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WILD SOUTHERN COLLEGE GIRLS 


OY 


yboy.com е OCTOBER 2007 


NUDE AND UNCENSORED ` 


ALICIA 
222 MACHADO 


20 


LARTER 


A RANT ОМ! 
AÀ KEITH 
OLBERMANN 


Writer and onetime commune member 
David Black sat with some former flow- 
er children to discuss the expectations 
of their Edens in The Ranch. He notes 
that the romantic ideals of the hippie 
lifestyle have now been twisted to push 
cars and 401(k)s. "At the time, there 
was a general feeling we were reinvent- 
ing Western history, which turned out 
not to be the case,” Black says. “We 
were Just reinventing advertising.” 


"We were sick of reading pieces about 
campus sex based on urban legends or 
absolute bunk in stodgy magazines and 
the Old Gray Lady," says Junior Editor 
Rocky Rakovic (right). For Students on 
Students he and Associate Editor Josh 
Robertson conducted a roundtable with 
those in the trenches. “We gave campus 
columnists a forum in which they could 
discuss sex in their own words,” Robert- 


son says. “It's very revealing." 


Allow us to reintroduce you to Alicia 
Machado. You may remember her as 
Miss Universe 1996, the beauty who, 
after adding a few pounds during her 
reign, unfortunately was called an "eat- 
ing machine” by Donald Trump on The 
Howard Stern Show. (As tor us, we've 
always liked curves.) But forget that— 
now think of her only as the most beau- 
tiful Venezuelan you've ever seen and 
the first Miss Universe to bare it all for 
us. "| was so happy to do this," Mach- 
ado says. “| had never posed nude 
before but figured the time was right." 
Queen Alicia was shot in Mexico, a land 
that loves Machado; when her pictorial 
recently ran in Mexican PLavBov, the 
issue became that edition's best-seller 
at the time. "I felt very beautiful to be 
outside in the sun and the sand," she 
says. “1 think it shows in the photos." 


Selected from more than a thousand en- 
tries, University of Arizona student David 
James Poissant's Lizard Man won our 
annual College Fiction Contest. In the story 
a buddy trip turns out to be less than 
friendly. Poissant explains, "| like to write 
about the way people often hurt those 
they're closest to, how we hurt the people 
we love and how we redeem ourselves. | 
want readers to feel this story can be 
hopeful if looked at in a particular way." 


"| give all the students 10 out of 10," says 
Nigel Barker, who shot this issue's Best- 
Dressed Man on Campus and is a judge 
on America's Next Top Model. Barker 
and the pLaysoy fashion staff held а 
nationwide search for the sharpest- 
dressed students and found the best in 
class. "The concept was to have real col- 
legians show they are the future while 
respecting the past," Barker says. For 
example, the young man deemed the 
new scholar is surrounded by stacks of 
books, but he's using an electronic writ- 
ing tablet." As well as returning to PLAYBOY 
for this shoot, Barker is working on his 
own reality show, Click. “PLAYBOY gave 
me one of my first chances when | was 
starting out. The fashion we put forth is 
for actual men. It's not too quirky or odd 
as in other magazines. We shot clothes 
real college students can wear." 


features 


56 STUDENTS ON STUDENTS 
There has been sex on college campuses only since, like, forever. But what is the 
reality for students trying to live, love and get lucky in 2007? We ask eight female 
college sex columnists (oh yeah, and one guy) for the scoop on who's doing it, how 
often, in what ways and by what rules. 


8 BREW U 
You are a member of a species that has been knocking back beer for 5,000 years, 
but how familiar are you with the various incarnations of the holy trinity of water, 
hops and barley malt? Crack open a cold one and find out what the ale you are 
drinking, thanks to our sudsy syllabus. 


92 THE RANCH 
They are grown now and have turned into good, productive workers and citizens 
of the world. But at one time children born and raised communally were part of 
a grand social experiment that promised peace, love and harmony. Our writer, an 
ex-communard himself, sits down with a group of hippie offspring to reflect on 
the demise of a utopian dream. BY DAVID BLACK 


102 PLAYBOY’S 2007 NFL PREVIEW 
Okay, Peyton's finally got his Lombardi. Can he cop another? In our annual pro 
pigskin preview Rick Gosselin tackles who's up, who's down, the top grudge matches 
and our picks for the 2007-2008 season. Also: football's most significant stat. 


о 


fiction 


74 LIZARD MAN 
When Cam's dad dies, he and his best friend travel from St. Petersburg to Lee, 
Florida to tie up loose ends. At his father's abandoned house, they expect to 
find the place in disarray; what they don't expect is the gator waiting for them 
in the backyard. In this tale by our College Fiction Contest winner, it turns out 
some life stories are crocks. BY DAVID JAMES POISSANT 


the playboy forum 


41 DEFEATING DYSFUNCTION 
The author of Broken Government says it is vital for Democratic presidential 
candidates to start holding Republicans accountable for their persistent abuses 
of process that have fouled up Washington's political systems. BY JOHN DEAN 


200 


72 ALI LARTER 
The duplicitous one-woman army from TV's Heroes chats with us mere mortals 
about battling the undead in Resident Evil: Extinction, why she can't 
respect a man who hasn't got game and why she's now okay with being the 


hot blonde. BY DAVID RENSIN 
interview 
47 KEITH OLBERMANN 


In 2003, nearly a dozen years and several unsuitable jobs after helping reinvent 
the sportscast on ESPN's SportsCenter, the witty anchorman located his political 
voice on Countdown With Keith Olbermann and became MSNBC's liberal antidote 
to Bill O'Reilly. The increasingly popular pundit pulls no punches here as he 
explains why Fox News is as dangerous as the KKK, who really is the worst person 
in the world and how he finds joy living with a woman half his age, even if she wants 
to get rid of his vintage baseball books. BY KEVIN COOK 


vol. 54, no. 10—october 2007 


- w /# T. Tx DV 


The SEC is in top form and not just because 
of the championships its teams won in the 
past year. We sent photographers to South- 
eastern Conference schools to study the 
student bodies and discover the most capti- 
vating coeds. Senior Contributing Photogra- 
pher Stephen Wayda finds Miss April 2007 
Giuliana Marino in the campus spirit; our 
Rabbit is on time for the unzipping. 


vol. 54, no. 10—october 2007 


р E 1 


” 


а E Е. . | ** Зр i 2 


pictorials 


QUEEN ALICIA 

Exotic Alicia Machado, the first 
Miss Universe to pose nude for 

PLAYBOY, shows off the underpin- 
nings of her victory. 


PLAYMATE: SPENCER 
SCOTT 

Miss October is a Georgia peach 
ripe for the picking. 


GIRLS OF THE SEC 

The SEC is the hottest confer- 
ence in America thanks to these 
uninhibited coeds. 


notes and news 


THE WORLD OF PLAYBOY 
Girl Next Door Bridget Marquardt 
takes to the airwaves on Playboy 
Radio; Bill Cosby hosts another 
successful year of the Playboy Jazz 
Festival in Hollywood. 


HANGIN' WITH HEF 

Get global with Hef, Holly, 
Bridget and Kendra as the 
foursome travels to St.-Tropez, 
Monte Carlo, Paris and beyond. 


CENTERFOLDS ON SEX: 
BRANDE RODERICK 

Our Playmate of the Year 2001 
discusses the many pleasures of 
role-playing. 


139 PLAYMATE NEWS 
PMOY Sara Jean Underwood 
receives a controversial tribute at 
Oregon State University; Miss 
August 2001 Jennifer Walcott gives 
back at Ronald McDonald House. 


107 


departments 
3 PLAYBILL 
13 DEAR PLAYBOY 
17 AFTER HOURS 


27 REVIEWS 

35 MANTRACK 

39 THE PLAYBOY ADVISOR 
90 PARTY JOKES 


134 WHERE AND HOW TO BUY 
144 GRAPEVINE 
146 POTPOURRI 
fashion 
96 BEST-DRESSED MAN ON 
CAMPUS 


The first trick in getting to the 
head of the class is to look the 
part. We check in on college guys 
from around the country to see 
what threads are making the 
grade at their schools this fall. 


BY JOSEPH DE ACETIS 


this month on playboy.com 


| THE A-LIST 


We horn in on America's 10 best jazz 
clubs. playboy.com/alist 


MAGAZINE BLOG 
News, views and inside perspectives 
from PLAYBOY editors. playboy.com/blog 


THE 215T QUESTION 

Get the very last word from resident 
beauty and ultimate hero Ali Larter. 
playboy.com/21q 


PLAYBOY U 
Matriculate Mansion- 
style at our college- 
only social network that 
will keep you connected. 
playboy.com/pbu 


THREE'S A CHARM 
Video and much 

more of the Girls 
Next Door. 
playboy.com/gnd 


GENERAL OFFICES: PLAYBOY, 680 NORTH LAKE SHORE DRIVE, CHICAGO, ILLINOIS 6061 1. PLAYDOY ASSUMES NO RESPONSIBILITY TO 
RETURN UNBOLICITEO EDITORIAL OF GRAPHIC OR OTHER MATERIAL ALL МТО IN LETTERS AND UNSOLICITED EDITORIAL AMO 
ORAPHIZ MATERIAL WILL DE TREATED AB UNCONDITIONALLY ASSIGNED FON PUBLICATION AND COPYRIGHT PURPOSES АМО MATERIAL. 
WILL ӘЖ SUBJECT TO FLÄTDOTE UNRESTRICTED NIGHT TO EDIT AND TO COMMENT EDITORIALLY. PLAYBOY, DATE OF PRODUCTION 
JULY 1007. CUSTODIAN с” RECOMDO 18 DEN TAYLOR, ALL NECONOS REQUIRED BY LAW TO UE MAINTAINED BY PUBLISHER ANE LO- 
CATES AT 640 NORTH LAKE SHORE ORIVE, CHICAGO, ILLINOIG 60011. CONTENTS COPYRIGHT е 2007 BY PLAYO CY. ALL MIGHTS RE- 
SERVED PLAYBOY, PLAYMATE AND RABBIT HEAD GYMBOL ARE MARKO OF PLAYBOY, REOISTERED 0.8 TRADEMARK OFFICE. NO PART 
OF THIG BOOK MÁY BE REPRODUCED, STORED IN А RETRIEVAL SYSTEM OP TRANSMITTED ІМ ANY FORM DY ANY ELECTRONIC, ME» 
CHANICAL, PHOTOCOPYING ON FECOROI NO MEANS ON OTMENWISE WITHOUT PRIOR WHITTEN FENMIGSION OF THE PUDLUONER. ANY 
BIMILAMITY ӘКТӘЖЕМ THE PEOPLE AMO PLACES IM THE FICTION AND GEMIFICTION IN THIS MAGAZINE AND ANY MEAL PEOPLE AND 
PLACES 18 PURELY COINCIDENTAL. FON CAEDITS BEE PAGE 134. DANBUNY MINT ONBENT IN DOMESTIC SUBSCRIPTION POLCWRAPPED 
COPIES, MILLERA INSERT BETWEEN PAGES 120-127 АМО MIDDLETON INGERT BETWEEN PAGES 1906-139 IN SELECTED DOMESTIC NEWS- 
STAND AND SUBSCRIPTION COPIES. CERTIFICADO DE LICITUD DE TÍTULO NO. 7570 DE FECHA 29 DE JULIO DE 1555, Y CERTIFICADO 
DE LICITUD DE CONTENIDO NO. 5100 DE FECHA 29 DE JULIO DE 1993 EXPEDIDOS POR LA COMISION CALIFICADORA DE PUBLICACIO: 
NES Y REVISTAS ILUSTRADAS DEPENDIENTE DE LA BEOMETAMIA DE GOSERNACION. MÉXICO. NEBEMWA OL DENECHOS O42000 
9717103320001 02 


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HERE'S TO YOU, MORT 

Hef celebrated Mort Sahl's 80th birthday with comedy greats at the Wads- 
worth Theatre, Standing, from left: Richard Lewis, Jay Leno, Norm Crosby, 
Kevin Nealon, Hef, Ross Shafer, Drew Carey, Albert Brooks. Seated: Shel- 
ley Berman, Jonathan Winters, George Carlin, Mort Sahl, Harry Shearer. 


LISTENERS 
LAP IT UP 

Girl Next Door 
Bridget Marquardt 
has taken to the 
airwaves with the 
Bridget & Wednes- 
day Friday Show on 
Playboy Radio, co- 
hosted by her ca- 
nine sidekick,Wed- 
nesday. PLAYBOY 
fans are howling 
with delight. Basie Orchestra. 


THE AFI AWARDS 


No one, we repeat, no one knows how to make an entrance like Hef. Mr. Playboy was sur- 
rounded by begowned beaulies, including Kendra, Holly and Bridget, along with five Cen- 
terfolds (above left), for the 35th annual American Film Institute Life Achievement Award 
gala to honor pal Al Pacino (above right), held at the Kodak Theatre in Hollywood. Screen 
legends like Kirk Douglas (far right) and his wife, Anne, led the applause. 


SWINGIN' SET 
Hef and his beauties 
attended another 
| red-hot Playboy Jazz 
y Festival (right). Bill 

Cosby (above) re- 

E turned to host a lineup 

мы that included perfor- 
mances byjazz-world ! 
greats, from Buddy ” 
Guy to the Count 


PLAYBOY 


HEF SIGHTINGS, MANSION FROLICS AND NIGHTLIFE NOTES 


\ 


ARC or TRIOMPHE 


Hef and the Girls Next Door accepted an 
invitation from Prince Albert of Monaco to 
the Monte Carlo Television Festival. Their 
reality show is a huge hit abroad. (1) Kendra 
Holly, Hef and Bridget at the Arc de 
Triomphe in Paris. (2) Keith Hefner and his 
date share a drink with the gang at La Voile 


Rouge in St.-Tropez. (3) Celebrating Kendra's 
birthday at Villa Romana. (4) The foursome 


meet 24's Mary Lynn Rajskub and Dennis 
Haysbert at the home of the Monte Carlo 
state minister. (5) Terry O'Quinn from Lost 
savs hello to Hef at the fete. (6) Adrian Pasdar 
from Heroes with the Man at the television 
festival press event. (7) The girls parasailing over 
the Mediterranean. (8) The quartet attend a 
cocktail party hosted by Prince Albert at the 
palace. (9) Mr. Playboy and his ladies at the 
television-festival awards ceremony. (10) Back 
home, Kevin Federline pays a visit to the Man 
sion. (11) Jamie Foxx at the jazz fest. (12) Hef with 
Mort Sahl. (13) Jay Leno, Hef and Holly at Sahl's 
tribute. (14) Bill Maher receives an award at a 
Marijuana Policy Project party at the Mansion 


SUPER SOAKER 
Kudos to Daniela Federici for her 
stylish, graceful photos of Olympian 
Amanda Beard (Adult Swim, July). 
Jerry Lasensky 
Irvine, California 


Beard is stunning, but unless Gabri- 
elle Reece has died, she can't be called 
the sexiest athlete alive. 

Rich Black 
Carbondale, Illinois 


Humans love winners and beautiful 
people, Beard is both—an incredible 
swimmer and (as Derek Zoolander 


Whether by land or by sea, Amanda looks good. 


would say) really, really ridiculously 
good-looking. The postings on my 
swimming-news site, timedfinals.com, 
have been overwhelmingly positive. 
David Cromwell 
Missoula, Montana 


Beard's pictorial has stirred contro- 
versy over whether a top female athlete 
should be posing for PLAYBOY, Only a 
select few women are given a chance to 
capture their youthful beauty. You can't 
fault anyone for seizing the moment. 

Dan Young 
Ashley, Ohio 


SUMMER OF DRUGS 

Frank Owen vividly describes how 
in 1967 the "hoodies" caused a speed 
epidemic in Haight-Ashbury (The Dark 
Side of the Summer of Love, July), but I 
don't think he places enough empha- 
sis on the neighborhood's inherent 
weakness for meth. I first heard the 
snarling glossolalia of speeders there 
in 1964. At Timothy Leary's sugges- 
tion, the LSD millionaire Owsley Stan- 
ley put a little meth in his first batches 
of acid, "for clarity." In those days 
there was a severe drought of mari- 


P l| a 


juana in the summer, so the flower 
children couldn't toke up. Because 
most people couldn't take LSD every 
day, speed became more popular. As 
more people took speed, the street 
became worse. So they took more 
speed to deal with all the speeders. 
It became an arms race and a slow- 
motion catastrophe. 

Charles Perry 

Los Angeles, California 

Perry is the author of The Haight- 

Ashbury: A History. 


I used methedrine during the 
1970s, but the horror stories about 
crystal meth sound nothing 
like what I experienced. We 
never hid in our basements 
for days, nor did we ever 
binge. If you took a dose that 
kept you happy for more than 
10 or 12 hours, you would 
only feel jittery and have no 
fun. There were no addictive 
cravings. Is today's meth à 
different substance? 

Todd Shuffler 
Syracuse, New York 

Owen responds: "The meth you 
did back in the day was manufac- 
tured using phenylacetone (P2P). 
When the feds restricted P2B in 
1980, underground chemists dis- 
covered how to make meth using 
ephedrine/pseudoephedrine, 
which is twice as powerful. Having done 
both types, I can attest to how much edgier 
and paranoia-inducing this new meth, 
especially Mexican ice, is. It's also much 
easier to make than "biker meth,' which 
requires bulky equipment. The discovery of 
the ephedrine reduction method ed the 
door to the era of kitchen chemists." 


Speed in the Haight in 1967? How 
do you think Santana got to be so 
popular? Owen's article is a welcome 
dissenting view from the treacly 40th 
anniversary stories I've read every- 
where else. I wrote a book about this 
period and suggested the publisher put 
this blurb on the back: "Fistfights, gun- 
play, drug overdoses, deceit, betrayal 
and chicanery...all in a day's work in 
the Summer of Love." I've always won- 
dered why they didn't use it. 

Joel Selvin 
San Francisco, California 

Selvin is the author of Summer of Love: 
The Inside Story of LSD, Rock & Roll, Free 
Love and High Times in the Wild West. 


POLITICAL ACTION HERO 
I am impressed with Bruce Willis's 
concern for teachers in the Playboy 


y b o 


Interview (July), but it’s incorrect 
to say that teachers earn $40,000 
or $50,000 a year. It's more like 
$30,000. And people wonder why 
there is a shortage. 
Chelsea Bestra 
Killeen, Texas 
You're both right. According to the Amer- 
ican Federation of Teachers, the average 
salary is $47,602, and the average start- 
ing salary is $31,753. The union argues 
that, to be competitive, teacher pay needs to 
increase by at least 30 percent. 


Bill Clinton may have "taken a shit" 
on the Oval Office, as Willis claims, but 
his man, George W. Bush, has taken 
one on the Constitution. 

N.K. Booher 
Bristol, Tennessee 


It is wonderful to see Willis express 
his concern for indigenous peoples. 
A major issue facing tribes has been 
the U.S. government's refusal, even 
after a decade of lawsuits, to provide 
an accounting for the billions of dol- 
lars it holds in trust. These funds 
come mainly from revenue generated 
by the development of tribal natural 


2% M Nd 


^». 


Bruce Willis has a few thoughts on politics. 


resources, such as timber, minerals, oil 
and gas. A fallacy persists that all Indi- 
ans are flush with casino profits; as a 
group, Native Americans remain the 
nation's poorest people. 

John Echohawk 

Native American Rights Fund 

Boulder, Colorado 


I'm a Makah from the Makah 
Nation. In seven words—"Life there 
is as bleak as ever" - Willis sums up 


13 


PLAYBOY 


14 


RIVETING READS 


SATs ~~ — 


Com qm 
PLAYBOY 


LL 


D 
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the experience on the reservation for 
myself and my family. The govern- 
ment needs to honor the treaties it 
has made with Native Americans. As 
long as people like Willis are aware of 
the situation and make noise about it, 
I will not give up hope. 

Steven Burley 

Neah Bay, Washington 


I like Willis as a person and an 
actor, but some of his ideas, such as 
paying teachers $150,000 a year, are 
ridiculous. This is why people are so 
sick of Hollywood actors. I'm а Demo- 
crat, and I'm not going to switch sides 
when the waters get choppy. 

Jason Wahl 
Indianapolis, Indiana 


By supporting the underdogs in our 
society, Willis is much like some of the 
characters he has played. 

Tammy Smith 
DeLand, Florida 


MAC DADDY 
What is your tech guru's problem? 
He seems to have a grudge against 
Apple. A year ago he pushed a gag- 
gle of ugly iPod wannabes while diss- 
ing the iPod as too fragile. Now he's 
pimping a bunch of iPhone "alter- 
natives" (Sweet Talk, June). Whats 
wrong with going with the best? 
Drew Haney 
Glendale, California 
Scott Alexander responds: "Experience 
has taught us to hold off on Apple products 
until at least the third generation. We have 
every reason to believe the 2009 iPhones 
will be astounding.” 


HOT AND COLD 
Since you love grapefruit soda (The 

Grills Next Door, July), try this: Add two 
ounces of Tanqueray Rangpur gin to a 
collins glass of ice, fill with grapefruit 
soda and finish with a twist. It's best 
after several hours of tanning with 
your girl. 

Steve Combs 

Charlotte, North Carolina 


CROSSING THE LINE 
A cartoon in July appears to depict 
a lifeguard raping an unconscious 
woman. If I'm missing the joke, please 
explain. Otherwise you owe readers 
an apology for violating the standards 
of good taste you have upheld for so 
many decades. 
Ivy Shoots 
Niskayuna, New York 


In the caption for a July Grapevine 
item about Rose McGowan, who 
plays a one-legged woman in Grind- 
house, you write, “amputees were 
never our bag.” That is probably 


the case, since you airbrush away 
imperfections. But let it be stated 
by an amputee, some of us are hot 
and have no doubt starred in a few 
fantasies. Beauty is not about having 
all your parts; it's using all the parts 
you have with confidence. 

Stacey Burgess 

Huntsville, Alabama 


OUR HEARTS ARE RACING 
Assuming you consider race-car 
drivers to be athletes, as I do, then 
the world's sexiest is clearly Danica 
Patrick (200, July). 
Rick Jerome 
Denver, Colorado 


Here's a question you should have 
asked Patrick: How much gas was left 
in her car when she was leading the 
2005 Indianapolis 500 at lap 194 but 
slowed down to conserve fuel? Was 


Patrick is the first 10 to race the Indy 500. 


there enough after the race to sug- 
gest she might have won by keeping 
the pedal down? 
Joseph Cleaver 
Council, Idaho 
Every report said she would have run out of 
gas. It was a calculated risk— Patrick skipped 
the final fuel stop to take the lead but then 
had to slow down so she could finish. Unfortu- 
nately, three drivers caught up with her. 


Thank you so much for the Patrick 
interview, As a female welder work- 
ing in a man's world, I enjoyed read- 
ing about the similar challenges 
she faces. Her success is inspiring 
and empowering. 

Shawnna Burns 
Lampe, Missouri 


Read more feedback at blog.playboy.com. 


E-mail via the web at LETTERS.PLAYBOY.COM Or write: 730 FIFTH AVENUE, NEW YORK, NEW YORK 10019 


O 


Y 


babe of the month ` 


Amber Lee 
Ettinger 


| 


We meet Amber Lee Ettinger at 
Cafeteria on a blazing Thursday 
in New York City. The umbrella 
isn't cutting her any shade, so 
she's wearing a pair of large 
sunglasses as she sucks on a 
raspberry lemonade, which 
conjures up an image of the 
Lolita poster with Sue Lyon. 
The model and actress known 
to YouTube viewers as Obama 
Girl spears a fat raspberry with 
her straw and smiles as she lifts 
it to her lips, well aware she's in 
the sweet spot. Millions have 
watched the video "| Got a 
Crush on Obama"; the sequel, 
"Debate '08: Obama Girl vs. 
Giuliani Girl," will drop in four 
days. In both, Amber plays a 
singing coquette hung up on 
Barack Obama. The first clip 
sparked confusion when it was 
posted: Was it a bid for hipness 
from Obama's camp ora Repub- 
lican smear? Neither, really — 
just a bit of fun. What wasn't 
fun for Amber were the snotty 
digs from typical Internet dorks. 
(“Why is every chick in America 
fat?" wrote an apparently blind 
person.) "They were saying my 
boobs are fake, my teeth are 
fake," Amber laments. "Some 
said | should take it as a com- 
pliment. But I've never had 
plastic surgery. If 1 had fake 
boobs, I'd say, ‘I have fake 
boobs.'" We're surprised to 
hear Amber wasn't recognized 
at the recent MLB All-Star fes- 
tivities, where she interviewed 
players for the Free the Fan web- 
site. "I was asked to autograph 
a baseball," she says. “But 1 
think they thought | was Alyssa 
Milano. | get that a lot." 


"If | had 


fake boobs, 


[d say, 1 
have fake 
boobs 


Е 


PHOTOGRAPHY BY PATRIK BOOK 


| afterhours 


from russia with malice 


Leave the Gun. Take the Piroshki 


DAVID CRONENBERG'S EASTERN PROMISES DELVES INTO THE RUSSIAN 
MAFIA. BY THE WAY, RUSSIA HAS A MAFIA. DON'T MESS WITH IT 


"The Russians are number three in the world," says Mark Galeotti, director of the 
Organized Russian & Eurasian Crime Unit at the U.K.'s Keele University. "The Italians 
are still the beasts, and the Chinese triads are second because China is booming." 
Here's what else you need to know. GREATEST ASSET: Russia itself, says Galeotti, 
"The country is thoroughly corrupt and undercontrolled, but its resources are intact. 
The Mafia can launder money through Russian banks and provide weapons stolen 
from Russian stocks." STRUCTURE: Nothing like the Italians’, "It's not about family; 
there's no godfather giving orders. The Russian Mafia is a Mafia of the cell phone and 
the Internet, a network of criminal entrepreneurs." HISTORY: Emerged from the 
gulags. "If you want to make any money off a forced-labor camp, you don't want to 
spend a lot on guards. The Stalin regime essentially turned to organized crime to 
control the prison population. It was a stroke of brutal genius." APPEARANCE: Rus- 
sian mobsters sport visible tattoos, "like a résumé showing where you've been impris- 
oned and what crimes you've committed." REACH: Dominates Eastern Europe and 
Israel; base in the U.S. is Brighton Beach in Brooklyn, New York. 


foreplay 


First Time's First Lines 


INTRIGUING OPENERS FROM A PLAY ABOUT LOSIN' IT 


Since the Mesolithic era of the Internet (1996) MyFirstTime.com has collected 
anonymous tales of defloration. Bits from more than 100 of them have been 
stitched together for the off-Broadway play My First Time. Here are some of 
our favorite opening lines: 


"| know you aren't supposed to have a physical relationship with your stepsister." 
“| lost my hymen in a bicycle accident.” “I apologize my English, | am not a native 
English writer." "His tribe and my tribe have been enemies for hundreds of years." 
"Now slut is a pretty harsh word, but it was no secret that she put out for $50." "He 
was an asshole." "She had a real nice ass." "She had on white bell-bottom corduroys 
and a black T-shirt that said FuTURE Fox." "He put on a Boz Scaggs disc and got my 
shirt off by putting marbles down it." "We met at Bible camp." "We worked together 
on the Clinton campaign." "Okay, here's one for you to jack off to." 


foreign phrase of the month | 


СЭ Pw 


Bon-Kyu-Bon 
TODAY'S JAPANESE 
T&A HAS MORE T, MORE А 


For Westerners who dig Asian women 
but wish they were a bit curvier, 
there's good news: Japanese ladies 
have been eating their burgers and 
shakes, and it's working. The term 
for the new shape is bon-kyu-bon— 
literally "big-small-big" in Japanese. 
From The Wall Street Journal: 


"Today the average Japanese wom- 
an's hips, at 35 inches, are around 
an inch wider than those of women a 
generation older. Women in their 205 
wear a bra at least two sizes larger than 
that of their mothers, according to lin- 
gerie maker Wacoal. Waist size, mean- 
while, has gotten slightly smaller.... 
The physical changes are largely the 
result of an increasingly Westernized 
diet, say nutritionists. Meals that used 
to consist of mostly fish, vegetables 
and tofu now lean heavily toward an 
American-style menu of red meat, 
dairy and indulgences such as Krispy 
Kreme doughnuts." 


ADVERTORIAL 


Pete and Red are almost irresistible 
wearing the Suit Up System" by Haggar. 


BY OMID FARHANG 
PHOTOGRAPHY Шу STEVE WAYQA 


ADVERTORIAL 


*PETE AND RED* 


HAGGAR'S DYNAMIC DUO TALK SHOP ABOUT GOATS, BODY OIL, 
AND DEFENDING THE AUSTERE ART OF MAKING THINGS RIGHT. 


Q1 
PLAYBOY: Your show is *Making Things 
Right.” How long was that idea in the 
works? 
PETE: We really can't take credit for the 
idea. Haggar contacted us about the con- 
cept, and our first impression was “what 
the hell do we know about acting?" 
RED: The thinking behind it was Haggar 
clothes are built for real men, and just look 
at us. It don't get no realer. 


Q2 
PLAYBOY: So I take it you guys didn't 
attend Julliard? 
RED: Neither of us has been to prison, no. 
PETE: I think he means the acting school, 
big fella. 


Q3 
PLAYBOY: I'll take that as no formal 
training. 
PETE: They taught us a few tricks, but 
we're not exactly channeling Brando when 
we teach some jerk a lesson. 


Q4 

PLAYBOY: In one of your episodes, you 
guys employ an army of goats to take 
care of your neighbor's overgrown lawn. 
What was that like? 

PETE: Those goats were surly. You ever 
look into a goat's eyes? It's like they can 
read your thoughts. Weird. 


Q5 
PLAYBOY: Would you guys consider your- 
selves as crusaders for justice? 
RED: Wow. That question made me throw 
up in my own mouth a little. 


Q6 
PLAYBOY: Okay... So how does Haggar 
fit into this equation? 
PETE: It's like that old saying: “If some- 
thing's worth doing, it's worth doing right." 
RED: Haggar gets it. 


Q7 
PLAYBOY: Truthfully, did you guys wear 
Haggar prior to this gig? 
PETE: Yep. Plus one of Red's old buddies 
works for Haggar. He threw our names into 
the ring during casting. 


RED: My good buddy, Dane. We call him 
that because he's got a *neck" like a Great 
Dane. 

Q8 
PLAYBOY: How are you adjusting to star- 
dom? 
RED: Can't stand the makeup. Before every 
shot some numbnuts is in your face with a 
freakin sponge. 
PETE: Red almost called the whole deal 
off. Until they told him even John Wayne 
wore makeup. Then he was cool. 


Q9 
PLAYBOY: Any groupies? 
RED: Just stop right there, pal. Word to 
the wise: When your wife lets you appear 
in Playboy, DON'T push it. 


Q10 
PLAYBOY: Duly noted. So do you guys 
feel like notoriety has changed you? 
PETE: We were never like these aspiring 
actors passing out headshots. Haggar picked 
us because of who we are, not who we 
wish we could be. 
RED: Nice quote, Pete! 


a11 
PLAYBOY: In the Making Things Right 
intro, there's a vignette of you two wres- 
tling with your shirts off. What's the deal? 
RED: Just because you have an issue that 
needs resolving the old fashion way, it 
doesn't mean your shirt has to suffer. 


Q12 
PLAYBOY: It looks like you were sorta 
oiled up when you were wrestling. What's 
up with that? 
PETE AND RED: Next question. 


Q13 
PLAYBOY: Did you grow up together? 
RED: We met in school. Old school. Get it? 
PETE: Where we come from, trust isn't eas- 
ily earned. 


Q14 
PLAYBOY: At the risk of getting sappy, 
what does it take to earn that kind of bond? 
PETE: Dependability through thick and 
thin. Red's 50-inch flat screen doesn't hurt 
either. 


RED: Fate may choose our in-laws. But we 
all get to choose our friends. 

Q15 
PLAYBOY: You guys ever been in a serious 
fight with each other? 
PETE: Nah, we're too old to fight...actu- 
ally, correction: We're too old to fight each 
other. 


Q16 

PLAYBOY: Pete, has your son started 
wearing Haggar now that his dad is the face 
of the brand? 

PETE: Nah, he’s 15. IfI can get him to keep 
his jeans above his crack, I'll feel like I’ve 
done my job. 

RED: He'll come around once he starts 
growing consistent facial hair. 


Q17 
PLAYBOY: Sounds like a tough house. 
PETE: Depends. A good dad knows when 
to be a pal, and when to drop the hammer. 
He's a great kid. But he's also a teenager. 
RED: Ah, to be a teenager again. You only 
have two things on your mind: chicks, 
and...yeah, chicks. 

Q18 
PLAYBOY: As experts in manliness, what's 
it going to take to bring toughness back 
into style? 
RED: We need to return to some core values. 
Like this kid I just interviewed for a job. I 
shake his hand and he gives me a bunch of 
wet noodles. I mean... 
PETE: That's strikes one and two! Without 
even throwing a pitch! 


Q19 
PLAYBOY: Sounds like perfect fodder for 
Making Things Right. 
RED: It would be like a manhood inter- 
vention. Except without all the crying. Or 
talking. 


Q20 
PLAYBOY: You guys obviously take your 
mission very seriously. 
RED: Nincompoops and jackass neighbors 
everywhere, tread lightly. 
PETE: Now if you'll excuse us, we're gonna 
go admire the architectural design of the 


Grotto. 


22 


| afterhours 


employee of the month 


One Hot Property 


MOVE OVER, MR. FURLEY—CHRISTINE STEVENSEN 
OF MINNESOTA IS OUR NEW FAVORITE LANDLORD 


PLAYBOY: So you're the master of the house? 

CHRISTINE: Yes, | rehab and then rent properties. 

PLAYBOY: Would you consider yourself a handywoman? 
CHRISTINE: | guess. My forte is really painting and han- 
dling the trim. 

PLAYBOY: What do you like best about your job? 

CHRISTINE: Going home, sitting down and having that first 
cold beer after a long day. 

PLAYBOY: Drinking beer at home? It's official: You are a handy- 
woman. Shouldn't you be out painting the town red? 
CHRISTINE: It's too cold up here to be running around outside, 
What else am | supposed to do? In fact, I'm currently install- 
ing a beer tap in my house. 

PLAYBOY: Do you have any work-related horror stories? 
CHRISTINE: My first renters were being evicted on a Monday, so 
that Sunday they decided to throw a party for the Vikings game 
and invited 300 people. They trashed the house. The cops 
came, and they even trashed two police cars. It was a mess. 
PLAYBOY: The Vikings must have been playing the Packers. 
Why is a sweet girl like you dealing with riffraff like that? 
CHRISTINE: | can take care of myself. You'll never see me pull 
any of that fake diva crap. I'm a real woman. 

Employee of the Month candidates: Send pictures to Playboy Photogr Department, Attn: 
Employee of the Month, 680 North Lake Shore Drive, Chicago, Illinois 60611. Must be at least 


18 years old. Must send photocopies of a driver's license and another valid ID (not a credit 
card), one of which must include a current photo. 


sarcastically yours 


Oh, Danny Boy 


COMEDIAN DANIEL TOSH GETS ON OUR NERVES 


What's your relation to reggae legend Peter Tosh, one of 
the original Wailers? He was a bad father and is dead to 
me. And to everyone, for that matter. What does the name 
Daniel mean? Comedy superstar. No, it means "God is my 
judge." Is he? Only on Sundays. Can we call you Danny 
Boy? | wish you wouldn't. How about D-Tosh? Yes, if | can 
call your magazine pansy porn. /s white guilt funny? If it's 
done by a Mexican. /s it as funny as angry black people? 
Yes, but don't tell them that or they'll beat you up. Do you 
have black friends? One's Cuban—is that close? What 
ethnic group is angriest with you? It's a five-way tie. How 
are you different from other comics? | don't lip-synch my 
jokes in concert. Are you the next Dane Cook? That's what 
my bio says. Do we need another Dane Cook? One's plenty. 
How did your parents fuck you up? My mother would only 
breast-feed my friends. Are you capable of sincerity? Sure, 
whatever. What offends you? Nudity. Do you like TV? It 
beats reading magazines. Have you had cosmetic surgery? 
No, God just did a really good job on me. Why do you have 
so many gay fans? Because you can see Margaret Cho only 
so many times. Do comedians have groupies? Yes. What 
are they like? Whores. Why don't you use segues between 
bits? Speaking of whores, I'm not good at segues. 

Daniel Tosh's Comedy Central special, Daniel Tosh: Com- 
pletely Serious, is currently available on DVD. 


The Mighty 
Buck 


FAREWELL TO 
ONE OF PLAYBOY'S 
LEGENDARY 
CARTOONISTS 


Buck Brown, whose 
cartoons lampooned 
racial issues and sex- 
ual mores, recently 
died at the age of 
71. A regular con- 
tributor since 1962, 
Brown published 
nearly 600 cartoons 
in PLAYBOY. With in- 
terviewer Alex Haley 
and Playmate Jen- 
nifer Jackson, Brown 

was one of several African Amer- 
icans to break barriers in these 
pages during the civil rights era. 
Yet Brown was more than a 
black cartoonist; he was a mas- 
ter cartoonist, adept at chal- 
lenging the status quo but not 
obsessed with it. His work was, 
above all, funny. Fittingly, his 
signature creation was Granny, 
a libidinous elderly white lady. 
We'll miss you, Buck. 


"It must be a trap!” 


airing them out 


In Sirius Trouble 
RADIO HONCHOS SHOCKED—SHOCKED—BY NUDITY 


The Playboy Radio Morning Shows visit to the Sirius studios in New 
York was an adventure. The stated plan was for the hosts and guest 
expert Bridget Marquardt to evaluate some aspiring Playmates; little 
did Sirius expect its lobby would become what host Kevin Klein calls 
Tits-a-palooza 2007. “We kept telling the girls not to get naked,” he 
says, “but they just didn't want to keep their robes on. It was like a 
nudist resort with microphones,” While nobody on hand seemed 
upset by the goings-on, our radio partners worried that some visitors 
wouldn't be so chill, The heat coming into Klein's headset was in- 
tense. “The Sirius guy was yelling in my ear, No more nipples!' " he 
recalls. "'Abort all nudity, or we will pull the plug!” Klein's co-host, 
Andrea Lowell, wasn't exactly part of the solution. "I showed my tits 
a few times," she says. "I didn't think they'd get so upset." 


| elsewhere at playboy 


virtual paradise 


Fantasy Island 
WHO NEEDS TATTOO AND MR. ROARKE? 


In the anarchic world of Second Life, an online com- 
munity 8.5 million members strong, the new hot spot 
is the Rabbit Head-shaped Playboy Island. Sur- 
rounded by beaches and tiki-torch-lit pavilions, the 
island's main structure contains a version of the 
Playboy store where avatars can suit up in official 
Playboy duds. Comely Bunnies are on duty to answer 
your questions or just shoot the breeze. The joint 
starts hopping after dark. Take the elevator to the 
second-story lounge where live DJs spin tunes and 
Second Life's beautiful people shake it on the dance 
floor, Make a love connection amid the dry ice and 
strobes, and who knows? You may end up getting 
friendly in the replica of the Mansion's famous Grotto. 


Ace of Clubs 
DOWNTOWN NEW YORK'S JAZZ MECCA 


A lesson from Playboy.com's list of the top 10 
jazz clubs, compiled by aficionado Steve Dollar: 
"Max Gordon was a law-school dropout when he 
opened this cellar space in 1935, little knowing 
that his modest hangout would shape the future 
of America's greatest art form. The phrase 'Live 
at the Village Vanguard' has now adorned more 
than 100 albums, and the stage that hosted 
timeless performances by John Coltrane, Bill 
Evans, Sonny Rollins and Charles Mingus still 
resonates with their giant steps." 


23 


24 


R A W 


SIGNIFICA, INSIGNIFICA, STAT 


According to a survey by Samsung, 39 


of single women have sent a text 


message that they regretted the next day, a feeling known as “text shame.” 


Dig This 
Since the U.S. 
government 
heightened sur- 
veillance of the 
Mexican border 
following 9/11, 
more than 50 
tunnels have been 
discovered. To 
date, $2.7 million 
has been spent 
on filling at least 
6 of them. 


$2,640 


Amount paid 
at auction 
for a pill bot- 
tle that once 
contained 
Elvis Presley's 
prescription 
medication. 


Weight in pounds of the world's 
largest pumpkin, verified at a 
Rhode Island weigh-off in 
October 2006. 


Steady Streams 


According to analysts at Ella- 
coya Networks, YouTube videos 
account for nearly 1095 of all 
Internet traffic. 


About 8% of dreams include 
sex; of those, 4% result 
in an orgasm. Surveys found 
that men dream of multiple 
partners twice as often 
as women do; women are 
twice as likely to dream of 
public figures. 


Given the rate of movement through space of 
the Earth, the solar system, the Milky Way 
galaxy and the universe itself, British scientists 
calculate that during an average act of sexual 
intercourse, lasting 7 minutes, 54 second 
the Earth travels 89,180,153 miles. 


Undergrad Overview 


will attend more than one college. 


| І J 


Due to a ruling that states 
women are equally entitled 
as men to doff their tops in 
public, a New York woman 
who'd been picked up for 
baring her breasts recently 
accepted $29,000 to set- 
tle a civil rights lawsuit. 


