

o

This is the «oolest sleeping bag

around & will keep you warm even

if the temperature drops to 0:

100% DuPont Certified Quallofil™
Fiber is the reason. Sculpted hood with
drawtight strings. Anti-snag quick
release zippers. Water-resistant nylon ©
shell. Comes with its own stuffsack. ON
Red. 1,350 Miles. =

MOU BulADS 11045 OS

гранш s! Alddng 'алиглро ој грош 1096 ay
зоб o, гај ш ayı jas ‘woe эцрцимээцөиөдхө
34/2/DYS "ооа 06 = ҳооа зәаѕәүүс̧ + ѕәјүү
OSL 91091 ора og зјопбе цэгцмвөрүү OSI
peau pnoA 19,46! зөцрөөмч|о үхү ayy {eB

ој 'ејашохе 104 {иом noA ınaß әш Oj 2950]2
под sje ejiu A12۸3 зөрүү с нол s! Dd 4203
`шоәј enjueApy огодррүүэц)о 1096 [0191440
эццөб o, syd оюардүүрэхїош A[oroeds uo

534011
WV311 JUN 1N3AQV
13110)

Ч
{
0
iQ
у

4V3193H111901

STTIW 3H1 139

(pauınbay) (paunbay)
HA у OA AAA AS A SOUS

"мој [D49p3j PUD ajoys эүдоэцд40 oy algas jow ayy u! ѕшәџ aayu! PUD заналобр jo ѕәјдшоѕ эзэд 3A132341 04 бил
osjo шо | арјо 10 әбо yo 51084 [2 Jayows 34210655 D шо | (оц) Аушәз | ‘Mojaq бишб/в pup sayo siuj ш Buyodpiyuod Ag

puolg машту рэхошс puosg 5001л9:4

diz элээж Ку “%& ШЕЛ ee ame All)

ssouppy

( | # әиоца sw/saw/aw

ZIES-8Z5-008-L [199 esoe|d ‘Yapso ınoA Jo шо:бо:д

ayı ınoqo suoysanb Лио өлоц пол j| рагоиоц aq (л sısanbaı Jo siapso UOYOZIUDBIO 10 “4п0:6

ом рана цозд asımiayjo asaym JO бишолуд рио SDSUDY ш PIOA 184) ерјо 40 ABD jo sana

16 51240 Wws oj радиш 05:94 Jad swa Aluamy jo шпшіхош шәй euo AUD JO өл оц әзош ON

шг үгс u! uo poob JayO 'ајарлејсио jou 1340 "peide»oo зешкоој ON ou әпр-әбоод
ıo рәјојцпш “рэралрвиш "әцој 450] ЈОЈ S[qisuodse: ох 'Алелцер лој $399 С1-0| ^^O||D әѕоәја "у

'гдојелџа 1ap10 unod uo 9604508 лодола эц элоц под os 92140 4504 991 ЧИМ 42992 оц ons

ag 'Алол Аюш өБоцсод '4502 pues jou oq "0114-20647 PUDIPU] 'egepjp1 Z LLZ ход ‘Оа

wpa aanjuaapy олодроүү:о| (шоәј өгциөлрү о:оадроүү ој ејаолод) бицрџоц puo Burddius 10
Japso Кашош JO 2242 o snjd ѕәүү шоәј азгјидлруу INOA цим биојо WO} зеро рајејашоо пол pues *£
“эрэрцыгд pup елгурибиз anok эрпрш ysnw под зоо ѕѕәзрро puo өшои Inok uud "0,

"Є661 LE 15nBny Aq p2۸12221 aq Jsnw 5:өрхс) мојед шоу зерло ƏY} uo иоцошори [Ip nO || 1

"54315 У LX3N 353Н1 31314910)
“Av39 3H1 139 01 SITW WV31 JUNLNIAQY HINON3 (3193110) 3A,NOA N3HM

03H 11139

SESE IX VELET CELE W — “HLON31 23315
19:86 IX LEPET 66:06 W SIUM | ó6v9v 1X сУу:2У 1 19:86 W SIH) ЧУН? 3215

paunbag Bujpupy 2 Buiddiug

рән!шчп зар #

[ X (џоц) 225) омпамун 2 9NIddlHS

53111 10101 ‘uosiad sad sway! jua jo шашихош /шаџ дио AUD jo әлу чощ 940ш ON :иш!]

ONILIVA C 14881 WSL
IMIA на "L 181851 WVAL

хуа aid

1х YIAOTINd ла H21VM 0007 531435

1 WAOTINd Wwvii U31H9I1 23H 1V1A TIV pXp

1X SLMOHS BIA SNIH АЗИ UINIEVAV)
1 SAUOHS BAI

W 5190Н5 Aly

WHO] 41440 AVID ТООНО

(ошоцэц ao SBWOU U04020]

зраођ әјүүшоәј өгциөлрү INOA још ој $әлпуә!@ әѕәщ әп na] eui
биэр as |Пол j| "Win ALBA 4D BINJUSAPD puy NOÁ eeu say UDI Wy ui 54
'S$og ор рошиү род pozr] "ddd MDJINO ‘sAD|d шоәј eanjusApy ayy эгӨцж 59:9Н

41504 WV3L ЭН та!

хов таран аи ТА э > "xa

202 >

= dcn i A EL

16 mg "tar; 1.2 mg nicotine av. per cigarette by FTC method

SURGEON GENERAL'S WARNING: Smoking
Maribo Causes Lung Cancer, Heart Disease,
Emphysema, And May Complicate Pregnancy.

PRESENTED BY
MARLBORO
CIGARETTES

If you're rafting down Satan's Gut, you better come
prepared. The river shorts are quad nylon with

a liner brief. VELCRO” close side & rear pockets have
drain holes. Elastic waist with web belt. Black with
red belt. M, L, XL. 200 Miles.

*VELCRO is a registered trademark for fasteners of the Velcro companies.

RAIN GEAR

his rain gear is water-proof,

Y “of course. onan eae
zi er opening with a t-in >
hood. 3 zip pod

ТЕАМ
PULLOVER

Soft & comfortable as a second skin.
You won't want to take it off, ever.
The Adventure Team pullover is ultra
warm 100% poly fleece. Snap close
neck. Lined side pockets. Elastic cuffs
& waist to keep out the elements.
Quick dr ing. ed with black & yellow
trim. L, XL. 550 Miles.

16 mg таг; 1.2 mg nicotine av. per cigarette by FTC method.

SURGEON GENERAL'S WARNING: Smoking

Causes Lung Cancer, Heart Disease,
Emphysema, And May Complicate Pregnancy.

PRESENTED BY
MARLBORO
CIGARETTES

Big enough to carry everything on a
Бан trek. Plus а detachable pack for
m. и . Water-resistant nylon, wi

pa

shoulder & waist. 2 lo
2 top pockets-1 inside, Tout. Inter
frame can be contoured to fit you.

Red. 1,000 Miles.

16 mg "tar; 1.2 mg nicotine аугрег cigarette by FTC method

SURGEON GENERAL'S WARNING: Smoking
Ub Causes Lung Cancer, Heart Disease,

PRESENT EDRO Emphysema, And May Complicate Pregnancy.

CIGARETTES

These T-shirts are pure adrenaline. Each is
sceened with a different Adventure Team
attitude. 1. Dirt Bike; 2. Rafting; 3. 4x4.
Cigarette pocket on front. 100% hefty cotton.
Short sleeve. XL. 120 Miles each.

Don't go a mile without the
Official Team ащ Fast dry
nylon with an x-long bill.

In Sewn in sweat ba

„ Adjustable. В Red. 85 Miles.

N
&
ә

Л»

~ 1
Ceuta The Marlboro Adve tirt “2
illtake on the Americo а: as

Not everyone can make it
but you can still be part of the

Hell Canyon, Ovtldw бар, ны Rock.
So go the distance. Get the miles |

and get the v made for 17 4 4

q 1аг Үд та nicotine av. per cigarette by FTC method. 1 1
"= 1 / -

SURGEON GENERAL'S WARNING: Smoking

Causes Lung Cancer, Heart Disease, PRESENTED BY
Emphysema, And May Complicate Pregnancy. RLBORO
CIGARETTES

ADVENTURE TEAM

If the Official Gear Catalog is missing, write to:
Marlboro Adventure Team, Р.0. Box 664 Whippany, NJ 07981.
Requests must be received by May 31, 1993.
Participation limited to smokers 21 years of age or older.

SURGEON GENERALS WARNING: Smoking

Causes Lung Cancer, Heart Disease,
Emphysema, And May Complicate Pregnancy.

18 mg "tar; 12 mg nicotine av. per cigarette by FTE method. apni Mars ine 1992,
PRESENTED BY
pi MARLBORO CIGARETTES

Marlboro

d н the ойша! me Catalog m to: Marlboro Adventure Team, P.0. Box 664 Whippany, NJ 0798]:
i.c c. Réfverti mustbereceivedhy May 31, 1993. Participation limited to smokers 21 years of age or older.

УШЕО

1111-1111

love film—any

film,” says TV's Bob

Saget. “When my

wife and | were dat-

ing, we once saw

three movies in one

night—ending with

Behind the Green

Door the Sequel.
That's how desperate we were to see a
movie in Philly." Luckily. Saget's taste has
improved. These days the ster of Full
House and wisecracking host of America's
Funniest Home Videos (which means he
should know a thing or two about the VCR)
likes to rewind surefire hits such as It's a
Wonderful Life, A Passage to India and
Raging Bull. “| can always watch Kuro-
sawa,” he adds, “like The Seven Samurai
and Ran." He's also a pushover for Mel
Brooks (The Producers, Young Franken-
stein) and Woody Allen (Annie Hall, Star-
dust Memories). "Oh, and Naked Lunch. |
love to turn the volume all the way up on
thet one and listen to the sounds of
crunching cockroach flesh." So much for
improved taste. — SUSAN KARUN

VIDEO SLOPES

With winter waning, ski disciples can
keep the snow on the ground—or at
least on the VCR—with five action vids
by Greg Stump, the Bo of the slopes:
Blizzard of Aahhhs: "Extreme" heroes take
a magic white carpet ride. МТУ meets
Snowbird, Telluride and Chamonix Val-
ley in this downhill rockumentary.

How to Thrill: Fast and furious how-to on.
back scratchers, hip thrusts, moguls,
splitsters and twisters. Blink and your
body's married to a tree.

Gonzo'd to Extremes: Clips and bloopers
from Stump's past ski movies. Send this
one on a chair lift and cut the cable.
Steep Techniq: acer Scot Schmidt does
it standing up: skis down the face of a
cliff and defies gravity. Says you can, too.
License to Thrill: Schmidt and fellow pros
throw a speeding frat party on skis. Li-
cense suspended. —JULIE BESONEN
(АП tapes available from A-Vision Entertain-
ment, 212-275-2910.)

VIDBITS

Spike & Mike's Festival of Animation doesn't
play every town, so Mellow Manor
brings you the fest's best in four vids.
Top rewind: Aardman Animations, featur

ing the Oscar-winning Claymation riot
Creature Comforts. Call 619-459-8707. . . .
Golf lovers who can't make it to the
country club can still get their links fix
with Sure Swing, an in-home training tape

that teaches the ren positions of thc
modern golf swing. Package includes ће
SureLite training stick—a club-sized,
glowing wand designed to help maintain
а grip on your swing (800-554-sURE).

VIDEO HORRORS

Dracula lives—as do the Wolf Man,
Frankenstein and the Mummy. Finally
on tape, MCA/Universal's Classic Mon-
sters Collection digs up creepy creature
features from horror's golden age.

The Spanish Version of Dracula (1931): Саг-
los Villarias is Conde Dracula in this re-
discovered treasure, filmed simultane-
ously with the Bela Lugosi classic, using
the same sets and script.

Murders in the Rue Morgue (1932): Lugosi is
crazy Dr. Mirakle, who combs 1845 Paris
for a bride for his latest creation, Erik
the Ape Man. As warped as it sounds.
Werewolf of London (1935): Before things
got hairy for Lon Chaney, Jr, Henry
Hull starred as the original Wolf Man,
who terrorizes London with his Eddie
Munster haircut.

Dracula's Daughter (1936): The all-in-the-
family sequel to the Lugosi version. Glo-
ria Holden is the she-vamp with base in-
stincts and a taste for female victims
Tower of London (1989): Hunchbacked
Basil Rathbonc is sixth line to the
throne. Boris Karloff is Mord, the Tow-
ег5 executioner who clears his friend’s
path. A blue-blooded blood curdler.

The Invisible Man Retums (1940): The Price
is right—Vincent, that is—as the Invisi-

ble Man's brother, who also goes trans-
parent to track his sib's killer.

The Mummy's Hand (1940): Tom Tyler stars
as Kharis, the vengeful 3000-year-old
mummy who becomes unwrapped at the
sight of Peggy Moran.

House of Fronkenstein (1944): Following in
Dr F's footsteps, Karloff revives the
monster—as well as Dracula (John Саг-
radine). Even Wolf Man Chaney drops
in for a bite. —DONALD LIEBENSON

LASER FARE

The updated edition of Douglas Pratt's
Leser Video Disc Compenion (New York
Zoctrope; $24.95) includes more than
5000 disc listings (4000-plus reviewed)
as well as “One Hundred Great Discs," а
beginner's guide to starting a core collec-
tion. . . . From Voyager comes a baby
boomers' treasure chest. Television Toys
replays more than 100 toy commercials
from the Fifties and Sixties—from Chat-
ty Cathy to G.L Joe to Rock "Em Sock
"Em Robots. . . . Lumivision's classical
music releases pack an extra visual wal-
lop. Austrian countrysides are a back-
drop for a pair of Schubert piano pieces;
Chopin preludes highlight a museum
tour in Italy; and Handel's Messiah cho-
ruses accompany a trip to Benedictine
Abbey Church in Bavaria. .. . Pioneer
Spetial Editions is pressing part of the
NC-17 version of Basic Instinct in the CAV
mode. That means frame-by-frame ac-
cess to the film's steamy climax.
—GREGORY Р FAGAN

Boomerang (Eddie Murphy's near-miss os Cary Grant, but
Holle Berry's the real charmer); Crazy in Love (photo dude
Julian Sands puts the flash back in put-upan Puget Saund
housewife Hally Hunter); Man Trouble [Nicholson unseitles
Barkin; just for hard-care Jack fans).

26

4 STYLE

SLIP INTO A TATTOO HOT SHOPPING: WHITEFISH, MONTANA

Like the idea of a tattoo but reluctant to make a lifetime com- Despite the influx of acreage-hungry celebrities, Montana
mitment? Then check out the new tattoocd fashions. One remains one of the nation's best-kept secrets. We recommend
company, Hard Tail, has imprinted classic tattoo designs (e.g, a trip to the North- E

hearts, crosses and daggers) on a line of T-shirts, tank tops west town of White-
and baseball caps ($16 to $32). The tattoo images on Disor- fish for great scen-
ders line of denim jackets, ery, skiing and
‘Tshirts and baseball caps ($19 Western-style shop-
to $70) reflect “peace, love, ping. Artistic Touch
honor and faith,” according to (209 Central Ave.):
a company spokesman. And a Fashion, jewelry
designer with Terrapin Cloth- and more by local
ing said he actually inter- artists. e 3 Bar 2
viewed "biker and deadhead Western Outfitters
types” to come up with the (221 Central Ave.)
beaded and embroidered tai- Everything from
toos on its chambray shirts, | blanket coats and
vests and T-shirts ($36 to $70). cowboy boots to
There's also Nicole Miller's saddles and tack
colorful tattoo collage, now ө Montana Territo-
included in her funky collec- ry (239 Central
tion of neckwear, camp shirts, — Ave): The place for
boxer shorts and vests ($60 upscale fashions,
to $165), as well as Chrome leather goods and
Hearts’ tattoo-style gothic home furnishings
cross, which appears in ster- ө Montana Coffee
ling silver on the back of an Traders (5810 Hwy.
ultra-cool leather vest ($2200). 93 South): More
Finally, for something completely extravagant, check out the than 100 coffees
leather jacket by Jeff Hamilton shown here, which features 28 roasted daily, plus
lcather-appliqué tattoos positioned on the front, both homemade huckle-
slceves and the back. The price: $4000. Ouch! berry ice cream.
* Northwind T-shirt Co. (215 Central Ave.): Fun and
funky T-shirts, including the local favorite, "Citizens

NET PROFIT for a Poodle-free Montana.” e The Palace Bar (125
“The latest way to show off the results of those long Eh LIE Mie те
hours at the gym is with а loose-knit ог fishnet- every Sat uray get
type sweater, Great for throwing over beach- \

type drawstring linen pants ог a favorite pair of
jeans, these revealing knits look best in natural
tones, such as oatmeal or olive. When it comes to
fit, bigger is better, but be forewarned—they do
stretch. The khaki-colored shoestring crewneck
from DKNY Men ($205), for example, is already
stretched out, so try it on before you buy. Marcos Er-
gas buutonless fishnet vest features a Sixties-inspired
macramé stitch ($167). There are also tighter
weaves for the less demonstrative, including KM by
Krizia's minicrochet rollneck sweater ($80), the
“fisherman netting” cotton/linen style by Lance
Karesh for Basco ($150) and Joseph Abboud’s
Aran cable knit in beefy cotton ($840). Too modest
for fishnet with nothing else? No sweat. Just wear

а muscle T-shirt underneath.

ECOFASHION

Our environmental vice president, Al Gore,
should be pleased with the new ecologically cor-
rect clothing that's hitting the stores this spring
Vestimenta's Ecowear collection, for example,
includes suits and separates made from natural
fibers treated with natural dyes ($225 to $1900).
Colorfast dyes used in Higgins Natural's line ог
striped T-shirts (532) contribute to cleaner ground.
water. The O Wear fashion label includes oversized
hooded tunics made from organically grown cotton
($60). And the southern California-based Fred Segal
for a Better Ecology offers only earth-friendly fash-
ions, including an exclusive line of full-cut, undyed
denim jeans by Quicksilver (560).

SPORTS PANTS

Comfortably fitted rear; legs subily tapered
1o about 19” at the ankle

Tight waist, ballooned at the hips;
dramatically tapered or pegged legs

Flat front; moderate pleats; uncreased; un-
cuffed; five-pocket-jeans look; classic calors

le or quadruple pleats; unnecessary
s; preppy colors such as red or green

Cotton (twill, brushed or sandwashed);
linen; leather and suede

FABRIC

pleated; all plaids

Where & How to Buy on роде 163.

РЬАҮВОҮ

The ultimate in sound...The и
The ultimate

Бүс Clapton: Unplugged Whitney House Boomerarg/Sdtrk. Extreme: Ш Sides
Bodyguerd Soundtrack (Laf ace) $9995. To Every Story
пр Ee | SEM Д =н compacroiscs NOW каап UE

г ts Curtis Stigers Niro Inch Nall: Broken
Gee Your itaient ee... dapi cub ico (Sta сюзе podes
(Gotten) 354897 Our Time р Eden Y within a year Sohn Mellencamp: Sugar, Copper Hi-Five: кери Gol’ On
Guns N’ Roses: (Elektra) 00126 Whenever We Wanted (Rykodisc) 00343 (Jive) 92679
Use Your lusion it EA] Then get 3 more CDs ol your choice, FREE | (Mercury) 74562: Saigon Kick: Lizard 'Oamn Yankees:
(Gellen) 25534 t (DGC) 15500 Ven Morrison. Gi Sionatane) Seni Tresa
E горео Honey a E
Sadewa Light лиш You fake пе j iuf um (Warner Bros) 00217 Chants Moore: Precious Kitaro: Dream
(SEK) 40763 Singles (ARM ) 73924 Enjoy (J CDs tor the price of one! Jethro Tull: A Little Light (Siss/MMCA) 90288 (Gelen) 53948
O SEC cane Па
En Vogue: Funky Divas — Greats (Gelen) 11089 n b EVER! Mite (Jive) 00159 (Elektra) 40298 Exposé (Arisia) 74158
(East Wesi) 61717 RES Nothing more to buy... ! ves costes Mom cais Spider Hor Fatih te Nore:
Bob James And Negolaions And 2 4 БЭ ле а e
[Xp wed fais Boros loriae раан Ch Peppa: Eton Jon: hene ~ Wynonna Jud: {Spey Hern (шиш zore
постане Балши. Пиј GEA) Sa p c Баида ro
(Elektra) 00215 | Badmotorfinger {E Dons Н ¡James Taylor Greatest ті с. Оосооооптћ.. Palmer: Brain Salad, The Best Of White Lion
alone: Л) сар Bryan Adams: Waking His (Reprise) 23780 тебүүнү Surgery (Atlantic) 54608 The Best Of Wh
BER Lye Loven: Up The Neighbours van Morison: Ра Two Fooms.Celcorating (Moni) 93654
(Mercury) 41711 Joshua Judges Ruth | Moondance Enya: Shepherd Moons The Songs Of Elton John Вай Company: jg
Tre Cure: Wah (CACA) 10568. Бой Sian: (Warmer Bros) 64585 (Reprise) $3190 Be (Ak) B3733
(Евкиа/ Fiction) 11116 Aerosmith: Pump (hanes Brosh 10708, төв Howie nn (Petydor) 35407 bere
Grond Pubs: Real To (бейет 63678 Зор Making Sense 2017-1223 бин Black: The Hard Трећа Yezrunos
а +4 E k.d. lang: Ingenue (Sie) 24560. Way (RCA) 35458 (MCA) 21048
Reel (ir) 30521 Van Halen: For tniowtul (улс) 44370. nee ciet прате mt cae па ВН
ae апи Knowled Hearibreakers: In reat While: Paycho
Хаш. Mawo iw, пакета NONU ec Ши O
сеоска o OS do Сарыг 50 Between Secret, Gabor Cts it,
Cn ни B-Side Ourselves Story (Getten) 82267 [|
(Cepal) O10 Ares Development: о ийэ Al) аи гати науа => achete Ferrell
3 Years, 5Monihs And C (Warner Bros.) 21 а: Greatest Hits,
Mother Love Bono 2onysinthe ОТ Squeeze: Singls Абай Tha Jet Healey Band: une Р, Vola (аваар eos (Cape) 00387
ete эга (Chrysalis) 25357 Under (A&M) 35208 Feel This (Arsta) 33707 Mandy Travia, 2 Linda Ronstadt: Frenesi Bad 4 Good: Refugee
72 op: Grenteat His Ny Mark And Supertramp; Breakfast in Olamond Alo: Marner Bros) 4125 (Elia) 24810 (Interscope) 00398
(Warmer Bros) 83411 Сри Boneh Ámerica (ABU) 25246 "Close To Tne Edge Patty Smyth Elvis Presley: Tis Rascals: Greatest
Guys And Dolls/New You Сона Believe. The Commitments/Schrk. (Asta) (MCA) 25090 The Number One Hits ll: Time Peace
a (Interscope) 43781. (MCA) 74016 Da Lench Mob: David Bowie: (РСА) 72190
(FCA Vici) Mieheni W. Smith: Extreme; Pormogratiu Gueriias in Tha miet, Changesbowie Madonna: Like A Virgin Kenny Garrett
Mies Devs: Ooo Bop Change YourWerd ПО бз oaa el (рос) аза (Sey ers Biene оза
Nr (gemein) 20996 сеге parieton: Finally PE EAR Don Henley: The. Noll Olamond: nn
Bonnie Rat: Northern Exposure: (Adi) $9880 E End O må innocence 12 Greatest Hits After 7 Take! My
Luck Of The Оган Music From The 15 River Ber (Bive Note! Capital) 00340 (сенеп) 01064 (MCA) 64050 (Virgin) 14776
la Television Seres. Greatest Hits The НӨОНЭБОИЛОНВСК... Madonna: The The Bench Boys: Pel Huey Lawis & The News:
Olivia Newton-John: (MCA) 50550 5 (Сараар 00206 bees Ра Bee
Back lo Basies- Alan Jackson: a и Col yer? ES tary Suman And
pim qup (Chrysalis) 80072 Бави Trac The Low Spark 1581 Believe In You The Ju Ju Hounds
(Gover) dei ЈИ не (aie OO Ormigh Heeled boys (MCA) zioa (Gele) 00272
н) sia) ae Neneh Cherry: cand) 25165 v Return O The Benny Green Trio
RE STAR EO A “ҮҮЛ ci y Bomstein: Thermal The BreckorGroters Tea „un
de n bi Concen ( 35095 (GRP) ос lue Noto)
Gerreras, Domingo, ‘Whitney Houston: ER Genesis: Wo Cam Dance mann 29095 и Du O Time Tom Cochrene: Mad Mad
Pavarotti: 3 Tenors Үт Your Baby Tonight The Go-Gos : Greatest (Ajanic) 00423 Hite (тесна) 38884 (Warmer Bros) zárez World (Саро) 11028
(London) 35078 (Агыш) 10667 Hits (RS AEN 50815 (ЧӨН Ф003 то р Шэн beider ed
Бане Roben Озү: Та үн Evan (GAP) 001 (UE Rien) 2S nether Coun At Carnegie Hall
Greatest Hits 1971-1975 [Woe Warned The Comfort Zore ee ene АӨ SEE
(Asu) 23481 Mercury) 82135 (VirgiMercun) Бов Wilken Phil Color Me teca: cma. (PCA Veio) Catt | ДА
ee Буне ا ا‎ ce Be eV Dr EIS Red Hot Chili Pep Banshees: Tuice Upon Beyond The Season
Оер Miody Hite (Reprise) 10490 (АСА) 13313 (МСА) 00547 Blood Sugar Sex Magik Aime The Singes (Libary) S3578,
{чети ا‎ Steely Den: Gold Mary J Bige: ПЕНМОГЫНН | Uros NAT шатын Back To New Orleans
eeu ESA ШОГ ones Па Баир OSE) SSE
ee ll vp Cees A
Beastie Boys: Time (Capitol) 54410. Tevin Сетрьей: TEV!N. Wells Can Fali 2 сни Hil
Check Your Heed grotu: The Care: Grestast Hits — (QuesiWemer Bros.) (MCA) 00303. Floret: Touriam eg Gracias HES.
[еы фаз! tema] бв (бека) 53702 зета Menower: IE Ecc
The Smiths: Beat is 2 Hammer: Too Logit To DavidSanbom:Upiront — The Triumph Of Steet avlon Morgues AE
MEET Da neo "Gun (Capi) 25814 ° (Elektra) 11108 (Allan) 00346 Moan (Bekira) 07 (Ат) 20021

Ñ...The ultimate in savings...
S... The ultimate in sound...

SEE
NE a

Panco And The New, Nell Young: Hervost ACDC: Lhe Foreigner: The V
Power Generation: f Moon (Reprise) 00208 (Айат) 00201 Best-And Beyond
morte] али TWO T Пе НИ тј >>
Barry Menilow: Jethro Tull: ‘The Songs! D'Amour (A&M) 24159 . Van Halen
Sedes Vol 1 TPE ARA Brick Кеша en le Ware ог) 14620
(Arteta) 72853 (Chrysalis) 01023 Jodeci: Forever My Lady Metelica: 16 едем, Низ The B-52's: Good Stuff
Simon & Garfunkel: The Тһе Rippingtons: 1МСА) 90177 And Justice For All (MCA) 13453 (Reprise) 53851
Sono Cert bane Weekerctinonsco— Megndeh Countdown [SE en a
(Wiamer Bros) 44005 (GRP) 35217 To Extinction Tyler Collins: Tyler Flashback вензу баш.
fever Son к ы ‘Winwood: (Capitol) 63340 Baye Ретро. puesie (RCA) 80152 (AEM) 42864 (Disney) 10780
n) ronicies. Prince & The N.P.G.: ir Kenny Rogers: 20 Great Tesla: Psychollc Supper Best Of Dire Straits:
Umum ы urine. шини m Шошго (eiue
1 ec: ley Ра lues Brothers: Ere & Rakim: Domt Judy Garland: The Best Werner Bros.) 001
Styx: The Grand Illusion Greetast Hits Best Of The Grateful The Definitive Collection ува The Technique Of The Decca Years, Mery Stuart: This.
pope Мати Bos) (UTD Bent шара eric) ати CA) 43032 DECR ME са
The Brend New Heavies: Wayne's Tom The Clos ure: The Sundays: Blind Spinal Tap/Sctrk.
перан ATE ЕСЕТА. ЛЕВИ y перла PU EE MM
palanca! Vela (revise) 69551 БОЛОВ nA Beach BR eae [oin
(Celicous Viy) 52657 Ату Grent: Heertin А Question Of Balanco — (Eekra/Ficton) 50024 Оеп атоо: q Wes. E ere Damion
eset wma И GAP All-Star pig Bend PSP The Win зургын De Ee Dor
Pimp (ine) 245884... Мејс: Just An Mlualen Violent Femmes (GRP) B3298 Sen ae Assorted Love Songs
Eurythmics: Greatest (EMD) 75237 (Slash Werner Bros) Tha Goora/Sark. Meloun ЕМ) 6:50 (Ara) 8405 удо) 25246
Hua (Апа) 20611 Janet Jackson's бот кы ы Sergio Mendes: The Steve Miller Band: The Best Ot Stevie
Mew Dreerbent Annie RVI Nation 1814 Aush: NovingPictures Norissey: Your Arsenal Bere Mendes: The Steve lies Бар. Па псе
(Capitol) 64175 (A&M) 72388. (Mercury) 14681 (Sire/Reprise) 63794 (Elektra) 53869 (Capitol) 33199 (Modem) 10940

Here's How the Club Works:

Got 8 for the Price of 11 Choose 4 ires CDs (or cassettes) kom this ad. nn ===
Tren tuy st section а recular Club prices (curent $1498 and un lor I~ COMPLETE THIS COUPON TODAY ANO SIUS 1

Бэ au Р ХЭ ЭН | Mall t: BMG Compact Disc Cub EO. Box 1412 / Indianapolis, IN 46209-9758 П
р па and handling charges are added 10 all shipments. The BMG g EIA © Pleaseaccept my membership inthe BMG Compact Disc Club and send my four FREE CDs as | have 1
Ec TL шытын шп BOSE) rcgia ico ERO

s price fo complet уси commiten А }
Fran 10-Day Trlall Along wäh your 4 introductory selections, you'll more CDS FREE! Shining ant hafling charges are added lo al shipments. Thats 8 for the 1
receive а “Welcome Package” wilh complete deals on how he Club wots. price of 1, with nothing more fo Duy... ever! 1
Еу yourirtodudory selections lor Т cays. I you are na completely sa INSTANT
ished, уби may return them without any further cbligation. 0, e nie цэ uus 1
CELLS р 50 Yo OFF {indicate by number} 1

= Aboul every three weeks (19 limes a = you'll receive our exclusive.

Club catalog which contains hundreds of selections from which to choose. BONUS DISCOUNTS! | ® lam most interested in the music category checked here, but | am always I

ed sse napas a тайл parece 1 ronuenaesewno | feta choose for any Chek nso

igo. i yov 1 ed Select irg and il wi

sri erac ga it an Sta шей, rre at 2 c иошанташие — 275] — 3C MADROEE ас POPISOFTROCK I

all, simply return the Nilicaion Car, enclosed with each issue of your

agire, by the dale specified onthe cad Disc Club Difference Frank Sosta Vince Gil 2270р Wilson Phiips

® You haveat least 10 days to return the Notification Card. I you do not [EEUU ERE Uma Э C CLASSICAL?! 6C JAZZ 7 C HEAVY METAL

wart the Featured Selection, and do not have 10 days, you may retum the | You tam INSTANT 50% OFF Luciano Pavarotti Pat Metheny Megadeth

Featured Selection а ош expense, BONUS DISCOUNTS ever Itzhak Perlman David Sanborn Slaughter.

Save with Instant Bonus Discounts. Members who choose CDs are ом
ertlles to instant sales or discounts with every additional CD purchased. OOM.
Trese үхэл! Bonus Discounts begin wih the very first ful ce CD you Ба” Танаа тап халале РЕСЕ PRINTI
boy. Bul whether you choose CDs or casses, the sales ge better the pene Ax
larger you stay in 1e club. Otter dubs make you buy Gor nor 4 Ш price -
oro you ean" savirgs We Dis. T E z
Say а пеш eo dong as you Ike. ls ree oyar | LUCO GS ва. £n. ^
М-ге selection. you nay anc your enters 4 an ine simpl.
wiling lo us. If you remain а member, youll enpy additonal savings on TPREFER CASSETTES] Terhorne emet, X. =

CDS O cassettes wit cur special sales nd bonus OScounts

Cosselles also available. Simply check ће “cassettes” Dor on the ipa
ревіаде-ракі reply card il you prefer to receve your selections on cassettes. privilege. Full membership © Have you bought anything else by mail inthe last O € months С year C never

H the reply card is missing, please writ to: Онз wil toll. Photocopies of this coupon are acceptabe.

BMG Compact Dis: Club, P.O. Box $1412. Indianapolis, IN 46209-9753 | (Members who choose cassetes wil be serviced by the BMG Music Senice. Curent Music Serica nemers мето! ере. I CC JEM (9)

Yau ay choose cassefes wih | Signature

Оз Buba Sven 808 кудаш aio ok lentes nho со ELSE s e at arce e DNE CSS MO
TRADEMARKS USED IN THE ADVERTISEMENT ARE THE PROPERTY DF AR. 1 Үгсэн the iit ta regres any adó oral гйслтаййн ог сара му ЗОЛ Limited to new members. only one
МО E АИ

ошаш fatta aao eph DO | arias an wl bo det Or ate и corral USA, Кайа and Haval DII notavalablei Puerto Pico, AFO or FPO. 1
Daanan namra ainen ON ES I sa [ш «ш к= ш к= «ш am ше mm шя кш к= кє к= ee سس‎

Ву DIGBY DIEHL

SOMETHING EXCITING is going on in con-
temporary crime fiction. Tough ques-
tions about urban ills are asked and an-
swered in novels, not in government
studies or crime statistics. Crab a good
reading light and get a scat on the front
lines.

Robert Ferrigno, whose first novel,
The Horse Latitudes, established him as a
worthy heir to James Cain and Cornell
Woolrich, is back with Cheshire Moon
(Morrow). This mystery begins when the
brutal murder of a TV talk-show pro-
ducer is discovered by a young electron-
ics hustler installing a discount satellite
dish. He quickly turns up a suspicious
suicide. So his friend, an investigative re-
porter, teams up with an aggressive 24-
year-old woman photographer to ex-
pose the subterranean world of Sissy
Mizell, host of Straight Talk with Sissy—
“Dolly Parton with an attitude”—and
her Ronald Reagan-like husband, а cow-
boy actor who is making his move into
politics. Still there? Even the gunman is
intriguing—a huge red-haired brute
whose promising pro-football career was
snuffed out by one tackle in the first
game. He's a killing machine who takes
world lit courses.

Then there are the deliciously ironic
Musclemen for Jesus, a sort of sanctimo-
nious Hell's Angels trio who perform
feats of strength for a leather-jacketed
crowd of kids in a fictional version of the
Crystal Cathedral. Hanging over the en-
tire novel is the dangerous, evil grin of
the Cheshire moon, which the author
turns into an effective symbol of fear.
Ferrigno is an original. His noir style
lends an eerie day-for-night illumination
to the contemporary scene.

Child psychologist-turned-novelist
Jonathan Kellerman has staked out the
territory of crimes involving children in
his Alex Delaware novels, and this sev-
enth case, Devil's Waltz (Ва m), is spell-
binding. A pediatric specialist calls Alex
in for psychological consultation on a ba-
by who appears to be the victim of the
"Münchhausen by proxy” syndrome:
“Parents—mothers, invariably—faking
illness in their own offspring. Using their
children—especially daughters—as cru-
cibles for a hideous concoction of lies
and disease.” The suspense builds as
Kellerman draws us into this world of
imagined ailments.

Four other exceptional crime novels
are on the bookstore shelves this month:
32 Cadillacs (Mysterious Press), by Joe
Gores, Mitigating Circumstances (Dutton),
by Nancy Taylor Rosenberg, Hard Evi-
dence (Donald 1. Fine), by John Les-

30 croart, and Primal Fear (Villard), by Wil-

The Cheshire Moon purrs in the night sky.

Six new killer crime novels;
more adventures from Tim
Cahill; and rap lyrics revealed.

liam Diehl. Gores’ ninth novel is a fast
and funny romp that features а band of
car-stealing Gypsies. Rosenberg's debut
is the tough emotional story of a woman
district attorney who bypasses the law to
get the man who raped her teenaged
daughter In Lescroart's tense court-
room sequel to Dead Irish and The Vig,
prosecuting attorney Dismas Hardy just.
happens to be there when a human
hand is found in the belly of a dead
shark. Diehl (no relation) continues his
successful series of fast-paced thrillers
with the strange story that unravels in
the wake of a Chicago bishop's murder
in his own cathedral.

And for readers unfamiliar with mod-
em crime fiction, The New Mystery (Dut-
ton), edited by Jerome Charyn, is a first-
rate anthology that includes stories by
France's Didier Daeninckx and Mexico's
Paco Taibo, as well as better-known Brit-
ish and American writers.

In 1992, Nintendo—which has al-
ready supplanted Toyota as Japan's most
successful company—netted as much as
all the American movie companies com-
bined, with a profit of over half a billion.
dollars. Game Over: How Nintendo Has En-
slaved Your Children, Captured Your Dollars,
and Zapped an American Industry (Random
House), by PLAYBOY Contributing Editor
David Sheff, argues that this Japanese
juggernaut is not only rolling over us
economically, but culturally. The saga of
its climb from an obscure card manufac-

turer to business superstar is told with
energy and imagination. Even Super
Mario and Game Boy may be small pota-
toes compared with the Family Comput-
er Communications Network Sysem
now being tested in Japan. Sheff says the
company does it with style, hard work.
and—no surprise business hardball.

An array of biographies this month is
topped by William Shawcross's Murdoch
(Simon & Schuster), which—despite the
prepublication hype—is а drab, shallow
study of media mogul Rupert Murdoch.
Another newspaperman does brilliantly
with his posthumous autobiography: H
L. Mencken's My Life as Author and Editor
(Knopf) Edited by Jonathan Yardley,
it is a dazzling piece of opinionated
personal history. Jazz singer Sarah
Vaughan, who died in 1990, is fortunate
to have a musically knowledgeable biog-
rapher such as Leslie Gourse. who
brings alive the Divine One with percep-
tive appraisals of her performances in
Sassy (Scribner's).

Finally, two new armchair travel books
offer first-class literary transport. Caustic
travel writer John (Music in Every Room:
Around the World in a Bad Mood) Krich has
fallen in love with the samba music of
Brazil, and he conjures up both the
sounds and the sccnery with lilting,
light-hearted prose in Why Is This Country
Dencing? (Simon & Schuster). Novelist
Diane Johnson gives us a stunning col-
lection of vignettes and stories that hap-
pen to take place in many different
countries in Natural Opium (Knopf). Her
stories are about transforming experi-
ences, human moments—not places.

BOOK BAG

Pecked то Death by Ducks (Random
House), by Tim Cahill: More vicarious
thrills from the master of living danger-
ously as he naps in close range of a griz-
zly, explores the world's deepest cave
and discovers "the throne of terror" in
Guatemala. Don't bother searching,
there are no ducks.

Buppies, B-Boys, Baps and Bohos (Harper-
Collins, by Nelson George: An astute
collection of essays on postsoul black cul-
ture from PLAYBOY Music Critic Nelson
George's notes and experiences hanging
out with rappers, filmmakers, crack
dealers and other fascinating characters.

Rap: The Lyrics (Penguin Books), edited
by Lawrence A. Stanley: If you're look-
ing for a politically correct vision of rap,
forget it. If you want to know what rap-
pers are really saying, check out NWA's
“They have the authority
Fuck that shit ‘cause I
ain'tthe one.” Tough and timely.

ft UNITED COLORS

OF BENETTON.

UPDATE

By BOB SCHAPIRO

In the December талувоу we ran a pictori-
al, "The Betty Boom," about the cult that has
sprung up around Belt Page, the elusive
Fiflies figure model. Lo and behold, one week
afler our issue hit the stands, "Lifestyles of the
Rich and Famous" aired а segment. on. the.
same subject but with a surprise: The show
had found and interviewed Page. We asked.
Bob Schapiro, who tracked her down for
“Lifestyles,” to tell us about her.

She can make men grovel, but she still
can't get them to spell her name right.
Bettie Page—it was never "Betty"—was
amused after reading The Betty Boom in
the December PLAYBOY. The dark angel
who vanished at the height of her fame
in 1957 has no idea why she’s once again
the best-selling pinup in the world. But
she's tickled by the rumors now swirling
among her fans

No, she's not the wife of a sheikh, the
mother superior ofa convent or running
from gangsters in Europe. She's living in
southern California, actually. Is her life,
well, boring? “Heavens, no,” she says.
“On Sunday, I'm going to Disneyland.”

She is an unusual woman. In the same
breath she'll discuss Jesus Christ and
Madonna—the Nineties Madonna,
whose photos Веше admires: "She
knows how to present the right angles to
the camera. It’s all in the angles.” Where
others see sexy come-ons and daring se-
duction, Bettie sees hard work. She
should know.

It was not really difficult to find Веше
Раре, which leads me to believe that the
legions who claimed to have searched
were not trying very hard. Maybe they
had good reasons not to find her. Perhaps
it's more exciting to retain the mystery.

As a mystery, Betty Page was every
man's fantasy. The resurgence began in
adult comic books, where Betty Page was
drawn as the bustling girlfriend of The
Rocketeer. The character was renamed in
the movie, and Disney studios avoided
association with the woman once consid-
ered the world’s top dominatrix. But the
Betty cult grew, as her likeness was used
for character after fictional character.

Betty products—statues, trading
cards, illustrations and hardcover books
with $50 price tags—now fly off the
shelves. (The January 1955 PLAYBOY with
her centerfold is worth nearly $500.)
"There are two feature films on the story-
boards. At the Dragon Con, a big comics
and pop-culture convention in Atlanta,
the Betty Page look-alike contest drew
dozens of women dressed as baby-doll
Bettys, leather-and-lace Bettys, kitten-
with-a-whip Beuys, even an old-fash-
ioned sweater girl. Many of those riding

gg the Betty wave say they're looking for

Queen of the pictorial jungle.

Betty Page, the
vanished pinup
legend, surfaces.

her. But, of course, if they found her,
they'd owe her a good deal of money
And what if the reality of her life did
not measure up to fantasy? Well, rest
easy. Bettie's true story has fiction beat
by a mile.

It took just one B, in a high school art
class, to transform this straight-A student
council leader into the most famous
B-girl of all time. Had Bettie not cut a
few classes to rehearse for her lead role
in the school play, she would have been
valedictorian, not salutatorian. In the
early Forties, at Hume-Fogg High
School in Nashville, Tennessee, the vale-
dictorian got a full scholarship to Van-
derbilt University.

That one B sent her down a different
road. And around the bend came two
boys in a Ford coupe, one of them shout-
ing, “Hey, beautiful, any more at home
like you?" Straight arrow Bettie, who
had always obeyed her mother's wishes
and never dated a boy, now decided to
give Billy her phone number.

"I don't think I ever really loved him,”
she says, "but he taught me how to
dance, and he taught me everything I
know about sex." Bettie dated Billy
while earning her B.A. at Peabody Col-
lege. "I admired Billy's family. There
were no divorces in his family. His moth-
er would make a delicious roast beef din-
ner every Sunday. It was so nice, they
had such love.”

Bettie's parents had been divorced
when she was ten years old, sending her

and two of her sisters to an orphanage
for a time while her mother struggled to
scrape by in the Depression. At a young
age, Bettie began dancing for approval,
her interpretation of the hula delighting
the other girls.

But Billy was not the answer to
Bettie's prayers, even after they were
married. "He was extremely jealous. I
couldn't walk down the street without
another boy looking at me, and that
would send Billy into a rage." The cou-
ple were divorced in the mid-Forties,
and Bettie went to California, trying to
make her face her fortune.

It all might have happened if Holly-
wood had left her face alone. “They
tried to make me look like Joan Craw-
ford,” she says of her screen test at Twen-
tieth Century Fox. "Those big lips. I
looked ridiculous." The screen test, op-
posite actor John Russell, has been lost
to history, and Bettie's story moves from
Hollywood to Haiti. She was to work for
the U.S. ambassador, but anti-American
rioting erupted. She made the last plane
out. It took her to New York City.

This is the part of her life most famil-
iar to her fans. She was wandering the
beach on Coney Island when she found.
herself staring at a black bodybuilder.
He was Jerry Tibbs, a Brooklyn police-
man. Tibbs’ hobby was photography,
and he took Bettie back to his studio,
where he suggested that she minimize
her high forehead by wearing bangs.
"The rest, as they say, is history.

Bettie posed for camera clubs. She has
graced more magazine covers than
Madonna or Cindy Crawford. Described
as “the naughty girl next door,” she
posed in sweaters, stockings, leather
and baby-doll pajamas. And Bettie Page
posed nude. But, she maintains, she
never did pornography.

“Pornography,” she demurs, “is open
poses. Legs open. I worked for Irving
Klaw, and he never allowed that. But if
you worked for Irving Klaw, you had to
do bondage. We just laughed at the
bondage scenes when we were doing
them,” she recalls. “I mean, certainly no
one actually wants to be whipped or
spanked, right?” Bettie, after all these
years, is still charmingly naive.

Bettie never dated the photographers,
turning away suggestive offers from
them as well as a blatant come-on from
Howard Hughes. Bettie's real boy-
friends didn’t ask her to dress up in
lingerie, they asked her to dance. “If I
ever really loved a man, I think it was
Carlos. Every night we would go danc-
ing, the rumba. And we started mak-
ing love." The mysterious Carlos, who
got his mail at the Peruvian consu-
late, showed Bettie his billfold with the
picture of а (concluded on page 159)

Machines like this don't just happen. But in building the Heritage” Softail Classic, we really had to answer only to ourselve

Maybe it's time you thought about doing the same thing
Call 1-800-443-2153 for the location of a Harley-Davidson’ dealer nea

you.

Through ard Through:

Mé сате about you. Sign up for a Motorcycle Safety Foundation rider corase today. Ride with your heudlight on and watch out for the other person. Always wear a helmet, proper
eyewear and appropriate clothing. and inslst your passenger does сос. Protect your privilege to ride by foming the American Motorcyclist Association. © 1992 Harley Davidson, Inc

МЕМ

hances are that you have had a

decent education in all but the
most important areas of your life. For
most men, no one really tells it like it is.

No one sits us down and says, "OK,
you are about to go out into the world
and carn your way. Here are some of the
standards by which you will be judged.
Amateur hour is over. You are supposed
to be a pro now."

Question: How does a man learn what
it means to be a true professional?

Answer: Most men never have that
conversation with anyone in their lives.
They learn by improvisation, by chance
and-— if they are lucky—by example.

I want to share what I think the world
of business (you know: the 21st century
world, the interconnected and interde-
pendent global economy) is looking for
in its future hires. 1 want to describe
what I see as the fundamental element of
the professional mind.

One word of warning: Lam a self-edu-
cated man when it comes to questions of
conduct. I am not slick, I am not rich
and Tam not temperamentally suited for
the corporate state.

Тата self-employed free-lance writer
who left horne at the age of 14 and never
looked back. But 1 have, by hook and by
crook, taught myself some professional
survival skills. Most guys don’t get this
kind of advice. I certainly didn't. So here
you are. Some keys to the kingdom of
professional conduct:

Life in most business organizations is like
life in а submarine. For those of you who
find yourselves in an office environment,
understand that it is, by definition, a
closed environment. Take note of how
you conduct yourself. Do you talk too
loudly? Are you argumentative to a
fault? Do you wear well as an office com-
panion? Do you think of the needs of
others? Do you check your own boorish
behavior at the door? The office place is
an exotic place, an inbred and some-
times incestuous place. Be aware of that.

Life in most business organizations is like
life in a Medici court. The spirit of Niccolò
Machiavelli lives in every business cul-
wre. There are political alliances and
power shifis. There are assassinations
and misdemeanors. There are those who
are in and those who are out. It is life on
the refined edge of risk and reward. So
play your cards like a careful courtier.

34 Especially when you are beginning your

By ASA BABER

career. Whom can you trust? Who wants
10 help you and who wants to impede
your progress? Better bide your time
and keep your own counsel. And finally,
don't шу to be too special or too unique
order to get noticed. Remember the
advice of good old Niccolò: “There is
nothing more difficult to take in hand,
more perilous to conduct, or more un-
certain in its success, than to take the
lead in the introduction of a new order
of things.”

Thinking like a professional means sticking
to the basics, The basics are founded on
common sense, and they include: being
on time, never missing a deadline,
speaking when spoken to, shutting up
when not spoken to, being honest about
expenses and other funds, giving your
time and energy to the job without reser-
vation while you are on the job, showing
consideration for your colleagues, sec!
ing solutions, not perpetual confli
and last but not least, being willing to go
out on a limb and push for an idea you
truly believe in. There are some ideas
worth fighting for, and if you become a
completely frightened and servile em-
ployee, a safe player at all times, you will
become bored with yourself and ineffec-
tive as a professional.

See the terrain from the point of view of
your boss. This is both an opportunistic

and a humane approach to the work-
place. Your boss, no matter his or her
deficiencies, is not your enemy. Your
boss has to get a job done. So before you
decide that your boss has no grasp of the
territory, you should at least know how
that. territory looks from the executive
suite. You might be surprised. If you put
yourself in the shoes of your superiors,
you vill learn a lot about their expecta-
tions of you. And if you know what they
expect of you, you can get the job done.

The Chinese can teach you things about the
professional mind-set. For my money, Lao-
tzu gives outstanding advice from his
perspective of 2600 years ago. Try this:
“He who knows others is wise; he who
knows himself is enlightened.” Or this:
“To know that you do not know is the
best. "Io pretend to know when you do
not know isa disease.” Or this: “The way
of the sage is to act but not to compete.”
And finally, my favorite quote from Lao-
tzu: “When armies are mobilized and is
sues arc joined, the man who is sorry
over the fact will wii

Time is worth much more than money, so
don't waste it —your own or anybody else's.
The awful secret of our lives today is that.
we live in a workaholic culture. Most of
us have too many commitments, too
much to do and precious little time in
which to do it. So the true professional
guards bis time. More important, he
docs not stcal time from others. His writ-
ten memos are brief and to the point, his
phone conversations are пей
nor windy, his statements in meetings
are сошраа and organized. Few things
can get you fired faster than a selfish use
of someone else's time.

The professional mind-set is built on com-
mon sense, rationality, cold logic and a
shrewd understanding of Ihe business process.
On the battlefield and in the market-
place, our emotions are perpetually at-
tacked, manipulated, courted and torn.
But the real professional is the person
who can overcome all of the glitter and
distraction, all of the melodrama and
posturing. The true pro stays within
himself, analyzes the chessboard, thinks
ahead, stays cool and keeps this constant
goal in mind: Just gel the job done.

That is the professional's eternal bot-
tom line. And there is often virtue in it.
So good luck. And get to work.

Compare TRIMAX, NordicFlex Gold and Solofl
You'll See Why TRIMAX Stands Out.

29

ompare the Workout. Only TRIMAX strengthens both your
muscular and cardiovascular systems together — which means
twice the results in half the time.

Compare the Resistance, Only TRIMAX employs innovative hydraulic
cylinders that condition through isokinetics — the most effective
training method known. Cylinders that work in both directions to train
two muscle groups at once, and adjust from one to 500 pounds
automatically. No straps, pulleys, cables or springs — no wasted time,
по wasted effort

Compare the Feedback System. Only TRIMAX truly motivates you
with positive reinforcement feedback methods — and proven exercise
science.

Compare the Quality of Construction and Warranty. Only TRIMAX
backs its claims — with an unconditional guarantee of craftmanship.

Then, if you're still in doubt, take advantage of an exclusive limited
time TRIMAX offer —a one-on-one in-home comparison with either
NordicFlex Gold" or Soloflex® — one they can't match.

Call us anytime for a FREE brochure and 15 minute fact-filled video —
with the comparison offer.

1-800-866-5676

KTRIMAX

205. Man St. Janesville, WI 53545 608-757-1477
PB393

35

WOMEN

H erewith, the condensed diary of a
single mother:

1970: 1 don't think 1 can make it. The
Lamaze breathing is useless. I'm push-
ing, I'm screaming. “Just once more!”
the doctor prompts. 1 give a mammoth
push. It’s a boy! A perfect boy! Too many
babies are born at once, so there are not
enough recovery rooms. My baby and 1
are pushed into a hallway where I nurse
him for two hours. The hospital has for-
gotten us, we are in our own little world.

