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The next best thing to being there.

FROM EXECUTIVE PRODUCER DARREN STAR
NEW COMEDY SERIES SUNDAYS 9 PM

51998 Home Box Offi, 2 Division of Tima Waner Entertainment Company LP AI rights reserved, Service marks of Time Warner Emurtzhment Company, LP

AT FIRST GLANCE Matt Drudge seems like Lee Harvey Oswald in
Don Delillo's Libra. Poor speller, bad grammarian, idealist,
right wing tool, wannabe pamphleteer—a loner who could
bring down the president. Of course, Drudge is no frustrated
psychopath. His Internet digest, the Drudge Report, is read by
millions and has broken major aspects of the Monica Lewin-
sky scandal. In an inflammatory Playboy Interview by Con-
tributing Editor David Sheff, Drudge pisses on Time, Carl Bern-
stein and reportersin TV pancake. When Drudge is done you
realize that he can't be as stupid as he says he is. He wants an-
swers while everyone else wants nonpenetrating insights.
That's because, according to novelist Emily Prager, we're living
in the Blow Job Decade. In her biting essay Blow Job Nation
(obelisk d'arte by Noah Woods), she identifies oral sex as a
botched emblem of our need for a quick fix. On the downside,
the O.J. Simpson trial was a bad blow job; on the upside there
are presidential interns who inhale.

Borry Scheck is cursed with being the best at what he does.
His cross-examination of DNA experts helped O.]. get off the
hook. But Scheck is also blessed with a conscience, which is
why he runs the Innocence Project, a program that uses DNA
testing to free wrongly accused death-row inmates. In a
Playboy Profile, New York Daily News reporter Paul Schwartzman
fleshes out Simpson's most private defender. Says Schwartz-
man: “1 was surprised at how raw and intense he is.”

Downtown Julie Brown is a direct satellite dish. She was a VJ on
MTV, then moved to The Gossip Show on E Entertainment
Television. Now the Brit diva accents our cover while provid-
ing scoops in a tongue-wagging pictorial. Seismic matters: The
Women of Iceland presents Reykjavik as a truly global village.
We asked Bruce Jay Friedman to go polar with Contributing
Photographer Amy Freytag. Friedman's essay is a meditation
on the beauty of “the world's only totally organic women.”

Going Yahweh: At the end of 1997 Perry Farrell, father of
modern rock festivals, wrapped up the most widely anticipat-
ed reunion tour of the decade with his former band Jane's Ad-
diction. Dean Kuipers was there in time to share Farrell's next
millennial vision: a gig during Israel's jubilee-year festivities.
Thanks to Bruce Willis we'll always associate summer with the
smell of cordite. His new seasonal blast is the thriller Armagge-
don. In a 20 Questions with the ubiquitous David sheft Willis
shoots off his mouth about the cocksucking media, the need
for stillness and what a putz the president is.

Miami heat: Our fiction this month is another hard charger.
Frenchie by Pat Jordan (art by Guy Billout) is a wild caper about a
Parisian beauty and a South Beach has-been, Solly Blistein.
After stumbling across a drug windfall, Sol trips up trying to
score. May as well make cash the old-fashioned way. In this
month’s Money Matters, Christopher Byron plays the percentages
and shows how to use the boom in discretionary income to
your advantage. Spend some of these extra simoleons on a set
of wheels from Dave's Garage, a virtual showroom assembled
by our Modern Living Editor and test-driver David Stevens.
Our favorite warm-weather dividend is an icy margarita,
which just gets better and better, writes John Rame in The
World's Best Margarita. For the native touch, visit Sexy Mexico, a
guide for lovers by David Standish. The Summer Night's Buzz is a
blueprint for hot times by editors Alison Lundgren and Barbara
Nellis. You'll find a more surf-centric point of view in Kelly
Slater's Guide to Beach Living, while the fairway-minded will rel-
ish The Return of the Caddie. Then progressive musician Wyclet
Jeon changes your mind about plaid suits. As Miss August An-
gelo Little says, a little goes a long way.

PLAYBILL

BILLOUT

STEVENS STANDISH

Playboy (ISSN 0032-1478), August 1998, volume 45, number 8. Published monthly by Playboy in national and regional editions, Playboy, 680
North Lake Shore Drive, Chicago, Illinois 60611. Periodicals postage paid at Chicago, Illinois and at additional mailing offices. Canada Post Cana-
dian Publications Mail 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, Iowa 51537-4007. For subscription-related questions, e-mail cire@ny.playboy.com. Editorial: edit@playboy.com. 8

PLAYBOY

vol. 45, no. 8—august 1998 CONTENTS FOR THE MEN'S ENTERTAINMENT MAGAZINE
PLAYBILL Ba Sores ολη σε SRA 5 3
DEAR PLAYBOY 11
PLAYBOY AFTER HOURS . » BR 15
MOVIES ... - BRUCE WILLIAMSON 17
VIDEO 19
TRAVEL .. 20
MUSIC 22
WIRED d 24
ΒΟΟΚ5........... 26
HEALTH & FITNESS δρ» νο OR οὔ PARE
MEN EN ο ASA BABER 30
WOMEN n ETAT NUAN Sr +... CYNTHIA HEIMEL 9:
MANTRACK . re 33
THE PLAYBOY ADVISOR... νο πο. 39
ΤΗΕ PLAYBOY FORUM ... 41
PLAYBOY INTERVIEW: MATT DRUDGE—candid conversation 51
FRENCHIE—fiction. ...... σαν € PATJORDAN 62
DOWNTOWN JULIE BROWN.—pictoriel. a 66
PERRY FARRELL—article . Aes DEAN KUIPERS 76
THE RETURN OF THE CADDIE—golf .... ἐν . LARRY OLMSTED 78
DIAL SCHECK FOR MURDER—profile .. ...... PAUL SCHWARTZMAN 80
WYCLEF ATTIRE—fashion ...... το. ..HOLLIS WAYNE 82
TO LIVE AND DIEBY PERCENTAGES—money. ας “CHRISTOPHER BYRON 85
A, LITTLE GOES A LONG WAY—playboy's playmote of the month 86
PARTY JOKES—humor ................. 98
KELLY SLATER'S GUIDE TO BEACH LIVING—orticle a 100
THE WORLD'S BEST MARGARITA— drink JOHN RAME 102
SEXY MEXICO—trovel...... «DAVID STANDISH 105
PLAYMATES REVISITED: THE COLLINSON TWINS. bs 107
DAVE'S GARAGE—cars, ... eat x in
LOAFIN'—fashion . as Geese teh eee LLANES
THE SUMMER NIGHT'S BUZZ--hoppenings obio S Nego δὰ 114
20 QUESTIONS: BRUCE WILLIS... M MUR 116
BLOW JOB NATION—essay EMILY PRAGER 119
THE WOMEN OF ICELAND—pictorial text by BRUCE JAY FRIEDMAN 120
WHERE & HOW TO BUY 149
PLAYMATE NEWS ... 159
PLAYBOY ON THE SCENE... τα ο ο οσο ADR ο 168 Frenchie Kiss
COVER STORY

Model and former MTV VJ “Downtown” Julie Brown epitomizes freshness ond
sexy fun. This month, she hos o grip on our vertical knob. Our cover wos pro-
duced by West Coast Photo Editor Marilyn Grabowski, styled by Jennifer Tutor
and shot by Stephen Waydo. Thanks to Emerald Château Solon's Paulo Ashby
for styling Julie’s hair ond to Alexis Vogel for her makeup. Set designer was John
Cronhom. Though our Rabbit isn’t short on cash, he is strapped this month.

EnLiricapona DE PUBLICACIONES Y REVISTAS ILUSTRADAS DEPENDIENTE DE LA SECRETARIA DE GOBERNACIÓN. MEXICO RESERVA DE THULO EN TRÄMITE i FOR ΕΑ comision 5

PRINTED IN U.S.A.

PLAYBOY

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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, STEPHEN RANDALL
executive editors
JOHN REZEK assistant managing editor

EDITORIAL

FICTION: ALICE K TURNER editor; FORUM:
JAMES R. PETERSEN senior staff writer; CHIP ROWE
associate editor; MODERN LI DAVID.

| | stevens editor; BETH TONKIW associate editor;

DAN HENLEY assistant; STAFF: BRUCE KLUGER
CHRISTOPHER NAPOLITANO senior editors; BAR-
BARA NELLIS associate edilor; ALISON LUNDGREN
junior editor; CAROL ACKERBERG. LINDA FEIDEL-
SON, HELEN FRANGOULIS, TERRY GLOVER, CAROL
KUBALEK, KATIE NORRIS, HARRIET PEASE. KELLI
PHOX, LARA WEBB, JOYCE WIEGAND-BAVAS editorial
assistants; FASHION: HOLLIS WAYNE direct
JENNIFER RYAN JONES asst, editor; CARTOONS
MICHELLE URRY editor; COPY: LEOPOLD
FROEHLICH edilor; ARLAN BUSHMAN, ANNE SHER
MAN asst. edilors; REMA SMITH senior researcher;
LEE BRAUER. GEORGE HODAK. LISA ROBRINS Te-
f | searchers; mars Duran research librarian; ana-
f | HEED ALANI. ΤΙΝ GALVIN, JOSEPH HIGAREDA, BRETT
HUSTON. JOAN MCLAUGHLIN Proofreaders; JOE
Cane assistant; CONTRIBUTING EDITORS: asa
BABER, CHRISTOPHER BYRON, JOE DOLCE. CRETCHEN
1 EDGREN, LAWRENCE GROBEL, KEN GROSS, CYNTHIA
HEIMEL, WARREN KALBACKER, D. KEITH MANO, JOE
MORGENSTERN, DAVID RENSIN, DAVID SHEFF

ART
] | keris port managing director; BRUCE HANSEN
CHET SUSKI, LEN WILLIS senior directors; SCOTT
ANDERSON asst. art director; ANN SEIDL supervisor,
keyline/pasteup; PAUL CHAN senior art assistant;
JASON SIMONS art assistant

PHOTOGRAPHY

MARILYN GRABOWSKI west Coast editor; JIM LARSON
managing editor—chicago; MICHAEL. ANN SULLI-
VAN senior editor; STEPHANIE BARNETT. PATTY
BEAUDET-FRANCES, KEVIN KUSTER associate edilors;
DAVID CHAN. RICHARD FEGLEY, ARNY FREYTAG. RICH
ARD IZUI, DAVID MECEY. BYRON NEWMAN, POMPEO
POSAR, STEPHEN WAYDA contributing photogra-
phers; GEORGE GEORGIO studio πετ
go; BILL WHITE studio manager—los angeles;
SHELLEE WELLS stylist; ELIZABETH GEORGIOU photo
archivist

RICHARD KINSLER publisher

PRODUCTION
MARIA MANDIS director; RITA JOHNSON manager;
KATHERINE CAMPION, JODY JURGETO, RICHARD
QUARTAROLI. TOM SINONER associate managers;
BARB TEKIELA, DEBBIE TILLOU fypeselters; BILL
BENWAY, LISA COOK, SIMMIE WILLIAMS prepress

CIRCULATION
LARRY A. DJERF newsstand sales director; PHYLLIS
ROTUNNO subscription circulation director; CINDY
RAKOWITZ communications director

ADVERTISING
JAMES DINONEKAS, eastern ad sales manager; JEFF
KIMMEL, sales development manager; JOE HOFFER
midwest ad sales manager; ikv KORNBLAU market-
ing director; Lisa NATALE research director

READER SERVICE
LINDA STROM, MIKE OSTROWSKI correspondents

ADMINISTRATIVE,
MARCIA TERRONES rights & permissions director

PLAYBOY ENTERPRISES, INC.
CHRISTIE HEFNER chairman, chief execulive officer

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1 any premium item charges.

the night began with a bottle
Of cuervo, and ended with
a vow of Silence.

DEAR PLAYBOY

680 NORTH LAKE SHORE DRIVE
CHICAGO, ILLINDIS 60617
FAX 312-649-9534
E-MAIL DEARPRGPLAYBOYCOM
PLEASE INCLUDE YOUR DAYTIME PHONE NUMBER

HAIL TO THE CHIEF
I have a problem with Hugh M. Hef-
ner's editorial The Playboy President
(May). Bill Clinton denies the alleged
sexual encounters took place, pretends
to have a normal monogamous marriage
and professes to adhere to Christian be-
liefs condemning adultery. If he can't
keep a contract with Hillary, the person
he loves most, how can he keep his word
to the public?
Rick Askill
Carrollton, Texas

The issue isn't sex; it's whether the
president lied in sworn testimony and
lied to the American people. If he did,
how can we ever trust him?

Fred Powers
Grantham, New Hampshire

Shouldn't a Yale Law School graduate
who married a fellow Yale law graduate
have better sense than to follow John F.
Kennedy’s less-than-noble, adulterous
legacy? We might do well to chisel the
following prophylactic caveat above
Yale's portal: All Ye Who Enter Here:

Saul Rosenthal
Terre Haute, Indiana

Hefner is correct in stating that “the
president's enemies are enemies of sex,”
but he underestimates the enemy. The
religious right condemns out-o£wedlock
sex, but some feminists posit that all sex
is rape.

Raymond Hughes
Claremont, New Hampshire

Until now 1 didn't know oral sex isn't
sex. Does this mean oral sex isn't per-
sonal? Since it usually culminates in or-
gasmic pleasure, it qualifies as extreme-
ly personal. Is oral sex meaningless? I
wonder what my husband would do if I
said I had performed oral sex on anoth-
er man, but it didn't mean a thing. As I
watched my husband's face contort in a

grimace, I think this meaningless act—

this act that isn’t really sex—would sud-

denly become a most meaningful act.
Lynn Niederman
New York, New York

Hefner believes Americans look the
other way when it comes to presidential
ethics, but 1 don't see that as a triumph
for the sexual revolution. The media's
first kill was Watergate and they've never
forgotten the taste of blood. Americans
aren't averting their eyes in defiance of
what Hefner calls the puritan mob.
We're just not interested in the latest me-
dia ploy.

Loren Bryant Berenger
Austin, Texas

The Playboy President should be manda-
tory reading for everyone. Thanks to
cartoonist Kevin Siers for the new presi-
dential seal.

Mary Johnson
Madison, Wisconsin

SPICED UP
The British have their history of victo-
ries and Geri Halliwell (Spice Girl, May)
is among those.
Robert Eckert
Eau Claire, Wisconsin

I was stunned to see my favorite Spice
Girl on your May cover. Now that I've
seen Ginger's pictorial, I know she's
more than sugar and spice and every-
thing nice. Thanks, rrAYBOv, for giving
me what I really, really want.

Mike Henderson
Flushing, Michigan

Hold the Spice. The world can do with-
out Geri Halliwell. Your Ginger Spice
pictorial ruined an otherwise great issue.

Ron Schein
Riverhead, New York

She can call herself Ginger or Geri.
She can streak her hair blonde or color it

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

Everyone has their own cuervo story.
vYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY

„but don't worry,
citizens of Cuervo Nation
are sworn to silence.

hair down and your inner
lizard loose. The capital of Cuervo
Nation is the Republic of Cuervo
Gold, a Caribbean island
created just for Untamed Spirits
like you. ¡ts Ground Zero for many
a mind- melting Cuervo story. Win
a trip here, and no doubt you'll have
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Defect now, pledge allegiance to
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kick it into cuervo-

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Outro Got rd, 40% Al (0 pct 1998 vore
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Tradernark Orar

PLAYBOY

12

red. Any way you spice it up, this Spice
Girl is absolutely gorgeous. It’s nice to
see a woman whose body heralds a re-
turn to an ideal represented by Marilyn
Monroe.
Cliff Goldstein
Toronto, Ontario

PRESEASON PICKS
In Playboy's 1998 Baseball Preview
(May), Kevin Cook saw fit to belittle the
California Angels’ choice to replace DH
Tony Phillips with Cecil Fielder. The
bulk of Cook's reasoning was supported
by jabs at Fielder’s physical size. As a De-
troit Tigers fan, I applaud the Angels‘
choice. Who wouldn't want to trade
Tony Phillips’ drug problem for Cecil
Fielder's weight problem?
Brad Mills
Georgetown, Kentucky

I have never seen my favorite team,
the Texas Rangers, picked to finish
above third place, not even by our local
papers. We have the American League's
1996 co-manager of the year, the 1996
MVP, the best catcher in baseball and, of
course, the Thrill. Kevin Cook was smart
not to ride the bandwagon; he opted to
choose teams that have a real chance at
winning.

Andrew Ephland
Kennedale, Texas

GRACEN PLAYBOY'S PAGES
Miss America 1982, Elizabeth Ward

Gracen (Amazing Gracen, May), is a hyp-
ocrite. Until recently, she refused to say
she had sex with Bill Clinton. For this,
PLAYBOY has called her a “class act.” If
she really believed her own soundbites,
she would have respected Hillary and
not engaged in an illicit affair with her
husband.

Michael Ganz

San Clemente, California

I rarely write letters to the editor, but I
have to comment on the exquisite Eliza-
beth Gracen. Of all the women in Clin-
ton’s life, she is the most stunning. Bra-
vo, Bill.

Todd Kilzer
Madrid, lowa

SIGN ME UP
I have never had a reason to buy
PLAYBOY. I always looked over the photos
in my friends’ copies. But this month, I
read the issue cover to cover and was im-
pressed and entertained by the humor-
ous, intelligent articles. I used to laugh
at the claim “I buy it for the articles.”
Now T'm ready to sign up for my own
subscription.
Matt Shinabarger
Monroe, Michigan

ARIANNA ON BILL
Based on the current goings-on at
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, your “Arian-

na Huffington on Bill Clinton” cover line
(May) might be misleading.
Doug Davies
Kent, Washington

I was pleasantly amused by Huffing-
ton's story and I appreciate the fact that
you printed the work of a conservative.
Phillip Peterson
Salt Lake City, Utah

DEAR DEANNA
At first glance, I thought Deanna
Brooks (Our Ms. Brooks, May) was Sarah

Michelle Gellar, a.k.a. Buffy the Vampire
Slayer. I was slayed.
John Norton
Trenton, Ontario

I never thought I'd have a former em-
ployer in common with a Playmate of the
Month, but I do with Miss May. Leaving
Key Bank ended up changing my career
path, too. I wish Deanna the best.

Frank Losardo
Depew, New York

What was Key Bank thinking when
they lost Deanna Brooks? The bank
needs assets like her. I should know since
I'ma Key Bank employee

William Berry
Englewood, Ohio

SEXUAL CASUALTIES
Lori Weiss’ article on The Return of Ca-
sual Sex (April) proves that the human
race is dumb. No sex I've ever had was
worth dying for.
Kim Ham
Pacifica, California

If anyone ever needed an ass-kicking,
it’s Don, the 41-year-old land developer
in the casual sex piece. His attitudes are
dangerous.

Dyer Diehl
Baltimore, Maryland.

CLEAN AND SOBER
Did Asa Baber read my mind? I'm a
recovering addict and alcoholic and I
agree completely with "Addiction's Post-
er Child" (Men, May). The first time I
used cocaine, I was a potent monster
with my wife. I thought I'd be aroused
every time I snorted, but that was a big
lie. I used alcohol and drugs to kill emo-
tional pain, but now I'm clean and sober.
Your column hit the mark.
Paul Cuffari
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

KEYED UP
I joined the Playboy Club many years

ago and still have the metal key: LA
44654. I don't know whether or not it
has a market value, but it reminds me of
the great times I had there.

Andrew Christie

San Francisco, California

ESZTERHAS INTERVIEW
Thanks for your Playboy Interview with

Joe Eszterhas (April). The guy gets a
bum rap in Hollywood, mostly from
people jealous of his success. I met Joe at
a New Year’s Eve party on Maui. I intro-
duced myself and told him I was a young
writer who had just sold my first screen-
play and that I admired his work. He
spoke with me for quite a while and said
I was further along in my career than he
had been at my age. Since then, I've met
many less successful people who were
more full of themselves than Eszterhas
was. Several years and lots of dollars lat-
er, I'd like to thank Joe for his encourag-
ing words.

Gregory Poirer

Los Angeles, California

ALL THAT JAZZ
While on tour in New York City, Bela

Fleck and the Flecktones—Victor Woo-
ten, Future Man, Fleck and Jeff Coffin
(left to right)—stopped at a newsstand to
check out the 1998 Playboy Music Poll
(April), which named them Best Jazz
Group. Their tour manager just hap-
pened to have his camera ready.

David Bendett

Beverly Hills, California

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PLAYBOY AFTER HOURS

HE'S GOT LEGS

Like other one-man-show sensations
in New York this year ( fails, Hospitals &
Hip-Hop by Danny Hoch; Dress to Kill by
Eddie Izzard), Freak by John Leguizamo
is theater for men who hate musicals. To
coincide with Leguizamo's limited run,
Riverhead has published a book version
of Freak. It's loosely based on the show
which, in turn, is loosely based on Legui-
zamo's life. In one chapter he tells how
he lost his virginity to a zaftig mama in
the back room of a fast-food restaurant:
“Her coochie was a failed experiment
from The Island of Dr. Moreau. ‘It's like a
flower. You have to unravel it,’ she said.
So with the courage of Jacques Cousteau
on his last mission, I started to unravel
her huge coochie lips. It was like Dum-
bo. If she could Περ them, she would be
able to fly out of the room and back to
Germany. When I opened it all, it made
a Tupperware burp.” Fresh.

SLANG HAPPENS

Reuters recently reported on a trial of
a thief that ended badly in Modera, Sri
Lanka. The defendant was ordered to
take the stand and on doing so, he
pulled a plastic bag filled with feces from
his pocket and threw it at a policeman. It
missed the policeman, hitting instead an
electric fan. Which was on. The official
description was: “The entire court was
showered with excreta.”

SHE SAID, STIFFLY

Never mind the joke about people en-
joying their second honeymoon in Via-
gra Falls. Even in their dreams reporters
would be hard-pressed to find a more
appropriate figure than the government
spokesperson for the drug: “This is not
an aphrodisiac,” said FDA drug chief
Janet Woodcock.

WOMEN AND NOSE FIRST

In an interview with the Times of Lon-
don, Titanic star Kate Winslet tried to of-
fer advice on how to arrive safely at her
port of call. Instead, she left us in a
fog: “My idea of romance isn’t someone

sending me flowers and champagne with
a note saying, ‘I love you.’ I'd probably
phone and say, ‘You complete idiot.
What did you do that for?’ But if they
sent me a pair of their socks with a note
saying, ‘Have a whiff of these,’ that, to
me, is funny and romantic.”

STUPE DOGGY DOGG

The absolute silliest ad we've ever seen
ran in a recent issue of Today's Chicago
Woman. It was a plug for Groomies, a
doggy salon, and pictured a poodle with
a dandified, big-hair coif and a caption
that read IM GOING TO MAKE THOSE BITCH:
ES DROOL. Obviously in poodle families
it's the woman who wears the pants.

WEB OF EVIL

This year’s Webby Award for Best
Weird Site (yes, even the Internet has its
Oscars) went to the highly deserving
page Bert Is Evil! (fractalcow.com/bert).
It contains photos and story lines that es-
tablish Bert, the muppet from Sesame
Street, as a diabolical Zelig. The image
archive features Bert carousing with
strippers, while another link presents his

ILLUSTRATION BY GARY KELLEY

appearance on Jerry Springer. The best
picture is titled The Lost Pamela Lee Video
Excerpt. Like an out-of-work rock star, a
Muppet should never be exposed below
the waist.

TERM OF THE TIMES

Watch out if you're sitting in your cu-
bicle while a tech-support person tells
his boss that your computer isn’t work-
ing because of PEBCAK. That's shorthand
for “Problem exists between chair and
keyboard.”

LOVE BOMBSHELL

During the 1982 international peace-
keeping mission in Lebanon, Syrian
minister of defense Moustapha Tlass
told Lebanese guerrillas not to harm
Italian soldiers. When the perplexed
troops asked why, Tlass replied, “So that
not one tear falls from the eyes of Gina
Lollobrigida.” He wasn't kidding. While
suicide fighters killed French and Amer-
ican soldiers, Italians emerged with no
mortalities. Recently Tlass explained his
motives to Le Monde. “I admire Gina Lol-
lobrigida,” he said. “I have been taken
with her since my adolescence.” Lollo-
brigida then told the Italian press she’s
been receiving fan mail from him for
years. The two even met at a diplomatic
reception in Damascus. “I have always
had success with Arabs,” she said. “If all
my admirers were like the Syrian minis-
ter and if they would truly put a stop to
terrorism, 1 would immediately go on a
world tour.”

WIGGING OUT

The term wigger was coined several
years ago by self-referencing, Dickies-
wearing, white hip-hop fans to show sol-
idarity with their hip-hop heroes. Re-
cently the zine Hermenaut: The Digest of
Heady Philosophy came up with a re-
sponse to the wannabe phenomenon. It
urges wiggers who no longer feel unique
and who've “worn out the black thing”
to try such alternatives as Whinese (rap
acts and martial arts movies are a natur-
al combo), Wapanese (Tokyo fashions
could fit right in on MTV) and (“for

16

RAW DATA

SIGNIFICA, INSIGNIFICA, STATS AND FACTS ]

QUOTE

“It's so slow you
could swing twice.”
— BOSTON RED SOX
CATCHER SCOTT HATTE-
BERG DESCRIBING A
CHANGE-UP THROWN
BY TEAMMATE PEDRO
MARTINEZ

CHEEK TO JOWL

Number of new
toothpastes vying
for space on store
shelves in the past
two years: 130.

PULP FICTION

According to the
National Association
of Professional Orga-
nizers, percentage of
paper American of-
fice workers file that
they never refer to
again: 80.

WEIGHT BENCHMARK
Amount of muscle the average per-
son can lose each year as a natural
part of the aging process: half
a pound.

DON'T CALL IT A CATHOUSE
Of the 41 presidents of the U.S.,
number who had dogs as pets: 23.
Number with cats: 10.

BROKEN RECORD
According to the Recording Indus-
try Association of America, per-
centage of music sales attributed to
women in 1997, the first year they
outbought men: 51. Percentage in
1987: 45.

PLANNED OBSOLESCENCE-GYN

Percentage of the doctors who per-
form abortions in the U.S. who are 65
or older: 59. In 1991, percentage of
hospital residency programs that rou-
tinely taught procedures for abor-
tions: 12.

BLOCKS OF WOOD
Life expectancy of a tree planted in
the center of an American city: 7 t0 10
years. Life span of the same tree if

planted in a rural lo-
cation: 200 years.

ART DEPRECIATION

According to art
experts for the In-
ternal Revenue Ser-
vice, the percentage
by which private art
collectors inflated
the value of the
works they donated
to museums in 1996:
48. Percentage by
which heirs of pri-
vate collections un-
dervalued inherited
art: 51.

FACT OF THE MONTH
Each year, the average per-
son in the U.S. unwitting-
ly consumes one and a half
pounds of bugs and bug parts
in processed flour and other
prepared foods.

UNITED

BROTHERHOOD

OF STEAMSTERS

As determined by
a recent study by
clinical psychologist
Hendrie Weisinger,
the number of times a day the aver-
age person gets angry: 12.

AUTHORITY FIGURES

In a study by the Dayton Municipal
Court and the University of Dayton,
percentage of offenders who paid
their overdue fines after they re-
ceived a threatening phone call from
the court: 10. Percentage who paid
after they received a polite phone call
from the court: 35. Percentage who
paid after the court telephoned the
offender's mother or other family
member: 50.

100-TO-1 ODDBALLS
According to a study by the Har-
vard Medical School, percentage of
adults who are pathological gam-
blers: 1.

BETTER HALVES
Percentage of dual-income families
in which the woman earns more than
the man: 33.

TONIC FOR THE SOUL
In a study of men aged 17 to 70,
percentage who dye their hair when
they want to feel younger: 13.
—BETTY SCHAAL

those of you that enjoy Timberland gear
and chillin’ in cribs made out of ice”)
Weskimo. Of course, Hermenaut suggests
that hard-core fans may want to start up
their own Nation of Wislam.

HAIL, COLUMBIA!

One puzzle during the Monica Lewin-
sky mess was why Linda Tripp should be
sO attentive to the details of other peo-
ple's sex lives. A partial answer may lie in
her current hometown of Columbia,
Maryland and its environs. As San Fran-
cisco Chronicle columnist Leah Garchik
points out, the area is graced with color-
ful street names such as Loveknot Place,
Five Fingers Way, Lame Beaver Court
and Greek Boy Place.

ALTERED STATES

One of the most popular pastimes on
the Internet—for whatever reason—is
dreaming up rejected state mottoes. A
search on Alta Vista turns up more than
20 sites devoted to them. However,
the best list comes from the Humor
Bin at www.lcs.net/bill'humor. Alabama:
At Least We're Not Mississippi. Alaska:
11,623 Eskimos Can't Be Wrong. Arkan-
sas: Litterasy Ain't Everthang. California:
As Seen on TV. Florida: Ask Us About
Our Grandkids. Georgia: We Put the Fun
in Fundamentalist Extremism. Kansas:
First of the Rectangle States. Kentucky:
5 Million People, 15 Last Names. Mis-
souri: Your Federal Flood-Relief Tax Dol-
lars at Work. Nevada: Whores and Poker!
New Hampshire: Go Away and Leave Us
Alone. New York: You Have the Right to
Remain Silent, You Have the Right to an
Attorney. Ohio: Don't Judge Us by Cleve-
land. Oklahoma: Like the Play, Only No
Singing. Utah: Our Jesus Is Better Than
Your Jesus. Vermont: Yep. Washington,
D.C.: Wanna Be Mayor? Wyoming: Wy-
not? To be honest, our favorite didn't
make the list. That's because it happens
to be real. To wit, Michigan: If You Seek a
Pleasant Peninsula, Look Around You.

CONTACT WITH THE DEVIL

If goth poseurs have their way the en-
during legacy of media darling Marilyn
Manson may well be the proliferation of
offcolor contact lenses. Major lens com-
panies such as Wesley Jessen have intro-
duced costume contacts as a less expen-
sive option to custom-painted lenses. For
about $250 (including an eye exam by
your local optometrist) you can buy a set
oflenses with visible dollar signs, cat eyes
(à la the electronica gods in Prodigy),
eight balls, happy faces or stars. Two of
the biggest sellers are Rage—an angry
red eye with a fire-yellow pupil—and
White Out—a white eye with a small
black pupil. While some wearers say the
solid colors distort their peripheral vi-
sion, they are quick to point out that the
lenses are all about looking forward.

MOVIES

By BRUCE WILLIAMSON

GROWING UP in suburban New Jersey is
the subject of Whatever (Sony Classics),
director Susan Skoog's perceptive first
feature about a high school girl on the
brink of adulthood. Liza Weil is perfect
as Anna, who is rejected in her hopes to
study art at New York's Cooper Union
after graduation. She suffocates in Jersey
with her lonely single mom and a sexu-
ally adventurous friend named Brenda
(Chad Morgan). Urged by Brenda to live
it up, she bicycles over to a local artist's
pad for her sexual initiation, then treks
into Manhattan with Brenda to pick up a
stranger who asks her for a blow job (she
throws up). For all its dry, raunchy hu-
mor on a fairly familiar theme, Whatever
is a remarkably sensitive and knowledge-
able depiction of the painful transition
from adolescence to maturity. ¥¥¥

First-time filmmaker Christopher
Scott Cherot wrote, directed, edited and
stars in Hav Plenty (Miramax). He plays
Lee Plenty, an impoverished but charm-
ing slacker who woos and wins a success-
driven beauty nicknamed Hav (Chenoa
Maxwell as Havilland Savage). Hav Plen-
ty takes a jaunty look at the couple's mat-
ing dance during a New Year's Eve
weekend with Havilland's affluent family
in Washington, D.C. Plenty finds Hav's
best friend wanting his body, Hav's sister
wanting his friendship, Hav's grand-
mother predicting he's destined to mar-
ry the girl. Everything works out accord-
ing to the rules of romantic comedy, but
Cherot imbues it with spontaneity on
both sides of the camera. ¥¥¥

.

A fascinating concept in this age of
celebrity is The Truman Show (Paramount),
starring Jim Carrey as Truman Bur-
bank, a man whose entire life is a televi-
sion show. From birth to adulthood he’s
the leading actor in his own soapy psy-
chodrama, surrounded by other players
(including Laura Linney as his knowing
wife). Ed Harris plays the producer of
the made-for-TV paradise that is Tru-
man's trap. Directed by Australian-born
Peter Weir, who has a flair for far-out
ideas (as in Picnic at Hanging Rock and
The Last Wave), The Truman Show has a
downside: Carrey's over-the-top perfor-
mance. His characteristic rubber-faced
mugging makes Truman seem more like
a bad joke than any sort of Kafkaesque
hero. ¥¥

Scottish-born Robert Carlyle, his ca-
reer zooming since The Full Monty, plays
a bus driver named George in Carla's

Giocante: A precocious Marie.

Surviving the disco era,
living a TV fantasy and
freaking out in Las Vegas.

Song (Channel Four). Carlyle becomes
emotionally involved with a disturbed
waif from Nicaragua (portrayed by danc-
er Oyanka Cabezas). Stunned by all he
sees as an outsider in Nicaragua, Carlyle
encounters an American human rights
activist (Scott Glenn) with some dark se-
crets. In general, though, Carlyle bas lit-
tle to do but absorb the shock of reality,
while Cabezas shines as a dancer who
seems a bit ebullient for a supposed-
ly traumatized Nicaraguan. While the
heavily accented English and subtitled
Spanish may slow things down for some
viewers, director Ken Loach keeps it a
humane piece with a prickly social con-
science. ¥¥/2

The beautiful rich people usually
tracked on the French Riviera are re-
placed by wayward teenagers in Marie
Baie des Anges (Sony Classics). Vahina
Giocante is Marie, a precocious I5-year-
old at large on the Bay of Angels, where
she picks up American sailors, flaunts
her streetwise savvy and finally meets
a 17-year-old delinquent named Orso
(Frédéric Malgras). Soul mates on the
way to certain self-destruction, they
roam the woods and sunswept beaches
around Cannes, stumbling into trouble
at every turn. Director Manuel Pradal
went out of his way to find fresh, inexpe-
rienced cast members to project the
careless insolence of youth. He found a
perfect creature in Giocante, who makes

Marie a sort of Gallic Lolita. Malgras,
her feisty co-star, was imported from a
Russian gypsy caravan near Paris. To-
gether, they bring a breezy air of convic-
tion to Pradal's free-form picture of the
Riviera as a playground for sassy antiso-
cial kids. ¥¥¥

An austerely beautiful Russian movie
nominated for last year's Oscar as best
foreign language film, The Thief (Strato-
sphere Entertainment) is a dark slice of
life during the Stalin era as seen through
the eyes of six-year-old Sanya (Misha
Philipchuk). Bouncing from place to
place with his mother Katya (Ekaterina
Rednikova) and her ne'er-do-well lover
Tolyan (Vladimir Mashkov), the boy
hungers for a father figure. The brutal
Tolyan hardly fits the bill, since he's a ha-
bitual thief who pushes the boy out of
the room whenever he gets a yen to bed
the docile Katya. The Thief is most im-
pressive as a dramatic showcase for
young Philipchuk and two charismatic
stars (Rednikova and Mashkov) portray-
ing survivors on the run in postwar
Russia. ¥¥¥

Two Hampshire College graduates
(Chloé Sevigny and Kate Beckinsale)
with jobs in publishing meet their male
buddies from Harvard (Chris Eigeman,
Matt Keeslar, Mackenzie Astin and Rob-
ert Sean Leonard) in The Last Days of
Disco (Castle Rock). Their experiences
on the New York club scene in the early
Eighties are a look at the same kind of
smug, privileged young urbanites as
those in writer-director Whit Stillman's
first two movies, Metropolitan and Bar-
celona. The company is attractive and the
dialogue shrewdly satirical, particularly
when the principals stop dancing long
enough to embark on a serious analysis
of the characters in the Disney cartoon
feature Lady and the Tramp. Otherwise,
the group’s grappling with sex, drugs
and pop music is bland decadence from
a spoiled uptown point of view. Far from
being an inside look at the heyday
of Studio 54, score this one as disco
lite. ¥¥/2

In subtitled French, Un Air de Famille
(Leisure Time/Cinema Village) is a witty,
perceptive study of a dysfunctional fami-
ly trying to establish new lines of com-
munication. Adapted from their play—a
stage hit in Paris—this film has authors
Agnès Jaoui and Jean-Pierre Bacri also
performing to perfection in principal
roles. He plays Henri, the owner of the
family’s restaurant; she plays Betty, their
abusive mother’s rebellious, unmarried

18

Portraying

wives in crises
seems to be

of Joan Allen,
41.She wasan
Oscar nomi-
nee (for best
actress) in two
consecutive
years—first
for Nixon (as
First Lady Pat), then for The Cru-
cible (as Daniel Day-Lewis’ wife on
trial for witchcraft). Last year she
was Kevin Kline's betrayed mate
in The Ice Storm and done wrong
again in Face-Off. This fall she'll
enjoy a change of pace in a come-
dy called Pleasantville, co-starring
Jeff Daniels and William H. Macy:
"I'm the ideal Fifties mom in a sort
of TV fantasy.”

Though still without an Oscar,
Allen has collected a basketful of
other prizes for her work onstage
and on-screen, including a Tony
award for Broadway's Burn This,
opposite John Malkovich. Illinois-
born Allén credits Chicago's Step-
penwolf Theater Co, for her act-
ing savvy.

Her first solid movie role was in
Compromising Positions (she was a
dentist's patient who “had some
incriminating photos”). She sin-
gles out Daniel Day-Lewis, her Cru-
cible co-star, as one of “the great
people I’ve worked with. He’s so
focused, and we work in a similar
way. It was good chemistry.”

Married to actor Peter Fried-
man (who has a major role in the
Broadway musical Ragtime), Allen
now finds herself an actual house-
wife, “doing the laundry or tak-
ing our four-year-old, Sadie, to
school.” For her next project, she
hopes to portray Veronica Guerin,
the Irish reporter who was mur-
dered while investigating mob ac-
tivities in Dublin. “They want me
for the part, and I’ve already been
to Ireland to research it. I don’t
know if I'm called bankable yet,
but thi 3 re using my name to get it
going." She has also been asked
about reviving A Streetcar Named
Desire onstage, but Allen has her
doubts. “Vivien Leigh was so won-
derful in the movie, I don't see
what I could add to that. Anyway,
I'd rather work with the Coen
brothers. I'm more interested in
crazy stuff than in the classics. I
want to do new things.”

Allen: Wives’ tales.

daughter. The clan gathers at the eatery
for an evening meal, and all hell breaks
loose among mother, siblings, in-laws
and Betty's rejected lover. 34%

Romance is back on the big screen
with The Horse Whisperer (Touchstone Pic-
tures) and is likely to last out the sum-
mer. Director and star Robert Redford
does a fine job of mainstream movie-
making with Nicholas Evans' best-seller.
Radiant Kristin Scott Thomas plays op-
posite Redford in this sentimentalized,
supremely pictorial tale of a man, a
woman, her young daughter (Scarlett
Johansson) who has been injured in a
riding accident and her disturbed horse.
Set mostly in Montana with more em-
phasis than necessary on the folksy free-
dom of wide-open spaces, it's plenty pas-
sionate (Thomas’ husband back in New
York is Sam Neill, who doesn't stand a
chance when she meets Redford). The
book was far sexier, but the film version
is so original and intelligent that audi-
ences can wallow without guilt in this
old-fashioned saga of the resilient hu-
man spirit, horse sense and unrequited
love. ¥¥¥/2

This seems to be the time for political
satire. As producer, director and co-au-
thor of Bulworth (Twentieth Century Fox)
Warren Beatty tackles the risky title role
as a Democratic senator running for re-
election while having a nervous break-
down. He also meets a beautiful black
activist (Halle Berry) and delivers his
speeches as rap diatribes against TV net-
works, insurance conglomerates and
big business of all kinds. His reach is well
beyond his grasp as a flipped-out cham-
pion of the downtrodden, but you have
to give Beatty credit for this bizarre,
sometimes puzzling shoot-from-the-hip
comedy. ¥¥¥

‘Too many years have passed in bring-
ing Hunter S. Thompson's Fear and
Loathing in Las Vegas (Universal) to the
screen. The gonzo journalist's novel
about his drug-fueled rampage (subti-
tled A Savage Journey to the Heart of the
American Dream) might seem dated today
but for director Terry Gilliam’s brilliant,
freewheeling adaptation. Another plus is
a knockout performance by Johnny
Depp as Raoul Duke, Thompson's fic-
tional alter ego, who drives his Red
Shark convertible like a maniac and
swears by substance abuse. Keeping pace
with Depp is Benicio Del Toro, play-
ing Duke's constantly stoned lawyer,
Dr. Gonzo. Guest stars including Penn
Jillette, Cameron Diaz, Christina Ricci
and Ellen Barkin make substantial con-
tributions to Gilliam’s hilarious take
on the disillusioned and surreal days of

1971. ¥¥¥

MOVIE SCORE CARD

capsule close-ups of current films
by bruce williamson

Artemisia (Reviewed 6/98) Woman art-
ist invades Italian art world. Wi
Bulworth (See review) Beatty on the
current political climate. Wy
Corla’s Song (See review) Full Monty's
Carlyle meets the contras. Ya
Character (7/98) Oscar choice for this
year's foreign-language best. ¥¥¥/2
Charlie Hoboken (7/98) Inept hit men
with an ethical dilemma. LUZ
Cousin Bette (7/98) Jessica Lange
brings her family lots of trouble. ¥¥
Clockwatchers (6/98) Unhappy office
temps you don't want to meet. x
Déjà Vu (6/98) Director Henry Jaglom
and friends put on a show.

Fear and Locthing in Los Vegas (See re-
view) Gilliam's riff on gonzo. vw
A Friend of the Deceased (6/98) Marked
man changes mind and turns tables
on his killer. We
Hav Plenty (See review) Born loser
woos his dream girl. vw
Henry Fool (7/98) An eccentric family
transformed by an underachiever. YY
High Art (7/98) Photographer and edi-
tor picture themselves in lesbian love

match, Y
Hope Floats (7/98) Bullock up to speed
again in a romantic comedy. yyy

The Horse Whisperer (See review) Not
quite by the book, and a fine romance
for that reason. LLL
1 Went Down (6/98) Two game Irish
crooks on a mission impossible, ¥¥¥
The Last Days of Disco (Sce review) The
NYC club scene, vapid but still fun
while it lasted. Wh
Marie Baie des Anges (See review)
Good-looking wayward teens hell-
bent on the Riviera. WY
A Merry War (7/98) Orwell's tale of a
London copywriter’s slumming. ¥¥/2
Mr. Jealousy (7/98) He loses sleep over
her former boyfriends. vw
The Opposite of Sex (7/98) Dig Christina
Ricci as a suburban femme fatale. ¥¥¥
Passion in the Desert (7/98) Lost French
soldier and wild leopard hit it off. YYY
Shooting Fish (6/98) Con artists have
their hearts set on a stately English
home. wy
The Thief (See review) Stalin's Russia,
as seen by a plucky six-year-old. ¥¥¥
The Truman Show (See review) Jim Car-
rey overdoes the fascinating plight of
a guy whose entire life is a sitcom. YY
Un Air de Fomille (Sce review) Nerves
frayed in a family restaurant. ¥¥¥
Whatever (Sce review) Coming-oFage
take on a New Jersey girl. vu
Wilde (6/98) Trial and conviction of
the gay English author. wm

¥¥¥¥ Don't miss
¥¥¥ Good show

¥¥ Worth a look
¥ Forget it

VIDEO

You might think funny videos would be a

natural choice for Damon Wayans—but
they're not. “Even though | like performing
comedy,” he says, “I'm too critical and
cynical to enjoy somebody else's work—
that is, unless it's really funny. For in-
stance, | was pleasantly surprised by The
Nutty Professor, because | saw Eddie Mur-
phy step up and do what he could do. He
challenged himself. And My Best Friend's
Wedding was good because it was clever.
It didn't make me laugh, but it was nice
storytelling.” Wayans prefers foreign films,
such as Cinema Paradiso or anything by
Jean Cocteau (especially his Beauty and
the Beast, 1946). "Oh, yeah,” Damon adds,
"| also love anything I'm in or my family is
in.” Which is a lot. —SUSAN KARLIN

VIDBITS

Kino On Video's Slapstick Encyclopedia
was made for your VCR, but it belongs
in a film class. Culled from 54 one- and
two-reel silent comedy shorts (from 1909
to 1927), the impressive eight-volume
digest ($24.95 per tape) includes a
nod to the pioneers (Oliver Hardy, Ben
Turpin), a Mack Sennett compendium
(with Mabel Normand and the Keystone
Cops), special programs on Chaplin,
Keaton, Arbuckle, the Hal Roach come-
dics and a full tape of the Great Chases
(800-562-3330). . . . Englewood Enter-
tainment revives the so-bad-it's-good
cinema of the Fifties and Sixties with its
Haunted Hollywood, Science Fiction
Gold and Hollywood Noir series. The
Beach Girls and the Monster (1965) boasts
“surfer chicks and slimy chills,” all set to
a rock-and-roll beat; Monster From Green
Hell (1958) features giant mutant wasps
omping their way across Africa; and in
Kid Monk Baroni (1952) young Leonard
Nimoy stars as a boxer lost in a world of
gangsters and sex kittens. Each tape is
$19.95; call 888-573-5490.

GOOD GODZILLA

By now you've seen Hollywood's version
of a Godzilla movie, with the computer-
animated lizard licking its high-tech

chops and waltzing around New York.
For diehard Godzilla fans, however, the
film doesn’t come close to watching a
miniature Tokyo being crushed by two
guys in latex monster suits. Enter new
video editions of at least a dozen films
made by Japan's Toho Studios (which
owns the Zilla franchise), including Sim-
itars DVD releases of the classics Godzil-
Ja, King of the Monsters (1956) and Godzilla
vs. Mothra (1964).

We asked J.D. Lees, co-author of The
Official Godzilla Compendium, to choose
his favorite and least favorite entries:
Godzilla vs. Mothra (1964): Godzilla battles
the giant moth Mothra, who is busy pro-
tecting her big egg. Boasts superior spe-
cial effects, monster suits, plot and
score—and the larvae are kind of cute.
Destroy All Monsters! (1968): Eleven crea-
tures simultaneously attack the world’s
major cities. Includes Godzilla's first trip
to New York City
(guess he lost the

coin flip).
King Kong vs. Godzil-
la (1962): In the

American edition
of the film, Kong
appears to win.
But the Japa-
nese version
includes a fi-
nal roar from
Godzilla as Kong
swims away, signaling a tie. Way to go,
big guy.

Godzilla vs. Megalon (1976): The worst
Godzilla movie ever made. The low

¡TED
VIDEO SERIES 0F
THE MONTH

She's moved from
being an on-screen
fuck queen to an
adult-film auteur.
With her white-
hot Shane’s World
series (Odyssey,

$39.95 each), the gal once known as di-
rector Seymore Butts’ favorite leading lady
is tearing up the adult industry with her
own brand of “sinema verité.” The formula
is simple: Take a bunch of friends on a
weekend trip, catch a little buzz, get every-
one horny, then let the good times—and
the camera—roll. What you get is un-
scripted hard-core action as candid and
genuine as it is searing. So far, there are
about a dozen volumes. Get them all. Go to
www.ogv.com, or call 888-sHane-00.

point: Godzilla plays schoolyard bully,
landing flying kicks on the giant beetle
Megalon as a robot buddy holds the in-
sect's arms behind its back.

Godzilla’s Revenge (1969): Another
stinker, though kids might like it. A boy
learns a touching lesson about courage
from Godzilla through a series of
dreams. In other words, its loaded up
with stock footage.

For more information, visit www.simitar.com
and look for the big green foot; or call Anchor
Bay Entertainment, 800-745-1145.

dn

FLASHBACK

Titanic (no sinking feeling here: DiCoprio-Winslet romance
and cutting-edge FX buoy the three-hour epic brilliantly),
Wag the Dog (White House op De Niro hires Hollywood
mogul Hoffmon to stoge imoge-buffing wor; biting sotire).

Afterglow (two couples work out o swop—sort of; Julie
Christie earns Oscor nom in sexy turn os Nolte’s cheoted
wife), The Gingerbread Man (Grisham vio Altmon hos mys-
tery belle putting Dixie lowyer Bronogh through wringer).

The Boxer (pug Day-Lewis leoves joil to find Belfast steody
wed to his IRA chum; stoggering, but no KO), Oscar ond Lu-
inda (Victorian oddbolls Fiennes and Blonchett shore o pos-
sion for gombling; unrequited-love story).

Fallen (cogey demon spirit does cot-ond-mouse thing with
Denzel Woshington; nothing new, but pleosontly moody),
Deep Rising (Treot Willioms ploys ten-little-Indions with o
ship-bound monster; coll it Titonic meets Alien).

From Orion's Soul Cinemo Collection: Foxy Brown (1974; su-
percool sex pistol Pom Grier poses as collgirl to ovenge
boyfriend's murder), Black Caesar (Fred Williamson's 1973
block godfother saga, soundtrack by James Brown).

20

TRAVEL

THE BEST OF TIMES, THE WORST OF TIMES

The time of year you travel can determine the success of your
trip. For example, you don't want to visit Paris in August,
when Parisians leave town on vacation and most of the good
restaurants are closed, September is the loveliest month for
the City of Light. In fact, autumn and spring are the best trav-
el times almost everywhere—with a few exceptions. Septem-
ber and October constitute the
height of the hurricane season
in the Caribbean. Bangkok's
temperature often tops 100 de-
grees March through May.
Tokyo should be avoided dur-
ing Golden Week (the last
weekend of April through the
first weekend of May), when
it's almost impossible to book
transportation or a hotel room.
Easter shuts down some cities,
among them Amsterdam,
which is then jammed April 30
and May 1 for the national
Queen's Day celebration. Dur-
ing the dog days of summer,
southern European cities swel-
ter. Madrid's mom-and-pop
restaurants either close or stop
serving hearty specialties. Aus-
tria isn’t as hot as Spain—but
don't go for Vienna's state
Opera, It takes a summer break.
So do Berlin’s opera and phil-
harmonic. January is the
month not to visit Istanbul be-
cause of the wet weather. Rio
de Janeiro's rainy season runs
from December through Feb-
ate ruary, but the famous Camaval
is usually in February, too. As you would expect, July and Au-
gust are hot and humid in Singapore and Hong Kong. Syd-
ney's seasons are the reverse of ours, but the worst—or best—
time to visit will be September 15 through October 1, 2000,
for the Olympic Games. —ANNE SPISELMAN

NIGHT MOVES: HAVANA

Cuba is off-limits to Americans, but you can get there through
another country, such as Canada or Mexico. The dollar is the
currency of choice and it buys a lot, from staples to vices. First,
stock up on cigars at one of the city's oldest cigar factories, Re-
al Fabrica de Tabacos Partagas (Industria No. 520) in Centro
Habana, then try a daiquiri at El Floridita (Obispo No. 557).
an establishment where Hemingway loved to drink. A ten-
minute walk into colonial Havana, or La Habana Vieja, brings
you to La Bodeguita del Medio (Empedrado No. 207), an-
other celebrated Hemingway hangout. Hail a cab (will a
1949 Plymouth do?) to dine in neighboring Vedado, where
trendy paladares have sprung up in the past couple years.
These privately run restaurants operate in people’s homes
and are usually superior in quality and price to hotel or
state-run establishments. Restaurante Dona Nieves (Calle
19, No. 812), a paladar, offers elaborate dinners at café
prices. Or cross the Rio Almendares to try the open-air El
Aljibe (Avenida 7 between 24 and 26), which boasts the best
chicken in Havana. Then taxi to the Hotel Riviera (Paseo and
Malecón), where the funky Palacio de la Salsa room draws top
salsa acts—and a fast crowd. — CARRIE LARUE

GREAT ESCAPE

MOTORING IN A MORGAN
What better way to explore the English countryside than
from behind the wheel of a Morgan? You'll feel every rip-
ple in the road and the wind in your face, but a day's-end
pint in a quaint pub will remove any bugs from your teeth.
London Handling Ltd.'s last Morgan self-drive tour for this
year (October 26 through November 1) begins at the
Barns Hotel in Bedfordshire and continues into

Scotland and Wales, with two participants sharing a car
and a room. The tour's £1175 price (about $2000, not
covering airfare) includes seven nights in three-star ho-
tels, plus breakfasts and dinners. A tour organizer accom-
panies the group—a maximum of seven Morgan 4/4s—to
help plan each day's route and put the cars to bed at night.
London Handling's Stateside contact, the ETM Group in
Westport, Connecticut (800-445-8999), can provide fur-
ther details and arrange flights. More Morgan tours are
scheduled for next summer. Book early. | —DAVID STEVENS

ROAD STUFF

Now that most airlines have cracked down on the size and
number of carry-ons, you'll need to be extraefficient if you
don't check baggage. These bags hold enough garb and gear
for at least a long weekend. Up top: Samsonite's 950 series
Compact Upright has wheels, a telescoping handle and pock-
ets galore ($300). Below it is a scotch-grain-leather weekend
bag with a shoulder strap, from Holland 8: Holland ($810). To
the right: TravelSmith's rugged 1000 Denier
Cordura carry-on (about $200) is just one of a
number of interesting bags the company
stocks (some even have wheels). Bottom: Du-
luth Trading Co.'s medium-sized green can-
vas duffel bag is trimmed

with brown sad-
dle leather (about
$145). © The new
Franzus palm-size
Micro Pro garment
steamer put out
by Travel Smart is
the same portable
gizmo that Jack
Lemmon used to
dewrinkle his
pants in the recent
comedy Out to Sea.
(It also fixes creases
and pleats.) Price:
about $40, including a
travel pouch and a de-
tachable brush. —p.s.

WHERE HOW TO BUY ON PAGE 149.

1998 Β.1 REYNOLDS TOBACCO CO.

SURGEON GENERAL'S WARNING: Smoking

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

11 mg. “tar”, 0.9mg. nicotine av. per
cigarette by FTC method.

