PLAYBOY

STAR OF Z APPRENTICE L.A.NUDE

ENTERTAINMENT

PLAYMATE
OF THE YEAR

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ANID THE WINE.
TURN TO PAGE 68
NEW
HUMOR
WOODY
ALLEN

PLUS:
WITHAFUGITIVE a INTERVIEW
DAPHNE MERKIN N MATT
ON JOHN THOMAS N a

SPORTSTERS x ao a ROENING

BOXERS DRESS

ide a

ae
EZ

Littman wrote about Kevin Minick, the
man The New York Times called “cyber-
space's most wanted” when he was elud-
ing the FBI in 1994, The two met again for
The Invisible Digital Man. "Now that he
has served his time, Mitnick gives ruarsor
the exclusive on his cyber Catch Me If You
Can story,” Litman says. “He fils in fan-
tastic details he couldn't disclose while on
the lam, The man is a genius.”

Acclaimed essayist and critic Daphne
erkin examines cultural perceptions
of the male member and revisits some
phalluses from her past in Penises I
Have Known, trom the book Bad Giris:
26 Writers Misbehave. “With women
being emotionally connected and notas
susceptible as men to visual stimul for
erotic arousal,” Merkin says, “1 think the
‘Specific guy triumphs over the particular
penis. Guys are lucky in that way.”

Woody Allen's films consistently dem-
onstrate that we are living in a world
governed by the absurd, This month he
uses the pen to lampoon Hollywood's
humbling ways with This Nib for Hire.
In this story from Allen's new collec-
tion, Mere Anarchy, an unproven writer
weighs the benefits of an easy pay-
check against the specter of losing iter-
ary credibility. "Show-business salaries
are so inflated that next to a normal sal-
ary they're like a pasha's or something,”
Allen has said, “I's unbelievable, But Im
not Hollywood weallhy—! never took
advantage of the sellout opportunities |
had. I've never agreed to do Annie Hall
1" Allen's return to short stories comes
more than 25 years after the publication
of his last collection. "I like writing. It's
therapeutic in the same way a patient in
an institution is given finger paints.”

tC.

E

“Mr. Warmth has always warmed my heart
by caling me Clark Kent,” joumalist Bill

says of Don Rickles, To mark the
release of Rickles’ Book, we reunite the
friends for 200. “There's nobody sweeter
who you'd expect to be otherwise,” says
Zehme, whose Carson the Magnificent
wil be published soon. “Rickles sat lke a
pussycat Buddha and spun golden tales
for me. But as you'll see in the interview,
his bite can stili draw blood.”

A

When Donald Trump sent lawyer Kristine
Lefebvre packing during the sidh season
at The Apprentice, we couldn't help but
watch her walk away. I's his loss, This
potent combo of brains, beauty and bals
(metaphoricaly speaking) has served as
an atlomey for such cents as Shaquille
O'Neal, Pamela Anderson and the Los
Angeles Kings. Cleary she knows the art
ofthe deal. When 1 met her found her
quite striking," says David Hochman,
Who wrote her profile for The Sorceress
ofthe Apprentice, “She's a very powerful
lawyer with a strong yet feminine pres-
fence. In a Ist of her best attributes her
incredible beauty isn't even number one.
‘She's one ofthe headiest women | have
interviewed for a pictorial, and she was
very open about everything: why she
was posing, what she fears in fe, how
she feels about the Donald now.

vol. 54, no. 6—june 2007

J

features

64

78

82

100

n2

THE INVISIBLE DIGITAL MAN
Legendary computer hacker Kevin Mitnick spent nearly five years in a federal
penitentiary for his ingenious computer crimes; today he advises executives on
how to protect their companies from the current crop of cybercriminals. The
author of The Fugitive Game: Online With Kevin Mitnick reconnects with the
hacker, who for the first time reveals the dramatic details of his two-year cross-
country flight from the FBI. BY JONATHAN LITTMAN

PENISES | HAVE KNOWN
One of the most provocative pens ever to grace the pages of The New Yorker
takes the matter in hand and makes a cultural, sociological and personal
examination of the male member. BY DAS er

50 YEARS OF THE HARLEY SPORTSTER
‘The original Sportster debuted in 1957 and has enjoyed one of the longest production
runs of any motorcycle in history. Take a two-wheeled ride through half a century of
Pop culture, high-speed thrills and death-defying stunts. av JA

‘THE SEXUAL MALE, PART TWO: ARE WE NOT BOYS?
‘The second in our series of in-depth reports on the science of male sexuality examines
the delicate and still mysterious process that first molds a bundle of cells into a
boy and later pushes him through the wilds of puberty. sy cp ROWE

SWEET TALK
The iPhone gets all the hype, but today's sleek high-tech cell phones from
Nokia, Sony Ericsson, LG and other companies offer better ways to reach out
and touch someone. BY SCOTT ALEXANDER

fiction

76

THIS NIB FOR HIRE
Struggling author Flanders Mealworm may be getting his big break—the chance to
novelize a film classic. Is this a case of opportunity going nyuk, nyuk, nyuk? Find out
in this droll short story from a masterful new collection. sy WOOD

the playboy forum

HELP WANTED
Nearly two years after Katrina, the Gulf Coast still looks like a war zone. New

Orleans is a shadow of its former self; Mississippi is in shambles. Did our costly
adventures in Iraq keep the relief from coming? BY FREDERICK el

200

na

DON RICKLES
Mr. Warmth has kept us in stitches for decades. The octogenarian funnyman
upholds the tradition as he talks about dining with Leno and Letterman, the Zen
of Frank Sinatra and why his Casino co-star Joe Pesci is so scary. BY

interview

57

MATT GROENING
In creating The Simpsons, he unloosed one of the most influential pop-culture
phenomena of our era. This month its 400th episode airs, just before the show
gets a much-awaited big-screen treatment in July. Now the subversive wit
behind Bart and Homer discusses the real-life inspirations for his characters,
the celebrities who declined an invitation to appear on the show, the relaunch
of Futurama and why life is (still) hell. sv DAVID SHEFF

COVER STORY

Donald Trump may have pink-slipped alpha-
female lawyer Kristine Lefebvre on The
Apprentice, but his erstwhile co-star has
become our hot offering. Argues Kristine,
"You can be a professional and still bo a com-
plete and sensuous woman.” Indeed. Senior
Contributing Photographer Stephen Wayda
helps Kristine with a rebranding: our Rabbit
slips into something more comfortable,

pictorials
PMOY: SARA JEAN
UNDERWOOD

Like her pictorials, the
(choice was natural: Sara Jean
is Playmate of the Year.

PLAYMATE:
BRITTANY BINGER

Miss June brings her small
town assets to California and
heats up the coast.

THE SORCERESS
OF THE APPRENTICE

Kristine Lefebvre, the sultry lawyer
Trump inexplicably dumped,
‘shows how she nixes business for
pleasure. BY DAVID HOCHMAN

notes and news

FIGHT NIGHT
AT THE MANSION

Best Damn Sports Show Period

comes to the Mansion to cover a
braw between Timor Ibragimov

and Tony Thompson.

SUPER SATURDAY NIGHT
With players like Kanye West and
Johnny Knowille and an arena's
worth of Playmates, our Super
Bowl party ruled.
CENTERFOLDS ON SEX:
ANNA-MARIE GODDARD
For lovemaking, Miss January
1994 prefers private locations
where she feels free to vocalize.

PLAYMATE NEWS
Miss September 1994 Kelly
Gallagher is a judge on Bravo's
Top Design; Athena Lundberg
faces off with Janice Dickinson.

departments
PLAYBILL
DEAR PLAYBOY

vol. 54, no. 6—june 2007

en

19 AFTER HOURS
27 REVIEWS
MANTRACK
47 THE PLAYBOY ADVISOR
PARTY JOKES

(41 WHERE AND HOW TO BUY
ON THE SCENE
GRAPEVINE

150 POTPOURRI

fashion

SUMMER KNOCKOUTS.

Boxers Paul Malignaggi and Andre

Berto join hip-hop mogul Damon

Dash to sport casual street wear,
fy JOSEPH DE ACETIS

this month on playboy.com

mm
It's road-trip time as we name the
best summer fests. playboy.com/Aalit
E YOU PLAYBOY MATERIAL?
Submit your photos and find out
playboy.comvVAYPM

BLOG

News, views and inside perspectives
from Pavao editors.
playboy.com/blog
THE Hi
Search the complete
database of our long-
running celebrity interview.
playboy.com/200

A-LIST

Apply for

our sartorial
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eomoc

FIGHT | NIGHT
AT] THE
MANSION

SATURDAY

Meco

Pta

yb o y

THE COMEBACK KID
“Thank you for the gorgeous cover
shot of the equally gorgeous Mariah
Carey (March). It's too bad she had on
that sexy outfit—the necklace would
have been sufficient.
Paul Williams
Ridgewood, New Jersey

Tam a 24-year-old woman who has

been subscribing for five years. I love
all your covers, but I'm going to frame

SEX

MARIAH
CAREY,

Ge}

)
Bes ‘SCARLETT

JOHANSSON

coment

Mariah Carey soothes the savage beast

March's. I have been a Mariah Carey

fan since her first album in 1990, so it

is great to see my favorite singer on the

cover of my favorite magazine.
Christine Henderson
Dallas, Texas

You ask Carey about being biracial,
but technically she is triracial (her
mother is Irish American and her father
was African American and Venezuelan).
Triracial and quadracial describe a lot of
Americans these days.

Steve Brandon

Tucson, Arizona

THE ENEMY WITHIN

Mark Boal's fine article The Real
Cost of War (March), about the efforts
to discount the number of soldiers
returning from the war with post-
traumatic stress disorder, is a diffi-
cult read. I live in a city where almost
everyone is “federally connected”
Ge., current or former military per-
sonnel or related to same), and we
still see enraged, violent vets living
on the streets.

Lowell Thomas Jr.
San Antonio, Texas

Boal's article implies Jacob Burgoyne
acted alone in the killing of Specialist
Richard Davis. In fact, three other
soldiers were also found guilty in the
attack. Boal' report has caused a lot of
people to ask questions about PTSD in
‘our soldiers and why itis being under-
diagnosed. It’s one more reason to
bring the troops home.

Tan Steger

Bellingham, Washington

We love politicians who claim to
support the troops, but we don't hold
them to account when it comes time
to actually support the troops. The
current crop of Washington warriors
seems better at creating disabled veter-
ans than adequately funding veterans’
programs or providing well-defined
military objectives. What the nation
needs is a surge of voter indignation.

‘Wayne Clauss

Oakland Gardens,

York

Boal badly mangles my views about
combat-related PTSD, making it sound
as though I consider the disorder to
be a trivial matter. I most certainly do
not. As a psychiatrist who worked in a
veterans medical center for five years,
Tve seen patients ravaged by the effects
of combat stress. The point I tried to
make to Boal is that, as serious as PTSD
can be, itis sometimes misdiagnosed. As
a result, scarce resources are
siphoned away from patients who
need them most. To care about
patients with PTSD is to worry
about making diagnostic errors
and deeming patients chronic
‘when in fact their potential for
rehabilitation is strong. Boal did
praveoy readers and veterans
a disservice by scoffing at those
clinical realities and ridiculing
those who acknowledge them,
Dr. Sally Satel
Washington, D.C.

Boal responds: “Satel worries
‘about a world in which PTSD is
overdiagnosed by overzealous doc-
tors, but according to the military's
oum studies, that is not the world
we live in. The reality is that four out of
{five soldiers with the ailment don't get
treated, and only a small percentage of
soldiers are compensated for their combat-
related mental illnesses. We are a long way
from providing too much care.

Lam a disabled Vietnam vet who has
PTSD. I am not going to sit here and
tell you there are no imposters when it
comes to treatment and the payment of
benefits. But those of us who ground

's not the money,

through the shit day after day and still
managed to carve out a respectable life
when we came home continue to be
shortchanged, Why are those who have
never been in combat entrusted to
make decisions about those of us who
have witnessed the worst mankind has
to offer? I am withholding my name.
‘Otherwise I'm sure someone at the VA
will come after my benefits.

‘Name withheld

Amarillo, Texas

MULTILEVEL MIRACLE

People often use a diché when consid-
ering get-rich-quick opportunities and
miracle cures: “Ifit sounds 100 good to
be true...." The key to the XanGo pre-
sentation and those of many other multi-
level marketing operationsis that they are
designed nat to sound too good to be true,
or your reporter Jonathan Black would
not have signed on (Get Rich! Live Forever,
March), One of my major concerns about
XanGo is that it’s promoted through
testimonials as a cure-all even while the
company claims it is not a medicine. To
counter the lack of scientific evidence
that XanGo can treat illnesses, sales reps
argue that doctors consider the product
a threat because it steals their customers.
But who will shoulder the responsibility
when someone is harmed by trusting the
advice of an ignorant XanGo rep over a
doctor's? Ifthe matter were decided by a

'sthe juice. And the money.

court, my guess would be the “indepen-
dent“ rep. Black's story is similar to those
‘we've heard from other MLM survivors,
many of whom were shamed into years of
silence by their experiences,

Lindy Mack

Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania

Mack moderates the MLM Surcivors Club

(mlmsursvorcom/cul. him).

1 just read your article on XanGo and
am pleasantly surprised. MLM is usually

15

PLAYBOY

NAL PAGE

PLAYBOY PICKS

your guide for living the good life

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1.800.452.3190

THE
GLENLIVET.
Cıry Links
we
A TOAST TO TEE TIME

Experience two of Scotland's
greatest exports. The Glenlivet,
together with City Links, an indoor,
urban-scale, nine-hole golf course
and driving range fashioned after
traditional Scottish links, is now
heading to San Francisco and
Philadelphia to complete its U.S. tour.

For dates and times visit
talcitylinks.com

dissed as a matter of course, but you are
fair. I noticed one thing missing: more
than 30 years’ worth of scientific studies
‘on xanthones and mangosteen that indi-
cate how and why this botanical works.
Doug Leedy
Wooster, Ohio
There have been no clinical trials of the
mangosteen's benefits. A study that finds
xanthones in the fruit is much different
from esta that these compounds are
helpful to humans or that they can be trans-
ferred via processed juice or capsules.

Your article helped me sign up five
new distributors. I wish more people
would give XanGo a fair shake. Mother
nature holds the key to better living.
Dale Schindler
Plainwell, Michigan

Despite your skepticism, XanGo is
the fastest-growing nutritional supple-
ment in history because it works. My
cholesterol is down, and I have gone
from taking four medications to one.
My girlfriend had cancer and was given
four months to live. She drank a bottle
of XanGo each day for a month, and
her tumor disappeared.

Robert Card

Neenah, Wisconsin

Holy shit! WEI take 700 cases

Yes, there is a business end to this
product, but that is the American way.
We do not lead our sales pitch with the
financials. We lead with the juice. Once
people try it, they tell everyone they
know and you're in business.

Michelle Corteggiano

Traverse City, Michigan

Black's “failure” as a juice salesman
is not surprising. Becoming an MLM
distributor is simple and requires no
real knowledge of health and nutri-
tion. Many people sign up just so they
can buy the product at a discount
Nearly all MLM companies selling
health-related products exaggerate
their value, and the vast majority of
new distributors do not earn significant
income. Health products that do have
nutritional value, such as vitamins, are
invariably overpriced. Those promoted
as remedies are either unproven, bogus
or intended for conditions unsuitable
for self-medication. The best way to get
antioxidantsis from a balanced diet that
includes lots of fruits and vegetables.
Dr. Stephen Barrett
Quackwatch.org
Allentown, Pennsylvania

HITS AND MISSES

How can you include Paris Hilton
and Lindsay Lohan in Playboy's 25
Sexiest Celebrities (March)? One has
the body of a 12-year-old boy and the

other the personality of one. I might
have canceled my subscription based
on this gross miscalculation of feminine
allure, but you redeemed yourself with
the other 23 selections.
David Shoffner
Harrisburg, Pennsylvania

Women who use their body to excel
are the sexiest ofall, yet your list does
not have a single athlete. I nominate
Maria Sharapova for 2008.

Wiley Cotton

Fort Lauderdale, Florida

1 love features like this because it’s
fun to second-guess. So here's mine:
How can you exclude Christina Ricci

Just look at the ad for Black Snake
“Moan in the same issue, the photo that
appears with your review of the film
and your “Tease Frame” shot of her. If
you don't want to stretch the list to 26

number 26. Callus.

Christina, you!

spots, the Pussycat Dolls can go. I like
them, but six women holding down
one position is a little much
Vincent D’Addio
Signal Hill, California

How can you ignore Salma Hayek's
obvious talents?

Ron Bouchane

Las Cruces, New Mexico

No Jennifer Love Hewitt?
Brett Martin
Sparks, Nevada

Scarlett Johansson is a wonderful
choice as the sexiest celeb, She's a mar-
velous piece of work and all natural
Lee Carter
Lincoln Ci

, Oregon

Read more feedback at blog playboy.com.

mala the web at LETTERS PLAYBOV.COM Or write: 730 FIFTH AVENUE, NEW YORK, NEW YORK 10019

PERFECT GIRLS NEED
SWIMSUITS TOO

Among bikini designers, Beach
Bunny Swimwear’s Angela
Chittenden (yes, she's also a
model) has it easy. “I have a
nice-looking group of friends,”
she says proudly, citing
Playmate-customers Rhonda
Adams and Nicole Marie Lenz,
as well as supermodel Joanna
Krupa. “I don't design swim-
suits that will make my girls
look better, because they're
already hot. I'm not interested
In tall and skinny. A voluptuous
girl with boobs and a butt is
what | think is beautiful. That's
my taste, and I think that's 99
percent of men's taste.” Amen,
sister. Talking to Angela gives
sense of looking
mirror: Wow, she
thinks about boobs and butts
as much as we do. She's not
quite as keen on nudity,
though—her bikini bottoms are
called Brazilians (not the kind
of Brazilian you're thinking of,
though one would certainly
complement the other), which
means they're narrow but
provide more coverage than an
“up-your-butt” thong. She's
really anti-thong. “They're good
for the bedroom, but | don't
think they're too classy by the
pool. They're very 1980s and
tacky.” She's insistent on opac-
ity as well, a trait most women
like in a sult. Most but not all,
as Angela learned recently:
“This woman called us the
other day, saying, ‘This suit is
too thick. I need a see-through
suit.’ She was doing a photo
shoot in Beverly Hills. 1 said,
‘Well, most girls don't want
them to be see-through."

aren't too
classy by
the pool.
They're
very
1980s.”

[afterhours

required reading

Redux

Roots Red
CELEBRATING THE ANNI-
VERSARY OF AN ESSENTIAL
BOOK AND MINISERIES

Alex Haley's Roots won a
Pulitzer Prize, but more im-
portant, it reminded African
‘Americans that they have a
past. The 30th anniversary
editions of the book and
miniseries promise to expose
‘anew generation to a leading
figure in the puveor pantheon.

Haley conducted the first Playboy Inter-

view (with Miles Davis), as well as some

of the most significant, with, among.
others, Malcolm X, Martin Luther King

Jt. and George Lincoln Rockwell, the

leader of the American Nazi Party who

famously agreed to a chat only after
being assured, by phone, that Haley
wasn't Jewish. Read the Haley Playboy

Interviews at playboy.comimagazine.

drink of the month

THIS IS NOT
YOUR FATHER’S
BOOZEMOBILE.
IT'S BETTER

Summer's here—
what's in your glass?

We asked Audrey ` y
Saunders of Pega 4

Club, purveyor of the

Dest original cocktails

in Manhattan. “The

Sidecar is a classic,"

She says In our wit a ae

on it, the flavors ot E

Cognac and calvados,

Tike an outer jacket, protect against any leftover
springtime chill, but the green Chartreuse and pine-
pple juice make it warmer and sunnier. We sell 2 ot
of these, By the way the name Tantris comes fom ine
opera Tristan and Isolde, but many customers tink
ifs tantric and we lt them.”

Tantris Sid Coat the rim of a chilled
1.02, Courvoisier martini glass with sugar
halfway around (not

Mar eveyone thes a esa

i fim, Saunders explain)
M4 oz. Cointreau Shake all ingredients
Ye oz. lemon juice with ice in a cocktail
Ye oz. simple syrup shaker, strain into the
Yá oz. pineapple Juice glass and garish with a

4 oz. green Chartreuse lemon twist.

Ea

The Real Thing

“Vd never fake an orgasm in a
relationship. 1 don’t want a guy
I'm going to bed with thinking he
did something right if he most
certainly didn't. 1 don’t think it
should ever be faked, not even
during a one-night stand. You'd
be doing him—and women
everywhere—a favor by saying,

"Honey, this isn't working..."
—Miss May 1998 Deanna Brooks,
in The Bunny Book: How to Walk,
Talk, Tease and Please Like a
Playboy Bunny

THEY'VE REPLACED
THE FINE NEWS YOU
USED TO READ WITH
UTTER GARBAGE

Drew Curtis knows his crap.
As founder of the blog Fark
‚com, he's the Net's king
of links to useless journal-
ism, In It's Not News, It's
Fark: How Mass Media Tries
to Pass Off Crap as News,
he dissects this ubiquitous
scaremongering and space-
filling fluff. We asked for his
favorite fake-news genres.
Overpriced food items.
Mark up your hamburger
1,000 percent and every
paper in the land will put
your restaurant in its style
section. Always get a quote
from a rich idiot who bought
the item and—believe it or
not—enjoyed it.

We're due for a natural
disaster. Really, it could
happen any century now.
You won't believe what your
teenage children are up to.
Usually it's a weird drug
or improbable sex party.
Implication: The next gen-
eration is doomed—just as
you suspected!

Women have posed naked
for a calendar for charity.
It isn't nearly as hot when,
three paragraphs into
the article, you discover
they're of retirement age,
Jesus or Maty appeared on
something. Toast, cookie
pans, highway overpasses
and so on. When appro-
priate, this story leads to
another classic: Person buys
stupid thing on eBay.

What if? Hyperbole about
things that will never
happen, such as, What if
the space shuttle has to
land in the California des-
ert, overshoots, explodes
and rains flaming debris
all over LA?

Ironic crime. Man calls
police to report his mari-
juana stolen. Woman shows
up to DUI hearing drunk,
having driven herself there.
Wintertime robbery solved
because of tracks in snow.

afterhours

celebrity pictorial

Bai Ling: Naked Again!

You remember Bai Ling—Chinese girl, slightly schizoid,
Mainly known for stray nipples and misfires sartorial
Had a small part in Star Wars that never made celluloi
An odd coda to June '05's cover pictorial,

Where she told us eight spirits were living inside of her.
Now she's muse to a German-born fashion photographer,
Udo Spreitzenbarth, who, in a show at the Berlinale,
Hung his five-foot-tall prints of Bai au naturel.

One's above. At Bspirits.com view them all

Pimpi
With Piven
KATT WILLIAMS, THE
JOKER IN THE HIP-
HOP PACK, PLAYS
THE RACE CARO, THE

HEIGHT CARD AND
THE DRUG CARD

Does “pimpin” mean you
have a stable of prostitutes
from whom you extort money
for protection? No, it means
you work harder than me,
and | make more money than you. Is your hair pimp hair? Yes,
and my toenails are pimp toenails. How tall are you? Five feet
five inches. Are you shorter than Lil Jon? Yep, he's five feet
six inches. So you're not exactly “big” pimpin’. No, l'm big
pimpin’. Penis size counts. Whats the difference in height
between you and Snoop? Not quite a foot. What's another
difference? He has a much higher pharmaceutical tolerance.
What's cool about getting shot? Nothing. What's uncool about
it? Everything. How is marijuana different from other drugs?
Weed isn'ta drug; it's a plant. Who should smoke weed? Con-
senting adults. Who shouldn't? Children and idiots. In dollars,
how much jewelry do you typically wear? $175,000. Whats
‘more important for a pimp, a mink coat or jewelry? Jewelry is
year-round; a mink is seasonal. What's the difference between
pimp clothes and gay clothes? I'm a pimp, so | wear pimp
Clothes. If you're gay, you're wearing gay clothes, How do you
like your women? Willing and able. How do you like your sex?
Often and vigorous. How do you like your eggs? Scrambled
with cheese. Do you think you use the N word too much? Do
you think you ask a nigga too many stupid questions? Did
Michael Richards use it too much? Nope—he didn't use it
enough. Can 2 white person use it even once? Yes. Do you
have any white frends? Yes. Who's your best white friend?
Jeremy Piven. Why does a black man need white friends? To
stay out of jail. Why does a white man need black friends? So
he doesn’t get his ass beat. 1 it true that white people can't
dance? Not absolutely true but true enough to be funny.

Katt Wiliams is currently readying his stand-up film, Katt
Williams: The Pimp Chronicles Pt. 2, for theatrical release.

Virgin Territory
MES COME OUT OF
OSET

Virgin Comics, a recently created property
of the Branson empire, is bringing Hol-
Iywood and India together as only Deepak
Chopra could. Say what? The New Age
celebri-doctor serves as one of the house's
" and his son, Gotham

Chopra, is editor in chief. A slightly batty
setup has John Woo, Guy Ritchie and Nico-
las Cage working with a Bangalore-based
crew of illustrators. Woo's 7 Brothers and
re on shelves now;

[afterhours

Exposed Nuptials

IF YOU'RE BUYING THE COW
WEDDING PLANNER LAURA Ni

PLAYBOY: How did you become a wedding planner?
LAURA: | used to model wedding dresses, and a wedding planner
invited me to join her company. It sounded like fun.
PLAYBOY: We must plead ignorance of this particular field.
What exactly do you do?

LAURA: | assist the bride with every detail: the venue, decora-
tions, food and dress. On the big day | keep things running
smoothly so the family can relax and enjoy the wedding,
PLAYBOY: Do all brides wear white?

LAURA: White isn’t the norm anymore; the whole purity
thing is over. I've had a couple of brides say, “I'm not
Wearing a white dress, because I'm not a virgin.”

PLAYBOY: What's it like dealing with brides-to-be?

LAURA: It's fun, and most brides get very giddy—but of
course | get the occasional bridezilla

PLAYBOY: Do you like what you do?

LAURA: Yeah. I'm invited to a party every weekend. | get to
dress up, eat catered food and dance. | always dance. |
Just like to move my body.

PLAYBOY: Have you already planned your own wedding?
LAURA: | have an idea of what I'd want it to look like, but so
far | have yet to meet the man to sweep me off my feet.
mie tthe Mont candidates: Sena pictures 1 Flyer Peat Depor, 20

film clip

THE NEW COMEDY KNOCKED UP
REVEALS HARD TRUTHS ABOUT LOVE,
SEX, BABIES AND THE ROPE LINE

Judd Apatow's comedy Knocked Up, one of this sum-
mer more promising films, explores how having children
makes men and women feel different—about them-
selves, about each other and about sex and love. In one
scene a very pregnant Allison (Katherine Heigl) and her
30-something sister Debbie (Leslie Mann) go to a club they
used to frequent to cheer themselves up. The bouncer
(Craig Robinson) doesn’t want to admit them.

BOUNCER: You want to come in? You got to go to the end
of the line and wait like everybody else.

DEBBIE: | am not going to go to the end of the fucking
line. Who the fuck are you? | have Just as much of a right
to be here as any of these little skanky girls! What, am 1
not skanky enough for you? You want me to hike up my
fucking skirt? What the fuck is your problem? | am not
going anywhere! You're just some roided-out freak with
2 fucking clipboard! And your stupid little fucking rope!
You know what? You may have power now, but you're not
God. You're a doorman, okay? You're a doorman, door-
man. Doorman. Doorman. Doorman! So fuck you!

[The bouncer pulls her aside and speaks to her quietly.)
1 know. You're right. I am so sorry. I fucking
hate this job. 1 don't want to be the one to pass judg-
ment, decide who gets in. Shit makes me sick to my
stomach. | get the runs from the stress. It's not because
you're not hot. I would love to tap that ass. | would tear
that ass up. I can't let you in because you're old as fuck
for this ciub—not, you know, for the earth.

DEBBIE: What?

You old. She pregnant. Can't have a bunch of
old pregnant bitches running around. That's crazy. | am
only allowed to let in five percent black people. That means
if there's 25 people, | get to let in one and a quarter black
people. So I got to hope there's a black midget in the crowd,

outback basic

Beer Lexicon: Wattle

Australians use wattle seed, an abori

inal staple with e-like flavor, in
muffins and ice cream. But the nutty
stuff works especially well in be

we found whe

Wattle Superior Wattle Seed Ale

DATA

IGNIFICA, INSIGNIFICA, STATS AND FACT
Intelligent Divine

E17 christian congre-
O 1 / gations inthe Us.
marked Evolution Sunday
(the second Sunday of Febru-
ary) this year with special
church services celebrating

Female office workers" Keyboards
and computer mice are infested
with 3 to 4 times as many germs
as those of male office workers,

Weapon of Mass Destructions

Built with 24 tons of scrap steel from the World Trade Center, the Navy's amphibious
assault ship USS New York (LPD-21) will be ready sometime this year. The vessel,
whieh is being constructed in New Orleans, survived Hurricane Katrina

Wrecking Balls

to ARA, males behind the wheel
run a 77% greater risk of being Killed in a
Car crash than female drivers.

Waning Moon

The Institute of Medicine and Centers for Dis- | Scientists claim that due to

ease Control and Prevention found that only | decay from its orbit, the

about 35% of hospital employees consistently | moon is destined to disinte-
grate in 5 billion years

Darwin's theory of evolution.

Cases Finish,

Roughly 1 in 5 professional rodeo bul
riders now wears a customized neck. | I'S HOW

ey helmet instead of a cowboy hat as | You Start

a safety measure,

‘According to a
Glamour survey,
readers’ sexual

$3,001,501 dreams would

come true with:
Winning bid on eBay for the window and

frame from which Lee Harvey Oswald | More foreplay:
(supposedly) fired to kill President Ken-
nedy. They were sold by the original owner | More orgasms:
of the Texas School Book Depository.

25

the best of the month

[ PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN
> AT WORLD'S END
Johnny Depp's off-kilter swashbuckler returns

After two Pirates ficks, you know the dril, matey. Johnny Depp
Swishes and staggers, works the mascara and spews insults Ike
a trippedout rocker. in this latest tale of skulduggery, Orlando
Bloom, Keira Knightley and Geoffrey Rush sail to Singapore in
search of a mysterious map that leads to the surreal afterworld
of Davy Jones's locker, where Captain Jack Sparrow is trapped.
With rumors swirling about whether Bloom's and Knightley's char-
acters wil be onboard for further sequels, Depp says of Sparrow,
“Til be in a deep, dark depression saying good-bye to him. I'll
keep the costume and just prance around the house, entertain
the kids.” But Depp hasn't ruled out another go at the character:
* they had a good script, why not? | mean, at a certain point the
madness must stop, but for the moment, | can’t say he's done.”

[ OCEAN'S THIRTEEN ]

Al Pacino raises the stakes for Ocean and his gang

Having raked in a combined worldwide haul of nearly $800 mi-
lion for their two previous capers, smooth criminals George
Clooney, Brad Pitt, Matt Damon and director Steven Soder-
bergh are gambling that they've got at least one good heist left
in them, Sure, the team jettisoned Julia Roberts and Catherine
Zeta-Jones, but this time we have eternally hot Ellen Barkin
working for Al Pacino, who plays a Vegas casino owner Soder-
bergh describes as a monster. Although plot details are being
guarded like Bellagio's main vaut, the action reportedly erupts
when Pacino cuts Elliott Gould's character out of a massive
deal; to deliver one hell of a payback, Danny Ocean's boys
not only reteam but join forces with former archnemesis Andy
Garcia. Says Garcia, who plays suave casino owner Terry Bene-
dict, “The process of making this was very high-energy. It's
hard to say much without giving away the movie, though. You
don't want to be reading that stuff before you see the fim.”

a

Į EVAN ALMIGHTY ]

Can Steve Carell carry the costliest comedy in history?

Back in 2003 Steve Carell stole scenes as the egotistical news
caster in Bruce Almighty. Now a big deal after The 40-Year-Old
Virgin and The Office, Carell stands front and center in this
speciakeffects bonanza rumored to be—at an ungodly $175 mi
lion—the priciest comedy ever. Carell plays a TV anchor tumed
congressman who is tapped by God (Morgan Freeman) to build a
Noahstyle ark before the arrival of another great flood, making
his wife and three boys wonder whether he's actually hearing
Voices from on high or, you know, just hearing voices. “This is
the first family movie with full frontal nudity,” says Carell, “so
we're very proud of that. Well, okay, maybe it’s just of the ani
mals, but Il do what | can to sell tickets. Maybe we'll put al the
fullfrontal stuff in the toohotfor-TV cut of the DVD.” As for the
hearsay about a budget of biblical proportions, Carell says, “its
expensive but not anywhere near what some of the reports said
itcost. people enjoy it, who's to say it was a bad investment?”

2

reviews[ movies by Stephen Rebello

[ FANTASTIC FOUR: RISE OF ]
t THE SILVER SURFER +

The superhero quartet faces a new threat

“its got big action sequences—five or six of them,” says Jian
McMahon, who reprises his role as the nefarious Dr. Doom from the
2005 boxoffice hit. This sequel pits him against the comics words
first family (played by loan Gruffudd, Jessica Aba, Chis Evans and
Michael Chikis) as he attempts to lure the havocwreaking Siver
Surfer to the dark side. Although the frst fim didn't receive much
critical love, Nip/Tuck antihero McMahon insists the new fick is
more fun. “The last time we saw Dr. Doom he was heated, frozen,
boxed in and shipped off” he says. "So the fist section of the new
movie has him coming out of his casket, being pissed off at the
Fantastic Four and tying to get the powerful Siver Surfer on his
side. | did my part to make Dr. Doom as eu as possible.” Is he evi
enough for another sequel? McMahon laughs. “Wel, just the name
Dr. Doom means i's probably not going to end wel for him.”

[ SICKO ]

Health care undergoes a Michael Moore operation

Oscar-winning muckraker Michael Moore, who has taken on
guns, 9/11 and General Motors, now takes aim at our $1.5 tri-
Fon health care and pharmaceutical industries. The polarizing di
rector, whose website received more than 19,000 letters when
he solicited accounts of people's experiences with HMOs and
drug companies, says, “To read about the misery people are put
through on a daily basis by our profitbased system was both
‘moving and revolting.” The film, which Moore describes as a
"comedy about 45 milion people with no health care in the rich-
est country on earth,” has already irked the mighty drug industry.
But Moore claims that when companies learn the names of the
families who have spilled the beans, something fascinating hap-
pens. “The people we're fiming have had a 100 percent success
Tate at getting whatever they need from HMOs, pharmaceutical
companies, whatever,” he says. Let the mudsinging begin,

Our call: A banquet of blood
Philips, Heather Matarazzo) In this | for gore hounds, sadists and

|, three American girls studying abroad wind up | fans of director Eli Roth. If
as prisoners in an underground torture club frequented by rich | you have 2 low tolerance for
men with wacko appetites. Battling for survival, our heroines | pain, plan an exit strategy. You
learn the club owners’ tentacles reach internationally. saw the original, right?

Knocked Up Our call: The laughs are raun-
(Seth Rogen, Katherine Heigl, Les Ruck) Judá | chy, Rogen aces his shot at star
Apatow, writer director of The 40-Year 1d Virgin, strikes again | dom, Heigl proves she's fast on
with this laugh machine about a TV entertainment Jumalst | her feet, Mann and Rudd make
(Hei who gets preggers from a one-night stand with an aim- | memorably miserable married,
fess 20.something (Rogen). Should they pair up or moveon? | but t ali fees way too long.

