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э!ауЬоу.сот е MARCH 2011 


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ине man of letters E.B. White 

wrote, “The first day of 

spring was once the time for 
taking the young virgins into the 
fields, there in dalliance to set an 
example in fertility for Nature to 
follow. Now we just set the clocks 
an hour ahead and change the oil 
іп the crankcase.” That sounds 
cynical only if you don't love 
crankcases as much as contrib- 
uting editor James R. Petersen, 
who in The Long Road describes 
(and shares photographs from) 
his often treacherous journey 
on motorcycle through South 


newly installed as Washington 
bureau chief of The Daily Beast, 
travels behind the scenes in Tab- 
loid Takedown to provide the 
most detailed account yet of the 
National Enquirer's dogged pursuit 
of a story nobody else seemed to 
want—that of married presidential 
candidate John Edwards secretly 
fathering a child with a campaign 
videographer. Eight years after the 
passing of our hero Asa Baber, 
Nick Tosches ably revives the 
Men column with My Hero Lefty, 
the story of a friend of his father's 
who managed to put off getting 
a phone for his entire life while 
the rest of us became enslaved 
by bells, buzzes and vibrations. 
Lisa Lampanelli, meanwhile, 
kick-starts the Women column, originated 
by Cynthia Heimel, with How to Be a Mean 
Boy, a course in the art of being nasty, which 
she claims will help any man get laid. Would 
this strategy work with a babe like Win: 
Ave Zoli, who plays porn star seductress 
Lyla on FX's Sons of Anarchy? We'll let 
someone else take that chance. We're sweet 
on Winter, and the gorgeous photos of her 
by Marlena Bielinska carry us to a higher 
place. That's where we bumped into Deepak 
Chopra. Is the New Age guru a shaman or 
a showman? You decide after reading our 
mindful Playboy Interview. William Holbert 
took people to a much darker place. After 
he and his wife moved to Bocas del Toro, a 
favorite escape in Panama, his expat neigh- 
bors seemed to pick up and Leave in a hurry. 
In Wild Bill, Robert Drury reveals the hor- 
rifying truth of what happened, There are 
more painful secrets at the farmhouse imag- 
ined by Т.С. Boyle for his short story Good 
Home. It used to be a quiet place, but now 
the men who own it take in strays only to 
demonstrate the dangers of arriving at the 
end of the road. Pick up Boyle's new novel, 
When the Killing's Done, for additional 
improvisations on human perversity. 


Deepak Chopra 


Robert Drury 


Marlena Bielinska with Winter Ave Zoli 


т.с! Boyle 


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Pour 


Sntroducing 


ABSOLUT WILD TEA 
Cocktaib St (аға 


A VISION FROM KAREN O AND WARREN DU PREEZ & NICK THORNTON JONES 


VOL. 58, NO. 3-MARCH 2811 


AYBOY 


CONTENTS 
| FEATURES 


42 TABLOID TAKEDOWN 
HOWARD KURTZ reveals how a group of 
tabloid misfits from the National Enquirer 
y became John Edwards's worst night- 
4 mare and changed the course of the 
р 2008 presidential election. 
76 NEANDERTHAL LOVE 
When our Cro-Magnon ancestors 
encountered their big-browed cousins 
Homo neanderthalensis some 40,000 
years ago, did the two species bump 
uglies? CHIP ROWE investigates 
80 THE LONG ROAD 
B == Even as a disease steadily deteriorates 
WILD BILL his vision, a lifelong motorcycle enthu- 
siast makes a perilous journey through 
South America and its notorious Road 
Wherever William Holbert went in Bocas del Toro, Panama, people had an odd of Death. By JAMES R. PETERSEN. Plus: a 
habit of vanishing. ROBERT DRURY delves into the bizarre story of a psychotic review of six must-have bikes coming 
serial killer who wreaked havoc in a tropical paradise. to a road near you this year. 


INTERVIEW 
35 DEEPAK CHOPRA 


In a revealing conversation with DAVID 
HOCHMAN, the spirituality guru shares his 
thoughts on sex, politics and scienc 
opens up about his hallucinogenic drug 
experiences and his rise to celebrity. 


200 
56 SETH GREEN 


The funnyman, actor and producer talks 
to DAVID HOCHMAN about Robot Chicken, 
his secret project with George Lucas and 
the ever-growing sex appeal of nerds 


FICTION 
58 GOOD HOME 


А man's savage character is exposed by 
man's best friend. By PEN/Faulkner 
Award winner T.C. BOYLE. 


— Ng COVER STORY 
DAU GHTE » [8] Winter Ave Zoli is comfortable in her own 
| | skin—a quality that comes in handy when she 
portrays Lyla, a feisty porn star with a heart 
ANARCH ee 
ј | channels lingerie instead of biker leather for 


photographer Marlena Bielinska, our Rabbit 
sees the world through lace. 


VOL. 58, МО. 3-MARCH 2011 


PLAYBO 


60 PLAYMATE 


ASHLEY MATTING 


GIRLS OF THE 
MEDITERRANEAN 
The scenic coastlines offer only one 
of the spectacular views to be found 
їп this diverse region. Enjoy our pulse- 
quickening tour of old-world beauty 
PLAYMATE: 
ASHLEY MATTINGLY 
Get to know the comely Miss March, 
an athletic Texas firecracker who loves 
sports, traveling and driving fast. 


DAUGHTER OF ANARCHY 
Winter Ave Zoli plays a sexy biker bad 
girl on Sons of Anarchy, and now this 
beautiful woman with a strange name 
and an unusual background shows off 
all her breakneck curves. 


MY HERO LEFTY 
5 pays homage toa 
man who managed to go through 
modern life sans a telephone. 

HOW TO BE A MEAN BOY 
Bad boys get all the babes, which 
is why it might come in handy for 
you to know how to play the part. 
By 


1 THE WORLD OF PLAYBOY 

Hef receives two PEN USA literary awards; the 
girls of the Lingerie Football League kick back 
with our Editor-in-Chief during their sexy PLAYBOY 
shoot; Playboy Clubs open in Сапсип and Macao; 
Children of the Night bestows its Founder's Hero 
of the Heart Award on Hef. 

PLAYMATE NEWS 
Miss February 2009 Jessica Burciaga stars in 
Jamie Foxx's new music video; Miss June 2007 
Brittany Binger is Kendra Wilkinson-Baskett's 
right-hand woman; Miss September 1995 Donna 
D'Errico battles the TSA 


PLAYBILL 
DEAR PLAYBOY 
AFTER HOURS 


FASHION 


REVIEWS 
MANTRACK 
When it comes to looking sharp, good PLAYBOY ADVISOR 
jeans are just as important as good PARTY JOKES 
genes. ST 's comprehen- 
sive guide to all things denim. GRAPEVINE 


PLAYBOY VALUES 
The 112th Congress is under way 
and Tea-fueled Republicans now 
run the show. We reveal how our 
new leadership will manage social 
issues such as freedom of speech, 
gun laws and sexual rights 


PLAYBOY. COM 


THE MOVIES This Oscars 
season we re-create classic movie post- 
ers with our award-worthy models. 

E BABES BRACKET Vote for 
the sexiest coed in the country in our 
version of March Madness—you might 
win a trip to a Playboy photo shoot. 
BLUE ANGELS Don't miss this hip- 
hugging ode to women in denim 

Е SMOF JACKET Bored? Visit 
Playboy's safe-for- BER ‘site (thesmoking 
jacket.com) for girls, gear and daily 


internet hilarity. 
PLAYBOY ON PLAYBOY ON 
FACEBOOK TWITTER 


OCIAL Keep up with all things 
Playboy at facebook.com/playboy and 
twitter.com/playboy. 


PRINTED IN U.S.A. 


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PLAYBOY 


10 


See where 
it all began. 
EVERY PHOTOGRAPH 


EVERY ARTICLE 


EVERY INTERVIEW 


EVER 


PAM ANDERSON 
FIRST COVER PHOTO 
OCTOBER 1989 


Own every issue 
of Playboy magazine 
from 1953 through 
2010 on a searchable 
external hard drive. 


TO PURCHASE, GO TO: 
WWW.PLAYBOYARCHIVE.COM OR 
'WW.PLAYBOYSTORE.COM, 
OR CALL 1 800 423 9494 


PLAYBOY 


HUGH M. HEFNER 
editor-in-chief 


JIMMY JELLINEK 
editorial director 
STEPHEN RANDALL deputy editor 
ROB WILSON art director 
LEOPOLD FROEHLICH managing editor 


MATT DOYLE photography director 
AJ. BAIME executive editor 
AMY GRACE LOYD executive literary editor 
PATTY BEAUDET-FRANCES deputy photography director 
STEVE GARBARINO, NICK TOSCHES writers at large 


EDITORIAL 
тім MG CoRMICK editorial manager FEATURES: CHIP ROWE senior editor 
FASHIO! 
ARANYA TOMSETH assistant editor; CHERIE BRADLEY senior assistant; GILBERT MACIAS senior editorial 
assistant CARTOON 


JENNIFER RYAN JONES editor STAFF: JOSH SCHOLLMEYER senior editor; 


: AMANDA WARREN associate cartoon editor COPY: 


WINIFRED ORMOND copy chief 
BRADLEY LINCOLN, SANHITA SINHAROY Copy editors RESEARCH: BRIAN COOK, LING MA, 
мл OSTROWSKI research editors CONTRIBUTING EDITORS: BRANTLEY BARDIN, MARK BOAL, GARY 
COLE, ROBERT В. DE SALVO, GRETCHEN EDGREN, KEN GROSS, DAVID HOCHMAN, ARTHUR KRETCHMER 
(automotive), CHRISTIAN PARENTI, JAMES R. PETERSEN, ROCKY RAKOVIC, STEPHEN REBELLO, DAVID RENSIN, 
WILL SELF, DAVID SHEFF, DAVID STEVENS, ROB TANNENBAUM, ALICE K. TURNER 


CHRISTOPHER NAPOLITANO editor at large 


ART 
SCOTT ANDERSON, BRUCE HANSEN senior art directors; сору TILSON associate art director; 
EL photo researcher; 
PAUL CHAN senior art assistant; STEFANI COLE senior art administrator 


CRISTELA Р TSCHUMY digital designer; MATT STE 


PHOTOGRAPHY 
STEPHANIE MORRIS west coast editor; KRYSTLE JOHNSON associate editor; BARBARA LEIGH assistant editor; 
ARNY FREYTAG, STEPHEN WAYDA senior contributing photographers; JAMES IMBROGNO, 
RICHARD IZUI, ZACHARY JAMES JOHNSTON, 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 


PUBLIC RELATIONS 
THERESA M. HENNESSEY vice president; TERI THOMERSON director 


PRODUCTION 
JODY J. JURGETO production director; DEBBIE TILLOU associate manager; 
CHAR KROWCZYK assistant manager; BILL BENWAY, RICH CRUBAUGH, SIMMIE WILLIAMS prepress 


ADMINISTRATIVE 
MARCIA TERRONES rights & permissions director 


INTERNATIONAL PUBLISHING 
DAVID WALKER editorial director; MARKUS GRINDEL marketing manager 


PLAYBOY ENTERPRISES INTERNATIONAL, INC. 
SCOTT FLANDERS chief executive officer 


ADVERTISING AND MARKETING: AMERICAN MEDIA INC. 
DAVID PECKER chairman and chief executive officer; KEVIN HYSON chief marketing officer; 
MARC RICHARDS vice president, group publisher; JOHN LUMPKIN vice president, publisher; HELEN BIANCULLI 
executive director, direct-response advertising; MARIE FIRNENO advertising operations director 
NEW YORK: BRIAN HOAR spirits, gaming and entertainment manager; DAVID LEVENSON consumer 

products manager; рал. soutu integrated sales director; ANTOINETTE FORTE national sports nutrition 

director; кему TROYER advertising coordinator; JULIA LIGHT vice president, marketing; JOHN Krrses art 
director; JAMES CRESS Senior marketing manager; DANIELLE BRUEN, CHARLES ROMANO marketing managers; 

LIZA JACOWITZ promotions coordinator CHICAGO: scorr Liss midwest director; SARAH HEMKER digital 
sales planner DETROIT: ЕЕЕ vOGEL national automotive director LOS ANGELES: LORI KESSLER southwest 

director; РАСТ LANGE northwest director; amy SPALDING digital sales planner 


THERBWORLD PLAYBOY 


HEF SIGHTINGS, MANSION FROLICS AND NIGHTLIFE NOTES 


GIRLS OF THE GRIDIRON 

The same logic that first combined peanut butter and chocolate now marries 
sexy girls in lingerie and football. To go the whole nine yards we asked the girls 
of the Lingerie Football League to bare all for February's cover and pictorial. 
Here's a behind-the-scenes look at the shoot—now that's a huddle! 


HEF RECEIVES TWO PEN LITERARY AWARDS 
PEN USA honored Hugh M. Hefner twice in one night. On 
behalf of the literary organization, Barry "the Fish" Melton 
presented Hef the Award of Honor for his work editing 
PLAYBOY; Hef was also lauded with the First Amendment 
Award for fighting the good fight against censorship. 


BOY.CLUB SAND: $ Ad 


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INTERNATIONAL НОТ SPOTS 
"Seeing Bunnies in a global market 
proves that Playboy is revolutioniz- 
ing nightlife again," Hef said after 
Playboy Clubs reopened abroad. = NUMBER ONE IN 
After-hours impresarios Reggie Martin and 8 OUR HEARTS 

Pete Wu kicked off the party in Macao, and “Thank you for taking 
four-time cover girl Carmen Electra cut the 1 

ribbon at the Playboy Club Cancun. 


a chance when по one 
else would," Children 
of the Night founder 
and president Lois 
Lee (at left with Hung's 
Thomas Jane) said as 
she bestowed Hef with 
the Founder's Hero of 
the Heart Award. Hef 
has supported the 
charity, which rescues 
children from prostitu- 
tion, since its inception 
in January 1979. 


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THREE CHEERS FOR BEERS 
In Beer Wars (January) Kevin Cook 
beautifully captures the personalities of 
Brooklyn Brewery, its owner, Steve Hindy, 
and its brewmaster, Garrett Oliver. Today 
some 1,675 American breweries produce 
about 16,000 beers, more than at any time 
in the past 100 ycars, and they all have 
great stories (the breweries and the beers). 
Yet, as Cook points out, millions of people 
still haven't heard of craft beers or have 
inexplicably chosen to drink beer with lit- 
tle flavor. Cheers to PLAYBOY for helping 
change that by telling one of the great 
American beer stories. 
Jay Brooks 
Novato, California 
Brooks is editor of the Brookston Beer Bul- 
letin (brookstonbeerbulletin.com), 


LONGER AND STRONGER 

I am glad to see PLAYBOY address the 
issue of premature ejaculation (The 
Dynamics of Sexual Acceleration, January). 
Seven years ago I published She Comes 
First, which begins with a chapter called 
"Confessions of a Premature Ejaculator.” 
I wasn't eager to share my personal trau- 
mas, but PE had nearly destroyed my 
sex life. I wish I had known then what 
we know now: that men with chronic 
PE have a brain chemistry that predis- 
poses them to the problem. I found 
that taking a low dose of an SSRI anti- 
depressant (e.g., Prozac, Zoloft, Paxil) 
helped significantly because SSRIs have 
the side effect of delaying ejaculation. 
I didn't stay on the meds forever, but 
they gave me the chance to develop 
more confidence and learn what I call 
“perpendicular sex positions,” or mak- 
ing love with an emphasis on the top 
side of the penis rather than the more 
sensitive underside. Part of my journey 
required developing a deeper under- 
standing of female sexuality. I learned, 
for example, that even if a guy can last 
as long as he likes, a woman may not 
reach orgasm if she's not receiving the 
right type of stimulation (persistent and 
clitoral). More important for men than 
any pill or technique is to become “clit- 
erate" and learn that for a premature 
ejaculator "outercourse" is more impor- 
tant than intercourse. 

Ian Kerner 
New York, New York 

Kerner is a certified sex therapist. His latest 
book is The Good іп Bed Guide to Overcoming 
Premature Ejaculation (goodinbed.com). 


Your report, while thorough, overlooks 
an important issuc. Based on the dura- 
tion of what researchers call intravaginal 
ejaculation latency time (or IELT, 
the amount of time an erection is inside 
a vagina before ejaculation), I have pro- 
posed in a number of scientific articles 
that PE be divided into four subtypes, 
which combined affect about 20 percent 
of men. To lifelong PE and acquired PE 
we have added natural variable PE and 


DEAR PLAYBOY 


Cold Comfort 
Kendra Wilkinson's cover (Decem- 
ber) proves a beautiful smile always 
wins over a seductive or sultry look. 
Joe Kuether 
Wausau, Wisconsin 


I bought the December issue after 
the cover caught my eye 
blonde ski bunny to help me cope with 
the long winter. Much to my dismay, 
the pictorial (Simply Kendra) doesn't 
a single ski-related photo. I 
knew it had to be too good to be true. 
Feel free to correct this omission in a 
future issue for the sake of us moun- 
tain men in the wild West. 

Daniel Cassidy 
Bozeman, Montana 


premature-like ejaculatory dysfunction, 
in which men complain of rapid ejacu- 
lation but are found to have normal or 
even better than average stamina. After 
two studies of men from five countries, 
including the U.S., it appears that per- 
sistent IELT of less than one minute 
affects about 2.5 percent of men, not the 
20 percent to 30 percent often cited by 
drug companies. For that reason, health 
insurers should reimburse the treatment 


Are you a rocket man or a slow hand? 


costs of lifelong PE rather than dismiss 
the antidepressants used for this purpose 
as "lifestyle" drugs. 
Dr. Marcel Waldinger 
Utrecht, The Netherlands 
Waldinger is a neuropsychiatrist and pro- 
fessor of sexual psychopharmacology at the 
University of Utrecht. 


FLAG APPEAL 

The photo of the cast of Jersey Shore 
draped in American flags (Notes on Jersey 
Shore, January) violates U.S. Code: Title 4, 


Chapter 1, Section 8, subsections a. (never 
display union down), b. (never touch the 
flag to anything beneath it), d. (never use 
as apparel or drapery), i. (never use in 
advertising) and j. (never use as a cos- 
tume). As a veteran I feel the photo is 
in bad taste. Hugh Hefner, as a veteran 
himself, should never have let that photo 
be printed in the magazine, especially in 
conjunction with that terrible show. 

Jack Driggers 

Monroe, North Carolina 


EXPLOSIVE FICTION 

Thom Jones's Bomb Shelter Noel (Janu- 
ary) is brilliant. I will be surprised if 
not selected for The Best American Short 
Stories 2011. Thanks for another great 
holiday present. 


Joseph Dillmann 
Libertyville, Illinois 


LET'S MAKE А DEAL 
I enjoyed Vulture Capitalism (December), 

but when a country defaults on billions 
of U.S. taxpayer dollars and has to pay 
only $100 million to settle up, you ask 
yourself, Where do I sign up? I worked 
in Iraq for four years and saw the Iraqis 
squander everything we gave them. Now 
1 read reports of the country being broke 
and large sums of cash disappearing into 
thin air. Some debt collector will be get- 
ting rich off Iraq in a few years. 

Jason Dixon 

Visalia, California 


WHAT YOU CAN'T KNOW 

Peter Lance's article about Anthony 
Shaffer's Bourne-like tale (The Private War 
of Anthony Shaffer, January) is one of the 
most interesting I've read in PLAYBOY. I 
wish I could say I was shocked that our 
three-letter agencies had valuable intelli- 
gence in their hands and chose to ignore 


PLAYBOY 


When Hugh Hefner founded the 
first Playboy Club in Chicago, 
he wanted a female waitstaff 
that would embody the Playboy 
fantasy. The Playboy Bunny was 
born, and 50 years later she lives 
on in our imaginations. With 
more than 200 amazing pho- 
tos of classic Bunnies—along 
with many never-before-seen 
images—50 Years of the Playboy 
Bunny is the definitive work on 
a cultural icon. Go to playboy 
store.com to order. (176 pages, $35, 
Chi Books) 


it. Please let us know if Operation Dark 
Heart is republished without the U.S. gov- 
ernment’s 256 redactions. 
Jay Guio 
Indianapolis, Indiana 


Earlier books such as Steve Coll's Ghost 
Wars (2004) and Pete Blaber's The Mi 
the Men, and Me (2008) also descri 
history of our military's ignorance of early- 
warning systems and the cover-your-ass 
mentality that seems to have been instilled 
in a large part of the Army officer corps. 

Glen Piro 
Mansfield, Massachusetts 


HEAD OF CLASS 
I am astounded by how perfectly 
Samantha Gillison puts into words how I 
also feel about giving head (The Platonic 
Ideal, January). It’s a powerful position to 
know you're in charge of someone else's 
pleasure, and the incredible feeling of a 
throbbing erection in my mouth is to me 
more intimate than intercourse. It makes 
my toes curl to think about it. 
Name withheld 
Rutland, Vermont 


HEART AND SOUL 
I'm a former Clevelander, and City of 
Broken Dreams by Joe Eszterhas (Decem- 
ber) stands as my favorite essay published 
in PLAYBOY during all my years as a sub- 
scriber. On behalf of northeast Ohio 
natives everywhere (except LeBron 
James—may he never win a title), thank 
you for such an honest, thoughtful love 
letter to a city that deserves a little love. 
Joe Donatelli 
Los Angeles, California 


It’s great to see Cleveland properly 
portrayed. Maybe now outsiders will 
understand we aren’t the way we are 
because it’s easy or glamorous but because 
we have to be that way to survive, and we 
enjoy every moment. 


Jarrod Amberik 
Cleveland, Ohio 


Despite all the jokes about Cleve- 
land, it has had a global influence on 
rock and roll. It the place for new 
artists—including David Bowie, Bruce 
Springsteen, Mott the Hoople and many 
others—to get on the airwaves. 

Tom Kirker 
Niles, Ohio 


SPEED BUMP 
In December's Mantrack you describe 
the Porsche 911 GT2 RS as a V6. In fact 
its engine is a flat-6 boxer. 
Mike Derby 
South Riding, Virginia 
You're right. In a flat-6 the three pistons on 
each side of the crankshaft move in opposite 
directions simultaneously, like boxers punch- 
ing their gloves together. This configuration is 
wider and flatter than a V6's, giving the engine 
a lower center of gravity. 


LADIES OF THE ‘80S 
Why We Love the "805 (December) 
neglects a woman who had an impact felt 
to this day: Miss July 1986 Lynne Austin. 
She put Hooters оп the map, and her bill- 
boards in the Tampa Bay arca had many 
of us driving in circle: 
Jay Yardley 
St. Petersburg, Florida 


You forgot another great Playmate, 
Miss August 1986 Ava Fabian, who last 
May posed in the Club at playboy.com. 

Richard O'Rourke 
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 


LET THE SUNSHINE IN 
As winter set in on the Midwest and 
memories of beaches, bikinis and hot 


Ashley Hobbs brightens another day. 


rods faded, I found myself snapped 
out of my doldrums by Playmate Ashley 
Hobbs (Beach Holiday, December) with 
her exquisite tan lines and blonde tresses. 
Spring can't get here quickly enough. 
Jerry Petersen 
Davenport, Iowa 


BRIEF LIVES 

1 laughed my ass off at | 
Data statistic that nine percent of Ате! 
ican men have washed and reused a 
toothbrush after it fell into the crap- 
per. (I’m not one of them.) For a future 
Raw Data you should find out how many 
American men have bought new under- 
wear just to put off doing the laundry. (I 
have done that several times.) 

Rick Jerome 
Denver, Colorado 

You want underwear stats? We have 
underwear stats. A survey commissioned by 
Jockey found 26 percent of American men 
own undies that are at least five years old. 
And a survey of British and Irish men found 
four percent had gone a week without chang- 
ing their “smalls” and five percent frequently 
wear their underwear inside ош! to get an 
extra day of wear. We're not endorsing that 
practice, but, you know, in a pinch... 


anuary's Raw 


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IT'S THE SURE SIGN OF А GOOD TIME 


« HERE WE (ЗО 


PLAYBOY AFTERHOURS 


BECOMING ATTRACTION 


Every now and then you 
turn on your TV and see 
a woman so unique and 
striking, she makes you 
want to stop time so you 
can stare ather. When we 
firstsaw Brazilian-Italian 
stunner Tina Casciani on 
How I Met Your Mother 
and CSI: Miami, we were 
mesmerized. She's since 
been on Dark Blue, The 
Glades, Burn Notice and 
Undercovers—a solid 
résumé considering she 
arrived in Hollywood two 
years ago. Prior to that 
Tina studied dance and 
theater and worked for 
10 years as a model. "T 
lived in Milan, Sydney, 
Tokyo, Paris, London and 
Cape Town," she says, 
"but I moved to L.A. to 
pursue acting.” Her goal 
is to be in a film that in- 
corporates her dance 
skills. "I'd love to do a 
remake of Flashdance,” 
she says. Meanwhile, we 
stopped time for you. Go 
ahead, drink her in. 


Та love 
to do 
Flashdance. 


PHOTOGRAPHY BY MARCEL INDIK 


FTER MN 


РЕД “е 
Ba 


MOBILE STUDIO 


Cyber Girl Kat 
Kohls purrs for the 
camera..phone. 
This image uses 
the Paris effect 
available at 
ubermind.com. 


Unscrewed 


Some of the best wine in America can't be 
bought in a store. When we heard of the new 
web-based epicurean club Lot 18, which spe- 
cializes in great deals on hard-to-get vino, 
we set up a deal for you. Go to lot18.com/ 
playboy and you'll get an invite to join for no 
fee. Pictured: 2004 Cornerstone Cellars cab- 
ernet, 2008 Laird Family pinot grigio, 2008 
Breggo Anderson Valley pinot noir, available 
for a limited time through lot18.com. 


On the Block 
Here's Johnny : 


Julien's Auctions in Los Angeles, known for selling intimate 
memorabilia from the coolest sons of bitches who ever walked 
(John Lennon, Jimi Hendrix, Albert Einstein), recently held a 
Johnny Cash auction. Highlights: Johnny's knee-high cow- 
boy boots (522,400), rehearsal jumpsuit worn at San Quentin 
(550,000) and 1968 passport ($21,875). Julien's couldn't auc- 
tion Johnny's soul; he sold it to the devil long ago. 


LO) 


Hot Shot 


Phone cameras have improved so much they've 
sparked a new style of imaging. Just as blogging 
turned thousands of schmoes into "writers," 
the phone cam has now democratized art pho- 
j tography. Dozens of apps are available to add 


cool effects to your photos. We took this shot of 
Cyber Girl Kat Kohls with an iPhone and tweaked it with the 
following apps: (A) ShakeIt Photo (51, shakeitphoto.com). (B) 


CameraBag Silver filter ($2, nevercenter.com/camerabag). 
(C) FX Photo Studio Old Photo filter ($3, macphun.com). (D) 
Best Camera Paris filter (53, ubermind.com). 


^ 


SPICY PORK MEATBALLS 
FROM CHEF DANIEL 
HOLZMAN OF THE 
MEATBALL SHOP 


2 Ibs. ground pork shoulder 
ТА tbsp. salt 

һы: cherry peppers, minced 
И сир pepper pickling liquid 
ices white bread, minced 

3 eggs 

2 бер. ойуе oil 


1,Preheat oven to 450 
degrees: 2- Combine all ingre- 
dients except oil in a large 
bowl and mix thoroughly by 
hand. 3. Drizzle oil into 

large (nine-by-13-inch) baking 
dish, making sure to evenly 
coat surface. 4. Roll the 
mixture into golfball-size 
balls, packing firmly. 5. Place 
balls in baking dish in 

a grid so each touches the 

|| ones around it 6. Roast unti 
firm, about 14 minutes. 
„ком to cool for five min- 

utés, then serve with tomato, 
feat, Parmesan cream, pesto 
sauce or mushroom gravy. 


Flavor of the Month 
Have a Ball the мењи п Manhattan has gotten tons 


press since it opened a year ago, in part because the word mi Lis ea: 
form into a headline and because the balls are the 5. Chef Daniel Holzman 
31, started at Le Bernardin, one of the aurants in thi 

15. His Meatball Shop offers your choice of ball, sauce and 

beans?). We snagged his spicy pork meatball recipe for you. Shall w 


Rolling Thunder 

Fine Vintage 

"There is no finer thrill in the world than driving a Ferrari flat-out,” film director Roberto 
Rossellini said in the 1960s. Coming from a guy who bedded Ingrid Bergman, this is say- 
ing something. Live the dream with Glen Smale's new book, Ferrari Design: The Definitive 


Study ($70, Haynes). It covers the whole Ferrari oeuvre, but we adore the older models. 
Pictured here: a beautiful 1953 166 MM coupe, worth hundreds of thousands today. 


BARMATE 


Sally Gibbs 


IN SEARCH OF AMERICA'S 
HOTTEST BARTENDERS 


PLAYBOY: So what does a drink go for 
around here? 

SALLY: At the Gulfstream Casino in Hal- 
landale Beach, Florida, draft beer and 
wine are a dollar. 

PLAYBOY: Casinos are grand. 

SALLY: And with those prices you can't 
lose. 

PLAYBOY: What games are popular? 
SALLY: The nickel slots are full year- 
round, but we get insane from January 
through April when the horse track is up 
and running. 

PLAYBOY: Do you like the ponies? 
SALLY: I actually used to be intimidated 
by horses, but on my 21st birthday I 
jumped on one and that went away. I like 
to face my fears. 

PLAYBOY: What's your best accessory? 
SALLY: I'd have to say my butt. I'm a 
skinny white girl with a bubble butt. I got 
it from my mama. 

PLAYBOY: Would you call it your money- 
maker? 

SALLY: I guess you could, but basically, 
with tips, I win when my customers win. 
PLAYBOY: Do you have a drink that brings 
good fortune? 

SALLY: My French martini—drink it and 
you'll get lucky. 


FRENCH MARTINI 

102. Ketel Опе vodka 
"aoz. Chambord ( 

% oz. pineapple juice 

% ог. Navan 


SEE MORE OF SALLY AT 
CLUB.PLAYBOY.COM. 


APPLY TO BE ВАВМАТЕ АТ 
PLAYBOY.COM/POSE. 


AFTER HOURS 


Austin Power 


Deep in the Heart of Texas | 


In 1986 a few Austin-based alt-weekly journos launched a music festival. Тһе Rev- 
erend Horton Heat played, and 700 people showed. That gathering—now called the 
SXSW Music, Film and Interactive Festival—turns 25 years old this month (March 11 
to 20) and has grown into its own Pepsi-sponsored cosmopolis. Got your ticket? The 
premiere of Jake Gyllenhaal's Source Code will headline the first night's films, and 
bands are booked from every continent on earth. Good luck finding a hotel room. 


Bad Ash 


There's a new generation of boutique cigar makers, tatted-up high rollers 

influenced less by Cuban lore than by skateboard culture. Examples: Drew 

Estate (makers of Dirty Rat and Flying Pig), Room 101 Cigars and Studio 

Tobac. Pictured: limited-edition handmade Anarchy from L.A.-based Tatuaje 

(Spanish for "tattoo"). They're available exclusively at smokeinn.com, $150 
22 for a box of 15. Click your iPod to Agent Orange and play with fire. 


Houston? 


Here's where to hang when 
you hit the world's biggest 
Sporting event. Hotel: The 
ZaZa (5701 Main, 713-526- 
1991) is the place to drop 
anchor, with choice views 
and a great lounge. BBQ: 
Goode Company (5109 
Kirby, 713-522-2530) is the big 
name in town, but for an authen- 


tic setting try Burns Bar-B-Q (7117 Ж) 
N. Shepherd, 713-692-2800). Dive bar: 
“) 


Warren's Inn (307 Travis, 713-247- 

9207) has a jukebox that doubles as a 

time machine. Music: The Continental Club (3700 
Main, 713-529-9899) made the list of America's 
best bars in our August issue. Don't miss: the 
bizarre National Museum of Funeral History (415 
Barren Springs, 281-876-3063). For our Houston 
city guide, visit playboy.com/houston2011. 


REVIEWS 


Movie of the Month 
The Adjustment 
Bureau 


Charismatic politician Matt Damon is 
pursued by agents of fate who are on 
earth to make sure events transpire as 
the forces of the universe dictate in The 
Adjustment Bureau. He falls for ballet 
dancer Emily Blunt, and despite his not 
being allowed to see her again, the two 
defy fate and fight for their love, Based 
loosely on a Philip K. Dick short story, the 
stylish, thought-provoking movie marks 
the feature directing debut of screen- 
writer George Nolfi (The Bourne Ultima- 
tum, Ocean's Twelve). "By design, it's 
definitely not a movie that fits neatly into 
any kind of box,” says Мо. "A film with 
around 90 locations, a unique tone and 
different changes of genre would never 
have gotten made without Matt. We've 
done four movies together and been in 
the trenches. He said, 'I don't think of 
you as a first-time director. " 


е: e 


IRALA 


What's in Your 
Netflix Queue? 


Director Bobby Farrelly's next 
big-screen movie is the comedy 
Hall Pass. Here are the discs he's 
waiting to watch at home. 

Night Shift: “I consider Lowell 
Ganz and Babaloo Mandel to be 
the greatest comedy writers of 
the past 30 years.” 

Something Wild: “Т watch it be- 
fore every movie Т make to remind 
myself just how alive a great film 
can make you feel." 

Animal Kingdom: "It freaks me out" 


Jackass 3015 Explosive 


24 


Wantto know what it's like to 
be Krazy Glued in the 69 
position to another hairy 
guy? Check. Go airborne in a 
feces-filled outhouse? 
Check, mate. Channel your 
inner 12-year-old for this lat- 
est literal shit storm from 
Johnny Knoxville and his 
band of juveniles as they go 
for belly laughs—if you aren't 
busy losing your lunch 
watching guys drink each 
other's sweat and pull teeth 
via race car. The highs (or 
are they lows?) of Jackass 
30, though, come when the 
gang is playing practical 


jokes, skateboarding into 
blow-up pools or getting 
slugged by giant robot 
hands. Knoxville has a dead- 
pan approach to ridiculously 
extreme physical comedy, 
making him, as unlikely as it 
sounds, a candidate for this 
generation's Buster Keaton. 
By the end, you'll wonder 
why one of them isn't in a 
hospital—or a straitjacket. 
Best extras: In addition to 
MTV's "making of" special 
and outtakes, both the DVD 
and BD include anaglyph 
glasses for the 3-D version. 
yyy —Stacie Hougland 


Marisa Tomei won an 
Oscar for her hilar- 
ious performance 
opposite Joe Pesci 
in 1992's My Cousin 
Vinny and was nomi- 
nated again in 2002 
for In the Bedroom. 
If it were up to us, 
she would have taken 
home another little 
gold man after being 
nominated a third 
time, for her fearless 


performance as the sexy stripper with whom Mickey Rourke is 
smitten in The Wrestler (pictured). See Tomei next in the legal 
thriller The Lincoln Lawyer with Matthew McConaughey. 


The best shooter series 
on PS3 returns with Kill- 
zone 3, which finds your 
forces outnumbered, 
outgunned and stranded 
on an alien planet cov- 
ered with nuclear waste- 
land and frozen tundra. 


Mad Max meets Fast & 
Furious in Motorstorm 
Apocalypse (PS3) as 
racers stage one final 
run through a collapsing 
city in heavily armed 
muscle cars, motorcy- 
cles and other vehicles. 


Game of thé Month 


By Jason Buhrffiester 


ти [- 3 enough simply to shoot someone these 


days. Bulletstorm (360, PC, Р53) is built 
around gunning down foes in the most stylish 
and sadistic manner possible. Chain a gre- 
nade to an enemy and hurl him into another, 
causing them both to explode, or kick an 
incoming missile back at the person who fired 
it. Then blast an enemy in the family jewels 
and score a bonus for putting him out of his 
misery. String together wild and cartoonish 


Album of 
the Month 


Rob Tannenbaum 


kills and the system rewardS-you with points 
to gain new weapons or upgrade characters. 
The setting is designed for maximum blood- 
shed as you play Grayson Hunt, a mercenary 
betrayed by his boss and dumped on a planet 
overrun by flesh-eating vegetation and violent 
gangs. To guide Hunt off the planet alive, you'll 
kick in heads, empty clips and occasionally 
Score the "rear entry" bonus for shooting 
someone in the...well, you can guess. YYY 


The Destination 
for Jazz Lovers 


Pity Jeff Jackson and Jeff 
Golick, masterminds of the fas- 
cinating jazz blog Destination: 
Out. How do they store their 
immense collections of rare 
records? The MP3s they post 
showcase the accessible sides 
of great experimentalists from a 
variety of decades, accompa- 
nied by descriptions of the music 
and the players, from Herbie 


Cut Copy's Zonoscope 


Cut Copy wants you to have fun. The 
hook on "Where I'm Going," from its. 
new album Zonoscope, goes "Yeah! 
Yeah! Yeah! Woo!," which rates pretty 
high on the effusiveness scale. The 
breakout success of its 2008 CD In 
Ghost Colours placed Cut Copy among a 
throng of hip bands, from the Killers to 


LCD Soundsystem, that are revisiting 
1980s New Wave, and these Australians 
emphasize the era's pleading falsetto 
vocals and electronic percussion. In 
music, exhilaration and experimenta- 
tion usually point in opposite directions. 
Cut Copy wants you to feel happy and 
smart—all at the same time. Woo! ¥¥¥ 


Hancock ко lony Braxton. 
Find it at m. 


SIGNIFICA, INSIGNIFICA, STATS AND FACTS 


PRIGE 
CHECK 


$1 6 MILLION s EVEN THOSE 
y S Y WORKING FOR “THE 
SN EA хаце ор а МАМ” GET SHADY WHEN 
produced and used only «| IT COMES TIME ТО 
M A | mrs 
FEDERAL 


According to a study by ¿ 
a French psychologist, a 4 EMPLOYEES 


hitchhiking female with WORKING ON 


A- b ill b OF AMERICANS 
picked ир by 15% of male E 4 CAPITOL AGES 44 T0 75 SAY 
eue ово то HILL  |TREYREMORE 
picked ир Бу 24%. = OWED AFRAID OF USING 
IB — го 3 UP ALL THEIR 
MILLION ASSETS 
т : IN OVERDUE TAXES AT | THAN THEY 

THES MORE LAY THAN ТЕНЕ ТОА ORE. THE END OF 2009, AND  'AREUF 

FEDERAL EMPLOYEES 

NATIONWIDE OWED ABOUT 


51 BILLION. 


ODD STAT OF THE 


W ТТТ TRACKED 
ТЕТ wee M 
ON THE INTERNET. 
2B THAT NUMBER HAD 

RISEN TO ABOUT 4,500. 


Me 78 


MANTRACK 


What do Jay-Z and Queen Elizabeth have іп common? 


Bentley has restyled its Continental GT for 2011. But what's 
really been restyled is the Bentley driver. The car used to be 
the quintessentially British chariot of Queen Elizabeth Il and 
007 in the lan Fleming novels. Today's Bentley owner is more 
gangsta. Fabolous drives a Bentley. So does the Game. Jay-Z: 
"Slamming Bentley doors, hopping out of Porsches / Popping 
up on Forbes lists, gorgeous." Out on the road, there's nothing 
street about the new Continental СТ (officially a 2012 model). 
The cockpit holds not so much a driver's seat as a throne. The 
richly finished wood-paneled interior, with its aromatic 
hides and polished stainless fittings, resembles 
something on a yacht. Nothing this size on 


Italian Cut 


Timber! Slice and 
dice the overgrown 
jungle in your front yard in 
2.5 seconds flat with the Tonino 
Lamborghini electric chain saw 
($200, tonino-lamborghini-garden.com)— 

an officially licensed product built by IKRA Mogatec, the 
Lamborghini of garden tools. The saw also cuts close to the lux- 
игу automaker's agrarian origins as a manufacturer of tractors. 


DRIVE RAZE SOOTHE 


the road acceler- 
ates with Bentley's 
creamy, private- 
jet-like surge. The 
uniquely engineered W12 engine can thrust this behemoth 
from zero to 60 in 4.4 seconds. The latest GT has even more 
horsepower (up 15, to 567) and 50 percent faster shifting 
from the six-speed ZF manumatic. With a wider track and 143 
fewer pounds, the handling is even more magnificent. The 
base price is $189,900—a pittance if you can make it rain. 

As Lloyd Banks puts it, "This is heavy, new Bentley / Color 
vanilla and cherry Andretti on Pirelli...” 


