PLAYBOY

ENTERTAINMENT FQ ^

www.playboy.com e MAY 2009

CHUCK
PALAHNIUK
INTERVIEW

DEADLIEST
4 CAR RACE

PARTES

WALL | QUINTO 200,
STREET | |

р BILL JAMES,

THE BEST IPOD
DOCKS

LISA RINNA

DRINK WITH CARE с STOLCHNAYA® vodka. 40% Ал, Disines ro grin. 02003 imported by Millan Grant & Sons. NY NY.

Pledg:

jegiance to the twisty. You're torn. Tough times call for
practical considerations. Yet your loyalties lie elsewhere. With
the curve, the rise, the apex. Enter the 2010 MAZDA3. Wallet

smart meets wicked fun. It starts around SI6k' and gets up to
33 MPG*" It offers available class exclusives! like an Adaptive Front-
lighting System that sees around corners, dual zone climate
control and 10-speaker Bose* Surround Sound Audio. Hook
all that up to a track-bred MZR engine, quick-throw
shift, and driver-intuitive steering— and you're
ready to swear on a stack of s-curves never
to surrender joy to practicality, The
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e careful what you wish for. It's a
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mit. interviewed
een PLAYBILL

acters who court apocalypse and strive
for self-destruction. Their decisions are
irrevocable, unhedged faith-based bets that
damn well better be right. On a smaller
scale the gigolos in Paradise Lost by

are choosing to end life as they know
it, lighting out for the territory and thumb-
ing their nose at civilization—well, for up to
six months. Seems the old TV series got it
right: Everyone wants to visit a fantasy is-
land, but nobody wants to stay. You know
that one friend you have who lucked into a
threesome but claims it wasn't all that? Sex
columnist gives us the flip
side of that dubious account, the unintended
consequences that ensued when she set up
a ménage. If there can be unintended con-
sequences from sex with an extra woman,
there can be unforeseen issues from sex
with a woman you never meet—sometimes
called sperm donation—as
documents in Forum. What is this, the Re-
gret Issue? Here at the edge
of summer we're expected
to have enthusiasms, What
are ours? What is that which
gives us joy? Baseball!

's MLB preview
charts the season ahead, while
columnist 's com-
plaints are made out of love
In Minotaur, illustrated by

novelist
visits the world of
government employees in the 4 a
department of NOYFB—None Deborah Anderson and Lisa Rinna
of Your Fucking Business. From
the ultrasecret "black world"
to new eras dawning: PLAYBOY
editor takes us
back to 1964, when Ford first.
threatened Ferrari at Le Mans,
in A War of Speed, an excerpt.
from his book Go Like Hell
Ford, Ferrari and Their Battle
for Speed and Glory at Le Mans.
Ford didn't actually beat Ferrari
until 1966, the year Star Trek
premiered on TV, so it's fitting
(nod in agreement, please) that
our 20Q subject is
the young Mr. Spock in
the new Star Trek film. Playmate
is out of this world, and the
Women of Wall Street are out of jobs. Out of
their clothes, at least. Back to being careful
what you wish for. If that wish is to stick it
to your would-be girlfriend's MILF, repeat-
edly and over an extended period of time, be
careful indeed. For our cover pictorial, shot
by chan-
nels Anne Bancroft in The Graduate (Speak-
ing of graduates, does your university make
the list of our top 10 party schools? Find out
оп page 72.) When Dustin Hoffman says,
"Mrs. Robinson, you're trying to seduce me,”
she denies it. Not so Ms. Rinna—she really is
trying to seduce us.

VOL. 56, NO. 5-MAY 2009

In the 19605 no race was more dangerous or prestigious than the 24 Hours of Le Mans.
Now re-creates 1964's historic first face-off between Henry Ford Il and Enzo
Ferrari, the outcome of which would forever alter the global auto industry.

PARADISE LOST
reports that guys eager to
work at Saipan's tropical resorts for the
Asian hotties find paradise is complicated.
THE DRINKING MAN'S
GUIDE TO CINEMA
Watching The Big Lebowski without a white
russian insults the Dude. Let us pair the right
cocktail with your movie main course.
PLAYBOY'S 2009
BASEBALL PREVIEW
predicts which teams
have a winning combination of players.
PLAYBOY'S TOP
PARTY SCHOOLS
Dust off your toga and tap the keg: We cal-
culate the top 10 colleges for tying one on.
HIGH-TECH HI-FI
shows you six ways to
park your iPod for some sonic excitement.

CHUCK PALAHNIUK
probes the Fight Club
author's twisted mind and the strange
upbringing that fuels his imagination.

ZACHARY QUINTO
mind melds with the actor
who fills Spock's pointy ears in Star Trek.

MINOTAUR

In this story by two military
black-ops men meet by chance and real-
ize how stranded they each are.

Since kicking up her heels and our libidos on
Dancing With the Stars, former soap actress Lisa
Rinna has reinvented herself as a media queen
with hosting gigs, workout DVDs, a self-help
book and a reality-TV series. Photographer Debo-
rah Anderson has our cover girl poised to seduce.
‘Our Rabbit succumbs to the latest Rinnavation.

VOL. 56, NO. 5-МАУ 2009

CONTENTS

WOMEN
OF WALL STREET
What recession? It's a bull market
with these hot assets available.

8

< >

/
PLAYMATE:

CRYSTAL MCCAHILL

of Miss August 1968 Gale Olson as
she strikes her mother's classic pose.
For us, it was a natural selection.
LOVING LISA

Sexy TV personality Lisa Rinna first
hit it big on Melrose Place and Days
of Our Lives before making a lasting
impression on Dancing With the Stars.
Now Lisa acts out your Mrs. Robin-
son fantasy in a high-rise room with a
view. Here's to you, Ms. Віппа,

A

There is no crime too disturbing for
Shemar Moore on Criminal Minds. Off
camera the actor takes the edge off with
fashion therapy.

56

PLAYMATE

CRYSTAL MCCAHILL

THE WORLD OF PLAYBOY
Hef returns to the big screen in Miss March; Bridget
Marquardt finds the hot spots on TV's Bridget's
Sexiest Beaches; Playmates and Dave Navarro are
the perfect ingredients for a Rock-N-Babes party.
SUPER BOWL BASH
Hef puts his spin on fantasy football at the Mansion
with a team of party players including AnnaLynne
McCord, Brande Roderick, Denise Richards and more.
PLAYMATE NEWS
Take notes as we analyze Playmate cup- and bust-
size trends; a lil Lillian Müller does the body good.

PLAYBILL
DEAR PLAYBOY
AFTER HOURS
REVIEWS
MANTRACK

SE
PLAYBOY ADVISOR
PARTY JOKES
SPORTS:
GRAPEVINE

WHO'S YOUR DADDY?
Biotechnology expert
looks at the complications of anony-
mous sperm donation.

HOW TO BUILD
A BETTER BABY
Clinics strive to produce smarter chil-
dren by cataloging sperm and egg do-
norsby IGand SAT scores, But geniuses
can't be manufactured in labs,

PLAYBOY.COM

Legendary Guns N'
Roses bassist Duff McKagan is our
new money man. Read his Appetite for
Investment blog every week.

As the science and style of
mixology continue their intoxicating
evolution, we survey the top barkeeps.

Go online to find our com-
plete list of the top 25 party schools so
you'll know exactly where to transfer.

Our video
guide to the Kama Sutra will help you
and your girl break free іп the bedroom.

In our new
Stylus feature, a Playmate models all the
spring sneakers you'll want in your closet.

PRINTED IN U.S.A.

(OUR Ш Т Т YOU | TT m
E АШ YOUR DAD DRANK T

PLAYBOY

10

JB JOSSEY-BASS”
An Imprint of б
Now roa ow

HUGH M. HEFNER
editor-in-chief

CHRISTOPHER NAPOLITANO
editorial director
STEPHEN RANDALL deputy editor
ROB WILSON art director
GARY COLE photography director
A.J. BAIME, LEOPOLD FROEHLICH executive editors
DAVID PFISTER managing editor

EDITORIAL
FEATURES: AMY GRACE LOYD literary editor; cre Rowe senior editor
FASHION: JENNIFER RYAN JONES editor; CONOR HOGAN assistant editor FORUM: TIMOTHY MOHR associate
editor MODERN LIVING: SCOTT ALEXANDER senior editor STAFF: ROBERT B. DE SALVO, JOSH ROBERTSON
associate editors; ROCKY RAKOVIC assistant editor; VIVIAN COLON, GILBERT MACIAS editorial assistants
CARTOONS: JENNIFER THIELE (neu york), AMANDA WARREN (los angeles) editorial coordinators
COPY: WINIFRED ORMOND Copy Chief; CAMILLE CAUTI associate сору chief; DAVID DEL, JOSEPH WESTERFIELD
сору editors RESEARCH: MICHAEL MATASSA deputy research chief; вох MOTTA senior research editor;
BRYAN ABRAMS, CORINNE CUMMINGS, SETH FIEGERMAN research editors EDITORIAL PRODUCTION:
VALERIE THOMAS manager CONTRIBUTING EDITORS: MARK BOAL (writer at large), KEVIN BUCKLEY,
SIMON COOPER, GRETCHEN EDGREN, KEN CROSS, DAVID HOCHMAN, WARREN KALBACKER, ARTHUR KRETCHMER
(automotive), JONATHAN LITTMAN, JOE MORGENSTERN, JAMES R. PETERSEN, STEPHEN REBELLO, DAVID RENSIN,
JAMES ROSEN, DAVID SHEFE, DAVID STEVENS, ВОВ TANNENBAUM, JOHN D. THOMAS, ALICE K. TURNER

ART
том sTAEBLER contributing art director; SCOTT ANDERSON, BRUCE HANSEN, CHET SUSKI
senior ап directors; тыл. CHAN senior art assistant; STEFANI COLE senior art administrator

PHOTOGRAPHY
STEPHANIE MORRIS west coast editor; JIM LARSON managing editor; PATTY BEAUDET-FRANCES
senior editor-entertainment; KEVIN Kusten senior editor, playboy.com; MATT srEIGBIGEL. associate editor;
KRYSTLE JOHNSON, RENAY LARSON, BARBARA LEIGH assistant editors; ARNY FREYTAG; STEPHEN WAYDA
senior contributing photographers; GEORGE GEORGIOU staff photographer; JAMES IMBROGNO,
RICHARD ш\л, MIZUNO, BYRON NEWMAN, GEN NISHINO, JARMO POHJANIEMI,

DAVID RAMS contributing photographers; BONNIE JEAN KENNY manager, Photo archives;
KEVIN CRAIG manager, imaging lab; MARIA HAGEN stylist

LOUIS В. МОНМ publisher

ADVERTISING
вов EISENMARDT associate publisher; JOHN LUMPKIN associate publisher, digital; HELEN MANCULUL
executive director, direct-response advertising; MARIE FIRNENO advertising operations director
NEW YORK: jesste CLARY category sales manager-fashion; SHERI WARNKE southeast manager CHICAGO:
LAUREN KINDER midwest sales manager LOS ANGELES: COREY SPIEGEL west coast manager;

LEXI RUDGE west coast account executive DETROIT: STEVE ROUSSEAU detroit manager SAN FRANCISCO:
ED MEAGHER northwest manager

MARKETING
LISA NATALE associate publisher/marketing; STEPHEN MURRAY marketing services director;
DANA ROSENTHAL events marketing director; CHRISTOPHER SHOOLIS research director;
DONNATAVOSO creative services director

PUBLIC RELATIONS
LAUREN MELONE division senior vice president; PHIL DIANNI, ROB HILBURGER publicity directors

PRODUCTION
зору JURGETO production director; DEBBIE тилоо associate manager;
CHAR KROWCZYK, BARB TERIELA assistant managers; BILL BENWAY, SIMMIE WILLIAMS prepress

CIRCULATION
PHYLLIS ROTUNNO circulation director; SHANTHI SREENIVASAN single-cofy director

ADMINISTRATIVE
MARCIATERRONES rights & permissions director

INTERNATIONAL PUBLISHING
DAVID WALKER editorial director; MARKUS GRINDEL marketing manager

PLAYBOY ENTERPRISES INTERNATIONAL, INC.
вов meveRs president, media

MIRROR, MIRROR ON THE CEILING

How would you like to be a fly on НеРз bedroom wall? Well,
here's the ceiling view. The girls whipped up a party while
waiting for Hef, using the Mansion's favorite condiment. Half
the fun was spraying the whipped cream; the other half was

HEFNER GETS THE HOLLYWOOD TREATMENT IN MISS MARCH
Hef returned to the big screen in Miss March. The comedy follows a virginal guy
who comes out of a four-year coma to find his high school sweetheart has be-
соте a Centerfold. Hilarity ensues when he (Zach Cregger, right) and his horny
best friend (Trevor Moore) make their way to the Mansion without an invitation.

ROCKIN' BABES PARTY
Anyone in Tampa for the Super Bow didn't have to wait for
halfime to rock out; the night before the big game Jane's
Addiction guitarist Dave Navarro threw the Rock-N-Babes
party. The "babes" quotient came from Playmatos Lindsoy
Vuolo and Amber Campisi (below left, with vocalist J Mello)
and лево model Erica Chevillar (below, with Navarro).

N
SEXY ON THE BEACH
Mansion favorite Bridget Marquardt is now spending

her time seeking out other paradises for her new show,
Bridget's Sexiest Beaches, on the Travel Channel.

é A
TALENTED AGENTS
Hef celebrated the launch
of the Beverly Hills Model
and Talent agency, run by
Cyber Girls Jessica Dani-
elle (a.k.a. Jessica Hall) and
Cristal Camden, his former
girlfriend. At the party he
bumped into Painted Lady
Amanda Evans—thankfully,
the paint had dried.

GRIDIRON GOOFS

No one hates bad NFL calls more than
the referees who made them (The Whistle
Blowers, February), but sometimes their
screwups are hard to believe. In the 2003
playoffs the officials stripped the Giants
of a crucial field-goal chance after the
defense interfered with a guard who had
reported as an eligible receiver. During a
scramble, the guard was tackled —obvious
pass interference—but the refs mistakenly
insisted he hadn't identified himself as a
receiver. They did manage to flag the
other guard, who was downfield illegally,
but that penalty would have been super-
seded. Regarding the blown call you men-
tion from the 1998 Seahawks-Jets game, it
wasn't just that the head linesman had sig-
naled a touchdown even though the Jets
quarterback fumbled a yard short of the
goal; it was the league's ridiculous expla-
nation that he had mistaken the players
white helmet for the brown ball

Kyle Garlett
Marina del Rey, California

Garlett is co-author of The Worst Call Ever;
The Most Infamous Calls Ever Blown by Ref-
erees, Umpires and Other Blind Officials.

Steve Salerno's report is fascinating
but doesn't tackle the larger problem:
‘The NFL stands by its refs no matter
what. Even after the officials failed to
review Kurt Warner's last-minute Super
Bowl fumble, the league defended the
crew. Never having to answer for your
mistakes is great for the refs but insulting
to fans. It’s one reason NFL officials are
easily the worst in professional sports
Scott Schmolke
Sacramento, California
Schmolke is the webmaster of refsuck.com.

The Ravens got screwed twice by bad
calls when playing against the Steelers this
past season. On December 14 Pittsburgh,
down by three and with 43 seconds left
had the ball on Baltimore's four-yard line.
Ben Roethlisberger threw a bullet to San-
tonio Holmes, who was standing in the
end zone but reached back over the line
for the catch. The officials spotted the ball
six inches from the goal. After review, ref-
eree Walt Coleman awarded the Steelers a
touchdown, saying, “The receiver had two
feet down in the end zone with possession
of the ball.” Yet the official rules state a TD
occurs “when any part of the ball, legally
in possession of a player inbounds, breaks
the plane of the opponent's goal line.”
Later, in the AFC championship game,
the officials called a roughing-the-punter
penalty against the Ravens even though
Mitch Berger was barely grazed

Gerald Yamin
Baltimore, Maryland

Writing on The New York Times's NFL
blog, John Woods observed of that second play,
“That із а world-class auful call. Oh, sweet
Fanny Adam, that was auful. But, you know,
with bad calls, it doesn’t matter: It happened
because the ref says it happened.”

DEAR PLAYBOY

Hugh Laurie seems to have a good
understanding of why viewers like his
thoroughly dislikable character Dr.
Gregory House (Playboy Interview, Feb-
ruary). Not only does House always
have the answers and manage to save
the day, he is, as Laurie notes, “free
from the social gravity that holds us all
down and prevents us from saying what
we think and doing what we want.” In
his 1859 essay On Liberty, John Stuart
Mill argues for the value of such aggres-
sive eccentrics, who, by challenging the
status quo, push ideas forward.
Henry Jacoby
Goldsboro, North Carolina
Jacoby is а professor at East Carolina
University and editor of House and Phi-

losophy: Everybody Lies

THE GIRLS MOVE ON
Asa straight female reader who became
a илувот fan because of The Girls Next Door,
1 found the photo of Holly Madison as a
modern-day Dorothy, complete with blue.
bow, heartbreaking (Good-Bye Girls, Febru-
ary). Good-bye and good luck, ladies.
Kate O'Brien
Waukegan, Illinois

I was flipping through snapshots at
my dad's auto-repair shop and came
across one of my uncle taken about eight
years ago with two servers at a local bar
(below). See anyone you recognize?
Sara Gress
Stockton, California

Bridget, hawking Coronas, before we loved her.

Kendra Wilkinson's fiancé, wide

receiver Hank Baskett of the Philadel-

phia Fagles, sure made a nice catch.
Brian Schafer
Allentown, Pennsylvania

Kendra is my favorite Girl Next Door,
зо imagine my disappointment when the.

issue I received had Bridget Marquardt
on the cover. Woe is me, pLAvsoy gods!
Why didn't I get my beauty?
Se Sinclair
Gulfport, Mississippi
Since the distribution of covers was random,
the gods have spok

(еп: You were meant to lust
after Bridget. All three versions of the issue
are available at playboystore.com.

Anyone else notice that the final Girls
Next Door pictorial begins on page 86?
Anne Koskinen
Redondo Beach, California

CLEARING THE AIR

Regarding The Drug Coast (February), І
need to express the following complaints
as well as clarify certain issues: (1) Your
reporter, Christian Parenti, was given a
journalist's visa under the false pretense
of writing an article that would suppos-
edly help promote Guinea-Bissau’s ailing
tourism industry; (2) Parenti utilizes so-
called “sources” in order to further sink
Guinea-Bissau’s reputation as far as the
new drug trade goes. It is not enough
that my country is the third poorest in the
world. He goes on to plant a seed of doubt
about the country's elections and govern-
ment ties to Colombian drug lords; (3) at
no time during his interview at my hotel
(Mar Azul) did he mention he would be
quoting me. He took everything I said out
of context. The result has been a loss of
business because of his libelous remarks
The artide has also affected my relations
with partners, longtime customers and
certain government agencies. І hope you
will allow me to repair the damage done
to my person and my country. The last
thing І need is to become involved in an
international libel suit. Not everyone in

18

AN R-RATED LOOK AT AN X-RATED INDUSTRY

EON

S UNNVAING

NY
JOANNA ANGEL

JENS FUNKE
IARCOURT
EMY TROY
HAEL GRECCO
бЕр BY CHARLES HOLLAND

Africa is a drug runner, just as not every-
one in America is a drug user.
Anthony Ferrage
Bissau, Guinea-Bissau
Parenti responds: "The operative line in
Ferrage's letter is about his relations with 'cer-
tain government agencies.’ Could those be the
narco-infested navy and army? His fears reflect
a climate in which local journalists are threat-
ened for reporting on the drug trade. During
our interview I told Ferrage I would be quoting
him and took notes; I appreciate that he spoke
with me. There are many reasons Guinea-Bis-
sau is so poor: the long devastation of slave
traders’ raids on west África, the brutal and
ramshackle nature of Portuguese colonialism
and the austerity programs pushed by interna-
tional financial institutions. But the country’s
leaders have also squandered resources, stolen
from their people, fought among themselves
like thugs and now, as numerous African
and European police forces, Interpol and the
United Tao аца аа, collado wi
traffickers.” In early March a bomb killed Gen-
eral Tagme Na Waie, head of the armed forces.
The next day a group of soldiers assassinated
President Joao Bernardo Vieira, who they
believe had ordered the general's murder

NOT FUNNY
It takes а lot to offend me, but this

joke in the February Party Jokes crossed
the line: “How can you get AIDS from
a toilet seat? By sitting down before the
last guy gets up." It's one thing to kid
about sex, infidelity and impotence, but
it is another to make light of a virus that
has claimed millions of lives.

Name withheld

New York, New York

FOR THE RECORD
After receiving numerous phone
calls from friends, I learned my
marriage to the Eiffel Tower is
mentioned in The Маг in Sex (Feb-
ruary). But it is disheartening to
see the love of my life referred to
as “that ultimate phallic symbol.”
Objectum sexuality may be uncon-
ventional, but we are in love and
happy. and no one is being hurt.
Erika L.T. Eiffel
San Francisco, California

І am writing to protest your
ridiculous abuse of Governor Sarah Palin
and her daughter Bristol in The Year in
Sex. Let me know when you will make
sex jokes about first lady Michelle Obama
and her girls. Гуе been a subscriber for
30 years, but this put me over the edge

Gary Boughter

Wolcott, New York

Did you miss the Barack Obama dildo and

the topless Michelle Obama bust? Rest assured,
in this feature we try to offend everyone.

One thing млувот surely should get
right is the name of all the lady parts
In The Year in Sex you write that artist
Mimosa Pale offers rides in a replica

“vagina on wheels." But as you can see
in the photo, it's not a vagina; it's а vulva.
Get a female copy editor—qui
Stan Felder
Bowie, Maryland
You're right. But don't assume most women
know the difference either. (Confused? The
vagina is inside; the vulva is outside.)

OUR NEW LOOK
Your February redesign is a great com-
bination of style and substance. I even
bought a second copy
Robert Catling
Hazleton, Pennsylvania

I still love the magazine but find the

issue too busy, perhaps because you tried

to change almost everything at once.
Chris Ponteri
‘Trenton, New Jersey

І am overjoyed by the new look of
Grapevine—sneak peeks and gotcha
moments are meant to be seen in glori-
ous living color

Dale Armeli
Commerce City, Colorado

After years as a subscriber 1 decided
to leave млувот to the younger readers.
However, after a few months 1 missed
the magazine and resubscribed. Imag-
ine my surprise when the first issue 1
received had an impressive redesign
The photos of Playmate Jessica Burci
aga (Bet on Burciaga) only confirm that І
made the right decision.

Jody Martin
Greensboro, North Carolina

E»

жыз

Marta Gut, native of Warsaw, translates to all languages.

POLISH DELIGHT
Marta Gut blew my mind (Foreign
Exchange: Love and Warsaw, February),
but when 1 turned the page to see
more, there was nothing but an article
on NEL refs! Curse you, PLAYBOY edi-
tors, for showing me heaven and then
stealing it away
Shawn Haney
Sacramento, California
Here's a bonus shot. The entire pictorial,
from the July 2007 issue of our Polish edition,
is posted in the Club (club.playboy.com).

Emai via the web at LETTERS. PLAYBOY.COM Or write: 680 NORTH LAKE SHORE DRIVE, CHICAGO, ILLINOIS 60611

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>46

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BECOMING ATTRACTION

Erin
Cummings

You can't meet Erin Cummings, cur-
rently of Joss Whedon's televised
babefest Dollhouse, without first
meeting her hair. "I love being а
redhead; she says. "People expect
the unexpected from redheads. I
can say something controversial,
but when it comes from me, people
just say, Оһ, that redhead—she's so
saucy!” Our interview is a laundry
list of increasingly saucy reasons to
watch Erin in her every saucy role—
and it's a convincing list.

Why to see Dollhouse (on TV

“It's Joss Whedon. Every-
thing he touches turns to gold.”

Why to see Bitch Slap (in theaters
soon): "I have a pretty intense love
scene with Julia Voth. It goes on
and on, like for 10 minutes. You
think, Okay, these two lesbians are
finally done, But no, it keeps on. 1
don't know what will shock my
parents more, that or the scene in
which I get pulverized.”

Why to see her Nip/Tuck episode
(airing a few months from now): "I
play a clever IRS agent. First І get
to screw lothario Dr. Christian Troy
in the biblical sense. Initially I'm
bent over his desk, he's behind me,
stuff is thrown everywhere, my
glasses are falling off, my shirts
torn open, and my skirt's hiked up
over my stockings with my garters
showing. In the middle of the
scene, I improvised, saying, ‘Spank
it It seemed appropriate. After
that I screw him financially"

Why to see her in a hush-hush
swords-and-sandals project (which
she may do in 2010): "The part re-
quires nudity, and І don't have а
problem with that. It's part of por-
traying a character, and you get to
show other sides: Wow, I saw Erin
Cummings, and her portrayal was
so deep and emotional. By the way,
her rack was really hot too!”

Oh, that redhead. She's so...saucy.

AFTER HOURS

Revenge of the Pod People

Let's Get Small

Luxury hotels are excellent—we're not about to trash
the idea of an indulgent getaway with much pampering.
Ideally, a soft-footed Thai expert in spine cracking is
involved. But really, we take luxury as it comes. At the
same time, there is much to be said for a jaunt the entire

diate urban area. Sometimes you go to see the city, not
to lounge in the
room. For just that
reason, we wel-
come the travel
trend of dormitory-
style "pod" hotels
and their (slightly
Larger) progenitor,
“modular” hotels,
with rooms for
under 5100. If
you're making
merry іп the oapi-
tal of merry old
England, we сап

recommend the Yotel Gatwick (1), a pod inside the air-

port that will Let you reoharge before you depart the

red isle without draining your purse of farthings,

ings, tuppence and ha'pennies. In New York book

а room at the woody and vaguely nautical Jane Hotel

(2) an oasis of smallness within the 24-hour party of

Village. Burning a few down Dutch-style? Try
the supermod CitizenM (3) in Amsterdam. Check in. бо
out. Get orazy. Crash. Shower. Check out. Small rooms
for big cities—anything more would be too civilized.

Molotov Cocktail
WAY UP HOLDING

Indians: The hot- а ых STEADY Drunk in
test TV hostis Top The word on things feminine cutouts: Thissum- Budapest
Chef's Padma Lak- DOWN mer you'll contin- р
shmi. The hottest u ue to see swim-
starlet is Slum- Sleeve Tattoos:As Botox: Sales ofthe suits with pieces Zwack, Hungary's na-
dog Millionaire's demonstrated by pricey forehead- missing. Just be- tional spirit, has come to
Freida Pinto. Now alt-pinups Anne smoothing рго- ware the іпсгеаѕ- America. It's cousin to
ultraconservative Lindfjeld and cess are slump- ingly elaborate de- other herbals like Jäger-
India even boasts Sabina Kelley, ing. As alow-oost signs—something meister and Becherovka,
apornstar,inPriya sleeves allow ar- alternative, many thatlooksthishard end Hungarians take it
Anjali Rai. Out- tistio expression cougars аге sim- to get on сап! be straight and chilled, but
sourcing rules! ^ inthemarginsand ply growing bangs easy to remove. italso works with Red
leave the goodies down to their eye- Bull. If all else
in the middle аз brows. Go get fails, do like the
God intended. "ет, tiger. Hungarian
rebels in
1956: In-
sert cloth
wick,
light on
fire and
launch
the cante-
loupe-size А
bottle at “поры
nearest Soviet
tank. (Tank not
included)

Hollywood ма Warsaw

American movie-poster art may be at an all-time low; per-
haps it didn'thave far to fall in the first place. Since the post-
war era the home of truly arresting surrealist (and, later,
expressionist) one-sheets has been—where else?—Poland.
Today Hollywood's cognoscenti are snapping up originals
and limited-edition “tributes” to American

films, such as the ones seen here. Shop

“a
PolishPoster.com for pop-culture art that THE Shy.
will instantly up the cool factor in your
TARE >

Foreign Films Ti ANN

office or basement lounge.

Employee of the Month
Bri lexia

PLAYBOY: What do you do?
BRIANNA: I work for a high-end pri-
vate airline. I track flights and
weather issues. І make sure passen-
gers have everything they need for
their trips: hotels, catering, shopping,
entertainment and rental cars.
PLAYBOY: How did you get into the
aviation field?

BRIANNA: Years ago a friend who
worked for Pan Am—yes, that many
years ago—got me a job. I've been
flying around the world ever since.
PLAYBOY: Did you ever work as a
stewardess?

BRIANNA: That's flight attendant!
And yes, Ihave.

PLAYBOY: What type of clientele
does your airline serve?

BRIANNA: They're mostly bankers
and celebrities.

PLAYBOY: Has the recession hurt
the business?

o, bankers still бу.
Y: What's your favorite part

BRIANNA: I suppose in this econ-

SEE MORE OF BRIANNA AT CLUB PLAYBOY.COM.

Dialed In

In the olden days Single Man would
bounce from bar to bar, looking for love in
every wrong place. No more. Here's howto
telephonically improve your nights out:
1. Play Pho! Tf you're іп а noisy
club, nothing is lamer than having to go
outside to listen to a voice mail (the gist of
which ends up being "Dude, don't wait
up"). The PhoneTag service tran-
scribes voice mails left by your incon-
siderate pals, so you can read them as
text messages when you're sitting next
to the boomin' system.
2. Go mobile: When you need to bail опа
bad date, Google Latitude lets you find
nearby friends. It also works if it's closing
time and you'd like to send a shout-out to
агу lonely women in a three-block radius.
3. Burn it: Burner is slang for a cheap,
essentially disposable phone. Boost Mo-
bile offers the $30 i425t, while Virgin
Mobile's Marbl and Aloha are just $10.
Save phone numbers and give yours with-
out revealing your "real" digits to girls you
don't remember—or want to forget.

omy it's actually just being
employed. But it's also nice to
know I can hop a flight to St. Barts
whenever I please.

PLAYBOY: Where do you go when
you're not flying to exotic locations?
BRIANNA: I'm a simple girl; my
friends and I go to Buffalo Wild
Wings or out for sake every week. We
go barhopping. We go to baseball,
football and hockey games.
PLAYBOY: Would you prefer a guy
to whisk you off to a Caribbean
island or buy you a drink at a chain
restaurant?

BRIANNA: It doesn't matter where
we are or what we do. I just want to
be romanced—although I can get us
a discount to the Caribbean,

PLA Are you a member of the
mile-high club?

BRIANNA: No. In the biz, we con-
sider that tacky.

PLAYBOY: Okay, here's another
tacky question: Would you ever con-
sider grooming yourself in the "land-
ing strip" pattern?

BRIANNA: I don't like to shave and
tell. Oh, and in the spirit of being
corny, just know I can fly you to
places you've never been.

APPLY TO BE AN EMPLOYEE OF THE MONTHAT PLAYBOY COM/POSE.

18

AFTER REVIEWS

Movie of the Month

By Stephen Rebello

In The Da Vinci Code Harvard symbology
professor Robert Langdon (Tom Hanks)
exposes the Catholic Church's best-kept
secret by tracing Jesus's bloodline to a
modern descendant. Now, in Angels &
Demons, the Vatican—apparently not sore
at Langdon for that potential PR night-
mare—calls on him to investigate bizarre
cardinal killings tied to a terrorist plot. Ron
Howard returns to direct Hanks alongside
Ewan McGregor, Stellan Skarsgárd and
Ayelet Zurer іп a script based on the Dan
Brown novel. "Tom, Ron and I wanted this
one to have more velocity than The Da Vinci
Code, in which Langdon is a puzzle solver in
а whodunit; says producer Brian Grazer.
"Angels & Demons takes place some time
after the events in the earlier movie, and
this time Tom's character is running for his
life. He propels the action. The movie be-

gins with him swimming; he's ripped, he
has this great haircut, and he looks hot. The
film has a very big scope and wraps an
action thriller around the universal ques-
tion of God versus science.”

Tease Frame

In Where the Truth Lies (pictured),
a journalist investigating Kevin Bacon and Colin Firth's
comedy duo. Pretty tame, right? Actually, Lohman's
scenes helped earn the blistering noir an NC-17 rating.
The smoky-eyed blonde next appears in Sam Raimi's eerie
supernatural thriller Drag Me to Hell.

Now Showing: Things get hairier for Hugh Jack-
man in X-Men Origins: Wolverine; Zachary Quinto.

beams up for Star Trek; Matthew McConaughey
grapples with Ghosts of Girlfriends Past.

plays

Му Brother, Myself

Watch the boys in this rich anthology battle and booze, worship,
envy, argue and die, and try notto think of your own brother Brothers,
edited by Andrew Blauner is aptly subtitled 26 Stories of Love and
Rivalry; by the end, you'll wish there were a single word for that fra-
temal emotion (“lovalry”?). In this sampler with a surprising num-
ber of writer brothers (Wolffs, Cheevers, etc.) its David Kaczynski
tale of recognizing the Unabomber in an older Ted that haunts and
Rooster Sedaris who amuses, while Phillip Lopate nails it, calling his

brother “my personal metaphor for Life" ¥¥¥¥ —Jess Walter

“Jigsaw,” Lady Soverelgn (pictured, 1) Anyone who
wrote her off as a mere grime MC can suck on this
proper gultar-based song. Yes, she stilt talks shit.
“The Royal We,” Silversun Pickups Wildly cas-
cading guitars inject a little Sonic Youth Into the
ethereal, Smashing Pumpkins-esque sound.
Kingdom of Rust," Doves (2) Title track of the new
album starts with spaghetti Western swagger and
unfolds with strings, belts and more guitars.

p I'm Metric The walt Is over: Fanta-
sles, the new album, Is coming. Here, Emily goes
hellum-hued on the driving, guitar-driven chorus.

е Walls," Mr. Lif (3) The backdrop of |
this track from the Def Jux MC's new I Heard It
Today LP could be late-1960s psych.

ye of the Needle" The Datsuns The New Zea-
land band breaks Its two-minute garage-rocking
mold on this brooding six-minute slow burn.

y Breakdown,” Green Day (4) The
melody echoes “Let My Love Open the Door,” and
the stinging gultars In the bridge are pure Town-
shend. Sample lyric: “Scream, America, scream!"

ipply & Demand," Fischerspooner Think of this
Icy-cool synth pop as a lost Pet Shop Boys anthem.
000 сі 7 MSTRKRFT (5) The bonus
version, featuring Freeway, Is like a crunk-ass
relmagining of Justice. Sick.

