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dynamite month. Summer dresses 

appear and, in them, radiant women. 
Tequila shots for Cinco de Mayo. Top 
down on the convertible. It's all happen- 
ing now. Thank you for spending some of 
your downtime with us. We're pleased 
to offer a wild piece of fiction called 
Cannibal, by the master of weird Chuck 
Palahniuk. It's about a high school kid 
who's particularly adept at cunnilingus. 
So much so, in fact, that his talent turns 
his life upside down in ways he could 
never have imagined. Veteran journalist 
John H. Richardson brings us the chill- 
ing story El Gringo Loco this month. 
How does an upper-middle-class white 
college grad from Portland end up south 
of the border, running drugs for one of 
the most violent cartels in Mexico? This 
story sounds like fiction—but it's real. 
Peter Dinklage enthusiastically tackles 
our 20Q. If you think Dinklage is funny 
on-screen, wait until you meet him off- 
screen. The actor riffs on his sex life and 
his character on the HBO series Game 
of Thrones. Yvon Chouinard 
has his own peculiar sense of 
humor. The 74-year-old founder 
of Patagonia, which has been 
described as more of a move- 
ment than a company, has a 
unique perspective on things— 
one worthy of hearing, as we 
learn in The Accidental Capi- 
talist, by Craig Vetter. “Evil is 
stronger than good,” Chouinard 
has said. “I firmly believe that.” 
The handsome gent pictured 
under Chouinard is our articles 
editor, Hugh Garvey. Thanks, 
Hugh, for producing the con- 
summate guides to modern 
living: Cracking the Bar Code 
(secrets from America’s finest 
bartenders), The New Grand 
Tour (today's coolest destinations for the 
discerning gentleman) and Retro Renova- 
tion (the ultimate urban retreat, courtesy 
of architect-tastemaker-restaurateur 
Taavo Somer). Next up, we have a pair 
of Playboy Interviews for you. Muham- 
mad Ali has plenty to say in our classic 
interview, which originally appeared in 
1975. What's it like to get slugged by 
Joe Frazier? The Greatest explains. 
We also get up close and personal with 
J.J. Abrams, the director and/or writer 
behind a shocking number of your favor- 
ite movies and television shows. As you 
no doubt know, Abrams has been tapped 
to direct the next Star Wars movie, and 
his latest film, Star Trek Into Darkness, 
opens this month. Finally, there's Tamara 
Ecclestone, the "Billion $$ Girl.” In The 
Diamond Heiress, the British TV person- 
ality and daughter of Formula One boss 
Bernie Ecclestone reveals all to photog- 
rapher Tony Kelly. And we mean all. And 
you wonder why we love the month of 
May. Think of this issue as a Memorial Day 
weekend party. Shall we get it started? 


| п the spectrum of seasons, May is а 


Yvon Chouthard 


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VOL. 60, NO. 4-MAY 2013 


PLAYBOY 


CONTENTS 


FEATURES 
58 EL GRINGO LOCO 84 CRACKING THE 
Would you swap lives BAR CODE 
with a cartel drug runner? Concoct the perfect 
JOHN H. RICHARDSON cocktail using these 
chronicles an American's behind-the-bar secrets. 
improbable slide into an 
insane and dangerous job. 100 PLAYBOY CLASSIC: 
MUHAMMAD ALI 
74 SALE OF THE LAWRENCE LINDERMAN's 
CENTURY 1975 conversation 
Sex, drugs and shady captures the politi 
home financing: DAVID philosophy and 
KUSHNER unravelsatale personality that define 
oferedit fraud that would boxing's greatest 
make Bernie Madoffshiver. 
104 THE ACCIDENTAL 


76 RETRO 
RENOVATION 
Tastemaker Taavo Somer 
designs a Playboy pad 
worthy of the modern man. 


80 THE NEW GRAND 
TOUR 
From Berlin to Marrakech, 
our new capitals of cool are 
redefining vacation. 


FICT. 


68. CANNIBAL 
CHUCK PALAHNIUK tells 
the story ofaboy whose 
unusually twisted 
bedroom talent prompts 
an apt but disturbing 
nickname 


108 
amara 


Ecclestone 


53 


70 


CAPITALIST 

A company that profits 
from doing the right 
thing? CRAIG VETTER on 
why Patagonia's founder is 
mad enough to pull it off, 


INTERVIEW 


J.J. ABRAMS 

DAVID HOCHMAN nerds 

out over Star Trek—and 

Star Wars—with the man 
зе knows 


PETER DINKLAGE 
The Game of Thrones 
star holds court with 
ERIC SPITZNAGEL, 
exploring the sex appeal 
of the smaller man. 


COVER STORY 
With the dazzling Tamara 
Ecclestone gracing our 
cover, our Rabbit proves he's 
agirl's best friend. 


Photography, this page and cover, by TONY KELLY 


GOOD ENGINEERING OBEYS 
THE LAWS OF PHYSICS. 


GREAT ENGINEERING 
DEFIES THEM. 


They're stubborn, inflexible and steadfast. Every engineer knows these laws need to be accepted and respected, 
but Mazda engineers would rather master the laws of physics than give in to them. They'd prefer to rise 
above the obstacles they present, finding bold solutions to make the laws serve their goals instead of obstructing 
them. The MX-5 Miata is a perfect example. 


Painstakingly engineered to possess near-perfect balance, 50/50 front to rear with the driver іп the driver's seat. 
To prove our point, the image you see is real-no wires or strings attached, just great engineering at work. 

It's this kind of thinking that's empowered the МХ-5 Miata to achieve its legendary handling, not to mention 
the title as the top-selling and most-raced roadster* on Earth. 


“Based on Sports Car Club of America racing data. 


To design a car to achieve such feats requires an obsession, and that's 
just what we have. For us, driving is an obsession, and how our cars 
perform while doing it keeps us up at night. But at the end of 

the day, it's this dedication that separates our cars from the rest. 