1408 Our call: Quirky Cusack can
John Cusack, Samuel L. Jackson nack) This | sometimes seem too cool for
hair-raiser from a Stephen King story has Cusack checking

into a hotels infamous room 1408, thinking he'll debunk tales
of supernatural calamities that have befallen 56 of the room's | shriek-and-shudder fest that
prior occupants. The horror hotel lives up to its gruesome rep. | often delivers the goods,

A Mighty Heart Our call: Noble intentions,
(Angeina Jolie, Dan Futterman, Wil Patton) Brad Pitt produced | authoritative finmaking and 2
this eaife drama starring Jolie as Mariane Peal, we of Wall | volatile tor-rom-theshealines
Set Joumal reporter Dane Peat. In 2002 she searched Pak | subject may not overcome the
stan tor her missing husband, who was researching a story about | controversy of Jolie's casting as
Muslim fundamental, and discovered he had been murdered. | 3 woman of mixed race.

EJ

reviews [ dvds

at the Palms, Continuing
to lay out in living color the
atmosphere and escapades
that take place behind the
scenes at Hef's house, this
three-disc set of extended,
uncensored episodes is a
voyeuristic delight. These
Bits have heart and ambition
and an instinct for fun, Once
you get to know them better,
youll wish they realy did ive
next door. Best extras: Com-
mentary by the threesome,
bloopers, 48 deleted scenes
and few clever Easter eggs.
WHE Rober B. DeSalvo

[ THE GIRLS NEXT DOOR: SEASON TWO ]

Hef's girlfriends show why three's a charm at the Mansion

The nonstop Playboy party rages on. In the second season of the top-rated E realty show,
the tilting trio of Holy Madison, Bridget Marquardt and Kendra Wikinson takes viewers
on some crazy adventures around the world with our Editorin-Chief in tow, See Hef' leat
ing ladies prepare for his 80th birthday bash, accompany him on a European vacation,
hit Sin City for Kendra's wid 21st birthday celebration and christen the new Playboy Ciub

THE GOOD GERMAN (2006) George
Clooney, a reporter in post-World War Il
Berlin, becomes caught in a web of
intrigue. This 1940s-style thriller is
rich with poi-

gnant present-
day parallels
Best extra: Bad
German—you
must wait for the
special edition.
WA — Gree Fagan

FACTORY GIRL (2006) Sienna Miller
plays Edie Sedgwick, the proto It girl of
‘Andy Warhofs Factory. Despite game per-
formances—and the rumored on-screen
sex between Mit
ler and Hayden
Christensen—the
film fails to iso-
late Edie's “it.”
Best extra: A com-
mentary track.
We GF

D.

DIRECTOR'S SHOWCASE: TAKE TWO
These four neveto.DVD cult movies are
superb examples of genre storyteling. The
standouts are Sic

ney Lumets epic
on police corrup-
tion, Prince ofthe
City (1981), and
Ulu Grosbard's
Straight Time
(1978, pictured),

a harrowing crime melodrama starring
Dustin Hoffman. Also included are Alan
Myersoris Steelyard Blues (1972) and John
Badham's Whose Life Is it Anyway? (1981).
Best extra: Hoffman's Straight Time com-
mentary track. YYYY —Matt Steigbigel

ILLEGAL ALIENS (2007) Ama Nicole Smith
does a comic turn in her last fim, a camp
scifi romp that could have been called
Earth Girls Are (Very) Easy. Smith is part of
a trio of curvaceous space cadets trying
to keep bellowing
baddie Joanie
“Chyna” Lauer
from destroying
the planet. Best
extra: A goofy
“Making of." YY
—Buzz Mclain

SCARFACE (1932) Howard Hawks and
Richard Rosson’s hard-boiled gangster
landmark stands triumphant on DVD. Fans
who prefer the original to Brian De Palma's
celebrated 1983 version will savor its
precode charms. Paul Muni dazzles as
the titular mobster, a charismatic socio-
path modeled on Al Capone. Scarface
brims with kiling,
dabbles in incest
and seethes with
lust and power.
Best extra: An
alternative, more
cautionary end-
ing. WAY GF

SCANNER

E COMPLETE FIRST
N (1977) Enjoy a nostalgia
trip with toothy highway patrolman
Ponch (Erik Estrada) and his partner
as they ride their motorcycles into
‘trouble on California's freeways. ¥¥¥

(1992) Soft-core czar Zalman King's
E
most desires of women on the verge
of an erotic meltdown. Plenty of flesh
for fantasy is on display. ¥¥¥

, DOG (2007) Inspired by real
events, this disturbingly humorous
portrayal of gangsta wannabes exposes
loose morals and decadent excess.
Justin Timberlake brings some human-
ity to this redemptionless tale. yy Ya

EMORY (2005) Medical researcher
Billy Zane is exposed to an unknown
drug that gives him the 35-year-old
‘memories of a child killer in this com-
petent but forgettable thriller with
‘Tricia Helfer and Dennis Hopper. ¥¥

YYYY Dontmiss YY Worth a look
YYY Good show Y Forzetit

tease frame

No one has accused wild child Bijou
Phillips of being shy, and we're so okay
with that. The Apri 2000 PLAYEOY cover
model has had a string of edgy roles in
movies like Havoc and Bully (pictured).
‚Shell next test her lung power as a col
lege coed studying abroad who makes a
horrible lodging error in Hostel: Part Il

32

reviews

[ music

[road tns |

[ MANDO DIAO ]

Late-night debauchery keys songwriting on Swedish rockers’ new LP

Mando Diao emerged when the Libertines and Hives were ascendent, with a sound
equally ragged and catchy. And aside from Pete Doherty of the Libertines (and,
these days, Babyshambles), nobody else can toss off perfect punky pop songs
one after another the way Mando songwriters Gustaf Norén and Bjorn Dixgärd do,
Here Norén discusses the combo's new album.

Q: Your latest LP, the bands third, is called Ode to Ochrasy. What's ochrasy?

A: It's our word for the

strange time between fin-
ishing a show and going
to bed, We coined it after
we'd been playing a lot
and found ourselves living
like vampires. We go on
at 11 or 12 at night, and
even though we get out of yyy
bed a few hours earlier, ts

‘only onstage that we realy
wake up. That's when our
day begins. When you ive
like that, you meet a lot
of strange people—not
‘many normal folks are out
at three in the morning.

Q: What kind of people
do you meet?

A: Lost souls, I would say.
id sailors with tales from strange places, a pretty junkie with more stories in her
head than she can carry, even a self-described terrorist. In Japan we went to a newly
‘opened bar where the floor was covered with flowers—when someone opens a bar
there, friends and family send flowers. After we drank a bottle of whiskey, the chubby
bartender stripped to a thong, put on a huge fish mask and danced on our table,
jumping up and down with this Scary laugh. Everything is fucking ochrasy in Japan.

Q: How did all that end up affecting the songwriting for your album?

A: We began to feel more like folk musicians, storytellers going from town to town.
That changed us. Before, we were telling our stories—you know, it was us against
the world all the time. It was party music and booze music. Now we had all these
different characters to write about, and each story had to be told a specific way.
Q: How's the ochrasy in the States?

A: People are so open and easy to talk to. We always look forward to ochrasy there.

[ KEY PARTY ]

America's premiere jazz archive label releases another excellent set

In 1978 pianist Andrew Hill cut more than exquisite; it’s intriguing to hear Hill's
two hours of solo music at a studio in compositions unfold in his peculiarly irreg-
Berkeley. A brilliant album was released ular fashion. For Mosaic, this work is noth-
from those sessions by a ing unusual. Itis one of those
small California label that rate labels whose recordings
later disappeared, and the you can buy simply on the
music was apparently lost to strength of its name. Focused
the ages. The rest of the ses- in its content, dedicated to
sions were found, however, quality and committed to
and—along with the original music, Mosaic serves as an
recordings—restored to their example to other archivists in
glory by Mosaic Records, an environment in which so
Which has made its mark reis- much amazing music has
suing jazz collections in limitededition been lost. It shows there is stil money to
boxed sets, The three-CD Hill sessions are be made in creative rediscovery.

[HOT TUNES]

Every month, we sort through the lat-
‘est crap to bring you the cream of the
crop. Here are 15 surefire tracks—and,
‘what's special about them. Enjoy.

“Alien in My Belly," Wax Tailor Spooky
trip-hop from French downbeat specialist.
Femme vocals, eerie effects—the works.

“Books From Boxes," Maximo Park
Brite ballad.Ike track from perhaps the
‘most interesting recent U.K. band.

“Caroline Goodbye," Colin Blunstone From
Water labe's reissue of One Year, the 1971.
solo LP by this voice of the Zombies.

“Alone Again,” Ilinois Taut, winsome rock
with keyboards that evokes Spoon and
the Shins and points to a bright future.

“The Harder Ships of the Worl,” Keren
Ann This simple, plaintive dirge continues
Karen's steak of heat acc winners

Black Magic," Jarvis Cocker The riff and
‘background vocals from Joan Jet's cover
‘of "Crimson & Clover” anchor this gem.

“Roll On,” Dntel Need some Jenny
Lewis? She's on this track, atop cool
Postal Service-like electronic whimsy.

“Casino,” Gore Gore Giris Rolicking girlie
_gutar-and-hand.clapsin the vein of Holly
Golightly, the Chalets and the Pipettes.

“Cuz I'm Jazzy," Guru's Jazzmatazz
Guru and Sium Village flow over string
‘swells and Hammond organ bursts.

“Almost Ready." Dinosaur Jr. Original line-
up recreates the guitar whoosh that made
the band string heroes back in the day.

“Ice Cream (Comets remi)," New Young
Pony Club Electro-fied version of the
sex-on-wheels indie club anthem.

To the East," Electelane This (and the
entire new LP) outdoes Stereolab at its
krautsocking drone-pop sound. Sahr gut.

"Need Some Al" Black Rebel Motorcycle
Club From BRMC's best LP yet, this suc-
cessfully mashes melody and menace.

“Block Party," Chuck Brown The jazziest
‘ofthe original D.C. go-go innovators adds.
‘its of funk and hip-hop to his mix.

"Sister Rosetta,” The Noisettes Cross the
Gossip with Yeah Yeah Yeahs, speed the
‘whole thing up and you get this cracker.

DOWNLOAD A FREE, EXCLUSIVE TRACK BY WAX TAILOR AT PLAYBOYCOM/MAGAZINE/COS.

a

reviews | games

[ CALLING SOME PLAYS ]

The world’s most prevalent gaming device is already in your pocket

Today's cell phones pack as much processing power as a typical friends score points based on speed, winning streaks and of
desktop computer did in 1998. And the games designed for them course accuracy. At the end players are ranked from Studio
have been steadily improving—from near braindead Bowing and President to Best Boy (you dont want to be Best Boy). With new

Breakout clones to fully 3D ‘questions downloaded regularly
shooters, adventure games from its server, the game won't
and more. Plus they're inexpen- u get stale. TIGER WOODS PGA

sive (about $5, depending on
the carrie), they can be down-
loaded as easily as a new ring

TOUR 07 (top right, eamobile
com) brings you to Pebble
Beach and five other hot links
tone, and you already own the with visuals that pack nearly the
hardware. Here's what you PR same punch as the Wi version,
want in your pocket today: A including course flyovers and
LOST (pictured top left, 3-D views. The multiplayer
gameloft.com) resembles the matches are missing, but the
classic Pitfall more than it does long Tournament mode will
ABC's cryptic hit series. Not keep you plenty busy. TOM
that we're complaining. Playing CLANCY'S RAINBOW SIX
as lead character Jack and VEGAS (bottom right, gameloft
starting at the beginning of com) may not be a sophisti
season one, you must save cated military sim like its big
fellow survivors, find crucial brothers on the PlayStation 3
items and, most important, avoid the smoke monster. Youll use and Xbox 360, but it has a great oldschool aesthetic. The action-
your noggin, but this title is more about quick hits than quick wits. adventure is broken into varied game modes, from 2D run-and-
SCENE IT? MOVIE EDITION (bottom left, namcogames.com) is gun missions to sniper-style shooting and bomb-dismanting
like an on-demand bar trivia game. A continuous lightning round, puzzles. No multiplayer here, either, but the fast pace and variety
‘Scene It? fires multiple-choice questions as you and up to three are good for bitesize on-the-go mayhem. —Damon Brown

[ A TOMB WITH A VIEW ]

A decade (plus) with the lovely Lara Croft

‚One of our favorite starlets has an PC, Xbox and Xbox 360, Sega web
E coin i A Cae Ellen sed Dreamcast every =
turns 11 this fall (though in our 4 Game Boy iteration since Game

minds she’s always been over Boy Color, GameCube and even en EAD y

TB) and whe most people cele- Rolise fated NGage gaming | TOUCH THE DEAD (DS) We dont care

brate events at he decade mark, phone. Her loving parent, Eidos, = $
this is the games industry. Lara has also provided a slew of flesh | were just gad Ws here ln al ls Bory
Croft Tomb Raider: Anniversary andblood avatars, including the | zombie blasting glo. Addictive, tinny
missed Lara's big day by six incomparable current incarnation, | and more than aie gross.

months, so fts due out this month Karima Adebibe (far left), who

a nice, round 10.5 years underwent training in CROSSWORDS (DS)
after her 1996 debut. combat and deportment | These craving a more cerebral digital
What are we supposed before taking on the role. | "Bern 1,000 eure
to do, not celebrate? Lara was memorably | za record by writing answers on
Over the years, Lara portrayed by Angelina || ipe acen. No erasers, no remorse,

has had her boobs done Joke (near left in two for-

and her hips trimmed, N gettable films and | CUBE (PSP) You're a cube working
changed her hair and inspired Generation X | Your way across other cubes that are
apparently hired a stylist author Douglas Coupland | arranged into a challenging series of

‘obstacle courses in this trippy exercise

(compare the top and bottom to write Lara's Book, a pacan to | en counes In tis Poy exercise

images at right if you have any her charms (and the most iterate
doubts), but that’s only natural for ig fan fiction ever produced). Anniver- | enal, portable. We Ike.

an actress who's been working sary is a current gen quasiremake | FORZA M “ORT 2 (360) The metic-
this much. Since her video game ofthe original fom Raider, featur. | lus racing sim gots a next en make.
premiere in the original Tomb ing hightesolution models of its ook,

Raider, Lara has appeared in WA Scenarios (no to menton of Ms. | acs nding Sebring and Suzuka,
aes tor the PO Mae, Plays fot hersein long win ailnew | Wit teatime damage and war,

tions 1, 2 and Portable, Pocket gameplay. —Chris Hudak

9

reviews [ books

[ PALAHNIUK'S PLAGUE ]
His latest novel, Rant, is an oral biography of patient zero

Q: Your books present a view of a culture
in steep decline. Do you feel as though
you're holding out a sign that says oncer?
A: Not really. It more like fm looking into
a mirror and saying, “Danger, you idiot”
Any mistakes | parody are my own first.
Q: Many of your characters crave “real”
experiences. What makes manufactured
ones so detrimental?
A: A manufactured experience tends
to separate you from other people. It's
so market-tested that it will never be
extreme. The consumer becomes a spec-
tator, with no chance for self-expression
or self-discovery. Television and films
have portrayed such a narrow spectrum
of human experience that we're quickly
forgetting how smart, brave, strong,
patient, creative, loving and horny a
human being can be.
Q: Rant is quite a subversive work. Has
Our government taken an interest in you?
A: I do enjoy an annual IRS audit, but my paperwork is always in order.
Q: What are the advantages and disadvantages of having such a rabid fan base?
Advantages: stories they tell me. Amazing, truelife stories: teenage expert
ments that left their genitals scarred for life, prom dates that became gang
rapes. Folks feel safe telling me their own worst experiences. They don't worry
about being judged or dismissed. So people might wait hours to be alone with
me and tell me things television or films will never dare depict but books can.
The disadvantage is the physical task of meeting so many folks on a tour. Some
book signings last more than seven hours, until after 2:30 in the morning. Later,
when people show me pictures of myself snapped on camera phones, trying to
smile in my sixth hour of signing, | look like an anatomy-lab cadaver.
Q: Your fans refer to themselves as the Cult. What flavor of KooFAid would go
best with a Chuck Palahniuk book?
A: Is Vicodin a flavor?

interview by Andrew Bradbury

subversion of the month EIA

[THE PESTHOUSE ]

Do British writers understand
‘America better than we do?

‘This disorienting dystopia set in a future
America—part Mad Max, part Hollywood
Westem—opens late one night outside
Ferrytown, a river crossing where mi-
_grants desperate to reach the Atlantic pay
Outrageous sums for the meager hospital-
ity of the locals. As if that weren't un-
pleasant enough, a nearby lake belches.
a poisonous cloud that descends on the
town and wipes everyone out. Everyone,
that is, except Margaret-—a woman quar-
antined ina “pesthouse" because she has
a feared contagion called the flux—and
Franklin, a tall migrant holed up nearby
with a bum knee.
The two orphans *
Join forces, flee su
PESTHOUSE

reader gets no clues about the causes of
the country's collapse, but Crace pres-
tents a compelling picture of an America
betrayed by its overfetshization of rug-
‘ged individualism and of Americans
paradoxically at their best when cutting
against the grain. —Bill Vourvoulias

MARC BAPTISTE NUDES » Marc Baptiste
This collection of nudes from noted
photographer Baptiste is of a softer, more
reflective tone than his commercial work.
Enveloped in diaphanous natural light,
the gamine beauties here are perched
on beds, windowsills and chairs. Emit
ting gazes that are poised between doe-
like innocence and
ferocious come-
hitherness, these
women are at once
seductive and for-
bidding: We may
admire their subtle
beauty; we would
be wise to approach
with caution.

— Matt Steighigel

Whiskey Island

Trek to the end of the earth for the undiluted scotch experience

ISLAY (that’s EYE-/ah, laddie) is a mecca for malt-whiskey aficionados. This rugged Hebrides island off the western coast of
Scotland is so covered with peat that the water runs brown, smells like smoke and makes single malts taste like a liquid campfire.
‘Seven famed distilleries dot the island's rocky coast, and each produces a whiskey with flavors and depths of smoke that vary
‘dramatically from one another—from the gentie whiff of Caol Ila to the rollicking powerhouses of Laphroaig and Ardbeg. Between
May 26 and June 3 the island throws a peerless single-mait tasting event, the Islay Festival of Malt and Music (feisile.org). Where
to retire after one too many a dram? The Bowmore Distillery (pictured), dating from 1779, recently renovated five of its buildings
Into four-star luxury accommodations ranging in size from the one-bedroom Mashman's Cottage to the Old Bakery, which can
sleep a football squad. Bowmore sells its entire line on-site, from the 12- to the 30-year-old, as well as signed rare bottles, Other
Islay must-sees: the ancient Celtic ruins (book a tour with local Christine Logan, "Lady of the Isles," at christine@ladyoftheisies
co.uk), and the Harbor Inn overlooking Loch Indaal, where from a window-side table you can watch the day's catch being brought
ashore. Rates at Bowmore run from $125 to $500 a night. Check bowmore.com/cottages.aspx for availability.

Gotta Have It Self Server
SPONTANEOUS ROMANCE is the best kind— YOU DON'T USE your stereo to do your taxes, so why store your mu-
especially if you've thought ahead. Six things sic and movies where you keep your spreadsheets? Niveus's Rainier
every guy should have in his home at all times: Edition Media Center (from $3,200, niveus.com) is a computer built
1. A bottle of chilled bubbly. Moët & Chandon's for the living room, leveraging Windows Vista's enhanced media ca-
White Star ($25) is a great standby. 2. Condoms pabilities to feed your entertainment system all the digital goodness

of your choice (we stick with the ol! faithful Trojan). It deserves. This unit will store everything you've got and more, and

You don't want to get caught with your pants down. it can send pics, audio

Let us rephrase that... 3. A copy of Miles Davis's Kind and video to up to five

of Blue, slightly predictable but hard to beat as far stereo or TV setups at

as mood music goes. 4. Massage oil. We recommend once. Plus, its extruded-

Kama Sutra Vanilla Cream Oil of Love ($10, amazon aluminum chassis acts

com). 5. Candles of the nonperfume-y kind. 6. An like a massive heat sink

extra toothbrush. Even if you live with a woman, you that cools the server's
never know when she might bring home a friend. guts without a noisy fan.

“4

Paging Miss Muffet

INSECTS ARE THE ultimate purpose-driven animals. Their highly optimized anatomies arise from
their ability to mass-reproduce, their short generational cycles (ask the mayfly) and an abun-
dance of predators trying to turn them into lunch—or, as it tums out, art. Contemplating a dead
beetle one day, sculptor Mike Libby was struck by its similarity to clockwork. After he implanted
watch parts into the carcass, Insect Lab was born. Libby's creations, including bees, butterflies
and spiders (the arachnid pictured is roughly two inches across), are reasonably priced (from
$250, insectlabstudio.com). Hell even create custom pieces out of specimens from your backyard.

Pretty Little Thing

‘THE WHOLE POINT of laptops is that they can go anywhere—and
that means more than just being small and light. Of course Toshiba's
Portege R400 (from $2,600, toshiba.com) is available with Wi-Fi and
Bluetooth for connecting on the go, but if you opt for the built-in cel-
lular antenna, you can use the Net when out of router range. What's
‘more, the swiveling screen can fold into a touch-screen tablet con-
figuration, letting you use a stylus to click around the web or take
handwritten notes. The fact that this flexible wonder is small and
light (with a gorgeous piano finish) doesn’t hurt matters either.

The Future Is Now

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System, which brakes the car automaticaly when f senser an oncoming costaction al wile producing 70 percent fever emissions
than competitors nits ass Somy there's no chen sek Pcs tag: nthe neighborhood of $100,000 nf a lexus com.

Mine Playboy Advisor

Cin sua thats tow era ica
person for heterosexuality? I read that
the Reverend Ted Haggard, the promi-
nent Colorado minister who preached
against homosexuality but admitted
to having sexual contact with a former
male prostitute, was declared “com-
pletely heterosexual” after three weeks
oftherapy—J.H., Dallas, Texas

We would lve to ow what intense procedures
brought the formerly conflicted Haggard back to
the folds, Maybe he stared at photos of Playmates.
But the home tet for heterosexuality is fairly sim-
ple: Grab some lube, stroke your erection and see
who shows up in your fantasies. (If women con-
sistently do, you can download an oficial Cer-
tifcate of Complete Heterosecuality at playboy
advisorcom.) The more rigid laboratory test
involves scientists showing you porn while they
‘monitor a stain gauge attached to your penis.
If blood flow increases when you see men having
ex, you're gay. If blood low increases when you
walch porn involving women, you're straight-
So far there has been no evidence of men who
flow both ways. The situation appears to be dif-
{ferent for women, who according to one study
‘have increased Hood flow to their genitals hen
shown any type of sexual image. That's why we
love them so. At any rate, we challenge Haggard
to take the peter-mete test at our expense.

Wissen are
restaurant, 1 stand when she leaves and
returns to the table. I know my wife
appreciates it, but other diners look at me
as if 'm crazy. Also, what is the protocol
when dining with another couple? I don't
want to show up the other guy—M.C.,
Garden Grove, California

Standing is a polite gesture, but you diminish
its power through repetition. It also announces
to the room that your wife is going to the loo.
Naturally you should stand until she is seated.
But when she excuses herself midmeal, you need
only complete what we call the half-assed lift:
Grasp the armrests and lift your butt an inch
off the seat. You can also scoot your chair back
slightly. Simply shifting your center of grav-
ity in this manner is sufficient to say, “I had
every intention of standing, but you're already
up and on your wax.” The half-assed lift also
works when dining with couples, because the
other guy will instinctively mimic you.

A female reader argued in February that
While men always complain that they
don’t get enough sex from their wives,
i's “never mentioned” that “women find
it unacceptable to have a marriage filed
with sex but without love and affection.”
Your response—that men do want love
and affection but can do without the
drama when it comes to sex—is on target,
but you should also have noted that men
connect emotionally to their mate through
sexual intimacy. You can tella woman you
love her, buy her gift, flirt with her, do

the chores, etc, but these things do not
provide a man with the mental or physical
connection he craves. For men, sex is the
ultimate way to please their mate. As for
wanting to be seduced, I bet that reader's
partner romanced her before they mar-
Tied; she did the same for him. Afterward
she lost interest in sex, and he then lost
interest in her, but somehow it’s all his
Ault—B.H., Tucson, Arizona

The deficit of desire that typically occurs in
relationships ater about two years akeays pro-
duces passionate responses. Read on for more.

Men complain that women won't have
sex, but in my experience the opposite is
true. My girlfriends and I notice that
when we first get into a relationship, both
parties are all about “Let's get naked.”
But after a few months it turns into “Not
tonight, dear. My back (knee, head, etc)
hurts"— from him! The chief complaint 1
hear and that my girlfriends report is,
“All you want to do is fuck. Don't you
ever get tired?” This is not a local issue; I
have friends in other states and various
tax brackets who say the same thing.
What's a girl to do? And where are the
hot, horny guys who want sex with the
same woman for more than two weeks in
Jasper, Arkansas

Unless you're withholding crucial details,
such as the fact that you and your girlfriends
date only men who work double shifts or that
‘you initiate sex by ing, “Let's make a
baby,” we can't explain it. To be honest, we're
not sure we believe you.

Em not the type to ask for advice, but the
letter from the woman about men not
wanting love and affection prompted me
to write. I have been married to my high

school sweetheart for 17 years. The only
time we have sex is after we fight about
our rarely having sex. To my wife's credit,
she has tried hormones and counseling,
but nothing seems to awaken her libido,
So she writes it off, saying 1 just need to
accept that she is not a sexual person
and be grateful she is a good mother and
friend. 1 find my wife extremely desir-
able, which only makes this more diffi-
cult. I tell her how attractive she is, but
she never says the same about me. She
fails to understand how much this affects
me. How long can I remain faithful in
this situation? I'm afraid that all it will
take is another woman showing inter-
est—W.M., Chandler, Arizona

We just finished a ing book you and
your wife sil find ef. Actually, she find it
bfeaffrming and youl find it mostly aggravat-
ing (as we did), but itis sure to start a comversa-
tion. In Td Rather Eat Chocolate: Learning to
Lave My Law Libido, Joan Sewell describes how
her husband did everything he could to romance
hes, before finally asking, “Do you not like sex?”
Sewell had to adnit her indifference. The reason
they are sill married is that the explanation she
fered for her lack of interest was “I don't kun”
rather than “I don't care.” She began to search for
answers in advice books, which suggested sponta-
cit, quickies, date nights, talking dirty all the
usual suspects. When considering testosterone
supplements, Sewel wondered why the burden of
the desire deficit is so often placed on women; why
does no one suggest men take estrogen supple-
ments to curta their obsessive fantasies? Eventu-
ally Sewell and her husband made a contract that
gave her control over their sex life but guaranteed
him regular simulation. However she agred to
be intimate—a striptease, maybe a blow job or
hand job, occasional inte nly as iong as
she found it “casy and fun,” meaning she could
walk out at any moment, leaving him to finish
alone. In the end, Sewell relishes her role as a
dominant. She also learns her partner is much
more fun to be around when he's having regular
orgasms that involve her

While cooking dinner for a few friends,
1 opened a bottle of wine and had the
cork split on me and fall back into the
bottle. Someone suggested pouring the
wine through a coffee filter, which
‘wouldn't be too classy when Im entertain-
ing a date. What should be done in that
situation?—M.B., Rochester, New York
Cap the bottle, set it aside and open another
The cork won't affect the taste, and you can
later pour the wine into a decanter through a
wine funnel that has a trainer. You could also
use a cork retriever, a $5 tol designed to fish
out floating pieces. If this happens often, the
problem may be your corkscrew. Raj Kanodia
of Corkscreascom, who has collected the tools
for 20 years and sells the latest und greatest
models, recommends a two-step waiter’ wine
opener because it allows you to pull the cork 47

PLAYBOY

straight out. Many corks split because the worm
is inserted at an angle, and the cork bends
hen removed. It especially doesn't help ifthe
cork is dry—so don't store the bottle upright.

Lam 20 years old and never want to have
kids, so I went to a urologist and had a
vasectomy. How do I break the news to
future girlfriends? How long into the rela-
tionship should I wait before I tell them
about this?—C.H., Phoenix, Arizona

Aren't you a litle young to be losing your heirs?
The women you'll date over the next few years
‘probably zon be thinking too much about their
future family life, so you can wait longer to reveal
our decision than you may be able to in your late
20s. Should any of your relationships start to drift
toward exclusivity, immediately bring up your not
wanting children. That's usually a deal breaker
but it's better not to waste too much ofher time or
yours. You don’t need to mention the vasectomy.
because she won't believe you anyway

Your advice in February on where to place
a radar detector should have included a
utionary note that the devices are ille-
gal in Virginia and D.C. and that hanging
anything from your windshield is against
the law in Minnesota and California. I
place my detector on top of the passenger
seat and secure it by lowering the head-
rest. This keeps the device somewhat dis-
guised while allowing it to see out of the
front and back —G,J., Reston, Virginia

You're speaking hypothetically about your
detector placement, right? We thought so.
Besides the restrictions you mention, federal
law prohibits truckers from using detectors
anywhere. In Canada they are legal only in
Alberta, British Columbia and Saskatchewan.

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You recently discussed the trouble some
couples have getting a good night's sleep
when sharing a bed. I have been married
for 52 years and have always slept well.
The trick is to place twin beds side by side.
I don't disturb my wife when I roll over,
and she doesn't bother me when she pulls
up the covers. If she doesn't make her
bed, it’s not my problem. There is even
room for three people when the bed is
used sideways —P]., Seattle, Washington

Thanks for writing. We know how much
you enjoyed sharing that last fact.

My wife doesn’t like me to go down on
her, but I love it. 1 have to wonder if
I'm just not any good. Do you have any
tips?—H.N., Nashville, Tennessee

A man’s technique can always be improved
as long as he gets constructive feedback. Some
women are uncomfortable with cunnilingus
because they are self-conscious about their vulva,
believing it to be ugly or smelly or whatever. A
guy's response, of course, is, ‘Are you kidding?”
You may want to share with your wife some of the
tips offered by Playmates Deanna Brooks, Fen-
nelope Jimenez and Serria Tawan in the newly
published Bunny Book. Here's what they have to
say to women about receiving oral sex: “Our best
advice is to lie back, clase your eyes and enjoy
it. Don't worry about how you look down there,
what kind of cent you have or how long it takes.
That kind of thinking will only psych you out. If
ou must, give him gentle direction. Show him
wäh your finger exactly where and how fast to go.
Serria has been known to demonstrate using her
‘thumb as a stand-in for her clitoris. 'I give him
a diagram on a model, she explains. First I lick
my thumb, then 1 have him lick and check his
technique.’ When a man is giving good head, you
have to let him ono by moaning, giving a slight
hip movement, moving his head gently. If he loss
it, request he go back to that amazing thing he
uns doing with his tongue before. If you fel like
you've getting close, say, Dont stop, oh God, Im

DOMINATIO,
THE MOTHE!

going to come, please don't stop!” That's better
than getting bitchy because you lost the orgasm
and whining, Why did you stop?” We would
add that sometimes all a woman needs to get into
cunnilingus is to make it part ofa long, deep body
massage that eventually brings your face between
her legs. That's our move, anya.

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Mate porn actors often spank the wom-
pi pi
an's pussy before going down on her.

Do women enjoy having their genitals
slapped?—J.M., Cedar City, Utah

Given the thin line between pleasure and
pain, we're sure some women enjoy i, but we
would wait for a specific request I we had our
way, porn studs would spend less time spanking
rubas and more time massaging clits

Like a lot of men, I wear a suit to work
every day. But it's starting to feel as if Im
in uniform. Every other guy at the office
looks the same—we're an army of suits.
How can I liven things up without look-
ing foolish?—H.M., San Jose, California
Look out, because the trend this fall will be
monochromatic. Our fashion director, Joseph
De Acetis, believes this may be a reflection of
increasing globalization: A businessman who
travels from New York to Tokyo fits right in
when his suit is slate gray or slate blue-gray.
The trend toward monochrome may also be a
reflection of the challenging economy: Men
who spend a lot of money on clothes are buy-
ing less, so what they do purchase tends to
be of great quality but neutral in color. At
the same time, we're seeing more designers
focus on creative accessories. They recognize
that men who must wear a uniform are put-
ting their personality into shirts, belts, shoes,
pocket squares, socks and portfolio cases.

My wife and 1 have been experim:
ing with soft swinging, which means we
swap with other couples but engage only

in manual and oral sex. The first time I
came with another woman, I assumed she
might not want me to finish in her mouth,
so 1 alerted her by tapping her shoulder
But my wife says the guy she was with
just let go with no warning. What is the
proper etiquette for notifying a woman
who's giving you head that you're ready
to come?—M.A., Dayton, Ohio

The problem with tapping her shoulder is that
she has to know tapping her shoulder means
you're about to climax. That's why saying “Tm
coming” is the best method (we kai in several
languages). However the ultimate blow job never
involves a signal, because it's distracting for a
guy a the height of ecstasy to refocus his brain for
a moment to “wam” his partner: Ejaculating is
ways more fin when you can fire at will.

All reasonable questions—from fashion, food
“and drink, stereos and sports cars to dating
dilemmas, taste and etiquette—will be per-
sonally answered if the writer includes a
self-addressed, stamped envelope. The most
interesting, pertinent questions will be pre-
sented in these pages each month. Write th
Playboy Advisor, 730 Fifth Avenue, New
York, New York 10019, or send e-mail by vis-
iting our website at playboyadvisorcom. The
Advisor's latest book, Dear Playboy Advisor,
is available at bookstores, by phoning 800-
-9494 or online at playboystore.com.

Kawasaki

Let the good times roll

THE PLAYBOY FORUM
HELP WANTED

NEARLY TWO YEARS AFTER HURRICANE KATRINA,
THE GULF COAST STILL LOOKS LIKE A WAR ZONE

ere we are closing in on two years after Katrina,
points west to Biloxi and points east—is still in
shambles. The folks who live in the few FEMA trailers
that actually reached the Gulf Coast and aren't parked
in a big sea of trailers up in Arkansas, and the kids who
suffer from the FEMA trailer-park depression remarked
about on TV, and the people who fled New Orleans and
don't really want to go back—all these people would like
your attention for a moment
Maybe they are not as tragiclooking as they were back
when, but they are still around, still struggling, still living
about half a life because there's only about half a world on
the Gulf Coast, the rest having been shattered two years
ago. Maybe I'm jaded. Maybe I'm thinking that if we'd
dropped 368 tons of money along the Gulf Coast instead
of into Iraq, I'd feel better about what we're doing along
the Gulf Coast and in Iraq. Imagine what that money could
have done had it been delivered to the people by the people
and for the people. But instead our fearless leaders sent it
to Iraq, the better to shore up our cardboard government
there. Not to mention our cardboard government here.
‘When I wonder why this has happened, I can conclude
only that we're all to blame. We allow it to happen. We
allow our government to run amok, allow Dick Cheney
and his herd of bozos to run the government and the
plastic heads in the news business to decide what's what
while we sit and watch the parade. The newspeople think
we're a nation of idiots
who want a freak show
every 15 minutes, because
they live in a phony
world where freak shows
are prized. Their world
teeters between the real
world we live in and the
brain-dead fantasy world
where the president and
his cronies roost.
In this world, news
is shiny, transgressive,
bleeding and not here
yesterday. So instead
of paying attention to
the boneheaded lack of
progress in New Orleans
and along the Mississippi
coast (which today is just
about as wrecked as it was
two weeks after Katrina),
the news folks whore after
any new sideshow act that
‘comes along.
1 was once told the

human brain is like a length of galvanized pipe. When
you're a kid, the pipe is empty, so you can slam a lot of stuf
jo there and it stays. But as you grow older, the pipe fills
up. So when you put stuff into the front end, something
tends to fall out the back end. Frankly, I thought this was
a lot of hooey. I thought the brain was a relentlessly com-
plex, protean and adaptive machine that had capacities far
beyond galvanized pipe.