ROCK

DURINGTHE Fifties and Sixties, the British
Musicians Union restricted the amount
of time records could be played on the
radio. The union claimed records took
gigs away from live musicians. And who
would buy a record if they could hear it
on the radio? But this restriction meant
the Beatles, Led Zeppelin and the Yard-
birds could record live sessions in the
BBC studios for broadcast. Excellent
BBC sets have been released over the
past few years. But the most spectacular
collection is The Jimi Hendrix Experience:
BBC Sessions (MCA), a 30-song, two-CD
set of hits, jams and rarities by rock’s
most astonishing guitarist. Most of these
dynamic performances were recorded in
1967, when Jimi was still in love with
Purple Haze and Spanish Castle Magic. He
would later use those songs as platforms
for transcendent improvisations. But on
BBC Sessions you're reminded that he
was an incredible songwriter too. And
Hendrix’ covers of Dylan, Stevie Won-
der, the Beatles and Cream blow away
the originals. —VIC GARBARINI

Patty Griffin has one of the most
heartbreaking voices I've heard, and she
employs it on some of the angriest songs.
Oddly enough, both her acoustic first al-
bum and her great new electric follow-
up, Flaming Red (A&M), leave me feeling
hopeful. Griffin's theme is relationships
gone bad, whether she’s talking about
love affairs (Peter Pan, Go Now) or Gathol-
icism (Mary, Wiggley Fingers). Her dry al-
to and legato phrasing are perfect for
singing about death, as she does on
Goodbye and Tony.

Who needs a Fleetwood Mac come-
back when Christine McVie (Warner) is
waiting to be rediscovered? This 1984
solo album, on which some of her band-
mates also play, possesses the drive that
characterizes the best Fleetwood Mac,
especially on Love Will Show Us How. It
showcases the member who has consis-
tently been the group’s best singer and
most intelligent songwriter.—DAVE MARSH

POP

Eyer since Seal emerged as a musical
force, I’ve been waiting for a black fe-
male artist to escape the shackles of R&B
and break out with a truly accomplished
pop-rock album. Rebekah’s Remember to
Breathe (Elektra) is it. Her debut is a
smart, progressive 12-song collection
that ignores the stereotypes of contem-
porary black music and instead uses
bracing guitars, diverse rhythms and
Matthew Wilder's well-modulated pro-
duction. Rebekah uses her strident,

22 youthful voice to sing about silly boy-

The BBC Hendrix experience.

Jimi jams, Patty
Griffin sings and Guy Davis
plays the blues.

friends (Hey Genius), the joy of sex (Sin
So Well, Love Trap) and social pressures
(Little Black Girl) with assurance and a
sense of fun. Her work broadens the mu-
sical landscape for African American per-
formers. Remember to Breathe is one of this
year’s better efforts. | —NELSON GEORGE

BLUES

I disagree with Guy Davis. Gontrary to
his third album's title, You Don’t Know My
Mind (Red House), I feel 1 do. He's smart
and humane, deals with his political
alienation, thinks highly of sex and un-
derstands that blues authenticity de-
pends on forthright spirit rather than
perfect reproduction of the classics. Ac-
tually, Davis hits all the right notes all the
time. An ace on both six- and 12-string
acoustic guitar, Davis brings a glorious
sense of melody to his understanding of
the blues. Unlike on his two previous al-
bums, he includes other instruments
here: drums, bass, the occasional key-
board. The extra percussion reminds
you that the blues started as dance mu-
sic. This is blues made for humming
along, stomping your foot, feeling righ-
teous in the face of oppression and ex-
pressing gratitude to your baby for
greasing your skillet. —CHARLES M. YOUNG

Memphis is an essential city of Ameri-
can music. Blues Masters, Volume 12: Mem-
phis Blues (Rhino) presents recordings
from the Twenties to the Fifties, with

outstanding performances from Furry
Lewis (Kassie Jones, Part 2), B.B. King
(When Your Baby Packs Up and Goes),
Howlin’ Wolf (Moanin’ at Midnight) and
Rufus Thomas (Bear Cat). For those look-
ing for some Memphis soul stew, this is a
tasty appetizer. — NELSON GEORGE

RAP

The best albums by Wu-Tang Clan
have been the most grandiose. That's
why the cover of the new Cappadonna
soundscape, The Pillage (Epic Street), is
festooned with a Hollywood-style Wu-
Tang Productions banner. And like all
Wu records, The Pillage sounds great. Its

Ξ rhythms and textures are as deep as
* New York Harbor. But I prefer spin-offs

with more focus, like the heartrending
gangsta tales of Chostface Killah’s 1996
Ironman, or the lamentations of Killah
Pricsts Heavy Mental (Geffen). Priests
beats, ominous minor chords and sam-
pled G-movie dialogue will sound creep-
ily familiar to anyone who knows recent
hip-hop. And his rapid-fire lyrics, stud-
ded with internal rhymes, are end-of-
the-century scary—they're prophecies
and admonitions straight from the black
underclass. —ROBERT CHRISTGAU

FOLK

Roscoe Holcomb may have been the
greatest of all mountain singers, and The
High Lonesome Sound (Smithsonian Folk-
ways) is a masterpiece. Holcomb's voice
is capable of scaring you half out of your
wits (House in New Orleans, In the Pines) ox
making you yearn for lost pleasures and
wreasures (Little Birdie, Roll On Buddy).
This storied banjo player also plays a
fearsome guitar. His a cappella Village
Churchyard sounds deathly, as if it is de-
termined to drag the listener back to
dust. As John Cohen’s liner notes make
clear, Holcomb was an original, genuine
and intensely spiritual.

Is the world ready for Celtino, a fu-
sion of Celtic folk and Cuban guitar mu-
sic? If not, better prepare because Os-
car Lopez, the great Chilean guitarist,
and James Keelaghan, Canada's finest
singer-songwriter, have come up with
Compadres (Jericho Beach Music, 1351
Grant St, Vancouver, BC V5L 2X7).
Bump Me Up (To First Class) would re-
quire no translation in any language.

— DAVE MARSH

COUNTRY

Honky-tonk singer Johnny Bush has
been around the Texas roadhouse cir-
cuit for more than 30 years, and Talk to

My Heart (Watermelon) is a tribute to his
seasoning. He cuts to the heart in tear-
jerking ballads such as This House Has No
Doors and the Texas two-step The Bottle,
Your Memory & Me. Bush, who played the
drums with the classic edition of Ray
Price's Cherokee Cowboys, recognizes a
good song. Throughout Talk to My Heart,
he celebrates the old school by featuring
pedal-steel legend Jimmy Day, who
played with Hank Williams and Ernest
Tubb. Talk to My Heart is perfect for those
lonely neon nights. — —DAVE HOEKSTRA

On the first track of Chris Knight (Dec-
ca), the singer boasts ruefully, “I had to
work to be the jerk I've come to be." You
wonder whether this country hopeful
might be the songwriting ace so many
others have claimed to be. Knight is
pithy, homespun, observant and forever
staving off his doom. A decade ago,
Nashville would have called him rock
and roll and sent him packing. It's to the
credit of the ultimate music-biz town
that it’s willing to bet on his talent now.

—ROBERT CHRISTGAU

Someday I'm going to find out what
vitamins Joe Ely takes and gobble a few
handfuls. After 13 albums and an un-
godly amount of time on the road, he
has more energy and more interesting
ideas than anyone should be allowed.
Twistin' in the Wind (MCA) shows Ely in top
form, which is as good as it gets in pro-
gressive country: great hooks, wordplay,
a tight band and emotional maturity.
Plus, he makes me laugh out loud.
Where did Jf I Could Teach My Chihuahua
to Sing come from? —CHARLESM. YOUNG

WORLD

Much third world music is diluted by
the synthesizers and strings used to
make it more palatable to Western ears.
But that's not the case on Invocations: Sa-
cred Music From World Traditions (Music of
the World), a collection of 13 remarkable
songs. It doesn't matter where the music
comes from— Peru, Iran or Zimbabwe—
each selection takes the listener to a sa-
cred place. — VIC GARBARINI

CLASSICAL

Gyórgy Ligeti is one of the world's best
living composers. As part of a bold proj-
ect to record all his work, Sony Classical
has released seven Ligeti CDs. Although
his chamber music is most impressive,
his compositions for barrel organ and
Poéme Symphonique for 100 metronomes
show that Ligeti's modernist work is sur-
prisingly accessible. Sony hasn't yet re-
leased Ligeti's masterpiece, the opera Le
Grand Macobre, but the remarkable ver-
sion already available on the Wergo label
will be hard to top. —LEOPOLD FROEHLICH

FAST TRACKS

OCKMETER.

Christgau | Garbarini | George | Morsh | Young

Guy Davis
You Don't Know

My Mind. 7 if
Patty Griffin
Gee "Red 6 9
Jimi Hendrix

Experience
BEC Sessions Y 10 10 9
Killah Priest
Heavy Mental 8 7
Rebekah
Remember to Breathe| 4 4

ISN'T ONE ENOUGH? DEPARTMENT: Call
Me Lisa Loeb is a screenplay, about a
girl so obsessed with the singer that
she begins to think she's Loeb.

REELING AND ROCKING: Jimmy Jam and
Terry Lewis are producing the sound-
track for How Stella Got Her Groove
Back, starring Angela Bassett. Listen
for Me'Shell Ndegeocello, among other
artists. . . . Will Smith and Whitney Hous-
ton are gearing up for the romantic
comedy Anything for Love. Expect a
strong soundtrack. . . . Randy Newman
is scoring two movies, Pleasantville and
A Bug's Life, for the Toy Story team. . .
Rick Rubin will produce a series of South
Park soundtracks on his American Re-
cordings label. . . . Dweezil Zappa has a
cameo in the forthcoming Michael
Keaton-Kelly Preston movie Frost. He
plays a smarmy A&R guy. . . . Director
Wim Wenders is shooting a documen-
tary on Ry Cooder, one version for PBS,
another for filmfests and theaters.

NEWSBREAKS: There is an exhibition
of Beck’s work at the Santa Monica
Museum of Art, where he did a per-
formance picce at the gala opening. . . .
Mary Wilson launched the Supremes’
40th anniversary tour in Reno. The
tour will continue into 1999, and Wil-
son is assembling a book and a display
of Supremes costumes as part of the
celebration. . . . Plans are under way
to bring one of England's top festivals
to the U.S. in September. Organizers
hope to stage Tribal Gathering con-
certs, emphasizing electronic dance
music, on the East and West Coasts. . . .
The Chicago-based consulting firm
Crowd Management Strategies has is-
sued its annual report on deaths at
rock concerts. Nineteen concertgoers
died worldwide in 1997, primarily be-
cause of festival seating and mosh-
ing. Prince has had enough of the

illegal use of his music and copyright-
ed materials on the Internet. He has
launched a crackdown through a law-
yer. . . . Says Tony Bennett about his
forthcoming autobiography, The Good
Life: “As I enter my 50th year of per-
forming, I realize 1 have had many
memorable experiences that readers
will find compelling.” Look for Tony's
takes on Frank Sinatra, Duke Ellington,
Judy Garland and Lena Horne, among
others... . The MTV Video Music
Awards returns to Los Angeles on
September 10. . . . Pete Seeger's Where
Have All the Flowers Gone? has become
the anthem of the Irish peace pro-
cess. . . . The Rock and Roll Hall of
Fame and Museum in Cleveland has
opened a new 5500-square-foot wing.
Rare performance footage of induct-
ees plays on a three-screen, 80-foot-
wide surface. A jukcbox presents bi-
ographies, discographies and virtually
all recordings ever made by Hall of
Famers. . . . The second X-Files sound-
track, produced by David Was, will fea-
ture Sting, Filter, Bjórk, the Cranberries,
Foo Fighters and Sarah McLachlan. . . .
Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller gave the
commencement address at Berklee
College of Music, where they also re-
ceived honorary doctorates for writ-
ing such hits as Hound Dog, Jailhouse
Rock, Stand by Me and On Broadway... . .
Pat Boone, having butchered metal, is
proceeding to record soul classics with
James Brown and Smokey Robinson.
Ouch. .. . One sang, the other didn’t
Frankie Avalon may have been resur-
rected with the 20th anniversary of
Grease, but another teen idol, Fabian, is
in a Denny's commercial. The spot
pokes fun at the longtime confusion
between Fabian's and Frankie's music.
We're not confused.

— BARBARA NELLIS

24 chargeables) and can be re-

WIRED

GAMING AFTER DARK

If you want to test your date's fun quo-
tient, take her to GameWorks. This
one-year-old entertainment franchise
(co-owned by Dreamworks, Universal
Studios and Sega) is an over-the-top
playground that pushes interactive gam-
ing to the extreme. And you don't have
to stand in line with a bunch of rug rats.
The under-18 crowd is banished after
nine ΡΜ, at which time the GameWorks
in Seattle, Las Vegas, Tempe (Arizona),

Grapevine (Texas) and Ontario (Califor-
nia) offer a nightclub ambience. There's
a restaurant and full-service bar (the
Seattle GameWorks has its own micro-
brewery), a billiards room, a rock-climb-
ing wall (in Las Vegas) and enough elec-
tronic action to keep your fingers flexing
past midnight. For an extreme rush,
don't miss the new Vertical Reality game,
in which you and 11 other players are
strapped into seats that ascend the sides
of a skyscraper. Your goal is to rid the
building of its criminal elements without
getting hit by unfriendly fire. Take a

bullet and your chair falls two sto-
ries to the ground. The next cities
slated for GameWorks: Chica-
go, Miami, Detroit and Rio de
Janeiro. —BETH TOMKIW

ALL CHARGED UP

Disposable batteries are
terrible for the environ-
ment. So what is an
eco-friendly electronics
junkie to do? Try Pan-
asonic’s new recharge-
able AAs. These nickel-
cadmium batteries run
for up to eight hours (that
is twice as long as earlier re-

juiced hundreds of times before you're
forced to recycle them. Sony's new In-
folithium NP-F950 camcorder battery
provides up to 12 hours of recording
time on a single charge. The AccuPower
battery meter —a sophisticated power-
management feature— displays the re-
maining battery time in minutes (no
more running out of energy midway
through filming). Sony's Quick Charge
system requires only 15 minutes to re-
charge a battery after an hour of use.
Unlike Ni-Cd batteries, you can't over-
charge Infolithiums. Sony tells us this
new battery technology will soon be
available for other portable gear. The
Sunwize Portable Energy System is a
notepad-size gadget that uses sunlight
to power and recharge laptop comput-
ers, cell phones, CD players and other
portable gear. Look for it in stores, priced
at $350. — DAWN CHMIELEWSKI

ALL WORK AND SOME PLAY

Watching TV on a computer is nothing
new. Downloading closed captions to
create transcripts of Seinfeld or the Jerry
Springer Show is. That's just one of the
many breakthrough features of ATI
Technologies’ All-in-Wonder Pro. This
$280 PC TV board lets you watch your

favorite stations on your computer—full

screen and in stereo. It features zoom
and instant-replay functions, and it
comes with software that runs a TV

in the background (picture-in-picture
style) while you work, listening for cer-
tain words and kicking on the program-
ming to full screen when it hears what
you want to see. ADS Technologies’
Channel Surfer TV board (about $100)
can receive Internet content over the
part of the wave spectrum (called Verti-
cal Blanking Interval) reserved for TV—
no modem required. Channel Surfer
picks up Web sites on the VBI and stores
them on your hard drive so you can read
them at your leisure. — —TED C. FISHMAN

WILD THINGS

Think of it as the Linda
Tripp model. Record-
a-Call ($80, pic-
tured here) is a
combination tele-
phone handset and
tape recorder. Use it os a
stand-alone recording de-
vice or attach it to any corded
phone and tape yaur conversations

on microcassettes. But remember: It's illegal
to tape phone calls in many states unless the porty
on the other end consents. ® Samsung's 505-100 is

the first digital cellular phone that doubles as a hand-
held PC. The pocket-size phone opens to reveal a Win-
dows CE 2.0 computer with a gray-scale touch screen. Fax-

es and e-mail can be sent via the phone’s wireless network,
and you can even use the device to browse the Net. The price:
about $800. 5 When it comes to buying electronics gear, pa-
tience usually pays off. Witness Dolby Digital audio-video re-
ceivers. © When they were introduced a few years ago, you
couldn't touch one for less than $1200. Now Kenwood has
introduced the VR-209, o six-channel receiver priced at
$400. You can connect three video sources to the VR-209, in-
cluding a satellite receiver, DVD player, VCR or videa game
machine, along with six audio components. € IBM's Scroll-
Point mause hos a blue button that eliminates the need to click
on scrollbars in order to navigate through long documents or
Web sites. Just press the button forward, backward or to the left or
right and you're on your way. The price: $60. Ey:

MULTIMEDIA
REVIEWS €: NEWS

ONLINE ACTION

Online games are a Net addiction—and
no wonder. Instead of battling just the
computer, you get to take on another
person—sometimes hundreds of them
from around the world. And, of course,
there are cash incentives. Multiplayer
Internet action has become such a hot
ticket that the AMD Professional Gamers"
League has been established to award
cash and prizes to the champs of the
most popular network titles. The better
you are at annihilating your opponents,
the more money you stand to make.

What type of computing power do you
need to compete? At the very least, a

c ER SCOO

Get set for Wing Commander—
the movie, Freddie (1 Know Whot
You Did Last Summer) Prinze Jr.
ond Matthew (Scream) Lil-
lord will stor in the PC
gome-turned-527 million Fox
flick. Shooting storted in Febru-
ary, but there's still no word on a
releose dote.

For on excellent dose of lust on-
line, check out Dada House (www.
dadohouse.com). This serial with
on adult twist wos named Best
Interactive Game ot the 1998
Adult Video News Awards. The
Dada House CD-ROM (odver-
tised for $24 on the site) mokes
for a juicier experience. Give it on
hour—you'll be hooked.

133-megahertz Pentium computer with
16 megs of RAM. It
takes a lot of power

to process games
such as Quake II.
If you want to
keep up, you will
have to power up.
Slower machines of-
ten pause during game-
play and frequently
become disconnected.
Which brings us to the
second important re-
quirement—a dedicat-
ed Internet connection.
Logging on to a game
site through AOL or
Compuserve isn't the way
to go. (It’s hard enough
to participate in chats
and newsgroups from
these overcrowded services, never mind
graphics-intensive games that call for
concentration.) So you'd be smart to dial

T
d

n
-

Total Annihilotior's commonder.

in direct with a service provider that can
handle a 33.6-kbps connection or better.

ONE-STOP SHOPS
There are several commercial services
devoted to online gaming. Some are
free; others have a monthly fee. On av-
erage, expect to pay $20 a month to get
in on the fun.

Total Entertainment Network (www.ten
net): This hot spot for hard-core gamers
sponsors the
PGL, award-
ing cash prizes
to champs of
Quake and oth-
er top online
games.

Heat Internet
Gaming Network
(www.heat.
net): Sega-
Soft's online
gaming site
encourages
members to
channel their
aggressive urges into games such as
Postal, Total Annihilation and Duke
Nukem 3D. Nothing like blowing off
someone's head to calm those nerves—
and win some big-ass loot. Heat has
three levels of membership and awards
prizes for frequent use. If you suck, you
can always carn some points by looking
at advertisements.

MPlayer (www.mplayer.com): If blood,
guts and gore aren't your bag, MPlayer
provides access to such cerebral fare as
backgammon, checkers and chess, as
well as sports games and simulations.

Microsoft’s Internet Gaming Zone (www.
zone.com): Bill Gates’ entry into online
gaming is one of the largest sites of its
Kind on the Internet. But it's a private
club for surfers using Windows 95 and
Microsoft Internet Explorer.

SOFTWARE CENTRAL
You don't have to join
an online service to blast
gamers in Australia. Most
games on CD-ROM have
PAM built-in Internet sup-

s port, as well as direc-
ons to Web pages
where you can join
the action. Here are a
few to try.

Quake il: A first-person
shooter with advanced
3D technology for im-
proved graphics, sound
and gameplay. Get in on
a 64-player Quake II
death match for a major
rush. Netstorm: A unique
real-time strategy game set in a mythical
world in the clouds. Your arsenal? The
elements—Sun Cannons, Dust Dev

A

The wonderful wizord of Ultimo.

Rain Temples and Wind Towers. Ultimo
Online: Create a hero and watch your
alter ego grow, form friendships, make
enemies, build houses and thrive in
a world simulation loaded with wild
magic. Total Annihilation: Another real-
time strategy game, featuring spec-
tacular graphics, realistic terrain and
an awesome soundtrack courtesy of a
95-piece symphony orchestra and a
concert choir.

DOWN-
LOADS OF
FUN
Several soft-
ware develop-
ers release on-
line games that
can be played
only over the
Internet. To
access these ti-
tles, you go to
a specific Web
site, download
the software,
install it on your system and start play-
ing. Some of the games are free, while

others cost from $10 to $20 a month.

Aliens Online (www.gamestorm.com):
Battle as a marine or an alien through
the dark quarters of this first-person
game. Terra: Battle for the Outland (www.
Kaon.com): An online tank-battle game
with hundreds of players going at it si-
multaneously. Warbirds 2.01 (www.imag
iconline.com): A World War Two aerial-
combat simulation involving up to 200
players. Download the software and get
five hours of game time

Command and Conquer: Sole Survivor
(www.westwood.com): This game pits
you against 50 other players in coopera-
νε war games

D AL DUDS

Thunder Truck Rally —Because of
the game's dull graphics ond
weak controls, we were asleep at
the wheel of this PC-ond-Ploysto-
tion truck racer before complet-
ing our first lop.

Pictionary: Some board games
don't tronslote to the PC. This is
one of them. Nix Pics.

Dilbert’s Desktop Games: Dilbert
fans bewore: The sad-sock chor-
acter's daily grind seems like o
porty compared with these lome
knockoffs of such clossic gomes
as Wack-o-Rot, Spoce Invaders
ond Missile Command.

See what's happening on Ployboy's
Home Page at hitp://www.playboy.com.

WHERE & HOW TO BUY ON PAGE 149.

25

BOOKS

BURKE'S LAW
James Lee Burke has arrived. The first clue is a store display
for Sunset Limited (Doubleday), his tenth novel featuring the
exploits of former New Orleans cop and Vietnam vet Dave
Robicheaux. In addition to a great summer read, fans will
find a bait bucket filled with Cajun spices, a CD and a T-shirt.
Robicheaux is one of the most intrigu-
ing heroes in crim tion. While oth-
ers work alone, Burke's character sur-
rounds himself with family —his wife
and daughter—a worker at the bait
shop named Batist and Robicheaux's
ex-partner and loose cannon Clete Pur-
cel. He tackles not just crime but mys-
teries, wrestling with shame, guilt and
grief that span generations. Norman
Mailer once said that a man drinks to
get at an obsession from different an-
gles. Robicheaux, a recovering alco-
holic, prefers to throw himself against
the past. In Sunset Limited, a corpse lies
in a coffin for 20 years, waiting for the chance to tell its story.
Bell jars buried in a barn hold clues to a crucifixion that hap-
pened 40 years earlier. Corruption touches the present when
a Hollywood film crew sets up in town asa front for laundered
drug money. Small-time gangsters, contract killers, Klans-
men, psychopaths, ex-cons and tainted FBI agents move
through Spanish moss and dark bayous testing Robicheaux.
Only some of the mysteries in the novel are resolved. And the
writing is brilliant —JAMES R. PETERSEN

MAGNIFICENT
OBSESSIONS

The Greeks had Pythagoras and Praxiteles. The
Italians brought us Machiavelli and Mosoccio.
What do we have ta share with the world? Bar-
ney Rubble and Babe the Blue Ox. Three new
boaks loak at the glory of American civilization.
John Morgolies' Fun Along the Road (Little, Brown)
is a remarkable compendium of such ingeniaus
vulgorities as alligator farms ond mini galf courses.
In Managing Ignatius (Louisiana State) Jerry Strahan relates
the perils af running a hot dog business in New Orleans. It's
en inspirational tale of lowlife business administration. Joe
Queenan is a good enough writer that he could describe
garbage and still be entertaining. That's exactly what hop-
pens in Red Lobster, White Trash and the Blue Lagoon (Hyperi-
on). Queenan concerns himself with the likes af John Tesh
and Billy Joel. How bad can this culture be? he asks. He
proceeds to astonish even himself. —AEOPOLD FROEHLICH

FUN ALONE
THE ROAD

26

BAKER GOODS

Although Nicholson Baker's current
novel, The Everlasting Story of Nory (Ran-
dom House), doesn't have sex at its
center (as did Vox and The Fermata),
sex is still on Baker's mind. In fact,
when independent counsel Ken-
neth Starr subpoenaed Monica
Lewinsky's book purchases, which
reportedly included Vox, Baker said,
"Starr should get down on his
kncepads and beg the country's par-
don for undermining the Constitu-
tion this way." Writer Lisa Latham
checked in with Baker to discuss
books, movies and Monica.

PLAYBOY: Did negative reaction to the sex-
uality in Vox and The Fermata bother you?
BAKER: lox was a best-seller and women
liked it. The Fermata was hated by women
and it didn’t sell. It isn't writing about sex that bothers people.
If you write abouta person who violates women and isn't pun-
ished in the end, people aren't going to like
PLAYBOY: Which is sexier—erotic film or erotic literature?
BARER: I rarely get turned on by books, but I've seen a lot of
dirty movies. I started going to dirty movies when I was 17.
But I don't want to watch a mainstream movie and suddenly
see pubic hair. 1 find it alarming. I wrote Vox and The Fermata
in direct competition with movies. Could I create something
stranger and possibly more erotic than any movie? The read-
er is a writer's ally in determining exactly how dirty a book
gets. My wife thought Fermata was funny and sexy and she
liked it until she began to sense that he was going to get away
with everything. Then she said, “Go ahead and publish it, but
you're not going to get me to like it.”

PLAYBOY: Assess the role Vox played in the Clinton scandal
BAKER: It’s just a rumor that Monica Lewinsky bought a copy
of Vox, but even the rumor of an alleged book purchase is nice
for an author to hear about, She, however, is a private citizen
who is having her life ransacked by a bunch of nutty hu-
manoid subpoena weenies. If
Monica Lewinsky did in-
deed present a copy of my
book to the president, I'm
sure that she just wanted
him to be fully prepared
for any debate surround-
ing the telecommunica-
tions bill.

VERY MEAN STREETS:
Drugs, villains and vic-
tims aren't pretty, so
mast people choose to
look the other way. But
Tony Fitzpatrick, a self-
tought writer and an
artist, has adopted
the coarse land-
scapes of urbon de-
spair os his personal
geography. In Dirty
Boulevard (Hard Press),

Fitzpatrick gives us startling portraiture
{the Fixer, Crack Baby, Crank Bug and K-Boy, among

others) ta reveal the death that lives amang us. What's surprising
about this collection of drawings and etchings is that Fitzpatrick ex-
tracts a bitter beauty from these lurid nightmares. — JOHN REZEK

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28

HEALTH & FITNESS

BICEPS PRIMER

Women like men with muscular arms. Short-sleeved shirts
look better when they show evidence of brawn. And strong
arms help protect clbows from injury during sports such as
golf, baseball and tennis. “Your arms are the link between
your upper body and the rest of the world,” says Liz Nep-
orent, an exercise physiologist and co-author of Weight Train-
ing for Dummies. “If they're wimpy, your larger upper-body
muscles can't work to full capacity.” The encouraging news
is that because arm mus-

cles are smaller than
chest, back and
shoulder muscles,
you can train them
in less time.

For starters, here's
how to strengthen
your arms: Twice a
weck (with at least
one full day's rest
between workouts)
do three sets of 8 to 15
repetitions of two biceps
exercises, such as barbell curls, dumbbell curls, reverse-grip
curls or cable curls. Then do the same number of triceps ex-
ercises, such as push-downs, kickbacks, bench dips or ma-
chine dips. It’s important to work both the biceps and the trì-
ceps, because “if one muscle group is disproportionately
stronger than the other, you're more prone to elbow injuries,”
warns Neporent.

Use enough weight so that the last few repetitions are chal-
lenging. Focus on using your arms—not your back and shoul-
ders—to complete the exercises. Finally, keep your elbows
still. If they stray out to the sides, you may be able to lift more
weight, but only because you have better leverage.

SPORTS DRINKS

In the beginning there was Gatorade. Now there are a zillion
commercial sports drinks on the market, with high-power
names such as Endura, Exceed, Break Through, Power
Surge, Runner’s Edge and, our
personal favorite, Sports Toddy.
The question is: Do they work? Will
sports drinks keep you well hydrat-
ed during sports? The answer is
yes. But the catch is—for most rec-
reational athletes—water or diluted
fruit juice will do the same, at a
fraction of the cost. The exception
is the athlete who works out in-
tensely for four hours or more at a
time and has to worry about keep-
ing clectrolytes (sodium, potassi-
um, etc.) in balance.

Do sports drinks boost perfor-
mance? They aren't elixirs. They
can't give you a power surge or performance that exceeds
your training limits. Commercial sports drinks deliver a mea-
sure of carbohydrates—between 14 and 25 grams per eight
ounces—which helps you maintain your energy level if your
workout exceeds 90 minutes. But you can keep your
blood-sugar level up by drinking diluted fruit juice or eating
crackers or a bagel. That may not be so conspicuous as slosh-
ing down a bottle of Hydra Fuel, but it's probably as useful.

Sports drinks do taste better than water, which means you'll

probably drink a lot more.
That's a big plus. Then, too,
if you think your drink is
special and gives you more
energy, you may actually
feel more energetic and per-
form better.

Now that's a testimonial to
sports marketing.

SUN SMART

Who can resist summer's siren
call to bronze? If you're a sun
god, at least tan slowly and sen-
sibly. According to New York
dermatologist Dr. Steven Vic-
tor, SPF 15 is the best level for
providing both protection and
color, (The SPF number indi-
cates how long you can stay in
the sun before burning. If it takes
your bare skin ten minutes in the sun to turn red, an SPF 15
product will protect it 15 times as long, or for 150 minutes.) A
sunscreen should be applied at least half an hour before you
expose your body to the sun, so its ingredients can combine
with your skin protein. Put a little extra on your nose and
ears, because the skin there is thinner and more susceptible to
skin cancer.

Don't start with a high-SPF sunblock and work your num-
bers down. An SPF of 30 lets you stay out longer, but it offers
only two percent more filtering protection than an SPF of 15.
And any time you go under 15 you're letting too much sun get
to your skin. So go slow. Timing, as usual, is everything.

Are you thinking SPF 152

DR. PLAYBOY

Q: Every time I pick up the paper there’s news about vi-
tamins. Should I take them or not?

A: OK, here goes. New research shows that vitamin E
plays a substantial role in preventing prostate cancer,
according to the Journal of the National Cancer Institute.
After five to eight years of taking vitamin E supple-
ments, a group of men in Finland were 32 percent less
likely to develop prostate cancer and 41 percent

less likely to die from the disease than those

who didn't take E. The juice on

vitamin C is less encouraging. It's

deemed an antioxidant (they elimi-

nate free radicals known to damage the

heart and other organs), but vitamin C

could actually promote free radicals and

lead to cellular damage, says a recent

British study. However, scientists also con-

cede that vitamin C's antioxidant benefits

far outweigh the possible detrimental ef-

fects. Confused? Of course, But if you're

worried about getting scurvy on that long

voyage at sca, or if you just want to stave off a

cold, the recommended daily dosage of 60
milligrams of vitamin C can easily be ob-

tained from food—by drinking, say, six

ounces of orange juice. Unlike supplements,

vitamin C in foods has no oxidizing effects.

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MEN

H ere you are, basking in the heat
of summer, skimming your
PLAYBOY and keeping one eye on the tal-
ent that strolls by your perch, talent that
smells of coconut oil and something
else—yes, that's it, the faint but unmis-
takable aroma of quim, glorious quim,
moist quim, quivering quim. What a re-
markable fragrance fresh quim projects,
a combination of sca salt and jungle mud
and crushed violets. As a famous poet al-
most wrote, “Oh, to be in Quimland now
that August's here!”

The word quim seems to have been
banished from our language. But is it
not time for us to resurrect it and bring
it back into circulation? Are we not man-
ly men, vigorous and unafraid? Will we
not employ the words we love without
fear or shame, and to hell with those pu-
ritans who would censor us?

Gentlemen, it is lucky for us that wom-
en don't really know how we think. If
someone were to invent a camera that
could videotape male brain waves and
convert them into pictures, we would all
be toast within the first few seconds. Be-
cause men are definitely three-track
monsters. We are able to watch the girls
go by, read a magazine and—all at the
same time—remember the glories of
quim past.

What is it about quim that we remem-
ber specifically? Don’t play naive pool
boy with me, fella. We remember, in ex-
quisite detail, each stroke and taste and
touch and smell of quim, from our earli-
est experiences with it to time present.
This is the secret we do not wish to share
with womenfolk: For most of us, ev-
ery day is filled with warm and happy
memories.

1 submit that a man produces a per-
petual Oscars show of sexuality in his
mind's eye, and does so continually. So
here are the Oscars I would bestow
to the only quim that ever mattered to
me—the women who starred with me
in our own private X-rated screenplays.
(FYI, the names have been changed,
but the scents linger on.)

For the Best Kisser in My Preteen Years: An
Oscar to Jenny, a tan and compact
nymph in Florida who smelled like a
freshly squeezed lemon and used to
sneak out to the boat dock with me in the
evenings for necking and experimenta-
tion. We were 11 years old, precocious
kids who knew more about sex than the

30 adults in our lives thought we did. To

By ASA BABER

MY SEXUAL
OSCARS

her credit, Jenny even managed to cry
during our final hours together, and 1
like to assume she remembers me with
fondness, just as 1 remember her.

For the Toughest Broad in Junior High
Who Had the Most Bounteous Chest on
Chicago's South Side: An Oscar to Marilyn,
queen of my dreams, a young woman
who could chew out a gang member in
salty language, then turn to me and al-
most smother me in her ginger-spice
flesh. With her breasts covering my ears,
I didn’t really care what she was saying.
Wherever she is now and whatever she’s
doing, I want her to know I loved her
dearly, and I was not a superficial punk
so infatuated with her cleavage that I
couldn't think straight (was 19).

For the High School Senior Who Rattled
My Cage When She Showed Me That Some
Girls Like to Be Spanked: A golden Oscar
to Jensen, a dark, thin, vibrant beauty
who stopped me suddenly one summer
evening as we were walking out of a
movie, pulled me into an alley and said,
without warning, “Slap me. Slap me
hard.” To this day, that episode remains
one of the most startling moments of my
life. After some protestation, I gave her a
gentle slap on her face. “Harder,” she
said. I could not do that, so she turned
around, raised her skirt, stuck out her
butt and said, “OK, then spank me.” I
managed to do that without much hesi-

tation, and, OK, I admit it: I really en-
Joyed it! But her tendencies toward S&M
freaked me out, and I eventually had
to stop dating her. Still, she was respon-
sive and exciting—and often smelled of
chocolate and coffee and almonds—and
I miss her.

For the Wondrous Wench in College Who
Preferred Blow Jobs to Intercourse and Was
Oral Beyond Measure: An Oscar to a wom-
an I'll call Chamomile, because that is
what she smelled like. A junior librarian
on another campus, she liked to visit me
in my campus library and blow my stack
in the stacks. Her oral technique was out
of this world and her commitment to my

; pleasure was total. But I grew somewhat

anxious with our routine, because she

1 rarely let me explore her body. It was

frustrating to me, since I'm a 50-50 kind
of guy, so things petered to a halt, if you
know what I mean.

For the Best Massage Parlor Technique in
the Orient: An Oscar to Michiko, an elfin
creature on the island of Okinawa who
smelled of salt and soy sauce and who
gave me, a confused and frightened Ma-
rine, the longest, most sensual baths in
my history, pouring pans of warm water
over me, then rubbing me with ice
cubes, dragging me into a steam bath
and sauna, laughing all the while as she
manipulated my spine like it was a piano
keyboard and cooed like a mourning
dove. Arigato, Michiko, and thanks for
the special sushi. You are often in my
thoughts.

For the Strawberry Girl Who Will Laugh
When She Reads This and Then Prelend
She's Offended: An Oscar to my own true
love, a woman I call the Beav, who ac-
cepts my past sexual explorations
around the globe with equanimity but
who also likes to kid me about them by
saying, “So how many little Ahmets and
Toshiros and Pierres and Gúnthers and
Raouls are running around the world
with your DNA?”

“Oh, honey,” 1 always say, smiling,
‘perish the thought. You know I was a
sena and I saved myself for you." But if
the Bcav ever gets tough with mc and
demands an honest answer to her ques-
tion about how many kids I have in dif-
ferent time zones and hemispheres, I'll
tell her the quim made me do it. And
that's no lie.

Ba

WOMEN

t was all so exciting that I had to run
home and immediately start making
phone calls.

“Hello,” said LynnAnn.

“] can't believe it!” I said. “He defi-
nitely, definitely, definitely has a yen for
me. How cool is this? You know how I
never think anybody is even marginally
attracted to me? That 1 am clearly re-
pugnant? But let me tell you. Prunella
vomited in the carand Charlie cleaned it
up for me. He's crazy about me.”

LynnAnn started giggling. She knew
Charlie, she knew me, she knew Prunel-
la, my dog. She's been worried about me
ever since my marriage ended and 1 de-
clared myself closed for renovations. So
of course my ecstatic blathering would
cheer her. But it wasn't only that.

She was catching the crush vibe. A
crush is a powerful thing. A crush, once
activated, cannot be denied: It sweeps
up everything in its wake; it becomes an
emotional juggernaut.

I drove around in an all-day haze
thinking, Charlie, oh Charlie. My radio
played / Melt With You. At stoplights I be-
stowed blazing smiles on other drivers to
the point where one guy got out of his
car. Even Beverly Hills, a neighborhood
slippery from catering to the scum of the
earth, delighted me hugely. Because
Charlie liked me.

Who is this paragon known as Charlie,
you wonder? Oh hell, some guy. A friend
of a friend. I see him at social events. At
the last one he called me honey and gave
me a one-armed hug and I thought,
Whoa, maybe he likes me. But the crush
switch wasn't tripped until the day I ar-
rived at a gallery opening whining about
my carsick dog and Charlie found some
paper towels.

I called my son, I called my shrink, I
called seven of my closest friends. I
couldn't stop calling. 1 felt like 1 was hav-
ing a drug rush: My vision was suffused
with sunlight (though it was raining), my
groin seemed to be oddly pulsing, Pru-
nella tried to hump my leg.

I knew I was on a nutty roller-coaster
ride yet I forgot about what happens
when you reach the summit.

That night I went into a fever of ob-
session. 1 would get Charlie a present.
“The least 1 could do, after you cleaned
up the vomit,” I would say to him. When
would I give it to him? Should I go to his
house? Call? And what would this pres-
ent be? Edible underwear? No, prema-

By CYNTHIA HEIMEL

ANATOMY
OF A CRUSH

ture. Not yet. Save the edible underwear
for another day. A photo! Charlie likes
art (which I found out when I asked
around obsessively). 1 dug maniacally
through my photo library and found a
picture of a dog with an ice pack on its
head! Perfect!

Meanwhile, in some quiet academic
office somewhere in the American Muse-
um of Natural History, Helen Fisher, an-
thropologist, was quietly researching my
plight. She studies data on the human
reptilian brain. This is the ancient, scary
part of the brain that remembers back
millions of years, remembers the first
cellular split of the first amoeba. And,
believe me, it hasn't listened to a thing
since then.

It's the reptilian brain that makes us
chase each other around the watercool-
er. Not that it will ever tell us. Our rep-
tilian brains quietly but firmly send their
biological imperatives to our limbic sys-
tems and hypothalamuses, forcing us to
behave like the wild animals we really
are, and then leave it to our poor, belea-
guered cortexes to make up some lame
rationalization.

According to the hypotheses of Fisher
and many other really smart people, the
reptilian brain, unable to dial a tele-
phone, communicates through chemi-
cals. It sends its messages via phenyleth-
ylamine, a brain substance that spreads

feelings like elation and euphoria all
along our neural pathways. PEA, natural
speed, sends the brain into overdrive
and keeps us babbling and obsessing in-
to the night.

Then there's the luteinizing hormone-
releasing hormone produced by the sex-
crazed hypothalamus. LHRH sends
other hormones to stimulate still other
hormones that go straight to our genitals
and then back up to our brains to tell us
we're in love.

This is so not fair. My cortex was
shouting at me “Charlie Charlie Charlie
Chuck Charlie” at every possible oppor-
tunity. 1 felt like I could not live without
this dude. After I wrapped the picture of
the dog with the ice pack in blue shiny
paper, I obsessed about whether Charlie
likes blue, or shiny or paper!

Even though I hardly knew who
Charlie was or why he’s unafraid of
vomit, he had become the man of my
dreams! This is insane! It’s something
our bodies do so that the species will be
fruitful and multiply. Has the reptilian
brain taken a look at the world late-
ly? Has it noticed any raptors at all?
Why won't it notice all those strip malls
and car dealerships and leave me the
hell alone?

The next day I found out that Charlie
was going over to a mutual friend's
house to watch a baseball game. I
thought I might pop in. As if on the
wings of a dove 1 rushed over to this
event, gripping my shiny package and
presenting it to Charlie with a blush, a
giggle and my carefully rehearsed off-
the-cuff little speech. Charlie was watch-
ing his baseball game. 1 was wearing
makeup applied to look like no makeup
and a fluffy angora sweater.

Charlie saw me handing him a pres-
ent and got the famous deer-caught-in-
headlights look. He attempted to smile.
“How nice of you! Really!” he enthused.

The death knell of the crush. The
roller coaster plunged back down to
earth. My world collapsed. I was listless,
devastated, inconsolable, saw no reason
to live. For a day. Then 1 forgot all
about it.

The scientists say that people with hy-
popituitarism have none of these dizzy-
ing highs and lows of infatuations. That
they don't even get crushes. It's some-
thing to look into.

31

WE HATE OLD BEERS,
AND WE'VE BEEN AROUND SINCE 1876.

> Budweiser's been
around long enough
to learn a few things
about what makes

a great tasting beer.
Like the basic truth
that fresh beer
tastes better. Which
is why Budweiser
developed the

Born On? dating system,

=~ = is so you know your

beer is fresh.

http://www.budweiser.com (©1998 ANHEUSER-BUSCH, INC., BREWERS OF BUDWEISER ^ BEER, ST. LOUIS, MO

ley... IUS personal

MAN

Hang On to Your Hats

Parnelli Jones called the Panoz "the great American roadster.” But if
you've never heard of the car, dan't despair because neither
had we. Don Panaz was one of the inventors of the time-
release capsule technology and the nicotine patch. His
son, Danny, is president of Ponaz Auto Development
in Braselton, Georgia, possibly the best-financed pri-
vately owned auto company in America. Climb
inta the cackpit, punch the thratile
‘and pray, because the Panoz’
power plant, a 305-hp,
| 4.6-liter Ford V8, will
propel your 2550-
pound aluminum-
bodied cor to

four seconds.
Of course, there are
side curtains, the top is erected
Tinkertoy-style (a hard lop is available cs
an option) and the transmission is a five-speed, not
an automatic. But on a wide-open road with the speedometer
arching toward 140 ar on ο winding country lane, who cares? The price
far this indecent pleasure is $59,000, including leather seats, AC and a CD player.

The car is available at a limited number of dealers nationwide.

Highway Etiquette
Na one likes being
stopped by an officer of
the law, but there's no
reason to make it more
unpleasant than it hos
10 be. Here are a few
tips to make the experi-
ence os un-

possible.
First, keep
both hands
on the steer-
ing wheel os
the officer appraaches.
In fact, make sure your
hands are visible ot all
times. Palice don't
know what to expect
when they stop some-
ane. Shaw the officer
you pose no threat ta
him. Do not reach for
your driver's license

and registration until
you're asked for them.
Wait for the officer ta
exploin why he pulled
you over. Da not admit
to any wrongdoing. Ask
for a verbal or written
warning in

troumatic os. MELLE LUE lieu of c

icket. Da
not undo
your seat
belt until
hehos
seen you were wearing
one. At night, tum an
your dame light. Do
not leove your cor ond
canfrant the officer—
this is seen as an ag-
gressive move. If you
feel you've been mis-
treated, camplcin at the
nearest palice station.

Steak Tips: 15 It Done Yel?

When yau grill a steak, yau need to master the art of knowing when it’s
done. Amateurs cut open the steak and check the color. This drains the
beef of its juices and dries it aut. The best way to tell when iis done is to
acquire a feel for the changing consistency af the meat. Use the blueprint
belaw. As always, let the meat rest a few minutes before you slice it.

33

MANTRACK L

Heavy Metal

Mark O'Meara may not need
Carbite Golf's new Polor-
Bolanced putter, but for the rest
of us duffers a club that's rated
about 40 percent mare accurate
than others on off-center strokes
is a gimme. It all has to do with
binding metals of different densi-
ties, explain the folks at Carbite,
which hos put tungsten at the ex-
treme heel and toe of the club
with oluminum in the center. In
other words, if you putt like c
klutz, this is the club for you.
Don't ask us how it works, but
Carbite insists it does. For $150,
you can see for yourself.

Think Small

Yau don't need heavy wattage ta pump audia through the overage office,
studio apartment or dorm room. Which is why innovative design teams at Sany,

Technics, IVC and Aiwa have come up with micrastereos, such os the Sony
CMT-ED1 ($350, pictured here). Along with its slick good looks, the unit
cambines a tuner with 30 station presets, CD player, auta-reverse cassette
deck and 15 watts of power per channel. Worried thet the wattoge is a bit
too wimpy? Sa were we until we put the Sony to the test. The result: Our
office didr't vibrate, but Pulp cranked fine. In fact, with the volume set
halfway, the CD was loud enough to distract us from our work. And that soys

84

a lot when you consider the nature of PLAYBOY.

Time for Takeofl
Wha knew there was a
Swiss Air Force? In fact
it’s well known for me-
ticulously trained pilots
and fine aircraft, So, of
course, there’s a Swiss Air
Force watch—five models
to be exact—and the flag-
ship, pictured here, is

Price: $2000. The Air
Force's cheapest model,

Premium Rum

Mix 14 ounces of Exclusiv, Bacardi’s new
rum, with a half ounce of triple sec, a
half ounce of lime juice and a splash of
cranberry juice. Shake and strain into a
chilled martini glass ond see if that isn’t
the smoothest cosmopoliton you've ever
tasted. Bacardi says its new bottling is
the “first-ever ultrafiltered rum that com-
bines a quadruple distillotion process
with Canodi-

named for the leading O

Swiss aircraft—the Mc- ΓΞ ΠΡ Επ

Donnell Douglas F/A-18. rd

The timepiece features a ee

25-jewel Swiss-made au- re

tomatic movement, en

chranograph functions m

galore, water resistance en

ta a depth of 330 feet FC

and a black strap made of V sono
bomber-jacket leather. Lenis . Ῥέαν

Exclusiv isnt 3
yet available |

the 9G 300. casts about D ee
$500 and has o five- uj
ren but by asking
Le d for it. Price:

abaut $15.

a cable's he Ame visit the South
argined X at the appear-
Within a L eld from the
‘hing we some-

ight yple are

er AN and
j with
9 4
"urling
Wittle ele-

an. The

>)

Y

EAU DE
TOILETTE

S IN
ARTMENT ‘STORES

u
d

MANTRACK

the Semodex line of cleanser shampoos and scalp lotions,
some of which are pictured here. They work best, says the
manufacturer, when combined with other Nioxin products.
Both lines are sold in hair salons worldwide, priced from $8 to
$50 per bottle. None contain alcohol, PVP or plastic resins.

| Clothesline:

Roy Dupuis

The dark and moody
Michael on USA Network’s
La Femme Nikita, played by
Roy Dupuis, is reflected in
his somber and stylish
wardrobe. Offscreen, the
French-Canadian star of
the high-rated drama
prefers more color, cam-
bining the green, red,
yellow and white plaid
pants and a maroon cap he
wears for golfing. “I go for
the Sixties and Seventies
retro look I find in vintage
clothing stores,” he says. When he’s not playing golf, Dupuis
lives in Levi's 501 blue jeans, often pairing them with horizon-
tally striped shirts and a black leather vest. He also wears a
black velvet car coat by Diesel originally intended for his TV
character. "I decided it wasn't right for Michael, but it was just
perfect for me.” Dupuis's two favorite fashion accessories are
a silver bracelet that looks like a motorcycle chain (he bought
it from a street vendor in New York City a few years ago) and
a pair of Gaultier tortoiseshell sunglasses with round lenses
and transparent temples. In the series, Michael wears under-
wear from Body Body, but in real life Dupuis goes au naturel.

Hair Apparent

If you've tried every
thing from scalp mas-
sages to combing
one strand at o time
for advancing bald-
ness, help is on the
way. Researchers at
Nioxin, a therapeutic
hair-care company,
hove discovered the.
enzyme lipase in the
hair follicles of men
(and women) with
thinning hair. (Lipase
is produced by the
mite demodex follicu-
lorum—as if you
didn't know.) To com-
bot thinning hair,
Nioxin hos developed

Vour Deal, Ace

Raking in quarters in your week-
ly game? Mayte it’s time to hit
the road. Most casino poker
rooms have card games for as
low as $1 a bet. The Trump Taj

_ Mahal has At-
ey dontic City’s
pos biggest poker

N room, free
lessons and $1

to $3 stakes.
Connecticut's
Foxwoods Re-
sort Casino
also has a
great room. In

California the two best are the

Bicycle Club Casino in Bell Gar-

dens and Hollywood Park in In-

glewood. Casinos in Gulfport
and Biloxi, Mississippi offer low
stakes. The reol poker action is
in Vegas, with the Luxor, the Rio
and the Orleans. The nation’s
classiest gome is ot the Mirage.

But there's little need to fear

sharks, because being a pro in

a low-stokes game is o tough

woy to make on easy living. If

you want to find out how good
you are, play the locols at Bin-
ion’s Horseshoe, home of the

World Series of Poker.

Gel Zapned

If you're eco-minded you need Zap. It's a California
company that gets you moving with zero air pollu-
tion. That means electric bicycles, skate-

boards and the Electricycle pictured here,

which the company describes as “the

world’s first com-
mercial electric scoot-
er.” The Electricycle is
fun, practical and hits
aa |
per hour while sus-
toining a charge for
up to 20 miles. Obvi-
ously, you wouldn't
wont to cross the
Mojave Desert on
an Electricycle. But
for tooling down to the
bookstore or joyriding
oround on a summer
weekend it can't be
beat. Furthermore,
Zap rental outlets ore
opening around the
country for the Electricy:
cle ond other Zap vehi-
cles (including the Power-
boord—Zap colls it "a skateboord with
on attitude”). The price for the Electricycle is
obout $2500, including the chorger.

lasic

15 mg "ter? 1.0 mg nicotine av. per cigararte by FTC method

THE PLAYBOY ADVISOR

[| thought true male multiple orgasms
were a myth, until recently. When my
girlfriend and I were having sex during
a cruise vacation, I had an orgasm and
remained inside her mostly erect. Noth-
ing new. But after catching my breath, I
again became fully erect and achieved
orgasm with ejaculation within a few
minutes. This scenario was repeated
twice (my girlfriend actually said,
"Again?"—we were both astonished).
Short of taking a cruise every weekend,
is there a way to attain this level of sen-
suality on a regular basis?—C.M., Fort
Lauderdale, Florida

You may be a natural. Many men have
taught themselves to enjoy multiple orgasms
by delaying ejaculation through control of
the pubococcygeus muscle, a technique that
takes some practice, but a rare breed of man
apparently can have multiple orgasms—
cach including ejaculation—without train-
ing. Three years ago a 35-year-old man con-
tacted Beverly Whipple, a sex researcher at
Rutgers University, claiming he could come
repeatedly without any recovery period, and
he agreed to demonstrate. Whipple and her
colleagues monitored the man’s heart rate,
pupil dilation and ejaculate volume as he
masturbated to a video of his favorite porn
scenes. He achieved his first orgasm (and
ejaculated) in 20 minutes. Two minutes lat-
er he came again. According to Whipple, the
man reached orgasm and ejaculated four
more times in the next 14 minutes without
losing his erection. The Advisor occasionally
hears from well-rested men who claim two or
even three ejaculations without losing their
erections. The guy at Rutgers, however, told
researchers he comes five to ten times a day
and once reached orgasm and ejaculated five
times in six minutes. That's a horse you can
bet on.

A friend who is a stereo buff lent me
a compact disc and told me to listen to
it through headphones. It sounded in-
credible. He said it was a binaural re-
cording, I've looked in record stores and
haven't been able to find another disc
like it. Do you have any information?—
LL., Phoenix, Arizona

Most recordings are made for playback
through loudspeakers. Binaural CDs are de-
signed to be played through headphones,
They are created using a life-size model of
a human head equipped with microphones
where the ears would be. The recording head
is placed in the audience or onstage during
performances (or, in the case of nature re-
cordings, carried into the wild) to capture
sound as a listener would hear it. The rich
3D effect can be stunning. John Sunier of
the Binaural Source (800-934-0442, or
www.binaural.com) suggests starting your
collection with an audio drama (Stephen
King's "The Mist"), nature recordiug (Gor-

don Hempton's "Earth Sounds Sampler"),
jazz (Jurgen Sturm's “Tango Subversivo")
or classical music (either of two discs avail-
able on the Auracle label). For an arousing
binaural experience, check out "Cyborgasm, "
a collection of erotic fantasies on CD (800-
724-3283). You'll swear the dominatrix is in
the room, especially when she walks all the
way around your chair.

Have you heard of a sexual position
called the A-attack? A buddy who spent
some time in Japan mentioned it as
something he had done there. He
winked at me like I should know what he
was talking about, so I said, “Yeah, that's
a great one.” Can you tell me what it
is?—F.W,, San Francisco, California

If you visit a Japanese bathhouse and ask
your “health girl” for an A-attack, she will
stimulate your anus with a vibrator or finger
while masturbating you with her free hand.
You can also turn the tables and “attack”
her. A variation is the A-attack pearl, in
which the hostess inserts a string of pearls in-
to her client's anus and then, while blowing
him, pulls the string out pearl by pearl.
These and other sexual delicacies are de-
scribed in “Japan's Sex Trade,” a guide by
Peter Constantine. In daisharin asobi (the
“big wheel game”), a “soap lady” lies on top
of the man, then slowly rotates her body so he
can lick and touch the parts that cross his
face. Variations are daisharin, in which the
partners rotate in opposite directions, and
tokei asobi, in which the woman fellates the
man while crawling clockwise around his
body. If you're lucky, she'll take an hour todo
it rather than a minute.

