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In Imperial America, his new compila-
tion of essays and articles (one of
which first appeared in PLAYBOY),
Gore Vidal proceeds from the premise
that the America Thomas Jefferson
envisioned has faded. In this month's
Jefferson vs. Hamilton, Vidal exam-
ines the Manichean battle for the
American soul, which finds its basis
in the diametrically opposed philos-
ophies of Jefferson and Alexander
Hamilton. "We're caught between
Hamilton and Jefferson," Vidal says.
"That is the fault line, and they are
the two tectonic plates in American
history: Jefferson, representing indi-
vidual freedom and a minimal state,
and Hamilton, representing interna-
tional banking and a state with great
controls and rights. And the battle
goes on and on."

Writer and director Neil LaBute returns
to PLAYBOY with Mom Descending a
Staircase, which combines his photog-
raphy with a fine piece of original fic-
tion. The story is set in motion by some
long-forgotten Polaroids and the reve-
lations they provide. "There is no shoe-
box full of photos of my mom," he says.
"The idea is that people can think they
know one another and then discover
something that breaks them apart."

William T. Vollmann exposes the
underbelly of North American free trade
in Blood, Sweat and Trade Secrets, his
account of conditions in Mexico's
maquiladoras, the job-poaching
factories mushrooming along the U.S.
border. “They provide jobs for people
who otherwise wouldn't have them,” he
reports. “But they don't pay much, and
the companies trifle with people's
health, which | think is inexcusable.

Author Neal Gabler is both a historian
and a movie critic. No wonder we
tapped him to reassess the twisted,
mythic life of the original rebel billion-
aire, Howard Hughes, in The Sucker
With the Money. “He was certainly suc-
cessful in making himself an icon,”
Gabler says. “He managed to present
his life like a movie. Some people do
that inadvertently, but he was deliberate
in making his life into a soap opera.”

Playmate of the Year, TV and movie
Star, best-selling author, babe: We love
Jenny McCarthy. Senior Contributing
Photographer Stephen Wayda cap-
tured the queen of our hearts in the
King's castle. “We did the shoot at Elvis
and Priscilla's honeymoon house in
Palm Springs,” Wayda says. Jenny
wanted to do something different, with
a 1950s feel to it. We wanted something
wild enough to fit her outrageous per-
sonality, so everything was done to the
extreme. Elvis's old house just seemed
to be the perfect location. They haven't
changed the place since he was there,
So it was kind of powerful. When we
went into the bedroom we had an awk-
ward silence. It felt as though we were
somewhere we shouldn't be—but it
was cool to stage a threesome in Elvis's
actual honeymoon bed."

= m.

"Rock singers don't meet with their fan clubs every night
before a show and sign 50 autographs," says Steve Pond,
who rode across four states on the tour bus of the proudly
un-rock Toby Keith for the Playboy Interview. "But country
Singers—no matter how big they get—go through a ritual
every night. There's a meet and greet with fans. They sign a
bunch of autographs. There's 50 photographs with contest
winners. Because Keith sells so many records and is such a
big star, | wasn't expecting him to do all these things, but he
Still does, to stay close to his fans. Another refreshing thing
about Keith is he knows that to be out there trying for
crossover success would be to betray who he is. Of course,
he also knows that he makes enough money and sells
enough records without crossing over."

London-based illustrator David Hughes created the art
that accompanies Christopher Buckley's Digging Up
Private Ryan. “| was looking for a metaphor for the French,
and it came down to my using any excuse to draw a poo-
dle," Hughes admits. “I thought, Dare | stick an American
flag in its ass? Then | said, Why not? It's pLaysoy. | put the
flag in the dog's ass because | liked it—and because
that's what the French think of Americans and what the
rest of the world thinks of America at the moment."

Timothy White recently brought
home the award for International
Photographer of the Year at the
2004 Lucie Awards. For more
than 20 years White has been
lauded for his portraits of celeb-
rities. So he understands the
red-carpet aesthetic behind The
High Life, this month's fashion
feature. What most intrigued him
during the shoot was the way
formalwear has been reimag-
ined for a more relaxed, comfort-
oriented era. "For me, the big
surprise, frankly, was the fash-
ion—how loose a lot of it is," he
reports. "These aren't your typi-
cal tuxedos." White captures the
bold personal style the new
tuxes allow to show through
"Our subject was tuxedos, but I
like to focus on individuals."

In Is This Man the Future of
Poker? Pat Jordan profiles
24-year-old David Williams,
the runner-up at the most re-
cent World Series of Poker. In
his first WSOP Williams won
$3.5 million and became both
the youngest player and the
first African American to make
the final table. "David is a
brilliant kid who is very disci-
plined and pathologically or-
ganized," Jordan explains. "He
writes down every candy bar
he eats and how much he
pays for it. But he also takes
an athlete's approach to pok-
er. He wants to win. He is not
thinking about the money. He
wants to be the best. He
wants to pitch a no-hitter."

PLAYBOY'S Editorial Director Emeritus, Arthur Kretchmer,
teamed with David Stevens and Ken Gross to revisit one of
his favorite beats in Cars of the Year. Though Kretchmer is a
legend in our office, the yellow 2005 Vette he's been testing
may have something to do with the reverent reactions he's
been getting on the street lately. "You need to feel a tactile
sense of being in the right place when you drive a car," he
says. "In many ways a car is a chair—a chair, an engine and
a stereo. And those things need to work together first."

“Very funny, very hip!”
E 1 —New York Daily News
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PLAYB

vol. 52, no. 1—january 2005

ones]

features
70 THE SUCKER WITH THE MONEY
Howard Hughes produced movies and set airspeed records. The public (and a long
list of beauties) was fascinated by him. The Aviator aims to reawaken that allure.
The truth? Hughes was a lousy businessman who lacked charm. BY NEAL GABLER
98 DIARY OF A THREESOME FANATIC
Meet a woman whose amorous adventures with a famous TV star (unnamed for
legal reasons) included threesomes in town cars and elsewhere. BY ANONYMOUS
102 CHAMPAGNE WITH A TWIST
We provide the buzz on the best bubbly cocktails. BY A.J. BAIME
104 BLOOD, SWEAT AND TRADE SECRETS
This intrepid author went undercover to expose maquiladoras, Mexican fac-
tories in which workers, mostly women, earn about $10 a day. But what he
found surprised even him, BY WILLIAM Т. VOLLMANN
124 JEFFERSON VS. HAMILTON
The reputations of rivals Thomas Jefferson and Alexander Hamilton have flipped
lately. Jefferson is now slagged as a slave owner, Hamilton lauded as a prophet.
Does Jefferson deserve this? And how does Halliburton fit in? BY GORE VIDAL
128 2005 CARS OF THE YEAR
We took the Ferrari 612 Scaglietti and eight other amazing cars out for a drive
The open road has never been so exhilarating. BY ARTHUR KRETCHMER
148 MEET THE FUTURE OF POKER
The second-place winner in the World Series of Poker won $3.5 million. We
hang out with him as he pays off his mother’s mortgage, plays cards with
friends and eats at Steak n Shake. BY PAT JORDAN
fiction
86 DIGGING UP PRIVATE RYAN
In its response to anti-French fervor, which includes a plan to disinter U.S. soldiers
from Normandy, France hires a PR man to fix its image. BY CHRISTOPHER BUCKLEY
136 MOM DESCENDING A STAIRCASE
After his mother dies, a man snoops through her belongings and discovers she
once applied to be a PLAYBOY Centerfold. BY NEIL LABUTE
the playboy forum
55 We're told that religious moderation is desirable, but when we can't speak
critically of anyone's religious beliefs—no matter how fanatical—we put
ourselves in a dangerous position. BY SAM HARRIS
200
166 JAMES СААМ
Тһе man who was Sonny Corleone is now the don of the Las Vegas family. Не
discusses his former addictions to cocaine and women, rejecting the lead in One
Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest and working with Pacino. BY STEPHEN REBELLO
interview
63 TOBY KEITH

Country music's biggest star has battled the media and the Country Music Asso-
ciation. In a cordial Playboy Interview, he reveals why he is a Democrat, what he
saw while visiting Iraq and why the Dixie Chicks don't like him. BY STEVE POND

COVER STORY

Jenny McCarthy first appeared in PLAYBOY
in 1993. Our readers spotted something
special and elected her Playmate of the
Year. From there, her popularity took off.
She berated bachelors on Singled Out and
starred in an MTV comedy. You can see her
again on this season's Bad Girl's Guide on
UPN. And she was a very bad girl for Senior
Contributing Photographer Stephen Wayda.
Jenny gives our Rabbit cardiac awrist.

PLAYBOY

vol. 52, no. 1—january 2005

inued

pictorials

140

153

JENNY MCCARTHY

The former PMOY shows how the
new McCarthyism plays in the bed-
room of Elvis's honeymoon hideout.

PLAYMATE:

DESTINY DAVIS

This angel from Sin City has a
date with fate.

THE YEAR IN SEX

The sex headlines of 2004's 366
days included a Senate staffer
who outed kinky políticos, the
invention of a new sex position,
naked Olympians and a momen-
tous wardrobe malfunction.

PLAYBOY'S

PLAYMATE REVIEW

The 12 candidates for 2004
Playmate of the Year put more
than their best foot forward.

notes and news

191

WORLD OF PLAYBOY

HANGING WITH HEF
Guess who came to dinner at the
Mansion—Bernie Mac, Jack
Black and Isiah Thomas.

PLAYMATE NEWS

Our 50th Anniversary Playmate
loses her lower half in the sci-fi
film The Gene Generation; proof
that Avril Lavigne and Pam
Anderson aren't the same person;
50 years ago, the world met Bettie
Page and her Christmas tree.

departments

23
45

PLAYBILL
DEAR PLAYBOY
AFTER HOURS
MANTRACK

122
175
195
196
198

THE PLAYBOY ADVISOR
PARTY JOKES

WHERE AND HOW TO BUY
ON THE SCENE
GRAPEVINE

POTPOURRI

fashion

THE HIGH LIFE

Finding the right tuxedo may not
be as simple as black and white,
but we managed to find formal-
wear to suit every form.

BY JOSEPH DE ACETIS

reviews

MOVIES

The Phantom of the Opera is
spooky; Jennifer Garner is electric
as Elektra; soon people every-
where will be speaking Spanglish.

DVDS

Will Ferrell has funny news in
Anchorman; don't drop the soap
while watching Oz: The Complete
Fourth Season; a chance to see
J. Lo topless without marrying her.

MUSIC

Remembering what made
Michael Jackson the King of Pop;
Rammstein's Reise, Reise will
make you rise to your feet; And
You Will Know Us by the Trail of
Dead is full of life.

GAMES

Halo 2 glows; we KO Fight Club;
get a line on the best of the cell
phone games.

BOOKS

Cheers to a new version of The
Magic Mountain set in a rehab
facility; a look into a secret-agent
man's closet; 1,650 rock posters.

PRINTED IN U.S.A.

GENERAL OFFICES: PLAYBOY, 880 NORTH LAKE SHORE DRIVE. CHICAGO, ILLINOIS 6001). PLAYBOY ASSUMES NO RESPONSIBILITY TO

THE FINISH LINE. SO ELUSIVE FOR SOMETHING THAT NEVER MOVES.

Glory is not granted lightly. Test your skills on up to 100 of the world's most elite tracks. Break in over 500 powerhouse cars
spanning a century of automotive history. Face unforgiving spectators that react to your every move. Pass or be passed.

PlayStation.

Visit www.esrb.org
for updated rating

information.

vi
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LIVE IN YOUR WXRLD.
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depiction or recreation of real world locations, entities, businesses or organizations is not intended to be or imply any
sponsorship or endorsement of this game by such party or parties. "PlayStation; the "PS" Family logo and * are registered
trademarks, and Gran Turismo is a trademark of Sony Computer Entertainment Inc. "Live In Your World. Play In Ours."
and "The Drive of Your Life” are registered trademarks of Sony Computer Entertainment America Inc.

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PLAYBOY

HUGH M. HEF

editor-in-chief

CHRISTOPHER NAPOLITANO
editorial director

STEPHEN RANDALL deputy editor
TOM STAEBLER ar! director
GARY COLE photography director
LEOPOLD FROEHLICH executive editor
SA CINDOLO GRACE managing editor

ROBERT LOVE editor at large

EDITORIAL

FEATURES: JAMIE MALANOWSKI features editor; АЈ. BAIME articles editor FORUM: CHIP ROWE senior editor;
PATTY LAMBERTI assistant editor MODERN

VING: SCOTT ALEXANDER senior editor STAFF: ALISON PRATO.
senior associate editor; ROBERT B. DESALVO, TIMOTHY MOHR, JOSH ROBERTSON assistant editors; HEATHER
HAEBE, CAROL KUBALEK, EMILY LITTLE, KENNY LULL editorial assistants CARTOON

: MICHELLE URRY editor
COPY: WINIFRED ORMOND copy chief; STEVE GORDON associate copy chief; CAMILLE CAUTI senior copy editor;

PETER BORTEN, ANTOINE DOZOIS, SUSAN JACKSON, AUTUMN MADRANO copy editors RESEARCH: DAVID COHEN
research director; BRENDAN BARR Senior researcher; DAVID PFISTER associate senior researcher; MARK
HUNTLEY, RON MOTTA, DARON MURPHY, MATTHEW SHEPATIN researchers; MARK DURAN research librarian
EDITORIAL PRODUCTION: JENNIFER JARONECZYK HAWTHORNE assistant managing editor; VALERIE

THOMAS manager; VALERY SOROKIN associate REA

MIKE OSTROWSKI correspondent
CONTRIBUTING EDITORS: MARK BOAL (WRITER AT LARGE), KEVIN BUCKLEY, JOSEPH DE ACETIS (FASHION

DIRECTOR), GRETCHEN EDGREN, LAWRENCE GROBEL, KEN GROSS, JENNIFER RYAN JONES (FASHION), WARREN
KALBACKER, JAMES KAMINSKY, ARTHUR KRETCHMER (AUTOMOTIVE), JOE MORGENSTERN, MERIEM ORLET

(FASHION), JAMES R. PETERSEN, DAVID RENSIN, DAVID SHEFF, JOHN D. THOMAS, ALICE K. TURNER

HEIDI PARKER west coast editor

ART
SCOTT ANDERSON, BRUCE HANSEN, CHET SUSKI, LEN WILLIS, ROB WILSON senior art directors;
PAUL CHAN senior art assistant; JOANNA METZGER art assistant,

CORTEZ WELLS art services coordinator; MALINA LEE senior art administrator

PHOTOGRAPHY
MARILYN GRABOWSKI west coast editor; JIM LARSON managing editor; PATTY BEAUDET-FRANGÉS
KEVIN KUSTER, STEPHANIE MORRIS senior editors; RENAY LARSON assistant editor;

ARNY FREYTAG, STEPHEN WAYDA senior contributing photographers; GEORGE GEORGIOU staff
photographer; RICHARD IZUI, MIZUNO, BYRON NEWMAN, GEN NISHINO, DAVID RAMS contributing
photographers; BILL ит studio manager—los angeles; BONNIE JEAN KENNY
manager, photo library; KEVIN CRAIG manager, photo lab; MATT STEIGBIGEL photo

researcher; PENNY EKKERT, KRYSTLE JOHNSON production coordinators

IN publisher

DIANE SILBER:

ADVERTISING
JEFF KIMMEL advertising director; RON STERN new york manager; MARIE FIRNENO advertising operations
director; KARA SARISKY advertising coordinator NEW YORK: HELEN BIANGULLI direct response advertising

director; LARRY MENKES senior account executive; SHERI WARNKE southeast manager; TONY SARDINAS
TRACY WISE account executi

executive LOS ANG!

es CHICAGO: JOE HOFFER midwest sales manager; WADE BAXTER senior account

ELES: PETE AUERBACH, COREY SPIEGEL west coast managers DETROIT: DAN COLEMAN
detroit manager SAN FRANCIS

: ED MEAGHER northwest manager

MARKETING
LISA NATALE associate publisher/marketing; SUE 160r event marketing director; JULIA LIGHT marketing

services director; CHRISTOPHER SHOOLIS research director; DONNA TAVOSO Creative services director

PRODUCTION
MARIA MANDIS director; JODY JURGETO production manager; CINDY PONTARELLI DEBBIE TILLOU associate
managers; CHAR KROWCZYK, BARB TEKIELA assistant managers; BILL BENWAY, SIMMIE WILLIAMS prepress

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

ADMINISTRATIVE
MARCIA TERRONES rights & permissions director

PLAYBOY E

TERPRISES INTERNATIONAL, INC.
CHRISTIE HEFNER chairman, chief executive officer

JAMES в RADTKE senior vice president and general manager

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OFEPLAYBOY

HEF SIGHTINGS, MANSION FROLICS AND NIGHTLIFE NOTES

SILVER SCREEN DREAMS
Every June for the past 17 years,
the LA. Conservancy has host-
ed Last Remaining Seats events
at historic theaters, where clas-
sic films are shown on the
big screen. Movie buff Hef (with
Bridget, Holly and Kendra, be-
low) sponsored 2004's сіпе-
matic fete at the Orpheum.

VEGAS, BUNNY, VEGAS!
What's Sin City without a place to Bunny hop? Palms Hotel & |
Casino owner George Maloof and Hef plan to open a Playboy Ё
boutique casino, club and more in Vegas in early 2006. |

MUSEUM OF LOVE

Hef was inducted into the Erotic Museum's Hall of Fame, where the Playboy
exhibit includes his portrait hanging among those of other pioneers of sexual
freedom. After the ceremony, Hef took press questions and perused another
important collection (bottom) with his girlfriends and presenter Bill Maher.

IT PAYS TO SPEAK UP

The 25th anniversary of the HMH First Amendment Awards was
a night spent toasting our favorite loudmouths. Above, Christie
Hefner presents a $5,000 check to Bill Maher, who was hon-
ored for his ardent support of the Bill of Rights.

THAT’S WHAT BUDDIES ARE FOR

Best Buddies’ 12th Annual L.A. Gala (held at the Mansion) left ev-
eryone—especially the Bunnies—warm and fuzzy. Co-chaired by
producer Brian Grazer and director Brett Ratner, the event attract-
ed Olympic gold medalist Carl Lewis (above), among other icons.

The cool crowd has been rubbing elbows with
Hef at his favorite Hollywood hot spots. Here-
with, the monthly report on Mr. Playboy and his
party posse. (1) Bottoms up! Hef's girlfriends
Kendra and Bridget get frisky with Holly at the
nightclub Prey. (2) Ocean's Twelve star Bernie
Mac at Forbidden City. (3) Michael “Let's Get
Ready to Rumble” Buffer and his girlfriend,
Christine Prado, at Mansion Movie Night. (4)
Cindy Margolis at Bliss. (5) Same club,
different night, with rock royalty Sean Lennon.
(6) Playmates galore at Party With a Purpose,
a fund-raiser for underprivileged children,
held at PMW. (7) Marlon Wayans with the
Man. (8) Brooke Burke. (9) Playmate Carrie
Stevens and Angelica Bridges. (10) Kendra
with Janet Jackson at Bliss, where, unfortu-
nately, there were no wardrobe malfunc-
tions to report. (11) Having way too much
fun in the sun with Bridget, Kendra and
Holly. (12) Legendary basketball star Isiah
Thomas. (13) Lorenzo Lamas and Barbara
Moore. (14) Huddling with Holly and Jes-
sica Alba. (15) Jack Black at Movie Night.

2005

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WHERE DO WE GO FROM HERE?
Colonel David Hackworth's article
Why the Military Never Learns (October)
hits the nail on the head. As a Vietnam
and Desert Storm veteran, I have been
saying the same things since the day
the war in Iraq started. We should
have taken care of Afghanistan and
found Bin Laden first. Saddam Hus-

At war in the wrong place, with the wrong tools.

sein was not a threat to our security.
We claim we went there to liberate the
Iraqi people, but they don't see us that
way. How would we feel if another
country invaded the U.S. to “liberate”
us from our president? We would take
up arms against it.

Martin Mendoza

Phoenix, Arizona

If this article doesn’t convince some-
one that the war on terrorism is a
complete failure, I don’t know what will.

James DeVoy
Evansville, Indiana

I admire Hackworth for his service
to our country, but like John Kerry,
he's playing Monday-morning quarter-
back. I had hoped he would provide
insight into the military aspects of
the war on terrorism. Like Kerry, he
doesn’t seem to have a plan for how to
win. He knows only why we can't.

Michael Hall
Antioch, California

I am currently serving in the Army
in Iraq. It’s great to hear someone talk
about what is really going on over
here. Keep up the good work.

Cody Mills
Baghdad, Iraq

Hackworth is wrong to say that ter-
rorists are trying “to impose a radical
brand of Islam on the world and to de-

stroy our way of life." He's been watch-
ing too much Fox News. We've been
meddling in the affairs of these coun-
tries since at least Eisenhower's time.
Arland Miller
Lawrenceville, Georgia

Nothing starts a fight quicker than
religion and politics. PLAYBOY would
be wise to refrain from dis-
cussing either.

Don Miller
Mulberry, Florida

BEHIND THE BABE
Rachel Perry (Babe of the
Month, October) is my favorite
ҮНІ host. Can you persuade

her to pose nude?

Jake Watters

We're working on it, always.

BLACK GOLD

I am the co-founder of
Caviar Emptor, a group that
educates consumers about
eco-friendly caviars. Соп-
trary to your claims in A Fatal
Legacy (October), American caviars,
such as those taken from farmed Cal
fornia white sturgeon, North Carolina
rainbow trout and Missouri paddle-
fish, are exceptionally popular. One
producer sold six tons in 2003. Food
critics from The New York Times to
Gourmet have raved about these roes.
Vikki Spruill
Washington, D.C.

LESS IS MORE
I've been begging the editors of
your Special Editions for years to pub-
lish an issue devoted only to women
wearing kneesocks, so you can imag-
ine my delight at seeing Centerfold
Kimberly Holland (October) posing in
them. All I ask in return for my fab-
ulous idea is one percent of the gross.
Michael Bruno
Akron, Ohio
Would you settle for a pair of kneesocks?

My only complaint about the pictor-
ial is those red cowboy boots. I prefer
to see Kimberly completely in the buff.

Tony Garry
Columbus, Ohio

Finally, a Centerfold whose pubic
area is completely shaved. A bare
pussy is wondrously beautiful, a holy
thing fully offered, more generous,
more intimate, more inviting.

David Griesemer
Tallahassee, Florida

PLAYBOY, YOU'RE FIRED!

Egocentric tyrant Donald Trump
(Playboy Interview, October) is the
business equivalent of Mussolini—he
appears on the screen of history but
is ultimately insignificant.

David Kaye
Seattle, Washington

Every once in a while it's nice to skip
an article in PLAYBOY without fear of
missing anything important.

Sam Douglas

Columbia, South Carolina

Had my father been a real estate de-
veloper instead of a railroad machin-
ist, I'm sure the name Bell would be
on buildings too.

Ron Bell
Newport News, Virginia

COLLEGE GIRLS
Your college-girls pictorials are my
favorite feature, and Girls of the ACC
(October) is no exception. Florida
State's Lace Rose Allenius is amazing.
Jeremy T
Sunrise, Florida

If you don't invite cover girl Evelyn
Gery back for her own pictorial, I may
have to cancel my subscription.
R.W. Rose
Big Bear Lake, California
Which is why we keep you guessing.

Evelyn Gery and her powerful panties.

I own the same panties as Evelyn
Gery. I put them on to show my hubby,
and we had a great afternoon.

V. Zirzow
Silver Lake, Wisconsin

THE RAELIAN ZONE
We have received overwhelming

words of praise and support because
of The Rael World (October), in which
myself and the Raelian women are
beautifully photographed. PLAYBOY is
a great institution that has helped
break sexual taboos that imprison
humanity. It is important to embrace
sexuality—be it hetero, homo, through
masturbation or with one or many
partners—because a lack of sexuality
gives rise to violence. The response
demonstrates that people are willing
to contemplate the message I received
from the Elohim, our true creators.
Peace begins within ourselves.

Rael

Valcourt, Quebec

MUSIC ROUNDTABLE
As PLAYBOY has always taken music
seriously, I'm not surprised by the can-
did tone of your roundtable, Rip. Burn.
Die. (October). But the panel should
have included someone from an inde-
pendent label or a record store and,
more important, a few consumers. I
can't understand why you included so
many executives and rock stars when
you usually review indie-label CDs.
The most exciting things in music are
happening on the margins.
Mike Nutt
Chapel Hill, North Carolina

The artists interviewed fail to recog-
nize that they alienate fans by blather-
ing about politics from the stage. As a
conservative who appreciates the arts,
I am offended by their hostility.
Lisa Springsteel
Bordentown, New Jersey

Jason Flom seems so out of touch
with the music industry that I can't be-
lieve he's the CEO of a major label. He
misses the point of Napster and Ka:
I have purchased more than 2,000
CDs, and nothing is more frustrating
than spending $15 to hear one good
song out of 12. Market researcher Joe
Fleischer claims that radio stations play
what people want to hear. But how can
people know if they want something
else when they hear only the same 25
songs? The future of radio is satellite.
Marc Geiger of the William Morris
Agency says some people blame the
lack of concertgoers on indie rock.
The real causes of lackluster sales are
high ticket prices and service fees.

There's no way for kids to save enough
money to go to a lot of concerts. That's
why Ozzfest and the Warped Tour are
popular: lots of bands, one ticket. The
music industry has to change the way
it does business. Open the vaults,
throw it all on the Internet, and charge
a reasonable price for downloading.
Andrew Mitchell
Montgomery, Illinois

This reminds me of what happened
in the late 1970s and early 1980s, when
the recording industry complained
because people were taping songs from
the radio. Once again the technology
has gotten ahead ofit.

Mike Moss
Orlando, Florida

Give me a way to pay the artists
without paying the ridiculous salaries
of record executives and I might stop
downloading.

Alix Miles
Kansas City, Missouri

Can music execs play a different tune?

Following the trail blazed by the
Grateful Dead
bands allow fans to share 1
ings. Many are posted at archive.org,
and the quality is impressive. It’s given
me so much new music that I haven't
bought a CD in the past year. Instead 1
spend my money on shows, which
more directly benefit the bands.

Paul Knapp
Arlington, Virginia

results have been surprising
willing to participate in a surv

THE STATE OF THE AFFAIR: HELP WANTED

PLAYBOY is conducting a study. Last fall we hired a research group to survey Amer-
icans on fidelity and infidelity, lust and liaisons, truth and consequences. The
ow we want to get specific information. If you're
y on the state of fidelity in America, please point
your browser to playboy.com/fidelitysurvey. It's anonymous.

E-mail: DEARPB@PLAYBOY.COM Or write: 730 FIFTH AVENUE, NEW YORK, NEW YORK 10019

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LIVE IN YOUR WXRLD,
PLAY IN DURS:

babe of the month

Chanel Ryan

or Chanel Ryan, the slow transition from model to actress

has at least been colorful. “I've done fun independent films
that haven't necessarily gone anywhere,” she says. “I played
a schizophrenic, a crazy pregnant alcoholic teenager, a nerd
and an obsessed fanatic who drools over Gary Sinise in TNT's
George Wallace. In Beach Balls | play a waitress in a rubber-
ducky inner tube and full snorkel gear. It's a Roger Corman film,
so it's all about hot chicks skimpily clad.” Sounds terrific—
and appropriate for a seaside stunner who designs swimwear
and shot her 2005 calendar in Puerto Vallarta. Her company,

This calendar girl is no stuffed bikini

Babes With Brains, publishes all her calendars, books and
Benchwarmer trading cards, available at chanelryan.com. Life
seems like an endless summer for Chanel, but she wouldn't
mind a partner for beach blanket bingo. “There's this vicious
rumor that girls don't like sweetness and that nice guys finish
last, but not with me,” she says. “A lot of L.A. guys cop an
attitude and won't call back, but | don't play that. When | start
to think I'm too cool for school, | go home to Pennsylvania,
where people put you right in your place. I'd like to settle
down in the country in a few years. | love that way of life.”

“There's this vicious rumor that nice guys finish last, but not with me.”

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afterhours |

PARTING SHOTS
FROM A KING
OF COMEDY

In October Rodney Dan-
gerfield died of complications
following open-heart surgery
The day before he went into the,
hospital, he offered us his New
Year's wisdom. When the clock
strikes midnight this year, join
us in raising a glass to the one,
the only—Al Czervik.

=
ot

RESOLUTIONS

This r I'm going to try to
stay away from hookers. I tell
ya, a hooker—that’s the best
business there is. I mean, you got it, you sell it,
and you still got it

Every New Year's I make a resolution to get
healthy. I visit my doctor. Last time, my doctor
told me I pulled a muscle. I told him, “Гуе been
doing that for years.”

One time I told my doctor I wanted to get a
vasectomy. He said with a face like mine I don't
need one.

I'm always resolving to lose weight, but that's a
tough one. Everything is fattening. I'm glad jerk-
ing off isn't fattening. I'd weigh a fucking ton.

I tell ya, it's tough to lose weight. I tried jogging.
I kept running into restaurants.

MEMORABLE MOMENTS

There's one New Year's Eve I'll never forget: At
the stroke of midnight I actually had a stroke.
It was memorable all right—it was a nightmare.

THE KISS
Last New Year's Eve my wife told me I could kiss
her on the cheek...and then she bent over.

PARTY FAVORS
The best party favor is if some girl lets me take
her home:

The funny hats are nice, but I tell ya, I don't like
the noisemakers. This one girl I left the party
with—I found out she was a noisemaker, and I got
rid of her real fast.

A TOAST

Here's my New Year's toast: "A mother may love
her child, and a child may love its mother, but no
love is greater than one drunk's love for another."

Amen.

| song 'n' dance macabre

THERE'S A RIOT GOIN’ ON-SCREEN

A NATIONAL NIGHTMARE SEEN AS COMEDY OF TERROR

On April 29, 1992, after four LAPD officers were acquitted of beat-
ing Rodney King, rioters took to the Los Angeles streets in a racially
charged display of song, dance and comedy. At least, that’s what hap-
pens in The L.A. Riots Spectacular, a bizarre movie about the chaos
that captivated a concerned nation. “Maybe I'm handling it irre-
sponsibly,” admits first-time director Marc Klasfeld. “But to me this
isn't a joke. I'm examining how something horrible was treated as
entertainment. You couldn't turn on your TV without seeing vio-
lence—it was just another media distraction.” Like “Springtime for
Hitler" in Mel Brooks's The Producers, Spectacular seems designed to
offend: In one scene, narrator Snoop Dogg serenades a courtroom
full of cops with the gangsta-rap anthem “Fuck tha Police.” Other
notable stars include Emilio Estevez (Officer Powell), rles Dut-
ton (the Mayor) and George Hamilton (the King of Beverly Hills).
The movie has scored at film festivals, so check local art house list-
ings—but don't look for it at the multiplex. "It's gonna piss off a
lot of people,” says Klasfeld. Given that it’s a musical, perhaps they
should ask themselves, “Why can't we all just sing along?”

cooflinventions RN | aap ЗЕЕ
CHILL ‘ER UP

What's worse than a room-temperature
shot of vodka? Aside from disease and a
Sting concert, not much. To keep your
Russian firewater frosty, Stolichnaya is
packaging its 750-milliliter bottles with
shot-glass-shaped ice molds. Make your
cool cups with juice to add a touch of
flavor; for the ultimate turn-on, freeze
the original aphrodisiac—chocolate—
and fill with Kahlúa or Bailey's.

[ afterhours

_ premature extrapolation

Most bootlegged
sex video: 1

Pentagon Nm)
clarifies: Mission S > IR
E 249 Night in Regis

in Iraq was

accomplished,
but "missionettes"

DP гае
apture occurs.
ШЕ?

continue. Cubs win World
CBS News SU

scandal: Panties CBS News scandal:
in question “Unicorn” just a
not actually worn Ё horse with a pointy
by Britney. stick glued on

Jews for Jacko.
The Oprah-Dr. Phil wedding.

The buffet table at the Oprah-Dr. Phil
wedding.

Flannel and baggy pants hot sellers as
“lesbosexual” look takes off.

Ellen DeGeneres
kicks off season by giving each
audience member a former child star.

Ali G's interview
with Mike Tyson
ends in tragedy.

Sales of WNBA
jerseys take off
after Nelly wears
one in “Tall Drinka
Watta” video.

Department of Homeland Security
rechristened Department of Fatherland-
sekuritie.

Filming begins on Mel Gibson's
controversial Shylock.

CBS News scandal: “Easter Bunny”
just an unemployed longshoreman in
costume.

Dick Cheney explodes. Rumsfeld
wounded by shards of sternum; says
it doesn't hurt

Kim Jong ІІ annexes
China but allows
it autonomous rule,

“Who Wants to
Be on Television?” reality series churns
out 100 pseudo-celebs each week.

FASTEN YOUR SEAT BELTS—IT'S
GOING TO BE A BUMPY RIDE.
THESE ARE THE STORIES, IMPOR-
TANT OR OTHERWISE, THAT WILL
CAPTIVATE US IN 2005

Tappahannock, Virginia, population

Details goes back into the closet. 1,629: Hit, and hit hard.

- popular photogra

ida Га

| junk on yourtrunk NU

WE KNOW.
ABOUT YOUR
DEBT PROBLEM

GOTCHA!

MOBILE SNAPPERS TAKE HOT SHOTS

WHAT RU
WEARING?

SPAM: ANNOYING IN YOUR
IN BOX, FUNNY AS A SHIRT

Beware—mobloggers walk among us. Moblogging,
or mobile blogging, is the on-the-go posting of con-
and camera phones have taken

Scams, homegrown porn, penis size,
Viagra, privacy, paranoia.... Spam come-
ons paint a fairly damning portrait of
contemporary hopes and insecurities.
Fight the lamebrained social engineers
with a tee from spamshirt.com—then
escape your debt and be the nine-inch
man your goddess craves.

the concept from egghead fantasy to virtual reality.
It's no surprise, given humans’ fascination with exhi-
bitionism and voyeurism, that the uploaded photos

vard the risqué. The thong peeking from a
co-worker's jeans—snap it, post it. Your wife's new
tattoo—snap it, post it. The fellatio you're receiv-
ing—snap it, post it. Visit sexblo.gs/mob for a sampler
of extremely candid camera work.

NGLE MALT SCOTCH WHISKY

VISIT BROCKSAVAGE.COM

“WAS [ SURPRISED THE PRIME MINISTER
OFFERED ME THE USE OF HIS LIMO FOR THE
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- BROC K SAVAG E

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acep 15 vears

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[ afterhours

gover hotel

SUITE RELIEF

New Year's Eve? Please. In New Orleans excessive celebration is a
year-round affair, and visitors on hurricane-fueled all-nighters of
jambalaya and jazz wake up in uncharted hangover hell. At the
Loews New Orleans Hotel, you'll find the nation's only Recovery
Concierge. “It's not just the drinking that flattens you,” says Sara
Baker, the self-described “queen of excess” whose job it is to patch
up damaged guests. “It’s overindulging in everything—food, walk-
ing, humidity, cigarette smoke and booze.” Baker offers pre- and
postparty counseling; rooms are equipped with sleep-enabling white-
noise machines and a Recovery Basket loaded with vitamin C eye
cream, a cooling eye mask and bath salts containing aloe and juniper:
Baker stops short of holding a guest's head over the porcelain god,
so don't ask. Instead she advises a stop at Café Du Monde; the grease
in the beignets coats your stomach, she says, “and the bread soaks
up alcohol. It's a personal remedy I've tested once or twice.”

listings

THE HOOK OF LOVE
ACTUAL FLIES TIED BY BAWDY ANGLERS

Merkin Pink Scud
Sea-Ducer
Squirrelly Bugger
Red Ass Willie Wood Pussy
Willie’s Woody Goldie Hawn
Joe's Green Weenie Jungle Cock Silver

Hairy Mary
Montreal Whore
Who's Your Daddy

The Stimulator
Wiggle Nymph
Dirty Sanchez

Booby

Electric Smut

mployee of the moi

DESIGNING WOMAN

LET INTERIOR DESIGNER MANDY
MONTALBANO CREATE YOUR LOVE LAIR

PLAYBOY: What does
your job entail?

PLAYBOY: Do you spe-
cialize in bachelor pads?

MANDY: | had an older, divorced client who was very
into sports and rock-and-roll memorabilia—his place
looked like a 13-year-old's bedroom. | thought to my-
self, This guy is never going to get laid. | heard that
after | put his place through an overhaul he did one
on himself and is now hanging with younger women.

PLAYBOY: That's a lovely head of red hair. Does the
carpet match the drapes?

MANDY: A designer never gives away her secrets.

be atleast 18
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the audience member's tax bracket.

36 days, by
"Scorpion
Woman" Nur

of Malaysia.

17 times.

of 6,000
Scorpions

Malena Hassan

She was stung

Coincident with the DVD release of The Passion of the Christ,
rentals of Ben-Hur jumped 160%. The 1977 flick Jesus

of Nazareth saw a 100% uptick, and borrowings of 1965's
Greatest Story Ever Told increased by 33%.

The price tag on each of the 276 Pontiac G6s Oprah Winfrey
famously gave away to her audience members was $28,500.
The IRS classifies such a gift as income and as such expects
to reap taxes on it—as much as $7,000 per car, depending on

Value
Ad

The first
television
commercial—
bought by
the Bulova
Watch Co.
and aired

on July 1,
1941 before
a Brooklyn
Dodgers
game—cost

$9.

$128 million

Amount paid for a mansion in London's Kensington Palace
Gardens by Indian steel magnate Lakshmi Mittal. It’s
believed to be the highest price ever paid for a house.

Bird
Feeders

The people of
Hong Kong

are expected to
eat 800,000
pigeons this year.

The Loneliest
Number

According to a new study by
sexuality expert Anthony Bogaert,
1% of the population is classified
as asexual, having responded in
the affirmative to the survey state-
ment “I have never felt sexually
attracted to anyone at all.”

There are currently

X-Hausted RE

1,383 products
whose names
incorporate the
word extreme.

Average price of
a gallon of gas, ad-
justed for inflation:

1964: $1.83
1974:$1.99
1981:$2.83
1990:$1.61
2000:$1.61
2004: $2.04

| THE PHANTOM OF THE OPERA ]

Broadway's biggest musical goes Hollywood

When more than 100 million ticket buyers worldwide
have shelled out over $3.5 billion to see a visually striking
stage musical in which a disfigured genius composer
shows his passion for a young soprano by dropping a
chandelier on a theater full of freaked-out patrons, you'd
better believe somebody's going to fire up a movie version.
Enter The Phantom of the Opera, the big-screen rendition
of Andrew Lloyd Webber's spooky, sexy 1986 Gothic roof
raiser. Director Joel Schumacher's film features young up-
and-comers Gerard Butler as the Phantom and Emmy
Rossum as his honey-throated protégée, along with the
more familiar Minnie Driver as a bitchy opera diva. Says
Emmy-nominated actor Patrick

Wilson (Angels in America), “The movie

who stars as the dashing no- .

bleman, "Let's face it, this was gives the stage
the stage musical about which show a shot of
people kept telling each other, 4 n.

‘A chandelier falls right in the Aggression.
theater!’ That made musicals

as cinematic as can be. But when that chandelier fell
while they filmed it from 8,000 different angles and every-
thing started exploding, you could see how the movie gives
the stage show a shot of aggression, passion and boom. |
said to Andrew Lloyd Webber, ‘I'll bet you've never seen
the chandelier fall and explode for real.’ And he had this
big smile on his face.” Stephen Rebello

Elektra

ір, Goran Visnjic) A superbuff
Garner is pes in this Daredevil spin-off playing the assassin
who befriends Visnjic and his 13-year-old daughter, whom she
has been assigned to kill. With her new pals, Garner takes on
that vicious pack of killers the Order of the Hand.

Our call: The bad news? Gar-
ner's black leather outfit is an-
cient history. The good news?
She now wields her superhero
sai of vengeance while wearing
a red corset.

In Good Company

American Pie co-director Paul Weitz flies solo, without brother
Chris, in this comedy about a young hotshot (Grace) who
demotes a middle-aged magazine ad ace (Quaid), then wors-
ens things by sleeping with his teenage daughter (Johansson).

Our call: Expect a smart cast,
an offbeat script and a fast-
maturing director to deliver
something closer to the Weitzes’
About a Boy than just another
stale slice of pie.

Coach Carter

Jackson cud turn in a slam dunk as the real-life inner-city
high school basketball coach who benched his entire unde-
feated team in 1999 because of lousy grades, then mercilessly
whipped them into shape as students and men.

Our call: Three of the more
encouraging words we know—
“starring Samuel L. Jackson"—
help cancel out five of the least
encouraging words we know:
“inspired by a true story.”

Spanglish

с James
È Brooks’ 5 first flick since As Good as It Gets tackles L.A.'s
culture clash as a Mexican single mom (Vega) tries to learn
English and deal with her daughter while tending to a house

full of neurotic eccentrics, headed by Sandler and Leoni.

Our call: Oscar voters tend to
pay attention to actors in
Brooks's movies. Does that
mean Sandler haters would
view a best actor nod as a sign
of the coming apocalypse?

reviews [ dvds

he mo h their frustration, anger and panic as the
= hours tick by is a psychological en-
durance exercise. Extras: A piece that
separates shark
fact and fiction,
tips from dive
professionals to
help you survive
being stranded
at sea. ¥¥¥

—Robert B. DeSalvo

Г ANCHORMAN: THE LEGEND OF 1
L RON BURGUNDY 1

Will Ferrell gives TV news an Old School makeover

Ferrell goofs his way to the front of the post-Saturday Night Live class with this
hilarious if uneven funfest, playing Ron Burgundy, the puffy-haired and cocksure
star of a San Diego newscast in the double-knit 1970s. TV news was a man's
game, we're told in a droll voice-over by American Justice host Bill Kurtis, and then
Christina Applegate ruins it for Burgundy and his fellow boobs on the Channel 4

news team. The frontline bat-
tle of the sexes serves merely
as a framework for connected
skits, such as Ferrell wooing
Applegate with a wild, wan-
dering flute solo in a jazz
club. Ferrell and director
Adam McKay get laughs from
Steve Carell, Paul Rudd and
David Koechner as Burgundy's
brain-dead posse. They're
very Old School. Extras:
Bloopers, outtakes, trimmed
scenes and several Burgundy
interviews serve as high-
lights. An unrated version
adds eight minutes to the PG-
13 cut. ¥¥¥ —Greg Fagan

OZ: THE COMPLETE FOURTH SEASON
(2000) Life goes on for the various
psychopaths and miscreants of Oswald
State Penitentiary in this fourth stretch
of HBO's brutal prison drama, which
runs 16 episodes instead of the usual
eight. The extended season sizzles with
soapy intrigue, and the backstabbing is
literal, sometimes with a “Gillette
bayonet” (learn how to make your own in
episode 12, “Cuts Like a Knife”). Extras:
Thirty minutes of
deleted scenes,
plus commentary
on two episodes
from writer and
executive produc-
er Tom Fontana.
vun --С.Е

TROY (2004) There аге moments іп this
overwrought saga when you are certain
Brad Pitt's Achilles will start a line with
“Dude!” Ignoring the playful gods of
Homer's Iliad, director Wolfgang Pe-
tersen constructs a trite love triangle
punctuated with CGI combat. Diane Kru-
ger, as the face
that launched a
thousand ships, is
sadly beautiful but
boring. Extras: An
interactive tour of
Mount Olympus.
YY —Buzz McClain

OPEN WATER (2004) It is astonishing
what director Chris Kentis accomplishes
with a $130,000 budget, a digital video
camera and two fearless actors willing
to swim with real sharks. Based on a
true story, the film stars Blanchard Ryan
and Daniel Travis as a vacationing
yuppie couple unintentionally aban-
doned by their diving boat and left to
fend for themselves in the open ocean.
The black-eyed man-eaters circling the
scuba divers provide tension, but watch-
ing the two leads struggle to suppress

You knew it wasn't polite to cheer during Jersey Gir! (2004) when Jennifer Lopez
kicked the bucket. But after all the tabloid chatter perhaps J. Lo deserves a little
razzing to motivate her to choose worthwhile material again. Her star rose with

PAPARAZZI (2004) Director Paul Abas-
cal has gone from hairstylist for action
Stars (Gibson, Willis, Stallone) to director
of a movie about...an action star. Cole
Hauser plays the actor who clashes with
the paparazzi. Too bad he doesn't have
the grittiness to pull off the role, but
Daniel Baldwin
and Tom Size-
more make up
for him. Extras:
Commentary, de-
leted scenes, a
stunt featurette
yy! —B.M.

GARDEN STATE (2004) First-time
writer-director Zach Braff—star of TV's
Scrubs—grounds this offbeat romantic
dramedy in his native New Jersey,
where L.A. actor Andrew Largeman
(Braff) returns after a long absence to
attend his mom's funeral. Untethered
from his lithium, bland Andy loosens up,
getting high with his oddball buddies
and hooking up
with wild child
Natalie Portman.
Extras: Deleted
scenes, commen-
taries and a mak-
ing-of featurette
yyy —G.F

Selena (1997), a biopic about a
would-be crossover Latina pop
star—a move Lopez actually ac-
complished, and then some, in
real life. She also distinguished
herself in Blood and Wine
(1996), Oliver Stone's eccentric
U Turn (1997, pictured) and Out
of Sight (1998). But then she
took wrong turns with The Wed-
ding Planner (2001), Maid in
Manhattan (2002) and, espe-
cially, Gigli (2003). We're hop-
ing for better in her newest
movie, An Unfinished Life.

reviews [ dvds

the critical coll

[ DOCUMENTARIES TAKE FLIGHT ]

DVDs breathe new life into nonfiction movies

Not since Robert Flaherty's Nanook of the North captivated 1922 movie audiences
with walrus fights and Eskimo kisses has the film documentary been so popular.
Suddenly, multiplexes are booking nonfiction, and DVD is helping drive the popularity.
“A year ago retailers didn't want documentaries. Now documentary is the buzzword,”
says Steve Savage, president of Docurama,
a DVD label whose catalog lists more than
100 docs—the top seller being Don't Look
Back, D.A. Pennebaker's 1967 cinema
verité profile of the emerging Bob Dylan.
With DVD, producers can add content that
builds on the theatrical release, Winged
Migration (2002, pictured), a montage
of birds-in-flight footage, boasts an equally
fascinating behind-the-scenes featur-
ette on how the images were captured.
Spellbound (2002) depicts the plights of
eight contestants in a 1999 spelling bee
and includes a where-are-they-now up-
date. Fahrenheit 9/11 (2004), Michael
Moore's $119 million box office sensa-
tion, provides DVD extras such as an Abu
Ghraib prison segment and a bit on Arab
American comedians, Outfoxed (2004),
which investigates Fox News's right-
leaning exaggerations, shows how director
Robert Greenwald clipped the feature
from TV footage. Born Rich (2003) adds
commentaries and outtakes that further embarrass famous heirs. The DVD of the
grand prix motorcycle saga Faster (2003) includes an entire sequel, Faster and Faster
"03-704, that never made it to theaters. Bonus footage aside, the recent rise of DVD
documentaries reflects a change in audiences' taste for the truth—or at least an
attempt at it. And yes, Nanook of the North is on DVD, with bonus features. —8.M.

Behind the scenes with Altman, 24 and two teen classics

The serialized TV techno-thriller 24 works brilliantly on DVD,
so the new 24: Season Three box screams for a marathon
viewing. It arrives with a disc-only prequel that sets up the
show's fourth year on Fox. This eventful, six-minute scene set-
ter is a must if you're tuning in to the season premiere on Jan-
uary 3. But since the third season is the best so far—and the
box supplies commentary tracks for six episodes, deleted
scenes and making-of featurettes—the devoted will still dig
п.... Take a deep breath and hold it till the room spins. Dude!
It's Ultimate Party Collection, featuring Richard Linklater's
toke-tastic 1993 hit Dazed and Confused and Amy Hecker-
ling's 1982 teen classic Fast Times at Ridgemont High. Dazed
has been dosed with a slew of institutional filmstrips decrying
the dangers of marijuana, as well as PSAs from the movie's
1970s era. Fast Times has commentary from Heckerling and
screenwriter Cameron Crowe, plus a production featurette...
Master filmmaker Robert Altman has an ear for music, so it's
good that the DVD debut of 1993's Short Cuts offers an isolated
music track bonus, which allows listeners to savor vocalist
Annie Ross. Other highlights include a new interview with Altman
and Tim Robbins and an audio interview with author Raymond
Carver, whose stories Altman adapted for the film. —G.F.

THE MANCHURIAN CANDIDATE

(2004) Corporate kleptocracy replaces
communism in Jonathan Demme's
edgy remake of the 1962 classic.
Denzel Washington struggles against a
corrupt elite that wants to select the
next president. Sound familiar? УУУ

is оп atmospl
story. Don't let that deter yo |
| following Tim Robbins on his Wines)
| blowing futuristic journey. |

THE VILLAGE (2004) Critics sav-
aged writer-director M. Night Shy-
amalan's stylish flick about evil beasts
lurking in the forest around a peace-
ful 19th century village. On the small
screen in a dark room, the film fares
much better. Vy

| (2004) Ja es. |
Garner reads dotty nursing-

resident Gena Rowlands a thre |

hankie tale of two young lovers from

| opposite sides of the tracks. Your girl- |
friend will love it. Y

WITHOUT A PADDLE (2004) Three
buddies set out on a wilderness ad-
venture and end up in “You got a purty
mouth” country. Lower your expecta-
tions and enjoy the frequent—and fre-
quently unexpected—laughs. yy

: (2004) Director
Шыр Fuqua SEDES the sword-and- |
stone legend for a more intimate look
at Arthur's honor-bound knights. Well-
shot battles and a near-naked Keira |
Knightley provide eye candy. YY |

ANACONDAS: HUNT FOR THE
BLOOD ORCHID (2004) A J. Lo dop-
pelgánger leads a cast of stereotypes
through the jungle to uncover a new
longevity drug. Unbeknownst to all,
the Atari-style serpents have already
filled that prescription. ұу

HE Ni
00

| ЕСІЛ! The boys re- |

| tum with Big Gay Al, Osama bin Laden
and more. This season includes 1

Terrance and Phillip Behind I Jusic

Pee eige je the
of Kenny for good.