But maybe I was wrong. I've noticed that when you put
John Mark Karr in the brain, people on rooftops in New
‘Orleans fall out. When you put in Dick Cheney shooting
his pal in the face, the lost millions along the Gulf Coast
fall out. When you put Cno wrru Two HEADS FOUND IN
RLGUAY in the front of the brain, our government's fund-
ing of Sunni terrorists falls out the back. Pretty soon the
brain seems exactly like a length of galvanized pipe.

We have several problems these days, and one of them
is healing the country after Hurricane Katrina. I'm not
suggesting we ignore the other problems, but we need to
give this one its due. New Orleans is a shadow of itself.
It’s now the site of turf wars, where factions with pow-
erful vested interests try to outthink each other, where
people have to march in the streets to get help from the
police to cut down on the gunfire, not to mention the
doubled murder rate. And the New Orleans that's coming
back, the one barely apparent now, is some kind of phony
remake of the real New Orleans. it’s not at all the crazy
gumbo that was there before. It is going to be gentrified,

folks. Any word you can
think of that’s less like the
genuine New Orleans?

Mississippi is in many
ways worse off. Nothing’
been done there. It m
as well be September
15, 2005. Piles of debris,
trash in the trees, There's
a swath a quarter mile
inland from the beach
and running the whole
30-odd miles of the Mis-
sissippi Gulf Coast that
is flattened, block after
block of rubble.

‘Some may argue that’s
a good thing, great for
economic development,
great for entrepreneurs
and casinos and jobs and
the tourist trade as the
coast gets rebuilt as a
destination, But the fact
is, nothing has been done.
I wouldn't mind their

turning the coast into a Vegas ike Won-
derworid South, if only someone would
start the recovery. But no one has.
Everyone's waiting on the president
and his people, and the president and
his people have too much trouble on
their hands in Irag.

These good folks down here would
like to remind you that America needs
our help. And Iraq doesn't really want
our help. Tonight I saw a soldier on
television. He said it was a lost cause
over there. That we may as well let
them fight it out and then come hack
and try to give them a hand.

So here's yet another reason to quit
the doomed war: We need to rebuild
our country, which was hit by a bona
fide natural weapon of mass destruc-
tion almost two years ago and has been
wobbling around in a daze ever since

Tam certain New Orleans and the
coast will recover just as soon as we get
this recovery thing in gear. It takes a
while, you know. And there's the little
problem of about half the people who
left New Orleans not having returned
and of that gentrification, which will
change how that splendid, old, rotten,
low-down, swinging city appeals to Ihe
American people (tourists). I's possible
that Americans, fun-loving dudes that
we are, may not really like the “new”
New Orleans. But maybe that'sa prob-
lem for another time, after the recovery
gets up on its hind legs and pushes for-
Ward at full throttle.

When will that be? Any minute.
‘Tanks and Humvees will roll down
Interstate 59; C-47s will fly into Louis
Armstrong International Airport filled

ch money left over from Bush's
adventures in Iraq. There will be sol-
diers stationed all over New Orleans
to cut down on the sectarian violence,
drug murders and killings of teachers
and other civilians already manning the
New Orleans green zone. There will
be heavy equipment from Halliburton
and choppers only occasionally shot
down by celebratory rifle fire. It will be
a great time in the old town when the
people go marching in.

1 can't wait. I am waiting. We've
been waiting for a couple of years, even
though nobody has noticed. We haven't
been able to catch anyone's eye in D.C.
or Baton Rouge or Jackson. But I am
certain help ison the way because this is
a “great nation” that “has its own.” We
don't go screwing around with other
countries when our own country has
been wounded. We take care of busi-
ness, don't we? We “git ‘r done,” don't
we? That's how I know the recovery will
begin any minute now. This is America.

By Robert Levine

resident Bush and his military
advisors can't say no one warned
them the war in Iraq wouldn't be
over when Saddam's army surrendered.
Martin Van Creveld, an Israc military
theorist whose books are required read-
ing for US. Army officers, has long ar-
gued that the wars of the future will be
‘waged against "groups we today call
terrorists” Van Creveld, who teaches at
Hebrew University in Jerusalem and
lectures around the world, believes
the West's organized armies are ill pre-
pared to fight
Such conflicts
In The Chang-
ing Face of

tary conflict
since the early
20th century,
Van Creveld
points out that
in the past
five decades,
well-equipped
armies have
almost always failed to defeat ragtag
local insurgencies. Think of France in
Algeria, the Soviet Union in Afghan-
istan and the U.S. in Vietnam or,
more recently, Iraq. Van Creveld has
called the current war in Iraq the
most foolish since Emperor Augustus
sent his legions into Germany in
9 s.c. and lost them. “If were Bush.”
he tells rLavson, “the truth is, I would
shoot myself for having involved the
in this war and having more

than 3,000 dead young Americans
on my conscience.
PLAYBOY: Your book opens with
this line: “The mightiest, richest, best-
equipped, best-trained armed forces
that have ever existed are in full
decline.” Is that always true or justin
situations such as Iraq?

AN CREVELD: It’s true in many situ-
ations. I's true in the sense that armies

are no longer vital to a country’s exis-
tence. All you need, basically, are a
few submarines carrying nuclear
‘weapons. It's true in the sense that
armies have been declining in size,
Proportionate to the world’s popula-
tion, 15 percent as many soldiers are
in uniform today as there were 60
years ago. In terms of military equip-
‘ment, the loss is even greater. And in
terms of their inability to fight guer-
rilla wars, armies are in full decline.
PLAYBOY: You point out that counter-
insurgency
efforts since
World War 11
have almost
always failed,
but you men-
tion two that
succeeded

the British
treated terror-
inal rather
than a mili-
tary matter,
and in Hama,
where Syrian president Hafez Assad
had the army brutally raze one of his
own cities. Does that mean this kind
of war can be won
VAN CREVELD: It's not necessarily a
lost cause. I pointed to two different
extremes of how to do it, As T explain
in the book, most countries don't have
‘what it takes to do one or the other,
because both take great courage and
professionalism, and the first requires
great restraint. So most countries
Switch from one approach to the other,
and the results are always the same.
PLAYBOY: You've said the war in
Iraq was a mistake. What could we
have done differently to achieve a
better result?
VAN CREVELD: One way would have
been making Operation Shock and
Awe 20 times bigger than it was and
‘saying that anybody who resists will be

shot along with his whole family. But
the U.S. didn’t do it that way; it went
to help the Iraqi people. They went
in as nice human beings, and within
days it was coming apart. The U.S. was
constantly apologizing for the collateral
damage it had done.

PLAYBOY: Most people critical of the
war think we've created too much col-
lateral damage.

VAN CREVELD: I think the U.S.
caused relatively little collateral dam-
age. But the worst thing it did was to
apologize. How can you win a war if
you apologize? If you want to win a war,
you have to show you're prepared to do
anything. Even before the US, started
the war, it was promising it wouldn't do
this and wouldn't do that.

PLAYBOY: How much of that was
the result of domestic and interna-
tional pressure?

VAN CREVELD: It was a result of
nobody knowing why America was
going to war in the first place. I quote
Machiavelli on this: “A just war is a nec
essary war.” And given the balance of
forces, given how far Iraq is from the
U.S., given how weak Iraq had become
after the first Gulf War, this war was not
necessary and it was not just. So if you
go to war with a bad conscience to begin
with, you find yourself apologizing.
PLAYBOY: What do you think the U.S.
should do in Iraq now that Iraq is on
the verge of civil war?

VAN CREVELD: The war in Iraq is
hopeless, so the real task left to the
US. isto make sure it doesn't spread.
Once you get out of Iraq, which I'm
sure you will, you'll have to stay in
Kuwait and Jordan, The important
thing is to prevent this from spread.
ing. Let’s hope that can be done. If
you look at Afghanistan during the
Soviet invasion, the war never spread
to Pakistan in a big way, so it's not
hopeless. You have a chance of hold:
ing the line in Kuwait and Jordan.
PLAYBOY: You make a compelling
case that future conflicts will involve
organizations like Al Qaeda rather
than countries. But what about Rus-
sia and China, both of which have
become more assertive?

VAN CREVELD: I would never argue
that you'll never see another war
between states. Um a historian, so I
can talk only about what has happened
in the past 60 years, and no first- or
second-rate powers have fought each
other—for very good nuclear reasons.
If there isa threat, it is wars of very big
states against much smaller ones. Iraq is
a good example. But we have reached
the point at which almost anybody can

build nuclear weapons, and experience
shows that wherever nuclear weapons
make their appearance, wars between
states take a steep decline.

PLAYBOY: Do you see thisas a positive
development?

VAN CREVELD: I'm inclined to think
nuclear weapons are the best thing that
has happened to humanity, and I'm not
alone in this. The point was made for
the first time by political scientist Ken-

neth Waltz, and I agree with him: With.
out nuclear weapons, I'm pretty sure we
would have had World War III by now.
Nuclear weapons are the only thing
capable of putting those quarrelsome
creatures called humans in their place.
During World War II, between 40 mil-
ion and 60 million people were killed.
So if the alternative is nuclear weapons,
I prefer nuclear weapons.

PLAYBOY: In a 2005 interview you said,
“Obviously we don’t want Iran to have
nuclear weapons, and I don't know if
they're developing them, but if they're
not developing them, they're crazy.”
Explain what you meant by that.

=

An enemy invulnerable to technology and nukes.

VAN CREVELD: Since the Americans
went into Afghanistan, Iran's strategic
situation has deteriorated sharply. Look
at it from the point of view of Iran: You
are surrounded by hostile forces, and in
the White House is a guy who consid-
ers you part of the Axis of Evil, who has
repeatedly threatened you and who has
ded your neighbor. Asa third-world

ry with a population of 80 million
and hardly any industry to speak of, you
can’t match him conventionally. So you

build nuclear weapons as fast as you can,
and you try to get through the period
before you have them by bluffing
PLAYBOY: Can the world live with a
nuclear Ira
VAN CREVELD: The U.S. has lived with
a nuclear Soviet Union and a nuclear
China, so why not a nuclear Tve
researched how the U.S. opposed nuclear
proliferation in the past, and each time
a country was about to proliferate, the
US. expressed its opposition in terms of
why this other country was very danger-
‘ous and didn't deserve to have nuclear
‘weapons, Americans believe they're the
only people who deserve to have nuclear
weapons, because they're good and
democratic and they like Mother and
apple pie and the flag. But Americans
are the only ones who have used them.
PLAYBOY: Wouldn't an Iranian nuclear
‘weapon be terrible for Israel
VAN CREVELD: We Israelis have wh:
takes to deter an Iranian attack. And I
think we are in no danger at all of having
an Iranian nuclear weapon dropped on
us. We cannot say so too openly, how-
ever, because we have a history of using
any threat in order to get weapons, And
it works beautifully: Thanks to the Ira-
nian threat, we are getting weapons from
the U.S. and Germany. I think some
people in Israel are deliberately exag-
gerating our fears because it prompts
the response, “Oh, those poor Jews.
They're going to have the Holocaust
| again. Give them weapons.”
PLAYBOY Before we went into Iraq.
Donald Rumsfeld was talking up a
revolution in military affairs,” the
idea that the U.S. could fight wars with
more technology and fewer troops
Those theories obviously didn't work
in Iraq. Is there anything to them?
VAN CREVELD: The theories are
correct if you're talking about war
by one state and one army against
another. But any country that is
able to develop and use that kind of
technology will also be able to build
nuclear weapons. So in that sense it
is all a waste of money because, as
we see in Iraq, when you're talking
about unconventional warfare, this
whole revolution in military affairs is
just so much hot air,
PLAYBOY: You make a logical case
about how counterinsurgency efforts
almost always fail. You're widely read by
our military. Why didn't the U.S. listen?
VAN CREVELD: It beats me. I know
some of the military leaders person-
ally, and they're certainly intelligent
people. I find it difficult to believe any-
‘one could be so foolish as to think they
could go into Iraq.

Um

READER RESPONSE

CLUB FED

‘Thanks to rLavnoy for exposing our
government's hush-hush cost-overrun
alcazars in Iraq (“Sand Castles,”
March), which some call the Wolfie-
schlésser ("Wolfie's castles"), after Paul
Wolfowitz. One speculates they'll be
used as fortified palaces for the jun-

A pool at Camp Taj, near Baghdad.

keting nonservers who so cavalierly
sent our troops there as if the inva-
sion had anything to do with the war
on terror. Who wants to bet we'll be
ordered out democratically once the
Iraqis—any Iraqis—take over? Take
an overnight bag, Wolfie!

Philip Riggio

Aventura, Florida

SCHOOL DAZE
I was upset to see a letter in the
March "Reader Response” that alerted
parents to a website about how to opt
out of sharing their kids’ information
with military recruiters. I am so tired
of liberal Americans demanding that
the military protect their right to spit
on the military. Did you know we live
in one of the few countries in the world
that does not require military service
ofall its citizens? One of the benefits of
mandatory service is that it gives citi-
zens who don't have connections to the
military a taste of what it means to put
their family and friendships on hold
to take up arms in order to secure the
freedoms of their country.
R. Blair
Dallas, Texas

THE FUZZ

Recent letters to the editor address
problems between police and citizens.
1 submit the issues go deeper than
that. In the context of trials, I have
observed police officers lying about

something I saw with my own eyes. I
have seen lawyers for the defense and
the prosecution lie about the facts of
a case. I have a copy of a deliberately
false police report written by a sheriff's
deputy and designed to protect his
buddy from the consequences of his
actions. I currently perceive the police
forces of this country as no better than
a Los Angeles street gang, protecting
only their own. The incredible diffe
ence is that these gangs are publicly
funded. My county in Nevada, I am
told, has a multimillion-dollar bud-
get for the sheriff but can’t seem to
find money to take care of its senior
ens. I did not serve more than 20
years in the military to defend our
‘way of life only to see it come to this.
Shame on all of you who say “I'm just
doing my job” while you violate laws
to protect your buddies.

Jerry Harvey

Beatty, Nevada

RADIO HEADS
Pardon me, but your hypocrisy is

showing. In “Christian Radio Inv:
sion” (February) you intimate how
awful it is that Christian radio uses
FM translators to build networks.
Apparently you're against all cel
sorship except that of your political
‘opponents, Bully for them for using a
loophole. If you don't like it, use the
political process to close it. Better yet,
stop whining and take advantage of it
yourself. In America the same loop-
holes are available to all. If you don’t
use them, that's your problem.

‘Alan Gertonson

Indianapolis, Indiana

Your piece on media conglomera-
tion ("Serving the Public,” February)
prompted me to write. My wife and
1 have hosted a show called A Darker
Shade of Retro at flashbackalternatives
‘com for more than two years. As
an Internet broadcaster as well as a
musician, I need to raise awareness
about an issue close to my heart. On
March 2, 2007, the Copyright Royalty
Board announced new royalty rates
for Internet radio stations in response
to heavy petitioning by the Record-
ing Industry Association of America;
these rates are retroactive to January
1, 2006. The future of Internet radio
is seriously threatened. Internet
radio stations will now be subject to
much higher licensing fees. On aver-

age, each station will have to pay 1
cents for every listener each hour. In
other words, a station with an audi-
ence of 500 listeners will pay roughly
$210 a day, or $76,000 a year, which
is about 10 times more than sta-
tions pay now. And since these fees
are retroactive, the change will force
most broadcasters into bankruptcy.
Let me put things into perspective:
Popular stations with an average of
1,000 listeners currently pay about
$1,500 to $2,500 a month to stay on
the air; now they will owe an addi-
tional $12,000 for each month they
were on the air last year. Because of
the new fees, only high-profile broad-
casters like AOL will prevail, and
only the most mainstream program-
‘ming will remain available, This will
have a negative impact on bands and
independent record labels, as many
Internet radio stations have become
instrumental in promo!
ists and indie labels by helping them
establish a fan base. Artists and labels.
need to be aware that this avenue of
exposure is about to become a thing

g new art-

Radio control: Web broadcasters doomed?

of the past. The days of Internet
radio seem numbered. Whether you
live in the U.S. or not, these rulings
affect you. Something can be done to
attempt to revoke these new regula-
tions: Write as many letters to Con-
gress as you can to force an appeal
Also check out savenetradio.org for
‘more information.

‘Andreas Gregor

aka. DJ Formaldehyde

Toronto, Ontario

E-mail via the web at letters.playboy.com. Or
‘mite: 730 Fifth Avenue, Now York, NY 10019.

FORUM

Abuse of Star Power

MUNCE, ınouna—Not much about CBS's
short-lived reality-TV program Armed &
Famous clicked. For the show, celebrities
including Erik Estrada, Jack Osbourne
and La Toya Jackson joined the Muncie
police force. Now, months after Armed
& Famous was canned, it has emerged
that some of the showbiz cops partici
pated in a questionable SWAT raid dur-
ing filming and are named in a recently
filed claim against the city. The grounds
are all too familiar: The team raided the
wrong address. Lyndsay Clements, a 22-
year-old college student, alleges excessive
force was used when the SWAT team mis-
takenly entered her apartment and cuffed
and questioned her. She also claims a
search of her apartment was illegal. After
team members removed Clements from
her home, Osbourne, accompanied by
Jackson, questioned her out front.

Nuts!

NEw YoRK—A storm has broken out over the use
of the word scrotum in The Higher Power of
Lucky by Susan Patron, this year’s winner of
the Newbery Medal, one of the most prestigious
honors for children's literature. After The New
York Times covered the controversy, an e-mail
disseminated by Random House's First Amend-
‘ment Committee (Patror's publisher is a subsid-
lary of Simon & Schuster with no connection to
Random House) noted, “The article fails to men-
tion that scrotum, which occurs on the very first
page of the novel, is the proper, nonvulgar word
for an anatomical body part.” The uproar should
highlight the fact that books are constantly under
fire at schools and public libraries. In 2005 (the
most recent year for which numbers are avail-
able), the American Library Association logged
405 offical “challenges,” or formalized attempts
to ban a book. And as one can guess from the
latest skirmish, the challenges frequently have
to do with sexual openness, Among the 10 most
cited books are it’s So Amazing! A Book About
Eggs, Sperm, Birth, Babies and Families and
It's Perfectly Normal, an introduction to puberty,
as well as such classics as Judy Blume's For-
ever, J.D. Salinger's Catcher in the Rye and
Robert Cormiet’s Chocolate War, all opposed as
a result of—what else?—sexual content.

Freedom Fight
LonooN—Exiled leaders of Iraq's gay community
suggested at a conference that death squads
are systematically killing homosexuals with the
tacit approval of the new government. Ali Hili,
who fled Iraq and now works for U.K.-based

OutRage!, described what he called sexual
cleansing: “Iraqi LGBTS are at daily risk of
‘execution by the Shia death squads of the Badr
and Sadr militias. Members of these militias
have infiltrated the Iraqi police and are abusing
their police authority to pursue a plan to elimi-
nate all homosexuals in Iraq. This is happening
with the collusion of key ministers in the Iraqi
government.” Hili says five members of his ad-
vocacy group disappeared in November 2006;
another group, Rainbow for Life, says a dozen
Of its members were kidnapped and killed.

Church and State Mate
munta wuruRThe state government of Tereng-
ganu, in Malaysia, plans to recruit informants to
help ferret out un-Istamic behavior, which in-
cludes such things as unmarried couples kiss-

ing or holding hands.
“Some of these spies
could be waitresses
or even janitors at
hotels, acting as
auxiliary undercover
agents for our reli-
gious department,”
says Datuk Rosol
Wahid of the state's
Islam Hadhari and Welfare Committee. “Accu-
rate details are required for the enforcement
officers to act, otherwise they could be pouncing
‘on married couples.” Last October police operat-
ing under a similar committee in another Malay-
sian state raided the vacation rental of a non-

Muslim American couple, having mistaken them
for unmarried Mustims in “close proximit

MARGINALIA

FROM THE RE-
SPONSE by New

FROM A REVIEW on
Slate com by Meghan O'Rourke
St Unhooked: How Young Women
Pursue Ser, Delay Love and Lose
t Botn, by Laura Sessions Stepp:
When gris and psychologists
etend hooking upor argue that
She's overomphas ging its down
Sides —she responds with rhetori-
Eal insinuations. Aer one gt
Who enjoyed noncammited ex
Unten, sex was that good
Mith Nicholas, imagine what i
vil be iko with my husband.”
Siep responds, "But how mould
She fnd that husband?” In the
19505, parents pot concerned
when giis went steady instead
plying the eld but Stepp i
convinced ie men habit
playing the eld wil warp ge
Bean and make 1t impossible for
‘hem o sete down when the
tine comes Its se 1 young
Women are practicing Spins
While planing to run a mara
thon: o wees, That metaphor

phenomenon Stepp is describing
and her blinkered perspective.
What her own reporting suggests
but she doesnt seem to ee is
‘hat # there is a problem, it isn't
that young women are separating
Jove and sex, Ws that they are
blurring sex and work: The hook
up culture is part of a wider
thor ol status seeking achieve
ment. As one giri puts it, Dating
is a drain on energy and intellect,
and we are overwhelmed, over-
programmed and overcommitted
[ast trying to got into grad
School. So they throw them-
Selves into erotic liaisons with
‘the same competitive zeal they
bring to résumé building.”

FROM A DECLASSIFIED British
Nationa Inteligence Estimates report
about Iraq, published in 1983: “The

FORUM

ARTHUR SCHLESINGER, 1917-2007

A FINAL CONVERSATION WITH THE GREAT AMERICAN HISTORIAN,
IN WHICH HE DISCUSSES THE UTOPIAN TENDENCIES OF OUR PRESIDENT

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Under resident George W Bush,

By Kevin Buckley

he said, there would be no end to the
war, and that, after all the calamities
of his policy, is exactly the way Bush
wants it. The “surge” strategy, which
was billed as a new approach, is,

Schlesinger’s view, more of the same.
Tt is based on politics rather than on
military circumstances, “The surge
will extend the war to the 2008 elec-
tions,” Schlesinger said, with Bush
claiming progress, promising victory
and asking for patience, regardless
of what happens. A miracle could
occur, Schlesinger said, but evidence
‘would suggest a worsening situation
for all concerned—except terrorists
‘who continue to exploit the war for

purposes of recruitment. The so-
Called new strategy is, in fact, a politi-
cal sham, part of a new blame game
for the 2008 elections. The president,
said Schlesinger, can “dump the whole
mess he and the Republicans created
into the arms of the Democrats.”
‘Schlesinger went on to say that
Bush's rejection of the Iraq Study
Group “confirmed for me Bob Wood-
ward's thesis that Bush is in denial.
His only fleeting concession to reality
in Iraq was the departure of Rumsfeld.
Bush is a true believer.” The profes-
sor added, "He regards himself as the
instrument of the divine purpose.”
Schlesinger noted that Bush is
inclined to ignore sound military

advice and then place responsibility
for decisions on people in uniform.

We talked a bit about demagogu-
ery, and the conversation returned
to Bush, whom Schlesinger called a
utopian. At various points the profes-
sor referred to Napoleon, Franklin
Roosevelt, Lyndon Johnson, Clark
Clifford, james Baker and Robert
Gates. He did not hesitate when 1
asked him to name the figures from
history Bush most resembles. “Adolf
Hitler and Joseph Stalin,” he said,
because all three viewed themselves
“as a culmination of history.” Bush
is like Hitler, Schlesinger added,
“because of his mastery of human

psychology, and Stalin because
of his commitment to ideology.
But Bush is a benign utopian,
and Hitler and Stalin were
dystopian, Bush is a short-run
utopian, who believed he could
have his vision overnight and
at very little cost.”
Schlesinger continued,
mean, I sympathize with hi
when he says freedom and
democracy are everywhere
desirable. But in many places
cultural obstacles remain. Take
for example the inferior sta-
tus of women in Muslim coun-
tries. I share Bush’s optimism,
and his belief that human
dignity requires freedom and
democracy. But itis a question.
of long-run utopianism versus
short-run utopianism.”

Toward the end, speculating about
how and when the Iraq war will end,
Schlesinger said, "One hundred years
is a small episode for groups that
have been waging war against one
another for 1,500 years. Ameri
troops are permanent provocations
to the militias and will perpetuate
the problem; withdrawal could lead
to chaos. But Iraqis could also pos-
sibly be scared into cooperating. Hi
tory can turn up heads or tails.”

‚We went to our last lunch together
with the vision of America's fate
turning and glinting in the sunlight.

‘We're all utopians in the long run,”
he said to me.

PLAYBOY INTERVIEW: MATT GROENING

A candid conversation with the brain:

behind the Simpsons empire about

Marge’s sex appeal, Homer's lust for life and Bart's drug-addled future

The Simpsons, the show Time magazine named
the century's best television series, airs its 400th
episode this month—an astonishing feat for any
shou, let alone an animated series about a yellow
yfunctional family. The Simpsons has ouilasted
Friends, Seinfeld and Cheers. Accolades forthe
show include 23 Emmys and lavish praise from
critics. “It raised the bar for all TV sitcoms,”
according to the Los Angeles Times. The shouts
creator, Matt Groening, “will go down through
the ages as one of the most influential figures
in the history of television,” in the estimation of
National Public Radio. And this summer the
long-awaited Simpsons Movie hits theaters. As
Homer would say, with a Duff beer in his four-
fingered hand, "Woc-hoo!”

‘The Simpsons has been a television trailblazer
shewering social and political fll, but mostly it
has been hilarious fun. Of course not everyone
has approved. It has countless die-hard fans—as
obsessed as Tiekkies hut The Simpsons has suc-
ceeded in gaining the attention of prominent
detractors as well, from religious leaders to the
first president Bush, who publicly bemoaned the
show's values. “Americans should be more like
‘the Waltons and less like the Simpsons,” e said.
Americans disagreed, at least if the ratings are
an indication: The Waltons lasted nine years;
The Simpsons is still going strong after 19.

One is hard-pressed to name a celebrity who
hasn't made a cameo on The Simpsons. The lit

“I love it when Im in a store and somebody
drops his keys and says, D'oh!" But I was once

pulled over by security at the airport and given
the full inspection. A litle kid pointed and went,
"Haha, like Nelson. It was annoying as hal.”

includes Elizabeth Taylor, U2, Johnny Carson,
Stephen Hauking, Frank Gehry, Meryl Streep
and Hugh Hefner The Sempuons characters have
became heroes and ole made. Bart, of cours, is
the quintessential underachicce ("and proud of
i). Bachived Marge, Homer's ue, is an wey
sex goddess. (Groening once cracked, "Marge
‘Simpson le’ was the member one Inter search
‘of 2002.) And then ers Homer an inspiration
to laggardl, beer-drinking, sexist, doughnut-
and-ice-cream-eating males everywhere. “I's
not casy to juggle a pregnant wife and a trou-
Med child,” he said in an early episode, “but I
managed to fit in eight hours of TV a day” His
sot: "Never try.”

Im addition to The Simpsons, Groening cre-
ated Futurama. The Simpsons was a hard act
to follow; at the time, Groening said, “Now 1
know how Paul McCartney feli uhen he started
Wings.” But Futurama lasted five seasons and
was a critical favorite, called “the funniest
Show of the Bist century” by Entertainment
Weeks. I still ais in reruns, along with what
seems like infinite Simpsons episodes, and new
Futurama shows are currently being produced
for the series’ return to television in 2008.

For nearly 30 years Groening has also writ-
ten a weekly comic strip, Life in Hell, which
appears in 250 newspapers and magazines.
Like Groening’s other works, the strip has
‘pruned merchandise and books, including the

“South Park at its best is some of the mast aston-
ishing TV ever made. There's a sense of healthy
competition between the various staffs of the
cartoon shows. But as far as I'm concerned, the
more cartoons on TV the better”

irresistible Love Is Hell and Work Is Hell
Groening grew up in Portland, Oregon,
here his father, Homer, once told him, “You
can't draw.” (His mother is Marge. Two of
his sisters are Maggie and Lisa. Two other
siblings didn't make it onto The Simpsons.)
After graduating from high school he attended
Evergreen State College before moving to
LA., where he began penning Life in Heil in
1977. He self-published and distributed the
underground strip while working as a music
critic, chauffeur and ad copyuriter.
Groening conceived The Simpsons on the
spur of the moment, before pitch meeting with
the producer and director James L. Brooks
In 1987 the cartoon debuied on The Tracey
Ullman Show, on which it ran for three years
before Fox spun it off
From it and his other ventures, including
licensing items from T-shirts to Bart dolls, Groe-
ning has made a fortune. He is divorced and has
tuo chidren, Homer (called Wil) and Abe. (They
are the Will and Abe of the forthcoming book Will
and Abe's Guide to the Universe) He admits
to being a frustrated rock-and-roll musician
and, with fellow authors Dave Barry, Stephen
King and Amy Tan, is part of the Rock Bottom
Remainders, a band that plays for charities.
Contributing editor David Sheft, who con-
ducted our Apni interview with Bill Maher met
Groening at his Los Angeles production studio.

appalled some of my friends with how undis-
ciplined I was as a parent. My kids talked back
to me, and I laughed it off. Now they tell me
Tm not funny anymore. My son said he wishes
Seth MacFarlane were his father”

“N quickly becomes apparent where Lisa and
Marge get their heart and soul,” Sheff 503,
“tut even more here Bart and Homer get their
inmenerence, Hardly a moment goes by without a
tusecrack. Posing for the pictures to accompany
the interieu, Groening deadpannad, Now for
the unsexied photo ever to run in vuncaor. He
warned our photographer ‘Be sure to toke the
Picture from the wast up only Im aroused.”
“Hes no surprise that Groening is funny bu he
is also thoughtful, gracious, sel deprecatng and
humble. Throughout the interview he made a
point of sharing credit for the success of The
Simpsons with his collaborators, including
the show's writers and animators. He said i
slightly embarrasses him to get all the attention
but then added with a shrug, ‘Oh well, it's
part of my job. I'm the show's supermodel”

pLaYaoY: With 400 episodes
under your belt, are you still
involved in making the Simpsons
TV show every week?
GROENING: If I don't have a
competing project, Im very
involved. But often other dead-
linesare looming. Right now the
Futurama writers are working
on new episodes of the show,
which will be back on the air
in 2008, We're barreling down
the final stretch of The Simpsons
Movie. About once a week, on
Thursday, I suddenly remem-
ber I have a weekly comic strip
to write. Sail, I try to make sure
Tm there for the TV show at the
very last part of the process, the
final sound mixing, when we
make our last-minute tweaks the
Tuesday before Sunday's broad-
cast. Many other people deserve
more credit than I do and more
than they receive, though. I'm
just the one who goes out there
‘and puts my foot in my mouth,
PLAYBOY: You have been talk-
ing about a Simpsons movie for
years. Why now?
GROENING: The idea of doing
a movie always sounded good,
but it was such a huge amount
of extra work. Coming up on

PLAYBOY

your other question, no, there are no danc-
ing penguins. We want to justify people
paying admission, so the animation is more
ambitious and the story has greater scope,
It does have an environmental and politi-
cal theme, just like at the beginning of the
Simpsons series when I decided Homer was
a safety inspector at a nuclear power plant.
PLAYBOY: Why did you choose that job
for Homer?

GROENING: I thought the idea of a nit-
wit like him working at a nuclear power
plant was funny.

PLaraoy: Does their long-term exposure
to nuclear radiation explain why your
characters have never aged

GROENING: Actually, it’s why the Simp-
sons have yellow skin.

= ©

ought,

vn Simpsons slot

You

houette. That's why the Simpsons have

distinctive hairlines. Bart has the picket-
fence spiked hair. If you see it in Slhou-
ue, you can't mistake it. This is my advice
to cartoonists: If you want to invent a
memorable cartoon, draw characters that
can be identified in silhouette.
PLAYBOY: You named the Simpson fam-
ily after your parents and siblings. Were
they flattered or horrified?
GROENING: I think i's an ongoing mixed
bag shading toward nightmarish. Back
at the beginning we all fantasized about
various aspects of fame and wild success
and wouldn't it be neat to name cartoon
characters after our families. Well, I did
it.I just didn’t think through the conse-
quences I named Homer after my father,
Homer, and my mother’s name
R i Margaret; Marge is what many
people call her. I have a sister
Lisa and a sister Maggie. When
she was very young, Maggie did
actually walk around in a blue
sleep suit, incessantly sucking on
a pacifier. also have a brother
Mark and a sister Patty, whom I
did not name characters after.
pLarsor. Do they fee left ou
GROENING: There were just too
many people in my family. They
lost the drawing.
PLAYBOY: How tall is your
mother's hair?
GROENING: In the 1960s it was
very tall. She denies it, but I
have photo:
PLAYBOY: Was it ever blue?
GROENING: It was not blue.
That's another tribute to
Gyorgyi Peluce.
PLAYBOY: Given Homer's nota-
ble lack of motivation, love of
doughnuts and beer, and slim
intelligence, why would you
name your own son Homer?
GROENING: Homer the cartoon
character and Homer my son
were born around the same
time. I named my son Homer in
part trying to prove to my dad
that I had the best intentions. I
sn’ just trying to get back at

the 400th episode and the 20th
anniversary of The Simpsons’ debut on The
Tracey Ullman Show in 1987, we thought
we should do the movie now.
PLaYBoY: How was making the movie dif-
ferent from making a TV episode?
GROENING: Jim Brooks and the Simpsons
All-Stars, as we sometimes call ourselves,
{got together and wrote the movie siting in
a room that’s too small. We've been bang-
ing chairs against each other's fingers for
the past two and a half years. A single epi-
sode of The Simpsons has enough incidents
to sustain a conventional live-action movie.
Taking an episode and keeping the same
velocity for 90 minutes would probably
wear people out, so we're playing around
with the pacing. No, we're not padding it

58 witha lot of songs. We tried. And to answer

PLAYBOY: Why do they have yellow skin?
GROENING: Originally they were black-
and-white outlines. For TV they needed
color. I thought the conventional weird
pink that passes for Caucasian in ani
mated cartoons would look repulsive.
It always bothered me that Walt Disney
made Mickey Mouse a Caucasian mouse.
It’s freakish. So when it came time to give
them skin color, the animation colorist,
Gyorgyi Peluce, chose yellow skin. She
has never gotten proper credit.

pLarsoY: What inspired the strange
Simpson hair
GROENING: It's just the way I drew them.

1 know it’s a very odd look. I always
thought what was memorable in cartoons
was characters you could identify in sil-

him for some perceived slight.
Also I love the name Homer. When I
was wheeling him around in a stroller
when he was very small, though, people
would ask my baby’s name, and I'd say,
“Homer.” They'd burst into laughter,
thinking I was joking. They'd get horri-
fied looks on their faces when they real-
ized I wasn't kidding.

PLAYBOY: Was your father much like his
cartoon namesake’

GROENING: Not at all. My dad had hair

and a chin,
PLAYBOY: Are their personalities similar?
GROENING: One of the great things about
the character Homer, unlike my real father,
is that he is ruled by impulse. We are self-
effacing and guilt-ridden and try to do the
right thing and fail, Homer, though, doesn't

bother: He wants whatever he wants at the
‘moment, with all his heart. My dad was
nothing like the character. He was accom-
plished and brilliant. He worked as a film-
maker, cartoonist and writer and was an
amazing artist. He had an astonishing lie.
puaraor. Did he end up looking at hisname-
sake asa tribute, or was he appalled?
GROENING: He loved The Simpsons, The
only thing that offended him was the
time the Simpsons’ car broke down in
the desert, and Homer made Marge
carry the deflated tire back 10 town while
he waited behind. My dad said Homer
shouldn't have done that. He was very
perturbed by it. I said, “But he strangles
his kids! You aren't bothered by that?
PLAYBOY: When The Simpsons became pop-
ular, was it unsettling for your family to
share the characters’ names?