1971: My baby walks and talks and
laughs. My husband doesn't. He's de-
pressed, I'm depressed. Mounds of dish-
сз arc in the sink. Yesterday I found an
ancient half-caten sandwich under the
bed. My baby speaks in clear sentences,
my husband and I speak in baby talk. Му.
life has been one long preparation to be
a wife and mother, and now I am. But I
can't get out of bed. This is all wrong.

1972: My parents hate me, ту in-laws
hate me, my husband is catatonic, but
too bad. I took the baby and left, and now
I live with another mother in another
town. Eve has two girls. I'm working and
give Eve half my salary to care for the
kids and run the house. She is, in effect,
my wife (without sex). And I've joined a
consciousness-raising group to find out
about this newfangled women’s lib. It
seems I've been oppressed and thus de-
pressed. But now 1 love working and
coming home to a happy, fed toddler 1
love living the man's role. I love this feel-
ing I have that anything is possible.

1973: Spring. Eve has left me for some
guy. I'm working two jobs, one to make a.
living, the other to pay for the baby-sit-
ter. 1 come home from my day job, sleep
for a couple hours, then cook at a gam-
bling club all night. I'm so tired I cry ай
the time. My mother wants me to go
home, live with her. Never.

1973: Autumn. Living with my moth-
er makes me feel dull and colorless. She
wants to shoehorn me into the life I left,
wants me to find a man to take care of
me. I'm working as a temporary secre-
tary. 1 meet a man, a freckle-faced med
student who asks me out. My mother is
ecstatic. When I tell him about my child,
he stares out a window. My kid is anx-
ious and unhappy. He wears his радћег
on a string around his neck. My mother
wants me to take it away from him.

1973: Winter. New York! I'm

ng in

зв a loft with my married friends Sam and

By CYNTHIA HEIMEL

DIARY OF A
SINGLE MOTHER

Ellen and their baby. We're sleeping on
mattresses on the floor and making art
and working at home for an ad agency.
The babies wear goofy, colorful clothes
and we take movies of everything they
do. My son paints giant picturesand pre-
tends heis a train and sings to me all day.

1974: January. I've been standing in
the welfare line for three hours. My son
is in the “nursery,” 20 children trying to
play with one truck. 1 have to pee but
hate using the toilets—they are filthy
and have no seats. The welfare clerks аге
trained to treat welfare mothers like
scum. I'm cringing with fear and shame
when 1 getto the front of the line, which
is just as well, because they will send you
away unless you have a full-blown sob-
bing fit. They haven't sent my check in a
month, some problem with the terms of
the lease on my dingy slum apartment.
It's arbitrary, just to get me to give up. 1
would go away, but we need toeat, so I cry
for ten minutes and finally get a check
and some food stamps. I wish I could find
a day-care center without a huge waiting
list. I wish Sam and Ellen hadn't broken
up and the ad agency hadn't gone out of
business. I really wish I didn't believe the
welfare workers are right when they
treat me like scum.

1974: February. My son cut his leg and
within hours blood poisoning has set in.

We're in the emergency room. He's
frightened, so I'm telling him а story
about the two of us being alone in a boat
trying to reach a magical island.

1974: ^ugust. We're walking down the
street, my son to day care, me to work.
He loves his day-care tcacher, a gay man
with long hair and many plaid shirts. 1
love my secretarial job; now 1 can afford
a telephone and self-respect.

1975: My son's in kindergarten, so 1
take him to school in the morning, leave
work at three, run with him over to the
day-care center, run back to work, run to
the day-care center at five-thirty. I don't
have a love life, but we have a TV.

1977: Atone of those alternative news-
papers, the boss took a look at all the sin-
gle parents, realized how much time was
spent running to and from child-care fa-
cilities and hired a teacher. The teacher
picks up the kids after school and brings
them to work: There's a big room with
toys and books. I love being lost in my
work and then seeing my son’s little
round face appear over my shoulder.

1979: My son gocs to visit my ex-hus-
band's parents for a summer of Little
League and catching fireflies. I'm left on
my own in New York to run amok. The
first month he's gone, I catch myself
every ten minutes thinking, Where is
he? Don't I have to get home? Then I re-
member he's gone.

1984: I am a successful writer! We
move from our tiny hovel to a huge
apartment.

1985: My son gets into the High
School of Music and Art, the Fame
school. His friends are funny and sanc;
all come from single-parent families.

1988: He goes away to college. I'm
destroyed.

1989: | get a dog.

1992: 1 go on The Tonight Show. "1 was
a welfare mother," 1 tell Jay Leno. He's
uncomfortable and quickly changes the
subject before 1 can add, “And yet my kid
just graduated from college magna cum
laude and Phi Beta Kappa. Welfare
mothers are persecuted and reviled for
not working, even though only the rich
can aflord day сагс. Our country just
loves punishing its victims."

1993: My son cant find a job and has
moved back home. We're getting along.
great, though the little bastard could do
a dish once ın a while.

WIN A TRIP TO MEXICO!

$us February 1st, Mondays will become the most stimulating
night on cable television because each episode of Playboy's erotic
new series, EDEN, will coniain the valuable clues you'll need to win
one of our exciting prizes. Complete details follow each program.
So don't delay. Contact your local cable company and order Playboy
every Monday night this February, because your escape to EDEN
is just a phone call away. =,

mous Las Hadas,
wine will qu cie ин estination.

NO PURCHASE NECESSARY. To enter, pint name, хайс, home telephone Dur huy most ext
number, age, and correct answer on postcard and mail it FIRST CLASS 10.
PLAYBOY S ESCAPE TO EDEN. P.O. Box 4752 Баг: a aos
Fer episode аг caes. apiaie questions c
"асе
e Eden БО OLA.
Senk Mas be US rese al Pero Rio) 10 years otage
Enter as ftn zs you wish. Enines must be received ro laler than

оте! and co
we 2233 LEE]

(91983 Playboy Ай Figtis Reserved,

PLAYBOY

“The Best of”

Video Series

5 || 995 each

Best Y Sexy Lingerie Twelve delightful Playmates and many gorgeous models set the stage for
n

romance in lingerie ranging from tempting teddies and naughty nighties to bold bustiers and silken stockings. Includes
scenes from Sexy Lingerie I, Il, Ill, and IV. VHS. 55 min. Item NN1647V.

Best el Video Playmate Calendars Our top calendar girls from 1987 to 1992. Twelve of
your all-time favorite Playmates gráce the seasons with their sensual escapades. Includes scenes from our Video Playmate
Calendars from 1987-1992. VHS. 55 min. Кет ММ1646У,

Best of 07 Jet & If Hd The best of our popular series features more that а dozen Playmates and a cast
of models in sensual vignettes loaded with liquid luxury. Includes scenes from Wet & Wild I, Il, and Ш. VHS. 55 min. Item
number ММ1645У,

Order Toll-Free. 1-800-323-9491 — Discover. Include your account number and expiration date. Or

enclose a check or money order payable to Playboy. Mail to
Charge to your VISA, MasterCard, Optima, American Express ог Playboy, Р.О. Box 809, Dept. 39513, Itasca, Illinois 60143-0809.
Discover. Most orders shipped within 48 hours. Ask for the item.

DE scc (Saes Соса 22513) There is а $4.00 shipping and handling charge per total order.

3 : Illinois residents add 6.75% sales tax. Canadian residents please
Order by Mail add 53.00 additional per video. Sorry, no other foreign orders.
Use your VISA, MasterCard, Optima, American Express or — 519% Playboy.

THE PLAYBOY ADVISOR

Ї recently met а rather kinky and in-
triguing 28-year-old professional guy
who lives in the condo next to mine. 1
am 96 and quite sexual. I ind my neigh-
bor interesting and challenging. We
haven't had intercourse. yet because I
don't want to rush things, but we have
had intense oral and phone sex on sev-
eral occasions. In one particular instance
his best friend called while we were fool-
ing around on the sofa. My neighbor
handed me the phone. His friend pro-
ceeded to ask me to take off my clothes,
touch myself in various spots and de-
scribe the outrageous oral sex that my
neighbor was suddenly performing on
me. I agreed to all of this and climaxed
while on the phone, which obviously
turned the friend on immensely. Now
the two of them want to have a three-
some, saying that they have done this
twice in the past with significant others.
My problem: Am I being manipulated,
or is this just a 9% Weeks variation on po-
tentially good sex that I should consider
an experiment?—J. D., Newark, New
Jersey.

We've seen this scenario in quite a few
X-rated flicks (“The Seduction of Mar
"Cat and Mouse,” “Firestorm”). Maybe Ma
Bell has a new campaign: Reach out and ask
someone 10 touch herself. Before you try the
real thing, perhaps you ought to have an ob-
scene conference call to work out the details.
(Condoms? Spermicidal foam? Safe sex?)
For now, this telephonic turn-on seems
harmless and horny. On the other hand,
none of their significant others are still
around.

You've had some letters about vasec-
tomies over the years. but one question
remains unanswered. What kind of sex
do people have after the man has a va-
sectomy? Does a vasectomy change se-
men in any way detectable to the part
ner—taste, texture or quantity? Can a
woman tell Га man has had a vasecto-
my2—R. W., Springfield, Massachusetts.

A woman cannot tell whether or not a
man has had a vasectomy, There is no sig-
nificant change in the volume, color or odor
of the ejaculate. The kindest cut simply elim-
inates sperm (about two percent of the nor-
mal come shot).

Do 1 need fat speaker wire? My audio-
phile friends tell me I should use special
wire as thick as а boa constrictor. Will 1
hear a difference?—F. K., New York,
New York.

AL least а dozen companies profit from
selling expensive, often exotic speaker cables
that provide, at best, minimal sonic improve-
ment. There's plenty of good-quality, reason-
ably priced wire on the market to serve as a

superb pathway from amplifier or receiver to
speakers. Choose wire in the range of 12
to 14 gauge, about the circumference of a
garter snake. Many reputable companies sell
this cable for $1 to $2 a foot. Its worth the
extra cost over the 50-cents-a-foot lamp cord
from the hardware store.

Ac different times I've read about erot-
ic swings—devices that you hang from
ceiling hooks for gravity-free sex. Can
you tell me where to find such items?—
J. P. Chicago, Ши
We've seen ads for the Love Hammock (or
Honeymoon. Cradle)—a modified hammock
available from the Xandria Collection
ШУ 95; сай 800-242-2823). The Good
Vibrations catalog (1210 Valencia Si
San Francisco, California 94110, 41
7399) offers a well-thought-out hanging
chair called the Pleasure Swing for $235.
The ad copy suggests the reason these things
are so popular: “As any hammock fan can
testify, there's nothing like being suspended
in midair lo create a relaxed, receptive stale
of mind and body.” You can enter your parl-
ner and let the swing do the work. The
swings also work for oral sex—the rush of
blood to the head can make for dizzying de-
bauchery. We've also seen some intriguing
variations on this theme: A dance troupe in
San Francisco uses rock-climbers’ harnesses
for aerial ballet. Imagine Wendy and Peter
Pan doing it and you'll see the possibilities,
We know one woman who suspended an en-
tire platform bed from the rafters—the earth
didn't move, the bed did. These devices run
about the cost of a night in а hotel, and they
are worth it. (Of course, you could just use.
the swings at the local park and let your tas
dollars work for you.) Be sure to mount the
device you choose to rafters or studs. Can you

3

JLLUSTRATONEN PATER SATO

see the guys on “This Old House” being
asked to locale studs for a love swing?

Docs it make sense to pay more for a
new-model car so you can have the first
one in your area, as in the case of a car
such as the Dodge Viper R1/10? Will the
first-year models be worth more in the
long run?—R. K., Shreveport, Louisiana.

When a new car is hot, some auto dealers
are able to charge well over sticker price.
People who want the cars first ante up and
pay the premium. Some collectors and specu-
lators still believe that carly models of a par-
ticularly exciting car may be worth more in
the long run. But that’s not always true.
Buyers who paid over sticker for Mazda M
atas and ZR-1 Corvettes have found, to their
chagrin, that after supply caught up with de-
mand, these cars were simply not worth the
extra money they paid. And although several
speculators have paid double for early Dodge
Vipers at vinlage-car auctions, it’s likely that
as soon as Chrysler can supply their brawny
roadsters at а rate of 3000 per year, there'll
be plenty of Vipers at sticker or below. Our
advice: If there's а hot new car in your
plans, wait until supply has caught up with
demand, then make your best deal. On most
cars, you'll have lo endure several decades
before making a profil. Frankly. there are
faster ways to make a killing than speculat-
ing on new-car futures

1 say I had an orgasm. My girlfriend
says she orgasmed. Is orgasm а verb?—
W. S., Portland, Oregon.

It is if you do it right. Our trusty “Web-
ster's” claims orgasm is a noun. The dictio-
nary also says it's derived from the Greek
word organ—to grow ripe, be lustful—and
that it is akin to a Sanskrit word, Ti
meaning to sap strength. Turning it into a
verb may reflect the way we view sex—that
orgasm is something we do, not something
we obtain.

Im tall and angry. Airplane seats get
closer together every ште I fly Where
are the best seats on a plane and how do
1 get one?—R. W., Herndon, Virginia.
First class, of course. And it takes a lot of
money to gel one unless you know how to
play the game. Frequent fliers know the joys
of free and low-cost upgrades to first class.
Always join an airline's frequent flier pro-
gram. You stand a much better chance of an
upgrade or choice of seat in coach. If you're
stuck in back, beg for an emergency-exit row.
On narrow-body planes you get a few extra
inches, while on jumbo jels you stretch out in
yards of legroom. Some airline reservations
‘agents and well-versed travel agents know
which rows these are on each plane. You
can keep a step ahead by subscribing to
the “Airline Seating Guide” from Carlson

38

PLAYBOY

Publishing Company of Los Alamitos, Cali-
fornia. Carlson publishes both domestic and
overseas editions four times a year showing
the exact layout of every plane on every air-
line. Scat width varies little from airline to
airline, airplane to airplane. Coach seats
are a fairly standard 17-18 inches wide
What airlines sell is space between seat rows,
called pitch. The current standard is 31-32
inches between rows in coach, while mini-
mum in first class is 38 inches. Some MD-
11s and 747SPs on American and 767-2005
and 747-200s on United have 34-inch pitch
in coach. Once you pick your seat, ask the
reservations agent to take pity on you. If that.
doesn’t work, check in early and be very nice
to the gale agent. Many airlines save the
exit-row seals till boarding.

ЮУ, girlfriend and I both had several
lovers during the year before we met, so
in addition to her taking the pill, we
agreed to use condoms in case either of
us had picked up a sexually transmitted
disease. Now we've been monogamous
for four months. We've both tested neg-
ative for HIV, gonorrhea, syphilis and
chlamydia. And neither of us has ever
had herpes or genital warts. Can we stop
using condoms now?—E H., College
Park, Maryland.

What is this? Did you meet in line at an
STD clinic? Either you are politically correct
(excruciatingly so) or paranoid, But since
you've played so close to the vest so far, you
may as well know how to go all the way.
Here's everything you still need to know:
Testing negative for gonorrhea, syphilis and
chlamydia means you probably don't have to
worry. You're also probably—but not posi-
tively —HIV.negative. Just about everyone
with HIV turns the test positive within three
months, but a fraction take up to six months.
If you want to be sure, wail another two
months. Finally, having по history of herpes
orwarts probably means that you're both free
of these sexually transmitted diseases, but
you can’t be absolutely certain. The viruses
that cause herpes and warts typically cause
the sores that enable them to be diagnosed
within a few months, but in rare cases the
viruses can hide in the body for up to several
years before causing symptoms.

WI, testicles seem to disappear shortly
before 1 come and don't reappear for
several minutes aflerw: Should 1
see a doctor?—E. K., Hanover, New
Hampshire.

No need. Each testicle is attached to a
muscle, the cremaster, that controls its hang.
When the cremasters relax, the testicles hang.
low in the scrotum. When they contract, they
pull up the testicles close to the body—and
sometimes into the inguinal area of the low-
er abdomen. Fear, cold and ejaculation tri

40 ger the cremaster reflex, which pulls up the

testicles. After ejaculation the cremasters re-
lax and the testicles descend.

Tin travcling to Europe this summer,
and rather than buy travelers checks,
I'm hoping to use my bank card at auto-
mated teller machines over there. How
easy are foreign ATMs to use and is there
any special protocol involved?—A. K.,
Skokie, Illinois.

Using ATMs abroad makes a lot of sense.
First, you save money. You avoid the one- to
two-percent fee charged by travelers check
vendors, and you avoid bank fees or commis-
sions when converting the checks overseas.
Additionally, ATM transactions are carried
out at the wholesale exchange rate, which is
usually reserved for transactions of $1 mil-
lion or mare. (This is true almost everywhere
except Japan, where the government sets the
exchange rate for all transactions.) Before
you go, make sure your bank card is affiliat-
ed with either the Cirrus or Plus systems.
Cirrus has 30,000 ATMs on line overseas
and Plus has 24,000. Neither charges for
ATM transactions, but some banks charge
up to $2 for each use. Your bank should have
a directory with locations of overseas ATMs
linked to your network. Also, make sure your
personal identification number will work
abroad. Some domestic banks employ up to
eight numbers or a combination of letters
and numbers; foreign banks accept only
four number PINs. Double-check with your
bank. Cirrus and Plus ATMs offer bilingual
instructions on-screen or have English in-
structions posted elsewhere on the machine.
Some overseas ATMs are not accessible 24
hours а day and withdrawals are generally
available only from checking accounts, so
you should park your cash in that account
before leaving. You'll find that, just as in the
United States, cash machines are popular
meeting places—and you may see many of
your fellow countrymen standing in line.

Nos that many police departments
use instant-on radar, should I leave my
radar detector at home? Are there ways
to beat the cop who's using instant-on?
M. L., Toledo, Ohio.

There ave ways around. everything. In-
stant-on radar differs from conventional
radar in that the patrol officer using it need
only snap a switch to get an immediate speed
reading. The instant-on feature gives a
radar detector user almost no warning if he
or she is driving the only car in sight of the
police. If you are listening carefully lo your
radar detector, you may hear a faint sig-
nal—that's the policeman sampling traffic
ahead of you—and that may be all the warn-
ing you'll get. Here's а tip: If you do hear
faint signals, or even see the officer far
ahead, pump your brakes as you slow down.
That action may contribute to an erratic
reading, though it may also telegraph that

you have a detector. Better still, if you know
or suspect there's instant-on in use, stay with
packs of cars and trucks for cover. Listen
carefully and be prepared to act on any sig-
nal, no matter how faint. Know your own
ата well. Most policemen find a spot that
works, and then use it again and again. Al-
so watch ahead for flashing light signals
from oncoming motorists—those lights or a
CB warning may be a good line of defense.
The only guaranteed defense, of course, is to
stay within the speed limit.

Since my girlfriend and 1 have been
g sex positions—doggie style and
woman on top—that leave my hands
free to caress her clitoris while Pin inside
her, we have simultaneous orgasm quite
often. But 1 find 1 don't enjoy that as
much as taking turns. I thought coming
together was the brass ring of fucking
But now that we've grabbed it, 1 find 1
don't want it. What gives?—B. V., Fram-
inghara, Massachusetts.

Simultaneous orgasm is overraled. Sure,
it can be fun, but the intimate sharing in-
volved in taking turns reaching climax is of-
ten more enjoyable. Men who strive for the
Holy Grail of simultaneous orgasm often
wind up sacrificing their own pleasure for
the sake of timing their orgasms to match
those of their lovers. Masters and Johnson
advised that sex works best as a “my шт,
your turn" proposition, not to mention vico
versa. The old folks were right again. We
think you'll turn your love-light back on
when you help your partner to her orgasm
and then indulge yourself in your own.

IM, new girlfriend douches. I thought
I read somewhere that it’s dangerous. 15
it?—M. G., Austin, Texas.

Quite possibly. A study at the University of
Washington in Seattle has linked douching
three or more times a month with significant-
ly increased risk of pelvic inflammatory dis-
ease, a potentially life-threatening infection
of women's reproductive organs and a lead-
ing cause of female infertility. Other studies
have linked frequent douching to an in-
creased risk of cervical cancer and ectopic
pregnancy, another potentially fatal medical
emergency. Douching is medically unneces-
sary, and the vagina is а self-cleansing or-
gan. Ask your girlfriend not to douche.

AU reasonable questions—from fashion,
food and drink, stereo and sports cars to dat-
ing problems, taste and etiquette—will be
personally answered if the writer includes a
stamped, self-addressed envelope. Send all
letters to The Playboy Advisor, PLAYBOY, 680
North Lake Shore Drive, Chicago, Illinois
60611. The most provocative. pertinent
queries will be presented on these pages
each month,

TH E P L A Y B O Y

FORUM

PAWNS m THE GAME

society—not biology—defines adolescence

Forget what you've been told. Ado-
lescence doesn't exist. Or at least it
didn't until society had the bright
idea that a gap should exist between
puberty and adulthood.

Before the 18005, families lived and
worked together. But industrializa-
tion, and the labor force needed to
fuel it, changed the family structure.
Women stayed at home and children
were at school while the head of the
houschold left the family to go to
work. With this change came а new
attitude toward sex. To keep
the family intact—and to keep
their husbands from visiting
young prostitutes—these idled
women created such organiza-
tions as the Women’s Christian
Temperance Union to promote
the ideal of a pure and virginal
natural state that could be
defiled by men.

By the late 19th century, the
women's social-purity move-
ment had begun asking law-
makers to raise the age of con-
sent to protect the innocence of
young girls from the corrupt-
ing power of men. "Between
1886 and 1895," according to
John D'Emilio and Estelle
Freedman, authors of Intimate
Matters: A History of Sexuality in
America, "the social-purity cam-
paign succeeded in raising the
age of consent from as low as
ten years in some states to be-
tween 14 and 18 years in 29
states."

The consent laws signaled a
separation of sexuality from
human behavior. Sex became
something men did to women. “Fe-
male chastity,” says Linda Gordon
in her book Woman's Body, Woman's
Right, “was a woman's destiny, as a
naturally asexual being."

By the turn of the century asexual-
ity had attached itself to adolescence
in general The biology of puberty
and procreation be damned: neither
young women nor young men were
deemed adult enough to handle sex.

Not until the Sixties would society
acknowledge that adolescents had
sex. By then, these supposedly asexu-

By MATTHEW CHILDS

al creatures were having babies and
illegal abortions at rates that couldn't
be ignored—and catching venereal
diseases in epidemic proportions.
Common sense dictated that they
have access to the same sexual health
care as adults.

A report by the Alan Guttmacher
Institute tracks the result: "A growing
trend has emerged over the last 90 to
30 years [giving] teenagers wider au-
thority to make decisions for them-
selves. . . . The trend toward giving

minors greater freedom to make their
own decisions about health care has
generated little controversy and has
aroused little organized opposition.”
There was one notable exception.

The AGI study looked at sexual
and health issues across the nation. It
analyzed minors' autonomy by activi-
ties that did not require parental con-
sent and found that in the majority of
states:

Minors can buy condoms, birth-
control pills and most other types of
contraceptives as needed.

They can go for diagnosis and
treatment of sexually transmitted dis-
eases and HIV infection with only a
few restrictions.

Minors can ask for and receive
treatment and counseling for drug
abuse, alcohol abuse or emotional
problems.

They can authorize general med-
ical and surgical care in nonemer-
gency situations.

А pregnant unmarried minor can
even choose prenatal care, deliver

her child and, if she chooses,
place it for adoption.

“The one exception the study
found to adolescent autonomy?
Abortion. Yes, a pregnant un-
married minor can decide to
have a child, but she can't decide
not to have a child. Roughly two
thirds of the states insist that a
parent or a judge authorizc an
abortion. And in June 1992, the
United States Supreme Court
affirmed a Pennsylvania law en-
forcing this hypocritical stance.

As the AGI study makes clear,
the Court's ruling is logically in-
consistent with abortion viewed
either as a medical procedure or
as an issue of sexual autonomy.
“The Court can't be concerned
with teenagers' health care. ei-
ther: Experience shows that mi-
nors receive better health care
results when they don't have to
let their parents know about
their private lives. Another study
shows that morc than 45 percent
of teenagers choose to include a
parent in the abortion decision,
anyway. As for morality, the АСТ

study puts it succinctly: "If abortion is
immoral, it is no less so if a parent or
a judge sanctions the decision."

The Court's sole interest is a соп-
servative agenda. In order to pro-
mote family values, the Court has
chosen to perpetuate an unrealistic
notion of adolescence—and a Victori-
an concept of the parent-child rela-
tionship. Yes, families do help devel-
ор emotional maturity. But laws don’t
create families or relationships —peo-
ple do. The Court bas become the
ncw social-purity league.

41

42

Е R

R E

1 agree with Hugh Hefner's
artide “Just Say No" (The
Playboy Forum, November). I be-
lieve the government has been
picking on the wrong people
for the past two decades. The
Republican administrations
made criminals of individuals
who support sexual expression.
It is great to hear from Нер
again. The current generation
of readers should seek out back
issues of PLAYBOY from the Six-
ties and read The Playboy Philos-
ophy. Hef's ruminations will
give many a better understand-
ing of sexual expression.

R. Hanrahan
Wilmington, Massachusetts

Hugh Hefner is absolutely
right: Our government has put.
many hones, hard-working,
otherwise law-abiding citizens
in jail. These citizens have lost
homes, families, jobs and more
simply because they smoke pot.
You know pot—the plant шаг
can be used for food, clothes,
paper, gasoline, building mate-
rials, etc. I believe that the pun-
ishment should fit the crime,
and in this case the punishment
for this crime does a lot more
harm than the drug ever vill.
Thank you for saying what
many people believe but don't
dare risk speaking about.

Peoria, Illinois

Hefner fancies that many
people serving time "for sex
and drug crimes are actually
political prisoners.” No, they
are "actually" nothing of the kind, cer-
tainly not Бу Amnesty International's
test. А teenager picked up for marijua-
na possession should not be puffed up
to the level of China's real political
prisoners. After all, the American kid
doesn't regard himself as political.

Р Javier
West Vancouver, British Columbia

According to Amnesty International, po-
litical prisoners are persons "imprisoned for
their beliefs." People convicted for using
drugs are political prisoners. They believe
drug use is harmless, a private act. The gov-
ernment does not believe that. Through in-
creasingly draconian laws it has managed to

positive, as a person.

FOR THE RECORD

THE LIFE ENERGY

In Muses from Chaos and Ash: AIDS, Artists and
Art (Grove Press), novelist Edmund White con-
tributes this take on American society
pressure it puts on people with AIDS to dis-
avow sex:

“I think one of the biggest struggles if you're
and as an artist, is to keep
sex in your work. Everybody wants you to get
rid of it. They all think there's something un-
seemly and horrible and nasty about it. Basical-
ly the idea is, "You got yourself into all this rrou-
ble in the first place because you were so
promiscuous, plus you infected other innocent
. Can't you please just stop all that nasty
behavior? Haven't you learned your lesson yet?’
1 remain sexual in my work and it gets me in
trouble with everybody, but I'm going to keep
on doing it. People бол t want to hear about it
and they don't like it. [But] it's the life energy.”

imprison thousands of dissidents, The exer-
cise of political will has done nothing to curb
drug use and much to cripple the country.
Maybe President Clinton will consider am-

nesty for users.

LIFE PRESERVERS

Popular health-care policy is against
the research and development of sper-
micides as a defense against HIV. Some
argue that advocating the use of sper-
micides will irresponsibly discourage
women from using condoms. The irre-
sponsibility lies in ignoring current test
results, which find that spermicides kill
the virus 50 percent of the time, or in

and the

not paying attention to the
studies that show condoms are
used consistently in only about
20 percent of cases—probably
less in poorer communities,
where partners are more likely
10 resist using them. No pre-
ventive method is 100 per-
cent effective. When it comes
to a life-preserving choice, 50
percent is beuer than nothing
at all.

Jean Marshall

Washington, D.C.

SPEAK EASY
The U.S. Supreme Court re-
cently voided the conviction of
a man prosecuted under a Min-
nesota hate-crimes ordinance,
forcing prosecutors to bring
charges against the man under
federal laws. If prosecutors
have to jump through Юор-
holes to get a conviction, what's
the point of having these ordi-
nances on the books in the first
place? Hate-crime convictions
will continue to be thrown out
until the conflicting interests
behind hate-speech ordinances
and free speech come to an
accommodation.
Ross Phillips
Detroit, Michigan
Hate-crime ordinances are large-
ly the result of the efforts of well-
intentioned liberals. By their na-
ture, such ordinances threaten the
constitutional right to free speech.
Existing laws addressing trespass-
ing, assault, etc., are sufficient for
indictment.

= SINS OF THE FATHER
James R. Petersen's article on
sex abuse among priests (“When the
Church Sins,” The Playboy Forum, De-
cember) was right-on about the cover-
up and stonewalling within the Cath-
ойс Church. Father James Porter's
1973 letter to Pope Paul VI asking for
release from the priesthood before he
committed more sexual offenses is
dear evidence of the deception behind
the Roman collar. Rather than admit to
an aberration within its ranks, the
church shuffled Porter from parish to
parish, effectively playing Rus
roulette with the lives of the children
he came into contact with. After more
than ten years of sexual offenses

Е Е S

covering five states and scores of chil-
dren, the church finally released
Porter from his vows. Is this what they
mean by sacrificial lambs?

Marti Woods

Las Vegas, Nevada

FIREARMS
Many Americans seem to think that

the Constitution is an à la carte menu
from which the tyrannical majority
chooses which amendments to keep
and which to repeal. One can vehe-
mently defend the rights of the press
and of speech but deride the Second
Amendment right of Americans to de-
fend themselves with firearms. Gun
ownership ultimately puts the teeth in
our liberty.

Scott A. Wimmer

Baton Rouge, Louisiana

CHURCH AND STATE

I read with dismay the article “The
Myth of Church and State,” by Bob
Howells (The Playboy Forum, October).
It does much to further the ignorance
alrcady surrounding the provisions of
the First Amendment and does noth-
ing (0 promote any brand of democra-
cy. How is Pat Robertson so different
from the Reverend Jesse Jackson, who
more publicly wields his religious title
and has done much the same as
Robertson in mobilizing a voting force
that agrees with his agenda? The beau-
ty of a federal system is that it allows
communities to decide what is best for
their particular region. People must be
encouraged to know the candidates
and their positions and to elect people
who share their beliefs. The impor-
tance of religion in political office must
ultimately be left to voters to decide. A
paternalistic national government hid-
ing behind a twisted Constitution can-
not and should not take on the burden
of deciding how much religion is too
much religion.

Frank Conley
Gainesville, Florida

When I was young, it was net unusu-
al to hear proposals to make the Ten
Commandments part of the Constitu-
tion. I thought this idea died a natural
death until I read “The Myth of
Church and State.” A surprising num-
ber of people seem to react favorably to
this concept. I cannot believe that very
many of them have actually read and

Ping®

thought about what those command-
ments say or what they would do to our
society. For example: “Thou shalt not
make unto thee any likeness.” There
goes nearly all art or religious statuary.
What about photographs? Movies?
Anatomical text illustrations? Or how
about “Remember the Sabbath Day, to
keep it holy.” Blue laws, anyone? A
criminal code based on theology? No.
thank you.

Clyde Wilkes
Bisbee, Arizona

MAKING THE GRADE

Drug testing is a big issue in the
workplace, and promotions may be lost
and job offers withdrawn on the basis
of a test result. I haven't seen a single
article on the accuracy of such testing,
which I assume means that they havea
large margin of er-
ror. My company in-
stituted a testing pol-
icy last year. So far, so
good. But too many
of my co-workers
were given pink slips
rather than the bene-
fit of the doubt, and
I do not want to
be next. Until total
accuracy has been
achieved, employee
drug testing should
be suspended.
Roy Gray
Memphis, Tennessee

RAPID FIRE

The editors of The Playboy Forum
should watch their backs: RAPID is
on the move! Billing itself as a new di-
rect-action group, the Revolutionaries
Against Рогпоргарћу 5 Inhumane De-
struction recently stormed the ACLU's
headquarters and staged a bit of guer-
rilla theater in response to the Union's
1992 Arts Censors of the Year awards.
RAPID, it seems, was offended by in-
clusion of hyperfeminists Andrea
Dworkin and Catharine MacKinnon
among the awardees. To symbolize the
silencing of women, two RAPID partic-
ipants mouths were duct-taped shut
and the group recited a litany of “lies
used by pornographers and the ACLU
to distort the reality of pornography:
Pornography is art! Women are never
raped in pornography! Women always
choose to be in pornography! Women
enjoy seeing their bodies dissected and

Маг Е

on display! There is no connection
between pornography and violence
against women! The ACLU is doing the
right thing by trying to destroy Andrea
Dworkin!” And so on. With enemies
like these, there's no need to rely on
friends. Insanity will ultimately burn it-
self out.

Harry Rodgers

New Haven. Connecticut.

Welcome to the fanatic fringe. RAPID is
approximately 12 refugees from Women
Against Porn and Men Against Porn. Trou
bled with the lack of direct action by these
groups, RAPID “courageously” attacks neu-
tral defenders of the First Amendment, their
wake littered with irrational propaganda.

BUSHWACKED
In what proved to be a bizarre polit-
ical year, the most ridiculous statement

made by anyone during the entire
campaign surely had to be Barbara
Bush's assertion to Larry King that
“sex is death.” She might like it to be
death, especially for people who don't
share her "family values," but the ob-
vious fact is that sex is life, and always
has been. To say, with apparent sincer-
ity, such a preposterous and transpar-
ent untruth underscores the moral
bankruptcy of the Bush administra-
tion and, indeed, of the Republican
Party. Good riddance to this sanctimo-
nious old bat.

Robert Borden

Jemez Springs, New Mexico

I would like to personally thank
George Bush for being pro-life. If he
had been pro-choice, he might have
had a chance of winning.

Terry Moore
Hollywood, California

43

THE JANUS REPORT: p
THE TWO FACES of SEX. 0
a survey of sexuality in america today
by Dr. Samuel Janus and Dr. Cynthia Janus

This nationwide study reported on the
views of almost 3000 people to deter-
mine the sexual attitudes and behaviors
of several sociological and ideological
groups. The investigation, from 1983 to хэлт
1992, looks at the country after the dis- -
covery of AIDS. Dr. Samuel Janus is an | согоо ne
associate professor of psychiatry al New

York University Medical College, and |
Dr. Cynthia Janus is a former associate ultra-
professor of obstetrics, gynecology and
radiology at the University of Virginia.
From their book “The Janus Report
on Sexual Behavior” (John Wiley
& Sons), PLAYBOY excerpts the find-
ings of two chapters, “Religion and
Sex” and “Politics and Sex.”

Both the questionnaire
responses and our in-
depth interviews con-
firmed that different
political associations do
authentically represent
varying frames of mind
and different attitudes, and
that these attitudes are sig-
nificantly contrasting across
the political spectrum. Howev-
er, values and attitudes cannot
be assumed automatically to
give insights into behavior.
What people say is not always
what they do, and we wanted
to explore possible differences
in behavior. One social issue as-
sociated with conservative political
agendas has involved limiting the
casy availability of contraceptives
and opposing the teaching of con-
traception in school. The conserva-
tive reasoning is that easy contra-
ception leads to ease of and
implied approval of sexual rela-
tions outside of marriage, and such
ease is strongly condemned as anti-
thetical to family values. One
should see a rejection of the use
of contraceptives for themselves.
However . . . the facts [66 percent
of ultraconservatives, as opposed to
55 percent of ultraliberals, use con-
traception] suggest otherwise.

To successfully
function sexually,
I fantasize:

a lot

ultraconservalive ultraliberal

16% 33%

Have you had full
sexual relations?
If yes, by age:

TA ЗӨХБАВ (rp
PROFESSOR

88%

Should sex
education be
taught in
schools?

ultra-
conservative
men women

91%

ultra-
liberal

95%

Compared with three years ago, my
sexual activity is:

| ulfraconservative | ultralibera! | ultraconservative | ultraliberal

men

men women

97%

“I love doing conven-
tions, particularly the
Republicans’. . . . Not
only Republicans, al-
most any very conser-
valive group, for ex-

ample, _ religious or
economic, at business
shows. Many come to

these functions without
their wives, but even if
they have their wives,
they sneak around
and they serve up
sex action like you
wouldn't believe. They
are intense about sex.
Somehow, being for-

59%

we ha MEC bidden makes it more
exciting.”
24% 52% 28% —A 31-YEAR-OLD

14%

HOSTESS AND

203, DEMONSTRATOR

31% 48%

[ASESINOS

Se AA DET

ST

SIIRT ERE

ABORTION

ultraconservotive independent ultraliberal
men | women men | women men women

ABORTION 15 MURDER:

strongly ogree ond agree

disagree ond strongly disogree 40% | 32%

34% 46%

1 НАУЕ HAD АМ АВОКТЮМ:

[ POSTABORTION REACTION WAS:

relief

sadness

EMG

SEAS

NONSE ESTE Ad

45

46

has the state approached the tradi-
tional role of religion in legalizing
marriages, registering babies and
legislating whether certain contra-
ceptive practices, abortion or
heretofore unnatural sex acts are
permissible. However, although
the state has indeed assumed some
of the prerogatives of religion, the
church and the state often coexist
as social regulators. . . . A major im-
pact of religion on social behavior
15 effected through the mechanism
of guilt; that is, when placed in a
possibly compromising sexual situ-
ation, one is able to retain self-

Pain and pleasure
go together in sex:

егу 20%

religious

religious 15% 73%

rigs 13% | 76%

not
religious 10% 81%

control by somehow feeling
the sexual act is wrong. Inter-
estingly, many of the individ-
uals that we interviewed felt
that, without at least a bit of
guilt, sex loses some of its ap-
peal; for some, the defiance of
authority was a turn-on. With
the sexual revolution has
come personal sexual choice,
a concept that is anathema to
religion.

“Thirty-two per-
сет of the very reli-

gious and thirty-
five percent of
the religious be-
lieved that women

“I have a girlfriend now. . . . We both feel it is a beau-
üful thing for a girl to be a virgin until she is mar-
ried. . .. When we are going to have intercourse, 1 al-
ways use a condom, and 1 enter her, but 1 withdraw be-
fore 1 ejaculate, . . . Most important of all, she is still a
virgin, because 1 havent come inside her, and therefore

ОЦЕ СААТ. she is pure.” —ÁÀHAYEAROLD SALESMAN
experience before extramarit
es

marriage.” у

: nol
“While primarily equally active i 72 Are
on a broad range of sex practices, =
religious people have some diffi-
culty enjoying their sex lives. Compared with three years ago, my
There is a need to manifest a well- sexual activity is:
defined set of values for the public very

В B, Р religious
and for raising children, but
many religious people live by 225 IO EEE >=
another set of values privalely.” 24% 25%

Slightly по!

oca religious religious

30% 33%

| А large variety of

sex techniques
isa must for
primum
easure:
А
contraception?
regius 40% 46% yes
ae am very religious | 3 61%
religious 44% 39% religious 66%
religious 49% ВАЛЕ Es
not religious 66%

Sensually, I feel
that sex is:

very sensuous

slightly religious

noi religious

ABORTION

very religious

religious slightly religious not religious

men | women men | women men | women men | women
| |
ABORTION IS MURDER: |
strongly agree and agree 59% | 64% 41% | 41% 23% | 24% 15% | 9%
| |
disagree and strongly disagree 25% | 26% 398 |41% 566 |59% 73% |82%
|
| |
| HAVE HAD AN ABORTION:

yes

no

no answer

47

48

N E W

S MERR

O N T

what's happening in the sexual and social arenas

BOOB TUBE

SEATTLE—Rock concert promoters dis-
covered that instead of engaging in rowdy
behavior, fans were amusing themselves

between performances by showing off for
closed-circuit video cameras. According to
the promoters, images of the bare breasts of
exuberant female concertgoers appeared to
soothe the rowdy crowds. Orders issued to
police at a recent concert advised the cops
10 expect “females will be boosted orto the
shoulders of companions, where they will
expose their breasts to a camera that pro-
jects the image on the big screen. This form
of entertainment has served lo keep the
crowd in check.” Long live rock and roll.

SHARK ALERT

LIBREVILLE, GABON—The Gabonese
government has prohibited persons with
AIDS from swimming in that country's
coastal waters for fear the sharks might eat
them. Shark fishing is important 10 the na-
tional economy, and the fear isn't for the
swimmers but for the sharks. Some fisher-
men worry that if a shark ate an AIDS vic-
tim, the disease could destroy the entire
shark population.

COMPASSION PLAY

ORLANDO, FLORIDA—The prosecution
tried to portray the defendant as a drug
dealer pushing morphine and codeine,
but the jurors felt differently. The circuit

court jury acquitted an AIDS activist of il-
legally supplying AIDS patients with the
drugs for use as painkillers. The defen-
dant said he had learned one lesson from
the experience: In the future he would hire
а doctor to make sure that he was helping
legitimate AIDS patients and not under-
cover cops.

с Н =

WASHINGTON, D.C—Tiny transdermal
patches are big business. They've been used
to release nicotine for smokers trying to
quil and scopolamine for seasickness suf-
ferers. Their latest application is in in-
‘creasing men's testosterone levels. Testos-
terone is the male hormone associated with
energy level, competitive instincts and sex-
ual activity. Two patches are on the way.
One has to be worn on the scrotum; the oth-
er can be worn in а less sensitive place.

AV DIP ar
ҮР ЕНТ
товокто—Тће Federal Court of

Canada overruled a military policy that
barred recruiting gays or promoting those
already in servite. Following the decision,
General John de Chastelain promised full
compliance and the elimination of all re-
strictions aimed at gays.

ОТТАМА—А human rights tribunal
ordered the Ontario government to extend
survivor-pension benefits to spouses of its
homosexual employees. The ruling opens
the way for challenges to the discriminato-
ту pension policies of all businesses.

FROM RUSSIA WITH LOVE?

NAKHODKA. RUSSIA—When her
younger lover tried to end their relation-
ship because of their ten-year age gap, the
35-year-old woman offered him one last
romp as а goodbye gesture. He lived
through the experience. Doctors, however,
were unable to reattach his penis and testi-
cles that the girlfriend chopped off to re-
member him by. After finding nothing in
Russian law books that specifically ad-
dressed such a crime, police charged the
woman with “organ sabotage.”

FREE SPEECH AFFIRMED

MOREHEAD, KENTUCKY—A slate circuit
court judge here ruled that it's a motorist’s
constitutional right to give the finger to a

Kentucky law enforcement officer. Even an
obscene gesture may be a form of free
speech, according to the judge. Common
sense, however, suggests not exercising
‘your right on a lonely road.

BELIEVE FT OR NOT

BALTIMORE—Safe-sex education isn't
getting the message out to everyone, ас-
cording lo a Johns Hopkins University
School of Medicine study. In Baltimore's
STD clinics, patients who believed their
sexual behavior could have put them at
risk and were worried enough to get tested
do not always change their high-risk sexu-
al practices. The study found that within a
six- to 23-month period, about nine per-
cent of both the HIV-negative and HIV-
positive groups were back with at least one
new sexually transmitted disease that re-
sulted from unsafe sex. The repor/'s con-
clusion: Onetime counseling isn’t effective.

HELPING HANDS

TORONTO—Without affirming the me-
dicinal benefits of masturbation, an On-
tario court cleared a Toronto doctor who
had used masturbation and sexual holding
to treat patients. Three judges restored the

therapist's license after studying a lengthy
brief on his theories and practices and not-
ing the many patients who came to his de-
_fense. The court slapped the doctor's wrists
‘and made him promise he would keep his
hands to himself in the future.

Playboy's

Сур fantasies LI СУ

This sensational sequel

in Playboy's Erotic Fan-
tasies series brings you
to a new level of eroti-
cism. Let your imagina:
tion soar with a “heal-
ing" hospital yignette, а
steamy basketball match,

т ^ x a sensual “Ghostly” visit,
в 48 and much more. VHS.

d 50 min. Item number
Jn NMI656V $19.95

ORDER TOLL FREE 1-800-423-9494

Charge to your VISA, MasterCard, Optima, American Express or
Discover. Most orders shipped vithin 48 hours. (Source Code: 39512)

There їз a $4.00 shipping and handling charge per total order. Illinois
residents add 6.75% sales tax. Canadian residents please add $3.00 addi-
tional per video, Sorry, no other foreign orders or currency accepted.

~

Only 519°

Also Available...

СЕТИО (Cs antasics

Handsome men and beautiful women
reveal themselves in a playful bubble bath,
a tantalizing wedding night, an artful les-
son in love and much more. VHS. 50 min.
Item number NM1635V $19.95

ORDER BY MAIL

Use your VISA, MasterCard, Optima, American Express or Discover.
Include your account number and expiration date. Or enclose a check
or money order payable to Playboy. Mail to Playboy, P.O. Box 809,
Dept. 39512, Itasca, Illinois 60143-0809.

1993 Playboy.

PLAYBOY

Put your talent and imagination to work designing a visual interpretation of
Playboy Magazine for 1993. All you need to keep in mind is what
Playboy is all about ... romance and fantasy, social issues and
relationships, entertainment and fun. Playboy speoks to men as well as for
them. And it's one of the most honored magazines for editorial and design
excellence in the world. Entry deadline is April 2nd. See the competition
tules below. The winning design will be sold through the pages of

Playboy, with 100% of all profits donated to the Design Industries
Foundation For AIDS (ОНАЈ. ЕРДА prize: 51,052)

LA 248)
RULES : 1. Competition is open lo oll full- and part-time CID їнэ: 5500)
students. There is no age limit. Ployboy Enterprises, Inc., As
employees, agents, offiliates ond their families are not R- КЕТУ] PRIZE: $250]
eligible. 2. To enter, submit your original artwork with o 4. Aes

3*x5" cord listing your nome, аде, college olfiliation,
permanent home address ond telephone number to Ployboy
Ер E, Design Competition Office 747 Third
Avenue, New York, New York 10017. Only one entry рег
Gora (Ай етта» moa Pa ба ЖУО А ОЛЕ дыы =

“Бетон the гийх deese rend never before рийн > > یھ‎

or reproduced in any manner whatsoever. Entries must be

posimorked by April 2nd, 1993. Mutilated or illegible entries
will be disquolified. 3. Winners will be selected by o qualified
panel of judges, ond the decisions of ihe judges will be final ї ~.
Playboy reserves the right to withhold prizes if no submitted
entries meet its usual standords. 4. Winners will be notified by

той ond/or telephone during the week of April 26th, 1993,
and will be obligoted to sign ond return on offidevit of Ф
eligibility within 30 days of notificotion. In the event of

noncomplionce with this time period, olternote winners moy

be selected. Any notificotion letter or prize returned to

Playboy as undeliveroble moy be awarded to an alternate

winner. 5. АЙ winning entries become the sole property of - pu AMA ==
Ployboy Enterprises, Inc. Winners will be required to sign

whatever documents Playboy moy reosonably request to

evidence Ployboy's ownership of ой right, file ond interes! in

ond to the artwork, including ой rights of copyright. 6. Entry

outhorizes use of ony prize winner's nome, phologroph ond

biographicol informotion by Playboy without further =
compensation lo the winner. 7. Taxes on prizes оге the sole

responsibility of winners. Void where prohibited by law. 8

For return of non-winning entries, entrants must specifically

request return of artwork in writing and supply о self

addressed, pre-paid envelope in which artwork will be

returned in. While Ployboy will make every reosonoble

attempt to return the artwork if requested, Playboy will not be

responsible lor lost or domoged ortwork. © 1993, Playboy

Reporter's Notebook

Where is the women's movement go-
ing? This column may appear a strange

venue for raising the question, though 1
am reliably told that 2 million women
read this magazine. Men, in any case,

need to know about this. I he starting
demonstration of women power in the
last election, in which the gender gap
provided Clinton with his margin of vic-
tory, means women have a lot to do with
setting the national agenda. So men, too,
had better wonder again: What do
women want? For example, living in Cal-
ifornia, as I do, both of my senators аг
now women, and all I know about them
for sure is that they are pro-choice.

Up to now, that's been a pretty clear
litmus test. For the past decade, being
pro-choice was like having a beard back
in the s: It said quite a bit about
where someone was coming from, c
turally as well as politically.

Ву that measure, the yahoos were on
the other side. Pro-choice people tended
to be more tolerant, gene:
other ways oppo: sive forces,
be they pro-military or pro-censorship
Of course, that oversimplified matters
There were pro-choice people who
wanted to preserve their tax breaks and
screw the poor. And yes, 1 know about
the neofeminist fringe that equates all
heterosexual sex with rape.

People such as me tended to vote for
pro-choice women not only because it
was obvious that individuals should con-
trol their bodies but also because such
people tended to be more enlightened.
But the choice battle is over. It was set-
tled with the results of the last election.

The Republicans now know that the
cost of rousing the primitives among the
It worked
only so long as no one was looking.

The abortion issue was invented by
political operatives in the Republican

Party to split poorer voters, many of

them working-class Catholic and South-
ern evangelicals, from their natural alle-
giance to the Democratic Party. 1 had
many conversations over the years with
such GOP operatives as Lee Atwater and
Stu Spencer, and they all said the same
thing: The abortion issue works for us so
long as we don't win, What they meant
was that you could pick up the pro-life
votes without losing the pro-choice votes

BEYOND CHOICE

abortion was the litmus test of moral rectitude. with the day won,
the women’s movement must focus on more basic needs

opinion By ROBERT SCHEER

because the latter didn't think you were
serious, For example, where I spent this
past decade, in solidly Republican Or-
ange County, California, we consistently
sent a rabidly pro-life delegation to Con-
gress even though well over 60 percent
of the voters always polled as pro-choice.
Until recently, the pro-lifer stuff was
just political noise, Women thought the
laws would never be changed. The gov-
ernment might deny abortion in some
ghetto clinics, but no one was going to
tell women in the suburbs what to do.
Then the Clarence Thomas hearings
highlighted the packing of the Supreme
Court. The mad rhetoric of the two Pats,
Robertson and Buchanan, frightened
millions of moderates into get
ous about the threat from the ве
right. Suddenly, being pro-life became a
big loser for politicians of either party:
"The women's movement will no doubt.
have a major impact on the personnel
and policies of this administration. Rest
assured that the Democrats, who didn't
even allow the pro-life governor of
Pennsylvania to speak at their conven-
tion, will finally settle the issue with new
presidential directives, laws and the ap-
pointment of some 100 federal judges.
But that is no longer enough. What else
will those judges believe in? Will they fa-
vor civil liberties and oppose censorship,
or will they cater to the puritanical wing
of the women's movement represented
by Tipper Gore and her record-labeling
crusade? Where will they stand on so-
called hate or harassing speech? Any
nominec for the Supreme Court vill be
for reproductive choice, but where will
she or he stand on our right to listen to
rap music or to bu
ton already has in
nees will have to pass muster on abortio
What other litmus tests will be applied?
Just being correct on abortion is un-
likely to suflice as a clue to safeguarding
other key rights, particularly if choice
moves off the front burner as an issue.
True, nota single woman friend believes
that the choice debate is over, but it's al-
ways hard to declare victory. The prob-
lem is, what do you do next? How do
you keep a single-issue coalition togeth-
er when you no longer have the iss
What are women's issues and wh
the consensus?

As I discovered one day last year ага
Sunday brunch at Betty Friedan's house,
these are not easy questions to answer. 1
thought | was going to a party, but my
feminist host had something else in
mind. She was pushing a candidate for
Congress, the well-c 1 and superrich
Jane Harman. This woman, who had
lived for most of the past 20 years in
Washington, D.C., had suddenly re-
turned to southern С: rnia to run as
a pro-choice candidate. Innocently, 1
asked her about a vicious welfarc-reform
bill the state's Republican governor had
put on the ballot. It would have taken
away one out of four dollars going to
poor women. I assumed she would be
against these attacks on. poor women.
But no, this rich matron was suddenly
telling me that poor women would
have to become more "responsible" and
would have to "get jobs."