How can 1 book an inexpensive fight
at the last minute? Every once in a while

ILLUSTRATION BY ISTVAN BANYAL

I get the urge to take off for the week-
end. But if I don't book two or three
weeks in advance, the cost of a ticket (or
two) is out of my price range.—PR.,
Tampa, Florida

Not necessarily. Visit Deal Watch at web
fiyex.com. Sponsored by “Inside Flyer” mag-
je, the Web site lists last-minute specials
on flights, car rentals and hotel rooms. Air-
lines offer discounts to fill empty seats, so not
every route or departure city will be listed.
Domestic deals are good for the weekend fol-
lowing the Wednesday they're posted. Most
leave on Saturday and return on Monday or
Tuesday. International deals are posted on
Mondays, with flights leaving Wednesday,
Thursday or Friday. You never know where
you might end up.

Your response in July to the man with
the large penis caught my eye. In my ex-
perience, well-endowed men make the
worst lovers. They think a big dick is all
they need. My best partners had what
they considered small (1 would say aver-
age-sized) penises. But they all had won-
derful tongues!—W.S., Cleveland, Ohio

Now we're belittling men with large penis-
es? What's the world coming to? Your letter
is a word to the wise. On Playboy TV's
“Night Calls,” Juli Ashton and Doria have
complained that many guys with big dicks
never learn to eat pussy properly. Make sure
ou have something else to offer.

IM, lover and 1 enjoy moderate S&M.
Lately his kid brother, who attends col-
lege nearby, has been asking questions
about the more exotic and erotic aspects
of sex. My lord and master has decid-
ed to give his brother a sex education
course, using me as a demonstration
model. Lesson one will show how to
gendy and passionately strip a woman.
Lesson two will cover foreplay and a va-
riety of positions. Lesson three will in-
clude the delights of oral sex and some
pointers on S&M, if that interests him.
I'm proud of my body and don't mind
displaying it, but I'm concerned about
my lover. Although he says he loves the
feeling of owning me completely, I don't
think he could help but regard me as a
whore if he saw me with another man.
We've agreed to let you decide if we
should go ahead with the plan.—L.R.,
Washington, D.C.

Let's be honest. This isn’t about sex educa-
tion. It's about fulfilling your sexual fan-
tasies. The only thing the kid will learn in
your bedroom is how to fuck his brother's
girlfriend. That's not particularly useful in
the dating scene. Arranging a threesome—
or, technically, a twosome and a voyeur—is
complicated enough without involving rela-
tives. Besides, you're overlooking the third
heart in this scenario. Your lover's brother

39

PLAYBOY

40

may want more than a demonstration model
to teach him about sex.

Do you know of a way to speed up Web
access? I replaced my 28.8K modem
with a 56K but haven't seen much differ-
ence.—T.W., Fort Wayne, Indiana

Don't be surprised that your 56K modem
never reaches 56K. The best achieve only
40K to 50K. Check that your access provider
supports 56K access, and that your modem is
dialing the correct number. Open your con-
trol panel and make sure your port set-
tings are at the maximum (115K). Remove
any device—answering machine, caller ID,
surge suppressor—that might be causing in-
terference. Finally, upgrade your modem
with the latest version of its “firmware.” For
more info, visit www.56k.com. The bottle-
neck also may originate with your access
providers equipment, data traffic jams
(common during the day or early evening) or
noisy outside lines. Here's a simple test: Bor-
row a 56K modem that achieves 40K to 50K
elsewhere and use it with your computer: If
it's slow, your problem is likely on the line.
Depending on your need for speed, you
might consider another upgrade, to a pricier
digital connection. Isn't that how it al-
ways works?

AA close friend broke up with his girl-
friend after an awful fight. The next day
she went to his apartment and kicked
him hard in the balls when he opened
the door. He was in excruciating pain
but told me he was too embarrassed to
see a doctor. I've never taken a hit like
that, but I told him to ice it. Was I
right?—E.D., Dallas, Texas

Insist that he see a doctor, and offer to
go with him. This assault may have caused
permanent damage. The only person who
should feel embarrassed is his ex. If your
friend is reluctant to see a doctor, he'll prob-
ably never report the incident to the police.
That's a disservice to the next guy she dates.

Oh occasion a person writes the Advi-
sor to describe an affair he or she had
and how it enhanced his or her sex life.
This happened in April, when a woman
wrote about an affair she'd had at work.
In my view, if you cheat, your marriage
is as good as over. You seem to condone
this activity, however, calling it sexual
“discovery.” Do you honestly believe that
a woman's sex life and marriage will be
better because she screwed around? Am
I the only one who finds it disturbing
that PLAYBOY encourages its readers to
cheat?—].L., St. Paul, Minnesota

We do not encourage adultery. Never
have, never will. The woman you mention
didn't cheat to sabotage her marriage. She
felt neglected and was confused about how to
fix the situation. She realized that fucking a
salesman on her desk wasn't the solution. We
don't agree with your contention that adul-
tery means a relationship is over. Deception
is certainly a sign that something is amiss.

But sometimes the cheating heart realizes
where it would rather be and returns there.

V have trouble figuring out what “stop”
means to a woman. When I am caressing
my girlfriend and am about to have sex
with her, sometimes she tells me to stop.
When I ignore her and persist, it can
lead to great sex for both of us. On oth-
er occasions she gives me the evil eye
when we've finished, complaining that I
should have stopped but didn't, and that
it turned her off. She always says “stop”
in the same tone of voice and with the
same urgency. We have been together
for five years. How can I tell what she re-
ally wants? —L.Y., Kyoto, Japan

You've encountered a problem that always
sparks debate: When does no mean no? The
easy answer is that no always means no, es-
pecially when you're with someone you don't
know well. Al the same time, many women
enjoy being “taken,” and a symbolic refusal
adds to the drama. Couples who engage in
bondage or SEM (where giving up control is
part of the fantasy) leave nothing to chance.
If the submissive partner wants a situation
to end, he or she uiters a “safe word” such as
red. That allows a woman to say “No! Stop!
You animal!” to her heart’s content. This
sort of engaged fantasy requires communi-
cation, however, and it sounds like your re-
lationship lacks that. Guys in long-term rela-
tionships usually rely on body language to
tell them when to back off and when it's OK
to push gently for more. Because you can't
figure out when no means maybe, even after
five years, take your girlfriend’s commands
at face value. When she says stop, do just
that. No exceptions. No negotiations. No
whining. If she then says, "I didn’t mean
that,” let her make the next move. Your goal
is lo eliminate the games and the regrets.

Some 20 years ago, PLAYBOY printed
instructions on how to fold a dollar bill
into the Rabbit Head. My husband did
and had carried one in his wallet ever
since. Two months ago I washed his wal-
let with his jeans. The dollar bill was flat-
tened, and I feel awful. Can you help me
put the Rabbit back in his pocket?—
L.G., Lafayette, Indiana

Sure—can you break a hundred? We first
shared the Buck Rabbit with readers in De-
cember 1979. You'll find the instructions on-
line at wwu.playboy.com/faq.

A few months ago a reader wrote to ask
about superthin condoms. In your reply
you neglected to mention polyurethane
condoms. Was there a reason?—W.D.,
Las Vegas, Nevada

We're careful about recommending poly-
urethane condoms to anyone who isn’t aller-
gic to latex, which is the only FDA-approved
use for them. The agency has yet lo OK the
product (made by Durex under the brand
name Avanti) as a contraceptive or barrier
against sexually transmitted diseases. That's
largely because of concerns about its durabil-

ity. In a study last year involving 800 cou-
ples, 8.5 percent of the Avanti condoms broke
or slipped off during intercourse or with-
drawal, compared with 1.6 percent of latex
condoms. About 30 percent of the men said
plastic condoms were difficult to put on.
Still, polyurethane has its fans. It's twice as
thin as latex and allows more heat transfer.
It’s odorless and safe with oil-based lubri-
cants. Avanti has become a best-seller at
stores such as Condomania (800-926-6366),
which moves about 1000 a month. That's a
lot of allergies.

The letter in April from the man who
wants his wife to wear nail polish hit
close to home. My husband has started
insisting that I wear polish in bed. When
1 was pregnant, I began primping for
him, doing my nails for the first time
since high school. He responded enthu-
siastically, so I let him put on the top coat
and then masturbated him after it dried.
Now he has almost stopped having sex
with me unless I do my nails. When he
does, he prefers to go down on me and
for me to get him off manually. Lately he
has been insisting that I wear press-on
nails around the house on weekends. I
have thought of hinting that he visit a
call girl for his selfish fun and come to
me only for mutually satisfying lovemak-
ing. I don’t want him to do that, but my
wrist and I are getting tired. What can I
do to refocus his interest on the rest of
my body?—].O.,, Chicago, Illinois

It sounds like your husband's nail fetish
has gotten out of hand. Given the consuming.
nature of fetishes, he may not even realize
you're frustrated. Have you confronted him
“about it? (Don't paint your nails before you.
do.) Remind him of what you've been miss-
ing—namely, variely. How bored would he
be if all you ever asked for was the mission-
ary position, in the dark, on clean sheets? If.
you get a blank stare, consider counseling.
And don't be afraid to set boundaries. Your
husband's fetish can remain in the bedroom,
and he has no right to "insist" on anything.
The man wants dessert without showing up
for the meal.

All reasonable questions—from fashion,
food and drink, stereo and sports cars to dat-
ing dilemmas, taste and etiquette—will be
personally answered if the writer includes a
self-addressed, stamped envelope. The most
provocative, pertinent questions will be pre-
sented in these pages each month. Write the
Playboy Advisor, PLAYBOY, 680 North Lake
Shore Drive, Chicago, Illinois 60611, or ad
visor @playboy.com (because of volume, we
cannot respond to all e-mail inquiries). Look
for responses to our most frequently asked
questions al www.playboy.com/faq, and
check out the Advisor's latest collection of se
tricks, “365 Ways to Improve Your Sex Life”
(Plume), available in bookstores or by phon-
ing 800-423-9494.

n 3 E
16619 y 'οΡΕΟΠΙΟ 'seeg uoueg Aq peyoduut "006, epsep ‘Cong LPRSZEN ue gptJoqejo Bold ep πχολλοο Bun

www.playboy.com

Roll on those zebra-print spandex pants
you've been hiding in the closet and rock
out with the best from Judas Priest,
Twisted Sister, Foison, Spinal Tap and
móre, compliments of your friends at
the Hard Rock Cafe and Rhino.

Wax up your ears and hit the waves
with Dick Dale, Jan & Dean, The Beach
Boys, The Chantays, The Surfaris and
yes, even the Ventures doing

“Hawaii Five-0.”

Songs featured in the hit ABC TV show
including “Cleveland Rocks,” “Five
O'Clock World,” “Moon Over Parma,”
anda very special version of “Working
In The Coal Mine” as performed by the
Wintred-Louder staff.

True, nobody says “FLove You” like
Poison, but we also threw Meat Loaf,
Cinderella, Styx, and Night Ranger on
this collection of back seat ballads
anyway.

5

The only record
label worth
looking for.

THE PLAYBOY FORUM

PRESCRIBING THE FORBIDDEN MEDICINE

a doctor challenges the feds

1 recounted the history of medical
cannabis. But it was not until 1972,
a year after the book's publication,
that what had been an issue of public
policy became a personal one. Early
that spring I fell into conversation at
a dinner party with Dr. Emil Frei,
who had recently arrived from Texas
to serve as head of cancer research at
Boston's Children's Hospital. Dr. Frei
told me about an 18-year-old Hous-
ton man who had become increasing-
ly reluctant to undergo chemother-
apy for his leukemia because the
nausea and vomiting were unbear-
able. His doctors and family
were having trouble persuad-
ing him to take the drug he
needed to survive. One day
the patient’s attitude changed,
and he no longer feared che-
motherapy. It turned out he
was preventing nausea by tak-
ing a few pufls of marijuana
20 minutes before each ses-
sion. On the way home my
wife, Betsy, suggested some-
thing that had occurred to
both of us: Marijuana might be
what our son Danny needed.
Danny was diagnosed with
acute lymphocytic leukemia
in July 1967, when he was
ten, For the first few years he
willingly accepted his treat-
ment at Children’s Hospital
and even the occasional need
for hospitalization. In 1971
he started taking the first of
the chemotherapy drugs that
cause severe nausea and vom-
iting. In his case the standard
treatments were ineffective.
He started to vomit shortly af-
ter his chemotherapy sessions
and continued retching for as
long as eight hours. He would vomit
in the car as we drove home and then
lie in bed with his face over a bucket
on the floor. Still, I dismissed the idea
of using marijuana to ease his discom-
fort. It was against the law and might
embarrass the hospital staff that had
been so devoted to Danny's care. At
that point, I had been exposed to
the medical benefits of marijuana on-
ly through text and testimony. Had
I known how dramatically it would

| n my book Marihuana Reconsidered

By DR. LESTER GRINSPOON

affect my son I would never have
objected.

The next chemotherapy session
was two weeks after the conversation
at the dinner party. When I arrived at
the hospital, Betsy and Danny were
already there, and I shall never for-
get my surprise. They were relaxed
instead of anxious, and they seemed
almost to be playing a joke on me.
On their way to the clinic they had
stopped near Wellesley High School
and spoken with one of Danny's
friends. After recovering from his

shock at their request, the friend ran
off and reappeared a few minutes lat-
er with a small amount of marijuana.
Danny and Betsy smoked it in the
hospital parking lot before entering
the clinic. I was relieved and then de-
lighted as I observed how comfort-
able Danny was. He didn't protest as
he was given the treatment, and he
felt no nausea afterward. On the way
back we stopped to buy him a subma-
rine sandwich.

"The next day I called Dr. Norman
Jaffe, the physician in charge of Dan-
ny's care, to explain what had hap-
pened. I said that although I didn't
want to embarrass him or his staff, I
had witnessed the effect of the drug
and could not stand in the way of fur-
ther marijuana use. Dr. Jaffe suggest-
ed Danny smoke in his presence in
the treatment room next time. Again
Danny became completely relaxed,
and again he asked for a submarine
sandwich afterward. During the re-
maining year of his life he used mari-
juana before each treatment, and I
cannot overstate how much it eased
his dying and gave comfort to
the whole family. As Danny
put it, "Pot turns bad things
into good." Sometimes I won-
dered whether he ever asked
himself why his father, an au-
thority on medicinal marijua:
na, had not suggested this
possibility earlier.

How did marijuana become
the forbidden medicine? In
the 19th century, physicians
knew more about marijuana
than contemporary doctors
do. Between 1840 and 1900,
medical journals published
more than 100 papers on the
therapeutic use of Indian
hemp. It was recommended
as an appetite stimulant, mus-
cle relaxant, analgesic, seda-
tive and anticonvulsant, and
as a treatment for opium ad-
diction and migraines. As it
was chiefly administered oral-
ly in an alcohol solution, the
potency varied and the re-
sponse was often unreliable.

Shortly after the turn of the
century, synthetic alternatives
became available for insomnia
and moderate pain. In the U.S., what
remained of marijuana's legitimate
medical use was effectively eliminated
by the Marijuana Tax Act of 1937,
which was ostensibly designed to pre-
vent nonmedical use. The law made
cannabis so difficult to obtain that it
was removed from standard pharma-
ceutical references. In 1970, as I was
completing Marihuana Reconsidered, a
new federal law classified marijuana
as a Schedule I drug, which means

41

42

the government believes it has a high
potential for abuse, has no accepted
medical use and is unsafe even under
medical supervision.

That didn't stop sick people from
experimenting. Letters about mari-
juana’s medical uses began to appear
in PLAYROY and other publications in
the early Seventies. People who had
learned that marijuana could relieve
asthma, nausea, muscle spasms and
pain shared their Knowledge. Thirty-
five states passed legislation that would
have permitted the medical use of
cannabis but for the federal law. The
most effective spur to the movement
came from the AIDS epidemic. People
with AIDS learned that the drug could
restore their appetites and prevent
what is known as the AIDS wast-
ing syndrome.

In 1972 the National Organi-
zation for the Reform of Marijua-
na Laws entered a petition to
move marijuana out of Schedule
1 so that it could become a pre-
scription drug. It wasn't until
1986 that the Drug Enforcement
Administration agreed to the
public hearings required by law.
After two years of testimony, the
DEA's administrative law judge,
Francis L. Young, declared that
marijuana fulfilled the require-
ment for transfer to Schedule II.
He described it as “one of the
safest therapeutically active sub-
stances known to man.” His deci-
sion was overruled by the DEA.

The Schedule I classification
persists—politically entrenched
but medically absurd, legally
questionable and morally wrong.

After Danny's death, I began
to think about how many other
people like him might enjoy sim-
ilar physical and emotional relief
from marijuana. Maybe this medicine
had advantages over conventional
drugs in more than one way. In the
years since, I have been able to pursue
this question.

One patient, whom I will call John,
was a 65-year-old retired college pro-
fessor from New York City. He said he
had been depressed for 20 years and
had been in psychotherapy all that
time. He had been treated with electro-
convulsive therapy and given prescrip-
tions for one antidepressant drug after
another, always without success. John
consulted me because of my writings
on marijuana. He had been hospital-
ized several times, and on one of those
occasions a marijuana cigarette given
to him by a fellow patient produced
“the first authentic depression-free mo-

ment of my life.” But marijuana was
difficult to obtain, and he was worried
about going to jail. I recommended
and his doctor prescribed Marinol (a
synthetic version of delta-9-tetrahydro-
cannabinol, the main active substance
in cannabis). Marinol has been avail-
able in oral form for limited purposes
as a Schedule II drug since 1985. Al-
though patients and physicians agree
it is generally less effective, with
more uncomfortable side effects, than
smoked marijuana, it is the only legal
alternative. It works fairly well for
some patients—including, fortunately,
John. He is still taking Marinol, and his
depression has not recurred.

From this and other experiences in
the past 30 years, 1 have become con-

THE

-HEDULE |

ES

POLITICALLY
ENTRENCHED
BUT MEDICALLY
ABSURD.

vinced that marijuana is a strikingly
versatile medicine for treating nausea
and vomiting caused by cancer chemo-
therapy, weight-loss syndrome of AIDS,
glaucoma, epilepsy, muscle spasms,
chronic pain, depression and other
mood disorders.

Marijuana is also remarkably safe,
with fewer serious side effects than
most prescription medicines, Since it
has little effect on the physiological
functions needed to sustain life, there
have been no cases of death or serious
injury from an overdose. If you know
anything about medicines, you will
know how extraordinary that is. A re-
cent study estimated that adverse reac-
tions to prescription drugs kill more
than 100,000 patients a year.

Some people find cannabis useful for

relieving the pains of osteoarthritis.
The standard treatments are aspirin
and other nonsteroidal anti-inflamma-
tory drugs, which cause more than
7600 deaths and 70,000 hospital:
tions each year from gastrointestinal
complications (mainly stomach bleed-
ing). Another standard treatment is acet-
aminophen, which is one of the most
common causes of terminal kidney fail-
ure. If some people with arthritis find
marijuana to be as effective as these
drugs, they should be allowed to use it.

A familiar objection to marijuana as
medicine is that the evidence is anec-
dotal—that supporters count apparent
successes and ignore failures. It is true
that no efficacy studies have been
done, chiefly because legal, bureau-
cratic and financial obstacles
have been put in the way of such
testing. Yet so much research has
been done on marijuana in un-
successful efforts to demonstrate
its health hazards and addictive
potential that we know more
about it than we do about most
prescription drugs.

Besides, anecdotal evidence is
the source of much of our knowl-
edge of drugs. Controlled exper-
iments were not needed to rec-
ognize the therapeutic potential
of barbiturates, aspirin, insu-
lin, penicillin or lithium. Anec-
dotal evidence would be a seri-
ous problem only if cannabis
were a dangerous drug. Even if
just a few patients can get relief
from cannabis, it should be made
available. The risks are so small.
For example, many people with
multiple sclerosis find cannabis
reduces muscle spasms and pain.
"The standard treatments indude
baclofen, dantrolene and high
doses of diazepam—all potential-
ly dangerous or addictive drugs.

If cannabis were not prohibited, it
would cost less than most conventional
medications. The price would be $20 to
$30 an ounce, or about 30 cents per
cigarette. One cigarette usually relieves
the nausea and vomiting produced by
chemotherapy. A standard dose of on-
dansetron (Zofran), the best legally
available treatment, costs the patient
$30 to $40.

The many thousands of Americans
who use marijuana as a medicine are,
legally, criminals. Sick people have to
weigh the benefits against the risks of
financial ruin, loss of a career or forfei-
ture of an automobile or home. A few
have been given absurdly long prison
sentences.

One case I am familiar with involves

ΕΠ FORUMS

Harvey Ginsburg, a professor of psy-
chology at Southwest Texas State Uni-
versity. He suffers from glaucoma, and
since 1986 had been taking marijuana
to treat the illness. He also has taken
prescription medicines, which his oph-
thalmologist says are insufficient to
prevent progression of the disease. AF
ter he began using marijuana, his eyc-
sight stopped deteriorating and his in-
traocular pressure improved. On June
24, 1994 he and his wife, Diana, were
arrested for felony possession—six
plants (weighing two ounces each) and
eight ounces of marijuana brownies.
An acquaintance of his son, responding
to a flier that offered “a profitable, ex-
citing, guilt-free way to earn money,”
had placed a call to police for a $1000
reward.

While Ginsburg prepared to
presenta defense of medical ne-
cessity, a lien was filed against his
property and his assets were
frozen to enforce payment of
the Texas Controlled Substanc-
es tax. In July 1995 the district
attorney decided to dismiss all
charges for the sake of judicial
expedience. A week later the lo-
cal police chief wrote an angry
letter to the town newspaper ex-
pressing his displeasure. The
head of the narcotics division
then contacted the superinten-
dent of the school system where
Diana worked as a special-edu-
cation counselor. The superin-
tendent threatened to fire her
and have her teaching license
revoked on the grounds that she
had violated the district’s zero-
tolerance policy by living with an
accused marijuana user. Even-
tually Diana decided to resign,
though she later received a
settlement.

Another case I have learned of
involves Russ Hokanson, a 54-
year-old paraplegic who lives on a farm
in New Hampshire. He has been using
cannabis as an analgesic for 30 years,
because he found that marijuana re-
lieved his chronic pain, stimulated his
appetite and reduced depression and
anxiety. He found it even helped him
restore bladder control and achieve a
normal erection. He decided to start
growing his own medicine. As a result,
he was arrested and the state of New
Hampshire attempted to seize his
house and land.

Pharmaceutical companies will not
pursue the research needed to test
marijuana's therapeutic potential be-
cause they cannot patent an ancient
plant medicine. The federal govern-

ment, the other major source of fund-
ing for medical research, also has
blocked the way. In 1994 an investi-
gator at the University of California
at San Francisco sought approval for
a privately funded study comparing
smoked marijuana with oral synthetic
THC in the treatment of AIDS wasting
syndrome. Although this project was
approved by the FDA and several insti-
tutional review boards and advisory
committees, the National Institute on
Drug Abuse and the Drug Enforce-
ment Administration prevented the in-
vestigator from receiving the marijua-
na he needed. Maybe the passage of
the California initiative legalizing me-
dicinal marijuana will persuade federal
authorities to relent. The Institute of

Medicine, a branch of the National
Academy of Sciences, is now conduct-
ing a review of marijuana’s medical us-
es. Buta research program designed to
study clinical applications of this drug
will take years, and other ways must be
found in the meantime to accommo-
date the needs of a rapidly increasing
number of patients.

When medical use of marijuana in
the U.S. was effectively outlawed in
1937, the American Medical Associa-
tion, to its credit, opposed the ban.
ce then, physicians have been both
ictims and agents in the spread of mis-
information. Ignorance, lack of inter-
est and government obfuscation con-
tinue to limit our chances to recognize

marijuana's medical potential.

In 1990, only 43 percent of those
who responded to an American Society
of Clinical Oncology survey said that
available legal antiemetic drugs (in-
cluding oral synthetic THC) provided
adequate relief for all or most of their
cancer patients. Forty-four percent had
recommended the use of marijuana to
at least one patient, and half would
prescribe it to some patients if it were
legal. On average, they considered
smoked marijuana more effective than
oral synthetic THC and about as safe.

When doctors confront the needs of
their patients, they recognize the fool-
ishness of these laws. But most, so far,
are either afraid to do more or unable
to provide further help because they
know too little. To prescribe a
medicine responsibly, a physi-
cian must balance risks and ben-
efits. In most cases a doctor re-
lies on the knowledge that the
FDA has already analyzed a
drug. A physician who recom-
mends marijuana does not have
that assurance.

I'm confident, because I know
the balance of risk and benefit is
powerfully weighted by mari-
juana's time-tested safety. If I
didn't recommend it when it is
clearly in a patient's best inter-
ests, I would be compromising
my physician’s oath. After 30
years of study, I know more
about this substance—and about.
what is best for my patients—
than any government official or
public relations person for the
Partnership for a Drug-Free
America does.

1 will continue to recommend
marijuana when it appears to be
the most effective and least toxic
choice. But under the present
laws, neither I nor my patients
will be able to avoid anxiety. I
could lose my license to practice medi-
cine and my patients could be arrested
and have their property confiscated.
This makes me uncomfortable—but
not nearly so uncomfortable as I feel
when I consider that if 1 avoid recom-
mending marijuana, I may repeat the
mistake 1 made by not encouraging my
son to use it earlier in the course of his
illness.

Lester Grinspoon, M.D. is the author,
with James Bakalar, of "Marihuana, the
Forbidden Medicine" (Yale University Press,
1997). For more information on medical
marijuana, consult Dr. Grinspoon's Web site
at wuw.rxmarihuana.com.

43

44

WASHINGTON SEX TOUR
James R. Petersen tells us
that our president is concerned
about how he will be viewed by
history ("Sex Tour of Washing-
ton,” The Playboy Forum, May).
Many of our past presidents are
remembered by nicknames
commemorating their princi-
pal accomplishments: Father of
Our Country, Great Emancipa-
tor, Great Communicator, etc. I
suspect it follows that Clinton
will forever be associated with
his primary activity and known
to one and all as Blow Job Bill.
William Broderick
Willowbrook, Illinois

The American public isn't
buying the right-wing assump-
tion that an active sex life en-
tails an incapacity to govern.
Thank God we have a presi-
dent who is hornier than thou
instead of one who is a geriatric
hypocrite.
Curtis Brown

Neenah, Wisconsin

Because of an alleged series
of trysts that used no tax mon-
ey, involved no fraud, payola or
special favors and gave plea-
sure to the people involved,
plans are afoot to throw the
president out of office. Under
the worst of circumstances, hav-
ing one's cock sucked is a good
thing—and it is the business
of nobody except the parties
involved.

Frank Apisa
Piscataway, New Jersey

Asa former member of the military, I
remember the loyalty instilled in us,
the young servicemen who agreed to
wager our lives for the preservation of
the privileges we and our parents,
grandparents, children and grandchil-
dren enjoy. Loyalty to our president
was unquestioned. These days, with all
of our liberal ideas, Americans feel free
to pry into anyone's privacy to satisfy
our sick need for gossip. Come on,
people! Get your minds out of the gut-
ter and your noses out of the oval of-
fice. Don't foul the machinery over
penny-ante crap. Anyone will tell you
they don’t want a wimp for president;
they want one with cojones. Well, we've

“The people who hate pornography seem to
spend every waking moment sifting through
stuff looking not for what they like but for what
they dislike the most, which they'll then collect
and force other people to look at:
most horrible thing you've ever seen!’ And since
presumably they don't allow themselves to mas-
turbate or have any sort of sexual release with
the pornography they collect, they're in a state
of almost hysterical sexual tension all the time,
which they continue to feed by looking at more
and more horrible stuff.”
—EXCERPT FROM AN INTERVIEW WITH NIGHT OWL,
A SEX-POSITIVE ACTIVIST, WRITER AND EDUCA-
TOR, CONDUCTED BY THE SOCIETY FOR HUMAN

SEXUALITY (www.sexuality.org)

got such a president. Let him use those
cojones whenever he likes.

Louis Fayard
Houston, Texas

Petersen rightly questions the me-
dia’s preoccupation with reporting sex
scandals.

The press again jumped at the op-
portunity to crawl on their lowly bellies
when UK Prime Minister Tony Blair
made a Washington appearance short-
ly after the Monica Lewinsky story
broke. Their pursuit in questioning
President Clinton about the Ken Starr
debacle was infantile and degrading.
‘There is life and a world beyond Ken

isn't this the

Starr, Monica Lewinsky, Linda
‘Tripp and Lucianne Goldberg.
Our press could have acknowl-
edged that fact during Blair's
visit, but they blew it.
George Jakovics
Annapolis, Maryland

MILITARY MIGHT

Enough of the brass-bashing!
Geoffrey Norman's article
“Self-Inflicted Wounds" (The
Playboy Forum, May) is a pathet-
ic display of selecive memory.
The issues he raises about
women in the military are the
same as those the brass raised
when gender integration of the
armed forces became a hot top-
ic during the Seventies. Our
lawmakers wanted it, the courts
pushed it and women were all
for it. When the tide of pub-
lic opinion overwhelmed the
protests of skeptical soldiers,
the brass settled down to give
gender integration its best shot.
Over the past few years we have
had lots of reasons to be proud
of our armed forces and their
leaders. I can't think ofa single
reason to be proud of Geoffrey
Norman.

Reggie Audibert
Irvine, California

Norman is fighting a losing
battle. Despite stalwart at-
tempts on the part of the mili-
tary to keep interaction be-
tween the sexes neutral, human
nature will not be denied. The
Brits recently capitulated to
this self-evident truth when
they announced their plan to
decriminalize adultery. The Ministry of
Defense has issued a statement saying
that the new guidelines are designed to
recognize changes in society, and that
trying to punish aflairs is “unrealistic.”
But the brass is willing to cave only so
much. While it agreed to ignore extra-
marital affairs between soldiers and
civilians, it still forbids fraternizing with-
in the ranks.

William Derrick
Wilmington, Delaware

Norman's article is right on target.
He must be an Army veteran. As a non-
comissioned officer at a tactical intelli-
gence unit in Germany during the

Reagan years, I lived the situations he
describes. Our unit was 50 percent fe-
male, replete with single mothers who
used the Army for day care, health in-
surance and free room and board. At
the same time they uscd sexual manip-
ulation to get out of driving trucks,
changing tires and other duties they
admitted they could not perform. Fe-
male officers were just as bad. One offi-
cer in command wore hotpants to com-
pany baseball games but scolded men
with “I’m a soldier, not a woman” bull-
shit and routinely sneaked out of unit
deployments. She once rejected senior
NCO candidates for a commendation
medal because they were men. Even
though some of us spent days out in
the bush collecting intelligence, she
gave the commendation medal to a
woman who was scared of the dark and
worked the radio during exercises. In
the Army, a woman can do as well as a
man—so long as there are enough men
around to help.

Al Ludwig
Chesapeake, Virginia

GOOD GUYS

While I have to thank James R. Pe-
tersen for his efforts in compiling an
exhaustive list of the contributions
men have made to the art of sex (“Guys
Are Good,” The Playboy Forum, April), 1
feel compelled to remind him that
when we resort to justifying our exis
tence, we lose the argument. Ultimate-
ly, lists that try to prove our worth are
as sexist as the “whining, nagging”
magazine articles written by women
who are busily compiling their own
lists. The only way to attain a society
without chauvinism is to stop being
chauvinistic. That one of our own gave
us the vibrator is worth celebrating on-
ly in our hearts. The appropriate way
to display such pride is to lavish it upon
the ones we love.

Doug O'Shell
Aurora, Colorado

Petersen is right: Men are under as-
sault. Most women glean their sexual
knowledge about men from the wom-
en's magazines that encourage hearts
and romance and discourage dirty rut-
ting. Which is too bad, because most
women will never learn the power or
pleasure of their own sexuality. The
good news is that there are a lot of
women like me who enjoy rug burns,
sleeping on the wet spot and swallow-

ing. We know the only way to a guy's
heart is via a really good blow job. We
get off on getting you off. We love
trashy lingerie, porn, handcuffs and
hot oil. We aren't insecure when you
ogle other women and aren't jealous of
the latest Centerfold. We have confi-
dence in who we are—that's why we're
such an unbelievable fantasy-come-
true in bed.

Nannette LaRee Hernandez

Yuma, Arizona

Finally, you hitit right on the money.
We men realize that the world doesn't
revolve around us; rather, we make the
world go round. Women may deny it,
but we know we're what keeps them
going. We keep sex fresh, we keep it
real and, most important, we keep it
good. So what if everything practically
reminds us of it?

A. Hunter
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania

Women fantasize about celebrity
fucks because we hold out the hope
that maybe those guys have gotten
enough pussy to acquire technique. As
for a woman's less-than-honest por-
trayal of her sexual history, Petersen
and his buddies can take credit for
that: We didn't come up with the lock-
er-room ratings that judge a woman's
worthiness by her sexual deeds. The
sooner guys realize that women can be
whores and Madonnas in the same life
and still be worthy of men's attention,

the sooner we can get nekkid and get

off together.
Crystal West
Dallas, Texas

BACKLASH RESPONSES

Where do you get the people who
write the sniveling responses to your
articles on the drug war? (“Sentencing
Backlash,” Reader Response, April)? 1
have little compassion for the hard-
core hard-drug dealers who belong in
jail, but it took thousands of regular
people rattling cages for even an hon-
orable mention of the problem on the
national news. The war on drugs has
always been a cruel joke on the Ameri-
can people, but because the voting
public waited ten years to address the
situation, the trenches were already too
well dug for us to be able to do any-
thing but annoy the powers that be
Now that jails are so full of dangerous
pot-smokers that ten new prisons must
be built every month, it's typical that
the “new” problem of mandatory mi
mums is finally slipping into the Amer-

ican consciousness.

Jesse Greenwald
Winslow, Arizona

I am compelled to respond to the let-
ter in the April Reader Response from
David Correa, who claims to be an in-
nocent casualty of the war on drugs. 1
will not attempt to defend that war, but
I must defend the truth.

Following an investigation of a large

FORUM Ε.Υ.Ι.

Operating on the premise of doing it right by

` doing it yourself, exotic dancers Lisa Rollins
and Erin McGrady started Connected at the
Hip Productions and the Erotic Short Film
and Video Festival to promote realistic im-

- ages of the adult entertainment industry.
Rollins and McGrady take a special interest

in showcasing and developing new talent
within the erotic genre, and expect to at-

hool students, amateur filmmakers and home video au-

teurs. Categories include soft-core, hard-core, animation, fetish and peo-
ple's choice.The festival takes place August 6 through 9 at the Universal
Sheraton in Los Angeles during the World Conference on Pornography.
For more information, call 310-394-5066.

45

cocaine distribution ring in Altoona,
Pennsylvania that revealed him to be
the principal supplier, Correa was ar-
rested while in possession of more
than six pounds of cocaine. The night
after his arrest, 1 directed a search of
his home. We found the following
items: trafficking weight of cocaine, a
pound of lactose (used to cut cocaine
for distribution), a laboratory device
for testing the purity of cocaine, two
high-spced cash-counting machines,
documents that link Correa to exten-
sive drug trafficking activities be-
tween South America and the U.S., a
letter Correa had written to his ex-
wife admitting his drug activities and
a hidden room containing hand gre-
nades, machine guns with silencers
and thousands of rounds of automat-
ic-weapon ammunition. There was a
loaded firearm in every corner of his
bedroom.
Correa's statement that he had

“nothing to offer the government” is

false. I was at the U.S. Attorney's Of- —

fice in Pittsburgh when Correa of-
fered to cooperate for a reduced
sentence. He had plenty to offer, but
after the questioning got too close

to a drug-related murder that oc-
curred a couple of years earlier in
Miami and he was caught lying,
Correa declined to talk further.
He decided to take his chances
with a jury and was convicted
based on overwhelming evidence
that he was a major distributor of co-
caine and illegal weapons.

It has been said that truth is the
first casualty of war, and the drug
war is no different. PLAYBOY claims
to be a forum for the truth. Re-
gardless of your editorial position
on the drug laws for which Correa
was convicted, fairness requires
that you publish the truth about his
case, just as you published his self-de-
luded version.

Gary Beatty
Sharpes, Florida

I was excited by the positive re-
sponses in the April issue to James
Bovard's article on drug sentences
(“Time Out for Justice,” The Playboy
Forum, December). If there is so much
agreement among Americans, why
are there no alternatives to prison
sentences? Because decriminalization
must wait until our legislators find a
way to make drugs legally profitable.
But I have no doubt that they'll find a
way. With the right marketing plan,
the Marlboro man could become a
hip rasta and give Republicans (who
receive more money from big tobacco

than the Democrats do) an excellent
opportunity to improve their image
among young constituents.

Mitzi Hoffman

St. Louis, Missouri

Assuming Donna Troy's informa-
tion is correct, the case of Mindy
Brass, the 39-year-old prisoner who
was refused a heart transplant due to
her life-without-parole status, raises a
few interesting questions. The Michi-
gan “650 lifer law” seems to be based
on assessing the magnitude rather
than the nature of the crime. Maybe
Michigan knows something we don't
about what can be done with 650
grams that would be impossible with
only 600.

If Michigan remains consistent in
its application, the size of any crime

RIGHT NOW, EVEN DARWIN
15 CONVINCE?

once-secrel symbol for
believers in Christianity is al the center
of a public war between evolutionists
and theologians, with the latter crying
foul over the commercialization of their
faith. Such protests sound more like
‘sour grapes, since religious devotees
were the first to turn car bumpers in-
to pulpits.

will determine the severity of the
crime and, hence, the punishment.
Remember, Michigan is where 649
grams is all in a day's work but 650
grams pisses people off. Let's say the
grams are dollars: A guy who gets
nailed tipping over a couple of 7-
Elevens for $300 each is charged with
two counts of armed robbery. Anoth-
er guy, more interested in income
than adventure, gets caught robbing
one 7-Eleven for $600. Theoretically,
the man with one count could disap-

pear forever behind the walls of Jack-
son Correctional while the guy with
two counts of $300 would be fully re-
habilitated and out by Christmas.

If the Wizard visits Michigan in
time to get Mindy a new heart, may-
be he can find those tough-on-crime
fellows and give them brains and
courage enough to reduce their incli-
nation to do so much harm.

Russell deBeauclair
Phoenix, Arizona

HOSPITAL MERGER

Stephen Rae's Forum article “Thy
Will Be Done” (April) couldn't have
hit closer to home. As a longtime and
loyal employee of Memorial Hospital
and Medical Center of Cumberland,
Maryland 1 find it unfathomable that
we are in the midst of this so-called

merger. It has divided the commu-

nity and the staffs of both hospitals.

The joining of Memorial and Sa-

cred Heart was meant to be an affil-

iation, with both institutions main-
taining their separate identities.

Over the past two years, a number

of scenarios have been developed
concerning the configuration of
the newly formed Western Mary-
land Health System. In one, the
bulk of the for-profit services
would be located at Sacred
Heart; in another the Memorial
would be converted into a
nursing home. This does not
qualify as an affiliation. It is a
takeover.

With the health system
board preaching cost con-
tainment and ten percent

budget reductions (the board is
immune to this cut), it is our patients
who vill ultimately suffer. A chillingly
similar situation exists in Niagara
Falls, New York, once again courtesy
of the Daughters of Charity National
Health Care System East.

"The bottom line? When you have
been misled and lied to, you lose your
faith in the leadership. How can one
ever expect to build a financial mar-
riage of services on a foundation with
no trust?

Jeffrey Nicholson
Cumberland, Maryland

We would like to hear your point of
view. Send questions, opinions and quirky
stuff to: The Playboy Forum Reader Re-
sponse, PLAYBOY, 680 North Lake Shore
Drive, Chicago, Illinois 60611. Please in-
clude a daytime telephone number. Fax
number: 312-951-2939. E-mail: forum
@playboy.com (please include your city
and state).

P oor Timothy McVeigh. In
‚addition to sharing his name

with the Oklahoma City

bomber, the Navy submarine crew
chief made the mistake of choosing
"boysrch" as his America Online han-
dle. That caught the eye of a Navy
wife to whom he had sent e-mail.
She looked up his AOL user profile,
which described him as a gay man
named Tim from Honolulu. Then
she tipped off his superiors. Violating
its own "don't ask, don't tell" policy,
which prohibits the military from
making any effort to uncover gays.
the Navy sought to out boysrch. In
doing so, it ignored the Flectronic
Communications Privacy Act of 1986,
which bars online service providers
from divulging personal information
without a subpoena, a court warrant
or customer consent. A Navy investi-
gator called America Online and
pried McVeigh's name from an un-
wary customer service representative.
(The rep apparently wasn't aware of
AOLs privacy policy.) Once they had
linked McVeigh to boysrch, Navy

officials moved to discharge him.

Their plans were thwarted. A
federal judge ruled that Mc-
Veigh—praised as the “embodi-
ment of Navy core values” and
“an outstanding role model” in
a performance evaluation—had
been the victim of an illegal
“search and outing mission” and
ordered his full reinstatement.

Senior airman Sonya Harden
wasn't so lucky. An ex-roommate
threatened to identify Harden as
gay if Harden didn't pay her ina
dispute over housing expenses.
The ex-roommate made good on
her threat but confessed at Har-
den’s discharge hearing that
she'd made up the accusation. A
parade of witnesses testified that
Harden was straight. The Air Force
threw her out anyway.

In 1993 General Colin Powell as-
sured the nation that "don't ask, don't
tell, don't pursue” would put an end
to these witch-hunts. It hasn't. Last
year 997 men and women were
drummed out of the military on
charges that they are homosexuals.
That's a 67 percent increase over
1994 (the first year under the new
policy) and close to an 80 percent in-
crease if military downsizing is taken
into account. A deeply flawed com-
promise between President Clinton,

it was a flawed idea,
and it’s not working

By STEPHEN RAE

who wanted to lift the military's gay
ban, and the Pentagon and Congress,
which didn't, the "don’t ask” policy
made it semi-OK to be gay in the mil-
itary—so long as you didn't tell any-
one or have gay sex. Only self-decla-
rations of homosexuality or “credible”
reports of gay conduct—not anony-
mous phone tips—were grounds for
investigations. Much was made of the
policy's “zone of privacy": Having gay
friends, reading gay literature or go-
ing to gay bars were declared protect-
ed behavior that could not be used
as evidence of homosexual conduct.
However, telling someone in a bar

you were gay could be.

The way the Pentagon has dealt
with even these modest changes has
been to ignore them. “Never heard of
it,” said former Air Force Secretary
Sheila Widnall when asked to explain
the zone of privacy. Neither, evident-
ly, have most field commanders, who
continue to mount witch-hunts at no
risk to their careers. (In 1996 and
1997, no commanders were disci-
plined for exceeding the policy's lim-
its.) And, as the McVeigh case dem-
onstrates, military snoops have found
a fertile new ground for entrap-

ment—cyberspace.
“We're seeing investigators
who hang out in gay chat rooms,
trying to identify gay military mem-
bers,” says Michelle Benecke, a law-
yer with the Servicemembers Legal
Defense Network in Washington,
D.C. “If military members give any
indication that they're gay, the inves-
tigators try to use that against them.”
Another tactic that has gained favor is
grilling parents, friends, doctors or
psychologists. The Air Force, which
authorized such strategies in a 1994
memo, claimed it was using them
only to confirm self-declarations of
homosexuality by members of the
ry who had received govern-
ment-funded educations or reenlist-
ment bonuses. But the tactics out-
lined in that memo have spread to
the Army and Navy and are being
used routinely, Benecke says.

Faced with mounting evidence that
“don't ask, don't tell” has failed, De-
fense officials have been hard pressed
for explanations. At first, the Navy

blamed the rising number of dis-
charges for homosexuality on
the processing of backlogged cas-
es that were put on hold while
the policy was formulated—an
argument that grows more
strained with each passing year.
Another explanation is that
more straight military members
arc claiming to be gay to escape
their service obligations, an ex-
cuse that led The Washington Post
to comment, “We'd like to see the
numbers on that one.”

Gay activists turned cautiously
optimistic last year when William
Cohen (who voted for “don't
ask" as a U.S. senator) replaced
William Perry as secretary of de-
fense. After Cohen took office,
the military finally got around to

replacing old recruiting forms that
asked, “Are you a homosexual?” (Re-
cruiters were supposed to cross out
the question, but some just circled it,
making it seem more important.) In
response to last year’s critical report
from the Servicemembers Legal
Defense Network, Cohen ordered an
internal review of each branch's
compliance with “don't ask.” The re-
sulting report, released in April, con-
duded that the policy is “generally
being implemented properly,” and
Cohen says, “I think it's working."
The numbers say otherwise.

47

48

N E W

Ε.Ε

Or NET

what's happening in the sexual and social arenas

MANLY DUTIES

VIENNA—Two notorious divorce cases
and a campaign by the Women's Ministry
prompted the Austrian parliament lo pass
a law requiring husbands to do half the

housework and child rearing. The new law
replaces a Nazi-era statute that allowed a
man to divorce his wife if she failed to
clean up after him or cook his meals. The
Women’s Ministry started its Half Half
campaign after one man divorced his wife
for refusing to use a certain dishwashing
detergent and another had his settlement
reduced by a third because his working
wife hadn't served dinner on time.

OFFICIAL PORN

PARIS—The French government com-
missioned five porn films to encourage
condom use and help prevent the spread of
AIDS. A pay-TV channel picked up two
thirds of the cost for the five- to eight-
minute films, with the government con-
tributing the rest. One director explained
his technique: "I had to show that if a man
has sex with two women together, he must
use a different condom with each one. I
used twin sisters in bed with the same
man." Hey, it happens.

CANNABIS SECRETS

GENEVA—The World Health Organiza-
tion deleted a section of a scientific report
concluding that marijuana is less harmful
to public health than alcohol or tobacco.

The same would be true, the report said,
even if weed were as popular as booze or
cigareites. “New Scientist” magazine re-
ported that some WHO staff members be-
lieve the analysis was axed because an-
tidrug groups felt it would aid legalization

efforts.
REGULATING SEX

WASHINGTON, D.C—The U.S. Supreme
Court rejected an argument that antipros-
titution laws violate the Constitution. The
appeal, filed by a Florida escort identified
as Jane Roe II, made the case that outlaw-
ing sex for money “discriminates against
women as well as the unmarried, the hand-
icapped, the mutilated, the ugly and the el-
derly.” The justices turned away the appeal
without comment.

YOUR MARROW OR YOUR LIFE

JEFFERSON CITY, MISSOURI—A state rep-
resentative wants to allow death row in-
mates to trade organs for life sentences.
The bill, which stalled in committee, calls
for a program called Life for a Life. It
would allow condemned prisoners to have
their sentences reduced to life without pa-
vole if they donate a kadney or bone marrow
and give up their right to appeal their con-
victions. They would also have to pass a
physical exam, a requirement that could
limit donor rolls. The state corrections di-
rector noted that “inmates in general are

not healthy people.”

INSTANT DEMOTION -

RICHMOND, VIRGINIA—The state su-
preme court upheld the dismissal of a law-
suit filed by an administrator at Virginia
Tech against a student newspaper that
identified her as “director of butt licking.”
Sharon Yeagle, who is assistant to the vice
president for student affairs, demanded
$850,000 for the slight. Yeagle’s lawyer
argued that because butt licking is sodomy
(a crime in Virginia), the “Collegiate
Times” had defamed his client. The paper
said the title was part of a template not
meant to see print—though it has once be-
‘fore, beneath the photo of an associate dean
at the agriculture school. He didn't sue.

TRUE BELIEVER

PORTLAND, MAINE—In an odd twist, a
self-proclaimed antiporn crusader helped

cripple a child-porn law. A federal judge
dismissed charges against David Hilton
{for possession of kiddie porn, ruling that a
1996 federal law that outlaws “morphed”
computer-generated composite images that
appear to show minors was too vague.
(The law could allow police to arrest peo-
ple who possess erotic images of youthful-
looking adults.) Hilton had told federal
agents he collected child porn online only
to stamp it out. After the government filed
criminal charges, Hilton argued that
the “morph” law violated his First Amend-

SANDWICHED

SAO PAULO—Police arrested an Italian
man headed for Switzerland after they dis-
covered 50 pounds of cheese in his suit-
case. “Why would anyone take third-rate
Bolivian cheese to a country famous for its
cheese?” an inspector asked. Police soon
had an answer—the cheese had been blend-
ed with nearly equal parts cocaine and
dairy products

SPOILSPORTS

PIKEVILLE, KENTUCKY—The city coun:
cil passed an ordinance that requires exot-
ic dancers to wear photo identification

with the word escort in bold letiers. Their
hemlines cannot be higher than six inches
above the knees, and their nechlines no
more than four inches below the collar-
bone. The ordinance also prohibits the
women from removing their clothes.

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of anyone?

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PLAYBOY INTERVIEW

MATT DRUDGE

a candid conversation with journalism’s bad boy about being the internet's
first star, clinton's worst nightmare and the guy who scoops the big-time media

When Matt Drudge rises at nine in the
morning and connects io the Internet, his
Hollywood apartment transforms into the
newsroom where the notorious “Drudge Re-
port” is created. With millions of online
readers a month, the “Report” has broken
national scandals (Monica Lewinsky, Kath-
leen Willey, Paula Jones) and scooped major
news ouilets on other stories (Dole's choice
of Kemp as a running mate, Tim Allen's
$1 million salary demands, Connie Chung’s
firing). This one-man newsroom has played
a pivotal role in a series of events that threat-
ened to bring down the president of the Unit-
ed States,

Drudge, whom “The New York Times” de-
scribed as “a bold, angular, furiously curious
man who suggests an odd collaboration of
Dickens and Raymond Chandler,” scans the
wire services for late-breaking news, and
then peruses about 30 newspapers from
around the country and the world. Three TV
sets, all tuned to news stations, hum in the
background, and there's a police scanner
turned low.

Later in the morning, Drudge goes out for
a bowl of soup. He returns to his apartment
to read the European newspapers, make calls
and check into chat rooms on America On-
line. These chats and his e-mail in-box are
the sources for his scoops, which he follows

“I broke the Kathleen Willey story and the

Lewinsky story. I was the first to report that
Bob Dole picked Jack Kemp as his running
mate. That's ‘New York Times'-caliber re-
porting. They can't take that away from me.”

up with more e-mail and telephone calls. His
enemies accuse him of tapping into the
mainframe computers of “The Washington
Post” and other newspapers, but he insists he
has a stable of traditional sources in and
around newsrooms, Hollywood and Capitol
Hill. Drudge follows up on leads and checks
his sources—his thoroughness in these pur-
suits or, more properly, his lack of thorough-
ness, are part of the controversy that dogs
him. Finally, Drudge sits down to write.

He clicks out short, sarcastic, occasionally
misspelled and ungrammatical news items
that range from quirky (an Amazon village
terrorized by a “monster-sized boa constric-
tor the size of two buses”) to salacious (the
original rumors about a dress stained with
presidential semen started with Drudge). Of-
ten reported with a theatricality reminiscent
of Walter Winchell's radio dispatches from
the Forties, Drudge writes about the movies
that bombed on Friday, what people said in
the weekend’s TV interviews, the latest Re-
publican buzz and the most startling head-
lines that will hit the next day's newspapers.

Drudge fancies himself a newshound, but
he’s probably more closely related to comput-
er hackers, who use technology for their
amusement, profit and power. Where hackers
break into computer systems and wreak mis-
chief, Drudge uses technology to break into

“The reason Im attacked is that Im being
heard. Powerful people are reading me. The
Net is a lot like the pamphlets of the old days,
and I'm like a pamphleteer speaking my
mind. But now the audience is the world.”

the nation’s mainstream media. In doing so,
he has become the first Internet star, for
which he is both praised and vilified. In
“The New York Times,” Todd Purdum ro-
manticized Drudge as the “cyber-muckraker
with the Dickensian name” dispensing
“breathless tips on topics from Paramount
Pictures to Paula Jones.” The attacks have
been pointed, whether they concern his ques-
tionable motives (a political conservative,
Drudge has been accused of pushing a right-
wing agenda) or his tactics. “Vanity Fair”
wrole, “Clearly, conservatives had found a
useful weapon in Drudge.” “Time” dubbed
him “the king of new junk media,” and
Lewis Koch, special correspondent for “Cy-
berwire Dispatch,” wrote, "Matt Drudge is a
new variety of vampire: a nasty little mam-
mal who bites and laps the blood of its jour-
nalist victims. Drudge’s Warholian fame,
what there is of it, is due to living off the
Journalistic blood of other reporters.”
Although Drudge has been writing and
distributing his dispatches for almost four
years, two stories brought him into the na-
tional debate and dramatically increased the
circulation of his e-mail dispatch and visits
to his Web site (wunu.drudgereport.com). On
August 10, 1997 Drudge posted this head-
line: NEW WHITE HOUSE RECRUIT HAS SPOU-
SAL ABUSE PAST. The next day, he published

PHOTOGRAPHY BY MIZUNO
“You don't get a license to report. You get a
license to style hair. Since World War Two,
we've had an era in which journalism is sup-
posed to be objective. That's crap. This whole
objectivity thing is a fraud.”

51

PLAYBOY

the entire item, claiming GOP operatives
had asserted that White House recruit Sid-
ney Blumenthal, a writer for “The New Re-
public” and “The New Yorker” who was
about to become an advisor to Clinton, had
once been accused of spousal abuse.

Within 24 hours, Drudge heard from Blu-
menthal and his wife's lawyers, and imme-
diately printed a retraction. Nonetheless, the
lawyers next sent a letter demanding that
Drudge reveal his sources for the story with-
in five days. Drudge refused and is being
sued for $30 million.

The other story that has made Drudge a
household name began to unfold in July
1997, when Drudge reported that “News-
week” investigative correspondent Michael
Isikoff was working on a story about a for-
mer White House staffer named Kathleen
Willey who had been subpoenaed by Paula

Jones’ lawyers. They believed that she could

testify that Clinton had sexually proposi-
tioned her on federal property. The item en-
raged some members of the press (Isikoff,
whose oum story ran in “Newsweek” the fol-
lowing week, called Drudge “a menace to
honest, responsible journalism"), but the
“Drudge Report” became the talk of the na-
tion’s capital and its circulation took off.