Slow Food 


The average speed of Heinz ketchup leaving 
the bottle is 25 miles a year 


WHO WEM Are YOU? 


Contrary to popular belief, identity theft 
isnt an Internet-only phenomenon. How 
thieves do their dirty work? 


Throughethe internet: 

Through Stolen snail mail: © 

Through transactions conducted in 

Stores, by mail or by telephone: 

By friends, relatives, acquaintances Of 
domestic employees: | 

From ost or stolen wallets, credit cards 
and Checkbooks: 77; 


"IN THE VALLEY OF ELAH | 


A PLAYBOY article resonates on the big screen 


In May 2004 PLaveoy published Mark Boal's Death and Dis- 
honor, an investigative piece about a retired Army officer 
who refuses to accept that his soldier son has gone AWOL 
upon returning from combat in Iraq. His search unearths a 
possible military cover-up of his son's murder at the hands 
of his own platoon members. Among the readers of Boal's 


p An 


497 


powerful article was Paul Haggis, the Oscar-winning director 
and co-writer of Crash. "| could barely speak after reading 
that article, | was so deeply saddened," says Haggis. He 
found a champion in Clint East- „ 

wood, who commended it to the It's too easy to 
head of Warner Bros. That helped make a movie 
pave the way for Haggis to write қ 

and direct In the Valley of Elah, that just says, 
which fictionalizes elements of i ды 
Воаѓѕ article and other true events War IS bad. 

in a characterrich mystery-thriller that doesn't pull its politi- 
cal punches. The adaptation stars Tommy Lee Jones, Susan 
Sarandon, Charlize Theron, Jason Patric, Josh Brolin, James 
Franco and a number of reaHife servicemen. "It's too easy 
to make a movie that just says, War is Баа," says Haggis. 
Im very proud of the men and women who go to Iraq and 
put their lives on the line. | hope the film makes audiences 
ask some of the troubling questions | ask myself about where 
we are as a nation. If you can find a way to make yourself as 
guilty as everyone else—and | think | am—then you've got 


now snowing 


The Assassination of Jesse James 

by the Coward Robert Ford 

(Brad Pitt, C еск, Sam Rockwell) This brooding Western 
saga based on Ron — s novel has young Ford saddling up 
with his gunslinging idol James, only to be so consumed by jeal- 
ousy that he hatches a plan to snuff his hot-wired former hero. 


Michael Clayton 

> Clooney, Tom Wilkinson, Tilda on) Clooney's 
Clayton isa burned. out fixer for a — 5 pr firm. He gets 
called in to do damage control when a guilt-ridden colleague's 
mental meltdown threatens to derail a nasty multimillion-dollar 
class-action lawsuit brought against a chemical company. 


The Kingdom 

(Jamie Foxx, Jennifer Garner, Jeremy Piven) It's balls-out action 
sprinkled with explosive geopolitics as an FBI agent leads a 
team of specialists into Riyadh to destroy the perpetrators of 
a deadly anti-American attack, Disoriented by the culture, the 
team takes assistance from a sympathetic Saudi cop. 


The Darjeeling Limited 

(Owen Wilson, Adrien Brody, Jason Schwartzman) After tragedy 
befalls their parents, three brothers go on a train trip through 
India in an attempt to renew their family bond. When smuggling 
a polsonous snake gets them booted off the train, their further 
adventures in self-discovery don't tum out as expected. 


the possibility of a good film.” 


Our call: Don't go expecting 
shoot-'em-up antics but instead 
a beautifully acted, powerfully 
directed, magnificently photo- 
graphed meditation on a van- 
ished American way of life. 


Our call: Writer-director Tony 
Gilroy's riff on the theme “Is 
there anything sadder than a 
guy for whom it's too late?” is 
a sharp, complex, well-acted 
thriller for grown-ups. 


Our call: Despite the annoy- 
ing clichés of you-are-there, 
shaky-cam cinematography, 
the direction, convincing cast 
and pulse-pounding finale are a 
winning combination, 


Our call: Whether or not you 
find this journey too retro- 
trippy, laid-back and quirky for 
your taste, we think anytime 
Wes Anderson is in the driver's 
seat, the ride is worth taking. 


—Stephen Rebello 


27 


reviews [ dvds 


dvd of the month 


[ KNOCKED UP ] 


Writer-director Judd Apatow gives birth to a new breed of romantic comedy 


In creating the funny, richly entertaining blockbuster Knocked Up, writer-director 
Judd Apatow (The 40-Year-Old Virgin) plays the fascinating beauty-and-the-beast 
gambit. When blubbery, bong-hitting slacker Ben Stone (Seth Rogen) beds 
blonde TV hottie Alison Scott (Katherine Heigl) after a boozy night at a bar—thus 


yeasting the film's titular 
oven bun—you think, Yeah, 
right. Apatow's gift, though, 
is in setting up this premise 
and running with it, allow- 
ing the couple's relationship 
to evolve believably over 
the term of the pregnancy. 
Knocked Up feels surprisingly 
smooth and true. Best extra: 
The Finding Ben Stone series, 
which takes you through a 
mock casting process, fea- 
turing actors James Franco 
and Michael Cera. Also on HD 
DVD. ¥¥¥¥ —Greg Fagan 


28 WEEKS LATER (2007) Another Rage- 
virus outbreak puts British civilians in 
the crossfire between crazed canni- 
bals and the U.S. 
Army. The stylized 
action is bloody 
good fun. Best 
extra: Flash- 
animated graphic- 
novel segments. 
¥¥¥—Brian Thomas 


REIGN OVER ME (2007) Adam Sandler 
plays a devastated man who lost his family 
on 9/11. He reconnects with old roommate 
Don Cheadle, and 
they tackle their 
issues with unex- 
pected freshness. 
Best extra: A pro- 
duction journal. 
Also on Blu-ray. 
yyy —G.F. 


DEATH PROOF (2007) and PLANET 
TERROR (2007) UNRATED EXTENDED 
DIRECTOR'S CUTS e Tarantino and 
Robert Rodriguez's 
Grindhouse gets 
split into two longer 
thrill rides. Best 
extra: Multiple LX 
behind-the-scenes 
featurettes. YY YY. 

—Matt Steigbigel 


DELIVERANCE: 35TH ANNIVERSARY 
DELUXE EDITION (1972) John Boorman's 
tense man-versus-wilderness squealer res- 
onates even more в 
today. Best extra: 
A shot-by-shot 
breakdown of the 
climax. Also on 
HD DVD and Blu- 
ray. VVV 

—Buzz McClain 


In Monster's Ball 
(pictured) Halle 
Berry loses her 
top in the heat of 
the moment. The 
Oscar winner 
loses her hus- 
band in the new 
drama Things 
We Lost in the 
Fire, co-starring 
Benicio Del Toro. 


Forgotten foot- 
age and surprise 
nude scenes are 
a few of the DVD 
Easter eggs you 
can discover with 
a little patience 
and remote-con- 
trol massaging. 
Here are 10 buried bonus features 
worth digging for. 

1. MEMENTO (limited edition) —ff Chris- 
topher Nolan's reverse narrative over- 
whelms you, scroll backward from the 
= credits to view the story. 

X-MEN (original edition) — Spider-Man 
scurries in to back up three heroes, 
only to realize he's in the wrong movie. 
3. V FOR VENDETTA (two-disc spe- 
cial edition)—Jay-Z ain't got nuthin’ on 
trash-talkin' actor-cum-rapper Natalie 
Portman in this SNL segment. Word. 


e oo — 


Natalie Portman's hilarious SNL rapping 
rant is hidden on the V for Vendetta DVD. 


4. BEDAZZLED (special edition)—Liz 
Hurley чати Brendan Fraser party like 
a rock star in this axed sequence. 

5. THE OFFICE SPECIAL Watch angelic 
Ricky Gervais lip-synch to “If You Don't 
Know Me by Now” and lose it during 
every shot. 

6. STAR WARS EPISODE Ill: REVENGE 
OF THE SITH—Show some love for an 
animated hip-hop Yoda getting jiggy 
with a few storm troopers. 

7. THE BEASTMASTER—Check out 
brief flashes of flesh from sexy Tanya 
Roberts x these silent outtakes. 

8. THE 40-YEAR-OLD VIRGIN (unrated 
edition)—An i improv scene illustrates 
more ways to "Whack It." 

9. DAWN OF THE DEAD (ultimate 
edition) -A Buddhist monk reveals that 
he can find inner peace and harmony 
but still enjoy face+ipping carnage. 

10. STAR WARS TRILOGY—See the 
elusive Revenge of the Jedi trailer. 


Tired of fiddling with your remote? 
Get step-by-step instructions for find- 
ing these Easter eggs by visiting 
playboy.com/magazine.—Bryan Reesman 


30 


reviews [ music 


[ HIS ROYAL BADNESS? ] 


Calvin Harris brings back the sound of dodgy 1980s synth funk 


There's a particular sound from the 1980s that can make people of a certain age 
wince. You'll recognize it from Cameo, Rick James and Controversy-era Prince, It's not 
the icy, futuristic pulse of vintage electro or the meaty break beats of early rap, both 
of which are perennially exhumed by DJs and musicians. It's the awkward sound 
formed by electronic hand claps, synth fills and funk bass—1980s R&B—and when 
it went out of fashion, it really 
went out of fashion. All those 
DeBarge records? The base- 
ment was not far enough 
away—they had to go. But 
just when it looked as if that 
sound might never, ever 
reappear, even ironically, 
along comes Calvin Harris, 
a Scottish bedroom producer 
who can't get enough of it. 
Harris—whose sly, slinky 
debut LP, ! Created Disco, is 
out this month on Sony—is 
the best of a new crop of 
young, hip artists mining this 
sound. As with much of the 
postpunk material that new 
bands have recently recycled, 
part of the appeal of mid- 
19805 funk is its gawkiness. 
Harris is smart enough to acknowledge this with such songs as “Acceptable in the 80s,” 
a track as catchy as the cream of the original genre, featuring Harris singing falsetto 
over cheesy gurgles of that era's uncool synth sounds. Elsewhere, such as on “The 
Girls," Harris slides comfortably into Hot Chip territory—or rather, Hot Chip-meets- 
Rockwell's "Somebody's Watching Me" territory. This is the party record of the year. 


LJ 


PLASTISCINES * LP1 

French rock has long been an undeserved punch line, but anyone 
who has heard Jacques Dutronc's mid-1960s output knows Paris 
had sounds even back then to rival the grittiest British Invasion 
material. Now the city has produced a combo able to hold its 
own against the Scandinavian garage-band explosion and also 
serve as a Gallic answer to the Donnas. These girls make 
stripped-down guitar rock, and with most songs clocking in under 
two minutes, they do it right. (Caroline) ¥¥¥ —Tim Mohr 


THE GO! TEAM + Proof of Youth 

This jubilant U.K. troupe made a name with its childlike enthusi- 
asm, schoolyard-chant vocals and aggressively unorthodox 
approach to sampling, taking in every possible genre and style 
of music and spinning it all into a sparkling, upbeat funfest. The 
collective's signature treble-heavy, blissed-out cut-and-paste 
sound is once again in full effect on this second album, but it 
accommodates a surprising range of music, extending here 
even to Belle & Sebastian рор. (Sub Pop) VV —T.M. 


RICHARD HAWLEY + Lady's Bridge 

The former Pulp guitarist makes gorgeous throwback music, 
his deep voice crooning over guitar twang that evokes the era 
when swing metamorphosed into rockabilly. He is also a pop 
classicist, floating his songs—all of which are exquisite on this 
remarkably consistent album—on arrangements rich with 
strings, pianos and horns. The effect is like a modern-day ver- 
sion of Gene Vincent, whose "The Night Is So Lonely" wouldn't 
be out of place on this record. (Mute) ұұұұ —T.M. 


DOWNLOAD A FREE, EXCLUSIVE CALVIN HARRIS REMIX AT PLAYBOY.COM/MAGAZINE/CDS. 


quick hits 


[ HOT TUNES LIST ] 


You want the best stuff for your iPod, 
but who has the time to find it, eh? 
Editors do. We've got you sorted, 
mate: Just go download these. 


"Sheila," Jamie T Attitude of the Libertines 
and sass of the Streets, with Brian Wilson- 
meets-Beasties production aspirations. 


"Koop Island Blues," Koop Late-night 
lounging with a tiki feel from a Stock- 
holm jazz-and-downbeat collective. 


"Pure Gold," Heavy Trash Jon Spencer's 
roots project is Sun Records rock distilled 
to its sludgy, pompadoured essence. 


"Sick Hipster Nursed by Suicide Girl," 
Film School Nu shoegazing with aggres- 
sive Spacemen 3 or Swervedriver edge. 


"Axis Mundi," Magik Markers Sonic 
Youth-approved noise duo with screech- 
ing guitars and Kills-like girl vocals. 


"Choci Loni," Young Marble Giants From 
reissue of classic postpunk LP Colossal 
Youth, it's taut but restrained proto-indie. 


"We Will Break Our Own Hearts," Small 
Sins Bubbling electro-folk from Toronto 
act's second album, Mood Swings. 


"La Esquina," Federico Aubele Gotan 
Project-like meld of Argentinian guitar 
and Thievery Corp-produced beats. 


"This Aching Deal," Shocking Pinks 
Woozy, washed-out lo-fi pop genius 
from one-man New Zealand band. 


“Тһе White Flash," Modeselektor Radio- 
head's Thom Yorke brings vocals to the 
hammering Euro-crunk festivities. 


"Head Games," Five O'Clock Heroes 
Jagged, soaring indie somewhere be- 
tween Franz Ferdinand and the Police. 


"Moon Pulls," Müm Less of an atmo- 
spheric smear and more of a mournful 
piano-based ballad from the Icelanders. 


"Cut the Meat," Drug Rug Imagine a mu- 
sical point where the Carter Family, Mazzy 
Star and the White Stripes intersect. 


“The Party Punch," Oh No! Oh My! Hints 
of Tapes 'n Tapes, Arcade Fire and the 
Shins color this gentle, inventive pop. 


"She Took All the Money," Black Francis 
Rollicking acoustic guitar and shan- 
galangalangs from main Pixie. 


reviews [ games 


play back 
THE IMPORTANCE OF 
[ LADY KILLER ] [ THE IMPORTANCE OF ] 
How GTA changed everything 


On October 16 Rockstar Games will 
release Grand Theft Auto IV, which fea- 
tures an incredibly detailed Liberty City 
(read: New York) and the story of an 


A gorgeous brawler slices her way to the top of the PS3's must-have list 


Nariko has a problem. The ancient sword she must wield to save her world drains her 
life force as she eviscerates waves of invading enemy hordes. Better work quickly, 
then. Spectacular and immediately engaging, Heavenly Sword (PS3) will have even 
novices creating action sequences worthy of Peter Jackson. Its stunning, revenge- 


driven heroine keeps the 
blood splattering as she 
switches combat modes on 
the fly: dual rapiers, a chain- 
based distance weapon and 
a massive two-handed blade. 
Button mashing works, but 
players are rewarded for 
mastering all three fighting 
styles. Whether you're hack- 
ing through arenas full of 
gladiators or facing off 
against horrific behemoths, 
this game's frenetic pace, 
gorgeous visuals and plenti- 
ful carnage will keep you 
coming back for more. 
www —John Gaudiosi 


PROJECT GOTHAM RACING 4 (360) Deftly 
balancing precision with fun, the franchise 
adds more than 120 motorcycles and clas- 


sic cars, as well as 
insanely detailed 
tracks. Team 
matches bring a 
new dimension 
to online compe- 
tition. Yyy 
—Damon Brown 


CLIVE BARKER'S JERICHO (PC, PS3, 
360) In this supernatural shooter you'll 
jump between characters and switch 


between histori- 
cal epochs with 
your squad of 
covert specialists 
to confront the 
root of all evil. 
Twitchy, gory fun. 
ууу —C.H. 


Eastern European immigrant adrift in its 
underworld. In all 

the fuss it's easy 

to forget that just 

10 years ago GTA 

was an obscure 

blip on the cultur- 

al radar. But over 

the past decade it 

has changed the 

nature of video games forever. Here are 
four reasons why: 

OPEN-ENDED GAMEPLAY David Jones 
conceived Race 'n' Chase (later renamed 
Grand Theft Auto) as an advanced version 
of Pac-Man using cars. Jones's 2-D game 
featured enduring bits of DNA such as 
gang alliances and 


ОРТ-ІМ STORY- 

TELLING Sam 

and Dan Houser of 

Rockstar Games took over the franchise 
in 1999, turning it into a 3-D action 
adventure and weaving a rich story 
throughout. Up to this point story-driven 
games usually forced you down specific 
paths—the more choice you had, the 
less story you got. 

GTA gave players a 

story and the free- 

dom to ignore it. 

CELEBS LOSE 


SHERLOCK HOLMES: THE AWAK- | SKATE (PS3, 360) A deep, simlike | THEIR SHAME 
ENED (PC) Victorian-era sleuthing meets approach offers authentic physics, along Gaming's early 
eldritch occultism in this literary mash-up with cameras that focus on your foot- years saw a lot of 


of Lovecraft and 
Conan Doyle. It's 
old-school adven- 
ture fleshed out 
with mini games, 
puzzles and solid 
acting. ¥¥¥ 
—Chris Hudak 


work and deliver 
a great sensa- 
tion of speed. 
Be warned: The 
learning curve is 
knee-scrapingly 
steep. Yyy 
—Marc Saltzman ҚА 


B-list actors and 

acting. GTA featured work by Samuel L. 
Jackson, Joe Pantoliano, Robert Loggia 
and many others. Games now routinely 
sport A-list talent. 

GAMES AS ANTICHRIST GTA let people 
do anything from killing cops to patron- 
izing hookers. “For 

shame!” said the 

morality patrol. The 

game's attitudes 


JOHN WOO PRESENTS STRANGLE- BLACKSITE: AREA 51 (PC, PS3, 360) | were blamed for 
HOLD (PC, PS3, 360) Woo's bullet ballet Unsettling creatures, a paranoid narra- | real-world trag- 
makes ideal game fodder. You'll belly surf tive and Rainbow Six-style squad tac- edies, and when a 


32 


on dim sum carts 
through enemy- 
filled teahouses 
in slow motion, 
handguns blaz- 
ing. A heady, vio- 
lent romp. YY Y 

—Scott Jones 


tics aren't quite 
enough to put this 
competent effort 
over the top. After 
a genuinely eerie 
first hour, the ho- 
hums begin to set 
іп. yy --5./ 


crude sex minigame 

was found in San 

Andreas, politicians and parents flipped. 

The public flogging cost the publisher 

n) million in recalls and gave gaming 
Sullivan moment. Just as 

а Elvis, 10 years from now it will all 

seem adorably quaint. —D.B. 


WHERE AND HOW TO BUY ON PAGE 134 


american conflicts 


| DENIS JOHNSON | 


The author of Jesus' Son reminds us that some war stories 
are too big for celluloid 


"War is 90 percent myth," proclaims aging cold war- 


rior and CIA operative Colonel Sands to his nephew 
Skip, an agency language specialist eager for action, D E ^. H S 
at the start of Denis Johnson's magisterial Vietnam 


novel Tree of Smoke. This may explain why, despite 
many fine books to date, our most rigorously ana- H 
lyzed yet stubbornly murky conflict has found its | 


most resonant summations on celluloid. No longer. 
A hard-drinking soldier-scholar, the colonel instantly 
joins the ranks of the great wartime characters—real T R E E O F 
and imagined—evoking Douglas MacArthur and Col 
onel Kurtz in equal measure. As such he also embod- 
ies America's doomed foray into Southeast Asia in all 
its welHntentioned blundering and decadent amoral S RA o K E 
ity. The colonel and his nephew—the Ugly American 
and the quiet American, respectively —preside over 
a large cast of characters, gods and legends, shot A N OVEL 
through with doubles (agents, brothers, widows, 
friends), civil wars (Vietnam, late-1960s America, a generationally divided CIA) and 
arcane theology (predestination, superstition, ritual sacrifice). Johnson's prose propels 
the narrative forward without neglecting existential undertow or spiritual malaise. CIA 
buffs of Angletonian inclination may long for a deeper explication of the psyop—rich in 
biblical metaphor and ur-Soviet deception—but as with most covert schemes (and the 
colonel's trail), verifiable details dissipate ike smoke. ¥¥¥¥ —Andrew Hultkrans 


the erotic eye wawww 


DO IT YOURSELF * Uwe Ommer 

We owe photographer Ommer a debt of gratitude for 
giving his subjects full artistic control. Sure, he facil 
tated the process, helped arrange the mise-enscénes, 
but then he left the room and relinquished the shutter 
trigger to a woman's hand. What's striking about 
the results is not just the range of physical beauty and 
attitudes but the joyful exhibitionism throughout. 
What's sexier than a woman eager to offer you a 
glimpse of her most private sel? Amy Grace Loyd 


i ' 


reviews [ books 


[ TRIPPY BOOKS | 


Novelist Jonathan Lethem's picks 
for mind-altering reads 


The list below consists of books most 


Not that I'm recommending 
anything illegal. This is 


De Quincey's Confes- 
sions of an English 
Opium-Eater to Wil- 


rug 
ties literally. The works named here mostly 
skirt the depiction of personal chemistry 
experiments and set up their own ver- 
sion of an altered state inside a reader's 
mind—whether intoxicated or not. 
The Man Who Was Thursday: G.K. 
takes a surreal look at order and 
in turn-of-the-century London. The 
Hunting of the Snark: Lewis Carroll's ab- 
surd epic poem about an eccentric hunting 
party tracking a mythical 
beast. The Three Stig- 
mata of Palmer Eldritch: 


Philip K. Dick visits 
the 


Burning Your Boats: The 
Collected Short Stories: Salman Rushdie 
called Angela Carter “a very good wizard” 
when she died. This collection spans her 
life's work. Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas: 
Hunter S. Thompson's wildly popular ac- 
count of illicit activities in the city of sin 
remains a potent reminder that the Ameri- 
can dream is often more when 
you're stoned. Trout Fishing in America: 
Richard Brautigan's series of tales, includ- 
ing one about a character named Trout 
Fishing in America. 
The Third Policeman: 
Flann O'Brien's Irish 
landscape gradually be- 
distorted 


comes beyond 
recognition in an eerie 
mystery of proportions. 
Fantastic Four (#1- 
101): The first of the 


borderlines. The Joy of Cooking or The 
Joy of Sex: Written in 1931 and 1972, 
by Irma Rombauer and Alex Comfort, 
respectively, they're still the only how-to 
books one really needs. 


33 


= MANTRACK 


WE'RE ON THE storied grounds of the Ferrari factory in Maranello, Italy, standing next to Piero Lardi Ferrari, son of founder Enzo Ferrari. 
This alone should be sufficient to drop the jaw of any motor-sport enthusiast. Not that we're bragging. Next to Piero is the vehicle pictured 
above, the company's 60th-birthday present to the world. “This is truly a special car," he says. “It sets a new standard." The car is the 612 
Sessanta ("sixty" in Italian). Based on the 612 Scaglietti, currently Ferrari's only four-seater, the Sessanta features signature wheels and 
trim, two-tone livery and an electrochromic glass roof with adjustable opacity. When you sit in the cockpit (inset, above), you feel as if 
Monica Bellucci is giving you a naked bear hug. Even the floorboard rug displays unparalleled craftsmanship. Piero wouldn't hand us the 
keys, but under the hood this car is basically the same 612 Scaglietti we know and love. With its 540 bhp, six-liter V12 and six-speed F1 
gearbox, it'll rocket from zero to 62 (100 kilometers an hour) in 4.2 seconds. Top out at 199 miles an hour with Vivaldi blasting from the 
Bose media system, and you're living. The factory is producing only 60 Sessantas, each dedicated to a defining moment in the compa- 
пу" history, which is commemorated with a unique badge on the dash. You can't buy one of these cars; all were sold to handpicked 


customers for hundreds of thousands. But you can dream. For a slide show of 60 years of Ferraris, go to playboy.com/magazine. 


Wheels of Fortune 


FEW OBJECTS ON earth are as 

prized as vintage Ferrari racing cars. 

The priciest beauties sold at this spring's auc- 

tion at the Fiorano racetrack next to the Fer- 

rari factory: I The car that 

won Le Mans in 1962: $9,418,750. E 

I 375 MM Í petizione Won 

at Spa that year in the hands of legends Nino 

Farina and Mike Hawthorn: $5,801,950. 

At the time, it was the fastest Fer- 

rarieverbuilt, capable of 230 mph: $3,616,800. 

) This car's shocking 

space-age body took the world by storm. It 
placed third at the Núrburgring: $3,315,400. 


About Time 


IT'S HARD TO find a conversation-worthy 
watch from an American company. 
We've looked, and the Swiss are hard 
to beat. But this Accutron Gemini 
skeleton (bulova.com), new this 
year, caught our attention. See- 
through with a sapphire crystal 
and clear case back, it has water 
resistance down to 100 meters. 
What's more, it's one of the few 
American self-winding watches, 
and at a reasonable $1,295, you 
don't need to tap a Swiss bank 
account to own one. 


36 


"š MANTRACK 


w a t = h d 


Screening Process 


DLP SETS HAVE long been the Jan Brady of the TV 
market: solid, dependable and well priced but bulky and 
with far less wow factor than their Marcia-like flat-screen 
counterparts. Well, think of Mitsubishi’s WD-73833 
($5,900, mitsubishi-tv.com) as Jan's coming-out party. 
The company sliced its 73-inch, 1080p sets from 200- 
plus pounds to a svelte 92.4 and squeezed its DLP guts 
into a chassis that’s just 17.5 inches deep. Now that’s 
what we call marriage material. 


A Little Breather 


IN THE APOCALYPSE NOW documentary Hearts 
of Darkness an obsessive and indulgent Francis 
Ford Coppola insists the red wine used in a seg- 
ment breathe from the bottle for two hours. If 
only he had a decanter like this from Peugeot 
($250, broadwaypanhandler.com) to turbo- 
charge the blossoming of his nectar. Arguably, 
he could have saved thousands—and the scene. 


Cai f tho Canturv 
оса! OT the 44575 


IT'S A QUESTION with which every man must at some 


point wrestle: Do | buy a boat or an island? We've always been 
island people, but the Swan 131 (nautorgroup.com) is making us 
rethink our position. This 40-meter Finnish sweetheart is the big- 
gest yacht the company has ever produced and is luxurious be- 
yond compare. In keeping with Nautor's philosophy, the fiberglass- 


and-foam-hulled 131 is equally adept at racing and cruising, and 
optional twin engines let her toodle along at 14 knots in a dead 
calm. Although that's leagues better than drifting in the horse lati- 
tudes for a few weeks, you could do worse than loll around in the 
beautifully appointed anegre wood cabin that sleeps six Brazilian 
models. Starting at around $35 million, it's a darn sight cheaper 
than a chunk of the Caribbean—and more portable, to boot. 


WHERE AND HOW TO BUY ON PAGE 134. 


he Playboy Advisor 


| was with two female friends in down- 
town Vegas when they decided to flash 
some passersby. As soon as they lifted their 
shirts, a cop came up and told us it's ille- 
gal. Some Vegas hotels allow topless sun- 
bathing. I have traveled in Europe, and 
this is not a problem there. Why should 
it be illegal for a woman to expose her 
breasts?—M.S., Las Vegas, Nevada 

It shouldn't be, and it won't be if “top- 
free" activists have their way. (They prefer 
that term to "topless," which brings to mind 
strip clubs.) By arguing that breasts are 
not "private parts" and that requiring only 
females to cover themselves is discrimina- 
tory, half-naked women scored legal victories 
in Washington, D.C., New York state, three 
Canadian provinces (Ontario, Saskatchewan 
and British Columbia) and assorted coun- 
ties and municipalities. That doesn't mean 
police won't arrest a woman for baring her 
breasts, only that she has a better defense. 
Paul Rapoport, a nudist and former college 
professor who 10 years ago helped found the 
Topfree Equal Rights Association (tera.ca), 
says women should have the right to remove 
their tops wherever men can. "People always 
say to me, Well, a woman who walks without 
her shirt along the highway will cause acci- 
dents,” " he says. "But it’s the driver's respon- 
sibility to keep his or her eyes on the road. 
More important, if women walked around all 
the time without tops, as men do, there would 
be no accidents." The law assumes female 
breasts are sexual when exposed, he says, 
"because men usually see them that way, and 
men make the rules about women's bodies. If 
you remove the sexual context, it’s easier to 
see this as a simple matter of equality." 


What is the definition of a blow job? My 
girlfriend says any mouth-to-penis con- 
tact qualifies. I say it's not a real blow job 
unless the man reaches orgasm; other- 
wise it's just foreplay. What is your take? 
A real blow job is at stake.—M.D., San 
Diego, California 

We have our thoughts about this, but if 
your girlfriend will blow you only if she's 
right, then by all means she's right. 


| have decided to break up with my girl- 
friend of six years. The problem is we 
are both in my best friend's wedding and 
it’s still months away. I am the best man, 
and my girlfriend is maid of honor. She 
confronted me about how distant I have 
been, so she knows something is up. Do I 
end the relationship and potentially ruin 
my friend's wedding or lie to my girl- 
friend for a few months, knowing it will 
hurt her more when I go through with 
it?—M.T., Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 
Tell her now. That will give you a few 
months to work through the drama and allow 
the news to circulate so other guests will know 
you are not together. This won't be easy, but 


all you have to do is be civil to each other. If 
divorced parents can behave themselves for 
the sake of the bride and groom, so can you. 
Don't bring a date. 


| know you can judge wine by smelling 
the bouquet, but what about scotch? I 
hear people describe a scotch as having 
hints of vanilla or almond or three or 
four other flavors, but I don't pick them 
up.—M.F., Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 

The more scotches you sample, the better 
you will become at dissecting their flavors. 
On his site, scotchdoc.com, David McCoy lists 
nearly 100 descriptive terms that could be 
applied, including the good (molasses, honey, 
custard pudding), the bad (spent fireworks) 
and the ugly (turpentine). “A perfumery 
in Paris once identified 28 aromas іп one 
single malt," he tells us, "although even an 
experienced sniffer may recognize only seven 
or eight." Scotch lovers are so serious about 
aroma, McCoy says, because most of its taste 
is processed through the olfactory glands. 
Before you sip, raise the glass under your 
nose until it's at about chin level. Take a good 
sniff, then add water and sniff again. "You'll 
be blown away by the aromas the water 
releases," McCoy says. For more from the doc, 
see blog.playboy.com under The Advisor. 


М; shirts get yellow sweat stains under 
the arms. Is there a way to get rid of 
them?—R.T., Glendale, Arizona 

These stains are notoriously difficult to 
remove, especially after the shirts have gone 
through a heat cycle. The best strategy is preven- 
tion: Wear an undershirt or rinse the under- 
arms of your shirts in cold water immediately 
after removing them (or as soon as possible; 
don't stop any foreplay). If you take your shirts 
to the cleaners, ask them to prespot for perspi- 


ILLUSTRATION BY ISTVAN BANYAI 


ration. If you use an antiperspirant, consider 
switching to a deodorant or at least apply only 
a thin layer and allow it to dry before putting 
on your shirt. Before washing, attack old stains 
by dabbing the area with detergent, ammonia, 
white vinegar or, as a last resort, a bleach stick 
or hydrogen peroxide. Always pretest for color 
fastness. But don't get your hopes up. 


А female reader wrote in June to say 
she and her girlfriends aren't getting 
enough sex from their boyfriends, I am 
appalled that you would say you don't 
believe her. You compound your error 
by implying guys are off the hook if 
they've worked a double shift. As a 
woman, I work as hard as any man, and 
when I get home from a 10- to 14-hour 
shift, there damn well better be some 
fucking taking place. Times are chang- 
ing.—C.M., Boston, Massachusetts 
They are changing for the better, it seems. 


M; soon-to-be ex is always "tired." It 

feels horrible being rejected by the guy 

who is supposed to be more into me than 

any other. This happens to women far 

too often.—E.S., Norman, Oklahoma 
It's a terrible feeling, we know. 


| agree with the assessment offered 
about men these days. I am 46 and 
once had a 27-year-old boyfriend who 
wanted sex several times a day for the 
first year but then backpedaled to about 
once a month. If I tried to initiate, he 
would say something like "Let's not start 
something we can't finish" or "I'm doing 
the best I can." Men claim they want sex 
constantly only because they are desper- 
ately trying to keep up the persona of a 
stud.—C.E., Boise, Idaho 

We understand your frustration, but you 
obviously can't reach this conclusion based on 
one guy. No man we know claims to want sex 
constantly, but we are typically ready for action 
if presented with a reasonable offer. That's why 
we are renewing our call for explanations from 
males who have grown disinterested. Are you 
depressed? Are you not sexually attracted to 
your partner but comfortable with her as a 
roommate? Is it easier to masturbate than 
negotiate? Dear God, man, what is it? 


After reading the ongoing discussion 
about love, affection and sex, I decided 
to see what would happen if I acted like 
the guys in my wife’s romance novels, I 
borrowed a few and read every mind- 
numbing word. At first my wife seemed 
flattered while being romanced by her 
"new" lover, but I saw no difference in 
her behavior, especially in the bedroom. 
She did not act like the women in the 
books: She was never at a loss for words, 
and she was never clumsy or silly because 


she was trying not to let me know how 39 


PLAYBOY 


much she wanted me. I asked why she 
didn't rip my clothes off after 1 had ful- 
filled her every need. She said she mar- 
ried me because she wanted to grow old 
with me, not because she wanted to be 
romanced for the rest of her life. She 
also agreed that some women live in this 
blurred reality. My fantasy is for several 
blondes with big tits to cater to my needs. 
So the next time my wife needs a shoul- 
der to cry on or needs me to be there for 
her, I'm going to go to the bar until I get 
my fantasy.—L.B., Phoenix, Arizona 

Good luck with that. It sounds as if you 
may have suffered brain damage. 


lus too bad that a couple, out of love 
and respect for each other, will toler- 
ate relatives and friends who are not to 
their liking but refuse to accommodate 
the partner with the healthier sexual 
need.—S.R., Riverhead, New York 

It's best to avoid the word "accommodate" 
when discussing sex with a reluctant spouse. 
The word "relative" isn't good either. 


As far as whether a wife should have sex 
with her husband even when she's not 
in the mood, what about the wedding 
vow she took to love him? To me, that 
means what is important to your spouse 
becomes important to you. Sexual ful- 
fillment is extremely important to most 
men. Accordingly, a wife who does not 
make her husband's sex life a priority 
is violating her vows. She should not be 
surprised or outraged if he responds by 
violating his vow to be faithful. Without 
affairs and divorce, the withholder would 
always win.—L.W., Houston, Texas 

What does the “withholder” win—a life 
without sex? That's no prize. We appreci- 
ate your point but would never equate a pas- 
sive lack of interest with an active betrayal. 
Besides, there is no such creature as a “hus- 
band's sex life” or a “wife's sex life.” One 
exists only in the context of the other. Firing 
both barrels is always the goal. 


For many years I have used a moistur- 
izer on my face in the morning, then 
washed with warm water at night. Now 
that I'm in my 40s, I've decided it's time 
to get serious about slowing down Father 
Time. A trip to the department store left 
me dazzled at how far men's skin care 
has come. But the salespeople's expla- 
nations of their products were superfi- 
cial, and everything was described in the 
context of a woman's regimen. Can you 
recommend a simple skin-care program 
for men?—G.S., Chicago, Illinois 

You're on the right track if you're using an 
aftershave-balm moisturizer in the morning; 
all you need to add at this point is an over- 
night moisturizer in the evening. “At 40 you 
don't yet need a product designed to repair the 
skin,” explains our skin-care correspondent, 
Donald Charles Richardson. He suggests, at 
the extravagant end, a line by Davi created 


using a by-product of Napa Valley grape skins 


40 and seeds. Its products start at $175 each, so 


don't say we didn't warn you. They're at Berg- 
dorf Goodman (bergdorfgoodman.com). Jack 
Black products are more moderately priced 
(getjackblack.com), as are those from Kinerase 
(kinerase.com) and the Refinery, a British 
collection just launching in the U.S. (avail- 
able at Barneys and www.the-refinery.com). 


Earlier this year a woman shared her 
frustration about not being able to 
bring her husband to climax through 
oral sex. Your advice focused on tech- 
nique, but the mental aspect is equally 
important, if not more so. I had this 
problem as a young man. My first part- 
ner made me promise never to come in 
her mouth, making it clear she thought 
it was disgusting. One day we were 
engaged in 69, and she nearly made me 
climax. I remembered my promise, and 
the urge to come disappeared instantly. 
I was amazed at this involuntary reac- 
tion—and disappointed. I had prob- 
lems reaching orgasm from oral with 
every partner until I met a woman who 
told me, "Nice girls like to do it too," 
which I took as code for "I get the same 
satisfaction making you come with my 
mouth as you do making me come that 
way." -R. R., Kansas City, Missouri 
You're absolutely correct. The woman's 


approach is 67 percent of the equation. 


| found a used condom in my fiancé's 
room. When I confronted him, he said 
he uses condoms when he masturbates 
to avoid making a mess. Have you ever 
heard of this? Is it common? Is he cheat- 
ing and using this as an excuse?—A.W., 
Oklahoma City, Oklahoma 

It sounds like bullshit, given that most men 
hate wearing condoms even for sex. However, 
when we brought up your dilemma on the 
Playboy Radio morning show (Sirius 198), 
several callers insisted they have worn condoms 
while masturbating for easier cleanup. We 
remain skeptical, but these claims introduced 
reasonable doubt. Without further evidence of 


infidelity, we suggest you just file this away. 


Ema 23-year-old woman and thought 
I would never find true love until four 
months ago when I met the man of my 
dreams. My happiness came to an abrupt 
end when he told me he wanted to con- 
tinue as “intimate friends.” After a few 
weeks of that, I asked why he had ended 
our relationship. He said, "I was afraid of 
making you unhappy or making myself 
unhappy or both of us being unhappy." 
Is there something I should be doing 
to ease him from such a life-hindering 
fear?—B.T., Los Angeles, California 

He's making you unhappy, so the plan 
isn't working. Gather yourself and start 
walking. Don't look back or you will turn 
into a pile of condoms. 


In June you advised men to “grab some 
lube, stroke your erection and see who 
shows up in your fantasies” to deter- 
mine their sexual orientation. Life and 


human sexuality are not so simple. I 
have been an active heterosexual for 
60 years yet enjoy gay fantasies. Why? 
Because homosexuality is considered by 
so many people to be dirty, perverted, 
an abomination, taboo, sinful and dis- 
gusting—the perfect material for fanta- 
sies! When I was younger I considered 
suicide because I read somewhere that 
heterosexuals fantasize only about the 
opposite sex. Please print this letter 
to help any straight boys who may be 
concerned about their homoerotic day- 
dreams.—D.M., Aurora, California 
We're happy to. If you read our response 
carefully, you'll see we suggest only that a man 
is heterosexual if women "consistently" show 
up in his fantasies. We included some wiggle 
room because one can never tell what detours 
might tempt a dirty, perverted, sinful mind. 


I'm 23 and work for a Fortune 500 
company. My co-workers are all 10 to 
20 years older than I am. Occasionally 
someone will ask my age, which I find 
not only inappropriate but also embar- 
rassing for me and usually for them 
when they realize how much younger I 
am. Is there a good way to avoid answer- 
ing this question without coming off like 
а jerk?— J.G., Indianapolis, Indiana 

It is inappropriate but not surprising, 
given the age difference. Unless you sense a 
condescending tone, we would answer in an 
open, straightforward, friendly manner. They 
may be asking because they are impressed by 
your work. Or they may simply be daydream- 
ing about their lost youth, first job, the open 
road, etc. Don't let it distract you. 


Му best friend from college married 
a woman who is vocal about her liberal 
beliefs, which include criticizing the pres- 
ident, volunteering for environmental 
organizations, recycling everything and 
taking the bus. She has challenged me by 
asking how much I am doing to help the 
world. I think she is a hypocrite because 
she and my friend are desperately trying 
to have children and overpopulation is 
the biggest threat of all. Although I drive 
a luxury car, the "damage" they would do 
is far greater, Am I right? Is she a hypo- 
crite?—D.C., Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 

We don't see the point of this argument. 
But she turns you on, doesn't she? 


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 the 
Playboy Advisor, 730 Fifth Avenue, New 
York, New York 10019, or send e-mail by vis- 
iting our website at playboyadvisor.com. The 
Advisor's latest book, Dear Playboy Advisor, 
is available at bookstores, by phoning 800- 
423-9494 or online at playboystore.com. 


THE PLAYBOY FORUM 
DEFEATING DYSFUNCTION 


THE AUTHOR OF BROKEN GOVERNMENT URGES PRESIDENTIAL 
CANDIDATES TO FIX WASHINGTON'S FOULED-UP SYSTEMS 


t is long past time for 

Democrats to realize 

that a key to political 

Success 15 paying atten- 
tion to process issues. 
As the 2008 elections 
approach, it is vital that 
Democrats start holding 
Republicans accountable 
for their persistent abuse 
of the political process— 
not only for the Demo 
crats'own electoral success 
but, more important, for 
the well-being of Ameri- 
can democracy. 