Because for us, if it's not worth driving, it's not worth building? 
We build Mazdas. What do you drive? See the MX-5 Miata balance for 
yourself at Facebook.com/Mazda 


ZOOm-zoornm 


47 


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© 
© 


VOL. 60, NO. 4-MAY 2013 


PLAYBOY 


CONTENTS 


62 THIS SIDE OF 
PARADISE 
Idling seaside with model 
Monika Pietrasinska is 
our favorite new way to 
enjoy life at the beach. 


88 PLAYMATE: 
KRISTEN NICOLE 
‘Take a tour of Mexico 
with a positively 
intoxicating beauty. 


108 THE DIAMOND 


HEIRESS 
Tamara 
Ecclestoneisa 
Formula One 
e scion—and so 
PLAYMATE: Kristen Nicole much more. 
1 PLA М 
DEATH BY DRONE 50 CHECK YOURSELF 
Will Americans become Tech companies have more NEWSA 
drone targets? and more ofour personal LA 
NEWSOME takes data. Can they be trusted? 15: WORLD OF 
look at our constitutional By TYLE ov PLAYBOY 209: Peter Dinklage 
right to due process. Бі DRILL, BABY, DRILL PLAYBOY Israel launches; 
READER RESPONSE BRIAN COOK details how эшш to tha Цог ARTMENTS | 
Suburban flight; calls to ExxonMobil is steadily Мику Conon L = HL 
tax the wealthy; why pot. leadingour march toward 16 HANGIN’ WITH HEF 7. PLAYBILL 
is not a gateway drug. ecological ruin. A Playmate-studded i7 DEAR PLAYBOY 
Oscar party; George 21. AFTER HOURS 
Lopez takes on Jazz Fest. 30 REVIEWS 
—— PLAYMATE NEWS 34 MANTRACK 
LUMNS Claire Sinclair in Vegas; 45 ADVISOR: 
Carrie Stevens wields a 
ACUTE sharp kitchen knife. 98 PARTY JOKES 


FRANK BIDART 

One of America’s greatest 
poets explores his work 
with JAMES FRANCO. 


WITH FRIENDS 
LIKE THESE 

LISA LAMPANELLI's fare- 
well column teaches you 
that if you want to be her 
lover, you've got to get 
with her friends. 


ө PLAYBOY on © PLAYBOY он © PLAYBOY ON 
FACEBOOK Тыт AA 
GET SOCIAL Keep up with all things Playboy at 


facebook.com/playboy, twitter.com/playboy 
and instagram.com/playboy 


NERAL OFFICES: PLAYBOY, 9346 CIVIC CENTER DRIVE, BEVERLY HILLS, CALIFORNIA 9020. 
AYBOY ASSUMES NO RESPONSIBILITY TO RETURN UNSOLICITED EDIT 


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SINCE 1953 


p Y : twitter.com/playboy 


HUGH M. HEFNER 
editor-in-chief 


JIMMY JELLINEK 
editorial director 
STEPHEN RANDALL deputy editor 
MAC LEWIS art director 
LEOPOLD FROEHLICH managing editor 
AJ. BAIME, JASON BUHRMESTER executive editors 
REBECCA H. BLACK photo editor 
HUGH GARVEY articles editor 


EDITORIAL 
FASHION: JENNIFER RYAN JONES edifor STAFF: JARED EVANS assistant managing editor; 
GILBERT MACIAS editorial coordinator; CHERIE BRADLEY executive assistant; 
TYLER TRYKOWSKI editorial assistant CARTOON: 


MANDA WARREN associate cartoon editor 
COPY: WINIFRED ORMOND copy chief; BRADLEY LINCOLN senior copy editor; CAT AUER copy editor 
RESEARCH: NORA O'DONNELL senior research editor; SHANE MICHAEL SINGH research editor 
CONTRIBUTING EDITORS: BRANTLEY BARDIN, MARK BOAL, ROBERT В. DE SALVO, JAMES FRANCO, 
PAULA FROELICH, KARL TARO GREENFELD, KEN GROSS, GEORGE GURLEY, DAVID HOCHMAN, 
ARTHUR KRETCHMER (automotive), LISA LAMPANELLI, SEAN MCCUSKER, CHRISTIAN PARENTI, JAMES R. 
PETERSEN, ROCKY RAKOVIC, STEPHEN REBELLO, DAVID RENSIN, CHIP ROWE, DEBORAH SCHOENEMAN, TIMOTHY 


SCHULTZ, WILL SELF, DAVID SHEFF, ROB MAGNUSON SMITH, JOEL STEIN, ROB ТАМ 


INBAUM, CHRISTOPHER TENNANT 


ART 


JUSTIN PAGE senior art director; ROBERT HARK) 


Ess associate art director; MATT STEIGBIGEL. photo researcher; 
AARON LUCAS art coordinator; LISATCHAKMAKIAN 


y senior art administrator; LAUREL LEWIS art assistant 


PHOTOGRAPHY 
STEPHANIE MORRIS playmate editor; BARBARA LEIGH assistant editor; PATTY BEAUDET-FRANCES 
contributing photography editor; GAVIN BOND, SASHA EISENMAN, TONY KELLY senior contributing 
photographers; DAVID BELLEMERE, MICHAEL BERNARD, MICHAEL EDWARDS, ELAYNE LODGE, SATOSHI, 


JOSEPH SHIN contributing photographers; ANDREW J. BROZ casting; KEVIN MURPHY manager, photo library, 
CHRISTIE HARTMANN archivist, photo library; KARLA GOTCHER, CARMEN ORDOÑEZ assistants, 
photo library; crac SCHRIBER manager, prepress and imaging; AMY KASTNER-DROWN 


digital imaging specialist; OSCAR RODRIGUEZ prepress operator 


PUBLIC RELATIONS 


THERESA M. HENNESSEY vice president; TERI THOMERSON director 


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


PLAYBOY ENTERPRISES INTERNATIONAL, INC. 
SCOTT FLANDERS chief executive officer 


PLAYBOY INTEGRATED SALES 
JOHN LUMPKIN senior vice president, publisher; MARIE FIRNENO vice president, advertising director; 


AMANDA CIVITELLO senior marketing director 


PLAYBOY PRINT OPERATIONS 
DAVID C. ISRAEL president, playboy media; 
том FLORES senior vice president, business manager, playboy media 


ADVERTISING AND MARKETING: AMERICAN MEDIA INC. 