Drudge's follow-up scoop—his biggest
yei—came in January, when he reported that
“Newsweek” had killed another Isikoff story.
This time President. Clinton was being ac-
cused of having a sexual relationship with a
White House intern named Monica Lewin-
sky. Mere damning, the story said Clinton
reportedly asked Lewinsky, who had confided
in a friend about the alleged relationship, to
lie about it in a grand jury investigation of
the Paula Jones case. The friend, Linda
Tripp, had secretly recorded conversations
with Lewinsky and took the tapes to special
prosecutor Kenneth Starr.

The “Drudge Report” launched a thou-
sand newspaper headlines and special TV
news reports, generating glee on right-wing
talk shows and horror in the White House.
There were early calls for Clinton's resigna-
tion. Drudge, meanwhile, showed up on
such news shows as “Nighiline” and “Meet
the Press,” on which he accused the Wash-
ington press of lying down for Clinton.

For Drudge, reporting stories such as
these is a longtime dream. He grew up in Sil-
ver Spring, Maryland, where his father was
a social worker and his mother was an attor-
ney. As a child delivering the “Washington
Star,” he was enamored with news, though
he saw no way into the business. He says he
was an auful student (he graduated 325th
out of 350 in his class at Northwood High
School) and he never attended college.

Drudge spent several aimless years in
New York City before heading to Hollywood,
where he landed a job in the gift shop at
CBS’ studios. Using information he over-
heard at the shop, he sent dispatches to In-
ternet newsgroups such as alt.politics and
alt showbiz.gossip. When readers asked to be
put on his mailing list, Drudge created one.
Soon he put up a Web site, which includ-

52 eda long list of links to media around the

world, plus his report. The site’s popularity
grew, especially when it was picked up by
America Online. AOL paid $3000 a month
for the report, which allowed Drudge to quit
his day job.

Drudge claims to be unbothered by persis-
tent charges that he is unprofessional, sleazy
and a tool of the right. In fact, he’s fighting
the Blumenthal lawsuit with the assistance
of David Horowitz, the best-selling political
biographer who now heads a right-wing
foundation, and a lawyer named Manuel
Klausner, who is on the board of the Reason
Foundation, a libertarian think tank. He's
still writing the “Drudge Report,” in which
he continues to break stories. He is also
working on a new show that debuted in June
on the Fox News Network. We sent Con-
tributing Editor David Sheff to expose the
man who has single-handedly caused such a
political stir. Here is Sheff's report:

"I met Drudge, as he instructed, at Musso
& Frank Grill, a classic hangout ofa bygone
Hollywood era. It seemed fitting: Drudge
has been compared to Walter Winchell and
has often been photographed in his trade-
mark gray fedora, adding to his anachronis-
tic persona. Alone in a booth, Drudge ap-

There’s nothing
my critics can do
about my Web site.
If they slime me, it creates

more of me.

peared young—he's 31—and unpretentious,
wearing a wrinkled polo shirt, no hat. His
nearby ninth-floor apartment looks out over
this seedy part of the city, over the record-al-
bum-shaped Capitol Records building and
the rest of Hollywood, toward the Los An-
geles beaches. Drudge said, ‘When I look
out from up there, the column almost writes
itself”

“Drudge quickly launched into an i
sioned rant about the Arkansas judge’s deci-
sion to throw out Paula Jones’ case, and he
was filling me in on new scoops—another
woman will soon accuse President Clinton of
more indiscretions, he said. He spoke like he
writes his column: feverishly, urgently, with
an occasional chortle over some perceived
hypocrisy on the part of the government or
media. At one point he admitted, ‘It’s a lon-
ers thing I'm doing. I don't have a family.
Pm starting to long for one.’ Then he shook
the moment off. ‘But it’s a great business, he
continued, rubbing his hands together. ‘It
doesn't get much more fun than this.’”

PLAYBOY: Do you acknowledge that a
one-man operation is dangerous be-
cause there is no editors’ scrutiny, no
standards and no fact checking? Isn't

that the primary reason you're called a
threat to responsible journalism?
DRUDGE: Responsible journalism? With
all those editors and all that checking,
how did Richard Jewell happen? The
Associated Press broke a story about two
men arrested in Nevada with plans to re-
lease anthrax on the New York subways.
The story was picked up everywhere. As
it turned out, there wasn't a bit of truth
to it. How did that happen? What about
all those lawyers, the double-checking,
the editors? Stop Drudge? Why not stop
the Associated Press? Tom Brokaw? Ber-
nard Shaw?

PLAYBOY: Shouldn't irresponsible jour-
nalism be stopped?

DRUDGE: You have to take the bad free
speech if you don't want to lose the
good. People have a right to hear it all.
That's why they come to me. GQ called
my report a “small and obscure” news-
letter. I have almost 7 million readers a
month. That's four times GQ's reader-
ship. They should stick to clothes. They
printed a good picture of me, though. I
have my Web site, my own slice of media,
and there’s nothing my critics can do
about it. I figured this out early on. If
they slime me, it creates more of me.
Nothing they can say will stop me. They
can't pull my advertising—I don't have
any. Someone could conceivably order
my phone jack taken out of the wall, but
they would have to make a new law to
do that. I don’t even know if they can
stop me with new laws. I could run the
Drudge Report from the Himalayas. I can
say whatever I want, for any reason, pe-
riod. Isn't that a scary prospect?
PLAYBOY: You can be sued, apparently.
Might the lawsuit that was brought by
White House advisor Sidney Blumen-
thal stop you?

DRUDGE: That's his hope. But let's say ten
people say something about me. Ten
people from ten spots around the coun-
try defame me, libel me and accuse me.
How do I stop them? I guess I go after
each person. I sue them all. But what
happens if there are a hundred of them?
A thousand? These are serious issues
that have to be answered.

PLAYBOY: Are you losing sleep over the at-
tacks or the lawsuit?

DRUDGE: I don't lose sleep over any of it.
The reason I'm attacked is that I’m be-
ing heard. Powerful people are reading
me. What I say is getting picked up. So
the focus is on me. I'm the first one out
and I have a big audience. Radio was li-
censed by government, television was li-
censed by government. But the Internet
was built by government and isn't li-
censed by anyone. The Net is a lot like
the pamphlets of the old days, and I'm
like a pamphleteer speaking my mind.
But nov the audience is the world.
PLAYBOY. Don't your audience and ven-
ue make an essential difference? You're
passing yourself off as a reporter.

PLAYBOY BY DON DIEGO
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THE PLAYBOY IN YOU.

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Ent

DRUDGE: I am a reporter. It's one man's
report. I broke the Kathleen Willey story
and the Lewinsky story. I was first to re-
port that Bob Dole picked Jack Kemp as
his running mate, the first to report that
Bill Gates was going into business with
NBC. That's solid reporting. That's New
York Times-caliber reporting. They can't
take that away from me.

PLAYBOY: But much of your reporting
isn't your own—you're relaying other
reporters' stories.

DRUDGE: I give credit when I'm report-
ing on someone else's story.

PLAYBOY: But you're essentially stealing
another reporter's work.

DRUDGE: I have no qualms about it. I do
it all the time. Say I hear that The New
York Times is working on a big story. Sure,
T'll steal it. I'll be the first to tell my read-
ers. It's dynamic. I cover the media as
the media cover politicians,

PLAYBOY: Who are your sources for ear-
ly reports of stories coming out in the
newspapers?

DRUDGE: My sources are concerned citi-
zens in and out of government. I get a
lot of information when I monitor news
outlets. I report AP stories before they
move onto the wire now. How the hell
am I getting that stuff?

PLAYBOY: Do you pay sources?

DRUDGE: I have never paid a source, al-
though I wouldn't be against it.

PLAYBOY But a source who doesn't really
have a story to tell might make up some-
thing good and juicy for $100. There's
incentive to lie.

DRUDGE: Listen, checkbook journalism
has broken some great stories. 'The story
about Dick Morris and the prostitute was
great. It showed the hypocrisy of the
Clinton administration. That was check-
book journalism. Gennifer Flowers is a
good example of checkbook journalism.
There have been countless other exam-
ples. As a matter of fact, the history of
American reporting is full of checkbook
journalism

PLAYBOY: Advocating checkbook journal-
ism, stealing stories—are you surprised
that many journalists criticize you?
DRUDGE: Of course not. But I'm not just
stealing stories. I reported that Newsweek
was killing a story about the president
and his girlfriend. That's my story. That's
original reporting.

PLAYBOY: But Newsweek investigative cor-
respondent Michael Isikoff did all the
work on the Lewinsky story that you
broke.

DRUDGE: The story was presented to him,
too. He didn’t discover Monica Lewin-
sky. And you know what I say? Tough.
That's competition. People scoop people
all the time. It’s how competitive media
work. You want people to be aggressive
in getting stories. The true reason big-
time journalists don't like me is that they
think they are the only ones who can
tell the American people what's going on
in the world. Carl Bernstein, class of

1974, would knock on grand jury doors
to get stories. If 1 did that now peo-
ple would say, “He's so sleazy, he even
traipsed over to the grand jury.” I would
probably be arrested. Well, Bernstein
did it. He talked about how Nixon
hadn't had sex with his wife in 20 years.
Woodward and Bernstein did it. People
say I'm writing sleaze, that I'm writing
about politicians’ personal lives—how
terrible. Now all Carl Bernstein does is
sit on media panels with his size 43 waist
and say, “This guy Drudge is the worst
kind of journalist." Class of 74 dis-
missed. There's a nice condo somewhere
on the Florida coast for you, Carl.
PLAYBOY: Do you check and double-check
the stories you run?

DRUDGE: Sure. I call. 1 check. I get com-
ments. Although I don't have an editor,
if Um working on something really hot,
ΤΊ! bounce it off people. I was bouncing
the Lewinsky stuffall over the place. I've
bounced something I'm holding back
now: I’ve got Lewinsky describing Clin-
ton's anatomy, his penis size. I'm decid-
ing if and how I should report it
PLAYBOY: How will you decide?

DRUDGE: I've decided not to report it at
this point, but I'm getting more tempt-
ed, because 1 think it’s going to become
part of the bigger story. I did write an
item called “The Details That Will Make
Congress Blush.” Monica tells a story
about having Clinton on the carpet in
the Oval Office. She's servicing him on
the presidential seal. That's the way she
tells it, allegedly.

PLAYBOY: Is she allegedly telling this to
Linda ‘Tripp?

DRUDGE: Yes,

PLAYBOY: Do you know this from a source
who has listened to Tripp's tapes?
DRUDGE: Right. And I've heard a small
portion of some of the tapes myself. It is
intense to hear that kind of stuff, realiz-
ing it’s going to lead to a real disruption
of power in this country,

PLAYBOY: We'll get back to that. But first,
is the size of the president's penis news?
Should it be?

DRUDGE: It's news because if and when it
comes out it could affect Clinton on a
world scale. You could have Saddam
Hussein making fun of the man's penis
size, for instance. Gennifer Flowers has
already told the American people some
things about it, but now this is a graphic
description.

PLAYBOY: Why wouldn't you print that?
You've printed other extremely personal
details.

DRUDGE: I may when there's a reason.
PLAYBOY: You mean, when other media
are about to publish it?

DRUDGE: I don't think anyone will pub-
lish this. I don't think The Washington Post
will reveal Clinton's penis size.

PLAYBOY: But you haven't been delicate
so far.

DRUDGE: There has to be some reason
to print it. The dress? There is DNA

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PLAYBOY

evidence in semen. That's important.
Monica's clearance? It’s a national secu-
rity issue. Doing it on the presidential
seal says something, too, doesn't it? Dick
Morris strongly denies that one. I wrote
on my Web site that Dick Morris said, “If
she's saying that, she's really in outer
space.” Because apparently Monica was
describing—

PLAYBOY: Again, from a source who lis-
tened to the tapes?

DRUDGE: I'm not going to discuss sourc-
es. This is Lewinsky telling the story of
when she serviced Clinton as he was on
the phone with Dick Morris, who was al-
so being serviced. She called it quadra-
phonic sex. There are other items that 1
haven't fully explored yet. I want to
know if we're going to have congression-
al hearings on those details. The graphic
nature of it: penis size, lack of penetra-
tion. Are we really going to get into it?
Can you see [Congressman] Henry
Hyde asking, “Mr. President, did you
penetrate her?”

PLAYBOY: Would you like to see that?
DRUDGE: We may see that.

PLAYBOY: You maintain that it's OK to
steal reporters’ stories. Michael Isikoff,
who reported the Lewinsky story, called
you “reckless and irresponsible” and “a
menace.”

DRUDGE: Yes, because he worked hard on
the story. It was a blow to him. I proba-
bly would have felt the same way. But
new inventions come along and knock
down old inventions. And again, my
Lewinsky story was o al. To report
that Newsweek killed the story is original
reporting. No one in the mainstream
press has given me credit for that. I had
six reports myself before The Washington.
Post came in. It was Saturday night, 90
minutes after Newsweek killed its piece,
when I reported it. I already knew the
story was being worked on and I knew
all the details. Next, Bill Kristol, on
ABC's This Week, mentioned a report.
about Neusweek killing a story about a
woman who claims to have had an affair
with Clinton. George Stephanopoulos
said, “Where did that come from? The
Drudge Report.” They tried to discredit it
by making it my story, but a few days lat-
er Stephanopoulos said it could be an
impeachable charge. After the first re-
port about Lewinsky, I reported the affi-
davit in which she denied having had
sex with Clinton. Hours later I reported
her top-secret government clearance. 1
obtained her résumé. Next 1 reported
that Kenneth Starr had moved in, and
The Washington Post finally did its story
eight hours later. The next day 1 report-
ed that there was a trace of semen on a
dress Lewinsky said she would never
wash. 1 reported that Bill Richardson at
the United Nations had offered her a
job. All original reporting, not from
Newsweek. That's a lot of work, a lot of
original reporting on a serious story. So

56 how can they maintain I'm just stealing

other people's stories?

PLAYBOY: What about your reports that
turned out to be untrue?

DRUDGE: Nothing I reported was untrue.
PLAYBOY: The story about the dress has
been discredited_

DRUDGE: I'm not sure that it has. She
showed Linda Tripp a dress with semen
stains on it and said that she would nev-
er wash it.

PLAYBOY: First, it may or may not be true
that she said that. Second, it may or may
not be true that she had such a dress,
whether she said it or not.

DRUDGE: It may be true that it exists and
that Starr has it, that it was dry-cleaned,
or that she was making it up. It may have
been a taco stain. There are a lot of pos-
sibilities. This entire story is melodra-
matic, and she could be making up a lot
of this stuff. Or it could be true. I main-
tain we haven't heard the last of the
dress. I'm not convinced about the re-
port on CBS that claimed the FBI found
no DNA stains. It sure is exciting,
though. It happens to involve the presi-
dent of the United States and an intern
who is probably close in age to his
daughter. And the story was broken on
the Internet by a guy who's being sued.
PLAYBOY: What if Lewinsky was making
it all up? Would you then agree that it
was bad reporting to print unconfirmed
charges?

DRUDGE: Absolutely not. It involved an
FBI sting! It involved people in the
White House offering her jobs! It in-
volved top-secret government clearance!
It involved gifts from a president. That's
all serious news. If 1 were Isikoff, I
would have played it differently. If I'd
had the story nailed down, as he did,
and my editors had killed it, 1 would
have quit. I would have held a press con-
ference and reported what I'd learned.
PLAYBOY: Couldn't the editors of News-
week have been correct in wanting more
documentation?

DRUDGE: Which they got in three days?
Come on. They ran the story in three
days; it hadn't changed. No. It was a big
story and they were concerned, and
rightfully so.

PLAYBOY: Was Isikoff, angry with his edi-
tors for refusing to publish his story,
your source?

DRUDGE: The last e-mail I got from him
said, “You're insane.” I also broke Willey,
which was his story—I took it from un-
der him. J broke it. Her talking to a re-
porter, saying she'd been hit on sexually
in the Oval Office. He wasn't able to get
it into print. But I was.

PLAYBOY: Did you know Newsweek would
print its Lewinsky stories once you broke
yours?

DRUDGE: No. The four days it took were
nerve-racking because I was out there by
myself naming names, accusing people
of potential crimes. I was on my own for
almost 90 hours. I didn't sleep. I was a
little more comfortable after Rush Lim-

baugh began his show with it on the fol-
lowing Monday, and Bill Kristol brought
it up on This Week. But even then it
was pooh-poohed. Stephanopoulos said,
“Oh, that’s terrible.” But he knew the
story was true; he was lying.

PLAYBOY: You blame the White House
and journalists for discrediting you. But
maybe people find some of these reports
distasteful. They don’t want to read
about semen on dresses—the president's
semen in particular.

DRUDGE: No, I don't believe that. These
are the people who were riveted to Anita
Hill's pubic-hair-on-the-Coke-can story.
No. If you take just a snapshot of Drudge,
it seems like an alien show. If you move
the camera back and look at its history,
you see it’s not so unusual. It's about
freedom to report, and the Internet lets
you do it without any interference. A lot
like the early pamphleteers, a lot like the
early newspapers and early radio. It's
kind of refreshing.

PLAYBOY: You or any other pamphleteer
could make up stories. Do you agree
that's a possibility?

DRUDGE: Uh-huh. But then you lose
credibility and people won't read you
anymore. Remember, they're coming to
me. I'm not forcing it on anybody.
PLAYBOY: Why were you given bits and
pieces from the Lewinsky tapes that oth-
er reporters weren't able to get?
DRUDGE: I think people see that I’m sin-
cere, that I’m just looking for truth. The
people who approached me with the
Lewinsky story are, I maintain, patriots.
They're not out to destroy anybody.
They just don’t like deception.

PLAYBOY: But they're known to be out to
destroy this president.

DRUDGE: You don't know who gave me
this stuff.

PLAYBOY: Linda Tripp was out to destroy
the president,

DRUDGE: She didn't give it to me. And
I'm not down on Linda Tripp, by the
way. If someone asked me to lie about
her boyfriend who was the president of
the United States, I’d start taping some
shit, too.

PLAYBOY: Did you have one source for all
the Lewinsky-related revelations?
DRUDGE: No. I’m not going to reveal the
sources. 1 can only say they're people
out of government. On NBC Neus, I was
asked if Ken Starr was my source. That,
of course, would be illegal.

PLAYBOY: On Meet the Press you said there
are more women in the Clinton scan-
dal. Still?

DRUDGE: A lot has come out since 1 said
that. I'd already reported Willey. A for-
mer Miss America came out. And the air-
line stewardess. There were a bunch of
them. There is another woman, who is
cooperating with Starr. It’s a serious ob-
struction issue: Clinton gave her gifts,
allegedly, and someone from anoth-
er branch of government offered her
employment for silence. This continues

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PLAYBOY

beyond the Paula Jones suit. I'm work-
ing on that; I have her name. I've been
given the whole story. I'm working on
other angles that I haven't fully devel-
oped. In the highest office of the land, it
looks like there may have been a coordi-
nated effort to force people to lie, to
threaten people to get them to lie, to re-
ward people for lying.

PLAYBOY: Do you at least admit that your
sources, or at least some of your reports,
have been wrong?

DRUDGE: Every reporter makes mistakes.
I've been accused of saying Hillary Clin-
ton is going to be indicted. All I reported
was that talk radio in Los Angeles was
flooded with callers discussing Hillary's
being indicted. That was turned in-
to “Drudge is reporting that Hillary is
going to be indicted." People don't un-
derstand this coverage-of-the-coverage
stuff.

PLAYBOY: You admitted you were wrong
when you reported that Sidney Blumen-
thal had a history of beating his wife.
DRUDGE: I reported that it was a rumor.
PLAYBOY: Blumenthal is suing you for
libel, charging that the report was
malicious.

DRUDGE: I printed a retraction and apol-
ogy the next day. Why would I have
retracted it if I were being malicious?
Blumenthal got his side out right away—
that he hadn't done what he'd been ac-
cused of doing. I got my retraction out
right away. I retracted the story and
apologized. Isn't that enough?

PLAYBOY: With that attitude, any crack-
pot can accuse anyone of anything and
just apologize later. An apology isn't
enough—you have to do your journalis-
tic groundwork beforehand. And retrac-
tions don't necessarily end the damage:
“Sorry I told millions of people that
you're a wife beater." You circulated a
false rumor, whether or not you retract-
ed it afterward. Aren't people still whis-
pering about the allegations?

DRUDGE: I hope not. I sure hope not.
"There's a whole list of actionable false-
hoods that Blumenthal has written. He
hurt my friend [conservative author and
activist] David Horowitz, saying he aban-
doned his wife and three children. David
has four kids and never abandoned
them. Blumenthal did a piece on Ross
Perot where he mentions a friend of Pe-
τοῦ who, he says, spent most of his Army
time in Vietnam in detention. The guy
served in Vietnam but was never in de-
tention. A lot of corrections are in order.
[Editor's note: “The New Republic” did re-
tract that charge. He was never in detention.]
Does he maintain that there's no give-
and-take and there's no room for retrac-
tions and mistakes? See, the Internet is a
great way to learn about the motivations
of those who are attacking me. [Colum-
nist] Joe Conason has been attacking me
in The New York Observer. He's been
standing up for Clinton: “This scandal

58 doesn't mean anything, blow jobs aren't

a big deal.” I did some research and
found a piece he wrote in Spy: “A Thou-
sand Reasons Not to Vote for George
Bush.” Number one was “He cheats on
his wife.” I just want to point that out.
PLAYBOY: Whether it's Blumenthal, Co-
nason or you, it's irresponsible to report
a rumor without corroborating evi-
dence. Some journalists may not have
such high standards, but shouldn't they?
DRUDGE: You don’t get a license to re-
port. You get a license to style hair. Since
World War Two, we've had an era in
which journalism is supposed to be ob-
jective. That's crap. That's a new phe-
nomenon. The earlier press had nothing
to do with objectivity. This whole objec-
tivity thing is a fraud.

PLAYBOY: If you throw out objective re-
porting, how can you trust anything you
read? In that case every report could be
propaganda.

DRUDGE: Who's objective? 1 can’t find
anyone. It'sa corporate guise. CNN isn't
objective. When the Paula Jones decision
came down, I did an item on the foot-
age of Clinton in the hotel room, bang
ing the drums and smoking a cigar. I
thought it was revealing footage. The
Web site got busy—300,000 people came
through. But at CNN they were almost
blowing up balloons in celebration. Fox
would show the video of Clinton bang-
ing the drums, smoking a cigar, par-
tying, while on CNN Wolf Blitzer was
saying, “The president is being careful
not to gloat.” Wolf Blitzer is spinning lies
about Clinton as video footage disproves
him. That's not objective. That's spin.
There's going to be a backlash against
spin. Spin is a fad. I hope it goes out.
sooner than later. I'm sick of it.

PLAYBOY: Would you have written the
Blumenthal, Willey or Lewinsky stories
ifa Republican were in the White
House?

DRUDGE: Absolutely. The next person in
the White House will get my undivided
attention. See, the people in the Clinton
White House are taking this personal-
ly. It’s not personal. Clinton and Gore
think they're being unfairly targeted,
but they just happen to be the first In-
ternet-era president and vice president.
Whoever comes next is going to get the
same scrutiny. It’s because people like
me are able to have a competitive news-
room. Anyone can doit.

PLAYBOY: What's the difference between
the Drudge Report and the tabloids?
DRUDGE: They're different, though the
National Enquirer has broken national
stories, including the one about O.J.’s
shoes. That report ended up getting
Simpson civilly sued, and he lost. That
week the National Enquirer was pretty
newsy. On the other hand, that same
week The New York Times printed a story
that said an asteroid was headed toward
earth. It was a lie. No one checked that
one. Why not? It scared a lot of peo-
ple. One scientist said an asteroid was

coming. They never got another point
of view.

PLAYBOY: The difference between the
mainstream press and tabloids is that
one requires credible sources, and one
doesn't. One carefully double-checks
stories, and the other may use astrolo-
gers, for all we know.

DRUDGE: And people choose what to read
and believe. That's their right. There are
all these questions to ponder. It's fun to
be a part of this. It’s fun to be a defini-
tion of something. Drudge has become
an adjective.

PLAYBOY: If Drudge is an adjective, what
does it modify?

DRUDGE: I'll tell you what I would like it
to signify. The New York Times called me
“the country's reigning mischief maker.”
That's pretty good. I like how they all say
that the Drudge Report is lowering the
standards for journalism, yet they all run
home and read it. I don't get it. Newspa-
per editors read me. When I did Meet the
Press, William Safire said to me, “A lot of
people tell me they read me through
you”—meaning they dick on his link on
my page. The assistant to senior White
House advisor Paul Begala said that the
White House reads the Drudge Report.
She said she reads it every day. She said
she likes it. We're talking historic stuff.
If I'm so useless, why was Blumenthal
reading me the night I wrote the story
about him? He told the Times he was
home reading me. The night before he
started his first job at the White House.
I'm not sure I'd be surfing the Web the
night before I started my new job at the
White House.

PLAYBOY: What do you make of another
fallout of the Lewinsky scandal—that the
general public is apparently fed up with
salacious stories? Polls show that peo-
ple don't care about the president's per-
sonal life.

DRUDGE: Then why was 60 Minutes the
highest-rated show of the week when
Kathleen Willey was on? It beat Seinfeld
by millions of viewers. That's not people
who are fed up. It’s people who are in-
terested. It's White House bullshit that
people are burned-out on these scan-
dals. Absolute bullshit.

PLAYBOY: It’s not from the White House.
It has been shown by many polls.
DRUDGE: I don't believe in opinion polls.
1 don't know what they have to do with
anything.

PLAYBOY: The polls say the president's
approval ratings are at an all-time high.
DRUDGE: 60 Minutes had the highest tele-
vision rating that weck. I'm more in-
clined to believe the Nielsen ratings than
the polls.

PLAYBOY: People can watch the news and
still be fed up with it.

DRUDGE: I’m not that cynical. I think
Americans love their country and are
concerned about the person in the Oval
Office.

PLAYBOY: But the majority of Americans,

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PLAYBOY

even if they believe that Clinton had sex-
ual relations with Monica Lewinsky —
DRUDGE: And told her to lie about it-
PLAYBOY: Say they don't care. They're
concerned about other issues—social se-
curity, forcign affairs, the economy.
DRUDGE: Speak for yourself.

PLAYBOY: Poll after poll confirms it.
DRUDGE: And a huge number of people
thought the earth was flat. So what? Af
ter World War Two, a large group of
people in Germany still loved Hitler. He
had good polls. Polls have no bearing on
what I'm doing. I'm looking for truth,
for interesting stories that are being
overlooked.

PLAYBOY: Do you think Clinton's person-
al life is relevant to his job in the White
House?

DRUDGE: This isn't about his personal
life. I think history will show that Linda
Tripp was being pressured by her friend
to lie, under oath, about the friend's
boyfriend, who is one of the most power-
ful people in the world. That's a serious
dynamic. Paula Jones was taken up to
that hotel room by a trooper who was
carrying a gun, and then the governor
droppcd his pants and said, "Kiss it."
An Arkansas judge ruled that’s not out-
rageous. All right. It may not be out-
rageous in Arkansas. I hope it never
happens to the judge. Maybe I'm just
old-fashioned or I have an old street-
sense. I didn't go to college. I worked at
a 7-Eleven. I worked at a gift shop also
before I did this. Never had much of
anything. Maybe I just have this dream
that things still matter. Like the presi-
dency. I'm very concerned that a pres
dent may be getting away with deceiving
people.

PLAYBOY: If Clinton's sex life is germane
to the national debate, should the sex
lives of Kennedy and Roosevelt have
been?

DRUDGE: I’m not sure Kennedy ever
asked anybody to lie about it. I don’t
know that he had people go through
anyone's trash or approve lawsuits to
ruin reporters. I'm not sure he ever
did that.

PLAYBOY: How do you respond to critics
who say you have a political agenda?
David Brock [author of books about Ani-
ta Hill and Hillary Clinton] says he
warned you about using “completely
crazy” Clinton haters as sources.
DRUDGE: He never warned me.

PLAYBOY: Regardless, do you agree that
it discredits sources if they have an ax
to grind?

DRUDGE: I'll usc Clinton lovers, too. I
think Mike McCurry is crazy. How can
he sit there and lic every morning?
That's nuts! You can call it spin. 1 call it
lying. If he gave me a story, I would
probably use it; he's in a position to
know. The people I talk with are in posi-
tions to know. I have good sources. One
cannot break all these stories without

60 good sources. I make mistakes, as every-

body does, and I correct them and move
on. I don't have a malicious nature. Oth-
erwise I could really cause massive trou-
ble right now by doing vicious, vindictive
things to destroy people, write things
that are not based on reality. 1 could
do that.

PLAYBOY: You could. Isn't that the cur-
rent problem?

DRUDGE: Yes, but that’s the reality. Any-
one could do it. All Internet newsgroups
are about that.

PLAYBOY: But you have elevated yourself
to the point where you have a wide
audience.

DRUDGE: Through reporting truth.
PLAYBOY: Is there responsibility that
comes with your new position?

DRUDGE: Sure. There's responsibility that
comes with being the first person to
make a name for himself on the Inter-
net. The Net has the potential to be as
important a medium as television or ra-
dio or newspapers. And I'm the first
name.

PLAYBOY: If the Internet gives everybody
a megaphone

DRUDGE: Which it docs. It gives freedom
of participation to everyone, which is
one of the premises of America.
PLAYBOY: Is it going to get harder for
people to know what's true?

DRUDGE: That is a good point. Yes. How
do we know anything's true now? An-
thrax scare in Vegas—I believed the sto-
ry. Janet Reno believed it. We're already
not sure what's true. I don't know what
on the AP News is true. I assume it's true
because I trust the AP reporters. They'll
correct it if it's wrong.

PLAYBOY: You grew up near the capital
Was politics a big part of your child-
hood?

DRUDGE: Not at home. But I was always
Political because I delivered the Washing-
ton Star and read all the stuff in it. 1
watched Crossfire.

PLAYBOY: Who was president when you
were born?

DRUDGE: In 1966? I don’t know. The first
president I remember was Jimmy Car-
ter, I was ten years old. I liked him, and
still like him. Yeah, I wish Jimmy Carter
were still president. He's decent and I
think he told the truth. That's my num-
ber one priority. It's not "the economy,
stupid." Who cares?

PLAYBOY: What about a president's being
effective?

DRUDGE: I'd rather pay $3 at the gas
pump and have a decent president than
have gas at 99 cents and someone lying
to me and making me sick. I'd much
rather have a decent person in office.
The president should represent who we
are. It's ironic that Clinton represents
who we are, what we've become. He is a
result of his generation. This is chaos.
This is confusion. People talk about
Eighties greed. This is the year of our
lord Dow Jones 9000. I've never seen
so much greed. These are the Roaring

Nineties. I think people will want a less
contrived situation, and the next presi-
dent will probably be ugly as sin. I'll vote
for him. I'll vote for the ugliest person.
PLAYBOY: Back to your childhood: What
did your parents do for a living?
DRUDGE: I’m protecting my parents all
the way. Since the White House has been
using private investigators, I haven't
been talking about my parents. Since
this lawsuit blew up, I don’t even see
them when I go to Washington. It's
probably the smart thing to do.
PLAYBOY: What are you protecting them
from?
DRUDGE: 1 don't want them to enter my
hell world. It's high stakes when the
president is supporting a civil lawsuit
against you.
PLAYBOY: Do you think your notoriety is
problematic for them?
DRUDGE: For my parents? No. I'm more
concerned with the private investigators
and the White House slime machine.
What they did to Linda Tripp—going in-
to her arrest record from 30 years ago. I
don’t want to bring my parents into the
middle of this. He's a social worker, she's
a lawyer. Both liberals. My father wore
an original Nixon mask. My mother ac-
tually volunteered in the White House
comment room at the beginning of the
Clinton term. Now she listens to Rush
Limbaugh. Still liberal, though. She's
just upset with the president.
PLAYBOY: What do you think of Rush
Limbaugh?
DRUDGE: 1 think he's having a great im-
Pact on discourse in this country.
PLAYBOY: So you don't agree with Al
Franken that Rush Limbaugh is a big
fat idiot?
DRUDGE: As a matter of fact Al Franken is
fatter than Rush Limbaugh now.
PLAYBOY: You have said that you were a
terrible student. Has that been some-
thing ofan exaggeration?
DRUDGE: I can't write cursive, I print on-
ly. I've never done a term paper and I
wouldn't know how. I wouldn't know
how to write anything more than two or
three paragraphs, little bites. If I had to
actually form a story from beginning to
end I don’t think I could do it. Every-
thing I've learned about reporting I've
learned on the Internet.
PLAYBOY: You've said you were a loner.
Are you still?
DRUDGE: Still am. It's even harder to let
people in now because of what I'm do-
ing. Mainly because it takes up a lot of
time. When you start your own business,
it’s pretty much devotion. I'm lucky
to have five good friends that I pal
around with.
PLAYBOY: Were you a happy kid?
DRUDGE: I don't know. I didn't like au-
thority and I didn't like structure. My
expertise in high school was forging
notes, cutting classes. Boy, I knew how to
do that. I never got caught. Suspended a
(continued on page 156)

WHAT SORT OF MAN READS PLAYBOY?

He knows breakfast is the most important meal of the day—with the right company. How did they
end up in the same pajamas? It started last night with oysters Rockefeller, More than 1.2 million
PLAYBOY men are regular cooks, which is more than can be found among the readers of GQ, Men's
Health or Rolling Stone. Breakfast or dinner, PLAYBOY has the recipe for success—that's
how we added 540,000 readers in six months. (Source: Fall 1997 and Spring 1998 MRI.)

61

62

there was a time when solly
was a player. looks like that time
might be coming back with the help
of a cute little french broad

C ^ fiction By Pat Jordan

oromon BLiSTEIN, a.k.a. Sol Rogers, a.k.a.
“Sol Bass, Solly to his friends, stood by the Roy-
al Palm Motel pool on Fort Lauderdale beach
fishing leaves off the water with a long-han-
dled net, a cigarette and a cup of coffee in his
left hand. The sun had just come up. A few
tourists were walking along the beach. A
gaunt, stooped old man with the brim of a
dirty golf cap pulled over his eyes was sweep-
ing a metal detector methodically over the
sand, stopping every few feet to bend and pick

p - - - what? A penny? A bottle cap? A fucking
ten-carat diamond ring?

Sol shook his head in disgust and carried
the net full of wet leaves to the sand and shook
it out. Fucking Royal Palm, he thought. There

Gr
Cte Gi le

wasn't a fucking royal palm in sight. Just a few
scraggly-ass arecas too close to the pool so that
Sol had to skim off their leaves every morning.
The Royal Palm was a one-story cinderblock
motel of six efficiency apartments plus Sol's
one-bedroom manager's apartment, with a
parking lot out front and the fucking pool in
back that nobody ever bothered to swim in,
what with the ocean only a few feet away. No
one ever stayed at the fucking place, even in
season. It was too far from the action on the
Strip, with the new outdoor cafés and the
Beach Plaza shopping mall. The only guest
here now was a French broad who could bare-
ly speak English. She must have booked her
room through a travel agent in Paris who'd
never laid eyes on the place.

Sol sat down on a plastic chair next to the

ILLUSTRATION BY GUY BILLOUT.

di Ls τι LE Tuti |
Y ae | = s
ῄ | E

POL ANY Ρος

pool, sipped his coffee and smiled. He
could see it, the travel agent holding
up the Royal Palm brochure, an artist's
drawing featuring towering royal
palms around a kidney-shaped pool
with beautiful babes lounging in Fifties
bikinis up to their belly buttons. That
should've been the tip-off, Sol thought.
Babes with flip-up hair and polka-dot
Beach Blanket Bingo bikinis watching a
bunch of guys playing water polo in the
pool, flashing their teeth.

Frenchie hadn't complained when
Sol showed her the room with the
greenish scum on the bathroom floor
and fucking palmetto bugs lounging
on the kitchen counter waiting for a
guest to bring them food like they were
on vacation too. She'd looked at it all,
her smile fading, but she said nothing,
except, “Is fine,” taking it on the chin,
tougher than she looked but still a nice
kid, sweet, maybe 23, polite. Maybe she
didn't have the bread for anything bet-
ter. Maybe she didn't know any better,
thinking the Royal Palm was the top of
the line in beach motels. She had no
car, no friends, no one her own age
stopping by for a visit. A real mystery
chick, Sol thought, but beautiful, dif-
ferent from the Lauderdale bimbos
with their straw-blonde hair and water-
balloon implants. She was more subtle,
classy, in that French way. She brushed
sharply cut sand-colored hair off her
brow with the backs of her fingertips in
a sensual way that seemed foreign to
Sol, exotic. What the fuck did he know
about the French?

Sol stubbed out his cigarette on the
picked up the cup and got up
to go inside. Glancing at the ocean, he
saw dark clouds forming way out. He
Squinted into the sun. A big blow,
maybe. Fucking storm shutters. Geez.

Frenchie came out of her room,
walking past the pool, clean-looking,
scrubbed, with no makeup, in a pale-
gray business suit and those clunky,
low-heeled shoes all the broads wore
these days.

“Bonjour, Monsieur Bass,” she said.
Big smile. Wide, pale-blue eyes, almost
startled-looking her eyelids were so
thin.

“Morning, honey. Your ride here
yet?"

Her smile faded. "Soon." She was
carrying a briefcase. She was a stock-
broker trainee with Merrill Lynch on
Federal. Her boss picked her up every
morning in his cream-colored Merc
600 SEL 12-cylinder. A slick-looking
guy with styled wavy black hair,
Porsche Carrera shades and the dark
suit. A soft-looking guy, like he'd
dropped a lot of weight recently and
wasn't used to looking good, not to 23-
year-old French chicks anyway. His tan
was too perfect. A raghead, Sol thought.

Sol looked back at the ocean, and
then to the girl again. "There might be
a storm tonight, honey. I was you, I'd
stay in." The boss took her out to busi-
ness dinners, bringing her home late.
Business dinners, my ass, Sol thought.
He was just another wiseguy wannabe,
liked to be seen with a young chick on
his arm. What was he, maybe 45? The
same age as Sol. Almost.

"Merci, Monsieur Sol." She flashed
that big smile again.

Sol watched her walk away in the
morning sunlight, around the motel to
the parking lot. He went inside his
apartment and went straight to the
bathroom, where he peered out the
tiny window at the French girl waiting.
for her ride. The Merc pulled up and
stopped. An arm reached across the
scat to open the door. A Rolex below
French cuffs glistened in the sun. A
President, Sol thought, maybe 30 large.

The kid bent down to get in. Sol
could see her face, not smiling now, as
she slid into her seat, her skirt hiking
up to reveal her thigh, a little chunky,
but muscular. The kind of legs
wrapped around you could break your
back, like the Russian broad in the
James Bond movie who got off fucking
guys with her legs clamped around
their backs. Just when they were about.
to come, she'd break their backs. Com-
ing and going at the same time.

The car disappeared from his win-
dow. Sol turned and looked at himself
in the bathroom mirror. Fat, bald, with
a salt-and-pepper goatee. His big hairy
belly hung over his dirty white shorts.
He looked at his bare wrists. The gold
bracelets, gone. The one-ounce Star of
David on a gold chain around his neck,
gone. His own Rolex, gone. The wad of
C-notes wrapped with an elastic band.
Gone. There was a ume when chicks
like Frenchie stood in line to go out to
dinner with Solly Bass. Lauderdale
chicks who didn't see a fat, bald Jew
pushing 50. They sawa player. Fucking
strippers, Solly thought. They never
looked at the entrees on the menu.
They always ordered from the price.
The $50 lobster they never finished
and the $100 bottle of Dom they did,
getting high on it, laughing too loudly.
Feeling good, in a classy restaurant for
a change. By dessert, they were run-
ning their hands up his thigh under
the table.

A player. Before he learned how to
play pinochle in the slam. Then he got
out. Not a player anymore. The man-
ager of the fucking Royal Palm, thanks
to Meyer, Fuck it, He went outside to
get the storm shutters.

He'd finished putting up the shut-
ters when the storm began to blow at

dusk. He went inside his apartment,
fucking dark now, put a TV dinner in
the microwave and made himselfa Cu-
ba libre. He turned on the television to
drown out the noise, but it only got
louder, like a freight train passing by
his door, the wind whooshing against
the door and shutters like it was going
to cave them in and whoosh right out
the back wall, taking Sol with it. Noth-
ing as loud asa hurricane, Sol thought.
It was like the fucking thing was alive, a
huge, snarling monster, a dinosaur out
of a Spielberg movie.

He wondered if Frenchie got home
safely. He wouldn't have heard her
door close with the rain beating against
the shutters like buckshot. He settled
back on his sofa in the darkness and
tried to watch the seven o'clock news. A
broad in a rain slicker, her hair whip-
ping wildly, was standing on the beach
describing the fucking hurricane. Big
leaves from the palm trees on the
beach whipped past, tumbling down
the sand, reminding Sol that tomorrow
he'd have to spend the whole fuck-
ing day fishing leaves off the water
and from around the pool. Maybe
the storm will blow the fucking trees
down, too, Sol thought. That would
be nice.

He heard a knock on his door, a
frantic pounding, really. He opened
the door, the wind whipping in, blow-
ing Frenchie up against him. He strug-
gled to shut the door in the wind. She
didn’t push herself away from him
right away, but stayed close, like she ex-
pected him to protect her. The poor
kid was drenched and scared. Finally,
she stepped back.
i Monsieur Sol. But the
htened me.” She looked
like a drowned rat, her wet hair hang-
ing down around her big eyes, but
sexy, too, her Eshirt plastered against
her chest, no bra, her small breasts
with big nipples, like grapes, sticking
through.

“No problem, honey,” he said
“Come in and get dry. You can wait it
out in here.”

“Oh, thank you, Monsieur Sol.” He
got her a towel and handed it to her.
She dried her hair, the towel covering
her face, Sol staring at her nipples.
Then she handed it to him and smiled.
“Thank you again.”

“You better get out of those clothes,
honey. You'll catch pneumonia. I'll get
you some things to wear.”

She went into his bathroom. He
handed her a pair of shorts with a
drawstring and a T-shirt. She shut the
door. He put on a pot of coffee. When
she came out she was wrapped only in
a towel. She handed him his clothes.

“It is all right," she said. "I don't

(continued on page 74)

"It's not what you think, Sergio. I'm helping your wife look for her golden earring.”

66

the cable vixen wants to set the record straight

OST PEOPLE think I swing from the ceiling with
a candle, dripping hot wax over my lovers,”
says Downtown Julie Brown. But the world of

this pop culture queen isn't quite so outrageous as some
would believe. Her home in Los Angeles is filled with art ob-
jects from every continent. The effect is warm, sumptuous
elegance. “I am a true romantic. I like pretty things, pretty
smells, pretty dresses,” she says. “I like to stay home and
cook for my boyfriend. I enjoy doing things like watching
a good football game, going bowling—but I'm not a beer-
bottle bowler: I must have a glass, please.”

Brown was reared in a strict military household, one of
seven brothers and sisters. Her Jamaican father was an RAF
flight sergeant, and her mother, from Birmingham, Eng-
land, is the strongest woman Julie knows. Looking for an es-
cape from her regimented childhood, Julie found one on
the disco floor. In outfits she'd sewn herself, the 16-year-old
would sneak out until dawn. “I loved to dance. I couldn't
wait to go to the club after work.”

Julie began competing in dance contests, and took first
place at the World Disco Dancing Championship in 1979.

Then she landed a dancing gig on Top of the Pops, which she
describes as a funky, British version of American Bandstand.
On the cable show Music Box, Julie caught the attention of
MTV scouts and was summoned to New York. From 1986 to
1991, the network's dance program Club MTV showcased
her high-speed chatter. “It was an incredible experience
When I was there, MTV took such good care of us veejays—
with limos and concerts. Not a bad gig for anyone.”

Following MTV came stints at Inside Edition and ESPN's
Sunday Night Football. Then she headed west to join E Enter-
tainment Television's Gossip Show. Julie now brings her
cheeky wit to America On-Line’s Entertainment Asylum,
where she conducts her live celebrity interviews.

In the midst of all this activity, Julie found sufficient ime
for love—though it came late. (“I think I popped my own
cherry while dancing. No man claimed that,” she jokes.)
Julie places an especially high priority on love. And she also
expects a bit of romancing. "I've never gone down on some-
body in an elevator. I’m not a quickie girl. Quickies are just
for guys to brag to their mates about. A real man takes his
time.” She does, however, have her favorite lovemaking

The former MTV VJ (who created the tagline “Wubba, wubba, wubba* to keep fram swearing on the set) and hast of The Gossip Show
hos made a career of being herself an camera, but pasing in the nude was uncharted territary. "I'm very modest," she says in her British
accent. “I dan'+ show aff my bady. This was the mast risqué thing I've ever dane. It was hard but | discovered Julie, the woman.”

PHOTOGRAPHY BY STEPHEN WAYDA

MAKEUP BY ALEXIS VOGEL
FASHION CONSULTING BY MONTGOMERY FRAZIER

spots: “My pool—but only
on Thursday nights; the
pool man comes on Fri-
day—the bathtubs at the

Royalton Hotel and may-

be under a waterfall.”

Professionally, Julie is
ready for some chal-
lenges. “I'd like to do dra-
ma and get serious or do
a sitcom and laugh a lot.”

One challenge turned
out to be this PLAYBOY
shoot. “It was embarrass-
ing at first,” says Julie. “I
mean, what was I sup-
posed to do with my pu-
bic hair? Brush it? Braid
it? Weave

“This pictorial has to-
tally changed me. In
public 1 act all that, but
Im all mouth and no
trousers behind closed
doors. PLAYBOY stripped
me down to find the real
Julie. If it werent for
that I would never have
known I have a great ass.
I've thought of myself as
a fun girl, but sexy? No.
PLAYBOY allowed me to say,
"You're a woman, roar!

PLAYBOY

74

S T'GTGGIBLG (continued from page 64)

She picked up the ends of the towel at her waist and
refastened it around her breasts.

need these.” She sat down on the sofa,
pulling her muscular legs with the big
calves, like that Russian broad, under
her ass, hugging the towel to her. Sol
tried to picture her naked, caught him-
self, felt like a fool. The poor kid was
probably too embarrassed to wear his
clothes. She didn't mean anything.
Maybe it was a French thing. They
went topless on the beach, didn't they?
Sol had seen them, not even noticing
all the Americans sneaking peeks at
their tits. Like it was natural.

He brought her some black coffee,
conscious again of the wind howling
like an animal outside. She took the
coffee from him, smiling up at him
with her big blue eyes. “You are too
kind to me, Monsieur Sol.” She held
the mug in both hands, like a kid, close
to her face, and sipped. Sol sat across
from her on the easy chair. They both
listened to the storm for a few awkward
minutes.

Finally, Sol said, “You don’t have
storms like this in Paris?”

“Oh, no,” she said, big eyed. “The
weather there, it is, how you say it,
more prudent.”

“Moderate, 1 think you mean.”

“Oh, yes.” She giggled. “My English
is not so good, is it?”

“It's fine, honey. You just need prac-
tice is all.”

“I know. I not get much chance to
speak English so far.”

“What about at work?”

She shook her head. “No. My boss,
he is French Lebanese. He speak
French to me all the time.”

“Doesn't help your English much,
does it?”

“No.” She waited a minute, as if de-
ciding something, then said, “Is my
boss get me this apartment.”

Sol smiled. “Tell the truth, honey, he
could have done better for you.”

“Yes. Maybe. But is secluded, he say.
Safe for me. No one to bother me.”

“Your boss must be pretty protective
of you, eh?”

“Yes. He say I have to be careful of
Americans. Not to trust.”

“What about him? Do you trust
him?” She just smiled at Sol, without
answering. Sol said, “Well, it's a good
thing you didn’t go to dinner with him
tonight. The storm would've been bad
by the time you got home.”

“Yes. The storm, it save me.”

Sol looked at her. “What do you
mean?”

“Oh, nothing.” She smiled brightly.
“Just it give me a chance to see you,
Monsieur Sol.”

Sol felt himself blushing. “To see
me? You mean, so you can practice
your English?”

“That, yes. But is nice to talk to
someone who is so kind.”

Sol grinned. “Kind?” he said, shak-
ing his head. “I been called a lot of
gs, honey, but never that.”
fell, maybe people not know you.”

“And you do?"

She shrugged, that French way.
“Maybe.”

She embarrassed him, this kid, like
she was a Kid most of the time, but old-
er, too, knew things about people.

She lay down on the sofa and closed
her eyes. “All this English,” she said, “it
tires me. I think I will go to sleep now,”
and she was asleep almost instantly. Sol
watched her sleep for a while, the tow-
el around her, and then he dozed off
sitting up in his chair.

They woke the next morning to sun-
light. She sat up, quickly, like she didn't
know where she was. The towel fell
from her breasts, small and firm. She
didn’t pull it up right away. She looked
across at Sol sitting there, staring at
her. He thought he saw a thin smile on
her lips. She reached down a languid
hand, picked up the ends of the towel
at her waist and refastened it around
her breasts with an almost deliberate
slowness, like she was giving him one
last teasing peek before she covered
up. Like she’d been there before,
naked in a guy's room. Why not? Sol
thought. She was 23. The same age as
the strippers Sol used to date. What
did he expect? A fucking virgin? The
kid was sweet, but she wasn’t retarded.
And she wasn't hard, like a stripper.
She was like those little kids on the
beach, running into the surf with no
sense of shame at their own nakedness.

Sol offered to make her breakfast,
but she said she had to get ready for
work. When he opened the door for
her, she stopped a minute, reached up
on her bare toes and kissed him lightly
on the cheek. “You're so sweet,” she
said. “Thank you. Merci.”

Before he could stop himself, Sol
blurted out, “Maybe you might wan-
na have dinner with me some night?”
She gave him that thin smile again.
“Just a thought.” He felt like a fool

around this kid.

“Avec plaisir,” she said. Sol was con-
fused. “With pleasure, Monsieur Sol.”

“Tomorrow night, then.” She nod-
ded yes, then walked slowly over the
wet leaves plastered against the ground
back to her room, wearing only a tow-
el, as if she didn't give a shit if any of
the other guests saw her. What other
guests? Sol thought. She knew she was
the only one. He watched until she
went inside, then his eyes fell on the
fallen leaves, the broken branches, the
overturned tables and chairs, the sand
washed up from the beach covering
everything. A fucking mess. It would
take him all fucking day to clean up.
He went inside to get his coffee and
cigarettes.

She was gone by the time he went
back outside with his rake and big plas-
tic garbage bags. He righted the over-
turned furniture first, then began to
rake up the leaves around the pool. It
was already hot in the early morning
sun, as though the hurricane had nev-
er happened, except for the fucking
mess. He bent over to rake the leaves
into a bag, and then he saw, floating in
the pool, a square, tightly wrapped cel-
lophane package about the size of a
carry-on bag. Sol instinctively glanced
around. Nobody was on the beach ex-
cept the old man with the metal detec-
tor, his eyes glued to the sand, looking
for his fucking treasure. There were no
boats on the calm ocean. Nothing. Sol
grabbed the long-handled net and
pulled the package to the lip of the
pool. He hoisted it out—about 20 keys,
tightly wrapped with waterproof tape.
Still dry, Sol thought. A professional
wrapping job.

Sol carried the package toward his
apartment, glancing left and right to
make sure nobody saw him. Who
would see him? He wondered if
Frenchie had seen the package in the
pool. What if she had? She wouldn't
know what it was. He balanced the
package against his stomach and the
wall as he opened the door and went
inside. He set the package carefully on
the floor. He got a steak knife from the
kitchenette and kneeled close to the
package. He said a little silent prayer.
To who? The god of retired smugglers
managing shithole motels, that’s who.
He made a little slit in the package
and stuck the knife blade in. He with-
drew the blade with a flaky, pearlescent
white powder on it. No. Not powder,
more like a metallic-y pastry crust. He
touched the flakes to his tongue, tasted
the bitterness, waited, then felt his
tongue and lips slowly getting numb.
Jesus fucking Christ! The real McCoy!

Maybe 400 large wholesale.
He called Meyer on the phone. “I
(continued on page 128)

"Aud that’s the story about the camp counselor who ate up all the little kids."

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75

[4 4 Oe lA GN NV A AAN mi ES ο

ar | shag reared ο han sy a rel gl iy winy pr ned f ΙΣΠ,

“The next orgasm I have, I'm going to
lift everyone to a higher place,” Perry
Farrell says between songs at Los Ange-
les’ Universal Amphitheater. “I'm going
toa place that's free. Who wants to come
with me? I wantto know true freedom.”

The crowd's approval and confusion
barely register as the singer smiles. Perry
Farrell is talking to God tonight. The fa-
ther of Lollapalooza, author of this
decade's definitive art rock as front man
for Janc’s Addiction and Porno for Py-
ros—and the last true celebrant of the
church of sex, drugs and rock and roll—
is thinking big again. He slinks around
his island-themed bamboo stage set
wearing red Asian pajamas of embroi-
dered silk, his hair twisted up Coolio-
style in what he calls a crown. The rest of
the Jane's Addiction Relapse tour luffs
restlessly through another ten-minute

d Pen ge

mike break. Guitarist Dave Navarro
stomps over to get a cigarette from a
woman in the wings. One of the show's
exotic dancers descends from a dance
tower, slides snakelike down a pole with
her legs spread wide (on the last Porno
for Pyros tour the dancers simulated sex
with papier-máché appendages), then
joins the others offstage.

“My old friend Tim Leary said that
the strongest muscle in the body,”
tinues Perry, grabbing his crotch,
brain. Yeah. It just keeps getting bigger
and harder and stronger and wiser, ex-
panding, wanting.”

Perry seems to be talking to his spirit
heroes, like Leary or the Dalai Lama. Or
to his mother, maybe, who committed

suicide when he was four. Or to God—in
the way a man will address God while
having a heart-to-heart with himself in
public.

“We live in a land where we're taught
to cheat and lie,” he says. “This room is
where we have a chance to live in truth
and honesty. Lets have some truth right
now.” He jumps into the crowd and
shoves the mike in some kid's face.
“Have you ever once thought about
sucking a man's cock?" The kid admits
he has. “He has! Now we're getting
somewhere! We've all been lifted.”

Perry's public trusts him because his
questions aren't part of an act. Some-
times he gets too personal for comfort
(like when he blurts out onstage, "I love
my asshole because it gets rid of my
shit!"), sometimes he spouts gibberish as
he channels (continued on page 138)

adii c haee p Cn rti dni

Ὃ μή

ee:

“Didn’t you see my note on the refrigerator?”