Game of the Month
Wanted: Weapons of Fate

Very few game makers can successfully pull off
subtlety, which is why most movie-inspired
games suck. Wanted: Weapons of Fate (360, PC,
PS3) succeeds because the source material (the
game is based more on the film than the comic) is
spectacular and simpleminded. These are far
easier traits on which to build a good game. The
story picks upwhere the movie ends, with Wesley
taking further vengeance on renegade assassins
(including new characters such as the fatally gor-
geous Araña, left) and flashing back to Wesley's
father in his prime. Its cover and weapons me-
chanics are clever evolutions of those used in
Gears of War and Resistance: Fall of Man, allow-
ingyouto feel both exhilaratingly agile and at one
with your sidearm. The bullet-curving control
and close-combat knifing moves are especially
satisfying. Though the storytelling is lackluster
attimes and the game has no multiplayer, fans of
either Wanted or bloodthirsty action experiences
will have a blast. УУУУ» —Scott Stein

) Based on real-life under-
cover MIG agent Violette
Szabo, Velvet Assassin
(360, PC) offers stealth
action behind enemy
lines during World War
II. Plus her bum is bet-
ter than Sam Fisher's (of
Splinter Cell fame).

eter Bjorn and John (6) A
deep, soulful plano line distingulshes this catchy
return to form from the “Young Folks" trio.

Mrs. Bongo,” Tosca The plan: lick her body tll
morning and then, when the sun comes up, tell her,
"Baby, It's not morning yet." The soundtrack: this.

t Me Up," Young Love (7) If the funky former
rocker's output falis somewhere between Fall Out
Boy and Justin Timberlake, this Is at the JT end.

“D..D..D..D...Jay," Buraka Som Sistema А hipster
Portuguese bass crew puts Its spin on Kuduro and
baile funk. File with M.I.A. and Bonde Do Role.

"You Don't Have а Clue,” Röyksopp (8) The light,

deft touch you love from Its song In that Gelco

ad, plus otherworldly female vocals.

Hell,” Cursive Alongside an ac-
tual organ, a woebegone violin drones like an or-
gan. The Omaha veterans are always Interesting.

е Will Walk,” Matisyahu (9) Sunny let's-run-
off-together ditty from new album by everyone's
favorite Orthodox reggae sensation.

“Ololufe MI Koola Lobitos From awesome relssued
Nigeria 70 compllation, a survey of Lagos's funky
1970s Afropop. The low end here Is almost dublike.

H Junior Boys Winsome electronica with
a bit of 19805 funk thrown In for good measure.
Piranha,” The Prodigy (10) Original lineup deliv-
ers the magic and the menace agaln—this track
even echoes the band's rave classic "Wind It Up.”

RAW DATA

SIGNIFICA, INSIGNIFIGA, STATS-AND FACTS

PRIGE CHECK

у Price paid at Christie's auc-
tion house for this nude of the woman
who would become Madonna. Itwas ex-

>. pected to зей for no more than

THE PLAYBOY PO y

y

The photo was taken in 1979 by Lee
Friedlander, "She told me she was
putting a band together,” Friedlander
sald, "but half the kids that age are
doing that.” It wasn't until Friedlander
i and his wife saw Desperately Seeking

ва mikan t 4 Susan that he realized he had shots of
N en ne THE N the Material Girl wearing none at all.
етеп апа ране об SERVI a) 1 He promptly gave из а ring and sold us
President Obama's inauguration. AFCHANIST the publication rights; photos from the
session (though not the one pictured

DUE MAINLY TO М here) ran Іп our September 1985 Issue.
— TIONAL PRO

ACTUALLY, THERE 15
HOPE IN DOPE: MARI-
JUANA GROWERS IN CAL-
IFORNIA'S MENDOCINO

SINCE 1992 AT Lenst 7 | РИ ТАКЕ ВА,

SPECTATORS HAVE DIED AS ) ВІ | LLI ON

A RESULT OF MISHAPS AT IN REVENUE EACH YEAR.

MONSTER-TRUCK SHOWS. CANNABIS | ACCOUNTS
ACCORDING TO THE BOOK ARE You | FOR APPROXIMATELY
АМО YOU THOUGHT GRAVE NORMAL ABOUT SEX, LOVEAND TWO THIRDS OF THE LO-

DIGGER WAS JUST A МАМЕ. — RELATIONSHIPS? 40% OF WOMEN | CAL SMOKIN’ ECONOMY.

HAVE HURLED FOOTWEAR ATA MAN.
ONE IN SIX

AMERICAN HOUSEHOLDS HAVE
ABANDONED THEIR LANDLINES
AND USE ONLY CELL PHONES.

FIFTY-EIGHT %o

Vespa-style scooters

since S.
MONTH oy sage бап бе уе ACCORDING TO A STUDY BY DELOITTE, THE TOP
glar butbecuseiheyre 10 MOST INFLUENTIAL ADVERTISING MEDIA

Adult Americans of all categories converters and emission ARE, IN DESCENDING ORDER:
who were born between 1975 controls, the scooters can

and 1886 are taller than their ШЕМ ea
arents' generation except for аутору spew

ете Асап Атепсапе eight times the amount of |

оп average are more than half ап hydrocarbons and nitro- T Р

inch shorter than their mothers. gen oxides into the air.

PDF By Playboyman.

= MANTRACK

BOOZE = TIME :: FASHION

A!
The Tequila Pilgrim
What | learned while in search of the finest cactus juice in the world

The Jalisco region of midwest Mexico is to tequila what Bordeaux, France is to wine and Bardstown, Kentucky is to bourbon. | needed to drink
there. Perhaps you understand this urge. Tequila and Arandas are the most important towns to visit, but you'll want to stay in Guadalajara,
which sits right between them. | suggest booking an upscale hotel; І didn't and met both creepy crawlies and an even creepier desk clerk І
dubbed Latino John Waters. In retrospect, I'd recommend the Quinta Real (quintareal.com) or Camino Real (caminoreal.com). Around the tiny
village of Tequila you'll find hills dotted with blue agave, the plant from which the sacred brew is made. You'll also find Jose Cuervo, Sauza and
other giants. The Cuervo distillery tour (book at mundocuervo.com) will teach you how tequila is made before you imbibe some of its range,
which goes from base to outstanding. There's also an art gallery, soyou can tell your girlfriend you did something on your vacation that didn't
involve loco juice. Afterward, hit the bar at the boutique hotel Tierra Magica (tierramagica.com.mx). Arandas is even sleepier than Tequila but
is home to some great distilleries, like Cazadores, Corazón and Tezón. The four bars to hit in town are Los Inmortales, El Coyote, Destilados
and El Carajos. Endear yourself to the locals by ordering a paloma (tequila and Squirt soda), and tell them Dan sent you. —Dan Dunn

Mus

About Time Supporter
- Custom belt buckles can be fashion-
forward, provided they're moderately
discreet. A giant brass one that reads
OPEN WITH CARE: CONTENTS MAY EXPLODE
is not what we're talking about.
These guitar-neck belt
buckles ($95, gorillavinyl
.com) are made from the
fret boards of vintage gui-
tars and contain just the
right amount of novelty,
presented in an understated way. Іп
other words, they're the kind of awe-
some that doesn't need to shout.

We've seen every kind
of precious metal and
jewel stuffed into high-
end watches, so it's
refreshing to see one
that uses dust and steel
instead. So why does
the Moon DNA watch
(romainjerome.ch) cost
up to $500,000? Be-
cause the dust is from
thesurfaceofthemoon,
and the steel is from an
actual spacecraft.

- DESIGN +: DRINK :: TECH

Two hundred and fifty years ago
anenterprising lad named Arthur
Guinness signed a 9,000-year
lease on a Dublin brewery.
He never recouped
his security
deposit, but his
beeris still going
strong. Incele- |
bration, Guin-
ness is releasing
arare new
offering, Anni-
versary Stout.
Made with
both stout
andale
malts, it's
lighter,
crisper and
more саг-
bonated
We get sad when we think about the immense than its
acreage of blank gray corporate laptop lids in the venerable
world. It's simply too much space to leave unloved. forebear.
Stop being part of the problem and visit infectious.com, Get it now,
where you can buy cheap, excellent art and put it anywhere you though—
want in your life—on your iPod (510), your walls (560 to $100), your car (5390) and, yes, its lease
your laptop ($30). The art itself is "crowd-sourced" (i.e., voted on by visitors to the site) isupin
and includes work such as High Pass Filter (above) by U.K. artist Byroglyphics. October.

Have a Art

Palm was once king of the PDA-and-smart phone game, but recently iPhones
and BlackBerries have been getting all the headlines and going out on the
town with the beautiful people. With the new Palm Pre (palm.com), howev-
er, the company is back. This truly lust-worthy smart phone has a responsive
touch screen, a full slide-out keyboard, a wireless charging system and com-
pletely overhauled software under the hood. Plus, the Pre smartly combines
information and contacts from multiple sources behind the scenes to radically
simplify the life of the average mobile beautiful person.

Hack Your Life: Chop Down Your Cell-Phone Bill

it is to on your phone in order to make calls (with Wi
avoid paying the phone company. Running Skype you must be within hot-spot range). Calling Skype
(skype.com) on your cell is а good first step. Win- users is free, but calling regular landlines and cell
dows Mobile users can download and install the phones costs about two cents a

Skype app, while other phone systems require third-
party software. For the iPhone and iPod Touch, use
Fring (fring.com), a Skype program that doubles
as an instant-message app. On the BlackBerry, we
like IM+ (shapeservices.com), and И you're an early And don't forget nego!
Google Android adopter, Skype Lite is available — billing-services department, quoting their newest
from the Android Marketplace. With all these you'll and cheapest rates and then asking for an adjust-
need to have either a ЗС data connection or Wi-Fi ment can be surprisingly effective.

The smarter your cell phone, the e:

ЗЕЕ SUZY MCCOPPIN'S VIDEO LOGS

AT PLAYBOY.COM/PARTYGIRL.

five-year stint in Los Angeles.

I've learned that there are three
different types of tofu, that Dr. Dre
never actually went to medical
school and that actors love three-
somes. Men are wired to want to
get laid as much as possible by
as many orifices as possible, so
naturally the threesome is quite
convenient. Women? Our motives
are more complicated—especially
when there are two of us at the
same time.

After appearing on a hit TV show
1 struck up a lukewarm romance
with one of the show's actors, a
fair-haired, pensive bohemian
type. In order to avoid a lawsuit,
let's call him Chuckles Bonanza.
After a few weeks of dating it was
time to consummate our affair.
There was one problem: Caitlin,
my leggy brunette friend from New
York, was staying at my apartment.
| summoned her to my couch for
a powwow and relayed the situa-
tion. “Wow,” she squealed. “I've
never even seen a celebrity. I'm
dying to meet him!” Fine. Chuck-
les Bonanza and І would have to
wait to solidify our affair. Tonight
he'd have to settle for dinner and
a movie at my place with Caitlin.

It was at this point that |
started to flirt with the notion of
a threesome. Maybe we wouldn't
have sex, just make out in vari-
ous stages of undress. It would
be fun and risqu& but short of
depraved. І was a threesome vir-
gin. What was the big deal?

"So what should we do when he
gets here?" І baited Caitlin.

“| don't wanna be in your way,"
she answered. “І mean, if you
guys want to hook up."

"What if you were here but you
weren't in the way?"

"You mean like hang out in
your room?"

“No. | mean like.

“Oh...you mean like..."

From Caitlin's starstruck en-
thusiasm and my calculated
abandon, a plan was hatched.
Said TV star would arrive at my
apartment at precisely eight р.м.
He would come armed with a
copy of his latest film, as he was
branching out into movies. Wine
would be served, thereby allow-
ing Caitlin and me to feign the
appropriate level of enthusiasm
for said project.

At 10:10 р.м. the plan was well
under way. “Wow, you were really
іп the moment in that scene,” Cait-
lin, an aspiring actress, gushed as
we stared at my flat screen. “You

] "ve learned many things in my

really found your truth." When the
movie reached its climactic end,
1 started to panic. What was the
next move? How does one segue
from dinner and a movie into
porno Twister? And then І felt
à warm hand on my inner thigh
and hot breath on my neck. |
turned into a wet kiss that sent
a microcurrent down my spine.
Chuckles cocked his head toward
Caitlin and held her close.

It unfolded seamlessly, Chuck-
les deftly employing the laws of
balance, canceling out all oppos-
ing forces: jealousy, competition,
complicated bra straps. | came
to understand the importance of
threesome etiquette. At its core
is balance. Yes, oddly enough, a
successful threesome 15 Tao-like
in its construct.

With our undergarments forming
a pile next to my couch, we headed
toward the bedroom and crashed
onto the bed. Caitlin raised the
stakes and kissed me full on the
mouth, sending Chuckles into a
carnal cyclone. He flipped her on
her back and paused for С. Everett
Koop's approval.

"Do you have a condom?" he
asked, panting.

"Yes, Chuckles, | believe І do."

| produced a Trojan and watched
as Chuckles rocketed Caitlin into
the fourth dimension. At this point
1 was mostly a spectator. If only
I'd had the forethought to make
popcorn. With no salted snacks
to enhance the scene, | grew in-
trospective as | watched Chuckles
thrust atop Caitlin's writhing body.
What was | doing here? How had
this happened? Would | have to
wash my sheets twice? It was all
very existential.

After a nine-minute refrac-
tory period it was Bonanza
time again. Dewy with sweat,
he looked at me and asked,
“Ready?” But І wasn't ready. I'd
had enough visual masturbation
fodder to last me until the final
season of his show. Neverthe-
less | was impressed. It's safe
to say Caitlin was too. Chuckles
even stayed and cuddled for the
customary length of time. And
he called the next day.

Conclusion? The truth was І
liked this guy. І wanted him to like
me. And it seems most guys think
arranging a threesome for them is
an awfully nice gesture. Chuck-
les and І never did find love, and
we haven't talked in a long time.
Something tells me when this is-
sue of PLAYBOY hits newsstands,
Il be hearing from him.

25

SER NE EIN EN
Tee off on your local golf course and you could
land оп (Ле green”at'the Playboy Mansion:

~ AUSTIN, TX ў

CHICAGO, IL. 2. MIAMI FL: 2. SCOTTSDALE; АР | =

For more details on Playboy Golf events near you,
log on to www.playboygolf.com

My husband and I have been
married for three years. He
stays home with our 18-month-
old daughter while І work. For
the past two years he has been
obsessed with World of Warcraft.
He plays from the time he wakes
up until he goes to bed. We
haven't done any activities as a
family in more than a year. We
haven't had sex in five months.
I have tried to set time limits.
I have to work overtime more
than I should because he won't
get a job. What can I do?—A.E.,
"Tucson, Arizona.

Although there is debate about.
whether excessive gaming can Бе con-
sidered an addiction, psychologists
have found multiplayer role-playing
sucks in some people. The games
provide an enticing scope from the

ss stimulating challenges of reality
(eg. ап unhappy wife, a demand-
ing toddler; looking for work). The
games are appealing because they
have unpredictable story lines and
‚provide attention and acclaim from
‘other players, a phenomenon shrinks
call “intermittent reinforcement.”
However, all is not lost. Millions of
men and women play without d
ping out, and the head of an Чел.
dam clinic that specializes in treating.
hard-core gamers believes 90 percent
could go cold turkey. The chief hurdle
is that your husband doesn't see this as
a problem; he dismisses you as a nag.
Sad to say, you may have to remove
yourself and your daughter from the
as to get his phis has
abandoned the family already, so you
would just be making it official.

1 have $15,000 in credit-card
debt. І pay the minimum each
month, but the finance charges
keep me in a hole. What should
Т do?—M.L., Buffalo, New York

Two things you shouldn't do: pay

the cards with a home-equity ine,
which would have a lower rate but
put your home at risk, or borrow from
retirement savings. Instead, look for
ways to cut spending. As difficult as
it may seem, these are extraordinary
times that require extraordinary mea-
sures. If youre renting, for exemple,
you may need to find a less expensive
place. Start making your own meals.
Lose your landline. Your goal is not
only to get rid of the card debt but
to build an emergency cash fund. If
you're still short, you can attempt to

negotiate lower rates or transfer the

lances to a card with better terms.

For guidance, contact the National Foundation
for Credit Counseling [m or 800-388-

investigate social-
networking sites such as LendingClub.com,
where individuals pool their cash to make per-
you

2227). You also shoul

sonal loans. Create a profile, and if

ADVISOR

ln Icon, in your January issue, Carmen Electra admits
she loves to buy sex toys but also enjoys “homemade
fun” with clothes hangers. She describes it as involv-
ing “a little pleasure, a little pain” but doesn't say
more. Do you have any idea what she's doing?—R.K.,
Columbus, Ohio

We can only imagi we have, Most likely
Carmen is taking advantage of a classic trick. Here's how
Laura Com describes й т 101 | Dares: blindfi folding.
clothed күүнү түбү Ashen oping

the Pn, hie alg her how lo she rtl has ouch
гое been thinker her, tie her wrists to the ‘with two

Fle ft mp E pres ker hc eet dor й
‘arms over her head, and then hook the hanger over the top
the door.” Next. ..well, get creative. Corn suggests leading her

$ Ae dn md Ба манаў ka ўва

undress and caress her. We'd grab a chair, pull out the box of sex

ee Mt uei ria dy ee
2 b restraints, avail

Fe SPD pate Mal poe et
pri adr a ee

it. Jf you buy two sets, you can also restrain her ankles.

solid credit, a FICO score of at least 660 and a
debt-to-income ratio, excluding your mortgage,
below 25 percent, you'll be assigned a

that determines your interest rate and process-

ing fee. Once approved, you make your case to
caber members: paying of eredi-eard debt is a

common request. Those who res
will each Fada small portion ы
loan to limit their risk. You can bor-
row $1,000 to $25,000, which you
repay in 36 monthly installments that
Lending Club divides and distributes
to your new best friends.

A funky smell comes and goes
from my junk. No matter how
much I wash, it will not go
away. How do І stop it?—M.R.,
Detroit, Michigan

Since, as you know, male genita-
lia usually smell like lilac and hon-
eysuckle, you likely have a recurring
fungal infection. These take hold in
the urethra (as a yeast infection—yes,
guys can get them too), under the
foreskin (if you have one) or below
‘and behind the scrotum (jock itch).
Keep your loins dry, and apply an
antifungal cream twice a day for a
{feu weds to soe that helps Anti
fungals available over-the-counter
асінае tolnaftate (Tinactin), micon-
azole (Micatin), butenafine (Lotrimin
Ultra) and clotrimazole (Lotrimin).
Clotrimazole is also the active ingre-
dient in NodorO, which is a typical
antifungal except it's marketed to
treat the previously unknown condi-
tion MGO (male genital odor). With
any luck your junk will soon again be
enticing female nostrils.

A reader said in February that

z his wife asks for lingerie but

rarely wears it, In our marriage,
lingerie and silk boxers or paja-
mas are understood to be gifts we
both can enjoy. If either of us so
desires a return engageme
lay out the gift on the be
not subtle, but it work
Huntington Harbour,

Thanks, good suggestion. It also
works to lie nude on the bed.

М, wife and Г are upset by your

response in February to the read-

er who asked why he got aroused

when his wife flashed him in a

bookstore. You described her as

“a total slut.” The definition of slut
di

an.” Her wonderfully outrageous
behavior may have been sala-
cious, libidinous or lascivious, but
it certainly was not sluttish.—PD.,
Greensboro, North Carolina

We prefer the definition offered by
Dossie Easton and Catherine Liszt in
their classic guide to nonmonogamy,
The Ethical Slut: “A slut із а person
of any gender who has the courage to

lead life according to the radical proposition that
Бела pleasure t rd for уне” As it

happens, there is a crucial shortage of duts.

М. friend's fiancé has asked me to help
him pick out tuxedos for the wedding.

27

PLAYBOY

28

I have no idea what to look for. Any sug-
gestions?—Q.P, Overland Park, Kansas

Look for an exit. This із a no-win situation
freyre md yon fried His fiancée should be
helping him select the tuxes.

Г won а cocktail-creating contest, beat-
ing out 54 other entrants. І would like
to contact whiskey companies, but be-
fore 1 do, how do L go about protecting
my recipe? Do I copyright or trademar!

, Ocean City, New Jersey

ar knees while upside down on a stripper,
ЕЕ

on any original work the moment you write й
down. You can add a statement such as “Сору-
right 2009" and your name to reinforce your
claim, but its not a legal nece If you spend
$35 and re dele i pig
eo at e e ch or she
couldn't have known. To protect the name of the
drink you would apply for a trademark.

А reader who had just purchased a nine-
millimeter handgun wrote in February
to ask about the shelf life of his ammuni-
tion. Rather than using a bullet puller,
the best way to dispose of old ammo is
to fire it at a range. This will help you
become familiar with the new weapon
while improving your marksmanship. In
addition, many adventuresome and sexy
women enjoy shooting, so you may meet
someone, Or you can take a date.—R.D.,
Helena, Montana

Thats a great idea and much тот fun than
pulling the bullet by yourself at home.

In 2005 a reader asked about wireless
home-theater speakers. You told him to
wait a year, saying the technology had not
matured. After four years has it gotten
any better?—B.R., Chelsea, Michigan
We cornered our tech editor, Scott Alexan-
der, for an . "Es gr
tha e ok of hu 4 ыа
you have to power them, Moin going o have
а An option now is a sou hich is
sentially a bunch of. in a single unit,
аш ага ferent angle to give an
approximation of surround sound. Samsung,
Yamaha and Polk each make one. Your mileage
will vary depending on the size and shape of
your room. But don't count out old йш
The nice thing about conventional speakers is
dont require an sumado source,

able, one-inch-wide wires that can be glued to
the wall and ceiling and painted over."

Thank you for the chili recipe you shared
in February, which you said had gotten
you laid three times. I made the chili for a

hot blonde (І added cilantro and chopped.
tomatoes) and am pleased to report that
for the fourth time it has gotten someone
laid.—A.V., New York, New York.

Glad to help. We would have gotten laid
four times, but she got tired of eating it.

А; a 50-year fan of млувоў and а sixth-
eneration Texan, I am appalled at your
chili recipe. Chicken, great northern
beans, olives? That's not chili— it's white-
bean soup! We Texans invented chili, and
it’s supposed to consist of lean ground
sirloin (or venison or armadillo meat),
chopped onion, chopped jalapeno pep-
pers, some garlic, a can of Rotel tomatoes,
chili powder, cumin, a can of tomato sauce
and a bottle of Shiner bock. It's best made
while watching a Dallas Cowboys game.
Woodrow Call and Au gustus McCrae
have to be turning in their graves know-
ing you recommended a Yankee recipe
for chili. —R.C., Nashville, Tennessee
Point taken. Our nex date will enjoy your
chili before we take her to the firing range.

In February you claimed rolled-up sleeves
work only for students and cockfights. I
work in an office where it’s completely
acceptable to roll up your sleeves
the debacle that is business casual (I've
seen colleagues in untucked polos and
collarless golf shirts), having rolled sleeves
doesn't deserve a second look.—T.V.,
Jersey City, New Jersey

We didn't say you couldn't sas it,
especially yo nc prea with the
lic. But in our view, there's no point in
the best-dressed sloppy dresser in тэк а

Му best friend lives with her sister, who is
dating a guy with voyeuristic tendencies.
My friend and her fiancé were showe
ing together and noticed a small hole in a
corner of the ceiling. Upon investigation,
they found a camera. They confronted the
boyfriend, who said he had meant only to.
record himself and her sister but never
got it to work. Later, while dressing after
а shower, my friend found the boyfriend's
phone on a desk, recording video. He
gave the same bullshit excuse—he had
meant to record himself and her sister. My
friend has told her sister what happened,
but she defends him. My friend asked me
for advice, but I wasn't sure what to tell
her. Is there any good way to deal with
this?—B.B., Baton Rouge, Louisiana

Didn't we see your friend and her fiancé on
the Internet? It’s past time for her to move out.
In the meantime, since she can't be sure of what
Mr. Pe has managed to, film, she should

have a layer explain руб risk he faces

PE civil suit en criminal charges.

You note in February that the only pri-
mates besides humans known to engage
in scissors sex are “female bonobo mon-
keys.” Bonobos are apes, not monkeys.
You can tell a monkey from an ape by
looking at their behind. Monkeys have
a tail; apes do not. І expect more from

a magazine known for its expertise in
tail—AS., Worthington, Ohio

You can imagine why we got that wrong.
Besides engaging in scissors sex, bonobo
apes are the only primates other than
humans whose females mate even when
they're not in heat. Apparently, bonobos,
chimps and humans all split off about the
same time from a common ancestor, lead-
ing to speculation over who we аге the most
like horny bonobos or violent chimps. m
thinking both. This all comes from watch-
ing PBS.—].D., Portland, Oregon

There's a pickup line in there somewhere.

In February you defined player as “a man
ог woman of any age who lias sex with а
number of partners without the intention.
of developing an emotional relationship."
In fact, you cannot be a player unless you
are in a relationship. Otherwise you're
just single. FVI, player rules date to the
early 19805, They include: (1) Either per-
son can call off the affair with no ques-
tions asked. In rare cases players agree to
hook up only a specific number of times,
so emotional bonds can't form. (2) Discre-
tion is key. Good players hook up only in
distant bars, restaurants and hotels. They
always have a story ready in case they run.
into someone they know. Further, they
never boast to a friend about the hottie
they're sleeping with, because he or she
may not always be a friend, (3) Should ei-
ther player be diagnosed with an STD, he
or she must immediately notify the other.
Worry about who gave what to whom
later Shores, Michigan
The men and women you describe are not
players; they're cheaters. The only legitimate

married players are swingers.

Bravo to the reader who said in Febru-
ary he planned to buy a 250 cc as his
first motorcycle. Too many new riders
feel they should get the largest bike they
can afford; they can't wait to be a racer,
outlaw or world traveler. I've been rid-
ing for 30 years, and the most valuable
lessons came during the early stages.
Novice mistakes are less painful and less
expensive on a smaller bike. Also, don't
spend every last cent on the bike. You'll
need a quality helmet, gloves, boots and
a jacket. Dress for the crash, not for the
ride—D.G., Houston, Texas

That's good advice in general.

All reasonable questions—from fashion, food
aa aan al ту de
lemmas, taste and etiquette—will be personally
answered if the writer includes a self nddressed,
stamped envelope. The most interesting,
tinent questions will т in these
pages each month. Write the Playboy Advisor
forth Lake Shore Drive, Chicago, Illinois
60611, or send e-mail by visiting our website
at Ivisor.com. Our st-hits a
Ат
bookstores and

conn menos CHUCK PALAHNIUK

А candid conversation wilh one of America's most talented and shocking
writers on his twisted mind, his strange childhood and watching his fans pass out

Chuck Palahniuk is one of the most
rageous, shockin scarily
temporary American writers, а “
author extraordinaire," according to The New
York Observer, and, says The Washington Post,
“one of he mast feverish imaginations in American
letters.” He has been

out-
nted—con-
iller

a total of 4 million copies. Author of such mega-
sensations as Fight Club and Choke, Palahniuk
has a zealously devoted cult following and, increas-
ingly, a mainstream one as well. magazine
кы ‘Among sick puppies, Palahniuk is top dog."
It was meant as the highest praise.

Pygmy, Palahniuk's latest novel, is typically
inventive, hilarious, moving and deeply disturb-
ing. Written from the perspective of a killer dis-
guised as a foreign-exchange student and bent
оп the destruction of America, the book is replete
with severed body parts and spewing bodily flu-
ids, contains a grotesque rape and is а vicious,
comical satire of everything from Christianity
(‘the bogus faith of a false prophet") to educa-
tion (calibrated to “degrade all dignity") to the
sexual peccadilloes of the rich and famous.

Fight Club remains Palahniuk's signature
work, having been made into а movie by direc-
tor David Fincher, starring Edward Norton and
Brad Pitt. Pitt's character, Tyler Durden, char-
ismatic and terrifying, compelling and sadis-

"I had volunteered at hospices and was around
people who were dying. I saw that people open up
ina different, very raw way when Shaye ducing
with death. Around death you can have bold,
cathartic experiences. We miss them in life.”

tic, has his own following of fans who celebrate
(and sometimes emulate} his antics, which are
designed to instill mayhem and express disgust
with the status quo. Durden, working as a waiter
in the movie, “farted on the meringue, sneezed
on braised endive and, as for the cream of mush-
room soup, well....” Like Durden, fans of the
book have founded real fight clubs where men
come to beat the hell out of one another.

Along with his books and the movies based on
them (Choke, starring Sam Rockwell and Anjel-
ica Huston, was released last year), Palahniuk is
also known for his packed book-tour events that
are part reading and part performance art. Tour-
ing for the 2008 book Snuff, about a porn star
aiming to set the world gang-bang record (her
goal is 600 Yornications” in a day), Palahniuk
tossed inflatable sex dolls into the audience. Other
events have elicited dramatic reactions from some
audience members; at readings of Palahniuk's
short story “Guts,” originally published in
PLAYBOY, more than 200 people have fainted.

Palahniuk's own background story reads like
опе of his more horror filled novels. Вот in 1962
іп Pasco, Washington, Palahniuk has said he had
“a regular, tense American childhood." The truth
is it was tenser than many. When he was five, his
father came close to severing one of Chuck's fin-
gers with an ax, on. r. His parents divorced
when he was 13. Later Chuck was let in on a fam-

“There are many templates for how women can
come gather ond mri Their experience.
Men don't have those sorts of things. We don't
usually sit around just talking, as women do.
More often we're doing something."

ily secret: As а child, his father had hidden under
а bed and watched his father, Chuck's grandfa-
ther, murder Chuck's grandmother and then shoot
himself and terror continued when, in
1999, Palahniuks father and his girlfriend were
‚shot іо death by her ex-husband.

Palahniuk graduated from the University of
Oregon and has worked as a diesel mechanic and
journalist. In his mid-30s he began to attend writ-
ir s run by novelist Tom bauer a
оны rie mean

“ writing” inspired Palahn-
Prog ыа аа,

Upon the publication of Pygmy, PLAYBOY sent
contributing editor David Sheff to meet Palahniuk
in Portland, where the author lives. “Palahn-
ид was correct when he said people expect Tyler
Durden or Charles Manson when they first meet
him," Sheff says. "I did. But hes far from either.
Instead, he's soft-spoken, gentle and extremely

thoughtful. Hes also a captivating storyteller. He

has you hysterically laughing, and then his stories,

much lke his books, take a sharp turn, often to the
or heartbreaking—or both.”

parao Your new book, Pygmy isn't the first
in which your characters are determined to
bring about the apocalypse, Your narrator,
Pygmy, plans to destroy America, and his
Operation Havoc is reminiscent of Project

PHOTOGRAPHY BY CHRIS RIAN
“1 think every stage of life comes with its own
terrors, the things you cannot fix or at least
haven't. In every book I approach these anx-
ieties and fears and try to fully explore and
exhaust my emotions pedal ide,

PLAYBOY

Mayhem in Fight Club. Do you really want to
blow the whole thing up and start over?
PALAHNIUK: I'm just having some fun. І
find it nice to put two words together that
are almost a paradox. Operation sounds so
officious and havoc ee chaotic. The same
with project and mayhem. Mayhem sounds

fun. Havoc sounds like fun. Fight Club
p too. I mean, it's a club.
PLAYBOY: Pygmy looks at humanity with
disgust. Do
PALAHNIUK: It’s just that Гуе always been
fascinated by imagining the w:
would see us if they had no context or
if their perspective were coldly objec-
tive. Pygmy witnesses kids downloading
porn onto their cell phones. He thinks
they're instructional videos. But he thinks
the instructors must be complete idiots
because they can't manage to get the
semen inside the vagina. In fact, it goes
everywhere but into the vagina.
PLAYBOY: You've said Project Mayhem.
Tyler Durden's organization devoted to
disrupting and bringing down society,
was inspired by a real group called the
Cacophony Society. Are you an active
participant?
PALAHNIUK: І haven't been for a very
long time, but I used to be. I did a Santa
event once.
PLAYBOY: A Santa event?
PALAHNIUK: "Thousands of Santa Clauses,
all masked, are let loose in the middle of
а city. They cause all kinds of problems—
traffic congestion, confusion and chaos—
which is the point. The females have
gotten into some trouble for indecent
exposure. They're masked and identity-
less, so they tend to flash their tits a lot.
PLAYBOY: You once said Club is a kind of
Joy Luck Club for men. What did you mean?
PALAHNIUK: There are many templates
for how women can come together and.
talk: The Joy Luck Club, How to Make an
American Quilt, Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya
Sisterhood. They present all these arbi-
trary social groups that allow women
to come together and talk about their
experience. Men don't have those sorts
of things. More than anything else, that's
what Fight Club is. It's a place for men to
be together and talk.
PLAYBOY: A place where they beat the hell
out of one another.
PALAHNIUK: Well, it does seem to help if
we're doing something physical. Men don't
usually sit around just talking, as women
do. More often we're doing something.
It’s like when I was with my friends talk-
ing while we were pulling down Sheetrock
in my office, and all these live mice—
hundreds of them—were raining down on
us and running around everywhere.
PLAYBOY: People have created real-life
fight clubs after reading your book. Does
that surprise you?
PALAHNIUK: I think they've always existed.
"There's a long tradition of them, though
maybe they weren't called fight clubs.
Many cultures had regular places where
30 people would fight as a ritual. Often it

I THOUGHT
OF A FIGHT
CLUB AS

A DISCO
BUT WITH:
FIGHTING...

was a mating ritual—a contest for males
to find a reproductive mate. The win-
ning fighter presents himself as the more.
viable, dynamic reproductive partner.
PLAYBOY. Have you been to any modern-
day fight clubs?

PALAHNIUK: No, but I've heard people
have this cathartic, almost religious expe-
rience as two people battle.

PLAYBOY. Аге you a fighter?