What is process? In Wil- 
liam Safire's New Political 
Dictionary it's defined as 
“the majesty of the machin- 
ery; the inexorable proce 
dures of government; more 
broadly, the American way 
of self-government.” Safire 
says the term came into 
vogue in the mid-1970s as 
a short form of both “the 
democratic process” and 
“the decision-making pro- 
cess.” Safire quotes an aide 
to Jerry Brown as saying the then California governor drove 
people nuts with a quote from Gandhi: “The means are the 
ends in process.” Brown makes a good point, because for 
Republicans the means are truly the ends. 

The ruthlessness so common in contemporary con- 
servative Republican politics has made that party par- 
ticularly adept at taking advantage of process and using 
the machinery of government to its advantage—though 
it often breaks rules, traditions and laws in doing so. 

Yes, Democrats criticize Republican policies, but they 
ignore the persistent abuses of process that have become 
normal Republican political behavior. Democratic distaste 
for addressing process issues first came to my attention fol- 
lowing the 2004 presidential campaign, when I spoke to one 
of Senator John Kerry's top advisors, І was curious why 
Kerry had not pressed President Bush about the excessive 
secrecy he and Vice President Cheney had imposed on their 
administration. In fact, in the final days of that campaign, 
Dorothy Samuels, a writer for The New York Times, raised the 
same question. In a bylined editorial, Samuels confessed “to 
feeling disappointed over Senator Kerry's failure to home 
in hard on one of the more worrisome domestic policy 
developments of the past four years—namely the Bush 
administration's drastic expansion of needless government 


secrecy.” Kerry's advisor 
told me the campaign had 
not addressed this concern 
because “secrecy is a pro- 
cess issue.” Process, appar- 
ently, was an area where 
the Democratic candidate 
did not go. 

Robert Kuttner, co-editor 
of The American Prospect, Was 
similarly told by Democrats 
at the outset of the 2004 
elections that they were 
reluctant to criticize the 
Republicans’ antidemocratic 
behavior in operating the 
House of Representatives 
because it involved matters 
of process, “Democrats are 
ambivalent about taking this 
issue to the country or to 
the press because many are 
convinced that nobody cares 
about process issues,” he 
reported. Several Demo 
crats and Democratic cam- 
paign consultants confirmed 
this was all but the official 
position of the party. 

Ihe party ignored these 
matters—and countless others—because the current inside 
the-Beltway wisdom holds that the public is not interested 
in process. In fact, empirical data show this is wrong. A 
research team from the University of Nebraska, headed by 
John Hibbing and Elizabeth Theiss-Moore, was studying 
attitudes toward government institutions (Congress, the 
presidency, the Supreme Court) when it discovered the 
importance of process to Americans. Indeed, members of 
the team were taken aback by what they learned. They had 
assumed, like most political scientists, that Americans were 
confused by governmental processes while retaining at least 
a few clear policy desires. Their research, however, revealed 
it was the other way around: People do not find process 
complicated but do find policy to be so. 

Hibbing and Theiss-Moore established that Americans are 
“influenced at least as much by the processes employed in 
the political system as by the particular outputs emanating 
from the process,” For example, at the time they began thei 
research they found that the Anita Hill-Clarence Thomas 
hearings were fresh in people's mind. Although few cared 
whether Thomas's nomination to the Supreme Court was 
confirmed, most had strong negative feelings about “the 
process leading to that decision: the way things looked, the 
way the Senate's hearings were run and how they unfolded, 


41 


42 


and the Senate's structure, rules and 
norms.” In short, average Americans 
have no trouble judging government 
institutions by how their key processes 
are carried out, Americans can relate to 
process because they know what is fair 
and what is not. They also know when 
officials are taking care of themselves or 
special interests rather than the Ameri- 
can people—a fact attested to by count- 
less public-opinion polls, 

Republicans understand that some- 
where between two thirds and three 
quarters of the American people—both 
voters and nonvoters—are totally unin 
formed about policy and politics. It is 
not what the nation's founders envi- 
sioned, but it is a fact. For example, only 
about half the population knows which 
party controls Congress, and an over- 
whelming majority of Americans cannot 
name either of their state's U.S. senators 
or even one of the candidates running 
for a seat in the House of Representa- 
tives at the height of an election. Endless 
studies have been unable to provide a 
definitive explanation for why Ameri- 
cans are so remarkably uninformed. 

Republicans prey on this public igno- 
rance: In 1994 they won control of the 
House after working for years to under- 
mine Congress as an institution, assum- 
ing the public would hold the Democrats 
accountable. It worked. Once in control, 
the GOP ran Congress for the benefit of 
the party, not the people. This undemo- 
cratic use of process worked until Bush's 
growing unpopularity, combined with 
the stench of corruption and Republican 
hubris, cost the party its majority. 

But have you noticed that even 
though the Democrats took over this 
year and are busy cleaning up the mess 
left by the conspicuously corrupt, do- 
nothing GOP-controlled Congress, 
public approval of the body has contin 
ued to decline? After six months under 
Democratic control and despite that 
party's reforms, congressional approval 
ratings are at all-time lows. 

[he explanation is very simple: 
Republicans are better at process poli- 
tics. They continue to manipulate the 
traditional Washington processes and 
get away with it because Democratic 
leaders and Democratic presidential 
candidates do not make an issue of it. 
Fortunately the solution is also simple: 
Democrats must aggressively address 
process, A review of presidential plat- 
forms from 1960 to 2004 reveals that 
in every election except 2004 the 
Democrats addressed an array of pro- 
cess issues. The vitality of American 
democracy demands that they once 
again take up process in 2008, 


FORUM 


ISRAEL SHOULDN’T GET 
A FREE PASS 


REAL DEBATE IS NOT ANTI-SEMITIC 


By Jonathan Tasini 


hy can't American Jews, par- 

ticularly liberal Jews, think 

straight about Israel? Ameri- 
can Jews can easily condemn the war in 
and occupation of Iraq, as well as the 
death of hundreds of thousands of civil- 
ians and the violations of civil rights 
there. Yet the same passion for peace, 
justice and human rights is muted when 
it comes to talking about unpleasant 
activities of the Israeli government. 
American Jews and many politicians 
who pander for Jewish votes are hurting 


Israel and the cause of peace by refusing 
to have an honest debate about our 
country's historically one-sided position 
vis-à-vis Israel and the Middle East con- 
flict. An honest debate is under way in 
Israel itself, but in the U.S. it's impossible 
to be critical of Israel without being 
labeled anti-Semitic or worse, 

Before 1 dive further into this, I 
should establish my bona fides for 
making this argument, which in itself 
says a lot about the terrain. Í am a Jew. 
My father was born in what was then 
alestine and fought in Israel's war of 
independence. My father's cousin was 
killed in that war. I lived in Israel for 
seven years, including the period of 
the 1973 Yom Kippur war. A cousin of 
mine was killed in that war, leaving a 
young widow and two children. My 


step-grandfather, an old man who was 
no threat to anyone, was killed by a 
Palestinian who took an ax to his head 
while he was sitting quietly on a park 
bench. His murder was revenge for 
the massacre of dozens of peaceful 
Muslims the day before, slaughtered 
by an ultranationalist Israeli settler as 
they knelt in prayer. 1 care about 
Israel, as I care about our country, but 
I wish to speak the truth about it. 

In 2006, when I ran in the New York 
Democratic primary for senator because 


of incumbent Hillary Clinton's support 
for the Iraq war, my campaign coincided 
with Israel's bombing of Lebanon, à 
move triggered by the kidnapping of 
two Israeli soldiers. While campaigning 
I said the Israeli military had committed 
acts that violated the Geneva convention 
and international standards. Within an 
hour reporters from all four New York 
daily papers called me, alerted to my 
comments by my opponent's operatives. 
Betraying their bias, the reporters had 
no idea my position would not be con- 
sidered novel or radical in Israel, where 
the country's conduct in the war was a 
topic of hot debate. 

Indeed, the reporters need only have 
consulted Israeli human rights organi- 
zation B'Tselem. Referring to last sum- 
mer's Lebanon bombing, B'Tselem's 


website states, “International humanitar- 
ian law...requires that the combating sides 
direct their attacks only against specific 
military objectives, take cautionary mea- 
sures to prevent injury to civilians and re- 
frain from disproportionate attacks, i.e., 
attacks directed against legitimate targets 
but that are likely to cause excessive harm 
to civilians. Over the past week Israel has 
killed hundreds of Lebanese civilians in its 
attacks against targets in Lebanon. There 
is a concern that at least some of them were 
disproportionate attacks, which constitute 
war crimes." 

Here are some other 
inconvenient truths. Is- 
rael is holding 1,000 
Palestinians in ad- 
ministrative deten- 
tion, where, according 
to B'Iselem, they are 
exposed to "moder- 
ate pressure," a euphe- 
mism for torture. And 
while six Israeli sol- 
diers and 17 civilians 
died last year, the Israeli military killed 
660 Palestinians, roughly half of them 
innocent bystanders. 

So why is there such a lack of debate in the 
U.S.? Jews and non-Jews who can easily tell 
foreigners that being American is not the 
same as supporting the American govern- 
ment are incapable of making the same argu- 
ment in Israel's case. Elected officials won't 
say anything because of the political cost or 
at least the perceived threat from Jewish vot- 
ers. And there is resi- 
due from the Cold 
War, when Israel was 
seen as the region's 
bulwark against the 
Soviet Union. Among 
Jews there is a reflex- 
ive. "Israel, right or 
wrong" attitude that is 
deeply rooted in the 
memory of the Holo- 
caust. My own family 
lost people in the Holocaust. But the Holo- 
caust should not be used as a moral shield to 
suppress honest criticism of Israel. 

It's also important to acknowledge that 
some critics of Israel undercut their own 
positions by painting a caricature of the 
country. Israel is a democracy, and like all 
democracies it has flaws. But the open de- 
bate heard in Israel is rarely heard in the 
region's other countries, most of which are 
ruled by dictators or generals. Israel has a 
very free and rambunctious press; can the 
same be said about Egypt or Syria? Israel's 
attorney general recently went after the 
country's president for sexual harassment. 
We can't even get Congress, not to mention 
the attorney general, to investigate the 


FORUM 


president for lying about a war. These facts 
make Israel's conduct even more trou- 
bling: The country's democratic principles 
and societal fabric are being undermined 
by its role as an occupier. 

People who refuse to criticize Israel be- 
cause of friendship are no friends of Israel. 
A true friend would not have stood by and 
remained silent as Israel dropped thou- 
sands of cluster bombs in Lebanon, leaving 
a million unexploded bomblets—small de- 
vices the size of a light socket that are still 
killing and injuring civilians—littered 
throughout the south- 
ern part of the coun- 
try. A true friend 
would have taken Is- 
rael's leaders to the 
woodshed and said, 
"Responding to Hez- 
bollah is one thing, 
but turning Lebanon 
into rubble and em- 
bittering a new gen- 
eration toward the 
existence of your coun- 
try is madness." Instead, politicians like 
senators Joe Lieberman and Clinton actu- 
ally encouraged the bombing by uttering 
vigorous endorsements of Israel's right to 
defend itself. A friend of Israel would not 
try to fan fears by tarring as anti-Semitic 
people who are critical of U.S. Middle East 
policy. Criticism of Israel may be painful to 
American Jews, but it is high time anyone, 
Тез or non-Jew, were able to raise questions 
about our one-sided policy without fear of a 
McCarthy-like smear. 
A friend would argue 
strenuously that Isra- 
el's moral fiber and 
security are weakened 
every moment it al- 
lows the so-called sep- 
aration barrier in the 
West Bank to stand, in 
violation of interna- 
tional law. Whether 
Jews like the compari- 
son or not, Jimmy Carter is correct in his 
book Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid when he 
describes the control over Palestinians’ 
movements as similar to South Africa's 
apartheid system. 

As a Jew, I have always been proud of 
the Jewish concept of tikkun olam, which 
means roughly "repairing the world." 1 
like to think it is what brought so many 
Jews into the civil rights and labor move- 
ments in the 1960s and 1970s and into the 
current antiwar movement. І feel great 
sorrow that Israel is an occupier of another 
people, and I believe Israel can never be 
whole or at peace until that occupation is 
ended in a just way. I also believe tikkun 
olam means we must never be silent. 


MARGINALIA 


FROM COM- 
MENTS BY 
Australian Defense Min- 
ister Brendan Nelson, 
admitting the importance of oil and 
"energy security" in Australia's partici- 
pation in the U.S.-led military coalition 
in Iraq: “The defense update we're 
releasing today sets 
out many priorities for 
Australia's defense 
and security, and 
resource security is 
one of them. The 
entire Middle East 
region is an important 
supplier of energy, oil 
in particular, to the rest of the world. 
We're also there to support our key 
ally—that's the United States of 
America—and we're there to ensure 
that we don't have terrorism driven 
from Iraq which would destabilize our 
own region. For all of those reasons, 
one of which is energy security, it's 
extremely important that Australia 
take the view that it's in our interests 
to make sure we leave the Middle 
East and leave Iraq in particular in 

a position of sustainable security." 


FROM A STATEMENT by NAACP 
head Julian Bond, concerning a mock 
funeral for the word nigger held by the 
organization at its annual convention 
this past summer: "This is the first 
funeral I've been to where people were 
happy to be here. The entity in this cas- 
ket deserves to be dead." 


FROM AN APOLOGY issued 

by Senator David Vitter, a family- 
values Republican from Louisiana, in 
response to revelations that his phone 


rah Palfrey: 
"This was a 
very serious 
sin in my past 
for which 1 


responsible. Sev- 
eral years ago | asked for and received 

forgiveness from God and my wife, in 
confession and marriage counseling." 


FROM NEWLY RELEASED dia- 
ries of Alastair Campbell, British 
prime minister Tony Blair's longtime 
spokesman, describing Blair's reac- 
tion on learning that Noel Gallagher, 
guitarist for the band Oasis, would be 
attending a party at the official resi- 
dence, 10 Downing Street, in 1997: 
“TB was worried that Noel Gallagher 
was coming to the reception tomor- 
row. He said he had no idea he had 
been invited. TB felt he was bound to 
do something crazy. | spoke to Cre- 
ation Records boss Alan McGee and 
asked if we can be assured he would 
behave. Alan said he would make 
sure he did. He said if we had invited 
Liam it might have been different. 
(continued on page 45) 


THE NUCLEAR OPTION 
In promoting nuclear plants as the 
answer to the world's energy needs, 
James Lovelock dismisses the dangers 
of a Chernobyl-like accident ("Greens 
for Nukes," July). But accidents will 
happen. The number of deaths attrib- 


Nudear power still instills fear. 


utable to nuclear plants is currently low 
because they are used so little. He also 
counts air-pollution deaths from fossil- 
fuel products but doesn't mention the 
widespread cancers and birth defects in 
the area around Chernobyl. If nuclear 
energy became the dominant player, 
accidents would happen all the time. 
Just look at how many oil refineries 
catch fire in the U.S. Now imagine if 
every one of them left a Chernobyl-size 
area uninhabitable, 

David Relue 

Fort Wayne, Indiana 


Lovelock suggests nuclear power is 
the only way to provide environmen- 
tally safe electricity. Contrast this with a 
series of articles in The Nation magazine 
by Alexander Cockburn, one of its regu- 
lar columnists. Cockburn seems to come 
from the opposite direction as Lovelock. 
He argues that we are experiencing 
global warming today because we are 
still emerging from the Little Ice Age of 
the 15th through the 19th centuries and 
that we have so much CO, in the atmo- 
sphere because of the resultant overall 
warming of the oceans. In other words, 
global warming is a natural process, 
and Cockburn quotes Martin Hertz- 
berg, a combustion research scientist, 
as saying man's contribution to global 
warming and the amount of CO, in the 
atmosphere amount to "a couple of farts 
in a hurricane," Cockburn essentially 
charges that the nuclear-power indus- 
try (which Lovelock seems to be cham- 
pioning in his PLAYBOY article) is trying 


FORUM 


| READER RESPONSE 


to stampede the popular mind into 
believing humans are the chief culprits 
of global warming and then put forth 
nuclear-generated power as the best 
solution to the perceived problem. 
Jay Castor 
Paradise, California 


LUCKY AL 

Although I agree with Curtis White's 
conclusion in "The Truth About Al 
Franken" (May), as one of those America 
lovers, I offer an alternative explanation 
asto why Al Franken and Rush Limbaugh 
find convergence. Perhaps through their 
own efforts and with support from fam- 
ily and friends, they have risen to posi- 
tions of renown, influence and significant 
socioeconomic status in their respective 
milieus. Perhaps they understand that no 
place else on earth offers such opportu- 
nity to rise from obscurity to influence. 
Just ask Ronald Reagan, Bill Clinton, Bill 
Gates, Oprah Winfrey, César Chávez and 
Martin Luther King Jr. Perhaps Franken 
and Limbaugh find comfort in knowing 
that when they walk out of the studio 
after a good session of partisan yakety-yak 
no secret police will be waiting for them. 
Perhaps they understand that, for all the 
real and imagined problems America 


Living the American dream? 


has, there are no more fortunate human 
beings in the history of mankind than 
those living here right now. 
Scott Zeppa 
Eugene, Oregon 


WINDS OF CHANGE 

Frederick Barthelme would have us 
believe New Orleans was the only area 
affected by Hurricane Katrina on August 
2005 ("Help Wanted," June). Katrina was 
a category-three hurricane and struck 
not only Louisiana but Mississippi, Flor- 
ida and Alabama. Yet contrary to Bar- 
thelme's assertions, all we hear about is 


New Orleans. Miles of Mississippi were 
destroyed and still lie ravaged for lack 
of money and insurance. Thousands of 
people were evacuated to Texas only to 
face the even larger Hurricane Rita (a 
category five, with gusts of 175 miles an 
hour and sustained winds of 135 mph). 
The entire area from Johnson's Bayou, 
Louisiana to Winnie, Texas was obliter- 
ated for miles inland. The destruction 
was such that it was hard to fathom how 
mother nature could unleash such a 
force. Rita entered Texas at the mouth 
of Lake Sabine and literally blew the 
water—along with tugs, barges and what- 


Readers question fairness of hurricane aid. 


ever else was around—onto the town of 
Sabine Pass. We had extensive damage to 
our home, barn and fencing. We lost 35 
trees—some of which were three to four 
feet in diameter—that were pushed over 
as if by some giant hand. We dove in, 
cleaned up and refurbished. Yes, insur- 
ance replaced some of what was lost, 
but the bulk of the repairs came from 
good old back-breaking work and sweat 
and tears. Members of my family settled 
in this area of Texas in the early 1800s 
and survived many hurricanes over 
the vears, including the storm of 1900, 
which practically sent Galveston out to 
sea, They didn't cry to the government 
for handouts; they picked up the pieces 
and rebuilt with the help of neighbors. I 
have survived several of these hurricanes 
without any help from the government. 
Now everyone wants a handout, and 
FEMA is giving away money as if there 
were no tomorrow. When will this stop? 
To these people I would use the words 
of John F. Kennedy: Ask not what your 
country can do for you; ask what you can 
do for your country. 

James Keith 

Bridge City, Texas 


E-mail vía the web at letters.playboy.com. Or 
write: 730 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10019. 


FORUM 


Weird Science 


WASHINGTON, D.C.—Dr. Richard Carmona, the surgeon 
general from 2002 to 2006, told a congressional 
panel that Bush administration officials repeat- 
edly tried to weaken or suppress health reports, 
based on political considerations. He said he was 
not allowed to speak or issue reports about stem 
cells, emergency contraception and sex education, 
among other things, and was discouraged from at- 
tending the Special Olympics supposedly because 
of the Kennedy family's involvement with the or- 
ganization. He was also asked to make speeches 
supporting Republican political candidates. Car- 
mona consulted the six most recent surgeons gen- 
eral, and all said they felt Carmona faced more 
political interference than they had. "The reality 
is that the nation's doctor has been marginalized 
and relegated to a position with no independent 
budget and with supervisors who are political ap- 
pointees with partisan agendas," Carmona wrote 
іп prepared testimony for Congress. "Anything that 
doesn't fit into the political appointees' ideological, 
theological or political agenda is ignored, margin- 
alized or simply buried. In public health, as in a 
democracy, there is nothing worse than ignoring 
science or marginalizing the voice of science for 
reasons driven by changing political winds." 


Prosecutors Gone Wild 


DOUGLAS COUNTY, GEORGIA—The troubling case of a 
teenager who landed in jail after having consen- 
sual oral sex with another teen just gets more bi- 
zarre. Genarlow Wilson has served more than two 
years of а 10-year sentence for having oral sex 
with a 15-year-old girl when he was 17. When 
the act took place, in 2003, consensual oral sex 


Knight Sweats 


LONDON—Prolific author Salman Rush- 
die, whose 1988 novel The Satanic 
Verses raised the ire of the Muslim 
world and led Iran to issue a fatwa 
in 1989 calling for his murder, was 
awarded a knighthood this past sum- 
mer, causing renewed protests. Iranian 
and Pakistani government officials 
criticized the honor for Rushdie, whose 
second novel, Midnight’s Children, 
won the prestigious Booker Prize in 
1981 and the Booker of Bookers in 
1993—meaning it was judged the best 
Booker winner in the award's then- 
25-year history. Pakistan's minister of 
religious affairs went so far as to say 
the honor would justify future suicide 
bombings in the U.K. The British gov- 
ernment is standing firm, pushing back 
against what Guardian writer Mark 
Lawson called “censorship by terror." 


between teens was illegal under Georgia law. 
The state legislature has since changed the law 
to ensure similar situations will no longer carry 
such a harsh punishment, but Wilson remains in 
jail. To make matters worse, David McDade, the 
county prosecutor who tried Wilson, has handed 
out at least 35 copies of a homemade video tape 
of the act in question in an apparent attempt to 
derail efforts to gain Wilson's freedom. McDade 
claims the law compels him to make the video 
available to the public. 
"Most of those who do 
not want people to see 
the tape know that it's 
damning to their posi- 
tion," he says, meaning 
that the tape undermines 
Wilson's image as a high 
school football star. Crit- 
ics say at least the un- 
derage girl's face should 
be obscured. One state 
legislator is trying to change disclosure laws for 
sex cases. Another, State Senator Vincent Fort, 
an Atlanta Democrat, says, "This has been a 
ferocious, vindictive prosecution of Genarlow 
Wilson. What is going on is a vendetta." 


Deuce Coupe 


FORT LAUDERDALE—Mayor Jim Naugle wants to 
spend $250,000 on an experimental public 
toilet with a door that automatically opens 
after a short time. His rationale? It will hin- 
der "homosexual activity," which he deems 
“anonymous sex, illegal sex." Local police say 
restroom sex is not a problem. 


MARGINALIA 


(continued from page 43) 


Gallagher said he thought Number 10 
was ‘tops,’ said he couldn't believe that 
there was an ironing board in there." 


FROM THE MEMOIR 


ture: “1 should have 
remembered the 
Nigerian killer factor. 
Simply defined, it is 
the stressful bane of 
the mere act of critical - : 
thought within a socioty where power 
and control remain the playthings of 
imbeciles, psychopaths and predators.” 


FROM AN ESSAY by retired U.S. 
Army Lieutenant General William E. 
Odom decrying the extended tours of 
duty the Bush administration's policies 
have forced on the Army's soldiers and 
advocating withdrawal from Iraq as the 
only way to support the troops: "The 
president is strongly motivated to string 
out the war until he leaves office in 
order to avoid taking responsibility for 
the defeat he has caused and persisted 
in making greater each year for more 
than three years. To force him to begin 
3 withdrawal before then, the first step 
should be to 


INPEACH BUSH what ‘sup- 
porting the 
troops’ really means and pointing out 
who is and who is not supporting our 
troops at war. The next step should be 
a flat refusal to appropriate money to 
be used in Iraq for anything but with- 
drawal operations with a clear deadline 
for completion. The final step should 
be to put that president on notice that 
if he ignores this legislative action and 
tries to extort Congress into providing 
funds by keeping U.S. forces in peril, 
impeachment proceedings will proceed 
in the House of Representatives. Such 
presidential behavior surely would con- 
stitute the high crime of squandering 
the lives of soldiers and marines for his 
own personal interest." 


FROM CONFIDENTIAL 
REPORTS compiled in 1977 by Brit- 
ish government officials as they pre- 
pared to defend themselves against 
several suits filed by the Church of 
Scientology, which was seek- 

ing religious status and the — 
lifting of a ban on entry S 
visas for foreign mem- 
bers of the organization | 
(the ban was lifted in 
1980, but church sta- 
tus has never been 
granted): "The effect 
of losing the actions — 
could of course be grave, not only for 
the defendants but as giving some 
seal of respectability to an organiza- 
tion that is essentially evil." 


PLAYBOY INTERVIEW: KEITH OLBERMANN 


A candid conversation with MSN BC's liberal firebrand about all the things 
that piss him off: Iraq, Bush, Fox News and people who don't speak English 


To some he is a smirking, left-leaning smartass, 
MSNBC's answer to Bill O'Reilly. To a grow- 
ing number of others he is all that and more: 
the truth teller in chief, a modern Edward R. 
Murrow. Either way, the 48-year-old star of 
Countdown With Keith Olbermann—a mix 
of news, talking heads, wacky video clips and 
Olbermann's were up 72 percent in the 
second quarter > 2007. Presidential candi- 
quote his Murrowesque “special comments.” 
His book The Worst Person in the World: And 
202 Strong Contenders comes out in paperback 
this month. Any day now People magazine may 
name him the sexiest pundit alive. 

Not bad for a guy who began as a shrimpy 
baseball-card collector in Westchester County, 
New York, the son of an architect and a school- 
teacher. He was always precocious, so smart he 
A iuo dons tend v ie em еді 
age of five. A punching bag for playground bul- 
lies, he escaped to Cornell at 16. After gradu- 
ating, Olbermann landed sportscasting jobs in 
Boston and Los Angeles, where his wit and sharp 
writing won sports-TV award in sight. In 
1992 ESPN hired and paired him with Dan 
Patrick for SportsCenter. Thus began the hey- 
day of sports TV with Patrick's “En 
fuego!" matched by Olbermann's sly “If you're 
scoring at home or even if you're alone.. In the 
nex five years they reinvented the sportscast. 


"My first special comment on Donald Rumsfeld 
had about a million live viewers. The number 
of YouTube vieuings was two or three times 
that. It’s the best advertising we can get. We get 
new customers from the Internet." 


Patrick thought the gig was paradise, but 
Olbermann chafed at the limitations ESPN 
imposed: living in backwater Bristol, Connecti- 
cut; getting paid less than he thought he was 
worth; sticking to sports when the real world 
was more t ing. In 1997 he bolted, flee- 
ing ESPN for MSNBC. When that didn't 
work out he spent three bumpy years at Fox 
Sports, followed by stints at CNN and ABC 
Radio. In 2002, at the age of 43, Olbermann 
was reduced to writing a blog for Salon.com 
and serving as a substitute host on MSNBC. 
He seemed lost in the media wilderness, fod- 
der for a "Where Are They Now?" segment. 
But in 2003 the network gave him Phil 
Donahue's old time slot. At first The O'Reilly 
Factor on Fox News trounced him night after 
night. Then, due in part to Olbermann's rants 
against George W. Bush, Donald Rumsfeld 
and Rudolph Giuliani, Countdown gamed 
steam in a hurry. Now its host's rapid rise is 
one of the media stories of the year. 

We sent Kevin Cook, author of the popular 
golf book Tommy's Honor, to talk with Olber- 
mann about his sportscaster past and liberal- 
hero present. 

"I knew Keith a little and had always found 
him to be a great conversationalist, sharp and 
sarcastic," reports Cook. "But after one quick 
chat, he ducked me for two months. ‘Keith's 
busy closing on a condo,' his publicist said. 
True enough I saw а newspaper item on the 


"AI really hurt us, but not as much as 
Rupert Murdoch has hurt us, particularly in 
the case of Fox News. Fox Neus is worse than 
Al Qaeda—worse for our society. It's as dan- 
gerous as the Ku Klux Klan ever was." 


$4.2 million, marble-trimmed, three-balcony 
place he'd bought on the 40th floor of one of 
Donald Trump's towers. So we rescheduled. 
Then he hurt his foot and didn't feel up to talk- 
ing. Au, poor Keith. Then, just as I was writ- 
ing him off as the worst person in the world, 
the phone rang: "Keith will meet you.' 

"We ate at his favorite upscale lunch- 
room in midtown Manhattan, where he got 
à better table than Damon Wayans, who was 
also there that day. Keith hobbled in with a 
protective boot on his broken foot, and I felt 
like a jerk for doubting he'd really hurt it. 
Over the next few hours, he proved he's still 
a hell of a conversationalist." 


PLAYBOY: After years as a cult favorite, Count- 
doum is on the march, racking up enough 
ratings to worry Bill O'Reilly. Why now? 
OLBERMANN: We had been building 
steadily, but Hurricane Katrina was the 
start of our rapid ascent. A lot of people 
joined me in seeing the Bush administra- 
tion in the light of a line often attributed 
to Abraham Lincoln: "You can fool some 
of the people all of the time and all of the 
people some of the time, but you can't 
fool all of the people all of the time." Lin- 
coln never said that, but it’s true, 
Another tipping point came last sum- 
mer when I began doing my special 
comments. There was a confluence of 


PHOTOGRAPHY BY DAVID ROSE 


"When you've been through as much tumult as I 
have, you learn that age is way doum on the list of 
what's important in a relationship. The first ques- 
tion is, Can you stand being with this person? If 
the answer is yes, the rest doesn't matter” 


47 


PFLAYBEOT 


disillusionment with the administration 
and plain old disgust with its tactics. 
Bush's crew kept pressing the terror 
button until Americans started reject- 
ing what Barack Obama calls 9/11 fever. 
It got harder for Bush to capitalize on 
9/11—some of us were calling him on it. 
PLAYBOY: Have you finally hit the jack- 
pot with Countdown? 

OLBERMANN: In the game of Scrabble 
that television is, our show is a long 
word with a Q on a triple-letter score 
and the whole word on a triple-word 
score. We've hit our moment. 
PLAYBOY: You've been pegged as a lib- 
eral. Are you? 

OLBERMANN: Many of my opinions 
coincide with liberals', but I have con- 
servative opinions, too. 
PLAYBOY: Want to trash a lib- 
eral position for us? 
OLBERMANN: I believe Ameri- 
can history teaches us that we 
should do as much as we can 
to get immigrants to speak 
English. For the melting pot to 
work, we need to understand 
one another. So after two or 
maybe three years of bilingual 
education, you say, "You want 
to live here? School is gonna be 
in English." This is an ultra- 
conservative opinion. You've 
got Minutemen hunting illegal 
immigrants in Texas, saying, 
“I'm happy to shoot ‘em on 
the way over, but make 'em all 
speak English? No way!" 
PLAYBOY: So why are you 
tarred as a liberal? 
OLBERMANN: There's a false 
concept of balance that Rupert 
Murdoch and Fox News have 
successfully pushed: Every- 
body has to be left or right; 
every argument has to be 
countered. That's "fair and 
balanced." It's really the 
moral relativism they always 
complain about, applied to 
journalism. If you say a fall- 
ing coffee cup will shatter on 
the floor, that must be "bal- 
anced" by someone saying 
no, it will fly upward into the hand 
of God. Nonsense! But if you put this 
nonsense on television, it gains cred- 
ibility. You can say TV is crap, but the 
most authenticating thing in the world 
is "I saw it on TV." 

PLAYBOY: On Countdown this past April, 
after Rudolph Giuliani made a speech 
saying Democrats would make us more 
vulnerable to terrorist attacks, you went 
off on him for eight solid minutes. You 
seemed truly offended by what he'd said. 
OLBERMANN: Giuliani tried to out-Bush 
Bush. He tried to get votes by talking 
about casualties as if another attack like 
9/11 were inevitable, suggesting that vot- 
ing for anyone but him would lead to 


48 more people getting killed. That's about 


an inch from saying, "If you don't vote 
for me, you'll die," which is another inch 
from saying, "If you don't vote for me, I'll 
kill you." And that, to me, is not America. 
In fact, it's not Earth. I don't usually single 
out candidates for praise or brickbats, but 
if they're going to politicize terror, to do 
the work of the terrorists by terrorizing 
the populace, I'll come down on them like 
a ton of bricks. That's my job. 

PLAYBOY: In your "Worst Person in the 
World" bits, you discuss which villain is 
"worser" than another. Is Giuliani worser 
than Donald Rumsfeld and Dick Cheney? 
OLBERMANN: They danced around the 
same idea without coming right out and 
saying it. Bush doesn't know how to say 
what he wants to say. Rudy basically said, 


Bill O'Reilly has been almost as 
good for my career as Dan Patrick 
and George W. Bush 


"There will be more deaths if you vote 
Democrat." In that respect he's worser. 
PLAYBOY: Do you really think Giuliani was 
doing the work of the terrorists? 
OLBERMANN: Not just him. Other politi- 
cians have a rooting interest in keeping 
people scared. Newt Gingrich would 
like to suspend parts of the Constitu- 
tion. That may save money: You don't 
need a counterterrorism budget if 
you're the terrorists' enabler. 

PLAYBOY: How would you assess the 
threat of another attack? 

OLBERMANN: Michael Bloomberg said, 
"Your chances of being injured by a ter- 
rorist are significantly less than of being 
hit by lightning." He was right. I mean, 
if you want to go around worrying about 


something, worry about hereditary dis- 
ease. Lose some weight. Stop smoking. 
But people think we're in a constant state 
of threat from terrorists, with the world 
more dangerous every day. There's not 
a shred of evidence for that. 

PLAYBOY: Your fire-breathing was kin- 
dled last year when Rumsfeld, then 
Secretary of Defense, gave a speech 
comparing those who opposed the Iraq 
war to Nazi appeasers. 

OLBERMANN: I was furious, but nobody 
else seemed to be. 

PLAYBOY: You targeted Rumsfeld in 
your first special comment. You said, 
"The man who sees absolutes where 
all other men see nuances and shades 
of meaning is either a prophet or a 
quack. Donald H. Rumsfeld 
is not a prophet." We heard 
your decision to speak out 
had something to do with, of 
all people, James Gandolfini. 
OLBERMANN: It did. We were sit- 
ting in the lounge at LAX, and 
we quickly exhausted all 
conversational possibilities. 
"How ya doin'?" he said. His 
interests appeared to be Rut- 
gers football, community the- 
ater and that's about it; he 
waxed on about doing summer 
stock in Rhode Island. But his 
assistant was a politics junkie. 
So we were sitting at LAX, 
Gandolfini was nodding off, 
and the assistant and I were 
reading the Rumsfeld speech. 
Finally, I said, "Are you as pissed 
off about this as I am?" He was. 
But nobody in the media was 
reacting. Then it came to me: I 
have a TV show, I could pro- 
vide the reaction. So I did. 
PLAYBOY: Along with fiery special 
comments, you've made news 
by racking up viewers in the 
25-to-54-year-old demographic. 
Why is that such a big deal? 
OLBERMANN: Advertisers love 
them. The premise is simple: 
People under 25 have no 
money; people over 54 are set 
in their ways and understand 
that advertising is largely bullshit. 
It's fine to have viewers outside that 
group, but they don't count as much. 
They're like people who got free tick- 
ets to a ball game. 

PLAYBOY: There was evidence of voting 
irregularities in Ohio in the Bush-Kerry 
election. Was there a fix? Do you think 
the election went the wrong way? 
OLBERMANN: Possibly. It was academic 
once Bush was sworn in, but if you 
brought all of Ohio's voters together 
today, they'd look around at one 
another and say, ^I didn't vote for 
him. It must have been a fix!" 
PLAYBOY: Who has impressed you in 
this year's debates? 

OLBERMANN: The Democrats have a lot 


PLAYBOY 


of good speakers. I think Joe Biden 
scores highest on the three keys: pas- 
sion, detail and eloquence. 

PLAYBOY: Why is most public discourse so 
lame? What happened to speakers like 


JFK and Martin Luther King Jr.? 


OLBERMANN: Lincoln used to give 30- 
minute answers in debates; today we 
expect 30 seconds. You can't hold an 
audience spellbound for 30 seconds. And 
sadly, for the most part the best speakers 
today are broadcasters and actors, Our 
politicians should try speaking more like 
Charles Osgood and Charles Kuralt and 
less like Charlie the Tuna. 

PLAYBOY: What about sites like YouTube? 
Have they helped Countdown? 
OLBERMANN: Enormously. It's a live 
show, but a huge part of the audience 
sees it in clips. My first special com- 
ment on Rumsfeld had about a million 
live viewers for two airings. The num- 
ber of YouTube viewings was two or 
three times that. The clips get e-mailed 
over and over. They reach people who 
have given up on television. 

PLAYBOY: Do you know who's watching 
your clips? 

OLBERMANN: Hillary Clinton, for one. I 
was at a 60th birthday party for Bill, and 
Hillary's mother came up to me. "I watch 
you every night," she said, "and I e-mail 
clips and links to my daughter." Now, I 
had met Hillary several times, and she 
had no idea who I was. The next time 
I saw her she said, "Keith, my mother's 
been e-mailing me. I don't watch much 
TV, but l've seen you now!" 

PLAYBOY: Some TV people see YouTube as 
a menace. Viacom won't let YouTube carry 
clips of The Daily Show, for example. 
OLBERMANN: They have a point—it's 
copyrighted material. But I don't care, 
because it's the best advertising we can 
get. Broadcast and cable networks never 
figured out how to make money off the 
Internet, so here's the next-best thing: 
We get new customers from the Internet. 
It's funny that the web is couched as this 
antiestablishment, do-it-yourself, viewer- 
takes-over thing when it is, simply put, 
the greatest advertising mechanism yet. 
Word-of-mouth for the electronic age. 
PLAYBOY: Does the hard-right tilt of the 
Supreme Court worry you? 
OLBERMANN: The Court is on the edge of 
becoming a clean-shaven version of the 
religious courts of Iran. But it could be 
worse—you get the feeling that even this 
crew would have decided Dred Scott in 
favor of Scott, not in favor of slavery. 
PLAYBOY: Do you think Bush and com- 
pany plan to invade Iran before next 
year's election? 

OLBERMANN: They might like to. These 
guys would love to do something dramatic 
and panoramic. "Shock and awe!" But 
they don't have enough soldiers. We're 
stretched too thin. Invading Iran would 
be like playing football with 23 players: 22 
starters and one guy to handle punting, 


50 kicking, holding and punt returns—he's 


the special teams. Well, you'll need more 
players because some will get hurt. It's 
that simple. But our military may run 
bombing missions—and Lord knows what 
the Iranians might do then. 

PLAYBOY: Describe President Bush. 
OLBERMANN: Nixonian. The difference 
between Bush and Richard Nixon is 
that Nixon sent draftees to Vietnam. If 
draftees instead of volunteers were dying 
in Iraq, I think Bush would have been 
impeached by now. 

We will see a draft if the Republicans 
win in 2008, because they've got a plan 
to invade every country except Liech- 
tenstein but not enough soldiers to do it. 
To get enough soldiers, they would need 
a draft. And that would be interesting. 
You'd have rioting in the streets within 
48 hours. And it wouldn't be the kids 
rioting; it would be their parents. 
PLAYBOY: How does the rest of the 
world see Uncle Sam? 

OLBERMANN: From what I can tell, they 
view us as some old, formerly reliable 
uncle who has suddenly started to wear 
a tinfoil hat and shoot up the house. 
What do you do when there's one 


Sports fans aren't dumber 
than the rest of America. 
They're smarter. The rest of 
America believes in crazy 
plots because they listen to 
Limbaugh and Giuliani. 


superpower and he goes crazy? The 
world's keeping its fingers crossed, 
waiting for this time to pass. 

PLAYBOY: What would you like to ask 
Osama bin Laden? 

OLBERMANN: "Would you please die?" 
PLAYBOY: Who's worser, Al Sharpton or 
Don Imus? Sharpton still stirs up racial 
debates, and Imus, whose show was on 
MSNBC, your network, was fired for 
calling the Rutgers women's hoops 
team "nappy-headed hos." Are they 
both racists? 

OLBERMANN: Sharpton is an opportunist 
with a saving grace: He draws attention 
to actual wrongs. Imus had been doing 
stuff like that for years without being 
called on it. MSNBC management had 
promised a lot of us, "Yes, eventually 
we'll stop simply trying to discourage 
him and actually stop him." The rank 
and file there called in those promises, 
and people outside NBC did the same. 
PLAYBOY: You're old enough to remem- 
ber Vietnam. 

OLBERMANN: It is tragic—breathtaking— 
to think about the thousands of draftees 
who went to their death in Vietnam. Our 


government killed them for the stupid- 
est, most mismanaged war until Iraq. 
And to me, the ones who didn't go are 
heroes as much as those who did. 
PLAYBOY: The conscientious objectors? 
OLBERMANN: The draft dodgers too. I was 
16 years old in 1975. If the war hadn't 
ended, I would have been one of them. I 
would have found a way not to go. 
PLAYBOY: Let's switch to a less serious 
conflict: your feud with Bill O'Reilly. He 
started an online petition to get you fired 
from Countdown, saying MSNBC should 
bring back Phil Donahue. 

