Skip to main content

Full text of "PLAYBOY"

See other formats 


3 EHARDKNOCKS 
АТСА 
EODTBALLP 


ж *2012NFL 
u PREVIEW 


П 
' 
N 
| 


' 
5 


Не saw. She saw. 


DEXTER 


It’s all on the table. 


„визе SEPT 30| SUNDAYS 9PM:| ШҮЛІМЕ 


Followed by the season premiere of HOMILA! ACE YOURSELF 


ЕЗ 7 сот То order: 1-800-SHOWTIME [73 


E ac | 


GE 
Y \ = 


Shinari Concept Car 
MazdaUSA.com 


WHAT DO YOU DRIVE? 
Is it inspiring? 


What were the people who built 
your car thinking? 


Are they just another behemoth 
carmaker following the rules? 


Or do they break them? 

Do they push the boundaries of 
tradition and habit to achieve the 
unachieved? 

Are they insightful craftsmen, 
obsessing over the details with 


а crazed passion? 


Building less, building better, 
for a discerning few? 


Are you one of the few who cares 
about what you drive, how it drives 
and the way it makes you feel? 


We're with you. 


Because we believe if it's not worth 
driving, it's not worth building. 


We build Mazdas. 


What do you drive? 


BRAD PITT 


KILLING THEM SOFTLY 


RICHARD MES 
JENKINS GANDOLFINI ШОТ 


CHOCKST ‚One Ш mes [- er 


KillingThemSofilyMovie.com 


all has arrived, and with it comes our 
F annual whizbang college issue. Inside 

you'll find our Girls of the Big Ten pic- 
torial, our top party schools list and a wild 
story by Don Peteroy of the University of 
Cincinnati—our College Fiction Contest winner. 
In Circuit Builders, Peteroy takes us inside a 
rehab center where the patients can do as 
many drugs as they want. Yes, it's dark. As 
part of our 50 Years of the Playboy Interview 
series, we bring you Stephen Hawking, the 
world's most influential scientist. He speaks 
candidly about his debilitating disease and his 
favorite subject, the universe. Artist Pamela 
Horton—otherwise known as Miss October 
2012—is pictured at right paddling photogra- 
pher Sasha Eisenman, who shot her for the 
cover. Swing away, Pamela! Sonny Vaccaro 
(pictured below right with NBA star Tracy 
McGrady) signed Michael Jordan to his first 
sneaker deal, back in 1984. From there, things 
went south for Vaccaro, who has been crit- 
icized through the years for turning college 
sports into a big business that takes advantage 
of student athletes. Can Vaccaro 
make amends with the sports 
world before it's too late? Find out 
in The Redemption of a Sneaker 
Pimp. For her latest Women col- 
umn, “Forget Money—Get a Job 
With Sex Appeal,” our furiously 
funny female Lisa Lampanelli 
riffs on how guys with cool jobs 
make women want to drop their 
panties. Attention, college stu- 
dents: If that doesn't motivate 
you to study hard and get yourself 
a good degree, nothing will. In this 
month's Francofile, “Talking With 
Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg," 
columnist James Franco talks 
with one of Hollywood's most 
powerful comedic writing teams. 
The pair worked together on Superbad, Pine- 
apple Express and the forthcoming The End 
ofthe World. What else does autumn bring to 
mind? Football, of course. Rick Gosselin, 
one of the most respected journos covering 
the NFL today, picks the best and the worst 
for 2012. You'll never believe who he has 
winning it all. Bonus: Our look at violence in 
the NFL. Speaking of violence, thriller writer 
extraordinaire Lee Child has created one of 
the best fictional badasses in recent years: 
Jack Reacher, who has head butted his way 
through Child's 17 novels. In the Playboy 
Interview, Child speaks about the benefits 
of smoking weed, re-creating yourself after 
40 (the age at which he wrote his first book) 
and having Jack Reacher brought to life on 
the big screen by Tom Cruise. Finally, Dax 
Shepard knocks our 20Q out of the park this 
month. The actor manages to be brutally hon- 
est and funny about his past addictions, as 
well as his current one—speed (the pedal-to- 
the-metal kind). Now, are you ready for some 
action of your own? Go ahead: Start reading. 


Don Peteroy 


Sonny Vaccaro 


‘isa Campanelli 


Rick Gosselin 


PLAYBILL 


F 


James Franco. 


` 


à 


STEP 1 | STEP 2 tester STEP3 STEPH 


FROM SPECTALLY MARKED (8 BUDLIGHT.COM/FFL 
BOTTLES OF BUD LIGHT" TO START PLAYING 


DRAFT PLAYERS |  COMPETETO WIN 


ACTIVATE YOUR SEASON AND 
TEAM EACH WEEK WEEKLY PRIZES 


NTASY -— 9 
L 


THERE'S 
ONE 
PLAVER 
ON EVERY 
BOTTLE. 


PRIZES AWARDED 
EACH WEEK 


HERE WE GO. 


‚ <<LOOK FOR THE CODES 


wi ON SPECIALLY MARKED BOTTLES 


Cover typography Бу SARAH 4 COLEMAN/BA-REPS.COM 


66 


76 


VOL. 59, NO. 8-OCTOBER 2012 


PLAYBOY 


CONTENTS 


FEATURES 


THE REDEMPTION 84 
ОҒА 

5МЕАКЕВ РІМР 
Why are NCAA athletes 
worth millions and paid 
nothing? NEAL GABLER 
profiles Sonny Vaccaro, 
who helped create the 
‚ystemheisnowona 
mission to destroy. 


GILDING THE 
GRIDIRON 


В course in 


104 


eatand drink 
with distinction. 


CIRCUIT BUILDERS 
Atarehab center where 
patients аге encouraged to 


108 


tasy quickly becomes his 
nightmare. By College 
Fiction Contest winner 
DON PETEROY 


61 


TOP 10 PARTY 
SCHOOLS 

From sports to sex, we 
rank the campuses that 
make Animal House look 
like anunnery. 


PLAYBOY CLASSIC: 
STEPHEN HAWKING 
Man has always pondered 
hiso is; Stephen 
Hawking brings us closerto 
answers than anyone else, 
Wetacklethe bigquestions 
with the scientific genius. 


THE GAMING 
GOLD RUSH? 
Forget Facebook. DAVID 
KUSHNER goes inside 
the billion-dollar world 
of mobile gaming, where 
thumb-size diversions 
mean big business. 


PLAYBOY'S NFL 
PREVIEW 

RICK GOSSELIN crunches 
the numbers and finds 
asurprise Super Bowl 
standout 


INTERVIEW 


LEE CHILD 

STEVE ONEY grills the 
best-selling novelist who 
created Jack Reacher, 
America's favorite badass. 


DAX SHEPARD 

How did the actor go from 
burnout to beau of Kristen 
Bell? DAVID HOCHMAN 
discovers the method to 
Shepard's madness. 


COVER STORY 
Pamela Horton isa work 
ofart, revealing her 
sporty side as our cover 
girland artistic soul as 
October's Playmate. Is it 
any wonder our Rabbit 
was smitten with 
hercharms? 


A 


YOU CANT BE 
HALF A GANGSTER 


BOARDWALK 


1270000: | ә = | 


: | Ё, | E Va ena 
OR WATCH IT ON HBOGO 


НВО 60° is only accessible in the US and certain US territories. ©2012 Home Box Oi, Inc. A ight reserved. HED® and related channel and service marks are the property of Home Box Office, nc 


CZECH RINGMASTER: Kamila Hermanová 


HANDS OFF MY 57 HOW APPLE 

BIG GULP RULES AMERICA 

Mayor Bloomberg wants N )K'songoing 

to downsize New York's series reveals the brutal 

softdrinks. Butas А reality under Apple's 

N в argues, the polished veneer. 

only thing he's downsizing 

is "do Random, ы A PARTY OF 
PIRATES 

READER From the murky seas of 

RESPONSE the web emerges a new 


Thetrue cost of concealed 
carry; American anger, 
online and off; straight 
talk about gay marriage. 


political force. 206 
RON chronicles the rise 
ofthe Pirate Party, the 

internet's latest uprising. 


TALKING WITH 
SETH ROGEN AND 
EVAN GOLDBERG 

NCO chats 
with Hollywood's funniest 
duo on maturity and pot. 


I HATE FOOTBALL 
IN dissects the 
sport he hates to love. FAS 


FORGET MONEY— 116 FALL FOR 
GET A JOB WITH FRAGRANCE 
SEX APPEAL Our guide to autumn's most 


gets rugged scents. Curated by 
you laid, via LinkedIn. JENNIFER RYAN E 


VOL. 59, NO. 8-OCTOBER 2012 


PLAYBOY 


CONTENTS 


CZECH MATE 
Watch out: Kamila Her- 
manová can tame any man. 


PLAYMATE: 
PAMELA HORTON 
October's Playmateisan 
artist sure to fire up any 
imagination. 


GIRLS OF THE 
BIG TEN 

Playboy's campus tour 
uncovers the unspoiled 
beauties ofthe Midwest. 


WORLD OF 
PLAYBOY 

Mingling with the vixens 
of True Blood; pregaming 
the ESPYs; Kendra shows 
Hef her Love Candy. 


НАМСІМ” WITH 
HEF 

Cee Lo Green, Pauly Shore 
and our Playmates make 
this a Midsummer Night's 
Dream to remember. 


PLAYMATE NEWS 
Carrie Stevens and her 
Playmate pals make 
dinner beautiful again; 


200: Dax Shepard 


rocking with Nikki Leigh. ZPARTMEN 
PLAYBILL 
DEAR PLAYBOY 
AFTERHOURS 
THE WEIRD B REVIEWS 
WORLD OF GAHAN 40 MANTRACK 
WILSON 51 PLAYBOY 
Ghoulish grins from our ADVISOR 
master cartoonist. 02 PARTY JOKES 


PLAYBOY ON © PLAYBOY ON 
FacEBOOR TER 

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


AND GRAPHIC MATERIAL WILL BE TREATED AS UNCONDITIONALLY ASSIGNED FOR PUB: 
LICATION AND COPYRIGHT PURPOSES, AND MATERIAL WILL BE SUBJECT TO PLAYBOY'S 
FORM BY ANY ELECTRONIC, MECHANICAL, PHOTOCOPYING OR RECORDING MEANS OR 
OTHERWISE WITHOUT PRIOR WRITTEN PERMISSION OF THE PUBLISHER. ANY SIMILARITY 
DE 1993, Y CERTIFICADO DE LICITUD DE CONTENIDO NO. 5108 DE FECHA 29 DE JULIO 
DE 1993 EXPEDIDOS POR LA COMISION CALIFICADORA DE PUBLICACIONES Y REVISTAS 
ILUSTRADAS DEPENDIENTE DE LA SECRETARIA DE GOBERNACIÓN, MÉXICO, RESERVA DE 


PRINTED IN U.S.A. 


calvinkleinfragrances.com 


supuoudna uoybıodio) эңәшзогу uap одоо 21000 


YOU DON'T NEED A VACATION. 


YOU NEED А 


HUGH M. HEFNER 
editor-in-chief 


JIMMY JELLINEK 
editorial director 
STEPHEN RANDALL deputy editor 
MAC LEWIS art director 
LEOPOLD FROEHLICH managing editor 


A.J. BAIME, JOSH SCHOLLMEYER executive editors 
РАТТҮ BEAUDET-FRANCES deputy photography director 
HUGH GARVEY articles editor 


EDITORIAL 
FEATURES: JASON BUHRMESTER senior editor FASHION: JENNIFER RYAN JONES editor 
STAFF: JARED EVANS assistant managing editor; CHERIE BRADLEY executive assistant; GILBERT MACIAS 
senior editorial assistant; TYLER TRYKOWSKI editorial assistant CARTOONS: AMANDA WARREN associate 
cartoon editor СОР 
CAT AUER copy editor RESEARCH: NORA O'DONNELL senior research editor; SHANE MICHAEL SINGH 


WINIFRED ORMOND copy chief BRADLEY LINCOLN senior copy editor; 


research editor CONTRIBUTING EDITORS: BRANTLEY BARDIN, MARK BOAL, ROBERT В. DE SALVO, 


GRETCHEN EDGREN, JAMES FRANCO, 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, CHIP ROWE, WILL SELF, DAVID SHEFF, 
JOEL STEIN, DAVID STEVENS, ROB TANNENBAUM, CHRISTOPHER TENNANT, ALICE К. TURNER 


ART 
JUSTIN PAGE senior art director; CRISTELA Р. TSCHUMY associate art director; 
ROBERT HARKNESS assistant art director; 


(ATT STEIGBIGEL photo researcher; 
AARON LUCAS art coordinator; LISA TCHAKMAKIAN 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 contributing photographers; KEVIN MURPHY manager, photo library; 
CHRISTIE HARTMANN archivist, photo library; KARLA GOTCHER, CARMEN ORDONEZ assistants, photo library; 
CRAIG SCHRIBER manager, prepress and imaging; AMY KASTNER-DROWN, LIANA RIOS digital imaging 
specialists; OSCAR RODRIGUEZ prepress operator; KEVIN CRAIG manager, imaging lab 


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


PRODUCTION 
LESLEY K. JOHNSON production director; HELEN YEOMAN production services manager 


INTERNATIONAL PUBLISHING 
MARKUS GRINDEL managing 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; 
AMA 


pa CIVITELLO senior marketing director 


PLAYBOY PRINT OPERATIONS 
том FLORES business manager 


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 YORK: BRIAN VRABEL entertainment and gaming director; MIKE BOYKA automotive, 


THONY GIANNOCCORA 


consumer electronics and consumer products director; 
fashion and grooming manager; кемуі TROYER digital sales planner; 


KEVIN FALA art director 


о senior marketing manager; MATT C: 


marketing manager; JOHN кг 


LOS ANGELES: LORI KESSLER west coast director; VALERIE TOVAR digital sales planner 


THOUSANDS OF 


у is open to legal 
U.S. and the D.C. (excluding resident 


y etails on how to enter 
Sand to view cor nplete Offici 


mplete prize descrip 


pany LLC, 


NUFF 


WARNING: 
Smokeless 
tobacco is 
addictive. 


Original 


TS a 
merican 


Since 7 SAA 


An Am 


HEF SIGHTINGS, 
MANSION FROLICS 
AND NIGHTLIFE NOTES 


THE WORLD 
OF PLAYBOY 


The vampire fangs and Bunny ears were out at the 
Playboy-True Blood party after Comic-Con. The cast 

of HBO's smash hit—including Stephen Moyer, Sam 
Trammell, Joe Manganiello, Michael McMillian, Alexander 
Skarsgárd and Janina Gavankar—took a break from Fang- 
tasia to come to San Diego and revel with Playmates and 
such chic geeks as Family Guy's Seth MacFarlane. 


Kendra Wilkinson 
dropped by the Playboy 
Mansion to show Hef 
her new line of romance 
products, Love Candy. 
"My relaxation and 
romance rituals are 
very important to me 
and Hank," Kendra 
says. "Now I'm ready 
to share them with the 
world.” Inside the Love 


Candy boxes are lotions, 


massage oils, lickable 
body drizzle, sexy dice 
and a massager. 


Almost 20 years after 
first appearing in pLayeor, 
39-year-old sex symbol 
Jenny McCarthy graced 
our cover and an elegant 
and alluring spread. 
“Why should 20-year- 
olds be the only ones 
who are considered 
sexy?” Jenny asked at 
the Ciroc Cabana Club 
party in Chicago. “I'm 
proud of it,” she said, 
“and I can't wait to 
maybe do it again when 
I'm 50. 


To kick off the week- 

end when top athletes 
descend on Los Ange- 
les, Playboy threw 

a pre-ESPYs party. 
Celebrities and ballers 
who attended the fete 
included Men at Work's 
Adam Busch, DeSean 
Jackson of the Eagles, 
Oscar winner Jamie Foxx 
and the Browns" 
Trent Rich- 
ardson. The 
night played 
out like one 
glorious 
end zone 
celebration. 


PLAYBOY Y VtP 


FRAGRANCE FOR MEN AND WOMEN 


playboyfragrances.com 


Жоо fq asuaoy sapun pasn pue Кобе jo syewapen a usaq peaH заден pue довлула обе 21020 


HANGIN? 
WITH HEF 


MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S 
DREAM PARTY 


Welcome to Hugh Hefner’s 
annual lingerie and pajama 
party. 1. Allie Mason and 
Pauly Shore. 2. Cee Lo Green. 
3. Vivi Voss and Crispin 
Glover. 4. Hef, Miss Decem- 
ber 2009 Crystal Harris and 
Cooper Hefner. 5. Playmates 
aplenty: Kimberly Phillips, 
Pamela Horton, Summer 
Altice, Christina Santiago and 
Crystal McCahill. 6. Big Hoss 
of Pawn Stars. 7. Bill Maher 
and Painted Ladies. 8. PMOY 
2012 Jaclyn Swedberg. 

9. Miss August 2004 Pilar 
Lastra, actor Jesse Bradford 
and Miss May 2012 Nikki 
Leigh. 10. Hef with main 
squeezes Chelsea Ryan, 
Trisha Frick and Crystal. 


THREE-STAR ISSUE 
It was a pleasant surprise to pick up 

the July/August issue and find three of 
my favorite people: Jenny McCarthy, 
Ayn Rand (Playboy Classic: Ayn Rand) 
and Charlie Sheen (Playboy Interview). 1 
admire McCarthy for the work she's done 
to raise awareness about autism. І read 
Alvin Tofller's Playboy Interview with Ayn 
Rand after finishing We the Living and The 
Fountainhead, and 1 was hooked. 1 have 
since passed her philosophy on to my 
kids. And then there's Sheen. І like the 
guy for giving the finger to Hollywood's 
entrenched mediocrity. 

Nosh Mullafiroze 

Raleigh, North Carolina 


SMART SET 
Thank you for the revealing Playboy 
Interview with Tom Cruise (June). 
Although he has been an object of deri- 
sion, he presents himself as a thoughtful 
person with a deep sense of commitment. 
Maybe that will slow down the haters in 
the feeding frenzy over his divorce. 
Jan Chciuk-Celt 
Portland, Oregon 


SOFT FOCUS 
I love the softer photography in issues 

from the late 19605 and early 1970s and 
so was thrilled to see Stephen Wayda's 
shots of Playmate of the Year Jaclyn 
Swedberg (Jaclyn Swedberg Is Playmate 
of the Year, June). 

Jeff Rusin 

Lehighton, Pennsylvania 


TAKING CONTROL 
As a man who has had a lifelong 

interest in rectifying the problems of 
“underfucked” women (at least until 
I got married), І carefully read Kim 
Anami's beautiful description of the 
problem and the five solutions she 
implemented with her clients (Carnal 
Knowledge, July/August). Yet four of 
Anami's five solutions require the man 
to make a change. In my experience, 
the least interesting women (no matter 
how beautiful or sexy) are those who 
need a partner to get them off. The 
women who take charge of their own 
sexual engines are the ones who become 
lifelong partners and playmates. 

Ron Blouch 

Harrisburg, Pennsylvania 


LOST CAUSE 
Although Jenny McCarthy is beautiful 
and intelligent, she has potentially done 
immeasurable harm to children whose 
parents did not vaccinate them because 
of her anti-vaccine pronouncements. The 
idea that childhood vaccines are a possi- 
ble contributing factor to autism has been 
thoroughly discredited, yet McCarthy has 
never, to my knowledge, admitted that 
her beliefs are wrong. 
Dr. John Manzella 
York, Pennsylvania 


One Hot Summer 
Regarding Jenny McCarthy (July/ 
August): Thanks for making America 
so beautiful. 
Judge Lance Ito 
Los Angeles, California 


There's something about Jenny... 
We couldn't have asked for anyone bet- 
ter to grace a summer issue. She has 
the body of a goddess, the smile of a 
princess and an all-around fun person- 
ality. Thanks to photographer Steve 
Shaw (the envy of so many of us) for 
the mesmerizing, classy images. 
Freddy Garcia 
Houston, Texas 


She remains convinced of a connection 
and will likely never be persuaded otherwise. 


А ROAD LESS TRAVELED 

Most of the country has moved on from 
the Charlie Sheen show, but 1 can't help 
rooting for the guy. At the same time, 
whenever 1 catch a television broadcast 


The Charlie Sheen show is not yet over. 


of Platoon or Wall Street, 1 feel a tinge of 
sadness for the actor he might have been. 
Every time Sheen flashes that devilish, 
I'm-still-beating-the-system grin, I see 
Mickey Rourke's cheekbones. 
J. Bryan McGeever 
Stony Brook, New York 


OUR COLUMNISTS 
It may be hard for a jock or nerd or 
Joel Stein to imagine, but some of us аге 
able to enjoy mathematics and philoso- 
phy without being socially, athletically or 
sexually inept (Jocks vs. Nerds: A Peace 
Plan,” Men, June). 
Dave Benedetto 
Gilmanton, New Hampshire 


I've been an avid рілүвоү reader for 
years, and І just want to say you've hit 
the jackpot with your Men and Women 
columns. Lisa Lampanelli is a politically 
incorrect crack-up, and her column is 
every bit as funny as her stand-up act. 
Joel Stein makes me laugh out loud. He 
hits the пай on the head with “How Forty 
Became the New Twenty”(July/August). I 
shared it with my wife to show her I'm not 
alone in my so-called immaturity. 

Nicholas Adams 
New York, New York 


Hey, Stein—bite me. I'm 36 and am often 
told I need to grow up. Should I ignore my 
family while I read the paper and sip whis- 
key? That's how my father and grandfather 
did it. The fact that I read comic books, 
play video games and can't fix a damn 
thing in the house doesn't make me any less 
ofa man. I spend 40 hours a week at a key- 
board so I can earn enough money to hire 
somebody to shingle my roof. If you judge 
me solely by appearance—I am writing this 
while wearing heart-covered pajama pants 
anda King Kong shirt—I surely am a child. 
But I'm also about to make breakfast for my 
family and make sure they are happy and 
well taken care of today. 

Eric Thompson 
Spokane, Washington 


I'm disappointed to see Lampanelli 
describe а bad sex tape as “more depress- 
ing than 9/11" (*Why Your Sex Tape 
Sucks," Women, June). I hate to sound like 
a person offended by every little thing, 
but I can't be the only patriotic citizen 
who sees disrespect in making light of the 
deaths of 2,977 people. 

A.M. Trueman 
Lewiston, Idaho 


As a feminist and a longtime PLAYBOY 
reader, I can't figure out why you continue 
to print Lampanelli's insufferable harping 


DEAR PLAYBOY 


Тһе 
Arcade Classic. 
Reborn. 


PRE-ORDER NOW 


£ /spyhunterofficial [MI /spyhuntergame 


PSVITA % 


NINTENDO 3R DIS. 


Mild Language 
Violence 


в GAMES LOGO, WB SHIELD: ™ 
Т] 


and redundant platitudes. For the love of 
decency, please make it stop. 
Liz Pardue-Schultz 
Fuquay-Varina, North Carolina 


I think I broke а rib laughing my way 
through "Leave It to Beavers" (Women, 
July/August). Thanks for adding Lisa to 
your roster of talent 
Larry Little 
Plano, Texas 


RAND REDUX 

Thank you for reprinting the excerpt 
from your classic Playboy Interview with 
Ayn Rand, one of the best Q&As she ever 
did. However, though you describe her 
as a "conservative thinker,” in the inter- 
view she expresses strong opposition 
to being labeled as such. That she was 
a "radical for capitalism" rather than a 
conservative is a regular theme in her 
writings. For example, see 
tism: Ап Obituary" in Capitalism: 
Unknoum Ideal. 


Michael Berliner 
Los Angeles, California 
Berliner is editor of Letters of Ayn Rand. 


Rand is the L. Ron Hubbard of Ameri- 
can political and economic philos 
Ryan Costz 
Cleveland, Ohio 


) cerpt so captivating I 
read it twice. It’s amazing how Капа’ 
ideas remain relevant almost 50 years later. 
Amber Ward 
Georgetown, South Carolina 


GONE BUT NOT FORGOTTEN 

In Disappearance in the East (May), a 
report on people who fake their own 
deaths, Lawrence Osborne notes that 
you can alter everything about yourself 
except your height. For many years I 
headed the fraud department of a large 
insurance company. We once received a 
$500,000 claim from a woman who said 
husband had been murdered while 
g the Philippines. She had a death 
certificate and a photo of his body with 
three policemen standing over it. I hired 
an investigator in Manila to find the 
officers, and from them he learned the 
length of the body, which turned out to 
be six inches shorter than the insured. 
As a bonus, the investigator spotted the 
man at a political rally and snapped his 
photo. As a result, I was able to phone the 
woman with the news that her husband 
was still alive, though I couldn't tell her 
whose ashes she had on her mantel. Since 
no money had been paid, we didn’t pur- 
sue legal action. 


Ed Corton 
Jupiter, Florida 


LET HER FLY 

Brian Bowen Smith’s photos of 
Stephanie Corneliussen are magnifi- 
cent (Desert Fox, June), but that lovely 


windswept portrait on the bottom of the 
first page deserves a spread of its own. 
David Burroughs 
Port Townsend, Washington 


WE CAN REBUILD THEM 

It's great to read what Hugh Herr and his 
team at MIT are accomplishing in the field 
of biomechatronics to help veterans who 
have lost limbs (Bionic Man, June). Herr 


may not believe the debt has been repaid 
for the loss of life during his 1982 rescue 
from Mount Washington, but I disagree. 
The work he has been inspired to do will 
improve the lives of thousands. I'd never tell 
him that, however. Let him remain driven. 

Al Golden 

Boyertown, Pennsylvania 


TASTE MAKER 
The Talented Mr. K (July/August) is a fas- 

cinating look inside a world of ex: Ifa 

movie is made of his story, wine dealer Rudy 

Kurniawan could be portrayed as a hero 

for fleecing those pretentious billionaires. 
Kevin Smith 
Washington, D.C. 


a 


FIRING BACK 
1 found Pat Jordan’s article on open- 
carry gun laws (Armed and Dangerous?, 
June) to be fair and thought-provoking. 
1 favor open carry for hikers, surveyors 
and others in the outdoors and small 
towns where it doesn't create undue pub- 
lic apprehension. But in some settings, 
concealed carry is better. 
Jim Williamson 
Dallas, Texas 


I live in a rural area where it may take 
a police officer 30 to 40 minutes to reach 
me. That's why having the right to own 
and carry a firearm to protect family, 
neighbors and friends is a high priority 
to us "country folk." 
Gary Derr 
Campbell, Nebraska 
For more letters in response to Jordan's piece, 
turn to page 55 


E-mail LETTERS@PLAYBOY.COM or write 9346 CIVIC CENTER DRIVE, BEVERLY HILLS, CALIFORNIA 90210 


The 
Arcade Classic. 
Reborn. 


Sr”? HINTER 


f /spyhunterofficial м /spyhuntergame 


p PS VITA * NINTENDO GDS. 


Prystatonsita 


SPY HUNTER © 2012 Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc. Developed by TT Fusion. All other trademarks and copyrights are the property of 
their respective owners. All rights reserved. SPY HUNTER and all related elements are trademarks of and © Warner Bros. Entertainment 
Inc. Nintendo trademarks and copyrights are properties of Nintendo. "PlayStation" and the "PS" Family logo are registered trademarks 
and the Playstation Network logo is a trademark of Sony Computer Entertainment Inc. The "PSVITA" logo is a trademark of the same 
‘company. All other trademarks and copyrights are the property of their respective owners. All rights reserved. 


WB GAMES LOGO, WB SHIELD: ™ & © Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc. 
(512) 


КІРЕ ОМЕ | 
AND YOU'LL | ШІ 
OWN ONE. | 


IT'S AN INVITE. IT'S A CHALLENGE. 
IT'S JUST WHAT HAPPENS. 


SET UP A TIME TO RIDE ONE AT 
VICTORYMOTORCYCLES.COM 


PLAYBOY 


-DETOBER- N 
2012 


BECOMING 
ATTRACTION 


SAY HELLO to 
the sexiest new 
face in hip-hop: 
22-year-old 
Australian Iggy 
Azalea. Outrageous 
and gorgeous, with 
lyrics as twisted 
as her sense of 
humor, she's one 
of 2012's hottest 
new rappers; her 
latest release, this 
summer's Glory, 
is as triumphant 
as it sounds. She's 
even fresh off a 
global modeling 
campaign. Her 
secret? "Everything 
I do, I do because 
I own it, Iggy 
reveals. "If I didn't 
own it, I wouldn't 
say it.” Nicely said 


Photography by BROOKE NIPAR 


Contour by GETTY IMAGES 23 


TALK | WHAT MATTERS NOW 


BIRTH OF A 
BOMBSHELL 


AS GUESS TURNS 30, A PHOTOGRA- 
PHER PRAISES THE ULTIMATE PINUP 


+ For 30 years, Guess has featured some of 
the most beautiful women on the planet, 

but none stands out like Anna Nicole Smith. 
With her tousled hair and sensual curves, 
Smith exuded an oversexed energy that felt 
barely contained behind her classic pinup 
looks. She appeared tailor-made for the 
Guess Girls ad campaign, with its mix of high 
fashion and brimming sexuality. So when 
Guess featured her in photos by Australian- 
born photographer Daniela Federici, the 
1993 Playmate of the Year became a world- 
wide phenomenon. The ultimate Guess 

Girl was born. “Anna was sweet and had an 
innocence similar to Marilyn Monroe's. She 
was voluptuous, with long legs and arms, 
rounded bottom and bust and a tiny 19-inch 
waist," says Federici. "She represented the 
opposite of what was happening in fashion 
atthe time: London grunge and skinny waif- 
like girls looking grumpy. Anna was curvy 
and radiated a playful happiness." Federici 
estimates she shot Smith more than 30 times 
in a six-year span, including six Guess shoots 
and a 1993 pLaysoy cover. “She was a true 
1950s-style beauty, a blonde Jessica Rabbit, 
but her soft, shy demeanor changed when she 
was made up. With hair and makeup Anna 
turned into a bombshell who commanded 
attention in any room,” Federici says. “She 
was born in the wrong era.” 


UP IN SMOKE 


THE WEIRD WAR OVER THE FIRST 
MARIJUANA MACHINE 


* Where's the weed? In the 
17 states where medici- 
nal marijuana is legal, the 
answer has changed from 
dime bags to dispensaries. 
The latest pickup spot for 
the pain-relieving sticky- 
icky? Marijuana vending 
machines. But all is not 
simpatico. Two companies, 
Dispense Labs and Med- 
box, are battling over their 
respective green machines, 
as the newest drug war 
unfolds with lawsuits rather 
than AK-47s. 

On April 20—4/20, the 
unofficial stoner holiday— 
Dispense Labs unveiled the 
Autospense. Encased in a 


security cage, the machine 
allows daytime access to 
users with a registered ID 
card and PIN and after- 
hours access via finger- 
print recognition. A press 
blitz ensued. The only prob- 
lem: A virtually identical 
machine had already been 
patented by someone else. 

"I invented this machine 
іп 2007," says Vincent 
Mehdizadeh, CEO and 
founder of Prescription 
Vending Machines, a sub- 
sidiary of Medbox. His 
company had already 
served Dispense Labs 
with a cease-and-desist 
letter when the publicity 


tie-in with pot's biggest 
holiday put Mehdizadeh in 
a mellow-harshing mood. 
“І was pissed. You try to 
do something good for the 
industry and you have this 
riffraff come in and totally 
step on my idea." 
Dispense Labs CEO Joe 
DeRobbio counters that 
Mehdizadeh "basically sued 
me for being a competitor. 
He was pissed off because 
we built a better mouse- 
trap. To say that we're a 
small fly-by-night company 
is uneducated on his part.” 
Maybe everyone should 
spark up and mellow out. 
—Chauncey Hollingsworth 


к yars of 
PLAYBOY INTERVIEWS 


MO OO www SI[IÚ[¡[Ó > 


Since 1962, Playboy has published 

The greatest interviews in history. 

Now you can buy 50 of the most 
-(in)famous exclusively at Amazon.com- 
— — 99 cents each. Read them today on your 
Kindle App, Kindle Fire and Kindle Touch. 


26 


TALK | WHAT MATTERS NOW 


The author of Marvel Comics: 
The Untold Story traces how the 
comic giant made social issues as 
vital to its heroes' stories as gamma 
, Superserums and spider bites 


CAPTAIN 
AMERICA 


* The first comic books had no qualms 
about being propaganda—Captain 
America punches Hitler on the cover 
of his first issue. Later comics faced 
divisive social issues, the type that 
couldn't be stopped with a punch. Sean 


Howe, author of Marvel Comics: The RACE WAR 
Untold Story (Harper), says Marvel— RELATIONS VIETNAM ON TERROR RIGHTS 
led by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby (who * Marvel posi: *"Vietnam was * The Civil War «This year, 


tioned Professor X 
and Magneto as 
analogs for the 
peaceful Martin 
Luther King Jr. and 
militant Malcolm 
X. Decades later 
this influenced 
the X-Men movies 
as director Bryan 
Singer's writing 
partner "was 
insistent that the 
metaphor was 
essential to the 
X-Men mythos, 
says Howe 


definitely one 

of the clumsier 
transformations, 
says Howe. “The 
Spider-Man ‘Cri 
sis on Campus! 
issue seems as 
though Stan Lee 
is rewriting things 
as he goes.” Peter 
Parker flip-flops 
between support 
of and contempt 
for the students— 
a representation 
of the country's 
own indecision. 


series pits Marvel 
heroes against 
one another over 
anew mutant 
registration law. 
It doesn't seem 
like it's really 
taking a stand! 
Howe says of the 
series' take on 
the Patriot Act 
and civil rights. 
Instead, writers 
decided to leave 
readers with 
more questions 
than answers, 


орепіу gay Alpha 
Flight member 
Northstar mar 
пей his longtime 
companion, 
demonstrating 
Marvel's stance 
on the topic. It's 

a long way from 
the days when 

a writer tried to 
make a character 
HIV-positive. Says 
Howe, "He was 
basically told, 
We're not going 
to do that.” 


quipped, "Comics is journalism”)—tackled 
these topics faster than rival DC Comics. 
“A lot of these social issues are philo- 
sophical matters that people struggle 
with,” says Howe. 
“Putting these 
conflicts into com- 
ics just makes for 
better, smarter 
comics.” Here, 
Howe takes us 
through some of 
Marvel's punch- 
ups with society. 
—Eric Alt 


chimp Bubbles; witness the 
$25 million sale of his stainless 


in Koons's Easyfun-Ethereal 
series, which were recently on 


MUSE IT 


OR LOSE IT 


ART STAR JEFF KOONS FINDS 
INSPIRATION IN THE VOLUPTUOUS 
CURVES OF PAM ANDERSON 


* Artist Jeff Koons has thrived 
for decades by mining pop 
culture in often hilarious and 
consistently profitable ways 
(witness his gold-plated, 
life-size porcelain sculpture 
of Michael Jackson and pet 


steel rendition of a balloon). 
Much of his work, however, 

is decidedly NSFW. While 
Koons has drawn inspiration 
from women in the past (most 
notably in the 1990s from his 
then-wife, Italian porn star- 
politician La Cicciolina), his 
current inspiration is none 
other than Pam Anderson. 
Anderson served as quasi muse 
for several ofthe paintings 


display at the Schirn gallery in 
Frankfurt. (See Pam, pictured 
atleft.) Koons tells PLAYBOY, 
“When I was making my 
Easyfun-Ethereal paintings, I 
used Pam's form as that of 
a contemporary Venus ог 
Aphrodite. Pam’s beauty 
is classical and mythic.” 
We couldn't have said 
it better. 

—Eric Steinman 


THEY SHOULD LAUGH WITH YOU, 
МОТ АТ YOUR DANDRUFF. 


Nobody likes hanging out with a flake. But with Pert Plus Anti-Dandruff 2-in-1 
Shampoo & Conditioner, flakes will never ruin your good time again. If it doesn't 
show your annoying dandruff the door, we'll give your money back. What's 
better than that? Clean hair that smells good, too. In. Out. Done. Now that we've 
handled the dandruff, let's talk about your breath. 


TRAVEL 


LOOSEN ТЕТЕ, OR DITCH IT ALTOGETHER. H.K. IS 
READY FOR YOU TO GO ROGUE 


+ With money funneling through Hong 
Kong at warp speed, business and plea- 
sure are taken to extremes. Though the 
label-obsessed continue to flock to the 
high-rise clubs and high-end depart- 
ment stores, a new boom in indie shops, 
bars and restaurants is injecting the 
increasingly glittering city with a thrill- 
ing dose of street cred. Here’s how to tap 
into high-low H.K.—Jeralyn Gerba 


H.K.’S COOLEST NEIGHBORHOOD 


Escape Н.К. Island's and Alex Daye, local CRASH 
labyrinth of malls and arbiters of taste, also COURSE: 
hit the street-level showcase oddball 

shops of Hollywood Chinese ephemera and HULLETT 
Road and Aberdeen produce guidebooks 

Street, straddling to the neighborhood. 

the Sheung Wan Stop in for an expertly 

and Central districts. pulled ristretto at 

You'll know you're in hipster hangout 

the right place when Barista Jam (2) and 

you come upon a then visit boutique 

street-fashion photo design shop Konzepp 

shoot or any number (3). The bright yellow ymforts 
of Japanese-inspired polyhedron storefront жые еді 
artisanal coffee is as striking as the IAEA 
shops. Perfect well-curated merchan- ) expec 
your classic Hong dise (tech gadgets, (fast Wi 
Kong-businessman- housewares, locally i 
meets-1970s- harvested honey). For 

Milanese-playboy a heady hit of culture, 

look by ordering a check out the Chinese 

made-to-measure and international con- 

suit at Moustache (1) temporary art at Cat 

Owners Ellis Kreuger Street Gallery (4). 

-creation 
the 10-course 
dinn 

EAT, 4 E 
DRINK, ж itai 
MAN, - : 
HONG BRUNCH DINNER PARTY AFTERPARTY REACH THE > 
KONG Brave the wait | Grab yakitoriat | Getyourcock- Karaoke happens. BEACH 
Afive-point at epic, chaotic Yardbird, a laid- tail on at 001, a Now you must Soothe your 

dim sum temple back spot run by speakeasy situ- eat. Get a steam- hangover with a 
plan for Tim Ho Wan, the | achefwho used | atedbehindan | ingbowlofwon- | double dose of 
your trip world's cheapest to work at New unmarked door ton soup and an H.K. milk tea and 

Michelin-starred : York restaurant ata wet market : eggrollatGood : a trek to glorious 


28 restaurant. Masa. off Queen's Road. Hope Noodle. Sai Wan beach. 


DRESS LIKE A 


TRAVELER тоџвиѕт: 


ган МОТА 


Who needs a fanny pack or purse when you have 68 stylish, hidden pockets? 


A 
2 
ef 


< 
ANo Scorr pres 


“с ) 
қ 


TRAVEL CLOTHING FOR MEN AND WOMEN 
Laura and Scott Jordan, Co-Founders of SCOTTEVEST HOLDS ALL THIS AND MORE... INVISIBLY! 


visicWWW.SCOTTEVEST.com/PLAY 
to SAVE 2096 off these outfits and other items 


from the SeV line. OFFER VALID UNTIL 11/15/2012 


SCOTTEVEST 


Licensed by 


ТНЕ 

DISH: 
AMÓN TBE THE 
SPOT: 


Salt, chili heat and 


glorious pork fat come JAMON 

together in this mash-up Even before you enter IBERICO AND 5 
of all that's good about Pelaccio's West Village SHISHITO 

Spanish and Japanese restaurant Fatty 'Cue you 


foods. It's the brainchild 
of chef Zakary Pelaccio, 
who deploys spicy-sweet 
shishito peppers to 
balance the buttery fat of 
Ibérico ham. Welcome 

to your new favorite 


know you're in for some- 
thing primally good: The 
door handle i: i 
ter cast in silver. I 
you'll find a boisterous 

celebration of American 
barbecue and Southeast 


PEPPERS 


midnight snack. Asian flavors. Quench 
your thirst with the 

Fatty Manhattan cocktail, 
accented with smoked 
Cherry Coke. —Eric Steinman 


KATIE | пх 0 eR CURRENT F000 S 
ASELTON | sinus AND THE ONE THING SHE WONT EAT 


* “If I were ever to take my own life, I would nights, with an obscene amount of clams and 
like to drown in а vat of truffles—just go face- garlic, that I ve tried to re-create. You can't beat 
down into a huge vat of truffle that savory umami taste. What don't 
risotto. Just drop me in like in "Twouldliketo Тіке? Foam. It's a gnarly trend, 
Terminator 2. I'ma big whorefor drowninavat and it doesn't taste good. I'm not a 
truffles. I'm also a big fan of kale. oftruffles.” big fan of egg white in my drink 
Little Dom's in our neighborhood either. Anything that resembles 
іп Los Angeles has one of the best kale salads ^ semen should be nowhere near my food." 
Гуе ever eaten. It also has amazing pasta е ny MacArthur on FX's 
dishes and a divine white clam pizza on Friday urns this month. 


Асе 


le 


rom los 


$ 


You smoke. So did we. Freedom and flavor never go out of style and neither do you. 
Tell the world you've moved up, smoke when and where you want. 


NOT FOR SALE TO MINORS. blu eCigs electronic cigarettes are not a smoking cessation product and have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration, nor are they intended 
fo treat, prevent or cure any disease or condition. ©2012 LOEC, Inc. blu™, blu eCigs® and Rise from the Ashes™ ore trademarks of Lorillard Technologies, Inc. 


DRINK 


IN LIKE GIN GIN, $30 
| LAME E 2 $35 London dry by way 
ч El GIN, $30 One of three gins of Wisconsin. Local E AMERIC 
This gin from New from the brilliant. fennel mellows. This limited-run $45 
York Distilling Com- St. George distillery this kinder, gentler ^ ginproducedinthe Legend has it that 
pany straddles the in the Bay Area, bottling. One super- hipster distillery о 
ропа (it tastes abit this slightly sweet smooth dry martini, гпесса of Brook- British ships would 
Ifthe word gin conjures like London gin but апа subtly spicy coming right up. lyn is citrusy and still ignite if this 
thoughts of warm summer pany more floral Я Ger ines a ш Мік p 114-proof gin were 
a \merican aromat- - reshly squeeze iti 
days and sharp gin and ics) and as such ping it straight, like TES ice, ee Se 
tonics, prepare to have сап be swapped bourbon or brandy. add ice and pour it produces a super- 
your mind blown. For into traditional gin. into a tall glass high-octane yet 
years London dry was cocktails. for a near-instant surprisingly smooth 
the standard style of gin оа arana toni 
(which, for the record, was 
invented by the Dutch). 
But American distillers 
are tweaking the formula, 
adding such homegrown 


botanicals as elderflower 
and California bay laurel 
leaves. The results are 
still gin (they include 
juniper as a flavor—the 
one and only requirement 
for the category) but are 
so complex and smooth 
they're perfect for sipping 


or mixing this fall. 
\ 
;onorMY 

PIRHER 

СІР, 1 

= H 
EW YORK 
DISTILLING 
=> 


From Scott Beattie, б р ч ч 

mixologist extraordi- " "a 4 A үре | 

naire and bar manager d E Я $ Í B | 

of Goose & Gander in - k m д / 4 t ІШ VY STRENGTH АМД 
Мара Valley. 3 2 i, E а 


Stir liquids for 20 
seconds in a mixing 
glass filled with ice, 
strain into a martini 
glassandgarnish 
with orangezest. 


pi Le >, 
ЗА” р 79 № 
Photography-by-DIMITRI NEWMAN: 


DESERVES ІНЕ MOST 


| — — | STOLICHNAYA 


м Сый 


SAVOR STOLI RESPONSIBLY. 
STOLICHNAYA® SALTED KARAMEL. Sal 


STYLE 


* Inthe world ofinter- 
national playboys, Lapo 
Elkann stands out for his 
fearless personal style. 
The 34-year-old Italian 
American heir to the 
Fiat empire owns a baby- 
blue Ferrari upholstered 
in denim, regularly tops 
best-dressed lists and 
accessorizes his over- 
the-top outfits with 
honey-skinned Mediter- 
ranean beauties. He als 
inspired Russell Brand's 
performance as the 
eponymous character in 
the remake of Arthur. 
As if that weren't 
cool enough, he 
runs Ferrar 
Tailor-Made 


THE LAPO 
OF LUXURY 


Lapo Elkann’s 
design firm, 
Italia Indepen- 
dent, is the go-to 
brand for mod- 
ern Italian cool. 


DENIMBLAZER 
You too can get 
Elkann's signature 
extra-wide lapels in 
everyday denim. 


GUCCIFIAT 500 


Elkann brokered the collaboration between 
Fiat and luxury label Gucci for this limited 


edition hatchback. 


MODERN PLAYBOY 


LAPO ELKANN’S 
DOLCE VITA 
HOW TO GET HIS ITALIAN JET-SETTER LOOK 


3 


STYLE SLANG: 
sprezz 


Є 


Abbreviation of 
sprezzatura, 
Italian for "studied 
nonchalance. 


customization program, 
and as a marketing exec 
at Fiat he relaunched the 
new 500, arguably the 


icests Usage: 
chicest subcompact on Red gingham shirt 
the face ofthe planet. red jacket—that shit's 
This all may sound sprezz" 
unattainably opu- 
lent, but with our 
cheat sheet 
youcan 
lookthe 
part. 
There's a logic 
behind this crazy 
look. Here's why it 
works. 
EYE-TALIAN 
er 
GOBIG 
те volui 
TIEIT 
TOGETHER 
CAMO GLASSES 
He can afford a 4 
amo Ferrari. You 4 qn TN 
can afford his DRESSITDOWN 
amo sunglasses. ks t 
\ »e jacket 
го! 
STAND 


STYLE » = 


RUN 
RETRO, 
RUN 


GET SOME COLOR WITH 1980S-INSPIRED RUNNING 
SHOES THAT ARE TOO STYLISH FOR THE TRACK 


* We've emerged from the dark ages of running- 
shoe design in which arch support and breath- 
able materials came first and style came in dead 
last. Today, heritage manufacturers are making 
shoes that take their design cues from the 1980s 
and 1990s (simple graphics, a clean silhouette, 
bright colors) and look cool enough to wear with 
jeans—the darker the better to maximize the 
color contrast. Bonus: Wear them on a treadmill. 
and you'll stand out in a gym full of also-rans. 