Heal Thyself 


Tell your doctor to prac- 
tice his fancy medicine 
оп someone else. J.R. 
Watkins's Petro-Carbo 
First Aid Salve ($13, 


ails you, from bug bites 

to burns. Its ingredients, 
many of which are of the 
all-natural variety, can 
even summon splinters 
trapped beneath the skin. 


27 


28 


5 MANTRACK 


Rest, Assured 


You'll need to travel—to pretty much anywhere 
butthe U.S., where purchasing Cuban goods has 
been outlawed since the Kennedy administra- 
tion. About 65 other countries, however—from 
Mexico to China to the U.K.—host at least one 
La Casa del Habano (lacasadelhabano.com), 


АЦ Aboard 


Seafaring opulence need 
not be limited to the yacht 
club. A tandem Missouri 
canoe from Scott's Mis- 
souri River Boat Works 
($4,900, scottsboatworks 
сот) allows you to roll 
down the river in similar high 
style. The 15.5-foot-long, 
62-pound vessel takes about 
400 man-hours to build— 
all by hand, of course—and 
is constructed with such 
woods as birch, cherry and 
mahogany. Once layered 
and finished with high-gloss 
marine varnish, it rivals the 
parquet shine of the old 
Boston Garden. (A do-it- 
yourself kit costs $1,400.) 
Each canoe can also feature 
a set of built-in cedar bev- 
erage holders—perfect for 
cradling a glass of cabernet 
at sunset. Custom paddles 
included; just add water. 


How to Buy a Cuban Cigar 


Relaxation, by its nature, should be uncomplicated—which is 
why the unfettered design of the Bark Lounge Chair (about 
$1440, barkfurniture.com) makes for such serene repose. 
Part of the Acorn Collection from the U.K's Bark, the chair 
isa fresh interpretation of the mid-century modern aes- 
thetic. Each one is handmade to order and available in 
arange of sustainable hardwoods and fabrics, allowing 
you to customize your very own seat of Zen. 


a government-sanctioned cigar franchise. (Pur- 
chase Cuban stogies online at your own risk; 
fakes are abundant, and the feds are confis- 
cating cigar shipments from internet dealers at 
unprecedented levels.) Once you're at a La Casa 
del Habano, light up a Montecristo, the largest 


SIT :: DRINK :: FLOAT 


«m. Ride the White 
Lightning 


Don't confuse the 
new corn whiskey 
Moonshine ($40, 
moonshine 
(сот) with the 
swill brewed 

by backwater 
bootleggers. 
Conceived by 
grill master 
Adam Perry 
Lang, the 
80-proof Moon- 
shine goes down 
smooth straight, 
on Ше rocks with 
alime orasthe 
star ingredient 
of a bloody shine 
(tomato juice, 
lemon juice 

and Worcester- 
shire sauce). 


Cuban brand, or a Cohiba Behike, the latest 


Cuban tobacco treasure. “It's probably the best 
cigar to come out of Cuba in 

the past 20 years,” says 

Gordon Mott of Cigar 

Aficionado. 


5 Bertolt Brecht said, “Pity the 
country that needs heroes.” 
These words bleed truth. As this 
country falls ever deeper in its 
cant and lip service to heroes and hero- 
ism, the more meaningfully the truth of 
those words runs. Try as I might to sum- 
mon to mind anyone whom I hold as a 
hero, I know that none I might so hold 
has to do with this shit about patriotism 
ог fighting terrorism by handing out 
parking tickets or anything like that. 

As ту old man and a lot of old men 
through the ages said, “He who 
hesitates is lost." 

"Thus to mind comes Lefty, 
who surely is one—maybe the 
only one—of my heroes. 

I don't know if my father ever 
heard of Brecht, but I know he 
was a good buddy of Lefty's. 
This was in the old days, in the 
old neighborhood. 

Believe me, Lefty hesitated. 

Nobody knew much about 
Lefty. Like my father, he was one 
of those guys who had grown up 
in the Depression, gone off to 
World War II and come back 
to play out the deck. We knew 
him as Lefty Brusher. Few of 
us knew his real last name was 
Brescia or what his real first 
name was or who or what real 
family he had. I recall odd visits 
as a kid with Lefty to an old guy 
from the other side called Uncle 
Pop in Little Italy. Whose uncle, 
whose pop? No answers. Lefty 
was what might be called a man 
who played alone. 

Everybody liked Lefty. On 
Sunday mornings he put on a 
suit and fedora and made the 
rounds of the neighborhood, 
calling at the homes of those who consti- 
tuted his local social circle. The women 
were always ready for him: "Get the bot- 
tle, Lefty's coming." He would have a 
shot, there would be talk of this and that 
with this one or that one, and he would be 
off and on his way until his weekly wend- 
ing socializing was done. 

I continued to see him for years to 
come. Long after I had moved to the 
Village, he would appear once in a while, 
always alone, usually carrying a grocery 
bag, explaining that he was a compari- 
son shopper. Maybe the food stores 
between Little Italy and Bleecker Street 
had replaced the homes of the dead and 
gone at which he had called. 

But we were talking about why Lefty 
became a hero to me. We were talking 
about Lefty and hesitation. 

Тһе first New York City telephone 
directory, listing 256 subscribers, was pub- 
lished in 1878. The directory got fatter 
and fatter with the passing of years. 

My great-grandfather, his wife and 
their eldest sons, who came here from 
Italy in the 18905, didn't know from these 


contraptions. It wasn't until about the 
time that the telephone became known 
as the Ameche—after Don Ameche's title 
role in the 1939 moving picture The Story 
of Alexander Graham Bell—that the women 
in the neighborhood began to get wired 
in increasing numbers. While characters 
such as my grandfather and his elder 
brother never touched one of those things 
in their lives, it was not long before almost 
everyone else had one. 

In the century following 1878, there 


were stylistic changes to the gizmo, but 
its essential nature remained the same. 
Telephony was a means of intrusion 
that one allowed into one's life: a toy of 
convenience that became a necessity, a 
novelty that became an addiction. 
Then the dam burst. Answering 
machines and beepers, e-mail, cell phones 
and text messaging, iPods and smart- 
phones, iPads and iSlates and God knows 
what else. From toy and convenience to 
necessity to addiction го engulfing blight. 


ILLUSTRATION E 


It is now possible to live one's life from 
baby's first words to death rattle in a 
cheap plastic hypertensive state of pure 
meaningless illiterate gibberish. And the 
more intensely pervasive it grows and 
the less of substance is said, the more 
its users are transformed into sputter- 
ing networks of twitching ganglia and 
stripped nerve cords, and the louder 
they get in their addiction to false com- 
i п as the curative for their 
desperation. Yes, from toy.... 

People walking down the street, loudly 
explaining into cell phones 
that they are walking down the 
street. Couples in bars, sitting 
together but text messaging or 
carrying on handheld conversa- 
tions alone. People responding 
to bells, buzzes, snatches of 
strident melody, humming 
vibrations in the midst of a 
meal. People putting on shows 
of importance by yelling at 
someone who isn’t even really 
at the other end. 

TS. Eliot wrote a poem called 
“The Hollow Men.” How far 
beyond that descriptive we have 
fallen, in these times when the 
speed at which nothing worth 
saying can be said in so many 
ever-accelerating ways, before 
we have the be-all and the end- 
all of the HollowBerry, the 
iHollow, the Almighty Hollow? 

So anyway, it was about 15 
years ago. I used to visit my 
great-aunt every time she had a 
birthday. She was well into her 
90s, the last one left from the old 
days, and she was still lucid. At 
one point she said: 

“Lefty always asks for you.” 
By this time, he himself must 
have been pushing 80. The memory of 
him brought a smile to my face. 

“Do me a favor,” I said. “Give me 
Lefty’s number. I want to call him and 
surprise him.” 

“Oh,” she said, “Lefty doesn’t have a 
phone. He still hasn't decided." 

I had already been sucked into e-mail, 
and I knew that once you're in, you 
don’t get out. I was lucky enough not 
to succumb to the cellular disease, but 
as for the old landline Ameche, it had 
for me always been one of life's unavoid- 
able curses. To hear about Lefty having 
warded off the damned thing for a 
lifetime—well, hell, 1 had always known 
he was a great guy, but now I saw and 
increasingly continue to see him as a 
Great Man, in the sense that legendary 
Bronze Age warriors are great. 

To Lefty, then, who knew what he 
needed and what he didn’t, who hesi- 
tated his way into wisdom. As for the 
rest of you, may your handheld devices 
make you all you can pretend to be, 
and please stay away, in body, voice and 
device, from me. 


29 


30 


| Lisa Lampanelli, 
› am mean, 

I insult people of all 
races, creeds and colors 
in theaters every night, 
and I have roasted 
every degenerate on 
the planet on national 
ТУ. And I am rewarded 
for it with applause and 
enough dough to buy 
not one but two sweet 
"Toyota Camrys. 

You, on the other 
hand, are nice. You are 
a complete gentleman. 
Your compensation? 
You're taken advantage 
of by everyone from the 
little old ladies you help 
across the street to that 
hot soprano in your 
church choir, and you 
never get the respect 
or the crazy sex you so 
richly deserve. 

Sound fair? No? Well, 
guess what, Doogie. 
Life ain't fair. So I have 
taken it upon myself to 
share some of my wis- 
dom to help even the 
score. Welcome to Lisa 
Lampanelli's course in 
the Art of Being Mean. 

Everybody knows the 
best sex is crazy sex— 
you know, sex with 
girls who aren't good 
girls. And everybody 
also knows that bad girls 
love bad boys. But what 
if you're a good guy? 
How do you become bad enough to get 
the crazy sex those girls are known for? 

Let's start with 1178 Extreme Bad Boy 
Makeover. It's a fact of life that unless 
they're Stevie Wonder, people respond 
to visual cues. And that fact is especially 
true of bad girls. 

Bad girls love guys who look like the 
Rock, 50 Cent or Bret Michaels. What 
do these guys have in common? No, not 
herpes. Tattoos. 

Simply put, some ink on your arm 
will get you some stink on your fingers. 
But you can't get just any tattoo. Get a 
snake, a skull or a dagger. And don't 
even think of getting a tattoo of a dol- 
phin, a happy face or a sunrise. Those 
won't get you laid. They'll get you an 
invitation from a girl to watch Glee and 
talk about both your periods. 

For the bad boy, the right facial hair 
is crucial. A little scruff is sexy but not 
if it’s out of hand. Too much facial hair 
is a turnoff, and it'll get you on every 
airline’s “no-fly” list to boot. 

When it comes to dressing, wear 
leather, For some reason, wrapping a 
dead cow around you turns bad girls on. 
Of course, this will turn off PETA chicks, 


but those girls are too busy at Lilith Fair 
and have armpits so hairy it looks like 
they have Nick Nolte in a headlock. You 
need those girls only if they're going to 
help you tune up your Harley. 

Speaking of which, buy a motorcy- 
cle already. Nothing turns a woman on 
more than riding a gas-powered vibra- 
tor. If, however, the thought of driving 
a motorcycle leaves you shakier than 
Michael J. Fox, at least drive a cool car. 
A Prius would make even Mario Andretti 
look as if he cries after sex. 

I know you're thinking, Tiger Woods 
got lots of wild sex, and Ле never wore ani- 
mal hides or rode a hog. Well, guess what, 
guys. Tiger Woods has a trillion dollars. 
So unless you're an oil heir, a Kennedy or 
that dork who founded Facebook, dress 
the bad-boy part. That way you can play 
more than 18 holes a day too! 

What a bad boy does in public is just 
as important as how he looks. First of 
all, drink real booze. Bellying up to 
the bar and ordering a pina colada is 
acceptable only if you're on a Caribbean 
island and you're a 19-ycar-old girl on 
spring break. 


At this point I can 
tell you're asking, “Isn't 
there more to being a 
bad boy and getting 
good sex than all this 
superficial stuff?" Oh 
yes, ass-hopper, indeed 
there is! 

То get crazy girls, a 
little bit о” mean goes 
а long way. One way to 
score big points is to 
blatantly hit on other 
chicks. This will make 
her claws literally pop 
out and into your back 
during some crazy mis- 
sionary later that night. 
Flirt with your girl’ 


5 
friend and you'll score 
quicker than Char- 
lie Sheen at a porn 
convention. 

This maneuver сап 
be done in a virtual way 
via the internet. When 
you start dating a 
woman, friend-request 
her hottest friend on 
Facebook. Your chick 
will hate that you 
friended her hot Latina 
friend Gabriela instead 
of her fat friend Pre- 
cious. And she'll Бе so 
jealous she'll bang you 
like the dinner bell on 
the Ponderosa. 

Do not deal with a 
woman's pets. Nowa- 
days it seems as И every 
girl has a goddamn cat. 
And her cat is the big- 
gest cock blocker since Dateline NBC's 
Chris Hansen. It's a harsh fact, but 
it’s either the cat or you. So the next 
time you two go out for a big night 
at Quiznos, leave the door open just 
enough for Buffy to bolt. You can score 
big points for consoling her after los- 
ing her adorable little fur ball. Believe 
me, she may lose a pussy, but you'll get 
plenty more of hers. 

When it comes to the Art of Being 
Mean, remember: It is possible to go 
too far. Heed this cautionary tale or you 
may end up in the joint, being traded 
for a carton of smokes and an eight- 
ounce bag of Reese's Pieces. 

Phil Spector is a textbook exam- 
ple of a Bad Boy Gone Way Too Bad. 
Phil Spector was a lucky man. Women 
overlooked a lot when it came to him— 
weird wigs, erratic behavior. But even 
the baddest girls tend to draw the line 
at fatal gunshot wounds. 

So listen up, potential bad boys, and 
learn from Phil's mistakes: If you tell 
a girl, *Come back to my place, baby, 
and I'll blow you away," remember: It's 
a good line in theory but not so much 
in practice. 


|: has become clear to me after 
conversations with my girl- 
friends that not enough women 
perform fellatio. As a woman 
who loves to give and receive, I 
want to share three tricks that, 
based on my experience, are fun 
for both parties and extremely 
satisfying for the guy: (1) The 
Hot Water BJ: Fill your mouth 
with hot (but not too hot) water, 
leaving room for the penis. 
Slowly create a vacuum by 
sucking on the tip of his ere 
tion and simultaneously slide 
it into your mouth. Hold the 
shaft steady with both hands. 
Have a towel handy and more 
hot water in a glass. e your 
time; this one is tricky at first, 
but practice is a nice excuse. (2) 
Тһе Vibrating BJ: Suck as you 
normally would, then apply a 
vibrator between your lower lip 
and chin. The harder you suck 
and press the vibrator, the more 
intensely he will feel the vibra- 
tions. (3) The Jacuzzi BJ: Begin 
with the Hot Water BJ, then 
add the vibrator. It's messy and 
complicated but well worth the 
effort once you get it down. I 
brag about these tricks because 
no one seems to have heard of 
them. I hope that will change 
now!—A.H., Cleveland, Ohio 

A thousand thanks. Sometimes 
this column writes itself 


The men on both sides of my 
family are bald or balding, with 
the exception of my father, who 
went gray in his 20s. I'm now in 
my mid-20s and don't have a re- 
ceding hairline like my cousins 
of the same age, but I am start- 
ing to see gray hairs. Does this 
mean they aren't going to fall 
ош?--А.Р, Cincinnati, Ohio 
No, these tragedies are unrelated. 
Male pattern baldness, of which 
there are seven varieties, is caused 
by an androgen called dihydrotes- 
tosterone, which left unchecked 
stifles growth. Graying, scientists 
discovered in 2009, is caused by 
hydrogen peroxide produced by hair 
cells, which left unchecked bleaches 
the hair gray and then white. Most 
men start balding before they turn 
gray, so there may be hope for you. 
А common myth is that you inherit 
male pattern baldness from your 
maternal grandfather, but research 
has shoum both parents contribute 
genes that are "necessary but not 


sufficient" to cause il. Scientists are inves- 
tigating a number of counteroffensives. In 
December German researchers reported they 
had created the first artificial hair follicles 
from stem cells. Other scientists are working 
on tests to identify young men at high risk 


PLAYBOY 
ADVISOR 


Му boyfriend loves it when I’m on top, and I love 
seeing his face twist up every time I slide onto him. 
But no matter what position we're in, I can't manage 
to go fast enough to make him come. How can I thrust 
as fast as he does?—D.A., Seattle, Washington 

No chance of that. Men are the undisputed champions of the 
pelvic thrust, which appears to be instinctual: Not only does 
every primate do it, it has been observed in patients having 
seizures, and some researchers claim a primitive form occurs 
when toddlers "hump" their mattress or the floor. (No one has 
figured out how to turn women into natural thrusters, but it 
has been accomplished in mice by damaging a sensory organ in 
their nose that doesn't exist in humans. The instinct is so strong. 
in male rats they still thrust after being castrated.) To thrust 
faster, place your hands or elbows on the bed and raise your ass 
зо you can move your hips more easily. Your boyfriend may not 
want speed, however, since guys tend to hit maximum power 
only when they're about to come. Try to provide unexpected 
pleasure by “milking” his erection, a.k.a. the squeeze box, a.k.a. 
a vagina job. Slide up and down while tensing your vaginal 
muscles as if trying to stop the flow of urine (done in sets when 
you're not having sex, these are known as Kegel exercises). Не 
may not scream, but we know you'll enjoy his reaction. 


so they can take preventive measures such 
as Rogaine or Propecia, currently the only 
drugs available to prevent or slow hair loss. — they 
If it’s any comfort, it has been suggested 
that male pattern baldness evolved because 
fertile women associate it with maturity, 


7 she’s a 


employer до 
than confirm your р 


wisdom and nurturing. The 
women who aren’t trying to get 
pregnant remain a challenge. 


Recently I bought a three-inch 
penis extender. I thought it 
might be too long, so I cut an 
inch off. I figured eight and a 
half inches would be a good 
start. I showed it to my wife, and 
she said, "You're not sticking 
that in me.” The other night, 
she was in the mood but starting 
to have her period, so I told her 
I wanted to wear a condom, In 
the dark I rolled on the exten- 
sion. She had three orgasms 
in 20 minutes; usually she has 
only two. The next morning I 
asked her if the sex was good, 
and she said, “It’s always good.” 
I told her I had used the exten- 
sion. She didn’t believe me and 
wanted to try it again. That 
night I put on the extension, but 
before I was in halfway she said 
it hurt. If she had such a great 
time when she thought it was 
my penis, why didn't she when 
she knew it wasn't? Before me 
she slept with eight or 10 guys, 
and at least one of them must 
have been larger than I am. 
Why do women lie? I have told 
her about my relationships with 
total honesty, and I thought she 
had been honest too.—W.D., 


- Atlanta, Georgia 


Where did this come from? Has 
your wife given any indication 
ze queen? If not, let's 
get a grip. When she didn't know 
about the extension she was turned 
on and wel, and when she hnew 
about it she was not as turned on 
or as wet. Your erection is already 
on the high side of average and 
longer than the typical vagina, so 
а dick cap won't make any differ- 
ence unless you're trying to ring 
а bell on her cervix. The reason a 
woman may enjoy a larger penis is 
not length but girth, which stimu- 
lates the clitoris. However, this can 
just as easily be accomplished with 
fingers, tongues and vibrators. 


Do potential employers hold 
it against you if on your appli- 
cation you say it’s not okay to 
contact a former boss?—S.C., 
Colorado Springs, Colorado 

It will raise questions, but the 
only strategy is to be honest: If it 
comes up, explain that you and your 
boss didn’t get along. Even if an 
сай, many firms won't do more 
st employment because 
being sued if they give a bad review 


that keeps you from finding work. In 2008, 
for example, a New Jersey man who was fired 
by Best Buy and subsequently turned down for 


31 


PLAYBOY 


32 


jobs at two competitors sued after he created 
а fake e-mail account, pretended to be from 
Target and asked for a reference. The Best Buy 
human resources manager replied, "He was 
hired as GM and demoted after 12 months or 
so because he sucked. Не is desperate for a job 
because supposedly his wife left him because 
he has no job. I would not touch him." A firm 
can also get in trouble for giving a glowing 
reference if you don’t deserve it, such as when 
a hospital fired ап anesthesiologist who had a 
drug problem but gave him a glowing send- 
off. Soon after another hospital hired him, he 
botched a simple procedure and left a patient 
in a vegetative state. When the second hospital 
sued the first, a federal court ruled it had no 
obligation to reveal the doctor's addiction; it 
just couldn't say anything untrue about him. 
‘Ask the HR department at your old company 
about its policy; this may not be an issue. 


A couple of months ago my husband 
and I decided to swap with another cou- 
ple. One of the ground rules was that it 
had to remain a group activity. About an 
hour after it was over, my husband and 
the other woman were missing. I found 
them in our bedroom, having sex. I felt 
as if I had caught him cheating. He apol- 
ogized repeatedly and said he wouldn't 
have done it but he’d had too much to 
drink. Now I have trust issues, and I’m 
afraid it's ruining our relationship. Сап 
you give me any advice on how to get 
over this?—L.M., Atlanta, Georgia 

You have every right to feel betrayed. But 
given your inexperience as swingers, and the 
combination of liquid courage and “1 can't 
believe this is happening” horniness, we 
suggest you treat this as a pardonable first 
offense. (The other woman should also have 
known better, even if she and her husband 
had agreed on different rules.) Your husband 
needs to make this right with you, but it may 
be punishment enough that he ruined a good 
thing—how many men hear a partner scold 
them by saying “Don’t ever fuck someone else 
unless I’m there”? We doubt you would be 
swinging if your husband had ever given you 
serious reason not to trust him. 


How many rings is too many? I wear 
one on each ring finger—a wedding ring 
and a ring I inherited from my grand- 
father. I am graduating with a master’s 
degree in May and may get a class ring, 
but I've been told a man wearing three 
rings is odd. If three rings is okay, on 
which fingers should I wear them?—J.R., 
Elkridge, Maryland 

This is a matter of personal choice, but 
we'd say two is enough unless you have other 
rings with great stories, excepting any worn 
on pinkies or thumbs. While you have every 
reason to be proud of your accomplishment, a 
class ring should be worn only at graduation 
and postacademy events such as reunions or 
alumni gatherings. It’s not everyday jewelry. 


Му wife of 25 years has human papillo- 
mavirus, and I assume I now have it too. 
Her doctor told her we should not have 


oral sex until she is “clean,” as HPV can 
cause throat cancer. I love to go down 
on her, but she refuses to let me. What 
are the chances oral sex will lead to 
cancer?—S.C., The Colony, Texas 
They're slim, but it's good to know the facts. 
Scientists have become concerned about HPV 
and oral sex because of a 2007 study that 
found the more oral-sex partners a person 
has in his or her lifetime, the greater the risk 
of developing throat cancer. While throat 
cancer is rare, the evidence suggests oral sex 
transmits the virus from genitals to mouth 
(and vice versa), where it can damage cells, 
which decades later may turn cancerous. 
That’s why some health officials argue that 
young men as well as young women should be 
vaccinated against HPV before they become 
sexually active. It is a common predicament; 
three in four Americans under the age of 49 
have had HPV at least once. So be cautious 
until your wife's body has cleared the virus, 
which usually happens naturally. You should 
also get tested. Don't count on warts to tell you 
if you've been infected; many types of HPV 
don’t cause them. Even among those that do, 
the virus can be spread when warts aren’t 
present. Confidential to R.S. in Atlanta: The 
virus can lie dormant for years, so an out- 
break can’t be taken as evidence of cheating. 


I read years ago that when being intro- 
duced to a woman, a man should never 
extend his hand for a shake but should 
wait for the woman to extend hers. Does 
this still hold true?—A.M., Columbia, 
South Carolina 

That rule has long been retired, though 
Emily Post’s advice from 1922 that “a gen- 
tleman on the street never shakes hands with 
a lady without first removing his right glove” 
still seems like a good idea. 


Does ejaculating slow down the process 
of getting bigger and stronger at the 
gym?—M.P, San Francisco, California 

Yes, but only if you stay home to mastur- 
bate instead of working out. 


What is the best way to secure your 
router?—R.L., St. Louis, Missouri 

Tass it in a lake and stay off the internet. 
Ata minimum, stand up right now and 
change the default password. To access the 
control panel, open your browser and enter 
the address provided in your manual. Create 
a strong password, i.e, one with at least 10 
characters that is not a dictionary word and 
is a combination of upper- and lowercase 
letters, numerals and symbols. Once you're 
inside, change the SSID name from the 
default to something unique, disable WAN 
management and UPnP and create a WPA2- 
AES encryption key for the wireless connec- 
tion with a password that has 40 or more 
completely random characters and contains 
no words. For more details and suggestions, 
visit the Wi-Fi Router Security Checklist by 


the helpful nerds at jdpfu.com. 


My husband and I have been married 
for four years and have two children. I 


attend college full time. He whines and 
begs for sex every day. How can I get him 
to understand this is annoying and turns 
me off? I have told him that if he didn't 
beg, we would have a better sex life. It 
worked for a week. We had great sex 
three times. Then he went back to whin- 
ing. He is driving me crazy. I miss good 
sex, but I have no desire when he acts 
this way.—K.J., Muskegon, Michigan 

Although this may be hard to imagine, 
your husband whines and begs because every 
time he sees you he imagines you naked, and 
then he wants to see you naked. His brain 
never says, “М ош’; a bad time” because for 
him, there is по bad time. If you're in a sour 
mood, sex will change that. If you're tired, 
sex will perk you up. If you're stressed, sex 
will help you relax. Sure, you had regular 
sex when he stopped begging, but you still 
decided when and where and so remained 
in control. Now, what if every time he 
asked, you at least gave him a hand job? 
What does that take, five minutes? We're 
not justifying his whining—besides the fact 
that it doesn't work, it reflects a certain 
immaturity, because a man with experience 
knows that sometimes you just have to find 
something else to do. (It helps to have other 
interests.) But it's a simple compromise. 
And based on the letters we receive, many 
women would love to have a husband who 
wants them night and day. 


Do condoms go bad? I know they сап 
dry out, but if they have been sitting in 
my dresser and seem to be lubricated, can 
I use them for protection? I haven't һай 
sex since breaking up with my girlfriend. 
Last night I brought home a hottie, but 
I noticed my condom had expired six 
months ago.—M.F, Lincoln, Nebraska 

Better to use an expired condom than no 
condom, especially if it doesn't feel brittle 
and the package still has that puff of air. 
But over months or years latex will dete- 
riorate and become less elastic, meaning 
older condoms may break more easily. Con- 
doms without spermicide will last four to 
five years; those with spermicide are good 
for two. This assumes that you don't store 
the condoms in direct sunlight or in tem- 
peratures above 100 degrees, including the 
heat from your ass if you stupidly keep any 
in your wallet. Welcome back to the game, 
cowboy; time to hit the drugstore. 


All reasonable questions—from fashion, 
food and drink, stereos and sports cars to 
dating dilemmas, taste and etiquette—will 
be personally answered if the writer includes 
а self-addressed, stamped envelope. The 
most interesting, pertinent questions will be 
presented in these pages. Write the Playboy 
Advisor, 680 North Lake Shore Drive, Chi- 
cago, Illinois 60611, or send e-mail by vis- 
iting playboyadvisor.com. The site also has 
links to download our greatest-hits e-book, 
Dear Playboy Advisor, and air times for the 
weekly Advisor Show on Sirius/XM 99. 


NEW YORK | 
PLAYBOYS — 


THE NEW. FRAGRANCE | FR MEN 


© 2010 PLAYBOY. PLAYBOY and Rabbit Неде design ate trademarks of PLAYBOY and Used under license by Coty: 


www.playboyfragrances.com 


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uw DEEPAK CHOPRA 


A candid conversation with the leading New Age thinker about living in the 
present, reversing aging, battling with skeptics and who's really twisted on Fox News 


The proverbial mountaintop looks a lot like a 
suburban golf resort. On the lush grounds of 
La Costa Resort and Spa in Carlsbad, Califor- 
nia guys in Dockers and windbreakers practice 
their chip shots, oblivious to the procession of 
starry-eyed minions heading toward the Chopra 
Center for Wellbeing. Today is the final session 
of a weeklong Seduction of Spirit workshop 
full of meditation instruction, grinning silences 
and cosmic conversations with the man whose 
inspiration and words have brought the faith- 
ful together. Attendees paid $2,775 each for 
the privilege of sitting at his feet. 

Deepak Chopra has arguably been the most 
public face of the New Age movement in America. 
A physician, public speaker and spiritual advi- 
sor to celebrities like Michael Jackson, he is the 
author of 57 books (including the number one 
best-sellers Ageless Body, Timeless Mind and The 
Seven Spiritual Laws of Success), which together 
have sold more than 30 million copies. Drawing 
on elements of Eastern and Western spirituality, 
metaphysics, medicine and science, with dashes 
of self-help and happiness psychology, Chopra 
has become а sort of Lao-tzu for the iPod genera- 
tion. His “simple yet powerful” principles mostly 
involve ridding oneself of negative emotions to 
transcend the obstacles that afflict body and mind. 
Strip away selfish conditioning, he says, and we 
can discover our true purpose in life. Skeptics 


scoff at his fuzzy language and poke holes in the 
quantum theories he invokes, yet Chopra's mes- 
sage of hope spreads like galactic dust via book, 
blog, e-mail and Twitter feed. 

Born 64 years ago in New Delhi, India to 
а prominent heart surgeon, Chopra thought he 
might write novels (as he now does) but ended up 
іп medical school instead. Like so many ambitious 
Indians of his generation, he sought his fortune 
in America and was soon chief of staff at a prom- 
inent Boston hospital. Working too much, he 
numbed himself with cigarettes, coffee and alcohol 
but couldn't ignore the feeling that Big Medi- 
cine was only making patients sicker. His early 
writings on incorporating age-old practices such 
as ayurvedic medicine and meditation caught 
fire with readers looking for fresh answers on 
everything from insomnia and cancer to aging. 
Celebrities liked him, too: Maharishi Mahesh 
Yogi, Jackie Onassis, George Harrison, Oprah 
Winfrey and Barack Obama all came calling. 

These days Chopra, married to Rita, his wife 
of more than 40 years, has two grown children 
and roams the globe as a highly paid ambas- 
sador for wellness and mindful living. Yet the 
first impression he made on Contributing Editor 
David Hochman, who last interviewed Cornel 
West and Michael Savage for PLAYBOY, was 
as “a little man with а bit of a paunch who 
didn't look up from his BlackBerry.” But he soon 


had Chopra’s unwavering attention, in a wide- 
ranging chat in the Chopra Center offices that 
touched on life's biggest questions. Says Hoch- 
man, "Once he put down his phone, Deepak got 
down to business. ‘What is life? What are its 
secrets and mysteries?’ It was riveting.” 


PLAYBOY: People have looked to you for 
guidance on spirituality, health and hap- 
piness for 40 years. Don't you get tired of 
having to have all the answers? 

CHOPRA: First of all, I don't think I have 
all the answers, but I enjoy contemplating 
and living the questions. I live, breathe 
and even think in my sleep about these 
ideas: the connection between mind, body 
and spirit, the true meaning of conscious- 
ness. I’m not alone in thinking about these 
concepts. I see a great longing in the world 
for self-knowledge and self-awareness. 
The only way to deepen understand- 
ing and deepen one's self-identity is to 
engage in reflective self-inquiry. Ask your- 
self, Who am I really? What is my true 
purpose? How can I live the best life imag- 
inable? That type of self-reflection is the 
key to global transformation. 

PLAYBOY: Isn't that New Age mind-set just a 
recipe for narcissism? Every town in Ämer- 
ica now has a yoga studio and a place to 


"Drugs are not part of my life, but I have tried 
them all. Гое done LSD. Гое done mushrooms... 
everything. But all at a young age. I certainly 
don't regret it. Га go so far as to say that drugs 
were a source of great joy to me.” 


“I don't invest and I don't save. I carry maybe 
$200 and a credit card in my pocket. If you ask 
me to read a bank statement, 1 can't. I believe 
that when I die there won't be anything for any- 
one. I don't have that kind of mind." 


PHOTOGRAPHY BY MIZUNO 


“India is getting a false sense of pride because 
it made a nuclear bomb. Globally, yes, it's an 
economic superpower, but Indians are totally 
ignoring the fact that 30 percent of their chil- 
dren go to bed hungry—starving.” 


35 


PLAYBOY 


36 


buy scented candles for meditation. But 
has any ofthat actually made us more com- 
passionate or more peaceful as a society? 

CHOPRA: Our culture has become self- 
absorbed, and meditation, yoga and all 
that have played a part. To have per- 
fect bodies and peaceful minds requires 
a good deal of self-focus. For the most 
part, people who follow this type of life- 
style are idealists. They want to bring 
peace to the world, they want to make war 
obsolete, they are committed to repairing 
the ecology and supporting racial equal- 
ity, feminism and gay rights. The roots of 
that idealism surfaced in the 1960s with 
us baby boomers, of course, but it always 
had a shadow of narcissism. 

I think we're always evolving, not just 
as individuals but as a society, as a human 
species. My sincere hope is that at some 
point we'll go beyond personal gratifica- 
tion and realize the true value of quieting 
the mind, of being good to the body, of 
relieving ourselves of stress and of paying 
attention to others and recognizing our 
inseparability from the rest of the world. 
We're in a time when half the world's 
population lives in radical poverty, which 
means less than $2 a day, when conflict, 
war and terrorism abound everywhere in 
the world, when there is extreme social 
injustice and extreme economic dispari- 
ties. If we're truly mindful we can begin to 
recognize and address these inequities. 
PLAYBOY: Let's talk about that for a moment. 
These are uncertain times for many peo- 
ple and industries—for America itself. Is it 
а worthy goal to simply stay mindful of the 
present? In many ways not thinking care- 
fully enough about the future is what got 
us into the financial crisis, the real estate 
mess and two agonizing wars. 

CHOPRA: That's something people get con- 
fused about. Being mindful and being in 
the moment means not being distracted 
and not being overwhelmed by the melo- 
drama and hysteria around you. It may 
be difficult to believe this, but present- 
moment awareness allows intuitive and 
creative solutions to emerge even in the 
midst of crisis. No crisis can be addressed 
at the level of consciousness in which it 
was created. What's happening in the 
country now is the result of our not being 
present to what is happening around us. 
Unfortunately it's also the weakness of our 
president. If he had been totally present 
to the immediate needs of the American 
people, we wouldn't have this crisis. Our 
president is an idealist and thinks long 
term. I totally support that. But people 
want short-term gratification. 

PLAYBOY: So it's fair to say you're disap- 
pointed with President Obama? 

CHOPRA: It’s а sad state of affairs. I loved 
President Obama. I've met with him, I 
voted for him and I supported him, but 
I think he's ineffective at the moment. I 
mean, with all the support and the major- 
ity in Congress that he had, he couldn't 
get the health care bill passed comfort- 
ably! It's that way with all the things he 


said he would do. He can't get rolling, 
he can't get the support. I think Obama 
should be just a one-term president. 
PLAYBOY: Is there anything Obama can do 
to save himself? 

CHOPRA: Well, I was with President Clin- 
ton at a private function a little while ago. 
He mentioned there are more job post- 
ings in the postrecession era in America 
today than at any other time in the his- 
tory of the United States. But our workers 
don't have the skills. The jobs are in tech- 
nology and other fields that require a high 
degree of education and training. One of 
the saddest commentaries on our time is 
that Americans have lost the kind of skills 
they had because we became complacent 
about everything. We no longer manufac- 
ture anything significant, notwithstanding 
СМ recent recovery. America's two big- 
gest exports right now are Hollywood 
and weapons of mass destruction. Obama 
would do well to focus on creating different 
kinds of jobs that don't require advanced 
degrees. In the meantime, all the service 
jobs and information-technology jobs are 
going outside the country. 

PLAYBOY: Our losses are India's gain, in 


Being in the moment 
means not being distracted by 
the melodrama and hysteria 
around you. Present-moment 
awareness allows solutions 
to emerge. 


other words. Do you think you would 
have left India to come to the United 
States if you were starting out today? 
CHOPRA: Probably not. In fact, Indians are 
now returning to India. It's become fash- 
ionable. Even though I'm an American 
citizen and I relate more to being here 
than anywhere else, I think of myself as 
a citizen of the globe with an American 
passport. But I'm very intrigued by what 
has happened in India over the past few 
decades. It's exciting, but India also faces 
enormous challenges. 

PLAYBOY: What are India's biggest chal- 
lenges right now? 

CHOPRA: Overcoming hubris is a big one. 
India is getting a false sense of pride because 
it made a nuclear bomb. India is getting а 
false sense of pride because the middle class 
is expanding dramatically. Globally, yes, it's 
an economic superpower, but Indians аге 
totally ignoring the fact that 30 percent of 
their children go to bed hungry—starving. 
They are ignoring the fact that 300 mil- 
lion people still live in abysmal poverty and 
there’s still a lot of communal tension and 
violence. India has huge problems. 
PLAYBOY: Let’s come back to America for 


a minute. Why do you think there are so 
many broken, psychologically damaged 
people out there? Many of them pick up 
your books for comfort and guidance. In 
that way, is your success somehow a sign 
we've failed as a society? 

CHOPRA: I’ve wondered about that so 
much. It’s something that has bothered 
me all these years. Why are there so many 
unhappy people? As I said, America has 
everything to offer. There’s so much 
opportunity. It's still the land everybody 
criticizes but wants to come to, and I 
believe the American dream still exists. But 
unless you're lucky, maybe like I lucked 
out, people are set up for disappointment 
because we are a dysfunctional society. I've 
wondered about this a lot and I have a rad- 
ical theory about it. My theory is that for 
more than a century, America has been at 
war. First it was the Civil War, then World 
War I, World War II, the Korean War, the 
Vietnam war, the Iraq war and then the 
Afghanistan war. We are a country at war 
with the world and at war with itself. People 
will say, “Oh, that was the great American 
thing, to save the whole world.” What has 
resulted is a lot of men being absent, dys- 
functional families and children growing 
up with insecurities. When you grow up 
in a society at war with itself, you come of 
age with uncertainties and fears, and the 
result is that many people are lost. 
PLAYBOY: Do you ever feel guilty that you've 
made so much money selling your books, 
DVDs and workshops to these lost souls? 
Isn’t enlightenment supposed to be free? 
CHOPRA: We live in a society where making 
a huge income from selling cigarettes or 
alcohol or even drugs, pornography and 
weapons is totally legit. But selling knowl- 
edge, which helps people, is somehow 
considered not legitimate. I hope the day 
will come when this will be the most enlight- 
ened way of making money. In America 
you never apologize about being successful. 
I'm never going to apologize about being 
successful. Having written 57 books—18 
that hit The New York Times best-seller list— 
why should I apologize? Because they re 
popular books? There must be a need for 
them, right? Unless I'm fooling all the peo- 
ple all the time. I do the work I do with a 
great passion and a great sense of respon- 
sibility, so I'll never apologize for being 
successful. Having said that, we have 65 
people working here at the Chopra Сеп- 
ter. At times, when we're doing a course, 
we have 100 people working here. They 
get salaries, benefits and insurance. What 
I earn from the center covers one third of 
my overhead, so I subsidize two thirds of 
what happens here. 

PLAYBOY: Are you suggesting you're not 
making any money? 

CHOPRA: No, there's enormous revenue 
from the books. I've hit the jackpot as 
far as selling books is concerned. That's 
where my income comes from. But I put 
it back into the business, and what's left I 
put into my foundation. I don't have any 
saved money. 


PLAYBOY: You have по savings? What about 
investments? 

CHOPRA: I don't have that kind of mind. 
I don't invest and I don't save. I carry 
maybe $200 and a credit card in my 
pocket. If you ask me to read a bank state- 
ment, I can't. I believe that when I die 
there won't be anything for anyone. In 
the meanwhile, until Гт dead, my wife is 
totally taken care of from my royalties. My 
children are self-sufficient, so I don't need 
to give them any moncy. I keep about 
$30,000 in my account and the rest goes 
to keeping the operation running. 
PLAYBOY: What motivated you to go into 
the guru business? 

CHOPRA: [Laughs] My initial motivation 
as a doctor was to try to figure out what 
was going on with the body. I would вес 
patients who had the same illness, saw 
the same physician and got the same 
treatment, yet had completely different 
outcomes. Why? What was going on? Some 
of those patients thought differently about 
their illness, some had different expec- 
tations or outlooks. I started recording 
their stories and soon realized that every 
patient's story and outlook influences 
his or her biological response. The mind 
has an influence on the body, something 
nobody was talking about at that time. I 
collected these stories, sent them to about. 
30 medical journals and was roundly 
rejected. They didn't want anecdotes; they 
wanted authentic research. So I sent the 
stories to publishers but didn't get any- 
where in publishing, either. I didn't have 
an agent. I found a little ad in The New York 
Times one day that said I could get 100 self- 
published books from Vantage Books for 
$5,000. I sent off the stories and a check, 
and my first book was born. It was called 
Creating Health: The Psychophysiological Con- 
nection and it was published in 1985. 
PLAYBOY: Instant success? 

