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PU K

t's time to plan your summer read-
ing (besides PLAYBOY). The first book on
our list is Harbor Nocturne by J |
y jh, the former cop known for his
engaging and funny police novels. Hollywood
Patrol, our exclusive excerpt, takes you on
the beat with a colorful crew as they chase
a fleet-footed thug and break up a brawl
between guys dressed as superheroes. On
the opposite side of the country, in Wash-
ington, D.C., another group of suspicious
characters works hard to line their pockets
with our collective cash. In So You Want to
Hire a ina former influence peddler
i f offers an insider's account
at what it les to buy access under the
Dome. Where is Captain America when you
need him? Chris Evans knows. The actor,
who reprises his role in The Avengers, dis-
cusses in 200 why he was initially reluctant
to take the part that made him a star. Thank-
fully May Andersen showed
no such reluctance when we
asked cal il
i to shoot the
most intimate photos yet of
the Danish supermodel. (May
has sisters named June and
July—no, that's not true, but
it would make for a memo-
rable summer.) You'll love
the pictorial a Andersen.
| ' is the new
king of street art. Where does
a creative mind like that set
up shop? His L.A. crib is our
Playboy Pad in Art House.
Just as Monopoly is changing
perceptions of street art, Alec
Sulkin is redefining the com-
edy act. As Jesse 80
reports in #BorschtBeltRedux,
the Family Guy writer doesn't
work clubs—he feeds one-
liners to 365,309 Twitter
followers. David Brooks, the
author and New York Times
columnist, is a bit less funny
but no less sharp. In the
Playboy Interview, he explains
what it means to strive for
moderate conservatism. Ever
wanted to hit the reset button
on your life? A number of people do, by faking
Brel deaths. In Disappearance in the East,
orne travels to Thailand
to find out how it's done, and undone. What
drives Batman? Superman? Wonder Woman?
In The Super Psyche, Grant Morrison, the
most important comic-book writer working
today, offers insights into the heroes and anti-
heroes he has reinvented with great success.
He can't explain, however, why guys wear-
ing superhero costumes would be beating on
each other on a Hollywood sidewalk. You'll
have to ask Joe Wambaugh about that.

Alec Monopoly

4
\

Joseph Wambaugh

David Brooks

—
PLAYBILL

e. yA

Grant Morrison

euphoria™

calvinkleinfragrahces.com

VOL. 59, NO. 4-MAY 2012

HBORSCHTBELTREDUX
Alec Sulkin may be the funniest man on
Twitter. JESSE PEARSON explains how the
Family Guy writer is changing comedy.

) THE HIT KING
tails Pete Rose as he signs

and signs—and waits. Will he get a second
act? JS: Our 2012 baseball preview.

5 THE SUPER PSYCHE

peeks inside the con-
flicted brains of modern superheroes.

TOHIREA W > 3. 5A PLAYBOY PAD, Аят peuss
LOBBYIST F X S yem

IN THE EAST
Need something done in 1 Washington? It helps to know the right people who know Want to start over? Faking your death,
the right people. J. .BRAMOFF, a top lobbyist before he fell from grace, outlines writes LAWE is one option.
what it takes to get government largesse— —and why it reflects a broken system. But it works anly if you can stay dead.

J04 THE 25 GREATEST RIDES

Best cars ever? SROSS and

share their definitive list. No arguments.

' DAVID BROOKS
The New York Times columnist and self-
described moderate conservative tells
VI how to fix everything.

CHRIS EVANS

unmasks the actor
behind Captain America.

HOLLYWOOD PATROL

An exclusive preview of the latest best-
seller from

he, NDASE ORO

You're not seeing double; the sizzling shoot of
May Andersen earned four Rabbits. Our man
heard May loves flowers, so he hid in plain sight
as a bouquet. Women also know the ring's the
thing as May shows off her Bunny bling, while
rocks of a different sort bring up the rear. Finally,
a gentleman always offers up his seat. 7

VOL. 59, NO. 4-MAY 2012

PLAYBOY

THE BODY ELECTRIC

Marlena Bielinska, a former Elite
model, has gone behind the lens to
create some of the world's most erotic
images. We asked for the stories
behind her best shots.

PLAYMATE: NIKKI LEIGH

The SoCal beauty is a world traveler
(she grew up with a flight attendant
mom) who hopes to be a “sex symbol
with brains.” You'll give her an A-plus.

MAY ANDERSEN
You may know May from Victoria's
Secret and Sports Illustrated. You'll
remember her differently now.

SEX WITH MS. OSCAR

Our man in Hollywood,
recalls an early star-fucking
adventure—or parts of it, anyway.
COMMITMENT: THE
OTHER C-WORD
We all fear commitment, writes
We need our time and
space. But what are you going to do
with all that time and space?

FASHION

PREZZATURA

The word is an Italian idiom mean-
ing “effortlessly cool.” We'll take you
there. By

80 PLAYMATE

NIKKI LEIGH

THE WORLD OF PLAYBOY
Pam Anderson presents Hef with an award from
Angelwish, which grants wishes to kids living with
chronic illnesses; master of ceremonies Bill Cosby
announces the 2012 Jazz Fest lineup; Cooper
Hefner and friends hit Rio for Carnival.

SUPER BOWL PARTY
Before the game (what game?) in Indy with Hef,
Shaq, Mark Cuban, Jon Hamm, Ne-Yo, Nick Lachey,
Billy Bush, Guy Fieri, Chris Evans, Aaron Rodgers,
Kyle Busch, RedFoo and other famous faces.
PLAYMATE NEWS

Playmates abound in LMFAO video; Kassie Lyn
Logsdon and Kelly (Gallagher) Wearstler open
shop; Daphnee Lynn Duplaix on House of Lies; a
vote for Tawnni Cable; remembering Anna Nicole.

PLAYBILL
EDITORIAL

DEAR PLAYBOY
AFTER HOURS
REVIEWS
MANTRACK
PLAYBOY ADVISOR
PARTY JOKES

REVERSALS GALORE

The U.S. Supreme Court is set to
consider the constitutionality of the
FCC’s campaign to quash the use of
dirty words on TV.

explains what the fuck is going on.

PREPARE TO BE

GROPED

The TSA’s use of “enhanced pat-

downs” is creepy and wrong, says
j We're safer now but

not because of airport grab-ass.

READER RESPONSE

Are cops at war with their communi-
ties?; taxes as slavery; 5O years for a
matchbox of weed; bring the troops
home; don't expect equal results.

NEWSFRONT

The flood of fake Viagra spam; can't
stop the punks; cussing in the stands;
are you in the one percent?; remem-
bering 9/11, unintentionally.

PLAYBOY ON PLAYBOY ON
FACEBOOK TWITTER

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

GENERAL OFFICES: PLAYBOY, 335 NORTH MAPLE DRIVE,
BEVERLY HILLS, CALIFORNIA 90210. PLAYBOY ASSUMES
NO RESPONSIBILITY TO RETURN UNSOLICITED EDITO-
RIAL OR GRAPHIC OR OTHER MATERIAL. ALL RIGHTS IN
LETTERS AND UNSOLICITED EDITORIAL AND GRAPHIC
MATERIAL WILL BE TREATED AS UNCONDITIONALLY
ASSIGNED FOR PUBLICATION AND COPYRIGHT PUR-
POSES, AND MATERIAL WILL BE SUBJECT TO PLAYBOY'S
UNRESTRICTED RIGHT TO EDIT AND TO COMMENT EDI-
TORIALLY. CONTENTS COPYRIGHT 0 2012 BY PLAYBOY.
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. PLAYBOY, PLAYMATE AND RAB-
BIT HEAD SYMBOL ARE MARKS OF PLAYBOY, REGISTERED
U.S. TRADEMARK OFFICE. NO PART OF THIS BOOK MAY
BE REPRODUCED, STORED IN A RETRIEVAL SYSTEM
OR TRANSMITTED IN ANY FORM BY ANY ELECTRONIC,
MECHANICAL, PHOTOCOPYING OR RECORDING MEANS
OR OTHERWISE WITHOUT PRIOR WRITTEN PERMISSION
OF THE PUBLISHER. ANY SIMILARITY BETWEEN THE
PEOPLE AND PLACES IN THE FICTION AND SEMI-FICTION
IN THIS MAGAZINE AND ANY REAL PEOPLE AND PLACES
IS PURELY COINCIDENTAL. FOR CREDITS SEE PAGE 136
BRADFORD AND DIRECTV ONSERTS IN DOMESTIC SUB-
SCRIPTION POLYWRAPPED COPIES. DIRECT WINES
ONSERT IN SELECTED DOMESTIC SUBSCRIPTION POLY-
WRAPPED COPIES. LVMH GIVENCHY INSERT IN DOMESTIC
SUBSCRIPTION COPIES BETWEEN PAGES 24-25. CER-
TIFICADO DE LICITUD DE TÍTULO NO. 7570 DE FECHA
29 DE JULIO DE 1993, Y CERTIFICADO DE LICITUD DE
CONTENIDO NO. 5108 DE FECHA 29 DE JULIO DE 1993
EXPEDIDOS POR LA COMISÍON CALIFICADORA DE PUB-
LICACIONES Y REVISTAS ILUSTRADAS DEPENDIENTE DE
LA SECRETARIA DE GOBERNACIÓN, MÉXICO. RESERVA
DE DERECHOS 04-2000-071710332800-102.

PRINTED IN U.S.A.

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PLAYBOY

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you can join your favorite
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See all six fun-filled seasons
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@ 2012 Playboy

PLAYBOY

HUGH M. HEFNER

editor-in-chief

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

A.J. BAIME, JOSH SCHOLLMEYER executive editors
PATTY BEAUDET-FRANCES deputy photography director
CHRISTOPHER TENNANT editor at large

EDITORIAL
JARED EVANS, TIM MC CORMICK editorial managers FEATURES: JASON BUHRMESTER, CHIP ROWE Senior editors
FASHION: JENNIFER RYAN JONES editor STAFF: CHERIE BRADLEY executive assistant; GILBERT MACIAS
senior editorial assistant; TYLER TRYKOWSKI editorial assistant CARTOONS: AMANDA WARREN
associate cartoon editor COPY: WINIFRED ORMOND copy chief; BRADLEY LINCOLN copy editor
RESEARCH: BRIAN COOK, LING MA, SHANE MICHAEL SINGH research editors CONTRIBUTING EDITORS:
BRANTLEY BARDIN, MARK BOAL, GARY COLE (sports), ROBERT B. DE SALVO, GRETCHEN EDGREN, PAULA FROELICH,
J.C. GABEL, KEN GROSS, GEORGE GURLEY, DAVID HOCHMAN, ARTHUR KRETCHMER (automotive), LISA LAMPANELLI
(special correspondent), CHRISTIAN PARENTI, JAMES R. PETERSEN, ROCKY RAKOVIC, STEPHEN REBELLO, DAVID
RENSIN, WILL SELF, DAVID SHEFF, DAVID STEVENS, ROB TANNENBAUM, ALICE K. TURNER

NICK TOSCHES writer at large

ART
SCOTT ANDERSON, BRUCE HANSEN Senior art directors; CODY TILSON,
CRISTELA P. TSCHUMY associate art directors; MATT STEIGBIGEL photo researcher;

PAUL CHAN Senior art assistant; STEFANI COLE FITZPATRICK senior art administrator

PHOTOGRAPHY
STEPHANIE MORRIS west coast editor; KRYSTLE JOHNSON managing photo director; BARBARA LEIGH
assistant editor; ARNY FREYTAG, STEPHEN WAYDA Senior contributing photographers; SASHA EISENMAN,
JAMES IMBROGNO, RICHARD IZUI, ZACHARY JAMES JOHNSTON, MIZUNO, BYRON NEWMAN, GEN NISHINO, JARMO
POHJANIEMI, DAVID RAMS, STEVE SHAW contributing photographers; SYDNEY ORR 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; RICH CRUBAUGH, SIMMIE WILLIAMS prepress

ADMINISTRATIVE
MARCIA TERRONES rights & permissions director

INTERNATIONAL PUBLISHING

MARKUS GRINDEL managing director; DAVID WALKER editorial director

PLAYBOY ENTERPRISES INTERNATIONAL, INC.
SCOTT FLANDERS chief executive officer

PLAYBOY INTEGRATED SALES
JOHN LUMPKIN Senior vice president, publisher; MARIE FIRNENO vice president, advertising director;
AMANDA CIVITELLO senior marketing director

ADVERTISING AND MARKETING: AMERICAN MEDIA INC.

DAVID PECKER chairman and chief executive officer; KEVIN HYSON chief marketing officer;
HELEN BIANCULLI executive director, direct-response advertising; BRIAN HOAR national spirits director
NEW YORE: BILL BINAN entertainment and gaming director; MIKE BOYKA automotive,
consumer electronics and consumer products director; ANTHONY GIANNOCCORA
fashion and grooming manager; JARED CASTARDI direct-response manager;
ANTOINETTE FORTE national sports nutrition director; KENJI TROYER digital sales planner;
KEVIN FALATKO senior marketing manager; MATT CASEY marketing manager; JOHN KITSES art director
LOS ANGELES: LORI KESSLER west coast director; VALERIE TOVAR digital sales planner

The War

Against Sex

Editorialby Hugh M. Hefner

F ifty years ago PLAYBOY fought
alongside enlightened Americans
everywhere on the frontlines of
the sexual revolution. In the streets, in
the courtrooms and in the pages of this
magazine we beat back against legisla-
tors who were determined to control
what you do in your bedroom—and
who you do it with. Now, decades later,
a new generation of repressed conser-
vatives are pounding on America's
bedroom door, their knock the beating
of a war drum that sounds their inten-
tions to again regulate our sex lives.

For months I have watched the
rhetoric building. Last October, in an
interview with an evangelical blogger,
Rick Santorum promised to defund
birth control on the grounds that con-
traception is “a license to do things in
a sexual realm that is counter to how
things are supposed to be.” He claimed
in his argument that contraception led
to an increasing number of babies born
out of wedlock. Ron Paul was no better,
believing that the birth control pill did
not cause immorality but that immoral-
ity creates the problem of wanting to
use the pill. Mitt Romney vowed to see
a constitutional amendment banning
same-sex marriage and to overturn Roe
v. Wade. He later promised to eliminate
Planned Parenthood. While wooing the
conservative vote, these candidates
revealed the ways a GOP-led govern-
ment would decide with whom we can
have sex and for what reasons—single
or married, straight or gay.

These are battles we have already
fought and soundly won. In 1961
police arrested Estelle Griswold, execu-
tive director of the Planned Parenthood
League of Connecticut, and Dr. C. Lee
Buxton, a Yale professor who served as
its medical director. Buxton and Gris-
wold were charged with violating a state
law that banned sharing information
about contraceptives—including with
married couples. The U.S. Supreme
Court voted seven to two to overturn
the convictions. The justices clearly saw
the affront: “Would we allow the police
to search the sacred precincts of mari-
tal bedrooms for telltale signs of the
use of contraceptives? The very idea is
repulsive to the notions of privacy sur-
rounding the marriage relationship.

We deal with a right of privacy older
than the Bill of Rights.”

Victories like this helped us tear down
the puritanical structures 1 questioned
in the Playboy Philosophy, structures
in which “our legislators, our judges
and officers of law enforcement are
allowed to enter our most private inner
sanctuaries—our bedrooms—and dic-
tate the activity that takes place there.”
In 1965 I established the Playboy Foun-
dation in part to appeal cases that now

seem amazing—consenting adults
sent to prison for acts that were con-
sidered “abominable and detestable
crimes against nature,” such as oral
sex. In 1967, police in Massachusetts
arrested Bill Baird for the crime of lec-
turing students about contraception
and handing out samples of spermi-
cidal foam to a female member of the
audience who may have been single.
Massachusetts argued that it had the
right to protect morals through “regu-
lating the private sexual lives of single
persons.” It was the right of the state to
hold over its citizens the threat of preg-
nancy and the birth of an unwanted
child as punishment for fornication.

The Playboy Foundation helped fund
Baird's appeal. In 1972 the court
argued, “If the right of privacy means
anything, it is the right of the individ-
ual, married or single, to be free from
unwarranted governmental intrusion
into matters so fundamentally affect-
ing a person as the decision whether to
bear or beget a child.” Later, we freed a
young woman who was arrested, at her
father's request, for fornication. 1 still
recall the father's reasoning: "I'd rather
see her in jail than debauched.”

All these years later I hear echoes of
this same ignorance espoused by a new
crop of self-appointed arbiters who are
determined to oversee our morality. I
heard it when Santorum backer Foster
Friess said, “Back in my days, [women]
used Bayer aspirin for contraceptives,”
implying that if women held an aspirin
between their legs, they wouldn’t open
them. I heard it when I learned about
proposed anti-abortion legislation in
Kansas that would protect doctors who
conceal vital medical information from
pregnant women. And I heard it when
Rush Limbaugh called a Georgetown
University law student a “slut” and a
“prostitute” after she testified on Cap-
itol Hill about allowing employers to
avoid providing contraception for reli-
gious reasons. “If we are going to pay
for your contraceptives and thus pay
for you to have sex, we want something
for it,” Limbaugh said. “We want you
to post the videos online so we can all
watch.” Fifty years of sexual freedom
vanished in a sound bite.

I want to believe that what we are
hearing is the death knell of a des-
perate minority clinging to a fading
ideology, but I’m worried this could be
the start of something more: an orga-
nized attack on our most basic human
freedom. If these zealots have their
way, our hard-won sexual liberation—
women’s rights, reproductive rights
and rights to privacy—lie in peril. We
won't let that happen. Decades ago,
we fought back against these moral
charlatans because your sex life, your
fantasies and desires, your plans to
have or not have a family—none of that
is anyone else’s business, especially not
the government’s. Welcome to the new
sexual revolution.

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BIG AWARDS NIGHT AT THE MANSION

“We are especially excited that we will get to honor Mr.
Hefner with our Humanitarian of the Year award for all
his charitable efforts over the years,” said Shimmy Mehta
(second from right), the founder of Angelwish, a charity
that makes the dreams of children with chronic diseases
| come true. Miss February 1990 Pam Anderson delivered
the hardware on behalf of the charity at a post-Grammy
party at the Mansion hosted by P. Diddy and attended
by PMOY 1994 Jenny McCarthy.

TRUMPETING IN THE 34TH JAZZ FESTIVAL
Bill Cosby, the MC for the Playboy Jazz Festival (June 16 and

17 at the Hollywood Bowl), announced the lineup— including
Christian McBride Big Band, Robin Thicke, Preservation Hall ©
Jazz Band and Ozomatli—wearing a favorite sweatshirt.

CARNIVAL IN RIO WAS GRAND
Devassa—a Brazilian beer whose пате is slang for "party girl“ hosted Cooper
Hefner and six Playmates during South America’s biggest bacchanal: Mardi
Gras in Rio de Janeiro. “It’s my first time here, and it’s remarkable,” Cooper
said. “It blows everything I’ve ever heard out of the water.” He and the girls
shared in the pre-Lenten party purge with the Black Eyed Peas’ Fergie and hun-
dreds of thousands of pleasure seekers; then Hefner named the new Devassa
poster girl, who was handpicked by his father.
— wat: 9 —

PLAYBOY J SUPER
BOWL % PARTIES

To celebrate the apex of America’s game, 6
the Super Bowl, Hef pulled out all the

stops with a star-studded event at the Bud Light
Hotel in Indianapolis and a viewing party at the
Mansion for friends, family and Playmates. (1)
Shaquille O’Neal, Hoopz and Bunnies in Indy.
(2) Mr. Don Draper: Jon Hamm and guest. (3)
Ne-Yo, Miss February 1999 Stacy Marie Fuson and
Miss February 2010 Heather Rae Young. (4) Hef
and Miss November 2010 Shera Bechard hand
Berry Gordy and Eskedar Gobeze their award for
winning the PMW pool. (5) Back in the Midwest,
Nick Lachey, Miss August 2004 Pilar Lastra and
Miss January 2010 Jaime Faith Edmondson. (6)
Billy Bush and Scott Wolf. (7) Guy Fieri, Miss July
2000 Neferteri Shepherd and Miss October 2005
Amanda Paige. (8) Chris Evans with Miss May
2009 Crystal McCahill. (9) Footballers DeAngelo
Williams, Jonathan Stewart and Clay Matthews
with Bunnies. (10) Shaq and NFL MVP Aaron
Rodgers. (11) Kyle Busch and wife Samantha. (12)
Mark Cuban with Miss November 2002 Serria
Tawan. (13) LMFAO’s RedFoo. (14) Playmates
improve on Victor Cruz’s touchdown dance.

WHY YOU THINK THAT WAY
As a psychologist who specializes in
behavioral science, Га like (о reassure
Neal Gabler that liberal genes will not
be overwhelmed by conservative ones
(The Weird World of Biopolitics, March).
Research suggests DNA hardwires
the brain to be liberal, conservative or
blended, 1.е., capable of being swayed
either way by rhetoric, advertising
and personal circumstance. DNA also
hardwires the brain to be extroverted,
introverted or blended, a condition that
has not yet been studied by political sci-
entists. Evidence suggests genes build
four personality types: liberal extroverts
(gammas), liberal introverts (deltas),
conservative extroverts (alphas) and
conservative introverts (betas). Liberal-
ism vs. conservatism and extroversion vs.
introversion are on a continuum, with
the largest percentage of people near the
mean; by providing swing votes, these
independents are the glue that holds our
society together. Conservatives appear to
be in power even while liberals control
government because conservatives natu-
rally create strong hierarchal institutions
such as corporations, militaries and reli-
gions. In fact, conservatives have been in
charge since Constantine. It's only now
that liberals are slowly gaining control.
Rick Jamrozy
Boynton Beach, Florida

LIGHT LUNCH
I am pleased to see that the March Man-
track features 100-count bags of Island
Creek oysters. The name comes from
the company's location in a small village
in the town of Duxbury, Massachusetts.
Duxbury Bay shellfish farmers also ship
their famous blue mussels in 10-pound
bags. On a trip to the Virgin Islands a
few years ago, I was served a plate of
them from Duxbury Mussels & Seafood
in Kingston, Massachusetts. They were
steamed in chopped garlic, butter, olive
oil and zinfandel, which is about what I
do with them fresh from the farm.
Robert Enemark
Duxbury, Massachusetts

A WORK OF ART
You should make Brittney Palmer of
the UFC (Fight Club, March) a Playmate
before she sets up her easel on some
remote beach and doesn't return.
Larry Blain
Spartanburg, South Carolina

THE PEN AS SWORD

Your profile of Peder Lund of Paladin
Press (The World's Most Dangerous Publisher,
January/February) should have been titled
The World's Most Courageous Publisher. His
efforts are bulwarks in the never-ending
fight to protect the First Amendment
against “progressive” forces who dili-
gently work to destroy our Constitution,
the greatest endorsement of unrestrained
thought ever conceived by man. It will be

DEAR PLAYBOY

Whose Side 15 He On?

Although he says he doesn't “do
uplift well,” New York Times columnist
Paul Krugman strikes me as an opti-
mist (Playboy Interview, March). Year
after year, column after column, the
economist points out, cogently and civ-
illy, “that a lot of our political culture
is completely insane,” despite the fact
that, as far as I can see, none of the
powerful in this country pay any atten-
tion to him. If I were him, Га probably
have said to hell with them years ago.

Ralph Haygood
Durham, North Carolina

Yawn...Krugman. Always on the side
of the employee, always on the side of
the union member, never on the side
of the consumer, never on the side of
the taxpayer. He criticizes Walmart for
its low wages, but the company has

interesting to see how many letters you
receive from wimpy, piss-veined liberals
self-righteously excoriating Lund.

Al York

Orinda, California

HOT, HOT, HOT
My wife and I spent 10 days in Aruba,
where we saw the 2012 Lighting Parade. It

X. "4

It's Carnival in Rio: "Follow me, boys."

featured many beautiful women, but none
compared to the Brazilians in Red-Hot Rio
(March). Rio de Janeiro has jumped to the
top of my vacation wish list.
Rick Griffin
Jacksonville, Florida

MONEY TROUBLES

Paul Krugman and almost every other
economist are misleading humanity by
failing to advise our leaders that any

probably done more than any other to
help poor people by offering predictable
goods at low prices.

Mimi Gerstell
Stonington, Maine

attempt to maintain continual growth
is doomed. Infinite growth cannot hap-
pen with finite natural resources. If our
economy grows at 2.8 percent annually,
it will double in size by 2037, double
again by 2062 and so on. That isn't
going to happen.
Jason Brent
Las Vegas, Nevada
This is an ongoing debate—are we head-
ing over a cliff, as Paul Ehrlich argues in
his 1968 best-seller The Population Bomb,
or will growth continue because the pres-
sures imposed by finite resources force us
to innovate? One sign of progress, some
say, would be to replace the gross domestic
product as a measure of well-being with pro-
posed markers such as the Genuine Progress
Indicator, Human Development Index or
Happy Planet Index.

Krugman is the first important pun-
dit to call this economic meltdown the
Lesser Depression. He shows a great
deal of empathy for the plight of the
average American worker, and he makes
his points with erudition and wit.

George Hoffman
Stow, Ohio

Bravo! I hope the president reads your
interview and in his second term names
Krugman his secretary of the Treasury.

Lynn Watt Hansen
Napa, California

If those in power had listened to
Krugman, we wouldn't be in this mess.
'The economy has improved somewhat
since your interview was conducted,
which is perhaps why the Republicans

PLAYBOY

See where
it all began.

EVERY PHOTOGRAPH
EVERY ARTICLE

EVERY INTERVIEW

EVER

PAM ANDERSON

FIRST COVER PHOTO
OCTOBER 1989

<?
PLAYBOY

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

TO PURCHASE, GO TO:
WWW.PLAYBOYARCHIVE.COM OR
WWW.AMAZON.COM

are again turning their focus to phony
issues such as contraception. President
Obama may not have been progressive
enough on the stimulus and the health
care plan, but given his centrism, he's
far better than the lunatic fringe driv-
ing the GOP.

Roger Dobrick

Madison, Wisconsin

I would trust what Krugman says to
the point of taking it to the bank. I'm a
progressive and he is not, but he is a cool,
clear economic voice.

Emily Dale
Orange Park, Florida

Krugman listens to Arcade Fire, Feist
and the New Pornographers? They're all
Canadians. Paul, come north! We need
your wisdom here too.

Nick Volkow
Burnaby, British Columbia

CHRIS WALLACE
You try hard to portray Chris Wallace
of Fox News Sunday as a right-wing per-
sonality (Playboy Interview, January/
February), but he deflects each of your
flailing blows.
Brian Sneeringer
Gettysburg, Pennsylvania

The reason liberals don't like conser-
vatives isn't because of a difference of
opinion but because much conserva-
tive thought comes with heavy doses of
inflexibility (e.g., the Tea Party), intol-
erance (toward minorities, gays, the
poor and people who are not evangeli-
cal Christians), insecurity (as manifested
by repeated attempts to use the govern-
ment to force everyone to believe as
conservatives do) and hypocrisy (all the
while complaining about big and intru-
sive government).

John Stewart Jr.
Fayetteville, Georgia

THAT WAS THEN, THIS IS NOW
Vietnam is a poor country, and ifit can
make a buck off the mess that was the
Vietnam war, more power to it (Saigon
Confidential, January/February). Most
of us who fought there did so because
our nation asked us to and because we
wanted to help the South Vietnamese.
Veterans who want a more cathartic
experience can get involved with the
DOVE Fund (dovefund.org), which
provides sanitation and schools to the
neediest areas of the country.
Tony Brown
Winona, Minnesota

CLARIFICATIONS

Your article Nightmare in South Beach
(January/February), which describes how
two women in Miami conned Philadel-
phia weatherman John Bolaris, includes
a photo of Bolaris with two women
wearing swimsuits. The positioning of

the photo might lead readers to believe
these women are the perpetrators. In
fact, the photo was taken at a Philly
radio station and shows me and another
model, Victoria Cosplay. Neither of us
has any connection to the crime that
occurred in Miami.
Nicole Pressman
Centerville, Ohio
The photo was used to illustrate Bolaris’s
active social life, not to imply that either
woman was involved in the crime.

In March’s Hangin’ With Hef you write
that Ronnie James Dio threw an event
at the Mansion. But the singer died in
2010. Was the photo mislabeled?

Angela Toth
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania

It was wishful thinking. The event ben-
efited the Ronnie James Dio Stand Up and
Shout Cancer Fund (diocancerfund.org).

SMOKIN’ JOE

Thank you for the excellent profile of
Joe Frazier (Smoke, March). Katherine
Dunn does a wonderful job of humaniz-
ing a man who was dehumanized by his

Joe Frazier takes some sting out of Ali in 1975.

most famous opponent. It has become
fashionable for Muhammad Ali’s apol-
ogists to claim that his prefight insults
were made solely for publicity. But his
comments were deeply personal and
reflected Ali's own racial insecurities. As
a result, many people unjustly remember
Frazier only as the “gorilla” who gave us
the Thrilla in Manila.

Paul Corning

Madison, Wisconsin

BOOZE CRUISE
Thank you for The 20 Greatest Cock-
tails of All Time (January/February). I
accepted your challenge to walk away
from potato-chip vodka and energy
drinks and have been ordering a cock-
tail from your list every time I go out. I
then re-create the drinks at home, which
has helped me assemble a well-stocked
liquor cabinet. Where would I be with-
out PLAYBOY? Cheers!
Frank Cruz
Ventura, California

E-mail via the web at LETTERS.PLAYBOY.COM Or write: 335 NORTH MAPLE DRIVE, BEVERLY HILLS, CALIFORNIA 90210

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CLASSIC LOOK OF THE MONTE

Before it was a required stop on the Hollywood D-List Express,
before TMZ sullied the red carpet, the Cannes Film Festival was
trés chic. Cannes was where larger-than-life celebs—from Bri-
gitte Bardot to Pablo Picasso to Cary Grant, pictured here on the
Boulevard de la Croisette in 1955 (he had just released To Catch a
Thief)—gathered to drench their livers in champagne. Should you
make the party this year (May 16 to 27), respect the age of glamour.
See the caption above to re-create Grant's classic look.

¡RIORS * DESIGNING WOMEN

HAVE A SEAT

The International Contemporary Furniture Fair at the Javits
Center in New York (icff.com) is the Sundance of the design
world, which is a lot cooler than it sounds—and almost as
drunken. From May 19 to 22, the leading lights of the furniture
world will gather to show off their wares. What's in it for you?
Free parties, a look at the future of design and access to the
lovelies who work in the industry. Tell them you're an architect.

BARMATE
WORDS TO DRINK BY

STEFANIE
JENNIFER

I WORK AT a hotel bar in South
Beach. Generally hotel bars
are infinitely more fun than
regular bars, because people
on vacation are way more
carefree about everything.

EVERY DAY IN South Beach
feels like a vacation, so it's
tough to maintain a balanced
life. My suggestion: Get a job
like mine. I have the best of
both worlds since I spend

my days on the beach serving
drinks. It's the perfect mix of
work and play.

IF YOU WANT to pick up a girl
ata bar, first and foremost you
need to be outgoing. Engage
her in a normal conversation,
make her laugh and take a
real interest in what she's
saying. Of course it doesn't
hurt to buy her a drink either.

PEOPLE DRESS CRAZY when
they go out in South Beach.
They'll wear everything from
a thong to a fur coat.

WHATWILL YOU see me wear-
ing behind the bar? Let's put it
this way: It's not a fur coat.

LIGHTEN UP

Why wait until the high-noon summer sun is :
blotting out everything within your sight line? :
Prepare yourself now for the unyielding glare :
of June, July and August with a pair of plastic :
aviators—a contemporary twist on the metal :

version first popularized by General Doug- :

las MacArthur during World War 11. They

certainly have been covering some famous :
faces recently—e.g., star of The Aviator him- :

West. Nor do they have to be worn with seri-
ous intentions; Zach Galifianakis spent most
of The Hangover with them guarding his
bloodshot eyes. Below аге а trio of the latest
plastic aviators we like best.

NKS • LATEST BUZZ

STAG PARTY

Why go it alone? Allow the stag
party, now being served at the
Violet Hour, Chicago's mixology
mecca, to keep you company.
Shake all the above in a metal
shaker. Add ice. Shake hard.
Strain. Finally, garnish with four
drops of Peychaud's bitters and
three drops of Angostura bitters.

GRILLING e PINEAPPLE RIBS

self Leonardo DiCaprio and style king Kanye :

DSQUARED (5470). €) KENNETH COLE (560). =” ©

MEAT AND BE MERRY

In anticipation of the barbecue
season, we asked grillmaster
general Chris Lilly, head chef of
the Big Bob Gibson Bar-B-Q cook-
ing team (bigbobgibson.com) and
last year's winner of the Mem-
phis in May World Championship
Barbecue Cooking Contest, for

an original recipe. His succulent
creation—Playboy Pineapple Ribs.
“They are the perfect balance of
sweet, spicy, hot and fruit flavors,”
he promises. After thoroughly
staining our shirt, we agree.

2 slabs baby-
back ribs

Dry Rub Liquid Seasoning
% cup brown sugar I cup pineapple

4 tsp. garlic salt juice
4tsp.chilipowder 1 tbsp. dry rub mix
2 tsp. salt 1% tsp. balsamic
ltsp. black pepper vinegar

% tsp. celery salt 1% tsp. minced

y4 tsp. pepper flakes ^ garlic

% tsp. cinnamon
"tsp. white pepper

Remove membrane from backs of
ribs. Mix rub ingredients well. Re-
serve one tablespoon rub for liquid
seasoning. Apply rub to the front
and back of ribs. Set up a grill for

indirect cooking by placing the
coals off to one side. Preheat to 250
degrees. Place ribs meat-side up on
the grill, close the lid and cook with
indirect heat for 2% hours. Remove
ribs and place each slab meat-side
down on a double layer of aluminum
foil. Mix the liquid seasoning. Pour
half a cup of the liquid over each
slab and tightly wrap them in foil.
Place in the grill over indirect heat
for one hour, then remove and un-
wrap. Brush with a finishing sauce
of your choice on both sides. Place
ribs in the grill for 15 minutes or
until sauce caramelizes.

AFTER HOURS

* CONSPIRACIES

IN THEORIES

Forget about the Illuminati, JFK and Roswell. Instead of rehashing
the tired conspiracies of yesteryear, Among the Truthers by Jonathan
Kay (Harper, in paperback next month) delves head-on into modern-
day paranoia—from the titular 9/11 Truthers to the internet's role in
spreading unfounded rumors to the Obama birth-certificate insanity.

* HERB RITTS

GENIUS ON DISPIS

This year marks the 10th annivers
pher Herb Ritts, who, for PLAYBoY alo
Macpherson and Stephanie Ѕеутой
work, the Getty Museum in Los An
prints, magazine covers and Polaro
showcasing his fine balance of art,

the death of

bt Cindy C

Plebra
il

TRAVEL • JERSEY

BIGGEST GAMBLE EVER -

Never has New Jersey loomed larger in the cultural
landscape. Now the Jersey gambling resort town where
guidettes run wild and dreams go to die gets a new lease
on life, with the Revel Atlantic City (revelresorts.com).
Developers have staked $2.4 billion on this beachfront
sin-o-plex (1,900 rooms, 14 restaurants, 10 pools, two
nightclubs, etc.). Will it survive? Come on, lucky seven!

GIVENCHY

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* SONAR BARCELONA

The Sonar music festival has been a favorite
of knob-twiddling electronica aficionados
for nearly 20 years. The three-day throw-
down (with day and night sites), subtitled
“Advanced Music and New Media Art,” takes
place in the third week of June each summer

SEXTYMOLOGY • THREESOMES

Many people, maybe more than
you imagine, have enjoyed three-
way sex. In 1951 Bishop Fulton
Sheen noted that “it takes three
to make love": husband, wife and
Holy Ghost. Those who have stud-
ied group sex say its success de-
pends less on sexual gymnastics
and more on how well participants
communicate—brains, not trains.
Perhaps the most infamous three-
some dates to 1871. That's when it
was discovered that the Reverend
Henry Ward Beecher (the Billy
Graham of his day) was sleeping
with the wife of his best friend,
Theodore Tilton. Beecher was
shamed in newsprint by Victoria
Woodhull, a free-love feminist who
in 1872 became the first woman to
run for president. Soon Woodhull
was sleeping with Theodore Tilton,
alone as well as in threesomes
with her husband. After an intro-
duction by Tilton, Woodhull took a
new lover—Reverend Beecher.

and lures more than 80,000 fans to the sultry streets
of Barcelona. After branching out into three other cit-
ies in recent years (Sáo Paulo, Cape Town and Tokyo),
however, the flagship Sónar event in Spain has turned
slightly more mainstream, as evidenced by 2012's
eclectic lineup, which includes electronic-music main-
stays such as Fatboy Slim, Richie Hawtin and Amon
Tobin but also the Roots, Lana Del Rey and Friendly
Fires. Grab your earplugs and your dance shoes.

SLEEP s LOUISVILLE

UNDOING A ROUND
HORSING AROUND
Too Northern to be Southern and too
Southern to be Northern, Louisville comes
to life the first Saturday in May when the
fastest two minutes in sports zip by at
the Kentucky Derby. But along with fast
horses comes an even faster night out.
р.м. The matchbook from dive bar
the Back Door reads “From bikers to brain
surgeons.” Whatever your calling, the bar-
tenders are quick to serve you. Drink like a
local and order a bourbon, neat.

Go from dive to dapper at 610
Magnolia, the culinary home of Top Chef:
Texas contestant Edward Lee. He takes
a modern approach to Southern cuisine
that's farm-to-table fresh and local.

° P.M. For an ideal digestif, head to
the beer-and-bourbon joints of gentrified
Germantown (Nachbar, Four Pegs and Old
Hickory Inn among them).

12:51 Meat, the city's newest speak-
easy, 15 located in Butchertown. While the
hunched-over bartenders who construct
your cocktail with eyedroppers and lemon
zest will try to tempt you into staying all
night, trust us—one is enough.

You're just in time for the last drag
show at the Connection, a large gay bar
with a clientele that's mostly straight. Led
by the Mistress of Mayhem, Hurricane Sum-
mers, the shows are anything but PC.