OLBERMANN: That was manna from 
heaven. O'Reilly has been almost as good 
for my career as Dan Patrick and George 
W. Bush. Fox News is a joke, and O'Reilly 
is one of the most buffoonish, laughable 
characters in broadcasting history. 
PLAYBOY: He allegedly harassed a Fox 
producer. She said he'd made a slobbery 
phone call saying he wanted to take a 
shower with her and rub her with a loo- 
fah, which he called "the falafel thing." 
OLBERMANN: If you don't know the dif- 
ference between a loofah and falafel, you 
shouldn't be showering with a woman. 
PLAYBOY: O'Reilly has been Countdown's 
"Worst Person in the World" more than 
anyone else. Is he really worse than 
Charles Manson? 

OLBERMANN: Well, it's not a legal definition. 
It's a gimmick. Obviously, I don't think 
O'Reilly is the worst person on earth. A 
killer could stab someone right now and 
pull ahead of him for 30 seconds. 

One way he and I are different is that 
when he does his “Most Ridiculous Item 
of the Day,” I'm sure he believes it really 
is the most ridiculous. That's the delusion 
of being Bill O'Reilly: If you have sud- 
den success after 20 years of failure, you 
become half Napoleon and half Stalin. 
PLAYBOY: What do you think of the Fox 
News slogan, "Fair and balanced"? 
OLBERMANN: Гуе suggested a more 
accurate one: "Fox, not facts." But they 
haven't adopted that yet. 

PLAYBOY: When a caller mentioned you 
on The O'Reilly Factor, O' Reilly sicced Fox 
security on the person. Paranoid? 
OLBERMANN: That may have been the 
moment when he segued from journal- 
ist with some influence to public hilarity. 
People started to laugh at him. He thinks 
he has his own police. 

PLAYBOY: He'd probably like to throw a 
punch at you. 

OLBERMANN: We're both big—he's six- 
foot-four, and I’m almost as tall—but 
I'm betting he has no physical cour- 
age. Every confrontation he's had has 
been with small people. Think about 
it. Al Franken. Janeane Garofalo, who 
could stand under a coffee table. Maybe 
Janeane should sit on Al's shoulders and 
beat the shit out of Bill. 

PLAYBOY: Do you think bullies are usu- 
ally cowards? 

OLBERMANN: I know they are. In 1967 
in Hastings-on-Hudson, New York I was 


eight years old and small. 1 felt an inch 
high. All year Í was the butt of the school 
bullies, repeatedly punched. They actu- 
ally took turns: "Who gets to beat up 
Keith today?" Until one day when Ralph, 
the worst bully, stole my baseball cards. 
We were going downstairs for recess, and 
he was three steps below me, taunting me. 
I leaped on him. I fell on top of him, with 
my knees pinning his arms down. Then I 
punched him. Blood came running out of 
his nose. And the next day the other kids 
wanted to be Keith's friend. 

PLAYBOY: Your fight with Fox got nas- 
tier last year when a Fox spokesperson 
said, "Because of his personal demons, 
Keith has imploded everywhere he's 
worked. We wish him well on his inevi- 
table trip to oblivion." 

OLBERMANN: I worked there, remember? 
That company wasted a couple of years 
of my life, which is minor compared with 
its negative influence on society. Al Qaeda 
really hurt us but not as much as Rupert 
Murdoch has hurt us, particularly in the 
case of Fox News. Fox News is worse than 
AI Qaeda—worse for our society. It's as dan- 
gerous an organization as the Ku Klux Klan 
ever was, Fox News will say anything about 
anybody and accepts no criticism. Half the 
people there ought to be in an insane asy- 
lum. So I don't need advice on mental sta- 
bility from spokespeople for Fox. 

PLAYBOY: Do you have any demons? 
OLBERMANN: My personal demon is me. 
Back at ESPN, for instance, I saw stuff 
that needed fixing, and 99 times out of 
100 I was absolutely right. The demons 
came in when I made my point public. 
Instead of saying, “Hey, Гуе got a sug- 
gestion about how we do highlights,” Га 
fire off an eight-page memo: "How dare 
you get this wrong?" It was a reflection 
of my own insecurity. 

PLAYBOY: Would you take those memos 
back if you could? 

OLBERMANN: Yes. 

PLAYBOY: Why did you leave ESPN? 
OLBERMANN: Money was part of it. I 
told Dan Patrick we were underpaid. 
Anchoring SportsCenter wasn't a $300,000 
job—more like $2 million. I remember 
standing in the mail room with Kenny 
Mayne, Reese Davis, Stu Scott and Rich 
Eisen. Those four guys might have been 
making $500,000, total. I said, "Listen, 
the price of sportscasters is going up." 
PLAYBOY: Did you just bolt, or was there 
a negotiation? 

OLBERMANN: I gave ESPN an offer. I 
said I'd stay and do the Sunday-night 
SportsCenter. 

PLAYBOY: For how much? A million dollars? 
OLBERMANN: For $50,000 a year. They 
said no. 

PLAYBOY: That was 10 years ago. Since 
then you've stepped up from sports into 
the real world. Do you ever miss Patrick? 
OLBERMANN: Every night. When I go on 
to do my show, I think, It'd be great 
to have a partner—no, it'd be great to 
have that partner. 


PLAYBOY: You and he may be responsible 
for dumbing down male voters. Wouldn't 
we be smarter about politics if we had 
been reading The New York Times instead 
of watching SportsCenter? 

OLBERMANN: No, I don't buy that, Sports 
fans aren't dumber than the rest of 
America. They're smarter. It's the rest 
of America that believes in crazy plots: 
"Some guy is going to blow up the 
moon with Coke and Mentos! Arrest 
him!" Too many people believe in 
Harry Potter stuff—threats with no 
reality because they watch 24 or listen 
to Rush Limbaugh and Giuliani, who 
want us to be scared. But the sports 
fan is reality-based, You can't win your 
fantasy league on hope or ideology. 
You can't say, "My Devil Rays are 
gonna win the World Series because 
I'm rooting for them." Sports fans are 
sponges for information. So am I. 
Maybe that's why so many of my old 
SportsCenter viewers watch Countdown. 
PLAYBOY: What other TV shows do 
you watch? 

OLBERMANN: Family Guy and The Simp- 
sons are marvelously subversive, state- 
of-the-comic-art. It's just a coincidence 
that I guest-starred on Family Guy last 
season and I'll be on The Simpsons this 
year. I never miss Entourage; Jeremy 
Piven's character is one of the absolute 
best in TV history. And I try to watch 
Prime Minister's Questions on C-SPAN, 
which reminds me that we're evidently 
not paying our politicians as much as 
the British do. 

PLAYBOY: We pay network news anchors 
$7 million a year and up. Yet Katie Couric, 
who was an institution on the Today show, 
has flopped as the $15-million-a-year CBS 
anchor. What went wrong? 

OLBERMANN: It should have been obvious 
to the people making the decision. Some 
of us pointed out beforehand that some 
primal rules of broadcasting were being 
ignored. One, if you break up a team, the 
individuals don't necessarily succeed on 
their own. Two, day parts matter; some- 
one who succeeds in the morning won't 
automatically succeed at night and vice 
versa—I'm unbearable in the morning. 
Three, you don't take somebody who 
is only a fair-to-average Teleprompter 
reader and give her a job that is 90 per- 
cent reading a prompter. 

PLAYBOY: Things are looking up. You 
recently bought a $4.2 million condo in 
one of Donald Trump's buildings, where 
yow're cohabiting for the first time, Your 
girlfriend, Katy Tur, is 23. 

OLBERMANN: I've been ready to live with 
someone for years. I just didn't have the 
right person to commit to. And I've been 
flexible: I cleaned out two closets when 
Katy moved in. A great many baseball 
cards went into storage. 

But she also wants me to take down 
my wall full of Spalding's and Sporting 
News baseball guides, which stretch back 
to the 1880s. "They're not very stylish," 


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PLAYBOY 


she says. No, but I like having the entire 
history of baseball on my wall. 

PLAYBOY: You'll lose that one, won't you? 
OLBERMANN: That remains to be seen. 
I'm very reluctant to give up my base- 
ball wall. 

PLAYBOY: You're almost exactly twice 
Katy's age—— 

OLBERMANN: We're both actually about 
nine. 

PLAYBOY: Any older man-younger 
woman issues? 

OLBERMANN: There are good ones. She 
shows me things that have happened in 
the past five years that I didn't notice, 
and I show her things that happened in 
the first 5 million years. 

We watch movies at home. We were 
eight minutes into Being Julia when I said, 
"For God's sake, it's a cheap knockoff of 
All About Eve." Now, Katy's one age-related 
flaw is that she won't watch movies on 
video—only a DVD has sufficient image 
quality. So I found All About Eve on DVD. 
We watched it, and she said, "You're right. 
The story's better, and Bette Davis was 85 
times better than Annette Bening." 

When you've been through as much 
tumult as I have, you learn that age is 
way down on the list of what's important 
in a relationship. The first question is, 
Can you stand being with this person? 
And the second is, For how long? If the 
answers are "yes" and "indefinitely," the 
rest doesn't matter. 

PLAYBOY: You and Katy sound happy. Any 
plans you want to announce? 
OLBERMANN: [After a long pause] Ves... Im 
getting a haircut this afternoon. 
PLAYBOY: Do fans still stop you on the 
street and ask about ESPN? 
OLBERMANN: Not as much. Dan had told 
me I'd never leave, because I couldn't 
deal with hearing "Why aren't you on 
SportsCenter?” I didn't believe him, and 
then it happened all the time. Hourly. 
"Miss you on SportsCenter! When are you 
going back to SportsCenter?" So 1997 and 
1998 were rough on Keith, but things 
have changed dramatically, mostly in 
the past year. Now they say, "Miss you 
on SportsCenter, but I love Countdown." 

Much as I love sports, there's a big- 
ger world out there. I went to an ACLU 
dinner where 700 lawyers, 700 honest 
lawyers, stood up and cheered me and 
the attorneys for Salim Hamdan, Osama 
bin Laden's former chauffeur, who was 
a prisoner at Guantánamo. And I'm just 
a guy on TV! That gave me a sense of 
contributing something to society, as 
opposed to giving Knicks highlights. 
Not that there's anything wrong with 
that. But that night I felt useful. 
PLAYBOY: The sportscaster's dream 
come true. 

OLBERMANN: Want to hear a real dream? 
One night, in the time after ESPN, I had 
this incredibly vivid dream I've never for- 
gotten: Im on a bus, and a guy in a wind- 
breaker and sunglasses gets on. I notice 


52 his head is held together with epoxy. He 


turns around and says, "You're right. It's 
me." It's John F. Kennedy. So I ask about 
his assassination. "Was it Oswald?" 

He says, "Could I see if it was Oswald? 
I was getting shot! But I know I got shot 
from the back and the front." 

“Aha!” I say. "So there was a conspiracy." 

He says, "No. A coincidence. How 
many times do you read about two guys 
who walk into a bank at the same time to 
rob it? Same thing. Two gunmen, same 
moment. Coincidence." Then he starts 
talking about Monica Lewinsky. 
PLAYBOY: Really? She probably would have 
made him wish he were president again. 
OLBERMANN: "This is my stop," he says. 
And as JFK steps off the bus, he turns to 
me and says, "Miss you on 
PLAYBOY: Ow! 
OLBERMANN: That's when I woke up. 
PLAYBOY: Speaking of Lewinsky, which is 
worse: getting a blow job in the White 
House or taking the country to war 
under false pretenses? 
OLBERMANN: Taking us to war. 
PLAYBOY: How much worse? 
OLBERMANN: How much bigger is an ele- 
phant than a mouse? You calculate it and 


Гое changed my mind 
about Pete Rose. Given 
what we know about players 
using steroids and human 
growth hormone, what 
he did doesn't seem as bad. 


I'll go with that number. 

PLAYBOY: Okay, an adult elephant weighs 
about seven tons, and a mouse about half 
an ounce. You're saying that misleading 
the country into Iraq was 448,000 times 
worse than a White House blow job. 
OLBERMANN: There you go. 

PLAYBOY: You're returning to TV sports 
this fall, co-hosting NBC's Football Ni, 

in America with Bob Costas, Cris Collins- 
worth, Jerome Bettis and Tiki Barber. 
OLBERMANN: My main job will be high- 
lights. I'm the guy in this group who is 
used to looking at the camera and intro- 
ducing some highlight from a game that 
finished minutes ago, while my hand is 
out of the frame, reaching for the shot 
sheet some kid is handing me— 
PLAYBOY: The shot sheet tells you what's 
on camera; if the highlight just came in, 
you haven't seen it yet. 

OLBERMANN: True. The first shot could 
be of a butter statue of former NFL com- 
missioner Bert Bell. Or a picture of for- 
mer New York Giant Ward Cuff. Then 
the game action. Гуе got to make those 
highlights work. That's where some 
SportsCenter training comes in. 


PLAYBOY: Will you add any Olbermannic 
wrinkles? 

OLBERMANN: We may liven it up with a 
"Worst Person in the NFL” bit. Some 
viewers may expect a weekly diatribe 
against George Bush or Reggie Bush, 
but that won't happen. 

PLAYBOY: You're also doing commentary 
for NBC Nightly News. 

OLBERMANN: That's mostly on pop cul- 
ture, sports, a little history. I may do 
some politics. But anyone looking for the 
fire-breathing dragon from Countdown 
will need to watch Countdoun. 

PLAYBOY: You're a baseball expert and 
even a consultant to the Topps baseball- 
card company. Any perks to that? 
OLBERMANN: Topps is making a card with 
me on it. It will have a swatch of my tie 
in it—a collector's card with a piece of 
"show-used tie." 

PLAYBOY: If you were baseball commis- 
sioner, what would you have done about 
Barry Bonds? 

OLBERMANN: I would have banned him 
from the game. 

PLAYBOY: To keep him from breaking 
Hank Aaron's home-run record? 
OLBERMANN: You have the most glori- 
ous record in sports history passing to a 
guy who shouldn't have it. You had fans 
hoping Bonds would sustain a career- 
ending injury before he got it. So yes, 
I would have tossed him. The commis- 
sioner has a “best interests of baseball” 
clause in his contract. If you're the 
commissioner, step up and throw your 
weight around. Put the players union in 
the position of defending him. 

PLAYBOY: Bonds would sue you. 
OLBERMANN: Let him, Meanwhile, he 
stays on the sidelines. By the time he 
finished suing, he would be too old to 
break the record. 

PLAYBOY: Should Pete Rose be in base- 
ball’s hall of fame? 

OLBERMANN: Yes. I've changed my mind 
about Rose. Given what we know about 
players using steroids and human growth 
hormone, what he did doesn't seem as bad. 
I think he finally gets that it was bad—about 
20 years too late. He's still lying to some 
degree, but now he's lying less. I would 
open the door to Cooperstown for him. 
PLAYBOY: How about Marvin Miller, who 
led the players union when ballplayers 
won free agency, leading to today's 
zillion-dollar contracts? His battles 
with then-commissioner Bowie Kuhn 
are baseball legend. 

OLBERMANN: I told Bowie Kuhn that he, 
Charlie Finley—the colorful Oakland A's 
owner—and Marvin Miller should all go 
in together. Bowie laughed for a solid 
minute, picturing that ceremony. Yes, 
Miller belongs in the hall. 

PLAYBOY: Are there Countdown groupies? 
OLBERMANN: There are chat rooms that 
get bawdy. One group of women will start 
analyzing the issues, but soon it will devolve 
into talk about my tie and what they'd like to 
do after removing my tie. That's a strange 


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thing about TV—it's like being on the 
wrong side of a one-way mirror. You don't 
know if it's a group of Jennifer Lopezes out 
there undressing you with their eyes or a 
bunch of Leona Helmsleys. 

PLAYBOY: We know you loved baseball 
cards as a boy. How about another touch- 
stone of boyhood: Did you sneak peeks 
at PLAYBOY? 

OLBERMANN: I remember offering some 
baseball cards for a pLaysoy when I was 
12 or 13, but the other kid wanted too 
many cards. 

PLAYBOY: A pivotal moment. You had to 
choose between sex and baseball. 
OLBERMANN: I caught up with PLAYBOY 
later, I distinctly recall Victoria Cunning- 
ham, the first Playmate I ever saw. It was 
during a family vacation. I sneaked out 
to the hotel lobby and bought the maga- 
zine; there she was in all her glory. 
PLAYBOY: Miss April 1975. You were 16. 
Do you remember any other Playmates? 
OLBERMANN: When I got to college at 
Cornell, I suddenly realized, No one 
can keep me from buying that PLAYBOY! 
I remember Janet Lupo. She was from 
New Jersey. 

PLAYBOY: Miss November 1975, the pride 
of Hoboken. James Gandolfini probably 
remembers her too, 

OLBERMANN: I'm sure many of us have 
vivid memories of Janet Lupo. 

PLAYBOY: She would probably love to 
meet you. Has your stardom helped you 
meet other celebs? 

OLBERMANN: One night Katy and I 
crashed in front of the TV during an 
Arrested Development marathon. We loved 
it—bought the DVDs, watched every epi- 
sode of the best situation comedy ever. 
Then, out of the blue, I got a call from 
Jason Bateman, the star of the show, 
who invited me into his fantasy baseball 
league. "I'm the biggest Countdown fan 
in the world," he said. On my last trip to 
L.A., I met him for lunch, and we went 
to a Dodgers game. 

PLAYBOY: Does he really want you in his 
fantasy league? You'll destroy him. 
OLBERMANN: He regrets it. On the night 
of the most recent Democrat presiden- 
tial debate, I covered the debate and 
then punched up MLB transactions: 
rhe Astros called up outfielder Hunter 
Pence. I grabbed Pence, a potential 
Rookie of the Year. 

PLAYBOY: You aced Bateman out of Pence? 
OLBERMANN: And Bateman was mad. So 
I traded him a third baseman, who was 
instantly sent to the minors. Now he's 
mad about that, too. 

PLAYBOY: Are you beating him? 
OLBERMANN: I'm in first place. Bateman 
is mired in fourth. 

PLAYBOY: You never lost your baseball- 
nerd tendencies. 

OLBERMANN: One of my favorite 
moments was meeting Jerry Coleman. 
When I was a kid listening to the Yan- 
kees on the radio, Jerry was on with 
Joe Garagiola and Phil Rizzuto. Those 


guys basically made me want to go into 
broadcasting. So one day I was at Yan- 
kee Stadium; I'd agreed to be the PA 
announcer at an old-timers' game. It 
happened to be Jerry's first Old-Tim- 
ers’ Day since he became the San Diego 
Padres announcer 30 years ago 
PLAYBOY: He famously called a fly ball like 
this: "It's a long drive. Winfield back to 
the wall. He hits his head on the wall. 
And it rolls off toward second base!" 
OLBERMANN: Well, yes. And he never 
watched SportsCenter, had no idea I did 
sports before Countdown. So Jerry said, 
"Why is the best newscaster since Mur- 
row doing PA at an old-timers' baseball 
game?” I told him why: He and Joe and 
Phil were the reason I went into broad- 
casting. Jerry thought about that for a 
second and said, "Boy, you need better 
role models. We were terrible!" 
PLAYBOY: Is it true you have more back- 
bone than most of us—an extra vertebra? 
OLBERMANN: An X-ray showed І have six 
lower vertebrae, not the usual five, which 
may make my spine more rigid than 
most. Make of that what you will. 
PLAYBOY: You had a stalker a few years 
back. That must have been scary. 
OLBERMANN: It started at ESPN. A woman 
thought I had proposed to her in secret 
code during SportsCenter. She would call 
and call, leave 50 or 60 messages a night. 
I thought it was over after I went to work 
at Fox, then I picked up the phone and 
it was her. "Please don't call me," I said. 
"How can you think I want to marry you? 
We've had no contact for four years." 

She said, "You needed time to make 
up your mind." 

This went on for more than 10 years, 
until she got so sick she couldn't leave 
her house. Couldn't continue it. 
PLAYBOY: Any other scares? 

OLBERMANN: Last fall I opened a letter 
at home and white powder spilled out. 
I wasn't scared, not at first. I remember 
thinking, Anthrax is hard to handle; any- 
one using the real thing would probably 
kill himself. But I called the authorities, 
and they were there instantly: 18 cops and 
FBI agents, some in hazmat suits. They 
took my clothes and cell phone, my ESPN 
phone, and blasted them with radiation. I 
walked out of my apartment in a moon suit 
made of that heavy plastic-y paper they 
make FedEx packs out of. Next thing I 
knew, I was in an isolation ward, thinking, 
I was stupid to open that envelope. 
PLAYBOY: They caught the guy who sent it. 
OLBERMANN: They did—after I got a simi- 
lar package at work. The return address 
read, "Jay Leno, Burbank, CA." Now, 
Leno's on NBC; if he wants to send me 
something, he can use interoffice mail. 
So I called the FBI. They took the enve- 
lope to the California post office noted 
on the postmark, where the postmaster 
said, "We sell those envelopes here." He 
scanned the bar code. Up on his com- 
puter screen popped the guy's home 
(concluded on page 138) 


STUDENTS 


STUDENTS 


EIGHT COLLEGE GIRLS (ANB ONE 
OBNOXIOUS GUY) ON THE STATE OF SEX 
0N COLLEGE CAMPUSES TODAY 


PHOTOGRAPHY BY 
GEORGE GEORGIOU 


recent years a particular species of provocateuse has sprung up at colleges 
across the country: the sex columnist. Whether she's flip and flirty or 
deadly earnest, her weekly musings on dating, mating and getting your- 
self tested can be much needed must-reads in bland campus newspapers. 
It's probably no coincidence that these pundits of pleasure were raised on 
Sex and the City. Whether they're destined to be Carrie Bradshaws, Dr. Ruths or suburban 
hausfraus is beside the point; right now, nobody knows more about the sexual goings-on 
in the collegiate trenches (as it were) than the youne ladies who write about them every 
week. We spoke to seven of the best about campus carnality. 

Why all women? Because men just don't write sex columns. Well, one does, and his 
unapologetic guy talk rubs a lot of people the wrong way. But see for yourself-we talked 
to him, too. 

NICOLE WROTEN (Loyola University New Orleans): Sex is always the buzz on campus. 
All anyone ever talks about is who's having sex with whom and how they're doing it. The 
sex column is always the most popular thing in the paper. Much to my parents' and a few 
boyfriends’ dismay, I've never had a problem talking about sex. 

MARGO SCOTT (Northwestern University): | once read a sex column at Northwestern 
that someone else had written, and | felt it wasn't sex-positive. It was an article about 
anal sex, and it was about buying enemas-a lot of worry. The weird thing is, the guy who 
wrote it is gay. 

CHRISTINE BORDEN (University of California, Berkeley): The previous sex columnist's 
pieces read like a pamphlet you'd find at a health center. Or the topics were just conde- 
scending, like "How to Give a Blow Job.” I figured, This is Berkeley; everyone here already 
knows how to do that. 

NICOLE: I've had more sex and more partners than most of the good Catholic girls at my 
school. But then, I'm not Catholic. A sex columnist shouldn't be a virgin, but she doesn't need 
to be a whore-unless she wants to be. 

JANET JAY (Carnegie Mellon University): | haven't had crazy sex all over the place, so if 
that's the qualification, I'm not a good sex columnist. 

WES MULLER (University of New Orleans): It's absolutely necessary for a sex columnist to 
have lots of sex. It's about experience. You wouldn't want to read political commentary by 
a person with no political backeround. My columns are based on my own experiences. 
MARGO: If I'm not friends with you, | don't really give a fuck about what you did last weekend. 
GLORY FINK (University of Southern Mississippi): We care about other people's sex life 


only if it's Brad Pitt's or Angelina Jolie's. 
JANET: | started writing the column 
because so many people at Carnegie 
Mellon are socially inept. The questions 
1 got most often weren't about sex; they 
were "How do | start a conversation with 
a girl at a bar?" There are a lot of weird 
people at CMU. They don't need advice 
on using condoms or the basics of sex- 
ual health. They need advice on how not 
to creep girls out. 

WES: A female reader asked why guys 
are obsessed with anal sex, so | wrote 
a column about it called "Why Are Guys 
Obsessed With Anal Sex?" That was 
my most controversial column, mainly 
because of the title. 

NICOLE: | did a column called "Wedding 
Nights Are Overrated,” which was not well 
received at all. It was advice to a girl on 
how to lose her virginity: Okay, you need 
to be ready for the mental aspects and the 
physical aspects, and you need to know 
who you're going to do it with, and blah 
blah blah. Normal stuff, nothing very ris- 
qué. | wasn't writing blow job every other 
word. The worst word | used was hymen. 


SURVEY 2007 


In a poll that included 334 students 
on PlayboyU, our new college net- 
working site, we found that: 


71 percent of students own porn. 
52 percent of collegians know a 


student who has slept with a pro- 
fessor or TA. 

61 percent of female students 
admit to not always using a con- 
dom during intercourse. 

69 percent of female students are 
normally sober when they have sex. 


34 percent of male and 25 percent 
of female students were virgins when 


they began college. 


32 percent of students who have 
gone on spring break have had a 
one-night stand there. 


27 percent of female and 21 per- 
cent of male students have had 
a threesome. 


49 percent of female students have 
bared their body for a camera phone. 


25 percent of students have been 
filmed having sex. 


36 percent of female students believe 
they will find their future spouse at 
school, compared with 42 percent 
of males who think they'll find their 
partner on campus. 


Join in—take the ongoing survey at 
playboy.com. 


KATE PRENGAMAN (College of William & Mary): | use blow job so freely | accidentally 
said it on NPR once. 

NICOLE: The responses | got were ridiculous. We had alumni from, like, the 1940s 
coming into the offices, saying, "How dare you write this?" Other faculty members 
gave my advisor a hard time, saying, "What are you letting these kids do?" | was 
working at a magazine then, and when my boss read it she threatened to fire me. The 
old geezers didn't like it, but | didn't care. | wasn't writing it for them. 

MARGO: | never had the "You're a slut and you're making other people slutty" kind 
of attack. My editor was fairly conservative, and she would cringe. She'd be like, 
"Are we really doing the butt-sex article?" 

WES: The other staff members don't like my column. There's a meeting every week. 
| went to two of them, and the only thing anybody talked about was whether my 
column was inappropriate. So | stopped going to the meetings. 


KEEPING UP APPEARANCES 
MARGO: | think a lot of women I ran into at Northwestern liked to talk about their 
sexual exploits but hadn't actually had vaginal sex yet. They were talking like, 
"Yeah, then | went down on him, and then blah blah blah..." So there's an air of 
promiscuity that isn't actually happening. Because we're known as a sort of dorky 
campus that doesn't party a lot, that's the ongoing thorn in the school's side. 
JESSICA HARALSON (University of Pennsylvania): People post Facebook pictures of 
themselves- "Like, so wasted!!!"—and type drunken IMs to prove how "cool" and "col- 
legiate" they are. What is so cool and impressive about losing control of your physical 
judgment and your bodily functions? 
WES: | have so many female friends who 
say, "Oh, | was so drunk. | didn't really 
want to go home with your friend." I'm 
like, “Yeah, right. | know you were horny.” 
KATE: We want to see sex as empower- 
ing. It doesn't always feel that way, but 
we're working to get there. 
NICOLE: I've been called a slut. It happens 
all the time. 
KATE: Being a slut is different from just 
being sexually expressive. It's a nega- 
tive judement, especially when girls use 
it. No one wants to be called a slut, but 
acting a little slutty from time to time 
isn't shameful. 
NICOLE: I lost my virginity relatively late. 
I didn't lose it in high school; | didn't do 
anything in high school. But Loyola is a 
very Catholic campus, and | have a lot of 
girlfriends who are still virgins. If a girl 
doesn't like another girl, what's the first 
thine she'll call her? Slut. Especially if she 
does screw around. But you know what? 
Everybody's doing it, so the word doesn't 
have the same power anymore. 
LARA LOEWENSTEIN (UCLA): Slut is 
still an insult. But then so is virgin. Sex 
can be empowering, but it can also be 
demeaning. It's all about context. 
WES: If a guy is called a slut, it's like, 
whatever, you get laid a lot. If a eirl is 
called a slut, it's always a bad thing, and 
it will be a long time before it isn't. 


WE'VE GOT TONIGHT 

MARGO: Some nights you're like, I'm gonna go out and find somebody, and we're 
gonna fuck. You shave your legs and put on your nice underwear. But sometimes 
when the girl puts the moves on, there are mishaps. It's like, Does he want me? 
Are we going to have sex? What's going on? In some ways it's easier to do it the 
old way. He says, "Whoa, it's getting late. Do you wanna watch a movie at my 
place?" She says, "Sure." So you go over there, you get the tour, and you pause at 
the bedroom. That whole scripted scene is something you both recognize. There are 
no mixed signals; this is how it goes. 

NICOLE: My first one-night stand ended up being a two-night stand; we slept 
together the next night, too. He was a radio DJ. After that | had to hear him on the 
radio every morning. 


“I FOUND PORN ON 
MY BOYFRIEND'S 
COMPUTER. IT WAS 
INTERESTING” 


KATE: | was hooking up with a boy 
once, and | guess we were drunker than 
I thought. Things didn't go as smoothly 
as planned, so he got kind of embar- 
rassed. "Oh my God, | can't believe 
I hooked up with the sex columnist. 
You're going to write about this, aren't 
you? Ahh!" He just screamed and ran 
out of my house. That kind of thing 
happens every once in a while. 
MARGO: There are some rules for one- 
night stands. Don't ask each other if 
you're seeing or hooking up with anyone 
else. That totally kills the mood. Also 
there's less getting-to-know-you. 
There's not a lot of talk about work or family-unless he lives with his family, in 
which case that's probably a deal breaker anyway. On second thought, you probably 
won't even get laid. 

WES: | have some rules for casual sex, for what you'd call a fuck buddy. Keep it to 


LIS W Tb. taf col- | 


it contained some ` 
predictable colle- ~ 
 giate stuff: erotic | 


are naked doesn't mean it has anything 
to do with sex. Sexual nudity is a lot less 
common at parties and in public. 

WES: Nudity? I love streaking! I've got- 
ten naked at a few parties, but I've been 
the exception. 

CHRISTINE: | went to a stripper party, 
and in the corner was a guy standing 
completely naked except for a fishnet 
bodysuit. It wasn't very flattering, It 
was kind of disturbing. 

NICOLE: I've been to a lingerie party; we 
called it an underwear party. | wore just 
underwear and a top. A bunch of people 
we invited showed up dressed normally, 
and we were like, "Nope, you gotta take 
your clothes off.” Girls were wearing 
underwear, bras, high heels and fish- 
nets, It was a great, great party. 

LARA: Girls make out with one another 
at parties all the time. 

KATE: Many college women do it for the 
attention of the boys at the parties. 
Their boyfriends don't mind, and they 
don't consider it cheating, but it's still 
a bit of a thrill. 

WES: They're definitely trying to get 


h, yeah, would be Vassar's Squirm), it was. 


چپ tr‏ ےپ ریہ سی —— 


of the one that seemed to signal a 


+ anology of Hooking Yi 

> nology of Hooking Up") veh 

- Harvard students—by our count, 18 The University. of Ch 
sed breasts in the first issue alone. 


lumbia, online not deal 
= . | 


The whole enterprise seemed promis- material from students on several x ning 
Ing and. provocative. Hell, we bought ton campuses. Three years later H seri publish vtr, 


an ad. For the record, Н Bomb wasn't is defunct. Vita Excolatur and more  torAlecia 
incl 


once a week, Try to have as little communication as possible. The only things you 
need to discuss are when and where. When you meet face-to-face, have no commu- 
nication other than decidine on which position and the common moans of coitus. 
Limit cuddling to five to 10 minutes, 


LETTING IT ALL HANG OUT 

CHRISTINE: At Berkeley anything goes. You go to a party, and people will already be 
naked when you get there, 

NICOLE: Tourists are the only ones who flash at Mardi Gras. It's not worth it; you'll 
get beads no matter what-unless you want a really bie throw. The only person I've 
ever seen flash was my boyfriend's sister. She's from Pittsburgh. A girl won'tvolun- 
tarily take her top off at a party. She has to be intoxicated, but it does happen. 
KATE: Sexual nudity and silly nudity are two very different things. Just because people 


attention from guys, but it works, so 
more power to them. We like to think 
they would do it if no guys were around, 
but I don't think that's the case, 
NICOLE: A lot of times girls do it to get 
a guy's attention but not all the time. 
Girls are more comfortable with one 
another now. They trust one another 
more than they trust guys. If a euy's 
not around, they'll make out with each 
other. I've done it. 

LARA: As for a "true" lesbian experi- 
ence, if people are sexually open, they 


59 


60 


“GIRLS MAKE OUT WITH ONE ANOTHER AT 
PARTIES ALL THE TIME” 


are often willing to experiment, This goes more for girls than guys, since there is a 
stronger stigma against gay men, 


A/V CLUB 
JESSICA: Porn is awesome. Many women my age understand that porn is just sexual 
stimulation-not competition. 
CHRISTINE: It's a masturbatory aid. 
NICOLE: Porn can be fun if you watch it together. | mean, guys do it by themselves; 
why not do it with him? I'm not the kind of girl who watches porn alone, but | don't 
think it's wrong for guys to look at porn. 
WES: I've brought girls home and they've asked me, "You got any porn?" I say yeah, 
and they say, "So let's watch some.” The girl will want to put in the porn, watch it 
and have sex at the same time. 
MARGO: | love porn. А lot of straight porn really sucks. I still watch it because I'm a 
perv and I like to watch people fucking, but | don't need the melon breasts. 
WES: | don't think girls prefer any one kind. I've had them complain about some 
stuff, but they never turn it off. Most guys keep porn on their computer. If they 
claim they don't, they're probably lying. 
NICOLE: I've found it on my boyfriend's computer. It was interesting. 1 told him, 
"Don't be embarrassed, It's no big deal” | don't get it, but if he thinks it's great, | 
say 90 for it. A lot of women say they don't understand pornography, but it makes 
them angry. Why get angry at something if you don't understand it? 
WES: Girls can get a little jealous of the porn star. They think you're looking at 
her and are more attracted to her than to them. There's no reason to think that. 
Everybody watches porn, but everybody knows the real thing is 10 times better— 


pe OU R UNABASHED) | 


Ben Applebaum and Derrick Pitt- 
man, the editors of Turd Ferguson 
& the Sausage Party: An Uncensored 
Guide to College Slang, share some 
of their favorite campus cant. 
Bonar: The uncanny ability of a guy 
to know when a hot girl has set foot 
anywhere on the hall. 

Cleat Chaser: A girl who is obsessed 
with getting it on with athletes. 
Imagibation: Thinking intensely 
about waxing it with a really hot girl 
when you're in class. 

Mass Dumpines: Traditional times 
throughout the year when students 
execute simultaneous breakups. 
Some common mass dumpings are 
the Turkey Dump (before Thanks- 
giving break), the Spring Cleaning 
(before spring break) and the Hat 
Toss (right after graduation). 
Sexiled: When someone is forced 
to sleep outside his or her room 
because a roommate wants to get 
busy with a partner. 

Stride of Pride: Like the infamous 
post-one-night-stand walk of 
shame across campus but slower, 
to ensure bragging rights are 
received. Reserved almost exclu- 
sively for dudes. 


100 times better. There's no reason to 
be jealous of some friggin’ porn star 
nobody knows. 


ORAL EXAM 

NICOLE: A lot of these Catholic so-called 
virgins don't consider oral sex to be sex. 
They use the title virgin to mean "I 
haven't had intercourse." Or maybe "Just 
the tip, to see how it feels." Oral sex can 
be just as intimate as intercourse-it's 
in your mouth, for God's sake. 

KATE: Oral sex is way more intimate than 
intercourse. Your face is all up in there, 
and you can't be detached or anything, 
the way you can with a casual fuck. 
MARGO: I think vaginal sex is definitely 
more intimate, but plenty of people have 
told me oral when I've asked the same 
question, which kind of blows my mind. 
WES: I've never been a fan of blow jobs. 
Maybe I've just gotten crappy ones, but 
l've gotten off from a blow job only a 
couple of times, once from an Asian 
chick when | was working in a bar, the 
other from a Peruvian girl. She had 
nice lips. Girls eive blow jobs because 
they think that's what guys want, but I 
haven't (concluded on page 142) 


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"I dated a professional wine taster once. She wouldn't swallow." 


61 


62 


SINCE BEING CROWNED 
MISS UNIVERSE, ALICIA MACHADO HAS 
TAKEN LATIN AMERICA BY STORM 


hen you step into Alicia Machado's Mexico City home, you quickly learn what kind of man 
you are, A pet panther named Chuy slides over and sniffs you, The wildcat's eyes size you up. 
Maybe you see the sparkle of saliva on his fang. Don't let him smell fear or you will disappoint 
the lady of the house, Suffice it to say, Alicia Machado defines exotic in more ways than one, 
The former Miss Universe (the first Miss Universe ever to appear in the pages of PLAYBOY) is a 
29-year-old celebrity in Latin America. Turn on the TV and you may see her smiling face. Turn 
on the radio and you may hear her singing. She first posed for the Mexican edition of PLAYBOY 
in 2006 and got rave reviews; hers became the best-selling issue of Mexican PLAYBOY in history 
at the time. Then she appeared in our Venezuelan edition to even greater acclaim. Now, in the magazine you hold in your 
hand, she arrives in America. She admits that her nude photos took many of her fans by surprise at first. 

"They never saw me like this," Alicia says, "but this is the real me, the real Alicia. This is who I am." 

Yoseph Alicia Machado Fajardo was born in Venezuela in 1977 to a Cuban mother and Spanish father. She won the 
Miss Universe pageant in 1996 at the age of 19. "I was a little kid," she says. But she didn't look like any little kid. Statu- 
esque and elegant, her amber skin so radiant it glowed, she was easily chosen as the judges' winner. She was crowned 
in a televised ceremony at the Aladdin Resort & Casino in Las Vegas. Since then Alicia has become an actress and a 
model. She landed a part on a Mexican soap opera, and she recorded an eponymous pop album in 2004. Currently she 
appears on the TV show El Pantera, a popular crime drama that airs on Monday nights in Mexico. She has a major role 
in Í Love Miami, a film about Cubans living in the U.S., which came out last year. Her second CD hit stores in August. 
She's working so much, she says, she barely has time to spend at home with her panther and her horse, La Negra. 
She's not married, but she has ^a partner who is very important to me. I believe in love and relationships." Marriage? 
"I don't know. Maybe," she says. "Sometimes I believe in marriage, and sometimes I feel different." 

For this shoot, we chose a locale nearly as exotic and beautiful as our model. On a Pacific beach in Oaxaca, in the 
southern reaches of Mexico, Alicia came alive, "Oaxaca is where the most important Indians in Mexico come from," 
she says. "It's a magical place. Everything there is so mystical." We couldn't agree more. 


PHOTOGRAPHY BY DAVID EISENBERG 


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В EER 101 
Humans have been slurpine beer for 5,000 years. The 


Romans called beer cerevisto, from Ceres, the goddess of agriculture, 
and vis, the Latin word for strength, The Greek philosopher Plato 
is said to have invented the shoteun technique; he liked to get his 
gogeles on. Through the centuries different types of the beverage 
evolved according to brewing techniques in different parts of the 
world, and today there are as many types of beer as there are wine. 
We encourage you to drink responsibly, and by that we mean you 
should know exactly what you're consuming. Herewith, a syllabus: 

Ale: Every kind of beer today is either an ale or a lager. Ale 
showed up first, in Europe hundreds of years ago. Brewed from 
water, hops, barley malt (barley soaked in water until it germinates) 
and top-fermenting yeast, it tends to have a stronger and fruitier 
flavor than lager. A eood example: Bass Ale. 

American Lager: Lager, the other kind of beer, Is a crisper, 
lighter-flavored brew made with the same holy trinity of hops, barley 
malt and water. Instead of top-fermenting yeast, it's brewed with 
bottom-fermenting yeast (which settles to the bottom rather than 
the top during fermentation). Most American lagers are also made 


Brew U 


So, what'll 


it be? 


with rice, hence their light character and color. 

Example: Budweiser, which accounts for 49 per- 

y С cent of the beer drunk in the States, 
P ° Bitter: A staple of the English pub, bitter is 
a kind of ale made with lots of hops. It's fruity, slightly 
bitter and less fizzy than other kinds of beer. 
* Blond: A species of female known for mental acuity. Also 
a type of Beleian ale that's eolden and fruity. Example: Duvel, 
Belgium's most popular brand. 
е Bock: A hearty beer high in alcohol content (often about six 
percent), this thick, sweet burst of flavor emerged in a German 
town called Einbeck and was originally made by Catholic monks. 

India Pale Ale (IPA ): British brewers of the 18th cen- 
tury had a problem: how to ship ale to the West Indies, where there 
was great demand. It tended to spoil during the long boat jour- 
neys-unless, that is, it was brewed with very high alcohol content. 
Thus the India pale ale, among the booziest brews you can find. 

* Light Beer: Beer reduced іп calories and alcohol content. 
Example: Bud Light is 4.2 percent alcohol compared with five 
percent for regular Bud. 

Malt Liquor: A high-alcohol, generally cheap version of 
American lager. It's not malty, despite its name, but it'll get you 
drunk fast, should the need arise. Colt 45 doesn't list its alcohol 
content, but it's roughly six percent (eight percent in Canada). 