CHOPRA: Not exactly. I was in Boston 
at that time, doing my residency and 
other things. I knew a woman who was 
intrigued by the book's ideas: how medi- 
tating can help people, the importance of 
cating right, developing a sense of equa- 
nimity and compassion. She was doing 
her Ph.D. at the Harvard Divinity School 
and persuaded the manager at the Har- 
vard bookstore, the Harvard Coop, to 
put the book in the window. Some agent 
picked it up, called me two days later and 
said, "Why don't you have a publisher?" 
I said, “Nobody would publish it." She 
said, "How much did you spend publish- 
ing this?" I said, "$5,000." She said, “ГИ 
get you $5,000 from Houghton Mifflin.” 
Next thing you know, it’s a national best- 
seller called Creating Health. 

PLAYBOY: What were people responding to? 
СНОРВА: Readers intuitively felt that here was 
an answer they couldn't find in traditional 
medicine—that our mind, our emotions, 
our behavior, our social interactions and 
our relationships affect our biology. Рео- 
ple may have understood that on some 
level, but they wanted to know more. I was 


suddenly inundated with requests to do 
speeches, workshops, more books. 
PLAYBOY: You've also faced criticism. The 
medical and scientific community has 
slammed you from the beginning for 
being soft on evidence and heavy on 
vague promises and pseudoscience. 
CHOPRA: There's been huge criticism. Huge. 
But that's because Гуе gone out on a limb, 
whereas other people have played it safe. 
In 1989 I wrote the book Quantum Healing, 
in which I began speculating on the healing 
power of the body. My idea was that intel- 
ligence exists everywhere in our bodies, 
in each of our cells, and as such, each cell 
knows how to heal itself. By using meth- 
ods like meditation, we have the potential 
to defeat cancer and heart disease and even 
slow the aging process. We can think our- 
selves sick and think ourselves well again. I 
really believe that, but again, because much 
of the book was anecdotal, the science and 
medical people took me to task. 

PLAYBOY: Have advances in science proven 
your early speculations correct? 
CHOPRA: In many instances, yes. Since I 
started down this road Гуе been amazed 
by what we've discovered. The EEGs of 


My theory is that for more 
than a century, America 
has been at war. What has 
resulted is a lot of men being 
absent and children growing 
up with insecurities. 


people in meditative states repeatedly 
show increases in alpha waves [indicating 
wakeful relaxation], which proves we have 
the power to change our bodies with our 
minds. More recently it's been proved that 
prolonged periods of meditation, like you 
see with monks in monasteries, can change 
the brain permanently. The fight-or-flight 
centers in the brain that normally light up 
to trigger alarm and anxiety are quieted. In 
a normal waking state our brain waves are 
at a level of 13 to 30 cycles per second, but 
these monks were able to slow their brain 
waves to between four and eight cycles. 
"That doesn't mean they're duller to the 
world. It means they're more quietly alert 
in a way that's permanently hardwired in 
their consciousness. What that means to 
me is that all our thoughts have an effect. 
on our biology, and that's reflected іп our 
state of consciousness, our blood pressure, 
our hormone levels and our body temper- 
ature. If we teach patients in hospitals how 
to relax—to breathe properly, to meditate, 
to do some passive movements or even 
bedside yoga—we can get rid of what most 
drugs are prescribed for, which is insom- 
nia, nausea, constipation, anxiety and pain. 


"That's 80 percent of what's prescribed in a 
hospital, and it's unnecessary. 

That said, I’m less of a fundamentalist 
than I used to be. I’m not so fanatically 
attached to every interpretation I may 
have espoused years ago. My books have 
matured. But nothing I said about aging 
or biological markers of aging or the fact 
that there is such a thing as spontane- 
ous healing, that the body has self-repair 
mechanisms, has been disproved. In fact, 
if anything, we know more about it. 
PLAYBOY: You've had a public flap recently 
with Michael Shermer of the Skeptics Soci- 
ety and physicist Leonard Mlodinow, who 
accuse you of misusing terms from quantum 
physics, such as describing consciousness as 
being "nonlocal." They say your terms are 
fuzzy and contend there's no evidence for 
God, the soul, consciousness or human love 
that can't be explained by citing brain chem- 
icals such as oxytocin and adrenaline. 
CHOPRA: Oxytocin is not love or spiritual- 
ity. It's the measure of love and spirituality. 
But that's not the point here. The skeptics 
are all angry people. They're mostly high 
school teachers with old science behind 
them. And now they have a few champions 
such as Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris and 
Christopher Hitchens. Leonard Mlodinow 
is co-author with Stephen Hawking of a 
recent book that refutes the existence of 
God. They all love to call me the woo-woo 
master, or Dr. Woo, and I admit, they did 
anger me. But I decided to reach out to 
them and engage with these issues. I wrote 
to Leonard and said, "It seems like you 
know your mathematics, but conceptu- 
ally you and I have a lot of disagreements. 
You definitely don't understand conscious- 
ness. So why don't we get together and 
hang out, and you teach me physics and 
ГЇЇ teach you consciousness?" 

PLAYBOY: Have you done it? 

CHOPRA: Yes! We're doing a book together. 
It's about the things that physics and spir- 
ituality can agree on and what physics and 
spirituality cannot agree on. It's called 
War of the Worlds. It’s a big book. We've 
got a multimillion-dollar contract for it. 
It's going to be huge. 

PLAYBOY: Do your differences just come 
down to faith? In other words, is it that 
you have faith and they don't? 

CHOPRA: No, it's not a faith issue at all. It's 
about consciousness. The fact is, without 
consciousness you and I couldn't have 
this conversation, right? Consciousness is 
what makes perception, thinking and emo- 
tions possible, and conversation, cognition, 
personal relationships. In the absence of 
consciousness you're dead. They don't even 
acknowledge consciousness. They believe 
consciousness is an emergent property of 
evolution and a product of the brain—just 
as acid is a product of your stomach or bile 
is a product of your gallbladder. 

I believe there's a lot of evidence that 
consciousness itself is what drives evo- 
lution. Consciousness is what creates 
our biology. Consciousness is responsi- 
ble for our perception. It's not just my 


37 


PLAYBOY 


38 


idiosyncratic way of thinking. The fact is, 
this is part of the perennial philosophies 
of the wisdom traditions. It's what Emer- 
son, Thoreau, Buddha and Confucius 
believed and what many modern scientists 
believe. A physicist named Henry Stapp at 
Berkeley says that every choice we make 
influences the future evolution of the uni- 
verse. These are major concepts that these 
guys who work in academic institutions 
are waiting to publish. The problem is, 
they need to secure their next grant and 
want to get tenurc, so they don't have 
time for metaphysics or philosophy. 

But the debates on these big questions 
continue. Do we have the ability to influence 
the future evolution of the cosmos? How 
does our understanding of consciousness as 
pure potentiality enhance our capacity for 
intuition, creativity, conscious choice mak- 
ing, healing and the awakening of dormant 
potentials such as nonlocal communi 
tion and nonlocal sensory experience? 
Major scientists from Stanford, Yale and 
other places are working from a rigor- 
ous research angle to get answers to these 
uncertainties. I'm talking every day with 
Stuart Hameroff, a physician who stud- 
ies the mechanics of consciousness. He's 
a collaborator with Roger Penrose, who 
shared the Wolf Prize in physics with Ste- 
phen Hawking. All these people are taking 
the study of consciousness very seriously. 
Теп years ago it would have been called 
pseudoscience. Some mainstream research- 
ers who have not kept up may still call it 
that, but in my opinion those people are 
frozen in an obsolete worldview. 

PLAYBOY: What if the skeptics turn out to 
be right? Are you genuinely open to that 
possibility? 

CHOPRA: I’m not sure we'll ever have firm 
answers to these questions, frankly. But 
the skeptics are entitled to their views 
and I'm entitled to disagree with them. 
I'm learning a lot from Mlodinow. He's 
a smart guy with a particular interpreta- 
tion of quantum mechanics that has many 
adherents. Ultimately, though, we may 
need to agree to disagree. 

PLAYBOY: Let's change course. Is it true you 
used to party with George Harrison? 
CHOPRA: George was a sweet person. And 
yes, we did some stuff together, like bhang. 
You know what bhang is? It's ganja. It's 
similar to cannabis. We drank it together 
in India. He was a lovely man. We lis- 
tened to music together. We would discuss 
everything from creativity to spirituality 
to the divine. He had his own visions of. 
other realms of existence and was more 
of a literalist than I was, but he was a lot. 
of fun to be with. 

PLAYBOY: Are you still a cannabis fan? 
CHOPRA: Drugs are not part of my life, but 
I have tried them all. Гуе done LSD. At 
17 it led me to my first spiritual awaken- 
ing. Гуе done mushrooms...everything. 
But all at a young age. I certainly don't 
regret it. It gave me a glimpse into a dif- 
ferent reality. I recognized that I can 
actually navigate these realms in my 


consciousness. Га go so far as to say that 
drugs were a source of great joy to me, 
great nourishment and the source of all 
my writing. So much of what I've written 
comes from my being able to go into other 
states of consciousness. 

PLAYBOY: Have you tried ayahuasca? 
CHOPRA: [Hesitates] 1 have. 

PLAYBOY: How was it? 

CHOPRA: [Laughs] Fantastic. Ayahuasca in 
Peru is part ofa ritual with shamans. What 
happens is there's a very clear-cut disso- 
ciation of your consciousness from your 
body and from your mind, and very grad- 
ually you lose the well-defined edges of 
your body. It all seems to merge into one 
wholeness. It can be very scary because you 
start to lose the boundaries of yourself and 
they start to extend. But as you stay in it, 
you become extremely joyful and euphoric 
because you feel you're literally unbounded. 
This was many years ago. Fortunately, 
now I can go there through intention and 
meditation—and without drugs. 

PLAYBOY: We notice you've been glancing 
at your BlackBerry and iPad throughout 
this interview. What's up with that? Are 
you addicted? 


My wife thinks I'm a good 
husband. In the West, 
marriage can be a self- 

indulgent partnership. Very 

selfish—a lot is expected. We 
have none of that drama. 


CHOPRA: I admit it’s a problem. If I get an 
e-mail, I feel the need to respond immedi- 
ately. I’m working on it, but I have to say 
it’s definitely something I struggle with. 
I'm a bit of a compulsive personality. 
PLAYBOY: You also blog obsessively and 
post frequently on ‘Twitter and Facebook. 
What's all this distraction doing on а meta- 
level to consciousness in our society? 
CHOPRA: First of all, I love blogging. I love 
the immediacy. I love the reach. I love 
the instant connection with so many peo- 
ple. It’s vast and it’s fast. But the impact 
remains to be seen. If it blunts our emo- 
tional intelligence or our face-to-face, 
eye-to-eye, body-to-body contact—and 
we're certainly heading in that direction— 
it will be extremely detrimental. On the 
other hand, if you can integrate with it, 
it’s an amazing technology to reach a crit- 
ical mass of consciousness. I personally 
love participating in i 

PLAYBOY: Let's get practical for a moment. 
If someone has never meditated before 
and wants to try it, give us a quick primer 
on what to do. 

CHOPRA: Sit down, close your eyes, put 
your attention in your heart and slowly 


ask yourself a few questions. Who am I? 
What do I want? Do I have a purpose? 
How do I want to make a contribution? 
What's a meaningful relationship? What 
do I look for in my good friends? Do I 
have any mentors, heroes in history, in 
mythology? What inspires me? What's 
a joyful moment for me? What's a peak 
experience? I think it's very important 
to do that kind of contemplative inquiry. 
But then after you've done that, let it all 
go and either observe your breath—the 
simplest kind of meditation is just observ- 
ing your breath—or mentally observe the 
sensations in your body for about 15, 20 
minutes. You might get distracted. Come 
back to the breath or the sensations. Your 
mind will quiet down. Occasionally you'll 
experience silence within, and those are 
moments of extreme peace and joy. 
That said, don't stress too much about 
whether you're doing it correctly or not. 
Assume you're doing it correctly and don't 
look forward to any flashy experiences in 
meditation. If Jesus Christ shows up or 
suddenly the heavens explode, just come 
back to observing the breath and your 
thoughts. That's the best thing you can do 
because every experience we have is just. 
another thought. There's nothing more 
to it. But there are benefits in terms of the 
gradual expansion of consciousness. 
PLAYBOY: What's the best way to ensure а 
good night's sleep? 
CHOPRA: Make зите you're busy during 
the day, not only physically but mentally. 
If you are dynamic and active during the 
day, your sleep will be restful. It's that sim- 
ple. When people say they haven't slept 
for a long time or have chronic insom- 
nia and have tried everything, I force 
them to stay awake for 48 hours, even 56 
hours. That completely resets their bio- 
logical clock. 
PLAYBOY: Did you say 56 hours? 
CHOPRA: It's a very unusual way of get- 
ting people to sleep. But in fact it forcibly 
resets the circadian rhythm. I've never 
seen it fail. You see, whatever you struggle 
against, it’s worth considering the opposite 
approach. If you battle insomnia by trying 
to go to sleep, you'll still be an insomniac. 
But if you don't struggle against insomnia 
and just stay awake, you'll go to sleep. It's 
the same with dieting. If you force your- 
self to diet, you'll never lose weight. 
PLAYBOY: What is the key to a healthy diet? 
CHOPRA: Try to avoid things that come in a 
can or have a label. Don't adjust your diet 
because you think something's good for 
you. That won't work for lasting changes. 
Instead, listen to your body and be easy 
about it. If you fight your food vices, 
they'll spin around and destroy you. 
PLAYBOY: What are your food demons? 
CHOPRA: I don't really have any. 
PLAYBOY: Nothing? Come on! Don't you 
ever sneak a Snickers bar? 
CHOPRA: No, I don't. Not because I think it's 
unhealthy; I just don't have a taste for it. 
PLAYBOY: Ice cream? 
CHOPRA: I don't have a taste for it. 


PLAYBOY: Chocolate? 

CHOPRA: I don't have а taste for it. 
PLAYBOY: Pizza? 

CHOPRA: I don't have a taste for it. 
PLAYBOY: Wow, you’re really good. 
CHOPRA: I have two or three cups of coffee 
а day. That's my vice. But I’m a vegetar- 
ian and I eat healthy foods. 

PLAYBOY: Now, don't be offended, but you 
do have a bit of a paunch. 

CHOPRA: [Sighs] Yes, I do. 

PLAYBOY: Do you exercise? 

CHOPRA: I exercise like crazy! I mean, 
today I exercised one and a half hours. 
But sometimes I am in a hotel and haven't 
eaten all day, so at night, if I have a sand- 
wich or bread of any kind, I will gobble it 
up. [puts hands on his gut] But this is going 
to go, for sure, very soon. 

PLAYBOY: Gut or no gut, you certainly 
attract beautiful, fit, healthy women to 
your lectures and events. Has it been 
hard to resist the temptation of gorgeous 
women throwing themselves at you? 
CHOPRA: There's an interesting mind-set 
for dealing with this. If you want to keep 
women interested and exuberant and lively, 
the worst thing you can do is have sex with 
them. There's nothing more interesting 
than manifesting a different type of energy. 
"That doesn't mean suppression. You can Бе 
aware of your sexuality, but it's interesting 
to keep it in reserve. Once people have sex 
the whole dimension changes. 

PLAYBOY: Have you been a good husband? 
CHOPRA: It depends on your cultural 
conditioning. 

PLAYBOY: [Laughs] 

CHOPRA: My wife thinks I'm a good hus- 
band. But in America and in the West, 
marriage can be a self-indulgent partner- 
ship. Very selfish—a lot is expected. You 
know, you can't be talking to another per- 
son. There's a lot of jealousy. We have none 
of that drama. In our marriage we are both 
extremely secure and mature. That means 
there'sa sense of complete caring but com- 
plete detachment at the same time. Гт not 
constantly trying to be in surveillance of 
where my wife is or what she's doing, and 
neither is she. But when we are together 
we have the best time in the world. I think 
the secret to a good marriage is it's better 
to be friends than lovers. 

PLAYBOY: We were intrigued by your pro- 
vocative update of the Kama Sutra, the 
thousand-year-old Indian sex manual. 
What inspired you to publish that? 
CHOPRA: First let me say that more than 
anyone, PLAYBOY has understood the 
mind-body connection. Its entire busi- 
ness model is based on the knowledge that. 
images in consciousness arouse biological 
responses. Many people avoid the topic of 
sex in our culture. Over the years people 
have asked me every question imaginable 
about life and beyond but very few ques- 
tions about sex. I thought it was time to 
focus on what is really the most powerful 
of human forces. Anything that's alive has 
sexual energy. But in the West, sex and 
spirit have been tragically divorced. The 


flesh is sinful and profane, and the spirit 
is sacred and divine. 

PLAYBOY: You write that "sex is freedom." 
What do you mean by that? 

CHOPRA: Sex is transcendence as medita- 
tion is transcendence. If you're really alive 
to your sexuality, if you let go during the 
sexual experience, you lose track of time. 
Your ego is not there. There is a sense of 
vulnerability, surrender, mystery, joy. It is 
freedom in that sense. It also influences 
your biology. For instance, pornography 
may be one of the best ways to keep your 
hormones going—better than taking tes- 
tosterone, for sure. Miss March will get the 
hormones marching and ordering organs 
to stand tall and erect. Why is conscious- 
ness such a mystery? Every state is reflected 
in the body—anger, fear, love, compassion, 
the thrill of adventure, the excitement of 
discovery. Look what happens when you 
suppress sexuality. There's so much of that, 
particularly around religion. As soon as 
you suppress it, you create disasters. 
PLAYBOY: We've certainly seen that with 
the Catholic Church. Do you think the 
church will ultimately survive its endless 
sex scandals? 


Pornography may be one of 
the best ways to keep your 
hormones going— better than 
taking testosterone. As soon 
as you suppress sexuality, you 
create disasters. 


CHOPRA: It's the һуросгізу I worry about. If 
it were just saying sexuality or homosexual- 
ity is fine, there would be no problems. But 
condemning certain types of sexuality as 
sinful while its own clergy is hiding pedo- 
philes, that's the height of hypocrisy. 
PLAYBOY: Eastern religions aren't any more 
tolerant of homosexuality and premari- 
tal sex. 

CHOPRA: All religions are hypocritical. 
PLAYBOY: Do we need organized religion? 
CHOPRA: [Waves hand dismissively] No. 
Organized religion is all corrupt. It's 
just a cult with a large following. Get a 
large enough following and you can call 
yourself a religion, and then it becomes 
all about control and power mongering, 
corruption and money. We don't need 
mediators to experience God. 

PLAYBOY: So you do believe in God? 
CHOPRA: I do not believe in God as a dead 
white male or as God in the sky. In fact, 
I used to be an atheist until I discovered 
I was God. I think of God as the creative 
and evolutionary principle and impulse 
in the universe that becomes self-aware in 
the human nervous system. Chemicals and 
hormones are the mechanisms through 


which this principle expresses itself in a 
biological system. However, I do believe in 
the divine as a feminine energy rather than 
a predatory, masculine energy. For evolu- 
tionary reasons, men have been predators 
and women have been nurturers, and I 
think of God as more of a nurturing force. 
For every single egg there are 950 million 
sperm. Unlike God, men are dispensable. 
Unlike divine energy, men are promiscu- 
ous, whereas women are not. You need 
nine months in the womb to come out. 
Patience and acceptance—that's God. 
When you understand the biology of rela- 
tionships you are also more tolerant and 
forgiving of the behaviors people indulge 
in. Divine intelligence is nurturing, affec- 
tionate, tender, intuitive, sensitive, loving 
and compassionate. 

PLAYBOY: You're a pretty earnest fellow. 
What makes you laugh? 

CHOPRA: Jon Stewart, definitely. Stephen 
Colbert. Conan O'Brien is fantastic. 
PLAYBOY: I’m guessing you're not a Fox 
News fan then? 

CHOPRA: Fox News caters to the basest 
instincts of our collective consciousness. 
In Eastern terms ГА say it's stuck at the 
first chakra, which is the fight-or-flight 
response and everything that goes with 
it—you know, fear mongering, influence 
peddling, cronyism among the extreme 
right wing. I've been on ВШ O'Reilly's 
show a few times. He's always respectful to 
me. The first time I went on I said, *If you 
interrupt me or raise your voice, I’m going 
to walk out." And he didn't. I think he's 
smart and pretends to be a bigot, but he's 
not so much ofa bigot. On the other hand, 
Sean Hannity is a bigot and is not smart. 
And I totally can't take Rush Limbaugh. 
PLAYBOY: When you look at the book- 
shelves today, you see dozens of books 
on seeking happiness and the science of 
happiness. You wrote one called The Hap- 
piness Prescription. Is being happy all the 
time a worthy goal? 

СНОРВА: Yes, it’s better to be happy than 
to be miserable. Of course it’s also impor- 
tant to understand the true nature of 
happiness, to realize that personal plea- 
sure brings only transient happiness. Only 
meaning and contribution and purpose 
can give you lasting fulfillment. 

PLAYBOY: What’s the secret to a happy life? 
CHOPRA: The secret to a happy life is rela- 
tionships, nurturing relationships—people 
you can share а love with and people you 
can help grow in one way or another. Now 
as Гт getting older, I find myself most 
joyful when Pm with my grandkids. It's 
interesting. I never thought I was that 
kind of person. But with a child, I can go 
see The Lion King for the seventh time or 
go to the Museum of Natural History for 
the 50th time and never get bored. 
PLAYBOY: Who's the happiest person you 
know? 

CHOPRA: The Dalai Lama is the real deal. 
He loves everything. He's authentically 
who he is. He never gets upset. He's пог 
even mad at the Chinese. If you ask him 


39 


PLAYBOY 


40 


he says, “No. What they do is very upset- 
ting, but I'm not mad at them." 

PLAYBOY: Are you sure he's human? 
CHOPRA: He's definitely human. I remem- 
ber we were with him in London and he 
ordered bacon and eggs for breakfast and 
everybody went crazy because they don't 
realize that Tibetans are not vegetarians. 
He looked around because he knew he 
was being a bit provocative, but we all just. 
started to laugh. 

PLAYBOY: Who does Deepak Chopra call 
when he's feeling down? Dr. Phil? Tony 
Robbins? Oprah? 

CHOPRA: [Laughs] I don't feel down, hon- 
estly. I can say that. 

PLAYBOY: Oh please! There's never been 
a moment when you thought, Woe is me, 
my last book didn't sell so well? 

CHOPRA: No. I just do what I do. 
PLAYBOY: If someone is facing a daunting 
medical diagnosis, what questions should 
they be asking? 

CHOPRA: We're in a privileged situation 
because of the internet. As soon as you get 
a diagnosis, google all the information you 
can about it and see what treatments are 
necessary and what ones are not. Because 
there will be a lot of unnecessary treat- 
ments, tests and procedures if you simply 
put yourself at the mercy of the medical 
system. You have a little chest pain and 
the next thing you know you've had an 
EKG, a 24-hour heart monitor, a stress test 
and, if you're really unlucky, an unneces- 
sary angiogram or angioplasty and maybe 
even surgery. Doctors are not bad people, 
but never forget that the medical industry 
is a business motivated by profit, and just 
like with anything else you pay for, you 
have choices. The only way to make smart 
choices is by educating yourself first and 
not being passive with your care. 
PLAYBOY: Can alternative medicines such 
as ayurveda cure cancer? 

CHOPRA: What ayurvedic medicine or 
any form of holistic medicine does is help 
restore self-repair mechanisms. You fall 
down, you injure yourself, you have a clot- 
ting response—otherwise you'd bleed to 
death. The body knows how to cure itself. 
And what we learn from the wisdom tradi- 
tions, whether it's ayurveda or something 
else, is they restore self-repair, or homeo- 
stasis, as we call it. Is that enough to cure 
cancer or infection? I would say it's enough 
in many cases to make you less suscepti- 
ble to these illnesses. Are there cures? 
Well, you talk to any physician, there are 
what they call spontaneous remissions. 
"They don't know what happens. Spon- 
taneous remissions occur in all kinds of 
illnesses, including cancer. Prostate сап- 
cer, for example, can go into remission. 
"Through exercise, diet, meditation and 
healthy relationships you can change the 
genes’ behavior. For heart disease there are 
500 genes you can change through behav- 
ior. For coronary artery disease, with four 
months of exercise, meditation, a good diet, 
good sleep and healthy relationships, you 
can make changes. These studies are not 


published, but the news is encouraging. 
PLAYBOY: Do you still feel you have an age- 
less body and a timeless mind? 

СНОРВА: Absolutely. The biological mark- 
ers of aging are extremely flexible. I bet if 
you took my blood pressure, examined my 
immune system and my hormone levels, 
I'm biologically not over 35. And I feel that. 
Just this morning Гуе already been to the 
gym, I've done my basic yoga, I've done my 
meditation and I'm all set for the day. I'm 
a happy camper. I have no anxiety. I enjoy 
what I’m doing. I think this is possible for 
anyone. But we live in a society that per- 
petuates anxiety, stress and fear and even 
motivates behavior change through fear. 
Ifyou don't lower your cholesterol you're 
going to get a heart attack! If you don't get a 
colonoscopy you might have cancer! If you 
motivate people through fear, they're going 
to die faster. Even if they change—if they 
stop smoking, lose weight and lower their 
cholesterol—they're probably still going to 
die faster because fear creates adrenaline 
and cortisol and has its own biology. 
PLAYBOY: What happens to us after we die? 
Will Deepak Chopra still exist somehow? 
CHOPRA: There is no such thing as Deepak 


A person’s identity is a 
socially induced hallucina- 
tion. There’s no such thing 

as a person. There’s only 
a bundle of consciousness 
that’s constantly in flux. 


Chopra. What I am is a constantly trans- 
forming bundle of memories, impulses, 
desires, imagination and creativity. But 
there’s no permanence to me, even now. I 
mean, if I look back at the Deepak who was 
a teenager, he was a different person. In 
fact, I have very little to do with that per- 
son. When I look at Deepak the resident 
and intern who was smoking two packs 
of cigarettes a day and getting sloshed on 
weekends, I can't relate to that person. 
The fact that you think you are a person 
is a socially induced hallucination. 
PLAYBOY: Say that one more time. 
CHOPRA: A person's identity is a socially 
induced hallucination. There's no such 
thing as a person. There's only a bundle 
of consciousness that's constantly in flux. 
"That's the value of what I do and what I 
teach and what I honestly know and believe. 
Once you get rid of the person, you realize 
there's a deeper identity that's insepara- 
ble from all that exists and that can't be 
destroyed. Once you go to that deeper iden- 
tity, which is more transpersonal and even 
transcendent, then you tap into the spon- 
taneous expression of what ГЇЇ call platonic 
values—truth, goodness, beauty, harmony, 


love, compassion, joy, understanding, for- 
giveness. These spiritual values are not 
commands or rules of morality; they're 
expressions of your true identity. 
PLAYBOY: How do you know your true 
identity when you see it? 

CHOPRA: You just know. There's much more 
peace and detachment from trivial and 
mundane things. There's more compassion. 
There's more love. There's a greater desire 
to help. There's loss of fear. There's a com- 
plete understanding of death. You're easy. 
PLAYBOY: So you're not scared of dying? 
CHOPRA: Not at all. Гус worked hard on 
eliminating fear from my life. As I've got- 
ten older I've lost the fear of death. What 
could be bigger? If you lose the fear of. 
death, then you lose all fears, because all 
fear is the fear of death in disguise. It's 
the fear of letting go. It's the fear of step- 
ping into the unknown. 

PLAYBOY: What do you hope your legacy 
will Ье? 

CHOPRA: Easy come, easy go. I honestly 
mean that. 

PLAYBOY: Fasy come, easy go? 

CHOPRA: That's where I am in my present. 
stage of development. We take ourselves 
so seriously and yet we're gone in the blink 
of an eye. I recently took my son to the 
place in India where I'd like my ashes to 
be scattered. It's a place called Haridwar, 
and it's where I scattered the ashes of my 
own father recently. When you go there you 
open the registry and see that your grandfa- 
ther had visited and your great-grandfather 
and your great-great-grandfather. In three 
generations, it's as if you never existed. 

And yet we are timeless. It can be mathe- 
matically proven that right now you have in 
your body a million atoms that were once 
the body of Jesus Christ, the Buddha and 
Genghis Khan. In just the past three weeks, 
a quadrillion atoms have gone through 
your body that have gone through the body 
of every other living species on this planet. 
We are not our body and mind. There's a 
spiritual essence that transcends the activity 
of the present moment. Part of you never 
dies, because it was never born. It's outside 
time, outside space. That's very comforting. 
It's a kind of universal identity. 

In the meantime, the highest form of intel- 
ligence you can have is to observe yourself. 
Let it go at that. You don't need to judge, you 
don't need to analyze, you don't even need 
to change. This is the key to life: the ability to 
reflect, the ability to know yourself, the ability 
to pause for a second before reacting auto- 
matically. If you can truly know yourself, you 
will begin the journey of transformation. 

As human beings we have unlimited 
potential and imagination. The worst thing 
you can do is be a conformist and buy into 
conformity. It's the worst possible thing. 
It's better to be outrageous. It's better to 
hang out with the sages, the people open 
to possibilities, even the psychotics. You 
never know where you'll find the geniuses 


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HOW THE NATIONAL у. 
ENDUIRER BROKE 


THAT NO ONE ELSE WOULD TOUCH, ALTERED A PRESIDENTIAL 
ELECTION AND EARNED JOURNALISTIC CREDIBILITY OVERNIGHT 


TAKER ШИ И 


42 


BY HOWARD KURTZ 


п the chilly afternoon of December 3, 2010, 
Barry Levine was trying to write the final 
chapter in the scandal that had come to define 
the National Enquirer. 
For three long years, ever since the tabloid 
disclosed that John Edwards was having an affair 
with his campaign videographer, the paper's exec- 
utive editor had been consumed by the story. Levine 
viewed Elizabeth 
Edwards as the woeful 
victim of her philan- 
dering husband, her 
declining health a sad 
footnote to John's be- 
trayal. Now Levine was 
about to take a step 
that seemed down- 
right ghoulish: asking 
her to confirm her 
imminent death 
After two weeks of 
reporting, the paper 
had learned that Eliza- 
beth was about to 
abandon her valiant 
struggle against can- 
cer. Levine had a source 
in North Carolina sign 
legal documents agreeing to testify in court 
if the paper was sued. His assistant sent 
Elizabeth's camp an e-mail informing а 
spokeswoman that "the Enquirer will report 
Elizabeth has told close friends she's giv- 
ing up on further treatments to sustain her 


life... Please kindly attempt to provide any comment Бу 
noon EST, Monday, December 6." 

That Monday Elizabeth Edwards decided to preempt the 
paper that had turned her into an object of national sym- 
pathy and ridicule by exposing her family's darkest secrets. 
The 61-year-old woman posted her own statement on Face- 
book, implicitly announcing that the end was near and 
offering "love and gratitude" to her supporters. The next 
day, she was dead 

The Enquirer, which 
had gone to press 
the night before, was 
stuck with an out-of- 
date headline based 
on an unnamed friend 
quoting her as being 
"ready to die." And the 
paper couldn't resist 
adding, "In a final stab 
to her heart, as Eliza- 
beth was hospitalized, 
[John] spent Thanks- 
giving with his mis- 
tress and their toddler 
daughter Quinn." 

Edwards had fum- 
bled away his politi- 
cal future, his cred- 
ibility and his marriage, but Levine was 
not ready to move on. A balding man 
with a soft voice and a hard edge, he had 

helped guide the supermarket weekly to 

its greatest triumph, the exposure and 
humiliation of a presidential candidate and the 


ILLUSTRATION BY DANIEL ADEL 


44 


E. 


revelation of his, in tabloid parlance, "love child." The series 
of exclusives had put the Enquirer in contention for a 
Pulitzer Prize and won it grudging respect from the main- 
stream media, which had long denigrated the paper as a 
slimy bottom-feeder. 

But Levine wouldn't let it drop. He remained in hot pursuit 
as federal investigators examined whether Edwards had 
misspent campaign funds on his mistress, Rielle Hunter. If 
Edwards tried to pick up a woman in a bar, the Enquirer was 
there to blow the whistle. 

Why the obsessive pursuit? The answer provides a clue 
to what drives this oddball collection of journalistic cow- 
boys. They are addicted to the thrill of the chase, whether 
the story is major or marginal, whether the quarry is a big- 
time politician or a small-time celebrity. It's no accident 
the same cast of characters busted Tiger Woods for the 

first of his multiple mistresses, sending the 
golfer’s career into a tailspin, yet it 

also ran a weak, unconfirmed report 

that Sarah Palin "feared" her 


16-year-old daugh- 
ter, Willow, might 
be pregnant. If 
the Edwards saga 
was a moment of 
triumph for Barry 
Levine and his 
crew, they seemed 
determined to 
keep reliving it. 

Levine believed 
readers were still 
fascinated by the 
players: Would 
Edwards go to jail? 
Would he have to 
testify about the 
sex tape he made 
with his lover? Did Rielle still believe that her Johnny would 
one day marry her, with the Dave Matthews Band serenad- 
ing them? Levine was determined to cover every blip. 

But sometimes the Enquirer overreached. Back in March 
2010 it ran another huge headline: GRAND JURY READY TO 
INDICT JOHN EDWARDS. While the piece flatly declared that 
"insiders say an indictment is imminent" over Edwards's 
alleged payments to his campaign videographer, the 
year ended with no charges having been filed. Predicting 
indictments is risky business. 


WOULD EDWARDS БО ТО JAIL? WOULD 


ІҢ TESTIFY ABOUT THE SEX TAPE? ШІ 
HUNTER BELIEVE HE WOULD MARRY HER? 


Whatever the paper's excesses, what its staff does for a 
living no longer seems so alien to the mainstream news orga- 
nizations that are increasingly encroaching on its tabloid turf. 
Even elite journalists have been spending their time chroni- 
cling the sexual misbehavior of David Letterman, Nevada 
senator John Ensign, former South Carolina governor Mark 
Sanford and many other public figures, stretching back to Bill 
Clinton's dalliance with White House intern Monica Lewinsky. 
If there was a difference between The New York Times win- 
ning a Pulitzer for exposing Eliot Spitzer's predilection for 
prostitutes and the Enquirer falling short on the Edwards 
story, it was not immediately apparent. 

Obviously the Enquirer pays for information, and the prac- 
tice of writing checks to sketchy folks casts its journalism їп а 
dubious light. But the television networks and celebrity mag- 
azines get around their prohibitions by paying news subjects 
six-figure sums for photos and videos, and besides, when it 
comes to Edwards and Woods and a growing list of other 
high-profile targets, the Enquirer has gotten the goods. 

Once, its aspirations were not so lofty. Generoso Pope Jr., 


a former member of the CIA's psychological warfare unit 
who launched the modern Enquirer as a scandal sheet in 
the 19505, felt he had his finger on the country's pulse and 
was untroubled by the paper's cash-for-trash reputation. "A 
Pulitzer Prize ain't going to win us two readers," he declared 
in 1975. "I don't care if other media respect us or not." 

But the tabloid did change some minds in 1994, six years 
after Pope's death at 61, when it broke story after story about 
the O.J. Simpson murder case. In the first glimmer that the 
media's tectonic plates were (continued on page 104) 


‘Tm here for the Miss Universe comtest...!” 


А BREATHTAKING TOUR OF A REGION RIPE WITH BEAUTY 


coo Looking like a true 
Greek goddess, PLAYBOY Greece's 
Playmate of the Year 2010 (above) 
46 poses on the island of Crete. 


JESSICA MICARI По 
Miss July 2007 (right) gets wet during 
her shoot in Turkey. The model owes 
her olive skin to her Italian father. 


БАҒ ATO өгеесе 2010 Flava ot ne нан cere 
ра иа ума тобыгы IN Crete: GIUL ORIO PLAYBOY 
Jue nio sobe 20ТО (БОКУ cà Тас арі МА beauty whe ents fier 


TRIANA ІСІ.Е5ІА5 
GLORIA PATRIZI 


Тһе Greek vixen (above) represented her country іп the Model of the World competition. 
PLAYBOY Slovenia's Miss November 2010 (below left) says it's important for a woman to feel “erotic and beautiful.” 
PLAYBOY Croatia's Miss October 2010 (below right) can work both sides of the camera—she's an accomplished photog- 
rapher. PLAYBOY Italy’s Miss October 2009 (right) is a world traveler who loves reading and classical music 


i 


Ж, 


BOCAS DEL TORO IS А SUNNY PLACE FOR 
SHADY PEOPLE. 

AMERICAN EXPATS IN PANAMA KNEW 
BILL CORTEZ WAS WEIRD, BUT THEY DIDN'T 
REALIZE HOW WEIRD. NOBODY WAS 
SHADIER THAN WILD BILL. 

PLAYBOY INVESTIGATES A MURDER 

IN PARADISE 


KEITH WERLE HADN'T SEEN Ais wife, Cher 
Hughes, for three months. That was in July 2010, when a 
special detail of the Panamanian National Police took her 
remains out of a shallow grave on а hillside, beneath a grove 
of giant ceiba trees. Cher had once been a knockout, a slim 
five-foot-10 blonde with full lips and Farrah-like curls. But 
on this July day Werle barely recognized her. The jungle and 
the bullet that had exploded the back of her head had taken 
their effect. Werle was able to identify the tatter of clothes 
still clinging to what was once her lithe torso. It was small 
comfort that the four bodies buried around her had already 
been scoured to skeletons by insects in the moist, loamy soil. 
Werle cried then, silent tears for a woman from whom he 


BY ROBERT DRURY 


ILLUSTRATION BY JESSE AUERSALO 


54 


had separated but for whom he still 
cared deeply. 


As Werle paces the linoleum floor of the 
Panama City morgue some 200 miles from 
that jungle grave, as he waits to reclaim 
Hughes's desiccated body and autopsied 
brain, the dingy yellow walls close in. 
And tears are the last thing on his mind. 
The female government functionary has 
already informed him that his paper- 
work is not in order, and as Werle stares 
at his local attorney, the morgue attendant. 
adds, albeit with a compassionate smile, 
that tomorrow might be a better time to 
collect his wife. 

'The morgue is in one of the stolid, 
American-built administrative build- 
ings on the south side of the old Canal 
Zone. Werle arrived here with his U.S. 
passport and a Panamanian certificate of 
marriage to Cheryl Lynn Hughes dated 
October 25, 2005. Now, after a conver- 
sation in Spanish between his lawyer 
and the clerk, Werle is informed he will 
also need to produce Hughes's original 
death c te—which is still in poli 
custody in the provincial capital of Bocas 
del Toro, on Panama's Caribbean coast— 
as well as the official, government-issued 
DNA report, which for some reason has 
been filed іп an investigator's office in 
the city of David, across the isthmus on 
the Pacific coast. 

This is too much for Werle, and he 
stomps out into a humid October day 
to light up a smoke. He began the 
habit again after Cher's disappear- 
ance in March, often burning through 
as many as four packs a day. As he pats 
the empty pocket of his white linen 
guayabera, I hand him a Marlboro. 
"The rain has stopped, and steam rises 
from the street. A somber undertaker's 
assistant patrolling the sidewalk hands 
us each a business card, and as Werle 
draws in his first deep drag, the fissures 


HEMINGWAY WOULD 
HAVE SET AN 
ILL-FATED ROMANCE 
ON THE ISLANDS OF 
BOCAS DEL TORO. 


on his stubbled face grow longer and 
darker. “Fucking psychopath in Bocas,” 
he says, his voice a rasp. He runs a cal- 
loused hand through his thick hair. 
“Who could have thought?” 

At 51, Keith Werle retains the hand- 
some boyishness that once gave rise to 
his celestial ambitions, and as he paces 
the sidewalk I am put in mind of the 
actor Aaron Eckhart in the film Thank 
You for Smoking, or even a young Clint 
Eastwood. As if reading my mind he 
repeats, “Fucking psychopath. I feel 
like I'm in a fucking movie right now. 
Who could have known?” He shakes 
his head, the words subsumed by ciga- 
rette smoke. But this particular movie 
scene has not yet played out, for when 


we return to the morgue, his attorney, 
a brunette named Ruth Alvarado, is 
opening a manila envelope delivered by 
messenger from the Panamanian prose- 
cutor general's office. Inside is the latest 
prison deposition from the accused serial 
killer William Dathan Holbert, the self- 
proclaimed Wild Bill Cortez, the man 
who put Cher Hughes in her grave. 