Expect to share turn three at
Churchill Downs with 80,000 other infield
dwellers. But getting there when the gates
open guarantees you a front-row view of
all the nearby action. You may not be able
to see any horses run by, but you will
witness flashing, Porta-John races, inad-
vertent planking and much more.

AFTER HOURS

TRAVEL •

GO ESTE, YOUNG MAN

Every few years a new far-
flung beachy paradiseenters
the collective daydreams of
men: Rio. Bali. Phuket. Ibiza.
And now Punta del Este in
Uruguay has burrowed its
way into those sustaining
fantasies of olive-skinned
beauties, balmy tempera-
tures and an itinerary with
just two entries: sleeping
off your hangover in the sun
and building another later
that night.

That's exactly what the
well-heeled of nearby
Argentina and Brazil do
in Punta, a sexier, more

sophisticated version of
Miami Beach. From Sinatra
in the 1960s to Shakira in
the 20005, celebrities have
been known to flock here in
pursuit of the kind of endless
summer only the southern
hemisphere can provide.
There was a time when such
a rich and famous crowd
attracted obnoxious glam-
seeking tourists and clumsy
overdevelopment. But these
days Punta has found its
sweet spot, with a string
of towns offering a mix of
thumping beach clubs, quiet
retreats and just enough

CHECK IN, CHECK HER OUT

PARTY LIKE A VAMPIRE

BEEF UP

KEEP IT LOCAL If you're c
out in front of the beach
surfing lesson through
(sunvalleysurf.com). W
mend you do what the L

cer ball down to the beact

bito (translation: “mini
into more relaxing ente:
concierge to hook you
riding in Garzón. Or foi
spectator sport, go to Ch
is primarily notable for |
naturista (translation: top!

sweaty outdoor activities to break
up the bacchanal.

Just where the hell is Uruguay,
you ask? Due east of Argentina. In
other words, near the end of the
earth. Now is the perfect time to
go—the temperature is still high,
prices are dropping, and with the

FROM THE DIGITAL ARCHIVE

ban on nude beaches lifted, it's the
tail end ofthe South American sum-
mer in more ways than one. Sure,
you could spend your vacation bud-
get on a closer, lesser locale. But
wouldn't it be smarter to spend your
hard-earned cash on a tropical get-
away worthy of your memoirs?

н"

No опе ever wrote about cars апа speed with тоге poetry апа рапасће
than the great Ken Purdy, who scribed volumes in this magazine in the
1960s while following the circus of motor racing from one exotic locale to
the next. To this day the Ken W. Purdy Award is the most coveted among
automotive and racing writers. In The Grand Prix (May 1967), Purdy takes
us inside a Formula One car during the sport's golden age, then moves us
along at terrific speeds. “The Grand Prix car is the ultimate expression
of the purpose of the automobile,” he writes. “This is the instrument with
which men play the most dangerous, demanding, scientific and expensive
of all sports.” (Pictured at left: the legendary Eau Rouge corner in Bel-
gium, a downhill into an uphill S-turn that the best drivers took flat-out.)
Purdy died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound in 1972. His writings, how-
ever, live on. Read all his brilliant PLAYBOY work at iplayboy.com.

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FIVE STARS MIA FROM SUMMER HITS

Didn't land a job you really wanted?
Don't worry. These big movie stars
may feel your pain.

Edward Norton— The Avenger
The Oscar-nominated actor Неа
the angry green giant in The
Incredible Hulk and was expected
to co-star in The Avengers. Instead,
Marvel Studios dumped him
for Mark Ruffalo. А spokesman
explained that they needed “an
actor who embodies the creativ-
ity and collaborative spirit of our
other talented cast members."
Norton's agent called the state-
ment “unprofessional, disingenu-
ous s and clearly defamatory.”

Amy Adams—Rock of Ages

For the big-screen version of the
hit Broadway musical set in the
1980s, Adams was courted to play
a snarky journalist out to write an
exposé on aging rock star Tom
Cruise. She instead took the role of
Lois Lane in the Superman reboot
Man of Steel. “I come from theater,
where people play the same role

over and over again, ' said Adams.

Lindsay / | Кој han—D Ja Irk Shadow /S

Tim Burton didn't see Lohan as the
luscious witch driven
to vengeance when
she is scorned by
vampire lover Johnny
Depp in the big-screen
redo of the supernatu-
ral TV soap opera.
Anne Hathaway and
Jennifer Lawrence
also auditioned for the
role eventually won
by Eva Green (pic-
tured). Burton said he
sees his characters as
being "in their own sort of world."
Maybe Lohan's world seemed too
far away— even for Burton.
ordon-l

.evitt— The
1 5 Garfield. e the
role of web slinger Peter Parker
in the franchise reboot, beating
out Gordon-Levitt as well as Tay-
lor Lautner and others. “There's a
punk-rock quality to Peter Parker
that's really irreverent and fun, and
that's something Andrew embod-
ies, " said director Marc Webb.

^. P IL Th
(e бу 'llenhaal— The Bourne

The departure of Matt Damon from
the Bourne franchise left the field
wide open for a brand-new CIA
operative. Who knows whether Gyl-
lenhaal's action-hero stint in Prince
of Persia hurt his chances, but the
moviemakers opted instead for
Jeremy Renner. —S.R.

DVD OF THE MONTH

MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE

GHOST PROTOCOL

Scaling improbable new heights in Dubai and
operating underground after being framed for a
Kremlin bombing, Ethan Hunt (Tom Cruise) and
his IMF peeps (Jeremy Renner, Paula Patton
and Simon Pegg) race to prevent nuclear
Armageddon. М:14'5 orchestrated mayhem
will pummel your senses, and the cheeky hu-
mor keeps it lively. Covert ops never looked so
cool...or completely insane. (BD) Best extra:
“Impossible Missions” highlights the incredi-
ble stunts and effects. УУУ —Bryan Reesman

English actress
Alice Eve is coerced
into sex for a green

TEASE FRAME

card in Crossing Over (pictured). We wish she
would shout “Nevermore!” to her clothes as
Edgar Allan Poe's fiancée in The Raven, which
stars John Cusack as the macabre author.

n A : WITCHER 2: ASSASSINS 0F KINGS
At 1 e s "

GAMES OF THRONES

The latest role-playing
games feel bloodier and
sexier than ever. Call it the
Game of Thrones effect.
George R.R. Martin's block-
buster books and the HBO
series based on them,
about warring medieval
clans engaging in murder,
betrayal and even incest,
gave game makers the
freedom to play to an adult
audience, one that wants to
see the hero bed a damsel
or two and send the villain
to a bloody death with or
without his head. Last year
games such as Elder
Scrolls V: Skyrim and Drag-
on Age II featured heroes
navigating dark worlds
filled with grisly violence,
steamy sex and marriage—
traditional and same sex.
The latest in this line of
hard-core gaming is Witch-
er 2: Assassins of Kings
(360, PC), in which players
lead moody sword-swinger

Geralt of Rivia on a hunt for
an assassin who targeted
the king. During the jour-
ney players stop at dingy
bars (where they can shoot
dice and get drunk), en-
gage in battles with savage
beasts and bed love inter-
ests, such as sorceress
Triss Merigold (below), in
full-frontal scenes. It's a
long way from The Lord of
the Rings. —J.B.

Nick Waterhouse

answers the
WATERHOUSE zie
diately: The peak

SPEAKS

year for music, in
his opinion, was
1962. He names

some soul and R&B acts who made it so grand:
James Brown, Jimmy McGriff, Arthur Alexan-
der, Booker T. & the MG's, Solomon Burke. It
was “the last year of American supremacy,”
he says, before the Beatles arrived and
"fucked it all up."

Time's All Gone, the 26-year-old Waterhouse's
new album, sounds as if it comes from yester-
year. Like his horn-rimmed glasses and thin-lapel

ete or THE. MONTH

REVIEWS

Somewhere along a path of wrecked cars and dead
bodies, Grand Theft Auto became the greatest achieve-
ment of Rockstar Games. It's a shame, since Rock-
star's series about dual-pistol-wielding Max Payne
deserves credit for creating just as much wild violence
and delivering it in a groundbreaking style that gave
shooter games some cinematic street cred. Max Payne 3
(360, PC, PS3) finds the former cop washed up and working a body-
guard gig in Brazil. When kidnappers grab the woman he is hired to
protect, Payne and his partner go on the hunt, gunning down thugs in
packed 5ао Paulo streets and empty soccer stadiums. Activate the
slow-motion “Bullet Time,” leap into the air and take down a room full
of thugs all before hitting the ground. Afterward, the slow-motion

replay shows every painful spot where а bullet landed. ¥¥¥¥

to “Some Place”: swelling horns, bluesy female
backup vocals, finger-snapping beats. Reverb
may as well be a member of his band.

Waterhouse grew up in Huntington Beach,
California and played in bands in “the Limp
Bizkit era,” he says. “I was listening to the blues
and garage rock. I was called a weirdo and a
faggot. I got hassled and beat up.”

He escaped to San Francisco, where he worked
as a content editor for a website and deejayed.
But he was depressed. “I was trying to lie to my-
self that I didn't want to be a musician,” he says.
He recorded “Some Place” as a 45, and soon it
was getting airplay clear across to Europe. His
depression lifted. That's the kind of elevating
power music had 50 years ago, and Waterhouse

suits, it expresses a throwback aesthetic. Listen brings it back to life. ¥¥¥ —Rob Tannenbaum

MUST-WATCH TV

GIRLS GONE WILD

Rush Limbaugh's head would surely explode
were he to watch more than a few minutes of
HBO's Girls. Created by indie-film savant
Lena Dunham (Tiny Furniture) and produced
by Judd Apatow, the second episode of this
female-centric comedy begins with one char-
acter being (happily) covered in ejaculate and
another forcibly transitioning her overly car-
ing boyfriend from missionary to doggie mid-
coitus. While such explicitness is hardly new
territory for cable, what makes the sex in
Girls more shocking than the sex in Game of
Thrones or Californication is the ordinariness
of its lead characters: This is your daughter
gratefully (if awkwardly) agreeing to be cov-
ered in “come like a dirty little girl” by her

soulless fuck buddy. And yet, labeling Girls a
show about sex is like calling The Adventures
of Huckleberry Finn a river-set travelogue.
This is a show about 20-somethings figuring
life out and assembling the support team
that will guide them. Early buzz tagged Girls
a reimagined Sex and the City and a distaff
Entourage. These are not inaccurate descrip-
tors, but they don't do justice to what Dunham
(who writes, directs and stars) has actually
invented: the most honest and riveting TV
coming-of-age story since Apatow’s own
Freaks and Geeks. It is not an easy show to
watch, and its humor is not always obvious.
But Girls is often brilliant, always compelling
television. ¥¥¥¥ —Josef Ада ап

W DATA

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The average driverloses

during a race due to

Staring at the sun for AS LITTLE AS
100 SECONDS can cause retinal lesions.
However, no one has ever been permanently
blinded from intense sun-gazing.

— жеш

BY RICHARD LEWIS

scar, of course, is the name of the most
coveted prize statuette in all of show
business. Tragically, it also happens to be
the name ofa slave-driven servant of a famous
Academy Award-winning superdiva who for one
brief night became a sexual partner of mine and, yes,
who was such a flaming narcissist that she’d actually
convinced her live-in butler to legally change his name
to Oscar...from Myron. Let me point out that in the
realm of out-of-your-league womanizing, this sort of
insanity plainly exemplifies what’s known as a red flag
(i.e., run for your life, otherwise only total destruction
of your self-esteem awaits!). Nevertheless, I was so
young and blinded by the prospect of screwing a
famous actress that I didn't realize the scary level of delusion
it took for this woman (let's call her Sally Stunner) to pull that
off. The sex I had with her that night bombed big-time, but
I swear on all my wasted sperm that the intercourse was her
box-office failure and that my innocent yet eager to please cock
never really had any business auditioning for her approval.
At least I learned at a young age that in Hollywood it's better
to screw famous people in bed before they have the chance to
screw you over in life.

Still early in my career, Pd just begun figuring out that those
millions of eyes seeing me fairly regularly on TV included the
eyes of celebrated people. I learned via the generally bullshit
Hollywood grapevine that this renowned actress had a huge
crush on me—except it wasn't bullshit. She was expecting—
demanding, really that I call her as soon as possible. Quite
honestly, being appreciated for my humor has always meant
more to me than being desired. But when I got that starry-horny
summons, all I wanted to do was fuck. The lure of major-celebrity
trophy intercourse usually tended to overshadow whether or not
the chick gave a shit about the nuances of my stand-up material.

When I called her she was instantly hotter than hell, scorching
the receiver with sexual come-ons—except that throughout
this steady gush of flirtation, her assistant kept interrupting our
conversation to inform her of scheduling updates and requests
for various meetings. (Hello again, red flag. Not that I cared—
yet.) She clearly packed more into a day than I’d accomplished
during a five-year span in my career. But even that imbalance
didn’t register enough for me to grasp how our romp would
be just one more thing she packed into her, um, day. Anyway,
most important, we were on! Two hours later I was buzzed in
from the gate of her Architectural Digest wet-dream mansion,
my nerves quaking not so much from the likelihood of fucking
a superstar but because all I heard through the intercom were
howls of crazed dogs sounding eager to rip the flesh from any
stranger entering the property.

When I stepped inside the foyer, there was no sign of
killer dogs—only her, draped in a white silk robe, completely
glamorous with astonishing hair down to her waist, bathed
in perfume that immediately inspired my cock to perform a
hoedown in my pants. She then suddenly kissed me so sweetly
that I actually felt my balls turning into Golden Globes. Luckily,
she’d given her butler, Oscar-Myron, the night off and had also

just given sleeping pills to her pack of pit bulls, so it was just us
and the anticipation of what was to come (and come, etc.).

I skipped the grand tour of her house, mainly because she
had casually grabbed the erection from my pants and led me
directly to her bedroom. The blinders on my vagina-goggles
kept me from noticing much home decor (did I see a lot of
postmodern sculptures, or was it mostly Native American
stuff?), but the sex remains sort of a blur as well. (I confess I
still TiVo her films, if only to remind myself that we actually
did fuck.) I came too fast, since all during coitus she was talking
to her agent on speakerphone, leading me to believe that she
wanted me out of her, and my orgasm obliged. The bedside
table was cluttered with so many creams and salves (including
a “clitoris cleanse”) that I felt I was committing rape in the
express lane of a drugstore. I vaguely recall her taking a time-
out after foreplay to give herself a light makeover. When she
did climax, I swear she screamed something along the lines of
“га like to thank the Academy.”

By then I knew Га become nothing more than a sex toy for
her. Worse, when I woke the next morning she was gone. Her
assistant called to explain that she’d taken a 5:30 A.M. limo to the
airport for a quick trip to meet with a director in Paris and had
not wanted to disturb my curled-in-terror fetal-position slumber.
The assistant added, “Anyway, Mr. Lewis, she probably won't be
in dating mode with you again due to a former lover coming
back into her life, which apparently happened during her Paris
flight. Anyway, Ms. Stunner wishes you the best, thinks you’re
hilarious and, in case she never sees you again, wanted you to
know that during sex she thinks she had an orgasm.” Click.

And that was it. Star fucking (in the most literal sense) may
be the most common of all our sex fantasies, but believe me, it
rarely turns out to be worth the slightest bragging rights (unless
maybe you need a fabulous reason to explain why you’ve decided
to turn gay). With this special breed of narcissistic female, you
will never be more important than the next man she decides
to desire—serially, one after the other, never looking back. In
fact, you won't even be as important as the stylist and wardrobe
consultant waiting in the next room while you're fucking.
But if you’re cool with that, just be careful if she guides you
around her mansion using your dick as a leash, especially when
climbing stairs too quickly or passing the sharp edges of priceless
sculptures screaming to circumcise yet another clueless penis.

ILLUSTRATION BY JON KRAUSE

COMMITMENT:

Me Other C-Word

BY LISA LAMPANELLI

ometimes I can’t believe it took me more than 30 years to find
one.” For years Га heard people say, “When you know it,

you know it,” but I was starting to lose faith. I’d just about given
hen I met him, and he was everything I had dreamed
of—smart and compassionate, and he couldn't keep his hands
off me. Most important, he knew it’s what’s inside a person that
counts. Yes, I’d finally found a gynecologist I could commit to!

Commitment. It’s the second-scariest C-word out there. And
there’s good reason for that. Let’s be real—it’s hard enough to
find a dry cleaner, a barber or even a doctor you're willing to
be loyal to, let alone a significant other. We search and search
for the right one, and for some reason, when we find him or
her, “commitment” is a difficult thing to say. It's like Mike
Tyson trying to recite the “she sells seashells by the seashore”
thingy. It doesn’t exactly roll off the tongue.

So let's say you've found someone you think might be the
one, but you're afraid to ask her to be exclusive, move in or
maybe even—gulp—marry you. You're not alone, brother.
Fear of commitment is something every single person has had
at one time or another—like sunburn, pimples and the desire
to tell Maya Angelou “Enough already.”

You can't crack open a women's magazine in the checkout
line or get through a chick flick without hearing women bitch
about men being commitment-phobes. What these women
don't get is that no man is wired for a committed relationship.
Men are built to eat, shit, fuck, fight and die, and they think

monogamy—like Dolly Parton's face—is not natural
or even realistic. And nothing—not working in a men-
tally castrating cubicle, not strapping yourself to a
couch and watching a Real Housewives marathon—will
change that. In fact, all relationships start out as just fucking,
and then someone gets clingy or needs a ride to the airport
and—voila!—a relationship is born.

Monogamy without living together is the open-book test of
the committed relationship. It’s that magical time when you’re

a couple, you’re banging, but you can still get out of it with-

out a moving van and a restraining order. If, after a while,

you still think she’s awesome, you’ve passed the open-book
test and you’re ready for the final exam—living together.
This step should not be entered into because you need a
place to live or someone to tend to your pot plants. I know
you're saying, “Duh! No shit, Lisa. If I wanted that, Га just
stay in my parents’ basement.” But really, you need to be
sure you're completely ready, because the transition from
hump mates to bunk mates starts gradually—her toothbrush
in the bathroom, a box of Kotex under the sink, a bottle of
zinfandel in your fridge. Then one day you wake up to find
your closet stuffed with dresses, skirts and high heels—which
can be very upsetting if you’re not Elton John. And other
changes have to be made—that long, refreshing morning fart
has to wait until she’s left the room, and your porn stash has to
be hidden more securely than Anne Frank.

All I’m trying to say, guys, is be sure it’s what you want.
Don’t be embarrassed about your trepidation over handing
the spare set of front-door keys to her. Somewhere in the
back of your mind looms the fear that a testicle or two are
attached to that key ring.

Another thing to consider when wondering whether to com-
mit is timing. Monogamy can lead to great happiness if you’re
with the right person, but you have to make sure it’s the right
time in your life. If you’re currently on a sexual roll, you might
not want to throw it away. Five years, two kids and 45 pounds
of belly fat later, you might not be able to get that hot streak
back. On the flip side, if you’ve hit a cold patch, make sure
you're not jumping on the first vagina train that comes by. It
might take you to a station nowhere near where you want to
go—divorced in New Jersey.

Some men are reluctant to take a relationship to the next lev-
el because they'll lose their own time and their personal space.
Trust me, I fully understand that. But, men, seriously, what
are you doing with all that time and space? Are you writing the
next Great Gatsby, or are you scratching your balls on the couch
while watching Top Shot? Yeah—that’s what I thought.

A great reason to be in a committed relationship is the con-
sistent sex. No more going out every night pretending to be
interested in conversations about shampoo to get laid. When
you live together, it’s right there in front of you whenever
you need it.

But sex shouldn't be the only reason you commit. Sex may
be constant at the beginning of a relationship, but then it be-
comes rarer than a pretty nun and more boring, repetitive
and predictable than a Sylvester Stallone movie. That is, un-
less she’s a mental case. But what’s more important, “crazy in
the bed, crazy in the head” or someone you can share a remote
control—and a life—with?

A great man once said, “The only thing we have to fear is
fear of commitment itself.” I may be paraphrasing, but you
get the idea. When it comes to commitment, if you’re in love
and have thought it through, why not push your chips to the
middle of the table and go all in? What’s the worst thing that
could happen? You lose half your shit. It’s always better to
have new stuff anyway.

Мод Aq әѕџәоц sapun pesn pue AogAejd jo SYlewepes әле UBisag реән иден pue AOSAVTd “Á0GÁBIA L LOZO /woo'seouRs Gey fogheid mmm

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a MANTRACK

At the wheel of McLaren’s new masterpiece

It's not every day McLaren unleashes a new production auto-
mobile. The last one—the F1, with its strange center-positioned
driver's seat and million-dollar price tag—appeared in 1992. Car
freak Jay Leno called it the best ride he'd ever driven. So when we
hitthe road in the new MP4-12C (McLaren could have done bet-
ter with the name) in Chicago and later at Auto Club Speedway in
California, we had high expectations. The first thing we noticed:
the shock that registers on the faces of passersby. Anyone will
recognize this car's competition—a Ferrari 458
Italia or a Lamborghini Gallardo (both roughly
in the same price range). This British car, how-
ever, is a mystery. The second thing we noticed:

the drive! Consider that this
] automobile weighs about

Liquid Gold

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š Flowers are nice but clichéd.
[D Yankees tickets won't do the
| job. If you want to surprise
your lady in hopes of instant
3 romance, nothing will pop her
Cork like a bottle of fine chilled
champagne on a warm spring
night. Pictured: the new 2003
vintage from Dom Pérignon
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about nine seconds and from there back to zero іп 403 feet. McLaren
was founded in the 1960s by Formula One driver Bruce McLaren,
who died tragically in 1970 testing a new racing car. Were he alive
today, this beauty that bears his name would make him proud.

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Look out, Apple. The
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coming on strong. Sony’s
Xperia lon (about $250,
sonymobile.com) runs
Android and has two high-
def cameras: one on the
back for recording and one
on the front for video chats.
The sleek and angular Nokia
Lumia 900 (about $100, nokia
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Groom Town

The idea behind the new grooming products from Imperial:
“Made by barbers, made to work, and made in the USA.” We'll
buy that. From left: classic pomade ($20, imperialbarberproducts
.com), fiber grease ($20), bergamot aftershave ($10), pre-shave
oil ($12), glycerin soap ($12) and gel pomade ($20).

verizon

Му daughter is getting married.
Her mother and I are divorced,
so to keep it “neutral” she has
decided she doesn't want me to
walk her down the aisle. She says
she's afraid her mother's boy-
friend will be upset if he can't do
it, and yet she has asked my son
to escort her. I was on the road
a lot while she was growing up,
so maybe I wasn't the best dad.
But I told her that I am still her
father and would like to walk
her to the altar. Of course, she
still wants me to pay for half the
wedding! I’m looking for per-
spective. Can you help?—s.F,
Fargo, North Dakota

Your daughter will regret this, if
only because it will make her look
petty. Most guests won't understand
why you aren't doing the honors,
since you're standing right there
and hosting the reception, and the
explanation they hear won't make
sense. You can't protect your chil-
dren from every bad decision, so tell
her you're disappointed and you
hope she'll reconsider and leave it
at that. Our hope is that when she
comes to her senses, perhaps years
from nou, she remembers only that
you were gracious, gave her a great
day and love her still. Whatever your
disagreements, we also hope your ex
recognizes you're the man for the job
and explains to your daughter there
will be enough drama that day.

Ive done a lot of research and
testing and found a new pleasure
that involves stretching my scro-
tum with chrome-plated rings.
Its hard to describe the epic-
ness of a loose, hanging scrotum
slapping the butt and/or vulva of
my lover. I have tried all the tie
methods, including rubber las-
sos, shoestrings, etc., and noth-
ing compares. But I worry—are
there negative side effects from
this practice? Would stainless
steel be safer? I use shea butter
to increase skin elasticity. Is that
okay?—S.G., Tucson, Arizona
From what we've read, yes. The
world authority on this practice is
Јатоа Jasper Johansen, whose online
FAQ will answer all your technical
questions. It's posted at secretleather
.com, a U.K.-based site that sells steel
rings, weighted leather “bull” bags,
leather straps and other contrap-
tions. (Some guys also inject saline,
but that's weird.) If the desire to have
your balls stretched seems puzzling to
your partner, ask her to gently tug on

your scrotum, perhaps while she's giving you
а blow job. You'll like it, though perhaps not
as much as steel rings on the scrotum, which a
musician says in the book Modern Primitives

[m a bartender and often serve this porn-star sexy
woman who I know has been around the block. Lately
she's been coming on strong. My worry is she will
find me disappointing because she has slept with so
many guys who are probably better than I am. What
should I do? Practice? Not go through with it to avoid
being embarrassed?—D.D., Queensland, Australia

We believe you are vastly overestimating the number of
guys who are perceived to be good in bed. You'll do fine if you
follow the Advisor's time-tested lovemaking technique (patent
pending): (1) Treat her to a proper date by doing something
novel (e.g., blading, bowling) during the day. This will get
the endorphins flowing (increasing your attractiveness) and
pique her interest. Don't sleep with her yet, man slut. Whet
her appetite. Let her anticipate your skills. (2) After the sec-
ond date, when you give it up, pace yourself. If she brings to
mind a porn star, we'd bet the knuckleheads she's been with
have been treating her like one—wham, bam, guy comes,
scene! So undress her slowly. Work out her knots. Explore her
curves. Make sure she comes first, second, third and fourth.
Dive in there. Fingers, tongue, vibrator. You can climax
between two and three and/or three and four. (3) Enjoy your-
self Make her laugh. It’s supposed to be fun. If it's not, or
you don't think it will be, why bother?

feels "like having your balls licked and sucked
and being played with by someone's hand.
You tend to have a semi-hard-on all the time
when you wear them." He also claims to have

ОКА

TOMER HAN

seen photos of a man who had 14
rings that pushed his testicles to his
knees, which would make it hard to
wear shorts. Johansen believes men
enjoy tugging because our testicles
are designed to hang away from
the body to keep the sperm fac-
tory at an optimum temperature,
and as with everything, a few men
always attempt to stretch any plea-
surable sensation to its extreme. As
you would expect, there are risks to
racking your balls, and if you feel
pain or more than slight discomfort,
you're doing it wrong. Your scrotum
should not turn blue or feel cold,
which indicates you have cut off cir-
culation. As an aficionado known
as the Bagman explains, “This is a
gentle process, done with patience
rather than power”—which ћар-
pens to be the same advice we give
for sex (see left). Just because a little
tension is good, says the Bagman, a
lot is not better. God forbid you ever
hear an ER doctor ask, “What did
you do to your balls?”

| plan to visit Africa. 1 will avoid
drinking the water, but what else
should 1 do to keep from get-
ting sick while traveling?—T.W.,
Omaha, Nebraska

Wash your hands often and
watch what you eat, which is good
advice even if you never leave the
house. According to microbiologist
Dr. Charles Davis, author of The
International Traveler's Guide to
Avoiding Infections, most travelers
who get sick suffer intestinal distress
caused by exposure to foul water
(including from teeth brushing and
ice added to drinks), manure left on
produce or the soiled hands of food
workers. If you don't have access
to clean water, it can be purified
by boiling, by adding iodine tablets
or through portable filtration. For
food, Davis cites the adage “Boil it,
peel it or forget it.” Avoid salads,
unpasteurized milk or cheese, raw
or steamed shellfish and uncooked
vegetables. Fruit is okay if you wash
and peel it yourself: Eat only cooked
food served very hot; avoid food
from street vendors unless it’s pip-
ing hot and you watched it being
cooked. Davis also suggests buying
insurance through services such as
Medexassist.com (800-732-5309)
and InternationalSOS.com (800-
523-8662) and bringing a personal
medical kit, which can be bought
through sites such as Wilderness
Medicine.com, AdventureMedical
Kits.com and Chinookmed.com. Or
you can assemble your own with rou-

tine prescriptions, pain relievers, antibiotics,
oral rehydration solution packets, bandages,
a digital thermometer, insect repellents with
at least 30 percent DEET, sunscreen and

PLAYBOY

sunburn treatment, permethrin-impregnated
clothes and mosquito nets, syringe and needle
kits (for use if you visit a local clinic), water-
purification tablets and condoms (“if the need
is anticipated or even possible,” Davis says).
Some precautions apply to specific regions; for
example, you face the greatest risk of malaria
in sub-Saharan Africa. Davis’s book includes
a list of suggested vaccines for various parts of
the world, though he recommends all travelers
be immunized against hepatitis A, hepatitis
B and typhoid fever and receive boosters for
diphtheria and tetanus.

Can a woman tell by feel during inter-
course if a man is wearing a condom?—
G.D., Los Angeles, California

This sounds like a carnival act at the porno
circus. Step right up! Fuck my assistant! If
she guesses wrong, you could win a baby or
an STD! Or both. A woman can sometimes
tell, but not because of the sensation inside
her vagina, which has relatively few nerve
endings. More likely she would feel the flange
against her vulva or notice a lack of stimula-
tion by the foreskin. But it’s a parlor game, and
in practice the words “guess” and “condom”
should never be used in the same sentence.

Ive had dandruff since I was a teenager.
I use medicated shampoo, but it doesn’t
get rid of it completely. Do some people
suffer from incurable flakes? PC., San
Francisco, California

Dandruff can be stubborn, though most
people keep it under control with over-the-
counter shampoo—typically you scrub it in at
least a few times a week and leave the lather
on for five minutes. Dandruff is not dry skin;
it's marked by an oily, itchy scalp. In most
cases the condition appears to be caused by
a yeast-like fungus known as Malassezia,
named for French anatomist Louis-Charles
Malassez, who in 1874 proposed the connec-
tion. Shampoos such as Neutrogena T/Gel
(which contains coal tar) and Selsun Blue
(selenium sulfide) appear to slow the rate at
which scalp cells die, though many people dis-
like them because of their strong odor. Denorex
has salicylic acid, which loosens flakes so they
are washed away. Head & Shoulders relies
on zinc pyrithione, an antifungal. If nothing
else works, a dermatologist may prescribe a
steroid shampoo such as Capex. People asso-
ciate dandruff with the scalp, but it can hit
the eyebrows, the creases between the nose and
corners of the mouth, the chest, the armpits
and the groin. Rinse thoroughly, especially
the groin, or you risk your partner associating
your genitals with the Industrial Revolution.

Му fiancée confessed (о me that she has
never had an orgasm. I was sure she was
coming every time. I’ve tried my fingers
and tongue, but she tells me it doesn't get
her excited. Apparently she likes hard
thrusting, but no matter how long 1 go
she never gets over the edge. (I tried for
more than an hour once, even though I
came several times.) Should I accept that
she will never reach climax? Should I get
a dildo or vibrator? Could it be a medical

problem? I love her and will do whatever
it takes to give her the pleasure she gives
me.—J.T., Salt Lake City, Utah

That's what we like to hear. Your girlfriend
needs to masturbate with a vibrator and
determine the pressures, speeds and positions
that feel best. Because a thrusting erection
does not directly stimulate the clitoris, most
women can't come that way except in ideal
circumstances (e.g., they are about to climax
before insertion and a vibrator continues to be
applied). The challenge for you will be hold-
ing off for five minutes, let alone an hour, as
the buzz of the moment travels from her clit to
her vaginal walls to every side of your cock.

| have some bottles of alcohol that have
never been opened, yet the contents have
partially disappeared since 2004, when
I moved to Mississippi. A bourbon I re-
ceived in 1975, an Old Grand-Dad from
1982 and a Captain Apple Jack from
2000 have each lost 10 percent. But bot-
tles of tequila and rum and two others of
Old Grand-Dad have lost nothing. Is the
change in climate causing this? 1 moved
from Virginia to Florida in 1989 and then
here.—L.H., Florence, Mississippi

The seals have developed tiny leaks, which
allow the booze to evaporate. They may have
been jostled during your moves, but it's not
unusual for seals to be compromised by age,
especially over decades. Alcohol lost to evapo-
ration in the distilling process is known as “the
angels” share.” But rather than lubricate the
heavens, why not enjoy the spoils with friends?
The problem with legacy booze is that each
year that passes requires a more glorious occa-
sion to justify the ceremony. A distilled spirit
does not age in the bottle, as long as the seal
is true. If the seal is broken and the alcohol is
exposed to oxygen, it starts to age again, and
usually not in a good way.

Our daughter-in-law is blaming us for
our son's affair. As a result, she is severely
limiting visits with our grandchild. My
husband and I practice the consenting-
adults sort of sexual tolerance (we're long-
time PLAYBOY readers), but she has twisted
this to claim we raised our children in a
“pornographic atmosphere” that led to
the creation ofa “sex addict.” We know we
have no legal rights, but is there anything
we can do to improve the situation?—PR.
and S.R., St. Louis, Missouri

Where is your son in all this? Without his
support, you're on thin ice because, as you
note, you have no legal standing, and your
daughter-in-law could cut you off. We under-
stand her anger, but your grandchild should
have the chance to decide from whom he is
estranged. Until he's old enough to do that,
his mother should make sure he's familiar
with everyone who loves him, including his
father, uncles, aunts and cousins. Like many
grandparents, you're in a tough position.

А female friend insists that flirting
can be an innocent gesture—a woman
might get a man's attention and have a
drink and casual conversation but think

nothing more ofit. I say flirting is never
innocent, because a guy always views
it as a promising start. Can you settle
this?—R.L., Los Angeles, California

You’re both right—a woman might not see
an interaction as flirting, but if a guy finds
her attractive, his brain scans for signs at the
speed of light and always finds them. That’s
why a woman can insist she wasn’t flirting,
while a guy is mystified when his advances
are rejected (“But she twisted her hair!”). The
mistake we make is to affix value to any one
sign; you need to see multiple signals over
time. A woman at least needs to maintain eye
contact and give you a broad smile. Women
also apparently have a series of universal
movements that indicate interest. The etholo-
gist Irenäus Eibl-Eibesfeldt documented this
using a camera he could point one way while
it filmed in another, so couples didn’t know
they were being observed. The sequence, seen
across cultures, is (1) smile coyly, (2) arch brow
slightly, (3) quickly lower lids, (4) tuck chin
slightly, (5) avert gaze, (6) place fingers on or
near lips, (7) giggle and (8) extend neck. The
sequence observed in men is summed up well
by cultural anthropologist Conan O’Brien:
“The first thing men notice about a woman is
her eyes. Then, when her eyes aren't looking,
they notice her breasts.”

| know a boy named after his father is
a Junior, but what about a girl who is
named after her mother?—N.D., Port
Townsend, Washington

She can be a Junior, though it's unusual.
Anna Eleanor Roosevelt Jr. and Joan Craw-
ford Jr. (later Christina) come to mind. The
practice of using “Jr.” caught on here in the
18th century because the religious refugees
who populated the colonies drew from the lim-
ited pool of names found in the Bible. That
meant uncles, nephews, cousins and some-
times brothers shared а name, and “Jr,” “II”
or “2nd” would be used to distinguish them. It
wasn't until after the Revolution that the pool
expanded to include such names as Franklin,
Jefferson and Otis. Things get tricky ifa name
is common in a family, e.g., if John Jr. has a
cousin John II who names his son John III,
he'd be expected to name his own son John IV.
What happens when a patriarch dies? Does
everyone move up? That can be done, but
it’s easier if the suffix isn't part of your legal
name. And while we understand the appeal
of being promoted if you're 50 and still called
Junior, being bumped from III to Jr. probably
won't get you laid any more often.

All reasonable questions—from fashion, food
and drink, stereos and sports cars to dating
dilemmas, taste and etiquette—will be per-
sonally answered if the writer includes a self-
addressed, stamped envelope. The most inter-
esting, pertinent questions will be presented
in these pages. Write the Playboy Advisor, 335
North Maple Drive, Beverly Hills, California
90210, or send e-mail to adoisor@playboy
.com. For updates, visit playboyadvisor.com
and follow @playboyadvisor on Twitter.

When Hugh Hefner founded the
first Playboy Club in Chicago, he
wanted a female waitstaff that
would embody the Playboy fan-
tasy. 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 amazon.
com to order. (176 pages, $35,
Chronicle Books)

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REVERSALS GALORE

WHEN IT COMES ТО EXPLETIVES, WE САМТ MAKE UP OUR MINDS

BY PAUL KRASSNER

ine years ago, Robin Williams, Penn and Teller,
N Margaret Cho, Tom and Dick Smothers, First
Amendment scholars, lawyers and Lenny Bruce's
daughter Kitty signed a petition addressed to New York
governor George Pataki. Referring to Вгисе 1964
obscenity conviction over his performance at the Cafe
au Go Go in Greenwich Village, it stated, “A pardon now
is too late to save
Lenny Bruce. But
a posthumous par-
don would set the
record straight and
thereby demon-
strate New York's
commitment to
freedom—free
speech, free press,
freethinking.”
Two months la-
ter, the governor
was giving this
obvious no-brainer
“serious consider-
ation.” Finally, in
December 2003,
he granted Bruce
a posthumous
pardon. “Free-

dom of speech is
one of the great

American liber-
ties,” Pataki said.
“I hope this par-
don serves as a
reminder of the
precious freedoms
we are fighting
to preserve as we
continue to wage
the war on terror-
ism.” Bruce would
have been amused
by the irony that
the governor par-
doned him in the
context of justify-
ing an invasion of
Iraq, which Bruce
would undoubt-
edly have opposed.

The Federal Communications Commission has de-
clared fuck to be “one of the most vulgar, graphic and
explicit descriptions of sexual activity in the English
language,” no matter the context. And conservative
pundit Dennis Prager characterizes the fight over fuck

as central to civilization’s “battle to preserve itself.”

Nevertheless, at the live Billboard Music Awards show
in 2002, Cher responded to her critics, “People have
been telling me I’m on my way out every year, right?
So fuck ’em. I still have a job and they don’t.” The next
year, on that same awards show, Nicole Richie recounted
her experience on the Simple Life series: “Have you ever
tried to get cow shit out of a Prada purse? It’s not so

fucking simple.”
In both instances,
the FCC ruled that
Fox TV had vio-
lated its standards
of decency because
any use of the word
“inherently has a
sexual connota-
tion.” Each viola-
tion could result
in a fine as high as
$325,000.