Ex-O-Fit Lo, $70. 


ADIDAS 
Marathon 88, $75. 


* NEW BALANCE 
574 Backpack Collection, $70. 


KEEP ІТ | thae wavs toee 
CLEAN | YORK PH 
SOFT-BRISTLE 
TOOTHBRUSH 


Use it to clean 
mesh and suede. 


MR. CLEAN 
4 MAGIC ERASER 

It's the sneaker- 

head tool of choice 


for keeping white 
rubber white, 


DISH SOAP 


Spot-clean stains 
with water and 
dish soap. 


Photography by JOSEPH SHIN 


ENTERTAINMENT 


MOVIE OF THE MONTH 


LOOPER 


By Stephen Rebello 


+ This gritty, dystopian time- 
travel thriller has Joseph Gordon- 
Levitt playing an icy Mob hit 
man whose new target turns out 
to be his future self, played by 
Bruce Willis. Set in 2072 and 
written and directed by Rian 
Johnson, the movie features not 
only Emily Blunt, Jeff Daniels, 
lots of violence and breakneck 
action but also moral dilemmas 
and emotional resonance. “ 
moviemakers, time travel is 
tempting like candy, but ifyou 
work it too hard, it becomes 
like molasses,” says Johnson. 
“In our movie, we use time 
travel to set up a situation 
that involves the characters, 
then time travel gets out 

of the way to let the action 
and characters play things out. 
Joe really studied Bruce's voice, 
his mannerisms. One of my best 
days on set was shooting a fight 
scene between Joe and Bruce and 
watching Bruce coach Joe, like, 
‘Now, just shift your weight like 
this...” That was great.” 


DVD OF THE MONTH 


MAGIC CITY 


By Greg Fagan 


* You may guess that a Mad 
Men-meets-Boardwalk 
Empire pitch got this Starz 
series into the premium- 
cable waters, given its 1959 
trappings and Mob-centric 
story line. However they sold 
it, we don't care, because 
Magic City scores on its own 


TEASE FRAME 


Cinen 


big screen this month in 
th or movie V/H/S. 


1 


with exquisi 
a gorgeous с: 
patiently evolving tale of 
Ike Evans (Jeffrey Dean 
Morgan). Good guy Ike 


c. 
co-owns Miami Beach's n 


most fabulous hotel with 
nasty piece of work Ben 
Diamond (Danny Huston). 
A family-vs.-the Family 
narrative drives the action, Y 
with widowed Ike, his grown 
sons and his younger wife 
(Olga Kurylenko) struggling 
for control against Diamond 
and his devious bride 
(Jessica Marais). There's 
even a shrewd “working 

girl” played by Elena Satine 
(right). Despite a few flaws, 
it's worth checking into. 

Best extra: A behind-the- 
scenes look at the exquisite 
re-creation of midcentury 
Miami. (BD) ¥¥¥% 


Fuggedabout 
FOUND 
FOOTAGE 


THECASEAGAINST A 
TIRED MOVIE GIMMICK 


[2 


It's October, so here 


that's 
fourth in the series of 
superna found 
footage" flicks made 
for peanuts and likely 
drain 5100 million 


from ticket buyers, 


What's up with the 
popularity of movies 
and TV sh 
edly ch 
from st 
mentary 


hows suppos: 
ред together 
ky docu 

low-tech 
urveillance-camera 
ge? When badly 
done, found footage 
is easily the most 

irritatingly bogus but 
financially profitable 


filmmaking gimmick 
since 3-0. Cannibal 
Holocaust m: 

gotten there fi 

1980, but 19 y 
later The Blair Witch 


t grossed more 
48 million оп 
2.000 budget 
block 
the 
candid-camera fre 
that has now ble 
ver into sur 
movies (Chronicle 
teen comedies (Pr 
X) and TV show 
The River). The low 
budgets let these 
filmmakers appear 
to be keeping it real, 
but the found-foot: 
gambit also gives 
them a fre for 
so-so acting, sloppy 
technique and failing 
to show such budget 
y effects as 


ro 


roes аге 
ased by other 
worldly be why 
don't they just drop. 
the freaking camera 
un like hell? Even 


camcorders 
veilla 


ALBUM 


COEXIST 


By Rob Tannenbaum 


British trio, has 
won worldwide 
acclaim for 

a sound built 
around shyness; 
it's as though 
New Order 
were whisper- 
ing songs in 
your ear. The 


* Shy people 

don't chase rock 
stardom—music 

is made by 
exhibitionists, 
egomaniacs and 
neurotics, which is 
why being a music 
fan is so entertain- 
ing. But the xx, a 


xx's new record, 
Coexist, has rare 
qualities: It's 
cautious, faint, 
slight, shivery. 
Ifthat sounds 
unappealing, lots 
of other bands 
are still eager to 
yell at you. ҰҰҰ 


hunting down 


GAME OF THE MONTH 


RESIDENT 
EVIL 6 


By Jason Buhrmester 


* Call this the golden age of 
zombies. From The Walking Dead 
and World War Z to Plants vs. 
Zombies, the undead are living 
large. If this modern zombie 
renaissance has a patient zero, it 
is Resident Evil. The 16-year-old 
video game series did undead 
long before this current wave 

of popularity—and still does 

it well. The key is a plot bigger 
than maniacal brain eating. Part 
Tom Clancy, part 28 Days Later, 


THE FALL’S WORST 
NEW TV SHOWS 


v shows fail. Some 
merit a st nd chance, but others 
should never have made it to the 
air at all. We've uncovered three 
turkeys that deserve to be cooked 
by Thanksgiving. Our Mu: 
list: 
The Neighbors (it makes us long for 
the Coneheads movie); CBS's gay- 
straight buddy-com Portners 
ask; this smells); and NBC’ 
With Kids (dudes+diapers=d'oh!) 
You've been warned.—J.A. 


rj 


the series follows government 
agents fighting a corporation that 
manufactures zombie-making 
chemicals—and the bioterrorists 
who would use them. Resident Evil 6 
(360, PC, PS3) finds the president 
infected and agents on the hunt 

for a deadly new strain called the 
C-virus. Through three interwoven 
story lines across North America, 
China and Eastern Europe, the 
action alternates between creepy 
exploration missions and all-out 
warfare against monster hordes. 
Smarter than the average flesh 
eater, Resident Evil's creatures 

can run, jump, wield weapons and 
mutate when injured. Get ready to 
run for your life. Y Y Y Y 


Y RAW DATA 


SIGNIFICA, INSIGNIFICA, STATS AND FACTS 


} 
| 
} 
| 
| 
4 
} 
| 
| 
} 


LeBron 
James's 
vertical, as 
measured 

іп inches by 
the sensor 
inside Nike's 
Hyperdunk 
sneakers. 


Size of proposed zombie 
theme park in Detroit 


Total 
amount 
raised to 
build it: 


A quantitative 
analysis of nearly 


songs from 1955 

to 2010 found that 
today's instrumenta- 
tion and recording 
techniques have less 
diversity and that 
music gets one deci- 
bel louder every 


е 
Number of 
СЫ) ne 
ordered by 
ез сс 
John F. Ken- 
N nedy shortly 
before he 


Шм, declared 


Cuban trade 
qm есе. 


Cost of a trip on 
Virgin Galactic's space- 
tourism flight scheduled 
to begin next year: 


$200,000 


Minutes 
of 
weight- 
lessness 
during 
the two- 
hour 
journey. 


Number of 
"likes" for 
Eminem, 
making. 
him the 
most-liked 
person on 
Facebook: 


“ 


Percent of adults 18 to 29 
who've received sexts. 


Size of the 
daiquiri 


made in 

THAT CAN'T honor of 

BE TRUE И Ernest 
G AL Heming- 


way's 113th 
of smartphone ' 
usershaveused | 6.5 


birthday. 
the device to 


verify something Height 

they saw оп of the | 

television. cocktail 
glass 
used to 
hold it. 


Number of daiquiris 
Papa” is said to have 
drunk in one sitting: 


In 1991 Dubai 
counted one | 
skyscraper } 
іп йе skyline; — | 
today it has 
almost 


300 


No additives in ош tobacco 
does NOT mean a safer cigarette. 


SURGEON GENERAL'S WARNING: Smoking CIGARETTES 


Causes Lung Cancer, Heart Disease, 
Emphysema, And May Complicate Pregnancy. 


Natural American Spirit is a registered trademark o Santa Ғе Natural Tobacco Co. © SFNTC 4 2012 
Website restricted to 21+ 


40 


MANTRACK 


ШШ tHe ьеѕт or EVERYTHING 


¿ TIME FLIES 
$ THE AMERICAN SUPERCAR 
RIDE THE { 
5МАКЕ Е 
E 
Like asuperhero Н 
rising from the dead, i 
the all-new 2013 SRT E GM Firebird I 


Viper has rolled out of 
its Conner Avenue plant 
andonto the streets of 
Detroit, ready to take on 
justaboutanything. The 
old-gen Dodge Viper 
was left for roadkill after 
the 2009 bankruptcy 

of Chrysler (Dodge's 
parent company). Now 
Fiatis running Chrysler, 
and what do you know? 
The two-seat supercar 
has been reborn with 
Italianesque styling 
cues. Still, this Viper is 
all-American where it 
counts. Beneath that 
blood-red spandex is 
some serious Detroit 
muscle (see engine 
stats below). The car 
hits showrooms this 
month, Price: about 
$100,000 andup. 


would never be the same 


1953 | Acerwithaiecenoine Detroit 


Shelby Cobra 


1962 | «etae 
production car 


Ford GT40 MK III 


1967 | 7recustomer version of te 
legendary Le Mans racer 


Corvette Sting Ray L88 


1967 A big-block Vette for the track 
Only 20 were made 


Plymouth Superbird 


1970 Otherwi mas the King 
from the movie Cars. 


DeLorean 
1981 Flux capacitor available 
as an upgrade 


MOTOR CITY 


Ford GT 


2006 Playboy hit 180 mph in one 
ona Nevada highway. 


AUTO 


GREEN | wc 
MONSTERS | 2110тг 


= 


ү 


* Pros: more powerful and faster 


* Pros: high efficiency. Quick-charge 


E it has a sound generator to warn 53 | charging than the Leaf, great styling DC station provides 80 percent 

= | pedestrians, Arguably the best all- £3 | made in America. Cons: It's new and charge in 25 minutes, Cons: Looks 

& | electric so far. Cons; Battery drains = | has limited availability; is it ready for like a golf cart and drives like one. A 
fast at highway speeds. Stats: about ЕБ | the big time? Stats: about 531,700 full charge from an outlet takes 22.5 
$21,700 after tax rebate, 73-mile E | after tax rebate, 76-mile range hours. Stats: about $22,500 after 
range, energy equivalent to 99 mpg. energy equivalent to 105 mpg. taxrebate, 62-mile range, energy 


=: | * Pros: plenty of punch. So quiet 
equivalent to 112 mpg. 


CHEVY VOLT 


* The problem with elec- 
tric autos: range anxiety. 
With four people in the 
carand the AC on, that. 
battery needle drops fast. 
Enterthe Volt, an electric 
car with a backup 14- 
liter gas engine—just in 
case. The Voltis an ideal 
ride for a guy with a short 
commute, evenifheisa 
weekend warrior. Pros: 
no range anxiety, snappy 
styling. Cons: high price, 
and you get only 35 miles 
ona full electric charge. 
Stats: about $32,000 after 
tax rebate, energy equiva- 
lent to 98 mpg оп Из 
electric motor. 


AA MAN VA MAT MV VA MAMMA VAM еее его 
* The 1962 Ferrari 250 GTO 
pictured here, made for star 
racer Stirling Moss (right), 
became the world's most 
expensive car this summer 
when Seattle billionaire Craig 
McCaw paid $35 million for it. 


WHEELS | 4250670 is also the most 


expensive car ever crashed: Biz 


OF : 
titan Christopher Cox smashed 
FORTUNE one worth 531 million in July. 


A 


HIGH STRUNG 


AS ARCHERY SOARS IN POPULARITY, A LOOK 
AT THE BASICS OF THE BOW AND ARROW 


æ> Call this the year of the archer. 
From The Avengers and Hunger Games 
to the Olympics, Americans every- 
where are drawing back and letting 
loose. Here's how to get started on this 


classic pastime. 


CURVE APPEAL 


For target shoot- 
ing, stick to the 
recurve bow, It's 
named for the 
way the limbs, 
designed to curl 
away from the 
archer, are bent 
backward—or 
recurved—by the 
tautness of the 
string, giving the 
bow its power. 
The design is 
thousands of 
years old and was 
used by every- 
one from the 
Egyptians to the 
Huns. Recurves 
are considered 
more challeng- 
ing to shoot than 
a compound bow 
and are the only 
bows allowed in 
the Olympics. 


FIRING LINE 


Olympic archers 
shoot modern or 
freestyle recurve 
bows that bear 
only a vague 
resemblance 

to traditional 
wood bows. 
Carbon-fiber 
limbs; machined 
aluminum 
handles, or risers; 
slender wind- 
cheating arrows 
and long stabiliz- 
ers to steady your 
aim are standard 
equipment. At 
5699, the Hoyt 
Formula RX riser 
(pictured, limbs 
sold separately) 
is an excellent 
piece of gear to 
draw back on. 


ON TARGET 


Before you 
"nock" your first 
arrow (the term 
for locking an 
arrow onto the 
string), you'll 
need arrows cus- 
tom cut to match 
your bow's draw 
weight (the force 
in pounds it takes 
to draw the bow). 
Other gear to 
consider: a basic 
hip quiver, a fin- 
ger tab to protect 
your digits and 

a bow stringer, 
used to attach 
and remove 

the string. 
Remember: The 
bull's-eye is 70 
meters away, so 
you might also 
want to grab a 
sight. Trust us. 
—John Marrin 


OUTFITTER — 


Photography by 
JOSEPH SHIN 


Weather - ^ 


American Manufacturing Done Right! 


Proudly Designed, Engineered and Manufactured in the USA 


Ferrari 599 
Shown 


¿AUTOMOT e M 
( re LIMITED 


WeatherTech.com er iginal Equipment and 


800-441-6287 


Aftermarket Automotive Accessories 
©2012 by MacNeil IP LLC 


ШШ тне sest or EVERYTHING 


POWER PLAY 
Google's Nexus 7 
($199, play.google.com) 
takes everything we 
love about the slick 
Android operating 
system—the speed, the : 
apps—and packs it into 
a seven-inch tablet 

with HD display, one 
gigabyte of RAM and 
enough battery life to 
keep us entertained 
through the worst 

flight delays. 


DEEP DIVE 

Let James Cameron 
journey 36,000 feet 
below sea level. We'll 
sit beachside and 
use the Aquabotix 
HydroView ($3,995, 
aquabotix.com), an 
underwater camera 
remote-controlled by 
your iPad and capable 
of traveling 150 feet 
deep to capture still 
images and 1080i 

HD video. 


ROCK STATION 
All that music on your 
cell phone wants to be 
free. Let it flow to the 
Jawbone Big Jambox 
($299, jawbone.com), 
a wireless speaker 

that pumps out up 

to 15 hours of audio 
via Bluetooth. Con- 
nect several devices at 
once so everyone gets 
а chance to deejay. 
The Jambox can also 
double as a speaker- 
phone when the police 
call to tell you to turn 
it down. 


FULLY CHARGED 


From underwater cameras 
to backyard boom boxes, our 
pick ofthe best new gear on 

the planet. You’re goingto 
need more outlets 


ACTION CAM 
Built to withstand 
shock, water, dust and 
freezing temperatures, 
the JVC ADIXXION 
pocket-size camera 
($349, jvc.com) can 
be mounted on a surf- 
board or helmet and 
uses Wi-Fi to instantly 
upload HD video of your 
next wild adventure, 
whether on the slopes 
or inside the ski lodge. 


LUXURY LISTEN 
The most opulent head- 
phones we've ever 
seen? The Audeze LCD3 
($1,945, audeze.com). 
With zebrawood 

ear cups, lambskin 
leather cushions and 
617-square-inch planar 
magnetic drivers that 
deliver the best audio 
we've heard from a 
headphone, they're like 
a Ferrari for your ears. 


Photography by 
JOSEPH SHIN 


ыы 


BMW Motorrad 4 
USA 


The Ultimate 
Maxi-Scooters | Riding Machine? 


An: 
"n 


Зк: а 
Wei 3 
e A 


TWO NEW WAYS TO 
GET AROUND TOWN. 


From clogged city streets to open highways, two all new vehicles from BMW deliver a modern solution 
for your personal mobility needs. Experience an ideal blend of comfort, ease-of-use and utility with the 
C 600 Sport and C 650 GT maxi-scooters. Both provide simple shift-free twist and go operation, a step- 
through low seat design with abundant storage capacity and incredible performance with a thrifty 53 MPG.* 
For more information visit bmwmotorcycles.com. Base MSRP C 600 SPORT: $9,590; C 650 GT: $9,990. 


C 600 SPORT. C 650 GT. 
WELCOME TO MODERN MOVEMENT. 


ЗАЅҮ RIDE Surprisingly low monthly payments are available through 


EXCLUSIVELY FROM Заѕу Ride financing, ask your local dealer for details. 


* Fuel economy calculated at a constant 56mph. Results may vary based on riding conditions. 
©2012 BMW Motorrad USA, a division of BMW of North America, LLC. The BMW name and logo are registered trademarks. 


It's a first. 


It's silver. 


It's patriotic. And it's a steal. 


Washington crossing the Delaware. 
Eisenhower launching D-Day. 
Kennedy rescuing the crew of 

РТ 109. These men made history. 


This set made history 
To celebrate the bicentennial of 
America, the U.S. Mint struck this 
special three-piece proof set 
honoring these three American 
presidents—and our 200th birth- 
day. To capture the bicentennial 
spirit, the coins in the set are 
dual-dated 1776-1976. 


This set was so popular over 
4 million were sold. 


Unlike the regular circulating coins 
of the day, these coins аге struck in 
40% precious silver. 


It's the first commemorative U.S. 
Mint Proof Set ever. It's also the first 
proof set to feature all dual-dated 
coins. And finally, it's the first U.S. 
Proof Set to include a Silver Dollar. 


Prices and availability subject to change without notice. Past performance is not a predictor of future 
Note: GovMint.com is a private distributor of worldwide government coin and currency issues and privately issued licensed 
collectibles and is not affiliated with the United States government. Facts and figures were deemed accurate as of July 2012. 


©2012 New York Mint, LLC 


Americans love proof coins from the 
U.S. Mint, Each coin is struck twice 
from specially prepared dies and 
has deeply-mirrored surfaces and 
superb frosty images. 


And you know you've got a real 
piece of American history when you 
hold this set—the red white and 
blue holder is spectacular! 


Now for the steal part... 
This first-ever Bicentennial Silver 
Proof Set sold out at the mint three 
decades ago. When you consider 
how much prices have risen since 
then, you might expect to pay $100 
or more to buy this set today. 


But for this special offer, we are 
releasing our entire stock of 
Bicentennial Silver Proof Sets for 
only $49 each.Or better yet, buy 
five and pay only $39 each! 


performance. 


Order now risk free 
We expect our small quantity of 
Bicentennial Silver Proof Sets to 
disappear quickly at this special 
price. We urge you to call now to 
get yours. You must be satisfied with 
your set or return it within 30 days of 
receipt for a prompt refund (less s&h). 


Buy more and SAVE 
1776-1976 Bicentennial Silver Proof 
Set $49 +s/h 
5 for only $39 each +s/h SAN 


Toll-Free 24 hours a day 


Offer Code ВРЕ226-04 


Please mention this code when you call. 


GovMINT.COM 


-NOUR ONE REST SOURCE TOR COINS WORLDWIDE 


7 14101 Southcross Drive W. 
Dept. BPF226-04 
Burnsville, Minnesota 55337 


www.GovMint.com 


ACCREDITED 
BUSINESS 


Talking With 
Seth Rogen 
and Evan 
Goldberg 


by James Franco 

Seth Rogen is not just an actor. Teamed with 
his Canadian childhood friend Evan Goldberg, 
he's half of one of the most powerful screenwrit- 
ing teams in Hollywood. The two have written 
such films аз Superbad and Pineapple Express, 
and their most recent collaboration, The End of 
the World, stars a cast of comedy heavyweights 
including Jonah Hill, Danny McBride, Paul 
Rudd, Mindy Kaling, Jason Segel and РА ЛУВОХ 
Contributing Editor James Franco. Franco, who 
starred on the cult TV hit Freaks and Geeks with 
Rogen and worked with both men on Pineapple 
Express, chatted with his longtime colleagues. 


FRANCO: What were you guys like in high 
school? Was it hard for you to get girls? 
ROGEN: Yeah, we did not get with girls 
in high school. 

GOLDBERG: We did not do that well. 
FRANCO: Were you into sports? 
GOLDBERG: In Canada that doesn't 
matter. 

ROGEN: In Canada athleticism does not 
transfer over the way it does in America. 
FRANCO: What was your thing? Music? 
Wu-Tang? 

GOLDBERG: I didn't really like rap or 
hip-hop in high school. 

ROGEN: We weren't rap guys by any 
stretch of the imagination. 
GOLDBERG: I liked rock and roll, Led 
Zeppelin and shit like that. 

ROGEN: We were potheads. But Evan 
didn't smoke pot. 

GOLDBERG: I only tried pot in 11th 
grade, I think. 

FRANCO: Just pot? Nothing else? 
GOLDBERG: No, we drank at a very 
young age. 

ROGEN: Yeah, we were drunk a lot. 
FRANCO: Was that because you were 
social misfits? 

GOLDBERG: No, we did well with the 
social elements of high school. We had 
lots of friends and stuff. 

ILLUSTRATION BY RAÚL ALLÉN 


ROGEN: Except in grade eight 1 got 
picked on, and grade nine. 
GOLDBERG: You should have been 
picked on—you had dreadlocks. 
ROGEN: І was an obnoxious kid with 
dreadlocks. 

GOLDBERG: I'm amazed you didn't get 
the shit beat out of you. 

FRANCO: Seth, you were cast on Freaks 
and Geeks in 1999. 

ROGEN: Yeah, І was 16 when we shot 
the pilot. 

FRANCO: I was there too. What I re- 
member most is how much weed you 
would smoke. 

ROGEN: І remember a few times you 
actually left because you were like, “I 
can't be around this much weed smoke. 
I've got to get out of here.” Which I 
thought was funny. 

FRANCO: What made you decide to try 
movies? 

GOLDBERG: Even though Su was 
our big start, that's not our favorite type 
of movie. It's bad shit like Mars Attacks! 
When that came out, we were flipping 
out. We were so excited. We like movies 
that take balls and go for it, and involve 
something blowing up and some space- 
ships and aliens. 

ROGEN: It's good if there is also an emo- 
tional story. 

FRANCO: What movies were your big- 
gest influences as filmmakers? 
GOLDBERG: The Princess Bride and 
Spaceballs were two 1 enjoyed the most. 
ROGEN: Ghostbusters. This movie we're 
working on with you, The End of the World, 
has kind of a Ghostbusters-ish vibe. That was 
always one of my favorite movies. 
GOLDBERG: Indiana Jones really affected 
me as a kid. 

ROGEN: Me too. We steal a few shots 
from Steven Spielberg in this movie. I 
always loved the Back to the Future mov- 
ies. That was one of the best movies 
ever to meld a super-fucking-weird sci-fi 
element with the most normal emotional 
story you could imagine. It was helping 
a loser try to get a girl. 

FRANCO: Now that you're both getting 
older—Seth, you're married, and Evan, 
you're getting married—do you think 
your movies will change? 


ROGEN: | wouldn't write a movie about 
a bunch of high school kids at this age. 
GOLDBERG: Or ever again. 

ROGEN: It would feel weird. The End of the 
World is about us, so it's organically about 
people our age. But every movie we've 
written is about people our age, so I think 
we'll keep doing that. That being said, this 
movie's probably as bat-shit crazy and im- 
mature as any of our other movies, so I 
don't think that's going to stop. 
GOLDBERG: Mostly it's too late for that. 
The genie's out of the bottle. 

FRANOO: Some critics look down on bat- 
shit crazy. Does that concern you? 
ROGEN: We don't think of the critics at 
all. We think of audiences, theaters full of 
people. And I think theaters full of people 
want shit that's totally original and com- 
pletely bat-shit crazy. I ask myself what's 
going to get a big laugh. To me it's just the 
craziest stuff. I resent the stupid implica- 
tion that to make something creatively 
satisfying only a few people can like it. 
GOLDBERG: You know what that is? 
That's hipster mentality. 

ROGEN: It is hipster bullshit. A movie is 
art that's for everybody. It's a piece of art 
that costs $10 to buy. A painting can cost 
millions of dollars. So to me it should be 
something that's crazy and that, hypo- 
thetically, everybody wants. I envy those 
artists who can literally paint three paint- 
ings a year and make as much money as 
I make in two weeks. They have to satisfy 
only three people, and they're making as 
much money as we make trying to satisfy 
hundreds of millions of people. I like 
making a lot of people happy. 

FRANCO: You guys can look down on 
the hipster mentality all you want, but 
trust me, many people think Superbad is 
the hippest movie around. 

ROGEN: But do hipsters even like that 
movie? 

GOLDBERG: I don't know. I don't know 
what hipsters like. I don't really under- 
stand hipsters. 

ROGEN: I don't understand that either. 
We probably are hipsters. 

GOLDBERG: No, hipsters don't wear 
shorts. 

ROGEN: Yeah, hipsters don't wear cargo 
shorts. 


47 


48 


like football. This is what 1 
tell people. It took me nearly 
40 years to figure out that my 
life would be much better if I 
said this. 

And it's not entirely un- 
true. There are some things I 
like about the sport. I like that they play 
only once a week. I like that the season is 
only five months long. I like that tickets 
are so difficult to get that no one ever 
invites me. I like that the NFL doesn't 
have a team in L.A., where I live. 

But I am expected to love all of it— 
to have a fantasy team, form opinions 
about rule changes and wear jerseys 
of my favorite players, despite the fact 
that I'm 40 and therefore a bit old for 
costumes. If I went to the supermarket 
dressed as Spider-Man or Luke Sky- 
walker, people would avoid my aisle, but 
I push around a shopping cart wear- 
ing Aaron Rodgers's jersey and people 
think, That middle-aged guy enjoys pre- 
tending he's another man. Cool dude. 

"That's because you cannot be an Ameri- 
can man and not like football. I'm not sure 
you can be an American woman at this 
point and not like football. Not liking foot- 
ball is the equivalent of saying you wish 
our country were still run by England, lost 
to the Nazis, became communist and then 
gave up our freedom to the terrorists. 

You can hate hockey, find baseball 
boring, be too prissy for camping, call 
a handyman every time your toilet is 
clogged—but if you don't like football, 
your status as a man is suspect. Who de- 
cided that watching football is the activity 
that defines masculinity? After all, it's the 
only sport in which people celebrate by 
dancing. Not even 14-year-old girl gym- 
nasts celebrate gold medals by dancing. 
In fact, not even contestants on Dancing 
With the Stars celebrate by dancing. Yet be- 
cause I like to spend my Sundays outside, 
I'm considered less of a man. You know 
what's not manly? Staring at a guy blow- 
ing a whistle and tossing pieces of yellow 
fabric in the air. The main difference be- 
tween a football refand a guy on a float at 
a gay pride parade is the guy on the float 
smiles as he vogues. 

What happened to horse racing and 
boxing? І hate those too, but at least 1 
understand them. 1 have no idea what's 
going on in a football game. Most sports 
have rules І can understand: Don't touch 
the ball with your hands; bounce the ball 
if you’re moving with it; any hot dog still 
in your mouth doesn't count as eaten. 
But there are more rules to football than 
there are in Sarbanes-Oxley. There are 
times when people miss the ball on pur- 
pose and the announcers say how bril- 
liant the not-catching was. Other times 
they purposely kick the ball really badly 


NISOA IVO. 


| HATE FOOTBALL (3 


and that too is considered brilliant. And 
the whole kicking part makes no sense at 
all. It's as if at various points in a hockey 
game a whole different group of guys 
came onto the ice and played Pictionary. 
Americans always wonder why football 
hasn't become popular around the world. 
It's because, as George Will 


BY said, “Football combines the 

two worst things about Amer- 
JOEL іса: It is violence punctuated 
STEIN by committee meetings." 


The only thing worse than 
seeing football on TV was the 
one time I actually went to a professional 
game. You know what other spectator 
sports occur in the winter? Indoor ones. 

I have suffered for my rationality about 
football. I spent my freshman year of col- 
lege suffering through the first half of Stan- 
ford games and then, when I couldn't take 
any more, walking alone through an empty 
campus, hearing the whole school cheering 
behind me as I read The Epic of Gilgamesh in 
my empty dorm. I have loitered by the tor- 
tilla chips at Super Bowl games, biding my 
time until the halftime show, when at least 
I could join in rooting for a crappy 1970s 
band to stay alive for the whole medley. 

Since not liking football isn't an option, 
I decided to try one last time. I spent a 
Sunday in front of a giant wall of moni- 
tors at the NFL Network, watching games 
with the former pro players who do the 


on-air analysis. I tried to fit in, but Jamie 
Dukes, a giant man who played 10 sea- 
sons as an NFL lineman, critiqued my 
viewing as tepid. “Vicariously, you have 
to think you are that guy and you could 
do that. You have to emit that,” he said. 
This із a lot to ask from a viewer. І don't 
even do that when I watch porn. 

Exasperated, I asked Dukes what was 
wrong with me that I didn't grow up lik- 
ing football. “Nothing. You had other 
things to do to broaden your mind,” he 
said. I was not clear if Dukes was refer- 
ring to Dungeons & Dragons or laser 
tag. “The question is then, What do you 
do to bond? This is the ultimate bond- 
ing event. Baseball is more regionalized. 
Look at this room. Are you going to see 
this cross section anywhere else?” He was 
right. There were black guys and white 
guys, guys from the sticks and the inner 
city, the world's greatest athletes and Rich 
Eisen. And for a moment I was jealous. 

I do a lot of things I don't like to fit in. I 
don't really like beer. Or leaving my house. 
And Um definitely not crazy about this 
monogamy thing. But by sharing a pitcher, 
going to parties and being married, Гуе 
gained а lot. I'm lucky to be American, 
and unfortunately, I don't get to pick just 
the parts of Americanness that I like. So 
this year, I'm watching football. And there 
have been moments І really liked. At least 
that's what I'm telling people. 


GARY TAXALI 


hen I first met Jimmy Big Balls, 
he owned a rock-and-roll club 
on Long Island. Truth be told, I 
didn't give a shit what he did for a living. He 

was a 47-year-old guy with no kids and a rare ocular dis- 
order that made him see Kate Upton every time he looked 
at me. But let's face it, guys—most women care what you 
do for a living. And while some jobs ooze sexiness, other 
jobs—much like Chris Brown— just ooze loserness. 

So what jobs are sexy to women? Sure, entertainers, 
pro athletes and politicians have always been able to close 
the deal. Yet there are some regular jobs that'll make her 
panties drop like the Greek stock market. 

Let's start with firemen, cops and soldiers. We love 
them! Why? Because those guys can protect us. When push 
comes to shove, we love a man who can yank out his hose, 
fire his weapon or go Navy SEAL Team Six all over some 
evildoer's ass. Chances are, if a guy's willing to give up his 
life for us, we'll be willing to give it up to him. 

Women also love men at the opposite end of the 
spectrum—those with what I call jerk-off jobs. These guys 
are poor musicians, artists, actors—men who make less 
money than the movie Rock of Ages—yet gals seem drawn 
to them. Not only will women date these losers-with-a- 


dream, but because of our nurturing instincts we'll do stuff 
we know we shouldn't. We'll pay for dinner, buy you a new 
guitar, even believe that you and that girl you were making 
out with were "rehearsing a scene." 

Тһе great thing about these jobs is that anyone сап 
have them—no talent or degree required. Just stop wash- 
ing your hair for a few weeks, look depressed, wear oddly 
shaped sunglasses and black T-shirts with sarcastic quotes 
on them and tell everyone you're working on a new album 
or graphic novel. 

If you want a job where you don't need an ounce of game 
to get women, stick to Mom's favorite profession: doctor. 
Women meet a doctor and think, "Well, if he can heal the 
sick, maybe he can resuscitate my G-spot,” and before you 
know it, the doctor is in. 

There are, however, two exceptions to the doctor rule. 
The first is the proctologist. If a woman wants to be with 
someone who's around a bunch of turds all day, she'll hang 
out with Rob Kardashian. The second is the gynecologist. 
A gyno spends his day much like a newly single Johnny 
Depp—with his mug in dozens of women's privates. Your 
va-jay-jay shouldn't have to be the third prettiest your 
husband's seen since lunch. 

If you're super secure in your masculinity, jobs that are 
typically held by gay men—hairdresser, florist, yoga in- 
structor, designer—are great for getting laid. Why? First 
of all, most women will think you're gay, so their guard 
will be down. It's like a homosexual roofie. Second, your 
job is in a field that women are genuinely interested in, so 
you can talk to them for hours and work your metrosexual 
magic. If you're a straight man in fashion, you can literally 
pick out the dress you want to see rolled in a ball on your 
floor later that night. 

Chefs are also sexy. A guy who can whip up something 
tasty in the kitchen will always be invited to whip out some- 
thing tasty in the bedroom. That's because food is sexy. 
Gordon Ramsay isn't a chef; he's a freaking porn star. 
Make a woman a home-cooked meal, and by dessert she'll 
be calling you Gordon Rams-me. 

Now to the unsexy. What jobs will make her legs close up 
faster than a Confederate-flag shop in Harlem? 

A huge, sad turnoff is the job of waiter at a theme res- 
taurant. Don't misunderstand me: There's nothing wrong 
with a young guy waiting tables at B.J. Happygrunts to 
make ends meet while he plans his future. But if you're 35 
years old and your work clothes include a pair of suspend- 
ers with dozens of buttons pinned to them, you won't get 
laid in a women's prison—even with a two-for-one appe- 
tizer special. 

Though every guy salivates at the thought of nailing a 
porn actress, no woman is having the same thought about 
a porn actor. Ron Jeremy is the most famous male porn 
star in history, and he looks like a creepy overweight cop 
from New Jersey. Don't become a pizza deliveryman or a 
pool boy just because they get lucky in the movies. Life is 
not a porno flick. Women do not bang for free pizza, and 
the only pool boys getting laid are the ones who look like 
Matthew McConaughey—and trust me, you weren't voted 
the Sexiest Man Alive. 

So hang in there, regular joes. Just because you're not 
a rapper or an NBA player doesn't mean you can't hit 
the lady lottery. After all, Julia Roberts, one of the richest 
and most beautiful women in the world, married a mere 
cameraman. Even my husband, Jimmy, elevated himself by 
marriage to the sexiest job of all: working for the coun- 
try's hottest swimsuit model—me, a.k.a. Kate Upton. Now, 
if you'll excuse me, I have to talk to TMZ and get my foot 
massage from Jimmy. 


49 


> GREATEST COVERS 


"PLAYBOY NS 


N 


For nearly 60 years, 
Playboy Magazine 

has made a splash 
with its mind-blowing 
covers, Now, for the 
first time, there is a 
book dedicated to this 
American icon. 


PLAYBOY'S 


Greatest Covers 


Featuring hundreds 

of color photographs 
and behind-the-scenes 
DAMON BROWN Foreword by PAMELA ANDERSON outtakes from cover 
shoots. 


Foreword by Pamela Anderson, text 
by Damon Brown, Sterling Publishing, 
310 pages, $35.00, $42.00 in Canada 
Go to amazon.com to order, 


Whenever my husband gets his 
chain saw out, І get as excited 
as an undersexed teenager. 1 
love the smell of fresh-cut wood 
mixed with gas and oil. Add that 
to my husband's smell, and it's 
on. I wish I could find а candle 
that smelled like that. I ask my 
husband to ravage me in the saw- 
dust, but he thinks I'm joking. 
Does this make me a freak?— 
С.У., St. Louis, Missouri 

No, but it makes you a bad candi- 
date to be a lumberjack. We'd guess 
you aren't turned on as much by the 
Sawdust as by the heat, power and 
danger involved in making the saw- 
dust. That's why we expect you'd be 
disappointed having sex in the stuff. 
(Нау and sand are also overrated.) 
You can buy a sawdust-scented 
candle for the bedroom that might 
prove to be a suitable substitute— 
visit hotwicks.com, which also sells 
candles that smell like bacon, leather 
and beer. But for the real thing, 
you'll have to make the first move 
and show him you aren't kidding— 
after he's turned off the saw. (Do 
that for us.) The risk is that once he 
realizes how this affects you, there 
won't be a tree standing for miles. 


About 35 years ago a girlfriend 
introduced me to a fragrance 
called Sandalwood by Alexander 
Shields. I visited Shields's men's 
store in New York a few times 
and even met him—a tall, thin, 
dignified older gentleman. After 
his store closed, I bought the 
cologne from him through the 
mail. Then suddenly it was no 
longer available. Can it be pur- 
chased anywhere? I still have a 
few precious drops.—D. V., Phil- 
adelphia, Pennsylvania 

Would you sacrifice one of those 
drops for the good of mankind? If 
you can't find a discontinued cologne 
оп eBay, you can have the scent re- 
created by Scentmatchers of Beverly 
Hills (scentmatchers.com, or 800- 
859-9878). It has a long list of dis- 
continued products it has already 
revived. The list doesn't yet include 
Sandalwood, but if you provide a 
sample or describe the scent, the firm 
will do its best to match it. It can do 
this because even though the name, 
bottle design and process or formula for тай- 
ing a cologne or perfume can be trademarked 
or patented, the scent itself cannot be. 


| found my dad on a dating site for peo- 
ріе into bondage, group sex and domina- 
tion. If he were single, I would be more 
forgiving, but he's still married to my 
mom. I want to bust him but am unsure 
how to proceed. 15 there a delicate way 
to handle this without my mother get- 
ting hurt? 15 there a way to catch my dad 


PLAYBOY 
ADVISOR 


| had a party at my house, and one of my friends brought 
his new girlfriend, who is gorgeous. I served her a beer 
ina pint glass. When she finished, I noticed her lipstick 
had left an outline of her lower lip on the glass. As soon 
as everyone left, I began to masturbate while fantasizing 
about her. When I put her lip mark against the head 
of my penis, 1 immediately came into the glass. In my 
mind her lips made contact with my cock. I repeated this 
routine over the next month and sometimes got hard 
just staring at the glass. Is this behavior abnormal, and 
if so, what should I do?—N.G., Bethlehem, Pennsylvania 

Your reaction doesn't surprise us, and we'd guess it 
doesn't surprise many male readers either. Just talking to 
an attractive woman can bring on a fantasy that demands 
release, so imagine what her lips pressed against something 
you can later press against might do. We are concerned, 
however, that you are returning so often to this well. It's last 
call. Wash the glass before someone finds it under your bed. 
And remind us to drink beer from the bottle at your house. 


in the act that won't end their marriage? 
I've suspected this for years but now have 
evidence.—J.R., Winter Park, Florida 
Evidence of what? We understand your dis- 
appointment, but for all you know, your mother 
is aware of the ads and your father's taste for 
adventure and perhaps even enjoys the lifestyle 
herself. Euen if that's not the case, the fact that 
you've been suspicious for years likely means 
she already knows. If it makes you feel better, 
tell your dad what you've seen. You don't know 
enough to accuse him of cheating—only that he 


advertises on the same kinky site you 
visit. Maybe it offers a family discount. 


After years of reaching climax 
while exercising, only this week 
did I come across the term core- 
gasm. I remember having to drop 
to the floor while doing a flex- 
arm hang in elementary school 
PE because I started to have an 
orgasm. At the time, I thought I 
was going to pee my pants—it was 
only after I became sexually active 
that I realized what was happen- 
ing. Once I understood, I began 
ending my workouts with hang- 
ing leg raises as a treat. How and 
why does this happen? Is it com- 
mon? Unfortunately, engaging 
these core muscles is the only way 
Ican get off, even during oral sex. 
I have to flex and hold tension 
for an extended time or clitoral 
stimulation is useless and annoy- 
ing. It doesn't seem fair that I can 
climax at the gym but not with my 
partner.—A.B., Honolulu, Hawaii 

If coregasms were common, a 
third of Americans wouldn't be obese. 
Although it’s not clear what triggers 
exercise-induced sexual arousal and/ 
or climax (which occurs even with- 
out erotic thoughts), you are far 
from alone. Alfred Kinsey noted the 
phenomenon as early as 1953, and 
more recently, researchers at Indiana 
University needed only five weeks to 
find 370 women who had experi- 
enced it. Their study, published in 
March, included 124 women who 
had experienced exercise-induced 
orgasms and 246 who had become 
aroused short of climax. The most 
common sexercises were crunches, 
followed by weight lifting, yoga, 
bicycling/spinning, running and 
walking/hiking. Many women men- 
tioned something similar to your 
"treat" —commonly called the cap- 
tain's chair—in which you hold 
handles while bending your knees to 
lift your feet. No one is sure what 
triggers orgasms at the gym, but it's 
not unusual for a woman 10 need 
to tense (and even hold her breath) 
to reach climax during sex. In fact, 
muscle tension is part of orgasm; it's 
just usually involuntary, and it's 
probably designed to increase blood 
flow to the genitals. We say, what's 
the rush? If you tense up but don’t come, 
relax and enjoy the sounds of the swirling 
finger or vibe on your lubed clit until you're 
ready for another approach. 


My father is a longtime Jack Daniel's 
drinker, and I thought a barrel of it would 
bea great gift for him. Is it possible to buy a 
barrel, and how much would it cost?—J.D., 
Colorado Springs, Colorado 

You can buy a barrel, though only of the 
aptly named Single Barrel. (No. 7 and other 


51 


PLAYBOY 


varieties are blended from the contents of mul- 
tiple barrels.) It will cost you about $10,000. 
Phone Jack Daniel's at 888-551-5225 to 
inquire. Each barrel yields about 240 bottles. 
You can visit the distillery in Lynchburg, Ten- 
nessee to select your own, or ask the master 
distiller to decide. About eight weeks later, 
when the barrel is ready, its contents will 
be bottled and the bottles and empty barrel 
shipped to a retailer near you for pickup. 


Lam taking my girlfriend to Rome with 
my family. She invited her best girlfriend, 
with whom we enjoyed an extremely plea- 
surable threesome about a year ago. The 
friend, who now has a boyfriend, asked to 
share a room with us during the trip. Is 
that appropriate? Ifso, should we refrain 
from having sex when she's there, even 
if she doesn't participate?—A.F., Little 
Rock, Arkansas 

You should have sex while she’s in the 
room only if she’s in the sex. Otherwise you 
may provide temptation for something she 
doesn’t have permission to do. Sharing a 
room is probably unwise, but because you'll 
be a world away from home, drinking and 
relaxed, we would bet another ménage 4 trois 
occurs even if your friend stays in a different 
room. If her boyfriend isn’t cool with that, it’s 
а shame to assist in making him a cuckold. 
But we're torn. Although we have high stan- 
dards regarding deception, we have regret- 
tably low ones when it comes to turning down 
threesomes. Cogli Vattimo. 


My father left me a valuable ring with the 
understanding that it would be passed to 
my son, then his son, etc., to keep it with 
the family name. However, my son has 
only a daughter. Since money is tight, 
is it unreasonable for me to sell the ring 
and split the funds among myself and my 
children?—R.R., New York, New York 
It’s your ring, so it’s yours to sell, and the 
proceeds are yours to distribute as you see fit. 
Your father would understand. If you find 
another way and it does pass to your son, we 
see no reason your granddaughter couldn't 
inherit it. She also has the family name. 


Years ago I dated a woman who loved 
giving head and said she could tell what 
T had eaten by the flavor of my come. 
She also insisted on dipsticking her 
pussy with her finger after we fucked 
and analyzing that. Her accuracy was 
uncanny. I thought it was strange at the 
time but never questioned her. (My need 
to nut superseded my need to know.) І 
was wondering if this has any basis in 
science.—B.R., Denver, Colorado 

Why not sample it yourself after a meal of 
pineapple and asparagus? Many women have 
written over the years to assure us they have 
amazing powers of seminal detection. (In fact, 
scientists have found some people are “super- 
tasters," which might explain it.) But we sus- 
pect for most people semen tastes like semen. 
We are often pitched products that purport to 
resolve the “problem” of ejaculate, but we've 


52 yet to hear from а man whose life has changed 


as a result. The latest are oral strips designed 
to hide the taste of semen, which we find a 
bit discouraging. Ejaculate is not something 
to savor, perhaps, but it's part of our modus 
operandi. Love us, love our semen. Plus, any 
guy who paused to use a product that would 
mask the taste of his partner before he went 
down on her would get smacked. 


I was watching a baseball game at a 
sports bar and went to the restroom. 
There were three urinals—two on one 
wall with televisions overhead and a 
third opposite with no TV. A guy was at 
one of the two TV urinals, which had no 
divider. І know you're supposed to leave 
a one-urinal buffer, but the commercial 
break was ending and I didn't want to 
miss any of the game. In this situation is 
it okay to ignore the buffer rule?—V.P., 
East Brunswick, New Jersey 

Michael Sykes, who in 1995 founded the 
International Center for Bathroom Etiquette 
(icbe.org), tells us the buffer rule is suspended 
during live or televised sporting events. 


Im a gay man who has had crushes on 
straight friends before, but now I'm hung 
up on one guy in particular. We're growing 
close and he deserves my honesty. How do 
Ibroach the subject without blurting out "I 
love you"? If I reveal this, will a friendship. 
be possible?—M.H., Denver, Colorado 

Hard to say. Tell him you find him attrac- 
tive. He's a big boy; he can handle it. 