DAVID PECKER chairman and chief executive officer; KEVIN HYSON chief marketing officer; BRIAN HOAR 
vice president, associate publisher, digital; HELEN BIANCULL executive director, direct-response advertising 
NEW YORK: BRIAN VRABEL entertainment and gaming director; MIKE BOYKA automotive, consumer 
electronics and consumer products director; ANTHONY GIA 


оссовл fashion and grooming manager; 
KEVIN FALATKO senior marketing manager; ZOHRAY BRENNAN marketing manager; 
MICHELLE MILLER digital sales planning director; JOHN xırses art director 
LOS ANGELES: LORI KESSLER west coast director; LINDSAY BERG digital sales planner 


THE WORLD 7---7-- 


MANSION FROLICS 


OF PLAYBOY AND NIGHTLIFE NOTES 


In January we lost Hef's long- 
time executive assistant and 
the matriarch of the Playboy 
family. Sitting at Hef's right 
side for almost half a century, 
Mary O'Connor was one of his 
longest relationships and the 
lioness of both the company 
and the Mansion. At PMW 

she was our favorite girl next 
door; away from work she 
was a gracious hostess who 
threw notorious dinner parties 
and card games at her Valley 
Village home. O'Connor began 
working for Hef in Chicago and 
followed him to Los Angeles, 
where she was at her desk 
right up until the end. As Hef 
said, "We loved her more than 
words can say" 


"I was in Las Vegas for work, but our business model does not follow the 
motto 'Don't mix business with pleasure; so I went to the Killers concert, 
says Cooper Hefner. At their show in the Cosmopolitan's Chelsea club 

the band asked Playboy's prince to join them backstage, where he chatted 
with guitarist Dave Keuning, bassist Mark Stoermer, drummer Ronnie 
Vannucci Jr. and frontman Brandon Flowers about music, the magazine 
and how the two fit together. "It's always special for me to meet 
individuals who have impacted my life with music and art; says Cooper. 


"I'm proud 

to see PLAYBOY 
Israel embark on 
its mission to play 
an important role 
in strengthening 
freedom of speech, 
freedom of choice 
and freedom of the press," 
Hef said at the launch 

of a Hebrew-language 
edition of the magazine for 
the holy land. "5o many 

of the core values of the 
magazine are also the core 
values of the country and 
the society.” 


HANGIN?’ 
WITH 


PLAYBOY JAZZ FEST 
ANNOUNCEMENT 


The Playboy Jazz Festival 
trumpeted in a new era 


that Bill Cosby, event host 

for 33 years, I 

the master of ceremonies 

torch to comedian George 

Lopez. The former 

Emmys co-host said it 

‘most tremendous 

honor" to receive the 

microphone from Cosby, 

Lopez will preside over 

the 35th annual festival 

on June 15 at 

the Hollywood Bowl. 

This year will feature 

the sweet sounds of 

George Duke, Hubert 

Laws, Herbie Hancock, 

Sheila E., Poncho 

Sanchez and other 
artists, as well as an 
80th-birthday tribute 

to Quincy Jones 


OSCAR NIGHT AT 
THE MANSION 


We'd like to thank the 
Academy for giving 

us a reason to gather 
family, Playmates and 
stars for Oscar night. 
Statuette stand-ins 
made for photo ops as 
cocktails and popcorn 
were served to Alex 
Thomas, Jon Lovitz, 
Hef and Crystal Hefner, 
Jaslyn Ome, and Caya 
and Keith Hefner—who 
won the pool. 


SPELLBOUND 
I love Playmate Ashley Doris's pictorial 
(Flower Power, March). Hats off to photog- 
rapher Sasha Eisenman. Please let Sasha 
know he has a fan for life. 
Joey Munguia 
Laredo, Texas 


I'm not the first person to say or think 
this, but PMOY 2007 Sara Jean Under- 
wood is the most beautiful woman ever to 
grace the surface of this planet. Thanks 
for the pix in October's Playmate News. 
How about another pictorial? 

Bob Easton 
Grande Prairie, Alberta 


Karolina Szymczak has captured my 
dreams (The Muse, March). I hope this is 
the first of many appearances. 
Roger Brandenburg 
Des Moines, Iowa 


JUST ADD RUM 
Your How to Party Like a Gentleman 

guide (December) is very cool. However, 
you do your guests a disservice by offer- 
ing whiskey, vodka, gin and tequila but 
no rum (“The Ultimate Self-Serve Bar”). 
I suggest DonQ (Puerto Rico's best-selling 
brand) and Ron del Barrilito (dark and 
great for sipping). Enjoy! 

Miguel Gonzalez 

San Juan, Puerto Rico 


NO PLACE LIKE HOME 
Radical-chic types like Hollywood pro- 
ducer Bert Schneider fascinate me (The Big 
Cigar, January/February). They achieve 
fame and fortune but claim to disdain 
the capitalist system that gives them free- 
dom to create. Any sane man would have 
pulled the plug on Black Panthers leader 
Huey Newton. Instead Schneider shoveled 
Newton money so the Marxist thug could 
conduct his Stalin-like purges from a pent- 
house. Then, given the chance to reside in 
Fidel Castro’s workers’ paradise, Newton 
hightailed it back to the bad old USA. 
Joseph Kutch 
Pineville, Loui 


EASY RIDER 
I'm sure your readers who are Honda 
Gold Wing owners got a chuckle out of 
your claim in Thunder Road (March) that 
the BMW K 1600 GTL “matches the Gold 
Wing in long-distance comfort.” That may 
be true if you ride solo, but I'd be willing 
to bet that after doing a 600-mile day on 
a 1600 the passenger, and probably the 
driver, would be ready to trade. The BMW 
is too small to carry two adults comfortably. 
My wife and I have traveled thousands of 
miles together on Gold Wings and other 
bikes, and no other motorcycle compares. 
Sam Martin 
Melbourne, Florida 


WILL FREEDOM REIGN? 
Other than the U.S. State Department, 
did anyone believe the uprisings across 


DEAR PLAYBOY 


Who's That Girl? 