The voters understood that the jobs
didn't exist and defeated the initiative.
But Harman won. She took full ad-
vantage of the Year of the Woman and
her own considerable bankroll. (She
dropped nearly three quarters of a mil-
lion of her own money.) I asked Friedan,
whom 1 much respect, how she could
possibly support someone so mean
ited about poor women? Bless her heart,
Friedan seemed troubled and ned
the assemblage that the "welfare mother
is becoming this year's Willie Horton."

become less
lowed us to ignore the fact that.
fessional women may not face the same
problems as poor out-of-work women.
Take the dirt-poor region of eastern
Arkansas, where I happened to be
watching television one day when Hil-
lary Clinton came on, sj
Children's Defense Fund benefit dinner.
1 couldn't help noticing that she was
wearing a split-scam skirt that opened
smartly as she mounted the stage. Very
ndy No dowdy Barbara Bush hı
e

role model for every

ng the Eco ie enin

The other aspect that struck me is
that she didn't say anything. She's
getting pretty good at politicobabble
with all those (concluded on page 163)

51

s ANNE RICE

a candid conversation with the author of "the vampire chronicles" about sex
and violence, gays and bloodsuckers, and her helpful fans from the sm scene

In 1976 Anne Rice came upon the liter-
ary scene with an extraordinarily innovative
novel called “Interview with the Vampire.”
Critics were not sure what to make of her
richly imagined, deadly serious portrait of
Теча! de Lioncourt—an 18th century vam-
pire who poured out his tale of centuries on
the run, of the eternal struggle between good
and evil and of the meanings of death and
immortality. But readers had no trouble see-
ing this vampire as an ultimate outsider—a
symbolic figure for teens, gays and lonely ur-
ban apartment dwellers. It became an in-
stant cult classic and the basis for a series of
novels, “The Vampire Chronicles”—includ-
ing “The Vampire Lestat,” “The Queen of
the Damned” and, most recently, "The Tale
of the Body Thief” —which have sold nearly
5 million copies.

The handful of critics who condemned
“Interview with the Vampire” as a clever lit-
erary stunt could not have guessed how pro-
foundly Rice identified with her fictional
character's emotions. For two years, she had
watched helplessly as her only daughter,
Michele, batlled leukemia, dying before her
sixth birthday. In her grief and frustration,
she turned to alcohol and to marathon
binges at the typewriter. The novel—which

“I do love violence. I absolutely love it. If we
cleanse all the violence out of our work, we
will have the “Saturday Evening Post” short
story triumphant. That will be our art. We've
nearly done that, and it's preity dismal stuff."

features a six-year-old vampire—emerged as
а sort of catharsis, Prior to this crossroad in
her life, Rice had been a "perpetual student”
and aspiring writer who lived in the heart of
San Francisco's Haight-Ashbury district
during the rock-and-roll revolution of the
Sixties.

Born on October 4, 1941, at Mercy Hos-
pital in New Orleans, Anne was given
the unusual name Howard Allen Frances
O'Brien, incorporating her father’s first
name and her mother’s maiden name. When
she entered first grade in the Redemptorist
Catholic School, she promptly announced
that she would be known as Anne. Ghost sto-
ries and twilight walks through the cemeter-
ies of New Orleans with her father made
strong impressions on her as a child. So did
the 1936 movie “Dracula’s Daughter,”
which she recalls as the most vivid vampire
imagery from her youth. She met her future
husband, poet and artist Stan Rice, while
both were working on a high school newspa-
per. After a Long courtship, they married and
went [0 San Francisco to attend college.

Her second published novel, “The Feast of
All Saints,” explored the New Orleans set-
tings of her youth. Focusing on the relatively
litlle-knoum experiences of the gens de

“I really see vampires as transcending gender.
If you make them absolutely straight or ab-
solutely gay, you limit the material. They can
be either one. They havea polymorphous sexu-
ality. They see everything as beautiful.”

couleur libre—the 18,000 blacks who lived
as free men and women prior to the Civil
War—Rice wove a mesmerizing tale of love
affairs and family intrigues into the histori-
cal setting of the 1840s. "Feast" incorporat-
ed her penchant for psychologically complex
characters and used her intimate knowledge
of Louisiana lore

If the literary world had been stunned by
Rice’s philosophical meditations on vam-
pires, it was flabbergasted by her third novel,
“Cry to Heaven” (1982). Set in 18th centu-
ry Venice, it is a dreamlike tale of love and
treachery among the castrati, the boys who
were castrated to preserve the purity of their
soprano voices. The bizarre settings, androg-
ynous characters and explicit scenes of di-
verse sexual activities shocked many read-
ers—but only presaged what would be an
even more amazing turn in. Rice's literary
career.

In a move that might have appeared sui-
cidal for а successfully published literary au-
thor, Касе decided to write a serus of explic-
Шу erotic books —what she straight{orwardly
calls her “pornography.” In the first work of
this trilogy, “The Claiming of Sleeping
Beauty,” the Prince awakens Beauty both
literally and sexually in a sadomasochistic

PHOTOGRAPHY BY LEE RUM.
“Now my pornographic books are in the sub-
urts. Theyre everywhere, and women come up
with babies in strollers and say, ‘We love your
dirty books.’ They put it right in the stroller
with the kid. I think that's great.”

PLAYBOY

fantasy version of the fairy tale. Her editor
at Knopf refused to publish the books, and
they were sold to another house, E. P. Dutton,
where they appeared under the pseudonym of
A. N. Roquelaure. (A roquelaure is a type of
French cloak worn in the 18th century.) De-
spite the pseudonym, Rice has always happi-
ly admitted that she is the author of ihe
Beauty books. In fact, in their paperback
editions, her real name is the largest type on
the cover.

In addition to the two other books in the
Beauty trilogy—“Beauty’s Punishment” and
“Beauty's Release"—Rice wrote another
pornographic novel with a contemporary
setting. “Exit lo Eden,” published under the
pseudonym Anne Rampling, concerns the
love affair that develops between a man and
а woman at an unusual sex club on a
Caribbean island.

Almost a decade after “Interview with the
Vampire,” Rice returned to the character of
Lestat. In “The Vampire Lestat,” he is awak-
ened in 1985 by a rock band and becomes a
singer. Rice had based part of Lestat’s style
and voice on the Doors’ Jim Morrison. The
concepl of ihe vampire as a contemporary
rock star and the fascinating story of Lestat’s
early life made it an immediate best-seller.

Rice then went back to an erotic theme she
had toyed with for years. In “Belinda,” she
wrote her oum version of "Lolita." The nov-
el was largely ignored in hardcover and was
packaged in a romance format in paper-
back under the Rampling name, but it re-
mains Rice's best written and least appre-
ciated book.

Another vampire book, “The Queen of the
Damned, " the third in the series, further en-
hanced Rice's reputation as a brilliant liter-
ary stylist. In it, borrowing freely from Chris-
tian, Greek and Egyptian. mythology, she
develops a tapestry of vampire mythology
that reaches back 6000 years to explain Le-
stat’s origins. What readers can hardly help
noticing in the third vampire volume is the
marked increase in sensuality and violence
from her previous books. It is almost as if
Rice had moved to a new level of intensity in
“The Queen of the Damned." As the charac-
ters whirl around the world in an apocalyp-
tic frenzy of mass killings, the intimate
encounters among vampires—and between
vampires and kumans—become more sensu-
al. The giving of the dark gift of immortality
is as erotically riveting as any scene in Rice's
pornography. The brutality of the embrace,
the penetration of vampire teeth, the sucking
of hot blood, the passionate moment of trans-
formation—this is sexy stuff, indeed.

Rice made some important changes in her
personal life, too. After spending some time
in her second home in the city, Rice and her
family moved back permanently to New Or-
leans in 1988 and took up residence in a
large historic mansion (reputed to be haunt-
ed) in the Garden District. Her husband,
Stan, retired as chairman of the creative
writing program at San Francisco State and
devoted his time to painting and writing po-
etry. Their son, Christopher, 15, altends the

54 nearby private school. Anne Rice is cochair

of the New Orleans Preservation Society
aud has recently purchased an 1880 тап-
sion (also supposedly haunted) on St. Charles
Sirect for renovation. The annual Coven
Party of the Vampire Lestat Fan Club was
held there last year.

‘The move altered neither Rice’s productiv-
ity nor her penchant for variety. In “The
Mummy, or Ramses the Damned,” Rice
switched to а playful, campy tone. And “The
Witching Hour” is a more subdued, intellec-
tual exploration of the supernatural set in
Rice’s house in New Orleans.

“The Tale of the Body Thief," the fourth
and latest volume of "The Vampire Chroni-
cles” (and her lucky 13th novel), takes place
in contemporary seltings such as Miami,
Georgetown and aboard the Queen Elizabeth
11. In this story, Lestat is given the opportu-
nity to give up his immortality and return to
a human form. Naturally, he chooses to re-
main a vampire. We wouldn't want it any
other way. How else could we continue to
read about his adventures in volume five,
which Rice promises to provide shortly?

To learn more about Anne Rice and her
world of ghosts and vampires, we dispatched
PLAYBOY'S book columnist, Digby Diehl, to

“Tam not a
dominatrix. I have
almost no interest in
acting it out. That
was never what
mattered to me.”

New Orleans, where by day he visited with
Rice in her home and by night searched for
Lestat on Bourbon Street. Diehl's report:

“When I spoke with Anne on tho telephone
prior to our meetings, she was terse and
businesslike, There were no restrictions on
what we would talk about. But she made
clear that she would only be available for
four hours each afternoon for four consecu-
tive days. No lunch, no cocktails, no socializ-
ing. As she promised, our talks were inter-
rupted only for periodic refillings of diet
Coke and the afternoon arrivals of her son
from school.

“What surprised me a bit more each day
was not only Anne's energy but her subtle
chameleon ability to shift intonation and de-
livery as the conversation changed. Anec-
dotes about her youth were told with a
charming sparkle. Ghost tales were offered.
in а spooky, slightly lowered voice, and de-
nuncialions of censorship came booming out
angrily.

“In the end, I realized that her initial for-
mality was a way of protecting herself from
her own warm nature. There is an openness,
а generosity of spirit about her that would
make il easy for a visitor to impose upon. It

is better she should set limits and save the
time to spend at her word processor.”

PLAYBOY: You аге a fer and yet you
have written explicit sexual fantasies.
How do you reconcile those two things?
RICE: 1 believe absolutely in the right of
women to fantasize what they want to
fantasize, to read what they want to read.
I would go to the Supreme Court to
fight for the right of a little woman in a
trailer park to read pornography—or
write it, if she wants to. I think one of the
worst turns feminism took was its puri-
tanical turn, where it tried to tell women
what was politically correct sexually, 1
mean, we had that for thousands of
years. I got that from the nuns at school:
what you were supposed to feel as a tem-
ple of the Holy Ghost, what you were
supposed to allow. And to hear the femi-
nists then telling me that having maso-
chistic fantasies or rape fantasies just
isn't politically correct, 1 just thought,
Oh, bullshit. You're not going to come in
and ге my imagination.

PLAYBOY: Not all feminists agree with
you. The Los Angeles chapter of the Na-
tional Organization for Women called
for a boycott of most Random House
books because it published Bret Easton
Ellis’ American Psycho, which featured the
murder and mutilation of men and
women.

RICE: | was outraged by the boycott. If
Random House doesn't have the right to
publish a disgusting book, then young
editors all over New York will never get
radical books through their publishing
houses. Those women are treating Ran-
dom House as if it were a great big,
monolithic publishing house. It's not.
Publishing has always been made up of
courageous individual editors fighting
for individual books. 1 5 furious. 1
hate censorship. I hate it in any form
Can't those people see that if they could
win that battle and force the book not
to be published, other interest. groups
could then force all kinds of other books
not to be published? I was just horrified.
I would have defended Random House
with a wooden sword in front of the
building.

PLAYBOY: Have you had problems with
censorship of your own books?

RICE: Not really very much. Knopf didn't
want to publish my pornography, but
that was the ividual decision of my
editor, Vicky Wilson. She read the first
book and said, “1 can't publish this."
But she recommended Bill Whitehead at
Dutton, who published it. So I stayed at
Knopf as Anne Rice and went off to Dut-
ton and wrote the A. N, Roquelaure
books. Vicky really is a dedicated editor,
but she can't publish something she
doesn't understand. She really just
didn't get it. It is pornography. She said,
“If I were to publish this, all the sex
slaves would have to fight to be free and
to escape." I just said, “Oh, Vicky, I don't

Then join me, Kimberly
Donley — Miss March —
and the Playmates as
we party and play in our
ski-lodge hideaway.
Hottub anyone?

Check in at the Playmates’ private ski-
lodge, for hottub fun and all-night parties.

Call a different beautiful
Playmate each night. She'll personally and
lovingly answer your voice message in her own
| special way. (Tivo calls required for this feature).

We Playmates reveal our kissing
passions and desires, and share with you the
Only $3 a minute — 18 yrs. or older secrets of what drives women wild!

©1993 Playboy. A product of Playboy, 680 North Lake Shore Drive, Chicago. IL 60611. Service not available to residents of LA or OR

PELHAFT ВОЛИ

56

want to do that. This is a sex fantasy
about being a slave. They доп want to
get away."

PLAYBOY: Why did you decide to write
explicit erotic fiction?

RICE: First of all, I think the masochistic
fantasies explored in my pornography,
and rape fantasies in general, are fasci-
nating things. They have to do with our
deep psyche and they transcend gender.
Both men and women have these fan-
tasies, And to pretend that they don't ex-
ist is ridiculous. I don't believe the old
argument that people read pornogra-
phy and go out and commit crimes. The
vast majority of crimes are committed by
people who aren't reading anything.
They don't need Beatty's Punishment to
go attack some old woman in Oakland,
steal her welfare check and rape her. It
doesn't work like that. I'm fascinated by
sadomasochism. I’m fascinated by the
way that the fantasies recu over, in all
kinds of people from all kinds of lives.
I'm not particularly interested in the
people who act them out. I have noth-
ing against them, and I've found them
interesting when I've run into them.
They come to my book signings some-
times and say, "Do you want to come to
our demonstration of how to tie all
the knots?"

PLAYBOY; They invite you to bondage
demonstrations?

RICE: Yes. There are groups in northern
California that believe in healthy, safe-
sex S&M. They'll give a lecture on how
to tie up your lover but make the knots
so that you can get them undone quick-
ly. Or if уоште going to use locks and
chains on your lover, to be sure that all
the locks use the same key, so that you
can unlock them quickly. Ап organiza-
tion up there invited me to their demon-
strations. One night they had а dungeon
tour: They were going to visit this one's
dungeon and that one's dungeon, this
one's torture chamber and that one's
тоот. The organization was mainly
made up, as I recall, of people who just
liked to practice S&M. There were mar-
ried couples in it, there were a lot of
lesbians in it and there were a lot of pro-
fessional women. Тће women did this
professionally, largely for male cus-
tomers. They were very hygienic.
PLAYBOY: What do you mean by
"professionally"?

RICE: They charge money. Dominatrixes.
What fascinated me about them was that
there were no males who did it to
women for money. If you wanted to go
10 San Francisco and say, "I would like to.
be dominated by a pirate for sixty min-
utes in a completely safe atmosphere,
where he'll just take over but never get.
really rough," you can't do it. But men
do it all the time. They go in and get
dominated for an hour in a safe context.
It’s amazing to me, So my books are for
the women wbo can't get that.

PLAYBO)
tour:
RICE: No, I didn't go. I'm shy. I did go to
the house of one of the people, and I did
see all of the whips and the chains that
she had. The little phalluses and every-
thing. She was dedicated. This was a gay
activist who wrote all the time for gay
publications. She's very much an S&M
dyke, I believe she would call herself.
She showed me all of these beautiful
leather handcuffs and stuff that she had
made, this entire lovely armoire filled
with them, And a drawer filled with all
these little dildos and things. I was fasci-
nated, but that was enough. I mean, I
really am a retiring person. I don't show
up dressed in black leather as Madame
Roquelaure. I'm not a dominatrix. I
have almost no interest in acting it out.
That was never what mattered to me. It
was the fantasy, and I have discovered
how many of us share that fantasy. Over
the years, because of those books, I’ve
Tun into thousands of people. Now those
books are in the suburbs. They're every-
where, and women come up with babies
in strollers and say, “We love your dirty
books. Are you going to write some more
Roquelaure?” They put it right in the
stroller with the kid, at the bookstore. I
think that’s great.

PLAYBOY: What is the answer to their
stion? Will you write any more ex-
Чу erotic books?

lo, I don't think I vill. I wanted to
write some top-netch pornography in
the genre, material that was just pornog-
raphy. Where every page was а kick. I
think I did it, and it would just be repe-
titious to write more. Also, I have to con-
fess, since Гуе grown older and I've lost.
more friends from AIDS, and just expe-
rienced more of life, my vision has dark-
ened a bit. I'm not sure I could put my-
self in the happy-go-lucky frame of mind
I was in when I wrote the Beauty books.
But I'm glad I wrote them. Рта proud.
PLAYBOY: You're clearly not in sympathy
with Catharine MacKinnon or Andrea
Dworkin, who have proposed recent an-
tipornography legislation.

RICE: I think they're absolute fools. If two
Baptist ministers from Oklahoma came
up with their arguments, they would
have been immediately laughed out of
the public arena. They got away with
their nonsensical arguments because
they were feminists, and because they
confused well-meaning liberals every-
where. But the idea that you can blame a
piece of writing or a picture or a film or
a magazine for inciting you to rape a
woman is absolutely absurd. If you give
the woman the right to sue and say that
a magazine was the cause of the rape,
there's only one step from that for the
man to say, “Yes, it was the magazinc that
made mc do it, and it was also the way
she was dresscd." Why can't he sue her?
PLAYBOY: And her dress designer.

Rice: Good point. Her dress designer

: Did you go on the dungeon

and the guy who ran the bar That
MacKinnon and Dworkin don’t see this
drives me crazy. I think that is the most
evil piece of legislation I have ever heard
of. We've spent ай this time trying to get
men to take responsibility for rape.
When I was a kid in the Fifties, we knew
that half of the time the police blamed
the victim. Women didn’t want to report
it. OK, we've reached a time when we're
urging women to report the crime. The
man is responsible if he does it. He can't
blame it on the woman, he can't say she
asked for it, he can't say she shouldn't
have been in that bar, or that she
shouldn't have gone to his apartment.
And those two, MacKinnon and Dwor-
kin, in their madness, want to take that
responsibility off the man again and put
it on PLAYBOY, or whatever he was read-
ing. That's bullshit! 105 not true. We
know statistically that pornography does.
not incite people to commit crimes.
PLAYBOY: Don't women need special pro-
tection in some cases?

RICE: Two things have gone side by side
throughout the feminist movement: a
protectionist idea that women are vic-
tims ага have to be protected, and the
belief that women are equal and have to
have equal rights and equal access to
everything. The two really clash on this
issue, I don't believe women are victims
who have to be protected from every-
thing. I believe when someone is a victim
ofa crime, that person is entitled to pro-
tection of the law and the courts. But I
don't think that women per se are so
gullible or foolish that they have to be
protected by legislation like that. These
people think that if a woman can be
made to have sex with a donkey, like for
an erotic film, she can be made to sign
a contract. The fact that she signed а
contract doesn't necessarily mean that
she wasnt a victim. That's absurd. If
they can't be trusted to sign a valid
contract because theyre women, then
women shouldr't drive, they shouldn't
vote, they shouldn't hold jobs.

PLAYBOY: Rape is another issue, isn't it?
RICE: I think this is a crisis time with re-
gard to rape. I don't think there's ever
been a time when women have been so
vulnerable to rape and there's been such
an outcry against it. As a student of West-
ern civilization and law, I'm fascinated
by what's going to happen with the no-
tion that when she says no—no matter
when it is—it’s over. I think it’s impor-
tant to women's freedom, and important
to our dignity and our rights as human
beings, that rape be a crime, that nobody
has a right to force himself on you, what-
ever you are.

PLAYBOY: Have you been following some
of the public rape trials?

RICE: I didn’t think there was sufficient
proof in the m Kennedy Smith
case to bring an indictment. I thought a
real injustice was done to that woman

Dont lose another
hair without

getting the
medical facts:

Take 2 minutes to learn about
your best chance to regrow hair.

ROGAINE® Topical Solution (minoxidil
2%) is the only product ever proven to
regrow hair. So isn't it worth your time
to find out about it— even if it gets a
little technical?

How hair grows:

Hair grows in cycles. There's a growth
phase, then a resting and shedding
phase. Usually, everyone loses some
hair during the shedding phase. But
male pattern baldness (androgenetic
alopecia), the most common form of
hair loss in men, is different. It
shortens the hair's érowth phase. So
hair grows less and rests longer,
resulting in thin hairs that are barely
visible. Eventually there is no growth
at all.

How Rogaine

regrows hair:

ROGAINE works in part by prolonging
the growth phase. With more hairs
growing longer and thicker at the same
time, you may see improved scalp.
coverage.

No one can predict how well ROGAINE
will work for you. But research suggests
that patients having a large number
of growing hairs (at least Ys inch or
longer) seem to have a better response.

Dermatologists conducted 12-month
clinical tests. After 4 months, 26% of
patients using ROGAINE reported
moderate to dense hair regrowth,

compared with 11% of those using a
placebo (a similar solution without
minoxidil—the active ingredient in
ROGAINE). After 1 year, 48% of the men
who continued in the study using
ROGAINE rated their regrowth as
moderate to dense. Thirty-six percent
reported minimal regrowth. The rest
(16%) had no regrowth.

Side effects were minimal: 7% of
those who used ROGAINE had itching
of the scalp. ROGAINE should only be
applied to a normal, healthy scalp
(not sunburned or irritated).

Fight back with Ro

Make a 4 to 6
month commitment

to see results:

Studies indicate that at least 4 months
of twice-daily treatment with
ROGAINE are usually necessary before
there is evidence of regrowth.

As you'd expect, if you are older,
balding longer, or have а larger area of
baldness, you may do less well.

ROGAINE is a treatment, not a cure.
So further progress is possible only by
using it continuously. Some anecdotal
reports indicate that if you stop using
ROGAINE, you will probably shed the
newly regrown hair within a few
months.

Here’s what you
should do:

Individual results vary widely. So
discuss your hair loss with your doctor
to understand what you can realistically
expect. Only a doctor can prescribe
ROGAINE. So see a dermatologist or
another doctor experienced in
treating hair loss today. Why just
accept what nature has handed you
when you can fight back?

For more information, a list of
doctors near you, and a 810 certificate
as an incentive to visit your doctor, call
this toll-free number: 1-800-756-6980.

| Upjohn | | DERMATOLOGY

DIVISION
© 1993 The Upjohn Company 51841500 January 1993

a m
aine
minoxidil 2%
= -

PLAYBOY

The only product
ever proven

Козате
to regrow hair.

minoxidil 2%

То tots sa ergo gr truse onre sap mas ан aa урек ar oas In me ana wonen owas
lon aj medicine for use on! is ued o (eta. inmen a

alopecia: har los of he scaip vertex [top or crown of the маб) in men and ius hair los or ring e the front and topo be scalp in women.
ROGAINE is a topical orm af 211222

How effective Is ROGAINE?

er: Canal Sues wan ROGAINE c over 2300 nen win al patem rss moi Ep (en oh ea vee conce by physicians n
US mec отеп. Based on ple evans ego ath end el mont. 46% le ple ue ROCANE а! rofa бева
Tg compar ми 11% wo sa рал тате (po ache reported by 41% of those esing ROGAINE and 60% ol
бара a Dj he er fal eka euh cacas TOCAN ed Fl pews era be

in wann: Cicclstde wih ROLANE wer conc ty scis m 17 US eda caters пине 28 women wih их: Based on alert
evaluation et regrowth afler 32 wesks ( ments), 19% ofthe women using ROGAINE hac al ках moderale regrowth compared wih 7% of those using a.

ico Neueste af Ue gro using ROGAINE and cle group tang placebo.
How soon cen lexpectrooult fomus ROGAINE? занде отека 2 m.
Sides show Ба the response ne Io GANE ^on person o arlher Sone people using САМЕ may see sus faster
ates abs yep in хагас ar gr Yuta el pr rie ard nt

How long do nosdto use ROGAINE?

FOGAI aas eden eta cue N yau ar new hair gravi you идем using ROGAINE o beep or as hair regrowth, you
Sotelo ow ew tar ph win CANE e arena roll uel ast mol ум боло naa үл aiu arg

What happens H I stop using ROGAINE? Will I keep the new hair?

Probably nol. People have reported that new hair growth vas shed alter hey stopped using ROGAINE.

Vase aot CEM mer ayo your can dry scalp once in he morning and once al night before bedtime. Wash your hands afier
a ai clan dry scalp once in ће morning and once 7

stil you Горе are used o; ROGAE mus ama onthe scaip to a least hous to ensue peel on he a. Do not was pur

VN eoe ii o ruso leer

o the Instuetions or Use in be package.

‘What it! mias a dose or forget to use ROGAINE?
Donat ty tome up tor missed applications of ROGAINE. You should restart your twice-taily doses ant return lo our usual schedule.

What are the most common side effects reported In clinical studies with ROGAINE?
ding and her skinirritations of he нэн scaip area were he mos! common side ettecs direct led e ROGAINE in clinical stades About o eery

ROGAINE (7%) had these
100 people who esed! ) had these complaints xu o Ey ciego

‘her sde effects, пип! ss, cranes, and headaches, wer
soon with no mino. You You Gre to йада эйе ehe
oar ei ses oralen moon. open oh oer eu se ROGAN.
opal Sn cote do, whch tau Cu Qn ia e es sts Багаас 1 AOGAE acera arte
Means iren bruit ер mn cod pit contact your сви be ro doesnot o aay H py apes ed, ad
фар
What are some of the side effects people have reported?
POSARE атг OT patens р ks np ойтой cinica ras Eco Sey
‘actin or actions grouped by bo systems appeared to be more como in he асаав paint
Dermatologie: tar aro опа бепан. 730, риу: Dons v rein el
mt бае, паха, vg 1329: bled cares шт
dar dam, c!

42% Musculoskeletal; actus, back

ie Erie Tes, alerge rini ЕТ pug 23 iii a es ve n
TT
endocrine: Cas Parthi эл) буйл, fatigue—

ONERE eae RES UR an er Ls ben бар nec зон rot wren
adis es fave been repre ct maio ROCANE an cu сета Үүргийн (pce hat ov) ed whens, ete)
eu Ra ave ыш sm DM ed ens, arudy (Canty) inoease in hair

What are the possible sida otfocis that could восі tho heart and circulation when using ROGAINE?
‘Secoussideetet have not been inkad FOGANE п ска sudes However i possible hat hey could occur il more han the recommended dos ot
mei ee mas,
тов elects are seen with higher doses.
very smallamoutsolrinooói ach the lod when the recomended dese 0 ROGAINE is applied tothe scalp, you should now abou certain
EL cau when he abel farm d поси ts used to trat High Blood pressure. Mini alts owe bled pressure by relaxing the rieles.
Бэ пи STETS ыккан ыо саму кансе на
1
Increased heart raie: ee EE
‘land vates retention: wept an mare ban ode asari er f tize orowe o e fa, hands, ankes, remar
Problems breathing: ient sesta y d amo te
Worsening or new attack of angina peor: trit, sudden ches
ema FOCARE u ram siin, ver te mrami s absorbed. Ya probaly нд па hae Boss ets usd by acidi allele
experience any 8 the possible ie ees stet above, Sop ANE ant consult you! босох Any such
‘et Gol be masi Key ROLE aede ee waned sin arn деде Dar recomended anu
In animal tus, minori in much large amounts han would be tsored fromm орка use (on skin} in people. has cuse important heart siruclure
саар MA батар os лб uma en mot es т 101800 ул aec ccs

‘What factors may increase the risk of serious side ettects with ROGAINE?
eon ih rr sede bar confi га бо lor hear alre vadis paie dar а a son we to
“аар e runt ом вон e posati ists c MMOL Pe ої ‘Choose lo use НОСАНЕ-

¡rd es иик aig s Lr ROGAINE споре pae thebudy may as od aspen, why mae
oce bv sees ух ои ost HOA юх сри ам лийн a you should nolis itil you ат vsng her skin
treatments on yout

Кол eet a ps eg De lag M t re, anos ОВЕ t ront ey ty е
н ал И ken
бел: iy oo pesuemedcrecld read сатана =

any precautions be followed?

Fetes ЯН hold se ir clor 1 motte и ROGAINE andat as eve rots herr ор using ROGAINE it ау ol he
foe casa a wore pes хн УШ tr ан,

По ni use ROGAINE il you are using other duos appied Зүй ttes genas, palum or at ht nig cast
ra ЖОЕ шене риу tcn sa mcd, an cba np edd cs

menstnal period Diconinue using ROGAINE an consultyour doctor s oon a possible if your menstrual period es rot occur at the expected line.

Can ROGAINE bo used by children?
Ho, thesaley and efsceness c has по teen tested in people under age 18.
‘anton: deo pos Cepero witout a prescription Ya must seca rir to receive pesci.

© 1992 The Upjohn Company
| Upjohn | DERMATOLOGY Kalamazoo, MI 49001, USA
DIVISION CB--S

when she wz
system.
PLAYBOY: What is your reaction to the
Mike Tyson rape case?

RICE: Again, you have to extend the pro-
tection of the law even to a girl who's stu-
pid enough to go to Mike Tyson's bed-
room at two o'clock in the morning. She
has the full protection of the law. She
may be an idiot, and she may be doing
something that none of us would have
done when we were her age—we w
have had more brains! If Mike Ty:
had said, “Come up to my hotel room”
to me, I would have said no.

PLAYBOY: Do you think you would have
known what to expect?

RICE: From what I could tell, what hap-
pened in that case was that she did
expect something to happen, but she
expected it to be romantic and she ex-
pected it to be nice. And what she got
was unpleasant and nasty. And she was
entitled to the protection of the law
against that. You cannot invite someone
to your house for a party and then beat
them up and say, “Well, you accepted my
invitation, and that was the nature of the
party: It was a beating-up party.” That's
what I suspect happened, but I really
don't know. I think she was prepared for
sex and consummation, but wasn't pre-
pared to be mauled ог bullied or hurt. 1
think she felt outraged afterward, and
she had the courage to say that shouldn't
happen to someone. That is really what
rape is.

PLAYBOY: Are we always stuck with the
he-said-she-said problem?

RICE: I think we have to fight each one
out. We have to guarantee women this
protection. You cannot tell women that
the price of equality is that they might.
get raped. I think that as a culture we're
desensitized to how awful rape is. We see
it played with so much, and we see it on
television in so many forms all the time,
thar it is hard for us to imagine what an
outrage it is when someone has to force
himself on a person that way. I think the
movie that brought it home to me most
honestly was Thelma & Louise. 1 would
have shot the guy immediately. If he had
done that to шу friend, I would have
blown his head off. That was so ошга-
geous a violation of that woman's privacy
and dignity that I didn't see why Louise
waited. 1 praise that movie because 1
think it showed how awful rape is. And
it’s hard to show it without its being sexy
because it is sexy. And rape fantasies are
part of our brain. They're part of our
genetic heritage, and that's not going to.
go away if you ban pornography. 105 an
archetypal fantasy.

PLAYBOY: What about the argument that
sexual images in movies and TV affect
public consciousness?

Rice: When you're talking about the
content of programs, I'm leery of any-
body trying to turn the media into

taken that far by (ће legal

propaganda. 1 feel that we need a cre-
ative jungle out there, that we have to
put up with some people who use the
First Amendment and use free speech in
a way we find repulsive. And it's worth it
for the price of free speech. Also, I feel
that there are certain people whose
function is to outrage us. Madonna, to
me, is wonderful. She would be the one
person to whom 1 would sell video or
film rights to the Beauty books. ОР
course, she has not knocked on my door
asking for them, but I would not consid-
er anyone else. 1 think what she's done
so courageous, the way
she's played with those fantasies and
those images. The idea that somebody
tried to censor her or keep one of those
things off MTV is outrageous. We ought
to know that those people are going to
stretch the limits and are going to say
outrageous things.
PLAYBOY: How do you feel about the ex-
treme case of child pornography?
RICE: I think the crime there is the mak-
ing of the pornography, the using of a
child to commit a crime. And if what
you're watching is a record of the crime,
an act that's involved with the commis-
sion of that crime, I can scc laws against
ild has certain protections until
eighteen. But you prosecute
people for exploiting children. You
don't prosecute on the content. of the
film. I am really pro-freedom. Freedom
means that somebody is going to abuse it
or use it in a way you don't like. It's not
freedom if they don't do that.
PLAYBOY: Do you think pornography has
any effect?
RICE: It's almost a superstitious reaction
to think that people are going to act out
pornography. We know, for example,
that thousands of people read Agatha
Christie mysteries. They don't try to be-
come Miss Marple. They read Mickey
Spillane and they don't shoot one anoth-
er. The readers of Louis LAmour do not
carry six-guns and tobacco pouches еу-
erywhere they go. So to think that for
some reason the readers of erotic fiction
are going to be different, that they're go-
ing to jump right up and act out every-
thing in the book, is absurd. It doesn't
work that way. They're taking a mental
trip with that book, just like the readers
of Agatha Christie. And good pornogra-
phy does what good mystery fiction does
or good Western fiction or good science
fiction: It takes you to another place. It
allows you to enjoy that place for a little
while, and then you come back. I
really good. you know something you
didn't know before you went.
PLAYBOY: On what kind of mental trip
are you taking the readers of The Vampire
Chronicles?
RICE: What interests me about vampires.
are their mythic qué They're char-
acters in our literature, and theyre
great. But I have never met anyone who

was a real vampire. I do believe in a lot
of the rest of the occult. I think that
there probably are ghosts. There's an
abundant amount of proof that there are
some sorts of apparitions and spirits and
gs like that. But a vampire, I think, is
strictly a mythic character, almost out of
ancient religion. It’s like writing about
angels or devils. There's a great deal of
meaning there. Whether you believe
people have ever really seen an angel or
а devil isn't the point. What 1 have done
is to take a B-movie image and say that it
is as significant as a magical char:
acter in the Renaissance and treat i
that way. Because the book is a special
world—with language, thoughts, ideas,
concepts and characters you are drawn
into—you forgive the fact that it's basi-
cally absurd.

PLAYBOY: Speaking of the B-movie im-
age, will we ever see The Vampire Chroni-
cles on the screen?

RICE: Interview was sold to Paramount in
1976. Richard Sylbert, who was the head
of the studio at the time, really wanted to
make it. Before the contract was even

"It's almost superstitious to
think that people are going
to act out pornography.
Thousands of people read
Agatha Christie and don't
try to become Miss Marple.”

signed, he lefi Paramount. Michael Eis-
ner and Barry Diller came in. Then
John Travolta came in and made some
sort of deal with Paramount. His man-
agers were interested in his doing Inter-
view with the Vampire. They took it as part
of a package with Paramount, and they
took control of that property for a long
time. The truth was, Travolta didn't
want to do it, so it never got made. Years
passed, and more and more was charged
to the picture—scripts and so forth—un-
til finally, I think, it had a debt against it
of six or seven hundred thousand dol-
lars. They dumped it on the television
division about 1984. A television produc-
er then began to develop a script foi
In the meantime, Га written The Vampire
Lestal. Because of the sequel rights in my
original contract, 1 had the right to sell
the movie rights to Lestat if Para-
mount didn't want them. They didn't. So
other people became very interested
in developing The Vampire Lestat. Julia
Phillips, he producer, was particularly
interested.

[hus you came to play a role in

her book, You'll Never Eat Lunch in This
"Town Again.

RICE: Isn't that wild? Julia and I are very
different. I wish she had not hurt so
many people's feelings. But I do think
she's a talented writer. Anyway, she did
come into my life being interested in The
Vampire Lestat because she couldn't get
Interview away from Paramount She
pitched it to the studios and really start-
ed it off on a life of its own. Meanwhile,
Interview reverted back to me. Julia and 1
tried to get the properties united with
one company. For a while, Julia had a
brilliant idea to develop The Vampire Le-
stat as a movie while she did Interview on
Broadway as an opera or a musical. At
that point she began to talk to David
Geffen about it. David was kind enough
to give me a shot at writing the script,
and I submitted a revised version to him.
But who knows? Right now, Interview is
still in development.

PLAYBOY: So The Witching Hour will prob-
ably be the first of your books to make it
to the screen?

RICE: It’s supposed to start shooting
soon. But The Witching Hour is easy com-
pared to The Vampire Chronicles, It’s most-
ly humans.

PLAYBOY: And they're going to shoot it in
New Orleans?

Rice: They have told the mayor's office
that they want to shoot some of the
movie in New Orleans. It's exciting. It's
never been this close before, it's always
been just at the script stage.

PLAYBOY: Do you like dealing with
Hollywood?

RICE: [ went there a lot at Julia Phillips"
bchest. Julia dragged me down there
enough times that I lost my fear of those
people. I sat at so many dinners at Mor-
ton's with Julia, meeting Adrian Lyne
and Mel Gibson and blah-blah-blah that
she really defused that world for me. I
realized that these were, in fact, often
limited people who had jobs only for
short periods of tim.
PLAYBOY: What insight did you gain
about how to deal with Hollywood?
RICE: My primary insight is don't eat
lunch in that town, except with David
Geffen. He can make your project a real-
ity. Just den't eat your heart out for
somebody who comes back and whines,
“I couldn't get them to read it.”
PLAYBOY: In your life as a novelist ——
RICE: My теа life!

PLAYBOY: You've written a breakthrough
book. In The Таје of the Body Thief, the.
vampire Lestat finally has the opportu-
nity to be human again.

RICE: A good opportunity. A good shot
atit.

PLAYBOY: But ће chooscs to remain a
vampire.

RICE: I always thought that's exactly what
would happen, but I was ready to let the
book go in whichever direction it wanted
to go. | felt he had to confront the fact

59

PLAYBOY

that ће гсайу loved being what he was.
The fourth volume in The Vampire Chron-
icles is really about the ruthlessness, the
in us all. You and 1 are sitting here,
and we know right now people are dying
horribly in Iraq or in Ethiopia. But we
choose to sit here. We've made that
choice. We're not going to spend our
lives trying to save one village in Indi
That's what that book is about. Lestat
chooses to remain a powerful, immortal
being. And I think most people would
make that choice.

PLAYBOY: The minute Lestat gets out of
his vampire self and into a human body
in The Tale of the Body Thief, he has ex-
clusively heterosexual encounters—and
unhappy ones at that. Some readers
identify vampires with gay sexuality.
Isn't this going to fuel that stereotype?
Rice: Well, probably. I really sce the vam-
pires as transcending gender. If you
make them absolutely straight or gay,
you limit the material. They can be ei-
ther one. They have a polymorphous
sexuality. They see everything as beau-
üful. To them, it no longer matters
whether the victim is a woman or a man.
And 1 do see Lestat as a real 18th centu-
ту bisexual. Either the village girls or
the village boys, depending on who's
around. It was really а middle-class idea
that came in with the revolution that ho-
mosexuality was a perversion.

PLAYBOY: How do women readers react
to The Vampire Chronicles’ androgyny?
RICE: I would say that there is certainly a
kind of woman who finds two men to-
gether very attractive, and I have a lot of
those readers. But, by and large, most of
the women Гуе known are afraid of ho-
moscxual men. We have deep-rooted
fears when we see people of the same sex
kissing and embracing, no mauer how
sophisticated we are. There can be a ge-
netic rush of fear. The species is threat-
ened. I have to remind myself of what
that's about, because I don't feel it. I've
always rather romanticized gay people
as outsiders bravely fighting for sexual
freedom and being willing to take the
slings and arrows from the middle class.
Certainly Lestat is an outsider, an im-
mortal who is offered the choice and
chooses to remain a vampire.

PLAYBOY: Critics have pointed out that
The Body Thief is a real departure from
the other Vampire books.

RICE: 10 me, The Body Thief was the first
modern Chronicle in that the exploration
was inner, psychological. All the other
Chronicles were really devoted to going
back and finding the answers in the
past—reading history, finding secrets,
crashing into sanctums and discovering
truths, and encountering over and over
again the statement: “History doesn’t re-
ally help.” You always wind up back
where you started, I like it very much,
going in this other way, the psychological

во way. If I hadn't been pleased with this

book, I would have thrown it away
PLAYBOY: Have you thrown away books
before?

RICE: Just before taking up The Body
Thief, 1 wanted to do this book, In the
Frankenstein Tradition, about an artificial
man. For some reason, that has just not
come together. I don't know why. I went
back and read Mary Shelley's Franken-
stein, and I was terribly excited about it.
What an incredible book, What a brain
she had at nineteen! I just loved it. I re-
ally wanted to do something with those
concepts, and 1 began to see that 1
couldn't do what I wanted to do.
PLAYBOY: Like Mary Shelley, you've ab-
sorbed a lot of things that are out
there—ideas, things that people are
thinking about and feeling. They're not
necessarily expressed in a direct way, but
they're addressed by your characters
and their concerns.

RICE: 1 always felt that any book that's go-
ing to be really good is about everything
you know or everything that's on your
mind. At least for me that’s the way it al-
ways works. In the beginning, when I
first started having books published, one
of the distressing things was to watch
critics view them as orical novels and
not sec that they had to do with the pres-
ent moment. But American fiction is so
influenced. by the idea that to be pro-
found a book has to be about the middle
class and about some specific domestic
problem of the middle class, that it’s
hard to make your own path. You're re-
ally working against that. Unless you're a
South American surrealist, you have a
hard time.

PLAYBOY: Why do you write serious
books about such strange stuff?

RICE: 1 came ol age in the Sixties in Cali-
fornia, and the prejudice was that a real-
ly profound book dealt with one's own
recent experience hitchhiking in Big
Sur. Somebody writing books like 1
wrote was writing trash, basically, ac-
cording to the conventional wisdom. 1
sort of had to fight against that because I
didn't know any other way to write. I re-
cently have been reading books about
what art was like before the Reforma-
tion. And what became very clear to me
was that the novel today— John Updike,
Anne Tyler, Alice Adams—is really the
triumph of Protestantism. It’s a Protes-
tant novel. It's about real people. People
who work, usually, and who have small
roblems. It's about their interior
changes and their moments of illumina-
tion. And that is the essence of what
Protestantism came to be in America.
Out with the stained-glass windows, out
with the saints, out with the chants and
the Latin and the incense. Out with
Faust and the Devil. It's you, your Bible
and God. Thosc novels are personal.
They affirm the Protestant vision that
everything is sort of an interior decision
to make—as you make a good living and

as you fit into the community in which
you live.

PLAYBOY; Were you aware of feeling sep-
arate from the cultural mainstream early
in your career?

Rice: Having grown up in New Or-
leans—the only Catholic city in Ameri-
ca—amid all this decadence, I grew up
with a completely different feeling. I was
nourished on those stories of the saint

and miracles and so forth. I really
thought it was fine to write a book in
which everybody was a vampire and they
all talked about good and evil. The in-
dustrial revolution and Protestantism
came together in America in a it
didn't in any other country in the world,
with such force and power. To see our lit-
erature finally dominated by things that
used to be Saturday Evening Post short
stories is really the final triumph of the
Protestant vision in art. It's basically a vi-
sion that says if it's about God and the
Devil, it has to be junk. It's science
fiction; it's dismissible.

PLAYBOY; Do you mean all fantasy is
Catholic?

RICE: If you think back to before Martin
Luther about what literature was, the

couraged you to use your imagination.
You'd sit there and close your eyes and
think about what Christ felt like as they
drove the nails through his hands. See, 1
grew up on that. We did those exercises.
That was an approach to imagination

that м rely natural to me, All diat
сате to an end h Protestantism.
Protestantism put its faith in the less
magical, more practical, more down-to-
earth апд— this country, ultimately—
the more sterile. But 1 see that now. 1
love living here, and this really is
Catholic city in the sense that it doesn't
fix its potholes.

PLAYBOY: Are potholes Catholic, too?
Rice: They're Catholic because people
really don’t care that much about
progress or cleaning up. Think about it
Go to Venice or go to Mexico. Think
of the countries that are Catholic. Think
of the people who came to America
who have been gangsters. They've al-
most all been Catholics—Italians, Irish.
You dont hear a lot about Ger-
man gangsters or Swiss gangsters or
Dutch gangsters—except for Dutch
Schultz, Catholics still live in a world
that’s filled with dash and flair and
color and drama and terrible injustice.
There's a sort of acceptance of things.
This city moves at its own pace. People
here are natural storytellers. They really
are spiritual, in a Catholic sense. They
really do care more about a good cup of
coffee than mowing the grass. In a city
like Dallas it's much more important to
mow your grass. The cup of coffee comes
next. In San Francisco it's more impor-
tant х go to work, get a job, sweep the
pavement And that’s wonderful Lm
glad we live in a Protestant country. I'm

talking about this strictly in terms of cul-
tural movements.

PLAYBOY: Do people in New Orleans
have a different vision of reality?

RICE: 1 have met countless people in New
Orleans who have told me their person-
al experiences of seeing ghosts. I never
met these people in California. Not in
thirty years have 1 ever met anyone in
New York or California who claimed to
have seen a ghost. And since I've been
here, people look me right in the eye
and describe the ghosts clothes and
what it did as it came up the stairs. They
tell me absolutely I should come to thei
house and see this ghost, that it really is
there. I'm azed!

PLAYBOY: When did you break away from
the church?

RICE: 1 didn't know anything about the
modern world when I lived in New Or-
leans. I never read а line of Hemingway
until I was twenty. I didn't even know
such people existed. 1 grew up in such а
closed, Catholic environment that when
I moved to Texas and went to college
and discovered things like existential-
ism, it was like emerging into the mod-
ern world. I thought, I have to know
what's out there. I have to read Walter
Kaufmann's books on existentialism. 1
have to see who Jean Paul Sartre is. But
I wasn't supposed to read all this. It was
a mortal sin if 1 read it. That's when I
broke with the church. It was astonish-
ing. Гап thinking about this a lor late
guess now that Гуе come home, thirty | Whats your ine ot work? Wie us and tel us арал it

years later, I see а lot of it in perspective , "ED
1 didn't before, 1 was sort of batting ПЕ THERE'S ONE THING Jack Daniel's
these voices and demons and different

Tcu vr
things, tying to figure out things. Why | doesn't mix wich, it’s fire.

did everything work for me when 1 in- : BR:

troduced a character who is a vampire? | We'd never want a blaze to get going in one of
Why did 1 suddenly start to be able to 5 ў f "ug
эээ Ee ГУНЕ I felt when, foe our aging houses. (Wich all that whiskey inside,
eis Bea, Ihe aparte teo ам || > е |
dorre know, but I see i now, ана T do | ¡Ud go up like a Tennessee Fourth of July!) T hat's
think it’s this battle of the Protestant and

the Catholic. why these whiskeymen do double
PLAYBOY: Where would a writer such as duty as members of our Volunteer

Stephen King fit into your cultural divi-

sion of Catholic and Protestant vision? | Fire Department. We don't know
Rice: I read ай of Stephen Kings early Р .

books. I have not caught up with his out | {| mee al у
КЕ ХЕТТ la clowsreaden! Buel if every distillery is this prepared to

think Stephen King isa very fine writen | keep their product from going up
and I learned a lot from Salem's Lot and | „ .

from Расман He's те master of talk- | in smoke. But after a sip of Jack
ing about ordinary people in ordinary

RH ^ o
situations and then confronting them | Daniel's, we believe, you'll agree

with the supernatural or the horrible.

re Веи о semet] | XS protection 15 worth any cost.
horror and putitin that context. He did

a kind of genius thing. He created a pro- SMOOTH SIPPIN”
letarian horror genre. He departed

meniaga E E NN ESSEE WISE

houses and doomed aristocrats, and he
created this wonderful world of horror Tennessee Whiskey • 40-43% alcohol by volume (80-86 proof) « Distilled and Bottled by
in middle-class America. Ivs brilliant! Jack Daniel Distillery, Lem Motlow, Proprietor, Route 1, Lynchburg (Pop 361), Tennessee 37352

PLAYBOY: We've never heard anyone Placedinthe National Registerof Historic Placesbythe United States Government.

РЬАҮВОҮ

52

describe Stephen King quite that way.
RICE: Пе is absolutely a brilliant, Protes-
tant, middle-class American writer. He's
really great at that. But there was one
point when 1 was reading the reissue of
The Stand—l was into it and I loved the
ing—and I thought, No one has sur-
vived this flu who is really an interesting
person. Theyre all these wonderful
Stephen King people, but I would really
like some truly heroic person. Heroism
to me is real. People can be heroic. And
what interests me in fiction is creating
those exceptional people—Lestat, Ram-
ses— people, as Гуе said, who are bigger
than the book. King doesn't do that.
PLAYBOY: In Stephen King's books and
in your own books there is a lot of vio-
lence. How do you
feel about that?

RICE: I love it. It's ob-
vious, isn't it?
PLAYBOY: Many peo-
ple would find your
reaction troubling.
RICE: 1 don't think we
can have great art in
our society without
violence. Everything
is how you do it: the
context. Prime-time
TV really hurts kids
because again and
again it presents

For the first time ever, our entire line of

Americans out there who really never
watch anything with violence in it. But
sk them if they ve watched Gone with ће
Wind. Everything depends on context.
To me, the context has to be really
strong. The moral tone of a work is im-
portant, the depth of the psychology is
important, the lessons, the feeling аћег-
ward of moral exhilaration as well as of
having been entertained. All that is very
important about a work of art. But 1
would be lying if 1 said I didn't enjoy vi-
olence in a strong context, because the
best of our art contains violence. Me

Dick is violent, don't you think? If we
cleanse all the violence out of our work,
we will really have the Saturday Evening.
Post short story triumphant. That will be

When you

boy both!

Take 20% Off!

...when you buy two or more Escort detectors:

sponsored by the police were really а
trip. ГИ never forget how sensuous the
Oakland Auditorium was. The auditori-
um is vast, much larger than the crowd.
We would get in that audience sur-
rounding the ring, down in the middle
of the auditorium. Those two beautiful
spotlights would hit it, and out would
come these gorgeous bodies and they
would start hitting each other. 1 thought
it was terrific. I really developed a love
for boxing then that I've never lost.
PLAYBOY: Didn't Salas get you to put on
the gloves once?

RICE: Floyd was always helping the box-
ing team at Cal. and one time I got in the
ring with him. I found it a bit too rough.
1 mean, one blow to the head, even with
that mask, is enough.
It wasa bit too rough,
but it was fun. I don't
have—well, I do have
а killer instinct, 1
guess. No, I really
don't. | think that
it was great fun to
pretend, unül some-
body—me—got hurt
for a second

PLAYBOY: Fighters get
hurt all the time.
RICE: I remember one
awful moment at the
Golden Gloves. The
place was packed and

1 was just coming

tic people
one another. It's hor-
rible, Crimes com-
mitted by sneering,
tough-job, nasty,
snarling criminals.
We don't know where
they came from or
why they're the way
they are. Prime time
presents them in all
these cop shows as
the reality of the
streets. J think that's
been terrible for o
morale. But I think

Passport radar and laser detectors is on sale. You
can "mix or match" them for savings of nearly
$80. If you've been waiting for the perfect
moment to buy a radar or laser detector, this is it.

A perfect combination is Passport 3100
WideBand and Passport 1000 Laser. A total
detection package, they'll protect you from every
type of radar and laser used today. And you'll pay
less for both detectors than others charge for a
wide-band delector alone! You can't go wrong
with this combo.

All detectors are backed with a 30-day money
back guarantee and one-year limited warranty.

"The 20% discoun applies only to new purchase of two
дався on the same order. Retum of either detector wil тай
inthelossof the 20% discern. Ofer ends March 31, 1993.

Call toll free 24 hours, 7 days a weeks

-800-433-3487

Fax: 1513:247:4820 Service: 1-800-543-1608

Buy both detectors for only $223
phus shipping & handling. Ohio res. add 6% eax,

Overnight Shipping Available

> Department 500733
5200 Fields-Ertel Road
Cincinnati, Ohio 45249

ESCORT.

back into the audito-
rium with a hot dog
or something. Two
guys were in the ring,
one of whom was a
medical student. Just
as Lentered the audi-
torium, the medical
student had been al-
most knocked out,
and he had dropped
to his knees. He was
clearly dazed—he
didn't know what he
was doing. At that
moment, the whole

when you take а
movie like Scarface,
wriuen by Oliver Stone and directed by
Brian De Palma, you have a symphony
of violence that's a real masterpiece. 1t
has a beginning, ап end, а middle and а
moral: the rise and fall of Tony Montana,
the cocaine dealer. I love that movie and
I watch it over and over again. 1 wanted
to dedicate The Воду Thief to Tony Mon-
tana, but I didn't have the guts. And, by
the way, I once had an opportunity to
meet Oliver Stone, and I said just what I
said to you, that I love violence, and ће
said, “So do L" We laughed. I think ће
was being honest.

PLAYBOY: Arc thc people who oppose vi-
olence less than honest?

RICE: We Americans are such hypocrites
about violence. Maybe there are a few

our art. We've gone through phases
where we've nearly done that, and it's
pretty dismal stuff.

But 1 do love violence, 1 absolutely
love it. I loved The Godfather. 1 remem-
ber people coming home and saying it
was too violent, the horse's head, oh my
God, I thought it was great. I thought it
was a masterful use of violence. That's
my field and 1 love it.

PLAYBOY: You're also a big boxing fan,
aren't you?