In June a reader wrote to express his dis- 
appointment that he has only one mouth 
and so can suck only one of his wife's 
nipples at a time. If your partner is on 
top or on her side next to you, you can 
often push her breasts together enough to 
get both nipples in your mouth. It drives 
my girlfriend crazy. She's a 40F, but I've 
managed this on women with smaller 
breasts.—B.M., Patchogue, New York 
Thanks for the tip —though we have to believe 
most women would be thinking, as their boobs 
were crushed together, Whats in this for me? 


What is the proper etiquette for chang- 
ing a diaper when visiting someone's 
home? І walked into my home office to 
find my sister-in-law changing my niece's 
diaper on top of my desk. She looked up 
in surprise and said, “Is it okay to change 
her here? It's just a wet one.”—L.C., 
Indianapolis, Indiana 

We're familiar with the rules of changing 
diapers only on adult babies (part of the job). 
Although that was a terrible place for a pit 
stop—your sister-in-law knew it, but parents 
work in 30-second bursts and never plan on 
getting caught—your response might have 
Been, “Do you need some help? Let me find 
you a better place to change her.” 


This has happened to me only once, and 
I'm wondering if I imagined it. While I 
was having sex with a girlfriend, we both 
reached climax at the same time, and it felt 
as though her cervix reached out, envel- 


oped the head of my penis and sucked 
іп one quick stroke. І was shocked. Has 
anything like this been documented?— 
L.H., Yellow Springs, Ohio 

It has now. During climax, a woman's pelvic 
floor and vaginal muscles contract. The uterus 
also contracts rhythmically, which some scien- 
tists hypothesize creates an "in-suck" effect that 
ostensibly pulls in sperm. What you felt may 
have been the jaws of life. 


What is the best way to muddle min?— 
K.L., St. Louis, Missouri 

Don't go crazy. Jamie Boudreau, host of 
Raising the Bar (smallscreennetwork.com), 
says most people apply the muddler too enthu- 
siastically to the bottom of the glass, crush- 
ing the leaves and releasing the chlorophyll 
in their veins. That usually makes the drink 
too bitter. Instead, give the leaves one good 
press to activate their oils. Better yet, don't 
bother with the muddler. Boudreau just puts 
the leaves in one palm and smacks his other 
hand against them. That's enough, he says, to 
"wake them up" for the balance you're after. 


Му wife and I are on the brink of divorce. 
During the week she rarely arrives home 
before six р.м. and then heads to the 
computer to log on to Facebook. If we 
watch a movie, she’s busy texting, and at 
dinner it’s the same thing. When I com- 
plain, she says I have to share her and 
am being “possessive.” All I want is for 
her to want to be with me. What should 
I do?—J.F, Detroit, Michigan 

Your marriage has a communication 
problem—your wife is communicating with 
everyone but you. Don’t underestimate the 
power of social media to fuck with your mar- 
riage; a survey of 5,000 divorce petitions in 
the U.K. found a third mentioned Facebook. 
Tell your wife you understand the need to share 
but you miss her. Suggest she at least agree to 
а “screen-free” dinner—no computer, phone 
or TV. This may sound counterintuitive, but 
if you haven't already, friend her on Facebook 
(let’s hope she accepts). We don’t mean to say 
you should talk to your wife through the inter- 
net, but she’s sharing her life there. Like any 
friend, post comments, encouragement, quips. 
At the same time, what you learn about her 
interests may surprise you, and like any good 
conversationalist, you can use the information 
to ask questions т а шау that gets her to put 
down her phone. Good luck. 


All reasonable questions—from fashion, 
food and drink, stereos and sports cars to 
dating dilemmas, taste and etiquette—will 
be personally answered if the writer includes 
a self-addressed, stamped envelope. The 
most interesting, pertinent questions will 
be presented in these pages. Write the 
Playboy Advisor, 9346 Civic Center Drive, 
Beverly Hills, California 90210, or e-mail 
advisor@playboy.com. For updates, follow 
@playboyadvisor on Twitter. 


LIST PRICE 
[25—> $1095.00 


DANIEL STEIGER 


с>» $ 
GENUINE МУ DIAMONDS 
5 YEAR UNLIMITED 
MOVEMENT WARRANTY 


PRECISION AND LUXURY AT ITS BEST 
NOW WITH DIAMONDS AS STANDARD 


The Daniel Steiger Alphagraph Diamond. A sporty timepiece with a luxury edge now available direct from the 
manufacturer at the astonishingly low price of $179 - a saving of $916 on the retail price of $1,095. So how can we 
make an offer like this? The answer is beautifully simple. We have no middleman to pay. No retail overheads to pay 
and not the usual mark-up to make, which on luxury items (including watches) can be enormous. We just make 
beautiful watches beautifully simple to buy. 
Stainless steel case and bracelet featuring divers buckle fused with 18k yellow gold 
Rotating bezel . Precision movement featuring month, day, date and dual time sub-dials includes: Soft Lined 
6 Genuine diamond indices . Water resistant to 10atms (328ft) . 5 Year unlimited Wood Finished 
movement warranty Presentation Case 


Please quote [PLB129ALP] or go to WWW.timepiecesusa.com/pIb129 
Timepieces International Inc, 3580 NW 56th Street, Fort Lauderdale, Florida, 33309 


>” 


“5 ‚ Sp 
ANES. ПУЩЕ у C 
: ES e 


= et 


THE OBSESSION CONTINUES 


LL 
E 8 FOLLOWING DEXTER 


TO ORDER 60 TO SHO.COM 


ILLUSTRATIONS BY JUSTIN PAGE 


Soda ban in New York City Pirates in power Boss Apple 


HANDS OFF 
MY BIG GULP p 


The nanny state can't 
tell us what to drink 


BY MELBA NEWSOME 


n July 9, a hundred peo- ^ 
ple gathered at City Hall 
Park in lower Manhattan 
for the Million Big Gulp 
March. They were there 
to protest Mayor Michael Bloomberg's 
proposal to limit the size of sugary 
drinks. Queens City Council member 
Dan Halloran was a featured speaker. 
He accused Bloomberg of challenging 
the principles on which our country 
was founded. “Your individual rights 
don't end when you walk out your 
front door,” Halloran told the crowd. 
On July 24 Halloran was among 
those who gathered in front of the New 
York Board of Health for a public hear- 
ing on the soda war. Health Commis- 
sioner Thomas Farley began by point- 
ing out there was no proposal to take 
away anyone's soda, only to limit the 
size of containers. But for opponents 
like Halloran, this is a distinction with- 
out a difference. “When they came for 
the cigarettes, І didn't say anything, be- 
cause 1 didn't smoke,” 
said Halloran during 
his testimony. “When 
they came for the MSG, 
I didn't say anything be- 
cause I don't eat it very 
often. Well, today it's 
your soda." Such lan- 
guage is over-the-top, 
but so is Bloomberg's 
proposal: If a sugary 
drink has 25 calories or 
more per eight ounces, 
then bars, restaurants, 
movie theaters, arenas, 
food carts and delis 
must limit their serving. 
size to 16 ounces. Viola- 
tors are subject to a $200 fine. 
It is appropriate that governments 
try to improve public health, but it isn't 
appropriate when they interfere with 


If we learned 


anything from 
Prohibition 
and the drug 


war, it's that 
banned sub- any 
stances become 
more de: 


VA 


individual autonomy. To paraphrase 
libertarian Jacob Hornberger, if you 
are not free to make a bad, irrespon- 
sible choice, are you really free? C.S. 
Lewis writes, "Of all tyr- 
annies, a tyranny exer- 
cised for the good of its 
victims may be the most 
oppressive. Those who 
torment us for our own 
good will torment us 
without end, for they do 
so with the approval of 
their own conscience.” 
If there were ever 
doubt about 
Bloomberg's autocracy, 
it should have been re- 
moved in 2008 when 
he abolished the city's 
term-limits law so he 
could seek a third term 
as mayor. He reasoned that his contin- 
ued leadership was necessary because 
of the financial crisis. Bloomberg is 
a typical CEO, who is accustomed to 


rable. 


READER 
RESPONSE 


FIRING LINE 


After reading Pat Jordan's re- 
port on open-carry laws (Armed 
and Dangerous?, June), І better 
understand why they call them- 
selves “gun nuts.” The cartoon 
on the final page of the article, 
of a boss preparing to “down- 
size” his staff with an assault 
rifle, creates a nice juxtaposition. 


Nelson Ames 
Hamilton, New Jersey 


The need for a state militia 
referenced in the Second 


Amendment has been filled by 
the National Guard and Coast 
Guard, so the only reason for 
a citizen to own a firearm is for 
hunting or for defense during 
a home invasion. In either case, 
a handgun, shotgun or rifle is 
more than adequate. Accord- 
ingly, all handguns, shotguns 
and rifles should be licensed 
and registered so weapons can 
be matched to owners at the 


click ofa mouse. 


Joe Bialek 


Cleveland, Ohio 


1 support the permit- 
ting process not because 
I believe the government 
should be involved but 
because a permit holder 
would have firearms 


instruction. 1 feel much better in 
public places if there are a few 


open-carry folks in the mix. 
Mike Kuzara 
Wyarno, Wyoming 


55 


FORUM 


issuing edicts to his subjects because 
he knows what's best for them. His 
latest paternalistic effort is no differ- 
ent. He has been on a decade-long 
crusade to improve the health of New 


you when things aren't good for your 
health," Bloomberg said. "If you have 
to take it in a smaller glass, you have to 
make a conscious decision to have an- 
other cup of it. We think a lot of people 


Y 


READER RESPONSE 


Yorkers—whether they like it or not— won't, and that will reduce one of the Jordan's article is fair and infor- 
prompting his detractors to dub him contributors to the obesity epidemic." mative until the line "If blacks 
Nanny Bloomberg. Warning Americans carried openly in south L.A. or 
New York passed its about the costs of their Harlem, cops would immedi- 
first anti-tobacco or- When govern- actions is one thing. ately perceive them as a threat 
dinance in 1988, ban- = But when government and throw them in the slammer, 


ning smoking in public 
restrooms and taxicabs. 


ment starts 


starts to ban things it 
deems bad for us, it is 


In 2002, Bloomberg’s 
first year in office, he 
outlawed smoking in 
restaurants and bars. 
Smoking is now barred 
in most of the city's out- 
door spaces, including 
parks, beaches and pe- 
destrian plazas. 
Bloomberg first tack- 
led diets in 2003 by 
forbidding the sale of 


to ban things 
it deems bad 


for us, it is 
protecting us 
from our own 
choices. 


protecting us from our 
own choices. Accord- 
ing to the Centers for 
Disease Control, more 
than 35 percent of U.S. 
adults and 17 percent of 
youths are obese. Some 
of the most debilitating 
diseases—such as heart 
disease, diabetes and 
hypertension—are di- 
rectly linked to obesity. 


sodas and candy from vending ma- 
chines in schools. Next came the pro- 
hibition of trans fats in restaurants 
and prepared foods. In 2008 the city 
required restaurant chains to post cal- 
orie counts on fast-food menus. While 
those measures encroached on an in- 


People who regularly drink soda are 
more likely to be overweight, and those 
who increase their soda intake have a 
greater chance of becoming obese. 
While we all pay for obesity in terms 
of health care and insurance costs, it 
is crucial to find a balance between 


no questions asked.” Although 


residents of New York, Los Ange- 
les and Chicago probably have 
the most need to carry, the real- 
ity is that it's illegal for them to 
do so. It's an example of how gun 
control can disproportionately 


impede one group, while freedom 
lifts the yoke from all citizens. 
Mike Butler 

Killingworth, Connecticut 


BLACK AND WHITE 

Ishmael Reed claims the Tea 
Party is "a movement ener- 
gized by its resentment toward 
a black president” (“Give "Ет 
Hell, Barry,” July/August). So 
the $5 trillion increase in the 
national debt in the past four 
years has nothing to do with it? 


56 


AT THE MILLION BIG 
GULP MARCH IN NEW 


dividual's right to 
pollute his or her 


YORK: WHITHERTHE Own body, none 
RIGHT TO MAKE ONES ОҒ them earned 
OWN DECISIONS? as much ire as 


Bloomberg's pro- 
posal to limit the size of sodas. 

In January, the mayor launched an 
Obesity Task Force in response to sta- 
tistics that indicated 58 percent of New 
Yorkers were obese or overweight— 
including nearly 40 percent of children. 
The mayor says New York City spends 
$4 billion a year to treat obesity-related 
diseases. “We have an obligation to warn 


public health and freedom. Research 
conducted by Brian Elbel, assistant pro- 
fessor of medicine and health policy at 
New York University's School of Medi- 
cine, suggests soda gets more blame 
than it deserves. Soft-drink makers 
claim their products account for only 
seven percent of an average American's 
diet. In an article published in The New 
England Journal of Medicine, Elbel deter- 
mined the average consumer would take 
in 63 fewer calories per trip to a fast-food 
restaurant under Bloomberg's proposal. 
Are we really to believe cutting 63 calo- 
ries is worth the government intrusion? 


Darrell Burk 
Newport News, Virginia 


Reed praises President Obama as 
a race healer, yet millions of peo- 
ple voted for him because of his 

skin color. 


Joey Ford 
St. Petersburg, Florida 


Bloomberg cited research by Brian 
Wansink and David Just of Cornell 
University to bolster his case. Wansink 
and Just have researched the effects of 
packaging and serving size on eating 
habits. As director of Cornell's Food 
and Brand Lab, Wansink found that 
using a 10-inch plate instead of a 12- 
inch plate can lead to a person's con- 
suming 22 percent fewer calories. He 
has also been credited with the devel- 
opment of 100-calorie packs and the 
Small Plate Movement. But Wansink 
and Just say their work doesn't support 
Bloomberg's latest diktat. Not only do 
they believe the soda limitation will 
have no impact on curbing obesity, they 
indicate it may have the opposite effect, 
since consumers rebel against such 
limitations. Their experiments found 


that subjects ate the portions they were 
given—large or small—in a dining or 
party setting, where they were unlikely 
to notice portion size. However, when 
people walk into a theater and order 
the 64-ounce Super-Duper Thirst 
Quencher, they are aware of what they 
are ordering. They will probably resent 
any efforts to intervene. 

We have seen how the prevalence of 
no- and low-fat products has backfired. 
Since these foods were introduced to 
the market, Americans have become 
fatter. We now consume 200 to 300 
more calories per day compared with 
30 years ago. People who eat low-fat or 
reduced-calorie meals tend to consume 
more calories overall, because they 
splurge on snacks and desserts. 

If we learned anything from Prohibi- 


Our 
Corporate 
Masters 


HOW 

APPLE 
RULES 
AMERICA 


BY BRIAN COOK 


orporations rule by be- 

ing above and beyond 

the laws that govern the 

rest of us. Apple Inc. 

has become a symbol of 
what remains great about American 
capitalism: a technological dynamo 
that, through the ingenuity of its vi- 
sionary founders, has changed the 
way we live. But the tech revolution 
has coincided with another one—a 
new model of political economy in 
which corporate profits reach all- 
time highs while wages stagnate and 
inequality increases. Apple, it turns 
out, is a pretty good symbol of that 
revolution as well. 

Conditions at the Foxconn facto- 
ries in Shenzhen, China that manu- 
facture Apple's products have been 
notoriously poor. Workers there 
complained to outside auditors 
about routine 60-hour workweeks, 
dangerous working environments 
(with more than 700 industrial acci- 
dents recorded at Shenzhen) and low 
wages. How low were those wages? 
According to an April analysis by 


Isaac Shapiro from the Economic 
Policy Institute, 95,000 Foxconn 
workers who made Apple products 
likely received about $441 million in 
total last year, or about $4,600 each. 
That total is about the same amount 
Apple paid its nine-member execu- 
tive board in 2011. Of course, even 
on the board, the gains were uneven, 
with $376 million going to new CEO 
Тіп Cook in a one-time stock grant. 
But don't feel bad for the other 
board members. This year, six have 
received nearly $60 million each in 
stock grants; another has thus far 
had to make do with $40 million. 
Perhaps those gigantic stock op- 
tions are why Apple is screwing over 
not only its Chinese workforce but 


FORUM 


tion and the drug war, it's that banned 
substances become more desirable. 
Instead of issuing fiats that encroach 
on personal liberties, we should try a 
public-information campaign about the 
health effects of sugary drinks. Con- 
vincing restaurants and manufacturers 
to reduce portion and package sizes 
would have an impact on the number 
of calories we consume while leaving 
the ultimate choice to the consumer. 
Mayor Bloomberg probably won't let 
New Yorkers make their own choices. 
The New York City Board of Health 
is scheduled to vote on his proposal in 
September. Since the mayor appointed 
its members, there is little doubt as to 
the outcome. As early as March 2013, 
city residents will likely find their per- 
sonal choices curtailed. u 


Y 


READER RESPONSE 


ANOTHER VIEW 

I agree with Dale Clark's obser- 
vation about the resemblance 
of the Laughing Christ image 


to President Obama (Reader 
Response, July/August). But he 
bears a more striking resem- 
blance to that famous photo of 
Benito Mussolini sticking his 
chin out. All Obama needs is the 
goofy hat. 

Roy Preston 

Lusby, Maryland 


RUDE AWAKENING 

Taffy Brodesser-Akner has gath- 
ered a limited amount of data 
and come up with a conclusion 
that is well thought-out, logi- 
cal, relevant...and half wrong 
(“Vexed Americana," July/ 
August). She may be correct 
that we have become a "nation 
of haters" as far as anonymous 
internet commentary is con- 
cerned. But the meanness she 
encounters in life is not the 
same animal and does not have 


58 


EJ Forum 


its American workers as well. Apple 
cultivates the image of its retail em- 
ployees as Geniuses, but according to 
a New York Times report it pays them 
only slightly better than village idiots, 
with many making $25,000 a year, 
or about $12 an hour. That is now 
changing, with Apple (surely coin- 
cidentally) announcing just days be- 
fore the Times story appeared that it 
would raise the salary of its store em- 
ployees by 25 percent. Even with the 
pay hike, the wages of Geniuses will 
still be only slightly 


WORKERS AT 
above = 20th per- А FOXCONN. 
сері le of all college TECHHOLEGIS 
Baal г WORKSHOP IN 

Apples indiffer- na provioE 
Ree p^ Ше уш CHEAP LABOR FOR 

ne ae ET- APPLE PRODUCTS. 


ican employees 

should surprise no one, given the 
contempt it shows for its countrymen 
by avoiding billions in taxes each year. 
As reported in The New York Times, the 
company has avoided paying cash- 


Y 


READER RESPONSE 


the same cause. It is clear she 
lives in or near a large city on 
the overpopulated Fast Coast. 
She should visit a small town in 
the West or Midwest—or even 
Connecticut or upstate New 
York. Lousy driving may still 
earn a one-fingered salute, but 
a smile and a gesture of cour- 
tesy receive a smile and a wave 
in return. 

Fred Waiss 

Prairie du Chien, Wisconsin 


Brodesser-Akner's essay hits 
home. I've been wondering why 
everyone seems so mean. For 
example, it's notable how infre- 
quently drivers wave when you 
let them into traffic. My instinc- 
tive response is to mutter "Screw 
you,” but рглүвоү has inspired 
me to start the Nice Movement 
on Facebook. Clearly PLAYBOY 
should be the official magazine 
of the Nice Movement, because 
what is nicer than beautiful 
women and smart ideas? 

Carol Valentic 

Shelby Township, Michigan 


If you could help more nice guys get 
laid, we'd be grateful. 


starved California millions by opening 
a front office in Nevada. Apple is also 
a pioneer in finding ways to funnel 70 
percent of its profits through coun- 
tries with lower tax rates, including 


Ireland, Luxembourg and the Virgin 
Islands. That means Apple had an ef- 
fective tax rate of under 10 percent in 
2011, less than half the 24 percent tax 
rate paid by Walmart. п 


PIRATES 


How a new technology 
begat a promising 
political force 

BY JOSH KRON 


he balance of power between 
a state and its citizens rests 
оп who controls access to 
communication and infor- 
mation. The advent of the 
printing press placed an unprecedented 
share of control over the world's knowl- 
edge into the hands of the public—a 
shift that resulted in the Enlightenment, 
the birth of democracy and the scien- 
tific revolution. Over the past 20 years, 
the internet has done much to redefine 
society’s rules ofengagement. It played 
a central role in last year's revolutions 
in Egypt and Tunisia. It struck blows to 
Hollywood and the Pentagon, and it dis- 
solved mainstream media's monopoly 
on the American mind. 
America's rulers—"politicians, cor- 
porate executives and owners of press 


and television," according to historian 
Howard Zinn—have historically scram- 
bled to assert control over new tech- 
nologies. Out of such struggles, politi- 
cal movements arise: This is how labor 
unions, the Anti-Rent movement and 
Teddy Roosevelt's Progressive Party of 
1912 all emerged. 

Change may be coming again. In 
Europe, the Pirate Party—founded by 
computer geeks reacting to governmen- 
tal efforts to restrict the internet—has 
altered Germany's political landscape. 

Starting with a platform of inter- 
net freedom and sweeping copyright 
reform, the Pirate Party has become 
more than an online party. It is a party 
for getting the most out of the inter- 
net's tools and cyberspace's physics to 
advance direct democracy and citizen 


power via data specs, privacy controls 
and digital transparency. “Mainstream 
politics is 20 years behind society,” says 
Christof Leng, a founding member 
of Germany's Pirate Party. (Leng has 
since gone on to pursue his Ph.D.) “We 
bring our own culture. Call it nerd, call 
it internet, call it youth. We don't want 
to play their game. We make our own.” 

Leng never planned to start a party. 
He had read about Swedish hacker- 
activists who ran an il- 
legal file-sharing site 
called the Pirate Bay 
and others who created 
a party to represent 
their concerns in Swe- 
den. Looking online for 
a German Pirate Party, 
Leng came acros a 
near-empty forum. 

“I just joined discus- 
sions, and then others 
trickled in," Leng says. 
Swedish police had re- 
cently raided the Pirate 
Bay grounds, duct-taping security 
cameras and confiscating servers. "It 
was a wake-up call for a lot of us," says 
Leng. "We thought, Let's try founding 
a party," he says. "If it goes wrong, it 
will at least be interesting. If we suc- 
ceed, we can change the game." 

"They have succeeded. Not only has 
the party become Germany's protest 
party—attracting voters with social- 


THE PIRATE welfare and drug- 
PARTY HAS reform measures—but 
EMERGEDAS chapters have opened 


THE DE FACTO 
PROTEST 
MOVEMENT IN 
GERMANY. 


across the globe, with 
members winning seats 
in Austria, the Czech 
Republic, Spain, Swe- 
den and Switzerland. 
Those who have grown up with com- 
puters are a universal constituency. 

A Pirate Party chapter was founded 
in the U.S. in 2006. "We are not on 
the right, and we are not on the left," 
says Travis McCrea, chairman of the 
U.S. Pirate Party. "We are in front." 


The U.S. is 


a society at 


the center of 


an emerging 
civil rights 


struggle. 


This country may be the movement's 
crucible—ours is a society at the center 
оҒап emerging civil rights struggle. 

With more than 245 million internet 
users in the United States (including 
roughly 150 million with Facebook ac- 
counts), online data are highly prized. A 
2011 bill, the Cyber Intelligence Shar- 
ingand Protection Act, seeks to allow the 
extraction of users' personal data from 
private companies and ISPs for intelli- 
gence agencies, poten- 
tially obstructing web- 
sites that publish unau- 
thorized information. 
On the entertainment 
side, in an unabashed 
display of corporate 
hegemony, the lead- 
ing American ISPs— 
Cablevision, Comcast, 
Time Warner—also 
provide much of our 
media content. This 
year, in a bid to restrict 
illegal file sharing and 
copyright infringement, these corpo- 
rations announced they would start 
monitoring web traffic—and they have 
the power to block internet access if 
they catch you misbehaving. 

Proposed laws under congressional re- 
view, including the 2011 Stop Online Pi- 
racy Act and 2011 Protect IP Act, would 
further restrict renegade uploaders. 

One of the internet's great eman- 
cipations is its ability to replicate data 
infinitely and freely. It has led to the 
greatest amalgamation of knowledge in 
human history, published on Wikipe- 
dia. Germany's Pirate Party argues in its 
manifesto that selling digitally protect- 
ed files creates "artificial scarcity" of a 
"public good" for private economic gain 
and is “immoral.” 

America is not the most democratic 
of places. Of the many third-party po- 
litical groups in the U.S., just three 
have more than 100,000 members. 
The Pirate Party, with only several 
hundred, faces major hurdles. 

However it performs, the Pirates” 
emergence kicks off a new era in Ameri- 
can society. As our lives migrate online, 
niche tech issues from network neutral- 
ity to IP anonymity will become main- 
stream civil liberty battles over our First, 
Fourth and Ninth Amendment rights. 

"They've picked up on something," 
says Adrian Johns, professor of the 
history of science at the University of 
Chicago, about the Pirate Party. “It is 
going to end up being a bit like green 
issues in the 1980s and 1990s, when 
Green parties were rising everywhere. 
They will bring up issues that affect the 
everyday life of normal citizens. And 
civil liberties will be the language in 
which they are addressed.” E 


FORUM 


Y 


READER RESPONSE 


GAY MARRIAGE 

In commenting on a letter in the 
June issue (Dear Playboy), you 
smugly pronounce, "Support- 
ing same-sex marriage became 
middle-of-the-road about five 


years ago.” By what measure 

do you pompously judge some- 
thing “middle-of-the-road”? 
The way things are going with 
the sexual revolution, which 
PLAYBOY reminds us ad nauseam 
it started some six decades ago, 
it won't be long before bigamy is 
proclaimed legal and the insane 
liberal court system approves 
marriages between people and 
their dogs. 

Tilman Grubbs 

Larkspur, California 


And yow'll be able to marry your own 
mother, and civilization will collapse, 
elc., еіс.... 


A reader argues in June that 
“gay marriage is a mockery of 
natural law.” In fact, homosex- 
ual behavior has been observed 
in more than 1,500 species, and 
Oslo's Natural History Museum 
created an entire exhibit 
devoted to “gay” animals. 
Another reader in the same issue 
quotes Stephen Colbert as say- 
ing, “Facts tend to have a liberal 
bias.” Amen to that. 

Greg Ingram 

Phoenix, Arizona 


E-mail letters@playboy.com. Or 


write: 9346 Civic Center Drive, 
Beverly Hills, California 90210. 


59 


was LEE CHILD 


A candid conversation with the creator of the best-selling Jack Reacher novels 
about reinventing yourself at 40, Tom Cruise's height and the joys of weed 


When game six of the 2011 World Series was 
rained ош, Tony La Russa, the then manager of 
the National League champion St. Louis Car- 
dinals, texted Lee Child to say he was thrilled 
lo get the night off. He had just bought the 
author's latest Jack Reacher novel, and now 
he could start reading. Like former president 
Bill Clinton, who sends Child a handwritten 
mash note after finishing every book, and for- 
mer House Speaker Newt Gingrich, who has 
reviewed several favorably for Amazon.com, 
La Russa can't get enough of Reacher, the 
six-foot-five ex-military police major who over 
the course of 17 novels has outthought and 
outfought an array of cold-blooded villains. 
Known as Reacher Creatures, Child’s fans are 
legion. His books, which have been translated 
into 40 languages, have sold more than 60 mil- 
lion copies and consistently garner splendid no- 
tices. Janet Maslin of The New York Times calls 
Child “the best thriller writer of the moment.” 
The stakes are about to get higher. Not only 
has a new Reacher novel, A Wanted Man, just 
been published, but in December Paramount 
Pictures will release Jack Reacher, starring Tom 
Cruise. The casting of the five-foot-seven actor 
as the larger-than-life Reacher has, not surpris- 
ingly, generated controversy. On a Facebook 
page dedicated to the topic, one reader grouses, 
“I guess it could have been worse: Justin Bieber, 


“All kinds of people have been interested [in 
playing Jack Reacher]: Brad Pitt, Hugh 
Jackman and Vince Vaughn. A black Reacher 
‘was mentioned. Would that have produced 
the same outrage [as casting Tom Cruise]?” 


Andy Dick.” Declares another, “Child sold 
out.” Directed by Oscar winner Christopher 
McQuarrie (who wrote The Usual Suspects) 
and co-starring Rosamund Pike and Robert 
Duvall, the movie is based on One Shot, Child's 
ninth novel. It pits Reacher against a group of 
thugs who are menacing a Midwestern town. 
The studio hopes it will be the first in a film 
‘franchise that will transform Jack Reacher into 
another Jason Bourne or Dirty Harry. 

It is remarkable that the 57-year-old Child 
finds himself both atop best-seller lists and poised 
for a Hollywood ending, considering that he 
didn't start writing until the age of 40 after being 
dismissed from a high-profile job in English tele- 
vision. (Born James Grant, he changed his name 
when he launched his new career.) More remark- 
able still is that the native Briton has created an 
indelibly American hero, one part Shane, one 
part Philip Marlowe and one part Rambo—if 
Rambo were a liberal. His military days behind 
him, Reacher roams the country, lingering in 
places just long enough to uncover wrongdoing 
and dispense rough justice before drifting on, 
typically by bus. His life is so stripped down he 
doesn't own a change of clothes. (When his shirts 
and pants get dirty, he throws them away and 
buys new ones.) Nor does he have relatives or 
friends. He seems to live in the perpetual present, 
his past a mystery revealed in flashes. 


“My father disapproves of practically every- 
thing I do. Гт not Calvinist enough. I buy 
luxury items. If I want to go somewhere and 
there’s an expensive flight I want at 10, then I 
take that flight. And ГИ have a limo waiting.” 


We sent writer Steve Oney, who recently 
profiled former NFL star Herschel Walker for 
PLAYBOY, to New York to visit with Child at his 
Manhattan home. Oney reports: “My first after- 
noon in the city I accompanied Child to Book- 
Expo, publishing's annual convention, at the 
Javits Center. Unlike most book signings, which 
attract a mere handful of devotees, Child’s drew 
a mob. His publicists had to turn people away. 
Over the next few days we talked іп Child’s mid- 
town office and in an apartment higher up in 
the same building, where, when he’s not at his 
vacation place in Provence or at a new spread 
in the English countryside, he lives with his 
wife, Jane. Both the office and the apartment 
are white and no-nonsense. Child's work space 
contains little more than two iMacs (one for 
writing, the other for web browsing); the cou- 
ple's apartment has a bed, a pair of Knoll chairs 
and not much else. 


Child's adolescent ambition to be а rocke. 
is a splendid raconteur, affable and wonderfully 
opinionated, but he comes across as a solitary 
soul. Like Reacher, he seems more comfortable 
by himself than in the company of others.” 


PLAYBOY: Paramount cast the diminutive 
Тот Cruise to play Jack Reacher. You've 
been quoted as saying you don't object. 


PHOTOGRAPHY BY MICHAEL SCOTT SLOSAR 


“Pm a contemplative person, and weed helps 
me cut through the membranes of daily cares. 
It simplifies things. If Im struggling on a 
book, ГИ light a pipe and the answer will 
sometimes come to me.” 


61 


PLAYBOY 


62 


Come on—Reacher's size and rugged- 
ness are an essential part of his appeal. 
You have to be disappointed. 

CHILD: Disappointed is the wrong word. 
When you transfer a book to the screen, 
something's going to give. It seems to 
me there are three essential things about 
Reacher. First, he's smart. Second, he's 
still and quiet yet menacing. Third, he's 
huge. It was always likely we were going 
to lose one of those characteristics. The 
question was which. For a long time we 
were fixated on his physique. We had 
to have a big guy. But we got nowhere. 
There were no actors big enough who 
could do even one of the other things. 
Then it came as an epiphany. Give up the 
physique and concentrate on Reacher's 
smartness and quietness. 

PLAYBOY: Rabid fans of your novels have 
started a Facebook page called “Tom 
Cruise is not Jack Reacher.” What do 
you say to them? 

CHILD: Readers feel they have some in- 
credibly intimate possession. Reacher is 
theirs alone. Now suddenly this will be 
blown open. They get defensive. They 
think, I don't want this taken away from 
me. This is my private thing, and the 
whole world is going to see it. The nature 
of the relationship has changed. People 
feel hostile toward someone else's inter- 
pretation of a book. Their default posi- 
tion is opposition. І say to them, “See the 
movie, and then we'll talk about it.” My 
guess is that out of every 100 book lov- 
ers, 75 will say, "That was really good." 
And 25 will hate it. There's just nothing 
you can do about that. 

PLAYBOY: What other actors were consid- 
ered for the part? 

CHILD: АП kinds of people have been in- 
terested at one time or another: Brad 
Pitt, Hugh Jackman and Vince Vaughn. A 
black Reacher was mentioned: Will Smith 
or Jamie Foxx. Would that have produced 
the same outrage? Reacher is not black. 
PLAYBOY: Does Cruise pull it off? 

CHILD: Cruise is this monster celebrity— 
global superstar and tabloid fodder. 
"That's all in your face. But you have to 
look past that. You've got to look under- 
neath at what's there. And what's there 
with Cruise? This is in no way damning 
with faint praise, but he shows up and 
does the work, and he does it properly 
and on time. And that's a rare thing. 
He is utterly reliable, and to me there's 
nothing more important. He will do the 
job, and he will do it the way it should 
be done. That's 85 percent of the battle. 
Тһе next sort of 10 percent is talent, and 
Cruise has that too. He is a talented pro- 
fessional. Reacher is in good hands. 
PLAYBOY: You must see why some readers 
think you've made a pact with the devil. 
The movie is based on your novel One 
Shot, but Paramount has retitled it Jack 
Reacher. Does that rile you? 

CHILD: Absolutely the reverse. When 
I heard it, I was like, “Yes!” I pumped 
my fist. If they'd given me a free hand 


and asked what I wanted the movie to 
be called, that's what I would have done. 
PLAYBOY: But this is your baby. One Shot 
was your first novel to receive wide- 
spread critical acclaim. 

CHILD: Hollywood is different from pub- 
lishing. Everybody wants to make a profit 
in the book business, but if a book fails, 
it doesn't sink the ship. One of the most 
expensive books ever was Bill Clinton's 
autobiography. He received a big ad- 
vance, and it was a big book. They prob- 
ably had $15 million riding on that book. 
And if it had failed utterly, that would 
have been a drag, but it wouldn't sink the 
ship. Paramount has $150 million riding 
on this. If it fails utterly, it does sink the 
ship. So they tested it, and they found 
that for young women who didn't know 
the book, One Shot was too masculine, too 
“snipery.” Young women drive movie at- 
tendance. They're the ones who tell their 
boyfriends which movie they're going to 
see on Friday. The studio changed the 
title to Jack Reacher. It lets you know the 
movie is about a man, not a gun. 
PLAYBOY: You are pleased. 

CHILD: It’s a gift. From my point of view, 


One of the things that 
fascinate people about 
Reacher is that he has 
mo possessions. The only 
thing he owns is a folding 
toothbrush. 


we've now got a $150 million advertising 
campaign for my brand. 

PLAYBOY: Starting with the first Reacher 
novel, Killing Floor, in 1997, you've 
been successful. Yet only over the past 
few years have your books consistently 
topped best-seller lists. Is there some- 
thing in the zeitgeist? 

CHILD: One of the things that fascinate 
people about Reacher is that he has no 
possessions. Apart from a passport and 
an ATM card, the only thing he owns is a 
folding toothbrush, and that has become 
a legendary talking point among readers. 
But I think there's more to it. Since the 
financial crisis hit, people are realizing 
you don't own things; things own you. 
You might enjoy the stuff you've accumu- 
lated, but you don't enjoy the debt. Peo- 
ple are beginning to have an uneasy re- 
lationship with possessions. They would 
like to walk away from the things weigh- 
ing them down. That is how Reacher 
lives. The financial crisis hit in 2008, and 
I don't think it's a coincidence that was 
the first year of Reacher's megapopular- 
ity. For the first time I had four number 
one best-sellers—both hardcover and 


paperback—in the U.S. and the U.K. 
PLAYBOY: How did you create Jack 
Reacher? 

CHILD: I didn't overthink it. If you give 
a character an imagined laundry list of 
virtues, he'll be overdesigned. I relied on 
instinct. I just wrote an honest version of 
a character I'd like to be. He does things 
Га like to get away with. When you meet 
Reacher in the first novel, his hygiene is 
questionable. He cheats. He shoots peo- 
ple in the back. He doesn't do the noble, 
face-to-face fighting you expect in the 
genre. He does whatever it takes to win— 
but he has honesty and integrity on his 
side. Of course, I'm being slightly disin- 
genuous, for what do I mean when I say I 
relied on instinct? By the point I came up 
with Reacher I was 40 years old, so he's 
an amalgam of everything ГА been ex- 
posed to that I liked. Reacher is an arche- 
type, the mysterious stranger who arrives 
in the nick of time and then rides off into 
the sunset. It's a specifically defined char- 
acter present in every culture for more 
than a thousand years: the knight errant. 
PLAYBOY: The quirkiest thing about 
Reacher may be that he's an ex-military 
police officer. Why didn't you make him. 
а retired Special Forces officer instead? 
CHILD: Partly because that's boring, and 
partly because it's stupid. Why go head- 
to-head with what somebody else is doing 
well? There are hundreds of books with 
ex-Rangers or ex-Delta Force members. 
I also felt that military police have famil- 
iarity with crimes and investigation, so I 
thought an MP was the way to go. It also 
emphasizes Reacher's alienation. He's 
worked all his life in a branch of the ser- 
vice that is despised. That makes him a 
little more isolated. By the same token, I 
made Reacher a West Point graduate who 
achieved the rank of major. That makes 
him the equivalent of Sir Lancelot. 
PLAYBOY: Reacher has a habit of stum- 
bling across injustices and settling 
scores. In doing so, he typically racks up 
massive body counts. How do you justify 
the violence? 

CHILD: Justify is a big word, because my 
novels are not textbooks on how to live. 
I'm not saying this is what we ought to 
do. The function of a crime novel is to 
give us what we don't get in real life. And 
what we don't get in real life is satisfac- 
tion. At the end ofa Reacher book, there 
are summary executions. They bring clo- 
sure to the story. This isn't recommend- 
ing that we summarily execute people. 
It's standing in for legal procedure in a 
way readers like. When you put a crimi- 
nal in the legal system, in the opinion of 
a lot of people he gets too many rights. 
We understand that in real life we need 
constraints, but we don't need them in 
fiction. If Reacher apprehends a proven 
child molester, he shoots him. Reacher is 
the alpha male of the genre. He doesn't 
suffer misgivings. He's a constant force, 
which I think of as a metaphor for our 
desire for order and fair play. 


PLAYBOY: In several of your novels, 
Reacher overwhelms enemies with a sig- 
nature move, the head butt. Is this a skill 
worth acquiring? 

CHILD: A head butt is a wonderful thing 
because it's unexpected. Nobody expects 
to be head butted. Way back, I guess 
deep in our brains from evolution, we 
learned not to hit things with our heads. 
It's generally not a good idea. It can be 
instantaneous and conclusive. It seems 
unhinged. It is unhinged. It raises the 
ante. People talk about bringing a gun 
to a knife fight. If you’re in a brawl and 
you use a head butt, it's like bringing a 
sawed-off shotgun to a knife fight. 
PLAYBOY: Is there an art to the head butt? 
CHILD: To do it 
correctly you use 
the arch of your 
forehead, which 
is thick bone. 
And an arch is an 
incredibly strong 
structure. If you 
head butt a con- 
crete post, you 
might do your- 
self damage, but 
if you head butt 
another human, 
you're not going 
to do yourself any 
harm. Its best 
delivered with a 
downward mo- 
tion. If you do it 
in an upward di- 
rection you can 
drive bone frag- 
ments into your 
opponent's brain, 
which can be le- 
thal. A head butt 
that arcs down- 
ward breaks the 
nose and cheeks, 
driving bone frag- 
ments toward the 
jaw. It doesn't go 
any further than 
you intended it 
to, but it can be 
devastating. 
PLAYBOY: For all of 
Reacher's macho, 
he's a smart guy, really more brains than 
brawn. 

CHILD: Yes. He would much rather solve 
a crime by figuring it out than beating 
it out of somebody. You know the Sher- 
lock Holmes line that when you've elim- 
inated all the possibilities, what remains, 
however improbable, must be the truth? 
That's how Reacher operates. In Killing 
Floor, the key clue is the difference be- 
tween the plural possessive apostrophe 
and the singular possessive apostrophe. 
In other words, does the apostrophe 
go after the s or before? The books are 
cerebral. A recurring line, of course, 
is "Reacher said nothing." He's think- 


ing. Given that the books emphasize the 
physical, there's a quietness that is reas- 
suring. It's comforting that this giant is 
capable of rational thought. He's like a 
dancing bear. 

PLAYBOY: How are you like Reacher? 
CHILD: We're both rational. I'm not in any 
way a spiritual person. If I can't see itand 
it can't be proved, I don't believe it. We're 
both observant. I notice a lot of things, 
and I try to explain them to myself. 
PLAYBOY: Do you share Reacher's willing- 
ness to insert yourself into dicey situations? 
CHILD: 1 would like to be that person 
who doesn't walk by. Most of the time I 
do, but if there's something egregious, I 
try to help. One night I was walking on 


Broadway, and a cab had stopped. The 
driver was a skinny Sikh, and he was try- 
ing to eject his passenger, a fleshy, frat- 
boy type. The driver was worried this 
kid was drunk and was going to throw 
up in his cab, so the driver was throwing 
him out. But the guy wouldn't leave. It 
was a mismatch, this little driver who's 
paying $150 a shift to lease a cab and this 
boorish frat boy threatening to screw up 
his night. So I crossed the street and 
helped the driver out, because I think at 
some point you can't just walk past. 
PLAYBOY: Did the frat boy tell you to 
fuck off? 

CHILD: He was aggressive, but he was too 


drunk to be a threat unless we fell and 
he rolled on top of me. He sort of stum- 
bled, and I held him up by the collar. He 
was probably 24 and had a job on Wall 
Street or something. I mean, these guys 
are not tough. I was brought up in a dif- 
ferent time, in a place where the physical 
was more serious than it is now. 
PLAYBOY: You were raised in Birming- 
ham, in England's Midlands. Was it 
really that hard-core? 

CHILD: Birmingham is the New Jersey of 
Great Britain. It was a sort of inarticu- 
late society where if you had problems 
the only recourse was violence. 

PLAYBOY: What was your first fight? 
CHILD: My elder brother, Richard, was 
a spindly kid, 
and I was big for 
my age. Fam- 
ily legend has it 
that when I was 
three and he was 
six, someone was 
pulling his ears, 
and I waded in 
and fought off 
this kid. A few 
years later my 
parents explic- 
Шу said to me, 
"You have to look 
after him." We 
went to Cherry 
Orchard County 
Primary School, 
which was in this 
blighted industri- 
al landscape and 
had the stump 
of a dead cherry 
tree in one cor- 
ner. My first duty 
at recess was to 
make sure Rich- 
ard was all right 
before I could 
go play with my 
friends. 

PLAYBOY: What 
made the Bir- 
mingham of your 
youth such a war 
zone? 

CHILD: There was 
a tremendous trib- 
alism, which supported a bullying cul- 
ture. If your parents were more aspi- 
rational than somebody else's parents, 
you were marked out. If you were doing. 
well in class, you were marked out. At 
the age of 10 or 11, when you switched 
from elementary to high school, if you 
got into a good school, it grew worse. I 
got a scholarship to the best high school, 
King Edward's, founded in 1552. J.R.R. 
Tolkien went there, as did Kenneth 
Тупап. The old building is a beautiful 
Gothic brick structure designed by the 
guy who designed the houses of Par- 
liament. I had to get in and out of my 
inner-city neighborhood twice a day. I 


63 


PLAYBOY 


64 


wore the school uniform—a blue blazer 
with a purple and yellow tie—and it was 
a badge of shame that essentially got me 
attacked. І had to fight because І was 
acting above myself. 

PLAYBOY: Every week? 

CHILD: I would say every day, more or less. 
PLAYBOY: A fight in which a punch was 
thrown? 

CHILD: Pretty much, yeah. Every day 
I got off the bus and walked the last 
half-mile home, which took me down 
a border road, in terms of territory. In 
Birmingham some streets were yours 
and others were not. There was a defi- 
nite demarcation. To get home, I walked 
down this road. There would always be 
two or three kids there waiting to give me 
trouble. Routinely, we'd have a fight. I 
wouldn't wait for them to start anything. 
I knew why they were there. I walked up 
and hit them, and they hit back. 
PLAYBOY: Is this when you learned how 
to head butt? 

CHILD: І saw somebody do it, and І 
imitated it. For a while 1 head butted 
someone once a week. І also had a knife, 
and typically you'd have a bicycle chain, 
which you'd swing or wrap around your 
fist as a knuckle-duster. Once or twice 
some kids, including me, got double- 
edged Gillette razor blades and sewed 
them under our lapels. If anybody 
grabbed us, they'd shred their fingers. It 
was serious shit. I finally got to the point 
where I didn't want to be hassled any- 
more. I said, "If you pull a knife on me, 
I'll break your arm." That happened 
twice. I turned the guys' wrists inside 
out, forcing the elbows. This sort of may- 
hem was expected. No one was arrested. 
Тһе most the police would do was come 
by and clip you on the ear. 

PLAYBOY: What did your parents say? 
CHILD: There was a gigantic gap between 
us. My father worked for the Inland Rev- 
enue, the British equivalent of the IRS. 
He's a Northern Irish Protestant, hates 
Catholics and has an imperial stance 
about the superiority of the white man 
and the inferiority of colored people. My 
mother clung to the middle-class dream 
of seeing me and my three brothers be- 
come pillars of some kind. I don't want 
to disparage them. They were doing their 
best with no overt malice and certainly no 
negligence. But it was dour and negative. 
There was no basis for communication. 
PLAYBOY: How long did your head- 
butting period last? 