Don't miss
Good show

Worth a look
Forget it

music

reviews

[ JACKO IN THE BOX]

Where did he go wrong?

Michael Jackson once enjoyed a formi-
dable reputation as a musician. Be-
tween 1979 and 1991 he fused R&B,
dance and rock to create some of the
most amazing pop music ever made.
The Ultimate Collection—four CDs
and a concert DVD—provides an op-
portunity to assess Jackson's career
from the days of the Jackson 5 to the
present. How did such a creative force
become so meaningless? This anthol-
ogy shows he consistently creates
taut, up-tempo songs that push genres
and challenge listeners. (The lugubri-
ous ballads, from "Ben" to “You Are
Not Alone,” are another story.) Previ-
ously unreleased contemporary tracks
show Michael can still do it. But his
freakish behavior keeps people from
listening. All told, this compilation is a
chronicle of tremendous talent squan-

dered. (Epic) ¥¥¥

—Leopold Froehlich

RAMMSTEIN + Reise, Reise

The allure of this industrial metal group lies in its thoroughly
uninviting sound. German lyrics are delivered over pounding
music—there's even a song about German cannibal Armin
Meiwes. But the most startling moment comes when English
words rip through the hammering rhythms and singer Till Lin-
demann croons, "We're all living in America / Coca-Cola, some-
times war.” It's a reminder that there is a view from outside the
States worth noticing. (Universal) ¥¥¥ —Jason Buhrmester

AND YOU WILL KNOW US BY THE TRAIL OF DEAD
Worlds Apart

Here is a rare gem: an album you feel compelled to listen to,
riveted, for its entirety. With its slow-building walls of noise,
earnest lyrical themes and cinematic scope, it is the kind of
album we all wish Radiohead were still making—one that really
matters, one that swirls around your head and serves as a
soundtrack to the anguished discussions you have with your-
self. In short, a masterpiece. (/nterscope) УУУУ Tim Mohr

LUDACRIS + The Red Light District

On his first three albums, Ludacris proved he wasn't just
another Atlanta MC—he was a wordsmith who played his mouth
like an instrument and spit rhymes clever enough to make even
record execs laugh. On his new one, Luda is still the rapper
most likely to Xerox his ass at Kinko's, but he's also quite soul-
ful and even attempts to sing. With a stable of producers
including Timbaland and Lil Jon, Luda's joints range from crunk
hits to harsh street anthems. (Def Jam) ҰҰҰ% --А/ізоп Prato

DEATH FROM ABOVE 1979

You're a Woman, I’m a Machine

This album delivers an incredibly pure rock-and-roll rush. Like
Minor Threat covering Black Sabbath, it's a blend of metal,
hard-core, melody and intelligence. Fuzzed-out bass lines—
agile and thick at the same time—carry the tunes, spitfire
drumming propels it all along at a deliciously dangerous pace,
and the vocals alternately lash out and soar. All this from a duo.
An early contender for best debut of 2005. (Vice) YYYY —Т.М.

[ HERBIE HANCOCK ]

Through a 40-year career, pianist Her-
bie Hancock has established himself
as опе of jazz's great unorthodox tal-
ents, stretching the boundaries of the
genre with his use of everything from
electrically charged funk in the 1970s
to laptops in the 1990s. We caught up
with him in Los Angeles between ses-
sions for his new album.

PLAYBOY: What is wrong with music
these days?

HANCOCK: It seems so money-driven and
not creation-driven. It hasn't always
been like that. When I first came on the
scene, there were people in the industry
who were passionate about the music.
They wanted to sell records, of course,
but it wasn't the be-all and end-all.
Music is supposed to serve a function,
and that function isn’t to put money in
somebody's pocket. That's what you
get after you serve the function. The
function is to serve humanity.

PLAYBOY: A lot of great music from past
eras seemed commercial when it first
came out. Wasn't Motown commercially
driven, for instance?

HA : It was the first major black
label. There was a passion about having
ownership of what created the music.
That's not just money. That's a social
position they were trying to carve out for
themselves, one that didn't exist before.
When your only motivation is money,
you give people what they've already
shown they want to hear. That's tanta-
mount to saying, “Give them what they
already have.” But the Motown groups
didn't all sound the same.

Has jazz been marginalized?

I would be in deep trouble if I
were starting out today. Smooth jazz is
the only form of jazz played on the ra-
dio. If you don't fit into that format, you
won't get airplay. But there are still
amazing musicians—like Danilo Pérez,
who plays piano with Wayne Shorter's
quartet. He's not afraid of anything.

THERE'S —
NO MILLION
ITEMS OR
LESS LANE.

With one click you can enjoy all your favorites and
discover new music quickly, safely and legally. A Napster
subscription gives you unlimited access to our massive
catalog of music. Get it all for just 59.95 a month and
you'll never buy a CD with only one good track again.

Try it for free at Napster.com

(©) napster.

hir

a ТГ |?

ИШЕДИ:

reviews[ games

Xbox) somehow manages to kick
its ass—with new weapons, new
bad guys, more backstory, fire-
fights through the ruined cities of
Earth and intense head-to-head
online play. But where Ha/o 2 truly
shines is in the subtlest of gam-
ing's black arts: pacing. As in the
original, the action is kept at the
perfect pitch to maintain a con-
stant level of adrenaline pump, but
the game isn't so difficult as to
become frustrating. Add the elimi-
nation of load times and it's nearly
impossible to put down. If you
were wondering why all your co-
workers were calling in sick at the
beginning of November, now you
know. ¥¥¥¥ — Scott Alexander

[Г HALO 2]

How do you improve on perfection? Like this

When the Xbox was just a newborn, a little game called Ha/o turned skeptical gamers
into true believers. Even more impressive, Ha/o remains atop best-seller lists three full
years after its explosive debut. Why? It's the best console game ever made. Rather, it
was. Because even though there was nothing wrong with Halo, Halo 2 (Microsoft,

ALIEN HOMINID (0—3 Entertainment,
GameCube, PS2) No gorgeous 3-D
renderings here. This is old-school 2-D
side scrolling as it was always meant
to be—hand-drawn and hilarious. Chew
the heads off your bumbling FBI pursuers,
toss them into wood chippers or hit
them with an array of wild weapons while
dodging collapsing scenery and build-
ing-size bosses.
Want to try be-
fore you buy?
Check out the or-
iginal web game
at newgrounds
.com. ¥¥¥

—Scott Steinberg

GODZILLA: SAVE THE EARTH (Atari,
PS2, Xbox) Sometimes you have to
destroy Tokyo in order to save it. And this
latest addition to the radioactive-lizard
canon more than encourages doing so.
From Gigan to Jet Jaguar, all your favor-
ite beasties are here and playable, each
with its own set of signature moves
and death rays. A melee mode lets up to
four players duke -

it out at once,
Plus, the original
cheesy sound ef-
fects are sampled
from the films for
added "realism."
yyy ЕСУ)

FIGHT CLUB (Vivendi Universal Games,
PS2, Xbox) Okay, yes, we're breaking the
first and second rules of Fight Club by
talking about this game, but we'll take
our chances, as the virtual version isn't
nearly as tough as it should be. Fans of
the book and the movie (i.e., us) will
have fun with the gratuitous brutality, the
faithfully reproduced environments and
the bounce in Big
Bob's man-boobs,
but serious fight-
ing gamers will
want to stick with
their DOAs and
Def Jams. ¥¥
—John Gaudiosi

METROID PRIME 2: ECHOES (Nin-
tendo, GameCube) The Cube's best
shooter is back for seconds. Once again,
gamers can slip into the space suit of
sexy Samus Aran, a bounty hunter who's
taking on an alien race single-handedly.
Clichéd story line aside, players will have
a ball running and gunning through vividly
colorful environments, snagging weapons
and power-ups.
Though there's no
online play, up to
four Metroid-oids
can duke it out in
split screen on the
same TV. yyy%
—Marc Saltzman

[ DIAL G FOR GAMING ]

Four more ways your
cell phone can own your life

NFL 2005: Jam- 4
dat's pigskin sim
has all 32 NFL
teams, a deep play-
book and easy con-
trols, whether you're
looking to juke,
tackle, pass or run
($3 to $4 а month,
jamdat.com).

your poker skills
against Al, then
play other wireless
gamblers live. Now
go own your Tues-
day-night game
(about $3 a month,
summus.com).

Joust: This classic
looks, sounds and
flaps just like the
1982 version,
except now, for the
price of a mere 20
arcade plays, you
can slip it into your
pocket (about $5,
thqwireless.com).

Might & Magic:
Battle foes, solve
puzzles and unravel |
the arcane mys-
teries of Erathia in
this magical single-
player adventure
spread over 15
huge 3-D levels ($4,
gameloft.com).

Atari Flashback Console ($40) The box is
sleeker and the controllers more ergo-
nomic, but you're old pals with what's
inside—20 of the original Atari games.
that made the company a household
name in the 1980s. (Five of the games are
from the Atari 7800, to give you a taste
of what was blowing minds circa 1986.)

reviews [ books

[SECRET AGENT MAN |

A spy geek exhibits his gear

Americans have long been fascinated
with spies, less so real-life ones such as
the Rosenbergs and more so fictional
ones such as James Bond and Jason
Bourne. The reason is simple: Holly-
wood's secret agents get everything a
man can dream of—the coolest gadgets,
beautiful women and wild adventures.
Perhaps that's why Danny Biederman, a
consultant for MGM on its Bond film
series, has spent his life amassing more

than 4,000 pieces of spy props and gad- |
gets from television and movie spy

thrillers. With The Incredible World of

Spy-Fi, the public has been granted |
security clearance to check out such art- |
facts from the past four decades as the
tarantula from the Bond film Dr. No, the
cigarette-pack transmitter from The Man
From U.N.C.L.E., the shoe phone from
Get Smart and Austin Powers's glasses.
In the early days of spy thrillers, such fic-
tional gear was always a far cry from

now use these sorts of props as blueprints.

what existed in reality. But we wouldn't be surprised if the CIA gearheads in Langley

(Chronicle) ¥¥¥ — Patty Lamberti

AMERICA'S MAGIC MOUNTAIN

Curtis White

With his sixth book of fiction, White estab-
lishes himself as the most intrepid novel-
ist in America. Who but a courageous
writer (or a fool) would recast Thomas
Mann's Magic Mountain in an alcohol
rehab center in downstate Illinois? The
premise wouldn't appear to offer much,
but White's brilliant novel no more resem-
bles Mann's ponderous masterpiece than

the slag heaps of central Illinois resemble
the Alps. White's clinic is an odd place,
where drinking is en- қ
couraged and pathol- E m
ogies are embraced. -
Alternately hilarious and | |
harrowing, this is а bi-
zarre and powerful satire |
on our sick therapeutic |
culture. (Dalkey Archive) |
YY YY —Leopold Froehlich |

=
>
3
<

NET)

ACTION SPEAKS LOUDER

Eric Lichtenfeld

In Dirty Harry Clint Eastwood says, “You
have to ask yourself, ‘Do | feel lucky?"
You'll feel lucky reading this gem, which
traces the history of action films. The mov-
ies, which bloomed from police proce-
durals, overlapped with other genres
during the second half of the 20th century:
Cowboy John Wayne played a policeman in
McQ, and martial artist Chuck Norris
shouldered guns in Invasion USA. Lichten-
feld excels at defining the connections
between action films and our social con-
structs about masculinity. The public's fear of
AIDS in the 1980s gave
rise to musclemen such
as Schwarzenegger and
Stallone. Once you read
this, action films will no
longer be just for viewing;
they'll make you scratch
your head. (Praeger)
yyy —Каіе Rockland

5
ACTION

SPEAKS 100018

UGLESICH'S RESTAURANT COOKBOOK
John Uglesich

Its one of the stranger restaurants in Amer-
ica (no tablecloths, lunch only, typically
closed on weekends), yet it's a destination
spot for gourmands from around the world.
Legend has it that Aaron Neville says
Uglesich's serves the second-best gumbo in
New Orleans (his mother's is number one).
The recipes here are wonderful, but this
book seems like a memento of a transcen-
dent dining experience.
The green tomatoes and
shrimp rémoulade you
make at home won't
compare with the shrimp
you'll eat in a ramshackle
building at the corner of
Barrone and Erato. (Peli-
can) ¥¥¥ —LF

ART OF MODERN ROCK

Paul Grushkin and Dennis King

This 492-page sequel to Art of Rock
includes more than 1,650 posters from the
past 15 years, from legends such as the
Rolling Stones to fringe acts such as
Nashville Pussy. Now that most people no
longer buy LPs, the music industry places
little emphasis on
covers. For that rea-
son, the poster has
become the medium
to explain what a band
sounds like. Music
has taken a turn for
the worse, but the
visuals are only get-
ting better. (Chronicle)
УУУУ —PL

SPECIAL

Las Vegas

Las Vegas is in the midst of a fundamental change. The faux excitement of themed resorts is out. Now Vegas is about elegance, luxury and
hedonism. Sin is back. The new Vegas wants to fill you with fine food, loosen your inhibitions in a designer bar, take you dancing in a packed
club and, as dawn rises, lay you down in a swell hotel room. All you have to do is bring money, stamina and your lawyer’s phone number.

4 1

One of the fastest-growing ді in America,

off the hook with high-end eateries—
nearly every brand-name chef you can
think of (Emeril Lagasse, Wolfgang Puck,
Tom Colicchio) has opened an outpost
here. Don't miss Michael Mina's Seablue
(in the MGM Grand, 702-891-3486). It
serves jet-fresh fish in a showy room; be
sure to try the tuna kibbe. Another good
bet is Bradley Ogden (in Caesars Palace,
702-713-7410). Оп many days, the steak
is flown in directly from lowa. You'll never
forget about the Italian food at Zeffirino
Ristorante (at the Venetian Resort, 702-
414-3500). Ask the sommelier to pair
one of its 300 wines with your dish. Carb
lovers shouldn't miss the homemade
pasta, and carnivores should dig into the
vitello alla griglia. For another breathtak-
ing glimpse of the Grand Canal without
leaving the resort, stop in for sautéed
foie gras at Lutéce (702-414-2220).

Quick doesn't
mean cheap at the Burger Bar (in Man-
dalay Bay, 702-632-9364). The Kobe beef
burger starts at $16, and the price goes

CASINO

“

ADVERTISING SECTION

up considerably if you top it with paté
or lobster. (To save a few bucks for gam-
bling, order the Colorado lamb burger.)
Elsewhere, Caesars Palace puts a nice
spin on the food court with its new

ypress Street Marketplace (702-731-
7686), where your food purchases—from
nine worldwide cuisines—are logged
onto a plastic card and totaled when
you hurry on your way.

The na-
tional food press regularly includes the
Thai cuisine at Lotus of Siam (953 East
Sahara, 702-735-3033) on its must-eat
lists. Dishes such as the ginger-steamed
sea bass will demonstrate why. Locals
have voted Ricardo's (4930 West Fla-
mingo, 702-227-9100) the best Mexican
restaurant 20 times since 1983. Its
margaritas and grand burritos are ex-
ceptional. You'll find a local Chinese
crowd—a good sign in a town full of
tourists—at Chow Cuisine (5485 West
Sahara, 702-257-8807), which serves
delectable dumplings in lotus leaves.

jough the Strip is lined
with fine hotels, the luxuriously under-
stated THE Hotel (in Mandalay Bay, 877-
632-7800) gets our nod for having the
largest standard rooms on the Strip,
amenities such as 42-inch plasma TVs
and snap-to service. The Palms Casino
Resort (4321 West Flamingo, 702-942-
7777) offers the best views of the city.
A portion of the floor at Ghostbar, a
lounge on the 55th floor, is made of glass
so you can look down into the pool be-
low. Spend the next morning relaxing in
the resort's 20,000-square-foot spa.

No question, the
Double Down Saloon (4640 Paradise,
702-791-5775) tops the list. Why? The
loony Day of the Dead murals. Enough
grunge to restock Seattle. The free-
spirited regulars. The killer jukebox.
And a full еліне set of drinks such
as the house specialty, ass juice (don't
ask). As for the bacon martini, you'd be
a fool not to try it, and you'd be a fool
to drink the whole thing. Although you
have to ring a buzzer to get into Atomic
Liquor Store (917 Fremont, 702-384-
7371), the bar's charm rests on the fact
that it will let in just about anybody,
including many lovable oddballs.

Teatro (at the MGM Grand,
702-891-7777) looks like a spaceship in
the middle of a casino. Inside, the atmo-
sphere is intimate, with sexy women
stationed at drink carts. The back wall
features a slide show of red rocks, with
the occasional female body contoured
in for good measure.

A truly top-notch
wine bar is one amenity the recent boom
hasn't brought to Vegas. But for a resusci-
tative side trip beyond the Strip, visit the
wine shop and bistro Marche Bacchus
(2620 Regatta, 702-804-8008). It has an
outstanding grape selection, which you

AFTER DARK

ADVERTISING SECTION

Las Vegas

"жай å

Vegas has finally restored its reputation as an adult destination.

å А
Vegas has по shortage of cocktails and cuties.

Vegas hotels such as the Luxor (below) are fit for kings and queens.

сап sample on the cozy back porch over-
looking a man-made lake.

This is another
category in which Vegas offers splendid
excess. If you want to dance, head to Stu-
dio 54 (in the MGM Grand, 702-891-
7254) or the new Body English (in the
Hard Rock, 702-693-5000). For an elegant
lounge experience, check out the amaz-

ingly designed Tabú (in the MGM Grand,
702-891-7777). And if you have Energizer
bunny in your DNA, don't miss Tangerine
(in the Treasure Island, 702-894-71 11).
The women

who frequent Bikinis Beach & Dance
Club (in the Rio, 702-252-8429) are
there to have fun without trying to guess
the worth of your 401 (k). It doesn't hurt
that the waiters—shirtless beefcakes
handing out free shots to the women—
help put them in the mood to get hit on.

Take your pick—
the House of Blues (in Mandalay Bay, 702-
632-7777, ext. 77600), the Joint (in the
Hard Rock, 702-693-5066) or the Rain in
the Desert nightclub (in the Palms, 702-

942-6832). Each venue is intimate and
offers a busy schedule of acts, from the
newest emo sensation to classic rockers.
If you have a hankering to hear the blues,
follow the motorcycles to the Sand Dol-
lar Blues Lounge (3355 Spring Mountain,
702-871-6651). The area that surrounds
it looks sterile, but inside you'll see that
it’s the real deal.

The Hard
Rock Hotel (702-693-5000) draws a
heady mix of visiting beautiful people,
local scenesters and free-range celebri-
ties. Gene Simmons and Tara Reid often
just walk around. For an offbeat choice,
park your keister at the Forum Shops
at Caesars Palace and eyeball free
spenders from every spot on the globe.

No one in town can
match the flower power, beauty or
sculptural—yes, sculptural—sophistica-
tion of Jane Carroll Floral Artistry (in
Caesars Palace, 702-866-1050).

For
getting around the Strip, especially in
traffic, take a spin on the new Las Vegas
Monorail. The five stops between the
MGM Grand and the Sahara put much of
the resort corridor at your feet. And at
$3 for one trip, $5 for two or $10 for a
day pass, it's cheaper than cabbing, (Tip: If
it's warm out, get a margarita Popsicle at
the stand outside the MGM terminal.)

Never exactly a
city of intellectuals, Vegas offers mostly
franchise-outlet coffeehouses. To see
the local boho crowd in repose, try the
Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf (4550 South
Maryland, 702-944-5029).

Here's a hidden gem of a
cocktail in a city full of trendy mojitos and
martinis: the couchette, a mix of Hpnotiq
and vodka. Sip one on the balcony of the
Risqué de Paris (in the Paris Las Vegas,
702-946-4589), overlooking the resorts
fountains and the Strip.

You can strain your
credit all over the Strip, but the best
place is the Forum Shops at Caesars (in
Caesars Palace, 702-893-4800). It has
excellent shopping for men (Valentino,
Hugo Boss, John Varvatos) and women
(DKNY, Gucci, Dior). A close runner-up
is the Fashion Show Mall (3200 Las Vegas
Boulevard South, 702-369-0704), home
of Neiman Marcus and Nordstrom.

Until the
city figures out a way that pro sports
and gambling can coexist, Vegas will
want for a home team. Don't worry—
boxing promoters fill the void. Many of
the sport's marquee matches happen
here, usually at the MGM Grand. If it's
a truly big fight, Hollywood tough guys
and rap royalty will be out in body-
guarded force.

Trust us on this one:
the Liberace Museum (1775 East
Tropicana, 702-798-5595). No, really.
Whether you dig it as kitsch or just
marvel at one man's epic indulgence,
this over-the-top collection of Liber-
ace's cars, outfits and rhinestone oddi-
ties will absolutely win you over.

BAWDY BURLESQUE INSIDE.
STUNNING STRIP VIEWS OUTSIDE.

A NIGHTCLUB WITH A STRIP VIEW
a
TREASURE
t
Las Vegas

21 with Valid I.D. • For Tl Room Reservations Call 866.212.8703 + For Table Reservations Call 702.682.6868 treasureisland.com

LOWERING CARBS IS A SCIENCE.
KEEPING THE TASTE IS AN ART.

LOSE THEØLARBS. NOT THE TASTE:
2.6 grams of Carbs and 95 Calories per 12 oz. is.

28 ;

Q"
|

MANTRACK

Extreme skier Mike Douglas 40 feet above Whistler-Blackcomb.

King of the Hills

The best North American skiing and the best XY-to-XX chromosome

ratio—all on one mountain

IF YOU KNOW anything about skiing, you know Whistler-
Blackcomb in British Columbia has been the hottest
winter resort in North America for years. This season the
party picks up more steam with 1,100 acres of virgin ter-
rain and a new Four Seasons hotel that will knock your
frozen socks off (book at fourseasons.com/whistler). We
asked ski bum and local legend Johnny Thrash to plan
your perfect day. "Start by skiing from the peak of Black-
comb right to Merlin's Bar & Grill for a pint of O'Keefe
and a shot of Crown Royal," Thrash says. Then head to

Whistler for some cruise-and-schmooze skiing on the
new Peak to Creek run, one of the longest trails on the
continent, with a vertical drop of more than 5,000 feet.
You'll end up at Dusty's Bar & BBQ for a Dusty burger and
another pint. For aprés-ski, head to the Fairmont Chateau
("if you're on an expense account") or Garfinkel's ("for
the drunk chicks"). Then it's dinner at Sushi Village and
dancing at Tommy Africa's. "Years ago it was 15 guys
swarming one barmaid,” Thrash says. "Now it's five girls
swarming every guy." Don't you want to be that guy?

Ski BIG SKY, MT: The West's best off-the-beaten-path resort Swiss on White to Go
Report has two new lifts and some new tree-skiing runs. Stay at

the Powder Ridge Cabins, a perfect romantic getaway. SWISS SKI MAKERS once owned the indus-
Where CRESTED BUTTE, CO: It's snowing money! New owners try. Just one company remains, but it's
to go are pumping millions into this winter paradise. a doozy. Stóckli's skis ($800 to $1,000,
and why WHITEFACE, NY: The hill with the East Coast's biggest stockli.com) are high-tech yet handmade,

vertical drop is celebrating the 25th anniversary of the
1980 Olympics. Think booze, bobsleds, snow bunnies....
HEAVENLY, CA: This mountain is getting a multiyear $30
million face-lift. Plus, you're in Lake Tahoe. You can prac-
tically take a gondola to a blackjack table.

with advanced laminates, special shaping
and old-growth-wood cores. A big manu-
facturer might turn out a million pairs annu-
ally—Stöckli makes 39,000. Get a set. It's
like strapping on a pair of Lamborghinis.

а: MANTRACK

5 о u n d f a 5 h i о n d e 5 і g n

i nat m karc
Keynote Speakers

A marriage of technology
and design starts with—
what else?—diamonds

IN THE WORLD OF HIGH-END AUDIO,
Bowers & Wilkins is known for visual as
well as aural innovation. This time around,
though, the revolution happens on the
inside. The successors to its widely beloved
802 loudspeakers (favored by such sonic
purists as George Lucas and Abbey Road
Studios) are the new 802D speakers
($14,000 a pair, bwspeakers.com). Capa-
ble of handling 1,000 watts apiece, they
feature enhanced midrange response
for home theater use, an improved
magnet/voice coil system for tight bass,
Kevlar cones, carbon-fiber woofers and
B&W's trademark: complete sonic isola-
tion between the low-end, midrange and
high-end assemblies. But the cherry on top
of each of these sundaes is the tweeters,
whose domes are molded from pure cul-
tured diamond. Like so many things, sound
propagation comes down to strength and
stiffness, making diamond a miracle audio
material. Plus, when your girlfriend asks
why your speakers cost so much, you'll
finally have a decent answer.

Clothesline: Think Again: the Sink

Eric McCormack

SO MUCH MORE THAN a place to wash your face, your sink
is one of the first objects you see each day and one of the last
you see before bed. Think how much more at peace you'd
be with an Italbrass Moody Aquarium Washbasin ($7,000,
homeclick.com) to calm your commode. If live fish seem too
high-maintenance, substitute a Zen rock garden or an idyllic
seaside miniature. Or get out your old action figures and
re-create the trash compactor scene from Star Wars.

HE'S NOT A GAY MAN, but Eric
McCormack plays one on TV. And
true to his character, the 41-year-
old Toronto native and star of
Will 8 Grace is quick to name his
favorite designer. “John Varvatos.
І love his colors, his unbelievable
fabrics and his unique style, which
always feels casual but looks like
a million bucks—put-together and
effortless at the same time. And
John’s a great guy. He gave me a
pair of suede pants that I've worn
only once.” So McCormack likes a
good suit, eh? “I love Armani or
Prada for a classic feel, Varvatos
for more fun and Dolce when |
want to cause a stir.” And when
dressing down? “My favorite piece
of all time is a thick gray sweater
from Banana Republic. | wear it
all winter long.”

einhausen
Since 1923

1 collect timepieces. When I
received my Steinhausen, I knew
from the look, feel, and quality of
‘the watch that this would be one of
my favorites. I have spent thousands
of dollars for inferior watches. It will
be my gift of choice this holiday season.
Sol $., Mt. Vernon, NY

ELEGANT

CROWN

MONTHDATE — 2 INTERCHANGEABLE
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So rare that only a Ned were made in 1923

In 1923, a Swiss watchmaker Ve the most advanced watch of its time. After 80 years, the
Steinhausen watch has fi inally been “reborn,” preserving its mastery of technology and classic design.
Once only displayed in high priced collections, this rare timepiece from history can now be yours.

S tep back in time to Steinhausen,
witzerland circa 1923. A master
watchmaker works for months,
ing to create the world's most perfect
watch. Finally he succeeds—the first of
its Kind to display the date, day and
month, and the only one to designate

AM/PM.
Collectors Pay Thousands $$$$

He makes a limited number of these
distinctive handmade timepieces, which
eventually find their way onto the wrists
of only the world's most distinguished
gentry. Today, collectors are willing to pay
thousands of dollars to add one of these
original Steinhausen masterpieces to their
own collection.

Reborn After 80 Years

Until now, that was the only way
you could own a Steinhausen, still one
of the world's rarest and most prized
wristwatches. But for the first time in 80
years, the original Steinhausen masterpiece
is now being painstakingly reproduced
for modern day collectors. Still manufac-
tured by hand, this 21st-century
reproduction carries the same graceful
styling and features as the original. The
scratch-resistant crystal comfortably rests
in a surgical grade stainless steel case and
bezel, which provides the ultimate in
precision and protection.

This handsome timepiece has been
updated with a kinetic automatic move-
ment that is powered by the motion of the.
wearer's arm, so the watch never needs
winding or batteries.

Hand-crafted Elite Movement

The Steinhausen movement consists
of 185 parts, that are assembled entirely
by hand. To prevent wear on gears, fine
watches use tiny gemstones to reduce
friction. The Steinhausen features up to 35
jewels, 15 more than most of the worlds elite
watches. The movement is then rigorously
tested for flaws and accuracy. Only 6%
of the movements made ever meet the
stringent requirements to be placed in this
noble timepiece, making the Steinhausen
‘one of the most accurate in the world.

THE STEINHAUSEN REBORN

Old world craftsmanship & new world technology

«Transparent rear crystal displays movement
* Kinetic movement - requires no battery or manual winding.

* 185 precision parts assembled
by hand.

( 2. * Interchangeable 825" leather
di
E)

black or brown bands.
{ - Handsome Storage Case.

B. - Polished stainless steel Construction.
+ Water resistant to 50 meters.

Kinetic movement..never needs
batteries...never needs winding!

THE HISTORY OF WATCH MAKING
E

hausan 1st Autom:
jerpiece movement
is created | in a wrist watch

1923

“FREE Thal Олег entes customers t receive ona of our
‘addtional charges (minus SBN Customers who elect to М
Selected echerin tul or tough avaiable payment options

Patek Philippe makes
first wrist watch

Lips produced the first
battery powered watch

‘he watch wl be bled the

-Perregaux introduces
Swiss quartz watch

966 Steinhausen masterpiece
1 is reproduced for first time

Adapted from Swiss Technology

A Swiss engineered movement
comparable to the Steinhausen has
never been produced at this low price.
Each watch comes housed in a hand-
some storage case and includes two
interchangeable leather wristbands in
black and brown.

$14.95 "Wear It and Love It" Trial Offer

Until now, most of us couldn't
afford an original 1923 Steinhausen. For
a limited time though, the manufacturer
has decided to offer this masterpiece of
technology and design to watch lovers
worldwide "risk free.”

In fact, they are so confident you'll
love the Steinhausen masterpiece, they
want you to try it on your wrist for a full 30
days for only $14.95 plus s&h. Experience
this unparalleled value for thousands less
than comparable collectable watches. If not
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Recording Artist

A new breed of digital camera gives
you room to experiment

JVC'S EVERIO GZ-MC200 (pictured, $1,300, jvc.com)
and GZ-MC100 mark the beginning of a new era іп
cameras and camcorders. Instead of using flash mem-
ory for storage, the Everios are the first snappers to
record straight to removable hard drives, giving you
an hour of near-DVD-quality video or around 5,500
2.1-megapixel stills, meaning you could take a picture
of your toes every day for the next 15 years. We have
faith that you'll find more interesting uses.

Class Ax

The Jimmy P

Les Paul—t

IF YOU'VE BEEN HAVING an internal debate about who the
greatest rock guitar player in history might be, listen to the solo
оп Led Zeppelin's "Since I've Been Loving You" and move on to
another subject. The new Gibson Jimmy Page Signature Les Paul
replicates Number One, the 1959 Les Paul that Page used on that
solo and virtually every Zeppelin album. Flip through any rock
history book and you'll see Page whaling on the thing, carving it
up with a violin bow, drenching it with his toxic sweat. The model
pictured here has been professionally “aged” by Gibson's cus-
tom shop, so it carries many of the same dings and scratches as
the hard-living original. The company released 25 guitars signed
by the rock god himself, and they sold out almost immediately
at prices up to $55,000. You can get an authentic, if unsigned,
version of this picker for just $16,556 and try your hand at “Black
Dog.” Don't forget to turn up your Marshall to let your neighbors
in on the fun. Go to gibsoncustom.com for info.

About Time: Carl F. Bucherer
This perfect Swiss model will look great on your arm

IF YOU'VE SPENT TIME in Europe, you might have laid eyes on a Carl F. Bucherer. The
watches have been around since 1919, but they’re found mostly on the Continent, and they
don't exactly come cheap. In 2004 the company finally invaded the States with select
watches available at high-end stores. This number, the Patravi Fritz Brun in pink gold, was
created to mark the 125th birthday of Swiss composer Fritz Brun. (Remember him?) The
chronograph features a perpetual month-and-day calendar and a moon-phase monitor
that lets you keep constant track of the tides. The cost: a mere $36,900. At that price,
why not buy two? More info at carl-f-bucherer.com.

When GEORGE SMITH
established THE GLENLIVET
distillery in 1824, his SINGLE

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Шс Playboy Advisor

І recently saw a vodka made from grapes.
I thought all vodkas were distilled from
grain or potatoes. What makes vodka
vodka?—K.B., Leavenworth, Kansas
Vodka is defined more by what it isn't than
by what it is. Other alcohols are classified
according to the ingredients used to make them
and sometimes the place they were made. You
need fruit to make brandy, sugarcane to make
rum, barley to make scotch, corn to make bour-
bon and blue agave to make tequila. Scotch is
from Scotland, bourbon from Kentucky and
tequila from Mexico. But vodka can be made
anywhere on earth, using any distillation
process, from any raw material that ferments. It
has been produced using beets, potatoes, sugar,
rice, rye, wheat, barley, molasses, fruit, whey,
corn, flour, say and rutabagas—each ingredient
is said to produce a distinct smell, flavor, after-
taste and burn. Ciroc (cirocuodka.com) distills
the grape vodka you saw, Vermont Spirits
(vermontspirits.com) has a vodka made from
maple sap and another from milk sugar,
and a Russian distributor says its Cannabis
brand is created with hemp seeds. Flavored
vodkas—a classification that includes gin and
schnapps—are seasoned after distillation.

Regarding the woman who wrote in 5
tember about her campaign to encou
ngle women to meet servicemen (Ope:
ation Take One for the Country): Ameri

havior. According to No Magic Bullet: A
Social History of Venereal Disease in the
United States Since 1880, during World

War II doctors and social wor!
quently commented that the profe:
prostitute had gi to the patriotic
prostitute, or ch girl. One social
worker wrote, “Girls idealize the soldier,
and many feel that nothing is wrong
when done for him. One girl said she had
never sold herself to a civilian but felt she
was doing her bit when she had been with
ight soldiers in a night.” The:
were also known as amateur g
wackies, victory girls and good-time
Charlottes.—J.S., Los Angeles, California
Why didn’t they mention this in history
class? We would have gotten better grades.

Why doesn’t my cell phone work in hotel
rooms? Given the prices hotels charge

Are you suggesting that a hotel would install
a cell phone blocker? No U.S. hotels have been
caught with jammers, but they do have incen-

tive: Profits from in-room phones have fallen
76 percent since 2000. One Israeli company
told The New York Times that it has sold the
devices to hotels and bed-and-breakfasts
around the globe, but it wouldn't say wher
Jammers are illegal in the U.
doesn't appear to be looking for them (it’s
busy chasing sex talk on the radio). It’s con-

ceivable that the walls of newly built hotels
include metal screens tuned to phone frequen-
cies or concrete embedded with electrically con-
ductive materials. But rather than actively
block wireless calls, hotels more likely just don't
do anything to improve spotty reception caused
by architecture or location. In the meantime,
can someone please install a few jammers in
theaters and restaurants? Several tech firms
are developing devices to block service or auto-
matically turn phones to vibrate or silent mode
within designated zones. The cell phone indus-
try isn't keen on the idea, arguing that the air-
waves are public property.

My husband loves it when I wrap a
strand of costume pearls around his erec-
tion and slowly unravel it. The only thing
we can think of for him to do with me
to slowly pull the strand out of my vagina.
It feels good, but I prefer something
more subtle. Any suggestion: .H.,
Elkhart, India

More subtle than pearls in your pussy?
That's a tough one. Your husband could
place a section of the strand over his tongue
and go down on you; you may enjoy the pearls
against your clit and vulva (gather and grip
the other end of the strand and you have a nice
bridle). He could roll the pearls under his
palms as he massages you, including running
them over your nipples and across the soles of
your feet or lightly spanking your vulva and
bottom. He could lay the pearls across your clit
and vulva, hold them firmly in place and touch
a vibrator to them, experimenting with speed
and pressure. When it's your turn again,
Laura Corn, author of 101 Nights of Grrreat
Sex, has this suggestion: “Grasp one end of the
strand in each hand. Slide it left, then right,
over his erection, spinning the pearls high and
low and fast and slow, so it feels like a hundred

ILLUSTRATION BY ISTVAN ВАМА)

fingers.” Add your warm lips to the head of his
cock and he'll be a puppet on a string.

е been in Baghdad for six months. А
in my squad told me he isn't going to
masturbate during our deployment. He
hasn't yet, and I don't think he will. Is
y?—].N., Baghdad, Iraq

He'll be okay, but we hope he has other
methods for relieving stress.

Giving the green light in September to
the reader who ted to hire a debt-
management service is like telling him to
set his pants on fire. Most lenders consider
credit counseling the equivalent of Chap-
ter 13 bankruptcy, which disqualifies
from getting a mortgage or refinancing.
Asa loan officer І also often review credit
reports on which a debt-management
service has missed payment deadlines.
These nonprofits mean well, but they
aren't the best option. —D.C.,
Scottsdale, Arizona

Noted, but not every lender looks at debt
management (which is impossible to hide on a
credit report) as a deal killer. Naturally, the
best strategy is to take charge of your finances
by negotiating where you can and by making
regular, on-time payments. Not everyone can
manage that. If that’s your situation, choose
your course carefully.

Your reassuring comments to the man
who would not swim nude because he
feared having his penis bitten by a fish
prompted me to share this cautionary
tale. While skinny-dipping in the Severn
River near Annapolis, Maryland I w:
stung by a jellyfish on the most sens
square inch of my body. I seta record for
the one-armed dog paddle to shore. The
pain and swelling eventually subsided, but
I still have a faint red mark the si fa
dime on the head of my peni
attacks may be rare, but there is good rea-
son not to swim nude at night in strange
waters —C.M., Richmond, Virginia

While researching attacks on the penis, we
found the case of a farmer in Brazil who was
stung through his pants by a scorpion. You two
should have a beer.

As one of those women who view giving
head as an art form, I take issue with a
few of the suggestions you shared in Sep-
tember about giving a good blow job.
Your source essentially recommended
that a woman make her mouth feel like a
pussy. But much of the pleasure a man
receives from oral sex lies in the fact
that it provides different sensations
than intercourse. It's good to swirl your
tongue at the apex of the upstroke, but
never neglect the shaft. A blow job isn't
a blow job if you sink only the tip. Rather
than two fingers, use your entire hand

PLAYBOY

and squeeze gently, like a pulse, on the
upstroke. See how he reacts if you turn
your head to the right on every down-
stroke. Don't overlook the rest of his body.
Caress his belly and the inside of his
thighs. Gently run your nails through hi
pubic hair. Stroke a finger along his per-
ineum. Continue sucking as he comes
and you'll prolong his climax. Take your
time about disengaging, and give his cock
a good-bye kiss. The look on his face will
be worth it.—/ Tacoma, Washington
Thanks for writing. We love your work.

I shared your oral sex tips with my girl-
friend but wanted to add one: If a woman
starts a blow job with her mouth, she
should finish with her mouth. It's not a
BJ if she uses her
hand.—D.L., Green
Bay, Wisconsin

You must be getting a
lot of action to have
such high standards
Our rule has always
been "If a woman starts
a blow job with her
mouth, God bless her."

In September you
discussed sexual ad-
diction. I recently
spent a month fuck-
ing my way across
Nevada, hitting
nearly every brothel.
When I got home, it
was like trying to
kick heroin. I had
to fight the urge to
walk up to every gor-
geous woman I saw
and offer her $100.
I blew $2,000. Next
year I intend to
spend $6,000. If this
is sick, I don't want
to be cured.—C.T.,
Riddle, Oregon

The need for credit
counseling appears to
be a recurring theme
this month.

prised wife. This little

most upro:
and zingers e

shows w

Naturally, LeRoy Neim:
on the Party Jokes pag
throughout. Hardcover.

As a psychologist
specializing in sexuality, I have many
patients with questions about their sex-
ual preferences and behavior. Although
some sexual behavior patterns have
addiction-like properties, no recognized
diagnosis of sexual addiction disorder
exists outside the recovery movement.
The term sexual compulsiveness is com-
monly misused to describe what is
essentially sexual impulsivity. Compul-
sions refer to repetitive, rigidly per-
formed behaviors whose purpose is
more likely to be relief from psycholog-
ical pain than gratification. They typi
cally cause distress and interfere with
functioning. In contrast, sexual impul-
sivity refers to a failure to resist desires

NEW! Behind every successful man stands a sur-

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r to appear in PLAYBOY magazine.
Compiled by the editors of PLAYBOY, this book
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that involve pleasure and gratification.
Thus, the guy who does not want to
curtail his enjoyment of Internet porn
is not the same as the guy who is mis-
erable and wants to stop but “can't.”
Both men may be impaired, but being
driven by pleasure is not the same as
being driven to reduce inner pain and
depression. Any pathologizing of sexual
behavior and desires must be done care-
fully. Chat-room sex, erotica, sex with
prostitutes, extramarital sex, masturba-
tion and fantasizing can all be labeled
abnormal, sick, addictiv
the chief concerns of men and women
who discover sexual secrets and decep-
tions is “Why?” They want cogent
explanations that their partners often

EDITORS op PLAYBoy

rat Nees

f whimsy is just one of

order to: PLAYBOY

Bruce Friedin, Syosset,

can't provide
New York

Peggy Kleinplatz of the University of
Ottawa and I have written about how psy-
chiatry deals with sexual concerns in gen-
eral and have particular concerns about
flaws in the idea of "sexual addiction.”
The criteria presented to the Advisor in
September by Dr. Aviel Goldman of the
Minnesota Institute of Psychiatry, which
include recurrent failure to control sexual
behavior and continuation of the behav-
ior despite harmful consequences, are
quite problematic. By those criteria, many
teenagers would be classified as sex addicts
by virtue of their masturbation habits and
their suffering from socially imposed guilt.

, etc. One of

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The problem occurs when people believe
that sex in general—the wrong type of sex
or the wrong amount, however they define
it—is sick and then look for rationaliza-
tions for their values.—Dr. Charles Moser,
Institute for Advanced Study of Human
Sexuality, San Francisco, California
Thank you both for your insights

I'm looking for a new pet. I've had cats
and dogs but want something cooler.
Would a pig be a good choice?—C.F.,
Harleysville, Pennsylvania

Sure, if you like bacon. That's a joke, of
course, because we know the owners of pot-
bellied pigs take their duties seriously. If you
want a pig, make sure it’s okay by local ordi-
nance and that you're ready to commit for
up to 15 years. Most
potbellied pigs weigh
90 to 150 pounds and
require room to roam
and a wading pool.
That's one reason so
many end up in shel-
ters. If you want
exotic, how about a
tiger? That's also a
joke, although there
are twice as many
pet tigers (10,000 or
more) in the U.S. as
there are tigers living
in the wild. The cubs
are cute until they
grow into 500-pound
killing machines that
require 10 to 20
pounds of horse meat
or beef a day. People
also attempt to domes-
ticate cougars, lions,
monkeys, bears, wolves
and alligators, which
is legal as long as the
animals aren't im-
ported and you don't
live in one of 21 states
with bans. If you're
looking for female
companionship, a
lapdog on a leash has
a magnetic effect on
women. We're not sure
ith a pig.

> request a På

what reaction you'd get

A reader asked in August if strippers
ever date customers. The chances of
hooking up with a dancer are slim, but I
dated a few before meeting one who
became my wife, so it can happen. The
only advice I can offer is to be nice to the
dancers you meet, spend some money on
them and don't treat them like sex objects.
Keep in mind that in most cases your
jealousy will shut down the relationship.
My wife quit dancing after we met—she
said she suddenly felt strange when other
guys touched her—but many women
don't.—F.B., Chicago, Illinois

Not treating a stripper like a sex object is
more than most guys can manage.

Women Are Always Interested In A Well Educated Man:

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During eight years as a dancer I dated
customers at every club I worked in. I
also met my husband on the job. He said
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THE PLAYBOY FORUM
WHO NEEDS RELIGIOUS MODERATION?

OUR POLITE ACCEPTANCE OF RELIGIOUS BEL
FORCES US INTO A TREACHEROUS POSITION

BY SAM HARRIS

ccording to C
А lup, 35 percent
FM of Americans be-
lieve the Bible is the lit-
eral and inerrant word of
the creator of the uni-
verse. Another 48 per-
cent believe it is the
“inspired” word of the
same—still inerrant,
though some of its pas-
sages must be inter-
preted symbolically. Only
17 percent doubt tha
a personal god has au-
thored this text or, for
that matter, has cre
ated the earth, with its
250,000 species of bee-
tles. If polls are to be
trusted, nearly 230 mil-
lion Americans believe a
book that shows neither
unity of style nor internal
consistency was created
by an omniscient deity
Given this situation,
we might wonder what it
means to be a religious
moderate in America
today. Many of us claim
to be religious moder-
ates, of course. The prob-
lem, however, is that
moderation in religion is completely without intellectual
or theological support. It offers us no bulwark against the
threat of religious extremism and religious violence.
Religious moderation springs from the fact that even the
least educated person knows more about certain matters
than anyone did 2,000 years ago, and much of this knowl-
edge is incompatible with scripture. Most of us, for exam-
ple, no longer equate disease with demonic possession
About half of us find it impossible to take seriously the idea
that the universe was created 6,000 years ago. But such con-
cessions to modernity haven't made faith compatible with
reason. It's just that the utility of ignoring (or “reinterpret-
ing”) articles of faith is now overwhelming. Anyone who has
flown to a distant city for heart bypass surgery must con-
cede that we have learned a few things about physics, geog-
raphy, engineering and medicine since the time of Moses
The problem with religious moderation is that it doesn't
permit anything critical to be said about religious literal-
ism. By failing to live by the letter of the texts—while tol-
erating the irrationality of those who do—we betray faith
and reason equally. We can't say fundamentalists are crazy,

because they are merely

practicing their freedom

of belief. We can't even

say they are mistaken in

religious terms, because

their knowledge of scrip-

ture is generally unri-

valed. All we can say as

religious moderates is

that we don't like the

personal and social costs

imposed on us by a full

embrace of scripture

Religious moderates

have merely capitulated

to a variety of all too

human interests that

have nothing in princi-

ple to do with God. Reli-

gious moderation is

the product of secular

knowledge and scrip-

tural ignorance, It has no

credibility, in religious

terms, to put it on a par

with fundamentalism.

Each text is perfect in all

its parts. By this light,

moderation appears to

be nothing more than an

unwillingness to submit

to the law of God. Unless

yu the core dogmas of faith

(і.е., there is a God, and

we know what he wants from us) are questioned, religious
moderation won't lead us out of the wildernes

Insofar as it represents an attempt to hold on to what

is still serviceable in orthodox religion, such moderation

closes the door to more sophisticated approaches to

human happiness. Rather than bring the force of creativ-

ity and rationality to bear on the problems of ethics, social

cohesion and spiritual experience, moderates ask that we

relax our standards of adherence to ancient superstitions

while we otherwise maintain a belief system passed down

from men and women whose lives were ravaged by igno-

rance. Not even politics suffers from such anachronisms.

Moderates don't want to kill anyone in the name of

God, of course. But they do want us to keep using the

word God as though we knew what we were talking about.

And they don't want anything critical to be said about peo-

ple who believe in the god of their fathers, because tol-

erance, perhaps above all else, is sacred. To speak

truthfully about the state of our world—to say, for

instance, that the Bible and the Koran both contain reams

of life-destroying gibberish—is antithetical to tolerance as

moderates currently conceive it.

Religious moderates can't fathom that
when jihadists claim to “love death
more than the infidels love life,” they
are being scrupulously honest about
their state of mind. Consequently, mod-
erates imagine that factors other than
religious faith lie at the root of Muslim
violence. They especially are beguiled
by the dangerous euphemism “war on
terror.” It is ironic that we rely on our
own religious dogmatists—men such
as Jerry Falwell and Billy Graham—
to publicly appreciate the threat Islam
poses to the world, while our newspa
pers testify daily to the fact that reli-
gious affiliation is the greatest predictor
of terrorist behavior. The next time you
see a 70-year-old woman from Norway
struggle to take off her shoes at airport
security, realize that in a world of lim-
ited resources their misallocation always
comes at a price. The political correct-
ness that is now the soul of religious
moderation may get many of us killed.

There are still places in our world
where people are put to death for imag
inary crimes such as blasphemy and
where a child's education consists solely
of learning to recite from an ancient
book of religious fiction. There are
countries where women are denied
almost every human liberty except the
liberty to breed. And yet these same
societies are acquiring arsenals of
advanced weaponry. If we can't inspire
the developing world, and the Muslim
world in particular, to pursue ends com-
patible with a global civilization, a dark
future awaits us all

Nothing is more sacred than facts.
Where we have reason, we don't need
faith. Where we have no reason, we
have lost both our connection to this
world and to one another. People who
harbor strong convictions without evi-
dence belong at the margins of our soci-
eties, not in the halls of power. We
should respect a person's desire for a
better life in this world, not his certainty
that one awaits him in the next

But religious moderates imagine that
the path to peace will be paved once we
learn to respect the unjustified beliefs of
others. This ideal of religious tolerance
now drives us to the abyss. As every fun-
damentalist knows, the contest between
our religions is zero-sum. Religious vio-
lence is still with us because our religions
are intrinsically hostile to one another
Where they appear otherwise, it is
because secular interests have restrained
the most lethal improprieties of faith. It
is time that religious moderates recognize
that reason, not faith, is the glue that
holds our civilization together

TORS WON'T TES

hen William Jackson Marion
MANA was executed for murder іп
W W 1887, his guilt seemed be
yond question, having been resolved by
a jury and affirmed by the Nebraska
Supreme Court. Yet Marion was inno-
cent. Four years after his execution, his
presumed victim turned up alive and
well in Kansas.