Since Holbert’s arrest during a shoot- 
out on the San Juan River he has offered 
more confessions than Saint Augus- 
tine, each contradicting the last. Now 
Alvarado runs her fingertip under the 
sentences of this latest 1 1-page notarized 
document, translating simultaneously, 
mouthing some of the words in a whis- 
per and reading others aloud in English. 
Werle is in no mood. “Jesus, Ruth, cut 
to the chase,” he says. “What's he saying 
now?” Alvarado’s brown eyes squint and 
she sucks in a breath between her teeth. 
“He is naming you as the hit man who 
hired him to kill Cher.” 


Ernest Hemingway would have set an 
ill-fated romance on the palm-fringed 
islands of Bocas del Toro, Elmore Leon- 
ard a heist. The isolated province, 
lapping the Caribbean in Panama’s 
far northwestern corner, is an emerald 
whirl of forests that rise to the shrouded 
Volcan Bard, an 11,401-foot dormant 
volcano. In the shadow of these moun- 
tains a string of cays dots the Chiriquí 
Lagoon. When Christopher Сошт- 
bus first spotted the archipelago on 
his final voyage to the New World in 
1502, it reminded him of the mouth 
of a bull, and for the next 400 years, 
nothing much, save for a banana plan- 
tation or two, disturbed the soft rhythm 
of life in Bocas del Toro. Then, in the 
last days of the 20th century, Bocas was 
rediscovered—this time by the expats. 

The surfers came first, drawn to the 
breaks off the (continued on page 99) 


“TU be a little late—I got jumped by a cougar, but I managed to 
Me nc Ени 


BY DAVID HOCHMAN 
PHOTOGRAPHY BY MATTHIAS CLAMER 


e биеп, 


THE COMIC EVERYMAN DISCUSSES HIS LOVE ОЕ 
SUPERHEROES, EXPLAINS WHY ROBOT CHICKEN WILL 
NEVER BE MADE IN 3-D, ADMITS THERE'S A DOWN- 


SIDE TO BEING SHORT AND REVEALS WHY NERDS 
ARE SUDDENLY GETTING ALL THE GIRLS 


Qi 

PLAYBOY: From Austin Powers to Family Guy, your brand of 
entertainment has been heavy on snark and eye-rolling irony. 
Robot Chicken is all about kitschy action figures. Do you ever 
wonder, When am | going to grow ир? 

GREEN: No, because this is what | do best. Goofing on this stuff 
is where my value to our culture is, you know? | wouldn't be a 
good longshoreman. l'm kind of useless іп that area. 


Q2 

PLAYBOY: How is it that you've been working steadily as ап 
actor since the early 19805? 

GREEN: I’m like the everyman in a funny way. I’m short enough 
to be nonthreatening but appealing enough to kiss the girl in a 
movie. The guys want to have a beer with me and the girls think 
I'm a cute alternative to their asshole boyfriend. It's also be- 
cause та student of pop culture. | get how pop culture relates 
to the economic atmosphere and politics and our personal lives. 
The shit we grow up watching and listening to has a huge im- 
pact on us and reflects what's happening in the larger world. 


Pede 


Q3 

PLAYBOY: So what does, say, Comic-Con tell us about our 
society? 

GREEN: Are you kidding? Comic-Con is everything. This past year 
was my 15th time. On one level, it's simply nerds in their natural 
habitat, which is а great way to study that culture. Nerds сап com- 
mune with one another without fear of persecution. But it's also 
ап emblem of corporate entertainment. The major toy companies 
and studios roll out their products in a grassroots way. They feed 
ideas that the nerds consume and broadcast on a multitude of 
social networks. Plus you have all those cute girls running around 
dressed like Catwoman or the Ninja Turtles. It's just hot. 


94 
PLAYBOY: Women used to run screaming from nerds. What 
happened? 
GREEN: It's weird. Something shifted in our culture over the past 
10 years and beautiful young women started liking nerdy stuff. 
It was as if someone said, "Okay, hot women. You can like all 
this stuff." Which is great for guys. They get to keep doing what 
they love, and now it's cool—video games, old toys our mothers 
made us throw away, Star Wars. (concluded on page 18) 


8y- 
TE.BOYIE 


00) HOME 


“THE HOUSE AT THE END OF THE ROAD 
LOOKS LIKEA FAMILY PLACE. 


IT WAS ONCE, BUT ITS CURRENT 
OWNERS HAVE OTHER, MORE 
BRUTAL NEEDS 


e always took Joey with him to answer the ads because 
Joey was likabie, the kind of kid anybody could relate to, 
with his open face and wide eager eyes and the white- 
blond hair of whoever his father might have been. Or 
mother, Or both, Royce knew something about breeding, 
and to get hair like that there must have been blonds on 
both sides, but then there were a lot of blonds in Russi: 

weren't there? He'd never been there, but from what h 
Shana had told him about the orphanage they must have Бе! 
common as brunettes were here, or Asians and Mexicans anyway, 
with their shining black hair that always looked freshly greased, 
and what would you call them, blackettes? His own hair was a sort 
of dirty blond, nowhere near as extreme as Joey's, but in the same 
ballpark, so that people often mistook Joey for his son, which was 
just fine with him. Better than fine: perfect. 

Тһе first place they went to, in Canoga Park, was giving away 
rabbits, and there was a kid there of Joey's age—10 or so—who 
managed to look both guilty and relieved at the same time. A 
FOR SALE sign stood out front, the place probably on the verge of 
foreclosure (his realtor's brain made a quick calculation: double 
lot, maybe 3,500 square feet, two-car garage, air, the usual faux- 
granite countertops and built-ins, probably sold for close to five 
before the bust, now worth maybe three and a half, three and a 
quarter), and here was the kid's father sauntering out the kitchen 
door with his beer gut swaying in the grip of his wifebeater, 
Lakers cap reversed on his head, goatee, mirror shades, a real 
primo loser. “Hey,” the man said. He (continued on page 108) 


ILLUSTRATION BY KEVIN TAYLOR ia 


60 


PHOTOGRAPH 


ARNY FREYTA! 


СВ A 


BREAK А SWEAT WITH МІ55 MARCH 


Y ™ really good at having fu 


says 24-year-old Ashley Mattingly. 

| Evidence of her carefree sp She revels in traveling on annual 
4% "girls trips" to such locales as Monaco and Greece (“I've been 
to Santorini, Mykonos and Athens—amazing"). She throws dinner 
parties (“I love to entertain with wine, food and flowers") and she 
kayaks off the coast of Malibu, where she will occasionally partake in 
some au naturel relaxation (“I take everything off, lie back and go 
"Ahhh... "). A shy kid, her enchanting joie de vivre first burst forth 
in high school. "Joining the track and cross-country teams helped 
bring out my personality," explains Ashley, a native Texan who four 
years ago moved from Dallas to Beverly Hills. “At the end of every 
race I would laugh. People would ask me why I was laughing so 
hard, and I'd say, ‘I’m just having so much fun!’” Today, however, 
her pleasure has become more glam. “1 adore slipping on a Versace 
dress and a pair of Jimmy Choos and going to dinner at Madeo in 
L.A., which is so much fun and such a scene. The paparazzi are 
always out front! I don't just love the glamour scene; I want to be 
part of it." So take heed: If you're driving along Rodeo Drive, be 
on the lookout for a silver BMW. "Do I weave in and out of cars?" 
asks our unstoppable Miss March. “Yes. But it's not that I'm driving 
too fast; it's that everybody else is driving too slow!" 


yet a, WO |. SS 


ova” (2777 . м 
“ 
"и и м и...“ P 4 


See more of Miss March 


PLAYBOY’S PLAYMATE ОҒ THE MONTH 


PLAYMATE DATA SHEET 


. 
МАМЕ: 


BUST: SL WAIST: Ее». ВЕ ки eX 
HEIGHT: КЕШ” pun Exo MR 
BIRTH DATE: OORE аф. Dallas, Texas 
Playmate-I want t torn this into a meer! 
талан: A Worldly Marı udha Works hard 


төмен; FAR, vide, OUY-0P -Shape Slobs wo ` 


\ 


МҮ IDEA OF SEXY: E womAn wha hads en 


ret Tipto Tiahteen-year-old 
St = > babe. 


MISS ARCH 


PLAYBOY’S PARTY JOKES 


А redhead, a brunette and a blonde were 
all in the same hospital room, waiting to give 
birth, when the redhead said, “I just know 
I'm going to have a baby girl, because I was 
on top when I conceived." 

“Апа I know I'm going to have a boy, 
because my husband was on top when I got 
pregnant," the brunette said. 

The blonde looked horrified and started 
sobbing. 

"What's wrong?" the brunette asked her. 

“I think I'm going to have puppies!" the 
blonde cried. 


What did the penis say to the condom? 
“Cover me, I'm going in.” 


Ay 


One evening a woman was having dinner 
at home with her husband and she said, 
“You know, dear, I had a physical today and 
the doctor told me I have the breasts of a 
25-year-old.” 

“Is that so?” the husband replied, rolling 
his eyes. “What did he have to say about 
your ass?” 

“Oh, darling,” his wife said, “I don’t think 
your name came up in the conversation.” 


Two men were having drinks together when 
one said to the other, “A few days ago my wal- 
let was stolen, and the person who took it has 
been using my credit cards all week.” 

“Why haven't you called the credit card com- 
panies to report them stolen?” his friend asked. 

“Because the thief spends less money than 
my wife,” the man replied. 


One summer a beautiful blonde college 
student wanted to earn some extra money, 
so she went door to door in her neighbor- 
hood, looking for odd jobs. Finally, a man 
asked her to paint his porch. She returned 
the next day with supplies and started work- 
ing. After an hour, she knocked on his door 
to let him know she had finished. When he 
opened it she said, “I just wanted to let you 
know that I’m done with the job. Oh, and 
by the way, you don’t have a Porsche, you 
have a Lexus.” 


Just before his son was to be married, a man 
decided to offer him some fatherly advice. 

“Son, on my wedding night in our honey- 
moon suite, I took off my pants, handed them 
to your mother and told Бен to try them on. 
She did and then she said, “These are too big. 
I can't wear them.’ So I replied, ‘Exactly. I 
the pants in this family and I always will.’ 
We’ve never had any problems since then 

Impressed, the son decided to try the same 
tactic as his father. That night in his honey- 
moon suite, he took off his pants, handed them 
to his new wife and told her to try them on. 

"But they're too large," she said. “They 
won't fit me." 

"Exactly," he рч, “I wear the pants in 
this family and I always will. I don't want you 
to forget that.” 

His wife then took off her panties, handed 
them to him and told him to try them on. 

“I can't get into your panties," he said, 
astonished. 

"Exactly," his wife replied, "and if you don't 
change your attitude, you never will." 


My Ali 


One evening a woman arrived home to 
discover her husband sitting at the kitchen 
table, staring at their marriage certificate. 
“Why are you looking at that?” she asked. 
"I'm trying to find the expiration date,” 
he replied. 


А man was drinking at a bar one evening. 
Every time he ordered a drink, he would pull 
a picture out of his wallet and gaze at it for 
a moment. 

“Old girlfriend?" the bartender asked. 

“No,” the man replied. “It’s a picture of 
my mother-in-law. When she starts to look 
attractive, I know I've had too much." 


Send your jokes to Party Jokes Editor, г лувоу, 680 
North Lake Shore Drive, Chicago, Illinois 60611, 
or by e-mail through our website at jokes.playboy.com. 
PLAYBOY will pay $100 to the contributors whose sub- 
missions are selected. 


“Better get down here, Chief. Today's lineup you gotta see.” 


Qucm 
| 
| 


|, 
Y 
FASHION BY JENNIFER RYAN JONES + STORY BY STEVE GARBARINO 


PHOTOGRAPHY BY JAMES IMBROGNO 
- 


JEAREOLOGY 


FROM FITS TO BRANDS TO \ ‚ THE PLAYBOY 
DISSECTS HOW TO WEAR 


sods operator Levi Strauss, who used copper rivets 


story—or at least a story with rivets. They belon 


1o San Francisco dry 
to strengthen the pockets of his customers’ denim work pants during the 
Gold Rush. Not only were the pants—what we now call jeans—tough, 
they felt good, a cotton-twill second skin. About а century later James 
Dean made them rebellious, meticulously rolling his jeans at the ankle. 
Then came the bell-bottomed bacchanal of the 1960s. A decade onward, 
denim went all disco and glitzy signature designer (Sasson et al.). Can 


we skip the 1980s—3,652 days of stonewashes and man-butt cleava; 


The ensuing years, however, have compensated nicely for that miserable 


nadir. Thank you, heritage revival. High or low rise, button fly or zipper 


І ed, tapered or flared, Ка Moes low  Вш-ОМС Ьу, dude-ranch 


dude or heroin-chic androgyne, jeans are a fad. yet not at all. 


ain't cheap; the antique looms 


е modern weaving machines. Break them 


CUTS 


FIT jeans such as Eclipse by Raven Denim 


($188, rayendenim.com) belong on men with muscular legs. They don’t 


sit way above the navel or ride the bush; instead, they're relaxed about 


jeans, e.g., the 


the hips, calves and waist. Know this about SKINNY 
Super Chuckin 


.com): Unless you share a tailor with Iggy Pop, you're in danger of looking 


kinny from Converse by John Varvatos ($150, converse 


like Meat Loaf in them. - ns, on the other 


hand, flatter most body types, elongating the legs of shorter guys and bal- 
eden Jean by DRT (8119, 
jeans look dressy while still 
Jeans ($185, joe 


if you're tall and lean or of medium height with regular hips. 


ancing out wider guys. In particular, try the Br 


omehow ST 


drtjeans.com). 
being casual. Buy a pair of Brixtons by Joe 


jeans.com) 


Armani 

xchange 

$125 
armaniexchange.com 


ck one 


570 
calvinklein.com 


levis.com 


7 For All Mankind 
$188 
Tforallmankind.com 
Earnest Sewn 
$185 
earnestsewn.com 
Buffalo David 
Bitton 


589 
buffalojeans.com 


$150 
williamrast.com 
J. Crew 


$96 
jerew.com 


Never before have there been so many differ- 


ent denim brands to choose from. But don’t 
feel overwhelmed, All the brands listed here 
are solid choices. Give the most thought to 
finding jeans that suit your body and personal 
style. (The overall style of the moment? Any- 
thing with vintage appeal.) We've gone over fits 


and cuts. As for washes and finishes— 


-aged, 
distressed, bleached, indigo, pigment-dyed, 
30 dark when 
Же and tie. And 
go with an acid wash when you want to look 
like your dad and/or Tom Selleck. Also: Don't 
fear the tailor—or, more likely, consider your 


stonewashed or sandblastec 


you plan to wear a sports ja 


jeans too informal a piece of clothing to һауе 
a tailor make the requisite nips and tucks. 
And finally, ask how often your jeans should 
be washed, how much they will shrink when 


washed and if they should even be washed. 


DENIM JACHETS 


A EP ER Y^ T 
" nim jackets were cool enough Гого aren't the same; otherwise you're sporting a Texas tuxedo. 
Steve MeQueen and Paul Newman. And lately they've experi- Clockwise from top left: УГУ TRICKEN JACKET (880, 
enced a major resurgenee—aid ейей by new designer — levis.com), ОКУ FIVE JACKET (898, tokyofivebrand 
brands that have given them a slimmer би and longer arms. — eom), С-ТАН SLIM TAILOR JACKET (8260, g-star.com) 
Bold men can wear them with blue jeans, provided the dyes and PRPS 10010098501 JACKET (8310, prpsgoods.com). 


WOULD YOU SLEEP WITH THIS WOMAN? 


NEANDERTHAL 


AFTER MODERN HUMANS MIGRATED OUT DF AFRIEA, THEY MAY HAVE ENEGUN ERED THESE и 
BARREI-CHESTED HOMININS, NOW EXTINCT. 010 WE HAVE SEX WITH OUR BIES ШІН f 


ANDIFSO, ARETHEY PART OFUS STIL 


the summer of 1856, in the Nean- Euribor pié го {саде а! ing truth: This 
der Valley near Düsseldorf, Miners not-quite human was th@*'missing link" between ape and 
quarrying.limestone discovered the + man. Why else would his bones indicate he walked stooped 
top of a misshapen human skull and -over оп béni knees? 

other bones; A debate began over As it turned out, the man stooped because hel had arthri- 
their origin. Some argued the remains tis. In 1864 a geologist from Galway suggested the bones 
belonged to a deformed Cossack horse- belonged to a inct; brutish species he dubbed Homo 
man who had crawled into the cave to neanderthalensis, or Neanderthal Man (thal was German 
die; others felt it had to be an ances- for “уаПеу”). But it wasn’t until 1886, when two complete 
tor of the Australian aborigines, who skeletons were unearthed in Belgium, that most scientists 
in Victorian times were thought to be in the young field of paleoanthropology accepted nean- 
the least advanced of Homo sapiens. derthalensis as a distant cousin of Homo sapiens. The two 


78 


ЕМСЕ 


populations split between 500,000 and 800,000 ycars ago, 
probably from a common ancestor called Ното heidelber- 
gensis, after which the proto-Neanderthals hiked west to 
the Middle East and Europe. Back in Africa, the Homo 
sapiens population may have withered to as few as 2,000 
people on the entire continent—a dodo's breath from 
extinction. Yet 40,000 years ago, after these disparate 
Africans managed to find each other, a population explo- 
sion pushed sapiens north. 

Теп thousand years later, the Neanderthals were gone. 
They made their last stand in modern-day Spain and Por- 
tugal, south of the Ebro River, and stragglers may have 


survived another 2,000 years in a cave on the Rock of 


Gibraltar. Although other hominins (i.e., species more 
closely related to us than chimpanzees) possibly outlasted 
the Neanderthals—Homo floresiensis, Hobbit-like humans 
who lived in isolation on an island in Indonesia; Homo erec- 
tus in the Far East; a cousin in Siberia whose fossilized pinkie 
bone was discovered in 2008; and others surely yet to be 
unearthed—Homo sapiens is today the last mankind stand- 
ing of at least eight varicties of humans. 

"The Neanderthals survived for at least 150 millennia. What 
doomed them? Was it a suddenly harsh climate? Did they not 
breed quickly enough? Did their tools suck? Did they meet 
their match in modern humans, who, while not as stout, had 
a darker disposition and more efficient ways to kill? Or did 
we fuck them into oblivion? That is, we may have fucked the 
Neanderthals by driving them to the sea with our superior 
guile. But did we actually fuck them? 

Anthropologists call it interbreeding. They don't calculate 
how many beers it would take. Last summer, after comparing 
DNA extracted from thimblefuls of powdered Neanderthal 
bone fragments to that of five modern humans, a team led 
by Svante Pääbo of the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary 
Anthropology in Leipzig calculated that Neanderthals have 
contributed 2.5 percent of the DNA of every living person 
except natives of Africa (where Neanderthals never lived). 
Although there is no fossil evidence, the paleogeneticist 


DID WE SEE THESE HUMANS 


OR TREAT THEM LIKE ANIMALS? 


THIS МЕАМС 


believes the two groups first encountered each other in what 
is now Israel between 60,000 and 100,000 years ago, after 
early Homo sapiens (our Homo genus plus sapiens, which is 
Latin for “knowing man”) arrived from Africa but before 
we spread into Europe and Asia. The sequencing has also 
revealed what makes us unique; scientists so far have com- 
piled a list of more than 200 genetic variations that appear 
to have given us the edge over neanderthalensis, including 
one that improves sperm motility and many devoted to 
brain function. But given that sapiens and neanderthalensis 
can reproduce, we are not distinct species. Instead, techni- 
cally, we are subspecies—Homo sapiens neanderthalensis and 
Homo sapiens sapiens. 

Despite the attention given to the shared genetics, DNA 
doesn’t say much about how or if we interacted. Is that 2.5 per- 
cent the long tail of a single one-night stand? Although Pääbo 
finds this scenario unlikely, even one half-breed in a limited 
population could have spread neanderthalensis markers far 
and wide. Did we view Neanderthals as less than human and 
avoid them except for occasional desperate acts of “bestiality”? 
(Male members of our sophisticated species are to this day 
caught penetrating creatures not nearly as closely related.) 
Or did we consider Neanderthals as equals and rut so wildly 
they essentially melted into the crowd? 

New research suggests early hominins were willing to have 
sex with anything on two feet. In October British scientists 
reported that Neanderthals and Cro-Magnons (the sapiens best 
known for their cave art) had physical characteristics that sig- 
nal aggressiveness and promiscuity. Specifically, higher levels 
in the womb of androgens such as testosterone (which fuels 
the sex drive in men and women) are thought to increase the 
length of the fourth finger in relation to the second finger. By 
that standard, fossilized finger bones indicate Cro-Magnons 
and Neanderthals were even hornier than we are. In April 
an analysis of 99 populations around the globe by genetic 
anthropologists at the University of New Mexico found hints 
that we interbred with other species some 60,000 years ago 
in the eastern Mediterranean and — (concluded on page 115) 


252525 


24 


CHE 
27 222 DET у 
JT ATAR 


79 


1, at least we've licked the weight problem.” 


“Wel 


ШШ 


+ PROTOS AND TEXT BY JAMES PETERSEN 


T SIN HAD DETERIORATED 


Ш i Їй 
— 


wind is unrelenting. We 
leave Chile and ride 500 
yards to a Bolivian cus- 
toms and immigration 
outpost. For eight hours 
we sit in a tiny build- 
ing watching sand blow 
under the door. The 
power is out, and the 
Bolivian customs offi- 
cials will not release our 
bikes. We get approval 
just as the sun goes down. We have to ride 150 miles in the 
dark, in the freezing cold, without our support vehicle. 

With my eyesight, riding at night is an act of faith. I tuck 
my bike behind Andres and Rob, the most experienced 
off-road riders in the group, and go chameleon. I will do 
what they do, an act of trust unprecedented in my life. 

I read their taillights for direction changes, hills, drop- 
offs, use the path of their headlights to illuminate enough 
road to match their speed. I stand on the pegs to lower 
the bike's center of gravity, making it less squirrelly on 
the gravel, potholes, sand and ruts. The road deteriorates 
into what locals call ripa—miles of washboard bumps. 
The bike chatters like a white ball on a spinning roulette 
wheel. I try not to dwell on the rest of the metaphor. If 
I drop into a rut or pothole, my number will be up. My 
heart beats a mantra. Not me. Not yet. 

I ride almost entirely by feel, letting the bike handle 
the details—its suspension is quicker than my quads. 
I commit to the throttle, to the physics of a gyroscope 
(stability provided by spinning wheels that disappears 
if you slow). I don’t touch the brakes. I force myself to 
breathe regularly. Adrenaline turns my mouth to cotton. 
dently my body knows it's in a fight-or-flight situa- 
tion. I suck on a plastic tube that runs to a bladder of 
water built into my riding suit. Nothing. The tube is fro- 
zen solid, as are the water bottles strapped to my fanny 
pack. The container of antifreeze in our guide’s top box 
freezes, explodes and leaks antifreeze icicles. The cold 
poses more of a problem than the dark. 

At minus 10 degrees centigrade, if a bike breaks down, 
it will be a matter of moments before hypothermia esca- 
lates the mechanical to the mortal. 

Hours into the night I crest a hill to find the wind 
has deposited six inches of sand between two embank- 
ments. The sand swallows our front wheels. Just like 
that, Andres is sideways. I follow, sideways. Rob sees 
what is happening, touches his brakes and goes down. 

Almost in unison Andres and I ride out three whip- 
lash turns, steering with our knees and foot pressure, 
like skiers in powder. We apply throttle to unweight the 
front wheel, and finally, as the sand gets shallower, we 
bring the bikes under control. 

We flick on the hazard lights, put the bikes on their side 
stands and run up the hill. Rob is uninjured, but there are 
five riders behind us, stretched across the night. 

I am halfway across South America, exactly where I 
want to Бе... 


In college I started a journal, and the first entry describes 
a motorcycle ride through the streets of Hartford, Con- 
necticut, shifting through the gears, feeling the front 
wheel lift, seeing the slash of red as my taillight reflected 
off the chrome trim of parked cars. The motorcycle 


made me a writer. It is a machine for generating words, 
a tool for seeing. Kick an engine to life and I enter 
an altered state, one that turns highways into hymns, 
momentum into moments. 

I ride a motorcycle to take my eyes places where ГИ 
see things ГИ never forget. Unfortunately, my eyes do 
not return the favor. 

Chicago, 2003: I'm sitting in a darkened doctor's 
office, staring at eye charts. In the space of a few months 
my eyesight has deteriorated dramatically. I tell the doc- 
tor I сап no longer read headlines accurately. 

“I don't think I could pass the vision test for a driver's 
license," I tell him. 

He laughs. “This is Chicago. Everyone has an uncle in 
the DMV." Then he looks at the back of my eyes. 

Blood vessels have done to the retina what tree roots do 
to sidewalks. The macula—the part of the eye responsible 
for fine focus, for details—is swollen, leaking fluid from 
tiny eruptions. If you project a slide onto a rumpled sheet, 
some parts will be in focus, some parts won't. There will 
be gaps and blind spots. Weirdly, the mind takes the frac- 
tured information and tries to make sense of it. 

Pick a word in the middle of this page. Focus on just 
that word. How well do you see the other words on the 
page? That’s how I see. 

The retinologist launches a Star Wars battle on the 
inside of my eyes, cauterizing blood vessels with a laser. 
Two or three times a year he plunges a needle into one 
eye or another, injecting steroids to reduce swelling. It 
is not a cure, but it slows the deterioration. 

I don't talk about my eyes. If asked, I tell people I 


BLOOD VESSELS HAVE 


done to my eyes what tree roots 
do to sidewalks. 


THE BMW F650 GS: 798 ce, 71 horsepower, top speed of 115 
mph. Distance: 5,000 miles, five countries, one continent. 


can still sit for hours at a computer, watching porn, At 
least I think it’s porn. 

Someday soon I will be unable to ride. As a result, mile- 
age is the only thing that matters. The road ahead. I start 
taking long rides, logging miles in South Africa, Canada, 
France, Spain, Central America, the American West. 

Then one day my editor, a man possessed of a manic rest- 
lessness, contacted me: “I want a feature where you ride 
across Mongolia or Siberia or something like that Ewan 


81 


82 


RIO DE JKMSINO 
ааа. ге 


TRAVELOGUE (above)—A: Outside Antonina, two dead 
bikers lie under a blue tarp. В: а near head-on collision 
with a truck on the road approaching Blumenau. С: 100 
mph days! D: Bolivia's legendary Road of Death, con- 
quered. E: Near Arequipa, Peru, 147 roadside shrines 
mark casualties along a 95-mile stretch. 


McGregor TV special, Long Way Round. Something that 
really gets at the heart of what it's like to ride and be out 
there in the elements, doing what every man dreams of. 
We'll need frightening locals, harsh weather and loads of 
color—like across Afghanistan but not as dangerous." 

I contact Compass Expeditions, an Australian outfit 
that keeps a fleet of BMW motorcycles in South Amer- 
ica. By stitching together three of their tours, I can 
go 5,000 miles from Rio to Lima, spending six weeks 
getting to know the planet. ГИ have a guide and a sup- 
port vehicle filled with spare parts. ГИ traverse coast 
highways, jungles, deserts, high plains, the Andes. ГЇЇ 
challenge El Camino de la Muerte—the Road of Death— 
in Bolivia. 

At a hotel in Rio in September I meet two New Zea- 
landers who, for reasons not unlike my own, have signed 
on for the coast-to-coast adventure. We share a passion: 
the desire to take a skill and use it to unlock the world. 


On the other side of six weeks we will be different peo- 
ple. Different, i.e., crazed or dead. 

Rob, a musician-math instructor, reports he'd been in 
the country barely 10 minutes before facing drawn guns 
and someone demanding money. He seems unfazed. 

John, a software engineer with a voice that registers on 
the Richter scale, asks Rob if his Leatherman has a file. 
He's chipped a tooth and wants to grind it smooth. 

One morning as I try to figure out a mounting system 
for my helmet cam, I tell them my editor's hopes for this 
article. A hint of danger. Exotic locales. Getting bug- 
gered by commie guerrillas and capturing it in high-def. 
*For that," asks John, *would you mount the camera 
facing backward?" 


In Penedo, a town two hours from Rio de Janeiro, we 
pick up the BMW F650 GS motorcycles that will take us 
across this continent. I don't tell anyone about my eyes. 

Micho, our guide, warns us that South Americans are 
aggressive drivers. Oncoming cars may pull into your 
lane to pass and expect you to deal with it. Taking elec- 
trical tape, the Kiwis put yellow arrows pointing to the 
right on their windscreens, a reminder that here they 
have to drive in the opposite lane from home. On the 
windscreen of my bike I put an arrow of yellow tape 
pointing straight ahead. 

We spend the first few days getting used to the bikes and 
the odd rhythms of Brazilian roads. We learn to dodge the 
unexpected: Dog. Goat. Rooster. Vulture. Speed bump. 
Town. On the coast highway near Bertioga, I have a 
startling vision. What I think is a bag of trash that has 
fallen out of a truck reveals itself to be a religious fanatic 
kneeling on the center line, eyes closed, arms outstretched 
and raised toward heaven. Rapture? Surrender? 

In the coming weeks I will ^ (continued on page 94) 

FOR VIDEO GO TO PLAYBOY.COWLONGROAD. 


Playboy’s 2011 


Motorcycle 


Review 


and Congress 
have continued the Bush tax cuts, 
which means you have extra dis- 
cretionary income. What are you 
waiting for? Our picks 
of the hottest 
new rides оп 
the road. 


UNLIKE OTHER motorcycle compa- 
nies, Harley competes against Harley. If 
you're looking for that certain kind of 
ride, what else will suffice? Every year 
the company breathes new life into the 
brand and reignites that certain atti- 
tude. The 2011 XR1200X is the next 


generation of the bike Harley debuted 
in Europe in 2008. The idea: Start with 
the basic Sportster chassis, then build 
a Harley with a sport-bike feel, a mod- 
ern Harley you could even take on a 
racetrack. Think fully adjustable Showa 
shocks, rear-set foot pegs and wide 


Ў 


flat-track handlebars. Gone is the old- 
school chrome in favor of black exhaust 
pipes. It's still a Harley, so you're talking 
about a wet weight of 573 pounds and 
а 60-inch wheelbase. Like a linebacker, 
it's big and quick. Bonus: a Vance & 
Hines-sponsored five-race pro series. 


ENGINE/ 
PRICE/ 


WITH THIS NEW motorcycle, Triumph is going after 
BMW's F800 GS, the benchmark midsize adventure 
tourer. The English invented world conquest (remem- 
ber Lawrence of Arabia). Maybe Triumph is pissed that 
Ewan McGregor didn't choose a Brit bike to circle the 
globe. The Triumph triple is bulletproof, and this bike 


gives it a purpose: empire building. 


ENGINE/ 


DUCATT'S TAKE ON the muscle bike is pure evil. Thus the 
devilish name of this freakishly fast beast. Italian designers 
wanted the bike's profile to resemble the arched back of a 
power sprinter in the block—only this sprinter has traction con- 
trol, ride by wire, а slipper clutch and other goodies borrowed 
from the racetrack. The optional bodywork pictured here is 


made of exotic carbon. Zero to 60? Just 2.6 seconds. 


83 


1 YCLE competes with any cross-country 
asphalt-eating tourer. It's the kind of bike you toss a 
Jacuzzi, a hibachi and a satellite dish into the saddlebags 
and head for the sunset. It marks the first time BMW has 
used an in-line six in a bike (the in-line six being the clas- 
sic Bimmer road-car engine, of course). The K 1600 GT 
offers power, less weight than any bike in the class, plus 
electronic throttle control, selectable throttle response 
(rain, road, sport) and traction control. The headlights 
look around corners. Optional electronics allow you to 
reconfigure suspension with the flick 

of a switch from "solo" to "sport" 

to "passenger with luggage." 

Leave the Bentley at home. 


THE F3 ISN'T OUT until fall, but we couldn't help our- 
selves. A midsize supersport for the connoisseur, the F3 
was the sexiest thing at the Milan Motorcycle Show, a mis- 
sile with a mission. The backstory: Harley-Davidson bought 
MV Agusta-an Italian company known for lavish, cost-is- 
no-object creations—for megamillions in 2008. When the 
economy crashed, Harley sold the company back to Claudio 
Castiglioni for three euros. This new bike proudly announces 
that Agusta is alive and well. The three-cylinder motor 
invokes history; MV Agusta won 10 Grand Prix titles with the 
world's first triple. The F3 will share much of the company's 
legendary F4 technology but at a more affordable price. 


N ZR CONTE 
ate anything less than the 
king of serious sport bikes, 
Kawasaki engineers set a 
200-horsepower goal for this 
new engine. Early YouTube 
videos show a dyno test at 
188. The package sets a new 
bar: adjustable power setting 
for full, medium or low; trac- 
tion control that reads wheel 
speed, rpm, throttle position 
and rate of acceleration so 
you can ride on the edge of 
adhesion; and an optional 
antilock brake mechanism 
that interprets input at 100 
cycles per millisecond. The 
intelligence is in the machine, 
race-bred and ready for the 
track. This is the most fear- 
some Ninja ever. 


(Nor) Like FATHER LIKE SON 


SINCE MY WICE VALS JUST BEEN HE AND НУ WT YoLA кком ANY.) WER, T Kow fR SURE 
г. 5 x \ AN. 
HES Z5 AND HE'S STIW A VIRGIN Беш = ый Аф © . 


1 WAVE © SAY, THAT'S THE 
АСА SVE EVER 
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кез 


ANARCHY 


YOU KNOW HERASLYLA,THE PORN STAR BIKER 
BABEONSONSOFANARCHY.OFFTHESET,WINTER 
AVE 2011 TURNS ON HER REAL LOVE LIGHT 


PHOTOGRAPHY BY 


MARLENA 


heart of gold, a scene-stealing 
seductress and the love interest 
of badass 
biker Opie 
Winston 
(played 
by Ryan 
Hurst). But 
in real life, 
Winter’s 
story rivals 
anything 
you'd see on 
television. 
Born in 
the sticks 
of Bucks 
County, 
Pennsyl- 
vania, she 
just like 
other 
small-town 
Ameri 


But at the 
age of 11 Winter moved to the 
Czech Republic with her 
a pair of hippies turned 
entrepreneurs. 
"The Czech Republic was 
freshly postcommunist when 


BIELINSKA 


e got there," Winter says while 
sitting on a couch in her West 
Hollywood apartment after a 
long day of rehearsals. "It was 
kind of hard to settle in. I remem- 

ber feeling 
a heavy 
energy 

that city, 
and Prague 


of people 
missed com- 
munism 
use 
/ could 
get away 
with doing 
nothing." 
Winter 
enrolled at 
the Inter- 
national 
School of 
Prague 
while her 
parents 
started a 
business: a 
nightclub. 
But not just any nightclub. 
In postcommunist Prague the 
youth generation was hungry 
for a taste of the West and a 
wild party. The Zolis’ place was 
soon voted one of the top 10 


r with a wild 
gang drama Sons 
of Anarchy r start in mus 
theater in the Czech Republic 


nightclubs in the world by a Brit- 
ish magazine. 
It was their first nightclub," she 
letting loose a guffaw remi- 
niscent of Diane Keaton's in Annie 
Hall. "Basically everything they've 
touched has been successful." 

Not unlike their daughter. Win- 
ter studied ballet and started 
auditioning for musical theater. 
By the age of 13 she was working 
professionally in productions that 
passed through Prague. At 19 she 
enrolled in New York City's Atlan- 
tic Theater Company, founded by 
David Mamet and William H. Macy. 
From there it was only a matter of 
time before Hollywood beckoned. 

For some reason—can you guess? 
producers tend to cast this Kate 
Hudson-esque beauty in roles that 
emphasize her deliciousness. She has 
played hot characters in Sex and Death 
101 and The Oh in Ohio, co-starring 
Parker Posey and Danny DeVito. 
“The fact that I seem to play only 
porn stars, prostitutes, courtesa 
and various other sex-comprom 
women is sort of a running joke in 
the family," Winter says. "I'm noth- 
ing like that in real life, obviously." 
In fact, off the set the most re 
less Winter gets is on horseback. "I 
spend as much time as possible at 
my stable in the Hollywood Hills," 
she says. "It keeps me sane. 

Winter was no novice when the 
time came to step in front of the 
camera sans clothes. "It turns out 
nudity is not a problem for те," she 
says about her job and her PLAYBOY 
shoot. "It's one of those things you 
think about later and say, 'Yeah, I 
could do this for a living. 


PLAYBOY 


94 


THE LONG ROAD 


(continued from page 82) 
sce gravel take flight as what I thought 
was stone becomes birds. I will see boul- 
ders heave themselves from the grass 
and become bulls. I will throw open a 
hotel room window and watch a tree dis- 
solve into hummingbirds, then resolve 
into a tree. 

That I can't read road signs doesn't 
bother me. None of us knows Portu- 
guese. Faced with confusing signage for 
restrooms (ELE and ELA) Rob comes up 
with a mnemonic: Would you rather go 
into a restroom with Elle Macpherson or 
Ella Fitzgerald? 


We stop at fruit stands to buy oranges. 
The vendors sell window stickers of 
Christ, Bob Marley, Che, the Playboy 
Rabbit Head, Yosemite Sam, Betty 
Boop. A truck driver 
from Alabama would 
feel right at home. 
The magazine racks 
sell the same glossy 
dreams, the cleavage 
and lip gloss, the tips 
to flatten your abs and 
improve your sex life. 
I begin to doubt local 
culture exists. 

And then I take to 
the highway and catch 
out of the corner of my 
eye a hillside covered 
with horse trailers—a 
gaucho rodeo. Cow- 
boys are chasing a 
fake cow being towed 
by a motorcycle, drop- 
ping a lariat over the 
horns, keeping alive 
the old skills. 

After a weck of coast 
highways, fishing vil- 
lages and colonial 
towns, we turn inland toward the high- 
lands of Brazil. A sign even I can read 
warns ATENGAO: CURVA SINUOSA. The BMW 
offers its own translation. Sinuous, sen- 
suous curves. The road coils and uncoils 
beneath me. I create smooth ares of accel- 
eration that intoxicate. At 60 mph, the 
BMW scampers, showing off an agility 
that delights. The passing surge—from 
60 to 80—leaves slower vehicles in the 
mirror. We ignore double lines, pass on 
corners, anywhere there is an opening— 
because we can, There is nothing quite 
as stirring as the sight of three bikes 
locked in formation, angled over, sweep- 
ing through a turn. 

We will ride just shy of flat-out for 
entire days on roads so empty the only 
distraction will be three pigs cross- 
ing, a mule-drawn cart, a gaucho on 
horseback. To ride at speed is an act of 
sustained concentration. І extend my 
sense of sight to the breaking point, 
aware that a blind spot may contain an 
oncoming truck. 


We pass vultures having their morning 
meal. A dozen birds perch on the corpse of 
a large goat to form a black, seething mass, 
like dog-size maggots with feathers. 


Day 6, Brazil: The bodies lie under blue 
tarps. Leather boots indicate the two 
аге male and, until recently, young. An 
emergency response team stands idly on 
the hillside near an ambulance. Тһгес 
women wrapped in blankets sob hys- 
terically. On the shoulder a Mercedes 
truck seems isolated and ashamed. The 
cab sports two impact craters just below 
the windshield, a good eight feet off the 
ground. Near the truck is a motorcy- 
cle, wadded into something the size of a 
medicine ball, and the crushed remains 
of a helmet. 

Here lives ended. 

Motorcycling is a subtle sport, one 
that harnesses enormous forces with 


The writer's BMW against the sunbaked desert of southern Peru. 


the twist of a throttle, the gentle push 
on a handlebar, the squeeze of a brake 
lever. When you do it right, the bike 
becomes invisible and you are a creature 
of flight. Do it wrong, and those forces 
reveal themselves in mangled metal and 
mauled flesh. A тотеп 5 inattention 
and the last thing I will scc is the big 
blue tarp. Гус accepted and been shaped 
by that risk for most of my life. 

The cobblestone road becomes a dirt 
track winding through hills. We pass 
cascading rivers, a farm with a giant 
spinning water whecl, pastures filled 
with indifferent cows and small towns 
with churches letting out. I come around 
a blind corner at the same time a tanker 
truck enters from the other direction. 
If this were a graphic novel, the next 
frame would show the look of surprise 
and fear on the driver's unshaven face. 
Тһе beads of sudden sweat. 