Also in 2003,
when Bono ге-
ceived an award at
the Golden Globes
ceremony, he said,
“This is really,
really fucking bril-
liant.” The FCC
ruled Bono had
not violated broad-
cast standards, be-
cause his use of the
offending word
was “unfortunate”
but “fleeting and
isolated.” It was
merely an “excla-
mative” adjective.
The FCC did not
consider Bono’s
utterance to be
indecent, because,
in context, he ob-
viously didn’t use
the word fucking to
“describe sexual or
excretory organs
or activities.”

In 2004, in a
duet with Janet Jackson during the halftime extrava-
ganza at the Super Bowl, Justin Timberlake sang the
lyric “Gonna have you naked by the end of this song,”
and in what was defended as “a wardrobe malfunction,”
he reached over and exposed Jackson’s right breast for
nine sixteenths of a second. I had never seen the me-
dia make such a mountain out of a molehill. Moreover,

that moment served as an excuse to
crack down on indecency during an
election year. The FCC reversed its
decision on Bono, contending that
his utterance was “indecent and pro-
fane” after all. But an appeals court
reversed the reversal, and Bono was,
once again, not guilty.

In 2007 a CBS lawyer argued
that the network shouldn't be fined
$550,000 for Jackson’s breast bar-
ing because it was fleeting, isolated
and unauthorized. But a three-judge
panel in a federal appeals court ruled
in favor of Fox TV’s challenge against
the FCC for indecent and profane
language. During the live broadcast
of that court hearing, C-Span view-
ers were treated to such uncensored
words and phrases as motherfucker, eat
shit and fuck the USA.

The court stated that “in recent
times, even the top leaders of our
government have used variants of
these expletives in a manner that no
reasonable person would believe ref-
erenced ‘sexual or excretory organs
or activities.“ Indeed, Vice President
Dick Cheney was caught on the Sen-
ate floor saying
"Go fuck your-
self” to Senator
Patrick Leahy,
who had com-
plained about
Halliburton's war
profiteering and
President George
W. Bush's judi-
cial nominees.
On the same day,
in a 99-to-one
vote, the Senate
passed legisla-
tion described as
the Defense of
Decency Act. The
Washington Times
reported that Cheney “responded
with a barnyard epithet, urging Mr.
Leahy to perform an anatomical sex-
ual impossibility."

Still, the Bush administration ap-
pealed the FCC v. Fox decision on
"fleeting expletives," and the case was
argued before the Supreme Court
in 2008. Justice John Paul Stevens
wondered aloud if the word dung
would be considered indecent. Solic-
itor General Gregory Garre warned
that loosening indecency standards
could lead to "Big Bird dropping the
F-bomb on Sesame Street."

Meanwhile, an appeals court ruled
that the FCC had "acted arbitrarily
and capriciously" in the Janet Jackson

FORUM

case, observing that the flashing of her
breast happened too fast to be con-
sidered "so pervasive as to amount to
“shock treatment’ for the audience.”
So the FCC asked the Supreme Court
to appeal that ruling.

In 2009—six days after Fox News
anchor Shepard Smith shouted on
the air, "We are America! I don't give
a rat's ass if it helps [get information
from suspected terrorists]! We do
not fucking torture!"—a Supreme
Court ruling in the Bono case re-
versed the reversal of the reversal,
and suddenly it was retroactively
unacceptable for him to say "This
is really, really fucking brilliant."
But then, in 2010, an appeals court
struck down the FCC policy, because
barring the use of "fleeting exple-
tives" violated the First Amendment
and could inhibit free speech. Thus,
the reversal of the reversal of the re-
versal was reversed.

In January 2012—another elec-
tion year—the Supreme Court heard
arguments for invalidating the FCC
policy that punishes broadcasters for
alring those dangerous expletives.

What's vulgar? Bono and the Edge at the Golden Globes.

'The Court will consider the consti-
tutionality of an FCC action against
the television show NYPD Blue for
showing partial nudity, as well as the
naughty-language cases of Cher and
Nicole Richie.

As for Bono's casual use of such
a hazardous word, if the Court re-
verses the reversal of the reversal
of the reversal of the reversal of his
right to say it on the air, then what
could be next? Will former governor
Pataki decide to revoke his posthu-
mous pardon of Lenny Bruce? All
I know is that when the little kids
on my block are playing, they actu-
ally curse at each other by yelling,
“Bleep you!"

BY JENNIFER ABEL

merica has a long record of
A warped attitudes surround-
ing sex and nudity—this
magazine's legal history proves
that—but before the days of the
Transportation Security Adminis-
tration, the problem was one-sided:
If you wanted to display your
gender-specific parts or to have
your sexy bits rubbed by someone
other than your legal spouse, you
risked trouble. But if you wanted
none of that, the government backed
you completely.

This all changed in 2010 when
the TSA implemented its “enhanced
pat-down” policy. Henceforth, any
American wishing to fly must first
play the submissive in а creepy S&M
scene: Spread your legs, raise your
hands and remain silent, still and
perfectly respectful while the dom,
wearing a TSA uniform in lieu of
traditional black leather, reaches
up between your thighs to braille
out whatever is there.

They do this to kids too, though
people who touch their own offspring
like this are called pedophiles, and
parents who protest might even get
their names on a terrorist watch list.
Subs can theoretically avoid the grope-
down by posing for nude photos. You
needn't even disrobe: Just adopt that
same submissive hands-up pose while
a scanner emits potentially cancerous
radiation that burrows through cloth-
ing and bounces off skin, letting the
doms see what you look like naked.
(And if they like what they see, they
get to grope you anyway.)

Do you know the South Park epi-
sode in which wannabe supervillain
Professor Chaos, plotting to destroy
the town in a cataclysmic flood, turns
his parents’ garden hose on full
blast? Now imagine the government,
citing terrorist-tsunami concerns,
not only banning garden hoses but
mandating the photographing or
fondling of all travelers’ genitalia
in case contraband hoses are coiled
therein. That’s how the TSA reacted

to the would-be зћое and underwear bombers: All threats
are created equal, plausibility be damned.

Not until nine years after the
September 11, 2001 attacks did
the TSA adopt sadomasochism as
a guideline. The agency routinely
violated our Fourth Amendment
rights from the get-go, of course,
but its early days were more like
Monty Python than Story of O.

“No more nail clippers on air-

planes! Okay, nail clippers. But no
more shampoo! Okay, shampoo.
But no more than three ounces!
Okay, but just 3.4 ounces.” Before
the molestation mandate, still will-
ing to fly, I adjusted to the TSA's
capricious bans
as best I could.
Smuggling
tweezers and
other verbo-
ten groom-
ing items onto
a plane was
easy—just
shove them
deep within a
change purse,
surrounded
by coins. I
wasted ridicu-
lous amounts
of time de-
canting per-
sonal cleans-
ing liquids
into three-
ounce bottles
because I
grow my hair
long for rea-
sons of vanity
and use lots
of hair spray,
styling mousse
and other
products that
make men's
eyes glaze
over when I
discuss them
at length.

Of course,
I shouldn’t
have to discuss

them at all DON'T TREAD ON ME: A traveler submits to a full-body scan at Pittsburgh International Airport.

while discuss-

ing national security. But real security can't be had from
guardians who refuse to distinguish between a terrorist
plot and a woman's hairstyling regimen.

The agency took a darker turn after Christmas 2009,
when Professor Chaos's kindred spirit set his thigh on fire
in a ludicrous bombing attempt. The TSA again lashed out
at the public it supposedly protects, decreeing that during
a flight's final hour passengers had to stay in their seats

FORUM

APOLOGISTS CLAIM
THE TRANSPORTATION
SECURITY
ADMINISTRATION IS THE
ONLY THING PREVENTING
ANOTHER TERRORIST
ATTACK. THEY'RE WRONG.

and keep their laps empty and hands visible at all times—
no books, electronics or jackets would be allowed. As

usual for the TSA, this did noth-
ing to improve safety but merely
expressed the agency's bottom-
less contempt for such concepts
as constitutional rights and basic
human dignity. Convicted se-
rial killers being shipped off to
a supermax prison may need to
travel by such rules, but ordinary
Americans do not.

No matter how outrageously the
agency behaves, apologists claim
the TSA is the only thing pre-
venting another terrorist attack.
They're wrong. Those hijackers
11 years ago
exploited two
loopholes that
have since
been closed by
strengthening
cockpit doors
against forced
entry and by
letting pas-
sengers know
that the old
conventional
wisdom (“In a
hijacking, your
safest bet is co-
operating with
the hijackers")
is wrong.

TSA apolo-
gists also say,
"If you don't
like it, don't
fly," as though
the Fourth
Amendment
right against
unreasonable
searches did
not apply to
mass transit
(which the
TSA indeed
believes). Its
ominous Visi-
ble Intermod-
al Prevention
and Response
squads slither
throughout
the rest of

America's transportation infrastructure: buses, subways
and trains. If you don't like it, stay home and think happy
free-country thoughts.

And to hell with the claim that TSA agents are just poor
working-class folks doing their jobs, undeserving of the
scorn heaped on them. You needn't be wealthy or well
educated to know—and respect—the difference between
securing transportation and playing grab-ass all day.

FORUM

READER RESPONSE

THE HOME FRONT
On August 6, 2011 San Diego police
officer Jeremy Henwood was shot dead
in his patrol car as he waited at a red
light. Henwood was a captain in the

Jeremy Henwood's chief poys his respects.
Marine Corps Reserves and served three
deployments in Iraq and Afghanistan.
He was not “at war” with the community
he served, and as a police officer myself,
nor am I (“Cops at War,” December).
Jessika Kynett
Livingston, Montana

It's not just local cops at war with their
communities; federal agencies have for
decades conducted senseless and expen-
sive battles against drugs, terror, illegal
immigrants—you name it, they are or
soon will be at war with it. Although
crime rates are dropping in most places,
the number of law enforcement agents
and their budgets are ever increasing.

Andrzej Kubis
Chicago, Illinois

WAGE SLAVES
Thomas Frank demonstrates in his
commentary about the Tea Party (Com-
petitive Dissent,” January/February) that
he has no understanding of the Con-
stitution, capitalism or objectivism. The
founders hoped to limit federal power,
not open a door for a welfare state. And
no true capitalist would accept a bailout.
Progressives are pursuing a form of slav-
ery by forcing people to work against
their will for the benefit of others. Even-
tually taxpayers will go on strike and the
system will collapse.
Charles Mould
Merlin, Oregon

DREAM ON

Shame on Eric Klinenberg (“The
Breaks,” January/February) for dismiss-
ing the validity ofthe American dream.

Where would Hugh Hefner, among
many other examples, be without it?
Arguing that anyone should view the
Breakers mansion or its original own-
ers with resentment or shame is defeatist
thinking that insults the principles of this
great country.

John Ganz

Bethlehem, Pennsylvania

BONG REMAINS THE SAME
In January 1969 you published a
letter I wrote to Forum about an arti-
cle I had read in The Dallas Morning
News. Richard Dorsey, 58, a shoeshine-
stand operator, was sentenced by a local
judge to 50 years in prison for selling
a matchbox of marijuana for $5 to an
undercover cop. You noted that the sen-
tence was extreme but not unique and
that state laws were all over the place.
For example, while North Dakota pun-
ished possession with up to 99 years of
hard labor, neighboring South Dakota
until 1968 had a maximum sentence of
90 days. To my knowledge, this was the
first time such information had been
published in a widely read, national
magazine, and it sparked a dialogue that
continues to this day. This letter is to
thank you for publishing that response
so many years ago.
Richard Sadler
Memphis, Tennessee
Thank you for writing—both times. State
laws are generally more consistent and less
draconian today, though Texas remains a
tough place to get busted. According to the
National Organization for the Reform of
Marijuana Laws, no state prosecutes more
of its residents for marijuana offenses, and
97 percent of arrests are for possession alone.
Other states to avoid include Oklahoma,
Ka

This was once worth 50 years in Texas.

Florida, Louisiana and Arizona. You can
check the laws in your state at norml.org/
states. Notably, Dorsey had been arrested
before; a 1952 raid on his home included

an early example of a tactic that gives police
a powerful incentive to continue the war—
asset forfeiture. During the raid, Dallas
police discovered “400 grains” of marijuana
in Dorsey's 1948 convertible. They promptly
seized the car, citing a federal court ruling
that allowed them to confiscate automobiles
used to transport narcotics. In fact, an offi-
cer boasted, it was the third car they had
taken in raids that week.

OBAMA AT WAR
I am glad to see that PLAYBOY, one
of the last honest magazines around,

St. Louis holds a parade for Iraq War vets.

continues to support our troops while
exposing the fact that they are being
put in unnecessary danger. The best
way to support the troops is to bring
them home. During World War II we
had a clear objective, and in four years
the troops came home to their families
and jobs. Now, after 10 years, we have
no objectives. President Obama failed on
his 2008 campaign promise to end the
conflicts—I’ve seen cars with END THE WAR
and ELECT OBAMA stickers whose owners
apparently fail to see the disconnect.

Liz Feola

Bethel, Connecticut

WHERE TO BEGIN
David Rothkopf blames capitalism
for the huge income gap between rich
and poor (“The Inequality Machine,”
March). But he makes the classic liberal
mistake of confusing equal opportu-
nity with equal results. Equal outcomes
require socialistic policies and preferen-
tial treatment. Striving for equal results
would destroy capitalism and lead to a
lower standard of living for everyone.
Robert Walton
Englewood, Colorado

E-mail via the web at letters.playboy.com.
Or write: 335 North Maple Drive, Beverly
Hills, California 90210.

FORUM

NEWSFRONT

Punked

BANDA ACEH, INDONESIA—Police in the Aceh
province, which observes sharia law, raided
a punk-rock concert and arrested 64 fans,
shaved their heads, bathed them in a lake,

forced them to pray and sent them to a
10-day “moral rehabilitation” camp. The
Muslim youth did not go quietly; a reporter
noted that whenever commanders turned
away during hours of military drilling, fists
and peace signs appeared and shouts rang
out: “Punk will never die!”

Four-Letter Fans

SAN DIEGO—While attending a Chargers
game to cheer for the opposing team, an
off-duty L.A. cop was ejected for telling two
hometown fans to fuck off. The policeman
filed a federal lawsuit, arguing that city and
NFL bans on profane language at games
violate the First Amendment. The city and
the league say the restriction is necessary
to maintain a family-friendly atmosphere,
which online commentators noted could
also be accomplished by not selling beer.

Balloon Theory

Bolstered by $5 billion of American aid,
Colombia has cut the production of coca, the
base for cocaine, by 65 percent since 2000.
Meanwhile it has grown 45 percent in Peru
and nearly doubled in Bolivia. Scholars call
this "the balloon effect hen you squeeze
in one spot it grows larger in another.

The One Percent

What does it take to be in the one percent?
In the U.S. you need an annual income of

V1@gra Villains

A team of computer scientists at the
University of California investigated the
origins of those ubiquitous e-mails that
promise $3 Viagra without a prescrip-
tion. The researchers, who specialize
in "spamalytics," traced 365 million
links found in spam e-mails to 69,000
sites operated by 45 companies, most of
them in Russia. They also made 56 ran-
dom purchases. Although 91 percent of
the orders were filled, it was impossible
to tell what was in the pills, nearly all of
which originated in India or China. Most
people delete spam, but a rogue oper-
ator can easily send so many e-mails
(usually from home computers hijacked
by automated "bots") that he can earn
thousands of dollars a day, even with
a response rate of only 0.000001 per-
cent. The California scientists estimate
a spammer must unleash 12.5 million
e-mails to sell $100 worth of fake Via-
gra. Besides the fact that pills ordered
via spam are unlikely to contain any
or enough active ingredients, there are
medical risks. Earlier this year doctors
in Singapore reported in The New Eng-
land Journal of Medicine that they had
traced an outbreak of severe hypoglyce-
mia to fake Cialis and herbal erection
drugs. Of 149 victims admitted to hos-
pitals over a five-month period, seven
fell into comas and four others died.

$109,337. As a global citizen you need
just $34,000; earning $3.35 a day puts
you squarely in the middle class. But
things are looking up at the bottom. The
UN projects that by 2015 only 15 percent
of the world's population will live on $1
a day or less, down from 42 percent in
1990, mostly due to growth in China.

Cloudy Judgment

SEOUL—A Dutch firm apologized after pro-
posing a design for a pair of skyscrapers
that resemble the
World Trade Cen-
ter's Twin Towers
after they were
struck by planes on
9/11. The cluster of
cubes jutting from
the center of the
buildings hides a
Sky bridge at about
the 50th story and
was supposed to
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/ a a a

s DAVID BROOKS

A candid conversation with the New York Times house conservative about why
both Democrats and Republicans hate him and how he drifted from left to right

In a polarized America, it’s common for po-
litical commentators to be hated by those on
the right or left, but David Brooks is an equal
opportunity target—he’s loathed by both. He
also has ardent fans from both parties; he’s
been called the left’s favorite conservative and
the right’s sanest voice. New York magazine
called him “the essential columnist of the mo-
ment, better than anyone at crystallizing the
questions we face—ones for which there are
often no good answers.”

In addition to his twice-weekly New York
Times column, Brooks is a ubiquitous presence
on TV and radio (where he’s a commentator
on PBS, NPR and other news talk shows), the
author of best-selling books and a sought-after
public speaker. Though he’s known to favor Re-
publicans and is considered one of the Times’
token conservative columnists, it’s impossible
to pigeonhole him. One minute he’s taking on
big government, praising Mitt Romney and
virulently criticizing President Obama, and
the next he’s attacking the GOP and right-
wing news itself. “The rise of [Glenn] Beck,
[Sean] Hannity, Bill O’Reilly and the rest has
correlated almost perfectly with the decline of
the GOR” he once wrote in a column. Attack-
ing back, Mark Levin, a popular conservative
radio host, told Politico that Brooks is “irrele-
vant.” Levin’s wrong at least about that. Like

him or loathe him, it’s inarguable that Brooks
is one of the most read, quoted and debated
commentators in America.

Brooks describes himself as a moderate
conservative, which allows him a kind of
freedom that other, more partisan pundits
lack. He’s definitely no party loyalist. Despite
his current sharp criticisms of the president,
last election he supported Obama, much to
the chagrin of Republicans. Things are dif-
ferent this year. His columns have so enraged
the White House that the president himself
has called to complain.

Brooks’s right-leaning politics are unexpected
for someone with his background. Born in
Canada, he was raised in Greenwich Village,
New York in the 1960s. His parents were ar-
dent Democrats. Brooks followed their liberal
leanings until college, when, he says, “I came
to my senses.” It wasn’t until 1984, when he
supported Ronald Reagan’s reelection, that he
cast a Republican vote in a presidential elec-
tion. His most recent book, a New York Times
best-seller, is The Social Animal: The Hidden
Sources of Love, Character and Achievement.
Brooks, married with three children, lives in
Bethesda, Maryland.

To grill Brooks about the coming election
and other political and social issues, Contrib-
uting Editor David Sheff flew to Washington,

D.C. Sheff, who recently interviewed Congress-
man Barney Frank and wrote a remembrance
of Steve Jobs for the magazine, filed this те-
port: “For PLAYBOY I’ve interviewed commen-
tators on both sides of the political spectrum,
including, on the right, Bill O’Reilly, and on
the left, Bill Maher, both fiery and adamant
about their opinions. David Brooks was a rare
exception. He was soft-spoken, thoughtful
and even tentative. For him nothing is black-
and-white. This isn’t to say he doesn’t have
strong opinions that he expresses articulately.
What may not come through in his columns
and on-the-air commentary is that he’s also
self-deprecating, with a dry sense of humor.

“Our interview was held in the midst of
the early wave of Republican primaries,
when there was no clear winner, though Mitt
Romney was ahead of the pack. In politics
things change, often daily, but at press time
it was likely that Romney would be the one to
face off with Obama. Unsurprisingly, Brooks
had lots to say about the election.”

PLAYBOY: Okay, the million-dollar ques-
tion: Will Obama be a one-term president,
or is he destined to be reelected?

BROOKS: At the moment he’s the slight
underdog. He’s doing better, though.
It’s hard for a president to win without

“People want that Norman Rockwell time
again. Guys who played by the rules, went to
high school, worked hard—they see all these
assholes who didn't play by the rules getting
rewarded, and they feel screwed.”

“The weakness of both sides suggests an opening for
a white working-class candidate in a third party.
If Pat Buchanan ran with Ralph Nader, there
could be such a strong left-right coalition behind
them that they would get 30 percent of the vote.”

PHOTOGRAPHY BY KEN CEDENO

“The family came under attack in the 1970s.
Marriage offers a kind of stability that can help
you. People struggle because they don’t have
that foundation. I think the ideal number of
sexual partners to have in a year is one.”

PLAYBOY

the approval of more than 50 percent of
the country. In some polls he has hit 50.
Bush, in his reelection, hit 48. A candi-
date can win within kissing distance of
50. He'll continue to look stronger if the
economy gets better. However, Pennsyl-
vania, a state Democrats have won five
times in a row, looks challenging, and if
Pennsylvania goes, Ohio goes. Then he
would have to win Florida and Virginia,
but if Romney, who I think will be the
nominee, picks Marco Rubio as running
mate, Florida becomes a challenge.
PLAYBOY: Conventional wisdom is that the
economy is the reason for the low poll
numbers. Do you agree?

BROOKS: The largest factor is that the
economy sucks, yes, but that's not all of
it. There has been a shift to the right in
this country on all sorts of issues. When
people saw Obama's activism, they
pulled back.

PLAYBOY: You're arguing that Obama is too
much of an activist? Many of his support-
ers, and especially former supporters, feel
he hasn't acted strongly enough.
BROOKS: It all came from health care.
There was a recoil because of that, and
nothing's really changed since. The
Republicans haven't picked up anything,
but Obama hasn't regained anything. It
was a mistake to do health care in the
middle of the recession. People weren't
interested in it. It's still unpopular.
Beyond that and the economy, the fact
is there are twice as many conservatives
as liberals now, and a good third of the
country is independent. He was right
not to be a pure liberal, and liberals are
upset about that. They'll vote for him,
but his big problem is that he failed to
present a coherent policy for indepen-
dents. However, he basically spent 2011
with an open hand to the Republicans,
saying, "Okay, let's make a deal. Let's
negotiate." And the Republicans were
saying no. That laid out a story that he
was being reasonable and the Republi-
cans were not. That story is lodged in a
lot of people's minds, especially indepen-
dent voters, who were hostile to him a
year ago and aren't as much now.
PLAYBOY: What explains America's shift
to the right?

BROOKS: To be a member of the white
working class is to be in a bad place these
days. Job prospects are pretty bad. Wages
are pretty bad. You feel cut off from gov-
ernment. I think the main driver is a
feeling that there is an American tradi-
tion we're departing from with too-big
government, cultural elites who have
no sympathy for them and values they
don't recognize. As has been said, the Tea
Party is using Abbie Hoffman means to
achieve Norman Rockwell ends. People
want that Norman Rockwell time again,
even if in some ways it's an illusion. Guys
who played by the rules, went to high
school, graduated, worked hard, are car-
penters or whatever—they see all these
assholes who didn't play by the rules

getting rewarded, and they feel screwed,
and they're mad about it.

PLAYBOY: Democrats would claim they're
the party devoted to protecting the work-
ing class from the Wall Street fat cats,
that they're trying to reel in the—as you
call them—assholes who didn't play by
the rules and were lavishly rewarded.
BROOKS: But people blame government
more than Wall Street. In polls, when
people are asked, “Do you trust govern-
ment to do the right thing most of the
time?" the number of Americans who
said yes used to be 70 percent; now it's I
think at nine percent. They're suspicious
of government. The Democrats' problem
is that they're the cultural elite or are at
least perceived to be. If the white middle
class has a choice between Harvard and
Bain Capital, they'll go for Bain Capital.
They don't like Bain, but they prefer it
to Harvard. They feel slightly more at
home with business capitalist values than
so-called cultural elite values.

PLAYBOY: Does the middle class relate to
the Occupy movement, which attacks the
disparity of one percent of Americans
having 42 percent of the wealth?

George Bush was 60 IQ
points smarter in private than
he was in public. He doesn't
want anybody to think he's
smarter than they are, so he
puts on a Texas act.

BROOKS: My guess is that they view the
Occupy movement as a bunch of rich
kids who majored in English and poetry.
I also think they would differ on a core
belief of the Occupy movement that peo-
ple have become powerless against the
corporations. Many middle-class Ameri-
cans don't believe that. They still believe
that you control your own economic
destiny. Most Americans are still firmly
convinced that if you work hard, you'll
succeed. And they don't believe that the
government is going to help them, which
is why they support the capitalist ethos.
PLAYBOY: Still, there's evidence that
there's no passionate support for the
Republican side.

BROOKS: Actually, the weakness of both
sides suggests an opening for a white
working-class candidate in a third party.
If it comes down to Obama against Rom-
ney, there's a huge opening. I was having
coffee with a friend yesterday, and we
were saying that if Pat Buchanan ran
with Ralph Nader, there could be such
a strong left-right working-class coalition
behind them that they would get 30 per-
cent of the vote, no problem.

PLAYBOY: Nader and Buchanan? Talk
about an unlikely pairing. They repre-
sent extremes on the left and the right.
BROOKS: Actually, they agree on a lot. They
agree on corporate stuff and are both against
the Washington business oligarchy.
PLAYBOY: At the time of this interview
there's no strong third-party movement.
How much of a challenge does Romney
face to get the nomination?

BROOKS: He has glaring weaknesses,
obviously. Americans want a sense that
they know where your character comes
from, and they don't think it comes
from politics. You'd better have a story
about how your pre-political charac-
ter emerged. For John McCain it was
the prisoner-of-war story. For Obama
it was the search for his father and the
rise from his childhood to Harvard Law
School. For Clinton it was also the trau-
matic family. You have to have a story to
tell, and that's a problem for Romney.
He can't say, “My dad was a millionaire
and I'm a millionaire. I served as a mis-
sionary in France and tried to convert
people in Bordeaux to give up wine."
'That's his story, but he can't say that.
Peter Hart, the pollster, did a focus
group in Ohio where he asked people
who from their middle-school class the
candidates reminded them of. Before
the sexual allegations that caused him
to drop out, Herman Cain reminded
people of the funny, popular kid. Rick
Perry reminded them of the bully. Rom-
ney reminded them of the rich kid with
all the privileges. That's his problem.
PLAYBOY: And yet you think he can win?
BROOKS: Yes, because the general rule is
that the second-term election is a refer-
endum on the incumbent. Especially if
the economy still sucks, the late deciders
will say, ^Let's go for something differ-
ent." But it's getting tighter as things get
a little better.

PLAYBOY: You've made it clear that you've
been disappointed by Obama, saying you
were "a sap" for believing in him. What
has most disappointed you?

BROOKS: I still have personal admiration
for him. But I was talking with my good
friend E.J. Dionne Jr. of The Washington
Post, who also admires Obama. I realized
that we admire totally different Obamas. I
admire the post-partisan guy who's going
to rise above partisanship and unite the
country. He admires the liberal commu-
nity activist. I thought my Obama was the
real Obama. He thought his was. In the
past year, I guess I'd say he has more rea-
son to think his Obama is the real Obama.
Personally, I still respect him. He has
remarkable skills and remarkable intel-
lect. I thought he was the right person
to change the tone and run an intellec-
tually honest administration. In some
ways he's lived up to that, but in some
ways he's been way too political—stupidly
political and shortsighted.

PLAYBOY: Is your main complaint that he
has been too liberal?

BROOKS: The basis of my conservatism is
epistemological modesty, the idea that
we can't know much. I'm suspicious of
people in Washington thinking they can
understand complex systems well enough
to regulate them. Obama has a lot more
confidence in technocrats to understand
and solve complex problems. With finan-
cial reform, he gave a lot of power to
regulators. In Medicare reform he gave a
lot of power to a board of experts—more
regulators. I think no one's that smart.
I guess that's why he's a Democrat and
I'm not. Democrats believe that if you get
smart people in a room, they can solve a
problem, and I don't agree.

PLAYBOY: You don't want regulation, but
do you disagree that unbridled capital-
ism is at least partly

responsible for the

decade's economic

Conservatism should be all about context.
For example, from a proper conservative
point of view, it's insane to have a univer-
sal rule about taxes. If you need revenue,
then taxes are an instrument to provide
the revenue you need. They've turned
it into this ideology where you never
have tax increases. That goes against
the whole grain of what conservatism is
supposed to be about. I’ve written more
columns than I ever thought I would that
basically say a pox on both your houses,
wishing for that third party.

PLAYBOY: Republican or not, other than
Obama, in debates and your column
you most often defend or advocate the
GOP point of view. In the meantime,
many Republicans espouse views you’ve

PLAYBOY: If Bachmann had become the
Republican nominee, would you have
switched sides?
BROOKS: I don't know if I'd have switched
sides. We’re not supposed to endorse can-
didates, but it’s inconceivable that I would
ever vote for Bachmann. Or Palin or Ging-
rich or Cain. I’m not going to vote for Ron
Paul either. Of the seven or eight candi-
dates who were vying for the nomination,
it’s inconceivable I’d ever vote for most of
them. That doesn’t mean I’d switch camps.
I’m in a camp of moderate Republicans
who probably all feel the same way about
most of these candidates.
PLAYBOY: If you represent the true middle
of the political spectrum, which you claim
is unrepresented in the election, how
about you? Have you
ever been tempted
to leave journal-

= TOTALLY AGAVE. 2227
BROOKS: My general e candidate?
political philosophy BROOKS: I was

is to use govern-
ment to help the
market function
better. I'm not a lib-
ertarian. I'm not a
liberal. Pm a Ham-
iltonian precisely
for that reason.
PLAYBOY: Have you
had any moral
quandaries about
calling yourself
a Republican at
a time when the
party has gotten
far more conserva-
tive, reflecting the
influence of the Теа
Party and the reli-
gious right?
BROOKS: They have
a name for us now,
RINOs—Repub-
licans in name
only—which I guess
describes me. I don't
mind being a rhino.
They're strong,
fierce animals.
PLAYBOY: Not all
Republicans accept
that as an option. Some say you're a trai-
tor to their party.

BROOKS: If you talk to Rush Limbaugh,
Sean Hannity or Laura Ingraham, they
don't regard me as a Republican or a
conservative. I think I am. I think I'm
the original conservative. I guess I'd say
I'm a conservative and not a Republican.
I've never identified as a Republican,
and that's because I'm a journalist, not
a political activist. The fact is, if you look
at Sarah Palin and Michele Bachmann,
they're deeply anti-conservative.
PLAYBOY: They and their supporters
would vehemently disagree.

BROOKS: They are, because they're ide-
ological. Conservatives shouldn't be.

TOTALLY SMOOTH.

LUNAZUL
A gz

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ardently disagreed with. They deny
global warming, oppose abortion, dis-
believe evolution and want creationism
taught in schools. From your writing and
commentary, it's clear you disagree with
those positions. How do you support a
party you disagree with?

BROOKS: We all make choices. If Romney
has a Medicare plan I like but he doesn't
think global warming is real, or he pre-
tends he doesn't, ГЇЇ take that, because
Medicare is more important at the
moment. Global warming isn't an issue
foremost on my mind at the moment,
though if the oceans were about to flood
Bethesda—if global warming became the
most salient issue—I'd go for Al Gore.

100% DE AGAVE « y
~ —

born in Toronto,
so I could never ђе
president. But any-
way, no. On one
book tour, I did 14
interviews and three
speeches in one
day, which is like
being a candidate.
I don't like people
that much. Obama
isn't quite like this,
but Clinton and
McCain- they never
want to be alone,
and they're per-
fectly happy. They
feed off people.
Гуе seen it a zillion
times while covering
them. That's how
they get sustenance.
It's not food and
water they need, it's
attention. Obama's
a little more like me.
He doesn't need
people.

PLAYBOY: From the
perspective of some-
one who spent time
with them both, how else are Clinton
and Obama different?

BROOKS: I don’t have anything new to say
about Clinton. He’s the most seductive
and impressive personality. I ask people
who were in both the Obama and the
Clinton administrations who is smarter,
and they have trouble saying. Clin-
ton had the essential boomer problem,
narcissism, and the lack of a big com-
mitment to a big idea that he was going
to accomplish. Clinton had the most
political skills, though. I always look at
candidates as pitchers in spring training:
You look at who has the best skills, and
that would be Clinton. Obama’s pretty
good, though.

PLAYBOY

PLAYBOY: Has Obama changed since he's
been president?

BROOKS: He's still basically smart and
charming, an impressive guy who can
talk about policy on whatever you ask
him. The changes have come from learn-
ing the limitations of the office. I don’t
think he appreciated how little power a
president has. The other change is his
rising aggravation with Washington. He’s
thinking, I’m trying to be serious here,
but I’m surrounded by jokers and ass-
holes. I think there’s a rising level of bile
about that. I think it makes him less effec-
tive and less pleasant to be around.
PLAYBOY: Has he ever called you because
he was angry about a column?

BROOKS: Uh-huh.

PLAYBOY: What's it like to be yelled at by
the president?

BROOKS: It’s not pleasant but not unpleas-
ant. He’ll say, “Let’s put aside the six
things that were morally offensive about
what you wrote, and let’s get to the issue.”
So he'll shove aside the things that bugged
him, and then he'll want to have a serious
civil discussion about the substance.
PLAYBOY: Which columns did he call you
about?

BROOKS: The last time was a column in
which I unfavorably compared his man-
agement style with Rahm Emanuel's
management style in Chicago. That one
set him off.

PLAYBOY: How does Obama compare with
George W. Bush?

BROOKS: Bush also had political skills.
You got the sense that he liked having
debates, but he never got to have them
because his staff didn't want to give him
an unpleasant meeting. Bush was ill
served by people who didn't allow him
to be as good a president as he could
have been. Dick Cheney and the others
were tightly controlling what was said.
Obama doesn't have that problem.
PLAYBOY: People made fun of Bush for
his inarticulateness, malapropisms and
underachievement at Yale, suggesting he
wasn't as smart as many presidents.
BROOKS: He was 60 IQ points smarter in
private than he was in public. He easily
was the most voracious reader of any pres-
ident in a while. They keep track of all the
books presidents read. He read about 113
a year. For a president that's a lot, because
there's a lot of other stuff to do.
PLAYBOY: Could that be a bad thing, sug-
gesting that he was reading rather than
running the country?

BROOKS: That could be, but if Putin was
coming to town, Bush would have just fin-
ished reading a book on Peter the Great,
and he'd talk about Peter the Great. He
would never allow himself to do it in pub-
lic, because his whole shtick was that he
was the average Joe from Texas.
PLAYBOY: Was it a shtick?

BROOKS: It was an act but a deeply felt
act. This is my pop psychology of Bush:
He's a kid from Texas who goes off to
Andover and Yale, then back down to

'Texas and, to survive there, represses
his real self. He doesn't want anybody
to think he's smarter than they are, so
he puts on a Texas act. It becomes so
deep, it's part of him now. I've rarely
seen a person whose off-the-record man-
ner is so different from his on-the-record
manner. And among the presidents I've
interviewed, Bush was one of the most
fun to be around. He had an atmosphere
of *we're at the frat and we're going to
have a good time" around himself.
PLAYBOY: Is that what you want in a
president?

BROOKS: Not necessarily, but it's fun to
be around. I would go to sessions with
Bush and four or five other columnists,
and he would go off the record and
be completely candid, charming and
funny. Afterward they would send us a
transcript of the session with the off-the-
record parts taken out. I used to say, "It's
like a porn movie with the sex scenes
taken out," because everything that was
fun was gone. Bush would say of a world
leader, "That guy is such an asshole." It's
impossible to imagine Obama saying that,
though he might think it.

One of the least pleasant
shows I've ever done was Bill
Maher's. It's 20 minutes of
how evil everyone is who dis-
agrees with him. I always
think it’s unfair.

PLAYBOY: What other politicians were fun?
BROOKS: There was nothing more fun
than being around John McCain. He
taught me how to shoot craps. In the
middle of that last race, however, he
lost all interest in the media. I’ve tried
to interview him in the past few years,
and his staff won’t let me in.

PLAYBOY: At one point you strongly sup-
ported McCain. Is it accurate that you
became disillusioned when he chose
Sarah Palin as his running mate?
BROOKS: When he ran in 2000, I thought
he was the closest thing to what I like, a
Teddy Roosevelt Republican. He took
on campaign finance. He took on global
warming. He was willing to raise taxes
but at the same time was fiscally conser-
vative. Somehow when he became the
head of the party and started getting
love-bombed by the right, he became a
much more orthodox Republican and
was no longer the renegade Republi-
can. Maybe you need to do that if you’re
heading a party, but I was disappointed
in the campaign he ran.

PLAYBOY: Have you met any other
presidents?

BROOKS: In some ways H.W. Bush was
the most admirable of the presidents I’ve
known. Very selfless, a servant. I like him
now more than I did at the time. I briefly
met Reagan, though I didn’t really know
him. I’d say Reagan had political skills,
though he didn’t particularly have intel-
lectual skills.

PLAYBOY: You've said that the first Repub-
lican you voted for was Reagan.
BROOKS: I didn't vote for him in 1980,
but I did in 1984.

PLAYBOY: As a lifelong Democrat, was it a
difficult moment for you?

BROOKS: I remember having a weird,
perverse smile on my face, like, Isn't
this bizarre?

PLAYBOY: Did you keep it secret from your
family of Democrats?

BROOKS: I may have.

PLAYBOY: At this point have your parents
followed you and become Republicans?
BROOKS: I think I pushed them further
to the left. I’m sure I'm the only non-
liberal Democrat in my family since they
came to this country.

PLAYBOY: Do they forgive you?

BROOKS: They tolerate it.

PLAYBOY: Not only did you grow up a
Democrat, but you were in Greenwich
Village in the 1960s, a center of the
counterculture.

BROOKS: I have vivid memories of peace
rallies and be-ins in Washington Square
Park in the 1960s.

PLAYBOY: Did you have long hair and
a beard?