CHILD: By my late teens most of the ag- 
gression was petering out. My teenage 
years overall were fantastic. It really 
started happening for me in the spring 
of 1969, when I lost my virginity at the 
age of 14 and a half. Somebody's parents 
were always away, and there'd be a party 
at that house. The entire purpose was 
sex—sex, drugs and rock and roll. It was 
a Friday night. There were a bunch of 


boys, a bunch of girls. There was snog- 
ging. Then it went a little further. Then I 
went to bed with this blonde 14-year-old. 
Тһе next thing I knew her 16-year-old 
sister was in there with me too. 

PLAYBOY: That sounds better than brawling. 
CHILD: It was. The late 1960s and early 
1970s were wonderful. Everybody was in 
a band. It didn't matter whether you had 
talent. If you took the entire male popu- 
lation of Britain between the ages of 14 
and 20 and divided it by four, that's the 
number of bands you had. I was in one 
called Dark Tower. I played guitar, badly. 
We did covers of Steppenwolf, Cream— 
derivative, blues-based music. We played 
Digbeth Civic Hall one New Year's Eve. 
It was a genuine gig. We got paid. 
PLAYBOY: Was there a great music scene 
in Birmingham? 

CHILD: Yes. One time I remember re- 
hearsing, and this well-spoken older 
boy—he was 19, which when you're 14 
seems totally grown-up—came in to 
check out the facility because his new 
band was rehearsing the next night. Sure 
enough, the next night he showed up. 


Being an immigrant, Гт 
intensely patriotic about 
America. I love the diversity. 
Americans are much more 
vital than the inbred, pasty- 
faced people of Britain. 


He helped us shove our equipment off; 
we helped him shove his on. This well- 
spoken young man from the area was 
Robert Plant, and his new band was Led 
Zeppelin. This was their second rehears- 
al. We heard them play their first song. 
PLAYBOY: How fully did you experience 
the Age of Aquarius? 

CHILD: In 1969 I went to the Isle of Wight 
Festival; in 1970, the Bath Festival. It 
was a great era, especially because my 
parents were so backward looking. They 
were worried about the kind of dangers 
you might encounter in the 1950s. The 
dangers of the 1960s and 1970s were 
not on their radar. They did not know 
what drugs were. They were only con- 
cerned that I might get drunk. One time 
my mom found a cube of hash wrapped 
in silver paper in my pocket and gave it 
back to me. I think she thought I was sav- 
ing metal for the war effort, as they did 
in the 1940s. She had no clue. It was the 
same as having totally permissive par- 
ents. I was uncontrolled and unmolested. 
PLAYBOY: Yet all the while you were get- 
ting a superb education. 

CHILD: It was odd. King Edward’s em- 


bodied an old-fashioned model that was 
already going out of date by the time I 
was there. For a kid like me, British so- 
ciety was structured—the class system. 
For 100 years, this had been the way 
out. You went to this school and then 
to a good university, and you might be- 
come a solicitor or a doctor. That was my 
parents’ hope. But the system was dying 
on its feet. King Edward's was all Latin 
and Greek. I possessed a pragmatic in- 
telligence rather than an academic one. 
I didn't struggle intellectually, but I felt 
parallel to the place. I didn’t understand 
it. What was the point? Give me a prob- 
lem, and I'll solve it. Give me a task, and 
ГИ do it. Tell me to study Virgil and 
Homer, and P'm asking why. 

PLAYBOY: You might have chafed, but you 
didn't rebel. You ended up going to law 
school. Was that to please your parents? 
CHILD: It did please my folks, but that was 
not my reason. It was just that after hav- 
ing been to a school like King Edward's, 
you were on a track where you had to go 
to university. In the British system, you 
do the pinnacle of exams at secondary 
school. Based on your grades, this says 
which university you’re going to. I did 
these exams in June, and then I traveled 
around Europe with friends. I got back, 
and the exam results were there, and 
they were decent. But ГА basically forgot- 
ten I'd taken them, and school was about 
to start. So I went to the library in Bir- 
mingham. In the reference section there 
were university prospectuses. I found 
one that, by the pictures, looked good: 
the University of Sheffield in Yorkshire. 
It had a vacancy in law, which in Britain 
is an undergraduate degree. I thought 
about it a minute and decided, Great. I 
didn't want to be a lawyer, so there would 
be no professional imperative—I would 
not have to graduate at the top of my 
class. But law was an amalgam of things I 
was interested in: history, language, eco- 
nomics and politics. If you don't want to 
be a lawyer, it's a fabulous degree. 
PLAYBOY: What did you want to do? 
CHILD: I wanted to be in theater. It dated 
back to elementary school. The principal 
was a woman obsessed with American 
musicals. Twice a year she put on shows, 
and I loved them. I went out for one, and 
it was one of those awful moments when 
you learn something important about 
yourself. They said, "Okay, sing this." 
I started, never having been told that I 
сап? sing. I didn't understand why ev- 
erybody was looking away. Finally, I real- 
ized. I became a spear carrier, then mi- 
grated backstage and stayed there during 
high school. When I got to university, 1 
worked in the student theater to the point 
I neglected everything else. I should have 
graduated in 1976, but I spent all my 
time on productions and was held back. 
PLAYBOY: It's 1977. You'rea young lawyer 
with theatrical ^ (continued on page 133) 


ағ 
No More M 


Suggested 
Retail $395... 


Wrist for $49 
For a limited 
Time Only 


r. Nice Watch 


Forget sleek and subtle, the Stauer Colossus Hybrid is one tough timepiece...now for less than $50! 


ever underestimate your competition. Just ask 
Demetrius, the unfortunate Greek general who set out 
to conquer Rhodes in 305 BC. He assumed that a massive 
force of 40,000 men, a fleet of Aegean pirates and an 
arsenal of wall-smashing war machines would be enough 
to crush the tiny Greek island. He was wrong. The Rhodians 
were tougher than he thought. And so is this watch. If 
you’ve always believed that the biggest, baddest watches 
had to cost big, bad money, the $49 Stauer Colossus 
‚Hybrid Chronograph is here to change your mind. 
A monument to toughness. The people of Rhodes were 
ready for Demetrius and repelled his attack. To celebrate, 
they built the Colossus of Rhodes, a 107-foot bronze and 
iron giant that towered over the harbor like a ten-story 
trophy. It warned future invaders that “Rhodes is tougher 
than you think.” You give the same message when you 
wear the Stauer Colossus. 
The timepiece that works twice as hard. In design- 
ing the Colossus Hybrid Chronograph, our instructions to 
the watchmaker were clear: build it as tough as a battleship 
and fill it full of surprises. Make it a hybrid, because it 
should work twice as hard as a regular watch. And make 
it look like a million bucks, because when you put it 
on, you should get excited about rolling up your sleeves. 
Mission accomplished. 
A toolbox on your wrist. It will keep you on schedule, 
but the Colossus Hybrid is about much more than time. 
The imposing case features a rotating gunmetal bezel that 
frames the silver, black and yellow face. You’ll find a 
battalion of digital displays on the dial arranged behind a 
pair of luminescent hands and а bold yellow second hand. 


Powered by a precise quartz movement, the watch is 
doubly accurate in analog and digital mode. And it's packed 
with plenty of handy extras including a bright green EL 
back-light for enhanced nighttime visibility, a tachymeter 
along the outer dial and a full complement of alarms and 
split-second countdown timers. The Colossus Hybrid 
secures with a folded steel bracelet that highlights a row of 
striking dark center links. It's a rugged watch that's more 
than ready for your daily grind. 

Your Satisfaction is Guaranteed. Wear the Stauer 
Colossus Hybrid for 30 days and if you are not 100% 
thrilled with your purchase, return it for a full refund of 
your purchase price. But once you get a taste of more watch 
for less money, it's likely you'll be back for more... and we'll 
be waiting. 

WATCH SPECS: -Easy-to-read analog/digital modes -Back-lighting and 
luminescent hands - Tachymeter, countdown timers and alarms 
-Folded stainless steel bracelet fits a 6 3/4"-9" wrist 


Offer Limited to First 4500 Respondents* 


Colossus Hybrid Digital/Analog Watch—$395 
Now $49 +ssp Save $346 
Call now to take advantage of this limited offer. 


1-888-277-8380 


Stauer has a 


Better 

Business. 

Promotional Code CHW410-03 p 
Please mention this code when you call. of At 


Smart Luxuries—Surprising Prices 


14101 Southcross Drive W., Dept. CHW410-03 


Stauere Burnsville, Minnesota 55337 


www.stauer.com 
*Applies to responders to this ad. 


И оп your 


i 


What Stauer Clients Are Saying 
About Our Hybrid Watches 


ЖЖЖЖ 


“Great watch... an 
impressive piece 
straight out 
of the box.” 
-- С. FROM 
COLORADO 


SNÉIKER 


me 


Did Sonny Vaccaro ruin college sports? 
ls he really the right guy to save them? 


BY NEAL GABLER 


o there he was in the late 1970s, tooling around 
5 the country in а rented red or black Thunderbird, 

zipping from college campus to college campus, sit- 
ting down with the basketball coaches, most of whom he 
knew and knew well, telling them he was going to give 
them shoes for their team, gratis, at schools where the 
players had often been wearing secondhand sneakers. 
He would throw in a little gravy for the coach—$5,000 
or $10,000—which he paid with checks from his person- 
al account because the company for which he worked, a 
little $25-million-a-year outfit named Nike, headquar- 
tered in the Oregon boondocks, hadn't given him any 
instructions or a budget. And now here he is at the age 
0f 73, still zipping from campus to campus, but on a dif- 
ferent sort of mission. “I started it off,” Sonny Vaccaro 
acknowledges loudly, standing behind a blond wood 
table and facing a classroom of students at the Univer- 
sity of California at Berkeley. "Nothing was ever done 
clandestine." He tells them of his early Nike days when 


68 


Spur George Gervin; with Michael Jordan, the legend bel 


McGrady, who went straight from high school to the Tort 
his hometown Cleveland Cavaliers and who just won his first 


he began the commercialization of col- 
lege athletics and earned the enduring 
enmity of many collegiate purists. “Гуе 
been called every name in the book,” he 
says. And he has, among them “the last 
don,” “bagman” and “sneaker pimp.” 
But Vaccaro's new mission is not to 
denigrate himself. His mission is to de- 
stroy the National Collegiate Athletic 
Association—the organization that gov- 
erns college sports and has denied its 
athletes any share of the money they 
bring in to their universities while the 
NCAA itself takes a sizable cut. “The 
student athlete is a fiction,” Vaccaro 
told the class, flitting from one indict- 
ment to another. “The majority of the 
athletes do not get their degrees. Ama- 
teurism is not a word; it's a trick.” And 
of the NCAA; 
actually do not! 
After 30 years working successively 
at Nike, Adidas and Reebok, Vaccaro 
no longer peddles sneakers. In fact, he 
hasn't earned a paycheck in five years, 
and when he lectures he pays his own 
travel expenses. He has given more 
than $4 million to various charities 
through his nonprofit foundation. Now 
when he goes from campus to campus, 
he is selling his cause, trying to get stu- 
dents to think about the abuses of col- 
lege sports. The NCAA accuses Vaccaro 
of “overwhelming cynicism” for ques- 
tioning the organization's commitment 
to amateurism and vehemently insists 
it will never pay athletes. Vaccaro has 
facilitated a lawsuit against the NCAA 
that, if successful, may wind up chang- 
ing the face of college sports. He calls it 
a revolution, and he may be right. 
Vaccaro's suit springs from the way 
college athletes are treated, especially 
by the NCAA, a consortium of colleges 
and universities that was formed early 
in the 20th century with the original 
purpose of providing safety regula- 
tions. At the center of the dispute is 
a form that every college athlete is 


astern Michigan 


ШҚ 


digy turned San Antonio 
dans; with Tracy 
e to join 


ionship, with the Miami Heat, this ye 


compelled to sign in order to receive 
a scholarship. According to Jon King, 
one of the head attorneys in Vaccaro's 
case, no university has ever advised an 
athlete to seek legal counsel before sign- 
ing the form, and no athlete has ever 
done so. Athletes just sign. But there 
is a hitch. Although the scholarship is 
guaranteed for only a year, by signing 
the form, athletes also sign away in per- 
petuity the rights to their likenesses as 
college athletes. The NCAA claims that 
athletes retain the rights to their names 
and images as long as they are not 
identified with their college teams, but 
since names and likenesses have little 
value when stripped of their athletic 
associations, these rights are basically 
worthless. Meanwhile, the NCAA sells 
the images and names attached to the 
teams—to ESPN in classic game tapes, 
in DVDs, on vintage jerseys, in game 


"The student athlete is 
a Fiction. Amateurism 
is not a word; it's 


a trick.” 
2 — 


accecato 


ne d 


photos and to the video game manufac- 
turer Electronic Arts. The NCAA makes 
millions. The athletes make nothing. 
What is galling is that when it comes 
to college athletics, we are talking not 
just about millions of dollars in rights 
to former players but ultimately billions 
of dollars in rights to current ones. Ac- 
cording to the Knight Commission, an 
independent agency that monitors col- 
lege sports, the 10 public universities 
with the highest sports budgets spent a 
median of $98 million in 2009, a num- 
ber the organization estimates will rise 


to $250 million by 2020. Duke econo- 
mist Charles Clotfelter says the average 
salary for head football coaches at major 
universities soared from $377,000 in 
1981 to $2.4 million in 2009, both ex- 
pressed in 2009 dollars. And the NCAA 
gets its share of the largesse. In April 
2010 it signed a $10.8 billion contract 
with CBS and Turner Sports for the 
right to televise the next 14 years of 
its March Madness basketball tourna- 
ment. As author Michael Lewis put it 
in a New York Times op-ed about college 
sports, "Everyone associated with it is 
getting rich except the people whose 
labor creates the value." 

How much is a college athlete worth 
to a school? A 2006 study by Robert 
Brown, a professor at Cal State-San 
Marcos, determined that a college 
basketball player who was an NBA 
prospect was worth between $900,000 
and $1.2 million a year in terms of the 
revenue he brought to his team. But 
Brown also found that despite this val- 
ue, the University of North Carolina, 
to cite one example, awarded a total 
of $318,097 in scholarships that year 
to its entire basketball team. A more 
recent study, by the National College 
Players Association, an advocacy group 
for college athletes, determined that 
the average Football Bowl Subdivision 
player was worth $121,048 per season 
and the average Division I basket- 
ball player $265,027. But remember, 
that's the average over all the FBS and 
Division I teams. The numbers are 
much higher at the highest-revenue- 
producing schools. According to the 
NCPA, the average football player at the 
University of Texas is worth $513,922 
per season, and the average Duke 
basketball player $1,025,656. And yet 
the NCPA estimates that 85 percent of 
big-time college athletes live below the 
poverty level, with an average short- 
fall of $3,222 between what they get in 
scholarship money and what it costs to 
meet their living expenses. 

This is what Vaccaro says riles him. 
He willingly admits he helped create 
what he calls a “cesspool” of money 
that leads to (continued on page 136) 


"Well, if you'd told me a little sooner that you wanted me to go as 
Lady Godiva, I wouldn't have cut my hair!” 


of a Harley-Davidson Night Rod. Road-trip to somewhere wild—Siberia, perhaps, ог Alaska—and check in to a cool hotel. Blast some music. “L.A. Woman” will 

do the job. She's a huge Jim Morrison fan. Buy her an awesome dinner. No ice cream or chocolate for this vixen: she'll skip dessert, thank you. That's how you 
get Kamila excited. She may look innocent, but trust us, she's a rock-and-roller, and she can raise hell with the best of them. When it comes to the opposite sex. she 
knows what she wants—or more to the point, what she doesn't. “They must not be selfish and self-centered,” she says. “Then they are not real men." Whatever you 
do, don't piss off Kamila. She is an experienced martial artist. Think you have what it takes? Congratulations: You've just met your ultimate Czech mate. 


Ее” and a candlelit dinnerwon't do it for Kamila Hermanová. She wants action. If you want to seduce this searingly hot Prague model, throw her on the back 


PLAYBOY GUIDE 
TO TAILGATING 


ith your college years behind you—and college football season 
upon us—it's high time your tailgating party graduated from 
N supermarket hot dogs and plastic cups of beer. Our upscale 

upgrade features a surf-and-turf grilling menu worthy of an Iron 
Chef (Wolfgang Puck, to be exact), top-shelf champagne cocktails 
(from the world's greatest bar, no less) and the coolest vintage- 

д inspired fashion and gear. Take a cue from the following pages 
and you may need to put up a velvet rope. 


=== PHOTOGRAPHY BY TONY KELLY / FASHION BY JENNIFER RYAN JONES === 


License 
to Grill 


FOUR WAYS TO UPGRADE 
YOUR GRILLING GAME 


FASHION (preceding pages) 
1 


Get Wood 


Pit masters will tell you 
the best way to grill is 
over real hardwood 
coals. В5-В oak lump 
charcoal burns hot and 
clean and adds the fra- 
grance of real wood 
smoke to your party. Be 
sure to bring along a 
charcoal chimney starter 
to fire it up. ($23 for 20 
pounds, bbcharcoal.com) 


Use Real Tongs 

Another vital pit-master tip: Don't buy 

a “BBQ set” with clumsy tongs and an 
oversize, serrated-edge spatula. A set of long- 
handled, restaurant-style tongs will work 
better, and you can use them in your kitchen 
the rest of the year. (Edlund 16-inch tongs 
with lock, $16, edlundco.com) 


Cook Like an Iron Chef 
Football season comes but once a year, so cook 
something to stand out from the burgers-and- 
brats crowd. We enlisted Wolfgang Puck—yes, 
the godfather of all that is luxurious and deli- 
cious in food—to give us a recipe for grilled 
lobster with spicy herbed butter and tips on 
how to grill the perfect steak. (See page 82.) 


Prep School 

Split those lobsters and slice those succulent 
steaks on a burly hardwood cutting board. 
(590, jkadams.com) 


THE BAR CART 


„©. 


№ 
| TAILGATE COCKTAIL GUIDE \ 


Perfect pairings for a gentleman’ tailgate 


{ THE CROWNED CHAMPION } 


1 ounce Crown Royal Black 
5 oz triple sec 

1 splash of grenadine 

3 ounces of club soda 


Combine the first three ingredients in a 
high ball glass with ice, top with Club soda. 


Garnish with a lime and serve. 
mm 
Ay 


{ CROWN ROYAL NEW FASHIONED } 


1 oz. Crown Royal Deluxe Blended Whisky 
0.5 oz. amaretto liqueur 

0.25 oz. simple syrup 

3 dashes bitters 

1 orange peel 


Stir ingredients in a shaker with ice. 
Strain into rocks glass. 
Serve chilled neat and garnish 


with an orange ресі. 
BLACK 


ROBUST, ғ 


{ CROWN ROYAL PRESS ) 


1.5 о. Crown Royal Deluxe Blended Whisky 7 
3 dashes bitters / 
2 squeezed lemon wedges 
Т splash lemon-lime soda 


Пена y =< 
Serve on the rocks and top | | Сола. 


with lemon-lime soda. 
Garnish with a lemon and serve. 


THE CALL COULD GO 
EITHER WAY 


A 


Respect me 
Cocktail 


SERVE A DRINK THAT'S SOPHISTICATED, 
SPARKLING AND STRONG—LIKE YOU 


Nightingale Cocktail 


2 dashes 
oz. Regans" 
Bulleit rye RR champagne flute. Top with prosecco. Squeeze 
%oz. 2 
E Coma Prosecco, Garnish with рее! 
elderflower ед 
liqueur Orange peel 


peel, skin side down, into drink to release arom: 


Earlier this year, the Var- 
nish, a mixologically 
inclined speakeasy in 
downtown Los Angeles, 
was voted best bar in the 
country at Tales of the 
Cocktail, the Oscars of | хи 
the bartending world 
We enlisted their tal- 
ented barmen to create a 
high-octane twist on the 
champagne cocktail 


1. GO VINTAGE 3. GLASS ACT 


4.TRAY CHIC 


2. BLANKET 


STATEMENT 5. СЕТА COOLER 


COOLER 


Shake first three ingredients with ісе and strain into a 


ran 


81 


82 


As if two incredibly masculine pro- 


~l = 
La 2 teins weren't enough, you'll be grilling 


WOLFGANG PUCK'S DREAM GRILL | juicy medium rare. 


Grilled Lobster 
With Spicy Herbed Butter 


Serves four. 


1 Ib. unsalted butter, softened 
3 cloves garlic, chopped 


1 red jalapeño, seeds and white 
membranes removed, chopped 


М cup chopped Italian parsley 
Juice of 1 lemon 

3 tbsp. chopped chives 

Salt 

Freshly ground black pepper 

2 lobsters, about 1% lbs. each 

6 lemon wedges 

Extra virgin olive oil, for drizzling 


them over hardwood. / 


says, "Grill this," you're advised to 


As tro tur listen, Here's how he grills his lobster. 
As for ste: cook well-salted one-and- 


a-half-inch-thick New York strips to a 


The day before: In food processor, combine butter, garlic, 
jalapeño, parsley, lemon juice and chives. Season with salt and 
pepper and process until well combined. Refrigerate. 


Game day: Preheat grill to high. To kill each lobster instantly, 
place tip of large chef's knife one inch behind the eyes, then 
slice blade downward between the eyes in one swift motion 
Split lobsters in half lengthwise. Brush meat of lobsters with 
melted herbed butter, about one tablespoon per lobster half. 
Place lobsters on grill, flesh side down, and cook until meat 
has grill marks and starts to turn opaque and firm up, about 
five minutes. 


Turn lobsters over and grill an additional five to six minutes, 
brushing with more butter, if desired. Remove lobsters and 
place on a large platter. Squeeze lemon wedges over tail meat, 
drizzle with olive oil and serve. 


if that weren't 


enough, you'll be doing it the way 
wur and Wolfgang Puck does. And when Puck 


’s Halloween!” 


on, sweetie—it 


"Come 


83 


Ц Top 
PARTY 
SCHOOLS ;) 


А H AA “UVA is a work hard, play hard kind 
University of Virginia 2 сава 
of environment. You сап hang 
i out at the Corner, you can go to а 
Raise a glass to UVA, whose students know a thing or two Y 
about raising glasses-and everything else important to this HOUSE party for beer Olympics or 
list. The Cavaliers placed an uninspiring 16th in sports but 
more than made up for it in nightlife and sex, finishing УОИ PAN SBB а huge band play at 


number three and number two, respectively. According to the basketball arena." 


our math, two plus three equals one. Party on! 


e... ө ө ө ө ө ө ө ө ө ө е ө ө ө ө ө ө ө ө ө ө ө ө ө ө ө ө ө ө ө ө ө ө ө ө ө ө ө о 


KAZ KOMOLAFE, Politics, Class of 2014 


University of Southern California 


Like SMU (see right), USC offers the best of both worlds. College life is augmented by a thriving Greek 
system, a national championship-caliber football team and countless southern California coeds. Mean- 
while, big-city Ше in Los Angeles includes the Sunset Strip, Venice Beach and budding starlets 


.......................o.....o...... ө ө ө ө ө ө ө ө ө 


H H H The college edition of Tebow mania is over, bu 
ERA University of Florida та 
4 University of Texas B Tulane University 
5 University of Wisconsin 9 Texas Christian University 
B University of Georgia 10 Ohio State University 
7 Vanderbilt University 


"о 


PH SPURTINGTIFE 
Ohio State University 


PHTNIGHTEIFE 


Southern Methodist 


Tired of Solo cups of warm beer? 
At SMU, Dallas is your never- 
ending house party. The num- 
ber ofbars within Dallas County: 
around 2,000, including Idle Rich 
Pub, the campus hot spot that 
best describes the student body. 


PATSEXLIFE 


of North Carolina 


Tar Heel women possess a trio 
of virtues: They're plentiful (out- 
numbering male students 10 to 
seven), they're beautiful (ranking 
among the best looking, accord- 
ing to student-generated website 
College Prowler), and they're pro- 
gressive (see below). 


° о ө ө ө ө ө ө ө ө ө ө ө ө ө ө ө ө ә ө ө ө ө ө ө е ө ө ө е ө ө ө ө ө ө ө ө ө ө ө ө ө ө ө ө 


In Columbus, top-notch tailgat- 
ing is rivaled only by the games 
themselves. Whether it's basket- 
ball, football or fencing, Buckeye 
athletes typically dominate the 
competition—as does the rabid 
Buckeye fan base. 


“During really big games, 


222 people never sit. “The har scene at SMU 
Ninety percent of my They're on their feet definitely dominates- 
friends SAS from start to finish. The everyone is all about 
an enjoyable experi- energy pulses through- + going to the bar and 
ence that both men and out the stadium. It's balling out.” 
Мата capable of very exciting.” COLTON MOYER, International Studies, 
initiating and desiring.” JIM LODICO, OSU graduate and sports 283507208 
RACHEL BEST, English, Class of 2013 blogger at thebuckeyeblog.com 

> BEST OFTHE REST 

> BEST OFTHE REST > BEST OFTHE REST University of Pennsylvania 
New York University. University of Michigan Stevens Institute 
Georgetown University Texas AGM University of Technology 
UCLA Stanford University Northwestern University 
Yale University Auburn University Lehigh University 
Syracuse University University of Notre Dame University of Denver 

> WORST OF THE REST > WORST OFTHE REST > WORST OFTHE REST 
Colorado School of Mines Yeshiva University Brigham Young University. 


* о ө ө ө ө ө ө ө ө ө ө ө ө ө ө ө ө ө ө ө ө ө ө ө ө ө ө ө ө ө ө ө ө ө ө ө ө ө ө ө ө ө ө ө ө 


e. ө ө ө ө е ө ө ө ө ө о . о ө ө ө ө ө е ө ө ө ө в ee. ө ө ө ө ө ө ө ө ө ө е 


> WORST OVERALL Excellent science program? Of course. Anything else? Not really. 
PARTY SCHOOL Life is so rough at ESF, which sits on the Syracuse campus, that no 
one from Syracuse knows it exists. But with all that time its students 


have to study, in 10 years you'll likely be calling an ESF grad “sir.” 
SUNY College of ai Бра Sea 1 5 E 


“Gorgeous girls are scarce, but ESF is 
perfect if you want to he around peo- 


pm ETUC UC Д ple who have the same type of focus.” 


IAN MACKS, Biotechnology, Class of 2015 


> WORST ПЕТНЕ REST Worcester Polytechnic Institute University of California, Riverside 
Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute California Institute of Technology Tufts University 


AAA 


86 


“Here comes Howard now!” 


Vs 


“Pm afraid we'll have no chance of curing your husband until 
we find out why he changed into a banana." 


"Gee, Amelia, I’m really very sorry you won't “Well, I guess that's the last time the Cullings ever 
be able to make it here tonight.” invite us over!” 


IN 


боол Willom 


"That's the city for you—you live next to someone for years 
and never even catch a glimpse of them.” 


> 


STEPHEN HAN 


ЕРІП 


Looking back at our 
conversation with the 
intellectual successor 

to Albert Einstein about 
how our universe 
really began 


ow did all this—we, this Earth, this 
H uva pete 

That's not an easy question, but 
it’s the one Stephen Hawking has de 
his life to answering. The theoretical physi- 


cist, who is perhaps the world’s most influ- 
ential li 


icated 


z scientist, has received almost 
every тай and in 2009 
President Obama awarded him the Presi- 
dential Medal of Freedom. Many call him 
the intellectual successor to Albert Ei 
ect of our Ар 


science pr 


stein, and he was the sub; 
1990 Playboy Interview. 
Currently director of research at the Center 
for Theoretical Cosmology at the University 
bridge, Hawking broke ground with 
his theories about the basic laws that explain 


the cosmos. Some of his most important theo- 
rems picked up where Einstein's left off. He 
sible for much of what's known about 
black holes and the birth of our universe. 
Hawking isn't known only for his ivory- 


is respa 


tower research but also for books he au- 
thored that explain physi 


They're some of the bigg 


to nonscientists. 


st-selling science 


books in history; his seminal A Brief History 
of Time sold more than 10 million copies. 
The New Yorker called it a book of “sunny 
brilliance.” It was followed by The Universe 
in a Nutshell, A Briefer History of Time and 
his latest number on 
Design, in which Hawking describes the па- 
ture of reality and what has been called “the 
theory of everything.” 

Hawking’s accomplishments would һе 


best-seller, The Grand 


remarkable under any circumstances, but 
they 
nearly 50 years age 
ALS, or Lou Gehrig’s disease, a ¢ 
I ill As the di 
gressed, Hawking's physical abilities dimin- 
ished. First he couldn't walk. Soon he couldn't 
speak. In spite of this, he continued his re- 
rch and writing—and he was able to grant 
views like this one, 


traordinary because, 
sed with 


^n more € 


he was diag 


vastating 
and often fal 


e pro- 


computer he controlled with the few fi 
1 voice 
oke 


on a Pink Floyd song and on episodes of Star 


was capable of moving. His synthesiz 


has become famous. Hawking has 


Trek: The Next Generation and The Simpsons. 

Hawking, who is now 70, has been mar- 
ried twice and has three children; he still 
lives in Oxford, which is where, 22 years 
Morgan Strong, met 
Strong wrote that the scien- 
bly frail a all: He could 
1 more than 100 pound: 


ago, our interviewe 
him. At the time. 
tist “looked tei 
not have wei 


Nonetheless, over several days, for several 
hours a day, working in his home, office and 
a faculty dini 
patiently 


room at Oxford, Hawking 


swered Strong's question: 


Excerpted from the April 1990 issue 


PLAYBOY: Can you tell us a little about 
ly life, before the secrets of the 


¿ht your interest? 


your ei 


universe c 
HAWKING: | was born on January 
1942--300 years to the day after the death 
of Galileo. (continued on page 145) 


BY DAVID HOCHMAN 
PHOTOGRAPHY BY MATTHIAS CLAMER 


THE COMIC TURNED ACTOR (AND DRUGGED-OUT BAD BOY TURNED VEGAN GENTLEMAN) 
TALKS ABOUT HIS NEWFOUND MONOGAMY WITH KRISTEN BELL, HIS LIFE WITHOUT 


COCAINE AND BOOZE AND HIS NOT-SO-SECRET MAN CRUSH ОМ BURT REYNOLDS 


01 

PLAYBOY: Is success what you thought it would be? 
SHEPARD: Oh God no, but it's impossible to know until you've 
had success that it doesn't alter your daily struggles. When | 
was a struggling Groundling, | thought if | had the life | have 
now | wouldn't have to brush my teeth anymore and could eat 
cupcakes all day. In fact, | have to do the same shit I've always 
had to do to not feel miserable, which is work out, journal, eat 
well, do something for somebody other than myself at some 
point every day-even if it's just the dogs, those little fuckers. 


02 

PLAYBOY: So was that really you driving like an outlaw in 
Hit e- Run? 

SHEPARD: One hundred percent. I'm from Detroit, and my 
life has been driving cars. In high school it was drag racing. 
Then | worked for GM because my mother had a company that 
put on big car shows for journalists. We'd rent out Michigan 
International Speedway, and | got tons and tons of seat time 
in these crazy cars that a 16-year-old should never be allowed 
to drive. | fucking love cars, and I've wanted to do а car-chase 
movie all my life. 


03 
PLAYBOY: Correct us again, but it also appears that your 
superhot, superfamous co-star and fiancée, Kristen Bell, was 
actually buckled in alongside you. 
SHEPARD: For every bit of it. Naturally the producer had 
booked a stunt double, but Kristen said to me, "No. If you're 
driving through a barn and jumping other cars, | need to be in 
there with you. We're going to go out together.” 


and a father and all thos For 
we were together that was what we b; 


95 

PLAYBOY: How terrifying were you exactly? 

SHEPARD: It's so weird when you turn 18 and are released inte 

the world and then just start piling on terrible habits. Ғгот18 (| 
to 29 | was a heavy smoker, heavy drinker, drug addict, terrible | 
eater and philanderer. The past eight years, since | got sober, | 
have honestly been about trying to peel back each of those — 
habits, to get back to the 12% old kid inside who was ` 
tremendously excited about life. 


EL 
ме us a snapshot of yo 
SHEPARD: | just loved to get fucked-up-di 
ates, marijuana, diet pills, pain pills, ү! 
was Jack Daniel's and cocaine. | was. іп 

day night to have a couple of beers, and thatjust el 

Saturday night. | would meet people here and there, and 
be in a hotel room with four strangers. Oh, they're tappi 
Well, someone new showed up. Well, what's your nam 


E 


meeting weird people. Of course, (continued on page 


92 


ТН 
ARTIST 


THE COLORFUL 
WORID OF 
MISS OCTOBER 


Us an indisputable fact: Art 

envelops every aspect of Pamela 

Horton's life. “I embrace any 

art form," says the 24-year-old 
multimedia artiste from Kansas. 
"I've delved into everything— 
acrylics, pastels, sculpting and even 
glassblowing.” Inspiration has a ten- 
dency to strike her at will. “When 
І hear a song—especially a Queen 
song—I picture an image in my 
head that I must immediately put 
down on paper. Гуе also always 
loved video games and comic books, 
so when I paint in oil, I start with 
something realistic, but it inevitably 
scoots off into cartoon territory. I'm 
definitely prone to the fantastic!" 
Pamela actually began her career 
on the other side of the canvas— 
as a nude model. "There are very 
few nude models in Kansas because 
it's such a conservative place. But 
I think the human body is God's 
greatest artistic creation, so I have 
always been totally comfortable 
posing nude. I see myself—and 
everyone else—as a piece of art." 
Since we consider Pamela a mas- 
terpiece, we enlisted her for our 
cover in addition to her duties 
as Miss October. *I've had many 
blessings in my life, but this double 
whammy is the biggest of them all," 
says Pamela, who attended Wichita 
State University for two years with 
the intention of becoming a chil- 
dren's art therapist. “I loved school, 
and I'm dying to return," she says. 
“But for now, my head is reeling 
from the opportunity before me. 
Catch me before І faint, because 
this is the most emotional moment 
of my entire life!” 


See more of Miss October at 
playboy.com. 


PLAYBOY’S PLAYMATE OF THE MONTH 


MISS OCTOBER 


AA = 
МОЛ ) | 


PLAYMATE DATA SHEET 


МАМЕ: Pamela Norton 

co RUE, _ WAIST: ООА НІР5: 35 ё 

НЕІСНТ ТАЕ СК wesen МО lbs. _ == - 

BIRTH DATE: . 05104188 _ BIRTHPLACE: Whi ¡ev alifornia 

amos. 1D Work for A Well-nmon vided Game Company 

05 a OMON desianer. Acting wouldnt be bad. Чу 

TURN-ONS : A man Cor DS wn 0. ue s 
юр а afraid + 

rurvores: СЫМ WIND ConA pem q vum for who 

-Meu ave on Me inside. Thanks foc Minti 


I'm oe ins ayl = i \ (бб йб, 
FELINE PALS: ола ole \ ANO 
Srwaalos From 00 icre Tome, 
MY CONFESSION: Y om a v NOS! 
шо wu Oper tom, TA e Ju! 
MY FAVORITE ARTIST: i m ePivritel uniaue 
ivkbog ete T Wowvá pest! 


мт nero: FRE MANCO, Me (ttiv ERE! 595 


vddling, Moose, m 20 biandı 
Su 72 


a N ny 
аа 


PLAYBOY’S PARTY JOKES 


Were you faking it last night?” a man asked 
his wife. 

“No, darling,” his wife told him. “I really 
was asleep.” 


А woman and her boyfriend were having 
an argument. The woman screamed at him, 
“Leave! Get out of this house!” 

Resigned, the boyfriend headed for the door. 
But the woman continued. “I hope you die a 
slow and painful death!” she yelled. 

He turned around and asked, “So now you 
want me to stay?” 


Dia you hear about the blind hooker? 
You have to hand it to her. 


Ive got good news for you, ma’am,” a doctor 
told one of his patients. 

“Oh, please don't call me ma'am,” said the 
patient. “I’m too young, and I'm not even 
married yet.” 

“Oh,” said the doctor. 
some bad news for you.. 


“In that case, I have 


One evening two nuns were walking down the 
street when a vampire jumped out of an alley 
and headed toward them. 

“What should we do?” one of the nuns asked 
the other. 

“Show him your cross,” the second answered. 

“Okay,” the first said. She then turned to the 
vampire and yelled, “You'd better not mess 
with us—I'm really pissed right now.” 


А despondent man was drowning his sorrows 
at a friend's house when the friend expressed 
concern about his overconsumption of liquor. 
“Aw, leave me alone,” the man moaned. 
“Nobody cares if I drink myself to death.” 
“I do,” the friend replied. "You're drinking 
my booze." 


Double standards are unfair: Ifa woman has sex 
with a bunch of men, she's called a slut; ifa guy 
does the same thing, he's called a homosexual. 


А man came down with the flu and was forced 
to stay home for a day. He was happy with the 
experience, however, because he learned how 
much his wife loved him: She was so thrilled to 
have him around that when a deliveryman or 
the mailman arrived, she ran out and yelled, 
*My husband is home! My husband is home!" 


The best advice we can provide this Halloween 
season: Never moon a werewolf. 


А man was unhappy with his wife's emotional 
swings, so he bought her a mood ring to gauge 
her temperament. He found that when she was 
in a good mood the ring glowed green, and 
when she was in a bad mood it left a big red 
mark in the middle of his forehead. 


А man saw his ex at the mall. *I thought of you 
the other night while having sex," he told her. 
“You must really miss me,” she said. 
“No,” he said, “it just keeps me from coming 
too quickly.” 


=> 
P Amen 


Му wife says picking my nose is disgusting,” a 
man told his co-worker. 

“So what?” the co-worker asked. 

The guy answered, “Now I have to do 
it myself" 


А good-looking woman was having a bad day 
at the tables in Las Vegas. Down to her last 
$100 and completely exasperated, she cried, 
“What in the world should I do now?” 

The gentleman sitting next to her, feeling 
on the spot, calmly suggested, “Why don't you 
play your age?” 

So she put all her money on 29, and when 
36 hit, she fainted. 


Send your jokes to Playboy Party Jokes, 9346 
Civic Center Drive, Beverly Hills, California 
90210, or by e-mail to jokes@playboy.com. 
PLAYBOY will pay $100 to the contributors whose 
submissions are selected. 


> 7 
A 


A 
3 
3 

8 
8 
$ 

в 

S 
* 

У) 
ЕЗ 
Š 

Е 

о 
бр 


ШШ 
ШШ: 


IN THE BOOM-AND-BUST BILLION-DOLLAR CELL PHONE 
VIDEO GAME BUSINESS, TODAY'S CINDERELLA 
STORY IS TOMORROW’S OLD NEWS. MEET THE PLAYERS- 
THE WINNERS AND THE LOSERS—IN THE MOST HIGH- 
STAKES GAMING BATTLE OF ALL TIME 


Ey David Kushner 
Саон by Johar Lazar 


arly in 2012 the biggest story in the video 

game industry came down to one word: 

booty. “Booty” is among the word clues in 

Draw Something, the cell phone game that 

has swept the planet. To play, you choose 
a word from a list of three and then draw a pic- 
ture ofit on your screen. Once you're done, you 
send it to the phone of your opponent, who has 
to guess what you drew. It's kind of like Piction- 
ary for the iPhone generation. 

The secret of the game's appeal із that you can 
draw whatever you want. That gives it an edge over 
the other big games of our time—Angry Birds, Call 
of Duty: Modern Warfare 3, etc.—because it lets you 
express your personality and, when words like booty 
come up, your twisted imagination. While a kid 
might draw pirate treasure, adults might sketch 
something more lascivious. 

Although only some of the clues are double 
entendres, there are websites devoted to Draw 
Something porn (like Draw Something Dirty). As 
one player joked in a tweet, "I played Draw Some- 
thing for about two days, then I remembered I 

104 could masturbate." 


When а game is monopolizing peo- 
ple's masturbation time, you know 
it's a hit. Released without fanfare for 
iPhones and Androids in February, Draw 
Something became the biggest overnight 
sensation in recent gaming history. In 
its first couple of months, players down- 
loaded it more than 50 million times, 
generating hundreds of thousands 
of dollars a day for Draw Something's 
maker, OMGPOP—impressive booty 
for a game that cost less than six fig- 
ures to make. In fact, six weeks after the 
game came out, OMGPOP—which had 
been on the verge of going out of busi- 
ness, another start-up tech firm headed 
quietly down the toilet—was bought by 
Zynga, the onetime video 
game publishing behemoth, 
for $210 million. There's 


even a TV show in develop- 
ment based on the game. 

In the beginning, the strato- 
spheric rise of Draw Something. 
was thought to epitomize the 
new gold rush that's turning mobile- 
game developers such as Dan Porter, 
Draw Something's unlikely creator, into 
titans. Porter had one thing to tell the 
jealous game makers who disparaged 
his sudden success. "We're fucking mak- 
ing money," he said with a devilish grin 
when I interviewed him in April. “We're 
making a lot of money. We're the hottest 
company in tech. I'm like, 'Dude, we're 
destroying you!" 

But with so much money at stake, and 
so many players grabbing for it, today's 
rising star can burn out tomorrow. And 
by summer, gamers were asking if Por- 
ter would eat his words. 


ж 

Striking it big in video games is one of the 
most contemporary of American dreams. 
With nothing more than a cool idea and 
computer code, a geek in a hoodie can 
make hundreds of millions. The dream 
oftechnologically inclined college grads 
used to be to work in movies or on Wall 
Street. Today? Young adults out of Ivy 
League schools dream of hitting it big 

working in their basements. 
The dream began in the early 1970s 
when Nolan Bushnell, a gangly young 
106 Mormon from Utah, launched the first 


great American video game company, 
Atari. Over the next decade— which 
became known as the golden age of video 
games—home and arcade hits from Don- 
key Kong to Defender seeded Pac-Man fever 
among the next generation of players. 

With the personal-computer boom 
in the 1990s, intrepid coders rose to 
power by making and distributing 
games over the nascent internet. Start- 
ups such as id Software (creator of the 
seminal first-person shooters Doom 
and Quake) and Epic Games (maker 
of action hits Unreal and Gears of War) 
proved they could compete with the 
Nintendos of the world. 

As id Software co-founder and self- 


From left: The entrance to Zynga's San Francisco headquarters is called “the light tunnel”; Dan Porter, CEO of 
 OHGPOP a tiny start-up that Zynga bought or $210 million; Nolan Bushnell, the first superstar game creator. 


ж 


STRIKING IT BIG 
IN VIDEO GAMES IS ONE OF 
THE MOST CONTEMPORARY 
OF AMERICAN DREAMS 


ж 


made millionaire John Carmack once 
told me, “In the information age, the 
barriers just aren't there. The barriers 
аге self-imposed. If you want to set off 
and go develop some grand new thing, 
you don't need millions of dollars of 
capitalization. You need enough pizza 
and Diet Coke to stick in your refrig- 
erator, a cheap PC to work on and the 
dedication to go through with it.” 
The pizza and Cokes are paying off 
more than ever today but not in the 
way the major video game companies 
expected. Now that we're all living our 
lives on smartphones, game playing is 
migrating from our Xboxes and Wiis to 
our iPhones and Androids. According to 
a March 2012 report by the NPD Group, 
a market research firm, traditional 
video game sales dropped 25 percent, 


to $1.1 billion, compared with a year 
earlier. Even Nintendo, the most storied 
console maker in history, is taking a hit, 
with more than $500 million in losses 
in its latest fiscal year—its first reported 
loss in 30 years. Meanwhile, annual rev- 
enue from mobile games is projected to 
more than triple, from $5 billion today 
to $16 billion by 2016. 

When people first began talking 
about the new mobile-gaming gold 
rush, all conversation came back to the 
elephant in the room—or rather the big 
red bird in the room. Angry Birds, the 
game that forged the market, flew in 
from out of nowhere (Espoo, Finland) 
three years ago to perch atop the ¡Tunes 

charts. Despite its absurd 
premise—slinging birds at 
pigs—the game has become 


the go-to finger fix for cell 
phone addicts. The title has 
been downloaded more than 
a billion times and generated 
more than $100 million last 
year for its creator, Rovio, which, worth 
an estimated $9 billion, is now in the 
ranks of Finland's most-valued compa- 
nies, alongside Nokia. 

With that kind of money at stake, 
aspiring game developers have one 
question on their minds: How do they 
make the next Angry Birds, when odds 
are they're just going to lay an egg? 


ж 


There аге a couple of things you 
notice when you walk into the Man- 
hattan offices where Draw Something 
was developed. The first is the big red 
foam numero uno fingers with the word 
Zynga printed on the side. One morn- 
ing this spring, the Zynga fingers were 
everywhere inside this bright, airy loft 
in SoHo. They were tacked to cubicles 
where 60-some employees pecked dili- 
gently at computers. They were resting 
on big red beanbags and piled on red 
and white pom-poms. There was plenty 
of celebrating going on after OMGPOP 
sold to Zynga. At the time the sale went 
down, Zynga was the gold standard of 
social gaming companies—the in crowd. 

The other thing you notice is that 
each of the conference rooms is dedi- 
cated to a drug (continued on page 142) 


= 
ЗІН 
В 
LI 
— 
НЕСІ ХУ 
} A ^ 
f ` 4 
| | 
| A 
u 
\ 2 


= = 
ГІЗ 


ава 


» | 7 
at ) 
-— pj ER А р 
А а 


= 


E. ! 
FI 
ЕЩ = 


o ER 
mum 
És 


"You'll find all the books on sexual self-help in this section." 