I hear the shriek of locked brakes, the 
sound of a couple of tons of metal scrab- 
bling across the road into my lane. To 


my left: truck. To my right: a hundred- 
foot drop into a river. I aim for the space 
between and open the throttle. 
My heart beats a mantra. Not me. Not yet. 
I will hear the noise of those shrieking 
tires in my sleep for weeks. 


Day 12, Argentina: New riders join the 
group. Newts shows up wearing a T-shirt 
from the Lazy Gecko, a bar in Cambodia, 
that depicts a line of marching penguins 
and the caption ONE BY ONE THE PENGUINS 
тоок MY SANITY. It befits his shaved head 
and goatec. A former machine gunner 
with the Australian army, he'd served in 
Somalia and East Timor before he was 
diagnosed with post-traumatic stress 
disorder. The army shrinks told him to 
destress, so he took up world travel—vis- 
iting former war zones as a tourist. Over 
drinks he tells of waking up in a Kuwait 
hotel to find himself caught in a shoot- 
out between the army 
and Al Qaeda. 

“If you call up the 
BBC footage, I'm the 
guy in the zip-tie hand- 
cuffs and a Hawaiian 
shirt, sitting on the curb 
behind an armored 
vehicle that's pumping 
50-caliber shells into the 
hotel," Newts says. 

I'm relieved to have 
him along. If anything 
is going to happen on 
this trip, it's going to 
happen to Newts. 

Andres, a Colombian 
financial advisor, raises 
the mischief quotient. 
His English has a tinge 
of Borat, the Sacha 
Baron Cohen charac- 
ter. One night he tries 
to teach us the music of 
the Spanish language. 
He starts by having us 
practice the proper way to greet a police- 
man. We repeat the phrase until we have 
it right. Hijo de puta. Hijo de puta. 

"The phrase, it turns out, means "son of 
a bitch." 

We pull into a roadside café with no 
name. A sweating, gap-toothed chef 
throws meat onto a sidewalk grill, the 
smoke collecting under the overhang- 
ing tin roof. Andres translates the menu: 
"cow parts." The waitress brings a wooden 
plank with cow ribs, cow intestines, an 
udder and possibly a tongue. 

John asks, “Does this qualify as a hint 
of danger?" 

The tour dossier had said we would 
discover exotic cuisine like alligator 
and guinca pig. It made no mention 
of projectile vomiting inside a closed 
motorcycle helmet. 


Day 18, Argentina: When we wake in 
Purmamarca—a town lined with hard- 
scrabble streets and adobe houses—it is zero 


“Do you have any preexisting conditions—like а wife?” 


PLAYBOY 


96 


degrees centigrade. We breathe into the locks 
on the motorcycles to unfreeze them. 

We head out of town as dogs watch us 
from the rooftops and alleys, and we begin 
to ascend a winding road. We enter a cloud 
of mist, emerging at about 3,000 meters with 
the cloud below us blazing white in the sun. 
We continue over a 4,700-meter pass, the 
temperature gauge on the bike showing 
minus 10 degrees centigrade. If we were 
оп a commercial flight, in a cabin without 
pressure, oxygen masks would be dropping 
out of overhead compartments. 

The ride across the Altiplano is awe- 
some, empt 4 strange. We pass salt 
flats, white discs in the middle of vast 
open spaces, and dark blue lagoons that 
draw color from the sky. Vicuñas and Па- 
mas graze on rare patches of grass. We 
pass the skeleton of a horse still wearing 
5 skin, propped up as though it were sit- 
ting on its rump. Someone has decorated 
it with flowers and flags. 

Тһе quality of the air, the clarity of the 
light.... This is as far from the eye chart in 
a doctor's office as it is possible to be. Up 
here I can see farther and in greater detail 
than I have in years. 


Day 22, Bolivia: We arrive in Uyuni around 
midnight to a hotel without power, heat or 
lights. We sleep in our riding clothes for the 
second night in a row. 

The power outage lasts three days. Cars 
and buses line up at the two gas stations, 
waiting for the pumps to light up. We tour 
a graveyard of rusting trains abandoned in 
the 1950s. The sand drifts halfway up the 
steel wheels, burying the tracks. On blood- 
red metal someone has painted the phrase 
My heart is burning alive. 

Standing on a downtown corner, Andres 
and Newts make a sign that says in Span- 
ish “Will pay twice the going rate for gas.” 
Within five minutes a guy leads them to a 
50-gallon drum in his backyard. We suction 
fuel through a hose and pour it through 
plastic Coke bottles cut into funnels. 

We leave town for another day of gravel, 
construction detours, water crossings 


and animal hazards, arriving in Potosi, a 
400-year-old city built on mineral wealth— 
silver hauled from the ground. Three weeks 
into the journey, my riding suit has devel- 
oped a personality. I picture the end of the 
ride, standing the suit at a bar, buying it a 
drink, slapping it on the back and saying, 
“You're on your own.” 

We buy dynamite from a street vendor, a 
young woman who cuts fuse cord and short 
stubby sticks of explosives, She reaches into 
her apron for blasting caps. Total cost: about 
$2 an explosion. One of the Aussies who 
have joined our group sniffs the dynamite 
and says it doesn’t smell of cordite like the 
stuff he buys at home. 

“What do you use 

“Family arguments.” 

Our guide helps us set off one of the sticks 
in a stone field. The concussive fist of air 
triggers something in each of us. 

That night Newts makes another sign, 
drawing a stick figure ofa woman with large 
breasts and a bottle with xxxx, the univer- 
sal sign for booze. He flags down a taxi and 
gives the sign to the driver. In the morning 
the survivors can barely recall: a flashing 
neon sign, a dance floor, women and some- 
опе, Newts probably, saying, “Wanna bet I 
can get thrown out?” 


for at home?" I ask. 


Day 26, Bolivia: On the outskirts of La Paz 
we roll past a block of stores with steel grates 
on their windows. Out of the corner of my 
eye I notice an effigy—a human figure fash- 
ioned from gray fabric, filled with rubber 
blocks or garbage or something more dread- 
ful, strung up by the neck 20 feet off те 
ground. A phrase is painted on the chest in 
red paint. Looking down the block I see an 
effigy on every lamppost. 

I ask someone at the hotel about the 
effigies. The answer: “Theft is a big prob- 
lem in Bolivia. The police are corrupt or 
inefficient. The merchants know if you 
hand the thief over to the authorities, he 
will be back the next day, angry. So they 
hang them. Or burn them.” Thirty-five 
thieves have been hanged in the preced- 
ing year. At а festival at a nearby beach 


SOMETHING JUST 
OCCURRED ТО ME. I 


ром 


THINK IVE EVER 


BEEN ABLE TO TELL 
WHEN YOU HAVE AN 


resort, eight youths followed a woman 
into an alley. They grabbed her necklace 
and tried to pry the earrings from her 
ears. Two boys saw what was happening 
and ran to the town square. The com- 
munity descended on the youths and, 
angered by the marks on the victim's 
neck, poured gasoline on the thieves and 
set them afire. 

We store our motorcycles in a secure 
compound, then take a taxi to the hotel. I 
walk the city. The shoc-shine boys, ashamed 
of their profession, wear ski masks to hide 
their identities. At intersections citizens 
dressed in zebra costumes leap about. 
Actors in donkey suits follow jaywalkers. A 
museum diorama shows one of the heroes 
of Bolivia being drawn and quartered— 
pulled apart by horses. 

Rob and I visit the witches' market, a nar- 
row street lined with stalls selling totems that 
promise to protect you on a journey, bring 
love and prosperity and make your pecker 
grow. Outside are llama fetuses hung by 
the dozen and dried piranha, their mouths 
gaping, arranged on spikes to be used as 
offerings to God. 

We are looking for something else, a тар 
to the Road of Death. We hire a taxi driver 
to guide us through La Paz traffic to El 
Camino de la Muerte. It's just me and Rob. 
No one else in the group will go. 


Day 28, Bolivia: The Road of Death was 
constructed by prisoners of war from Par- 
aguay in the 1930s. It is a ledge strung 
across a ncarly vertical swath of the Andes, 
a slippery strand of mud and gravel, barely 
a car and a half wide, prone to landslides 
and fatal rockfalls. Above the road, a steep, 
overgrown, almost vertical mountain. 
Below the road, a 2,000-foot precipice. 
No guardrails between. 

‘This very morning I read a news story 
about a bus plunge that took 17 lives. The 
reporter used an odd phrase, saying the 
bus “fell off the Andes." 

I turn on the helmet cam and head 
downhill. The government has closed 
the route to trucks; it is now maintained 


THATS BECAUSE 

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AROUND WHEN IT 
HAPPENS! 


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PLAYBOY 


98 


as a thrill ride for oxygen-starved moun- 
tain bikers. Without the oncoming trucks 
or the taxi drivers adrift in an alcoholic 
stupor, the Road of Death is just another 
road with an incredibly steep drop-off. 
Rob wills himself not to look at the edge 
(on a motorcycle you go where you look) 
and rides close to the cliff face. I ride 
with the helmet cam aimed at the edge. 
It catches details that in my focused state 
I miss. The soundtrack picks up the sound 
of my breathing, the rattle of water hitting 
the bike as I pass waterfalls, a muttered 
prayer: "Don't look down." The wid 
angle lens imposes a frame on the view, 
a frame that magnifies the blur of details 
that indicates speed. When eventually I 
see the footage, I crawl out of my skin. 


Day 31, Peru: On the road from Puno to 
Cuzco, we gallop across the landscape at 
90 to 100 miles an hour. We pass beneath 
the relics of glaciers hung out like skins to 
dry in the sun. 

And then we hit a traffic jam. We edge 
past a long line of stopped gas trucks to 
where large rocks lie in rows across the 
road. The hills are covered with locals out 
for the entertainment. This is a roadblock, 
the first of many. 


No one can tell us the cause of the 
protest—natives close the artery to express 
discontent over the outcome of soccer 
matches, the price of gasoline, government 
attempts to regulate the coca industry. 
Strikes can start on one side of Lake Titicaca 
and sweep the nation. We may be stopped 
for hours or days. 

Our guide, Micho, negotiates with the 
locals. I take their laughter as a good sign. 
A deal is struck. We will carry villagers 
to the next roadblock. Two girls climb on 
опе bike; an old guy climbs on behind те, 
giving a toothless grin to every person on 
the side of the road as we move out. It is a 
t frolic, until the last roadblock. 
he organizers (oddly, all women) deny 
us passage. They scold the girls, who reluc- 
tantly climb down from our bikes. The 
mood changes in an instant. The women, 
all jowls and crossed arms, threaten to stone 
us, douse us with gasoline and set us afire. 
"The threat nceds no translation. 

We backtrack and run a small roadblock 
guarding a side road. It is a rumor of a 
road, a blade-cut swath up the side of a 
mountain that supposedly leads to Cuzco. 
We crest the mountain and find ourselves 
in unspoiled Peru: farms, sheep, schoolkids 
pushing bikes, cattlemen on horseback. We 
buy gas from a woman in a cowboy hat who 


“I think I might’ve played too many slow songs.” 


goes into her house and comes out with a 
pitcher filled with fuel. 

Somewhere in this mad passage we 
lose Rob. Riding ahead, he takes a wrong 
turn and ends up back on the highway of 
roadblocks. He plays dumb, riding past 
the protesters, saying, “No entiendo" ("I 
don't understand"). A boy throws a wire 
net under the wheels of the motorcycle, 
which wraps around the chain and brakes. 
Rob cuts it free with his Leatherman and 
beats us to the hotel. 


Day 39, Peru: I depend on my cameras. 
"They have autofocus; my eyes do not. At 
night I review the images like a pilgrim 
counting prayer beads 

A girl with cutoff shorts in a bar watching 
a soccer game, the flag of Brazil worn like 
a garter on her lean, tanned thigh. 

‘A young boy leading blind musicians 
home at the end of the day, one hand on 
the shoulder of the person in front. 

We sit at a café in Arequipa, comparing 
images on our digital cameras. Indepen- 
dently we have each taken a picture of a 
policewoman directing traffic on the town 
square, her motorcycle parked nearby. She 
is a striking figure, wearing the skintight 
khaki stretch pants and high boots favored 
by CHiPs. A policewoman with visible 
panty lines makes an arresting authority 
figure. None of us photographed her face, 
just that perfect ass. 

I retire to my room to edit the picture. I 
have been on the road too long. 


Day 40, Peru: We descend toward the coast. 
For three weeks the bikes have been starved 
of oxygen. Now they romp. 

The road out of Arequipa twists through 
a lunar landscape where nothing grows. 
The colors—gray, tan, white—are the dust 
and rubble from ancient volcanoes, worn 
to stumps. The shrines begin almost imme- 
diately. In one 95-mile stretch I count 147 
crosses. They are easy to spot. Other than 
the power line to our left, the black-and-white 
kilometer posts and the shards of truck tires, 
they are the only man-made objects in view. 

Here someone went off a corner through 
a guardrail. Here someone didn't see the 
oncoming curve and augured into the 
mountain. There are shrines at almost every 
service station and store, And then there are 
those that dot the long straits. Every point 
where someone asked something of their 
vehicle and it failed. This is the real highway 
of death, And at each shrine I hear my heart 
beat its mantra. Not me. Not yet. Not ever. 

We crest the last range of mountains and 
feel the cold breath of air coming off the 
Humboldt Current. John, Rob and I split 
off from the group for a private celebra- 
tion. We set the bikes loose in the sand, 
performing burnouts, sending rooster tails 
skyward. But quickly we become subdued. 
How will we describe this journey to friends 
and family? I set the timer on a digital 
camera for a group photo with motorcy- 
cle. Every day of the ride is visible on our 
faces. Below us the Pacific applauds. 


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WILD BILL 


(continued from page 54) 
white-sand beaches of the east-facing islands. 
They were followed by American and Eu- 
ropean backpackers and sun worshippers. 
Soon enough guesthouses and hostels 
sprouted, tourist outfits from the States 
hired local Indians to run their canoe-like 
pangas across the bay on snorkeling excur- 
sions, and scuba instructors hung signs. 

“When I first arrived here 10 years ago 
there were a couple of local Indian fish 
restaurants, a taverna or two and a lot of 
dogs fucking on Main Street,” one foreign 
resident of the province’s principal cay, 
Isla Colön, tells me after a day of explor- 
ing mangrove swamps and jungle trails. 
We are sitting outside a bar in downtown 
Bocas Town on Isla Colön. I look around. 
The dogs are gone. 

Evoking W. Somerset Maugham's notorious 
homage to the Côte d'Azur—“a sunny place 
for shady people"—some gringos moved to 
Bocas to become, and remain, lost. A wealthy 
65-year-old Floridian known as Mike Brown 
was one of them. In 2003 he and his Thai 
wife, Manchittha Nankratoke, and teenage 
son, Watson, purchased a 45-acre finca in a 
district known as Cauchero, at the ass end 
of nowhere some distance from Isla Colön. 
Back in Miami, Brown was wanted on a 1981 
warrant for kidnapping, grand theft, posses- 
sion of cocaine and a prison escape under his 
true name, Michael Francis Salem. 

Others, such as the 58-year-old former 
Santa Fe antiques dealer Во Icelar, found the 
islands an ideal corner in which to escape 
money problems. Icelar—who had changed 
his name from Barry Eisler after declaring 
bankruptcy back in the States—still liked to 
take the occasional journey to Africa or Asia 
and return with a rare Hutu tribal mask 
or Cambodian porcelain figurine. Friends 
knew him as a tough albeit quiet man, a 
martial artist with refined tastes. 

The Browns and Bo Icelar would soon 
be dead. 

For Keith Werle and Cher Hughes, Bocas 
represented a new adventure. He was a kid 
from Flushing, Queens who had knocked 
around Hollywood until—in a bizarro world 
Harrison Ford career arc—he found his 
niche as a master carpenter and set designer. 
She had brains, beauty and a magnetic per- 
sonality, a businesswoman from St. Louis 
who had migrated to Florida to start a neon- 
sign business and, in her words, *make 
enough money to spend the rest of my life 
traveling the world before I'm too old." 

In 1990 Werle counted his savings, pulled 
up stakes in Los Angeles and moved to St. 
Petersburg, Florida, where he opened a 
beachside gin mill. One night a few years later 
Cher Hughes walked in. They fell heavily. 

“We both had this restless streak, like 
there had to be more to life than what we 
were seeing and doing,” Werle tells me one 
morning over Costa Rican coffee. “In Flor- 
ida, aside from our businesses, we were also 
making money flipping houses—buying 
these ramshackle places, fixing them up, 
selling them. I liked her idea of chucking 
all our stuff and just secing the world. Then 
опе day a friend of mine from 51. Pete came 


into my bar, told me he'd bought a lot on 
some godforsaken Panama seacoast and 
asked if ГА head down there to build him 
a house. Cher and I stepped off the plane 
here planning to spend a couple of days. 
We stayed a month and went back only to 
get our stuff." 

Werle unloaded his bar. Hughes sold 
her sign-making business for $1.2 mil- 
lion. On tiny Isla Carenero, just across the 
water from Bocas Town on Isla Colón, they 
refurbished an "Indian shack" and added 
a separate four-room guesthouse. He was 
soon in demand as a builder, "a guy who 
comes in on time and on budget," as the 
owner of a hotel Werle constructed told me. 
She was a happy gadabout, taking a partic- 
ular interest in the local children, handing 
out lollipops near the Isla Colón gram- 
mar school and hosting kids’ movie nights. 
"They were married in an outdoor ceremony 
beneath a spinney of banana and bougain- 
villea trees. The expat community still tells 
tales of the all-night party. 

Тһе two next purchased their own iso- 
lated "footprint" island, 2.5 acres in all, 
one hour south of Isla Colón by motorized 
panga. Тһеу erected a Swiss Family Robin- 
son wood home atop the small cay's steep 
crest, complete with two thatched-roof outer 
buildings, a hot tub and indoor and outdoor 
rainwater plumbing. 

“This was our getaway," says Werle, add- 
ing that he and Hughes had a steady income 
from the Isla Carenero guesthouse. “Bocas 
Town and Carenero were getting old, not 
quite the Panama we were looking for—too 
many gringos, still too Americanized, even 
by the time we got here. I mean, both neigh- 
bors on either side were from Florida.” 

Their new island home was a mile across 
a small bay from the Brown family’s farm 


in Cauchero. 


In early 2008 Werle and Hughes returned 
to Cauchero from a vacation to discover they 
had new neighbors, a 30ish American cou- 
ple who skimmed over to their island one 
morning in an expensive speedboat—the 
same speedboat, Werle was quick to notice, 
in which Mike Brown always traveled. 

They introduced themselves as 
Adolfo and Jane Seana С 
Wild Bill,” the man insisted in his South- 
ern drawl—and announced they had bought 
out the Browns, paying cash for the home- 
stead, lock, stock and barrel. Bill and Jane 
were odd. He was about six feet tall and 
close to 300 pounds, with an inflated chest 
set on short stubby legs, ripped biceps and 
platinum ringlets falling about his balloon- 
like head. (His bloated body and boisterous 
personality led Werle—and, later, many 
others—to peg him as a ste: freak, апа- 
bolics being as easy to score in Panama as 
cocaine.) She was short and verging on 
round with two dark satchels of flesh bulging 
beneath her eyes, an obviously once-pretty 
blonde going to seed. She was also careful to 
always remain a few steps behind her loud- 
mouthed husband, emitting inappropriate 
high-pitched giggles over nothing. 

Still, Bill and Jane Cortez’s presence 
raised no red flags. The Browns had been 
a private family, tending to their chickens 


and a few cattle while venturing into Bocas 
Town only for supplies. Everyone on the 
islands knew their place had been on the 
market for months. Anyone who lived in the 
tropics, including Werle and Hughes, under- 
stood that gringos, even gringo families, 
often picked up and left Central America 
as quickly as they'd arrived. The disappear- 
ance of the Browns and the arrival of this 
new couple was par for the expat course. 

Over the next several weeks Bill Cor- 
tez dropped by Werle and Hughes's island 
regularly. He boasted he was the son of a 
Mexican mother and a Texas cattle baron, 
had inherited vast wealth and was looking 
to get into the then-thriving Bocas del Toro 
real estate market. He had first tried neigh- 
boring Costa Rica, he said, but he felt that 
country was played out. Panama, and partic- 
ularly the Bocas islands, were “virgin turf” 
more to his liking. 

Werle and Hughes were puzzled and 
somewhat amused when Wild Bill also 
announced his intentions to build a water- 
side bar and restaurant near the dock 
landing that led to the former Brown farm. 
It would be, Cortez said, “the First Tem- 
ple of Drunks,” and he would serve as its 
pope. Werle could count on both hands 
the number of foreigners who had settled 
so far from Isla Colön, and he knew there 
was no way the local Indians, who made up 
the majority of the population in Cauchero, 
would ever be attracted to a joint serving 
greasy french fries and flash-fried frozen 
chicken wings. 

“But everyone has their dream, you 
know,” Werle recalls that morning, months 
later. “Even if it’s nuts, it’s still a dream.” 

Soon enough, however, nuts was one of 
the milder epithets the residents of Bocas 
began to utter about Bill and Jane Cortez, 
whose names had become as synonymous 
with misfortune as Smith & Wesson. 

“I remember going to the opening party 
for their restaurant, and there was just some- 
thing off about the whole thing,” says Doug 
Ruscher, raising his voice over the drone of 
his 60-horsepower engine as he weaves his 
fiberglass panga around mangrove islands 
on the way to Cauchero. Ruscher, a former 
agronomist from Ohio, owns a lovely beach- 
side bed-and-breakfast in Bocas Town. He 
was also one of Во Icelar's best friends. 

“We all motored down, like today. You 
don't reach Cauchero by road,” he says. 
Above us the sky is the color of brushed alu- 
minum, and in the near distance an Indian 
dives for lobster from his dugout canoe. 
“And, well, Bill never struck me as the type 
to move down here and be captured by the 
jungle’s beauty and solitude. Anyway, here 
we are. Check it out for yourself.” 

Ruscher kills the engine and guides his 
panga toward a disused dock fronting a two- 
story hardwood structure. A pelican perches 
atop a bloodred rendering of a leering skull 
and crossbones wearing a conquistador’s 
helmet. Beneath the image, in hand letter- 
ing, а sign reads CASA CORTEZ: EST. 2009. 

The three-sided bar at the end of the dock 
is empty. A few unopened Heineken bottles 
litter the plank floor. Someone has swept 
a small pile of chipped CDs and yellowing 
paperbacks into a corner amid the cigarette 
butts, empty liquor bottles and rotting palm 


99 


PLAYBOY 


fronds. Ruscher pauses to examine a cou- 
ple of the books, reading the titles aloud. 
"Lucifer s Hammer, Killing Time." He shakes 
his head. "Creepy shit," he says. 

"I've been living in Bocas for 10 years, 
which makes me something of a pioneer, I 
suppose. And I've seen some strange charac- 
ters come and go. But Wild Bill was different. 
He was kind of dense yet a braggart at the 
same time, if that makes sense. And he loved 
to bang off clips from his AK-47, just blast 
them into the sky. You'd Ье having a drink 
suddenly blam-blam-blam. 

Told me he'd played NFL football, said 
he was the son of an American ambassador 
to Mexico. But given his pretty obvious lack 
of education—I mean, come on, an ambassa- 
dor's son?—that was hard to swallow. More 
like trailer trash gone bad." 

Similar opinions were offered to me by 
including a for- 
epidemiologist and 
close friend of Cher Hughes's—she asked 
that I use only her first name, Michelle— 
who still lives a few miles from the Cortez 
compound in Cauchero. 

“I went to one of their first parties—they 
had them almost every weekend," Michelle 
says one afternoon as a hard rain raps off 
the tin roof. “Не was always out in front, the 
loud greeter, with all his pirate stuff and his 
guns. A big swinging dick. He liked to show 


off his toys—his WaveRunner, his giant flat- 
screen ТУ--апа he boasted he once shot 
an Indian he caught fishing off his dock. I 
didn't go over there after that. He was the 
type of guy for whom the word fuck was 
noun, verb and adjective, and he used it 
twice a sentence. That and the word nigger, 
he threw around all the time. But he never 
lacked for cash. Liked to flash big wads of 
it. Said һе got rich trading gold. 

Early on, at that first party, I tried to talk 
to Jane. It seemed to me he didn't like her 
mixing or even speaking with other people. 
But I got her alone in the kitchen, and she 
told me she was a large-animal veterinarian 
from Texas. I had a sick dog at the time and 
с would take a look at him. She 
"he sweat poured out of her, and 
she said, "ОН no, a dog is too small an animal 
for me to look at. You better find another 
vet.’ She was as much a veterinarian as I'm 
the queen of Sheba." 

It was in fall 2009, as Wild Bill Cortez 
became a fixture in the bars of Isla Colón, 
that Bo Icelar decided to pull up stakes. 
*He was just a restless guy," says his friend 
Ruscher. “I think he was considering mov- 
ing overseas, maybe to one of the places he'd 
visited on his antiques-hunting trips." 

"That November Icelar put his two-story 
beachfront home on Isla Colón on the mar- 
ket. At the same time he struck a deal with 


Werle's construction outfit to redo the upper 
floor. When Werle and his crew arrived three 
days later to begin work, he was greeted at 
the front door by Bill Cortez. 

"Same story as with the Browns," says 
Werle. "Told me he'd bought Bo out for 
cash. Said he still wanted me to do the work; 
he was going to fix up the house and flip it. 
When I went inside it was just too eerie. All 
Bo's clothes were still in the closet. All his 
artwork and antiques were still there. Lots of 
personal stuff, like his toothbrush. Still, like 
I say, it's not beyond the range of plausibi 
ity that Bill gives Bo $400K in cash and Bo's 
on a plane the next morning with only the 
clothes on his back. You know: “Here's the 
key; see ya.’ That's life down here.” 
Unlike the Brown family, however, Ic 
had lived near Bocas Town. He had neigh- 
bors, and his sudden disappearance fanned 
rumors that Wild Bill had been spotted lug- 
ging something heavy, wrapped in a blue 
plastic tarp, onto his speedboat the night 
Icelar departed. Cortez countered by tell- 
ing people he had purchased half a cow on 
Isla Colón to butcher in Cauchero. 

Meanwhile, it was also around this time 
that Werle and Hughes's marriage began to 
go south. Some who knew Hughes said they 
could see the physical deterioration; she was 
putting on weight and, says a friend, her five 
years in Bocas had seemed to add years to 


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her face. The same friend accompanied her 
to the city of David for an appointment with 
a plastic surgeon. The breaking point in her 
relationship with Werle came one Septem- 
ber night when Hughes, drinking heavily, 
stuck a sawed-off shotgun to his chest over a 
perceived slight. He moved out and rented 
а room on Isla Colön the next day. That 
Christmas was the first they'd spent apart 
since they'd met. Three months later, in 
March 2010, Cher Hughes vanished. 


‘Thirty-one-year-old William Dathan Hol- 
bert and his wife, Laura Michelle Reese, 
27—a.k.a. William Adolfo and Jane Cortez— 
were pegged as lowlifes pretty much from the 
start by nearly everyone with whom they had 
соте into contact. Acquaintances and former 
co-workers have described both of them as 
avid weight lifters. He is a former North Car- 
olina high school football player, she a former 
gym rat for whom Holbert left his wife апа 
three children. He is also an avowed white 
supremacist with a large swastika tattoo on 
his upper back and another, engraved ARYAN 
PRIDE, оп his arm. In 2002 the Southern Pov- 
erty Law Center cited him as a rising star in 
the western North Carolina branch of the 
neo-Nazi National Alliance organization. A 
year later, according to the center's investiga- 
tors, he arrived at a white nationalist cookout 
claiming to represent a new racist group. 
During this period Holbert also opened 
a business in Forest City, North Carolina. 
The storefront, frequented by skinheads, 
sold books, CDs and pamphlets promoting 
white supremacy in the South and hosted 
speeches by regional leaders of the Sons of 
Confederate Veterans. Moreover, his pen- 
chant for selling other people's properties 
was not unique to his tenure in Panama. 
In 2005 Holbert was wanted for stealing а 
car in Montana, forging the vehicle title and 
reselling it. In early 2006 a North Carolina 
warrant was issued for Holbert's arrest after 
he obtained a false license and posed as a 
doctor in order to forge a deed to a house 
belonging to an elderly female retiree. 
He subsequently sold the house, and he 
and his wife used the $200,000 profit to 
flee to Kentucky under assumed names. 
"There they purchased another home, vaca- 
tioned in Ireland and traveled across the 
U.S. Southwest, looking for sites to open 
a gym, they told people. Sensing the U.S. 
Marshals Service's Fugitive Task Force was 
closing in on them, they fled Kentucky. A 
few days later they were pulled over by 
a Wyoming highway patrolman who had 
run the plates on a vehicle stolen in West 
Virginia, but Holbert managed to lose the 
policeman in a high-speed chase. 
Investigators suspect that Holbert and 
Reese began the first leg of their journey to 
Central America via a 14-foot U-Haul truck 
stolen in Bismarck, North Dakota and found 
abandoned in North Palm Beach, Florida. 
hei stop was Costa Rica, a country 
h, Panamanian police say, they 
also fled under mysterious circumstances 
surrounding a missing lawyer from whom 
they had rented a house. 
Holbert and Reese have never been 
charged with a homicide in the U.S., and 
the FBI refuses to comment on any federal 


murder investigations it may be conducting 
in the States, other than to say the couple is 
“cooperating” with Panamanian authorities. 
Yet the former head of the FBI's Behavioral 
Science Unit, serial-killer hunter William 
Hagmaier, tells me it would not surprise 
him if Holbert's U.S. rap sheet was а mere 
prelude to the discovery of "even тоге Всі- 
nous crimes in America." He adds, “People 
in their 305 don't just suddenly decide to 
become serial killers." 

No one in Bocas del Toro, naturally, had 
any idea of this backstory when the Browns, 
Bo Icclar and Cher Hughes went missing. 
Cortez told people Hughes had decided to 
sell her island home as well as the properties 
on Isla Carenero after falling in love with a 
man she'd met in Panama City. She had, he 
added, made the deal with him, again for 
cash, the night before joining her new lover 
on his sailboat for a long sea voyage. Werle 
did not buy it. When he confronted Cortez 
about his belongings still on the island in 
Cauchero—construction equipment, fish- 
ing gear, a couple of generators—Cortez 
told him that per his contract with Hughes, 
everything was now his. This included Werle 
and Hughes's two shih tzus and their brown 
Doberman. Werle knew his wife would never 
leave her dogs in the hands of this couple. 

Moreover, unlike the Browns and Icelar, 
Werle and Hughes had placed their proper- 
ties in a legal trust in Hughes’s name. Werle 
demanded to see the contract Cortez said 
he had signed with her. Cortez countered 
that he and Hughes had also signed a con- 
fidentiality agreement. If Werle didn't like 
it he could take it up with Hughes upon her 
return, whenever that might be. The next 
day, in Bocas Town, Cortez tracked down 
Werle and threw one of the shih tzus at him. 
The dog was emaciated and near death. 

Meanwhile, Werle and Hughes's houses 
on Isla Carenero across the narrow strait 
from Isla Colön were receiving the full Casa 
Cortez pirate makeover. Cortez fired the 
longtime property manager, installed his 
own and put the rooms up for rent. Out 
front he erected a sign—white lettering on 
a bloodred background and illustrated with 
the by now familiar skull and crossbones in 
conquistador helmet—labeling the guest- 
house A DELIGHTFULLY WICKED PLACE. On the 
small private dock he placed another hand- 
lettered warning, in English and Spanish, 
in the same color scheme: PARKING AND/OR 
TOUCHING MAY RESULT IN DEATH. In case this 
message was not clear, he added, rREsPAssERS 
AND/OR THIEVES MAY BE EXECUTED. 

Prior to Hughes's disappearance Werle 
and she had continued to text each other 
fairly often. "The usual love-hate stuff after 
a breakup,” he says. “1 still love you,’ "No, 
I hate you. "You're a dick.’ ‘No, you're not." 
But then the texts just stopped. Then there 
was her family. They contacted me, wanted 
to know if I knew where she was. You see, 
she missed her father's birthday. She always 


tation with Bill about getting my stuff back, 
the texts started again, but their flavor had 
changed. Misspellings. Messages all in cap- 
ital letters. Words Cher would never use. 
Other friends of ours were getting the same 
kind of texts. They were from her iPhone, 


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102 


but I knew it wasn't her. That was the first 
time I thought she might be dead, that Bill 
had killed her." 

Werle was at a loss. He went to the Isla 
Colón police, but, as he puts it, drawing on 
an analogy from his youth in New York, 
"that was like asking the Montauk PD to 
investigate a string of gang homicides in the 
Bronx. They just weren't equipped. They 
were used to handling domestic disputes, 
shoplifting, small drug deals.” 

Cortez, meanwhile, learned that Werle 
had approached the authorities. Soon 
thereafter Werle's friends and associates 
around Bocas started to warn him of threats 
Cortez was making. 

“Га run into people who would tell me 
that Bill was going around town saying һе 
was going to 'get that motherfucker Werle 
for slandering' him." 

Werle moved out of his rented house and 
into a hotel that employed a 24-hour secu- 
rity guard. 

"I was scared shitless. I'm waiting for 
this guy to pull up one day at the dock and 
blow my brains out. He'd said as much. And 
there's still no sign of Cher. By now the texts 
had stopped." 

Then, in July, another friend—the wife of 
the man who had originally brought Werle to 
Bocas to build his house—called. She told him 
that an American expat with a popular blog 
in Panama City was posting questions about 
Bill and Jane Cortez. His name was Don 
Winner and he was looking into the discov- 
ery of the body of a Costa Rican lawyer who 
had rented his home to the Cortezes. Werle 
called Winner that afternoon and boarded 
a puddle jumper to the capital to meet him 
the next day. Coincidentally, Hughes's aunt 
and sister had also flown into the country to 
investigate her disappearance. 

“I was just on a fishing expedition, see- 
ing if anyone knew anything about Wild 
Bill," Winner would tell me later. “Some- 
thing didn't smell right. All the people were 


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Leris REAR FROM 


сткпомя “FARNESS DOCTRINE, " 


disappearing, and the common denomina- 
tor was this asshole Cortez.” 

Winner advised Werle and Hughes's rel- 
atives to file a missing person's report with 
the U.S. embassy in Panama City but not to 
hope for any American investigative assis- 
tance for a disappeared gringo. Werle and 
the Hughes women went to the national 
police headquarters to file against Cortez 
what the Panama judicial system terms an 
official denuncia, a sort of accusatory sworn 
deposition. Panama's laws prevented Werle 
from accusing Cortez of Hughes's murder— 
there was no body. But Winner explained to 
him that he might get all of Cortez's prop- 
erties searched if he had proof that the 
American had broken Panamanian laws. 
Werle remembered Wild Bill's fondness for 
spraying off clips from his AK-47. Assault 
rifles are illegal in Panama. 


It unraveled swiftly. Werle's denuncia was 
enough for a judge to issue a warrant to search 
the Cortez properties. When a team of detec- 
tives arrived in Bocas a few days later, on July 
20, Bill and Jane were nowhere to be found. 
Since Werle had instigated the investiga- 
tion, the authorities asked him to accompany 
them to the former Brown family farm. 
When the group arrived in Cauchero by 
boat, Werle and Hughes's brown Dober- 
man, Jackie, was sitting on the dock. 

“You know Dobermans aren't big water 
dogs, right?” Werle asks me, the amazement 
in his voice still evident months later. “He 
swam the mile from our island—apparently 
he was doing it every day and Bill had to 
keep returning him—and he's sitting there 
оп the dock, whimpering.” 

The house was turned upside down. The 
toilet had overflowed, and dirty dishes and 
used syringes littered the kitchen. Clothes 
were strewn across floors, and three (coun- 
terfeit) passports in the name “Brown” were 
discovered in a desk drawer. A small jar of 


gold-capped teeth, apparently ripped from 
someone's mouth, sat on a window ledge 
above the kitchen sink. As the search party 
moved across the living room, one of the 
police officers nearly tripped over a glass. 
The glass rolled to a corner and came to 
rest against a filthy towel. Under the towel a 
detective found Cher Hughes's passport. 
Outside, Jackie the Doberman was in 
distress. Several times he dashed part way 
up the steep hill beyond the house before 
returning to the yard with a yelp. Finally, 
with the dog howling ever louder, Werle and 
the police decided to follow him. Jackie led 
them on a dirt path up the hill and began 
circling an old garbage pit. Creeping fire- 
red Holy Ghost orchids, Panama's national 
flower, emitted a sweet odor. The dog pawed 
at the ground. The police plunged spades 
and shovels into the jungle floor. Jackie had 
led them to Cher Hughes's grave. 
Another team of officers began digging 
through nearby garbage pits. Bo Icelar's 
skeleton, later identified through dental 
records, was buried in one. The skeletal 
remains of the Brown family were dug out. 
of another. The coroner later determined 
that Icelar and the Brown wife and teen- 
age son had been shot at close range in 
the back of the head. It was difficult to tell 
what had killed Michael Brown. His head 
remains missing. Many in Bocas remember 
Brown—despite his secretive nature—for his 
distinctive mouthful of gold teeth. 


“Is your office investigating Keith Werle as а 
suspect in the murder of Cheryl Hughes?" 

Angel Calderon awaits the translation of 
my question into Spanish despite the fact 
that he understands perfectly well what I 
said. The Panamanian prosecutor general 
is fluent in several languages, including 
English, but formalities must be adhered 
to. Ruth Alvarado, Werle's attorney, is this 
afternoon acting as my translator in Cal- 
deron's office in Panama City. She repeats 
the question. The prosecutor's head begins 
to shake before she has finished speaking. 

Calderon says in Spanish, “It has not 
been established that other people besides 
William Holbert and his wife collaborated 
in these crimes. So no." 

"And Holbert's contention that Bocas del 
Toro is a hotbed of drug smuggling, gun- 
running, pedophilia, money laundering 
and human trafficking run by an inter- 
national organized crime syndicate that 
includes Keith Werle? A *Mafia' that hired 
him to commit these five murders?" 

A hint of a smile cracks one corner of 
Calderon's mouth. He is a handsome man 
in his mid-40s, with thick gelled black hair 
and a glint in his eye that I have seen in 
other men who put people in jail for a liv- 
ing. He pushes his chair away from his 
polished wood desk, stands and tugs at the 
shirtsleeves of his perfectly starched white 
dress shirt. This time he does not wait for 
Alvarado's translation. 

“Тһе deaths of the five Americans benefit 
only one person, William Holbert," he says. 
“His intention was to keep the money and 
property he stole for himself. There is no 
major element of evidence to back up his 
accusations of organized crime." 


Calderon speaks precisely, cautiously. 


Panamanian police and prosecutors have 
never before dealt with a serial killer, and. 
the country's news media have inflamed 
this case to white heat. They also, in a 
way, abetted in the capture of the couple 
known as Wild Bill and Jane Cortez. As 
Calderon explains the time line to me, 
when the Holberts learned Keith Werle 
had contacted the Panamanian National 
Police, they fled Bocas, crossing illegally 
into Costa Rica. They were looking at 
rental properties in that country, per- 
haps shopping for more victims, when 
they were recognized from news reports. 
"The two had not counted on the media 
frenzy that would ensue after the discov- 
ery of five bod Bocas del Toro. 

On the run again, they holed up in a 
rented cabin near 
the San Juan River 
that separates Costa 
Rica from Nicaragua 
before hiring a boat- 
man to ferry them 
across. The owner 
of the cabin recog- 
nized them from 
television reports 
and notified authori- 
ties. When their boat 
was flagged down at 
a Costa Rican river 
checkpoint, Cortez 
tossed the boatman 
overboard, took the 
helm and made for 
the mouth of Nica- 
ragua's Sarapiqui 
River. A Nicaraguan 
army patrol boat 
gave chase. The 
couple surrendered 
when a stream of 
automatic weapons 
fire from the patrol 
boat arced over their 
bow. Within days 
Nicaraguan author- 
ities, happy to be 
rid of the two freak- оп 
ish gringo killers, 
extradited them to 
Panama, where they 
now sit in solitary 
confinement in sep- 


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incompetence of his public defender and 
alleged shakedowns by his prison guards. 

He also teases out tidbits of conspiracy 
theories. He admits to the five slayings, for 
instance, but swears his wife had nothing to 
do with them. He says he will “blow the lid” 
off the Bocas crime cartel only when Jane is 
safely back in the States. He has also issued 
veiled pleas to the United States government 
to begin extradition hearings. 