е Pale Ale: This term is used as a catchall for any ale that is 
bronze- or copper-colored, as opposed to dark. 

e Pilsner: The world's first light-colored beer, pilsner appeared 
in 1842 іп the town of Рігей in what Is now the Czech Republic. 
A lager, it usually has a golden color and crisp taste. Pilsner 
Urquell and Heineken are examples. Today pilsner is the world's 
most popular beer, 

» Porter: This bittersweet ale, full-bodied and dark brown, is 
made with well-roasted barley. A good example is Sierra Nevada. 
First brewed in London circa 1721 and supposedly named for the 
porters who worked the docks, it's a lighter version of... 

ә Stout: Darker and fuller bodied than sissy beers, stout is made 
using dark-roasted barley malt and hops. Its name describes its 
character well. It's also good for you. Doctors have traditionally fed 
it to blood donors because of its high iron content. 

e Wheat Beer: Add wheat to the mix of barley malt, hops and 
water, and you've got wheat beer, a light and slightly sweet mugful. 
The most popular brands are Hoegaarden from Belgium and Paulaner 
from Germany (the latter being a Hefeweizen, a style of wheat beer 
that's cloudy because the yeast isn't filtered out). -Пама Critchell 


HEADS OF THE CLASS 


PLAYBOY'S TOP 10 COLLEGE-TOWN MICROBREWERIES 


Avery Brewing, Boulder, Colorado (averybrewing.com) 
Adam Avery makes big beers with an explosion of flavor in 
every sip. Although he has fermented such relatively mellow 
brews as the amber Redpoint ale, he's best known for potent 
bruisers like the Reverend, his Belgian-style ale, and Hog 
Heaven, a barley wine. You can buy Avery beer in select 
stores nationwide. The best place to drink one: in 

the parking lot outside the University of Colorado 

at Boulder's Folsom Stadium on game day. 


Cambridge Brewing Company, Cambridge, 
Massachusetts (cambrew.com) Students from 
across the Boston area come to Cambridge 
Brewing as much for the tasty porter and other 
ales (available on-site or in takeaway growlers) 
as for the weird and wild one-offs Will Meyers 
brews up, such as Benevolence, a 12 percent 
alcohol, Jack Daniels cask-aged barley wine. 


Capital Brewery, Middleton, Wisconsin 
(capital-brewery.com) Situated a stone's 
throw from the University of Wisconsin cam- 
pus in Madison, Capital has been slaking the 
thirst of students for more than two decades, 
most of that time with unapologetically Ger- 
manic lagers and wheat beers, such as the 
much-awarded Munich Dark. Available in 
locations all over the northern Midwest. 


— 


Live Oak Brewing Company, Austin, Texas 
(liveoakbrewing.com) Live Oak's dry and 
refreshing pilsner and other brews are draft 
only, so experiencing them requires an eve- 
ning out in the Lone Star state. Of course, 
given Austin's celebrated nightlife, that's E- 
hardly an imposition. 


Port Brewing/Lost Abbey, San Marcos, California (port 
brewing.com, lostabbey.com) We're not saying the stu- 
dents at San Diego State are spoiled, but their city is a 
short drive from a fabulous brewery that makes two 
exceptional lines of beers. Port Brewing offers ultra- 
hoppy American-style ales, while Lost Abbey ("for sin- 
ners and saints alike") makes Belgian-inspired beers 


| THE ULTIMATE OKTOBERFEST MEAL 


HINT: IT CONTAINS BOTH ESSENTIAL FOOD GROUPS, BEER AND MEAT 


We've tried every recipe for bratwurst boiled in i 
beer. This beer-simmered bratwurst with onions ! 
and red-cabbage sauerkraut is our fave. it comes 
courtesy of Bobby Flay and serves eight. z 


+3 large onions, peeled and thinly sliced 

*2 cloves garlic, smashed 

+3 pounds of the best bratwurst you can find, 
pricked several times with a fork 
“Б bottles dark beer 

2 cups water 

*1 teaspoon coriander seed 

*1 teaspoon caraway seed šh 
*1 teaspoon mustard seed 
*1 (one-inch) piece of fresh 
ginger, peeled and chopped 
*Hero rolls 


with outrageous complexity and depth. Look closely and 
you may find this brew in a store near you. 


Schlafly Beer, St. Louis, Missouri (schlafly.com) It may 

brew in the shadow of the big dog (Anheuser-Busch), but 

Schlafly is no schnauzerwhen it comes to full-bodied beers. 
This brewery offers a dizzying range of styles. 
Its imperial stout is a strong favorite come 
exam time at Washington University. You can 
buy Schlafly in bottles all over Illinois and Mis- 
souri, and it's available in kegs at the brewery. 


Steelhead Brewing Company, Eugene, Ore- 
gon (steelheadbrewery.com) Any brewpub 
that serves Hairy Weasel (a Hefeweizen) and 
Raging Rhino (a red ale) is okay in our book. 
Steelhead is located in Eugene, home of the 
University of Oregon, and also has two Cali- 
fornia locations, in Burlingame and Irvine. 


Terrapin Beer Company, Athens, Georgia 
(terrapinbeer.com) If you think rye is for distill- 
ing, not brewing, Terrapin will convince you oth- 
erwise, with both a rye-accented pale ale and a 
stronger, intensely flavorful Rye Squared. And its 
Wake-n-Bake coffee-oatmeal imperial stout is a 
natural for those a.m. happy hours. Terrapin beers 
are sold in stores throughout the Southeast. 


Upland Brewing Company, Bloomington, Indi- 
ana (uplandbeer.com) Hoosier beer can be fine 
stuff indeed, especially when it's the smooth and 
coffee-ish Bad Elmer's Porter from Upland Brew- 
ery. Its rosterof seasonal brews, such as autumn's 
Oktoberfest and summer's Belgian-style Saison 
(available in keg only), is also top-notch. Available 
on tap and in bottles all over Indiana. 


Wolaver's, Middlebury, Vermont (wolavers.com) !n 
crunchy Middlebury it goes without saying the local college 
microbrewery is all organic. What deserves mention is that 
the righteous enjoyment of Wolaver's wonderful ales, par- 
ticularly the brightly bitter IPA, involves no sacrifice of flavor. 
Available at select shops all over the 50. -Stephen Beaumont 


«Sweet-hot German mustard 

*Spicy brown mustard 

*Red-cabbage sauerkraut (don't be lazy; make 
your own!) 

Preheat grill to high. Arrange onion slices 
and garlic along bottom of a medium stockpot. 
Place bratwurst on top, then add beer, water, 
all seeds and ginger. Bring to a simmer over 
erill erates or on a burner. Simmer sausages for 
about 10 minutes. 

Remove pan from heat and let bratwurst sit in 
liquid for 10 minutes more. Remove sausages 
and grill until their casings are crisp and golden 
brown, about four minutes on each side. Remove 
onions from beer with a slotted spoon and place 
them in a bowl. Serve bratwurst on rolls with 
onions, mustard and sauerkraut on the side. 


70 


home bar starts with a kegerator, the 

basic tool that turns any room into a 
genuine gathering place. The Perlick Beer 
Dispenser Cabinet (55,228, bringperlick 
home.com) is available with two or three 
draft taps and an attached minifridge for 
chilling bottled beer and mugs. It's outdoor 
rated and has a variable-speed compressor 
coupled with an electronic temperature 
control and display for ultra-quick, precise 
keg cooling. (We suggest cellar tempera- 
ture, 55 degrees.) To make sure you pull 
your pints with authority, Taphandles 
stocks all kinds of handle styles (from about 
$22, taphandles.com). You can go with a 
simple paddle or pub-style handle or choose 
from a catalog of more than 100 custom 
beauties. The company will even fabricate 
resin handles especially for your homespun 
suds ($3,500 for a minimum order of 100). 
If you insist on having the brand name of 
your go-to bevvy, BeerTaps.com has the 
usual suspects for about 50 bucks. Even 
more than wine, beer needs the right glass 
to bring out its full flavor. You don'twant to 


E 


WITH THESE 
GOODIES 

AT YOUR 
FINGERTIPS, 
YOU'LL ВЕ 
SERVING 
LIKE 
FEDERER 


pour a Belgian triple into a pint glass; you 
may offend a monk a few thousand miles 
away. There are countless styles available, 
but make sure you have the basics covered. 
The Essential Beer Glass Set ($37, 
beerheads.com) includes one each of the 
following glassware: a Hefeweizen, a tulip 
for Doppelbocks and lambics, a pilsner, a 
goblet for abbey-style beers, an imperial 
pint and a cervoise to class up virtually any- 
thing. Finally, if you're willing to take the 
home-brew plunge, go with the Super 
Ultima-Bru Brewtree Kit ($3,500, brewtree 
.com). Simpler systems run as low as $100, 
but we like this swankier one. It's seriously 
advanced-no Brewing for Dummies here. 
Within a month of opening this item, you'll 
be making 15 gallons of any style beer you 
want. Design a label on your computer, print 
it onto adhesive-backed paper from an 
office-supply store and slap it on the bottle 
of your choice. You can pick up bottles at 
any home-brew outlet, such as Brew Your 
Own Brew (brewyourownbrew.com). Feel 
free to send us samples. -Todd Alstróm 


SIX-PACK OF ST. PAULI 


TASTE TEST 


MATCH THE BEER QUOTE WITH 
THE MOUTH THAT SPILLED IT 


1. * was at a bor, nursing a beer. My nipple 
was getting quite soggy." 


2. "Beauty is in the eye of the beer holder" 
3. “I learned early to drink beer, wine and 


whiskey. And I think | was about five when 
1 first chewed tobacco." 


4. "Give me a woman who truly loves beer 
and | will conquer the world!" 


5. “You can't be a real countryumess you have 
a beer and an airline. It helps if you have some 
kind of football team or some nuclear weap- 
ons, but at the very least you need a beer.” 


6. "I would kill everyone in this room for 
one drop of sweet beer." 


7. "In a study, scientists report that drink- 
ing beer can be good for the liver. I'm sorry, 
did | say scientists? | meant Irish people." 


B. "I've only been in love with a beer bottle 
and a mirror." 


9. "Beer is proof that God loves us and 
wants us to be happy." 


10. "Twenty-four hours in a day, 24 beers in 
a case, Coincidence?” 


11. "He was a wise man who invented beer” 


12. "We are here to drink beer. We are here 
to kill war. We are here to laugh at the 
odds and live our lives so well that death 
will tremble to take us.” 


€. Kaiser Wilhelm |І 


a. Sid Vicious 

b. Homer Simpson h. Kinky Friedman 

c. Frank Zappa i, Emo Philips 

d. Babe Ruth j. Steven Wright 

e. Tina Fey k. Benjamin Franklin 
f. Plato I. Charles Bukowski 


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"It's the one night of the year he can go out without his mask and costume!" 


71 


BY DAVID RENSIN 
BY SHERYL MIELOS 


TV’S HOTTEST HERO TALKS ABOUT HER ON-SCREEN SPLIT PERSONALITY, 
DISCUSSES CHEST SIZE, LEARNS TO POLE DANCE AND EXPLAINS 
WHY HER IDEAL MAN HAS TO BE A SPORTS FAN 


Q1 

PLAYBOY: On Heroes you play two parts: 
Niki, the good girl, and her dead sister, 
Jessica, who is trouble, Since they now 
see each other only in reflective surfaces, 
how has your role changed your own 
mirror routine? 

LARTER: Not much. I feel mirrors are more for 
when you're young and nervous and judging 
yourself. When I look in the mirror now, | see 
happy. There's a little twinkle in my eye. It's 
a nice time in my life. There are always ups 
and downs and in-betweens, but my family 
is healthy, I'm in love with my boyfriend, and 
I love my TV show. It's a nice moment. And 
here comes the hurricane! [laughs] 


Q2 

PLAYBOY: Imagine the Niki-Jessica action 
figure. Will they make one with a head 
that flips or sell two dolls separately? 

LARTER: If I had to guess based on the way 
we're going on the show right now, there 
would be only one. The two characters will 
merge, taking the strengths of both- Niki's 


vulnerability and Jessica's backbone-to 
make a complete woman. 


оз 

PLAYBOY: The other heroes have some 
pretty cool powers. Who would you like to 
trade with? 

LARTER: Ooh! | don't know. Fora day I would 
like to teleport. | would love to experience 
different time periods. | would love to have 
felt the counterculture movement in the 
19605, to have been a flapper, to have had 
dinner with my great-great-grandfather. 


G4 

PLAYBOY: Your current film is Resident 
Evil: Extinction. Give us a short course in 
fighting zombies, killercrows and creatures 
infected with a terrible virus. 

LARTER: The movie is two hot girls kicking 
ass in the desert. | play Claire Redfield, an 
established video-game character. She is 
really strong and the leader of a convoy, and 
she treats all the other characters in different 
ways: She acts as a mother to one; she 


treats another like a boyfriend. She knows 
what's going on. It's a huge international 
movie, and | thought the script was pretty 
good. It was also a chance to go to Mexico for 
six weeks, kick some butt, shoot some guns, 
make some money and get a new audience. 


as 

PLAYBOY: As part of a sci-fi-fantasy 
television series, you appear at comic- 
book conventions. When did you last tell 
a fan to get a life? 

LARTER: | did Comic-Con last year. This 
year | was at WonderCon for Resident Evil, 
and a guy asked me, about Heroes, "You're 
the worst on the show. When are you going 
to die?" All | could think about was how һе 
must have stayed up late the night before 
thinking about how he was going to get 
me. | didn't say "Get a life," because his 
comment hurt a bit. But I'd say it now. 


G6 
PLAYBOY: When do you most like being the 
hot blonde? (continued on page 131) 


73 


74 


PLayBOy’S 
COLLEGE FICTION CONTEST WINNER 


oM 


FICTIOn By 
DaUID James ро155апт 


rattle into the driveway around sunup, and Cam's on my front stoop with 

his boy, Bobby. Cam stands. He's a huge man, thick and muscled from a 

decade of work in construction. Sleeves of ereen dragons run armpit to 

wrist. He claims there's a pair of naked ladies tattooed into all those 
scales if you look close enough. 

When Crystal left him, Cam got the boy, which tells you what kind of a mother 
Crystal was. Cam's my last friend. He's a saint when he's sober, and he hasn't 
touched liquor in 10 years. 

He puts a hand on the boy's shoulder, but Bobby spins from his grip and 
charges. He meets me at the truck, grabs my leg and hugs it with his whole 
body. | head toward Cam. Bobby bounces and laughs with every step. 

We shake hands, but Cam's expression is no-nonsense. 

"Graveyard again?" he says. My apron, rolled into a tan tube, hangs from my 
front pocket, and | reek of kitchen grease. 

“Yeah,” | say. | haven't told Cam how I lost my temper and yelled at a 
customer, how apparently some people don't know what over easy means, 
how my agreement to work the 10-to-six shift is the only thing keeping my 
electricity on and the water running. 

“Bobby,” Cam says, "eo play for a minute, okay?" Bobby releases my leg and 
stares at his father skeptically. "Don't make me tell you twice," Cam says. The boy 
runs to my mailbox, drops to the lawn cross-legged and scowls. "Keep going,” Cam 
says. Slowly, deliberately, Bobby stands and sulks toward their house. 

"What is it?" | say. "What's wrong?" 

Cam shakes his head. "Red's dead” he says. 

Red is Cam's dad, though I've never heard him call him that. "Bastard used 
to beat the fuck out of me,” Cam said one night back when we both drank 
too much and swapped sad stories. When he turned 18, Cam enlisted and 
left for the first Gulf war. The last time he saw his father, the man was stag- 
gering, drunk, across the lawn. "Go, then!" he screamed. "Go die for your 
fucking country!" Bobby never knew he had a grandfather. 

I don't know whether Cam is upset or relieved, and | don't know what to 
say. Cam must see this, because he says, "It's okay. I'm okay." 

“How'd it happen?" | ask. 


ILLUSTRATION BY MARTIN WITTFOOTH 


E >. 


76 


For the past 21 years PLAYBOY has invited the students in Marshall Aris- 
man's illustration class at New York's School of Visual Arts to participate 
in a contest to produce the perfect complement to our winning piece of 
college fiction. This year Martin Wittfooth's work proved the most unex- 
pected and arresting take on the conflicts and currents described in 
David James Poissant's Lizard Man. Wittfooth earned his BAA in illustra- 
tion from Sheridan College in Toronto in 2003. He now lives in New York 
City, where he works as an illustrator and fine artist and is earning his 
MFA at SVA. Wittfooth's art has been exhibited internationally and pre- 
sented in a variety of media, from album covers to music videos. Honor- 
able mention goes to six runners-up, whose provocative work is pictured 
above. Clockwise from top left, the artists are Jenny Kruger, Andres V. 
Martinez, Felix Gephart, Eric Losh, Matthew Freel and Dong Yun Lee. 


"He was drinking,” Cam says. "Bartender 
said one minute Red was laughing, the next 
his forehead was on the bar. When they 
went to shake him awake, he was dead.” 

"Wow." It's a stupid thing to say, but 
I've been up all night. My hand still grips 
an invisible steel spatula. | can feel lard 
under my nails. 

"| need a favor," Cam says. 

"Anything," | say. When | was in jail, it 
was Cam who bailed me out. When my 
wife and son moved to Baton Rouge, it was 
Cam who knocked down my door, kicked 
my ass, threw the contents of my liquor 
cabinet onto the front lawn, set it on fire 
and got me a job at his friend's diner. 

"| need a ride to Red's house” Cam says. 

"Okay," | say. Cam hasn't had a car for 
years. Half the people on our block can't 
afford storm shutters, let alone cars, but 
it's St. Petersburg, a pedestrian city, and 
downtown's only a five-minute walk, 

"Well, don't say okay yet; Cam says. 
"It's in Lee.” 

"Lee, Florida?" 

Cam nods. Lee is four hours north, the last 
city you pass on 1-75 before you hit Georgia. 

"No problem," | say, “as long as I'm back 
before 10 tonight.” 

"Another graveyard?” Cam asks. | nod. 
“Okay,” he says, "let's go.” 


Last year | threw my son through the 
family-room window. | don't remember 
how it happened, not exactly. | remember 
stepping into the room. | remember seeing 
Jack, his mouth pressed to the mouth of 
the other boy, his hands moving fast in the 
boy's lap. Then | stood over him in the gar- 
den. Lynn ran from the house, screaming. 
She saw Jack and hit me in the face. She 
battered my shoulders and my chest. 
Above us, through the window frame, the 
other boy stood, staring, shaking, hueeine 
himself with his thin arms. Jack lay on the 
ground. He did not move except for the rise 
and fall of his chest. The window had bro- 
ken cleanly and there was no blood, just 
shards of glass scattered over flowers, but 
one of Jack's arms was bent behind his 
head, as though he had gone to sleep that 
way, an elbow for a pillow. 

"Call 911," Lynn yelled to the boy above. 

"No," | said, Whatever else | didn't 
know in that time and place, | knew we 
could never afford an ambulance ride. 
“I'll take him,” | said. 

"No!" Lynn cried. "You'll kill him!" 

“I'm not going to kill him” I said. "Come 
here” | gestured to the boy. He shook his 
head and stepped back. “Please, | said. 

Tentatively the boy stepped over the 
jagged edge of the sill. He planted his feet 
on the brick ledge of the front wall, then 
dropped the few feet to the eround. Glass 
crunched beneath his sneakers. 

"Grab his ankles,” | said. | hooked my 
hands under Jack's armpits, and we lifted 
him. One arm trailed the eround as we 
walked him to (continued on page 118) 


"I don't like to be distracted when I'm doing a Sudoku puzzle.” 


77 


MISS OCTOBER SPENCER 


SCOTT RUNS WILD — 


PHOTOGRAPHY BY ARNY FREYTAG 


ever there was one. Suc- 

culent and sweet, she is 
all of 18 years old and dripping with 
charm. “І had braces and was rough- 
looking," she says of her early teen 
years, "but later | turned cute." We 
like to think of her as sun-ripened. 

We caught up with Miss October at 
the Playboy offices in Los Angeles. 
She is what you'd call bubbly—prone 
to frequent giggling spells—and her 
blue-green eyes sparkle when she 
smiles. Spencer was born and raised 
in the tiny town of Dallas, Georgia. 
"When people hear Dallas, they 
assume it's Texas," she says. "My Dal- 
las is very country and in the middle 
of nowhere, about a 45-minute drive 
from Atlanta." Homeschooled, she 
was taught to speak without a South- 
ern accent, though she can turn the 
magnolia in her voice on and off at 
will. Sometimes it's better not to have 
it," she giggles. She says she doesn't 
feel she missed out by not having a 
proper graduation or prom night. She 
did, however, join a competition cheer- 
leading squad called the Georgia All 
Stars. When she wants to be, she's all 
pom-poms and team spirit. 

Now that she's 18, Spencer has 
moved to L.A. with her Chihuahua, 
Dom. In the bright lights and big city 
she's pursuing her passion: acting. 
She has appeared on a pilot for the 
MTV show Singled Out (following in 
the footsteps of 1994 Playmate of 
the Year Jenny McCarthy) and tried 
out for a small part on Entourage. 
Not a bad start. Spencer's hoping 
her Playmate pictorial will alert Hol- 
lywood to a hot new talent in town. 
(Thus far only her family knows 
about her PLAYBOY shoot. “It’s going 
to be a big surprise to my friends," 
she says.) She also has a head for 
business and hopes to get a degree 
someday. She says she can see her- 
self owning a spa. 

As for guys, Miss October is still 
overcoming the culture shock of L.A, 
and misses Southern gentlemen. "A 
guy has to have manners, be polite 
and treat me like a lady," she says, 
the hint of an accent creeping in. 
“L.A. guys don't have it for me. I don't 
get starstruck, either." Speaking of 
stars, we see big things in this young 
beauty's future. Don't count on her 
taking that midnight train back to 
Georgia anytime soon. 


e couldn't resist photo- 
graphing Spencer Scott 
holding a peach (left). 
She's a Georgia peach if 


Stunning Spencer Scott hails from the 
tiny Southern town of Dallas, Georgia 
(no, that's not a typo). She turned 18 
this past April and has moved to Los An- 
geles to kick-start a career in acting. 


See more of Miss October at cyber. p OV Or. 


Ce PL 
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— 
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PLAYMATE DATA SHEET 


NAME: 


H 3 5" 
нт 120. um 21. HIPS: 
5 '4 ! | | D 
HEIGHT: WEIGHT: 


BIRTH DATE: BIRTHPLACE: 


AMBITIONS: O Q | 


TURN-ONS: 


SOMETHING I NEED TO LEARN: 
SPORTS TEAM I FOLLOW: 


JOBS I HAD BEFORE MODELING: 


THE MOST BEAUTIFUL PLACE I HAVE SEEN: 


Softball picture Middle school, Стіл competition, 
lO Years old. 13 Years old. |5 Years old. 


WATCH MISS OCTOBER S VIDEO DATA SHEET AT PLAYBOY COM,PLAYMATES. 


REE | man s 
ham 
* 


=- 


PLAYBOY’S PARTY JOKES 


An American university funded a study to 
see why the head of a man's penis is N 
than the shaft. After a year it concluded 
that the head is larger to give the man more 
pleasure during sex. 

After that study was published, a French 
school decided to do its own study. After 
three years of research the French con- 
cluded that the reason the head is larger 
than the shaft is to give the woman more 
pleasure during sex, 

Canadians, unsatisfied with these find- 
ings, conducted their own study. After two 
weeks they concluded that it is to keep a 
man's hand from flying off and hitting him 
in the forehead. 


What's a birth control pill? 
The other thing a coed can put in her 
mouth to keep from getting pregnant. 


A coed walked into her boyfriend's dorm 
and caught him in bed with a midget, "How 
could you?” she asked. “You promised you 
were not going to cheat on me anymore.” 

“Take it easy," he replied. "Can't you see I'm 
trying to cut down?" 


Overheard at a frat party: 

BOYFRIEND: Baby, since I first saw you our 
freshman year, all l've wanted to do is make 
love to you really badly. 

GIRLFRIEND: Well, last night vou succeeded. 


A frat boy walked into a bar and said 
to the bartender, "A glass of your finest 
Less, please." 

"Less?" the bartender said. "Never heard 
of it. What is it, some kind of foreign beer?” 

"Im not sure,” the student replied. "My 
doctor told me about it. He said 1 should 
drink Less." 


After repeatedly warding off her date's 
advances during the evening, a pretty coed 
decided to put her foot down. “See here,” 
she shouted, “this is positively the last ime 
I'm going to tell you no.” 

“Good,” her date said. “Now we can start 
having some fun.” 


lis a known fact that College Republicans 
have less sex than College Democrats, After 
all, who's ever heard of having a great piece 
of elephant? 


Why are you late?” a professor asked a tardy 
female student. 

“1 didn't have a ride so 1 had to walk to 
campus,” she replied. 

"Well, that's too bad," said the teacher, 
"Now I'd like you to join our discussion. Can 
you tell us where the Canadian border is?" 

"In bed with my boyfriend," she answered. 
"That's why I didn't have a ride." 


A college student who moved back in with 
his parents for the summer nervously walked 
into the kitchen. "Mom," he said, “I lost a 
bottle of pills that said ecstasy on the cap. 
Have you seen anything like that?" 

"Fuck the pills," she answered. “Have you 
seen the dragon on the ceiling?" 


А teacher at an all-girls college returned a test 
on male anatomy on which his students had 
done poorly. “I don't understand why you girls 
can't understand the male sex organ," he said, 
"You've had it pounded into you all semester." 


“< 


During college orientation the chancellor 
addressed the incoming class. “The girls' 
dormitory will be off-limits to male stu- 
dents,” he said. “Anybody caught breaking 
this rule will be fined $50 for his first infrac- 
tion, $100 the second time it happens and 
$250 if he is caught again.” 

A male student stood up and shouted, 
“How much for a season pass?” 


А trat house decided to throw a sleepover 
party. The girls showed up in transparent neg- 
ligees and the boys all came in their pajamas. 


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


submissions are selected. 


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By David Black 


Say that? Say what? | hadn't been paying attention. Or rather, I'd been pay- 
ing attention only to the routine | had rehearsed: a pitch for a feature film. 

Barber, a producer at Lawrence Bender Productions, was the third pitch of the 
day. | had two more to go before dinner. It was my third day in Los Angeles pitching 
this project. | was on autopilot. And the pitch had nothing to do with communes. 

What had | said to interrupt the pitch with Barber's surprised reaction-a 
reaction that surprised me even more? 

Elegant, sophisticated, cosmopolitan, like the lead in an early-1960s Stanley 
Donen movie, Barber, | would have guessed, might have been born in Paris, 
London, perhaps Vienna. But on a commune? 

“In northern California," she said. 

Her commune name was Cloud. And she was one of the first children born 
in the community. In a wickiup. 

“Теп to 12 kids, maybe more, were born at the ranch,” Barber's father, Ben, 
later explained. "No doctor. No real midwife. No good roads to the hospital, 
which was miles away. Lucky we had no problems." 


Е you should say that” Karen Barber said. “Iwas born on а commune” 


Although associated with the 19605, communal living truly developed in the 
19705. There were big communes like California's Ananda, where a hundred or so 
adults and children tried to reinvent society through Transcendental Meditation; 
small communes like Chestnut Hill, Massachusetts, where a dozen intellectuals 
were writing books based on their experiences in finding Eden by truck farming 
on acid; and urban communes like a feminist household in Washington, D.C. that 
was run by a male poet. All of them had kids who played and scrapped and com- 
peted as kids do anywhere; at Ananda little kids argued after a school rest period 
about who saw the biggest light of enlightenment. Even today some estimate 
there are more than 12,000 communal groups in North America, substantially 
more than Newsweek's 1969 estimate of 500 American communes. 

Now these kids are adults, working and striving in the mainstream world and, 
| suppose, on the farm as well. How many turned out like Karen Barber? | was 
about to ask for her help in finding the answer. 

Off and on for five years in the mid-to-late 1960s I'd lived on communes-the 
largest at Wendell Depot, Massachusetts. My then wife and | had considered hav- 
ing and raising our kids communally. The reasons for doing so seemed compelling 


RLUSTRATION BY TOMER HANUKA 


93 


at the time, or so we convinced ourselves 
in the long autumn evenines as we sat in a 
circle after a typical dinner of soy burgers (our 
commune was vegetarian Maoist), passing 
an ice cream churn from person to person. 
Psychologically it made sense: Kids who 
were raised on communes, we argued, 
wouldn't have the typical Oedipal issues since 
parenting would be diffused among many 
adults. Practically and economically it made 
sense: We would have built-in child care and 
shared expenses. Politically and sociologically 
it offered a elimpse of a renewed human- 
ity: Our intent-that of the 19605 project in 
general-was to smugele our way back into a 
Golden Age of Innocence. Whether reinvent- 
ing humanity was an inside job (remaking 
consciousness using drugs and yoga) or an 
outside job (using revolution), we were sure 
we would succeed and do so within one gen- 


| had a problem 


with skinny-dipping. 
My erections were 

exclamation points 
marking my failure. 


eration. We may have been the Generation of 
the Desert, but our children would inherit the 
future we were building. 

That future would be free of conflict and 
petty jealousies. That future would be egali- 
tarian, perfectly so. Everyone would have 
his or her heart's desire, That future would 
renegotiate the social contract. Power 
would no longer come from economic influ- 
ence; money would no longer be a fist. That 
future would ensure everyone an expanded 
consciousness. An expanded conscious- 
ness was, we had no doubt, a better one. 
Consciousness is like a car; we convince our- 
selves we have the best available. 

So after dinner, farting communally from 
a diet of soy burgers, soy loaf and soy milk, 
we'd pass the ice cream maker around the 
circle, each of us holding the bucket between 
his or her legs, steadying it with one hand as 
the other hand laboriously churned the handle 
in a masturbatory arc, as we listed what we 
needed to do to conjure this new Golden Age, 

First on the list was free love. We were all in 
favor of it, a free love that would fill our farm- 
house with free children. A very expensive- 
though we didn't know it then-free love. 

After these evenings of churning ice cream 
between our legs and reassuring one another 
that free love was the foundation of our new 
life came the languid summer afternoons 
when, sweaty and tired from weeding our 
garden, we'd head down to the creek across 


the road from our farmhouse to skinny-dip. 

I had a problem with skinny-dipping. My 
consciousness was still unexpanded enough 
to find swimming naked with the women on 
the commune arousing. My erections were 
exclamation points marking my failure to live 
in our free, egalitarian future, the free-love 
future that so far remained in the future. 

I was already seen as a partial apostate. 
Every night after dinner and before the ice 
cream churning we would play a game of non- 
competitive volleyball. The object was not to 
beat the other team but to collaborate with it 
to keep the ball in the air as long as you could. 

Some fun. 

Unconvinced-or puzzled—by the connec- 
tion between Maoism and vegetarianism, | 
used to sneak away after lunch and, in my 
robin's-egg-blue Volkswagen Beetle, chug 
to the nearest diner, where | scarfed down 
hamburgers made not of soy 
but meat and played pinball. 1 
was always busted during the 
postprandial volleyball game: 
| couldn't keep from acing the 
ball over the net. Very competi- 
tive. "You've been eating meat!" 
my utopian brothers and sisters 
accused me. Yes, | ate meat. | 
had erections during skinny- 
dipping. | was demonstrably 
counterrevolutionary! 

Then one afternoon one 
of the women in the com- 
mune-the wife of the oldest 
member of our group, the guy 
most vociferously in favor of 
free love-lagged behind with me at the 
stream. We were both naked, like Adam 
and Eve. Heeding the serpent, | made a 
pass. The pass was rejected. That rejected 
pass caused an explosion of recrimination 
that night in our circle. How could | have 
done that? I'd made the mistake of taking 
our utopian talk seriously. So much for free 
love. So much for babies who would be the 
children of the whole commune. So much 
for the generation of hope. 

left the commune. 


During my movie-pitch session, when Karen 
Barber told me she had been born on acom- 
mune, this whole past, the road not taken, 
swept over me. What if...? | wondered. 

With Barber's blessing, | call her father, 
Ben, who still has connections to the com- 
mune where she was born. He is ame- 
nable to helping me get in touch with her 
communal siblings and fills me in on the 
genesis of the Ranch. When G. Gordon 
Liddy-the local district attorney before he 
became a Watergate burglar-drove Timo- 
thy Leary out of a high-profile commune 
on the Millbrook estate in New York, many 
of the people who had been living there, 
including Ben and his friend Walter Schnei- 
der, relocated to another property near 
Mendocino, California: the Ranch. The 
commune where Karen was born, 

"| built a 10-by-14 house out of salvaged 


lumber and heavy-duty plastic” Ben says. 
"I learned how to use an acetylene torch to 
cut open a milk can for a stovepipe.” 

Paradise. But Paradise Found inevitably 
leads to Paradise Lost. "Tension filled the 
place,” Ben says. "During our weekly meet- 
ing with chants and drums, we'd go around 
a circle and start quarreling and blaming. 
For example, everyone complained about 
the flies above the communal shower. So | 
bought a can of Raid, sprayed them all and 
went back to my hooch. When people saw 
the dead flies, they said, ‘It’s a miracle!’ ‘No; 
one of the other communards, Richard, said, 
'Ben sprayed them. At the next meeting 
there was a crisis. 'Oh my God; people said. 
‘Ben brought chemicals into our pure life!” 

Ben Barber left. 

The commune grew to 20 to 25 adults and 
six or seven kids. "As soon as they could,” 
he says, "my kids quickly moved away from 
the hippie scene, like kids of immigrants." 
Today all but a handful of the adults have 
left, but many of the kids have at least 
stayed in the area, if not on the Ranch. The 
ones who moved away remain in touch with 
the others. Last summer Ben went back to 
a reunion at the Ranch. "Most of them still 
live in a world where corporations are bad 
and run the country” he says. "A real us- 
against-them mind-set. | don't share those 
views, but | love the people. | went through 
a lot with them. They're family” 


"The Ranch had 14 kids in three years” Wal- 
ter Schneider says. "For some reason we had 
mostly boys." Tall, raney and rugged, with a 
good face—cautious and humorous- Schneider 
picks me up in San Francisco in an old Mer- 
cedes, a surprising hippie car. He grew up in 
Teaneck, New Jersey and graduated from 
Annapolis in 1956, He spent 15 years in the 
Navy, including a stint at the Center for Naval 
Analyses in Washington, D.C. While in the ser- 
vice Schneider dropped acid for the first time. 

"For my last three years | was using regu- 
larly,” he says. “And I've been using ever since, 
for 42 years.” He began to question what he 
was learning as part of a Southeast Asia 
think tank at CNA. “Like,” he says, “we were 
told we had an overwhelming advantage in 
Vietnam. ‘What about losing?’ | asked. ‘Not 
going to happen; I was told.” By the summer 
of 1967 Schneider had drifted to Millbrook. 

"Leary had left West Point; he says. "He 
understood where | was coming from and 
helped me get to where I was going.” Because 
of his military flight experience, Schneider 
became Leary's pilot. "| used to fly him around 
the country іп a Cessna 337,” Schneider says, 
"checking in on communes like Drop City." 
In 1968 Schneider was one of the founding 
group that moved from Millbrook to Men- 
docino. Using savings from his time in the 
Navy, he, along with a partner, bought the 
Ranch's land, which is now owned in common 
by many of the former members. 

"We had a big house;" Schneider says, 
"eventually 14 buildings. A goat shed, chick- 
ens, a small (continued on page 132) 


95 


I 


“It beats the freeway...! 


Virga X: w 5 
хаж), Sy д 


FASHION BY 
JOSEPH DE ACETIS 


PHOTOGRAPHY BY 
NIGEL BARKER 


PRODUCED BY 
JENNIFER RYAN JONES 


WOMEN'S STYLING BY 
KATHY KALAFUT 


LEFT Gus's cardigan (5118) is by CANTER- 
BURY OF NEW ZEALAND. His shirt ($175) is 
by 7 FORALL MANKIND. His pants (5275) are 
by STITCH'S. His watch (595) is by ORIGINAL 
PENGUIN. His shoes ($40) are by SPERRY 
TOP-SIDER. RIGHT Her top (5350) is by 
RICHMOND X. Her shorts (554) and belt (554) 
are by SISLEY. Her shoes ($62) are by CON- 
VERSE (PRODUCT) RED. Her necklace (53,075) 
is by CATHERINE ANGIEL. Her bracelet (price 
available on request) is by BOSS ORANGE. 


THE NEW SCHOLAR 
GUS HORWITH, Stanford University 


“WHEN I WAS GROWING UP IN EAST HAMPTON, MY LOOK WAS INFLUENCED BY МҮ SURROUNDINGS. 
_ IT’S A FUSION OF EAST-COAST PREP SHAKEN UP WITH A BIT OF SURFER ATTITUDE.” 


LEFT Michael's jacket ($149) Is by INC 
INTERNATIONAL CONCEPTS. His sweatshirt 
($98), shirt ($198) and tle ($118) are by 


THE PROMOTER 
MICHAEL BLAINE, Ohio University V 


MANKIND. His shoes ($120) are by PF 
FLYERS. RIGHT Her skirt (5400) Is by RICH- 
MOND X. Her shoes (5345) are by HUGO. 


r . n rT ryr. ry 
СІР! N ` uri PLI! 


ri r Try ATTA 24 ` FAT AMMA Tira AAA 
7 | Т - DD vm | 


RIGHT Greg's jacket ($240), Sweater (5110) and | 

pants (675) aro by MODERN AMUSEMENT. His 
shirt (5200) Is by PORSCHE DESIGN. His shoes 
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THE VISIONARY 


and shorts (5225) are by BOSS ORANGE. Her GREG COLUSSY, University of Colorado at Boulder 
shoes (5345) are by HUGO. Her necklace (5549) 
and bracelet ($285) are by CORPUS CHRISTI. Her 


pocket chain (569) Is by REPLAY. 


” TWAS W "7 | N 
1 I VVPA2 VV LP 


FT Vaarun's sweater ($110) ts by PENFIELD, 
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CATHERINE ANGIEL. Her bracelet ($285) and 
pendant ($349) are ty CORPUS CHRISTI. 


THE ACTIVIST 
VAARUN VOHRA, Fashion Institute of Technology 


AUR NINE, ІРМЕРЕМ 


DUCK 


LEFT Kurt's jacket (51,200) 15 by C.P. 
COMPANY, His shirt ($78) Is by SWAC. His 
jeans ($163) are by 7 FOR ALL MANKIND. His 
belt (565) ls by LEATHER ISLAND BY BILL 
LAVIN. His boots (5415) are by MARK NASON, 
F Her jacket ($1,345), top ($575) and 
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(562) are by CONVERSE (PRODUCT) RED. 


THE INTERNATIONAL DJ 
KURT DANKERS, Bryant University 


J 
d 


... 
en” өзе... 


- 


“1 LOVE AMERICAN STYLES, BUT SOMETIMES THE BEST CLOTHING COMES FROM OUTSIDE THE 
COUNTRY. IF I CAN ROCK SOMETHING WITH A EUROPEAN EDGE, I'M A HAPPY MAN.” 


THE SHARPSHOOTERS 
JOSEPH MICHAEL CHAVANU, University of Nebraska-Lincoln FLOYD JOHNSON, Cincinnati State Technical and Community College 


LEFT joseph's shirt (598) Is by BROOKS. His 
paras (545) are by WEARFIRST. His sneakers 
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ICAN APPAREL. His pants (558) and shoes 
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ISLAND BY BILL LAVIN. BOTTOM Her dass 
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BOF OUR CAMPUS BRSHIO 


— Е 


101 


PLAYBOY’S 


of the NFUs marquee players have had 
to spend their off-season mulling over 
missed opportunities. For an inordinate 
number of them, last year was not about 
end-zone dances and counting money. It 
was about failure, about disappointing 
the fans. Sure, Peyton Manning won a 
ring at last, but in the end the season 
seemed to be about what was lost, not 
what was won. Which means 2007 will be 
all about redemption. And that, football 
fans, is exciting. A closer look.... 

Over his first two seasons, Ben 
Roethlisberger averaged 8.9 yards a 
pass, better than Montana, Marino 
or Elway in their first two. Then he 
discovered motorcycles and hit the 
skids. No amount of Listermint can rid 
him of the bitter taste of 2006. This 
year Roethlisberger no longer has the 


supporting cast he once had, and coach 
Bill Cowher is gone. Fans will look to 
their franchise QB to steer the team 
back into contention. Who is the real 
Big Ben? We're about to find out. 

Some 350 miles away, in New York, 
Eli Manning enters his fourth year. How 
accustomed we've become to watching 
the onetime number-one pick walk off the 
field with his eyes on his cleats, shoulders 
drooped. Now his most dependable 
weapon, Tiki Barber, has taken his act to 
the Today show, and the fans have run out 
of patience. This may be Eli's last chance. In 
our crystal ball, we see an unemployment 
line in which Manning the Younger will be 
standing next to his old pal, coach Tom 
Coughlin. Spare some change? 

And what about Brett Favre? The future 
Hall of Famer turns 38 this season as he 


TO REMEMBER 


tries for one last moment in the sun. Gan 
he prove that the 47 interceptions hë 
threw in the past two years were the 
exception and not the rule? (Yes.) Will it 
be enough to get the Packers into the 
playoffs? (No.) Will Jake Delhomme 
rebound from his worst year as the 
Panthers' QB? (Yes.) What about last 
year's winner of the out-of-nowhere 
award, Tony Romo? Greatstart. Thrilling. 
Then he botched the hold on a probable 
playoff-game-winning field goal in 
Seattle. We'll bet that still smarts. Okay, 
Romo, show us what you got. Donovan 
McNabb? Randy Moss? Terrell Owens? 
They've all got question marks painted 
on their helmets. 