PALAHNIUK: I was in a fight when I worked
on the assembly line at Freightliner
‘Trucks. I was installing front axles. It was
a hellishly hot summer day and even hot-
ter near these baking ovens. If you didn't
do your job right, you'd be towed into the
oven along with the trucks. It was misery
The only ventilation came from giant
rotating fans. There was so much oil in
the air from the pneumatic tools that the
grilles of the fans were furry with black
filaments of oil and dust. One day I was
behind schedule installing a front axle,
and a co-worker at my station, Jimmy,
said, “Look up.” I looked up just as he
took a broom handle and hit the fan. All
that accumulated filth flew into my face,
and I was completely covered with soot
on top of the sweat from the heat. I was
already behind in my work, and I just
lost it. I chased Jimmy down the assem-
bly line and tackled him. I just beat on
him. We fought and fought. Everybody

WS!
>

on the assembly line cheered. When it
was over we all just went back to work. I
realized in that moment we'd expressed
this horrible misery that everybody had
been feeling that day. After that Jimmy
was my best friend, and I couldn't get rid
of him. Since then Гуе been fascinated
by the dynamic of that day.
PLaYBOY: Did you feel like the guys in Fight
Club feel after their fights? More alive?
PALAHNIUK: І felt exhausted. I compare it
to the experience of Pentecostal church
services or, in 1984, George Orwell's
Two Minutes Hate—those really intense,
exhausting venting rituals we have. So
Fight Club provided one. І thought of it as
isco but with fighting. You'd ask some-
one to fight, and they d say yes ог no. Like
my experience at Freightliner, fighting
brings exhaustion and also the permission
that comes from being injured.
PLAYBOY: What permission comes from
being injured?
PALAHNIUK: Permission not to have to han-
dle everything for a moment, to shut down
fora moment. Everything else disappears.
PLAYBOY: You describe your Fight Club
narrator as a "tourist" who visits support
groups for people with serious illnesses
like testicular cancer and leukemia. What
inspired the idea?
PALAHNIUK: I had volunteered at hospices
and was around all these people who were

dying. I saw that people open up in а dif-
ferent, very raw way when they Te dealing
with death. Around death you can have
bold, cathartic experiences, We miss them.
in life. Maybe every once in a while you can
get them from a movie but not very often.
Sometimes you get them from a funeral
It's similar to when something horrible
happens in your life, and you come away
from it shaken but also in a way settled
and peaceful. The support groups were ап.
awful and intense way to schedule a kind.
of structured chaos that would allow the
rest of your life to be calm by comparison.
PLAYBOY; Besides your fans who have
formed fight clubs, readers of Choke have.
reportedly copied your narrator, inten-
tionally choking themselves on food
The narrator does it to have an intimate
moment with people who would then
feel responsible for him. After the expe-
rience they send him regular checks
PALAHNIUK: Yeah, a guy was doing the
choking behavior in Florida to meet
attractive women. He'd try to get them.
10 save him and embrace him. He was
arrested, but they found there were no
laws t forbade it, so he was released.
PLAYBOY: If someone were hurt or died in a
fight club or by choking that was inspired
by your books, would you feel responsible?
PALAHNIUK: My big defense is if І can
think about something, whatever it is—
the choking thing, a fight club—a million.
other people can and probably have too.
For example, in Fight Club when Tyler
works as a projectionist in a movie the-
ater, he cuts pornography into the films
he shows. People in the theater get а
glimpse of a penis or some sex act. I wrote
it in the original story, and someone said,
“You can't write that. Someone will get the
idea." But someone already had the idea.
People were doing it. I'd heard about it
from friends. Then when the Fight Club
movie went into production, the director
David Fincher, said, "I was the projection-
ist in my high school. І used to do it.” He
spliced porn into movies too. It's like the
stories of Disney animators inserting a
frame or two of porn into Disney movies.
It's the same impulse.

PLAYBOY: In Fight Club Tyler Durden
pees into the soup he's serving and
farts on the food. Do you know people
who have done that?

PALAHNIUK: І knew people who worked
at the big hotels in downtown Portland
and yeah, they would tell stories like
that. There was a kid in England—a very
handsome, well-presented kid—who told
me, “І work in an upscale restaurant in
London, and we do things to celebrities
food all the time.” І said, “Tell те one
person.” He said, “І can't because there
are only two of these restaurants, and it'd
be too easy to find me.” I wasn't going to
sign his book until he told me one per-
son. So he sheepishly goes, “Margaret
‘Thatcher has eaten my sperm.” I started
Laughing. As soon as 1 did, he got bold.
He said, “At least five times.”

PLAYBOY: You write about the eclectic
variety of items emergency-room doc-
tors have had to remove from people’s
rectums. Did you make them up?
PALAHNIUK: І didn't invent them, no. I hear
about them all the time. A doctor last week
wrote this fantastic letter about a guy who
had come in a couple of weeks before say-
ing someone had come into his apartment
in the middle of the night and assaulted
him with a bell pepper. Well, the moment
he said “assault” they had to call the police.
The doctor wrote about drugging this guy
in the operating room and then having to
remove soiled pieces of bell pepper from
his rectum. They bagged them as evidence,
with police detectives standing by.

PLAYBOY: In Choke, your protagonist, a sex
addict, loses a large anal bead up there
PALAHNIUK: Right, and it creates stress
into the third act. It’s like the character
is crippled until all his secrets come out
It’s Rosemary's Baby. You put the devil's
baby inside somebody, and the story's
over when the baby comes out

PLAYBOY: Do you ever think you've gone
too far with any of the more horrific
moments in your books?

PALAHNIU
Whenever I get to the point where I
think things are going 100 far, I know I
have to go there.

Рідүвот It has also been reported that your
readers have copied Tyler's example and
intentionally burned themselves with lye.
PALAHNIUK: And other stuff, yes. People
have told me they've done it

PLAYBOY: What inspired that ritual in
the book?

PALAHNIUK: My friend Alice was making
soap; she taught me how and told me about
the lye burns you get on your arms when
you make it. I wanted to have the gesture
of someone kissing someone's hand and
scarring it. It seems so Christ-like. So yeah,
people have said they ve done it. I also see
a huge number of tattoos based on images
in the books. I've seen people tattooed
all over their body with all the covers of
my books. God bless them. І understand
it. It’s an aspect of books that I like—the
badging ability. If someone wears an image
from Fight Club, they ll attract like-minded
people in a way they won't if there's an
iPod in their ears.

PLAYBOY: You offer recipes for homemade
bombs in Fight Club. Where did they
come from? Do they work?

PALAHNIUK: My brother is an electrical
engineer for Chevron. We spent a week-
end coming up with these formulas. It was
a game to play. Yes, the formulas worked
before my publisher got its hands on them.
The real recipes made it all the way to
typeset, but then somebody freaked out.
They asked me to change one ingredient
in every recipe to make them useless
PLAYBOY: Besides real bomb-making for-
mulas, what else has your publisher pro-
hibited you from including in a book?
PALAHNIUK: In Fight Club my editor
thought I'd gone too far when, originally,

Nothing's going too far

Fight Club

—“Pounding that kid, | really wanted
to put a bullet between the eyes.
of every endangered panda thai
wouldn't screw to save its species
and every whale or dolphin that gave,
up and ran itself aground.’

—“Used to sit in the bathroom with,
pornography, now they sit in the
bathroom with their IKEA catalogues.

Diary

"Grace says, We all die,’ She says,
‘The goal isn't to live forever, the goal
is to create something that will.”

Lullaby
—“There are worse things you can do
to the people you love than kill them.”

Choke

—“The world won't end with a whimper

ora bang, but with a discreet, tasteful

announcement: 'Bill Rivervale, phone

call holding, line two. Then nothing
“More and more, it feels like I'm doing

a really bad impersonation of myself.
“Masochism is a valuable job sk

Invisible Monsters

—“All God does is watch us and kill us
when we get boring. We must never,
ever be boring.

-“Бо figure, but Texans seem ta
be a lot more comfortable around
disastrous house fires than they are
around anal sex."

—"She'd wear shades of lipstick
you'd expect to see around the base
of a pe

Survivor
“The only differance between a suicide
and a martyrdom is press coverage.”
"Tanning and steroids are only a prob-

lemif you plan to live a long time.”
Snuff

“Dudes have a million ways of peeing
on what they claim as just their own.”

Haunted

—"Yau can't unfuck a kid. Once you
bang a kid, there's no getting that
genie out of the bottle.”

Rant

—“In a world where billions believe their
deity conceived a mortal child with a
virgin human, it's stunning how little
imagination most people display." -- ,-

PLAYBOY

32

the Project Mayhem guys castrated a cop.
He said the characters would lose all sym-
pathy if they went that far, so І stopped
short of their castrating him. That was
maybe the only concession І made to my
editor, who also said І couldn't have them
make soap out of liposuction fat stolen
from doctors' offices. He said it was too
distasteful, but І wouldn't give on that
point. I wanted something that was a met-
aphor and visceral. In Pygmy, my editor
said І went too far in a scene where the
father is doped on Rohypnol and wets his
pants. He thought it was just too humiliat-
ing. І said, “You know, they dig a vibrator
out of the mother’s vagina underneath
the Thanksgiving dinner table, but pee-
ing in his pants is too humiliating?”
PLAYBOY: Given moments like that, does it
surprise you that, as you've said, people
assume you are like Tyler Durden or
even Charles Manson?

PALAHNIUK: No, but І make an effort to
destroy that image. In my interactions
with people І try to comfort them in
some way. І try to soften the blow.
PLAYBOY: How do you soften it?
PALAHNIUK: Olten people come to events
and want photos with me. So I'll take
wedding veils and big bouquets and
dress them up as Ukrainian brides, and
then we'll have our picture taken.
PLAYBOY: How does that soften the blow?
PALAHNIUK: Suddenly they're holding
flowers. I'm touching them and groom-
ing them. It’s very human and intima!
"Then we do fake wedding pictures. Last
year І took all these costumes from the
Choke movie, colonial wigs and cravats and
tricornered hats, and did the same thing.
It’s so stupid, but І cut through all the ten-
sion they may feel. Also, if Fm being the
stupid person, they don't have to worry
about being the stupid person. Mean-
while, it makes it so much more fun for
me. Another thing I did for several years
was buy all these hyperrealistic bloody cut-
off arms that had a bone sticking out. I'd
throw them out into the crowd. І started
that because people were always asking me
to sign their limbs. I'd come back a year
later, and they'd have tattooed my signa-
ture on their arm. So instead of that, I gave
them limbs. If they wanted, I'd sign them.
It was just a blast at the end of the events
to take those and hurl them into the audi-
ence. It was like feeding time at the zoo. It
would leave me winded and euphoric.
PLAYBOY: On the Snuff tour you handed
out blow-up sex dolls. How did people
respond?

PALAHNIUK: First, I'd throw maybe а hun-
dred sex dolls out there at an event and
have contests to see who could blow them
up the fastest. They had to blow them up
so they could hold them by the ankles and
they'd stand. It really dresses up the audito-
rium. Then I'd throw out more dolls—200
or 300. After the event you'd be on the
street or on mass transit and see hundreds
of people with blown-up sex dolls under
their arm. It's really funny and sweet.

PLAYBOY: Snuff is about a woman who
decides to set the world fornication record,
as you explain it in the book. She plans to
have sex with 600 men in one day. How
did you come up with that premise?
PALAHNIUK: It's based on Grace Quek,
ака. Annabel Chong. When she was 22
years old, she had sex with 251 men in
10 hours. She was a gender-studies stu-
dent at the University of Southern Cali-
fornia and had done a couple of porn
movies. She was researching the Roman
empress Messalina, who was called а
female Caligula—this voracious, sexu-
ally aggressive empress who would go to
brothels and challenge the leading pros-
titutes in ancient Rome to see who could
service the most guys in a night. Messa-
lina would always win. Asa feminist state-
ment, Quek wanted to make a movie, the
world's largest gang-bang movie. She set
the rules. “The guys will come in five at
а time, and whoever gets an erection first
is the one who gets to fuck me, and the
other ones get to beat off; if they haven't
come in three minutes, they're all out of
here." Something like 67 percent of the
guys who waited in line couldn't get an
erection. A lot of people stood in line to
say “I love you” to Annabel Chong: “I
have all your movies. I adore you.” They
wanted to express their affection. The last
thing they wanted to do was fuck her.
рідүвот: People expected Snuff to be por-
nographic, but it's about the men waiting
in line for their turn. You once said the
book isn't about sex, just as most sex really
isn't about sex. What did you mean?
PALAHNIUK: Sex is just a physical business
that goes on. It's just what you do with
your hands and feet while you're com-
municating something else completely.
PLAYBOY: Is it fair to say Snuff is also about
death? The men wait for their number to
be called for sex, a symbol for all of us wait-
ing for our number to be called to die.
PALAHNIUK: Often I've looked for ways
to present death so people can accept it

and go beyond their fear of it. How do
we talk about the idea that you're going to
die and I'm going to die and we're going
to watch people we love die? I acknowl
edge it and show that people can face this
reality and live. We love seeing people live
through our worst fears. It shows us that
we can, too. Accepting death seems ter-
rifying, but it’s freeing.
PLAYBOY: In Survivor you write, “The only
thing I know is that everything you love will
die.” You were talking about a fish, but later
in the book you write, “The first time you
meet that someone special, you can count
on them one day being dead and in the
id." Does the thought depress you?
PALAHNIUK: I think everyone has fears like
that, though maybe they're repressed.
Like with fearing your own death, you
go through this fear, too, and there's a
freedom. It’s like confronting the fear
of being humiliated. In а story you see a
strong character devastated and humili-
ated in an incredibly awful way, but they
still venture forward. It reassures people
that if they were ever humiliated in the
way they would most dread, they'd move
past it and survive. It wouldn't be the end
of them. For people terrified of the idea of
being absolutely humiliated and degraded
in public, the story “Guts” seems to say
something to them. І think that's why
people respond so strongly to it.
PLAYBOY: “Guts” is a story that involves
masturbation, a swimming-pool pump.
and once-internal body parts that don't
remain internal, Some people respond by
fainting. Is it true that hundreds of people
have passed out during your readings?
PALAHNIUK: Yes, and it’s an amazing
thing to watch from up front where І
can see it all happen. People come into
the auditorium and are all hating the
fact that they're packed in together
with too many other people. They're
hemmed in, forced to share the same
space. Then I read “Guts.” They can't all
see what's going on, but from up front І
can see the moment one person begins
to quaver. His head goes down, and
then he slumps into the lap of the per-
son next to him. I see horror on the face
of the person being slumped on. The
face says, “How dare you touch me. Get
the fuck off me.” Then something hap-
pens. It's as if they feel the person has,
ina way, died. Soon the entire audience
catches on and jumps up. For them, 100,
its like secing a person die. Everything
stops, and the person who has passed
out is the center of everyone's atten-
tion. The whole crowd of 800 people
goes from hating one another to being
one. Everyone is focused on and con-
cerned about this one person who's on
the floor, unaware. This person is gently
served and catered to until they come
back to life, resurrected. Everyone sees
that person resurrect, and their relief
is tangible. I'm watching it, and it's just
glorious. At that point, instead of hating
Опе another, ^ (continued on page 106)

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CIRCUIT: 8.36 MILES

"i

the spring of 1963 Henry Ford Il—the larger-than-

life grandson of Ford Motor Company's founder

and one of the richest men in the world—had a

vision. He saw the future of the car market not in

America but in Europe, and he invested the future

of his family's empire overseas, gambling more than

he could afford to lose. How to prove that his American cars were

the best in the world and that customers in Europe should line

up to buy them? Henry Il ordered his engineering brain trust to

design and build a racing car that could win the most famous

speed competition in the world—the 24 Hours of Le Mans in
France—a feat no American manufacturer had ever achieved.

The 24 Hours of Le Mans was (and still is) a sports-car race.
But in the 19605 it was much more than that: It was a remarkable
marketing tool. A win instantly translated to millions in sales. The
basic rules: an 8.36-mile road course, a team of two drivers to
each car, one man in the cockpit at a time. The car that covered
the most laps after 24 hours won. Le Mans was deeply controver-
sial because of Из extreme speeds and danger. Іп 1964, the first
year Ford entered cars, Car and Driver called the event “a four-hour
sprint race followed by a 20-hour deathwatch.” It was “probably
the most dangerous sporting event in the world.”

Henry 115 nemesis would be Enzo Ferrari, who at the time was
enjoying the greatest Le Mans dynasty ever. The cars that rolled
out of Ferrari's factory in Maranello, Italy had won Le Mans four
years in a row. They were as famous for their speed as for their
beauty. The battle between these two industrialists would make
for one of the greatest grudge matches in sports history. Looking

Ford Motor Company

back, one can see this rivalry as the first chapter in everything
that was about to unfold in the automobile business, a long story
that has now reached its climax: Detroit car companies battling
for international supremacy in the era of globalism.

Based on three years of research and nearly 30 interviews,
this account of the 1964 Le Mans reconstructs the first battle
between Ford and Ferrari, in which Ford unveiled a car called
the GT40. The major characters:

Phil Hill: Racing for Enzo Ferrari's team at the 1961 Italian
Grand Prix, which took the lives of 14 spectators, Hill became
the first American to win the Formula One World Drivers' Спатрі-
onship. Now, in 1964, Hill had signed with Ford and was leading
the American effort to beat his old boss.

John Surtees: Number one on Ferrari's team. The Italian
fans called this Englishman Il Grande John.

Carroll Shelby: A chicken farmer turned racing icon, Shelby
was a Le Mans champion (in 1959 with Aston Martin), but a
bad heart forced him to retire. That's when he began build-
ing his own cars. In 1964 Shelby was attempting to win the
GT class (made up of cars customers could actually buy, as
opposed to the purpose-built prototypes Ford and Ferrari cre-
ated to win the race outright) with his Shelby Cobra, a car that
commands millions at vintage auctions today.

the Americans stood a chance. It would be
a miracle И they beat the Ferraris in their debut at Le Mans. Іп
fact, it would seem a miracle if they could keep their racing cars
on the road. But then, in the spring of 1964, people had grown

setting a lap record

35

36

aS Some 350,000 spectators attended the race in 1964. Bottom from left: American Dan Gurney, who

iloted а

that year; Enzo Ferraris lead driver, gritty Briton John Surtees; the Ferrari 275 P with its high-revving 12-cylinder engine.

used to the unexpected, to heroic events
and shocking headlines. In the previous 12
months John F. Kennedy had been assas-
sinated, the U.S. Congress had passed the
first civil rights bill, and the Soviets had
launched the first woman into space. Cas-
sius Clay had knocked out Sonny Liston in
Miami Beach, and Martin Luther King had
marched on Washington.

The Ford team checked into the Hötel de
France in La Chartre sur le Loire, as did an
army of Ford men from Dearborn, Michi-
gan: carburetor specialists, tire and engine
men. Wednesday through Friday were
practice and qualifying days, and the race
started at four p.m. Saturday. It all had to go
like clockwork, down to the customs papers
to get the Ford cars into the country.

On the morning of the first practice ses-
sion, the pit lane filled with cars painted
in national racing colors: red Alfa Romeo
Giulia TZs, silver Porsche 904s, green
Jaguar E-Types. Ferrari’s lead driver, John
Surtees, was spotted, as was the American
Phil Hill. Carroll Shelby arrived with a pair
of Cobra Daytona coupes, painted Guards-
тап blue with white stripes. There was no
way to measure the man-hours, ingenuity
and soul that had gone into these cars.
Shelby was a fan favorite in France. When
he walked out onto the pavement and
looked up at the empty, towering grand-
stands, it all came back to him: the magic
of this place. If his Cobras could win the
GT class, his little automobile company
would be assured survival.

"Outside of the United States,” Shelby
told a Sports Illustrated reporter, “the Le
Mans race has more prestige than all the
other races put together. Le Mans receives
throughout the world probably five times
as much publicity as Indianapolis. Any
automobile manufacturer who wants to
make a name for himself in racing has to
do well at Le Mans.”

The first engine sounded, and soon
revs were coming from all directions.
The air stank of exhaust and hot pave-
ment. One by one, cars motored onto
the circuit. Stopwatches clicked off
vital seconds. The press box grew loud
with the sound of thumping typewriters.
Facing the three Fords and two Cobras,
Ferrari had entered four cars, and a
number of privateers were racing their
own Ferraris, also prepared at the fac-
tory by Enzo Ferrari's men, bringing the
total to eight entries branded with the
prancing horse.

From the first day of practice it became
apparent that the race would move at
historic speeds. One after another, Fer-
raris cut deeper into the circuit, shat-
tering the Le Mans lap record: 3:47.2,
then 3:47. By the end of qualifying, the
crowds that had begun to amass were
left with a cliffhanger. Surtees set the
best time in his Ferrat :42. His speed
was dumbfounding. He'd knocked more
than 10 seconds off his own lap record
from the year before. But a Ford qualified
next, and Phil Hill was fourth. Over the

8.36-mile course, less than four seconds
separated the top four qualifiers.

On the eve of the race Surtees stood in
the Ferrari garage, taping an on-camera
interview with Stirling Moss for ABC's
Wide World of Sports. Until three years
earlier Moss had been considered the
greatest racing driver in the world. One
high-speed injury later and here he was,
with a microphone rather than a steering
wheel in his hand. Moss asked him about
the American threat. How important was
it to Enzo Ferrari to beat the Fords?

"To a firm like Ferrari,” Surtees said,
"which produces a specialized product
and sells most of its cars in America, it's
very important."

"Ferrari has won this race four times
in a row," Moss said, “and if he wins this
race, it'll be five times, which has never
been d done. You're entering four cars?"

“How many men did you bring?”

“Our team is comprised of about 12
or 13 mechanics, one engineer and one
team manager.”

Moss looked around the garage. There
were seven cars. “What are the extra
cars for?”

“In case anything unusual happens,”
Surtees said. “For instance, the other night
we were out, and we hit a fox in the middle
of the road at about 140 miles an hour. It
could have damaged the car rather badly.”

“Well, 1 (continued on page 96)

"Before I could say Tm not that kind of girl,’ I was."

38

Г | Think of the next six pages
as a different kind of
stimulus plan

OF
WALL STREET

BY CONOR HOGAN

he world is not ending. Don't bury your cash in the backyard or trade your
Goldman Sachs stock for cans of baked beans. Just because your 401(k) is
now worth about $401 doesn't mean you should move to a shantytown. Times
are tough, but certain aspects of this economy are still worth celebrating—such
as Tara DeGregorio and the rest of these beauties from the financial world. “І was a rule
breaker," says Tara (above), a former executive assistant at an elite Fortune 500 company.
“1 liked high stilettos and cute skirts. I tried to abide by the rules, but | pushed the envelope
whenever | could, especially in the summer” The countdown to the solstice has begun.

PHOTOGRAPHY BY ARNY FREYTAG

Above: Former executive assistant
Tara DeGregorio reminde us that
being in the red isn't always a bad
thing. Opposite: Regina Chap-
тап, a bank-branch УР, says, “І
deal with men who have been in
the business for years, but | prove
1 know what I'm talking about.”

Ча im von

Opposite: Alicia Taylor, а managing member at Mortgage Solutions, curbed her spending when the markets tanked.
“І was literally about to buy a plane,” she says. She has put her faith in an old motto: If you stay ready, you'll never
have to get ready. “І never want to get caught with my pante down,” she says. Well, almost never. Above: Georgia
Anderson, a broker at Global Futures. Now that's what we call business attire.

Above left: Katherine Bhuckdwonges, a former credit manager at Wells Fargo Financial, wasn't the only beauty at her
firm. "I think Welle Fargo hires the best-looking people,”

equities trader Maria Pearson more time to relax. “A year ag
desk, and they were all going crazy. І didn't have time to get up for a second. Now, not so much.” Opposite: In the end,
Charles Schwab financial advisor Tinea Smith reminds us that a bare market can be something to smile about.

he says. Above right: The low-flying stock market has given
” she says, “І had four computers and three phones at my

Е А TROPICAL ISLAND WITH MORE BEAUTIFUL
WOMEN THAN YOU CAN IMAGINE—IT
SOUNDS LIKE HEAVEN, DOESN'T IT?.

2 MAD

ack Machado took a job last fall at a resort hotel in the
М Pacific. After flying halfway around the world

from Florida, arriving at four a.m. and then working all
day, he was exhausted. At the end of his first shift, however, а
surprise awaited him: one of the guests. A 22-year-old Japanese
nurse, to be precise. “She waswild,” he remembers. “Perfect body.
Barely spoke any English. She was a little freak, too.” After two
nights without sleep, he says, she kept him up for a third.

Day number four brought another Japanese woman to his bed. This
onewasa hairstylist, superhot, with dyed-blonde hair. Shewas like a
piece of candy and-after a few drinks- was ready to eat. The fifth day
brought Tina (some names have been changed), a Korean. “Totally
sexy!" Mack recalls. “Tall, thin, big eyes, long black hair.” Tina stuck
around fora couple of weeks, drinking, fucking and leaving the hotel
just in time for Mack to trapeze to her friend, another Korean. At the

end of his first month on the job, he realized he hadn't spenta night
alone. In the past 30 nights he'd had six different giris in his bed. Mack
had discovered paradise. Forget the 72 virgins awaiting righteous
Muslims or the harp-strumming angels of the Christian heaven Mack
had found a job where showing up forwork pretty much automatically
yielded a daily harvest of Asian hotties.

Nine thousand miles to the east of mainland America is a far-
flung U.S. territory known as the Commonwealth of the North-
ет Mariana Islands. Official outposts of U.S. soil, the islands are
about four hours south of Tokyo by plane. The most populated
island, Saipan, is the kind of place urban Westerners dream about
а palm-fringed tropical island with a turquoise lagoon, spectacular
coral reefs, lush jungle growth and breathtaking cliff-side views.

On landscaped grounds of bougainvillea and plumeria, with
some 300 guest bedrooms, the Pacific Islands Club hotel runs a

46

Japan
PACIFIC OCEAN

Philippines

Australia

Saipan, the largest island in the U.S, Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands, is a virtual paradise—especially for Americans paid

to kee
in Saipan; Clubmates hang on the beach with Jay

water park with swimming pools, tennis courts, an archery range, a
miniature golf course, a volleyball court, a beach and three restau-
rants. PIC, as it is known, employs the usual assortment of clerks,
waiters, janitors and housecleaning staff. But it also offers some-
thing more: a group of young people hired for their enthusiasm,
outgoingness and warmth, They're called Clubmates

Clubmates aren't hired

ASK A specifically to have sex with

the guests, but when you

CLUBMATE meet them. you may won-

HOW OFTEN чегі that's the case. Their

HE COULD "ок aren'tahways perfect-
HOOK UP IF HE
WANTED TO,

agement doesn't instruct

week. As one Clubmate, Fish, explains, "Part of your job is to make

some are almost cartoons of
,
AND HE'LL SAY
them to do anything other

than help guests enjoy
sure the guests have a good time " With a laugh, he says, "I mean, if
they go home with a smile on their face because they had sex with

surfer dudes, but others are
justwholesome-looking and

OF THE WEEK. themseives
Aska Clubmate how often
you...” Another Clubmate, Jim, adds, "Our whole job here is to help
people have a good time. Sometimes it's a family that needs help.

healthy. Certainly, the man-
he could hook up if he wanted to, and he'll say every night of the
Sometimes it's a young girl that needs help.” Mack says, "Asian

tourists happy at the Pacific Islands Club. Clockwise from above: Clubmates wade back from an outing on Bird Island; two tourists
e travelers; а Clubmate rides the standing wave; a Clubmate hard at work.

women prefer us because we have blue
eyes or blonde hair or different builds.
Since he prefers Asians in the first place,
what the hell? "Everybody wins,” he says.

As almost every Clubmate І meet tells
me, "You don't come here for the money.
You come here for the lifestyle" The life-
style includes fun in the sun, low wages
and long hours. But of course, as should
now be clear, it also includes unlimited
access to exotic booty. "My friend's dad
came here; Jim says. "He's a lawyer. He showed up, and he prob-
ably wants his son to do something huge, but he said, 'Man, you're
playing a joke on the rest of the world, being a Clubmate.

Most Clubmates sign up for six-month shifts. Several of the guys
1 meet signed on for the stint that runs from September to March-
the holiday season. Before coming to PIC, Fish, 22, had a landscaping
business and wakeboarding school back in suburban Kansas. As he
puts it, his life was “gravy,” but being a Clubmate for six months a
year seemed like a cool way to escape the Kansas winter. ое, 25
studied massage therapy at a northem California community college
butwas bumping along in life. Twig, 28, originally from upstate New
York, had been in "logistics and replenishment" on the night shift
at Target in Phoenix. Describing his pre-Clubmate existence, largely
devoid of relationships, much less sex, Twig says, "It sucked.” Jim,
31, worked in a design shop after graduating from UC Santa Barbara
and was living, he says “the normal life” (continued on page 93)

The Thin Man.
You can't make a reputable list of drinking movies without N
this 1934 caper from the Dashiell Hammett novel. Sleuth-
ing spouses Nick and Nora Charles (William Powell and
Myrna Loy) are constantly cocked as they solve a murder
/. The movie is full of time-tested wisdom like this E
from detective Nick, delivered as he shakes up some of
the film's plentiful martinis: "The important thing is the
rhythm. Always have rhythm in your shaking. Now, a man-
hattan you shake to fox-trot time, a bronx to two-step time.
A dry martini you always shake to waltz time."
Gin, vermouth, ice, a shaker,

= cocktall glasses and bags of style.
MASH (1970). Martinis from the jerry-
= | built still іп Hawkeye's tent always make из thirsty.

VODKA DRINK WHILE WATCHING: The Big Lebowski, the 1998
Coen brothers ode to slack and bowling that made the white russian cool
again. The Dude (Jeff Bridges) is seldom without a glass (or a joint) as he
seeks retribution for the defiling of a rug that “really tied the room together,
man." Becostumed superfans (a.k.a. achievers) gather annually for Lebowski
Fest. This year it's May 7 and 8, in Los Angeles (lebowskifest.com).
NECESSARY EQUIPMENT: Two ounces of vodka, one ounce of Kahlúa
and one ounce of half and half on the rocks. Use nondairy creamer inste;
and it's called a caucasian. Sip yours every time someone says "dud
MORE VODKA, PLEASE: Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981) reminds us what
an underrated goddess Karen Allen is as she drinks a giant goon under the
table in Nepal and out-sloshes a Frenchman іп Egypt.

DRINK WHILE WATCHING: Drunken Mas-
ter (1978), the lighthearted kung-fu classic in which incorrigible trouble-
maker Freddie Wong (played by a young Jackie Chan) is taken under the
wing of a homeless dipsomaniac master who, after brutalizing him with a
torturous training regimen, teaches him the secret style of zui quan, which
is "easier to master after you've had a drink.” High jinks епзие. Go for the |
jaw-dropping slapstick martial arts (all of which are done by the actual
actors), stay for the horrendous dubbing.
EQUIPMENT: They're probably drinking bajjiu (it's China),

but sake's pretty close, and we like it better. Try Tenzan or Kurosawa.
PREFER A RED? Sideways (2004) and Bottle Shock (2008) prove the
impossible: Movies about wine nerds can be excellent fun.

i Casablanca (1942),
the most romantic movie ever made. In а flashback to their salad days, Hum-
phrey Bogart's Rick serves a champagne cocktail to the woman of his dreams
(Ingrid Bergman's lisa) and deadpans, "Here's looking at you, kid."
Try the 1995 Henriot Cuvée des Enchante-

leurs. It'll be the beginning of a beautiful friendship.

High Society (1956), with Bing Crosby and Frank Sinatra wing
for Grace Kally white Louis Armstrong pleys the Cole Porter soundtrack

WHISKEY Where the Buffalo Roam

(1980), a scattered mess of a film redeemed by Bill Murray's virtuoso
performance as the brilliant, if addled, Hunter S. Thompson as he half
stumbles, half dances his way across the country in search of the Ameri-
can dream. It never gets weird enough for him. We're grateful.
Six grapefruits, a bottle of Chivas, a bottle

of Wild Turkey, a hunting knife and your attorney.

Deadwood (2004) for the Bulleit bourbon poured in
most scenes, Lost in Transiation (2003) for relaxing times or The Bank Dick
(1940) for the heavyweight champion of drunken actors, W.C. Fields.

Bring Me the Head of Alfredo
García (1974), the best piano-player-turned-hit-man movie ever, Fueled by a
giant jug of booze in 1970s Mexico, Warren Oates becomes a desperado with

an itchy trigger finger in order to recover the head of a deceased gigolo.
A bottle of great, affordable tequila. We rec-

ommend Patrón, Milagro or Cabo Wabo. Make it blanco, baby.

Caddyshack (1980), for its unforgettable scene of

Chevy Chase and Lacey Underall doing lines and tossing back Cuervo.

PARTY PUNCH The original col

lege party flick, National Lampoon's Animal House (1978). Today delta
punch is a generic term for frat-house jungle juice strong enough to get
everyone Blutarskied but fruity enough that girls will partake,

Mix to these time-tested proportions: one
part sour (lime juice), two parts sweet (simple syrup), three parts strong
(rum) and four parts weak (ice and juice). Serve in a (new) trash can.

Eggnog, as Chevy Chase does before his climactic
tirade in National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation (1989). Technically it's
not punch, but since it's served in a bowl we'll count it.

The Adventures of Bob & Doug
McKenzie: Strange Brew (1983). Like Molson Golden, it's cheap, it's Cana-
dian, and it goes down easy. Rick Moranis launched his film career with this
bizarre tale of two boozed-up brothers who will do anything for free beer.
А case of Molson. A toque

Add a raw egg to your beer and you have Paul Newman's
breakfast in The Verdict (1982). Add bourbon and you're Walter Matthau
as coach “Boilermaker” in The Bad News Bears (1976)

ANYTHING AND EVERYTHING brinx
WHILE WATCHING: The one and only Arthur(1981). Packed
with A-list stars (Dudley Moore, Liza Minnelli, Sir John Gielgud),
crackling comic dialogue and rivers of high-end booze, this Is
the movie that puts a happy face on alcoholism (we never even see Arthur
Bach hungover) and seems to imply that not only can a man make the
right choices about life-altering matters when blind drunk but that some-

times it actually helps. Plus, in one moment of clarity and pathos Arthur
distills drinking as an avocation down to its core: “Not all of us who drink
are poets. Some of us drink because we're not poets.

NECESSARY EQUIPMENT: The contents of a medium-size liquor store,
a steel liver, plenty of friends, no regrets.

YOU'LL ALSO WANT TO SUCK DOWN: Old School (2003), for the
force of nature that is Frank the Tank.