BROOKS: I had a Jew-fro, which was the
extent I could have long hair. If you
look at my high school yearbook, it's
me in a faded army jacket with a lot
of liberal political buttons on it, so I
was definitely left-wing through high
school. On the other hand, my parents
took me to a be-in in 1965. There were
hippies there, and somebody set a gar-
bage can on fire, and people threw their
wallets in to show they didn't care about
money. I was five. I ran over to the fire,
reached in, grabbed a $5 bill and ran
away with it. That was my first step to
the right.

PLAYBOY: What caused you to abandon
liberalism and embrace conservatism?
BROOKS: I grew up in an atmosphere
where all progress was associated with
the left. My grandmother was presi-
dent of the local chapter of the NAACP.
If you were interested in civil rights,
women's rights and peace, you were
on the left. I grew up with the attitude
that all progress was a morality tale of
good progressive liberals fighting the
reactionary Republicans. I kept it up
through high school. I fell in love with
Birch Bayh, who ran for president in
1976, and I had a big Hubert Hum-
phrey poster on my wall. I passed out
leaflets for George McGovern.
PLAYBOY: Then what changed?

BROOKS: As a freshman in college, I
was assigned (continued on page 116)

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ILLUSTRATION BY RYOHEI HASE

MANY PEOPLE ASSUME THE LOBBY-
ING BUSINESS was born during the
presidency of Ulysses S. Grant. The gen-
eral, who loved his whiskey and cigars,
would repair to the lobby of the Willard
Hotel, which sits a few blocks from the
White House. As soon as Grant lit his
stogie, he would be set upon by mendi-
cants and petitioners of all stripes—who
had the kind of presidential access their
lobbyist heirs can only dream about. Al-
though that prestigious hotel assiduously
promoted the mythic origin of the word
lobbyist, the appellation was in use long
before Grant's tenure.

The word is probably sourced from the
lobbies in the House of Commons, where
the British public could speak with mem-
bers of the government, but the act of
lobbying got its start as soon as early man
figured out he needed something from
someone else. In fact, its practitioners
are often compared to those working in
the world's oldest profession, though it's
not clear who should feel more insulted.
Because our politicians can't imagine a
human activity they shouldn’t control,
their lobbyist friends, generally seen as
snake-oil salesmen, seldom lack work.

The dysfunction of our national gov-
ernment does not result only from over-
regulation and unrestrained spending. A
culture of corruption has long plagued
our body politic. Moneyed interests on
both ends of the political spectrum have
employed legions of lobbyists, strategic
advisors and public relations experts to
control our national legislative and ex-
ecutive branches.

I should know, since I was one of them.
For years I was able to get pretty much
anything I wanted for my clients. In my
case, scandal brought me down and ended
my career. But casting me into prison
didn’t change how this game is played.

While most Americans feel the system
will never be reformed, recent media
focus on congressional perfidy has invig-

orated citizen activists bent on ending the
rule of the elites in our nation’s capital.
Shocking reports of congressmen amass-
ing wealth through insider trading and
receiving sweetheart home loans have
driven the approval rating of the legis-
lative branch below that of Casey An-
thony. Even the most obtuse representa-
tive is starting to notice the rumblings of
discontent in the hinterlands.

A call is rising in the land to stop
members of Congress from enriching
themselves through public service. It’s
possible that reform advocates on both
sides of the political divide will come to-
gether this year to push legislation that
will prevent public servants from cash-
ing in on their service by stopping lobby-
ists and their clients from making federal
political contributions, mandating term
limits for Congress and forcing legis-
lators to apply to themselves all laws
they pass for the citizens they represent.
These reforms would level the playing
field in Washington and undermine the
dominance of moneyed interests.

Furthermore, a national consensus is
building that our federal government
is too big and controls our lives in too
many ways. Even President Obama,
who engineered the greatest expan-
sion of federal control in recent times,
has sought authority from Congress
to eliminate redundant governmental
agencies. Still, those advocating an all-
encompassing nanny state often don’t
see that every time the Washington be-
hemoth expands, more lobbyists and
special interests flood the corridors of
power to seek privilege.

There is no way to know whether these
nascent efforts at reform will one day re-
sult in real change. We can only hope for
the best. In the meantime we have to deal
with reality—and reality means thou-
sands of federal employees working over-
time to complicate our lives. So what do

SARTOR RESARTUS: Lobbyist Jack Abramoff talks about his peculiar journey of
repentance and renewal in New York last December.

people do when their interests are about
to be adversely impacted by a feckless
congressman or his staff?

Let’s say you own the Acme Picture
Frame Company based in the Midwest.
Your family has made picture frames for
generations, and they’re the nicest picture
frames available. One day a septuagenar-
ian senator from New England has his
staff purchase a picture frame from a
local emporium. They don’t buy an Acme
frame. They buy a cheap imitation, and
when the venerable senator lifts it to hang
a picture of his dog Fido, the frame comes
apart, cutting his hand.

Being used to getting everything he
wants in life, the senator throws a tan-
trum. When he is done fulminating, he
knows what to do. A quick call to his
legislative director is soon followed by
the introduction of new legislation: the
Omnibus Picture Frame Act of 2012.
The act regulates every aspect of the
frame-production business and mandates
a process that requires Acme to close its
factory and completely retool. In these
recessionary times, that means your com-
pany goes under. What do you do?

One response might be to call your
family and workers together, thank
them for their years of dedicated service
and ask the last one remaining to shut
the doors and turn out the lights.

Another reaction might be to ignore
these silly new laws and keep mak-
ing quality frames, as you have for
generations—and when the FBI kicks
in your door and carts you away to the
federal hoosegow, you'll have the satis-
faction of telling the other inmates you
didn’t buckle to the Man.

Or you might realize your problem
started in Washington and must be solved
in Washington. You have as much luck
getting your local congressman to focus on
your problem as you do getting your teen-
ager to clean (continued on page 122)

"He's a sucker for low and inside...!”

“Sexual women
like to see them-
selves naked,”
says photographer
Marlena Bielin-
ska. She should
know. Born in
Poland, Marlena
(pictured right)
came to New York
on holiday in the
late 1980s, signed
with Elite models
on a whim and
never left. А vet-
eran stunner on
one side of the
lens, she began
experimenting on
the other in 1993,
photographing
her fellow mod-
els from the Elite
agency. Once
she’d become
a master with
the camera, she
turned her lens on
her native Poland.

FROM ONE SIDE OF THE
LENS TO THE OTHER, THE
EROTIC ADVENTURES
OF

Here we take you
into her world
of exotic beauty.
This page, from
top left: Lingerie
model Klaudia
El Dursi “had
a really expres-
sive body,” says
Marlena. “And
she knew how to
use it.” The pop
star Doda is one of
the biggest celeb-
rities in Poland.
In front of the
camera, Doda is
“absolutely unin-
hibited,” says the
photographer.
Monika Mrozow-
ska appeared in
Polish PLAYBOY
in 2008. Oppo-
site page: Polish
PMOY 2005 Ela
Korczowska smol-
ders under the
Egyptian sun.

D'Y

Clockwise from left: Marlena shot accomplished
model Karolina Urban in Le Méridien Bristol,
one of the oldest and most luxurious hotels in

Warsaw. Sylwia Preiss has a different story. When
she appeared in Polish PLAYBOY at the age of 18,
she was expelled from school. PLAYBOY footed the
bill for her private education. In this photograph,
the rose in her lap symbolizes her blossoming
into womanhood—the flower in full bloom.
Here is Monika again (on previous spread with
watermelon, on this spread with grapes, look-
ing edible in both). “The sensuality of her body
almost doesn't go with her psychology,” says
Marlena, “because she’s so modest, unassuming
and extremely natural. I wanted to bring out her
playful side. She’s a fabulous, natural woman,
like Farrah Fawcett.” Sylwia again, in repose.

“| WANTED TO BRING OUT HER PLAYFUL
SIDE. SHE’S A FABULOUS, NATURAL
WOMAN, LIKE FARRAH FAWCETT.”

“Some models are actually better naked,” says Marlena.
“But once you decide to show yourself nude, you have to
have the will to do it.” Thankfully, Klaudia El Dursi was
full-on with nothing on. At right, she seduces with her eyes
before a bareback ride. Below, she’s captured at a moment
of rapture. “I love the sensuality of this shot,” says the pho-
tographer. “She”s into her own moment and not aware of
the camera. It almost feels like a cinema still.”

ЈА
*

#BORSCHIBELIREDUX

Twitter offers the purest form of
lulz today. And no one cracks
wise in 140 characters or fewer
like (a.k.a. Family
Guy writer Alec Sulkin),
tweeting’s king of comedy

e're in Los Angeles on a Sat-
urday afternoon in a penthouse
apartment 26 stories above the
Miracle Mile. A man named Alec
Sulkin sinks into an expansive
couch. Clad in jeans and an aging
New England Patriots hoodie, he
alternates between fiddling with
his iPhone and watching the Dodg-
ers beat the Rockies on the TV in
front of him. He has the floppy,
basset-hound handsomeness of a
Rubber Soul-era Beatle and lives

BY JESSE PEARSON

in what looks like a hotel suite that
has been squatted by a lassitudi-
nous college-age stoner. Modern
Stormtrooper is the predominant
interior design motif. The cannon
fodder of the Galactic Empire
looks down upon him from vari-
ous posters and prints. Compet-
ing for pride of place are images
of Peter, Brian and Stewie Griffin—
understandably so since Sulkin is
a staff writer and producer on the
Fox animated series Family Guy.

Ё JUSTIN STEPHENS

The 39-year-old Sulkin peers at his
iPhone with a momentary flash of pur-
pose. He opens the Twitter app, taps out
afew words, thinks briefly, taps a little bit
more and hits the tweet button. The fol-
lowing piece of pith goes up on his Twit-
ter account: “Just once, I'd like to trigger
an explosion while walking away from it.”
Instantly, his followers read it. There are
365,309 of them—an ever-shifting mass
of strangers, friends, celebrities, stalk-
ers and detractors. Within seconds, their
responses begin to roll in. More than 340

"WHEN | READ ALEC'S

THOUGHT, GOD,

THINGS," SAYS

followers retweet the joke (or, in Twitter
vernacular, RT it). Another 248 followers
favorite it. "More mentions than minutes
is a good rule of thumb,” Sulkin says with
a whiff of mantra.

Sulkin doesn't remember the day
he joined Twitter. All he knows is that
he signed up at some point in March
2008 only to let his account languish,
as many people do. Mainly, he was un-
sure how to make Twitter a part of his
life, as many people are. He does know,
however, the exact moment he got
serious about Twitter—a quick, uncon-
sidered moment at home alone: "I was
watching The Net, with Sandra Bullock,
which is a movie I've seen many more
times than it deserves. I was looking at
her weird 1990s khakis, and I tweeted
about that." The exact tweet, for histori-
cal purposes: "Sandra Bullock sports
an unreasonably high-waisted pair of
khakis in The Net. (I'm back!)"

Such was the inauspicious begin-
ning of Sulkin's perfection of a new and
strange sort of celebrity—Twitter star-
dom. The first wave of followers was
composed of people around the Family

about depression.

@THESULK’S GREATEST HITS

Guy office—fellow writers whom Sulkin
respects—who joined the site just to
follow @thesulk, his nom de tweets. One
of them, Gary Janetti (@GaryJanetti,
59,348 followers), is the boyfriend
of stylist guy Brad Goreski from the
Bravo series It's a Brad, Brad World. At
some point, Goreski (@mrbradgoreski,
173,942 followers), who had something
like 20,000 followers at the time, #FF'd
Sulkin (that's Twitter shorthand for rec-
ommending another user to one's own
followers). And presto, the next wave

TWITTER ACCOUNT, |

THIS CO TOM PLETELY CHANGES

ТН МАСРА RLANE.

of followers for @thesulk. Over the next
few months—through a combination
of the right time (the dawn of Twitter),
the right place (strategically perfect
#FFs and RTs) and the right guy (Sulkin
is deeply, naturally funny)—@thesulk
found himself getting very, very popular.
And that popularity has little to do with
Family Guy or the fact that until recently
he was having sexual relations with
Sarah Silverman. Today, Sulkin is legiti-
mately famous because of Twitter.

Writing a good tweet can be vexing—you
try being memorably funny and cogent
in 140 characters or fewer—but come-
dians seem adept at it. If nothing else,
Twitter, a place where humor needs to
be honed into a small, diamond-sharp
shiv, reminds us that one simple joke
can be vast in its relevance and depth.
Look at some of the best aphoristic hu-
morists and you'll see how much can be
said in just a few words. S.J. Perelman:
“To err is human; to forgive, supine.” (36
characters.) Oscar Wilde: “One should
always play fairly when one has the win-

Апа then a оне solo сате along апа таде
everyone feel foolish for dancing.
what water wants to do.

Don't forget we're all slaves to
Anne Frank should've just done that hold-

still-in-the-pile-of-dolls E.T. thing when the Nazis came.

ning cards.” (61 characters.) Dorothy
Parker: “If you want to know what God
thinks of money, just look at the people
he gave it to.” (84 characters.) The same
goes for the Borscht Belt comedians of
yore, whose bam-bam-bam lines would
have been RT'd like crazy. As Don Rickles
(@Donkickles, 70,626 followers) recently
told me via e-mail, “If Henny Youngman
were alive today he would be having a
field day with Twitter” Rickles is right.
One of Youngman's more famous lines—
“When 1 read about the evils of drink-
ing, I gave up reading"—is a modest 58
characters. All the Borscht Belters kept
it short and sweet. To wit, Jackie Mason:
“Eighty percent of married men cheat in
America. The rest cheat in Europe.” (73
characters.) Or Joan Rivers: “A man can
sleep around, no questions asked. But if
a woman makes 19 or 20 mistakes, she's
a tramp.” (98 characters.)

Sulkin alternates between a few co-
medic approaches on Twitter. There's
the blue material: “Not to be a dick but
jizz! Jizz! Jizz! Drip. Piss.” There are

AMONG А qid
ONSLAUGHT OF
1 TA-COMEDY
TWITTER IS A
W ILDLIFE PR
FOR VAUDEVI
ERA ONE-LINERS.

lame puns: “Wrote a paper on big 905
boobs, but I was never totally satis-
fied with my Tiffani-Amber Thesis.”
(Annoyed friends have told Sulkin they
are sure he suffers from Witzelsucht
syndrome, a rare neurological disorder
characterized by excessive, compul-
sive punning.) And then there are my
favorites—the brutally self-deprecating
put-downs: “Hiding weakness is one of
my strengths.” And “I disgust myself
but I don't surprise myself.

“T have a lot of shitty months,” he says,
which is fine by me because the anxious,
neurotic stuff is where Sulkin not only
clambers to the top of the Twitter heap
but also becomes a torchbearer of classic
Jewish comedy. (Another of my all-time
favorite Sulkin tweets: “Every time my
Dad blows his nose, I kinda get why there
was a holocaust.”) Sulkin's wildly varied
repertoire stems from his worry about
being pigeonholed as a one-note comic.
“Woody Allen (continued on page 131)

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Playboy Baseball Preview

He made his reputation sliding
ПРОЗИ. ки. nn dirt дой
Base Ants "The eet living ball-
player not in Cooperstown now
spends his days signing auto-
graphs in Vegas O

“It's going to pick up soon, watch,”
Pete Rose says, drumming his hands
on a folding table. It's half past noon
on Groundhog Day, and baseball’s
most prolific player not in the Hall
of Fame is manning his post inside
Antiquities, a memorabilia shop
across from Victoria's Secret at the
Forum Shops in Caesars Palace. Just
about every day except Wednesdays,
from noon to five p.m. Rose is on duty.

Harald puy

A night on the town for Pete Rose and
Kiana Kim in August 2011.

Though his multiyear, seven-
figure deal calls for him to sign
autographs only 10 days a month,
Rose worked 24 days in the previ-
ous month and plans to work 21
in February. Each day he punches
the clock, ready to give the people
what they pay for—an audience
with the Hit King. The atmosphere
is more late-night talk show than
card show.

“Did you see the Pro Bowl this
weekend?” Rose asks. “Are you kid-
ding me? I mean, they weren’t even
trying. How could they do that to
people? People paid good money
for tickets to watch that game and
you give them that? Let me tell you
about all-star games.”

Rose begins with one of the great-
est hits of his illustrious career,
a story he's told more than 4,256
times. He tells it each time with the
same enthusiasm.

“People still talk about me run-
ning over Ray Fosse in the 19'70
All-Star Game.” In the game, which
took place at Riverfront Stadium,
Rose's home ballpark in Cincinnati,
Rose bowled over American League
catcher Fosse at home plate to score
the winning run in the 12th inning
of what was essentially an exhibi-
tion game. The night before, Rose
had invited Fosse over to his house
for dinner. Fosse has claimed he was
never the same player after the inci-
dent, which has served over time to
cement Rose—with his work ethic
and determination—in baseball lore
as the game's Charlie Hustle.

“Fosse played the next game. I
missed the next three games after
that collision. They want to say he was
never the same? I think that's bullshit,”
he says as a young couple approaches
the table with baseball and photo in
hand. (continued on page 134)

PREVIEW

Get ready for the 2012 season

READY OR NOT

During a 13-year playing career, Mike
Matheny was often praised for his mana-
gerial potential. Still, when the St. Louis
Cardinals selected him last fall to replace
manager Tony La Russa, it was a surprise.
Matheny had served the Cardinals as a
catching instructor but had no managerial
experience. The Cardinals are defending
world champions. Can they repeat? The
odds are stacked against them. In only 14
instances has a franchise won consecutive
world championships, including six times by
the Yankees. A National League team has
won back-to-back championships only three
times—Cincinnati іп 1975 and 1976, the New
York Giants in 1921 and 1922, and the Chi-
cago Cubs in 1807 and 1908. Only twice has a
world champ defended the title after a man-
agerial change, and only four times has a
rookie manager won a championship.

BUYING UNHAPPINESS

Prince Fielder and Albert Pujols were the big
names on the free-agent market. Fielder
signed a nine-year, $214 million deal in
Detroit after the Angels gave Pujols a 10-year,
$240 million contract. Other numbers worth
considering: Pujols turned 3e in January;
Fielder turns 28 on May 9. Inthe past 11 years
teams have signed at least 28 players to con-
tracts with guarantees of six or more years.
Twenty-five of those deals went to position
players. With youth, the odds are better of
getting areturn on the investment. Consider
that 10 of the 28 deals were given to players
who were 30 or older the first year of the deal.
One went to Pujols and another to his former
St. Louis teammate Matt Holliday, who has
five years remaining on his seven-year deal. Of
the other eight players over the age of 30 who
were given deals, none met expectations.

LABORIOUS JOB
Over the years general managers were basi-
cally bulletproof. It was the field manager
who took the hits
forateam’s failure.
That is changing.
The 201e season
opens with seven
general-manager
changes as well
as seven mana-
gerial changes.
It’s only the 10th
time in history that
there haven't been
more manage-
rial changes than
GM changes. All 10

Justin Verlander won the Cy Young, was named
MVP and carried Detroit to the postseason.

In signing a nine-year, $214 million contract
with the Tigers, Prince Fielder altered the bal-
ance of power when he left the Brewers.

have occurred since 1972, the year that saw
the first of eight work stoppages.

WILD WAYS

Is the best team the team with the best over-
all record or the team that wins the World
Series? Rarely does the same team accom-
plish both. Since the advent of the wild card
in 1995, only three times has the team with
the best record won the championship—
the Yankees in 1998 and 2009 and Boston
in 2007. By contrast, wild-card teams have
won five World Series.

The challenge forthe wild card will be big-
ger starting this year when two wild cards
in each league meet in a one-game show-
down before advancingtothe Division Series.
That means the wild cards will use their best
pitcher merely to get pastthe play-in game,
which could alter their pitching depth forthe
next round.

THEY DID WHAT?
Colorado says it is building around youth and
swears ії didn’t change its approach in the off-
season, even though the team’s opening-day
lineup figures to go from an average age of
28 to 32. San Francisco's recent success has
been built on pitching, which raises questions
about two recent
moves. Last season
the team dealt top
pitching prospect
Zack Wheeler to
the Mets for slightly
more than two
months of outfielder
Carlos Beltran. This
off-season it sent
lefty Jonathan
Sanchez to Kansas
City for outfielder
Melky Cabrera.
That left the Giants

Clockwise from lower left: Evan Longoria
is our preseason choice for 2012 AL MVP.
Starlin Castro, 22, is the best thing going for
the woeful Cubs. Will Josh Hamilton’s off-
season problems affect his play in Arlington?
Jose Reyes is $102 million richer in Miami.
Clayton Kershaw, 24, established himself in
2011 as the NL’s best starting pitcher.

looking to Barry Zito as a fifth starter. He
is the highest-paid player on the team, but
in the first five years of his seven-year,
$126 million deal he was 43-61 with a 4.55
ERA. Then there are the Oakland A's. With
moneyball having produced five consecutive
nonwinning seasons, the A's shook things up.
They took the strength of the team, the rota-
tion, and stripped it down in a series of deals
that netted only outfielder Seth Smith to help
an offense that scored the third-fewest runs
in the AL last year. When the wheeling and
dealing was done, Brandon McCarthy was the
only holdover from last year’s rotation, and
the major off-season addition was Bartolo
Colon, who turns 39 in May.

There is no Oscar-nominated movie that pro-
claims the greatness of the Tampa Bay Rays.
But there is their track record, which speaks
loudly forthe approach taken by what 5 con-
sistently among the lowest-budget teams in
baseball. The Rays have made the postsea-
son in three of the past four years, and they
could be better than everin 2012. Their pitch-
ing staff, which is the foundation for success,
is virtually untouched from a year ago, and
the lineup should be even better. The Rays
avoided a mass exodus of free agents dur- AL EAST: TAMPA BAY

ing the off-season. They return six of nine AL CENTRAL: DETROIT NL CENTRAL: CIN
starters and are stronger at the other three. AL WEST: TEXAS

First baseman Carlos Pena returns as a free
agent, replacing Casey Kotchman. Sam Fuld
movesto the bench, opening up left field for
Desmond Jennings, who hit 10 home runs in
247 at-bats last season. Jose Molina takes
over behind the plate from Kelly Shoppach.

AMPA

he sun set over the Pacific, throwing
burgundy and indigo light over Holly-
wood Boulevard, perhaps one of the few
places on earth where the ubiquitous smog
actually made the sunset more beautiful.
And then, in just a few minutes, night had
fallen on the boulevard and lights were turn-
ing on everywhere.

Even though the cops of Hollywood Station
were cracking down on the costumed street
characters who hustled tourists in front of
Grauman's Chinese Theatre, the superheroes
were out in force this Saturday night. Some of
the tired older ones, like Superman, Batman
and Darth Vader, were being replaced by
newer superheroes, like Space Ghost, Mr.
Fantastic and Iron Man, who was the object
of intense jealousy.

What aroused the ire and envy of the
other street characters posing for photos and
accepting gratuities for their work was that
Robert Downey Jr. had made Iron Man so
sexy on film that his hustling doppelgánger
on the boulevard was getting all the play
and all the tips. There was a queue of tour-
ists waiting for a shot with him while other
superheroes, like Spider-Man, stood back
and brooded. And then the web thrower de-
cided he’d had enough of this shit.

Spider-Man stepped in front of the next pair
of tourists and said, “Come on, folks, get your
picture with a real superhero, not some pile of
rusty nuts and bolts.” (continued on page 120)

IT'S МОТ EASY E

BEING STARSTRUCK, DE

The Avengersis your second turn playing Captain America.
After two movies in the red, white and blue costume, is there anybody
on the Avengers team you would trade fashion statements with?

God, yeah, absolutely. Pretty much anybody, though some
days Robert Downey would have to get into the Iron Man suit, and
that looks pretty difficult. But outside of that, the Thor costume looks
pretty comfortable. The Hulk has a great deal. Whenever he Hulks out,
he just wears those little green CGI jumpsuits. It looks comfy as hell.

You turned down the role of Captain America several times.
Why didn’t you want to do it?

They wanted a six-picture deal, and the worry about a six-
picture deal is that it can potentially be spread out over 10 years. So
you’re making a decision for the next 10 years of your life. Films typi-
cally work one at a time. If one movie explodes and your life changes,
you’re afforded the opportunity to take a break, if you need it, to get
your head back on straight. The fear | had was that | was compromis-
ing this control. That’s terrifying, man.

ROM THERAPY

Is it true Robert Downey”
helped you?

When we started filming The Avengers, Captait
not come out yet, and my big concern with Captain Americ
press. | love doing one-on-ones. This feels like a conversation. This
feels normal to me. But when you get on a stage, all of a sudden you
feel like, man, there are 100 people just looking at you. It’s a little bit
of a strange feeling. Your heart starts pounding, and that’s scary.
Downey was good at just making me feel calm, saying, “Look, you're
not alone in this,” and helping my confidence.

Johansson. Is it possible to be around her and not lust after her
the entire time?

She is a beautiful lady. She really got blessed. | love that
girl, man. She's like my sister. l've known her for 10 years. She's
just one of the smartest people | know. It's great when someone
with a razor-sharp intellect wants to have fun. A lot of my buddies

This is the third time you've worked with Scarlett і

ШМ
м

22331

who like to have fun are a little lowbrow, and
that's fun. It's enjoyable, but you can laugh
at only so many farts.

05
PLAYBOY: Aside from a long relationship with
Jessica Biel, you always seem to be single. Are
you picky, or are you just enjoying yourself?
EVANS: | guess it’s a perfect combination of
things. lm incredibly picky, but that doesn't
mean | look for perfection. | like strange things. |
wish you could see some of the girls | have gen-
uinely had crushes on in my life. They're not the
girls you would assume. My friends cannot fig-
ure out the girls that, for some reason, | fall for.
It's a unique blend of traits, and on top of that,
I'm really enjoying myself right now. | like being
able to do what | want to do. If | want to sleep
until three today, I’m gonna sleep until three. If |
want to go to Vegas this weekend, guess what—
I'm going to Vegas. That's a tough thing to walk
away from, and so it has to be the right person.
The pickiness makes that an uphill battle.

06
PLAYBOY: So what kind of women do you like?
EVANS: | like girls who are self-deprecating. |
like girls who make fun of themselves. If you
can't poke fun at yourself, what are you? l love
making fun of myself, so | need a girl who can
do that and mean it. And | like generosity. |
like compassionate people. lm not looking for
some businesswoman who's out there mak-
ing millions and just here to take the world by
storm. | just want someone with a good soul.
That's about it. The rest l'm really flexible on.
| like a good ass, though. | will say that. It's
PLAYBOY, right? | can say that? | like a big ass.

D7
PLAYBOY: Taking all of that into consideration,
admit to at least one celebrity crush.
EVANS: | used to be in love with Sandra Bull-
ock when | was growing up. Sandy B. was my
girl. | remember seeing Speed when | was in
seventh grade and just thinking, That's her. I
can't say | know her, but from what I’ve heard,
she’s fantastic.

08
PLAYBOY: You grew up outside Boston. Your
father is a dentist. How’s your dental hygiene?
EVANS: People think, Oh, he's making you
floss and brush your teeth. No, it wasn't like
that; on the contrary, actually. | could com-
plain freely. You could openly tell him when
something hurt.

09
PLAYBDY: Your mother has been known to
defend you on the internet when she sees you
being slighted. Should Captain America have
his mom fighting his battles?
EVANS: Yeah, she's one of those moms. She
gets a little up in arms. The internet is a big
place where a lot of people can voice their
opinions, and my mother chooses to pick fights
with random people from all over the world who
don't have the nicest things to say about me.

010
PLAYBOY: You were involved in a local the-
ater growing up, a program your mother still
runs. Boston doesn't sound like the friendliest

place for a young boy who loves theater. How
rough was it?

EVANS: | played sports as well, which helped.
For the most part, when they wanted to give
me а hard time, they'd come to my shows and
heckle and razz. lt wasn't as bad as it could
have been, l'm sure.

PLAYBOY: Your brother is gay. Do you support
gay marriage?

EVANS: Are you kidding me? It's insane that
civil rights are being denied people in this day
and age. It's embarrassing, and it's heart-
breaking. It goes without saying that l'm com-
pletely in support of gay marriage. In 10 years
we'll be ashamed that this was an issue.

012

PLAYBDY: You were a senior in high school
when you lost your virginity. That seems kind
of late for a good-looking guy.

EVANS: Look at pictures of me growing up.
lt wasn't always the way it is now. It was a
bumpy road for me. But | think about that.
There were kids doing a /otmore than | was in
high school. | just wasn't there, | guess. | lost
my virginity senior year. lt happened one time
and only one time.

013
PLAYBOY: Before your senior year of high

EVANS WITH CO-STAR AND MENTOR ROBERT DOWNEY JR.

school, you moved to New York City by your-
self to pursue acting. What was your plan?
EVANS: Prior to that summer | wrote letters to
maybe six or seven different casting offices
and said, “Look, lm 16. I’m trying to learn. I'll
work for free.” A couple of places called back,
and | got an internship. It was the casting
office for Spin City back when Michael J. Fox
was on. | spent the whole summer answering
phones, setting up actors on auditions, and by
the end of the summer | was pretty friendly
with two or three agents | had talked with on
the phone. | said, “Listen, I’m an actor. | know
I'm just Chris from Bonnie's office to you, but
m an actor. Can you give me five minutes
to come down and read for you?” They said,
“Fine.” A couple of them were like, “Yeah, let's
work together. Let's do this.” But | had to go
back to Boston to finish my senior year, so
they said, “Hurry back. Get back for pilot sea-
son,” which starts, roughly, in January. So |
doubled in a couple of classes and graduated
in January of my senior year. | went back to
New York, got lucky and got a pilot.

014
PLAYBOY: How did the other kids react when
you came back for your senior year after living
in New York all summer?
EVANS: || was the greatest. Really, 1999 was
such a good year. | graduated from high
school, | went to New York, | got a pilot, we
shot the pilot Тог Opposite Sex, the pilot got
picked up. | came back home to Boston in
March or April, done with school and waiting
to go to L.A. in August. | would just stroll into
school around noon and see who | could get
to cut with me. It was great. | don't think it will
ever get better than that.

015
PLAYBOY: Are you sure? Things sound pretty
damn good right now.
EVANS: It's different, you know? Come on, |
was making some horrible show on Fox, mak-
ing not the best money in the world, but | was
so happy, so happy. Things are different now,
and I'm very grateful and very blessed. But
man, that year was just—| don't know. There
was something great about it. It was all brand-
new. There were no consequences. There was
nothing to worry about. You were free to make
mistakes. It's all optimism. You're not jaded.

016
PLAYBOY: Not Another Teen Movie was your
first big starring role. What was the first thing
you spent money on?
EVANS: It's kind of embarrassing. | think it
was a Sean John velour jumpsuit, which
tells you a little bit about me in 2000. What
an idiot. | think if you actually watch the Not
Another Teen Movie DVD, we do cast inter-
views and I'm in a velour Sean John jump-
suit. If | showed up in that today, my publicist
would say, "No, absolutely not." | think | took
my two roommates and got them jumpsuits
as well. It was so ridiculous.

017
PLAYBOY: Your big break came playing Johnny
Storm in Fantastic Four. How bad did you
want that part? (concluded on раде 122)

THE

BY GAVIN EDWARDS

Grant Morrison is the leading writer of superhero comic books in this
universe—and possibly some others. At DC Comics he rebooted Justice League
of America into a best-seller. At Marvel he did the same for X-Men. When his
magnum opus, The Invisibles—a series about voodoo, time travel and the
Marquis de Sade—was in danger of being canceled, he mobilized his fans in an
unusual way: He exhorted them to participate in a worldwide magic spell by
masturbating on Thanksgiving Day. Yes, he held a “wankathon.” It worked—
or at least sales of The Invisibles improved.

If Morrison's personal history includes magic,
wild experiments with consciousness-tweaking
substances and reported alien visitations, why
does he keep writing about square-jawed guys
with capes? “We're running out of visions of
the future except dystopias,” Morrison says.
“The superhero is Western culture's last-gasp
attempt to say there's a future for us.” Sitting
in his drafty house overlooking Loch Long, an
hour outside his hometown of Glasgow, the
52-year-old writer smiles. “The creators of
superheroes were all freaks,” he says. “Peo-
ple forget that—they were all outcasts, on the
margins of society.” And then, inevitably, he
shifts from the third person to the first. “We're
people who don't fit into normal society.”

All the more reason comic book writers
have offered a fascinating perspective on
mainstream society. We asked Morrison to
dig deep into his shaved head, where heroes,
antiheroes, magic and punk rock make a frothy
metaphysical milkshake. Who are these—to
use the title of Morrison's most recent book—
supergods? And why have they captured the
imagination of the masses, some of them for
generations? Herewith, an exploration deep
into the psyche of the superhuman.

FIRST APPEARANCE:
Action Comics #1(DC Comics, 1938).

1 : Jerry Siegel, art by Joe
Shuster. | His
definitive take was in the 12 issues of All-Star
Superman (2006-2008).

MORRISON: “When Superman was created
during the Great Depression, he was the
champion of the oppressed and fought on the
side of the working man. He was lawless. If
you were a wife beater, he'd throw you out
the window. If you were a corrupt congress-
man, he'd swing you from the rooftops until
you confessed. | think it appealed to people
who were losing their jobs to machines: Sud-
denly you had Superman wrecking machines
and punching robots. But his popularity has
declined—nobody wants to be the son of a
farmer now. American writers often say they
find it difficult to write Superman. They say
he's too powerful; you can't give him prob-
lems. But Superman is a metaphor. For me,

Superman
has the same
problems we
do, but on a
Paul Bunyan
scale. |Е Super-
man walks the
dog, he walks
it around the
asteroid belt
because it can
fly in space.
When Super-
man's relatives visit, they come from the
3156 century and bring some hellish mon-
ster conqueror from the future. But it's
still a story about your relatives visiting.”

BATMAN

FIRST APPEARANCE:

Detective Comics #27 (DC Comics, 1939).
CREATED BY: Bill Finger, art by Bob
Kane (disputed). GRANT MORRISON
VERSION: He's been writing overlapping
Batman series for DC since 2006.

MORRISON: "I got interested in the
class element of Batman: He's a rich
man who beats up poor people. It's
quite a bizarre mission to go out at
night dressed as a bat and punch the
hell out of junkies. And then he goes
home and lives in this mansion. There's
an aspirational quality to him—he's an
outlaw and he can buy anything. He
has a new Batmobile every movie. He's
very plutonian in the sense that he's
wealthy and also in the sense that he's
sexually deviant. Gayness is built
into Batman. l'm not using gay
in the pejorative sense, but
Batman is very, very gay.
There's just no denying
it. Obviously as a fiction-
al character he's intended
to be heterosexual, but the
basis of the whole concept is
utterly gay. | think that's

why people like it. All these

Е DELPERDAI

BATMAN

women fancy him and they all wear
fetish clothes and jump around roof-
tops to get to him. He doesn't care—
he's more interested in hanging out
with the old guy and the kid."

WONDER WOMAN

FIRST APPEARANCE:

АП Star Comics #8 (DC Comics, 1941).
CREATED BY: William Moulton
Marston, art by Harry G. Peter. GRANT
MORRISON VERSION: He's currently
working on a stand-alone Wonder
Woman graphic novel for DC.

MORRISON: "William Moulton Mar-
ston, the guy who created Wonder
Woman, was a noted psychiatrist. He's
the guy who
invented the
polygraph, the
ће detector.
Не was one of
those bohe-
mian free-love
guys; he and
his wife, Eliz-
abeth, shared
a lover, Olive,
who was the
physical mod-
el for Wonder
Woman. What he and Elizabeth did was
to consider an Amazonian society of
women that had been cut off from men
for 3,000 years. That developed along
the lines of Marston's most fevered fan-
tasies into a lesbian utopia. Although
they're supposedly a peace-loving cul-
ture, all these supergirls” pursuits seem
to revolve around fighting one anoth-
er, and this mad, ritualistic stuff where
girls dress as stags and get chased
and tied up and eaten symbolically on
a banquet table. The whole thing was
lush with bondage and slavery. Wonder
Woman was constantly being tied up or

shackled—and it was hugely successful.
When Marston died in 1947, they got па
of the pervy elements, and instantly sales
plummeted. Wonder Woman should be
the most sexually attractive, intelligent,
potent woman you can imagine. Instead
she became this weird cross between the
Virgin Mary and Mary Tyler Moore that
didn't even appeal to girls.”

KING MOB

FIRST APPEARANCE:

The Invisibles (Vertigo, 1994).
CREATED BY: Grant Morrison, art by
Steve Yeowell. The Invisibles ran on and
off from 1994 to 2000.

MORRISON: “When | was writing The
Invisibles, | thought, If l'm going to be
sitting in the house writing all day, then
on weekends | want to look like this cool
comic character so more girls will like me.
| shaved my head and dressed more like
King Mob. It was an art thing, and it was
also an occult thing. | could make things
happen by putting King Mob through
certain things
in the comic,
like a voodoo
doll. If he met
a certain girl,
three weeks
later she would
turn up in my
life. It became
hard to tell
his life and
my life apart.
It got out of
control—l
ended up in the hospital because of it.
In the comic, King Mob’s cheek is eat-
en away by something; within three
months, l'd gotten an infection that ate
right through my cheek. | was conjuring
these scorpion gods, and | got stung by
them. That's not to say scorpion gods
are real, but you can make things happen
by believing in them hard enough."

THE JOKER

FIRST APPEARANCE:

Batman #1 (DC Comics, 1940).

CREATED BY: Bill Finger, art

by Bob Kane, concept possibly

provided by Jerry Robinson.

GRANT MORRISON VERSION:

Many appearances in various
overlapping Batman series for
DC (since 2006).