108 


KICKING OFF THE LEAGUE'S 93RD 
SEASON — SCANDAL, HUGELY 
ANTICIPATED ROOKIES AND OUR 
SURPRISE PICK TO WIN IT ALL 


PLAYBOY 


BY RICK GOSSELIN 


stats. In these algebraic puzzles lie the answers to 

‚most pressing questions. As the NFI's 93rd season gets 

ғау, here are a few eye-openers. (1) It pays to be second 

best. 125 been nine years since the best team in the regular season 

on the Super Bowl (the New England Patriots in 2003). The Green Bay 
Packers bulldozed 15 wins last season, then lost their first playoff game. 
The following teams all headed into the postseason in recent years with 
the best record and failed to win the Super Bowl: New England (14-2 in 
2010; 16-0 in 2007), Indianapolis (14-2 in 2009 and 2005), Tennessee 
(13-3 in 2008), San Diego (14-2 in 2006) and Pittsburgh (15-1 in 2004). 
(2) There's a direct correlation in the NFL between tackling the quarterback 
‘and winning Lombardi Trophies. Six of the past eight Super Bowl cham- 
pions ranked in the top three in sacks. Today's NFL is all about the passer 
and the pass rush. (3) Speaking of passing, Tom Brady (who threw for 
an AFC-best 5,235 yards and 39 touchdowns last season) is 35. Only four 
quarterbacks have won Super Bowls at his age or older: Johnny Unitas at 


37 (1970), Roger Staubach at 35 (1978), Jim Plunkett at 36 (1984) and John — рс 


Elway back-to-back at 37 and 38 (1998 and 1999). Will Brady stock Just | 
for Men in his locker this year? Age hurts in the NFL. His rival Peyton Man- 
ning, who had carer-compromising neck surgery last year, can relate. ( 
Our final stat: the number zero. That's how many snaps two of the п 


THE BIG GUNS 


NEXT-GEN QBS WILL 
TAKE ON THE VETERANS 


D m. 
[TOM BRADY 5 
A fourth Super Bow! ring would tie the 
record, At35, does he have the gas? 


ANDREW LUCK (709 
The most exciting rookle OB In years. 
The next Manning or the next Ryan Leaf? 


| ROBERT GRIFFIN I EEE 
| ‘Born in Japan, RG3 was the second over- 
ЕШТЕ 


| | 


A 


ELI MANNING (770 PEYTON MANNING Broncos 
Big brother: one Super Bowl ring. Can he come back after neck surgery? 
little brother: two! ‚As a Bronco? Time for kickoff... 


= —+ == =з ез = — = =з = — o mm 


—— — = 


IO The free-agent additions of Mario Williams 
and Mark Anderson give the BUFFALO BILLS some pass rush- 
ers. Things could get hot at Ralph Wilson Stadium this year. 


ШИ Who etse? TOM BRADY. He was better at 34 in 2011 than 
he was when he won three Super Bowls in his 205. The older 
he gets, the better Brady plays. He was 27-5 as a starter in 
his last two seasons—but 0-2 in his last two Super Bowls. 


NEW ENGLAND once again. The schedule Б light. 
The addition of wideout Brandon Lloyd gives Brady speed to 
stretch the defense, thus strengthening the dynamic tight-end 
duo of Rob Gronkowski and Aaron Hernandez. The Patriots have 
the longest stretch of dominance in the NFL, with eight division 
titles in the past nine seasons. This season will be no different. 


ШЇЇ CINCINNATI. With ball hawk Dre Kirkpatrick 
the Bengals have added one of college football's slickest 
Cornerbacks to an already top 10 defense. Will he be healthy? 
The Bengals will be hunting for their first back-to-back play- 
off seasons in 30 years. 


[ШЙ RAY RICE is the game's most complete running back. 
He led all AFC backs in receptions last season and finished 
second in the NFL in rushing yards. No wonder the Ravens 
signed him to a new $40 million contract. 


The Steelers and the Ravens finished in a dead 
heat a year ago—one of the most exciting (and violent) rival- 
ries in any sport. The Ravens have likely lost Pro Bow! pass 
rusher Terrell Suggs for 2012 with an Achilles tendon injury. 
That gives the edge to the STEELERS. 


DEIS A summer-long contract holdout spoiled the 
2011 season of former 2,000-yard rusher Chris Johnson and his 
Titans. He's back, and so is TENNESSEE as a playoff contender. 


Houston’s ANDRE JOHNSON is in the conversation with 
Detroit's Calvin Johnson as the best receiver in the NFL. The 
Texan wasn't healthy in 2011, and in Matt Schaub he has a 
quarterback with a rocket arm to get him the ball. 


( ДЯ The best team in Texas this year won't be Amer- 
ica's Team. Itl be the HOUSTON Texans. Schaub's Lisfranc 
injury kept the Texans from realizing how good a team they 
could be in 2011-and yet they still made the playoffs. Like 
Johnson, Schaub returns healthy for 2012. Coming off their 
first division championship, the Texans are in the hunt again. 


DIST OAKLAND. An off-season program should give 

quarterback Carson Palmer the chance to get back up to speed 
asa playoff-caliber quarterback. The resurgence of star run- 
ning back Darren McFadden, injured for much of last season, 
gives Palmer an explosive weapon out of the backfield. 


[ITA PHILP RIVERS is the only AFC quarterback to pass for 
4,000 yards each of the past four seasons. At 30, the Charger 
still has plenty of tread left on his tires. 


(ӘЛІГЕ SAN DIEGO. The 22nd-ranked defense gets 
a boost with three top draft picks. (Defensive end Melvin 
Ingram's arms are as big as fire hydrants.) If Rivers minimizes 
his turnovers, the Chargers will again be the best in the West. 


TEXANS 


PACKERS 


IET When coach Mike Shanahan has a quarterback, 
he wins big. He wona Super Bowl as offensive coordinator ofthe 
ASersin 1994 with Steve Young, then two moreas head coach of 
the Broncos with John Elway. How quickly rookie Robert Griffin I 
progresses will determine how quickly the REDSKINS contend. 


ША LESEAN “SHADY” MCCOY. The Philadelphia running 
back’s 20 touchdowns led the NFL last season, and his 1309 
rushing yards ranked second in the NFC. McCoy is to the NFC 
what Ray Rice sto the АК. 


TETUR PHILADELPHIA. The Eagles were the only team 
in the NFL to rank in the top 10 in both offense and defense 
in 2011. The defense is better this season with the addition of 
linebacker DeMeco Ryans. OB Michael Vick still has the most 
horsepower in the division. 


EXITS tn Matthew Staford the DETROIT LIONS have 
a quarterback capable of making a deep playoff run. And 
Stafford has Calvin Johnson, the best receiver in the NFL, іп 
his arsenal. Youth and depth abound at Ford Field, and when 
rabid Detroit fans get behind a team, anything can happen. 


ША AARON RODGERS. Every major stat in 2011 was a 
career best for Rodgers, and his pass rating of 122.5 was an 
NFL regular-season record. Not only is Rodgers the best quar- 
terback in the division, he's the best quarterback in the NFL. 


[снамром: rne PACKERS managed to go 15-1 last season 
with the NFL's worst defense. Green Bay used its first six draft 
picks to give that defense some teeth in 2012. As one draft critic 
put it, “Once again, the Packers own the NFL draft." 


174158 The CAROLINA PANTHERS expect a quantum. 

leap from Cam Newton in 2012 after a banner rookie season. 
He passed for 4,000 yards in 2011 without really knowing 
what he was doing. Now he does. 


DREW BREES. Now that he's a $100 million quarter- 
back, the Saints expect him to play like one. 


[GIULIA The SAINTS have a chance to become the first 
team to play a Super Bow! on their home field. Losing coach 
Sean Payton and linebacker Jonathan Vilma to suspension іп 
Bountygate, plus Pro Bowl guard Carl Nicks to free agency, 
will suck some wind out of their sails, but make no mistake: 
This squad is still stacked with all-stars. 


DIES The SEAHAWKS signed quarterback Matt Flynn 

in free agency and traded for former Pro Bowl tight end Kellen 
Winslow to pump up the NFUs 28th-ranked offense. In this 
anemic division, Seattle will battle for a playoff spot. 


ATRICK WILLIS. Last season the 49ers fielded the best 
defense in the NFC and the most opportunistic defense in the 
NFL (38 takeaways). Willis is not only the top dog on this D. 
but also the best linebacker in the NFL. 


The 49ERS should again win the West. The 
team reached the NFC title game with the NFL's 26th-ranked 
offense a year ago. Coach Jim Harbaugh stockpiled some 
‘weaponry, notably first-rounder A.J. Jenkins and free agent 
Mario Manningham on the flank. 


CAN PLAYERS BE PROTECTED FROM THEMSELVES? 


HEAD FIRST 


What would the NFL be without violence? Amid growing contro- 
versy over head injuries, we asked some current and former players 


dented controversy in recent years. More than 2,000 

current and former NFLers have launched lawsuits 
against the league, claiming it concealed information on 
head-injury dangers. Following the suicides of former 
players Dave Duerson and Junior Seau, Goodell and fans 
are left to wonder: Can the game be made safer? 


N FL commissioner Roger Goodell has faced unprece- 


Tes опе thing that separates football players from 
everyone else—toughness,” says Pittsburgh Steelers safety 
Ryan Clark. “We're willing to run into another man at full 
speed regardless ofour health. 1 see what the league is try- 
ing to do to 'protect' players. But why are they doing it? To 
prevent more lawsuits? Ifyou were concerned about the 
physical effects of playing football, you would have given 
up the sport a long time ago. In the NEL, it's that ability 
to have no regard for your own well-being for the sake of 
making a big play that separates the pros from the rest.” 


s in the NEL,” says retired linebacker 
“In my eyes, you can't make the game 
апу safer. І was probably one of the first players іп the his- 
tory of the NFL who had to give up the sport because of 
repeated concussions. 1 had 10 documented concussions. 
But there wasn'ta game 1 played in that І didn't see stars. 
Never. Yes, I knew the risks of playing football and that I 
was harming myself. І played the game knowing that my 
life would be a little shorter, because I got to play the great- 
est game on earth. And I would cut off my right arm right 
now just to run down the field on kickoff one more time." 


umerous players, including star Steelers defensive back 

Troy Polamalu, have admitted to lying about a concus- 
sion to get back on the field. Others have quit the game 
because they feared how their head injuries would manifest 
in the future, including Patriots cornerback Randall Gay (at 
the age of 30) and Rams lineman Jacob Bell (31). “It’s com- 
mon knowledge people are going to suffer,” Detroit Lions 
center Dominic Raiola said in a recent interview. "Memory 
loss is going to come. I am ready for it. It's worth it, totally 
worth it. This is the best job in the world, and I wouldn't 
trade it for anything." —Mike Dolan 


PLAYBOY'S COLLEGE FICTION CONTEST WINNER 


FICTION BY DON PETEROY 
UNIVERSITY OF CINCINNATI 


CHANNELSIDE WAS 
A DIFFERENT 
KIND OF REHAB, 
IT WAS UP TO 
EACH ADDICT 
TO FIGURE OUT 
HOW IT WORKED 


ILLUSTRATION BY TONY DIMAURO 


For the past 26 yea 
honor of winning pLaynoy 
ar, Don Peteroy 

nati wins for his story “Circuit Builder: 
Marshall Arisman at the School of 
Yorkalso compete toillustrate the fiction; Tony DiMau- 
roswinnil yisshownon the precedingpages.On 
this pa; kwise from top left, are illustrations by 
runny 

enton ірСаг 


Balnova.Forinfoonnextyear's contest, see page 13 


he drug addicts waited in the dining 

room. They admired the fireplace's 

granite base and marble mantle. "Bet 
it's beautiful when lit," said Ken, pok- 
ing the tip of his shoe into the ashes. 

They knew their fireplaces. Walter—a fallen 
IT consultant—had once owned an Osburn 
woodstove, Beth used to whore herself out to a 
venture capitalist who had a floor-to-ceiling fire- 
place. Philip expressed the exquisite comforts of 
a Royalton fireplace, the best model all around. 

Rand stood among the antique couches 
and chairs on the room's opposite side. There 
were four indentations in the rug, impres- 
sions from furniture that had been removed 
recently. A coffee table, perhaps, He gripped a 
couch’s walnut frame and put pressure on it 
not enough to stress the wood but enough to 
gauge if years of temperature change had soft- 
ened its integrity. He ran his fingers along the 
velvet. Still firm. 

“How much is it worth?” said Brianna, ap- 
proaching from behind. "You'd mentioned 
something about owning an antique furniture 
business. Or was that someone else?” 

Rand felt uneasy around her, During orien- 
tation, she'd thrown the intake coordinator's 
pamphlets in the wastebasket, had hollered about 
his failure to honor an agreement they'd made. 
She'd wanted the Midcontinental Journal of 
Archaeology delivered to the rehab. Не’ reneged, 

“Td say it’s worth about $10,000.” He picked 
up the needlepoint pillow and squeezed it gently. 

‘Christ, it’s fancy here. The website didn’t 
give that impression.” 

Rand recalled all those brochures that 
s wife had spread out on the kitchen table, 
like He ons, Care One 
She'd insisted on 
offshore and in- 
1 
ive, 


hi 
places with names 
and Freedom Academ 
Channelside because it w 
pable. Furthermore, the facility used 
unconventional, but statistically impre: 
French treatment methodology. 

Its a ploy,” said Brianna, “I don't trust 
them. Tomorrow they'll send us to the real 
ward.” She drew in her lips after each sen- 
tence. It made her freckles stand out. 

Тһе head counselor, Trey, arrived. His red 
beard was neatly trimmed. He directed every- 
oneto the dining room. They sat, and orderlies 
wheeled out platters of food: barbecued ribs, 
potatoes with chives, mixed vegetables. The 
patients cut their potatoes in two, and the ris- 
ing steam tickled their cheeks. Rand had no 
appetite. He'd taken his l; 'cocet from the 
secret supply in his basement 24 hours earlier. 
His hips throbbed, a precursor to paralysis. 
Soon he'd puke, shit and shiver, unless 
Channelside took the merciful approach—like 
other rehabs—and doped him up on Valium for 
the withdrawal's duration. 

Trey said, "Welcome, everyone. I suppose 
youall introduced yourselves during intake?" 

They looked at one another and shrugged. 

‘Then we're all settled in? Everything's 
gone smoothly?" 

Silent nods. 

Trey said, “Five minutes ago you were all 
yapping. Now everyone's timid. I'm not a fan 
of shyness or indifference, but it's typical. 
Most of you are probably skeptical about re- 
hab, so you’re going to try to act disengaged. 
It's self-protection. I'll tell you this: Chan- 
nelside won't be what you expect. Most г 
habs want their (continued on page 126) 


esc 


“Follow the white rabbit.” 


FALL FOR 
FRAGRANCE 


Colognes are like clothes: They're designed 
to match the season—and the occasion. 
Here are the most spicy, woodsy, downright 
manly scents to spritz this autumn 


1. YVES SAINT LAURENT 

L'HOMME LIBRE $60 

In the world of cologne 
making, patchouli is not a 
hippie's shower replace- 
ment but a subtle, beguil- 
ing scent, as in this elegant 
French fragrance. 

WEAR: to an awards 
ceremony. 


2. VIKTOR & ROLF 

SPICEBOMB $75 

Even before you smell the 
virile bergamot and pink 
pepper, you'll note the 
bottle looks like a grenade. 
WEAR: when you need to 
kill it at the meeting. 


3, CALVIN KLEIN 

ENCOUNTER $72 

Rum, cognac, musk and 
jasmine make this scent 
extremely seductive. 
WEAR: on a third date. 


4. DOLCE & GABBANA 

POUR HOMME $73 

A sultry whiff of 
tobacco and sage 
from the Sicilian 
design duo. Ў 
WEAR: in the 
presence of 
supermodels, 


5. BULGARI MAN $79 
Sandalwood, lotus 
blossom, white honey 
апа musk. The black 
tie of colognes. 
WEAR: to the opera. 


6. TOM FORD NOIR 590 

This cologne from the 
master of meticulous 
style has black реррег, 
leather and vanilla 
accents. 

WEAR: in the VIP. 
section of the club. 


7. ACQUA DI PARMA 

COLONIA INTENSA $150 

Bold, citrusy, spicy, 
woodsy and very Italian. 
WEAR: on a yacht 
somewhere off the 
Amalfi coast. 


8. JOHN VARVATOS 
ARTISAN $82 

The flask-like bottle 
is rustic chic. The 
aroma is of tangerine 
and other cool- 
weather citrus. 
WEAR: hiking in 
Napa Valley. 


Photography by DIMITRI NEWMAN 
Curated by JENNIFER RYAN JONES 


TAKE NOTE 
How to buy your signature scent 


1. Stay away 2. Looks 3. Take lunch: 
from the cute matter: Once you've 

girl with the It may sound picked your 
bottle: shallow, but favorite cologne, 
Once you're you'd better love apply lightly— 


tagged Бу а shop- the looks of the then go to lunch. 
girl v bodies bottle. Colognes If you still like 
of cologne, you lastforyears,so the scent after 
won'tbeableto you'll be seeing you've spent 
smell any оћег ¡ton your dresser some time with 
options. Spritza ^ alot. Italso it and it's had 
paper strip and епсіз a message time to dis- 
you cantest-sniff to whoever might sipate, buy the 
all you want. be visiting your bottle. 

bedroom, 


b 
j 5. 
BUSINESS 
LEATHER? 


You can have both 
at the office with 
designer Thierry. 
Mugler's A'Men 
Pure Leather 
($88), a woodsy 
cologne that's 
made all the more 
manly by the 


in leather-lined 
tanks. This isn't the 
first time Mugler 
has broken the 
mold. A year be- 
fore sprinter Oscar 
Pistorius—he of 
the carbon-fiber 
legs—made the 
Olympic team, the 
forward-thinking 
designer cast him 
as the model for 
his sport cologne 
‚A'Men Pure Shot. 


he Big Ten conference 
known forits math and 


annual college pictorial 
with a pop quiz. How many 
schools make up the Big Ten? Of 
course, 12. As the second-oldest 
college conference in America, 
how many schools were ini 
original lineup? 
many varsity 
schools have now? Bingo—298. 
Now here's an easy questio 
When you look at the women 
pictured here, what number pops 
into your head? A 10! Every one 
ofthem. Congratulations. 
passed. Now let's get on with it. 
Herewith, the girls ofthe Big Ten. 


—< 


INDIANA UNIVERSITY: Sasha Camille 


lockwise from far left: Sasha 
Camille plans on being а clinical 
psychologist. We're ready for 
our therapy session. Ravishing 
Romana Leeis originally from 
New Jersey. As the Springsteen song 
goes, “Shalala la, I'm in love with a 
Jersey girl.” Isabella Fox plays tennis 
and works outa lot. She looks pretty 
fitto us. Bailey Kay loves “anything © 
adventurous and crazy.” Like posing 
for PLAYBOY, perhaps 


- : 


MICHIGAN STATE UNIVERSITY: Bailey Kay 


lockwise from left: Priscilla Yvonne 

lovescars, skateboards and South 

Park. Now that's our kind of girl. 
Although the Badgers are the biggest 
thingin Wisconsin, Jazmin Sta! more 
ofanequestrian enthusiast. Ride'em, 
cowgirl! Wildlife major Donna Michelle 
is one hot Boilermaker. And finally here's. : 
Haley Sorenson, bringing up the rear. 


PURDUE UNIVERSITY: Donna Michelle 


ТАТ) 


= 
S 
Q 
= 
3 
c 
= 
ә 
E 
= 
= 
ж 
> 
= 
E 
= 
= 
өз 
2 
= 
= 
= 
LÀ 
LJ 
ж 


MICHIGAN STATE UNIVERSITY: Hanna Leigh 


qu 


UNIVERSITY of ILLINOIS: Arianna Lee 


lockwise from far left: Marie 

Dawson wants to work in the art 

world. She also dreams of being 
a Playmate. You never know. Hanna 
Leigh gets turned on by books, it seems. 
We'd love to be her study partner. 
Arianna Lee used to be called Giraffe 
because she was so tall. Looks like she 
grew into herself. How many Hoosiers 
does it take to fill a bubble bath? Hmm... 


OHIO STATE UNIVERSITY: 704 Elliot 


lockwise from above: Reé Elliot 
one beautiful Buckeye. She digs 
boxing, shooting guns and modeling 
Brooke Cassidy is a real 
to Michigan, and she's 
a Detroit sports fan. Hannah Gappa 
wantstobean onaut someday. 
We're seeing stars. Rachel Rockefeller 
dreams of being a supermodel. Looking 
good, Rachel—you're on your way. 


~ 5 * y y "ТІ 
а 22” MEC Ж 


UNIVERSITY of NEBRASKA: Hannah Gappa 


126 


CIRCUIT BUILDERS 


(continued from page 114) 


customers to return. They operate on 
the oil-change principle: in, out and 
back again in three months. Here, we 
obliterate your addiction.” 

‘Trey asked everyone to talk about 
their addiction histories and future goals. 
Philip and Walter were well rehearsed, 
long-winded and masterful with 12-step 
terminology. They'd wrecked their lives 
by freebasing cocaine—a gentlemanly eu- 
phemism for smoking crack. Ken's belly 
bled from Xanax abuse. Beth was addicted 
to “mind-altering men” and had regularly 
sold her ass for meth. Of all their stories, 
Brianna had rendered hers most artfully. 
She described a glass city of empty bottles 
in her basement, the smell of cobwebs 
and cheap red wine. Rand imagined her 
wandering helplessly among the towers, 
knocking them over and crying in the 
shattered glass. Rand’s story, by contrast, 
was unimpressive: frustrated logistics, sto- 
len prescription pads, memorized inscrip- 
tion codes and DEA numbers. 

When everyone finished, Trey said, 
“The common denominator is that you've 
all lost the ability to choose when to stop. 
But if you think Channelside will give 
you an intellectual toolbox for combating 
temptation, you’re wrong. Understanding 
consequences won't save you, but behav- 
ioral compliance will. Let me show you.” 

Trey produced a small bag from his 
shirt pocket. Everyone gasped. Rand esti- 
mated that it was an eighth ounce of mar- 
ijuana, the good shit with red whiskers. 

“What the fuck?” said Walter. Trey 
dumped the bag’s contents onto the 
table. It stank like a gust moving over a 
swamp. He tossed a package of rolling 
papers to Rand. “Roll everyone a joint. 
Myself included.” 

“What? No way!” 

“Let me get this right,” said Trey. 
"You've about ruined your life, lost your 
marriage and business, but you still think 
you know better than a certified addic- 
tion counselor?” 

Philip said, “This is a test. Don't do it, 
man.” He crossed his arms. 

Beth said, “A lesson on willpower. Or 
discipline. Or teamwork or something.” 

There was Brianna, looking down 
at her hands, ashamed. She must have 
caught herself entertaining the fantasy of 
smoking a joint in rehab. Rand had imag- 
ined it too, for just for second. There was 
а garden out back, a perfect place for get- 
ting buzzed. 

Trey said, “You signed a contract 
agreeing to do whatever it takes to get 
sober, right? Then roll the fucking joints. 
This is what it takes.” 

Ken said, "It's a trap, Rand. He's using a 
technique called paradoxical intervention.” 

Brianna’s eyes met Rand’s. Do it, she 
seemed to be saying. Rand reached for 
the papers. It’s not like he even wanted to 
be in rehab anyway. Ken mumbled some- 
thing about reactance theory. Rand laid 


out the papers and sprinkled weed into 
the creases. The room was quiet but for 
the sound of paper crinkling in Rand’s 
fingers. Nobody stirred. Trey grabbed 
a joint, wedged it between his lips and 
flicked a lighter. The paper sizzled as he 
inhaled. Smoke rolled out of the sides of 
his mouth. Rand still wondered if this 
was a trick. Maybe he'd smell potpourri 
or mint leaves. 

They watched Trey take three puffs. 
Then, in one swoop, Brianna snatched 
a joint, lit it and pulled hard. “This is 
crazy,” she said. “Am I in trouble?” 

“Of course not,” said Trey. Rand lit 
a joint. It was smooth going down his 
throat, feathery in his lungs. The buzz 
came within seconds, his vision sparkling. 

Beth cleared her throat. Ken picked at 
his cuticles. Walter and Philip exchanged 
glances, seeking each other’s approval. 
‘Trey said, “Enough ambivalence. If you 
all want to go huddle somewhere and talk 
it over, be my guest. We'll just smoke the 
rest.” Their faces relaxed. Walter reached 
for a joint. Philip and Beth followed. 

Ken narrowed his eyes at everyone. 
He said, “I’m here to get sober.” Nobody 
responded. Fuck him. Sanctimonious ass- 
hole. Ken turned away. 

Soon they stubbed out their roaches 
and sat back, stoned, while Trey ex- 
pounded on the rehab's practices. “We 
at Channelside,” he said, “choose not to 
offer classes on genetic predisposition 
and addict neurology. It’s useless. There 
won't be any group therapy. No work- 
sheets or moral inventories or confes- 
sional essays about your shitty parents. 
If you've come here to sit оп a yoga mat 
and deep-breathe burning sage, leave. If 
you want God, go to church. See, in AA, 
they tell you to accept everything that 
happens to you as God’s will. They want 
you to think acceptance means convinc- 
ing yourself that the fucking you just got 
wasn't really а fucking—it was a message 
from your creator. We don’t do that. We 
embrace our humanity. There’s no other 
way to overcome addiction than to eradi- 
cate your guilt and shame and let your- 
self be the addict you are.” 

Be the addict you are. Yes, Rand 
thought. All of his troubles stemmed from 
trying to be someone other than an addict. 
Trey stood and said, “Tomorrow you'll be 
assigned a buddy, and we'll take it from 
there. When you retire to your rooms, 
you'll find on your nightstands an Ambien 
pill and a glass of wine. Sleep well.” 

Ken interrupted, “Hold on. How do 
you get away with this? Legally?” 

Trey said, “Our legal advisor will be 
here Monday, if you need to speak —” 

“How about you give me a phone and 
I call my lawyer?" 

Brianna whispered, "No phones here." 

Ken laughed, “Oh? And if there's an 
emergency?" 

Trey said, “We take you back to land 
and bill you." 

Trey turned and left the dining room. 
Once they heard his office door shut, they 


released their giggles. Ken, first to rise, 
rushed out. He banged on Trey's door 
relentlessly, until finally—and who knew 
how much time had passed?—he gave up. 


Twelve hours later, Rand and Brianna 
were stoned and relaxing by the gar- 
den’s pond. Nobody had expected the 
previous night’s fortune to continue, 
but when the group filed downstairs 
for breakfast, they found freshly rolled 
joints on the table, along with wrapped 
gifts for everyone except Ken. He'd 
opted out of breakfast. The maid left a 
plate of waffles by his door. 

Beth read aloud a note that Trey had 
left. He'd been tied up in another com- 
mitment but would be back later. In the 
meantime, he'd produced a list of buddy 
assignments. Naturally, Walter and Philip 
were teamed together. Much to Beth's 
consternation, she’d been grouped with 
Ken. "He'll emerge,” Trey had written. 
That left Rand and Brianna. Beth read, 
“Being a buddy isn’t difficult work. What 
you do is get high together.” 

They opened their presents. Walter 
and Philip got cocaine. Beth got Adder- 
all. Rand got four Vicodins, and Brianna 
got a bottle of rum. The orange juice 
and muffins at the table went untouched. 
They slid their chairs out and dispersed. 

Now at the pond, Rand and Brianna 
watched the swaying cattails, the ladybugs 
buzzing in the tall grass. Brianna gulped 
her rum. She drank immodestly, throw- 
ing her head back and tipping the bottle 
straight up. They laughed over the cir- 
cumstances, but soon Brianna’s merriment 
passed. “I know what's going on,” she said. 

Rand’s mouth was sour from chewing 
the four pills. He swiped his tongue along 
his teeth. 

“They're getting it out of our systems,” 
she said. “The recklessness, you know?” 

“Unlikely. We're becoming more ad- 
dicted, actually.” 

She stretched out her legs and fanned 
her toes. Brianna’s feet had a peculiar 
shape; her soles were so deeply arched 
that only her heels and toes touched the 
ground. Rand imagined that her body 
and spirit naturally strived upward, away. 
His wife’s feet came to mind. They looked 
like uncooked sausages, the bloated veins 
around her ankles, the jutting bones and 
cracked-cement calluses. 

Rand said, “The fact is, no matter how 
much I did, I never got tired of it.” 

They gazed at the pond, its surface 
smooth and asleep. Rand’s eyes fell on 
Brianna’s feet again, and she caught him 
looking. Her cheeks turned red. She 
wiggled her toes. 

Rand said, “What do you plan to do 
when you get out?” 

“Course prep. I'll have a couple more 
weeks before the semester starts.” 

“You're a professor?” 

“A history professor. A drunk one. 
Lucky I didn’t get fired. Kind of hard to 
do that to the country’s leading expert 


DIO 


| M СА 
ft V 


“Folks, check out this antique movie projector I picked up at a Hollywood garage sale." 


PLAYBOY 


128 


on the history of U.S. involvement in 
Panama.” She took the bottle to her lips. 

“History fascinates me. Everyone, really. 
Whenever 1 sell a piece of furniture, 1 
know that people buy it because they want 
its history.” 

She nodded, showing mild interest. He 
continued: “It's how І retain customers. 
For each item in my inventory, I trace its 
history as far back as I can. I print out a 
little booklet that explains where it's been. 
People want to be the last page in the story, 
the happy ending.” 

Brianna joked, “How many histories have 
you forged?" 

“Most of them," he said. Laughing, their 
shoulders bumped. Rand hadn't realized 
they were sitting so close together. Brianna's 
proximity unlocked something inside him, 
a magnitude of excitement he hadn't felt 
in years. He could make it even better if he 
could score more Vicodin. 

"Tell me about your wife," Brianna said, 
glancing at the last inch of rum in her bottle. 

"She's out there and I'm in here. That's 
all there is to it." 

Brianna shifted, moving away just a little. 
It meant nothing. She swallowed the re- 
maining rum. "Fuck," she said, eyes honing 
on the few drops. 

“What about you?" he said. “Are you see- 
ing anyone?" 

"Off and on. Whatever." She lay on her 
side and closed her eyes. Rand consid- 
ered stroking her hair, but it'd be better 
to wait, let some days pass. He studied her 
back, its islands of pink blotches, probably 
symptomatic of her ailing liver. The blem- 
ishes didn't disgust him; rather, they 
looked artful, like bursts of paint. 

She snored. He stared at her feet. He 
imagined the sound of her sandals creak- 
ing when she walked. Perhaps, during the 
school year, she kept her feet in privacy, 
behind fragrant nylon curtains, which she 
peeled off at night and discarded in a pile. 
He bent down, inspecting the creases on her 
heel. Tiny fissures, no more than a fiber's 
width. He opened his mouth and ran the 
tip of his tongue along the sole of her foot. 


Her rough flesh tasted like vinegar. Her toes 
curled. She stirred, then fell back asleep. 


That evening, Trey summoned Rand to his 
office. Trey had one question: "Just for the re- 
cord, have you ever licked your wife's feet?" 

Rand tried to conceal his panic. His eyes 
darted around the office, falling briefly on 
a pile of manila folders. Trey reached into 
a drawer and pulled out a bag of baby car- 
rots. He snapped one between his teeth. 
"Carrot?" he said, holding out the bag. 

“No, thanks." 

"Okay, then. Let's try again. Have you 
ever licked your wife's feet?” 

"Were you watching?" 

"We monitor the grounds. The dining 
room, the recreation room, the library. 
Liability's a bitch, so we take precautionary 
measures." He cracked another carrot in 
his mouth. 

“I didn't realize——” Rand paused. 
“What about my bedroom?" 

“Үоште safe there. Everyone deserves 
some privacy.” 

“Why should I believe you?" 

Trey held the bag out again. “You sure 
you don't want a carrot?" 

Rand shook his head. Trey continued, 
"You're not the first junkie with a fetish." 

"I don't have a fetish ——" 

"Whether you do or don't, I'd like to 
know if you've ever licked your wife's feet?” 

"Never even thought of it. It was a one- 
time thing." 

“That's all I needed to know. Thank you." 

Rand wrinkled his brow. Trey stared at 
him, the muscles in his jaw swelling, the car- 
rot clamped between his molars splintering 
like brittle wood. Rand said, "Why are you 
asking me this? You should have been up- 
front about the surveillance. I feel violated." 

“Violated? You licked Brianna's foot. 
Last I checked ——" 

“I was high. On drugs you gave me.” 

Trey laced his fingers together. “Then 
maybe we should try a different treatment 
option?" 

“That's not what I’m saying. I just want 


GLASBERGEN 


“Tm not talking about cheating. I'm ls about 
i 


outsourcing my romantic needs to a qualified 


ird party." 


to know——” Rand stopped himself. Не 
had to be careful because Trey had the 
power to cut off his drug supply. 

“То know what?" said Trey. 

Rand was going to ask if Channelside had 
ever been sued, but now he knew better. “I 
want to know if you think my perversion 
signifies an issue I need to work through." 

Тгеу said, *Nice try. It doesn't signify 
anything alarming. You exhibit predictable 
behaviors, all around. So predictable, in 
fact, that I know what you've been itching 
to ask me all day. You're sweating, Rand. 
Your face is losing color. I know what's 
really on your mind." 

Rand said nothing. He felt ashamed for 
being so transparent. Trey continued, “Yes, 
we've got more Vicodin. That's what you 
want, isn't it? You don't give a damn about the 
embarrassment of having been caught licking 
a sleeping woman's foot. You want drugs. I 
say embrace your illness and just ask." 

Rand reached for a carrot. “Мау I?" 

Trey waved his hand. "Take them all. 
I'm not hungry anymore." 


After midnight, while Rand was high and 
playing Call of Duty, Brianna arrived. She 
had a bottle of vodka. Rand let her in. 
Brianna was scratching her cheeks and 
grinding her teeth—sure signs she had used 
cocaine. She leaned against the wall. *You 
take your Ambien?" she said. 

Rand looked at the nightstand. A single 
pill lay on a red cloth. "Are you asking me 
if you can have mine?" 

She shrugged. Rand dropped the pill 
in her palm. "It works quicker if you eat 
it," he said. 

She chewed the pill, chased it down with 
vodka, then wobbled over to the bed and sat. 

Rand slid down beside her. “When I first 
started using pills," he said, "I'd swallow 
them, like you're supposed to. But you know 
how it is. Soon, the buzz wouldn't come quick 
enough. I started chewing them. The taste 
took some getting used to." 

She stared at the TV screen, a paused im- 
age ofa soldier running toward barbed wire. 

Rand said, "I eventually found I couldn't 
get maximum absorption fast enough. I 
started crushing them, wrapping the dust 
in strips of toilet paper and swallowing 'em. 
Parachuting, it's called. Sooner or later, ГИ 
start using needles." 

She didn't seem interested in his war sto- 
ries, or anything, really. He wondered if all 
she'd wanted was his Ambien. Rand contin- 
ued anyway. "Opiates saved me, really. I was 
the kid who always hung his head in shame. 
I wanted to be like Superman but couldn't 
even pass for Clark Kent. When I was 12, I 
broke my arm. The doctor gave me Vico- 
din. One pill and suddenly I felt like I be- 
longed on this planet. I saw a big, glowing 
S on my chest. I've been chasing that S for 
over 20 years. Yet the more drugs I did, the 
smaller the S became." He lifted his shirt, 
revealing his chest. "See it there? See it?" 

Brianna squinted. 

“Me neither. The crazy thing is, I'm con- 
vinced that one day it'll come back." 

She started to sag. It was steady at first, 
like a body swaying from a gallows. She at- 
tempted to sit straight but soon gave up. 


She lay on her back апа winced every time 
the ceiling fan's blades crossed the light. 

Rand said, “You don't look well. What 
did you take tonight?” 

“Some kind of speed. I wanted to stay 
awake.” 

“And you just took an Ambien?" 

“Two,” she mumbled. “Yours and mine.” 

Her eyes closed. Rand combed his fin- 
gers through her knotted hair. She prob- 
ably hadn't showered in days. He found 
her deterioration erotic, the way she stank, 
her bloated face and parched lips. It was a 
beautiful kind of self-hatred that few could 
understand. sure built in his groin, 
cle. His penis had been inert since 
he'd started abusing opiates, yet this bro- 
ken woman had the power to overthrow 
his impotency, even in her deepest stupor. 

Initially, Brianna's trembling was slight. 
Nothing to be concerned about, just some 
spasms, her body wiggling itself into or out of 
the poison. But then her legs kicked the mat- 
tress, her head thrashed and she screeched. 
Her fingers twisted into the sheets and 
pulled them to her chest. Rand dialed Trey's 

n. “Be теу said. 

/ Trey saunteı 
ith a squ 
| to Rand. Si 
ng body. 


id stand aside." Rand stepped back. 
They lifted Brianna onto the gurney, 
strapped down her arms and legs and 
rolled her into the hall. The wheel stopped 
squeaking, but the gurney rattled with 
Brianna's convulsions. Rand followed 
them toward the elevator. They waited, the 
elevator's gears grinding and air whistling 
between the doors. Trey put his hand on 
Rand's houlder. Good thing you called. 
Otherwise: 
Тһе doors opened. They crammed in- 
side and pressed against the walls. Spasms 
rippled up Brianna's arms, and bubbles 
of saliva formed at the corners of her lips. 
Rand looked away. 
"Otherwis and said. 
еу said, "Otherwise wha 

Тһе doors parted, revealing an infir- 
mary no bigger than a cheap hotel room. 
Тһе walls were concrete, mold blistering in 
the corners. A single lamp glowed over a 
heart monitor and a cabinet stocked with 
medical supplies. Apparently Channelside 
anticipated this kind of mishap. 

They wheeled Brianna inside. Rand 
notic range mechanism next to the 
operation table. Five feet tall, it looked 
technologically ancient, like a time machine 
from a 1960s sci-fi flick, with thick copper 
coils corkscrewing along its exposed interi- 
or, meters and lightbulbs, silver-dollar-size 
buttons and rows of red and blue levers. 
Electrodes dangled from a control panel. 

The nurse hooked up Brianna to the 
heart monitor. Trey turned to Rand while 
she prepared the IV. "Listen carefully. 
We're going to let Brianna's heart stop for 
a moment." 

"What?" 

“This is a controlled resuscitation pro- 
cess. Perfected down to the second." 

Rand winced. "You're going to let 
her——” 


“Die. Yes. Now pay attention. From this 
point on, you're responsible for reviving 
her. And for teaching her how to revive you, 
in case you decide to overdose. Now"—the 
heart monitor screamed—"grab that wheel 
and start spinning it.” 

Rand hesitated, his lips puttering as he 
tried to form words. Trey said, "I'm 30 sec- 
onds away from making funeral arrange- 
ments. Twenty-nine. Twenty-eight.” 

Rand clutched the wheel. It wouldn’t 
budge; grime and rust hindered its rota- 
tion. He threw his body into it, and the 
cel released some of its resis! 
said, "You're generating electri 
machine is a dynamo. An old one. We don't 
want to make this too easy for you. Upstairs, 
life's pleasant. Down here, you suffer." 

After three revolutions, Rand wheezed. 
His palms were pink, like strips of un- 
cooked salmon. His knees were buckling, 
so he squatted and pulled on the wheel. 
Meanwhile, the nurse held up a syringe. 
“This is a steroid," she said. “Next time 
Brianna ov you'll need to inject 
her, right here." She jabbed Brianna in the 
neck and depressed the plunger. "The in- 
struction n the red binder. 

Finall ordered Rand to stop. Rand 
gagged, backed away from the wheel and 
clutched his stomach. Had he not taken so 
many opiates, he'd feel crippled. 

y said, "It's not break time ye 


There 


are two defibrillator pads above the con- 
trol panel. Take them and snap them onto 
the two w 
el 


s the 
trodes that dangled fi 
Try not to touch the 
lightning’s for Briann: 

Rand followed Tre: 

“Place one pad on her chest, above her 
breast, and the other beneath her rib cage.” 

The pads adhered to her skin. 

“Not perfect, but that'll do. Now, see 
that blue lev Pull it down and let it 
bounce back up. That'll deliver the shock. 
You've got three good blasts, so go ahead, 
revive Brianna.” 

Rand worried that he'd spun the wheel 
one too many times and had generated 
just enough excess voltage to fry Brianna's 
brain. He took a last glance at her, then 
pulled the lever. 

There was a pop. Brianna's body arched 
and her eyelids blew open. She looked 
startled. Then something settled over her, 
an expression that didn't fit her face. She 
crashed back down onto the gurney, and 
the heart monitor гези teady pulse. 

“Congratulations,” said Tr 

“She'll liv 

“If she decides to, yes.” 

Rand, bewildered, watched the nurse 
prepare an IV. “I don’t understand this,” 
he said. 

Trey loosened the straps on Brianna’s 
wrists. “With all the drugs in this place, it’s 
bound to happen. Like I said, we take pre- 
cautionary measures.” 

“She could have died.” Rand took a step 
toward Brianna. 

Trey held up his palm. “You're right. It's 
a shame; your buddy has no self-control. 
Poor girl. Good thing she’s got you to look 
out for her. Now, we'll take the rest from 
here. You can head back upstairs.” 


pointed to the 


WORKS FOR YOU 
OR YOUR MONEY BACK! 


Doctor camem 
Male Enhancement 


ио SOFT-GELS 
75 FAST-ACTING LIQUID 50 
STARY SUPPLEMEN 


"Available for purchase with coupon in fine stores 
everywhereor online at: 


www.appliednutrition.com 
Enter Coupon Code: 010971 


© SNc m 


LIBIDO-MAX for MEN | 
75 Count ONLY ) 


SAVE $3 


ШИН MANUFACTURERS COUPON 


der purchases Reale 
ts) handing povided tis redeemed by | 


ШІШІЛІ 


PLAYBOY 


130 


‘Trey stared at Brianna. The nurse, holding 
a red tube, said, “Job's done, man. Go on." 


Тһе first OxyContin got Rand through the 
morning. Later, he crushed a 40-milligram 
pill and sucked its dusty essence up his 
nose. He was passing time, waiting for 
Brianna to rise from her stupor. He'd bring 
her tomato soup and maybe a few beers in 
case she was having the DTs. 

At seven р.м. Rand went to the kitchen, 
heated Brianna’s soup and pulled a Coors 
six-pack from the refrigerator. She'd ap- 
preciate it. He'd offer her a foot rub. He 
couldn't imagine her turning it down, not 
after he'd saved her life. He headed to her 
room, forgetting the soup. 

Brianna's eyes looked sickly yellow. The 
veins in her neck were swollen from retch- 
ing. She tried to apologize for last night's 
incident, but her voice was clotty and 
hoarse from having her stomach pumped. 
"It's okay,” Rand said. “Just pace yourself 
from now on. Here, I brought this for 
you.” He held up the six-pack. “I figured 
you'd want something to hold you over.” 

“I think Гм done, actually." 

Rand felt stung. “Of course,” he said, 
walking to the recliner. He put the beer on 
the floor. “I know how it is. Shit happens, 
and we go on the wagon. A month later, 
we've proved that we're not addicts, so we 
reward ourselves and get high. Then, it's 
back to the races.” 

“You don't believe me?” 

"Sure I do. It makes sense. Last page in 
the story, right? Brianna gets sober." 

She patted down a wrinkle on the bed 
sheet. “I nearly died. My experience isn't 
as simple as a booklet that comes with a 
piece of furniture.” 

He snapped a beer from the six-pack, sat 
in the recliner and rocked. “Do you mind?” 

“Ido.” 

“Okay then.” He placed the can back on 


the floor. “Listen, I'm happy for you, I really 
am. Near-death experiences can be inspir- 
ing. Lots of well-written books on the mat- 
ter. But you're a scientist, an objective think- 
er. You're emotional right now, and——" 

She retrieved a magazine from the floor. 
Rand saw its title: Midcontinental Jour- 
nal of Archaeology. Her name was among 
three other contributors mentioned on 
the cover. She said, “This article. I wrote 
it three years ago. 1 haven't been able to 
write anything since.” 

Rand said, “Do you really think any- 
one can be scared into sobriety? If that 
kind of thing worked, we wouldn't need 
rehabs, right?" 

She raised the blinds. The thick sea 
fog obscured the stars. Rand didn't 
care about her declining career. He just 
wanted her to get drunk. He wanted to 
lick her foot again, whether someone was 
watching or not. He wanted to fuck her, 
there on the recliner. 

“I support you,” he said. “But I can't 
let you do this because of fear. I'd be еп- 
abling you, knowing all along that sooner 
or later, fear will fail you. That's not the 
point of Channelside.” 

She glared at him. “Enlighten me, 
Rand. What is the point of Channelside?” 

“To show us we're not addicted to 
drugs; we're addicted to the concept of 
more. Here, we're given the freedom to 
discover what enough means. We're not 
powerless, Brianna. We have a choice. It's 
not that hard.” 

"I'm glad you see it that way. Person- 
ally, I'm done." She walked to the door 
and opened it. "I need to be alone. Con- 
versation's over, so please take the beer 
with you." 

Rand lifted himself from the recliner 
and stomped toward her. "Really? What 
are you going to do all night? Get in 
touch with your higher power? Convince 
yourself you've had a spiritual awaken- 


"So what's the big deal about the Secret Service? 
Everyone I service” is a secret!” 


ing? Write apology letters to yourself?" 

"Please," she said. "I want to be alone. 
Get out of my room." 

He smiled and held out his hands to re- 
assure her. "Settle down. I'm your buddy, 
not your enemy. I just want you to be true 
to yourself." 

"Get out." 

The door across the hall opened. Beth, 
in her nightgown, stared at Rand. "She's 
telling you to leave," she said. 

Тһе women waited. Rand picked up the 
beer. “Tomorrow,” he said, “when your 
senses have returned, I'm coming back. 
We need to talk." He sneered at Beth, then 
walked out. 


Rand couldn't sleep. Why couldn't 
Brianna recognize that her resurrection 
had originated in his body, had erupted 
from his soul? He'd spun the wheel. He'd 
generated the electricity. Why couldn't 
she appreciate that? 

Rand got up and put on yesterday's 
clothes. He headed downstairs and ex- 
ited the building. Outside, the air was 
misty, the morning's dew heating in the 
sun. He sat by the pond. The buttercups 
glowed rich and yellow, and the air car- 
ried a thyme fragrance. The bottle cap 
from Brianna's rum still lay in the grass. 
He picked it up. Maybe I should apolo- 
gize to her, he thought. 