чаш,
к 24
ETS

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PREVIEW

| PHOTO ILLUSTRATION BY JOSH SOMMERS

A f

UNLESS YOU PLAY IN THE ПШ ШИН MLN A TEAM WITH FREE AGENTS АВВ ООВ
HAVE TO RELY ON HOMEGROWN TALENT AND KEEPING THAT TALENTAS MORE IA

aseball is a kid's game. And the adult kids who play the
game are getting younger. Maybe it's the end of the era

of performance-enhancing drugs, or maybe it's a cost-control

device, but teams are relying more on young, homegrown talent.

The average age of a major league player declined more between

2007 and 2008 than during any other time in the league's history,

with 24 of 30 teams getting younger from one year to the next.
“Because the economy drives the game," says Colorado Rockies

general manager Dan O'Dowd, “clubs go to the younger player.

If you have an opportunity to keep a player at $2 million or one

at $500,000, you're going with the young player.” Іп the past 30
years 20 different teams have won the World Series, and that in-
cludes one year (1994) when there was no Series. Only three times
in the past 30 years have teams with $100 million payrolls won a

world championship-the Boston Red Sox, іп 2004 and 2007, and
- he Yankees, in 2000. And when the Red Sox are mentioned, what

LEAGUE

Papelbon, Jacoby Ellsbury, Jed Lowrie-the homegrown nucleus.
It's about building a team from within and keeping it together.
That's why teams today work from the blueprint created by John
Hart's 1990s Cleveland Indians and try to tie up young cornerstone
players before arbitration and free agency become issues. "There
will always be that player who wonders if he left something on
the table,” says O'Dowd, who was a member of Hart's front office,
“instead of feeling relaxed with the security. Teams get cost cer-
tainty and some savings-although І don't know that the savings
are as significant today as they were in the past. The big:

that it is one less distraction in your attempt to а

focuses on the team concept.” The other

young player long-term е

Ne
LEAGUE

YANKEES PHILLIES
CC nons “<= ДЕШЕ
nomas | DODGERS

M

А century of suffering is enough. It's time for the lovable losers to win. The Chicago Cubs have their warts, but face it, winning the NL Central isn't.
the biggest challenge in the world. And once they get into a short series, theyre long on starting pitching, which is critical in October. The odds are
with them. The Red Sox have won twice this decade, and the White Sox even expunged the blight of the 1919 Black Sox.

place, eight games back. Failed to
advance to the postseason for the first
time since 1993, before Derek Jeter's
debut; Manager Joe Girardi 15 іп the sec-
ond year of a three-year contract.
OFF-SEASON FOCUS: After giving
the young arms a chance in 2008
and failing to meet Yankee expecta-
tions, the team went back to the vet-
eran approach, which meant signing
LHP С.С. Sabathia (seven years for
$161 million) and ВНР A.J. Burnett
(five years for $82.5 million) to stabi-
lize the rotation, along with IB Mark
Teixeira (eight years for $180 million)
to provide a switch-hitter for the mid-
dle of the lineup. Amazingly, the Yan-
figure to knock $20 million
off their payroll.

IN-SEASON PROGNOSIS: Things are
back to normal. There is even contro-
versy thanks to 3B Alex Rodriguez's
2003 steroid test. For the Yankees,
though, normal also includes postsea-
son play. Rest assured, that's the expec-
tation, or else Girardi will pay with his

9
nd place, two games behind,
butearned the AL Wild Card. Beat the
Angels іп four games іп the AL Divi-
sion Series but lost to Tampa Bay in
seven games in the AL Cham-
pionship Series. Manager
Terry Francona's three-year,
$12 million extension starts
this season.
OFF-SEASON FOCUS:
Trumped by the Yankees in
the bidding for Mark Teixeira
and unable to find their
catcher of the future, the
Red Sox wound up bring-
ing back C Jason Varitek—
on their terms—and then
tried to piece together
the pitching staff with
aging and aching free
agent pitchers Brad
Penny, John Smoltz and
Takashi Saito.

IN-SEASON PROGNOSIS: They didn't
find an impact bat to replace Manny
Ramirez, who was dealt with two
months remaining last season, but they
do have Jason Bay, who came from the
Pirates іп the three-team deal that sent
Ramirez to the Dodgers. Bay probably
fits better in Boston than Ramirez did.
Besides, if Penny and Smoltz can't take
their regular turns, the Red Sox won't
have enough offense to survive, no mat-
ter who plays in left field.
CORNERSTONE PLAYER: 2B Dustin
Pedroia

TAMPA BAY RAYS _
LAST SEASO! 7-65.
First place, two games
ahead. Beat the White Sox in four games
in the ALDS and the Red Sox in seven
games in the ALCS before losing the
World Series in five games to Philadel-
phia. It was the first season of fewer
than 90 losses in franchise history. Man-
ager Joe Maddon showed up for spring
training in the final year of his contract.
OFF-SEASON FOCUS: The Rays acted like
many surprise winners. They were overly
cautious when it came to strengthening
their roster. They signed free agent Pat
Burrell to provide right-handed power
as DH. They balked at signing a quality
closer, choosing to gamble once more on
the health of Troy Percival and add medi-
cal mystery Jason Isringhausen.
IN-SEASON PROGNOSIS: History
doesn't bode well for Tampa because Cin-
derella doesn't often get invited back. The
Rays were the 3lst team to go from a los-
ing record to a World Series appearance,
and only four of those teams made back-
to-back World Series. Since the advent of
divisional play, in 1969, only one of the
13 teams that rebounded from a losing
record to a World Series appearance
returned to the Series the following
year: the 1992 Atlanta Braves. With
a questionable bullpen, the Rays
shouldn't expect to follow the
Braves’ example.
CORNERSTONE PLAYER: 3B
Evan Longoria

1 mem BLUE JAYS JAYS

86-76. Fourth ‘place, Ti n
games behind. Cito Gas-
ton, who took the Jays
to back-to-back world
titles in 1992 and 1993,

EVAN LONGORIA

returned to managing in 2008 as а
midseason replacement for John Gib-
bons. He is signed through 2010 at $2
million a year.

-SEASON FOCUS: Once again, look-
ing to buy time for the eighth year of GM
ЈР. rdi's eight- year reign, the Jays
talked about “next year.” They explained
how difficult it is to compete with New
York and Boston payrolls, while acting
oblivious to what happened in Tampa
Bay last season. But when the off-season
goal was to strengthen the rotation and
the team lost A.J. Burnett to free agency
and couldn't find a better starter than
Matt Clement—who hasn't pitched іп the
majors since making 12 starts for Boston
in 2006—optimism is hard to come by.
IN-SEASON PROGNOSIS: Ricciardi is
correct. The Jays can't compete with
the Yankees and Red Sox; they aren't
even a match for Tampa. But it has
nothing to do with money. For more
than a decade this organization was
the best at producing talent. Its farm
system, however, no longer provides
answers to questions. Other than Roy
Halladay, the rotation is in constant
flux. Not only did it lose Burnett, but
it can only hope Casey Janssen returns
from last year's surgery. Dustin
McGowan won't be back until at least
the end of May, and Shaun Marcum
won't pitch at all this season

CORNERSTONE PLAYER: OF Alex Rios

BALTIMORE

ORIOLES

LAST SEASO!
Fifth place, 28 and a half games
behind, the second-worst record in the
league. Manager Dave Trembley has a
one-year guarantee with an option.
OFF-SEASON FOCUS; President
Andy MacPhail hoped the Orioles had
reached a point at which free agents
would again consider them, but he
struck out in his plays for Baltimore
area native Mark Teixeira and RHP
A.J. Burnett. While MacPhail was able
to convince RF Nick Markakis to sign a
long-term deal, the rest of his efforts
had to be scaled down to signing 55
Cesar Izturis, C Gregg Zaun and Japa-
пезе import ВНР Koji Uehara.
IN-SEASON PROGNOSIS: With a
rotation that has RHP Jeremy Guthrie
as the only sure big leaguer (the num:
ber two guy is the unknown Uehara),
the team has no pretense that the AL
East title is within reach. Face it: The
question of the spring was whether
€ Matt Wieters, the former number five
draft pick with one year of pro experi-
ence, can jump to the big leagues, as
Markakis did in 2006.
СОРМЕРЗТОМЕ PLAYER: RF Nick
Markakis

JOAKIM SORIA

place, seven and a half games back.

>>> Manager Eric Wedge has had two win-
<

ning seasons in six years but is signed

through 2010.

Hopes of contending were derailed

by a bullpen that was the worst in the American League,

which is why the Tribe's major move was to sign closer

Kerry Wood. Looking for steady defense at third, the Indi-

ans picked up Mark DeRosa when the Cubs decided to slice

payroll. RHP Carl Pavano is an interesting gamble given

his health issues, but he could step in to give the Indians a
'top-of-the-line rotation.

With a nucleus of Cy Young
winner Cliff Lee, CF Grady Sizemore, C Victor Martinez and
Wood, the team has All-Star leadership. A healthy Fausto
Carmona to back up Lee and the expected development of left-handers
Aaron Laffey, Scott Lewis, David Huff and Jeremy Sowers give the Indians
depth in their rotation, which makes them unique in the AL Central.

CF Grady Sizemore

MINNESOTATWINS =
| 88-75. Second place, one game behind, losing а
163rd-game playoff to the White Sox in Chicago. Manager Ron
Gardenhire is signed through 201. The Twins have had only two
managers in the past 22 and a half seasons: Gardenhire and Tom Kelly.
Second-year GM Bill Smith was cautious. He
seemed shell-shocked from the way his first-year moves backfired, but
he didn't get bamboozled into doing stuff like giving up Matt Garza as
part of a package for a disappointing Delmon Young or throwing
money away on Livan Hernandez. He signed free agent 3B Joe
Crede, whose back problems make him a gamble.

Depth is a concern, but a
healthy year bodes well for the Twins, considering they
have a strong, young rotation that is getting better, the
arm of Joe Nathan to work the ninth and a lineup built
around C Joe Mauer and 18 Justin Morneau.

1B Justin Morneau

CHICAGO WHITE SOX

89-74. First place, winning

the 163rd-game playoff against Minnesota. Lost |

to Tampa Bay in four games in the ALDS. Manager

Ozzie Guillen is a personal favorite of owner Jerry
Reinsdorf and is signed through 2012.

The Sox decided it was time to get
younger and more athletic, so they let ЗВ Joe Crede, 55 Orlando
Cabrera and INF Juan Uribe depart and dealt OF-18 Nick Swisher
to the Yankees for potential starter RHP Jeff Marquez. They then
made a foray into the Cuban market for the second year in a row,
signing 38 Dayan Viciedo.

The Sox want to be considered
a contender, but it's hard to get excited about a team that
goes into spring training without a fourth or fifth starter (it's
gambling on a rebound from Bartolo Colon for one of those
Spots). The club also doesn't have a clear-cut third baseman
and has no serious candidate to hit leadoff. Adding Viciedo
and hoping for a repeat of last year's success with Alexei
Ramirez is nice, but Viciedo won't reshape an offense that
relies too much оп the long ball.

LHP Matt Thornton

GRADY SIZEMORE

53

mg KANSAS CITY
| ROYALS
о LAST SEASON; 75-87.
f Fourth place, 13 and a half
games behind. The team equaled its
fifth-best win total since 1991. Manager
Trey Hillman, who prepped by managing
in Japan, is in the second year of a three-
year contract.
OFF-SEASON FOCUS: Third-year GM
Dayton Moore had a shopping list and
filed his needs, but the jury is still out on
whether he found the best avallable prod-
ucts when he brought in 18 Mike Jacobs
as a corner bat, Coco Crisp to provide
defense in center, Wilie Bloomquist to be
the veteran infielder, and Kyle Farnsworth
and Doug Waechter to replenish the bull-
pen. More important, the questions
about Zack Greinke's future were
answered when he agreed to a
long-term deal.
IN-SEASON PROGNO-
SIS: The Royals are
taking it slow, but
they continue to make
progress. The keys
to improvement are
the one-two rota-
tion punch of Gil
Meche and Greinke
along with the
continued devel-
‘opment of closer
Joakim Soria, а
Rule Five pick
Stolen from San
Diego in 2006.
Mark Teahen has
been pushed out
| of the lineup,
| with Crisp tak-
|l ing over in cen-
ter and David
DeJesus mov-
ing to left, but
Teahen gives
the Royals a bar-
gaining chip when trade talks begin.
CORNERSTONE PLAYER: RHP Zack
Greinke

DI GERS |...

LA N: 74-88. Fifth

place, 14 and a half games
behind. It was Detroit's 13th losing season
in 15 years. Manager Jim Leyland is signed
for $4 million through 2009, but after
complaining at the end of last season about
having no security, he said this spring he is
comfortable with his situation.
OFF-SEASON
FOCUS: The
bullpen was
a concern.
Settling for
Brandon Lyon
shows how

frustrated the Tigers were after getting
the cold shoulder from free agents Fran-
cisco Rodriguez, Brian Fuentes and Kerry.
Wood, as well as from the Seattle Mari-
ners, who had J.J. Putz to offer. Lyon is
signed for only a year, however, and will
have to hold off a comeback effort from.
Fernando Rodney. GM Dave Dombrowski
found the catcher he wanted, acquiring
Gerald Laird from the Texas Rangers.
IN-SEASON PROGNOSIS: Ownership
has spent plenty of money, and man-
agement has added headline attractions.
The parts, however, don't fit together.
Too many key players have question-
able medical histories: Jeremy Bond-
erman, Gary Sheffield, Joel Zumaya,
Carlos Guillen and Dontrelle Willis. The
Tigers have a solid offense with Curtis
Granderson, Miguel Cabrera and Mag-
glio Ordonez, but someone has to get
27 outs to finish a game.
CORNERSTONE PLAYER: CF Curtis
Granderson

AL wesr

$ LOS ANGELES
ANGELS
OF ANAHEIM
LAST SEASON: 100-62. First
place, 21 games ahead. Boston knocked
the Angels out of the postseason in four
games in the ALDS. Mike Scioscia has
more security than any other manager in
the game. Heis signed through 2018 with
an opt-out in 205.
OFF-SEASON FOCUS: The only team to
reach 100 wins last year—and one that
has not been afraid to push its payroll
seemed oblivious to who was disappear-
ing from its roster. Good-bye, doser Felix
Rodriguez, coming off a record 62-save
season. Adios, 1B Mark Teixeira, the in-
Season addition who provided middle-of-
the-lineup balance. So long, OF Garrett
Anderson, a homegrown hero. And in
their places?
The Angels
went bargain
shopping
and came back
with two interest-
ing purchases—left-
handed closer Brian
Fuentes and OF Bobby Abreu.
But that was it.
IN-SEASON PROGNOSIS: The
luxury in Anaheim is knowing
the division is won before
spring training even starts. But
then comes the challenge: get-
ting back to the World Series.
Since winning the franchise's
first world championship, in
2002, the Angels are 5-15

IA.

in four postseason appearances. The |
lack of rotation depth and the absence
of game-breaking bats become glaring |
weaknesses in the postseason. |
CORNERSTONE PLAYER: RHP Ervin
Santana

OAKLAND А°5
LAST SEASON: 75-86. Third
place, 24 and a half games
back. Manager Bob Geren,
childhood pal of GM Billy Beane, had his
option exercised for 2009 last September.
OFF-SEASON FOCUS: Beane traded three
players to the Rockies for rent-a-player
Matt Holliday a year after tearing apart
a rotation with long-term price certainty
by dealing Dan Haren, Joe Blanton and
Rich Harden, who were in the midst
of club-friendly contracts, Beane also
brought back Jason Giambi, who will
slip into the DH role, forcing defensively
challenged Jack Cust to right field with
Daric Barton at first base.

IN-SEASON PROGNOSIS: The offense
was beefed up, but the departure of
starters Haren, Blanton and Harden
and veteran relievers Huston Street and
Alan Embree leaves the Athletics with an
inexperienced pitching staff. And cham-
pionship teams revolve around strong-
armed pitching staffs.
CORNERSTONE PLAYER: 38 Eric
Chavez

LAST SEASON: 79-83. Sec-
ond place, 21 games behind.
Manager Ron Washington survived last
season only because the team got hot
before owner Tom Hicks returned from his
European vacation. This is the final year of
Washington's three-year contract.

OFF-SEASON FOCUS: The Rangers
continued their new approach of stock-
piling prospects and keeping costs down.
(continued on page 100)

“Pay no attention to the snake.”

56

It’s

RYSTAL

Clear

For Miss May, the Centerfold is a family affair

Miss August 1968 Gale Olson cuddles with a swan toy for her classic Playmate Center-
fold (left). Now Gale’s daughter Crystal McCahill pays homage to her mother more than
40 years later with an identical swan Crystal discovered at the Mansion.

t's a different kind of Darwin Award: the Playmate gene, passed from mother to

daughter, ensuring survival of the fittest and constant attention from males of the

species. Examine the evidence before you іп the curvy form of Crystal McCahill, the

25-year-old daughter of Miss August 1968 Gale Olson. “І think every girl who has
the figure for it wishes she could be a Playmate, and I'm no exception,” said Gale in her
Playmate interview. “All | can say is, І am lucky!” Yet when luck strikes twice, it seems
less like luck than destiny. (It has happened just once before, when Miss December 1960
Carol Eden saw her daughter Simone grace the Centerfold in February 1989.)

“| always knew my mother was in pLaysoy,” says the Illinois-born Crystal. “І remember
telling my brothers and sisters, ‘I'm going to do that one day. I'm going to do the exact
same pose.’ | mentioned it to ту mom when І was about 15, and she said, ‘Wait a few
years and then decide.’ Now she's totally for it and so excited for me.”

Gale said she wanted to have a large family when she spoke to pLaygoy back in 1968,
and she got her wish: Crystal has two brothers and four sisters, ranging in age from

PHOTOGRAPHY BY STEPHEN WAYDA AND BARRY FONTENOT

14 to 39. “І really can't imagine
life without them,” says Crystal.
“| think it makes everything that
much better when you are able
to rely on your family and have
someone there whenever you
need them."

Miss May 2009 celebrated her
sixth birthday on a plane flying
with her family to Hawaii, where
she lived for several years and
went to a Japanese school. She
moved with her family back to
Chicago and was soon delying
child labor laws to work at a pizza
parlor. "My dad lied to get me
the job," she explains, "and said
I was 15 when І was 14. For my
15th birthday my co-workers gave
me а sweet-16 necklace. І felt so
bad. To this day they think I'm a
year older.”

Still in Chicago, she lives with
her “chill” Pomeranian, Elvis, and
tends bar at several hot Chicago
clubs. After hours the sexy mix-
ologist seeks a different scene
entirely. “І don't like to go out to
loud clubs all the time,” she says.
“| like having people over to my
house. My girlfriend once planned
a slumber party—gossiping, pil-
low fights, hide-and-seek—all the
good stuff. I've always met my
boyfriends through my friends
because I’m very focused at
work, and І think it's unprofes-
sional to give my number out
when I'm behind the bar." Come
on—never? Crystal cracks. "Yeah,
I've done it," she laughs. “But it's
not a good idea. They always
say a girl dates someone like her
father, right? І grew up always
laughing, having a good time and
not taking myself too seriously. І
definitely like funny guys—Dane
Cook is my main crush right now.
I'm also very spontaneous and
always need change."

Everything changed quickly for
Crystal after she tried out during
our 55th anniversary Playmate
search. She received positive
feedback, and then she ran into
the Girls Next Door, filming at
Hooters. "Bridget came over and
asked if she could interview me
for her radio show," says Crystal.
"A few days later І ran into Pho-
tography Director Gary Cole for a
second time at a restaurant. He
said, ‘Yes, І think it's meant to
be.’ Then І met Hef, whom І love
and think is such an incredible
person. All those years | waited
to be a Playmate like my mom,
and this just happened so fast. |
think if you believe in it
do whatever you want.

MISS => | E т

HINOW 3H1 HO 31VWAY1d S,.AOSAV Td

PLAYMATE DATA SHEET

un. Crystal MaCohill S22
BUST: КЛА bc Хе HIPS: ay
НЕТСНТ: Эй с WEIGHT: 25

BIRTH DATE:. ‚ Dec 18, 95 BIRTHPLACE: Liver E m

мато ЈО Further career, fallin
love, get married + have а big family,
TURN-ONS:

aan&dent + independent з aan make me laugh.
TURNOFFS :. „Бад breath, laziness, cheaters ,
people Шю are жо needy a immature.

WHY I AM A VEGETARIAN: / lore animals 3 / Can't
eat something | know has been harmed.
ABOUT MY all have а. blue Rmeranian named Elvis.

He's four years ОЙ + aes goi tothe doggy park.
THE WILDEST PLACE 1 HAVE MADE LOVE: hal =I n

FIVE THINGS EVERY GUY SHOULD OWN: A Car, /ogne, a gym

Membership, Gn iron + Someday a house. Ju

Nine gears ok ir іп Hawaii,

16 yaars old. One of my 13 gears ald. Miss Illinois
by the pincapple Fields.

first modeling photos Teen USA Pageant, 200).

WATCH MISS MAY'S VIDEO DATA SHEET AT PLAYBOYCOM/DATASHEE

MISS МАУ

ў Й

ша

PLAYBOY”S PARTY JOKES

What do Congress and a condom have in
common?

Both make sure nothing happens while
you're being fucked.

The thrill is gone from my marriage,” a man
told his friend.

“Why not add some intrigue to your life and
have an affair?” the friend suggested.

“What if my wife finds out?” the first asked.

“Just be honest and tell her about it," the sec-
ond answered.

"The man went home and told his wife, " Dear,
1 think an affair will bring us closer together."

His wife replied, “I've tried that—it didn't
work."

What's the difference between a recession and
a depression?

In a recession your neighbor is out of work.
In a depression you are out of work.

A soldier had second thoughts about serving
overseas, so he showed up for deployment
wearing lipstick.

“Ро you always wear lipstick?" the ranking
officer asked
sir, always,” the soldier replied
the officer said. “You won't get
фара lips during your tour in Iraq.”

What is the difference between jelly and
jam?

Your girlfriend will never ask you to jelly
your cock into her.

А woman was admitted to a hospital after hav-
ing phone sex. Doctors removed two Nokias,
three Motorolas and a Samsung, but no Sie-
men was found.

What do you get when you mix a brunette.
with a blonde?
А fantastic evening.

А man approached a beautiful blonde at a
bar. “Га like to call you," he said. “What's your
number?"
"It's in the phone book,” she answered.
“But I don't know your name," he said.
She replied, "That's in the phone book
too."

Good girls wear high heels to work. Really
good girls wear high heels to bed.

What's the difference between mechanical
engineers and civil engineers?

Mechanical engineers build weapons; civil
engineers build targets.

Ifyou are having sex with two women and one
more woman walks in, what happens next?
Divorce proceedings.

What do a G-spot, a woman's birthday and а
urinal have in common?
Men scem to miss all three.

Who was the first man, for $1,000?" a game-
show host asked a pretty female contestant,

"The first man was Peter, my math tutor,"
she replied, “but I've never been paid more
than $500."

What do you call a first-time offender in
Saudi Arabia?
Lefty.

p timas

А Sunday-school teacher was instructing her
class on the Bible. She told them about the
kings of the Old Testament and the queens
who vied for attention. “We just learned about
the powerful kings and queens of the Bible, but
there is a higher power,” the teacher said. “Can
anybody tell me what that is?"

A student raised her hand and said, “Aces!”

А man seemed upset, so his co-worker asked,
“What's the matter?”

“My 10-year-old son made my secretary
pregnant,” the man said.

“Impossible,” the co-worker remarked.

“It's true,” the man said. “Не punctured my
condoms.”

Send your jokes to Party Jokes Editor, PLAYBOY, 680

Маб Та Share р Chicago 1 Illinois 60611,
or by e-mail our website at jokes.playboy.com.
pLavnoy will рау $100 to the contributors whose
submissions are selected.

“Бу Jim Shepard

en in, what, three, four years. Kenny started

enny І hadn't
К“ me way back when, the two of us standing there with
our hands in our pants right outside the wormhole. Kenny
into the Windsock last night like the Keith Richards version
of himself with this girl who looks like some movie star's daughter.

wander

"Is that you?” he says to me when he s
is the guy you're always talking about? once мете a
few minutes into the conversation. The girl's name turns out to be
Celestine. Every so often talking to me he gets distracted and we
have to wait until he takes his mouth away from hers.

m N BY DAVE MCKEAN

booth. "This

"So my husband brings you up all the time, and then when
| ask what you did together he always goes, “І can't help you
there," Carly tells him. "Which of course he knows | know.
But he likes to say it anyway."

Celestine with her fingers brings his cheek over toward her,
like no one's talking, and once they're kissing, she works on
gently opening his mouth with hers. After a while he makes a
sound that's apparently the one she wanted to hear, and she

and returns her attention to us.
arly asks him.

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PRIME-TIME |

STYLE» +

FASHION BY JOSEPH DE ACETIS
PHOTOGRAPHY BY ARNY FREYTAG

CRIMINAL MINDS COP Y >
SHEMAR MOORE
GETS COLLARED

Actor Shemar Moore and crew
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show has dealt with cannibal-
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tough enough.

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or more than 20 years PLAYBOY'S list of top

party schools has fueled debate on cam-

puses across the country. It has also

spawned two myths we will now dispel. The
first is that we put out a list of party schools every
year. Not true—until now. Going forward, this will be
ап annual The second myth was propagated
by your friends who bragged that their school was
number one. Unless they matriculated at Chico State
(in 1987), Arizona State (2002) or Wisconsin (2008),
they were dead wrong. If they are currently at the
University сі Miami, however, visit them immediately.
You can read the rest of this on the road trip.

PLAYBOY'S 2009

2 UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS AT AUSTIN

4 UNIVERSITY OF FLORIDA

6 UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN

8 LOUISIANA STATE UNIVERSITY

10 WEST VIRGINIA UNIVERSITY

We had an internal struggle trying to
compare apples and keggers. How
should we rank a Bowling Green bar
crawl against a Rhode Island ripper?
An event is what one makes of it. Our
parties are covered by international
media, but some of our favorite nights
are spent with close friends and girl-
friends. So we polled our models,
staffers, campus reps, photographers
and you (the traffic to our online poll
almost crashed the server) about
which schools get down. Then we
determined the five categories crucial
to tho college experience. Even if you
aren't an applied-science major, col-
lege is indeed the time to experiment.
You should also check сці the scenery
(tho Bikini index), get involved in activi-
ties (Campus Life), go crazy in fandom
(Sports), leam (Brains) and put a few
notches on your dorm bedpost (Sex).
From these categories we devel-
oped algorithms to decide the rank-
ings. Think of this as a BCS rating,
but unlike the BCS we welcome your
input. If, say, you feel skiing schools
were treated unfairly by the Bikini
index, noise from you may change
next year's calculations. Here's how
our research staff ran the numbers:
Each category was weighted so the
school with the highest score in the
category would receive 20 points.

We took the highest average
temperature on campus in May + the
number of days of sunshine + the num-
ber of tanning salons near campus +
the number of cosmetic surgeons and
multiplied that by the girl percentage
from the guy-to-girl ratio, then added
the number of nursing majors and our
rank of their cheerleaders.

THE CRITERIA

WHEN YOU COMBINE WEATHER

THE COUNTRY IS HOTTER THAN

HERE FOR SPRING BREAK.

To get this figure we used the
ranking from the Trojan Sexual Health
Report Card (if none was given, the
median was used) + the number of
empty study rooms at a random hour
in the library (the best place to have
sex on campus if your roommate is
home) + the numerical value of the
College Prowler Strictness Score
(A+=98, A=95, A-=92, etc).

A beer is only as
good as the company you drink
it with, so we used these formu-
las: 2 x (the number of bars +
the number of liquor stores + the
gallons of beer consumed in the
state each year) = N. Enrollment /
(the number of clubs + the number
of Greek organizations) = Q. Each
school's Q was then subtracted from
the highest Q in the set to get Z. 100 /
N + 100 /Z gave us our number.

We counted only the past
four years, since current seniors
started. (Note: The 2009 NCAA
Basketball Tournament occurred
after we went to press.) We took
the capacity of the largest stadium
—enrollment + (the number of times
men's basketball or football made a
bowl game or NCAA Division I Tour-
ney x 1,000) + (the number of times
either men's basketball or football
won its conference x 5,000) -- (the
number of times men's basketball
or football won a national champi-
onship x 10,000).

We took the average GPA (if
none was reported, we used the aver-
age of all the schools) - (the freshman.
retention rate /the number of students
for each professor) + (the Princeton
Review academic rating / 10).

UNIVERSITY OF MIAMI

When you combine weather and women, no city in the
country is hotter than Miami. That's why the U garnered
our highest Bikini index score. Although Nikki Beach
is the most beautiful topless seashore in the country,
а recent grad raves about "hard-bodied coeds laying
out on the campus lake between classes.” Frat parties
rage, but you don't have to know a secret handshake to
stay out late; some clubs and bars in South Beach are
permitted to stay open 24 hours a day. The University of
Miami із the only private school to crack our top 10, and
while its academics are in no way close to those of the
Ivy League, you can get a great education here without
skimping on fun. In the future Miami's number will rise
in the sports category, thanks to Randy Shannon. One
simple statement solidifies the University of Miami as
2009's number one Playboy Party
School: Other colleges come to its
city for spring break. Nuff said.

UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS
AT AUSTIN
Everything is actually bigger in
Texas: Darrell K Royal-Texas
Memorial Stadium, parties, cup
sizes, etc. Before metal bands
threw up the "rock-on" hand ges-
ture, Texas students were signaling
their undying love for the Long-
horns. That same gesture could
now symbolize "Number two on the
Playboy Party Schools list!” The city
of Austin has become a mecca for
forward-thinking people, as well
as а hot music scene, thanks to the
South by Southwest festival. The
students also like to party, whether
on Sixth Street or at an off-campus
apartment. Sam, a physics major,
has a hazy memory of one baccha-
nal at West Campus: "Twenty kegs
and 13 jugs of trash-can punch...
what was a bikini party morphe
into women dancing half naked.
Didn't end till four in the morning."
Austin, we raise a Texas toast to

you. Steers and cheers.

SEXIEST COLLEGE
INTERNET SENSATIONS

SAN DIEGO STATE UNIVERSITY

SDSU has made every party school list we've compiled
(that's four, by the way). Playboy U reps took their cam-
eras to the university's Reggae Sun Splash last year, and
when they asked why SDSU is a party school, one cutie
eloquently replied, "Because we rage like it's our fucking
job." Chris, a business major, informed us that SDSU's
motto is "Study hard, party harder." Our researchers
assure us the school's actual slogan is "Minds that move
the world," but we suggest the administration adopt the
former. Written in Latin, it would be harmless.

UNIVERSITY ОР FLORIDA

After the Princeton Review put Gainesville at the top of
its party school list, Stephanie, a journalism major with
a 3.2 GPA, told us, "We're obsessed with defending
our titles, be it for sports or party-
ing. Our athletic teams are a con-
stant cause for celebration—four
national championships since the
2009 seniors stepped on campus.
We somehow manage to kick ass
in class despite our pounding
hangovers. Furthermore, we live in
the swamp, which means clothing
is optional 10 months out of the
year." The contingent you nomi-
nated as the hottest girls on the
Gainesville campus is the Daz-
zlers, the dance team that once
boasted Playboy.com's sexiest
sideline reporter, Erin Andrews,
as a member. Southern hospital-
ity is our favorite aspect of the
Gators. Ricky, a bio major, says,
"You can go down any street near
campus, and if the lights are on
and people are going crazy, that's
enough of an invitation."

UNIVERSITY OF ARIZONA
The Zona school that tradition-
ally gets the love is ASU, and
though we think Tempe is a
great place to spend a three-
day weekend, four years are
better spent at U of A in Tucson.

Consider some of its party names: Natural Disaster,
Heaven and Hell, Fubar, Jungle Party. Sounds wild.
Leo, a senior, describes the biggest decision of his
life thusly: "When I was applying to schools, it was
between the University of Arizona and the University
of Colorado at Boulder. Would I rather walk around in
board shorts and sandals, looking at gorgeous girls
in bikinis for eight months out of the year or shovel
snow and freeze my nuts off in Boulder? І made the
right decision.”

UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN-MADISON

The top party school from our previous list makes it
again as the northernmost representative. Negative: It's
cold, no doubt. Positive: It has the coldest beer on any
campus. The Badgers are rabid football and basketball
fans no matter how their teams are doing (and that's
good, considering how they've been doing lately). If we
have any complaint about the fans, it's that the guys
should keep their shirts on—leave the body paint to the
girls at our Mansion events. Wisconsin cannot be denied
its parties on State and Mifflin streets. Oh yeah, Madison
is also a pretty good place to get an education.

UNIVERSITY ОР GEORGIA

It's like a Southern party schools summit: When Georgia
and Florida play each other in football every season,
they hold the world's largest outdoor cocktail party. The
Dawgs do it right in Athens, where Chad, a political-
science major with a 3.6 GPA, claims, "We have more
bars than Bourbon Street, and they are all within walk-
ing distance of one another—the best nightlife and
downtown bar scene anywhere." While that's open to
debate, there is no question Georgia celebrates base-
ball correctly, by yipping it up behind the outfield fence.
Bonus: the hottest sorority girls in the country.

LOUISIANA STATE UNIVERSITY

It's Mardi Gras all the time. Even in a recession the
going rate for a string of beads is one quick flash. From.
the sororities to the chemistry labs to the Golden Girls
dance line, you can't hide from the hotties here. Super-
senior Ariane assures us, "While the faculty is reportedly
concerned about the party school label, the students are
as proud as ever. Just because we have one of the best
vet and business schools in the nation doesn't mean we
don't know how to keep our partying heritage alive!”

UNIVERSITY OF IOWA

At football games the Hawkeyes sing, "In heaven there is
no beer; that's why we're drinkin' here,” Iowa City being
"here." It certainly isn't a vacation destination, but that may
be because it isn't for lightweights or the faint of heart. From
an ASU student: “Iowa's tailgating scene is like nothing Ive
seen before. Case in point: the Magic School Bus. It's two
school buses, one with a stage built on top and the other
with keg after keg inside, with taps coming out the sides.
There was an awesome blues band playing, and during
the band's breaks girls would get on top of the bus, dance
and, among other things, show us what they were working
with. We missed the first half of the game because we were
having so much fun.” Also, you havent lived if you haven't
shared a roll in the hay with a com-fed Midwestern girl.