MORRISON: “ identify with the
Joker to a certain extent—at least

j sa

the way | write him, which is as this cos-
mic fool. He's Batman's perfect oppo-
site, and because of that he's as sexy as
Batman, if not more so. When the Joker
was introduced in 1940, he was a scowl-
ing homicidal maniac. Then they took out
the violence and death, and he became
the chuckling clown, driving around in his
Joker-mobile. Then he was the giggling
mental -patient version from the TV show:
Cesar Romero with his mustache covered
in greasepaint. Suddenly in the 1970s he
was killing his henchmen again. And in the
1980s he was a gender-bending transves-
tite. | said, Okay, we've had all these var-
ied versions of the Joker. Let's say it’s the
same person who just changes his head
every day. | rationalized that by saying
he's supersane, the first man of the 21st
century who's dealing with this overload
of information by changing his entire per-
sonality. | quite like him, because he’s a
pop star—he's like Bowie.”

THE SUPERCONTEXT
FIRST APPEARANCE: The Invisibles
#1 (Vertigo, 1994). CREATED BY:
Grant Morrison.

MORRISON: “In Kathmandu there's
this temple with 365 steps, one for each
day of the year, and apparently if you
can go up in a single breath, you're guar-
anteed enlightenment. It’s easy to do if
you're young and fit. | just took a deep
breath and ran up. Three days later | was
visited by five-dimensional aliens. (I'd
eaten a bit of
hash, but hon-
estly, it wasn’t
a drug trip.
| ate a lot of
things after-
ward to see if
| could make it
happen again,

~ MORRISON
YEOWELL

and | never
could.) | was
in this azure
blue space,

and there were
grid lines of silver flashing through it, but
the beings looked like chrome blobs. And
they were just moving about, plugging
into these grids and exchanging informa-
tion. | saw the entire universe from begin-
ning to end: You had Shakespeare over
here and the dinosaurs over here. Time
became space, and | was bigger than both
of them. Later | put that in The Invisibles
and called it the Supercontext.”

Wink A

LORD FANNY

FIRST APPEARANCE:

The Invisibles #2 (Vertigo, 1994).
CREATED BY: Grant Morrison, art by
Steve Yeowell.

MORRISON: “When | was doing The
Invisibles, | was spending all my money
from Arkham Asylum [Morrison's hit
graphic novel about Batman's enemies]
doing all the things l'd never done as
a Presbyterian boy. You freak out, take
tons of drugs. lt was about the sys-
tematic derangement of the senses, as
Rimbaud said. So | came up with the
notion of an
alter ego who
was a dodgy,
freaky girl
[Lord Fanny,
pictured]. |
can’t smoke
tobacco—
it hurts—but
she could. |
created this
persona, and
l'd contact
demons and
wander down streets in this ridiculous
state. | didn't look like a girl, but | looked
like a good tranny, so it was okay. | did
it for four or five years before | got
too old for it. | still have some of the
clothes, but they mostly got destroyed
doing insane rituals and climbing hills
in high heels and stuff."

MAGNETO

FIRST APPEARANCE:

X-Men £1 (Marvel, 1963). CREATED
BY: Stan Lee, art by Jack Kirby. GRANT
MORRISON VERSION: Morrison's run
on X-Men lasted from 2001 to 2004.

MORRISON: "Magneto's an old ter-
rorist bastard. | got into trouble—the X-
Men fans hated me because | made him
into a stupid old drug-addicted idiot. He
had started
out as this
sneering,
grim terrorist
character, so |
thought, Well,
that's who
he really is.
[Writer] Chris
Claremont
had done a lot
of good work
over the years

to redeem the character: He made him
a survivor of the death camps and this
noble antihero. And | went in and shat
on all of it. It was right after 9/11, and
| said there's nothing fucking noble
about this at all.”

JUSTICE LEAGUE

OF AMERICA

FIRST APPEARANCE:

The Brave and the Bold #28 (DC
Comics, 1960). CREATED BY: Gardner
Fox, art by Mike Sekowsky. GRANT
MORRISON VERSION: Morrison revived
the JLA for DC from 1997 to 2000.

MORRISON: “The Justice League
is like the pantheon of Greek gods.
Hermes made more sense to me as the
Flash. Wonder Woman means so much
more to me than Hera or Aphrodite. |
could make a much quicker connection
with the archetype of Zeus in the form
of Superman. Aquaman is Poseidon, of
course. Bat-
man is Ha-
des, the god
of the under-
world. People
like Aleister
Crowley have
written down
rituals for
summoning
Hermes, be-
cause if you
want to con-
tact the spirit
of magic, you've got to talk to Hermes.
But doing magic, | would use the char-
acters from the comics because they
meant more to me. Because | do mag-
ic all the time, it’s part of my normal
life. | know for most people it’s out-
landish and impossible. So | tell peo-
ple that if you are truly skeptical, do
the rituals and prove to yourself that it
doesn’t work. And you'll get the shock
of your life.”

- MCGUINNESS

Get lost
in America
with
Miss May

he most cosmopolitan flower

child you'll ever meet, Nikki

Leigh is always ready to grab
her bags and hit the open road. “I’m
a gypsy of sorts,” says our 23-year-old
Miss May. “Instead of staying cooped
up at home, I would rather be traveling
and taking in everything a new place
has to offer.” As comfortable sleeping
in a tent as in a luxe hotel suite, the
SoCal native is a veteran world traveler.
“Thanks to my mom, who has been a
flight attendant for more than 30 years,
I've been everywhere from Beijing to
Tokyo to Paris,” she explains. She also
spent one semester abroad soaking up
the culture and sights of Rome and
Florence. “The paintings and sculp-
tures in Italy are stunning,” says Nikki,
a sociology major who will graduate
with honors this month from Califor-
nia State University. “They took my
breath away.” So too does her status
as Miss May. “It’s something I never
expected but always wanted—to be
a sex symbol with brains. More than
anything, though, I want to make the
world smile. I love walking up to girls
on the street and saying, “You look
so beautiful today!” It's unbelievable
how much such random acts of kind-
ness mean to people. So if being Miss
May gives me another way to spread
happiness, that's awesome. I'm all set
to travel and do whatever I can to be
an incredible ambassador for PLAYBOY.
In fact, 1 can't wait!”

PHOTOGRAPHY BY

STEPHEN WAYDA

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PLAYBOY”S PARTY JOKES

А man was shocked to see his beautiful
divorced neighbor knocking on his door one
Friday evening.

"I'm so horny that І can't stand it,” she said.
“I want to go out, get drunk and get laid. Are
you free tonight?”

“Yes!” he replied enthusiastically.

“Wonderful,” she said. “Would you watch
my kids?”

An angry wife met her husband at the door.
He had alcohol on his breath and lipstick on
his collar. “I assume,” she said, “there's a good
reason for you to come waltzing in here at six
o’clock in the morning?”

“There is,” he replied. “Breakfast.”

How do guys at a gay bar settle disputes?
They take it outside and exchange blows.

A father sent his beautiful but naive daugh-
ter to intern with his political party during the
election. Before polling she saw two handsome
young delegates striding toward her group at
a rapid pace.

“Why are they in such a rush?” she asked
another female intern.

“They're going to caucus,
answered.

“Oh my,” the blonde said. “All of us?”

”

the intern

Why don't men have midlife crises?
They stay stuck in adolescence.

The manager of a restaurant approached his
headwaiter and asked, “Have you been fooling
around with the new waitress?”
“I swear I haven't,” the waiter replied.
“Good,” the manager said. “Then you can
fire her.”

A woman was sipping a glass of wine while sit-
ting on the patio with her husband. “I love you
so much,” she said, “I don’t know how I could
ever live without you.”

“Is that you or the wine talking?” her hus-
band asked.

“It's me,” she said, “talking to the wine.”

Why do sharks circle before they attack?
So they can scare the shit out of you before
they eat you.

Since the beginning of time women have
been saying that giving birth is more painful
than a guy getting kicked in the testicles. Here
is proof that they are wrong: A year or so after
giving birth, a woman will often say, “It would
be nice to have another kid.” But you'll never
hear a man say, “I could go for another kick
in the nuts.”

What do you give the woman who has
everything?
Antibiotics.

А wife was berating her husband. “You know,
our neighbor gives his wife flowers all the time
and takes her to nice places,” she said. “Can't
you do something like that?”

“Honey, Гуе wanted to for years,” he
answered, “but I was afraid you and he would
be upset if I showered her with gifts and took
her on a vacation.”

¿<

А man wanted to ask his waitress for a date,
but every time he was able to catch her eye she
scurried away. Finally, he followed her into the
kitchen and blurted out his invitation.

То his amazement, she said yes. “Then why
have you been avoiding me?” he asked.

She replied, “I thought you wanted more
coffee.”

After extensive testing, a doctor told his
patient he had some bad news.
“Unfortunately you've got Alzheimer's and
cancer,” the doctor said.
To which the man replied, “Well, thank God
I don't have Alzheimer's!”

Send your jokes to Party Jokes Editor, PLAYBOY,
335 North Maple Drive, Beverly Hills, California
90210, or by e-mail through our website at
jokes.playboy.com. PLAYBOY will pay $100 to the
contributors whose submissions are selected.

Favorite Positions

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JUNJAVANZZ/ ARES :

WHEN YOU PULL UP to ће gates of Michel Comte's Mediterranean
revival-style mansion in the hills above Sunset Boulevard in Los Angeles,
it's impossible to find fault. Even the vintage Bentley in the circular drive
seems not so much parked as curated; it is beluga-black, all the better to
reflect the grand cypress-tree-flanked entrance and the gently burbling
fountain. You might bump into a naked model by the pool. That's because
Comte, who was born in Zurich, is a major fashion photographer and
92shoots many of his spreads at this estate.

PHOTOGRAPHY BY MICHEL COMTE

A year ago, Comte opened the doors of this sun-drenched redoubt to 25-year-
old itinerant street artist Alec Monopoly to use as his home and studio. By day
this is where Monopoly (who, like the street artist Banksy, keeps his real name
and identity secret) paints his pop art images of the Monopoly Man, Jack Nich-
olson and Bob Dylan, which are collected by the likes of Robert De Niro and
Seth Rogen. By night Monopoly descends into the city to plaster billboards and
construction sites, using L.A. itself as his gallery. Join us on a rare tour of this
high-low mash-up of an art house, courtesy of Comte’s magical lens.

ARTICLE BY HUGH GARVEY

Michel Comte's Beverly Hills
house is the quintessen-
tial retreat of a gentleman
artist, melding a distinctly
California vibe with clas-
sic European style. Behind
the stately stuccoed walls,
Comte has filled the grand
oak-paneled rooms with
an eclectic world-class col-
lection of art and iconic
midcentury modern furni-
ture. The house is a refuge
designed to inspire both
for Comte and for graffiti
artist Alec Monopoly. "Being
surrounded by all this art is
amazing," says Monopoly,
seen at right painting one
of his signature portraits.
“VII just wander the halls,
and around every corner
there's a piece from one
of my heroes." Like Joan
Miró, for example, and
Alexander Calder.

Warhol's Last Supper or one of his Marilyn
Monroe images, Comte has the silk screens
used to produce them (right and above
right). "It's a crazy contrast," says Monop-
oly. "I'll be out all night hitting downtown
with my prints and bumping into homeless

people having sex. Then I'll come here and 1 x
forget I’m even in Los Angeles.” y — — |
‚ N ' - | t | | vi
A |

*
While any high roller can buy а print of Y
2.

Two years ago, Monopoly was climbing through а
garbage chute beneath a Manhattan hotel, elud-
ing capture by the NYPD's vandal squad. Today he's
ensconced in this Beverly Hills mansion, a self-styled
Warhol descendant with mainstream gallery success.
When he first moved to L.A. in 2009, he couch-
surfed, gaining notoriety for his art and his unique
style of guerrilla marketing. Then he met Comte, in

whose home he now lives and works. Monopoly says
he used the Monopoly Man at first as a commentary
on recent investment-banking scandals. “He repre-
sented corporate greed and Bernie Madoff,” he says.
Monopoly has since produced images of the charac-
ter behind DJ turntables and holding a spray-paint
can. “I’m making fun of myself,” he says. “Now the
Monopoly Man has come to represent me.”

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Opposite page, clockwise from top left:
Monopoly enjoys the company of a
model (seen here spreading her wings)
as he works on another butterfly paint-
ing. Next to him are his portraits of
Travis Bickle (Robert De Niro) from Taxi
Driver, another example of how the
artist melds pop culture into his work.
Throughout the house, windows and
doors open onto a view of the City of

Angels with its palm and cypress trees.
Notice the white Eames chair, classic
midcentury. Featured prominently in the
study is the original screen Warhol used
to print his Brando portrait from the
film The Wild One. Nearby sits a rabbit
sculpture created by the Japanese art-
ist Momoyo Torimitsu (it would fit nicely
in the Playboy Mansion). Above that,
Monopoly is seen working on another

This page,
clockwise from
left: The lounge
features a Jap-
anese shade,
cleverly block-
ing the sun
with a symbol
of the sun
itself. Monop-
oly stands with
a model in
front of one of
his paintings—
a butterfly,
inspired by
Comte's forth-
coming 3-D
feature film ten-
tatively titled
The Little Girl
From Nagasaki.
A pair of Mies
van der Rohe
chairs face TV
screens in the
most under-
stated screening
room in Beverly
Hills. The pool
forms a perfect
backdrop for
Comte's fash-
ion shoots.

piece. While some street-art fans take
issue with his nontraditional graffiti
style, Monopoly is the first to admit to
the pop nature of his work in an other-
wise gritty corner of the art world. “The
fact is most of the people who are going
to see my work in the city aren't street-
art fans,” says Monopoly . “I just want
normal people to be able to recognize
and relate with the images.”

fashion

sprez-za-tu-ra (n) an Italian idiom, meaning "effortlessly cool"

Since the Dark Ages, the nation of Italy has worked Italians seem to birth endless generations of
at the forefront of modern aesthetics. Architects, geniuses and trendsetters who smile nonchalantly in
painters, sculptors, designers of royal carriages the face of praise. "It was easy," they will tell
and, later, sports cars, cordwainers, suit makers, you while fingering a cigarette. Thus the quintessen-
all the way to the sreat 20th century filmmakers—the tial Italian term sprezzatura. From The Book of the

= 31
2

FASHION by
PHOTOGRAPHY by
STYLING by

Courtier, written by Baldassare Castizliene in
the 16th century, sprezzatura is (in the author's
words) "a certain nonchalance, as to conceal all

art and make whatever one does or says appear to

It is the ultimate skill possessed by the master
courtier. Herewith, we celebrate Italian design
with this summer's coolest wares, clothes that wrap

aman in sprezzatura. We've thrown in some of our

be without effort." The Oxford English Diction- favorite vintage Italian machines—and beautiful

ary defines sprezzatura as "studied carelessness." women, naturally.

OPPOSITE PAGE: Suede jacket, $2,295, by BOSS SELECTION. Cashmere polo, $1,600, by BOTTEGA VENETA.
Slim-fit pants, $280, by ACNE at MR PORTER. Aviator sunglasses, $395, by BOTTEGA VENETA. Her sun-
glasses, $325, by MARC JACOBS. Motorcycle: 1959 DUCATI 175 SS, courtesy Ducati.net.

THIS PAGE: Slim-fit suit, $1,745, by DOLCE & GABBANA at MR PORTER. Shirt, $175, by BOSS BLACK. Tie,
$125, by Z ZEGNA. Linen handkerchief, $65 for box of three, by BROOKS BROTHERS. Car: 1966 MASERATI
5000 GT, courtesy MotorcarGallery.com.

THIS PAGE: Printed shirt, $245, by 2 ZEGNA. Pants, $395, by Z ZEGNA. Straw hat, $54, by NEWYORKHATCO
.COM. Silk pocket square, $95, by Z ZEGNA. Chronograph watch, $4,350, by ORIS RAID. Suede loafers,
$750, by JIMMY CHOO at MR PORTER. Paparazzo: Trench coat, $795, by BOSS BLACK. Pants, $680, by
BOTTEGA VENETA. Loafers, $575, by JIMMY CHOO at MR PORTER.

THIS Linen sports jacket, $1,810, by PAUL SMITH at MR PORTER. Gingham checked shirt, $495,
by BRIONI at MR PORTER. Pants, $200, by MARC BY MARC JACOBS at MR PORTER. Printed pocket square,
$85, by DRAKE'S at MR PORTER. Chronograph watch, $4,350, by ORIS RAID. Sunglasses, $395, by BOTTEGA
VENETA. Car: 1966 FERRARI SUPERFAST, courtesy MotorcarGallery.com.

Hl
I"

стиже /

POLICE

ILLUSTRATION BY KAKO

FANE YOUR OWN DEATH,
ASH INA Bit
LIFEANSURAMEE POLICY AND

EVER AFTER IN A TROPICAL PARADISE?
An BE DONE
AND IT'S MORE COMMON

THAN YOU MAY

”

BET A BIRTH CERTIFICATE

—

= > d ENS —

BE ои

ORDER A PASSPORT

—

BUY LIFE INSURANCE

The more policies the merrier.

— —

FIND A PLACE TO DIE

Thailand and the Philippines are popular.

GET A BODY

You'll need it for a death certificate.

COLLECT LIFE INSURANCE

You'll need an accomplice.

ENJOY

But remember: You can never go home.

ago, while flying from Bangkok to Phnom
Penh, I read what could be called a local
novel by a Bangkok private investigator
named Byron Bales. The Family Business
was written with an entertainingly mania-
cal attention to detail and a world-weariness perfectly matched to its material: an
American couple who plot to stage the husband’s death in Manila in order to claim
insurance money back in the United States. The British call this kind of faked
death “doing a Reginald Perrin,” after a 1970s sitcom hero who stages his own
suicide and then comes back to life to start all over again. The British, after all, can
never forget government minister John Stonehouse, who disappeared on a Miami
beach in 1974. Stonehouse was later found in Australia, using a forged passport
under the name Clive Mildoon. It’s the ultimate travel experience: reincarnation
in a distant place as an insurance scam. Insurance agents call it “pseudocide.”

Bales spent more than 30 years as an investigator, 10 of them in Bangkok,
tracking down people who had disappeared, faking their own deaths in order to
dupe America’s gullible and often chaotic insurance companies (it’s an industry
in decline, he insinuates). I learned from the back cover of The Family Business that
it was based on several cases that Bales himself had investigated. So people really
do disappear, I thought, and they really do collect the money.

It’s a travel idea you can’t resist. You fly to an exotic country, check into your hotel
and then you die. Having died, you do a Reginald Perrin. You get paid hundreds
of thousands of dollars by a clueless corporation 8,000 miles away and then carry
on living in the country where you were vacationing. Certainly, you’d never see
your children or your old mother again.
But look on the bright side. You’d have no

debts and you could start again, and if you T E
were lucky you'd have turned a profit. > КЕИШ.

For years I wondered if this were really PROCURE
possible. In many bars in Bangkok, Vien- YOUR
tiane and Phnom Penh I would run into DEATH
characters who claimed they had run away CERTIFICATE
from their lives. Some had changed their AT THE
names; others wouldn’t admit how they OCDE
had gotten there—they would tap their EEE

noses and say, “I’m not the man I was.” I’ve
always thought there was a dark pleasure in
being an impostor, like traveling on a train
and telling people you meet that you are
an invented character. When I was a child
traveling on English trains I used to tell
strangers that I was “Prince Prinzapolka,”
and it was always satisfying to see them buy
it. These grown men had done the same.

But how many of them had staged their
own deaths? It seems like a stunt that would
be both disarmingly easy and inexpressibly complicated, even in Bangkok. Bales had
pointed out that as soon as you were “dead” you could no longer use a credit card.
You could not walk insouciantly down a city street or make a phone call to your fam-
ily. In a social sense, you really would be dead, and you’d have to adapt to the fact.
Crossing borders loaded with cash would be nerve-racking, airport security would
be an ordeal, and your intimate relations would have to begin at ground zero.

Yet real-life cases of insurance-fraud disappearance are not hard to find in the
public record. One of the cases Bales worked on several years ago was that of the
Kongsiris, a Thai-American couple who traveled to Thailand from their home in
Easton, Pennsylvania to enjoy a vacation in the mother country. There was nothing
remarkable about Lee and Phatcha, an American retiree and housewife on a tour
of the northern provinces in 1995. They rode elephants and appreciated sunsets.
They visited relatives. But while enjoying these innocuous pursuits, Lee Kongsiri
was rumored to have gone on a sudden spree of “drinking and womanizing,” as the
press later described it. He overdid it to such an extent that after a succession of such
ecstasies he suffered a fatal heart attack, much like a famous president of France.
Some dry souls might call it an ignominious death. But what made him go berserk?

What role Phatcha had played in the priapic excesses of her husband was unclear,
but she had no difficulty obtaining a death certificate from local authorities and using
it to obtain a Death of an American Citizen Abroad document from the U.S. Embassy
in Bangkok. Lee’s was just another death on the tourist circuit. There were thousands
like it: overdoses in cheap hotels, suicides on remote beaches, sexpat slayings at the
hands of bar-girl boyfriends (a particular specialty of Bangkok). The wild East, as a
matter of fact, is a commodious place to die. (continued on page 124)

“How embarrassing! I just slipped out to pick up
3C saw me without my

our paper and that cute guy in
р.

103

IT WAS THE dream car for the generation of American men who came of age
in the 1970s—the ultimate expression of masculinity, like driving a fist down
the road. When the Trans Ат dehuted in 1969, it came in one color: cameo
white with blue accents. Price: $3,887. Engine: a Ram-Air 400-cubic-inch V8.
Pontiac made the Trans Am until 2002, hut its ultimate expression was the 1977
TA Burt Reynolds drove in Smokey and the Bandit. Worldwide Auctioneers sold
Reynolds's personal black Bandit mobile in 2011 for $57,750.

D) E. Davis Jr. launched this car's (and BMW's) fortunes in
North America with his rousing 1968 Car and Driver article headlined TURN
YOUR HYMNALS TO 2002. This Bimmer (1968-1972) could outcorner the era's
British roadsters, with four aboard and Blaupunkt blasting. Early cars are
the best (go for a fuel-injected 2002tii), around $20K today.

great est rides

F ) VY is an American icon—a stylish ragtop with frenched
headlights, pert fins and an attitude that says “Cruising or racing, I've got

you beat.” With its panoramic wraparound windshield, gold-anodized side
trim and proud V8 badges, the Bel Air was the desirable ride in the Dinah
Shore days. At $113K for a top example today, it’s still “the Hot One.”

COUNTING DOWN

/ š A THE BEETLE HAS dubious beginnings. When Adolf Hitler took power in 1933,
the most he turned a nation ravaged by the Depression into an economic juggernaut by
empowering Germany's auto industry. The Volkswagen (“people's car”), brought to
life by lead engineer Ferdinand Porsche, was part of Hitler's plan. Had he lived, he
would have eaten his rug on seeing the car appropriated by peace-loving hippies
( [ . | in the 19605. The Bug to have today? An original from the first year of production

( Gestrec (1946), notable for its split rear window. Expect to drop about $37.5K.

of the peshuar
YEARS

All prices, unless
otherwise noted,
are #2 condition
levels from Hagerty
Price Guide, Janu-
ary to April 2012.

ly
KEN GROSS

AND

` A.J. BAIME

ILLUSTRATIONS BY ETIENNE CAR

(8 two-seat sports car of all time, the Miata (ог МХ-5)
was esi in 1988. It was an affordable, lightweight Japanese sports

car inspired by the great 19605 British roadsters (the Lotus Elan in par-
ticular). Today the Spec Miata is the best entry-level SCCA competition car
money can buy. Pick up a 1990 convertible for $7K and go racing.

; actual name is Tempest LeMans GTO. Bypassing a General
Motors edict on engine displacement in midsize cars (330 cid was tops),
Pontiac's engineers stuck a 389 cid V8 into a 1964 Tempest, and voilà—the
muscle car was born. Some say the GTO is still the greatest muscle car of
them all. A 1964 Tri-Power (three carb) today will run you a mere $71.5K.

ATTLE the new Corvette and Thunderbird, Chrysler's first 300 (the
C-300) was the fastest American production car of its time (1955). The race-

proven hemi V8 could power this baby over 130 mph, and bodywise she was
a stunner. Only 1,725 C-300s were built. More powerful Chrysler “letter cars”
followed, but the 1955 is the purest and the best—about $78.2K today.

A MODERN CLASSIC, the 458 is the current mid-engine rocket in
Ferrari's lineup, a singular sports car that's an amalgam of all

the technology amassed hy the most exotic of motoring
companies in its 65 years of production and racing.

Cornering in this car, with its 5B2-horsepower V8

screaming in your ears, makes you feel super-

human. The Pininfarina-designed body is as luxe

and Italian as can he. Like a gorgeous model,

however, the Italia is a tease. Ünlv the super-

rich get their hands on this $230K supercar.

CARROLL SHELBY WAS at the peak of his fame in 1967.
Shelhy American had won the 24 Hours of Le Mans, some-
thing no American racing team had done before. The
Shelby Cobra (just then finishing production)

had won the НА sports-car world champion-

ship and had captured the imagination of a
generation. Although the Shelhy Mustang

dehuted in 1965 and is still with us today, the

1967 Shelby GT500 is our pick for the coolest

Stang of them all. It came with wide Goodyears

and a 428 Ford engine "higger than king size," as
Road & Track put it. Nothing on the road drew as much
attention, especially from the cops. Get yours for about
$137K. Don't think about the miles per gallon. Gulp.

/AS was "the sports car America loved first." When it arrived
after the war, the right-drive-only TC was a charming anachronism on spindly
wire wheels. Driving a TC today (model years 1946-1949) is an adventure.
Slow at highway speeds, the roadster thrives on winding lanes with its crisp
shifter and throaty exhaust. You'll drop $37K for one in good condition.

E -D a trail for Japanese autos in America when it appeared in
1969. The original 240Z had a raked Ferrari-like nose, plenty of agility and
a price ($3,500) within reach of the masses. The Z continues to blaze; the
390, the seventh iteration, is rumored to debut next year. But the simple,
elegant lines of the original 240 still delight. Expect to drop about $24K.

UNVEILED AS А 1967 model by GM chief Pete Estes (who called it “a
four-passenger package of excitement") on June 29, 1966, Cheuy's
Camaro was created for one reason: to topple Ford's fast-selling Mus-
tang. The pony-car wars have been with us ever since. Our pick of
the Camaro litter is the first-year 1967 228 with a 302 V8 (602 were
made), built for customers to race in the Trans Am series. The original
sticker was $3,226. Today it'll cost you about $67K.

A SLEE , the Pininfarina-designed GTB/4's pointed nose, tight cabin
and impudent tail hint at its 160 mph capability. Its V12 howls like a demented
coyote when you rev to the 7,800 rpm redline. This race car for the road was
state-of-the-art in the 196Ds. A GTB is still capable of showing up modern
sports cars. A 1967-1968 example runs $1.3 million and climbing.

JAGUAR DAZZLED POSTWAR sports-car buyers with the world’s fastest
production car in an era when Britons were still digging

out from World War ЇЇ rubble (1949-1954). Although its

fadeaway fenders aped a 1940 BMW roadster design,

Jag's three-liter six put out 180 horsepower. Clark

Gable bought one of the first XKs in California. Phil

Hill (the only American-born driver to win the For-

mula One title) started his career in an XK. The

first 200 alloy cars go for $310K today. Steel

roadsters are $130K, and they'll keep going up.

lis an Italian expression of shock used upon seeing
a beautiful woman. A pioneering icon of blistering speed, the mid-engined
machine was made from 1974 to1990. Its cockpit sat near the front axle,
and the doors scissored open like a woman with her legs in the air. We like
the original 1974 LP400 with а four-liter V12. Expect to drop $477K.

TRY TO FIND a midcentury sports road-

ster prettier than a BMW 507. Designed

hy Count Albrecht von Goertz (he also

m penned the Datsun 2402), the 507 was

more expensive than a Mercedes-Benz

Bullwing. Only 253 were made between 1955

and 1958, making survivors rare. The 507's side vents
were redesigned for today's BMW Z4. Enthusiasts have
discovered the 507, and it's nearly a 5900К car now. Bet
the hardtop and Rudge knockoff disc wheels if you can.

FERRUCCIO LAMBORGHINI, an air-conditioner and trac-
tor maker, went into the supercar biz in 1963 because
he thought he could make a better car than Enzo Fer-
rari, whose factory was nearby. The Miura, named for
a Spanish fighting bull, shocked when it first bowed in
1967. А four-liter V12 was transversely mounted right
behind the seats. Over time, Lamborghini souped up
the engine and added spoilers; the Miura SV from 1971
is the fastest and most expensive today at $906K.

THE SEXIEST THING ever to appear in a Bond film was not Ursula Andress as ¿ORVETT 3 fuel-injected V8 took the boulevard out of Amer-

Honey Ryder but this Aston, the first and greatest 007 mobile. (We've sat in an ican n sports cars when it bini in 1953, gave GM a racing raison d'étre
actual Bond 085. Yes, it does have machine guns in its fenders.) Offscreen, it and powered a new generation of hot-rodders. Our favorite: the 1963-1967
was the real thing. Aston Martin was riding high after a 1959 Le Mans victory Sting Ray, especially the 1967 L-89, а 435-horsepower, 427-cubic-inch big-
when the 085 appeared in 1962, with a four-liter in-line six and top speed of block racer out of the box, worth about $304K today.

145 mph. While today's Aston Martins are among the most beautiful cars ever
penned, the DB5—worth about $522K now—is still the benchmark.

THE MCLAREN FT was a novel concept: А company known for |
Formula One excellence set out to make the ultimate street

car. When the F1 appeared in 1992, with its middle-situated
driver’s seat and 242 mph top whack, it proved to be the ulti-
mate driving machine of its own and perhaps any era. As put

by Britain’s Autocar magazine, “The F1 will be remembered

as one of the great events in the history of the car.” Only 106
were built. Pick one up today for about $3.5 million.

after World War II, Mercedes-Benz engineers led by
Rudolf Uhlenhaut designed a radical Berman sports coupe with vertically
opening gullwing doors, fully independent suspension and a three-
liter fuel-injected six cylinder. The 300SL became an instant classic.
Enthusiasts love the 1957-1960 convertible, with its improved
suspension and disc brakes, but 300SL coupes from 1954 to 1957

still cost more. Plan on at least $704K.

projectile transformed Jaguar from an interesting British
sports-car purveyor into a serious Ferrari challenger. Like a stiletto heel on
wheels, the E-Type's six-cylinder engine came from Јад legendary D-Type Le
Mans racer. Purists covet Series | coupes and roadsters (1961-1964). Restored
examples fetch about $107K—more than 20 times their original price.

Carroll Shelby was a broke ex-racer with a bad heart
when he came up with the idea to match the chassis of a British AC roadster
with a lightweight Ford V8. The Shelby Cobra (1962-1967) became the
fastest production car in the world. A Cobra with a small-block 289 engine
will run you Ф519К today, more for authentic competition models.

AMONG THE CARS on this page, only one is actually attainable. Porsche

this year unveiled its seventh-generation 911, a delight to all five senses.

How do you pick a favorite from 49 years of 8115? Not easy. Here's ours:

the 1973 911 Carrera RS Lightweight, a race car for the road. In fact, КЕ N
the RS (Rennsport, or “race sport”) was not approved for road use in = b
the U.S., but it was street legal in Europe. It had a lighter body shell, d À
almost no insulation, even thinner windshield glass (to reduce weight) M

and а 240-horsepower fuel-injected 2.7-liter flat six. Top speed: 149

mph. Figure on $390K today for the most iconic early 911.

1. FERRARI G

THE MOST COVETED Ferrari of all, and the most valuable postwar sports car in the shapely, aerodynamically sound ultra-lightweight alloy body, high-reuving three-
world today, the GTO (for Gran Turismo Omologato) heat all comers in its day. Only liter V12 engine with six carburetors and snap-shifting five-speed tranny. Fakes
39 were built, between 1962 and 1964. The GTO, which turns 50 this year, won abound, but every one of the real GTOs is accounted for. The last one up for auction
everywhere it raced, often beating more powerful cars, thanks to its impossibly sold for more than $35 million. The price is probably double that now.

The wild child Victoria’s Secret
supermodel has no secrets anymore

hen ex—Victoria’s Secret model

and Sports Illustrated swimsuit stun-

ner May Andersen says she wants

to meet us at a hip, contemporary

art gallery in downtown Manhat-

tan, we're admittedly a little wary.
Мау 5 reputation is wild child Danish super-
model. Who knew she was a connoisseur?
Should we hit the library first and brush up
on our Klimt and Kippenberger?

As she guides us through the space, how-
ever, identifying and describing in detail each
piece we pass, it's clear she knows what she's
talking about. In fact, it turns out she works
at the gallery full-time. As in “May Andersen
is an assistant director at one of New York's
most respected avant-garde galleries.”

We have to ask, What the hell is she
doing here?

By now May has arranged herself on a
bench in front of a life-size Barry McGee
sculpture of a graffiti artist perched precari-
ously atop a trash can, mid-tag. Her black
micro-miniskirt, snug angora sweater and
vertically striped garter-belted stockings
make it hard to maintain eye contact.

“Basically, I'm 29 now, which is old in
model years, and around the time I started
thinking about what I wanted to do next,
this opportunity came up,” she says softly,

Photography by Sasha Eisenman

By Christopher Tennant

her accent lending a sing-
song quality to the words.
“After several years in the
city, Га gotten to know а lot
of people in the art scene
and felt it was something
I should pursue. I started
out as an intern here, and
one year later I’m an assis-
tant director. I'm really
serious about it and so
grateful and honored to be
able to work with all these
great artists. Not everyone
gets to do that.”

No, they certainly do
not. In fact, it's quite an
unexpected twist in an
otherwise familiar fashion
industry narrative. Dis-
covered on the street in
Copenhagen at the age of
13, May was shipped off
at 15 to New York, where
she rocketed to fashion
stardom, hooked up with
a string of Hollywood bons
vivants, landed in the gos-
sip columns and partied
her proverbial pants off.
Pictures of May in all man-
ner of repose—looking
incredible while making
out nude with another
female model and in vari-
ous other situations—made
their way across the globe
via the net. Needless to say,
a career as an art dealer
wasn't likely in the cards.

“It probably sounds ridic-
ulous, but it feels as if Гуе
already had two lives,” she
says. “Everyone has their
20s or whatever age when
they go through craziness.
I just happened to be in a
world that was very public.
That's the only difference
between me and everyone
else. What can I say? It was
bizarro world.”

While the art world isn't
exactly a paragon of pro-
priety, at least she's getting
to bed at a decent hour.

“T love the nerdiness of my
job now. I love to go home
with my textbook and sit
there and drink tea. That’s
what I do now for fun,” she
says, and we almost believe
her. “I’m really happy and
just focusing on myself. This
proves that anything is pos-
sible, and love changes
everything. I’m so excited
for what’s ahead.”

Remember, gents: It’s
never too late to start
collecting.

= on fa dn o ort: У =

EE se Fs j
Das bizarro Lx | `

See more of May Andersen at
club.playboy.com.

PLAYBOY

116

DAVID BROOKS

(continued from page 50)
Reflections on the Revolution in France, by
Edmund Burke. At first I loathed it.
Burke says you're unwise to think you
can think for yourself, and you have
to show reverence for the things that
have lasted. As a college freshman, you
don't want to hear that. As 1 read
more, I came to see that that was
true. Next, after college 1 worked as
a reporter in Chicago, covered some
bad neighborhoods and fell out of love
with liberal welfare programs, which 1
thought enabled the drug culture and
the breakup of families.
PLAYBOY: How so? Liberals claim that's
exactly what they were trying to fix by
taking on poverty.
BROOKS: One of the programs involved
the replacement of slum neighborhoods
by good-natured people who didn't
understand that when they tore down
slums, they were tearing down social
networks. They created horrible places.
It was bad social planning. In the mean-
time, the family came under attack in
the 1970s, and there was an idea that
bourgeois institutions were part of some
old reactionary culture, which I didn't
believe. A lot of damage was done by
that. Democrats don't talk that way now,
but at the time there was a sense that we
should try to get as many people on wel-
fare as possible, and we shouldn't worry
about old family structures.
PLAYBOY: Are you critical of the sexual
revolution that also defined that time?
BROOKS: Overall it was a good thing but
bad for those who didn't have structures
within which to police themselves.
PLAYBOY: Meaning?
BROOKS: The part that was bad was the
attack on the family. That was a loss for
most people but a tragedy for people who
have no positive life script.
PLAYBOY: A life script that would have
them do what?
BROOK: You go to high school, you get
married, you have a kid. The life script
got changed: You have a kid and then
maybe later you get married. That was a
horrible change.
PLAYBOY: Why was it horrible?
BROOKS: If you grew up like I did, there
was a set of guardrails. There was a social
structure surrounding you, guiding you
pretty much in the right direction. Now
a lot of people live with no social struc-
ture, no guardrails, and it's a lot harder.
They have to figure it out as they go, and
they're set up for problems. They think,
Well, I’ve got to make some money, have
a job, establish myself, then T'll get mar-
ried. That's a screwed-up life script. You
should get married first and then estab-
lish yourself.
PLAYBOY: Isn't that simply part of an old-
fashioned and restrictive value system?
BROOKS: But there's value in the old
structures. They evolved for a reason.
Marriage offers a kind of stability that

can help you, whatever else you do. It's
a foundation. Part of the reason people
struggle so much now is because they
don't have that foundation.

PLAYBOY: Do you relate the changes to
higher divorce rates? For a while there
was also a backlash against monogamy.
BROOKS: [ do. 1 don't think it serves any-
one, least of all children who grow up in
disorganized families and communities. 1
think the ideal number of sexual partners
to have in a year is one.

PLAYBOY: One? Presumably some of our
readers would disagree.

BROOKS: There's a lot of research that sup-
ports my view. I often tell my liberal friends
that the American women who have the
most orgasms are evangelical Christians.
PLAYBOY: You're joking, right?

BROOKS: It's true. They have more sex.
They're in monogamous relationships a
long time. They have sex with one person.
PLAYBOY: Wouldn’t that lead to less sex,
not more? Most people assume that, for a
variety of reasons, married couples have a
lot less sex than people who are single.
BROOKS: The research shows they have
more fulfilling sex lives than the people
who are swinging.