I've read every issue of PLAYBOY 
since 1972. I've also traveled all over 
the world and seen thousands of 
attractive women. But never in my life 
have I laid eyes on a woman as breath- 
taking as your March cover model. I 
beg you, tell me who she is. 

Steven Cohen 

Panama City, Florida 


I am loving the art direction of your 
covers; every month is a sweet sur- 
prise. But I can't find the name of the 
March cover model or the two women 
who appear with her in The Language 
of Lingerie. Who are they? 

Fernando Vasconcelos 
Recife, Brazil 

Our comely March cover girl with the 
come-hither gaze is Ukrainian model Liza 
Kei. Here's another look at her amazing 
between-the-sheets shot. You're welcome. 


Arab Spring: the complexity of change. 


northern Africa would result in democra- 
cies (The Cold Arab Spring, March)? A free 
society requires that a vast majority of the 
populace respect the rights of others to 
express unpopular beliefs. It also requires 
that a vast majority respect the rights of 
others to do things they may not approve 
of but that don’t hurt anyone else. Neither 
condition is anywhere close to being the 
case in the Muslim world. 

Paul Thiel 

Crescent Springs, Kentucky 


MEN AND MONEY 

Joel Stein’s Men column “Why Money 
Makes Us Squirm” (January/February) 
is hilarious and true. In my experience 
as a psychotherapist, I have found that 
it is easier for most men and women to 
talk about sex or childhood traumas than 
about money, even with their families. In 
addition to the fact that we live in an ado- 
escent nation of chronic overspenders, a 
lot of emotional issues are wrapped up in 
our finances, including love, power, self- 
esteem, happiness, security, freedom and 
so on. Stein writes that “women actually see 
money as something they use just to buy 


things.” That's true, to a point. Many men 
are more likely to measure dominance by 
personal wealth, but some women measure 
their status by who has the bigger house or 
pricier clothes. Women use money less to 
jockey for power but have a terrible time 
negotiating for their self-interests and tend 
to give away the store to loved ones. The 
healthiest approach is to use money as a 
tool to accomplish goals that align with 
your values rather than solely as a way to 
achieve and measure status. 

Olivia Mellan 

Washington, D.C. 

Mellan is author of Money Harmony 

(moneyharmony.com). 


KEEPING THE PEACE 
It’s amazing but perhaps not surprising 
that readers continue to comment on 
your September 2012 Playboy Interview 
with noted atheist Richard Dawkins 
(Dear Playboy, March). I have no quarrel 
with believers or nonbelievers, but I am 
concerned about people's tendency to ste- 
reotype the beliefs of those they disagree 
with and then demean them for having 
those beliefs. Dawkins may be right about 
some of the intellectual frailties of the 
faithful, but he shouldn't belittle believ- 
ers in such a hostile and ridiculous way. 
Those of us acquainted with the many 
fine, courageous and compassionate 
people of various spiritual traditions are 
aware that for them faith has proven to 
be a source of strength in a world infected 
with enormous violence and injustice. 
Peter Johnson 
Superior, Wisconsin 


In March 1 couldn't wait to open your 
fine magazine, but for the first time it was 
for the interviews, not the photos. Chris 


17 


y 


LIFE IS WORTH 


LIVING 


WITH A LITTLE 


STYLE 


THE NEW PLAYBOY FOR iPhone APP 


Download on the 


AppStore 


Hardwick rules (200). The Playboy Inter- 
view with Jimmy Kimmel is great, and the 
Q&A with Hunter 5. Thompson (Playboy 
Classic) is icing on the cake. Some 40 years 
later he's still edgy. I also love that people 
are still writing about the Dawkins inter- 
view. I hope that discussion never ends. 

Anthony Pennza 

Cleveland, Ohio 


SUBURBAN AFFAIRS 
The suburbs may be dying, but their 
death is being engineered by politicians, 
not by society (“The Suburbs Are Dead,” 
Forum, January/February). Over the past 
20 years traditional low-income housing 
projects have been torn down to make 
room for single-family homes or empty 
lots. This has displaced thousands of 
poor apartment dwellers to the suburbs. 
In the late 1990s the federal government 
gave an apartment complex in my area 
money to renovate on the condition that 
a majority of its residents be low-income 
renters. The complex had thrived for 
years as a starting point for young cou- 
ples and a last home for retirees. Now it 
has become a blighted area, with the local 
grocery store closing. On the flip side, the 
federal government has been financing 
the construction of luxury apartments in 
abandoned factories downtown that no 
poor person could ever afford. 
David Brogan 
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania 


It’s not that the suburbs are dead, it’s 
that they are now more like the cities from 
which people, particularly white people, 
have escaped. Increasingly the suburbs 
are a mirror of the Third World countrie: 
that America has become due to massive 
immigration (legal and illegal) over the 
past 50 years. Some will try to gentrify 
the cities and eliminate the poor in those 
selected enclaves. Others will move to 
“new suburbs” to escape the old suburbs 
now that they are more “diverse.” Any 
historical study of population and hous- 
ing demographics reflects this. 

Frank Goudy 
Cuba, Illinois 
For more letters on the burbs, see page 47. 


FAN LETTERS 
I've been reading ғілувоу for 20 years 
and have never been as impressed with 
the writing and the pictorials as I've been 
in the past 18 months or so. The articles, 
the covers, the Playmate of the Year and 
nearly every other woman who has graced 
your pages have been better than ever. In 
these tumultuous times it's a pleasure to 
read brave and important articles, par- 
ticularly about the rights we value in the 
privacy of our bedrooms. Your recent 
models share a grand beauty that includes 
a natural, colorful look. It’s also nice to 
see more brunettes (especially Latinas). 
Thanks for a fantastic stretch of issues. 
Jeremy Gallant 
Hampden, Maine 


I'm 53 and I just read my first issue of 
PLAYBOY. Like all guys, I grew up sneak- 
ing my dad’s copies, but at the time I 
only thumbed through them. However, 
I recently became a Battlestar Galactica 
fan and wanted to see more of Tricia 
Helfer, so I bought the February 2007 
issue on eBay. As a bonus it has an inter- 
view with Bettie Page, another woman I 
admire. Within minutes I had started to 
read the issue from cover to cover—ads, 
cartoons, snippets, gossip, everything. 
What a great magazine. You have a new 
loyal reader. 