THe Return Or The CADDIE

IT’S HOW ΤΗΕ GAME WAS MEANT TO BE PLAYED

GOLF BY LARRY OLMSTED

NLESS YOU'RE Tiger Woods, you won't get Fluff Cowens

to tote your golf bag, but you don’t need to compete

in the Masters to benefit from playing with a caddie.

A good caddie can be a tour guide, pal, teacher or
even psychiatrist, while a great caddie will be all those things
and more. You will lose fewer balls, hole more putts, avoid
hidden hazards and score better with a caddie at your side.
Managers at courses that offer caddie service claim the aver-
age player will save two to five strokes per round. It's also a
fun way to play. Because caddies typically work courses that
hold tournaments, they often come with history lessons.
“Nicklaus was in that same trap in 1962” is the type of com-
ment you could hear. You won't see a golf cart at Saint An-
drews or Royal Troon, or almost anywhere in the British
Isles, where caddies are the norm; over here carts almost
made caddies extinct. Golf's foot soldiers survived the lean
years at famed resorts such as Pinehurst, Spanish Bay, the
Broadmoor, the Greenbrier, the Doral and Pebble Beach,
but today you can find caddies at a wide selection of courses.
In Kohler, Wisconsin the American Club put caddies on its
two courses in 1997, then built a third course just for walk-
ing. Pinehurst opened a new course in 1996, making caddies
available on six of the resort's eight courses. In Hawaii Ka-
paluaa introduced caddies to paradise, and Oregon's Pump-
kin Ridge added them to the Pacific Northwest. Marriott re-

WHERE & HOW TO BUY ON PAGE 149.

stored caddies to its two courses at the Seaview Resort out-
side Atlantic City, with hopes of soon adding the service at its
other golf resorts. The latest Four Seasons golf resort,
Hualalai (on the big island of Hawaii), has offered caddies
since last year. Some resorts, such as Pebble Beach, offer
“fore caddies” for players who want to tote their own bags.
Fore caddies take off down the fairway ahead of a foursome
to keep a careful eye on the shots. Besides saving balls and
search time, fore caddies clean clubs and read putts. Caddie
Master Enterprises supplies more than 800 caddies to cours-
es around the U.S., and has jobs for more. Playing with a
caddie can be intimidating the first time out, but remember,
no matter how badly you play, he has seen worse. Walking
18 with a caddie costs a little more than renting a golf cart.
Most clubs have no fee but suggest a tip of $15 to $40 per
person, while a few enforce similar minimums. Golfers must
pick up a snack and drink for their caddies if they get some-
thing for themselves. At Pebble Beach, where greens fees
run close to $320, caddies get $40 per bag plus tip, and some
customers also take a cart. Don't hesitate to ask the pro
shop staff what the club's tipping policy is. Keith Lyford,
an ex-PGA tour player and director of the Cranwell Golf
School, can read his own putts and doesn’t lose many balls,
but he takes a caddie whenever one is offered. His rationale:
“Its the way the game was meant to be played.”

79

80

the deacon of dna has hecome the defender of last resort -

Barry Scheck, across the table and
behind a plate of eggs, is talking about
his existential dilemma. Not complain-
ing. Talking. Analyzing. Mulling. Ex-
pounding in that familiar nasal warble
that picks up steam as the triple es-
presso kicks in. For 23 years Scheck
has practiced law, beginning at Legal
Aid in the Bronx, donating count-
less hours, weeks and months to poor
clients. In the past five years, Scheck's
Innocence Project has used DNA test-
ing to rescue more than 30 men
wrongfully imprisoned for rape or
rape and murder, six of them from
death row. This is what Scheck wants
people to know about, the work, he
Says, that is closest to his heart.

Yet, for all his earnest years of restor-
ing life to lost souls, Scheck knows that.
most people view him as the sneer-
ing New Yorker who helped free O.J.
Simpson. More recently, he was derid-

by Paul Schwartzman

ed on the Internet as Babbling Barry,
the honking lawyer who defended Brit-
ish au pair Louise Woodward.

Scheck is warring with himself for his
own reputation: Saint Scheck, defend-
€r of the poor and unknown, versus
Scheck the Shark, protector of the
celebrity defendant du jour. "They say
I'll always be known for Simpson and
Woodward, but it’s not true,” Scheck
says, eyes narrowing, emphatic, ad-
dressing his audience of one as he
would a jury. He thumps the table with
his forefinger. “The Innocence Project
is what people will remember. It will far
outlast anything that came out of the
Simpson trial. It has a momentum all
its own. This will always be there. This
will be my legacy.”

On a morning shortly after the
Woodward trial, Scheck is sitting in a
Brooklyn café near his apartment, un-

shaven, his skin pale, his sharp, hazel

ILLUSTRATION BY STEVE BOSWICK

eyes tired. He eats his omelette without
removing his long blue overcoat or his
baseball cap. He says his day is full. He
wants to attend a friend's lecture at
Yeshiva University's Benjamin N. Car-
dozo School of Law, where he has
taught for 19 years. He has students to
meet, memos to write. He may fly to
Washington to appear on Larry King
Live. Before breakfast, Scheck says that.
he has only 45 minutes to an hour to
spare. But he will talk for more than
three hours.

He talks about the evolution of his
career, how his clients have includ-
ed antinuke protesters, black radicals,
convicted rapists, IRA sympathizers
and Hedda Nussbaum. He recounts
how he and his legal cohort Peter Neu-
feld penetrated the nearly impene-
trable world of DNA fingerprinting,
with its mind-numbing language of al-
leles, autorads (continued on page 106)

when you're
wylaf jean, rap-
tivist and vision-
ary, yov look
for a designer

like sandy dalal

usic fans have

been waiting for

someone to take

rap to the next
level. Maybe a guy like Bob
Marley—someone who could
fuse American and Caribbean
music. Or perhaps someone
from the Nineties who could
stand alongside the giants of
rock and roll. Wyclef Jean, hip-
hop virtuoso, is the answer. He
raps in Creole and English; he
plays The Star-Spangled Banner
on a guitar with his teeth. The
signs were there when his band
the Fugees went global a year
before Puff Daddy did and sold
more than 10 million copies of
The Score. Then came Jean's
ebullient 1997 solo album, The
Carnival, a syncretic triumph of
hip-hop, reggae, zouk and rock.
The platinum-seller is a show-
case for the 27-year-old's im-
pressive talents as composer
and arranger. It features such
performers as Celia Cruz, the
Neville Brothers and 62 mem-
bers of the New York Philhar-
monic. Jean even managed to
snare Bob Dylan for a cameo ap-
pearance in the video for the hit
single Gone Till November. When
sales of The Carnival passed the
1 million mark, Columbia Rec-
ords president Don Ienner told
Billboard: “It’s a pivotal record
to put out at the end of the
Nineties. Wyclef shows that you
can make music for the peo-
ple and for yourself artistical-
ly and (concluded on page 144)

Dalal's suits are handmade and
luxurious. At near right, the
three-button jacket ($1300) and
matching pants ($530) are
made of silk twill. The polo shirt
costs $165. At far right, the sin-
gle-breasted suit with flap-front
trousers ($1550) is a wool-Lycra
blend. The shirt of the same
material costs $275.

PHOTOGRAPHY BY ANOREW ECCLES
WHERE ἃ HOW TO BUY ON PAGE 148.

“That's it! Your sniffing-out-dope days are over!”

TO LIVE AND DIE BY PERCENTAGES

MONEY MATTERS BY CHRISTOPHER BYRON

How much better off are we now than
we were 20 years ago, when the nation
was emerging from the long dark night
of Carter-era stagflation? A close look
at some data from the Census Bureau
reveals we may be a whole lot better off
than even the optimists think—and the
reason has little to do with stock mar-
ket prosperity. Chalk it up instead to
a two-decade boom in rising family
incomes. For anyone lucky enough to
have a job, this boom in family income
has greatly increased the happy jingle
of money in American pockets.

In this column we'll take a look at
how that money was spent back in
the mid-Eighties and how things
have changed today.

In certain circles, 1984 remains
a high-water mark in postwar
economic history—the year
Americans finally stopped talk-
ing about the misery index. Re-
member that one? That's what
you got when you added together
the unemployment rate and the
inflation rate: When Ronald Rea-
gan took office in 1981 the misery
index stood at 17.8 (7.5 percent
unemployment and 10.3 percent infla-
tion). In the three years that followed,
the index fell to 11.5 as 1984 drew to a
close, which helps explain why the Gip-
per was reelected so easily. Today we
find the American people basking in a
misery index of only 6.1 (1.4 percent
inflation and 4.7 percent unemploy-
ment)—a number so small by recent
standards that it hardly sounds miser-
able at all.

What happened? Right-wing politi-

cal economists will tell you we deregu-
lated American business, cut marginal
tax rates, bankrupted the Soviets and
God knows what else. And hey, for all I
know, they're right.
- But I also know something else,
something based on not just my own
experience, but on the experience of
virtually every father and husband I
know: During the Eighties and Nine-
ties, large numbers of women went
back to work. The resulting infusion of
cash lifted families all over America to a
better life than they had ever known.

So I'm sorry to say it, guys, but we
must face facts: The women bailed us
out. You can see it in some family in-
come data developed by the Economic
Policy Institute, a Washington, D.C.—
based think tank. The data show that
between 1979 and 1989, the average
American family's income, adjusted for
inflation, went up about 13 percent—

and 60 percent of that increase came
from working women.

Remember those economic plati-
tudes we all grew up with about how
you should divvy up your paycheck?
If you want to be responsible, don't
spend more than 35 percent on hous-
ing, 25 percent on food, nine percent
on transportation, eight percent on
medical and so on. Struggling families
that toed the line fii tally back in
1984 found ıhey basically had no mon-

ey left at the end of the year. In 1984
the average American family had infla-

tion-adjusted pretax income of $42,865
per year—out of which it spent 27 per-
¿ent on housing, 19 percent on trans-
portation, 14 percent on food, and so
on. At year's end they had a grand total
of $2196 (in real dollars) left—and that's
before they spent even a dime on fun.
Yet, thanks to some fascinating re-
search by the Bureau of Labor Statis-
tics, we can compare those numbers
with equivalent family incomes and
spending percentages for 1995. Grant-
ed, at $49,517 for 1995, inflation-ad-
justed family income doesn't seem to
have improved much in 11 years: a
grand total of $6651. But that gain—
mostly accounted for by the supple-
mentary incomes of working women—
doesn't begin to tell the story of just
how the American family's economic
status improved during the decade.
Remember those monthly budget
percentages? In 1984 the average fam-
ily spent 27 percent of its pretax in-

ALUSTRATION BY PHILIPPE WEISBECKER

come on housing. In absolute numbers
the average family spent 10 percent
more on housing 11 years later. But big
deal. As a percentage of pretax income,
the share actually went down, account-
ing for 26 percent of pretax income
As a result, when the average family
closed its books on 1995, it still had
$8373 left, more than twice what was
left over 11 years earlier.

A school of thought contends these
numbers are skewed by the income
gains enjoyed by breadwinners in fat-
cat jobs on Wall Street and in corporate
America. But the trend is the same no
matter which income group you look
at. That's why consumer confidence re-
mains at a 30-year high. People feel
better off because they are better off.

"These born-again optimists are the
leading edge of the baby boom genera-
tion. In 1984 the average age of the
head of the average American house-
hold was 46.8 years. By 1995 that aver-
age was up to 48. By now he's closing
in on 50—the first of a colossal army

of 74 million Americans marching -

through middle age. Some recent ob-
servations from the public opinion
pollsters at Yankelovich Partners sum
up this group. Baby boomers were
born in times of great economic pros-
perity and they believe a comfort-
able living is their birthright. And
having been born into such cir-
cumstances, boomers probably
expect to make their exits com-
fortably. Now, they can afford it.
What can you invest in with a
payoff that ought to grow as the new
century unfolds? Hang out with
some 40-year-old family men, and pay
close attention to what they talk about.
What turns on a middle-aged man with
money in his pocket in 1998? What
gadget or gizmo would he like to get?
The chances are great that this guy
will scratch that itch—because now,
for maybe the first time in his life, he
can. Asa result, here are a couple good
bets: There's a big—in fact a humon-
gous—boom coming in the vacation
cruises. That means big money for a
company like Royal Caribbean Cruises.
Its stock has nearly doubled in the past.
year, but it still has a long way to go.
The company plans to add four new
cruise ships between now and 2002. It
expects to harvest cash from just the
type of folks that we've been talk-
ing about.

You can reach Christopher Byron by
e-mail at cbscoop@aol.com.

85

"rg TN

S HER NAME suggests, Angela Lit-
al deis a slip ofa girl. But don't let

her petiteness fool you. What
the size one, five-foot-two Southerner
lacks in physical stature she makes up
for with lofty ambition, a hearty sense
of humor and a broad drawl. We met
with the adorable 26-year-old at Spago
Restaurant in Chicago, where she went
crimson when every head in the joint
turned in her direction.

|

Q: Would you rather be considered
cute or sexy?

A: Can't I be both [laughs]? Cute is
more fun. You can be cute 24 hours a
day, but being sexy all the time gets
old. I'd never want people to roll their
eyes and say, "There she goes again,
wearing that tight dress.”

Ο: What do you wear for seduction?

A: Vintage clothing from the Forties
and Fifties. 1 play dress-up and my

miss august
proves you don't
have to be bigger
to be better

boyfriend takes pictures.

Q: You're a makeup artist. Can a
woman look beautiful without using
cosmetics?

A: Sure. I'm comfortable without
makeup, but I wear it because I'm ex-
pressive. 1 like to paint, so I use my face
as a canvas. When I want to kick up my
heels, I wear false eyelashes and red
lipstick

Q: Have you always been creative?

^1 love being cute, hamming it up and making friends," soys Angelo (using her Sauthern charm to explain her driving style, top). "Peo-
ple think I'm naive because I’m blonde and busty and I come from the South. But | have news for them: l'm smarter than they think | am.”

PHOTOGRAPHY BY RICHARD FEGLEY

87

"| do hoir ond mokeup behind the scenes, but | always end up wonting to be in front of the
camero,” exploins the former bikini model ond cheerleoder, milking the spotlight. “I can't
stond not getting o little ottention. | like to flirt ond ploy with the camera, but I hote those too-
sexy, come-hither expressions. | prefer pin-ups. I love look-at-me-I'm-a-sweetie-pie poses.”

A: Yes. I grew up in
Alabama—the Bible
Belt—where there wasn't
enough to occupy my
mind. People were in-
to church and football.
The girls got married
right out of high school.
I was an outcast. I
couldn't wait to bolt out
of town.

You ended up in
Dallas. What has big-
city life taught you?

A: To be open-mind-
ed and express myself.

Q: You played a red-
head in the film Head-
less at the Fair. But do
you believe blondes
have more fun?

: Absolutely. I think
it's psychological. When
I went out in public
with red hair, I felt like
a wallflower. Not that I
wanted to be the center
of attention, but 1 was
used to people looking
at mc. No onc did.

s acting more fun
than modeling?

A: Definitely. Model-
ing gets boring. I have
a hard time sitting still.
I think that improvisa-
tional acting and story-
telling are much more

ifying.

Will your South-
ern accent prevent you
from getting roles?

A: No. I can do all
kinds of different ac-
cents—French or Ger-
man, British, whatever.
I beat out 600 girls for
the role in Headless.

Q: You also beat out
thousands of other
women to become a
Playmate. How does
that feel?

A: It feels terrific. Pm
on top of the world.

The secret to seducing
Miss August: "Start with
my head. Good converse-
tion is stimulating. If an
average-looking guy has
a great persanality, he be-
comes Mel Gibson ta me.”

PLAYMATE DATA SHEET

NAME

IN 1 ¡He
BUST: AL unser: 2205 πιο. pie
HEIGHT: AA ge ee
BIRTH DATE: ‚aa sremac: Asse, ἄμ.

AMBITIONS: "en A

Pont of the. pes

TURN-ONS: Ὁ ris / ) m ls an

Shy smiles. ᾿

TURNOFFS: Coco / CO GIN art

Stotus Symbsls.

σος παν
MY PETS:

SEX BEGINS WITH:

laughter.

WORDS TO LIVE BY: [5 ¡eve none of whe υ

whi ου see l

Senior oo A mena, Όρθε o 4 Xo

leader- here Cowel iane 0]

PLAYBOY’S PARTY JOKES

An Australian was walking down a country
road in New Zealand when he happened to
glance over a fence and see a farmer going at it
with a sheep. The shocked Aussie climbed the
fence and walked over to the fellow. “You
know, mate,” he pointedly remarked, “back
home we shear those.”

The New Zealander looked at the intruder
defiantly and said, "I'm not bloody shearing
this with no one!”

T.

This MontH's Most FREQUENT SUBMISSION: A
man staggered into a bar, flopped onto a stool
and asked for a drink. The bartender politely
informed him that it appeared he'd already
had enough to drink and that he could not be
served more. The drunk grumbled, climbed
off the barstool and weaved out the front door.

A few minutes later the same fellow stum-
bled through the side door, wobbled up to the
bar and hollered for a drink. The bartender
came over and politely but firmly refused him
service. The drunk cursed and grumbled as he
made his way out.

Not long afterward, the guy burst through
the back door of the bar and belligerently or-
dered a drink. The bartender emphatically re-
minded the man that he was drunk and would
not be served, and that either a cab or the po-
lice would be called.

The surprised drunk stared at the bar-
tender, then in hopeless anguish cried, “Man!
How many bars do you work at?”

What's the difference between the Spice Girls’
film and a porno film? The music is better in
the porno film.

A man was concerned about recent sexual
problems and consulted a specialist. After a
couple of tests, the doctor sat the patient down
for a talk. "I'm sorry,” he said, "but you've
overdone it the last 30 years. Your penis is
burned out. You have only 30 erections left.”

The fellow walked slowly home, deeply de-
pressed. His wife was waiting for him at the
front door and he told her what the doctor
said. “Oh no, only 30 times!” she exclaimed.
“We can't waste a single one of them. Let's
make a schedule.”

“I already made a schedule on the way
home,” he confessed. “Your name wasn't on it.”

Pıaysoy cuassic: When passion between the
couple reached a fevered pitch, the woman
asked her husband to get a condom. Reluc-
tantly he left the bed, walked over to the dress-
er and fished one out. As he was putting it on,
his seven-year-old son walked into the room.
The boy's mother pulled the covers over her
head and pretended to be asleep. Having
nowhere to hide, the father fell on all fours to
the floor and tried to cover up.

“Dad,” the boy asked, “what are you doing?”

“Um, ah,” the father mumbled, “just looking
for a mouse.”

“Oh cool! When you catch it, what are you
going to do, fuck it?”

Signs that you're spending too much time
online:

* You wake up at three A.M. to go to the
bathroom and stop to check your e-mail on the
way back to bed.

* You named your children Eudora, Mozil-
la and Dotcom.

* All your friends have an ( in their names.

* You tell the cabdriver you live at http://
1000.edison.garden/house/brick.html.

Hey, Doris," Mike said after dinner one eve-
ning, “what do you say we try a different posi-
tion tonight?"

“Fine,” his wife replied. "Why don't you
stand by the ironing board while I sit on the
couch, drink a beer and scratch my belly?"

2.” κε.

Although warned that a parrot he wanted to
buy for the Clintons had previously lived in a
D.C. brothel, a family friend purchased the
bird anyway and had it placed in the White
House living quarters as a surprise.

When Hillary walked into the room, the par-
rot squawked, “Too old! Too old!”

A few minutes later Chelsea walked in. “Too
young! Too young!”

Finally the president joined his family. “Hi,
Bill,” the bird said.

Send your jokes on postcards to Party Jokes Editor,
PLAYBOY, 680 North Lake Shore Drive, Chicago,
Illinois 60611, or by e-mail to jokes@playboy.com
$100 will be paid to the contributor whose submis-
sion is selected. Sorry, jokes cannot be returned.

, prow

“Have you noticed how these theme cruises are really catching on?”

E > > E As As As As As A A CAE A CAE

KELLY SLATER’S GUIDE
TO BEACH LIVING

oA, ¿Ze ep |

affe
The beach is both
a real place and an
imagined place. It
has its own pulse
(a few clicks above
a coma), its own
smell (Coppertone), its own attractions
(bikinied babes) and its own soundtrack
(the Beach Boys). Although it's some-
place we merely visiton occasion, we re-
alize that there are people who own the
beach, people who have staked a claim
on its mysteries. They appear to have
achieved a oneness with the beach, with
its rhythms, its rituals and its taboos.
They also have achieved something
more lasting than a tan—that is a state
of mind that equals being on a perma-
nent vacation.

We wanted to list some fads of beach
living to deconstruct its mystique. We
asked wave-god Kelly Slater (four-time
winner of Surfer magazine's Surfer Poll)
to help the chalk people who want in on
the beachitude but can’t spend their
lifetimes getting it. The five-time world
champion, born to surf in Cocoa Beach,
Florida, describes beach culture as a
“lifestyle thing. It’s being casual and re-
laxed enough to do what you want. It
has impacted everything from music
to fashion.” (Slater's band, the Surf-
ers, whose other members include surf
greats Rob Machado and Peter King,
has a new CD called Songs From the Pipe.)
Here's what else Slater has soaked up in
his 26 years at the beach:

(1) It's OK to wear sunscreen, just
don't let it wear you. Says Slater: “Sure,
Teal men wear sunscreen. I wear it most
of the time, but not every day. But I
prefer the smell of the old-fashioned co-
conut lotions. It reminds me of being a
kid on the beach.”

(2) Learn to embrace risk. Slater:
€ waves reach 20 or more feet,
you're driving a race car
pin turns at 200 miles an

rogram. |
ring a ὍΤΙ,

hour. It’s that intense, that concentrat-
ed. You cannot be distracted for a sec-
ond. It scares the shit out of you.” And
when it comes to boards? “Long boards
are acceptable—some of my best friends
surf them—though I surf only short
boards.”

(3) Know where the girls are. Slater:
“The most beautiful girls are at Co-
coa Beach during the bikini contests at
Coconuts.”

(4) Know where to catch the perfect
wave. “The best beach town is Coolan-
gatta, on the Gold Coast of Queensland,
Australia. Everyone's a diehard surfer.
The waves are really good all day and
it’s warm for most of the year. And
check out the north shore of Oahu in
the winter.”

(5) When it comes to beach food,
there's no contest, says Slater: "It's got
to be burgers or smoothies. Anything
my mother didn't cook.”

(6) The beach isn’t a library. Slater:
“You're not supposed to actually read
on the beach. I only pretend to read—
you know, looking at a book when
there's someone you want to check out
and you don’t want anyone to know
you're looking. That's beach reading.”

(7) When it comes to thingies in the
water, know which are dangerous and
which aren't. Slater: “Stingrays won't
bother you if you don't step on them, so
you don't have to worry if you're swim-
ming. Jellyfish don't give a shit what
you're doing. Neither do sharks. But
you can't worry about any of them.”
The biggest beach myth? “Undertows.
I'm still not sure there are such things.
There are currents going out and waves
that knock you down, but no current
that actually pulls you under.”

(8) Know the one place sand doesn’t
belong. Slater: “Your bed.”

(9) Know-that it’s never too late.

Slater: “Can rf after 20? You
A ah =

won't beco) a pi y time soon, but

JO

People
;calila ]
€,

you can learn to ride waves
quite profident. Surfing takt
master than golf, 1 think. 1
stantly changing. i
have to spend as mui
about ocean conditions as act
ing waves.”

(10) Know your surf
best? Slater: “Beyond Bi
Surfers: The Movie because they capi
the surfing and attitude that influei
my generation.” The worst? “Obvi
ly, Point Break with Patrick Swayze,
Keanu Reeves and Gary Busey. You
watch it and then wonder what people
think of you because you're a surfer. It's
so lame.” The film to watch before hit-
ting the water? “Jaws. It'll make your
session more exciting.”

(11) Know your swimwear. Shorts are
not so baggy as they used to be. Bright
colors go only with a serious tan. OK
brands: Billabong, Quiksilver (Slater's
sponsor), Katin and Redsand. But do
not show up on the beach in shorts
that look anywhere near new. Also,
avoid the Fabioesque Speedo. Slater:
“You know who should be banned from
wearing Speedos? Everyone who wears
Speedos. Or thinks about wearing
Speedos.” By the same token, Slater,
a former Baywatch star, knows first-
hand that a one-piece is often better
than a bikini. “Certain women prob-
ably shouldn't wear bikinis, and, un-
fortunately, they don't always know who
they are.”

(12) Know the profoundly democrat-
ic truth about beach life. Slater: “In the
real world, people advertise who they
are and how successful they are. You
can tell by the way they dress and the
cars they drive. On the beach, when
everyone's walking around in trunks,
you don't know who does what and it
doesn't matter. People li]
you are, not b

BMW in the parkin

102

CHICAGO’S FRONTERA GRILL SERVES ΙΤ AND WE’VE GOT THE RECIPE

THE
WORLD?S
BEST

margarita

argarita Sames, a retired Tex-
an, says she whipped up the
first margarita in Acapulco
during the late Forties. Other
claims to authorship include
those made by Tommy's Bar in
Juárez, Bertito's Bar in Taxco
and the Rancho La Gloria in
Tijuana. It hardly matters, except maybe to
Sames. What you really need to know is where to
find—and how to makc—a grcat margarita, thc
kind that puckers your lips and gently erases the
line between the left and right sides of your brain.
And here's the answer. The best margaritas in the
world are made at Rick Bayless' restaurants, the
Frontera Grill and Topolobampo, on North Clark
Street in Chicago. Bayless—often cited as one of
America's top chefs—has conspired with tequila
maven Carlos Alvarez to create four glorious con-
coctions that have thirsty patrons lined up out the
door year-round.

Frontera's gold margarita, the house drink, was
created before many of today's boutique tequilas
became available north of the Rio Grande. It's just
the thing to serve when you need drinks for a
crowd and don't want to spend the evening shak-
ing yourself into a frenzy.

FRONTERA GRILL GOLD MARGARITA
(SERVES EIGHT)

Mix 1% cups Cuervo Especial gold tequila, %
cup plus one teaspoon Gran Torres orange
liqueur (or 4 cup Grand Marnier), % cup plus one
tablespoon fresh lime juice (about two large
limes), the finely grated zest of 1% limes (about
one teaspoon) and five tablespoons of sugar.
Combine the above with a cup of water in a glass
pitcher, cover and refrigerate for two to 24 hours.
Strain into another pitcher and serve straight up

or on the rocks in margarita or martini glasses
rimmed with lime and coarse salt.

“The secret,” Bayless says, “is in the steeping,
which melds the flavors into a rich, powerful
blend.” He recommends using key limes if you
can find them. “Persian limes are what we're used
to, but key limes are the real thing. When we're
cutting them the smell fills the kitchen, You real-
ize this is the aroma of Mexico.”

Tequila distillers have hoped to duplicate the
spectacular success of other premium spirits such
as single-malt scotches and single-barrel and
small-batch bourbons. Distillers in Jalisco, the
Mexican state that's home to Guadalajara and its
neighbor, Tequila, began exporting 100 percent
blue agave tequilas a few years back.

They do with this native plant what Kentucki-
ans learned to do with corn, and the result is a
range of tequilas that can stand up against the
best sipping whiskeys in the world. Which is one
reason why today's more sophisticated tequila
drinkers are no longer standing at the bar slam-
ming shots with a little salt and lime. Licking salt
off your hand and sucking on lime wedges is far
from dead, of course, but it’s hardly necessary to
appreciate the spirit. A margarita is best served
ice-cold, Presenting it ina chilled glass also adds a
certain something to the experience.

To be properly labeled as such, tequila must be
made in the state of Jalisco or designated areas of
Guanajuato, Michoacán, Nayarit and Tamaulipas
from the blue agave plant, a monster that takes
eight to 12 years to mature and yields a pineap-
ple-type heart—hence called the pina—that aver-
ages 40 to 70 pounds and has been known to
weigh in at 150 pounds. The hearts are cooked in
traditional brick ovens or modern autoclaves and
then shredded or ground into a pulp—in some
cases between stones (concluded on page 134)

DRINK BY JOHN RAME

PHOTOGRAPHY BY JAMES IMBROGNO

“Eat lots of fattening foods, do very little exercise and come back
in six months. Then we'll discuss your modeling.”

ith summer winding
down, it's not too early
to plot your cool-weath-
er escape. You could
go to the Caribbean,
but with the exception of Jamaica most
of the islands offer little more than

beaches and sun. You get more—lots
more—in Mexico. Even Cancún, which
bears little resemblance to the real
Mexico, offers nearby Mayan ruins, a
rain forest, villages and colonial build-
ings that date back hundreds of years.

LAS ALAMANDAS

On the Pacific coast, halfway be-
tween Manzanillo and Puerto Vallarta,
Las Alamandas will bring out your pri-
mal instincts in a sophisticated jungle
setting. So private and remote that it
has its own landing strip, Las Alaman-
das has 15 rooms in five villas scattered
over 70 beachfront acres fronting 1500

acres of tropical splendor, with beauti-

ful flowers, palms and exotic trees. The
elegant tile-roofed villas have large,
comfortable terraces that face the
beach. Room rates start at $300 per
night. And bring your binoculars and a
bird book—the birds are spectacular.

MAROMA

Another of Mexico's premiere small
luxury resorts is Maroma, on the Yu-
catán coast 20 miles south of Cancún.
It's off an obscure stretch of highway at
the end ofa long, narrow dirt road that
runs through thick greenery But the
drive ends at a cobblestone courtyard
with a pretty pond. Some of Maro-
ma's curvilinear stucco buildings have
thatch roofs, and there are 36 rooms
and suites arrayed along the beach on

ILLUSTRATION BY KAREN BARBOUR

more than 500 acres. The rooms are
designed with Mexican motifs and start
at $220 per night; junior suites go for
$350. Cheryl Andrews, who does PR
for fancy properties all over Yucatan
but doesn't rep Maroma, told us, "It's
where 1 would want to go with the per-
son I love.”

LAS HADAS

a night most of the year, including
meals, nonmotorized water sports and
all domestic drinks. The snorkeling is
especially rewarding here. The Great
Mayan Reef 1s just 500 yards offshore,
and there are also cenotes—freshwater
streams that run mainly underground
but surface as natural pools before

reaching the sea—to explore.

timuef The Caribbean Reef Club is just

Las Hadas, just outside of By David Ὁρ the road from Tulúm (an
Manzanillo overlooking the impressive Mayan site and the
bay, is a wonderful white Standish only ruins on the Caribbean)

dream. It’s hardly intimate—it

has 220 rooms and suites, eight bars
and restaurants, an 18-hole golf
course, ten tennis courts—but its
Moorish domes and spirals and the
cobblestone paths through its white
labyrinth make it seem more like a
charming mountainside village than a
mojo resort. The beach is splendid—
155 where Bo Derek romped in 10.
There are two swimming pools: One

contains two islands, a waterfall, a rope
bridge and an aquatic bar. The other
one hides beneath jungle greenery and
is more private and secluded. Las
Hadas isn’t cheap—a double room in
high season goes for about $300 a
night—but it’s still nearly a perfect ten.

CARIBBEAN REEF CLUB

The Caribbean Reef Club, a “life-
styles” couples-only resort in Yucatan
12 miles south of the Cancún airport,
has miles of clothing-optional beaches.
There's also a big freshwater pool and
a beachside Jacuzzi that will hold 40
free spirits at a time. The living quar-
ters are a bit spartan, but all face the
ocean and the suites have full kitchens
and patios. The rooms are only $220

and Xcaret, a zoo of sorts built
around a network of cenotes. And
nearby Puerto Morelos, the oldest fish-
ing village on the peninsula, makes for
an enjoyable excursion for a good sea-
food lunch.

HACIENDA KATANCHEL

Three hundred years ago, this classy
hotel in the heart of Yucatan was a
working hacienda where cattle were

of the
border has
become a
resort
nirvana for

romanlics

raised and vaqueros raised hell. Today
Katanchel is one of the most unusual
hotels anywhere—a treat for those who
don't require a beach and want to get
into the true Yucatán. 1ts 30-odd guest
houses, or pavilions, are built on the
foundations of workers' housings. But
these cheery brightred buildings with
tile roofs and gardens are a long way
from work. The former factory for pro-
cessing sisal—a fiber used for making
rope—has been turned into an airy
restaurant, and the erstwhile company
store is now a boutique. Chichén Itza
and Uxmal, the two major Mayan ruins
in Yucatán, aren't far away. Mérida,
with its centuries-old colonial buildings
and interesting restaurants and shops, is
a 30-minute (concluded on page 152)

FOR RESERVATIONS AND TRAVEL INFORMATION SEE WHERE & HOW TO BUY ON PAGE 149,

105

PLAYBOY

106

BARRY SCHECK continua from page 50

“I don't want to talk about that.” For a moment he
seems on the verge of walking out.

and polymorphic loci.

Oh, and—don’t you know?—he has
also written screenplays. Three of
them. Two were sold to Hollywood, in-
cluding Doin’ the Dozens, a never-made
farce in which the heroes, con men
named Sam and Barney, devise a game
show in which various social groups in-
sult one another. Mexicans versus Mor-
mons. Blacks versus Jewish Ameri-
can Princesses. Mobsters versus Shiite
Muslims. Gays versus Hell's Angels
Scheck's buddy and co-author, Harold
Rosenthal, chuckles while describing
the plot over the phone, but Scheck
won't give up the script for a reading.
“Too dark,” he says, grinning.

Instead, he talks about his father the
tap dancer, who hosted a television
show and managed such stars as Con-
nie Francis and Bobby Darin. He re-
cites the list of bands that performed at
Woodstock—-the original, which he at-
tended until the very end, when Jimi
Hendrix played the national anthem.
His eyes fill with tears as he recalls how,
when he was 11 years old, he escaped a
horrific fire that killed his younger sis-
ter, caused his father to have a heart at-
tack and destroyed his mother’s capac-
ity to experience joy.

Only one subject turns Barry Scheck
testy: Orenthal James Simpson. Scheck
refuses to say whether he attended a
reunion dinner that O.J. hosted with
Johnnie Cochran in New York last Oc-
tober to celebrate the second anniver-
sary of Simpson’s acquittal. "Scheck
and Neufeld were there,” Cochran
confirmed. “It was a great night. We
talked about what the case had meant
to us. It was magnificent, touching for
everyone.”

Scheck becomes most irritated when
questioned about Simpson's innocence.
“Why are you asking me about that?”
he snaps. “I don't want to talk about
that.” For a moment he seems on the
verge of walking out. Then he answers,
as if by rote, voice low, eyes distant: “All
a lawyer can say is, 1 don't know, 1
wasn't there. But look at the evidence.
We raised the questions for there to be
reasonable doubt.” A pause. “I don't
know the answer. Never pretend to.”

More than anything, the Simpson
trial launched Scheck as a celebrity, a
veritable Perry Mason with a schnoz.
Strangers call his name when he walks
through airports or down streets, and
when he goes to Yankee Stadium. “Yo,
Barry! If we kill the ump, will you get

us off?” one shouted. Others curse and
tell him that he should be ashamed.
Fame has forced Scheck into the awk-
ward new role of managing his public
persona.

One Sunday in November, having
returned to New York from Wood-
ward's trial, Scheck planned to watch
Cochran preach at a Brooklyn church
attended by their new big-name client,
Abner Louima, the Haitian immigrant
allegedly tortured by New York police.
But the prospect of encountering re-
porters and photographers makes
Scheck queasy. "I'm not going," he
says. He doesn't want to divert atten-
tion from Louima. He doesn't know
who might be there—fringe political
activists or the clot of bickering lawyers
who had latched on to Louima's cause.
He doesn't want to get caught on film
shaking hands with the wrong person.

Yet, when the hour arrives, the en-
tertainer’s son who harbored unsated
fantasies of singing and dancing on his
dad's TV show cannot stay away from
the spotlight. Scheck not only shows up
but sits in the front pew, clapping as
Cochran introduces himself to the
throng with his favorite couplet: “Let
me tell you that I can still say, ‘If it
doesn't fit, you must acquit.” After a
brief press conference, the purpose of
which seems only to declare that the
Dream Team has arrived East, Coch-
ran lingers to explain his sermon,
which included a recounting of how he
found God when he was 11 years old.
Scheck bolts out the door.

Comedian and Los Angeles-based
radio host Harry Shearer is decon-
structing how Barry Scheck became a
great American punch line, why comics
invoke Scheck to tickle their audiences.
“For starters, he has the 'k' at the end
of his name. ‘K’ is the comedy conso-
nant. That's why chicken is the comedy
bird,” Shearer explains. “Scheck's also
short. That's funny. And it's the sound
of his voice. He's got that New York
voice, especially the way he uses it in
the courtroom. He's at the other end of
the spectrum from Johnnie Cochran,
who's like molasses. Barry Scheck is
two and a half pounds of smoked
salmon. The hair is the only thing that
saves him. If he were bald, we could
make fun of him forever.”

In the weeks during and after the
Woodward trial, rants targeting Scheck

were a regular feature on talk radio
and in the pundits-only sections of
newspapers. Under the headline saxry
SCHECK BLOWING SMOKE IN YOUR FACE,
Anne Roiphe, columnist for The New
York Observer, wrote: “Put Barry Scheck
together with a smoking gun and he'll
find six expert witnesses to tell you that.
the gun is really a pastrami sandwich,
and the burning in your eyes is noth-
ing more than an allergic reaction to
the prosecution's blowing smoke in
your face."

Shearer, on his nationally broadcast
Le Show, mimicked O.J. consoling
Scheck after Woodward's guilty ver-
dict. “Makes me real grateful I got you
when you were fresh,” the Simpson
character tells him. Saturday Night Live
imagined Woodward asking Scheck for
a job caring for his children. “Uh,
we're not looking for anyone right
now,” Scheck squeals. The doorbell
rings. It's O.J., thanking him for the ac-
quittal. Then the Unabomber knocks.
He's looking for a lawyer. So is Terry
Nichols.

“TI never forget that magical night,”
the Scheck character says, “laughing
and singing with Terry Nichols, O.J.,
the British nanny and the Unabomber.
We became the best of friends. Then I
woke up and realized that my wife had
been stabbed and my baby had been
stabbed and my house had been blown
up twice, Yes, some people might call
that a tragedy, but 1 call it four new
clients. And four new friends.”

In truth, Scheck might be pleased to
get a new high-profile case, but he
would never enjoy himself trying it. Or
admit to enjoying himself, anyway. He
works long hours, then stays awake
fretting about his cases, about whether
he is, as he says, living up to his goal of
“being a good person and a good
lawyer at the same time.”

His ego is large, but so is his capacity
for self-doubt. He wants you to know
that he once won 29 consecutive jury
trials. He doesn't want you to know the
information came from him.

“Just say I'm good with juri
says, nodding.

‘Ask him how he enjoyed that four-
day family jaunt to the Caribbean, and
he mumbles, “You know, OK.”

Ask him how it feels to watch an in-
mate he has worked to exonerate walk
free from prison, and he says, “Exhila-
rating. Sad in some ways. Humbling.
You worry about what will happen
to him.”

Even in repose, his expression tends
toward a scowl.

“He's a man of conflict,” says his
wife, Dorothy, a social worker. “He's ei-
ther anxious or depressed. It's rare
that he's really happy.”

(continued on page 144)

p

nas THE (COLLINSON TWINS

the first twin playmates had the world seeing double

doubled the world's plea-

sure—and made history —
by introducing Mary and
Madeleine Collinson, the first
identical twin Playmates
Born in 1952 on Malta, the
tantalizing twosome spent
their teen years modeling be-
fore heading to Hollywood to
star in such films as The Love
Machine (1971) and Twins of
Evil (1972). "There's really lit-
tle difference in the way that
we think and in the things we
like to do,” 18-year-old Made-
leine said in 1970. That may
well be true, but they're still a
ringing endorsement of the
maxim, The more the merrier.

I n October 1970 PLAYBOY

“Modeling is o holiday—weoring pretty clothes and gelling paid,” the twins (on the October 1970.
cover, left) once soid. Without clothes (above ond above left), things were trickier—photographer
Dwight Hooker shot between 700 and 800 sheets of 8"x10" film to creote the duo's Centerfold. 107

PHOTOGRAPHY BY DWIGHT HOOKER

"Everyone thinks we're special, but we hate the distinction,”
Mary once said af being a twin. Taday, the twins live seporate
lives—Mary in Milan with an Italion gentleman and two dough-
ters, ond Madeleine an Malta with her husband ond three kids.

110

“What I want to know is, where's that muscular, curly-haired, take-charge stranger your
psychic said you were gomg to meet on your vacation?”

Dares Garage

PLAYBOY'S MODERN LIVING EDITOR FINALLY GETS HIS HANDS DIRTY

As PLAYBOY's Modern Living Editor,
David Stevens has an indecent amount
of fun checking out great guy-toys,
traveling to exotic places and evaluat-
ing fine food, wines, spirits, cigars
and other worldly delights. What's
more, he gets to drive a wide range of
exciting new automobiles. We per-
suaded Dave to give us his notes. Who
knows what might come next. Maybe
Dave's Basement?

.
Along with reading my opinions (fu-
eled by a fondness for such outré
wheels as Morgans and Citróens), with
this page you'll be privy to the think-
ing of Arthur Kretchmer, PLAYBOY'S
Editorial Director, and Ken Gross, our
Contributing Automotive Editor and
director of the Petersen Automotive
Museum in Los Angeles. And if it’s a
station wagon or SUV I’m driving,
Hobbes, my 185-pound English mas-
tiff, will tag along for our Big Dog test.
.

Though General Motors now owns
Saab, we're fortunate that GM’s but-
toned-down mind-set hasn't reached
Sweden. The all-new 9-5 (pictured
here) is everything its predecessor,

the 9000, was plus more—eccentric,
innovative and fun. A 2.3-liter turbo
9-5 is available, but why not opt for
the 3.0-liter turbo SE model, which,
according to Saab, beats the Audi A6’s
zero-to-60 time by about two seconds?
It’s fast and the handling and suspen-
sion are Trollhättan rather than To-
kyo. Saab's quirky creature comforts
and go-the-extra-mile safety features
have endeared its to drivers since
1947. The ergonomic cockpit feels
more like a jet plane’s, and the igni
tion key is in the center console where
it belongs (next to the window switch-

es). The glove compartment
is air-conditioned (a great
place to store York Pepper-
mint Patties), ventilated
leather seats are optional and
the audio system automati-
cally adjusts the volume to
compensate for road noise as
you accelerate. For about
$37,000, you're getting a lot
for your money.

.

SHORT DRIVES: Subaru's For-
ester (right) may look sawed-
off, but it is perfect for cut-
and-thrust urban traffic and hauling a
big dog to your country estate. * An
automotive puzzler: Why hasn't the
Mitsubishi Diamante ES sold out?

Above: Maybe Saab should
have named its 9-5 model the
Refuge. Its cockpit is cozy, well
insulated and ergonomicolly
smart. Left: Different-looking—
but obviously still a Saob.

Priced at $32,000, it’s sleck, fast and
a great value. * Putting the Lexus
GS400 up against the Mercedes-Benz
C43 AMG is like betting on Godzilla
over King Kong. The phrase “blindly
fast” hardly does justice to the re-
sponse from these sedans when you
nail the accelerator. Based on my
sphincter test, the Lexus feels quicker,
and I prefer its interior (the Benz’ two-
tone decor reminds me of a pair of
golf shoes). But the understated sedan
from Stuttgart wins the holy-shit-Pa-
tricia-what-was-that? award every time
you dust some poseur in his Cadillac

Below: Hobbes gives the nimble Subaru Forester
two paws up for headroom and ease of entry. His
vote an the backseat cup holders is onother story.

Catera. About $53,000 buys you a
monster car that should hold its value.

.
RIDING SHOTGUN: The new VW Passat
GLS passed through Dave's Garage
recently. It’s firm and responsive, a
real sports sedan at a realistic price.
We also put our hands on the Mer-
cedes ML 320 SUV, and didn't want to
let go. The Benz truck is tall, roomy,
elegantly leathered and rugged, with
flawless performance from the full-
time four-wheel drive. A BMW 740iL
seemed cramped in the front seat
compared to the size of the car and en-
gine, It’s a car better suited to ex-
pressways than byways. Contrary to
what Dave thought, I found the
Forester to be soft and swoopy. The
new Beetle is more than a retro
It's a nicely detailed driving ma-
——innovative inside, fun to drive
and it brings out the best in strangers,
especially women. Last, the new Toy-
ota Sienna van is an eye-opener. While
the new Camry and Corolla feel like
baby steps in Toyota's evolution, the
Sienna says superior in every nook
and cranny. Can the new Daimler-
Chrysler team top this? —AK.

.
With the popularity of Volkswagen's
new Beetle and the Plymouth Prowler,
it seems the era of the retro car is up-
on us. Vehicles that we thought were
gone forever may return in a slightly
altered guise. So what's your choice
for a retro redo? A 1957 T-Bird? A
>64 Mustang? Maybe a '65 GTO? Just
e-mail your preference to davesgrg@
playboy.com or mail it to Dave's
Garage, PLAYBOY, 680 North Lake
Shore Drive, Chicago, Illinois 60611.
We'll run your picks in a future issue.

ni

—
Lod 4 {4 Fashion By HOLLIS WAYNE

ud

NOTHING SAYS
NONCHALANCE LIKE
SHOES WITH

NO LACES : ^N

PHOTOGRAPHY BY CHUCK BAKER
112 WHEREA HOW TO BUY ON PAGE 145.

mio semen sen
E tada eggs
ας ο

N

Loafers are versatile; laafers are cool.
Most important, loafers are back.
They con dress down a suit or dress
up jeons; you can go with socks ar
without (just keep your feet fresh).
Penny loafers are considered best for
casualwear. Taday's loafers have a
high vamp (the tongue of leather that
hides your sack), which keeps your
pants from snagging on the shoe and
gives the crease a better break.
Brown is a good fall colar because it
matches earth-taned suits. For a fin-
ish, think either textured (suede) or
high gloss—nothing in the middle.
Bottom left: The first shoe is a penny
loafer with a welt seam and em-
bossed calfskin, by Bottega Veneta
($460). At one time welts were found
only on moccasins, but now dressier
styles have them, too. The next shoe
is a split-toe penny loofer by Joseph
Abboud ($275). Next ta it is a grainy
slip-on with signature gold bar, by
Bruno Magli ($235), followed by a
suede moccasin with contrasting
stitching, by Kenneth Cole ($98). The
penultimate loafer is a square-toed
dress shoe with vamp piping, by Bot-
tego Veneta ($350); the last is a pen-
ny loafer by Cale-Haan ($350).

Blue Heaven, Key West, Florida
Reel Inn, Malibu
Savoy Tivoli, San Francisco
Northside Cafe,
Chicago
Brunetta’s,
New York City

Upscale
Outdoor

Dinmg

Bay Wolf Cafe,
Oakland
North Pond
Cafe, Chicago
Le Cigale, New York City
Bayona, New Orleans
Blossom Café,
Charleston, South Carolina

Port O’Call, Salt Lake City
The Gingerman, Austin, Texas
Fireside Restaurant & Lounge,
Chicago
Bohemian Hall, Queens,
New York
The Terrace, Madison, Wisconsin

No-Fail Pickup Bars
The Derby, Los Angeles
Louie’s Backyard,

South Padre Island, Texas
Déja Vu, Chicago
Spinnaker Beach Club,

Panama City, Florida
The Rock, Tucson, Arizona

Best Bar To Flirt
With A Celebrity

Sky Bar at the Mondrian
Hotel, Los Angeles

Where To Walch Girls

Garden of Eden, Los Angeles
Dirtbags, Tucson, Arizona
Narcisse, Chicago
The pool at Hard Rock Hotel
& Casino, Las Vegas
South Beach Pub, Miami Beach
Café Chardonnay,
Palm Beach Gardens, Florida

“Best ©

¡door Dive

an Francisco

Sigar Hot Spats

fonarch Bay Courtyard of
the Ritz-Carlton,
Laguna Niguel, California

COHIBXS IN THE
THE RITZ-CARLTON KT |KGUNX MIGUEL

FX ΜΟΒΟΣΥ’5, Seattle
Hamilton's, Las Vegas
Lone Wolf, Dallas
Club Macanudo,
New York City and Chicago
Havana Club (above Ruth’s
Chris Steakhouse),
Baltimore

Where To Make Out

Gates Pass, Tucson, Arizona

Graceland Cemetery, Chicago

Under the lawn sprinklers
on Harvard campus,
Cambridge, Massachusetts

Coral Castle, Homestead, Florida
New York City

Best Rooftop Dancing

Carbon, New York City

Cool Picnic Sites

Marina Green, San Francisco

Rittenhouse Square,
Philadelphia

Picnic Point,
Madison, Wisconsin

Stone Mountain, Georgia

Grant Park during Jazz Fest,
Chicago

Jamaica Wildlife Preserve,
New York City

Griffith Park, Los Angeles

Best Sunsets

‘Trestles, San Mateo Point, California

Ocracoke Island, North Carolina

Ludington State Park,
Ludington, Michigan

Kailua Beach, Oahu, Hawaii

Flying Point Beach, Watermill,
New York

Caladesi Island State Park,
Dunedin, Florida

GET YOUR KICKS AT THE 65.

Best Urban Beach

Oak Street Beach, Chicago
Best Late -Night
Calorie Fest

Fries with feta and a chocolate
malt at the Grill, Athens,
Georgia

Best Lale -Night
Calorie Fest, Part Two

Any hour at Krispy Kreme
when the sign reads “Hot
Donuts Now”

Top Ten Drive-Ins

Cinderella Drive-In, Denver
66 Drive-In, Carthage, Missouri
Brazos Drive-In,

Granbury, Texas
49er Drive-In,

Valparaiso, Indiana
Rustic Drive-In,

North Smithfield, Rhode Island
Sundance Drive-In,

Toledo, Ohio
Starlight Drive-In, Atlanta
Galaxy Drive-In,

North Vandergrift, Pennsylvania
Family Drive-In,

Stephens City, Virginia
South Bay Triple Drive-In,

San Diego

Best Outdoor
Film Series

Hudson River Park
Conservancy Riverflicks,
New York City

Where The Rebels Are

Elberton, Georgia rock
quarries, at night

Best Retro Hangout

Seaside Heights, New Jersey

Coolest Thrill Ride

Power Tower (Cedar Point),
Sandusky, Ohio

RAPTOR TERROR XT CEDER POINT

Guaranteed To Scare
The Pants Off Her

Raptor (Cedar Point), Sandusky,
Ohio

Loch Ness Monster (Busch
Gardens), Williamsburg, Virginia

Steel Phantom (Kennywood
Park), West Mifflin, Pennsylvania

Best Rock And Bowls

Garden Bowl, Detroit
Mid-City Lanes, New Orleans
Diversey River Bowl, Chicago

Cool Drinks

Rattler: lemonade and beer

Blood and Sand: scotch, cherry
brandy, sweet vermouth, orange juice

Lemonade Slush: vodka, triple
sec, crushed ice, sugar, lemons

ILLUSTRATIONS EY KIRSTEN ULY

america’s favorite

P ossessed of Hollywood’s most famous

smirk, Bruce Willis has acted in
movies of every genre, starring in some of
the biggest box office hits (“Die Hard,” “Die
Harder,” “Die Hard With a Vengeance”)
and appearing in a range of quieter movies
such as “Nobody's Fool,” for which he was
widely praised by critics. This summer, he’s
saving the world once again in "Armaged-
don,” and he'll next star in a movie he’s pro-
ducing based on Kurt Vonnegut's “Breakfast
of Champions.”

Willis is from Carneys Point, New Jersey,
where his father was a welder. He began act-
ing in high school and studied theater at
Montclair State College. He moved to New
York to pursue acting, supporting himself by
bartending. In 1984, he got the lead in an
off-Broadway production of Sam Shephard's
“Fool for Love,” which led to an audition for
a TV pilot starring Cybill Shepherd. The
show, “Moonlighting,” became a huge hit.

Willis married Demi Moore in 1987, and
they have three daughters, Rumer, Scout and
Tallulah. In addition they are active share-
holders (with Arnold Schwarzenegger and
Sylvester Stallone) in Planet Hollywood,
where Willis occasionally indulges another
passion: playing rock and roll. When not
working, Willis moves among homes on each
coast and a spread in Idaho. He says he
spends as much time as he can with his chil-
dren. "That's a gift I'm fortunate enough to
be able to give my kids—me. My time,” he
told PLAYBOY.

Contributing Editor David Sheff first met
with Willis for a “Playboy Interview” in
1996. This time, Sheff reports, Willis in-
stantly put him on the defensive. “Bruce is
one of the few Hollywood actors whose off-
screen presence is as imposing as the one he
has in movies. As I turned on the tape
recorder, he issued a challenge. ‘I've done so
many fucking interviews about the same
fucking things,’ he said. ‘I want you to be the
guy who gets at something the other nincom-
poops don't get αἱ." It was the type of line
Hollywood scriptwriters have fed him for
years, and he delivered it with the type of
menace only he can get away with.”

Bruce Willis

wisenheimer upbraids clinton, de-
fends the $7 burger and explains why “vanity fair” sucks

1

PLAYBOY: What do you see in your chil-
dren as an unfortunate inheritance
from you? Have they ever given you
back one of your smirks?

wiLLIS: My middle daughter has my
smirk. It’s a genetic thing; there’s no
other explanation. Children of famous
people are saddled with great responsi-
bility. It’s a problem. People watch
their every move. We are trying to let
our children be children as long as
they can.

2

PLAYBOY: What is your response when
they try one of your lines on you—say,
“Yippee-ki-yay, motherfucker”?
wiLLIS: Hasn't happened. The kids see
only the PG movies we do. If they hear
about the others from someone, I just
tell them that this is what mommy and
daddy do for a living. It's not real life,
its just a job. We are fortunate to have
the job, but it's just a job.

3

PLAYBOY: In your movies, you often
play the underdog who gets revenge,
saving airports, buildings and human-
ity. What real-life underdogs do you
admire?

wırLıs: I look up to people who, in the
face of overwhelming odds, tighten
their belts and say, "I will try as hard as
I can to do the right thing." Doing the
right thing is at the top of my list.
That's different from the guys in the
movies. They're archetypes. The un-
derdog facing overwhelming odds isn't
something 1 created. That has existed
since the Thirties, since James Cagney,
since Humphrey Bogart, since Henry
Fonda, since Robert De Niro.