Surely Marion is not the only inno-
cent among the 15,000 people e
cuted in the colonies
and the U.S. since the
founding of James-
town. The issue in
the current debate
is whether any have
died unjustly since
1977, when Gary Gil-
more became the first
American put to
death after Supreme
Court-mandated re-
forms in capital рі
ishment. Not one of
the more than 925
people executed fol-
lowing that decision
has been proven in-
nocent—but not for
lack of trying. Identi-
fying a victim of a
mistaken execution
would have profound
political ramifications
in states where activists are attempt-
ing to abolish the death penalty or
reinstate

It's doubtful we will ever
William Marion. Dental X-rays and
DNA science have all but eliminated
the possibility of mistaken identity of
a corpse. And DNA testing is generally
done before an execution proceeds. In
14 cases it has spared an innocent man.
Once an execution occurs, testing is
another story. In at least three cases,
two in Virginia and one in Texas,
authorities have refused to allow tests
that might have exonerated an exe-
cuted prisoner. In one case, the prose-
cution argued that testing should not
be allowed because, if it proved to be
exculpatory, “it would be shouted from
the rooftops that the Commonwealth
of Virginia executed an innocent man.”

ее another

By Rob Warden

As executive director of the Center on
Wrongful Convictions at the North-
western University School of Law, I
have studied the evidence from hun
dreds of disputed convictions. We have
8 capital cases in which there is
compelling, often disturbing, evidence
that an executed prisoner did not com-
mit the crime for which he was killed.

The name the residents of Virginia
could well have shouted from the
rooftops is that of
Joseph Roger O'Dell.
He was executed by
lethal injection in
1997 for the murder,
12 years earlier, of a
woman who had been
abducted, raped and
strangled. Because
DNA testing was not
being used in 1985,
forensic lab could
conclude only that
the blood on O'Dell's
clothes was “cons;
tent" with the victim's.
(O'Dell said, and wit-
nesses confirmed, that
he had been in a bar
fight.) Following his
execution, a group of
death penalty oppo-
nents asked a judge to
allow DNA testing of
a vaginal swab taken from the victim.
Prosecutors fought the request, saying
that, besides the result's potential to
embarrass the state (an argument that
included the infamous "rooftops"
quote), the legal system needed to pro-
vide "finality." À judge agreed and
ordered the evidence destroyed.

In the other case from Virginia,
Roger Coleman, a coal miner, had been
convicted of the 1981 rape and murder
of his sister-in-law. As the execution
neared, Coleman's lawyers won an
order allowing DNA testing on a vagi-
nal swab. The tests were performed by
pioneering forensic geneticist Edward
Blake, who concluded that Coleman
was among about two percent of the
population who could have been the
source of the semen on the swab. In
other words, there was a 98 percent

probability that Coleman was guilty. That
good enough for Governor Douglas
Wilder. Coleman went to the chair in 1992,
proclaiming, “An innocent man is going to
be murdered tonight ght years later
Blake told the trial judge that DNA technol-
ogy had advanced to the point at which he
might be able to prove with certainty wheth-
er the semen had belonged to Coleman.
The judge refused to allow Blake to retest
the sample. The state supreme
court upheld the decision.

In the Te case, Richard
Jones was executed in 2000 for
the murder of a housewife 14
years earlier. The woman had
been abducted, apparently at
random, from a parking lot
near Fort Worth. Jones undeni-
ably had something to do with
the crime; his fingerprint was
found in the victim's car. Dur-
ing his appeals he said he had
only helped dispose of the body
at the behest of his drug-addled
sister, Brenda Jones, whose
boyfriend, Walter Sellers, had
committed the murder. Brenda Jones and
Sellers denied the crime. But two witnesses
came forward claiming that Sellers, who by
this time was in prison for mail theft, had told
them Richard Jones was innocent. Three
other witnesses said they had seen Sellers
with stolen checks and with blood on his
clothes around the time of the crime. More
important was the existence of evidence
that could be tested for DNA—cight ciga-
rette butts recovered from the victim's car.

Since the victim was not known to smoke
and Richard Jones smoked a different
brand, the butts suggested someone else

Clockwise from top
left: Coleman, Roberts,
O'Dell and Jones.

had been involved. Yet the Texas courts
refused to allow DNA testing. Jones went to
his death—the 141st person executed
under Governor George W. Bush—saying,
"I want the victim's family to know I didn't
commit this crime.” The butts have since
been destroyed.

Not every questionable case involves
DNA. In 1999 Missouri executed Roy
Roberts for the murder of a prison guard
stabbed to death during a riot.
The investigation of the mur-
der implicated two other pr
oners but not Roberts. Two
weeks later he was accused by a
guard who had neglected to
mention him in two written
reports. A prisoner and two
other guards also then impli-
cated Roberts. The prisoner
soon recanted, saying he had
been coerced. The other two
suspects, who did not testify at
Roberts's trial because they
were facing trial themselv
later insisted he had nothing to
do with the murder.

Given the many questions about the case,
Roberts would have been a strong candi-
date for clemency. But he was ultimately a
victim of bad timing. Shortly before his
appeal landed on the desk of Governor Mel
Carnahan, the governor heeded a plea
from Pope John Paul II and suspended the
death sentence of an admitted killer of
three. Carnahan, a Democrat, planned to
run for the U.S. Senate against incumbent
Republican John Ashcroft and could not

afford any more hits about being soft on
crime. Roberts went to his death

“You're killing an innocent mar

MYTH:

BIG COMPANIES
PAY BIG Т,

MARGINALIA

FROM A GUIDE

for sex-industry workers

prepared by the New

Zealand Department of Labor: “At a
practical level, occupational health and
safety means (1) making sure beds are
in good repair and give proper support,
(2) ensuring that outfits worn by workers
when seeing clients are comfortable
and do not affect posture if worn for
long periods, (3) supplying water-based
lubricants and massage oils, (4) ensuring
that workers have adequate breaks.
between clients and (5) maintaining
work spaces at between 66 and 75
degrees in summer and from 64 to 72
degrees in winter. In some rooms,

such as those where employees spend
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ing, the temperature may need to be
maintained at higher than 77 degrees."

FROM COMMENTSE made on CNBC

ica, in which she charged
that our

Olympians pictorial,
besides being “degrad-
ing to all women,”

could incite terrorism:

more set off by things like our decadent
culture. What these women have done
is incredibly irresponsible.”

FROM AN INVOCATION deliv-
ered by Michael Harvey, a member of
Atheists of Florida, at a meeting of the
‘Tampa city council. Three council
members walked out before he spoke.
Harvey had challenged the ritual as a
violation of the separation of church
and state: “An invocation is an appeal
for guidance from a supernatural
power. It is also a petition to positive
action on behalf of and for a diverse
citizenry. We invoke this council

and all of our leaders to be guided
and inspired by the invaluable lessons
of history, the honest insights of
science, the guileless wisdom of logic
and the heart and soul of our shared
humanity—compassion and tolerance."

FROM A
BILL intro-
duced by
California
state legis-
lator Loni
Hancock:
“This bill would
prohibit the mass
mailing of CDs or DVDs
to households that are assessed a solid-
waste disposal fee unless the recipient
is provided a postage-paid envelope or
similar return mechanism that would
allow the recipient to return the disc to
(continued on page 59)

READER RESPONSE

CHASING THE RAPTURE

As George Monbiot writes in “Political
Rapture” (October), raptured Christians
will have the best seats following the big
event. It is doubtful, however, that we
will be watching the calamities as if they
were a fireworks display. More likely,
glorified believers will be cheering on
the people left behind who have realized
their mistake in rejecting Christ. Our
purpose is not to rain fire and brimstone

on anyone's parade. But biblical proph-
ecy offers a lopsided advantage to peo-
ple on God's side. Most students of
prophecy look forward to the end-time
because they are eager to meet their
Lord and Savior. People who are not so
ligious-minded view prophecy as a
threat to their way of life
Yet there is good news of a temporary
nature for people such as Monbiot who
believe that many Christians welcome
war in the Holy Land or that God's pre-
sumed servants in high places are hop-
ing to trigger Armageddon. God has
already determined the schedule, and
no man can force his hand. We can nei-
ther hurry the coming of the rapture
nor slow the coming of those prophe-
sies. We trust God completely to han-
dle such colossal matters.
Todd Strandberg
RaptureReady.com
Bellevue, Nebraska

Monbiot could use a lesson in Chris-
tianity. Our beliefs about future events
come mostly from the Book of Revela-
tion, in which St. John the Divine writes
about the return of Christ and the end
of the world. There have been many
interpretations of his writings. Consider
this passage: “The locusts looked like
horses prepared for battle. On their
heads they wore something like crowns
of gold, and their faces resembled

human faces.” Some believe John is lit-
erally writing about locusts, while others
believe he’s describing men in heli
copters. The return of Christ has also
been variously interpreted. Some Pro-
testants believe Jesus will return to take
believers to heaven before the end-time;
others believe this will occur in the mid-
dle of the tribulation. It is up to each
individual to read the Bible and come to
his or her own conclusion. I don't di:
agree that George Bush has a pro-Isra
policy because of his faith, but I resent
the statement that belief in a coming
rapture is “an extraordinary delusion.”
Darin McDaniel
Grand Prairie, Texas

Monbiot's essay reads like an Islamic
tract when he writes that Israel and its
leader, Ariel Sharon, are tools of Amer-
ican aggression and Christian funda-
mentalists. It surprises me that this type
of propaganda, which travels fast on
the wings of oil money, would find its
way into Forum.

John Wolner
Forest Hills, New York

A PLAN FOR THE FUTURE

In September you wrote that the Proj-
ect for the New American Century's
report “Rebuilding America's Defenses”
was published in 2000 (“What Would a
Second Bush Term Hold for U.S. Pol-
?"). But it has its origins in an earlier
report prepared іп 1992 for then-
Defense Secretary Dick Cheney [below].
The more recent report includes a
telling paragraph in a section about the
need to rebuild U.S. fighting forc
“The process of transformation is likely
to be a long one absent some cata-

strophic and catalyzing event—like a
new Pearl Harbor.” Hmmm.

Gary McKeon

Rancho Cucamonga, California

A CALL FOR A TRUCE

You would think, in a country with so
ethnic identities intertwined, that
we would not have such a distorted and
isolated view of the world. Instead of
dropping bombs, shouldn't we be asking
ourselves why we are so disliked in the
Middle East? Many Muslims look up to
the U.S. but feel Americans look down
on them. They are angry because they
have lost their dignity in the one place
they feel at home. Muslims are also
angry about U.S. hypocrisy. You cannot
advocate the destruction of terrorism
while also supporting it. Israeli terror-
ism is the same as Palestinian terrorism.
Americans need to remember their own
history of revolution and the fight
against English oppression. Nowadays
“all men are created equal” has been
replaced with I, me and us, instead of
what the forefathers intended: we. We
must live together because the planet is
too small for us to live alone.

Tiernan Lee

Walnut Creek, California

MORE ON GAY MARRIAGE
I did not realize such ignorance
existed in this country until I read the
s about gay marriage in the Sep-
Forum. It amazes me that the
ез straight couples take part in
(e.g., anal sex, fellatio) are considered
deviant only when a gay couple practices
them. Religion is an argument against
riage only if you believe God
you on whom you lov
gays can't reproduce, but I know a lot of
straight couples who can't either and
choose to adopt. I can't understand why
gay people aren't treated with the same
decency and respect as anyone else.
John Schipper
Iowa Falls, lowa

There is a great deal of concern over
the rights of same-sex couples to marry
yet little discussion of updating laws that
affect all marriages. When are alimony
and the division of assets going to be
reformed? I may sound like a guy who
has been burned by an ex, but in fact
I'm just afraid to marry because of the
chance I would have to give up half my
assets and keep someone on a payroll
for the rest of my life.

Kennith Osborne
Johnson City, Tennessee

E-mail: forum Gplayboy.com. Or write: 730
Fifth Avenue, New York, New York 10019.

Did Police Go Too Far?

EUREKA, CALIFORNIA—In 1997 environmental
activists began a campaign to protest logging
in Humboldt County. In three incidents, pro-
testers locked their arms inside metal tubes, a
common tactic. In the past, officers had used
handheld grinders to cut the devices. This time
they tried something new: They held the pro-
testers’ heads and applied pepper spray with
cotton swabs near their eyes (the photos at left
were captured from a police video). If the pro-
testers refused to release their grip, police
sprayed the irritant directly into their faces. If
this also failed, officers cut through the tubes.
Nine activists sued in federal court, saying po-
lice had used unreasonable force. In the most
recent trial a jury deadlocked 6-2 in favor of
the protesters. An earlier jury had deadlocked
4-4. An attorney for the police argues that pre-
venting officers from using pepper spray on
nonviolent protesters is like “asking them not
to use a gun when they respond to a robbery.”

Dark Side of the Moon

NASHVILLE, TENNESSEE—A father who mailed a
photo to his ex-wife of their five-year-old son
mooning the camera pleaded guilty to sexual-
ly exploiting a child. The photo showed the
boy standing with his underwear around his
ankles and his head between his legs. The
father, a former attorney, said he had been
taking a playful shot of his son when the boy
dropped his shorts. He mailed the image to
his ex-wife, he said, to ask where his son had
learned such crude behavior. The prosecutor
justified the sex charge by noting that the
child's scrotum is visible in the center of the
shot. The couple had been in court over the
photo before. In an earlier ruling a judge scold-
ed the mother for attempting to use the image
as evidence of sexual abuse, which would
have limited her husband to supervised visits.

Gayer Than a Gay Homosexual

BOSTON—A federal judge ruled that it is not
defamatory to imply that a straight person is
homosexual. One of Madonna's former body-
guards sued a publisher after a biography of the
singer confused him with a man who is openly
gay. The judge ruled that because the Supreme
Court in 2002 overturned the last state laws
banning gay sex, calling someone homosexual
no longer suggests a criminal act. Not every-
one got the message. A North Carolina runner
named Chris Harbinson sued Outsports.com
because one of the 150 uncaptioned photos it
posted from its coverage of the 2004 Los
Angeles marathon was of him stretching.
Harbinson claims this caused him “extreme

embarrassment, public humiliation, mental
agony and damage to his reputation.”

Get It in Writing

LINCOLN, NEBRASKA—A former flower shop owner
serving 30 years in prison for the sexual torture
of a Texas man asked a judge to throw out his
conviction. Roger Van says the man, whom he
met online, consented to be tortured but that
the pair agreed not to have a “safe word” to
end the role-playing. The victim says he tried
to stop the game after the first day but that Van
wouldn't take no for an answer.

Popeye the Porno Man

NEW YORK сітү--Васк in the 20th century Mayor
Rudy Giuliani cracked down on sex shops.
Soon after, Disney moved into Times Square.
But the porn merchants are slowly returning to
the city, with at least 20 opening in Greenwich
Village. To operate in neighborhoods, 60 per-
cent of a store's stock must be nonexplicit,
which explains the rows of
nightgowns, vibrating toys
and golf videos. One city
inspector told The New York
Times that he refers to
these often dusty products
as Spanish Popeye because
he once visited a store with
12,000 porn videos and
18,000 copies of Popeye
cartoons dubbed in Span-
ish. Inspectors hope to
drive newer shops out of business by repeat-
edly citing them for minor code violations.

MARGINALIA

(continued from page 57)

the sender.” America Online opposed
the proposal, saying that consumers

are free to return its ubiquitous CDs for
recycling. It just won't pay the postage.

FROM A DECISION by a New York
City judge in a criminal appeal: “After
the jury delivered its verdict, Juror
Number 4 approached the defendant,
who was sitting with his brother and
his wife, and told him how sorry he
was that the jury had found him guilty.
The juror was unsteady on his feet, his
eyes were glassy, and his breath
‘smelled of alcohol. This is not the first
time a court has been confronted with
this issue. In Tanner v. United States
(1987), the defendants moved for a
new trial upon allegations that mem-
bers of the jury consumed alcohol,
smoked marijuana, ingested cocaine,
sold marijuana to one another, fell
asleep and were self-described as ‘fly-
ing.’ One juror stated that he ‘felt like
the jury was on one big party.’ The
‘Supreme Court denied the motion. It
ruled, ‘However severe their effect and
improper their use, drugs or alcohol
voluntarily ingested by a
juror seems no more
an outside influence
than a virus, poorly
prepared food or a
lack of sleep.’ This
court finds it repre-
hensible that a juror
would imbibe alco-
hol at any time dur-
ing trial. Nevertheless,

the defendant has failed to show that
Juror Number 4 was affected in the
performance of his duties.”

FROM THE TRANSCRIPT of a
July 2003 conversation between Kobe
Bryant and two Eagle County, Colorado
detectives after a hotel worker accused
the NBA star of rape:

DETECTIVE Lova: Did you ask her if you
could come on her face?

BRYANT: Yes. That's when she said no.
Loya: So you like to come on your
partner's face?

BRYANT: That's my thing. N Not always. I
mean, so | stopped. Jesus Christ.
DETECTIVE WINTERS: What next?

BRYANT: I stopped pumping and just
stood there.

Lova: And then what һај

BRYANT: Nothing. She was like, “Can I
have an autograph?”

WINTERS: I don't think we're getting all
the facts. I look at it this way: She's an
attractive young lady—
BRYANT: She wasn't that
attractive.

winters: Well, 259

thinking, 1 don't want to
do this. | think you

tried...you just wanted V
to finish

PEOPLE

Below is an exercise in transparency—consider it the ABCs
of secret codes. These encrypted programs hint at what
goes on beneath the surface in the world of warfare and
espionage. Breaking the codes may be the only option for
Americans who want to know how public resources are used

OPERATION FOOL THE

or years the federal government has relied on
E unusual code words to conceal its adventures. The
forthcoming book Code Names (Steerforth) blows the
cover off cloak-and-dagger nomenclature. Much of the
accumulated mystery surrounding government programs

serves to divert public debate and congressional oversight.

Ambient Breeze: Counter-biological
weapons bioaerosol detection system
wind tunnel, first built at a Battelle
Institute facility in West Jefferson, Ohio
in late 2000, culminating in the first
operational test of several biodetection
systems in April 2001. Battelle built a
second Ambient Breeze tunnel at Dug-
way Proving Grounds, Utah.
Carnivore: FBI e-mail monitoring
system that collects metadata on the
origin, size and routing of Internet-
based messages.

government program to evacuate key
government and military leaders.
JEEP-1 cardholders are provided 24-
hour helicopter transportation to
emergency relocation sites.
Jefferson: Research project, taken
over by the Defense Intelligence
Agency in 2001, to develop enhanced
anthrax biological warfare agents
using genetic modifications.

Just Cause: Panama operations to
expel Manuel Noriega, December

and what our true relationships and commitments are.

Pacific region airborne reconnaissance.
Nifty Package: Deployment of special
operations forces to Panama for Just
Cause, 1989.
Nine Lives: Presidential continuity-of-
government exercise ser
Technical
and Bel-
gium relating to the deployment of
U.S. nuclear weapons on Belgian soil.
Pinnacle Empty Quiver: Program to
report the seizure, theft or loss of a
nuclear weapon or nuclear

Clear n: CIA pro-

gram to build and test
foreign-designed biologi-

cal weapons, 1997 to 2000.

Cloudy Office: Exercise
simulating a pro-Iraqi ter-

rorist attack on the Office

of the Secretary of Defense

in the Pentagon, May 30,

1998. Involving more than

500 people from federal,

state and local agencies, it

was a follow-on to the Cru-

cial Office exercise.

Crucial Office: Pentagon

exercise simulating a hos-

tage situation in the defense

secretary's office.

Diamond Flame: Nuclear

weapons accident and inci-

dent training.

Dreamland: Nickname for Area 51, a
restricted location in Groom Lake,
Nellis Air Force Base, Nevada.

Dull Knife: NSA reconnaissance
project to monitor a North Korean
ground-based system, 2001.

Dull Sword: Flag word for a nuclear
weapons incident.

Glory Trip: ICBM test launch from
Vandenburg AFB, California in 2001.
Idealist: Early code name for Air
Force U-2 program.

Infinite Justice: Initial name for
Enduring Freedom in Afghanistan
after the 9/11 attacks. The name was
changed on September 25, 2001 after
Muslim scholars objected to the desig-
nation on the grounds that infinite jus-
tice can be dispensed only by Allah.
JEEP (Joint Emergency Evacuation
Plan): National-level continuity-of-

BY WILLIAM ARKIN

1989 to January 1990. It was the first
U.S. combat operation since the
Korean War whose nickname was
designed “to shape domestic and inter-
national perceptions about the mission
it designated,” wrote Army Lieutenant
Colonel Gregory Sieminski in “The Art
of Naming Operations” for Parame-
ters, the Army War College journal.
Lincoln Gold: Department of
Energy-DOD special operation capa-
bility involving the retrieval and neu-
tralization of stolen nuclear weapons
and improvised nuclear devices.
Lucky Warrior: Exercises to prepare
for combat operations with Iraq.
Marilyn: Intelligence “ferret” satellite
nickname, 1970s. Other satellite names
included Brigitte, Farrah and Raquel.
Nickleback: Emergency condition
associated with North Korea and

component.
Rock and Roll: Federal
government mass casualties
in a WMD exer
General and Bethesda
Medical Hospitals, Wash-
ington, D.C., 1998 to 1999.
Solar Sunrise: Series of
attacks by hackers that
compromised several DOD
machines. They occurred
shortly after military com-
puter systems were scanned
by an unknown entity that
appeared to originate from
the United Arab Emirates
as the U.S. was preparing
to take military action
against Iraq in February
and March 1998. Intrud-
ers penetrated at least 200
ified military computer
, including those at seven Air
Force bases, four Navy installations
and Department of Energy national
laboratories, and NASA and univer-
sity websites.
Surf Fisher: DIA-led program that
provided intelligence information to
the Iraqi military during the Iran-
Iraq war, 1987 to 1988. Formerly
known as Druid Leader.
Toy Chest: Highly classified Techni-
cal Agreement allowing the deploy-
ment of U.S. nuclear weapons in the
Netherlands.
Urgent Fury: U.S. invasion of
Grenada in 1983.
Yankee/Zulu: White House Commu-
nications Agency VHF network, used
for encrypted presidential and VIP
limousine communications.

Jamie Ireland is a
freelance writer in
the areas of sex,
fitness, romance,
and travel.

Hot Spot

Learning “The
Ropes”...

| his month 1 got a letter from a
reader in Texas about a “little

secret” that has made her sex life with
her husband absolutely explosive.
(Those Texans know their stuff, let me
tell you.)

Tina writes:

Dear Jamie,
Last month my husband returned
rom a business trip in Europe, апа he
was hotter and hornier than ever before,
with more passion than he has had for
years. It was incredible. He flat wore
me out! And the best part of all—he
was having multiple orgasms. 1 know
what you're thinking... men don't have
multiples, but trust me he was, and his
newfound pow! pow! power! stimulated
me into the most intense orgasms I've
ever had. So, before we knew it, we
were both basking in the glow of the
best sex of our lives!

We tried tantric stuff in the past, and
the results were so-so. But this was
something new and exciting, completely
out of the ordinary. 1 asked my husband
what had created such a dramatic
change in our lovemaking and he told
me he'd finally learned “the ropes."

On the last night of his business trip
my husband spent an evening dining
out with a Swedish nutritionist and his
wife of 20 years. The couple was obviously
still quite enamored with each other, so
my husband asked their secret. The
nutritionist told him their sex life was
more passionate than ever. Then he
pulled a small bottle from his satchel
and gave it to my husband. The bottle
contained a natural supplement that

the inside story on Gre at Sex!

by Jamie Ireland

the nutritionist told my husband would
teach him “the ropes” of good sex.

My husband takes the supplement every
day. The supply from the nutritionist is
about to run out and we desperately
want to know how we can find more.
Do you know anything about “the ropes,”
and can you tell us how we can find it
in the States?

Sincerely,
Tina C., Ft. Worth, Texas

ina, you and the rest of our readers

are in luck, because it just so happens
1 do know about “the ropes” and the
supplement your husband's Swedish
friend likely shared.

The physical contractions and fluid
release during male orgasm can be
multiplied and intensified by a product
called Ogóplex Pure Extract”. It's a daily
supplement specially formulated to trigger
better orgasmic experiences in men. The
best part, from a woman's perspective,
is that the motion and experience a man
can achieve with Ogóplex Pure Extract
can help stimulate our own orgasms,
bringing a whole new meaning to the
term simultaneous climax!

The term used by the Swedish
nutritionist is actually fairly common slang,
for the effect your husband experienced.
The enhanced contractions and heightened
orgasmic release are often referred to as
ropes because of the rope-like effect of
release during climax. In other words,
as some people have said, "it just keeps
coming and coming and coming."

As far as finding it in the States, I
know of just one importer—Bóland
Naturals. If you are interested, you can
contact them at 1-866-276-1193 or
ogoplex.com. Ogóplex is all-natural and
safe to take. All the people I've spoken
with have said taking the once-daily
tablet has led to the roping effect Tina
described in her letter.

Aren't you glad you asked?

йш) phant)
/

Jamie Ireland

NEW calif asin mher BED. =

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unes TOBY KEITH

A candid conversation with country's fiery rebel about his famous feuds,
his time with the troops and why people are surprised that he's a Democrat

At six-foot-four and 240 pounds and with more
than 20 million albums sold, Toby Keith is the
most imposing presence in country music in
more ways than one. Over the past five years
nobody in the genre—and few artists in any
field of music—has sold more concert tickets,
spent more weeks at number one, made more
money, garnered more headlines, become
embroiled in more controversy and gotten less
respect than the hardheaded Oklahoman.

In contrast to Nashville's usual pretty boys
singing other people's songs in well-pressed
shirts and spotless cowboy hats, Keith is a plain-
spoken maverick with a raunchy sense of
humor, an independent streak and a chip on his
shoulder. He has defied conventional Music
City wisdom on his way to 19 number one
hits, a dozen best-selling albums and unassail-
able status as the biggest male star in country
music since Garth Brooks, who petered out s
eral years ago. Keith is the guy who appeared
in TV commercials alongside Terry Bradshaw
and Mike Piazza; who famously feuded with
the Dixie Chicks’ Natalie Maines when she
lambasted his flag-waving (and, she said,
war-mongering) song “Courtesy of the Red,
White and Blue (The Angry American)"; who
got into a public spat with Peter Jennings when
Keith claimed the ABC anchorman didn't want
him singing that song (with its inflammatory

m looked on as being this outrageous right-
wing nut, but I'm a very conservative Demo-
crat. My dad was a Democrat. And one of the
last things my granddad said before he died was
‘Go cast my Democratic vote.”

couplet put a boot іп your ass/ It's the
American way”) on a Fourth of July special.
Nashville can't ignore Keith—he sells far
too many albums for that—but for most of his
career the city hasn't particularly liked him,
either. He was too outspoken, too contrar
more in the mold (philosophically if not al
musically) of outsiders and rebels such as

Johnny Cash, Waylon Jennings and Willie
Nelson. The city's disdain for its biggest seller

was made clear in November 2003: Although
he'd been the hottest country act of the year and
had garnered the most Country Music Associ-
ation award nominations—seven—he didn't
win a single one. The cold shoulder was so
blatant that Alan Jackson felt compelled to
apologize for his best male singer award, point-
edly commenting from the stage, “Га just as
soon hand this off.”

Six months later, though, something remark-
able happened. At the Academy of Country
Music awards show in Las Vegas, Keith
swept his categories, winning four awards,
including entertainer of the year, best male
vocalist and best album (for Shock "n Y'All).
The ACMs, the newer of the industry's two
big awards shows, finally acknowledged what
Nashville had been resisting for years: Like
it or not, this brazen Okie had become the
standard-bearer for a style of music that often

“We're going to Iraq for what? For terror-
ism? I haven't seen the smoking gun. But the
second I said I wasn't sure about Iraq, people
said, 'He's trying to save his career.’ What? My
career is boomin’, buddy.”

tried to put on a milder, nicer public face.
Keith, 43, who was born Toby Keith Covel,
grew up in the small Oklahoma town of Moore.
He followed his dad into the oil fields after
graduating from high school, working as a
roughneck until the bottom fell out of that busi-
ness. He tried his hand at semipro football, then
gravitated back to music, leading a successful
bar band for several years before Nashville took
notice. When he released his first album, in
1993, Keith seemed to be just another polite
cookie-cutter act. Not until Keith threw off the
conventional repertoire did he truly establish his
blunt, hard-assed persona through songs such
s "How Do You Like Me Now?!," "I Wanna
Talk About Me," "Who's Your Daddy?" and
"Courtesy of the Red, White and Blue." Along
the way, noted Rolling Stone, Keith "put the
grits and gravy back into mainstream country."
Keith, who just released his second greatest-
hits album, now tours constantly with a high-
octane, effects-laden stage show that may be the
most elaborate country concert since Brooks's
heyday. Writer Steve Pond spent a few days
on the road with Keith. His report: “Our inter-
view sessions always took place a couple of
hours before the show and always in the loca-
tion that serves as the nerve center for any
country singer worth his twang—the tour bus.
His bus is pretty standard: There was usually

PHOTOGRAPHY BY TONY BAKER
"I can't even fake it. I'm just straight coun-
try. They can’t even remix my singles and
make “ет sound pop enough to get played.
Faith, Shania and the Chicks all get across-
the-board play. I get just country.”

PLAYBOY

a guitar on the couch, a parade of crew mem-
bers and colleagues trooping through and a
muted TV monitor tuned to the news. Matter-
of-fact, a little guarded and clearly wary of the
press, Keith nonetheless can get rolling when
the conversation turns to his favorite subjects—
and politics is clearly one of those subjects.”

PLAYBOY: Can the latest reports be true?
Toby Keith is a registered Democrat?
KEITH: Yep. I’m looked on as being this
outrageous right-wing nut, but I'm a very
conservative Democrat. My dad, who I
wrote “Courtesy of the Red, White and
Blue” about, was a dyed-in-the-wool
Democrat. And one of the last things my
granddad said before he died was “Go
cast my Democratic vote.”
PLAYBOY: Do you usually vote
that way?

KEITH: Yeah. The governor of
Oklahoma's a Democrat. He's
one of my best friends, and I
did everything I could to get
him elected. The governor of
New Mexico, Bill Richardson,
is a real good friend of mine.
I've had some correspondence
with Zell Miller,

PLAYBOY: Miller is the Democra-
tic senator who gave the keynote
speech at the 2004 Republican
convention—not exactly most
idea ofa true Democrat.
People say, “You're one of
1 Miller kind of gu
and I go, “Yeah.” They asked
me to come to the Republican
convention too, but I think all
those celebrities who showed up
at Kerry's gig did so much dam-
age to him that the last thing
President Bush needed was peo-
ple like me flyin’ in there.
PLAYBOY: But you did support
the president.

KEITH: never thought Bush
is as right-wing and extreme a
people believe. He's a family
man, a Christian guy. The Re-
publican Party as a whole has a
lot of terrible things I don't
agree with, so I could be either
a somewhat lefty Republican or
a righty Democrat. I feel I'm in the mid-
dle. And I think the majority of people
feel the way I do. Maybe they're the peo-
ple who don't vote, but I think they're
in the middle. They don’t necessarily
support the Iraq war, but they support
the troops and feel we should defend
ourselves if we're attacked.

PLAYBOY: And that's how you feel?

KEITH: I’m pro-troops. And after a war
starts, I think you have to support the
troops. Now, I do think we need to find
something in the middle and defend
our country without running off and
bombing a bunch of people for no rea-
son. But you can't stick your head in the
sand and let your only means of defense
be denial. We weren't invading Iraq or

anywhere else when they blew up the
World Trade Center, so that had noth-
ing to do with why they blew it up. They
did it because they hate us. And the
people behind all that terror stuff, they
want Michael Moore dead, too, you
know what I mean? They want our sol-
diers dead, and they want the guys who
are pro-peace dead. There’s no differ-
ence to them.

PLAYBOY: Did you support invading Iraq?
KEITH: I’m pro-war on terror. Whether
we should go from country to country,
like with the Iraq thing, I don’t know.
I'm not smart enough to say we should
go to war every time somebody says we
should, but I’m not smart enough to say
we shouldn't be in there, either. Just

bases and to Afghanistan and Iraq. Were
you surprised by what you found?
KEITH: You think when you go there that
bombs will be going off everywhere, you
know? And it's nothing like that. There
were people in Baghdad shopping, going
to the market. It was bustling. And we've
got 20,000 troops walking around on the
streets every day, helping civilians. Not
that everybody wants us there, but a lot of
people do, and a lot of people are glad
Saddam's gone.

PLAYBOY: Did it change your feeling
about the war?

KEITH: It didn't change the way I feel about
it, but it did change some things. I learned
a lot over there. I think people have to be
cautious about how they get their news.
I'd always trusted CNN to be my
source and never really thought
about it. But now, to me, CNN
gives a very liberal, slanted view
of the news. I don't feel that Fox
always gets it right, but I think
it at least makes an attempt to
give me a balanced show.
PLAYBOY: Isn't it more accurate
to say that Fox is also biased but
in a direction you happen to
agree with?
KEITH: All I know is that I talked
to 15 or 20 generals while I was
there. I talked to the command-
ing officers and the troops, and
they all feel in their heart they're
doing the right thing. Who am I
to say otherwise? The one thing
the soldiers kept telling me was,
“Be careful where you get you
news, man. They lie, lie, lie.” So
I came back and started watch-
ing Fox, and it was more lik
what I saw over there, a more
accurate report of what the sol-
diers felt was going on.
PLAYBOY: The song that gave you
a reputation as a right-wing
nut, as you put it, was “Courtesy
of the Red, White and Blue.”
You've said you initially resisted
releasing that song. Why?
KEITH: I knew the people it was
written for—the military—would

because I don't think we should be at
war, or just because I don’t think the
math adds up on a certain war, doesn’t
mean we shouldn't go.

PLAYBOY: Sounds like you're hedging your
bet. Does the math add up with Iraq?
KEITH: I don't know. This ain't as simple
as Afghanistan. We're going to Iraq for
what? For terrorism? Have we seen any
terrorist training camps? I haven't seen
the smoking gun. And they haven't found
the weapons of mass destruction. But the
second I said in the press that I wasn't
sure about Iraq, people said, "He's trying
to save his career." What? My career is
boomin', buddy.

PLAYBOY: This past spring and summer
you went on a USO tour to European

love and appreciate it. But you
can't draw the line. You can't say, "I'm
never gonna play this anywhere except
when there's only military in the room."
And the second you play it for liberals,
they're gonna be disappointed or out-
raged or whatever. I didn't want to have
to deal with that.
PLAYBOY: Why did you change your mind?
KEITH: I played it about three tim:
six months. See, this is the part of the
story nobody even knows about. I wrote
that song in September, right after 9/11.
I wrote it, sat on it and then played it at
Annapolis. It was the biggest song of the
night 10 times over. Then about two
months later I went to the Pentagon
and played a show. And right in the
middle of it I gave them a little speech

I said, “This is my version of a patriotic
song. I'm the son of a veteran, who was
raised to appreciate the flag and all who
died for it, and I just want to give this
as a gift to you guys.” I played it, and
again people were crying; people were
throwing their fists in the air. And then
a four-star general came out and said,
“We need that song. Are you going to be
putting that song out?” I said, “No, sir,”
and he said, “Well, I highly recommend
that you do. We've got the best equip-
ment and the best fighting men, but we
travel on our morale, and that song
needs to be heard by everybody who's
going into combat > at the 11th hour
we cut it and released it, and seven
weeks later it was number one. And
then here come those people I didn't
want to have to deal with.

ncluding, apparently, Peter
Jennings. You claim you were booked to
play the song on a Fourth of July spe-
cial in 2002 but that Jennings wouldn't
allow it.

KEITH: Yeah. What made me mad was
that once he saw the public was out-
raged that the song couldn't be on the
show, he didn't just say, “We stand
behind that decision.” He attacked my
credibility and said I wasn't even
booked on the show. But there's indis-
putable proof. The last thing they want
is for us to break out a bunch of e-mails
and show 'em

PLAYBOY: What did happen?

KEITH: They asked us to be on the show,
worked out all the logistics, and then he
mouthed off and threw a fit. It wa
“Who does this Toby Keith think he i:
and “He's not doing this song on my
show.” They didn’t kick me off; they
asked if I'd do a different song. But that
song was going to be number one on
the Fourth of July. If anybody's tuning
in to watch a patriotic show and Гуе got
“Red, White and Blue” sitting at num-
ber one, what are they tuning in to
hear? You're using my name to get peo-
ple to watch your show, and they're
going to be disappointed if I don't sing
that. And I’m not going to look like a
fool because of you.

PLAYBOY: Did that sour your relations
with ABC
KEITH: Well, ABC talked to me later
about doing a sitcom. I said, “Are you
sure you guys want to pursue thi:
Because I done hammered your ABC
anchorman.” And they said, “We don't
like him either.” I guess he’s treated
enough people ugly that maybe he just
needed the right hillbilly to come along
and call him out on it.

PLAYBOY: The song also put you into prob-
ably the biggest country music feud of
recent years.

KEITH: [Sighs] Yeah

PLAYBOY: After she told a British audience
she was ashamed that George W. Bush
comes from Texas, Natalie Maines of the
Dixie Chicks said the song was “ignorant”

Ultimate Country Rebels

Toby Keith isn't the only one to get on Nashville's bad side

Hank Williams: the patron saint of
honky-tonkers everywhere

Crime against Nashville: Disillusioned,
alcoholic and stricken with back pain, he
was kicked out of the Grand Ole Opry for
his drunkenness and unreliability in August
1952. Five months later he was dead.
Legacy: He was posthumously forgiven,
because Nashville needed him more
than he needed it.

Johnny Cash: the Man in Black

Crime against Nashville: Fried on am-
phetamines, Cash ended a 1965 show at
the Grand Ole Opry by dragging the
microphone stand along the edge of the
stage, shattering several dozen footlights.
Legacy: Even though At Folsom Prison
was a hit, Nashville has just realized
Cash spent his last decade making some
of the most remarkable music of his life

Waylon Jennings: outlaw, highway-
man, hit maker, gun waver

Crime against Nashville: He broke the
standard Nashville contract, insisted on
reporting to execs in New York and once
threatened to shoot musicians who played
conventional country licks on his records.
Legacy: Nashville tried to forgive him—
Jennings had too many hits for it not to—
but he was too ornery to let it.

Merle Haggard: ex-con, champion of
the common man

Crime against Nashville: In his autobi-
ography he wrote, “When | think of the
people Nashville has destroyed, or tried
to destroy, it makes me kinda sick.” He
called the Grand Ole Opry “anonymous
bastards who don't know doodle-shit.”
Legacy: He's occasionally honored, but
mostly he is ignored and gets no airplay.

Steve Earle: beefy ex-con, recovering
addict and confirmed rabble-rouser with
five ex-wives and a gravelly voice

Crime against Nashville: The outspo-
ken Earle burned every bridge in town
with his heroin and crack use, his stub-
bornly noncommercial recordings and his
increasingly leftist politics.

Legacy: A total outsider, he’s the Michael
Moore of the alt-country movement.

K.D. Lang: Canadian lesbian vegetarian
who once claimed to be the reincarnation
of Patsy Cline

Crime against Nashville: Music City
turned its back on her when her anti-
meat crusade alienated a few too many
farmers and ranchers.

Legacy: She's been forgotten and for-
saken, not that Lang cares: Her recent
albums are pop, not country.—Steve Pond

PLAYBOY

and bad for country music. And then you
went after her as well.

KEITH: Yeah, I did. I disappointed myself
tremendously with that exchange. The
whole thing ended up a fiasco.

PLAYBOY: Certainly you helped make it a
fiasco when you put a doctored photo of
her and Saddam Hussein on the video
screens at your concerts.

KEITH: Yeah. She caught enough flak
without my having to be a part of it. I
felt like I lowered myself. I took the bait
and went down that road, to the point
where people were going, “You guys are
staging this.” And then when she wore
the shirt that read FUTK at an awards
show, people went, “Oh, we know it's
staged now.”

PLAYBOY: None of that was done for
publicity?

KEITH: We never spoke to each other, not
one time. I tried to say hi to her a cou-
ple of times, years ago. She wouldn't
speak to me. It got to be a big carnival.
And then one of my best friends had a
two-year-old girl who had a rare chil-
dren's cancer, and 1 came home one day
and got a phone call that she wasn't
going to live but about another week. 1
Just walked into my office with a big pit
in my stomach, and 1 looked down at a
country magazine, and there on the
cover it said TOBY AND NATALIE, FIGHT TO
THE DEATH, or something like that. And
it just about made me sick. I made a
vow right then. I said, “I'm done with
that. I may be stupid and let myself get
into other fights, but I'm not gonna be
in this one no more.”

PLAYBOY: Do you take any satisfaction
from the fact that the Dixie Chicks suf-
fered a backlash?

KEITH: No. The bad part about it is that
the Chicks were important. They were
different, original. They made great
music. But I think the American people
spoke. It's hard to love somebody for
their music when you don't like the per-
sonality behind it.

PLAYBOY: Was that your problem with
the Nashville establishment for years?
You sold millions of records, but you
rarely won any of the big country
awards. Some speculated that the indus-
try just didn't care for your image and
your personality.

KEITH: It's not that; it's their agenda.
Only a couple thousand people vote in
those awards shows, and the big record
companies control them. They give it to
the people they want to reward. And I'm
not their Nashville poster boy. I never
wanted to be that guy. I’m never gonna
be that guy, and they know it. So I'm
never getting the votes from those big
companies. I was like one for 35 or
something at that one show and three
for 40 at the other one. Nobody had a
worse win percentage than I did.
PLAYBOY: And then, last May, you went
four for four and swept the big awards at
the ACMs. What happened?

KEITH: The jester overthrew the king.
What finally happened was that the open
pool of voters, the people whose votes
aren't controlled by the major companies,
just reared up and said, "He's gonna win
something this year."

PLAYBOY: In a way, didn't you enjoy being
the outsider who was always snubbed?
Did it help drive you?

KEITH: Yeah. As much as I bitched about
it, it was kind of good being in that posi-
tion. If you win, nobody says anything.
And if you don't, people go, “How did
you go zero for eight with the year you
had?" It was cool that that was the head-
line the next morning.

PLAYBOY: So now that you've been ac-
cepted, do you need to find other things
to motivate yourself?

KEITH: Well, after a long enough time of
being overlooked, I've still got a bitter-
ness that's hard for me to get rid of.
PLAYBOY: The last time you got shut out
was at the 2003 CMA awards. That was
the night three awards went to Johnny
Cash, who rarely won when he was alive.
KEITH: That was the part of the night
that made me be quiet and go away.

I'll drink whiskey and beer,
but Pue never been a drug
guy. I'm not a good party
guy. I don't have great
conversations. I just close
up—paranoia and all that.

I respect Johnny Cash. I wish Cash
would have won 'em all. But it took his
dying to get them to recognize him. I
remember when Waylon Jennings was
inducted into the Hall of Fame and had
his big industry night, and he said, “Y'all
didn't want to give it to me then, you're
not gonna give it to me now." If you go
all those years that Waylon and Cash
went without getting any sort of recogni-
tion, why on the way out does everybody
want to prop you up?

PLAYBOY: Were guys like Cash and Jen-
nings your musical heroes?

KEITH: I liked those guys, but Merle
Haggard was my guy. Hag and Willie
were my era, and they were the two who
probably influenced me the most. And
to me, our industry is missing what
Haggard and Willie had and what Dolly
and Waylon and Hank Williams Jr. had.
They all wrote their own songs, they
performed, and their personalities
backed it up.

PLAYBOY: You don't see that in country
stars today?

KEITH: I don't think our industry allows
that today. Now it's a “Video Killed the
Radio Star” kind of thing. When some-

body says, “I found a great singer-
songwriter over here,” the record com-
panies say, “Yeah? What does she look
like?” They want to know what she'll
look like on video to make sure they can
market her.

PLAYBOY: You and Merle Haggard re-
cently cut a couple of songs together,
which will probably give him the first sig-
nificant country radio airplay that he's
had in decades.

KEITH: Same with Willie. When we did
“Beer for My Horses," Willie hadn't had
a number one record since the 1980s.
PLAYBOY: Do you think it’s right that
that’s the only way these legends can get
on the radio?

KEITH: I know they hate it. I know they
wish they could be in the mainstream.
But I get a lot of airplay, so to take
advantage of that and have them with
me on a duet really fills my heart with
joy. And listeners always come up to
them and say, “Man, it's really good to
hear you back on the radio.”

PLAYBOY: Is country radio selling its
listeners short by not playing those
guys more?

KEITH: No, I think everybody has a job to
do. They're gonna do whatever sells
tickets and advertising. I think the labels
are probably as much to blame for feed-
ing radio certain types of music. Why
should radio be the one to stand up and
say, “We need Merle Haggard"? The
labels are the ones who dictate what
radio receives.

PLAYBOY: You wrote a song called “Weed
With Willie” about your experiences on
Nelson's bus. We take it that marijuana's
not your drug of choice.

KEITH: It's not my bag. I wish it was, I
really do. It'd save me a lot of time and
effort from being really stressed. But I
get very sleepy. I’m not a good party
guy, and I don't have great conversa-
tions. I just close up—paranoia and all
that. It’s not my favorite high.

PLAYBOY: What is? Alcohol?

KEITH: Yeah. I'll drink whiskey and beer,
but I've never been a drug guy. Not that
alcohol isn't a drug, but it’s my choice
of stimulation.

PLAYBOY: You have a flagpole in front of
your house, just as your dad did.

KEITH: Yeah, but I've got a car dealer-
ship flagpole. I've got one of those big
75-footers out on my ranch. His flag-
pole was an old piece of two-and-seven-
eighths tubing that he painted white
and cemented in the ground. And it
didn't have a rope on it, so you couldn't
tend to the flag every day. He flew that
sucker 365, man. It'd get tattered, and
he'd go get a new one.

PLAYBOY: He was a role model for you in
a lot of ways, wasn't he?

KEITH: Incredible. He had so much
integrity and was such a John Wayne-
type figure. There are 10 command-
ments in the Bible, but he had only two:
lying and stealing. And he said, "If you

don't do either one of them, you'll cover
those other eight.”

PLAYBOY: A man who liked things plain
and simple.

KEITH: In my life he was the last of the old
school. I love old-school people: the
things they stand for and the way they're
so pissed off at the way the world’s being
run today. I love to sit around and lis-
ten to them. I think a little of that leaks
out in me.

PLAYBOY: Was your father the reason you
went to work in the oil fields right after
high school?

KEITH: Yeah. He was a 35-year oil-field
vet. When I was 18 there was no military
draft. If there had been a draft, there
was no doubt John Wayne would have
made me go.

PLAYBOY: And the oil field was a substitute
for the military?

KEITH: It was my way of finding a place
to grow up. The oil field is rough—
everything can kill you. You're working
around heavy iron, it's moving fast, it
can snatch you up, and there's blocks
and tackles and hydraulic tongs and
pipes spinning. There are a million ways
to get hurt, and every time you get hurt
you're gonna get hit hard. There's no
soft landings, no round edges. You've
got to dig in and be a man.

PLAYBOY: Were you playing music when
you weren't working?

KEITH: Yeah. I would carry a guitar

behind the seat of the pump truck
sometimes. And then on breaks and
stuff I'd pull that guitar out and work
on a song. Most times I just got laughed
at, you know? "You gonna sing us a
song, pretty boy?"

PLAYBOY: When did you start writing
songs?

KEITH: I probably wrote my first song
when I was a teenager, 15 years old or so.
And there was a little garage band I
joined when I was about 17 or 18.
PLAYBOY: Did you listen exclusively to
country music?

KEITH: No, I bought all kinds of stuff,
man. Al Green, Lionel Richie, Huey
Lewis, the Fagles, Bob Seger. I've always
said that if you sat down Tom Petty, Bob
Seger, Paul McCartney, Billy Joel and
me—if I was fortunate enough to be in
that guitar-passing party—and we were
all playing our own stuff on an acoustic
guitar, it would sound pretty much the
same. Aside from McCartney, it would
all just sound like American music.
And a lot of his would too.

PLAYBOY: When did you discover girls?
KEITH: I think in fifth or sixth grade it
was pass a note, hold hands, everybody
had to have a girlfriend on the field
trip. Sex and all that other stuff came
when I was in my middle teens. Sports
was so big in my life that I had girls
around, but they weren't as important
as sports at the time. But there came a

time when they were, you know?
PLAYBOY: Was football your main sport?
KEITH: I played some baseball and bas-
ketball in grade school but mostly foot-
ball. I played it all the way through the
semipro league, when I was 22, 23. I was
trying to get into the USFL, but it
folded, and I knew I didn't have a
chance in the NFL.

PLAYBOY: Why not?

KEITH: I was too big and slow to play line-
backer and not big enough to play line-
man. I was kind of a tweener. I played
defensive end, and if we were playing
somebody who didn't have big offensive
linemen, I played great. But once in a
while I'd run into a 300-pound tackle
and get my ass whipped.

PLAYBOY: Was playing in a band a better
way to make a living?

KEITH: Well, we got to be one of the top
regional acts. But I remember our first
gig outside Oklahoma. It was in Pas-
cagoula, Mississippi, and we drove there
in two pickup trucks with camper shells
and a trailer and about $200 to our
name. We got there, and a hurricane
had just hit. The town looked like a
bomb had gone off. They stuck us in a
hotel with no power, and that night the
National Guard came in and shut the
club down because there was a curfew.
The owner gave us $500 instead of
$1,500, and we drove all the way back
to Oklahoma. And I thought, Man, if

HOLIDAY
CLASSIC!

PLI

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PLAYBOY

that's the way it’s gonna be, maybe we
shouldn't be doing this.

PLAYBOY: You married at this point,
right?

KEITH: Yeah. I had two little girls, too.
But my wife was always supportive. She
laughs at people now when they say,
“Doesn't he work too much?” She says,
“No, he don't work enough.”

PLAYBOY: Were you playing original songs
in the bars?

KEITH: Sometimes. You know what's
funny, though, we played “Should've
Been a Cowboy" in the bars, and
nobody cared. Original songs in night-
clubs usually go over like a turd in a
punch bowl. We'd do a Garth song and
a George Strait song and a Bob Seger
song and an Eagles song. Then we'd
drop in one of mine, and all of a sudden.
the dance floor would empty. But the
second it hit the radio it was like, "Oh
yeah." That's the way people are. We
need to be told what to like.