GROENING: Strange things

happened, Someone
returned a Bart Simp-
son doll to my family.
They thought it was
Jost because my name
was printed very
large on Bart's ass,
PLavBO How much
of you is in Bart?
GROENING: Bart is a
combination of myself and
my older brother, Mark.
Playaor: But no one
would describe you as
an underachiever.
GROENING: Yes, Tm a litle
more motivated than Bart
is. Maybe a little smarter.
In fact, E worry about Bart. I
think he's headed for juvenile
delinquency. Bart as a teenager
will probably be pretty sad, drug
abuse and all

PLAYBOY. What traits do you and
Homer share?

GROENING: A love of beer, ice
cream and doughnuts.

PLAYBOY, Krispy Kreme or
Dunkin’?

GROENING: We did an ad
campaign for Winchell's,
actually. 1 wrote the slogan.
Homer holds up a doughnut
and says, “Doughnuts made me what
1 am today.” They used it, and I was

just thrilled,
PLAYBOY: Were you ever concerned about
exploiting the Simpsons?

GROENING: Concerned that I didn't
exploit them in every way possible? We
have turned a few things down, believe it
or not. I know it's hard to tell. We turned
down Simpsons slot machines in Vegas
because we thought, You know, you have
to draw the line somewhere. I had a rule
that none of my Life in Hell characters
would ever endorse anything—except
Akbar and Jeff, who would endorse any-
thing, A beer company made plans to
have an Akbar-and-Jeff party train that
would go down to Florida. If you were

seen with an Akbar-and-Jefftattoo, you'd
be invited to party on a yacht. But then
the beer company read in Relling Stone
that Akbar and Jeff are gay midgets and
said, “The deal is off
PLAYBOY: Has anyone ever approached
you to sell Duff, Homer's favorite
brand of beer?
GROENING: A company in Austral
started putting it out, and Fox swiftly
took action to shut it down.
PLAYBOY: Are you pleased that so many
lines from the show have become part of
the popular lexicor
GROENING: Sometimes it's good, and
sometimes it’s annoying. I love it
when I'm in a store and
somebody drops his
keys and says, “D'oh!”

‘Matt and his ladies (as seen by the artist himself.

But I was once pulled over by security at
the airport and given the full inspection.
‘They tore through everything, and a litle
Kid went by, pointed and went, “Ha-ha,”
like Nelson. It was annoying as hell.
PLAYBOY: What's the genesis of Hom-
er's d'oh

GROENING: It was written in the script as
“annoyed grunt.” Dan Castellaneta, who
does Homer's voice, did a version of the
sound that the character actor James
Finlayson did in old Laurel and Hardy
movies. He'd squint with one eye and say
it with a long, drawn-out high-pitched
noise. Dan shortened it

PLAYBOY: What's the origin of Bart's
“Eat my shorts"?

GROENING: It came from the sixth grade.

I's what kids used to say. “Don't have
a cow, Homer” came from my younger
sisters, Lisa and Maggie. They used to
say “Don't have a cow, Homer” to my
dad. They called my dad Homer, which
1 never dared. For me the idea of kids
calling their dad by his first name is like
Kissing the pope.
PLAYBOY: Do your children call you Matt?
GROENING: Pops—when I'm lucky. One
told me he doesn't want me to be his dad
anymore. He wants Family Guy creator
Seth MacFarlane.
PLAYBOY: Have you been surprised by the
guest stars you've managed to wrangle
for The Simpsons?
GROENING: It's an astonishing lit. I can
barely believe the people we've had on the
show—Bob Hope, Kirk Douglas, Eliza-
beth Taylor, George Harrison,
Ringo Starr, Paul MeCart-
ney, Mick Jagger,
Keith Richards, the
Ramones. Hugh Hef-
ner had the Bunnies
working as research
scientists in the base-
‘ment of the Mansion,
Elizabeth Taylor was on
twice. Once she played
herself; the other time she
played the voice of Mag
gie saying “Dadi
her first word, We did
24 takes, but they were
always too sexual. Finally
Liz said, “Fuck you,” and
walked out.
PLAYBOY: Do you go to the
recording sessions when
Celebrities are on the show?
GROENING: When I can. 1
was there for Mick Jagge
but I missed Keith Rich-
ards. My favorite line
from that episode was
Mick, as the guy run-
ning a rock-and-roll
fantasy summer
camp, looking
over the expenses
late at night, saying,
“We've got to find a
cheaper oatmeal.” I
also showed up for my all-time-favorite
guest star, the author Thomas Pynchon.
T wanted to meet him so I could lord it
over my snotty intellectual friend:
pLaYsoY: Conan O'Brien, who was a
writer for The Simpsons before he got his
‘own show, has been back
GROENING: Having him come back after
escaping from the writers’ room and getting
his own TV show wasa high-water mark.
PLAYBOY: Who has declined an invitation?
GROENING: We were once told Prince
wanted to do the show, so we wrote him
a script. It didn’t work out, because his
chauffeur had written a script too, and
Prince wanted to use that one. Also, we
were told the investors in Planet
wood—Arnold Schwarzenegger, Bruce

ran and O 2907 eh Chery Fr il Corporation. A gta ere

El

Sylvester Stallone, whoever—were
willing to do the show if we mentioned the
restaurant. We wrote a script for them,
but it turned out that some publicist made
the thing up. We got our vengeance: We
slammed Planet Hollywood on the show.
PLAYBOY: Are there any sacred cows
when it comes to subjects you wouldn't
tackle on The Simpsons? You regularly
make fun of religion.
GROENING: One of my favorite jokes is
Homer seeking refuge in a church from
a mob and the Reverend Lovejoy saying,
"Well, maybe you should go become a mis-
sionary in the South Pacific.” Homer says,
“I'm not religious. I never paid attention
in church.” The mob is chasing him, and
Homer runsaway, yelling, “Save me, Jebus!”
He can't remember the guy's name. We also
dida parody of a commercial about the new
Catholic Church that was shot like a beer
commercial. [in an announcers voice] “The
new Catholic Church. We've changed.”
Fox asked us to change it to Presbyterian
because they would be less likely to come
after us with pitchforks.
PLAYBOY: Has anyone ever come after you
pitchforks?
GROENING: Often.
PLAYBOY: Homer has said, “A woman is
like a beer.” What else about women can
we learn from him?
GROENING: A lot of men have thanked
me for a Chief Wiggum line. He gives
Marge a ticket, and as she drives away he
says wistfully, “Why are all the beautiful
ones crazy?”
PLAYBOY: How would you characterize
Homer and Marge's sex life?
GROENING: We didn't do the standard
sitcom device of the wife not wanting
to sleep with the husband. Marge is
attracted to Homer. They have a healthy,
if goofy, sex life. They giggle a lot. In my
experience there is not quite as much las-
civious laughter in bed.
PLarnor: Has Homer ever cheated on her?
GROENING: He and Ned Flanders went to
Las Vegas and got drunk and woke up in
a hot tub, married. I wanted Homer and
Flanders to be naked in the hot tub, but
we ended up being cautious. They woke
up married to Vegas floozies and fled.
‘There were no consequences whatsoever.
We did later refer to Homer's “Vegas
wife,” and last season we had a funeral
for her. Marge was mad, but she went.
LaYBOr: Did Homer confess?
GROENING: I can't remember. Here's the
weird thing about having done 400 epi-
sodes: I have only a certain amount of space
in my brain for Simpsons knowledge.
PLAYBOY: Does it astound you that other
people know more about The Simpsons
than you do?
GROENING: Many fans do. There are
a bunch of websites. One is Nohomers
‚net, which has the most vocal fans. They
often act like spurned lovers if they don't
like something. They notice everything.
With The Si you are rewarded for
60 paying attention. If you don't pay atten-

PLAYBOY

tion, fine, the show will roll by you. But
if you do pay close attention, there are all
sorts of secret little details.

PLAYBOY: Do you take credit for shows
that followed: Family Guy, South Park and
even SpongeBob?

GROENING: After The Simpsons came a
bunch of creator-driven animated proj-
ects that don’t look like anything else on
TV, though they have their own style and
pacing and rules.

PLAYBOY: What's your favorite?
GROENING: South Park at its best is some
of the most astonishing TV ever made. I
love the episode about Mel Gibson. The
‘South Park kids go to see The Passion of the
Christ and feel ripped off, so they jour-
ney to Malibu to meet Gibson to get their
money back. It was almost anticipatory.
Mel Gibson is depicted as this underpants-
wearing lunatic doing cartwheels.
PLAYBOY: It has been reported that you
and your colleagues at The Simpsons
loathe Family Guy. Is it true?

GROENING: There's a sense of healthy
competition between the various staffs
of the cartoon shows. But as far as I'm
concerned, the more cartoons on TV the

We didn't do the standard
sitcom device of the wife not
wanting to sleep with the
husband. Marge is attracted
to Homer. They have a

healthy, if goofy, sex life.

better. Im glad to see them out there,
PLAYBOY: In an episode called “Cartoon
Wars.” South Park attacked Family Guy.
One bit had the show’s cultural refer-
ences picked at random by a manatee.
GROENING: I'm glad South Park went
after someone other than us. They can
be vicious.

PLAYBOY: When he was asked about it,
South Park co-creator Matt Stone said,
“It’s not like we're Biggie and Tupac.
GROENING: Yeah. Thank God cartoon-
ists are wimps. If you make a cartoon-
ist angry, you're going to wind up in a
cartoon. There are usually no drive-
by shootings,

PLAYBOY: Do you find it ironic that Fox
owner Rupert Murdoch, known for his
conservative politics, has broadcast one
of the most liberal shows on TV for
almost two decades?

GROENING: When I met him, he said he
liked the show. He seemed sincere. Yes,
there were little dollar signs in his eyes,
but he does seem to be a fan. He's been
on, He introduced himself as “the evil
billionaire tyrant Rupert Murdoch.”
PLAYBOY: Isit unsettling or just ironic to be

part of the same company as Fox News?
GROENING: Fox News gives me a head-
ache and not even so much for its politi-
cal content but the spinning logos and
American flags and music designed to
scare you shitless, Who needs it? We make
fun of Fox News on the show. The most
fun we had was putting a news crawl like
theirs across the bottom of the screen, It
said things like “Rupert Murdoch: terrific
dancer,” “Brad Pitt plus Albert Einstein
‘equals Dick Cheney,” “Study: 92 percent
of Democrats are gay.” “The Bible says
Jesus favored capital gains cut.”
PLAYBOY: What was the reaction at the
networ

GROENING: We were forbidden ever to do
itagain. Fox said it would confuse viewers,
1 don't see how you would think it's real
news on a cartoon show, but we'll sec.

PLAYBOY: When you spread a liberal mes-
sage by way of Fox, do you feel subversive?

piss off a left-wing lunatic. In fact every-
body on the show is concerned about not
being preachy or heavy-handed. We try to
mix it up. Sometimes we go for satire and
take a point of view we don’t agree with,
In one of our classic shows Mange suc-
cessfully gets the violent version of Jichy
& Scratchy banned from television. As a
result, children actually go out and play in
the sunshine and have a good time. We're
saying the direct result of heavy-handed
‘censorship is this pleasant outcome, whi
is obviously something we were being
‘completely sarcastic about.
PLAYBOY: The Simpsons seems to take spe-
cial delight in skewering Republicans.
GROENING: Ever since 1 was a kid the
Republican politicians have seemed like
villainous buffoons. Since Richard Nixon.
He was such a cardboard villain, All these
guys since seem to be more of the same.
T have this obsession with Nixon. On The
Simpsons, Milhouse is named afier him.
On Futurama, we made Nixon's head in
the jar president of Earth. George W.
Bush seems to me equally cartoony, and
we've only barely begun to take him on.
More to come. But the Simpsons staffers
don't agree with one another politically.
Tm at one end of the spectrum with a few
‘other people on the left, but we've got
some rabid Republicans, too. At this stage,
though, there are no pro-war people on
staff that I can think of. Anybody who was
a supporter of Bush has abandoned him
at this point. They're too embarrassed.
PuavBo¥: You mentioned Futurama. Why
does your sexy leading female character
have only one eye’
GROENING: I didn't want to animate
women who looked as if they were being
drawn by horny animators. I wanted to
go for something alittle more subtle. The
standard depiction of a sexy woman in
science fiction is tank top, buxom, two
eyes. So I thought, Okay, one eye. Can
we make one eyeball sexy? I think we did,
(continued on page 145)

KEVIN MITNICK IS THE MOST NOTORIOUS HACKER IN THE
WORLD. SOME SAY HE IS ALSO THE MOST DANGEROUS. HERE,
FOR THE FIRST TIME, IS THE INSIDE STORY OF HOW HE
STAYED A STEP AHEAD OF THE FBI UNTIL FINALLY, INEXPLICA-
BLY, HE MADE A SIMPLE MISTAKE THAT BROUGHT HIM DOWN

THE INVISIBLE
DIGITAL MAN

BY JONATHAN LITTMAN

T fe master of ceremonies takes the microphone inthe tel sus by advising evecutives on howto protect thelr
tastefully appointed ballroom to announce a speci he canant generation Of iaganjous but reckless
guest. "1m pleased to tellyou that we have Kevin nick geeks. atan and sel ‘taught, Mitnick possesses a deep, intul-

ji us today” the MC tas the echsve sence of 150, Se knowledge of the backbones of communication and commer,

jin is a legendary hacker gone straight” everything from phone sches cell networks and computer
Knick: a chunky man with nick matted Bale and iaiia rr yete een ws AAE wh ben nase
dat suit, jubilantly lifts his arms overhead to cheers and laugh- in the mid-1990s, and | wrote a book about his case, The Fugitive

ar. “He's managing his own security company” continues the Come: Online With Kevin Mitnick: Now that the inal terms of his
announcer. “You may have seen him on 60 Minutes. He's got a probation have ended, Mitnick has decided to speak to puavooy and
great career gong now that he's gone straight Were al happy for the ft time [eve most dramatic part of his tale: his fe
about that! So please welcome Kevin Mitnick!” on the run from the Fi
The applauding guests are executives and top managers of a
major hh crio) frm Outside the windows are tha velvety Kevin Mitnick loves to for. He takes the podium at the gol
practice putting green and posh clubhouse of one of the world's resort and gleefully proceeds to the crowd's electronic
most exclusive seaside golf resorts, The past couple of days the vulnerabiity He! pelan ran up raps outa engu
ts have been th go fine dining, deke accommo- yrs is at laptop and I 20 seconds flashes her Socal
oe eee O lp erties
buy. But the attendees won't be teeing pth ara hatve so mach un, Mitnick many ass whore der cese tb
Kevin Mitnickis not typical corporate-lecture fare. He spent nearly audience would lke to see. He passes on George W. Bush and instead
years in a federal penitentiary for his computer crimes and led flashes his hands over the keys to broadcast the first president Bush's
the FBI on a wild two-year cross-country chase. Today he eams in = Texas license to the group. After that he requests another guinea pig.

PHOTOGRAPHY BY JAMES IMBROGNO

From top: Kevin Mitnick is led Inte court in
North Carolina following his 1995 arrest. During

histwoyears onthe run, Mitnick stole the ide
tity of Eric Welss (chosen because his name
sembles the given name of Mitnick’s idol
Harry Houdini) and found work at a Denver iam
m. A faxed copy of a driver's license Mitnick
talned for Eric Heinz, the alias of an FBI
Informer who tried to entrap him. Supporters in
1999 protested that Mitnick had been held for
nearly five years without trial. Security special
ist Tsutomu Shimomura (bottom right) tracked
the fugitive hacker to Ralelgh. Today Mitnick
(bottom left) is a highly paid consultant.

With trepidation, a man hands Mitnick his personal cell phone. In less than a minute,
after pressing some keys on his laptop and the phone, he magically makes the man's
calis appear to come from the White House.

While Mitnick dials a number on a ballroom phone, he issues a disclaimer: This is
just a demonstration, the ex-convict insists. He has cloned Citibank’s telebanking
system to show how easily a customer could be fooled into handing over enough
information to empty his or her bank account, “Welcome to Citibank automated ser-
vice” oozes a woman's silky voice. “Ifyou have a debit-card number, press one

Mitnick jauntily presses one and jokes, “Anybody have a debit-card number they
want to share?” Nervous laughter rocks the room.

For his next trick Mitnick hands a tall blonde a pinkie-size USB storage device to
plug into her laptop. He warns that any unknown storage device-a gift or some-

thing found in a parking lot-could be a hacker's ploy.

On the giant presentation screen, the woman's laptop
directory appears. “You don't mind me looking through your
hard drive, do you?” Mitnick chuckles, getting laughs.

‘She's nearly shaking. "You can stop now; she says.

Mitnick wrapsit up. and Frank Abagnale, the legendary reformed
master imposter and con artist (played by Leonardo DiCaprio in
(Catch Me If You Can). takes the microphone and gives another of

his highly sought-after performances. Mitnick sits with me in the
back. enjoying the show. When Abagnale finishes his performance,
Mitnick stops to say hello-one artist to another-and hands him
2 thin metal business card, bearing his name, with pieces that
| appear to break away. He asks Abagnale if he recognizes it.
| -Abagnale grins and says, "Yeah, it's alock-pick set.”

=| on july a. 1998 Fhe New York Times put Miniks story on
the front page and branded him "eyberspace's most wanted”
‘The Justice Department and some of the world's largest com-
puter and cell phone companies considered Mitnick an electronic terrorist, “Here was
somebody running amok through the Internet, exposing all the vulnerabilities from social
engineering to technical intrusions” says David Schindler, the former federal prosecutor
‘who oversaw the effort to catch Mitnick. ‘When you talk about this veritable tornado of
fraud, the scope of what he was doing, the brazen nature of it, the broader implications,
there was the sense that he was the wake-up call”

Mark Rasch, another former prosecutor, says Mitnick became a bogeyman. "If we were
going to run nuclear power plants and do our billing and insurance online, we needed to
feel it was safe, and Kevin shattered our ilusion” says Rasch, "Not just Kevin Mitnick
but all the Kevin Mitnicks out there”

Beyond the prosecutors. it's difficult to convince people who had intimate dealings with
Mitnick to discuss the damage he inflicted, Motorola, Nokia, Sun and virtually every other
victim refused to comment fr this story. An FBI spokeswoman said the lead agent on the
case didn't see “the benefit to the Bureau” of discussing Mitnick. Who can blame them? Mit-
nick cleverly acquired the cell phone numbers of the FBI white-collar crime squad tasked with
‘capturing him and tracked their movements and theircallstoother agencies. That brazenness
is not something the FBI appreciates. Suspects don't generally investigate the Bureau.

But today the hacker appears to have left his colorful criminal past behind. Having
done his time, Mitnick found his skills and notoriety could fuel a lucrative second act. His
passport bears the stamps of 34 countries, and in the past few months he has lectured
and hacked legally in Moscow, Bogota, Barcelona and Johannesburg. Mitnick makes a nice
living advising U.S. agencies (including the Social Security Administration and NASA) and
corporations around the world on how to shore up their digital defenses.

‘Mitnick was a popular guy in prison. A Colombian drug kingpin offered him millions
to electronically alter his records for an early release. Ed Bradley visited him in jail for
the first of two 69 Minutes interviews. Once out of prison, Mitnick was invited to testify
before Congress and then in 2004 did the unthinkable for a devout antiauthoritarian: He
helped police identify a student making bomb threats to his high school. Though the FBI
plastered a promotional plug from Mitnick on the cover ofits most recent computer-crime
survey, some critics refuse to believe he has gone straight. “He doesn't acknowledge the
malicious nature of his crimes” says Ira Winker, an Internet security expert who formerly
worked for the National Security Agency. “He has a Jekyll-and-Hyde personality”

‘The irony of the Mitnick saga may be that his extraordinary skills made him a target. In
Pushing back against the FBI and a mysterious Japanese security expert, Mitnick leamed
100 much about how the government and those who do its bidding track outlaws. The
trouble that led to his two years as a fugitive began in 1981, The 28-year-old Mitnick was
trying to go straight. counting the days until the end of his probation stemming from a
1988 conviction for swiping code from Digital Equipment Corporation.

‘One day, out of the blue, he received a call from Eric Heinz, (continued on page 133)

SARA JEAN

IS

AYMATE

OF THE

YEA
2007

THIS GOLDEN GIRL WAS YOUR OVERWHELMING CHOICE

t was springtime
of 2005. Our crew
of photographers

Was motoring across

the West in search of

beautiful women to
appear in a Girls of the

Pac 10 pictorial, They

Visited Arizona State,

USC and other cam-

puses renowned for

thelr student bodies.

Among the hundreds

Sara Jean Underwood, an
‘Oregon native, is a nature
lover from birth, and she's
all for treading lightly
on this earth. "IFI drove
a Hummer I'd be such a
hypocrite,” she says. We
figured

chilied Mini Cooper $
convertible would suit
her, not to mention the
$100,000 prize that
‘comes with Playmate of
the Year honors.

PHOTOGRAPHY BY ARNY FREYTAG

$
j
‘
j

of hopefuls who tumed up at our test
shoots at Oregon State University was
a young blonde named Sara Jean
Underwood. Possessed of a curious
blend of confidence and wholesome
girl-next-door appeal, she immedi-
ately caught our attention. The more
we looked, the more beautiful she
became, yet this flaxen-haired lovely
was so unassuming about her appear-
ance that she was surprised when we
found ourselves fumbling around her.

Not only did Sara appear in that pic-
torial, she was featured on the cover as
well. Ten million readers saw through
the body-painted Beavers jersey she
was sporting and soon clamored for
more. Less than a year later, Hef chose
Sara to become Miss July 2006. And
now here she is agaín—a litte older
(she’s 23) and even more stunning—as
PuarsoY's 48th Playmate of the Year.

Raised in a tiny town in Oregon,
Sara currently lives in Los Angeles, a
stone's throw from the Mansion, in the
Playmate House. Her housemates are
fellow 2006 Playmates Alison Waite
(May) and Janine Habeck (Septem-
ber). “We're attached at the hip,” Sara
says. “Their support for me is genuine.”
Sara has put her education on hold, but
she's keeping her priorities in order. "I
have four classes left,” she says. “To
go to school for four years and not fin-
ish would be insanity. It's too important
to me. But this is a once-in-a-ifetime
opportunity, and | don't want to stretch
myself thin trying to do too many
things. | work my butt off for Playboy,
doing promotions, signings and meet-
and-greets. Whatever Playboy needs of
me, | plan to be there 100 percent.”

Sara is at heart a country girl, and
for this pictorial we saw fit to shoot
her outdoors beneath a big sky, where
she is most comfortable. One look at
any of these shots and you quickly
sense her inward beauty—that curi-
‘ous blend of contidence, sexuality
and wholesomeness that struck us
the first time we met her. “I'm not an
actress,” Sara says, smiling, “and |
don't pretend to be. I'm fine with just
being myselt. It comes easy.”

Life at the Playmate House with
Alison and Janine is wonderful, Sara
says, but there is one thing lacking in
her life. Get ready for a shock: “We
have the hardest time meeting guys,”
she confesses. “Men don't approach
us, so we go out and end up dancing
by ourselves. I'm a regular girl, and
1 want to meet a regular guy, some-
body sweet, family oriented, intelli-
gent and genuine. Is that too much to
ask?” Given all the PMOY votes Sara
received from our readers, there is no
doubt she is and will forever be a cov-
eted creature, We predict her dancing-
alone days will soon be over.

‘Your votes h io the 2007 Playmate of the Year. “It blows me away that people would
Sete ei dy to vota forma she says, flashing that adorable smile of hers. “Readers wanted me to win for
r reason,

hers.
‘touching. | will never forget why | am here and how I got this title.”

WAV 1d ANG

‘at cyberplayboy.com.

Y e al wk
so lg so en cigna Para pc

75

tis said Dostoyevsky wrote

for money to sponsor his

lust for the roulette tables

of St. Petersburg. Faulkner
and Fitzgerald too leased their
gifts to ex-schmatte moguls
Who stacked the Garden of
Allah with scriveners brought
west to spitball box-office rev
eries. Apocryphal or not, the
mollifying lore of geniuses who
temporarily mortgaged their
integrity gamboled around
my cortex some months ago

when the phone rang as I was
adrift in my apartment, trying
to tickle from my muse a wor.
thy theme for that big book I
must one day write.

Mealworm?” the voice on the
other end barked through lips
dearly enveloping a panatela

“Yes, this is Flanders Meal
worm. Who's calling

“E. Coli Biggs. Name mean
anything to you:

“Er, can't say it actually

“No matter. I'm a film pro-
ducer—and a big one. Chri
don't you read Variety? 1 got
the number one grosser in
Guinea-Bissau.

The truth is I'm more con
versant with the literary land-

scape,” I confessed.
Yeah, I know. I read The
Heckflesch Chronicles. That's on
account of why I want we have
a sit-down, Be at the Carlyle
hotel 3:30 today. Royal Suite
(continued on page 140)

PHOTOGRAPHY
BY GUIDO ARGENTINI

1. SIDLING UP TO THE MATTER AT HAND
The problem, for starters, even before we get to the fact
that jes difficult—impossible, even—for any single manifes-
tation of this indubitably male organ to live up to its reputa-
tion, is how to deal with the word itself so that we're not
all blushing or smirking. Penis. If you say it quickly, pass
your eye over it glancingly as though it were not a Rubi-
rosa of a word, you have accomplished nothing other than
a grown-up game of peckaboo: I don’t see you, big feller,
bulging over there in the middle of the sentence. If, on the
other hand, you give the thing its due and enunciate it fully,
pee-nus, draw it out, acknowledge that it is an awkward
quasi-scientific coinage, pretending to be at ease with itself
under the enormous metaphoric burden it carries—bearing
the weight of the phallocentric world between its leg-—you
are left having to deal with the (often incredulous) attention.
you have drawn by insisting that everything, but everything,
is a stand-in for the phallic principle: cars, buildings, pen-
cils, tails, fruit, literary images, even certain flowers like the
anthurium. Take Dylan Thomas' “The Force That Through
the Green Fuse Drives the Flower”: It can be read as a poem

about the life-giving power of a divine force, or in my view,
ix can be read as a poem about the life-giving force of pe-
nises, the surging motile energy of the male orgasm.

But here I am, getting stuck in an apología pro vita erot-
ica mea before I have even begun to observe that there are
penises so memorable you never get over them—J.C.'s for
instance, a perfect edition worthy of my rapt contempla-
tion, or so it seemed to me when I lay next to him on his
1970s-style platform bed on an unmemorable Manhattan
side street years ago. And others you would like to recall
(the one belonging to your first lover, the one who cracked
your geode, as the man with the red socks put it) that seem
to have eluded your visual grasp through no fault of their
own. How to talk about your personal history with penises
without sounding Mae West-sassy (the old “Is that a gun
in your pocket or are you just glad to sce me?” routine). Or
all fluttery and awed, like a hitherto untouched heroine in
a bodice ripper—or perhaps like the touched but hitherto
unorgasmic heroine of D-H. Lawrence's Lady Chatterleys
Lover—by the supernal Otherness of the thing? “Now I
know why men are so overbearing,” Constance Chatterley

says of her gamekeeper, Mellors, or,
more specifically, of Mellors's penis,
which he refers to as his John Thomas,

though it were indeed a third person
in the room, observing the action: “Bue
he's lovely, reall. Like another being! A
bit terrifying! But lovely, really!”

There are countless designations for
penis, of course, just as there are many
terms for its equally klutzy-sounding
female counterpart, the graceless ragina.
(Given a choice, Pd pick cunt over pussy,
notwithstanding John Updike's observa-
tion by way of his vagina-f anti
hero Rabbit Angstrom that “cunt would
be a good flavor of ice cream.”) These
designationsinchudeallthoseone-yllable
terms that sound like blunt, wham-bam-
thank-you-ma’am objects, such as dick,
prick, cock and dong (I've never trusted
the erotic sensibility of women who use
the word cock as opposed to dick and
prick, which sound less grandstanding),
as well as the half amused, half abashed
Yiddish approximations like schmuck
and putz. “Putz is worse than schmuck,”
Maggie Paley declares in The Book of
the Penis, a veritable font of information

in the presence of this subject. Despite
their apparent demystification, penises
themselves retain an odd aura of
tunspeakableness. For all the huge strides
we appear to have taken in our discus-
sion of sex—mainly by making it into a
discussion about body and gender—the
discourse doesn't seem to have advanced
much since Lytton Strachey first dropped
the word semen into one of those
Bloomsbury discussions he and his
friends, including Virginia Woolf (then
Stephen) and her sister Vanessa, used to
have in one another's houses on London.
evenings in the early 20th century. Which
is why trying to talk about penises still
feels, even after Erica Jong's ziples fuck,

Monica Lewinsky and Sex and the City,
like smashing through glass, as though
‘one were daring to touch a precious and.
lovingly curated object behind its protec-
tive pane with the audacity of mere lan-
guage. To talk about penises as a woman
{sto tum yourself into an outlaw and the
conversation into smut even before we've
gotten to the age-old question of whether
size matters. (Once and for all: Of course
ir does, although in less significant and

manage to move the conversation more
radically forward than most. There may
be something laughable about the way
Mellors and Lady Constance talk about
his John Thomas in Lady Chatterley'
Lover, but there is also something both
daring and poignant about Lawrence's
attempt to win over his strailaced and
corseted readers to his rhapsodic spin
on the liberating effect of erotic naked-
ness. His late phase, which includes Lady
‘Chatterley’s Lover and the short novel
The Man Who Died (first published, by
the bye, as The Escaped Cock) shows
him having taken a decisive step beyond
what speculum-gazing Kate Millett and
others have decried as his worship of the
phallus into a more psychologically ex-
pansive view of carnal matters.
Lawrence may have been singular
among his contemporaries for naming
‘women’s body parts and for attempting,
to depict female orgasm, decades before
Norman Mailer and Harold Brodkey
got around to trying their hand ar it, But
discussion of men's body parts by male
writers had been in evidence centuries
before Lawrence came along, even if it

TO TALK ABOUT PENISES IS TO TURN YOURSELF INTO AN OUTLAW

AND THE CONVERSATION INTO SMUT EVEN BEFORE WE VE GOT-
TEN TO THE AGE-OLD QUESTION OF WHETHER SIZE MATTERS.

‘on points of lesser and greater interest,
including the etymology of penis, which
is Latin for “tail” and a relatively late
entry into the vernacular. (She adds that
the two terms “are now used almost en-
tirely to mean jerk.”) Not to overlook
Humbert Humbert’s fancy description
of his throbbing pecker: the “scepter of
my passion,” which he allows his first
love, Annabel, to hold “in her awkward
fist.” Tve always warmed to johnson
myself, and the ironic—or what I take
to be ironic—majesty of rod speaks to
the 18th century serving girl in me. And
yet there is something about the word
penis in all its obdurate two-syllabled
‘out-thereness (I'll take one penis, if you
please) that seems to rise above itself, if
only because the stiffly protruding qual-
ity of the first syllable (pee) followed by
the curled-up flaceidity of the second
(nus) seems to mimic the dynamic of
charge and retreat embodied in the piece
‘of male anatomy being alluded to.

To be sure, this extended patch of
throat clearing—or if you will, this high-
minded introductory musing on the stric-
tures of our erotic lexicon—is nothing
but a symptom of the larger predicament
of inarticulateness that I, an ordinarily
voluble creature, find myself facing when.

subtler ways than men may think.) For in-
stance, Ernest Hemingway's infamously.
strutting account in A Moveable Feast of
being called upon to reassure F. Scott
Fitzgerald that his equipment was ade-
quate despite Zelda’s ballbusting insinu-
ations—the anecdote comes from a
chapter with the insufferably coy title of
“A Matter of Measurements”—seems
bogus on many accounts, not least of
which is the suggestion that anxieties
about the male signifier to end all signi-
fiers can be put to rest in quite so con-
crete a fashion. But the topic makes for
casy send-up, as in the brand of con-
doms that offers a variety of prophylac-
tics (the Nightcap, the Weekender and
the Extended Seay), all in boxes with the
word huge printed on them.

Penises, that is, deserve to be wor-
shipped or envied—or if need be, en-
couraged—bur they don't deserve to be
nattered on about. This is still sacred
male territory, and women enter it at
their own literary peril. The potholes are
everywhere you look, waiting to trip you
up into porn or parody, or perhaps the
high-gueter baby talk of D.H. Lawrence.
Which is nor to suggest that Lawrence
didn't, despite what is clearly a complicat-
edly ambivalent attitude toward women,

was coded or euphemistic. It was, rather,
the existence of female writers who al-
luded to women’s body parts that was
noticeably absent. So Virginia Woolf
could observe in a speech she gave to an
audience of 200 women in January 1931
(almost a year after Lawrence's death)
thar it would take another 50 years
before “men have become so civilized
thar they are not shocked when a wom:
an speaks the truth about her body.
‘Whether or not we have arrived at thi
juncture depends, I suppose, upon your
sense of how shockable we remain under
‘our contemporary posture of jadedness,
but please do note that Woolf's specu-
lation makes no mention of a woman
speaking the truth about bis body. It is
as though this was a possibility not even
to be hinted at except on a different
planet than the one men and women are
destined to live on together. Which puts
us right back where I began, unwilling to
consign myself to the outpost of raunch
yet unsure whether a seat will be found
for me inside the clean, well-lit rooms of
polite company.

Il. THE MATTER AT HAND
Jr is to be asserted, then, that very few
women talk (continued on page 124)

Zoom

22

so YEARS op
THE HARLEY SPORTSTE

Crui:

19 through half a century of pop culture, land-speed records

and death-defying stunts on two wheels

(=3 =
N.

‘The original Sportster, 1957.

outlast their 15 minutes of fame are few and far between. The Fender Telecaster. The Louisville Slugger. rıavnov.

I n the clutter and kitsch of American culture, not many ideas survive the test of time. Consumer products that

Now you can add another to the list: the Harley-Davidson Sportster. Celebrating its 50th birthday this spring, the
Sportster has had one of the longest production runs of any motorcycle in history. You can trace its evolution through
company catalogs and patent numbers, but a myth is more than the mechanical details. The Sportster has had a lasting

impact on pop culture;

is a lens through which we can view 50 years of American history. Somewhere along this time

line you became aware of motorcycles and specifically the Sportster. Shall we go for a ride?

+1957: Wil-
liam S. Har-
ley and three
brothers, Ar-
thur, Walter
and William
Davidson,
made a name
for them-
selves build-
ing big bikes
with V-twin
engines. They
founded their
company in Milwaukee in 1903, and
by the 1950s their machines had
welded together the terms motorcycle
and rebel (see the shot of Elvis,
above). In 1957 the company unveils
a new bike—the XL Sportster—with
an all-new Harley engine (the first

in the late 1950s.

By JAMES R. PETERSEN

883 cc overhead valve) and a new
four-speed transmission. Its 40
horsepower is enough to hurtle the
bike down the road at 92 miles an
hour. Cost: $1,103. Unlike other
Harleys, it has the chain on the right
side rather than the left. The com-
pany produces 1,983 units the first
year and sends another 418 (desig-
nated XLA) to the U.S. Army.
+4958: Harley-Davidson unleashes
the XLCH (for “competition
hot"). The new model features a
smaller, 2.5-gallon “peanut tank”
to reduce weight for competition.
With the so-called eyebrow head-
light and dual staggered exhaust,
it defines the look of the Sportster.
+4962: In its first major magazine test
(Cirle World), the 50-horsepower Sport
ster reaches a top speed of 122 mph.