PLAYBOY: You've said the most important
decision anyone makes is whom to marry.
Doesn't that mostly come down to luck?
BROOKS: Some of it, maybe, but it's worth
thinking about before you get married.
If you get two optimistic people together,
they're going to look on the bright side
of everything. You get two people with
temperaments that clash, it’s probably
going to be a problem. Recently 1 did
something called Life Reports, asking
readers over 70 to write in about their
lives. There were about 4,000 or 5,000
responses. The people who had the best
marriages were happy, no matter what
else happened in their lives, and that, I
think, was luck. I don't think anybody
knows how to choose a marriage partner.
Maybe they are just the sort of people
who are agreeable to be around, and
they happened to marry other agreeable
people. That's what they should teach
in college.

PLAYBOY: What else accounted for happy
lives?

BROOKS: Unfortunately there was no
easy relationship between depth and
happiness. A lot of the people who were
impressive at writing about their lives
were pretty unhappy. It's like in Annie
Hall when Woody Allen walks up to this
incredibly good-looking couple and asks,
“How come you guys are so happy?” The
woman says, “Well, I’m incredibly shal-
low, and so is he.” Maybe that works.
None of us would choose that, but maybe
it works.

PLAYBOY: If the sexual revolution did
away with the guardrails, and marriage
is even better for long-term sex, why was
the sexual revolution positive, at least
on balance?

BROOKS: Women were unhappy in the
1950s, and guys were repressed, so I

would say that was a net gain. And also,
by the way, we overestimate the degree to
which people in the 1950s were not hav-
ing sex. We think they were all repressed.
We think that PLAYBOY came along and
everybody changed, but in fact it was
World War I and World War II. It was
the act of going to Paris, people getting
out of their farm towns, going abroad
and coming into contact with different
lives. The wars were also a time of sep-
aration of men and women. When men
returned, there were celebrations.
PLAYBOY: Back to your evolution from
the left to the right. After witnessing the
results of welfare and the breakup of
the family, what finally led you to vote
Republican for the first time?

BROOKS: College, for me, was living
in the fourth century—I studied a lot
of ancient Greek. But I began to shift,
and I always had a bourgeois-immigrant
thing inside. Margaret Thatcher was
elected in 1979, and 1 sort of liked her.
I think Pm typical of everybody in that
politics is less about the ideas than the
personalities you like. As I said, I came
to like Reagan.

PLAYBOY: And now you're the conserva-
tive voice on the Times op-ed page. Is it a
lonely place to be?

BROOKS: As I’ve said, being a conservative
on the Times op-ed page is like being chief
rabbi in Mecca—yes, it’s lonely.
PLAYBOY: Did your fans and foes switch
when you wrote and spoke positively
about Obama?

BROOKS: I guess so. There’s a lot of
“He’s the liberals’ favorite conserva-
tive.” But I was a defender of the Iraq
War, and Times readers didn’t like that.
There was a lot more hostility the first
few years, but today it’s still surprising.
A lot of conservatives don’t regard me
as a member of the team anymore, but a
number of people on the left don’t seem
to see a difference between me and Ann
Coulter. I get a lot of hate mail. It’s not
the majority, but people come up and
tell me how much they hate me.
PLAYBOY: Literally?

BROOKS: Yeah.

PLAYBOY: Does it bother you?

BROOKS: No one likes to be hated. Not
long ago I was at the Museum of Modern
Art in New York, and a stunningly beauti-
ful woman walked right up to me and said,
“I hate you.” You don’t like that, but it’s
part of the job. After my first six months
on the job, I cleaned out my e-mail folder,
and there were 290,000 messages with the
core message “Paul Krugman is great; you
suck.” For the first six months on the job,
I was bothered by it. Га never been hated
on a mass scale before, but my skin got
thicker. I’m still bothered by it, but that’s
part of the job.

PLAYBOY: Do you feel you can have a
different kind of influence than, for
example, Ann Coulter or Rush Lim-
baugh, because they’re preaching to the
choir, whereas in writing for the Times
you're injecting another perspective into

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"Make yourself comfortable, Miss Quinn. Feel free to put your feet up on my desk."

PLAYBOY

118

the dialogue between many who aren't in
your choir?

BROOKS: Coulter and all of them accuse
me of being a coward and a sellout, and 1
counter that by saying, “You're in a little
ghetto where everybody agrees with you.
How brave is that?” At the same time, I get
plenty of appreciation, so I don’t feel I’m
in the wilderness. Actually, I don’t feel far
from many Times readers. If Ann Coulter
were writing at the Times, that would take
more bravery than I have.

PLAYBOY: Do you also feel isolated from the
far right?

BROOKS: Very few things about the job give
you sheer pleasure, but when Rush Limbaugh
goes after me, I feel happy. Or on the other
side, when MoveOn.org goes after me, I feel
happy. I’m happy to have them not like me.
PLAYBOY: You’re frequently on talk shows,
including some that get contentious. Does
it bother you that so much of politics on TV
is shouting matches in which few people get
to finish a sentence?

BROOKS: I don’t do those shouting shows.
Nothing like Laura Ingraham or even
Rachel Maddow. Rachel is plenty smart,
but she’s in a fundamentally different busi-
ness. She’s in the provocation and rallying
troops business, and in that I put her a
level above most. I’ve never met this guy
Ed Schultz, but I don’t think Га like to be
on with him or Keith Olbermann.

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PLAYBOY: What was the hardest time you've
been given on a show?

BROOKS: One of the least pleasant I’ve ever
done was Bill Maher's. He has a big audi-
ence. When you do his show, for months
afterward people say, “I saw you on Real
Time With Bill Maher.” But I really did not
like being on his show. It's 20 minutes of
how evil everyone is who disagrees with
him. I always think it's unfair, and his cri-
tiques are never about policies; they're
about which so-and-sos are right-wing
yahoos. Maybe they are, but that's not why
I’m in the business.

PLAYBOY: Does it concern you that some
people get their news only from Fox on the
one hand and Jon Stewart on the other?
BROOKS: People who watch only Fox have
certain beliefs that are factually false.
There's more of that going around than
before. That's troubling. To be fair, the
Pew Research Center does surveys of who
knows what, and the Limbaugh audience
is pretty well educated. Rush's audience
and the NPR audiences tend to be at the
top. Whether they have a distorted view of
the science on global warming is another
thing. And how much clout do they have?
Limbaugh spent five years attacking John
McCain, and McCain still won the Repub-
lican primary, even among Limbaugh's
audience. They listen because it's enter-
taining. People like Jon Stewart, but that

“You just had to push that top button, didn’t you?”

doesn't mean they're passive receptors of
everything they hear.

PLAYBOY: Do you feel about Stewart as you
do about Maher?

BROOKS: With Stewart and Colbert I feel
there's humor and poking at the left, but
there's a genuine compassionate, admirable
thing inside both those guys, and I don't
feel there is in Maher.

PLAYBOY: These days you seem to be every-
where: in the Times, on NPR, on PBS, on
Meet the Press and other shows, on the Times
blog, at speaking engagements and in your
books. How do you pull it all off?
BROOKS: It can be overwhelming. If I can
have a day when I have nothing to do, I'm
happy. I regret a lot of the commitments
I have. I do spend a lot of time with my
kids, but I don’t spend much time with
my friends, and I don’t spend any time
watching TV, except for some sports. I
used to play golf, but I don’t do that any-
more. So it’s basically work, drive kids to
practice somewhere and go to bed. Bruce
Springsteen is touring Europe this year,
and I want to go to that. I'll make a few
exceptions for Springsteen.

PLAYBOY: You mentioned that you had
290,000 e-mails over a six-month period.
In the days before e-mail, there would have
been far fewer letters, because readers had
to sit down, write them and mail them. Now
it’s the era of reader and viewer comments,
many anonymous and many harsh. Do you
bemoan the civility that’s lost when there
are so many unrestrained voices talking
about every small and large issue?
BROOKS: I think it’s good that people are
talking, even if I don’t always like what they
say. I think it’s heartening that, in spite of
predictions, the Times feels healthier than
it did a few years ago. The readership is
climbing. More people are willing to pay
for it. A couple of years ago I thought we
were in the whaling business and it was
going off the deep end. But now I don’t
think that. There are enough people who
want some authority, and so we'll be fine.
Newspapers are closing, but there isn’t less
news. If you go out on the campaign trail,
there are more reporters than ever, and
somebody’s paying them. I think we’re
in a golden age of long-form journalism.
There’s a lot of great stuff out there. I don’t
think we’re in a crisis or a decline.
PLAYBOY: In addition to your political col-
umns, increasingly you’ve been writing
about psychology, sociology and brain sci-
ence. What’s pulling you in that direction?
BROOKS: A zillion people write about politics,
but relatively few write about the social and
cultural implications of this field, and it’s a
hot area that is exciting to be witness to.
PLAYBOY: Because of your interests in soci-
ology, psychology and science, do some of
your colleagues in the political world look
at you with curiosity?

BROOKS: There was a little “Are you hav-
ing a midlife crisis?” There’s also a message
that politics is the real stuff—tax rates—
and the other stuff is sort of squishy. I
have the opposite attitude. I write about
politics because it’s my job; it’s like eating
your broccoli. The how-we-live stuff is more
important, and readers like it. Still, there’s
a definite sense that if you’re writing about

lifestyle or culture, it's because you had no good political subjects
to talk about, whereas it's the opposite for me.

PLAYBOY: You've written that one problem with American politicians
is that they have little understanding of people's emotions. Why?
BROOKS: Washington is the most emotionally void city in America,
or maybe the world; you feel it in the way people dress—including
me—and the way people talk.

PLAYBOY: You've criticized the Occupy movement as a bunch of
poetry majors, but you claim to value poetry and the arts and
bemoan the fact that they're being pushed aside in favor of prac-
tical study that leads to jobs.

BROOKS: The point is that a lot of the research I looked at shows
that the things that seem so squishy are hard and practical. I
firmly believe in arts education, music and majoring in English
and history. But I was just with a bunch of CEOs, and they talked
about the difficulty they have finding employees with technical
skills. How do I reconcile the firm belief that the humanities are
important to leading a good life with the fact that if you look at
who earns the highest incomes, it’s not even close? Education
majors and communications majors have bad incomes, whereas
general computer and tech majors have much higher incomes. I
wrestle with this with my own kids.

PLAYBOY: How do you advise them?

BROOKS: My eldest son is a history major. The best advice is to
major in what you want to in college, but understand you'll prob-
ably have to find some technical skill, some actual market-savvy
skill, afterward. Get that layering of understanding narrative,
stories, background and history, but realize that’s not going to
be sufficient in the marketplace. It’s also important to remember
that money isn’t what makes people happiest.

PLAYBOY: Besides whom they marry, what else does?

BROOKS: One of the clear themes of the Life Reports was that
people are good at knowing how to talk about their professional
lives and bad at knowing how to talk about their personal lives.
Yet those able to talk about their emotional lives, who were more
connected to their family and friends, expressed much more sat-
isfaction. Their emotional lives gave them more happiness than
their intellectual lives.

PLAYBOY: And yet, despite writing The Social Animal, much of
which is about our emotional lives, your wife said that you writ-
ing about emotion is like Gandhi writing about gluttony. You
told Time, “I’m not good at moments of intimacy with family or
friends.” How do you reconcile that with the message of your
book and the Life Reports?

BROOKS: You can know the right things but be unable to live them.
PLAYBOY: After your research, do you try harder with
your relationships?

BROOKS: The sad part is you can’t consciously change just by
wanting to. You can if you change your environment and your
habits, but the happy part is that you have within you flows of
information and resources, some going back to American cul-
ture, some to your family, some to your religion, some to your
genetics—there’s incredible richness inside each of us. But it’s
so rich and deep and unconscious, it means you can’t actually
change it all that much.

PLAYBOY: Are you regretful?

BROOKS: I have the same regrets everybody has. I’ve worked
pretty hard on my career] still do—and spend less time having
fun. I have friends. I go to hockey games, baseball games, din-
ners. I went hiking with a friend in Berkeley who took a bunch
of his buddies out to Zion National Park. Eight guys just went
out and did a hike. I don’t do too much of that stuff, so I regret
not working harder on friendships.

PLAYBOY: Twelve years ago, in your book Bobos in Paradise, you
made fun of the kinds of people who go hiking in the woods.
BROOKS: That’s true. Well, as I get older I find I write fewer nasty
pieces and fewer cynical ones. I don’t know whether I’m just
older and more fuddy-duddy, or maybe I have learned some life
lessons. I have regrets, but I’m not stopping. I care about all the
stuff I write about. I think it’s important whether Barack Obama
or Mitt Romney wins the election, because people are affected,
the country is affected. It can be frustrating and overwhelming
to do this work, and you give up something to do it, but you feel
you're part of the debate, and it’s worthwhile.

Paul Fredrick

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PLAYBOY

HOLLYWOOD
(continued from page 71)

“Hey, Sticky Foot,” Iron Man said, “no
poaching.”

“Chill, Tin Man,” Spider-Man replied, “or
you might get your fenders dented.”

Iron Man, who had seen his namesake's
movie 14 times and was feeling invincible,
said, “Crawl back in your web, you fuck-
ing insect, or you might get my iron upside
the head.”

And with that, he whacked Spider-Man
across the skull with an iron gauntlet,
except that the iron was really molded plas-
tic. Spider-Man responded by kicking Iron
Man in the groin, sending him crashing
to the pavement on top of Judy Garland's
handprints, preserved forever in the fore-
court cement.

Spider-Man, standing over the fallen
superhero, said, “Better borrow a monkey
wrench to loosen those nuts, Iron Man.”

The Wolf-Man asked Spider-Man, “How
would you like it if someone did that to
you?”

Spider-Man flexed and replied, “What's
your problem, Fido? Either butt out or
bring it on!”

The Green Hornet, who was probably the
sweetest and gentlest of the costumed pan-
handlers and was certainly the gayest, came
to Iron Man's aid and scolded Spider-Man,
saying, “That was unkind, cruel and totally
unnecessary.”

Spider-Man said, “Buzz off, Hornet, or
you'll get swatted next.”

That sent the Green Hornet scurrying, and
Marilyn Monroe—a.k.a. Regis the plumber
in another life—let out a scream at the sight
of Iron Man writhing in pain. Captain Amer-
ica was the first to draw a mobile phone from
his costume pocket and call 911.

It was not the first time a PSR had some
fun with this kind of broadcast. The busi-
nesslike LAPD radio voice said, “All units
in the vicinity and 6-X-46, a 4-15 fight in
the forecourt of Grauman's Chinese The-
atre, between Spider-Man and Iron Man.
Person reporting is... Captain America. Six-
X-46, handle code two.”

“How exciting,” Fran Famosa said in
disgust after rogering the call. “A street char-
acter bitch-slapping.”

Chester Toles just raised his pale eyebrows
a notch, adjusted his aviator eyeglasses and
scratched his rubbery bald scalp before
turning north on Highland, but he didn't
increase his speed by even one mile per
hour. “Maybe if we give the young hotshots
a chance to jump the call, we won't have to
handle it,” he said. “They might think a TV
crew is going to roll on this one and they'll
end up on the news at 10.”

Usually, Fran Famosa would utter an
objection to Chester's goldbricking, but
when it came to a street character don-
nybrook she was in his corner. Superhero
rumbles usually did bring out a TV news
team, and when that happened the mob of
tourists with cameras seemed to replicate
itself, since everybody in Hollywood wanted
to be on the big or small screen. The vehicu-
lar traffic on the boulevard would slow to a

120 stop so motorists could rubberneck, and the

cops would have a mess on their hands.

“Yeah, take your time, Chester,” she said.
"I'm not up for dealing with freak show
panhandlers.”

When, four minutes later, they arrived,
Chester said to her, “No worries, mate. The
situation is well in hand.”

There were already two units from
Watch 3 at the scene, both radio cars
manned by eager young coppers who would
love to handle a superhero squabble in front
of an audience of hundreds, especially if a
news team showed and the audience grew
to potentially hundreds of thousands on the
nightly news. Chester and Fran stopped in
the red zone and made the obligatory ges-
ture of officially handing off the call to the
cops of Watch 3, who hadn’t handcuffed
anyone and were still mulling over the cul-
pability of Spider-Man for the injurious
groin kick after witnesses had concurred
that Iron Man had struck the first blow.

In fact, Chester and Fran had just got-
ten back to their shop when a tourist in an
L.A. Dodgers cap yelled, “Hey, that guy just
grabbed my wife’s purse!”

The thief was a slope-shouldered guy in a
long-sleeved black hoodie that hid his face.
He wore dirty jeans and running shoes, and
he was fast. He zigzagged across Hollywood
Boulevard, causing several cars to brake and
blow their horns at him. He was nearly out
of sight before Chester had time to start the
engine, with Fran Famosa ready to bail out
and give chase on foot. That is, if her fat
partner could get the fucking car moving.

“Come on, Chester!” she said. “The dirt-
bag’s getting away.”

“Okay, Fran, don’t get your knickers in a
knot,” Chester said, pulling into traffic with
his light bar on, tapping his horn to cut into
the lanes of westbound traffic and across the
oncoming eastbound traffic.

Fran put out the broadcast that they were
chasing a 484 purse snatcher westbound on
Hollywood Boulevard from Grauman’s, and
in a moment the PSR relayed the informa-
tion to all units in the vicinity. While this
was going on, Chester had to blast the siren
in order to squeeze through the eastbound
number one lane of cars, whose confused
and panicked drivers didn’t understand
what the driver of the black-and-white
wanted them to do.

The purse snatcher turned south at the
first corner, and by the time they got across
Hollywood Boulevard, he’d vanished.

“Maybe he ran into the parking structure,”
Chester said. “He could hide behind a car
and we'd never find him without a K-9.”

“There he is!” Fran said.

He’d been momentarily hidden from view
by the darkness and a dozen young people
walking north toward Hollywood Boulevard
for an evening of fun and frolic. The runner
turned, saw the black-and-white coming his
way and ran even faster.

“Damn, the dude has an extra gear. He
can really move,” Fran said, broadcasting
their location for all units.

Chester meant business now, and with his
headlights on high beam and his light bar
flashing and his siren yelping, he mashed
down on the accelerator. When the purse
snatcher was all the way to Sunset Boule-
vard and turning the corner eastbound in

front of Hollywood High School, he tripped
on the uneven pavement. He did a tumble
and roll across the sidewalk, and the purse
went flying. By the time he got up, 6-X-46
was stopped at the curb on the wrong side of
Sunset, facing oncoming traffic, which had
slammed to a stop at the sight of the black-
and-white bearing down with its red and
blue lights winking and its siren howling.

There was an instant traffic snarl on
Sunset Boulevard when Fran Famosa and
Chester Toles, who was moving faster than
Fran thought possible, got out and took off
after the limping thief, who wasn’t going
to go peacefully. He turned and threw a
roundhouse punch at Fran, who ducked
and grabbed him around the middle as
Chester got him in an LAPD-nonapproved
but usually effective choke hold. It took the
thief to the pavement, with both cops on
top of him. His hoodie slipped back and his
long black hair fell across a scowling face,
brown as saddle leather. Fran saw that he
was wearing aviator glasses like Chester’s,
and they went soaring when he broke free
of Chester’s choke hold.

He was older than they’d originally
thought, maybe mid-30s, and he was
strong, far stronger than Chester. He got
to his knees, taking Fran up with him, and
he stomped hard on Chester’s hand and
kicked the baton away just as Chester was
getting ready to unload with an LAPD-
nonapproved head strike. Then the thief
whirled and flung Fran Famosa off him, and
he started to run again as they heard a wel-
come siren headed their way.

Fran had a Taser in her hand, but Chester
was between her and the thief with handcuffs
in his left hand, and she saw the guy grab
for Chester’s Beretta. Both men lurched into
her, and she lost the Taser. Chester didn’t
even realize it when his pistol clattered to
the sidewalk along with his handcuffs. That’s
when Fran delivered a nonapproved kick to
the face of the thief and followed it with a
blast of pepper spray, which caught him in
the back of the head instead of the face, and
then he was up again and trying to run, with
Chester Toles hanging on to his left ankle.

Fran Famosa picked up Chester’s lost
baton and struck the thief once, twice, across
the right knee, to no avail. Saying “Fuck
this!” she tried a nonapproved head strike,
but he threw his arm up and took the blow
across the wrist.

It sounded like the muffled pop of a fire-
cracker, and he yelled in pain, then said,
“PI kill you, you cunt!” That's when she
saw the knife.

And that’s when Chester yelled in des-
peration, “Shoot him, Fran!”

Fran Famosa was trying to do just that,
drawing her Glock .40, retreating a few
paces, then taking a combat stance.

But she heard a familiar voice yell, “Drop
that knife!”

Hollywood Nate, followed by Britney
Small, both with their pistols drawn, were
running at the thief, who threw down
the knife and raised both hands to the
top of his head. She’d been so into the
adrenaline-charged moment—sound had
ceased and all motion had slowed way
down—and so close to killing the thief that
she had never heard 6-X-66 squeal to the

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curb in a brake-locking slide, its high beams
lighting up the life-and-death struggle. And
she never really registered Hollywood Nate
and Britney Small's arrival until Nate was
handcuffing the purse snatcher's hands
behind his back.

Britney said quietly, “Holster your
weapon, Fran. We’ve got him controlled.”

“Ooooh, my frigging back,” Chester Toles
said, struggling to his feet with one hand
pressed against the small of his back, looking
for his glasses, his baton, his OC spray and
his dignity. Everything was strewn around
the sidewalk, including the victim’s purse
and its contents: wallet, keys, lipstick, com-
pact, tissues and coupons for Pizza Hut.

Then Chester said, “I’m too old for
this shit.”

Just then, 6-X-76 rolled up and Mel
Yarashi jumped out with Always Talking
Tony Doakes, and A.T. started jawing.

“This is some cluster fuck,” he told Nate
when Fran and Britney were out of earshot,
walking the thief to Fran’s shop. “This is
what happens when you put a chick with
a fat old slacker like Chester. They’re lucky
they didn’t get scalped.”

Only then did Nate notice that the purse
snatcher appeared to be an American Indian.
A.T. picked up the knife by the tip of the
blade and said, “Uh-huh, a trophy taker.
Wonder how many hanks of hair he’s got
hanging from the lodge pole in his tepee.
They should always put someone like me
with someone like Chester. ‘TIl catch em, you
clean em, that's my motto. I would have run
that red man’s dick into the dirt.”

Mel Yarashi, who was accustomed to A.T.’s
garrulous ways, said, “Hey, partner, let’s
police up the sidewalk here. There’s prop-
erty scattered everywhere.”

A.T. nodded but, still wanting to chat-
ter, strolled over to the black-and-white
where the purse snatcher was strapped
into the backseat with the door open and
said, “Dude, you are one lucky Injun. The
LAPD's head-shot record with a handgun is
63 yards. If I'd been the closer here, I would
have just let you get 64 yards in front of me
and broke that record.”

“Go fuck yourself,” the exhausted
Indian said.

“Are you talking to me?” A.T. responded.
“And when exactly did you have your
lobotomy?”

“Pm not an Injun. I’m a Native
American.”

“Really?” АЛ. said. “Which casino?”

“I want my glasses,” the prisoner said.

A. T. said, “I was gonna look for them, but
now I have reservations.”

He looked around to see if anybody
appreciated his Indian humor, but they were
all busy talking on radios or cell phones,
gathering scattered evidence and waving
off more arriving black-and-whites by hold-
ing up four fingers, meaning code four, no
further help needed. There were already
too many coppers milling around the fight
scene, but more kept coming.

“I need my glasses, goddamn it,” the pris-
oner said.

“What's your name?” A.T. asked. “And let
me guess. You're a parolee, right?”

The prisoner did not deny his parole
status but said, “My name's Clayton Lone
Bear. Now go get my glasses, you mud-
shark nigger, or bring one of the white
cops over here.”

“Now you just played the stupid card and
made a mortal enemy of this noble buffalo
soldier,” Always Talking Tony said, thump-
ing his own chest with a fist. “You want
a white cop, try smoke signals.” Then he
turned and said, “Hey, Mel, come over here
and babysit Mr. Lame Bear for a minute.
I gotta go talk to Chester and Fran. If he
tries to go all Little Bighorn on you, gimme
a holler.”

Mel Yarashi trotted over to Fran and
Chester's shop to guard the prisoner, and
A.T. walked toward the searchers, who were
sweeping the sidewalk with their narrow
flashlight beams.

“Isn't it great to be saddled with safe little
baby flashlights,” Chester Toles said to Fran
Famosa. “In the old days 1 could have lit up
the whole freaking scene all by myself with
my five-cell monster.” Chester was squinting
nearsightedly when he spotted a dark object
and said, “Hey, the guy had a gun!” Then
he moved closer and squatted down, saying,
“Wait a minute. This looks like my gun!”

With the adrenaline overload of the

fearful street fight, Chester Toles had been
unable to obey the street cop's first com-
mandment: Watch their hands. He hadn't
realized the thief had jerked his Beretta
from its holster before losing it.

Chester picked it up, holstered it and said
to Fran with a shiver, “We came close to a
bagpiper on the hill.” Meaning an LAPD
funeral complete with a lone bagpiper play-
ing a dirge, an LAPD custom since the 1963
funeral of Officer lan Campbell, himself a
piper, who was kidnapped from the streets
of Hollywood and murdered in an onion
field north of Los Angeles.

A.T. strode up to them and said, “Hey,
Chester, no big surprise, but I think this
PLMF is a parolee at large. Way to go, cow-
boy.” Everyone knew that PLMF meant
“parolee-looking motherfucker,” but Chester
Toles was too old and too sore right then to
give a shit.

While A.T. was walking back along the
curb to his shop, something glinted in his
flashlight beam, and he recognized the pris-
oner's glasses lying in the gutter beside the
curb. He glanced around and saw that every-
one was occupied with his or her own tasks,
so he turned off his flashlight and strolled
over to the gutter in the darkness. And he
surreptitiously stepped on them, crunch-
ing and grinding the glass and metal into
the asphalt.

Mel Yarashi was waving the traffic past
the scene when Sergeant Murillo pulled up,
parking behind Nate and Britney's shop to
take over supervision and make notification
to Force Investigation Division about a “cat-
egorical use of force.”

That was when A.T. saw Chester Toles
approach the prisoner and hand a pair of
glasses to Fran, saying, “Here, put these on
his face. 1 don't know where the hell my
glasses are.”

“Yo, partner!” A.T. suddenly yelled to Mel
Yarashi. “Code four. We're not needed here.
Let's bounce.”

Excerpted from Harbor Nocturne by Joseph
Wambaugh. Printed with permission of the Mys-
terious Press, an imprint of Grove/Atlantic, Inc.

T. HAVE NO IDEA!
SOME DRUNK
WANTING TO
KNOW IF THE

COAST IS CLEAR!

PLAYBOY

122

CHRIS EVANS

(continued from page 74)
EVANS: Oh, pretty bad. I had a couple of
bad auditions for that one. I went in one
time and just blew the audition and left.
I called my agent, and he was like, “Yeah,
it’s not going to go any further,” and I said,
“No, I need another audition.” The first
one I just screwed up, you know? That's
what happens sometimes. My fault. The
second time, I got in there, and five min-
utes into the audition, the director had a
call on his cell, and he was like, “It's okay.
Keep going,” and he went out and took the
phone call. I was reading the scene with
the casting director and the video camera,
and I was like, “Well, this isn't right either.”
But I got one more shot at it, and luckily
it worked out.

018

PLAYBOY: Are there any roles you lost out on
that really upset you?

EVANS: I remember I really wanted that
movie Fracture that Ryan Gosling ended
up doing. I had a really good audition,
and the director and I had gotten along
incredibly well. He called me and said,
“Listen, you're my guy for this thing.”
But Ryan was on the way up as well, and
I think he just read it and liked it. And
Anthony Hopkins was in it. You can't beat
working with him.

013
PLAYBOY: You're a die-hard Boston sports

fan. Has your celebrity afforded you access
you only dreamed of as a kid?

EVANS: Sports is the one thing I get giddy
about. I get really excited. I do not keep
my composure well when I meet athletes.
I can meet any actor in the world and say,
“Hello, how are you? Nice to meet you,”
and maintain a level of sensibility. I met
Kobe once and did not play it cool. I met
Michael Jordan once. I don't even know
if he'll remember it. It was like the best
experience of my life. I was at Atlantis in
the Bahamas one weekend doing some
celebrity bullshit, whatever it was, and a
party was going on at one of the clubs.
This is right after Fantastic Four had come
out, and on the edge of the VIP section
was Michael Jordan. He had his little table
there, and he just went, “Hey, hey!” He
kind of got the bouncer’s attention and
said, “That kid's okay.” He waved me in,
poured me a drink and said, “My kids
love you.” I did not play it cool. Thank
God I wasn't too drunk at that point,
because I might have gone in for a hug
or something.

020

PLAYBOY: You went into therapy after agree-
ing to play Captain America. What did you
learn about yourself?

EVANS: What did I learn about myself? Well,
that I'm not the only one who feels over-
whelmed. Everyone deals with these feel-
ings, at some level or another, in some way.

"Gotta run, Bob. Im getting a nibble."

LOBBYIST

(continued from page 54)
his room, and since you can't relocate to the
nation's capital and quickly build relation-
ships with the power players, you have one
choice: Hire a lobbyist.

A lobbyist's existence revolves around solv-
ing problems like this. He has probably spent
a lifetime building relationships and knows
how the legislative process works. Although
the cost of hiring a lobbyist isn't included in
your company's operating budget, it is a rel-
ative bargain if it saves your business. After
finding a suitable clothespin for your nose,
you set out to engage in the malodorous
game of lobbying.

You first need to figure out what kind
of lobbyist you need. If the assault on your
industry has been building for years and
has spread like a cancer through Congress,
you might need to engage one of the big-
ger lobbying shops. Often, powerful lobbying
operations are housed within law firms. They
usually include several former congressmen
and senators on the roster and undoubt-
edly cost a fortune—especially if the effort
requires many lobbyists working many hours.
Since most law firms bill by the hour, the cost
is likely to be exorbitant.

As for our fictional Omnibus Picture Frame
Act of 2012, let's posit that our redoubtable
senator is still steamed about his cut hand and
has it in mind to move the bill when he gets
around to it. But since he's a senior senator
and probably chairman or ranking member
of some prestigious Senate committee, he has
been occupied with other responsibilities. The
threat remains, but for now it can probably be
dealt with by a smaller, less expensive lobbying
shop. Your task is finding the right one.

Having been a member for decades, you
contact the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and
ask for advice. It gives you the names of three
smaller lobbying shops, and you send each an
e-mail outlining your issue. After they reply,
you get on the phone.

'The lobbyists seem like normal people,
and even intelligent. So much for stereo-
types. They all outline the same basic plan.
The first phase is research and intelligence
gathering. That means they'll pick up the
phone to the senator's staff to see what's in
the senator's head. Then they'll study the
Omnibus Picture Frame Act to see where it
is vulnerable to attack. 'The second phase is to
prepare written materials that support your
position and refute any arguments support-
ing the act. The third phase is for the lobbyist
to meet with the senator's staff and, if neces-
sary, the senator. If they can kill the bill with
an appeal to reason, great. If not, they will
need to mount a more extensive and more
expensive campaign to combat the legislation
before it spreads throughout Congress.

You want the bill killed at that first meet-
ing, of course, because you want to sleep at
night and you don't want this lobbying effort
to eat all your profits. So now that you under-
stand what the lobbyists need to do, whom
do you hire?

One of your potential lobbyists is an expert
on how to make picture frames and knows
every nuance of the business. Another is an
expert on the legislative process and is able

to recite the names of every congressman and
senator for the past 40 years. The third is less
certain of the legislative process and wouldn't
know a picture frame from a windowsill but
plays golf with the senator and has been one
of his main sources of campaign funds for
more than a decade.

If all you want is to amend the bill, the
expert on picture frames might be the best
negotiator. If you need to tie up the bill in
the labyrinthine legislative process, the sec-
ond lobbyist would know just what to do. But
you need to get this thing killed fast, so you
hire the golfer.

After several phone calls, your lobbyist
seems to understand your business—at least
enough of it to have an intelligent conversa-
tion with the senator. He then explains to
you the way Washington really works. He
asks you to contribute
to the senator's cam-
paign and political
action committee to
the maximum extent
allowed by law and to
get your spouse and
any other adult you
can convince to do
the same. The more,
the better.

You need a shower
to wash off the politi-
cal filth, since this is
the very thing you
disdain about poli-
tics. But far too often
this is how it works in
our nation's capital.
The lobbyist serves
two masters: his cli-
ent and the legislator.
The corrupt game is
played in virtually
every office on Capitol
Hill. Access is granted
to those who raise
the money. Lobbyists
raise money from any
source they can, but
their most reliable
source of donations
is their clients, who
need results.

Within a few days
you courier five
$2,000 checks for the
senator's reelection
committee and two $5,000 checks for his lead-
ership political action committee. Leadership
PACs are one of the many smarmy loopholes
in the campaign finance law. When it comes
to money, everyone in Congress is a leader.

Checks in hand, the lobbyist dons his
green-checkered pants and yellow-striped
polo shirt and hits the links with his friend,
the statesman with a recently acquired ani-
mus toward picture frames. By the time they
make the turn to the back nine, the lobby-
ist has convinced his friend to drop the silly
Omnibus Picture Frame Act, and the senator
has banked additional contributions for his
already assured reelection. In fact, since the
golfing event is now a fund-raiser, the lobby-
ist can pay for the greens fees too. If there
was a conversation that probably crossed the
legal line of quid pro quo, neither would

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ever admit to it. Just another day at the
office in our nation's capital—even when
that office is a golf course.

But let's say it is not so easy. What if our
New England senator took the draft of the
Omnibus Picture Frame Act of 2012, circu-
lated it among his colleagues and garnered
co-sponsors? Let's say he also called his
state's congressional delegation and asked
them to push the bill in the House of Repre-
sentatives, and they introduced it with some
modifications that make the approved man-
ufacturing process even more complex. At
this point the local Capitol Hill media hear
about the bill and start writing articles, which
are replicated as "public interest" stories in
The Washington Post and The New York Times.
Soon the articles are picked up by the Associ-
ated Press and you are reading them in your

THE NEW BEDSIDE

PLAYBOY

TON, SATIRE, CARTOONS, AND REPORT WI

Edited by
HUGH HEFNER

hometown newspaper. The threat that Acme
will be wiped out is growing by the hour.

You can no longer avail yourself of the
services of the golfer. No matter how many
rounds of golf they play, the senator couldn't
put the genie back in the bottle even if he
wanted to. You are now faced with a huge
effort to stop the legislation that threatens
your company. What do you do?

For openers, you are not able to afford a
full Washington lobbying campaign alone.
Тће cost will have jumped from five to six
or possibly seven figures. You need to form a
coalition. Surely other picture frame produc-
ers in America are as upset as you are about
this bill. You need to find them and get them
to commit funds. You need a war chest.

You now must go with one of the larger
lobbying firms. Its plan will be grand and

the

costly. It will need to send legions of lobbyists
to Capitol Hill to combat the spread of the
bill and to lobby members who have signed
on as co-sponsors to remove their names
from the legislation.

Every stage of the effort is expanded, start-
ing with the intelligence gathering. Instead
of having to understand the motivations
and plans of one senior senator from New
England, the lobbyists now need to compre-
hend the ruminations of scores of members.
'The lobbyists will need to canvass Congress
(both houses), take a vote count and launch
an effort to thwart the bill. They also need
to know every detail about your industry.
A good lobbyist will constantly pressure his
client for more information, since smart lob-
byists recognize that the hooks needed to win
are in those details.

While they're work-
ing Capitol Hill, the
lobbyists will need
to make sure your
industry isn't being
vilified in the press,
which would ensure
additional support
for the act. They may
need to subcontract
with a public rela-
tions firm to handle
this, depending on
how much press the
issue attracts.

If the lobbyists are
creative, they will
work with you to
expand your coali-
tion, bringing in not
only other frame mak-
ers to help foot the
bill but also vendors
"T ў who sell your сот-
panies the goods and
services they require.
For example, your
company might buy
a boatload of timber
each month. Who
are the suppliers in
the chain of delivery?
The interests of each
are affected by the
act, and they need
to weigh in. А smart
grassroots campaign,
in which the vendors
are organized to call their representatives,
can have a powerful impact.

When the lobbyists hit Capitol Hill to meet
with Congress, they will be armed with exten-
sive research materials that show how many
jobs the bill will kill and how it will ultimately
serve the interests of frame makers overseas,
perhaps in China. They will employ their
powers of persuasion to stop the act. Tying
their efforts in to national consensus positions
will pay serious dividends. The goal will be to
peel off one by one any supporters the sena-
tor has enlisted. They will likely have their
own golfers on staff who play just as regularly
with senators and congressmen, and they will
undoubtedly raise even more money than the
sole practitioner in our first scenario.

The request for campaign funds will be the
same, only it will go out to everyone affected by

‚ 58.98.

123

PLAYBOY

124

this act. Instead of a few thousand, the coalition
will become a pseudo political party, raising
enough money to become a political force.

If you hire a powerful lobbying firm, most of
the lobbyists will have migrated to K Street—
the lobbyists’ lair—from Capitol Hill, having
themselves served as congressmen or congres-
sional aides. They will have social relationships
with virtually every congressional office. When
I was lobbying, we knew we could count
on more than 100 of the offices in a pinch.
Beyond that, we had strong relationships with
almost 300 members and their staffs. This is
average for a major lobbying firm.

If you pick one of the powerhouse firms,
these relationships are renewed almost daily
through social and political events such as
meals, fund-raisers, sporting events and of
course golf. A lobbyist who doesn’t spend
countless hours creating new relationships
will have little access, and that lobbyist will
lose in a scrum with competitors who keep
their relationships fresh.

An effective lobbyist will not only get to
know your industry and issues but will know
how other industries with similar challenges
fared in the same legislative arena. He or
she will know when to recommend a frontal
attack and when to suggest political legerde-
main. Knowing how much pressure to bring
(and when to bring it) is a vital talent you
want in your lobbyist. When it comes to lob-
bying, being a heavy-handed omadhaun is as
ineffective as being timid.