Finally, there's Reggie Bush. In the 
euphoria over the Saints' best season 
ever, fans overlooked that Bush wasn't 
the second coming of Jim Brown in his 
rookie year (just 565 yards rushing, with 
a3.6-yard average). New Orleans is ready 
for the Bush administration. Is Reggie 
ready? This we can say: If Bush blossoms 
as a soph, we could see the Saints go 
marching into Arizona for Super Bowl 
XLII come February. -Allen Barra 


Á 


AMERICAN 
FOOTBALL CONFERENCE 


NEW ENGLAND 


ж SUPER BOWL ж 
NEW ENGLAND OVER NEW ORLEANS 


><> ro 


FOOTBALL 


We'll give you a hint. It's not total 
yards, total yards passing, total 
yards rushing or how many beers 
the quarterback downed the night 
before the game. The most impor- 
tant statistic for winning games 
in the NFL is yards per pass. Take 
the gross amount of yards gained 
in the air and divide by the num- 
ber of throws. The result is the 
best simple indicator of offensive 
effectiveness euer measured. Try 
this at the office every Monday 
morning during football season: 
Have someone open the sports 
pages to the NFL box scores and, 
without asking who won or even 
the names of the teams, have him 
give you Just two totals for each 
team—the number of yards gained 
passing and the number of throws. 
The team that averaged the most 
yards per throw will be the win- 
ner more than 80 percent of the 
time. That's how it has been for 
the past half century in pro foot- 
ball, from Johnny Unitas to Peyton 
Manning. Good teams always finish 
in the top half of the league in 
yards per throw; bad teams finish 
in the bottom half. Let's simplify 
this euen more: In the most recent 
Super Bowl, the Indianapolis Colts, 
who aueraged 7.9 yards per throw 
during the regular season (first 
in the AFC), played the Chicago 
Bears, who aueraged 6.7 [eighth in 
the NFC). Forget the running game, 
defense and kicking game, and Just 
remember the two teams' yards 
per throw. The Colts, of course, 
won 29-17. History says the Bears 
neuer had a chance. —A.B. 


In 36 of 41 Super Bowls, the team 
with the higher yards per pass 


won the game, including lastyear's: 
Colts 6.5, Bears 5.9. 


WHO'S UP 


BALTIMORE: The Rovens 
won their only Super Bowl, p 2001, with 
defense ond a rushing attack. Thot great 
defense remains, ond the running game 
will dominate again with the arrival of 
Willis McGahee from Buffalo. The Achilles’ 
heel: Con Steve McNair stay healthy? 


CAROLINA © A healthy Steve 
Smith ond an emerging DeAngelo Wil- 
lioms out of the backfield give Jake Del- 
homme two surefire torgets. Count on 


him to rebound from his worst season 
os the Panthers’ 08. 


CINCINNATIS How for con an 
elite passer (Corson Palmer), runner (Rudi 
Johnson) ond two receivers (Chod John- 
son ond TJ. Houshmondzodeh) toke an 
NFL team? Hf you're the Bengols, it hinges 
on the leogue's 30th-ronked defense. 
Firstround draft pick Leon Hall ot comer 
bock should instantly make o difference. 


DALLAS" The Cowboys’ season 
rides on Tony Romo's shoulders. In his 
first five NFL starts in 2006, Romo 
threw 10 TD passes and two intercep- 
tions. In his last five starts, he threw six 
TDs and eight interceptions. Who shows 
up in 2007— good Tony or bod? We'll 
put our money on good Tony. 


DENVER When Mike Shonohon 
hos a running back who con compete for 
the NFL rushing title, the Broncos are a 
Super Bowl contender. He's got his man 
in Travis Henry, and QB Joke Plummer's 
no longer there to screw things up. Look 
for Joy Cutler to have a banner year in 
his first full season under center. 


DETROIT Mike Mortz crofted 
one of the NFL’s top passing attacks in 
his first season as offensive coordinator 
for the Lions. To that, Detroit adds col- 
lege bal s finest receiver, Calvin Johnson 
from Georgia Tech. With underrated 
QB Jon Kitna at the helm, the Lions 
should have a 400-point offense for the 
first time since the Barry Sanders ero. 


GREEN BAY | The Packers won 
ther final four games in 2006 to finish 8-8 
with the NFL's youngest starting lineup. That 
experience will pay off this year Brett оме 
will end his corser in style. 
JACKSONVILLE 
Coach Jock Del Rio, dis- 
pleased with a .500 record 
lost season, hired six new 
assistant coaches. That's a 


EEE nn te te te 


lot of broinpower. With a healthy Byron 
Leftwich, the passing game will be firing 
on all cylinders. A speedy linebacking 
corps anchors the defense. 


NEW ENGLAND Asking 
Tom Brody to win a Super Bowl with receiv 
ers named Reche Caldwel, Troy Brown and 
(hod Jackson wos like asking Jeff 
Gordon to win the Daytona 500 in 
a Volkswagen. So the Pats added 
size (Rondy Moss), speed (Donte 
Stallworth) and playmaking obáty 
(Wes Welker). On defense, АЕР 
linebocker Adabus Thomas os 8 
from the Ravens. 


NEW ORLEANS 

The Saints were the feebgood 
story of 2006 with their triumphont retum 
to New Orleans in the wake of Hurricane 
Katrina. The NFL's best offense is bock 
with playmokers Drew Brees, Reggie Bush 
(pictured bottom), Deuce McAllister ond 
Marques Colston, plus firstround pick Rob- 
ert Meochem, another wideout weapon. 


NEW YORK JETS Mony 
pundits had the Jets at the bottom of 
the AFC East in 2006, but New York 
proved them wrong by gaining a wild- 
card spot. Running back Thomas Jones 
from the Bears was the key off-season 
acquisition. His bruising style will toke 
pressure off Chad Pennington's orm. 


PHILADELPHIA 1:5 
have the best QB (Donovan McNabb) 
and coach (Andy Reid) in the NFC East. 
The team added underrated receiver 
Kevin Curtis from the Roms, olong with 
All-Pro linebacker Takeo Spikes from 
Buffalo. Toss on easy schedule into this 
mix ond you've got o heady cocktail come 
playoff time. 


ST LOUIS | Steven Jackson is 
the most complete running back in the 
NEC. So the Roms con run the football. 
But their problem has been stopping 
the run, which is where firstround draft 
pick Adam Cartiker fits in. He's о 300- 
pound roadblock at defensive tackle. 


— 


SAN DIEGO New cooch Norv 
Turner brings offensive wizordry to the 
table. The Chargers were the NFL's top 
regular-season team in 2006, os Philip 
Rivers engineered 14 wins in his first 
year os starting QB. Joe Montana, Dan 
Marino and Ben Roethlisberger all took 
teams to Super Bowls in their second 
season as starters. 


SAN FRANCISCO Nowy 
Turner left the 49ers о going: oN 
present after his one-year stint as 
offensive coordinator: accelerating the 
development of QB Alex Smith and half 
back Frank Gore. The Niners also have 
serious rookie talent, nomely linebacker 
Patrick Willis. This will finally be SF's 
turnaround yeor. 


SEATTLE | Lost yeor Seattle 
won the NFC West despite injuries to 
QB Matt Hosselbeck and RB Shoun 
Alexander, Both are healthy again, 
and so are Seattle's Super Bowl aspi- 
rations. —hidk Gosseln 


So who's the man, Brady or Manning? Peyton (left) finally won a Super Bowl 
ring last season, but to be the man, you need at least two. 


WHO'S DOWN 


ARIZONA We picked the 
Cardinals to make the playoffs as a 
Cinderella team the past two years. 
What the hell were we thinking? With 
a rookie head coach (Ken Whisenhunt), 
Arizona's fourth coach since 2000, the 
Cords ore entering what will be their 
ninth season without a playotf berth. 


ATLANTA = Now head coach 
Bobby Petrino becomes the latest to 
attempt the leap from college to the pros. 
But he enters o maelstrom created by quor- 
terbock Michoel Vick’s off feld issues, which 
will make his first yeor a forgettable one. 


BUFFALO No team was hit 
horder during the off-season than the 
Bils, who said good-bye to their leading 
rusher (Wilks McGahee), leading tockler 
(London Fletcher) and veteran Pro Bowl 
defenders Takeo Spikes and Mate Cle- 
ments. And this from a 7-9 squad. 


CHICAGO We don't see Rex 
Grossmon (pictured top) as the mon 
who con lead this team to the top fora 
second straight season. The Beors will 
win their weak division — barely. 


CLEVELAND Ihe Browns 
need rookie quarterback Brody Quinn on 
the field this fall. But even Otto Graham 
would struggle behind this offensive line. 
Firstsound pick Joe Thomas, on offensive 
tackle, should be able to plug a kok, but à 


Tom Brady (right) has three Super Bowl rines. 
shaw and Joe Montana have four. 


Only Terry Bra 


"L 


«- ж 
З 


ROSSMAN — ^ 1o 


won't be enough to save this sinking ship. 

HOUSTON Тһе offense may 
improve with new 08 Matt Schaub, 
who'd backed up Michael Vick in Atlanta 
since 2004. But it won't matter in 0 
division that houses Super Bowl champ 
Indianapolis and two playoff contenders, 

Jocksonvile ond Tennessee, 


INDIANAPOLIS 
Seven players who started a 
combined 84 games in 2006 are 
gone from the Super Bow! champ 
roster, induding Pro Bow linebacker 
Coto June and both starting comer 
backs. Don't get us wrong: Mar 
ning ond friends will still contend 


for the AFC title. 


KANSAS CITY Тһе Chiefs 
have fielded one of the oldest starting 
lineups in the NFL this decade and have 
zero playoff victories to show for it. So 
coach Herman Edwards is embarking 


on 0 youth movement. Look out for 
those Chiefs in 2010. 


MIAMI The Dolphins 
have a new coach (Com Com 
eron) and a new quarter ) 
back (Trent Green). Soid 08 
is 37 years old, ond many 
starting defenders are also 
over the hill. We don't feel 


the magic in Miomi. 
MINNESOTA Тһе Vikings 
added supertalented running bock Adrian 


Peterson (the team's top draft pick), 
but with o new ond inexperienced 

quarterback in Tarvoris Jackson, he 

won't be enough. This squad will 

need (another) rebuilding year. 


NEW YORK GIANTS 
Coach Tom Coughlin's job security is 


NN 


in the shaky hands of quarterback Eli 
Manning. With Tiki Barber gone, the 
Gionts may be without hope. 


OAKLAND he youngest heod 
coach in the NFL (Lane Kiffin, 32) plus the 
youngest franchise quarterback (JaMarcus 
Russell, 22) equals o steep leaming curve. 


PITTSBURGH For the first 
time in 15 seasons Bill Cowher won't be 
pacing the Pittsburgh sideline. Cowher 
won eight division titles and a Super 
Bowl os head Steeler. His handsome 


mug will surely be missed. 


TAMPA BAY Coach Jon Grv- 
den is on the hot seat, Hired for his offen- 
sive expertise, he hos fielded punchless 
offenses for three seasons. He's looking 
for a spark from a 37-yearold quarterback 
(Jeff Garcia). Good luck. 


TENNESSEE Ihe Titans 
were playoff contenders in 2006 with 
NFL Rookie of the Yeor Vince Young 
under center, But his top rusher (Travis 
Henry) and two top receivers (Drew 
Bennett and Bobby Wade) ore gone. 
Tennessee olso lost its best defender, 
comerback Pacman Jones, who wos 
suspended for the season following 
troubles with Johnny Low. 


WASHINGTON А 21-27 
record for Joe Gibbs's second stint 05 
cooch of the Redskins moy couse the 
Pro Football Hall of Fame to reconsider 
his bust in Canton. —R.6. 


BEST INTE 
CAMES, CO TO PLAYBOY 
‚COM/MAGAZINE. 


GRUDGE 
MATCHES 


1 PATRIOTS VS. COLTS 


NOVEMBER 4 in Indianapolis: The day the 
Pats take on the Colts should be a nation- 
al holiday. The NFL's Yankees—Red Sox/ 
Celtics-Lakers/Frazier-Ali equivalent 
16 simply 
riveting. In 
the past six 
| years these 
two jug- 
gernauts 
have won 
four Super 
Bowls. 


| TEVARICUC CAI CRAIC 
я TEXANS VS. FALCON É 


SEPTEMBER 38 in Atlanta: Quarterback 
Matt Schaub returns and goes head-to- 
head with his old team. (He backed up 
Michael Uick for three years.) Despite 
the fact that Schaub would have been 
a better fit for Bobby Petrino's new 
offense, the Falcons traded him away 
simply because Uick makes so much 
money. Schaub will show the Falcons 
what they're missing. Or not. 


(з) 


NOVEMBER 4 in Philly: The Cowboys vs. 
Eagles rivairy has gotten ugly. When 
Terrell Owens and Wade Phillips travel to 
Lincoln Financial Field, the medical 
staff will 
get a work- 
out. The 
Eagles won 
the past 
two meet- 
ings by a 
combined 
61-31. 


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CHARGERS VS. PATRIOTS 


7 
l 
SEPTEMBER 16 in New England: When San f 
Diego arrives for this must-see Sun- | 
‘day-night game in week two, the club | 
‚will be seething for vengeance. Who : 
Could forget last year's divisional - 
layoff game in January, when some of : 
е Pats stomped all over the Char- | 
gers lightning-rod logo in front of San I 
Diego's home crowd? Certainly not any- | 
i 

I 


і 
і 
$ 
| 
| 
i 
i 
I 
7 
1 
1 
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one wearing a Chargers uniform. 1 
1 
1 


ЕЗ BENGALS VS. GOODELL 


As of press time 18 
Bengals have been 
arrested in 14 months. 
Commish Goodell isn't 
having any shenani- 
gans. Pictured: Chris 
Henry, suspended for 
eight games. 


“That should go on one of those football blooper shows.” 


106 


B nu p MIU UI 


AND...ACTION 


"Buys shouldn't be afraid to tell their girl- 
friends or wives about their fantasies. Men 
are worried a woman will think, Oh my God, 
that's diseustine! It's okay to tell your wom- 
an, "I want to watch porn and come on your 
face." You'll probably be surprised by her 
reaction. She'll most likely prefer to try 
something kinky rather than have you stray 

and cheat. Recently | acted out one of my 
man's fantasies. He handed me a script 
‘and told me to read it and meet him at а 
bar later that nieht. The script detailed 
What he wanted me to wear and my 
character's name. | walked into the pool 
hall, sat down and had a drink by myself. 
Then | pretended to recognize him-as a 
porn star, of course! We started talking 
and playing pool and continued the act. 
hen he kissed me over the pool table, 
and it felt as if I'd never b 


Characters’ names, and 
done we finally broke ou 


e UNIVERSES 
2 FLOR 


ЛІ ANDERE 
wv NINE 4 


Taylor 
Lynn, B 
ritt 
anie Knight and Al 
ly Lin 
g—GEO 
RGIA 


These hot young coeds are all class 
— 1 


he SEC is the hottest conference in America by a long shot. In 

m the past year alone its teams have won national championships 

in football (University of Florida), men's basketball (ditto), women's 

gymnastics (University of Georgia), women's basketball (University 

of Tennessee), both men's and women's swimming and diving (Auburn Uni- 

versity), men's tennis (University of Georgia) and, perhaps most coveted of 

all, women's bowling (Vanderbilt University). We decided the time was 

right to send our crew of photographers to the schools of the Southeastern 

Conference to scope out some talent of a different variety. Consider this 
our term paper on the subject. You'd better belleve we did our homework. 


` 


А | 
] 
7 
F 
/ | 
"-— р 


» "n ` 
y . * 
EM UU fi 
FEN x ; я 
Бае rn (ik. Р” 
* x 


Left: The proof is in the panties. These three beauties are SEC all- 
stars. Taylor counts lawn-mower racing as a favorite hobby; maybe 
someday she'll turn pro. Brittanie is studying to become a forensic 
psychiatrist, and Ally a homicide detective. Above: Julieanne goes to 
the University of ansas, but she's no razorback. 109 


PHOTOGRAPHY BY GEORGE GEORGIOU, MIZUNO 
AND DAVID RAMS 


ў 
— 


; (UI MA 22 


Angela James - MISSISSIPPI STATE 


Clockwise from above: Angela is a member of the American Institute of Aeronautics 
and Astronautics. That's fitting; she has quite the heavenly body. Lauren is а jour- 
nalism major, and Missy is studying studio art. We'll bet that together they could 
publish a pretty steamy magazine. Lauren Lee has never left the South or even been 
to a big city other than Atlanta. If you think you're the guy who can take her places, 
make sure you get in good with her main squeeze—her Pomeranian puppy, Gizmo. 
Jayme is a premed student who wants to be a plastic surgeon. It certainly doesn't 
look as if she'll have to practice on herself. Watch for her at every Gamecocks 
football game, proudly wearing her cocks shirt. Erin is a party girl—dance party, frat 
party, hunting party. Her weapon of choice is a compound bow. Paul "Bear" Bryant's 
houndstooth hat has been a fine symbol of the University of Alabama, but maybe 
it's time to replace it with Cameron's argyle socks. Sorry, Bear. She's cuter. 


Cameron Irons—ALABAMA 


—* TR: | 
Natasha Combs—FLORIDA Terri Lynn Farrow—LSU 


Ally Ramirez—VANDERBILT 


MISSISSIPPI 


Clockwise from top left: Natasha likes go-go dancing. 
And by the way, shut up! Her biggest pet peeve is 
being interrupted when she's talking. Golden-tressed 
Terri Lynn says she loves poker, good food and foot- 
ball, Atta girl. We're in love. Don't mess around with 
Maria. She's on the University of Mississippi rifle team. 
She is also the proud owner of two 30DDs. Arkasha 
can handle herself on either side of the camera. Not 
only is she a knockout, she's a budding photographer 
who aims to be the next Richard Avedon. Group shot, 
back row from left: Anita wants to get modeling work 
after she graduates. How's this for a start? Jessica 
plans on becoming a surgeon someday; if posing for 
PLAYBOY doesn't get her into a top med school, what 
good will studying do? Allison is a beautiful Jersey girl 
who loves animals, particularly rabbits. Front row from 
left: Magnificent Monique digs her boyfriend, large 
families and big dogs. Among her major dislikes: 
"Sticking my hand into a potato-chip or popcorn bag 
unless the sides are folded down into the bag." Got 
it—we'll make a note of that. Cameron’s idea of a good 
time: “I love Friday nights on University Avenue in 
Gainesville, starting out at Grog for quarter pitchers 
and ending at Club XS for 1980s night, where | can 
dance cheesy." Left: Ally brings up the rear. The San 
Diego-born vixen is a workout queen, and it shows. 


GT YANDERBIEE UNIVERSA. 
x WS FLORI? 


J1 


Anita Mae Rose, Jessica Macbeth, Allison Creamer, 
Monique Omura and Cameron Lynch—FLORIDA 


Andi Dandridge 
MISSISSIPPI STATE 


Clockwise from bottom left: Want to take Andi out? You'll have to do better than the school 
cafeteria. She doesn't like any food that isn't steak (but if you're nice, she'll settle for a ham- 
burger). Lauren may be only five-foot-two, but she claims to be the world's biggest St. Louis 
Cardinals fan. Brooke decided to come to our casting after some urging from her roommate. 
Gamecock students shouldn't be shocked that we selected her: She has won two wet T-shirt 
contests at local bars. So, boys, here's what lies beneath the wet tee. Here are two Wildcats in 
their natural habitat: Kylie aspires to be a veterinarian, and Lauren claims her first love is animals. 
Go get om, tigers. Debbie proudly wears Alabama's crimson and white just off the shoulder. . or 
would you consider her top salmon? Tera aims to be a sports journalist; we see sideline reporting 
in her future. Though quite comfortable in the buff, Melani spends her free time sketching her 
own line of clothes. She's not quite prepared for graduation next spring, as she admits she is 
still learning how to sew. In the meantime, she says, she's looking for a sugar daddy. 


R r 


Kylie Mae and Lauren Jane 
KENTUCKY 


"il | ! 


Шат 
E 


-— Al 


Melani Chase—GEORGIA Tera Elizabeth —TENNESSEE 


This page, clockwise from top left: Chanel 
was born in Germany but now calls Alabama 
home. Her life's ambition: “To become a 
Playmate!” Sun-kissed Neenah means busi- 
ness; she's finishing up her MBA. We like her 
getup—nothing but net. Mackenzie is a wild 
blossom. She loves the outdoors, so we photo- 
graphed her getting some grass stains. Talk 
about an all-American beauty. Opposite 
page, clockwise from top left: Wow. Stepha- 
nie is a gifted young woman. They're real, 
and they're spectacular. Thank you for shar- 
ing. Whitney is a Louisiana lovely who likes 
honest guys who can make her laugh. Jor- 
dan and Danielle make quite a couple. Both 
Georgia peaches have a bit of a shopping 
addiction. Danielle likes "all things sexy— 
lingerie, fake eyelashes, high heels, makeup, 
etc." Beauties Britni and Brittney are both 
from Birmingham. Together they make for 
some serious confusion. Britni is part Choc- 
taw Indian, and she waitresses at a Hooters. 
Brittney is a movie buff. And...action! 


Tn 


Britni Leigh and 
Brittney Brookwood — AUBURN 


. 


A . 
See more girls of the SE Cl com. 
ordan Schell and Danielle 


Malone —GEORGIA Whitney Leigh —LSU 


PLAYBOY 


118 


LIZARD MAN Continued from page 76) 


The fingers moved, but without purpose, the 
hand spasming from fist to open palm. 


the car. Lynn opened the hatchback. 
We laid Jack in the back and covered 
him with a blanket. It seemed like the 
right thing, what you see on TV. 

A few neighbors had come outside to 
watch. We ignored them. 

"TII need you with me,” I said to the 
boy. "When we're done, I'll take you 
home." The boy was wringing the hem 
of his shirt in both hands. His eyes 
brimmed with tears. "I won't hurt you, 
if that's what you think." 

We set off for the hospital, Lynn fol- 
lowing in my pickup. The boy sat beside 
me in the passenger seat, his body 
pressed to the door, face against the 
window, the seat-belt strap clenched in 
one hand at his waist. With each bump 
in the road, he turned to look at Jack. 

"What's your name?” I asked. 

"Alan," he said. 

"How old are you, Alan?" 

"Seventeen." 

"Seventeen. Seventeen. And have 
you ever been with a woman, Alan?" 

Alan looked at me. His face drained 
of color. His hand tightened on the 
seat belt. 

“It's a simple question, Alan. I'm asking 
you: Have you been with a woman?” 

“No,” Alan said. "No, sir.” 

“Then how do you know you're gay?” 

In back, Jack began to stir. He moaned, 
then grew silent. Alan watched him. 

"Look at me, Alan," I said. "I asked 
you a question. If you've never been 
with a woman, then how do you know 
you're gay?" 

"I don't know,” Alan said. 

"You mean you don't know that you're 
gay, or you don't know how you know?" 

"I don't know how I know," Alan 
said. ^I just do." 

We passed the bakery, the Laundro- 
mat, the supermarket and entered the 
city limits. In the distance, the silhou- 
ette of the helicopter on the hospital's 
roof. Behind us, the steady pursuit of 
the pickup truck. 

"And your parents, do they know 
about this?" I asked. 

"Yes," Alan said. 

"And do they approve?" 

"Not really." 

"No. I bet they don't, Alan. I'll bet 
they do not." 

I glanced in the rearview mirror. 
Jack had not opened his eyes, but he 
had a hand to his temple. The other 
hand, the one attached to the broken 
arm, lay at his side. The fingers moved, 
but without purpose, the hand spas- 


ming from fist to open palm. 

“I just have one more question for 
you, Alan," I said. 

Alan looked like he might be sick. He 
watched the road unfurl before us. He 
was afraid of me, afraid to look at Jack. 

"What right do you have teaching my 
son to be gay?" 

“I didn't!" Alan said. "I'm not!" 

"You're not? Then what do you call 
that? Back there? That business on 
the couch?" 

"Mr. Lawson," Alan said, and here 
the tone of his voice changed and I felt 
as though I were speaking to another 
man. "With all due respect, sir, Jack 
came on to me." 

"Jack is not gay." 

“He is. I know it. Jack knows it. Your 
wife knows it. I don't know how you 
couldn't know it. I don't see how you've 
missed the signals." 

I tried to imagine what signals, but I 
couldn't. I couldn't recall a thing that 
would have signaled that Га wind up 
here, delivering my son to the hospital 
with a concussion and a broken arm. 
What signal might have foretold that, 
following this day, after two months 
spent in a motel and two months in 
prison, my wife of 20 years would 
divorce me because, as she put it, I was 
full of hate? 

I pulled up to the emergency room's 
entryway, and Alan helped me pull 
Jack from the car. A nurse with a 
wheelchair ran out to meet us. We 
settled Jack into the chair, and she 
wheeled him away. 

I pulled the car into a parking spot 
and walked back to the entrance. Alan 
stood on the curb where I had left him. 

"Where's Lynn?" I said. 

"Inside," Alan said. Jack's awake." 

"All right, I'm going in. I suggest you 
get out of here." 

"But you said you'd drive me home." 

"Sorry," I said. "I changed my mind." 

Alan stared at me, dumbfounded. 
His hands groped the air. 

"Hey," I said, "I got a signal for you." 
I gave him a hitchhiker's thumbs-up 
and cast it over my shoulder as I 
entered the hospital. 


I wake and Cam's making his way 
down back roads, their surfaces cra- 
tered with potholes. 

"Rise and shine," he says, "and wel- 
come to Lee." 

It's nearly noon. The sun is bright, 


and the cab is hot. I wipe gunk from 
my eyes and drool from the corner of 
my mouth. Cam watches the road 
with one eye and studies directions 
he's scrawled in black ink across the 
back of a cereal box. He's never seen 
the house where his father spent his 
last 20 years. 

We turn onto a dirt road. The truck 
lurches into and then out of an enor- 
mous waterlogged hole. Pines line the 
road. Their needles shiver as we go 
by. We pass turn after turn, but only 
half of the roads are marked. Every 
few miles we pass a driveway, the 
house deep in the trees and out of 
sight. It's a haunted place, and I'm 
already ready to leave. 

Cam says, "I don't know where the 
fuck we are." 

We drive some more. I think about 
Bobby home alone, how Cam gave him 
six VHS tapes. "By the time you watch 
all of these," he said, "I'll be back." 
Then he put in the first movie, some- 
thing Disney, and we left. "He'll be 
fine," Cam said. "He'll never even 
know we're gone." 

"We could bring him with us," I said, 
but Cam refused. 

"There's no telling what we'll find 
there," he said. 

Ahead, a child stands beside the 
road. Cam slows the truck to a halt 
and rolls down the window. The girl 
steps forward. She looks over her 
shoulder, then back at us. She is bare- 
foot, and her face is smeared with dirt. 
She wears a brown dress and a green 
bow in her hair. A string is looped 
around her wrist, and from the end of 
the string floats a blue balloon. 

“Hi, there," Cam says. He leans out 
the window, his hand extended, but the 
child does not take it. Instead, she 
stares at his arms, the coiled dragons. 
She takes a step back. 

"You're scaring her," I say. 

Cam glares at me, but he returns his 
head to the cab and his hand to the 
wheel and gives the girl his warmest 
smile. "Do you know where we could 
find Cherry Road?” he says. 

“Sure,” the girl says. She pumps her 
arm and the balloon bobs in response. 
It's that way,” she says, pointing in the 
direction from which we've come. 

"About how far?" Cam asks. 

"Not the next road but the next. But 
it's a dead end. There's only one 
house." She flails her wrist and the bal- 
loon thunks against her fist. 

Cam glances at the cereal box. "That's 
the one," he says. 

"Oh," the girl says, and for a moment 
she is silent, “You're going to visit the Liz- 
ard Man. I seen him. I seen him once." 

Cam looks at me. I shrug. We look at 
the girl. 

"Well, thank you," Cam says. The girl 


"Never mind about the new brain. What she wants is a boob job...“ 


PFLAYEOT 


gives the balloon a good shake. Cam 
turns the truck around, and the girl 
waves good-bye. 
"Cute kid," I say. We turn onto Cherry. 
"Creepy little fucker," Cam says. 


The house is hidden in pines, and the 
yard is overgrown with knee-high weeds. 
Tire tracks mark where the driveway 
used to be, Plastic flamingos dot the yard, 
their curved beaks peeking out of the 
weeds, wire legs rusted, bodies bleached 
a light pink. 

The roof of the house is littered with 
pine needles and piles of shingles where 
someone abandoned a roofing project. 
The porch has buckled, and the siding is 
rotten, the planks loose. I press a finger- 
nail to the soft wood and it slides in. 

Our mission is unclear. There's no 
body to ID or papers to sign. Nothing to 
inherit and there will be no funeral. But 
I know why we're here. Thisis how Cam 
will say good-bye. 

The front door is locked but gives with 
two kicks. "Right here," Cam says. He 
taps the wood a foot above the lock 
before slamming the heel of his boot 
through the door. 


Inside, the house waits for its owner's 
return. The hallway light is on. The AC 
unit shakes in the window over the 
kitchen sink. Tan wallpaper curls away 
from the cabinets like birch bark, 
exposing thin ribbons of yellow glue on 
the walls. 

We hear voices. Cam puts a hand to 
my chest and a finger to his lips. He 
brings a hand to his waist and feels for a 
gun that is not there, Neither of us moves 
for a full minute, then Cam laughs. 

"Fuck!" he says. "That's a TV." He 
hoots, He runs a hand through his hair. 
"About scared the shit out of me." 

We move to the main room. It too is 
in disarray, the lamp shades thick with 
dust, a coffee table awash in a sea of 
newspapers and unopened mail, There 
is an old and scary-looking couch, its 
arms held to its sides with duct tape. A 
pair of springs pokes through the cush- 
ion, ripe with tetanus. 

The exception is the television. It is 
beautiful. It is six feet of widescreen 
glory. "Look at that picture," I say, and 
Cam and I step back to take it in. The 
TV's tuned to the Military Channel, 
some cable extravagance. B-2 bombers 
streak the sky in black and white, pro- 


"ler WANTED Te MAKE CVE Te 


pellers the size of my head. On top of 
the set sits a bottle of Windex and a 
filthy washcloth, along with several 
many-buttoned remote controls. Cam 
grabs one, fondles it, holds down a but- 
ton, and the sound swells, The drone of 
plane engines and firefights tears across 
the room from one speaker to another. 
I jump. Cam grins. 

"We're taking it," he says. "We are so 
taking this shit." 

He pushes another button and the 
picture blips to a single point of white at 
the center of the screen. The point fades 
and dies. 

"No!" Cam says. "No!" 

"What did you do?” I say. 

"I don't know. I don't know!" 

Cam shakes the remote, picks up 
another, punches more buttons, picks 
up a third, presses its buttons. The tele- 
vision hums, and the picture shimmers 
back to life. 

"Ahhh," Cam says. We sit, careful to 
avoid the springs. While we watch, the 
beaches at Normandy are stormed, two 
bombs are dropped, and the war is won. 
We're halfway into Vietnam when Cam 
says, "I'm going to check out his room." 
It is not an invitation. 


TRE CIVING DEAD, T' So BNN 


PLAYBOY 


122 


Cam's gone for half an hour. When he 
returns, he looks terrible. The color is 
gone from his face, and his eyes are red- 
rimmed. He carries a shoe box under one 
arm. I don't ask, and he doesn't offer. 

"Let's load up the set and get out of here," 
Cam says. II pull the truck around.” 

I hear a glass door slide open then 
shut behind me. I hear something like a 
scream. Then the door slides open 
again, I turn around to see Cam. If he 
looked bad before, now he looks down- 
right awful. 

"What is it?" I say. 

"Big," Cam says. "In the backyard." 

"What? What's big in the backyard?" 

"Big. Fucking. Alligator." 


It is a big fucking alligator. I've seen alliga- 
tors before, in movies, at 2005, but never 
this big and never so close. We stare at 
him. We don't know it's a him, but we 
decide it's a him. He is big. It's insane. 
It's also the saddest fucking thing I 
have ever seen. In the backyard is a 
makeshift cage, an oval of chain-link 
fence with a chicken-wire roof. Inside, 
the alligator straddles an old kiddie pool. 
The pool's cracked plastic lip strains with 
the alligator's weight. His middle fills the 
pool, his belly submerged in a few inches 
of syrupy brown water, legs hanging out. 


B 


His tail, the span of a man, curls against 
a length of chain link. 

When he sees us, the alligator hisses 
and paddles his front feet in the air. He 
opens his jaws, baring yellow teeth and 
white fleshy gums. Everywhere there are 
flies and gnats. They fly into his open 
mouth and land on his teeth, Others 
swarm open wounds along his back. 

“What is he doing here?” Cam asks. 

“Red was the Lizard Man,” I say. 
“Apparently.” 

We stare at the alligator. He stares 
back. Í consider the cage and wonder 
whether the alligator can turn around. 

“He looks bored," Cam says. And it's 
true. He looks bored, and sick. He shuts 
his mouth, and his open eyes are the 
only thing reminding me he's alive, 

“We can't leave him here,” Cam says. 

“We should call someone,” 1 say. But 
who would we call? The authorities? Ani- 
mal control? 

“We can't," Cam says. “They'll kill him." 

Cam is right. I've seen it before, on the 
news, Some jackass raises a gator. The 
gator gets loose. It's been handfed and 
knows no fear of man. The segments 
always end the same way: Sadly, the alliga- 
tor had to be destroyed. 

“I don't see that we have a choice,” I say. 

“We have the pickup," Cam says. 

My mouth says no, but my eyes must 


"Nope. According to the instructions, you have it on the right way. 
Now come on, honey. We'll be late for the party." 


say yes, because before I know what's 
happening, we're in the front yard, exam- 
ining the bed of the truck, Cam measur- 
ing the length with his open arms. 

"This won't work," I say. Cam ignores 
me. He pulls a blue tarp from the back- 
seat and unrolls it on the ground beside 
the truck. 

“He'll never fit," I say. 

“He'll fit. It'll be close, but he'll fit." 

"Cam," I say. "Wait. Stop." Cam leans 
against the truck. He looks right at me. 
"Say we get the alligator out of the cage 
and into the truck. Say we manage to do 
this and keep all of our fingers. Where 
do we take him? I mean, what the hell, 
Cam? What the hell do you do with 12 
feet of living, breathing alligator? And 
what about the TV? I thought you 
wanted to take the TV." 

"Shit. I forgot about the TV." 

We stare at the truck. I look up. The 
sky has turned from bright to light blue, 
and the sun has disappeared behind a 
scatter of clouds. On the ground, one 
corner of the tarp flaps in the breeze, 
winking its gold eyelet. 

Cam bows his head as if in mourn- 
ing. "Maybe if we stand the set up on 
its end." 

"Cam," I say. "We can take the alliga- 
tor or we can take the television, but we 
can't take both." 


Electric-taping the snout, Cam decides, 
will be the hard part. 

"All of it’s the hard part," I say, but 
Cam's not listening. 

Cam finds a T-bone in Red's refrig- 
erator. It's spoiled, but the alligator 
doesn't seem to mind. Cam sets the 
steak near the cage and the alligator 
waddles out of the pool. He presses his 
nostrils to the fence. The thick musk of 
alligator and reek of rotten meat turn 
my stomach and I retch. 

"You puke, I kick your ass," Cam says. 

We've raided Red's garage for sup- 
plies. Lying scattered at our feet are 
bolt cutters, a roll of electric tape, a 
spool of twine, bungee cords, a dozen 
two-by-fours, my tarp and, for no rea- 
son I’m immediately able to ascertain, 
a chain saw. 

"Protection," Cam says, nudging the 
old Sears model with his toe. The chain 
is rusted and hangs loose from the 
blade. I imagine Cam starting the chain 
saw, the chain snapping, flying, landing 
far away in the tall grass. I try to pic- 
ture the struggle between man and 
beast, Cam pinned beneath 500 pounds 
of alligator, Cam's head in the gator's 
mouth, Cam dragged in circles around 
the yard, a tangle of limbs and screams, 
Throughout each scenario, the chain 
saw offers little assistance. 

Cam's hands are sheathed in oven 
mitts, a compromise he accepted 
begrudgingly when the boxing gloves he 
found, while offering superior protection, 


PLAYBOY 


failed to provide him the ability to grip, 
pick up or hold. 

"This is stupid,” I say. "Are we really 
doing this?” 

"We're doing this," Cam says. He 
swats a fly from his face with one pot- 
holdered hand. 

There is a clatter of chain link, We 
turn to see the alligator nudging the 
fence with his snout. He snorts, eyes the 
T-bone, opens and shuts his mouth. He 
really is surprisingly large. 

Cam's parked the pickup in the 
backyard. He pulls off his oven mitts, 
lowers the gate, exposing the wide, 
bare bed of the truck, and we set to 
work angling the two-by-fours from 
gate to grass. We press the planks 
together, and Cam cinches them tight 
with the bungee cords. The boards are 
long, 10 or 12 feet, so physics is on our 
side. We should be able to drag him up 
the incline. 

We return our attention to the alliga- 


tor, who is sort of throwing himself 
against the fence, except that he can 
only back up a few feet and therefore 
build very little momentum. Above his 
head, at knee level, is a hand-size wire 
mesh door held shut by a combination 
lock. With each lunge, the lock jumps, 
then clatters against the door. With 
each charge, I jump too. 

“He can't break out," Cam says. He 
picks up the bolt cutters. 

“You don't know that," I say. 

"If he could, don't you think he'd 
have done it by now?" Cam positions 
the bolt cutters on the loop of the lock, 
bows his legs and squats. He squeezes, 
and his face reddens. He grunts, 
there's a snap, and the lock falls away, 
followed by a flash of movement. Cam 
howls and falls. The alligator's open 
jaws stretch halfway through the hole. 
AII I see is teeth. 

“Motherfucker!” Cam yells. 

“You okay?” I say. 


کح ہیں E.‏ 


“Halloween's next week, buddy.” 


Cam holds up his hands, wiggles 
10 fingers. 

"Okay," Cam says. "Okay." He picks up 
the T-bone and throws it at the alligator. 
The steak lands on his nose, hangs there, 
then slides off. 

“It's not a dog," I say. “This isn't catch." 

Cam puts on the oven mitts and 
slowly reaches for the meat resting in 
the grass just a few feet beneath all 
those teeth. Suddenly, the pen looks 
less sturdy, less like a thing the alligator 
could never escape. 

The cage shakes, but this time it's the 
wind, which has really picked up. I won- 
der whether it's storming in St. Peters- 
burg. Cam should be at home with 
Bobby, and I almost say as much. But 
Cam's eyes are wild. He's dead set on 
doing this. 

Cam says, "I'm going to put the steak 
into his mouth, and when I do, I want 
you to tape the jaws shut." 

"No way," I say. "No way am I put- 
ting my hand in range of that thing." 
And then this happens: My son walks 
out of my memory and into my 
thoughts, his arm hanging loose at the 
elbow. The nurse asks what happened, 
and he looks up, ready to lie for me. 
There is something beautiful in the 
pause between this question and the 
one to come. Then there's the officer's 
hand on my shoulder, the "Would you 
mind stepping out with me, please?" 
Oh, I've heard it a hundred times. It 
never leaves me. It is a whisper. It is a 
prison sentence, 

I want to put the elbow back into the 
socket myself. I want to turn back time. 
I want Jack at five or 10. I want him 
curled in my lap like a dog. I want him 
writing on the walls with an orange 
crayon and blaming the angels that live 
in the attic. I want him before his voice 
plummeted two octaves, before he 
learned to stand with a hand on one 
hip, before he grew confused. I want my 
boy back. 

"Come on!" Cam shouts. “Don't puss 
out on me now. As soon as he bites down, 
just wrap the tape around it." 

"Give me your oven mitts,” I say. 

“Мо!” 

“Give me the mitts and I'll do it." 

“But you won't be able to handle 
the tape.” 

“Trust me," I say. “I'll find a way." 

We do it. Cam waves the cut of meat 
at the snout until it smacks teeth. The 
jaws grab. There's an unnatural 
crunch as the T in the T-bone becomes 
two Is and then a pile of periods. I 
drape a length of tape over the nose, 
fasten the ends beneath the jaws, 
then run my gloved hands up both 
strands of tape, sealing them. Then I 
start wrapping like crazy. I wind the 
roll of tape around and around the 
jaws. The tape unspools from the roll 
and coils in a flat black worm around 
the snout. 


PLA EOF 


When I step back, the alligator's jaws 
are shut tight and my hands shake. 

"I can't believe it," Cam says. "I can't 
believe you actually did that shit." 


The alligator's one heavy son of a bitch. 
We hold him in a kind of headlock, arms 
cradling his neck and front legs, fingers 
gripping his scaly hide. It's a good 20 
feet from cage to truck. We sidestep 
toward the pickup, the alligator's back 
end and tail tracing a path through the 
grass. Every few feet we stop to rest. 