PLAYBOY: Your career got off to a great
start with three number one hits from
your first album, but things slowed down
over the next few albums.

KEITH: Yeah. About 1995, 1996 and 1997
I wrote some great songs, industry-
choice stuff. People at the record com-
pany were saying, "These are great.
These'll take you to the next level." But
I didn't feel like they were me. They
weren't impact songs. They wouldn't
release the stuff on the album that I
thought would work great for me and
my fans. They said, “Oh no, those will
offend people." And I was saying, "But
these songs you've got here don't mean.
anything to anybody. They're just like
everybody else's songs."

PLAYBOY: A few of your early songs, like
"You Ain't Much Fun (Since I Quit
Drinking)," show some of the attitude
and sense of humor of your later stuff.
KEITH: See, that song got to number two
on the charts and stayed there for sev-
eral weeks. A few radio stations resisted
it. The second it didn't go to number
one, the record company was like,
"Okay, you got that out of your system.
Now let's move on." With the next album,
they put out three stinking ballads in a
row as singles. Two went number one,
and one went top 10.

PLAYBOY: What's wrong with that?

KEITH: Well, they believed that going to
number one with those singles was
building my career, but I was like, “You
gotta leave a mark." I left a bigger mark
at number 18 with "Getcha Some" than
I did at number one with “Does That
Blue Moon Ever Shine on You" and “Me
Too." Those are songs people never
even remember.

PLAYBOY: Is that why you left Mercury
Records and moved to Dream Works?
KEITH: It was do or die. I had the best
album I'd ever made in my life, and I
turned it in and they rejected it. We

68 меге at a point where I had an entire

staff that didn't believe in me.

PLAYBOY: That was the album How Do You
Like Me Now?!

KEITH: Yeah. I finally said, “If you guys
think this sucks, why am I here? Why
don't you just drop me?" Thinking that
was ridiculous, because all they'll ever do
is shelve you, make sure nobody else can
have you—record deals are for life and
a day, and they're never going to let you
go. But they got together and said, "He's
right." And they let me go.

PLAYBOY: Since then your albums have
been a lot brasher, ruder and funnier
than they had been.

KEITH: I knew right then—somewhere
around 1998 or 1999—what kind of
music I wanted to make. And I just put
both feet down and said, “This is it. Deal
with it." I don't know how many weeks
we've spent at number one with singles
since then, but it's ridiculous. More than
40 or 50 weeks since 2000 we've been
number one, I'd bet.
PLAYBOY: Your visibility increased tre-
mendously when you did a series of TV
ads for the 10-10-220 long-distance ser-
vice. Is it true that was the only way you

I finally told Mercury
Records, "If you guys think
this sucks, why am I here?
Why don't you just drop
me?" They got together
and let me go.

could get on TV?

KEITH: At the time my problem was that
to make it to the top level of our indus-
try you have to appear to the masses as
one of the all-stars. And our all-star
game was the awards show. If you're
nominated, you get to perform on the
show. But I had never been nominated
for a friggin’ thing, so I wasn't getting
any television. So my manager and I
made an effort to find some television.
And 10-10-220 made all the sense in the
world. I did eight or nine of those
things for them, and that allowed me to
reach the mainstream people country
radio doesn't reach.

PLAYBOY: Another way to reach a non-
country audience would be by getting
into acting, as some country singers
have. You were signed to DreamWorks
until the company sold its music divi-
sion to Universal last year. Did you ever
talk to the heads of the company—
Steven Spielberg, Jeffrey Katzenberg
and David Geffen—about branching out
into movies?

KEITH: I never met Geffen or Spielberg. I
met with Katzenberg a lot, but it was all
music-related. There was never an

opportunity there. When I signed with
DreamWorks I was told I was going to
feel the synergy, but I never even got a
soundtrack. Here we were selling 4
million records a pop, and somebody
wasn't sharp enough to grasp that they
had one of the hottest-selling artists here.
Why weren't they trying to create some
other ways to bring money to the table?
That didn't happen one time. No movie
offers, no television, no jack. I don't think
they had a grasp on what their music
business was doing.
PLAYBOY: Do you have any interest in
acting?
KEITH: You know, I've tried several times
to be interested in that, but every time
the right part comes along it gets screwed
up for me in the end. I've been called for
things, but ГЇЇ never read again. Because
in the end they're going to lie to you. If
Billy Bob Thornton or somebody shows
up with a part for me and I can just go in
and do it, ГЇЇ be there. I think my com-
mercials and my videos show I can do it.
But I'm not gonna go stand in line with
a bunch of people dressed like me try-
ing to get a part.
PLAYBOY: Do the mainstream media treat
country music badly?
KEITH: They do. I get treated pretty fair
at those all-genre awards shows. But I
watch our other artists, and I think coun-
try as a whole gets looked down on as
some kind of ancient pastime that
shouldn't be out on the market. It really
bugs me that country gets cast aside like
a bad stepkid, and country artists get
tired of getting treated like that. It's just
complete nonsense.
PLAYBOY: Have you considered trying to
make records that could cross over to
pop radio?
KEITH: No. I can't even fake it, you
know? I'm just straight country. They
can't even remix my singles and make
'em sound pop enough to get played.
Faith, Shania and the Chicks all get
across-the-board play. They get play on
AC, pop and country. I get just country.
And still, you know, I had one of the
highest-debuting numbers, first week,
over the past 15 years. Think about
that. In a day when downloading has
affected music by 30 percent, for a
straight country act to scan almost
600,000 units in a week and top the pop
charts with the great albums that were
coming out that week is almost impos-
sible. What would have happened if
there was no such thing as download-
ing? You can't even imagine what it
would be like if I was getting AC and
pop play.
PLAYBOY: Does downloading hurt you
much?
KEITH: It doesn't affect me the way it
affects the little guy. It bothers me that it's
there, but at the same time I've got
income in this business coming from
everywhere, so I don't have much to
(concluded on page 177)

Evan Williams.
Aged longer to taste smoother.

fl TERRIBLE BUSINESSMAN NAMED

HOWARD HUGHES

~became~THE MOST LEGENDARY
BILLIONAIRE IN HISTORY

Imost from the moment he arrived on the national stage
in the late 1920s as a young bumpkin millionaire,
Howard Hughes seemed to capture the American imag-
ination, and for more than 50 years thereafter he never
relinquished his role as the country's most legendary eccen-
tric. He not only dominated headlines with his escapades, he
inspired novels and plays; one movie, Melvin and Howard; and
at least half a dozen other films that never got produced, with
everyone from Warren Beatty to Jim Carrey considering the
part. This month, nearly 30 years after Hughes's bizarre death
in 1976, director Martin Scorsese has finally brought his story

to the big screen in The Aviator, starring Leonardo DiCaprio as
the enigmatic industrialist, giving testimony once again to
Hughes's stubborn grip on America. Throughout his life and
even after his death, Hughes was a man of abiding mystery. Of
the many questions that swirl around him, the persistence of
his legend may well be the most intriguing: How did someone
of so little accomplishment, personal charm, magnetism,
compassion and decency manage to captivate his country and
become an enduring cultural icon?

One hint comes from Hughes's roots. When he emerged as a
national figure, certainly part of his appeal derived from how

BY
NEAL GABLER

TIME!

Few men have manipulated the media as
skillfully as Hughes. In 1936 he made

a record-breaking transcontinental flight of
nine hours, 27 minutes and 10 seconds. It
made him a hero, and he posed accordingly
(top). Time magazine put him on its cover
in 1948. After his first nervous breakdown,
in 1944, he started shrinking from public
view. The bottom-left photo (1947) is one
of relatively few from that period. Another
breakdown, in 1958, forced him into almost
total seclusion. While no one is sure, the
picture at bottom right is believed to be of
Hughes during a 1972 stay in Vancouver.

quintessentially American he seemed and how much he confirmed his country's
possibilities. Hughes was one of us. His father, Howard Hughes Sr., though from a
privileged upbringing and having been a Harvard student before dropping out,
became a roustabout and roamer, mostly wildcatting for oil before finally making
his fortune fairly late in life by patenting and manufacturing a drill bit that could
chew through rock to the oil deposits below. The bit made him a millionaire. Howard
Jr., born in Houston, where his father had set up operations, was a neurasthenic
youth, shy and sickly, and an unlikely successor to his overbearing namesake. But
when young Howard's mother died after failing to recover from surgery and his fa-
ther was suddenly felled by a heart attack less than two years later, the 18-year-old
inherited the Hughes Tool Co. and the fortune that went with it.

His was an appealing story. A young orphan with money, he was a self-made man
once removed, and he looked the part. He was tall—six-foot-four—and lanky, with
a diffident air, and he was rustically attractive, a Gary Cooper type. There was noth-
ing dandified about him. In Houston he was obviously a catch, and he quickly
wooed and won a beautiful local heiress from the city’s illustrious Rice family, mar-
rying her when he was 19 and decamping with his bride soon after the wedding for
Hollywood, where the Hughes legend really began.

Hughes was routinely described as shy, reclusive and private, a man who ab-
horred the bright lights, so Hollywood would hardly have seemed his likeliest des-
tination. In fact, despite the image of reticence Hughes assiduously cultivated, his
decision to go to Hollywood betrayed the grail he would seek all his life and the
mechanisms that would help him get it. Money alone would have won him atten-

tion, especially when yoked to his homespun im-
HUGHES HAD A GIFT nett from the Southwest and made occasional ap.
FOR FATHOMING
EXACTLY WHAT PRO-

pearances in the society and gossip columns, but
he understood how paltry a fame that would be.
Above all things, Hughes had an intuitive gift for
fathoming exactly what propelled one into the
Barely 20, he decided—perhaps as compensation
PELLED ONE ШО for the attention he had been denied through his
parents’ premature deaths—to re-create himself as
а celebrity, and in doing so he provided a template
THE HEADLINES AND for everyone who harbored the same desire. In
effect Hughes invented the modern idea of
INTO THE fIMERICAN celebrity and then devoted his entire life to it by
making himself into one of America's longest-
running soap operas.
CONSCIOUSNESS Of course, in going to California in 1925, Hughes
5 was plugging himself into the largest publicity ap-
paratus in the world: the movies. Though he had
screenwriter, he determined he would be a motion picture producer—not only a pro-
ducer but, as he once confessed, “the most famous producer of moving pictures."
His first effort, titled Swell Hogan, which he was snookered into financing by a mar-
ginal actor-director named Ralph Graves, was so inept it proved unreleasable. His
second, a comedy called Everybody's Acting, made a small profit, and his third, Two
Arabian Knights, a war comedy, was a major success and won its director, Lewis
Milestone, an Academy Award. Hughes, however, got little recognition. “The sucker
with the money,” screenwriter Ben Hecht later called him.

With his fourth feature Hughes wanted to make a bigger splash. He'd had a long-
standing interest in airplanes, so he decided to produce a film about World War |
pilots that would feature dazzling aerial photography. Subsidized as he was by the
Hughes Tool Co., money was no object. Neither, it seemed, was discipline. Hughes
the film finally premiered, even recasting it at one point because he wanted to con-
vert the silent production to sound and his lead actress had a thick accent. (The
new role went to the then-unknown Jean Harlow.) By the time he finished, he'd
spent not only three years but $4 million, an unconscionable sum in those days,
and had shot 300 feet of film for every foot he used; the typical ratio was roughly
10 to one. The movie received a polite reception, with critics marveling at the dog-
fights, but that seemed beside the point. Hughes knew Hell's Angels was not so
much to be seen as to be publicized, or at least to have its producer publicized,
which made the runaway production worth whatever it cost. A film that would have
sunk anyone else’s career made Hughes a Hollywood luminary—the man who could
afford to make Hell's Angels.

By this time, his young wife, feeling neglected, had returned to Houston and

headlines and into the American consciousness.
absolutely no connection to film other than an uncle who had become a successful
began shooting Hell's Angels in October 1927 and continued through 1930, when
divorced him, but Hughes had discovered another surefire route to celebrity:

Hughes with (from left) actresses Ida Lupino, Jean Harlow, Ginger Rogers and Ava Gardner. The Spruce Goose under construction (top).

romance. He'd begun an affair with actress Billie Dove, who was married at the time
to a bullheaded, abusive director named Irwin Willat. It was soon common knowledge
that Hughes and Dove, despite her marriage, were an item. But far from scandaliz-
ing the public, Hughes's relationship seemed to tickle it. Whatever status he had
achieved as a young millionaire or profligate producer was elevated by his new role
as playboy industrialist. Eventually, Dove left him, after he had paid off Willat hand-
somely to secure her divorce, but again marriage, love and even sex didn't seem to be
the point. The point was adding to his saga and keeping himself in the public mind

Hughes could have sailed along, producing films and squiring beauties, and in
fact he did. Over the next 20 years his list of conquests would include Gloria Van-
derbilt, Ava Gardner, Ginger Rogers, Lana Turner, Linda Darnell and, perhaps most
famously, Katharine Hepburn, with whom he would fly on his seaplane to Long
Island Sound to skinny-dip. The problem, Hepburn later wrote, was that each of
them wanted to be famous, and the mutual determination doomed their relation-
ship by making it impossible for them to concede anything to the other. Indeed

Hughes, with his uncanny sense of how
to command public attention, seemed
to realize that romance was no more en-
during a form of celebrity than wealth
He needed more.

If the first scene in Hughes's life mov-
ie was of the naive heir, the second of the
Hollywood mogul and the third of the
romantic leading man, the next scene
was of an adventurer. Enamored with
airplanes since his boyhood, Hughes had
gotten his pilot's license when he was
only 22 and had even flown in Hell's
Angels. By the early 1930s he had
founded Hughes Aircraft to make plane

equipment, and he was having planes
redesigned so that he could fly them in
competitions. (He grew his famous
mustache to cover scars from an air
crash.) At the time, after Charles Lind-
bergh's 1927 solo flight across
the Atlantic, aviators were among the
brightest of celebrities, every bit as fa-
mous as athletes or actors and much
more highly regarded—a fact that
Hughes acknowledged by deciding,
after serious consideration, to forgo a
career as a professional golfer. Instead,
effortlessly turning from Hollywood to
the sky, Hughes decided to grab that ring.

With his resources it wasn't difficult.
In 1935 he set an overland speed record
for an airplane. In 1936 he set a record
for transcontinental flight, racing from
Burbank, California to Newark, New Jer-
sey in nine and a half hours, and then
broke that record a year later by two full
hours. But what really made Howard
Hughes a household name, not just to
movie aficionados and devotees of gos-
sip columns but to people across Ameri-
ca, was his record-breaking three-day,
19-hour, 17-minute around-the-world
flight in July 1938. Like Lindbergh in
1927, Hughes returned to New York a
hero, feted with a ticker-tape parade
and a cheering throng of 1 million—the

Hughes testified before the
U.S. Senate in 1947 (above
left) after being accused of
misusing funds during World
War 11 (the hearings were in-
conclusive). That same year
the Spruce Goose had its first
test flight (above). Hughes
had earlier been hailed as a
hero in a New York ticker-tape
parade after his record-break-
ing 1938 around-the-world
flight of just over 91 hours
(left), then went on to direct
1943's The Outlaw (far left).

first of several such celebrations around the country. Reporters commented on his
bravery and also his modesty. He became a homegrown Odysseus who had suc-
ceeded in spanning two forms of American veneration that had increasingly
diverged: celebrity and heroism.

As the new poster boy for flight, Hughes next embarked on becoming an air
industrialist. He bought stock in Transcontinental and Western Airlines, which
would become TWA. He began working on experimental aircraft for the military, and
when war broke out he contracted with the government to make three huge flying
transports, only one of which would be manufactured, and then a new reconnais-
sance plane. This activity constituted yet another phase in Hughes's ongoing life
movie. From a celebrity and a hero he had suddenly become a dashing entrepre-
neur. Put another way, he had in short order transformed himself from Don Juan to
Charles Lindbergh to Donald Trump.

In the end Hughes proved he wasn't even a Trump. Most of his schemes lost
money, sometimes enormous amounts. He failed to deliver on many of his defense
contracts, and he was forced to defend himself before the Senate War Investigating
Committee. When he returned to film production and decided to buy RKO Pictures
in 1948, he promptly ran it into the ground and was forced to sell it for a fire-sale
price. In later years he was defrauded of millions of dollars by a con man, dropped
$90 million by underpricing a helicopter he had designed for the Army and had a
judgment for nearly $150 million rendered against him in an antitrust suit involv-
ing TWA. To support his other enterprises, he constantly had to raid his profitable
tool company, until that too was drained.

Yet for all his incompetence, Hughes made his greatest claim on the American
consciousness as an industrialist in the early postwar years. If he was a terrible
businessman, careless and distracted, he was a good idea of a businessman—
intrepid at a time of caution, iconoclastic at a time of bureaucratic conformity,
flamboyant at a time of organization men in gray flannel suits. Men of wealth, power
and celebrity typically appeal to a certain vicariousness, allowing the public to tri-
umph through them. Hughes's vicarious appeal was especially potent because he
exercised his power so willfully and wantonly and because he seemed obligated to
follow no rules but his own. Hughes had everything. (continued on page 175)

“Short straw gets the ribbon and the diaper!”

ил уш;

77
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272707.
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Ny
N
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Have no doubt:
Jenny is back with
a vengeance

enny McCarthy has con-
quered a lot of territory since
the 32-year-old Chicago
native became our Playmate
of the Year in 1994. Guys lined up
to be harangued by her on Singles
Qut. Then she created a self-titled
comedy show for MTV, had recur-
ring roles on series such as Just
Shoot Me and spoofed herself in
Scream 3. She also somehow found
time to get married and have a kid.
Those in need of a new Jenny fix—
and who isn't?—relish her return to
the small screen on UPN's The Bad
Girl's Guide, based on the popular
book series. She'll be back on the
big screen as well, in Dirty Love,
directed by hubby John Mallory
Asher, and the Swingers-esque
Cattla.Call. While pregnant with her
son, Evan, Jenny wrote her hilarious
best-seller, Belly Laughs, which ex-
poses the untold side of pregnancy.
"remembered all the books I read,
and I thought, Damn it, everybody
lied,” she says, “1 was notin the
mood for sex for at least elgh
months after,” She says. “It took that! "
much time and a naughty weekend
in Vegas, arid now I'm back with a
vengeance. !t came down to letting
go and having fun with my husband,
So | could say, ‘Hey, let's play some
blackjack and—ooh, let's go up to
the room, and I'll give you a blow
job. Now that I'm іп my 30s, 1 feel ?
Sexier than ever. I'm so happy tobe e
able to pose again and show off my 7
stuff after being а mom.” Would she
like to clear up any misconcep-
tions? “I'm not scandalous,” һе |
says. “I never got busted for dru;
or married a rock star. I'm just a fog
cused, hardworking girl. Now that!
say that, I'll probably get arrested
tor public indecency this weekend f

PHOTOGRAPHY BY STEPHEN WAYDA

Hard to believe, but it’s
been a decade since super-
Playmate Jenny first posed
for PLAYBOY. “I'll take any-
thing that has super in front
of it—except superslut," she
says. For her return, Jenny
wanted to be photographed
at Elvis's honeymoon house
in Palm Springs. "After turn-
ing 30, | feel more comfort-
able in my skin and with my
sexuality," she says. "| was
kind of scared the first time |
posed, and | cried in the
bathroom. This time | had a
lot of fun being naked and
naughty during it."

ЖЖС. 83
See Jennys original Playmate pictorial at cyber. playboy.com.

DIGGING UP
PRIVATE RYAN

FICTION BY
"^ CHRISTOPHER
| - BUCKLEY

It was PR man Rick
“the Fox” Renard’s
toughest job yet: Make

France look good. Merde!

O ne day a few months ago I was
in my Washington, D.C. office
when my assistant, LaMoyne,
buzzed to say that the French ambas-
sador wanted to see me. LaMoyne is
highly efficient but a bit of a snob, so
even he was impressed. The client list
of my firm, Renard International
Strategic Communications, tends
toward the less upscale. (I don't like the
terms disreputable or criminal element.)

I took the call and within an hour
found myself in the office of Jean-
Frangois Foussee, French ambassador
to the United States. Whatever else
you may think about the French, their
diplomats are as polished as a chrome-
plated trailer hitch.

“Renard,” he said, rolling my sur-
name around like a mouthful of Mon-
trachet. “It is a French name?”

“Huguenot,” I replied, lighting a cig-
arette. If you can’t smoke in the French
embassy, where can you? “My ancestors
came over after the St. Bartholomew's
Day Massacre. Nasty business.”

To be honest—and in my line of work
I don't get to be very often—I have no
idea when the first Renard set foot on
American soil. But when Rick Renard is
in hot pursuit of a new client, truth is
only another word for obstacle.

He handed me that day's Washington
Post. There was a front-page headline:
DIGGING UP PRIVATE RYAN. A Florida con-
gresswoman had introduced a bill in
the U.S. House of Representatives to
allow American World War II soldiers
buried in France to be disinterred and
reburied back home. Relations between
the U.S. and la belle France had deterio-
rated somewhat as a result of French
opposition to the Iraq war.

The article noted that the congress-
woman's bill was attracting co-sponsors
faster than flies on merde, including one
senator who was running for president.

I pursed my lips thoughtfully to con-
vey to His Excellency that Rick Renard
was the answer to his problems.

“May I be frank?” he said.

"If a Frenchman can't be frank——"

“Ah, very good. En tous cas, if the

PLAYBOY

American Congress wants to make a
spectacle of itself, then it is not for
France to stand in the way. If it wants to
turn the Normandy cemetery into a
field of gopher holes, well, that is very
sad—for the soldiers, for everyone,
including France. It is sad for the mem-
ory of Lafayette.”

I lit another cigarette in anticipation
ofa long lecture on how America would
never have won independence from
England if it hadn't been for France.
I'm no historian, but my understanding
is that the French came to our aid not
to promote democracy in the New
World but to punish the Brits, their age-
old nemesis, for kicking their derriere
in the French and Indian Wars.

“For my part, personally,” said His
Excellency, “if you want to dig up your
dead soldiers, fine. We can use the
space for a golf course. Or a casino. At
this point we are out of patience with
the proposition that we must do any-
thing America wants simply because
you intervened in World War II. Okay.
We helped with your revolution; you
helped us with our little problem in the
1940s. So we're even, yes?”

There's nothing more refreshing
than an indignant Frenchman.

He leaned back and made a Notre
Dame steeple with his fingers. “Natu-
rally, this is not an opinion you will hear
me expressing on the TV. But here is
the pressing problem: France is about to
sell billions of dollars of airplanes to var-
ious U.S. airline companies, most of
which are going bankrupt.” He picked
up the newspaper. “But if this grotes-
querie becomes a reality and the TV is
suddenly showing pictures of American
coffins being dug up and shipped back
home, ooh-la-la, there is going to be a
huge anti-French sentiment, and there
will be enormous political pressure not to
buy our airplanes and instead to give
subsidies and tax breaks to the U.S. car-
riers to buy American planes.”

He sat back as if exhausted by all
this candor.

“Yes,” I said, “that's probably how
this would play out.”

“So we must find a way. Renard
means ‘fox.’” He smiled. “You must be
the fox for us.”

“May I speak frankly, Mr. Ambas-
sador?”

“But of course.”

“Reversing anti-French sentiment,
that’s not going to be easy.”

“Yes, Mr. Renard, I understand you
will need a lot of money. That is entendu.
That is not going to be a problem.”

Say what you will about the French,
they and I understand each other.

At the door he said, “You remember
Voltaire's prayer?”

“Remind me,” I said.

“Oh Lord, make my enemies ridicu-
lous.”

LaMoyne hadn't been this excited
since I was covertly hired to try to get
an American cardinal elected pope. He
began dropping Gallic phrases around
the office and showing up with French
books, including the recent best-seller
alleging that no plane had flown into
the Pentagon on 9/11, that it was all a
hoax by the U.S. government.

"We're trying to improve relations
with France, LaMoyne.”

“Don't you want to know what the
other side is thinking? And by the way,
the author is writing a sequel. It’s
about how the Normandy invasion
never took place.”

"It'll be huge, I’m sure.”

“I read a chapter of it in Le Hebdo de
Déconstruction.”

“What are you talking about?”

“I forgot you don't read French,” he
sniffed. "It's an intellectual quarterly.
Not your thing. He's serializing the
new book in it. The amazing thing is,
it's convincing."

New York-bound Air
France flights were diverted
to Montreal by air traffic
controllers, and the city
council of Des Moines voted
to rename the city.

I want to fire LaMoyne three or four
times a day, but he's too good to let go.

“That's a promising start,” I said.
"Why don't we mount a media cam-
paign saying there wasn't a Normandy
invasion in 1944, so there's no Private
Ryan to dig up. Brilliant. Bring me a
grande latte. And if I catch you smok-
ing Gauloises, you're fired."

You have to assert yourself with a
LaMoyne every now and then. They
get ideas.

If you've represented such clients as
the government of North Korea, the
Mink Ranchers Association, the Ozone
Manufacturers of North America, the
National Unlicensed Pistol Owners
Coalition and various Hollywood
celebrities who have murdered spouses
and bystanders, making France look
good shouldn't be all that hard.

And yet, after I did a tour d'horizon of
U.S. sentiment toward our erstwhile
ally, it was clear that Rick “the Fox"
Renard had his work cut out for him.
"There was not a lot of hugging going on
between the two countries. Wine store

owners were pouring champagne into
our gutters; American tourists were
staying away in droves; McDonald's had
officially changed the name of its fries
to the English-sounding “chips”; New
York-bound Air France flights were
routinely being diverted to Montreal by
jingoistic U.S. air traffic controllers for
petty reasons; the city council of Des
Moines, Iowa had voted to rename the
city the Monks; and the Rotary Club
and the Kiwanis were sponsoring Anti-
French Bowling Nights, during which
the pins were painted with the like-
nesses of various French officials. Mean-
while, the Florida congresswoman's bill
to repatriate the remains of Private
Ryan now had more sponsors than an
Indy 500 Formula One.

I do a bit of teaching at the George-
town University School of Advanced
Spin, and I tell my graduate students
that if you can't make the bad guys look
good, make the good guys look bad. 1s
this ethical? I'll leave that to the naysay-
ers and second-guessers who have the
luxury of sitting on the sidelines. As
Lyndon Baines Johnson—one of my
first heroes in this business—used to say,
“Better to have him inside the tent piss-
ing out than outside pissing in.”

LaMoyne and I war-gamed late into
the night, soaking the old gray matter
in coffee and pumping up the meta-
bolic rate with nicotine. Say what you
will about cigarettes and the so-called
health issue (I used to represent the
tobacco industry), if there’s better brain
food than caffeine and nicotine, I'd
love to hear about it.

By four A.M. the air inside the con-
ference room would have killed a
sparrow in midflight. We had the
thousand-yard stares common to des-
perate PR men. But I've found that
the best ideas often come around four
A.M. if they're going to come at all.
And sure enough, it was 3:56 A.M. by
the digital clock when I had my
eureka moment. Even LaMoyne was
impressed, always a good sign.

The next day I presented myself in the
office of U.S. Senator Karl Klemmer
Kilbreath. How a man with those initials
managed to get himself elected gover-
nor and later senator for life of a state
in the Deep South is one of the great
stories in American political life. At any
rate, half a century after he ran for
president on a platform of restoring
slavery, old Karl adapted to the times.
He married his extremely attractive
African American chief of staff—a
woman 40 years his junior—had three
children and ended up a champion of
civil rights. As Yogi Berra said upon
being informed that a Jewish man had

(continued on page 170)

“Did you ever go up in an elevator and forget what you went up for?”

ION BY JOSEPH DE ACETIS

SPIKE IS IN A
VELVET JACKET.

($2,350), PAISLEY
[4 SHIRT ($1,160) AND
; PANTS ($705),
ALL BY VERSACE.
HIS SHOES ARE BY E |

MEZLAN ($175),

PANTS ($90) ARE
ALL BY MARC ECKO
cee ro COLLECTION. HIS —
ES m d
JOHN хова gs қ
rim к

PHOTOGRAPHY BY TIMOTHY WHITE / PRODUCED BY JENNIFER RYAN JONES / WOMEN'S STYLING BY MERIEM ORLET
PHOTOGRAPHED AT OHEKA CASTLE, HUNTINGTON, NEW YORK

Formalwear has it all.

It allows you to

show deference

to your host and

send a bold message:

Рт the Man

PLAYBOY

AND A SHIRT ($185)

AND TIE ($95)
BY ALEXANDER
JULIAN PRIVATE

RESERVE.
>

PP ңы

SPEX IS IN A TUX
($1,295) AND SHIRT
($185) BY ARNOLD
BRANT, A POCKET
SQUARE ($65) AND
TIE ($110) BY ROBERT
TALBOTT AND
SHOES BY FRATELLI

ROSSETTI ($395).

BY STUART WEITZMAN
THONG BY NINA RICCI (5115), BOTH |

LUCKY IS INA TUX
($1,535), SHIRT ($410)

AND BELT ($300) BY.

RICHMOND X UOMO
AND SHOES BY
FRATELLI ROSSETTI
($395). SMOKEY IS
IN A JACKET ($718),
SHIRT ($750) AND
PANTS ($220) BY
VALENTINO. BOTH
POCKET SQUARES
ARE BY ROBERT
TALBOTT ($65).

JACKPOT WEARS
A TUXEDO BY
TURNBULL £ ASSER
($2,895). HIS SHIRT
($225) AND CUMMER-
BUND AND TIE SET
($245) ARE BY
ROBERT TALBOTT.

THIS PAGE: DRESS AT LEFT BY BINETTI ($690); DRESS AT RIGHT BY
HOUSE OF DIEHL VINTAGE COLLECTION ($2,400). THAT PAGE: DRESS
BY VALENTINO (82,150) AND NECKLACE BY TEMPLE ST. CLAIR ($2,000).

MR. GENEROUS,
AT LEFT, IS IN
A TUX BY LUBIAM
1911 ($995) AND
CUFF LINKS BY JAN
LESLIE ($250). BEN
E. FICIARY IS IN A
TUX ($2,500) AND
SHIRT ($595) BY
MOSCHINO. BOTH
TIES ($85) AND
POCKET SQUARES
($65) ARE BY
ROBERT TALBOTT.

ANGELINA'S WEARING
A JACQUARD TUX
JACKET ($1,095) AND

ч 4 CREPE PANTS ($350)

> BY VESTIMENTA. HER

% SHIRT IS BY ALEXANDER
яғ” ! JULIAN PRIVATE

RESERVE ($185), AND
HER TIE IS BY ROBERT
TALBOTT ($110).

DOM P. IS IN A SUIT
($1,170) AND MULTI-
COLOR SHIRT ($390) BY
JUST CAVALLI. HIS
BELT IS BY JOHNSTON
2 MURPHY ($55),

AND HIS NECKLACE

15 BY TEMPLE ST.
CLAIR ($4,975).

WHERE AND HOW TO BUY ON PAGE 175.

diary of a
threesome
fanatic

He was a TV star. She was a writer. When
their love life started adding friends and
strangers, things took an odd turn. A true story

article by anonymous

ur first threesome is after the opera.

I've been dating my boyfriend—let's call him John—for a
few months. | have a toothbrush at his apartment but not a set
of keys. John is getting rich; he's in a popular TV show—in fact,
I can barely open a magazine without seeing his face

What he's doing with me is a little unclear, I'm about 10 years
his junior and absolutely unfamous. But | work in the media,
which | guess he finds intriguing, and we get along rather well
Although he says up front that he can't—and won't—commit,
he's funny and charming, and I'm 24 and up for anything.

Which leads us back to the opera. At the intermission of La
Bohéme, we drink champagne on the terrace overlooking the
fountain at New York's Lincoln Center. He asks me what | want
to do afterward

“Well, we could hire a hooker,” | say, wanting to turn him on.
We've been talking about it for weeks. I'd told him | wanted to
be with a woman, and he—shock—said he'd always wanted to
be with two. We're really no different from anyone else. For men
and women the threesome has evolved into the Mount Everest of
sex—almost everyone | know wants to try it, and if they haven't
they want to know what it's like. Is it sexy? Is it too...much?

I'm interested also for strategic reasons. John keeps talking
about how he can't be monogamous, and | figure if we cheat on
our relationship together it’s not really cheating. As for hiring a
hooker, | had never thought I'd do that, but it would allow us to
avoid creepy solicitations of our friends (of course, we'd move on
to that later).

Not surprisingly, John is intrigued by my hooker suggestion
“Not a bad idea,” he says, grinning. And though I'm not sure |
meant what | said, he's now so excited it's too late to turn back
After the opera we race to his apartment, where he starts hunting
for escorts online as | scour the classifieds in his magazines. In
the back of a city magazine | find an ad for “high-class” escorts.
He calls and orders us a young blonde one with “lots of experi-
ence with women.” The price is $1,000 an hour. Yikes. The rent
for the apartment | share with two friends is $1,000.

100

John gives his credit card information and his real name to
the person on the other end of the phone. | know what you're
thinking: He's a well-known person—what the hell is he
doing? But John doesn't care. It's as though he's ordering
take-out Chinese. The woman on the other end says some-
thing. John laughs, rolling his eyes at me.

“I'm glad you're a fan,” he tells the woman, who I guess is
the escort service’s madam. “That's very flattering. Thank you.”
| wonder if the madam will sell the story to The National
Enquirer. | keep that to myself.

Now it's time to get ready. We jump into the shower; it
seems like the polite thing to do. | wish | had some lingerie.
We don bathrobes. The shower has sobered us up, which is
not necessarily a good thing. John rolls a joint with some
dried-out pot, Then we start cleaning furiously. He’s making
the bed, and I'm washing the dishes. “| feel like I'm expect-
ing my in-laws,” John says. He opens a bottle of wine. He puts
a Massive Attack CD in the stereo. It feels as if we're staying
at a W hotel. | dim the lights more,

The doorman calls up to announce our “visitor.” He must
know—doormen know everything. There’s a knock on the
door. | freeze, but John lets in a small blonde Russian woman.
She's maybe 21, and she seems a little
innocent for a hooker. Her English is
broken, she has small real breasts, and
I'm prettier. Perfect.

| offer her a drink, and while | get it
John gives her an imprint of his credit
card. (That will fetch a nice price on
eBay, | think.) We make our way to the
bedroom, where John has thoughtfully, if
a bit cheesily, arranged and lit candles.

And so here we go. It kind of goes down
the way you'd think it might. John tells
the hooker I've never been with a girl and
asks her to kiss me. "| want to watch,”
he says. You know, it’s amazing how you
can think the dialogue in porno movies
is stupid, but then you find yourself in a
real-life porno film, and you say the same
dumbass things, | tell her to “go down
on me.” | can't believe I've said that, but down she goes. Then
John shows me how to go down on her. For a guy who claims
never to have done this before, he’s got the fantasy mapped out.

I wish I could tell you it's the most amazing sexual experi-
ence ever, It isn't, But it isn't bad, either—it's a little like a
boozy sex-ed class or a horny slumber party. You have to pay
attention to other people's feelings, and you have to keep your
ego in check. | watch John have sex with the hooker, and
strangely | don't feel jealous, just a little competitive. Then we
give him a blow job. “I've never been this hard before,” he
says. (See what | mean about the porno dialogue?) But—and
here | lay down my first threesome rule—! don't let him fin-
ish. "You two should make porn,” the hooker gushes.

And then she gets up to leave. Charlie Sheen knew what he
was talking about when he said he doesn't pay a prostitute
just for sex but also to leave. I've heard the Metropolitan Opera,
I've heard church bells in Paris at dawn, but the sweetest
sound I've ever heard is the door slamming behind that hooker.

The next morning John's out of bed early—he's appearing
on a talk show. | watch it in bed and wonder if the Russian will
figure out who he is and brag. When | get to my office the next
morning the woman who sits next to me asks how the opera was.

“Nice,” | say.

It was nice. And we're just getting started.

Remember what they used to say about crack—that all it
takes is one puff and you're hopelessly addicted? John and |
become that way about threesomes.

I've heard the
Metropolitan Opera
and church bells in
Paris at dawn, but
the sweetest sound

l've ever heard is
the door slamming
behind that hooker.

The very next night we hire another hooker from the same
place. The madam tells John she's got a "good one" for us, as
though she's got a fresh batch of Atlantic cod. (Frighteningly,
she also tells John he looked cute on TV this morning.) But the
madam needs glasses. The girl who arrives at the door has
Stretch marks and fake boobs the size of beach balls, and
worst of all she keeps talking about her little girl. It's horribly
depressing. She gets John to use some strange sex toy—a pair
of mini silver vibrators—on both of us simultaneously. It feels
like a scary gynecological exam. We shuttle her out the door
after half an hour. Later the woman on the phone tells us, "You
can always send her away for a refund or an upgrade." Great.
But John and | decide to go for a nonhooker partner, a civilian.
А civilian would be exciting, sexier and a hell of a lot cheaper.

And John has just the girl—he confides to me that he
recently got a blow job from a pretty European woman at a
nightclub. And, he says, she likes girls!

“Let's fuck her!" | say.

| know how twisted that seems, but in the moment, John’s
fortunate round of philandering feels like great luck for both
of us. We have a girl! We meet the European at another club a
few nights later. She has short, silky blonde hair and a tight,
trim body, and she doesn't speak Eng-
lish all that well. She's hotter than the
hookers and has much better style, too.

The threesome isn't exactly proposed
as much as it just occurs. John's hands
are all over us in the club. Then we're
out the door and riding in John's town
car and—hello!—the European and |
are giving John a blow job together
while she has her hands between my
thighs. | think, Do other people do these
kinds of things? And do cars really have
security cameras in the back?

We go back to John’s apartment, and
when | walk out of the bathroom they're
already sprawled on the bed, which
makes me feel insanely jealous—so |
join them. Her stomach is flat, and |
hate that. But she’s hot and makes me
come quickly. Then | return the favor, It goes on for a while.

Here's the thing, though: Unlike with a hooker, | can't ask the
European to leave after an hour. Worse, John snuggles with both
of us. | keep panicking that I've started something | can't stop.

But once a week for about two months, we keep doing it. It
evolves into a strange relationship. The European starts send-
ing me e-mails. | e-mail back. On my birthday she sends me
beauty products as a gift. A co-worker asks me who they're
from. “Um, a friend,” | say. She comes to my birthday party,
and my friends ask about her. “A friend of John’s,” | say. |
guess she is a friend, but | wish John hadn't invited her.

My birthday night ends at a strip club, just the three of us
with a stripper in a private room. Not exactly Eloise at the Plaza,
I know. The stripper and the European are hitting it off. John
gives the stripper an extra key card to the nearby hotel suite he
has rented for us for the night. | think he's nuts. Won't she tell
a gossip column? We all wind up in a Jacuzzi in the hotel room.
John's assistant—whom he made sign a confidentiality agree-
ment, thank God—has stocked the place with water, candles,
condoms, champagne and (a nice touch) extra toothbrushes.

Everyone eventually gets it on. The European and the stripper,
me and the European, the stripper and John, John and the
European, me and the.... | lose track. To be honest, it's
exhausting, and | feel I'm fighting for face time with John.
When he notices that my underwear matches the European's,
he says, “Look, she's trying to be like you! Isn't it cute?" |
want to punch them both in the face.

And | know it's going to get worse when John insists the
European join us at his summer (concluded on page 190)

“How about my Christmas special? I give you a blow Job while humming
‘Santa Claus Is Coming to Town.”

101

A TOAST TO
THE ART OF
THE BUBBLING

COCKTAIL

AM
FHA

BY A.J. BAIME

here are reasons champagne is
| the default drink for romantic

occasions. Soon after a blind
monk named Dom Pérignon pro-
duced the first vintage in 1690 (or
so the myth goes), champagne as we
know it became the original cult
wine. It was so elegant you could sip
it out of a lady's slipper—and that's
saying something in the days before
the shower was invented. Because
the wine was expensive and carried
an aura of mystery (“I’m drinking
stars!” the monk supposedly shout-
ed after his first taste), it became the
de rigueur prop for a guy on the
make. For you, sweetheart, nothing but
the best. The pop of the cork said
everything about a man's intentions,
and the heady buzz was just the
thing to get her in the mood.

Now, centuries later, the bubbly-
by-the-bed bit has gone a little flat.
The routine is more Peter Sellers
than James Bond—you'll get the
laughs but not the ladies. You need
to blow the dust off this al and
ix it with a dash of creativity.
Naturally we have some sugges-
tions. The drink menu on this page
is our list of the best champagne
cocktails out there. Each offers the
opportunity to serve up that same
heady buzz in a less formal way,
while also letting you showcase your
virtuosity when it comes to the
realm of the senses. Go with a $25
brut such as Piper-Heidsieck or
Moét & Chandon's White Star, and
make sure the wine is properly
chilled. New Year's Eve and Valen-
tine's Day are the obvious occasions,
though any night can be wort
When you're in the right company,
there's always a reason to celebrate.

PHOTOGRAPHY BY JAMES IMBROGNO

HARRY'S PICK-ME-UP

Harry MacElhone had quite a clientele at Harry's New York Bar in
Paris way back when. Ernest Hemingway, Jack Dempsey and
Simone de Beauvoir were known to drink the cocktails invented
there, such as the bloody mary and this luxurious mood lifter.

3 ounces brandy

1 teaspoon grenadine

2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice

6 ounces chilled champagne

Shake all the ingredients except the bubbly with ice and strain
into a 10-ounce goblet. Top with champagne.

BLACK VELVET

You'd think the moniker comes from the texture and color, but
this drink was named after the black velvet armband worn in
England to honor Prince Albert when he died in 1861.

Equal parts chilled champagne and Guinness

Pour the stout into a flute and carefully layer the wine on top.

FRENCH 75

Legend has it that during World War | some Allied soldiers got
stranded in a French chateau, where the only thing to drink was
champagne and gin. The resulting cocktail had “the kick of a French
75,” as in a 75-millimeter howitzer. Here's the updated recipe:

1% ounces gin

% ounce fresh lemon juice

1 teaspoon superfine sugar

5 ounces chilled champagne

Shake all the ingredients except the bubbly with ice and pour into a
tall glass (don't strain). Top with champagne.

OLD CUBAN

The mojito is following in the daiquiri's footsteps. The Caribbean
damsel is getting bent over bars across America, compromised
with any number of unnecessary ingredients. But the old cuban
is a twist that takes the drink to a new level. You'll find it on
Audrey Saunders's menu at the Carlyle hotel bar in Manhattan.
2 mint sprigs

% ounce fresh lime juice

1 ounce simple syrup

1% ounces Bacardi 8

2 dashes Angostura bitters

Chilled champagne

Muddle mint, lime and syrup in a shaker. Add rum and bitters,
shake with ice and strain into a cocktail glass. Top with champagne.

103

THE TAMPON PARADE

nce upon a time, in a concrete house on the west bank of the Rio

Hardy, on one of those 110-degree, humid afternoons that in South-

east Asia would have imparted an air of Buddhist dreaminess to

everything but that in Mexico expressed itself in simple torpidity, a
woman from the Cucapah reservation, who traveled by slow bus five days
out of every seven to the maquiladora in Mexicali where she assembled
unknown components for the better than average wage of $100 a week,
informed me that before she'd given birth to those four children who now
sprawled on the dirt—one of them sleeping, two of them playing, the eldest
slowly fighting the flies over his can of soda pop—she had worked in a dif-
ferent maquiladora managed entirely by men and staffed mostly with sin-
gle young women like her. In this establishment, the name of which she'd
forgotten, every female on the line was required to bring in a bloody tam-
pon each month for inspection. No tampon or no blood and she'd get fired.
My driver-interpreter, a young Mormon named Terrie Petree, was skeptical.
She said Mexican women usually wore pads, not tampons, and besides,
how difficult would it be to borrow a neighbor's bloody tampon or procure
a splash of chicken blood? All the same, I knew of a book that seconded
the indictment, an angry little book whose certitude glared as inescapably
as Imperial sunshine. Its author was none other than Ramón Eduardo Ruiz,
whose exaggerations about the feculence of the New River my own labora-
tory samples had underwhelmingly verified. His tract ends thus: "A healthy
and prosperous American economy will not forever endure if the mass of
Mexicans to the south, many of whom labor for greedy American employ-
ers, live in Third World dependency.” Señor Ruiz had been apprised that a
certain maquiladora in Ciudad Juárez compelled its female employees to
bring in bloody tampons each month for the first three months on the job.

What was it about this now twice-told anecdote of the tampon parade
that most offended me? I suppose it was the violation of dignity. The mas-
sive drug testing in American workplaces angers me enough; I see all too
well the culture of bullying and cravenness it leads to. Repeated preg-
nancy testing as a condition of continued employment is worse; the hu-
miliations of the tampon parade reminded me oí the anal search to which
I was once subjected by functionaries of my government; that was more
than 20 years ago now, and I will never forget it. As Emerson wrote,
"Could not a nation of friends even devise better ways?" To institutional-
ize such invasiveness with monthly replications would be an easy
achievement of the reprehensible.

It really wasn't my concern, because I live over here on Northside, where
inexpensive Mexican-assembled products arrive by magic, but I did start
wondering how bad it really was in the maquiladoras. "They are very
closed," said everybody, which increased my suspicions. One day Terrie
and I breezed into a large feedlot in the Mexicali Valley, and the office girl
invited me to take any photos I yearned for; all she asked was that I close
whichever gates I opened so that the stock wouldn't get loose. A cowboy
posed for me. I wandered into another office after closing time, and the
man there, who never even asked my name, looked up all the statistics I
wanted. On that same day we had visited a glass factory where our wel-
come was decidedly different. We would need to apply in advance for
authorization, said the man for whom the receptionist had rung. This ap-
plication must be in writing and delivered by post, and the chances of its
being accepted sounded equivalent to those of my being elected president
of Mexico. The man was, moreover, inquisitive in that unpleasant fashion
of FBI agents. He wanted identification, which for some reason I declined
to show him. His clever little eyes never stopped trying to see through me.
He was an exemplar of monotonous diligence. He showed no hurry to eject
us from the factory; he was perfectly willing to undress our motives for as
long as we liked. This must be how one guards trade secrets.

Whenever somebody with a badge tells me not to do something, my
inclination is to do it, so I must thank the glass factory's sentinel for
encouraging me to peek into a few maquiladoras, with or without permis-
sion. Of course I'd respect their little trade secrets, excepting a certain
ingredient called exploitation.

The sky was paling, and the one bare bulb, which illuminated a portion of the
ceiling molding quite nicely, could no longer reach my bed, so I got the white
plastic chair, moved it directly beneath the lightbulb, listened to drumbeats,
traffic and barking dogs, and then read Mr. D.'s report, which began, “We
were assigned to conduct an investigation in order to locate maquiladoras in
the Tijuana, Mexico region that were abusive to both people and nature.”

ILLUSTRATIONS BY JAMES JEAN

105

106

My high school friend Chuck is a private eye. I asked him how I should pro-
ceed. Since his line of work has more to do with trolling databases and standing
outside subway stations with the odd suspect's photo hidden іп a newspaper, he
referred me to his colleagues Mr. W., for surveillance equipment, and Mr. D., who
Не infiltrates factories for a living.”

I called Mr. D; he was skiing or swimming or something. “Their security is hor-
rible,” he explained to me. “What you do is you come up with a product you
wanna produce. Then you tell their local chamber of commerce, and you go in.”

He opined that there was worse exploitation in small Mexican industries than
in the maquiladoras, especially since the latter's facilities were newer.
"Maquiladoras have created a base of power for Mexican women,” he insisted.
“The real scandal is the murder of women in Ciudad Juarez.”

He did remark that he'd heard a story about a Chinese plant in Tijuana that
involved “women from China who were locked in and never let out except to
work.” He couldn't say whether this factory was still in operation, and indeed no-
body I met in Tijuana knew anything about this. He chuckled, “Here you have an
example of Chinese labor being even cheaper than Mexicali labor!”

Seven or eight years ago he'd found maquiladoras where U.S. mail was
being sorted in Mexico. “All these girls out there” were photo imaging misdeliv-

Señor A. told me, "There's a lot of trafficking going on by boat near Ensenada, trat-
ficking in Chinese. One Chinese is worth about $10,000. It's rumored that some of
them are transported in metal containers. It's very dangerous.” Across the street,
well within range of that rotten-metal smell, two men sat eating their lunch. I asked
if I could photograph them, and they said I could, but they'd get in trouble if they
failed to don their protective gear first.

ered mail for corporations despite a federal order not to do it. "U.S. postal work-
ers were upset that their jobs were outsourced down there," said Mr. D., but he
believed "the privacy concerns are overblown." He was a real card, Mr. D.

He'd also found Texas motor-vehicles records being processed down in
Juárez, so I figured his offer to fly down to Tijuana for two days and three
grand might provide me with the knowledge about where exactly to focus my
newly acquired but untested button camera. He promised me "four or five
baddies.” He was a free spirit, Mr. D.; I liked that about him. He enjoyed play-
ing the guitar.

And so two weeks later, I lay on my bed at sunset in a Tijuana hotel room
that smelled like pipe smoke and body odor, reading Mr. D.'s report, which be-
gins: "We were assigned to conduct an investigation in order to locate
maquiladoras in the Tijuana, Mexico region that were abusive to both people
and nature." The sky was paling, and the one bare bulb, which illuminated a
portion of the ceiling molding quite nicely, could no longer reach my bed,
which after all was meant to be used for activities pertaining to darkness. So I
let my gaze leave the pages of Mr. D.'s report, whose type and whose paper
were now nearly the same shade, and I listened to the bells of the cathedral,
whose twin towers and image of the Virgin of Guadalupe were almost identi-
cal to their counterparts on Avenida Reforma in Mexicali. Then I got the white
plastic chair, which was spattered with brown stains, moved it directly beneath
the lightbulb, listened to drumbeats, traffic and barking dogs, and then read a
little further into Mr. D.'s report.

"Metales y Derivados," read one heading. "This is a shut-down battery manu-
facturing facility that was on four acres and is located in the Ciudad Industrial

Nueva Tijuana, above the ejido Chil-
pancingo...which was once a fairly
clean residential neighborhood...[and]
is now a fetid, polluted barrio.... Some
claim that up to 40 percent of the peo-
pleinthis area have become ill from the
pollution at this plant," which would
have cost $7 million American to clean
up, so it stayed the way it was.