Something rustled behind him. Rand 
turned toward the noise. There was Trey, 
pulling an ivy vine off an oak tree. "Didn't 
mean to startle you," said Trey. "This ivy's 
been bugging me for weeks. It's one of 
those evasive kinds that can fool a tree 
into thinking it's being embraced. Then 
the vine strangles the tree to death." 

Rand squinted. Trey said, "Oh, don't 
look so confused. That was symbolic." 

“You high?" 

“Море.” Trey threw the vine into the 
bushes, then sat beside Rand. "Didn't ex- 
pect you'd be out here so early." 

“I had a rough night.” 

“Of course you did. Your buddy chose 
sobriety, and you don't like that. Гуе seen it 
a hundred times. Everything's predictable." 

“Yeah? Then what usually happens 
next?" 

Trey lifted his knees to his chest. "I don't 
want to give you any bad ideas." 

"I'm sure there's a positive alternative. A 
favorable outcome." 

"As far as I'm concerned, your problem 
isn't outcomes. It's present behavior." 

Rand said, "I've been thinking about 
apologizing to Brianna for——" 

"She doesn't need your apology. Actually, 
I'm assigning you a new buddy. Walter." 

Rand felt a jolt. "Walter? Why? Didn't I 
save Brianna's life?” 

“And now she feels threatened.” 

“Given her current condition, she's not 
the best judge.” 

Trey held up his hand. “Neither are you. 
You're with Walter. That's it." 

“Don't you want to hear my side of the 
story?" 

Trey stood and wiped down his pants. 
"Your side of the story got you into rehab." 

Rand shook his head. "I'm going to 


talk to her. She's just misunderstanding 
what I—" 

"You'll stay away from her. You'll want 
to.” Trey produced a Ziploc bag full of pills, 
their shapes immediately recognizable. He 
said, "Always obey the man with the drugs. 
Behavioral compliance." He stowed the 
bag back in his pocket and walked up 
the pebble path. He disappeared into 
the building's back door. Rand glared 
at Brianna's window. Her shutters were 
closed, but she was probably there, peer- 
ing through the cracks, satisfied. 


Rand and Walter sat on the couch in the com- 
munity room, doing bong hi 
important matters to discuss. 
48 hours, electrocu- 
tion had become a 
fad. First it was Bri- 
anna. Then Philip 
got zapped into 
submission. Now, 
they watched the 
lights flicker. It was 
Beth's turn; Ken 
had discovered her 
inert on the kitchen 
floor. Rand imag- 
ined Ken pulling 
the blue lever and 
Beth's back jolting 
toward the ceiling. 

Walter packed 
the pipe. "None of 
this was unintend- 
ed," he said. "You 
think Channelside 
hasn't orchestrated 
this down to the 
minute?" 

“I don't know. 
That'd be pretty 
hard." 

"Тһе bong water 
bubbled. Walter 
held the smoke in, 
his face pinched. 
He said, "Ever 
heard of systems wem 
theory? It's the big 
fuckin' trend right 
now for stock mar- 
ket analysis." He 
held up his finger, 
then continued. 
"We've got this 
massive system here, a sobriety-producing 
machine. We're the parts. Rehabs don't cre- 
ate sober people. Sober people create rehabs.” 

Walter took another hit. “But it's recipro- 
cal because the idea ofa rehab—its intended 
function—exists in everyone's mind from 
the outset. Once they step through the in- 
stitution's doors, it causes a goal-seeking 
feedback loop between the system as a whole 
and its individual parts. The coherency 
we're seeing—Brianna, Philip and Beth all 
getting sober at the same time—is an emer- 
gent property. All that's needed to start the 
machine is an inciting incident. So they give 
us drugs. The minute one of us overdoses— 
Brianna, іп our case—the machine's alive, 
and all the parts start creating synergy, work- 
ing together. Boom, you've got a rehab.” 


Етегі 


b addres 


* Cato vst scone your Крот Hui ser ! 
From ame to ene dae o iral em Г! pper customer please. 
+ Pennsylvania residents odd 6% tax -remittance olany kes on orders бореа outside of PA š the respond of hë purchaser. Must be 21 to order 


Rand said, “You're assuming that Chan- 
nelside's goal is to get us sober. I'm under the 
impression that were learning moderation.” 

“Channelside’s goal is whatever the peo- 
ple's goal is, and we're outnumbered.” 

Rand took the bong. "I'm not giving in." 

“You and I can say that now, but one 
thing about systems: They're inherently 
self-correcting.” He handed Rand the 
lighter. “You might start feeling the urge to 
correct yourself.” 


The sobriety seekers met in secrecy, held AA 
meetings and chanted the serenity prayer 
behind the community room's closed door. 
Rand didn't feel tempted to join, despite 
how һе ached to see Brianna, to touch her. 


800.357.9800 (mention CGSAY84) 
www.cigar.com/CGSAY84 


10 CIGARS 


+ FREE HUMIDOR 


$29.95 


RETAIL VALUE $113 


Only 


www.cigar.com/CGSAY84 


call 800.357.9800 


jention CGSAY84 


"2995 
occur: One 


Cigar.com 1911 Spilman Drive, Bethlehem, PA 18015 


He wanted to tell her the truth, that she's 
on an island and her sobriety is conditional, 
insulated, destined to fail anywhere else. He 
wouldn't expect her to listen, but maybe, if 
he played her right, if he'd fall to the ground 
weeping, she'd cradle his head against her 
little breasts and whisper, “One day at a 
time," or some other shit-for-brains plati- 
tude. She'd promise to stand by his side, and 
soon his hands would move down the hollow 
of her back, her frantic breath fanning across 
his face, his lips brushing her neck, mouths 
coming together; punishment, so much 
punishment, curving together into their 
curled bodies, her legs in the air, her ankles 
on his shoulders, her toes walking up his 
chin, pressing against his jaw, digging into 


his lips, parting them, his moans stifled and 
throat gagging. It was possible. He just need- 
ed to establish the right spiritual connection. 
Brianna's soul had been ignited, electrified, 
but his had not. The circuit was incomplete; 
electricity emerges only when there's a path 
between two oppositely charged poles, an- 
ode and cathode, one alive by virtue of the 
other. Break the circuit and there's oblivion. 
Rand realized his union with Brianna was 
contingent on one predicament: She'd have 
to administer his resuscitation. And in order 
for that to happen, he'd have to both over- 
dose and escape Walter's scrutiny. 


Three days, three saved Ambien pills. Two 
nights of scheming in his room, moderat- 
ing his opiate abuse. 
On the third night, 
after sprinkling the 
powdered-down 
pills in Walter's 
bottle of red wine, 
Rand was buddy- 
free, He drank Wal- 
ter's whiskey and 
snorted his cocaine. 
The sharp grains 
rattled in his sinuses 
because he'd cut 
the coke too hast- 
ily. The chewed-up 
OxyContin numbed 
his tongue, and the 
clonazepam, taken 
sublingually, dis- 
solved into an acid- 
ic slime. 

He wobbled out 
into the hall and sat 
by Brianna's door. 
He could hear her 
television: a com- 
mercial for Apollo 13 
commemorative 
plates, а nasally 
lawyer promising 
financial rewards 
for work-related 
injuries. Soon the 
hall's lights pulsed. 
His vision wavered, 
then became pix- 
elated, as if broken 
glass coated his 
eyes. Something in 
his brain erupted, a 
feeling like a spike driven through his skull 
from behind. This was too intense, too pain- 
ful. He curled over. Brianna's door swung 
open. "Oh my God!” she screamed. 

“Help,” he said. 

She looked down the hall, probably won- 
dering why Walter was absent. 

In the elevator he was on his hands and 
knees, saliva swinging from his chin, heart 
thrashing against his ribs. For the first time 
in years, Rand wondered if he might die. 
The fear evoked an image of an untimely 
frost that had spread over Maine in July 
1978, when he was a child. His mother had 
looked out the window at the ruined flower 
beds, then down at Rand, as if they were 
опе and the same. Yet now, despite the chill 
spreading over his body, his bleeding brain 


131 


PLAYBOY 


and certainty of death, the fact remained: 
Rand wanted more Vicodin. 


The shock felt like a bee sting. The bet- 
ter part of the pain had disappeared into 
the nothingness that marked Rand's brief 
death. Awake, alive, he sensed the static's 
hum dispersing through his body. There 
was Brianna, panting, and Trey, a blur in 
the background. It had worked. 

Trey whispered, “Next, we pump his 
stomach.” Brianna cradled a coiled-up 
hose. The nurse pried open Rand's jaw, and 
Brianna snaked the tube down his esopha- 
gus. He gagged; it tasted like a mouthful 
of rubber bands. She fed it slowly, hand 
over hand, as if unraveling the tube from 
her own stomach. An umbilical cord, he 
thought. She'll never want to let me go. 

Trey flicked a switch on the suction ma- 
chine, and Rand felt like he'd received a 
quick jab to the gut. His insides shriveled. 
Brianna, mortified by the sudden stench 
and the machine's gurgling, turned her 
head and cried. Trey put down his clip- 
board and embraced her. 

"I want to go home,” she sobbed. 

Trey's hands stroked her back. He said, 
“Soon. It won't be long.” 


Autumn in Maine can seem so dour. Rand 
avoided his house as much as possible. The 
rooms echoed, and the cold drafts passed 
through too freely. He kept the store open 
until 11 r.m., though nobody came that late 
unless they were avoiding rain during their 
long walks home from the paper mill. 

One afternoon Rand saw someone rush- 
ing in the downpour toward the shop. A 
minivan's hazards flashed across the street. 
When she took cover beneath the awning 


and closed her umbrella, Rand gasped. 
His breath solidified in his throat. Brianna 
opened the door. The fliers and forgotten 
receipts tacked to the nearby corkboard flut- 
tered in the gust. She stood still, water drip- 
ping from her umbrella. Then she looked 
at Rand, her face expressionless. Rand re- 
mained behind the cash register. He said, “If 
you're about to tell me that you're just pass- 
ing through——” 

“Га be lying,” she finished. “This really 
is the middle of nowhere. I don’t know how 
you ever found drugs out here.” 

“I had a sympathetic doctor in Portland. 
Made a lot of calls to the pharmacist.” 

“Seen him lately?” 

“No,” he said. She walked toward the 
register. Here was a changed woman. She 
looked professional, her hair tied back and 
shining like polished wood, a black skirt and 
blue silk top, and a layer of makeup. Her 
perfume's scent reminded Rand of a candle 
shop. Rand grasped a roll of quarters and 
spun it in his palm. “I never expected to see 
you again,” he said. 

“There are things we have to do in or- 
der to stay well.” Her eyes moved down to 
where a button was missing on her collar. 
She snipped the hanging black thread be- 
tween her fingernails. 

Rand said, “I gather that this is part of 
your ninth-step amends?” 

Her head bobbed. “I made a commitment 
to go to any lengths to stay sober. The Big 
Book says we must not shrink at anything. 
We make direct amends wherever possible, 
except when to do so would ——" 

“I know my AA, Brianna, and you don't 
owe me amends. I was crazy and belligerent." 

“Ме were all sick. And I hope we all recog- 
nize that and forgive each other." 

He smiled and put the roll of quarters on 
the counter. "I still think about you a lot." 


PLAYBOY COLLEGE FICTION CONTEST 


$3,000 
sven 


To submit your entry, go to playboymagazi 


SECOND $500 
PRIZE HH 


РЕ $200 


par 4 


(the ^Site"). The Site is a third-party 


ine.submittable.com/submit 
document-submission website that charges $5 per submission. The Site will waive the fee for ғитвот subscribers. 


The Rules: 1. Contest is open to al college students age 18 or older. Employees of Playboy and their families, is agents and affiliates ore not eligible. 
2. To enter, upload your typed, double-spaced manuscript of 25 pages or fewer in do, doce or 1t format to the Site. In the cover letter, include your 
name, college affiliation, e-mail address, permanent home address and phone number. All entries must be previously unpublished original works of 
fiction and must be received by February 15, 2013. By entering the contest, you represent ond warrant hal your submission does not and wil not in- 
fringe the copyright, trademark, privacy, publicity ог other personal ог proprietary rights of any person or entity, and you agree to indemnify Playboy 
and hold Playboy harmless from any claims arising from your breach ог alleged breach of any representation, warranty or term contained in these 
rules. 3. Judges shall determine the winners. Decisions of the judges are final. Playboy reserves the right to withhold prizes if no submissions meet its 
usual stondard of publication. 4. Winners will be notified by e-mail and may be obligated to sign and return on affidavit of eligi, copyright assign- 
ment and publicity release within 30 days of notification. By acceptance of their prizes, winners consent to the use of their names, photographs and 
other likenesses for purposes of advertising, trade and promotion on behalf of Playboy without further compensation to the winners, unless prohibited 
by low. 5. Playboy reserves the right to edit the first-prize-winning story for publication. 6. Playboy reserves the right to publish winning entries in U.S. 
and foreign editions of тот and to reprint, republish or incorporate them in any electronic or print English-language or foreign-edition anthologes or 
compilations of rumor material without further compensation to the winners. 7. Void where prohibited by low. 8. Al manuscripts become the property 
‘of Playboy and will not be returned. 9. Taxes on prizes are the responsibility o the winners. For a list of the winners, send а self-addressed, stamped 
envelope to Playboy College Ftion Contest, 9346 Civic Center Drive, Beverly Hills, CA 90210. 
E-mail support@submittable.com anytime with technical questions or for assistance. 


She had no reply. She squinted sideways, 
a gesture of nervousness. 

Rand continued, “Had we met under 
different circumstances, I have no doubt 
that ——" 

"Stop. You're idealizing me. You never 
even knew me, and I'm not here for this.” 

*We brought each other back to life. 
"That's important, isn't it?" 

She said, “Right, but we're not indebted 
to each other." 

He looked at the cash register. It'd been 
empty all week. He said, “I'm working on let- 
ting go. Itll take time. I'm a slow learner. May- 
be we can go out for some coffee and talk.” 

Brianna nodded. “I can't stick around for 
long. I'm just here to give you something.” 
She pointed her key chain toward the van 
across the street. The van's back opened. 

Rand squinted. "What is it? I can't see 
that far." 

“It's my symbolic token of forgiveness. 
Тһе resuscitation machine." 

Rand stood. *From Channelside? Good- 
ness, how did you get that?" 

"They were shut down. You didn't know?" 

"I ignore my mail.” 

"Class-action lawsuit. 
Walter 

“Whenever a lawyer called, I figured it 
had to do with my ex. I never answered.” 

They went outside. The cold rain blew 
sideways. They shielded their eyes. There 
was the machine, on its side, its coiled copper 
wires, lights, meters, terminals and wheel. 
Brianna said, “If you ever plan on relapsing, 
maybe this will inspire you to reconsider.” 

They positioned the machine on a dolly and 
wheeled it into the shop. Rand moved aside 
an old bureau in one of the storage rooms, 
and they shimmied the machine into the open 
space. Then, stepping back, they gazed at it in 
silence. Brianna wiped the dust off her skirt. 
Across the street, the pizzeria’s lights turned 
off for the night. She rattled her car keys, sig- 
naling it was time to go. She'd done what she'd 
intended, and now it was on to someone else. 
Saddened, Rand said, "Will I see you again?" 

She looked at him warily. 

"You don't have to say it. I understand." 

He led her to the door. Brianna stepped 
into the rain and crossed the street. Rand 
stood by the window and watched as she 
lifted herself into the minivan. She closed the 
door, idled for a second, sipped from a ther- 
mos, then drove away. His breath clouded 
the window. 


Your buddy 


The machine was dirty. He ran a rag over its 
control panel and around its copper coils. To- 
morrow, he'd pick up some WD-40 and spray 
along the wheel's joint and maybe replace the 
lightbulbs. He tossed the rag aside and turned 
the lights out. He headed back to the sales 
room, his hands in his pockets, his fingers 
separating the pills from the lint, his mind 
unsure whether he'd stashed the needles in 
the cash register or left them atop the broken 
grandfather dock. 


Don Peteroy is a Ph.D. candidate іп the creative 
writing program at the University of Cincinnati. His 
novella, Wally, is forthcoming from Burrow Press. 


LEE CHILD 


(continued from page 64) 


ambitions. What sort of career does that 
qualify you for? 

CHILD: I went to work for Granada TV in 
Manchester, in the northwest. It’s one of 
England's five major stations. We did dra- 
mas that everybody remembers: Brideshead 
Revisited, Cracker and The Jewel in the Crown. 
It was a thrill to be part of that institution. 
I was there 18 years. 

PLAYBOY: What was your job? 

CHILD: Most of my career I was a presenta- 
tion director, working in what in America is 
called master control. There were five of us 
on staff, one of us there at any time, night 
or day We were 
responsible for the 
composite output 
of the station. What 
passed through our 
control room went 
into people's li 
rooms. We 
bled the broadcast. Evan Williams 
We had legal and CINNAMON 
torial respon- 
sibility for its con- 
tent, If something 
was wrong or il 

there was an emer- 
gency, we dealt 
with it. We de; 
with regulatory 
which at that 
e in at Brit- 
ain were extensive. 
If there was a news 
report about fam- 
ine, we couldn't air 
food commercials. 
It was a complex 
job on multipl 
els and therefore 
well paid. We were 
union workers, but 
we received enor- 
mous salaries. As a 
rule of thumb, we 
felt good if our sal- 
ary surpassed that 
of the prime min- 
ister. It always did. 

PLAYBOY: Why did 
you leave? 

CHILD: I was fired. 
But it was not a case of being called into the 
office. It was a drawn-out process. Thanks 
to Thatcherism, the TV regulatory system 
was being dismantled. It stood in the way 
of profit. The only way for management 
to achieve this dismantling was to break 
the union. There was a long-standing shop 
steward due to retire. Word came down that 
anybody who stood for the vacancy would 
never work in the industry again. Manage- 
ment thought the union would be leaderless 
and an easier target. 1 felt that was wrong. 
This was my real-life Reacher moment. 1 
put myself forward as shop steward. I was 
elected unopposed, obviously. But it was 
worth doing, because the union employ- 
ees at Granada were decent people who'd 
worked in an insular business and had no 


chance іп the competitive market. It was the 
end for a lot of them. Someone had to make 
sure they were outplaced properly. I started 
naive. Quickly management pulled some il- 
legal stunt. I thought, All right, if you want 
to play dirty, I will too. For a couple of years 
it was guerrilla war. Management left the 
building at five, and as soon as they were 
gone a team I put together went to work. 
Тһе cleaners searched their trash, bringing 
me torn-up memos. We taped them back 
together. The engineers hacked into their 
computers. We steamed open their mail. 
We won loads of battles, but we lost the war, 
and for me it was desperate. 

PLAYBOY: So you're unemployed, 40 years old, 
and you decide to write a novel. That's crazy. 


Intensely cinnamon 
INCREDIBLY 


an Wiliams with 


| The Smoothness of 
a Hot Cinnamon Taste 


отно Аза 
NIDIAMOT CNSQMON TASTE 


a ACA Ev ROO) 


CHILD: It But I'd been a big reader all 
my life. Five years earlier, I'd read John D. 
MacDonald's Travis McGee series. I loved 
the series as entertainment, and I began to 
see how the books worked. When I was let 
go, I thought, I'm going to write books. It 
was clear as day to me. I was playing a trick 
on myself. I felt if I contemplated how un- 
likely it was, I would never get it done. On a 
Friday I bought legal pads and pencils, and 
I started writing on Monday. I was angry 
and in a hurry, and you see that in the first 
book—the urgency and the fury. I had only 
seven months of living expenses in the bank. 
PLAYBOY: Did your family help? 
CHILD: They were great. My wife is Ameri- 
can. We met at Sheffield, where she was 
also a student. She was gorgeous and ex- 


otic. I was totally smitten, and we've been 
together ever since. At the time I lost my 


job, she was working part-time in a gov- 


ernment tourist-information bureau. She 
stepped up to five days a week. My daugh- 
ter Ruth, who was then 14, went out and 
got a waitressing job at a local tea room. 
PLAYBOY: Why did you change your name? 
CHILD: In show biz in Britain it's common 
for people to work under names that are not 
their own. The stage management union, 
which is the same thing as Actors' Equity, has 
a rule that you cannot use a name if it’s simi- 
lar to an existing member's. When I started, 
there was a character actor with the same 
name as mine. This was routine for me, but 
the decision was also about reinvention. 
PLAYBOY: Why did you choose the name 
Lee Child? 
CHILD: In our 
household word- 
is rampant. 
and I 
were once riding a 
train out of Grand 
е! A seat- 
ing my 
ied to es- 
tablish kinship by 
telling us he drove 
a foreign car, a Re- 
nault Le Car. But 
he pronounced it 
" which 
immediately en- 
tered our lexicon 


SMOOTH. 


“Lee this” 


It wa 
and “Lee that" 
forever, including 
"Lee Baby" when 
our daughter was 
born, which be- 
came "Lee Child" 
asshe grew up and 
which I adopted as 
my moniker. 
PLAYBOY: Do you 
still think of your- 
self as Jim Grant? 
CHILD: If I'm do- 
ing a Jim Grant 
type of thing, like 
licensing my car. 
My passport says 
James Grant. But 
almost all of what 
I do now is based on the books. I gener- 
ally think of myself as Lee Child. 
PLAYBOY: Your most radical decision may 
have been to set your books in America 
and build them around an American hero. 
Don't writing teachers always tell students 
to write what they know? 

CHILD: Іп my head, I was in America, and 
I'd been there a long time. As a kid I was ob- 
sessed by it. Britain's postwar economy was 
exhausted, but America had Buicks with 
large fins and loose suspensions. It was reck- 
less excess, and it looked wonderful. There 
was so much joy. There were no inhibitions. 
PLAYBOY: It's one thing to be fascinated by 
America. It's another to claim it as your 
literary territory. 

CHILD: The Reacher books had to be set in 


133 


PLAYBOY 


134 


America. To write about a knight errant 
has certain requirements, one of which is 
a large and dangerous landscape. Long 
ago Europe was exactly that—the Black 
Forest. In the Middle Ages Europe was 
the right place for a knight errant. But 
Europe became built-up, and that whole 
string of myths died. It had to migrate to 
where there was a frontier. 

PLAYBOY: Was there also a commercial 
consideration? 

CHILD: It's like John Lennon said: If you 
lived at the time of the Roman Empire, 
you should have been in Rome. In our 
time, you should be in America. 
PLAYBOY: The Reacher books typically 
convey a love of America. Are you patri- 
otic about the country? 

CHILD: Being an immigrant, I'm intensely 
patriotic about America. First of all, I love 
the diversity of the people. This is a mon- 
grel race, and you find tremendous vital- 


ity in that. I like the vivid features people 
have. Even if somebody's not beautiful, 
they tend to be vivid—dark skin or big, 
dramatic eyes. Americans are much more 
vital than the inbred, pasty-faced people of 
Britain. But most of all what 1 love about 
America is that there's a strand of decency 
and normality in almost everyone. Gener- 
ally speaking, Americans are full of kind- 
ness and generosity and goodwill. 
PLAYBOY: Reacher is an anomaly—a crime- 
fighting ex-military officer who, despite 
his penchant for violence, is a lefty. In The 
Enemy, your eighth book, he takes on an un- 
named but identifiable conservative icon. 
CHILD: It's Dick Cheney, who at the time that 
novel is set was secretary of defense. The 
Cold War has ended, and the established 
order is going to be shaken up within the 
Army. The issue is the armored divisions, 
these magnificent spearheads designed to 
fight the Red army. Reacher gets involved, 


"These self-made businessmen are all alike—they all want to 
start at the bottom and work their way up." 


and I show Cheney being corrupt and in- 
competent. People regard him as some kind 
of Svengali. He is good at political infight- 
ing, but otherwise he's a man of no distinc- 
tion. I think he did us irrefutable harm. 
PLAYBOY: People know about the Reacher 
Creatures. Are there Reacher Bashers? 
CHILD: The one time I got an absolute shit 
storm—terrible hate mail—followed the pub- 
lication of Nothing to Lose, the 12th Reacher 
novel. The book is critical of the Iraq war, and 
it contains a brief disquisition on how loyalty 
in the military is a two-way street. If the men 
and women serving are to obey government 
orders, then the government owes it to them 
to make correct decisions. The offending 
passage concludes that if the government has 
let our men and women down, then deser- 
tion is not a terrible thing. It’s just 19 lines, 
yet it drove the Rush Limbaugh types crazy. 
A day would not go by when I would not get 
a package containing these pages torn out of 
the book and torn up or, several times, used 
as toilet paper. The irony is that the lines are 
taken word for word from e-mails I received 
from soldiers in the Middle East. The reality 
of military service is that soldiers are in trou- 
ble some of the time, but most of the time 
it’s boring. They're inside their compounds 
with nothing to do. They watch DVDs and 
play video games. When they run out of 
these, they read books. Mine are some of the 
books they read, and because they've got all 
this time and they're in this sealed-off world, 
they go online and e-mail me. At first it’s con- 
ventional fan mail. Then they start banter- 
ing. Delta Force e-mail s 
“We could kick Reache: 
“No, he'd kick your ass.” Then it goes into 
a strange phase when they have this imag- 
ined intimacy with me because they have 
nobody else to tell their fears and thoughts. 
"They're not going to tell senior people in the 
chain of command, and no soldier tells his 
family. That's where I got the passage about 
desertion—soldiers' e-mails. I put it word for 
word in Nothing to Lose because it's authentic 
and because, in an oblique way, it gives voice 
to people who have none. 

PLAYBOY: Do most armed forces members 
like your novels? 

CHILD: It’s dependent on rank. Reacher, 
as you know, was a major, and majors on 
down love him. They see the potential. 
Lieutenant colonels and above hate him. 
They feel it would be a nightmare to have 
him in their unit. 

PLAYBOY: You're a rarity—a popular nov- 
elist who is taken seriously. How do you 
think of yourself? 

CHILD: 1 think of myself as primarily an 
entertainer. I never think of myself as a 
literary figure. That said, 1 expect good 
reviews. Ifa restaurant serves quality food 
at affordable prices with good service and 
decent surroundings, it should get good 
reviews. And that's what I'm doing— 
supplying a diligently made product. 
PLAYBOY: What writers in your genre do 
you admire? 

CHILD: John Grisham. I think he's a sophis- 
ticated and intelligent writer and that each 
of his books interrogates the art, experi- 
ments to see what fiction really requires. 
The Runaway Jury has no pleasant char- 
acters. You don't care about any of them. 


All you've got is a central question—what 
will the verdict be?—and it carries you 
through. I also like Michael Connelly. He 
passes what I call the three-minute airport 
test. If you're changing planes and have 
three minutes at the bookstore, grab a 
Connelly. He never lets you down. 
PLAYBOY: What writers in your genre do 
you dislike 

CHILD: Vince Flynn and Brad Thor. They 
are essentially contributors to a kind of right- 
wing bubble. They play to the enthusiasms 
ofthe pro-torture audience. Glenn Beck has 
featured them on his shows. I also don't like 
David Baldacci. He's just overrated. 
PLAYBOY: How have your parents responded 
to your success? 

CHILD: My father disapproves of practi- 
cally everything I do. I'm not Calvinist 
enough. I buy luxury items. I don't work in 
a middle-class job. He’s 88 now and prob- 
ably won't make it to 89. He's part of Tom 
Brokaw's “greatest generation.” At the age 
when I was in college having a good time, 
he was fighting across Europe as an engi- 
neer repairing tanks on the front lines. But 
it was also a bizarre generation—pinched 
and unsuited for postwar prosperity. 
PLAYBOY: Have you developed expen- 
sive tastes? 

CHILD: For me, money buys convenience. If 
I want to go somewhere and there's an ex- 
pensive flight I want at 10 o'clock, ГИ take 
that flight even though I might get one for 
half the price at one o'clock. And ГИ have 
a limo at the other end waiting for me. I 
travel trouble free and first class 
PLAYBOY: Where do you shop for clothes? 
CHILD: Lands' End mail order. You can get 
а suit there for a couple hundred bucks. 
And that’s what I wear. I'm not saying I 
look good, but I guarantee I would not 
look any better if I went to Armani. 
PLAYBOY: Do you throw your clothes away 
after they get dirty? 

CHILD: I take them to the laundry. I don't live 
like Reacher. We just got our country house 
in East Sussex in England and are having it 
fixed up. It's in the arts and crafis style, built 
in the 1920s. We bought a beautiful Renoir 
painted in 1919. I have a supercharged Jag- 
uar. I have my guitar collection. I actually 
could afford an even grander life. I err on 
the side of having less rather than more. 
PLAYBOY: How do you relax? 

CHILD: In this I am a lot like Reacher. He 
enjoys his solitude, and I do too. I don't 
have that group of male friends that seems 
to be the American ideal; I don't have five 
or six buddies I go to a bar with. I finish 
work at six р.м. Then I watch baseball on 
ТУ. I'm a Yankees fan. If the game finishes 
at 10, ГИ walk down to the Village to hear 
what's playing in the clubs. 

PLAYBOY: If you were in distress, do you 
have a male friend you'd call? 

CHILD: Actually, no. Apart from my wife, 
who by default is my close friend, I'm a 
fairly isolated person, and I feel fine about 
it. If I have an emotional wound, I instantly 
say, "Fuck that," and it's gone. It's probably 
not a healthy way to deal with things, but I 
have these imagined ideals against which I 
measure myself. The heroes for boys of my 
generation were the RAF bombing crews 
who faced life with a stiff upper lip. That 


was very English, and it completely disap- 
peared in the 1990s. When Princess Diana 
was killed, there was a sea change in Britain. 
There was this outpouring of cheap emo- 
tion that has never stopped. My center of 
gravity is tied to an earlier time when the 
masculine thing was to just take it. 
PLAYBOY: That sounds like your father. 
Other than your occasional high-end pur- 
chase, have you made no concessions to 
our fallen time? 

CHILD: If I'm feeling stressed, I'll smoke 
some weed at night. 

PLAYBOY: How often do you smoke? 

CHILD: Maybe five nights out of seven. It 
depends on what I'm doing. I’m a con- 
templative person, and weed helps me cut 
through the membranes of daily cares. It 
simplifies things and allows me to identify 
the important strands. If I'm struggling on 
a book, ГИ light a pipe and the answer will 
sometimes come to me. 

PLAYBOY: You must be the world's most 
productive pothead. 

CHILD: There are others. 

PLAYBOY: With the September publication 
of A Wanted Man, you're on track to write 
20 books in two decades. That's a lot of 
work. How many more will you do? 

CHILD: Initially I was planning on 21. I 
wanted to match but, as a matter of respect, 
not exceed John D. MacDonald's Travis 
McGee novels. He did 21. That's one of the 
best series we have. І mean, 1 think Cal Rip- 
ken should not have exceeded Lou Gehrig's 
consecutive game streak. Gehrig's streak 
terminated because he had a mortal illne: 
John MacDonald stopped writing becau: 
he died. For all we know, he could've writ- 
ten many more. So I feel I should do 21 
Reacher novels and stop. 

PLAYBOY: You're almost there. 

CHILD: Exactly. But in a human sense this 
will be incredibly difficult to do because 
you get seduced by the attention. And 
you’ve got to have nerves of steel to turn 
down the money. I do four-book contracts. 
То walk away from the next one would 
probably cost me $30 million or $40 mil- 
lion globally. So I'm not sure, but I think 
ГІ be done sooner than later. 

PLAYBOY: Do you know how the series will 
conclude? 
CHILD: I have the title: Die Lonely. I be- 
lieve Reacher is a noble old warhorse and 
deserves a spectacular end. I don't think 
I should just let him peter out. I have it 
in my mind to maneuver him into some 
situation where he must decide either to 
give up the person he's protecting or to 
give up himself. He'll face a villain he can't 
beat, and he'll choose to sacrifice himself. 
He will drag himself back to a filthy motel 
bathroom and bleed to death on the floor. 
PLAYBOY: Maybe Reacher will live on in the 
movies. 

CHILD: I have a cameo in Jack Reacher in 
which I essentially hand Hollywood the 
baton. In the scene, Reacher has been 
arrested and is in jail overnight. He's 
sprung the next morning by his lawyer. Не 
stops at the front desk of the police station 
to retrieve his possessions, and a sergeant 
returns his toothbrush. I play the sergeant. 


20% off! 
Corset 
Body 
Stocking 


Surprise her 
with this 
sexy body 
stocking. 
Has the look. 
of a corset, 
without the 
discomfort. 
Stretch lace 
and fishnet 
give the look 
of boning 
and lace-top 
stockings. 


One size fits 
S,M,L 

so 

only $23.95 


panties.com 


„ће gift that touches her when you can't 


SE IOR. 6 
EDROOM ADVENTURE CEA 
1.866.542.7283 


A PUBLIC COMPANY: LUVU 


135 


PLAYBOY 


SONNY VACCARO 


(continued from page 68) 
corruption and abuses. Now he wants to 
drain it. Technically, Vaccaro’s lawsuit con- 
cerns compensation for former athletes who 
were forced to sign away their rights in re- 
turn for their scholarships and whose images 
the NCAA then sold to ESPN, Electronic Arts 
and the Collegiate Licensing Company—the 
latter two of which are defendants in the suit 
along with the NCAA. The grounds of the 
suit are that the NCAA, by imposing a single 
scholarship rule for all its member schools, ef- 
fectively created a cartel that violates federal 
antitrust law since athletes have no recourse. 
Itis sign or else. As Walter Byers, a former ex- 
ecutive director of the NCAA who later called 
for reform, puts it in his book, “A meeting 
among business competitors to harmonize 
their bids in a contract is usually called a con- 
spiracy. More than 900 members agreeing 
by contract through the NCAA to issue com- 
mon contracts to young people recruited to 
play on various sports teams seems to fit that 
niche.” That's exactly Vaccaro's point. 

Should Vaccaro win, former athletes will 
probably be compensated. But the ramifi- 
cations of the suit go far beyond those ath- 
letes. If Vaccaro succeeds in voiding the 

nonopoly on the images of former 
ї will go a long way toward voiding 


the restrictions the NCAA forces on its cur- 
rent athletes—everything from preventing 
schools from crafting their own scholarship 
rules, which has kept athletes from shopping 
for the best package, to preventing athletes 
from signing individual deals with shoe com- 
panies. Without those restrictions, the NCAA, 
which doesn’t have too many other functions 
beyond imposing rules, may well go out of 
business. At least that's what Vaccaro hopes. 
More than that, he wants to be the one 
to plant the dagger. Vaccaro knows that the 
NCAA usually manages to wriggle free from 
legal action because the courts seem to buy 
what has been called “the magic of amateur- 
ism.” Athletes, the NCAA says, get a free 
education, though Vaccaro and others find 
this argument disingenuous. Professionally 
bound athletes, he says, aren't in school for 
an education, and the education they get is 
a “joke,” with majors tailored to make it easy 
for them. “One school has a housing major 
for athletes,” he howled during the Berkeley 
lecture. “A real estate agent has more educa- 
tion than a housing major.” Indeed, despite 
the NCAA's professed efforts to enforce high- 
er educational standards, 14 teams in the 
NCAA men's basketball tournament in 2012 
failed to graduate 50 percent of t 
Still, the amateurism-edu 
has proven so successful that it has seemed 
futile to challenge the NCAA's authority, 


and few people have even dared—until 
now. But as Vaccaro told that Berkeley 
class, *The first one over the wall always 
gets shot." Vaccaro is spoiling to be the first 
one over that wall, even if he gets shot. 


If college athletics had a Faust, it would be 
Sonny Vaccaro, which obviously makes him 
an improbable savior. He was the guy who 
was always dangling money in front of col- 
lege coaches and then college administra- 
tors, and they just couldn't help themselves. 
As he once confessed to Robert Lipsyte 
of The New York Times, "What I'm doing 
is morally wrong." There are those who 
even accuse him of almost single-handedly 
destroying college basketball by dangling 
sneaker money in front of young athletes, 
encouraging them to emphasize individual 
skills at the expense of the team, the better 
to advertise themselves. The NCAA always 
seems to have regarded him as a kind of 
gangster—first pressuring him to rat out 
his friend Jerry Tarkanian, the University 
of Nevada at Las Vegas coach who was con- 
stantly under investigation by the NCAA for 
various infractions (Vaccaro says he never 
knew anything about Tarkanian's alleged 
wrongdoing), and then investigating Vac- 
caro himself for having given gifts to several 
players (he was completely absolved). The 


T DoT CARE IF IT [$ HALLOWEEN, 
WEEVIL. AVE A Hat Dougie DATE 
SCHEDULED “TAIS EVENING AND T 
DONT WAST ANY TRIcK-oR-TREATERS 
INTERRUPTING THE EESTUTES ^ 
So Do WHATEVER You CAN Te 
DISCoOLRLASE THEM Do You 
UNDERSTAND 


HA-HA, VERY Tonay! zul BET Yeo/RE А 
PAIROF Ворер HousEWIVES Wie 
WERT ON A ЅЦеРРІАФ SPREE IN 
Сеңменомек5 oe HortywWooD. 
GREAT WeRK/ HERE, 
ЦАУЕ SOME CANDY. 
[им Pact TAKE 
(т Аш. JUST 
DoT HURT 


Ж REALLY (EO Do Ts, I Love 
HALLOWEEN, Fie JUST WAVE To 
EXERCISE AS шек ТАСТ AST CAN 


MISTER So x (шокт АЗАРТ. 
THESE Poor Truc(cor-TREATERS. 


OL, AN GeeDNESS, 
WHAT GREAT, 

COSTUMES.” 
(Е = WERERT 
Suck A HARD - 
Сере PLAYER, 
Xp TRINK Yeo 


GiRLS WERE A 
Reat u)  %Ъ 55 
SS TU YES -/ A Zi 
Peost rores / УА 14 


You вот US 
(à 
ve ST T 
GNE 


ARENT? 


NCAA refuses to speculate about his motives 
now, but it has quietly impugned him as a 
way of impugning the case. Attorney Jon 
King says, "He doesn't seem like someone 
who fits into their sort of executive club." 

He never has. Indeed, nefariousness al- 
ways seemed to cling to Vaccaro. It's prob- 
ably in part because he's Italian and looks a 
bit like a low-level mobster from The Sopra- 
nos: dark complexion, raccoon eyes, a broad 
forehead and, in his younger days, a shape 
that prompted former USC coach George 
Raveling to nickname him Pear. His basic 
wardrobe once consisted of a sweat suit. (At 
his wedding to his second wife, Pam, he jok- 
ingly had the band play The Godfather theme 
for their first dance.) In part, it is because 
he spent a good deal of time in Las Vegas, 
where his younger brother Jimmy still runs 
the book at an operation called Lucky's, and 
because he cultivates a Runyonesque per- 
sona in a world of other Runyonesque char- 
acters with such odd nicknames as Tootie, 
Dushie and Hambone. And in part it's be- 
cause the idea of handing checks to coaches 
seems vaguely s 
ing criminal or immoral about it desp 
caro's own professions of remorse. 
hard to say exactly what 
nds to gain in taking on college 
except to shake that gangster im- 
age. He is an unpaid consultant to the case, 
and if he wins, there is no payday for him, 
ly for the former athletes whose cause he 
ampioning. You can press him all you 
want to try to uncover some ulterior mo- 
tive, but you'll always get the same answer: 
He's doing it for the kids. His voice rising 
when he talks about them, Vaccaro seems 
genuinely angry about the treatment of 
marginalized young athletes. 

There is nonetheless a personal element 
to this fight—one that is buried deep in Vac- 
caro's own history. 

Nicknamed Sonny by his mother for his 
sunny disposition, John Paul Vaccaro grew 
up cheek by jowl with Serbs, Croats, Poles 
and fellow Italians in the small town of Traf- 
ford in western Pennsylvania, 17 miles from 
Pittsburgh, where everyone was an outsider. 
It was hardscrabble coal and steel country. His 
father was an immigrant who poured molten 
steel at the nearby Duquesne mill, missing just 
a single day of work in 43 years. His mother 
was the daughter of Italian immigrants, and 
two of her brothers schooled Sonny in base- 
ball and football, both of which he so excelled 
at that the Pittsburgh Pirates offered him a 
$3,500 signing bonus to play baseball and 
the University of Kentucky offered him a 
scholarship to play football as a five-foot-10, 
170-pound running back. He chose the latter, 
he said, because Kentucky's quarterback was 
a fellow Italian, Vito “Babe” Parilli. 

That, though, is ancient history. Most 
people pick up the Vaccaro story 20 years 
later, in the 1970s, when Vaccaro was in his 
30s and quit his job teaching and coaching at 
"Irafford High, left his wife and four children 
and became a vagabond. He calls these years 
his "lost weekend," after the Billy Wilder 
movie, though it was more like a lost half de- 
cade. He spent summers in Las Vegas, gam- 
bling and living off comps. The rest of the 
time he lived out of his car or on a friend's 
couch. He was aimless. 


What ended his lost half decade was a for- 
tuitous relationship with two sports agents, 
Lew Schaffel and Jerry Davis. The two asked 
Vaccaro to use his connections from a high 
school all-star basketball game he ran in 
Pittsburgh called the Dapper Dan to help 
the agency sign former participants now out 
of college and headed to the NBA. At the 
time, Davis represented a middling guard 
named Phil Chenier who had a $2,000- 
year sneaker contract with a small com- 
pany headquartered in Beaverton, Oregon 
named Nike, which was so little known that 
most people pronounced it “Nicky” Vaccaro 
had never had anything to do with shoes, but 
while running a summer basketball camp at 
a dormant ski resort in Seven Springs, Penn- 
sylvania that year, he noticed how the kids 
blew out their flimsy canvas sneakers. On 
impulse he decided to design new leather 
basketball shoes—some with holes for ven- 
tilation, some with Velcro fasteners, one that 
was backless like a sandal—and had a shoe- 
maker friend manufacture prototypes. Davis 
wrote Sonny a letter of introduction to the 
head of Nike, a man named Phil Knight. 

As Vaccaro remembers it, he brought the 
shoes slung over his shoulder in a burlap 
bag to a series of wallboard cubicles that 
constituted the unimposing Nike offices 
in Beaverton, thinking this might be his 
golden ticket. The Nike execs examined 
the shoes absently, took him to dinner at a 
Chinese restaurant (Vaccaro thinks it was 
because he was a curiosity—“an Italian guy 
from Pittsburgh") and then sent him on hi 
way. They never talked about shoes ag: 
But about two weeks later Nike's market- 
ing director, a man named Rob Strasser, 
asked Vaccaro to fly out again to pick his 
brain about how Nike might make a beach- 
head into basketball. Vaccaro was hoping he 
might get Nike at least to contribute shoes to 
the Dapper Dan, but he also casually men- 
tioned to Strasser that if Nike wanted to get 
kids to wear its basketball shoes, it shouldn't 


just sign up garden-variety NBA players like 


Phil Chenier. Nike ought to give shoes to Fort 
Hamilton High School in New York, where 
a phenom named Albert King played, and 
to teams at other inner-city high schools. 
Kids wanted to wear the shoes of the cool- 
est athletes, and these high-schoolers were 
the coolest. As Strasser mulled the idea, he 
decided to attend the Dapper Dan, and he 
was impressed by what he saw. When he got 
back to Beaverton, he told Vaccaro the high 
schools would get their sneakers. As Vaccaro 
puts it, “That's the birth of the shoe indus- 
try as we know it.” 

Thus began Sonny Vaccaro’s Nike period, 
which is when the sneaker money began 
to flow. By the time he made his third trip 
to Beaverton, he was armed with another 
idea. Vaccaro suggested that Nike give away 
shoes to major college basketball programs 
and then pay the coaches for the privilege of 
having their teams wear them. He knew the 
coaches would bite because they didn’t make 
all that much money; the legendary UCLA 
coach John Wooden reportedly never made 
more than $35,000 in base salary and even 
then only after winning nine NCAA champi- 
onships. The first coach Vaccaro approached 
was his old friend Jerry Tarkanian of UNLV, 
who got $10,000 and 120 pairs of shoes. 


EXTRA-STRENGTH 
SEXUAL ENHANCER 


МАСМА- КХР 


New, fast-acting, doctor-endorsed formula 
helps support dual-action sexual potency: 


LIBIDO' + PERFORMANCE' 
ENERGY' + STAMINA' 


MAGNA-RXTRA+ 
IS AVAILABLE АТ: 


MANUFACTURERS COUPON а DS ots 1 


= SAVES3 


OFF YOUR PURCHASE OF ANY 


MAGNA-RX PRODUCT 
60 COUNT or GREATER 


081118500-075081 


NC. com and participating 
nly GNC Coupon #19113 


PLAYBOY 


Tarkanian couldn't believe his good fortune. 
Within a year, Vaccaro had between 60 and 
70 coaches under contract. 

Even before Vaccaro, college sports were 
never as pristine as their advocates would 
like fans to believe. Decades ago athletes 
were frequently paid under the table and 
occasionally over it. Still, when Vaccaro be- 
gan doling out Nike money, he changed the 
complexion of amateur athletics by open- 
ing the door to outside commercialization 
and demonstrating just how much could be 
made on the backs of college athletes. Even- 
tually he would pay coaches in the “serious 
six figures” to have their teams wear Nike, 
and when the competition got hot in the 
early 1980s, the top coaches even got Nike 
stock, which, if they held it, would be worth 
millions of dollars today. That led to all sorts 
of deals between college coaches and high 
school coaches who had players the former 
coveted. Vaccaro described to the Knight 
Commission how college coaches could ef- 
fectively launder sneaker money by having 
the companies underwrite coach-sponsored 
tournaments or camps—money that could 
then be diverted to the high school coaches 
or even high school players without being 
traced. Vaccaro was the first man to see this 
as the future of college athletics—the first 
man to see that for all the protestations from 
the NCAA and universities, it was about one 
thing and one thing only: money. 