+1965: Hunter S. Thompson turns
an article assignment for Harper's
magazine into his first book, Hells An-
gels; A Strange
and Terrible

Thompson's
soft tail, The
Neo York Times,
Newsweek,
Time, The No-
tion, True, Es-
quire and The
Saturday Eve-
ning Post haul
the Angels
onto the me-
dia stage, along with their Harleys. In
turn, 27-year-old Hells Angel Sonny
Barger sends a telegram to President
Lyndon Johnson, offering to volunteer

‘Sonny Barger on his
Sportster in 1965.

See _

“a group of loyal Americans for
behind-the-lines duty in Vietnam. We
feel that a crack group of trained
guerrillas could demoralize the Viet
Cong and advance the cause of
freedom. We are available for
training and duty immediately.”
‘The photo of Barger atop a Har-
ley Sportster (opposite page) is
now available as a fine-art print
from hdart.com for $350.
+1969: St. Louis-horn racer
Leo Payne pilots his signifi-
cantly tweaked Sportster, the
Turnip Eater, t0201 mph on the
Bonneville Salt Flats in Utah,
surpassing the record for a non-
streamlined motorcycle by 43 mph.
+ NBC debuts Then Came Bronson.
‘Tough but sensitive actor Michael
Parks plays Jim Bronson, journalist
and pilgrim. Bronson rides a red-
orange Sportster, with an “eye of
God” emblem on the gas tank and
a sleeping bag on the handlebars,
through a two:
hour pilot and
26 episodes. The
adventures have
titles like “The
Old Motor-
cycle Fiasco”
and “Your
Love Is Like
a Demolition
Derby in My
~ Parks sings
the theme song, “Long Lonesome
Highway"—and it makes the charts.
+1970: Harley introduces the XR-
750 racing motor, and a destroked
version of the Sportster becomes
a flat-track and TT legend. Road-
going versions pump out 90
horsepower, more than dou-
ble the original Sport-
ster’s muscle.

~e

This baby set a world land-speed record: 265.492 mph.

+ In the hands of a master, the
Sportster gives us another Ameri-
can icon. Stunt rider Evel Knievel
had gained national attention of

the “there's no success like failure”
kind when he crashed trying to clear
the fountains at Caesars Palace in
Las Vegas on a Triumph. Switching
to a Harley XR-750 Sportster, he
dons a red, white and blue jumpsuit
with cape. Today an Evel Knievel
Sportster from 1972, plus cape and
uniform, resides at the Smithsonian.
+1974: Knievel announces he is
going to become an action-figure
hero. In a press conference he
says, "Next year the Ideal Toy Com-
pany is going to make a lot of Evel
Knievel toys. One toy T'd like them
to make is my own idea. I think it's
the most super toy in the world. You
‘wind it up, it goes like a little bugger,
goes across the floor, grabs this
little Barbie doll, throws her on
the floor, gives her a little lov-
ing, jumps back on the
motorcycle and goes whiz-
zing out the door, scream-
ing, “GL Joe isa faggot’
The Evel Knievel action
figure, stunt bike (a Sport-
ster without the name)
and accessories earn the
Ideal Toy Company

$300 million.
+ Bruce Brown re-
leases On Any Sun-
day perhaps the best
motorcycle movie
ever. Most people re-
member the film's
dirt-bike desertrace
antics and some guy
named Steve McQueen.
But the camera also follows Mert
Lawwill’s American Motorcyclist
Association title defense, which he
made on an ironhead Sportster X
50. The film also captures Cal Ray-
born setting a world land-speed record
of 265.492 mph in a Denis Manning
streamliner (pictured bottom) at the
Bonneville Salt Flats. A Sportster
engine powered the missile, which
now resides at the Motorcycle Hall of
Fame Museum in Pickerington, Ohio.
+1972: Swelled
perhaps by Kniev-
el's antics, sales of
Sportsters jump
from 10,775 to
18,150 in one year.
+1977: William G.
Davidson, scion of
one of the founding
fathers, designs the
XLCR—the Sport-
ster as a 1970s-cool
1,000 cc cafe racer: All
black, the bike pro-
duces 61 horsepower
and a top speed of
100 mph. It appears head
in the May 1977 issue for his Sportster.
of ptavnoy with the comment “This is
what a motorcycle should look like.”
Harley produces only 3,124 units,
and the XLCR is dropped from
the line after two years. It is now
one of the most collectible Harleys.
+4986: The company continues
to refine the bike, introducing two

new power

plants—the Evo-
lution 883 and
1100—which
become the
backbone of the

Sportster line.
With a
featured role in
the movie Man-

nequin, starring
Andrew McCar-
De thy and Kim
r Cattrall, the
quintessential
biker's bike goes mainstream.

Johnny Depp plays a greaser

Nicole Kidman wraps around Matt
Dillon in 1995's To Die For.
in the John Waters-directed 1950s
biker spoof Cry-Baby. Making cameo
appearances: former porn star Traci
Lords, Iggy Pop and a Harley Sport
ster (Depp's choice of ride, naturally)
‘Can you say “heavy metal”?
During the Judas Priest Painkiller
tour, frontman Rob Halford rides a
Sportster onstage during the tune
“Hell Bent for Leather.” Blinded

E
saaan pee. Mr RE,

Harley-Davidson 4
introduces rubber-mounted

engines to reduce wear
and smooth the ride.
The company sells
more than 70,000
Sportsters

in the

calendar year.
Harley-
Davidson improb-
ably becomes a
bargaining chip
international
politics. When
Kim Jong Il
threatens to build
and test a nuclear
device, the United
States announces
plans to ban
exports of such
¡ems as iPods
and Harleys to North Korea.
News stories about the ban show

pictures of Harley Sportsters.

To celebrate the Sporister’s
golden anniversary, Harley-
Davidson releases the 50th Anni-

Judas Priest's
Rob Halford versary model

onstage in 1983. (pictured below,

ne ag. 59.780) in the

leather, indeed. i
spring, with a five-

speed transmission and 1,200 cc

Evolution engine. The com.
pany will produce only 2,000
of the anniversary bikes. If
you're interested, you'd bet-
ter move. Like all things
Harley, they're going fast.

The new 50th Anniver-
sary Harley Sportster.

“I think we got all of it.”

es

LJ UU

MISS JUNE IS A SMALL- TOWN GIRL
WITH BIG-CITY DRERMS

PHOTOGRAPHY BY STEPHEN WAYDA

has just retumed trom a
bodyboard adventure at

k, Manhattan Beach, a short
> drive from her home in

California. With her hair tousled trom
shore breezes and some grains of
sand stl visible on her coppery skin,
she looks every bit the quintessen-
tial Califomia gi. People tell her she
resembles a young Denise Richards,
which flatters her. But before the 20-
year-old model moved to the Golden
State last year, she was leading a
less Pacific lifestyle on her parents"
airy farm in a small Ohio town. “I
love animals,” she tells us. “I used
to wake up at five in the morning, fol
ow my dad around and name all the
cows." From the looks of her, Brit-
tany's farm-gi days are behind her.

Miss June is a natural in front
of the camera. “My grandma is
a photographer, and she submit-
ted my pictures to a modeling
agency when | was 14," she says.
Her exotic features—the result of
a German-Cherokee heritage—as
well as her love affair with the lens
led to steady modeling work and a
recent CSI: NY appearance. A few
more TV performances and she'll
have her SAG card. She may have
quickly acclimated to her new
environment, but Brittany is still
a small-town girl at heart. “I'm
down-to-earth, kind of gooly and
a homebody,” she confesses. “I
don't go out fo clubs. | was rowdy
in my teens and got it out of my
system. Now I'm the one who gets
beeped at by irate people for driv-
ing too slowly.”

Brittany's plans for the future:
more work, more California sun-
shine and, someday, a family of
her own. "What | want is to find joy
in the basic things that are impor-
tant,” she says. With a head that
wise atop a physique that luscious,
there's little doubt Brittany will find
all she's after and more.

(AS yn iissed Brttany Binger
=

PLAYMATE DATA SHEET

apes

sor EB isr ZA ats: BD
peer eee ER
sera pare: D QART amra Bellevue, DIGO.

noros be ee Mud in whatever D do,

ried nay il bt pe ‘nappy.
ee se ep ¿Co dE Sweet,

TURNOFFS: O [S

humor or are overly muscled.
SPORTS I HAVE PLAYED: Fral + QuranaSAcs.
ur ravorre Books: TO Kil a Macken ME Wustipers. =

ER wb cada pup Moving Fam a fm ul £

i + i !

SN Te pi
ex

MISS JUNE

PLAYBOY’S PARTY JOKES

Why did Britney Spears shave her head?
She wanted the drapes to match the carpet.

‚A DA stared at the jury, unable to believe the
not-guilty verdict he'd just heard. Bitterly he
asked, "What possible excuse could you
have for acquitting this maniacal criminal”
‘The foreman answered, “Insanity”
“I could understand that,” the DA said, “but
all 12 of you?”

Our Unabashed Dictionary defines a nocturnal

Distaga esca enel Wie gm ud

best ital eo lomas teats soll palcos

Playboys: began to compare conquests, The

fn coke ater i Grom ead nd io bat

st man, "You know, except for

wife, my two sisters and my moth

Jove to very vorera a I oor
"Well then.” his friend said, “between the

two of us we've bad them al

Dia you bear sbout the farmer who cota
keep his hands off hs wile? He fired them.

‚A man walked into a doctor's office without an
appointment. “Would you like to tell me your
problem?" asked the pretty receptionist.

“I need some information from the doctor,”
the man said. “It's rather embarrassing... 1
have ak

e and almost constant erection.”
joc is busy today,” the receptionist
it maybe I can squeeze you in.”

JA cop pulled a saan over I weaving creas
to Mia of ae. He walked up to the de
Fs window and asked, "You drinkin’?

“That depends the driver sad "You buyin?

Why is being in the military like getting a
blow job?

The closer you get to discharge, the better
you feel.

A husband was watching late-night TV when
he heard a loud scream from the bedroom.
He ran in just in time to see a man leap out
the window. His wife yelled, “That guy just
screwed me twice!”

“Twice?” the husband said. “Why didn’t
you call me when he was screwing you the
first time?”

“Because until he started the second time
the wife replied, “I thought it was you.”

Two bikers were standing at adjacent urinals
in the Southwest when one glanced over atthe
other and said, “Td bet tat you were born
down in Tuscaloosa, Alabama”
fou would win that bet” said the second

man in surprise

“and Td bet you were circumcised by old
Doc Steadman the frst continued.

"yeah. replied the astonished man, "but
how on cart did you know that?

“Wells the first sid, “old Doc Steadman
always cut them on the bias, and right now
you're pising on my shoe”

‘Two former college roommates met at a bar to
catch up on each other's lives. “So how’s it going
with the ladies?” one of the men asked the other.
"Women to me are nothing but sex objects,”

the other answered.
Really?” asked the first.

Yeah,” the other replied. “Every time I ask
for sex, they object.”

Good news: Your wife meets you at the front

door wearing a sexy negligee.
Bad news: She's just coming home,

Send your jokes to Party Jokes Editor, r.svsov, 730
Fifth Avenue, New York, New York 10019, or by
e-mail through our website at jokes.playboy.com.
Piavnoy will pay $100 to the contributors whose
submissions are selected.

~<

THE SEXUAL MALE, PART TWO:

ARE WE
~ NOT BOYS?

IN THE SECOND OF A SERIES OF REPORTS ON THE SCIENCE OF MALE SEXUALITY, WE EXAMINE THE
DELICATE AND STILL-MYSTERIOUS PROCESS THAT CREATES A SOY AND YEARS LATER TRANSFORMS HIM

t

“~ DAA
BY CHIP ROWE

n May 25, 1983 Dr. Mary Calderone took the stage at the Sixth World Congress of Sexology in Washing-

ton, D.C. to talk about an ultrasound image she had been given that dearly showed a 23-week-old fetus

‘with a hard-on. A sonographerin New London, Connecticut had first recorded prenatal erections five years
earlier-all seven of her subjects were sucking their thumbs- but Calderone hoped to put the discovery in context.
A pioneering sex educator (she argued in her 1970 Playboy Interview that rudimentary sex education should begin
in kindergarten), Calderone saw fetal erections as firm evidence that we are sexual beings from the beginning.
Ultrasound technicians would later observe erections in fetuses as young as 16 weeks. in other words, a man
gets wood soon after blood reaches his groin and months before he draws his first breath.

YOU GESTATE LIKE A GIRL

‘The making of a male starts simply enough. If the head of the sperm that fertilizes a woman's egg contains
a Y chromosome, it joins with an X chromosome she supplies to create a boy (XY). If the sperm carries an X.
they form a girl (XX), Beyond that. much of the process remains a puzzle. In 1990 scientists discovered a gene
on the Y chromosome called SRY, which gets the male cascade started, although it has been suggested that
its role may be only to suppress a second, as yet undiscovered female gene dubbed Z. The next step is the
activation of the gene Sox3, which is present in both genders but sees action only in males. third gene, Fgf3,
then cranks up the volume of Sox3, rattling the windows and eventually leading to the creation of testicles.

a Cell biologists at Duke University discovered last year that Fgf3 has another vital function: It turns down the
volume of a girl-making gene known as Wnt4. If SRY isn’t present. Sox3 and Fgf3 remain quiet and Wnt4
(which may well be the elusive Z) takes over resulting in the formation of ovaries.

Those are the basics. But there are exceptions. such as the rare man who doesn't have a Y chromosome.
He is XX, a genetic female, yet still grows balls. How can this be? In some cases SRY is present on the X
chromosome contributed by the father. In others Sox9 initiates the march toward maleness, although the
beat isn't as loud and often results in men who can't produce sperm. This past October a team of italian
scientists announced the discovery of yet another part of the equation. While examining four brothers who
don't have an SRY among them, researchers found each had a mutated Rspol, a gene that appears to team
up with Wnta to stifle the male-making power of Sox3. In this case, Wnt4 waited for backup that never
arrived, and four sisters became four brothers.

‘There are many more genes along the route of the Cajones Express and a lot of chatter back and forth. The
conversation continues until about the seventh week of your existence, when the signal finally reaches the

A MORE POTENT FACT IS THAT BOTH MALE AND FEMALE GENITALS
DEVELOP FROM THE SAME TISSUE. IT’S MUCH LIKE AN EPISODE OF
IRON CHEF: TWO MEALS CREATED FROM THE SAME INGREDIENTS.

sexless blob of tissue known as the gonads. Its cells are believed
to be bipotential, meaning they aim to please. Ifthe signal is a
grunt, the cells gurgle and pop and reassemble into testes. Initially
Perched near your kidneys, these two balls will churn out the pow-
erful hormones that will craft your penis, scrotum and everything
else, Alfred Jost, an endocrinologist working in Paris shortly after
World War Il, first demonstrated how important these androgens
are in creating a man by cutting off the microscopic balls of fetal
rabbits-a feat in itself. Even though the rabbits still had a Y chro-
mosome in each cell, they developed into fully functional females.
capable of giving birth. This and later research persuaded many
scientists that female is the default gender-Adam comes from
Eve's rib. To produce a boy, nature must break the mold with a bath
of testosterone. This premise has leaked into gender politics, with
‘commentators portraying males as either enhanced or deformed
versions of the base model. But as researchers leam more about
fetal development, many reject both views as incomplete. For
ovaries to form, a number of active processes are required: it's
just that scientists know even less about them than what goes
into making a boy. If nothing at all happened, you wouldn't end
up as agirl but as a miscarriage.

‘Amore potent fact is that both male and female genitals
develop from the same tissue. It's much like an episode of Iron
Chef two meals created from the same ingredients. In a boy the
gonads develop into the testes and sperm tubes: in a giri they
become the ovaries and its tubes. The tissue that becomes the
penis and scrotum develops in women into the clitoris, which has.
been found to extend three or four
inches into the body. The foreskin
is the clitoral hood. The urethra is
homologous to the smaller lips of the
vulva; the scrotum is the larger lips.
‘The Cowper's gland, which produces
precome, is the female Bartholin's
gland, which contributes to vaginal
lubrication, and the male prostate is
the area in women commonly known
as the G-spot. Both genders have
nipples because they develop before
the great divide. Do you see where
this is heading? While having vagi-
nal intercourse, you are penetrating
an inverted version of yourself. The

androgens, so it converts them to the primary female hormone,
estrogen. The results a tallwoman with small hips, large breasts,
clear skin and great hair. Indeed, the first XY women identified
in the 1950s were all stewardesses or models (and perhaps pin-
ups). and it's the sort of build that has invited speculation about
‘a number of Hollywood actresses. Tests conducted before the 1996
Olympics revealed that eight of the 3,387 female athletes were
XY, raising the question of whether having a male chromosome
provides women with a competitive advantage. The XY women,
who were not identified, were all allowed to compete.

The discovery of XY females especially intrigued Jost because
they are always sterile, with shallow vaginas that lead nowhere.
‘The male rabbits he castrated in the womb developed ovaries and
every other organ needed to produce offspring: XY women, who-
keep their testes, do not. Years earlier Jost had implanted testicu-
lar fragments into female fetal rabbits before sex differentiation
and found the animals became male inside and out. Simply inject-
ing testosterone, however, led only to male genitalia. He concluded
that the testes must produce not only testosterone to mold the
penis but a second hormone that switches off a man's inner girl-
that males are not only masculinized but defeminized. And he was

ht. Each embryo starts its journey with two carry-ons: the Mül-
lerian ducts, which become the uterus, upper vagina and fallopian
tubes; and the Wolffian ducts, which become the tubes in which
your sperm are created and carried to the penis. As you develop,
Your balls produce three crucial hormones. Testosterone crafts
the penis and helps mold the brain. Another hormone causes the

testes to be pulled along twa tem-
porary canals by the gubernaculum
(a ligament named for the rudder
on a Greek ship) and dropped into
the scrotum. And a third substance,
known as Müllerian inhibiting hor-
mone, or MIH, makes your Mllrian
ducts shrivel. In fact, you're sitting
on your discarded pussy right now-it
rests behind your scrotum and under
your prostate. The power of MIH can
be seen in those rare cases when a
fetus doesn't produce enough and a
man is born with a womb.

EARLY AROUSAL

philosophical notion that sex unites
parts of a whole and makes us one
fits nicely with reproductive biology.

Jost'sexperiments with rabbits led
scientists to wonder whether slicing

Since the discovery of prenatal
erections, in 1978, scientists have
learned much more about them. In
the most ambitious fetal-erection
study of all time, Japanese research-

the balls off a human male fetus
would cause it to develop into a fully

ers checked 12 full-term boys every
minute for an hour and reported that

functional female. Of course such an
experiment would be barbaric, but
in the 1950s scientists discovered

42 percent had at least one erection,
with the longest lasting 17 minutes.
Another study revealed that fetuses

mutations that seemed to have
done it for them, producing women
who appear from every angle to be
female but are genetically male,
with a Y chromosome in each of
their cells. An XY woman begins her
development in the womb as a male
complete with testes but changes
course because her cells cannot
absorb male hormones. The fetus
has to do something with the excess

‘This woman, photographed in John Money's gender
lab, sa genetic male with internal testes Because her
is could not process androgens, he became a she

have regular erections during deep
sleep, just as they will throughout
their lives. Scientists believe these
sleep erections, which occur in
adults every 90 minutes or so, are
a systems check by the brain, which
never knows when the fire will need
wood-even inside Mom.

‘Many of the 185,000 boys born
each day have erections as they
emerge. It's an exciting time. That

infants get hard-ons rather frequently has never been a secret to new parents, but
itwasn't until 1937 that a Vale professor of child development documented precisely
how often they occur. With the help of three assistants, he observed nine newborns
in a matemity ward for 10 days and counted 1.663 events. Since a boy doesn't pro-
duce sperm until puberty. why does he have or need the ability to get hard? Perhaps
these early erections occur simply because everything is in place. Or they may be
calisthenics designed to tone and maintain muscies and nerves that will later be
sed for reproduction. Whatever the reason. a boy soon discovers that his arms are
just long enough to provide an assist now and then. This even occurs in the womb:
Obstetricians have observed fetuses of both genders touching themselves for mi
utes ata time. It’s a special moment in a boy's life, the first in a lifetime of gropings.
After observing 170 mothers and their babes, Dr. René Spitz reported in 1545 that
the infants with more-nurturing mothers touched themselves more often. The more
you are loved, the more you love yourself.

Scientists have long debated at what point a child's reflexive diddling can be called
‘masturbation. Some researchers speculate the thresholds crossed when a boy is able
to stroke himself long enough to elicit a response elsewhere in his body. Based on
observations of 65 infants and toddlers through one-way glass, two New York psy-
chiatrsts concluded that the first acts of “focused pleasure” are refiected in the child's
expression of excitement, flushed skin, rapid breathing and perspiration. (The research
is described in thelr book Infantile Origins of Sexual Identity) Alfred Kinsey felt you
couldn't cal it masturbation until there is evidence the child anticipates “reaping an
erotic reward” Regardless of what's going on inside their heads, many preschoolers
quickly master the mechanics, Dr. Milton Levine of New York Hospital-Comell Medical
Center, one ofthe few physicians to address the issue in print, reported in 1951 that
between the ages of two and a half and five many boys in his care had leamed to wrap
a hand around their erection and knead it. Further, parents told the pediatrician their
Sons would lie on their stomachs and writhe on the floor, even while absorbed by the
television. "This is reminiscent of the early rocking of infants” Levine observed, “for
these boys lle on their stomachs with their hands at their sides, raise themselves
slightly from the bed or floor and propel themselves forward and back" This behavior is
sometimes misdiagnosed as a medical problem even today because it's not something
parents expect or perhaps want to see. In 2005 four neurologists reported on 12 pre-
Schoolers-allgiris-brought to a Rochester, New York clinic for “movement disorders”
After investigations that included videotaping the children, the researchers concluded
the girls were engaged in “gratification behavior” a term the doctors found went down
easier with parents. They noted that the distinction between masturbation and sei-
zures can be difficult to recognize because both involve a glassy-eyed, fixed gaze.
But the conditions can be distinguished by the fact that the child does not become
annoyed when interrupted during a seizure.

If scientists are tentative in approaching self-stimulation, they are even more
cautious in asking whether prepubescent boys are capable of orgasm but simply
lack the motivation or coordination to make it happen. (There has been speculation
that male thrusting during intercourse is reflexive and occurs on occasion in tod-
dlers when they feel amorous) Ifyou trust the memories of college students, early
climax does occur. Ina survey of 303 students conducted by Dr. John Bancroft of the
Kinsey Institute and two colleagues, 12 percent of women and 13.5 percent of men
recalled having their first orgasm before puberty, with the average age among these
groups being 8.5 years for females (the earliest at the age of four) and 9.6 years for
males (the earliest at the age of five). In easily the most controversial finding in his
1348 best-seller, Sexual Behavior in the Human Male. Kinsey reported that infants as
Young as five months can reach climax, appearing to have the same physical reaction
as adults-flushed skin and tightening muscles, followed by a sense of calm. However,
Kinsey did not report that his sole source for this information was a child molester who
kept meticulous records of his abuse of 28 babies and similar numbers of children of
every age up 1015. The man claimed that the younger the child, the more easily the
boy seemed able to achieve mul

This area of Kinsey's research “should properly be treated with great caution”
Bancroft warns on the Kinsey Institute website. “The data leaves us with some
fundamental questions, and not surprisingly, there has been virtually no further
evidence to answer them. The questions include, he says, whether the ability to
climax before puberty infiuences later sexual development and what mechanism
makes multiple orgasms. if they do occur in preteens, virtually impossible for boys
after they mature? What is normal?

CHILDHOOD IN
‘That has never been an easy question to answer. Over the past century Americans
in particular have embraced the nation that children are asexual until puberty-or
marriage. Some of the blame for this fallacy lies with Sigmund Freud, who in 1893
famously theorized that a boy passes through oral, anal and phallic stages of
development before shutting down his libido at the age of five. (Decades later
the German sexologist Ernest Borneman proposed a pre-oral phase he called

THE ULTIMATE INSULT

EVERY BOY FEARS BEING LABELED A FAG

ROUGH PASSAGES: TALES FROM OFF THE BEATEN PATH

104

cutaneous-from the Latin for "skin"-during which the entire
surface of an infant is his primary erogenous zone.) A boy
remains asexual until puberty, Freud wrote, because he comes
to realize he desires his mother but fears his father's violent
reaction should he find out. Although Freud's latency period
has been shown to be bunk, early sexual development remains
a sensitive topic. To determine what is normal, U.S. researchers
must rely largely on the memories of adults or the observa-
tions of mothers, although scientists in Europe have quizzed
preschoolers directly about what they know. Toddlers first under-
stand there are two genders, then learn that gender is deter-
mined by more than hairstyle or dress, and finally advance to
games of doctor or “let's pull down our pants” (still fun as an
adult). In recent years biologists have stepped in, arguing that
the slow burn of sexual maturity flames up as early as the age

Puberty Is no picnic for anyone, but while browsing the dusty stacks I
‘came across two coming-of-age stories that make my own seem like 2
Broadway musical, In 1973 Dr. Jullanne Imperato-McGinley and three col-
ques reported that they had Identified 30 teenagers and adults living
Im three remote villages in the Do-

minican Republic who, because of

a genetic defect, had not sprouted

penises until puberty. While in

the womb, their bodies falled to

produce an enzyme that starts the

Construction of the male genitalia,

Most of the men had been raised

as girls but realized between the

ages of seven and 12 that they

mere different. At puberty their un-

descended testicles produced 2 hor-

mona surge that cused thelr voles

o deepen, thelr ball te drop and their

large “cts” to expand. The scientists

noted that the men, sometimes ridi-

led by other villagers as guevedoces

(penis at 2" or machibembras ("fest

of six, when the adrenal glands begin releasing mote androgens
into the brain. Known as adrenarche, this is a lapping of waves
before the tsunami. Adrenal puberty is responsible for acne out:
breaks, body odor and the growth of pubic and underarm hair, as
well as our first erotic feelings and fantasies, such as a crush on
2 teacher. “Freud had a word for the moment when you realize
You are attracted to girs or, in some cases, boys.” says sexologist
William Granzig. "He called it sexual cathexis. You don't know
what to do with this attraction at the age of five, but the particu-
Tar culture in which you are raised will educate you about what
is good and bad; This cathexis occurs at such a young age that
homosexuals, when asked when they first knew they were gay,
invariably respond, “I've always known.” (Heterosexuals would
say this too, but no one asks.) The influential psychologist John
Money suggested that children very early on begin developing
“love maps” that determine their later attractions and sexual
appetites. According to Money. these maps are mast vulnerable
to damage by repressive adults when children are between the
ages of five and eight.

‘The transformation from boy to man is well under way
by the age of 10, when the typical adolescent has the same
amount of testosterone as some adults and as much as 20
times more than younger children. In fact, the age of 10 is
recognized as the start of adulthood in many cultures, includ-
ing the U.S. for most of its history. (It was the age of consent
for girls in most states until the 1880s.) Even if a child hasn't

transformed physically by 10, parents sense something has
changed. This iswhen boys learn the mechanics of intercourse,
when they can first comprehend a joke about the snake in the
grass. Usually children learn about sex not from parents but
from older classmates, most of whom don't have Ph.D.s in
human sexuality. According to one survey, fewer than half the
parents of kids under 12 had spoken to them about sex, com-
pared with 91 percent who had discussed alcohol and drugs.
Plus, a third of the kids whose parents said they had talked
about sex with them couldn't recall the conversation.

At the same time hormones are shaping our brains to nego-
tiate a lifetime of mingling, boys and girls part like the Red
Sea. Children begin organizing by gender early. For instance,

woman, then man"), were able to get erect but could not reproduce through inter-
‘Course 2s ther urethral openings were located in thelr taint, Known as $-alpha.
reductase defidency, the condition can nom be identified at birth.

[also uncovered a report on the boys of Mangala, the sout
Islands. During the 1950s anthropologist Donald Marshall lived there for more
than a yea First the fantastic part: When a Mangalan boy reached puberty, he

‘would be given instructions on how to give a giri head, suck her breasts and make
‚me while delaying his own climax. Next he would enter a period of moetoro

her
(sleep cramling”), during which he would sneak Into grs" homes to have sex
vith them. Both boys and girls were told to have Intercourse with as many part-
ers as possible to find the one whe was most compatible That all sounds great,
‘unit Marshall reveals the rest of the story. First, most homes consisted of a
single large room. If they were awakened, members of the pit’ family the
might be a dozen or more-would not interfere. Instead, they listened to make
Sure the gil was being satisfied. So not only are you a T-ysar-oldkld having
‚sex forthe first time, your performance ls being scrutinize by your partner's
parents and siblings. Secon

‘usualy underwent a ceremony called superincision, In which his

‘at open and retracted until the head mas exposed. Finally, he often didn't get
to choose the young woman he marrled-natur did. Marshall notes that half
‘the couples on the Island wed because the gr had become pregnant. So maybe
Iemasn’tthe best system.

one study found preschoolers spent three times more of thelr
playtime with classmates of the same sex; by the age of seven
it's 10 times as much. The split is most pronounced during
the final years of elementary school. In the 1980s sociologists
Barrie Thorne and Zella Luria observed this firsthand when
each spent a year hanging out with nine- to 11-year-olds at
schools in California, Michigan and Massachusetts as part of
a joint study. Whether on the playground, doing schoolwork
or standing in line, boys and girls mostly kept to their own.
The girls shared intimate secrets and shoulders to cry on.
The boys bonded by breaking rules, yelling “Shit!” or “Fuck!
as they played sports, for example. After ejaculating these
words, boys would grow flush, wipe their hands on their jeans
and look guilty. There are a number of entertaining hypoth-
ses for the gender split, including that boys need to devalue
femininity as they struggle to separate from their mothers.
But Thome, a professor of sociology and women’s studies at
the University of California at Berkeley. says the structure of
American schools, which segregate kids by age, is the most
powerful influence. “The relationships between boys and girls
in the neighborhood or at church, where older and younger
kids mix, are usually quite different,” she says.

This is also the time when boys accuse one another of “lik-
ing” the most or least popular girls. They begin to chase girls
on the playground, retreating after each foray to the safety of
their island of friends. Teachers are (continued on page 130)

he eee

“I don't think this is the way you're supposed to play Cowboys and Indians...!”

105

* *
JOSEPH DE ACETIS PAYAM

STEVEN B. EKEROVICH KATHY KALAFUT Malignago!'s polo ($95) and T-shirt
(585) are by Zegna Sport. His pants

(S375) are by Canal. His hat ($250) is
by Borsalino. His belt ($69) is

by Johnston & Murphy. His watch
($420) is by Roberto Cavalli.

Dash co-founded Roc-A-Fella
records in 1995 and has since
launched a parade of projects,
notably Dash-DiBella Boxing
Promotions and his clothing
Tine, CEO, "Everyone seems to

— > be wearing prints nowadays,”
Dash says. “I felt a little funny
following that trend, sol started

> ore ities

Malignaggi's jacket
($363), shirt ($210)
and pants ($150)
are by Belstaff His
hat ($200) is by
Borsalino. His belt
(8185) Is by Canali.

o aeo
Now 17-0, this pugllist
has his eye on a

“Just jump right in when you see an opening.”

no

yA

ANNA-MARIE GODDARD f~

GOOD NIGHT AND
GOOD LUCK

Though I've had sex in public quite a few times,
including in stairwells in Germany and Las Vegas,
1 prefer sex in private. | get carried away and make
alot of noise, and I don't want towary about who.
may be watching. I always make time for sex: With
my busy schedule, | generally end up doing it early
in the morning. I'm usually still sleeping, but when
he starts massaging my back and neck. Im sold. |
like a guy who takes his time during foreplay, which
can begin before the clothes come off. When I have
the time fora date, love to go out fora nice light
dinner, like sushi, and then see a Vegas show-it's
so sexy to watch people dance. After the show we
‘come home and watch an erotic movie, and once
we're excited we make love on a beautiful king-size
bed sprinkled with rose petals.

VEZ

VA

>

==

A tour of today’s cell-phone
paradise—where an Apple is
the only forbidden fruit

n January a certain computer

maker announced it was intro-
ducing a phone. Since then we've
heard nothing but panting antici-
pation. But when it costs $600
with a two-year contract, we have
trouble seeing the iPhone's allure.
Sure, it's pretty, plays music and
does other neat tricks, but so do all
its competitors. Instead of carry-
ing a phone that says “I have more
money than sense,” choose one of
these to communicate style, sophis-
tication and a refusal to follow.

Last year's Motorola Q smartphone is still
one ofthe leading lights ofthe market. The
naws here ic how Amp'd Mobile overhauls
the phone's interface for its customers,
foregrounding the Q's multimedia capacities
and Amp'd: impressive original muse and
ideo content. $200 with Amp'd contract

iron but packe
Camera, GPS,
WEF ond a slow
of oiher

a Cadillac in every
sense, including
how if feels in your
pocket. $500 to
5800 with contract.

$ We like our gadgets flex-
he, so we tke Samsung
740 a lot, It opens vert-
cally for phone calls, but
for web, video and texting
it opens to the side, laptop-

form. $150 with two-year
Verizon contract.

A Sony Ericsson's k790 focuses

e miel “With its unique swiveling screen, the
LS ¥X9400 was bom fe shew you video.
And since it's compatible with Verizon's
impressive new MediaFLO video-streamin
Service, youll be able to catch upon
Lagune Beach while you're poolside with a
piña colado. $150 with Verizon contract,

phones: the camera. The k790 packs
a 3.2-megapixel sensor into a com-

Seach
cre tess”
'gular and T-Mobile.

with two-year
Cingular contract.

4 He's Heat i @
Sook touch-sensitive
Samsung slider
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20

EANES

MR. WARMTH TALKS ABOUT DINING WITH JAY LENO AND DAVID LETTERMAN, ACTING WITH CLARK
GABLE AND ROBERT DE NIRO AND THE NIGHT HE TOOK ON BILL GATES AND WARREN BUFFETT

al

PLAYBOY: What's funny about being an
octogenaria

RICKLES: The funniest thing about
being 81 has been that I don't realize it.
Thad an 80th birthday party last year,
and that was the only way I knew it was
true. I don't feel 81, I don't act 81, and
they say I don’t look $1. My son Larry
£0 go upstairs to my room, where
T've got pictures on the wall of me with
all the biggies. He'll walk through and
do a status report on each one: “Dead.
Dead. Dead. Dead. Critical. Serious.
Hanging in there. Okay. And possibly
a month, tops.”

az

PLAYBOY: Since you and Mrs. Rickles
have dined with television’s greatest
late-night talk-show hosts, give us your
survey of their private eating habits.

RICKLES: Letterman is very much a
recluse. 1 always kidded him on the
show: “Dave, when are we going to
have dinner together?” Td make a
whole big thing. Finally, one night Dave
said to meet him over at the famous
1 couldn't believe ie.

We went there, and the maitre d' said,
“Mr. Letterman will meet you down
in the cellar.” The cellar! Suddenly, it’s
dinner with Howard Hughes. It was a
secret room in the wine cellar from the
speakeasy days. The second time, I had
dinner with him and one of his writersin
a different cellar—I swear to God—this
time down four flights of steps. Maybe
he’s related to Bela Lugosi. Johnny
Carson was the same way. He was very
uncomfortable among a lot of people.
He was marvelous if we were just four
or six but forget about any more at a
table. And with Leno you feel as if
you're in a diner: “A napkin? Where do
you get those?” But remember, he likes
to cat under his cars while he’s giving
them a lube job. Nota big gourmet guy,
if you know what I mean.

az

PLAYBOY: What career advice can you
give Triumph the Insult Comic Dog?