"In 1995 a Mexican judge issued an
arrest warrant for the owner oí this
plant, Jose Kahn, of the New Frontier
Trading Co. He and his son both live in
San Diego County"; their addresses
and telephone numbers followed—
“You'll love this!" Mr. D. added, regard-
ing the latter information.

So that sounded promising.

A page later, under the heading

"Plants With Bad Reputations," I was
first informed of the existence of Optica
Sola, a maquiladora that "manufac-
tures all kinds of lenses and is on a pol-
lution watch list.... The production line is
predominantly women, and the floor
and ground below are reportedly con-
taminated.... You need a good pretext to
get in, and as we didn't have anything
ready we were unsuccessful.” (Amelia
Simpson of the Environmental Health
Coalition, a nonprofit group based in

San Diego, was unaware of any such
list or of contamination at Optica Sola.)

Evidently, security was better than
Mr. D. had thought.

HERE THERE'S LIFE

This project was proving to be more
difficult than 1 had expected. To be
human is to complain, so 1 had antic-
ipated an infinitude of criticisms, sob
stories and denunciations, but far
more emblematic was the old man in
the cowboy hat who had once assem-
bled electronic components for a
maquiladora down on the street
called Boulevard Insurgentes, which
lay below us in the smog.

"I am sure that you've had many
experiences in your life,” I began.

“Well, naturally. We're old,” he said,
nodding to his amigo.

Private detective Señor A., whom
you will meet in due course, once told
me that some factories begin illegally
in the basements of large houses in
order to avoid taxes; if they last long
enough, the owners build overt facto-
ries. And I wondered whether the
tales of the maquiladoras had begun
in this stealthy way or whether they
came heralded by trumpets. That was

why I asked the man in the cowboy hat, “Do you remember what it was like
before the maquiladoras?”

“When we got here there were already a lot of them in Tijuana.”

“Where do you come from?”

"Durango, 20 years ago.”

He kept saying, “Well, here there's life. There's work! There are lots of
maquiladoras.”

Since he had come 20 years ago, all he knew about the age of his own
neighborhood—which already had concrete sidewalks and shade trees and
was called Colonia Azteca—was that it must be at least 20 years old.
"Maquiladoras brought life,” he repeated, smiling with his big false teeth.

I interviewed two shy girls during their lunch half hour in front of Optica
Sola, not the main Optica Sola on Insurgentes, which Mr. D. had fingered for
me and failed to enter, but a smaller, dirtier plant, more piquant with solvent
perfume and which stood upon the Otay Mesa in the New Tijuana Industrial
Park. The address was perfect: just off Industrial Avenue.

"It's good work,” they informed me, "and the best thing is the ambience inside.
It's very clean, and it's air-conditioned.”

One girl, a 20-year-old, had been there for two and a half years; she made 99

pesos a day, equivalent to less than $10. Her companion, who had just reached
the four-month mark and was a year older, earned 74 pesos. So both of them
were comparatively well-off, the daily minimum wage in Tijuana being 45.24
pesos, a wage that, in a local reporter's words, “can't sustain life.”

I might mention that I had begun my engagement with this branch of
Optica Sola on my very best behavior, approaching the windowed booth at
the gate, whose security guard in his green uniform and sunglasses ex-
plained that I would need to get authorization and that unfortunately the
sole person or agency who could authorize me (he actually made a phone
call) was absent, for how long he couldn't predict; it might be awhile, per-
haps as soon as the end of the next Ice Age. He was trying to let me down
easy. All the while he kept peering and scrutinizing. Now, as I interviewed

107

108

the two laughingly reluctant girls, we stood in such a way as to interpose the
Optica Sola shuttle bus between us and the gate, but the girls were getting
nervous because the security guard had left his post to come peering and
peering around the windshield of the bus—and, by the way, oh, what a
smell! It was not an unpleasant smell, really. It took me back to my boyhood,
when I used to build model rockets in the basement, dabbing airplane glue
onto this or that plastic part; I used to get flushed, and my heart would race.
I loved that smell in those days.

lasked them if there was any smell inside the factory, and they said they didn't
know. Then they said no, there wasn't. Then they said that anyhow all factories
had that smell.

"Is anyone affected by the chemicals?"

"It depends on which area people work in, but they're very careful with peo-
ple's security,” said the longtime girl piously.

The security guard craned his snakelike neck further around the comer of the
bus, so I ended the interview with my customary question.

"Are maquiladoras good or bad for Mexicans?"

"For work they're good, because we need work."

Translation: Here there's life.

said: "You have many maquiladora
industries that have a lot of vacan-
cies. They want people! Tijuana
grows by about a hundred thousand
people per year. It's been that way for
at least five years. The maquiladora
is good for many people because it's
sure work. They come here having
nothing at all, and the first job they
have is a maquiladora job. When
they enter a maquiladora, they have
all the social securities that Mexican
law permits. First the man comes
from a southern state. When he finds
a job, he brings with him his family,
and the population grows—with one
salary. They come to a little wooden
house, and they have to rent, without
water, without light."

Now here came Perla with a big smile on her face; Matsushita had hired her. She'd make 870 pesos a week! In the covert video
she made with the button camera, we watch the wide street sway with a womanly stride and white storage tanks get closer and

closer, then veer away; it is wonderful how briskly Perla walks! The long, white wall of the i
then after 5:07 the security booth swims into view.

right, and presently the white wall gives way to а black-barred metal fence;

THE BLACK COUGH

A legal assessor for a federation of labor unions was sure the climate of Baja
California rendered maquiladora work superior to picking squash or watermel-
ons out in the campo, and I'd certainly prefer to work in an air-conditioned build-
ing on a 118-degree day. Moreover, he said, maquiladora wages generally
exceeded pay for field work: "Sometimes you can make a little more money
working in the campo than in the maquiladoras, especially with green onions. If
the whole family goes and works, they can earn 300 or 400 pesos a day. But they
work only three or four days a week, and they earn no benefits."

Therefore, exploitation in the campo may be worse than exploitation in the
maquiladora.

In the immense Valle Pedregal development in Mexicali, dirt-colored houses
in the dirt form subdevelopments: Casa Exe, Casa Muestra and God knows
what else; the storekeeper I spoke with neither knew about them nor cared.
Almost everybody worked in maquiladoras. This cubescape went on as far as
I could see, and it brought to life something a dapper reporter with a Tijuana
paper (the one who said the minimum daily wage couldn't sustain life) had

on her left, cars on her

Pedregal was a step above those
colonias in the hills of Tijuana. Here
people frequently owned their houses,
which were more often than not made
of respectable cinder block; here I saw
evidence of electricity, and some of the
windows even framed little air condi-
tioners. And here came a young cou-
ple, obviously in a hurry to get to bed
for their Sunday afternoon tumble, but
they were nice enough to give me a
moment. The man, who was older,
stood on the wide dirt street with his
arm around the shoulders of his dark,
pretty girl, who said she made remote
controls in the Korema maquiladora (I
never found (continued on page 164)

“Have you got any
New Year's resolutions you'd like
to break... ?"

` DESTINY'S
* CALLING

Miss January is loving Las Vegas

estiny Davis studies economics and business law at a college less than
a mile from the blinding glow of the Las Vegas Strip, but this determined
19-year-old isn't easily distracted. “I worked hard to graduate from high
school when | was 16," she says. “I wanted to get a head start and do
something more productive.” With Sin City's demand for models constantly high,
Destiny soon found herself posing at conventions and other events—and even got
certified as a lifeguard to be part of a Baywatch-themed resort production. “Vegas
is cool, but it's not cultural,” she says. "It's a transient town. No one develops
roots, and it’s difficult to sustain friendships when you're always on the go. Grow-
ing up here, | never appreciated it, but I love it now. Locals know there's an entire
city to explore beyond the Strip.” After Destiny won first place in a bikini contest,
Playmate Angela Melini, Miss June 1992, took pictures of her and whisked them off

PHOTOGRAPHY BY ARNY FREYTAG AND STEPHEN WAYDA

to PLAYBOY. Miss January's blend of
Irish, Swedish, English and Syrian
features wowed us, and her dis-
tinctive name sealed the deal.
"| don't know what my mom was
thinking when she named m
Destiny says. "People ask, ‘Is that
a stage name?'"

Unguarded and talkative, Destiny
is especially open when the sub-
ject turns to men. “I love Southern
accents and country music,” she
says, twirling her hair around a well-
manicured finger. “They don't grow
many Southern gentlemen where
I'm from, but a guy in a pair of
Wranglers and a cowboy hat—
that's hot! | love it when you feel
sparks with someone right away.
When a guy doesn't have the same
energy as me, it's the worst." Asked
how her date will know she's feel-
ing sparks, Destiny smiles. "Women
send subtle signs," she says. "A
sexy bat of the eye, a bit of skin
showing. I'm friendly, but I won't
make the first move. I'm looking for
Mr. Right, and I'll find him someday."

Although classes and modeling
tie up most of her time, Destiny
thrives on close relationships with
her girlfriends. “We have girlie
nights, when we drink wine and do
mud masks,” she says. “І play
tennis anytime | can. There's usu-
ally one day every few weeks
when | don't have anything to do,
so I'll pig out, watch movies and
chill. People always ask, ‘What do
you want to be when you grow
up?’ I say, ‘Retired.’ My philosophy
is the harder | work now, the less
I'll have to work later. | just love
learning and trying to do things
that make me well-rounded.”

| don't think of modeling as a job,
because | love doing it,” says Destiny.
"It's mind-boggling that people pay
me to get my makeup done and
smile for the camera. | truly appreci-
ate every assignment | get. This shoot
is so exciting because it’s sparkly
and pink and totally reflective of my
personality. It’s fabulous!”

Twy e

See more of Miss January at cyber.playboy.com.

PLAYBOY’S PLAYMATE OF THE MONTH

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PLAYBOY’S PARTY JOKES

What's the difference between getting stoned
in Iran and getting stoned in Los Angeles?

In Los Angeles you get stoned before com-
mitting adultery.

BLONDE joke OF THE MONTH: A blonde caused a
car accident and had to appear in court. The
judge asked, "What gear were you in at the
time of impact?"

The blonde replied, “Gucci shoes and a
Donna Karan dress."

There's a rumor circulating in the restaurant
industry that Hooters is planning to open a
new division. It will offer the same food menu
and employ a staff of women with large
breasts, but the women will deliver the food
to your home. It plans on calling this new
operation Knockers.

A boy walked into his classroom 20 minutes
late. "Sorry I'm late,” he said, “but I didn't get
my fucking breakfast."

“How dare you use language like that,” the
teacher said. “Go stand in the corner.”

The boy did as he was told. Carrying on with
the geography lesson, the teacher asked, “Who
can tell me where the Canadian border is?”

The boy standing in the corner was the only
student to raise his hand, so the teacher said,
“Okay. Where is the Canadian border?”
he boy replied, “He's in bed with my mom.
That's why I didn't get any fucking breakfast.”

A redneck went to his travel agent and said,
“T reckon it's time for another vacation. But
this year, I wanna do things a little different.
The last few years, I took your advice. Two
years ago you told me to go to Hawaii. I did,
and my wife got pregnant. Last year you told
me to go to the Bahamas. I did, and nine
months later my wife had a baby.”

The travel agent asked, “Are you saying
you'd rather go somewhere cold this year?”

“No,” the redneck replied. "I'm saying that
this year I'm taking my wife with me.”

Where do they post pictures of missing trans-
sexuals?
On cartons of half-and-half.

A husband returned from a long business trip
and found evidence that his wife had been
unfaithful. “Who was the man?” he yelled. “Was
it my so-called best friend?”

“No,” his wife replied. “It wasn’t him.”

He yelled, “Oh, then it must have been my
friend Tommy.”

“No,” she replied. “It’s not him.”

Even more upset than before, the husband
said, “What's the matter? None of my friends
are good enough for you?”

A man in Las Vegas was down on his luck. He
had gambled away all his money and had to
borrow a dime from another gambler just to
use the men’s room. The pay-toilet stall door
happened to be open, so afterward he put the
dime іп a slot machine and hit the jackpot. He
took his winnings and went to the blackjack
table, where he won $10 million. Wealthy
beyond his wildest dreams, he went on the lec-
ture circuit and told his incredible story. He
told every audience that he was eternally
grateful to his benefactor and that if he ever
found the man he would share his fortune
with him. During one lecture a man jumped
up and said, “I’m that man. I was the one who
gave you the dime.”

The millionaire replied, “Sorry. I'm not
looking for you. I'm looking for the guy who
left the door open.”

А man came home early from work and found
his wife screwing their neighbor. The husband
yelled, “What the hell are you doing?”

The wife turned to the neighbor and said,
“See. I told you he was s

How is pubic hair like parsley?
You push it to the side before you start eating.

An older man wearing a stovepipe hat, a waist-
coat and a fake Beard Vike into a bar. The
bartender asked, “Going to a costume party?”

“Yes,” the man answered. "I'm supposed to
come dressed as my love life."

The bartender said, “But you look like Abe
Lincoln."

The man replied, "That's right. My last four
scores were seven years ago."

Send your jokes to Party Jokes Editor, PLAYBOY, 730
Fifth Avenue, New York, New York 10019, or by
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күресі

“Remember, you disguised yourself as Santa last year—so I thought it was you!”

123

THEATER OF THE REPUBLIC

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SA. eS
æ "V=
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= I0

The Public and Sporting Gents of the Uni Fre GR

TOM JEFFERSON

GHAMPION OF THE PEOPLE

AND ALEXANDER

HAMILTON

THE GIANT, CHAMPION OF CORPORATIONS

TOGETHER WITH
BANKS & VARIOUS POWERFUL TRUSTS
INTEND TAKING A BATTLE FOR
SOUL OF OUR NATION

on Monday next

In consequence of many concepts being announced in print for the = to
and then not appearing the followin; ng Princip es will positi ely Set-to on this
„or the Money will be returned

Banks & the People

SCIENCE and RELIGION

The Evenings Amusements will conclude with a grand display of science

BY WORLD AUTHORITY,

GORE VIDAL

Stage $300--Box $200--Pit $100

nique among the founders of our republic, Thomas

Jefferson has a reputation that has been something of

a fever chart recording the wild ups and downs not
only of the simple-minded politically correct who periodi-
cally, at the dark of the moon, learn to their horror that a
dozen or so of our early presidents were slave owners and
ought, retroactively, to be consigned to the trash bin of
American history along with that racist republic for which
they stood. To the more serious-minded, the very idea of
what we like to refer to as our democracy is suddenly thrown
into shadow—no bad thing, since the peculiar system of
slavery has kept us from ever achieving a democracy, that
rule by the people, which, to be fair, was tried only once
in human history at Athens, briefly, and has never been
repeated anywhere else to this day. (The jury, of course,
is still out on those model states Iraq and Afghanistan.)

Meanwhile, the image of Alexan-
der Hamilton is being refurbished
in order to preside over a society in
thrall to the golden calf. Ron Cher-
now's recent Alexander Hamilton is a
workmanlike biography for what he
refers to as “an auspicious time to
reexamine the life of Hamilton,
who was the prophet of the capital-
ist revolution in America. If Jeffer-
son enunciated the more ample
view of political democracy, Hamil-
ton possessed the finer sense of eco-
nomic opportunity. He was the
messenger from a future that we
now inhabit.” Fair enough, if you
like the “finer things.” But this does
not quite account for recent Jeffer-
son bashing, ostensibly because he
was a slave owner.

Even so, why should Thomas Jef-
ferson, the most interesting—and
interested—of the founders, be sin-
gled out as peculiarly guilty of profit-
ing from an economic system that so
hugely benefited such paladins as
Washington and Jackson? Perhaps
this is the result of Jefferson's virtues,
not his weaknesses. Although as giv-
en to hypocrisy as any major politi-
cian, he was also fiercely consistent in
certain unpopular beliefs, such as “I
have sworn upon the altar of god
eternal hostility against every form of
tyranny over the mind of man.” Note that he does not say
“over man,” because with his tacit acceptance of slavery, the
condition of his time and place, he must go even deeper into
the matter with “over the mind of man” (which means to him,
above all, established religion, a daring position to take since
the church was a bulwark of his personal great beast, monar-
chy, as personified at the time of the revolution by the British
king and, worse, later by homegrown religious fanatics eager
to traduce a thinker as free as he). He also had other surprises
for his fellow republic builders: “The earth belongs in
usufruct to the living...the dead have neither powers nor
rights over it.” This certainly set on edge the teeth of his
friend James Madison, who wondered how laws without a his-
tory of generational usage could command respect. Jefferson
was ready for that one: He suggested a constitutional conven-
tion every 30 years or so.

What was he really after? The recognition of an evolving,
living state, designed for the living to live in and change as it
needed changing. Jefferson was a natural democrat, as the
polio-ridden Franklin Delano Roosevelt—a politician of

plot in Monticello, Vi

Buried on Wall Street (bottom), Alexander Hamilton
has become the spiritual father of corporate America.
15 that why Thomas Jefferson, interred in the family
inia (top), has been the sub-
ject of much revisionist bashing?

equally great ambition—grasped as early as 1925, when he
reviewed for the New York Evening World Claude Bowers's
study Jefferson and Hamilton: “1 have a breathless feeling as 1
lay down this book,” he wrote. “Hamiltons we have today. Is
a Jefferson on the horizon?” Did he suspect even then that
he—the first president for life, as it turned out—was Jeffer-
son's avatar? From Social Security to the GI Bill of Rights, һе
would extend and enrich the world of the living of his time,
even to providing us with the great imperial globe itself so
like Jefferson’s weird Empire of Liberty, otherwise known as
the Louisiana Purchase.

As FDR predicted so many years ago, we always seem to
have a great many Hamiltons on the scene, including in the
election of 2004, which offered us one relatively sane Hamil-
ton and one with a bit too much froth about the lips. But the
Jefferson that book reviewer FDR yearned for was not in
sight last November, as he had been
when Roosevelt made his first plea
to the gods of the republic, no doubt
suspecting even then that he was
Jefferson's heir. Corporate America,
as we know and revere it, is pretty
much in Hamilton's image. And
government by the best (richest)
people continues to exert total gov-
ernance over the entire homeland's
alabaster cities—along with those
amber fields of marijuana (or was
that Wonder bread?) now asphalted
over—as we go forth in Hallibur-
ton's name and bring creative ac-
counting, soft-money elections and
Diebold electronic voting machines
to all the world.

Finally, there was Jefferson the
poet of what humanity freed from
superstition might become if grant-
ed, by majority governance, life, lib-
erty and the pursuit of happiness.
This last was something new under
the political sun and so was recog-
nized by that other great presidential
poet Abraham Lincoln, who wrote,
“All honor to Jefferson—to the man
who, in the concrete pressure of a
struggle for national independence
by a single people, had the coolness,
forecast and capacity to introduce
into a merely revolutionary docu-
ment [that “merely” announces the
presence of a great writer on the case] an abstract truth, ap-
plicable to all men and all times, and so to embalm it there,
that today, and in all coming days, it shall be a rebuke and a
stumbling block to the very harbingers of reappearing tyranny
and oppression.” Incidentally, Lincoln was notorious for his
lack of enthusiasm for his predecessors—except, sadly, Henry
Clay, who favored, as did Lincoln for a time, the removal of
millions of former slaves to Africa or Central America.

But let us put to one side the praise of Roosevelt and Lin-
coln. What is the real case against Jefferson today? The ad-
mirable Gary Wills, usually a Jeffersonian, is now undergoing
yet another of his agonizing reappraisals. In Negro President
he makes the case that Jefferson's election to the closely con-
tested presidency in 1800 was entirely due to a wicked defin-
ition in the Constitution highly favored by the South. This is
not exactly news, but Wills gives weight to the “three-fifths
clause,” which reduced each Negro slave from full humanity
to that of only three fifths ofa voteless person in order to add
his three fifths to the total votes commanded by his owner;
when all those three fifths of a person were neatly added up

125

126

into orderly five-fifths slices, it fleshed out the infamous
electoral college, a straitjacket still in place to ensure that a
true democracy will forever be denied us. That Jefferson
used the so-called slave power to gain election is hardly sur-
prising. But he could hardly use (even if he had wanted to)
Article V of the Constitution, which makes it practically im-
possible to amend the Constitution—until, of course, it was
finally invoked after a bloody civil war had abolished slavery.
Nor could he alter Article I, which by mandating two sena-
tors for each state, no matter how few its inhabitants, thus
perpetuated the power of the nonpopulous South in the
electoral college. But we must not in our righteousness forget
that Jefferson was obliged to play chess with all its eccentric
moves and not the easygoing Chinese checkers we like to in-
sist that presidents of the past, not lucky enough to live in our
enlightened time, were obliged, constitutionally, to play.

FOUNDING
FATHER

Sexual liaisons with
slave women—both as
mistresses and as victims
of rape—were an open
secret in the early days
of the Republic

picture of Monticello as teeming with youthful Jeffersonian
males promiscuously impregnating what was, in effect, the
aging lady of the house.

Rather worse has been some of the recent rejection of Jef-
ferson because he did not free his slaves; since they were his
capital, he could not give up his slaves any more than the
wealthy Washington could until death freed him and he
them. As for Jefferson, Lincoln explained his greatness in the
Declaration of Independence, while his dedication to the free-
dom of religion (and the necessity of that wall between church
and state) puts us all, even to this very bad day, in his debt. Al-
though criticized for his apparent willingness to break up the
union over the Alien and Sedition Acts, he had foreseen the
necessity of some mechanism to keep a president and a parti-
san Congress from arbitrarily overriding the Constitution.

In old age, Jefferson began to rethink the idea of the state
itself. Ironically, he who had added
more than a dozen states to the
union was brooding on the
necessity of ever-smaller units of
community. He wanted to divide
the nation’s counties into self-
governing wards. “Each ward
would thus be a small republic
within itself, and every man in the
state would thus become an acting
member of the common govern-
ment, transacting in person a gr
portion of its rights and dutie:
Thus the poet of 1776 saw happi-
ness as best pursued in an Athen-
ian-size community, to whose in-
habitants Pericles once said, “The
man who says politics is not his
business has no business.” Years

slave with whom Thomas Jefferson is thought to have fathered several children,
was also in essence his sister-in-law. Jefferson inherited Hemings with the estate
of his father-in-law, John Wayles. Wayles fathered Jefferson's wife, Martha, of course,
but he was the likely father of Sally Hemings as well. Born in 1773, Hemings attended
Jefferson's daughters from 1784 on, lived with Jefferson and his daughters in Paris from

M aster-slave relationships were so prevalent in America that Sally Hemings, the

1787 to 1789 and remained at Monticello until Jefferson's death in 1826. (Jefferson's
wife died in 1782.) Monticello records list six children born to Hemings between 1798
and 1808. Two died as infants; three of the four who survived passed into white society
when they were freed. The Jefferson-Hemings link was first alleged by a political oppo-
nent in 1802. (The cartoon above is from 1805.) Largely discounted for the next two
centuries, the probability of a connection was bolstered when a 1998 DNA test deter-
mined that descendants of one Hemings child carried genetic material from a male
Jefferson. While 25 males in Virginia at the time had Jefferson genes, circumstantial
evidence adds to the probability that Thomas Jefferson himself fathered some if not all
of Hemings's children. Though he traveled frequently, he was present nine months

ago Murray Kempton chided me -
for my criticism of Jefferson, which

was not entirely unlike our neocon

laments. “After all,” said Kempton,

“we need Jefferson in a way only

bankers will ever need Hamilton.”
+ Today's odd worship of Hamil-
ton and odder denigration of J
ferson is simply reflective of our
current political and economic
arrangements. A writer in The Na-
tion seems unaware that we com-
mentators of the 1970s were quite
conscious that we were living in

before the birth of each child. And he freed all her children.

Thirty years ago I wrote a book centered on Aaron Burr,
who added to Jefferson's slave votes in the election of 1800
the votes of the nonslaves of New York state. Under the
cumbersome electoral procedure of those days, Burr and
Jefferson each got the same number of votes for president.
As previously agreed, Burr honorably committed himself to
Jefferson's election and behaved well. The edgy Jefferson
busied himself to ensure his own election. Wills is so good on
this shadowy business that one cannot think what the ghost
of Dumas Malone (author of a wondrously dull multivol-
ume life of Jefferson) would make of so much heresy. In
1973, when I made mention, prematurely it would seem,
of Jefferson's children by his slave Sally Hemings, Malone
denounced my portrayal as “subversive.” Today, thanks to
recent DNA decoding, we know that Jeffersonian blood is
indeed mingled with that of Hemings. Even so, white loyal-
ists maintain it could not have been the blood of the great
man but of his kinsmen, which presents a curiously raffish

a Hamiltonian world and that
“Jeffersonian regression versus
Hamiltonian progress,” to use The
Nation's oddly discordant description, were not—then—in
any significant contest. But lately something more subtle,
even sinister, is going on, of which our current polemicists
seem unaware. Although most of the founders were imperi-
alists in the sense that they were expansionists when it came
to the American continent, the Hamiltonian genius was
expansionist economically through manufactures, banking
and, finally, as we have lived to see, enormous multinational
corporations that are dissolving nation-states like so many
sand castles during a rising money tide. That is the Hamil-
tonian legacy today, while the Jeffersonian “regression,” as
the polemicist sourly puts it, seems quaint, even “musty,” but
less apt to blow up the world. Compare that to the Hamilto-
nians, who regard the fiery loss of any city as a great oppor-
tunity for Halliburton's very special gift for urban renewal.
No one can argue with so much progress.

Except, apparently, me, because the Hamiltonian writes,
“Given Vidal's roots in the Virginia (concluded on page 184)

—тм MOHR

“PU tell you. I wouldn't need a TV elimination to hire her as my apprentice.”

128

CARMAKERS HAVE FINALLY REALIZED THAT A VEHICLE ISN’T WORTH DRIVING IF IT

DOESN’T HAVE PANACHE. THESE NINE 2005 MODELS SET A NEW STANDARD

FOR THE OPEN ROAD + BY ARTHUR KRETCHMER

an you feel it? The heat is on in the car business. Enormous

pressure from globalization and new technology has spurred

designers to trash decrepit corporate traditions. Engingers
have been freed to design for singular perfection—if it isn't sexy,
no one wants it. This year a decadelong flirtation with electron-
ics culminates in new standards for adhesion, performance and
safety. Automobiles have never before been so able to give you
what you ask for or what you need. pLaysoy’s role in this renais-
sance was to choose the most appealing new cars for 2005.
We assembled an experienced team of car writers with a bias
for things that go fast and hug the road but also for cars that
take the drudgery out of daily driving. We put countless miles
on scores of new cars and judged them everywhere from switch-
backs north of Turin to traffic jams in downtown Tokyo. Our
feature ends with PLAv&ov's choice of the best of the best, our car
of the year. As you'll see, we were players in а no-limit game.

> OR

. 0 ¡DADSTER The 2005
Corvette is an astonishment. Not an improve-
ment, an astonishment. A six-liter, 400 hp engine.
Four hundred foot-pounds of torque. GM got
this one right all the way down to the seats and
dials. The suspension—so harsh in past Vettes—
doesn't jounce your senses; it embraces them.
The body transmits a sense of immense strength.
Just sitting at a traffic light you feel in control
of an irresistible force. At the price ($52,245

for the convertible, $44,245 for the coupe), the
Vette is a bargain and a legit competitor for
Porsche or Ferrari. The car flies—when it can
fly. At slow speeds it rumbles quietly, reminding
you that neck-snapping mayhem is a twitch
away. Zero to 60 takes 4.2 seconds; top speed

is 186 mph. How much do we love this vehicle?
The Vette came close to being our car of the
year. As it is, it's the surprise of the year.

. Unlike the other cars in this group, the Mini Cooper S Convertible may be the one for which price is the object. You
won't find more driving appeal for your $24,950. It’s a front-wheel driver with a power-operated convertible top—up or down in 15 seconds. The car
tracks like a go-kart, one of the few similarities between it and the legendary Austin Minis that scooted through the 1960s and 1970s. This car is big-
ger and better made. It has room for four adults, especially if the two in back are little women. The Mini claims 168 hp, zero to 60 in seven seconds
and a top speed of 134 mph. It felt at least that quick when we tore around Westchester County, New York in one. Car enthusiasts were delighted
when BMW gave new life to the Mini while adding handling and safety features that were unknown in the 1960s, such as the optional reverse drive
130 alarm that warns you if you're about to back into something. With the introduction of the convertible, BMW has created the most fun car of the year.

^ т |
ў N | )

. We drove everything in sight to come up with the cars of the year, but the only time we were
dogged by a policeman was when we drove the new Ford Mustang GT. He thought it was cool. For 2005, Ford delivers a gem. A 4.6-liter V8.
will give you 300 hp and zero to 60 in 5.5 seconds. Top speed is 145 mph, and we almost got it there on an otherwise quiet highway north
of L.A. The body is stiff, the suspension is first-rate, and the oversize ventilated disc brakes come in handy. The sweeping, uncluttered
interior lives up to the standard of a European GT. The pedals are well placed for those of us who think that driving involves fancy footwork
on three pedals by two feet; for everybody else, Ford offers a five-speed automatic. This GT can be had with traction control, 17-inch wheels
and a 1,000-watt sound system—appropriately called the Shaker—for slightly less than $30,000.

Porsche: the defining aspirational fact for generations of sports car fans. The 2005 911 Carrera 5 sits a hair taller,

а smidgen shorter lengthwise and an inch and a half wider than last year’s model. You can buy a base Carrera ($69,300) with a 3.6-liter,
six-cylinder engine, but the S version ($79,100) takes the spot on our list. The engine, a 3.8-liter mini-volcano, puts out 355 horses and goes
from zero to 60 in less than 4.8 seconds, with a top speed of 182 mph. Both models have Porsche Stability Management, so there’s no chance
of the tail snapping in front of you when you wish it had stayed behind. You sit deep inside this auto’s elegant cockpit. Meaty Michelins will
carry you through quick laps at the Núrburgring, never mind your favorite racy place. Enormous ceramic-composite brakes (optional) give you
the freedom to err now and then. The 2005 911 Carrera S is a more refined version of a breed of lustworthy sports cars. Feel free to lust anew.

131

132

«BEST SPORT WAGON If your idea of a wagon is a Euro sedan pretender with space for the dog in back, then the Dodge Magnum RT all-wheel is
the Antichrist. This machine is about street credibility, from the intimidator grille to the 340 hp Hemi V8. With a zero-to-60 time of 6.3 seconds and
a top speed of 126 mph, the $31,370 Magnum RT more than holds its own against a 5 Series Beemer, Mercedes engineers helped design the fully
independent suspension and likely influenced the front-seat ergonomics, which are elegant and spare. The fittings are immaculate, and the interior
is immense (vast rear-seat legroom). It drives like a European sport sedan but with an American shot of torque at low speeds, at which cars live

and die on our roads. And let's not forget the 18-inch wheels and the 288-watt Boston Acoustics sound system. We'll grant that, roofwise, it's a tad
claustrophobic for the backseat passengers. But so is an armored Bradley M2A3 Fighting Vehicle, and think how cool that would look on your block.

«BEST SUV With the new Land Rover LR3 and the Porsche Cayenne, the SUV category is thick with competition. After much head-scratching,
we gave the Volkswagen Touareg V10 diesel the nod. Here we have a permanent four-wheel-drive, five-passenger auto slickly powered by a
10-cylinder twin turbo engine. The 4.5-liter, 310 hp diesel has none of the breed's usual clatter or stink. It’s linked to a six-speed auto transmis-
sion with Tiptronic and can hit 60 mph in 7.5 seconds. It felt faster. It felt like it could do a wheelie. The Germans love the durability and effi-
ciency of diesels, and now they've made a diesel hot rod. Driver options include ride-height settings (the car raises and lowers like a camel),
Suspension settings (sport, automatic and comfort) and high attack angles for traversing boulder fields. This car can climb 45-degree slopes—in
style. The interior defines men's-club posh: leathery and well fitted. This unit will set you back $57,800, but it's worth that much and more.

Ы: The Super V8 is Jaguar’s answer to the big Mercedeses and BMWs: the near-limo-size ride ensconced іп the finest
garages. The Super—as in supercharger—is 205 inches long with a 124-inch wheelbase. Inside, Peruvian boxwood inlays and walnut panels
comfort the eyes. Folding picnic tables make highway rest stops so much tidier. If we stop now, you won't hear about Connelly leather,

a multimedia DVD system, electric sun blinds and power rear seats. We drove this beauty on a rutted slalom course in Napa Valley; the car
hauls, handles and stops with alacrity. The aluminum-alloy body helps stiffness, stability and fuel economy (17/24 EPA). These $90,000
cars go from zero to 60 in five seconds, and the supercharged 32-valve, 390 hp engine puts out 399 foot-pounds of torque. The power gets
to the gears through a six-speed automatic with a manual-select option—for days when you take the kitty to your slalom course.

+ BEST TUNER CAR Tuner cars are defined by having the right pieces. That's how the breed started; California kids took their old Hondas and
shopped for parts that would make them mini-monsters. The $34,199 Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution MR Edition has all the pieces right out of the
box. Fast and furious, it comes from the dealer tuned for a run at the Monte Carlo Rally. High performance starts with a turbocharged two-liter,
four-cylinder engine that produces 276 hp and 286 foot-pounds of torque (zero to 60 in less than five seconds). The six-speed transmission
responds to quick, even reckless, inputs from the pedals. The Bilstein high-performance shocks keep the Evo dead flat in corners; the Vortex
roof spoilers increase downforce and look tough. Large Brembo ventilated disc brakes and wide, sticky Yokohama tires add stop and grip to the

performance package. We slammed the Evo around a racecourse near Baton Rouge in torrential rain. The car stuck like a leech.

133

PHOTOGRAPHY BY RICHARD IZUI

N Mer

«CAR OF THE YEAR Crafted for vehicular immortality, the new Ferrari 612 Scaglietti 2+2 is a chunk of
museum-quality automotive sculpture. If $254,150 seems expensive, keep in mind that Ferraris do not go
down in value; they go up. Powered by a 5.85-liter V12 engine, the 612 brings forth 540 hp at 7,250 rpm.
This is the world's fastest true four-seater, and we reveled in it as we shot up Route 9W, a road that twists
upriver along the Jersey side of the Hudson. The big Ferrari overpowered 9W’s tight turns, off-camber
corners and severe switchbacks. We became addicted to four-second sprints from zero to 60. Тһе 6125
paddle shifters encourage crisp gear changes. The enormous brakes are virtually fadeproof. Most impres-
sive of all is the steering: sharp, on-center and perfectly assisted. Nobody does it better. Inside is a surprising
amount of room, even some luggage space. Every detail of the hand-sewn leather interior brings a smile.
Standard equipment includes an exclusive Bose stereo, Bluetooth electronics and heated seats. Of course,
there’s nothing standard about the 612. Availability is a problem. But we can dream, can’t we?

Mom
Descending

Staircase

hardly remember the reason for coming up
here now, I mean, in the first place. Isn't that
weird? Sometimes things happen, the smallest
little thing during a day or a lifetime, and every-
thing else that preceded it—even big, major
events—becomes so insignificant or minor in compar-
ison that it just doesn't seem to matter. Or register,
even. It doesn't even register with you, not really.

I came up to the attic—it's barely that, actually, more
of a crawl space above the back bedroom, which my
brother and I had shared all while growing up—to
make a routine check, see if there was any water dam-
age or mouse droppings, that type of thing. Find out
if it needed to be sprayed or fumigated or whatever. I
didn’t expect to find anything. I probably should have,
though, been prepared, I'm saying, because my mom
was a bit of a pack rat all of her life, a serious collector
of things—and I'm talking about crap here, not like
antiques or fur coats or stuff like that. She used to have
just mounds and mounds of magazines and pocket-
books (that's what they used to call paperbacks when
I was growing up; they'd call them pocketbooks, which
was always confusing because that was also another
name for a woman's purse—English is a weird lan-
guage, when you get right down to it), all kinds of shit
that she collected, mostly in the bedroom and heaped
in that little alleyway created by her side of the mattress
and the wall of the room, which would eventually be
carted out by my dad to the garage, where he would
either dump it all in the trash (if he was pissed on that
particular day) or put it in a box and shove it in the

closet so that she could sort through it later (if he was
feeling benevolent). That's the way it worked in our
house; it was a little like living on the coast of some
tropical island. One day sunny and mild, the next day
Hurricane Dad. When he was in one of his *moods"—
which was usually only when he was awake—it was bet-
ter just to put the plywood sheets up over the windows
and evacuate. Mom put up with a lot in her day—her
"day" having lasted some 63 years, until Thursday of
last week when her heart gave out in the grocery store,
near the (where else?) magazine rack. She died before
they could get her to the emergency room, a copy of
the Enquirer still clutched in one fist—and my wife and
Iare getting the house ready for sale. My brother, who
now lives in Kansas doing God knows what for some
software company, couldn't stay on after the funeral
because he was saving vacation time for a family trip to
Disney World and his company allows only three days
off for episodes of grief—he actually called it that all
while he was here, an "episode of grief," which finally
made me pull him aside and say something during the
little get-together we had after the funeral. People were
starting to look at him funny, so what else could I do?
Anyway, that's how we ended up here, Millie and I
(that's my wife, Mildred, but I call her Millie), going
through the house I grew up in and getting it ready to
be put on the market.

Millie is in charge of the general sprucing up—she
loves doing that, spring-cleaning or big projects like
putting in a new flower bed—so I've found that it's bet-
ter just to get out of the way and let her get things

She went from a dark corner of the attic to a dark corner of his mind

137

done. It's a pretty good excuse, anyway, for not having
to pitch in and help out. I hate housework, lawn jobs,
that sort of stuff. Always have. I'm a pretty good worker
overall, but domestic chores are not my forte. Not at
all. Because of that, and the fact that Millie has one
of those take-charge personalities (she really does, even
she would say so), I found it more useful to stake a
claim on the perimeter of all this activity—call the real
estate woman, place an ad in the paper for an estate
sale, go through Mom's papers (including several bank
accounts and a safety-deposit box) and assorted tasks
like that. Basically, keep clear of the Windex. And that's
how I find myself up in the attic above “the boys"
room,” lying on my stomach and searching around
with a key-chain flashlight. I'm sure my dad would
be doing this if he were here, but he’s not. They got a
divorce, my parents did, about 20 years ago—they
thoughtfully stayed together all while we were grow-
ing up so that we could cower in fear and watch them
engage in their daily shouting matches, but after I
went off to college they decided the time had finally
come, and my old man moved out, leaving Mom the
house and all the worries that come with owning a
property. And besides, he died in a car accident seven
years ago last spring. Too bad for him; he should've
been watching the road.

I've pretty much made my way to the end of the
dwelling now by pulling myself along the length of
two boards, laid out side by side, that run across the
alternating pattern of rafters and insulation. An insect
or two scurry away into the shadows, but the place
seems pretty okay other than that. No watermarks on
the wood, no pinpricks of daylight shining through
above my head. I'm about to start down, crawling
back the way I came, when (as I'm turning) my light
plays across a shape tucked into one corner of the
eaves. Off to my left. Curious, I turn the feeble blue
beam of my Chet's Auto Supply light to one side and
shine it across the mound. It turns out to be three
boxes, all sporting the old U-Haul insignia across
them, jammed into an area no bigger than a bread
box (it's actually much bigger than that, but the bread
box is the standard increment of measurement in our
house) and sitting one on top of the other in a squat
little stack. A thick layer of what might politely be
called dust settled over the whole thing.

"Is everything okay?" rises up from below me like

the cry of a phoenix as it claws its way out of the

ashes. I drop my flashlight and cringe, totally
caught off guard. Millie must be taking
> ¡break and has suddenly realized
Қо», I'm not directly underfoot.
"m "I'm up here!" I shout
back, knowing that
> this is vague
and meaningless,
but it should be
enough to satisfy
her. I employ a tone
that means "I'm doing
something useful," and
that usually works. It
seems to in this case, at
least, because I hear no
more out of her. I can tell
/ she's moved into one of the.
bathrooms now, as the furious
' squeak of sponge on porcelain
reaches my ears, even up here.
I'm telling you, she's hell on

wheels, Millie is, when she starts cleaning something.

“What're these?” I say, but barely loud enough for
even myself to hear. I scuttle over to them and pull the
top one toward me. A second or two later I have the
flaps open and find a stack of old clothing staring up at
me. I know, I know, clothing can't actually look at you,
but I'm just saying that’s what's in the box. Clothes. Our
old scout uniforms—my brother's and mine—all care-
fully folded and placed in two rows, with a few little
awards and ribbons arranged on top. It doesn't make
me sad to see them—I mean, not really—but it's a def-
inite surprise. My brother'll get a kick out of going
through it all—see, he did the whole thing, Eagle Scout
or whatever, so it was kind of a big deal. I smile at the
memories that flood back as I pull the second box over
toward me and snap open the lid. Books this time,
which I had no idea my parents ever owned. I mean,
we had maybe one set of encyclopedias when I was
growing up, and that was about it. A Good News Bible
that was kept in a drawer in the living room, where
my dad could get at it to use when killing a spider, but
we weren't exactly a literary family. At all. Well, my mom
would read those cheap romances and stuff, which
I already mentioned—the pocketbooks—but some kids
I knew, families I had visited or had sleepovers with,
had mountains of books. Walls and walls full of them,
even separate rooms that they called dens or, this one
friend of mine, a library. So this was a bit of a shock, to
find a bunch of good-quality hardbacks tucked away
at our place, even if they were technically hidden up
in the attic. And these are nice ones, too, like Heming-
way and Steinbeck and those guys, Fitzgerald. It's really
hard to believe—my mom must've joined some club
or something, Book-Of-The-Month or that type of deal.
At least until my old man found out; these had proba-
bly been banished up here for her daring to defy him
(or spending “good money” on something other than
Pabst Blue Ribbon). Smiling, I snatch one off the top,
Samuel Butler's The Way of All Flesh—which I've never
even heard of—and flip it open to the title page. And
there she is. Staring up at me through a piece of tissue
paper, but I can tell that it’s her, very clearly, having
seen other pictures from around that time. Right about
when they got married, a year or two after that. It's my
mother, her hair still that vibrant red that it was in her
youth, looking straight into the camera. What I have
here are three photos—old Polaroids, actually—that
have been placed inside this one novel and tucked away.
Shut up for however many years. Now of course I
remember my father and his stupid Polaroid Land cam-
ега--Гуе got about a hundred photos of me as a kid
from the 1970s, which are all faded and curled up on
the edges—but this is a new one to me. Three pristine
color snaps of my mother, sitting on the stairs that are
almost directly beneath me, completely and utterly
naked. I mean, not a stitch on. Well, except for a pair
of pumps. Wow. How can this be?

“You want lunch?" comes Millie's voice up through
the opening back behind me. Questioning. “I'm get-
ting kind of hungry.”

“Ummm, well, I'm up here now, so I should proba-
bly....” I don't really know what to say next, but she
saves me by jumping in and taking over, just as she
always does.

“ГІ run down to Wendy's or something, it's fine.
What do you want?”

“Spicy Chicken’s good. The meal, okay, but Biggie
Size it? And a Diet.” This cryptic fast-food language is
instantly processed and accepted by my wife in the
ensuing silence. (continued on page 146)

"I got her pants down last night, but I couldn't get her skis off.”

139

ІЗ EIE ÆR

2004 was more fun than a barrel of Viagra (If hilarity

(1) Ce

pencils and broke out the ги Ok

in pon o the Super Bowl half

time flash by Janet Jackson, with an

assist from Justin Timberlake. Her s
rdrobe malfunction 5

record for lays on TiVo—and

CBS a 550,000 in FCC fine:

about a b sach complaint the

agency received. E 2

were more amu

spoofed the inci

National Security Advisor Condo!

Rice on Saturday

Night Live; (3)

money-hungry

toyma im-

mortalized the

moment with

Janet and Jus-

tin dolls; and

(4) comedian

Rob Schneider

premiere of 50
First Dates.

D y N (^ L М7

Е#* СС YOU, ТОО!

In the post-Super Bowl chill, Clear Channel dropped
Howard Stern, but Vice President Dick Cheney
got away with telling Vermont senator Pat Leahy
to go fuck

himself,

Då Р; Nå | BUSH'GARDENS
n^ Twehty-eight British university students
brave windburn'to sét.the world record for.
y naked roller-coaster rides: Three months
Б later the record was topped by two.

ELECTUS
Fending off

the threat of

a scandal

involving a

male aide,

New Jersey

governor Jim

McGreevey

surprised many,

including his

wife, by calling

а news con-

ference and de-

claring, “lama

RACK OF THE 50-FOOT WOMAN gay American.”
Getting a feel for his job, this
Swiss worker adjusts model
Daniela Pestova's cleavage on a

Geneva billboard

THREE BLONDES WALKED

RIGHT: BOBBY,
BOOBIE,
BOOBIE, BOBBY
This British
woman streaked
at Wimbledon

in a desperate
plea for attention
It worked

INTO A BOOKSTORE AND.
«Made a lot of money, as Paris Hilton’
Confessions of an Heiress, Jenna Jameson's
How to Make Love Like a Porn Star and Pamela Anderson's
Star—featuring this lovely photo on the inside
jacket—jumped off the shelves.

SEXUAL REVOLUTIONS

Japanese porn star Micky Yanai invented
the “helicopter fuck,” in which he rotates
360 degrees atop his partner. View the
improbable video at masamania.com.

MEET THE KERRY TWINS
Alexandra Kerry was clearly
supporting her pop's presi-
dential bid when megawatt
flashbulbs caused this May
surprise at Cannes. After
U.S. newspapers censored
the photos, a flurry of Inter-
net downloads ensued

VICTORY LAP

Regular guy Jim Frankel, who won a
chance to lick whipped cream off
Jessica Simpson's cleavage,

looks like the luckiest stiff of
the year. Don't believe it
he's at Madame Tussauds
in New York, and

those melons

аге mere wax. Å 6

BACKDOOR BLOGGER

Senate staffer Jessica Cutler

was canned not because she

had kinky sex with politico

sugar daddies nor be-

cause she wrote

about it in her blog

but because of "in-

appropriate use IT'S THE SHOES, STUPID

of Senate office Models Kimora Lee Simmons, Ruth Crilley

equipment. and Sophie Dahl flog for cobblers Baby

Phat and Patrick Cox, filling

magazine readers with
desire...to buy shoes.

SPORTS BUFFS
Skin was in at the Olympics:
Much-ogled U.S. beach vol-
leyballers Misty May and
Kerri Walsh got down and dirty in a vic-
tory celebration; German long jumper
Susan Tiedtke-Green, cover girl Amy
Acuff and other athletes posed for
PLAYBOY; and a bare-breasted fertility
goddess performed a not remotely sub-
tle snake dance to spice up the opening
ceremonies. (Funny, NBC got no FCC fine.)

BOOTY

QUEEN

Miss Universe,

Australia's

Jennifer

Hawkins, made

a hasty exit,

stage rear, after her skirt snagged on her
shoe and fell to the floor during a suburban
Sydney shopping-mall fashion show.

TWO-POINT SHOT
Prudish fans cried foul
when Lauren Jackson,
forward for the WNBA's
Seattle Storm, posed
nude in an Australian art
photography book.

HORN AGAIN
With stiffening
competition from
the new erectile-
dysfunction drugs
Levitra and Cialis,
Viagra is step-
ping up its cam-
paign and spicing
up its image
Take this cocky
bastard—a far Ask your doctor if Viagra is right for you.
cry from the ear-
nest Bob Dole TV
spots Pfizer ran
in 1999.

YEAR IN SEX

DANE IN VAIN
Nude models
read poetry in the
parks of Aalborg,
Denmark to hype
the latest show
by controversial
artist Marco
Evaristti. Killjoy
cops ended FOR LOVE
the display of OR MONEY
naked pastry. 4 When she
wasn't clobber-
ing fans and
foes with micro-
phone stands,
flashlights and
liquor bottles,
rampaging rock
chick Courtney
Love still main-
tained a strong
tabloid pres-
ence—the old
flashin' way.

HARVARD—NOT AS SQUARE AS WE REMEMBER IT

After official wrangles, Harvard students finally published

their racy magazine H Bomb. It interests people, said one

editor, “because they've never heard 'Harvard' and 'sex' in
the same sentence.”

WHAT'S GOOD FOR THE SPRUCE
At a music festival in Norway, Leona Johansson and

Tommy Hol Ellingsen couple onstage beneath a

FUCK FOR FOREST banner

to tunes by (who else?) B 4

the Cumshots. n (o MORAS

Envirvamental porn

-Paris Hilton Sex Tape = NEXT-TO-LAST
г т TANGO ІМ PARIS
COMING T NEAR YOU How do you top a
| Seer best-selling explicit
sex tape? If you're Paris
Hilton, you make a sequel—or
Six. Word is there are about 12
hours of hot Hilton action yet to
be viewed, including a scene in
which she deploys the N bomb.

BRITNEY SPEARS
TRIED TO 5
ALMY

BRITNEY’S MARRY-GO-ROUND
First the pop tart frolicked with
dancer Columbus Short, to the
great unamusement of his mis-
sus. Then she married childhood pal Jason Allen
Alexander, briefly. Now she is (we're pretty sure)
wed to dancer Kevin Federline, whose ex-girlfriend

NAVEL BATTLE
Despite objections from
several contestants, Miss
America hopefuls were is-
sued skimpy Speedos (worn at
right by the winner, Deidre Downs).
Rolling in her grave: 1921 titlist
Margaret Gorman, below.

SITUATIONS OUT OF HAND
In Berlin, model Yvonne Hoelzel
slips out at a fashion show
organized by the wife of
Germany's president, while
in Los Angeles the waifish
Anna Nicole Smith loses it
at G-Phoria:
The Awards
Show 4
Gamers.

Shar Jackson bore his second kid in July. Yes, that
little schoolgirl is grabbing life by the balls.