RICE: Yeah. We had a writer friend, Floyd.
Salas, who introduced Stan and me to
boxing. We got into it and would go with
him to the Golden Gloves in San Francis-
со every year. but the amateur matches
in Oakland and Richmond with kids

The Innovative Edge"

crowd stood and ђе-
gan to roar. There
was something horrible about that mo-
ment of seeing that kid. There he was,
obviously badly hurt, and that whole
crowd was roaring because this is exactly
what they had come to see. 1 realized
that we were screaming as much to see
these guys go down as to go up. I hadn't.
quite thought about it that way. 1 had
thought of it as screaming more for the
guy who scored a punch, for his triumph.
over something. Yet here's this med stu
dent who really should be protecting hi
brain, and he's on his knees, dazed, in
front of all these people who are scream-
ing as if they were in a Roman arena.
PLAYBOY: Now that you have moved back
to New Orleans, do you see yourself
more as a Southern writer?

RICE: I was always a Southern writer, It
was good to come home and acknowl-
edge that. Books that I have cherished
and loved are books like Faulkner's The
Sound and the Fury. Reading over and
over again the language in that book and
loving it. Eudora Welty's short stories, 1
just pick them up and read words. 1
don't even have to know what the plot of
the story is—if she happens to have one.
Sometimes she doesn't. She has a great
story about two people who meetin New
Orleans and drive south along the river,
down the road. I believe that's all шаг
happens in the story. They drive and be-
come almost narcotized by the land-
scape. Then they go back to New Or-
leans and they part. I love that story. 1
feel like my writing has always been very
much influenced by these lush Southern
writers.

PLAYBOY: There is something about a lot
of your material—dealing with the su-
pernatural and time travel—that’s fun-
damentally anti-intellectual. But you'r
an intellectual. Isn't that a contradiction?
RICE: Well, it's that. Protestant-Catholic
thing again. I'm a serious intellectual,
and 1 certainly was a serious spiritual
person who wanted to be a great writer,
I had Carson McCullers and Heming-
way and Dickens and Stendahl stacked
on my desk, but I couldn't find my way
in contemporary literature until I hit the

supernatural and its advantages. And
then I took everything 1 had to give and
put it in there. That's always been the
contradiction of my work.

PLAYBOY: What did you read as a child?
RICE: The Lives of the Saints, that's what 1
read as a kid. Soap operas, yes, they
made a big difference. And radio made a
big difference. I’m increasingly realizing
how much radio was an influence Lux
Radio Theater, Suspense, Lamont Стап-
ston. I had forgotten. But playing tapes
of old radio shows, I'm really beginning
to realize how much my work sounds
like a radio show. It really does, to а large
extent.

PLAYBOY: How did you come up with the
idea of doing Interview with the Vampire?
RICE: It was haphazard. I was sitting at
the typewriter and I thought, What
would it be like to interview a vampire?
And 1 started writing. 1 was very much
a think-at-the-typewriter writer then,
more so than now. I would start with a
blank page and have no idea what I was
going to do that night, except that I was
going to write for several hours. And 1

just started the idea of this boy having a

vampire in the room, and the vampire
wanting to tell the truth about what it
was all about. The vampire explained all
about drinking blood and absorbing the
life of the victim, that it was sort of a
sacramental thing. He talked about be-
ing immortal and so forth and so on. 1

took that story out several times over the
years and rewrote it. It was at one of
those points when 1 was rewriting it, to
include in some short stories that I
hoped to enter into a contest at lowa,
that it took off and became the noyel.
And, of course, I had encouragement
from friends. Friends had said, “I think
you really have something with that sto-
ту; that story is so unusual.” I really be-
gan to let it go, and something like five
weeks later, the novel was finished. 1 had
forgotten the contest. 1 never finished
the short stories. They all went back in
the drawer.

PLAYBOY: You really wrote most of that
novel in five weeks?

Rice: Yes, but that was the period when
my daughter bad just died, and I wasn’t
doing anything except drinking and
writing—often ай night long.

PLAYBOY: That must have been a terrible
time.

RICE: I was just a drunk, hysterical per-
son with no job, no identity, no nothing.
There was а two-year period after her
death when 1 just drank a lot and wrote
a lot, like crazy. Then I sort of came out
of it and wrote Interview with the Vampire.
My husband had told me, “I really be-
lieve in your writing.” He was working at
San Francisco State. He wasn’t chairman
yet, but he was a creative writing profes-
sor with tenure there. He was the bread-
winner. I went out and got a job for a

a=

EVERYTHING YOU WERE PROMISED IN YOUR FIRST CORDLESS PHON

Introducing the Tropez 900DX, the world’s first digital cordless phone. Thanks to its 900MHz
frequency, its got several times the range of ordinary cordless phones. Thanks to its digital voice
transmission, your conversations are noise free - even to the edge of range. And, thanks to its digital
signal scrambling, you can be sure no one will ever eavesdrop on your conversations. So, get what
you expect in а cordless phone - long range, clarity and privacy. Get the Tropez 900DX.

For more information and the name of a store near you call 800-624-5688

-—-—

VTECH Communications

63

PLAYBOY

64

while and was miserable. He said, “Quit
the job. I believe in you and I believe in
your writing. We have my pay, so just
write.” I've always felt that that was one
of the greatest things he ever did for me,
other than being his wonderful self.
PLAYBOY: Do you think that in some ways
the shock of your daughter's death
shaped your literary vision?

rice; No doubt about it. It had a devas-
tating effect. There's a period after a
death like that when you don't think the
lights will ever go back on. 1 mean, you
don't like doing anything—vacuuming
the floor or cooking a meal or walking
out of the house. I remember even in the
immediate weeks after her death it was
hard for me to swallow food. 1 felt a
disgust for everything phy

even though I don't believe she's in that
body, I couldn't get it off my mind. That
went on for a long time, as a matter of.
fact. Particularly late at night. Until very
recently, Pve had thoughts about the
fear of death and thoughts of her. In
fact, only on the return to New Orleans
would 1 say I let go of that. I felt that 1
could perhaps have her in another way.
It doesn't have to be such a painful thing
every night. I think we cling to these
things because we don't want to lose the
person. It's a form of fidelity to keep
grieving like that.

PLAYBOY: Was the writing of Interview with
the Vampire a conscious effort to subli-
mate your grief?

RICE: An interesting thing to me about
Interview, in retrospect, is that 1 never re
ally connected her with it. I remember
the night I told Stan the whole story of
Interview. We went over to the Cheshire
Cat in Berkeley and we were having
some beer. 1 had been writing the book
and I said there was this little girl vam-
pire in it and she's four years old, and
Stan said, “Oh, no, no, no, not a four-
year-old vampire. You can't have a vam-
pire that young.” I said, “All right, all
right, a six-year-old vampire!" But nei-
ther of us said, "Michele?" If I had done
that I would have been blocked. The
character, Claudia, was a little fiend.
When I look back on it I think, How in
the world could [ have been so de-
tached? But 1 really didn't think of that
as being about my life. I just thought,
I'm writing this thing, and for some rea-
son when I work with these comic-book
vampire characters, these fantasy char-
acters, I can see reality. I can touch re
ity. This is a context. My books before
that had been uncasy mixtures of con-
temporary California and the French
Quarter and Garden District in New Or-
leans. People thought I was making up
all this stuff about the South. They
thought I was getting it out of Dickens or
something, Miss Havisham and her big
house. So it never worked. But anyway,
that is what strikes me 0 strange, in

rewospect, that I didn't completely con-
nect it. It’s like I had a dream. The novel
was a dream of everything that had gone
on, but I didn't make the connection.
PLAYBOY: And it really was connected
with the deeper reali
Yeah, I think it's a novel all about
nd about loss of faith and about
Бале shattered—yet wanting to live, be-
ing sensual and wanting to live. And the
sensuality of drinking is certainly in
there. 1 don't like to talk about it because
1 think it's a trivial aspect of the book,
but ir's about alcoholism. It's about being
drunk. The whole experience of the
dark gift is like a drunken swoon. It's al-
most a drug experience. les like the
golden moment of drinking, when
everything makes sense. It was a lot of
talking about the craving for booze, the
need to drink. That wonderful feeling of
transcending and everything meaning
something when you are drunk, and yet
it was crumbling away.

PLAYBOY: You say that it came from your
own drinking experiences, but there are
people who connected it with drugs.

RICE: Marijuana. I had powerful experi-
ences on marijuana that were so intense
that I quit smoking. And I never
touched it again. But 1 had what other
people might refer to as psychedelic
experiences just smoking grass and
d I was describing that in
Interview. 1 was describing that entire
knowledge, you might say, of listening to
Bach when very stoned, so that the mu-
sic is just lapping and lapping. I had al
solutcly ghastly experiences of perc
ing that we were going to die and that
there was no explanation, that we might
die without ever knowing what this was
all about. And I never recovered. 1 de-
scribed it in The Vampire Lestat. He saw
death in the golden moment, and that
has exactly happened to me.

PLAYBOY: Is the issue of immortality what
The Vampire Chronicles are essentially
about?

RICE: The Chronicles are about how all of.
us feel about being outsiders. How we
feel that we're really outsiders in a world
where everybody else understands
something that we don't. It’s about our
horror of death. It's about how most of
us would probably take that blood and
be immortal, even if we had to kill. It's
about being trapped in the flesh when
you have a mind that can soar. It's the
human dilemma. What does Yeats say in
the poem? “Consume my heart away;
sick with desire/And fastened to a dying
animal." That's what I feel it’s really true
to. People are shaken by those things
PLAYBOY: For your fans, I understand
that there's a lighter side to the vampire
fantasy, 100.

RICE: Yeah. 1 have some readers who go
to the dentist and they get these little
fangs made that fit on their teeth. They
get them fitted by the dentist and made

the same color as the rest of their teeth.
In fact, I heard that 1 have a whole gang
of fans in Los Angeles who do that. They
put on their teeth and go out at night
and sit in cafés, show their fangs.
They've come to my door, the people
with the fangs. They come to the coven
party. They call me on the telephone.
Let me emphasize again: All of these
people know this is fiction. We're talking
about people in their thirties and forties.
This is fun to them. This is almost a hob-
by to be part of the fan club, to dress
like a vampire and to love vampire
movies. They're vampire groupies. It
represents the romance in their lives.
They're wonderful people. 1 have never
met a single one who's been a sinister Sa-
tan-worshiping person or anything li
that. They just exude goodwill and
cheerfulness and laughter. Lots of laugh-
ter. It's all fun. Even when they won't
step out of their vampire persona,
they're just pretending to be vampires
and they won't answer questions as any-
thing but a vampire, they're laughing.
It's all a gag.

PLAYBOY: You said people call. How do
they get your number?

RICE: It’s listed, with the address, in the
phone book.

PLAYBOY: You're sure you want to say
that in print?

RICE: Yes, that's fine. It is listed, Биг only
a certain type of person takes the trouble
to find your number and call you, so it
tends to be very similar people who call.
They're usually young, they're usually
college students and high school stu-
dents. They're enthusiastic about the
books and they're nice. They just want to.
talk for a minute. They just want to say
how they enjoyed the books, or they just
want to know if there's another one com-
ing out

PLAYBOY: What books can we expect after
The Body Thief?

Rice: I've completed a sequel to The
Witching Hour enutled Lasher, which
plunges again into the Mayfair family.
I've kind of resigned myself to the fact
that it'sa hybrid science-haunting novel,
because Lasher is here with us on this
side. I'm fascinated by genetics and sci-
ence and DNA and evolution, so I get in-
то questions of a mutation. And then I
want to get back to Lestat. Then there
are all kinds of other books I want to do.
Also, I still don't believe I've really done
a great haunting novel. That was my
goal with The Witching Hour, but it be-
came a witchcraft novel. I'd like to do
one really about just pure haunting, like
The Turn of the Screw. Just have ghosts. ГА
love to do that, and I'd love to go back to
Egypt. So I have all these stories in my
head. I just have to find enough time to
spend at the keyboard to write them.

WE HEAT UP WHEN THE SUN GOES DOWN.

9 WC Р
AE... 2

T |
wie can yore?

66

FEEDBACK

i charge one hundred thousand

dollars a day, with no guarantees
i help you express whotever

it is you need to express. it's risky

fiction
BY JOE HALDEMAN

“THIS GAME was easier before I was famous, or infamous,
and before the damned process was so efficient. When I
could still prctend it was my own art, or at lcast about
my art. Nowadays, once you're doped up and squeezed
into the skinsuit, it's hard to tell whose eye is measuring
the model. Whose hand is holding the brush.

TIl work in any painting or drawing medium the cus-
tomer wants, within reason. Through most of my career
people naturally chose my own specialty, transparent
watercolor, but since I became famous with the Man-
hattan Monster thing, a lot of them want me to trowel
on thick acrylics in primary colors. Boring. But they
take the painting home and hang it up and ask their
friends, Isn't that just as scary as shit? That's the stylistic
association with the Monster, usually, not the subject
matter. Most people's nightmares stay safely hidden
when they pick up a brush. Good thing, too. If the cus-
tomer is a nut case, the collaboration can be truly dis-
turbing—and perhaps revealing. A lot of us find em-
ployment in mental institutions. Some of us find
residence in them. Occupational hazard.

At least I make enough per assignment now, thanks to
the notoriety of the Monster case, so that I can take off
half the year to travel and paint for myself. This year, 1
was leaving the first of February to start off the vacation
sailing in the Caribbean. With one week to go, I could
already feel the sun, taste the rum. I'd sublet the apart-
ment and studio and alrcady had all my clothes and

ILLUSTRATION EY PHILIP CASTLE

РЬАҮВОҮ

gear packed into two small bags. Wa-
tercolors don't take up much space,
and you don't need a lot of clothes
where I was headed.

I was even tempted to forsake my
schedule and go to the islands early. It
would have cost extra and confused my
friends, who know me to be methodical
and punctual. But I should havc donc
it. God, I should have done it.

We had one of those fast, hard snows
that make Manhattan beautiful for a
whilc. I walked to and from lunch thc
long way, through Central Park, willing
to trade the slight extra danger for the
beauty. Besides, my walking stick sup-
posedly holds an electric charge strong
enough to stun a horse.

"The man waiting for me in the lobby
didn't look like trouble, though you
never know. Short, balding, old-fash-
ioned John Lennon-style spectacles.

He introduced himself while I fum-
bled with overcoat and boots. Juan
Carlos Segura, investment counselor.

“Have you ever painted before?" 1
asked him. "Drawn or sculpted or any-
thing?" Some of the most interesting
work I produce in collaboration comes
from the inexperienced, their unfamil-
iarity with the tools and techniques re-
sulting in happy accidents, spontaneity.

“No. My talents lic elsewhere.” I
think I was supposed to be able to tell
how wealthy he was by upper-class
lodge signals—the cut of his conserva-
tive blue pinstripe, the gold mechanical
watch—but my talents lie elsewhere. So
I asked him directly, “You understand
how expensive my services are?”

“Exactly. One hundred thousand
dollars a day.”

“And you know you must accept the
work as produced? No money-back
guarantee.”

“I understand.”

“We're in business, then." I buzzed
my assistant, Allison, to start tea while
we waited for the ancient elevator.

People who aren't impressed by my
studio, with its original Picasso, Monet,
Dali and "Turner, are often fascinated
by Allison. She is beautiful but very
large, 63" but perfectly proportioned,
as if some magic device had enlarged
her by 20 percent. Segura didn't notice
the paintings on the walls and didn't
blink at her, either. Maybe that should.
have told me something. He accepted
his tea and thanked her politely.

I blew on ту tea and studied him
over the cup. He looked scrious, stu-
dious, calm. So had the Manhattan
Monster.

“There's half a page of facilitators in.
the phone book," 1 said. “Every single
one of them charges less than 1 do." I

believe in the direct approach. It some-
times costs me a commission,

He nodded, studying me back.

"Some people want me just because I
am the most expensive. A few want me
because they know my work, my own
work, and it's very good. Most want a
painting by the man who released the
Monster from Claude Avery."

“15 it important for you to know why
Ichose you?"

“The more I know about you, the
better picture you'll get."

He nodded and paused. "Then ac-
cept this. Maybe fifty percent of my
motivation is because you are the most.
costly. That is sometimes an index of
value. Of your artistic abilitics, or any-
body else's, Lam totally ignorant.”

“Бо fifty percent is the Monster?"

“Not exactly. In the first place, 1
don't care to pay that much for some-
thing that so many other people have.
And I don't like the style. Two of my ac-
quaintances own paintings they did
with you in that disturbing mode. But,
looking at their paintings, it occurred
to me that something more subtle was
possible. You. Your anger at being used
in this way.”

“I have expressed that in my own
paintings."

“I am sure that you have. What I
want, I suppose, is to express my own
anger At my customers."

That was a new wrinkle. "You're an-
gry at your customers?"

“Not all of them. Most. Pcople give
me large amounts of moncy to invest
for them. Once each quarter, I extract
a percentage of the profit.” He set
down the cup and put his hands on his
knees. "But most of them want some
input. It is their money, after all."

"And you would prefer to follow a
single strategy," I said, "to use all their
money the same way. The more capital
you have behind your investment pat-
tern, the less actual risk—since I as-
sume that you don’t have to pay back a
percentage—if an investment fails.”

“For an artist, you know a lot about
money.”

I smiled. “I'm a rich artist.”

“People are emotionally connected
to their money, and they want to do
things with it, other than make more
money. They want to change the
world.”

“Interesting. 1 see the connection
with my work. My clients.”

“I saw it when I read the profile in
Forbes а couple years ago.”

“And you waited for my price to
come down?”

“Your price actually has come down
nine percent, because of inflation, since
the article, You'll be raising it soon.”

“Good timing. 1 like round numbers,

so I'm going up to one-twenty when I
return from vacation in August.” I
picked up a stylus and touchpad and
began drawing close parallel lines. It
helps me think. “The connection, the
analogy, is good. I know that many of
my clients must be dissatisfied with ab-
stract smearings that cost them six
figures. But they get exactly what they
pay for. 1 explain it to them before-
hand, and if they choose not to hear
me, that’s their problem.”

“You said as much in the article. But
1 don't want abstract smearings. I want
your customary medium, when you
are working seriously. The old-fash-
ioned hyperrealism."

“Do you want a Boston School
watercolor?”

“Exactly. 1 know the subject, the set-

“That’s three weeks’ work, mini-
mum. More than two million dollars.”

“I can afford it.”

“Can you afford to leave your own
work for three weeks?” I was drawing
lines very fast. This would really screw
up my vacation schedule. But it would
be halfa year’s income in three weeks.

"I'm not only going to leave for three
wecks, Pm going exactly where you
are. The Cayman Islands. George
Town.”

1 just looked at him.

“They say the beach is wonderful.”

1 never asked him how he'd found
out about my vacation plans. Through
my credit-card company, 1 supposed.
"That he would take the trouble before
our initial interview was revealing. Не
was a man who left nothing to chance.

He wanted a photo-realist painting
of a nude woman sitting in a confer-
ence room, alone, studying papers.
Horn-rimmed glasses. The conference
room elegant.

The room would be no problem, giv-
еп money, since George "Town has as
many banks and insurance buildings as
bikinis. The model was another matter.
Most of the models in George "Iown
would be black, which would compli-
cate the text of the painting, or would
be gorgeous beach bums with tan lines
and silicone breasts. I told him that
I thought we wanted an ordinary
woman, trim but severe-looking, some-
one whose posture would radiate dig-
nity without clothing. (1 showed him
Olynpia and Maja Desnuda and some
Delacroix, and a few of Wycth's Helgas
that had that quality.) She also would
have to be a damned good model to do
three weeks ofsittings in the same posi-
tion. I suggested we hire someone in

(continued on page 118)

PHOTOGRAPHY BY MICHEL СОМТЕ

WHEREIN WE SHARE SUSHI, AND MUCH MORE, WITH MIMI ROGERS, THE FUNNIEST,
SMARTEST TOTAL BABE IN HOLLYWOOD

By MICHAEL ANGELI

RITERS must be villing to go anywhere and do anything

to get a story. Where I am, at the moment, is under a

table in a Los Angeles sushi bar, surveying Mimi
Rogers lower half. Wouldn't you, if you had the chance?
"What are you looking for, a potbelly?" Mimi's voice comes
from up above, a retrograde drawl, slinky and unflexed,
like a hand dangled in the water beside a rowboat. We've
been swapping life stories. Hers is the more interesting of
the two, composed of some great movie work (The Rapture,
notably), hilarious turns on TV (her flirtatious guest shot on
HBO's The Larry Sanders Show) and a tumble through the
gossip mags as Mrs. Tom Cruise. Anyway, there I am with
my head under the table. (1 am a gentleman and wouldn't
have done it had she not been wearing jeans.) 1 had gone
below, I suppose, because I sensed the presence of a secret.
weapon—face it, she has an arsenal. Although I didn't

really expect to find the weapon under the table, there's no
harm in looking. When I am topside again, Mimi has me in
her cross hairs. "How much do you really know about me?"
she asks with a smile that could draw rivets from the Gold-
en Gate Bridge. “Let's talk honestly about preconceptions.
Tell me what you expected." All right. The Mimi I envi-
sioned was the one who shared a bed with Tom Berenger
in the 1987 suspense thriller Someone to Watch Over Me. In
that film, she is a static beauty, cool and detached, icy and
mannered, elegant and stoic. Her emotional access is me-
tered, her sophistication imposing, having been cured by
the lazy smoke of privilege, liberated from the heartbreak-
ing associations the rest of us have to make. While she
shares the same startling eyes, pupils suspended in pearly
angel's plasma, the Mimi presently dangling tempura over
her mouth is none of the above. “After that film, there was a

Mimi and Garry Shandling (battom left) did some serious flirting—on and off the talk-shaw couch—in a memorable episode of HBO's
The Larry Sanders Shaw. Mimi can do hedonism as well, os she praved in a big way in the 1991 cult hit The Rapture, with David Duchovny
and Stephanie Menuez (center). In an upcoming NBC mystery томе, A Kiss to Die For, Ragers pairs up with Tim Matheson (bottom right).

72

widespread idea that that was who I was," Mimi says. “And other movie roles would come up and direc-
tors would pass over me as being too aloof, too patrician. It was terribly frustrating, because I was acting,
for God's sake.” She changes gears. “But you never answered me. Come on, how much do you know
about me? Tell me some stories about me.” The fact is, my misconceptions of Mimi are anemic next to the

Rogers folklore coursing through the
Hollywood circulatory system. When she
laments that she was acting, for God's
sake, there are those who would say, Ex-
actly: Mimi is not what she appears to be.
Along those lines, there 15 the "Mimi
Rogers, militant scientologist” rumor.
Rogers calmly addresses this aspect of her
past: "This is the philosophy 1 grew up
with. My parents were scientologists. It
was a religious philosophy that I was
shaped and formed by, part of my edu-
cation. So, in that sense, it will always
be there." For those fixated on the image
of Rogers as a Бгеач-Беайпр Dianetics
thumper, 1 suggest a screening of Michael
Tolkin's brilliant 1991 film, The Rapture. In

a rendering remarkable by anyone's stan-

dards, Mimi plays а hedonist prowling
for group sex who becomes disenchanted
and begins (text continued on page 161)

78

LIBERTÉ, ÉGALITÉ,
SEXUALITÉ!

THE CONQUERING HERO OF
FEAR OF FLYING
CHARGES THE RAMPARTS
OF THE NEXT
SEXUAL REVOLUTION

ARTICLE
Bv ERICA JONG

MOST PEOPLE are not free. Freedom frightens them. They follow
patterns set by their parents, enforced by society and by a constant
inner dialog that weighs duty against desire and pronounces duty
the winner. "Lives of quiet desperation," Thoreau called such
existence, though today's version is noisy desperation.

Occasionally, a visionary comes along who seems to have con-
quered the fears in himself, living with bravado and courage.
People are at once terrified of such a creature—and admiring.
They are also envious.

Someone who has conquered human fears is recognized as a
hero or heroine. We are provoked by the example, but we are al-
so inclined to blame ourselves for living too timidly. So the hero
or heroine is often attacked—even killed—because of the envy of
ordinary mortals. If we could see the hero as embodying our own
aspirations, we would not need to destroy him or her, but could
rather emulate and learn.

Henry Miller was such a hero. Не did not start out fearless, but
he learned to overcome his fears. He wrote a book, Tropic of Can-
cer, that breathed fresh air into American—and world—litera-
ture. The freedom, to those who would take it in, was like pure
oxygen. For the others—the fearful, the envious, those who re-
fused to breathe—Miller had to be discredited as a pervert or sex
maniac because his message was too terrifying. Life is here for the
taking, he says. And those who refused to live fully had to blame
him for their own failure.

Like Byron, Pushkin, George Sand and Colette, Miller became
more than a writer. He became a protagonist and a prophet, the
prophet of a new consciousness. His writings and his life mingled
to create a larger myth, a myth that embodied the human attrac-
tion toward—and fear of—freedom.

Miller's writing, without a doubt, is full of imperfection, bom-
bast and humbug. Sometimes its slovenliness makes it hard to de-
fend. But the purity of his example, his heart, his openness, sets
him apart from most American writers.

At present, Miller's reputation still hangs in the balance. Even
those who have defended him remain uncomfortable with him.

Miller remains among the most misunderstood of writers, seen

ILLUSTRATION BY MIKE BENNY

PLAYBOY

80

either as a pornographer or a guru, a
sexual enslaver or sexual liberator, a
prophet or pervert. All the questions
his life and oeuvre raise about the role
ofawriter in society, the impact ofbooks
оп sexual politics, the impact of sexual
politics on books, the threat of censor-
ship to free speech and written expres-
sion, unfortunately, are as fresh today
as they ever were.

In his decision to be explicit whatev-
er the price, Miller stands in a tiny
crowd: James Joyce, D. H. Lawrence
and William Burroughs. What did sex
mean to Henry Miller and why was he
willing to risk everything to describe it
in his books?

He answers the question clearly in
the first edition of The World of Sex:

Sometimes in the recording ofa
bald sexual incident great signifi-
cance adheres. Sometimes the sex-
ual becomes a writhing, pulsating
facade such as we see on Indian
temples, Sometimes it is a fresco
hidden in a sacred cave where one
may sit and contemplate things of
the spirit. There is nothing I can
possibly prohibit myself from do-
ing in the realm of sex. It is a
world unto itself. . . . It is a cold
fire which burns in us like а sun. It
is never dead, even though the
sun may become a moon. There
are no dead things in the uni-
verse—it is only our way of think-
ing which makes death.

For Miller, this cold fire of sexuality
is equivalent to the life force. That is
what Miller had in common with
Lawrence and why he labored so long
(nearly five decades) and so madden-
ingly over his book about Lawrence.
He shares with Lawrence the pagan
sense of sex—sex as primal flux, sex as
the code of existence, the matrix of all
creativity. Miller uses the word sex in a
cosmic sense, not a genital sense. And
he is almost surprised to discover that
the whole world did not see it that
way as well.

He did not start at this point, of
course. He started in Brooklyn, suffer-
ing from the same sexual neuroses and
inhibitions that bedeviled many of his
contemporaries. Perhaps he even suf-
fered more than his contemporaries,
which was why he was so keen to free
himself. Only the most enslaved of us
longs with such intensity to be free.
Working his way through letters and
vignettes, through Clipped Wings, Mo-
loch and Crazy Cock and on to the new
life of Tiopic of Cancer, he liberated him-
self to partake of the cosmic sexual
dance and thereby to understand that
only by such participation in the dance
of life could freedom be won.

Henry could only write, finally, by
listening to the dictation of the Voice.
He had to write what the Voice dictated
or write nothing at all. He did not
choose his subject matter; it chose him.
He discovered he was nothing but a
medium, a channel, and he let Јап-
guage flow through him.

To Miller, sex is the seeming chaos
out of which ай life springs. If he sup-
pressed it, he would suppress all ех-
pression. He had no choice but to write
about sex.

Miller’s book The World of Lawrence,
written and rewritten in the early Thir-
ties, abandoned sometime after the
publication of the Tiopic of Cancer and
finally published as his last book
(rather than his first, as it was meant to
be) in 1980, gives us many clues to his
understanding of sex and ив role in his
writing.

Is Lady Chatterleys Lover obscene? ТЕ
50, how is obscenity justified? No justi-
fication is necessary, Miller concludes:

Life is obscene and miraculous,
and neither is there any justifi-
cation for life. Obscenity is a divine
prerogative of man and is always
to be used carelessly, heedlessly,
without scruple ог qualms, with-
out religious or aesthetic defense.
When the body becomes sacred,
obscenity comes into its own. Puri-
ty of speech is as much bosh as pu-
гну of action—there is no such
thing. Obscenity is stomped down
when the body is degraded, when
the soul is made to usurp the
body's proper function.

In discussing Lawrence, Miller sur-
veys the history of civilization and its
varying attitudes toward sexuality. He
notes how sex went from openness
to hiddenness as Christianity overtook
the pagan world. He blames Christian-
ity and its dualism for our culture's re-
jection of the body and all its wants.

“Obscenity,” he notes, “figures large
and heavily, magnificently and аме-
somely, in all primitive peoples." Miller
observes that in so-called primitive cul-
tures, religion and ritual always have a
strong sexual element, as well as a
strong element of death. Why? Be-
cause sex and death evoke our deepest
pleasures and our deepest fears.

Why is sex important? The answer is
so obvious that it needs immense obfus-
cation and denial to be ignored. Sex is
important because it is the root of life.

"The savage is not a sick man
Miller writes. "The savage retzins his
sense of awe, mystery, his love of ac-
tion, his right to behave like the ani-
mal he is.”

And the animal puts no veil between
itself and sex, between itself and death.

Sex just is, namelessly. And therefore,
so is death. "Sex is the great Janus-
faced symbol of life and death," accord-
ing to Miller. "It is never one or the
other; it is always both. The great lie of
life here comes to the surface; the con-
tradiction refuses to be resolved."

Fear of sex is also fear of death, be-
cause when we embrace sex, we sym-
Бойсайу embrace our own mortality.
For many men, the fear of woman is
equivalent to the fear of mortality. It is
woman's fecundity that reminds men
of the everlasting dance of birth and
death.

"These ideas have been reinforced in
our time by the plague of sexually
transmitted diseases that announced
itself after the so-called sexual revolu-
tion was touted. A causal connection
was made between sexual freedom and
disease, a connection few ever stopped
to question. The sexual revolution was
blamed for the AIDS epidemic because
such causation fits perfectly with our
puritanical notions of retribution for
pleasure. Sex has again become the root
ofall evil—and with и comes a ferocious
backlash against women, gays, blacks
and Hispanics, against all those who do
not conform to a white male ideal of
sexless and bloodless spirituality.

Miller understood that the fear of
sex projected onto women was one of
the major ills of society. Both sexes,
Miller felt, were equally to blame for
the sexual degradation of modern life.
He partook of this fear himself, but
then he transcended it. He is really
speaking of himself when he says of
two of his predecessors:

[August] Strindberg remained
a misogynist, whereas Lawrence
(perhaps because of his latent fem-
ininity) arrived at a higher or
decper understanding. His abuse
goes out equally to man and to
woman; he stresses continually
the need for each to accentuate
their sex, to insist upon polarity,
50 as to strengthen the sexual con-
necüon which can renew and re-
vive all the other forces, the major
forces that are necessary for the
development of the whole being.
to stay the waste of contemporary
disintegration.

То Miller, both sexes were equally to
blame for the sexual degradation of
modern life: ^The real cause lies deep-
er than this surface war between the
sexes," Miller writes. “It issues from the
evil seed of the Christian ideal."

In this apercu, Miller prefigured
such feminists as Mary Daley (in Be-
yond God, the Father and other books),
who analyze the whore-Madonna split

(continued on page 86)

“Hey, Toulouse, is that а brush in your pocket от
are you just glad to see me?"

THAT'S
ITALIAN!

john turturro models
and mugs in
the latest

european looks

fashion by
HOLLIS WAYNE

Since one of Turturro's lotest films,
Mac, marks his directorio debut,
we chose severol looks befitting a
Hollywood heavy hitter. The one
ot left includes a khoki silk/linen/
wool blend seersucker three-but-
ton single-breasted sports jocket
with notched lapels, about $750,
ton silk/wool inverted box double-
pleated trousers, obout $300, о
ton, lavender ond peach crepe/
linen striped buttondown shirt,
$225, ond a silk rep tie, about
$80, oll by Vestimenta. At right,
he’s wearing а khaki linen three-
button single-breosted sports jock-
et with notched lopels, $583,
brown linen pull-on pants, about
$190, ond о white linen peosont
shirt, obout $200, all by Industrio.

NLIKE the intense

characters he has

portrayed in such

acclaimed films as

Barton Fink, Mil-
ler's Crossing and Do the Right
Thing, actor John Turturro is
a laidback guy who prefers
clothing thats comfortable.
Lucky for him, we've chosen
a relaxed lineup of Italian
menswear as the subject of this
month's fashion feature. As you
can see, jackets are soft and
lean and are designed to be lay-
ered over vests, banded-collar
shirts and even drawstring
pull-on pants. The look of the
moment is the three-button sin.
gle-breasted style in natural
fabrics such as linen, cotton and
lightweight wool blends. Sur-
face texture is important, too.
А seersucker jacket, for exam-
ple, is meant to appear puck-
ered, and a linen one should
look slightly wrinkled. That
means no over-ironing. Capisce?

84

A vest looks smart under a three-
button jacket—especiolly if the for-
mer hos a high neckline, ot least
five buttons ond с reloxed, com-
fortable fit. Here, Turturro wears a
tan linen six-button vest, $270,
with а mustard linen three-button
single-breosted suit with double-
pleated trousers, about $1160,
and о tan linen straight-point-
callar shirt, $330, all by Byblos;
plus a silk tie, by Vestimenta, $75.

There ore severol ways to wear а
three-button single-breosted jack-
et: open, as John does here, or
dased, with either the tap buttan
apen (best for short ar heavyset
men), or the Банот one open. His
outfit includes а chorcaal linen/
crepe three-button single-breast-
ed suit, $1278, and а black-ond-
white-checked linen banded-
callar shirt, abaut $270. Both ore
by Giorgia Armani le Collezioni.

Where & Haw to
Buy on page 163.

PHOTOGRAPHY BY BAILEY

85

РЬАҮВОҮ

SEXUALITÉ! слон page 80)

“What is it about sex that is so freeing? It is an
affirmation of I am; an affirmation of life.”

that has fed the fires of the sex war be-
tween woman and man. This divisive
way of thinking has led our culture to a
puritanical rejection of both sexuality
and woman as merely screens for
death.

А new paradigm is in order, one that
sees women and men holistically rather
than as bauling armies. Such para-
digms exist, but they have been buried
for centuries, buried by Judeo-Christ-
ian brainwashing—and now by Mos-
lem brainwashing, too.

No one is really looking at the prob-
lem in terms of root causes. Our world-
view must change before we can
change the world. This is why I fear
that the reductive antisexual view of
Miller's work—whether by male chau-
vinis prudes or feminist prudes—is
merely another symptom of the dis-
torted worldview he was seeking, above
all, to change.

Miller offers his own definition of sex
by revealing Lawrence's definition of
sex: "A sensuality rooted in a primitive
appıchension of one's relation with
universe, with woman, with man. Sen-
suality is the animal instincts, which he
wanted to bring out again; sexuality,
the false cultural attitude which he
wanted to overthrow.”

Perhaps we should call that primal
force Sex (with a capital S) to differen-
tiate it from the smarmy world of porno
parlors and stroke books with which, in
our puritanical, sexomaniacal culture,
it is nearly always confused. It was the
chiefirony of Miller's life that he sought
to change this debased sort of sexuality
and bring it into cosmic perspective.
Instead, it was his fate to be confused
with this debased sexuality, as if there
were no difference at all between his
revolutionary writing and the frivolous
titillations of sex for sale. Writers are
often accused of doing exactly what
they are attempting to change.

Miller's cosmic view of sex has never
been more needed. We have gone
through a decade of backlash against
the sexual revolution, against gay
rights, against women's rights. During
this decade we have also experienced
population boom and a widespread at-
tack on reproductive freedom.

The tide has begun to turn. This
decade already looks like a decade of
social ferment, change and feminism.
Let us not make the mistakes we made
in the last decade of social ferment—

the Sixties. Let us not equate sexuality
with a narrow promiscuity. Rather let
us learn to see it in a cosmic Millerian
sense as the very dance of life. It is crit-
ical that we expand rather than narrow
‘our notions of sexuality. And Miller can
guide us. Sexuality need not only de-
pend on an exchange of bodily fluids.
Itcan be an attitude of openness to the
world and to the cosmos beyond.

What shall we do with our sexopho-
bia? It manifests itself on both sides of
the political spectrum—from Women
Against Pornography to the funda-
mentalist right. Our sexophobia im-
pedes medical research for contracep-
tion, impedes needed reforms of
women's hcalth care, cven impedes our
ability to prepare teenagers to enjoy
their sexuality safely in an overpopu-
lated world.

When I was 14, kids were terrified of
sex because one could die of a back-
street abortion. Now my 13-year-old
daughter and her friends are terrified
of sex because of AIDS. Plus ca change,
plus c'est la même chose. Must we con-
clude that we have made a society in
which teenagers are compelled to hate
their most powerful urges, their own
bodies, their own drives? Must we con-
clude that the excuses vary but the sex-
ophobia remains constant? Must we
conclude that on some deep level we
indeed want such a world?

Sexophobia is with us, ever present,
stronger every day. We are creating a
sexually tormented generation just as
our grandparents and great-grandpar-
ents did, We no longer say that mastur-
bation causes blindness. We merely say
that sex causes death.

Miller saw this sexophobia as early as
the Twenties and related it, even then,
to money, consumerism and war. As we
all know, money drives out sex. The
anxiety about getting and spending is
an antiaphrodisiac. The more we focus
on money, the less free we are, the less
lusty and the less revolutionary. As
Miller himself said regarding Tropic of
Cancer, “The problem of the author
was never one of sex, nor even of rcli-
gion, but of self-liberation.”

Miller's self-liberation is sexual in the
cosmic—not the genital—sense. Yes,
Miller wrote of genital sexuality in
Tropic, in Black Spring, in The Rosy Cru-
Gfixion. But as he explains in The World
of Sex, the sexual is the first step toward
the spiritual:

In that first year or so in Paris, I
literally died, was literally annihi-
lated and resurrected as a new
man. The Topic of Cancer is a sort
of human document written in
blood, recording the struggle in
the womb of death. The strong
sexual odor is, if anything, the aro-
ma of birth, disagreeable, repul-
sive even when dissociated from its
significance. The Tropic of Cancer
represents. another death and
birth, the transition, if I may say,
from the conscious artist to the
budding spiritual being which is
the last phase of evolution.

Miller was wise enough to know that
the sexual and the spiritual were as
close as twins. He was wise enough to.
know that by flinging ourselves with
utter abandon into the sexual, we find
the spiritual beckoning. “The road of
excess leads to the palace of wisdom,"
as Blake said. Or, as Miller said on a
similar theme, "Like every man, 1 am
my own worst enemy, but unlike most
men, I know too that 1 am my own
savior."

What does sex have in common with
salvation for Miller? Both partake of
liberation. Miller often said that his on-
ly subject was scl£liberation. Не was
right. The sexuality of his books points
the way to sel£liberation. So does the
spirituality.

What is it about sex that is so free-
ing? It is an affirmation of I am; an
affirmation of life, and at once an
affirmation of flux. Miller writes:

We go along thinking the world
to be thus and so. We are not
thinking, of course, or the picture
would be different every moment.
When we go along thus we are
merely preserving a dead image of
a live moment in the past. How-
ever, let us say we meet a woman.
We enter into her. Everything is
changed. What has changed? We
do not know precisely. It seems as
if everything has changed. It
might be that we never sce the
woman again, or it might be that
we never separate. She may lead
us to hell or she may open the
doors of the world for us.

It is this transforming power of sex
that led Miller to focus on it in his
books. Transformation interests him,
and, above all, transformation is what
the world of sex offers.

Sex galvanizes the individual
spheres of being that clash and conflict.
It makes the external world shed its
deathlike folds. It affords us glimpses
of that stark, durable reality that is nei-
ther beneficent nor cruel.

(concluded on page 143)

“Just one minute! That's not us up there!"

— MÀ

88

HEROES
AT THE

MASSACRE

twenty-five years later, the soldier who blew the whistle on my lai remembers a few good men

CURIOUS, isn't it, how the first thing you recall about
someone you haven't seen in a long time is often the
last thing you'd expect to remember?

"Thats how it was that night at Duc Pho in April
1968, when I ran into Butch Gruver, the only man I
ever saw strain rubbing alcohol through a loaf of
bread and drink it.

Gruver's bread-to-booze trick, performed during a
break in jungle-warfare training in Hawaii, pretty
much convinced the rest of us that he wasn't like the
rest of us. There was something about him—a lazy,
ratlike intensity—that made you pay attention to this
hard little man. He said he'd done time in an Arkansas
prison, and no one doubted it.

I believed him six months later, too, when we
crossed trails on the edge of the road at Duc Pho, out-
side 11th Brigade Headquarters in Vietnam.

"That was when I first heard about what happened ас
Pinkville, a place the world came to know as My Lai.

Gruver was in full Long-Range Reconnaissance Pa-
trol regalia that evening—tiger stripes, web belt and
suspenders loaded with ammunition. a bulging, bat-
tle-ready rucksack with everything taped down for
silent movement in the jungle. He was with four other
guys, also LRRPs—lurps, as we called them. Lurps
worked in small teams that got choppered into places
where they'd hide out for a few days and watch the en-
сту. Gruver and his bunch were duc to be dropped
into the mountains west of us the next morning.

"That night, after eating, Butch and I found an emp-
ty tent arid sat down at a packing-crate table, hot beers
in hand. By and by he said, “Hey, man, did you hear
what we did at Pinkville?”

I'd heard the name. A month earlier I had been in a
firefight as a helicopter door gunner near Pinkville, a
collection of several hamlets about 20 miles north of
Duc Pho. Pinkville got its name from the color used on
Army maps to indicate population density. It was said
to be the stomping grounds of a particularly fierce
Viet Cong battalion.

"No, man," I said. “What did you do at Pinkville?”

His answer made me remember the question. One
month earlier, Gruver said, he and the rest of Charlie
Company went through Pinkville and killed every-
body they saw—hundreds of men, women, children,
babies. Slaughtered them with machine guns, rifles,
pistols, grenades, bayonets. Raped the women,
burned the houses. Killed the livestock.

One man who took part in the operation, a lieu-

tenant described by Gruver as “that dickhead Calley,”
seemed to have a special enthusiasm for the killing.
He lined up villagers in groups for execution.
Screamed at GIs and threatened to shoot anyone who
refused to fire.

"Yeah," Gruver said as we sat in the tent. "А lot of
people went pretty crazy that day."

Ithink I must have gone a little crazy myself that
night, listening to his story. 1 knew it was true even as
the words came out of Gruver's mouth, one ugly detail
after another, and I knew it wasn't some kind of ran-
dom, accidental act. Whatever happened at My Lai
had to have been the direct result of official military
policy. There was no doubt in my mind about that.
Shit may have rolled downhill in Vietnam, but blood
flowed up the chain of command.

I promised myself that I would pursue the story
in the eight months I had left of my tour. The facts
would be easy enough to check. Several buddies from
jungle training in Hawaii had ended up serving with
Gruver in Charlie Company. They wouldn't be hard to
track down.

I hoped my friends weren't part of the killing. But if
they were, well, they were. Whatever was true, was
true. Nobody could change that. And I vowed to my-
sclf that I would not kecp this secret.

We were supposed to be soldiers in the United
States Army, not butchers of women and babies. We
were not perfect, God knows, but, even lefi to our own.
vices—and we had our share—most of us were better
than that. Indeed, some of the men who had been at
Му Lai that day, as 1 would discover, truly had been
heroes.

°

Му friend Billy, I was sad to learn, was not one
of them

We trained together in Hawaii, Billy and I. A few
weeks after Gruver told me about My Lai, we all end-
ed up in the same lurp unit, living in a camp on the
beach at Chu Lai.

Just about everybody was smoking dope by then,
but Billy, like a handful of guys in our unit, was into
harder stuff. He was one of the few who knew of an
opium den in the ville, a Vietnamese camptown,
whose cardboard and flauened—beer can shanties be-
gan near the main gate on Highway One. I'm not sure
when Billy started going there or how he found out
about it, only that after a while I came to know that the

article
By RON RIDENHOUR

PAINTING EY RAFAL OLBINSKE

PLAYBOY

90

ville was where he always went.

At first he was getting a pass. But
pretty soon the captain got wise that
something weird was going on, and
that was the end of Billy's passes. Fuck
"em, he told me the next day, and that
night he was gone. Over the wire.

From then on Billy didn't need a
pass. He just left when ће felt like it
and came back when he was ready.

Sometimes when he got back, he'd
come and find me, usually in the unit's
small, ammo-crate club. I'd be knock-
ing down 3.2 beer and getting sick—it
didn't take much of the half-formalde-
hyde swill to do it. Come on, man, Bil-
ly would say. Let's go sit on the beach
and smoke a joint.

The beach at Chu Lai was mag-
nificent then: a clean, white half-moon
whose gentle crescent formed a broad,
starlit arc on the edge of the South Chi-
na Sea. Sitting there, facing the hori-
zon, staring out into the eastern dis-
tance, dreaming of what we called “the
world" that lay beyond it, we passed a
smoke back and forth and watched the
waves wash in. We'd talk about this and
that. The war. Home. Our girlfriends.
How the Army sucked. How Vietnam
sucked. After a while, though, our con-
versation would always come back to
the same subject Suddenly it would

just be there, the nightmare, Pinkville.

Billy had been at My Lai that day,
along with Gruver and the rest of
Charlie Company. For him, though,
the dead from Pinkville had become
his lifelong companions. On those
evenings when we sat out there on the
beach at Chu Lai, their ghosts always
drifted in for a visit.

Billy used to look out across the wa-
ter, hugging his knees. “All them peo-
ple we killed, man," he would begin to
say after a while, singing out to them
over and over again, rocking back and
forth to the rhythm of the waves. “АЛ
them people we killed."

Sometimes it takes forever for the
perfectly obvious to crystallize in your
mind. Slaughter was the name of our
game in Vietnam. Even though I saw it
happening all around me from the be-
ginning, it took My Lai to make me un-
derstand what I was seeing

By the time 1 got to Vietnam just be-
fore Christmas 1967, everybody was
talking about killing gooks. Gooks this,
gooks that. The gooks, the gooks, the
gooks. At first there was some confu-
sion. How did you tell gooks from the
good Vietnamese, for instance? After a
while it became clear. You didn’t have
to. Thats what everybody said.
“They're all VC when they're dead."

They were all gooks.

1 had once overheard two sergeants
talking about another massacre a few
months before I learned about
Pinkville.

“Jesus,” one of them said after hear-
ing the details from his friend, “how
did you shoot women and kids?"

“Just closed my eyes and squeezed
the trigger," said the other man.

I'd been seeing the little massacres
right along, the murders of one, two,
maybe three or four people at a time,
ever since I'd gotten to Vietnam and
started flying light air cover for grunt
companies. Somctimes, standing on a
chopper skid, fliuing along 50 feet
above a bunch of Gls, you'd see some
grunt simply blow a peasant away. Blip-
blip-blip. Like that. Nothing to it. One
VC KIA, you'd hear the report come
over the radio. Got us a gook, captain.

In five separate instances Ї saw with
my own eyes, the offense of the newly
dead was that the man happened to be
home when the grunts arrived. Wasn't
much more to it than that. He was Viet-
namese. He was male. He was home.
He was adios. Other times, we'd fly
over moments after a U.S. Infantry
company or Vietnamese patrol had
blown holes in a bunch of civilians for
no apparent reason. They'd be lying
there, three, four, maybe as many ава.
half dozen, blecding and dying, some
piece or another of them flopping
around in the road. If they had
weapons, I never saw them. Travel was
hazardous for civilians. Being alive was
hazardous.

What was happening all around us
in Vietnam was nota strategy that went
awry, or one that had unforeseen and
regrettable consequences for a few un-
fortunate civilians. It was one in which
the deliberate military aim was to lay
waste to the countryside.

Yes. КШ them all. Let God sort "em
out. The brass knew what they were
doing. They knew what we were doing.
We were doing what they wanted us to
do. We were killing people, and, as we
soon discovered, the brass didn't care
who we killed, so long as there were a
lot of them.

.

Every fifth round in my M-60 ma-
chine gun was a red-tipped tracer.
When I pulled the trigger, it was like
drawing a flaming orange line through
the air, marking the hot, bucking edge
of a jagged scalpel. Thats what we
used them for, to slice people into mul-
tiple parts. It's not like cutting up a
chicken, of course. People come
unglued from the business end of a
gun in tiny little bits that splatter ай
over everything. Very messy.

Although I eventually transferred to
the Americal Division LRRPs, 1 spent
the first four months of my tour in
Vietnam as a door gunner, standing on
the skid of a helicopter as it whipped
and twisted and turned just above the
treetops and rice paddies, zooming
over a hedgerow or tree line into a sur-
prised village or placid paddy, scarch-
ing for armed Vietnamese men to slice
into bloody little guerrilla specks.

The ships we used in Primo, my
chopper outfit, were those small police-
like jobs with the Plexiglas bubbles and
barely enough room for three people.
In ours the pilot sat in the middle and
the door gunners stood on either side,
balancing M-60 machine guns and 200
rounds of ammunition, which were
suspended from the top of the door
frame with elastic bungee cords.
Dressed in large armored ceramic bul-
letproof vests, flak jackets, fully hooded
helmets, high boots and gloves, we
must have appeared to the Vietnamese
like men from Mars, descending from
the sky in our clattering machines,
noisy ray guns spitting red death.

We called ourselves hunter-killer
teams, a term later softened to aero-
scouts. We traveled in pairs, usually at
first light or last light—sunup or sun-
down—looking for guerrillas on the
move. Two choppers right on the deck.
One ship always flew low, no more than
50 feet off the ground and usually low-
er, hopping hedges, offering itself as a
target while the other ship flew above
and a litle behind the first, circling,
keeping the lower bird covered. It may
sound as if we had a lot of moxie to
stand out there, swooping around,
waiting to be shot at. But the truth was
that any peasant revolutionaries who
challenged us in small numbers were
inviting death.

They did not call us hunter-killers
for nothing. It was our game, even if it
was their country.

When it happened, it happened
quickly, in the blink of an eye. We
would be zooming along, bobbing and
weaving above the rice paddies, pop-
ping up suddenly over the tree line or
a hedgerow, and there they were. Iwo,
three, four—sometimes more—small
men trapped in the open, with rifles in
hand.

One morning. 1 remember, things
did not go according to script. That
day—it could have been the same
morning that Charlie Company started
work at My Lai—we found a lone guer-
rilla. Or perhaps 1 should say he found
us. He was a small man, well hidden
and dressed only in purple shorts and
flip-flops, armed with an M-2 carbine
and a handful of rounds. We had not

(continued on page 144)

WITH GOD AS THEIR CO-PILOT

under cover of a devastating republican defeat,

pat

robertson's operatives hope to bijack the ship of state

article by Joe Conason

A WIDE RANGE of Americans celebrated
lustily the night the Republicars lost the
White House. Breaking out the cham-
pagne after 12 years of GOP rule were
the old left, the new Democrats, the pro-
choicers, the environmentalists, women,
minorities and gays. But those corks may have been
popped in vain, or at least prematurely The defeat of
George Bush may mark only the true takeoff point for the
increasingly powerful religious right, a movement far more
ominous than any represented by Bush or Ronald Reagan.
It is a movement whose intolerance and fanaticism have
been festering for years. but which America has glimpsed
only in recent months.

Two weeks after Election Day, it reared into view at, of all
places, a Republican governors' meeting in Wisconsin. Hav-
ing gathered to nurse their wounds, the governors held a
brief press conference at the end of their two-day confab. It
should have been a dull affair. Mississippi Governor Kirk
Fordice unexpectedly livened it up when he took the micro-
phone and declared that America is “a Christian nation."

Such sentiments are anathema to most Republican politi-
cians, including Carroll Campbell, the conservative gover-
nor of South Carolina, who is one of former Republican
National Committee chairman Lee Atwater's great success
stories. Governor Campbell leapt to the microphone to ex-
plain that of course the nation's values come from our
“Judeo-Christian heritage. I just wanted to add the Judeo
part." Fordice glared at his Dixie colleague and retorted
sharply, “If I wanted to do that, I would have done it.”

The following day, as people lined up to denounce his ex-
clusionary rhetoric, the Mississippi governor's statement
blew up in his face. He swiftly apologized. But it seems rea-
sonable to note—as he himself did at first blush—that Kirk
Fordice meant what he said the first timc. After all, he was a
political novice when he was elected in 1991, and he gained
his high office with the help of the nation's wealthiest,
fastest-growing, most powerful and best organized grass-
roots political movement: the resurgent Christian right. No
group is more important to that movement than the little-
known 300,000-member Christian Coalition, which is led
by televangelist Pat Robertson.