When we drag, the alligator's back feet 
scramble and claw at the ground, but he 
doesn't writhe or thrash. He is not a 
healthy alligator. I stop. 


"C'mon," Cam says. "Almost there." 

"What are we doing?" I say. 

"We're putting an alligator into your 
truck," Cam says. "C'mon." 

"But look at him," I say. Cam looks 
down, examines the alligator's wide 
green head, his wet Ping-Pong ball eyes. 
He looks up. 

"No," I say. "Really look." 

"What?" Cam's impatient. He shifts his 
weight, gets a better grip on the gator. "I 
don't know what you want me to see," 

"He's not even fighting us. He's too 
sick. Even if we set him free, how do we 
know he'll make it?" 

“We don't." 

"No, we don't. We don't know where 
he came from. We don't know where 


to take him. And what if Red raised 
him? How will he survive in the wild? 
How will he learn to hunt and catch 
fish and stuff?" 

Cam shrugs, shakes his head. 

"So why?" I ask. "Why are we 
doing this?" 

Cam locks eyes with me. After a min- 
ute I look away. My arms are weak with 
the weight of alligator. My legs quiver. 
We shuffle forward. 


I didn't give Jack the chance to lie. 1 
admitted guilt to second-degree bat- 
tery and kept everyone out of court. I 
got four months and served two, plus 
fines, plus community service. Had 
that been the end of it, Га have gotten 
off easy. Instead, I lost my family. 

The last time I saw Jack he stood 
beside his mother's car, showing Alan 
his new driver's license. They reclined 
like girls against the hood but laughed 
like men at something on the license: a 
typo. "Weight: 1500." I watched them 
from the doorway. Jack kept his dis- 
tance, flinched when I came close. 

Alan had helped me load the furni- 
ture. With each piece, I thought of 
Jack's body, How it hung between us 
that afternoon, how it swayed, how 
much like a game wherein you and a 
friend grab another boy by ankles and 
wrists and throw him off a dock and 
into a lake. 

Everything Jack and Lynn owned 
we'd packed into a U-Haul truck. I 
was not meant to know where they 
were going. I was not meant to see 
them again, but I'd found maps and 
directions in a pile of Lynn's things 
and had written down the address of 
their new place in Baton Rouge. I 
could forgive Lynn not wanting to see 
me, but taking my son away was a 
thing I could not abide. 

I decided I would go there one day, 
a day that seems more distant with 
each passing afternoon. And what 
would Jack do when he opened the 
door? In my dreams, it was always 
Jack who opened the door. I would 
open my arms in invitation. I would 
say what I had not said. 

But that afternoon it was Alan who 
sent Jack to me. Lynn waited in the U- 
Haul, ready to drive away. Alan gestured 
in my direction. He and Jack argued in 
hushed voices. And finally, remarkably, 
Jack moved toward me. I did not leave 
the doorway, and Jack stopped just short 
of the stoop. 

What can I tell you about my son? 
He had been à beautiful boy, and stand- 
ing before me I saw that he had become 
something different: a man I did not 
understand. His T-shirt was too tight 
for him, and the hem rode just above 
his navel. A trail of light brown hair led 
from there and disappeared behind a 
silver belt buckle. His fingernails were 


painted black. The cast had come off, 
and his right arm was a nest of curly, 
dark hair. 

I wanted to say, "I want to under- 
stand you." 

I wanted to say, "I will do whatever it 
takes to earn your trust." 

I wanted to say “I love you," but I 
had never said it, not to Jack—yes, 1 
am one of those men—and I could not 
bear the thought of speaking these 
words to my son for the first time and 
not hearing them spoken in return. 

Instead, I said nothing. 

Jack held out his hand, and we shook 
like strangers. 

I still feel it, the infinity of Jack's hand- 
shake: the nod of pressed palms, flesh of 
my flesh. 

e 

Ihe rain arrives in 
sheets, and the 
windshield wipers 
can hardly keep 
up. I drive. Cam 
sits beside me. He's 
placed the shoe 
box on the seat 
between us. His 
arm rests protec- 
tively against the 
lid. The alligator 
slides around with 
the two-by-fours in 
the back. We fas- 
tened the tarp over 
the bed of the truck 
to conceal our 
cargo, but we didn't 
pull it taut, The 
tarp sags with 
water, threatening 
to smother the ani- 
mal underneath. 

Cam flips on the 
radio and we catch 
snippets of the 
weather before the 
speakers turn to 
static. 

“upgraded to a 
tropical storm... 
usually signals the 
formation of a hur- 
ricane...storm will pick up speed as it 
makes its way across the Gulf...expected 
to come ashore as far north as the pan- 
handle...far south as St. Petersburg...." 

Cam turns the radio off. We watch rain 
pelt the windshield, the black flash of 
wipers pushing water. 

I don't ask whether Bobby is afraid 
of storms. As a boy, I'd been frightened, 
but not Jack. During storms Jack had 
stood at the window and watched as 
branches skittered down the street and 
power lines unraveled onto the side- 
walks. He smiled and stared until Lynn 
pulled him away from the glass and we 
moved to the bathroom with our blan- 
kets and flashlights. It was only then, 


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huddled in the dark, that Jack some- 
times cried. 

"We should go back," I say. "The 
power could be out." 

"Bobby's a tough kid," Cam says. "He'll 
be fine." 

^Cam," I say. 

"In case you've forgotten, there's a fuck- 
ing alligator in the back of your truck." 

I say nothing. Whatever happens is 
Cam's responsibility. This, I tell myself, is 
not your fault. 

Thunder shakes the truck. Not far 
ahead a cell tower ignites with lightning. 
A shower of sparks waterfalls onto the 
highway. Cars and trucks are dusted 
with fire. Everyone drives on. 

1 don't know where we're headed, but 


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Cam says we're close, 

Cam, I think, after this, I owe you 
nothing. Once this is over, we're even. 

“If it's work you're worried about," 
Cam says, "I'll talk to Mickey. I'll tell him 
about Red. He'll understand if you're a 
little late." 

“Its not Mickey I'm worried about," I 
say. I don't say, Mickey can kiss my ass. I 
don't say, You and Mickey can go to hell. 

"Look," Cam says, "I know why you're 
pulling the graveyard shift. Mickey told 
me what you did. But this is different. 
This he'll understand." 

I recognize the ache at the back of my 
throat immediately. The second I'm 
alone it will take a miracle to keep a bot- 


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Пе out of my hand. 

"Take this exit,” Cam says. "At the bot- 
tom, turn right.” 

I guide the truck down the ramp 
toward Grove Street. The water in back 
sloshes forward and unfloods the tarp. 
Alligator feet scratch for purchase on the 
truck bed's corrugated plastic lining. 

"Where are you taking us?" I ask. 

"Havenbrook," he says. I wait for 
Cam to say he's kidding. But Cam 
isn't kidding. 


The largest of the lakes cradles the 
17th green. Cam's seen gators there 
before, big bastards who come ashore 
to sun themselves and scare off golf- 
ers, I’ve never 
golfed in my life 
and neither has 
he, but Cam led 
the team that 
patched the club- 
house roof follow- 
ing last year's 
hurricane season. 
He remembers the 
five-digit code, 
and it still works. 
The security gate 
slides open, and 
we head down the 
paved drive 
reserved for main- 
tenance. 

No one's on the 
course, Fallen limbs 
litter the greens. 
An abandoned 
white cart lies 
turned on its side 
where the golf-cart 
path rounds the 
15th hole. 

Lightning streaks 
the sky. The rain 
has turned the 
windshield to water, 
and sudden gusts 
of wind jostle the 
truck from every 
direction. 1 fight 
the steering wheel 
to stay on the 
asphalt. Even Cam is wide-eyed, his fin- 
gers buried in the seat cushion. The 
shoe box bounces between us. 

We reach the lake, but the shore is 
half a football field away. The green is 
soggy, thick with water, and already the 
lake is flooding its banks. The first tire 
that leaves the road, I know, will sink 
into the mud, and we'll never get the 
truck out. 

“I can't drive out there," I tell Cam. I 
have to yell over the wind and rain, the 
deafening thunder. It's like the world is 
pulling apart. "This is the closest I can 
get us," 

Cam says something I can't hear, and 
then he's out of the truck, the door 


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PLA FOF 


slamming behind him. I jump out, and 
the wet cold slaps me. Within seconds I'm 
drenched, my clothes heavy. All I hear is 
the wind. I move as if underwater. 

As soon as Cam gets the tarp off, the 
storm catches it and it billows into the sky 
like a flaming blue parachute, up into the 
trees overhead. It tangles itself into the 
branches, and then there is only the 
smack-smack of the tarp's uncaught cor- 
ners pummeled by gusts. 

Cam screams at me. His teeth flash in 
bursts of lightning, but his words are 
choked by wind. I tap my ear and he 
nods. He motions toward the alligator. 
We approach it slowly. I expect the ani- 
mal to charge, but he lies motionless. I 
check the jaws. They're still wrapped 
tight. This, I realize, will be our last 
challenge. If he gets away from us before 
we remove the tape, he's doomed. 


I'm wondering which of us will climb 
into the bed of the truck when the gator 
starts scuttling forward. We leap out of 
the way as hundreds of pounds of rep- 
tile spill from the truck and onto the 
green. The gate cracks under the weight 
and swings loose like a trapdoor in mid- 
air, the hinges busted. Then the alliga- 
tor is free on the grass. We don't move, 
and neither does he. 

Cam approaches me. He makes à 
megaphone of his cupped hands and 
mouth and leans in close to my ear. His 
hot breath on my face is startling and 
sudden and wonderful in all that fierce 
cold and rain. 

“I think he's stunned," Cam yells. 
"We've got to get the tape off, now." 

I nod. I am exhausted and anxious, 
and I know there's no way we'll be 
able to lug the alligator to the water's 


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edge. I wonder whether he'll make it, 
if he'll find his way to the water, or if 
this fall from the truck is the final 
blow, if tomorrow the groundskeepers 
will find an alligator carcass 50 yards 
from the lake, It would make the St, 
Petersburg Times front page. A giant 
alligator killed in the hurricane. Offi- 
cials would be baffled. 

“I want you to straddle its neck," Cam 
yells. "Keep its head pressed to the 
ground. I'll try to get the tape off." 

"No," I say. I point to my chest. I circle 
my hand through the air, pantomiming 
the unraveling. Cam looks surprised, but 
he nods. 

Cam brings his hands to my face 
again and yells his hot words into my 
ear. "On my signal," he screams, but I 
push him away. 

I don't wait for a signal. Before I 
know it, I'm on the ground, my side 
hugging mud, and I'm digging my nails 
into the tape. My eye is inches from the 
alligator's eye. He blinks without blink- 
ing, a thin, clear membrane sliding over 
his eyeball, then up and under his eye- 
lid. It is a thing to see. It is a knowing 
wink. I see this and I feel safe. 

The tape is harder to unwrap than it 
was to wrap. The rain has made it soft, 
the glue gooey. Every few turns, I lose 
my grip. Finally, I let the tape coil 
around my hand like a snake. It unwinds 
and soon my fist is a ball of dark, sticky 
fruit. The last of the tape pulls cleanly 
from the snout, and I roll away from the 
alligator. I stand, and Cam pulls me 
back. He holds me up. The alligator 
flexes his jaws. His mouth opens wide, 
then slams shut. And then he's off, zig- 
zagging toward the water. 

He is swift and strong, and I'm glad it 
is cold and raining so Cam can't see the 
tears streaking my cheeks and won't 
know that my shivering is from sobbing. 
Cam lets go of me and I think I will fall, 
but instead I am running. Running! 
And I'm laughing and hollering and 
leaping. I'm pumping my fist into the 
air. I'm screaming, "Go! Go!" And just 
before the alligator reaches the water, I 
lunge and my fingertips trace the last 
ridges and scales of tail whipping their 
way ahead of me. The sky is alive with 
lightning, and I see the hulking body, so 
awkward and graceless on land, slide 
into the water as it was meant to do. 
That great body cuts the water fast and 
sleek, and the alligator dives out of 
sight, at home in the world where he 
belongs, safe in the warm quiet of mud 
and fish and unseen things that thrive 
in deep green darkness. 


Cam and І don't say much on the ride 
home. The rain has slowed to an even, 
steady downpour. The truck's cab has 
grown cold. Cam holds his hands close 
to the vents to catch whatever weak 
streams of heat trickle out. "We have 


PLAYBOY 


130 


done a good thing,” Cam says, and 1 
agree, but I worry at what cost. We lis- 
ten to the radio, but the storm has 
headed north. The reporters have 
moved on to new cities: Clearwater, 
Crystal Springs, Ocala. 

"There was this one time," Cam says 
at last, "About five years back. I spoke 
to Red." 

This is news to me. This, I know, is 
no small revelation. 

"I called him," Cam says. "I called 
him up, and I said, 'Dad? I just want 
you to know that you have a grandson 
and that his name is Robert and that I 
think he should know his grandfather.' 
And you know what that prick did? He 
hung up. The only thing Red said to me 
in 20 years was 'Hello' when he picked 
up the phone." 

"Im sorry," I say. 

"If he'd even once told me he was 
sorry, Га have forgiven him anything. 
I'd have forgiven him my own murder. 
He was my father. I would have for- 
given everything. 

“Do you know why I got all these fuck- 
ing tattoos? To hide the fucking scars 
from the night Red cut me with a fillet 


knife, and Га have forgiven that if he'd 
just said something, anything, when he 
answered the phone." 

Cam doesn't shake or sob or bang a fist 
on the dashboard, but when I look away, 
I catch his reflection in the window, a 
knuckle in each eye socket, and I'm sud- 
denly sorry for my impatience, the 
grudge I've carried all afternoon. 

"But you tried," I say. "At least you 
won't spend your life wondering." 

We sit in silence for a while. The rain 
on the roof beats a cadence into the cab 
and it soothes me. 

"You know, I served with gay guys in 
the Gulf," Cam says, and I almost drive 
the truck off the road. A tire slips over 
the lip of asphalt and my side mirror 
nearly catches a guardrail before I bring 
the truck back to the center of the lane. 

“Jesus!” Cam says. I'm just saying they 
were okay guys, and if Jack's gay, it's not 
the end of the world." 

"Jack's confused," I say. "He isn't gay." 

"Well, either he is or he isn't, and what 
you think or want or say won't change it." 

"Cam," I say, "all due respect. This 
doesn't concern you." 

"I know," Cam says. He sits up 


"You said you didn't mind that I had cats." 


straighter in his seat and grips the door 
handle as we pull onto our block. “I'm 
just saying it isn't too late.” 

We pull into the driveway. Cam jumps 
out of the truck before it's in park. The 
yard is a mess of fallen limbs and gar- 
bage. Two shutters have been torn from 
the front of the house. The mailbox is 
on its side. Otherwise everything looks 
all right. I glance down the street and see 
that my house is still standing. 

When I turn back to Cam's house, 
what I see breaks my heart in 10 places. 
I see Cam running across the lawn. I 
see Bobby, his hands pressed to the 
big bay window. His face is puffy and 
red. Cam disappears into the house, 
and then he is there with the boy, he 
is there on his knees, and he pulls 
Bobby to him. He mouths the words 
I'm sorry, I'm sorry over and over again, 
and Bobby collapses into him, buries 
his head in Cam's chest, and my friend 
wraps his son in dragons. 

I watch them. They stay like that for 
minutes, framed by window and house 
and darkening sky. I watch, and then I 
open the shoe box and look inside. 

I don't know what I was expecting, 
but it wasn't this. What I find are let- 
ters, over 100 of them. About a letter 
a month for roughly 10 years, all of 
them unopened. Each has been dated 
and stamped RETURN TO SENDER, the last 
one sent back just a week ago. Each is 
marked by the same shaky handwriting. 
Each is addressed to a single recipient, 
Mr. Cameron Starnes, from a single 
sender, Red. 

And I know then that there was no 
phone call, no forgiveness оп Cam’s part, 
that Cam never came close until after the 
monster was safely out of reach. 

I stare at the letters, and I know who it is 
Cam wants to keep me from becoming. 

I pull out of Cam's driveway. I stop 
to right Cam's mailbox, then I tuck 
the shoe box safely inside. I follow the 
street to the end of the block. At the stop 
sign, I pause. I don't know whether to 
turn right or left. Finally, I head for the 
interstate. There's a spare uniform at 
the diner, clean and dry, and if I hurry, 
I won't be late for work. 

But I'm not going to work. 

It's a 10-hour drive to Baton Rouge, but 
I will make it in eight. I will make it before 
morning. I will drive north, following the 
storm. I will drive through the wind and 
the rain. I will drive all night. 


Second prize in this year's competition goes 
to James Harris, 29, a Ph.D. student at 
the University of Alaska at Fairbanks, for 
"Fishing the Punchbowl." The two third- 
place winners are "Love Is Like a Rock," by 
Amber Nicole Brooks, 26, an MFA student at 
Georgia State University, and "Here on the 
Ground," by Jarret Haley, 26, of the Univer- 
sity of Notre Dame. 


ALI LARTER 


(continued from page 73) 
LARTER: The older I get, the more I like it. 
I had a harder time when I was younger 
and fighting to be taken more seriously, 
I was in a lot of teen genre movies as the 
blonde character, and I wanted to be this 
dark, intellectual, brooding character 
instead. But that wasn't me. Once you 
stop trying to be someone else, once you 
give up—and for me it was giving up— 
you can have anything you want. They 
think I'm a dumb blonde? C'est la vie. 


Q7 
PLAYBOY: About your movie 3-Way, an 
Internet critic wrote, "The girl you want 
to see with her shirt off never takes it off. 
Where is the justice?" Why not give your 
fans what they want? 
LARTER: I don't do nudity. I’m not saying I 
never will, but what's under my clothes is 
mine and my lover's. In the right hands 
nudity can be beautiful and provocative. 
It has to mean something, not just show- 
ing your boobs. There are certainly times 
when nudity can accentuate a scene. Take 
Kate Winslet in Little Children. How brave 
and beautiful was she? 


PLAYBOY: How does a real-chested gal of 
average proportions make it in the land 
of silicone and surgery? Are you pres- 
sured to enhance? 

LARTER: Average? I'd say a little smaller 
than average. [laughs] I have little boobs. 
I embrace my chest bone, right here 
[points]. If surgery makes you feel better 
about your body, I don't judge it. But I 
would be uncomfortable if I had made 
that decision. Surgery isn't who I am. 
It's not what I believe in and not how I 
want to be in bed. 


a9 

PLAYBOY: What part of your body do you 
love more than any other? 

LARTER: I have a little belly, and I'm learn- 
ing to love it. I can't lay a ruler flat from 
hip bone to hip bone anymore, I defi- 
nitely have a soft little area. I also have a 
bit of a bubble butt. 


G10 

PLAYBOY. We read that Niki was originally 
envisioned as a showgirl but was changed 
to an Internet stripper because of your 
physique. How does a serious actress 
prepare for a stripper role? 

LARTER: I did some research. I went 
online. What struck me most was the 
blankness in most of their eyes. That 
was what I wanted to show. I thought it 
was sad, but my boyfriend thought it was 
thrilling. He'd call while I was research- 
ing and say, "Hey, what are you doing?" 
"I'm online, watching some girls strip- 
ping." He was like, "On my way!" In a 
recent episode I play a pole dancer. I 
took private lessons for a week, a couple 


of hours a day. I have a newfound respect 
for those women. It's harder than you 
imagine, but I made it look good. 


on 

PLAYBOY: How tough was it to flip your 
hyphenate from model-actress to 
actress-model? 

LARTER: 1 did a ton of commercials, teen 
stuff. I spent time in Milan when I turned 
18 and met my best friend there, the actress 
Amy Smart. It was an opportunity to travel 
the world and experience different cul- 
tures. It wasn't about "Oh, I want to be a 
supermodel!" When I was 19, I deferred 
going to NYU and moved to Los Ange- 
les, planning to stay for a year and then 
come back. I really thought I'd return. I 
wanted to be a news broadcaster; my goals 
began and ended with Diane Sawyer. But 
then I got into acting. I did a couple of 
TV guest shots but passed on pilot sea- 
son because I didn't like the idea of being 
told what to do for the next six years of 
my life—that is, had I gotten a show. I was 
a very strong-willed girl from New Jersey 
who wanted to make it come hell or high 
water, and I was naive enough to believe I 
could do it at 20. When I went to Austin, 
Texas to film Varsity Blues, my first movie 
role, I felt I was in over my head. 


Q12 

PLAYBOY: So you soured on Hollywood? 
LARTER: Yes, Eventually I picked up and 
moved to New York to find myself. I 
thought I could build on my early success, 
but instead I made it go away. So I ran 
around the world: I went boar hunting in 
Germany, to a grand prix, to Shanghai and 
Poland. I read A Moveable Feast in Parisian 
cafes. Eventually I realized that acting is 
what I want to do, so I came back to Los 
Angeles. It wasn't easy. I wasn't fresh any- 
more. I wasn't the new girl in town. I hadn't 
done a movie in a while. Getting Heroes was 
definitely a second rite of passage. This time 
I was ready to put down roots. 


013 

PLAYBOY: You once wrote a magazine arti- 
cle in which you say you are on a "quest 
for truth." Can you handle the truth? 

LARTER: 1 spent a month writing it, prob- 
ably about 40 pages. It was so precious. 
At the time, I was searching—question- 
ing the business, the foundations of Hol- 
lywood, what it meant to be an actor, my 
responsibilities versus how I felt creatively. 
I had picked up suddenly and moved 
from Hollywood to New York, hoping 
to be around different kinds of people. I 
read lots of essays and articles to prepare 
for writing it. I can handle the truth now, 
the truth being that every day I wake up 
and do my best to be who I want to be, 


014 
PLAYBOY: Of all the character plotlines 
on Heroes, which is your favorite guilty 
pleasure? 
LARTER: I love Sylar. I love the bad guys. I 


NEED 
TO 


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HBO is a service mark of Home Box Office, Inc. 


PLAYBOY 


132 


always have. But then you grow up and 
think, Well, is he going to be there teach- 
ing my son Little League? No. My idea of 
the guy for me was wrong for a long while, 
but that's not saying I didn't have a great 
time, I've always loved and I've always got- 
ten crushed, but in some amazing way I 
never got hardened in my heart. 


915 

PLAYBOY. You ve admitted to having а 
crush on Rob Lowe in the 1986 movie 
About Last Night.... How many times did 
you watch the scene with him and Demi 
Moore naked in the kitchen? 

LARTER: Oh my God, so many. And the 
bathtub scene! I love the scene when 
Demi Moore walks in, turns on the 
light and says, "I think we've been in 
the dark long enough." 


616 

PLAYBOY: When you cook to seduce, what 
do you prepare? 

LARTER: I'm a huge fan of finger foods: 
cheese and charcuterie plates. I love 
starting with champagne and moving to 
a deep red wine, I will definitely end up 
with some kind of fillet or heavy meat. 
You would think, Heavy? Well, we might 
not get to the fillet until after—and God, 
it’s gonna taste good at three a.m.! 


917 
PLAYBOY: What's better than а cigarette 
after sex? 
LARTER: Nothing. 


618 
PLAYBOY: Describe the delights of growing 
up in New Jersey. 
LARTER: My dog. Walking to and from ele- 


mentary school with my sister. Playing jail- 
break with all the kids in the neighborhood. 
Riding my bike to the swim dub and eating 
lots of Swedish Fish. Lightning bugs. Freshly 
mowed grass. My dad having an orangeade 
after he mowed the grass, all sweaty, I loved 
going to the shore, spending summers at 
the beach. I loved growing up there. I also 
had the accent, though it seems to have 
naturally faded away. But give me a glass of 
wine and it may come back. My boyfriend 
says it reappears when I get angry. 


019 

PLAYBOY: Can you respect а man who isn't 
into sports? 

LARTER: No. I've tried. I've really tried. 
I've dated these poetic, dark types, but 
the truth is, I watched the Eagles, the 
Phillies and the Flyers, growing up with 
my father. He coached my softball team, 
my soccer team, my swim team. It's so 
who I am. I love sports, and it's definitely 
part of what makes a man sexy to me. 


Q20 

PLAYBOY: What interview question do you 
never want to hear again? 

LARTER: “So how was that whipped-cream 
bikini put on in Varsity Blues?” 1 love the 
movie now, but 1 didn't five years ago. I 
was a little girl. I felt emotionally naked 
as well. It was my first scene in my first 
movie, and it was the first day of work. 
It actually worked for the scene, though, 
because I had to cry. I cried for seven 
hours because I was so scared that if I 
stopped I wouldn't be able to start again. 


Read the 2 Ist question at playboy.com/2 Iq. 


«j o? uo 94 07 uang Qu s p—]04v7) “ош, 


THE RANCH 


(continued from page 94) 
workshop, a barn, a Quonset hut. At the 
other end of the property was a school. It 
was publicly funded." Around 50 children 
from the area—which included other 
communes and communities—attended 
the school. It has since closed. 

Schneider drives me to Bolinas, Califor- 
nia, a town that prizes its privacy so much, 
its citizens frequently take down road signs 
so outsiders won't find it. All along the 
coastal range Spanish moss hangs on live 
oak like tattered political banners. When 
he was not on the Ranch, Schneider lived 
on à back road with RubyLee, a woman he 
met on the commune who had moved out 
to pursue her art. "There wasn't much for 
me to do up there," RubyLee says. 

She is an exotic, serene woman who 
seems to flow with her robes through her 
beautiful, austere light-filled wood house, 
which is heated by a wood stove. The place 
is simple, elegant, well-built—not merely 
a shelter. A model counterculture home, 
although a house like this is no longer a 
sign of radical departure from the norm; it 
would be equally suited for a yuppie invest- 
ment banker or a crunchy conservative. 

RubyLee's place is so idiosyncratically, so 
individually stamped by her personality, it 
is readily apparent how it might have been 
difficult for her to subsume her unique style 
in a communal identity. “There were a lot of 
strong women at the Ranch," RubyLee says. 
"A lot of interpersonal conflict. The woman 
who taught the school tended to be divisive 
and difficult. She had favorites, which wasn't 
always good for the children." 

In the spare room where I spend the 
night I find an old Whole Earth Catalog. 
Opening it is like opening a door onto the 
past, onto a more hopeful time when the 
earth seemed friendlier—or we seemed 
friendlier to the earth. Technology was 
going to save us. Solar heat. Better com- 
post. Better diets. Better drugs. 

In the Whole Earth Catalog we could learn 
about eternal forms from D'Arcy Thompson 
and about the myth of the eternal return 
from Joseph Campbell. We'd build geodesic 
domes according to specifications laid out 
for us by Buckminster Fuller, who taught us 
to think of our planet as Spaceship Earth. 
We'd learn better modes of consciousness 
from counterculture gurus: Richard Alpert, 
Leary's psychedelic partner at Harvard, 
who had become Baba Ram Dass; John 
Lilly, who studied dolphin communication 
at the Communication Research Institute 
and later, through psychotropic chemicals 
and sensory deprivation, would claim to 
have broken through to another dimension 
(apparently the same place people go who 
today take DMT); Robert Anton Wilson, 
possibly the sanest man in America until his 
recent death, a combination of the "happy 
philosopher" David Hume, William Blake 
and Lenny Bruce; and, of course, Leary. 

The Whole Earth Catalog told us where 
to buy 35-millimeter film in bulk (we were 


a long way from the digital age), how to 
care for LPs (and a long way from the era 
of music downloads and the Internet) and 
how to use the Tandy desktop computer, 
one of the first personal computers, which 
was the size of a large microwave oven 
(although back then microwave ovens were 
rare) and, with a top memory of 128k, 
could save as much as 30 pages of manu- 
script. A revolution in word processing! I 
went to sleep dreaming of Wendell Depot, 
ice cream churns and skinny-dipping. 


"All the kids from the Ranch—Willow, 
Windspirit, Ishvi, Blue Jay, Raincrow— 
have a bond," Noah Sheppard says. "When 
my commune brothers introduce me, they 
describe me as, well, 
their brother." 
Clean-cut in his 
white T-shirt, pull- 
over, jeans and Nikes, 
Sheppard, 34, could 


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runs MacCallum 
House, an impecca- 
bly renovated Victo- 
пап estate promising 
"luxury accommoda- 
tions and fine din- 
ing in the heart of 
Mendocino Village." 
It also includes the 
MacCallum Suites, 
the Mendocino Vil- 
lage Inn and the 
Mendo Wine Tours 
& Limousine Ser- 
vice, which offers the 
"Equine & Wine" 
package, featuring 
horseback-riding 
adventures at Rico- 
chet Ridge Ranch 
and trail rides on 
the beach, through a 
redwood forest and on a cattle ranch, “I've 
got 85 to 90 employees," Sheppard says. 

Halfway through the three-hour trip 
to Mendocino, 1 had suggested that 
when we arrive in the area we go imme- 
diately to the commune site. "We don't 
have time," Schneider had said. "Noah'll 
be waiting for us at his hotel." 

We had stopped at a big-box store, a 
Costco, to use the bathroom and grab some 
lunch. The car that pulled in beside us had 
an 1 MISS RONALD REAGAN bumper sticker. 
Inside, people were lined up with two or 
three shopping carts crammed high with 
flat-screen televisions, supersize boxes of 
dried apricots, gallons of laundry soap—an 
abundance unimagined during the 1960s 


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era of abundance when, some thought, the 
booming economy was responsible for the 
development of communes. 

The baby boomers were the first genera- 
tion to grow up out of the shadow of the 
Depression. Since they had no fear of going 
without, they embraced voluntary poverty. 
Today this concept has metamorphosed in 
our new overheated economy into "volun- 
tary simplicity," a trend bearing a hint of 
the you-can't-fire-me-I-quit mentality: ГІ 
reduce my expectations before the bubble 
pops and we're all left with enforced sim- 
plicity, which used to be called poverty. 

A different world from the dream of 
the 19605. 

"We move on," Schneider says philosoph- 
ically. "I recently saw Ram Dass, hadn't seen 


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He gave the best advice I've ever gotten." 

About psychedelia? 

About the cosmic order? 

About archetypal eruptions into our 
consensus reality? 

"No," Schneider says. "He told me to 
take my blood-pressure medicine. He 
didn't and had a stroke." 


"My dad was older than most of the oth- 
ers who came to the Ranch," Sheppard 
says. Like Schneider, Sheppard's parents 
were not boomers but war babies, "They 
were travelers," he says. 

Sheppard was born in 1972 in Banga- 


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lore, India. When he was eight months 
old he came down with severe dysentery, 
and his parents decided it would be pru- 
dent to leave. After spending time in Lon- 
don they returned to the States. After a 
year or so in San Francisco, they decided 
city life was not for them, so they headed 
up the coast. In Mendocino they discov- 
ered the Ranch and settled down. 

"About the same time, they separated," 
he says. 

We are sitting in the MacCallum House's 
Grey Whale Bar. The sound system plays 
Dean Martin and an easy-listening lounge 
version of the Beatles’ “Got to Get You 
Into My Life." The bar is stocked with 
top-of-the-line liquor: Knob Creek bour- 
bon, single-malt scotches, specialty vod- 
kas. A young crowd 
of drinkers sits at 
the small, widely 
spaced tables, inti- 
mately leaning into 
each other and 
laughing low. 

Like Bolinas, 
Mendocino has 
protected itself 
from some of the 
worst of the wider 
culture. Along with 
the expensive wine- 
tourist trade—Men- 
docino County 
offers art galleries, 
hot springs, cafes, 
yarn shops, a full- 
production opera 
company, one ballet 
troupe, two premier 
theater companies 
and two orches- 
tras—the area still 
reflects its counter- 
culture past. 

At Headroom you 
can buy incense, tie- 
dyed clothing and 
hemp goods. Hemp 
Connection is a pur- 
veyor of fine hemp 
products. Alternate 
Energy Engineer- 
ing's motto is "Power 
to the people." 

The local alternative tabloid, Green- 
fuse, published by the Waking Dog Col- 
lective, is filled with articles that, with 
few changes, could have been found in 
the 1960s East Village Rat. A recent issue 
ran a story called "A Life for the Cause 
of Peace," along with an article on South 
American grassroots democracy, the 
complaints of a disgruntled staff sergeant 
about the unpopular war in Irag- The 
enemy is not who the government or the 
media says it is," he notes—and a piece 
on a possible conspiracy in the Robert 
Kennedy murder, headlined wHEN ALL 
ELSE FAILS... HAVE THE CIA KILL THE REFORMER. 

“In the 1990s I went back to India to 


see where I was born," Sheppard says. 133 


134 


HOW TO BUY 


Below is a list of retailers 
and manufacturers you can 
contact for information 
on where to find this month's 
merchandise. To buy the 
apparel and equipment shown 
on pages 32, 35-36, 96-101 
and 146-147, check the list- 
ings below to find the stores 
nearest you. 


GAMES 
Page 32: BlackSite: Area 51, 
midway.com. Clive Barker's 


Jericho, codemasters.com. 


Grand Theft Auto IV, rockstargames 
.com. Heavenly Sword, playstation 
.com. John Woo Presents Stranglehold, 
midway.com, ect Gotham Racing 4, 
xbox.com. S Holmes: The Awakened, 
cdvus.com. Skate, ea.com. 


MANTRACK 

Pages 35-36: Accutron, bulova.com. 
Mitsubishi, mitsubishi-tv.com. Nautor, 
nautorgroup.com. Peugeot, broadway 
panhandler.com, 


BEST-DRESSED MAN ON CAMPUS 

Pages 96-101: American Apparel, american 
apparel.net. Boss Orange, hugoboss 
.com. Brooks, brooksrunning.com. 
Camper, www.camper.com. Canterbury of 
New Zealand, canterburynzusa 
.com. Catherine Angiel, catherine 
angiel.com. Converse(Product)Red, 
converse.com. Corpus Christi, nexus 
showroom.com. C.P. Company, 
cpcompany.com. DSquared, dsquared2 
.com. Etnies, etnies.com. Hickey, 
hickeystyle.com. Hugo, hugoboss.com. 


INC International Concepts, 
available at Macy's loca- 
tions nationwide. Leather 
Island by Bill Lavin, avail- 
able at Scoop Men, NYC. 
Lenor Romano, available at 
select Nordstrom locations 
nationwide, Mark Nason, 
available at select Bloom- 
ingdale's locations, Mod- 
ern Amusement, modern 
amusement.com. Mossimo, 
target.com. Nike, niketown 
.com. Original Penguin, 
originalpenguin.com. 
Penfield, 212-722-8203. PF Flyers, pfllyers 
com. Porsche Design, 212-308-1786. Post 
Vegas, loungesoho.com. Replay, 888- 
REPLAYS. Ric X, available at Chasalla 
in Chicago and Lounge in NYC. Rodo, 
available at Heel Shoe Lounge, 866-540- 
4335. 7 for All Mankind, 7forallmankind 
.com. Sisley, 800-535-4491. Sperry 
Sider, Pec lta pia Staple, aviatie 
at Reed Space, NYC. Stitch's, atriumnyc 
.com. Swag, atriumnyc.com. Threadless, 
threadless.com. Triple 5 Soul, triple5soul 
.com. Vintage Red, available at Macy's 
and Nordstrom locations nationwide. 
Wearfirst, available at Bloomingdale's 
and Macy's locations nationwide. 


POTPOURRI 


Pages 146-147: Ace, aceformen 
.com. Ambient, ambientdevices.com. 
DirecTV, directv.com. Lomographic, 
lomography.com. Pan Am, panamone 
.com. Playboy guitars, guitarcenter.com/ 
playboy. R2-D2, nikkor2d2.com. 
Tuthilltown Spirits, tuthilltown.com. 
Zonbu, zonbu.com. 


CREDITS: PHOTOGRAPHY BY: P. 3 NIGEL BARKER, BRENNAN CAVANAUGH, J. DAVID EISENBERG, 
MIKA TAYLOR, BARBARA WEISBERG; P. 5 ARNY FREYTAG, P. 6 J. DAVID EISENBERG, GETTY IMAGES, 
SHERYL NIELDS, DAVID RAMS; P. 9 KENNETH JOHANSSON, DAVID KLEIN (4), ELAYNE LODGE (3); 
P. 10 DAVID KLEIN (2), ELAYNE LODGE (2), MICKEY, JAMES TREVENEN (9); P. 19 DANIELA FEDERICI, 
MARK EDWARD HARRIS; Р. 14 ART STREIBER; P. 17 PATRIK B/5WEDEN/TRICKYMEDIA LTD. UK; 
P. 10 STEPHEN WAYDA; P. 22 GEORGE GEORGIOU (2); P. 29 CORBIS, GETTY IMAGES (3); P. 24 CORBIS, 
GETTY IMAGES (2), GLOBE PHOTOS; P. 27 COURTESY OF JAMES HAMILTON/FOX, 2007 GUNIVERSAL 
PICTURES/COURTESY EVERETT COLLECTION, INC., 62007 WARNER BROS., 2006 OWARNER BROS./ 
COURTESY EVERETT COLLECTION, INC., 2007 ОМАНМЕН DROS /COURTESY EVERETT COLLECTION, 
INC.; P. 28 COURTESY EVERETT COLLECTION, INC., FOX HOME ENTERTAINMENT, 2007 OSONY PIC- 
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"It was just what I'd expected." What 
he expected did not charm him. 

"On my second birthday," he says 
about one of his earliest memories, "all 
the kids from the Ranch were there. We 
always had whole-wheat carob cake on 
birthdays, made with goat's milk from 
our own goats." He couldn't wait to grow 
up and have a real chocolate cake. 

Sheppard and his brothers grew up 
without electricity. They used kerosene 
lamps and candles. No daily newspaper. 
No radio—at first. (Willow Aum sneaked 
in the first one.) No TV. "Except," Shep- 
pard says, "when we visited our grand- 
parents. But none of us really got into 
it." Instead of watching TV during the 
long evenings, Sheppard listened to his 
parents read aloud to him. "We all ate 
together every night at the big house," 
he says. They were vegetarians, though, 
he admits, "as soon as I could, I became 
a carnivore. Our parents were quite hon- 
est with us. They didn't hide much at all. 
By the mid-1 980s even they became more 
tuned into assimilating back into regular 
society." After he left the Ranch, Sheppard 
says, he realized that "most of the people I 
met didn't have some kind of experience 
growing up with so many people." 

Possibly because he wasn't born on the 
commune, he kept the surname Shep- 
pard; many other kids from the Ranch 
use the last name Aum, Sheppard also 
left the commune early. "When I was 
10," he says, "I moved down the road 
to Riverdale, another community. I had 
some resentment about the education 
we were getting. Pam, the teacher at the 
Ranch, was a tyrant. She chose to edu- 
cate some kids and not others. I said I 
wanted to go to the straight school so I 
could learn to read." 

Sheppard worked all summer to buy a 
pair of Sperry Top-Siders, and although 
a lot of the other kids his age at the Men- 
docino Middle School were from hippie 
families like his, he at first felt like an out- 
sider, “I was way behind,” he says. "I was 
in sixth grade, but I read at a third-grade 
level. I had to spend several years work- 
ing very hard to catch up." He went to 
Cabrillo College for a few years but quit 
because "I was too eager to start work- 
ing." Growing up in the counterculture 
seems to have sharpened Sheppard's 
appetite for traditional-culture success. 
But even if he has found a place for him- 
self in the country's common capitalistic 
culture, he has chosen to live close to the 
Ranch, just four miles away along the 
ridge. "I keep in touch with all of them," 
he says of his brothers. 

Ishvi Aum, who owns a successful local 
construction company, and Windspirit 
Aum still live near the Ranch. Blue Jay 
Aum moved to the Bay Area, and River 
Aum lives in Arizona. "He actually does 
my credit-card transactions at his firm 
down there," Sheppard says. Only Wil- 
low, who lives on the Ranch, still main- 
tains a hippie lifestyle, but they all retain 


many of the values they grew up with, 
Ishvi, for example, refuses to use indoor 
plumbing. They all live close to the land, 
many of them growing some of their 
own food. “We learned something from 
the previous generation,” Sheppard says, 
“but by not doing one thing, by all doing 
something different, we're more effective. 
We're even more effective gardeners.” 
The commune continues to cast a cen- 
tripetal force on those who lived there 
and their families. Sheppard enjoys this. 
“Pm happy my parents were here and 
not in suburbia,” he says. Not long ago 
his grandparents moved from Anaheim, 
in Orange County, to an area near the 
Ranch. “We had four generations liv- 
ing on the same property, and they live 
close by now,” Sheppard says proudly. 
"Innkeeping is like having an ideal com- 
mune—lots of people in one place. But 
I'm in control. No shared anything!” 


“My earliest memory,” Ishvi says, “is of 
watching Willow being born in a big barn 
filled with light.” Ishvi, Willow, Schneider 
and Marshall McNeil sit at a long table 
in the MacCallum House. Ishvi wears a 
green Tshirt, a cap, a beard and glasses. 
Intense, sharp and funny, he misses noth- 
ing. Willow is quiet, almost withdrawn, and 
speaks thoughtfully but rarely. McNeil, 
one of the elders, arrived at the Ranch 
in 1968, "My wife and I found some LSD 
through an Alan Watts seminar in Sau- 
salito," he says. "We left Marin for New 
York and spent a year and a half at Mill- 
brook. I was there at the end and made 
my way here." Like Schneider, McNeil is 
tall, rangy and as weather-seamed as oak 
bark, with somewhat wary outlaw eyes. 
He speaks even less than Willow. 