4

PLAYBOY: As a Republican who cam-
paigned for George Bush, are you
amused by the sex scandals surround-
ing Clinton?

witus: No. All I want is for the presi-
dent of the United States to come
clean. And to have his friends come
clean. He should have Susan McDou-
gal tell the truth instead of saying, "I
will go to jail rather than tell the truth.”
I would have much more respect for
her if she told the truth. We have put a
price on knowledge gained privately.
Somewhere in the world right now,
some young person is saying, “I don't.
have a good job yet, but 1 hope to work
with someone famous so I can rat them
out and earn $100,000." It's pathetic. I
have no understanding why this guy
remains president. 1 don't care if Bill
Clinton fucks a million women. If he's
president of the United States, there
are certain rules he has to follow. A lot
of people in this country feel the same
way. His integrity is in question. The
public is sick of it. That's why people
don't vote. Clinton was elected by a
lesser margin than Dukakis lost by. No
one gives a fuck anymore.

5

PLAYBOV: You once told us that yon
could never run for political office be-
cause of your checkered past—"unless
they start grading on a curve." What
will life be like when we have political
leaders without checkered pasts?

wiLus: I don't know what we'll have,
but I know what we should have and
how to get it. Fire everyone. Put my
cousin in there. Put your unde in
there. Put in guys who don't knov any-
thing about it. All they have to do is fol-
low the rules. They'd do better than
the people in now. Government is a
great job. (continued on page 152)

17

“Let's du une all this corny Victorian οτι apa and create
omething wildly contemporary."

Blow Job

Essay By Emily Prager
ον FITTING that the Nineties
should end with visions of blow
jobs. Whether any involved
President Clinton or not, the
blow job feels right—not weird,

not prurient—as the defining emblem for

these past ten years. It is sexual fast food.

In lieu of deeper and more penetrating

sex, sex that might heal you, 15 quick and

detached. So it seems right that the Gulf
war, with its high-speed, video-game tech-
nology and curiously deflating outcome,
was the classic conflict of the Blow Job

Decade.

Of course, the Blow Job Decade was a
direct response to the AIDS epidemic that
plagued the Eighties. Death-through-sex
had a logically chilling effect, which led
to a newfound appreciation of extended
foreplay.

According to an article in The New York
Times, high school kids in the Nineties give
or get blow jobs so regularly that many no
Jonger even think of them as intimate. So
it should come as no surprise that the
White House doesn't think ofa blow job as
an act of infidelity.

It wasn't always thus. Until the late Six-
ties, blow jobs were the domain of prosti-
tutes. No wife or girlfriend would per-
form such a lowly act. It was accepted that
men went to prostitutes to get blow jobs.

A shift occurred in the late Sixties,
thanks to the sexual revolution. Regular
women started to give blow jobs, at least
on special occasions such as birthdays. In
the Seventies we thrilled to the decadence
of blow jobs. In the Eightics men and

ILLUSTRATION BY NOAH WOODS

WHY THE ORAL
FIX IS THE PERFECT
CLIMAX TO AN ERA
OF NONPENETRATING
INSIGHTS

ation

women bought coke with them. Through
most of the Nineties blow jobs often sub-
stituted for riskier penetration until, at
last, at the end of the decade, they are
nothing to us, not really sex, more like a
peck on the cheek. How far we've come
Looked at in terms of history then, if
President Clinton did indeed beg a blow
job or two at the end of the century, he has
virtually done nothing at all. It is only to
his fellow baby boomers, reared in the
Fifties when blow jobs still held a certain
novelty, that he is a rake. But as veterans
of the sexual revolution, boomers have
their own excesses to forgive and forget.
The O.J. Simpson trial, another pivotal
drama of the Nineties, was more like a
failed blow job—months of focused, deter-
mined slogging that in the end led to no
satisfaction at all. The same thing has hap-
pened with Serbian war-crimes trials in
the Hague. Both were reminiscent of
those nights you don’t want to remember.
Prozac, Jiffy Lube, Starbucks, cigar
clubs, e-mail—the Nineties have definitely
favored the quick fix with immediate re-
sults. If you think of a blow job as a rigid
system of stimulation, done repetitively
with only few variations in technique, that
almost always produces instant gratifica-
tion, then computers and Web sites are a
natural part of the blow job landscape.
The Blow Job Decade was a time of in-
creasing political correctness, when date
rape emerged as a hot-button issue, when
Anita Hill muddied the waters and when
Seventeen magazine was banned from a
school library for being too salacious.
Blow jobs have always been the virgin's last
resort, a way of (concluded on page 136)

19

are they the most beautiful
in the world? to find out
we sent our reporter to the
land of buried shark's
meat, reindeer stew and
black death cocktails

By Bruce Jay Friedman

Wa REACHES me on a lazy day

in August that as a longtime admir-
er of women—with a preference for
blondes—I am wasting my time in
Southampton. If my information is
correct, the purest, most delightful
representatives of the species exist in
far-off Iceland. Hollywood's fairest are
no match for them.

The women of mighty Stockholm,
considered by many to be the blonde
capital of the world, offer little compe-
tition. But Iceland in the summer? Ice-
land at any time, for that matter? Isn't.
it just ice?

Not to worry. I'm told the country,
though 30 miles from the Arctic Circle,
is warmed by the Gulf Stream and has
a climate that is cool, comfortable and
free of Long Island humidity—ideal.

Thus assured, I’m off on that most
noble of enterprises—a search for the
ultimate blonde.

"The caring and attentive flight atten-
dants of Icelandic Airlines are blonde
enough but tend to be on the matron-
ly side. Still, they give off a promise
of golden-haired daughters awaiting
them at Keflavik Airport. Disappoint-
ingly, no such daughters are in evi-
dence. The few blondes at the arrival
gate have a suspiciously bottled look.

Is it possible that the cream of Ice-
land’s blonde corps have been sent off
to start colonies abroad?

A grim thought.

Matters fail to improve on the long
journey to Reykjavik (the Bay of
Smoke), (texi continued on page 136)

Say gódan dog (hello) to Akureyri native
Birna Willard (opposite), in front of one of
Icelond's famed sod houses along the
Sogid River. As you can see, model Dúo
(top) is at a crossroods in her life. No sur-
prise—the lady loves to trovel. And ot
right, meet 21-year-old artist Birta Bjorns-
dóttir from Reykjavik. The sweoter's from
o local boutique, the foce is from heoven

Reykjavik | 43

18 Keflavik[ 41 |

PHOTOGRAPHY BY ARNY FREYTAG

121

Travel enthusiast Kotia (top lefi) has finished college and works as a salesclerk in Reykjavik. She
continues to study psychology, paints for recreation ond practices yoga when she needs to chill
out. Model Zara (middle left) keeps herself busy being a knockout for a living. When she's not in
front of the comera, she divides her time among contact sports, skiing and hanging out with
friends. To Ζατα’5 right is Sólveig Zophoniasdottir, also a model and only 19 years old. Angora
never looked so good. At left, thot's Zara behind the wheel, giving o lift to Solveig (left) ond Dúa
(right, from the opening spread). The intrepid trio is gliding along Jókulsarlon, a glocial lake

Iceland's summer sun shines thraughout the night, and Thora Skuladöttir
(above) isn't gaing ta miss a mament af it. When she's an land, the 20-year-
ald waitress gravitates taword animals, especially horses. At right is Arngunnur
Agisdottir, a model wha warks in a clothing store. An avid cerobicist, Arngun-
nur canfesses a weakness for real-life adventures and candlelit dinners. And
below is madel Dúa (previausly pictured at a crossroads and glacier-skiing), who
enjays dancing, reading and gaing ta the mavies. Dua wants you to know that
she's pasing here on lamb's wool, not fur. But who's looking at the blanket?

You can't say Icelandic scenery is boring. Above, Lovisa Gudmundsdóttir (also in inset) relaxes at the
Blue Lagoon, a favarite spot amang locals and tourists that was carved out by Iceland's famed val-
Known far its mineral-rich waters, the Lagoon features earth fissures that spaut steam,

a waterside geothermal power station and loads of enthusiastic sunbathers. Here's alluring model
and globe-trotter Alda, angling for a bite (at right] and visiting the lacal fishing-tackle store
(opposite, top). She'll have na trouble persuading someone to wait on her. Below is 19-year-old
Άπια, o salesclerk who's halfway through college. We're not sure what's on her mind αἱ the mo-
ment, but we think it’s your move. And say hey to Helga Björg Kolbeinsdóttir (opposite, bottom),

a 26-year-old Reykjavik native who tails in political science for a living and tae kwon da for a kick.

"

t

Meet Dagny Hei

who was born in Akureyri and
lives in Reykjavik, where she
works with handicapped peaple.
Dagny is pictured in front of Ice-
land's most popular raad-rally
car—though, to be honest, that
wasn't the chassis we were laok-
ing ot. At left: That's political sci-
entist Helga again, peerlessly
pretty hanging out at the pier.

Camping out under the Iceland skies is Kristin Arnardóttir (obave left), a university student who
enjoys gymnastics, snowboarding and traveling. And here's saleswoman Vala taking in nature's
steam both at right, ond all set to borebock, above right. Thora Dungal (below) is a 22-year-old

beauty who squeezes in madeling gigs when she's not swimming, cooking or traveling. And fi-

nally, do a double take at Edda Run Ragnarsdóttir (opposite, left) and Runa Magdalena Gud-
mundsdéttir (opposite, right), both of whom possess that unique Icelandic blend of energy,
smarts, practicality and sexiness. Edda attends art schaal and dreams of becoming on interior
designer. And Runa, who works in a coffee shop, likes “ta bathe in lots of bubbles, with a large
gloss of beer and ο big Cuban cigar,” and “having my boyfriend polish my toenails.” Skál!

PLAYBOY

Frenchie (continued from page 74)

The strippers would avoid him like he was a disease.
He was just another short, fat, bald working stiff.

ta see you,” he said.

“What? Something happen to the mo-
tel? You put up the shutters, didn't you?
I told you—”

“Fuck the motel! This is important.”

“You see a hurricane coming you put
up the shutters or else——"

“I put up the fucking shutters! The
motel is fine. This is something else.”

Meyer calmed down, his precious flea-
bag was OK. “So? Tell me."

“Not on the phone. Not your office, ei-
ther. Someplace private.”

Meyer sighed, like he was dealing with
some hyper kid. “Solly —”

Sol exhaled a great breath, tried to
calm himself. It was so long he'd forgot-
ten how to deal with Meyer, what caught
his attention. “There's something in this
for you, Meyer. A nice piece a cake.”

"How big a piece?”

Sol smiled. “Big enough.”

“All right. I'll be at the Trap tonight
you wanna see me.”

Sol hadn't been to the Trap in a long
time. There was no reason anymore.
With no bread, the strippers would
avoid him like he was a disease. He was
just another short, fat, bald working stiff

now. Three sawbucks in his wallet in-
stead of a wad of C-notes wrapped with
an elastic band. He wondered if he'd re-
member how to get there. North on 95,
west on Atlantic, north on Powerline past
Black Town, west on Hammondville,
and the Trap was up ahead, its pink and
baby blue sign flashing 24 hours a day.
THE BOOBY TRAP LOUNGE. HOME OF STYL-
ISH NUDE ENTERTAINMENT. Meyer's little
touch. Meyer owned a piece ofthe Trap.
just like he owned a piece of the Roy-
al Palm and everything. Meyer was
the smugglers’ full-service shyster. His
clients were the growers in Medellin, the
pilots like Sol, the transporters in Miami,
the dealers on the street. He got ten per-
cent from everyone on a deal, not even
counting the retainer he got from every-
‘one, too.

Meyer was at his usual table in the
darkened Champagne Room off the
main room of the Trap, dancers scat-
tered around like flowers in a field,
naked on plastic boxes under rose-col-
ored lights. Sol walked through the main
room, past the girls and the tables of
guys, nobody recognizing him, to Meyer,
whose shiny pink face with thick-lensed
eyeglasses was upturned to a girl danc-
ing on his table, thrusting her trimmed

"I'm afraid your husband's out to lunch, Mrs. Williams.
Can I take a message?”

bush at him. Sol sat down facing the
broad’s ass, leaning his head to one side
to see Meyer.

“Meyer, I ain't got time,” Sol said.

Meyer made him wait until the girl
was finished. He reached up a hand, al-
ways the fucking gentleman, to help her
step down from the table, the girl pout-
ing now, like she hated to leave the sexi-
est guy in the world, until Meyer slipped
a C-note into her garter and she stopped
pouting and kissed Meyer on the lips.
“Thanks, Meyer,” she said, still smiling,
the way they used to smile at Sol Bass
and would again soon. She walked off,
swinging her bare ass, not even putting
on her little wrap.

Meyer turned his attention to Sol. “So
what's the big deal, Sol? You get a better
offer managing a Holiday Inn?” He
smiled. Sol glanced around the dark
empty room, leaned across the table and
told him.

Meyer didn’t say anything for a
minute, then he began to smile again,
like he was about to tell Sol something he
was going to enjoy. “So, you think you're
a player again, eh, Solly?” Sol didn't say
anything. He just waited for Meyer to
tell him what he was dying to tell him.

Meyer leaned close to Sol, Sol smelling
his bad breath, and said, “You know who
that parcel belongs to?” Sol waited.
“Some very heavy people, I hear. They
might want it back. They might be pissed
if they find somebody trying to move
their parcel.”

“Who are these heavies?” Sol said,
smartass again, feeling it coming back.

“Reverend Jackie.” Sol tried not to
show what he felt. Meyer went on, still
smiling. “Maybe you heard of him?”

“Yeah, I heard of him. And his rasta
hitters, like stoned fucking snakes with
dreadlocks.”

“I were you, Solly, I'd take Jackie a lit-
de more serious.”

“I'm not afraid of that fucking faggot
hairdresser.”

“Well, maybe you should be, he finds
you're trying to move his parcel. He put
the word on the street, ten large anyone
gives him a name.” Meyer sat back in his
chair. He took out his gold cigarette
holder, put it in his mouth, sucked on it.

“You still trying to quit, Meyer?” Sol
was smiling now. “Bad for your health?
Maybe you should make up your mind
you're a smoker or not. Settle it once and
for all. Be what you are.”

Meyer snapped at him, “I know what I
am, Sol. It’s you don't know what you
are. You're the manager of the Royal
fucking Palm Motel. That's all. You listen
to me. Give Jackie back his parcel. You
don't it might be bad for your health.” He
smiled, his capped teeth showing. “May-
be I can broker a finder's fee for you,
take ten percent, maybe even eight we
go back so far.”

Sol stood up. “Fuck you! And Jackie,
too. I don't need either of you.”

As he walked away, he heard Meyer's
voice. “Don't say that 1 didn't warn you,
Solly.”

Sol woke the next morning to a knock
on the door. He fumbled around in a
dresser drawer for his piece, the little
Seecamp .32 ACP He went to the door,
the room still dark—he'd left the hurri-
cane shutters on.

“Who is it?” he said through the door.

"C'est moi,” said a voice. "Delphine."

Sol stuck the gun in back of his boxer
shorts and opened the door.

"Everything is right?" she said, look-
ing worried.

"Sure, kid. Why not?" The Seecamp
slipped down his shorts. Sol clamped his
hand on it in the crack of his ass before it
fell through to the floor.

“The shutters,” she said. “They are
still on."

Sol smiled, the kid worrying about
him. "Oh, yeah. ΤΗ get to it. I been
busy.”

The kid was frowning now, something,
still bothering her. “Too busy for din-
ner?” she said.

Geez, Sol had almost forgot. “Of
course not, honey. About nine.”

She gave him that big smile, leaned to-
ward him, kissed him on the cheek and
walked off toward her ride. Without
tuming, she waved her hand at him, that
European way, the fingers grabbing at
the air, meaning I'll be back. “Ciao!” And

she was gone.
.

Sol dressed for dinner, the first üme in
a long while, his good blue oxford shirt
with the buttons in the collar, his char-
coal gray slacks, his loafers with the little
tassels. He slapped on some aftershave
and looked at himself in the bathroom
mirror. Not bad. Looking younger than
his age with his blue Paul Newman con-
tacts. Too much belly on him, though,
like he didn't care about himself any-
more. Until now. He missed his jewelry,
his Rolex, only a couple of c-notes and a
ten-spot in his wallet. But soon.

They drove south on AIA along the
beach in Sol's Alamo-leased Taurus, a
holdover from his smuggler days when
he always leased and rented things so
that when he got caught they couldn't
confiscate anything. Except his fucking
jewelry They passed Sunrise, then came
to the Strip, the beginning of the reno-
vated hotels and the new outdoor cafés.
Locals and tourists were eating outside,
staring across at the white beach wall
with the neon tube running in it, filled
with some kind of liquid that changed
color, pink and blue and green, and be-
yond the wall at the beach and the white
surf and the dark ocean and far out on
the ocean at the blinking red lights of
ships passing slowly by. Sol felt good.
The package in his apartment. The little

Seecamp in his front pants pocket. The
good-looking chick beside him dressed
in a creamy silk blouse with no bra, and
a tight camel-colored miniskirt that
flashed her thighs.

The kid didn't talk much, not like
those strippers that never shut up, al-
ways talking about themselves, the only
subject they had any interestin. Maybe it
was hard for her to make small talk in a
foreign language. Sol said, “You hungry,
baby?" The way he used to, “baby,” like
she was his now.

“No hurry," she said, looking out her
window at the tourists sitting at the cafés.

He turned right on Las Olas, went
over the high Intracoastal Bridge. She
sat up in her seat to look down at the
yachts docked in front of the waterfront
mansions.

“Is very expensive, no?” she said.

“Very expensive,” Sol said as they
came off the bridge and drove past more
outdoor restaurants and then the fancy
dress shops with the mannequins in the
window in white lace wedding dresses
only broads in Lauderdale would wear,
so low-cut they flashed the top half of
their tits. Sol stopped at the valet stand
at the Left Bank, the expensive French
joint he thought she might enjoy.

The maitre d’, a dark, oily-looking guy
in a tux and frilly pink shirt, stopped
them at the dining room entrance.

“You have reservations, Monsieur?”
He looked Sol up and down, gave
Frenchie only a glance, pissing Sol off.

“Hey, slick" He felt the kid's hand
on his arm, stopping him. She was look-
ing at the maitre d’ with her big blue
eyes now unreadable, not cold, not an-
gry. but like she was a scientist looking
through a microscope at a bug. She said
something in French. His eyes widened,
then he said, “Certainement, Mademoi-
selle." He bowed and made a sweeping
gesture with his big menus. The kid
walked past him, followed by Sol, past
the other diners, old guys in dark suits
and crisp white shirts, old ladies in
evening dresses with upswept silver hair
and about 40, 50 large in diamonds
around their necks.

The maitre d’ led them to a banquette
against the far wall. The kid slid in first,
flashing those thighs, and then Sol slid in
beside her. The maitre d’ handed them
each a menu with a flourish and another
bow and was gone.

Sol looked at her. “What did you say
to him?”

“Oh, nothing, just that I recognize his
accent. Algerian French.” She smiled.
“He recognize mine, too.” A bigger smile
now. “Parisian French.”

Sol laughed. “You're somethin’ else,
baby,” he said, and shook his head in
admiration.

They studied their menus, in French,
with no prices—A bad sign, Sol thought,
thinking of the lousy two bills in his
pocket and the ten-spot he'd need for

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the valet.

“I order for us,” she said, taking
charge. This was a new feeling for Sol.
Not bad, really, having a chick on your
arm with class who could take care of
herself, and you, too.

She spoke French to the good-looking
young waiter. He nodded with each
choice, writing it down in his little book,
then snapped the book shut and gave
her a big GQ smile. She said something
else to him in French. His eyes shifted
to Sol for a split second and then Sol
thought he saw a small smile on the
guy's lips, like he was sharing a joke with
her, and then he backed off.

“What was that about?” Sol said.

“Oh, nothing. He asked if mon pére
would like something to drink, maybe
scotch.”

“Pear?”

"Father. I said no, and that you are not
mon père. You are—how do you say in
English?—my date."

Sol smiled. She made him feel good,
taking his mind off his problems. Jackie
and his rasta hitters, the parcel, how he
was going to move it. He asked her what
she had ordered for them. She told him.
escargots, frogs' legs, a bottle of Pouil-
ly-Fuissé she was surprised to find in
America. It probably cost 50 bucks, Sol
thought, trying to calculate in his head if
his two bills would cover it all. Geez, she
was like a stripper! But the moment he
thought that, he felt foolish. The poor
kid probably just ordered stuff she was
used toin Paris, like it was something she
always had there, like McDonald's for
Americans, and she didn't realize how
expensive it was in the States.

When the waiter brought the wine, Sol
sniffed the cork, took a sip, nodded, and
the guy poured. She raised her glass to
Sol's with a big smile on her beautiful,
scrubbed face and said, "To you, Mon-
sieur Sol, for being a so sweet man." Sol
blushed as they touched glasses. Sweet!
Did she mean it?

"Now, to you," Sol said, raising his
glass to hers again. "To your stay in
America and success in your job." A
frown passed across her face. "What's
the matter?" he said.

“Is all right,” she said, trying to hold it
in, but showing it, like a kid.

“Come on, baby. You can tell me.”

She turned and looked at him, her
eyes serious now. “Itis my boss.”

“What about him?” Making him drag
it out of her.

“He is, how do you say it, romantic
to me.”

“And you?"

“Oh, no! He is just my boss.”

“Then tell him that.”

“I try, but he won't listen."

Sol felt his face flush with anger. “You
want me to tell him?”

“Oh, no!” she said, knowing what he
meant. ^I have to do it. But itis hard. He

130 is the kind of man used to getting every-

thing he want. And he knows I need
this job to keep my visa and stay in
America.”

“Yeah, America’s nice,” Sol said. “But
I heard Paris ain't so bad.”

“For you, maybe,” she said in a flat
voice. “But for me, Paris is mort.”

“Mort?”

“Death.”

Sol Jaughed, the kid being dramatic.
“What, you kidding?”

She shook her head no and looked
down at the table. She was silent for a
moment. When she finally raised her
pale-blue eyes to him again, they were
opened wide. “My life in Paris is, how
you say it . . . proscribed for me. My fa-
ther is a diplomat, a very important
man. He wants me to marry. A lawyer."

"You don't love him?"

“That is not the point," she said. "You
don't understand. If I marry him 1 live
in a big chäteau outside Paris, with ser-
vants and children. My husband will
take an apartment in Paris where he
works. And a mistress. That is how it is
done. Maybe he will visit me on the
weekends." She shrugged. “Maybe no.
Maybe I will be out there alone, walking
through my garden in my straw hat with
my gloves, cutting flowers for the vases
in all those rooms in that old cháteau
that will be my prison.”

She smiled at Sol now, not really a
smile, more a knowing grin. “That is
how it will be for me if I go back. Worse
even than your hotel with the bugs, you
see.” The grin vanished and her voice
became hard. “Don't you understand? I
wal do anything to not go back to that
life."

Sol nodded, like he was the kid and
had to have things explained to him. "So
that’s why you put up with your boss?"

She nodded, trying to calm herself.
“I make the mistake one night and tell
him all this. That's why he put me in
your apartment. Alone. With no car. So I
will meet no one. He will have me all to
himself."

"He sounds worse than your life in
Paris."

She glared at him. "Never. Not even
he is worse."

The waiter brought the snails and they
ate in silence, Sol struggling with the lit-
ue pliers-like tongs, watching how she
did it, expertly, holding the round shells
in the tongs, then scooping out... . Geez,
Sol thought, fucking worms!

She was very serious as she ate. Final-
ly, she said, “It is not only at work. He
takes me to dinner, business, he says,
and then goes to la toilette every few min-
utes and by the end cla! he is, how
you say it, aggressive.” She said it with
emphasis on the last syllable, eeve.

“He's doing lines in there,” Sol said.

“Lines?”

“Coke. Cocaine. He's a cokehead.”

"Yes, I guess that. I think he gives it,
the cocaine, to his clients to make the

deal. He makes very much money.”

The frogs arrived, little dinky things
Sol hoped he could get down, knowing
what they were. He stared at them,
thinking of the unbelievable good luck
this kid had brought him.

“Maybe 1 got a way you can make a
few dollars, get your boss off your back,”
Sol said.

She looked at him as if confused. “Off
my back? What is this?”

“Not bother you anymore.” She nod-
ded, waiting, not asking but making Sol
tell her by her silence. “I have something
he might be interested in. A package
came into my . . . possession, you might
say.”

“The package in the swimming pool.”
Not a question. She knew.

“You know about it?”

“I see it when I go to work. Floating.

When I come home is gon
“You knew what was in it?

“No.” She shook her head, her hair
falling across one eye. She brushed the
hair off with the backs of her fingertips.
“Not then. But now.”

Geez, the kid was full of surprises. Just
when Sol thought she was so innocent.
She left a lot out, unless she wanted you
to know something, like about her boss,
Paris. You had to fill in the blanks with
her, like those paint-by-numbers paint-
ings, only sometimes you got so caught
up in the colors, not paying attention to
the numbers, you started filling in the
colors you thought should be there, not
the ones that were supposed to be. You'd
find yourself with a sky the wrong blue
because you didn’t pay attention to the
numbers.

“This package,” she said, “is this
expensive?”

“Very. Maybe too steep for your boss.”

“Steep?”

“Too expensive. Maybe $300,000,
which would actually be a bargain. Last
him a year to impress his clients, make
even more money than he’s making.”
Sol looked at her to see if the numbers
impressed her. But she gave him noth-
ing, like 300 large was a figure she was
used to. Maybe it was, dealing in stocks
all day with high rollers.

“It’s a little dangerous, too,” Sol said.

“You mean, the police?”

“There's that. And your boss, too. It
might be too dangerous for him.”

She shook her head no, finished chew-
ing the last of her escargots and then
said, “He is not afraid of police. He cheat
his clients. He give them the cocaine at
dinner so they won't remember. Then
the next morning he makes stock trans-
fers he tells them they agree to the night
before. They can’t remember, so they
can do nothing.”

Sol smiled. “A real sweetheart. Can 1
trust him? He might | want the package
without paying for i

“I can help you,”
me.”

” she said. “He trusts

“You sure this is something you want
to get mixed up in, baby?”

She leaned close to Sol, putting her
hand on his thigh, and looked up at him,
big eyed. “I don't care about the danger,
Sol. With dollars, I can leave, look for
another job without lose my visa.” She
smiled. "I will be free.”

Sol smiled, feeling her hand gently
massaging his thigh, absentmindedly, he
thought. "Me too, baby. Free again."

‘They discussed the plan over dessert,
baked Alaska, which they shared, sitting
close, like two lovers, talking softly. The
check came to almost two bills, leaving
Sol with just enough for the tip and the
ten-spot for the valet.

As they waited around for the Taurus,
the kid slipping her arm around his, Sol
saw a black Jeep across the street with
two dark forms inside it, waiting. He
held the door open for her, then walked
around the car with his hand in his front.
pants pocket, feeling the little Seecamp.
He got in, turned on the ignition and the
lights and made a U-turn on Las Olas,
the lights of his Taurus shining into the
Jeep for an instant, illuminating the two
rastas with their drcadlocks, and then
swung past them dovn Las Olas. The
Jeep followed them over the Intracoastal
Bridge, and then left onto AlA along
the beach.

Fucking Meyer, Sol thought. Sold my
name to Jackie for the ten g's. The kid
sat close to him, not talking now. Sol
wondered if he should tell her about the
rastas, maybe scare her off. No, they
didn't want her. They wanted the parcel.
But they wouldn't come afier him until
he tried to move it. They had to be sure.
he had it, not scare him off too soon
He'd keep her out of it. Let her set up
the swap with her boss over lunch to-
morrow, get the bread, and then Sol
would do the rest. If he couldn't shake
two fucking rastas on his tail, he didn't
deserve to pull this off. It made him feel
good, not scared, the danger of it. Sol
Bass wouldn't have it any other way.

When he pulled into the motel park-
ing lot, he shut off the lights and waited
a moment. The Jeep moved slowly past
and stopped down the road with its
lights off. The kid was aslecp against his
shoulder. He shock her gently. She woke
with a dreamy smile.

"We are home?" she said.

"Ycah, baby."

They walked around the motel to her
door. Sol listened for the Jeep to start up
again, but heard nothing. She put her
arms around his neck and kissed him
sofily on the mouth, not hard and fake-
hungry like those strippers. She pulled
back from him and smiled.

"Don't worry, baby," Sol said. "Every
thing's gonna be fine.”

"Oh, I'm not worried, Sol. I trust
you.” And then she was gone, inside, the

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132

door shutting behind her, Sol standing
there, thinking. It was “Sol” now, no
more “Monsieur Sol.”

Sol sat on his sofa in darkness, the
Seecamp on his lap, waiting for the ras-
tas until he fell asleep just before sunup.
He didn't hear her go off to work.

Sol got dressed and went around to
the parking lot to see if the Jeep was still
there. It wasn't, so he went back to the
pool and busied himself, trying to keep
his cool until she came home from work.

He was sitting on his sofa having a Cu-
ba libre when she burst through the
door atabout six, almost scaring the shit
out of him. She ran to him on the sofa

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and jumped on it, like a kid, all excited,
smiling, big eyed.

“He agreed!” she said. “He is excited!
He say he will have the dollars by nine
o'clock tonight, at the Burger King on
Sunrise Boulevard. You know which
one, Sol? Near the expensive-automo-
bile store.”

“Yeah, I know the one.” She threw her
arms around Sol's neck and kissed him
smack on the cheek.

“Only a few more hours,” she said.

She went back to her room to change
while Sol put the cellophane package in-
to a black carry-on bag with a few airline
stickers still pasted on it. When she re-
turned, about eight, she was wearing a
white T-shirt, jeans and little white

“You know, since we got cable, I haven't seen
you touch your organ.”

sneakers.

“Are we ready?" she said.

“What do you mean, 'we'?" Sol said.
“You ain't going.”

She frowned, not a real frown, but an
exaggerated comic frown, pouting. “But
I have to,” she said. “My boss will do this
only with me. He trusts no one but me.”

Sol thought about it for a minute. It
made sense. He would do the same thing
he was in the guys shoes, always some-
one there you trust. They both would
now

“OK,” he said. “We'll both make the
swap.”

She shook her head no. “It must be
me alone or he won't come."

Sol looked at her, so serious, a good
kid, with balls. “OK. I'll park far enough
from him not to scare him off. But I'll be
watching, I'll be right there.”

"They left earlier than they had to, Sol
figuring he would drive around a little,
relax, make sure there was no heat
around, no guys lounging around their
cars in the back Burger King parking lot
too close to the cream-colored 600 SEL
Merc. He felt good driving down the
Strip past the restaurants and the beach
with this French chick sitting close to
him, the two of them in this together, for
now anyway.

“What are you thinking about, Sol?"
she said, her head against his shoulder,
not looking at him.

"Nothing, baby." He had doubled
back and was now heading north on ALA
when he came to the light at Sunrise,
and as he did, he saw in his rearview
mirror the lights of the black Jeep. Shit!

Sol drove past the Burger King, think-
ing. She turned her head back toward
the Burger King. “Sol, you passed it.”

“A little change in plans, baby.” He
told her not to look around, and then he
told her about Jackie and the rastas in
the Jeep, waiting for her to gasp and her
eyes to get big and frightened like they
did that night of the hurricane. But she
surprised him, again.

“Only a liule problem,” she said, her
chin resting on her hand, thinking.

“Could be a big fucking problem, you
understand?”

She shook her head no, but she said
nothing.

“Maybe I can shake them,” Sol said
“IfI can't, we gotta call it off.”

He turned left onto Federal and head-
ed toward the airport with the French
chick and the black bag and the rastas on
his tail, The black bag with the airline
stickers on it held his future, her fu-
ture—maybe even their future—in it. He
drove slowly, thinking, and then he saw a
hooker up ahead, swinging her ass down
the sidewalk, looking over her shoulder
at passing cars, smiling. Sol slowed the
car, waiting for the hooker to round the
corner. Then he turned the corner too.
The Jeep moved slowly past him and
parked up ahead in the darkness at the

edge of Black Town, someplace Sol did
not want to be caught in with two rasta
hit men. The hooker stopped at Sol's
window. Skinny, dirty, with missing front
teeth

"You wanna party, honey?" she said,
leaning her arm on the window. Then
she saw Frenchie. She smiled. "Cost you
more for a threesome, honey."

Sol slammed the car into reverse,
nailed it, the car spinning backward on-
to Federal, just missing another car, that.
car swerving, the driver nailing his horn,
the hooker screaming that he almost
tore off her fucking arm, Frenchie not
saying a word. Sol slammed the gearshift
back into drive, nailed it again, the tires
squealing, smoke everywhere, the smell
of burning rubber as the big Taurus
launched down Federal. Sol hung a left
at Third Street, then a quick right, and
another left until he was deep into Victo-
ria Park with all its narrow one-way
streets and dead ends. He looked in the
rearview mirror for the Jeep and didn't
see it. He turned back onto Broward,
heading west, then made a left onto Fed-
eral heading toward the airport, speed-
ing now, right past the Riptide Bar, the
Copa, the fag bar, almost to the airport
now. He looked again in the rearview
mirror and still couldn't see the Jeep:

“I think we lost επι,” he said.

She turned around in her seat and
stared out the rear window for a long
moment at the pairs of headlights be-
hind them before she said, “No, Sol,
I see the Jeep. Maybe two, three cars
behind.”

“You sure, baby?”

She turned back around. “Yes.”

“Shit!” The airport was in front of
them. Sol turned onto the access road
and headed toward the terminal. “Lis-
ten, baby, these guys are dangerous. I
don't want you involved. ΓΊ] drop you off
at the airport, then I'll try to shake them
again. You catch a cab back to the motel.
I'll meet you there, we'll set it up anoth-
er time with your boss.”

She turned to him with frightened
eyes. “No, Sol! You cannot! My boss, he
will be afraid now. Suspicious. Maybe he
will not do the deal.”

“There's no other way, baby.”

She stared at him, thinking furiously,
and finally she said, “There is. I will do it
alone.”

“Do what alone?”

“Go to the Burger King. Make the
swap, the money for the package.”

“You outta your fucking mind?”

“No. Listen.” She was calmer now,
very serious. “You drop me at the Delta
terminal with the black bag. Like I am
taking a trip. You drive away. Let the
Jeep follow until midnight. Then go
back to the motel. I will take the taxi to
the Burger King, make the swap, then
go to the expensive hotel, the Harbor
Beach. I call you from there at midnight
to tell you everything is well.”

“What if everything isn't well?"

“Tt will be. Trust me, Sol.”

He glanced at her, this kid who was al-
ways surprising him, so serious now with
her big blue eyes. So he did. Without
thinking. Trusted her. He reached into
his pants pocket and withdrew his little
Seecamp. “Take this,” he said, handing it
to her.

She looked at it but didn't take it. She
shook her head no. "I do not need this.”

"You sure?"

LES

He stopped at the Delta terminal, tick-
eting, and she got out with the carry-on
bag in her hand like it maybe had
a change of undies and some cosmetics
in it. Sol got out, too, went around to
the sidewalk to kiss her goodbye. They
kissed and hugged for a moment, Sol
whispering in her ear, “Make sure the
Jeep follows me, baby,” and she whisper-
ing back, “Don't worry, Sol.”

He got back in the car and waved to
her, standing there, smiling at him, hold-
ing their futures in her hand. She raised
her free hand to the side of her face and
waved to him too, like she had waved to
him that morning on her way to work,
only somehow differently. Then she was
gone through the sliding glass doors.

Sol drove off, looking in the rearview
mirror for the Jeep, but he couldn't see
it. There were too many cars circling the
airport. Maybe it was a few cars back. He
headed back to Federal, busy with traffic
now, so many headlights behind him he
couldn't pick out the Jeep. Fuck it, he
thought. He slowed down, drove aim-
lessly around town until midnight. Then
he drove back to the motel. He waited a
few minutes in the parking lot for the
‘Jeep to pass by and park up ahead. But
there was no Jeep. He got out and went
around the building to his apartment.

Sol sat on his sofa in darkness, waiting
for her to call, something bothering him.
He leaned forward, his elbows on his
knees, his hands clasped as if in prayer,
and stared down at the floor trying to
figure it out. He played it over in his
mind, over and over again, the Jeep fol-
lowing them, Sol trying to shake it, then
not seeing it, then Frenchie telling him it
was still on their tail, then stopping at
the airport, hugging her at the Delta ter-
minal, getting back into his car, waving
to her through the window, the beautiful
French girl waving back, smiling, her
hand raised alongside her head, waving
to him, but not like before, not with that
odd, European, fingers-grabbing-air
wave that meant I'll be back. It was a dif-
ferent wave. Familiar. American. Hand-
flapping. Goodbye.

It was three A.M. when Sol heard the
rastas come around the corner toward
the door to his apartment.

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margart ta

(continued from page 102)
like grain—and the juice distilled. Grow-
ing blue agave is time-consuming and
harvesting it is tedious, but Mexican law
requires that it make up 51 percent of
anything labeled tequila. A great deal of
ordinary tequila contains 51 percent
blue agave and the rest is sugarcane.
Some of this is quite good, in the way
blended whiskeys can often be softer and
sweeter than straight Kentucky bour-
bons. But like many blends they are
much less complex than the pure thing.
The best tequilas are 100 percent blue
agave and vary with region, altitude and
soil. These tequilas come in four distinct
categories:

Gold used to be the only tequila you
could find made from 100 percent blue
agave. The gold color, however, is a mar-
keting ΡΙΟΥ. It derives not from aging
but from caramel coloring—a nod to the
American belief that an amber color in-
dicates richer flavor. Sauza's marketing
vice president, Cheryl Palmer, admits
that “our gold and silver and José Cuer-
vo's gold and silver are essentially the
same product.”

Blanco (also called white or silver) is
clean and aged only a short period in
stainless steel tanks. Blanco seems to
pack a substantial punch because the
agave taste dominates. (It isn't high alco-
hol content that powers it; almost all
tequilas are 80 proof.) It’s the choice of
many tequila aficionados and Bayless’
personal preference. “If you drink co-
gnac before it has aged, it's not interest-
ing. It's the aging and the wood that give
it complexity. This isn’t true of tequila.
The best is just-distilled, when you can
taste the agave flavors.” Blanco makes a
good before-dinner cocktail. Serve on
the rocks with a slice of lime or lemon.

Reposada means rested, which in this
case means the tequila is aged, usual-
ly in white-oak barrels, for at least two
months and no more than a year. The
oak imparts a delicate, tawny color and
softens the tequila. Reposadas have less
edge than blancos, and many people
prefer to drink these tequilas straight.

Anejo is a rich, dark spirit in a class
by itself. While some are aged in new
oak, most are stored for years in used,
charred oak bourbon barrels from Ken-
tucky. Sauza ages its product in smaller,
used sherry casks. The tequila acquires a
deep amber color and a mellow. sweet
taste from the lingering bourbon or
sherry in the barrels. Anejo can taste
much like a brandy or a mellow bour-
bon, with the taste of the agave buried in
other flavors. This is the tequila to sip
from a snifter after dinner. A good añejo
is worth the top dollar you'll pay for it.

Here are three more of Bayless’ best-

134 selling libations:

TEQUILA

Tasting Notes

Here are some of the best.

GOLD
Sauza Extra Gold is sweet and
warm with a strong agave taste,
yet it’s softer than the blancos.
Cuervo Gold has a pleasing taste.
It’s the tequila that made José
Cuervo a friend to a lot of folks.

BLANCO
Chinaco is from Villa Gonzalez in
Tamaulipas, almost on the gulf.
It’s powerful, peppery and sharp.
Tres Mujeres is a valley tequila—
Valle de Amatitan—from Arenal.
Produced in small quantities by
the Melendez family, it is softer
and sweeter than Chinaco.
1921 is deep and rich, with a
slight flavor of lilacs.
El Tesoro and Patrén, from the
highlands, have a hint of herbs.

REPOSADA
El Viejito, a highland tequila, is
complex with flavors that change
and deepen.

Los Valientes, from the valley of
Amatitan, is fiery and has a dry
aroma, but it’s very smooth.
Corralejo, not yet exported to the
U.S., is extremely soft and
herbal, with a hint of vanilla.

AÑEJO:
Gran Centenario Seleccion Suave
is aged for three years, with an
aroma reminiscent of corn and
molasses. It's delicious.
Herradura Seleccion Supremo,
aged four years, has a good,
strong flavor.

Don Julio has recently been intro-
duced here. The taste is smooth,
sweet and pleasing.

Sauza Tres Generaciones. It’s
sweet and perhaps the softest
of the añejos, with a hint
of butterscotch.
Paradiso Añejo, from the same
people who brought you El
Tesoro, is a French-inspired
blend ofañejos and silvers. It’s
aged for a second time in cognac
barrels, and the result is a rich
tequila that shows its age and the
French oak but retains the pow-
erful agave taste and aroma.

TOP-OFTHE-LINE MARGARITA
(SERVES TWO)

Combine cup fresh lime juice (about.
one large lime) and % cup Porfidio silver,
Tesoro silver or another 100 percent
agave silver with 4 cup Cointreau. Shake
for 10 to 15 seconds with % cup coarsely
cracked ice and strain into margarita or
martini glasses rimmed with lime and
coarse salt.

TOPOLO MARGARITA
(SERVES FOUR)

Start by making a limeade base. Com-
bine the finely grated zest of 14 limes
(about one teaspoon), % cup fresh lime
juice (two large limes), 4 cup plus one
teaspoon sugar and ten tablespoons wa-
ter in a glass pitcher. Cover and refriger-
ate for two to 24 hours. Strain into a
second pitcher, Rub the rims of four
margarita or martini glasses with a lime
wedge and dip into coarse salt (refriger-
ate glasses if you like). In a shaker, com-
bine the lime with % cup Sauza Con-
memorativo and two tablespoons plus
two teaspoons Gran Torres orange li-
queur or Grand Marnier. Add a cup of
coarsely broken ice cubes. Shake for 10
to 15 seconds and pour into glasses.

Mescal (or mezcal) is similar to tequila
in that it is distilled from agave (once, as
opposed to twice for tequila), but it is
unregulated and can be made from any
species of the plant in any part of Mexi-
co. Like grappa, it varies—a lot. Some
mescals taste like distilled stems and
seeds, and others are very good indeed.
All mescals are powerful and take a little
looking to find in this country. But many
of the better Mexican restaurants in
major cities have a bottle or two behind
the bar.

MESCAL MARGARITA
(SERVES NINE)

Mix together two cups lime juice, one
cup water and one cup plus two table-
spoons sugar. Stir in nine ounces Encan-
tado mescal along with one tablespoon
and two teaspoons Peychaud bitters.
Serve over ice.

Of course, there are other ways to
serve tequila. Substituting it for gin in a
collins is tasty, and Sauza's Palmer says
she enjoys white tequila in a long drink
with Fresca or Squirt as a mixer. Thisis a
bit more grapefruity than a margarita,
but it honors the tequila with a strong
citrus taste and makes a good cooler
when you're not up to mixing margari-
tas. It's also a popular way to drink
tequila in Mexico. A bloody mary made
with tequila becomes a bloody maria,
and (of course) tequila, OJ, lime juice
and grenadine isa tequila sunrise.

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PLAYBOY

136

Blow Job Nation

(continued from page 119)
getting off easy. What better sex act for
uptight times?

The Nineties were also a period of
gender switching. In ads Calvin Klein
used Marky Mark in only underwear to
appeal to straight men. Buff and vain
gay men became role models, inspiring
thousands of gym memberships. Regu-
lar guys stepped up their purchases of
makeup, hair dye, designer clothes and
plastic surgery. Traditional male symbols
were feminized and even homosexual-
ized. Cross-dressing went mainstream.
Drag queens—the funny, nonthreaten-
ing kind —were all over the big screen.
The Crying Game won an Oscar for non-
comedic drag.

The Army, the last bastion of macho
pigism, was forced to face up to its gay
component. The househusband became
a common and welcome sight on the na-
tion’s playgrounds. And, with the excep-
tion of the accusations of Clinton’s ac-
quaintances, the sex we heard most
about in the Nineties was sadomasochis-
tic (think Madonna and Mapplethorpe).

What cannot be denied about blow
jobs is that they are relatively safe. Safety
has been another hallmark of the Nine-
ties. In this decade crime has dropped.
Air bags save lives. Pepper spray makes
you feel secure. In 1998 women are saf-
er from sex offenders on the nation’s
streets than they may be in the Oval
Office.

Let's say, for the moment, that whatev-
er went on in the White House was con-
sensual. Why would Clinton be the lucky
recipient of the decade’s favorite pas-
time? One thing is clear: Women like
him and they sense he likes them. No

matter what he is accused of, there is am-
ple evidence to suggest he’s a consum-
mate flirt. If he’s interested in a woman,
he calls her 12 times a day, gives presents
and is physically affectionate and kind to
her. He is a man who clearly adores his
daughter, and who actually mentioned
the words “child care subsidy” before he
was distracted by Kenneth Starr.

He is a man so accessible to women
that he has caused a fracture in the fem-
inist ranks. Patricia Ireland of NOW says
he could be guilty of “sexual assault,”
while Gloria Steinem can't find evidence
even of harassment. New Yorker editor
Tina Brown, having met him, found him
disarmingly sexy and said so in print. He
is the first president ever to cause an in-
tellectual girls’ catfight.

Of course, blow jobs have nothing to
do with truth. In slang parlance, to blow
means to butter up, to flatter. There's no
point in whining about truth in the Blow
Job Decade.

Because blow jobs are so transient and
can be lied about, they are easily part
of rumor and innuendo. The presiden-
tial involvement would seem to endow
the blow job with a loftier purpose, but
whether you place it in the Oval Office,
or tie a designer scarf on it, it retains the
spurt of commonality, and that’s what
makes it sexy.

We have only another year and a half
of the Blow Job Decade, of this national
porn movie whose climax was, evidently,
America discussing whether to impeach
a president for lying about blow jobs.

In the next ten years, let's hope we can
look forward to some pithier times—a
decade of greater depth guided by a
president who's far more penetrating.

“Jenkins is a wizard at warming up the audience.”

The Women of Iceland

(continued from page 121)
though the driver insists that if I stay
alert, I'll see flaxen-haired trolls zipping
through the lava fields.

Trolls, I explain patiently, are not
what J have in mind.

Alarmingly, no blondes are in sight in
the crowded lobby of the majestic Borg
Hotel. Perhaps in compensation, I'm as-
signed to a suite once occupied by Mar-
lene Dietrich, the legendary (blonde)
film star who once kicked me out of a
Manhattan cocktail party, punishment
for my crime of not recognizing her (at
the age of 60).

For all its scenic wonders, Iceland is
rarely visited by Americans and is gener-
ally thought of as one of the last unex-
plored vacation treasures. Which makes
it all the more disheartening when a
bellman races through the lobby and
announces that Jerry Seinfeld has just
arrived.

“Not only that,” he adds in an aside
to me, “but JFK Jr. is salmon-fishing
in the north, and Danny DeVito just
checked out.”

A visitor from Chicago hears this and
shakes his head in despair.

“There goes the neighborhood.”

And still no blondes, though I do spot
a pair of raven-tressed charmers at the
bar. If Seinfeld were in the market for a
new Shoshanna Lonstein, either woman
would be an excellent candidate.

Off to the streets now, in pursuit of my
elusive quarry. Half of Iceland's popula-
tion of 270,000 live in this city of neatly
arranged, brightly colored stucco hous-
es. It’s all presided over by the Pearl—a
geothermal dome on an overlying hill
that sucks up pure water from the hot
springs below and actsas a “natural radi-
ator,” both heating and cooling the hous-
es and offices below. W.H. Auden, who
admired Iceland (“It is different from
anyplace else”), still complained that
“the country has no architecture,” failing
to be impressed by the Hansel and Gre-
tel look of the city, which is architecture
enough for me.

On a more serious note, I’m close to
panic now. Where are they? Then I turn
the corner of busy Laufasvegur Street
and my impatience is rewarded. I expe-
rience my first sighting.

They appear singly, then in shy and
tentative pairs. And then, from out of
nowhere, there they are—entire teams
of towering, long-striding Vi
desses, decked out in fishskin blouses
and sheep-stomach dresses, the descen-
dant daughters of Erik the Red and
proud Helga the Hun-Slayer. Each car-
ries a cellular phone and wears redun-
dant four-inch chunky heels. Some pa-
rade confidently through the streets,
chattering away in Norse; others can be

seen in the cafés, listening to Oasis, sip-
ping lethal brennevin (a local favorite
a.k.a. black death) cocktails.

They virtually overflow with freshness
and vitality.

What has been uncovered here is a
whole new species of smash-mouth, in-
your-face, no-nonsense, look-no-further,
this-is-it blondes.

And they seem friendly, too.

If Iceland’s women are, indeed, the
most beautiful creatures on the planet,
there must be an explanation as to how
this has come about.

Baldvin Jonsson, an agricultural ex-
pert and the city's unofficial host, feels
he has the answer.

“The Icelandic woman bathes in hot
springs and waterfalls. Her food has
never been exposed to additives, antibi-
otics, hormones, herbicides. Peaches, to-
matoes, grapes and bananas are grown
in hothouses. The air she breathes is un-
polluted, Iceland has virtually no biting
insects. Dogs, which were banned for a
period, are rare and strictly licensed. Al-
da and Thora and Helga and their sis-
ters are protected by some of the strictest
environmental laws in the world. In
sum, what you have here is the first to-
tally organic woman.”

“And let us not forget her skin,” says
Christine, my lovely guide, whose own
complexion is flawless. “There is no
harsh sun here—we have only several
months of indirect sunshine—and wrin-
kles are almost unheard of.

“But much more important,” she adds
generously, “if we have the most beauti-
ful women here, it’s because we have
such beautiful men.”

Whether they have visited the North-
ern Sphinx or not, everyone seems to
think they know something about Ice-
land, making it useful to separate fact
from fiction.

As a lest of virility, you'll be asked to eat
shark's meat that’s been buried in the ground
for long periods of time.

You won't be asked immediately, but it
is a delicacy, and a taste will be offered at
some point during your visit. The “fra-
grance” is a bit off-putting—and when
you've eaten a sampling, the women in
your vicinity will tend to scatter. Finally,
though, it’s not much different from
very ripe cheese.

Other local favorites include reindeer
stew, cod cheeks, roast breast of puf-
fin, sautéed whale steak, ptarmigan
soup, sour seal, pressed sheepshead
and pickled lamb testicles. (The last is
a favorite of Helga, one of the ΡΙΑΥΒΟΥ
models. At dinner one night, she cries
out: “Someone order the balls. I love
the balls.")

A favorite activity for couples is to lie out
on the airport tarmac and greet incoming

planes by drinking vodka and making love.

Not quite, though there is a great deal
of raucous celebration, much of it sexu-
al, when the long winter months come to
an end. Icelandic women tend to be free
and relaxed about sex; a start at the age
of 14 is not unusual. Casual sex tends to
be more casual than in most countries.
In the many bars and cafés—it is a young
person's city—a simple “Yes?” from an
Icelandic man and a nod from a Viking
coed is all the preliminary chitchat re-
quired to send the couple happily off to
bed. There is no stigma attached to pro-
ducing a child out of wedlock, and the
city is heavily populated by attractive
young single moms.

But the arrival of the PLAYBOY team is
another story—it sends a seismic shock
through the country. Not that the wom-
en had the slightest trepidation about
flinging off their clothes and posing in
the nude. (They were actually much
more fearful of being questioned by a
journalist.)

“But there are so few people here,”
Christine explains, “and we are very
much like a small town. It’s impossible
for a girl to go into a bar at night and not
recognize half a dozen of her previous
lovers.”

Helga, who has posed nude for anoth-
er publication, said that several of the
men she knew recognized her—even
though her face was concealed.

A bit of finger-pointing is expected
when this issue hits the newsstands—
and several ofthe models’ boyfriends re-
sisted having their ladyloves appear in
the nude. But the women persisted.
(“Ashamed of my body?” said the devas-
tating Alda, who has no cause for con-
cern. "How absurd can you get?) The
boyfriends eventually came around.

“An Icelandic woman is not to be
pushed about,” said another model,
Kristin. “We were feminists before femi-
nism was invented.”

Iceland produced the first democrati-
cally elected female head of state—
though her name, Vigdis Finnbogadót-
tir, is unpronounceable.

An Icelandic woman will ofien startle her
lover during sex by bursting into a recital of
Icelandic sagas.

This is undocumented, but there is
no question that the Icelandic woman is
familiar with the 1000-year-old sagas
and can recite Norse poetry at length.
The country boasts the highest literacy
rate in the world. Along with her na-
tive tongue, the Icelandic blonde speaks
English and Danish and can usually get
along nicely in French and German too.
Among the models, several work in fi-
nance, and others study law or medicine.
The only working actress is Thöra Dusc-
gal, whose tastes run upmarket (her fa-
vorite actor is Derek Jacobi)

All take a rather jaundiced view of the

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137

PLAYBOY

138

imported dancers who work in the city's
newly opened topless bars.

“An Icelandic woman,” says Helga,
“would never do such weird things with
her underwears.”

Setting blondes aside for the mo-
ment—no mean feat—it is impossible to
visit Iceland and not be struck—and re-
main haunted—by the barren yet gor-
geous landscape. Vast sheets of calcified
Tava cover much of the earth (one third
ofthe world's lava eruptions are deposit-
ed here), volcanic mud pots burble, hot
geysers go steaming to the sky, volcanoes
blow periodically (there is a major erup-
tion about every five years), sulfur pits
smoke. The entire country smolders and
bubbles and sizzles. Yet all of it is pre-
sided over by peaceful ice-capped moun-
tains and surrounded by friendly seas.
The country looks, all at once, like the
beginning and the end of civilization.

The kingdom of heaven. The bowels

of hell. To borrow again from Auden:
“Iceland is sacred soil, its memory a con-
stant background to what Lam doing. It
is a permanent part of my existence.”

After a week of being surrounded
by—if not quite gorging on—blondes,
the visitor experiences a curious phe-
nomenon: the sudden longing for a
brunette.

At Nelly’s Café, which is frequented
by artists (could it be the Elaine's of
Reykjavik?), a young man sits at a table
with his lunch companions, four para-
lyzingly beautiful, young, blonde home
wreckers.

Yet he is slumped in his chair and
clearly despondent.