It was one more example of why moderates and even
many conservatives in the Republican Party are гип-
ning scared. A few of them, including former Senator
Warren Rudman and former Representative Tom
Campbell, are now organizing to keep their party
from being taken over by Robertson forces. But so

far their Republican Majority Coali-

tion, founded last December, is little

more than a fund-raising letterhead,
and they are scared because they know it
may already be too late.

Although most Americans first noticed
that a strangely authoritarian tone had
reentered the nation’s politics during the Republican
convention in Houston last August, local Republican
politicos in certain key states began to realize that their
party was being taken over as early as the spring of 1992,

For example, when the upright Republicans of subur-
ban San Antonio, Texas got together to choose the dele-
gates they would send to the 1992 Republican National
Convention, they probably expected the usual staid and
utterly predictable proceedings. They had gone to sleep
that beautiful spring night of the Texas presidential pri-
mary confident that all was well in their neat little world.

And why not? Their president, the quintessential coun-
try-club Republican George Bush, had whupped Pat
Buchanan badly and that was the end, wasn't

Well, not quite. At the delegate selection meetings, the
party regulars began to notice a lot of unfamiliar faces.
After that, it took only a few hours for the new activists
of the Christian right to blow away the country-club
GOP in that part of Texas. With laser-beam precision,
they elected new chairmen and passed resolutions
against abortion, sex education, AIDS education and
gay rights, and for the abolition of the National Endow-
ment for the Arts.

The rich Republicans of San Antonio's Bexar County
consider themselves very conservative. And they are.
But the politics of this new crowd gave them a bad scare.
Not long after the Christian rightists staged their coup,
the president of the Alamo City Republican Women's
dub just gave up and quit.

“The so-called Christian activists have finally gained
control,” she explained in her resignation letter, “and
the Grand Old Party is more religious cult than political
organization.”

OF course, that was Texas, a traditional hotbed of
Birchers and Bible jocks, Couldn't happen anywhere
else, could it?

Next came the Pennsylvania primary, where moder-
ate Republicans slept soundly after cheering the defeat

of an ultraconservative challenger to their incumbent

senator, Arlen Specter. For them the shock came the
next day, when the votes for obscure Republican state

committee positions were (continued on page 156)

ILLUSTRATION BY STEVE PIETZSCH

81

INS

DUFF. THE GORGEOUS MTV VJ, is in her
room at the Daytona Beach Marriott,
hanging out with her equally gorgeous
new friend, Whitfield Crane, lead
singer from Ugly Kid Joe. She's fresh
from a string of photo shoots for fashion
magazines. His first record is zooming up the
charts. They're in Florida for MTV's coverage of
Daytona's Spring Break festivities, ће to perform,
she to host. A little celebration seems in order.

Duff, 30, calls room service and orders cham-
pagne and a giant batch of pancakes—50, at least.
No butter, no syrup, just pancakes. The waiter
rolls in this humongous cart. The scene is like a.
Three Stooges movie. Duff and Crane open the
window and look down to the hotel's sprawling
patio, the beach and the MTV stage beyond. The
V] and the rock star sail pancakes one by one out
onto the teeming masses of horny college stu-
dents far below.

.

Poor Duff doesn't realize it, but rock-and-roll
excess has become politically incorrect at MTV.
The channel is in the process of redefining itself
for the Nineties, and a downshift to humility, and
relevancy, is in progress.

MIV recently completed a major research
study that revealed, as have other studies, a deep-
seated malaise among young people between 14
and 24 years old. “The baby-bust generation is
not held in very high regard by the baby
boom-controlled media,” says MTV Networks
chairman Tom Freston. “People think they watch
too much MTV, they don't read, they don't write,
they don't give a shit. It's very far from the truth.”

He's asked if it isn't true that 18-to-
24-year-olds have the lowest voter
turnout of any age group. “Yeah,
well, nobody's talking to them,” Fres-
ton quickly answers. “And they're
inheriting a world that is, by and
large, fucked. They can't have a lot

of sex, they can't drink and drive, the
environment's totally fucked up, every-
bodys getting cancer The economy
sucks. There's a lot of despair out
there."

This discovery that America's youth is
on a serious downer happened to come at a time
when MTV found itself in a bit of a funk. Judy
McGrath is MTV's creative director, a job that
makes her, as a corporate bio puts it, "essentially
ihe creative guardian of MTV's image." She's
fulfilled that responsibility over the past seven
years with considerable wit, intelligence and taste.
The fact that MTV's channel IDs, promos and
"art breaks" are usually far more interesting than
its music videos attests to that. A 40-year-old
woman who manages to be funky and elegant at
the same time (her office furniture includes hand-
made maple chairs by Dialogica and a ceramic
table lamp in the shape of Michael Jackson's
head), McGrath recalls that sometime in 1991 an
uneasy notion sct in that MTV had gone awry.

“We were ай saying, ‘How come we don't like
the IDs anymore” and “How come I'm tired of
the promos?” Pondering the situation with
МТҮ 5 marketing consultant Fred Seibert, it was
decided that the problem was a sort of ground-
lessness that had allowed MTV to drift into inner
space. “1 think we were starting to get into art for
arts sake," McGrath says. “In the Eighties we
were definitely into totally produced, totally slick,
total wizardry, We were almost to the point of be-
ing for our own entertainment instead of for the
audience's. It lacked some sense of purpose.”

Searching for a reason for MTV's being, Ме
Grath and Seibert came back to the despair iden-
tified in the research. They real-
ized that they were dealing with
nothing less than a disenfranchised
generation. No one, including
MTV, was taking a stand for today's
youth. In a world filled with dis-
dain, no (continued on page 138)

AS THE MUSIC CHANNEL STRUGGLES WITH MATURITY, IT’S FACED WITH THE TWO
CHALLENGES EVERY TEENAGER KNOWS WELL: GROWING UP AND MAKING MONEY

A RY ли ESA YE ow

2) a 0 E лт ibo 422 dus

SCULPTURE BY DON BAUM.

93

EN GARDE!

miss march, kimberly donley, makes her point perfectly

BEAUTIFUL WOMAN is hard to resist. She will pitch your boat, make your compass needle go
haywire, have you begging your friends to tie you to the mast. But a beautiful woman with
a gift for laughter will put you on the rocks as sure as a Londonderry fog. Here, then, is
Kimberly Donley, faithfully demonstrating the fencer's classic stance, balancing her weight

Kim takes a few pointers an thrust, parry and defense from an L.A. fencing master. "Some people have the
nation that fencing is far sissies,” she says, “but it’s really very competitive—all balance end positioning.”

PHOTOGRAPHY BY ARNY FREYTAG AND STEPHEN WAYDA

85

“One thing about me that almost bothers me is that | ат so sensitive to
people. Once I walk into a room, | can feel if people like me or not. What
do you coll that?” she osks. We сай it somebody with o roomful of friends.

on the сой of her long legs. "I can
do the moves, but I don't know their
names yet. It's all in the wrist," she
divulges with a whisper and a
bounce, then cracks up completely.
Her laughter is a joyous reflex, hint-
ing at capitulation with the right
joke. Prepare to abandon ship. “1
laugh alot," the 27-year-old Aurora,
Illinois native concedes. "Maybe I
should take life more seriously."
Certainly, adult life for Donley start-
ed out in a more somber direction.
After completing instruction in
computer science, Kim sought high
fame in the insurance industry.
“Some time ago, I went to a product
liability seminar, and that’s when I
said to myself, "What am 1 doing?
This is not me. I'm going to die of
boredom in the insurance world.'”
Swapping her low deductible for a
chance to break into modeling and
acting, Kim now divides her time
between Arizona's painted deserts
(she leases a condo in Phoenix) and
the shrink-to-fit hysteria of Los An-
geles, where her boyfriend has a lo-
cal following as a guitarist and song-
writer. “I come to L.A. to relax, can
you believe it?” she asks, laughing
again. “All my friends are back in
Phoenix and the phone's constantly
ringing. Something's always hap-
pening. I come here, kick back in
Benedict Canyon to visit my boy-
friend and watch the crabgrass
grow.” Perhaps more stunning than
her classic Gaelic features is the fact
that until her foray with PLAYBOY,
Kim had no modeling or acting ex-
perience. “I don't sce myself as the
voluptuous Playmate type,” says our
duelist with а modest shrug. “And
I'm probably too short to be а mod-
el. I think I have a lot of beauty
within me. I did go to charm
school—learned how to eat, how to
sit, how to answer the phone. All of
it has really paid off, can't you tell?"
And theres that surrender-your-
vessel laugh again. But let's not dis-
miss this woman's charm. After all,
her ex-boyfriend remains devoted
enough to feed her cats when she's
away from home. Just another will-
ing victim of Kim Donley's siren
call—her infectious laughter. Hear
it once and you're stuck for life.

“My boyfriend was incredibly supportive during the photo shoot,” notes Kim. "If 1 felt 1 hadn't done
my best, he'd advise me to ‘do better tomorrow—knock yourself out.” Consider it a TKO, champ.

PLAYMATE DATA SHEET

sust: 2340. varst: ze N
2 |

n
HEIGHT; AS weicur;. L Su сү
BIRIH РАТЕ: “ҮЗТЭЛ лэ Л 4
s :

AMBITIONS: _( 2102
bad итий

TURN-ONS: HANG- N. ЭС AN UP, 3 LE
айм. U hf denn, A Potami айд at Риму)
TURB-OFFS: Д,

7728

I'M JUST WILD ABOUT: aaa bs

MS 2 44071422

m HAD MORE TIME:

PLAYBOY'S PAHTY JOKES

Ап investigation into the fire that had de-
stroyed Brown's warehouse took almost a year,
so when he received word that the case had
finally been settled, Brown immediately head-
ed to his lawyer's office to collect the insurance
money. Once there, he was shocked to learn
just how large a percentage the lawyer was re-
taining to cover his services.
Face it, Mr. Brown," the attorney crowed,
“I've earned it, haven't 12"

“Jesus,” Brown muttered under his breath,
“you'd think you started the fire.”

Two Irishmen were digging a ditch directly
across from a brothel. Suddenly, they saw a
rabbi walk up to the front door, glance around
and duck inside.

“Ah, will you look at that?" one ditchdigger
said. “What's ow
the cloth are visitin’ such places?”

A short time later, a Protestant minister
walked up to the door and quietly slipped in-
side. “Do you believe that?” the workman ex-
claimed. “Why, 'ús no wonder the young peo-
ple of today are so confused, what with the
example clergymen set for them.”

‘After an hour went by, the men watched as a
Catholic priest quickly entered the whore-
house. “Ah, what a pity,” the digger said, lean-
ing on his shovel. “One of the poor lasses must
be dyin’.”

Times must be worse than we thought. A
friend overheard two Wall Street types dis-
cussing the economy. One summed up his feel-
ings this way: “Charlie, there ain't no free
brunch.”

A multimillionaire was so pleased with his
broker's expertise that he asked him what he'd
like as a token of appreciation. The broker said
a set of golf clubs

"Great," the millionaire said. "I'll get them.
By the way, how many clubs are in a set?"

"Oh, eight or ten," the broker replied.

Months went by and the broker was sorry he
hadn't asked for a watch. Then he got a сай
from the millionaire. "Sorry to take so long
with those clubs. T've managed to get eight so
far" he said, “but only six have swimming
pools."

orld comin’ to when men of

Whats the first thing a Hollywood mogul
docs аћег rear-ending someone? Hangs ир
the phone.

After taking his date to a movie and a nice
dinner, the smitten young man drove to a qui-
et spot and parked "The couple began to neck,
and when things got steamy, the fellow asked,
"How about getting in the back seat?”

“No,” she said

He began to kiss her again and started run-
ning his hand up and down her body. "Now
will you get in the back seat?" he asked.

“No,” she said more firmly.

He went back to kissing and rubbing and
finally, between clenched teeth, pleaded, “For
God's sake, get in the back seat, will you?”

“Well, why the hell not?”
“Because,” she replied sweetly, “I want to
stay up here with you.”

How do you define a real music lover? That's
Y п

а guy who hears а soprano in the shower and

puts his ear to the keyhole.

An unsuccessful furniture salesman finally
gave up and joined thc police force. A few
weeks after pinning on his star, he met a friend
for a drink. "So, how's the new job?" the friend
asked.

“Oh, just great. What I like best about it,”
the cop said, “is that the customer is always
wrong.”

What did the postcard from the blonde say?
“Having a great time, Where am 12"

An old man woke up in the middle of the
night and found, to his utter astonishment,
that his pecker was as hard as a rock for the
first time in two years. He shook his wife by the
shoulder until she woke up and showed her
his enormous erection. “You see that thing,

med. “What do you

Heard a funny опе lately? Send it on a post-
card, please, to Party Jokes Editor, PLAYBOY,
680 North Lake Shore Drive, Chicago, Illinois
60611. $100 will be paid to ihe contributor
whose card is selected. Jokes cannot be returned.

IET 2

Г

"a

d

“The one to the far right happens to be my awn personal flag.”

107

108

NOUGH WITH chicken and fish, already. Red meat is

back—in leaner cuts, were happy to announce. In

fact, the average American consumes about 65
pounds of beef each year. Some guys broil their steaks,
some barbecue them and rravBov Contributing Editor
Denis Boyles even cooks them with two blowtorches. It
takes him 20 minutes to get the meat just the way he likes
it—a thin, crisp sear on the outside and a blood-red center.
But that’s not the strangest cooking technique we've dis-
covered. In their humorous book Manifold Destiny, authors
Chris Maynard and Bill Scheller use a car engine for cook-
ing. Dwight David Eisenhower Pepper Steak, for example,
calls for four tablespoons of peppercorns per half pound of
strip steak, crushed using a tire iron and pressed into the
meat. The meat is then wrapped in foil and taken for a
half-hour ride (per side) atop the engine.

Danny Glover has been known to improvise for meat's
sake. A few years ago, while he was filming To Sleep with
Anger in South Central Los Angeles, the crew and cast were
hassled by neighborhood gangs. Glover tried to make
peace by cooking everybody a hearty gumbo. Between
scenes, he would adjourn to a tiny kitchen to stir the pot
filled with thick chunks of sausage, crab, chicken and spicy
rice mixed with peppers and onions. The filming went on
without a hitch.

Menno Meyjes, Academy Award nominee for the screen-
play adaptation of The Color Purple, likes his meat thin, as
he had it growing up in Holland. "Americans eat steak too
damn thick," Meyjes says. He pounds his with the side of a
hammer to quarter-inch height before searing it in butter

or barbecuing it with red torpedo onions that are sprinkled

a searing look at
how danny glover,
francis ford coppola
and lots of other
famous folks are once
again seeing red

food
By PEGGY KNICKERBOCKER

MEN
AND
THEIR
MEAT

ally loses more liquid than meat heated ata steady temper-

with salt and pepper and
then twisted in alu-
minum foil and thrown.
onto the coals for about
an hour.

Harold McGee, author
of The Curious Cook, dis-
agrees with the idea that
searing meat over high
heat seals in the juices.
“The analogy is cauteriz-
ing a wound,” he says,
“but it’s just not the same

thing. Seared flesh actu-

ature—the rarer, the juicier.” The debate is still cooking.
If you really want rare, talk to Football Hall of Famer
Bob St. Clair, formerly of the San Francisco 49ers. St. Clair
acquired a taste for uncooked meat as a boy when his
grandmother threw him scraps while she was cooking. “In
training camp we used to play a little trick on the rookies,”
St. Clair says. "I'd take my plate of raw meat, covered with
a napkin, to their table. They'd be flabbergasted that the
captain of the team was sitting with them. Then I'd remove
the napkin and start eating. The table cleared out fast.”
Morgan Entrekin, Tennessee native and publisher of At-
lantic Monthly Press, prefers his meat cooked but insists
that barbecue is a noun and grill is a verb. (Webster's Ninth
New Collegiate Dictionary says barbecue is both.) “Barbecue
is what comes off a pig or a cow that has been cooked for
hours in a pit. If you want to find

(continued on page 160)

PHOTOGRAPHY BY JAMES IMBROGNO

по

ILLUSTRATION BY GEORGANNE DEEN

The
Biodome
Chronicles

wherein our econaut
goes econuts

FAX TRANSMISSION
From: Biodome I, Hopewell, New Mexico
Ecoday 2

Dear roomie:

How they hanging, Pincus, you old dorkface?

Inside the Biodome at last! 1 still can't believe it. Out of 32,917 ap-
plicants, they pick Hairy Larry Sherbrook of U. of South Idaho for
the crew of the high-tech, self-sustaining ecosystem of the future, as
Dr. Riger calls it. (He's our co-captain, our analytical systems officer
and the oldest bionaut—by about a century and a half. Hope the
guy loosens up or it could be a long two years.)

You still pissed at me? I can't really blame you, Pinc. Hey, you're
the genius biochem major and I'm the jock, and you know I applied
only because you did. I’m sure there had to be some kind of com-
puter glitch. But whatever it was, I forgive you for calling me a lousy
brain-dead backstabbing creep and heaving my boom box through
the window. You just got slightly deranged, so no hard feelings.
Could happen to anybody.

Anyway, yesterday we marched inside to John Denver tapes
(ewww), all ten of us looking good in our dress jumpsuits, and there
was more cheering than at the Utah Tech game. Everything feels
moist and green in here, even the air. We each have our own Bio-
capsule in the Human Habitat and mine's really great, except for
the Visitor Interactivity Notch (that’s biobabble for window), where
tourists videotape me picking my позе. But I guess I can stand it if
they can.

One of the six biomes—the artificial environments we work in?—
is a little ocean. That's right, 25 feet deep, with real fish, mechan-

ically driven waves, plus—get ready to retch from jealousy—a

satire by Lewis Grossberger

PLAYBOY

112

beach! Better believe ГЇЇ be catching
many rays. It’s only ten minutes from
my hab—in fact, everything is. Dome
sweet dome!

Also better believe I'm checking out
the biobabe population. None of the
five's exactly Kim Basinger, but Li
Yiu—she's our wetlands expert from
Taiwan—is semicute. After we ай
passed through the air lock and they
officially sealed us in, I go, "Don't wor-
ry, babe, I smuggled in a six-pack in my
shorts." She gives me this icy look and
says, “You're а rare specimen." Girl's
playing hard to get, Pinc, but I can tell
she's hot for the Sherbster. I give her
a week.

Hey, buddy, modem me a fax or
something. I may be locked in a glass
bubble, but we got communication giz-
mos up the wazoo! Old E. P. Bozell, our
weird biozillionaire founder, went deep
pocket on his little ecotoy here. Like
$165 million worth.

Interactivity & Kisses,
Lar

Ecoday 94
Dear roomie:

Is it three months already? Man, the
time is roaring by. You see, 1 have been
engaging in many stimulating ecosyn-
ergistic activities. Yeah, right. Actually,
what I'm doing is working my butt off.

Every morning at 6:30, right after
Biocouncil, we head for the agri biome.
Course, you know that everything we
eat in the Biodome we grow ourselves,
right? Well, when they told us in orien-
tation about “maintaining a totally self-
contained life-support biosystem,” it
sounded super space-age. Know what
it really meant? Slaving in the fields!

Problem is, my nine little biopals are
all specialists. So we're like weeding the
squash? And Carl Radley says, “Oh, 1
goua go see if my fruit bats are breed-
ing.” And Mona Kefauver goes, “Gee, ї
gota check on whether my ocotillo
shrubs are aggressing into an alien bi-
ome." Pretty soon, I'm the only one
singing ee-i-ee-i-oh.

"What am I, ecoserf?" I scream.

So Riger pats me on the back and
says, "Nutrient support is our most vi-
tal mission, Larry." Then he says he's
gotta make his daily co-captain inspec-
tion round and he's gone. Mostly he
scems to inspect the marsh biome
(your basic swamp), where Li Yiu
works. This keeps up, Pinc, my ecofist
may need to interface with his biomouth.

All this toil has really cut into my
beach time, but that's OK because late-
ly the water smells kind of like cat litter.
I mentioned it to Todd Glaberson, Mr.
Ocean, but he copped an attitude and
said it was just a simple matter of algae

adjustment and none of my concern.
Dude's a little intense, if you ask me.
Yesterday he gets in Carol Parr's face
and says, “Hey, your damn lemurs are
throwing guava rinds into my lagoon
and threatening the integrity of my
fragile coral reef." So she yells, "Are
not!” Pretty soon it’s Ваше of the
Nerds and [ gotta jump between them
to avert bloodshed. I mean, total grade
school!
So how's things at oldUSI? You been
expelled or what? C’mon, drop a line.
Your pal,
Larry, Man of Science

Ecoday 156
Dear roomie:

Whoooo! Slap me five! Eeehooooo!
Finally, some bionookie for ecoserf!
And I didn’t even have to play my
Megadeth tapes. No, not Li Yiu.
Swamp Gal is practically married to
that geek Riger, though they're trying
to hide it for some reason. Maybe the
85-year age difference.

No, I was in the medical hab,
stripped down for my monthly physical
(face it, Sherbrook, you're a lab rat),
and Marcy G. Fenton, our mediconaut,
tells me, “Look, keep this confidential,
but we need to measure stress levels
during copulative spasm.” I'm like,
What? But she starts pasting sensors all
over me and next thing I know we're
thrashing around on the treatment
table like we're starring in Basic Instinct.

It was unbelievable, Pinc. Two min-
utes later it's all over and Fenton's back
in her whites, jotting down readings off
instruments and telling me to suit up,
like all I got was my blood pressure
checked. “Hey,” I say, “how'd I register
on the dickometer?" She says, "Oh,
grow up, Sherbrook. It's just research.”

God, I love research.

Larry

PS. My job situation's much better. 1
made a big stink in Biocouncil about
being stuck in the fields, so we took a
vote and I won. Now I get to recycle
human and animal waste.

Ecoday 224
Dear roomie:

Hope everything's OK with you, Pin-
cus, and I wish you'd get off your high
horse and answer my faxes. For a
bright guy, you always were a self-
righteous stiff.

Biodome-wise, we're having our sec-
ond HSM—high stress month—in a
row. Lotta conflict-resolution sessions
going on.

Everybody's lost 20 ог 30 pounds.
Seems we had a mite infestation (we
bionauts don’t believe in bug spray—in

fact, that’s our religion) and the bean
and peanut crops crashed, so rations
are low. Our diet is more nutrient rich
and low cal than ever, which is great if
you happen to like sorghum and pa-
paya sandwiches

The hummingbirds have gone de-
ranged. They fly up too high, slam into
the glass and—splat!

Marcy С. Fenton hasn't even looked
at me since we had research. I men-
tioned it to Carl Radley and he goes,
“Yeah, this month | was the research
assistant.”

Had our first emergency. Li Yiu left
the Biodome for a week. Mission Con-
trol's telling the media it was a gas-
trointestinal problem, but between you
and me, Pinco, Riger's not as old as he
looks. And word is, on her way back Li
smuggled in a duffelful of Mars bars.

Glaberson’s weirder than ever. His
poor ocean looks like the world’s
biggest dish of rancid lime jello, and
the more he putters, the gloppier it
gets. The gunk has seeped into Li Yiu's
marsh system and now her catfish are
glowing. Everyone was bitching at
Glaberson in Biocouncil. Suddenly, he
starts screaming, “Do not trifle with Po-
seidon's domain!" and stomps out of
the room, and nobody sees him for
three days.

"Then yesterday Carol Parr's study-
ing carpenter bee pollination patterns
when—boo!—Glaberson jumps ош
from behind a bush, naked and howl-
ing. Today I found five pygmy goat
heads arranged on the beach in a semi-
circle. Now Riger's in a big powwow
with Mission Control about what to do.
(This stuffis totally hush-hush, so keep
alid on, huh? The media would love to
crucify us.)

Not much action on the babe front. I
got Pam Bowles—she's quiet and most-
ly keeps to her Antarctic biome—to go
on a moonlight stroll on the glacier.
Just when I shoo the goddamn pen-
guins away and make my move, she lets
outa yell. Some tourists were camcord-
ing us through a viewing notch and
Pam spooked and took off. Well, I gave
the goofballs the show they wanted—a
full moon in extreme closeup. Bad PR,
great cinema.

Be good,
Lar

Ecoticotico
Roomie-woomie:

I am biofaced, Pincus, you asshole,
totally, synergistically polluted.

Ya ha!

Brewed me up a vat of papaya wine
in the lab today, got megawrecked and
decided it was ште for the Senior Eco-
prom. I got Prince pumping across

(concluded on page 150)

"I don't ski. I screw.”

113

PLAYBOY

A

things you can live without, but who wants to?

Garth Brooks, Clint Black and Alan Jackson, eat your hearts out! Pictured here are a pair of hand-
made calfskin-and-kidskin cowboy boots with an Indian design, by Rocket Buster U.S.A., $550; and
a New Mexico-made all-wool cowboy hat with ersatz stains, by Grey Mouse Medicine Hat, $190.

PHOTOGRAPHY BY JAMES IMBROGNO

This checkbook-sized
Rolodex Personal Planner
combines a paper ap-
pointment calendar with
an electronic organizer (ог.
storing notes, business
contacts, etc., about $130.

The stainless-steel CoPilot
knife with a 1.75" blade is
legal to carry aboard most
airplanes, plus it doubles
оз a money holder, by
Spyderco, $52, with a
plain or serrated edge.

Softride's chrome-alloy
21-speed Powercurve
mountain bike incorpo-
rates a unique design that
offers three inches of front
and five inches of rear
suspension travel, $1400.

These Carl Zeiss-Jena EDF
7x40 binoculars are the
same as those once used
by East German border
guards; features include a
range finder, ап illumi-
nator and more, $500.

SkyTel’s credit-card-style
pager, the Message Card,
has a built-in memory, an
LCD readout and a clock
that doubles as an alarm,
about $75 per month,
including 200 messages.

At ease, Colonel. Pictured
here is а teak-and-cane
Planter's Moongazer Chair
featuring swing-out arms
on which you rest your
boots, from ihe John
Rogers Collection, $570.

Where & How to Buy on page 163.

Get а whiff of these scents
for men: Cartier's Pasha
Eau de Toilette, $180;
Cacharel Pour l'Homme,
$40; Relph Lauren's Sa-
fari, $49; and Calvin
Klein's Obsession, $39.

PLAYROY

118

F E E D B A с К (continued from page 68)

“Т disliked Rhonda on sight for the way she looked.
at me—her expression a prim gash of disapproval.”

New York and fly her down with us. He
agreed.

‘Allison had been watching through
the ceiling bug, part of her job. She
came in when he left and poured her-
self a cup of tea. “Nut case,” she said.

“Interesting nut case, though. Rich.”

“If you ever took on a charity nut
case, 1 wasn't watching.” She stirred a
spoonful of marmalade into her tea.
Russian style. She does that only to
watch me cringe. “So I should get tick-
ets to the Caymans for meand M&M?”

“Yeah, Friday.”
st class?"

‘What's it worth to you?”

“I don't know. You want a cup of tea
in your Гар?”

“First class.”

Finding the right model was dif-
ficult. I knew two or three women who
would fill the bill in terms of physical
appearance and sitting ability, but they
were friends. That would interfere
with the client's wishes, since he obyi-
ously wanted а cold, clinical approach.
Allison and I spent an afternoon going
through agency files, and another af-
ternoon interviewing people, until we
found the right one. Rhonda Speck,
30, slender enough to show ribs. I dis-
liked her on sight, and liked her even
less when she took off her clothes, for
the way she looked at me—her expres-
sion a prim gash of disapproval. Even if
I were heterosexual, I wouldn't be
ogling her unprofessionally. That edge
of resentment might help the painting,
I thought. I didnt know the half of it.

I told Rhonda the job involved a free
wip to the Cayman Islands and she
showed as much enthusiasm as if I had
said Long Island. She did brighten a
little when I described the setting. She
was working on her law degree and
could study while she sat. That also
helped to distance me from her, since
1 am not a great admirer of the
profession.

I called my banker in George Town
and described the office that I needed.
She knew of a small lav firm that was
closing for a February vacation, and
would inquire.

It had been a few years since I'd
painted nudes, and I'd done only two
photo-realist studies ever. I didn't want
to work with Rhonda any more than 1
had to, or pay her any more than I had

to, 50 I had a friend with a figure simi-
lar to Rhonda's come over and sit. For
two days 1 did sketches and рћо-
tographs, experimenting with postures
and lightings. I took them to Segura
and we agreed on the pose—the
woman looking up coldly from her pa-
pers, as if interrupted, strong light
from the desk lamp putting half of her
face in shadow. Making the desk lamp
the only source of light also isolated the
hgure from the details of the office,
which would be rendered in photo-
realist detail, but darkly, making for a
sinister background.

Then I spent three days doing a
careful portrait of the model, head and
upper body, solving some technical
problems about rendering the glossy
hair and the small breasts. 1 wanted
them to look hard, unfeminine, yet
realistic.

I took the portrait up to Segura's
office and he approved. His only reser-
vations were about himself. "You're
sure I'll be able to produce something
with this kind of control? I literally
can't draw a face that looks like a face.”

^No problem. Your hands will be suff
from using undeveloped muscles, Биг
while you're in the skinsuit your move-
ments will be precisely the same as
mine. Have I told you about the time I
hired a facilitator myself?" He shook
his head. "I was curious about how it
felt on the other end. I hired a gui-
t-composer, and we spent two days
g a short fugue in the style of
Bach. We started with the four letters
of my last name—which, coincidental-
ly, form an A-minor-seventh chord—
and made up a marvelously complicat-
ed little piece that was unequivocally
mine. Even though I can't play it

"You could play it in the skinsuit,
though."

“Beautifully. I have a tape of it, the
facilitator sitting beside me playing a
silent solid-body guitar while I roam
around їе frets with brilliant sensitivi-
ty.” I laughed. “Ar the end of each day
my hands were so weak I couldn't pick
up a fork, let alone a brush. My fingers
were stiff for a week." I wriggled them.
“Your experience will be less extreme.
Using a brush doesn't involve the un-
natural stretching that playing a guitar
does.”

Segura was willing to part with an
extra hundred grand for a one-day
demonstration. A predictable course,

given hindsight, knowing him to be a
man boxed in by distrust and driven,
or at least directed, by what I would
call paranoia.

He suggested a self-portrait. I told
him it would have to be done from
photographs, since the skinsuit distorts
your face almost as much as a bank-
robber’s pantyhose disguise. That i
terested him. He was going to spend
three weeks in the skinsuit; why not
have a record of what it was like? J pre-
tended that nobody had come up with
the idea before and said sure, sounds
interesting.

In fact, l'd done it twice, but both
times the collaborators produced im-
pasto abstractions that didn’t resemble
anything. Segura would be different.

By law, a doctor has to be present
when you begin the facilitation. Alter it
gets under way, any kind of nurse or
medic is adequate for standing guard.
A few collaborators have had blood-
pressure spikes or panic attacks. The
nurse can terminate the process in-
stantly if the biosensors show some-
thing happening. He pushes a button
that releases a trank into my blood-
stream, which breaks the connection. It
also puts me into a Valium haze the rest
of the day. A good reason to have peo-
ple pay in advance.

There's a doctor in my building
who's always ү to pop up and
earn a hundred dollars for five min-
utes’ work. I always use the same
nurse, too, a careful and alert man with
the unlikely name of Marion Marion.
He calls himself M&M. since he's
brown and round.

I soaked and taped down four half-
sheets of heavy D'Arches cold-press, al-
lowing for three disasters, and pre-
pared my standard portrait palette. 1
set up the session to begin at 9:30
sharp. M&M came over carly, as usual,
to have tea and joke around with Alli-
son and me. He's a natural comic and
I think also a natural psychologist.
Whatever, he puts me at ease before
facing what can be a rather trying
experience.

(1 should point out here that it’s not
always bad. If the collaborator has tal-
ent and training and a pleasant disposi-
tion, it can be as refreshing as dancing
with a skilled partner.)

The others showed up on time and
we got dovn to business. An anteroom
off my studio has two parallel examin-
ing tables. Segura and I stripped and
lay down and were injected with six
hours' worth of buffer. M&M glued the
induction electrodes to the proper
places on our shaven heads. The doc-
tor looked at them, signed a piece oF
paper and left. Then M&M, with Alli.
son's assistance, rolled the loose skii
suits over us, sealed them and pumped

118

PILTA YY EIQ

120

the air out.

Seguraand 1 woke up at the same in-
stant M&M turned on the microcur-
rent that initiated the process. It's like
being puppet and puppeteer simulta-
neously. 1 saw through Segura's eyes.
His body sat me up, slid me to the floor
and walked me into the studio. He
perched me on a stool in front of the
nearly horizontal easel and the mirror.
"Then I took over.

1 you were watching us work, you
would see two men sitting side by side,
engaged in what looks like a painstak-
ingly overpracticed mime routine. If
one of us scratches his ear, the other
one does. But from the inside it is more
complicated: We exchange control sec-
ond by second. This is why not every
good artist can Бе a good facilitator.
You have to have an instinct for when.
to assert your judgment, your skills,
and let the client be in control other-
wise. It is literally a thousand decisions
per hour for six hours. It's exhausting.
I earn my fee.

My initial idea was, in compositional
terms, similar to what our nude would
be— realistic face in harsh light glow-
ing in front of an indistinct back-
ground. There wouldn't be time to
paint in background details, of course.

I made a light drawing of the head
and shoulders, taking most of an hour.
Then I took а chisel brush and careful-
ly painted in the outlines of the draw-
ing with frisket, a compound like rub-
ber cement. You can paint over it and,
when the paint dries, rub it off with an
eraser or your fingertip, exposing the
paper and the drawing underneath.

When the frisket was dry, 1 mopped
the entire painting with clear water
and then made an inky wash out of
burnt umber and French ultramarine.
l worked the wash over the whole
painting and, while it was still damp,
floated in diffuse shapes of umber and
ultramarine that would hint at shad-
owy background. Then 1 buzzed Alli-
son in to dry it while I/we walked
around, loosening up. She came in
with a hair drier and worked over the
wet paper carefully, uniformly, while I
didn't watch. Sometimes а dramatic
background wash just doesn’t work
when it dries—looks obvious or cheesy
or dull—and there is never any way to
fix it. (Maybe you could soak the paper
overnight, removing most of the pig-
ment. Better to just start over, though.)

I walked Segura across to the bay
window and looked out over the city.
The snow that remained on the shaded
part of rooftops was gray or black.
‘Traffic crawled in the thin bright light.
Pedestrians hurried through the wind
and slush.

Segura's body wanted a cigarette
and I allowed him to walk me over to

his clothes and light one up. The nar-
cotic rush was disorienting. I had to
lean us against a wall to keep from stag-
gering. It was not unpleasant, though,
once I surrendered control to him. No
need for me to dominate motor re-
sponses until we had brush in hand.

Allison said the wash was ready and
looked good. It did—vague, gloomy
shapes suggesting а prison or asylum
cell. I rolled up a kneaded eraser and
carefully rubbed away the frisket. The
light pencil drawing floated over the
darkness like a disembodied thought.

1 had to apply frisket again, this time
in a halo around the drawing, and
there was a minor setback: I'd neglect-
ed to put the frisket brush into solvent,
and the bristles had dried into a solid,
useless block. I surprised myself by
throwing it across the room. That was
Segura acting.

I found another square brush and
carefully worked a thin frisket mask
around the head and shoulders, to
keep the dark background from bleed-
ing in, but had to stop several times
and lift up the brush because my hand
was trembling with Segura’s sup-
pressed anger at the mistake. Relax, it
was a cheap brush. You must be hell on
wheels to work for.

First a dilute yellow wash, new gam-
boge, over the entire face. I picked up
the hair drier and used it for six or sev-
en minutes, making sure the wash was
bone-dry meanwhile planning the
next couple of stages.

This technique—glazing—consists of
building up a picture with layer upon
layer of dilute paint. It takes patience
and precision and judgment: Some-
times you want the previous layer to be
completely dry, and sometimes you
want it damp, to diffuse the lines be-
tween the two colors. If it's too damp,
you risk muddying the colors, which
can be irreversible and fatal. But that's
one thing that attracts me to the tech-
nique—the challenge of gambling
everything on the timing of one stroke
ofthe brush.

Segura obviously felt otherwise. Odd
for a man who essentially gambled for
a living, albeit with other people's
money He wanted each layer safely
dry before proceeding with the next,
once he understood what I was doing.
That's a technique, but it's not my tech-
nique, which is what he was paying for.
It would also turn this portrait, distort-
ed as it was, into a clown's mask.

So I pushed back a little, establishing
my authority, so to speak. I didn't want
this to become a contest of wills. I just
wanted control over the hair drier, ac-
tually, not over Juan Carlos Segura.

There was a slight battle, lasting only
seconds. It's hard to describe the sensa-
tion to someone who hasn't used a fa-

cilitator. It's something like being an-
noyed at yourself for not being able to
make up your mind, but rather inten-
sified—"being of two minds," literally.

Of course, I won the contest, having
about ten thousand times more experi-
ence at it than Segura. I set down the
hair dricr, and the next layer, defining
the hollows of the face visible through
the skinsuit, went on with soft edges. I
checked the mirror and automatically
noted the places I would come back to
later when the paper was dry, to make
actual lines, defining the bottom of the
goggle ridges, the top of the lip, the
forward part of the ear mass.

The portrait was finished in two
hours, but the background still needed
something. Pursuing a vague memory
from a week before, I flipped through
abook of Matthew Brady photographs,
visions of the Civil War's hell. Our face
in the skinsuit resembled those of some
corpses, open-mouthed, staring. 1
found the background I wanted, а ru-
ined tumble of brick wall, and took the
book back to the easel. 1 worked an in-
timation of the wall into the back-
ground, dry-brushing umber and ul-
tramarine with speckles and threads of
clotted blood color, alizarin muted with
raw umber. Then I dropped the brush-
cs inw water aud looked away, buzzing
M&M. 1 didn't want to see the painting
again until I saw it with my own eyes.

Coming out of the facilitation state
takes longer than going in, especially if
you dor't go the full six hours. The re-
maining buffer has to be neutralized
with а series of timed shots. Otherwise,
Segura and I would hardly have been
able to walk, expecting the collabora-
tion of another brain that was no
longer there.

1 was up and around a few minutes
before Segura. Allison had set out some
cheese and fruit and an ice bucket with
a boule of white burgundy. 1 was hun-
gry, as always, but only nibbled a bit,
waiting for lunch.

Segura attacked the [ood like a
starved animal. "What do you think?"
he said between bites. "Is it any good?"

"Always hard to tell while you're
working. Let's take a look." I buzzed
Allison and she brought the painting
in. She'd done a good jcb, as usual, the
painting set off in a double mat of brick
red and forest green inside a black
metal frame.

“It does look good,” he said, as if
surprised.

I nodded and sipped wine, study-
ing it. The painting was technically
good, but it would probably hang in
a gallery for years, gathering nervous

(continued on page 150)

A Club. of One's Own

in the contest to coddle the american man, upscale topless
clubs are outstripping the competition

article by D. KEITH MANO Topless has gone Vegas. It's a Bugsy Siegel vision of its former self.
What was once just déclassé raunch began to step up in style around 1988. Today the average upscale
topless outlet will feature 20 to 30 women you wouldn't mind splicing genes with. And it comes with
valet parking, with sound systems so thunderous and sophisticated they would reach the cheap seats in
the Sky Dome, with three-star food and with someone you gotta tip in the john. As the clubs go for the
top of the market—Miami, Atlanta, Detroit, Houston, New York—they're becoming investment-grade
businesses. Even in the recession, topless is a go-go stock—more than just respectable, expensive (Visa
and Master Card accepted) I predicted this makeover by the way, while doing research for
my novel Topless. Since 1982 I’ve interviewed about 400 of the roughly (text concluded on page 130)

H's becoming the nightlife phenomenon of the Nineties: the men's club, where you'll find gourmet
food, expensive decor and female entertainment (in accelerating states of undress). г.дувоу looks at six
of the hottest clubs, including Solid Gold (top) in Minneapolis and the Men's Club (above) in Houston.

PHOTOGRAPHY BY BYRON NEWMAN

Chanel, Leslie Delahoussaye, Jeanne Landacre, Danica Lynn and J.J. (left to
right) re-create the flapper era at the Men's Club in Houston. And what do
these ladies do for kicks? Weight lifting, jet skiing, traveling and modeling.

Six bucks will get you into the Men's Club, where Tamara Louise Reed (opposite page) is one of 125 topless dancers. What
do your dollars buy once you're in? The club boasts six stages, а swimming pool, a boardroom and a restaurant that serves
everything from atomic shrimp (four giant ones) to a 14-ounce kick-ass filet mignon. For dessert, try Sex in the Sack. And
for an extra $25, you'll get entertainment that's up close and personal—that is, a table dance by J.J. (above) or her friends.

qmm
ч

||

9

The Cabarét Royale in Dallas (below and right) opened in
1988, thereby becoming the granddaddy of the new breed
of topless clubs. A cabaret-style throwback to the Folies-
Bergére, the club encourages its 385 dancers—including
Sharon (left) and Suzanne Moline (above)—to choreograph
elaborate stage productions in eye-popping costumes.

One уеаг ago Stringfellow's in New York decided that dis-
со was dead and reinvented itself as a topless club. Busi- —n
ness has never been better. Melissa Williamson (below

and for right) and Већ Ann Marrero (right and opposite 4 Каин
page) are two of ће club's 150 dancers, who can average 77

5300 to $1500 а night in tips. Uncover charge: 510 to $20.

B % Da.

P
ES
&
Ea

utdoorsmen will feel right s pane st the Colorado E Bar
= Grill (above) in Houston,
life trophies- from zebras (а the b p en below) ю
leopards, lions and bears—adorn the hunting-lodge set-
ting. Answering the call of the wild is Melinda Sanchez
(left) and а flowery and fragrant Rebecca André (right).

Situated in a 100-year-old building with marble walls and а 40-foot domed ceil-
ing, Minneapolis’ Solid Gold club has six stages, a restaurant, 50 dancers and a
good heating system. Sparks fly when Haley (above) does her electrifying act.

С

Mary Ann Hillhouse (above and орро-
site page) and Cassandra Gori (below)
are two of 100 all-nude dancers at
Atlanta's Cheetah club. We would like
to let Mary Ann know that she can
take the bar stool next to ours any day.

-- D

==
NG | d |
27771 2228

PLAYBOY

130

68,000 topless dancers in this country.
I have been to topless what Toulouse-
Lautrec was to cancan (only I'm a little
shorter), so listen up out there.

Stringfellow's in New York is a good
example of what I'm talking about.
"The club, which was formerly a snob-
zoned downtown disco, is now ил
cabaret de la femme. (It's done over in
a style known as Euro-Vegas, which
sounds like something you might take
penicillin for.) Nowhere in its print ad-
vertising is the blue-collar word topless
mentioned. Women at Stringfellow's
are, you understand, "partially nude"—
and beautiful enough to short your
pacemaker. They remind me of Keats’
poem, Ode on a Couple of Grecian Urns.

In December 1991 Peter Stringfel-
low licensed the Pure Platinum topless
format from Michael J. Peter, the Ray
Kroc of go-go. Peter owns or operates
30 top-seeded breast emporiums from
Florida to Minneapolis to Honolulu.
Recently, he took over the El Morocco
in New York. His employees cross-pol-
linate: A dancer at Stringfellow's might
work at the El Morocco location. Next
month she could be escaping her cos-
tume in Myrtle Beach.

As one would expect, your less well-
endowed topless establishments have
to compete against Peter with feature
acts: Heidi Hooters, Bobbie Balloons,
Candy Cantalopes and, my favorite,
Letha Weapons—all 100DDD cup size
or bigger. Since mid-1990 or so, New
York has been, as they say, pushing the

envelope.
.

Topless chic began with Cabarét
Royale in Dallas—an $8 million estab-
lishment that could remind you of the
British Museum done over to look like
Darth Vader's harem. Upscale go-go
had existed before—particularly at the
stunning (and all nude) Cheetah Club
in Atlanta. But with Cabarét Royale
and, later, the Men's Club of Houston
(now also of Dallas), you get something
only America could whip together: à
topless shopping mall.

At one joint or the other, or both,
you'd find: an aerobic gym, a swim-
ming pool, a fashion boutique. a unisex
hair salon, a tanning bed, massage
therapy, terrific dining, a conference
room, a fax machine, a photocopier—
also а seamstress, a laundry, a makeup
person and pedicurist for those 90 to
100 women who dance each night.

You may sniff at the topless game,
but it is probably funding welfare for
a medium-sized town somewhere in
Texas. Between them, these two com-
panies sold nearly $12 million in liquor
alone last year. Аз Teri Jo Nicholson,
persuasive marketing director for the
Men's Club, told me. "We ofer а

unique concept, a resort-style club. You
just can't spend the night.”

АЙ that feels a long way from what 1
once knew as go-go, Not just in rich ap-
pointment and fine amenity. Take a
look outside the Men's Club door, for
instance. Instead of a 400-pound sumo
reject wearing his best Chris Mullin
gym rat Fshirt and some sociopathic
attitudes, you'll find a polite, trim host
in black tie.

From the host on up, the topless
playbook has been rewritten. Dancer-
owner and dancer-client relationships
are in flux. In classic topless, two or
three women perform a set onstage—
most often one half hour—for G-string
tip money. When offstage, the dancer
must be fully (if provocatively) clothed.
Management will encourage her to so-
cialize with clientele between onstage
sets—no groping allowed. And, except
for tourist traps (where battery-water
“champagne” can cost $125), Pandora
or Gretchen or Xema will spend the
entire down set with you for the price
of a $5 tip and one three-buck Bud. In
classic topless, many women are local—
students, actresses, moonlighting office
personnel—with B-plus bodies and
youth to squander. Most important:
Each dancer is a temp employee, re-
ceiving some kind of guaranteed nut
($8 to $10 per set) from management,
whether or not you stuff green in her
underwear.

With the current incarnation of top-
less, by contrast, stage time (one song,
maybe two) merely constitutes the teas-
er. Serious business will be taken care
of down below. The new topless has re-
furbished and made acceptable the
“table” dance—once confined largely
to Canada. For $20 (more if уоште
feeling generous), that redhead you
just saw on stage—she who could fill a
car bra—will bathe you in long orange
hair, then dance so close you might eas-
ily drink shooters from her navel, A re-
al vasoconstrictor, that.

Of course, go-go protocol changes at
the state line. Chicago, for instance, is
toplessless, In Detroit, though, one
gorgeous pop tart began to climb me
like her kitchen stepladder. Then she
took both church kneeler-size breasts
and, using them as a cymbal set, made
my ears go boinnng! In some sleazy sub-
basement? No, at В.Т, after I had eat-
en filet mignon off china and linen.
This variation is called "lap" ог “couch”
dancing. Lap women are referred to
affectionately as "zipper polishers."

Club topless is, moreover, a free-
market enterprise. Your redheaded
friend will receive по minimum take-
home pay from management. Hell,
most likely she laid out $30 or even $50
for the privilege of stripping off cheek
to cheek for 19 salivating customers

per night. She must maximize volume
and turnover in her table-dance trade.
So must her competition. One result is
positive: Only women radiant enough
to distract a heat-seeking missile will
survive and prosper.

The down side is, well, Robochick. At
first leer, disco topless would seem to
be much more intimate than classic
topless. After all—look—this spectacu-
lar hardbody is grinding away so close
to my chair I wanna put on a lobster
bib. Yet look again. That dance will
most probably be an effective but me-
chanical event: the generic brand of
sex. And small talk means downtime,
lost profits, an opening for competition.

In the old days, women were con-
stantly admonished to be sociable.
Management was well aware of the
builtin tension between good finance
and friendliness. But Robochick signed
up as a mercenary. Often, she's on tour,
under contract to some topless chain,
just passing through. She's not that kid
from SUNY-New Paltz who will dance
for textbook money and knew your old
neighborhood. As a male-female expe-
rience, New Age topless is, given the
tab, somewhat less engaging.

Then again, maybe men prefer it
that way. I suspect that this latest top-
less craze is, in part, an oblique re-
sponse to the radical feminist agenda.
Women have liberated virtually all sig-
nificant male sanctums. But they can-
not liberate Cabarét Royale because it
is already full of entrepreneurial
women. ГА reckon that men have
come to cherish a venue where the
rules are understood up front. Where
they can exert control: For $20 I can
make any woman in this room take off
her dothing. That's good to know. And
if 1 admire her body, in look or in lan-
guage, she will accept my male re-
sponse and won't call a lawyer.

Classic topless couldn't serve this
purpose because it was always outside
the culture: underground, proscribed
by social convention, not respectable.
Men who went there were rogue males,
unfit for breeding. Yet I confess nostal-
gia for the uncouth. And I rather re-
sent having respectable sexual habits.
The charm of classic topless lay in its
social, not its sensual, intimacy. Where
some young woman with maybe cel-
lulite, maybe an asymmetrical bust,
would update me on her life. And treat
me, in passing, as more than just the
gross extension of my wallet.

But let not my yearning for tradi-
tional values spoil your fun. We live in
la belle époque of topless. Investigate it,
and bring along your wife or girl-
friend. You won't want to miss the
great American bust boom.

These
Red Packs
are known

for their
great taste.

| 381
Marlboro

| 20 CLASS A CIGARETTES

Winstón

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

u
only Viceroy
15 known
for its
great price.

Viceroy is always priced lower than Marlboro and Winston.
About $4? a carton lower“

Viceroy. The Red Pack at the Right Price.

*Based on manufacturers’ list prices,

SURGEON GENERAL'S WARNING: Cigarette een

Prices optional with retailers.

Smoke Contains Carbon Monoxide.

Viceroy Kings. 17 mg. “Таг”. 1.2 mg. nicotine
av. per cigarette by FTC method. swssasswrco

LAUR

| n Laura Dern's cinematic universe, as in
real life, saintly schoolgirls ave capable
of conducting secrel lives and chain-smoh-
ing tarts can also be pure hearts. In her ear-
liest work—‘Alice Doesn't Live Here Any-
more” and "Foxes"—Dern is just the
daughter of actors Diane Ladd and Bruce
Dern, elbowing her way anto a movie set. By
1985 she begins lo exhibit her peculiar
touch, in “Smooth Talk,” as a sullang teen-
ager who disposes of her virginity with equal
ports zeal and trepidation. Dern's bits were
flawless in two David Lynch films. In “Blue
Velvet,” clothed and chaste, she showed a
remarkable tolerance for weirdness. Un-
zipped, in “Wild ai Heart,” she displayed
enough confidence to surprise her fans. In
“Rambling Rose,” which won Golden Globe
and Academy Award nominations for both
her and her mother, she made unchecked
horniness seem beguilingly innocent.

Her showbiz reputation has become that
of the self-created siren. It is as if she willed
herself, and moviegoers, into believing in
her sexiness. Right after Dern finished
Steven Spielberg’s upcoming “Jurassic
Park,” Margy Rochlin spoke with her about
her new profile in Hollywood, “Laura ap-
preciates the conversational detour,” says
Rochlin. “Her responses may contain an
observation about sex, love, global politics or
human behavior. In fact, her only self-con-
scious moment occurred after a rambling
discourse about her fascination with world
religion. ‘Um, I hope I'm not coming off like
a cliché spiritual woo-woo person,’ Dern
said. ‘Because I’m nat, really. .

1.

PLAYBOY: Аг some point, you made ће
change from playing the girl next
door in a sun-

1 Y dress
cueman RID S
Which 2 ?
freshest аон
Siren tells us girland the inno-
cent virgin are in
when it’s ok ^ allofus.I'm most
proud of Ram-
bling Rose becaus
to gawk and fig no beane
to moon and types of girls are
in that character.
shares her Tha по me is
QUESO
remedy for a i

PLAYBOY: In femi-
nist cirdes much
has been made of
the male gaze.

broken heart

PHOTOGRAPHY BY MARK HANAUER

0 ü

When is it all right for men to look?
DERN: When I was shooting a film in
the Mojave desert, we went to a Тех-
Mex club. I was wearing this little red-
velvet top and tight jeans and cowboy
boots and 1 gor in the middle of the
floor and went insane! The music was
great and 1 was surrounded by cow-
boys. If it had been me alone at a
dub—forger about it. There were guys
leering at me, but somehow it was ab-
stract. I felt completely free, really safe.
And I enjoyed that everybody was just
looking at me. But yesterday I was
wearing a pair of tight workout shorts
and a leotard. And I came out of a
parking lot and these valet parkers
went “Wooooo!” and were just staring
at my ass. 1 wanted to kill. That really
pissed me off. As opposed to, “God,
she's pretty,” there was a sense of dis-
gust in the air, like, “Look at that fuck-
ing slut.” It was gross. You know, some-
times it’s really fun to act like a bimbo.
But it’s fun to act like a bimbo only
when people know that you really
aren't one.