The most successful of the elite lobbyists are
the least lazy. It seems incomprehensible that
top lobbyists might be lazy, but some are. The
best in the field take advantage of this weakness.

The lobbyist who works out a plan for victory
is generally considered well prepared for the
battle. But lobbyists who war-game both their
own and their opponents’ likely moves are the
ones most likely to prevail. When I was lobby-
ing, we were rarely defeated because we not
only created our own game plan—with coun-
termeasures geared to blunt our opponents’
responses—but also created our opponents’
plans as if we were in their shoes. There were
no imaginable (or even unimaginable) even-
tualities we didn’t consider. In fluid legislative
battles, overpreparation is essential.

A winning lobbyist will also not stop fight-
ing until the final bell is rung. Often legislative
fights are lost in the last moments because
one side declares victory too soon. The right
lobbyist will stay vigilant to the end, which
usually means the congressional recess.

In today’s climate, the right lobbyists can
get almost anything they want. Whether it is
protection for Acme Picture Frame, a spe-
cial tax break for a corporation, a sweetheart
contract for a labor union or the expendi-
ture of billions of dollars on bootless federal
programs, the lobbyist who knows how to
play the system and who has access beyond
the ken of the average citizen can have more
control than many elected officials.

That might work to your benefit if the fed-
eral government is harming your interests,
but this kind of special interest is ultimately
harmful to our republic and to our future.
We can only hope the American people send
more Mr. Smiths and far fewer future lobby-
ists to Washington.

“Your necktie is an arrow pointing to your penis.
That’s sexual harassment!”

DISAPPEARANCE

(continued from page 102)

A death certificate is usually treated at
face value by many embassies, as Western
functionaries have little idea how easily
they can be forged in Asian backwaters. But
Lee Kongsiri had purchased $1,886,493 in
life-insurance policies from nine different
insurance companies in the U.S. His “widow”
collected $1,586,947 of it—two companies,
Allstate and Prudential, suspected fraud and
launched investigations.

Newly rich—in Thai terms, anyway—the
Kongsiris bought a condo in Bangkok and
another in the provincial town of Phetburi.
They scarcely bothered to conceal themselves
in Bangkok. They had reinvented their lives,
and there was no reason for them to fear
retribution or even discovery. Bangkok is a
city of almost 10 million people, and unlike
Western cities it is not stifled by surveillance
systems and prying bureaucracies.

The list of insurers the Kongsiris hit up is
impressive: Aetna Life Insurance ($404,858),
Bankers Security/ReliaStar ($302,980), Amer-
ican Guardian Life Assurance ($300,677),
Ohio Life Insurance ($300,454), Cigna Group
Insurance ($146,970), Central National Life
Insurance of Omaha ($100,000) and Cuna
Mutual ($31,006). These companies paid up
on the basis of documentation issued by the
U.S. Embassy in Bangkok, and that might
have been that had not the Kongsiris commit-
ted an act of superlative foolishness.

In 1996 they greeted a party of relatives
at Bangkok’s Don Muang airport without
informing them of Lee’s “death.” The relatives
filmed the whole thing, and the tape made its
way into investigators’ hands. The FBI asked
Thailand for an arrest, and the hapless couple
was extradited after the Pennsylvania attor-
ney general’s Insurance Fraud Section filed
charges that eventually imprisoned them.
The Kongsiris had shown how easy it was
to defraud American insurance companies
out of astronomical sums of money by faking
one’s own death and disappearing. As for the
unhappy pair, they each received 14 years.

There was a twist in this story, however.
It turned out Mrs. Kongsiri’s real name was
not Phatcha but Silivai. She had changed it
after staging her own death in Thailand in
1985, claiming a modest insurance payout
and then disappearing back to the U.S. Hav-
ing performed the scam immaculately once,
she decided to repeat it with the husband she
had remarried under her new name. The
statute of limitations had run out on the 1985
fraud, and Phatcha was never tried for it. She
and her husband kept the money.

Bales is a Bangkok character. A former
marine born in 1942, he has become per-
haps the definitive investigative expert on
vanishing and its psychology, at least in Asia.
He founded his own investigation firm, called
First Services, in 1979 and ran its Asia bureau
in Bangkok between 1989 and 2004, work-
ing out of Los Angeles for the last five years
before retiring. I tracked him down in a
seaside Thai village called Ban Krut, which
is where he ended up with his Thai wife,
Kasama. They run a small New York-style

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PLAYBOY

126

pizzeria that bears her name. There's nothing
in Ban Krut except a wat on a hill, a few des-
ultory resorts for overweight Germans and
a distant view of the hills in Burma.

It's an unlikely place for a private eye to
retire to, one of the sedate family resorts
that punctuate the coast south of the royal
beach town of Hua Hin. There's a Victorian
train station straight out of Mary Poppins but
no Radissons or girlie bars with names like
Sex for You and Press My Buttons. It's a fine
place for a man who is sick of Bangkok, and
perhaps a fine place for a man who is sick of
people in general. It is the kind of place to
which a man who has seen too much retires.
It implies a gentle disgust.

The Baleses bought land behind a laid-
back resort on the beach road and built a
villa alongside a creek. It's the expatriate's
dream. A self-built house, a patch of tropi-
cal water and jungle, a corner of the world
utterly still and stagnant and fertile. There
are a couple of beach bars with cheap Singha
beer and no farang tourists. Inside the house
are walls covered with Marine Corps memo-
rabilia and yellowing snapshots ofa younger
Byron sporting a shoulder holster in Starsky
& Hutch poses. I’ve always found it strange
the way people make these disconcerting col-
lages of their past lives, displayed in offices
and kitchens, with a younger self peering
out at the present as if to challenge its cred-
ibility. It made me curious about what Bales
remembers of his professional life in Asia.
Did the expat dream, for example, have
anything to do with the dreams of disap-
peared people who went to live in far-off
countries offering a more enjoyable way of
life? The answer was swift.

“Maybe it does,” he says. “Why would you
want to retire somewhere other than Thai-
land? It’s the easiest country. You re going to
retire in the United States? Good luck.”

Bales is a fast-talking charmer with some-
thing still faintly military about him: The
cropped white hair, the crisp manners and
the rapid deployment of statistics suggest a

man more comfortable with concrete reali-
ties than abstract arguments.

He drifted into investigation work because,
he says, he liked the idea of decoding human
nature by following the behavior of fugitives.
He began in the 1970s investigating corrupt
cops and drug dealers and then moved into
traveling the world to pursue insurance claims.
First Services now has offices around the globe.
The company runs on foot soldiers known as
“men on the ground,” snoopers who are not
quite good enough to be investigators but who
do the humdrum work of informants.

One hundred and seventy countries over
20 years have yielded a bizarre panorama of
human vice and folly. In Syria, for example,
Bales investigated a Damascan businessman
who put out contract killings on his two sons
to collect the life insurance, and succeeded.
In Taipei people had their relatives bumped
off for a handy dividend, and in Manila you
could have someone killed for 5,000 pesos,
about $115. People would insure imaginary
brothers and aunts and get away with it.
They’d pack caskets with rocks and stage
elaborate funerals for people who didn’t
exist. They d insure their own children and
declare them dead to collect the cash.

“The thing to remember about criminals,”
Bales explains, “is that they are always being
criminals. A scammer is always scamming, no
matter where he is. His behavior will always
betray him in the end.”

His moral response to this incontrovert-
ible proof that humans will stop at nothing
to procure money without working for it is
a needle-fine gallows humor mixed with an
Asian fatalism that leaves room for a certain
amused patience. Parents killing their chil-
dren for cash—why not? Hundred-dollar
assassinations in a city of 14 million—why
be surprised? Faking your own death is mild
by comparison.

“How many do it?” I ask.

“Who knows? It’s a conspiracy of silence.
No one wants to talk about it very much.”

The statistics of staged vanishings and

“Communication! That’s what it’s all about, Jackie!

You can’t have a relationship if 1
talk even

ou don't talk! I mean, Ed and I

4 p
uring sex:

insurance payouts are difficult to determine
because insurance companies are reluctant
to admit how much money they lose each
year—and how they lose it—through such
scams. The private investigators they hire to
track down disappeared people are a tiny
fraternity of tight-lipped operators whose
livelihoods are threatened by the most triv-
ial disclosures. Even anonymously, they rarely
comment on cases. Predators and prey—
investigators and scammers—are locked in
a battle that neither side wants to elucidate to
an outsider. “I’m talking to you,” Bales says,
"because I'm retired."

First Services estimates that prior to 1999
it was handling up to 20 cases a month (it's
more like one a week now). The trade was
global. Scammers operated out of many Afri-
can countries, as well as the Middle East, until
new immigration laws in the U.S. and 9/11
stemmed the flow of fraudsters flowing into
the country to file claims. Now, however, new
cases are on the rise again. It's possible—and
it's anecdotally suggested—that the financial
crisis will see more troubled souls doing what
former hedge fund manager Samuel Israel
III did, writing a suicide note on his car and
disappearing from Bear Mountain Bridge in
New York on June 9, 2008, only to reappear
wretchedly a few days later. His pithy note,
drawn from the title of the MASH theme
song, was "Suicide is painless." Which is cer-
tainly true if you don't actually commit it.

One retired FBI agent, who now runs a
restaurant in Bangkok, says that during 20
years of duty specializing in Indonesia she
heard of disappearance cases only through
the grapevine. ^We knew they were there,
but they were sort of underground. We
knew people came to Asia to do it," she says.
Another FBI agent based in Manila tells
me his office is focused mostly on terrorism
issues, not disappeared people. “But we hear
about such cases from time to time. There's
usually little we can do, however."

Bales explains how a case might look.
Let's say an American salesman who has lost
his job decides to fake his death. Usually it's
a husband-and-wife team because someone
has to cash in the claim. It is pretty much
impossible to collect your own life insurance
in person.

'The couple live in Maryland, so they start
by looking for a courthouse in the continental
U.S. that has burned down. It doesn't mat-
ter where, so long as they are certain all birth
and death certificates have burned as well.
According to Bales, they are quite easy to
find. Courthouses burn down all the time.

Тће salesman finds someone who has died
from that courthouse's jurisdiction and whose
family has moved away, preferably someone
who died young. He writes to the present
courthouse and requests a duplicate birth
certificate. When he gets the duplicate, he
applies for a passport. This too is surpris-
ingly easy. Equipped with a new passport, the
prospective disappearer begins to develop
a second persona. The second persona has
to have some affinity with his real persona,
or he is likely to slip up at critical moments
(unexpected interviews at security check-
points, visits to hospitals, etc.). It takes about
two years for all these elements to fall into
place, and by that time he has eased himself
into the mind-set of his invented person. He

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128

has learned to think differently, to answer to
a dead person's name.

He will need a death certificate, but in
some instances he will also need a corpse
to back it up. There are a number of ways
to acquire one. In the wild East, he can dis-
creetly approach a cop in one of the big
cities and make an offer: For, say, $2,000
he can request that the cop find him a Cau-
casian corpse more or less the same height
as himself. It's the height that counts, Bales
says. You can mutilate the corpse or have
it quickly cremated, but it will always be
measured first. The corrupt cop on the
American's books can switch IDs, grease the
wheels and make sure no one pokes their
nose too deeply into the scam, but he can
rarely avoid having the body measured. You
can fake anything except a body’s height.

How does someone get a body in the first
place? No problem, Bales says. It’s called body
shopping. “In Bangkok we used to have a
farang death in the city’s hotels almost every
week. We used to call the Dynasty Inn on
Soi 4 Nana, where all the sex tourists go, the
Die Nasty Inn. We'd get a white corpse there
quite reliably most weeks, and any corrupt cop
could have switched the IDs. I’m not saying
they ever did. Not on the record, anyway.”

It is the same in Manila and Phnom Penh.
Cause of death could be anything. “There
are,” he adds, “a lot of deaths in resorts. Who
knows why?” Maybe it’s the food or the all-
around merriment.

But ifa convenient-size corpse doesn't show
up on time, you can always have one custom
delivered for $10,000 and often for much
less. In this scenario the cop will actually go
out and kill someone for you. It’s a dirty busi-
ness, murdering a total stranger who happens
to be the same race and height as yourself.
But for a payout of $1 million, people will
do it. No one knows how many people dis-
appear every year from body shopping, and

Bales is grimly agnostic: “It’s more than you
think.” Dozens a year? “Impossible to say.
But it really does happen.”

The cop on the body shopper’s payroll
will plant his ID on whatever corpse he has
selected. Two people, in effect, will have dis-
appeared: the shopper and his body double.
What is left is the shopper’s invented per-
sona, who is now free to thrive as he likes.
He is the dejected American salesman in a
different envelope.

Meanwhile, the grieving wife puts on an
act for local authorities and for the slackers
at the local embassy, and she ends up with
a shiny new death certificate. There was a
time, Bales claims, when the U.S. Embassy in
Bangkok was handing them out like candy
wrappers. This is no longer quite as true,
however. The Philippines, he says, offers bet-
ter hunting grounds.

What happens next is in some ways even
more bizarre. Scammers target American
companies because there are so many of them
and because their underwriting is so haphaz-
ard. When it comes to investigating claims,
they compete against one another. There is
no digital cross-referencing system, and—
according to Bales—insurers, investigators
and immigration authorities in the U.S. do
not collaborate in any meaningful way. This
makes for a criminal’s paradise.

Recently, a man in Pakistan insured himself
with 37 different American companies for a
minor hospitalization and billed all of them at
once for a huge sum. He was paid. Insurance
companies have recently scaled back hospital-
ization and disability policies, and there is a
two-year waiting period in the case of suicides
before payment is made. “But at the same
time,” says Bales, “insurance companies hate
publicity, so they are inclined to pay if things
get sticky. And every con man knows it.”

Armed with a death certificate from a
country like the Philippines, however, the

“I know money can’t buy happiness, so I prefer to dwell on
all the positives that it can buy.”

scammer’s wife has little to do but wait
patiently for the check—provided, of course,
the company doesn’t hire someone like Bales
to hunt her husband down. “I can usually
find them,” he says. “I have the nose and I
know when something isn’t right. It’s only
when they collect, however, that things get
dangerous for me. A scammer who has col-
lected can be prosecuted.”

But what about the American salesman
and his body double?

“They didn’t get the money. But they
nearly did. Because no felony was commit-
ted from the insurance point of view, nothing
was investigated. No one was murdered.”

It would be fair to say Bales’s richest territory
has been the Philippines. Sprawling, difficult
to traverse, spectacularly corrupt, the archi-
pelago is the perfect place to fake a death,
disappear or have a body double cremated
as you. The Philippines, he says almost with
admiration, is unlike any other place in Asia
or even the world. It’s even cheaper than
Thailand, and it’s English-speaking. The girls
are gorgeous and the cops even more delight-
fully corrupt. Where better to vanish?

Once he was sent to the Philippines to
track down the wife of an Australian citi-
zen who had supposedly died of cancer at
the age of 27 and whom the husband had
insured for $750,000 with American com-
panies. Her death had been reported in the
local papers, and there had been a seemingly
bona fide burial. Bales went to the cemetery,
where the headstone carried a photograph
of her, as is usual in the Philippines. But the
plate on the stone itself was obviously fake.
Bales ripped it off easily and then went to the
National Statistics Office to see if her name
had been registered as a death. It turned out
they hadn't registered because they wanted to
bring her back to life—with her own name.

Now knowing she wasn't dead, Bales set off
to the Visayan islands, where she was orig-
inally from, hopping from island to island
looking for a girl called Lolita. Her husband
was at home in Australia, and she certainly
wasn't there, so Bales found her home village
near Roxas City, settled in and began asking
the inhabitants if anyone had seen her.

“In the Philippines everyone knows the
insurance-scam game,” he says. “They even
have a phrase for it: tago ng tago, ‘hiding and
hiding.’ When I asked them if they had seen
this girl, they all just winked and tapped their
noses. She had been there six months after
death, all right. But could I find her myself?”

He never did find her, but he was able to
disarm the claim. Since nothing was collected,
Lolita and her husband were not subject to
prosecution, and Bales is certain they tried
it a second time. Scammers know they won't
be prosecuted without collecting the money,
and so they have no hesitation in repeating
the same stunt until they get it right. In this
case, at least they didn’t kill anyone.

As the sun went down we retired to an
open-air beach bar. Bales drifted back to the
stories that really grip him, tales of fraud that
seem to illustrate a part of the human mind
we wish weren't there. Like the businessman
in Syria. Or the eeriness of disappearance
itself. Take Richard Bingham, seventh Earl
of Lucan, who disappeared in 1974 after his

nanny was found murdered in the Lucan
house in London. There have been countless
sightings of Lord Lucan all over the world
since, including one involving a man living
in his car in New Zealand who was actually
investigated by a detective. There 15 а cottage
Industry devoted to Lord Lucan sightings,
much like Elvis and the Loch Ness monster.
And yet Lucan has never surfaced. He had
the nerve to stay disappeared.

“It seems counterintuitive that anyone can
disappear in today's world,” says Bales, “so
when they do, it makes the world seem more
primitive, more dangerous. It make us think
our security is an illusion—and it is.”

Consider a recent example of exactly this kind
of planned disappearance. In 2002, a 51-year-
old former teacher
and prison officer
named John Darwin,
living in a small beach
town near the holiday
resort of Hartlepool
in northeast Eng-
land, disappeared in
the North Sea while
canoeing by himself.
He was a noted ama-
teur canoeist, and
he disappeared on a
calm day, in perfect
conditions. Darwin
was subsequently
declared dead without
evidence of a corpse
or foul play. His wife,
Anne, assumed it was
suicide, and this was
ruled as a possibil-
ity. In April 2008 an
inquest recorded an
open verdict and for-
mally declared that
Darwin was dead.
The life insurance
paid out. 'The mort-
gage was cleared, his
debts were erased—
and his wife was left
in possession of two
substantial properties
and a pension from
the prison service of
£8,000 a year.

But Darwin was still
alive. For five years he lived in a cubbyhole in
his wife's house, cultivating an alternate iden-
tity under the name of John Jones and going
for midnight walks on the beach dressed in
a shabby overcoat and woolly hat. He was
seen occasionally in the tiny town, but peo-
ple assumed he was a homeless man or an
eccentric they didn't know. The wife even-
tually sold the house and disappeared. The
couple moved to Panama and, with the insur-
ance money, bought an estate they intended
to develop as a tourist resort. Locals who
met them described them as a normal, affa-
ble couple with a good sense of humor and
a love of the good life. Like the Kongsiris,
they seemed mightily pleased with them-
selves and remarkably at ease in their new,
improved life.

The Darwins' scheme was a smooth

Gordgeus

success, and they were caught only when
John began to miss his two sons, whom he
had not informed of his scam. He flew back to
the U.K. and turned himself in. It's a classic
pattern. Disappearing is relatively easy, but
staying that way is not. The question, though,
is how many cases do we not hear of precisely
because they are perfectly executed? How
many Lord Lucans are out there, men who
have vanished overnight and who have made
their peace with that fact?

After talking with Bales, I was naturally
curious to see how easy it is to be declared
dead. I didn't want to disappear, but I was fas-
cinated by the idea that I could. What would
it feel like to see one's name on a death certifi-
cate and know that one's demise was officially
recorded in a government database?

Because I have a long association with Thai-

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land, I didn't want to try there. Instead, I flew
to Manila a few months later and sublet an
apartment in Makati City behind the imposing
fire station on Ayala Avenue—one of Manila's
most upscale and internationalized but suitably
anonymous neighborhoods. The apartment
was in a high-rise tower, and outside the front
door was an unremarkable side street.
Manila is different from Bangkok. It has
a gun culture with a more violent, reckless
streak. There is a greater feeling of corrupt-
ible chaos. The Philippines is one of the
most bureaucratic countries in the world
and therefore one of the easiest in which to
get things done with the right tip. It's also
much more Americanized. English is spoken
as much as Tagalog among many classes. And
most important, Manila is a megalopolis, with
a population of 12 million. I could see why an

American would come here to disappear.

Not knowing where to begin, I started
going out to bars in Makati. I trawled the
KTVs (a sort of karaoke lounge cum brothel)
in the Mile Long Arcade—places like Pharaoh,
which seemed a likely hangout for off-duty
cops, or foreigner joints like Handle Bar on
Polaris Street in Bel-Air, where the outside
tables were a fluid scene. One night I went to
the infamous Air Force One by the airport,
with its economy, business and first-class mas-
sage parlors staffed by "flight attendants." I
hung around waiting for the after-work offi-
cial of my nightmares to come strolling up to
ask what I wanted. But he didn't.

Eventually, within three nights of this
lone bar-hopping, I was approached in the
trendy M Café in the Ayala Museum by a
young man who could have been a fashion
designer. He asked
me inoffensively why
I was in Manila. I lied,
and he then asked me
what I wanted that
night. It's a common
question in Asia, and
there is the under-
standing that if you
simply say what it is
you want it will be fur-
nished without much
complication. I said,
“Pm shopping for
a death certificate."
Entirely unsurprised,
he asked, “Real one
or fake?"

I thought I would
try the fake one first.
'They manufactured
them on a certain
street where it was
not safe to go, and you
could get birth certif-
icates, credit cards,
records, anything you
wanted. I gave my new
friend my address,
and two days later a
motorbike drew up
outside my building
and an envelope was
sent up to my unit.
It was a certificate of
death with my name
misspelled and the
cause of death noted
as “massive heart attack.” Cost: $10.

The problem with forged certificates is that
they are not registered with the government.
This means a scrupulous insurer, or its inves-
tigator, could easily prove their illegitimacy.
It might work for smaller scams, but for big
money Га need a real death certificate reg-
istered with the local civil registry. In Manila,
that means the registry in Manila City Hall.
I would have to go there and try to turn a
clerk. This is what many a scammer has done
in the past. But it was possible that times had
changed. Bales had told me all you needed
was charm and a crisp new bill.

City Hall stands at the junction of Almeda-
Lopez and Padre Burgos Street in the old part
of town near the Spanish core of Intramuros.
It's a decaying neoclassical pile with a poly-

chrome Jesus in front and bamboo scaffolding 129

PLAYBOY

everywhere. Many of its windows are blocked
with irrational cinder-block walls or plywood
panels, and by the gates are countless notices
announcing NO FIXERS ALLOWED, Which 1
thought was rather a shame because never
would a fixer have been more useful.

I went through the courtyard in sunglasses
and was directed by the armed police to the
registry. It was packed with people seeking
birth certificates. As I waited to see a clerk, I
wondered what the prison term was for brib-
ing them or whether it would all be brushed
offin good humor. Eventually, one way or
the other, I had my clerk: a youngish man in
a nice shirt with blade-like creases. When he
asked me what I wanted, I said, “I am doing
research on statistics and was wondering if I
could meet you for coffee outside.”

There was no reaction of surprise. An
hour later we were walking through the Cen-
tral Terminal Station nearby, through dark
arcades of fast-food outlets and vendors of
empanadas especiales, the clerk in his pressed
shirt, me with slightly shaking hands. There
was a dingy eatery called Manileno, where
horse races were being broadcast, and we
sat there because no one would pay us any
attention. 1 bought him lunch with a glass of
milky buko juice, and he ate his squid balls
slowly. We gazed out a little mournfully at a
pawnshop called Palawan and a blind busker
strumming a fake Stratocaster.

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"So what are you researching?" he asked.

I said quite bluntly that I wanted a death
certificate.

"What for?" he said.

“That's my business.”

“No, actually, it’s my business too.”

I said I wanted to claim the insurance
money. I figured any other explanation
would sound false, and that he knew per-
fectly well what 1 wanted it for.

“I see,” he murmured and calmly gave me
the price. It was 1,000 pesos for the certificate
and 1,000 for himself. That made about $50 in
total. I agreed, but as we sat there I felt he was
changing his mind. He wasn't sure about me,
and there was something, perhaps, in my man-
ner that was not genuinely desperate. Then I
realized I had forgotten to haggle. A real crimi-
nal always haggles, even over a $25 certificate.
I should have pushed him down to $15.

It was a mistake, and as we walked back to
City Hall along Villegas Street and through
the tropical park next to the university, I felt
he was getting cold feet. Finally he said he
couldn't do it, but he asked for my number
all the same. He could ask someone to ask
someone to ask someone, and perhaps they
could help. He smiled the whole time, with
the gentle irony of the Filipinos, and there
was no judgmental distaste in his refusal. It
was too risky for him to undertake. I said I
was sorry, and he said, “No problem."

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Two days later the phone rang. A cheerful
woman’s voice. She asked me what I wanted.
I gave her my details, and then she asked,
“When did you die? And how?”

“Yesterday,” I blurted out. “I died yester-
day and I think it was a heart attack.”

“You think?”

“I wasn't there,” I said, and she laughed.

“TIl see what I can do,” she concluded. “It's
1,000 pesos for the certificate, and you can
give me the same if you like.”

The next 24 hours felt like my last on earth,
or at least how my last 24 hours of normal life
would feel if I were about to disappear. There
was the slight fear I had blundered too far and
that a police car would arrive downstairs look-
ing for the gringo insurance fraudster.

But nothing of the sort happened. Instead,
the same woman called me back and told me
my death certificate was ready and would be
delivered to my apartment by a courier who
would anonymously leave it at the front desk
of my apartment block. I would see no one
and ask no questions.

As I went down to collect it I thought of
Steven Chin Leung, the Hong Kong national
who had managed to have himself named as
one of the 650 Cantor Fitzgerald employees
who had perished in the World Trade Cen-
ter on September 11, 2001. What had gone
through Leung’s mind as he saw himself plas-
tered over the national media as a dead person?

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Glee, ecstatic satisfaction or unnameable dread?
He later claimed he was using his death certifi-
cate to avoid a prior offense related to obtaining
a U.S. passport, but there might well have been
more to it than that. For myself, there was an
acute anticipation at the idea of being declared
nonexistent. I was sure it was going to feel like
walking through an open door on the far side
of which lay a possibility that could be savored
without being seized. My own certificate was
in a pale blue envelope stapled at both ends. I
took it upstairs with a morbid unease.

This was an official death notice signed
by a doctor in a hospital in the Sampaloc
neighborhood in Manila, and it bore offi-
cial government stamps. I was identified as
a Catholic who had succumbed to a condi-
tion named as “pulmonary acute,” and my
body was designated as ready for burial. My
closest relative was named at the bottom of
the form as one “Jasmin Osborne,” my “aun-
tie” whose delicate signature appeared above.
I wondered how they had guessed that far
from having a weak heart I do actually suffer
from acute and chronic emphysema. I had
died at midnight, needless to say.

It was then that the mentality of tago ng
tago—hiding and hiding—finally set in, and
I felt strangely emboldened to assume the
pleasures of fakery and pseudocide. Like
Reginald Perrin, I started to go out under an
assumed name, telling people I met in bars
and clubs that I was John Jones and worked
as a banker at a Singapore firm. I could have
said Prince Prinzapolka and they would not
have batted an eyelid. It was easy to tell peo-
ple whatever you wanted. It was disturbingly
easy to imagine carrying on like this indefi-
nitely. The pleasure, deep down, was not that
of making illicit money but simply of no lon-
ger being who you had been.

It’s a fantasy, and a dangerous one. A male
fantasy, perhaps, that involves not only a
repressed desire for nomadism and vagrancy
but also a knowledge of how expendable and
cheap one’s life really is. One’s disappearance
might not matter much.

I kept my death certificate by my bedside
for a long time, glancing at it every night
before sleep. I remembered a story Bales
had told me on our last night together in
Ban Krut. He had often traveled to Nige-
ria to search for disappeared people. Once,
he had driven the dangerous road between
Lagos and the oil town of Port Harcourt. It
passed through immense sugarcane fields
where cars were often ambushed by bandits
and made to disappear. People, spare parts,
traces of blood—they all vanished into thin
air. Bales stopped at a shantytown in the mid-
dle of these cane fields for a beer, and there
was a terrifying screeching of brakes as two
cars nearly hit each other.

“At that moment,” Bales said, shivering at
the memory, “everyone in the shanty started
screaming at exactly the same pitch as the
sound of the brakes. It went on for minutes,
and the Africans told us it must be some
kind of mourning for the disappeared. It’s
like when people disappear we have to deal
with it in some way. They were acknowledg-
ing them, and although it made me afraid,
I understood the feeling. Every disappear-
ance makes us superstitious.”

Twitter
(continued from page 64)

is a great example of someone who has
smart jokes and silly jokes,” he says. “He
pays homage to Groucho Marx, but a lot of
his other jokes are incredibly sophisticated
and nuanced. Some of his movies are barely
funny. They’re tragic. I try to do that in some
of my stuff. If I’m feeling sad, ГЇЇ tweet some-
thing sad. I don’t care that it isn’t a joke.”

Allow me to humbly propose a theory
about comedy on Twitter: We have become
too immersed in postmodern humor—
mockumentaries, shows within shows,
unreliable comedic narrators, knowing
glances to the camera. Comedy has become
like one big William Gaddis novel. And that’s
great: It’s advanced; it makes us sophisti-
cated. Yet where does the simple, pure joke
live in that jungle of referential complica-
tion? All this cleverness risks suffocating the
kernels of stupid truth that are at the heart
of everything funny. But not on Twitter—
a wildlife preserve for one-liners, puns and
double entendres. At its essence, Twitter
is a mode of comedy that resists too much
cleverness. And comedians, as in real-life
comedians, are thankful for it. “Meta-comedy
is so goddamn annoying,” Norm Macdonald
(@normmacdonald, 365,258 followers) told
me not long ago. “Comedy isn’t important
enough to be meta. To me, the best joke ever
is “Take my wife, please.’ It’s a three-word
setup and a one-word punch line.”

Even meta-comedy masters like Garry
Shandling, the co-creator of It’s Garry Shan-
dling’s Show (Old Testament meta) and The
Larry Sanders Show (New Testament meta),
are enlivened by Twitter (@GarryShandling,
168,256 followers). His feed is full of odd
spellings, inventive grammar and nonsensi-
cal thoughts. It’s warty and only occasionally
funny, but it’s weirdly compelling. He treats
his followers as if they were the manifesta-
tion of a Hydra that follows him around his
house. He frequently says good night on
Twitter, and his fans say it back to him—
kind of like a twisted, digital version of The
Waltons. Meanwhile, he still manages a hys-
terical gem now and again (e.g., “eHarmony
matched me up with a gun”).

“Some of my tweets are just silly,”
Shandling explains. “They don’t make
sense on the surface, but my followers start
to sense this punchy guy. That’s hilarious to
me. Sometimes they'll go, ‘Are you drinking
tonight, Garry?’ The answer is always no,
because I don’t drink. But I get loose, and
I think they’re not used to people being so
loose on Twitter. I work Twitter like it’s a big
room. A comedian working a nightclub can
lose the room, but on Twitter you can actu-
ally lose the whole world.”

The first published jokes to spring forth from
Sulkin’s mind appeared in a much more ana-
log venue—The Circle, the more subversive of
the two newspapers at his tony Massachusetts
prep school, Middlesex. The humor, while
not dripping with nuance, at least attempted
to push buttons. “We once published “The

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Top 10 Worst Things About Our School
Librarian, he tells me. “It was mean—things
like “You're old, and your life is sad.“ The
piece caused such a stir that Sulkin found
himself standing before the school’s headmas-
ter, treading carpet and begging forgiveness.
Later, during Sulkin's senior year, the school
appointed a new headmaster, an Asian Amer-
ican woman. Again, he published a list—this
time of “names one shouldn't call” the new
hire. Each was a ridiculous Wild West insult
(“Lily Liver,” “Chicken Gizzard”). Among
the gags was “Yellowbelly.” A PC shit storm
ensued due to the headmaster's ethnicity, and
Sulkin spent graduation day in a disciplin-
ary meeting facing bizarre charges of racism,
which were later dropped.

He spent the next four years at Con-
necticut College, where he majored in pot
smoking. “I’m sure the classes and teachers
were great,” he says. “But I never went.”
(Sulkin's love affair with THC continues
today, and some of his best tweets have been
about weed—e.g., “Kids, don't smoke pot.
Unless you want to be like the Beatles” or
“Kids, never mix pot, alcohol and vicodin
unless you want a severe case of the fuck-
ing wonderfuls.”) As a senior, Sulkin scored
an internship at Saturday Night Live. “Chris
Farley was there,” he recalls. “David Spade

Aud

3 L E [ ^m - Г 2

=="

was there. It was the remnants of the Adam
Sandler-Mike Myers era.” After graduation,
he parlayed the internship into a job as a
writers’ assistant. Mainly this meant gofer-
ing, but from time to time he put actual
words to paper. “I sometimes would write
those little ads with that week's host saying,
‘Hi, I’m so-and-so. I’m hosting Saturday Night
Live, with musical guest so-and-so.’ Then
they would do a quick joke, which was mine.
It was exciting.” Norm Macdonald, who was
still doing “Weekend Update” at the time,
remembers Sulkin, though just barely. “He
hardly ever spoke,” Macdonald says.

After being replaced at SNL by Regis
Philbin’s daughter (weird), Sulkin drifted
into stand-up comedy. Though he professes
to have hated every minute of it, he contin-
ued to tell jokes before a live audience for
the next three years, dragging himself on
stage to somnambulate his way through a set
of static material for minuscule crowds who
didn’t give a shit about him. “I remember all
my terrible jokes,” he says. “It was around
the 1996 Olympics in Atlanta so I did some-
thing about the Jewish Olympics with events
like the ‘oy vey-vault’ and the ‘shot-put that
down before you hurt yourself.’”

Salvation came in 1999 when he was asked
to audition for a writer’s position on The Late

“Rather unusual, Mr. Wembley, but our research department
assures us this is your coat of arms.”

Late Show With Craig Kilborn. (Remember
him?) After getting the morning paper and
quickly submitting 50 jokes about the news
contained therein (an exercise not unlike
Twitter), Sulkin got the job. Also on Kilborn’s
staff was Wellesley Wild, an old friend from
Sulkin’s Marijuana U days at Connecticut
College. “Wellesley and I decided that we
would partner up,” says Sulkin. “We mainly
wanted to get into sitcoms because you can
only make a certain amount of money writ-
ing for late-night television, thanks to union
rules.” One of their early spec scripts landed
them on the 2003 Fox series The Pitts, which
had the lifespan of a mayfly. But the show’s
writing staff included Family Guy creator Seth
MacFarlane. Guess where that led.

But first, the Sarah Silverman part of the
story. On Christmas Day 2009, Sulkin was
sitting in a New York City hotel room when
he got an automated e-mail that read, “Sarah
Silverman is now following you on Twitter.” It
was immediately followed by a note. “She sent
me a direct message that said, “You re funny, ”
Sulkin remembers. “I started writing her back
right away. Initially, I was a little bit of a dick.
I was kind of like, ‘Oh, you’re famous. I can’t
talk to you.’ She bristled at that, so I realized it
wasn’t the way to go. Within two days, though,
we were exchanging dozens of messages. I
was still in New York, but I felt that something
was going to happen. One night soon after-
ward, I was back in L.A. and Sarah sent me a
direct message saying, ‘I’m not feeling well.
Will you come over and feel my forehead?’
I went to her house instantly. That was the
night before New Year’s Eve, and from that
day forward, we didn’t spend a night apart
for months. It was really intense and great
for a long time.”

Over e-mail, I ask Silverman why she felt
compelled to contact Sulkin. (They have since
broken up—very amicably, thank you.) “I
read his tweets, and they were so funny, dark
and beautiful. He’s like this sardonic, honest,
hilarious poet.” As for why she thinks Sulkin
is so good in 140-character nano-quips: “Twit-
ter isn't based on politics or selling yourself in
a room. It's straight-up talent. No one owns
it. There are no notes or executives; there
is just one cook. And Alec baring his cynical
soul is undeniable greatness.”

Another undeniable result: All the cynical
soul baring has turned him into a veritable
Twitter crush. Female followers randomly
send him messages like “ur the only man
id ever let put it in my bum. i trust u being
my soul mate so much im willing2sacrifice
my sacred hole.” “There are times,” Sulkin
says, “when I get an @ message from some-
one and I blow up their avatar photo and
think, Is the person who wrote this sug-
gestive thing hot? And do they live in Los
Angeles? And are they over 212"

Most likely, anal virginity is being offered
to Sulkin because of his fame and relative
fortune—as opposed to the hoary chestnut
about women being attracted to a man's
sense of humor above all else. But there
is something going on with Twitter, a new
kind of star-to-fan relationship that allows a
person's followers to feel closer to him than
they would a guy who was just a successful
writer or comedian. “Twitter is an intimate

thing,” Sulkin says. “When I read a Steve
Martin tweet, it's like I can hear his voice.
And if you read my stuff carefully and you're
smart, I think you could figure out a lot
about me. More people now know me from
Twitter than have ever known me for any-
thing else. It's insane how many people are
following me. I feel like the biggest part of
my existence is spent trying to continually
feed these people.”

Pve started to believe that tweeting well is
a form of seduction. You can't come on too
strong, but at the same time, you have to give
the object of your desire (your needy, fickle
followers) the right amount of attention.
They want to feel special and feel like they're
part of something when they follow you. All
the while, you don't want to seem desperate.
These days, Sulkin’s life is scheduled around
striking this delicate balance. “It sounds ridic-
ulous,” he says, “but if I know I’m going out
for the night, ГЇЇ tweet right before I leave.
Then I know ГЇЇ have at least a three-hour
cushion to do whatever the fuck I want. It’s
like clearing space in my schedule.”

The headquarters of Seth MacFarlane’s ani-
mated comedy empire are next door to the
building where Sulkin lives. (“Less than a
one-song walk door-to-door,” he says.) The
windows of Sulkin’s corner office are tinted
to thwart the perpetual L.A. sunlight, and his
walls are bare save for a corkboard. In one cor-
ner, a framed, signed Larry Bird jersey leans
against the wall. In another corner, there’s a
guitar. On this day, three other Family Guy writ-
ers are gathered inside. Two of them—Artie
Johann (@DearAnyone, 52,042 followers) and
Shawn Ries (@shawnries, 15,564 followers) —
are prolific tweeters themselves. The third, a
very funny man named Ted Jessup, should be
on Twitter but is not. He tells me, with a weary
sigh, that he fears it would become another
“onerous obligation.”