RICKLES: I've never seen the bit, but
Tve heard about it. I mean, the dog’s a
puppet with a guy's hand up its ass. No
wonder it has mood swings! There’s
another guy who does insults, Lewis

Black. They say he’s a lot like me. I
don’t know if that’s true or not. I can
take pride in saying I'm one of a kind. I
think that’s what made me successful
When I first started doing this, there
were a lot of problems. People would
say, “Who needs this guy?” To this day,
Tm established, but people who don’t
know me personally think I'm going
to walk up to them and say, “You're a
hockey puck! You're a moron! You're
a jerk! Get out of my life!” You know
Tim not that way.

Qs

PLAYBOY: You brought the language
an altogether new meaning for the term
hockey puck. Can you figure out why it
haunts you to this day?

RICKLES: I swear to God, if you can tell
me, Pd love to know. I never stop hear-
ing it—in New York, in particular, and
also Chicago. I have no idea. I don't use
“hockey puck” on the stage. As best as I
can figure, it must have started way back
when I worked in strip joints and had
no ad-lib for guys who heckled me. Pd
say, “Don't be a hockey puck!” That’s
how I think (continued on page 127)

us

THE APPRENTICE

NEW TASK? NO PROBLEM, SAYS LAWYER KRISTINE LEFEBVRE

BY DAVID HOCHMAN

sashayed down the catwalk on Santa
Monica Beach. The result: Team Kris-
tine won a trip that night to celebrate
at the Playboy Mansion.

‘After that, Mr. Trump couldn't
stop carrying on about my body,
Kristine says over a foamy latte at a
Los Angeles cafe. She's dressed in
black business attire with diamonds
sparkling at her cuffs. “He'd say,
"Why are you hiding behind those
suits? You should be a model" |
thought, Hey, am | auditioning to
become a corporate executive or
the Donald's eye candy?”

The truth is, Trump began
obsessing about Kristine's looks
the moment he saw her. It was her
trademark glasses that confounded
him." kept telling him theyre more
comfortable than wearing contacts,
but he wouldn’t stop,” she says
adding that she has a pair for every
mood or day of the week. "Finally

Ta wren yon mos
kristine Lefebvre. As she

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ee:

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ee
eis na pare
Yon mind woud fe Ins vernon?
Donald Trump dicht know what
he was losing when he pricsipped
Keine in the third-to-pst epieode
ire Acorentbs in hor Sra ds
ene of be DK la bak
(ins wes may corey wth
show needs an aipha female And
Graceful, When Trump det pro.
si eenbbes
ee
frame Into plunging hater aut and

PHOTOGRAPHY BY STEPHEN WAYDA

1 had to say, 'Mr. Trump, the
glasses are like my brand. have
my glasses, and you have your
hair. Let's leave it at that”

Not since Omarosa in season
one of The Apprentice has a
woman trumped the Trumpster
quite like Kristine. In one epi-
sode she practically out-golfed
him—and on Trump's own Los
Angeles course, no less ("I dont
think he'd ever seen a woman hit
the ball ke that," she says). And
even when the billionaire fired
her, Kristine got the last word
in and let Trump have it. "He
changed the rules by backped-
aling on a promise he made pot
to fire candidates from opposing
teams, andhe needed to be con-
fronted,” Kristine says. “I dont
think you get anywhere being
intimidated by people." Then
again, she's not one to carry a
grudge. Says Kristine, "We saw
each other a few weeks late
and it was all hugs and kisses”

That skill at winning over
‘opponents is what makes Kris
tine one of the top lawyers in
her field. Just the day before our
interview, she closed a $90 mi-
lion merger. Clients over the
years have included Dan Marino
and Shaquille O'Neal, and she
has developed a subspecialty
the male partners in her firm
deeply envy: Kristine inks con-
tracts for many of the women
who have graced these pages,
Including Pamela Anderson and
Vida Guerra. "The girls trust me,"
Kristine says. “I dont think men
have the same concems about
how much of a vagina will show
ina photo or who's going to pay
fora bikini wax. | get that ifa gir
is in high heels for six hours a
day, shell need a massage”

That's not to say Kristine
hasn't had her difficulties in
the buttoned-down world of
law. Frequently she is the only
female in a room of very con-
servative men, which can lead
to awkwardness. “Some old guy
will say, "Honey, can you get me
my coffee?” she says. "1 will
absolutely get up and get it.
Hell assume Im a secretary, and
when | start to lead the meeting
he wont know what to do”

It's no wonder, then, that for
all her abilities, Kristine has no
trouble leaving work behind.
She and her husband, celebrity
chef Ludovic Lefebvre, a vet-
eran of acclaimed L.A. eateries
like Bastide and LOrangerie,
spend most of their free time
sipping wine on the beach or
hiking with their dog in the
Santa Monica Mountains. In
case you're wondering, Kristine
doesn't cook. "Why bother?"
she says. "The one time |
tried to make something for
(text concluded on page 138)

"BEING INTELLIGENT AND BEING SEXUAL SHOULD NOT
BE MUTUALLY EXCLUSIVE. MY BRAINS DON'T FALL fi
OUT OF MY ASS WHEN I'M NAKED.”

See more of Kristine at cyber playboy.com% Ny

=

PLAYBOY

124

PENISES nina from page 80)

To know what one's husband's or lover's penis really
looks like is like carrying around a state secret.

about the specifics of penises: the too
shortness, longness, thinness, fatness,
ccurviness, redness, veininess, whatev-
erness of them. Nice girls aren't sup-
posed to take note of the individual
penis in all its clinical details its poten-
tial for beauty or hideousness as well
as defining characteristics like length,
girth and color)—for fear, I suppose,
that the whole delicate scaffolding.
the prerequisite of a cock-of-the-walk
confidence if a man is to be able to
perform in the bedroom, would come
crashing down around us (some would
argue it has already begun to happen,
what with Bob Dole hawking Visgra
on TV and the general cultural anxi-
ety about the wilting of the male libido).
Or perhaps it's simply that no woman
wants to know what her husband’s or
lover's penis really looks like when seen
through the keyhole, because it’s too
heavy a responsibility—like carrying
around a state secret with you all the
time, burning a hole in your pocket,
imperiling future lives. An article 1
read in a women's magazine about how
to maintain strong friendships advised
readers not to step over the other per-
son's “comfort zone” and went on to
cite a conversation about penis size—in
which a friend of the writer's revealed
in a whisper over lunch that the man
she was dating and whom she would
eventually marry had a very small
penis (“It's like, miniature”)—as its
first and most glaring example of an
inappropriate revelation. The writer
felt burdened with this indiscretion
forever after and can’t, apparently, see
this friend alone or together with her
minusculely endowed husband without
feeling overcome with mortification.
Indeed, I have sophisticated female
friends who to this very day continue
to insist there's no difference between
one penis and the next. This claim
always makes me feel morally suspect,
as though I were a foot fetishist or a
frequenter of bondage chat rooms—
someone mired in trivial and immature
considerations, measuring the circum-
ference of a banana while everyone else
has moved on to fretting about global
warming. And yes, I know that on the
grander existential scale, or even on the
less-grand functional scale, it doesn't
matter all that much, but then again
neither does breast size nor the shape
of your ass, and men never tire of dis-
‘cussing these. One may conjecture that
whereas the male gaze makes us femi-

nine, confirms heterosexual women in
their sense of their own desirability by
the very act of assessing it (weighing
breasts like so many sacks of potatoes
and coming up with ideal waist-to-hip
ratios as if women were Barbie dolls
made real), the assessing female gaze
has the opposite effect. It unmakes the
‘masculine principle in a man, threatens
to render him into mere part-objects of
desire (the breast standing in for the
woman, the penis for the man) rather
than a whole glorious being, He Who
Does the Desiring. We in turn collude
with men in treating the detached
assessment of sexual organs as an
exclusively male prerogative by look-
ing away and talking of the ardor or
duration of men’s sexual performance
rather than the prescribed nature of
their equipment, whether crooked or
straight, daunting or drooping.

Then again, there is no way not
to take notice of what is often first
perceived to be an absurd and even
ungainly appendage—before, that
is, its emblematic significance to the
human race is factored in, like bonus
points giving added erector-set value.

Not even I, brought up in an Orthodox
German-Jewish household where my
mother went wild if I or any of my five
siblings failed to put on robes (dress-
ing gowns,” as we called them), could
successfully overlook the penises sur-
rounding me. It’s one thing to deliber-
ately blind yourself to the reality of your
father’s penis—which, with the excep-
tion of girls who happen to be brought
up around nudists, is what I think most
of us do. To the extent I wondered
about my father’s penis, I ascribed to
it my feelings about him, which would
have made his penis unlikable and scary
at once (albeit not scary in a curiosity-
inspiring way). But it's another thing
altogether to overlook the penises of
three brothers, especially if you hap-
pen to sleep in the same room with two
of them until you are eight years old,
at which point a psychiatrist suggests
to your mother that it might be better
for your already faltering mental health
if you slept either by yourself or in a
oom with your two sisters.

T don't know whether I suffered from
any adverse comparisons I made between
my own body and my brothers’ bodies—
whether, that is, I was affected by what
used to go by the formal appellation of
penis envy—but I do know I felt outmus-
‘led by them and that I studied the croich

of their pajama pants when I thought no
‘one was looking; I was vastly intrigued by
the odd way the cotton gathered in this
area as though it were holding a small
cluster of grapes while my own pajamas
had to make no such accommodations.
Years later I would be reminded of this
disparity when I read one of Flaubert’s
tirades against the treacherous nature of
‘women: “Women have no notion of rec-
titude. The best among them have no
‘compunctions about listening at doors,
unscaling letters, counseling and practic-
ing a thousand little deceits, etc. It all
goes back to their organ. Where man has
an Eminence, they have a Hole! That
eminence is Reason, Order, Science, the
PhallusSun, and the hole is night, humid-
ity, confusion.” No wonder Madame
Bovary gave up and swallowed arsenic.

‘And sometimes, it must be admitted,
even after such calculations are made,
after one has an idea of what penises
‘can get up to, they still pose themselves
aslessthan sublime. I think ofa conver-
sation I had not long ago, sitting around
the kitchen table with my adolescent
daughter and my 40-year-old Filipina
housekeeper, concerning the physical
noncharms of the penis. Of the three
of us, I'm quite sure I was the only one
who had seen an adult penis up close
and thus could draw on the evidence
of my senses rather than the evidence
of visual images. But no matter: My
daughter and my housekeeper were
in cheerful agreement as to the unre-
generate ugliness of penises—the sheer
aesthetic silliness of the design, as they
saw it, especially when you took into
account the whole picture, including
the surrounding hairiness and the exis-
tence of those two undignified balls

I listened with some amusement to
their remarks, envisioning usin a bawdy
scene out of Chaucer, se in a dim, low-
ceilinged room lit by sputtering candles
rather than in my linoleum-floored
Kitchen awash in recessed lighting, three
girl sitting around the hearth, speaking
the unvarnished truth about men. But
1 also felt a slight sense of unease, even
foreboding, at the dismissive tone that
was being taken. What, I wondered,
if men (any man, the father of three
across the hall, say, or the doorman who
guarded us from potential marauders
and always greeted us as though he
were genuinely happy to see us again)
Knew that they were being viewed in
this way—that it was even possible to
size up their most prized credential with
so much irreverence?

Tunderstood that my unmarried (and
possibly virginal) housekeeper had little
use for men, but how had 1 failed in
transmitting to my daughter the neces-
sary sense of gravitas about the subject,
without which she would clearly be
doomed, giving off the wrong signal, a

slew of insufficiently dazzled pheromones?
It wasn't, after all, as though I were con-
sciously trying to raisea rampaging shrew,
a Lorena Bobbitt or, going back several
decades, a maddened man hater like Val-
erie Solanas, who first penned the SCUM
‘Manifesto and then shot Andy Warhol.
Heaven forfend. I had loved men in my
time, including my daughter's father; I
had loved penises, sometimes more than
the men they were attached to, Presum-
ably I would do so again, but meanwhile
saw the line I had to adopt. It was up to
me to put matters right, to defend the
maligned organ. “Its actually quite nice,”
1 heard myself say as we all scraped the
last of the mint-chocolate ice cream from
our bowls. I moved gingerly from the
particular to the general, trying to walk
a line between a discriminating embrace
and wholehearted sluttishness: “They
sort of grow on you.” And then as the
coup de gràce, I—who had gone through
life half resistant and half in thrall to men
and their effect on me, especially in bed;
who had resisted the “privileging” of the
male sexual organ even as I marveled at

ability to transform itself from some-
thing soft and passive into something
hard and driven and capable of filling
you up like a stopper in a bottle—came
out openly as an advocate. As my daugh-
ter and my housekeeper first stared at
me and then at each other, I stated it
baldly: “I like them.” Just in the nick of
time, I retracted a bit, lest I sound as if I
were a come-one, come-all appreciator of
penises, the sort of woman who liked all
flavors of ice cream as long as they were
cold. (If cunts would make a good flavor
ofice cream, then so would cocks—take
that, John Updike.) "I mean,” I equivo-
cated, "some of them.”

PLAYBOY

1. THE MATTER IN HAND
Sooner or later, it happens. They exert
their charms, persuade you that your
Hole needs their Eminence. Or if not

quite that, they prove indispensable to
your feeling more vivid and less alone, no
longer adrift in the vastness of the world
but grounded in the snug fit of the erotic
‘moment. In my case, the pivotal moment
arrived. in the manner of many belated
itions, with a compensatory force,
so that for a while in the latter half of my
20s I found myself walking around in a
haze of penis longing. After holding on to
my virginity (at least technically) until the
age of 25 with a slightly deranged fervor
indicative of equal parts fear and desire, I
acted as though I had awakened toa new
moming. The world seemed charged not
with God's grandeur, as the poet Gerard
Manley Hopkins had it, but with the
grandeur of erections. I liked the feel ofa
penis growing firm in my hand (it would
be years before I was truly comfortable
putting a penisin my mouth), and I loved
the feel of an urgent penis inside me,
pushing through beyond my usual bar-
Tiers to the hopelessly receptive and wet
Lady Chatterley core of me. I thought
they—the confederacy of penises—were
lose to amazing in their ability to change
shape in so dramatic a way.
to bea special effect that kept happening
‚just for me, over and over again. It was
hard to believe that other women—scads
of other women—could produce this
same result.

The penises I became acquainted with
were uniformly circumcised—I had wan-
dered away from my religiously observant
upbringing, but not that far—yet early on
I noticed small differences between cir-
cumcised penises, differences that tumed
out not to be so small. Once or twice I got
out of bed midway because the penis in
question was too big or stocky or hazard-
ously curved, like a scimitar. Once I fled
the Plaza Hotel because a minor movie
producer with a legendary reputation as
a cocksman not only appeared to be hung
like the proverbial horse but had a slightly
glazed look in his eye that, together with

his musings on the wonders of anal sex,
scared me back into my clothes. Several
years later this same man and I went
to bed in a hotel in Beverly Hills, and
I remember feeling appreciative of the
vigor with which he made love, his penis
no longer striking me as gargantuan but
rather as generous.

1 watched him afterward as he sat
naked on the edge of the capacious hotel
bed, singing some ditty he had learned
in military school decades earlier. He
began to get dressed by pulling on a pair
of red socks, and for a moment, before
he put on the rest of his clothes, I felt a
great sense of loss. He was leaving me
in my expensive room—taking his penis,
which I had become fond of, with him.
For a moment I thought of asking him
to stay, or of asking him to leave me his
penis as a memento. We women become
quite attached, you know, which is both
our triumph and our defeat. If 1 had
to make a guess as to what itis that we
become attached to, I would end up
fumbling for the right words, talking
in slightly abject terms about the feel-
ing of being filled, which sounds suspi-
iously as though I believed in Flaubert’s
antiphonal Holes and Eminences, when
what I really believe in is something
vaguer, something along the lines of a
certain kind of need being met by acer-
tain kind of virile understanding. Not to
get too Lawrencian about it, but I sup-
pose I might say we are all composed
of psychological Holes and Eminences
and that sometimes a man comes along
wearing red socks—or maybe it's really
the penis by way of the red socks—and
he’s the one you've been searching for
all these years. At which point you're a
goner, and the penis on hand, whatever
its workaday reality, looks like the very
model you've been lusting after without
even knowing it.

GECALSE 1 THINK
ITS GOING TO MAKE
ME LATE FoR My

DON RICKLES

(continued from page 115)
it started. Now I've got hockey pucks up
to my kazoo. I had a giant box of pucks
in my garage, but we dumped them. By
then I could've filled another box with
Mr. Potato Heads after I did the Toy Story
pictures. At least that was good for
the grandchildren.

as

ptavwoy. Is it true you've never told an
actual joke?

Rickies: I don't tell jokes. I'm not a
stand-up. I'm not a guy who comes out
and says, “Two Jews got off a bus.” Im
not like that. The director John Landis,
who's making a documentary about me
with my son Larry, said something inter-
esting: “Don, what you do is a theatrical
performance.” I realized that’s as good a
description as anything I've heard.

Q6

navnov: So anyone who calls you a stand-
up does so at their peril?

nicktes: I resent the label “stand-up.”
because it’s not that way. It’s my per-
sonality, and it's attitude. A lot of people
‘who've never seen me think I'm going to
be a horror show. And I'm not. [always
say, “I'm the guy who goes to the office
Christmas party and makes fun of the
boss and everybody else, wipes every-
body out, and Monday morning still has
his job.” I tell the truth and exaggerate
things about people, That's what makes
it funny. That's the whole secret.

Q7

riavsov Your breakthrough came with
your first appearance on The Tonight
‘Show, in 1965, when you greeted Johnny
Carson with “Hello, dummy.”

ricrtes: He’s the one who gave me the
nickname Mr. Warmth. Johnny knew
how to play me like a master violinist. I
can say truthfully that every time I went
on The Tonight Show it became an event.
He'd say, “How your mother

“You don't like my mother! WI
talking about my mother?” We'd go from
there and do 20 minutes on my mother
and his mother. I'd say, “Your mother is
living in Nebraska, begging for money.
What the hell is the matter with you?
Send her the check!” Every time we'd get
screams, I'd get off and they d say, "Wow!
Did you see Rickles the other night?”

as

puavnon: You've acted in movies with
some of the greatest stars of the last
century, from Clark Gable to Robert De
Niro. Did any of their tricks of the trade
stick in your craw?

Rickies: My first picture was Auen Silent, Run
‘Deep, with Gable and Burt Lancaster. Can
you imagine? Lancaster would say, “You

know, Don, you've got to understand sub-
marines on this picture. Very important.
You have to know why the sub dives, why it
‘comes up, why it stays at the bottom!” My
head was spinning. I went over to Gable
and said, “Clark, Burt was just telling me
everything about the submarine so we
‘can do our scenes. I don't know.” Gable
snaps, Just do the dialogue. He's too seri-
‘ous, Just forget about it.” In Casino I didn't
“What's my motivation to be scared?

With De Niro and Martin Scorsese, they'd
sit and discuss it. Scorsese would say, “Roll
“em!” and De Niro would walk through
the casino with me and go, “Hs
herughth” Te say, Hold i T can't do
this. The man mumbles. I don't need this.
‘The man isa mumbler!” The crew would
start laughing, and Scorsese would fall
down, which was a problem because he's
three feet tall to begin with. With Marty
1 would always say, “Get him a couple of
phone books. I can't see him. I hate to
work with a director you can't see.”

Qs

iavuox: How scary was it to do that psy-
chotic Casino scene in which Joe Pesci
beats you with a phone?

RICKLES. Joe gets carried away. He really
believed he was that guy. I had on a rub-
ber suit, and it still hurt. He hit me on
the shoulders. If I didn't have the rub-
ber suit, I'd be dead. In fact, after the
scene was over, I said to Pesci, “Joe, go
sit down and take a Valium.” I süll get a
Tittle nervous anytime somebody hands
me a telephone receiver.

alo

You're a believer in the lovely
tradition of the preshow cocktail. What
does it do for you?

nicxtes: The drink gives me a kick in
the ass. You feel great. I go vodka rocks
before a show. My road manager, Tony
O., makes it for me, just like he did for
Frank Sinatra when he worked for him on
the road. And yet I don't drink at home
at all. Never touch it, I swear to God. But
‘when I'm working or at a dinner party, I
have a few. It's a relaxing thing.

an

narnox: What are the advantages of put-
ting off getting married? You were 38
when you took the plunge.

kieres: I guess I had my share of
fun when I was single. Frank used to
help me out a lot in that department,
which should be a big surprise, stop the
presses. One night I was sitting with a
girl in the lounge of the Sands. I knew
she was somebody I could score with if
things went right. So I went up to him
at his table and said, “Listen, Frank,
Tm with this girl, and if you came over
and said hello to me and her it would
be a very big deal.” He said, “No prob-
lem.” So after a while he came over and

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127

PLAYBOY

said, “Hey, Don, it's nice to see you and
this beautiful lady here.” I looked up
and said, very loud, “Frank, not now!
Can't you see I'm with somebody?” He
laughed his ass off, Then, as I like to
say, he had seven guys pick me up and
throw me out of the casino. That part
didn't happen. But he loved to remind
me of that story, rest his soul.

@12

riavsow Since you flew with him often,
describe the ring-a-ding kick of sharing
a private plane with Sinatra.

RickLeS: Frank loved to fly. He always sat
in the front of the plane. Every once in a
while he'd say, “Tell Rickles I want to see
.” Td come up, and he'd point out the
window and say, “Don, look at the way
the sun sets, Look at the colors.” This
was after we'd had a few drinks, but he
was serious. I'd have to sit there and go,
“Um, yeah, Frank. Fantastic.” It would be
pitch-black sometimes—"Look at that sky,
those dark blues!” I was so intimidated by
him T'd say, “Yeah, it looks great.” Then
we had food on the plane. If they served
dead dog, I'd say, “Delicious, Frank.”

ais

ravsow. Once upon a time you had a
huge fan named Elvis Presley. How did
the King show you the love?

ickLES. It was the strangest thing. I was
onstage at the Riviera in Vegas one night,
and he walked out from the wings, wearing
his full white jumpsuit costume. He pulled
outa piece of paper and said, “Don, can I

doa litle poem in your honor?” Lets face it,
he was weird. He started reading, "Let the
birds sing in the trees"—whatever the hell
it was; we're talking about 35 years ago. He
finished, and then he gave me a little chain
with a lightning-bolt medallion on it, which
all his guys wore. The initials TCB were on
it, which stood for Taking Care of Business.
Cute. I gaveit to my son, who was a kid back
then, and he sold it to somebody Today it's
supposed tobe very valuable. Anyway; Elvis
gave me that, madea whole speech. I made
a few cracks, the audience went crazy, and
then he left. But he followed me like I was a
hero. And I wasn't that old back then.

ais

rayon. Las Vegas today is a different
world from the Las Vegas you once knew.
What do you miss the most?
sickLes: Even though they say the wise-
guys ran the place, the main thing I miss
is the one-owner system. When it was
great, every hotel had one guy you could
o to and say, “I want to have a party.”

ive Rickles and his family
‘One guy made you feel
very at home. Today if you have a cup
of coffee it's, “Sign here and a copy here
and another copy here.” Its all corpora-
tions, all business. There's none of the
camaraderie that made you feel special.

als
muavsow. Another thing that's gone
are the Vegas shows at five au, which
you always made must-see entertain-
ment in the old Casbar Lounge at the

“Wanna trade later?”

Sahara. What was funny at that hour?
sucks. With enough vodka, everything's
funny at that hour. I did shows at 12, two
and five in the morning. At five you never
did the regular show; you just kidded
around. It was breakfast over a bar where
everyone was still drinking. That's why
Liza Minnelli did a show at one o'clock in
the morning in Vegas last year. She invited
all the people from the different shows,
She's trying to bring it back, but that’s not
going to happen. It's different world.

als

riavsoy What should a man understand
about his mother?

nucktes: I make no secret that I was a
mother’s boy, which always throws peo-
ple. I say every night at the end of my
act, “As long as you live, never forget your
‘mother, because she'll never forget you.”
My mother was the Jewish Patton. She
was very strong-willed, with a voice that
grabbed you, just booming. She would
walk into a room and take over: “How
are you, my darlings?” I was basically shy
and probably still am. I would be hiding
behind a wall, but my mom, by being her-
self, made it so I could come out and be
who Tam. She gave me that strength. And
she lived through me.

@17

rrarnon: What does it say about your power
that people hire you for private gigs with
the hope that you'll destroy them?
aces. That always breaks me up. They
hire me but then give me instructions
backstage. I just did one with Bill Gates,
Warren Buffett and Steve Wynn in the
audience. I was flown to Vegas and given
a suite for two nights at Wynn's hotel, and
1 had to do only a half hour. My pay was
10 hours use of a private¿je service to fly
wherever I wanted. But 1 got the same
thing backstage: “Don't make too much fun
of Warren, and don't say anything about
Steve's vision problems.” And I've known
Steve Wynn for 35 years! 1 said, “Why
am I here? You hired me to do this, you
schmucks.” Td never met Warren Buffett
before in my life, but he was a great guy.
His suit was wrinkled from the humidity.
1 walked up to him, pulled him into the
spotlight and said, “Here's $5—get the suit
pressed. Whatever you need, sweetheart
Don’t be bashful. I have more if you need
the help; just call me.” He laughed, thank
God. 1 told Bill Gates, “How does a 12-
year-old guy with all those little light-
toys become so rich? I don't understand it.
‘Where's your wet nurse?” And with Wynn,
1 pantomimed him with the cane and the
dog. I just made it up for a half hous, and
now I'm using the private plane.

als
rtavnoy, You've also spent time in the
White House. How does your act go over
in the Oval Office?

PLAYBOY

190

micres: I've met five presidents—
Ronald Reagan, rest his soul, Clin-
ton, Ford, the first Bush, Nixon. Each
one did the same thing when we were
introduced: They faded back like 1
was going to set fire to their pants.
And then there was Jimmy Carter. Bob
Newhart and I were led into the Oval
Office, and there was just a sweater
on the chair, The guy left! Newhart
said, “It's you. He's afraid of you!” I
told his vice president, Walter Mon-
dale, about it. He said, "You mean he
left? He didn't see you? I can't believe

‘The leader of the Western world is
afraid of—you2”

Q19

n.avnow Have you ever been out Ricklesed?
nicktes: I was in New York, and this
homeless guy came up to me and said,
“Mr. Rickles, can you help me out?” 1
said, “Here's five bucks. Buy yourself a
ranch.” And I kept walking. But the guy
came running after me with his hand out
again, so I turned and said, “What is it?”
He said, "Now I need cattle.” I thought
that was good.

@20

ravuox. Who can't take a joke?

nicktes: People always ask if anybody
ever wanted to get up and hit me.
“That's so ridiculous. At this stage of my
career, some people may come to see
my act not knowing exactly what I do,
others come out of curiosity, and some
people are devoted fans. But nobody
comes to be in a rumble. The whole
thing is that I'm never mean-spirited,
and people can always tell that. I may
not be for everybody, but I'm sure
somebody didn't like Bob Hope, either.
‘When you stand out and sell yourself,
there's always somebody who won't like
you. In the beginning there was always
controversy, which I expected. “He said
my uncle was fat. Who says that to my
uncle?” It was unheard of. But nobody
wanted to come up and kill me. And if
they did, in those days I had my Italian
manager, Joe Scandore, with four guys
who had good noses and strong arms.

‘Read the 21s question at playboy com magazine.

“Vito, make a note— The Kiss of Death’ is no longer
to be given by Dennis.”

SEXUAL MALE

(continued from page 104)
less alarmed by these pursuits among
younger children, but by fifth and sixth
grade many girls have breasts, which
appear to adults to eroticize the game,
Thorne says this time is full of
“moments of reframing” for boys. She
recalls a girl who had been caught by a
boy who pinned her arms to her sides:
"She looked at him and said, ‘You're
hugging me,’ and he let go immedi-
ately.” Playground “rituals of pollu-
tion,” a.k.a. cooties, are also interesting
in that girls are far more often seen as
afflicted. For boys, being touched by
polluted (sexual) females becomes
fraught with both danger and pleasure,
In an act of betrayal, a boy may hold
down a friend so he can be kissed.

As the hormones in the body and
brain increase from a trickle to a
flood, these antics come to an end. A
boy's sense of identity as a male, his
sexual response and his ability to form
dyadic relationships—elements Ban-
croft suggests develop relatively inde-
pendently—start to merge. Youngsters
begin to go steady, tentatively at first,
with infatuations that last only days
or weeks. Rather than sharing found
porn with their friends, boys retreat
for private reflection. Slow dancing is
introduced at parties, and first kisses
are exchanged, prompting what for a
boy feels like the hardest erection of
his life. When I had my first lip-lock,
at the age of 13, my corduroys nearly
burst at the seams, Where does that
energy go?

THE BIG CHANGE
Most men remember puberty as an
uncomfortable time when their bodies
fit like a bad suit, their voices cracked
due to the thickening of their vocal
cords, and girls ignored them in favor
of the cooler ninth-graders, who were
themselves ignored in favor of cooler
seniors. You want to give that kid
you once were a hug. Hang in there,
buddy. He is an alien—half boy, half
man. Adrenal puberty (which occurs
only in humans and apes) has given
him the desire to reproduce, and now
gonadal puberty provides the means.
For the typical boy, the renovations
directed by the testicles begin at the
age of 11 and a half—nine months
after gonadal puberty begins for the
average giri—but can start as early as
nine or as late as 15. Some studies have
found that boys who mature early have
more self-esteem, success and lovers,
while other research suggests they are
more likely to become juvenile delin-
quents. So you can't win.

The drama of gonadal puberty
lasts two to four years. As increas-
ing amounts of testosterone circulate
through the bloodstream, the downy

hair on your genitals thickens and
expands. Follicles come to life on
your neck, face, chest and back. You
become stronger, About 50 percent of
boys experience a temporary growth
in breast size due to a surge of the
hormones that cause the same effect in
girls (with more pleasing results). You
get sleepy later at night and have more
trouble waking up. Your balls become
five to 10 times larger as the tubes
inside them grow in diameter and
your germ line begins creating sperm
ata blistering pace. Your penis length-
ens, and your scrotum darkens. Dur-
ing late puberty you grow an average
of 3.75 inches a year. Your body moves
toward a ratio of 40 percent protein
to 15 percent fat. (A girl's ratio is 2

percent protein to 25 percent fat.) It
also begins to produce an abundance
of red blood cells, meaning more oxy-
gen can be distributed to burn energy.
You work up quite an appetite. And
of course the random hard-ons begin,
popping up like automatic timers in
a turkey. You can never predict what
will set them off. In a study published
in 1943, Glenn Ramsey of Indiana
University asked 291 boys to list things
that had given them erections. They
mentioned the usual suspects, such

as dirty talk, nude women, porn and
fantasies, But half the boys, mostly
the 10- to 12-year-olds, also men-
tioned carnival rides, airplane rides,
war movies, being late to school, book
reports, riding at high speed in a car,
playing a musical solo, fast elevator
Fides, being chased by police, big fires,
electrical shocks, sitting in class, seeing
their name in print, expecting a show-
down with a bully, facing a long flight
of stairs, looking over the edge of a
building, hearing an adventure story,
singing the national anthem, anticipat-
ing a scolding, taking a shower, riding
a bike and getting a report card. Other
than that they had no problems

By the age of 12 or 13 everything is
usually in place for you to fulfill your
biological duty. In many cultures and
eras you would get started soon after
your first ejaculation (semenarche).
One survey of 186 preindustrial soci-
eties found that most teens married
within two to four years of reaching
puberty, but an American adolescent
typically waits as long as 15 years,
which leaves plenty of time for mas.
turbation. Even if you avoid touching
yourself, the expanding line of sperm
will escape in your urine or through
nocturnal emissions—wet dreams.

‘These orgasms, created by your brain
without benefit of stimulation, are a
demonstration of who runs the show,

THE PULSE OF MANHOOD
How does your brain know it’s time
for Extreme Makeover: Homeboy Es
tion? Everyone has ideas. It may have
an internal clock that counts down the
days. Or perhaps the body sends a sig-
nal when it reaches a particular weight
or fat-muscle ratio. Puberty may begin
the moment a boy first consumes more
calories than he needs to survive. It has
even been suggested that teenage girls
send a signal—a scent, perhaps—that
says “Come and get us.” It could be a
combination of events, Whatever the
trigger, the transformation corresponds
with the secretion in the hypothalamus
of gonadotropin-releasing hormone
(GnRH), which pulses like a heartbeat
every two or three hours during the
day and more frequently at night as
you sleep. GnRH is of interest to only a
single tiny part of your body—the pea-
size pituitary gland positioned above the
roof of your mouth, Once activated, the
gland releases its own specialized hor-
mones into your blood that turn on the
gears in your testicles. That's puberty
in a nutshell. I’s a delicate operation,

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PLAYBOY

192

at least inside your head. GnRH is
produced by a cluster of just 1,000 neu-
rons (among a hundred billion) that
are created near your sinuses and then
march across your forebrain. As mea-
sured by GnRH pulses, your sexual
maturation begins soon after, while you
are still in the womb, continues until
you're about a year old, then slows or
stops (it's not clear which) for eight to
12 years. "This break is probably adap-
tive,” explains neuroendocrinologist
‘Tony Plant. “It evolved to give boys time
to develop before being exposed to the
powerful effects of testosterone, so they
can acquire culture and such. The time
off is useful for females because they
cannot reproduce until their pelvic gir-
dle has grown to a size that can accom-
modate a newborn's head.”

Scientists who study puberty have been
‘working backward, hoping to eventually
locate the signal that activates the GnRH
pulse. In 2003 researchers in Paris and
at Harvard took a small step for man-
kind when they independently identified
a puberty gene, GPR54. Both research
teams discovered families in which a
number of adult siblings and cousins
had never reached puberty; each had a
defective GPR54. In 2005 a team led by
Plant documented the role of another
gene, KiSS-1, which produces a protein,
kisspeptin, that binds to and switches on
GPR54. In experiments with adolescent
Thesus monkeys at his lab at the Univer-

ty of Pittsburgh, Plant found he could
induce puberty by injecting kisspeptin
and waiting 30 minutes.

Once GnRH is pulsing again and
gonadal puberty is under way, sub-
stances such as human growth hor-
mone, leptin, insulin and melatonin
regulate the transformation. (A recent
Italian study found that the more time
a child spends in front of computer

“Sorry, but I had a

and TV screens, the less melatonin he
produces, suggesting he may mature
more quickly.) It’s obvious when a boy
physically becomes a man, but with
the advance of medical technology, sci-
entists are now able to observe what's
in his mind at the same time. In 1990
Dr. Jay Giedd, chief of the Brain Imag-
ing Center at the National Institute of
Mental Health, launched an ambitious
experiment: His lab began scanning the
brains of 1,000 children every two years
as they grew into adulthood. These
images document a period of explosive
growth that occurs in the average girl
at the age of 11 and the average boy at
13.5, followed by a careful pruning of
unused connections. (A similar period of
growth and pruning begins in the womb
and continues until a child is about 18
‘months old.) The expansion is particu-
larly intense in the prefrontal cortex,
which allows us to prioritize, think in
the abstract, anticipate consequences
and control impulses. It has been called
the area of sober second thoughts. It's
also the part of the brain that processes
facial cues and body language. While
the ability to interpret faces is in place
shortly after birth, i's not until your 20s
that you become adept at spotting subtle
differences, such as those between fear
and shock or recognizing that what a
woman says isn't necessarily what she
means. (“Of course I don't mind if you
go to that bachelor party”) Giedd has
found that many changes to the brain
have nothing to do with the hormone
rush of puberty but appear to be con-
trolled by genes that are activated by
some unknown trigger. “Two or three
dice are thrown,” Giedd says. The brain
becomes increasingly elastic during this
period, which may help us adapt as we
are expected to fend for ourselves for
the first time. Giedd also notes how a

ure ej

I left my apartment.”

boy's approach to the world changes
simply but profoundly. “Before mak-
ing any decision, his brain starts asking,
"Will this lead to sex? Ivs a huge switch
and predicts an enormous amount of
behavior in mammals in general.”