8.

PLAYBOY: You were raised by your
mother and your grandmother, both of
whom are from the South. What are
the privileges of being a Southern
belle?

DERN: Southern women have grace.
They're great listeners, which makes
them gracious hosts. My grandmother
loves to listen to everybody's storics.
She taught me that there's always a di-
chotomy in people. There's always re-
pression and sexuality, kindness and
calcularion—there's no person whos
just one thing. She's a Catholic woman.
Doesn't like cuss words. Very proper.
Bur at the same time, anybody who
meets her—and she's seventy-four
years old—says, "Boy, she's so much
like Marilyn Monroe." She's a doll. She.
loves to flirt with men and she wraps
them around her finger. She's a little
sexpot and she makes wild comments
every once in a while. I took her to sec
Mambo Kings onc weekend. Forget
about it. Every time Armand Assante
appeared on the screen, she was, like,
“Wooooo!” Yet she goes to church
every Sunday and is very straight. I
love that about her.

4.

PLAYBOY: We understand that you med-
itate. What's the hardest thing to get

TE

5

out of your mind when you sit down
to meditate?

Dern: Everything. I am not gifted at sit-
ting down twice a day and giving my-
self thirty to forty minutes just to sit.
One week I’m completely dedicated to
it and the next week I'm crazed. The
hardest thing for me to get out of my
mind is what I've forgotten to do. Un-
less Рта going through a major crisis, it
doesn’t even get into emotional pain.
It's just the real piddly stuff. Ultimate-
ly, it floats away and you can focus on
yourself.

5.

PLAYBOY: In preparation for your role
as a blind teenager in Mask, you spent
some time discovering the world with
your eyes closed. How have you ap-
plied what you learned in Mask to your
own life?

DERN: lt was definitely true that 1 was
nicer and people were nicer to me. It
was because I had to be more in touch
with what I was feeling. When you're
standing there with your eyes closed
and you have to feel if something is in
front of you, then you're going to .
be obviously much more in tune with
your and other people’s emotions. If
Thad my eyes closed and I heard you
say, “I'm really sad right now,” well, all
I have to focus on is what I'm hearing
you say. Whercas, when my eyes are
open and you say to me, "I'm really sad
right now," it's, like, “Oh, God, I'm re-
ally sorry, but there's the telephone
and it reminds me of someone I forgot
to call." Or Im thinking that I'm really
thirsty or hungry. There's so much else
that I’m taking in. There's much more
darity with your eyes dosed. Also, you
just have to trust that people will pro-
tect you. Once, we were going up in the
mountains on horseback and I was on
cliffs and the guy who was working
with me said, “Just remember, the
horse is not going to take you any-
where he doesn't want to go.” I had to
trust that the horse would lead me
carefully through these mountains. It
was scary, but it was also an incredible
experience. It made me think about
what an amazing exercise it would be
to blindfold yourself for twenty-four
hours and trust your lover or mate to
take care of you. I wonder how much it
would alter the relationship. I'm sure it
would. But that’s a whole other story.

PLAYBOY

Un а low, suggestive voice] “Blindfold
me, baby.”

6.

PLAYBOY: What do you and your cat have
in common?

DERN: Every time my ex-boyfriend calls
my house, my cat gets sick. I get a blad-
der infection, my cat gets a bladder in-
fection. He can pick up the energy from
how I react to things.

7.

PLAYBOY: In Rambling Rose both you and
your mother make out with Robert Du-
vall. Did you and she compare notes
afterward?

DERN: Whoa! I don't think we ever com-
pared notes, because 1 never really
thought about it until this second. We
never even talked about it. But Mom
and I have always been ргецу open
about sex. Before I ever had sex, she'd
answer any question 1 had, and that's re-
ally cool. And once I started having sex,
I didn't want to talk to anybody about it.
Or at least not to any parent.

8.

гїлүвдү: Mooning has a proud tradition.
Butitis not often a female extravagance.
We understand that you participated in
the multiple celebrity mooning of direc-
tor James L. Brooks at a restaurant.
What premoon thoughts went through
your head before you did it?

DERN: It was one of those things where
everyone agreed, “When Jim gets back
from the bathroom, let's all moon him as
а joke" So Jim came back and 1 saw
everybody stand up and I thought, Oh,
my God, we're really going to do this

You don't have ume to think in that situ-
ation. We were ага restaurant in this pri-
vate room upstairs and we all did it real-
ly fast so nobody in the restaurant could
see. And Jim goes, "Man, I've never seen
such a group of great asses in my life. 1
didn't know which one to look at first."
So then Glenn [Close] and Woody [Har-
relson] mooned the entire restaurant.
And the restaurant loved it. Then
Woody got Jim to play this game. Woody
seid, "If you lose, you have to moon the
restaurant." And Jim said, "Oh, c'mon,
you can't do this to me." And I remem-
ber Glenn going, "C'mon, Jim, you have
to do it. If we did it, you have to do it."
And Jim says, "That's easy for yov to say,
you don't have an L. Ron Hubbard tat-
too on your ass!" Which 1 thought was
pretty funny. So Jim walked up to the
balcony and he screamed out to the
restaurant customers, who at this point
were all looking up, waiting, and he said,
“I refuse to moon you!” And everybody
started applauding. Everybody there
had such a good time. In fact, one group
of people, a table of six, came up to
us afterward and said, “Thanks for a
great night”

9.

PLAYBOY: As a follower of politics, tell us:
Just bow honest do you want a world
leader to be? What's the difference be-
tween honesty and full disclosure?

DERN: À politician has to be careful about
where he places his honesty. And to be
discreet about it. It’s like being in a rela-
tionship: You want honesty with discre-
tion. I always thought people should be
honest, no matter what. But I’ve
learned, being the victim of honesty in a

relationship, that sometimes it's less
hurtful not to know everything.

10.

PLAYBOY: Some women make good deci-
sions about men and some make bad
ones. Which of those are you?

DERN: I'm starting to learn that there's
no good or bad. My decisions are based
on my personal struggles and my issues
about relationships. I pull in men that
teach me about what I need to learn to
get me to another level as a person. 1
mean, you can't hate a man for being in-
capable of monogamy and then move on
to another guy who cheats on you also.
It's not that all men are that way. There
is something affected by that in you.
What is it that, if a man is unfaithful,
makes me say, "Oh, my God. He wants
everybody else, he doesn't want me"?
And "I'm nothing, I'm shit." What is itin
me that makes me feel so attached to the
need of that man to tell me what my val-
ue is? If he wants other people, then he
clearly doesn't want me. And 1 deserve
to be with somebody who wants me.
“That's the healthy, wonderful way Га
like to look at things

n.

PLAYBOY: You've been romantically
linked with actors Kyle MacLachlan and
Vincent Spano and producer Renny
Harlin. Would you like to talk about the
specialness of dating someone outside of
the business? Someone who doesn't have.
anything in development?

DERN: I can't answer that question. I've
always dated people who, on some level,
were in the arts or in film. I would like to
be able to answer that question, so I did
know the difference. But I can't.

12.

PLAYBOY: How do you mend а broken
heart?

DERN: Time. Pampering yourself. Don't
get into that “What did I do wrong? I
must be unworthy” thing. That gets bor-
ing really quickly. Drink lots of water.
Meditate. Do lots of yoga and don't eat
sugar. It all depends on what makes you
feel good. Once, I stayed at Isabella
Rossellini’s for a couple of weeks and we
listened to tons of Billie Holiday. That
totally put me in great spirits.

13.

PLAYBOY: What areas of expertise do peo-
ple think you have that you really don’t
have at all?

DERN: A lot of people think I speak many
languages, and I don't. They start speak-
ing to me in Spanish, Italian, sometimes
even Japanese. 1 speak some French, but
I'm not fluent. People also think I wear
contact lenses—which I consider an area
of expertise, one that I have not ac-
quired at this point in my life. And

people don't know that I до wear glass-
es—I'm Miss Coke Bottles.

14.

PLAYBOY: What Hollywood affectation
are you most horrified to discover your-
self doing?

DERN: Being in a situation where I have
to find something nice to say to some-
body. You go toa premiere ofa film, and
on the way out the producer or the di-
rector asks you, "What did you think?"
What I try to do is not lie but find the
thing that I feel is good about it. Great.
performances! That was something,
wasn't it? Nobody really wants to hear
the truth. So much effort goes into mak-
ing movies that nobody really wants to
hear that their movie is bad. If I'm at
your premiere, I'm not going to go,
“That was a stinker. And you sucked in
it.” I have to find something to say. And
there are always positive things, like,
“You looked great,” or “It was a chal-
lenging role,” or "You guys really went
for it.” Every movie has talent in it. Even
if it's the gaffer.

15.

PLAYBOY: Most children fantasize about
changing their name. What did you
want to rechristen yourself as?

DERN: I've always loved my name. When
I was in the fifth grade, some boys in my
class, whom I really loved, kept calling
me nerd. They'd say, “Dern spelled
backward is nerd, and that's what you
are." And I'd cry. Then, in the sixth
grade, I was making a painting and one
of the boys called that out to те and I
wrote it down. It wasn't until that mo-
ment that I realized that my name spelled
backward was not nerd, but nred. It took
mean entire year to figure this out.

16.

PLAYBOY: As a serious collector, describe
the utility and allure of the G-string.

DERN: [ hate panties. G-strings are so
much more comfortable. 1 think they
used to be a toy thing, like playing dress-
up or something. But now they re com-
mon. 1 mean, Calvin Klein makes them.

ihe,

PLAYBOY: Some writers wear hats so their
ideas don't fly off. Is that why actresses
who play sex kittens hold their heads?
DERN: In Wild at Heart it was a character
choice. It’s slightly Marilyn Monroe.
Marilyn would put her hand on top of
her head, but in a slightly different way.
1 think that Lula liked feeling her hair.
She liked to pose.

18.

PLAYBOY: Shelley Winters is your god-
mother. Godparents are responsible for
a child's spiritual education. Did she take
this responsibility to heart?

DERN: She's very supportive. I lived with
her in New York for about a month and

she let me be an observer at the Actors
Studio when she was moderating there.
That was great. I got to watch a lot and
talk to her about what I loved about act-
ing. She was a great influence.

19.

PLAYBOY: In Steven Spielberg's Jurassic
Park you play a paleobotanist involved in
a cloning experiment that goes awry.
What inspired you to make your action-
adventure film debut? Did the promise
of working with special-effects dinosaurs
play a large part in that decision?

DERN: It was like some weird dream, be-
ing in this action-packed Steven Spicl-
berg adventure movie. It's pretty wild:
Sam Neill, me, Jeff Goldblum and
Richard Attenborough. In a dinosaur
movie? Hilarious. When I was mulling it
over, Nick Cage said, “I hear they want
you for a dinosaur movie. How can you
not do a dinosaur movie?” The way he
said it made me realize that it was some-
thing 1 just had to do.

20.

PLAYBOY: You were on Kauai when Hur-
ricane Iniki hit. What were you thinking.
when all the weather in the world was
outside your window?

DERN: About nine A.M., 1 walked out to
the beach with Sam Neill, who plays my.
boyfriend in Jurassic Park. The hurricane
wasn't supposed to hit until three P.M.,
but it was getting windy and the waves
were getting strong. But it still looked
somewhat normal. We were walking on
the beach, and 1 said to Sam, “Do you
think this is going to blow over?" And he
said, "No, I think this is going to be a
horrible catastrophe. Take a picture. Be-
cause it may be the last picture of the ho-
tel ever looking like this." And I said,
"Boy, are you Mr. Doom and Gloom,"
not realizing how terrifying the situation
was. As we turned around to take a pic-
ture of the hotel, a wave came out of
nowhere and washed over us, and, sud-
denly, we were soaked.

Wike бомыг

"Dear diary: Another day in paradise. Took a walk
on the beach, basked in the sunlit canopy of a tropical
rain forest, crapped on a couple from. Forest Hills."

137

PLAYBOY

one was saying, "We take you seriously,
we believe in you, we know that in ways
unwritten, you will change the world."

MTV's mission, it was decided, was to.
become the voice of the kids.

У| Steve Isaacs has heard the voice of
the kids, and he doesn't like it. He's host-
ing one of MTV's Spring Break concerts
in Daytona Beach, and the mood is get-
ting ugly The concert bill features a
range of musical styles—Primus, Ugly
Kid Joe, Salt-N-Pepa, Mr. Big—and the
crowd is a weird mix of visiting college
jocks and working-stiff locals. Almost all
of them are drunk; many, for no dis-
cernible reason, are hostile. Scary con-
vulsions of pushing surge through the
crowd, smashing people against the bar-
riers in front of the stage. Every so often,
security guards lift a hysterical girl up
over their heads and pass her to safety. A
mosh pit opens up for Ugly Kid Joc, but
the slam dancing is angry, nor fun. Sud-
denly, people on the edge of the pit are
slugging the moshers in the face, and
some of the moshers are sluggmg back.
It's mostly whites against blacks. The
crowd close by lurches away, the crowd
behind presses forward.

Isaacs senses what he calls "that riot
vibe"—he is almost sick with fear. Every
time he takes his position on the stage,
the crowd starts chanting at him. “Steve
Isaacs sucks!” hundreds of voices
scream. “Steve Isaacs sucks!”

Finding a way to bring MTV into its
second decade isn’t easy, considering
that it was one of the defining popular
cultural phenomena of the Eighties and
that the resources available for reinvent-
ing anything in the Nineties are a trifle
scant.

One disadvantage Freston faces is that.
MTV still labors to a large degree under
the very Eighties vision of its cofounder,
Bob Pittman. In 1981, Pittman, a 27-
year-old former radio programmer (and
sociology student), helped persuade
Warner-Amex to sink $30 million into a
rock-and-roll radio station with pictures.
Four years later, Warner-Amex sold
MTV to Viacom for $550 million. Pitt-
man estimates it's probably worth close
to $2 billion today.

Pittman left MTV in 1986. He now
occupies a 27th-floor office in the execu-
tive suite at Time Warner, having re-
turned to the inner circle of his benefac-

188 tor, Steve Ross. On one of Pituman's

INSIDE MTV сајта)

"They exude an odor of triumph. They are special.
They are inside. They belong at MTV.”

windowsills there's an elegant globe, an
appropriate decoration for a man who
views the world from a certain conceptu-
al distance.

It was Pittman who conceived the idea
that МТУ would subsist not just on the
music of rock and roll but also on its atti-
tude. Identifying with the kids was part
of the channel's profile from the begin-
ning—Freston says that “my” was always
the most important word in “I want my
MTV.” But only up to a point. Pittman's
vision had more to do with cool than
with connection. The idea was to make
МТУ the epitome of hip; if the kids
watched, the cool would rub off. And
what better product to have if you're
selling to kids than the promise of hip?

"The irony is that the kids, who in real
life tend to be gawky, unattractive and
insecure, had no place in a video land-
scape where sophistication, attractive-
ness and self-confidence counted for
everything. Indeed, for years it’s been
unofficial policy at MTV News not to let
anyone under college age—the bulk of
its audience—appear on camera. So
strongly did Pittman resist breaking
what he calls "the spell" of MTV that he
refused to license its logo to merchandis-
ers. “You don't want to see MTV T-shirts
on fat, pimply-faced teenaged girls,” he
once said. “That's the danger."

With their voice-of-the-kids campaign,
Freston and McGrath propose not only
to invite the fat, pimply-faced girls inside
MTV but to hand them a microphone
and ask them what they think about the
election.

You want attitude? Stand by the eleva-
tors some morning in the lobby of the
Viacom Building, just off Times Square
in New York » and watch the MTV
people coming to work.

It’s not hard to tell them apart from
the rest of Viacorn’s employees—they’re
not the ones wearing suits and ties or
silk blouses and pearls. More like black
leather and Ray Bans, tights and com-
bat boots, skull-patterned doo-rags and
Pearl Jam T-shirts, ear studs and jeans.

The first thing you see when you get
off the elevator on the 24th floor isa neat.
line of tree trunks stretching from the
floor through the ceiling—no roots, no
leaves, just trunks. The front desk is a
huge plaster rock, so big you can barely
see the receptionist seated behind ir.
Over her shoulder is a bank of five tele-
vision monitors with JBL speakers (play-
ing, of course, MTV at all times), plus a
bubbling aquarium in the shape of the

МТУ logo. The rest of the reception
area is done up in neo-tacky purple and
yellow; the pipes and wiring in the ceil-
ing are exposed.

Walking down the halls, you can hear
Springsteen or Prince blasting from var-
ious offices. Notes announcing concerts
are taped to bathroom doors. Few peo-
ple seem to be as old as 30; interns who
can't be much past 18 abound. As they
walk brusquely past the job applicants
who invariably wait by the tree trunks in
reception, they exude an odor of tri-
umph. They are special. They are inside.
They belong at MTV.

For the past several years, the princi-
pal goal of everyone who works at MTV,
whether they know it or not, has been
paying off the debt of a 69-year-old bil-
lionaire from Boston named Sumner
Redstone. Redstone owns 83 percent of
Viacom International Inc., a media соп-
glomerate that owns five television sta-
tions, 14 radio stations, several major ca-
ble systems, four cable networks besides
МТУ, portions of three more cable net-
works, a pay-per-view company, a movie
production company and syndication
rights to hundreds of TV programs
from The Cosby Show to Roseanne to The
Twilight Zone to The Honeymooners.

Not many at МТУ ever see Redstone,
which is probably just as well, since he's
known to hate rock and roll. He loves
МТУ, though. Redstone took on a
mountain of debt to buy Viacom—$2.7
billion—and MTV has been a geyser of
cash wearing away at that mountain ever
since. Media research firm Paul Kagan
Associates estimates that MTV produced
some $94 million in operating revenues
in 1992.

Redstone's debt is by far the most
pressing legacy the Fighties left in Fres-
ton's lap. Freston doesn't complain—in
fact, he talks about how supportive and
unobtrusive Redstone is—but the strain
shows. A former party animal himself
(MTV's Spring Break coverage was his
idea), Freston's style is laid-back, uncon-
cerned, ironic. But, at the age of 47, his
boyish good looks are more drawn than
they used to be, his grin a little less
cheerfully wry. Redstone is famous for
running tight ship—"He can watch the
dime," Freston agrees—and he sets
“preuy aggressive" goals for profit in-
creases every year. Freston has deliv-
ered, but not much has been left to plow
back into MTV. What investment there
has been has gone largely to MTV Eu-
rope and to other parts ofthe MTV Net-
works division, which includes Nick-
elodeon and VH-1. McGrath рога slight
increase in her production budget last
year and expects another small bump
this year, bur the staff will tell you they're
still running thin.

Its unstated policy at MTV that the

"I never knew, Heer Rembrandl, that passport pictures
were done in such detail.”

PRL ALY BOY

140

looseness of the atmosphere and the ca-
chet of working there compensate for
conditions that in other respects are, as
Freston puts it, “a couple of cuts above
the industrial revolution.” The low pay
is legendary. Steve Isaacs might be a TV
star, but there are months when he's not
sure he can cover his rent. Long hours
are another fact of life. Old-timers laugh
about all the interns who arrive thinking
they're going to be partying with rock
stars, only to find that they're stuck in
the office late into the night, every night
Duff says there was a sign in the studio
for a while that read, wORKING AT MTV IS
LIKE HAVING A GORGEOUS BOYFRIEND WHO
‘TREATS YOU LIKE HELL.

The drive for profits creates some ten-
sion between MTV's need to be hip and
its need to be popular. For the sake of
image (and for the satisfaction of the
music lovers who work there), the chan-
nel loves to be thought of as the place
where the coolest new acts get discov-
ered. For the sake of ratings, MTV wants
to be the place where the biggest stars
can always be seen

It’s nearly impossible to maintain that
balance. The fragmentation in the music
business in recent years hasn't made it
any easier. People today tend to listen to
one favorite kind of music—anything
else is anathema. In response to that,
MTV now programs itself much as a po-
litical party constructs a platform, laying
in pl to attract various constituen-
cies: a little metal, a little pop. a little al-

1ernative, a little rap, a little R&B. Put it
all together and you have a playlist that
is more diverse than it used to be and
more adventuresome than many radio
stations ever get. But it's still heavily
ted toward the mainstream—de-

27, is the white kid who cocreated Yo!
MTV Raps in 1989. (He's also the
nephew of director Jonathan Demme.)
Yo! was a major success, and overnight
it put to rest longstanding charges that
MTV would not play black music, None-
theless, the afternoon weekday version
of Yo! was cut back from an hour to half
an hour, then it was moved to midnight.
Yo! now appears only on Saturdays from
10 to 11 P.N. Demme says he never got
an explanation for the changes; the rat-
ings, he says, were fine. But others say
the show was turning too many white
kids away from the channel,

True or not, the ghettoizing of what
Demme and others at MTV consider the
truest alternative music being made to-
day is proof that MTV talks a hipper
game than it walks. “MTV is a big mon
су machine now,” Demme says, “and the
reality is that we have to be ratings-con-
scious because we have to pull in the
bucks. What's frustrating for us is being
told by our bosses to continually do a
ternative programming and not main-
stream TV. and then hearing the upper
management people go: ‘Your ratings

are down! You must do something to in-
crease your ratings!’ And the next thing
you know, you see Michael Jackson on
every half hour.”

Freston makes no apologies for keep-
ing MTV focused on the hits. It's easy,
he says, to get too hip for the room.
“When I hear a lot of people at МТУ say,
“Man, the network's really looking good
now,’ I start to worry.”

It was hard to believe that anyone
would go that far to promote a record,
but there it was. MTV staff members
gathered by their office windows on the
24th floor and looked across the street at
the Marriott Marquis Hotel, directly into
а room where a naked man was standing
at the window of his room, facing out-
ward, obviously involved in a spirited
round of masturbation, No way could it
bea coincidence that this was happening
at the very moment when the Divinyls
were pushing their latest single, / Touch
Myself.

Turned out it was a coincidence,
though. The guy in the hotcl, who was
sull at it hours later, was arrested. Too
bad, some thought: It was one of the
most clever record promotions they'd
ever seen.

е

As always, music videos remain the
heart and soul of MTV, but there, too, a

BY BILL JOHNSON

I WANTED TO COMPLIMENT
YOU ON THE. BLAIR VS BLAR
CASE, SUSAN—NICE. мОЁК-!

GEE, I HOPE GIVING YOU A
PAT ON THE BACK WASN'T
BEING TOO FAMILIAR.

(OF COURSE

I MEAN, ITS NOT LIKE I
DISCUSSED THE SIZE OF YOUR
BREASTS OR MY SEX ORGANS.

AND ITS NOT AS OFFENSIVE.
AS TELANG YOU ABOUT SOME
PORN FLICK X SAW, RIGHT?

| I'D HATE TO THINK THAT
' X COULD BE SUED FOR
SEXUAL HARASSMENT:

GOOD! T'D HATE TO THINK
I WAS BEING INSENSITIVE.

downshift to humility is in progress.

Аћег a decade of music videos, not
many people in the business question
MTV's ability to move product. any-
morc. “I believe if you push anything on
MTV it will work,” says Linda Fe:
senior director of national musi
promotion for Atlantic Records. "You
could take a potted plant and run it in
heavy rotation and it will be a major star
fora while."

Overstated, but only slightly. Hence
the development of a new art form: get-
ting the ear of MTV's music and talent-
relations department. Stars such as
Hammcr and Fresh Prince can, and do,
drop by to screen their latest videos for
the staff. For lesser-known artists, get-
ting in the door isn't that simple. Each
Monday, MTV's 16-person music com-
mittee screens new videos. Between 50
and 75 come in each weck, to compete
for 95 openings on the schedule. The
record companies know it pays to have
an ally within the company who vill help
geta buzz going at the Monday meeting,
which is why anyone who works at MTV,
from Freston to production assistants, is
a target for major schmoozing. Amy
Finnerty, a 25-year-old music scheduler,
carried the video for a little-known alter-
native band from office to office and in-
sisted that people see it. The band's
name was Nirvana.

There are other ways to attract atten-
tion. Bands such as Live and Poi Dog
Pondering have played in the МТУ lob-
by, and record-company executives have
been known to stand by the elevators
handing out compact discs. When for-
mer Kiss bassist Gene Simmons started
his own record label, he had himself car-
ried by two beautiful women into MTV's
offices on a stretcher. Once there, he got
down on his hands and knees (he was
wearing his Kiss knee pads) and crawled
around the floor, arms wide in supplica-
tion. The point of the joke was pretty
clear: Who do I have to blow to get my
records played?

‘The man in charge of MIV's talent-
relations department is John Cannelli;
second in command is Rick Krim. Both
insist that stunts aimed at getting their
attention are, if anything, counterpro-
ductive. Cannelli and Krim, in the no-
nonsense spirit of the Nineties, prefer to
keep their relationships with the record
labels as professional as possible. Break-
ing in new bands, taking established
bands to a higher level or helping a su-
perstar stay on top is something in which
they take great pride. To make it work,
they say, takes cooperation and careful
planning; they call it a proactive ap-
proach. Rather than sit around waiting
for the videos to come in, the idea is to
hold early meetings with a band's label
or management—often months before a
record is finished—to chart just how
MTV fits into an act's overall markeung

Suddenly, real kids are showing up
all over MTV. Sometimes you wish
they hadn't. Here's the lowdown on
the voice of the kids:

ә Choose or Lose: MTV News cov-
старе of last year's presidential cam-
paign was by far its most successful
exercise in teen populism. Beginning
with the primaries, correspondent
Tabitha Soren was on the bus inter-
viewing and profiling the candidates,
then covering the conventions and the
election itself. Her "choose or lose" re-
ports were produced in MTV's trade-
mark style, with a blizzard of quick
cuts, lots of ashy graphics and plenty
of rock and roll in the background.
The high point, as far as proving
MTV's clout, was a 90-minute forum.
with Bill Clinton in June, which proved
to be one of the campaign's more in-
formative sessions with a candidate.
Clinton stood in a Los Angeles studio
and submitted to a sometimes rude,
often incisive grilling from a couple
hundred young people. Dozens of re-
ports in the mainstream media took
bemused note: Not only did the pup-
py talk, it asked provocative questions.

© Tolerance: Looking for a suitable
relevant follow-up subject after the
election, MTV News chose a good
one: tolerance. The campaign (un-
named at presstime) was to start with a
special in January on growing up in
South Central Los Angeles, to be fol-
lowed by a series of biweekly news re-
ports on various aspects of tolerance
from MTV affiliates around the world.

ә The Real World: A big hit last year,
this series represented a perfect com-
promise for MTV: halfway between
real life and a music video. Seven
good-looking young adults lived to-
gether for three months in a spectacu-
lar Soho loft while cameras recorded
their every move. It wasn't real, exact-
ly, but it was brilliant television. MI V
is now in production on a second in-
stallment, this one based in Los Ange-
les. The producers are no doubt hop-
ing that their West Coast subjects will
be hornier than the New York group
turned out to be. We'll find out in
June.

» Make Your Mark: A series of 15-
second channel IDs, cach urging
young viewers to go out and make a
difference. As usual with MTV's pro-
mos, the visuals are impressive. The
messages are esteem-builders: One
points out that Einstein was 26 years
old when he came up with his theory
of relativity.

VipEo VÉRITÉ

© Like We Care: A daily news maga-
zine for teenagers dealing with issues
from hickeys and pimples to curfews
and racism. In-studio interviews with.
kids who were dim-witted enough to
make you glad most of them dont
vote. Thankfully, Like We Care was can-
celed after only a month on the air

© Hangin’ with MTV: Another flop.
This three-hour afternoon block
brought kids into the studio to watch
and occasionally participate in a free-
wheeling amalgam of star interviews,
appearances by various MTV person-
alities and whatever else could be
thrown into the mix—one producer
described it as “The Today Show on
acid.” Every so often the concept
worked, such as the day after the Rod-
ney King riots started in Los Angeles,
when the producers turned the entire
show over to rappers and kids from
the streets. Unfortunately, that was the
exception, and Hangin’ gradually де-
generated into a shapeless mess. Now
it's back to basics as a Top 10 video
countdown show.

• You Wrote It, You Watch It: A new
show takes real expcrienees from
viewers lives and recnacts them in
short films. Among possible subjects:
dating horrors, weird relatives and
first hearings of Stairway to Heaven.

• Lip Service: Flop number three. A
weekly lip-sync show designed to give
kids the opportunity to pretend
they're rock stars. What it really gave
them was a chance to make fools of
themselves on national television. It's
history.

= The Regular Guy Quartet: MTV's
getting a lot of mileage these days out
of four comic characters who serve as
onscreen surrogates for all the angry,
hapless, coarse and ugly schmucks in
its audience. Speed-talker Denis Leary
is the most cerebral; space-cadet Pauly
Shore is probably the most popular.
The newest additions to this motley
crew are cartoons, literally: Beavis and
Butthead, two cretins. Starting this
spring they get to introduce videos on
their own show. These guys are such
lowlifes they make Wayne and Garth
look like Nick and Nora Charles.

e What's Your Problem? A new call-
in show in which viewers get advice
on love, sex and life. The two ргегед-
uisites for any modern discussion of
these topics—a doctor and visiting
celebrities—will both be in the studio.

—он.

mix. Depending on how big an ас
they're talking to, Cannelli and Krim
offer a broad menu of promotional tie-
ins available on МТУ, everything from
terviews on The Week in Rock to guest
appearances on other shows 10 tour
sponsorship to contests. Never, Cannelli
and Krim stress, does MTV imperiously
tell the labels what to do. “We don't ever
want to take the position, ‘Fuck them,
they need us more than we need them,"
says Krim. “That's not our style at all. It's
а partnership with these people. Their
success is our success. We would be
nowhere without their stars."

Cannelli and Krim's emphasis on co-
operation with record labels may well be
their way of distancing themselves from
the legacy of their former boss, Abbey
Konowitch. Konowitch had been MTV's
point man with the record industry since
1988. In 1991 Konowitch, pleading a
need for change, stepped aside, ostensi-
bly shifting his attention to MTV's spe-
cial events. In July 1992 he joined
Madonna's new record label, Maverick.

According to sources both outside and
inside MTV, exercising the daily power
to make or break careers ultimately went
to Konowitch's head. One industry exec-
utive called him “an egomaniac” who
managed to offend even those whose
videos he did play, as well as those he
didn't. *No one could rein him in," the
|. “He was incredibly abu-

sive." A criticism commonly heard about
Konowitch is that he became more en-
amored with the music business than

ith the music itself. One source said he
was the type of executive who would
spend his time at a concert hanging out.
backstage with a manager instead of sit-
ting out front listening to the band. But
it was Konowitch’s arrogance that ulti-
mately brought him down. Asked who
specifically in the record industry Kono-
witch might have offended, one source
laughed and said, “It would be quicker
to tell you who he didn't offend.”

Konowitch also offended many of his
MTV colleagues. Too often in interviews
he seemed to take sole credit for choos-
ing which acts MTV played. The final
straw came when allegauons of verbal
sexual harassment at his previous job
surfaced. After he departed, two of his
former colleagues laughingly called it
poetic justice that he'll now be "fetching
coffee” for Madonna and her ball-busting
publicist, Liz Rosenberg.

Cannelli and Krim аге said to be mu-
sic guys, as opposed. 10 business guys,
who can mend МТУ 5 fences h the la-
bels. How they'll handle all the power-
houses at the labels who want to push
them around remains to be seen. It's a
thin line between being partners with
the record companies and being in their
pockets. If King's X gets more attention

142 on MTV than a band of its stature usual-

PLAYBOY

ly warrants, who's to say the fact that
their manager also happens to manage
Madonna doesn't have something to do
with it? If MTV runs with a video by
Roxette that is (in the words of one
staffer) "a stiff,” who's to say someone
didn't feel they owed the president of
Roxette's label a favor? Freston concedes
such favors are a part of doing busines

and that the pleading from record com-
panies has increased dramatically be-
cause there have been literally dozens of
new labels launched in the past few
years. MTV bends over backward to
help them when it can, Freston says, be-
cause they invest so much money in thc.
videos MTV plays. But he also concedes
that favors sometimes hurt his busi-
ness—the kid with а remote control
doesn't care if the video he's about to zap
belongs to some big shot who muscled
it onto the channel

There's more to Duff, of course, than
pancake flinging. When she isn't busy
with her VJ gig, she works as a volunteer
ata nursing home in her neighborhood.
"Jf I left entertainment," she says, “I
would be just as happy calling bingo
next door."

Sometimes Duff brings her friends аг
the hospital freebies she gets al work:
Aerosmith tour jackets, Run-DMC hats,
even (get hold of yourself, Bob Риппап)
MTV Tshirts, On warm days you can
see them sitting outside on the sidewalk,
lined up in their wheelchairs, sunning
themselves in their rock-and-roll pa
phernalia, watching the world go by.

As hard as people work at MTV, and
for as little money, most vill tell you that.
they do get a chance to develop their tal-
ent. Some of the channel's top produc-
ers, including Ted Demme, are former
interns. There's an exception to that
rule, though. It involves MTV's most
visible employees, its VJs. The VJs are
supposed to be the kids' surrogates,
flesh-and-blood connection to
Yet the VJs get almost as little re-
spect inside МТУ as they get from critics
outside it. "Absolutely true,” says former
VJ Adam Curry. “VJs are seen as being
on the absolute lowest rung on the pro-
gramming ladder."

Part of the reason for that was a man-
agement decision carly on that the VJs
should not be allowed to get bigger than
the channel. Mark Goodman, one of the
original VJs, says that Pittman told them
right at the start, “MTV is the star. You
are not the star." Goodman says the ra-
tionale for that atti
agement point of view, perfectly logical:
“He wanted to keep us under control.
He didn't want these huge egos on his
hands." As a result, the VJs have alway

been kept on a short contractual leash.
MTV controls all outside appearances;
moonlighting is not allowed. The VJs
who became perhaps the biggest celebri-
ties, Adam Curry and Downtown Julie
Brown, were able to negotiate more flex-
ible terms when their initial three-year
contracts expired. But both say MTV
didn’t let go without a fight.

It's likely as well that some of MTV’s
discomfort with its VJs stems from the
inconvenient fact that they're human
and therefore tend to grow old. While
plenty of people will tell you that VJs
aren't required to be under 30—Martha
Quinn's comeback at 29 is the proof ol-
fered—the likelihood of sticking around
that long is pretty remote. When Julie
Brown left in 1991, Club MTV, the dance
show she hosted, had been on for four
and a half years. She had hoped to ma-
ture the program a little, to make it a lit-
Че raunchier, to go for a more sophisti-
cated audience. She'd noticed that while
the kids gyrating under the disco lights
on Club MTV were, at most, 20, more of
the fans who greeted her on the street
were older. “I went, ‘Wow! I'm getting
older!" Brown says. "I didn't want to be
the kind of girl who was sitting up there
with packs of makeup on, dancing
around like a sixteen-year-old. I just de-
cided my tits couldn't take it.”

Looking back, Brown acknowledges
she probably should have realized that
MTV wasn't going to be interested in
maturing any show, including hers.
“MTV works in dog years," she says,
laughing. "Every so often it has to clean
пр, as it were, and head to the target au-
dience." Meaning that anybody much
older than the target audience can kiss
the channel goodbye.

The current V [s have learned this |,
son well. They've seen some of their pre-
decessors disappear from view (Isaacs
says former VJs go to “the white noise
on the TV channel"), and they're deter-
mined it won't happen to them. Isaacs
wants to use MTV as a springboard to a
career as a songwriter and a musician.
Duff plans to write, produce and direct
feature films. “Oh, yeah, I don't want to
do this forever,” she says, chowing down
a cheeseburger in a nwich Village
café. “Pm going to get bored with it
and people are going to get bored with
me. | don't want to have a long tenure.
I want to do it and do it well, and mas-
ter it and. have a great time, and then
move on."

That's the spirit of the Nineties talk-
ing pragmatic, maybe even a little cyn-
ical, determined to survive. VJs come,
VJs go. Expendability is a fact of life.

MTY, on the other hand, will remain.
Eternally youthful, eternally cool.

MTV i5 immortal. You're not.

2
SEXUALITE! (continued from page 86)

“A real sexual revolution would recognize liberation
as the most important role of sex in our lives."

In The World of Sex, Miller wr

If men would stop to think about
this great activity which animates
the carth and all the heavens, would
they give themselves to thoughts of
death? Would a man withhold him-
self in any way if he realized that
dead or alive this frenzied activity
goes on ceaselessly and remorseless-
ly? If death is nothing, what fear
then should we have of sex? The
gods came down from
nicate with humankind and with an.
imals and trees, with the earth itself.
Why are we so particular? Why can
we not love—and do all the other
things which give us pleasure, too?
Why can we not give ourselves in all
directions at once? What is it we
fear? We fear to lose ourselves. And
yet. until we lose ourselves. there
can be no hope of finding ourselves.

23

This is a message not so different from
Dante's, who also found himself lost in
a dark wood in the middle of his life
and who also emerged to see the sta
having discovered
moves them.
Miller is more mystic than porno-
graphic. He uses the obscene to shock
and to awaken, but once we are awake,
he wants to take us to the st:
“I did a service to people

that love is what

Is.
" he said to
[hat was

not mean linguistic barriers
or publishing barriers; he meant barri-
ers to self-liberation. A real sexual revo-
lution—as opposed to the bogus sexual
revolution we had in the Sixties—would
recognize this liberation as the most im-
portant role of sex in our lives. It would
accept it as one of our great revolution-
ary forces, a force that has the power to
open eyes and souls

Is there a place for such sex in the
so-called age of AIDS? Of course there
is. But not if we see sex only as a sort
© acting-out, as an accum-
tion of meaningless experiences and
deadly viruses. If we are open to our
own sexuality in the cosmic sense, we

ill also be open to our crea our
religious sense and our sense of sell-
liberation.

Back in the days when fear of Flying
was the new sensation, I used to argue in
vain that I was not advocating promiscu-
ity but rather an openness to erotic fan-
тазу. The novel itself concentrated more
on the heroine's erotic daydreams than
on her escapades, which often proved

hopelessly disappointing because her
swains proved impotent or clumsy or
mechanical. But the idea of an erotically
motivated, actively fantasizing woman
was, in itself, so shocking that my
protests fell on deaf: . My denigrator
were sexophobic and attacked me for
persisting in my belief that sex is a force
for life.

How may we be sexual in the age of
AIDS? Let me count the ways. We live in
a time when telephone and computer
sex, costumes, role playing and mutual
masturbation are proliferating—along
with (good grief!) monogamy.

HOT MONOGAMY screams the recent cov-
er line on a woman's magazine. Appar-
ently, you can get off even with your own
spouse if you have a vivid enough imag-
ination, Human sexuality is dazzling in
its variety. 1 know a dominatrix who ad-

vertises and sells safe sex—with no ex-
change of bodily fuids—because the
clients can only look and sniff and whip
or be whipped. The Sixties cquation of
sexual revolution with quantitative
promiscuity was too innocent. If we are
open to the world of fantasy, we can lib-
erate ourselves with one partner or no
partner at all. Nicholson Baker's recent
novel Vox describes a man and a woman
who have telephone sex that is, if any-
thing, hotter than sex in the flesh be-
cause there is no reality to block the
fantasy.

Eventually we will have virtual reality,
which will enable us to simulate sex with
any famous lover of the past. Women will
be able to choose anyone from Mark
Antony to Shakespeare to Casanova to
Byron, and men, like Dr. Faustus, will
have their Hclens of Tro: his the
Ё ched a thousand ships?”
they'll ask their computer screens.

The mind has an infinite capacity for
self-liberation and is, after all. our main
erogenous zone. Miller himself would
have agreed.

“I know he's through for the night when he
lets the air out of his shoes.”

143

PILTA TEB OT

H E R (0) ES (continued from page 90)

“I do not remember his face, except that it was gaunt,
white as a ghost and belonged, I knew, to a hero.”

seen him and there was no reason for
him to think we had. Suddenly, though,
there he was, rising from his hiding
place, aimin 1

off rounds as if he thought himself to be
invisible.

He had no chance, of course. I turned
а hose of fire on him and in a split sec-
ond the little man was awash in a hot
metal wake of M-60 tracer rounds that
ripped him open, his blood and his life
rushing into the ground.

When we landed moments later and I
scrambled out to snatch up his weapon,
the second bird twirling in tight, clatter-
ing circles above us, he was already
dead, little pieces of him splattered all
over the carbine. Besides his shorts, the
flip-flops and the weapon, he wore only
а web belt and a two-day ration of псе
wrapped in a scrap of plastic. I do not re-
member his face, except that it was
gaunt, white as a ghost and belonged, I
knew, to a hero. He had died taking а
risk that seemed unnecessary for a cause
I did not understand.

That was the day I began to realize we
were in a war we could not win. Уієшаш
was full of these men—and they were al-
most all on the other side,

A few miles past where the first fingers
of the mountains stretched east, our
ships turned away from the valley floor,
popped over a ridge and dropped into a
small rice paddy nestled in a cup 200
feet below the hill's crest. We were out of
the chopper in fewer than five seconds.
Six figures in camouflage, boonie hats,
grenade-laden web belts and full field
packs, pounding heavily through thigh-
high grass, lumbering vith desperate ur-
gency toward the relative safety of the
jungle at the edge of the paddy. Both
"sharks" —gunships—and trail ship cir-
cled once, and then the insertion bird
lifted up to join them and all four peeled.
out back toward the sea. This was my
first lurp patrol.

We set up an observation post maybe а
mile away from the landing zone. Our
job was to sit there for four days, maybe
five, watch the trail, count the North
Vietnamese soldiers who came down it
and call in some artillery on them if we
had the chance.

We rotated three two-man teams: one
team watching the trail, one watching
our back and one off duty. ©
the rule, especially at night.
day, though, everybody had something

144 to read during breaks. I shared а book

called The Passover Plot with my buddy
Mike, taking it in turns to read a chapter.

Mike was an intensely religious Mor-
mon. He had been the state high school
wrestling champ in his weight class and
had gone on to a full college scholarship.
Like me, he got drafted when his class
load fell short of the minimum required
to maintain a student deferment.

Mike was about 20, and 1 thought ће
was the closest thing to a morally pure
human being 1 had ever known. Не
didn't cuss, lie, cheat, steal or speak bad-
ly of anyone. He was enough to make
most people sick. He did, too—and he
wasn't even that sanctimonious about it.
Just sort of determinedly innocent. And
Mormon. It eventually infuriated almost
everyone. They hated him for his puri-
ty—that and the fact that he seemed de-
termined to convert every soul he met to
the buoyant, white optimism of the
Church of Latter-day Saints.

So Mike the Mormon and I, the ag-
nostic, spent all our off time that mission
arguing in whispers about a book that
cast Christ as a not-all-that-religious po-
litical revolutionary and the impact of
that possibility on the faithful. I haven't
the faintest recollection what either of us
thought about any of it then, only that
we sat in the scrub brush on the side of a
hill in Vietnam for five days together,
reading the book and occasionally argu-
ing quietly about it.

What did it all mean, anyway?

Damned if I knew. I did know one
thing, though: When we got off that hill,
I was going to ask Mike about Pinkville.
нед been there that day with Calley
and the rest of them.

Extraction choppers scooped us up
with the last breath of daylight on the
fifth day and took us to the nearest fire-
base, a primitive forward camp called LZ
Ross that had been gonged into the
mouth of the valley:

When we got there, two companies of

grunts, filthy from battle and greasy with
Sweat and fear, were standing around in
clumps, eating from field-kitchen trays,
talking wearily. The NVA were dug in at
the base of the mountains to the south.
One company had walked into an am-
bush there. We shot the bull with the
grunts, grabbed some chow from a field
kitchen and decided to turn in.

All the inside space was taken, so Mike
and I walked to the outer ring of
bunkers near the perimeter, chose one
that looked like it had a soft top, climbed
up, spread our ponchos and poncho lin-
ers and lay down.

Off in the distance we could hear the

rumble of battle. Not far away a battery
of 155s was belching artillery rounds
to the night. But on top of that bunker it
was cool, clear, relatively safe and you
could see every star in the sky.

It was there that Mike told me what he
and Billy did that day after they ate their
lunch at My Lai.

Most of the killing was over at
Pinkville when Mike and Billy stopped
for lunch at the infamous ditch. This was
where Calley supervised the machine-
gunning of dozens of civilians.

Eating at that particular spot could
not have been easy. The dead were
everywhere. А relentless, sometimes
piercing din arose from the ditch: It was
the wailing and thrashing of the wound-
ed and dying. Earlier, sometime between
9:00 and 9:30, after Charlie Company's

them to the bank of the
dozens of people—some say ás many as
200, nearly all of them women, children
and old men—were herded into the
ditch, Calley ordered his men to open
fire. A few soldiers resisted the order, but
there were plenty who did not.

It took Calley and two dozen grunts
15 minutes or so to gun down all the
people assembled there. With that many
people crowded together, however, it
was difficult to be thorough. By the time
Mike and Billy hunkered down an hour
or so later with their C rations, the lieu-
tenant and his triggermen had moved
on. The undead in the ditch began to cry
out, however, the limbs of many banging
about spasmodically, the way those of the
seriously wounded sometimes do. It
would have been a terrible sound, all
that flopping and slapping of flesh, the
crying, all that agony out there in the
morning sunshine.

Ata certain point, after the pork and
beans but before the peaches, Mike and
Billy checked their M-16s and walked
down the ditch, dividing up the sur-
vivors and finishing them off. Just the
two of them, pacing deliberately along
the death pit, There's one moving. Pow!
There’s another one. Pow! You take that
one. Pow! They walked the ditch hank
once, back and forth, and no one moved
anymore.

Mike's story matched Billy's detail for
detail, but hearing him tell it was differ-
ent from hearing it from Billy.

Mike had been my closest friend in the
service. We were drafied on the same
day. Our backgrounds were similar, both
working class, both athletes, both from
the West. For whatever reason, we
latched on to each other in basic training
at Fort Bliss, Texas and stayed together
all the way through advanced infantry
training at Fort Ord and jump school at
Fort Benning to jungle-varfare training.

Y» ex Education For Me?

still the best qp uus There's No Such Thing As A "Born Lover"!
- Sexual techniques must be learned. Even if you
. are a good lover you can benefit from The Better
y Sex Video Series. Itis for normal
adults who want to enhance their
sexual pleasure. Watch it with
someone you love.

America's Best-Selling

Sex-Ed Video

The Better Sex Video Series
visually demonstrates and explains
how everybody can enjoy better sex.
Е Dr. Judy Seifer, one of the country's
most respected experts on sexuality, guides
you through erotic scenes of explicit sexual
practices including techniques for
more enjoyable foreplay and
| intercourse. Order the Better Sex
Video today and take the first step
10 more enjoyment!

| Shipped Unmarked For Your
Privacy. All of our videos are
‘in plain packaging to
ir privacy. Each video
itely 90 minutes.

145

at Schofield Barracks in Hawaii. We'd
been apart only during the four months.
Mike spent in Lieutenant Calley's pla-
toon in Charlie Company while I was a
door gunner with Primo. When I trans-
ferred into the Americal Division’s LRRP
company in late April 1968, Mike had al-
ready been there several weeks, having
transferred from Charlie Company а
few days after My Lai.

Now, as we lay out under the stars at
LZ Ross, there was a distance between us
that hadn't been there before. Mike,
Mike, I wanted to say, tell me it ain't so.
t was. Yes, yes, yes, he said on every
detail. It was all true. Yes, he said, that's
what we did, that's what happened.

"It was a Nazi kind of thing," he said.

We had been on the bunker for nearly
an hour by then, face to face across a few
feet of sandbags. We were both tired. It
had been a long, nerve-racking five days
on patrol and we had not gotten much
sleep. A long silence hung between us af-
ter he finished telling his story.

"I dunno, man,” he said final
just one of those thing:

He rolled over and a few minutes later
I could hear the rise and fall of his
breath. He was asleep.

PLAYBOY

Tt was

Second Surge sat atop a black granite
crag overlooking the sea on the Chu Lai
coastline like a monstrous crab. A huge
Red Cross splashed over its roofs iden-
tified it as a hospital. The South China
Sea was not far below, less than 200 feet,
but the fall was almost straight down. A
smooth rock shelf, 40 feet wide at low
tide, lay at the bottom, making an invit-
ing diving platform for those ignorant of
the danger. A vicious riptide circled
there, sometimes carrying away unwary
enlisted men who sought to prove that
they could swim against it.

The Americal Division Officers’ Club
shared the hospital's perch, lying oppo-
site Second Surge across a wide, deep
ravine that isolated it from the rest of the
base camp. You could see the club mem-
bers sitting up there on the veranda on
late afternoons, sipping drink
ing back in their bamboo ch;
the palm thatch.

It was rumored that some officers
used to lay bets on how many enlisted.
men would make it back to shore.

Nobody much liked officers in those
days. There were exceptions, but most of
us had personal lists of officers we would
just as soon see killed. Better them, we
thought. than the random Vietnamese
who fell into our sights. Some people, es-
pecially those who were not there, may
find that hard to understand, but it is
true. The shorter you got, in fact, the
more certain you were to have such a
nd the longer it was likely to be.
el Bernhardt had a long list by
146 the time 1 found him in the waning days

of 1968. It started with Calley and ran all
the way up the chain of command to Ma
jor General Samuel Koster, the two-
commander of the Americal Division,

But then Bernie, like many of us, had
been through a lot of changes. Along
with Billy, Mike and Gruver, he ended
up in Charlie Company, in СаПеу 5 pla-
toon. Unlike them, however, Bernie had
flat out refused to take part in any killing
at Pinkville. His reward, he later real-
ized, was that Charlie Company's offi-
cers intended to keep him in the field
until he was killed.

Ud been hearing the scuttlebutt for
months that Bernie had been a refuser
at Pinkville and Га been looking for him
ever since. But he was hard to find be-
cause he was alway: the field. I knew
by then that the story of the massacre
was true. The problem was proving it.

I was sure that the Army would try to
cover up any investigation. Would the
men who told me what they saw and
say the same things to an official ques-
tioner? That was what I needed, some-
one to stand up and tell the truth. Maybe
Bernhardt was my man.

I found Bernie at Second Surge two
weeks before 1 was scheduled to go
home. He was in bed, lying barechested
in wrinkled blue hospital pajamas, both
legs bandaged to the thigh, гесоуег-
ing from an extreme case of jungle rot.
He was lucky to be there, he said, espe-
ly since jungle rot was not his only
problem.

Bernie had been a known troublemak-
er in Charlie Company even before the
massacre. Twice before Pinkville he had
written to his congressman, complaining
about the actions of the company's
officers. In each case, word of the com-
plaint—and who filed it—came down
the chain of command.

Then, a few days after Pinkville, the
officers started making Bernhardt walk
point all the time. When S-2—intelli-
gence—warned Captain Ernest Medina
(the company commander) to watch out
for an ambush, Bernhardt was made to
walk on the ambush side of the forma-
tion. Then, when he started getting jun-
gle rot with just four months to go on his
tour, the officers wouldn't let him leave
the field for treatment.

As time went by, the rots bleeding
open sores, giant strawberries that
erupted spontaneously on the skin from
the combination of dampness and the
accumulation of filth and bacteria, start-
ed to work up his legs. He started to
king. Still, the comman-
mpany refused to send
Bernhardt to the infirmary.

In the end, Bernie took care of the
problem in his own way. Timing his es-
cape during evening chow, just as the
evening resupply chopper was cranking
up to lift off, he dropped his rucksack
and his weapon and threw himself
aboard, leaping into its empty bay just as

the bird reached that instant when it
hovers briefly, then lifts suddenly sk
ward, turns and sweeps off in a clattering
rush.

When Bernhardt limped into the 11th
Brigade infirmary 20 minutes later, the
doctors were astonished at his condition.
This should have been treated months
ago, they said. What the hell was wrong
with those officers in Charlie Company?
Were they trying to get him killed?

Bernhardt knew something special
was planned for Pinkville. Captain Me-
dina made that clear the night before the
operation. The village they were going.
into the next morning, Medina said, was
base camp of a Viet Cong battalion. No
one there would be an innocent civilian.
Medina told his men that he wanted
nothing lefi “standing, living or grow-
ing, not even a blade of grass." It would
be their chance, the captain said, to
avenge fallen comrades.

When the choppers began dumping
Charlie Company on the outskirts of the
1 rning, Bernhardt. knelt
d there, pretending
g trouble with his boots, pass-
ne until Medina arrived with
the second wave. When Medina's bird
landed, Bernhardt stalled a little longer
and then trailed the company com-
mander and his party throughout the
village all morning long.