BUNS BASH BUSH
Protesters bummed out by GOP policies line up
outside the Republican National Convention at
Madison Square Garden in New York.

SCHOOLS FOR SCANDAL
Mary Kay Letourneau left
jail looking to reunite with |
her schoolboy lover Vili
Fualaau, and Tampa teach.
er Debra LaFave (on hog)
was busted for having sex |
with a 14-year-old pupil in
her SUV while his 15-year-
old cousin drove.

PLAYBOY

146

Mom (continued from page 138)

The woman I call Mother had a body that would've
made Bettie Page weep into her broth.

“You want a Frosty?”

“Yeah, that sounds nice. Small.”

“All right, see you in a minute.” And
then, “Is there anything up there?”

“Ahhhhh, no, not really. Just some...
I'm checking for leaks and that sort of
thing. I don’t want some contract falling
through because of a rainstorm or
whatever, right?”

“1 guess.”

"I'll be down by the time you get
back. Promise,” I say, not really mean-
ing it but knowing that it sometimes
makes the difference—women love it
when men set deadlines or express cer-
tainty. It's supposedly sexy or some-
thing. Don't ask me.

“Great. See you!” she calls out.

“Yeah, drive safe, okay? And don't
forget that Barber is a one-way.”

"I remember. God, what do you think
I am, retarded?"

“Ummm, 1 prefer to think of you as
'specia " I can hear her laughing
from way up here, so that's good.
Sometimes Millie takes my humor the
wrong way.

"That's me, your ‘special’ girl. See
you, sweetie!" The sound of the door.
closing a second or two later. I have to
say, when that woman gets hungry,
nothing stands in the way of her getting
her next meal. No way.

"So, Dad, what is the story here?" I
whisper, turning the pictures over,
almost expecting an apology (or at least
an explanation) to be penciled in on the
back of each one. But nothing. Not one
word. I flip the top one back over, lean-
ing in with the light to study it. In two
of the three, my mother—l guess if
we're talking about her being all nude
and everything you might as well know
her name, which is Carolyn—she's
leaning back against one stair, holding
herself upright with her elbows. Both of
these are shot from the waist up, so
basically they show her breasts and face.
Not close-ups, exactly, but what film-
makers might call medium shots. I
guess you could almost say that they're
artfully composed, what with the carpet
from the stairs and the color of her hair
complementing each other and the pale
of her skin working as a kind of relief.
Flaming scarlet lips that would be beau-
tiful on anyone else but make my
stomach flutter a bit as I catch myself
thinking it. I don't know if I feel up to
describing her bosom, but ГЇЇ give it a
go—if it was a completely impartial

assessment I was making, of some lady
in a magazine or with a friend from col-
lege or something, then I'd say, without
hesitation, that they are great. Almost
perfectly shaped—too perfect, really—
as if they were drawn by that dude who
made Fritz the Cat or whatever. Just
really, really lovely. I mean, I don't
think I'm saying anything new when
I report that women's tits can so easily
turn out to be mediocre, or worse even,
once you actually get a look at them, so
it's still surprising—even at my age—
when I see a knockout pair. And I mean
especially that, a pair. Often you'll find
some that are exquisite, and then, on
closer inspection, you'll notice a flaw or
imperfection on one or its partner. A
leaning to the side or a sort of droop-
ing, a discoloration in the nipple. A
birthmark or a mole, even, lots of things
that can keep the two from being mag-
nificent when studied together. But
here in my hand, sported by my own
mom some 40 years ago, is an almost
flawless set of mams. Two gorgeous
examples of womanly flesh and cap-
tured forever in a snapshot. I mean,
these are knockout boobs that my mom
has, and until this very moment in my
life I had no idea that she was built like
that. I can only ever remember her in a
kind of shapeless floral housedress all
while I was growing up, so this newly
discovered fact is equal parts disturbing
and titillating. Well, maybe it errs a
touch on the disturbing side, but still.
As I said, the second photo is almost
a carbon copy of the first, so I skip past
it and move on to the third, which is the
one that really takes the cake. Again,
this is a low-quality print I'm looking at,
but the woman springs out of the com-
position, so gorgeous is she at that
moment in her life. It's a full-body shot,
this one is—and, yes, now I know for
certain that she didn't dye her hair—
but it's her positioning that's so star-
tling, and not just because she's my
mother, either, but from what little I
know about that era itself. The 1960s,
I mean. I realize there were magazines
you could buy back then, pornography
and that sort of stuff, but everything
I've ever seen or heard of from that
period is pretty chaste—at least the first
part of the decade, and these pictures
are from probably no later than 1963,
or 1964 at the latest. Most shots from
those times are these "girl next door"
types sitting all coy and covered on a

blanket, with their tops exposed but
that's about it. And here's this woman
who used to fix me my Cap'n Crunch
every morning with her legs all spread
and her fire-engine-red fingernails
playing with one nipple, pinching at the
tip. Lips puckered up. I really am taken
aback by this now, the idea that my
mother could've ever done this, even
with the help of my father (although Га
bet good money on the fact that he had
a lot to do with it; I just know that he
did—he always seemed like that kind of
man). Now, I realize that all parents
have a life, a secret sort of life that exists
before we ever get to know them; of
course I understand that, but this is still
pretty startling to find out about some-
one you both love desperately and take
entirely for granted. The woman I call
Mother had the makings of a pinup and
a body that would've made Bettie Page
weep into her broth. Life is just so
damn silly, isn't it? I mean, when you
really think about it.

The reason for all this naughtiness
reveals itself when I finally put the pho-
tos aside and lift the piece of tissue
paper they were wrapped in from
inside the novel. Beneath it, folded into
thirds, is a simple and direct response
from the offices of PLAYBOY magazine in
Chicago, Illinois—it's not signed by
Hugh Hefner himself, unfortunately, or
I'd probably sell the thing on eBay—
that thanks my father for his submis-
sion, mentions how beautiful his wife
is and goes on to say that, while she is
certainly a worthwhile female specimen,
they are sorry to inform him that they
will not be pursuing her as a possible
Centerfold at this time. What? And then
suddenly it all makes sense; the entire
enterprise makes itself clear to me as
I'm lying there in the dark: Dad wanted
to get Mom into PLAYBOY as a model. I
mean, I've heard of this notion, that
many men's magazines accept amateur
photos and that type of thing, but I'm
stunned by this new curve in what I
already imagined to be a serpentine
relationship between my two parents.
How could he have done this? And how
could she? It really is baffling. Even if
they did love each other at one point—
and I suppose they had to, I must
begrudgingly admit, plus it's a medical
fact that they had sex a few times, at
least in the early days—this behavior is
still so off the charts from what I know
about them as a couple that I can feel
myself drifting into a kind of shock. Just
staring at the company logo at the top
of the rejection notice, which is begin-
ning to go slowly out of focus.

“I'm back! Honey?" comes roaring
up from downstairs with such force that
I nearly slip off the two-by-12s I'm lying

(concluded on page 189)

“It just wouldn't be Christmas if we didn't accidentally knock the tree over.”

147

PHOTOGRAPHED AT THE BORGATA HOTEL CASINO & SPA

Ge — (чох,

IS
THIS MAN THE

FUTURE
POKER?

Sonor O

MEET DAVID WILLIAMS. HE'S A NERD WHO PLAYED
MAGIC. HE’S STILL IN COLLEGE. AND HE JUST WON
$3.5 MILLION PLAYING TEXAS HOLD "EM

BY PAT JORDAN

rittany DeWald is in another snit. “Pm
В: Nothing. Нег boyfriend, David
Williams, is sitting on the sofa playing
online poker on his laptop for $1,600 a pot. His
friend Minh Huynh is sitting at a table behind
him playing online poker on another computer
in Williams’s loft apartment, which is high-
ceilinged, cold, dark and cavernous, with bar-
ren gray concrete walls and exposed pipes and
air ducts. There is nothing on the walls—no
prints, photographs or mirrors. The only furni-
ture in the room is a black sofa, a matching love
seat, a coffee table with a small photograph of a
Chihuahua, a computer table with Williams's
collection of PLAYBOY magazines stacked
chronologically under it and a 60-inch flat-
screen television showing the finals of the 2004
World Series of Poker on ESPN.
It is nine P.M. in Dallas, and the only light in
the room comes from the TV and the eerie

cyber-blue computer glow reflecting on the
faces of Williams and Huynh. Williams is 24
and lean, with a wispy goatee, a head of tight
black curls and creamy, coffee-colored skin. He
looks vaguely black, vaguely Middle Eastern.
Huynh is 32 and from Vietnam. Very heavy,
with a jowly face and thick-lensed eyeglasses,
Huynh is a loquacious, funny, acerbic fat man.
Williams is laconic, spare with his words and
emotions. He looks like NBA star Tim Dun-
can, were Duncan to dress like a slacker-
hipster in baggy T-shirts, jeans and sneakers.
Like Duncan, Williams has the eyes-lowered,
self-deprecating slouch of a supremely confi-
dent man. Williams and Huynh have been
playing poker for more than four hours now.

“Pm cold,” DeWald says.

“Yes!” says Williams. “A $735 pot.”

Huynh glances at the WSOP on TV. “That
Eskimo Clark is an old-timer. Traveled around

PHOTOGRAPH BY JAMES IMBROGNO

HOUSE

SITTING DOWN WITH SOME OF THE
WORLD'S MOST FEARED POKER PLAYERS

DOYLE “TEXAS
DOLLY" BRUNSON

His career goes back five decades.
The 71-year-old Texan has become an
icon in the modern era, winning the
World Series of Poker twice, both
times with a weak hand of 10-two. To-

tal toumament winnings: $3,155,441.

PHIL HELLMUTH JR.

Hellmuth is to poker what John McEnroe
was to tennis—a brilliant bad boy, a
burning fuse. He has finished in the

money 45 times at various WSOP com-
petitions, and he won the main event
in 1989 at the tender age of 24. Total
tournament winnings: $4,722,451.

MEN “THE

MASTER" NGUYEN
Nguyen's poker students call him Mas-
tet. A refugee from Vietnam, the 50-
year-old played his first game in 1984

‘ond promptly lost $1,600. Now he
risks that much on a single onte. Totol
tournament winnings: $3,518,860.

PHIL IVEY

This 27-year-old from New Jersey is
totally unpredictable. In 2002 he was
red-hot, earning money in 23 major
Tournaments. Since then he's been
to fewer final tables, but his earnings
have more than doubled. Total tour-

| nament winnings: $2,647,106.

TJ. CLOUTIER

Considered by many to be the best
player in the world, Cloutier is also
perhaps the unluckiest. The 65-year-
old Texas native has a history of “bod
beats” in tournaments. Still, he’s done
okay for himself. Total tournament
winnings: $4,536,483.

DANIEL NEGREANU

Most players cultivate a detached

tough-guy persona at the table, but
not this 30-year-old Canadian. With
his mom nearby (she packs his lunch),
he's the head of a Rat Pack of younger,
hipper players. Total tournament
2 winnings: $4,259,532. —Basil Nestor

to underground clubs, gor
raided by the cops or hi-
jacked and couldn't go to
the cops. Poker is main-
stream now.” He goes back
to his computer. “Jesus
Christ!”

“Fuck!” says Williams.

“A set of threes.” He
glances at the TV. “Scotty y
Nguyen can drink Miche-
lob all night long.”

“Tm cold,” DeWald says.
hen put some clothes
on,” Huynh responds.

DeWald pouts. “This is
a fucking man pit. There's too much
estrogen in here.”

“You mean testosterone,” says Williams.

“Whatever. It’s a boring lifestyle.”
DeWald, 20, flops down on the love seat
beside me. A beautiful, curvaceous red-
head with white skin and hazel eyes, she’s
wearing a low-cut, short camisole that
exposes her plump breasts and a navel
g. Her tiny miniskirt barely covers her
- She flips through one of Williams’s
PLAYBOYS. Williams reads the magazine
from cover to cover each month, but he
passes over the nude photographs be-
cause he doesn't think the models exist.

“Where are these girls?” he asks.
“They don't go to the grocery store. They
should be human, but I never see them.”

“I plan to have a body like Pamela
Anderson's,” says DeWald.

“Great,” says Williams. “Let the world
know how shallow David Williams's
girlfriend is.”

“My mother had a boob job.”

She had six kids. It was time.” Then,
after another winning pot, he says, “I’m
up $2,793 now.”

I ask DeWald if she plays poker. “Pm
learning," she says. *The object is to
win all the money. I play only very,
very low limit."

“That's because you're so bad,” says
Williams.

“Asshole!” Then to me, “I don't
have the at-
tention span
for poker.
Everyone in
my family
has ADD. I
hate to lose.
One game, I
put all of
my money
in the pot
and lost, and
I cried."

Huynh.

Brittany DeWald cheered
on her boyfriend in Vegas.

From left: Young David, age 8, with his mom, Shirley.
David at last year's Borgata Open World Poker Tour event.

“I was pissed. Pm a
woman, and I’m emotion-
al. One game, this guy took
all his girlfriend's money
and didn't give it back."

“Daniel Negreanu once
bluffed his girlfriend our
of a pot,” says Huynh.

"It's common courtesy
not to browbeat your girl-
friend,” says DeWald.

"It's common courtes
to the table not to soft-
play your girlfriend,"
says Huynh.

Williams and Huynh
glance at the WSOP on TV while their
fingers move across their computer
keys. They seem not to have to look at
the computer screens, as if they're play-
ing by osmosis.

ESPN is broadcasting 22 weeks of the
2004 WSOP (the previous year the net-
work aired just seven episodes), which
took place at Binion's Horseshoe Casino
in Las Vegas. More than 2,500 players—
1,700 more than in 2003—put down a
$10,000 entry fee for the chance to win
the $5 million first prize, the $3.5 million
second prize or the diminishing amounts
for other top finishers. Most important
to professional poker players, they also
competed for the diamond-encrusted
gold bracelet that proclaims the recipient
the best poker player in the world.

Texas Hold "Em, heavily featured at
the WSOP, is one of the simplest yet most
challenging of all poker games, which is
why the WSOP title is the most presti-
gious. Players must have an uncanny in-
stinct in reading their opponents’ two
down cards, a mathematical bent in fig-
uring out the percentage of drawing a
card they need, an innate ability to read
an opponent's *tells"—his mannerisms
when looking at his cards or preparing to
ber—and the guts of a burglar in know-
ing when to try to bluff an opponent out
of his superior hand by raising large
amounts of money until he folds.
That is why
the game has
made TV
stars out of
a disparate
group of
men, and a
few women,
who have lit-
tle in com-
mon except
their poker
skills. Those
players fall
easily into
two groups:
old-time

“Melanie, I just had a night of sheer magic. I just wish
could ne who with.”

PLAYBOY

152

poker players who cut their teeth on
illicit cash games (in which they bet their
own money) and the newer breed of
players, younger and more intelligent,
who cut their teeth on online video
games, then graduated to card games
like Magic: The Gathering (a sort of
Pokémon game for pre-adults) and fi-
nally to online poker before venturing
into live cash games and then the WSOP.

“Williams and guys like Negreanu
are the new breed,” Huynh tells me.
“Many of them started with Magic and
then went to online poker. Williams is
so smart. You can't beat him. When he
was 16 I saw him push his last $2,000
into a pot. You can't teach that.”

Williams was 15 when he met Huynh
at a Magic tournament. Williams
describes Magic as an analytical card
game with features of chess, bridge
and poker. The artwork has a fantasy
element—goblins and knights—but he
says the game is nothing like Dungeons
& Dragons. It's played mostly by teen-
agers and people in their early 20s.
"Most of them are not very social,"
Williams says. "All they do is bitch
about Magic."

Huynh says the David Williams he
met "was smart and mature, and he
wanted to learn from me." By the age
of 16 Williams was already one of the
best Magic players in the world. He
traveled to the Netherlands, Aruba,
Singapore and Paris for money tourna-
ments and won as much as $45,000 in a
year. During his Magic days Williams
made an assortment of friends around
the world who remain his friends to-
day: Huynh; Neil Reeves, now 26,
from Arkansas; and Noah Boeken, now
23, from the Netherlands.

They're kind of nerdy."
says Williams, "and they're
all earning deep six figures playing
poker."

By the time Williams turned 17,
Magic was less of a challenge for him.
His Magic friends on the Internet told
him about the new big thing online. “I
was intrigued by poker," says Williams.
"Huynh helped me out and then got
me into some illicit games. I didn't play
any games that would hurt me."

“Williams went in with $500 and
didn't stop until he'd won $5,000," says
Huynh. "He figured the game out and
in three months was better than I was."

Williams read every book he could
find on poker, every issue of Card Player
magazine from cover to cover and
within a few years began to make a liv-
ing at the game, which he'd play on-
line and in illicit cash games in under-
ground Dallas clubs. When Reeves
moved there a year ago, Williams
taught him the game, and the three

men would go to clubs to play poker
for up to 30 hours straight.

“David has no fear," says Reeves,
who describes himself as a fat, ugly
white guy. “He looks at chips as chips,
not money. He introduced me to un-
derground poker games. They're like
a spiderweb, and now I’m making
more money than at anything else I
could do, maybe $82,000 to $86,000
this year.”

Williams's attraction to Reeves, and
to all his Magic and poker friends, says
Reeves, “is that we're all extremely
smart and don't want to work nine to
five. It's the most intelligent collection
of scumbags Гуе ever met. It’s an alter-
native lifestyle.”

By the time Williams, who describes
himself as smart and lazy, turned 21, he
was playing poker for a living and mak-
ing between $50,000 and $100,000 a
year at it. He finally decided it was time
to play in the biggest game of his life,
the World Series of Poker. The day be-
fore he went to Vegas he won an online
tournament, which paid his $10,000

"We're all extremely smart
and don't want to work
nine to five. It’s the most
intelligent collection of

scumbags I've ever met. It's
an alternative lifestyle.”

WSOP entry fee. “I had no expecta-
tions,” he says. “I thought of it as a
learning experience.”

"There's a big difference between a
cash player and a tournament player,”
says Huynh. “There's less pressure in
a tournament, because you can lose
only your qualifying fee. In cash
games, I used to lose two months’
salary in just one game. Vietnamese
gamble out of all proportion to our
salaries. We'll bet a third of our week's
salary on a pot. Man, poker brings out
the worst in people. After a bad loss, a
miserable bastard will be an even more
miserable bastard."

"I played nothing but cash games
before the WSOP" Williams says. "In
those, if you lose, you go into your
pocket for more money. In a tourna-
ment, if you lose, you're out, so players
are more cautious."

“Live poker games are more artful,”
says Huynh. “A lot of bluffs and skill.
They're more fun than online games.”

“But I can make five times more on-
line,” Williams insists.

“Yeah,” says Huynh, “but online
games aren't art, just math. I have
notes on almost a thousand online
players. I see a weak player in a game,
and I jump in. I play four online
games at a time, 250 hands an hour.
You can play only 35 live hands an
hour. 1 play online eight hours a day.
It's like going to work. I make more
than $100,000 a year.”

Reeves says he prefers live games be-
cause he can play the player, not the
cards: “I look for tells. David is the best
face-to-face player.”

Williams says he got into a zone at
the WSOP. “I was gaining talents like I
was possessed,” he says. “I could read a
guy's body language. If he looked at his
cards and tensed his shoulders, he had
a good hand. It meant he was thinking.
If he relaxed and looked around, he
had nothing.”

DeWald speaks up: “Poker is such a
huge part of our life and relationship.
David's on his laptop 18 hours a day. 1
get jealous. ‘Don’t you wanna sleep or
eat?’ I ask him. I try to sleep, but guys
are hollering over a pot at three A.M. I
wake up at nine, and guys are sleeping
all over or still playing.”

“She says I'm the lamest,” says
Williams. “I don't drink, do drugs, jog,
work out, go to clubs, dance, nothing.
I send her out to the grocery store. I
play poker.”

“We're opposites,” says DeWald.
“David chills and cools. I'm energetic. I
love roller coasters.”

“Why do something that makes you
sick?" Williams asks.

"I wanna skydive next.” I notice that
DeWald has a pierced tongue with a sil-
ver barbell in it. I ask her about it. "It's
just something to play with when I'm
bored,” she says.

"I told her it's time to take it out,”
says Williams. “You're an adult now.
When adults have those things there's
something wrong with them.”

DeWald screams at him. “There's
nothing wrong with me! Look at you—
it took you six months to buy a sofa. We
had nothing but a TV. You said you'd
buy a car with your WSOP money, but
you won't get one by Christmas.”

Williams shrugs. “I don't like to
spend money.”

At 10 p.m. Williams starts making
telephone calls, looking for an illicit
cash game. When he finds one, Huynh,
Williams and I get up to leave.

“I thought you were taking me out
to dinner,” DeWald says.

“Tomorrow night,” he says. She
storms out of the living room and goes
upstairs to their bedroom.

Williams, Huynh and I drive north
out of Dallas to a Steak n Shake for
dinner, then on to the poker game.

(continued on page 184)

|
ции Pravmare Review

Finally, an election that really means something

why the candidates for the 2004 Playmate of the Year

urge you to focus on this race. Go ahead—slowly reac-
quaint yourself with the curvaceous qualifications of the
dozen beauties pictured. Evaluate their positions. Scruti-
nize their stands. Consider which of them is likely to be a
flip-flopper and whether that's necessarily a bad thing.
Remember, you'll be seeing more of whomever you like
as PMOY, so choose wisely. Once you've decided, go to
playboy.com. Feel free to vote early and often.

р ast elections show that every vote counts, which is

VOTE FOR YOUR FAVORITE PLAYMATE AT PLAYBOY.COM.

Miss May

NICOLE WHITEHEAD

“You wouldn't believe all the mile-
high jokes I've heard since my
issue came out,” says Nicole, who
completed her solo hours and is
à licensed pilot. “I'm a flight
instructor now. Have you ever.
taught a Kid how to drive a car?
Imagine being 5,000 feet up and
going many times faster, It’s fun
to share the excitement with

others, though.” Still in Orlando,
Florida, Nicole weathered a wicked
hurricane season, “We were
hiding in our closet for five hours
during Charlie,” she says, “During
the next one I the idiot out-
side with a video camera,”

Miss August

PILAR LASTRA

You can catch Pilar on-screen as
а sexy maid in the comedy
Malibu Spring Break. She's also
penning a humor book called
The Complete Chick's Guide

to Handling Assholes. "A friend
of mine wrote The Complete
A**hole's Guide to Handling

Pilar would like to start her
own charity, called Play.
“Nobody should have to worry,
at least for one day, about
what ails them. Everybody
ves a chance to play.”

Miss Oetoher

KIMBERLY HOLLAND

Recent college
Kimberly has been making a lot
of appearances for PLAYBOY on
message boards and in person
“I'm really good with fans,” she
says. "I like to listen to what
people think and hear their input
I would never snub them,
because they are the reason I'm
here. After seeing me in several
Special Editions, people say they
consider me a chameleon because
Hook different in every shot. If
they vote for me for PMOY, they
won't see the same boring
pictures again. Chameleon Kim
will surprise everyone!”

Miss September

SCARLETT KEEG

AN
We caught up with Scarlett in
between her going to an audition
and getting fitted for her Bunny
outfit, “After my issue came out,
I got lots of phone calls from
people I hadn't heard from in å
while,” she 5, “1 go ph
now and people recognize me.
It's kind of exciting." Playmate
sisterhood is alive and well for
Scarlett, who kee]
Kimberly Holland. “I haven't
met too many bad seeds,
says. "I'm happy for whoever
wins, be it myself or anybody
because it's a nic
Still, vote for Sı

Miss February

ALIYA WOLF

Although raising her daughter
is still her top priority. Aliya is
always on the lookout for the
perfect motorcycle. "I'm thinking
about a Bourget because they're
really hot-looking bikes, but they
cost many thousands,” she says.
Winning PMOY would cover that
expense and then some, but
Aliya shies away from excessive
attention. "IVs flattering to have
someone look at you and say,
"Wow, you're so beautiful.” but at
the same time I'm kind of shy.
and I blush.” she says. “I have my
family to thank for my unusual
look. and I feel blessed.”

Miss April
KRISTA KELLY

Still modeling and taking acting
ses in Toronto, Krista has
aving up to move to Los

“I want to live there,”
I'm crossing my

for some good audi-
‘ally make every-
body who my path smile.
so I'll stay for six months and try
a nice American boy to
Ty.” Kr would use her

tions. I

she hopes to have one day. "I'm
very determined and can adapt
pretty well,” she says. "My
dreams are big enough.”

Miss Mareh
SANDRA HUBBY

“I don't like staying still,” says
andra, noting that
becoming Miss March she has
done promotions in New Orleans,
Australia and Mexico, among
other locales. “It’s hard to figure
out where | want 10 settle down.
Becoming PMOY would be great
because you get to travel
everywhere and meet the fans.
Guys mail me things to sign, and
I always do so and send them
back, It's just a small token of

my appreciation, and it shows
I'm thinking of them.” Look for
Sandra in the 2005 Playmate
Calendar and video

4 7 .

—чук ER
S %

ХХ

Miss January

COLLEEN SHANNON

When not on tour, our favorite
DJ has played the lead in the
movie The Passing, even record-
ing a song for its soundtrack,
and was the focus of Spike TV's
The Club, on which she ap-
peared with producer Paul Oak-
enfold. “Paul can turn a pork
chop into filet mignon,” says
Colleen, who also has a pending
record deal. When we ask how
it would feel to be both PMOY
and the 50th Anniversary Play-
mate, Colleen gasps. “I would
be astonished,” she says. "I'd
make PLAYBOY proud and treat
everyone I met with kindness.

Miss November

CARA ZAVALETA

The road still rules for Cara
who embarked on a signing
tour of Have a Nice Day Cafés,
(“I love signing autographs,”
she says, "whether on T-shirts
or nice butts.”) But travel
isn't everything. "I bought a
house in Ohio, and I make my
shawls when I'm there. It's
frigging time-consuming
Everybody's wearing these
crazy knit things—all these
grannies running around!” IUs.
enough to make a girl hit the
road. “I want to see pyramids.
Then FIL hit up Argentina and
buy a gigantic supply of yarn.”

Miss June

HIROMI OSHIMA

Hiromi is still modeling in
Miami—look for her in upcoming
Playboy Special Editions—and
hopes to stay in the United States
as long as she can. “I have no
lime off for vacations.” says the
busy Miss June. “I want to meet
my parents during the holidays.
maybe in Spain, Indonesia or
Thailand.” Hiromi just joined the
Playboy \-Treme Team but doesn't
know what sport she'll play. “I
told them I have no confidence
because it's so tough, but I want
Lo give it a shot,” she says. laugh-
ing. “I'm pretty athletic, but that
doesn't mean ГЇ be good at it.”

Miss December

TIFFANY FALLON

In January Tiffany joins the cast
of Spike TV's sketch comedy
series The Lance Krall Show, on
which she plays everything from
à sex-starved office worker to
an alluring alien. “I love being
an ambassador for PLAYBOY,” she
says. “I think I'm just a normal
girl who is accessible,

approachable and friendly. I wrote
some of the soldiers in Iraq

and have a pen-pal system going
on. I like it because ¡Us old-
fashioned and a way to become
one with your fans. It not

only makes them feel special

it makes me feel special

Miss July
STEPHAME GLASSON

“1 do like bald guys!” says
Stephanie, amending her
Playmate Data Sheet. “I actually
never had anything against
them— just wrote that in my
turnoffs about one specific
person. If I could have any man in
this world, it would be Maynard.
the lead singer of Tool. See?” Case
closed. “If I won PMOY, I would
buy my mom a new car, She didn't
want me to pose, but 1 said
Mom. there are only 12 of them a
year—12.' Now that she has

seen my issue, she is so proud

)04's Playmates
r.playboy.com.

PLAYBOY

164

Vollmann (continued from page 108)

A sign on the fence warned of danger, but a conve-
nient hole invited us to enter, and in we went.

any such place). Her task was to “pack
the finished things,” she said. It had
been two months since she'd started
there; she wanted to stay.

“Would it be good work for all your
asked.

SER

"Why do some people work in
maquiladoras and some become
campesinos? Which do you prefer?”

She gave me the classic Mexicali
: "The maquiladora is more

life

Tranquility was what they prized in
Mexicali. I have been there many
times, and year after year that was the
word of praise and aspiration I most
often heard there, though I rarely
heard it in Tijuana.

On another dirt street in Pedregal, a
man who lacked teeth conveyed an
impression of immense happiness; his
own cinder-block house cube cost
150,000 pesos, which he was now pay-
ing off in trifling installments. He
worked the night shift in a maquiladora;
during the day he worked on his house.

His job consisted of placing computer
cabinets into a paint-sprayer machine—
black paint obviously, for the man was
black around his fingernails, black in his
nose; sometimes he even coughed
black, he said. He had worked at the
maquiladora for two months and
thought it a very good job. He had no
fear that he would ever get sick.

SONY OWNS EVERYTHING

For all 1 knew, he really did have a good

job. If 1 could only see that he did, 1
would gladly give his maquiladora a tes-
timonial. If I could only get autho-
rization!

Well, if the maquiladoras had had
their way, I would never have seen the
inside of a single one. Oh, yes, I tried
Kimberly-Clark of Mexico; Maquiladora
Waste Recovery of Mexico (eternally
busy recovering waste, evidently); Kraft
Foods of Mexico (no answer); Pun-
tomex International, whose first and
third listed numbers were wrong and
whose second number was never
answered; Ace Industries, which also
never answered; and Amcor of Mexico,
always busy. Fortunately, there was still
Foam Fabricators to call, even though it
didn’t answer at either number; as for
Fashion Clothing, its functionary
referred us to the pleasure of Señor
William Chow, who coincidentally
proved unavailable.

If I were a racist 174 shout, “Those
lazy Mexicans!” If I were a bureaucrat
Га conclude I needed to upgrade my
contact information. If I were a leftist
troublemaker I'd say, "It's a conspir-
acy!” Well, who am I? Why do I tend
to conflate these blind alleys and
refusals with the sharp-nosed peering
of security guards?

On a hot and polluted day, Terrie and
I were driving in Tijuana, seeking a cer-
tain industrial park where Metales y
Derivados was supposed to be. (Sum-
mation of the NAFTA report, February
11, 2002: “The level of lead contami-
nants found on the site is 551 times
greater than that recommended by the
EPA...for the restoration of contami-
nated residences. Ata one-mile distance
from the plant, the level of lead contam-
ination could still be more than 55
times higher than the highest level
based on EPA norms. The Metales y
Derivados site is located just 600 meters
from Colonia Chilpancingo, home to
more than 10,000 residents.”)

After passing an archwayed wall in the
dirt, with dirt inside it, we turned up
into Colonia El Lago, continuing
upward in the direction of Matamoros.
At the summit, like fortresses lording it
over that smog-grayed valley of gray
walls, were American fast-food restau-
rants, not to mention the long, wide,
ugly roofs of manufacturing plants, the
heat and dust, the white shining of walls
and the dull gray shimmering of roofs—
oh, down there it was gray more than
white. But at the summit stood the
white, white maquiladoras! Sony in par-
ticular was radiant. I remember my late
President Reagan used to speak fondly
of America as a “city upon a hill”; this
must have been exactly what it looked
like. How landscaped and grand it was!
Never mind the family clinic—there was
green grass! I swear to you I was think-
ing of the happy, pretty girl who worked
at Korema, not of the man with the
black cough, when two young women
wearing company badges emerged from
the company gate and set foot on that
beautifully paved street. І murmured to
dear Terrie, who as usual put them
instantly at ease, and with smiles they
agreed to be photographed. But just as
I raised the camera to my eye, a security
guard rushed out to proclaim that tak-
ing photographs was prohibited every-
where, even across the street in that
littered vacant lot, because, in his words,
“Sony owned everything.” Exasperated,

I apologized to the two ladies, who pro-
ceeded pensively on their way, but Cer-
berus wasn't finished with me. He
demanded my identification, which,
again, I strangely refused to give him.
In retrospect I suppose he was only
being kind; he didn’t want to expose me
to any uneasy doubts about the truth of
that verity Here there's life.

THE HOLE

Up in the New Tijuana Industrial Park,
which didn't actually appear so new any-
more (sparks, heaps of metal, a stink,
pallets next to peeling painted sheds),
red buses waited outside a maquiladora.
A man advised me to go to the delega-
tion where maquiladoras are registered.
But official channels are rarely one's best
connection to bad news, which may
sometimes be a synonym for truth. So
let's take a spin up and down that cen-
tral strip of factories along Bellas Artes;
let's ask at Frialsa Frigorificos; oh, and
here's a satellite Tyco plant, this one fly-
ing the American flag.

And then, right on the mesa's edge,
the ruin of Metales y Derivados unmis-
takably stood; as we got closer there
was a salty, rancid smell. A sign on the
fence warned of danger, but a conve-
nient hole invited us to enter, and in we
went. Our eyes began to sting. Mr. D.
had said he felt sick the day he strolled
about this monument to human self-
ishness, which in its own way felt as
eerie as an Indian cliff dwelling, or
even more so, since it was poisonous—
not that I'd ever believe any stories
about anyone getting contaminated.
The sharp flapping of black tarps in the
wind was the only sound.

We gazed at those corroded drums
under the tarps, and after a long time
Terrie said, “My mouth tastes as if I've
been sucking on a penny.”

"I'm sorry you haven't reproduced,”
I told her. "And I'm glad I already have."

Under the heaving tarps, squarish
skeletons of lead looked nightmarish,
but nightmares can't hurt you. I
admired the view of the canyon below,
which crawled with houses and
shanties. Sunflowers grew near the
mountains of old batteries.

Inside the great shed, which felt like
the focal point just as the restored gas
chamber feels like the focal point of
Auschwitz (and isn't this simile over-
wrought, even unfair? But I have vis-
ited Auschwitz, and I remember the
heavy darkness of the gas chamber,
much heavier than here, to be sure, but
that memory visited me unbidden as I
stood there feeling sick in several ways,
wondering how many children down
there in Chilpancingo were enjoying
the benefits of lead poisoning. Metales y
Derivados felt like a wicked, dangerous

(continued on page 178)

Resolutions

We WARK

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YEAR ЕУ

HARRY
NEW YEAR.

$ PROMISE To

CONCENTRATE

HORE ON YOUR.
BREASTS e

VETS START OUR,
RESOLUTIONS
RIGHT HERE,

WHAT'S YOUR
RESOLUTION
THIS YEARZ

dee
MARRIED!

JUAREZ) ker &

165

James Caan

PALA ТОВ OS

The Las Vegas star talks tough about drugs, the
Mafia, dubious movie choices and schlocky TV

PLAYBOY: People know you for playing
explosive types such as Sonny in The
Godfather and Will Ferrell's nasty dad in
Elf, But on your TV series, Las Vegas,
you play a casino security chief who
drops pearls of wisdom to the show's
younger characters. What advice about
Hollywood or the larger world do you
give your co-stars offscreen
салм: The fact that I’m playing a guy
who gives advice tells you how far-out
the show is. Las Vegas is not The West
Wing or The Practice. It's just meant to be
fun, the kind of show you can watch and
go to the refrigerator during. I’m not
knocking it—it's great—but sometimes
we cross the line a bit in terms of its
integrity. I would like some of the shows
to be more intense, more involved with
the underbelly, scams and grit. I might
ay to the guys I respect on the show,
“Look, this is stupid. Nobody would do
this,” but then they come back with,
“You know what? The people like it.”
The main pearl of wisdom I give these
young kids is that you shouldn't make
your career your whole life. No matter
what heights you achieve, even if you're
Brad Pitt, the slide is coming, sure as
death and taxes. So if you put every
thing into that one basket—acting—
you'll wind up hurting yourself, either
with drugs or any other self-destructive
thing you can think of.

PLAYBOY: You've had your own well-
publicized struggles with drugs. Would
you say some of those were attempts to
hurt yourself?

CAAN: They were very self-destructive.
My sister passed away in 1981, and she
was my best friend, kind of the glue that
held my family together and really the
only thing I was afraid of in my life. If
I didn't sleep, I'd actually put on makeup
so she wouldn't say, "Where were you
all last night, you bastard?" When I lost

Interview by Stephen Rebello

her I was at the height of my career. I
just quit trying. I think I missed most of
the 1980s, really. I think I had a good
time, but I don't remember. I never
really liked cocaine, but I was a real
purist because I never did anything but
coke. It was coke and it was girls. I'd
like to think the girls wanted to be with
me because I was so good-looking, but
that's horseshit. It was because I had
coke in my pocket.

PLAYBOY- What finally made you turn
things around?

One morning you wake up and
realize there's no party, there's no
girls—and yet you're still doing it. And
if you're not doing it, you're looking for
it. I got tired of being tired. I went to
meeting after meeting, although I'm
not a drinker. I know I can't do coke. I
know I can't take this or that pill. I
inadvertently hurt people emotionally.
My last wife, I hurt her so badly. You
have to make those amends. Profes-
sionally, when I get paid, I show up.
Sometimes I don't feel like it, but I real-
ized that unless you have passion for
something, just don't do it. My least
favorite answer is "I don't If I say,
"You want to make love?" and the
answer is "I don't care," I'm like, "Hey,
then go masturbate."

PLAYBOY: Do you worry about your actor
son, Scott, or any of your four other
kids making some of the same mis-
steps—or some of their own?

CAAN: You always think your kids aren't
smart enough to know what's going
on, but Scott knew. For him it was,
“Cocaine, see you later.” People think
I'm on cocaine when I'm not because
I'm a hyper person. You can only imag-
ine how I was when I was going, like,
180 miles an hour. It sucked. I don't
miss it at all. It was part of the whole

self-destructive thing. All I can do with
my kids is tell them my story. You'd
think that as life goes along I'd make
fewer mistakes than my dad, Scott
would make fewer mistakes than I did,
and eventually we'll raise a perfect
Caan. I don't think that's likely. I keep
making the same mistakes.

PLAYBOY: Have you ever been competi-
tive with Scott?

CAAN: Not when it comes to acting.
Scott's a tough guy, but he's sweet. You
don't really have to push him, and
you're sorry if you get to that point. I
made him competitive. When he w
kid and we played Ping-Pong, basket-
ball or whatever, if he knew I was dog-
ging it he'd get pissed. So if he won a
game or if he played extra good, he had
a sense of pride, which is important.
The poor guy—I was his baseball coach
for six years, and he was such a good
ballplayer I thought I'd be watching
him from front-row seats at Yankee Sta-
dium. But then he became a goddamn
actor [laughs].

PLAYBOY: Throughout the 1970s you
turned down movies that worked out
pretty well for other actors, including
One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, Kramer
vs. Kramer, MASH and Apocalypse Nou.
Were those self-destructive decis

your part?

CAAN: No, but talking about it is like
looking up a dead horse's ass. What do.
you learn? I recently did a magazine.
story, and it quoted me as saying, "I was
supposed to do Kramer vs. Kramer, and
I said, "This is middle-class bourgeois
horseshit. Who's going to go to that?"
I was talking about how stupid my opin-
ion was, like, "Oh yeah, I'm a real genius.
I thought Kramer was middle-class bour-
geois horseshit." Bob Altman wanted
me for MASH, and 1 wound up doing a

PHOTOGRAPHY BY MICHAEL GRECCO

167

PLAYBOY

168

piece of crap instead—Rabbit, Run. Milos
Forman came to me three or four times
with Cuckoo's Nest, and my opinion, which
was wrong, was that it wasn’t visual
enough. I wouldn't have been as good as
Jack Nicholson, who was absolutely bril-
liant, as was Dustin Hoffman, who's a
good friend, in Kramer vs. Kramer.

PLAYBOY: The rumor was that you almost
played Michael Corleone in The Godfather,
the role that put Al Pacino on the map.
How would your life be different today if
you had?

CAAN: I don't think it would have been
different at all, except I probably would
have had a lot more money. I was close to
Francis Ford Coppola well before The
Godfather, from when I did a movie with
him in the late 1960s, The Rain People. At
the time of The Godfather he was the best
writer, the best director. He knew every-
thing about cinematography. He knew

actors. When Robert Evans, the head of
Paramount then, told me they wanted
Costa-Gavras to direct, I said, “Francis is
the guy, because he’s a Mediterranean
Italian, not a New York Italian,” and I
think that’s basically what made that pic-
ture so successful. You accepted every-
thing those guys did because it was for
the sake of the family. Of course, the
geniuses who now say, “Oh, I put that
picture together,” are lying. They were
the same people who told Francis, “If you
mention Brando's name again, you're
fired,” and who said about Pacino, “We
don't ever want to see that kid.” So they
spent $420,000 on screen tests, but Fran-
cis had it all thought out and had the cast
he wanted: Duvall, Brando, Pacino—who
nobody knew—and me as Sonny. He
wanted Sonny to be an Americanized ver-
sion, a hothead, a guy who didn’t have
that same kind of blood coursing through
his veins, whereas Al was the typical
Sicilian-looking, dark-haired, dark-
skinned guy. Even when they came to me

“Hey, guys, this'll kill you—have you heard the one about the
piano player, the lawyer and the sanity clause?”

about playing Michael I knew that wasn't
what Francis wanted, so I didn’t want it.

PLAYBOY: Most people know you for your
big movies—The Godfather, Misery—but
you've done great work in films that few
have seen, such as the 1981 Michael Mann
thriller Thief and, more recently, Dogville.
How do you come to terms with that?
GAAN: It's funny, because Scott called me
this morning and said, “Dad, I’m not
going to be an actor anymore. I'm going
to direct or something.” When I asked
why, he said, “I've been watching Thief for
three days. It’s mind-blowing. It should
be the bible for any actor who wants to try
something outside himself." There can't
be a greater gift than that, getting praise
from my son. Thief was done when Mann
was great, before he went off on his own
goddamn tangent. What I really cherish
is when friends and fellow actors look up
to me and ask for my advice. I wouldn't
trade that for anything. I've worked with
some pretty amazing younger actors—
Benicio Del Toro and guys like that—so
when they look up to me, that's just a
wonderful feeling.

PLAYBOY: Shortly after you started making
movies, in the 1960s, you co-starred in
the Western El Dorado with movie giants
John Wayne and Robert Mitchum. How
did they treat you?

CAAN: Mitchum was just a great guy, a
fucking great character and a very under-
rated actor. He could have done anything.
Wayne was a good guy too—tough but
like a kid when you got to know him. I
definitely didn’t ask him for any acting
advice. I don’t think John Wayne would
do well in Hollywood today, although he
was a great personality. I guess if he were
a young man today he'd be in that action-
hero class. I got more from watching
Brando during The Godfather than I
would have gotten from anybody spout-
ing advice. He was the guy, the guru of
the acting world, without a doubt. Any-
body who says different is full of shit.
Richard Harris, God bless him, used to
criticize Brando, but when I asked, "Then
why the fuck do you spend your life imi-
tating him?" he couldn't say anything.

PLAYBOY: You'd been married three times
before, but your current marriage has
lasted nine years, which is a record for
you. Does keeping it zipped come any
easier to you now?

CAAN: Fidelity has become easy for me
because I had the other side for quite a
while. I had a great time. I was never a
pig about it. I never slept with anybody I
worked with. Wait, that's not true. I did—
but with all my 75 pictures, I had to think
about it, didn't I? Hopefully, I treated
all the girls I was with respectfully. It's

very different now. Sure, I take a little
Viagra now every day but just so I don't
piss on my shoes [laughs]. Actually, I tried
Viagra once, of course. Unfortunately,
only the maid was home, and І didn't
need it for her [laughs again]. The point
is, if there's somebody else I really want
to sleep with right now, she'd better be a
better and nicer-looking person than my
wife. And if she is, then I need a divorce.

PLAYBOY: Was there any woman you really
wanted but couldn't have?

GAAN: Sophia Loren. I met her when she
was 60 or something. It was beyond any
dream and probably one of the greatest
compliments of my life when she was
asked about her favorite actors and she
mentioned me. When 1 saw her, oh, had
she grown older gracefully. She's just
beautiful. You can see that passion in her.

PLAYBOY: Some of your fantastic-looking
female co-stars on Las Vegas —Nikki Cox
and Vanessa Marcil, among others—have
been quoted in interviews saying you're
a sexy guy. How does that feel for you at
the age of 65?

салм: They're just being nice. Now, Josh
Duhamel, who also stars on the show, is
hot, The girls are all really sweet, tal-
ented, nice and beautiful, and I love
every one of them. I'd much rather wake
up next to them than next to Brando.
Listen, if I were young enough, none of
them would stand a chance. But I'd have
to take all of them or none. I'm afraid
that's the deal.

PLAYBOY: You play a surveillance ace on
your show. Have you ever been put on
the other side and been the subject of
surveillance in real life?

CAAN: I thought I was under surveillance.
There was all this stuff in the papers
about my Mob connections, which was all
nonsense, all pumped up. The truth is,
I grew up in a neighborhood where some
of the guys I knew and that my mother
had coffee with are now reputedly bosses.
That shouldn't be a plural, because
there's just this one guy, who's a dear
friend of mine. I certainly don’t condone
crime. I hate it. I know them only from
the standpoint that if someone in my
family were to get sick, they would be the
first ones Га call. They've never asked
me for any favors. From that, though,
came this whole fantasy thing about me—
and on top of it, I played Sonny. You
know what? Sometimes it's fun. People
leave me alone. I've never needed a
bodyguard in my life.

PLAYBOY: You never worry about dangers
to you or your family?

caan: My wife is a little neurotic about
that. We were in Park City, Utah for a
while. We lived on 4.6 acres in a place
where nobody has a gate. Nobody even
has a key to their fucking front door, I
swear to God. My wife changed all the
locks when we moved in, then added a
top lock, then spent another $5,000 on
the thing that sounds an alarm if you
touch a window. I said, “Listen, in 1895
there was maybe a toaster stolen from
this community and that’s been it, so
what the hell are you doing?” Since we've
moved back to Los Angeles I have a large
weapon in lieu of an alarm system. I'm
not going to get specific except to say
what's important: It's very large, and it
will kill you. Now sure, a pencil can kill,
depending on how close you are when
you use it. This thing, you don't have to
get so close.

PLAYBOY: As depicted in Las Vegas, Amer-
icans are now being watched in airports,
banks, hotels and convenience stores.
When does it become too much?

CAAN: If you're not doing anything
wrong, why do you have to start yelling
about the First Amendment? What the
fuck are they going to see? The only peo-
ple who should be worried are the ones
trying to get away with something. The
ACLU will fucking drive you nuts. In
Vegas there are something like 3,000
cameras. Obviously they can't go in bath-
rooms and they can't go in your bed-
room, but they're not looking at girls’
boobs or up their dresses or at people
kissing. They're looking for cheats and
guys who are dangerous to the public.
The way we live our lives right now,
everybody's running around a little fuck-
ing nervous, so personally 1 don't mind
that holdup at the airport, especially
when my family is traveling. In the old

days I probably would have had a beef

with this because I might have had a lit-
tle stuff in my pocket or something. Now
the big thing I might do is sneak a ciga-
rette, but it's not as if I try to smoke on
the plane.

PLAYBOY: How big of a Vegas guy were
you before doing the TV show?

CAAN: When I was young I had a friend
who was a part owner of Caesars, so I got
to know all the guys—gamblers, casino
owners, pit bosses. People who think
they're good gamblers are so full of crap.
I'm sure almost everybody who goes to
Vegas says, "I'm taking $2,000 with me,
$5,000, whatever, and if I lose it, so
what? I had a good time." They lose it,
then spend another $5,000 or $10,000
trying to get even. The cold-blooded
gambler does the opposite. When he's
losing he steps away and cuts down.
When he's winning he sends it in
because, after all, it's the casino's money.

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170

Maybe one half of one percent of people
are really cold-blooded gamblers. Nor-
mal people can’t do that.

PLAYBOY: When Las Vegas was about to
debut, CSI star William Petersen called it
CSI in a hotel.

CAAN: Who the hell's William Petersen?
I'm sorry, but I don't even watch my
own show. I watch Fox News—not
because I'm a conservative, which, oh all
right, I might be. I watch it because it's
so stimulating. They're so over-the-top.
It's theater. Bill O'Reilly is mad. My wife
gets angry when I watch ESPN because
she doesn't like to hear the squeak of
sneakers on the basketball court when
she's trying to go to sleep. She's like,
“Why do they yell so loud all the fuck-
ing time on ESPN?” Hey, I don't know.
They're loud announcers.

PLAYBOY: Are you still a jock?

caan: I've had 11 shoulder operations
from non-Jewish activities like riding
tournaments, rodeos, coaching foot-
ball—which I had no business doing.
My doctor and І are playing golf tomor-

row, and we're friends, but this fucking
guy, every time I see him I go, “Wait, I
just came to say hi,” but it's too late and
he's doing another surgery on me. A
while ago I looked at my birth certificate
and started playing golf. What else can 1
do? I ride horses. I got my kids into rid-
ing horses, too. My son Scott is starting
to ride. I got my eight-year-old a horse.
It must be a Caan tradition or something.

PLAYBOY: Are you religious?

СААМ: They pulled me out of a lake when
I was five. I was unconscious at the time,
and I clearly remember all that stuff
flashing before me, a great light. I think
the closest I've ever come to seeing God
was when Scott was born. I love all my
kids, but there's just something about
seeing your first boy being born.

PLAYBOY: Your hero Brando was a Method
actor. Are you?

CAAN: Right before I do a scene, I look up
to heaven and say, “Come on, give me a
break.” That's my method.

“Wow! I bet you'd be a knockout in a bikini.”

PRIVATE RYAN

(continued from page 88)
been elected Lord Mayor of Dublin, Ire-
land, “Only in America.”

More relevant to my present need was
that Senator Kilbreath had, at the age of
38, been in the first wave of combat
gliders to land behind enemy lines in
Normandy on D-day. And now, at 98, he
had a dream: to build himself a library in
his hometown of Patchagoulahatchie,
Mississippi, a pharaoh-style monument
to his life achievements. And libraries,
like pyramids, take money.

“Senator,” I said, “the government of
France would like to honor you for your
historic role in liberating their country
іп 1944."

“Whut?”