But even as he was playing Faust and sew- 
ing up college basketball for Nike by tempt- 
ing coaches, the company wasn't entirely 
sure he wasn't a mobster. He had no contract 
and was making only $500 a month, without 
any commissions. It was probably the best 
money Nike ever spent. In 1985, thanks to 
Vaccaro, all four NCAA finalists wore Nikes. 
As he put it, “Being a Nike school was almost 
tantamount to being a school at all.” 


It's the summer of the NBA lockout, 2011, 
and half a dozen or so NBA stars, including 
Russell Westbrook, Al Horford and Tyreke 
Evans, are working out in the St. Monica 
Catholic High School gymnasium on a quiet 
side street in Santa Monica where Vaccaro 
once lived, operating his basketball empire 
from a table in Izzy's Deli. When Vaccaro 
saunters into the gym, he is greeted with 
broad smiles and bear hugs, like a favorite 
uncle, Just about everybody outside college 
basketball's ruling powers loves Sonny Vac- 
caro. The night before, he and his wife, Pam, 
were having dinner with Arn Tellem, one 
of the NBA's most powerful player agents 
and one of Sonny's closest friends. The next 
day he is having lunch with an NBA gen- 
eral manager who reminisces about how he 
and Vaccaro circumvented the NBA's player 
combine assessing potential draftees by set- 
ting up their own workouts for the players 
they favored. Even though he is out of bas- 
ketball, Vaccaro routinely gets calls from cur- 
rent, former and prospective players seeking 
his counsel about agents, sneaker deals and 
life. He even gets calls from ninth- and 10th- 
grade prospects. On draft night in 2011, 
five general managers phoned him for his 
intelligence on draftees—in the old days, he 
says, 25 would have called him—and so did 


138 several of the draftees themselves, including 


the number one choice, Kyrie Irving, whom 
Vaccaro had never even met. 

That is unusual, because just about 
everybody in basketball has a history with 
Vaccaro. The biggest NBA stars all played in 
his Dapper Dan games or, after 1991, their 
successor, the Roundball Classic, where Уас- 
caro made a point of meeting each invitee. 
And more attended the ABCD summer bas- 
ketball camp Vaccaro inaugurated with Nike 
money in 1984 at Princeton, where he per- 
sonally selected the best 120 (later 200) high 
school players in the country for one week 
of instruction and games. Vaccaro counseled 
every single player at the camp one-on-one, 
which is why they all know him and why 
he knows all of them. Vaccaro's memory is 
encyclopedic. He not only remembers every 
player who ever attended ABCD, he also re- 
members every single play in every game. He 
says he never missed one. 

Vaccaro's admirers say that because of 
the Dapper Dan and ABCD, Nike actually 
benefited more from Vaccaro's basketball 
instincts than he benefited from Nike's deep 
pockets. There was always another sneaker 
company waiting to employ Vaccaro, but 
there wasn't another Vaccaro. Though һе 
never played basketball and had coached 


Vacarro looked Jordan in the 
eye and said, “You're going 
to have your own shoe. Your 
name is going to be on every 
Shoe the kids wear.” Air 
Jordan was born. 


it only at the lowest amateur ranks, he had 
an uncanny eye for talent, which is what led 
to probably his greatest triumph at Nike. As 
Vaccaro tells it, some time after North Caro- 
lina’s NCAA tournament win in 1982, Rob 
Strasser, Nike's marketing guru, invited him 
to a high-level two-day meeting at a private 
mansion outside Beaverton. The subject: 
how to expand Nike's brand to professional 
basketball. Nike had earmarked $500,000 
to be divided among selected NBA stars 
to endorse Nike shoes. The question, of 
course, was which stars they should select. 
When Vaccaro was asked to weigh in, he 
unhesitatingly told them to give the entire 
pot to North Carolina junior Michael Jor- 
dan, who had declared he was leaving to go 
pro. Jordan was one of the few college stars 
who hadn't played in the Dapper Dan or at 
ABCD. His college stats were hardly strato- 
spheric, and North Carolina was a Converse 
school to boot, but Vaccaro said he had a gut 
feeling Jordan would be the gold standard. 
Asked by one attendee if he was willing to 
bet his job on it, Vaccaro said he was. 

Now he had to convince Jordan to sign 
with Nike. The two met at a rib joint in 
Santa Monica. Jordan said he was partial to 
Adidas because he thought they had more 
style. Vaccaro looked him in the eye and 


said, "You're going to have your own shoe. 
Your name із going to be on every shoe the 
kids wear.” Jordan laughed, Air Jordan was 
born, and Nike soared. So too did the as- 
pirations of just about every college player. 
In time they all thought they might get a 
Jordan deal, which raised the stakes of col- 
lege basketball even higher—again, thanks 
to Vaccaro. 

But there was one more milestone in the 
Vaccaro-Nike saga—one that would, more 
than anything else, lead to Vaccaro's ultimate 
realization about the hypocrisy ofamateurism 
and his role in it. It was a call in the late 1980s 
from Sam Jankovich, the athletic director of 
the University of Miami, with a proposition: 
Rather than pay the coaches, Nike should 
pay the university itself for an “all school” 
deal in which every Miami team would wear 
Nike. Vaccaro claims it was a bracing mo- 
ment. For all the abuse that has been heaped 
on him from some quarters—and that he 
sometimes heaps on himself—for having de- 
spoiled the purity of college athletics, he says, 
“I know in my heart that never ever should I 
or Nike or any shoe company be held respon- 
sible for any business that was done between 
corporate America and amateur basketball or 
football and universities. They initiated it.” As 
soon as Miami signed, other schools lined up 
for the same deal. As Vaccaro told Strasser, 
“We've got it made now.” 

But as it turned out, when it came to cor- 
porate America, Vaccaro wasn't much luckier 
than the amateur athletes he had befriended 
and defended. In August 1991, a few years af- 
ter the Miami deal, he got an urgent call that 
he was needed at an emergency meeting in 
Beaverton. No sooner did he walk into Phil 
Knights office than Knight said, “Гуе got to 
let you go.” Vaccaro, shell-shocked, quit in- 
stead. The entire conversation took less than 
10 minutes. A week later Knight offered him 
$250,000 for the rights to the Dapper Dan 
and ABCD, which Vaccaro owned, but he re- 
fused to sell. Vaccaro still has no idea why he 
was fired. Even today, a Nike spokesperson 
refuses to comment on Vaccaro. 

Word of the firing traveled fast. The next 
day, he got a call from Converse offering to 
finance ABCD, and the day after that he was 
contacted by Strasser, who had recently left 
Nike to take over Adidas, with the promise 
that as soon as things were up and running 
there, he would bring Vaccaro aboard. Jor- 
dan called to ask if there was anything he 
could do. Six of his Nike coaches pitched in 
to buy him an engraved gold Rolex watch. 
But perhaps the greatest tribute would come 
later, from an economist who told Vaccaro 
he had created more wealth than any other 
person who was not the head of a company. 
“It starts in 1977,” Vaccaro says ruefully of his 
relationship with Nike. “They own nothing. I 
leave in 1991; they owned everything.” 


And so began act two of Sonny Vaccaro’s 
basketball odyssey. He spent his first post- 
Nike summer with Converse. Then, within 
six months, Strasser made good on his 
promise with Adidas. Financially it was a 
boon since Strasser gave him Adidas stock 
as well as a salary. 

But even more important than the money 
was the revenge for his dismissal. Vaccaro 


knew һе couldn't pry away Nike's colleges 
without having players at ABCD whom 
those colleges wanted. Since Nike also had, 
thanks to Vaccaro, most of the best inner- 
city high schools under contract, Vaccaro 
had to go to the one place to which he and 
Nike hadn't paid attention: nonscholastic 
amateur teams. He began scouting Amateur 
Athletic Union teams and forming relation- 
ships with the top AAU coaches and their 
players to insure they would go to ABCD 
rather than the rival Nike camp. They did. 
“You keep score,” Vaccaro says, compar- 
ing his ABCD camp with Nike's new post- 
Vaccaro camp. “When it was all over, І had 
this guy, this guy and this guy, and they had 
that guy. We won. That's i." Kevin Love 
and Derrick Rose, two high school stars 
who played at Nike schools, even attended 
ABCD. As one NBA general manager put 
it, "Sonny was the brand. Nike wasn't the 
brand. Adidas wasn't the brand." 

And Vaccaro was the brand not just be- 
cause of the prestige of attending ABCD, 
which was itself a tribute to him. It was Бе- 
cause Vaccaro made a point of personalizing 
everything. When he bought a mansion in 
Calabasas in southern California, the play- 
ers always had a place to stay. He and Pam 
didn't swim, but he had a pool dug for his 
basketball visitors, most of them inner-city 
kids who had never been in a pool before. 
When players needed someone to talk to, 
they talked to Sonny or Pam. When they 
needed advice, they got it from Vaccaro. 
When they needed money—and many who 
never made it to the pros did—they asked 
Vaccaro for it. Vaccaro has hundreds of let- 
ters from players—he keeps everything— 
and he's written hundreds more. Although 
he has been demonized, not a single player 
has ever said a disparaging word against 
him. That was his advantage against Nike. 

And he used that advantage at Adidas 
when he upped the ante even more by tak- 
ing on Nike in the pro ranks. He set his sights 
on a high school star from Lower Merion, 
Pennsylvania he hoped would be the face of 
Adidas's NBA line. Again, Vaccaro was play- 
ing a hunch. As the son of former NBA play- 
er Joe Bryant, who had played in the Dapper 
Dan, Kobe Bryant was hardly a secret, but 
no one could really say how good he was or 
even if he was going to skip college and go 
pro—nobody but Уассаго. Knowing Kobe 
from the Dapper Dan and ABCD, Vaccaro 
was fairly certain he wasn't going to college. 
Still, Vaccaro moved to New York with Pam 
and spent a year courting Kobe's parents, 
who would drive up from Philadelphia for 
Sunday brunches. Vaccaro was with Bryant 
on draft night—he went 13th—and then 
quickly signed him to an Adidas contract. 

Тһе end with Adidas came when Vaccaro 
was courting another high school star and 
ABCD legend, LeBron James. Vaccaro 
thought James was the best player of that age 
he had ever seen. So he romanced LeBron's 
mother, Gloria, and her boyfriend, Eddie 
Jackson. He outfitted LeBron's high school 
team with sneakers. He flew LeBron and his 
teammates to Los Angeles on a private jet, 
got them Lakers playoff tickets and feted 
them at a posh mansion in Malibu—at a cost 
in the mid-six figures for the weekend. And 
then he promised LeBron a $100 million, 


10-year contract—a figure, he said, he had 
cleared with Adidas. But when the festivities 
ended and Adidas's attorneys tendered the 
contract, it was for significantly less. Vaccaro 
quit Adidas that night, and James eventually 
signed with Nike, with Vaccaro advising him 
to use the original Adidas offer as leverage. 

He wasn't unemployed long. Reebok hired 
him almost immediately, sponsoring his 
events and paying him handsomely. But by 
this time he was feeling a vague sense of mal- 
aise. For years, with no particular purpose 
in mind, he had been collecting clippings 
about the NCAA and the way it shortchanged 
athletes—clippings that would eventually fill 
20 boxes—though he says now that he first 
recognized the extent of the injustice of using 
young athletes to generate millions of dollars 
without giving them a single penny when 
ESPN bought the Classic Sports Network, 
which included the rights to old college bas- 
ketball and football broadcasts, for $175 mil- 
lion. Vaccaro says his realization was further 
sharpened in 1997 when he was asked to 
appear on a panel on amateurism hosted by 
Ted Koppel, and Michigan basketball star 
Chris Webber said that his parents had had 
to buy a Michigan Chris Webber jersey. The 
final straw, he says, was the so-called “one апа 
done” rule, instituted in 2006 in a collabora- 
tion between the NCAA and the NBA, which 
compelled high school graduates either to sit 
ош a year or to play in college for a year be- 
fore being eligible for the NBA draft. If they 
were injured during that year, they essentially 
forfeited their professional future. 

Vaccaro appreciated the risk. He remem- 
bered a player at La Salle University named 
Kenny Durrett who had decided to turn pro 
in Italy, only to have his coach convince him 
to return to school. Durrett was injured, and 


though he was later drafted by and played in 
the NBA, the injury probably cost him mil- 
lions of dollars. Similarly, Vaccaro has letters 
from other players—one who complained 
about leaving college without being able to 
read or write, another from a former colle- 
giate star who stayed for his senior season, 
wound up spending most of it on the bench 
injured and went undrafted. Now he was 
adrift and asking Vaccaro for advice. 
Though it is undeniable that their univer- 
sities exploited these young men, there are 
those who question whether Vaccaro him- 
self exploited young basketball players—a 
charge he vehemently denies. He says he 
took a commission from a player only twice, 
both times from professionals. “Never in 
my life did a kid give me anything or was 
there ever a due bill for anything,” he insists. 
Neither, he says, did he ever steer a player 
to a particular college or a particular agent 
to get a kickback. To do so would have de- 
stroyed his relationships with other coaches 
and agents—relationships he needed. He 
claims he never hyped middle-schoolers ei- 
ther and actually dissuaded young stars from 
competing against one another at camps the 
way older players did because he thought it 
put too much pressure on them. The only 
charges to which he pleads guilty are buy- 
ing airplane tickets for St. John’s stars Felipe 
López and Zendon Hamilton so they could 
attend a basketball camp, buying clothes for 
Rhode Island star Lamar Odom because he 
didn't have any money of his own and put- 
ting up at his own house an African pros- 
pect named Makhtar N'Diaye—offenses the 
NCAA had investigated and cleared him of. 
Nevertheless, by throwing money at high 
school, AAU and college coaches, Vaccaro 
knew they might wind up abusing the 


меке 


“Pm a blow-up doll!” 


139 


PLAYBOY 


system. Hence his confessions of immoral- 
ity. Like “Manchurian candidates," he says, 
middle-schoolers would go to high schools 
and AAU programs that had agreements 
with particular sneaker companies, which 
would in turn steer them to colleges affili- 
ated with the same company—"So we can tie 
up the minds and souls of the people,” was 
how he put it. He certainly knew that the 
athletes weren't getting any of that sneaker 
money while they were in school and that 
most of them would never make the pros, 
where they could finally cash in. The ath- 
letes’ interests were always secondary to 
those of the sneaker company or the school. 
When Vaccaro pleaded powerless to stop the 
process to the Times’ Robert Lipsyte back in 
1997, Lipsyte told him, “You sound like an 
arms dealer who says there should be world 
peace but still sells nuclear warheads.” 


And yet Vaccaro finally did stop selling sneak- 
ers. In 2007 he quit his job at Reebok with 
two years remaining on his contract and de- 
cided to fight the NCAA and the universities. 
Thus began act three of his life. And though 
he attributes his declaration of war to his rip- 
ening sense of injustice, it may have had less 
to do with epiphanies and guilt than with a 
culmination of umbrage that had slowly been 
mounting since the time he got that football 
scholarship to Kentucky and the university 
recommended he attend a junior college to 
raise his grades. That was when Vaccaro dis- 
covered just how disposable college athletes 
are. He discovered it because he was one of 
them. In junior college, he hurt his back play- 
ing football, lost his quickness as well as his 
Kentucky offer and enrolled at Youngstown 
State in Ohio, where the coach thought he 
would be productive at even half his old 
speed. He wasn't. Luckily, Youngstown State's 
assistant football coach and head basketball 
coach, a fellow Italian American named Dom 
Rosselli, recognized in Vaccaro's extrover- 
sion, enthusiasm and ethnicity things that. 
might connect with kids Rosselli wanted to 
recruit—black kids. Vaccaro kept his schol- 
arship and was able to graduate by trying to 
lure these kids to play for Rosselli. 

Vaccaro says now that it was less about 
basketball than about race. All the kids he 
recruited for Youngstown were black. Just 
about all the kids who played in the Dapper 
Dan, the best players in America, were black. 
And Vaccaro says that he, as an Italian Amer- 
ican who was slighted by WASP America, 
empathized with these kids—empathized es- 
pecially with the handful who were recruited 
by white colleges and wound up without 
any sense of belonging or much of an edu- 
cation. The Dapper Dan was his civil rights 
movement—his way to get attention and, 
even more, respect for young black athletes. 
Before the Dapper Dan, nobody knew who 
these players were. After it, every basket- 
ball aficionado did. Three hundred college 
coaches attended that first game in 1965. 

Today Vaccaro calls the NCAA “the most 
racist organization in America” for the way it 
uses and discards black athletes, which helps 
explain his determination to destroy it. In 
doing so, he would be avenging himself and 
every black college basketball player the sys- 


140 tem abused. But in order to do so, he had to 


leave Reebok so no one could accuse him of 
profiting while he was waging his battle. 

He decided to beat the NCAA at its own 
game. He advised a coveted California high 
school point guard named Brandon Jen- 
nings, whom he knew from ABCD, to skip 
college and play in Europe instead, thus tak- 
ing on one-and-done. Vaccaro negotiated a 
contract with Lottomatica in Rome for Jen- 
nings and got him a $2 million sneaker deal 
with Under Armour, including stock. The 
next year Jennings was drafted 10th by the 
Milwaukee Bucks and is now an NBA star. 

Still, Vaccaro realized that a player here 
and there decamping to Europe wasn't going 
to bring down the NCAA. He had to build a 
movement. So he began soliciting invitations 
to speak on college campuses—not to athletes 
but to law, journalism and business students 
he hoped he could inspire to lead the charge 
against the NCAA. It wasn't as much of a 
stretch as it might seem. His Runyonesque 
persona to the contrary, Vaccaro, in private, is 
actually professorial: articulate, highly intel- 
ligent and extremely well-read. He brought 
his message to Harvard, Yale, Columbia, even 
to the heart of basketball country at Duke, 
North Carolina and Memphis. “I didn't want 
to be Joan of Arc,” he says. “I thought I could 


Vaccaro calls the NCAA 
“the most racist organization 
in America” for the way it 
uses and discards black ath- 
letes, which helps explain his 
determination to destroy it. 


be the person who said, ‘I wish to hell Joan of 
Arc would come along.’” 

It was after one of these appearances, at 
Howard University, that he got a call from 
Michael Hausfeld, a prominent Washington, 
D.C. attorney who had won reparations 
from Germany for slave laborers during 
World War II and restitution from Swiss 
banks for Holocaust victims whose assets 
the banks had wrongly retained. Hausfeld 
thought he saw a similar situation in the ath- 
letes of the NCAA. Hausfeld grilled Vaccaro 
in his office about the sins of the NCAA, then 
got up from the conference table, hugged 
Vaccaro and said, “We're going to take them 
on.” Hausfeld’s attorneys hauled off Vac- 
caro's boxes of papers and began carefully 
sifting for evidence of NCAA perfidy. As 
Hausfeld attorney Jon King readily admits, 
Vaccaro was the “jump start to the entire 
process. He's the heart and soul ofthe case.” 

Since Vaccaro suffered no personal harm 
from the NCAAS contract and has no legal 
standing asa plaintiff, he had to recruit some- 
one who did have standing. (The NCAA, still 
thinking he was John Dillinger, as Vaccaro 
says, has asked for the past 12 years of his re- 
cords, on the theory that he induced players 
to join the suit by paying them.) He phoned 
two dozen former players. Some didn't want 


to upset their alma maters. Others were 
hoping for coaching jobs and couldn't take 
the risk. When Vaccaro reached him, former 
UCLA star and college player of the year Ed 
O'Bannon was working for a car dealership 
in Las Vegas and had already seen his image 
on an EA Sports game, for which he had re- 
ceived no compensation. He pondered the 
decision for a week before telling Vaccaro, "I 
want to be the man." 

Along with O'Bannon, there are now 20 
plaintiffs, among them Hall of Famers Oscar 
Robertson and Bill Russell. Vaccaro says a 
hundred more are waiting to join the suit 
who will testify in court, including, Vaccaro 
promises, the biggest names in basketball. 
Also joining the suit are plaintiffs from the 
other college money sport, football, including 
former Arizona State and Nebraska quarter- 
back Sam Keller, who had brought a suit of his 
own against the NCAA for the use of his like- 
ness. (Kareem Abdul-Jabbar has filed another 
action in California state court but has yet to 
join the Hausfeld suit.) The coaches, many 
of them Vaccaro's friends, have been less 
forthcoming, and Vaccaro isn't happy about 
it. “Not one college coach has stood up on a 
platform and said, 'I want to do what's right 
for these kids.’ Why does it have to be me?” 

That is a good question. The main answer 
may be that the NCAA is powerful, and it 
takes someone gutsy like Vaccaro to challenge 
it—someone who knows the abuses firsthand. 
But if he has taken on this burden for revenge, 
he has also taken it on for redemption. So the 
answer, in part, is that Vaccaro, a former altar 
boy who refuses to eat meat on Fridays, is a 
practicing Catholic paying penance for an ex- 
ploitation he helped finance even if he didn't, 
as he daims, actively participate. And the an- 
swer is that Vaccaro, a man who says the worst 
thing on his record is a speeding ticket but 
who is nevertheless still regarded as some sort 
of mobster, will always be an outsider among 
outsiders, and he takes that role seriously. And 
the answer is that Vaccaro cares about his lega- 
су. When James Gandolfini bought the rights 
to Vaccaro's life story for an HBO movie, 
Vaccaro refused to approve the script because, 
to hype the drama, it showed him doing un- 
derhanded things he'd never done. ^I turned 
down a pretty good paycheck,” Vaccaro says. 

And finally the answer is Pam, Vaccaro's 
beautiful blonde wife of 28 years—19 years 
his junior—a former actress and model from 
whom he hasn't been separated for more 
than 24 hours at a time since their marriage. 
It was Pam who got her husband three large 
framed photos for his birthday several years 
ago because she wanted to remind him of 
the “true Sonny”—photos that, he says, are 
“always to my back” and that now hang in 
his office. They are of Roberto Clemente, 
Muhammad Ali and Jesse Owens—his three 
heroes. “They all have one thing in com- 
mon," Vaccaro says, tearing up. “They all did 
something that did not benefit them." Vac- 
caro is hoping his lawsuit may have the same 
effect on his reputation. He doesn't want to 
be known as the man who commercialized 
amateur athletics. He wants to be known as 
the man who wound up changing the system 
that abused young athletes. 

He just might do it. 


10 Better Sex DVDs 


E Dry > 
rius 
riur 


E 

І 
Combined Yours Now T: 
Retail Value 975024 For Ш 29! 

MORE SEX, BETTER SEX, MORE 

These 10 videos - The Advanced Sex Sampler— di real couples demonstrating 
real sexual positions for the most enjoyable foreplay and intercourse. They're 
100% guaranteed to increase the excitement and pleasure in your sex life. You'll 
see dozens of the best techniques to use for erotic massage... explosive oral 
Sex... and hitting the G spot. You'll also discover the secrets of the Kama Sutra... 
how to use exciting sex toys for ultimate pleasure... and how to explore forbid- 
den and taboo sex topics like rear entry sex, fantasy, role-playing, and more! 


4 
9 
c 


ORDER TODAY! 
Get ALL 10 VIDEOS — The Advanced Sex Sampler — for only $29. 
OR Create Your Own Sampler — choose individual videos for only $9 each. 


GET 2 FREE DVDs 


Art of Oral Sex & Art of Sexual Positions! 


And with any order, you'll also receive 
absolutely FREE — The Art of Oral Sex and 
The Art of Sexual Positions — a $40 value. 
These 2 FREE videos show proven 
techniques for ultimate oral stimulation and 


Ly $9 EACH 
ур ONLY $9 


advanced sex positions. They're guaranteed Cre: Jr Ow t rem cu am J ! 

to increase the excitement іп your sex life. Сато 6 Spo — DVDS ОМУ $29 
PLUS, get the Better Sex Catalog filled with o E B Orgasm ПА Pee 

sex toys, adult movies, and more. O Advanced Sex Play 


Sexual Positions for Lovers 
Был Sex Guide to Great Oral Sex седі 
016 Amazing Sex Techniques ly GP 
піВейег Sex Guide to Anal Sex 
E126 Incredible Sex Positions — 

icked Surrender 


оске 


100% Satisfaction Guaranteed. 

If you're not 100% satisfied with your 
order, videos can be returned for 
exchange or refund within 90 days. 


Shipped discreetiy to protect your privacy. 


CALL TO ORDER: 


1.800.955.0888 


or mail to: Sinclair Institute, ext.8PB246, PO Box 8865, Chapel Hill, NC 27515 Plain Packaging Protects Your Privacy 


use ext. 8PB246 Total Purchase. eel ro 
North Carolina Residents ADD 6.75% Sales Tax 5 x 
ORDER ONLINE AT: Canadian Residents ADD U.S. $9.00 Shipping. 5 
. Shipping, Handling & Shipping Insurance. s 60 oy 
TOTAL ENCLOSED/CHARGED user = 
BetterSex.COm | „ило = з 
[y 8PB246 [search] aa қ = 
= CHARGE MY: ОМА ОМС CIAMEX CIDISC Expiration date. Sr 
Enter code 8PB246 into the search box he No cash or 600.886 CAlDDSmoarisite. фе» 


to receive $6 S&H and your 2 FREE Videos. 7------:::-::::-:-:------ 


PLAYBOY 


142 


GOLD RUSH 


(continued from page 106) 
dealer on The Wire, the classic HBO drama. 
The name of the dealer, along with a memo- 
rable quote, appears near each door. There's 
Marlo (“I wasn't made to play the son”) and 
Prop Joe (“The shit is just business. Buy for 
a dollar, sell for two”). 

Though Dan Porter, a clean-cut 46-year- 
old in jeans and a polo shirt, looks more 
like Greg Focker than Avon Barksdale, he 
sells video games like the guys sell crack on 
The Wire. “That's where I learned еуегу- 
thing in business,” he says. Like what? The 
$210 million man smiles and quotes the line 
outside the Omar conference room: “It's all 
in the game, yo.” 

Porter never expected to be in the game at 
all. Growing up in Philadelphia, he wasn't a 
computer geek and couldn't code a lick. His 
video game experience was limited to playing 
Defender at the local bowling alley. But what 
he lacked in programming skills he made up 
for in entrepreneurial hustle. After college, 
Porter helped launch Teach for America, a 
national teacher corps, and led TicketWeb, 
a ticket-sales site that he helped sell to Tick- 
etmaster for more than $35 million. 

Porter was working for Richard Branson, 
owner of Virgin, on a series of music festivals 
when he met Charles Forman, a program- 
mer who'd been running a fledgling dating 
site with the clunky name I'm in Like With 
You. Porter, intrigued by the success of 
online games, came onboard in 2008 as CEO 
to transform Forman's outfit into a game 
company, which they redubbed OMGPOP 
because it sounded contemporary and cool. 
"I wanted to call it WTFMOM, but it turned 
out that was a porn site," Porter says. 

OMGPOP scored $17 million in funding, 
but the company's games—including Puppy 
World and Hamster Battle—never got out of 


the doghouse. Forman left the company, 
leaving Porter in charge. Porter had heard 
the stories about start-ups like Rovio and 
Zynga making millions on mobile and social 
games. If they could do it, why not him? "I 
was like, I want to make a game,” he recalls. 
"I'm not a game designer, but I played all 
these games on an iPhone. I kind of under- 
stood what makes games work: the rhythm, 
the pacing, the sense of fun, the way they 
mess with your mind." 

Mess with your mind, indeed. The best 
cell phone games give you something to fill 
your micro-slices of downtime—riding the 
Subway, waiting in a checkout line. You don't 
have to read pages of instructions to play; 
you can jump in and know intuitively what 
to do. Swipe your finger here, tap the screen 
there. Unlike Grand Theft Auto or Mass Effect, а 
great mobile game is designed to be played in 
brief intervals, delivering a little dopamine hit 
that sates you until you can play again. “You 
always feel like you want to take one more 
crack at solving the problem," Porter says. 

In this sense, cell phone games like Angry 
Birds and Doodle Jump hark back to the first 
golden age of arcades, when playing, say, 
Space Invaders was as simple as moving your 
ship and shooting. You don't need to mem- 
orize a million combo moves on your Xbox 
controller. The secret is to divine the old 
adage about what makes a game compelling, 
whether it's chess or Cut the Rope: It needs to 
be easy to learn but difficult to master. 

Few have mastered the formula better, or 
seen a bigger payoff, than Jason Kapalka, 
co-founder of the Seattle-based developer Pop- 
Cap. The company's pioneering puzzle game, 
Bejeweled, defined fingertip candy for a new 
generation. The object is to line up a series of 
brightly colored gems that vanish with a sat- 
isfying sparkle, only to be replaced by more. 

PopCap presaged the mobile boom by 
targeting casual gamers—moms and bored 


"Okay, but you'll have to leave as soon as my husband comes back 
from the bathroom." 


secretaries—on the web. But the company 
was still struggling. “We knew an audience 
was big but was very hard to reach,” Kapalka 
says. Then smartphones came along. “Now 
nongamers have devices that can easily access 
games,” Kapalka says. “That caused this enor- 
mous explosion.” Bejeweled went on to sell 
more than 50 million copies, and in July 2011 
PopCap sold to video game publishing giant 
Electronic Arts for $750 million. (Though Pop- 
Cap sold for more than OMGPOP its rise was 
not nearly as immediate.) 

As Porter knew, PopCap wasn't the 
only company striking it rich in the new 
golden age of gaming. Last summer Keith 
Shepherd and Natalia Luckyanova, a young 
husband-and-wife team in Raleigh, North 
Carolina, became overnight sensations with 
their hit mobile game Temple Run. Inspired 
by the opening scene of Raiders of the Lost 
Ark, the action game casts you as an adven- 
turer running away from freaky beasts after 
stealing a temple idol. 

Released in August 2011, Temple Run has 
been downloaded more than 100 million 
times, and it made its creators instant mil- 
lionaires. “There have been a lot of people 
banging down the door and wanting to 
talk to us,” Luckyanova says, “companies 
wanting to acquire us, venture companies 
wanting to invest, which is great but a little 
crazy." Shepherd still can't grasp his unusual 
success. “То see people playing the game 
in public, on the metro or at a bar, is a little 
mind-blowing," he says. As for the money, 
Shepherd plans to treat himself soon. "I got. 
my eyes on some fancy rides," he says. 

With games like Temple Run and Bejeweled 
paying off for their creators, Porter wanted 
his shot at fame and fortune. “I wanted to 
make a game that was played by everyone,” 
he says. And crazily enough, he did. 


Late last year Porter was visiting a friend 
who worked at a hip-hop record label. He 
had come to show off progress on his new 
game, which he'd been working on since 
June. The game was Draw Something, a new 
version of a title the company had released 
on the web with moderate success a couple 
of years earlier. His friends were skepti- 
cal. “They were like, ‘Yeah, yeah,” he says. 
“They described it as my Ahab moment.” 
The original title, Draw Му Thing, was a 
bit like an online game show: Players took 
turns drawing pictures that others online 
had to be the first to guess. Porter thought 
that bringing that kind of Pictionary-like 
social experience to mobile games would 
be unique and addictive. As with all game 
development, this one evolved by trial and 
error. Initially, to play the game you had to 
draw something based on a choice of three 
different words, then the other person 
had to type out a best guess. But as Porter 
watched his buddy try to guess the picture 
he had drawn, something wasn't clicking. 
“Irsa bong!” the guy said. “A joint! Weed!” 
Actually, it was supposed to be a flower in 
а vase. But it wasn't Porter's lackluster draft- 
ing skills that bummed him out. The game 
wasn't working. Typing out words on a phone 
was annoying, and the virtual keypad would 
pop up and cover half the screen. Players 
needed to be able to choose answers that 


were less open-ended. A successful cell phone 
game had to have, as Porter put it, “the right 
form"—a sleek, organic way of cramming 
everything into the screen space without con- 
fusing the player. Porter went to the best place 
for brainstorming—the streets of New York 
City. He walked around the block until it hit 
him: tiles. To help ground players, he would 
show scrambled letter tiles below the drawing 
to help them narrow the possible answers. 

Keeping things simple was a mandate. 
"Throughout the development, Porter kept 
trying to put himself in the mind of an elderly 
player. “Ifan 80-year-old person can figure it 
out, everyone can figure it out,” he says. He 
knew that the best party games are inherently 
funny (e.g., beer pong or drunken charades). 
For Draw Something to get people talking, 
and laughing, he 
wanted players to 
try to draw things 
that were contempo- 
rary (say “Wu-Tang” 
or “Hunger Games”) 
and open to inter- 
pretation (“wet” or 
“facial”). The game 
needed to appeal to 
both sexes as well, 
and the best way to 
do that was to make 
something that 
n't just fun but 
also flirty. 

“I thought, This 
game has to be a 
way for boys in 
high school to flirt 
with girls in high 
school," he recalls, 
and he was dead 
serious. Porter felt 
that young people 
especially needed 
a more playful way 
to flirt than tex- 
ting, which can feel 
loaded at times. A 
drawing game could 
be innocuous but 
sexy too. "It gives 
you something to 
talk about," he say 

Тһе other que 
tion was: How could 
win the 
he answer 
came to Porter one 
afternoon when he was watching his son and 
a friend play catch in the park. At one point, 
Porter's wife told the kids she'd take them 
for ice cream if they reached 1,000 catches. 
“That's it!" he thought. Rather than com- 
pete against one another, Draw Something 
gamers could play cooperatively, working 
together to reach the longest possible streak 
of correct answers. 

By February 2012, Draw Something was 
complete. To make a blockbuster video 
game like Call of Duty, a company can spend 
blockbuster-film-style money: $100 million 
easily, with a team of 150 people. A team of 
five made Draw Something. 

There was just one problem—OMGPOP 
was going under. The company had burned 
through its $17 million in funding, and 


IHL 


MAN 


ІЗ ЕЕЕ! 


LO AA "ick 


A 
? 
2 


ТНЕМ 


PL 


Porter was in the unenviable position of hav- 
ing to let good people go. “I felt terrible,” һе 
says. When the investors suggested he raise 
another round of funding, Porter declined. 

“Look,” he said, “we're in the business 
of making games. If we can't make games, 
then I don't want more money just for the 
sake of staying alive. I feel good about this 
game. Let's see what happens.” 

The investors eyed him from across the 
table. “This game is all or nothing for you,” 
they said. 

"I bet it all on this game in that sense,” 
Porter says. “І was like, Holy shit, this might 
be the last game we ever make.” 

He began freaking out. What the fuck was 
he doing? He was gambling the future of 
his company. To keep from going nuts, he 


W BEDSIDE 


BOY 


Edited by 
HUGH HEFNER 


began waking up at six every morning to 
meditate and chill. 

On an early February morning, Porter got 
up before sunrise, shut his eyes and visu- 
alized the best. Then he took the subway 
to the office and uploaded Draw Something. 


At the time, if you wanted to cash in on the 
mobile-game gold rush, you had to get the 
attention of Zynga. Founded by Mark Pin- 
сиз and named for his late dog, Zynga has 
had a market cap as high as $9 billion. It 
was built on the success of social and mobile 
games such as FarmVille, CityVille and Zynga 
Poker. When 1 visited the company's San 
Francisco headquarters in April, it was like 
arriving at Willy Wonka's factory. Visitors 


walk through a neon light tunnel to get 
inside, where some of the 1,700 employees 
play Ping Pong and vintage arcade games. 

There's a "Zyngabago" motor home 
parked inside and a full bar for Friday 
happy hour. Marvin Gaye's “Sexual Heal- 
ing” is blasting throughout the café, and 
the lobby rises six stories, revealing the 
exposed-pipe ceiling. This is the house 
that video games built, and Zynga built it, 
in part, by acquiring game developers look- 
ing to cash in. One of the biggest scores was 
Newtoy, a small Texas-based start-up run 
by two brothers, David and Paul Bettner. 
The Bettner brothers scored big with 
their Scrabble-style phenomenon Words 
With Friends. Zynga purchased Newtoy 
in December 2010 for $53 million. David 
Bettner described 
joining the behe- 
moth as "strapping 
a rocket booster on 
our back." 

But with thou- 
sands of new games 
released online every 
month, how could a 
little gamer with a big 
dream get noticed 
by the big dog? 
vis Boatman, senior 

resident of 


the 


distills his strategy 
to three key words: 
free, accessible and 
social. “When you 
can play a game with 
everybody, that's a 
very broad game; 
that really resonates 
with our company,” 
he says. And there 
was no game being 
played by every- 
body like this little 
drawing game from 
New York. 

On the day of 
Draw Something's 
release, Porter was 
watching the num- 
ber of downloads. 


58.98. The game was 
(сот. being sold for 
cents. There was 


also a free version 
that included ads. 
ОМСРОР did almost nothing in the way of 
marketing or advertising. Ifa game doesn't 
crack the ¡Tunes chart of the top 25 apps, 
it's almost like being invisible. Porter saw 
his game rising but not breaking the all- 
important barrier. “I kept thinking, Fuck, 
we're close!” Charles Forman, Porter's origi- 
nal partner, was watching too—considering 
the balance of his bank account since leaving 
the company had dropped to just $1,700. 
Porter had a colleague create a little 
matrix window on his computer monitor that 
tracked the game's downloads and the num- 
ber ofillustrations being created by players 
in real time, almost like a stock ticker. The 
first time he checked it the ticker said there 
had been 1,000 downloads and 8,000 draw- 
ings created. Porter and his team tweaked 


PLAYBOY 


144 


the game to improve its performance speed. 
By the end of the first day, they had 30,000 
downloads. Each morning when Porter woke 
up in his Park Slope apartment to check 
the ticker, the numbers increased: 60,000; 
90,000; 120,000 downloads. Ten days later, 
they passed 1 million. “It was weird as shit,” 
Porter recalls. “I was like, Who are these peo- 
ple?" The game was soon earning hundreds 
of thousands of dollars each day. 

Zynga was asking the same question. 
Porter had fortuitous timing. The Game 
Developers Conference, the annual gather- 
ing of all the major and independent game 
makers, was scheduled for March in San 
Francisco. Porter already had plans to go. 
Now he was rolling in as the big man, the 
whiz kid who was living the ultimate 2012 
dream: developing a golden app. Draw 
Something ranked number one on both the 
free and the paid iTunes charts. As Porter 
walked the halls, other mobile-game devel- 
opers began showing sour grapes. 

"Oh yeah, that's not even a game!" 

“I had a drawing game, but I just hadn't 
made it yet!" 

"I was like, whatever, dude,” Porter says. 
"You didn't fucking make it, so who cares?" 

Porter went to the Zynga office to meet 
with the executives, including Mark Pincus. 
Porter was impressed by how much Pincus 


had clearly played the game and how he 
picked up on the important details. “I got 
the word Tumblr in the game," he told Porter. 
“I get it. It's relevant." 

But sometimes your mind does funny things 
when you're faced with living out the ultimate 
dream, and Porter, despite being wooed by so 
many suitors, wasn't sure he wanted to take 
the pot of gold after all. One night he went 
to Brooklyn's Crown Heights neighborhood 
for dinner and overheard a table of middle- 
aged women complaining about their jobs. 
Something inside him twisted. Why sell out if 
it meant leaving the job he loved? "I was like, 
Fuck, even when we're failing I have the best 
job,” he says. "We're in SoHo making games. 
Most people think their job sucks." 

But then Porter realized he could stay on as 
an executive and continue his work under a 
buyer, which is exactly what he and the inves- 
tors decided to do. There was just one last 
thing to take care of—hiring back the people 
he had laid off. But Porter had to act fast and 
hire them back while their stock options were 
in place, though he couldn't tell them why. 
"Let's have coffee," Porter e-mailed the for- 
mer employees. "I'm going to take you back," 
he told them at Le Pain Quotidien. "But you 
have to start this afternoon." 

On March 21, just six weeks after Draw 
Something was released, Zynga announced 


Y 


Ц 


= 
= 


= 
= 


(A 


йе 


% 


2 
7 


[^ 


"Bad costume choice. By the time I got unwrapped, 
Dave's Viagra had worn off." 


its purchase of OMGPOP *The OMGPOP 
team has created a game that's fun, expres- 
sive and engenders real social interaction," 
Pincus said. "Draw Something has captured the 
imagination of millions of people around the 
world." The plan was to use Zynga's power 
and resources to scale the game even higher 
and take over the world by localizing it for 
different countries, changing the language 
and cultural references of the game's clues. 

In an even more perfect ending, Porter 
decided to share the wealth—spreading 
$30 million among his firm's 40-some 
employees, including those he had hired 
back. When asked why he did something so 
unusually generous, Porter shrugs. 

“I don't know,” he says. “It was the right 
thing to do." 


Before I leave Porter's office, I challenge him 
to a quick round of Draw Something. 1 look 
down at my screen and see a black line ris- 
ing up, then over and down. Then another 
black line up and over and down. Buildings, 
I wonder? Then I see what appears to be a 
large pancake circle at the top of one build- 
ing, then another pancake on the other. But 
wait—they're not pancakes. They're two feet, 
connecting to two legs that rise beyond the 
screen. Beneath the buildings Porter has 
scrawled the word Tokyo. The answer, I real- 
ize, is Godzilla, and he's on top of the world. 

But as I leave his office, Porter walks me 
past the Omar and Prop Joe conference 
rooms, past the pile of Zynga pom-poms, 
and shows me a wide-screen monitor 
mounted across from an elevator. The 
monitor displays a feed of tweets about the 
company. "It gets you the pulse of things," 
he tells me. Just then, as though on cue, a 
tweet comes up: “Draw Something loses 5 mil- 
lion users a month after Zynga purchase?" 
When I ask Porter about that, he shrugs it 
off, attributing it to misinformation. 

In the lightning-fast online world, the 
backlash comes even faster. In the wake of the 
Zynga purchase, game developers are cry- 
ing hype and overvalue. As Cliff Bleszinski, 
designer of the blockbuster franchise Gears of 
War, says of the high purchase price of OMG- 
POP (and PopCap), “It's ironic that all those 
companies sound like a bubble bursting." 

Indeed, in the weeks after our interviews 
end, a complicated series of events began to 
threaten the video game industry's newest 
behemoth. Suddenly Zynga's earnings began 
to fall, as did its stock price—down 10 percent, 
then 40 percent and 70 percent. The Wall Street 
Journal called Zynga's situation an "earnings 
disaster." Then, in early August, the compa- 
ny's chief operating officer, John Schappert, 
resigned. Meanwhile, the popularity of Draw 
Something quickly began to fade. 

"People bring you up," Porter responds 
when asked about the decline. "And then 
they bring you down." 

All of which begs the question: Who will 
fill the void? Which tiny start-up will be the 
next OMGPOB the next Zynga, the next 
billion-dollar juggernaut? Chances are 
you'll find out soon—while playing some 
new game on your cell phone. 


HAWKING 


(continued from page 89) 
PLAYBOY: You had a rather conventional 
childhood. 
HAWKING: Yes. I went to a public school— 
what Americans call a private school—Saint 
Albans. I was never more than halfway up 
the class at school. 
PLAYBOY: There's hope for us all. You really 
were just an average student? 
HAWKING: [Smiles] When 1 was 12, one 
of my friends bet another friend a bag of 
sweets that I would never amount to any- 
thing. І don't know if the bet was ever set- 
tled and, if so, which way it was decided. 
PLAYBOY: After Saint Albans, you went on to 
university to study physics. 
HAWKING: Well, my father was a doctor 
and wanted me to study medicine at his 
old college, University College, Oxford. 
I wanted to study mathematics, more 
mathematics and physics. But my father 
thought there would not be any jobs in 
mathematics, apart from teaching. He 
therefore made me do chemistry, physics 
and only a small amount of mathematics. 
I duly went to University College in 1959 
to do physics, which was the subject that 
interested me, since physics governs the 
laws of the universe. 
PLAYBOY: Had you made up your mind 
early on about what you wanted to do? 
HAWKING: Yes. From the age of 12 1 had 
wanted to be a scientist. And cosmology 
seemed the most fundamental science. 
PLAYBOY: In your last year at Oxford, you 
were diagnosed as having ALS, also known 
as Lou Gehrig’s disease, which is supposed 
to be fatal within a very short time. It must 
have transformed you. 
HAWKING: Yes. When you are faced with 
the possibility of an early death, it makes 
you realize that life is worth living and that 
there are lots of things you want to do. 
PLAYBOY: According to newspaper inter- 
views, and a recent 20/20 segment by Hugh 
Downs on ABC-TV, when you got your 
diagnosis, you went on a drinking binge for 
a few years. 
HAWKING: It's a good story, but it's not true. 
PLAYBOY: What did happen? 
HAWKING: The realization that I had an in- 
curable disease that was likely to kill me in 
a few years was a bit ofa shock. Why should 
it happen to me? Why should I be cut off 
like this? But while I was in the hospital, I 
saw a boy die of leukemia in the bed op- 
posite me. It was not a pretty sight. Clearly, 
there were people worse off than I. When- 
ever I feel inclined to be sorry for myself, I 
remember that boy. 
PLAYBOY: And you didn't go off on the long 
binge, as reported? 
HAWKING: I took to listening to Wagner, 
but the reports that I drank heavily are 
an exaggeration. The trouble is, once 
one article said it, others copied it, be- 
cause it made a good story. Anything that 
has appeared in print so many times has 
to be true. 
PLAYBOY: Still, it's astonishing that you 
had so mild a reaction [to your diagno- 
sis]. Most people might have given up— 
or gone on that binge. 


HAWKING: My dreams were disturbed for a 
while. Before my condition was diagnosed, 
I had been very bored with life. There had 
not seemed to be anything worth doing. 
But shortly after I came out of the hospi- 
tal, I dreamed that I was going to be ex- 
ecuted. I suddenly realized that if I were 
reprieved, there were a lot of worthwhile 
things I could do. Another dream І had 
several times was that I would sacrifice my 
life to save others. After all, if I were going 
to die anyway, it might do some good. 
PLAYBOY: Doesn't this terrible disease make 
you angry? 

HAWKING: Yes. I’m a normal human being 
with normal needs and emotions. 