Of this last, says an American source in 
the embassy in Panama City, “Put yourself 
his place and balance the ideas of walk- 
ing the yard in a stateside federal pen with 
his Aryan Nation pals and watching big- 
screen TVs in the rec room, versus a gringo 
with Nazi and Klan tattoos being thrown 
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missing head and the jar of gold teeth. 
When the Brown money began to dwin- 
dle, he adds, it was on to Bo Icelar, who 
did not have the cash Holbert and his wife 
expected. Thus the Hughes murder fol- 
lowing so swiftly. Hughes's autopsy, he tells 
mc, indicates she was tied by the wrists 
before being executed—this also consti- 
tutes torture under Panamanian law—and 
was likely shot in Holbert's boat as he took 
her to the Brown farm. 

As the American embassy source tells me, 
"Panama may not have a death penalty, 
but they'll convict. That's when the death 
countdown starts for Wild Bill among all 
those prisoners." 


On my final trip to Cauchero I dropped by 
the farm Wild Bill and 
Jane Cortez stole from 
the Brown family. It 
was still a crime scene, 
and two local police 
officers, whose facial 
features suggested 
Indian heritage, toted 
American-made M-16 
rifles. They eyed me 
warily from the dock 
as my panga floated 
up. When I explained 
my purpose they 
offered to let me into 
the house—it was still 
a pigsty—and pointed 
me in the direction of 
the steep hillside that 
led to the graves of the 
five American expats. 
The police would 
permit me to inspect 
the graves at the 
top of the hill but 
declined to accom- 
pany me. They eyed 
my flip-flops with 
grins and conversed 
in Spanish I barely 
understood. I did 
catch one word, how- 
ever—"bushmaster." 
They considered my 
white gringo toes 
suitable as lunch for 
these thick-bodied 


arate prisons. 

As Panama has no death penalty, Calde- 
ron tells me with a certainty inherent to 
prosecutors the world over that Holbert 
will be tried and convicted for five mur- 
ders and sentenced to 50 years in prison. 
His wife will be tried as an accomplice, and 
depending on what evidence the ongoing 
investigation turns up, will serve either a 
25-year bit or a 50-year bit as a primary 
accessory. There are, in Calderon's world, 
no other options. 

Once in jail Holbert began his string of 
confessions—officially to Panamanian pros- 
ecutors and unofficially to several local 
media outlets, including a rambling late- 
night phone call to Don Winner. In these 
he has become increasingly whiny and 
paranoid, complaining about the lack of 
regular meals, the confines of his cell, the 


As for his repeated obtain his 
wife's release, Calderon is succinct. “His wife 
knows where the stolen money is; we believe 
there is a substantial amount remaining. 
Мопеу can pay for lawyers and buy favors 
in any prison.” 

When I ask Calderon if there is a chance he 
will ever turn this case over to American jus- 
tice, the smile again creases his mouth. “No, 
that will not happen,” he says. 

During our meeting Calderon also 
adds various heretofore unknown details 
to the Holberts’ execution spree. The 
actual take from the Brown killings, he 
says, was well north of half a million dol- 
lars. Some of it, however, was stashed in 
Hong Kong bank accounts. He believes 
Holbert tortured Brown to get the account 
numbers—accounting for Mike Brown's 


venomous snakes, 
the largest pit vipers in the world, which 
inhabit the Panamanian jungle. 

It was only at the end of my visit that I 
noticed the two policemen had pitched 
tents on the dock. When I asked why they 
slept and cooked outside, they hesitated for 
a moment before admitting they believed the 
place was haunted. They heard noises, like 
human cries and screams at night, the most 
frightful sounds one could imagine. 

^A lot of Panamanians, particularly coun- 
try people, still hold a deep belief and deep 
fear of witches and goblins and ogres," my 
translator explained with a shrug. I was not 
so quick to dismiss the thought. It occurred 
to me that these Panamanian specters had 
nothing on Wild Bill Cortez. 


103 


PLAYBOY 


NATIONAL ENQUIRER 


(continued from page 44) 
starting to shift, The New York Times drew 
flak for quoting an Enquirer scoop about 
Simpson supposedly confessing in a jail- 
house meeting with his minister. 

Levine joined the tabloid in 1999, and his 
career seemed to trace the inexorable rise of 
the gossip media. A onetime sportswriter for 
the old News-American in Baltimore, he signed 
on to the Star after Rupert Murdoch launched 
it in the 1970s as a rival to the Enquirer. As 
tabloid television continued to be the rage 
in the 1990s, Levine was tapped as manag- 
ing editor of A Current Affair on Murdoch's 
Fox network. He occasionally bought Enquirer 
interviews for the show, and the editors he 
dealt with later lured him to the paper. 

"That paper was now under more cor- 
porate management. À consortium led by 
Boston Ventures, which had bought the 
Enquirer from Pope's estate in 1988 for 
$412.5 million, morphed into a fledgling 
company called American Media Inc. By the 
end of 1999, the new publisher also owned 
the Star and the Globe, bringing the country's 
once-warring supermarket papers under the 
same roof. (Currently AMI owns 15 pub- 
lications and also handles certain business 
operations for PLAYBOY, though it has no 
editorial involvement in the magazine.) 

While the Enquirer occupies an unmarked 
one-story building behind a peach-color 
Dunkin' Donuts in Boca Raton, Levine 
works out of American Media's Manhattan 
headquarters at 1 Park Avenue, in a small, 
dark, cluttered office overlooking an alley 
frequented by flocks of pigeons and not 
much else. About all that distinguishes his 
space from an ordinary worker cubicle are 
the taped-up tabloid covers, the safe under 
his desk and the metal file drawers with such 
labels as CLINTON FEMALES. 

Levine, whose photographic memory 
made his bulging file cabinets almost redun- 
dant, proved to be a good fit with the new 
owners. He nudged the Enquirer toward 
more political fare, most notably the disclo- 
sure in 2001 that Jesse Jackson had fathered 
a child with one of his aides. Little did any- 
one know that in the coming decade he 
would scoop the rest of the media on two of 
the biggest stories in the Enquirer's history. 

But scoping out scandals doesn't neces- 
sarily equal financial success. Just weeks 
before Elizabeth Edwards died, the Enquir- 
er's parent company, American Media, Мед 
for bankruptcy protection. After a difficult 
meeting with his staff, Levine wondered 
whether the filing would lead to cutbacks 
or a more cautious approach to his brand 
of dirt digging. 


HUNTER BECOMES THE HUNTED 


‘The John Edwards tale began, like so many 
Enquirer investigations, with a phone call. 
When the tip line rang in the paper's Santa 
Monica office, reporters often raced to 
answer it. Rick Egusquiza grabbed it late 
one afternoon in fall 2007, knowing full 
well that nine out of 10 calls were worth- 
less, just wackos promising the story of the 
decade. Egusquiza, 44, had been a Venice 


104 Beach bartender, his only writing experience 


reviewing porn movies for Adult Video News. 
But he quickly learned the Enquirer culture; 
his first scoop was that Angelina Jolie had 
gotten a BILLY BoB tattoo on her arm. 

The caller haltingly explained—she felt 
bad about spilling the beans—that John 
Edwards seemed to be having an affair. 

“What proof do you have?” 

She claimed to have e-mails from a woman 
named Rielle Hunter. Half an hour later, 
having gotten the source’s name and num- 
ber, Egusquiza typed up a lead file—the 
typical Enquirer procedure—and faxed it to 
Barry Levine and the Boca headquarters. 

The next day, the woman sent the 
four e-mails. Hunter didn’t name the 
politician—she referred to him as Love 
Lips—but said he was married with kids 
and was unhappy. 

That was enough for Levine. Hunter, 
after all, had been the videographer for 
Edwards's campaign, shooting footage in 
which the grinning candidate flirted with 
the camera. It was September, and Edwards 
was running neck and neck with Barack 
Obama and Hillary Clinton in the upcom- 
ing Iowa caucuses. 

This, of course, was not just another alle- 
gation about a handsome politician who 
couldn't keep his zipper zipped. The emo- 
tional heart of Edwards's candidacy was 
his wife’s battle against cancer. If John was 
indeed cheating on the smart and likable 
Elizabeth, his career was over. 

Now the paper's challenge was to find 
Hunter. Levine dispatched Alexander 
Hitchen, a 35-year-old British reporter with 
a shaved head, pastel shirts and charm to 
spare, to a home in South Orange, New Jer- 
sey, where, they had learned, Hunter was 
living with her friend and business part- 
ner, Mimi Hockman. Hitchen, who had 
once worked for the British tabloid News of 
the World and handled press for the Egyp- 
tian business magnate Mohamed Al-Fayed, 
wanted her to play, and he was ready to pay 
for the privilege. 
inswered when he knocked. 

he was from the Enquirer, 
had information that Hunter was having 
an affair with Edwards and wanted to see 
if she would cooperate. Hockman quickly 
closed the door. 

Hitchen knew that people in trouble somc- 
times had second thoughts, so he waited 
awhile, knocked again and gave Hockman 
is card. "This will probably come as a shock 
to Rielle,” he said. "I'm going to stay in the 
area for an hour. I don't want to trouble you 
further. Just call me and I'll come straight 
around." There was no call. 

Instead, Hunter made a different call, to 
Andrew Young, an Edwards confidant who 
had worked for him since his first run for 
the Senate, in 1998. He patched her through 
to the candidate, who later told Young he 
was worried she would spill the beans to the 
Enquirer. Edwards asked the married aide to 
allow Hunter to move into his North Caro- 
lina home, and Young agreed. 

The campaign was determined to stop the 
story. Edwards made two impassioned calls 
to Roger Altman, a former deputy Treasury 
secretary under Bill Clinton whose invest- 
ment firm had taken a controlling stake in 
American Media, and pleaded with him to 


quash the piece. Elizabeth Edwards, whom 
Altman had never met, called іп tears, plead- 
ing with him to intercede during a long, 
painful conversation (though it turned out 
her husband had already confessed to a one- 
night stand with Hunter). Altman, who never 
interfered with the paper's reporting when 
he was an owner, did not mention that his 
firm had given up its stake two years earlier. 
He checked with David Pecker, American 
Media's chief executive, who assured him 
the paper had taken its usual precautions. 

As it turned out, David Реге!, then the 
Enquirer’s editor in chief, was troubled by 
the lack of direct evidence. A wry, some- 
times acerbic man who never seemed to lose 
his boyish enthusiasm for hot stories, the 
47-year-old Perel did not want to be reck- 
less. Even as his reporters developed further 
information from people around Hunter, he 
remained unconvinced. 

“Т don't think you have enough to name 
her," Perel told Levine. "I also don't think 
you have enough to put it on the cover. If 
you want, you can run it inside." The tip- 
ster was given a few hundred dollars; had 
the story made the cover, the Enquirer, with 
its own version of the minimum wage, would 
have paid at least a thousand. (The paper 
has forked over more than $100,000 on 
occasion but purchased the famous Elvis 
Presley coffin photo from a cousin of the 
King for just $18,000.) 

Тһе piece, about Edwards's "shock- 
ing mistress scandal," landed with a thud. 
Levine was upset, convinced that Perel had 
buried the article by not even allowing a. 
headline on the cover. 

But Реге! was not giving up. А onctime 
sportswriter for The Washington Post and 
Gannett newspapers, he had joined the 
Enquirer in 1985 because he craved the 
sense of adventure that came with being 
able to charter a plane or a helicopter in 
pursuit of a sizzling lead. In 2005, after 
four years as editor in chief, he was fired, 
then restored to the job a year later, and 
one thing he had learned over the years was 
patience. Perel assembled what he called a 
ghost team to quietly pursue Hunter, float- 
ing on the edges of her secretive world. 

Egusquiza eventually developed a second 
source who knew Hunter fairly well. She 
had the photos and phone records to prove 
it and also divulged a highly pertinent piece 
ion: Hunter was pregnant. 

Levine was skeptical. Could Hunter be 
setting up Edwards after getting preg- 
nant by someone else? The paper kicked 
into love-child mode, because what Levine 
desperately needed was a photo. When 
he learned that Hunter had been moved 
to another home in the Governors Club, 
Young's gated community in Chapel Hill, 
North Carolina, Levine had his team rent 
a cottage there. 

At the Boca headquarters, Perel assem- 
bled a series of Google Earth satellite photos 
of Hunter's neighborhood, placing them 
on a board he covered with a white sheet 
except when team members gathered for a 
meeting. He had to be able to visualize the 
buildings, examine the entrances, weigh the 
options, track her movements so they could 
maximize their chances of success. 


PULLING THE TRIGGER 


Perel was growing obsessed with the chase. 
During a video conference with Pecker in 
New York, Perel outlined the plan from Flor- 
ida and declared, “I think this is going to be 
the Enquirer's greatest political story ever.” 

Egusquiza's source had said Hunter was 
six months pregnant—and had an upcoming 
doctor's appointment—so the Enquirer team 
spent days sitting in four rental cars, staking 
out the offices of the two closest gynecolo- 
gists. They grew bored and got into fights 
that Perel had to referee. As they waited, they 
were armed only with a photo of Hunter and 
a description of the BMW she was driving. 
Perel had run through the likely scenarios 
and drawn up a list of seven options, based 
on their quarry's movements. 

When Hunter walked out of one of the 
medical offices, she was wearing a black 
long-slceved shirt and jeans in the mild 
weather, and a baby bump was visible. A 
photographer snapped away through the 
car window while the reporters summoned 
another car as backup. But Levine had 
given strict orders. 

"If we had hit her coming out of the doc- 
tor's office, she would ve jumped right in the 
car," says Levine, who can sound like a mob- 
ster ordering someone bumped off. “That 
would have been a risky venture. I didn't 
want to get in a high-speed chase." 

Instead the cars followed Hunter to a 
Whole Foods across the street—that was one 
of Perel's predicted scenarios—and when 
she emerged and started loading groceries 
into the trunk, Enquirer reporter Alan Smith 
raced over and identified himself. 

*We know you're having John Edwards's 
baby," he said. “We're publishing a story.” 

His colleague, Alan Butterfield, 
approached from the other direction: “Are 
you dating John Edwards? Is that John 
Edwards's baby?” 

“I don't know who you're talking about,” 
Hunter said. The two men said they knew 
precisely who she was. 

Smith tried a softer tone: He knew that 
this was an ordeal. Perhaps they could 
have coffee and talk off the record? But 
he got nowhere. 

Butterfield called Levine for instructions. 
“You need to go hit up Andrew Young," 
Levine said. 

It was pitch-black when the reporters 
arrived. They mistakenly went to the side 
door of the large two-story house. When they 
finally found the front door and knocked, 
Young's wife, Cheri, dialed 911 and asked 
for help dealing with two intruders. 

"They said they're with the National 
Enquirer,” she told the dispatcher, "They're 
press. And they're at our...on our private 
property, peeking in our windows." 

Moments later her husband arrived at the 
50-foot driveway, blocking their Jeep Liberty 
with his car. "Go get my gun!" Andrew Young 
told his wife, though they didn't own one. 

He broke a broomstick in half to make a 
threatening sound. The reporters rushed 
from the front door to the driveway, where 
Young was standing. "You're trespassing,” 
he warned them. They denied it, trying 
to coax the comment they needed. “Does 
Elizabeth know you're covering for John?" 


Butterfield demanded. But Young would 
not so much as confirm his identity. 

Butterfield came face to face with Young 
and felt they were on the verge of coming to 
blows. No way he was going to let that hap- 
pen, Butterfield thought. He got paid well, 
but he wasn't going to hit some weasel who 
was covering for a married man. 

As the standoff continued, Butterfield called 
a company lawyer in Boca Raton for advice. A 
portly sheriff’s deputy arrived, and the report- 
ers argued that there was no sign warning 
against trespassing. A supervisor showed up 
next and concluded he could not arrest them 
for doing their jobs. But, he said ominously, 
“you can get shot out here in North Carolina 
just knocking on someone's door." 

The mission had been accomplished, 
albeit in madcap fashion: The paper, at the 
insistence of its attorneys, had given both 
Hunter and Young a chance to comment. 

Young and Hunter quickly lawyered up. 
"Their attorneys called Levine and said that 
while Hunter was indeed pregnant, it was 
not John Edwards's baby—it was Young's. 
Levine asked if the two would take poly- 
graphs, but the request was rejected. 

"The paper was ready to pull the trigger. 
Levine placed a call to Jonathan Prince, a top 
Edwards campaign official. Prince had been 
flatly denying the rumors for weeks, based on 
a personal assurance from Edwards that there 
was no affair. He tried to dissuade mainstream. 
journalists from writing about the matter, 
arguing that they couldn't run something 
based solely on the Enquirer, which, he said, 
had printed plenty of false accusations. 

When Levine reached him, Prince insisted 
that a story about Hunter would destroy 
both John and Elizabeth Edwards. This was 
nothing but an affair between two campaign 
workers. Why was that worth publishing? 

“Jonathan, you're all being lied to," Levine 
said. "This is a cover-up." Prince told him 
he was completely wrong. 


"Тһе Edwards team made опе last-ditch 
move, floating the idea of giving the Enquirer 
a sworn affidavit affirming that Young was the 
father of the unborn child. Perel was stunned 
by how preposterous the suggestion was. 
While his ghost team had been monitoring 
Hunter, they saw she had gone to Young's 
home for dinner. What kind of man brings 
his pregnant mistress to dinner with his wife 
and kids? Perel knew the cover was a farce. 

In the December 31, 2007 issue, the 
Enquirer published its LOVE CHILD SCANDAL! 
cover—over a larger headline about Kelly 
Ripa's marriage supposedly being in 
trouble—and reported that Hunter had 
“told a close confidante that Edwards is the 
father of her baby!" Hunter was shown in 
the supermarket shots wearing a snug black 
shirt with a peace symbol embedded in a 
heart, along with photos of John and Eliza- 
beth and the Governors Club. The paper 
included a statement in which Hunter com- 
plained that the “innuendos and lies” were 
“completely unfounded and ridiculous.” 

But the bombshell, to use a favorite tabloid 
word, immediately entered a strange limbo. 
It had exploded and virtually everyone in 
America knew about it, but mainstream 
ions steadfastly refused to 
acknowledge it. This was not, as some con- 
spiracy theorists believed, because the liberal 
press was protecting a favored Democrat but 
because the story relied entirely on anony- 
mous sources whose allegations could not be 
confirmed by other journalists. And it was, 
after all, in the Enquirer. 

Buta funny thing happened. The media 
gatekeepers could no longer slam the door 
shut. Over the next few months bloggers 
for Slate and the Huffington Post openly 
debated the story and taunted the main- 
stream press for its resistance. Some North 
Carolina papers, led by The Charlotte Observer, 
nibbled at the edges of the tale, But the 
national newspapers remained silent, with 


“Beware of the Ides of March...April...May...June....” 


105 


PLAYBOY 


а Los Angeles Times editor telling his bloggers 
“not to cover the rumors or salacious specu- 
lations” because “the only source” was the 
Enquirer. Journalists incessantly debated the 
subject in their newsrooms but, because they 
lacked independent proof, felt compelled 
to keep the story from a public that already 
knew all about it. 


“PUSH HARDER” 


A few months later, in July 2008, long after 
John Edwards had quit the campaign, Rick 
Egusquiza was spending a week in the New 
York office when his second source deliv- 
ered some real-time intelligence: Edwards 
was about to visit his mistress and newborn 
baby at the Beverly Hilton. 

“Holy shit,” Levine said. But Egusquiza 
felt stranded on the wrong coast. It was, he 
said, like missing your kid’s birthday party. 

Alexander Hitchen was dispatched to lead 
the stakeout. Alan Butterfield, who was based 
in California, joined the team as well. The 
44-year-old Butterfield, who first hooked up 
ith the Enquirer when he was repossessing 
a car for Toyota's financing department that 
belonged to Larry Fortensky and learned 
the man was dating Elizabeth ‘Taylor, was 
something of a legend at the paper. After 
9/11 he went to Pakistan, landed interviews 
with Taliban fighters and posed for a picture 
next to a rocket launcher. 

The team members, equipped with walkie- 
talkies, arrived at the Beverly Hilton and 
checked in as guests. The place was crawling 
with celebrities because NBC was making its 
annual presentation to the television critics; 
Butterfield saw Keith Olbermann, Brooke 
Shields and Hayden Panettiere. Around 
8:30 р.м. he spotted a friend of Hunter's 
named Bob McGovern, a 64-year-old Cali- 
fornian who described himself as a New Age 
healer. Great, he thought, this guy is going 
to pick up Edwards. Butterfield hid in the 
parking garage and, within 15 minutes, saw 
their dark BMW pull in. As Edwards headed 
toward a staircase to the basement, where 
he could catch an elevator without attracting 
attention, the reporter followed from a safe 
distance before dropping back. “We had to 
let him commit the act,” Butterfield says. 

"Тһе hours dragged on as Edwards met his 
daughter for the first time. Hitchen, having 
thoroughly cased the hotel, decided to plant 
himself on a couch next to а basement stair- 
case, gambling that Edwards would have to 
pass by on his way back to the garage. It was 
Just after 2:30 A.M. 

"Three minutes later, Edwards walked by. 
Hitchen sprang up, identified himself and 
shouted, "Would you like to explain why 
you were with your mistress Rielle Hunter 
and your love child tonight?" Edwards went 
white, briefly stared at the Brit and contin- 
ued up the stairs toward the main lobby. 

Hitchen hoped to prompt a human reaction 
about the man's flesh and blood: "Mr. Edwards, 
for the sake of your child, don't you think you 
should admit to being the child's father?" 
Edwards kept walking, so Hitchen waved to 
Butterfield, who came sprinting over with his 
video camera and began shouting questions 
as well. A photographer was shooting pictures 
from down the һай. Edwards promptly turned 
around, raced back down the stairs, ducked 


106 into a restroom and slammed the door. 


The scene was downright comical. Hitchen, 
unable to pull the door open, brusquely 
reminded his prey that the reporter was a 
guest at the hotel and he was not. Edwards, or 
at least his body, was unmoved by this logic. 

Levine called Perel, woke him up and 
apprised him that Edwards was in the bath- 
room and blocking the door. 

“What should we do?” Levine asked. 

“Push harder,” Perel said. 

Two security guards, who had hap- 
pened to pass by, assessed the situation, 
entered the bathroom and emerged with 
the unsurprising news that Edwards did 
not want to talk to his pursuers. Nearly 
a dozen reinforcements arrived, pushed 
the reporters back up the stairs and 
escorted Edwards out of the hotel, one 
guard holding up a jacket as a shield. “He 
did something so stupid,” Hitchen says. 
“A man who's clearly an incredibly smart 
lawyer, who has amassed millions of dol- 
lars and was going for the highest office 
in the land, tripped himself up.” 

Тһе paper had missed its Monday 
deadline, but there was no holding tl 
The sun had barely come up in California on 
‘Tuesday when Perel posted the story on the 
tabloid’s website, adorned only with head 


‘A man who’s clearly an 
incredibly smart lawyer, who 
has amassed millions of 
dollars and was going for 
the highest office in the land, 
tripped himself up.” 


shots of a grinning Edwards and a dazed- 
looking Hunter, taken at the Whole Foods 
stakeout. Edwards met the “blonde divor- 
сёе,” the story said, while his “wife Elizabeth 
continues to battle cancer—and the National 
Enquirer was there!” The sheer immediacy 
of the posting, Perel felt, would launch the 
revelations into the stratosphere. 

But there was no liftoff. The media black- 
out continued. For Perel, it was downright 
depressing. He started calling his contacts 
at news organizations, lobbying them to run 
something. I'm telling you, he said, this story 
is rock solid. The general reaction was that it 
was indeed a terrific tale, but the other out- 
lets couldn't match it, couldn't prove it. 

"Тһе Enquirer had one more trick up its 
journalistic sleeve. Egusquiza had arranged 
in advance for what he called a spy photo, 
to be surreptitiously shot by someone inside 
Hunter's hotel room. A week later he opened 
an e-mail and there it was: a blurry picture of 
Edwards, in a sweat-stained blue T-shirt, hold- 
ing up his daughter Frances Quinn against 
the telltale backdrop of the Hilton drapes. 

Damn, Egusquiza thought, this is it. He can 
call us trash, but there’s no way he can get out 
of this. Perel paid thousands of dollars for the 
picture, but he considered it a bargain. Still, 
there was a great internal debate over whether 


the Enquirer could be legally liable for running 
pictures taken on private property. 

The paper posted the photo on its website 
on August 6, 2008. Two days later Edwards 
went on Nightline and finally admitted to the 
affair. Levine and Hitchen watched from 
the Park Avenue office and then went out 
to Elaine's for celebratory drinks. 

American Media chief David Pecker told 
Perel he had been right; it was their greatest 
political scoop. Yet Edwards still insisted—as 
he did that night to ABC's Bob Woodruff— 
that he was not the baby’s father. After all, 
he said with а smirk, the report was "pub- 
lished in a supermarket tabloid.” 

The paper's public posture of 
sanctimony—“For the sake of your 
child!"—could be a bit rich. The Enquirer 
hardly qualified for the high-minded role 
of safeguarding American morality. The 
holier-than-thou stance was a combination 
of street theater and shtick, a way to harass 
its famous targets in the name of some lofty 
standard of fidelity. The tabloid lived off 
bad behavior, exploiting it to the fullest 
for the entertainment of its readers. If no 
one was having affairs—check that, if no 
one famous was having affairs—the paper 
would be out of business. 

In the aftermath of the Beverly Hills con- 
frontation, journalists and bloggers began 
to pressure Реге! to release all the pictures 
and videos, but he wasn't ready to show his 
cards. Perel was married to а psychothera- 
pist, and he had been studying what made 
Edwards tick. Edwards never admitted 
anything unless he absolutely had to. Perel 
wanted to flush him out, and the best way to 
do that was to let him wonder what else the 
paper had, to let it prey on his mind. Unbe- 
knownst to most of the Enquirer staff, Perel 
had a small team stay on the case, telling 
Edwards's political pals that the chase wasn't 
over, that their man had to come clean. 

The team got results. Days later the tab- 
loid reported that Hunter had been “secretly 
receiving $15,000 a month as part of an 
elaborate cover-up,” and other journalists con- 
firmed the funds had come from Fred Baron, 
the former finance chairman of Edwards's two 
presidential campaigns. In April 2009 the 
Enquirer disclosed that a federal grand jury was 
investigating possible campaign finance viola- 
tions involving the fees funneled to Hunter. 
In July came the headline Jor EDWARDS SEX 
TAPE SHOCKER, and Young would eventually 
surrender the X-rated video to a federal court. 
(Although the story said Edwards and Hunter 
were accusing Young of secretly taping them, 
he'd actually found the tape among the trash 
in a home where Hunter had stayed with his 
family.) In October Levine wrote that Young's 
forthcoming book would reveal that Edwards 
once discussed trying “to fake a DNA report to 
cover up the paternity of his love child!” 

In the January 25, 2010 issue, Alexan- 
der Hitchen and Rick Egusquiza reported 
that Edwards had been prowling the bars 
of Figure Eight Island, North Carolina and 
repeatedly “attempted to bed a female bar- 
tender.” Hitchen had paid the divorced 
bartender, Stephanie Breshears, for her 
account. “She named a figure,” he says. 

Days later Edwards acknowledged what 
anyone with a pulse already knew, that he had 
clung to a second lie, that the Enquirer had 


been right ай along about the baby's paternity. 
With Young's book on the verge of publication, 
Edwards told the Today show in a statement that 
“it was wrong for me ever to deny she was my 
daughter.” In another week Elizabeth Edwards 
let it be known through Prople magazine that 
she and her husband were splitting up. 

Levine was flabbergasted to click on an 
e-mail and see a note from Young: “Barry, 
good luck on the Pulitzer!” Young, who had 
fallen out with Edwards, called Levine the 
next day, and they chatted like two opposing 
generals after the war. Levine forwarded the 
e-mail to his editors with the header “Now 
Т know pigs can really fly...” 

After the denouement, the tabloid's pick- 
ings on the story seemed to grow slim. At one 
point it was reduced to running a story on the 
“lonely life" of Hunter's two-year-old daugh- 
ter, complete with a picture of a toddler. 

And the Enquirer sometimes undercut its 
own credibility by running thinly sourced sto- 
ries that never quite cleared the bar. When the 
paper carried the headline ELIZABETH EDWARDS” 
CHILLING CONFESSION TO A PAL: “JOHN BEAT МЕ!” 
the words lo a pal were in tiny type. The charge 
was attributed to an unnamed “close friend.” 

After Hunter was spotted lunching at a 
Los Angeles café called Toast, Rick Egusquiza 
called several of his sources—he had paid them 
over time, though now the reward money was 
down to a couple hundred bucks—and heard 
that Hunter had told friends she had secretly 
met with Aaron Sorkin. The West Wing creator, 
not coincidentally, was making a movie about 
her romance with Edwards, and she believed 
she might win a small part in the film, the 
sources said. Sorkin denies any such meeting, 
raising questions about whether Hunter was 
indulging in a fantasy. In fact, Egusquiza says, 
Hunter—who posed without her pants for СО 
magazine—later told friends she didn’t get the 
part because she would have to be nude. 

Egusquiza also learned that Hunter had 
tried to look up some famous ex-boyfriends, 
including actor John Cusack and former 
Friends star Matt LeBlanc, leading to this 
screaming cover line shortly before Thanks- 
giving: RIFLE “CHEATING” ON JOHN EDWARDS. 

Soon after the passing of Elizabeth Edwards, 
who cut her estranged husband out of her will, 
the Enquirer reported that in an “outrageous 
disregard for his wife Elizabeth's deathbed 
wish,” John has proposed to Rielle—which 
an Edwards spokesman flatly denied. 

Levine staunchly defends the accuracy 
of each piece. “То some people it may be 
an old scandal. John's admitted it; now it's 
over,” he says. “But at the National Enquirer 
it’s never over.” 


ENQUIRING MINDS 


How did the tabloid clean everyone else's 
clock on Edwards and Woods, two of the big- 
gest scandal stories in recent years? Paying off 
sources helps loosen tongues, of course, but 
the Enquirer functions like a detective agency, 
conducting surveillance, surreptitiously shoot- 
ing photos, administering lie-detector tests, 
turning recalcitrant witnesses and confronting 
targets with incriminating evidence. In an era 
when newspapers, magazines and networks 
have slashed their budgets, the tabloid will 
keep a group of reporters on the streets for 
weeks in pursuit of a major scoop. 

Despite the fact that AMI emerged from 


bankruptcy in December, certain challenges 
remain. The Enquirer has already downsized. 
Circulation, which peaked at more than 6 mil- 
lion in the 1970s, is down to 750,000. But by 
raising the newsstand price 200 percent over 
the past decade (it's now $3.69) and recruit- 
ing more consumer-products giants (roughly 
doubling advertising revenue, to nearly $8 mil- 
lion), the tabloid has remained viable. 

‚Journalistically not every story has turned 
ош as well as Edwards's fall from grace. After 
the 2008 election David Perel spent six months 
checking out an allegation that the newly 
elected president had once had an affair. The 
supposed episode, back in 2004, was said to 
involve a Senate campaign fund-raiser named 
Vera Baker—who, inconveniently, had long 
ago denied any romance with Barack Obama. 
Perel and his team talked to a limo driver 
who said he'd driven Obama and Baker to 
Washington's Hotel George one night and 
that she never asked to be taken home. But 
Perel concluded there was nothing there and 
was wary of the allegation because the people 
pushing it had a political agenda. 

In May 2010, months after Perel had left 
and Tony Frost, a former editor of the Star 
and Globe, took the helm at the Enquirer, 
Levine decided it was worth reporting that 
anti-Obama operatives were still pursuing 
the allegation. But the Enquirer trumpeted 
the tale as true, declaring that the president 
“has been caught in a shocking cheating 
scandal” involving Vera Baker, though the 
real shock was the lack of confirmation. 
Alexander Hitchen, who had spoken to the 
unnamed limo driver, reported that “on-site 
hotel surveillance camera footage соша”-- 
could!—" provide indisputable evidence.” 

Despite a Drudge Report headline, there 
was absolutely no evidence to support the 
daim, and even gossipy media outlets dumped 
on the unsubstantiated tale. If you aim at the 


president, you'd better have the goods, and 
the Enquirer, simply put, did not. 

The tabloid was on somewhat firmer 
ground last June when it carried a claim by 
a Portland, Oregon masseuse that Al Gore 
had sexually assaulted her, because the alle- 
gation was confirmed in police records. But 
Molly Hagerty had waited weeks to report 
the alleged incident and declined to be inter- 
viewed by detectives for two years, after which 
the authorities cited insufficient evidence to 
launch an investigation. The Enquirer paid 
for her on-the-record account—that Gore 
was “a pervert and a sex predator"—and 
those familiar with such transactions put the 
sum at a quarter of a million dollars. But 
Levine would not call the former vice presi- 
dent's office for comment for fear of losing 
his exclusive. This time, though, major news 
organizations followed the tabloid's lead, 
despite Gore's unequivocal denial, and police 
investigated again before closing the probe. 

As the Enquirer boosted its profile, Levine 
appeared on Nightline, National Public Radio 
and even The View. But Barbara Walters 
ripped into him for a story she called “just 
baloney"—that she and Frank Langella had 
moved in together and were planning a sum- 
mer wedding, with the blessing of the actor's 
ex and Walters's co-host Whoopi Goldberg. 

Levine put his hands over his face, trying 
to laugh it off: “All I can say, Barbara, is that 
we trust our sources.” 

Trust: That, in the end, is the question 
about the National Enquirer. When its sources 
are spot-on, the paper can lap the field and 
bring down major celebrities. At other times, 
the sources make sensational claims that 
never quite pan out. For all its recent suc- 
cess, the storied tabloid still labors under a 
shadow partly of its own making. 


“Today, class, we're going to talk about electricity.” 


107 


6000 НОМЕ 


(continued from page 58) 
was wearing huaraches, his toes as black- 
ened as a corpse’s. 

Royce nodded. “What's happening?" 

So there were rabbits. The kid’s hobby. 
First there’d been two, now there were 30. 
‘They kept them in one of those prefab sheds 
you get at Home Depot, and when the kid 
pulled back the door the stink hit you in 
the face like a sucker punch. Joey was say- 
ing, “Oh, wow, wow, look at them all!” but 
all Royce was thinking was Get me out of here, 
because this was the kind of rank, urine- 
soaked stench you found in some of the 
street fighters’ kennels, if they even both- 
егей with kennels. “Can we take two?” Joey 
said, and everybody—the father, the kid and 
Joey—looked to him. 

He gave an elaborate shrug, and how 
many times had they been through this cha- 
rade before? “Sure,” he said, "why not?" A 
glance for the father. "They're free, right? 
То a good home?" 

The father—he wasn't much older than 
Royce, maybe 34, 35—just nodded, but 
on the way out Royce bent to the kid and 
pressed a five into his palm, feeling magnan- 
imous. The next stop yielded a black Lab, 
skinny, with a bad eye, but still it would have 
to have its jaws duct-taped to keep it from 
slashing one of the dogs, and that was fine 
except that they had to sit there for half an 
hour with a cadaverous old couple who made 
them drink lukewarm iced tea and nibble 
stale anise cookies while they went on about 
Slipper and how she was a good dog, except 
that she peed оп the rug—you had to watch 
out for that—and how sad they were to have 
to part with her, but she was just too much for 
them to handle anymore. They struck out at 
the next two places, both houses shuttered 
and locked, but all in all it wasn't a bad haul, 
considering these were just bait animals апу- 
way and there was no need to get greedy. 

Back at home, the minute they pulled up 
under the oaks in front, Joey was out the 
door and dashing for the house and his stash 
of Hansen's soda and barbecue chips, never 
giving a thought to the rabbits or the black 
Lab confined in their cages in the back of 
the Suburban. That was all right. There was 
no hurry. It wasn't that hot—85 maybe— 
and the shade was dense under the trees. 
Plus, he felt like a beer himself. Just driving 
around the Valley in all that traffic was work, 
what with the fumes radiating up off the 
road and Joey chattering away about any- 
thing and everything that entered his head 
till you couldn't concentrate on the music 
easing out of the radio or the way the girls 
waved their butts as they sauntered down 
the boulevard in their shorts and blue jeans 
and invisible little skirts. 

He left the windows down and kicked his 
way across the dirt expanse of the lot, the 
hand-tooled boots he wore on weekends 
picking up a fine film of dust, thinking he'd 
crack a beer, see what Steve was up to— 
and the dogs, the dogs, of course—and then 
maybe grill up some burgers for an early 
dinner before he went out. He’d have to 
lift the Lab down himself, but Joey could 


108 handle the rabbits, and no, they weren't 


going to bait the dogs tonight no matter 
how much Joey pleaded, because tonight 
was Saturday and һе and Steve were going 
out, remember? But what Joey could do, 
before he settled down with his video games, 
was maybe give the bait animals a dish of 
water, or would that be asking too much? 


The house was іп Calabasas, pushed up 
against a hillside where the oaks gave way 
to chaparral as soon as you climbed up out 
of the yard on the path cut through the scrub 
there, the last place on a dirt road that threw 
up dust all summer and turned into a mud 
fest when the rains came in December. It 
was quiet, private, nights pulled down like 
a shade, and it had belonged to Steve's par- 
ents before they were killed in a head-on 
collision with a drunk three years back. 
Now it was Steve's. And his. Steve paid 
the property taxes and they split the mort- 
gage cach month, which for Royce was a 
whole lot cheaper than what he'd be paying 
elsewhere—plus, there was the barn, for- 
merly for horses, now for the dogs. They 
had parties every couple of weeks, various 
women circulating in and out of their lives, 
but neither of them had ever been married, 
and as far as Royce was concerned, he liked 
it that way. Tonight, though, they were going 
out—cruising, as Steve liked to call it, as if 
they were in some seventies disco movie— 
and Joey would be on his own. Fine. No 
problem. Joey knew the score: Stay out of 
the barn, don't let anybody in, bed at 10, call 
him on the cell if there were any problems. 
Steve drove. Не" never had a DUI, but 
Royce had, and Royce needed his license up 
and running in order to ferry people around 
to his various listings, as if that would make 
a difference since nobody in his office had 
sold anything in recent memory. Or at least 
he hadn't, anyway. They took the 101 into 
town, wound their way down Laurel Canyon 
and valeted the car in a lot off Sunset. It was 
just getting dark. A continuous line of cars, 
fading to invisibility behind their headlights, 
pulsed up and down the boulevard. This was 
the moment he liked best, slamming the car 
door and stepping out into the muted light, 
the street humming with the vibe of the 
clubs, the air so compacted and sweet with 
exhaust it was like breathing through your 
„the night young, anything possible. 
heir first stop was a Middle Eastern res- 
taurant that hardly served any food, or not 
that he could see anyway. People came here 
to sit at the tables out front and smoke Star- 
buzz or herbal shisha through the hookahs 
the management provided for a fee. Every 
once in a while you'd see a couple inside the 
restaurant picking over a lamb kebab or pita 
platter, but the real action was outside, where 
just about everybody surreptitiously spiked 
the tobacco with something a little stronger. 
‘The waitress was slim and young, dark half- 
moons of make-up worked into the flesh 
under her eyes and a tiny red stone glitter- 
ing in one nostril, and maybe she recognized 
them from the week before, maybe she 
didn't. They ordered two iced teas and a hoo- 
kah set-up and let the smoke, cool and sweet, 
massage their lungs, their feet propped up 
on the wrought-iron rail that separated them 
from the sidewalk, eyes roaming the street. 


After a moment, just to hear his own voice 
over the shush of tires and the rattling tribal 
music that made you feel as if you were run- 
ning on a treadmill, Royce said, “So what 
nationality you think these people are—the 
owners, I mean? Iranian? Armenian?” 

Steve—he was a rock, absolutely, six- 
two, 180, with a razor-to-the-bone military 
haircut though he’d never been in the 
military—glanced up lazily, exhaling. “What, 
the waitress, you mean?” 

“I guess.” 

“Why, you want a date with her?” 

“No, I just — 

“I can get you а date with her. You want 
a date with her?” 

He shrugged. “Just curious, that's all. Мо 
biggie. I just figured, you're the expert, 
right?” This was a reference to the fact 
that Steve had dated an Iranian girl all last 
winter—or Persian, as she liked to classify 
herself, and who could blame her? She was 
fleshy in all the right places, with big bounte- 
ous eyes and a wide-lipped smile that really 
lit her face up, but she'd wanted things, too 
many things, things Steve couldn't give her. 