WEST VIRGINIA
UNIVERSITY

In Morgantown,
the quintessential
college town, the
school is the only
show around, and
when the Mountain-
eers do well (or ter-
ribly) the students
go nuts. Being in the
Pit before a football
game is like being in
the Thunderdome.
Anyone who flips
а car because of a
sporting event needs
to rethink his life, but
we won't let a few
meatheads spoil the
fun for the rest of us. WVU doesnt need an excuse to party.
Kati, а fashion major, explains: "No matter what day of the
week or where—the bars, the frat houses or Grant Street—
you can find a party.” Frank, who is pursuing a degree in
mechanical engineering, tells us, "Everyone who graduates
from WVU has a minor in alcohol.” When the party comes to
ап unfortunate close, Frank, we'd leave that off the résumé.

State Street Brats: the best place
to catch a Wisconsin game or a
Badger coed. More of our favorite
college bars are at playboyu.com.

Did your school not crack the top 10? The rest of the list
is at playboyu.com/playboy-party-schools.

75

HIGH-TECH НЕЕ: -

WE'RE НОТ SURE WHY MOST IPOD DOCKS LOOK LIKE
PROPS FROM A SCI-FI EPIC, BUT WE'RE NOT COMPLAINING.
HERE ARE SIH TO HELP PASS THE TIME ON YOUR NEHT
TRIP TO THE HORSEHEAD NEBULA

EWOO HAND MUSIC ($170,
ewoo.com) The only dock in
this group that doesn’t have its
own speakers, the eWoo hooks
your iPod into your stereo, a
trick you can also accomplish
with a $10 RCA-to-mini cable.
So why get it? For the remote,
| which lets you control and
| browse your player with Из 1.8-
inch screen. It communicates
| via radio, so you can change
\ the music through walls with-
N out having to point the damn
thing at your stereo.

ALTEC LANSING INMOTION
МАХ (5200, alteclansing
.com) The InMotion Max isn’t
the most high-tech or even
the loudest dock in this
group, but it is the only one
that will truly put your music
wherever you want it, power
outlets be damned. The bul
in battery will give you three
and a half hours of playing
time on a charge. The dock | *
comes with a remote (plus a

drawer to stash it in), an FM
tuner and а line-in jack that
can be used as a speaker
system for any other audio
devices that may be at hand

(e.g., cell phones, CD players
and the like), А

CUE ACOUSTICS MODEL R1 ($400, cueacoustics
.com) Though it's one of the smallest docks in this
group, the гі not only packs а wallop in volume, its
reproductive fidelity is excellent, thanks to its digital-
signal-processing chip and optional second speaker
(Model s1, $100, sold separately). With.all this plus a
built-in FM radio, the rl is a mighty handsome addi-
tion to your nightstand. Now all you have to do is find

someone to impress with it.

7 IHOME ONE ($300, Ihomeaudio
т) For more than 30
years Tony Bonglovi has
been*making sound waves
sit up, roll over and beg. And
though he worked the board
for some of Jimi Hendrix's
recordings, his greatest tri-
umphs are just coming to
market. His most recent work,
which uses digital processing
to expand the dynamic range
for audio tracks, is built into
iHome's latest iPod dock (the
first to use it). The amount of
‘added detail it can pull out of
anything from Ella Fitzgerald
to Foo Fighters is astounding.
For maximum realism throw
‘on some Hendrix.

Se

<<

7 PARROT ZIKMU SPEAKERS ($1,500, parrot

com) Thanks to cleverly recessed feet, these
Philippe Starck-designed towers appear to
hover above your living room floor as their
two innovative 1.4-inch-thick speakers project
100 watts of sound 360 degrees. Wi-Fi and
Bluetooth let them communicate with each
other as well as stream music from computers
or the Internet without cluttering your space
with cables. A conversation starter and party
starter in one, these babies make a statement
whether they're on or off.

COBY VITRUVIAN ($80, cobyusa.com) Over
the past several years Coby has carved out
an impressive (if under-the-radar) niche for
itself by delivering competent electronics
at bargain-basement prices. Its latest offer-
ing, the Vitruvian, exemplifies that approach.
This is a decent iPod dock for less than $100,
but it adds an intelligent low-tech twist: The
dock rotates so you can browse music as
usual, then turn it—the better to watch video
оп your iPod Touch or iPhone.

к en

BY DAVID RENSIN
PHOTOGRAPHY ВУ ROBERT SEBREE

=

ИЛИ)

THE BEST VILLAIN ОМ ТУ AND THE MOST LOGICAL GUY ІМ STAR TREK DISCUSSES EVIL,
MISTER ROGERS, CARL JUNG, CROSSWORD PUZZLES AND WHY HE'S CALLED REX AT STARBUCKS

Q1
PLAYBOY: You grew up in Pittsburgh, hometown of Mister
Rogers, who famously told kids, "You're okay just the way you
fe,’ Would he apply that to Heroes’ Sylar, the best villain on TV,
ant him as a neighbor?
0: I don't think Mister Rogers's far-reaching assertion
5 so far as to include maniacally bloodthirsty superpow-
hopaths. He was talking to and about children who were
ith what it means to be fat, dyslexic or myopic, If
bgers's neighbor, the Neighborhood of Make-Believe
hole different element. І can just imagine Trol-
ded on the tracks by the severed heads of Daniel
dy Elaine Fairchilde as he tries to pass by the
ind Queen Sara-not a pleasant image

Q2

il in the world?

huge fan of Carl Jung. | think shades
lindividual. If you're not aware and
ourself, your unconscious, your

want to look at manifests itself
ddiction, aggression and bad

an create personal discord and dis-

fect relationships, then society, then the

index finger when opening a
am teach him it's not polite to point?

ITO: | en i i either hand, de-

pending on camera angles. The adage for me is, When you point

at somebody else, three fin back at you.

Q4
PLAYBOY: Did you ever sport a unibrow? What's your eyebrow
tare routine?
QUINTO: I lost thc unibrow in college when | was preparing to
go into the acting marketplace. My eyebrows do require some
attention. І had to shave three quartets off each to play Spock,
I don't know if they're my favorite feature, but they're certainly
my defining characteristic. My older brother and | refer to our-
selves as the Brow Brothers sometimes,

95
PLAYBOY: We all had to sufferthrough "Save the cheerleader, save
the world" Now it's your turn to fill in the blank, Save the.
QUINTO: Save the bullshit. І don't want it.

95
PLAYBOY: You sang and danced in high school. Did that make
you an object of scorn or praise?
QUINTO: І was always an actor who could also sing or move; І
wouldn't say dance so much. In high school the drama program
was an after-school, let's-get-together-and-put-on-a-show
kind of thing. Since the play was always a musical, that's what
1 had to do. | also studied acting outside of school. Toward the
end of my junior year kids started to realize І had perseverance ~
and had already decided what І wanted to be. Lots of them
hadn't even thought about it, and that created unexpected re-
spect, which surprised me; It was gratifying.

RA
PLAYBOY: You're half Irish, half Italian Under which circum-
stances does one side win out over the other? = — ~
QUINTO: The Italian side comes in handy мепа lose my
temper-if lose my temper-because І сап. blame it on my fiery X

EDE уў зашить

> Ener,

80

roots. І suppose the lrish side comes in handy when І sidle up to a
bottle of Jameson, which is not often. [laughs] The Irish side cer-
tainly came in handy when І went to Ireland the summer between
my junior and senior years in college. І lived in Galway. | waited
tables in a coffee shop from eight at night until four in the morn-
ing. I did a play there. The people of Ireland are amazing.

98
PLAYBOY: So many know you as Sylar, and soon people will know
you as the young Spock in the new Star Trek movie. When you go
into Starbucks, do you ever feel forced to use a phony coffee name
in order to retain whatever shards of anonymity you have left?

QUINTO: Sometimes ПІ use Rex. It's easy, it's quick. It's three
letters, and you can't misspell it. Then І just have to remember
the coffee's for me when they shout “Double latte for Rex.”

Q5

PLAYBOY: Spock employs the mind meld and neck nerve pinch.
When have you wanted to use either in real life?

QUINTO: І was in New York recently, іп the audience at a few
Broadway shows, and really wanted to bust out the nerve pinch
on some people around me, just to put them to sleep and shut
them up. As an actor who comes from the theater, І realized |
might have inflated ideas of who we do theater for. The disre-
gard brought my delusions of grandeur crashing down. І take
theater seriously, and | was fascinated and repulsed at people's
casual, cavalier attitudes and behaviors in the audience. Open-
ing candy packages, screaming and talking іп the middle of the
show-it was really alarming. | was galled by the nerve.

910

PLAYBOY: What about the mind meld? Whom would you choose?
QUINTO: With anyone, dead or alive? Сагі Jung. The danger with
the mind meld is that certain illusions are necessary in life. So
if you meld, you have to be prepared for the whole experience
because you will get into and see things you wouldn't expect or
necessarily desire. You don't want to mind meld with somebody
you consider infallible, because invariably you will be disap-
pointed, That said, if Barack Obama had any time, | would love
to know his experience. Star Trek director J.J. Abrams would also
be a good candidate because how do you do what he does and
stay as cool as he is?

оп
PLAYBOY: There are both Spock and Sylar dolls. Do you hide or
display yours?

QUINTO: [Clears throat) We, uh, like to call them action figures,
by the way. І don't have the Spock figure yet. The Sylar action fig-
ure is perched atop the filing cabinet in my office. His head turns,
and he has a baseball cap that comes off. You can take off one of
his hands and plugin a glass hand. It's just plastic- no light ray is
involved. I'll be interested to compare the two figures.

912
PLAYBOY: How deep are you into the online slash fiction that cel-
ebrates Spock and КИК as lovers? Does a bromance make sense?
QUINTO: | know it exists, but I haven't seen any of it. І under-
stand it's written mostly by women, right? Is it the same thing
as guys who like to watch the ladies get it on? Heroes, to a cer-
tain extent, and Star Trek, obviously, have this mythology that
becomes absorbed, mutated and reconsidered. But for me,
both the show and the movie are simply and directly about
the work. So | spend almost no time concerning myself or even

familiarizing myself with the periphery. With Star Trek, that
goes for slash fiction or fan reactions or all the online stuff.

913
PLAYBOY: Inthe extremely rare circumstance that Trekkers won't
like your turn as Spock, have you already chosen a hiding place?

QUINTO: І don't want to sound callous if І say І don't care, but |
don't care. [laughs] | feel | brought the character as much heart
and respect for Leonard Nimoy and the journey of the franchise as
1 could. I've done it with regard for them, and that's all can do.

914

PLAYBOY: Have you spent much time with Мітоу?

QUINTO: Leonard is actually the same age my father would
have been if he were still alive. He died when | was seven.
Through getting to know Leonard, Гуе discovered aspects
of myself that | might not have found otherwise-and that
1 didn't have from a relationship with my father. But the
great thing about Leonard is that he's just himself. I'm sure
he doesn't think he is somebody to give advice. For me, it's
about seeing the sum of his life, really. If | can live a life half
as realized as his-well, maybe three quarters as realized and
fulfilled-then І would be really happy.

You don't want to mind
meld with somebody
you consider infallible,
because invariably you
will be disappointed

915

PLAYBOY: Both Spock and Sylar are brain-centered characters.
What physical activities do you do to balance things out?
QUINTO: І hike. І run іп the spring and summer. | practice anu-
sara yoga, a variation on hatha yoga. It's a vinyasa flow series
and is unique in that it has a specific set of tenets both physi-
cally and spiritually, and they complement one another. Some-
times at work | will bust out a move between takes.

915
PLAYBOY: We hear you and your Heroes co-star Kristen Bell are
crossword-puzzle buddies. Who's better?

QUINTO: | really respect Kristen. She's incredibly talented. That
said, | don't like to gloat, but I've helped her out a couple of
times with some tough clues.

97
PLAYBO' 'ould you rather be invisible or fly?
QUINTO: Invisible, because | hate to wait in line.

918
PLAYBOY: Which of the other

(concluded on page 96)

“Pm sorry, doctor, but you hit ту G-spot.”

82

Ап homage to Mrs. Robinson, starring Lisa Rinna

ou've never been so nervous in your life. You're

a virgin, and a friend of your parents is trying to

seduce you. She's gorgeous, mature, sophisti-

cated and rather aggressive. ("I want you to know

that I'm available to you, and if you won't sleep

with me this time....”) You end up in room 568 at the Taft Hotel
in Los Angeles. There's a knock on the door. You open і...

We all have our Mrs. Robinson fantasies. Lisa Rinna—TV

personality and author—has her own. Only in hers, she is

not the nervous virgin. She's Mrs. Robinson. Lisa is living

her erotic life in reverse. Growing up in sleepy Medford,

Oregon, she didn't get any action. “І was the gangliest

thing ever,” she says, laughing. Now at the age of 45 she

has come into her body, so much so that she felt she

had to share it with us—and our 10 million readers. Yes,

"m
ў | |
ы

x R4 T? у

Ni

| |!
І

^

Lisa's looking good. She says she owes it all to the tango.

Lisa made the big time on soaps, with roles on Ме/-
rose Place and Days of Our Lives. But Dancing With the
Stars launched the new Lisa Rinna. She has become the
queen of most media. During the holidays she released
а dance-inspired workout DVD series called Lisa Rinna
Dance Body Beautiful. She's working on a TV show with her
husband, actor Harry Hamlin, called / Love Lisa (a reality
show spoofing / Love Lucy). Her autobiographical self-help
book, Rinnavation, will be published this month. And she
does red-carpet interviews for the TV Guide Network at the
Oscars, Emmys, Grammys, etc.

With all of this, she still found time to role-play Mrs. Rob-
inson with our photographer in an L.A. hotel room. “Would
you like me to seduce you?” Hell, yes.

PLAYBOY

90

minotaur

(continued from page 69)
his right mind is likely to go in the South-
west, there's a black base: Drive along a
wash in the back of nowhere in Nevada
and you'll suddenly hit a newish fence
that goes on forever. Follow the fence
and you'll encounter some bland-looking
guys in an unmarked pickup. Refuse to
do what they say and they'll shoot the
tires out from under you and give you a
lif to the county lockup.

All ofthis was before 9/11. You сап imag-
ine what it’s like now.

Kenny for a while helped out at
Groom Lake as an engineering trouble-
shooter for a C-5 airlift squadron that
flew only late-night operations, ferry-
ing classified aircraft from the aero-
space plants to the test sites. They had
а patch that featured a crescent moon
over NOYFB, “None of Your Fucking
Business," he explained when I first saw
it. He said that during the downtime he
hung with the stealth bomber guys with
their HUGE DEPOSIT-NO RETURN jackets,
and he told his wife when she asked
that he worked in the Nellis Range,
which was a little like telling someone
that you worked in the Alps.

I'd met him a few years carlier when
Minotaur was hatched out at Lockheed's
Skunk Works. He'd been brought in for
the sister program, Minion, We were
developingan ATOP—an Advanced Tech-
nology Observation Platform—and even
over the crapper it read FURTIM VIGILANS:
VIGILANCE THROUGH STEALTH.

Tt wasn't the secrecy as much as the slo-
gans and patches and badges that drove
Carly nuts. “Only here would you guys
have patches for secret programs,” she
said, “Like what're we supposed to do?
Be intrigued? Guess what's going on?”

In the old days Kenny’s unit had as its
symbol the mushroom, and under it in
Latin: ALWAYS IN THE DARK. Black world's
big on patches and Latin. І had one for
Minotaur that read DOING GOD'S WORK
WITH OTHER PEOPLE'S MONEY. I'd heard
there was a unit out at Point Mugu that
had the ultimate patch: just a black-on-
black circle.

"Gustatus Similis Pullus," Carly said. She
was tilting her head to read an oval yellow
patch on Kenny's shoulder.

“You know Latin?" he asked.

“Do you know how long I've been tired
of this?” she told him.

“I don't know Latin,” Celestine volun-
tered.

“Tastes Like Chicken,” he translated.
Nice,” Carly told him,
“І don't get it,” Celestine said.

“Neither does she,” he told her.

“Ооо. Snap," Carly said.

“People’re supposed to taste like
chicken,” І finally told them.

“Oh, right,” Carly said. “So what're you
guys, supposed to eat people?”

“That's what we do: We eat people,”
Kenny agreed. He made teeth with his

forefingers and thumbs and had them
bite up and down.

Carly gave him a head shake and
turned her attention to the bar. “Are we
gonna order?” she asked.

It’s all info war now. Delivering or
screwing up content. We can convince
а surface-to-air missile that it’s a Maytag
dryer. Tell an over-the-horizon radar
array that it’s through for the day or that
it wants to play music. And we've got
look-down capabilities that can tell you
from space whether your aunt's having a
Diet Coke or a regular.

What Carly's forgetting із that it's not
just about teasing. There's something to
be said for esprit de corps. There'sall that
home-team stuff.

I heard from various sources that
Kenny's been all over: Kirtland, Hanscom,
White Sands, Groom Lake, Tonopah.
“What's my motto?" he said, in front of
his wife, the last time I saw him. “Я life-
time of silence." “А lifetime of silence,” she
answered back, as though he'd told her in
the nicest possible way to go fuck herself.

What's it like? Carly asked me once.
Not being able to tell the people you're
closest to anything about what you care
about most? She was talking about
how upset I was at Kenny's having just
dropped off the face of the carth. He'd
gone off to his new assignment with-
out a backward glance some two weeks
before, with not even a Have a good one,
bucko left behind on a Postit, She was
talking about having just come home
from a good vacation with her husband
and having had him throw his drink
onto the roof because of an e-mail in
response to some inquiries that read, No
can do, in terms of а back tell. Your Hansel
stipulated no bread crumbs.

"The glass had rolled back off the shin-
gles into the azalea. By way of explaining
the duration of my upset, I'd let her in on
a little of what I'd risked by just that one
fishing expedition

T'd asked if she had any idea how long
it took to get the kind of security clear-
ance her breadwinner toted around
How many federales with pocket protec-
tors had fine-tooth-combed my every last
Visa bill.

“I almost said hello to you two Christ-
mases ago," Kenny told me. “Out at SWC
in Schriever.”

“You were at SWC in Schriever?” I
asked.

“Oh, for Christ's sake,” Carly said.
"Don't talk like this if you're not going to
tell us what it means."

*The Space Warfare Center in Colo-
rado," Kenny said. He shrugged when
he saw my face. "Let's give the bad guysa
fighting chance," he said.

“1 didn't know we had a Space Warfare
Center," Gelestine said.

“A Space Warfare Center?” Kenny
asked her.

At our rehearsal dinner, now three
years back іп the rearview mirror, Carly's
college roommate said during a lull at

our table, “I never had a black eye, but
1 always kinda wished I did." And Carly
looked surprised and said, “Well, І licked
one all over once.” And everybody looked
at her. “You licked a black eye?” І finally
asked. And Carly went, “Oh, І thought
she said black guy.”

“You licked a black guy all over?” 1
asked her later that night. She couldn't
sce my face in the dark, but she knew
what І was getting at.

“I did. And it was so good,” she said.
“Then she put a hand on the inside of each
of my knees and spread my legs as wide
as she could spread them.

“What's the biggest secret you think 1
ever kept from you?” she asked during
our most recent relocation, which was
last Memorial Day. We had a parakect
in the backseat and were bouncing а
U-Haul over a road that you would have
said hadn't seen vehicular traffic in 25
years. ГА been lent out to Northrop and
couldn't even tell her for how long.

“1 don't know," I told her. “І figured.
you had nothing but secrets.” And she
dropped the subject, and then for two
weeks I went through her e-mails.

“I don't know anything about this
Kenny guy," she told me the day I threw
the drink, “except that you can't get over
that he disappeared."

"You know, sometimes you just register
a connection," І told her later that night
in bed. "And not talking about it doesn't
have to be some big deal.

"So it was kind of a romantic thing,"
she said.

“Yeah, it was totally physical
her. "Like you and your mom.

Carly had gotten this far by telling
herself that compartmentalizing wasn't
all bad: that some doors may have been
shut off but that the really important.
ones were wide open. And in terms of
timacy, she was far and away as good
things were going to get for me. We
had this look we gave cach other in pub-
lic that said, 7 know. I already thought that.
We'd both been engaged when we met,
and we'd stuck with each other through
a lot of other people's crap. Late at night
we lay nose to nose in the dark and told
each other stuff no one else had heard
us say. I told her about some of the times
I'd been a dick, and she told me about a
kid she'd miscarried and about another
she'd put up for adoption when she was
17. She had no idea where he was now.
But a day didn’t go by that she didn’t
think about it. We called them both Little
Jimmy. And for a while there was all of
this magical thinking of our not asking
each other all that much because we
thought we already knew.

"That not-being-on-the-same-page thing
had become a bigger issue for me lately,
though she didn't know that. Which is
perfect, she would have said.

What I'd been working on at that
point had gone south a little. Another
way of putting it would be to say that
what I was doing was wrong. The ATOP

1 told

“Му husband would kill те if he knew І was smoking.”

PLAYBOY

we'd developed for Minotaur had been an
unarmed drone that could hover above one
spot in a way a satellite couldn't, providing
instant look-down for as long asa battlefield
commander wanted it. But how long had
it taken for us to retrofit them with air-to-
surface missiles? And how many Fiats and
Citroéns have those drones now taken out
because somebody back in Langley thought
some target was in the car?

And there wasan army of us out there up
to the same sorts of high jinks and not able
to talk about it. Where І worked, every-
thing was black: not only the test flights but
the resupply, the maintenance, the search
and rescue, And the security scrutiny never
went away. The guy who led my last proj-
ect team, at home when he went to bed,
after he hit the lights, waved to the surveil-
lance guys. His wife never understood why
even in August they had to do everything
under the sheets.

On black-world patches you see а lot of
sigmas because that's the engineering sym-
bol for the unknown value.

"The Minotaur's the one in the laby-
rinth, right?" the materials guy in my proj-
ect team asked the first day. When I tol
him it was, he wanted to know if the Mino-
taur was supposed to know where it was
going or if it was lost too. That'd be funny,
Ttold him. And we joked about the mon-
ster and the hero just wandering around
through all these dark corridors, nobody
finding anybody.

And now here І was and here Kenny was,
and here was poor Carly trying to get a fix
on either of us. “So what brings you to this
neck of the woods?" I finally asked once we
were well into our second drinks.

“You know how sad he was,” Carly asked,
“when he couldn't get in touch with you
anymore?”

“How sad?” Kenny asked. Celestine
seemed curious too.

“I thought we were gonna have to get
him some counseling,” Carly told him.

“Its hard to adjust to not being with me
anymore,” Kenny told her.

“So did he ever talk to you about me?”
she asked.

"You came up," Kenny told her. And even
Celestine picked up on the unpleasantness.

“Tm listening,” Carly said.

"Oh, he was all hot to trot whenever he
talked about you," Kenny said.

"Sang my praises, did he?" Carly said.
Her face had the expression she gets
when somebody's tracked something
into the house.

"When he wasn't shooting himself in the
foot about you, he was pretty happy” Kenny
said. “I called it his Good Woman face,”

“As in, I had one," I explained.

"Whenever he tied himself in knots about
something I called it his Little Jimmy face,"
he said. When Carly swung around toward
him, he said, “Sorry, chief.”

"That was a comic thing for you?" Carly
asked те. "That was the kind of thing
you'd tell like a funny story?”

“I never thought it was а funny story,”
1 told her.

"There's his Little Jimmy face now,"
Kenny noted. When she looked at him
again, he used his index fingers to pull
down on his lower eyelids and made an
Emmett Kelly frown.

“Ме started calling potential targets
Little Jimmies when it seemed like we
were going to be bringing the hammer
down in ways that would maximize col-
lateral damage," he said.

Carly was looking at something in front
of her the way you try not to move even
your eyes to keep from throwing up. "What

CU жом

"That's Mr. Fenwick, but that isn't Mrs. Fenwick."

is that supposed to mean?" she finally said
in a low voice.

“You know,” Kenny told her, ““І don't
wike the wooks of this..."

“Is that Elmer Fudd you're doing?” Celes-
tine wanted to know.

Ава how could you not laugh, watching
him do his poor-sap-in-the-crosshairs shtick?

“This is just the fucking House of Mirth,
isn't it?” Carly said. Because she saw on
my face just how many doors she’d been
dealing with all along, open and shut, and
she also saw that We're in the boat, you're in
the water expression that guys cut from our
project teams always saw when they asked
if there was anything we could do to keep
them onboard.

“Jesus Fucking Christ,” she said to her-
зей, because her paradigm had just shifted
beyond what even she would have imag-
ined. She thought she'd put up with how-
ever many years of stonewalling for a good
reason, and she'd just figured out that as
far as Fort Hubby went, she hadn't even
gotten to the castle courtyard yet.

Because here's the thing we hadn't
talked about, nose to nose on our pillows
in the dark: the way I've never been closer to
anyone was not the same as We're so close.
‘That night 1 threw the drink, she asked
why I was so perfect for the black world,
and I wanted to tell her, How am I not
perfect for it? It's a sinkhole for resources.
Everyone involved with it obsesses about it
all the time. Even what the insiders know.
about it is incomplete. Those stories you
do get arrive without context. What's not
inconclusive is enigmatic, what's not enig-
matic is unreliable, and what's not unreli-
able is quixotic.

She hasn't left yet, which surprises me,
let me tell you. The waitress is showing
some alarm at Carly's upset, and I've got
a hand on her back. She accepts a little
rubbing and then has to pull away. "I gotta
get out of here," she goes.

“That girl is not happy,” Celestine says
after she's gone.

"Does she even know about your ki
Kenny asks.

The waitress asks if there's going to be
a third round. “What'd you do that for?"
Task him.

“What I'd do that for?" Kenny asks.

Celestine leans into him. “Can we go?" she
asks, "Will you take me back to the room?"

"So are you going after her?" Kenny asks.

“Yeah,” I tell him.

“Just not right now?" Kenny goes.

i'd told Carly when І first noticed him.
Td heard about this guy in design in a sister
program who'd raised а stink about hous-
ing the designers next to the production.
floor so there'd be on-the-spot back-and-
forth about problems as they developed.
He was 27 at that point. Г heard that
he was so good at aerodynamics that his
co-workers claimed he could see air. As he.
moved up we had more dealings with him
at Minotaur. Не had zero patience for the
corporate side, and when the programs
rolled out their annual reports on perfor-
mance and everyone did their song and
dance with charts and graphs, when his
turn came he'd walk to the blackboard and
write two numbers. He'd point to the first.

and go, “That's how many we presold,”
and point to the second and go, "That's
how much we made,” and then 1055 the
chalk on the ledge and announce he was
going back to work. He wanted to pick my
brain about my way of hiding budgetary
items on Minotaur and invited me over
to his house and served hard liquor and
martini olives. His wife hadn't come out of
the bedroom. I asked after an hour if they
had any crackers, and he said no.

"That last time I saw him, it was like he'd
had me over just to watch him fight with
his wife. I'd gotten there, he'd handed
me a Jose Cuervo and gone after her.
“What put a bug in your ass?” she'd finally
shouted. And after he'd gone to score us
some more Cuervo, she'd said, "Would
you please get outta here? Because you're
not helping at all." So I'd followed him
into the kitchen to tell him I was hitting
the road, but it was like he'd disappeared.
in his own house,

And on the drive home, I'd pieced
together, in that groping-in-the-dark way
that I had, that he was better at this whole
lockdown-on-everybody-near-you thing
than I was. And worse at it. He fell into it
easier and was more wrecked by it than І
would ever be.

1 told Carly that when I got home, and
she said, “Everyone's more wrecked by

ing than you'll ever be.”

And she'd asked me right then if I
thought I was worth the work that was
going to be involved in my renovation. By
which she meant, she explained, that she
needed to know if 7 was going to put in
the work. Because she didn't intend to be
in this alone. I was definitely willing to put.
er. And because of that
she said that so was she.

And she couldn't have done anything
more for me than that. Meaning she's
that amazing, and I'm that far gone.
Because there's one thing І could tell her
that I haven't told anybody else, including
Kenny. At Penn my old Classics professor
had been a big-time pacifist—he always
went on about having been in Chicago in
'68—and on the last day of “Dike, Eros
and Arete” he made an announcement
to the class that one of our number had
signed up with the military. I thought to
myself: Fuck you. I can do whatever I want. 1
was already the odd man out in that class,
the one whose comments made everyone
look away and then move on. A pretty girl
who I'd asked out shot me a look and then
gave herself a pursed-lips little smile and
checked her daily planner.

“So wish him luck,” my old prof said
“as he commends himself over to the god-
dess of Chaos." “Good luck,” I remember
somebody called out. And І remember
being enraged that I might be turning
colors. "About whom," the prof went on,
"Homer wrote, "Whose wrath is relent-
less. Who, tiny at first, grows until her
head plows through heaven as she strides
the earth. Who hurls down bitterness.
Who breeds suspicion and divides. And
who, everywhere she goes, makes our
pain proliferate.”

PARADISE

(continued from page 46)
One day he was looking out at a sunny after-
noon through his barred windows and won-
dered, “What the hell am I doing inside?”
He has been outdoors ever since.

Mack, at 26, brings an entirely different
perspective to being a Clubmate. Originally
from Daytona Beach, he'd opted out of college
and joined the Navy, like his father. His time
in the armed services shows: He's built like a
brick shithouse. He's double-plus beefcake,
with a shaved head, outsize calf muscles and
biceps, and six tattoos, His armed-forces phy-
sique is offset by sensitive brown eyes and kind
features that easily melt into sympathy and
laughter, making him seem softer and goofier
than most guys with his life experience.

Mack first heard about PIC from some Navy
friends who had vacationed there. He had
finished his fourth tour of duty as a Special
Forces antiterrorist specialist. During the pre-
vious seven years he had killed prison guards
in the Kuwaiti desert, using night-vision gog-
gles to blow up their heads “like pumpkins.”
He had wasted suicide bombers and piratesin
the Red Sea, fending off their attempts to blow
up or board the cargo ships he and a dozen
guys guarded on deck with 450-caliber tripod-
mounted machine guns. He had patrolled the
south of India, Sri Lanka, Indonesia, Afghani-
stan, the Suez Canal and the coast of Greece,
He had been stationed in Bahrain, Mississippi,
Chicago, the United Arab Emirates and Japan.
Most of his posts, he says, involved shooting.
people or being shot at or both. For him, PIC

was like liberation, a beautiful vacation. For the
first time in his life, no one was shouting at
him or telling him what to do every moment
of the day. For the first time in years, he had
time to wonder why he kept waking up in the
middle of the night, panicked and sweating.
The surprising thing for Mack and the
other Clubmates was how genuine the fun
was. You weren't here to bullshit the guests.
You were here to engage with them, to help.
them smile. It was infectious, The sex stuff
that happened at night was really just a side
benefit. The Japanese girls in their bikinis,
checking Mack out like sharks; the 19-year-old
German superfox; the Korean mother with
braces who had stalked him—never mind her
i “Воро! Bopo!"
she kept saying to him. "Kiss! Kiss! I'm leaving
tonight, so meet me!” It was a constant ban-
quet of offerings: big boobs, small boobs, pink
nipples, brown nipples, little bodies, big hair,
small hair, all different kinds of clits and eyes
and asses and mouths, all ofit great. But more
deeply, it wasall part of some redemptive рго-
cess Mack felt was reclaiming him from the
stresses of military life,

By his second month at PIC, Mack had а
Korcan girlfriend named Yin. “She was cool
as hell,” Mack says. His affection for her was
real, but it didn't dampen his desire to nail.
every woman he could get his hands on. If
the girlfriend was working, why not play?
A night after work might begin with a date
with a hotel guest. Or maybe with a girl from
another hotel, who strolled by on the beach.

MURPHY

>
>

e erne |
iı (ue PITE

“Leave it to my husband to make an unscheduled pit stop!”

93

PLAYBOY

Or perhaps one of the plentiful hot Filipinas
who work all over the island. Or perhaps an
arranged date with two Koreans, Kimberly
and Amy, who both have kids on Saipan and
husbands back in Seoul. The husbands almost
never come around. The rumor is that they
are tough guys, but who knows? Both women
аге gorgeous. As Mack putsit, “They're moth-
ers, but they're as hot as any girl. ГА do either
опе of them in a fucking second.”

Dinner is at Tony Roma's: Mack, Joe, Kim-
berly, Amy and the kids. The women wear
translucent wraps and stiletto heels, Their
little curves squeal out of their tiny bikinis in
all the right places. All Mack wants to do is
pinch Kimberly's skin. It feels so soft. That was
it, One thing you learn after holding a gun in
your hands for hundreds of hours: There's no
softer thing than a girl. Kimberly smells like
cheap makeup, in a good way. Itis the smell of
sex—cheap, fun, fast. He squeezes, she laughs.
He hugs, she fake-resists. The kids watch.

But there is no way to get Kimberly to
come out alone, Besides the kids, there is
Yin to watch out for and other prying eyes.
ipan isa small place, and PIC is a fishbowl
within it. Gossip travels fast. If Kimberly is
to be nailed, it will have to be without the
kids. Maybe in the саг. Maybe on one of
many secret beaches. But not tonight

On to Chicago Club, Dark and dank but
fun. A three-sided bar around the dance
platform. The pole in back. Guns N' Roses
and other classic 1980s shit on the sound
system. Mack and Joe walk іп and the strip-
pers—Filipinas in tiny costumes—light up
Maria is there, She gave Mack her phone
number last time. A very fun girl. Mack and
ease into a booth. Maria and a friend
‚ "How are you? You buy me
drink?” Hands in motion, rubbing
thighs. “Oh, Mack, you're so strong! Hey,
naughty boy!” Sometimes, if you're lucky,
you can get a blow job in the corner.

Drinks, drinks and more drinks. “You have
girlfriend? Handsome man!” Should he fuck
Maria tonight? The girls don't get off until
two, though. Maybe tonight would bea bonus
night, like a week earlier when the Russian

¡est snuck into his bed. She had come with
her kids and a group of other Russian women
married to Japanese men who live in Tokyo.
She was hot, Anna. Taller than Mack, five-foot-

10, big boobs, red hair: Really hot. Mack came
home late at night to find his roommate had
Just let her in. There she was, wearing lingerie
in the bed. She was a lot of fun. And then, of
course, there was always Yin.

In discussing the acceptability of nailing mar-
ried women, Jim, who is older than the other
guys, knows better. He is less of an asshole
now than when he was younger, and as a
result, he says, he gets less booty. That was
fine with him. Cheating isa bad idea. It means.
bad karma and angry husbands. But Mack
just laughs. Sex for him is about feeling alive.
After shooting at people for seven years, й felt
like a way to become human again. For him
there is only one possible philosophy: Nail
everything you can, while you can. “When І
meet a married woman, my only question is,
How far away is your husband?”