Patrick Murphy 
Fayetteville, North Carolina 


REDNECK COUNTRY 

‘As a longtime “hixploitation” aficio- 
nado, I thoroughly enjoyed Stephen 
Rebello's look back at the making of the 
film Smokey and the Bandit (The Birth of 
Redneck Cinema, March). My only quib- 
ble would be with the article’s title: 
Smokey represents less the birth of re 
neck cinema than the crest of a wave. 
Burt Reynolds had firmly established 
his good-old-boy persona years ear- 
lier, first in Deliverance and then in the 
underrated moonshine action picture 
White Lightning. (Reynolds's crucial addi- 
tion of a mustache would have to wait 
for the latter movie's sequel, Gator.) But 
the redneck-hero archetype dates back 


Redneck nation; Has it jumped the shark? 


at least as far as Robert Mitchum’s role 
in 195878 Thunder Road. As for today's 
redneck characters, most of them can be 
found on reality television, which is full to 
bursting with the truckers, moonshiners, 
gator hunters and other types Reynolds 
would have played back in the day. 

Scott Von Doviak 

Austin, Texas 

Von Doviak is author of Hick Flicks: The 

Rise and Fall of Redneck Cinema. 


BUTT SERIOUSLY 
A punch line in March's Party Jokes—"At 
least you got your asshole licked”—is so 
offensive it leads me to believe your edi- 
tors are a bunch of perverts. If you think 
your readership is composed primarily of 
asshole lickers, I do not want to be con- 
sidered part of it. 
Robert Stabile 
Bonita Springs, Florida 
You should have seen the punch line we 
wanted to use. 


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


A ONG NATUR FOR 


Tellin’ it like it is; 
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mygrizzly.com* 


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"WEBSITE RESTRICTED TO AGE 21+ TOBACCO CONSUMERS. 


MOIST SNUFF 


BECOMING 
ATTRACTION 


JESSICA PARKER 
KENNEDY 


+ It takes a special 
woman to play 
with pirates. "I 

can do the sweet 
girl. That's easy," 
says the Canadian 
actress, referring 
to her stint on 
90210. "Being 
seductive is a 
whole other thing.” 
Thus describes 
Jessica's latest 
role as Max, a “bad 
bitch” prostitute 
in director Michael 
Bay's upcoming 
pirate TV show, 
Black Sails, “Max is 
smarter than most 
pirates and has 
killer French sex 
appeal,” Jessica 
says. “She can 
push a pirate's 
bliss button.” 
Trust us, she's a 
treasure. 


'ography by MICHAEL EDWARDS/ 
IMYPLACE.COM 


! =» 


22 


TALK | WHAT MATTERS NOW 


THE BASEBALL HALL OF FAME IS А BIG 
STINKING MESS. А BASEBALL LEGEND’S 
SON TRIES TO STRAIGHTEN OUT THE GAME 


* In January the Baseball Writers’ Association of 
America elected not to elect to the Hall of Fame 
any of the many qualified candidates on this year’s 
ballot, for various goofily righteous reasons, most 
of them having to do with performance-enhancing 
drugs and their long, paranoid 
shadow. Empty ballots were filed. 
Protest votes were cast for 
Jack Morris, whose lustrous 
mustache was presumably 
grown without the use of 
PEDs. Crotchety columns 
were penned. Salty radio 1 
арреагапсев were made. 1 
It was a bad time. None of : 
that is why Dale Murphy 
received just 18.6 percent 
ofthe vote in his 15th and | 
final year on the ballot. Е А, ж 

Murphy is a seven-time р 
All-Star and two-time 
National League MVP 
who was his era’s very 
definition of whole-milk 
ballplayer wholesome- 
ness, but he was judged 
not to have been quite 
great enough for quite 
long enough. Other stars , 
from the doomed 2013 y | x р 
ballot will eventually . 1 
make the Hall of Fame, и AS E 
but Murphy—who won't— i 
may wind up being the 
most influential. 

If this year's Hall of Fame 
vote was puffed up, ridiculous 
and wrong, it wasn't exactly 
unfamiliar. It is always at least 
alittle like this—voters work out 
decades-old grudges, gloryinthe 
authority to apply arbitrary rules 
in arbitrary ways, evince a sour, 
dour conservatism so fatuous 
it makes Sean Hannity look like 
Edmund Burke. But while there's still 
a dearth of accountability and perspective 
from BBWAA voters, thereis also an increasing sense 
that things need to change. And Dale Murphy, of all 
people, stands at the center of this reform movement. 

Maybe that's a bit much. The online movement on 
Murphy's behalf—spearheaded by his son Taylor—is 
no revolution, and the devout, humble Dale Murphy 
is no revolutionary. But it feels like a start: Taylor 
Murphy built support for his father’s candidacy by 
posting on Reddit, launching a Change.org petition 
and serving asa cheerleader on various social media. 


AMERICAN 
PASTIMES 


His pitch was grounded on his father's integrity 

and character—identified as important criteria 

in the BBWAA guidelines and by many of the 

protest voters—as much as on his career stats. 

“A combination of respect for the game and skill 

is what the Hall of Fame claims to be looking 

for,” Taylor wrote. “Yet Dale Murphy has been 
on the outside looking in for 14 years.” 