‘Some evidence suggests that the age at
which children reach puberty has grown
dramatically younger over the past few
centuries. It is easy to document this
trend in girls because sexual maturation
is marked by their first period. With
boys, scientists are left to guess when
the sperm factory kicks on by measur-
ing testicles or scanning for pubic hairs
while digging through historical records
for benchmarks. For example, when
J.S. Bach directed the Leipzig boys’
choir from 1723 to 1750, the voices of
the singers typically did not break until
the age of 18. By 1959 the average was
13.3 years. More recently, Giedd and
other scientists have concluded that the
mind does not mature until the early
20s and perhaps as late as 25. Together
these developments put the coming of
age of the body and brain a decade or
more apart. “It's like turbocharging an
engine without having a skilled driver,”
says Dr. Ronald Dahl, a professor of psy-
chiatry and pediatrics at the University
of Pittsburgh. Some people argue that
this disparity is a good reason to keep
teenagers ignorant of sex, because they
are more likely to take chances that lead
to pregnancy and STDs. But according
10 a team of social scientists who com-
pared teen pregnancy rates in the U.S.,
Canada, the U.K., Sweden and France,
this argument fails to account for the
fact that teens outside the U.S. have lots
of sex and don't get pregnant nearly as
often. A key difference is that they are
much more likely to use contraception.

Despite the perception that Ameri-
can teenagers are fucking like rabbits,
most boys don't have intercourse until
their final year of high school. In an
anonymous national survey conducted
in 2002 of 5,700 male high school stu-
dents, 56 percent of the 15-year-olds
said they had not yet had intimate sex-
ual contact. By the age of 17, 36 percent
still had no experience, but 52 percent
had gotten a blow job, 47 percent had
experienced vaginal intercourse, and
13 percent had experimented with
anal sex with a female partner. The
trip around the bases, from kissing
to caressing breasts to genital petting
to penetration, typically takes about
two years (not necessarily with the
same girl), with each stage viewed as
a rehearsal for the next. Indeed, some
researchers have found that having
a girlfriend has more influence over
whether a boy has sex than religion,
parenting or peer pressure. To para-
phrase Chris Rock, you're only as faith-
ful to abstinence as your options.

DIGITAL MAN

(continued from page 66)

a Los Angeles rock musician eager to
talk about hacking. Through a trick at
the phone switch, Mitnick gleaned the
man’s phone number and traced him
to his home in an Oakwood apartment
complex. Why would this hipster be stay-
ing ata place for corporate stiffs? Within
days Mitnick obtained a copy of the
rental agreement and learned someone
else paid the $1,300 rent each month.

“We met at Hamburger Hamlet and
started talking about our capabilities,”
Mitnick recalls. Heinz let slip about a
secret phone-company system that Mi
nick and his longtime cohort, Lew
De Payne, had never heard of. Mitnick
quickly located and mastered the system.
It was a hacker's dream: an internal Pac
Bell system to troubleshoot phone lines
that could be used for remote wiretaps.

So Mitnick monitored Heinz's phone
“We pop onto the line and hear him
talking to some man,” says Mitnick.
“Then we hear him say ‘Ken.’ I hear
my name, Mitnick. I'm freaking out.
My hearts beating like crazy. This is 100
percent confirmation. Ken McGuire, the
other man on the line, is an FBI agent.
They're talking about evidence to get a
search warrant.”

Heinz was actually Justin Petersen,
a thief the FBI paid to entrap hackers
Mitnick began tracking the whereabouts
of Petersen and McGuire, his FBI con-
trol. He entered the cell numbers of
McGuire and other agents into his
scanner and tracked their movements
throughout southern California. He
knew where they lived, as well as their
cover names, driver's license numbers
and home addresses. The FBI wasn't
happy. The Bureau had to keep mov-
ing its undercover operative to new
safe houses after Mitnick kept cracking
them. In December 1992, a year after
Mitnick first spoke to Petersen, the G-men
knocked on his door. The jig was up.
They planned to revoke his probation
and send him back to jail, but Mitnick
had already split. On Christmas Eve
he checked into a budget hotel in Las
Vegas. He planned to stay a month,
enough time to establish a new identity
and fly away. But Mitnick didn’t know
that, in early January, Tsutomu Shimo-
mura, a brilliant computational physicist
at the federally funded Supercomputer
Center in San Diego, would remind
his favorite New York Times reporter
that Mitnick was about to go free, not-
ing that his “conditional release is up
sometime around now, isn't it?” The
FBI wasn’t the only entity interested in
the hacker's whereabouts.

.
So how does a wanted man escape the
watchful eye of the FBI? He walks into
the Department of Motor Vehicles as

one person and walks out as another.
The character in The Fugitive couldn't
have done better. Impersonating a cop,
Mitnick phoned Oregon's DMV “look”
ing for a suspect” and found the ideal
target, a man who couldn't drive because
of medical problems. Mitnick applied
for a temporary license using this new
identity. Then he picked up W-2 forms
at Office Depot, invented a tax identifica-
tion number for a phony employer and
used these and other forged documents
to apply for a copy of his new birth cer-
tificate. Soon he had an authentic driv-
er's license, a Social Security card and a
bank account under his new name. Mit-
nick headed to the library to select his
next destination. With sunshine 300 days
a year, glorious mountains, great skiing
and plentiful jobs, Denver sounded like
an adventure. Mitnick began to meticu-
ously develop his cover. “People might
start asking questions, and you can't give
different answers to different people,” he
says. “I created a story for where I

up, where I went to school and who my

arents were.”

Pins a boy Mitnick loved reading
about spies, secret agents and magic.
The identity he'd created was a fan-
ciful concession to his first childhood
hero. When his plane landed at Denver
International Airport, tucked into his
wallet was a new Social Security card
and American Express checks made out
in the name of Eric Weiss, an approxi-
mation of Ehrich Weiss, the given name
of Harry Houdini.

Eric Weiss, a.k.a. Kevin Mitnick, was
called in for an interview by the down-
town Denver law firm of Holme, Roberts
& Owen. The company checked his refer-
ences, phoning Paul Michaels, president
of Green Valley Systems. Michaels—actu-
ally Mitnick working from a pay phone in
a nearby hotel—returned the call. “Eric
isan excellent worker,” Mitnick said, low-
ering his voice. “If he ever moves back to
Las Vegas, Pd hire him in a minute.”
The hardest thing during the crazy
charade was to keep from laughing. N
nick carefully laid the groundwork for
this elaborate fiction: letterhead for the
imaginary Vegas company and $30 for
a mail drop and an answering service,
Mitnick got a second interview and the
job as acomputer operator. His capabili-
ties soon endeared him to his boss: “She
started calling me the law-firm hacker.”
Mitnick would often stay until mid-
night, researching his defense with the
firm's abundant law books and enjoy-
ing the comfortable furniture. He left
few electronic fingerprints. He felt safe.
Forty-three floors up, he hooked his
scanner to his laptop and began inter-
cepting the electronic serial numbers of
cellular callers. He skipped from one
account to another so customers would
be unlikely to notice the extra phone

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PLAYBOY

194

charges. His cell and laptop became his
mobile hacking launchpad.

Mitnick targeted Neill Clift, an English-
man famous for collecting software bugs
on Digital Equipment Corporation com-
puters. In spring 1993 Mitnick, posing
as Derrell Piper, a noted security expert
at DEC, began sending Clift e-mails. He
claimed he was compiling a log of all the
DEC vulnerabilities and needed Clif’s
assistance. To assure Clift he wasn't what
he actually was, a notorious hacker, Mit-
nick raised the subject himself. “I didn't
‘want him to start thinking, Could this be
Mitnick? So I thought, Well, bring him
up.” As they began exchanging messages,
Mitnick casually told Clift, "I heard this
Mitnick guy was after you.”

‘The tactic put Clift at ease, and he fell
for the ploy, e-mailing the major vulnera-
bilities of DEC computers to the last person
on earth the company would want to have
them. “I'm still missing one more report,”
the hacker e-mailed Clift, “Please send me
the Sgetpi bug report... I forgot to include
it in my request yesterday. Its been a very
busy week.” The thrill of conning Clift sent
Mitnick soaring. Encouraged, he began
contemplating hack that would ultimately
rock the security foundations of telecom-
munications giants around the globe.

Where did Mitnick's compulsion begin?
“My father divorced my mother when

I was three,” Mitnick explains in a
matter-of-fact tone. "She married four
times—she had lots of boyfriends.”
Mitnick was shuttled through a series
of apartments in the San Fernando
Valley, and one stepfather beat him so
badly that Mitnick was removed from
the home. As a chubby teenager, he
became infatuated with ham radio and
became known for his on-air screeds.
But the real precursor to his hacking
came from another technology: At 16,
Mitnick fel
ing. “You'd call a number, enter a
‘e-digit code and call any-
where in the world for free,” he says.
“I loved the illusion, the magic.”
Mitnick hacked the switch that con-
trolled many of the phones at the
NSA, eavesdropped on a call and then
decided that might not be wise. He
wrote a program to swipe his teacher's
password and leapfrogged from a high
school computer into the University of
Southern California's network to play
‘computer games. On another occa-
sion an adversary picked up his home
phone one day to hear a recorded voice
asking him to deposit a dime—Mitnick
had turned it into a pay phone. Once,
for kicks, Mitnick intercepted direc-
tory assistance in Rhode Island. Call-
ers got mind-spinning listings. “That
number is 555, 2 one-half 37," Mitnick
says he deadpanned, loving it when

“Originally, it was just to mask my feelings for Tonto.”

befuddled callers would ask, “How do
you dial a half?”

Bored with school, Mitnick passed his
GED and broke into one of Pac Bell's
key buildings, only to be chased on the
405 freeway by investigators from the
district attorney's office. “They pulled
me out of the car, handcuffed me
really tight,” he says. He remembers
being told, “We're going to teach you
to stop fucking around with Pac Bell.”
Charged with grand theft, burglary
and computer fraud, Mitnick received
probation and a mandatory psycho-
logical exam. “Kevin feels indignant
that authority figures often unjustly
have the upper hand,” the psychiatrist
reported to the juvenile-court judge.
“Kevin's preoccupation, if not obses-

ion, is derived in part from the sense
of power he gains, power which offers
a sense of security and power which
enables him to get even if he chooses.”

Mitnick’s early exploits were among
the first to inspire theories of computer
addiction, Tripped up in 1988 because
he had nowhere to stash his digital
loot but USC's computers, Mitnick was
found to be a “very great danger to the
community” by a federal judge, who
sentenced him to a year in jail. DARK
SIDE HACKER SEEN AS ELECTRONIC TERROR-
ist was the headline in the Las Angeles
Times. “The final digits of his unlisted
home phone were 007,” wrote the
Times, “reportedly billed to the name
James Bond.”

Mitnick’s exploits had the ring of
myth. Reporters wrote that he had
caused millions of dollars of damage
by breaking into DEC’s computers,
compromised the security of the NSA
and trashed a judge's credit report,
The most incredible story recalled the
1983 hit movie WarGames, in which the
young Matthew Broderick nearly starts
World War III. According to the Los
Angeles Times story, “Steven Rhoades,
a fellow hacker and friend,...said he
and Mitnick broke into a North Amer-
ican Aerospace Defense Command
‘computer in Colorado Springs, Colo-
rado.” Fearful the hacker could wreak
global havoc with a single phone call,
the judge subjected the 25-year-old
to eight months of solitary confine-
‘ment. “It was tough psychologically,’
Mitnick says. “They'd concocted all
these rumors about me. I was scared,
locked in that little room for 23 out of
24 hours, four blank walls to stare at.
It was like being locked in a coffin.”

Mitnick believes he became a scape-
goat for society's unease with the
spread of technology. His handle for a
time was Condor, taken from his favor-
ite film, Three Days of the Condor, the
Sydney Pollack thriller starring Robert
Redford as a technically savvy agent
hunted by a corrupt CIA. Mitnick
Knows the appeal of myth. “I knew
they would exaggerate my crimes to

make me the example. Based on what
happened in the past, being held in
solitary confinement and NORAD and
all that bullshit, I knew I was a pawn
in the game.”

Six years after his confinement, lead-
ing a double life at the Denver law firm,
Mitnick attempted one of his greatest
hacks, the full details of which have
never been published before. The trea-
sure: Motorola's most valuable source
code, Why? Why do men climb moun-
tains? Mitnick hoped the code would
enable him to create an untraceable cell
phone. Invisibility was his goal. Pride
also figured in it. Mitnick thought get-
ting the Motorola code would be a notch
in his belt, a trophy; also the Motorola
MicroTAC Ultralite was niftier than his
Novatel model. “It looked like the Star
Trek communicator,” he says. “That's
why I went after it”

Possibly the most jaw-dropping
aspect of the hack was its spontaneity.
‘Aided by the cell phone in his hand,
Mitnick improvised a preposterous con
job. One snowy February day he left
work a little early and began the 20-
minute walk to his apartment. “People
are more cooperative at the end of the
day,” he says. “They want to get out of
the office.” He dialed Motorola head-
quarters in Schaumburg, Illinois as he
walked, eventually reaching the voice
mail of a vice president, Paula D. (the
names of all Motorola employees have
been changed). She was on vacation,
which was perfect. That meant she
wouldn't unravel his fraud. Her out-
going message said to call her assistant
for help while she was gone.

“Hey, Ann, how are you?” Mitnick said
on his next call. “Listen, did Paula leave
on her vacation yet

Mitnick identified himself as Rick from
research. “She told me she'd send me a
copy of the source code for the Micro TAC.
She said I should call you ifshe didn't have
time, and you would help me out.”

Mitnick was working what he calls his
“authority principle.”

"What version are you looking for?”
Ann asked,

‘Thrown for a loop, Mitnick took in his
surroundings. Downtown Denver, the
snow pouring down in thick flakes. cars
honking. He should have called from an
office. But he felt invincible.

“How about the latest and greatest?”

“Sure,” chirped Ann.

She began typing as she searched.
Five minutes passed. Mitnick grew
concerned.

She came back on. “Version 9366.
That's the latest.”

“Fantastic,” Mitnick said.

“Rick,” she said, “there are hundreds
of files. What do you want me to do?”

He shifted his tone. He had to train
his retriever.

“Do you know how to use Tar and
GZip?” he asked.

‘She didn't. Mitnick explained that the
‘commands would compress the files into
one, Would she like to learn?

a

Just like that, Mitnick became her
tutor. He taught her to compress the
files, cementing his authority, bringing
“reciprocity” into play. He asked if she
knew how to tse the file-transfer pro-
gram; she did.

Ashe neared his apartment, Mitnick won-
dered where to send the loot. He couldn't
give her a normal host name; she'd realize it
wasn't Motorola. Then it came to him: Give
her the arcane numerical code for an Inter-
net address outside Motorola.

But he hit a snag: Ann couldn't con-
nect to the address. “I think this could be
a security issue,” she told him.

She put him on hold, presumably to
get help. The minutes ticked by. Mit
nick worried,

“Rick,” she said sharply as she came
back on, “you're asking me to transfer
the source code outside Motorola.”

Mitnick thought he was cooked—until
she said her security administrator had
told her she needed “to use a special
proxy server.” Incredibly, the Motorola
‘manager held her hand through the final
technical steps. Mitnick had reached the
entrance of his brick apartment building.
“I about tripped and fell.” He stared at
his phone in disbelief. In 20 minutes,
on a lark, he had phoned Motorola and
obtained one of its most valuable assets.

Mitnick rushed into his apartment
and hooked his cell to his laptop. He
checked his network stash, and there
it was. “I couldn't stop there.” Mitnick
says. Emboldened by his success, he
now wanted full access to the Motorola
cellular-development network. To con-
nect remotely he would need a user name,
password and SecurlD—a credit-card-size
electronic token that generates a second
password. Experts considered the security
routine extremely tough to crack.

A blizzard raged outside Motorola's
Schaumburg offices. Late one Friday night,
Minnick called its computer room, saying
he was working on a weckend project and
‘coukin' get into the office with all the snow
and damn if he hadnt left his Securi in his
desk drawer. Mitnick asked the operator if
he could hop over to his office and read off
the random password. It didn't fly. Mitnick
hadn't expected it to. “Since you can't get
my SecurlD,” Mitnick asked, “do you have
one available in the IT department?”

“Yeah.”

“Could we use that one?”

The operator phoned his boss, letting
Mitnick listen in. “I have Rick on the
phone. He's with the cellular subscriber
group. He's working on a special project.
Yeah, I know him.”

Mitnick smiled to himself. The opera-
tor was vouching for him.

The boss wanted to talk with Mitnick,

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> “Lreally appreciate this,” Mitnick said. “I Indeed, in a report to the FBI, Motorola fugitive,” he says. “I didn't want to make
understand it’s outside anyone's scope.” investigators stated that during the intru- him nervous.”

o g

m _ Mitnick dropped a few names culled sions on February 19 and 20, the caller
from a password file Ann had unwit- bypassed four separate levels of security.

> tingly sent him. y In early 1994 prosecutor David Schindler

<

m

"This is unusual,” the boss said, “but convened a meeting at the FBI ofice in
we can help you out Motorola was far from being the only Los Angeles with the embarrassed and
Mitnick was in. But he wanted more. corporate victim. By chance, Nokia alarmed representatives of major cell
He could get only so far with these pass had just come out with the first digi- phone manufacturers who had been
words, and they didnt allow him accessto tal phone, and Mitnick had to have is hit in a spate of hacker attacks. There
the code that ran Motorola's phones. So code. He began cracking overseas com were no introductions. -T had to dole
he hacked ino a NeXT computer used puters. The Nokia investigators called tout aliases,” Schindler recalls. “This guy
bya few engineers who worked in he cel- hackering." and hackering in the U.K. was from company A, this guy was fron
Klar subscriber group. He cracked their led to a change of hackering in Finland. company B- levas a quid pro quo. They
passwords, then phoned them at home. On February 2 the FBI told the firm its wouldnt do it any other way. They all
The Arst siafer was suspicious; Mitnick source code had been found on 2 USC had the same goal: to stop the intruder
backed out. Then Earl R- answered. computer (where Mitnick had stored or intruders from gaining acess o RED
computer crash, it); Nokia files had also been found in they feared might cos them hundreds of
milions of dollars in
They were busy the marketplace ii
restoring the files , felino the hands of
creme BEAUTIFULGIRLS -x< SEXYSTYLE! mas
Mitnicks “scar ELIT mae we Everyone sus-
city principle” in F pected Mitnick. "I
operation: Take Would be a pretty
Something away. big coincidence if
then give it > all ofa sudden mul-
tiple hackers wit
“We're shooting looking for the same
for Thura thing? Schindler
The man freaked. says. Assuming Mit
He had deadlines, nick was behind the
“Listen. if you attacks, Schindler
don't tell anyone, pondered his
PI resto! Modves. “What's the
files quicker” _ purpose of gar
nick offered : Ing al this code? Is
just need some somebody sponsor
Information, ing him? Is he sel
Mitnick verified » ing it? From a threat
Ears account infor- assessment, what can
PREIS oroen THESE issues INSTANTLY wm THE oiarraı EDTON ONON
his username. Then The intrusions
he suggested pick only highlighted the

www.playboy.com/bbr www.playboy.com//lingeri

ing a password. FBI's limitations in
Never mind Order ete ana receive FRE spin dence HE . fighting cybercrime.

Mitnick said. “Let hananing: visit www. Playboystore.com ~ Mitnick boasted
“Who are you cell numbers, Social

amin? calm BUY THESE ISSUES AT NEWSSTANDS NOW Security numbers,
itnick calmly addresses.
repeated his alia In contrast, the FBI
You're concerned about security,” he Colorado Springs. Finland’s National knew relatively little about Mitnick. Then
said. “Hold on a moment. I'll get your Bureau of Investigation opened a case something unexpected threw the hacker
application for yo © ID.” He put of international espionage, flying a off course. He was fired. The Denver law
the phone down aited, ruffling detective to Los Angeles. firm suspected he was consulting during
some papers Mitnick meanwhile had made human — office hours, Mitnick retired Eric Weiss
“I found your form. I'll tell you the connections. While hanging out on the and started the laborious process of step-
password you wrote down [which Mit- Internet Relay Chat, an online channel ping into a new identity he had been
nick had just hacked). Is that okay where hackers trade real-time insults grooming for more than a year, Brian
“Sure.” and attack scripts, Mitnick “met” JSZ. Merrill. A month later Mitnick took a
“Mary.” When Mitnick phoned him, JSZ took rain to Seattle, arriving late and check-
Placated, Earl handed over his new the callin the computer lab of an Israeli ing into a downtown hotel.
password, and Mitnick thanked him and university where he was studying com- On July 4 Mitnick’s pager buzzed just
hung up. He logged in as Earl R., slip- puter science. “He was mysterious,” after da
ping behind Motorola's final layer of says Mitnick. “I didn’t even know his and 000—the code for Mom. Mitnick
security, He found a program to extract full name.” JSZ had gained full access phoned the Sahara in Las Vegas and
the MicroTAC source code and began the to the networks of IBM, Sun and others. asked the operator to page someone
196 download. Poof? It was one hell of hack. Mitnick didn't press for details. “I wasa Mitnick’s mom, a waitress in Ve

her pseudonyms, so when she heard
“Paging Betty Sue Miller,” she knew her
fugitive son was on the line,

Mom told him to find a copy of The
New York Times, Mitnick stared in disbelief
at his face on the front page—a scruffy
booking photo taken a few years earlier.
Under the headline cvneeseact's most
WANTED: HACKER ELUDES FBI PURSUTT, the
story by Times tech reporter John Markoff
began, “Combining technical wizardry
with the ages-old guile ofa grifter, Kevin
Mitnick is a computer programmer run
amok, And law enforcement officials can-
not seem 10 catch up with him.”

All along Mitnick had been keeping tabs
on Ken McGuire, the FBI agent tasked
with bringing him to justice. But he
couldn't imagine the bigger threat that
would come when he hacked a man whose
role and motivations were less clear. It
happened by accident. Mitnick decided to
attack a fellow hacker who was under fed-
eral indlictment, The hacker was selling a
mobile hacker kit, software and accesso-
ries to transform the OKI 900 cell phone
into a laptop-powered portable handheld
scanner and wiretapping system.
nick wasn't in the habit of paying
software. He dropped in for an
cd visit to the man’s network and
grabbed everything: personal e-mail, files,
programs. Poring through his electronic
spoils with JSZ, Mitnick hoped to discover

aking it apart and putting it back
together to unlock its secrets. Sure enough,
he had, but the biggest surprise was that
the eavesdropping kit was developed with
the help of Tsutomu Shimomura. JSZ
knew Shimomura by reputation only and
told Mitnick he was arrogant, though in
the dicey netherworld of hacking he w:

considered one of the cowboys wearing a
white hat. So why would Shimomura help
a hacker design a custom fix for counter-

surveillance and eavesdropping? Mitnick
and JSZ decided they needed to find out
what Shimomura was up to.

On Christmas Day JSZ struck the
computer of a friend of Shimomura's in
icon Valley. First came the automatic
spoof—a 16-second burst of packets that
flooded the trusted server: The attack
unlocked a signature footprint that acted
like certified mail, acknowledging the
receipt ofa packet. The attack program.
fired packets at Shimomura’s machine,
eis that appeared to be coming from
the trusted machine. Next came the fake
acknowledgement—a veritable hand-
shake, Duped, Shimomura's workstation
thought it should trust this server. The
attack program ordered Shimomura's
machine to trust the entire Internet—a
security expert's worst nightmare.
Mitnick was back in Denver. After nar-
rowly escaping arrest by the Secret Ser-
vice in Seattle, he had fled to southern
alifornia. This was a stopover on his

way to North Carolina. JSZ e-mailed him,
“Tusually don't celebrate Christmas,” the
Israeli hacker told him, “but I got you a
present: I got into Shimomura's system.”
Mitnick ran to his computer. The Isra
had set up a back door, and just like that
Mitnick too was in—with full control. He
shoveled as much of Shimomura's e-mail,
data and security programs as he could
into an online stash.

Culling through his spoils, Mitnick
found e-mails between Shimomura and
Markoff, the Times reporter, stretching
back several years. They're close, they're
buddies, Mitnick thought as he exam
ined the long digital trail. He couldn’
believe what he was reading. Shimomura
had been in direct contact with the FBI
for years. An FBI agent had even asked
Shimomura what prizes should be given
for a successful sanctioned hack into the
Bureau's D.C. headquarters. And there
was more: a secret channel. Markoff had
an e-mail account on the computers at
the federally subsidized San Diego Super-
computer Center. Shimomura was not
only sending e-mails to the Times, inquir-
ing into the activities and whereabouts
of “Kevin” and “KDM,” he was com-
municating with the reporter in a sector
Shimomura assumed would be perfectly
secure: his own seemingly impenetrable
government computer network. It was
quite a twist for Mitnick. The hacker was
accustomed to outsmarting his pursuers
with his electronic tricks. Now he won-
dered if a trap was being laid for him by
someone other than the FBI.

A month later the attack on Shimomura
‘made the front page of the Times. Markoff
warmed that the technique used to access
Shimomura's computer “leaves many of
the 20 million government, business, uni-
versity and home computers on the global
Internet vulnerable.” The story caught
fire. The U.S. Marshals’ office issued
a press release requesting the public's
assistance in capturing Mitnick, reciting
his alleged crimes, including the fanciful
idea that he had compromised NORAD,
Markoff profiled Shimomura in a dra-
matic article. “It was as if the thieves, to
prove their prowess, had burglarized
the locksmith,” he wrote, “which is why
Tsutomu Shimomura, the keeper of the
keys in this case, is taking the break-in as
a personal affront and why he considers
solving the crime a matter of honor”

As the saying goes, the rest is legend.
Shimomura met with representatives from
the companies that had been victimized. A
federal prosecutor in San Francisco gave
Shimomura, a private citizen, extraor-
inary access to phone traps and traces,
and from there it was a straightforward
matter for the security expert to bring his
quarry to the ground. On February 12,
1995 Shimomura flew to Raleigh, North
Carolina, where Markoff joined him hours
later Shimomura started tooling around in
a car with a Sprint cellular technician and
a scanner, tracking Mitnick’s cell phone

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198

calls. “I remember being furious when I
learned a reporter was there,” says David
‘Schindler, the former federal prosecutor.
"That gave me a window into the extent
to which there was this parallel plan, that
this was something more than the capture
of Kevin Mitnick.” After two years on the
run Mitnick had gotten sloppy and hadn't
even bothered to mask his calls. He'd only
just arrived in Raleigh, and he knew how
slowly the FBI normally moves. When
agents knocked on his apartment door
shortly after midnight, it was some time
before he cracked it open.

In his story the next day, Markoff
quoted Kent Walker, the San Francisco
prosecutor, as saying, “Mitnick was
Clearly the most wanted computer hacker
in the world. He allegedly had access to
trade secrets worth billions of dollars. He

was a very big threat
Shimomura and Markoff promptly wrote
the book Takedown and sold the movie
rights, (The resulting film never played in
US. theaters.) The security man and the
reporter split more than $1.5 million.
Four years passed before Mitnick and
his lawyers were allowed to view the dig-
ital evidence. JSZ, who has never been
identified, told Mitnick he had taken a
job on Wall Street. Shimomura was her-
alded as a hero by the government and
the media, Damage claims ran into the
hundreds of millions of dollars, boosted
by an FBI agent who told corporations
to claim the entire development cost
of their stolen software. After Mitnick
had spent years in jail without being
tried, a “Free Mitnick” campaign began
in the digital underground, and hack-

ers defaced the New York Times website,
demanding his release.

Mitnick eventually pleaded guilty to
phone fraud and violating his probation;
he served five years before being released
in January 2000. Almost immediately Con-

requested his testimony in a televised
hearing. As the Associated Press put it,
“The government that imprisoned the
‘world's most infamous computer hacker
for nearly five years sought his advice
‘Thursday about how to keep its own net-
works safe from intruders.” Mitnick was a
hit, and the hacker began receiving speak-
ing requests. After a fight in federal court,
he earned the right to lecture and eventu-
ally consult for government agencies and
corporations. Remember Frank Abagnale,
whom Mitnick spoke with after they shared
billing at the golf retreat? In the mid-19705
the government released Abagnale from
prison early because it wanted him to
train law enforcement agencies and com-
panies to stop fraud. You can't help but
wonder if things would have turned out
differently had Mitnick been given that
‘opportunity. It almost happened. I found
an extraordinary footnote buried in the
thousands of pages in the hacker's crimi-
nal file. When Mitnick was facing his first
serious jail time as a teenager for break-

10 USC's computers, a tall, monk-
like security expert named Donn Parker
had petitioned the court to use the young
hacker's “intelligence and experience” to
prepare a Justice Department report on
preventing intrusions,

“The judge thought it was a terrible idea.

“I see the lady has already selected an appetizer.”

SORCERESS

(continued from page 119)
Ludo—t think it was coffee—I burned it.”

‘Asan Army brat growing up in Hawaii
and Colorado, Kristine was always able to
turn her passions into successes. She swam
‘competitively at the age of six and later
played on a Colorado state-championship
soccer team. She earned power-lifting titles
that led to ajob at Hooters, where she was
twice selected as a calendar girl. Later she
‘modeled in Miami and Milan.

At 38, Kristine is still fit, even after a
bout with cancer last year that tested her
strength both physically and mentally. She
says she’s 100 percent healthy now, adding
that the experience made her face each day
with renewed enthusiasm. It also helped
heer make the decision when rıavnov came
calling. “You go around only once, so
why not take every adventure that comes
your way?” she says. “Being an intelligent
woman and being feminine and sexual
should not be mutually exclusive. You can
be a professional and still be a complete
and sensuous woman. My brains don't fall
‘out of my ass when I'm naked.”

As for what her clients and fellow law-
yers will think, she's not sure. Kristine is
already a master of tailoring her look to the
tone ofa business meeting, “If T'm about to
sit down with a group of investment bank-
ers, I won't be wearing a top that shows off
the angel tattoo on my back.” But she adds
that doing a pictorial like this may have
advantages. “With men who already have
an issue with how I look, it will help. Now
that their fantasies about me are true, they
won't be able to look me in the eye, which
‘means Fl beat them hands down.”

Al the Playboy Mansion the night of her
Apprentice swimsuit victory, Kristine once
again showed her business acumen by
making a beeline for Hef. “Most people
see Hef and see the silk pajamas and the
giris,” she says. “I wanted to know about
the man and how he built his empire.”

Kristine will undoubtedly be building
empires of her own in years to come.
“These days she's helping her husband
open a big L.A. restaurant, and she con-
tinues to juggle law with modeling and
charity work for such organizations as
CHASE for Life, which raises awareness
about infant and child CPR.

As for Trump, Kristine has no hard feel-
ings. Even ifshe disagrees with his hiring
practices, she respects his tenacity, candor
and ability to get things done. There is,
however, one nagging disappointment in
not becoming part of Trump's inner cir-
dle, she says. I's not the big paycheck or
the fancy comer office or the opportunity
for big-time success. Kristine already has
all those things. “What I'm sorry about,”
Kristine says, adjusting those sexy specs of
hers with a sly smile, “is that I won't get to
see Mr. Trump's face when he finally sees
‘what was under my swimsuit.”

PLAYBOY

140

NIB FOR HIRE

(continued from page 76)
Tm staying under the name of Ozyman-
dias Hoon to stave off the local wannabes
from inundating me with scripts.”

“How did you get my number?” I
inquired. “It's unlisted.”

“From the Internet. It’s there along-
side the X-rays of your colonoscopy. Just
materialize on cue, Skeezix, and pretty
soon we'll both be able to ladle beaucoup
skins into our respective marmites.” With
that he slammed the receiver into its cra-
dle with sufficient velocity to buckle my
eustachian tube.

Tt was not unthinkable that the name
E, Coli Biggs would mean zilch to me.
As I had made clear, my existence was
not the glitzy whirlwind of film festivals
and starlets but the spartan regimen of

the dedicated bard. Over the years, I
had churned out several unpublished
novels on lofty philosophical themes
before finally being given a first printing
by Shock House. My book, in which a
man travels back in time and hides King
George's wig, thus hastening the Stamp
Act, obviously ruffled establishment feath-
ers with its bite. Still, I regarded myself
asan emerging and uncompromising tal-
ent, and mulling over Biggss command
to heel at the Carlyle made me chary
of selling out to some philistine Holly-
wood platypus. The idea that he might
fantasize renting my inspiration to pen
a screenplay at once disgusted me and
piqued my ego. After all, if the progeni-
tors of The Great Gatsby and The Sound and
the Fury could warm their stoves courtesy
of some prestige-hungry West Coast suits,
why not Mrs. Mealworm’s little bunting?

“The groom called to apologize, but his bachelor party is still in full
swing. He'll call you when it’s over.”

1 was supremely confident my flair for
atmosphere and characterization would
sparkle alongside the numbing mulch
ground out by studio hacks. Certainly
the space atop my mantel might be bet-
ter festooned by a gold statueite than by
the plastic dipping bird that now bobbed
there ad infinitum. The notion of taking
a brief hiatus from my serious writing to
amass a nest egg that could subsidize my
War and Peace ot Madame Bovary was not
an unreasonable one to contend with

And so, clad in author's tweeds with
elbow patches and Connemara cap, I
ascended to the Royal Suite of the Car-
Iyle hotel to rendezvous with the self-
proclaimed titan E. Coli Biggs.

Biggs was a fubsy pudding of a char-

acter with a hairpiece that could only
have been ordered by dialing 1-800-
Tourers. A farrago of tics animated his
face in unpredictable dots and dashes
like Morse code. Clad in pajamas and
the Carlyle’s terry-cloth robe, he was
accompanied by a miraculously fabri-
cated blonde who doubled as secretary
and masseuse, having apparently per-
fected some foolproof procedure to
clear his chronically stuffed sinuses.
TI come right to the point, Meal-
worm,” he said, nodding toward the
bedroom, to which his zaftig protégée
rose and weaved off, pausing a mere two
‘minutes to align the meridians of her
garter belt,

“1 know.” I said, descending from
Venusburg. “You read my book, you're
taken with how visual my prose is, and
you'd like me to create a scenario. Of
course you realize even if we got copa-
cetic on the math, I would have to insist
on total artistic control.”

“Sure, sure,” Biggs mumbled, waving

y ultimatum. “You know what
a novelization is?” he asked, popping
a Tums
Not really” I replied.
“I's when a movie does good num-
bers. The producer hires some zombie to
make a book out of it. Y'know, an exploi-
tation paperback—strictly for lowbrows.
You've seen the choszeraí you find in the
racks at airports and shopping malls.”

“Uh-huh,” I said, beginning to sense
a lethal tightness making its decep-
tively benign introduction into my
lumbar regior

“But me, I'm to the manor born, 1
don't hondle with mere crafismen. I meld
exclusively with bona fides. Hence I'm
here to report your latest tome caught
my baby blues last week at a little coun-
try store. Actually I'd never seen a book
remaindered in the kindling section
before. Not that I got through it, but the
three pages I managed before narcolepsy
set in told me I was in the presence of
one of the most egregious wordsmiths
since Papa Hemingway

“To tell you the truth,” I said, “I've
never heard of novelizations. My métier
is serious literature. Joyce, Kafka, Proust

As for my first book, I'll have you
Know the cultural editor of The Barber's
Journal

“Sure, sure, meanwhile every Shake-
speare's gotta eat lest he croak ere he
mints his magnum opus.”