An aide repeated what I had said to
him, shouting into his ear.

The old boy’s eyes brightened. “Fine,”
he said. “That's real fine. What's the
young lady's name?”

The senator's mental abilities appeared
to have deteriorated since our last visit.
I had known the aide, Roscoe Bogwell,
for many years, so we could speak can-
didly, even in front of the senator.

“What are you running here,” I said to
Roscoe, “Weekend at Bernie's? The man
should be in a nursing home.”

“He's determined to make it to 100
before stepping down,” Roscoe said, not
bothering to whisper. “At this point it's all
about setting records. And his library.”

“Can he travel?”

“What ya have in mind?”

I explained.

Roscoe rubbed his chin. “What kind of
contribution to the library we talking
about?”

“Commensurate with the senator's
contributions to history.”

“Look here, Rick. How long we
known each other? Let thy speech be
plain and pleasing to the ear.” Roscoe's
a part-time minister.

I wrote down a figure on a piece of
paper. You never know, in Washington,
who might be listening in.

Roscoe smiled. “Looks like we're going
to France.”

“Frances?” said the senator. “Theah
was a Frances wukked in the majority
leader's office. Fine-looking girl."

“Thank you for your time, Senator,” I
said. "You're looking very well, sir."

“Figger like an hourglass.”

I had to hand it to the senator—98
and still the most active groper of
females in the United States Senate. An
inspiration, really.

A few days later it was announced that
Senator Kilbreath would be leading a
Codel—Washingtonese for congressional
delegation—to Normandy on a “fact-
finding mission to investigate the feasi-
bility of relocating American military

remains.” Roscoe's press release noted
that Senator Kilbreath was looking for-
ward to making “one last trip” to the spot
where he had landed in his glider in the
early hours of June 6, 1944.

The story got good play in the U.S.
Senate and the French media. The
French ambassador called to say he was
pleased. We discussed plans for the sen-
ator’s reception in France. Rick Renard
does not pat himself on the back before
the job is done, but I hung up feeling I
had earned my retainer.

LaMoyne greeted me back at the office
with the unwelcome news that the city
council of Lafayette, Indiana was about
to vote on whether to change the city's
name to Franks, after the American gen-
eral who so brilliantly waged Operation
Iraqi Freedom. So I had to deal with that.

The midnight oil burned bright at
Renard Strategic Communications. We
called every member of the city council
and pointed out that General Tommy
Franks was of French lineage, so they'd
only be honoring a different French mil-
itary man. I didn’t know for a fact that
General Franks was French, but his
name sounded French enough to give
the burghers of Lafayette pause. Tha
along with a costly newspaper public s
vice announcement campaign celebrat-
ing the indispensable contributions of
the Marquis de Lafayette to the Ameri-
can revolutionary cause, led to the nar-
row defeat of the initiative. But it was
clear that there could be no more play-
ing defense. The vote on whether to
approve the purchase of $65 billion of
French ai t by U.S. commercial car-
riers was approaching. It was time once
again to storm the beaches of Normandy.

The French embassy in D.C. had
given me a liaison person, an extremely
attractive young Parisian woman named
Cynthia, who worked for something
called the Bureau des Informations
ngéres, which I understood to be
the Foreign Press Office.

I had a hard time concentrating on
business during our first meeting. Cyn-
thia had what Senator Kilbreath would
call an hourglass figger, Audrey Hep-
burn-gamine hair, pearl earrings and
eyes like blue stained glass, and she
smelled like lavender in fresh rain. I was
certainly looking forward to liaising with
her, though I try as a rule not to get emo-
tionally involved with the client.

"How are we coming with the old
ladies?" I asked Cynthia. The plan was
for the senator's motorcade route to the
cemetery to be lined with local French-
women who had been young women
when the brave U.S. soldiers waded
ashore on D-day.

“How will we explain why they have all
these little American flags for the wav-
ing?" Cynthia asked. "The press is going
to point this out, you know."

"Okay, scrap the little flags. Let's have
them show up with an old U.S. military

flag and wave that at him. Better yet,
present it to him as a gift. A bloodstained
one would be even better. Doesn't have
to be real blood."

"Anyway," she said, "we are having a
difficulty finding women."

"You mean to say you can't find
women who were liberated by Americans
to turn out and show some gratitude?"

“It's been a long time,” she shrugged.
The French have perfected the art of the
shrug. It's their national gesture.

“You mean, they have better things to
do than wave at one of the men who
saved them from the Nazis?"

"Why do Americans insist that the
French must grovel in gratitude for
performing an act of geopolitical self-
interest over a 'af century ago?

*Next you'll be telling me Jerry Lewis
is a genius and that no plane flew into the
Pentagon on 9/11. Let's get with le pro-
gramme. You hired me, remember?"

Cynthia rolled her eyes. "I'll do what
I сап.”

“Tell them some movie star is coming.
Tom Hanks.”

“To be honest, I don't think that would
make them excited.”

“Then tell them Jerry Lewis is coming.”

The Codel departed Andrews Air Force
Base a few nights later. I was a little con-
cerned when I saw Senator Kilbreath
walk up to the microphone carrying
what looked like a speech text. I shot
Roscoe a concerned look. He signaled
"Relax." Sure enough, the senator's
statement from the podium was a model
of clarity and brevity. He said he was
humbled to be returning to France on
such an important mission and would
do his utmost, as indeed he had on that
dark night so long ago when freedom
was threatened. I was very moved. The
man was a walking poster boy for U.S.-
French friendship.

“What did you do to him?” I said to
Roscoe. “Last time I saw him he was
drooling.”

Roscoe winked at me. “Better livin’
through chemistry. Vitamin B complex.”

"Vitamin B?"

“Plus some other stuff. You know,
Ritalin."

"Speed, you mean. Jesus, Roscoe."

“He'll be fine, don't you worry."

I flew over the next day. Cynthia met me
at Charles de Gaulle.

"There is troubl

“The old ladies?

"No, a protest. Police say they have
informations that there may be an
action planned."

"Protest? Protest of what?"

Cynthia shrugged and exhaled smoke.
“Who can say?"

"Could you not be existential just for a

he said. “Perhaps.”

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minute? This isn't Waiting for Godot.”

“An anti-American protest. You're not
so popular here.”

“Well, excuse us for saving you from
the Germans. Next time we'll leave you
to fight them off with baguettes.”

“I'm not taking the side of the pro-
testers. Don't be so sensitive. You Amer-
icans, every five minutes you need
reassurance.” She leaned over and gave
me a long kiss, right on the lips. I must
say, I was stunned.

"There," she said. "Thank you for sav-
ing us in 1944. Okay? Happy now?"

"Well," I cleared my throat, "it'sa start."

"Anyway," she said, automatically
checking her lipstick in the rearview
mirror—and there was something beau-
tiful in the way she did it—"the police
opinionate there is a group that may
make a difficulty. But don't worry. Our
police are very clever." She smiled. "Not
like yours."

I phoned Roscoe from the lobby of the
Ritz. The senator was staying there
instead of at the embassy so as to be
accessible to the French, as it were.

"How's our boy?" I asked.
he time changes are hard on him,
but he's fine. He's pumped."

"You mean you gave him an injection.
He's going to drop dead on me, Roscoe."

"That man is going to bury us both.
He's going over his speech right now and
chasing the room-service maids. He just
loves those French girls. Say, you hear
anything about a protest? One of the
embassy people mentioned something."

"I wouldn't worry. French police are
tough. Not like ours."

"What the hell are they protesting,
anyway? Fact we saved their sorry asses?"

LaMoyne reached me on my cell to say
he'd just learned that AAAM, the Associ-
ation of American Airplane Manufac-
turers, was rolling out a series of.
anti-French TV ads. It was targeting the
districts of the congressmen and senators
on the Transportation committees that
would be voting whether to approve the
purchase of the French aircraft.

"How bad is it?" I asked.

Ду;
O CHET!

“You remember when it came out in
the news a couple years ago that Air Gaul
bugs the seats in first and business class?
So French businessmen would have an
edge in negotiations over their foreign
counterparts? Plus whatever other juicy
morceaux they might pick up, and God
only knows the things that get talked
about in those seats on the way to gay
Paree. That's the first spot. It goes down-
hill from there.”

Before flying over to France, I had pre-
pared for such a contingency.

“All right,” I said, “move to Condition
Orange.” Renard Strategic Communi-
cations, like the Department of Home-
land Security, has a system of color-coded
alerts. We had a campaign of 30-second
TV spots ready to roll. One showed the
empty cockpit of a modern U.S.-built
jetliner. Headlines scrolled down the
TV screen:

DRUG USE FOUND RAMPANT AT AIRPLANE

hen you heard the mechanical
voice of the cockpit warning system
saying, “Pull up! Pull up! Pull up!” The
clear implication was that to fly on an
American-built plane was to risk death
a thousand times over. I like to think
I'm as patriotic as the next person, but
c'est la guerre.

"That night there was a dinner for the
Codel at Taillevent. It's one of the great
restaurants of the world, and Cynthia
and I had arranged a little surprise for
Senator Kilbreath. Halfway through
dessert—which consisted of a cake in the
shape of his old Army unit's insignia—
one of the other diners, an elderly
French sort, approached the senator's
table, burst into tears and started telling
him how one night when he was a kid
growing up in—what do you know?
Normandy, he heard this crash and
looked out his window, and there was an
American glider plane full of GIs. It
might have been the senator's.

THE STOCKROOM.
WOMAN IN THERE,

THERES А
f| SHALL WE SAY, PASSING
OUT HER CHARMS To ALL

The senator was so visibly moved, and
the two old men hugged, and if it had
been a movie, the whole place would
have started singing “The Star-Spangled
Banner.” It was a tremendously heart-
warming moment, really. Even the
French people present were touched,
and the French don't touch easily.

Afterward Cynthia and I had a drink
at the Ritz.

“Good work on Glider Man,”

Cynthia stared into her Perrier.

“Tell me something, Rick. Are you self-
loathing yourself as much as I am self-
loathing myself:

“We made an old man happy,” I said.
“Is that a crime?”

“I need a bath. I feel dirty.”

175 not every day you get a lecture on
cynicism from a French person. Cynthia
went off in a huff of malaise, leaving me
to contemplate over my Pernod my place
in the moral pecking order. If it were a
movie, someone with a beret would have
started playing an accordion.

Instead, an attractive young woman
sat down on the stool next to me. I gave
her the old Renard MRI scan. It crossed
my mind that she might be a profes-
sional. The bars of expensive hotels are
not exactly off-limits to the ladies of the

said.

night. But there was something in her

manner that said, “I’m not a hooker,”
and before long we were talking pleas
antly. Her name was Helene, and she'd
spent time in the States.

“You know Woods 'Ole?"

“Woods Hole, the oceanographic insti
tution? By reputation, yes, of course,
said as suavely as I could, furiously try-
ing to remember something about the
place. Whales, surely.

It turned out that she'd spent a year
there studying not whales but kelp. A
year struck me as a long time to study
kelp, but I'll be the first to admit that
science is not exactly Rick Renard's
forte. As far back as high school I was
concentrating on getting someone
elected to the student council or doping
the visiting team’s Gatorade. I'd always
been a facilitator, but back then you

NEITHER DID
I TILL YOU
TURNED ON
| THE LIGHTS!

would not have found me dwelling,
much less marveling, over the molecu-
lar complexities of, say, kelp. But there
was something about this woman that
made me want to dwell and, should the
opportunity present itself, marvel over
her complexities.

She seemed interested in whatever had
brought me to France. Leaving out my
specific role, I said I was here to help
with the visit of the U.S. senators to Nor-
mandy. She brightened and said how
embarras: he was over France's recent
bel vis the Iraq situation and
how ashamed she was of her country for
letting America once again go it alone.
Maybe kelp makes you go pro-American.
It was certainly refreshing to hear a
French person expressing such unquali-
fied joie over Americ

We kept on ordering drinks, neither
of us, apparently, wanting to say good
night. One thing led to another, and
though Rick Renard does not kiss and
tell, I will say that Héléne and I ended
up in my suite upstairs, talking late into
the night—later than I had planned,
since I had an awful lot to do.
fascinated by the details of the s
ip to Normandy and ted to know
all abou I don't remember how
much, exactly, I told her.

She was gone by the time I'd woken
up. In the next room my laptop
open. I saw that she'd left me a messa,
on the d: : “A bientôt, chéri. X Hélène.

I lingered fondly over the
Hélene's delicate perfume wafting in the
is romantic reverie was replaced

ing a Ed day with an eau-de-vie
hangover is not idea

The motorcade formed outside the
Ritz for the three-hour drive to Nor-
mandy. The plan was to stop in Bayeux
for lunch at the Lion d'Or, which had
been Eisenhower's favorite restaurant,
then on to the military cemetery at
Colleville-sur Mer, where the senator
and the Codel would be surprised by the
grateful old ladies lining the road.
Another heartwarming day in France,
solidifying the oric bond between
two peoples. This would be followed
by a helicopter tour. The senator would
retrace the path his glider took on
D-day. Through Army records, we'd
been able to find the exact spot where
he'd landed, in the middle of a beet
field. All very historic and moving.

I was in the second car behind the sen-
ator's, with Cynthia and one of the
French security officers, an erect, alert-
looking fellow named Jean-Jacques
the self-loathing today?
ttling in beside Cynthia.

She gave me a sullen look and handed
me the menu for the luncheon at the
Lion d'Or. The thought of food, even
ite French food, made me reel.
being French, lit a cigarette.
“You don't look so good,” she s:

without any noticeable pity. "Late night?"

“I'm going to doze for a bit. Wake me
up if we hit any protesters.”

The lunch was a great success. The
mayor of Bayeux, which depended heav-
ily on tourism from us ugly Americans,
gave a heartwarming toast about how the
best of friends can occasionally disagree
with each other, et cetera, et cetera, and
presented all the members of the Codel
with keys to the city. Even the Florida
congresswoman who'd sponsored the
legislation in the first place seemed to be
having a nice time. Cynthia was making
sure that at every meal she was seated
next to some debonair Frenchman who
could charm the paint off the Eiffel
Tower and who would whisper to her
that most French people hated the pre-
sent French government and had
secretly rooted for the Americans. Every-
thing was going very well.

After the lunch we motorcaded to the
cemetery. Cynthia's brigade of grateful
old ladies was there, on cue, waving an
American flag that looked like it might
have been flown on an amphibious land-
ing craft on the Great Day. The senator
ordered the car to pull over, and the
ladies swarmed him. Really, as PR goes,
it was a slam dunk.

We did the tour with the director of
ate military museum, and by the time
a done deal that Private
m was staying put with his band of
brothers at the cemetery overlooking the
bluff of Utah Beach.

It was on the short ride to the heli-
copter pad that I noticed the clipboard
on Jean-Jacques's lap. There was a pi
of paper on top that looked distinc!
a wanted poster. It had a photo of a
woman who looked very much like the
one I had spent the night with. The hair
was different, and she looked sort of
But it was definitely Héléne, my
belle Héléne. Oh hell.
being my one word of

French.

Cynthia translated. “That's the leader
of the group we have been concerned
about.”

“May I see?”
tant to show | me.
Look,” all working for the
same t 8. This. Woman?”

They murmured some more. Cynthia
took a deep breath and said, “You
remember the Rainbow Warrior?”

“The Greenpeace vessel you blew up
lew Zealand.”

They stared.

“Let me rephrase. The Greenpeace
vessel it was alleged that French security
services blew up in order to prevent them
from protesting French nuclear testing in
the South Pacific? Some people died?

“She is the sister of one of the crew,
said Cynthia. “Ever since, she is making
a vendetta against the government. If
they can make it difficult for France to sell
airplanes, they would like to do that.”

Jean-Jacques was reluc-

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My eau-de-vie hangover reasserted itself.

Cynthia was giving me what novelists
would call the penetrating stare.

“Now you really don’t look so good,”
she said. Jean-Jacques too seemed to be
intrigued by my rapid loss of color.

I thought of the message Héléne had
left for me on my laptop—the same lap-
top that contained all the files pertaining
to the Normandy visit, including a map
showing the location of where the sena-
tor's glider had landed.

“Change of plan,” I said. “We have to
get to the glider field. Right now. Tout
de suite.”

“What's the matter?” she said.

“Explain later.”

Cynthia and Jean-Jacques spoke
French at each other, and Jean-Jacques
shook his head in that French way that
translates as “No way.”

“He says we must stay with the motor-
cade. He's assigned to the senator. He
must remain in his sight.”

I raised Roscoe on my cell. “Roscoe,
abort the chopper ride. Repeat, abort the
chopper ride. Something ugly might be
about to happen.”

“What you talking about?”

"I've got a bad feeling. Leave it at
that."

"Rick, he's been talking about this ever
since we got here. I can't just tell him you
wanna call it off just 'cause you got some
bad feeling."

“Stop the car,” I said to Cynthia.

"Why?"

"I have to throw up." Practically true.

“Arrêtez la voiture!” she commanded.
The driver pulled over. I jumped out and
hunched over by the side of the road.
The driver opened the door and got out

"Oh, I see you already have a noisemaker, Mr. Wilcox."

by way of being solicitous. I felt bad about
what followed, but desperate times call
for desperate measures. I shoved the
poor man to the side, jumped into the
driver's seat and hit the pedal.

Cynthia and Jean-Jacques started
remonstrating, understandably. I put up
the smoked-glass partition and locked the
doors, sealing them in. Jean-Jacques
began rapping on the glass with what I
suspect was the butt of his pistol. I was
hoping Cynthia would discourage him
from shooting me. The Bureau des
Informations Etrangéres surely didn't
want the headline POLICE SHOOT U.S. PR
MAN AT NORMANDY.

I'd spent so much time on the plan-
ning that I had a pretty good idea how to
find the glider field, about five kilometers
from where we were. I passed the sena-

w in the side rearview mirror
the flashing blue-and-white lights.

By the time I reached the beet field, I
had three French police cars on my tail.
I pulled over and jumped out of the car
and made for the hedge—no easy climb,
let me tell you, for a Washington PR man
well into his 40s. Jean-Jacques and Cyn-
thia burst out of the back, shouting and
yelling, and the police cars were pulling
up with a screech of tires and gendarmes
shouting, “Monsieur! Arrêtez!”

I got all scratched and bloodied get-
ting to the top of that damned hedge.
(It can't have been much fun invading
this area.) From the top of it I had a
clear view of the field, and what I saw.
made me sweat. There, nted in
whitewash on the field in thick letters, it
said YANKEE GO HOME.

I could hear the whop-whop-whop of
the senator's chopper approaching in
the nce.

I shouted down to Cynthia. Jean-
Jacques stopped pointing his pistol at me
and barked into his walkie-talkie.

The chopper kept coming. My heart
was going like a piston. Finally the chop-
per veered sharply away and headed off.

I couldn't bring myself to admit all the
details to Cynthia, though I'm certain
she figured it out for herself. I did even-
tually tell Roscoe, who let out a low
moan and said that if you wanted to
make an enemy out of Karl Kilbreath,
the surest way would be to call him a
Yankee. She really thought it all
through, Hélene. At any rate, the bill
was defeated in committee, and ate
Ryan remained in France, where he
belongs. As for Héléne, she sends me e-
mails from time to time, addressed to
"Chéri." She wants to get together next
time I'm in Paris, and though I'm still
furious with her, I have to say, I wouldn't
mind. I've always been a bit of an envi-
ronmentalist, deep down.

HOWARD HUGHES

(continued from page 74)
He had money, women, control, connec-
tions, even a kind of manly courage that
one could only envy. As Hepburn put it,
“He could do anything he wanted.”

Hughes wanted to build the biggest
airplane in the world, and he did,
though it was so absurdly large he could
barely get it off the ground. He decided
he wanted to advance the career of an
inexperienced, buxom young actress
named Jane Russell, and he did—by
casting her in a film titled The Outlaw,
displaying her assets by featuring her
cleavage on the movie's poster and pro-
moting the film incessantly, even though
censors and critics reviled it. Indeed,
this became the dominant theme of the
lifelong movie Hughes had been con-
structing for himself and the one that
seemed to strike a public nerve: He had
absolute freedom.

The proof of just how thrilling an idea
this was would come after Hughes,
always of a fragile temperament, suf-
fered a nervous breakdown in 1944 and
another in 1958. The first forced Hughes
into partial seclusion; no confirmed pho-
tograph of him taken after 1952 exists.
The second forced him fully into a her-
mitage from which he never emerged.
Still, however erratic and unpredictable
he had become, Hughes continued to
pull strings from his secret lair, which
only reinforced the sense of power that
had made him so fabled and fascinating
to the public. He bought and sold com-
panies. He impulsively moved to Las
Ve} commandeering the penthouse
at the Desert Inn, and when the owner
tried to evict Hughes after he'd over-
yed his welcome, he parried by buy-
ing the hotel and launching a spending
spree in Nevada that created a casino
empire. He offered a $1 million payoff
to President Lyndon Johnson to stop
nuclear testing in Nevada and then
secretly contributed $100,000 each to
Richard Nixon's and Vice President
Hubert Humphrey's 1968 presidential
campaigns to win their support for a
ban. He colluded with the Mafia. He
even contracted with the CIA to provide
a ship that would retrieve a sunken
Russian submarine.

The difference between the new
Hughes and the old one was that any
Kind of propriety or reason no longer
limited him. If he had been “the sucker
with the money” in his Hollywood
days, he was now the madman with the
money, or at least that was the image
promulgated in the media. Accounts
that leaked out had him addled by
codeine, hidden behind thick drapes,
sitting stark naked on a white Barca-
lounger watching old movies again and
again and again. Or sitting on the toilet
for a day at a time. Or demanding that
everything he touched be handled with

ном

Below is a list of retailers
and manufacturers you can
contact for information on
where to find this month's
merchandise. To buy the
apparel and equipment
shown on pages 38, 45-48,
90-97 and 198-199, check
the listings below to find the
stores nearest you.

GAMES

Page 38: Alari, atari.com.
Gameloft, gameloft.com.
Jamdat, jamdat.com. Microsoft, halo2
.com. Nintendo, nintendo.com. 0-3
Entertainment, o3entertainment.com.
Summus, summus.com. THQ Wireless,
thqwireless.com. Vivendi Universal Games,
vugames.com.

MANTRACK

Pages 45-48: Big Sky, bigskyresort.com.
Bowers & Wilkins, bwspeakers.com. Carl
E Bucherer, carl-f-bucherer.com. Crested
Butte, crestedbutteresort.com. Four Sea-
sons, fourseasons.com/whistler. Gibson,
gibsoncustom.com. Heavenly, ski
heavenly.com. Italbrass Moody Aquarium
Washbasin, homeclick.com. JVC,
jve.com. Stockli, stockli.com. Whiteface,
whiteface.com.

THE HIGH LIFE

Pages 90-97: Alexander Julian Private
Reserve, available at Gary's in Newport
Beach, California and Mario's in
Portland, Oregon. Arnold Brant,
arnoldbrant.com. Aubade, available at
Allure in Hawaii and Dani in New

BUY

York City. Binetti, avail-
able at Cantaloup in New
York City. Fratelli Rossetti,
rossetti.it. Gai Mattiolo,
212-219-2215. Gianluca
Isaia, 888-996-7555.
House of Diehl, house
ofdiehl.com. Jan Leslie,
available at Bergdorf
Goodman. John Lobb,
212-888-9797. Johnston &
Murphy, torinoinc.com.
Just Cavalli, 323-658-
8645. La Petite Coquette,
thelittleflirt.com. Lubiam 1911, ауай-
able at Kirby's in Tampa, Florida and
Levy's in Nashville, Tennessee. Marc
Ecko Collection, marceckocollection
.com. Mezlan, available at Nordstrom.
Moschino, available at select Neiman
Marcus locations. Nina Ricci,
ninaricci.fr. Richmond X Uomo, available
at Apollo and Geranium in New York
City. Robert Talbott, roberttalbott.com.

Simone Perele, simone-perele.com.

Stuart Weitzman, 310-860-9600. Temple
St. Clair, 800-590-7985. Turnbull & Asser,
212-752-5700. Valentino, available
at Valentino boutiques nationwide.
Versace, versace.com. Vestimenta,
vestimenta.com.

POTPOURRI

Pages 198-199: Bulgari, bulgari.com.
Hush Technologies, hushtechnologies.net.
Kaenon Polarized, kaenon.com. Leica,
leicacamera.com. Lingo, lingotravel.com.
Michael Vash, vashdesigns.com. Playboy
Poker Kit, bn.com. RCA, rca.com. S.T.
Dupont, st-dupont.com.

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175

PLA Y 5:0 Yx

tissues because he was a germophobe.
Or issuing elaborate rules for opening
a can of fruit that included scrubbing
the can thoroughly with soap and a stiff
brush. Or commanding that all his
urine be saved in bottles. Or simply
wasting away to 100 pounds while his
nails grew to talons and his hair fell to.
his shoulders. Even his once-vaunted
romantic life was now shrouded in
bizarre mystery. He had married ac-
tress Jean Peters in 1957, some believe
way to prevent his company's exec-
from having him committed, but
he and Peters lived together only
sporadically, and it is unclear whether
they had sex. Actress Terry Moore
claimed Hughes had married her in a
secret ceremony at sea, but that was
also uncertain. What was incontrovert-
ible: By the late 1950s Hughes had
morphed from Donald Trump into
Michael Jackson.

Though it is impo le to determine
just how crazy Hughes was, if his inten-
tion had been to keep his saga going and
is name in the papers, he could not
ave done a better job. In many respects
en more compelling out of the
in it, one of the benefits
of scarcity. Yet even as a nutty recluse he

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seemed to tend to his image. When а
Las Vegas newspaper referred to him as
a millionaire, Hughes took umbrage,
firing off a note to one of his aides that
“it is a bad time for us to put out public-
ity referring to me as a mere million-
" Hughes insisted he be called a
billionaire. Similarly, when writer Clif-
ford Irving claimed to have interviewed
Hughes for an autobiography that was
about to be published, Hughes held a
telephone press conference to refute
Irving’s claim. If anyone was going to
control Howard Hughes's image, that
person was going to be Howard Hughes.

To some, no doubt, Hughes's demise
was a parable of the limitations of wealth
and power. Though he had his fortune
and a large retinue, he nevertheless
died of neglect on an airplane en route
from Acapulco to a Houston hospital,
with neither friends nor family in atten-
dance because there were no friends
and because Hughes had had almost
nothing to do with what remained of his
family. The death, however, would lead
to yet another scene in the Hughes mov-
ie when various claimants fought over
his fortune, among them a Utah gas sta-
tion owner named Melvin Dummar,
who said he had once given Hughes a

lift in the desert and had come into pos-
session of a will leaving him one six-
teenth of Hughes's estate, apparently to
repay the kindness.

Hughes certainly would have appreci-
ated the frenzy. He was, after all, a mas-
ter entertainer—even, it seems, after
death. He always put on a good show.
But he was also a master psychologist
who knew what the show meant. Early
on Hughes realized that people wanted
to feel the rush of empowerment that he
lived within and that they would identify
with a man who could do anything, par-
ticularly if he was self-effacing and osten-
sibly modest rather than high-handed
about it. What Hughes provided was a
ction to something Ameri-
e: to impose

vill on the world, whatever that
will demanded. This made Hughes's
claim on Ame that of an Ev
who seemed to have everything, which is
why, even now, his story of omnipotence
is so resonant. In Hughes, who traversed
so many spheres and who effected his
will in so many ways, the country got a
glimpse of its own loony might.

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TOBY KEITH

(continued from page 68)
bitch about. The little guy who writes the
songs is the one who gets hurt—the starv-
ing artist trying to hit that one golden
home run, and he finally hits it and
makes 30 percent less than he would
have made in the past
PLAYBOY: But you could also point to
young artists who rely on downloading
as a way to get exposure for their music
KEITH: Sure. It depends on where in
their career you ask somebody. If you
ask somebody who's got a lot to be
downloaded, like me, you'd probably
get an answer like “It’s wrong, it's steal-
ing.” If you were to ask a rock group
out of, say, Sacramento, trying to be dis-
covered by getting their song down-
loaded on the Internet, they wouldn't
care. But I guarantee you, the second
they hit it big and their lifestyle changes
and they start living off that income,
they'll probably change their minds
PLAYBOY: Do you think the Internet has
changed the business significantly?
KEITH: It is changing, big-time. I don't
know how long the CD is going to be
around, how long music stores are going
to be the way to get your music. The bad
part about it is that we all want to sell

albums. But if it gets down to where it's
all sold on the Internet, people will buy
just the songs they want, and the rest of
the music will never get heard. It'll go
back to a singles market, like it was in the
days of 45s.

PLAYBOY: Are you worried about the effect
of the changes?

KEITH: I'm fine. You can't be all you can
be forever. And I have a great career
right now. If it all went away tomorrow,
it'd be okay. I wouldn't have any more
money or any more songs on the radio,
but at the same time I could have retired
years ago. I do it because it's fun. I do
it because this is what I do best
PLAYBOY: Early in your career, did you
have a financial goal you wanted to
reach?

KEITH: Yeah. I remember in 1992 or 1993
saying to my first accountant, "Man, if I
could ever get to $5 million, I'd be hard
to find." And he said, “No, if you get
there, you'll want more than that." And
he's right

PLAYBOY: What sorts of goals do you have
remaining?

KEITH: I don't have any. I've achieved
every goal I've ever set. My only goal now
is just to endure. I take a tremendous
amount of pride in doing everything my
way now. Everything's on my terms. Even
if my next album flops—if we don't debut
at number one and we sell only a buck-
etful of records—it's what I wanted to do,
and ГЇЇ live with that. I'm never gonna
conform to some machine and say, “Y'all
tell me what to do next."

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178

Vollmann

(continued from page 164)
place, I can tell you), several huge, rusty
drumlike apparatuses were trained like
cannons at the barrio below. What were
they, those red-crusted hulks? They had
wheel gears on them. I stared at them
with my burning eyes; I smelled the
sour-metal smell. And those square pits
in the concrete floor, those pipes going
down, down into the reddish earth, what
did they signify?

Across the street, well within range of
that rotten-metal smell, two men sat eat-
ing their lunch. I asked if I could photo-
graph them, and they said I could but
they'd get in trouble if they failed to don
their protective gear first. So they laid
down their sandwiches, dressed up like
astronauts and stood behind the sign that
read PELIGROSO, meaning dangerous.
Meanwhile a black rat silently rushed past
another drum. They were supposed to be
cleaning this place up for the Rimsa com-
pany, in a contract with the Mexican gov-

ernment. Later I met their foreman, who
identified himself only as Jaime and who
said, “The first thing our government did
was try to work with the owners. But it
was going to cost so much that the own-
ers left for the U.S.”

“How will Rimsa clean it up?”

“We're bringing big dump trucks.
They'll take it to the U.S.”

“How do you feel about this place?”

“For me it's a criminal act. Mexico
opened its door to American people, and
the only interest is to make money.”

How many times have I heard this
indictment? The year before we bombed
Kosovo, an old Serbian woman shouted
at me, “You Americans have no souls!
You're only about money. But in heaven
we'll all be equal.” And now the same
accusation rose up against us from smog
and grimy white sprawl on grubby gray-
green Mexican hills.

The sickness of capitalism, the Ameri-
can sickness, is what Marx labels “the cash
nexus.” My own theory, which is not par-
ticularly Marxist, is that each place has its

“Oh, he talks, but only about getting on American Idol.’”

own sickness. Mexicans and Serbs are no
healthier than we. If the cold American
mercantile sickness seeds the Mexican
borderland with such maquiladoras as
Metales y Derivados, what's the Mexican
sickness that allows them to flourish? Га
say it's this: In Mexico, people cut corners
and do what's easiest even when it's not
what's best. That man in Pedregal ignored
the admonition of his own black cough.

SEÑOR A.

Getting inside the maquiladoras was not as
easy as I had thought. Looking back on
it, we tried and tried, all the way from
Insurgentes up to the concrete-cube-clad
hills of Matamoros. I think what Jose
Lopez said to me in Pancho's bar in Mex-
icali was true: They really were afraid.
Those two young women at Optica Sola,
all the people in Tijuana who spoke to us
through closed doors—which reminded
Terrie of her Mormon mission in Spain. In
Mexico I have been lied to about subter-
ranean Chinese tunnels, and I have been
occasionally cheated and misdirected over
the years, but never have I felt so walled
off by silence as I did when researching the
maquiladoras. Without the button camera,
it would have been almost hopeless. Thank
God I had Terrie to enlist both social grace
and feminine charm on my side.

It was high time for another private
detective. I had looked him up in the
Tijuana yellow pages, and Terrie had
called him, so I already knew how much
he would cost.

This bored, rumpled-looking r
another of those individuals whos
tional stories lose much luster once the
deposit has been paid, but the only way to
ascertain that is to pay the deposit. Among
other things, he assured me of the follow-

nese. One Chinese is worth about $10,000.
It's rumored that some of the
transported in metal containers.
dangerous. People who live on the coast
of E ida will say they see line after line
зе on the beach. Needless to say,
government officials never find anything.
So far, Señor A. was probably telling the
literal truth, but the next thing he said was,
“I know there is a maquiladora here with
connections to the sale of Chinese. Some-
one has already paid the $10,000. They
work it off. Four or five years ago, it took
seven or eight years to work it off, maybe
through prostitution. But most of them go
to the U.S. What I think is that there are
maquiladoras with a connection; they
bring a Chinese over long enough to train
Mexican workers, then he moves.”

When I heard this I thought to myself,
Señor A. is my man! And I could already
see myself lurking outside some
maquiladora’s gates at midnight while
my button camera flawlessly recorded
the unloading of another truckload of
Chinese slaves. Well, well. Where would
we be without our illusions?

"I have fat, skinny, tall, short employ-
ees," he boasted, and I was in awe. I
thought, Wait until Chuck hears how
wisely I've chosen!

PERLA'S FIRST
RECONNAISSANCE.

Actually, Senor A. proved to be worth his
weight in pesos, thanks to the pearl he
extracted from his treasure-house of fat,
skinny, tall and short operatives—and she
literally was a pearl, except when she
signed a different name on my receipt.

Bubbly, chunky, her hair dyed orange-
red, Perla was a woman of a certain age.
She cheerfully sacrificed one of her but-
tons for the sake of that camera. Then we
practiced in Senor A.'s office. I was mak-
ing pretty good button-camera videos by
then, so I felt hopeful again; oh, yes, I was
certainly confident. And Perla was, as Mr.
W. had advised that my operative be, well-
endowed. All the same, after various
experiments we finally chose to place the
digital video receiver and power pack
against the small of her back. Terrie
would lift up Perla’s shirt and power her
on and off, while I would do my part by
averting my eyes and Senor A
gaze boredly into space from bel
desk, which displayed the following items:
a huge owl, a Statue of Liberty, a golf ball,
a plastic globe and a long lens. I remem-
ber there was another office next to his
sanctum; the door was always slightly ajar,
and on my various visits to Señor A. I
would sometimes hear the faint creaking
ofa swivel chair. Who was this individual?
Nobody ever mentioned him in Señor
A.'s office, so I confined myself to making
postmortem speculations about him with

Terrie. How much did he know or see of

Perla's wiring up? Perhaps I should have
hired Señor A. to find out.

For what it is worth, Perla was the first
xican I ever met who said outright,
he maquiladoras are bad.”

When she was ready I told her I would
make her a PLAYBOY Centerfold. She gig-
gled, and Señor A. assured me, "I've had
clients even more disgusting than you.”

At any rate, Perla, who was very out-
spoken and whom I came to admire and
trust, told me that 10 or 12 years ago the
employees of Matsushita were “all 18- to
25-year-olds in miniskirts.” She knew one
girl who had worked there and used to
visit her, so she'd seen for herself. She
knew someone who was fired on her 25th
birthday, maybe or maybe not for that
reason. Matsushita, which made elec-
tronic components for its Japanese par-
ent company, accordingly seemed like an
excellent investigation target.

So Terrie wired Perla up one last time,
and we set out for Matsushita determined
to ascertain the existence or nonexistence
of a workforce in white tennis shoes and
miniskirts, 18 to 25, not fat.

Following Perla's directions (over our
two working days she seemed to know the
whereabouts of every maquiladora on

earth), we wound up the hill, then back
down past Robinson and Robinson, into
the valley of dirt and factory cubes. The
first time Perla went into Matsushita (while
Terrie and I waited outside another white
stucco wall with fenced inserts—she was
rereading A Moveable Feast, and I was wor-
rying about what to do if Perla got into
trouble), the dear old button camera
didn't record a thing. We went to a fast-
food restaurant, and I bought giant sodas
for the members of my spy team while
they retired to the ladies' room to rewire
Perla and make more practice videos. In
the end they decided to have her carry the
digital video receiver in her little purse,
prestidigitating the wire into the wire of
her cell phone, and this device raised our
industrial espionage to an entirely new
level. Back to Matsushita she went, return-
ing almost immediately, cheerily swinging
her arm, her hair blowing in the breeze,
so the next morning early, when
maquiladoras hired, we wired her up
again and sped off to Matsushita, park-
ing not quite in front, since we were dis-
creet individuals, and then for one hour,
11 minutes and 46 seconds Terrie reread
more of A Moveable Feast while I enter-
tained myself with the spymaster's stress
of wondering whether Perla’s batteries
would run out. For variety's sake I some-
times gazed at an installation of barred
windows within a courtyard of cheerful
green shrubs whose fortifications consisted
of barred gate segments in tracks that slid
apart or together by electronic command;
the climax came near the end of the hour,
when a corrugated-cardboard truck
entered. This barred gate kept me from
learning dreary secrets. Were they secrets
only of sickness and death? Or were they
secrets that might have made me illicitly
rich—trade secrets, I mean? Answering
that was what button cameras were for.

Now here came Perla with a big smile
on her face; Matsushita had hired her.
She'd make 870 pesos a week!

In the covert video, we watched the
wide street sway with a womanly stride
and white storage tanks get closer and
closer, then veer away; it is wonderful how
briskly Perla walks! Her videos are blur-
rier than mine because a strand of white
thread from her clothing got stuck on the
lens beneath the false button and nobody
noticed. The long, white wall of the
maquiladora on her left, cars on her right,
all swaying back and forth, more grace-
fully, in my male opinion, than my own
videos do, and presently white wall gives
way to black-barred metal fence not unlike
the border wall but lower and cleaner;
after five minutes and seven seconds the
security booth swims into view. Perla oblig-
ingly gives a view through the fence from
a number of angles. Then the bored belly
and upraised hand of the security guard
fill part of that magical rectangular world.

Halfway through minute six we see a sil-
houette run its hands across its head by the
fence bars, and then the security guard

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180

picks up the phone. Perla paces, providing
us with one view after the next of the secu-
rity guard. He gestures to us with kindly
paternalism, flipping his head from side to
side and moving his lips. He does not seem
to be a bad man. What if the only reason
my experiences with maquiladora guards
had been so unpleasant was the simple fact
of my own existence?

And now, shortly before minute 10,
Perla penetrates Matsushita—Kyushu
Matsushita maquiladora, I mean, whose
representative, Antonio Trevino, had
previously informed Terrie in no encour-
aging tone that no visit could occur until
we'd called Fred in San Diego—and a
courtyard swims toward us, slightly off
level, with a lovely blackish-green fan
shape of a tree to the right. Then that
flicks away as we trudge down an arid
concrete space with a wall on our left.
One of this wall's numbered doors is
open, and we abruptly flick inside, with
long white incandescent tubes almost
horizontal above us and human beings
passing with great business. The right-
hand wall contains glossy dark rectangu-
lar windows that reflect the incandescent
lights; on the left are whitish open rooms.
Perla turns left. We see a row of what
might be pool tables; slowing her step,
Perla nears them; they are ordinary long
tables with metal chairs along them.

Braye Perla ventures into another
empty room, and from the quick, choppy
quality I can tell she is not supposed to
be here. Then she returns to the hall of
windows, one of which she approaches
until her silhouetted reflection is pierced

by the horizontal spears of many
reflected light tubes. What lies within this
window's world?

At minute 12, second 55, we see the
holy of holies: the production floor.
Perla’s silhouette looms over everything
like the Virgin of Guadalupe. Far below
her shoulders, human silhouettes move
in and out of receding rows of mechani-
cal bays, everything dwindling infinitely
like the perspective in two opposed mir-
rors. A woman nears and gazes at us, but
we cannot see much about her except
that she is a woman. Then suddenly a
pointing, brawny fist intersects the frame:
Perla is being sent about her business!
Dutifully, the camera goes down the hall,
into another room where no cameras are
supposed to be, past a double row of
clean metal lockers, then out to the main
corridor again. Here’s another window;
once more the production line fills the
world. More figures flash by us. Perla's
silhouette raises its phony résumé folder
in simulated bewilderment. The button
camera swerves back into the room of
many tables. We are now making signifi-
cant inroads into minute 15. Perla's spec-
tacles magnify themselves into hugeness
as they arc past us. Then another young
woman, pretty and slender, passes us and
offers us her back, two tables down. It is
time to fill out job applications.

Fifteen seconds before the com-
mencement of minute 22, the other
woman turns around, rises and brings
her application to Perla’s table, evidently
requesting help; her face is silhouetted,
but she is even more evidently well-

“T know you are all wondering if the halftime
activities this year will include exposed breasts, and believe me if I
thought there was any possibility of that, we'd cut this
session short and go watch!”

proportioned than Perla. More people
pass in and out. A plump woman whose
badge flaps on her chest comes to fill up
our world, extending a hand and a
paper. This is the first inside employee we
have seen clearly, and she does not in
the least fit our indictment's profile.

At 26:37 Perla offers us a view of her
application, which I suppose might be
capable of some kind of digital enhance-
ment so we could actually see what it says.
Ten minutes later it has been completed
(the slender woman is still struggling), and
the button camera rears up to lead us back
down the hall of glossy black windows. At
36:47 two pretty, slender young women in
blue smocks, presumably employees, pass
by; to me, they do seem to fit the profile.
Perla enters another room where more
young women and one man are sitting at
tables, filling out papers. At 52:16 three
young women in blue smocks rush by us
in the hall of windows. A freeze-frame
reveals one to be decidedly fat; the middle
girl, blurred although she is, would not
seem to be conventionally pretty. More
peeks through the tinted windows show
more blurred figures. Then at 53:27 two
closed double doors sport red-and-yellow
warning signs, but Perla wisely leaves
those alone (an alarm might have
sounded) and provides us with an interior
view of an immaculate, even rather plush,
ladies’ room. I feel pleased with Mat-
sushita. The camera ascends stairs, passes
down an empty corridor to more of the
double doors with red-and-yellow warn-
ing signs, gives us a long view of a notice
board, swivels furtively to reveal workers
in an open doorway (we can't make out
their shapes distinctly), swivels past a well-
stacked girl in worker blue and then
brings us back into one more window-
framed view of the production line, which
looks as clean and modern as any science-
fiction spaceship.

At 57:47 we see two of these workers
more clearly than before. It remains dif-
ficult to say whether they are men or
women, but from the way they stand
lounging and chatting they are probably
men (whom we will see more identifiably
a little later). In the background a pale-
clad female figure is definitely not wear-
ing a miniskirt. Then the camera swivels
back down the hall, where another appli-
cant approaches us with a folder in her
hand. She is beautiful, but the problem is
that all Mexican women are beautiful.

At 1:03:05 Perla scores her great coup,
breezing her way directly into the pro-
duction area. A big-breasted, dark-faced
female figure approaches us beneath the
row of white light tubes. On our right the
mysterious production bays now resemble
nothing so much as banks of Las Vegas
slot machines. At 1:03:15 we glimpse a line
of blue-clad female workers, who are, in
the words of two women I later asked, not
obese but normal. None of them wears a
miniskirt. A plump-bottomed woman
walks away from us. Then the camera

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pans to another line of women; they again
seem not obese but normal. The closest of
the women at 1:03:35 might be stocky;
some are wearing miniskirts.

Perla shut down her wire and
reported: “It’s totally changed, even the
way they treat the people, the age, the
pregnancy test. There are people in there
who are pretty big. They even have music
playing in the halls. But also there are
several different Matsushitas.”

As for me, I was happy. As far as we
could tell in a one-hour video, Matsushita
seemed fine. And the button camera had
finally proved itself.

THE PRICE OF A MASK

We waited for the flat-voiced girl with
glasses to come. She worked at Fluid-
master now, from 6:30 in the morning to
3:20 in the afternoon; she had only two
15-minute breaks. The flat-voiced girl
with glasses was named Lourdes. Before
I met her Га already met her chest X-
ys and her case file. There was some-
thing ugly about her personality, 1
thought. Terrie didn't think so; Terrie
thought her brave, and she was, but her
bravery came from some bitter, brutal-
ized place. 1 felt disliked and suspected
by her. I sometimes have the same feel-
ing when I interview a rape victim.

We were sitting in the in La Jolla
Industrial Park. Terrie and Perla were
wiring Lourdes for another button cam-
era, which was going to fail, and when
Lourdes came out of Fluidmaster the secu-
rity guard seemed to be searching her
body, at which point I almost ready
to vomit from anxiety. My rule in these
adventures is to take full responsibility for
the people working for me, and I was won-
dering how I was going to get Lourdes out
of this, and what would happen to me,
when she waved cheerfully to the security
guard and strolled back to the car. That is
what I mean when I say she was brave.

I asked what had happened to her at
Formosa, her previous maquiladora, and
she said wearily, “I got pneumonia and
also tuberculosis. I assembled radio
speakers.”

“Why did you get sick?"

“It may have been the glue,” she said,
which had toxic chemicals in it.

“How do you know it was from the
glue?”

“Because it was what everyone was
breathing in all the time.”

“And what did the glue smell like?”

"I'm not sure how to say it, but it was
strong and ugly. It burned the throat."

*How many years did you work at
Formosa?"

“Two years, eight months."

"When you brought in the X-rays,
what did they say?”

“They didn't care. They sent me some
insurance."

"And how are you feeling now?"

"Okay. I had a treatment. Pills and a
spray."

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PLAYBOY

182

“Are the maquiladoras good or bad for
Mexico;

“Well,” said Lourdes, “more or less, the
work.”

she said, in what I
believe to have been quiet fury.

“Can you tell me what happened after
the doctor x-rayed you?”

"I went back to work after getting bet-
ter and got sick all over again.”

In the coarse yellow-brown envelopes
of the Instituto Mexicano del Segurio
Social lay those two X-rays, dated October
2002, that Perla claimed showed pneu-
monia and that I photographed. I have
not yet had a doctor look at my negative,
and even if pneumonia can be proven 1
see no further proof that the glue at For-
mosa either caused or exacerbated Lour-
des's pneumonia. But here is one thing
that somebody at Formosa ought to get
barbecued in hell for, if what Perla and
Lourdes both told me happened next did
happen: When Lourdes recovered and
returned she asked Formosa to give her a
mask, and Formosa refused.

“And how is it now, working at Fluid-
master?”

"It's really good. I do a lot of work with
my hands. I sit at a table. It’s comfortable.
I sit and p: What we make is the float-
ing thing inside the toilet.”

“NOW IT’S DONE ALMOST ALWAYS”

What about the bloody tampon? Was

that nothing but a myth? None of

the people I interviewed in 2004 had
ever heard of it in their workplace. The
dapper reporter believed that “the
maquiladoras were harder in the 1990s.
That's what they told me.” Señor A. was

sure they were no better now.

Once again I found Señor A. very
plausible. “The maquiladoras started the
fashion of testing the blood and urine
samples of women,” he said. “Now it's
done in Tijuana's industries almost
always. But this is when you join, not
every month.”

German was a very dark, somber,
weary man who was sitting in Señor A.'s
waiting room when we arrived. “Two
years ago I worked in a battery factory,”
he said. “I was supposed to get off at four
every day, and I usually didn't get off
until seven.”

“Was this factory affiliated with Metales
y Derivados?”

“I'm not positive, but I know the com-
pany had a lot to do with liquids. The
batteries were for wheelchairs.”

“Where was this?”

“In an industrial area called Pacifico.”

Slamming together the fingers of his big
hands, he said, “I would work extra hours
and not get paid. Also they don’t wash all
of the equipment. And they don't wash the
clothes. They were very strict about mak-
ing us wear goggles because we worked
with sulfuric acid, but they weren't clean.
I'm kind of embarrassed to say it, but I got
married and I had to be sure that before
I had sex with my wife I washed so that I
didn't get the acid on her."

“Did you get sick?”

“They gave us pills for dizziness, and
we often got dizzy.”

“Was your wife for or against the deci-
sion to quit?”

He stretched his shirt and sniffed at
himself. “I think she did want me to quit
because it was affecting me, and the smell
of acid was so strong I had to keep my

“Can you make a sound like a reindeer?”

clothes in a separate room. I used to
break out on my arms and neck. And it
affected my sleeping patterns. I slept only
three or four hours.”

I gazed into his dark, reddish-brown,
broad and hopeless face, which was
heavy with shadows and a mustache, and
he said, “I've seen a lot of things, espe-
cially women shaped like this—he made
the motion men make to indicate flaring
breasts and hips—who keep getting
more raises, and the bosses keep saying
to them, “We'll go out together.’ I've been
working in factories for 19 years. I don't
really want to work in factories again.
Maybe in a vegetable market.”

“Are the maquiladoras good or bad for
Mexico?”

“I live right now thanks to the factories.
People say they provide jobs, but they
generate a lot of contamination, a lot of
trash. Now the factories just throw the
trash down the street, even tires. I've had
good luck with my jobs, but I've also had
friends who after their six-month con-
tract can't keep their work."

WHAT IS THE SECRET?

What is the secret? There may be no
secret—no horrid one, anyway. I credit
myself with being an empathetic and
experienced interviewer; therefore,
much of what I believe to be true may
actually be true. While the stories of Ger-
man, Lourdes and the young woman
who used to work at Matsushita can by
no means be twisted into glowing
encomiums to the maquiladoras, the tale
of the bloody tampons and Sefior A.'s
thriller-chiller about Chinese slaves can't
be substantiated, either.