It didn’t work, of course. Despite 

support from players suchas Justin 

Verlander and Curt Schilling, the 


petition tapped out one third of 
the way to its goal of 25,000 sig- 
natures. Online campaigns 
may not be the best way 
to influence or shame 
crusty septuagenarian 
sports columnists. But 
Taylor Murphy's cam- 
paign worked both to 
highlight the selec- 
tive application of the 
character clause—if 
it had mattered to 
voters as much as it 
suddenly seems to, 
Dale Murphy should 
have sailed in on his 
first ballot—and to 
remind us that the 
Hall of Fame mat- 
ters to people outside 
the grumpy, grievance- 
driven club of voters, Fans 
can neither vote writers 
out of the BBWAA nor vote 
Dale Murphy into the Hall of 
Fame, and that won't change 
anytime soon. But revolutions 
have started in defense of fig- 
ures far less worthy than Dale 
Murphy.—David Roth 


RED ALL OVER 


— Red Smith (1905-1982) 
was one of the giants of 
20th century journalism. 
Over five decades he wrote 
hundreds of masterful col- 
umns about baseball, fishing 
and boxing for the New York 
Herald Tribune and The New 
York Times. Collected here 
are 576 pages of sports 
writing at its finest. 


Photography by SATOSHI 


SPHINK ILLUSTRATION BY DEREK BACON 


LAUGH LIKE AN 
EGYPTIAN 


AN UNDERGROUND COMEDY MOVEMENT 
GROWS IN THE WAKE OF TURMOIL 


* Blocks from Cairo's suits will have a pocket 
Tahrir Square, where for his rocket.” The audi- 
protesters onceclashed ence erupts in laughter. 
violently with police, Egyptstill lacks 
people are laughing any dedicated comedy 
their asses off. The clubs, but an increasing 
occasion 15 е one-year number of Arabic- and 
anniversary ofEgypt’s English-speaking come- 
first stand-up comedy dians are finding make- 
collective, Al Hezb El shift stages in cafés and 
Comedy (“the Comedy cultural institutes, per- 
Party”). Inside the tiny forming for anyone who 
space local comedian will listen. The material 
Rami Boraie mentions centers on the absurdi- 
Mohamed Morsi anda ties of Egyptian life, 
chorus of boos shows from traffic to beinga 
deep disappointmentin newlywed. The only topic 
EgyptsIslamistpresi- that remains taboo is, of 
dent. Boraie plunges course, religion. Come- 
forward, describingan dian Marwan Imam says, 
interview with Aus- “We have seen an explo- 
tralian prime minister sion ofarts since the 


JuliaGillardandMorsi revolution—allthe pent- 
duringwhich heshame- uprage transformed into 
lessiyadjustedhisjunk expression. Egyptians 


on international TV. love to laugh, so what 
“He spent 30 seconds better way is there to 
adjusting his erection. reach them? Without 
You know, Mubarak’s humor, the people would 
suits always had his start killing each other 
name written as the pin- over the traffic alone." 
stripes. I guess Morsi’s = —Maha ElNabawi 

A 


HOOKED UP 


TECHNOLOG SOLV 


* It's time to download a sex life. Nearly 14 million people are already tapped 
into online dating, and mobile developers have rolled out a new batch of apps 
that use GPS and disappearing texts to aid the process. From setting up blind 
dates to dialing up foreplay, nothing is off-limits. Here's how technology is 
turning your smartphone into the best wingman yet.—Shane Michael Singh 


vous. Input when you're Snapchat can add cap- ! апа switch your phone 
free, select a meeting tions to your objets i to Songza, which fea- 
spot and wait for some- d'art and will notify i tures music playlists 
one to bite, The profile ! you if the recipient i expertly curated for 
pics of other users are takes a screenshot of the art of lovemaking. 
pixelated, hence the i whatever you sent.No ! May we suggest “Dirty 
blind date. Be brave. i judgment here. | Sexy Dubstep”? 


FLIRT GET DOWN 
> Call it 4G speed => Romance now falls — Play it safe before 
dating. App makers somewhere between an ! dropping trou 
dropped the algo- emoticon and a nude | MedXSafe, a feature of 
rithms used by sites like photo, and new apps 1 MedXCom's health care 
eHarmony and returned | aim to prevent the next | арр, allows you and 
to the basics of any i Weinergate. Snapchat | a partner to instantly 
hookup: convenience. ! andZümallowyouto ! share verified STD test 
OkCupid's Crazy Blind | send images or videos ! results by bumping 
Date app uses GPSto ! that automatically self- | phones. Then grab а 
find your next rendez- ^ ! destruct after viewing. ! (nondigital) condom 


24 


QU. 


+ We love a glamor- 
ous, brand-new casino 
packed with high-end 
boutiques, celebrity- 
chef restaurants 

and EDM-thumping 
nightclubs as much 

as the next player. But 
sometimes it seems 
though strollers out- 
number high rollers on 


NEVER SLEEP 
FROM 


DUSK TO 
DAWN IN 
VEGAS 


EASE ! 


М 


the Strip апа we yearn 
for more sin in Sin City. 
Fortunately, plenty 
of pleasure of a less 
theme-park sort can be 
found just off the Strip. 
One of the pitfalls 
of even a short stay in 
Vegas is the fatigue 
that comes from the 
unrelenting stimula- 


tion of packed streets, 
the flashing cacophony 
of the casino floor and 
the parade of revel- 

ers toting cocktails in 
yard-long plastic Day- 
Glo cups. Even a player 
needs to pace himself 
with a restorative disco 
nap. Take advantage 
ofthe desert air—and 
more affordable rates— 
at Red Rock resort on 
the far western edge of 
the city or, to the south, 
at the M Resort (1), 
where you can book a 
room with a view of 
the Strip glitteringin 
the distance and plan 
your attack. 

Get the party started 
with a visit to down- 
town Las Vegas, now 
dubbed the Fremont 
Street Experience 
(2). Despite the kitschy 
video light show and zip 
lines that hover over- 
head, the ground level of 
the original Vegas Strip 
is relatively unchanged 


and home to old-school 
casinos such as the 
Golden Nugget and 
the 4 Queens—time 
capsules ofan era free 
from such distractions 
as Cirque du Soleil and 
culinary careers built 
оп Food Network fame. 
Binion’s, the birthplace 
of the World Series of 
Poker, is the hard-core 
gambler’s casino of 
choice (and with the 
slogan “Good whiskey. 
Good food. Good gam- 
ble,” it better be). 