“Yeah, that’s me, a real expert, all right. 
I don't know why you didn’t just hit me 
in the face with a two-by-four the minute 
Nasreen walked through the door"—he held 
ita beat, grinning his tight grin—“Bro.” Не 
was about to bring the hose to his lips, but 
stopped himself, his eyes fixed on a point 
over Royce's shoulder. “Shit,” he breathed, 
"isn't that your brother-in-law?” 

Feeling caught out all of a sudden, feeling 
exposed, Royce swung round in his seat to 
shoot a glance up the boulevard. Joe—Big 
Joe, as Shana insisted on calling him after 
she came back from Russia with Joey, who 
was just a baby in diapers then—was nobody 
he wanted to see. He’d left Shana with a 
fractured elbow and a car with a bad trans- 
mission and payments overdue and she'd 
been working double shifts on weekends ever 
since to catch up. Which was why Royce took 
Joey Friday through Sunday—Joey needed a 
man’s influence, that’s what Shana claimed, 
and besides, she couldn't afford a babysitter. 
“Ex-brother-in-law,” he said. 

But there he was, Big Joe, easing his way 
in and out of the clusters of people making 
for the clubs and restaurants, his arm flung 
over the shoulder of some woman and a 
big self-satisfied grin on his face, just as if 
he was a regular human being. Even worse, 
the woman—girl—was so pretty the sight of 
her made Royce's heart clench with envy. If 
he was about to ask himself how a jerk like 
Joe had managed to wind up with a girl like 
that, he never got the chance because Steve 
was on his feet now, up out of his seat and 
leaning over the rail, calling out, “Joe, hey, 
Joe, what’s happening?” in а voice deep- 
fried in sarcasm. 

Joe was no more than 20 feet away and 
Royce could see him exchange a glance with 
the girl, as if he was going to pat down his 
pockets and pretend he'd left his credit card 
on the bar at the last place, but he kept on 
coming because he had no choice at this 
point. He wasn't that big—just big in relation 
to Joey and Shana—but he carried himself 
with a swagger and he had one of those faces 
that managed to look hard even when he 
was smiling at you. Which he definitely 


wasn't doing now. Не just froze his features, 
tightened his grip on the girl and made as if 
to ignore them. But Steve wouldn't have it. 
Steve was over the railing in a bound, wav- 
ing his arms like a game show host. “Hey, 
man, good to see you," he was crowing in 
his put-on voice. "What a coincidence, huh? 
And look, look who's here"—and now the 
voice of wonder—“your brother-in-law!” 

"That moment? Nobody really liked it. Not 
the couple with the pita platter or the wait- 
ress or the other smokers, who only wanted 
to suck a little peace through a tube and dis- 
solve the hassles of the day, and certainly not 
Joe. Or the girl he was with. She was involved 
now, giving him a look: brother-in-law? 

"Ex," Joe said, looking from her to Royce 
and shooting him a look of hate. He was 
stalled there, against his will, the girl about 
to say something like Aren't you going to intro- 
duce me? and people beginning to turn their 
heads. Steve—he was amped up, clowning— 
kept saying, "Hey, come on, man, come on 
in and have a toke with us, like a peace pipe, 
you know?" 

Joe ignored him. He just kept staring at 
Royce. Very slowly, in disgust, he began to 
shake his head, as if Royce were the one 
who'd walked out on his wife and kid and 
refused to pay child support or even leave 
a forwarding address, then he tightened his 
grip on the girl's arm, sidestepped Steve and 
made a show of strutting off down the street 
as if nothing had happened. And nothing 
had happened. What was he going to do, 
have Steve fight his battles for him? It wasn’t 
worth it. Though if he was Steve's size, or 
even close, he would have gone over that 
rail himself, and he would have had a thing 
ог two to say, and maybe more—maybe he 
would have gone for him right there on the 
sidewalk so people made way and the pretty 
girl let out a soft strangled cry. 

By the time they settled in at the first bar 
up the street, he'd put it out of his head. Or 
mostly. He and Steve talked sports and spun 
out a couple of jokes and routines and he 
found himself drifting, but then Joe’s face 
loomed up in his consciousness and he was 
telling himself he should have followed him 
to see what he was driving, get a license plate 
number so Shana could clue the police or 
child services or whoever. Something. Any- 
thing. But he hadn't, and the moment was 
gone. “Forget it,” Steve told him. “Don't let 
that fucker spoil the night for you.” 

"They went to the next place and the next 
place after that, the music pounding and the 
lights flashing, and for a while there he felt 
loose enough to go up to women at random 
and introduce himself, and when they asked 
him what he did for a living, he said, “I'm 
a dog man.” That got them interested, no 
doubt about it, but it was the rare woman 
who didn’t turn away or excuse herself to 
go to the ladies’ when he began to explain 
just what that meant. Still, he was out on 
the town and the alcohol began to sing in 
his blood and he didn't feel tired or discour- 
aged in the least. It was around 11 when 
Steve suggested they try this hotel he'd 
heard about, where they had a big outdoor 
pool area and a bar scene and you could sit 
out under the stars and watch girls jump in 
and out of the pool in their bikinis. "Sure," 
he heard himself say, *why not?" And if he 


thought of Joey, he thought of him in bed, 
asleep, the video remote still clenched in his 
hand and the screen gone blank. 

He was fecling no pain as he followed Steve 
up the steps ofthe hotel and into the dark- 
ened lobby. Two doormen—studiously hip, 
mid-30s, with phone plugs in their ears and 
cords trailing away beneath their collars— 
swung back the doors оп a big spreading 
space with low ceilings, concrete pillars and 
a cluster of aluminum and leather couches 
arranged in a grid against the wall on the 
right. People—various scenesters, mostly 
dressed in black—lounged on the couches, 
trying their best to look as if they belonged. 
Beyond them, the pool area opened up to 
the yellow night sky and the infinite lights of 
the city below. A minute later he and Steve 
were crowding in at the pool bar— glasses 
that weren't glass but plastic, a rattle of i 
cubes, scotch and soda—while the music 
infected them and the pool sucked and fell 
in an explosion of dancing blue light. Girls, 
as promised. And swimming like otters. 
“Pretty cool, huh?" Steve was saying. 

He nodded, just taking in the scene, think- 
ing nothing at this point, his mind sailing 
free the way it did when somebody else's 
dogs were fighting and he had no betting 
interest in the outcome. Suddenly he felt 


a wave of exhaustion sweep over him—or 
was it boredom? After a moment he excused 
himself to find his way to the men's, and that 
was when the whole world shifted on him. 

Right in the lobby, set right there in the wall 
above the long curving sweep of the check-in 
desk, was a lit-up glass cubicle, maybe eight 
feet long, four high, with a mattress and pil- 
low and a pale pink duvet turned back on 
itself—how could he have missed it on the 
way in? It was like the window ofa furniture 
store, or no, a stage set, because there was a 
girl inside, propped up against the back wall 
as if she were in her own bedroom. She was 
wearing pajamas—nothing overt like a teddy 
or anything like that—just pajamas, button- 
up top and drawstring bottoms rolled up at 
the ankles. She had a cell phone stuck to опе 
ear and a book open in her lap. Her hair was 
dark and long, brushed out as if for bed—a 
brunette, definitely a brunette—and her feet 
were bare and pressed to the glass so you 
could see the pale flesh of her soles. That 
was what got him, that was what had him 
standing there in the middle of the lobby as 
if he'd been nailed to the floor: the soles of 
her feet, so clean and white and intimate in 
that darkened arena with its scenesters and 
hustlers and everybody else doing their best 
to ignore her. 


“Oh, by the way. ..my wife says you've been forgetting 


to dust the 


tulis 


108 


PLAYBOY 


110 


"Can I help you?" The man behind the 
desk—big-frame glasses, skinny tie—was 
addressing him. 

“I was"—but this was genius, wasn't it, the 
hotel advertising what you could do there, 
in private, in a room, if you had a girl like 
that?— "just looking for the men's...” 

“Down the hall to your right." 

He should have moved on, but he didn't, 
he couldn't. The guy behind the desk was 
studying him still—he could feel his eyes 
on him—probably a heartbeat away from 
informing him that he couldn't stand there 
blocking traffic all night and another heart- 
beat away from calling security. “Does she 
have a name?" Royce murmured, his voice 
caught low in his throat. 

"Chelsea." 

"Does she——?" 

‘The man shook his head. “No.” 

When Steve finally came looking for him, 
he was squeezed in at the end of one of the 
couches in the dark, just watching her. 
At first, she'd seemed static, almost like a 
mannequin, but that wasn't the case at all— 
she blinked her eyes, flipped the hair out 
of her face, turned the pages of her book 
with a flick of enameled nails, each gesture 
magnified out of all proportion. And then, 
thrillingly, she shifted position, stretching 
like a cat, one muscle at a time, before flex- 
ing her arms and abdomen and pushing 
herself up into the lotus position, her feet 
tucked under her, the book in her lap and 
the cell cupped to one ear. He wondered if 
she was really talking to anybody—a boy- 
friend, a husband—or if it was just part of 
the act. Did she cat in there? Take bathroom 
breaks? Brush her teeth? Floss? 

“Неу, man, I've been looking all over for 
you," Steve said, emerging from the shad- 
ows with the dregs of a drink in one hand 
and all trace of his grin gone. "What аге you 
doing? You know what time it is?” 

He didn't. He just shook his head in a slow 
absent way as if he were waking from a deep 
sleep, and then they were down the steps and 
out on the street, the cars crawling past in a 
continuous illuminated loop and a sliver moon 
caught like a hook in the jaws of the yellow 


sky. The cell in his left front pocket began to 
vibrate. It was Joey. "What's up, big guy?" he 
said without breaking stride. "Shouldn't you 
be asleep? Like long asleep?” 

The voice was soft, remote. “It's the Lab.” 

“What about her?” 

“She's crying. I can hear her all the way 
from my bedroom.” 

“Yeah, okay, thanks for telling me— 
really—but don't you worry about it. You 
Just get to sleep, hear me?" 

Even softer: “Okay.” 

He wanted to add that they'd work the 
dogs in the morning, that they'd devote the 
whole morning to them because there was 
a match next weckend and if Jocy was good 
he was going to bring him along, first time 
ever, because he was old enough now to see 
what it was all about and why they had to put 
so much time into training Zoltan and Zeus 
the way they did, baiting them and watching 
their diet and their weight and all the rest of 
it, but Joey had broken the connection. 


Most of them were creeps, pure and 
simple—either that or old men who stood 
there gaping at her when they checked in 
with their shrink-wrapped wives—and she 
never had anything to do with any ofthem, 
no matter if they sent her 10-page letters 
and roses and fancy candy assortments, the 
latter of which she just gave to the maids 
in any case because sweets went straight to 
her hips and thighs. In fact, it was against 
the rules to make eye contact—Leonard, the 
manager, would jump down your throat if 
you even glanced up at somebody because 
that was like violating the fourth wall ofthe 
stage. This is theater, һе kept telling her, and 
you're an actress. Just keep that іп mind. Right. 
Тһе only thing was, she didn't want to be an 
actress, unlike 99 percent of the other girls 
clawing their way through the shops and 
bars and clubs seven days a week—she was 
two years out of college, waitressing morn- 
ings in a coffee shop and doing four nights 
a weck here, representing some sort of ado- 
lescent wet dream while saving her money 
and studying for her LSATs. 


“...Апа when it comes to my marital status, I’m a bit of a 
‘don't ask, don’t tell’ kind of guy!” 


Was it demeaning? Was it stupid? Yes, of 
course it was, but her mother had danced 
topless in a cage during hippie times— 
and that was in a bar where people could 
hoot and throw things and shout out every 
sleazy proposition known to humankind. 
She wasn't an actress. Anybody could be an 
actress. She was going to go into immigra- 
tion law, help give voice to people who didn't 
have a say for themselves, do something with 
her life—and if using her looks to get her 
there, to get paid to study, was part of the 
deal, then that was fine with her. 

So she was in her cubicle, embracing the 
concept of the fourth wall and trying to 
make sense of the logical reasoning ques- 
tions TestMasters threw at her, good to go 
sometimes for an hour or more without even 
looking up, but she wasn't blind. The scene 
drifted past her as if she were underwater, 
in a submarine, watching all the strange sea 
creatures interact, snatch at each other, pair 
up, stumble, glide, fade into the depths, and 
her expression never changed. She recog- 
nized people from time to time, of course she 
did, but she never let on. Matt Damon had 
been in one night, with a girl and another 
guy, and once, Just after she clocked in, she 
thought she'd seen George Clooney—or the 
back of his head, anyway—and then there 
were people she'd gone to college with, an 
older couple who were friends of her par- 
ents, even а guy she'd dated in high school. 
Basically, and it wasn't that hard, she just 
ignored them all. 

On this particular night, though, a Sat- 
urday, when the throngs were out and the 
words began to blur on the page and nobody, 
not even her mother, would answer the 
phone, she stole a glance at the lobby and the 
guy who'd just stood there watching her for 
the last five minutes till Eduardo, the desk- 
man, said something to him. In that instant, 
when he was distracted by whatever Eduardo 
was saying, she got a good look at him and 
realized, with a jolt, that she knew him from 
somewhere. Her eyes were back on the page 
but his image stayed with her: a lean short 
tensed-up guy with his hands in his pockets, 
blond hair piled up high on the crown of 
his head and a smooth detached expression, 
beautiful and dangerous at the same time, 
and where did she know him from? 

It took her a while. She lost him when he 
drifted across the room in the direction of the 
lounge and she tried to refocus on her book 
but she couldn't. It was driving her crazy: 
Where had she met him? Was it at school? Or 
here? Had she served him at the coffee shop, 
was that it? Time passed. She was bored. And 
then she snatched a look again and there he 
was, with another guy, moving tentatively 
across the lobby as if it were ankle-deep іп 
mud—drunk, both of them, or at least under 
the influence—and it came to her: He was 
the guy who'd adopted the kittens, the one 
with the little kid, the nephew. It must have 
been six weeks ago now. Missy had had her 
second—and last—litter, because it was ігге- 
sponsible to bring more cats into the world 
when they were putting them down by the 
thousands in the shelters every day and 
she'd decided to have her spayed once the 
kittens were weaned, all nine of them, and 
he'd showed up in answer to her ad. And 
what was his name? Roy or something. Or 


no: Royce. She remembered because ofthe 
boy, how unusual it was to see that kind of 
relationship, uncle and nephew, and how 
close they seemed, and because Royce had 
been so obviously attracted to her—couldn't 
keep his eyes off her, actually. 

She'd just washed her hair and was comb- 
ing out the snarls when the bell rang and 
there they were on the concrete landing of 
her apartment, smiling up at her. “Hi,” he 
said, "are you the one with the kittens? 

She looked from him to the boy and back 
again. She'd given one of the kittens away 
to a guy who worked in the hotel kitchen 
and another to one of her girlfriends, but 
there were seven left and nobody else had 
called. "Yeah," she said, pushing the door 
open wide. "Come on in." 

"Тһе boy had made a real fuss over the kit- 
tens, telling her how cute they all were and 
how he couldn't make up his mind. She was 
just about to ask him if she couldn't get him 
something to drink, a glass of lemonade, a 
Coke, when he'd looked up at his uncle and 
said, “Could we take two?" 

They were in a hurry—he apologized for 
that—and it was just a chance encounter, 
but it had stayed with her. (As had three of 
the kittens, which she hadn't been able to 
find homes for.) Royce told her he was in 
real estate and they'd lingered a moment 
at the door while the boy cradled his kit- 
tens and she told him she was looking to 
buy a duplex, with her parents' help, so 
the rent on the one apartment could cover 
her mortgage—like living for free—but she 
hadn't pushed it and he hadn't either. 

Now, as she watched him square up his 
shoulders at the door, she wondered if he'd 
recognized her. For an instant her heart 
stood still —he was going, gone—and then, 
on an impulse, she broke her pose, set down 
the book and flicked off the light. In the 
next moment she was out of the cubicle, a 
page torn from her book in one hand and 
her pen in the other, rushing across the cold 
stone floor of the lobby in her bare feet. 
She scribbled out a note on the back of the 
page—How are the kittens? Call me. Chelsea— 
and handed it to Jason, the doorman. 

"hat guy,” she said, pointing down the 
street. "The опе on his cell? Could you run 
and give this to him for me?" In her rush, 
she almost forgot to include her number, 
but at the last second she remembered, and 
by the time Jason put his fingers to his lips 
and whistled down the length of the block, 
she was hurrying back across the lobby to 
the sanctuary of her cubicle. 


It took three cups of coffee to clear his head 
in the morning, but he was up early all the 
same and took time to make an omelette 
for Joey—"No onion: 

told him, “just cheese” 
out to see to the dogs. Тһе Lab was in her 
cage outside the door to the barn, still whin- 
ing, and he didn't even glance at her. Нед 
have Joey feed her some of the cheap kib- 
ble later, but first he had to work Zoltan and 
Zeus on the treadmills and make sure Zazzie, 
who'd thrown six pups out of Zeus's sire, 
the original Zeus, got the feed and atten- 
tion she needed while she was still nursing. 
Zeus the first had been a grand champion, 


ROM, Register of Merit, with five wins, and 
the money he'd brought in in bets alone had 
been enough to establish Z-Dogz Kennels— 
and a dozen or more of his pups were out 
there on the circuit, winning big in their 
own right. Royce had never had a better pit 
dog, and it just about killed him when Zeus 
couldn't scratch after going at it with Marvin 
Harlock's champion Kato for two and a quar- 
ter hours and had to be put down because of 
his injuries. Still, he'd been bred to some 16 
bitches and the stud fees alone had made up 
a pretty substantial part of Royce's income— 
especially with the realty market dead in the 
water the last two years—and Zeus the sec- 
ond, not to mention his brother Zoltan, had 
won their first matches, and that boded well 
for stud fees down the road. 

"The dogs set up their usual racket when 
he and Joey came in—happy to see them, 
always happy—and Joey ran ahead to let 
them out of their cages. Aside from the new 
litter and Zoltan, Zeus and Zazzie, he and 
Steve had only three other dogs at the time, 
two bitches out of Zeus the first, for breed- 
ing purposes with the next champion that 
caught their eye, and a male—Zeno—that 
had lost the better part of his muzzle in his 
first match and would probably have to be 
let go, though he'd really showed heart. 
For now, though, they were one big happy 
family, and they all surged round Royce's 
legs, even the puppies, their tongues going 
and their high excited yips rising up into 
the rafters where the pigeons settled and 
fluttered and settled again. “Feed them all 
except Zeus and Zoltan,” he shouted to Joey 
over the noise, “because we're going to work 
them on the mills first, okay: 

And Joey, dressed in у 
with smears of somet! 
and a T-shirt that could have been cleaner, 
swung round from where he was bending 
to the latch on Zeno's cage, his eyes shining. 
“And then can we bait them? 

Yeah,” he said. “Then we'll bait them.” 

‘The first time he'd let Joey watch while 
they set the dogs on the bait animals, һе4 
been careful to explain the whole thing to 
him so he wouldn't take it the wrong way. 
Most trainers—and he was one of them—felt 
that a fighting dog had to be blooded regu- 
larly to keep him keyed up between matches 
and if some of the excess and unwanted ani- 
mals of the world happened to be lost in 
the process, well, that was life. They were 
just going to be sent to the pound anyway, 
where some stoner working for minimum 
wage would stick a needle in them or sho: 
them in a box and gas them, and this wa 
was a lot more natural, wasn't it? He no lon- 
ger remembered whether it was rabbits or 
cats or a stray that first time, but }оеу face 
had drained and he'd had to take him out- 
side and tell him he couldn't afford to be 
squeamish, couldn't be a baby, if he wanted 
to be a dog man, and Joey—he was all of 
nine at the time—had just nodded his head, 
his mouth drawn tight, but there were no 
tears, and that was a good sign. 

He didn't want to wear the dogs out so 
close to their next match, so he clocked half 
an hour on the treadmill, then put Zeus in 
the pit he'd erected in the back corner of 
the barn and had Joey bait him with one 
of the rabbits, after which it was Zoltan's 


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turn. Finally, he took the Lab out of her 
саде, taped her jaws shut and let both dogs 
have a go at her, nothing too severe, just 
enough for them to draw some blood and 
get the feel of another body and will, and 
whether it fought back or stood its ground 
or rolled over to show its belly didn’t mat- 
ter. Baiting was just part of the regimen, 
that was all. After five minutes, he had to 
wade in and break Zeus’s hold on the ani- 
mal. "That's enough for today, Joey—we 
want to save the Lab for maybe two days 
before the match, okay?" 

Joey was leaning against the plywood 
les of the pit, his expression unreadable. 
"here was something in his hair—a twig or 
a bit of straw the dogs had kicked up. He 
didn't say anything in response. 

The Lab was trembling—she had the 
shakes, the way dogs did when they'd had 
enough and wouldn't come out of their 
corner—and one of her ears was pretty well 
gone, but she'd do for one more go-around 
оп Thursday, and then they'd have to answer 
another ad or two. He bent to the dog, which 
tried to look up at him out of its good eye 
but was trembling so hard it couldn't quite 
manage to raise its head, clipped a leash to 
its collar and led it out of the pit. "Put her 
back in her cage,” he told Joey, handing him 
the leash. "And you can feed and water her 
now. ГИ take care of Zeusy and Zoltan. And 
if you're good, maybe later we'll do a little 
Chicken McNuggets for lunch, how's that 
sound? With that barbecue sauce you like?" 

He turned away and started for the house. 
He hadn't forgotten the note in his pocket— 
he was just waiting till a reasonable hour (10, 
he was thinking) before he called her, figur- 
ing she'd been up even later than he and 
Steve. Call me, she'd written, and the words 
had lit him up right there on the street as if 
he'd been plugged into a socket—it was all he 
could do to keep himself from lurching back 
into the hotel to press his face to the glass 
and mouth his assent. But that would have 
been uncool, terminally uncool, and he'd just 
floated on down the street, Steve ribbing him, 
all the way to the car. The mystery was the 
reference to the cats, and he’d been trying 
to put that together all morning—obviously 
he and Joey must have answered an ad from 
her at some point, but he couldn't remember 
when or where, though maybe she did look 
familiar to him, maybe that was part of it. 

He crossed the yard and went in the kitchen 
door, but Steve was sitting at the table in the 
breakfast nook, rubbing the bristle of his scalp 
with one hand and spooning up cornflakes 
with the other, so Royce stepped out back to 
make the call on his cell. And then, the way 
these things do, it all came back to him as he 
punched in the number: the kittens, a ронед 
bird-of-paradise on the landing, the condo— 
or no, duplex—she was looking to buy. 

She answered on the first ring. Her voice 
was cautious, tentative—even if she had 
caller ID and his name came up it wouldn't 
have meant anything to her because she 
didn't know him yet, did she? 

“Hi,” he said, “it’s me, Royce, from last 
night? You said to call?" 


She liked his voice on the phone—it was 


112 soft and musical, sure of itself but not cocky, 


not at all. And she liked the fact that he'd 
been wearing a nice-fitting sport coat the 
night before and not just a T-shirt or athletic 
jersey like all the rest of them. They made 
small talk, Missy brushing up against her 
leg, a hummingbird at the feeder outside the 
window like a finger of light. "So," he said 
after a moment, "are you still interested in 
looking at property? No obligation, I mean, 
and even if you're not ready to buy yet, it 
would be a pleasure, a privilege and a plea- 
sure, to just show you what's out there.... 
He pauscd. "And maybe buy you lunch. You 
up for lunch?" 

He worked out of an office on a side street 
off Ventura, not 10 minutes from her apart- 
ment. When she pulled up in the parking 
lot, he was there waiting for her at the door 
ofa long dark bottom-heavy Suburban with 
tires almost as tall as her Mini. “1 know, I 
know,” he said, "it's a real gas hog and about 
as environmentally stupid as you can get, 
but you'd be surprised at the size of some of 
the family groups I have to show around... 
plus, I’m а dog man." 

They were already wheeling out of the 
lot, a book of listings spread open on the 
console between them. She saw that he'd 
circled a number of them in her price range 


He took the Lab out of her 
cage, taped her jaws shut 
and let both dogs have a go 
at her, nothing too severe, 
just enough for them to draw 
some blood and get the feel. 


and the neighborhood she was hoping for. 
“А dog man?" 

"A breeder, I mean. And I keep this vehicle 
spotless, as you can see, right? But I do need 
the space in back for the dogs sometimes." 

“For shows?" 

A wave of the hand. They were out in traf- 
fic now and she was sceing him in profile, 
the sun flaring in his hair. "Oh, no, nothing 
like that. I'm just a breeder, that’s all.” 

“What kind of dogs?" 

“Тһе best breed there is," he said, "the only 
breed, pit bull terrieı if she thought to 
ask him about that, which she should have, she 
didn’t get the chance because he was already 
talking up the first property he'd circled for 
her and before she knew it they were there 
and all she could see was possibility. 

Over lunch—he took her to an upscale 
place with a flagstone courtyard where you 
could sit outside beneath a huge twisting syc- 
amore that must have been a hundred years 
old and listen to the trickling of the fountain 
in the corner—they discussed the properties 
he’d showed her. He was polite and solici- 
tous and he knew everything there was to 
know about real estate. They shared a bot- 
tle of wine, took their time over their food. 
She kept feeling a mounting excitement—she 
couldn't wait to call her mother, though the 


whole thing was premature, of course, until 
she knew where she was going to law school, 
though if it was Pepperdine, the last place, 
the one in Woodland Hills, would have been 
perfect. And with the sun sifting through 
the leaves of the trees and the fountain mur- 
muring and Royce sketching in the details of 
financing and what he'd bid and how much 
the attached apartment was bringing in—and 
more, how he knew a guy who could do main- 
tenance, cheap, and a great painter too, and 
didn't she think the living room would look 
a thousand percent better in maybe a deeper 
shade of yellow, gold, really, to contrast with 
the oak beams?—she knew she would get in, 
she knew it in that moment as certainly as 
she'd ever known anything in her life. 

And when he asked if she wanted to stop 
by and scc his place, she never hesitated. 
“It’s nothing like what you're looking for,” 
he said as they walked side by side out to the 
car, “but I just thought you'd like to see it 
ош of curiosity, because it's a real sweet deal. 
Detached house, an acre of property, right 
up in the hills. My roommate and 1, we're 
co-owners, and we'd be crazy to sell, espe- 
cially in this market, but if we ever do both 
of us could retire, it's that sweet." 

The thing was—and he was the one to ask— 
did she want to stop back at the office for her 
car and follow him? Was she all right to drive? 
Or did she just want to come with him? 

The little decisions, the little moments that 
can open up forever: She trusted him, liked 
him, and if she'd had any hesitation three 
hours ago he'd more than won her over. Still, 
when he put the question to her, she saw 
herself in her own car—and she wouldn't 
have another glass of wine, though she was 
sure he was going to offer it when they got 
there—because in her own car she could say 
good-bye when she had to and make sure 
she got to work on time. Which on a Sunday 
was eight р.м. And it was what, 3:30 now? 

“ГИ follow you,” she said. 


Тһе streets were unfamiliar, narrow twisting 
blacktop lanes that dug deeper and deeper 
into the hills, and she’d begun to wonder if 
she'd ever be able to find her way back again 
when he flicked on his signal light and led 
her onto a dirt road that fell away beneath 
an irregular canopy of oaks. She rolled up 
her window, though it was hot in the car, 
and followed at a distance, easing her way 
over the washboard striations that made the 
doors rattle in their frames. There was dust 
everywhere, a whole universe of it fanning 
out from the shoulders of the road and lifting 
into the scrub oak and mesquite till all the 
lower leaves were dulled. Mailboxes sprang 
up every hundred yards or so, but the houses 
were set back so you couldn't see them. A 
family of quail, all skittering feet and bob- 
bing heads, shot out in front of her and she 
had to brake to avoid them. Scenery, a whole 
lot of scenery. Just as she was getting impa- 
tient, wondering what she'd got herself in for, 
they were there, rolling in under the shade 
of the trees in front of a low rambling ranch- 
style house from the forties or fifties, painted 
a deep chocolate brown with white trim, a 
barn set just behind and to the right of it and 
painted in the same color combination. 
"Тһе dust cleared. He was standing there 


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114 


CREDITS: PHOTOGRAPHY BY: P. 3 PABLO 
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beside the truck, grinning, and here came 
the boy—Joey—bouncing across the yard as 
if he werc on springs. She stepped out of her 
car, smelled sage and something else, too, 
something sweet and indefinable, wildflow- 
ers, she supposed. From the barn came the 
sound of dogs, barking. 

Royce had an arm looped over Joey's 
shoulder as they ambled toward her. “Great 
spot, huh? You want end of the road, this 
is it. And you should see the stars—nothing 
like the city where you get all that light pol- 
lution. And noise. It’s quiet as a tomb out 
here at night.” Then he ducked his head and 
introduced Joey—or reintroduced him. 

The boy was taller than she'd remem- 
bered, his hair so blond it was almost white 
and cut in a neat fringe across his eyebrows. 
He gave her a quick smile, his eyes flashing 
blue in the mottled sun beneath the trees. 

Hi,” she said, bending to take his hand, 
"I'm Chelsea. How are you doing?” 

He just stared. “Good.” And then, to 
Royce, “Mr. Harlock’s been ringing the 
phone all day looking for you. Where have 
you been?” 

Royce was watching her, still grinning. 
“Don't you worry,” һе said, glancing down 
at the boy, “ГИ call him first chance I get. 
And now”—coming back to her—“maybe 
Chelsea’d like to sit out on the porch and 
have a nice cold soda—or maybe, if we can 
twist her arm, just one more glass of that 
Santa Maria chard we had over lunch?” 

She smiled back at him. “You really have 
it? The same one?” 

“What you think, I’m just some amateur 
or something? Of course, we have it. A whole 
case straight from the vineyard—and at least 
one, maybe two bottles in the refrigerator 
even as we speak...” 

It was then, just as she felt her resolve 
weakening—what would one more hurt?— 
that the screen door in front sliced open 
and the other guy, the taller one from last 
night, stuck his head out. *It's Marvin on 
the phone,” he called, “about next week. 
Says it can't wait." 

“Му roommate, Steve," Royce said, nod- 
ding to him. "Steve," he said, "Chelsea." 
He separated himself from her then, spun 
around on one heel and gestured toward the 
porch. "Here, come on, why don't you have a 
seat out here and enjoy the scenery a minute 
while I take this call—it'll just be a minute, I 
promise—and then I'll bring you your wine. 
Which, I can see from your face, you already 
decided to take me up on, right?” 

“Okay, you convinced me,” she said, feel- 
ing pleased with herself, feeling serene, 
everything so tranquil, the dogs fallen silent 
now, not a man-made sound to be heard any- 
where, no leaf blowers, no backfiring cars or 
motorcycles or nattering TVs, and it really 
was blissful. For one fraction of a moment, 
as she went up the steps to the porch and 
saw the outdoor furniture arrayed there, the 
glass-topped table and the armchairs canted 
toward a view of the trees and the hillside 
beyond, she pictured herself moving in with 
Royce, going to bed with him and waking up 
here in the midst of all this natural beauty, 
and forget the duplex—she’d be even closer 
to school from here, wouldn't she? She set- 
tled into the chair and put her feet up. 

And then the door slammed, and Joey, 


having bounced in and back out again, was 
standing there staring at her, a can of soda in 
his hand. “You want some?” he asked, hold- 
ing it out to her. "It's good. Kiwi-strawberry, 
my favorite.” 

“No, thanks. It’s a tempting offer, but I 
think ГЇЇ wait for your uncle.” She bent to 
scratch a spot on the inside of her calf, a 
raised red welt there, thinking a mosquito 
must have bitten her, and when she looked 
up again her eyes fell on the cage stand- 
ing just outside the barn door in a flood of 
sunlight. There was a dark figure hunched 
there, a dog, and as if it sensed she was look- 
ing, it began to whine. 

“Is that one of your dogs?” she asked. 

Joey gave her an odd look, almost as if 
she'd insulted him. “That? No, that's just 
one of the bait animals. We've got real dogs. 
Pit bulls.” 

She didn’t know what to say to that, the 
distinction he was making—a dog was a dog 
as far as she was concerned, and this one 
was obviously in distress. "Maybe it needs 
water," she said. 

“I already watered her. And fed her, too." 

“You really like animals, don't you?" she 
said, and when he nodded in response, she 
added, "And how are the kittens doing? Did 
you litter-train them? And what are their 
names—you name them yourself?" 

She was leaning forward in the chair, 
their faces on a level. He didn't answer. 
He shuflled his feet, his cyes dodging away 
from hers, and she could see the lie form- 
ing there—bait animals—even before he 
shrugged and murmured, “Тһеуте fine.” 

Royce was just coming through the door 
with two glasses of white wine held high in 
one hand and a platter of cheese and crack- 
ers in the other. His smile died when he saw 
the look she was giving him. 

“Tell me one thing,” she said, shoving her- 
self up out of the chair, all the cords of her 
throat strung so tight she could barely breathe, 
“just one thing—what’s a bait animal?” 


The darkness came down hard that night. It 
was as if one minute it was broad day, bugs 
hanging like specks in the air, the side of the 
barn bronzed with the sun, and then the next 
it was black dark. He was out on the porch, 
smoking, and he never smoked unless he 
was drunk, and he was drunk now, because 
what was he going to do with an open bot- 
tle of wine—toss it? He hadn't made Joey 
any supper and he felt bad about that—and 
bad about laying into him the way he did— 
but Shana would be here soon to pick him 
up and she could deal with it. Steve was out 
somewhere. Everything was still but for the 
hiss and crackle of Joey's video game leaching 
down from the open bedroom window. He 
was about to push himself up and go in and 
put something in his stomach when the Lab 
bitch began to whine from across the yard. 

‘The sound was an irritant, that was what it 
was, and he let out a soft curse. In the next 
moment, and he didn’t even think twice 
about it, he had the leash in his hand. Maybe 
it пи make sense, maybe it was too late, 
but Zeus could always use the exercise. And 
when he was done, so could Zoltan. 


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NEANDERTHAL LOVE 


(continued from page 78) 
45,000 years ago in cast Asia, which could 
explain regional variations in our genome. 
In December Pääbo announced that, based 
on DNA tests, the pinkie bone from Siberia 
belonged to an individual from a species 
dubbed the Denisovans, after the cave 
where the bone was found. This branch 
descends from hominins who left Africa 
about 400,000 years ago—those who went 
west evolved into Neanderthals and those 
who went east into Denisovans. But the 
most startling discovery was that the DNA 
of present-day New Guincans is 4.8 percent 
Denisovan, indicating that whatever direc- 
tion the winds took us, we always managed 
to seduce the locals. 

We don't have any idea what Deniso- 
vans looked like. But scientists have found 
enough Neanderthal skulls for anatomical 
sculptors to summon faces from the pre- 
historic past. Would you have slept with a 
Neanderthal woman? Before you answer, 
let's get to know her better. The first thing. 
that strikes you (perhaps literally, if you're 
leaning in for a kiss) is her supraorbital 
torus, the thick, double-arched brow that 
protects the eyes from downward blows 
and/or absorbs tension during chewing, 
like our forehead. She finds your chin 
alluring, since she doesn't have one. We 
may have reminded Neanderthals of their 
own children, with our prominent fore- 
heads and small, flat faces, both of which 
are signs of immaturity among mammals 
that elicit feelings of tenderness. “If this 
is so, the Cro-Magnons must have looked 
very cute to the Neanderthal,” writes 
paleoanthropologist Juan Luis Arsuaga. 
She thinks you're cute! 

While making out near the fire pit, you 
notice her incisors are worn, That's because 
Neanderthals from a young age probably 
used their front teeth as a “third hand,” such 
as when scraping a hide. Inside her skull she 
has an enormous nasal cavity, which may act 
like a radiator to humidify and warm the 
frigid northern air, She stands about five 
feet tall and her body is compact, with broad 
hips, short forearms and short lower legs. 
Her skin is lighter than yours—pale skin 
absorbs more sunlight, which helps synthe- 
size vitamin D during the long winters. She 
may be a brunette, a blonde or a redhead— 
the same hair colors you find in Caucasians 
today. She may also be cannibalistic, but по 
one’s perfect. 

Can she speak? She can grunt, but can she 
process your words or just your tone, like a 
dog? “Neanderthals were probably as intu- 
itively smart as it's possible to get, but they 
didn’t leave a record that screams symbolic 
reasoning,” says Ian Tattersall, a paleoan- 
thropologist at the American Museum of 
Natural History in New York. “We may 
have met in body, but we never met in 
mind.” Even if they could comprehend 
language, Neanderthals probably couldn't 
speak. While the upper and lower part of 
the vocal tract are the same size in Homo 
sapiens, the Neanderthals’ jutting faces made 
their upper tracts longer and their necks 
too short to accommodate vocal cords. The 


architect of this hypothesis, anthropologist 
Philip Licberman, has on his website a jar- 
ring audio file that is either the mating call 
of a castrated frog or what a Neanderthal 
might have sounded like trying to form the 
vowels in the word see. 

None of this is to say your date is stupid. 
The Geico caveman could not have domi- 
nated an area that stretches from the Atlantic 
to Uzbekistan and perhaps into China for 
150,000 years in fluctuating and unforgiv- 
ing climates. By contrast, the African tundra 
where we evolved was perpetually sunny 
and the environment and а! 
unchanged for millions of 
our use of symbols and our artwork and 
weapons, Homo sapiens was clearly the 
smartest human yet. The historian Marcel 
Otte observes that one of prehistoric man's 
great vements was to turn animals’ 
own tusks and horns against them. Would 
your hunter girlfriend be impressed? The 
Neanderthals also used tools and carried 
portable art, but did they just collect these 
items from our trash? That is a common 
conclusion, but Joao Zilhäo, a paleoanthro- 
pologist at the University of Bristol, notes 
that at least two dozen sites in France and 
Spain contain artifacts and art that predate 
the arrival of Cro-Magnons. Painted shells 
found in recent years in Spain appear to 
have been parts of a necklace, an “identity 
card,” he says, and Neanderthal females 
may have worn makeup. A few researchers 
ask why the Cro-Magnons appear to have 
flourished only after they came in contact 
with Neanderthals. 


Some scientists believe the only way we 
will discover whether Neanderthals and 
sapiens formed human relationships is in 
the bones—or, as the joke goes, in a grave 
where a modern human and a Neander- 
thal are buried side-by-side holding hands. 
In 1998, at Lagar Velho, a site in central 
Portugal, a team led by Zilhäo found what 
some paleoanthropologists believe is the 
next best thing—the fragmented bones of 
a four-year-old child who died some 24,500 
years ago. In these remains they see the 
short, thick limb bones of a Neanderthal 
and the teeth, jaw and chin of a modern 
human. Since the child lived long after 
neanderthalensis had vanished, the 
tists argue hybridization must have been 
widespread before the extinction—a mix- 
ing of cultures. Ian Tattersall diplomatically 
calls that conclusion “a brave and imagina- 
tive interpretation.” But this reading of the 
evidence sits well with paleoanthropolo- 
gist Erik Trinkaus of Washington University 
in St. Louis, who takes the position that 
Neanderthals and sapiens shared so many 
behaviors they would have thought nothing 
of mixed couples. As evidence, he points 
to 30,000-year-old fossils from Romania, 
France and the Czech Republic that, like 
the Lagar Velho child, appear to have 
features from both species. It was not an 
abrupt, violent end for the Neanderthals, 
he insists, but “extinction through absorp- 
tion.” If you're going to become extinct, 
it's the best way to go. 


"Gee, Al—you really are a short order cook!” 


115 


FOXXY LADY 
Jamie Foxx’s type? Play 
mates of Mexican, Irish and 
n t. The Oscar 
атту winner cast 
Miss February 2009 Jessica 
Burciaga as his girlfriend in 
the vidco for his single “Fall 
for Your Type," which is on 
his new album, Best Night 
of My Life. In the video 
Jessica and Foxx spend 
considerable time in bed 
together. But they also show 
the flip side of that pas- 
sion as Jessica destroys his 
apartment in a fit of anger. 
“The director told me to 
think of an e 
who had hurt m 
nel that rage and take it 
on Jamie.” As for Jessica's 
“1 used to be into bad 
y grown out 
of that. Now I'm looking 
for a nice guy who 1 
like a bad boy 


GREAT, BRITT 


Former Girls Next Door star Kendra Wilkinson-Baskett might be front and 
center on her E! reality series Kendra, but Miss June 2007 Brittany Binger 
is never far behind. Kendra and the brunette Playmate first grew close when 
Kendra was living at the Mansion. And now, as Kendra navigates mother- 
hood and the nomadic life that comes with being married to an NFL player, 
Brittany has been 
one of the few con- 
stants in Kendra's 
life. For support, 
Brittany has orga- 
nized girls-only 
excursions, which 
have brc t back 
Kendra's infectious 
laugh. She has set- 
tled some turmoil 
in her own personal 
life as well. The col- 
lege student who ие кагда посен 
stole nude photos ЦИ appeared Dack in попа 
of Brittany's boy- | a iE Ies mes 
friend, Cleveland : 

Indians star Grady 

Sizemore, has been 

formally charged, Want to SEE MORE PLAYMATES—or more of 
allowing Brittany’s these Playmates? You can check out the Club at 


private life to once club.playboy.com and access the mobile-optimized 
again be exactly site playboy.com from your phone. 


that—private. 