“Uh-huh,” I said. “I wonder if might
have just a little water. I've become rather
dependent on these Xanax.”

“Believe me, kid,” Biggs said, raising
his voice and intoning slowly, “all the
Nobel laureates work for me. It's how
they set their table.” Poised in the wings,
his stacked amanuensis pushed her head
in and trlled, “E. Coli, García Márquez is
on the phone. Claims his larder is bereft
of all provender. Wants to know if you
can possibly throw any more noveliza-
tions his way.

“Tell Gabo I'll get back to him, cup-
cake,” snapped the producer.

“And just what movie are you asking
me to novelize?” I piped, gagging on
the word. “Are we talking about a love
story? Gangsters? Or is it action-adven-
ture? Im known as a facile man with
description, particularly bucolic mate-
rial à la Turgenev.”

“Tell me about the Russkies,” Biggs
yelped. “I tried to make Stavrogin's
confession into a musical for Broadway
last year, but all the backers suddenly
got swine flu. Here's the scam, tatellah,
T happen to own the rights to a cinema
classic starring the Three Stooges. Won
it years ago playing tonk with Ray Stark
at Cannes. It's a real zany vehicle for our
three most irrepressible meshoogs. I've
‚fressed all the protein I can out of the
print—movie houses, foreign and domes-
tic TV—but I suspicion there's still alittle
lagniappe to be bled from a novel.”

“Of the Three Stooges?” I asked,
incredulous, my voice glissandoing
directly into a fife’s octave.

“I don't have to ask if you love "em.
They're only an institution,” Biggs
pitched.

“When I was eight,” I said, rising from
my chair and slapping at my pockets to
locate my emergency Fiorinal.

“Hold it, hold it. You didn’t hear the
plot yet. Is all about spending the night
in a haunted house.”

“I's okay,” I said, dollying toward the
door. “I'm a little late—some friends are
raising a bam—”

T booked a projection room so I could
screen it for you,” Biggs said, ignor-
ing my resistance, which by now had
morphed into sheer panic.

“No thanks. I may be down to my last
can of StarKist—" I sputtered as the
great man cut me off

“Emmes, kid. If this is as lucrative as
my proboscis signals, there's copious
zuzim to be stockpiled. Those three ditsy
vilda chayas cut a million shorts. One e-
mail could secure the novelization rights
to the whole shooting match. And you'd
be my main scribe. You could salt away
enough mad money in six months to

n]

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PLAYBOY

spend the rest of your days sausaging out
art. Just give me a few sample pages to
confirm my faith in your brilliance. Who
knows, maybe in your hands novelization
will finally come of age as an art form.”

‘That night I clashed fiercely with my
self-image and required the emollient
waters of the Cutty Sark distillery to beat
back a waxing depression. Still, I would
be disingenuous if I did not admit that
1 was palpated by the notion of vacu-
uming up enough scratch to allow the
writing of another masterpiece without
the onset of malnutrition. But it was not
just Mammon crooning in my cochlea.
“There was also the chance Biggs's nasal
compass had located true north. Perhaps
1was the Mahdi chosen to legitimize with
depth and dignity this runt of the liter-
ary litter, the novelization.

In a frenzy of sudden euphoria 1
bolted to my processor, and irrigated
with gallons of black coffee I had by
dawn broken the back of the challenging
assignment and was champing at the bit
to show it to my new benefactor.

Irritatingly, his no Nor nısrurn did not
come unglued till noon, when I finally
rang through as he was masticating his
morning fiber.

“Be here at three,” he bade. “And
ask for Murray Zangwill. Word leaked
of my quondam alias, and the joint's
awash with frenzied centerfolds pant-
ing for screen tests.” Pitying the man’s
beleaguered existence, I spent the next
hours honing several sentences to dia-
mond perfection and at three entered
his posh digs with my work retyped on
a stylish vellum.

“Read it to me,” he commanded, bit-
ing off the tip of a contraband Cuban
cigar and spitting it in the direction of
the fake Utrillo.

“Read it to you?” I asked, taken
aback over the prospect of presenting
my writing orally. “Wouldn't you rather
read it yourself? That way the subtle
verbal rhythms can resonate in your
mind's ear.”

“Naw, I'll get a better feel this way.
Plus I lost my reading glasses last night
at Hooters. Commence,” ordered Biggs,
putting his feet up on the coffee table.

“Oakville, Kansas lies on a particularly
desolate stretch across the vast central
plains,” I began. “What's left of the area
Where farms once dotted the landscape
is arid space now. At one time corn and
wheat provided thriving livelihoods

m

“Don't you know it's bad luck to see the bride before the wedding!”

before agricultural subsidies had the
‘opposite effect of enhancing prosperity.”

Biggs's eyes began to glaze over, His
head was wreathed in a thick nimbus of
smoke from the vile cheroot

“The dilapidated Ford pulled up
before a deserted farmhouse,” I went on,
“and three men emerged. Calmly and
for no apparent reason the dark-haired
man took the nose of the bald man in
his right hand and slowly twisted it in a
Jong, counterclockwise circle, A horrible
grinding sound broke the silence of the
Great Plains. "We suffer; the dark-haired
man said. ‘O woe to the random violence
of human existence.”
feanwhile Larry, the third man, had
wandered into the house and had some-
how managed to get his head caught
inside an earthenware jar. Everything
was suddenly terrifying and black as
Larry groped blindly around the room.
He wondered if there was a god or
any purpose at all to life or any design
behind the universe when suddenly the
dark-haired man entered and, finding a
large polo mallet, began to break the jar
off his companions head. With pent-up
fury that masked years of angst over the
empty absurdity of man’s fate, the one
named Moe smashed the crockery. ‘We
are at least free to choose,” wept Curly,
the bald one. ‘Condemned to death but
free to choose.’ And with that, Moe poked
his two fingers into Curly's eyes. ‘Oooh,
oooh, oooh,’ Curly wailed, ‘the cosmos
is so devoid of any justice.” He stuck an
unpeeled banana in Moe's mouth and
shoved it all the way in.”

At this point Biggs abruptly emerged
from his stupor. “Stop, go no further,”
he said, standing at attention. “This is
only magnificent. It's Johnny Steinbeck,
it's Capote, it’s Sartre. I smell money,
I see honors. It's the kind of quality
product yours truly made his rep on.
Go home and pack. You'll stay with
me in Bel Air till more suitable quar-
ters open up—something with a pool
and perhaps a three-hole golf course.
Or maybe Hef can put you up at the
Mansion for a while, if you'd prefer.
Meantime I'll call my lawyer and lock
up rights to the entire Stooge oeuvre.
This is a memorable day in the annals
of Gutenbergsville.”

Needless to say, that was the last I saw
of E. Coli Biggs under that or any other
alias. When T returned to the Carlyle,
valise in hand, he had long since left
town for either the Italian Riviera or the
Turkmenistan Film Festival or possibly
to check out the bottom line in Guinea-
Bissau—the desk clerk wasn't sure. The
point is, tracking down a mover and
shaker who never uses his real name
proved a far too daunting job for an ink-
stained wretch named Mealworm, and
Tm dead certain it would have been for
Faulkner and Fitzgerald, 100,

WINDOW OF OPPORTUNITY

Miss September 1994
Kelly Gallagher, now
Kelly Wearstler (above:
right), is a leading
interior designer and
a judge on Bravo's
Top Design (near left)

There it is in black and white on her Play- È take chances. That is why you are the abso-
mate Data Sheet: Kelly Gallagher lists bad Tute best designer on the show!”
design as a turnoff. Even so, it After her pictorial, Miss September
was a bit of a surprise to find 12 1994 started her own busi-
her playing a judge on Bravos AM ness, Kelly Wearstler Interior
Top Design, an elimination real x $ Design. The firm has become
ity show in the mode of The la enormously successful and
Apprentice in which 12 aspiring y f respected within the field.
interior designers compete for (AR FR compiling exclusive credits that
$100,000 in start-up capital W include the Viceroy resorts and
and a chance to rip up a room $ the BG restaurant at New York
like Zeppelin. With a Nielsen- City department store Bet
certified 1 million-plus view dorf Goodman. Going be

s, Top Design is introducing > duvets and window treatments,
Kelly do a new army of fans B® ci nas publica two books,
who consider the Playmate a PML Domicilium Decoratus and Modern
fair and discerning judge. As one smitten Glamour, and this year she's
viewer gushes, “Kelly, you are so awesome! : bringing her own line

You have great style and aren't afraid to : Centerfold has

From far left: Miss
July 1997 Daph-
nee Duplaix Sam-
vel breaks into the
lineup for Celebrity
Locker Room's All-
Star Night at the
Mansion; PMOY
2005 Tiffany Fallon
‘sways at the Palms;
PMOY 2001 Brande
Roderick comes out
o play for the Bench
Warmer toy drive
Miss June 2006
Stephanie Larimore
husties into Vegas's
Studio 54; PMOY
1999 Heather Kozar,
leo at the Palms.

Among the most stunning
Playmates ever, Miss June
1997 Carrie |

Stevens has
become an |
in-demand
actress and
model who
regularly
appears on
both the big
and small
screens, as
well as in
print adver-
tisements
and layouts
Something
of a modern
Renaissance woman, she
even writes a sex column
for hotmomsclub.com.

“Td have to kill you if I told
you."—Pamela

1 8

By Steve Austin

of The Cone

“iy favor Playmate Si
ofall ime is Stocy 4
Sanches, Pomale of

the Yeor 1996.tike

her because she's Texas girl, she's toil
and she's really well proportioned. She

is also an extremely prety natural beauty,

You were recently on The Janice
Dickinson Modeling Agency. Janice has
a nasty reputation for cutting people
down. Why would you subject yourself
to that

was curious what she would
say to me in person.
Q: So you got your wish. GA
Did she lay into you \
She wasn't so bad. She \

basically looked at me and \\
said she didn't like my NN
look, which was too rLavnoy
Obviously!

Q: Clearly yours is a look we pre-
fer, Were you disappointed?

A: I was most bummed out that I

didn't get to walk the runway, because
I have a really good strut.
z So did Janice go after anyone else?
There was another model whose lips
looked really big, like she had just

Ma zoten lip injections, and her

N

lipstick was all messed up,
so Janice latched onto that
“What's wrong with your
A face?” All the models were
like, "Oh my God! I can't
believe she said that!” It
was pretty harsh.

»

to mod
: Sure. I just landed the

ey NY ee
aan de sea

clothing line.
: It seems as though that rLaxnor look
't so bad after all

OSSIP

Miss November 2001 Lindsey
Vuolo relocated to Athens, Greece
to pursue her master’s degree in
public relations and commu- A

nications through La Salle
University... Miss February
1999 Stacy Fuson and Miss
May 2006 Alison Waite, with
some help from a couple of
German Playmates, donned
their Bunny best to show offthe new
Playboy slots at the International
Casino Exhibition

in London.
PMOY 1982
Shannon Tweed
was spotted in

Tendon win PEN
eh \
Sage see GA
dsd ood

episode of Gene Soy and Aison feen-

Simmons Fam- d orton
Casno Shen

show's second
season features Shannon and Gene
undergoing face-lift procedures.
Gene reports the footage is “like a

Shannon Tweed on Abbey Road

biology dass—more fascinating than
gory.” A comforting thought from a
guy who drools blood onstage...

PMOY 1994 Jenny McCarthy lost 10
maynoy cover

girl Carmen

Electra for this
year’s Razzie
in the support-
ing actress cat-
egory. It’s an
honor just to
be nominated,
we're sure...
‘Miss August 2001
Velo de Wear
is the Mickey's leek
poster girl for 2007. The brewing
company reports it is “damn proud”
to have her on board.

è

MORE PLAYMATES

See your favorite Playmate's
$

MATT GROENING minus pose 6)

Guys don’t write about relationships in cartoons. They
write about violent fantasies that put women off.

but some guys don't like it. They like two
eyes on their women. Some of the Simp-
sons writers have said my biggest mistake
was making Leela a cyclops. Apparently
guys like more than one giant eye in the
middle of the face. Who knew?

PLAYBOY: Horny animators? Are they?
GROENING: Isn't it obvious? There has
been an intent to arouse with cartoons and
comics going back to Betty and Veronica
in Archie. It's hard to beat Jessica Rabbit
in Who Framed Roger Rabbit? When it came
time to design the women on Futurama I
went on the Internet and looked up dis-
cussions of the sexiest women in cartoons.
Surprisingly, a lot of people discuss this
subject. There was no agreement on what
was sexy, so I went my own way.

PLAYBOY: Who were considered some of
the sexiest women in cartoons?
GROENING: Betty Rubble.

Puayeoy: Not Wilma?

GROENING: No one likes Wilma. Every-
one wants to sleep with Betty.

PLAYBOY: You have taken on sex in your
book Love Is Hell. Is it?

GROENING: Yes. No. I don't know. It was.
Often. A revealing thing is all those comic
strips were making fun of self-help books
but were secretly designed to help me.
PLAYBOY: How did they help you?
GROENING: Guys don't write about rela-
tionships in cartoons. They write about
violent fantasies and stuff that puts
women off. So I thought, I'll use my
bunny rabbits and write about relation-
ships and be vulnerable,

PLAYBOY: With the goal of getting dates?
GROENING: That's why guys do any-
thing, no?

PLAYBOY: How has dating for you?
GROENING: I don't have to constantly
mentally calculate how much is being
spent at dinner. Also I don’t have to worry
that my car will break down and I'll have
to get help from my date with the tire
iron, which happened more than once.
I've gone on two dates when I got a flat
tire, and both times the women felt sorry
for me and enlisted the help of surly,
drunken passersby.

pLareor: Do you have a girlfriend no
GROENING: Yes. She's a photographer.
T have thought it would be really cool
to travel and do a book together—me,
nude, on beaches around the world.
PLAYBOY: You were married for many
years, After that was it strange to go back
to dating

GROENING: Yeah, dating's no fun. Unfor-
tunately it's part of the process of getting
to know someone. I once said, “Love is
like a snowmobile racing across the tun-
dra and then suddenly it flips over, pin-

ning you underneath. At night, the ice
weasels come.” A lot of people have that
on their MySpace page.

PLAYBOY: If you had known we'd have
Google and your comments would live
forever online, would you have never
said certain things in the first place?
GROENING: Yeah. Many: In many ways the
future has turned out to be weirder than
1 imagined. I never thought I would be
driving down the street and see the local
taqueria with a banner in my handwriting
advertising its taco platter, but my hand-
writing for The Simpsons has gotten loose on
the Internet as a font. It has been down-
Joaded and is used in movies, on books, in
advertisements. In general The Simpsons is
among the most ‘creative prop-
erties in the world. I find it much more
amusing than the Fox lawyers do. If some
bakery does a Bart Simpson birthday cake,
Fox wants its cut. There's a Russian Simp-
sons coloring book that looks as though
the guy who drew it was shown a picture
of The Simpsons for five seconds, was never
able to look at it again and dropped it from
his memory I had a large collection of Bart
Sanchez ceramic figurines from Tijuana,
but Host dozens of them in the:

Priceless, priceless have,
Bart yarmulkes from Israel and from Italy
litle glass Bart figurines peeing.

PLAYBOY: Are you proud?

‘GROENING: Sure.

PLAYBOY: You're even proud of the kids
who emulate Bart?

GROENING: Especially
PLAYBOY: You once said the only way you
could justify all the TV you watched as
a child was to make your own TV show.
How much did you watch?

GROENING: If I were to look at a TV
schedule for any weeknight in the 1960s,
Td go, "Yeah, I was watching.” My mem-
ory goes back even further. I remember
the premiere episode of Dennis the Menace
in 1959, the animated opening sequence
of this Tasmanian devil-ike cyclone spin-
ning out. I was so excited that there was
an actual menace on television. If I had to
go back to the first impetus for The Simp-
sons it would be that night in 1959 when
that pilot episode was broadcast and this
cyclone of a menace came out. It was a
Kid! I was so excited. It turned out to be
this fairly namby-pamby pseudo-bad boy
who had a slingshot but didn’t ever seem
to use it. Bart Simpson is basically what
Dennis should have been.

PLaYBOt: Did your parents allow you to
watch as much TV as you wanted?
GROENING: Yes.

PLAYBOY: Did you restrict your children's
TV viewing?

GROENING: Not at all. It was my escape. I
‘wasn't going to be a hypocrite.

PLAYBOY: Generally were you more or less
permissive than your parents?
GROENING: I appalled some of my
friends with how undisciplined 1 was
asa parent. My kids talked back to me,
and I laughed it off. Now they tell me
I'm not funny anymore. 1 just assume
they re kidding. As I said, my son said
he wishes Seth MacFarlane were his
father. So I annoy the hell out of other
parents. I'ma really bad example. I'm
the dad I wished I had. I try to let my
kids have a good time,

PLAYBOE What did you allow your kids to do
that your father would have prohibited?
GROENING: I took my 15-year-old to
see Margaret Cho and Sarah Silver-
‘man perform their stand-up comedy. It
singed the hair off the top of my head.
My kid laughed

pLaYsoY: Do you make your kids do
their homework?

GROENING: I ask them to, sure. I make
vague gestures toward having them do
the right thing.

PLAYBOY: Do they have a curfew?
GROENING: All the good stuff happens
after midnight, let's face it—even as a
Kid, Ice cream certainly tastes better after
midnight, There is a little bit of Homer
‘Simpson in me, okay?

PLAYBOY: Life in Hell was written about
LA. Is it hell there?

GROENING: Yes, though that was really
about L.A. when I firstarrived here after
college. I had a series of lousy jobs. My
very first was as a movie extra in When
Every Day Was the Fourth of July. 1 don't
think I've ever admitted this. I played
a member of a lynch mob. There is a
vendor selling miniature electric chairs;
one of the members of the mob gets
into a fight with the vendor over the
price of the electric chairs. There were
‘other memorable jobs. I wanted to be a
writer, so I looked in the help-wanted
ads. I saw one that said, “Wanted:
writer-chauffeur.” 1 got the job, Dur-
ing the day I drove this retired movie
director around, and at night I would
ghostwrite his autobiography. He had
made a couple of B Westerns and was
‘obsessed with his mother. When I drove
him around he would tell me, “This was
the house where I went to Clark Gable's
party.” Then we'd go by the same man-
sion and he'd say, “That's where Laurel
and Hardy lived.” I don’t think Laurel
and Hardy ever really lived together. 1
got fired because I said he should write
a little less about his mother.

PLAYBOY: What came next?

GROENING: I applied for a job at TV
Guide, writing synopses of shows, and
they told me I didn't get the job because
1 used the word lesbian, That's what
the show was about, but they said, “TV
Guide readers do not want to read that
word.” Instead I started working for the
LA. Reader [a now-defunct alternative 145

PLAYBOY

146

paper] and turned into a rock journal-
ist. just made stuff up. To this day Im
a frustrated rock journalist

PLAYBOY: Apparently, you're also a frus-
trated rock-and-roll musician who occa-
sionally plays with the Rock Bottom
Remainders.

GROENING: Yes. We are coming up on
our 15th anniversary. I’ an all-wniters
rock group with Stephen King, Dave
Barry, Amy Tan and many others. I take
pride in being the least-talented member.
1 don't even play an instrument. I sing
in the backup critics’ chorus with Greil
Marcus. That's how I snuck in. I had a
tambourine at one point, but they took
it away. The height of our life as a rock-
and-roll band was performing at the
Hollywood Palladium and having Bruce
Springsteen come out for the encore
of “Gloria.” After the show, Bruce told
us, “Don't get any better.” It was great
because we could actually fulfill that.
PLAYBOY: How did your early jobs lead to
The Simpsons

GROENING: First came Life in Hell. 1
worked at a photocopy place. A perk
was that when I wasn't fighting with
customers—an unavoidable part of
the job—I was making copies of my
comics, I copied them and took them
around and sold them at a record
store I worked at, which was another
job. Then I started the strip in the L.A.
‘Reader. That was 27 years ago. There
were no talent scouts coming, so I

decided to publish my own book, which
was the original Life in Hell. That's the
one thing I still do completely on my
own. I'll take full blame for everything,
misspellings and all.
PLAYBOY: Because of that, does the strip
hold a special place in your heart?
GROENING: It certainly gives the game
le really can't draw, can he?” I
couldn't be hired to work on The Simp-
sons. Life in Hell is populated with rab-
bits by default. In high school I was
drawing funny animals, and people
couldn't tell if they were dogs or bears.
T gave them long ears and people said,
“Oh, they're rabbits.”
PLAYBOY: Compared with The Simpsons,
are you uncensored in Life in Hell?
GROENING: I went through a phase
when I decided to systematically use
possible profanity. The strip kept
getting kicked out of newspapers, so I
stopped. At the very beginning I had
to decide whether or not to give the
rabbits genitals. Bugs Bunny is neu-
tered. All those characters are, really:
there's nothing down there. I tried
drawing Binky Bunny with a penis
for a while, but people were bothered
by it. Akbar and Jeff appeared naked
on the cover of The Village Voice with
full frontal nudity. On The Simpsons
we have shown Bart with full frontal
nudity in a French laundry-detergent
commercial. In The Simpsons Movie we
can show things we do not show on

“No further questions, Your Honor!”

television. You will see nudity, but it's
not who you want to see naked.
PLAYBOY: The Simpsons has brought in bil-
lions of dollars

GROENING: Rupert Murdoch swims naked
in one of those big vats of coins like Uncle
Scrooge in the Donald Duck comics. We've
got the videotapes, but as long as he keeps
those royalty checks coming in...
PLAYBOY: Besides the fact that you don't
have to worry about how much a din-
ner date is going to cost, how has wealth
‘changed your life?

GROENING: My friends and I used to sit
around when we had so little money that
we had to split a burger at Astro Burger
on Melrose Avenue and talk about what
we would do if we ever had enough
‘money to pay our rent on time. We won-
dered if we would live the way rich peo-
ple were supposed to live or if we would
live pretty much as we did then, except
that we would have bigger piles of comic
books and toys. Sadly, we've got bigger
piles of comic books and toys.

PLAYBOY: The Simpsons has won numer-
ous awards and accolades. Do any of
them mean more than others? Time
said yours was the best television show
of the century.

GROENING: An executive at Fox said, “Tl
go further. I's the best show in the history
of the world.” 1 went, “Wow.” Our

has always been to make each other—the
writers, the animators and the actors—
laugh, We're really glad when it turns out
that a TV audience seems to like it too.
PLAYBOY: You've also been criticized by
prominent people over the years. Were you
suprised when the first president Bush said
American families should be more like the
‘Waltons and less like the Simpsons?
GROENING: We were delighted with
such an Elmer Fudd-y line. He said it
on a Monday. At the time, we were on
Thursday night, We quickly did some
animation so that on Thursday we had
the Simpsons sitting in front of the TV,
watching a tape of the actual George
Bush saying the line. Bart turns to
Homer and says, “Hey, man, we're just
like the Waltons. We're both praying for
an end to the Depression.”

Plavgor: You've had many other crit-
ics. Former drug czar William Bennett
criticized Bart

GROENING: We were duly honored. He
was wandering through a drug-rehab
clinic and saw a Simpsons poster on the
wall, and he told the addicts that wasn't
going to help them. He said Bart wasn’t
a good role model. We love it when peo-
ple go after us. America is full of people
who love to pretend to be offended. It's
always momentary, and it always passes.
We respond in kind. It’s the old Daffy
Duck vs. Elmer Fudd thing. If someone
wants to behave like Elmer Fudd, you
have to come back at him just the way
Daffy Duck would—with a big mallet.

WMillayboy

WHAT'S HAPPENING, WHERE

IT'S HAPPENING AND WHO'S MAKING IT HAPPEN

= r

E

You've Got to Be Skidding
A drifting Porsche aims to steal the show from the Japanese

A s it enters its fourth year, the Formula Drift Champion-
LA, ship series is developing a nice litle fan base in Amer-
ica. Part motor racing, part ballet, drifting is a sport in

A drifting Porsche is like schnitzel covered in soy sauce—a
bizarre yet utterly delicious combo (take our word for it). The
powerful screamer pictured here has a 3.B-lter twin-turbo six-

which drivers are judged on how quickly and how far side-
ways they can maneuver their tricked-out autos over a track.
It began as an outlaw Japanese subculture (see Drifting in
our July 2006 Issue), and until now Formula Drift has fea-
tured Japanese cars. But this year, courtesy of ultrahigh-
performance-tire maker Hankook and specialty-car make

JIC USA, a custom Porsche 993 GT2 will battle for the title.

cylinder engine rated at over 600 horsepower, plus oodles of
high-end aftermarket speed equipment. The moment we saw.
this machine at a January press conference in Vegas, we
knew it promised great theater. Team drivers include Kenji
‘Yamanaka of Japan (who placed ninth out of 29 last year) and
Tyler McQuarrie of California (13th). The action unfolds June 2
at Summit Point Raceway in West Virginia. See it on G4TV.

Geek off a Leash

MC Chris raps for the Internet generation and
keeps it real without a record deal

ood rap music reflects the rapper's daily life, and for those who
drop coin on vintage action figures instead of ice, MC Chris
(mechris.com) is the real deal. "My generation is into the web,
toys and video games, and that’s what I rap about,” he says. (Example:
"My backpack's got jets; Im Boba the Fett./l bounty hunt for Jabba
Hutt to finance my Vette.”) His break came in 2001 when his tracks
were featured on Cartoon Network's Sealab 2021, and he later per-
formed as MC Pee Pants on Agua Teen Hunger Force. This year his
fourth album, Dungeon Master of Ceremonies, premiered in the top 10
on iTunes’ hip-hop charts, all without a record deal or any off-line pro-
motion. “I fil a certain cultural void in hip-hop, and | am connected to my
fans through the Internet,” he says. “Record stores are obsolete,”

17

rapevine

All a Matter of Taste
‘The Black Eyed Peas’ STACY “FERGIE” FERGUSON has a lot of things going for her, but mod-
them. She bragged about her breasts and buttocks (or “lady lumps”) in the
My Humps,” then touted her feminine flavor in “Fergalicious,” stating plainly that “the
boys wanna eat it." We keep searching for the metaphor in that line, but we can’ find it.

a Bl

Happy Happy Joy Joy
Our favorite image from Vanity Fair's
skin-heavy Hollywood issue of a year
ago was JOY BRYANT's diamonds-and-
nothing-ese glamour shot. Should she
‘are to take another,
‘we could probably

make space.

My, My, Miss
American Pie

Don't give us that look. We

tell MENA SUVARI to get “em
‘ut in the middle of a crowded
stretch of Miami Beach. Her
something we've leamed about
stars: Theyre bor show-off

Spare the Rod, Spoil the Fun
As Gaia, brash and lusty servant of Titus Pullo on the
HBO series Rome, ZULEIKHA ROBINSON runs afoul of
the lady of the house and needs disciplining by Titus.
In this case, cruelty yields to kinky kindness

Coffee,
Tea or Me?
in 2005 designer
Christian Lacroix
veramped Ai

this frock from

his latest collec-
tion will ever get
off the runway—
barring a revival
of the defunct

Hooters Air.

EASY ON THE EYES,
HARD ON THE ABS
Way back in 1982
Jane Fonda created
the first successful
mass-market work-
out video, Its unique
formula? Women
watched it to get in
shape, men watched it
because Jane still had
it at 45, and no one
got mad if the tape
was left in the VCR.
Now substitute short
shorts for that frumpy
leotard and our
own stunning Holly,
Bridget and Kendra
for Barbarella, and
you've got The Girls
Next Door Workout
($15, playboystore
com). The DVD fea-
turesa 10- t0 20-minute
workout routine
from each of Hef's
favorite blondes,
performed—where
else?—at scenic spots
around the Mansion.

a
HELL AND HIGH WATER

The rumor mill whispered that Kawasaki had developed a Iu
crously fast Jet Ski. Well, it's true. The new Ultra 250X ($11,500,
kawasaki.com) has a 250-horsepower supercharged four-cylinder
engine based on the Kawasaki Ninja superbike's: The most powerful
personal watercraft on the market, it can hit 70 miles an hour in
mere seconds. The editor who tested this baby had to order himself
new shirts, as his arms are now 42 inches long. Yes, you can still
do all those social things—put your girlfriend on the back, bounce
the kids around, cruise the beach in the shallows in search of bikini

180 babes—and then you can go out and scare yourself silly

ROUGH STUFF

Run by two brothers, Barking Irons
is a small fashion company that crafts
rings out of old 19th century silverware.
Inspired by the lawless streets of the Five
Points (where Gangs of New York is set),
they re perfect for a night out with
your lowlife cronies at whatever saloon or
brothel you fancy. For an added state-
ment, file your teeth into sharp points,
Pictured: the Nautical Ring and Liberty
Ring (both $295, barkingirons.com).

BUZZ KILL
When you first met Clocky ($50,
home.com) in our August 20

it was but a prototype. Now it's in pro-
duction and ready to roll-Iiterally.

When this little stinker’s alarm blares,
it leaps from your bedside table and
scrambles around the room on two speedy
wheels, forcing you to chase it down.
By the time you catch Clocky, you're so
harried you may need an am. scotch to
calm down, but you're very much awake,

[mera screens keep
o te all can o yu
Grunken officemates have their eyes
a group shot. Fujfilm’s FinePix Z5fd
J fujiflm.com) can. Smart software picks out the
faces in eath picture and instantly zooms in on them so you can
check important details quickly. It uses the same technology for
autofocus to ensure that it focuses on faces and not the scenery.

FROM RUSSIA WITH LOVE

Centuries ago Peter the Great,
founder of St. Petersburg in
Russia, had a favorite vodka
that he slurped. A couple

of years ago some investors
found the recipe for his vodka
and, in celebration of the city’s
300th anniversary, created the
Czar’s Gold brand using the
original formula and water
source (Lake Ladoga, outside
St. Petersburg). Czar’s Gold

is now one of the official
vodkas of the Kremlin, and
it’s beginning to show up in
American shops (about $35,
czarsgold.com). Try it chilled
with a hottie named Olga.

ET

RAYGUN-OMICS

Commemorate an era that never existed with a weapon that
never did either. One of three retro-futuristic masterpieces
dreamed up by the lunatics at Weta Digital (Peter Jackson's effects
company) in homage to the 1950s-matinee future, the FMOM
Industries Wave Disrupter Gun ($690, wetanz.com) weighs
more than seven pounds and is made in limited runs of 500.

SLEEPLESS IN...WHERE ARE WE?

A few tricks can take the edge off a redeye. We
find an indulgent shave alleviates it immensely
Matched to the task, Kiehl's offers an opulent
Lite Flite Shave Cream ($17) for the brush, It's
buttery and comes in a tub that packs easily,
unlike a mug and soap. Start with a bit of shav-
ing oil ($18), slap on the cream, follow with
moisturizer ($25) and add a touch of Eye Alert

($20), all available at kiehls.com. Good. As, New.

KIERES.

NEED A LIFT?

Ifyou buy your own exercise equipment, it can
take up half your house. Simplify the situation
with Bowflex's SelectTech dumbbells (bowflex
com), which let you keep an entire set of weights
in the space usually occupied by just one pair. To
adjust your routine, simply dial in how hard you
‘want to work, whether low weight and high rep or
vice versa, and lit them out of the base. Three con-
figurations are available: two pounds to 20 pounds
($149), five pounds to 52 pounds ($400) and 10
pounds t0 90 pounds (pictured, $600).

151

152. Playboy, PO. Box 2007, Harlan, Towa 5

Miiext Month

‘THE RED-HOT SUMMER ISSUE PLAYBOY DELIVERS A BOUNTY
(OF WARMWEATHER PLEASURES INCLUDING FAST GIRLS, FAST
CARS, BLOCKBUSTER ACTION HEROES, BRILLIANT BEACH READS,
A GRILLING TIP OR TWO AND A RETURN TO THE SUMMER OF LOVE.

AMANDA BEARD--THE RECORD-BREAKING SWIMMER LOSES
HER SWIMSUIT FOR A MOUTHWATERING LAYOUT. DANIELA
FEDERICI CAPTURES THE PHOTO FINISH.

BRUCE WILLIS—IN LIVE FREE OR DIE HARD, ONE OF THE
FOUNDING FATHERS OF THE ACTION-HERO MOVIE RETURNS TO
THE ROLE THAT MADE HIM FAMOUS. YIPPEE-KI:YAY, MOTHER-
FUCKER! A RELENTLESS PLAYBOY INTERVIEW BY DAVID SHEFF

‘THE DARK SIDE OF THE SUMMER OF LOVE BOOMERS RECALL
‘THE SUMMER OF 1967 AS A HALCYON PERIOD ACCENTED WITH
FREE LOVE, SOFT DRUGS AND HAIR BESTREWN WITH FLOWERS.
BUT INVESTIGATIVE REPORTER FRANK OWEN UNCOVERS A DIF-
FERENT STORY THAT TRACES THE ROOTS OF AMERICAS CUR-
RENT CRYSTALMETH EPIDEMIC TO THE EPICENTER OF HIPPIE-
DOM, SAN FRANCISCO'S HAIGHT-ASHBURY DISTRICT.

THE GIRLS OF MONTAUK--AT THE FAR END OF LONG ISLAND
SITS A TINY RESORT TOWN THAT HAS SOME OF THE MOST
WINSOME WOMEN TO BE FOUND ANYWHERE. PEAK SEASON
BEGINS NOW. PHOTOGRAPHY BY MICHAEL DWECK

STATE OF THE UNION—GODWIN POPE KNOWS THERE'S NO
ONE IN AMERICA BETTER EQUIPPED TO BE PRESIDENT THAN
HE IS. SO HOW DID HE END UP AS VICE PRESIDENT TO A
(CRUDE, INEFFECTIVE BUMPKIN? AND WHAT CAN HE DO ABOUT
1T? AN EXCERPT FROM THE SATIRICAL NOVEL THE COUP BY
PLAYBOY'S JAMIE MALANOWSKI

THE GIRLFRIEND EXPERIENCE ACCORDING TO THE EROTIC
REVIEW, NIKKI AVALON IS AMONG THE MOST HIGHLY RATED ES-
CORTS IN VEGAS. WHAT'S HER SECRET? AS IN MANY INDUSTRIES,
SUCCESS DEPENDS ON A GREAT PRODUCT COMBINED WITH
GREAT SERVICE. A CURIOUS PROFILE BY ERIK HEDEGAARD

DANICA PATRICK—IN THE MIDST OF HER THIRD INDY SEA-
SON, ANDRETTI GREEN'S PRIZE DRIVER IS HOTTER THAN A
JALAPEÑO IN DEATH VALLEY. JASON BUHRMESTER CATCHES
HER FOR A BLAZING 200,

THE OPEN ROAD—A CELEBRATION OF HITTING THE HIGHWAY,
WRITTEN FROM BEHIND THE WHEEL OF THE INCOMPARABLE FORD
(GT. AND WHILE WERE ON THE SUBJECT, HERE ARE SOME GREAT
PLACES FROM MONTREAL FOR THE JAZZ FESTIVAL TO MOUNT
HOOD FOR SNOW SKING YOU CAN DRIVE TO THIS SUMMER.

PLUS: ICELAND'S MIDNIGHT SUN, SWIMWEAR THAT WORKS AT
BOTH BEACH AND BAR, AND MISS JULY TIFFANY SELBY,

Playboy (ISSN 0082-1478), June 2007, volume 54, number 6. Published monthly by Playboy in national and regional editions, Playboy, 680 North

ake Shore Drive, Chicago, Illinois 60611. Periodicals postage paid at C

'hicago, Ilinois and at additional mailing offices. Canada Post Ca

dian Publications Mail Sales Product Agreement No. 40085534. Subscriptions: in the U.S., $20.97 for 12 issues. Postmaster: Send address change to

1007. For subscription-related questions, call 800-999-4438, or e-mail circ@ny.playboy.com.