Their task is to figure out how to close
out a scene in which the show’s lovable ESL
housekeeper character, Consuela, has some-
how found herself directing traffic at a busy
intersection. “Okay,” Sulkin says, looking
down at the script in his hand, “I guess we’re
good through when she says, “No, no, no, no!’
We can do whatever we want after that.”

To get in the right mind-set, everyone
starts channeling Consuela by quietly repeat-
ing her catchphrase—the word no in a heavy
Spanish accent with a teasing falsetto. “We
could have her stop to squeegee someone’s
windshield,” Ries says.

“One of those hot-dog trucks could come
by. The guy could give her a hot dog while
saying “That's $2’ and she could say, ‘No! ”
Jessup offers.

“Maybe she does four ‘nos’ and then says
to the next car, ‘Si, you come,’” Sulkin sug-
gests. “When it comes forward, she could
say, ‘You give me ride home?”

The idea is met by laughter and starts to
branch off into a more developed riff. “So
she gets in the car,” Sulkin continues, “and
the guy sighs and goes, ‘Okay, where do you
live?’ And she says, ‘I don’t know.’” Now, the
other writers pitch in again, each speaking
in Consuela’s voice.

“....15 by Enterprise Rent-A-Car.”

“....1s by check-cashing place.”

“....1s by the check-cashing Chinese food
restaurant.”

“Have you seen that place?” Sulkin asks
the room, placing the riff on hold. “When
you come back from the airport, there’s a
place that’s check cashing, Chinese food,
chicken wings and doughnuts.” A mini-
discussion of racial stereotyping in the
urban retail world begins. More tangents
bloom, until eventually we’re so far off topic
that Jessup is explaining—in quite an eru-
dite way—the American buffalo’s path to
extinction and the etymological origin of
the phrase You’re fired!

As they wind down, I check Twitter on
my phone and see that Sulkin tweeted just
a few minutes ago, apparently using sleight
of hand. (The tweet: ““You from LA?’ ‘Yup.
Bored and bred.’”) Later, when I ask him
about it, he tells me, “I’m constantly moni-
toring Twitter.” He pays close attention to
how many followers he’s gaining or losing at
any given moment and how many people are
mentioning him. “I’m tweeting all the ште—
at work, in the middle of the day, whenever.”
Johann tells us that, for his part, he keeps a
Stickie on his computer desktop where he
logs potential tweets. “I looked at it the other
day,” he says. “It was all dick stuff.”

The tweet-heavy work environment
doesn’t seem to bother their boss, Seth
MacFarlane (@Seth MacFarlane, 1,962,406
followers). “For me, Alec completely legiti-
mized the whole idea of Twitter,” MacFarlane
says. “Each medium has its own style and its
own requirements, and Alec invented his
own writing style for this medium. When I
read Alec’s Twitter account, I thought, God,
this completely changes things.

“Most Twitter feeds are strings of
gobbledygook—oftentimes they don’t even
make sense. But it’s a perfect format for
Alec because he has an observational mind
that’s unparalleled. I was watching reruns
of the old Dick Van Dyke Show the other
day, and it occurred to me that Alec is a
modern-day Morey Amsterdam. He’s the
guy who just stands in the room and reels
off strings of impossibly quick and impossi-
bly clever one-liners. He really is the 2012
version—in his hipness, relevance, pro-
gressiveness and edginess—of the old-style
Jewish comedian.”

On a Thursday night in West Hollywood, I
meet Sulkin at a bar on Santa Monica Bou-
levard. A variety of stand-up routines are
scheduled to begin shortly in the bar’s back
room. Sulkin, wearing a blazer-and-tie combo
that gives him the look of a down-at-the-heels
prep school English teacher, had told me
beforehand that the Twitterati (his phrase)
will be out in force. Now, he introduces me
to a bunch of them as they stand in a scrum
in the middle of the room. Their faces mean
nothing to me, and as we shake hands, nei-
ther do their given names. But when they tell
me their Twitter handles, there is a jolt of rec-
ognition. They are, in no particular order:
@GuyEndoreKaiser, 26,711 followers,
comedy writer. Sample tweet: “Taking an
Italian person to The Olive Garden is like
taking a black person to 1864.”
@DearAnyone, 52,042 followers, Fam-
ily Guy's Johann. Sample tweet: “I’m just

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PLAYBOY

134

smart enough to be frustrated with how
dumb I am.”

@DamienFahey, 42,234 followers, one-time
Carson Daly replacement on MTV’s Total
Request Live. Sample tweet: “The worst iPhone
app ever would be one that sends you a text
message anytime your dad gets a boner.”

Though I’m meeting them for the first
time (excepting Johann), I already know
their senses of humor. And if any of the great
psychological theories on humor are to be
believed, I therefore could easily extrapo-
late their deepest anxieties and fixations.
That’s partly why I’m so interested in Twit-
ter users who aren’t necessarily professional
jokesters—my personal Twitterati. (Every
Twitter user has such a list.) The comic mus-
ings of the everyday tweeter serve as a sort of
prism into their lives. It’s a kind of compelling,
hilarious autobiography, and it makes other
people’s mundanity totally interesting. Take,
for instance, (Qtracy marq, 10,611 followers,
a 20-year-old cashier from the L.A. suburbs.
Sample tweet: "Someone go downstairs and
see why my mom was crying for two hours
and then get me a granola bar and bring it
upstairs." Or (OlamEnidColeslaw, 35,972 fol-
lowers, a mysterious and vulgar 26-year-old
clerical worker from Chicago. Sample tweet:
"Just ate McDonalds after working out, which
is the same as taking a shit after a shower."

Here's where the egalitarian nature of
Twitter really shines through. Write enough
funny tweets, and it doesn't matter if you're
a garbage man or a plutocrat—eventually
you'll start getting followers, accolades and
that strange, addictive Twitter fame.

Back at Sulkin's Miracle Mile apartment, I
ask him if he ever thinks about the end of

Twitter. The question feels strangely sol-
emn, as though I'm asking about the end
of the world. But really, how long can Twit-
ter be sustained until it becomes something
radically different? Everything on the web
is always just a nascent form of its next
version anyway. "Sometimes I get a little
bit tired of it," Sulkin says. “And I think,
Maybe I should just cap it at 5,000 tweets,
which is coming soon." (His self-imposed
retirement from Twitter never occurred,
obviously. As of press time he has sur-
passed the 5,000-tweet plateau by almost
1,000 tweets.) "But then I also think, Fuck
that! Stopping now would be like saying,
I'm not funny anymore.’ And I do think
that I can still be funny, poignant or sad in
a way that's entertaining. I never want to
give that up."

I don't think Sulkin could stop tweeting
even if he wanted to. In the drafts section of
his iPhone's Twitter app, he has 320 poten-
tial tweets lined up. And on his computer,
there is a tweet file that is hovering around
16,000 characters. Tweets come to him when
he's in the shower, when he's walking across
the street to work, when he's on planes. Basi-
cally, life hands tweets to Sulkin because he's
hardwired to receive them. Like most funny
people, he's a full-time observer. Twitter is
made for his breed.

“So it never ends?" I ask.

Sulkin laughs. “It might have been Seth
MacFarlane who asked a while ago, “What
do we do now? Do we tweet every day until
we die?”

Sorry, @thesulk, but the answer, prob-

ably, is yes.
Y

“So much for the bedroom, Mr. Rafferty. Now let me show
you the rest of the house."

HIT KING

(continued from page 68)

“Where you folks from?" Rose asks.

"Pittsburgh," the man replies.

“Listen to this," Rose says. “True story.
The other day a woman walks in with huge
boobs.” Rose holds his hands out past his
chest to approximate the size. “And she's
wearing a little T-shirt. I say, “Where you
from?’ She says, “Tittsburgh.’” Rose howls
and slaps the table with his hand. “I said,
‘Where is that, in Tennsylvania?’”

After he meticulously signs the ball and
photo and poses for a photo with the cou-
ple, the woman says, “I love it when you sign
your balls ‘I’m sorry I bet on baseball.’”

“That’s a true statement, ma’am,” Rose
says, smiling.

“Was that Bart Giamatti that suspended
you?” the husband asks.

“Yes. I had a great relationship with
him. People thought I was mad at him, but
I loved Bart. Do you know his son? Have
you ever seen Cinderella Man? Or what’s that
movie about the wine? Sideways! That’s his
son, the actor Paul Giamatti. I would love
to meet him someday and tell him how I
feel about his dad. Listen, take care. Have
a good stay, okay?”

Doodling on the white paper in front of
him, Rose draws an X in the center. “See
here? That’s Cincinnati. To the left is India-
napolis. To the right you’ve got Pennsylvania.
Down here you’ve got Kentucky. Over here
you've got West Virginia. We used to have
fans come from miles around to watch us
play. I don't think we ever had a rainout
when I was playing for the Reds. You had
some people driving hours to get to the ball-
park. We didn't want to disappoint them.”

Now they come from all over the coun-
try to see Rose. The business model is the
brainchild of Rose's business partners, Bob
Friedland and Joie Casey. Rather than have
Rose travel the country and appear on week-
ends at memorabilia shows, they set him up
in Las Vegas, where the average tourist's
stay is three days. “Pete's job is being Pete
Rose,” says Casey. “And he's the best Pete
Rose there is.”

Every three days, a new group of people
comes looking to strike it big at the tables.
And as they wander Caesars either to stop the
hemorrhaging at the craps table or to enjoy
the fruits of their good luck, for the price of
a hand of blackjack they can walk away with a
souvenir of Dad’s favorite player and a funny
story to tell their parents or grandkids.

“Where you from?” Rose asks a woman
with white hair. “San Antonio,” her group
of four says in unison. “Your team's getting
old!” Rose says, playfully jousting with the
group about their hometown NBA team.
“Would you like to take a picture?” Rose
asks. As the senior citizens circle around
behind the table, Rose continues to engage.
“Sir, are these your daughters?” he asks
the only male. The women laugh. Another
woman says, “We're from Texas, so we know
when to wear our boots.” The group laughs
and Rose laughs the loudest.

He playfully squeezes the thigh of one of
the women as she sits next to him. “When
are you going to get into the Hall of Fame?”

she asks. “Well, ma'am, the fastest way for
me to get there is to die.” Then Rose lets out
a genuine guffaw, slapping her like a team-
mate on the thigh. The senior citizens, with
signed jersey, bat and ball in hand, leave
with souvenirs for their grandkids, a story to
tell and a photo to prove it. “Did you know
my biggest demographic here is women in
their 40s through 6052" Rose knows, and he
knows one other thing with certainty: You
have to give people their money's worth.

It's rare that a person walks by Rose in Las
Vegas and doesn't want to talk about the
Baseball Hall of Fame. It feels much like
standing in purgatory and offering passers-
by directions to heaven.

“Once in a while you get a crazy person
who won't buy anything,” Rose says. “They
just come in here and yell, “You cheated!”
First of all, what's the point? Second, who
did I cheat? 1 didn't cheat anyone but myself.
Those guys that took steroids, they cheated
Hank Aaron, they cheated Willie Mays,
they cheated Babe Ruth. They cheated the
game, the fans, everything. None of them
are banned. Not one.”

In 1989 he was accused of betting on
major league baseball games via a book-
maker, a violation of the major league rule
that prohibits baseball gambling of any kind.
Rose was suspended as manager of the Cin-
cinnati Reds, a team he had helped guide to
four straight second-place finishes.

After an investigation by major league
baseball, Rose signed an agreement with
then commissioner A. Bartlett Giamatti
that rendered him permanently ineligible
to participate in the game, with the right
to apply for reinstatement in one year. (A
facsimile of the document is available at
the store in a copper binder with Rose's
signature and the inscription “I’m sorry I
bet on baseball” for $500.) Eight days after
signing the agreement, Giamatti suffered
a heart attack and died at the age of 51.
Rose believes Giamatti’s death ended any
chance he might have had for reinstatement.
Baseball then lobbied the Hall of Fame to
put Rose on the permanently ineligible list.
To this day he remains in exile both from
the game he loves and from the institution
where the majority of fans feel he belongs.

“Look, I understand I’m the reason I’m
in the situation I’m in,” Rose says. “I’ve got
no one to blame but myself. I made a mis-
take and paid the price for that mistake. The
one thing that upsets me is that I was never
given a second chance. This is America. I
know if I was a drug abuser or a wife beater
or a steroid cheater, I would have gotten
another chance to come back. For whatever
reason, people think gambling is a worse
crime than that. And everyone knows that
I only bet on my own team. No one’s ever
accused me of the other thing, because they
know it’s not true.”

The fact that Rose cannot even bring him-
self to say the words “bet against my own
team” is perhaps his greatest defense. But the
fact that he now spends several hours a day in
Caesars Palace probably doesn’t fit with base-
ball’s notions of a reformed gambler. “Let me
tell you something,” Rose says. “I wish base-
ball would follow me around here. They’d

see I don’t get off work and head down to
the casino. I’m probably the only guy in this
town who isn’t betting tonight.”

Rose has always lived his life with a defi-
ant streak and an unfailing confidence. In
many ways it was what drove him to become
the holder of several records in America’s
most cherished pastime. “I think I have the
record for most records,” he says.

And while many former players maintain
only a passing interest in the game, Rose
remains an astute observer, often watch-
ing as many as three games a day. Should
the ban ever be lifted and he could manage
again, no one would question his knowledge
of big-league rosters. “What's amazing to
me about the game today,” Rose says, “is
how much people accept mediocrity. If the
manager accepts it, then the team accepts
it. Then the fans accept it. That’s why you
have guys eating chicken and drinking beer
in the clubhouse. Are you fucking kidding
me? Baseball is a six-month-a-year occupa-
tion. You work two and a half hours a day.
How hard is it to put the effort in? Don’t
get me wrong, you've got some guys who
are great players today who bust their asses.
Jeter works hard. Pedroia works hard. But
if I were playing today, it would be too easy
to take second on an outfielder who doesn’t
hustle after the ball. Some teams don’t care.
You know who they are. There are about
10 teams in the major leagues that have no
chance to make the playoffs unless all the
other planes go down.”

Winning is something Rose had known
throughout his playing career. At the store
he sells a signed jersey that lists his various
major league records on the front. He points
to one record, “Most games won.”

“See that?” he asks. “I ask kids when they
come in here to pick out the most impor-
tant record. They always point to the hits. I
always point to the most games won. That’s
why you play the game. To win.”

Early in his career, Rose’s burning desire
to win was at times thought to be more the-
atrical than necessary. It was when Rose ran
to first after a walk that Whitey Ford of the
Yankees labeled him Charlie Hustle. That
term was meant to be derogatory, but Rose
has worn it as a badge of honor for nearly
five decades.

He still believes he brings that same work
ethic to Caesars Palace every day. “I’d work
here every day,” Rose says. “What would I
be doing if I wasn’t here? Га be home watch-
ing TV. Here I get to talk baseball with the
fans. But I also know what it takes to make
the bosses money.”

Without a strong throwing arm or great
size and speed, Rose wasn’t viewed as a
serious prospect as an amateur. Ineli-
gible for baseball while finishing high
school (“I hated school, but that was my
fault,” he says), Rose considered playing
college football when no pro-baseball orga-
nizations showed interest. If not for an
uncle who was a scout with the hometown
Reds, Rose may never have been signed
to a contract. Once in the organization, he
impressed coaches with his positive atti-
tude and tireless passion for the batting
cage. If he couldn’t leave a dust cloud with
fleet feet, he would make one diving head-
first into a base.

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135

PLAYBOY

136

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When he finally got the call to the big
leagues in 1963, his veteran teammates
shunned the optimistic rookie. “You’ve got
to remember, the team won the pennant
in 1961,” Rose says. “In 1962 they won 98
games and finished third. Those guys all
thought they were going back to the World
Series.” The team had a steady second base-
man named Don Blasingame, who was a
favorite among the veterans on the team.
To them, Rose was a brash kid who was
confident without having ever done any-
thing at the big-league level. Yet manager
Fred Hutchinson believed enough in Rose
to make him an everyday starter. The veter-
ans gave Rose the cold shoulder for taking
their friend’s job.

“The only guys that would hang out
with me were Frank Robinson and Vada
Pinson,” Rose says, remembering the two
African American stars of the team. “Frank
and Vada took me under their wing. I
remember one night we were out on a
West Coast trip. They took me to a club
in Oakland, and I was the only white guy
in the place,” Rose says, laughing. “And
no one was going to fuck with me, because
they had to deal with Frank. He was as
tough as they came. That’s when the front
office told me to stop hanging out with the
black guys on the team.” Did he? “Fuck no.
Those guys were great to me. They were
my teammates. No one was going to tell
me who to hang out with. You know that
Frank Robinson was the only man ever to
pinch-hit for me? I can live with that.”

“Sit down, sir. Where are you from?”
Rose says as two men in their late 40s wear-
ing T-shirts and jeans approach the table.
There are two distinct levels of treatment
that Rose distributes to the people who tra-
verse the store. The window-shoppers who
gawk and look for a free interaction get a
polite wave and maybe a “Hi” every third or
fourth time. The paying customers receive a
royal audience with the Hit King.

“New York,” the two men say. One of them
slides a photo of Rose across the table. The
photograph was taken in Yankee Stadium
during the 1976 World Series, when the
Reds swept the Yankees. It captures Rose’s
headfirst slide into third as third baseman
Graig Nettles awaits a throw.

“New York,” Rose says. “We whipped your
ass in there. Get out the broom. The sweep
is here.” Rose personalizes the photo and
signs it for the New Yorkers. For the $75
price of the photo, Rose will inscribe it as
the customer wishes, so long as the inscrip-
tion is respectful. When people don’t specify
an inscription, Rose usually adds “Hit King”
and “4,256 hits” on the memorabilia for an
extra flourish.

“The next year, the Yankees got Don Gullett
and won the World Series,” one man says.

“Let me tell you about Don Gullett,” Rose
says. “This is a true story. Did you know in
high school, in the football state champion-
ship game, he scored 66 points? Ran for
11 touchdowns. Isn’t that something? Don
Gullett, from Lynn, Kentucky.”

“Who do you like in the Super Bowl,
Pete?" the other man asks. “Don't know,”
Rose fires back before the guest can com-
plete the question. “Don’t need to know
until 3:37 р.м. on Sunday.”

“Do you live near here, Pete?” the man
asks, trying to keep the moment alive a bit
longer. “I live 1.1 miles from here,” Rose
says. “It's faster for me to get home than it
is to get to my car. I timed it the other day.
It takes me three minutes to drive home. It
takes five goddamn minutes to walk from
here to my car.”

“Well, this was a pleasant surprise,”
the other New Yorker says, gathering his
memorabilia.

“Take care, guys,” Rose says, shaking
hands. “Enjoy your stay, okay?”

As the men leave the table, Rose opines a
bit on the strategy of headquartering in Las
Vegas six days a week. “See, those guys are
from New York. But a lot of the people we
get in here come from North Dakota, West
Virginia, Kentucky, Indiana. This is a big
trip for them. They’re not used to seeing a
celebrity, and when they do, they don’t even
get a chance to talk to them. Here, they can
take pictures, ask questions, whatever.”

In this, Rose is selling more than just an
autograph. He's trying to sell a memory.
And as you see the people who file into the
store, they all have different memories they
want to take away—a father who wants his
son (wearing a baseball uniform) to meet
the guy who always ran to first base. A
couple who went to college in Cincinnati
who want to meet the hometown hero. A
woman from Philadelphia who wants to
surprise her dad with a signed ball from
his favorite player.

In one instance a group of women who
look as though they arrived from central
casting for Mob Wives darts into the store.
Though it's only 1:30 p.m., their blood-
alcohol level seems more appropriate for
1:30 a.m.

“Oh my God, Pete! Remember me? You
called my dad last year,” says the ringleader
of the group, who is wearing a shirt more
suitable for a five-year-old boy and carry-
ing the plastic cup of choice for sorority
keg parties.

“Didn't he have back surgery or some-
thing?” Rose asks.

“That's right! Can you talk to him?”
she asks.

“Nope, can’t do it. Someone else just
asked me to talk to their son and I said no.
I’ve got to be fair.”

“Oh, please?”

“Sorry,” Rose says.

A store employee quickly escorts the
women toward the back of the store, hop-
ing they might buy some merchandise in an
effort to sway Rose.

“What's he thinking?” Rose asks. “They
ain't buying anything. The only time I'll
get on the phone with someone is if they're
really sick. Had a woman come in today,
she brought her dad here a few years ago.
I took a picture with him and signed it.
He died a few weeks ago and they buried
him with the photo in the casket. She just
started bawling."

“Take a look at this. Isn't she something?"
Rose says. While waiting for the next cus-
tomer to arrive, he scrolls through photos
on his iPhone. Shifting from the default
photo, the quintessential image of Rose,

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PLAYBOY

138

helmet flying, diving headfirst into third
base, he hustles into the gallery of his girl-
friend, Kiana Kim.

Kim, a 27-year-old model and actress who
owns a hair salon in Los Angeles, has been
dating Rose for the past four years. “Most
people think it's only been two years,” Kim
says. “That's because a website ran a photo
of us at a fight here in Vegas two years ago.
They said I was a $20,000-a-night call girl.”
To which Rose adds, “Everyone knows that
none of that shit on the internet is true.”

The two met in Valencia, California,
where Kim lives during the week with
her two children. She mentioned to Rose
that she owned a salon in town but that
the economy had been tough on business.
Rose offered to make a personal appear-
ance and sign photos for the first 500
people who came to the salon. After that,
they began spending more time together
as friends. Soon they became a couple.

“She thought I was a football player,”
Rose says. “She didn't know who I was, but
she knew who Steve Garvey was, right?”

“Shut up,” Kim says, smacking him on
the arm. “I grew up in Los Angeles, and my
dad was a big Dodgers fan, so 1 knew who
Steve Garvey was. Dad knows who Pete is,
and he is happy for me. One time Steve was
signing where Pete used to work, and the
fans were like, ‘Oh my God, Steve Garvey!’
And they just walked right past Pete.”

“I know Steve well,” Rose says. “He was
a good ballplayer. He was a nice guy. Do
you remember the year he knocked up a
couple of girls? I said, “Steve, let me tell
you one thing. I bet on the Breeders’ Cup,
but you won the son of a bitch.

As Kim exchanges pleasantries with a
store employee, Rose flips through a variety
of provocative shots of Kim until he settles
on one baseball-inspired image. “Look at

this," he says. "Isn't she something?"

In the photo, Kim peers over her left
shoulder with her back to the camera to
show off Rose's iconic number 14 jersey.
The jersey has been shortened to just above
the small of her back. Replacing the tradi-
tional white baseball pants are a pair of lace
thong panties that reveal more than they
cover. A Reds hat, bat and ball complete
the ensemble.

“What are you doing, Pete?" Kim asks,
hearing her name mentioned.

"I'm just showing him some of your pho-
tos, babe," Rose says. As he continues to scroll,
he settles on a fully nude photo of Kim and
hands her his phone. As she sees the photo,
she gasps and looks at us in horror.

"Pete! What are you doing? Did you show
him this?"

"No, but that's the photo you took for
PLAYBOY a while back. It's not like anyone
hasn't seen it." Then Rose starts giggling.
"What's the big deal? You look great,
don't you?"

“I can't believe you," she says, smacking
him on the arm, then smiling.

"Check this out," Rose says. “We go out to
eat in Cooperstown with some of our friends
up there. We start talking about reality
shows. They're like, 'Every famous couple
has a name, like Brangelina. What's yours?”
Then they start making stuff up. What about
Hits and Tits?" Rose starts laughing as he
recounts the monikers. “The inmate and
the playmate? Melons and felons? Perjury
and surgery?"

Rose and Kim start laughing uncontrolla-
bly. “That's the thing people don't realize,"
she says. "People make a big deal about our
age difference, but we make each other
laugh. I buy him gag gifts all the time. Once
I bought him a machine that made different
fart noises. He had a ball."

"I gotta go, Doris. My show's about to begin."

“One time," Rose says, “we're laying in
bed. True story. She had me laughing so
hard, we both couldn't stop. 1 was laugh-
ing so hard I couldn't stop farting, and she
pissed the bed.”

Kim covers her face, mortified. Then she
peeks up over her hands. “That is actually
true,” she says.

“Look, I don't feel or act my age, and she's
older than you would think judging by the
way she looks,” Rose says, looking longingly
at Kim. "If you're happy and I'm happy, who
gives a shit what anybody else thinks?"

As Kim leaves to run some errands, Rose
turns his attention back to customers. A
woman is about to purchase a signed jersey
for $400. Rose slaps my leg as he watches
Kim walk out the door and says, ^Do I look
unhappy to you?"

During a break in the action, Rose doodles
on more paper. He draws a series of lines
and symbols. ^Do you know what that is?"
he asks. "That's my autograph in Japanese.
How many other guys do you think take
the time to learn other people's cultures like
that? Don't they go crazy when they see that,
Francine?" Rose playfully slaps the store's
assistant on the thigh.

“They go crazy, Pete," she replies with
no emotion.

“See, there's no better ambassador for the
game than me," Rose says. "How many guys
are out there five hours a day talking base-
ball with fans and promoting the game? No
one. Hank doesn't do it. Willie doesn't do
it. There's just me. And I love it. I'll do it
every day."

'The conversation moves back to the Hall
of Fame. This year, Barry Larkin, another
homegrown Cincinnati talent, will be
inducted into the hall. *He's my first player
being inducted," Rose says, referring to the
time he was Larkin's manager. “I love Barry.
Great guy. But let me ask you this: If Barry
was eligible next year, do you think he'd
be a Hall of Famer?" Rose is referring to
the loaded 2013 Hall of Fame ballot that
includes several controversial candidates
such as Barry Bonds, Roger Clemens,
Sammy Sosa and Mike Piazza. "See, I don't
understand that shit," Rose says. ^Either
you're a Hall of Famer, or you're not."

At this stage, Rose continues to be in the
not category. To Rose, that means baseball's
all-time hit leader will be excluded from the
hall forever, unless he is inducted. The rea-
son? Business.

"Look at Jeter," Rose says. "Great player.
He's got close to 3,100 hits, okay? He's 37
years old. He still has another 1,100 hits to
go. Even if he's healthy and he can keep
playing at a high level, is someone going to
pay him $20 million a year when he's 44 or
45 years old?"

Even at the age of 71, Rose pines to
come back and manage. When I broach
the subject of whether he would accept a
compromise from baseball, perhaps a job
in which he couldn't influence the outcome
of the game as a manager, he says, “Well,
how would you feel if you did something
and you were sorry you did it? You made a
mistake. And they said, “Well, let him back
in, but don't let (concluded on page 141)

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the radio, in a club or at a get-together, the party rockers are always
on the playlist for their distinctive ability to put women in motion. In
their latest music video, “Sorry for Party Rocking,” the duo holds a
rager. When RedFoo spits the lyrics “Poppin’ bottles in the house with
models in the VIP” the camera finds Miss June 2004 Hiromi Oshima,
Miss July 2003 Marketa Janska (both pictured) and Miss November
1998 Tiffany Taylor grooving in a hot tub while rocking tragically hip
metallic ani-
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at the Mansion
Midsummer
Night’s Dream
party,” Mar-
keta says. “I
am a huge fan
of their music,
and they are
so fun—they
really rock the

party.”

FLOWER GIRL

You never know what you’re going to find on e-commerce website Etsy.com.
We found Miss May 2010 Kassie Lyn Logsdon, who has her own e-shop,
May Flowers Jewelry. “I was trying to think of a name,

and since I’m making flowers, it just seemed fitting,”

Kassie explains. Of her current offering of rose ear-

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own two hands. I dye all my own clay and never use

a mold, so each creation is one of a kind.” Buying

women jewelry can be daunting, but you can’t go

wrong giving the gift of Miss May’s flowers.

Want to play video games against Miss
June 2011 Mei-Ling Lam? Her Xbox
gamer tag is BeautifulFlower8.

Miss November 1992 Stephanie Adams
won а $1.2 million settlement against the
NYPD for its use of excessive force.

DID YOU

KNOW ;

¿PLAYMATE NEWS

Twenty years ago
this month we
introduced Miss
May 1992 A

] je Smith to
the world. Anna
was an instant
star. Her formi-
dable body stood
out against the
heroin-chic waifs
of the period and
made curves sexy
again. Anna’s life
played out as a
tragedy, from the
highs of screen
roles and mod-
eling for Guess
to personal lows
that provided
much fodder for
the tabloids. But
if there is ever a
Mount Rushmore
of sexual icons,
Anna’s bust will
be up there.

Melissa McCarthy, of Mike & Molly and
Bridesmaids renown, is PMOY 1994
Jenny McCarthy's cousin.

What is Miss
August 2010
Francesca Frigo's
fantasy? “My

perfect day," she
says, “would
be spent on a
deserted island
where I can sun-
bathe, roll around
and play naked in
the sand.”

INSIDE KELLY
WEARSTLER’S
MELROSE SPACE

When Miss September 1994
Kelly (Gallagher) Wearstler
posed she told us her ambi-
tion was “to own my own
marvelous design and fur-
nishings business.” In less
than 20 years—including
time spent designing for the
Viceroy Hotels, being a
judge on Top Design and
having a line at Bergdorf
Goodman—Kelly has
opened her eponymous
flagship store. At Kelly
Wearstler on Melrose in
West Hollywood her glam-
orously brazen
design touches en-
hance her rakish
fashions. The
store is a grom-
meted scarf's
throw from her
office, so she’s
going to use it as a testing
ground for her new styles.

[09 FAVORITE PLAYMATE

LYNNSANITY ON
HOUSE OF LIES

Showtime's House of Lies
follows Marty Kaan (Don
Cheadle), a shark for hire with
one weakness. On the series
premiere Kaan and Alisette
Kauffman (Miss July 1997
Daphnee Lynn Duplaix) meet
when their adolescent children
quarrel. Kaan takes one look
at Kauffman, concedes his
son's argument and they later
work something else out in the
school parking lot.

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of them in the full magazine archives at iplayboy.com.

HIT KING

(continued from page 138)
him write anything.’ Would you be okay
with that?”

“How much are they paying me to come
back?” I ask.

“Fair question,” Rose replies.

“Let me tell you something else,” he
says. “I can say this. I think Hank Aaron
would say this. Babe Ruth would say this.
Ty Cobb, Ted Williams, Mickey Mantle. I
never watched myself hit on video and I
never hit a ball off a tee, and I got 4,200
fucking hits. I mean, a guy strikes out on a
ball that bounces in front of home plate, and
he runs back into the dugout to watch it on
video. Why the fuck would you put yourself
through that?

“I get texts from Joey Votto. Sometimes
Ill watch his at-bats to see what he's doing.
I used to get texts from A-Rod a few years
back. A-Rod would say things like ‘I don't
know what's going on, Pete. I’m hitting
inside the ball.’ I would say, ‘Alex, I have
no idea what the fuck you're talking about.’
I see him in the dugout fidgeting around,
practicing his swing. Would you fucking
relax? You're going to fail seven out of 10
times and you're going to go to the Hall
of Fame. You can't think about hitting all
the time. Calm down! I would tell him that
you've got to just get a pitch and ћи the
fucking ball hard somewhere.”

At what point, I ask, does the dream
die? When will he be too old to suit up and
travel around the country to teach young
men making millions how to relax and
make the unnatural experience of beating
an object moving at 95 miles per hour with
a stick feel natural? “Shit, I love to travel,”
Rose says. “I don’t feel my age at all. Sign
me up tomorrow.”

At 4:30 p.m. the store employees do one
last scan of the surrounding area to make
sure there are no potential customers. No
need to leave any money on the table today.
After the signing, Rose and Kim invite me
to join them for dinner at Old Home-
stead, a steakhouse that has just opened
in Caesars Palace.

"I'm sorry, I can't seat you for another 15
minutes,” the hostess says. “The servers are
all in a meeting and we don’t open until five.
What’s your name?”

“Rose,” he replies. “R-O-S-E.” We sit at
a side bar table until we are called. “I can’t
believe we can’t sit at a fucking table,” Rose
says. “Watch, as soon as the manager realizes
I'm here, they'll come over and kiss my ass.”

Rose shows me a photo of his grandson,
Petey's boy, who's now seven. Rose's son is
now a minor league manager in the White
Sox organization. "This seven-year-old can
play. You've got to see him hit. Now take a
look at this!" Rose scrolls through his photos
to find a picture of himself at a similar age.
They look astonishingly similar, as though it
could be the same person. “Isn't that some-
thing? You've got kids?"

"I do," I say. ^I have a son who is five.
He didn't want to get on the school bus
today. He tried to convince his mother it

was a bad idea. The train is much faster.
He's very smart."

“That's a kid after my own heart. Does
he play ball yet?"

And this is what makes the Rose experi-
ence so successful. I've seen it with other
people all day, but now I experience it first-
hand. Rose can crank out the greatest hits
on his personal jukebox on demand—the
collision with Fosse, the fight with Bud Har-
relson, the Big Red Machine—but it's when
he shows a natural curiosity in you that
he's at his best.

No one understands the tradition of base-
ball, passed from grandfather to father to
son, like Rose, and certainly no one has ever
monetized it this successfully as an individ-
ual. His curiosity about people makes every
person for whom he signs an autograph feel
more like a friend and less like a business
transaction. It's part of the hustle of being
Charlie Hustle. As great a storyteller as Rose
is, he's an equally deft listener. And if you
come back to the store a year later, he's likely
to remember the conversation you had.

As we are seated in the practically empty
restaurant, Rose and Kim talk about the
future. Kim is pursuing an acting career.
“I was just in a Roger Corman movie,” she
says. She shows me a revealing photo of
herself wearing a 1970s wig. “I play a Viet-
namese stripper. It's about guys fighting a
war, but it takes place inside a video game.
I went to nail salons to tape the Vietnamese
women to get the accent right.”

She has also just read for a part on CSI:
Miami. “One of the producers of the show
is from Cincinnati,” Rose says. “She invited
Kiana to come read for a part.”

The unlikely couple has also filmed hours
of footage that they hope will become a pilot
for a reality show they are shopping to vari-
ous networks. A camera crew followed them
around for several days, including a trip to
Cooperstown during the Hall of Fame week-
end last summer.

“It was crazy,” Kim said. “We filmed a bit
in front of the museum, and as soon as peo-
ple saw the cameras, they started to come
over to see what was going on. When they
saw Pete they went insane.”

“I didn't go inside the hall or anything,” Rose
says. “I didn't want to cause any trouble.”

“The one thing that bothers Pete the
most is the alienation,” Kim says. “When
I go to Cooperstown, I feel it. When they
have the ceremony and the guys are all
together and he's not included, you can
feel it most.”

“The thing that alienates me more is that
I never got a second chance,” Rose says.
“Hell, the guy who shot the pope got a sec-
ond chance, for Christ's sake. The guy that
shot the freaking pope!”

“People say, “Why is he still gambling?’
And I know you say you're not doing any-
thing illegal,” she says looking at Rose, “but
for your specific case it doesn't look good.”

“Listen, I’m here because my job is in Las
Vegas,” Rose says. “This is the only city in
America where this would work. If my job
was in Hoboken, I would be there seven
days a week.”

“But they still see you in the race book.”

“Watching a game? I can’t watch a game
in the race book anymore?”

“Babe, why do you think I’m always
watching Twitter?”

“Are you back on that shit? Every time
someone says something, it’s the truth?”

“People see something and they put it on
Twitter. What if Bud Selig sends someone
down to watch you?”

“I hope he does!”

“But what if they see you going up to
the window?”

“So it’s okay if A-Rod comes in to make a
bet? And he’s going to make a hell of a big-
ger bet than I am. Or Jeter?”

“Your case is different. They’re not look-
ing for a second chance. You are. This is why
I never talk to you about this. You have your
point of view. Other people have theirs, and
Bud has his.”

"I'm not around undesirables and I'm not
doing anything illegal. She’s like all the guys
that lecture me. You have to change your life
to bow down to them. It’s like Bill O’Reilly
told me. He said, “They’re going to make
you grovel.’”

“But if that’s what it takes, you do it! Peo-
ple have this conception that because he’s
in Las Vegas all the time, he has this direct
relationship to gambling. It’s so not true. He
watches TV most of the time. But if people
see him in Caesars Palace, it’s like, ‘Oh, I
saw him in the casino.’”

“I don't look at Facebook and all that shit,
because it's bullshit."

“The world looks at it, Pete."

"That don't make it right. How many times
has there been stuff on there about me that
was untrue? Ninety percent of the time."

“He just won't do what it takes," Kim says.
"When it broke that A-Rod had used steroids,
the next day he has a press conference. ‘I’m
so sorry.” But there's no way Pete will do that.
He's got too much pride. He's so stubborn.
He'll ruin things in his life because he's so
stubborn. I think people think he's this
grumpy, bitter guy, but he's not. Stubborn,
yes, but happy. He's completely carefree and
he'll go with the flow. And for his friends,
guys like Mike Schmidt and Joe Morgan?
He'll do anything for them."

'The manager comes to the table. ^Mr.
Rose, did you enjoy your dinner?"

"Yeah, it was great," Rose says. ^We tried
to come here the day before New Year's Eve,
but you were all full."

"That's when you call me," the manager
says, handing Rose his card. "If there's any-
thing you need, please call me right away."

"Look, the bottom line?" Rose says. "I'd
rather be in baseball. I'd be having fun. I'd be
making several million dollars too. But look at
my life. I'm doing fine. I’m making a good liv-
ing. I can't see myself ever being with another
girl. Kiana's the last one for me. I enjoy talk-
ing baseball every day. I've got a good life. I
can't control any of the other stuff."

'The check comes and we pay, and Rose
and Kim walk me through the casino toward
the elevators. He'll make the 1.1-mile drive
home in three minutes and will likely have
Fox News turned on in six. With that, Rose
and Kim bid me farewell. “Listen, good luck
with your son," Rose says. ^Make sure he gets
on the bus and goes to school. School's impor-
tant. Enjoy the rest of your stay, okay?"

141

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national and regional editions, Playboy, 335 North Maple Drive, Beverly Hills, California 90210. Periodicals postage paid at Chicago, Illinois and at additional mail-

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