DID YOU PMOY 1994 co-hosted Miss September 1979 (now Miss December 2010 "s 
Dick Clark's New Year's Rockin’ Evewith Tovine) has written several Girlfriends’ favorite Hawaiian beach is Lanikai, 
KNOW American Idol's Ryan Seacrest. Guides to pregnancy and parenting. which is on the island of Oahu. 


Неге аге імо 
surefire ways to 
turn on Miss Jan- 
uary 2001 Irina 
Voronina: “Show 
me an awesome 
iPhone app and 
don't try too hard 
to impress те” 


INVASION OF 
THE BODY 
SCANNERS 

No one, it seems, likes 
the TSA's new Advanced 
Imaging Technology— 
the airport body 
scanners that can see 
through clothing. Miss 
September 1995 Donna 
D'Errico had an espe- 
cially awful experience 
with the devices during 
a recent trip. “Timmedi- 
ately asked why I had to 
go through an extra 
search when no one else 
did," she told AOL 
News. * sarcastic 
tone, the TSA agent re- 
sponded, *Because you 
caught my eye, and 
they’—pointing to the 


“It isn't right to hide be- 
hind the veil of security 
and safety to take ad- 
vantage of women 


BYBRANDONLANG | " PLavMaTE cossi 


Celebrities have 
celebrity crushes 
too. When enter- 
tainment news 
agency Bang 


“My wife always asks me why I 
love thigh-high boots so much, 
and I always tell her it’s because of 


Miss January 1979 1 Showbiz asked 

For her pictorial in the magazine, Playmate of the 

photographer Dwight Hooker had Candy wear Year 2010 Hope 
a pair of white thigh-high E 


boots that were the hottest Dworsoryk whom 
things ГА ever seen on. she fancies, she 
а woman. It might answered, "I'd 
really like to meet Gerard Butler. I don't know if he's 
my ideal man, but I certainly find him charming. It's 
the mysterious part of him that's attractive. I also 
like tall guys and guys with darker 
hair." Currently Hope is vying for 
the attention and respect of another 
man-- Donald Trump—as she appears 
on the next installment of Celebrity 
Apprentice... While we're on the 
subject of dark locks, online fashion 
magazine Style Bistro loved Playmate 
ofthe Year 2005 Tiffany Fallon's coif- 
fure at the 2010 American Country 
Awards. In particular, the site raved 
that Tiffany's soft chestnut curls were 
cut just the right length for her heart- 
shape face. It went on to note that songstresses 
Christina Aguilera and Katy Perry are 
following Tiffany's т 
lead.... Two sisters 
in the Playmate 
| р - á sorority—Miss Feb- 
| % E ruary 1986 Julie 
` McCullough and 
Miss August 1982 
Cathy St. Georg: 
reconnected in 
November outside 
Boston at Super 
Megafest, а тето- 
rabilia show.... A bevy of other Paynes (Miss July 
2002 Lauren Anderson, Miss April 2005 Courtney 
Rachel Culkin and Miss May 2006 Alison Waite 
among them) recently gathered to throw a baby 
shower for Miss March 2006 Monica Leigh. 


$ а” $ 


VINTAGE НОМАСЕ 


From one classic beauty to another. 
Bettie Page Clothing, a company that 
makes women’s apparel infused with 
the iconic рїпир% sensibility and style, 
has selected Miss October 2010 Claire 
Sinclair as its new spokesmodel. Says 
Claire, who counts Page among her 
inspirations, *Bettie was the epitome of 
a woman with curves and character." 


Men's lifestyle website Crave named Celebutante Paris Hilton hosted Miss July DIT] ЏОЏ 
PMOY 2007 5 Jea one 1999 Jennifer Rovero's 32nd birthday 
of the Internet Hotties of 2010. party at Pure Монс іп Las Vegas. KNOW 


PLAYBOY 


GREEN 


(continued from page 57) 
05 


PLAYBOY: But why do women find this 
appealing? What's in it for them? 

GREEN: For women, getting into this stuff is 
almost subversive. They can apply the con- 
ventions of being a lady and still play a mean 
game of Halo. What's nice is it plays perfectly 
into fully formed male fantasies, whether it's 
about Baroness from G.I. Joe or Lara Croft. 
When you see a real girl dressed up as опе 
of those characters, it's sort of the actualiza- 
tion of all those feelings you've had since you 
were 10 years old. But shit, Family Guy and 
Robot Chicken are both pretty nerd friendly 
and get some hilariously attractive women 
fans—not the least of whom is my wife. 


PLAYBOY: How did you meet her? 

GREEN: Funny enough, we met at a comic- 
book store in Los Angeles about three years 
ago. We're ridiculously compatible. She has 
a toy collection that rivals mine in size. She 
loves Final Fantasy and Sailor Moon and DC 
Herocs and all that stuff. The first time she 
came over to my house she said, "No way! 
I have those Empire Strikes Back figures too! 
Do you mind if I pose them?" 


97 

PLAYBOY: Do you ever dress ир and play dirty 
superhero? 

GREEN: We don't need any of that. We're 
not like "All right, honcy, tonight you're the 
schoolteacher and I'm a Transformer." But. 
we'll put on costumes to go to parties and 
stuff. Of course when she puts on a costume, 
she usually likes to wear heels. She's nor- 
mally two inches taller than I am, and with 
heels she's quite a bit taller. But it's fine. 


PLAYBOY: Is there any advantage to being 
short? 

GREEN: I love people's reactions sometimes. 
When we go out somewhere and my wife 
looks great, I like to think everybody's say- 
ing, “Hey, how come she’s fucking that guy?” 
But I've been short all my life, so it is what it 
is, and I don't have an issue with it. The only 
thing it determines is what parts I can play. 
I'm not going to be the intimidating asshole 
cop who shakes down the entire precinct. 


PLAYBOY: Is there some serious dramatic role 
you secretly want to play? 

GREEN: Let me be specific about that. The way 
I pick parts is never about “Oh man, I'd really 
love to do this.” I just get excited about a par- 
ticular story or character or concept that pops 
up or comes to me. But I don't have а plan. 
‘The most exciting thing about what's available 
to artists now is that the options are limitless 
and you've never been more in control of your 
destiny. You can have an idea and make some- 
thing with your own money and distribute it 
across any platform. You have the same ability 
to get views as a major studio with hundreds of 
millions of dollars behind it. You can be viral 
in an hour, international in a day. If you're 
really good or make something really smart or 
funny— whether it's animation, TV or film—it 


118 will get seen, and nobody can stop you. 


со 
PLAYBOY: When is the Robot Chicken 3-D 
movie coming out? 
GREEN: If we ever make a Robot Chicken 
movie, we won't make it in 3-D. We'll make 
it in glorious 2-D because that's what fits the 
show. I think part of what people like about 
Robot Chicken is that even though it is highly 
complicated and professionally produced, it 
looks a little homemade. 


an 

PLAYBOY: You're working with Lucasfilm on 
a top secret comedy project set in the Star 
Wars universe. What can you say about it? 
GREEN: Nothing really, because it keeps chang- 
ing. What I can talk about is working with 
George. People don't realize he's a very nor- 
mal guy. He's taken a lot of beatings because 
people don't understand him as a personality. 
He's shy, though, and on top of that, imagine 
what it’s like to be George Lucas. Every day 
for the past 30 years every male on the planet 
who meets Gcorge just gets glitched, bugged 
out. I did. I was like, *Duh," when I first met 
him. I made him sign my laminate. But now 
I just go, *Hey, George, good to see you." 
And he makes fun of me. He knows I love 
the toys, so he'll give me shit about that. I just 
say, “Man, that’s money in your pocket. Don't 
give me shit about buying your toys!" 


or 

PLAYBOY: Do you think you like toys so much 
because you never got to have a childhood? 
After all, you меге nine when you made The 
Hotel New Hampshire, which co-starred Nas- 
tassja Kinski as a sexy lesbian in a bear suit. 
GREEN: That's an interesting theory. But no, 
1 had good relationships with my parents. 
Nobody was chaining me to a chair or forcing 
me to tap-dance when I really wanted to go 
to the school prom. I was like normal kids. I 
spent most of my childhood being alienated 
and getting beat up and being persecuted for 
things I thought were important. 


PLAYBOY: What did you think was important? 
GREEN: Liking Spider-Man and watching 
movies and wanting to sing and act. I always 
found adult relationships more satisfying 
than the goofy social microcosms of school. 
One of the benefits of working as a kid is that 
you quickly see beyond high school. I said, “1 
ain't fucking wasting my time here." 


сла 

PLAYBOY: Was it hard going through puberty 
with hot co-stars? 

GREEN: That's the thing. From a young age I 
was allowed to get close to attractive women. 
I started dating when I was young. I've stud- 
ied the species and our mating habits and all 
that. I didn't have the same kind of pecking- 
into-the-shower desire many teenagers have. 
By the time I was on the set of Austin Powers, 
interacting with the fembots, I was already 
calm enough as a man not to ogle them or 
run to my trailer to take care of business. 


qu 
PLAYBOY: How did you avoid the coke-snorting, 
7-Eleven-robbing plight of other child stars? 
GREEN: I was always kind of scientific about the 
whole world of partying and stuff. I remem- 
ber going to Hollywood parties and seeing the 


effects drugs had on people. I was probably 
12 or 13 when I saw cocaine for the first time. 
People were smoking all kinds of pipes and 
one-hit cigarettes and joints. For a long time 
Га just watch and observe. And I'd also read 
scientific studies of LSD and its effects. 


916 

PLAYBOY: What about a time when you weren't 
so controlled with controlled substances? 
GREEN: I had a huge eye-opening experience 
on LSD when I was 17. 1 realized how much I 
had become self-consumed, how much atten- 
tion I was paying to my own details and not 
enough to the world or people around me. It 
was like, Oh my gosh, there are worlds upon 
worlds directly before my eyes and all I've got 
to do is interact. I would never do acid again, 
but I'm actually glad 1 did it when I did. 


017 

PLAYBOY: What about now? Your comedy is 
definitely stoner friendly. 

GREEN: Oh man, I meet a lot of people who 
want to get high with me. Every time I get 
approached by people they're like, “Yo, bro, 
let's hit this thing." I’m like, "That's just not 
what's happening, man." People try to give 
me pot or paraphernalia. I tell them, "You've 
got to think about this. We're strangers, you're 
handing me a controlled substance, and I 
don't know shit about you. Is there anthrax 
in this? Because I'm not going to party down 
with you and your fucking anthrax." 


PLAYBOY: What do you like to do when you're 
not working? 

GREEN: Travel. That's how I spend my money. 
A buddy of mine and I took a trip from Africa 
to Micronesia. It was awesome. Thailand, 
Palau. I don't buy watches or jewelry, but ГИ 
spend a shitload on a trip to Dubai. 


сле 

PLAYBOY: Did people recognize you? 
GREEN: Shit, yeah. Dubai was crazy. I'm weird 
famous in Dubai because there's so much 
Western business there and the people are 
adopting Western culture. Everywhere I 
went, I got tagged. I passed by this straight- 
up sheik with the full getup. He walked past 
me and went "Hey" with the little head nod. 
I was like, "No shit. All right, man. Good to 
know The Italian Job and Austin Powers made 
it this far." We're living in crazy times. 


020 

PLAYBOY: Finally, share with us your most 
awkward celebrity run-in. 
GREI was invited to Julia Roberts's birthday 
at [producer] Jerry Weintraub's house when 
they were making Ocean's Eleven. I brought my 
buddy Dan. I said, “We'll probably be the only 
guys at this party who aren't above the title. I'm 
just putting that out there.” And it wasn't just 
any cast; it was the fucking cast of Ocean's Eleven. 
We were both freaking out, so I said, "Let's just 
pretend we're going to my friend Phil's birth- 
day." As we drive up, Dan says, “1 hope Phil 
likes our present. I hope Phil has good cake." 
Jennifer Aniston pulls in right behind us and 
Dan goes, "Oh look, there's Phil Aniston." Апу- 
way, we started laughing and felt comfortable. 
Next thing I know George Clooney's talking to 
us and we're like, Oh yeah, we're the shit! 


ИО ВОО 
PLAYBOY VALUES 


EXAMINING THE SOCIAL AGENDA OF THE 112TH CONGRESS 
FROM THE EDITORS 


t this moment in Washington—in the early days 

of the 112th Congress—promises of austerity 

dominate the political discourse. As we enter 
year three of financial turmoil, the newly emboldened 
Republicans—now the majority party in the House of 
Representatives—vow to limit federal spending and 
make sure money flows downward via a strict adher- 
ence to their capitalist ideals, i.e., by keeping government 
out of big business's business and keeping taxes as low as 
possible. Directly to that point: In his first week of hold- 
ing the gavel new Speaker of the House John Воеһпег 
of Ohio symbolically put forward a measure to cut the 
House's office budgets by five percent. 

Yet governing does not begin and end with the economy, 
even when the economy is in the tank. Legislation is still 
debated and crafted about pertinent domestic issues— 
including those that fall directly into pLaysoy’s bailiwick 
(e.g., the First Amendment, reproductive rights and sex- 
ual freedoms). So what will be the new Congress's social 
agenda? And how powerful are the Democrats—who have 
been, per President Barack Obama, “shellacked” at the 
polls and are now minus stalwart civil libertarians like 
Senator Russ Feingold—to blunt it? 

On the surface at least, the 112th Congress's cultural 


values don't seem to be closely aligned with the evan- 
gelical right. “The strength of the [latest conservative] 
movement is the focus on fiscal issues, which tend to 
be a uniting factor among a vast majority of Ameri- 
cans, especially given the current economic climate,” 
FreedomWorks president Matt Kibbe, one of the engines 
of that movement, opined during a recent online chat at 
washingtonpost.com, “Social issues have distracted and 
proven divisive in close races.” 

Also to be determined: whether the newest and most 
vocal Republican constituency, the anti-Washington Tea 
Party, will give in to its libertarian tendencies—you know, 
"Government keep out!"—on issues such as censorship, 
gay marriage and abortion, or if it is simply the evan- 
gelical right in sheep's clothing. That, of course, also 
presumes the populist ire that inspired the creation of 
the Tea Party will continue to burn hot and political 
realities won't extinguish it. Here's what you can expect 
from our new Congress. 


What is the tonic to monstrous political disharmony? 
WikiLeaks. The Republican reaction to the group's 
document dump of classified State Department and 


military files might go further to the 
extreme—House Intelligence Com- 
mittee chairman Mike Rogers favors 
executing Army private Bradley Man- 
ning, the alleged WikiLeaker, while 
House Homeland Security Committee 
chairman Pete: 
declared a foreign terrorist organiza- 
tion. (More on King later.) But ey get 


The First Amendment is still in peril. 


no argument from Democrats. “The 
release of these documents damages 
our national interests and puts inno- 
cent lives at risk,” California senator 
Dianne Feinstein wrote in The Wall Street 
Journal. *[WikiLeaks founder Julian 
Assange] should be vigorously prose- 
cuted for espionage.” 

But if you charge Assange under the 
Espionage Act—even if it is amended 
so as to apply to WikiLeaks, something 
the Democrat-controlled 111th Congress 
held hearings about in its waning days— 
you stir all sorts of First Amendment 
"his whole notion that we 
ange] for tr 


Paul, Assange’s loudest congr 
defender, told Fox 


fumping to a wild 
conclusion? This is 
media, isn't it? Why 
don't we prosecute 
The New York Times 
or anybody who 
releases this?" 

Paul is right. 
Whatever the 
government does to 
Assange it can also 
do to The New York 
Times, which like- 
wise published the leaked documents 
(albeit in abridged form), and any other 
media entity—how amorphous and 
unconventional—that dares to challenge 


Legalization has surprising new supporters. 


FORUM 


government secrecy in a way the feds 
deem inappropriate. 

Lurking deeper is the issue of open- 
ness. How transparent a society do we 
want to live in? Currently, our over- 


bearing methods of classification are 


the country’s greatest censor. As Thomas 
Blanton, director of George Washington 
University's National Security Archive, 
recently testified before 
the Hous udiciary 
Committee, “We have to 
recognize that right now 
have low fences around 
vast prairies of govern- 
ment secrets, when what 
we need are high fences 
around small graveyards 
of the real secrets. 

Unfortunately, such 
recognition won't come 
from the 112th Con- 
gress, which will press 
for Assange’s extradition. 
This sort of overreaction 
will mute tougher ques- 
tions regarding freedom 
of the press and Washing- 
ton’s mania for concealment. 


DRUG RIGHTS 

Maybe it should be called the 420 Club. 
In December Pat Robertson, that demon 
of conviviality, preached to his 700 Club 
viewers that the country should go eas- 
ier on pot offenders. Robertson was 
singing the refrain of the new conserva- 
tive chorus. Lately, Glenn Beck, Sarah 
Palin and former New Mexico gover- 
nor Gary Johnson have, if not called 
outright for legalization of marijuana, 
distanced themselves from the hard- 
core drug warriors of the 1980s. 

None of them, however, is currently a 
politician, and they are 
the base. Only 25 percent of Republican 
voters support legal- 
ization, and even 
supposedly liberal 
California voters 
soundly defeated 
a proposition to 
legalize (and tax) 
pot sales this past 
November. Mean- 
while, newly elected 
Kentucky Republi- 
can senator Rand 
Paul, considered 
a Tea Party ideo- 
logue, made it plain 
that when it comes 
to legalization he favors “a more local 
approach to drugs... It's a state issue.” 

That's politician for “I’m not 
going anywhere near this. 


out in front of 


GUN RIGHTS 

It's comforting to think people shape 
events. But usually it’s the other way 
around, Case in point: the January 
shootings in Tucson that injured 14 
people, including Democratic repre- 
sentative Gabrielle Giffords, and killed 
six others. Until then, the idea that 
the 112th Congress might reinstate 
the federal assault-weapons ban (off 
the books since 2004) was absurd. 
Certainly the Obama administra- 
tion hadn't shown the will to make 
ita pi . But because the high- 
capacity magazine attached to Jared 
Lee Loughner's Glock was illegal to 
manufacture under the previous ban, 
discussion of its return intensified 
after the shooting. 


REPRODUCTIVE RIGHTS 

It's clear that candidates who won on a 
message of limited government never 
intended for that message to apply to 
a woman's right to choose. Already the 
GOP majority in the House is renew- 
ing efforts to remove tax benefits on 
any private insurance plan that includes 
abortion coverage—in other words, 87 
percent of all private plans. 


And it is peddling two especially egre- 
gious provisions. One would prevent 
anyone over the age of 18 who charges 


a family member with incest 
ing an abortion with public funds, and 
another would prevent a date-rape sur- 
vivor from ri n abortion with 
similar funds. The woman 
would be able to rece deral assis 
tance to treat related injuries—just not 
for a resulting abortion. 

The current Congress has nearly 300 
members (out of 535) who out-and-out 
oppose abortion, a net gain of 48 from 
the previous Congress. Boehner has 
said he wants to be "the most pro-life 
Speaker ever," and newly elected Репп- 
sylvania senator Pat Toomey wants to 
outlaw abortion and put doctors who 
provide them in jai 

What's more, antichoice incumbent Hal 
Rogers of Kentucky was tapped to chair 


the Appropriations 
oversees spending on women's health 
programs, and Joe Pitts of Pennsylvani 
now controls the Energy and Commerce 
health subcommittee, which 
tion over family-planning 
services and other important women's 
bright spots. 
al key reproductive rights 
reelected, including 
senators Barbara Воз 
nia), Patty Murray (Washington) 
and Michael Bennet (Colorado). 
Also, in a reversal « 
W. Bush-er 
no longer fund 
"abstinence only" education pro- 
grams. And for the second time, 
lorado voters overwhelmingly 
struck down a proposed consti- 
tutional amendment that would 
have established legal protections 
for fertilized eggs, with the goal 
of outlawing abortion, common 
h control and сет- 
tain stem-cell research. Finally, 
despite protests from anti- 
contraception groups, the FDA approved 
Ella, a new prescription-only emergency 
contraceptive (see Newsfront). 


FREEDOM OF RELIGION 


Back to Peter King. “To some in the 
strata of political correctness, I'm a 


Gays and lesbians can now serve openly 
in the military, but many other inequali- 
ties continue. For instance, they can still 
be fired from their jobs for being gay, 
and married same-sex couples cannot 
jointly file income taxes, meaning they 
contribute far more to U.S. coffers than 
married straight couples. 

Change will be slow going. Speaker 
of the House Boehner, House Majority 
Leader Eric Cantor and Senate Minority 
Leader Mitch McConnell all scored zero on 
the most recent congressional scorecard 
of Human Rights Campaign, an LGBT lob- 
bying group. Similarly, Minnesota's John 
Kline, the new chairman of the House 
Education and Labor Committee, opposes 
the Employment Non-Discrimination 
Act—legislation that would have to origi- 
nate from his committee. (The act would 
make it illegal to fire someone based on 
his or her sexual orientation.) 

As for gay marriage, in 2009 New 
York Democratic representative Jerrold 
Nadler introduced a bill to repeal the 
Defense of Marriage Act, which prohibits 


FORUM 


pretty bad guy," he wrote in Neusday, 
his home district’s paper. “To be blunt, 
owd sees me as ап anti- 


fixed to his name 
n his capacity 
as chairman of the House Homeland 


MOSQUE 
DONATION 


ale 


Alms for the poor—or tithing for terror? 


Security Committee—to hold hear- 
ings about Al Qaeda recruitment 
within the American Muslim commu- 
nity. “I will do all I can to break down 
the wall of political correctness and 
drive the public debate on Islamic 
radicalization,” he explained. “These 


the government from recognizing same- 
sex relationships. Surprisingly, however, 
Democrat Barney Frank of Massachu- 
setts, the longest-serving openly gay 
representative, rejected Nadler’s pro- 
posal. He reasoned that a repeal of DOMA 
would have better luck in the courts than 
in the Senate—not a bad strategy. 


hearings will be a step in that direc- 
tion. It's what democracy is all about.” 
Realistically, however, the hearings are 
all about fearmongering—or, if politeness 
isn't your thing, a witch hunt redolent 
of McCarthyism. (And we'll even grant 
King that contemporary norms of politi- 
cal coi s have suffocated 

speech.) To be sure, the as; 

metrical warfare waged by 
Qaeda ted a new secu- 
rity dynamic. A decade after 
1 we're still lousy at talking 
rationally about what that means 
for civil liberties and religious 
freedoms, especially with Mus- 
lim Americans. (To say nothing 
about the discussion of what 
causes terrorism, homegrown 
or otherwise.) If anything, the 

dialogue is as poor as с 

the hysteria surrounding the 
alled Ground Zero mosque 
and the proposed move of 
namo Bay detainees to 


Now King is pointing fin- 
gers. “[Al Qaeda] is recruiting 
Muslims living legally in the United 
States—homegrown terrorists who have 
managed to stay under the antiterror 
radar screen,” he claimed in the Newsday 
op-ed. Perhaps such bluster is red meat 
for the Republican base, but it’s counter- 
productive for everyone else. 


Court challenges to DOMA and Cal- 
ifornia's Proposition 8—that state's 
ban on same-sex marriage—are pend- 
ing. If either goes before the Supreme 
Court, pay attention to Justice Anthony 
Kennedy, whose voting record indi- 

cates he could be swayed to the 
side of equal rights. 
wp 


— READER RESPONSE" 


NIPPLE TEST 
PLAYBOY could create a buzz about 
censorship by displaying a grid of 
nipples on its cover with the headline 
ONE OF THESE NIPPLES MAY BE А WOMAN'S. 
They could all belong to men, but you 
wouldn't say that, and the controversy 


The nipple at left can't be shown in public. 


would be invaluable. If a news organiza- 
tion were to show the cover, would it blur 
every nipple, even knowing it might be 
unnecessary in some cases? This would 
make obvious and absurd the fact that 
you can't distinguish between allowed 
and forbidden images. 
Mitch Nelson 
Portland, Oregon 


THE NRA: NOT DEAD YET 
Daniel Wattenberg argues in "Obso- 
lete Weapons" (December) that with a 


handgun ban off the table as a result of 


the Supreme Court's District of Colum- 
bia v. Heller and McDonald v. Chicago 
decisions, gun owners will become 
immune to the National Rifle Associa- 
tion's alarmist rhetoric and embrace 
a more genteel golden age focused on 
litigation. Strangely enough, some gun- 
control advocates offer a similar—albeit 
inverse—analysis: that with а handgun 
ban off the table, activist gun owners 
and pro-gun policy makers will be less 
receptive to NRA doomsday scenarios 
and more open to legislation. Unfortu- 
nately, neither view acknowledges the 
mind-set of the hard-core pro-gun activ- 
ist. Legal decisions offer little reassurance 
to NRA-indoctrinated advocates who 
view themselves as modern-day “citizen 
soldiers” and warn of scenarios in which 
bans will be enforced extrajudicially. This 
is why the NRA's alleged “UN Global Gun 
Grab” has such resonance among the pro- 
gun grassroots. And faced with dramatic 
drops in gun ownership—the percent- 
age of U.S. households with at least one 
gun dropped to 35 percent in 2006 from 


54 percent in 1977—the primary role 
of today’s NRA is as a trade association 
for the firearms industry. The NRA 
focuses its legislative muscle on policies 
that expand the markets for concealable 
handguns, assault weapons and armor- 
piecing .50-caliber sniper rifles, the only 
bright spots for an industry in decline. 
While the NRA's influence will inevitably 
wane, it will be because of demographic 
and cultural trends, not because of the 
Heller case, which one NRA lobbyist dis- 
missed as a “class project.” 
Josh Sugarmann 
Washington, D.C. 
Sugarmann is executive director of 
the Violence Policy Center (vpc.org) and 
author of National Rifle Association 
Money, Firepower and Fear 


In my 20 years of researching Amer- 
ica’s gun culture, I have read many 
premature obituaries for the NRA. Crit- 
ics seem unwilling to understand that 
the NRA is an organizational conve- 
nience and informational clearinghouse 
for the gun culture, not its central com- 
mittee. Analysts tend to see the NRA 
as a top-down lobbying and extremist 
interest group. They celebrate imagined 
dissension within its ran! 
and alleged alienation of the average 
gun owner. That's all nonsense. While 
its critics pronounce from on high, the 
gun culture meets in the catacombs of 
virtual space. This culture has contrived 
political miracles—e.g., the concealed- 
handgun movement that has licensed 
5 million people in 40 states, thereby 


NRA headquarters in Fairfax, Virginia 


constituting a de facto recognition of 
an individual’s right to go armed well 
before Heller or McDonald 
Brian Anse Patrick 
Toledo, Ohio 
trick, а professor of communication at the 
University of Toledo, is author of The National 


Rifle Association and the Media: The Motivat- 
ing Force of Negative Coverage. 


Commentari 
ons” are one re 


uch as “Obsolete Weap- 
son NRA members such 
as myself distrust the vast majority of what 
our foes have to say. Wattenberg claims a 
2007 ABC News poll found great “public 
support” for a semiautomatic-handguns 
ban. But he doesn’t provide any other 
information about the poll. Nor does 
he back up his claim that a 2008 CNN 
poll found that “86 percent of the pub- 
lic” favors waiting periods. Wattenberg 


ad 


A sculpture outside the United Nations. 


states there is “no such treaty” as the 
UN Global Gun Grab. Perhaps he can 
explain why the U.S. ambassador to the 
UN told the council any effort to remove 
private firearms in the U.S. would vio- 
late the Second Amendment and the 
U.S. would veto any such treaty, which 
is exactly what happened. 
Tom Atkinson 
Honesdale, Pennsylvania 
You can learn more about both polls 
through a Google search. There is no treaty; 
what the U.S. voted against in 2006 and 
again in 2008 were resolutions to study the 
feasibility of a treaty. In both cases the U.S. 
cast the lone dissenting vote. The most recent 
resolution, passed with U.S. support in Octo 
ber; calls for a conference in July 2012 to 
finalize an Arms Trade Treaty and includes 
a provision (inserted at U.S. request) 
acknowledging “the right of States to regu- 
late internal transfers of arms and national 
ownership, including through national con- 
stitutional protections on private ownership." 
As Wattenberg points out, even if the UN 
wanted to ban guns here, as a practical mat- 
ter it would never happen. For more, search 
at factcheck.org for “gun ban." 


E-mail via the web at letters.playboy.com. 
Or write: 680 North Lake Shore Drive, 
Chicago, Illinois 60611. 


! 


FORUM 


BEE NEWSFRONT Ееее 


Мо Glove, Мо Love 
srockHoLM—Julian Assange, founder of 
WikiLeaks, has been accused of vio- 
lating national security, but another 
story follows close behind: allegations 
that he sexually assaulted two women 
during a business trip to the Swed- 
ish capital. Although the encounters 
began consensually, Assange is 
accused of pinning one woman's 
arms so she couldn't grab a condom 
and then damaging the condom so it 
ripped. The second woman told police 
Assange penetrated her without a 
condom while she slept after they'd 
had sex with one. Refusing to wear 


EM protection, a lawyer for both women 


said, is "a violation of sexual integrity" 
that can be seen as rape. (Assange 
denies the allegations.) Swedish law 
is expansive when defining sexual 
assault; it recognizes "withdrawal of 
consent" and three grades—severe, 
regular and less severe. In general 
U.S. laws require evidence of force, 
sometimes to extremes. In September 
prosecutors in Mecklenburg County, 
North Carolina dropped rape charges 
against a former high school football 
player, citing a 1979 state supreme 
court decision that a woman cannot 
Say no once sex is under way. 


Jesus Christ, Socialist 

BEDFORD, NEW HAMPSHIRE—A couple pulled 
their 16-year-old son out of school after, 
they said, a teacher violated his civil 
rights by assigning a book that refers to 
Jesus as a "wine-guzzling vagrant and 
precocious socialist." Nickel and Dimed: 
On (Not) Getting By in America by Bar- 
bara Ehrenreich describes her attempt to 
live on the minimum wage. Ehrenreich 
admitted "wine-guzzling is a little unfair" 
but said "vagrant" is apt because Jesus 
was "an itinerant preacher, and he hung 
out with a lot of disreputable people." 
As for the accusation of socialism, she 
said, "He wanted you to sell all your 
stuff and give all your money to the 
poor. The disdain for material posses- 
Sions is almost breathtaking." 


Saving Little Minds 
LONDON—The British government is pres- 
suring online providers to block adult sites 
by default unless consumers indicate they 
want access to porn. Ed Vaizey, the com- 
munications minister, says internet service 


providers must do more to "protect chil- 
dren." If the major ISPs do not block all 
porn sites voluntarily, he says, he will pur- 
sue legislation. Meanwhile, in Tokyo the 
city council passed an ordinance banning 
the sale to anyone under 18 of manga 
comics and anime films that depict rape, 
incest and other sex crimes in "unjustifi- 
ably glorified or exaggerated ways." 


No More Words 


LUCASVILLE, оню—А new regulation allows 
state prison officials to cut short an 
inmate's last words. The change came 
after Michael Beuke spent 17 minutes 
before his execution apologizing to the 
families of his victims, praying aloud and 
reciting the rosary. The policy allows the 
warden to impose "reasonable restrictions" 
on content and length and to cut off any 
statement meant to offend witnesses. 


After the Fact 


WASHINGTON, D.c.—The FDA approved a 
new prescription emergency contracep- 
tive pill, dubbed Ella, that works as long 


as five days after sex—two days longer 
than Plan B—and reduces the chance of 
pregnancy to one in 50. For more infor- 
mation, see ec.princeton.edu. 


Dread Locks 


OAKWOOD, VIRGINIA—Prison officials have moved 
several Rastafarian inmates who refuse for 
religious reasons to shave or cut their hair— 
including Kendall Gibson (below) and nine 
others who have spent more than a decade 
in solitary confinement—into their own cell 
block. The Virginia Department of Correc- 
tions has since 

1999 banned @ 
all beards and 
hair longer than 
the collar, say- 
ing the policy 
is designed to 
prevent inmates 
from hiding 
weapons and 
drugs. Some 
inmates sued in 
2003 but lost. 


Like blondes, the Polish have long served as an easy 
punch line. But countrywoman MARTHA ZAWISZA 
is no joke. First of all, she has amazing legs. Second 
of all, she can escape from any picture frame you 
attempt to place her in. 


Getting АЦ 


Touchy-Feely 

BRAD PITT clearly had his 
hands full walking partner 
ANGELINA JOLIE down the 
red carpet at the New York 
City premiere of her latest 
movie, The Tourist. 


DARIA 
WERBOWY 
earned 

$4.5 million 
last year, mak 
ing her the 
world's eighth 
highest-paid 
supermodel 
Most notably, 
the Canadian 
Walk of Fame 
inductee (she 
shares side- 
walk space 
with Gordon 
Lightfoot, Alex 


Trebek and 

Wayne Gretz- 

ky) is the face ' er B 

of Lancóme. A blog: "I со 
The rest of her e women in B 
is pretty im- e illegal. 


pressive too. 


“Му boobs are growing and ту 
butt is growing,” says super- 
model NICOLE TRUNFIO. “I am 
getting quite voluptuous, and I 
am very proud.” 


EM 


At the Annoying-Voice Hall of Fame, we're told, 
you can watch Gilbert Gottfried perform stand- 


up comedy, hear Fran Drescher sing karaoke 
and—best of all—see ROSIE PÉREZ's bust. 


Look to the left! We've found next year's Christ- 
mas tree! Oh, the girl? Her name is SHELLEY 
DOW. Her looks and her locale—she lives in 
Hawaii—helped her score the role of Bikini Girl 
on the newest iteration of Hawaii Five-0. 


Colli Flower 


Afewthings about JENNIFER COLLI: She played college basketball 
at Southern Methodist University, she craves anything intellectually 
stimulating and she loves animals—zebras most of all, apparently. 


ROCK THE RABBIT FASHION: СЕЕ LO'S GOT THE LOOK. 


HAWAII FIVE-0'S TARYN MANNING IS A PERFECT 10. 


TARYN MANNING-THE SINGER AND HAWAII FIVE-O ACTRESS 
SHEDS HER CLOTHES AND REVEALS HER LITHE PHYSIQUE. 


ROCK THE RABBIT—WANT TO DRESS LIKE A ROCK STAR? CEE 
LO GREEN, BRYAN FERRY AND OTHER ICONS SHOW YOU HOW. 


THE PASSENGER—EXTRAMARITAL AFFAIRS ARE A DIME 
A DOZEN. BUT CONFESSING TO AN AFFAIR-EVEN WHEN 
SOMEONE'S LIFE COULD BE AT RISK—IS NEVER EASY. EXCIT- 
ING NEW FICTION BY JENNIFER DUBOIS 


NO-SHOW JONES—IN THE 1950S GEORGE JONES BURST OUT 
OF THE BIG THICKET OF EAST TEXAS AND CONGUERED THE 
WORLD WITH HIS GOLDEN VOICE. SINGER AND SONGWRITER 
RODNEY CROWELL OFFERS AN INTIMATE PORTRAIT OF 
COUNTRY MUSIC'S ORIGINAL HARD-PARTYING OUTLAW. 


DANCING IN THE STREETS-RIOTS WERE ALL THE RAGE IN 
EUROPE LAST YEAR. ARMCHAIR ANARCHIST WILL SELF CON- 
TEMPLATES THE ALLURE OF POLITICAL DEMONSTRATIONS. 


FUTURE MUSIC—WHAT DO SLEIGH BELLS, JAMEY JOHNSON 
AND JAY ELECTRONICA HAVE IN COMMON? NOT MUCH OTHER 
THAN THE FACT THAT THEY MAKE GREAT MUSIC THAT'S UN- 
COMMON AND UNEXPECTED. ROB TANNENBAUM ACQUAINTS 
YOU WITH THE INNOVATIVE ARTISTS TO WATCH IN 2011. 


GEORGE JONES: THE HIT-MAKING POSSUM TRIUMPHS. 


NEXT MONTH 


2011'S SEXIEST CELEBRITIES: THE HOT AND THE FAMOUS. 


25 BEST SONGS ABOUT SEX—LOVE SONGS ARE A DIME A 
DOZEN. ROB TANNENBAUM COMPILES THE ULTIMATE LIST OF 
THE GREATEST TUNES ABOUT WHAT REALLY MATTERS: SEX. 


HELEN THOMAS—HER CONTROVERSIAL COMMENTS ON ISRAEL 
ENDED HER LONG AND OTHERWISE DISTINGUISHED CAREER. 
IN THE PLAYBOY INTERVIEW, THE FEISTY JOURNALIST OPENS 
UP TO DAVID HOCHMAN AND ANSWERS HER CRITICS. 


20115 SEXIEST CELEBS—WHICH CELEBRITIES ARE THE FAIR- 
EST OF THEM ALL? WE KNOW, AND WE SHOW YOU. 


ASTEROIDS OF GOLD—ONE DAY SOON, HUMANS WILL 
EXTRACT VALUABLE RESOURCES FROM ASTEROIDS ORBITING 
SPACE. STEVEN KOTLER BREAKS DOWN ASTEROID MINING— 
WHO'S DOING IT, HOW IT WORKS AND THE SHOCKING EFFECT 
IT COULD HAVE ON OUR GLOBAL ECONOMY. 


JOSH RADNOR-IN 200 THE HOW / MET YOUR MOTHER 
STAR TALKS TO STEPHEN REBELLO ABOUT LOVE, LIFE AND 
NEIL PATRICK HARRIS. 


PLAYBOY GARAGE—WANT TO DRIVE THE CAR OF YOUR 
DREAMS? KEN GROSS OFFERS HIS NO-FAIL GUIDE TO INVEST- 
ING IN THE VINTAGE SPORTS CAR MARKET. 


PLUS—THE LOVELY MISS APRIL JACLYN SWEDBERG. 


Playboy (ISSN 0032-1478), March 2011, volume 58, number 3. Published monthly by Playboy in national and regional editions, Playboy, 680 North 
Lake Shore Drive, Chicago, Illinois 60611. Periodicals postage paid at Chicago, Illinois and at additional mailing offices. Canada Post Canadian Pub- 


lications Mail Sales Product Agreement No. 4003: 


34. Subscriptions: in the U.S., $32.97 for a year. Postmaster: Send address change to Playboy, РО. 
126 Вох 37489, Boone, Iowa 50037-0489. For subscription-related questions, call 800-999-4438, or e-mail plycustserv@cdsfulfillment.com. 


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По the math! 


6 PLAYBOY GIRLS SITES + 16 PLAYBOY SPECIAL EDITIONS SITES = 


TYPE THIS EXACT URL INTO YOUR BROWSER: 
WWW.PLAYBOY.COM/22SITES 


Косата jo Spew әле uDrsag Pea} качен 
рие 51410 H38A2 'STHID AOBAVId З1УИАУТа 'AOBAVI 2 
ээде жо) 100 Aoqund PIEST peuo әсері 'aBed 
дәм Sij 552220 jouueo nof И *1 LOZ 06 Judy чбполд poo що 


aow цопш snid ие Way) г05--зиожд snonidnjoA ‘зо! 


vog 
телен 400g }хәм SLID ÁXOS “дәм DY) ој puejsswou DY) шоц sjopou 36 
ошолеу INOA бина зеці SOOPIA pue said үемцэле цим poxoed зоџ 91 


SNOILIQ3 пу ӘБЕН 


хоядута! 


sjoquiAs хәз Куздод2 pue spit задко 'зәуешАед әшозәд 
һәч әзоҙәд 151) зодед ISIYI 995 'soopi^ мәләји! бицеәләз pue 5105 одоца 
apnu ojdnjnu: и! =јәрош үпуупеәд sow ‘samau $ AoqAe¡d биштә soys 9 


7 кояхута 


Pleasure 


SURGEON GENERAL'S WARNING: Smoking 


By Pregnant Women May Result in Fetal 
Injury, Premature Birth, And Low Birth Weight. 


pr 'asure, spinnaker design and other trade dress elements 
TM Lor icensing Company LLC Reg. U.S. Pat. & Tm. Off. 


MENAGE-A-QUATRE. 


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