Sheppard comes and goes, sitting 
with us when not being interrupted by 
his duties managing the inn and plan- 
ning for a trip to Buenos Aires. Lav- 
ender Grace Kent—funny, lovely and 
worldly-wise—is our waitress. She grew 
up in a community down the road from 
the Ranch and spent seven years in New 
York City as a jazz vocalist. In between 
taking care of the tables around us, she 
finds time to comment on the story of the 
Ranch and the kids who grew up there. 

"They learned important things," Kent 
says. "Basic skills. Practical things. Topog- 
raphy, how to find your way around 
with a compass. Welding. My first weld- 
ing project was to make a cradle for my 
stuffed bear out of an old water heater. 
Marshall taught woodworking." 

"How to make a skunk-skin hat," 
Sheppard says. 

It all sounds like the Lost Boys in Nev- 
erland. "We learned how to survive," 
Kent says. 


“The best part was the holidays," Willow 
says. " Thanksgiving with everyone there. 
Christmas. Passover. Every time we had 


a celebration, everyone came together." 
"Real good for us kids," Ishvi says. 
"Then I think about how my kids grow 
up. It's not nearly as exciting a life. A 
nuclear family is a confining way to live. 
We weren't aware enough of the outside 
world, except for sports. We liked to watch 
football. After all, we were 10 guys." 

When the kids got older, the no-televi- 
sion rule was broken for football. Willow's 
dad hooked up a four-inch black-and- 
white TV that ran off a car battery so 
they could follow games. The elders, says 
Ishvi, "could rig that if they wanted to, 
but meanwhile the houses were sliding 
off their foundations." 

"They had a problem doing any kind 
of project," Willow says. "Some people 
did the work, and others just talked 
about it—what to build, how to build, 
where to build, what color to paint it." 

"Entropy made itself felt," Ishvi says. 

“We had to have some guidelines," 
McNeil says, "for everyone who wanted 
to visit, as well as for everyone who 
stayed. Anyone who stayed had to agree 
to certain obligations: help with the work, 
agree to cooperate." 

Any other rules? 

"You couldn't go outside of a fixed 
area," Willow says. 

"A rule I liked," Ishvi says, "was if you 
were going to fight, fight outside." 

“To protect the kerosene lamps," Wil- 
low adds. 

"Willow had to wear shoes," McNeil 
says. 

"No," Schneider says, "it was clothes." 

“That was only a rule at school," says 
Willow. 

"Willow still doesn't wear shoes," 
Schneider says. 

“We did a thing called thought-up 
theater," Ishvi says. "Every year a couple 
of shows. The kids would write them. 
They were always political in nature." 

“They did theater at political protests,” 
Willow says. 

They played war games and adventure 
games like Robin Hood. But the violence 
tended to be less physical and more ver- 
bal. "In general," Willow explains, "we 
were pretty peaceful." 

“Even when we played with the red- 
neck kids," Ishvi says, "there were no 
real problems." 

The kids on the Ranch were poor but 
didn't think of themselves as poor kids 
like some of the locals down the ridge. 
They were aware their parents had other 
options and had chosen this way of life, 
They were essentially isolated from the 
consumerism and cultural references— 
from pop songs to brand names—of the 
rest of their generation, but what truly 
separated them from other kids their age 
was their extended family, which created 
strong ties among them. 

"My mother was the head school- 
teacher," Ishvi says. "I grew tired of 
that by fifth grade." Like Sheppard, 
Ishvi decided he wanted a traditional 


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education. He says, "I went to three col- 
leges in four years" - Berklee School 
of Music in Boston (he plays alto sax), 
Emerson and Hampshire. At each place, 
he had trouble adjusting, especially to 
the administration, and he felt contempt 
for what he calls the trustafarians, rich 
kids in hippie clothing who didn't have 
to work for a living. He also lacked the 
common frame of reference for popular 
music, TV shows and suburban rituals. 

“One kid asked me if I knew The Brady 
Bunch," Ishvi says. "No way." He left 
school a semester shy of graduation. He 
didn't get a diploma, but he did get a 
wife—he married another student he'd 
met at Hampshire. 

Willow decided not to go to college. 
"He had too much sense to get into 
debt," Ishvi says. 

Ishvi's construction company employs 
a number of Mexican workers, whom 
Ishvi feels responsible for in an old- 
fashioned, paternalistic way and tries to 
protect—as he protects himself—from 
what he calls the straight world's stress 
culture, "which always wants to sell you 
something." He explains, “I don't live 
communally now. I share some property 
with land partners. I live simply. I still 
live off the land. We still have an out- 
house. But we have separate houses." 

Willow, who is 32, still lives on the 
Ranch, along with Schneider. Like Ishvi, 
Willow says, ^I live as simply as possible." 
He has few needs: a small generator and 
counterculture principles. 

“It's about people taking care of peo- 
ple," Willow says, "being kind to each 
other." He speaks softly, gently, almost 
to himself, as if he were expressing 
thoughts that come from very deep and 
far away—nothing surprising or new but 
true. There is magic about him. 

Would he live communally now? 

Willow smiles. "If someone wants to 
do it, good luck," he says. Like Sheppard 
and Ishvi, he “believes in community, not 
sharing." 

Eventually life at the Ranch devolved 
into endless meetings and arguments. 


"People's relationships became a big prob- 
lem," Willow says. "This person with that 
person. That person with this person." 

"Staying in a family relationship takes 
enormous energy," Ishvi says. "With a 
group of people, trying to stay together is 
like trying to keep hold of a smoke ring, 
especially when you live in the country 
and the infrastructure breaks down, like 
when the water tower fell over." 

"Every six months people said, ‘I'm get- 
ting out,' because people weren't living 
up to the agreement," McNeil says. "No 
one was doing the cooking, the cleaning, 
the chores. It always came down to who 
would dump the garbage." 

"The Ranch became a negative-energy 
dump," Schneider says. 


"Alan Watts's daughter was trying to 
form a commune," Schneider says. 
"Twenty people. Most of them college 
people. I was invited out there to talk 
about communes," He told them, "On à 
commune, you need people who know 
how to do things." 

"And the problem is the ones who 
are not competent always take charge," 
Ishvi says. 

It's an old problem for communes, 
even for the famous ones, those formed 
in the 19th century in Massachusetts by 
the Transcendentalists—Brook Farm and 
Fruitlands—where everyone wanted to 
sit around thinking great thoughts but 
no one wanted to work. It was even a 
problem for the apostle of the back-to- 
the-land movement, Henry David Tho- 
reau, who couldn't drive a nail into a 
board without bending it. 

But despite the odds against making 
a commune work, people are still drawn 
to the dream. "What makes people come 
together," McNeil says, "is a crisis. A com- 
mune has a better chance of surviving if 
it’s built around a creed, a business con- 
cept or a belief.” The Ranch was "built 
around personal growth," he explains, 
which became a problem. People out- 
grew the commune—or didn't grow. In 


either case the sense of community and 
commitment weakened. 

When did the commune end? 

"Depends on who you ask," Willow 
says at last. “I'm still there." 

"It was active for 22 years," McNeil says. 

"It went on longer than that," Ishvi says. 

“There was a sort of rebirth about 10 
years ago," Schneider says. “Ishvi and 
Willow tried to reenergize it." 

"I'm for indoor plumbing," Willow 
says, "but people who used to live there 
give you opposition to changing any of 
the old ways." 

The older generation "is going out 
like the dinosaurs," Ishvi says. "What 
they did and what they had was a very 
short moment in history, but so is the 
way everyone lives now—consuming, à 
short moment in history. So maybe keep- 
ing the old ways"—knowing how to live 
simply and off the land—"is important." 

One seemingly trivial fact becomes 
increasingly significant to me the more 
I think about it and the more I compare 
these guys with kids their age who didn't 
grow up in their circumstances: Not one 
of them owns an iPod. 

“Га like to see all the people who were 
involved come back and retire there," 
Ishvi says. "Have younger people join 
them. Do it again but with what we've all 
learned." Willow nods. "Living together," 
Willow says, "but separately." 

The kids wouldn't live communally 
as their parents did but would build on 
what their parents had created. "Most 
of the kids who grew up on the Ranch," 
McNeil points out, “never changed their 
last name." 

After dinner I suggest to Schneider 
that we visit the Ranch. "Oh, it's too 
late," he says. 


"Maybe he didn't want you to see how it's 
all fallen apart," Willow's mother, Leslie 
Campbell, says. 

Campbell was, at 19, one ofthe young- 
est of the first generation to join the com- 
mune. Most of the others were 10 years 


older and, unlike her, had gone to col- 
lege. “They had an intellectual basis for 
wanting to be there,” she says. “I didn't 
have that at all. I wasn't a hippie. I was 
just experimenting." 

She left Santa Clara, California, where 
she'd been raised, and in the late 1960s 
went to San Francisco for a few weeks. At 
a Berkeley love-in she found herself in a 
group hug and went home with a guy 
who invited her to move up to the Men- 
docino area, which she did on a whim. 

"It was like summer camp," Campbell 
says. "We fooled around in the woods all 
day." She met Willow's father and fell 
in love. When he invited her to move 
to the Ranch, she didn't hesitate. "I did 
that on a lark, too," she says. "Figured 
I might as well try it out. You never 
know... “ 

She stayed for 12 years. 

"I developed their ideas," she says, 
showing them that they could live better 
by cooperating than by themselves. “And 
I became a convert.” Campbell repaired 
the cars and trucks and gardened, both of 
which she loved doing, neither of which 
she figures she would have done if she 
hadn't gone to the Ranch. She found com- 
munal living to be great for the mothers, 
especially the single ones. It was perfect 
day care—more than day care. 

“We thought of the kids as children of 
the commune,” she says. "I still consider 
them all my kids." 

They all watch out and care for one 
another. 

"A couple of years ago," Campbell says, 
"Willow took some bad drugs and had a 
psychotic break for a month, really bad. 
Scared the shit out of me. And all the 
boys—his brothers—stood up for him. He 
came out of it, Whether it's genetic or not, 
they have a real bond." A stronger bond 
than the adults had with one another. 

“Most of the men had given over to 
the whole feminist thing," Campbell says. 
"Nice guys but not strong, masculine 
men." The boys, however, reacted to the 
matriarchy with cynicism. "Watching cou- 
ples switching from one to another had a 
real effect on the boys," she says. "There 
was a lot of pain among the women. 
Women can be brutal to one another." 

None of the boys grew up wanting to 
live with a group of women. "They're all 
happy in monogamous relationships," 
Campbell says. "The girls are not as close 
to one another or to the boys." Campbell 
raised Ishvi's sister. "Her mother had a 
big anger problem," Campbell says, "and 
the girl needed a safer place to be." 

Three of the four girls raised at the 
Ranch “married and have traditional 
families," Campbell says, more tradi- 
tional than the boys’, "They're not about 
to repeat the experiment. I don't blame 
them. It wasn't healthy. We preached one 
thing, but the reality was different." 

The focus was on raising children, 
not on free love. But Campbell says one 
of the women "used to put out the red 


light, and anybody was welcome. She 
made a point of manipulating people 
with her sexuality. She seduced the men 
and most of the women, too." 

But money, not sex, became the big- 
gest problem. “The shared money," 
Campbell says, "became a farce." 

At first, when no one had any money 
except for what they could scrounge or 
get from government assistance, it was 
easier to share. But when people got jobs 
and began to inherit property, it became 
harder. People hung on to what they 
had, which created resentment among 
the others. “It was similar to what a hus- 
band and wife go through," Campbell 
says, "but multiplied by a factor of 12 or 
15." The more demanding members got 
more, which was the real beginning of 
the end. ^You go up there now," Camp- 
bell says, "and there isn't much left." 

Photographs of the brothers when 
they were children reveal a paradise of 
homebuilt, light-filled shacks in a wild 
garden: everyone holding hands in à 
circle—inside around the dinner table, 
outside dancing around a picnic table—a 
child, maybe two or three years old at the 
most, milking a goat. 

Now most of the buildings have 
fallen, reduced to piles of rotting wood. 
"Yeah," Campbell says, "maybe Walter 
didn't take you to the Ranch because it's 
too hard to see—through your eyes— 
what's happened to it." 


I have one interview left to do—with 
Ronnie Newsome, my old high school 
friend who was the spiritual center of 
the commune I lived on. Funny, fast- 
talking, reckless and zany, Ronnie was 
our Neal Cassady, our Dean Moriarty. 
In April of our senior year I told him I 
was quitting school and hitching to San 
Francisco. He marshaled all the argu- 
ments against dropping out and con- 
vinced me not to. When I went to school 
the next day, I learned that after he had 
left my house, he'd packed a small bag 
and stuck out his thumb on Route 91 
South, toward New York. 

I went to Amherst College. Ronnie 
joined the Navy. I joined the school 
theater group. Ronnie freaked out, 
stripped off his uniform and threw it, 
with his military ID, off a ship into the 
water. After a stint in St. Albans Hospi- 
tal, he was discharged from the Navy. He 
showed up at my dorm, sat in on classes 
and did so well as an unofficial student 
that some official students protested. 

Without a high school diploma, Ron- 
nie got a scholarship to Brandeis Uni- 
versity. Freshman year, in Ronnie's first 
class, the professor, discussing Walden, 
berated the students, telling them that 
if they had truly understood Thoreau's 
book, they wouldn't be in class. Ronnie 
agreed, walked out of the classroom, 
quit school and headed back to western 
Massachusetts, where we eventually 


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started our own commune. When I quit 
to go to New York and make my way as a 
writer, Ronnie stayed on as the commune 
guru, eventually blasting out his brains 
on acid. He was last seen standing on a 
highway, his thumb out, a pad of poems 
he was working on in the back pocket of 
his jeans, a Camel pack rolled up in the 
sleeve of his white T-shirt. The driver of 
the truck that killed him said he never 
saw Ronnie on the road. 

Back then and today Ronnie has always 
represented my road not taken. 

"You haven't thought of me in years," 
Ronnie's ghost says as he sits beside me 
on the steps of the MacCallum House in 
the breezy, briny-smelling dark. 

"Haven't had reason to," I say. 

“So you conjured me up because you 
couldn't figure out how to end your story 
on communes," he says. "You always used 
to come to me to solve your problems." 

"Which vou liked," I say. "Everyone on 
the commune assumed you knew what 
to do." 

"About what?” 

"About everything. Drugs. Sex. The 
first time I had a psychedelic——" 

"In Boston. When was it?" 

"1966." 

“With that bald guy, the Wizard——"* 

"The East Coast version of Owsley." 

“You ever hear the rumor that Owsley 
was supplied by the CIA?" 

"I wouldn't be surprised. Leary, Alpert, 
Lilly—most of the psychedelic royalty 
had some contact with the CIA. In his 
autobiography Leary admitted it." 

The postwar baby boom was a great 
experiment in social mobility; all those 
boomers went to college and were being 


educated to become doctors, lawyers 
and engineers. But the culture couldn't 
absorb all those professionals, In a 
decade or so there would be a large, dis- 
appointed, frustrated and angry middle 
class. All the modern revolutions were 
started by a large, disappointed, frus- 
trated and angry middle class. 

How to reduce the pressure on society 
from this potentially angry cohort? 

"Turn on, tune in, drop out," Ronnie 
says. 

"The middle class and rich kids could 
always buy back in." 

"Like Patty Hearst," Ronnie says, nod- 
ding. "But blue-collar guys like me end 
up out in the cold. Out of luck." 

"You're not out of luck, Ronnie," I say. 
"You're dead." 

"Yeah. How about that? There were 
five of us smart working-class kids in high 
school. You're the only one left alive." 

"Isn't that a little paranoid?" 

"You're the one imagining the words 
I'm saying." 

“So, bottom line.?“ 

Before I get an answer Schneider 
drives up and Ronnie's ghost is gone. 

When I get into the car I ask Schneider 
if we can stop at the Ranch. "No time," 
he says. "You'll miss your plane." 


"So," I had asked the night before, "was 
the commune a success?" 

"Look at these young ones," McNeil 
had said. 

He gestured down the table at Ishvi, 
Willow, Sheppard and Kent, then nodded. 

"Yes." 


"What an excellent party! Someone actually sucked on me." 


KEITH OLBERMANN 


(continued from page 54) 
address and purchase history, including 
a $15 money order made out to Kather- 
ine Harris's congressional campaign. 
PLAYBOY: Harris, the Republican who 
delivered Florida's disputed electoral 
votes to Bush in the 2000 election. 
OLBERMANN: This guy saw Harris, 
Michelle Malkin, Ann Coulter and 
Laura Ingraham as the hottest women 
in America. To please them, he tried to 
scare me. It wasn't political for him; it 
was sexual, He was like John Hinckley 
trying to impress Jodie Foster. He had no 
job, lived in his mother's basement. 
PLAYBOY: Chad Castagana was arrested for 
sending fake-anthrax envelopes to you, 
David Letterman, Jon Stewart and others. 
OLBERMANN: And he got the wrong Jon 
Stewart. That envelope went to a Manhat- 
tan lawyer named Jon Stewart, poor guy. 
PLAYBOY: Two days after your trip to the 
hospital, you turned up in the New York 
Post's "Page Six" gossip column. 
OLBERMANN: Somebody from the hospital 
or the NYPD tipped off the t 
PLAYBOY: Murdoch's paper. 

OLBERMANN: "Page Six" reported I insisted 
on being taken to the hospital, which is 
false. It reported that "preliminary tests 
came back negative" for anthrax, and the 
doctors sent me home: "It is not known if 
they gave him a lollipop." 

PLAYBOY: "Page Six" had fun with your 
anthrax scare. 

OLBERMANN: And reported it without 
calling me, without calling the FBI or 
MSNBC, The Post, in its zeal to mock me, 
took the side of this domestic terrorist. 
That's how it shows its true colors. The 
New York Post is in favor of terrorism, at 
least to the degree that it scares the Post's 
enemies and sells newspapers. 

PLAYBOY: During your stint at Fox TV, 
you worked for Murdoch. Did you and 
he ever meet? 

OLBERMANN: No, he was never around 
the office when I was. Rupert spends 
most of his time in hell, I believe, and 
gets out on a day pass. 

PLAYBOY: Jump ahead to the year 2020. 
Will you still be doing Countdown? 
OLBERMANN: Who could know? If you 
had told me this was how my career 
would spin out, two things would have 
surprised me: first, that I would be 
friendly with John Dean—— 

PLAYBOY: Who went from Nixon lawyer to 
frequent Countdown guest. 

OLBERMANN: And second, the length of 
my résumé. So many jobs! In fact, most 
of the places I've worked didn't exist five 
or 10 years before I got there, You can't 
plan for that. One key to banishing what- 
ever demons I had was to stop looking to 
the next job, the next improvement, and 
focus on the here and now. 


20 YEARS AGO THIS MONTH 


Two passions found their way 


Oregon State University ЫЎ she should be honored into Brandi Brandt's blood 
a undue alongside the university's early on: PLAYBOY and rock 
X camini iret PMOY noted alums. Seniors Carly and roll. When 
r . ME Stoughton, Heather Lons- the future Miss 


Sara Jean Underwood. 


Distinguished students and alumni should 
be celebrated—it's good marketing. So when 
Oregon State University undergrad Sara 
Jean Underwood was named Playmate of the 
Year for 2007, three OSU students thought 


dale and Alex Polvi took it 
upon themselves to make 
a commemorative banner 
mock-up and hang it along 
Memorial Way outside Cov- 
ell Hall. The three designed 
and constructed the banner 
as part of a broadly defined 
women's studies class assign- 
ment. "We recognize other 
achievements, Why not 
this?" Stoughton reasons. 
At 7:30 A.M. on the day 
the project was due, the 
students mounted their 
creation atop a banner hon- 
oring Tim Leatherman, of 
Leatherman Pocket Tools 
fame. Some students were 
dismayed at the seemingly 
official addition to the walk 
and thought it was inappro- 
priate. But others, like the 
PMOY herself, appreciated 


the gesture. "In my mind 
PLAYBOY is liberating for to make eye contact? 
С women, so I thought that ж-е Because breasts 


was great," Sara says. After 
two hours, the administra- 


tion had Facilities Services remove the poster 
and return it to Polvi to present in class. No 
charges were filed, Polvi got an A on the 
project, and the three graduating seniors 
received their diplomas the following week. 


TENS DRESSED TO THE NINES 


D'Er 


October was 
still a young 
girl, her father 
predicted she 
was destined 
for the pages 


of PLAYBOY ("I 
guess father 
knows best," 
she said), 
while Mom 
used a bass 

drum asa cra- 

dle. Brandi 

landed an 

impressive three соу- 

ers of the magazine and went 
on to wed rock royal Nikki 
Sixx of Motley Crue. 


"Why do men find it difficult 


don't have eyes." 
m —Kimberly 
TY 

Ps 


1 Holland 


| M `>. 


Samm) Sideou! ) 
Alzheimer's benefi т 


at the Mansion 


Tiffany Fallon а! 
Smashbox Studio: 


Fashion 


> 


2 


during L.A 


ek: Irina Voroni ma 


Ab 


140 


l 
Li š = IT 


POP QUESTIONS: JENNIFER WALCOTT 


k 


IN 


MY FAVORITE PLAYMATE 
By Chris Nuñez 


of Miami Ink 


“My favorite Playmate is 
Playmate of the Year 1996 
Stacy Sanches. | didn't know 
who she was 
until a 
client asked me to 


tattoo a picture 


of her on him. 


Over the years 
people have 
asked for tattoos 

of Playmates, but 
she's the one who 
really stands 


Q: We hear you've been working with 
the Ronald McDonald House Charities 
for children. What exactly do you do 


with the organization? 


A: I help out in the office. I mostly 


answer phones and 
admit people. 
Sometimes I just 
listen to whoever 
needs an ear. 

Q: What strikes 
you most about 
the work? 

A: The people who 
stay with us have 


high spirits and are =, ! p On 
-— 7- ты 


Q: What got you interested in Ronald 


very optimistic. 


McDonald House? 


A: I like working with animals and 
kids, and 1 had been looking for a char- 


Та 


HOT I 


ity to get involved with when someone 
suggested it at a dinner I attended. 
Q: Do you think it's important to pur- 
sue volunteer work? 

A: The more I give the more I get. 


y 


— a? 


3 


> 


Many of us are so 
busy with the 
everyday aspects of 
life that we forget 
the meaning of it. 

Q: Has becoming 
a Playmate made it 
possible for you to 
help others? 

A: I've been able 
to make a name 
for myself, and 


because of that I've been able to meet 
а lot of people. ғілүроү has given me a 
great opportunity to network and 


make a difference. 


N THE : 


| 


> HAMPTONS | 


Тс-асі Pam guest- 
starred in Hons Klok’s 
The Beauty of Magic 


hosted supersexy stars including 
at the Palms. Oh, Gabrielle, 

had an amazing celebrity turn- 
Playmate of the Year 1997 Victoria 
sumé add 

featured in 

The Beauty 

Genterfold traded her red Bay- 
Dutch illusionist. Just leave her as 
can now down- 

papers, photos, 

and a Cyber 

Shannon was 

Vegas and on the Vegas Strip. 
more Centerfolds from the Great 


Miss May 2006 Alison Waite and 
Gabrielle Union at the Dis- 
creet in the Suite event at ^N 
call us.... The European És 
unveiling of The Playboy - 
out that included Miss February 
1990 Pamela Anderson, model 
Silvstedt.... T. 
To Pam's $ қ 
magician's 
assistant. 
the smash 
Vegas show 

š nd Pilar joined Union 
of Magic at ° 
the Planer e Sky Villo. 
watch swimsuit for a sparkling 
one-piece in which she levitated 
you found her, 
okay, Hans?... 
load iPlayboy, 
a package of 
episodes of the 
Playboy Hour 
Girl video.... 
Miss January 
seen working 
the turntables 
Mansion in Miami. She recently 
signed a three-album deal with 
White North. A bounty of Toronto- 
area Playmate hopefuls attended 


Miss August 2004 Pilar Lastra 
the Hugh Hefner Sky Villa 
Legacy Collection in Cannes 
May Andersen, Kid Rock and 
sterling ré- 

She was 

Hans Klok's 

Hollywood Resort £ Casino. The 
and was sawed in two by the 
¡Phone owners 

Playmate wall- 

radio show 

2004 Colleen 

at Pure in Las 

Thrive Records.... Look out for 
a casting in the city. 


MORE PLAYMATES 
See your favorite Playmate's 
pictorial in the Cyber Club 
at cyber.ployboy.com or 


download her to your phone 
at playboymobile.com. 


PILA YE yO Y 


142 


STUDENTS 


(continued from page 60) 
met many girls who'll tell you giving 
head is pleasurable for them. 

KATE: Giving a blow job is a bit of a power 
trip for a lot of girls. But for a woman, 
receiving oral sex is too intimate and 
uncomfortable to enjoy with someone 
you're not really involved with. 
CHRISTINE: Nothing's more intimate 
than anal sex. The pooper is a private 
place. I've been trying to peg my boy- 
friend for months, 

KATE: Most of my peers have more oral 
sex, and much more casually, than 
they would ever have intercourse. It's 
a result of all the "education" we get 
that sex is bad and dangerous. So we 
don't do it; we do oral instead. It's not 
logical at all, but it's where we are. 
GLORY: In Mississippi sex education 
is abstinence-only. Abstinence. Only. 
There is no discussion of condoms or 
STDs, The educators who are supposed 
to be teaching this are forbidden to dis- 
cuss sex at all, even to give recommen- 
dations on where to get condoms. 
NICOLE: Condoms are in fishbowls in 
bars everywhere in New Orleans, 
which is great, but you can't get them 
on the Loyola campus. There's a Rite 
Aid around the corner, of course. If 
you're a girl and go to the clinic with a 
cough or cold, the doctors will hound 
you: Are you pregnant? Are you sure? 
Are you sexually active? How many 


partners have you had? It's like the 
freaking Inquisition. 


ADVICE SQUAD 
MARGO: For guys, my number one piece 
of advice is to use lube. I feel personally 
responsible for turning a lot of people on 
to this for vaginal sex. They're like, “Oh my 
God, it feels a lot better." I'm like, “Yeah, 
nobody likes a dry vagina. Tell all the girls 
you date from now on to thank me." 
wes: My advice for a freshman girl would 
be to get on birth control, then have as 
much sex as possible. 
JANET: Га say to a freshman girl, "Don't 
be too nice." Don't be a bitch, but don't 
be too nice. At Carnegie Mellon there's a 
high incidence of Asperger's syndrome, 
a mild form of autism. Those who have 
it can function completely fine, but they 
don't understand social cues at all. They'll 
stand three inches from your face when 
they talk to you. I suffered through a lot 
of weird hugs and weird, awkward back 
rubs. People would walk up and just start 
rubbing my back. I would try to politely 
get out of it when I should have just 
turned around and said, "You're creep- 
ing me out. Get away!" 
WES: I tell you, it's hard getting laid 
as a freshman guy. It's important 
for you to make a name for yourself 
early. If you fuck one girl, fuck her 
good because she's going to tell all 
her friends. Word of mouth is the best 
advertisement. Second thing is, don't 
piss them off, One mistake a lot of 


TACTO WEE 


mM Oy ЕТТЕ 


ОГ 


— 


"No. As a matter of fact, its not a typo." 


freshman guys make is to date or have 
sex with one girl, then break up with 
her and piss her off. Then he'll never 
have sex with any of her friends. 


THREE'S A CROWD 
wes: I've had some girls’ roommates get 
in the way a couple of times. But most of 
the time if a girl wants to have sex with 
you, it’s going to happen. 
CHRISTINE: I've definitely sexiled my 
roommate, but if you're dating someone, 
you tend to go over to the guy’s place. 
wes: Home-field advantage is a good 
thing to have. You control the setting. 
Do we watch TV in the living room or 
the bedroom? If you want to get her into 
bed, you could tell her the TV in the liv- 
ing room isn't working. With my room- 
mates there's an unspoken agreement: 
If I bring a girl over, leave us alone. 
CHRISTINE: When you're dating in college 
it's good to look out for someone who 
has a car and/or a single dorm room. A 
single is gold. It's not the first thing I 
look for in a guy, but if I find out he has 
a single, it’s definitely bonus points. 


WHAT I LIKE ABOUT YOU 
MARGO: I love men for so many reasons. 
The male body is the hottest thing on 
the planet, Гуе definitely freaked guys 
out by being like, “You have a fucking 
beautiful dick.” They're like, “What?” 
and I'm like, "Your cock's gorgeous." 
A nice dick is a great turn-on. A lot 
of men aren't used to receiving com- 
pliments, and they're so wonderful 
when they do. They're taken aback, 
and they're like, Wow! 

CHRISTINE: I like feeling support. Some- 
times I like to play the submissive gen- 
der role, being the little spoon to the 
guy's big spoon. It's very comforting to 
be with someone different from you yet 
still find you fit together. I'm a bit of a 
princess, so I like being taken care of. 
A guy will put up with that a whole lot 
more than another girl will. 

wes: I like everything about women— 
their bodies, that's number one. But they 
also have a certain naive mind-set I find 
attractive, Actually, sometimes that can 
be not such a good thing, too. 

MARGO: Men are so passionate about the 
things they love. They can express pas- 
sion in so many ways that women aren't 
allowed to in society, or maybe we just 
don't. Men get riled up about sports or 
politics or food. I think that's so sexy. 
GLORY: I love men. The majority of 
my best friends have been men. I've 
always enjoyed the company of men. I 
love their sense of humor. I love read- 
ing sex columns in magazines like 
PLAYBOY, I care about penises. Penises 
can be your friends. Some of my best 
friends are penises, to paraphrase my 
mother and father. 


Tonight's 
Topless Story 
Flash! There's a new 
newscaster on the 
scene, and her 
approval rating is 
already higher than 
Katie Couric's. 
Vancouverite HOLLY 
EGLINTON won the 
Raw Talent Search 
held by Naked News. 


i 
; 
i 


Freed Paris 

Mere weeks after getting out of jail, PARIS HILTON 
was back on the job. What job? Falling out of her 
clothes for the benefit of the American public, of 
course. The girl's a workaholic. 


Y 


COUS WT HOt OMA Ob 


We're Here to Teach 

Don't be so quick to call RIHANNA the most musically 
accomplished native Barbadian. Doug E. Fresh and 
Grandmaster Flash fans might object. Really. 


LETRA SOLAS ACTON PUES L EAS 


ALOJA 


Mighty 
Aphrodite 


How snooze- 
worthy would 
women's ten- 
nis be without 


Serena and 


VENUS 
WILUAMS? 
(Answer: See 
men's game.) 
At the Wim- 
bledon Cham- 
pions Dinner, 
Venus put 
one just out- 
side the line. 


Picture This 
The girl-watching blog 
Bastardly.com has a tag 
we like called "Needs to 
do PLAYBOY." Nods go to 
Jennifer Love Hewitt, 
April Scott and this one, 
SVETLANA METKINA. She's 


on her way—this is her = í 
=F second Grapevine. ү 1 


We'll Buy 
2 That for 
7 V $49.99 
Ж Vintner NATALIE 
Y OLIVEROS (whose 

nom de shag 

is SAVANNA 
SAMSON) hasn't 
overplayed the 
porn connection 


to promote her 
` А 
` Sogno Uno wine. 


Until now. 


ve 


i, 


Officer 
Dangle 

Just which 

way does 

MAJA IVARSSON 
swing? Answer: 
Both of ‘em. 
The enchanting 
lead singer for 
Swedish power- 
poppers the 
Sounds is on 
record saying 
she’s bisexual. 
It may be a 
savvy career 
move. To para- 
phrase Woody 
Allen, it doubles 
your chances of 
getting a gig on 
a Saturday night. 


mar wana CAME тағала PRATO 


LH pw 


Motaourri 


NATURAL ANTIDOTE 


LET US AX YOU 
SOMETHING 


> Rock music and 
PLAYBOY go 
together like, well, 
hot girls and guitars. 
Now we've teamed 
with Clayton to create 
a line of limited- 
edition electric 
guitars festooned 
with our signature 
visuals. Beyond 
looks, you'll find 
features fit for a rock 
god: mother-of-pearl 
inlays, Grover 
tuning keys, EMG- 
HZ pickups—the 
works. What's more, 
we're offering our 
first acoustic (not 
pictured) so 
you can take an in- 
vigorating run 
through the entire 
set of Nirvana's 
MTV Unplugged in 
New York. Priced 
from $500; go to 
guitarcenter.com/ 
playboy for details. 


We have trouble seeing the greatness in the great outdoors if going there 
means missing a Jets game. If you're one of the higher beings who have 
evolved past feeling ashamed of their out-of-control TV habit, DirecTV 
would like a word. Pictured here in all its glory is the company's Sat-Go 
device ($1,500, directv.com), a 27-pound briefcase containing a satellite 
dish, receiver and 17-inch screen. It runs off an internal battery for up to 
one hour, or you can plug it into your car for unlimited goggleboxing. 

Not only is it the ultimate tailgating accessory, you'll be amazed at how 

146 effectively 250 channels can distract you from the wonders of nature. 


BRUSHING UP 


The dassic Ace comb has changed very little 
from the one your great-grandfather shared 
with his 14 siblings. But since you whipper- 
snappers are never satisfied, Ace now offers 
a full line of men's practical grooming gear, 
adding things like a copper-bristle brush for 
dandruff, facial-hair scissors, a nose- and 
ear-hair trimmer and a diabolical-looking 
nailbrush. Prices run from about $4 for a 
basic comb to about $32 for a Power Groom- 
ing Set. All are available at aceformen.com. 


JUST ENOUGH 


Most of our computer needs—e-mail, web 
browsing, image tweaking, word process- 
ing—don't require much power. Which is 
why we dig Zonbu (zonbu.com). This 
tiny PC comes without keyboard, monitor 
and mouse and costs $100 plus $13 to 
$20 a month for two vears. (The monthly 
fee is for support and online storage.) It 
runs Linux (which works just like Windows) 
and is loaded with most of what you use 
for everyday computing. 


THE DROID YOU'RE 
LOOKING FOR 


The Jedi may jump around 
with their flashy lightsabers, 
but everyone knows the 
true hero of Star Wars is the 
little astromech that could, 
R2-D2. This two-thirds-scale 
R2 ($2,800, nikkor2d2.com) 
is nearly as useful as the 
original, with a built-in DVD 
player, photo-card readers, 
¡Pod dock and speakers, plus 
a video projector in his 
"eye." We say throw in 
Episode IV, mix up some blue 
milk and improvise your own 
cantina scene. Just 
remember, no blasters. 


PICTURE PERFECT 


Analog film isn't dead; its just taking a disco nap. Lomographic's 
inexpensive single-purpose cameras put the whimsy back into cap- 
turing your life. We like the Fisheye No. 2 (right, $70, lomography 
.com), which compresses nearly 180 degrees of visuals into a demented 
circle. Deeper-pocketed filmheads will love this Leica homage, the 
Yasuhara 1981 range finder (left, $700), complete with gold accents. 


SUEDE-SHOE BLUES 


We have a simple system for 
predicting the weather: If 
the sky is clear when we leave 
the house, we don't pack 

an umbrella. Turns out our 
system doesn't work. Develop 
your meteorological ESP with 
an Ambient Umbrella ($125, 
ambientdevices.com), the 
smartest rain stopper we've 
seen. Not just a good gust- 
busting brolly, it also receives 
wireless AccuWeather.com 
data, and its handle lights up 
when the forecast calls for 
precip. Keep one by the door 
and never ruin a nice pair of 
Ferragamo loafers again. 


MILE-HIGH CLUB 
There was a time when traveling by air meant 
getting dressed up. It meant your best 
double-knit poly-blend sky-blue slacks and a 
swell striped tie, wide as you please. Pan Am 
hasn't been running planes for 16 years, but 
its logo and baggage are timeless jet-age 
icons. Now Machine Project Inc. has revital- 
ized them with 12 cabin bags (from $52, 
panamone.com) that pay homage to a more 
civilized time. Because there's no better 
martini than the one you have at 20,000 feet. 


SPIRITUAL HEALING 


Before Prohibition, New York was known for 
its rye. After it ended, the distillers never returned. 
Until now. Tuthilltown Spirits (tuthilltown.com) 
in Gardiner, New York began making booze two 
years ago, including Government Warning Rye 
($40), whose spicy, peppery flavor says what 

an official name can't. Next to it you'll find its 
brother, Hudson Baby Bourbon ($40), made 
from 100 percent New York corn and sporting 
fruit notes that aren't overly sweet. 


WHERE AND HOW TO BUY ON PAGE 134 


WERE HAPPY TO SERVE YOU 


ext Month 


Mit 


TH£ ICEMAN'S WARMER SIDET 


BUNNIES AT THE PALMS—THE PLAYBOY CLUB AT THE PALMS IS 
ENJOYING THE GLAMOROUS CACHET OF THE FABLED CLUBS OF 
AN EARLIER ERA. THAT'S DUE IN NO SMALL MEASURE TO THESE 
DELECTABLE BUNNIES, WHO DON EARS, BOW TIES AND LITTLE 
ELSE IN A PERFECTLY HOSPITABLE PICTORIAL. 


CHILLING WITH THE ICEMAN—IN THE OCTAGON CHUCK 
LIDDELL IS ONE OF THE TOUGHEST AND MOST INTIMIDATING 
MIXED MARTIAL ARTISTS FIGHTING TODAY. YET WHEN LUCIUS 
SHEPARD VISITS LIDDELL'S CALIFORNIA STOMPING GROUNDS, 
HE FINDS A CONGENIAL DUDE STRUGGLING WITH A FLOATIE TOY. 


ROBERT REDFORD—THE MAN WHO MADE UTAH A FILM CAPITAL 
REMAINS AMONG HOLLYWOOD'S MOST POWERFUL PLAYERS. 
ON THE EVE OF THE DEBUT OF L/ONS FOR LAMBS, REDFORD'S 
LATEST DIRECTORIAL EFFORT, DAVID HOCHMAN LANDS A 
PLAYBOY INTERVIEW WITH AN ORIGINAL INDEPENDENT. 


MATT LEINART—WITH A TOUGH ROOKIE SEASON BEHIND HIM, 
THE HEISMAN-WINNING QUARTERBACK IS HEALTHY AND EAGER 
TO PLAY. THE HARD PART, THOUGH, SEEMS TO BE NAVIGATING 
HIS NEWFOUND CELEBRITY. 200 BY JASON BUHRMESTER 


FRED THOMPSON—THE LAWYER, LOBBYIST, ACTOR, SENATOR 
AND LIKELY PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE SITS DOWN WITH POLITI- 


THÉ OTHER LINDSAY WAGNER, CLEARLY NOT BIONIC 


CAL ANALYST JEFF GREENFIELD TO DISCUSS WHAT AMERICANS 
WANT IN A CANDIDATE AND WHY THEY'RE NOT GETTING IT. 


THIS IS YOUR BRAIN ON...SEX—IN HIS THIRD REPORT ON THE 
SCIENCE OF MALE SEXUALITY, PLAYBOY'S CHIP ROWE SHOWS 
HOW SEX AND LOVE ARE ADDICTIVE DRUGS THAT CAUSE THE 
BRAIN TO SHORT-CIRCUIT. HOW SWEET. 


THE GUNDERSON PROPHECY—PROMPTED BY VISITS FROM AN 
INTERGALACTIC GNOME, A RECENTLY DIVORCED GURU HUSTLES 
A MAKE-OR-BREAK TV DEAL TO SAVE THE WORLD, WHILE BED- 
DING EVERY ACOLYTE IN SIGHT. FICTION BY SAM LIPSYTE 


GENIUSES AT PLAY—JUST AS THE NEW SEASON OF VIDEO 
GAMES IS ABOUT TO HIT, PLAYBOY'S SCOTT ALEXANDER TALKS 
TO THE BRAINS BEHIND THE GAMES ABOUT WHAT'S NEXT IN 
INTERACTIVE STORYTELLING AND DIGITAL DERRING-DO. 


THE FALL OF PAUL WOLFOWITZ—PLAYBOY TAPS POLITICAL 
JOURNALIST JAMES ROSEN TO DELIVER THE STORY OF THE 
HIGH-LEVEL GAME OF PAYBACK THAT CAUSED THE POWERFUL 
WORLD BANK PRESIDENT'S DOWNFALL. 


PLUS: BARRY BONDS'S FORMER PARAMOUR KIMBERLY BELL, 
MISS NOVEMBER LINDSAY WAGNER AND INTRODUCING OUR 
GLOBALLY MINDED INTERNATIONAL BEAUTY SPREAD. OOH LA LA. 


Playboy (ISSN 0032-1478), October 2007, volume 54, number 10. Published monthly by Playboy in national and regional editions, Playboy, 680 

North Lake Shore Drive, Chicago, Illinois 60611. Periodicals postage paid at Chicago, Illinois and at additional mailing offices. Canada Post Cana- 

dian Publications Mail Sales Product Agreement No. 40035534. Subscriptions: in the U.S., $29.97 for 12 issues. Postmaster: Send address change to 
148 Playboy, PO, Вох 2007, Harlan, Iowa 51537-4007. For subscription-related questions, call 800-999-4438, or e-mail circ@ny.playboy.com.