It's always surprising (although it
shouldn't be) how quickly the varnish wears
off these things. The puppy becomes an old
dog. The object of puppy love becomes a
pain in the ass. It’s like the exchange in
Hemingway's The Sun Also Rises when Bill
asks Mike, "How did you go bankrup
and Mike responds, “Two ways. Gradually
and then suddenly.”

Four months in for the current crop of
Clubmates, Super Bowl Monday (Super Bowl
Sunday to those on the other side of the inter-
national date line) begins like every other
Monday: with the morning meeting. At 8:29
лм. a dozen or so uniformed Clubmates strag-
gle in from the hot morning. Sergei, the Rus-
sian manager, is glad to report that the resort
is running at 107 percent capacity. “Good job,
Clubmates," he says. He runs through the sta-
tistics: the numbers of guests, of visitors from
other hotels, of kids and so on. A few weeks
ago, around Christmas, the assembled Club-
mates looked happily hungover and smug
about the previous night's adventures. Today
they look grumpy and sour.

Hanging at the club's Buoy Bar, Clubmates
get their night started with half-price drinks
The Filipino house band continues to play on
and on, bad Тор 40, the Planet Hollywood
version of American culture that entertains
the world from Riyadh to Honolulu. Joe is
currently with a 20-year-old Russian law stu-

WELL, ITS
NONE OF YOUR
BUSINESS WHO!

IM SEEING
OTHER MEN?

dent. Fish puked so hard off the balcony the
other night, he tore his esophagus. The doc-
tor told him to stay off the sauce for a few
weeks. Crack! Не opens another beer,

Mack surprises me by saying he has all but
decided to reenlist in the Navy at the end of
his contract. "It's not like I want to do it,”
he says, but earning minimum wage at PIC
won't cut it forever. Back in the Navy, he says,
he could earn $8,000 a month, plus a signing
bonus. That's too good to refuse. What about
Yin? Не shrugs. Its not as though he doesn't
care. It's jus—how is he supposed to move to
Korca with her and carn a living?

Jim too feels as if his time at PIC is com-
ing to an end. He has done three stints over
the past six years and feels maybe it's time
to move on. His favorite manager is leaving;
the place seems to be changing. But mostly,
hooking up all the time isn't so interesting
anymore, The other day he met a Japanese
cutie with a tattoo on her neck—superhot
and totally interested. What did he do?
Nothing. WTF? It felt weird to have gradu-
ated past the dog years, but there it was. Не
just doesn't want to be an asshole anymore.

Joe seems besieged by similar, if occasional,
feclings of unwanted maturity. He came to
PIC largely to escape his woebegone family
and dismal career opportunities, Not surpris-
ingly, running off toa Pacific island hasn't fixed
a single problem. Joe's six-month contract is
almost up. The adult thing to do would be to
go home and face the music, Right?

А week or two later Mack finds out his
dad is sick, He may need a transplant.
Everything seems to be falling apart. Yin is
getting weird. She knows Mack will soon pull
up stakes. He sighs, "Now is when it star
By that he means the crying, the drama, the
questions. “Here it goes again.” He'd seen
it in Bahrain, Japan and everywhere he'd
ever been stationed. There is really only
one thing to do: hit Club and get fucked up.
Meet up with Kimberly. Bang some Filipina
waitress. Meet someone new.

Early one Sunday in March, а few days shy
of his departure, Mack's phone rings. It's his
manager. “Hey, Mack, what are you doing?”
he asks. “Sleeping,” Mack answers. Why? “I
was gonna callin,” he explains, “but I decided

COMPETITION 1S
GETTING STIFF?

to sleep." Two months earlier Mack told me
with genuine excitement how pleased he'd
been to have received the highest number
of favorable guest comments. Now he could
give a shit. "I have zero intention of being а
Clubmate anymore," he says.

“Twig is off to Korea in a week to teach
English. Jim has already quit—with PIC's
blessings—to run a local soccer organization
for kids, Fish, it seems, was abruptly termi-
nated without prejudice three days carlier for
drinking while on lifeguard duty. Apparently,
he was discovered in the chair, wearing a rain
poncho with three beers underneath. The
hapless Kansan was confined to his floor for
the evening and escorted to the plane the next.
day—but only after throwing a final bash.

The last five days turn into a long weekend.
Mack, Joe and Twig are in various states of
hangover. Mack's room istrashed with alcohol
and food containers, dirty laundry and papers.
His plans come in and out of focus. Part of
him wants to stay in S ic doesn't want to
return to military service, Part of him wants to
leave Saipan and never come back. One plan
involves going to Florida to see his dad and
sell his car. Another involves reenlisting.

For a moment he had happily imagined
reenlisting, getting stationed in Korea and
settling down with Yin. But he had cheated
on her so many times, it seemed unlikely they
could have a future together. Tired of the
stress and uncertainty, she had broken up with
him a few days earlier. Last night he stayed
out until two. He met a local anchorwoman.
He claims he fell in love. She gave him her
number, but now he can't find it. When he got
to his room, Yin was sitting outside, crying. “I
just went to bed,” he told me. “I don't care.
Tm a heartless bastard. What can I say? I don't
even have her e-mail address.” What to do:
stay or go? “This place is like a trap,” he says
“It's so easy to get in and so hard to leave. І
have no idea where my fate leads me. If 1 go
back into the military, ЇЇ be back in the des
being shot at. And shooting back—hopefully

Will he be killing people or nailing Korean
girls next week?
Joe feels the same мау. That morning he

learned his dad had ended up in the hospi-
tal from taking so many medications. “What
the hell am I going to do?” Joe wonders.
He wants to help his dad, but how long can
he realistically be around his family with-
out going nuts? How do you help people
if they're hell-bent on self-destruction?
“Maybe I'll look into cruise ships.”

I thought about Mack's, Joe's and Twig's
choices. The reality is that since 1974
Americans without college degrees have
earned comparatively less than those who
have them, The economy is tanking, and
whatever shitty chances these men once
had are diminishing. In that context or in
any other, why would any sane person want
to mature? Task them what maturity means
to them. “Responsibility,” says Mack. What
else? Mack thinks and says again, laugh-
ing, “Responsibility.” I ask if they know of
any models for getting old, if they have any
ideas about how to grow old gracefully. Joe
makes a long, low cartoon whimper. “Being
mature almost sounds like, I mean, not
having fun. І don't know

That night we head to Garapan, Saipan's
tourist arca. You'd never know that the
ground we're walking on had been the
site of a famous World War II battle widely
regarded as the turning point of the Pacific
war or that 42,000 people had died there.

We hit the Hard Rock Cafe, where cute
Filipinas serve us watery drinks and a band
billed as Guam’s number one reggae band
struts around onstage to tape loops. From
there we hit Godfather's, where even cuter
Filipinas in midriff-baring schoolgirl outfits
serve us Coronas and tequila shots. After
that comes Johnny's and the Flair Bar,
boasting “Korea’s hottest free-basing rap
group.” A shot here, some soju there, Bud
and Miller Lites all around, Mack has been
whispering into girls’ ears all night and
hugging waitresses with familiarity. He tele-
phones Kimberly to come join us.

Joe knows he had wanted to be “upper
middle class or better” when he grew up.
He wanted to provide for and protect his
brothers and sisters. He didn’t want “the
typical nine-to-five office job” or anything
to do with paperwork, he says, but he did
want to get older like his grandparents,
who were very solid and “always had awe
some family holidays and get-togethers.
He just didn’t want to be stuck in a life that
wouldn't let him have his freedom.

He has studied massage therapy and
could always start his own shop. But why
rush? Why not keep traveling? Asia is
pretty cool. Maybe, he thinks, reversing
а decision he has professed to have made
three times already, he would go home,
deal with his family and then come back
to be a Clubmate again. “Big possibility,”
he says, nodding thoughtfully and check-
ing out а slinky Korean bartender, “I might
just plan on it."

Some newcomers have joined us, John
and some other kid from New Jersey, brand-
new Clubmates with their tongue hanging
out of their mouth at all the hot Asian girls.
Mack is drunk by now but in a fun way. Не
launches into a story about how once, back
in Florida between stretches in the mili-
tary, he was so hard up he responded to an
ad for male strippers. But he couldn't go
through with the audition.

A little later he declares, "I'm never get-
ting married." Everyone laughs and tells
him to shut up. "What?" he asks. "I don't
know where I want to live. І don't know
what I want to do for a job. Why do I want
to drag somebody into that? Maybe some-
day, if I know all that stuff."

Then he decides he must find that
anchorwoman. Where can she be? God,
they have a really special connection. “You
know," he says, "maybe this is weird, but if
I find her, I'm just going to say, ‘Look, I'm
really into you. I know I just met you, but
if you're into me, I'm happy to just, like,
throw down and commit to you, stop fooling
around and stay here. ГИ stay. That's what
I'm telling you. Fl stay for you. I could just
tell from the moment І met you. * He looks
at me, and his eyes show how serious he is.
He's serious. “You know? I'll just tell her,
‘T'I stay here. Because І want to be with
you. I want to be with you. ^

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PLAYBOY

ZACHARY QUINTO

(continued from page 80)
Heroes characters would you like to switch
places with?
QUINTO: If the question has nothing to do
with the actors and is only about the char-
acters, then I'd say Greg Grunberg’s char-
acter, Matt Parkman. It's fascinating not
only to understand what people are think-
ing but to have some power over it. That
would be really fun.

919

PLAYBOY: You've been in Hollywood for
almost 10 years. What do you know now
that you wish you knew when you arrived?
QUINTO; I wish I knew not to try so hard.
Part of my experience has been realizing
that the combination of authenticity and
perseverance goes much further than try-
ing to give people what you think they
want, If I had known that, I would have
saved myself some heartache.

920

PLAYBOY: Before Heroes you worked a lot
in episodic TV, including Six Feet Under,
CSI, Charmed and Touched by an Angel.
What role would you like to have left on
the cutting-room floor?

Quinto: I did an episode of That's Life,
which starred Paul Sorvino and Ellen
Burstyn. I played a mascot—a chicken

In a pep-rally scene, the lower half of
the costume intentionally becomes dis
engaged and falls down. І had on funny
boxer shorts. It was humiliating because
we had to do it over and over again. After
work I went to a dinner party at a friend's
house, poured a big glass of wine, settled
in and said, “You know what? Sometimes
you gotta do what you gotta do.” Most of
that performance probably did end up
on the cutting-room floor, but for what it
did to me in that moment, I could have
done without it

"Whatever it is they're selling, we don't want any!"

SPEED
(continued from page 36)

imagine it damaged the fox rather badly,”
Moss laughed.

A smile crept out of the side of Surtees's
mouth.

Behind him the Ferraris were lined in
a row. Mechanics in beige jumpsuits took
а break from wiping them down so they
could leer at ABC's script girl holding cue
cards near the camera. An air of complete
confidence permeated the garage, as if ће
Americans posed no threat whatsoever.

“After all,” joked Ferrari's stateside rep-
resentative, Luigi Chinetti, "the best Ameri-
can sports car is the Jeep, no?"

When Surtees wrapped his interview, he
started to think about sleep. With Ferrari,
there were no dramatic meetings, no strategies
to coordinate, Out on the track it was every
man for himself. Surtees was teamed with
Lorenzo Bandini, Fer 's number two driver.
Together they were the odds-on favorites,

At the Hotel de France, Ford team man-
ager John Wyer assembled his men. Ford had
hired Wyer away from Aston Martin to head
up the effort. His gaze was so fierce, racers
called him Death Ray—but never to his face,
Six drivers gathered, three teams of two,
Myer's philosophy was the opposite of Enzo
Ferrari's, He believed in a team approach
Each driver and car was a cog in his victory
machine, He wanted everything done pre-
cisely to his orders,

"We want to finish the race," Wyer said. “We
aim to keep our cars running. We all must
remember this is ап endurance race, not a
sprint race.” Phil Hill and Bruce McLaren,
Ford's two superstars, composed the number
one team. Wyer's master plan had them win-
ning. They would keep pace with the front-
runners. “Stay close at court,” Wyer ordered.
"Speed must be as high as possible while con-
serving brakes and gearbox. You must stay in.
a position to strike if attrition takes its toll on
the leaders, which it always does,

Wyer turned to Richie Ginther, a short,
toothpick-shaped man with red hair and an
impressive résumé. Ginther had raced on the
Ferrari Formula One team and was an old
friend of Phil Hills back in the days when
they had worked together at an automobile
dealership in Los Angeles. Ginther had quali-
fied fastest on the Ford team. Wyer ordered
Ginther to run hard at the start to try to get
the Ferrari driversto break their engines.

Ginther got the point. The opening laps
would be his chance to show the world what
the new Ford racing car could do,

All roads leading into Le Mans were clogged
with overheating cars, their trunks filled with
tents, sleeping bags and Kodak Instamatics.
Cabs moved bumper to bumper past the Le
Mans train station. By the afternoon, зрес-
tators had swamped the grandstands and
crowded the fields around the circuit. Accord-
ing to French officials the langest crowd ever
was attending the race, some 350,000.
Mechanics began pushing cars out of the
paddock onto the pit straight at the bottom of
the grandstands. The official Dutray Le Mans
clock hung over the pavement in the center of
it all, and as its hands rounded closer to four

ьм, drive

appeared, holding their helmets
The Le Mans start was foreign to the
American racing fans. Drivers stood on one
side ofthe road across from their cars, which
lined the pit row in order of qualifying, the

test at the front. The starter stood in the
center of the road holding the French flag
high, and when he dropped the flag, at
exactly four r.m, the drivers sprinted across
the two-lane road, jumped into the cock-
pits and boxed each other into the opening
straightaway in the fiercest and loudest traffic
jam ever witnessed.

Minutes before four гм. gendarmes herded
the crowds off the pavement, and the drivers
took their positions. In Italy Enzo Ferrari sat
down in front of a television. In the pit Shelby
paced. His Cobra had clocked 197 mph in

qualifying on the Mulsanne Straight. А host of

exy Girls in Full Bloom

high-level Ford execu-
tives had arrived, and
they stood in the pit,
waiting and watching
Following a handful
of national anthems,
silence settled over
the hundreds of thou-
sands of spectators.
Smokers could hear
the crackle of their cig-
arettes burning. Rows
of photographers
lined the pavement,
aiming like gunners
ina firing line. A voice
over the loudspeakers
counted out the final
moments

“Thirty seconds. ,.10
seconds...”

START

Phil Hill dashed across
the road. He jumped
into the Ford GT40's
cockpit and hit the
ignition. The V8 came
to life. Clutch in, shift
into first, down on the
s, up on the clutch.
The engine stalled
Hill saw cars peeling
offallaround him onto.
the opening straight.
The noise was deaf-
ing even through
rplugs. And then he
was alone on the starting line. He couldn't get
the car to move. Не couldn't goddamn believe
it. In the pit, mechanics and Ford executives
looked оп, their jaws hitting the pavement. By
the time Hill got the car going he was alone,
motoring down the straight in last place, gear-
shifis crackling in rapid fire
Even then Hill knew something was off.
Something was very wrong.

Playboy Catalog

John Surtees tore down the opening
straightaway, up the slight right-hand incline
and under the Dunlop bridge. He loved
the pavement at Le Mans—billiard-table

smooth.” Two other Ferraris got a jump on
him, and he found himself in third place.

It wasa long race.

The early laps were among the most dan-
gerous, when not-so-skilled drivers swapped
paint at high speeds; it was wise to motor

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ahead of the riffraff as soon as possible
Surtees was merciless in close combat. No
matter how good you thought you were, he'd
find a way to pass you and leave you won-
dering, your concentration snapped. It was
а custom for drivers at Le Mans to wait until
they reached the 3.5-mile Mulsanne Straight
to strap on their seat belts; on the straight
they could hold the wheel with their knees.
By the time Surtees was hauling back
through the grandstands at the end of the
first lap, it was one, two, three for Ferrari. А
flagman stood in the center of the lane, sig-
naling caution—slick ой had already spilled
onto the pavement.

In the cockpit everything unfolded in slow
motion. "When you start [racing],” Surtees
once wrote, “120 mph seems like 160 mph.

With experience, that 120 mph seems more

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like 60 mph." As Surtees maneuvered the
twisty downhill Esses on lap two, he saw in his.
rearview the mouth of a Ford GT40 tuck in
behind him. Mere inches separated the two
cars. Surtees downshified into second gear
and turned hard into the right-hand Tertre
Rouge corner onto the Mulsanne Straight.
Then he accelerated, with the Ford slip-
streaming behind him. Third gear, fourth,
fifih. He was approaching 190 mph. The
world was a Technicolor blur, as if he were
being sucked into a cosmic vacuum cleaner.

Suddenly the Ford jumped to the left to
pass. It was the number 11 саг Richie Ginther
darted past Surtees, traveling faster than any
car ever had on the storied straight. Surtees
saw him through his windscreen and—just
like that—Ginther was gone

In the press box ABC's Jim McKay was

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yelling wildly into his microphone, taping
footage for the next weekend’s Wide World
of Sports broadcast: “Word from the course is
that Richie Ginther, who had moved up from
cighth to fourth place, has passed some more
cars. Asa matter of fac, the word is that Richie.
sinther has taken the lead in the second lap in
the white Ford with blue stripes. The Amer
can racing colors are in the lead at Le Mans!
There he is on the right of your screen. Get a
look at that low-slung Ford! I've never seen а
car as low as that

Phil Hill was back in the pit, and mechan-
ics were digging into the engine compart-
ment. Minutes were speeding by, Hill losing
more and more ground. The crew found the
problem: a blocked jet in one of the Webe
carburetors. The car couldn't breathe. Not
soon enough the carburetor was fixed, and
Hill raced off.

Cramped into
that small cockpit,
the champion began
to weave through
the traffic. By this
time Hill was in 44th
place. He'd lost 22
minutes. To catch up
to the Ferraris from
that distance would
require the powers
of a superhero, Hill
knew this circuit bet-
ter than any man,

HOW TO GO FAST

Hill began to rip offa
series of perfect laps.
Experience told him
how to make up time
at high speed without
overtaxing the engine
There can be only
one shortest distance
around a racetrack,
achieved when the
driver chooses the per-
fect line through every
turn, As Hill moved
the car through a
bend, he could ease
the tires within an
inch of the edge of the
pavement
In large part the
race was won or lost
on the rev counter, the
rpm gauge staring the driver in the face from
the center of the instrument panel. If Hill
imed to take a turn at 4,500 rpm, 4,400 rpm
wasn't good enough. The difference between
а four-minute lap and a 3:58 lap on this circuit
equaled roughly 25 miles at the finish
Fans watched Hill shriek down the pit
straight. Thumbs clicked on stopwatches when
he flew past the start-finish. He was cruising
at 185 mph in fourth gear at 5,700 rpm. A
slightly inclining right bend led him under
the Dunlop bridge. He eased up on the gas,
then accelerated again, shooting down а slope
at 183 mph into the Esses. He downshifted to
third, then second. Easy on the downshilis; no
stress on the gear teeth or dutch plate. Hill
left the Esses in second gear at 5,800 rpm—
2 mph. А hard brake down to 65 mph, a
tight right turn onto the Mulsanne Straight,

97

and he hammered the throtile. Third, fourth.
The g-forces pinned him against his seat. A
glance at the tach: 6,100 rpm. Two hundred
mph summoned with his toe.

Nearing the end of the straight, a blind
right-hand kink approached—La Grande
Courbe. Hill took the kink flat out. Then came
the Mulsanne Hairpin, the hardest turn on
brakes in racing. He let the саг coast.... Then
he nailed the brake pedal and downshifted
three, two, опе, Exhaust pipes spit sparks, and
the cast-iron brake discs turned fiery red. The
lap belt dug into Hill's waist. He steered into
the right-hander at 35 mph.

Hard on the accelerator. Second, third,
past the signaling pits on the right, back up
to 180 mph. Hill hurled the car through
turns, rear wheels struggling for grip. The
grandstands appeared in the distance. Hill
gunned through that chasm, a huge val-
ley lush with human bodies, Thousands of
eyes followed the blue-and-white streak as it
passed, a Ford car hurtling 185 mph on four
patches of rubber.

No two laps were the same. Hills brain
filtered stimuli, automatically ranking them
in order of importance i
tographers leaning in and
signals: P2 (pit in two laps), PI, along with lap
times. With each lap, fuel burned ой, lighten-
ing the car, increasing its speed. His perception
was nei “True concentr

PLAYBOY

inoseconds. Pho-
aving at him. Pit

ion is

or some such thing, are perceived and forgot-
ten,” Hill said. “A car you are overtaking is reg-
istered and erased as you safely pass.”

As Hill weaved through the field, the cock-
pit heated up. During daylight hours it could
hit 140 degrees Fahrenheit. Dressed in cov-
eralls, helmet tight over the head, the body
began to dehydrate. Noise numbed the e
and the same brutal, incessant vibration that
threatened the car's electronics wore on the
driver's nervous system. Lap after lap, hour
after hour. “You may not even be aware of the
break in your concentration,” Hill said, “not
until you find yourself plunging past your
braking point.”

PIT STOP

Richie Ginther pulled his number 11 Ford
into the pit. It was just after 5:30 r.m. Gin-
ther stepped out of the
roared for him. He was in first place.

None of the mechanics said anything
Four of them—the most allowed by Le Mans
regulations went to work. Tires to check,
tank to fill

"Well, for God's sake," Ginther shouted,
ist anyone going to ask how the car wei

Questions followed, and Ginther told
his story. One man present described
him as “wildly ecstatic.” When he passed
those Ferraris to take the lead on the Mul-
sanne Straight, Ginther said, his tach read
210 mph.

Masten Gregory

and the crowd.

the Kansas City Flash, hustled over to the
car, but the mechanics were not finished.
The whole team watched and waited. And
waited. No matter how fast the car traveled,
it meant nothing if the pit stops were slow.
By the time the number 11 Ford screeched
onto the pit straight, two minutes and seven
seconds had passed
John Surtees had taken the lead.

ATTRITION

In the Cobra pit stood Shelt
meal of his fingernails. At nine P.M. oi
his Gobras, in the hands of Dan G

was le

ney,
ing the GT class miles ahead of the
ari GTOs, lying fourth overall. Gurney

aced here six times, but he had never
finished. He had a heavy foot, perhaps too
heavy for this race. The Cobra had a five mph
edge in top speed over the Ferrari СТО», but
those Ferraris were solid. As one GTO pilot
put it rari was like insurance, You were
assured that you would finish the race.”

Would Shelby's Cobra hold togethe
tall Texan rubbed his eyes and watched the car
asit passed, as ifthe intensity of his stare could
ward off mechanical failure, The sun ducked
slowly behind the grandstands,

Ford team manager John Wyer's careful
plans began to unravel. А little more than four
hours into the he Ford team received
word that a GT40 had burst into flames on the
Mulsanne Straight. Word from the signaling
pit on the other side of the circuit: The driver

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had climbed safely out of the car, but it was still
burning on the side of the road. One of the
three prototype Fords was retired.

Soon after, Ginther's teammate, Masten
Gregory, pulled into the pit. He was having
trouble with the transmission. He couldn't get
ош of second gear. Mechanics went to work,
but it was futile. Wyer gave word to the offi-
cials; he was withdrawing a second car.

Only one Ford remained. Hill was still far
behind the leaders, with 19 hours to go.

NIGHT

After sunset spectators no longer saw the
houettes of cars on the track but rather head-
lights stabbing through the dark. Speeding
shadows could be identified not by shape and
color but by exhaust note. Keen ears could
pluck out the song of the Iso Rivolta, the
Porsche 904, the thunderous GT40.

Darkness added an element of danger.
"To aid vision on the Mulsanne Straight, tree
trunks were painted white so they would
reflect headlights. Some drivers preferred
the action after dark. “The very high speed
is much safer than during the hours of day-
light,” Phil Hills teammate, Bruce McLaren,
later wrote in his diary. "The main danger at
Le Mans was the little cars with a top speed
around 90 mph that were cruising nearly 100
mph slower than we were, but in the darkness
they couldn't help but see our lights coming
up behind and they stayed out of our way.”

McLaren took over for Hill at midnight. He
later described this four-hour shift as “the best
500 racing miles I've ever covered.”

For the crowd, the party picked up steam,
From its inception Le Mans had always been
more than a motor гасе, Countless bars and
beer tents served up German sausages, crepes,
oysters and french fries. Ham on French
bread: 30 cents, Crowds lined up to ride the
massive Ferris wheel that, lit brightly against
the night, could be seen spinning from miles
away, Under a tent, strippers grinded all
through the night in a display of endurance
that rivaled what was happening on the гасе-
track, Through it all came the cry of engines
and the faint smell of exhaust.

By one AM. 20 of the 55 cars had dropped
out of the race, ABC's Jim McKay was still
at it in the press box, stubble darkening his
jawline. “It's the middle of the night here,”
McKay barked into his microphone, “and
the leader is the favored car, the factory Fer-
rari driven by John Surtees and his partner,
Lorenzo Bandini, who was one of the two
winning drivers last year. That first-place car
is followed by two more Ferraris. However, of
very much interest is the fourth-place car, the
number five Cobra driven by Dan Gurney and
Bob Bondurant of the United States. That car
is not only in fourth place but is leading the
GT division. And in fifth place, a remarkable
story, is the one remaining Ford in this race,
driven by Phil Hill and his partner, Bruce
McLaren from New Zealand. That car has
moved up from 44th place. It’s going faster
than any other car by far, lapping faster and
faster every tim

DEATH
At the kink near the White House bend,

out of sight from the grandstands, the high-
pitched wail ofa Ferrari V12 clashed with the

throatier bellow of a Cobra УВ. The drivers
were battling for position when the Cobra
blew a tire and clipped the Ferrari. Both driv-
ers looked out their windshields and saw the
world spinning. The screech of burning rub-
ber filled their cars. They wrestled with their
cars, using all their tools brake, clutch, steer-
ing wheel, gas. Sentience reached its absolute
peak, and both men were suspended in time.

“A wonderful thing happens,” Masten
Gregory once said about losing control of a
racing car. “Time slows down toa crawl or else
your mind runs like a computer; you know
everything that's going оп, and you сап just
sit there and consider the alternatives that will
get you out of it.” And when every attempt to
regain control fails, there is always God. Bruce
McLaren: “There's nothing like that blank
flash of despair when it dawns on you that
you might be going to hit something hard and
there isn't a thing you can do about it. Except
to get down in the cockpit and pray.”

"The Cobra flipped and tumbled off the
road, landing upside down in an area forbid-
den to spectators. The Ferrari spun wildly in

cloud of smoke and ended up in the grass.
Track stewards were alerted. Miraculously,
both drivers pulled themselves out of their
cars with only minor injuries. A man looked
at the Cobra and saw something under it in
the thick brush. Was it...? He looked closer.

“There was a small body under the car.

А closer look: There was more than one
body.

Police arrived along with reporters and
medics. They found three young boys under
the wrecked Cobra. The kids had sneaked
under a fence to get close to the track, and
they were watching from behind the bushes.
None of them had any identification, and all
were pronounced dead.

DAWN

AL5:20 лм. Hill seta lap record. Minutes later
he pulled the Ford into the pit with gearbox
problems. The team of mechanics was exas-
perated, as was the crew of Ford executives.
Hill stepped out of the GT40, and as the early-
dawn light illuminated his face, he stood there
fora moment with his helmet in hishand. The
sleepy crowd gave him a round of applause,
and he couldn't help but smile.

"The race was barely more than half over,
and the Ford team was finished. Only one of
Shelby's Gobra's remained.

Shortly after Hill's Ford retired, Surtees
pulled his first-place Ferrari into the pit. His
саг was limping also. Не complained to the
mechanics ofa slipping clutch, and the needle
on the water-temperature gauge was steadily
rising. When the mechanics popped open the
radiator cap, steam piped out. Surtees was
exhausted and pissed off. First place slipped
away. The technicians knew Enzo Ferrari
would be angry too; they'd hear it from him
when they got back to the factory.

By the time Surtees was in the car again, he
was lying third. Ferraris held seven of the top
cight places.

Tn fourth place, snarling along through
the fog, was a Shelby Cobra. In his pit Shelby
watched the cars roll by. The deeper into the
race, the slower the hours seemed to pass.
The crew signaled for Dan Gurney to bring
the number five Cobra in for repairs, fuel
and a driver change. They were holding

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99

PLAYBOY

100

their breath. Gurney had slaughtered the
GT lap record and was in first place in the
СТ class, but about an hour earlier the саг
had started bleeding oil. The oil cooler had
sprung a leak. Shelby's chief engineer, Phil
Remington, rigged a quick fix. Rules stated
that a team could add ой only every 25 laps
so if the oil leak continued, the engine we

seize and Shelby would have to pack it in.
Gurney stepped out of the car and huddled
with Shelby and driver Bob Bondurant.

"Brakes okay?" asked Bondurant.

“Yeah,” Gurney said, "but I wouldn't
trust "етш."

Shelby told Bondurant not to ride the
engine too hard. "Watch your oil pressure,"
he said. He gave the driver a shove, and Bon-
durant was off.

FINISH

‘The final hours stretched out in a blur of
speed, smoke and noise. The crowds grew
restless, and the mercury spiked, As the
Dutray clock ticked past 3:45 вм. the order
of placement was all but set, and the drivers
slowed to ensure their finish. The first-place
car was five laps ahead of the second-place
car, which was seven laps ahead of the third.
At the end of the world’s most brutal automo-
bile race the cars cruised slowly. In the final
minutes no driver would take the chance of
blowing his engine or shredding a tire. The
crowds leaned in, awaiting the moment when
the checkered flag would wave and the cham-
pions would be crowned.

Just after four rt, the red Ferrari of Sicilian.
Nino Vaccarella and Frenchman Jean Guichet
rolled over the finish line, winners of the 1964
24 Hours of Le Mans. Enzo Ferrari's cars
finished in five of the top six places. Surtees

placed third. In fourth place, winning the GT
dass—a first for an American manufacturer—
was а Shelby Cobra. None of the Ford proto-
types finished. Hill, McLaren—they were по
more than spectators now.

Fans and media flooded the pavement,
swarming the winning car. The new champions.
stepped toward the podium, and soon the Ital
ian national anthem was playing over the loud-
speakers. The Shelby crew gathered around
the Cobra, which had a California license plate
on its rear end. Stirling Moss was there with the
АВС camera crew and a microphone to inter-
view the drivers, Gurney and Bondurant.

“Congratulations, Bob,” Moss said. “His
tory, I reckon, has been made here today...”

A few yards away Shelby stood, his curled
bouffant looking a tad less than perfect. His
team members crowded around, fists pumping
toward the sky. Nobody believed Shelby's cars
would finish the 24-hour grind at Le Mans.
Now the “Powered by Ford” Cobra had placed
fourth and first in the GT class. The Cobra
was the Cassius Clay of motor racing—easy on
the eyes and capable of the impossible. The
reporters awaited comment from the Texan.
Shelby was always good for a quote.

“Fourth isn't bad,” he said. “Maybe America
didn't hammer any nails in Enzo Ferrari's cof-
fin this time. But we threw a scare into him.
Next year we'll have his hide.”

Excerpted from Go Like Hell: Ford, Ferrari and
Their Battle for Speed and Glory at Le Mans by A.J.
aime аі ma May re py tel
.com). Copyright © 2009 by Checkered Flag
Media, LLC.. Барана by permision of Houghton
Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.

“My marriage counselor finally solved our problem.
He ran off with my wife.”

BASEBALL 2009

(continued from page 54)
When they dealt С Gerald Laird to Detroit
they brought back minor league RHPs
Guillermo Morosco and Carlos Melo. They
continued to shop С Jarrod Saltalamac-
chia, the key to the group they received
from Atlanta in mid-2007 for Mark Teix-
сіга, opting to go with Taylor Teagarden
as their big-league receiver. They also dis-
rupted the veterans by announcing Gold
Glove SS Michael Young would move to the
outfield to make room for 20-year-old Elvis
Andrus, who is coming off a 32-error, 109-
game effort at Double А. Young was finally
told he could play third.
IN-SEASON PROGNOSIS: The team has
no pretense about contending. Fact is, the
focus in the first half of the season will be
on finding contenders to take Saltalamac-
chia as well as veteran RHPs Kevin Mill-
wood and Vicente Padilla—and possibly
Young.
CORNERSTONE PLAYER: 2B lan Kinsler

SEATTLE MARINERS...

LAST SEASON: 61-101. Fourth

place, 39 games behind. For-
mer Texas and Oakland coach Don Waka-
matsu is making his managerial debut,
replacing Jim Riggleman, who became
interim manager when John McLaren was
fired last June.
OFF-SEASON FOCUS: A major transi-
tion is under way with the hiring of former
Milwaukee scouting director Jack Zdurien-
cik as general manager and Wakamatsu as
manager. The rebuilding began last sea-
son when ties with free-agent nightmare
Richie Sexson were cut. Then came the
off-season trade of closer J.J. Putz, which
added depth to the system, and the loss
of free agent OF Raul Ibanez and ver-
satile Willie Bloomquist. In addition to
secking youth, Zduriencik went shopping
for under-the-radar potential with the
acquisition of RHPs David Aardsma and
‘Tyler Walker, 1B Russell Branyan and OF
Franklin Gutierrez
IN-SEASON PROGNOSIS: After a 101-loss
campaign, no one pretends Seattle can make
up last year's 39-game deficit in one season.
‘There will be the enthusiasm of starting
over, but the lineup is power starved and
the pitching staff is big on potential, which
means plenty of uncertainty.
CORNERSTONE PLAYER: SS Yuniesky
Betancourt

the world championship,
beating Tampa Bay in five games. Man-
ager Charlie Manuel signed an extension
through 2011 during the off-season.