PLAYBOY: You got married and started a 
family shortly after you were diagnosed. 
HAWKING: Yes, I got engaged to Jane 
Wilde, whom I had met just about the 
time my condition was diagnosed. That 
engagement changed my life. It gave me 
something to live for. But it also meant 
I had to get a job if we were to be mar- 
ried. Eventually, I applied for a research 
fellowship in theoretical physics at Caius 
College, Cambridge. And, to my great 
surprise, І got a fellowship and we were 
married a few months later. 

PLAYBOY: How did your disease affect 
your lifestyle? 

HAWKING: When we were married, Jane 
was still an undergraduate at Westfield 
College in London, so she had to go up 
to London during the week. This meant 
that we had to find a place that was central, 
where I could manage on my own, because 
by then, I could not walk far. After several 
years, we were given the ground-floor flat 
in this house, which is owned by the college. 
is suits me very well, because it has large 
rooms and wide doors. It is sufficiently 
central so that I can get to my university 
department, or the college, in my electric 
wheelchair. It is also nice for our children, 
because it is surrounded by garden, which 
is looked after by the college gardeners. 
PLAYBOY: Wasn't it extremely difficult rais- 
ing your three children? 

HAWKING: Yes. Up to 1974, I was able to 
feed myself and get in and out of bed. Jane 
managed to help me, and to bring up two 
of our children, without outside help. But 
things were getting more difficult, so we 
took to having one of my research students 
live with us to help. In 1980, we changed to 
a system of community and private nurses, 
who would come in for an hour or two in 
the morning and the evening. 

PLAYBOY: You have 24-hour nursing care now. 
HAWKING: Yes. I caught pneumonia in 1985. 
I had to have a tracheotomy. After that, I 
had to have 24-hour nursing care. 
PLAYBOY: Is it the operation that prevents 
you from speaking? 

HAWKING: Yes. Before the operation, my 
speech was slurred, so that only a few people 
who knew me well could understand me. 
But at least I could communicate. I wrote 
scientific letters by dictating to a secretary, 
and I gave lectures through an interpreter, 
who repeated my words more clearly. 

But after the operation, I could commu- 
nicate only by spelling words out letter by 
letter, raising my eyebrows when someone 
pointed to the correct letter on a card. It is 


very difficult to carry on a conversation like 
that, let alone write a scientific paper. 
PLAYBOY: And now you have the computer. 
HAWKING: Walt Woltosz, a software expert 
in California, heard of my plight. He sent 
me a computer program he had written 
called Equalizer. This allowed me to select 
words from a series of menus on the screen 
by pressing a switch in my hand. When I 
have built up what I want to say, I can send 
it to a speech synthesizer. 

PLAYBOY: Why did you choose theoretical 
physics for your research? 

HAWKING: Because of my disease. I chose 
my field because I knew I had ALS. Cos- 
mology, unlike many other disciplines, 
does not require lecturing. It was a fortu- 
nate choice, because it was one of the few 
areas in which my speech disability was not 
a serious handicap. I was also fortunate 
that when I started my research, in 1962, 
general relativity and cosmology were 
underdeveloped fields, with little compe- 
tition, so my disease would not be a seri- 
ous impediment. There were lots of excit- 
ing discoveries to be made, and not many 
people to make them. Nowadays, there is 
much more competition. [smiles] 

PLAYBOY: Did you experience difficulty at 
the beginning? 

HAWKING: I was not making much prog- 
ress with my research, because I didn’t 
have much mathematical background. But 
gradually, I began to understand what 1 
was doing. 

PLAYBOY: Let's see if we can understand 
some of it. To begin with, you use only one 
fundamental equation in your book A Brief 
History of Time, which forms the basis of 
your work. Can you define it for us? 
HAWKING: The equation, E=mc’, ex- 
pressed the fact that energy and mass are 
really the same thing. E is for energy and 
m is for mass. The speed of light, c, is in the 
equation just to make the units the same 
on both sides. However, you can use units 
in which c equals one. This equation is im- 
portant because it shows that matter can be 
transformed into energy and vice versa. In 
fact, it seems that in the early stages of the 
universe, all matter was made out of energy. 
PLAYBOY: Energy that was then trans- 
formed to mass—or the solid bodies that 
make up the universe. 

HAWKING: Yes. The energy was borrowed 
from the gravitational force of the uni- 
verse, which had compressed everything 
to infinite density before it was released in 
the big bang. The total net energy of the 
universe is zero. Thus, the whole universe 
is for nothing. Who says there is no such 
thing as a free lunch? [smiles] 

PLAYBOY: How does the total energy of the 
universe equal zero? 

HAWKING: It takes energy to create matter. 
But the matter in the universe is attracting 
all other matter in the universe. This at- 
traction gives the matter a negative energy 
that is exactly equal to the energy required 
to create the matter. Thus, the total energy 
of the universe is zero. 

PLAYBOY: So once matter is created, the en- 
ergy exists in the matter, which is spread 
out across the universe. Where did the en- 
ergy that was needed for the big bang to 
occur come from? 


145 


PLAYBOY 


146 


CREDITS: PHOTOGRAPHY BY: P. 5 COUR- 
TESY RICK GOSSELIN, COURTESY 
LISA LAMPANELLI, COURTESY DON 
PETEROY, COURTESY PAM VACCARO, MAT- 
THIAS CLAMER, MARTIN NANGLE, STEVEN 
PERILLOUX, DAVID ROSE, MICHAEL SCOTT 
SLOSAR; P. 7 SASHA EISENMAN; P. 10 
MATTHIAS CLAMER, JAN TÚMA; P. 15. 
ELAYNE LODGE, BRIAN MCGUCKIN (3), 
JEFF SCHEAR/GETTY IMAGES, ALEXAN- 
DRA WYMAN AND JEROD HARRIS/GETTY 
IMAGES (6); P. 18 KENNETH JOHANSSON 
(4), ELAYNE LODGE (6); P. 19 MIZUNO, 
STEVE SHAW; P. 20 COURTESY IWALK; P. 
24 COURTESY DANIELA FEDERICI/GUES: 
P. 26 LANCE STAEDLER/CORBIS OUTLIN| 
P. 28 COURTESY CAT STREET GALLERY, 
COURTESY HULLETT HOUSE, COURTESY 
GEOFF TSUVKONZEPP, LAURENT SEGRE- 
TIER; P. 30 JEREMY COWART/FX, SASHA 
GITIN (2); P. 34 COURTESY FIAT, COUR- 
TESY ITALIA INDEPENDENT (2), GETTY 
(2); P. 36 2012 0 STARZ/COURTESY EVER- 
ETT COLLECTION, INC., COURTESY SONY 
PICTURES ENTERTAINMENT; P. 37 COUR- 
TESY CBS (2); P. 38 AP/WIDE WORLD (2); 
P. 40 COURTESY DODGE/CHRYSLER, 
COURTESY FORD, FORDIMAGES 
.COM (2), CORBIS, TRANSTOCK; P. 41 
COURTESY FORD, COURTESY GM, COUR- 
TESY MITSUBISHI, COURTESY NISSAN, 
CORBIS (2); P. 55 GETTY IMAGES; P. 56 
GETTY IMAGES; P. 57 GETTY IMAGES (2); 
P. 58 AP/WIDE WORLD; P. 59 AP/WIDE 
WORLD, GETTY IMAGES; PP. 66-67 МІКЕ 
SCHREIBER/CORBIS OUTLINE; P. 68 
COURTESY PAM VACCARO (4); P. 78 COUR- 
TESY B&B CHARCOAL; P. 81 COURTESY 
WOOLRICH; P. 82 GETTY; PP. 88-89 MAR- 
TIN NANGLE; P. 106 COURTESY ZYNGA, 
JENNIFER S. ALTMAN/NEW YORK TIMES/ 
CONTOUR BY GETTY IMAGES, CORBIS; РР. 
108-109 GETTY IMAGES; P. 109 AP/WIDE 
WORLD (4); P. 110 AP/WIDE WORLD (7 
P. 111 AP/WIDE WORLD (4), DAVID BOSS/ 
US PRESSWIRE; P. 151 COURTESY CEN- 
TERFOLD CHEFS (3), ARNY FREYTAG; P. 
152 COURTESY DISCOVERY CHANNEL, 
COURTESY JANET LUPO, COURTESY ROMA 
COSTUME (3), CHRISTOPHER CHRO- 
NIS, MIKE DANEN, POMPEO POSAR, RON 
VOGEL; P. 154 FRANCOIS DUHAMEL/O 2012 
DANJAQ, LLC/UNITED ARTISTS/COLUMBIA 
PICTURES, GETTY IMAGES, DAVID ROSE, 
DARREN TIESTE. ILLUSTRATION BY: P. 24 
PETER CROWTHER. PP. 76-78, 81-82 HAIR 
BY STEPHANIE HOBGOOD FOR EXCLUSIVE 
ARTISTS, MAKEUP BY SHANNON RASHEED 
FOR CELESTINEAGENCY.COM, SET DESIGN 
BY THE OWL AND THE ELEPHANT; PP. 
90-91 GROOMING BY STEPHANIE DANIEL, 
WARDROBE STYLING BY MICHAEL FISHER 
FOR STARWORKS ARTISTS, DUCATI BY 
DUCATI NORTH AMERICA, DUCATIUSA 
СОМ, SHIRT BY BILLY REID, T-SHIRT BY 
DETH KILLERS, JEANS BY DIESEL, GOG- 
GLES BY EARLY HALLOWEEN; PP. 92-102 
HAIR AND MAKEUP BY SARA CRANHAM, 
PRODUCTION DESIGN BY LIZ STEW- 
ART, WARDROBE STYLING BY STACEY 
ANNE FOR ZENOBIA.COM, PRODUCED BY 
STEPHANIE MORRIS; PP. 118-125 HAIR, 
MAKEUP AND STYLING BY KAREN LYNN 
FOR KAREN LYNN AND ASSOCIATES, INC., 
ERICA MILDE FOR FORD ARTISTS, EDEN 
ORFANOS, JODI VANDER WOUDE; P. 118 
LOCATION COURTESY JEREMY AT CAM- 
PUS CANDY; P. 119 LOCATION COURTESY 
ZENO'S PUB. COVER: MODEL: PAMELA 
HORTON, PHOTOGRAPHER: SASHA EISEN- 
MAN, MAKEUP: KIKI BENET FOR ATELIER 
MANAGEMENT, HAIR: TONY VIN FOR 
ATELIER MANAGEMENT, PROP STYLING: 
SONJA KROOP, WARDROBE STYLING: 
JENNIFER HERREMA, PRODUCER: PATTY 
BEAUDET-FRANCÉS. 


HAWKING: The energy needed to create the 
big bang came from the universe it created. 
PLAYBOY: In the equation, time is also im- 
portant. Why? 

HAWKING: Before Einstein, time was 
thought of as completely separate from 
space. People believed that there was what 
was called absolute time. That is, each 
event could be given a unique value of 
time. However, experiments showed that 
this could not be the case. And Einstein 
showed that the experiments could be ex- 
plained if one said that time was not sepa- 
rate from space but was combined with it in 
something called space-time. 

PLAYBOY: According to Einstein, that means 
the time of an observed event in space is 
dependent on the position of the observer. 
So it becomes another measurement, like 
width and height. 

HAWKING: Yes. Later, Einstein was able 
to show that gravity could be explained if 
space-time were not flat but curved. This 
idea of space-time has completely trans- 
formed the way we look at the universe. 
PLAYBOY: A black hole is also critical to your 
theory. Could you explain? 

HAWKING: A black hole is a region in which 
the gravitational field is so strong nothing 
can escape. Within a black hole, there will 
bea singularity, where space-time comes to 
an end. This singularity, an infinitely dense 
point of matter, is rather like the singular- 
ity that occurred in the big bang and is the 
beginning of space-time and the whole of 
the universe. 

PLAYBOY: Why is it called a black hole? 
HAWKING: The gravitational field of the 
singularity would be so strong that light it- 
self could not escape from a region around 
it but would be dragged back by the gravi- 
tational field. The region from which it 
is not possible to escape is called a black 
hole. From 1970 to 1974, I worked mainly 
on black holes. In 1974, І made perhaps 
my most surprising discovery: Black holes 
are not completely black! When one takes 
small-scale behavior into account, particles 
and radiation can leak out of a black hole. 
The black hole emits radiation as if it were 
a hot body. 

PLAYBOY: If your theories are correct, then 
a black hole will eventually explode in a 
way similar to how the universe began? 
HAWKING: Yes. 

PLAYBOY: Why does that happen? 
HAWKING: Because of the uncertainty prin- 
ciple of quantum mechanics, particles and 
energy will slowly leak out of the black hole. 
This will make it grow smaller and smaller 
and leak energy more rapidly. Eventually, 
the black hole will disappear in a tremen- 
dous explosion. 

PLAYBOY: Quantum mechanics is the study 
of the behavior of systems at small scales. 
HAWKING: Yes. Atoms or elementary par- 
ticles. In any case, a black hole cannot just 
suddenly pop out of nothing and explode, 
because there has to be something there to 
provide energy. 

PLAYBOY: Even though you've made black 
holes a central part of your life's work, you 
concede that one has yet to be discovered. 
In fact, you mention in your book that you 
have a bet with a colleague that one will not 
be discovered. Is that true? 


HAWKING: Yes. I had a wager with Kip 
Thorne at Caltech that Cygnus X-1 was 
not a black hole. It was an insurance policy, 
really. I had done a lot of work on black 
holes, and it all would have been wasted if 
it had turned out that they didn't exist. But 
then, at least I would have had the satisfac- 
tion of winning my bet. [smiles] 

PLAYBOY: And? 

HAWKING: Well, now I consider the evi- 
dence for black holes so good, thanks to 
Cygnus X-1, that I have conceded the bet. 
Cygnus Х-1 isa system consisting of a nor- 
mal star orbiting around an unseen com- 
panion. It seems that matter is being blown 
off the normal star and falling on the com- 
panion. As it falls toward the companion, 
develops a spiral motion, like water run- 
ning out of a bath. It will get very hot and 
will give off X-rays that are observed. We 
can show that the mass of the companion is 
at least six times that of the sun. That's too 
much to be a white dwarf or a neutron star, 
so it must be a black hole. 

PLAYBOY: We feel privileged to hear the 
news. Can you go beyond deduction and 
establish what a black hole is, physically? 
HAWKING: We want a volunteer who will 
jump into the black hole and find out what 
happens inside. Unfortunately, he won't be 
able to signal back to us to let us know. 
PLAYBOY: Why? 

HAWKING: Because of something called a 
light cone. 

PLAYBOY: In your book, you say that in such 
an event, a person—or any object—would 
be torn apart by gravitational forces. And 
the intense gravity would prevent even 
radio signals from escaping. 

HAWKING: Yes. A volunteer astronaut 
would have a sticky end at a singularity. 
His particles would survive, but that, I sup- 
pose, is small comfort. [smiles] 

PLAYBOY: But isn't there a possibility that he 
or she might escape through what is called 
a wormhole? 

HAWKING: Yes. Particles that fall into a 
black hole may pass through a thin tube, 
or wormhole, and come out somewhere 
else in the universe. But wormholes occur 
only in imaginary time. The history of the 
particles, and of an astronaut in real time, 
will come to a bad end at a singularity. 
PLAYBOY: What is imaginary time? 
HAWKING: Imaginary time is another di- 
rection of time, one that is at right angles to 
ordinary, real time. It seems that there will 
be large numbers of imaginary-time worm- 
holes branching off, and joining on, every- 
where. We do not notice them directly, but 
they affect everything we observe directly. 
It is an exciting area of research. 

PLAYBOY: And you use imaginary time, and 
wormholes, to speculate about objects trav- 
eling through time, don't you? 

HAWKING: [Smiles] Objects will pass 
through a thin tube, or wormhole, in imag- 
inary time, and out into another universe, 
or another part of our universe. In ordi- 
nary time, one could pass through a black 
hole and come out of a white hole. 
PLAYBOY: А white hole? 

HAWKING: Yes. The laws of physics are 
symmetrical, and if there are objects called 
black holes, which things can fall into but 
not out of, there ought to be objects that 


Dr. Steffanie Seaver PSY.D із an expert in the area of interpersonal relationships. She is а 
Researcher, Author and accomplished Public Speaker and has lectured nationwide for over 
а decade. Dr. Seaver has also been involved with several publications covering relationship 
and lifestyle issues. 


Male Virility Products ... 
Moab) Do They REALLY Work? 


SEX: How To Improve. Increase. ENJOY. 


Dear Steffanie, 


My divorce was finalized over a year ago. I'm 
just getting the nerve to get back “in the game" 
again, but I'm scared my virility and size aren’t 
impressive enough. I'm not ready for a 
prescription, but I need help FAST! Is there 
anything out there that works for virility and 
size ... quickly? 

Chris J. 

Knoxville, TN 


Well Chris, 


I happen to have the perfect answer to boost you 
AND your virility - while giving your prospective 
partner the time of her life ... repeatedly! 


For months my fiancé was feeling the exact same 
way about virility and , until one night - we had 
the most phenomenal sex E I'd never seen 
him more excited and powerful. He took control 
right from the start and the feelings we shared were 
totally mind-blowing, Best of all, he keeps getting 
better and better - I just can't get enough of him! 
But, my curiosity took over, and I had to ask what 
brought about this drastic change. To my shock, he 


READER'S NOTE 


ADVERTISEMENT 


handed me a tube of MAXODERM. I just 
couldn't believe this product MAXODERM was 
actually making him feel fuller, more virile, and 
more vigorous! І did a little research and was 


surprised by what I found! 


for over 10 years, 
MAXODERM has been significantly improving 
the sexual health and virility of hundreds of 
thousands of men. Designed to enhance sensation 
and the feeling of firmness, users report the 
following: 83% surveyed said they felt it in 
UNDER 60 SECONDS, 78% said they 
experienced a significant improvement in their 
feeling of firmness, 79% said they actually 
FELT BIGGER!" 


MAXODERM IS Instant Male Enhancement. 
Find out how you can get a FREE MONTH 
SUPPLY with your phone or web order just by 
calling 1-800-4 or visiting 

» Don't forget, 
MAXODERM is backed by a 30 Day Money 
Back Guarantee! 


You can't beat that! 


LEADING Pl PHN 


DERM 


INSTANT MALE ЕМНАМСЕМЕМТ! 7 


NDED BY A 
'SICIAN 


———N 


PLAYBOY 


148 


things can fall out of but not into. One can 
call these white holes. 

PLAYBOY: In ordinary time. But you said 
that was impossible. 

HAWKING: А white hole is the time reverse 
ofa black hole. The white hole may be in an- 
other universe, or another part of our uni- 
verse. We could use this method for space 
travel. Otherwise, the distances are so vast 
it would take millions of years to go to the 
next galaxy and return. But if you could go 
through a black hole and out a white hole, 
you could be back in time for tea. 

PLAYBOY: And if it were possible, in theory 
at least, you could travel back in time? 
HAWKING: Yes. The trouble is, there would 
be nothing to stop you from getting back 
before you set out. [smiles] 

PLAYBOY: Or you could get back and find 
yourself dead. Or your world dead. 
HAWKING: Fortunately, for our survival, 
it seems that space-times in which one can 
travel back to the past are unstable. The 
least disturbance, such as a spaceship going 
through, will cause the passage between a 
black hole and white hole to pinch off. The 
history of the spaceship would come to an 
end, torn apart and crushed out of existence. 
PLAYBOY: What, exactly, is the relation of 
imaginary time to real time? 

HAWKING: By using imaginary numbers, 
one adds up all the probabilities for all 
the histories of particles with certain 
properties—such as passing through cer- 
tain points at certain times. One then has 
to extrapolate the result back to real space- 
time, in which time is different depending 
on directions in space. This is not the most 
familiar approach to quantum theory, but 
it gives the same results as other methods. 
PLAYBOY: Doesn't that randomness make 
it difficult—even chaotic—to apply to the 
laws of science? 

HAWKING: Yes. Einstein objected strongly to 
this randomness with the famous statement 


that God does not play dice with the uni- 
verse! But all evidence points to the prop- 
osition that God is, indeed, an inveterate 
gambler. [smiles] He throws the dice to de- 
termine the outcome of every observation. 
PLAYBOY: As much—or as little—as we сап 
understand of your work, it again strikes us 
that most of your ideas depend on obscure 
mathematical concepts, far removed from 
ordinary, observable life. 

HAWKING: Imaginary time may sound 
like science fiction, but it is a well-defined 
mathematical concept. 

PLAYBOY: Yes, to mathematicians and phys- 
icists, but to most of us, it's beyond immedi- 
ate understanding. 

HAWKING: Yes. 

PLAYBOY: Then what can the general public 
gain from trying to understand these con- 
cepts? Most of us would say we had more 
immediate problems to deal with. 
HAWKING: This is why I have spent some 
of my time attempting to explain what we 
do. I think knowledge of the general ideas 
of the recent discoveries in cosmology are 
useful to the public. 

True, understanding cosmology will not 
help feed anyone. It won't even wash 
clothes any brighter. But man or woman 
does not live by bread alone. We all feel the 
need to come to terms with the universe 
in which we find ourselves, and to under- 
stand how we got here. 

PLAYBOY: And that's why you wrote A Brief 
History of Time? 

HAWKING: There are several reasons why 1 
wrote the book. One was to pay my daugh- 
ter's school fees. I didn't succeed in that, 
because by the time the book came out, she 
was in her last year of high school. But 1 
still have to pay for her college. 

PLAYBOY: That's an excellent reason. Are 
there others? 

HAWKING: The main reason was that 1 had 
written several popular articles and given 


сосет” 


“Up on the table, Mildred. We're taking sex to the next level.” 


a number of popular lectures. They had 
been well received, and 1 had enjoyed do- 
ing them, but I wanted to try something 
bigger. I felt that we had made tremen- 
dous progress in the past 25 years in un- 
derstanding the universe, and І wanted to 
share this with the general public. I think 
it is important that the public take some 
interest in science and have some general 
understanding ofit. 

Science has changed our lives a great 
deal and will change them even more in the 
future. If we are to decide in a democratic 
way what direction society should take, it is 
necessary that the public has some under- 
standing of science. 

PLAYBOY: Then you're doing something 
political—knowledge as the great lev- 
eler, not confined to a few who under- 
stand the language. 

HAWKING: Yes. Knowledge and under- 
standing of how the universe works, and 
of how it began, had become the preserve 
of a few specialists. But we all share the hu- 
man condition, and we all want to know 
where we came from. My book is an at- 
tempt to share with the general public the 
knowledge that the specialists have found. 
Knowledge is not knowledge unless you 
share it with someone. Normally, special- 
ists communicate only with other special- 
ists; I feel they should communicate with 
the general public, as well. 

PLAYBOY: You say that you may succeed 
in knowing how the universe began, but 
you will not know why. You do not—as 
Einstein did not—dismiss the notion of a 
supreme creator. 

HAWKING: I think I'm careful in my book. 
I leave open the question of whether God 
exists and what his nature would be. One 
can never prove that God doesn't exist. 
What I did was show that it was not neces- 
sary to appeal to God to decide how the 
universe began, because that is determined 
by the laws of science. However, one could 
say that the laws of science were God's 
choice for how the universe behaves. 
PLAYBOY: Apart from now being able to pay 
your daughter's college fees, has the book 
made any difference in your life? 
HAWKING: It has not made that much 
difference. Even before the book, a cer- 
tain number of people, mainly Americans 
[smiles], would come up to me in the street, 
but it has made that sort of encounter more 
frequent. And other things like interviews 
and public lectures have taken up the lim- 
ited time I have to do research. However, 
I'm now cutting down on such things and 
getting back to research. 

PLAYBOY: We assume that every scientist 
hopes for recognition for his efforts. You 
have received a number of honors but not 
yet the Nobel Prize. Do you think you may 
someday receive the Nobel? 

HAWKING: Most of my work has been gen- 
erally accepted. I have received a lot of. 
recognition recently. But I don't know if I 
will ever get the Nobel Prize, because that 
is given only for theoretical work that has 
been confirmed by observation. It is very, 
very difficult to observe the things I have 
worked on. [smiles] 


Quality Tools at Ridiculously Low Prices 


How does Harbor Freight Tools sell 
high quality tools at such ridiculousiy 
low prices? We buy direct from the 
factories who also supply the major 
brands and sell direct to you. It's just 
that simple! See for yourself at one of 
our 400 Stores Nationwide and use this 
20% Off Coupon on one of our 7,000 
products”, plus pick up a Free 9 LED 
Aluminum Flashlight, a $6.99 value. 
We stock Shop Equipment, Hand Tools, 
Tarps, Compressors, Air & Power Tools, 
Woodworking Tools, Welders, Tool 
Boxes, Generators, and much more. 

* Over 20 Million Satisfied Customers! 

* 1 Year Competitor's Low Price Guarantee 

* No Hassle Return Policy! 

* 100% Satisfaction Guaranteed! 


4 PIECE 1" x 15 FT. 


RATCHETING TIE DOWN SET 
LOT NO. 9098460405 


item >> 
shown => 
> 
co 


REG. PRICE $16. 


Y бои ow stores or abr y ore Caral ba usad кїл er aaoun or 


‘ir dis or ong исо WER олде ral er este sui LM ar 


1 ола ед mol be preted Vta tug 1725713. Lim ona con ри Crear рн dy 


>> 
ШЕШ 


€ 


ИЯТМЕ WARRANTY 


? WITH ANY PURCHASE 
3-1/2" SUPER BRIGHT 

NINE LED ALUMINUM 

FLASHLIGHT 

htemssozo ITEM 650206905269111 

om REG. PRICE $6.99 1 


1 
1 or prior purchase, Ofer good vile supplies эй, Зр 
Y may apply теі picked up dep re bE OE e содот mes y fae ems. Not 
1 De presented. Va барар! БЛ Lina one coupon per customer per day y Oat 


ШИН ШШШ 


rads open box tms stor төлі rra 
‘on pror purchases aer 30 gays rom orignal purchas 
sect, Nostra. Oil coupon, fusi к 

ont Coupon per customer per day 


Ш ТЇЇ ІШ nw 


CHANIC'S URG] г 
GLOVES BAR CLAMP/SPREADER 
LOT NO. 46807/ 1 
X-LARGE Er 
(0110, ^ * 
9364 
wm $ 
46807 
E | 
/ шш) A LL i 
‘rotor eres waster po Cat eer бойлон sons mostro Catto ua thou dct cup o prer 
Крнын e ү 


CENTRALPNEUMATIC ; 
17 PIECE AIR TOOL! 


* ACCESSORY КТ, 
! t О “А; " 
H А 
4 т 20) V : 


pon 


rect 
oda we э ула оер Ose pesi equ ne Se png pte 
а pir mal pen e bro (ӘУ Ln on open ре toma ри ау 1 Cpr pan mal f pod Р АЛЕ TR 


3 PIECE alo 
SOLAR LIGHT SET 


LOT NO. 95588/69462 


ч 

Includes three АА 

Nd rechargeable 

batteries (one for 
‘each fodure). 


LOT NO. 68236 


а 
REG. PRICE $29.99 


ptr pede | Get or sot ate ey йе С 
Ser Seaton ong 


32 PIECE or (Bunker ніш SOLAR X9FT. a 
PITTSBURGH FULLY POLISHED ALL PURPUSE WEATH H 
oa NATION WRENCH SET SECURITY ШЕН SU RESISTANT TARP 
ОУ тут! ти NO. ve LOT NO. 877/69137/ | 
69249/69129 
999997 E ш) шт? d 

L3 “ e. 
"- H < me 

ТШШ TA TELLE 


1 Sadat toner vba so 
ma pc oh 
gl сол mul t Desert” Va 


eto калу 


= a 
men 


ИИА МИ Ш | 
— 


rns sni ші Lr 


Geter cere mente dore Cre nn крае: 


Perge eet De pad 


EST Gat rey pr Ce 
apt e e 
‘egal ean moa! be besarte Vd trou ТУЗ, 


ТІНІН 
уз быу ты м pe TC 


55 AMP, 6/12 VOLT 60" WORKBENCH WITH 12" SLIDING COMPOUND 
TERY CHARGER/ FOUR DRAWERS se MITER SAW 
"ENGINE STARTER WEN a а ms к. 
e — E : 
a! == el m echa] vidi ' 


1 Gente чонун мото ne Grete санымен ct 
НИ 
Dim ад m Zn 


EC 
2.5 HP, 21 GALLON, 

amu, 125 BSI ET 

CENTRAL AIR COMPRESSOR 


LOT NO. 67847/69091 


REG. 
PRICE 
$219.99 


ШИШИШИ 


Item67847 
au noa 


1 manson 


1 Gtr strato керү 


fe, tomer ours А 
ral сорот v 


en 


REG, 
PRICE ı 


atu res rebut у shone Салий ы сн, 


ретте. TD res mete hor Cannot be wed нове dect copan o r 
EA A 


d val eie эл ora regt e pos wie ples [ur 


p p ia 
Ct; Te pene Vd he 1213, Dea te con pr anne ny 


US+GENERAL 

580 LB. CAPACITY 
FOUR DRAWER 
TOOL CART 


LOT NO. 95659 


FLOOR JACK 


REG. 
PRICE 
$139.99 


REG. 
PRICE 
$229.99 


69227 1 
ІШ AI i 


esas een are Cae e an a atom opna patas e eC una oop cor purchases 1 
Panne een new or e pe ie er | e м ogra rice De den apple ia eo 
9 рее уша Ert Y ое pa омук тын ре үш YS 


ISORA | Order Online at HarborFreight.com and We'll Ship Your Order FedEx 


PLAYBOY 


150 


DAX SHEPARD 


(continued from page 90) 


come Monday I would be tallying up all 
the different situations, and each one was 
progressively more dangerous. I got lucky 
in that I didn't go to jail. 


7 

PLAYBOY: Or worse. 

SHEPARD: Oh God, yeah. My nose is completely 
sideways from a drunken altercation. I'm miss- 
inga knuckle because of a drunken altercation. 
Somehow I was usually able to get sober for 
work. I got sober for my first movie, Without a 
Paddle, but then I was fucked-up. I got sober 
for Idiocracy, but then I was fucked-up for three 
months. Then, right before I started Zathura, 
Iknew I would get sober for that, so I went to 
Hawaii to relax, and that's when things went 
from bad to worse. I ended up in a car accident 
with a local on the way to get coke, which didn't 
stop us from going to get coke. Then it wasn't 
coke, it was crystal meth, but I did it anyway. 


8 

PLAYBOY: How exactly did you get a big 
Hollywood career? 

SHEPARD: Well, I spent many, many years 
unemployed. I was 20 when I moved to 
Los Angeles. I went on probably 600 com- 
mercial auditions and couldn't book any 
of them. I went through the Groundlings. 
Everyone there had agents but me, and it 
was a ridiculously amazing group. I was 
there with Melissa McCarthy, who was nom- 
inated for an Oscar; Octavia Spencer, who 
won an Oscar; Tate Taylor, who directed 
The Help. Success is just a war of attrition. 
Sure, there's an element of talent you 
should probably possess, but if you stick 
around long enough, eventually something 
is going to happen, you know? 


9 
PLAYBOY: You first got people's attention as 
the pretend IRS agent who made Justin 
Timberlake cry on MTV's Punk'd. What 
was that like? 
SHEPARD: Because J.T. was such a marquee 
name, MTV was nervous І would fuck up 


“Your memory must be failing, Dad. This is the fifth time 
we've visited this house." 


the bit and we'd have nothing to show for 
it. His garage was packed full of MTV brass 
telling me what to do. I wasn't nervous; it 
was pure adrenaline. What made Punk'd 
such a golden opportunity was that once the 
person arrived, I was directing the show. No 
one could yell *Cut" or tell me I was going 
too far. I don't think I would have popped 
ona format other than that. You know right 
out of the gate. 


10 

PLAYBOY: You studied anthropology at 
UCLA. What's your anthropological assess- 
ment of Ashton Kutcher's success? 
SHEPARD: We are incredibly social animals, 
and we're constantly searching for some 
order of who's alpha, who's beta, who's zeta. 
Ashton's definitely an alpha. People want 
to dislike him because he's gorgeous and 
successful. It's fair to hate somebody like 
that. I relate. If he wasn't a crazy, driven, 
hard worker, I would find it all offensive. 
But he's like Tyler Perry. How do you not 
respect Tyler Perry? It's easy to make jokes 
about the guy, but he writes, directs and 
stars on a TV show, then writes, directs 
and stars in a movie all in one year. And 
certainly, once you get to actually know 
somebody, it demystifies them and every- 
thing they go through. When Ashton and 
Demi broke up, I felt bad. These are peo- 
ple I eat dinner with. Brad and Angelina, 
that's another story. I don't actually know 
them, so I'm as curious as the next per- 
son: Will they get married? What's their 
life like? And of course I would love to see 
them engaged in coitus. 


11 

PLAYBOY: You realize people have said 
that about you and every famous beauti- 
ful woman you’ve dated—Kristen, Kate 
Hudson, Ione Skye. 

SHEPARD: I get that. People want to see us 
bang. But here's the funny thing about the 
response I've been aware of to my dating 
famous people: It's been very negative. I'm 
either not good-looking enough, not a good 
enough actor or not successful enough for 
these people. It's ironic, really. Guys should 
be excited that I got Kristen Bell. If Brad 
Pitt gets Kristen Bell, it’s like, “Well, of 
course he did." With me, it should be, "Oh 
good, a normal-looking guy got her. Maybe 
I'll get me a Kristen Bell." But guys hate 
my guts for always dating women I have no 
right to be with. 


12 

PLAYBOY: What's your secret? 

SHEPARD: I attribute it to being funny and 
a good dancer. And I'm tall, which will get 
you places as well. I'm also wired for it. 
The times my brain works fastest are when 
I'm doing improv on a stage or meeting 
coeds in a bar. 


13 
PLAYBOY: You picked a career in which 
you're surrounded by gorgeous women. 
Does the urge to merge ever go away? 
SHEPARD: No, it doesn't. I wish it did, mag- 
ically. This is (concluded on page 153) 


MISS JUNE 1997 
CARRIE STEVENS LAUNCHES 


When you hire Centerfold Chefs to cater your next 
L.A.-area event, you'll also get a feast for your eyes. 
“Centerfold Chefs is reminiscent of the 1950s, when 
aman came home and was greeted by his smiling 
wife in kitten heels and lipstick,” says founder Carrie 


Stevens. “Only the menu has changed.” Carrie and 
some of her Playmate friends have chops in the kitch- 
en, transforming local ingredients into culinary 
wonders. “Who doesn’t love lavish meals and women 
who know how to throw a party?” asks Carrie. 


т 


Қ: 


arsw HOT DISHES ллол TASTE or THEIR EXQUISITE MENU 
m 


SHRIMP JAMBALA! 


MON EN PAPILLOTE 


“a Miss 
NOVEMBER 


JANET 
LUPO 


launches 
a body oil 


Y PLAYMATE OF THE YEAR 2007 


SARA JEAN UNDERWOOD proves Halloween is 
the sexiest holiday on the calendar, as 
evidenced above by our costumed 
Centerfold modeling for the Roma catalog. 


I think Hillbilly 

Handfishin’is the 
most fun [ve had 
getting dirty. 


MISS MAY 2012 


арреагвіп = 


ВОВ PRESSNER'S 
rock-and-roll video 


KING y 
NOTHING 


which her sexy snake- 
handling abilitie BESS JANUARY 


2010 


garner more than 5 million 
152 viewers in a week. 


line called 


м 


“Rearview 
Mirror” by 
the cheeky 
Miss April 2012 
Raquel Pomplun 


girl | 
Miss June 2008 i 

wed her dashing husband at 
Byington Vineyard and Winery in 
California. The couple is 
living blissfully, and Juliette con- 


tinues to write for the Huffington 
Post and Examiner.com, 


iss April 2010 ‹ 
$ and PMOY 2012 
ju erg hung out 


at the Oris Watch event 
at Lily Bar & Lounge at the 
Bellagio in Las Vegas. 


M 


September 1963 


played Marlene Dietrich in 
Dial “M” for Marlene, which 
ran at the Flight The 
Hollywood. 


Miss January 2001. 
ina, Miss August 
2000 2 and 
Miss September 2009 


attended the Melbourne, 
Australia Midsummer 
Night's Dream party. 


PLAYMATE 
FLASHBACK 


Forty-five years 
ago this month 
Miss October 1967 


brightened our 
doorway, later 
appearingon such 
showsasLaugh-In, 
The Beverly Hill- 
billiesand The To- 
night Show. Taken 
by her celestial 
body, NASA engi- 
neers hid anude 
photo of Reagan 
on Apollo 12 before 
its1969 mission to 
the moon. 


DAX SHEPARD 


(continued from page 150) 


overly deep, but I have to put women in 
the same category І put drugs and alco- 
hol. It's an outside thing that I try to use 
to make my insides feel better, and І have 
learned that it just doesn't work. І have to 
keep my urges in check. 


914 

PLAYBOY: What's your relationship like with 
Craig T. Nelson, your TV dad on Parenthood? 
SHEPARD: Craig T. Nelson is the closest 
person Гуе met to my identical twin, only 
we're separated by 30 years or whatever. 
He raced cars forever. We both have big 
noses, we're both tall, we're both goofy, 
we've both been around a lot of craziness. 
He's a guy I super-fan at work the way I 
super-fan Burt Reynolds, whom I got to 
work with on Without a Paddle. 


915 

PLAYBOY: Burt Reynolds? 

SHEPARD: All the way. My house is a living 
shrine to Burt, much to K.B.'s chagrin. I 
have a urinal, and above it is a poster of 
Gator with a personal message that says, 
“То Dax, you're a hell of an actor but 
more important, a hell ofa man. Love and 
respect.” І would go to his trailer every 
day just to hound him for stories because 
I had so many unanswered questions. Like, 
Jackie Gleason was a very well-known 
and admitted functioning alcoholic, yet 
80 percent of Smokey and the Bandit is him 
traveling at high speed. It's clearly him 
driving, and it begs the question: What 
were the safety protocols when Gleason was 
driving? Burt's answers were implausible. 
Тһе physics of what he told me couldn't 
happen, but who gives a shit? They were 
great stories. I love that man. 


016 
PLAYBOY: Did you feel that way about John 
"Travolta when you were in Old Dogs? 
SHEPARD: Well, they say you shouldn't meet 
your heroes, and that's probably good 
advice unless you employ the strategy of 
hanging on to your daydream of who they 
are. Urban Сошбоу is іп my top five dra- 
mas of all time, so Travolta could have been 
lighting other cast members on fire and 
I would have just seen Bud climbing off 
the oil rig, or the guy from Pulp Fiction. 
I'm like those female fans who saw Elvis 
on his last tour. They didn't see the 300- 
pound beached whale on the stage; they 
were cheering and crying for the guy from 
1956 swaying his hips. 


017 

PLAYBOY: Beau Bridges looks pretty good in 
your new movie, and he's no spring chicken. 
What was he like? 

SHEPARD: When I saw his age was 70, I 
almost crapped myself. I would go, “Jesus, 
Beau, you're not supposed to be able to 
punch somebody out in a scene at 70. My 
grandpa couldn't have done that. What's 
your secret?" And he goes, “Гуе been а 
vegan for 12 years.” I was like, Damn, I need 


to think about this. And then I saw Forks Over 
Knives, that documentary, and I was like, I'm 
in. I've been a vegan since January. 


018 

PLAYBOY: And how are you feeling? 
SHEPARD: It's nothing like the pill in The 
Matrix but damn good, like 15 percent 
across the board in every respect. I sleep 
15 percent better. My allergies are at least 
15 percent better. I have fewer body aches. 
My skin looks better. I'm never starving, 
and I never need to ride the couch feeling 
completely full and disgusting. 


019 
PLAYBOY: So your vices are pretty much 
under control? 
SHEPARD: I think I have a pretty good han- 
Ше on my “isms,” but it takes a long time. 
Each third or fourth bad thing you give 
up, you still have to hold on to one. I'm 


still on nicotine. I pound about a dozen 
of those Commit throat lozenges a day. I 
still drink gallons of coffee. 


020 

PLAYBOY: And you still drive like a maniac. 
SHEPARD: I'm still super into driving too 
fast on motorcycles, yes. I have a Suzuki 
GSX-R1000 that's just for the racetrack, 
and I can get up to 190 on that. When 
you’re going that fast, you’re think- 
ing only about what yow're doing in the 
moment. It's the closest I could ever get 
to Пеерак or God or something like that. 
You can't think about tomorrow or what 
happened yesterday. You just absolutely 
have to be thinking second to second to 
second about what you're doing in that 
moment. I don't think I could survive 
without doing something like that. 


"I assume you're okay with my elbows on the table....” 


153 


154 


МЕХТ МОМТН 


CASTRO: IMPERIALISTS CREATE REVOLUTIONARIES. 


ІШ 


ONE GREAT REASON TO RENT APARTMENT 24. 


STEPHEN COLBERT: SERIOUSLY, ГМ JOKING. 


WHAT DOES IT TAKE TO BE THE NEXT BOND? 


BIS FOR BEAUTY —KRYSTEN RITTER ISN'T A BITCH, BUT SHE 
PLAYS ONE ON TV. THE STAR OF DON'T TRUST THE B---- IN 
APARTMENT 23 DISHES IN 200 TO TAFFY BRODESSER-AKNER 
ABOUT REVENGE WITH ROACHES, GROWING UP ON A FARM 
IN SHICKSHINNY, PENNSYLVANIA AND HER FIRST BOYFRIEND, 
DAMIEN (OR "DEMON," ACCORDING TO MOM AND DAD). 


THE ELEPHANT IN THE BEDROOM-—IF MITT ROMNEY 15 
ELECTED PRESIDENT ON NOVEMBER 6 AND THE RELIGIOUS 
FANATICS WHO HAVE HIJACKED THE GOP GAIN POWER, 
WHAT WILL BECOME OF SEXUAL FREEDOM? NANCY COHEN, 
AUTHOR OF DELIRIUM: THE POLITICS OF SEX IN AMERICA, 
PAINTS A STARTLING PORTRAIT OF A NEUTERED NATION. 


PLAYING DUMB—THERE ARE TWO STEPHEN COLBERTS—THE 
IGNORAMUS WHO HOSTS THE COLBERT REPORT AND THE 
THOUGHTFUL, HONEST AND FUNNY SATIRIST WHO SAT WITH 
ERIC SPITZNAGEL FOR THE PLAYBOY INTERVIEW. COLBERT 
EXPLAINS HIS PLANS TO START A CULT, HIS ADMIRATION 
FOR BILL O'REILLY, WHY FEAR WORKS AND THE $1.4 MILLION 
SUPER PAC HE STARTED AS A JOKE BUT NOW CONTROLS. 


LOUD, PROUD AND TELEVISED—WHY 15 EVERYONE SHOUT- 
ING? INSIDER JOHN MERONEY TRACES THE SLOW, STEADY 
DESCENT OF POLITICAL DISCOURSE ON TV FROM THE EARLY 


Playboy (ISSN 0032-1478), October 2012, volume 59, number 8. Published monthly except for combined January/February and July/August issues by Playboy in national and regior 
vic Center Drive, Beverly Hills, California 90210. Periodicals postage paid at Beverly Hill, California and at additional mailing offices. Canada Post С; 
Subscriptions: in the U.S., $32.97 for a year. Postmaster: Send address change to Playbo 


Рау 
Sales Product Agreement No, 400: 


DAYS OF CROSSFIRE TO THE CURRENT LINEUP OF PROVO- 
CATEURS ON FOX, CNN AND MSNEC. “TALKING HEADS USED 
TO BE BOOKENDS AROUND REAL JOURNALISM,” HE WRITES. 
“NOW THE BOOKENDS HAVE REPLACED THE BOOKS.” 


WILD OATS—WHEN THE JUDGES WHO COST THE RESIDENTS 
OF STIRRUPSHIRE THE STEEPLECHASE TITLE BEGIN SHOWING 
UP DEAD, THE CONSTABLE AND A LOCAL NEWSMAN POSE 
SOME UNCOMFORTABLE QUESTIONS. SADDLE UP FOR NEW 
FICTION FROM CELEBRATED NOVELIST RON CARLSON. 


BUNKER MENTALITY—NORTH KOREA IS NOT AN EASY COUN- 
TRY TO GET INTO. BUT WE FOUND A LOOPHOLE—WE SENT 
KEVIN COOK TO PYONGYANG TO PLAY IN AN AMATEUR GOLF 
TOURNAMENT. TALK ABOUT TENSION ON THE GREEN. 


MALE BONDING—TO CELEBRATE THE SOTH ANNIVERSARY OF 
THE FIRST BOND FILM (DR. NO, STARRING SEAN CONNERY, 
WHICH PREMIERED ON OCTOBER 5, 1962), WE EXPLAIN HOW 
TO GET THE STYLE, THE GEAR, THE DRINKS, THE CARS AND 
THE WOMEN, IN WHATEVER ORDER YOU PREFER. 


PLUS—COLD HARD STEEL WATCHES; THE LEGACY OF GOP 
OPERATIVE LEE ATWATER; A CLASSIC INTERVIEW WITH FIDEL 
CASTRO; HEF'S GIRLFRIENDS; MISS NOVEMBER AND MORE. 


‘ditions, 
inadian Publications Mail 
189. From time to time 


0. Box 37489, Boone, Iowa 500: 


we make our subscriber list available to companies that sell goods and services by mail that we believe would interest our readers. If you would rather not receive such mailings, please send your 
current mailing label to: Playboy, PO. Box 37489, Boone, ІА, 50037-0489. For subscription-related questions, call 800-999-4438, or e-mail plycustserv@cdsfulfillment.com. 


f FACEBOOK.COM/MACANUDO 


SURGEON GENERAL WARNING: 
Tobacco Use Increases The Risk of Infertility, MACANUDO.COM 
Stillbirth And Low Birth Weight. | 


©2012 General Cigar Co., Inc. 


o m» 
A 


C A ОТАМ 


MIST 


>С 
D айап ui 


LIGHTEN UP. 


eee xen 


Discover the light, clean taste of Canada's True Whisky. 


| 
D^ e 0) eren Bey. 
are