Head east to wit- 
ness firsthand the 
evolution of modern 
downtown Las Vegas. 
Hit Commonwealth, 
amultilevel bar and 
lounge with a rooftop 
patio, a Portland- 
worthy 20-slot bike 
rack out front and such 
hipsterati events as a 
pop-up tattoo parlor. 
Nearby Downtown 
Cocktail Roomisa 
sultry, dimly lit speak- 


FACE THE POKER 
Play 


easy, the perfect place to 
sip textbook renditions 
of classic cocktails, 
including the Between 
the Sheets, first served 
at Harry’s Bar in Paris 
in the 1930s. 

If you're an enlight- 
ened food dude, eat 
like achefatRaku 
(8) in the city’s 
Chinatown. Here 
you'll find casino 
chefs on their nights 
off eating exquisite 
charcoal-grilled Kobe 
beef and soy-glazed 
foie gras until three in 
the morning. 


MOB 
SCENE 


> Man cannot 
live on booze, 
food and дат 
bling alone, so 
break it up with 
some culture, 
Vegas style. Tour 
the Mob Museum 
where you can 
fire a tommy-gun 
simulator and see 
a bullet-bitten wall 
shot up during the 
St. Valentine's Day 
Massacre. 


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DOWNLOAD THE FREE APP by searching 
“Nightlife Concierge" in the Google Play” or iTunes® app store. 


LAUNCH THE APP ond hold your smartphone over our 
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FOOD 


MAKING THE 
CASE FOR QUESO 


DROP THE VELVEETA AND COOK THIS 
MAXED-OUT TEX-MEX CHEESE DIP 


* Cinco de Mayo serves dual, equally noble pur- 
poses: One, it commemorates Mexico's victory 
over the French invasion. Two, it's a darned 
fine excuse to eat all manner of fried, cheesy 
and spicy foods with some semblance ofa culi- 
nary connection to Mexico. In Texas, where 
Los Angeles-based chef Josef Centeno grew 
up, queso fundido was the classic party dish: an 
unctuous, cheesy dip that cried out for crisp tor- 
tilla chips and ice-cold beer. After putting in the 
tter part of two decades cooking in some of the 
ist restaurants on the East and West Coasts, 
jenteno decided to take queso to the next level 
it his newest venue, Bar Ama in downtown Los 
Angeles. The menu at Bar Amáis a refined hom- 
age to down-home Tex-Mex food (think Frito pie 
with beef tongue and fideo with octopus). Here 
the queso improves on tradition too: It's rich, 
angy, unbelievably silky and packs the twin 
ipsaicin punch of chili powder and spicy Mexi- 
сап chorizo. Not only must you avoid Velveeta at 
all costs, you are required to use sharp cheddar— 
nild makes for a grainy dip. 


Crock Star 


=} Trick out your party arsenal 
with a slow cooker: It can keep 
your queso fundido at full 
melt, your chili from getting 
chilly and your mulled wine 
piping hot. And you don't need. 
anything super fancy. A classic. 
Crock-Pot is priced around $20. 


Photography by MISHA GRAVENOR 


BAR AMÁ'S 
QUESO WITH 
CHORIZO 


Serves 4 


2 tbsp. cornstarch 
2% cups half-and- 
half 

2 cups sharp 
cheddar cheese, 
grated 

2 cups Monterey 
Jack cheese, 
grated 

Туа tsp. salt 

VA tsp. chili 
powder 

la lb. Mexican 
chorizo 

2 tbsp. red onion, 
diced 

2 tbsp. fresh 
cilantro, chopped 


> Mix cornstarch 
with Y cup cold 
half-and-half 
until completely 
dissolved. Bring 
remaining 

cups half-and-half 
to boil and stir in 
cornstarch slurry 
until thickened, 
about one minute. 
Add cheese one 
cup at a time 

and stir briskly 
until completely 
melted. If more 
half-and-half is 
needed, adjust to 
desired con- 
sistency. Add 

salt and chili 
powder. Reserve 
in a Crock-Pot or 
other slow cooker 
set to medium. 


-» Remove casing 
from chorizo and 
cook in a medium 
frying pan over 
low heat, stirring 
occasionally and 
breaking up with 
а spoon until 
cooked through 
and browned 
Remove with a 
slotted spoon, 
Garnish melted 
cheese with 
chorizo, onion and 
cilantro. Serve 
with tortilla chips. 


BIG IN JAPAN 


Ever since Bill Murray played an actor turned whiskey 
pitchman in Lost in Translation, thirst for the Japanese 
version of scotch has been growing. Well, it’s finally 
Suntory—and Nikka—time in the U.S., with these two 
Japanese distillers distributing more widely than ever. 
Although Japanese distillers borrow from Scottish 
whiskey-making traditions (Suntory owns Scotland's 
Bowmore Distillery), their product is designed to com- 
plement the Japanese way of drinking, which is custom- 
arily with food. To make whiskey more food-friendly, 
drinkers in Japan dilute it with water or ice. This is why 
Japanese whiskey is blended to be most delicious at 
higher levels of dilution, when aromas open and flavors 
are revealed. To which we say kanpai! 


SŽ 
EASTERN 
PROMISES 


ISKEYS TO Ti 


M5 Mr 
TAKETSURU 


12-YEAR PURE MALT 
(870) 

> Slightly smoky and 
malty with subtle apple 
flavors. Enjoy this bot- 
tling from Nikka with a 
charcuterie platter. 


(mma 


HIBIKI 12-YEAR 
5) 


(56 


> Distilled in 11 uniquely 
shaped stills and aged in 
three kinds of oak, this 
smooth, rich Suntory 
whiskey is freakishly com- 
plex over ice, from first 
sip to watered-down last. 


YAMAZAKI 12-YEAR 
SINGLE MALT 


) 


— Floral and buttery 
with a honey sweet- 
ness, this single malt 
from Suntory makes a 
mellow new-style old 
fashioned. 