OFF-SEASON FOCUS: The Phillies
wanted not only to keep the nucleus of
their championship team together for 2009

but also to add long-term stability, which
they took a major step toward by signing
multiyear deals with LHP Cole Hamels and
18 Ryan Howard. The only regular from
last year who wont return іх Pat Burrell,
but the Phillies shouldn't miss him with the
signing of free agent Raul Ibanez.
IN-SEASON PROGNOSIS: It wasn't
an old team that managed to pull out a
World Series win last October. This squad
should be in its prime, which is why 2B
Chase Utley recovered so quickly from hip
surgery. It's hard to expect closer Brad
Lidge will be perfect again, but he should
be plenty good, and a rotation featuring
Hamels and Brett Myers has a chance to
get even better,

CORNERSTONE PLAYER: 2B Chase Utley

place, three games behind. Jerry
Manuel replaced Willie Randolph as man-
ager in midseason and was given a two-year
contract in October.
OFF-SEASON FOCUS: Having а bullpen
that blew 29 saves—and the NL East title—
last year and that included LH closer Billy
Wagner, who will spend the final year of his
contract recovering from surgery, the Mets
knew what their need was for 2009, and
they filled it, First they signed free agent
closer Francisco Rodriguez, and then they
acquired Mariners closer J.J. Putz to handle
setup duties.
IN-SEASON PROGNOSIS: Are there
enough fingers to plug all the holes in
the dike? The bullpen should be solid,
but now the outfield is а mess. Owner-
ship declined to pursue Manny Ramirez,
a favorite of GM Omar Minaya since
Ramirez was in high school and Minaya
was scouting amateurs for the Texas Rang-
s. As it is, nobody can help David Wright,
ано» Beltran and Carlos Delgado. The
strength of the rotation hinges on how
well RHP John Maine bounces back from
shoulder surgery.
CORNERSTONE PLAYER: SS Jose Reyes
LAST SEASON:

Fourth place, 20 games

back. Manager Bobby Gox is perpetually
оп one-year contracts.

OFF-SEASON FOCUS: The team needed
to rebuild its aging and injured rotation
Bid adieu to John Smoltz, Tim Hudson
and Mike Hampton. Atlanta found a rota-
tion stabilizer in free agent RHP Derek
Lowe and went overseas for Japanese
import Kenshin Kawakami. The Braves
also gambled on resurrecting Javier
Vazquez. These aren't the Ted Turner
days, though, which was evident when
they had to unload Mark Teixeira last sca-
son, were jilted in off-season free-agent
bids for RHP A.J. Burnett and SS Rafael
Furcal and backed out of talks to acquire
RHP Jake Peavy from San Diego.
IN-SEASON PROGNOSIS: The Braves,
three years removed from the end of their
pro-record 14 consecutive division titles
streak, can't be blamed for trying to live in
the past. But shouldn't they have learned

from last year? Why spend the spring
continuing to flirt with Tom Glavine, who
eventually re-signed, and Ken Griffey Jr.,
who joined the list of players who turned
down the Braves offer? The hope for this
team centers on OF Jeff Francocur bounc-
ing back. Two years ago the Braves were
saying he was a Chipper Jones type. A year
ago, however, he was given a three-day
refresher course in Double A in an attempt
to wake him up.

CORNERSTONE PLAYER: C Brian
McCann

place, seven and a half games
behind. During spring train-
ing, manager Fredi Gonzalez was given an
extension through 2011

OFF-SEASON FOCUS: One thing has
never changed with the Marlins, regard-
less of ownership: The bottom line is the
bottom line. Despite the signs of hope
created by last year's solid effort, the
team spent the winter getting rid of the
bulk of the 17 arbitration-cligible players.
‘The Marlins wanted to become more of
а speed-and-defense team than one that
relies on home runs, but when the pride
of the off-season additions is INF Emilio
Bonifacio, it's apparent this is more hope
than action,

IN-SEASON PROGNOSIS: Good thing
Gonzalez was given more security, because
this will be another year of retooling. For
all the potential of GF Cameron Maybin,
1B Gaby Sanchez, hoped-for closer Matt
Lindstrom and C John Baker, their athletic
abilities have yet to translate into big-league
success. The Marlins have a rotation—Ricky
Nolasco, Josh Johnson, Ghris Volstad,
Andrew Miller and Anibal Sanchez—that
will keep them in games, but they also have

bullpen uncertainties and a lack of depth
that proceeds from a lack of finances.
CORNERSTONE PLAYER: SS Hanley
Ramirez

WASHINGTON
NATIONALS
LAST SEASON: 59-102.

Fifth place, 32 and a half
games behind. Manager Manny Acta is in
the final year of his contract and is a likely
scapegoat.

OFF-SEASON FOCUS: Maybe the Nation-
als will get serious next year, but this past
winter they wasted time trying to convince
fans they were serious about finding quick
help. They then were shut out in their free-
agent bidding. Mark Teixeira wasn't swayed
by the proximity to his native Baltimore,
For some reason he opted for $180 million
from the Yankees rather than a lesser deal
from the 102-loss Nationals, who since their
creation as the Montreal Expos, in 1969,
have yet to play in a World Series.
IN-SEASON PROGNOSIS: With this divi-
sion the Nationals have a legitimate shot at
back-to-back 100-1055 seasons for the first
time in franchise history. In their first 38
years, in fact, they had only two 100-loss
seasons—in 1969 and 1976. The only sure
things about the rotation are John Lannan
and Scott Olsen.
CORNERSTONE PLAYER: OF Austin
Kearns

N L CENTRAL

CHICAGO CUBS
LAST SEASON: 97-64. First
place, seven and a half games
ahead. Swept by the Dodgers in the NL.
Division Series. The Cubs are 11-22 in

“I thought your sex tape was going to be with me.”

101

postseason games since their most recent
World Series appearance, in 1945. Manager
Lou Piniella is signed through 2010 and says
he will retire when he leaves the Cubs.
OFF-SEASON FOCUS: The Cubs worked to
balance a lineup that was too right-handed.
The front office moved INF Mark DeRosa to
eliminate the temptation for Piniella to play
him over lefi-handed-hitting 2B Mike Fon-
tenot. Unloading DeRosa's salary, along with
saving $5 million by shipping RHP Jason
Marquis to the Rockies, cleared out payroll
and allowed for a three-year, $30 million
contract gamble on switch-hitting OF Milton
Bradley, who will be with his seventh team
this decade and his fifth in five years.
IN-SEASON PROGNOSIS: Winning the
NL Central isn't the challenge; getting to
the World Series is. The Cubs have gone
a century without a world championship.
The team does have an offense capable of a
championship—they led the NL in runs last
year before adding Bradley—and the rot
tion has four pitchers who can win at least
17 games. But what about the late-inning
void created by the free-agent departure
of Kerry Wood? Garlos Marmol can over-
power, but is he the next Mariano Rivera
or the next Ron Davis? Kevin Gregg closed
with Florida, but the pressures are different
with a team expected to win
CORNERSTONE PLAYER: 3B Aramis
Ramirez

PLAYBOY

ST. LOUIS

Fourth place, 11 and a half
games behind. Ten winning records and
seven postseason appearances in Tony
La Russa’s 13 years as manager. La Russa
is in the final year of his contract.
OFF-SEASON FOCUS: The Cardinals
added SS Khalil Greene, who will be an
offensive bonus now that he has escaped San
Diego's Petco Park. But ownership's refusal
tobump the payroll kept it from addressing
the troubled bullpen, which blew 31 saves
and suffered 31 losses a year ago. Chris
Perez and Jason Motte, both rookies last
year, have live arms, but that doesn't ensure
either can step into the ninth-inning role.
IN-SEASON PROGNOSIS: When a team
starts with La Russa and 1B Albert Pujols,
the best pure hitter in the NL, and plays
in the МІ. Gentral, it cannot be written off.
Even then, however, there will be chal-
lenges when the rotation is counting on a
healthy return from RHP Chris Сагреп-
ter, who hasn't won a game in two seasons
because of elbow and shoulder issues. The
Cards, however, have outfield depth with
Ryan Ludwick, Rick Ankiel, Skip Schu-
maker, Chris Duncan and phenom Colby
Rasmus. This will allow them to make a sig-
nificant move once they identify their most
pressing need.
CORNERSTONE PLAYER:
Pujols

1B Albert

MILWAUKEE

Second place, seven and a half games out.
102 Former Oakland manager Ken Macha

signed a two-year contract in the off-season,
taking over for interim manager Dale
Sveum, who replaced Ned Yost for the final
two weeks of the season.

OFF-SEASON FOCUS: Just before spring
training the team landed RHP Braden
Looper in an effort to patch up a rotation
gutted by the free-agent loss of LHP С.С.
Sabathia and RHP Ben Sheets. After Brian
Fuentes and Kerry Wood turned them
down, the Brewers are taking a gamble on
all-time saves leader Trevor Hoffman hav-
ing one magical season left.

IN-SEASON PROGNOSIS: The Brewers
can score runs with an offense built around
LF Ryan Braun and 1B Prince Fielder, but
the days of outslugging the opposition are
history. Even with Sheets and the mid-
season addition of Sabathia, the Brewers
came up short. This year they don't have
either, and it’s not as though they have the
payroll flexibility to find help. With incen-
tives, the Brewers are looking at a $90 mil-
lion payout as it is

CORNERSTONE PLAYER: LF Ryan Braun

CINCINNATI REDS .

LAST SEASON: 74-88. Fifih

place, 23 and a half games
behind. Manager Dusty Baker is in the second
year of his three-year, $12 million contract.
OFF-SEASON FOCUS: The Reds had
blurred vision. They wanted to add a
right-handed power bat in left field but
wound up with speedy СЕ Willy Taveras,
whose value is questionable because of his
constant struggles with leg injuries. They
needed to bolster a bullpen that lost LHP
Jeremy Affeldt to free agency but were
unable to do better than 39-year-old south-
paw Arthur Rhodes. To fill a catching void,
they had to settle for Ramon Hernandez,
whom Baltimore was pleading for some-
one to take
IN-SEASON PROGNOSIS: Even with
the lack of off-season activity, the Reds say
their payroll budget has been exceeded,
so no help is on the way for a team that
will struggle to finish in the middle of
the league offensively despite playing in
a bandbox. This team, after all, stumbled
even with the bats of Adam Dunn and
Ken Griffey Jr., whose spots remain open.
They are, however, building a pitching
staff around last year’s emergence of
Edwin Volquez and Johnny Cueto and
this year’s promise of Micah Owings and
Homer Bailey.
CORNERSTONE PLAYER: 2B Brandon

Phillips
510$. LAST SEASO
Third place, 11 games
behind. Cecil Cooper enters the season
in the final year of his contract, which is
unusual for Astros managers and makes his
status shaky.
OFF-SEASON FOCUS: Owner Drayton
McLane says he wants a winner, but he
doesn't want to pay for it. СМ Ed Wade had
to back out of a proposed deal that would
have kept LHP Randy Wolf, and then he
unloaded 3B Ty Wigginton to cut payroll.

HOUSTON
ASTROS

“Trying to fill out his rotation, Wade gam-
bled that LHP Mike Hampton and RHP
Russ Ortiz can resurrect careers in the
hitter-friendly environs of Minute Maid
Park. Yes, Hampton won 22 games for the
Astros 10 years ago, but he won only eight.
games combined over the past two scasons.
Still, he has six more victories than Ortiz in
that same stretch,

IN-SEASON PROGNOSIS: The Astros are
starting to realize what a masterful job
former GM Gerry Hunsicker did in keep-
ing things together despite interference
from above. The franchise is in tatters, An
optimist would be pressed to find a way to.
predict а .500 season. Roy Oswalt is among
the league's elite pitchers, but projecting
Wandy Rodriguez into the number two
slot in the rotation—and Hampton into
number three—underscores how futile the
Astros will be.

CORNERSTONE PLAYER: 1B Lance
Berkman

PITTSBURGH
PIRATES

LAST SEASON: ў
place, 30 and a half games behind.
Pirates have suffered 16 consecutive losing
seasons, equaling a major league record
that was set by the Phillies between 1033
and 1948. John Russell is in the second
year of his ihrec-ycar managerial contract.
OFF-SEASON FOCU! tes made
their big moves last July, unloading the
tracts of Jason Bay on Boston and Xavier
Nady on the Yankees. They couldn't find a
taker for SS Jack Wilson but will continue
to hope a market can develop. The Bucs
turned their attention to creating cost сег-
tainty. In addition to finally signing num-
ber one draft choice Pedro Alvarez from
Vanderbilt to a four-year deal that includes
options for 2013 and 2014, they came to
three-year agreements with LHP Paul
Maholm, OF Nate McLouth and C Ryan
Doumit. The only off-season additions to
the big-league roster were INF Ramon
Vazquez and Eric Hinske,

IN-SEASON PROGNOSIS: It’s another
summer of suffering for Pirates fans. The
lack of off-season action doesn't bode well
for a team that had the worst earned run
average in the NL last year and showed up
for spring training with Maholm as the only
pitcher assured of a rotation spot. Remem-
ber, the Pirates were 17-38 following the
trades of Nady and Bay, and the team did
nothing to recharge the offense.
CORNERSTONE PLAYER: G Ryan Doumit

о» LOS ANGELES

place, two games ahead. Swept the Cubs in
the NLDS but lost to Philadelphia in five
games in the NL Championship Series.
Manager Joc Torre is signed through the
2010 scason, with the expectation that Don
Mattingly will replace him after that.

OFF-SEASON FOCUS: While the

rotation was fleeing through free agency,
the Dodgers seemed more caught up in
a winter-long stare-down with OF Manny
Ramirez, whom they finally signed to a
two-year $45 million contract. Then
when nobody was looking they picked up
a bargain in the first weekend of spring
by bringing in 2B Orlando Hudson, who
provides energy at the top of the lineup
and a flashy defense,

IN-SEASON PROGNOSIS: For all the
moaning about Manny, the Dodgers will
be only as good as their young pitching
allows. Gone are RH starters Derek Lowe,
Greg Maddux and Brad Penny and RH
relievers Scott Proctor and Takashi Saito.
Chad Billingsley will be asked to be the ace
of a rotation that will also provide oppor-
tunities for Clayton Kershaw. Jonathan
Broxton is being counted on to get that
27th out without a safety net. The slecper
is RHP Jason Schmidt, who has been a
nonentily for two years because of shoul-
der problems but who is optimistic about.
a big return.

CORNERSTONE PLAYER: The Dodgers do
not have a player signed to a multiyear deal
prior to free-agent eligibility.

place, 10 games behind. Suffered their
seventh losing record in eight years. Man-
ager Clint Hurdle is in the final year of his
contract and needs a solid start to survive
the season.

OFF-SEASON FOCUS: Major parts disap-

peared. Closer Brian Fuentes went to the
Angels as a free agent. OF Matt Holliday
was traded to Oakland. LH starter Jeff
Francis did
gain a potential closer in Huston Street, a
starter in lefiy Greg Smith and a Іей fielder
in Carlos Gonzalez from Oakland. They
were able to unload RHP Luis Vizcaino
and get back the durable RH starter Jason
Marquis. They also persuaded lat
lefiy Alan Embree to take $2.
instead of retiring.
IN-SEASON PROGNOSIS: In a win-
nable division the Rockies have reason
to hope. But the list of ifs is lengthy: if
lefty Franklin Morales can show the con-
sistency he displayed during the stretch.
drive to the World Series in 2007, if
lefty Jorge De La Rosa can maintain the
domínance he showed in the second half
of 2008, if Manny Corpas can regain his
hard slider, if Todd Helton bounces back
from off-season back surgery.
CORNERSTONE PLAYER:
Tulowitzki

A ARIZONA
LAST SEASON: 82-80. Second

place, two games behind. Manager Bob
Melvin not only is signed through 2010
but has a strong relationship with GM Josh
Byrnes, who is signed through 2015.

OFF-SEASON FOCUS: With no room
in the payroll, the Diamondbacks cut ties
with LHP Randy Johnson, 2B Orlando
Hudson, RH closer Brandon Lyon and

5 Troy

LF Adam Dunn. While they had an out-
field surplus and decided to gamble with
Chad Qualls in the closer role, they had
to settle for Felipe Lopez to fill Hudson's
spot and RHP Jon Garland to step in for
Johnson.

IN-SEASON PROGNOSIS: With RHPs
Brandon Webb and Dan Haren, the Dia-
mondbacks will be a factor in the divi-
sion, but a pitching staff has to be deeper
than two. Arizona gave up on Micah
Owings last year and is now hyping Мах
Scherzer, who could provide a huge lift
if he can step into the number three
role. Arizona led the NL West for 153
days before settling into second place.
Now the team has that experience, which
should toughen the lineup for a stretch
run this time around.

CORNERSTONE PLAYER: CF Chris
Young

$ е

LAST SEASON: 7
Fourth place, 12 games back. Bruce Bochy
is in the final year of his three-year mana-
gerial contract, and with a new owner he
could become а scapegoat if the Giants
struggle.
OFF-SEASON FOCUS: The Giants
wanted to rebuild their bullpen and add a
legitimate bat to the middle of their order.
They hit .500. LHP Jeremy Affeldt and
RHP Bobby Howry were signed as free
agents, providing a good setup combo for
Brian Wilson. Slow-footed Bengie Molina,
however, remains the cleanup hitter after
an off-season of offensive futility.
IN-SEASON PROGNOSIS: You can't
ignore the Giants. Their strong rotation
is even stronger with the signing of LHP
Randy Johnson, which allows the team to
push disappointing Barry Zito into the

fifth spot, where his contract is a farce but
his ability fits well. Cy Young winner Tim
Lincecum, Matt Cain and lefty Jonathan
Sanchez are a dominating top three. The
pitchers, however, will have to be nearly
perfect to offset an offense that was 15th
in the NL in runs scored last year—ahead
of only the Padres—and may be even
worse this year.

CORNERSTONE PLAYER: RHP Matt Gain

SAN DIEGO
PADRES

LAST SEASON: 63-99.
Fifth place, 21 games behind. The Padres
never recovered from losing three of their
final four games in 2007, which cost them
а postseason appearance. Manager Buddy
Black is in the final year of his contract.
OFF-SEASON FOCUS: With owner John
Moores needing to unload the team in
light of his pending divorce, the Padres
were intent on cutting at least $30 mil-
lion in payroll to sweeten the bottom line
for an eventual buyer, who turned out to
be former agent and Arizona GEO Jeff
Moorad. They parted ways with all-time
saves leader Trevor Hoffman and shuffled
SS Khalil Greene off to St. Louis, but RHP
Jake Peavy's ability to void a trade limited
San Diego's options, and at the start of
spring training he was still in San Diego.
IN-SEASON PROGNOSIS: The Padres
are the only team with no hope of being a
factor in а watered-down division. There
are no legit answers to glaring holes in the
rotation and bullpen. The lineup offers no
protection for 1B Adrian Gonzalez, and
such ineptitude becomes glaring in Petco
Park, which taxes even powerful bats.
CORNERSTONE PLAYER: RHP Jake

Peavy

y Dejan?

“Well, she did say she was his mouthpiece.”

103

У” SE
чеш Bd

aseball's approach to
fixing its problems 15
to say that baseball
15 а perfect game. We
know it is a perfect game be-
cause, after 150 years, infielders
are still throwing out runners at
first base by a single step.
Suppose an actor could, for
his own reasons, hold up a movie
for, let's say, 90 seconds before
he delivers the next line. What
would that do to the movie?
| know: № would make it a
Merchant-lvory production, but
that was a rhetorical question.
The point is that when you go to
a baseball game the batter will,
for reasons enhancing no one's
enjoyment except his own, step
out of the batter's box and delay
the action for 10, 20, 40 or 90 sec-
onds just because he feels like it.
This has precisely the same ef-
fect on the entertainment value
of a baseball game as it would
on a movie-and you can't shoot
him. Shit, you can't even гар him
with a stun gun. And you can't
tell him to cut the crap and get in
there and hit, because one of the

brought to you by somebody, and
when the "call to the bullpen is
brought to you by...” it's never
really somebody you're eager to
hearmore about. like Johnny Cash,
Beyoncé, Bob Dylan, Aerosmith,
small children, Dolly Parton, Jimmy
Kimmel, Kate Beckinsale, choco-
late cake and Florida beaches, but
none of them has ever brought me
a call to the bullpen. It's always
some damned phone company
with a new plan to bamboozle
you with free text messaging and
indecipherable fees for indetermi-
nate other services.

The fallacy of the concept of
the perfect game is that baseball
changes so much. In the 1950s
the average team used fewer
than 200 relievers (relief games)
a season. Now the average is
close to 500. So if it was a perfect
game then, it must be a hell of a
mess now, right? It's only logical.
The average baseball game now
has more than twice as many
strikeouts as it did when І was
born. Was it perfect then, or is it.
perfect now?

People ask me all the time,

ways baseball is a perfect game
is that baseball has no clock.
That's perfect, you know.

Of course, until about 1950
baseball games did have a clock,
a big yeller one that goes away
in the evening. In 1950 the aver-
age baseball game took about
two hours to play, and 70 per-
cent of Americans said baseball
was their favorite sport. Once
they took the big yeller clock out
of the game, though, the games
started stretching out, and more
and more people started saying
they were football fans. But you
can't fix baseball because, you
know, it's a perfect game. If you
make the bastard stay in the
box and hit, they might throw
him outat first by two steps and
ruin everything.

We're making some progress on that,
actually; there are now rules intended to
limit the batter's freedom to delay the
game. These rules will become effective
when they issue the umpires stun guns
or, failing that, consistently refuse to call
time just because the batter asks for it.
When we get that under control, some-
thing else will push the games longer. A

few years ago pitchers held up the game
by throwing repeatedly to first base. That
problem went away on Из own when the
steroid era hit and the game went back to
being about hitting home runs. But the
more homers batters hit, the more man-
agers change pitchers.

Pitching changes are worse on televi-
sion because, on television, they're always

"What would you do if you were
commissioner of baseball?”
What they mean is "What would
you do if you were commissioner
of baseball in 1937?" All the
powerisn'tin the commissioner's
hands anymore. It hasn't been
for generations. Some has gone
to the unions, some has gone to
the TV networks, some has gone
to the owners, and some has
gone to the agents.

Baseball doesn't need a strong
commissioner; nothing vibrant
would benefit from an autocrat.
Baseball needs a general, wide-
spread understanding among all
the power brokers that it is not a
perfect game; it is a commercial
entertainment in competition
with other commercial entertain-
ments, and it has issues.

In the 19505 hitters would sometimes
go through the season without breaking
a bat. Now players have more bats than
Carlsbad Caverns. You can't get through
a game without dodging flying lumber.
The gameis just different. Itwas a great
game then; it's a great game now. It's a
greater game now. It wouldn't hurt to
speed it up a little.

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CHUCK PALAHNIUK

(continued from page 32)
people have bonded over this shared
experience, this witnessing of death and
resurrection, and they're euphoric.
PLAYBOY: Is someone fainting a sign of a
successful reading?

PALAHNIUK: It's one sign, yes.

PLAYBOY: Could it be considered perverse
that you delight in making people faint?
PALAHNIUK: I don't believe that. When peo-
ple are exposed to extreme things—things
so memorable and hard to assimilate into
how they think of the world and how they
think of themselves—they’re freed. It helps
them digest their fears and experiences. It's
similar to how writing is the way І digest
ту fears and experience. People hear these
stories and become so open they want to
tell me things they've never told anybody
else. They feel it's safe to tell me things.
The stories people tell will stay with me for
the rest of my life.

PLAYBOY: What kinds of stories?
PALAHNIUK: A middle-aged woman came
up to me after а “Guts” event. She said,
"When І was in second grade, I was in the
Brownies. One day I had a stomachache,
and we had this heating pad with a vibrat-
ing function. My mom made me take a nap.
sleeping facedown on this heating pad. It
slid down between my legs. I woke up with
the most amazing feeling. І had never had
such a feeling. Oh my God, what a fecling
So when it was my turn to host the Brownie
troop, І said, ‘Brownies, you've got to try this
heating-pad thing.’ All the Brownies came
10 my house and rode the heating pad and
had pounding orgasms. It was like Sex and
the City for seven-year-old girls. After that.
the Brownies didn't give a shit about earn-

PLAYBOY

For the first time in my life I was the most
popular girl in my class. I went from being
the girl who smelled like pee to ‘Everybody

wants to play at my house all the time.
It was very funny, but that wasn't the end

СНУСК AT A GLANCE

DIARY

А NOVEL
CHUCK
PALAHNIK

DIARY A painter finds
her groove, but her art
turns out to be darker
than her paint selection.
“Palahniuk is a brac-
ingly toxic purveyor of
dread and mounting
horror. He makes

106 ism fun” ^ —Vanity Fair

somethings.”

of the story. She said, “So we did this until the
day my mom came home from work early
and caught us with the heating pad. She
sent all the Brownies home and yanked the
plug out of the wall. And she beat me with
the cord. She was screaming, ‘You piece of
shit, you dirty fucking whore. What kind of
a little whore cunt did I raise? And she beat
me and she beat me and she beat me and she
beat me,” the woman said. “And І haven't
had an orgasm since the second grade, since
I was seven years old." Its such a sad story,
but then she said, "But if you can tell that.
‘Guts’ story, І know І can tell my heating-
pad story. І can make it the funniest story.
anybody's ever heard." She seemed enor-
mously relieved. Now she's going to craft it
as an intellectual exercise, and she'll realize
she can use this terrible thing that happened
to her instead of being used by it

PLAYBOY: You once said if you hadn't
become a writer you would probably be an
alcoholic. Why?

PALAHNIUK: When you have this thing to
fuss and fret over, this totally fictionalized
crisis to pour all your excess energy and
anxiety into, you don't have to go out and
deaden them with drinking.

PLAYBOY: You once said, “Before I started
writing, I'd go out on a Friday night and
engage in that big act of denial where you
drink so much you forget you have to go to
work on Monday morning.”

PALAHNIUK: І don't have to do that anymore.
PLAYBOY: When did writing become a kind
of therapy for you?

PALAHNIUK: Not until I was in my late 205
and I went to а writers’ group. It wasn't my
first group. I started in one with all these.
middle-aged ladies. When it was my turn
to read, І read a scene that later went into
Snuff. A young man is obsessed with a girl,
so he buys a blow-up doll and dresses it like
her; then he gets drunk and seduces it. As
he unzips the back of its dress, the zipper
snags the vinyl skin. He doesn't know, but
as he starts to fuck it he realizes it's going
flat, and it becomes this horrible race as the
doll wrinkles and shrivels beneath him. He
has to get off before it's completely flat. The

scene ends with his being surprised by his
mother walking in the door. He stands up,
and the completely flat doll is hanging off
his erection like a big pink flag. The end.
Blackout. The ladies were so upset they
asked me to leave the group. But the leader
of the workshop, Andrea, was very kind and
said, “There'sa man named Tom Spanbauer
who just moved to Portland. He studied at
Columbia with this man named Gordon
Lish, and he's teaching a brand-new style.
You might want to move to Tom’s workshop,
because we don't want you here.”

PLAYBOY: Were you discouraged when your
first novel, Invisible Monsters, was rejecied?
PALAHNIUK: Well, it's devastating. But you
get really clear that you aren't writing solely
for the public. You're clear that you have to.
find the more immediate rewards of writ-
ing. You might as well be in love with what-
ever you're working on whether or not it's
а success, Writing is never wasted time.
PLAYBOY: Invisible Monsters was published
later, after Fight Club.

PALAHNIUK: Some stuff І used in Fight
Club came from that first book. Marla has
a speech in Fight Club in which she talks
about the condom being the glass slipper
of her generation. That's stolen from that
earlier book.

PLAYBOY: The line made it into the томе,
100. What was it like sceing Fight Club for
the first time on-scree
PALAHNIUK: It was really nostalgic because
by then it's so far behind you that you see
you've forgotten а lot of it. It's like going
through your high school annual and hav-
ing this sort of sweet distance,

PLAYBOY: More recently, was it a similar
feeling watching Choke?

PALAHNIUK: Choke is kind of clouded right
now because Mom's been sick. It's about
a son sitting by his mother's bedside and
she's dying, so it's just excruciating and
overwhelming for піе now.

PLAYBOY: Growing up, you lived mostly
with her, right?

PALAHNIUK: After the divorce.

PLAYBOY: What did she and your father do
for a living when you were a child?

FIGHT CLUB Guy be-
friends the too-cool-to-
be-true pied piper of a
therapeutic underground
fight club. “Dials directly
into youthful angst and
will likely horrify the par-
l- ents of teens and twenty-

—Bookdist

RANT: AN ORAL BIOGRA-
РНУ OF BUSTER CASEY
Casey 15 the self-inflicted
patient zero of a rabies
epidemic. "Palahniuk's
world might be a freak
show, but it's one that.
makes a disturbing amount
of sense” —Daily Telegraph ids”

HAUNTED In the tradi
tion of scary summer-
camp stories, 23 chilling
tales (including "Guts")
told at а writers' retreat.
“Summer reading for
people who like their
lit doused in bodily fiu-

—Time Out New York

SNUFF Points of view from.
three of 600 guys up for a
record serial-bang porno.
“[He is the] gross-out car-
tographer of the modern
male id, a gutter-brained
queasy-
voice.”

—The Washington Post

PALAHNIUK: My father worked for the гай-
road. My mom wasat home until my parents
divorced, when I was 13. Then she went
back to school and became a bookkeeper.
PLAYBOY: Is it true your father once almost
cut off your finger with an ax?
PALAHNIUK: I was very young. I must have
been four or five years old. One day I was
alone at our house with my father, and І
put a washer around my finger and it got
stuck. I waited until my finger got swollen
and black and it had lost all feeling, because
I knew I would be in trouble. Eventually I
went to my father and asked him to help
me. He said, “I'll help you out this once,
but if you do this again, you know, it’s
your problem.” He had me help him get
a hatchet we used for killing chickens and
sharpen it. We washed it with rubbing alco-
hol so it was sterile, We went to the chop-
ping block, and my father had me kneel
down and put my hand on the block. І was
thinking, My father’s doing me a favor, and
Т deserve this. He said, "Hold still,” and he
swung the ax and just missed my finger.
PLAYBOY: These days that would be grounds
for calling Child Protective Services.
PALAHNIUK: Well, it just made it very clear
to me that there are consequences for what-
ever you do,

PLAYBOY: Are you resentful?

PALAHNIUK: You know, I'd almost forgot-
ten about it because it was a story ГА never
told anybody. І knew it didn’t make my dad
look very good, and my mother didn't know
and I knew it would make her just explode.
I'd almost forgotten it until I had this sort
of bogus séance at a haunted house. The
psychic said my father was present and was
apologizing for something that involved an
ax and dismemberment. I'd never told
body the story before, but she repeated the
whole thing. She said my father was regret-
ful. As а young man he had no idea how to
resolve the situation and teach me a lesson.
PLAYBOY: He had his own traumatic expe
ence when he was a child. You've told how
he hid under the bed and watched his father
murder his wife—your grandmother—and
then kill himself, Your parents kept the story

INVISIBLE MONSTERS
You may not be comfort-
able in your own skin—or
somebody else's. "А guilty
pleasure for those with an
open mind and a strong
stomach—everyone else
should go read a nice
romance” —Toronto Sun

CHOKE Con man for
money and sex tries to go
straight. “Не rearranges
Vonnegut's sly humor,
DeLillo's mordant social
analysis and Pynchon's
antic surrealism (or is it R.
Crumb's?) into a gleaming
puzzle palace" —Newsday

from you until you were 18. Were you angry
that they hadn't told you earlier?
PALAHNIUK: They wanted to protect us
from this truth, so I understood. But it was
useful to know. It explained how horrible
things had been for my father. Knowing
helps you understand. Like when I was lit-
tle my mom was just frantic about pulling
all our curtains shut. Until I was an adult I
didn't know it was because the creepy man
who lived way down the road would come
and hide in our shrubs and masturbate
outside my sister's bedroom windows. My
mother had started finding cigarette butts
and soiled Kleenexes in the shrubs when
she was gardening.
PLAYBOY: You've written, "I'm six years old
again and taking messages back and forth
between my estranged parents." Is that
autobiographical?
PALAHNIUK: Yeah. My siblings and I
were younger than 10. We had this game
called “playing Henry Kissinger.” We'd
hear them fighting, and the four of us
would hide іп the basement. As soon as
the fighting died down we would decide
whose turn it was to play Henry Kiss-
inger. You had to go upstairs and be sort
of innocuous, entertaining and endear-
ing and try to lessen the stress.
PLAYBOY: Іп 1999 you had another trag-
edy in your life. Your father and his
irlfriend were murdered. How did you
ear about it?
PALAHNIUK: A publicist at my publisher,
W.W. Norton, called. She said, “I hope this
is a joke, but a detective has called from
Idaho, and they found your father's car
outside a burned-down house with bodies
in the house, and they think your father
might be one of those bodies. Would you
call the following number...” I did, and
they said they needed someone to collect
my father's dental X-rays and take them up
to Idaho. My brother and І went up, and
yeah, it was him.
PLAYBOY. How do you process something
that horrific?
PALAHNIUK: The way I've always done it.
I process things by gathering all the infor-

LULLABY A song secretly
kills people; a few in the
know attempt to stop the
music. "More twisted than
a sack of pretzels and edg-
jer than an octagon, Chuck
Palahniuk has pumped
out another memorable
read.” —Puaveor

SURVIVOR

SURVIVOR Resisting your
suicide-cult pledge saves
you for only so long; fate
and death are inescap-
able. “A wild amphet-
amine ride through the
vagaries of fame and the
nature of belief.”

—Sa Francisco Chronicle

mation І can and documenting it. І just
went out and collected everything about
the murder I could find. At the time, my
siblings didn’t want to know anything about
it, so І thought Га gather everything for
them. Га have it whenever they wanted to
know. I went to see the autopsy photos and
the crime scene. I read all the stories in the
papers and talked to all the reporters. If my
sister calls and asks, “What were Dad's last.
20 minutes alive like?” І сап dispassionately
say, “He was shot at this angle, The coroner
says the evidence was that his diaphragm
was ruptured, his lungs began to collapse,
breathing became difficult. He was assisted
into the burning building by his girlfriend
as they fled the gunman. They were already
dead by the time the fire consumed them.
The bodies were preserved because а mat-
tress had fallen on top of them.

PLAYBOY: In what way docs knowing the
details help you?

PALAHNIUK: It's a distancing thing.
PLAYBOY: Do you also have to process it
emotionally at some point?

PALAHNIUK: I did that when I was cleaning
out his house, the horror of cleaning out
his house and coming across all the things
1 knew about him,

PLAYBOY: What was the killer's trial like?
PALAHNIUK: Hard and tedious at the same
time, but it was part of putting the whole
story together.

PLAYBOY: What was it like to see the mur-
derer in court?