Whatever Medina had in mind that
morning, Bernhardt intended to wit-
ness. What he saw was enough to con-
vince him that the CO was almost literal-
ly up to his neck in blood in the
massacre. As he later told investigators,
at one point he saw Medina shoot a
young girl and, turning to Bernie, "gave
me a look, a dumb shit-eating gri

"That evening, Bernhardt was dig;
a foxhole when the captain stormed up.
10 deliver a message. It would be a mis-
take, Medina warned him, to write his
out what he had seen
nd?

Yeah, Bernhardt replied, he read the
captain loud and clear.

And he didn't write his congressman
about Pinkville, either. If he got ош of
Vietnam alive, though, Michael Bern-
hardt intended to deal with Medina and
the other officers responsible for Pink-
ville in his own wa

“Гуе got a plan,” he told me finally,
ter we had fenced for some time. “I'm
gonna kill them all. ГЇЇ find out where
they are after I'm out. I'm going to get a
real good rifle. One with a scope. I'm go-
ing to hunt them down and kill them."

I asked him to wait, though I sure
he was only s. Let me try my
plan first, I said. We'll string them up. I
promised, with the system's own rope.
Blow the whistle on them and get them
tried as war criminals.

Bernie was skeptical. Ном? he asked. 1
didn't know. I only knew that before 1
could prod official investigators into ac-
tion І needed someone who was there
who could be counted on to tell the
truth

Would Bernie back me up?

You can count on it, he said. If I told
the truth, so would he.

And when the time eventually сате
he did, as did Mike and Billy and many
others.

Twenty years passed before 1 met
Hugh Thompson and Harry Stanle)
two of the best-known heroes of My La
It was the fall of 1988, and People mag;
zine had asked me to track them down
for an interview to mark the anniversary
of the 1969 investigation.

1 found Harry Stanley in the back acre
of a giant wholesale lumberyard on the
outskirts of Biloxi, Mississippi, about an
hour and a half east of New Orleans. 1
had called ahead to the yard, which was
the only telephone number for Stanley 1
could get—it was in fact the only number
he let anyone have. Like many Vietnam
vets, Harry Stanley had no wish to share
his private life with the outside world.

A yard worker led me through a maze
of lumber sheds, dodging mud puddles
and machinery until we emerged in an
open lot where a crew of seven or eight
bundled-up, tattered black men labored
in the cold hard wind, methodically
restacking lumber. One of them, a stocky
man with a scarf around his neck and no
front teeth, turned and looked. Harry
Stanley. He said something to the men
he was with and ambled toward us.

We wandered over to a scattered stack
of lumber, found a perch with our backs
to the chilling gusts and Harry began to
talk about that morning at My Lai when
the wind was hot and the world and
cverybody and everything in it seemed
to be completely insane.

Calley’s platoon, which included Stan-
ley as well as Gruver, Billy and Mike, had
scurried off the first wave of assault
choppers. They formed a skirmish line
and started to move toward the hamlets
at roughly 7:30. No gunfire came from
huts on the hamlet edge as they
approached.

"Everybody there was supposed to
have been some kind of Viet Cong,"
Stanley said. Captain Medina had told
them the village was the headquarters
for the 48th Viet Cong Main Force Bat-
talion, the VC's most battle-hardened
unit in that part of Vietnam. “He said
we were supposed to wipe out the whole
village."

When the platoon reached the village,
however, "all we saw was people run-
ning. All old women, children, old men.
No weapons, nobody shooting at us and
stuff, It’s obvious that what Medina was
saying was not it It's not happening

here. But it was just like nobody cared.
“They were still doing what they'd been
ordered to do in the beginning."

Тће first person the platoon сате to, a
wispy-bearded old man in white, was
shot by one of Stanley's buddies, who
then slit the man's throat, dumped his
body down a well and pitched а hand
grenade in after it.

From that moment forward the men
of Charlie Company began to "shoot
everything that moved. Реорје running.
Cows. Everything." Stanley, who was car-
rying an M-60 machine gun, followed
ing to fire, stunned at
g around him.

“I wasnt firing because 1 was wai
for some resistance," he remembered
“There was no resistance. There was no
reason for me to shoot. It was just a
bunch of bulls! craziness to me. I
wasn't a murderer

Calley’s men reached the far side of
the village around 9:00, leaving a trail of
death in their wake. Before long the sec-
ond and third platoons also reached the
far side. Soon thereafter, according to
Stanley and many others who later told
their stories to Army investigators, Cal-
ley ordered the men of all three platoons
to round up and bring all the surviving
villagers to the ditch. Amazingly, accord-
ing to Stanley and other witnesses, some
200 people had survived Charlie Com
pany’s initial sweep. They were marched
over to the ditch in small groups withi
the next 30 to 45 minutes.

Then, Stanley said, Calley “turned 10
me and he wants me to sel up my ma-
chine gun and shoot these people. 1 told
him, “Мак, I can’t do that.’ He said, Tm
ordering you to do that.’ I said, ‘You
can't order me to do that.”

Calley repeated his command, this
time screaming in Stanley's face, “I'm or-
dering you to do it!" and threatening
him with a court-martial if he refused.

Stanley stood his ground. “I told him
if he can do that and get away with it,
that's fine with me."

Furious, Calley whirled, grabbed Pri-
vate Paul Meadlo's M-16, stepped. up
nose to nose with Stanley and shoved the
fle into the machine gunner's stomach.
anley, just as quickly, whipped out his
5-caliber pistol, cocked it and pushed
into Calley's guts.

Stanley’s buddies, meanwhile, stood
and watched the exchange, goggle-eyed.

“I guess they thought I'd gone crazy,”
he told me. “But I was dead serious
about what 1 was saying and what it
meant to me.

“My general thoughts about it were,
I'm in Vietnam already and I'm gonna
die here anyway. So. hey. if you're talk-
g about shooting me, we might just as
well shoot each other—know what 1
mean? As far as doing what you're talk-
ing about doing, I'm not going to do that
because that’s wrong to me. If we had
been fired at by one person, anything, or
if we had a sniper pinned down, maybe
it would have been a whole lot dillerent

“Henry! What have you done with my tits?”

147

in my mind. But as far as I could see,
what they said was supposed to be hap-
pening there wasn't happening there.”
That was Vie
Harry Stanle;
a perfect metaphor for the w:

т. In fact,
his definition may be the only one with
which all Vietnam veterans might agree.
However you saw it, what the brass апа
the politicians said was supposed to be
happening in Vietnam was indeed not
happening there.

PLAYBOY

s elsewhere, unfortu-
s of principle as Harry
le impact on the out-
come. His defiance of Calley's orders
aroused no mass resistance among his
fellow GIs.

When he saw that Stanley wasn't
bluffing, Calley, however, backed down.
Returning Meadlo's M-16, the sputter-
ing lieutenant ordered each squad
leader in the company to choose "some
shooters." Тће record shows that some-
where between 20 and 30 Gls, led by
Calley, began pouring rifle and machine-
gun fire into the ditch. where the sur-
vivors of the initial sweep had been
herded.

Hugh Thompson, another man who
knew right from wrong at My Lai, still
flew helicopters until a year ago. Instead
of hunter-killer missions on the coastal
plains of south central Vietnam, how-
ever, he ran oil-company choppers be-
tween Lafayette, Louisiana and oil rigs
in the Gulf of Mexico.

In 1968 he was a 25-year-old heli-
copter pilot at the Americal Division
headquarters at Chu Lai. On March 16,
"Thompson, with his aeroscout team,
flew to My Lai to provide air cover for
what he expected to be a "standard in-
sertion" of an infantry company.

What Thompson saw as he cirded
above the developing carnage that
morning, however, “confused, bewil-
dered, shocked and infuriated” him, he
told me.

In the most famous of his several at-
tempts to stop the slaughter, Thompson
landed his helicopter between a bunker
filled with cowering Vietnamese women
and children and an advancing line of

dering his door gunner to take aim at
the American ground troops and to
shoot them if they opened fire on the
people in the bunker, Thompson hur-
ried over to the officer, who may have
been Lieutenant Calley.

“Any way you can get those civilians
out of the bunker?” Thompson asked
the officer.

"Yeah," the officer told Thompson,
“with a hand grenade.” Angrily telling
the officer to leave it to him, Thompson

148 ran back to his helicopter and called in

one of his gunships to ferry the people to
safety, a task that required two trips.

Would his door gunner actually have
shot the other American soldie:

“I don't know,” Thompson said,
I'm so glad I didn't have to find out.”

Even before the confrontation at the
bunker, he and his crew had spotted a
wounded young woman writhing in the
grass. Marking the spot with a yellow
smoke grenade, Thompson radioed for
someone on the ground to help her.

Moments later, he saw Captain Medi-
na walk over to the young woman and
nudge her with his boot. Then he took a
step backward and coolly squeezed off a
burst of M-16 fire, killing her instantly

Some time that morning Thompson
saw the results of Lieutenant Calley's
work in the ditch, where, he estimat-
ed, there were 200 or more dead and
wounded Vietnamese.

“It had a lot of bodies in it,” Thomp-
son . "There was a black NCO and a
lieutenant standing there. I set down,
called the lieutenant over and said, 'Hey,
there's some wounded people in this
ditch. Can you help them out? The
statement was made, "The only way 1 can
help them out is out of their misery.’ I
said, ‘Aw, come on, man. These people
are hurting. They need our help.’ I took
that he was joking, As I lifted off and
started to turn I heard an M-60. My
crew chief said, ‘My God! He's firing in-
то the ditch?”

When Thompson was able to return to
the site a short while later, one of his
crewmen waded in among the dead and
dying.

“A few minutes later,” Thompson said,
“he comes up. He has a little baby in his
hands, blood all over it, but we couldn't
see any wounds. No open flesh wounds
or anything."

"Thompson flew the infant to a nearby
civilian hospital.

Later that day he met with his platoon
leader to talk over the day's events.
Backed by other pilots in his outfit,
Thompson worked his way up the chain
of command with a personal demand for
a formal investigation. Unfortunately, he
filed his complaint with Colonel Oran K.
Henderson.

T hat: was the last the.

ilot heard about.
nterviewed by
vestigators in the fall of 1969.
stimony against Captain Medina,
along with Michael Bernhardt's, was the
basis for the prosecution of Medina for
the murder of the young woman
"Thompson marked with the smoke
grenade.

Unlike Harry Stanley and the few oth-
ers like him, Hugh Thompson's heroism
at My Lai received official r
few months afier
awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross
for his rescue of the women and children
in the bunker at My Lai. It marked a sig-

nificant event in military history: A mem-
ber of the U.S. Army had been decorat-
ed for battlefield bravery for facing
down American soldiers.

Only after the investigators came to
question him, however, did Thompson
learn that his complaints to Colonel
Henderson had gone nowhere. Hender-
son—commander of the 11th Infantry
Brigade—had covered up what hap-
pened at My Lai, an act for which he was
eventually court-martialed.

Hugh Thompson and 1 spent almost
two days talking about My Lai and Viet-
nam. He made no bones about his view
of events at Pinkville—that barbaric,
horrifying slaughter, as he described it.
But he refused to believe that other mas-
sacres happened elsewhere in Vietnam

“That's not the American way and
that’s not the way things are supposed to
be,” he said. "That's what the Nazis did
in World War Two. We're the guys in the
white hats. We're supposed to be the
good guys.”

There was a reason Hugh Thomp-
son’s complaints to Colonel Henderson
went nowhere. What happened at My
Lai that day happened not because Cap-
tain Medina, Lieutenant Calley and the
rest of the men in Charlie Company
went crazy. Henderson, Medina and Сај-
ley were all following orders, executing a
general policy designed at the divisional
level. My Lai was one of many such mas-
sacres. That was the way we fought the
war in Vietnam

Thompson, in fact, had no need to tell
Henderson of the massacre, the Army's
official investigation later revealed, be-
cause the colonel already knew about it.
Henderson circled over the village in his
own helicopter much of the morning
and saw the slaughter with his own eyes.

And Henderson was not alone. Sam-
uel Koster, ће commanding general of
the Americal Divi had likewise cir-
cled over the dying village that morning
with several members of Koster's execu-
tive staff. And they had done nothing.
None of them—not Koster, not Hender-
son, not one senior officer—issued a sin-
gle order to the men on the ground to
stop murdering civilians.

I knew the moment I heard about My
Lai that the blood on the hands of my
friends was already dripping onto mine.
A melodramatic reaction, maybe, but it
was the way I felt—as if I had been con-
taminated by something of which I could
never really be cleansed

1 felt obligated—people who knew me
then would have said it was an obses-
sion—to discover if Gruver's story was
true and, ifit was, to expose it and let the
chips fall where they would. To my great
sadness they fell all over Mike and Billy,
as they fell on others.

In the end, in March 1969,

three

months after my being separated from
the Army, I wrote a letter to the presi-
dent, Congress and the Army. The letter
explained what I knew about the mas-
sacre and how I came to know и. What 1
hoped for was a complete and thorough
congressional investigation.
О

By and by, I returned to Southeast
Asia and began my career as a journalist.
I was there, in fact, covering the invasion
of Laos for Time on the day in carly 1971
when Lieutenant Calley was convicted
role at My Lai. During the year
following Calley’s conviction, Captain
Medina and then Colonel Henderson
were tried for their roles at My Lai.

Both men were acquitted.

None of the other soldiers—ollicers or
enlisted men—implicated in the case
were found guilty.

Lieutenant Calley was the only Ameri-
can soldier convicted for crimes commit-
ted at My Lai. He was sentenced to life
imprisonment at hard labor. Appeal fol-
lowed appeal until the sentence was cut
то ten years. Less than four years after
the original sentence, Calley, a convicted
mass murderer, was a free man.

Hugh Thompson was right. We were
supposed to be the good guys. Almost
everyone who went to the war wanted to
believe that. Maybe we dreamed we
ald even come home heroes. Some
did: Thompson, Harry Stanley, Michael
Bernhardt. They were heroes, though it
is unlikely they became heroic ш the way
they would have wished or may have en-
visioned in their daydreams,

In the Vietnam some people remem-
ber—Ollie North, Ronald Reagan and
George Bush come to mind—Americans
were heroes in chains, men who could
have won the war given the chance and а
free hand.

In the Vietnam that | knew, we did
have a free hand and we used it with lit-
tle mercy. To me, the heroes were almost
all on the other side—and we were
killing them.

Despite the valor of many, therefore, it
seems to me that few Americans emerged
from Vietnam as heroes. Instead, ham-
strung by the memories of what they did
and saw, many thousands of combat vet-
erans, even those who were physically
whole, came home emotionally and spir-
ivually crippled.

Now, 25 years later, especially when
the war drums begin to beat, I think of
my friend Billy and all the Vietnam vets
like him. How many thousands, | won-
der, still hug their knees on the hidden
beaches of their dreams, as they
themselves: “All them people w
man. All them people we Killed."

4993, FiayooY

PLAYROY

150

Biodome Chronicles
(continued from page 112)

four or five biomes and soon half the
nauts аге partying down at the beach.
Some dickhead announced he could
walk on the ocean—oh, yeah, it was
me—but about ten yards out I sank slow-
ly into the slimy sludge (say that three
times fast) and it took four nauts to pull
me clear.

"Then I hear a gasp and turn around
to see Glaberson—buck naked and cov-
ered with war paint—carrying off Li Yiu.
We chased him but the loon disappeared
into the rain forest yelling, “Poseidon’s
revenge!” and “Death to mortals!”

Hey, I'm no sec
think we have a
lem on our hand

OK, so then John Wayne Riger
rounds up а posse (everybody), arms us
with hoes and scythes and leads us into
the boonies. Very confident, very deter-
mined. Ten minutes later, we're tear-ass-
ing back to the hab in blind panic, and
Riger's got a homemade arrow sticking
out of his butt.

Ме, I was making good time till an
acacia tree impacted negatively on my
face. I'm on my back, stunned, when 1
hear a noise and look up in the branches
and here's this big-eyed mama lemur
with a baby on its back staring down at
me. Jeez—a sign of hope! An affirmation.
of life! "Hey, everybody,” I yell, "the pri-
mates are reproducing! Biodome works!”

This may sound corny, Pinc, but as 1
got up and staggered back to the hab,
bleeding, weeping and hurling, I felt this

weird surge of optimism. I felt that, de-
ie ай our problems, maybe Biodome 1
points toward a bright new future for
our beleaguered species on this bruised
old planet hurtling through the black
vastness of interstellar space,

Or maybe it’s that I’m just as drunk as
a boiled owl

ropping fast, a vomitous
is coming out of the
sprinklers all over the Biodome and
smoke is rising in the rain forest. We're
worried Glaberson may have sabotaged
the main computer. But he won't be bug-
ging us much longer A state police
SWAT team showed up and their guys
are posted at all the Visitor Interat
Noches. (They can't come inside or
validates the whole experiment.)

Soon as one gets a clear shot, or so the
buzz goes, Glaberson will be composted
and recycled into the ecosystem—like all
nic material in the Biodome.

You know, Pink Ass, this sulk-a-thon of
yours is so juvenile. A guy less easygoing
than me might take it personally. OK, so
I put my name on your application. Hey,
I'm sorry, all right? I was a little faced,
that's all. Can't you take a joke?

Gotta run, Pinc. Marcy С. Fenton
asked me to bring some papaya punch
over to Medical—strictly for lab analysis,
of course. Damn, now I'll probably ђе up.
all night doing research.

C mon, you pinhead, lighten up!

Your bosom bud,
Lar

green ooze

“We were there in December and loved it.”

FEEDBACK

(continued from page 120)
compliments, before anybody bought и.
It was profoundly ugly, a portrait of bru-
tality. The skinsuit seemed to be strain-
ing to contain a mask of rage. Something
truly sick burned behind the eyes.

He propped it up on the couch and
walked back and forth, admiring it from
various angles. For a moment I hoped
he would say, “This will do fine; forget
about the nude." I didn't look for
three weeks of his intimate company.

“It captures something,” he said.
ning. “I could use it to intimidate
clients."

Phe style suits you?”

“Yes. Yes, indeed." He looked at me
with a sort of sq vaguely remem-
ber fighting over some aspect of it."

"Technical mauer | prevailed, of
course—that's what you pay me for.

He nodded slowly. “Well. ГИ see you
in George Town, then." He offered his
hand, dry and hot.

"Friday morni I'I beat the Hilton."
Allison put the painting into a leather
portfolio and ushered him out

She came back in with a color photo-
copy of it. “Sick puppy."

I examined the picture, nodding.
"There's some talent here, though. A lot
of artists are sick puppies.

“Present company excluded. Lunch?”

"Not today. Got a date."

"Harry?"

"He's out of town. Guy I met at the
gym."

She arched an eyebrow at me. "Young
and cute."

“Younger than you,” | said. “Big nose,
though.”

“Yeah, nose.” She poured herself a
glass and refilled mine. “So you won't be
back after lunch

“Depends.”

“Well, ГП be back around two, if you
need anything.” She headed for her
office. “Happy hose.

"Nose, damn it" She laughed and
whispered the door shut behind hei

Icarried my wine over to the window.
The icy wind was audible through the
double-pane glass. The people on the
sidewalk hurried, hunched over against
the gale. Tomorrow Га be lying on
snow-white sand, swimming in blood-
warm water. A few days of sunshine be-
fore Segura showed up. I drank the wine
and shivered,

ury, George Ш was
bean when a sudden
storm, probably a hurricane, smashed
his ship to pieces. Fishermen from one
of the Caymans braved the storm to
go out and pick up survivor
from what he'd thought would
tain death, King George expressed his
royal gr by declaring that no

resident of the islands would ever ћаус
to pay taxes to the British crown for the
rest of eternity.

So where other Caribbean islands
have craft shops and laid-back bars,
George Town has high-rise banks and
surance buildings. A lot of expatriate
Brits and Americans live and work there,
doing business by satellite bounce.

I have a bank account in George Town
myself, and may retire there someday.
For this time of my life, it’s too peaceful,
except for the odd hurricane. I need
Manhattan's garish excitement, the con-
stant input, the dangerous edge

But it's good to get away. The beach is
an ideal place for quick figure sketches,
so I loosened up for the commission by
filling a notebook with pictures of
women as they walked by or played in
the sand and water. Drawing forces уо!
to sec, so for the first time I was aware
that the beauty of the native black
women was fundamentally different
from that of the tourists, white or black.
lt was mainly a matter of posture and
expression, dignified and detached. The
tourist women were always to some ех-
tent posing, even at their most casual.
Which I think was the nature of the
place, rather than some characteristic fe-
male vanity. I normally pay much closer
attention to men, and believe me, we
corner the market on that small vice.

My staff came down on Thursday
M&M tore off into town to find out
whether either of his girlfriends had.
learned about the other. Allison joined
me on the beach.

Impressive as she is in office clothes,
Allison is spectacular out of them. She
has never tanned; her skin is like ivory.
Thousands of hours in the gym have giv-
en her the sharply defined musculature
of a classical statue. She wore a black
leather string bikini that revealed every-
thing not absolutely necessary for repro-
duction or lactation. But I don't think
most straight men would characterize
her as sexy. She was too formidable.
That was all right with Allison, since she
almost never was physically attracted to
any man shorter or less well built than.
she. That dismissed all but a tenth of one
percent of the male race. She had yet to
find an Einstein, or even a Schwarzeneg-
ger, among the qualifiers. They usually
turned out to be gentle but selfab-
sorbed, predictably, and sometimes
more interested in me than her The
message light was on when we got back
to the hotel; both Rhonda Speck and Se-
gura had arrived. It "t quite ten, but
we agreed it was too late to return their
calls, and retired.

1 set up the pose and lighting before
we went under, explaining to Rhonda.
exacily what we were after. Segura was
silent, watching. 1 took longer than nec-
essary, messing with the blinds and the

rheostats Td put on the two light
sources. I wanted Segura to get used to
Rhonda's nudity. He was obviously as
straight as a plank, and we didn't want
the painting to reveal any sexual curiosi-
ty or desire. Rhonda was only slightly
more sexy than a mackerel, but you
could never

For the same reason, I didn't want to
start the actual painting the first day.
We'd start with a series of charcoal
roughs. | explained to Segura about
negative spaces and how important it
was to establish balance between the
light and dark. That was something Га
already worked ош, of course. I just
wanted him to stare at Rhonda long
enough to become bored with the idea.

It didn't quite work out that way.

We didn't need a doctor's certification
in George Town, so the setting up took a
little less time. Artist and client lock-
stepped into the office where Rhonda
waited, studying the pages of notes
stacked neatly on her desk.

Тћете were two piano stools with
identical newsprint pads and boxes of
charcoal sticks. The idea was to sketch
her from eight or ten slightly different
angles, Segura moving around her in a

all arc while I worked just behind
1, looking over his shoulder. Theoret-
ically, 1 could be anywhere, even in an-
other room, since I was sceing her
through his eyes. But it seems to work
better this way, especially with a model

1 he sketches had a lot of energy—so
much energy that Segura actually tore
through the paper a few times, bl.
out the darkness around the seated
figure. I got excited myself, and not just
by feedback from Segura. The negative-
space exercise is just that, an art school
formalism, but Segura didn't know that.
The result came close to being actual art

I showed him that after we came out
of the buffer. The sketches were good,
strong abstractions. You could turn them
upside down or sideways, retaining sym-
metry while obliterating text, and they
sull worked well.

I had а nascent artist on my hands. Se-
gura had real native talent. That didn't
often come my way. The combination
could produce a painting of some value,
one that I wouldn't have been able to do
by myself. If things worked out.

Allison and 1 took the boat out after
lunch—or rather, Allison took the boat.
out with me as ballast, baking inerily un-
der a heavy coat of total sun block. (She
and I are almost equally pale, and that's
not all we have in common; Um also
nearly as well-muscled. We met at the
weight machines in a Broadway gym.)
She sailed and 1 watched bi
clouds form abstract patterns in the im-
possible cobalt sky. The soothing sounds
of the boat lulled me to sleep—the keel
slipping through warm water, the lines
creaking, the ruffle of the sail:

She woke me to help her bring it back

Term Paper Assistance
Catalog of 19,278 research papers
Order Catalog Today with Visa /МС or COO

E» 1-800-351-0222

California & Canada: (310) 477-8226
Monday-Friday (бат - Spm (Pacific time)
Or send $2.00 with coupon below

Our 306-page catalog contains detaled descriphons of 19.278
research papers. а vital library ol ınlormatien al your
ingetups Feoinde and bibiogaphi. pages are ee. Ordering
as picking up your phone Let this valuable
ad serve you throughout yrur college years
EXAMPLES OF CATALOG TOPICS.
15759-WORK RELATED STRESS Ways lo meme
and manage sess, emphasizing human lations
and environmental approaches 9 fooinotes, 7
biblographes. 6 Pages
15842 -GROUNDWATER CONTAMINATION Origins.
Types. economic, рэйса, heath aspects Proposed
somon based on cosbenel analysis ol socal
tapial. 12 foinaes, E bibiographias. E pages
Research Assistance also provide custom research and thesis
assistance Our stall ol 2) prolessona! waers. each writing
in тз Пес ol репе, can assist you wim al your research
e

Hot

QUALITY GUARANTEED!

RESEARCH ASSISTANCE +
11322 Kho Ave , Suite 206- KP !

West Los Angeles. California 90025
20.
l
1

= No Membership Fee

+ 24-Hour Delivery Availabe © Contact Lens
© 100% Money-Back Guarantee — DISCOUNT CENTER
+ Same Lenses As Your Doctor

Fas Prescribed For You CULE
+ Lowest Prices Anywhere-

We Won't Be Under Sold Emm |
» FREE Cleaning Kil & Brochure p

1-800-780-LENS
1-800-FAX-1552

Discover what
you're missing!
Whether your game is.
pool or darts, don't
miss our FREE bigger:
than-ever Mueller
Sporting Goods
catalog. In it you'll
find one of the
largest and finest
selections of billiard and dart supplies, gifts,
custom cues and cases...all at low wholesale
prices. You can shop and save right in the
‘comfort of your own home, 24 hours a day!
Send for, or call

1-800-627-8888

Department 7
4825 South 16th
Lincoln, МЕ 68512.

151

PLAYBOY

152

in. There was a соо! mist of rain that be-
came intermittently heavy. A couple of
miles from shore we started to see light-
g, SO we struck зай and revved up the
little motor and drove straight in, pru-
dence conquering seamanship.

We dried off at the marina bar and
drank hot chocolate laced with rum,
watching a squall linc roll across land
and water, feeling lucky to be inside.

"Photography tomorrow?" she asked.

"Yeah. And then drawing, drawing,
drawing."

“The part you like best."

“Oh, yes." Actually, 1 halfway do like i
the way an athlete can enjoy warming
up, in expectation of the actual event.

The next morning I set up the cam-
eras before we went into the skinsuits.
The main one was a fairly complex and
delicate piece of equipment, an antiqu
8х10 view camera that took hair
accurate black-and-white negatives. 1
could have accomplished the same thing
with a modern large-format camera, but
I liked the smooth working of the gears,
the smell of the oak and leather, the
sense of contact with an earlier, less hur-
ried age. The paradox of combining the
technology of that age with ou

The other camera was a medium-for-
mat Polaroid. Buffered and suited, I led
Segura through the arcane art and sci
ence of tweaking lights, model, Fstop
and exposure to produce a subtle spec-

arum of prints: a sequence of 98 slightly
different, and profoundly different, pic-
tures of one woman. We studied the pic-
tures and her and finally decided on the
right combination. I set up the antique
8x10 and reproduced the lighting. We
focused it with his somewhat younger
eyes and took three slightly different
exposures.

"Then we took the film into the dark-
room that M&M had improvised in the
firm's executive washroom. We devel-
oped each sheet in Rodinal, fixed and
washed them and hung them up weight-
ed to dry.

We left the darkroom and spent a few
minutes smoking, studying Rhonda as
she studied her law. I told her she was
free for three days and that she should
show up Thursday morning. She nod-
ded curtly and left, resentful.

Her annoyance was understandable.
She'd been sitting there naked for all
that time we were playing in the dark-
room. I should have dismissed her when
we finished shooting.

We lit up another cigarette and I real-
ized that it wasn't I who had kept her
waiting. It was Segura. I'd started to tell
her to go and then he manufactured a
little crisis that led straight to the dark-
room. From then on 1 hadn't thought of
the woman except as а reversed ghost
appearing in the developer tray.

Under the ci mstances, it wasn't a
bad thing to haye her hostile toward us,
if we could capture the host
paper. But it goes against my gr

mistreat an employce, even à tempo-
rary one

We examined each of the negatives on
a lightbox with a loupe, then took the
best one back into the darkroom for
printing. Plain contact prints on finest-

л paper. The third one was perfect:
rich and stark, almost scary in its knife-
edge sharpness, You could sce onc
bleached hair standing out from her left
nipple.

‘That was enough work for the day; in
fact, we'd gone slightly over the six-hour
limit, and both of us were starting to get
headaches and cramps. Another half-
hour and it would be double vision
tremors. More than that—though Га
never experienced it—you
mentally confused, the two minds still
linked electrically but no longer cooper-
ating. Some poor guinea pigs took it as
far as convulsions or catatonia, back
when the buffer drug was first being
developed.

МЕМ eased us out of it and helped us
down to a taxi. It was only five blocks to
the hotel, but neither of us was feeling
particularly athletic. For some reason
the buffer hangover hits people like те,
in very good shape, particularly hard.
Segura was flabby, but he had less trou-
ble getting out of the car.

Back in the room, I pulled the black-
out blinds over the windows and col-
lapsed, desperately hungry but too tired
to do anything about it except dream
of food.

Allison had set up the paper, one large
sheet of handmade hot-pressed 400-
pound rag, soaking it overnight and
then taping it down, giving it plenty of
time to dry completely. That sheet of pa-
per, the one Segura would be drawing
on, cost more than some gallery paint-
ings. The sheet I'd be working on was
just paper, with a similar tooth.

We had set up two drawing tables
their boards at identical a
lile high
An opaque projector mounted above Se-
gura shot a duplicate of yesterday's pho-
to onto the ex] Job for
the next three days was to execute an a
curate but ghostlight tracing of the pi
ture, which would be gently erased after
the painting was done.

Some so-called photo-realists bypass
this step with a combination of photog-
raphy and xerography—make a high-
contrast print and then impress a light
photocopy of it onto watercolor paper.
That makes their job a high-salaried
kind of paint-by-numbers. Doing the ac-
tual underdrawing puts you well “into”
the painting before the first brush is wet.

We both sat down and went to wor!
starung with the uniformly bound law
books on the shelves behind Rhonda. It
was an unchallenging, repetitive subject
to occupy us while we got used to doing

this kind of labor together.

For a few minutes we worked on a
scrap piece of paper, until I was ab-
solutely confident of his eye and hand.
Then we started on the real thing.

After five grueling hours we had com-
pleted about a third of the background,
an area half the size of a newspaper
page. | was pleased with that
progress; working by myself I would
have done little more.

Segura was not so happy. In the taxi,
he cradled his right hand and stared at
it, the wrist quivering, the thumb frankly
twitching. "How can I possibly keep this
up?” he said. “I won't even be able to
pick up a pencil tomorrow."

I held out my own hand and wrist,
steady, muscular. “But I will. That's all
that counts

“I could permanently damage my
hand."

"Never happened." Of course, 14
never worked with anyone for three
weeks. "Go to that masseur, the man
whose card I gave you. He'll make your
hand as good as new. Do you still have
the car

“Oh, yeah.” He shifted uncomfortably
“I don't mean to be personal, or offen-
sive. But is this man gay? 1 would have
trouble with that.”

“I wouldn't know. We don't have little
badges or a secret handshake" He
didn't laugh, but he looked less grim.
*My relationship with him is professi
al. I wouldn't know whether or not he is
gay." Actually, since our professional re-
lationship included orgasm, if he wasn't
gay, he was quite a Method actor. But I
assumed he would divine Segura's oi
entation as quickly as I had. А masseur
ought to have a feel for his clients.

The next day went a lot better. Like
myself, Segura was heartened by the
sight of the previous day's careful work
outline. We worked faster and with equal
care, finishing all of the drawing except
for the woman and the things on the
desk in front of her.

It was on the third day that I had the
first inkling of trouble. Working on the
image of Rhonda, Segura wanted to beat
down too hard. That could be disas-
trous; if the pencil point actually broke
the fibers of paper along a line, it could
never be completely erased. You can't
have outlines in this kind of pai Es
just sharply defined masses perfectly
joining other sharply defined masses. A
репа line might as well be an inkblot

I thought the pressure was because of
simple muscular fatigue. Segura was not
in good physical shape. His normal
workday comprised six hours in confer-
ence and six hours talking on the phone
or dictating correspondence. He took а
perverse pride in not even being able to.
keyboard. He never lifted anything
heavier than a cigarette.

People who think art isn’t physically

well

demanding ought to uy to sit in one po-
sition for six hours, brush or pencil in
hand, staring at something or someone
and trying to transfer its essence to a
piece of paper or canvas, Even an athlet-
ic person leaves that arena with aches
and twinges. A couch potato like Segura
can't even walk away without help.

He never complained, though, other
than expressing concern that his fatigue
might interfere with the project. I reas-
sured him. In fact, I had once completed
а successful piece with a quadriplegic so
frail he couldn't sign his name the same
way twice. We taught ourselves how to
hold the brush in our teeth

It was a breathtaking moment when
we turned off the overhead projector for
the last time. The finished drawing float-
са on the paper, an exquisite ghost of
what the painting would become.
Through Segura's eyes I stared at it
hungrily for 15 or 20 minutes, mapping
out strategies of frisket and mask, in my
mind's eye seeing the paper glow
through layer after careful layer of glaze.
It would be perfect.

•

Rhonda wasn't in a great mood, com-
ing back to sit afier three days on her
own, but even she seemed to share our
excitement when she saw the under-
drawing. It made the project real

The first step was to paint a careful
frisket over her figure, as well as the
chair, the lamp and the table with их
clutter. That took an hour, since the
figure was more than a foot high on the
paper. I also masked out reflections on a
vase and the glass front of a bookcase.

I realized it would be good to start the
curtains with a thin wash of Payne's gray,
which is not a color I normally keep on
my palette, so I gave Rhonda а five-
minute break while 1 rummaged for it.
She put on a robe and walked over to the
painting and gasped. We heard her
across the room.

I looked over and saw what had dis
tressed her. The beautifully detailed pic
ture of her body had been blotted out
with gray frisket 1 it did look weird.
She was a nonbeing, a featureless nega-
tive space hovering in the middle of an
almost photographic depiction of a
room. All three of us laughed at her re-
action. I started to explain, but she knew
about frisketing; it had just taken her by
surprise.

Even the best facilitators have mo-
ments of confusion, when their client's
emotional reaction to a situation is total.
ly at odds with their own. This was one
of those times: My reaction to Rhonda's
startled response was a kind of ironic
empathy, but Segura's reaction was mali-
cious glee.

I could see that he disliked Rhonda at
a very deep level. What I didn't see (al-
though Allison had known from the first.

INTRODUCTORY }
SA |

CONDOMS
BY MAIL

Adam & Eve, one of the largest, most respected
suppliers of condoms, offers you condom variety,
including Trojan, Lifestyles Skinless Skins plus Prime
with nonoxynol-9 spermicidal lubricant ond
Texture Plus, featuring hundreds of “pleasure dots.”
We also offer your choice of Japanese bronds—
the finest condoms in the world, All delivered right
to your door.

As an introductory offer, you can get our
100-condom collection featuring 16 Teoding
brands—a full $50 value—for only $9.95. That's
€ 50% savings! Or try our 21-condom or 38-
condom somplers at fantastic Шун

Here's our no-risk guarantee: ЇГ you don't
ogree that our products and discreet, direct-to-your:
door servite are the best available anywhere, we'll
refund your money in full, ne questions asked

Use the coupon below to claim your
50% savings now!

VISA or MasterCard orders
call toll free 1-800-274-0333
24 hours, 7 days

Send check or money order tc:

Adam &
РО. Box 900, Dept. PB112, Carrboro, NC 27510

Please rush in plain packaging under
your money-back guarantee:

2 #1232 21-Condom Sampler.. 56.86... $3.00
486623 3B-Condom Sampler...59.95... $4.95
486403 Super 100 ѕатріег....519.95... $9.95
NAME

ADDRESS

PLAYBOY

day) was that it wasn’t just Rhonda. It
was women in general.

I've always liked women myself, even
though I've known since 13 or 14 that I
would never desire them. It's pernicious
to generalize, but 1 think that my friend-
ships with women have usually been
deeper and more honest than they
would have been had 1 been straight. А
straight man can simply like a woman
and desire her friendship, but there's al-
ways à molecule or two of testosterone
buzzing between them, if they are both
of an age and social situation where sex
might be a possibility, however remote. 1
have to handle that complication with
some men whom I know or suspect are
gay even when I feel no particular ас
traction toward them.

The drawing had gone approximately
from upper left to lower right, then back
to the middle for the figure, but the
painting would have to proceed in a less
straightforward way. You work ай over
the painting at once: a layer of rose mad-
der on the spines of one set of books and
on the shady side of the vase and on two
of the flowers. You need a complete
mental picture of the finished painting
so you can predict the sequence of
glares, sometimes covering up areas with
frisket or, when there were straight lines,
with drafting tape. The paper was dry,
though, so it was usually just a matter of
careful brushwork—pathologically сагс-
ful: You can't erase paint.

Of course, Khonda had to sit even
though for the first week her image
would be hidden behind frisket. Her
skin tones affected the colors of every-
thing else. Her emotional presence af-
fected the background. And Segura
fecling toward her "colored" the paint-
ing, literally.

"The work went smoothly. It was a
good thing Segura had suggested the
al painting; we'd been able to talk over
the necessity for occasional boldness and
spontaneity, to keep the painting from
becoming an exercise in careful drafts-
manship. Especially with this dark, sinis-
ter background, we often had to work
glazes wet-into-wet. Making details soft
and diffuse at the periphery of a paint-
ing can render it more realistic rather
than less. Our own eyes see the world
with precision only in a surprisingly
small area around the thing that has our
ention. The rest is blur, more or less
ignored. (The part of the mind that is
not ignoring the background is the ani-
s for a sudden move-
a painting can derive ten-
sion from that.)

Segura and I worked so well together
that it was going to cost me money; the
painting would be complete in closer to
two weeks than three. When I men-
tioned this he said not to worry; if the
painting was good, he'd pay the second
million regardless of the amount of time

154 (he'd paid a million down before we left

New York), and he was sure the painting
would be good.

OF course, there was arithmetic in-
volved there, as well as art. Fortune listed
his income last year as $98 million. He
probably wanted to get back to his quar-
ter-million-a-day telephone.

So the total time from photography to
finished background was only 11 days,
and I was sure we could do the figure
and face in a day, We still had a couple of
hours’ buffer lefi when we removed the
frisket, but 1 decided to stop at that
point. We studied her for ап hour or so,
sketching.

‘The sketches were accurate, but in a
way they were almost caricatures, angu-
lar, hostile. As art, they were not bad,
though like Segura's initial self- portrait,
they were fundamentally, intentionally
Үй ils se гаас
and sardonic eye ћете: How са
shaped breast or the lush curve o!
be both beautiful and ugly? Cover the
dark, dagger-staring face of Olympia and
drink in the lovely body. Then uncover
the face.

That quality would be submerged in
the final painting. It would be a beautiful
picture, dramatic but exquisitely bal-
anced, The hatred of women there but
concealed, like an underpainting.

It was a great physical relief to be
nearing the end. I'd never facilitated for
more than five days in a row, and the
skinsuit was becoming repulsive to me. I
was earning my long vacation.

That night I watched bad movies and
drank too much. The morning vas bril-
liant, but I was not. M&M injected me
with a cocktail of vitamins and speed that
burned away the hangover. 1 knew I'd
come down hard by nightfall, but the
painting would be done long before then.

Segura was jittery, snappish, as we
prepared for the last day. Maybe M&M
gave him a little something along with
the buffer, to calm him down. Maybe it
wasn't a good idea.

Rhonda was weird that morning, 100,
with good reason. She was finally the fo-
cus of our attention and she played her
part well. Her concentration on us was
ferocious, her contempt palpable.

I dabbed frisket on a few highlights—
collarbone, breast, eye and that glossy
hair—and then put in a pale flesh-col-
ored wash over everything, cadmium-
yellow light with a speck of rose. While it
dried, we smoked a cigarette and stared
at her. Rhonda had made it clear that
she didn't like smoke, and we normally
went into another гоош or at least моод
by an open window. Not today, though.

had a little difficulty controlling Se-
gura: He was mesmerized by her face
and kept wanting to go back to it. But it
doesn't work that way; the glazes go on
in a particular order, one color at various

places on the body ай at once. If you
finished the face and then worked your
way down, the skin tones wouldn't quite
match. And there was actual loathing be-
hind his obsession with her face, some-
thing close to nausea.

That feeling fed his natural amateur-
ish desire to speed up, just to find out
what the picture was going to look like.
In retrospect, I wonder whether there
might have been something sin
about that, as well.

It was obvious that the face and figure
would take longer than I had planned,
maybe half again as long, with so much
of my attention going into hauling in on
the reins. His impatience would cost us
ап extra day in the skinsuits, which an-
noyed me and further slowed us down.

Here I have to admit to a lack of em-
pathy, which for a facilitator is tanta-
mount to a truck driver admitting to
falling asleep at the wheel. My own re-
vulsion at having to spend another day
confined in plastic masked what Segura
was feeling about his own confinement. I
was not alert. 1 had lost some of my pro-
fessional control. I didn't see where his
disgust was lcading him, Icading us.

This is hindsight again: One of the
ents that Segura translated into millions
of dollars was an ability to hide his emo-
tions, to make pcople misread him. This
was not something he had to project; he
did it automatically, the way a pathologi-
са! liar will he even when there is noth-
ing at stake. The misogyny that seemed
10 flood his attitude toward the paint-
nd Rhonda—was only a small
n of what he must have actually
felt, emotions amplified by the buffer
drug and empath circuitry. Some wom-
an must have hurt him profoundly,
peatedly, when he was а child. Ма
that’s just amateur psychology. I don't
think so. If it had a sexual component, it
would have felt q dillerent, and 1
would have instantly picked up on it. His
hate was more primitive, inchoate

I knew already that Segura was the
kind of person who tightens up during
facilitation, which was a rclicf; they're
easier to work with. Doubly a relief with
Segura, since from the beginning I felt 1
didn’t want to know him all that well.

I might have prevented it by quitting
early. But 1 wanted to do all the light
passages and then start the next day
with a fresh palette, loaded with dark.
Perhaps I also wanted to punish Segura,
or push him.

‘The actions were simple, if the motiva-
tions were not. We had gone 20 minutes
past the six-hour mark and had perhaps
another half hour to go. I had an annoy-
ing headache, not bad enough to make
me quit. I assumed Segura felt the same.
ery now and then we approached
Rhonda to adjust her pose. Only a man-
nequin could retain exactly the same
posture all day. Her chin had fallen

slightly. Segura got up and walked to-
ward her.

1 don't remember feeling his hand slip
ош and pick up the large wash brush,
one that we hadn't used since the first
day. Its handle is a stick of hardwood
that is almost an inch in diameter, end-
ing in a sharp bevel. I never thought of it
as a weapon.

He touched her chin with his left
forefinger and she tilted her head up,
closing her eyes. Then with all his
strength he drove the sharp stick into
her chest.

The blast of rage hit me without warn-
ing. I fell backward off the stool and
struck my head. It didn’t knock me out,
but I was stunned, disoriented. I heard
Rhonda's scream, which became а horri-
ble series of liquid coughs, and heard the
paper and desk accessories scattering as
(we later reconstructed) she lurched for-
ward and Segura pushed her face down
onto the desk. Then there were three
meaty sounds as he punched her repeat-
edly in the back with the handle of the
brush.

About this time M&M and Allison
came rushing through the door. 1 don't
know what Allison did, other than not
scream. M&M pulled Segura off Rhon-
da's body, a powerful forearm scissored
across his throat, cutting off his wind.

1 couldn't breathe either, of course. I
started flopping around, gagging, and
M&M yelled for Allison to unhook me.
She turned me over and ripped off the
top part of the skinsuit and jerked the
electrodes free.

Then I could breathe, but little else. 1
heard the quiet struggle between M&M
and Segura, the one-sided execution.

Allison carried me into the prep room
and completed the procedure that M&M
normally did, stripping off the skinsuit
and giving me the shot. In about ten
minutes I was able to dress myself and
go back into the office.

M&M had laid out Rhonda's body on
a printers dropsheet, facedown in a
shockingly large pool of blood. He had
cleaned the blood off the desk and was
waxing it. The lemon varnish smell
didn't mask the smell of freshly
butchered meat.

Segura lay where he had been
dropped, his limbs at odd angles, his
face bluish behind the skinsuit mask.
lison sat on the couch, motionless,
prim, impossibly pale. “What now?” she
said softly. M&M looked up and raised
his eyebrows.

I thought. “One thing we ћаус to
agree on before we leave this room,” 1
said, “is whether we go to the police
or... take care of it ourselves."

“The publicity would be terrible,” АЈ
son said.

“They also might hang us,” M&M
said, “if they do that here.”

“Let's not find out,” I said, and out-
lined my plan to them.

It took a certain amount of money. It
wasa good thing I had the million in ad-
vance. We staged a tragic accident, trans-
ferring both of their bodies to a small
boat whose inboard motor leaked gaso-
line. They were less than a mile from
shore when thousands saw the huge
blossom of flame light up the night, and
before rescuers could reach the hulk, the
fire had consumed it nearly to the water-
line. Burned almost beyond recognition,
the "artist" and bis model lay in a final
embrace.

1 finished the face of the picture my-
self. A look of pleasant surprise, mischie-
vousness. The posture that was to have
communicated hardness was trans-
formed into that of a woman galvanized
by surprise, perhaps expectation.

We gave it to Segura's family, along
with the story we'd given to the press:
Crusty financier falls in love with young
law student/model. It was an unlikely
story to anyone who knew Segura well,

but the people who knew him well жеге
busy scrambling after his fortune. His
sister put the picture up for auction in
two weeks, and since its notoriety hadn't
faded, it brought her $2.2 million.

There's nothing like a good love story
that ends in tragedy.

Back in New York, I looked at my situ-
ation and decided I could afford to quit.
1 gave Allison and M&M generous sever-
ance pay, and what I got for the studio
paid for even nicer places in Maine and
Key West.

1 sold the facilitating equipment and
have since devoted myself to pure water-
colors and photography. People under-
stood. This latest tragedy on top of the
grotesque experience with the Monster.

But 1 downplayed that angle. 1 want-
ed to do my own work. I was tired of col-
laboration, and especially tired of the
skinsuit. The thousand decisions every
hour, in and out of control.

You never know whose hand is pick-
ing up the brush.

"Whaddya expect, baby? I'm a stand-up comedian."

155

PLAYBOY

CO-PILOT (uii

“The СОР in the most populous state is within a few
voles of being controlled by the Christian right."

tallied. From nowhere, conservative
Christians had grabbed dozens of seats.
“The militant newcomers are now close
to controlling the Republican Party in
Pennsylvania, too.

In June, in the San Diego County
towns of Lemon Grove and Fl Cajon. a
slate of “pro-family” Christian right ac-

s financed by a group of conserva-
tive businessmen swept the Republican
primary for all of the open council seats,
along with a slew of state assembly seats.
On the same day, several hundred miles
to the north in Santa Clara County, an-
other slate of "biblically oriented" candi-
dates—committed to the death penalty
for such sins as homosexuality and abor-
tion—captured 14 of 20 seats on the Re-
publican county central committee.
The GOP apparatus in the nation's most
populous state is within a few votes of
being absolutely controlled by the
Christian right.

These not-so-isolated incidents fore-
shadow a change taking place in Ameri-
can politics—a shift that has nothing to
do with bounced checks, smoking bim-
bos. talk shows. dirty tricks or any other
floating ephemera of campaign 1992
Across the nation, in primary after pri-
mary, stunned Republican leaders
echoed the lament of one longtime party
activist in Texas, a personal friend of
Barbara Bush, who suddenly found
herself ousted by the fundamentalists.
"They organized and we didn't,” she
said. "I didn't think it was going to be
this bad.”

A leading Christian right organizer in
southern California put it much more
cheerfully when he said, “How do you
eat an elephant? One bite at a time.”

The elephant being eyed so hungrily
by the Christian right seems to be in no
position to defend itself. If the Republi-
cans were vulnerable to a takeover by
Robertson's forces before November's
debacle, they are even more so now.

On Election Day, as the Bush-Quayle

ticket sank, taking many Republican
candidates down with it, the Christian
Coalition claimed several key victories,
particularly the defeat of Terry Sanford.
(the liberal Democratic senator from
North Carolina) and the passage of an
antigay referendum in Colorado. A few
weeks later, when a special runoff elec-
tion was held to choose a senator in
Georgia, the religious right muscled in-
cumbent Democrat Wyche Fowler, Jr,
out of his seat in favor of Republican
Paul Coverdell. Bill Clinton had taken
time from his transition chores to cam-
paign for Fowler, and the senator’s loss
marked the first political setback for the
president-elect.
•

Like the hapless Republican moder-
ates, you probably thought you no
longer had to worry about the likes of
Jim Bakker, Jimmy Swaggart and Jerry
Falwell. It's true that those three divines
are gone, but the vacuum they left has
been more than filled by Pat Robertson
and a host of lesser inquisitors, And the
smiling host of The 700 Club—an ex-
tremely wealthy businessman, whose fa-
ther vas a Democratic U.S. senator and
who controls a worldwide communica-
tions network—is smarter, tougher and
far more committed than his brethren
who fell by the wayside. Thanks to his
1988 presidential candidacy, moreover,
Robertson is now the acknowledged,
preeminent political leader of right-wing
evangelicals in America. He has no rivals
of any significance.

Even now, only a few Americans are
aware of the resurrection of the Chris-
tian right, a political movement pro-
nounced dead at the end of the Eighties,
because it has occurred in places largely
unnoticed by Beltway pundits. Report-
ers and commentators, fascinated by the.
fleeting phenomena of Ross Perot and
Jerry Brown, ignored Robertson and his
troops for most of the election year, just

as they have since the televangelist's own
1988 campaign ended in failure.

Since the shock of the Republican con-
vention, there has been a smattering of
press attention, chiefly in the major na-
tional dailies. Reporters occasionally
turn to Ralph Reed, Jr, the baby-faced
but aggressive young executive director
of Christian Coalition, for comment. But
most political analysts still have only the
vaguest idea of what Robertson has been
up to the past few years. He and his allies
have been funneling millions of dollars
into the Christian Coalition, which now
has more than 550 chapters and hun-
dreds of thousands of members in all 50
states. Last year the coalition spent about
$8 million, tax-exempt, on “voter educa-
tion” efforts.

Back when Robertson was running for
president, he often complained about
the national media’s scornful attitude to-
ward his conversations with God and his
claims of working miracles. But these
days the skept
just fine. Much as Robertson still loves
the sound of his own voice, the preacher
has called no press conferences to boast
about the quiet victories his candidates
have scored. Н ill rarely mentions
Christian Coalition in the secular media.

Last May, for instance, when he was
trying to buy United Press International,
Robertson appeared on CNN's Larry
King Live and talked about politics, but
not Christian politics. He understands
that political guerrilla warfare is most ef-
fective when nobody's looking. “I paint
my face and travel at night" is how Ralph
Reed describes Christian Coalition's
stealthy campaign methods. “

You don't
know it's over until you're in a body bag.
You don't know until election night."

As Pat Robertson's. organizers fan
out across the countryside. registering
churchgoers, canvassing "pro-family"
voters, preparing campaign literature,
training predinct captains and keeping а
low profile, he seeks nothing less than
control of the Republican Party by the
christian right. While it may sound am-
bitious, seizing the GOP is only the first
step in a plan that begins at the bottom
of the political system and extends far
beyond the current electoral horizon

“Our next goal is to elect conservative
pro-family majorities in the legislatures
of at least thirty-five states. Then, when
we get that, we'll go on to fifty,” Robert-
son told an audience of 800 Christian ас
tivists during a closed meeting at his
ginia headquarters in November 1991.
“We want to see a working majority of
the Republican Party in the hands of
pro-family Christians by 1996 or sooner.
Of course, we want to see the White
House in pro-family Christian hands, at
least by the year 2000 or sooner, if the
Lord permits.

This patient approach has in no way
tempered the fanatic ideology of Robert-
son's theocracy. As always, he ended his

speech with а prayer while his listeners
stood, dosed their eyes and held hands.
“That we will see the standard of biblical
values raised over this land." he intoned,
"and that those who have mocked You
and cursed You and cast out Your people
as evil will be put down, and that Your
people will be lifted up. Now, God, we
pray that You will use us."