The plain truth is that most of the
workers I met, not least the man with the
black cough, expressed satisfaction with
the factories in which they were em-
ployed. No, they were not particularly
enthusiastic—who is?—and yes, they did
often seem to be strangely unwilling to
talk, which I interpreted, based on my
prior experience in this region, as being
predicated on distrust or fear, depending
on the individual.

The maquiladoras are ripe for their
own Cesar Chavez, whom many Mexi-
cans have never heard of. Of course, if
the concessions the new Chavistas could
squeeze out of them were to become too
costly, the maquiladoras would doubtless
pull up stakes to move their operations
to China, leaving behind poisonous
holes in the ground.

That is one reason no revolution is
imminent. The other is this: I mostly
reject the Marxist notion of false con-
sciousness. I believe that workers can
think for themselves, and if they don’t
claim to be exploited, they probably
aren't. At Mexhon on Insurgentes:
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FEMININA in Los Pinos Industrial Park—
and the tall, white towers of a landscape
more than boring and less than ghastly
bewildered me. At three in the after-
noon a stream of women poured out of
Los Pinos; they assembled medical
instruments, they said. They were smil-
ing and giggling; they liked the work,
they said.

A man was waiting for his wife to get
off work at Philips plant number two. He
stood on a shady part of the concrete
sidewalk. When she came, young and
pretty in her business clothes, they
embraced, then walked hand in hand
across Insurgentes and up the steep hill-
side toward their colonia.

I do think the maquiladoras some-
times show a shock-
ing disregard for
people's health.
The subtle effects
of chemical expo-
sure over time and
the generally low
level of education
among maquilado-
ra laborers conspire
accomplices in
the endangerment
of human beings
for the sake of a few
extra pesos.

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evil and perhaps
not even as evil as 1
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windows were less
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were a hundred people working at Flor
de Baja and 200 time sheets.”

“Did any of the Americans know about
this?”

She shrugged. “I don't know. I don't
think so.”

“So who is responsible for the bad con-
ditions, the Americans or the Mexican
middle management?”

“The local people are to blame, the
people in the office. I've heard of thou-
sands of dollars going into people's
offices. They steal your wages, all your
bonuses. But if you say something, you're
going to get fired and blackballed.

“Well, it sounds like a very effective way
to get rich.”

“The people who do that get so much

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blackball you.” (Señor A. independently
told me that “in Tijuana, when an
employee sues her maquiladora for her
rights, her name is put on a list and cir-
culated so she can’t find work.”)

“Have you been blackballed?"

“No, because the last time I was work-
ing for some other plant I made an
agreement. I got a certain amount of
money. It was less than I was entitled to,
but I had the condition that I wouldn't
be blackballed.”

She was now working at another
maquiladora, from 10 at night until six in
the morning. “The schedule is the only
thing I don't like,” she said. “I make air-
conditioning ducts at AMP Industrial
Mexicana, which is owned by Ameri-
cans. The wages are
about the same.

Suddenly she
said, “You can't de-
mand your rights.
They demand a lot
of work from you.
"They'll just step on
you and fire you.
You can't form a
union or they'll fire
you quick. I know
organizers who are
blackballed to the
point where they
have to do con-
struction work just
to survive, although
they have degrees.
One man applied
for a job just at the
assembly line so
they wouldn't in-
vestigate him, but
the second day he
came they found
out he'd been a
union organizer and
they fired him."

"You know for a
fact that they fired
him for being a

The maquiladora

where Magdalena
Ayala Marquez had worked, Flor de
Baja, made avocados into guacamole,
which was shipped worldwide. Mag-
dalena was a "big knife." She had to cut
27 avocados a minute for nine hours a
day, Monday through Friday, from
6:30 in the morning until four P.M.
(Compensation: 95 pesos a day. Breaks:
one per day, at 10:30, for half an hour.
One could go to the bathroom and
drink water anytime.) She said that dur-
ing the three months her employment
lasted, her wrists became injured. She
also said some people got arthritis and
frostbite from working with ice in the
cold room.

Said Magdalena, "They were putting
invented people on the time sheets, so
the real ones had to work harder. There

money out of the maquiladora they have

the money to open their own business. I

о the American businessmen have
ce th

this kind of business in others' hands

knowing what goes on here. They should

at least have someone keep an eye on it."

"In your opinion, was Flor de Baja
among the best, the worst or in the
middle?"

"It was a good maquiladora. It received
several certificates. It was one of the best
for productivity, but for the way the work-
ers were treated it was one of the worst."

"Right now, which one is the worst?

“They re all the same. They demand
a lot of work, and if they fire you they
don't give you what you're entitled to.
When you demand your rights they

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union organizer, or
you just heard that
was the reason?"

d here, with one more
instance of disputed fact? We'll each
believe what we wish. This almost
perfectly incomplete portrait of the
maquiladoras ends, as every honest
investigation should, in midair. It is ever.
so difficult to begin to comprehend
maquiladoras as they are, with their
chemicals, fences and secrets. As for the
future, well, from Tijuana I remember a
tiny square of mostly unbuilt freeway,
high in the air, a souvenir of a broken
bridge, and at the very end of it, lording
it over empty space, a huge handmade
cross with scraps of white plastic bag flut-
tering in the brown wind.

183

PLATE

184

VIDAL
(continued from page 126)

gentry [sic], Inventing a Nation is consis-
tently hostile to Hamilton, the great
modernizer of the period, while apolo-
getic about Jefferson.... In his first draft
of a resolution eventually adopted by the
Kentucky state legislature in 1799 Jeffer-
son argued that states had the power to
nullify—refuse to execute—federal poli-
cies they viewed as unconstitutional.” He
indicates that I am in agreement on this
principle. Gertainly, in the instance of the
Alien and Sedition Acts favored by the
Federalist president Adams and his Fed-
eralist Congress, it would have been a
very good thing if Jefferson could have
devised an escape hatch from what one
contemporary rattlebrain has called, by
no means inaccurately, the Frozen Re-
In any event, presently Jeffer-
d attempt of 1799 will soon be
confronted by a war of the people at

large against our imperial masters, when
they decree, despite riots in the street,
the restoration of the military draft.
Have a good day, Alex.

Incidentally, I have no roots in the
Virginia gentry. This is one of a number
of grotesque inventions concocted by
neocons to prove that I am some sort of
Confederate sympathizer. Actually, the
Gores entered political history during
the Reconstruction, when we helped or-
ganize the Party of the People through-
out the South. And so I largely remain to
this day a Jeffersonian populist, current-
ly governed by a commercial cabal de-
voted to spending trillions of dollars (of
declining value) to increase a debt
Hamilton himself would disown, in or-
der to fuel a garrison state at war not
only with much of the world but, more
somberly, with We the People of the
United States, now being erased finan-
cially by Hamiltonian “progressives.”

"I'm staying right here. An old guy visiting millions of kids late at
night?...How many lawsuits would that lead to?”

POKER

(continued from page 152)
Williams tells us about his WSOP experi-
ences. He says he entered the WSOP be-
cause he's a perfectionist with a strong
desire to be the best at anything he does.
At the age of six he had to beat his moth-
er at video games. In grammar school he
had to have perfect grades. When he
once got a 95, he confronted his teacher
about his five missing points. “I always
wanted to beat the game,” he says, “find
the secret no one else knew.”

Because he was a WSOP unknown,
Williams felt little pressure. At first he
played cautiously, but on есопа day
he was up only $2,000. Disgusted with
himself, he started playing faster and
looser. In one game he pushed in all his
chips when he had two jacks, not know-
ing that his opponent had two aces. He
got his third jack on the flop and won, he
says, “because you have to be lucky to
win. And lucky to dodge the other guy's
luck. You have to be focused and emo-
tionless. You can't let a bad beat affect
your mind. That's always been my r
ture. Brittany I never cry or gel
gry. I don't, because I accept reality.
Getting mad doesn't change it, so why
expend the energy? Maybe that's bad for
personal relationships, but it’s good for
poker. That's how I reconcile my perfec-
tionism with fate. I call it the law of prob-
ty. Nothing's guaranteed. To be a
great player you have to accept that.”

Williams moved steadily through the
field for a week until he finally found
himself, on the day before the finals, in
10th position. That night’s game would
stop only when nine players were left for
the final table the next day. Williams des-
perately wanted to be at that final table.
If he made it, he would be the youngest
player ever and the first black player (his
mother is African American, his father
from Iran) at a final table; most poker
players are white, Asian or Middle East-
ern men. But Williams had the lowest
stack of chips of any of the 10 players at
his table, which put him at a distinct dis-
advantage. So he played cautiously,
dropping out of hand after hand to pro-
tect his short stack.

"I'm sitting there like a pussy,” he
says. “Scared, hoping I can make the
final table. But even if I made it, with no
chips I'd be the first one out. I wasn't
playing tough. Finally I said to myself,
‘Be a man. If it's meant to be, it's meant
to Бе.” So when he drew ап ace and a
queen (his opponent had two 10s),
Williams put all his chips into the pot.
When the subsequent three cards, called
the flop, didn’t improve his hand, he be-
gan to pack his things. His new friend
Marcel Luske, now 51 and one of the
best poker players in Europe, put his
arm around Williams and said, “Relax.
The next card will be an ace.”

“I don't believe in voodoo,” says

Williams, “but the next card was an ace,
and I moved to the final table with
enough chips to protect myself. It was
amazing how Marcel in his heart wanted
me to win. He loves to teach, and I love
to learn. It was a real moment for me.”

Williams describes the WSOP finals as
the best poker played by the most boring
players. “There was no chatter,” he says
“Tt was too tense for that. That's the ap-
peal of poker. It's like reality TV. You can
drop in on it at any moment and find
drama—highs and lows that are cap-
tured in a moment.”

At the final table one player after an-
other went bust until only Williams and
a Connecticut lawyer named Greg
silman” Raymer remained. They р
a few hands, one
or the other drop-
ping out quickly to
conserve his chips.
Then Williams d
cided again to play
it fast and loose. He
pushed in $300,000
in chips while hold-
ing only an ace and
a four. His oppo-
nent had a pair
of eights. “I didn’t
think he had a pair,”
says Williams, “be-
cause he didn’t look
at it too long. A pair
of eights, you got to
stop and think.”

The flop was two-
four-five, so now
Williams had two
fours to Raymer's
pair of eights. Ray-

the money. If first paid $3.5 million and
second $5 million, I still would have
liked to win. I don't know if I'll ever get
it out of my head.”

Williams was so disheartened by his
second-place finish that he ordered take-
out food and ate it in his room. But the
next day his new fame hit him. A lot of
young actors, including Tobey Maguire
and Ben Affleck, are poker aficionados.
Williams met Maguire, who began to call
him Number Two. (Williams solidified
this nickname four months after the
WSOP when he finished second in a
World Poker Tour event in Atlantic City,
winning $600,000.)

“I said, ‘Who are you?’” Williams says.
“He said, “Tobey Maguire.” I said, ‘What

tod

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$250,000 in a poker game he actually
won. Between hands he made propos
tion bets of thousands on the color of the
next card. “Guys pointed out players
who won millions in poker and are now
broke because they had a leak,” Williams

continues. “Most leaks are gambling.

Poker players are challenge seekers. I
not enough to beat someone in poke
They have to beat the unbeatable next
Craps. Roulette. Anything."

One poker player bet $500,000 that
he could drink 23 beers in 23 hours.
Another bet $10,000 that Howard Led-
erer, a confirmed vegetarian, couldn't
eat a hamburger. He did, and the Бе
tor was annoyed that Lederer didn't
throw up. Another player bet an oppo-
nent $30,000 that
he couldn't live in
Des Moines for 30
days. Another bet his
opponent $10,000
that he couldn't
float in the ocean
for 20 hours.

Once he returned
to Dallas, Williams
made only one
purchase, a $25,000
Rolex wristwatch
He gave his mother
$50,000 and paid
off her bills. He also
promised he'd pay
off her $125,000
mortgage. Shirley
Williams, 49, has
been a Delta flight
attendant for 26
years. "My mother's
a great woman,"

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says Williams, “but
she never saved for
retirement. Now I
can do it for her if I
don't blow it. If she
doesn't want to
work, I'll support
her. If she ever
needs anything, she

mer immediately
aised $1.6 million.
Williams called in-
stantly. "I'm a quick
thinker," he says. "I
went with my gut
People say I should
have slowed down."

The turn came up

a two, which gave ١۹ далаң

Raymer two pairs,
his pocket eights
and the community-card twos. Williams
so had two pairs, fours and twos. Be-
fore the river Raymer bet $2.5 million,
and Williams called him. The river came
up another two, which gave both men a
full house, but Raymer’s was higher be-
cause of his eights. Raymer pushed in all
his chips, and Williams, certain Raymer
didn't have a pair of down cards, pushed
in all of his. When they turned over their
cards, Raymer was the new champion
Williams, who was $3.5 million riche
had still finished second, which tor-
mented him. “Nothing hurts like busting
out of your first big one,” he says. “I
think about that final hand every day. S
close to being the champion. Winning
was so much more important to me than

160 pages.

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‘I'm an actor.’ I
said, ‘Really. What movies have you been

do you do?' He said,

?' He said, ‘Spider-Man.’ I said, ‘Oh.’
Weeks later Maguire beat him in a
cash game. "I could see sadness in his
eyes that he beat me," says Williams
Veteran players began to offer
Williams a seat in their million-dollar
cash games, but he'd decline. He had
already gone to dinner with enough vet-
eran players who told him about players'
“leaks”—a poker player's vice that leaks
money. It could be drugs, booze, women
or other forms of gambling. Phil Ivey,
the young black player who favors NBA
jerseys, is "the greatest player in the
game," says Williams. But he has a leak.
He likes to gamble. He once lost

can have it. But
Mom's not good
with money. She
lives paycheck to paycheck. I didn't
think it was good to give her $500,000
and turn her loose. I got her a $1,000
line of credit for online poker, and it's
already gone."

When Williams was back home in
Dallas, he went to see a financial advisor.
He sat in a conference room around an
oval mahogany table and discussed his
finances, how to minimize taxes and how
to invest his millions with a man named
Kent, who was dressed in a suit and tie.
Williams wore his usual slacker's outfit—
oversize T-shirt, ripped baggy jeans,
sneakers. He told Kent, "I want to do the
right thing with my money, something
productive like owning a company so I
won't ever have to work nine to five for

185

PRENMASTABAO SY)

186

anyone. Га like to invest so that by the
age of 30 I have $10 million, but I know
my goals conflict with my conservative
nature. There's a trade-off between risk
and reward. I don't like to gamble.”
Then he produced all the meticulously
kept records—his expenses, poker
losses, etc.—he has maintained over the
years, ever since he decided to live off his
poker earnings.

“Living off poker is not dependable,”
Williams points out. “It’s the only job
where you can come home with less
money than you started with. You can't
make $10,000 one night, spend it on a
$6,000 TV and the next month be strug-
gling for cash.”

At the end of his financial meeting,
Williams learned he could pay off his
mother's mortgage without paying an
extra gift tax. He also learned that if he
declared himself a professional gam-
bler to the IRS he could deduct his
losses and expenses. “So it's settled,”
Kent said. "You're a professional gam-
bler." He laughed and added, *Now all
your family will be coming out of the
woodwork."

^I have only my mother," Williams
said. “I never knew my father."

We pull off the highway north of Dal-
las at 11 рм. and drive east past a flat,
barren stretch of land until we come to
a strip mall and a Steak n Shake. We
order hamburgers and shakes from a
thin, pale waiter.

While we're eating our burgers,
Williams says, "After the WSOP I was
invited to play in a tournament in L.A.

I was the first player out. Just as I got
up, one of the guys from the WSOP
came by and asked if I was just starting.
I told him no, I'd already been elimi-
nated before most of the players had
even registered." Williams shakes his
head. "After the WSOP, guys told me
you lose your confidence. You're afraid
to play again because you don't want to
be embarrassed. They told me to ex-
pect a dry spell."

His cell phone rings, and he answers
it. He listens for a moment, then says
into the phone, "If you're gonna pay
that kind of money to have your car de-
tailed, make sure you look the car over
before you pay the guy and he leaves."
He listens again, then adds, "I love you,
Mom" and hangs up.

"Her car is always filthy," he says to
me. "Like anything I do, I'm cautious. I
take my time, look into it." He smiles,
something he rarely does, and says, “My
mother and I have more of a brother-
sister relationship."

After we finish dinner, Williams makes
an attempt to pay the bill. I tell him the
magazine will pay for it. Even before he
won $3.5 million at the WSOP, Williams
often paid the bill for his friends, much
to DeWald's dismay. “Why do you always
have to pay?" she'd ask. "It's in my
nature,” he'd respond. But after the
WSOP, Williams found that his friends,
including Reeves, were insulted when he
tried to pay their dinner bill.

"I'm a man," Reeves told him. “I can
pay my own check. Just because you
won some money, you're not paying for

Tm taking you off talk radio."

my meals for the rest of my life. I'm
your friend.”

Williams shrugs. “I picked my friends
right. On their character. We make sure
we help each other out.”

Williams surrounds himself with men
who are older than he is, yet he seems
older than his years. He has a gravitas
and a sadness about him. Williams likes
the company of men and only tolerates
the company of women. That's part of
his attraction to poker.

"It's a guy thing,” says Huynh. “I love
my wife and two kids, but I've left them
to play poker with the guys for 72 hours
straight.” When Huynh plays poker,
he's no longer just a fat guy. He's a play-
er. He has personality and a kind of
power. When Williams plays poker, he’s
no longer “the lamest” or “lazy.” He's
sharp, focused, a man to be respected
and reckoned with. Poker defines these
men. It brings out their repressed per-
sonalities, which they keep hidden dur-
ing those few hours a day when they are
not playing poker.

We drive east at midnight past deso-
late countryside. We go down a side
street and come to an industrial strip
mall that should be deserted, but more
than 20 cars are in the parking lot.

Williams goes up to one of the mall
doors and knocks. Someone opens the
door, Williams tells him who he is, the
door opens, and we step inside. The
front room looks like a shabby office
space for an auto body shop or a tile
company, except on the wall is a little
sign that reads, WE ARE A POKER DEALER'S
SCHOOL. SOMETIMES WE PLAY POKER AFTER
CLASS. On another wall is a copy of a
check made out to the Dallas Police
Department.

The owner of the club greets Williams
and Huynh and tells them a game awaits
in the back room. Williams and Huynh
go down a corridor while I ask the club
owner about the check on the wall. He
smiles and says, “Every little bit helps.” I
ask him if the neighbors get suspicious
with so many cars in his lot at midnight.
“They haven't so far,” he says.

Williams and Huynh stand around a
poker table crowded with about 10 men,
all of whom are in their 20s or 30s. They
all look like Williams—slackers with
baseball caps on backward, baggy
T-shirts, jeans—except they are all white.
They look up at him and smile. “Come
on, David!" They make room for
Williams and Huynh at the table, and
someone says, “So tell me, David, how
many new friends you got? Broke
friends, I mean.” Everyone laughs while
Williams and Huynh buy chips.

It’s obvious that the players genuinely
like Williams because, as he puts it, “I’m
one of their own in their eyes. They're
proud of me. I give them hope. If I can
do it, they can do it. And here I am, play-
ing right alongside them."

Williams, no longer lame, comes alive

while playing Texas Hold ’Em in a dingy
strip mall club with his friends, laughing,
joking, cursing a bad hand. I stand be-
hind Williams and watch a few hands be-
fore he moves a chair close to him and
invites me to sit. Every time he gets his
down cards, he curls them back at the
edges, cupping his hands around them
so that only he can see them. Then he
slides them toward me and curls them
back so I can see them. Despite his curi-
ous remove, Williams is unfailingly
polite and helpful to me, as he is to
everyone. “He's reliable,” says Huynh,
“and he always returns his calls.” When
Williams makes an appointment to meet
me and he’s five minutes late, he apolo-
gizes profusely. When he has his finan-
cial meeting, he
makes a point of
having me sit in,
even though he’s
discussing his most
intimate finances.
As long as I'm in
Dallas to him,
he says, "I'm avail-
able to you when-
ever you want me."

Williams looks at
his down cards, two
eights, and pushes
a big stack of chips
into the pot. Hi
opponent has two
jacks but is scared
off by Williams's
assertive play. He
folds his better
hand. Williams
hugs his chips
toward him. He
stacks them loving-
ly, fingers them,
almost caressing
them like small
loved ones. It's as if
he has a romance
with his chips, the
way most players
do, needing the
tactile sensation of
them for reassur- T
ance. The more
chips they have, the more they can feel
between their fingers, the more confi-
dent they become.

Williams has the beginnings of a
straight, five-six-seven-eight. He pushes
in $300 in chips. Only the man beside
him, a 25-year-old wearing a red base-
ball cap, is still in the hand. He has a pair
of queens. He stares at Williams, trying
to read him and determine if he's bluff-
ing. Williams goes cold, blank, devoid of
expression. He lets his opponent stare at
him for long moments, until finally his
opponent folds, his hand—the winning
hand had he stayed in the game.
Williams pulls in his beloved chips.

We drive back to Dallas at six in the
morning. Williams has won $600 and is

as exhilarated as if he'd just won the
WSOP. It’s not the money but the six
hours with friends that makes him ani-
mated. Huynh was a big loser, but he
doesn't care. He'll just go online tonight
and win it all back. The money is almost
irrelevant to Huynh and Williams. It's
just a means to keep score. The action is
what motivates them. They're using
their brains, skill and, most of all, char-
acter in a game that proves their man-
hood—if to no one but themselves.

I ask Williams about the player with
two queens whom he bluffed out of a
pot. “I could tell by his body language
that he didn't like it when I bet his
queens,” he I could see his fear.
He's a weak player.”

he following morning I meet Shirley
Williams and her daughter, Tina,
David's half sister, for breakfast at
Denny's. Shirley arrives heavily made-
up and wearing a pair of short shorts
and high heels that show off her fine
brown legs. She is one of those women
pushing 50 who still think of themselves
as younger; in Shirley's case, she does
look much younger than her age. She's
still very pretty, with skin much darker
than her son's. Although Williams says
he has a brother-sister relationship with
his mother, it's more complex than that.
Williams is protective of his mother,
much like an older brother. He's always
complaining about her “acting like a
kid” and being “too emotional” and not

as responsible as she should be with her
money. Williams has no concept of wom-
en except as people who need to be рг
tected from themselves. When he saw his
mother at the WSOP talking too long
to a man, he went over to her and de-
manded, “Who was that?”

At breakfast I ask Shirley if David is
like his fathe: don't know,” she s:
“I only knew him for a few month
David always resented that he had no
father. He thought his father left him. I
explained to him that his father didn't
know I was pregnant. When he was a
child he always said, ‘I wish I had a dad-
dy.’ One day I said, ‘Okay, I'll put you up.
for adoption,' and he cried, 'No, no,
Mommy, I want to be with you.' That
was mean of me, I
know."

When Williams
was a child and his
mother would leave
to fly with Delta for
two or three days
ata time, he would
stay with his grand-
parents. When his
mother returned,
she would be home
for four days at a
time, which W

IF MORE
IS BETTER,
nothing
can top
these
curvy
beauties!

games, bickering
over them like two

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Гају

ys loved
Shirley
“1 played Ata
when David w
in my stomach.”
Shirley got her love
of games from her
father, a dominoes
player. “Nobody
could ever beat
him,” says Williams.

“David was forced
to grow up early,”
says his mother.
“When he was 12
he got bored with
his grandparents
when I'd be gone, so he stayed at home
alone. The first time, I cried.” Williams
would wake up by himself, get dressed,
make his breakfast and then catch the
school bus. When he'd come home he'd
do his homework. "I never had a party
or got into trouble," he says. "I couldn't
let my mother down. She put her trust in
me. I would only have made it harder on
her." When his mother was home, she
hosted card games at the house.
ams would fix the drinks and serve
the food. It was at about this time that
Shirley asked her son if he wanted her to
try to find his father: "He said no."

In school Williams was so much
smarter than his peers that he finished

800-423-9494
(Source Code MG504) or
playboystore.com

Most major c cepted,

his work early, got bored and began to 187

PLTA CTAB LOEN

188

cause trouble. Shirley says she had him
tested and found out how smart he was.
“So I enrolled him in a magnet school
for gifted children,” she says.

The school was in a bad neighbor-
hood, says Shirley, “yet David got along
with both types of

“Socially, I hung with the cool kids, a
few deadbeats, but I had a dark side,”
says V s. “I was a closet nerd. I'd
go home and watch the Science Chan-
nel, but I could never tell my friends
about the properties of chemicals. I
adapted, like a chameleon. It was a
mixed neighborhood, but my friends
didn't think of me as black. I was just
David. I didn’t fit into any stereotypes.
Some kids said, “You don't act black.’ I
hated that term, the gold-chain stereo-
types. I told them they were ignorant.
You can't act a race.”

Williams got his first job at the age of
14 to help out his mother. When he was
15 he doctored his birth certificate so he
could work at Wendy's. Then he began

playing Magic for cash prizes, entering
tournaments around the world and be-
coming part of the nerdlike subculture
Magic attracts. (One year, he was dis-
qualified from a tournament for cheat-
ing, which he adamantly denies doing.
Williams was accused of having a
marked or bent card in his hand. He
was automatically disqualified despite
his claim that the marked card was a
meaningless one, akin to a deuce in a
poker hand of three kings.) When, at
the age of 17, he turned his attention to
poker, Shirley never worried about him
in those games because, she says, “He
was always respectful. Alway
ma'am' and ‘I love you, Ма.” And he w
о calm.”
ms finished his last two years of
high school at the University of North
Texas. When he graduated he was con-
sidered a college junior and had a 1,550
SAT score. H nceton because
an article in U. еш & World Report
claimed it was the number one school in

“Each year you complain that I don’t
follow through on my New Year's resolution. Well, this year
my resolution was to bang our neighbor.
Aren't you proud of me?”

the country. But Williams hated Prince-
ton—the cold weather, his more privi-
leged classmates and the fact that he had
to work in the cafeteria serving them. He
was so depressed and lonely that he was
admitted to the infirmary before Shirley
finally told him to come home. He re-
turned to Dallas and eventually entered
Southern Methodist Univ y, where
he has a year to go to get his economics
degree. Williams has a 4.0 grade point
average at SMU, but his overall college
'A is 3.9 because of his marks at
Princeton. “That point nine really gets

е,” he says. “No matter what I do I'll
never be able to get it back. I’m obsessive
about my grades. I guess I’m stuck in the

y about the money her son
I knew David would help me
out financially if he won the WSOP" she
says. “But that’s my son's money. I want
to keep working. He's only 94. Maybe I
don't know how much money that is. It’s
got to last him a Шеп

After breakfast Shirley and Tina take
out their makeup es. Then mother
and daughter stare into their mirrors
and apply fresh makeup before they
drive to Williams's apartment for the
afternoon. Before they leave I ask Tina,
who is pretty like her mother, if she and
David are close. “Not too close,” she
He's not home very much. But
friends think he's cute.” David
aid of Tina, “She was born when 1

vas eight. I struggled for attention be-
cause I'd been the only kid. I'm not al-
there for her now, but I ask about
her grades."

It is late afternoon in Williams's apart-
ment. He's curled up on the love seat,
sleeping in his clothes. His mother
watching a soap opera on TV. Willi
stirs, wakes and sits up. He looks at
mother and says, "Quality entertain-
ment, huh?"
"David, why don't you give
money for my online account?" she says.
“Because you'll burn it up." He puts
his computer on his lap and turr
and within minutes he's playing poker.
After Shirley and Tina leave, I ask him
where DeWald is. "She's mad at me. She
nt to her mothe: Then, his eyes
still fixed on his computer screen, his
fingers playing over the keys, he adds,
“Maybe I was meant to live alone
s a curious case. Despite hi
obvious affection and concern for his
mother, and even for DeWald, he talks
about them without emotion. His words
are affectionate, but nothing in his de-
meanor corresponds to them. The only
time he reveals emotion is when he talks
about his beloved Chihuahua, which
died recently. “I was holding him and
dropped him onto the floor,” Williams
says hesitantly. “He hit his head and
died. I didn't get another dog because it

me more

would be unfair to him. It's like if your
wife dies. It's hard to remarry.”

Williams met DeWald when she was
17. “She was goofy and hyper,” he says,
“but I never thought about it. We're
opposites. She’s emotional, illogical and
whiny. I'm her out for everything, like
I'm her father.”

A few days ago DeWald came home
late after a night out and damaged her
cell phone. She called Williams, who was
in Vegas, and told him her cell phone
didn’t work and that she wanted a new
опе. He told her he couldn't do anything
about it until the following Monday.
“But what if I get a flat tire and someone
tries to kill me?” she said. “People got flat
tires before cell phones and weren't
killed,” Williams responded.

When Williams went to the WSOP, he
didn’t want DeWald to go with him, be-
cause he felt he couldn't give her the at-
tention she would need. But she showed
up and stood behind him, saying,
“Come on, baby, give me a smile.”
Williams told her to be quiet; this was his
moment. “I was on the verge of winning
$3.5 million,” he says. She stormed off,
crying, and Williams had to go look for
her. "I'm trying to get her some counsel-
ing," he says. Reeves, for one, doesn't
think she needs it. "She's basically a
child," he says. “David doesn't respect
her. He's always complaining about her.
I told him to get rid of her or shut up."

"David's pretty honorable," says
Huynh. *He'll never break up with
Brittany unless it becomes intolerable.
Something's holding him back. He never
had a father figure, you know. Maybe he
doesn't know women."

Williams's fingers are playing his com-
puter keys as if he were a concert pianist.
I ask him if he ever played sports. "I
wasn't raised to play sports," he says with-
out looking up. "Maybe I wouldn't have
been a nerd and would have been into
basketball if I'd had a male influence."
Still, Williams has never had any desire
to find his father. *I wouldn't acknowl-
edge him if he showed up," he says.

He pauses a moment after winning a
pot and adds, "Things are what they are.
I don't have any insecurities. I accept
things. I don't mean this as a knock on.
my mother or grandparents, but there's
no person I look up to. I am who I am."

Just then DeWald comes through the
door. She moves silently through the
apartment without acknowledgement
from Williams. With a rare, faint smile
he says, "I can't wait for the WSOP next
year. It's so fun. Like poker summer
camp." His fingers play over the keys.
"A set of jacks," he mutters to himself.
Then, without looking up from his lap-
top, he says, "Baby, wanna go out to
dinner tonight?"

DeWald looks at him. "What about my

cell phone?"

Mom
(continued from page 146)

on. I sit up quickly and bang my head on
the hard edge of a slanting truss. Shit.
"Coming!" I scream and fold the letter
quickly into a little square, which I jam
into that tiny coin pocket in the front of
my jeans as I roll to one side. I steal one
more glance at the wide shot of my mom,
the third photograph—she seems to be
calling out to me with her eyes, begging
me to break with convention, the restric-
tive bonds of polite society, and spend a
bit of quality time with her in the sack—
then slip all three photos down inside my
underwear. Don't ask me why, I'm not
sure, but I hide them there and start
crawling backward toward the lighted
opening. I suppose I'm worried that I'll
brush up against Millie during lunch and
she'll feel something in my pocket, and
I'm just not strong enough for that right
now, I'm really not, this big explanation

7 NEN DID YoU

A Fre PEANUTS ? |

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4 STO? SETTING SUT / |

thing, so I figure I'll keep them in my
undies and sort through this whole mess
some other time. Back home in Seattle.
Or maybe even on the plane after she
falls asleep (Millie is usually out cold
before we even take off). Later.

As I'm inching back toward the top
rung of the ladder, feeling for it with each
foot as I go, a thought flashes through
my head—a sudden awareness, as clear
and pristine as if it were a vision sent
down from on high—that I will (no
doubt) never tell anyone about this dis-
covery: the boxes, the photos, the note.
None of it. Not Millie, not my brother.
No one. I am also completely certain that
I will spend a great deal of time alone
with these Polaroids in the near future,
sharing a hushed closeness with them
unlike anything I ever enjoyed with my
mother when she was alive and merely a

phone call away.

189

PLAYBOY

190

threesome (continued from page 100)

Then I do the absolute stupidest thing I could ever do:
I have a threesome with John and his ex-girlfriend.

house for a long holiday weekend. I
demand she not show up until Saturday,
and to put the European in her place I
book her a bus ticket. That's right, Three-
some Girl, you're riding the bus!

Without her around, John and I feel
like a conventional, functional couple. At
least we can masquerade as one. We
spend the day at the beach, go swim-
ming, sleep in a hammock and even
make love just one-on-one, which almost
feels tame now, like going to second base.

The next morning we pick up the
European at the bus stop. She seems
pissed off about the long ride, which
makes me happy. We go to a local grocery
store, where—shit!—I duck a business
acquaintance in the seafood section,
ordering three lobsters.

And it's weird, because we've never
actually seen the European in daylight.
We have absolutely no idea what to talk
to her about. I suggest a game of Scrab-
ble, knowing full well that English is her
second language. Then we bring her to
a dinner party at a friend's estate. Big
mistake. It's a snobby crowd, John's the
only man there with two women, and

I'm convinced a few people have fig-
ured out what's up.

"So how do you all know each other?"
asks a leering guy in a seersucker blazer.
I notice his girlfriend kicking him
under the table.

When we get home the European
doesn't even want to have sex. I'm
relieved. In the morning John tells me
in a delicate voice, "She feels like she's
ruining our relationship and is upset-
ting you." No shit! I can handle three-
somes, cheating, even watching my
boyfriend sleep with other women, but
I can't take the European. Back on the
bus, toots!

But it's not the end of our threesomes. I
just decide that our sexual partnerships
must be quick and professional. No more
e-mails, birthday presents and pseudo-
relationships. No more daylight visits. No
more weird conflicts. And then I do the
absolute stupidest thing I could ever do:
I have a threesome with John and his ex-
girlfriend, whom he's managed to talk
into joining us. Twice.

"I need something less sexy. He got off before I got on."

The first time is a micro-disaster; the
ex stalks out of the room when John's on
top of me as if she's experiencing a Viet-
nam flashback. The next time we try, it
gets worse. Though I hook up with the
ex—and I admit it's extremely hot, kind
of like Godzilla vs. Mothra—John sleeps
with her and not me. Bad move. The
next morning I flip out on John and
burst into tears.

As I weep, I know that out there, girls
are getting mad at their boyfriends for
not listening to them or not getting them
Madonna tickets or forgetting their shoe
size, and here I am, screaming at my
boyfriend, a guy I adore, for not fucking
me right after he fucked his ex-girlfriend,

Yet we keep on planning trysts. John
and I have become the threesome Sid
and Nancy. We're moving beyond three-
somes. We sleep with a couple we know—
a good old-fashioned Ice Storm-style wife
swap. It's surprisingly fun and easy. We
plan an orgy for John's birthday party. I
know, I know: How do you plan an orgy?
It's not like a game of Trivial Pursuit. We
try to grow one organically—hotel suite,
lots of booze, friends who are curious
enough to make it happen.

And voilà! It actually works. John
hooks up with a college friend of mine,
though I step in and stop him from fuck-
ing her. But I've invited the woman from
the couple we swapped with (hubby's
traveling on business), and she's eager, as
is an old guy friend I always wanted to.
sleep with. The wife, my friend, John and
I roll into a foursome.

But for the first time I've ever seen,
John can't get hard. I decide it's a sign—
a tipping point, like the morning Joe
Kennedy got a stock tip from his
shoeshine guy and decided the stock
market was going to crash. This is going
to end, I think—and badly.

The next morning John sits in the
hotel and opens his presents. It’s starkly
sad to see him rip up wrapping paper,
the room stinking of sex, cigarettes and
strangers. John feels like a stranger too.
I know we'll never truly be intimate and
alone. We can't go back to what we were.
Worst of all, I know it’s equally my fault.

We last just a couple more weeks.
John, predictably, moves on to a sultry
“mattress,” a model-actress—collagen-
pumped-up arm candy who looks perfect
with him on the red carpet. We still talk,
though, and when he tells me he likes her
because she’s “traditional,” my cheeks
burn. She's making him faithful, he says,
making me jealous and bitter for months.

Maybe men really don't want the fan-
tasy in the flesh; maybe in the end they
prefer a conventional relationship.
Maybe fantasies have a way of interfering
with, even confusing, reality. But I'd do
most of it again—and I wouldn't say
threesomes are toxic. Just remember this:
Get out while it's still fun.

PLAYMATE £ NEWS

in the futuristic flick The Gene Generation,
Colleen plays a DJ with a sci-fi twist. "My char»
acter is robotic, with no lower body,” she says.

SPIN CITY

Dubbed the World's Sexiest DJ, Colleen
Shannon has been spinning more than
heads since being named our 50th An-
niversary Playmate. What =
began as а hobby—with a

borrowed turntable and

a few hundred albums—

has turned into a thriving

career for Colleen, who

has performed alongside

renowned spinners includ-

ing Funkmaster Flex. For

the past I months

Colleen has been touring

the country, pumping up

dance floors in New York,

Chicago and Miami and hobnobbing with
fellow musicians (that’s her pictured with
Herbie Hancock and Dweezil Zappa). Call

it typecasting, but she has even landed
roles as a DJ in the films Chasing Ghosts and
The Gene Generation. "I'm proud to be a
Playmate,” Colleen say
want to show people that
| posing in PLAYBOY is an
to achieve
olleen's
aspirations
| include posing in an ad
campaign for the Gue
jeans spin-off Punkture
and teaming with Jaime
| Pressly and Paris Hilton
in ads for the edgy cloth-
ing line Material Junky.
m a risk taker,” Colleen says. “I don't
want to be one of those girls who disap-
pear without making their mark.”

Herbie, Coll
99 Dweez.

Google today
and you'll find nearly
100,000 hits, but five
decades ago the woman who
would come to be known
as the greatest pin-up

of all time was just our
Miss January

1955. Here

how it went

down: Bunny

Yeager had

taken nude

photos of

Bettic, hoping

to sell them

to a calendar ^

ompany

When Yeager

heard about

Hef's new

men's mag

zine, she sent

ver the photos. For the low
price of $100 (1), Hef bought
the shot you see here. Bettie
became a Playmate, and

1 pin-up queen was born
Her first appearance in

PL BOY is a milestone in
the history of the maga
zine,” Hef says. But Вешіс
didn't even know her picture
was appearing. “A friend
called and told me I wa

the Centerfold,” Bettie told
1s later. “I liked the picture
Everybody did

MAGIC RED-CARPET RIDE

1. Her first job? As a checkout clerk at
Wal-Mart, a gig that lasted five years.
2. She became interested in real es-
tate when she helped
a friend find a condo.
She wanted a profes-
sion in which she
wouldn't be confined
to a desk. “I need my
freedom,” she says.
“I'm a people person
and I love to talk.”

3. At the beach you'll
find her sunbathing
but not surfing—she's
terrified of the ocean.
“I won't dip more
than my feet into the
water,” she says. "I'll get on a boat
but only if it has a bathroom."

POP QUESTIONS:
DAHM TRIPLETS

Q: The three of you appear on the
reality show Renovate My Family
How's it going?

A: We're having a great time.
We give new $^ &
lives to fami- Vg 3 a
lies in need. BE 17 3
It's especial- [ d.

ly fun to sec MANN ( P c A
the families’ | we к=
reactions.

Q: Are you | N

really on the 70 É
construction

crew, or is that just for show?

A: We're really part of it! They don't
show all the things we do—everything
from laying sod to installing drywall.

We can do what most men can do.
Really, we're just three of the guys.

MY FAVORITE PLAYMATE

u Michael Madsen

My absolute favorite

pavor Centerfold is

the first

woman to appear ол the
mogozine's

cover. She wos

^. also the first
^ ++) Cantarfold, in
6 &) December 1953

Marilyn personifies

everything that

€ martor is about
glomour, glitz
sensuolity, mys

tique. She ond the

magazine helped
influence oui

whole culture

POP GO THE GIRLS

When it comes to awards shows, it’s the after parties that

count. Pam Anderson and Anna Nicole Smith presented

at the World Music Awards, but we'd rather show you

what happened next. While Pammy bonded with Avril
Lavigne, Anna shared confessions with Usher.

Stephanie Adams has been named
Best Lesbian Sex Symbol in the
Village Voice's annual “Best of New
York” feature. “It’s hard to
turn a page in a queer rag
without seeing the willowy
model peeking out in a 4
bikini, or nothing at all,”
the Voice writes.... Victoria ">
Fuller and her husband, 7
Jonathan Baker, are a formidable
duo, Team Hollywood, on The
Amazing Race 6....Best wishes to
the betrothed Shanna Moakler

Stacy, Antonio and Cara in L.A.

and Blink-182's Travis Barker, as
well as to Barbara Moore and
Lorenzo Lamas. Hey, MTV, how
about reality shows starring
them?...Stacy Fuson and Cara
Wakelin (above) hung with Anto-
nio Sabato Jr. in L.A.... Victoria
Silvstedt (below) persuaded the

paparazzi to mug with

Victoria: Great Cannes!

her in Cannes.... PETA activist
Pam Anderson wrote a letter to
KFC-sponsored Dale Earnhardt
Jr. regarding the fast-food chain
"When one takes a multimillion-
dollar endorsement, one must
take responsibility for the com-
pany's practices. We're asking you
to use your considerable influence
with KFC to improve its animal-
welfare standards," she wrote.

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Miayboy On The Scene

WHAT'S HAPPENING, WHERE IT'S HAPPENING AND WHO'S MAKING IT HAPPEN

Space Case

In a world where gravity reigns, Peter Diamandis
wants you to take a load off

£6 § ust jump up, reach out with your arms, and fly," says Peter Dia-
mandis. "That's how Superman does it." Such words normally
ҸӰ earn the speaker a psych consult, but when Diamandis says
them he is floating five feet off the ground, which lends him a bit of
credibility. Dedicated to space exploration, the 43-year-old "astropre-
neur" has launched two future-forward ventures: Zero Gravity Corpo-
ration, which offers high-altitude flights in converted 727s that let
passengers experience weightlessness, and the X Prize Foundation, a
$10 million competition to jump-start the development of manned com-
mercial spacecraft. One job requires him to coast in midair with ecsta-
tic antigravity joyriders; the other lets him underwrite history. "When |
was nine and watching NASA's Apollo program unfold on TV, | knew
this was what | had to do with my life,” he says. Neither the X Prize nor
the Zero Gravity project was a cakewalk, but after 10 challenging
years he is now booking Zero-G flights ($2,950 for a 60- to 90-minute
trip) and has presented the X Prize to the developers of Space-
ShipOne, which soared 71 miles above the Mojave this past October.
When faced with skeptics, Diamandis recalls advice he received from
Arthur C. Clarke, author of 2001: A Space Odyssey: “Truly revolution-
ary ideas go through three phases. First, critics say your idea is crazy;
it will never work. Next, it might work, but why bother? When it finally
happens, they say, ‘I told him he could do it all along." —Xeni Jardin 195

Merapevine

The Importance of Being Heiress

It’s been a whirlwind century for PARIS HILTON, who, in a career path open only to
select hotel royalty, went from sex-tape star to TV nincompoop to best-selling author.
Here, she gives good tease, heeding the Zen-like advice of her book, Confessions of
an Heiress: “If you give too much away, no one needs to

know anything else.”

Shirting the Issue

CHRISTINA AGUILERA wasn't alive yet in 1972 when
Deep Throat, the hit porn film starring Linda Lovelace,
came out, but that didn't stop the dirrty girl from

paying homage to it in Hollywood. It’s refreshing to
see that the bottled genie is a student of the classics.
a)

To Hell With Stripes!
We're plaid to introduce STAR NOELLE, who has a lot more going for her than flawless
abs and an uncanny resemblance to Alicia Silverstone. When it comes to turning a
napkin into a tartan fashion statement, the lingerie model is anything but clueless.

You Got Served

Love means nothing in tennis, but what you wear—or
don't—on the court means everything. Wimble-
don champ MARIA SHARAPOVA seems to
have melded Anna Kournikova with
the Williams sisters: She's a
fashionista who actually wins.

Carrying Her Own Weight
BRITNEY SPEARS gives a lift to her
personal Brit Pack while poring over
racks of clothing on Melrose Avenue in
LA. As Mrs. Federline sings in “Touch
of My Hand,” a ditty about self-
pleasure: “1 love myself /It’s not a
біп/1 can't control what's happenin’.

Cheesecake Walk

Nothing compares with Italian Fashion
Week—except maybe New York Fashion Week,
London Fashion Week or Ulan Bator Fashion Week.
Here in Italy, a bellissima catwalker sports Simone
and Tornaforte with incomparable accessories.

Motpourri

BLUE HEAVEN

You don't even need to dab on Bulgari's BLV
Pour Homme eau de toilette ($70, bulgari.com)—
just looking at the bottle makes you feel as
though you've emerged from a dip in the
Mediterranean and are now kicking back on

a sundeck, sipping an icy cocktail. With its sweet
ginger and tobacco flower notes, it’s a vacation
in a bottle. Splash on the sunny fragrance when
the winter doldrums hit

KEEP YOUR EYE ON THE BALL

It's third-and-goal, late in the game. Tom Brady
drops back, looks left and—smash!—you've
dropped your Leica Trinovid 10x25 binoculars
($550, leicacamera.com) in the puddle of beer
under your stadium seat. No worries—these
lightweight beauties are rubber armored, so
their precision optics (this pair magnifies up to
10 times, with an amazing field of vision) can
survive a beating. You grab the binoculars, give
them a quick dry-off and zero in on the field—
just in time to sce Brady smile. Touchdown!

I HARDLY KNOW HER!

There's nothing more
than sitting down

friends and robbing them

blind. To that noble end,

everyone should own

the tools to host a poker

game. The Playboy

Poker Kit ($15, bn.com)

has all you need in a

single sleek box, includ-

s of Playboy

blue) and the Playboy Guide

to Playing Poker at Home,

у Nestor. It contains

numerous shrewd strategies

for chumping your buddies
nd, yes

MOVING PICTURE

By using a laptop-style drive to squeeze
its entire workings behind an efficient seven-
inch screen, RCA's lyrically named DRC618N DVD player ($
rca.com) is able to abandon the clamshell design used for most
portable DVD players. Instead of a fold-up screen, this compact,
easy-to-hold tablet includes an adjustable kickstand for tabletop
viewing. But it’s most at home (and most easily viewed) strapped
to the back of a car or airplane headrest, and its three-and-a-half-
hour rechargeable battery life is long enough to get you through
most Sergio Leone movies, many flights, chunks of jury duty and
the next ballet your lady friend drags you to.

WILD CARDS
San Francisco-based Michael Vash worked
as an illustrator at Disney on films such
as Aladdin and Beauty and the Beast. Now
he creates greeting c: һас would make
Mickey scurry back to
Eggs that fuck chicke
dope-smoking rabbis, fighting cocks (yes,
that kind)—nothing is of
out vashdesigns.com for his entire line
and to find out where to buy.

SWEETY,
60 BACK TO BED,
MOMMY'S WORKING
RIGHT NOW.

THE QUIET ONE

‘Though computers are often incorporated
into home-theater setups, nothing mars

a cinematic moment like a noisy cooling
fan, Thanks to a fanless design, the media
center PCs of Hush Technologies are
nearly noise-free. Its latest, the Hush MCE
($2,650 to $4,300, hushtechnologies.net),
lets you pause and rewind li cord
catalog music and photos,
stream video from the Net and more.

WHERE AND HOW TO BUY ON PAGE 175.

SHADY CHARACTERS

Kaenon Polarized is an upstart
maker of sunglasses whose specs
are getting a lot of attention.
Members of the U.S. Olympic sail-
ing team wore Kaenons in Athens.
Don't With stylish frames
and a choice of five levels of
light reduction in the polarized
lenses, they'll work just fine on
the slopes, at the beach or when
you have a hangover. Styles
pictured are, from top, Jack (in
tobacco with a copper 12 lens,
$230), UPD (in blue with a gray
12 lens, $140) and Rhino (in to-
bacco with a copper 12 lens, $170).
Go to kaenon.com for more info.

LINGUA FRANCA

It's inevitable: One day you'll be trapped in a thatched-roof airport
currency and no way to communicate
dire need for whiskey. Avoid that fate with a

Lingo Touch-Screen Talking Translator ($200,

a device that lets you input words or select phr

them into any of eight languages at the touch of a button. It can
even translate from one non-English language to another—perfect
for giving detailed instructions to any given pair of stewardesses.

BOND FIRE

Equally suited to firing up a cigar
or lighting a fuse, the limited-
edition S.T. Dupont 007 Line 2
lighter looks as if it might have
come from Q's laboratory. The
roll bar that you flick to spark the
flame—appropriately shaped
like a bullet—doubles as an inter-
national time zone tool that
calibrates the time in London,
Dubai, Rome and other key cities.
And the serrations on the case
are remi nt of the slide-and-
grip patterns on Bond's Walther
PPK semiautomatic. The lighter
comes in brushed palladium
($1,007) and, as shown here, a
gunmetal-black matte ($1,135).
More info at st-dupont.com.

ER w
MEET THE NUDE FOCKERI TERI POLO PICTORIAL WATCH YOUR PREP— FEBRUARY FASHION. THEY HAVE NOTHING TO FEAR BUT CLOTHING ITSELF.

Playboy (ISSN 0032-1478), January
North Lake Shore Drive, Chicago, Illinois 60611. Periodical pomum mailing offices. Canada Post Cana-
dian Publications Mail Sales Product Agreement No. 40035534. Subscripti 5 7 for 12 issues. Postmaster: Send address gens to
200 Playboy, PO. Box 2007, Harlan, Iowa 51537-4007. For subscription-related questions, call 800-999-4438, or e-m: (

HAPPILY EVER AFTER.

—= > BREWED for a MAN'S TASTE =>

= STAY SAFE- DRINK WISELY =

TENNESSEE MISTLETOE.

Be good for goodness’ sake. Dri
JACK DANIEL'S and OLD NO. Tare rı
‘Tennessee Whiskey Alcohol 40% by Volume [80 proof j. Distilled and

tered trademarks. 2004 Jack Daniel's
хоса by JACK DANIEL DISTILLERY, Ly

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