A friend explains: “On a trip to Flori-
da, Lars fell in love with a 300-pound
Seminole woman. She rejected him and
he's never gotten over it.”

“And have you, Ronald, conquered your fear of commitment?”

FERRY FARRELL

(continued from page 76)
Ghost Dancers, or meditates on the
meaning of modern-day viruses. Some-
times he overreaches for a syncretic uni-
ty of tree of life mantra, Tahitian mythol-
ogy and mystical Judaica. But we pay
attention to Perry Farrell's spacey solilo-
quies because he's becoming the master
of the grand gesture. And you may be
surprised at just how grand.

Perry is thinking bigger than Lolla-
palooza now. He's thinking broadband
cable delivery into your home. He's
planning events in the Middle East that
are biblical in scope. He wants to build
a music-based entertainment empire
that's going where no one else is going:
content. Isn't it bizarre to think this
druggie weirdo might just deliver your
future?

As the last shards of the Jane's rock
odyssey Three Days echo through the am-
phitheater, Perry suddenly slams a bottle
of water into the crowd, pleading, “Why
do we even make music? What good
docs it do? I figured something out this
morning. You want to hear it?" The
crowd roars. "This music is all part ofthe
earth's own music. It sounds like this:
Oohmm." Perry crouches. "But I like to
live in the moment when people go,
‘Yay!’ That's what we're all doing here.
The world around is going "Om, and
we're going, ‘Yay!’ That's where I want
to live.”

Eight years ago I sat across from Perry
at a coffechouse table listening as he
sucked on a foil hash pipe and told me
that taking drugs is like surfing a tubing
wave: The object is to get completely
barreled, but then to get out the other
side. And, he added with a smile, to have
“a story to tell your brothers.” (Perry
knows both ends of this analogy; he surfs
for at least a month cach year at his fa-
vorite breaks in Bali, Tahiti and Mexico.
He says that about eight-foot [overhead]
surf is the upper limit of what he can
handle, and knows about the danger of
being raked across a reef.) Perry made it
clear that he saw no honor or romance
in getting worked on by drugs, but he al-
so loves to talk about drug visions and
demands that everyone around him
share a commitment to his lifestyle. Even
as he said these words to me in Amster-
dam, original Jane's bassist Eric Avery
and guitarist Dave Navarro were hiding
in the back of the Ritual de lo Habitual
tour bus, fighting to stay clean. Perry,
meanwhile, shagged and scagged as if
his bandmates weren't his responsibility.

Fans still look to him for a modern
demption ritual—rock and roll as social
movement. There’s community in his
concept: It'sa sort of village green where
the gypsy love-in of the Dead meets the

glam sexuality of Bowie or Jagger. Perry
has survived heroin addiction, the deat!
of rock stardom and then the death ofalt
rock. His big dreams are still intact. For
better or worse, he's focused on the
“yay,” not the “om,” with no apologies.
Remember how every high school kid
in America became bisexual sometime
around 1990? Perry and Jane’s Addic-
tion did that. Eventually the dudes
wouldn't go see Jane's until the chicks
convinced them it was cool—"Is it metal
or art rock?" "Is it for fags?" "Is it a
cult?" Jane's pushed the current round
of goth drama and sexual ambiguity out
of the underground and into the frats a
decade before Marilyn Manson.

By the time Kurt Cobain shot himself,
rock star had become a dirty word. Even
Eddie Van Halen says he's bummed with
the label. The Seattle grunge communi-
ty, including Eddie Vedder, slunk away
from starmaker machinery. Some, like
R.E.M.'s Michael Stipe and U2's Bono
had the fortitude to embrace fame and
survive it. As, of course, did Perry. A few
days before Cobain's death, Courtney
Love asked Perry to speak with him. (He
never got the chance.) Why ask a junkie
to talk turkey to a junkie? Probably be-
cause Perry always comes out the other
side of the tube. Perry told Spin, “I
would have told him let's go toa film fes-
tival in Utah or something. Get the fuck
out of town. I don't mean to make a pun
out of it, but rock and roll isn’t worth dy-
ing over. Fame goes away.”

But Perry pops right back. In 1991, in
the midst of addiction and band break-
up, he launched Lollapalooza. In spite
of the first Jane's show in Phoenix in Ju-
ly, which ended in a pathetic dopers’
brawl between Perry and Daye, the band
kept it together through the tour’s end
in August. At their last show, a Septem-
ber gig in Hawaii, Perry and drummer
Stephen Perkins performed nude. Then
Perry was named artist ofthe year by
Spin and the critics at Rolling Slone. By
spring 1992 he had a new band, Porno
for Pyros. In 1995, with Lollapalooza
flagging, he kicked off the Enit Festival,
sporadic concert events that regularly
sell out. Perry, now 38, still craves public
transformation. He wants to party
with you.

“Look, there's a hummingbird,” Perry
blurts out, pointing into the living room
of his house in Venice, California. Per-
ry's house has heavy juju on it. Even
from the street you can feel it. It's the
best-feeling house I've ever entered. It's
not that big, not too fancy. But a féng
shui lady would walk in, kiss Perry and
split without adjusting so much as a nap-
kin. We're sitting shoeless at the built
Korean barbecue table and the sun is
pouring in through an open south wall.
Shaped like a Quonset hut, the blue-
black house was designed by architect

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Steven Ehrlich. A south wall pushes back
to reveal a one-lane pool. A carpenter
is building a bamboo bridge over it as
we talk.

“This happens to me when I do in-
terviews,” says Perry. “Hummingbirds
come. The other day I saw a white hawk.
Those are Indians. The white hawks are
Indians.”

Here’s the problem with talking to
Perry: His intellect and generosity of
spirit that attract people to his campfire
tend to come out—if you're feeling un-
critical—as a kind of cosmic laughter.
When he's happy, his ideas ricochet
chaotically. Throw some stony pot in
there and add the bottle of good Bor-
deaux I brought, and you get a miasma
of inspired nowism. I want to ask about
Perry's newfound reverence for mystical
Judaism. Before I can say one word, he
starts talking: "The tribe of Judah, play-
ing the songs of David, are coming to
cheer you up," he says slowly. "And har-
mony is occurring right now. The draw
is toward the center. That's what creates
harmony—and they do this by weaving.
Let's see. Just as a root grows out, so
does the trunk grow out. I don't know
whether we're the root or the trunk
right now. But the heart is at the center
of it all. It's the atomic center. If you
want to know anything, listen to your
heart. The reason I bring all this up
while we're talking about viruses”—we

weren't—"is because viruses go toward
the center, too. They come in contact
with us to assimilate as we assimilate with
the center, which is the one. They want
to come in. And they're as intelligent as
anyonc else. I think their intention is
pure."

Since everyone's going to ask: The
guy seems pretty damn healthy. May-
be he's unkillable. He snowboards and
surfs. Considering ntake of red wine,
he might as well be French. Except he's a
vegetarian. " Meat is delicious," he says,
laughing. "But I don't like the way I look
when I eat meat. The last piece of meat
Tate was wild boar at Aspen last New
Year's. 1 wanted to go down the slopes
like a wild boar. But it made me sick,
Plus I hurt myself really bad because 1
was snowboarding like a wild boar, man.
1 had a concussion, and 1 almost broke
my hip.”

He giggles occasionally at what comes
out of his mouth. Answers float by in a
landslide of goo. I have hours of this
stuff on tape. It gets easier to under-
stand, after a while, and some parts
ring true. Cloudbreak Entertainment
manager Roger Leonard told me: “He
comes up with such challenging ideas—
whether it’s in terms of festivals or mar-
keting or live shows or recordings. The
possibility is always there for Perry to
kick up something no one else has even
thought of.” When asked if taking in-

put from Perry isa hassle, a William Mor-
ris executive, speaking off the record,
laughed in genuine appreciation of Per-
ryand said, “Yeah, but he comes up with
great ideas. That's what we want from
him. That's why he's involved.”

Down on Venice Beach, Perry's new
Mount Mehru studio is buzzing. Leon-
ard, Cloudbreak manager Adam Schnei-
der and a Scripture-spouting techno-
geek named Aaron Chasen are there. As
Chasen walks me through, engineers rig
a studio for Perry's latest recording pro-
ject, dubbed Gobballee: an eclectic al-
bum of songs that are not Jane's, not
Porno, just Farrell and friends. This in-
teractive CD, set for release in the fall by
Warner Bros., is Perry's current enthusi-
asm. He records almost daily. New com-
puters have arrived, the T1 line isin and
a small team of programmers and tech-
nicians are setting up the server that will
run Web sites for Cloudbreak and other
projects.

Perry and his crew talk about doing a
lot more than just making records. They
want a piece of tomorrow’s entertain-
ment delivery system. During the next
year and a half, they'll experiment with
recordings, radio, live shows, tour pack-
aging, cable and software. Like a mini-
Microsoft. With a rocking house band.
Το pull it all off, they will rely on the

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established musical instincts of Perry and
Cloudbreak and tap Perry's vast root sys-
tem of talent and ideas. That network in-
cludes musicians, the William Morris
Agency (which co-owns Lollapalooza
with Perry and Ted Gardner), the Enit
Festival, Evirt (virtual events on the
Web), Warner Bros., Perry's bands
(Jane's Addiction, Porno for Pyros and
the new Gobballee group), his surfing
and snowboarding posses and his tech-
nology hands. Who doesn't he know?

Asked what they're working on, one
technician says, “Video communication
software applications—well, TV, basical-
ly. The Internet is going TV in a big
way.” With its broadband capabilities,
fiber-optic cable will be able to carry TV,
telephone, audio and computer signals
through one pipe.

“With broadband, all your communi-
cations are going to occur in video,” says
Chasen. “We've spent a lot of money on
technology in the past year. We want to
be there to deliver the content.”

This kind of talk is common at high
levels in entertainment these days, es-
pecially in the terror-stricken music
biz. Downloadable CDs, videos, films,
games—you name it. The demise of re-
tail. Live-broadcast recording sessions
featuring separate musicians in different
parts of the world—hell, live-broadcast
Perry Farrell on the toilet, live-broadcast
everything. Perry's crew is developing
software to these ends. The Jane’s Ad-
diction 1997 tour available on pay-per-
view for five bucks any time you want it.
The release of your own remixes of au-
dio or video right back into the system
for sale. Total interactivity, total fan con-
tact. Total chaos. Who pays for what?

“Broadband media is going to change
our lives,” Chasen says. “Part of that
change will be going from a retail-orient-
ed system toward an advertising- or
sponsorship-based system. This will cre-
ate a tremendous infrastructure prob-
lem in the entertainment business.
You're going to see fortunes made and
lost in a short period of time. The price
of music is inflated, let's face it: Twenty
bucks for a CD that costs two bucks to
make? Broadband is going to provide
content at a much lower price and ad-
vertising's going to want in on it. So
how's that going to affect the industry?
Well, that’s part of what we seek to find
out. We want to be the test pilot for this
change.”

This might sound ludicrous, if not for
one thing: Perry makes money. Even
though Lollapalooza was canceled this
year after last summer 's dismal showing,
it grossed as much as $26 million in pre-
vious years, according to Pollstar maga-
zine. His concert performances sell out,
as anyone who tried to score a ticket to
the Relapse shows can attest. His two
primary Jane's albums have gone plat-
inum and Porno's eponymous debut

went gold. More recently, the Private
Parts soundtrack featuring Porno's Hard
Charger went platinum. String those re-
sults together and you'll see why Perry is
free to pursue his social reconciliation

programs.
ο

“The great mystics I know—the great
sages like Tim Leary —draw people to-
gether,” Farrell says. “They make it ex-
citing to go to their homes. It's, ‘Come to
my party.”

Perry Farrell wants to be a sage. He
sprinkles his conversation with stories
about ritual feasts in Bali, or the tireless
good humor of the Dalai Lama and the
power of the Jewish Shechinah (the
presence of God in the world). He stud-
ies, he observes and, most important, he
makes himself vulnerable. That has giv-
en rise to three mighty paternal impuls-
es: one, to find inspiration in his woman;
two, to care for other people’s children
as if they were his own; and three, to
throw legendary parties. (One party was
apparently recorded on video. The tape
allegedly features Farrell, a woman, and
plenty of sex and drugs. The tape was
the subject of a recent court battle be-
tween the tape’s Web distributor and
Farrell's lawyer—the same lawyer who
fought the distribution of Poison singer
Bret Michaels’ sex tape.)

First, the women. To call him an in-
curable romantic would be an under-
statement. “Jane” was a prostitute who
supported the band when it formed in
1986; she inspired the band’s acoustic
song Jane Says. The 1988 and 1990
Jane's albums Nothing's Shocking and Rit-
ual de lo Habitual were inspired by Far-
rell's grand love affair with Casey Nic-
coli. She is an artist who fed him great
literature and collaborated on artwork.
(That's a sculpture of her as nude Sia-
mese twins, heads aflame, on the cover
of Nothing's Shocking.) Niccoli was the co-
director and co-creator of Perry's War-
ner Bros.-backed feature film, Gift, in
which Niccoli wraps a telephone cord
around her arm and shoots up. She was
his Classic Girl, who, as the song goes,
“gives her man great ideas.” They were
infamous junkies together, this genera-
tion's Sid and Nancy. (Once I was riding
through Venice, California with Perry
and we picked up Casey. “Do I smell like
alcohol?” he oozed. “Do I smell like
heroin?” she countered.) In October
1991 Perry was arrested for “being un-
der the influence of a controlled sub-
stance” at a Santa Monica Holiday Inn
where he and Casey were staying. They
couldn't clean their house anymore, the
story goes, so they had just moved into
the motel.

Ritual was also dedicated to Perry's
former lover, “our beloved Xiola Blue,”
the woman represented with Perry and
Casey in the nude threesome on the al-

bum’s cover. Blue was an outstanding
beauty worshiped by both Farrell and
Niccoli who died of an overdose at the
age of 19. Perry and Casey broke up af-
ter Jane's did, and Perry quickly picked
up anew muse, Kim. Current girlfriend
Christine Cagle appears covered with
juicy orange slices on the cover of Por-
no's latest, Good God's Urge, and also adds
backing vocals.

Is Perry a classic codependent? Maybe
just a Casanova. In his brilliant letter to
parents in the liner notes to Ritual (the
censorship baule over the album's cover
art included the arrest of a Michigan re-
tailer on obscenity charges) Perry writes:
“I used to wish sometimes that I were a
woman. A woman is the most attractive
creature nature has to offer a man. Why
then is it such a shame to see her un-
clothed? I feel more shame as a man
watching a quick-mart being built.”

Perry told me proudly while we were
snowboarding that his girlfriend is preg-
nant. When I asked him if he had any
other children, he said, “Not of my own.
I have a child who I raised over the years
as if he were my own. This will be my
first child by blood.

“If I took care of you and your chil-
dren,” he explains, “and I looked after
you as if you were my blood, my brother,
my lord, my cousin, my child, your rela-
tives would know that you were in good
hands. They'd want to help me when
I'm down because I helped them. It's a
metaphysical principle. It's a law I hold
to myself.”

Part of helping people, of course, is
helping them party. Onstage, at his
shows and festivals, Perry wraps these
impulses into one grand work. He talks
at great lengths about inclusion. Perry's
responsibility as host is to be as real as
possible about sex and drugs. The cli-
max of a December 1997 Jane's show in
Portland, Oregon brought it all together.
As the band cranked through a dramatic
version of Ted, Just Admit It, Perry re-
mained true and direct. In contrast to
the show in Los Angeles, he offered
no between-song banter. He was an-
gry about something. Hurt. His go-go
dancers fed into Farrell's bad night.
They hurled themselves like sexual pro-
jectiles at the audience after dropping
their leopard-skin wraps, and they
writhed wildly on their dance towers in
G-strings. It was the most naked mo-
ment of the “I-Itz M-My Party” show, fol-
lowed by Perry's most wounded-sound-
ing howl. He threw off the last words,
“Sex is violent!” over and over and then
goodnight and gone.

“Ask yourself,” he says, when Task him
about his morality. “When your self ills,
then don't do it. It's that simple. You can
moderate, you can have a little fun. Just
keep happiness.” He has always de-
scribed his legendary sexual, chemical,
physical and metaphysical experiences
as “research.”

141

PLAYBOY

142 cism are inspired by this concept of bibl

"The point of the research is that
there's great power out there," he says,
"and it has the potential to be very beau-
tiful or very ugly. I like to see everything.
And that means I have to be careful what
I really want to see.

“What would happen if 1 were to
make a big mistake? Your inertia might
cause catastrophes—because not only
are you descending, but people that
trust you get pulled down with you. You
don't want to fuck up.”

“It sounds to me like you feel respon-
sible for what you bring to people,” I say.

"I am,” he shoots back.

Him: “Is it for you?"

Farrell is going to be a dad. Is ita co-
incidence that he’s also, in his own style,
returning to the religion of his people?
Perry says these developments in his life
were simultaneous.

Perry Farrell is a Jew. He was born
Perry Bernstein in 1960, the son of a
New York jeweler. Banging around in
southern California, having a bad time
in his early 20s, he took his brother's first
name as his last, creating a play on the
word peripheral. He changed his identi-
ty, partly to embrace his new persona,
partly to escape

“You're not talking to a guy who has
always felt a connection with Israel,” he
admits. “I didn’t like being Jewish. I was
bummed. 1 didn't practice Jew, which 1
don't think is the most important thing
anyway. Music is the definitive form of
religion. Music and mathematics every-
body understands equally.

“Just like everyone else, I didn’t like
Jews. The beauty of the Jews, I saw as I
got older, is in the brilliance of their
metaphysics. It’s a beautiful system. 1
think they're incredible people. But I
think cveryonc's incredible. I would like
to see everyone dancing.”

When it comes to the actual practice of
Judaism, Farrell picks only the parts he
Likes —which aren't many. But he consid-
ers himself well informed. He discusses
texts with Chasen and others and soaks
it in.

Now, in a premillennial rush toward
history, Farrell has been swept up in Is-
rael's celebration of its jubilee.

For most observers, this jubilee marks
the 50th anniversary of Israel as a state,
which was declared on May 14, 1948.
But for Perry and his crew, biblical ju-
bilee is the main event. Leviticus says ju-
bilee is to be celebrated every 50 years
after the people of Israel (those led by
Moses through the desert, that is) come
into the land. The text dictates special
practices, such as the freeing of slaves
and the return of land to its original
owners, that sanctify the entire year as
holy. Perry, Chasen and those who share
their brand of messianic Jewish mysti-

cal jubilee, and see Israel's 50th birthday
as much more than just the secular an-
niversary of statehood that most Jews
and Israelis have been celebrating. It's a
year filled with portent, possibly herald-
ing the messiah and the dawn of peace
on earth—or, conversely, Armageddon.

‘Three religions converge at one spot
in Jerusalem: the broad plateau that is
crowned by the Dome of the Rock
mosque. It is here, according to believ-
ers, that Allah ascended into heaven,
that Jesus Christ preached and that
Abraham offered Isaac to Yahweh. Is-
lamic and Jewish religions claim this site
as a most holy place. Chasen believes
that jubilee is ripe for a new fanatical
push to rebuild the Jewish temple there,
and that such a move could cause a
conflagration.

“These are things that need to be dis-
cussed, not through extremism, but
through debate and creativity,” Chasen
cautions. “We're not trying to scare peo-
ple. When you look at the way jubilee
is observed, it's all about celebrating
through music and song. We're not pro-
claiming the biblical jubilee. We're just
going there to celebrate it for ourselves.
Our job, as musicians, is to be the cele-
brants. And to help educate people so
they don't resort to fundamentalism.”

Whatever happens, one thing's for
sure: Farrell wants to play the jubilee.

The exact plans keep changing, but
the goal is to head to Israel in September
for a huge concert to bring on the peace.
This jubilee concert will launch the Gob-
alee record and tour. Perry explains sim-
ply, “Well, a gobballee is one who is eat-
en.” As in gobbled. Hey, they laughed at
the name Lollapalooza, too. Perry's trav-
cling festival will then slowly make its
way home from the Middle East.

For Farrell this is perfect. He gets to
go on a pilgrimage to the promised land.
(Are they going to let him bring along
his naked pole-dancers and deliver long
monologues on how to give people or-
gasms with a feather?) Perry doesn't
want this to be a one-time affair. He's al-
ready planning annual “concerts for
peace” from Israel, with musicians from
around the world. Just in time for the
millennium.

Can a musician be a shaman? I was
once sitting in an RV with David Bowie
in New York when he told me a story. On
trips to Japan, Bowie often visits a Bud-
dhist monastery, and on one tour the
head priest said that organized religion
is finished. The priest said this in the
monastery, where people devote their
lives to its practice. Moreover, he said
that it was up to celebrities such as Bowie
to lead people in the right direction. It
made a great impression on Bowie

Ersatz priesthood is really no more
weird than the rest of Perry’s life. He was
in Aspen on New Year's Eve when Mi-

chael Kennedy died. Farrell was staying
at a condo in Aspen owned by a self-
styled sex therapist. The house is set up
for sexual encounters. Perry had a girl
and his crew with him and they were
having a great time.

They saw a body being carried off the
slope. “We see these lights coming and
we were laughing because we were gid-
dy,” he recalls. “We had just gotten off
the mountain, and we're going, ‘Whoa,
oh my God, look at this!’ All of a sudden
something came over me: ‘Shh! Hey,
don't laugh! What if it were someone in
your family?’ So I said, ‘I'm going to go
inside.’ The other people said, "We're
going to the market.” So they headed
down there and ran into Michael Kenne-
dy. They tried to resuscitate him. And
my friend was there when Michael Ken-
nedy breathed his last breath.

“That night we're having a good time
because it was New Year’s Eve and we
were with friends and loved ones, and
this guy talked with me.” he continues.
In one version of this story, Perry says it
was the guy's suit that caught his eye at
the bar. “He said, ‘Poor Ethel Kennedy is
so sad.’ And I said, ‘Do you want me to
speak to her?" He said, ‘Well, maybe.’ I
never did speak with her. But the next
thing I know, he’s telling me my room is
ready and he took me to the hotel where
they were staying. And he led me into
this room he gave me for the night. And
I started to talk about John Kennedy. 1
said, ‘John Kennedy was a great man,
wasn't he?’ He said, ‘Oh, the best.’ We
talked about JFK for a little while, and I
said, ‘What's his name?’ And the man
said, ‘Saint Shaughnessy.’ That was the
highlight of the night. We traded coats,
and then he left.”

Perry saw Michael Kennedy's lifeless
body, then had a conversation with
someone who implied that JFK's name
in the afterlife is Saint Shaughnessy. OK.
Who knows how much of this actually
happened? It doesn’t matter. For Perry,
this is the fabric of reality.

“I have a funny image of myselfas a
particle,” he likes to say. “You create a
wave with particles—a single particle is
never going to be as big as a wave. And
you can be the funny little guy who starts
to direct the wave by causing a slight-
ly different resonance, by humming a
slightly different tune. Interaction is the
strength of the universe.

“If we put as much effort into peace as
we do sports, I'm sure peace will occur.
You just have to direct the focus. The so-
lution is created by all of us. Don't be
mistaken. The solution does not occur
because somebody says, ‘Hey, let's sepa-
rate these guys from those guys.’ No,
somebody says, ‘Hey, let's all do this to-
gether’ That's the solution. When we all
say, "Let's do this." And then peace will

happen.”
El

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PLAYBOY

Miele Attire
(continued from page 82)
sell—not sell out.”

In the past year, Wyclef has produced
tracks for Warren Beatty's movie Bul-
worth and has worked on scoring (“not
doing the soundtrack,” he emphasizes)
the new Eddie Murphy-Martin Law-
rence picture. And of course, he has the
careers of a Fugees-wide family of cous-
ins and friends to develop.

For this feature, we paired Clef with
another young visionary, designer San
dy Dalal, whose suits are to the eye what
Wyclef’s music is to the car. The 22-
year-old rocked the fashion world this
summer with his plaids and prints and
became the youngest winner of the
Council of Fashion Designers of Ameri-
ca's prestigious Perry Ellis Menswear
Award. Call him a family man, too.
While Dalal was a student at the Univer-
sity of Pennsylvania, his Indian-born
parents and his friends raised $1.4 mil-
lion to back him. His bedroom served as
a showroom. Two years later his $250
shirts and $800 jackets are being fought
over at Barneys. He designs with musi-
cians such as Wyclef in mind. In fact,
Wyclef’s song Bubblegoose, about the
death of his cousin, isn’t clear unless you
know that bubblegoose is slang for a
down jacket. "That's how deep I am in-
to fashion. A puffy goose-down square
looks like a bubble,” he explains. “And
that’s where my cousin got shot.”

Wyclef possesses street cred without
striking a phony gangster pose. To him,
hard-core is a reflection of hard times.
He grew up on the violent streets of
Haiti before his family moved to Brook-

lyn when he was nine. The man has
edge, which is apparent in the Creole
lyrics of Sang Fezi: “Lem té kon al lékol,
Amerikain té kon jourem | Yo té rélém nèg nwè,
yo rélém ti nèg fumé] Jan yo palé, moin oué yo
pa civilizó/ Jan yo palé, moin cue yo pa kon
Bon Die” (When I went to school, Ameri-
cans used to curse me/ They used to call
me Black Boy, they called me Little
Smoky/The way they talk, I see they're
uncivilized/ The way they talk, I see they
don't know God).

“Mom always told me to dress right,”
he says. “Going to the Grammys? Don't
show up in Nikes. Shoes are very impor-
tant.” (He prefers a Wallabee-type shoe
by Patrick Cox.) At the Grammys in 1997
Clef appeared onstage wrapped in the
Haitian flag, establishing him as a he-
ro for Haitian Americans. This year he
was the guy who handed his mike to
ΟΥ Dirty Bastard of the Wu-Tang Clan.
(“ODB, that's my man. He made his
statement.”)

At our photo session he changes at-
titudes, “flipping” with each outfit. At
one point he says to photographer An-
drew Eccles, “Let me do my Dirk Dig-
gler pose.” Clef spreads his legs, grabs
his crotch with one hand and does a
thumbs-up under his chin with the oth-
er. With a crazy grin and his pants hiked
up, he reminds us of Marky Mark. His
assistant suggests something X-rated.
“You want me to ruin my career?” he
asks with a laugh. “Don't you know how
important these pictures are? 1 have
a 50-year plan, man.” Fifty years in
the music industry? He'll need a lot of
outfits. —CHRISTOPHER NAPOLITANO

“You're so calm and composed in this hyped-up, crises-filled
world. You're not screwing anyone else, are you?”

BARRY SCHECK

(continued from page 106)

Scheck likes to think of himself as an
accidental celebrity who, at 48, unwit-
tingly finds himself in fame's fun house.
“You become a toon. You have an identi-
ty that has nothing to do with who you
are,” he whines, though it's only a slight
whine. “You cease being a person. You
become a projection in pop culture.
Your life becomes a caricature that has
nothing to do with reality.” As exhibit A,
he recalls a joke Jay Leno told in which
Scheck hires Woodward to shake money
from his clients’ pockets. The implica-
tion is that he’s getting rich off his work.
“Basically, I'm a public-interest lawyer,”
he says. “Everything I've ever done is
consistent with that.”

True, most of his clients don't qualify
for the country club set. There were the
striking tomato-farm workers in Califor-
nia, for whom Scheck did legal work af-
ter he graduated from law school. There
were the 170 demonstrators whose tres-
passing charges were dismissed in 1980
after they invaded a nuclear power
plant. Scheck was part of the defense
team that won acquittals for the New
York Eight, black radicals charged with
conspiring to rob Brink’s trucks and
planning prison escapes. And he helped
acquit five men—some called them ter-
rorists, Scheck called them freedom
fighters—caught sending a cache of
arms to the IRA.

In other words, Barry Scheck knows
from pro bono.

Although he won't discuss his fees (un-
official estimates of Scheck’s earnings
from the Woodward trial top out at
$300,000), Scheck possesses all the ac-
cessories of a snappy New York life: He
drives a Volvo, and sends his 11-year-
old daughter, Olivia, to private school
and 18-year-old son, Gabriel, to Brown
University. He has season tickets to the
Knicks and owns a spacious condo in
Brooklyn Heights, at the foot of the
Brooklyn Bridge.

Still, Scheck’s niche in the legal world,
particularly as it existed before he be-
came famous, is hardly lucrative. Doro-
thy Scheck concedes she has sometimes
wished her husband were more interest-
ed in corporate law. But Scheck's heart,
she says, has never been in his wallet, at
least not since they met as college stu-
dents hitchhiking around Europe. After
they dated for three years, she secured a
marriage proposal by claiming that her
mother was dying (mom's still alive).
Scheck finally proposed at a Grateful
Dead concert in Berkeley in 1974. (He
can't recall the accompanying tune. “I
may not have been in my right mind,”
he says. Ditto for the missus.) There was
no honeymoon.

“Money a priority for Barry? Oh, no,”
Dorothy says, giggling at the suggestion.

But don't think her husband's heart is
purc, she cautions. “Fame? Power? Yeah,
maybe.”

Which explains why Scheck isn't alto-
gether unhappy about being mocked as
a shark, that soulless mascot for crimi-
nal-defense lawyers. There's a flip side
to the needling. The man can work a
case. He may never find love from vigi-
lante couch potatoes, but in legal cirdes
his reputation as a tenacious, passionate
advocate has never been stronger. And
his Innocence Project, while relatively
unknown to the public, is lauded by col-
leagues across the country.

“He's damn good,” says Harvard law
professor Arthur Miller. “He's probably
the leading lawyer in the DNA field and
one of the best law-science people in the
country today. He can make it simple
enough for a jury to understand. That's
a gift most people don't have. Defense
lawyers have always been pilloried; it's
how laypeople reverse the presumption
of innocence. But God help any citizen
who gets in trouble with the law. Who
are they going to hire? Caspar Milque-
toast? Sally Sap? You want a guy who will
get the job done. Right now, Barry is
that guy.”

Miller's assessment followed the snip-
ing that Scheck suffered last fall after a
Massachusetts jury found Louise Wood-
ward guilty of murdering eight-month-
old Matthew Eappen. Though judge
Hiller Zobel ultimately released the 19-
year-old au pair, Scheck considers the ju-
ry's rebuke to be the most painful of his
career. He had been so confident in the
defense's case that he lobbied Zobel
to drop the lesser manslaughter charge
as an option for the jury. Scheck gam-
bled that the jurors, faced with an all-or-
nothing choice, would sympathize with
Woodward. He lost.

"I don't think I've ever tried a better
case,” says Scheck, who is appealing the
verdict. “I was stunned. It was like some-
one had hit me in the stomach. It’s a ter-
rible thing for her to live with. For all of
us to live with. It was horrible. I won't
get over this for years. We proved she
didn't do it. The jurors were wrong.
They had no right to do what they did.”

The trial was unpleasant for other
reasons as well. Fifty medical experts
ganged up to denounce Scheck's con-
tention that Matthew died because a pre-
vious brain injury had somehow started
to bleed again. And legal analysts won-
dered if the jury had soured on Scheck
because of his association with Simpson,
or because of his badgering courtroom
antics. The heckling over Scheck’s style
even prompted Simpson to call Court
TV. “I don't know anyone in America
who, if they ever got in trouble, wouldn't
want him on their defense team,” Simp-
son said on the air. Scheck snorts when
asked about the unsolicited support. “It
wasn't helpful,” he says.

Scheck's closing argument was a 35-
minute attack on the medical evidence
against Woodward. “This is a reasonable
doubt,” Scheck declared, holding up a
scan of Matthew's skull that he insisted
proved the boy's injuries were old. “This
is the end of their case. Period.” At the
conclusion, Scheck thundered that a de-
fendant is presumed innocent even if
“she has been convicted in the press!”
He was near tears. “Send this woman
home,” he said. “All she ever did on Feb-
ruary 4 was try to save a child's life.”

The intensity of Scheck’s effort was
moving, and afterward, exhausted, he
sank into a chair at the defense table. His
closing was also noteworthy for what was
missing. Not once did Scheck express
empathy with Matthew Fappen's par-
ents. He would do so later, at a press
conference after the verdict, but he
hadn't in his courtroom finale. Yet if any-
one could communicate to a jury a sense
of the Fappens' loss, if anyone could
convey their bottomless grief, even if in
passing to soften an otherwise bristling
defense, that person is Barry Scheck.

Asa child, Scheck could find his father
Saturday nights at seven PM. by turning
on the television. There he was, George
Scheck, hair slicked back, the smooth,
smiling host of Star Time, a talent show
for child singers, dancers and musicians.
Barry himself yearned to perform for
the camera, but his father declared the
stage off-limits. “He hated the rapacious
nature of show business," Scheck says.
“He didn't want me to get into it unless I
had a license to practice law. He said the
only people vho survived show business
were the lawyers."

Scheck's relatives were a raffish cut of
Runyonesque New York. His maternal
grandmother, an expert card player,
went into labor at the poker table. His
mother's first cousin Norton Peppis co-
owned a popular gin joint in Queens
and lost bundles of cash at the racetrack.
George's father was a gambler and an
alcoholic who raised his eight children
in the sagging tenements of Manhat-
tan's Lower Fast Side. Some days there
weren't enough clothes to dress all the
kids; some days there wasn't enough
food. "It's something of a mystery how
they survived," Barry says.

In his early teens, after dropping out
of school to work, George befriended a
janitor at a neighborhood bank who
taught him to tap-dance. Soon, George
found fortune in his feet, He signed
on as a dancer—a boy hoofer, as they
were known—in a vaudeville troupe. He
would become one of the few white per-
formers of his generation to dance at
Harlem's Apollo Theater. Later, George
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146

Jersey arrived unannounced at George's
Midtown office, begging for a tryout
for his 12-year-old daughter, Concetta
Franconcro.

“I'm sorry,” George said, “but I'm up
to my neck in kid singers.”

“But Mr. Scheck, she also plays the
accordion.”

"OK," Scheck sighed, “I'll listen to her
tomorrow.”

Good thing, too. The girl eventual-
ly changed her name to Connie Fran-
cis, and she sold enough records—more
than 40 million—to pour a load of mon-
ey into the bank account of manager
Scheck. Scheck also discovered singer
Bobby Darin and jazz pianist Hazel
Scott. By the mid-Fifties, he had moved
his wife, Eleanor, and two children,
Barry and Marilyn, from their Queens
apartment to a three-bedroom house on
Long Island.

Barry relished his new suburban life.
He and his younger sister had their own
bedrooms. He devoured Hardy Boys de-
tective stories, followed the Yankees and

was a gritty shortstop in the Babe Ruth
Little League (he didn't lose interest
even after an errant fungo crushed
the bridge of his nose). The sight of
Arnold Palmer on television sent Scheck
outside with a seven iron to master the
art of launching golf balls over neigh-
bors’ roofs.

It was a perfectly comfortable exis-
tence that ended abrupuy in tragedy. On
Thanksgiving eve in 1960, 11-year-old
Barry drifted off to sleep while his par-
ents bantered downstairs with friends
over preholiday cocktails. The guests left
around one AM. An hour later, Barry
awoke suddenly, hot, confused, choking,
rubbing his eyes, terrified. His moth-
er burst into his room. The house was
on fire.

Eleanor grabbed her son and pushed
him downstairs, where flames were de-
vouring the floors, walls and furniture.
Scheck says his father, frail from a heart
condition, tried to carry Marilyn down
the stairs but was forced back by the
dense smoke. George ran with Marilyn

"I couldn't have been more than a few weeks old when
they flushed me down the toilet.”

to his bedroom, where he smashed a
window and climbed out onto the roofof
the garage, shouting for help. His knees
buckled and he collapsed with a heart at-
tack. Eleanor's screams mixed with the
wails of arriving fire trucks. Firefighters
pulled her husband to safety but were
unable to reach seven-year-old Marilyn,
who was found on the floor upstairs, her
lifeless body wrapped around a pillow.

Barry was taken that night to stay with
family friends in Queens. Curt Marder
remembers Barry standing in the door-
way to his bedroom, in his pajamas, his
hair singed and his hands burned from
touching superheated doorknobs. “He
was totally disoriented,” Marder recalls.
Scheck would share Curt's room for the
next two months while George recuper-
ated and Eleanor struggled to regain her
emotional balance.

Curt's parents kept Barry away from
the newspapers, which were filled the
next morning with adoring stories about
president-elect Kennedy and wife Jackie
becoming parents to John Jr. Marilyn
Scheck's death also made the news. Al-
though no cause was determined, the lo-
cal paper, Newsday, reported that the fire
may have been ignited by a cigarette that
fell between the cushions of a couch in
the Schecks' den. Two photos showed a
cop restraining Eleanor, her face black-
ened by soot, as she tried to rescue her
daughter.

For days Barry wondered what had
happened to his sister. No one told him
she had died. No one told him about her
funeral. "It was hushed up," says Shelly
Marder, Curt's sister. "The message was,
You used to have a sister, now you don't.
"They didn't want to deal with the trag-
edy, how profound it was, how inexpli-
cable it was."

Barry expressed his anguish in bursts.
"His parents had taken us for a weekend
in the Catskills, and we were playfight-
ing," Curt says. "Barry started choking
me. I thought he was pretending, but hc
wouldn't stop. Tears were coming down
his checks and he was scrcaming, “You
don't know what it's like to lose a sister!
You don't know what it's like to deal with
my family!"

To this day, Scheck dislikes talking
about the fire. After a quick, monosyllab-
ic recounting of what transpired, he says
the experience “grew me up pretty fast.
It gave me a profound sense that things
can go"—he smacks the table—"like
that." He wonders how he would have
evolved otherwise. "I have this image of
a suburban life, where there's a certain
amount of happy idiocy,” he says. "I
probably would have ended up in Holly-
wood, writing sitcoms.” He never recov-
ered. “When people say you'll get over
it, that’s not true,” he says. “If someone
cuts off your arm, you don't get over it.”
Moments later, his eyes brim with tears.
He looks away and wipes them with a
napkin. “It's very painful,” he says, his

voice barely audible. "It's embarrassing.
It's my business, not necessarily anyone
else’

After the fire, the Schecks moved to
Manhattan's Upper East Side, where
Barry finished junior high at a public
school before attending Horace Mann, a
private boys’ school. He had already be-
gun telling friends of a new ambiti
He would become president of the Uni
ed States. Curt Marder recalls that Barry
“was always very emphatic about it. He'd
say, ‘I want to be president." Shelly
Marder says Scheck was more specific
“He wanted to be the first Jewish presi-
dent,” she recalls. “It was an ongoing
grandiose concept, but there was always
an edge of humor. At least, I'd like to
think so.”

Scheck won't confess to any White
House ambition, except to say, “I was in-
tensely interested in politics.” His seri-
ousness and drive were formidable at
Horace Mann, where he was known for
denouncing the Johnson administration.
As editor of the school paper, he made
a minor splash by scoring an inter-
view with F. Lee Bailey, then the coun-
try's preeminent celebrity shark-lawyer.
Scheck ignored notorious Bailey cli-
ents such as Albert DeSalvo, the Boston
Strangler, and kept their talk stubbornly
substantive. “What is wrong with the
present definition of legal insanity?” he
asked his future partner.

Even then he had a way of jabbing his
finger in people's faces. During a school
debate, he advocated ending student
draft deferments because he believed
they were unfair to those who could not
afford college. Besides, he knew that if
well-to-do kids were draftable, their par-
ents would storm Washington and de-
mand an end to the war. “We draft only
those who cannot afford to hide in the
endless catacombs of higher education,”
he bellowed during the debate

William Barr, who would grow up to
become President Bush’s attorney gen-
eral, did not agree with his classmate's
views. During a lunchtime discussion,
Barr punched Scheck in the mouth after,
Barr says, Scheck cursed the Pope. “It
was a very satisfying moment for me,”
says Barr when asked about the incident.
The principal summoned him for an
explanation. “I told him Scheck had
referred to the Pope with an epithet,
and that 1 hit him. And he said, “That
was a good thing to do.’” (Scheck recalls
the dispute but says no punches were
thrown.)

Scheck began college at Yale in 1967
and delved into the politics of the mo-
ment. He joined the "Dump Johnson"
movement, surrendered his draft card
in protest of the Vietnam war and cam-
paigned for Robert Kennedy (and even
for Norman Mailer when he ran for

mayor of New York in 1969). He claims
his own political aspirations died with
ΕΕΒ, but the events of those years con-
vinced him that an activist citizenry
could effect social change. "We had real
reason to believe what we said mattered.
I went to college and within a few
months, we brought down a president,”
he says, referring to Johnson's not run-
ning for re-election. “We thought we
could make a new country.”

He applied to law school and was a
cepted at the University of California-
Berkeley. “What the hell am 1 going to
law school for?” he asked friends during
a poker game before classes started. He
was interested in writing screenplays or
even a novel. His parents, though, had
always pushed him toward a convention-
al life. The only ones who survived, his
father had always warned, were the law-
yers. So Scheck became a lawyer, but on
his own terms. Corporate law was out of
the question. He would become a public-
interest lawyer. “I always saw the money
as a trap,” he says. “I wanted to remain
true to a set of social values.”

Those values began forming when
George Scheck took his son back to the
decrepit neighborhood where George
had grown up. He would tell Barry how
hard it had been to be poor, how society
should care for its weak. He would tell
him about his black friends in showbiz,
dancers such as Honey Coles and John
Bubbles, and musicians such as Hazel
Scott, and how their lives had been hurt
by racism. Through his father, Barry
had salvaged his youth after the fire that
killed his sister. And through his father,
Barry learned a sense of social justice.

George Scheck had suffered 12 heart
attacks before he died in 1984. During
any one of his sick spells, friends could
walk into his hospital room and find
George happily smoking a long cigar.
“He was always kind, always warm, al-
ways gentle,” Scheck says.

Barry had a more difficult time with
his mother. Eleanor, now 73, never re-
covered from the death of her daughter,
whose framed portrait hangs promi-
nently in her Manhattan apartment.
Eleanor suffered long periods of depres.
sion, withdrawal and anger. Often she
would unleash her rage on her son, lash
ing out at him about his grades, long
hair or ragged dress. Once she smashed
his collection of record albums because
they were arranged sloppily. Sometimes,
when Eleanor was at her darkest, she
would tell Barry that the wrong child
had died in the fire and she seemed to
make his survival a crime.

Scheck says he grew to understand
that his mother was suffering, that she
didn't mean to hurt him. “Because of all
that,” he says, “I learned to deal with
damaged people.” Yet, it's also true that
as a result of his mother’s damning
words, Barry became similar to the men

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he would eventually free from prison
through the Innocence Project. He, too,
was branded for something that was not
his fault.

It is 4:30 pm. on a Tuesday, and Scheck
is huddled with five law students in
a conference room at Cardozo Law
School. The students are updating
Scheck on the progress of the cases he

DEATH Row ÁNGEL:

veryone, it seems, knows

about O.]. Simpson. Ronald

Jones, 48, is another story, lost
among the legion of nameless in-
mates in the American prison system.
His mug isn't likely to grace the cover
of a national magazine. Larry King
hasn't called for an in- —
terview. Yet Jones has
something in common
with Simpson. He,
too, is Barry Scheck's
client.

Scheck joined Ron-
ald Jones’ legal team
years after Jones was
sentenced to death in
1989 for raping and
murdering Debra
Smith, a 28-year-old
mother of three, in
an abandoned motel
on the South Side of
Chicago.

Jones’ case is typical
of those handled by
Scheck’s Innocence
Project. There are no
heroes in these sorts
of cases, the story-
lines are dreary and
the clients often have
troubled, even unsa-
vory, pasts. Addicted
to drugs and alcohol,
Jones was on a pro-
longed downward
spiral. He had been
convicted of robbery
and burglary and his
parole had been re-
voked twice by March
1985, when Smith's
body was found.

At first, Jones was not a suspect.
Then a woman told police he had
raped her at knifepoint in the neigh-
borhood in which Smith had been
found. That victim's description of
Jones included an account of his com-
plexion, a condition that earned him
the nickname “Bumpy.”

The case stalled when the wom-
an failed to show up in court. Still,

has assigned them for the Innocence
Project, which he runs as part of Cardo-
zo's criminal-law clinic.

Hundreds of leuers arrive every year
from inmates begging Scheck and co-di-
rector Peter Neufeld to adopt their caus-
es. “I may not be O.J. Simpson,” begins
one, "but I need your help." The Inno-
cence Project takes on their cases only if
the law students can obtain physical evi-
dence from the crime—a vaginal swab,

SCHECK’S THE MAN

detectives decided to question Jones
for Smith's murder after a witness
claimed to have seen him begging her.
for money shortly before she was
killed.
After a nine-hour interrogation,
Jones confessed, saying he had killed
Smith in self-defense.
They'd had sex, he
said, then she de-
manded payment. He
refused. She took
out a knife, which
he grabbed and then
killed her with.

Jones was convicted.
and sentenced to die
in 1988, though dur-
ing his trial he testi-
fied he confessed only.
after the police sug-
gested it would help
him get a lighter sen-
tence. For nearly
eight years, public de-
fenders in Chicago
kept Jones from dy-
ing. They invited
Scheck to argue for
DNA tests on the se-
men found in Smith
(such testing was not
deemed reliable when
Jones was apprehend-
ed). The results
proved the semen
could not have come
from Jones. His con-
viction was over-
turned last summer
and he was removed

¿ from death row. But
* Jones still sits in pris-
on as prosecutors assess whether to
retry his case. For Scheck, the ordeal
won't end until Jones is free. "I'm
haunted by Ronald Jones,” he says.
"It has taken close to a year to get
him out of jail and the case may well
be retried. It's very upsetting that
someone could be on death row
for over a decade, then be exoner-
ated by a DNA test and still not be
released.” —es,

ΠΙ

for example, or semen-stained panties
or a bloodstained shirt. The sample is
then tested to determine whether it
matches the convict's DNA. But with
crimes that date back more than ten
years, evidence is often lost. Sometimes,
prosecutors aren't eager to search. “Peo-
ple don't like to open up things,” Scheck
says. “It’s always a can of worms.” And
there are other obstacles. The Innocence
Project, which subsists on a $90,000-a-
year budget that relies heavily on private
contributions, requires that families of
inmates pay $5000 to $8000 for the DNA
testing. “If we had more money, we
could triple the number of people we get
out,” Scheck says.

In class, one student tells Scheck that a
police sergeant keeps avoiding his phone
calls. “Do we have the evidence?” Scheck
asks, leaning back in his chair, rubbing
his eyes. The drill is familiar.

“The way the sergeant is avoiding us,
I suspect we do,” the student answers.
Scheck orders his assistant to track down
a sympathetic attorney in that region to
help apply pressure.

Next case.

Prosecutors in a Massachusetts town
have located a lost piece of evidence, but
they won't release it for testing. “This is
really stupid,” Scheck says, bristling at
the prosecutor's letter. “This was written
by someone who is brain-dead.” The stu-
dents chuckle. “It’s totally moronic,” he
says moments later, “such an ignorant
response.

“OK,” Scheck says finally, “we're going
to get a lawyer for this one.”

Since its inception in 1992, the Inno-
cence Project has helped more than 30
inmates, nearly all of them picked out of
police lineups by rape victims or witness-
es before DNA testing existed. They are
men no one wanted to believe, men who
spent years in prison cells, cut off from
families and livelihoods. Their releases
are Scheck's absolution, their voices a
compelling counterchorus to those who
would tether him to Simpson.

They include Kirk Bloodsworth of
Baltimore, who was accused of taking
nine-year-old Dawn Hamilton into a
woods, raping her, bashing in her head
with a rock, then strangling her. Five wit-
nesses insist they saw Bloodsworth with
Dawn the day she was killed. He was
convicted in 1984, then sentenced to die.
Eight years later, with prodding from
the Innocence Project, prosecutors reex-
amined the little girl's underwear. They
found a spot of semen less than one
sixteenth of an inch wide. A DNA rest
proved the semen was not Bloods-
worth's. He walked in 1993.

Troy Webb lost seven years in a Vir-
ginia state prison. A woman flipping
through police photographs said his ba-
by-faced mug matched that of the man
who had raped her outside her apart-
ment complex. Her word was all the

jury needed. A judge sentenced him to
47 years. In prison he heard about the
Innocence Project. He wrote Scheck,
who campaigned for a DNA test that ul-
timately proved Webb was not the at-
tacker. Webb was impassive when he
learned of the results. “There was noth-
ing to celebrate. I always knew I was in-
nocent,” he says. “But no one wanted to
hear about it.”

Edward Honaker of Virginia forfeited
ten years of his life in state prison. A
woman insisted he had raped her in his
truck after he threatened to shoot her
boyfriend. Both the woman and her
boyfriend picked Honaker out of a line-
up, and a jury convicted him of rape,
sodomy and sexual assault. A judge sen-
tenced him to three successive life terms,
plus 34 years. Honaker wrote to Scheck,
who demanded DNA testing on the vic-
tim's vaginal swabs. Honaker, too, was
vindicated. “There aren't enough words
in the English language to express what
I owe those people,” he once said of his
rescuers.

‘A cautionary tale to these bittersweet
endings features Kerry Kotler of Long
Island, whose successful quest to over-
turn a rape conviction was championed
by Scheck and Neufeld. After 11 years,
Kotler left prison in 1992 and celebrated
his freedom by riding a horse ona beach
in Montauk. Four years later he was ar-
rested for raping a college student. He
was convicted and sentenced to seven to
21 years. The prosecutor on the original
case, James Catterson, is sure he was
guilty the first time. “The man isa pred-
ator,” he says.

Scheck and Neufeld were distraught
over Kotler's arrest but still believe he
was innocent in the first case. They sug-
gest he was damaged by his experiences
in prison. “This is a man who at 22 was
accused of a serious crime he did not
commit," Neufeld says. “While other
young men were getting married, he
was being sexually assaulted in Attica
While other young men were starting
their carcers, he was bending license
plates. He was stabbed twice, was the vic-
tim of extortion. I'm sure it had a pro-
found effect on him.” They worry that
the Innocence Project could be tainted
by association. “To some degree,” Scheck
says, “Kotler’s case gives people an ex-
cuse to say, ‘Look what happens when
you let someone out.”

Scheck and Neufeld's expertise in
DNA has not only cnablcd them to free
convicts, but also allowed them to attack
the testing and handling of evidence, as
they did during Simpson’s trial. Their
opponents have accused them of being
hypocritical. “They’re trying to have
it both ways,” says Rockne Harmon, a
prosecutor in Oakland.

Beginning in the late Eighties, prose-
cutors and judges began touting new
DNA technology as a surefire way
to prove guilt. The alibi is dead, they

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PLAYBOY

150

rejoiced, long live the double helix.
Scheck and Neufeld jumped into the
fray during a 1989 murder trial in the
Bronx. Joseph Castro, a janitor, was ac-
cused of stabbing to death a pregnant
woman and her two-year-old daughter.
The case seemed like a lock. A DNA test
matched a speck of blood on the face of
Castro's wristwatch to the woman's.
Scheck and Neufeld nibbled at the
edges of the prosecution's case. First,
they proved that the test had been done
sloppily. Then they showed that the test-
ing company had miscalculated the odds
that the blood could have come from
anyone other than the mother. By the
end of their presentation, some of the
D.A.'s expert witnesses called the testing
unreliable. The judge barred the DNA
evidence in a ruling that turned Scheck
and Neufeld into conquering heroes
in the criminal-defense world. Lawyers
across the country invited them to con-
duct seminars on how to contend with
DNA. In all the euphoria, it hardly
seemed to matter that Castro ultimate-

ly confessed to the murders. “Before
Scheck and Neufeld, no defense law-
yer would take on DNA. I mean, how do
you defend against God? How do you
defend against those odds?” asks Eric
Swenson, author of DNA in the Court-
room. “They had the chutzpah to do it.”

The following year the duo helped
William Kunstler in the appeals of three
Hell's Angels convicted of murdering a
man in Ohio. Though Scheck and Neu-
feld lost their bid to dismiss the DNA ev-
idence, memories of their courtroom fe-
rocity still provoke bitterness. At one
point, they accused former FBI lab di-
rector John Hicks of seeking to destroy
evidence, an allegation that was later
proved unfounded.

“I was insulted. I thought it defamed
my character and integrity,” Hicks says.
“I saw in Barry a mean streak and a cal-
lous disregard for what he knew was
true.”

Assistant U.S. Attorney James Wooley,
a prosecutor in that case, says Scheck
and Neufeld employ “a scorched-earth

eren
AR A

u

“Somehow I always envisioned heaven as a place where
one wouldn't have to use a condom.”

approach, and I'm not sure I agree with
burning down everything they do.
They're willing to attack the personal in-
tegrity of someone who takes an oppos-
ing position. In my 15 years in court-
rooms, it was a singular moment.”

Scheck and Neufeld make no apolo-
gies for their aggressive style. As for
questions about their varying postures
regarding DNA, they see no inconsisten-
cy. Their only problem with DNA, they
say, is when the collection of the evi-
dence, or the testing itself, is mishan-
dled. Of course, that's their last worry
when it exonerates an Innocence Project
client. Then they talk of DNA testing
with the zeal of a prosecutor. “We're do-
ing God's work," Scheck says. "It's the
best thing you can do as a lawyer.
There's no higher calling."

O.J. Simpson's acquittal is not what
comes to mind at the mention of God's
work. Still, Scheck insists that he and
Neufeld saw in the Simpson trial the
chance to argue the merits of DNA evi-
dence on a national stage. Ultimately, no
matter what anyone thinks of the ver-
dict, Scheck believes the trial delivered
the enduring message that investigators
can botch a seemingly airtight case if
they mishandle evidence. "If you do it
right," Scheck says, "you will convict the
guilty. That's the lesson.

The trial sent another message: Bar-
ry Scheck was a formidable courtroom
presence, even if he dressed as though
he were starring in a bad gangster mov-
ie. *We told Barry, 'You have to lose
those Guys and Dolls suits,” recalls John-
nie Cochran. “‘Get suits that come from
the second half of the 20th century.”

*He's probably the best lawyer they
had," says Christopher Darden, one of
the prosecutors in the case, who now
teaches law at Southwestern University.
"He made the most difference in front of
the jury. He's a very smart man." (The
good feeling, however, has its limits. ΑΕ.
ter the trial, Scheck wrote Darden a note
inviting him to meet for a drink or to
speak to a Cardozo class if he ever
passed through New York. Darden nev-
cr responded.)