After spending more than $25 million
and a vast reservoir of his followers"
emotional energy on his 1988 campaign,
Robertson went to the Republican con-
vention with only 120 delegates. When
Bush had defeated him on Super Tues-
day throughout his native South, Rob-
ertson's career in politics, despite a few
promising moments during the primary
contests in Iowa and Michigan, seemed
wasted. Even worse, Robertson's grass-
roots lobbying and political action
group, the Freedom Council, was dis-
solved in the st of an Internal Rev-
enue Service investigation into its al-
leged use of tax-exempt status to boost
Robertson's political aspirations.

So, as Bush was inaugurated, it ap-
peared that the Virginia evangelists
rantings would thereafter be confined to
his growing television empire. But in the
summer of 1989, as Robertson likes to
tell it, he received а call from a Louisiana

man named Billy McCormack, who had
served as that state’s coordinator of his
presidential effort.

“Pat,” said McCormack, “you ran for
president and you spent a great deal
of money and a great deal of time and
personal suffering. If you do not get
back into this situation, all your effort
will have been for naught. There are
people by the hundreds of thousands
around this country waiting to rally to
leadership.”

Robertson says he prayed for political
guidance and discovered that Ме
Cormack was right: God did want him to
get back into the political arena. That
September the televangelist called a
meeting in Atlanta of about two dozen
key supporters of his 1988 race to forma
new organization. And the name? They
considered titles such as Society of Tradi-
tional Values or the Pro-Family Agenda
League, but Robertson thundered, “Мо!
1 am a Christian. I am not ashamed of
Jesus. And we will call this the Christian
Coalition. If other people don't like it,
that’s just tough luck."

The way Robertson talks about the
naming of his new organization offers in-
sight into the mentality behind the
Christian right's revival. As with many
other groups in America, evangelicals
are nowadays inclined to think of them-
selves as victims—an oppressed minority
within a secular humanist society that

doesn't understand them. This culture
of victimization has been a staple of
Robertson's preaching for years, and it
forms an important part of Christian
Coalition ideology.

But the victims of secular humanism
are special, as Robertson always notes,
because they have been chosen by God
to rule. "We're going to sec a society,” he
promises, "where the people of God
once again are where God intended
them to be. We will be the head and not
the tail

Of course, right now the grass-roots
members of the Christian Coalition are
deeply concerned over the prospect of
an immoral Clinton presidency. As pres-
ident-elect, the Arkansan immediately
defied the Christian right by repeating
his campaign promises to protect abor-
tion rights and to permit homosexuals
to join or remain in the military. While
Clinton may be less liberal on certain
issues than the rest of his party, he is
quite plainly а product of the sexual
revolution.

Clearly, the utopia Robertson has
promised his followers will have to wait
until Clinton has vacated the White
House. In the Christian America to
come, says Robertson, "those who read
these filthy books and engage in these
filthy practices and who are out drunk
and taking drugs, those people are go-
ing to be the ones who are ashamed of

Sensual
Products

How to order them
without embarrassment.

How to use them
without disappointment.

одау, people are interested in improv-
| ing the quality of their lives and
exploring their own sensuality with
options from the Xandria Collection.
Themostimportantaspectofsatisfactionis
trust. Trustus.... thoughtful consideration goes
into each product in the catalogue. Quality,
value, and sensual appeal are ай important
elements, as are you, the customer.

What is The Xandria Collection?

It is a very special collection of sensual
products. It includes the finest and mest cf-
fective products available from around the
world. Products that can open new
doorsto pleasure (perhaps many you
never knew existed)!

Our products range from the
simple to the delightfully complex
They are designed for both the timid
and the bold. For anyone who has
ever wished there could be some-
thing more to their sensual pleasure.

The Xandria Collection has a
unique three-way guarantee. We've
had the same, no worry guarantee
for the past 18 years (since 1974).

First, we guarantee your pri-
масу. Everything we ship is plainly
packaged and securely wrapped,
with no clue to its contents from the
outside. АЙ transactions are strictly
confidential and we never sell, give
or trade any customer's name,

‘Second, we guarantee your satisfaction.
Ifa product seems unsatisfactory, simply return
it within 60 days for a replacement or refund.

Third, we guarantee the quality of our
products for one year. If it malfunctions,
simply return it to us fora replacement.

The Xandria Gold Collection... tribute to
closeness and communication. Celebrate the
possibilities for pleasure we each have within
us. If you're prepared to intensify your own
pleasure, then send for the Xandria Gold Col-
lection Edition catalogue. It is priced at just
$4.00, applied in full to your first order.

Write today. You have absolutely nothing
to lose. And an entirely new world of enjoy-
ment to gain.

| Р.О. Box 31039, San Francisco, СА 94131
Pease send me, y frst
Gold Cllecton Elan catalogue, Enclose my check or
money ee foe four delle which wil spin! wand
| пути ћи GAUS з САМ ESUAT

s mail, my copy of the Xandria

E

| х= шш
| tamanadut ovr 21 years of

==
TREE

|

|

|

|

IE mE — |
2-1

=

|

Excel.

157

their conduct."

In Robertson's America, pornography
(very loosely defined) would be out-
lawed, along with abortion, homosexual-
ity and extramarital sex. There would be
far more stringent restrictions on di-
vorce and the sale of alcohol. The gov-
ernment would no longer provide pub-
lic education or social welfare, both of
which would be in the hands of the
churches. Robertson has said that he
looks forward to a time when not only
"the men in the Senate and the House
are spirit-filled and worship Jesus
Christ" but the judges in every court-
house are speaking in tongues. Robert-
son's cohort includes a faction to the
right of Pat himself. The Christian re-
constructionists cite the Old Testament
to urge the death penalty for gays and
for doctors who perform abortions.

Such medieval legislation isn't exactly
imminent. But in the meantime, Chris-
tian rightists are applying their princi-
ples at the local level—particularly on
school boards, where the Christian
Coalition has achieved notable success in
recent elections. On that level, the Chris-
tian right has undertaken campaigns to
censor such sinister humanist texts as
Little Red Ridinghood (in which Grand-
ma drinks a glass of wine) and to abolish
school breakfast programs as a threat to
family values.

Despite the bizarre theocratic notions
espoused by the Christian Coalition's
leaders, the group's meetings seem
more like seminars than revival meet-
ings. There are prayers and usually
some discussion of the enemy: feminists,
gays. the media, Democrats and demon-
ic Republican moderates. There's always
at least one speech denouncing abortion.

Lee Atwater, who died in 1991, was
the acknowledged master of the dirty
campaign, and his spirit survives in
Christian Coalition politics. Atwater is
the man cited most often as a political
authority by Robertson, Ralph Reed and
other coalition leaders.

Beginning in the fall of 1991 and con-
tinuing for 12 months thereafter, Chris-
tian Coalition organizers distributed
costly “precinct action kits” to their local
operatives, helping them identify “pro-
family” voters to be turned out on
tion Day. For more than a year, coal
members were on the phones, night aí-
ter night, dialing their neighbors to com-
pile computerized lists showing who 15
registered, who is a Republican, who op-
poses abortion and who vored in 1988
for George Bush. Those people received
the voter guides to help them decide
which candidates were morally fit for
public office, from president on down to
dogcatcher.

The president lost, but the dogcatch-
ers won. And for the Christian Coalition,
that is the place to start building real
power. Both the coalition and groups
158 opposing it, such as People for the Amer-

PLAYBOY

ican Way, estimate that Christian right
candidates won as many as 500 seats in
various legislative and local government
races across the country in November.
Those are impressive results for a group.
that essentially didn't exist as a national
entity a year earlier.

Nothing displayed Robertson's new
pragmatism morc clearly than his cm-
brace of Bush, a man he surely despised.
He endorsed the president more than a
year before the 1992 election, and the
Christian Coalition worked hard for his
doomed campaign. This was despite the
fact that many of the coalition's top ac-
tivists preferred Patrick Buchanan (as
did, according to Robertson's own
phone polls, the vast majority of his 700
Club viewers).

Actually, the hapless Bush represented
the forces in the Republican Party that
Robertson would like to drive out. 1n his
1988 autobiography, Bush boasted of his
confrontations in Houston during the
early Sixues with right-wing nut cakes
on the fringes of the GOP—members of
the John Birch Society who suspected
that Bush might be a one-world tool of
the communist Wall Street international-
ist conspiracy.

Robertson did not like Bush's new
world order, vicwing it as the latest vari-
ant of that same old communistic Wall
Street plot. Except that, having appro-
priated all the musty Bircher mumbo
jumbo, the reverend has upped the ante
just a bit. According to him, the entire
conspiracy has been personally orches-
trated by the Devil himself.

"Indeed," warns Robertson, “it may
well be that men of goodwill such as
Woodrow Wilson, Jimmy Carter and
George Bush, who sincerely wanted a
larger community of nations living at
peace in our world, arc in reality un-
knowingly and unwittingly carrying out
the mission and mouthing the phrases of
a tighdy knit cabal whose goal is nothing
less than a new order for the human race
under the domination of Lucifer and his
followers.”

Duped by a Satanic conspiracy? That's
worse than anything Bill Clinton ever
said about Bush, It must have been even
harder for Robertson to support Bush
than it was for most other Republican:
But with Bush out of the way, the que:
tion of whom to support in 1996 is a
daunting one. Dan Quayle was a favorite
of the Christian Coalition, but he's taint-
ed, too. Buchanan is well-liked, but
there's a slightly embarrassing problem

n, they aren't religiously
“saved.” William Bennett, the former
drug czar who is mulling a presidential
run, is also Catholic.

Jack Kemp, currently the most popu-
lar Republican, was raised as a Christian
Scienust. As far as the evangelical right is
concerned, that’s close to Satan worship.

Kemp is also something of a bleeding-
heart conservative, especially in his atti-
tudes toward government action to revi-
talize urban ghettos. Worst of all, ће
doesn't have the family-values luster the
coalition prefers.

All of which leaves Robertson himself.
Does that sound more ludicrous than
ominous? Maybe, but in 1988 the Vir-
ginia preacher didn't do much worse
than Kemp, who is considered the Re-
publican front-runner right now. If Pres-
ident Clinton fails, if the nation suffers
further economic decline or moral
doubt, an electorate that is simultane-
ously angry and inattentive may be capa-
ble of actions that are awesomely self-de-
structive. In 1992 we had a closc call
with Ross Perot.

There may not be much chance that
a majority of Americans would willingly
vote to overturn the Constitution and to
surrender their freedom to a band of re-
ligious zealots. But the long-term plan of
the Christian right no longer relies on the
so-called moral majority. Its new strategy
depends on a tiny but disciplined minor-
ity that can exploit voter apathy and ig-
norance to gain power incrementally—
first on school boards, then in state
legislatures and finally in Washington.

Should the Christian right succeed in
taking over the Republican Party, it will
inherit an extremely powerful appara-
tus. Such a party, running against the
usually fractious and disorganized Пет-
ocrats, is a chi

The irony is that if it does come to
pass, it will happen because the ordinary
couch potatocs did what they usually do:
nothing. Most of them won't know
what's happened until their favorite TV
shows are censored.

Read what Guy Rodgers, the director
of organizing for the Christian Coalition,
has said to audiences around the coun-
try for the past year: “In a presidential
election, when more voters turn out
than in any other election, only fifteen
percent of eligible voters actually deter-
mine the outcome. How can that be?
Well, of all the adults eighteen and over
eligible to vote, only about sixty percent
are registered to vote. It's less than that
in many states. Of those registered to
vote, in a good turnout, only half go to
the polls. That means thirty percent of
those eligible are actually voting. So
fifteen percent determines the outcome
in a high-turnout election, In low-
turnout elections—city council, county
commission, state legislature—the per-
centage that determines who wins can be
as low as six or seven percent.

“Is this sinking in? We don't have to
worry about persuading a majority of
Americans to agree with us. Most of
them are staying home and watching
Falcon Crest. Do you understand?”

Well, do you?

BETTY PAGE

(continued from page 32)
woman and a young child. “My brother's
family,” he told her.

Bettie and Carlos were on his bed
when they heard а pounding on the
door. It was his wife, of course, in a fury.
Carlos advised Bettie to hide in the clos-
et, Three seconds later, Carlos” wife
swung the closet door wide open, calling.
Bettie a home wrecker. “She was obvi-
ously very much in love with Carlos. 1
left there feeling lower than a snake.”
Carlos phoncd Bettie every day for
months, but tlie magic was gone:

It was on a Florida vacation with fel-
low model Bunny Yeager, an accom-
plished photographer in her own right,
that Bunny took the famous leopard-
skin photographs now prized by Beuie's
fans. Back in New York, she faced a dif-
rent kind of publicity. Senator Estes
Kefauver, from Bettic’s home state of
Tennessee, subpoenaed her and Irving
Klaw to testify in a 1955 obscenity in-
quiry. Klaw destroyed hundreds of pre-
cious Betty negatives before angrily tak-
g the Fifth Amendment. Bettie waited
36 des outside the committee's cham-
bers and was never called.

Bettie disappeared at the end of 1957.

figured everyone had enough of me. I
was thirty-four years old and beginning
to decline as a model.” That was onl
Bettie's opinion. She was still very mucl
in demand. But with an estimated half
million photos now on file, she felt the
public had enough

I found Bettie the old-fashioned way.
1 tracked down leads, waited on
doorsteps, connected one piece of infor-
mation to another. She still has her
trademark bangs and her warm South-
ern accent. She gladly filled me in on the
second half of her life.

In 1957, she went back to Florida. She
was teaching fifth grade when she mar-
ried a man 12 years younger. “He had
very few interests. Sex. And movies. And
hamburgers. He let me cook nothing but
hamburgers for ten months before we
were divorced,”

Afier her broken marriage, she found
jesus. The precise moment was New
Years Eve, 1959. She was mesmerized
bya huge neon cross and the sermon she
heard inside the church. She wanted to
learn more.

Bettie went to Bible school, “the three
happiest years of my life.” By the early
xties she had lost touch with her New
York friends. Many assumed she was
now ashamed of her past life. But Веше
is an unconventional Cl n. “I would
at any time, declare pinups a sin.

y re beautiful to look at. And if I ever
did cross any line, I know that Jesus
very forgiving.”

What caused Bettie to completely

troubled reuni
with her first husband, Billy “1 met
him again in 1963. 1 was in Nashville
taking care of my father, who'd just lost
both legs to diabetes. 1 led Billy to the
Lord, and my professors at Bible school
id that 1 must remarry bim. It was a

Bettie seemed destined to relive other
parts of her early life. She went back to
Peabody College in 1964 to earn her
masters degree in English. But again

wouldn't accept the credits.” She never
got her degree.

There followed another failed mar-
riage, then divorce and a nervous break-
down. When she left the hospital, she re-
turned to her third husband's home, this
time not as his wife but as his house-
keeper and gardener. In the late Seven-
ties she moved to California, a dark peri-
od that she is happily out of now. She's
proud of her life these days, satisfied
with its balance. She's nearing 70 and
living with other people her age. She
takes day trips or goes window-shopping
nearly every day.

Bettie Page has not profited from the
Betty boom. She wasn't even aware of its
scope when I contacted her. Only now
has she set up a post-office box where
people can mail her share of the royal-
ues. Ihus far, only two checks have
arrived, from Lifestyles of the Rich and
Famous and from the artist Greg Theak-
ston, publisher of The Betty Pages maga-
zine. [For a sample copy of the magazine
send $6 to Pure Imagination, 88 Lexing-
ton Avenue, Suite 2E, New York, МУ.
10016. A signed and numbered print of
the poster that appeared on page 123 of
the December rLaysoy costs $40. For
$150 you can have a print signed by Bet-
i n. A share
heakston, will

of the profits, promises
go to Bettie.—Ed.]
Bettie is far from rich, living almost
entirely on Social Security, and though
she doesn’t complain she does think of
what might have been. She remembers
her acting cla New York with

ses in

never made
She never а
ly screen test
dictorian, for soi
ever Ме gave m

Bettie has no plans to meet her fans,
preferring to guard her privacy. In the
December млувоу, writer Buck Henry
ity tale with
Bettie is hard-
"I was
never ambitious. And 1 was never
ashamed. And 1 was never the girl next

door."
а

ed after that one саг-
‘Afier losing out as vale-
reason, I took what-

no discernible moral."
pressed to supply one herself

Gota litte rsh їп you? Panty-of-the-Month would
like to geta little Irish on you. Our Happy St Panty
and Erin Go Bragivesnew meaning t EY
o the green.

March's edition arrives with а special note from
"Your Naughty Leprechaun” reading:

“In case anyone dares say you'll have bad luck in
the coming а peas fornot wasting reen—t Элсэн
and I—welf both know differently, won't we

This delightful aift of romance has been profiled
by {Street

CNN, MTV, USA Today and the Wal
Joumal,
24 hr. information hotline

718-726-8437 or 718-670-7000
Because lingerie is the gift
that touches ber when you can't M

Free 80 Page Color Catalog
Today's high-tech dual-line stunt kites
make it more fun than ever to go fly a kite.
Trace loops, dives and figure eights in the sky.
With a stunt kite, you're always in control р
Start with an easy-to-fly beginrer’s kite or
experience the thrill of control at 120 MPH! |
‘Send for our free Catalog and choose from
hundreds of unusual and innovative kites. П

Into The Wind • (800) 541-0316 |
1408-РВ Pearl St, Boulder, СО 80302 |

SIZES: 5-12
WIDTHS: B-EEE

FINE MEN'S
SHOES

Looks just like ordinary shoes except hidden
inside is a height increasing innermold. Choose

from n wide selection of Elevators. including dress
shoes, boots and casuals. Satisfaction guaranteed.
Exceptionally comfortable, Call of write today for
REE color catalog so you can look 2” taller
ток no time. TOLL FREE 1-800-343-3810
ELEVATORS”
RICHLEE SHOE COMPANY, DEPT. PB33
P.O. Box 3566, Frederick, MD 21701

PLAYBOY

160

MEN AND THEIR MEAT 22727777)

“Taxpayers paid for J. Edgar Hoover's regular ship-
ment of steaks that were flown in from Texas.”

out about grilling, you should read A.
Cort Sinnes’ book The Grilling Encyclope-
dia. He's the grilling maestro."

Writer Armistead Maupin says that
how you cook a steak isn't as important
as where you get it. In his opinion, that
place should be New Zealand, where he
lives for half the year. Kiwi lamb or beef
on the barbie, marinated with spring
onions and local wine and seared on
both sides, he says, is worth a visit down
under.

Maupin is not the only one willing to
go the distance for his favorite meats.
Some beefy facts about the onetime head
of the FBI were uncovered by Curt Gen-
try while he researched his book J. Edgar
Hoover. The Man and the Secrets. Appar-
ently, taxpayers paid for Hoover's regu-
lar shipment of steaks that were flown
into Washington from Texas. He also

had a special agent fly from Beverly Hills
to deliver Chasen's famous cl The
"top secret" recipe for the chili hasn't
changed in 60 years, and Chasen's boasts
that almost every president has had it
sent to the White House. Here are the
ingredients, as published by The Los An-
geles Times in 1989:

% pound dry pinto beans

5 cups chopped tomatoes

1 pound chopped green peppers

1% tablespoons oil

1% pounds chopped onions

2 cloves garlic, minced

Y cup chopped parsley

% cup butter or margarine

2% pounds ground beef, preferably
chuck

1 pound lean ground pork

% cup chili powder

2 tablespoons salt.

“Taunt him! Give him some shit! Impugn his personhood!”

1% teaspoons black pepper
1% teaspoons cumin seeds

Soak beans in water overnight. Drain,
cover with cold water and simmer for
about an hour, or until beans are tender.
Add tomatoes, simmer five minutes
longer and then set aside.

Next, sauté green peppers in hot oil
until tender. Add onions and cook until
soft, stirring frequently. Add garlic and
parsley.

In another skillet melt butter and add
beef and pork. Cook, stirring for 15 min-
utes, or until browned and crumbly. Add
meat to onion mixture and stir in chili
powder. Cook ten minutes. Add meat
mixture to beans along with salt, pepper
and cumin seeds. Simmer, covered, for
one hour. Remove cover and simmer 30
minutes longer Skim fat from top.
(Yields eight to ten servings.)

Another equally mouth-watering dish
is carne adovada, a pork stew that Martin
Cruz Smith, author of Gorky Park and
Red Square, had in Santa Fe. "It's so hot,"
he says, "you really want to eat it while
straddling a keg of cold beer.”

“To make the stew, cook three pounds
of boned pork chops (trimmed of fat, cut
into cubes) smothered in a New Mexican
red or chimayo chili sauce in oven for
about 3% hours at 350 degrees. To make
the sauce, roast eight ounces of chilies in
an oven for five minutes and remove the
seeds and stems. In a food processor
blend the chilies with four cups of water.
Mix in one tablespoon of chopped white
onion, four chopped cloves of garlic and
а half teaspoon each of Worcestershire
sauce, oregano, salt and white pepper.
Arrange the meat in a shallow baking
dish. Cover it with the sauce and bake as
described above. The dish is traditional-
ly accompanied by chopped tomatoes,
cilantro, lettuce and fresh handmade
tortillas.

Howard Hesseman (Johnny Fever on
WKRP in Cincinnati) says he doesn't cook
but has eaten in steak houses and rib
shacks nationwide. His favorites are Eli's
in Chicago, Leonard's Hickory Pit in San
Francisco, Hot Sauce Williams’ Bar-
beque in Cleveland and Johnson's Bar-
B-Q in Norfolk, Virginia. "If you like
spicy ribs, any of these will leave you
talking in tongues of fire."

When Hesseman's in Paris, where he
lives part of the year, he eats regularly at
Le Coup de Fourchette because he loves
the steak, potatoes and onions that are
cooked in one skillet. The proprietor is
so dedicated to her viande that Н
man has heard her discourage potential
patrons by announcing that vegetarian
friends of Brigitte Bardot are not al-
lowed in her bistro.

Bardot would probably cringe if she
heard this favorite meat-eating memory
of New Yorker cartoonist and playwright
William Hamilton. “I once owned a cow
named Madame Vache, who had been

alone all her life with only deer as com-
panions. She had no reference to what
she was. When we took walks in the
woods, she would self-consciously try to
hide behind a tree, and she foraged in
the wild just like а deer One day
Madame was shot, so we made the mur-
derer give us the meat. She was the most.
tender and delicious steak 1 can remem-
ber,” he says. "If our roles were changed,
I would hope that she'd enjoy me as
much as I enjoyed her."

Cable TV mogul Ted Turner, an avid
bird hunter, may like beef but refuses
to raise cattle, because his father did.
“They trampled down all the grass and
wrecked the bird habitat," he says. ОР
course, that hasn't stopped him from
raising buffalo on his 130,000-acre
spread outside of Bozeman. Montana
Perhaps Jane Fonda, his weight-con-
scious wife, had some influence in the
matter, as buffalo meat has significantly
less fat and cholesterol than beef.

On a less palatable note, when musi-
cian Todd Rundgren isnt touring, he
cranks up the grill and cooks
and-apple sausages and the
burger and dog. "But as a ki
“J was much more excited by my moth-
er's meat of choice, Spam."
uch enthusiasm would dwindle
quickly if Rundgren had read Paul
Theroux's new travel book, The Happy
Isles of Oceania. In it, Theroux theorizes
“that former cannibals of Oceania feast-
ed on Spam because Spam came the
nearest to approximating the porky taste
of human flesh. It was a fact that the
people-eaters of the Pacific had ай
evolved, or perhaps degenerated, into
Spam-eaters. And in the absence of
Spam they settled for corned beef, which
also had a corpsy flavor."

In a more abstemious part of the
book, Theroux describes eating Капі
roo meat in Australia. He was given “a
brown strip of meat that had the look of
leather, exactly the shape and size of the
tongue of an old shoe." It was two-year-
old roo meat, wonderful in soups—
“lovely stuff."

Francis Ford Coppola's meat follies
are not for the weak of stomach. For his
annual Easter party in the Кара Valley,
he orders four dozen goats’ heads (with
eyes), 80 lambs’ tongues, 100 pounds of
pork liver wrapped in pork fat with fen-
nel seed, and a few dozen calves’ brains.
ап cheese is sprinkled on
the heads hit the barbe-
cue and, once at the table, the men are
quickly separated from the boys.

Finally, when asked about his best
piece of meat, lawyer Melvin Belli, the
king of torts, said, “I bit an insurance ad-
juster on the ass and collected a million-
dollar judgment from him, too. Talk
about an expensive piece of meat.”

MIMI ROGERS

(continued from page 75)
experiencing religious premonitions.
Her subsequent conversion to evangel
cal Christianity is complete, to the point.
where she redeems a former lover. The
two marry, have a daughter and live qui-
et, pious lives until the murder of her
husband by a disgruntled former em-
ployee triggers a series of catastrophic
events. Certainly an individual con-
sumed by religious fervor would find it
difficult to embrace such a role.

To Mimi, it was “my best work, the
greatest challenge 1 have had profes-
sionally. Making The Rapture was a re-
markable culmination of timing, events

and material, as well as the connection
that Michael Tolkin and 1 had estab-
lished. It was possibly а once-in-a-life-
time experience."

Hollywood rumor number two comes
in two versions. According to the first,
being defined as Mrs. Tom Cruise has-
tened the end of Rogers three-year mar-
riage to Cruise, who saw his star appeal
take on corporate dimensions. The sec-
ond scenario has Rogers stricken by
glamour ennui. Cruise, who, by his own
admission, is retiring and steadfastly pri-
vate, allegedly proved less than stimulat-
ing to Rogers, who was known 10 roam
the clubs in West Hollywood with a pack
of like-minded party animals.

“Is that the story?” Mimi questions,

“Of course I have an erection. When

you're trapped in a bottle for
rhe

you can thi

four thousand years, all
ud 15 sex.”

PLAYBOY

162

REMOVE VOCALS

Зіма WITH THE WORLD'S BEST BANDS!
An Unlimited supply of Backgrounds from standard
stereo recordings! Record with your voice or perform
live with the backgrounds, Used in Professional
Performance yet connects easily to a home component
Stereo. Phone for Free Brochure and Demo Record.
LT Sound, Dept. P833 ‚7980 LT Parkway
Lithonia, GA 30058. (404) 482-4724

Sold Exclusively by LT Soand
O LINE: (404)

STOP SWEAT
6 WEEKS

Drionic® is an incredibly more UNDERARMS
effective way to combat excess
Sweat — without chemicals. Elec-
tronic Drionic keeps the heavy
sweater dry for 6 week periods
and is reusable. Thousands of
units have been prescribed by
doctors. Ten medical textbooks.
recommend Drionic as achoice
method of control for the heavy
sweater.

Send for free information.

GENERAL MEDICAL CO., Dept PB-53
1935 Armacost Ave.. Los Angeles, CA 90025

HANDS

24 MONTHS

OF SEXY &

SEDUCTIVE
WOMEN

Limited
Time Offer!

‘Send check or money order to:
‘Acam & Eve, ер. PB113, PO. Box 900, Canboro, NC 27510
Or Use Your VISA/MC To Order Toll-Free Anytime!
1-800-274-0333

CONDOMS BY MAIL!

Get the best condoms available

50% OFF day! Your choice of the latest
Japanese brands (thinnest in the
SAVINGS! хопа"), textured condoms for

maximum satisfaction, SLIMS
{slimmer condoms for а srugger fit), plus TROJANS,
LIFESTYLES, more! Choose trom 36 brands of
condoms, including natural membrane, textured and
colored. Plain attractive package assures privacy
Service is fast and guaranteed. Free brochure
describes the features and differences between the
brands.

Send check ос money order o: DKT Int'l. Dept. SPB36
55 Enterprise Way, РО Box 8860, Chapel НИ, NC 27515,
Please send п plain package under your money-back guarantee:

#6403 Super 100 Collection $19.95 $995

(391232 21-Condom Sampler 5600 5300
Nama
Adóross.

су

squinting into the legend. “That I was
bored with that child and threw him
over, chewed him up and spit him out?
Shall we let that be the story? Because
here's the real story: Tom was seriously
thinking of becoming a monk. At least
for that period of time, it looked as
though marriage wouldn't fit into his
overall spiritual need. And he thought
he bad to be celibate to maintain the pu-
rity of his instrument. Therefore, и be-
came obvious that we had to split.

"What about your instrument?”

"Oh, my instrument needed tuning."

But if Rogers can make light of it no
there are still hints at her consequential
emotional loss.

"Finances aside, divorce just sucks,”
she avers, then rallies, recalling the
tabloid play-by-play of her breakup with
Cruise. “I thought as part of our settle-
ment I would get my age back. Sce,
when Tom and I got together, we didn't
have a big enough age gap for the
tional Enquirer. So every six months we
were together, they would add on a year.
According to the Enquirer, 1 think I'm
forty now.”

Ah. yes, the tabloids. They do have fun
with ‚ Some time ago a Star head-
line read KIRSTIE ALLEY: 1 LURED MEN ВУ
PROMISING 3-IN-A-BED. WITH MIMI ROGERS.
Which leads us to rumor number thre

tie and I used to hang out quite a
lot together,” says Mimi. “We were the
wild and crazy single girls. But it was all
talk and no action. Both of us would get.
completely smashed on one drink. And
we would flirt outrageously and we
would holl hands and make people
think we were lesbians, or dykes, or bi-
sexual, or whatever, and give this wild
appearance that was completely bogus.

“But let's get serious,” she continues.
“These rumors circulate because it's
every male’s fantasy. Look up ‘sexual
clichés—male' in the encyclopedia and
you find two beautiful babes doing it. So
if you have attractive actresses and men
fantasize about them, then part of the
fantasy is that they do other chicks, and
maybe, if the guy's real lucky, they will
do other chicks with the guy.”

The waiter has arrived with more
food. Inspired, perhaps, by the spectacle
of our eel sushi, we have ventured into
the realm of on-screen male nudity.

“Let's face it,” Mimi says. “Unless the
actor's showing his dick, nobody really
cares. Male nudity? What, we see his
buns?” Mimi scoffs, pinching her се!
with splayed chopsticks. “So unless we
see a dick, there's nothing to get into a
lather about. And in a sexual context, ii
really silly to see a dick on-screen be-
cause the dick is never doing the right
thing. It's limp. The great thing about
being a woman is we can hide it when
we're aroused, or when we're not."

As she shakes some life into her hair,
there's something about Mimi's face that

catches my eye. Is this the secret weapon
that stops the otherwise cold of heart
dead in their tracks? Here is a face that,
seen from one angle, is dark and sensu-
al: seen from another perspective, she
couldn't pass for her own sister. She is
full and fair, DAR material, a kind of
surfer That Girl.

^1 have a completely irregular fac
says Mimi between sips of Japanese beer.

“My mother was a totally gorgeous
blonde Southern babe from North Car-
olina, and my father was a Jew from De-
troit. My features are completely out of
whack. I need a front-end alignment.”

Perhaps, but until then, she’s still get-
ting plenty of work. and no one's asking
her to wear a mask. Recent cable TV ap-
pearances include Tales from the Crypt,
Dream On and The Larry Sanders Show.
Shooting is about to begin for The Ninja
Murders, an NBC miniseries based on the
account of two brothers who had their
wealthy parents murdered in order to
gain control of the family estate,

“It has eighty-two costume changes,”
says Mimi, speaking of her role as the
wife of one of the brothers. “So I'll dress
really well. And we keep whatever we
can. Most of my wardrobe is made up
from the movies Гуе done. One of the
bonuses of being an actress is it cuts
down on your shopping.”

In Hollywood, most acıresses would
ide a closetful of Isaac Mizrahi cre-
ations for a big-screen role of some sub-
stance. No one knows that better than
Rogers, who's still looking for her next
Raplure.

“Well, Гт not on the A-list as ап ac-
tress,” she says. “I'm not one of the five
or six: Meryl Demi, Annette, Kim,
Michelle. I get a lot of offers, but I'd say
eighty percent of them I can't do be-
cause they're so bad. Of the twenty per-
cent I can do, half are the audition-bust-
your-ass offers. The problem these days
isa lot of projects have become cast-con-
tingent. They'll offer the lead role to
four actresses, for example, and if none
of them take it, they'll just scrap the
project.”

As we meander to the street, caramel-
coated by the kind of L.A. sunset that
makes the specter of earthquakes seem a
little more remote, Mimi scoops up my
hand and places it against her cheek,
which is as hot as a Sinatra retrospective:

Feel how warm my face is from half a
beer,” she murmurs, the lilt of her voice
evoking the languid undertow of Satur-
day-afiernoon wedding receptions.

She can be disingenuous, revelatory,
teasing and truchearted. While she’s
speaking her mind, she won't bother try-
ing to read yours. This, indeed, is her se-
стег weapon. Her happiness appears to
be free from dependent clauses,

^ Mimi winks, “I'm just trying
my hardest to be a groovy and happen-
ing chick.”
El

BEYOND CHOICE

(continued from page 51)
references to caring and responsibility.
Now, the CDF, which helps poor kids, is
а hell of an organization, and Hillary in
her past life was a chairperson of its
board. She knows it's going to take more
than sweet talk about adult responsibility
10 solve America's most intractable prob-
lem—that one out of four children lives
below the poverty line, that they go to
Jousy schools and that they don't always
have food in their bellies. She must know
this, being from Arkansas and knowing
about eastern Arkansas, a poor region of
the Mississippi delta. Her husband ran
the state for 12 years, and during the
campaign we heard a great deal about
what they did for the poor. Her husband
was chairman of the Delta Commission
that was supposed to improve things. It
didn't. People there are more disadvan-
taged than they were a decade ago. Un-
employment and illiteracy rates in some
counties are higher than 20 percent, and
most people are dependent on miserable
welfare handouts.

T'm not blaming Hillary Clinton or the
women's movement for any of this. What
I am saying is that the agenda has to
change. The right to an abortion is not
an all-encompassing program to deal
with the millions of poor women and
their children who represent this na-
tion's most profound social crisis. І hope
the grand plan of the women's move-
ment is not the ugly one of aborting the
children of the poor. That would be gen-
саде and, if that's the goal, the right-to-
lifers would be proved right, after all.

Yes, birth control of all kinds, freely
chosen and the less invasive the better,
would help. But in places such as eastern
Arkansas, we are talking about female-
headed households that have been left
ош of the main economic loop. Murphy
Brown is not the typical head of a single-
mother household, and Designing Women
does not evoke the anxiety of millions oF
mothers and their kids who can't make it
even with food stamps. A women's move-
ment worth its name must focus on edu-
cational, social and economic needs be-
fore it deals with anything else.

Maybe all of this is obvious to the first
lady and to everyone else who is now
2 role model for that amorphous but
powerful women's movement. 1 find it
strange that Hillary Clinton has been cel-
ebrated by women for some of her char-
ity, while no one looked closely at her
main line of work on behalf of corpora-
tions and banks. Last spring she told The
New York Times, "For goodness’ sake, you
can't be a lawyer if you don’t represent
banks.” Oh? Tell that to the thousands of
legal-service lawyers and public defend-
ers who spend their lives helping poor
women hold those banks at bay.

aT eae
Т Fi

HOW то BUY

PLAYBOY expands your pur-
chasing power by providing a
list of retailers and manu-
facturers you can contact for
information on where to find
this month's merchandise. To
buy the apparel and equipment |
shown on pages 26, 82-85,

114-117 and 165, check the
listings below to find the stores
nearest you.

STYLE

Page 26: “Slip Into a Tattoo": Tank tops,
shirts and baseball caps by Hard Tail, at
Charivari Sport, 201 W. 79th St, N.YC.,
212-799-8650, for information, 310-472-
5800. Jacket, T-shirts and baseball caps by
Disorder, at Chess King stores nationwide.
Shirts, vests and T-shirts by Terrapin, at
H.D-'s Clothing Co., 3018 Greenville Ave.,
Dallas, 214-821-5255. Neckwear, shirts,
boxer shorts and vests by Nicole Miller, at
Nicole Miller, 780 Madison Ave., N.Y.C.,
212-288-9779, and 50 Post St, Crocker
Galleria, San Francisco, 415-398-1111. Vest
by Chrome Hearts, at Riccardi, 128 Newbury
St., Boston, 617-265-3158; Max Field, 8825
Melrose Ave., Los Angeles, 310-274-8800.
Jacket by Jeff Hamilton, at Merry-Go-Round
and Boogie's Diner stores nationwide, for
information, 800-888-4422. “Net Profi":
Sweater by DKNY, at Charivari Workshop,
441 Columbus Ave., N.Y.C., 212-496-8700.
Vest by Marcos Ergas, at Meticr, 50 Maiden
Ln. San Francisco, 415-989-5395; Big
Drop, 174 Spring St, М.ҮС,, 212-966-
1299. Sweaters: By KM Ki „ at Silhou-
ette/Hugo Boss, 1517 Wisconsin Ave. NW,
Washington, D.C., 202-338-0120; Gentle-
men’s Quarter, 2690 Via de la Valle, Del
Mar, СА, 619-481-7124. By Lance Karesh for
Basco, at Barneys New York, Chicago,
N.YC. and Seattle, By Joseph Abboud, at
Joseph Abboud, 37 Newbury St., Boston,
617-266-4200, and 325 Greenwich Ave.,
Greenwich, СТ, 203-869-2212. “Hot Shop-
ping: Whitefish, Montana”: Artistic Touch,
406-869-4813; 3 Bar 2 Western Outfitter,
800-776-2421; Montana Territory, 406-
869-6900; Montana Coffee Traders, 800-
862-Java; Northwind T-shirt Co., 406-862-
3175; The Palace Bar, 406-862-2428.
“Clothes Line”: Shoes by Dr. Martens-Na
Na, to order, 800-347-4728. “Eco Fashion":
Suits and separates by Ecowear by Vesti-
menta, at James Clothiers, 1767M Inter-
national Бг, McLean, VA, 707-883-1444;
Saks Fifth Avenue, N.Y.C. and San Francis-
co. Tshirt by Higgins Natural, for infor-
mation, 800-FIGLEAF. Shirt by O Wear, at
select Dayton's stores. Jeans by Quicksilver,
at Fred Segal For a Better Ecology. 420

Broadway, Santa Monica,

CA, 310-394-8319.

THAT'S ITALIAN!

Page 82: Sports coat by Ves-

timenta, at Louis, Boston,

234 Berkeley St., Boston,

800-225-5135. Trousers by

Vestimenta, at Lawrence Co-

vell, 225 Steele St,, Denver,
| 303-320-1023. Shirt by Vesti-
menta, at Martin Freedman,
1972 Broadway, N.Y.C.,
212-921-1030. Tie by Vesti-
тета, at David Stephen, 117 Post St., San
Francisco, 415-391-7710. Page 83: Sports
coat, shirt and pants by Industria, at Chari-
vari Madison, 1001 Madison Ave., N.Y.C.,
212-650-0078: Ultimo. 114 E. Oak St,
Chicago, 312-787-0906. Page 84: Suit by
Byblos, at Charivari 72, 257 Columbus Ave.,
N.Y.C., 212-787-7272. Shirt by Byblos, at
Charivari 57, 18 W. 57th St, N.Y.C,, 212-
333-4040. Tie by Vestimenta, at David
Stephen, 117 Post St, San Francisco, 415-
391-7710. Page 85: Suitand shirt by Giorgio
Armani le Collezioni, at David Stephen, 117
Post St., San Francisco, 415-391-7710.
PLAYBOY COLLECTION
Page 114: Boots and hat by Mongerson Wun-
derlich, to order, 800-275-1292. Page 115:
Personal planner by Rolodex, for store псаг-
est you, 800-727-7656. CoPilot knife by
Spyderco, Inc., for dealer nearest you, 800-
525-7770. Mountain bike by Softride, Ine.,
for dealer nearest you, 800-426-4303. Page
116: Military binoculars by Sunset Merchan-
dising Corp., to order, 800-225-9407. Mes-
sage card pager by Sky Tel, to order. 800-
456-3333. Chair by John Rogers, at Terra
Сома, 2 Main Southampton, NY, 516-
283-7209. Page 117: Pasha Eau de Toileue
by Cartier, to order, 800-CARTIER. Cacharel
Pour | Homme by Cosmir, at Marshall
Field's and Dayton's and Hudson's stores
nationwide. Safari for Men by Ralph Lau-
ren, at Polo Ralph Lauren shops and fine
department and specialty stores nation-
wide. Obsession for Men by Calvin Klein, at
fine department stores nationwide.
PLAYBOY ON THESCENE
Page 165: "High on Kites": Revolution П
by Revolution Enterprises, Inc., for informa-
tion, 800-382-5192. Magnum Opus by
Mackinaw Kites, 10 order, 800-622-4655.
Spyro-Jet Tandem Бу Into the Wind, for in-
formation, 800-541-0314. Flexfoil by Wind-
borne Kites, to order, 800-234-1033.

For free information on advertised |
fashions only, call Playboy's Fashion
Line at 800-254-4502.

163

1989 BAWT Co

YOU KNOW IT.

Kings, 16 mg. "tar", 11 то. nicotine av. per cigarette
ћу FTC method

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

STEVE CONWAY

y
ES
a
х
5
~
=
a
2
3
6
=
3 |
g
5

ON-THE

WHAT'S HAPPENING, WHERE IT'S HAPPENING AND WHO'S MAKING IT HAPPEN

SCE NE

Ја ЕР ON К Еа

he stunt is called manlifting and the idea is to stack as
many kites as it takes to raise yourself off the ground while
flying them. Sound crazy? You bet, but it's one of several
spectacular tricks that you can perform with a high-tech
stunt kite. Forget those Ма icem ics you flew as a kid. In
addition to incorporating sturdy graphite composite frames and

durable rip-stop nylon, these dazzlers feature multiple lines, and
some have heavy-duty stainless-steel handles for greater control
and maneuvering. Some are so aerodynamic, the merest breeze
will send them soaring. And all are fast. In fact, the Flexifoil (a stack
of three is shown here flying above the earth) has been clocked at
more than 100 mph. So what are you waiting for? Go fly a kite.

Top left: The 5.5-ounce Revolution И quad-line stunt kite features a six-foot sail, а carbon-graphite frame and stainless-steel handles, $160 in-

duding an instructional video. Top right: Built for smooth, ballet
wingspan and а carbon-graphite frame, $300. Bottom right
regulators that maximize speed and handling, $325. Center:

е performance, the 14.5-ounce dual
he 12.06-ounce Spyro-Jet Tandem compet
he six-foot Flexifoi

ine Magnum Opus kite features a ten-foot

n kite is a dual-wing design with airflow
e can be flown individually or stacked as shown, $139 each.

GRAPEVINE

A Bouquet
for Izzy—
But Hold
the Roses
IZZY STRADLIN
can tell us: There
is life after Guns
n' Roses. Listen to
his solo LP Izzy
Stradlin and the
ји ји Hounds ог
catch him on tour
and then ask your-
self who's hitting.
the mark.

The Tush of the Town

Yes, it's the Divine BETTE MIDLER showing off her
fabulous gams at a benefit. Look for her face this |
summer in Hocus Pocus with Sarah Jessica Parker
and Kathy Najimy. They play witches. We're al-
ready under Bette's spell.

A Light Shower
for This German Номег

Model ELKE JEINSEN has graced the pages and cover of
Playboy Germany, won a beauty contest, made a movie and appeared on
an Italian game show. Now she's ready to tackle Tinseltown.

The Q&A on
Julie Ann
Who edits the questions
and answers for Jeop-
ardy? Who showed up
in California Hot Wax
and Bachelor Party? And
who walked through
TV's Ceneral Hospital
and Superior Courtt
The answer: actress

JULIE ANN DAVIS.

Marching to the Beat
of His Own Drum
No, this isn't some
Sixties hippie es-
сарее. It's KEITH
RICHARDS loos-
ening up during
the X-Pensive
Winos tour in
support of Main
Offender. After
recorking the
Winos, Keith and
Mick start work-
Й ing on Stones

music again.

Alana's Next Fifteen Minutes
If Andy Warhol was right and we all have our 15 minutes of fame
A coming to us, ALANA STEWART, celeb about town and former wife of
Ww George Hamilton and Rod Stewart, is dressed for success.

Hot Shot

Actress JENNIFER BARLOW plays Flame, an exotic dancer on
Fox TV's new series Key West. She also had a starring role in
Garth Brooks’ video Thunder Rolls. Now she dances with us.

TIME TO ВЕСООЕҮ

Back in March 1992, we ran an item about a
Mickey Mouse talking wristwatch in Potpourri.
Now, Sounds Fun, Inc. of Westlake, Cali

has created a follow-up, the Goofy Talking
Watch, just in time for the character's 60th
birthday. Squeeze the Goof’s hands together
and he moves his mouth while audibly telling
you the time 16 different ways, including
"Gawrsh! I don't know!” The price: $29.95.
Call 818-865-0800 for the nearest retailer.

GAWRSH!
I DONT

VETTE COUNTRY

‘To commemorate the 40th anniversary of the
Chevrolet Corvette, two former Vette design-
ers, Zora Arkus-Duntov and Larry Shinoda,
have created a limited-edition Duntov-Shinoda
leather bomber jacket that's available from Mid
America Designs, Inc. for $415, postpaid. Fea-
tures include a removable fur collar, an em-
bossed emblem on the chest and the Corvette
name embossed on the back. Men's sizes range
from small to extra extra large. (The jackets
look great on women, too.) Call 800-637-5533.

POTPOURRI

A STRETCH OF THE IMAGINATION

Ifyou think all those limoed rock stars and executives are moan-
ing about being stuck in traffic, think again. Striptease to Go at
212-459-4140 in Manhattan books 40-minute “nude tease shows"
starring a gorgeous exotic dancer for $275 an hour—or double
your pleasure with two lovely ladies for $560 an hour. Sorry,
guys, there's no touching (the driver doubles as а chaperon), but
the good, clean entertainment is delightfully erotic and a great
way to entertain friends and clients. Or have Striptease to Go
meet you at the airport, and arrive home smiling.

TURKISH DELIGHT

Eyer since the film Midnight Express debuted in 1978, Turkey has
seemed about as popular a tourist destination as Siberia. But
don't believe everything you see in movies. Hanns Ebensten
Travel, 513 Fleming Street, Key West, Florida 33040, is offering a
14-day Turkish Delight tour that includes four fascinating days in
Istanbul and a one-week cruise along the Turquoise Coast aboard
the 76-foot Rönesans H—a twin-masted type of craft known as a
gulet, which has sailed these warm southern Mediterranean ма-
ters for centuries. Plus, there will be additional day sails to the
Kizil Islands and along the Bosporus. The price: $4585 per per-
son, not including airfare. Shove off.

ТНЕ ULTIMATE DOG

Јоду Maroni's sausages have been an in-
stitution in Venice, California for 13
years; Lakers and Kings fans indulge at
The Great Western Forum. Now Ma-
roni's has gone national, and you can or-
der 23 varieties of poultry, lamb and pork
shipped frozen by next-day air. Prices
begin at $65 for hve pounds. A call to.
1-800-HAUTDOG will get you all the details,
induding a brochure.

HOW FRENCH!

Les Vins de France, "Ihe Game of
French Wine 8: Food,” has two levels of
play. If your knowledge of Gallic vins and
viands is "white with fish, red with meat,"
you know the rules. But if you're a seri-
ous Francophile, the 143 wine cards you
must match with exotic menu items will
prove a perplexing challenge. Les Vins is
available from the Wine Enthusiast at.
800-822-8846 for $42, postpaid.

THE IMMORTAL
P'GELL

As comic-book fans know,
Will Eisner's The Spirit was a.
friendly outlaw tolerated by
the police and feared by the
underworld. His nemesis was
P'Gell, a femme fatale with
whom ће had a love-hate гс-
lationship. If you haven't.
been able to forget P'Gell
either, Kitchen Sink Press,
No. 2 Swamp Road, Prince-
ton, Wisconsin 54968, is sell-
ing limited-edition signed-
and-numbered 28"х40"
12-color serigraphs of a
1947 Spirit page featuring
her for $260, postpaid. Re-
productions of early Spirit
comics are available, too.

WHY WE LOVE HOLLYWOOD

Want to own the bra Marilyn Monroe wore in Some Like It Hot?
Norma's Jeans, а mail-order catalog of celebrity memorabilia, is
peddling it for $14,000. And a witch's guard Winkie costume
from The Wizard of Oz (above) can be yours for $34,000. There
are plenty of inexpensive items, too, such as the shirt worn

by Demi Moore in the 1986 film Wisdom for a mere $150.
Norma's Jeans’ catalog costs $3 sent to 4400 East West Highway,
#314, Bethesda, Maryland 20814.

CHEF TUT,
WE PRESUME

Have a hankering for the
haute cuisine hit from me-
dieval Europe—spit-roasted
meat with egerdouce sauce?
Pick up a copy of Abbeville
Press' The British Museum
Cookbook, “4000 Years of In-
ternational Cuisine," by
Michelle Berriedale-Johnson.
Recipes for such antique
noshes as prunes stuffed with
walnuts (ancient Persia) and
quick-fried shredded marrow
(imperial China) are includ-
ed, along with the best from
ancient Egypt, Renaissance
Italy and more. Price: $16.95.

170

STUDENT BODIES

VISITING POET

GREEN COMMANDOS

THE VISITING POET—MURTAUGH SATED HIS PENCHANT
FOR BRIGHT, WILLOWY STUDENTS WITH ONE-YEAR STINTS
АТ SMALLTOWN COLLEGES. WOULD HIS TRYSTS BE SACRI-
FICED AT THE ALTAR OF MATURITY?—FICTION BY MARK
WINEGARDNER

SELLING YOUR SECRETS FOR PROFIT—A WILY PRIVATE
EYE REVEALS THE TRICKS OF THE TRADE THAT MAKE THE
WORD CONFIDENTIAL A JOKE. BANK BALANCES, CREDIT
HISTORIES, DETAILED PHONE BILLS—THEY'RE CHILD'S PLAY
FOR THE SMART SNOOP—ARTICLE BY FRANK SNEPP

FRANK ZAPPA, PERENNIAL ROCKER AND FATHER OF THE
COSMIC TWIST, MOUTHS OFF ON WORLD AFFAIRS. OUT-
LINES WHAT HE WOULD DO AS PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED
STATES AND WAXES PHILOSOPHIC ON THE BURNT WEENY
SANDWICH AND THE FORGOTTEN THADITION OF DADA IN
YOUR BASIC SUBVERSIVE PLAYBOY INTERVIEW

THE CONSERVATION CLUB—HELLBENT ON PRESERVING
THE WILDERNESS, AMERICA’S RADICAL CONSERVATION-
ISTS ARE ENGAGED IN A FULLSCALE ECO WAR AND

HOT TATTOOS

THEY'RE TAKING NO PRISONERS. WHO ARE THESE GREEN
COMMANDOS AND HOW FAR WILL THEY GO TO PROTECT A
FUR OR A FIR?—REFORT BY DEAN KUIPERS

CINDY CRAWFORD, SUPERMODEL, VIDEO HOSTESS AND
HOMEGROWN BEAUTY, DEMONSTRATES HER FAVORITE
STUPID-HUMAN TRICK AND TELLS WHY SHE REFUSED ТО
INTERVIEW MADONNA IN A MODEL 20 QUESTIONS:

SPRING CAMPUS BASH—CHECK OUT OUR COASTTO-
COAST ROUNDUP OF THE NATION'S COLLEGIATE CONTIN-
GENT FROM THE BEST FROFS TO THE MOST EXCELLENT
STUDENT BODIES. ALSO: DONT MISS YOUR CHANCES ОР
REACHING THE PROMISED LAND OF, GASP. EMPLOYMENT
AFTER GRADUATION

PLUS: THE 1993 PLAYBOY MUSIC SURVEY RESULTS; PLAY-
MATE NICOLE WOOD; A VERY ERCTIC PICTORIAL ON TAT-
TOOS; FLIRTING WITH FEMINISTS; PETE HAMILL TAKES ON
MADONNA IN MANTRACK; OUR QUARTERLY AUTOMOTIVE
REPORT TAKES A SNEAK PEEK AT THE 1994 MODELS; AND A
‘SPECIAL SPRING AND SUMMER FASHION FORECAST

SURGEON GENERAL'S WARNING: Smoking
By Pregnant Women May Result in Fetal
Injury, Premature Birth, And Low Birth Weight.

NOMYNNID нзаваоаиннизљидало +

Анизамунла NIVINDDONM

4N3NDITNOT1IW ламнув ал ах

visvinvuo

заніноуза

с

MAKE RESPONSIBILITY PART OF YOUR ENJOYMENT DeKuyper" Bullershols" Schnapps 15% А.Л. Bottled by John DeKuyper & Son, Emwood

жюн > аз AAA эл = OA хуу SO эое Soon eee

221 :
0507773. t
BUTTERSHOS :

Buttershots Butterscotch Schnapps. And over 40 other ways to call your shot. 5

2, ОН. © 1992 John DeKuyper 8 Son,