PALAHNIUK: I didn’t have any emotion
attached to it. It was abstract. For the
sentencing I had to be cross-examined
by him, which was awkward and unpleas-
ant. He said I was persecuting him. He
also said he'd buried anthrax bombs
throughout the area, and if he was sen-
tenced to death, eventually these bombs
would corrode to the point that they
would explode underground and wipe
out thousands of people.

PLAYBOY: Through this experience did
you conclude he was insane or evil?
PALAHNIUK: I lean toward evil
told me about

They
(concluded on page 110)

UUDGING AN AUTHOR BY HIS BACK COVERS

ANE
8 й

РУСМУ A terrorist cell of
exchange students can
kill in a wink but can't
figure out teenage Amer-
ica. “Potent if cartoonish
cultural satire that suc-
ceeds despite its stri-
dently confounding
prose" —Publisher’s Weekly

107

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PMOYs' dimensions with those of their civilian contemporaries. The Febru-
ary issue of Wired features Playmate body-mass indexes and a graph of the
bust and cup sizes of our girls from the early 1990s to now. It found that
“while busts have shrunk faster than your 401(k), cup size has remained a | i Р
buxom С ог D." If we had only thought of | Da
this instead of the baking-soda volcano, our Її
р

high school science projects might have

ribboned—or at least raised a few eyebrows.

Despite falling
bustlines, Playmate
cup size holds firm

SN
IN Я
VI LAN,
y

Want to SEE MORE PLAYMATES—or more
of these Playmates? You can check out the
Club at olub.playboy.com and access the mobile-

optimized site playboy.com from your phone.

DID YOU РМОҮ 2008 Jayde Nicole supposedly Badnews:PMOY 1994 Jenny McCarthy Miss May 2007 Shannon James
has an on-camera spat with The Hilis's sald, “I love Playboy, and Iowe them so doesn't sport an afro, but she Is pro-
KNOW Audrina Patridge In a future episode. much, but I won't be posing again.” moting the Afro Samural video game.

Miss February
2001 Lauren
Michelle Hill has
advice for anyone
going on a job
interview: “People
decide if they like
you in the first 30
seoonds. Dress
sharp, give a nice

smile and show
them you have
the confidence to
get the job done.”
Sounds like she
тау be giving dat-
ing advice, too.

MULLER Is

MOTIVATED
Need some motiva-
tion to stri: toward
а healthier li
PMOY 197
lian Müller has been
touring the country,
along with Morgan
Spurlock and Wood;
Harrelson, on a mis-
sion to help people
follow a proper diet-
and-exercise re
men. Her talks were
recently highlighted
in the documentar:
film Raw for Life
(from the producers
of Super Size Me).
She also informs us
she із in talks with a
Norwegian television
channel to have her
own reality show that
deals with her transi-
tion "from s
to health

Miss August 2007 Tamara Sky deejayed — OnlyforPetLovers.com tracked down Miss December 1968 Cynthia Myers Is
at Lengths for Love, a Valentine's party at PMOY 1993 Anna Nicol

the Highlands Іп Hol

MY FAVORITE PLAYMATE

look and с
ness but not the
whips! We
both Bettie Page

the mixture of
her joy, beauty
and mischievous
n t hits
below the belt.

Miss January 2004

non isn't a girl who reads lottery
balls on TV, but she did play one on
a TV sitcom. Colleen appeared in an
episode of CBS's prime-time comedy
How I Met other in which

ris) creates a dating-wordplay game

based on the numbers she calls.

mith's dogs;
all of them are In happy homes.

Ohhh! Miss August 1986 /
to Andrew Dice es te Mansion. Both were on
hand for the Super

Bowl Game-Day

Party hosted by

PMOY 2001 Brande

Roderick. Ava was

there because she

із a PMW favorite,

and the Dice Man

was invited because

he stars on Celebrity.

Apprentice 2 with

Brande. Although

Trump fired Dioe

| in the first episode,

he was not ргета-

turely booted from

the Mansion... American Idol's Ryan Seacrest and
PMOY 2007 | Jean | 'rwood were spotted
together in the Caribbean. Ме won't confirm or
deny a relationship, but we will pat Seacrest on the
back for being in paradise with a Playmate... Mot-

ley Crue's Tommy Lee sure does have a thing for
Playmates (just like any
red-blooded American
guy). He and PMOY
1997

full trying to grab Victo-
ria's attention as he dee-
туе... .. Miss April 2009 22

‚showed inf
upon the arm of Mavericks point guard Jason Kidd
at LeBron James and Jay-Z's Two Kings Dinner
Party in New Orleans. Here she is with (below, from
left) Savannah Brinson, James and Kidd.

DID YOU

billed to appear at New Jersey's Chiller
Theatre horror-movle convention. KNOW

PLAYBOY

110

CHUCK PALAHNIUK

(continued from page 107)
his history. It was hard to see years and
decades of someone's life devoted to victim-
izing people and not start to think of that
person as evil. It was hard to have any kind
of sympathy for somebody who had made
so many people suffer.

PLAYBOY: Did you already have an opinion
about the death penalty?

PALAHNIUK: І didn’t have an opinion
because it was never anything I felt any
kind of connection to.

PLAYBOY: Was asking for it a difficult

decision
PALAHNIUK: It was and it wasn't. A lot of
it seemed symbolic, because people aren't
executed for decades after the trial. We
think of death as the ultimate resolution,
but it seldom is.

PLAYBOY: You ultimately testified that the
Killer should be put to death. Do you still
feel that way?

PALAHNIUK: I wouldn't change my mind, no.
PLAYBOY: You've said that, driving home
after your father's funeral, you wanted to
stop the car and lie facedown in the middle
of the street until someone came along to
help you. Why?

PALAHNIUK: I wanted somebody in author-
ity to hold me, comfort me and say all those.
clichéd things—somebody with a gun and a

badge who was definitely in charge, saying,
“You're okay. Everything is going to be all
right.” They d feel the side of my neck for
a pulse. I'd feel their warm fingers. There'd
be a physical reassurance that I was alive.
It was a little like the desire for the kind of
physical connection that happens at read-
ings a lot of times when people say, “Will
you choke me?” for a picture. I'll put my
hands around their neck: I'm choking
them. Suddenly they're a real person. I
realize this is a person and they're going
to die, and it just kills me. 1 feel their pulse
quicken, and I realize they re scared. It
breaks my heart when І feel their racing
pulse. I just want to weep.

PLAYBOY: You said rescarch helped you pro-
cess your father's murder. How about your
writing?

PALAHNIUK: Of course. І specifically
explored it іп Lullaby. 1 think every stage
of life comes with its own terrors, the things
you cannot fix or at least haven't. If you
can't resolve them, you have to somehow
continue to exist with them inside you,
controlling you. You stay afraid of them. In
every book I approach these anxieties and
fears and try to fully explore and exhaust
my emotions around them by using meta-
phors that make them big enough for other
people to enjoy.

PLAYBOY: Is it conscious?

PALAHNIUK: Usually 1 don't realize it until

“Yes, we enjoyed the breadsticks. Actually, she's still enjoying hers."

afierward, which is good. If you know too
much, you won't fully explore the fear.
Sometimes a year later you're on tour, sit-
ting in some radio station, and you real-
ize just how much of yourself you actually
revealed. The process keeps me working.
Td do it regardless of whether I was getting
paid for it. It serves me in that it expresses
something l'm not really sure about. Maybe.
the thing being explored is the present
problem in my life, but it also shows how
we're all connected. For others, maybe it
expresses an almost duplicate experience
in their life. Going through it together is
like a rite of initiation or a hazing.
PLAYBOY: How a hazing?
PALAHNIUK: Hazings are rites used to test.
and bond us. On the first day of my job at
Freightliner on the assembly line, they sent
me to get back a squeegee sharpener. They
said, “If you can't do it, you're fired." So
I went to every workstation, trying to bor-
row back this squeegee sharpener. Every-
body I asked tore into me, humiliated me,
abused me. By the end of my shift I real-
ized there was no such thing as a squeegee
sharpener, but I'd gone through a ritual
of humiliation everyone had experienced
After that I was part of the club. I've heard
others’ stories about their own initiations.
In France a couple of years ago a man
came up to me and said he was a veteri-
narian. He said it’s really hard to get into
the Academy of Veterinarian Sciences in
Paris. Once you're accepted they throw a
party for you in the labs late at night. They
give you wine and put animal tranquilizer
in it so you black out. Then they take off
all your clothes and ball you up really tight
and methodically sew you into the belly
of a gutted dead horse. They continue to
party around the dead horse.
PLAYBOY: And this is a good thing?
PALAHNIUK: Well, you wake up and your
head hurts so bad from this horrible ai
mal tranquilizer, Your head aches and your
stomach aches and you just want to throw
up and you can barely breathe and it stinks.
You're disoriented and so ill in this tight,
tight space, but you can hear them out in
the darkness around you. You can hear
them drinking and laughing. The moment
they see you move inside the horse’s hide,
they start yelling for you, abusing you.
They're saying, “You think you сап just
pass a test and be one of us? You've got to
fight to be among us. So fight. Fight!” You
start to thrash and claw against this leathery,
damp, horrible skin. Finally you get a hand
through. You claw your way out—you birth
from this dead animal. You're covered with
blood, and you're naked and shaking. They
put a glass of wine in your hand and say,
"Now you're one of us.” Не said after that,
on the days when everything goes wrong in
your practice and all the kitties die and the
puppies die, it's never as bad as waking up
inside a dead horse. You've come through
it. Like coming through one of the stories
in my books makes it easier to go through
something in your life. You can get through
whatever comes your way in life, because
you realize it’s never going to be as bad as
waking up inside a dead horse.

THE PLAYBOY FORUM
WHO'S YOUR DADDY?

А SPERM DONOR'S LIFE HAS BECOME AWFULLY COMPLICATED
BY LORI ANDREWS

magazines at the back of a staff lunchroom at Baylor Medi-

cal Center. He ejaculated into a plastic cup, opened a small
door in the wall and pushed a buzzer. The cup spun out of
sight, with $50 in an envelope returning in its place. Like
other men in his position, the donor probably spent the money
taking his girlfriend to dinner, getting high or—if he was a
frequent enough donor— paying tuition. He was promised
anonymity and told not to give a moment's thought to what
would happen to the sperm once it left that hole in the wall

Now the result of that sperm donation, a 27-year-old
graduate student named Kathleen LaBounty, is looking
for her father. And depending on his own beliefs and life
circumstances, the possibility that she will find him is either
a modern Hallmark moment or something that will scare
the bejesus out of him

Since its inception more than a century ago, sperm
donation has been shrouded in secrecy. In 1884 Dr. Wil-
liam Pancoast, a professor at Jefferson Medical College in
Philadelphia, treated an infertile woman by putting her
under anesthesia and inseminating her with sperm from

І п 1979 а sperm donor entered а small room with erotic

his best-looking student. Only when he realized the child
looked just like the donor did he inform the woman's hus-
band. The man said, “Fine, but don't tell my wife

Even today donor insemination is conducted clandestinely
Couples who create children using donated sperm generally
do not tell the child of his or her unique conception. Instead,
they let the child, relatives and friends assume the baby is the
infertile husband's biological offspring. But changing social
попи including the use of donors by single women, cheap
genetic testing and the sleuthing power of the Internet —have
created a fissure in the wall of secrecy. About 10 percent of
the million children who have issued from donor insemin:
tion now know a sperm donor seeded their life.

Single women usually tell their child at an early age that his
or her biological dad was a donor. College professor Leann
Mischel created a quasi-family by getting in touch with 18
other women across the country who, like her, used donor
401 from the Fairfax Cryobank in Virginia. With 26 chil-
dren under the age of seven among them, they are now a
support group that shares family photos and child-rearing
tips. Once a year many of them gather at a theme park for

а unique family reunion where the chil-
dren, who are half siblings, can get to
know one another. It's only a matter of
time, though, before one of the women
or children decides to find donor 401

“Technologies that were not anticipated
when Kathleen LaBounty was conceived.
have helped children sneak up on donors.
An enterprising 15-year-old tracked down
his anonymous sperm-donor dad by
matching his DNA to that of the donor's
family on a genealogical website. The
boy paid $289 to familytreedna.com for
a genetic test that compared his Y chro-
mosome with other Y chromosomes in a
genealogical registry. He found several
males with whom he had a biological link.
By using the last names of those men, the
known birth date of his biological father
and county birth records, he was able to
identify his donor

An Internet registry that
allows recipients to share
information about donors
also makes it easier to identify
them. Wendy Kramer, whose
son Ryan was conceived
through donor insemination,
started donorsiblingregistry
com, where donor-conceived
can find their half
siblings. Moms and kids write
to ask questions like "Who
else has used donor 20647
So far, more than 23,100
people have registered on
the site, and 6,162 siblings
have been matched

LaBounty's mother was not
given a sperm-donor number
or any facts about the donor.
other than that he had been
à student at Baylor Medical
School. Undeterred, Kathleen recently
wrote to all 600 men who attended the
school at the time of her conception. Amaz-
ingly, 250 wrote back, and 40 of them had
been donors. Some of the men were as
eager as she was to make contact. One
wrote, "I've been waiting 26 years to get
your letter in the mail."

That donor was not alone in his long-
ing for information about the child he'd
created. Kramer was shocked when the
donors themselves started joining online
conversations. More than 750 sperm
donors have registered on her website to
contact their “children.” Other donors
have hired private detectives or stolen a
peek at private medical records to find
out about their biological offspring.

Why would a man who was paid to
masturbate now want a relationship
with the child? Perhaps the experience
of being a sperm donor is not always
the lark the infertility industry assumed

Men usually donate sperm when they
are young and haven't had children
themselves. Later, when they marry and
become fathers, some begin to wonder
what happened to their other children

And who wouldn't want a beautiful, tal-
ented daughter like Kathleen LaBounty
without having to go through the stages of
coli, potty training, second-grade recitals
and driver's ed? But would donor 401 of
Virginia be equally welcoming if 26 young
offspring showed up at his doorstep?

The tens of thousands of men who
serve as sperm donors each year may soon
have to cometo grips with those questions.
Consumers demand for more information
as they choose donors may make track-
ing them easier. While LaBounty knows
only the date and place of the sperm
donation, women seeking sperm donors
today receive anywhere from five to 20

тупее ОМА
Certificate - Y-DNA

yee ees

‘Over-the-counter DNA tests can find biological links.

pages of information about each potential
donor. Although donor 1049's name is not
included in his profile, a clinic’s entry on
him includes a photo showing a clean-cut,
cute Californian. He says he’s a member of
the Clean Oceans Campaign and the Surf-
rider Foundation. He describes himself as
“secure, sensitive, innovative, intelligent,
creative, thoughtful, ambitious, competi-
tive, respectful, comedic and optimistic.”
His SAT score is 1355. His 54-year-old
mother isa healthy, intelligent and adven-
turous painter who wears reading glasses.
His brother is a developer, he adds. How
hard would it be to track down this man?

Searching is not without risk. Jeffrey
Harrison, a hot catch as donor 150 in the
late 1980s, was described on his donor

form as a blue-eyed, six-foot-tall lover of

philosophy and music. Three years ago
two of his sperm-donor children, daugh-
ters born into different families, found
each other and began their search for him.

Instead of encountering a superstar phi-
losophy professor or symphony conduc-
tor, they found a man who lives in a traile
and supports himself doing odd jobs.

And what about the donor's current
family? Not all donors’ wives are pleased
when they find out about other children.
Some understandably feel threatened

So far, none of the Baylor donors who
have undergone paternity tests have
proved to be LaBounty's biological father.
But even when connections are made, not
everyone proceeds with the same speed,
desire or level of interest. One donor wrote
on the donor-sibling website, “I flooded
my biological daughter with photos of me
and her cousins and grandparents, But
just as an example, last night, as I was
sending off a quick e-mail to her, my wife
reminded me that my son was upstairs
vegging out on the Discovery Channel
instead of brushing his teeth
and reading. The clear implica
tion is that time taken to interact
with donor-inse ation kids is
time taken away from the regu-
lar kids, and І parent them less
because of it. It’s a rearrange-
ment of the social order to have
relationships established this
late in life.”

Kirk Maxey, president of a
chemical company, served as a
donor for more than a decade
at the behest of his then wife,
а nurse, Happily married with
children of his own, he reached
out to two daughters he created
through sperm donation, And
now he’s helping other donors,
He has created a nonprofit
genetic-testing center where
donors and children of donors
can have their blood tested for genetic
markers to see if they match. He is also
pushing for laws that would allow children
1o learn the identity of their donor, even
if he had been promised anonymity. Such
laws already exist in Sweden, Germany,
the Netherlands, New Zealand and the
U.K. In early 2009 a Missouri lawmaker
introduced a bill that would allow children
of sperm donors to learn the donor's iden-
tity when they reach the age of 18.

As a result of this social movement,
American donors are preparing to deal
with paternity tests that finger them as
fathers and potential laws that may identify
them to their donor children. A Califor-
nia doctor who created 33 donor children
while in medical school has rewritten his
will. If his donor children sue his estate
after he dies, they will each get $1. While
it’s a lot less than he received for the con-
tents of that little plastic cup, it's still a lot
more than he ever bargained for.

FORUM

HOW TO BUILD A BETTER BABY

THE PERILS OF SMART SPERM

s a newly minted lawyer nearly three decades
ago, I was determined to practice reproductive-
technology law. So when Robert Klark Graham

opened the Repository for Germinal Choice, which

offered sperm from Nobel laureates, І visited him in

Escondido, California. Rather than show me a sleck

laboratory or even a sperm supermarket, Graham took

me to an old well house, where—in a space that looked
like а suburban rec room—he pointed to a tank of liquid
nitrogen. “Imagine the benefits
to society if additional sons of

Thomas Edison could be cre-

ated,” he told me as we stared

at the giant metal thermos.

Graham, a millionaire Mensa
member who had invented shat-
terproof eyeglass lenses, was not
alone іп his quest го produce
smarter children. Back in 1940
the Pioneer Fund offered the
equivalent of about a year's sal-
ary to deserving U.S. Air Corps
pilots who already had at least
three children and who agreed
to have another. The money, to
be doled out yearly starting when
the child reached the age of 12,
was to be used for the additional
child's education.

How did the children of these
efforts turn out? In 1999 Wall
Street Journal reporter Douglas A.
Blackmon followed up on the children who had been born
under the Air Corps program and found them to be quite
ordinary: air-conditioning repairmen, factory workers. Nor
have the Nobel Prize sperm-bank kids broken any records.
In fact, the star of Graham's stable of sperm-bank children,
Doron Blake, seems just as adrift as апу 20-something.

Perhaps that could have been expected. Nobel Prizes
tend to run in laboratories (or in the University of

Robert Klark Graham offered prizewinning sperm

Chicago economics department) rather than in fami-
lies. William Shockley, a Nobel laureate and donor to
Graham's bank, once told rtavgoy his own children
with his less distinguished wife had been "a very sig-
nificant regression" to the mean. And even Edison,
Graham's hero, considered his own son a failed experi-
ment. According to biographer Neil Baldwin, the great
inventor was so ashamed of Thomas Edison Jr. that he
offered him money to change his last name.

In 1999 the Nobel Prize sperm
bank closed its doors. I wish I
could report that the closure was
based on a realization that such
awkward attempts at eugenics
were doomed to failure. On the
contrary, mainstream clinics now
offer catalogs of sperm and egg
donors categorized by IQ and
SAT scores. One enterprising
man began to sell his own sperm
over the Internet by claiming
several royal families and Catho-
lic saints as his ancestors.

But what ifa couple pays extra
for smart sperm and Е= me! isn't
the first thing out of their child's
mouth? Already а couple with
three healthy children born with
the help of a donor has sued the
sperm bank. Among their alle-
gations: If the bank had chosen
a different donor, their children
would be more attractive.

And sometimes you have to be careful what you wish
for. An unmarried man requested a surrogate mother
who was a cross between Eleanor Roosevelt and Brigitte
Bardot. Amazingly, the surrogacy center found someone
who matched that description. The deal never went for-
ward, though. The woman was too headstrong to agree
to the terms of the contract —LA.

WHY IT MATTERS

| READER RESPONSE |

SURE THINGS: TAXES AND DEATH

With regard to his article “Freedom
Tax" (February), Tim Mohr is either dis-
honest or ignorant and perhaps both. As
а successful business owner, І already pay

S аһ. 5

Fairness in taxes is not easily agreed upon.

оге th

60 percent of my income in
taxes to various governments, Yet Mohr
ilk somehow believe I'm not pay-
g my fair share, whatever that means
If Obama raises the corporate tax and
the marginal income tax rates, my com-
pany will be forced to lay off several
dozen employees because we can't afford.
to pay both them and the new taxes.
Mohr's vision for increased taxation of
the so-called rich is a recipe for the per-
manent destruction of the U.S. economy,
We producers of wealth will simply stop
producing or leave the country if the
consumers of wealth insist on bleeding
dry because, for whatever reason, they
feel entitled to other people's money
John Phillips

Del Mar, California

I agree with Mohr's statement that
conservatives have gotten it all wrong in
seeing government's role as moral, not
economic. His assessment that, as time
goes on, civil liberties will diminish and
disparities grow is spot-on as well. My
issue is with his idea of fairness. Yes, the
wealthy owe a great deal to society for
enabling some of them to succeed. How-
ever, to tax the wealthy more heavily just
to give it to others is not air

Tim de Valroger
Hoboken, New Jersey

Mohr has missed an important point
in his well-written article regarding taxa-
tion. He makes the argument that civili-
zation is more stable when great
disparities of wealth among people do
But he has somehow over-

not exist

looked the fact that increasing the tax on
those making more than $250,000 suc-
ceeds in doing two things: First, it taxes
only those attempting to become wealthy,
and second, it taxes the small-business
owners who employ the very people he
doesn't want to become discontented. 1
don't think unemployment will make
anyone particularly happy. President
Obama's proposed tax system fails to tax
the rich; in fact, it protects them by put-
ting the majority of the tax burden on
those who pay income taxes rather than
capital gains taxes.

Jack Cassell

Mount Dora, Florida

Redistribution is the wrong term. Equi-
table taxation is more accurate. Conse
vatives complain that the wealthiest 10
percent pay 60 percent of the taxes col-
lected. But if they hold 70 percent of
the wealth, as Mohr says, or 90 percent,
as I've seen elsewhere, shouldn't they
be paying more? The rest of the popu-
lation pays 40 percent of taxes and
holds somewhere between 10 and 30
percent of the nation's wealth. Where is
the logic and fairness in that?

Bill Schillig
Reston, Virg

іа

Its true a lopsided society cannot su
ceed, so what can we do to bring society
back on an even keel? The labor unions
are pushing to pass the Employce Free
Choke Act, or EFCA. This bill would make
it easier for employees to form unions. Big.
business is spending huge amounts of
money to prevent this bill from passing. It
tells the American people union bosses are
trying to steal their right to а secret ballot

Freedom is threatened by extremism.

What it doesn't tell them is, rather than
take away their right to a secret ballot, the
bill takes away a company’s ability to force
а drawn-out election during which the

company can intimidate workers until
they are too afraid to vote for unionizing,
If EFCA is passed, employees in America
will no longer be at their bosses’ mercy.
They will be able to negotiate job security
better pay and better benefits

Bill Herbert

Miners Mill, Pennsylvania

SHARP CONTRAST
Thank you, thank you, thank you
for responding to all those morons
who used Pat Buchanan as a counter
to Tavis Smiley (Reader Response, Febru-

Not friends: Pat Buchanan and Tavis Smiley.

ary). Buchanan is a bigoted gasbag. He
has no business on radio or television
To those morons out there: Go back to
school and learn our history
Joseph DiBlanca
Highland, New York

LIGHT AND TRUTH
підувоу is hands down my all-time
favorite magazine. I look forward to every
issue so I can read my favorite section,
Playboy Forum. The concept behind the
January Newsfront item “Word,” about the
more woman-friendly nature of sexually
liberated societies, could also apply to
other restrictions on personal freedom via
force, coercion or rash punishment. Just
as Elisabeth Eaves describes in the piece
how sexual repression creates a more
threatening society for women, drug pro-
hibition promotes irresponsible behavior
and occasionally puts people in unsafe
situations. Laws work because people
follow sensible ones. Law enforcement
needs to return to the idea of peace offi-
cers who focus on decreasing destruc-
tive behavior, not exacerbating it
Matthew Armstrong
Kansas City, Missouri

E-mail via the web at letters.playboy.com.
Or write: 680 North Lake Shore Drive,
Chicago, IL 60611.

FORUM

NEWSFRONT

Good Charlotte
new vork-Wetlands, а sexually and
anatomically explicit novel by Charlotte
Roche (pictured), translated from the
German by ptaveoy staffer Tim Mohr, is
stirring up new debate over an old topic:
What constitutes art versus porn when it
comes to describing female sexuality? The
book's 18-year-old heroine vividly details
her various bodily fluids and secretions,
anal sex (with and without “chocolate
dip"), intimate shaving, masturbation,
drug use and hiring prostitutes for same-
sex experimentation, among other things.
One of Roche's stated aims is to create а
new vocabulary for women to talk about
their bodies. Among her innovations:
snail-tail for clitoris, ladyfingers—as in
the baked goods—for outer labia and
dewlaps for inner labia. Another aim is to
counter a sterile, denatured ideal of femi-
ninity embodied by such things as Sex
and the City. So far her goals have been
well served: Wetlands has sold a million
copies in Germany and recently hit the
best-seller lists in the U.K., where it was
called “punk feminism" and compared to
the works of Anals Nin and Erica Jong,
The Sexual Life of Catherine M., 100
Strokes of the Brush Before Bed and
even J.D. Salinger's Catcher in the Rye.
As for the art-versus-porn debate, we say
who cares? It's all good.

One Toke Over the Line
&ALTIMORE— Michael Phelps described as
“fair” his three-month ban from com-
petitive swimming after a photo sur-
faced of him smoking from a bong. But
there's nothing
fair about the de-
cision of a sports
body to punish
someone for a
private incident
with no ramifica-
tions for his ath-
letic career. In a
statement, USA
Swimming admit-
ted this “is not
a situation where any antidoping rule
was violated," but rather than leave it
at that, the body decided to shift its role
to morality police, saying it “felt that
it was important to send a message."
Here's a message for them: Your role
ends at the edge of the pool and should
not extend into athletes’ private lives.

Womb With a View

WASHINGTON, D.c.—Among the first changes
instituted by the Obama administration
was the lifting of antichoice gag orders
and restrictions on funding to agencies that
provide contraception and family planning
abroad. Although the president tried to зер-
arate this ruling from the domestic debate
surrounding Roe v. Wade by not announc-
ing the change on the January 22 anniver-
sary of the Roe decision (as has become
customary for new administrations on both
sides of the issue), the legal wrangling
of the case has lately spilled over to the
world stage. In recent years rights groups
have sought to enshrine reproductive rights
alongside other human rights via interna-
tional courts, while antiabortion advocates
such as the Catholic Family and Human
Rights Institute have taken their fight to
places like the United Nations. The Euro-
pean Court of Human Rights found in favor
of a Polish woman who had been denied an
abortion despite losing her eyesight because
of pregnancy, the UN Human Rights Com-

mittee condemned Peru for forcing a teen-
age girl to carry a nonviable fetus to term,
and the Inter-American Commission on Hu-
man Rights made a settlement whereby the
Mexican govemment will pay a stipend to a
rape victim denied an abortion. Perhaps the
most dramatic development for women's
rights advocates is an African Union treaty
that is the first human rights agreement to
explicitly mention abortion rights.

The Watchmen
10NDON—A U.K. gov-
ernment commis-
sion wamed that the
country's use of sur-
veillance cameras
and a DNA database
threaten to under- В
mine democracy. ®
Explained Lord Goodlad, chairman of the
Constitution Committee, “There can be no
justification for this gradual but incessant
creep toward every detail about us being
recorded and pored over by the state.”

Have a Cold One
Break out the atomic wings and
Keystone: Flgure skating's on!
Doesn't work. Men Just don't
Uke figure skating. But topless
figure skating—there’s an Idea
with legs. With this sort of form,
Russian ce queen EKATERINA
RUBLEVA Is one to watch.

Legendary big-bust
actress KITTEN
NATIVIDAD some-
times amazes even
herself. In this ad
spotted in Italian
PLAYBOY, the Russ
Meyer muse marvels
at her unwrapped
gifts like a child on
Christmas morn
We're not sure what
Negroni is, but we'll
take two, bartender.

Play Hard
lay ПД

Model and actress AMANDA REDD plays the
"hot babe who meets a grisly death" in the sci-fi
indie Interplanetary. Tragic! She also tells us
she's retiring from modeling. Extra tragic!

Damn

This

Fancy-Ass

Swimsuit

WHITNEY PORT,

Who played"
Whitney, Porta.

петь c
around Да
works for Diane
von Furstenberg
їп New York City.
Is she wearing
a Diane von Fur-
stenberg bikini
here? Depends
on your defintion
of wearing.

The Rear
Her U.K. number
one single “The
Fear” ls awry
bitch slap to the
Paris Hiltons of
the world, but that
doesn't mean LILY
ALLEN Is a sober
stick-In-the-

mud. She's
moreofa

Pie fanatio OLIVIA MUNN is in favor of a National Pie
Week, and to make the case (or something) she jumped
knees-first into a giant chocolate cream pie, wearing a
French maid's outfit. So yes, there is cream in her panties.

“I feel women were made to be beautiful,” says college student
ASHLEY KIMEL. "I'm very comfortable with my body and see no rea-
son to hide it under layers of clothing" Amen, sister. Ashley is studying
culinary arts and may also go for a degree in hotel management. If
this means she has а bed-and-breakfast in her future, we're there,

AMERICA, THE BEAUTIFUL.

AMERICA OLIVO-AS OUR FEBRUARY BECOMING ATTRACTION, SHE
WAS THE BABE OF THE MONTH. NOW WITH HER APPEARANCE IN
TRANSFORMERS: REVENGE OF THE FALLEN AND HER HOT PICTO-
RIAL, WE ARE DECLARING AMERICA THE BABE OF THE SUMMER.

SHIA LABEOUF—TALK ABOUT MAKING IT TO THE BIG TIME.
FIRST THE WORLD LEARNED HOW TO PRONOUNCE HIS NAME
(SHY-UH LUH-BUFF). NOW НЕ SITS FOR THE PLAYBOY INTER-
VIEW. WITH THE NEXT TRANSFORMERS MOVIE HITTING CIN-
EPLEXES, LABEOUF TELLS DAVID HOCHMAN ABOUT HOW HIS
FIRST SEXUAL EXPERIENCE WENT WRONG AND HIS RUN-INS
WITH JOHNNY LAW.

PLAYMATE OF THE YEAR—TO GIVE YOU A TASTE AND FUEL YOUR
GUESSES ABOUT OUR FAVORITE PLAYMATE FROM 2008, WE HAVE
PROVIDED A PICTURE ON THE UPPER RIGHT OF THIS PAGE.

KING OF OXICLEAN—BILLY MAYS CAN SELL ANYTHING TO ANY-
ONE. PART OF THE MAGIC IS THE EXCLUSIVITY OF HIS PROD-
UCTS, WHICH ARE AVAILABLE ONLY ON TELEVISION. THE REST IS
ALL HIM. PAT JORDAN MEETS THE BEARDED BARKER IN PERSON
TO SEE HOW HIS CHARMS TRANSLATE BEYOND TV LAND.

‘THE HILLIKER CURSE—JAMES ELLROY, THE DEMON DOG OF FIC-
TION, DELIVERS THE NEXT INSTALLMENT OF HIS UNBELIEVABLE
TRUE-LIFE STORY. IN THIS SECTION OF THE MEMOIR: WHILE HAN-

Playboy (ISSN 003:
Lake Shore Driv

DLING SOBRIETY HE DEALS WITH HIS MOTHER'S MURDER BY TRY-
ING TO FIND A GIRLFRIEND LIKE МОМ,

FREE LOVE IN THE AGE OF THE INTERNET—KEY PARTIES WERE
ONCE FOR THE FEW SWINGERS IN THE NEIGHBORHOOD. BUT IN
THE GLOBAL COMMUNITY YOU CAN CONNECT TO ANYONE WHO 15
GAME. DAVID BLACK TAKES US TO AN ORGY WHERE THE SEXUAL
REVOLUTION AND THE INTERNET REVOLUTION CLIMAX TOGETHER.

JIMMY ROLLINS—SURE, ATHLETES LOOK COOL, BUT UNLESS YOU'RE
BUILT LIKE A HOUSE IT'S NOT ALWAYS WISE TO EMULATE THEIR
(ЦЕ. ENTER THE FIVE-FOOT-EIGHT, 175-POUND 2007 NL MVP AND
2008 WORLD SERIES CHAMP. OUR FASHION EDITORS DRESS THE
PHILLIES SHORTSTOP IN HIP OFF-THE-RACK SUMMER CLOTHES.

20Q—THE MOST IMPORTANT PERSON IN BASEBALL ISN'T BARRY
BONDS, A-ROD OR EVEN BUD SELIG—IT'S SCOTT BORAS. WE
NEGOTIATE OUR WAY THROUGH A Q&A WITH THE SUPERAGENT.

LOVELY RITA—WHEN A FREAK ACCIDENT KILLS A PLANT WORKER,
HIS GIRLFRIEND ORGANIZES A FUND-RAISING RAFFLE. THE
PRIZE? A NIGHT WITH HER. FICTION BY MAILE MELOY

PLUS: THINK CANE-SUGAR SPIRITS ARE FOR GIRLS? YOU'VE MISSED
THE RUM RUNNER; WE SHOW HOW TO MAKE THIS THE BEST SUMMER
EVER AND COME ON, GET HAPPY FOR MISS JUNE CANDICE CASSIDY.

2-1478), May 2009, volume 56, number 5. Published monthly by Playboy in national and regional editions, Playboy, 680 North
hicago, Illinois 60611. Periodicals postage paid at Chicago, Illinois and at additional mailing offices. Canada Post Canadian

Publications Mail Sales Product Agreement No. 40035534. Subscriptions: in the U.S., $29.97 for a year. Postmaster: Send address change to

118 Playboy, РО. Box 2007, Harlan, Iowa 51537-4007. For subscription-related questions, call 800-999-4438,

LIGHTS ON LIGHTS OFF

SOME PERFECTION IS DEBATABLE.

7? SOME IS NOT.

Made by hand from 100% blue agave.
The world's #1 ultra-premium tequila.

SIMPLY PERFECT.

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— mn

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9

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