For all his apparent ambivalence,
friends say Scheck has enjoyed his fame,
even if it hasn't always been as wide-
spread as he believes. Visiting Curt
Marder's father in the hospital, Scheck
boasted that blacks cverywhere recog-
nize him because of the Simpson trial.
“So my father called in one of the atten-
dants and asked if she knew who Barry
was,” Curt recalls. “She looked at him
for a while and said, ‘Are you a game-
show host?'"

The trial levied many burdens. Stran-
gers sent him death threats and hate
mail, including one letter that began,
“Barry Scheck, how can you work for
that nigger?” And associates could not

fathom their old friend from Legal Aid
defending a wealthy celebrity who had
once pleaded no contest to beating the
woman he was accused of murdering.
“When the OJ. case came in, many peo-
ple believed it represented the classic
batterer case, and many thought Barry
shouldn't do it,” says Cardozo professor
Ellen Yaroshefsky. “At that point I was
concerned. We argued about it. Barry
and Peter both believed it was a DNA
case and would be a forum for DNA
issues.”

For Yaroshefsky, DNA was not a suffi-
cient reason. “We were wal
the street, screaming about it,
calls, laughing. “I asked Barry, ‘Could
you do a DNA case for a Nazi?’ And he
said, ‘Personally, I couldn't do that.”
Then, later, he came to me and said he
could defend a Nazi in a DNA case, for
the sake of intellectual consistency. 1
thought this was outrageous.” (Scheck
denies he said he could defend a Nazi.)

To his friends, Scheck's role in Simp-
son's trial seemed especially contradicto-
ry because of his impassioned defense
during the late Eighties of Hedda Nuss-
baum, who was arrested with Joel Stein-
berg for the beating death of Lisa Stein-
berg, their six-year-old illegally adopted
daughter. Nussbaum became a national
symbol for battered women, and while
public pressure mounted in favor of
punishing both parents, Scheck argued
that Hedda, suffering from a broken
nose, 16 broken ribs, split lips and a gan-
grenous leg, was also Joel Steinberg's
victim and could not have been responsi-
ble for Lisa's death. “Speaking with her
was like talking to a torture victim,” he
says. Scheck finally persuaded prosecu-
tors not to charge Nussbaum and instead
ed her to testify against Steinberg.

“It was a true obsession,” says Michael
Dowd, a lawyer who referred Nussbaum
to Scheck. “Barry became infatuated
with Hedda. He didn't know where she
ended and where he began. Hedda was
perfection. It wasn't balanced. He was
so driven, as if it were his own life. 1£
he hadn't persuaded the prosecutors
not to charge her, he would have been
devastated.”

Dowd has enjoyed discussing cases
with Scheck, except during the Simpson
trial. “I'd tell him, ‘Barry, I can't talk to
you. I'm turned off by this guy. I think
he beats the shit out of his wife,” Dowd
says. “Barry would say, ‘Mike, if you
were to spend two hours with him, you'd
change your mind.’ And I said, ‘Come
on, give me a break."

Scheck says that Simpson's history of
beating Nicole was not a central issue
when he entered the case. DNA was the
issue. Simpson's record as a batterer, he
says, “might have been a good reason
notto get involved. It was a horrible, ter-
rible thing. It’s something he should be
ashamed of. But it doesn’t mean he

killed his wife.”

Unlike his colleagues on the defense
(Cochran, Bailey, Robert Shapiro, Alan
Dershowitz and Gerald Uelmen), as well
as the prosecution (Marcia Clark and
Darden), Scheck abstained from writing
a memoir of the trial. Instead, he and
Neufeld signed a deal last fall with Dou-
bleday to write about wrongfully convict-
ed prisoners. Earlier, they had pitched a
"TV series about two idealistic law profes-
sors who, assisted by their equally ideal-
isticstudents, seek to exonerate convicts.
CBS expressed interest, then passed.
Saint Scheck, the network decided, just
wouldn't sell.

Class is over. Barry Scheck limps to his
large corner office at Cardozo. The light
outside his windows is gone. À painting
of Jackie Robinson stealing home hangs
on one wall. On another, Willie Mays is
making his famous over-the-shoulder
catch in the 1954 World Series. Scheck's
desk is covered with phone messages. A
clock says 2:47, about four hours slow.

A note on a nearby table begins,
"Don't let the bastards and pundits get
you down." Scheck gets stacks of mail
from strangers (one included a photo-
graph of a bikini-clad woman holding
herson between her knees). He holds up
a card. "I like this one,” he says.

“Dear Professor Scheck,” it starts. “I
admit 1 didn’t like you too much during
O.J. Simpson's trial. 1 judged you by
your client and the trial as a whole, and I
was wrong. . . . I'm very proud of you
and the recent work you gave to Louise
Woodward's case.”

Scheck slumps into a chair. “In the
long run, I have a lot of confidence that
people will recognize what the legal
community sees. [ have a lot of confi-
dence that people will say, ‘Look at what
they did with the Innocence Project.
Look at what they did with forensics,”
he says. “In the long run, it doesn’t mat-
ter what the popular perception is, so
long as you do the right thing.”

Amoment later, he opens a pamphlet
listing the people the Innocence Project
has helped free. He starts checking off
the names. Vincent Moto. Terry Chal-
mers. Robert Snyder. Victor Ortiz. Ed-
ward Honaker. Brian Piczczek. Troy
Webb. Kirk Bloodsworth-

“Excuse me, Professor Scheck.”

A young woman pokes her head
through his open door.

"I ran into O.J. Simpson the other
night at the Four Seasons,” she says in a
relentlessly sunny voice. “He said your
closing argument at his trial was the best,
and that you're a really great guy.”

Scheck glances at the woman and his
lips forma small, polite smile. “Well, isn't
that nice,” he says before returning to
the list of names he hopes will deliver

sainthood.

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(continued from page 105)
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“I don't believe in premarital sex. I’m strictly
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Bruce Willis

(continued from page 117)
You can carn a lot of money through
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Washington with hundreds of millions of
dollars. The money goes somewhere. No
one has done the homework to track
where it goes. But it’s a fact that it gets
spent, and that is heinous.

6

PLAYBOY: You've had a love-hate relation-
ship with film critics. Who have they un-
derrated?

wiis: Mel Gibson. He is a modern Cary
Grant. I'm not trying to put a curse on
him or anything, but he will probably
never get an Academy Award because he
makes acting look so easy. He is a terrific
actor. Others who are great? Billy Bob
Thornton in Sling Blade created some-
thing that hasn’t been seen on the screen
in a long time. He is in Armageddon and
creates a completely different character,
which makes his work in Sling Blade all
the more special. There are a bunch of
guys coming up who are great: Matt
Damon, Ben Affleck, Will Patton—fabu-
lous actors. Actresses? The best? Bar
none? Meryl Streep, Demi Moore, Made-
leine Stowe.

7

PLAYBOY: What unthinkable peril lurks in
the next Die Hard movie?

wiLLIS: The studios would be completely
happy to have me do the same movie
over and over again, but I'm sick of it.
After Mercury Rising, my younger broth-
er, a film producer, said to me, “The
three major action sequences in the film
were derivative of three other films
you've done.” It was a knock on the
door. Time to take a break. In 1987,
when I did the first Die Hard, pyrotech-
nics and explosions were novel. Ten
years later they're tapped out. The hook
on Die Hard 4 is that it's going to be low-
tech. Me and three cop friends get ab-
ducted. We're taken into the Amazon
and have to escape—without all the ex-
plosions and pyrotechnics.

8

PLAYBOY: Terry Gilliam has said, “Bruce
is very powerful when he's still—not
blowing up half the universe.” But isn't it
fun to blow up half the universe?

wiLLIs: Stillness is my favorite kind of
acting. It draws in the audience and
it makes them pay attention. Wesley
Snipes has that ability to draw in an au-
dience. The fact is, movies—even action
movies—succeed because of the heart,
because of the connection the audience
makes to real human emotion. It’s not

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the explosions. What makes a movie
work is the character's vulnerability, his
ability to feel pain and not be some kind
of superhuman.

9

PLAYBOY: You once told us that fuck
scenes, as you described them, are just
hard work, "the most uncomfortable act-
ing days" you will ever experience. What
lines do you use with your co-stars to
make them less uncomfortable?

wits: It's weird. You're working with
someone you barely know and you're
expected to perform intimately with
them. So you have to have a conversa-
tion. You set ground rules. “This is how
we're going to do it. I'll do this, you try
this." I got to do sexy scenes with my
wife when we made Mortal Thoughts.
"There was a shorthand that existed.
Otherwise, you just discuss it and then
doit.

10

ΡΙΑΥΡΟΥ: Is the fact that you and Demi
don't work together more often the re-
sult of a heart-to-heart talk or advice
from a therapist?

wiLLIS: No scripts have come down the
pipes. To a certain degree it’s good to
keep our work separate, unless it is a re-
al fun script. If something great came
along, we'd do it in a second.

11

PLAYBOY: Let's say the weekend box of-
fice receipts and reviews weren't as good
as you both had hoped. Describe the
mood at home.

wiLLIS: It’s unaffected. I learned long
ago to set aside critical responses to my
films. By the time a film comes out, my
work is done. There is very little I can do
to affect critics’ responses at that point. It
is out of my hands, just like the weather

“My, my, my, but you're an old-fashioned girl! I didn't think
anybody gave hand jobs anymore.”

is out of my hands. So after all this time,
it doesn't affect me at all. Nor does it af-
fect my wife. She works very hard on her
acting, but that has been overlooked
since how much she earns was reported.
Once you get over a certain amount of
money, there is a backlash. People say,
“She earns so much money, fuck her.”
It's jealousy.

Also, most of a film's success or failure
has to do with how it is released and
marketed and has nothing to do with
our work. It's in the hands of the studios.
The success of movies has less and less to
do with actors. There is so much traffic
out there right now. Last fall, between
Thanksgiving and Christmas, dozens of
new films were released. One of them
was Titanic, which turned out to be the
big dog and is still carrying on. So much
of it has to do with what your film
goes up against. Actors don't control
that. It’s a matter of aligning the planets
in a Certain way. When they align,
you smile. But it's uncontrollable. It's
like watching a meteor shower. You go,
“Wow, look at that.” I didn’t have any-
thing to do with the meteors, but I cer-
tainly enjoy it.

12

PLAYBOY: In G.I. Jane, your wife's hair
was shorter than yours, though you out-
did even her in 12 Monkeys. How short is
too short?

wiLLIs: I shaved my head for 12 Monkeys
because it fit the character. It made
sense: In the future, they cut every-
body's hair off because of rampant head
lice. It’s fine having your head shaved.
Ask any basketball player. When they
shaved my wife's head, it was cool. She
takes chances in all her work.

13

PLAYBOY: Looking back, was the Vanity
Fair cover, on which she was nude and
pregnant, an experience you'd recom-
mend to others?

wiLLIs: Fuck Vanity Fair. Vanity Fair used
to be a respectable magazine. Now it's a
tabloid. It is all gossip. All the shit in
there is just to sell magazines. They
would ask somebody, “What does your
shit smell like?” if they thought it would
sell more magazines. They have no in-
tegrity. On the other hand, my wife's
cover was inspiring and elegant.

14

ΡΙΑΥΡΟΥ: Having attended three births,
what advice can you offer to future
fathers?

WILLIS: Be there. Videotape it and say
yes to everything. By the third time, we
knew what we were doing. We had three

cameras and somebody operating each
one. Wouldn't you like to see a videotape
of your birth? It didn't exist in those
days. It is a singular moment in a kid's
life and in a mom and dad's life. I was
very cool throughout. I was the calmest
one in the room.

15

PLAYBOY: What baby name book did you
and Demi use?

WILLIS: Our kids are all special and we
wanted to give them special names. We
threw the book away.

16

PLAYBOY: You are a significant sharehold-
er in Planet Hollywood. Defend the $7
cheeseburger.

wILLis: They're good cheeseburgers.
You're not really paying for just a
cheeseburger. You're paying for every-
thing you get to see when you're there.

17

PLAYBOY: On your ranch, you have a
satellite dish that brings in 300 channels.
Is there anything to watch?

wiLLIs: I don't watch the news. I am on a
news blackout. The news—local, nation-
al, international—is a daily, even hourly,
inoculation of horror. A guy with a gun
walked into a school in Scotland or Tre-
land and killed 40 kids. Have you heard
anybody say anything about that lately?
We've accepted it. Those guys blew up a
building in Oklahoma City, and the sur-
vivors and the family members of the
survivors are the only ones who care.
The media don't care. How many times
did you see that fucking plane tumble
down the runway knowing there were
people in it? It's a sick world. 1 watch
movies. I watch sports, and that's about
it. And I watch films with my kids.

18

PLAYBOY: You're the father of three girls.
What can only Dad teach them?

wiLLIs: When the time comes, I am go-
ing to tell them the truth about boys—
what boys want. There is a certain time
in a boy’s life when he wants one thing.
I'm going to tell my little girls that.

19

PLAYBOY: You have money, a gorgeous
wife, three daughters and a successful
career. Any complaints?

wiLLIS: When George Clooney com-
plained about the media invading actors’
privacy, he did a good job. I am nota
public person. No actor is a public per-

son. Show me the law that says actors are
public persons. The only public persons
are politicians who are paid with tax
money, The media encourage Peeping
Toms. Twenty-five years ago, if someone
stood outside your window and looked
in he was called a Peeping Tom and
taken to jail. Now people are paid hun-
dreds of thousands of dollars for the
photos they take. They stake out Ma-
donna’s house. They stake out every
famous actor’s house, hoping to sell
a photo because a market has been
created for it.

‘They say we deserve it, that we chose
to be famous. That's bullshit. 1 know
thousands of actors and none of them
got into the business because they want-
ed to be famous. They wanted to be ac-
tors. Seven years ago there were ten day-
time shows with this tell-all tabloid shit,
and now there are more than 30. Why?
Because there is a market for it. Because
the tell-all mentality sells. In the next
five or ten years we are going to see pub-
lic executions on pay-per-view. Right
now they're selling Jerry Springer tapes,
for $19.95, of people hitting each other

with chairs. This guy should go to jail.
Maury Povich did a show about young
kids who have seen their parents shoot
each other. Povich is a heinous cocksuck-
er. Jerry Springer says, “It's just enter-
tainment.” But people get hurt. An audi-
ence will watch whatever you show
them. An audience will watch anything
that's tantalizing. Give them something
better and they will watch it.

20

PLAYBOY: After almost 11 years of mar-
riage, to what questions do you automat-
ically answer, “Yes, dear"?

wILLIS: You know what? I don't know.
There is a recipe to marriage. It's the
same for everybody: one day at a time.
"That's the way God deals them to you.
Here is my advice: Remember that time
goes. That's it. There is no other rule.
Times goes. Wake up and realize that
you are going to die someday. So live
your life. Live it completely.

PLAYBOY

156

MATT DRUDGE

(continued from page 60)
few times.
PLAYBOY: For?
DRUDGE: I don't even remember. Proba-
bly cheating. I'd always cheat on tests.
Couldn't get anything done.
PLAYBOY: Did you work on the high
school newspaper?
DRUDGE: I guess I did for a little while. I
wasn't very good.
PLAYBOY: Were you really 325th out of
350 students?
DRUDGE: If that. If I had skipped one
more day of something, I'd still be in
high school.
PLAYBOY: Was there ever a chance that
you would go to college?
DRUDGE: I couldn't. My SAT scores were
awful. No one would accept me. The
irony is, I may hit the college lecture
circuit.
PLAYBOY: Is that a vindication?
DRUDGE: I never look at it that way. I'm
glad I did what I did in my 20s. Just ob-
served a lot. I'd write down observations.
I was kind of aimless and a late bloomer.
I really didn’t get things going until my
late 20s. I was sort of wandering around.
I lived in New York for a year, couldn't
get anything going, worked ina grocery
store, then came out here, got the job at
CBS and worked in that gift shop. Got in
there, had access. “Great, I get to go
through CBS trash cans.” I was taking
ratings out of trash cans.
PLAYBOY: Was that the intention—to get a
job where you could get information
that you could use?
DRUDGE: To have access to any media
outlet was the intention.
PLAYBOY: For what purpose?
DRUDGE: I don't know. I wanted to work
in the newsroom, probably. I didn't
know how to pull it off. But dreams do
come true. 1 didn't know what 1 was go-
ing to do, and I got this job folding
T-shirts at the gift shop. They promoted
me to assistant manager. Then 1 became
manager and was responsible for a lot of
things, did all the books and the buying.
Got to hang around with Jerry Seinfeld
and Roseanne and all these other people

who shot their shows at the lot CBS owns
in Studio City. I got a lot of information.
PLAYBOY: How?

DRUDGE: Just by talking. All I did was talk
all day. I'm not making much more
money now than I was then. I was mak-
ing a lot of money then. I started the
Drudge Report while 1 was still working
in the gift shop. For two years I did it
secretly.

PLAYBOY: What led to it?

DRUDGE: My dad bought me a computer.
I said, “What am I going to do with
that?” I logged on one day and saw the
Associated Press on Prodigy. I said,
“What in the world is this?” I had never
heard of six versions of the same news
story. If we're lucky, newspapers print a
portion of any story. All ofa sudden I see
there's a lot of news out there that no
one is hearing, other than editors who
decide not to tell the people. That's
when I started the list on the Internet,
with original material and stuff I was
hearing, written in my quirky style. I put
some up on the Internet, on alt.show
biz.gossip and alt.politics, and heard
from people who wanted to be on my
mailing list. What mailing list? So I start-
ed a mailing list. My original reports
were for three people.

PLAYBOY: What did you write about in the
first e-mail reports?

DRUDGE: Pat Buchanan running for
president again, Whitney Houston
shooting a film in Arizona.

PLAYBOY: All overheard in the gift shop?
DRUDGE: Yeah. Roseanne angry about
something, Cybill Shepherd angry that
Brett Butler had a larger logo on the
side of her dressing room. Seinfeld ask-
ing for a million dollars, CBS about to be
sold to Westinghouse—I broke that sto-
ry. I had only 500 readers at the time.
PLAYBOY: Did you ever consider calling
Variety or The Hollywood Reporter with
scoops you overheard?

DRUDGE: No, I didn’t know how. It went
on from there. One person told another
person who told another person. This
really is a chain thing that has blown up
to this degree. Newsday did a profile on
me and then Newsweek did one and then
it got bigger. More people signed up

and, once I put up the Web site, checked
in. People who were reading me then
have said that I'm not as much fun now
that I've become a big player. I don't
know about the big-player thing; I'm do-
ing it the same way. There used to be
more spelling errors, more grammar
trouble.

PLAYBOY: How did you support the Web
site?

DRUDGE: 1 didn't make any money off it
for two years. Nothing. I tried to ask for
donations. 1 made like two or three
grand. No way to make any money off it.
Slate magazine editor Michael Kinsley
has learned that with his 20,000 paid
subscribers. He has a $5 million budget
and brings in only $375,000. There's no
money to be made on the Net—yet. Just
like there probably wasn't in the early
days of other media

PLAYBOY: But assuming you don't have to
write a check for $30 million, are you
making a living now?

DRUDGE: Sure. And I don't think I'll have
to write any checks for $30 million, by
the way. It’s possible I will, but Blumen-
thal has to prove actual damage. And if
I have to make out a check for $30 mil-
lion for something I write, I may have
$30 million by the time this is all over. If
the money can catch up with the fame,
good God! At one point, I was giving
phone interviews to Cape Town, South
Africa and then to Tokyo and then to
Australia and then to Chicago. It was
wild. I was an international sensation,
which is a unique Internet thing. I don’t
think Winchell or Hedda Hopper or
anyone else had instant global access.
PLAYBOY: You just signed up to do a TV
show on Fox. Might your Internet devo-
tees accuse you of selling out?

DRUDGE: They're already accusing me of
that and the show isn't even on yet. I'm a
multimedia guy. I have a funny-looking
face and a good delivery. I'll try. We'll
see. I'm nervous about the TV show. Not
about it bombing or me getting in trou-
ble. I'm nervous about losing my inno-
cence, my ability to be inconspicuous.
Now, if I don't wear the hat, no one
knows who | am.

PLAYBOY: Do people really recognize you

YOUR BRAKES! YOU!
YA CAR JUST ROLLED
a) DOWN THE

when you're wearing the hat?

DRUDGE: More and morc. With the hat I
hear, “Is that Drudge?”

PLAYBOY: Are you going to wear the hat
on the show?

DRUDGE: | may. I may do an ad campaign
with just the hat. Hitchcock had his
silhouette.

PLAYBOY: Will you hire a staff?

'm not sure I need anybody.
PLAYBOY: What about makeup?

: I'm not even sure I'll wear
makeup. I didn't wear makeup on Meet
the Press. There was [the show's host]
Tim Russert, made up like a clown. Him
and everyone in the greenroom. The
makeup room is more important than
the newsroom these days. Isikoff is on
TV too much. When
does he have time to
write anything? It’s
confusing. Anyway, I
have the kind of face
that looks like it's
been beaten up. I
don't want to give up
that look too quick-
ly. Polish? Save it for
the shoes.

PLAYBOY: Did you
have any qualms
about taking the Fox
offer?

e

= ug

my runaway Internet site. It just shows
you there's a shift in journalistic report-
ing going on. It's moving away from the
corporate. They can't seem to get to
what's really happening. 1 don't know if
it’s because they've created too many lay-
ers, or because there’s too much at stake.
PLAYBOY: Do you really believe that most
of the press is liberal, skewing its cover-
age to support Clinton and other Dem-
ocrats? Look who owns most media.
DRUDGE: Who? Ted Turner? Katharine
Graham?

PLAYBOY: Rupert Murdoch?

DRUDGE: He's the only conservative I'm
aware of. And the others slime him, The
Eisners, the Geffens—those are the pow-
erful media people. Those are the peo-

disingenuous?

DRUDGE: No. He is really into it. He be-
lieves it. He believes it’s important that
he lead the world at the turn of the cen-
tury. Then he goes off to a global-warm-
ing summit. Well, I calculated how many
pounds of fuel his plane burned. It took
250 million pounds of fuel to fly to a
four-hour meeting. How many holes did
that punch in the ozone layer? Gore is
fabulous. If we're really fighting for our
lives, what's he doing circling the planet
and making it worse? Hasn't he heard
of videophone? He's supposed to be
Mr. ‘Tech.

PLAYBOY: In Time magazine, Michael
Kinsley wrote that the Lewinsky story,
broken by you, “is for the Internet what
the Kennedy assas-

world's best radar detector

sination was to TV
news." Do you agree?
DRUDGE: Kinsley is
coming across more
and more like an elit-
ist to me, as if Slate
is on one level and
Drudge is on a low-
er level. Maybe he's
got it wrong. Maybe
Drudge is on the high-
er level. He's prob-
ably right about the

DRUDGE: It was the
right one. There's no
doubt thar Fox is
more aligned politi-
cally with my way of
thinking than the
other networks. I
think the liberal press
thing is old.

PLAYBOY; Or is it

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comparison; he's a
smart guy with an IQ
through the roof. I
have probably not
evena third of his 1Q.
But the attitude—you
know, the smarmy
thing—is, How dare
he. When was the last
time Slate broke any
news?

merely that liberal
spin sickens you?
DRUDGE: Everything
is liberal spin. Time,
after Clinton's depo-
sition [in the Jones
case], issued a press
release: One person
close to him said the
mood at the White
House was, “Every-
one is going to sleep well tonight.” The
truth is, Clinton was in the shock of his
life with that Lewinsky stuff. But Time,
the most important magazine in the
world, gets it wrong, spinning for the
president.

PLAYBOY: You're suggesting that Time is
pro-Clinton, yet it has often aggressively
attacked him.

sten, anyone who said that
the deposition went well and that every-
one got a good night's sleep is a propa-
gandist. Thar's raw propaganda they fell
for and published. When 1 had the rest
of the story—that's the night 1 popped
the Lewinsky story—Time was issuing
this phony story to its millions of read-
ers. But I was issuing the real story on

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ple who swarm Clinton when he comes
to town. I think that’s why Newsweek
didn't go with the Lewinsky story it had.
That magazine is too close to the people
it covers. It won't dare say something
about Vernon Jordan. It’s not that I'm
pushing for the other side, either. 1 am a
libertarian, not trusting any of them. I
especially don't trust the people who
want to lead us at the turn of the centu-
ry. They want to take the important is-
sues into the new millennium. That's
scary. Al Gore, even more than Clinton.
Gore, with his words “We're in an epic
battle to right the balance of our earth.”
Those are huge words at the turn of the
century,

PLAYBOY: Do you suspect that he’s being

PLAYBOY: How do you
respond to Time's de-

SOLO $199% | scription of you as
Optional Power Cord $29" | “the king of new junk
media”?

DRUDGE: I think Time
is pretty junky. It's
the king. I think
that’s demeaning.
PLAYBOY: It's been re-
ported that you idol-
ize Walter Winchell.

DRUDGE: He turned pretty ugly in his
late years, thinking he had a lot of pow-
er. He started using it and calling people
Communists, What he did to Josephine
Baker was pretty nasty. He's not my role
model. I use him as a map, studying his
work, studying his language. He fevered
it up. He made people really emotional,
which he loved. He used the sound ofa
telegraph, but there was no telegraph.
He would drink a bunch of water so he
had to piss, and it made everything he
said sound urgent. All of it was showbiz.
PLAYBOY: But lil chell, you have al-
lied yourself with political extremists. In
fact, you've been accused of being used
by the right, by the same people who 157

PLAYBOY

used Paula Jones.

DRUDGE: I’m not being paid by anyone.
PLAYBOY: Who is paying your lawyer?
DRUDGE: He's working pro bono. I love
my lawyer. He's a libertarian freedom
fighter.

PLAYBOY: Richard Scaife, who funds the
conservative Center for the Study of
Popular Culture, is one of the people
who has been accused of heading what
Hillary Clinton described as a right-wing
conspiracy against her husband. David
Horowitz, who runs it, started the Matt
Drudge Defense Fund. You're in bed
wit —

DRUDGE: And therefore I’m letting Scaife
dictate what I do? Hold on! I'm being
sued. I'm defending myself. What differ-
ence does it make who's defending me?
PLAYBOY: But by accepting help from the
far right, you are allying yourself with
them. You've already said that you don't
believe in objective journalism. But you
could easily be viewed as a paid opera-
tive of the right.

DRUDGE: Listen, I have probably created
more news with my ten fingers than any-
one else in the business. That's not gloat-
ing or bragging, I just don't know who
else has done what [νε done. Bob Wood-
ward hasn't broken hundreds of stories
in the past year. And no one else has of-
fered any help. I am not marrying into
anyone's camp. If this suit is dropped,
it’s a divorce.

PLAYBOY: That's presumably not the way
Horowitz and Scaife see it. They are sup-
porting you because they support your
politics.

DRUDGE: I don't know that to be true.
We're trying to stop this lawsuit. Accept-
ing support links me to them ideologi-
cally? That's weak.

PLAYBOY: If your recent scoops had
knocked down their favorite Republi-
cans, would Scaife and Horowitz have
come to your rescue?

DRUDGE: Scaife is just one person who
has given money to acenter. That center
has set up a legal defense fund that my
readers are giving money to. If you want
to try to make a correlation, fine. I just
think it's weak.

PLAYBOY: Would this foundation be doing
itif you had gone after its guys instead of
attacking the enemy?

DRUDGE: Of course not. What's your
point? I'm being sued. I need to defend
myself. Are you saying I have no right to
defend myself? Now, if you want to go
ahead and continue this because you
think you have a good angle going, I
just—it’s weak. You're not going to be on
the right side of it. 1 take AOL's money,
too. Is Steve Case controlling me? Why
aren't you obsessed with that?

PLAYBOY: Case’s company, America On-
line, is a co-defendant in the lawsuit.
AOL will have to defend itself, but pre-
sumably its defense will be that it isn't
responsible for what it carries on its

158 network.

DRUDGE: My whiskers are up with your
interest in this because it’s the same old
stuff. It's the wrong side and I'll leave
you in the dirt with this stuff. It’s not go-
ing to resonate, because it's not where
the action is. If you're stuck defining me
as this, I'll say you have it wrong. David
Horowitz called and said he had some
lawyers I could talk to. I had talked with
other people and no one wanted to take
dirty old me. I needed a lawyer. I'm be-
ing sued for $30 million, which would
ruin me. Who's helping me defend my-
self? I kind of like people who would de-
fend me against that.

PLAYBOY: Journalists are supposed to stay
as clean as they can.

DRUDGE: And not get sued?

PLAYBOY: Not take sides, not be aligned
with one camp or another. Vanity Fair
wrote that “conservatives had found a
useful weapon in Drudge.”

DRUDGE: The liberals have too. The New
York Times, The Washington Post and News-
week are leading the way on this investi-
gation. Is that useful to Republicans? I'm
not going to let you zero in on me.
PLAYBOY: Even if you simply pressured
the mainstream press to run and contin-
ue to investigate the Lewinsky story, it
would be useful to the right.

DRUDGE: I also broke a story that said
Newt Gingrich would admit to ethical
violations. The headline was R.LP GING-
RICH. I guess that was useful to the Re-
publicans too.

PLAYBOY: Have you contacted any First
Amendment organizations?

DRUDGE: They haven't touched me. If I
were busted for pot in my panties com-
ing in from Peru, they would be rallying
around me. Freedom to sell pot, free-
dom to smoke it, but not freedom to re-
port and make mistakes. The protection
of unpopular speech has always been
part of the American heritage. This
shows you how snobby these people real-
ly are. The Electronic Freedom Founda-
tion is all Clintonistas.

PLAYBOY: Do you acknowledge that, in
general, you push a Republican agenda?
DRUDGE: I’m pushing truth.

PLAYBOY: Are you aligned with the Re-
publicans on most issues?

DRUDGE: I don't know how aligned I am.
I'm aligned with less big government.
PLAYBOY: How about on social issues?
DRUDGE: I’m pro-life. I don't like abor-
tion. 1 agree with Mother Teresa on that
stuff. But I think people's private sexual
stuff is private. It's not fair game. I know
that sounds silly coming from me, but I
don't do a lot of that stuff and I'm not in-
terested in a lot of that stuff. I went to
the post-Oscars Vanity Fair party here
anda top director had his finger in some
girl's twat right in front of me. I never
reported it.

PLAYBOY: Why not?

DRUDGE: A finger up the twat? Because
it's a dime a dozen.

PLAYBOY: But if he were a senator or a

congressman?

DRUDGE: Ahh. That may have made the
difference. Especially if he weren't sin-
gle. People who want to serve the public
are in a different arena. We have to hold
politicians to a different standard
PLAYBOY: You said you're a loner. To get.
stories, do you go to many parties in
Hollywood and Washington?

DRUDGE: No. It's almost all from tele-
phone conversations and e-mail and on-
line chats.

PLAYBOY: Do you miss something when
you aren't out schmoozing?

DRUDGE: Like Winchell? Go to the Stork
Club every night and get your items? I
just log on.

PLAYBOY: To an electronic Stork Club.
DRUDGE: Right on. That's exactly right.
It's like being in the most crowded room
with the best sources. It’s all right there.
You just have to know what to do with it,
how to make words come to life.
PLAYBOY: Do you get more of a charge
covering politics or Hollywood?
DRUDGE: All of it, wherever the good an-
gle is.

PLAYBOY: Are you viewed differently in
Hollywood than in DC?

DRUDGE: They like me in Hollywood. I
was at dinner the other night with a
friend. She called over Sherry Lansing
and said to me, “Sherry wants to meet
you.” Lansing said, “Matt Drudge!” Lan-
sing, the head of Paramount: Wow. I
write about her all the time. She said, “I
read you every night. As a matter of fact,
I'm learning how to work the computer
just so my husband doesn't have to print
out your report for me.” That's pretty
good. But it’s not that different in Wash-
ington. They like me too.

PLAYBOY: Has your fame given you more
sources, or do you find that people are
more wary of you?

DRUDGE: Much more wary. Still, stories
like this come around once in a while.
It’s such fun. What good is it if you're a
reporter and you're just taking the offi-
cial word? That's no fun. 1 don't think
anyone who gets into the business wants
to do that. You want to come up with un-
spoken truths. You try to pop authority.
I like that. The freedom to report this
way is brand new because of the Web.
Now everyone has the power to investi-
gate kings, queens and pharaohs. I'm
not in it for the money. I'm in it for the
fun and the invention. It's a romantic
thing for me.

PLAYBOY: Romantic?

DRUDGE: And revolutionary. Just when
you thought journalism wasn't exciting,
when you thought it was all going to be
Disney, Time Warner, the Washington
Post group, the Sulzbergers—just when
you thought it was all corporate and con-
trolled and boring and hopeless, the In-
ternet comes along. Here lam.

PLAY MADE

Fifty Playmates descended on the
Playboy Mansion in Holmby Hills to
attend the first meeting of the
Playboy Playmate Alumni Associa-
tion. Officially christened last sum-

The alluring alums converge cn the boss
(above). Debra Jo cops the door prize (right).

mer, the PPAA provides a forum for
Playmates to keep tabs on the past
while looking to the future. Dinner
was served in the grotto, after which
the women discussed such things as
insurance, tuition programs and a
charity events. The Playmates then Cs
adjourned to the house to check in a
with their favorite cat in pajamas.

By the way, 1978 Playmate of the
Year Debra Jo Fondren won the
evenings door prize—a basket of
beauty products. As if she really
needs them.

| BOOGIE-WOOGIE NIGHTS

Where do Playmates like to hang
out? Lately it’s been on the dance
floor. For eight weeks last spring, the
Cheetah club in New York's Chelsea
district dimmed its lights, spiffed itself
up and hosted the Playboy Lounge, a
floating late-night party that rotates
among Manhattan's trendier clubs. At
one Cheetah soiree, Miss July 1997
Daphnec Lynn Duplaix and Miss Oc-
tober 1997 Layla Roberts danced for
an hour, then kicked around with
New York Jet
James Farrior
and Green Bay
Packer Eric Cur-
ry. But for Miss
August 1995
Rachel Jeän
Marteen and

Miss April 1995

Danelle Folta, there were more im-
portant things to do than dance. In-
stead, when the twosome visited
Cheetah, they made a beeline for the
Playboy Listening Lounge, an audio
station created in conjunction with
Rhino Records and Tower Records.
There the two Play-
mates sampled
tracks from Rhino's
latest titles—that is,
when they weren't
chatting it up in
person with musi-
cians Damian and
Julian Marley.
The Playboy
Lounge will
continue to
hop among
various New
York City lo-
cales. So keep
tuned to these
pages for your
very own ringside
table.
For more information, check out the

“Parties” section of the Listening Lounge
at wwwplayboy.com.

ΙΟΥ Reneé Tenison
rro rwns, AD PM oa ib

ano sis Rosie brighten Tax

>]

NEWS

40 YEARS AGO THIS MONTH

The August 1958 PLAYBOY fea-
tured fiction by Psycho author
Robert Bloch, a report on wun-
derkind maestro
Leonard Bern-
stein and a pan of
Leland Hayward's
$5 million “filmi-
zation” of The Old
Man and the Sea.
But Playmate of
the Month Myrna
Weber deserved
the raves. Just
turned 19, Miss
August was cap-
tured in her home
state of Florida by
PLAYBOY photogra-
pher Bunny Yea-
ger. The portfolio

Beachy keen.
included everything you'd want
from a seaside fantasy—a sunset,
crashing waves, a beach bonfire
and an irresistible Myrna, fresh
from a skinny-dip.

7 My
Favorite Playmate
By LeRoy Neiman

“Teddi Smith! She comes
to mind right away. Miss July
1960 was part of our gang at
the Playboy Mansion in Chica-
go—a cirde that included Mort
Sahl, Alex Haley and Lenny
Bruce. We were a nucleus of
people who stayed at the house
and lived life to the fullest, ben-
cfiting from all the activities on-
ly ΡΙΛΥΒΟΥ could provide. And
Teddi was one of us. She's this
lovable girl, a seasoned, intelli-
gent woman who be-
came a household in-
cumbent, a confidant
and a pal. It was quite
a time for me
back then—
nothing like
it before,
nothing
since.”

To: Lisa Matthews, Miss April 1990,
Playmate of the Year 1991

Dear Lisa:

I wanted to thank you for doing
another live chat on the Playboy Cy-
ber Club. Although it was your third
chat, it was the first you've done since
I became a member, and it was a
pleasure to be able to interact with
you personally.

I consider you to be the most gor-
geous woman I have ever seen and
my all-time favorite Playmate. The
first time I saw your layout, your
warm eyes and bright smile captivat-
ed me. Then I watched your video, in
which you and your mother were in-
terviewed. You laughed a lot and ap-
peared to be a truly happy person.
But when I read about your partici-
pation in Operation Playmate during
the Gulf war, I was struck by how
kind and how generous a person you
are—a very classy woman.

1 hope you won't be a stranger to

the Playboy Cyber Club in the future,

PLAYMATE BIRTHDAYS — AUGUST
August 2: Miss July 1996 Angel Boris
August 19: Miss August 1975 Lillian

Müller
August 23: Miss August 1982 Cathy

St. George

August 24: Miss June 1964 Lori
Winston

August 26: Miss July 1959 Yvette
Vickers

PLAYMATE

me Lisa. D
πα meantime, I
wish you
much love,
health and
happiness.
Sincerely,

Bob Baylis,

Newark,

Delaware
(To join the
Gen Playboy Cyber

overall Club, or to take a

free tour, go to http://cyber.playboy.com and
select the Guests entrante.)

Miss February 1998 Julia Schultz
is no stranger to televison. She has
guest-starred on Silk Stalkings, Pic-
tionary and Pensacola: Wings of Gold
and can be seen in this summer's new
Guess jeans campaign. But she always
has ume to talk about guys.

Q: What makes you look twice at
aman?
A: The first thing I notice are pretty
eyes. After the eyes hook me, I check
out the whole package.
Q: Would you go out with a man who
used to date your best friend?
A: Hell no! Boyfriends are like under-
wear. If my best friend takes off her
panties, I don't want to
pick them off the floor
and put them on.
Q: Have you broken
more hearts or has
your heart been bro-
ken more often?

A: I would say I
have broken more
hearts. When I

was younger, my
friends encour-
aged me to stay single,
so I have never kept a boyfriend
for very long.
Q: Could you have sex without love?
A: No. If I slept with someone | didn't
love, or who didn’t love me, I'd feel
like a used piece of trash.
Q: What do you want to hear a man
say after sex?
A: Anything, so long as he doesn't roll
over and go to sleep.

PMOY READER FAVORITES

Readers adore newly crowned
Playmate of the Year Karen McDou-
gal, but they also had eyes for: (1)
Miss April Kelly Monaco, (2) Miss
June Carrie Stevens, (3) Miss January
Jami Ferrell, (4) Miss February Kim-
ber West, (5) Miss October Layla Rob-
erts and (6) Miss September Nikki
Schieler. 5Η], everyone's a winner.

NEWS

PLAYMATE GOSSIP

Congratulations to Miss No-
vember 1996 Ulrika Ericsson,
who became certified as a per-
sonal fitness trainer. Next on Ul-

rika's checklist: nailing
down her scuba diving
certification. . . . It has
PLAYBOY written all over
it: Troma Entertain-
ment's new thriller The
Chosen. One co-stars Miss
May 1996 Shauna Sand Lamas
and Carmen (Baywatch, Singled
Qut) Electra, who appeared in the
same issue of PLAYBOY as Shau-
na. But that's not all—the
film was pro- —— en
duced 2, ποσα
1988 PMOY
India Allen.
Move over
Siskel and
Ebert: Miss
April 1997
Kelly Monaco
will appear on
a TBS pilot
called The Movie
Lounge, a pan-
el show that fea-
tures a mixed ME
batch of celebrities who like to
gab about flicks. ... What can we
say, the girl's got timing. As we've
told you, Miss July 1997 Daph-
nee Lynn Duplaix appeared in
a Tommy Hilfiger commercial
during the Super Bowl. Add to
that a featured role in a Master
Card spot that aired during the
Emmy awards. Next up for
Daph: a poster-girl gig for
Stroh's beer, along with 1990
PMOY Reneé Tenison. . . . Play-
mates in 3D? You
bet. Miss August
1996 Jessica Lee
and 1995 PMOY
Julie Cialini mod- 4
eled for a San-
ta Monica-
based com-
puter imag-

Daphnee's on o roll.

used digitizing technology to
capture the models’ movements
in 3D. The images will be pro-
jected—life-size—at an art ex-
hibit in Kobe, Japan.

ΤΗΕ PLAYMATE 2000 SEARCH
IS COMING TO A CITY NEAR YOU

The search for the first Playmate of the millennium will extend across the U.S. from
coast to coast and to Hawaii, Alaska and Canada. The awesome Playmate 2000 Search Bus,
a high-tech, online, mobile photo-test studio, will be touring North America
in search of Miss January 2000. The special woman chosen as Playmate 2000 will receive a
fabulous fee of $200,000 and will represent Playboy throughout the millennial celebration year.

Women interested in being considered as years old and provide original IDs to prove

Playmates for the new millennium should it. Photos can also be mailed to: Playmate
call 1-888-720-0028 to arrange an ap- 2000 Search, 680 N. Lake Shore Drive,
pointment. Or look for announcements in Chicago, IL 60611. (Sorry, photos cannot
local media in the days before the search be returned.) Or you can contact us at
arrives in your city. Applicants must be 18 www.playboy.com/playmate2000.

July 13-15. August 31-September 2..... Memphis | October 19-21

July 16-18 September 3-5..................St. Louis | October 22-24
September 7—9................Konsas City | October 26-28.
September 7-9 i October 29-31 .... New York City
September 17-19
September 21-23

August 3-5. απ Diego | September 21-23

August 6-8 Los Vegas | September 24—26.

August 10-12. Albuquerque | September 28--30................

August 10-12 Philadelphia | September 28-30.

August 12-14 Anchorage | October 1-3.

November 2—4................Baltimore
November 5—7..........Woshington, D.C.
November 9-1].................. Honolulu
November 9-11 Minneapolis
November 9-11........ Raleigh
November 12-14.

August 17-19 Detroit | Oktober 5-7 παῖ |, Bee ltänn
August 17-19, ‚Oklahoma City | Oktober 5-7........ November 16-18............. Orlando
August 20—22......... Austin | October 8-10. € November 30—December 2.

August 24—26............... December 7-9.

August 27—29.............New Orleans December 16—18.............Los Angeles

(Θ 1998 PLAYBOY

PLAYMATE HOSTS

Fr

Angela Little
Miss August

ei

PREMIERES

etr Diem
at

ws

than

ever

imagine

his month, let Playboy TV pour on
the midsummer heat. In the Playboy
original Playboy's Sex on the Beach,
temperatures soar as surf, sun and
sand seduce a blazing array of beau-
ties, prompting them to shed every-
thing and spare nothing. Then, in the
adult movie Forever Beautiful, a lithe,
sensual model learns what it takes to
stay on top in the high - stakes world
of high style. Next, when the camera
rolls and adult newcomers work up
an appetite, pleasure is served piping
hot in the Playboy Original Series
Naughty Amateur Home Videos. And in
Playboy's Original Movie, Club Wild
Side, a high-rolling film gala turns into
a fuil-on sex party. Finally, a tantaliz-
ing tomboy meets an aliuring woman
with a willing boyfriend in the adult
movie Perfect Timing. With Playboy
TV, our timing is always perfect — 24
hours a day!

— ,
PLAYBOY

Visit our website:
www.playboy.com/entertainment

Playboy TV is available from your local cable television operator
or home satellite, DIRECTV, PRIMESTAR, or DISH Network dealer.

61998 Playboy

—/F IPIE AY BOY

ΟΝ ΤΗΕ

pore ENE)

A PROPER PICNIC

he Brits know how to do a picnic: Take the bone china
and sterling silver and leave the paper plates and plastic
forks behind. That’s why fitted picnic baskets, such as the
one from Asprey pictured here, are one of the UK's most
popular exports. Whiskey in the woods—or anywhere for that
matter—tastes better when poured from a crystal decanter. To en-

sure we don't run dry, our portable spirits case, also pictured here,
holds two miniature decanters and four shot glasses snugly en-
sconced with leather straps. Our sole concession to the electronic
age is Sony’s 2.2” Watchman TV (it’s meant to be worn around the
neck with the strap as the antenna). Sorry, car guys, the rare 1967
Series IIA Land Rover with the tailgate pictured here isrrt for sale.

Below: Willow picnic basket with brass-and-leather fittings holds Royal Grafton place settings for two, plus utensils, tumblers, napkins and a
Thermos ($1100); a lamb's-wool picnic blanket ($325), both from Asprey. Bamboo shooting seat from Holland & Holland ($1240). Mahogany
cigar tubador from the Bounty Hunter (about $40, not including smokes). Sony's FDL-22 Watchman color LCD TV with a 2.2" screen (about
$150). Embossed alligator-patterned-leather spirits case with two crystal decanters and four shot glasses by Richard E. Bishop Ltd. (about $350).

JAMES IMBROGNO.

WHERE & HOW TO BUY ON PAGE 149,

Bonjour, Babe

CHANTAL, a French Canadian mod-
el and actor, won the spokesmodel
competition on International
Star Search and has also
appeared on Baywatch.

We're watching her too.

Chicagoan
Makes Great

AMY QUIRK has mod-
eled bikinis on The Jen-
ny Jones Show, talked

= up beer for Budweiser
and Miller and

graced billboards.

Lucky us.

Love Is a Many-Splendored Thing

The makeover of COURTNEY LOVE has been completed now
in a striking series of Versace fashion ads. Shot by photogra-
pher Richard Avedon, this one is definitely our favorite.

She Did
It Her
Way
ANI DIFRAN-
CO gets
credit for
starting her
own record
company
eight years

great, who

would care?
Look for her at

festivals and

fairs or turn up

little Plastic Castle
to hear what the
fuss is about.

Getting a Bead on Ali

The CD Crucial, from British soul man ALI, hit our
shores this past winter to critical raves. His melodies
and vocal power make us want to holler yes.

Kim Cuts
Loose
Rapper LIL’ KIM
has had power-
ful men in her
corner lud-
ing the Notorious
B.1.G. and Puffy
Combs. She
started rhyming
with Junior
MAELA. before
going solo

with a bang.

Party of One

On the hit TV show Party of Five NEVE CAMPBELL plays with angst. In
her movie career, she plays around. Look for her in 54 (about nightspot
Studio 54), Wild Things and Hairshirt and enjoy a

peek at her assets.

POTPOURRI

ONLY WAY TO FLY

Mile High Airlines (out of airports in the
New York City metro area) offers loving
couples a chance to join the mile high
club aboard one of its twin-engine “flying
boudoirs.” Flights are about two hours
and cost $1000, including limo service
and other treats. We can't think of a bet-
ter way to see the New York skyline. The
airline also offers party packages, includ-
ing bachelor bashes for up to 14. Call
888-810-1252 for more info.

DESSERT'S ON HER

If you're like us, you'll never forget the steamy seduction-with-food
scene in 94 Weeks. Now you can re-create that scenario (minus Kim
Basinger, of course), thanks to Chocoholics Divine Desserts, makers of
a rich (and low-fat) chocolate body frosting created especially for ro-
mance. Eleven ounces of the concoction costs $5 and comes with
“quickie recipes,” including Skinny Dip (frosting and strawberries, ap-
ple slices or bananas) and Hot and Steamy (frosting and coffee). Get-

ting kinky never tasted so good. Call 800-760-2462. Ὃ ια EN

To commemorate the 150th anniversary
of the Associated Press, Abrams has pub-
lished Flash! The Associated Press Covers the
World, a hardcover containing more than
150 of the bureau's greatest shots. Pic-
tured here: World War Two vets return-
ing from Europe. On page 13 is the pho-
to of Marilyn Monroe posing over a
subway grating for The Seven Year Itch. It
alone is worth the book's price of $39.95.

Ξ AGE
τι E SSOCIATED!

pr Ss

THIS BOOK SMOKES

Given the more than 8 million new cigar smokers since 1992, it's no
wonder that Joe and Sue Davidson decided to chronicle the artistic
ways smoking was marketed during tobacco's golden age (between the
1870s and the 1930s), The result is Smoker's Art, a 252-page hardcover
that features about 500 color images, including cigar bands, labels,
chewing tobacco and pipe and cigarette ephemera. Chapters cover a
range of topics, from lithography to classic ad themes such as animals.
(Cheese It!, pictured here, was created in 1885.) A signed copy is $50
166 from the American Antique Graphics Society. Call 330-723-7172.

WHEN IT'S RAIN,
WE POUR

The Beverage Tasting Insti-
tute in Chicago conducted a
vodka competition, and Rain
was chosen best-tasting do-
mestic brand. Its distiller,
Sazerac, proudly says Rain is
the “world's first vodka made
from organically grown Amer-
ican grain and Kentucky
limestone water,” adding that
it’s “microdistilled four
times,” creating a smooth
drink that's “the most envi-
ronmentally friendly distilled
spirit ever made.” $15.

GUYS AND GIRLS TOGETHER

We consider ourselves connoisseurs of the nude female form. Which
is why we recommend Hans Fahrmeyer's Between Men and Women,
a 144-page hardcover and softcover book that elegantly celebrates
the erotic charge between the sexes in 125 black-and-white and
duotone images. Other photos by Fahrmeyer have appeared in
national and international news and fashion magazines. Hardcov-
er price: $40. The softcover is $29.95. Universe is the publisher.

BURN, BUGGER, BURN

Next time a hornet infringes
on your romantic woodland
picnic or day of suntanning at
the beach, reach for the Elec-
tro-Stun Swatter, a battery-
powered bug zapper that re-
sembles a tennis racquet. At
the press ofa button, the
$19.95 device fries flying in-
sects with three layers of metal
netting. Warning: The Swatter
will zap you if you touch the
netting when it's activated. To
order, call the Vacation Gadget
Man at 888-499-7787.

BONDED TO AUDIO

Ifyou haven't gotten around to reading An-
drew Lycett's 1995 biography Jan Fleming: The
Man Behind James Bond, you can listen to it. The
book, available unabridged from Blackstone
Audio on 16 90-minute cassettes, reveals Flem-
ing's womanizing, world exploits and years in
intelligence and makes it obvious that there’s
plenty of Fleming in 007. Rent the tapes for
$16.95 for 45 days, or buy them for $99.95. Call
800-729-2665. Robert Whitfield is the reader.

ALITTLE MORE JAZZ

Less Than 7, the creators of Aerobleu, the ficti-
tious Paris jazz club we mentioned in last De-
cember's Potpourri, have teamed with Verve
Records and released a unique CD. Aerobleu:
The Spirit of Cool features Billie Holiday, Charlie
Parker, Miles Davis, Dizzy Gillespie, Stan Getz
and other famous musicians who would have
played there had the place really existed. Price:
about $17. Other Aerobleu products include
apparel, home accessories and furniture. Call
213-848-7821 for more information.

168

NEXT MONTH

NFL FORECAST

CHAT GIRL BURNING ΜΑΝ.

GLOWING PICTORIAL

RICHARD MERYMAN

AHMAD RASHAD—AN OUTSTANDING CAREER IN THE NFL,
A BROADCASTING GIG AT NBC AND A BULLS CHAMPI-
ONSHIP RING FROM BEST BUDDY MICHAEL JORDAN. IT'S
A SWEET LIFE, AND SOMEBODY HAS TO LIVE IT. PROFILE BY

CRAIG VETTER

SWING—IT'S BACK AND COOLER THAN EVER. OUR GUIDE
INCLUDES ALL THE GOODS AND MOVES: LINGO, DRINKS,
CLUBS, MOVIES, MUSIC AND MORE. GRAB YOUR DISH DE-

LISH AND LET'S MOP

BURNING MAN—KEVIN HASN'T SEEN HIS BAD-BOY ROCK-
STAR BROTHER IN TEN YEARS. THE FESTIVAL OF THE
BURNING MAN TURNS INTO A SHOCKER WHEN THE TWO FI-

NALLY MEET—FICTION BY EDWARD FALCO

LISA RINNA—FIRST DAYS OF OUR LIVES. THEN MELROSE
PLACE. NOW THIS DROP-DEAD GORGEOUS MOM-TO-BE
HAS DECIDED TO UNDRESS FOR TWO. DON'T MISS THIS

DANIEL PATRICK MOYNIHAN—THE VETERAN SENATOR
TALKS ABOUT THE MORAL CLIMATE OF WASHINGTON, THE
DANGER OF OFFICIAL SECRETS AND WHY NIXON WAS RE-
ALLY A LIBERAL. A HISTORIC PLAYBOY INTERVIEW BY

MELROSE MOM

THE COMPLETE WORKOUT, IN 90 MINUTES A WEEK—
HERE'S HOW TO GET IN GREAT SHAPE WITHOUT LIVING AT
THE GYM, TRAINER-TO-THE-STARS GREG ISAACS DEMON-
STRATES HIS THREE-PART EXERCISE REGIMEN TO
PLAYBOY'S FITNESS EDITOR, PETER SIKOWITZ

ΤΗΕ SMARTEST WOMAN IN PORN—NINA HARTLEY RE-
VEALS HER TRADE SECRETS (AND MORE) TO THE PLAYBOY
ADVISOR. CHIP ROWE

PLAYBOY'S PRO FOOTBALL FORECAST—GET YOUR
PENCILS READY. CRACKERJACK PROGNOSTICATOR RICK
GOSSELIN HAS THE LOWDOWN ON EVERYTHING PIGSKIN,
FROM GRIDIRON HEROES TO GREAT MATCHUPS TO POINT
SPREADS TO PLAYOFFS.

SINGLE GUY'S GUIDE TO TECHNOLOGY—- GET SMART
AND UPDATE YOUR LIFE WITH OUR TELL-ALL GUIDE, FEA-
TURING MUST-HAVE SOFTWARE, TIMESAVING WEB SITES
AND THE BEST COMPUTER YOU'VE EVER SEEN

PLUS: MONEY MAN CHRISTOPHER BYRON TALKS STOCK
BUYBACKS, JONATHAN TAKIFF DECONSTRUCTS DIGITAL
TELEVISION, KEN GROSS TAKES THE SHELBY FOR A SPIN
AND, FOR A SPECIAL SUMMER TREAT, OUR OWN INTERNET
CHAT GIRL TAKES IT ALL OFF

$
Box Kings, 16 mg. “tar”, 1.2 mg. nicotine
av. per cigarette by FTC method.

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

ROCKS. TONIC. JUICE.