Photography by SATOSHI 


- Tokyo Highball 


Whiskey 
and sodais the 
go-to cocktail 
inJapan. The 
traditional ratio 
is one part whis- 
key to three parts 
soda, but we 
prefer astronger, 
one-to-one ratio, 


bravely with fo 
weather g r. We 
appreciate! 


nearly. every: designer 
< hasatrench in his or 
_ her collection ready foi 
_ your interpretation, 


niglo's $130 entry- 
level version to 


nic $1,295 Burberry 


3. ondon WI Е 
| shownhere. — — , 
-t 


Себ во 
‘his detail on the 
ker 277 


TRENCHANT POINT 


lapel can be folded 


over from the trench over and buttoned 
coat's military past: — ир to keep out wind 
It was first designed | Сайга 
for use by the Bri - J 
military. a 

4. CHECKS, 
3. BELT IT OUT шакы 

> Burberry'stra 


— How you secure \ 
_ yourbeltcanbe + 
_ astylestatement: | 
Buckled is basic, 
u _ knotted is natty, tied 
- behind your back is 
traditionally cool. 


"A 
Photography by SATOSHI 


^ 


marked tartan pat- 
tern is often copied. 
The latest iteration 
is more elegant than 
imitations and in- 
corporates a subtle 
‚red stripe. - 


я 


© PROP STYLING: 


Жі 
nos 
pts 
ж- 

y 
ES 
= 
“== 


GENTLEMEN 
ONLY 


GIVENCHY 


THE NEW FRAGRANCE FOR MEN 


Lift to discover 
GENTLEMEN 
ONLY 


STYLE E 
PM WITH 
THE BAND di 2. з. 4. 5. 


TRUE BLUE FLIGHT PLAN MOD SQUAD MILITARY TIME PREP SCHOOL 
SWITCH UP YOUR WATCH > Dive in to > Hamilton's > The Quad > The Timex > The Tach- 
WITH MILITARY-INSPIRED spring with handsome Khaki watch by Nixon for J. Crew brook watch by 
NYL RAP: the casually Pilot Pioneer combines а mini- Vintage Field Smart Turnout 

ON NATO STRAPS elegant NATO chrono has ana- malistfacewith Army watchisas London has а 
Strap watch by log stopwatch patriotic flair. classic as it gets. poppy, preppy 
* Although watch collecting Nautica. functionality. pm nes appeal. 
can seem limited to men with 399 3595 $130 


unlimited resources, at least 
one corner of the watch world 
has alow price of entry. Meet 
the nylon NATO strap. So 
called because ofits origins in 
the British military, the NATO 
strap (known as the G10 by 
serious watch nerds) is a prac- 
tical alternative to metal and 
leather straps: Itis durable, 
affordable, nonreflective and 
easily cut off in emergencies. 
In the civilian world it’s now 
being produced in bright col- 
ors and patterns that can 
be swapped out as easily 
as a necktie. With styles 
as cool as these, it's 
time to buckle up. 


Photography by CHARLES MASTERS 


ENTERTAINMENT 


IRON MAN’S 
RIGHT-HAND 
MAN 


Don Cheadle talks 
about his second stint 
playing Tony Stark’s 
best bud, James 
“Rhodey” Rhodes, in 
Iron Man 3. 


©: What's it like being 
Tony Stark's wingman? 


A: This one's more of a 
buddy movie for Rhodey 
and Tony but with a dif- 
ferent set of challenges. 
Tony is volatile and 
unpredictable. Rhodey is 
pretty much the straight- 
man soldier. He has to 
defend Tony for doing 
things that don’t seem 
sensible according to his 
own code of behavior. 

Q: What was your reac 
tion to seeing your "Iron 
Patriot" movie poster? 


A: A friend said, "Do you 
realize the only black 
action superheroes in 
really big movies are 
Wesley Snipes in Blade, 
Michael Jai White in 
Spawn and now you? 
БОРТ " My man, it's dope." He's 
MOVIE OF THE MONTH smart and cool ing decisions on right. It is cool 


STAR TREK INTO ааа сша 
DARKNESS Darknessisvery more complicated painful, How bad is it? 


By Stephen Rebello muchintheGene inthis movie A: A lot is CGI, but there 
Roddenberry because you're not о 
* Everything andscaleare byChrisPine, tradition. “Lives sure whether the ые суо ЫЕ еч А ИНИ 
about Star Trek Dark Knight-size ?асһагу Quinto, and bodies were decision makers bersome. If you want 
Into Darkness massive. Benedict Zoë Saldana, inperilinthepre- aremakingthe to drink, somebody has 
screams upgrade. Cumberbatch Simon Pegg and vious Star Trek; right moral deci- to bring a straw to your 
Thankstodirector (TV's Sherlock) KarlUrban, soulsareindan- sions. It’s athrill- тошт ee lonas 
J.J.Abramss2009 turnsupasa amongothers. gerinthisone,” ing movie about It's not fun 
Star Trek reboot larger-than-life EventheKlingons says Cho, who growingtall and О: Is your character 
andits$386mil- ^ villamwhomakes makeareturn. alsostarsinthe maturing. I'ma primado become even 
lion worldwide box life hell for the But according Harold & Kumar father, and this is more important in sub- 
office haul, this starship Enter- to John Cho, the comedies. “Let's amovieId want sequent /ron Man flicks? 
follow-up'saction — prisecrew,played movie’ssupremely justsaythatmak- my son to see.” A: It sure feels as if we're 


on the road to bigger 
and better things for 
Rhodey. But | would 

just like to see people 
coming out of the movie 
looking satisfied, saying 
"Wow, that was great” 
and then running to get 
back in line, 


DVD OF THE MONTH 


THE IMPOSSIBLE 


By Staci 


Hougland 


* This true story ofa family agasping, injured Naomi Watts 
that gets caught up—literally— біп an Oscar-nominated per- 
inthe 2004 tsunami that hit formance) flails in the roaring, 
Thailand is as much about debris-filled floodwaters and 
the kindness of strangers as struggles through the chaos 
itisabouttheimmensity of toreunite with her husband 
the disaster, framed by a hor- (Ewan McGregor) and young 
rifyingly realistic tidal-wave sons. (BD) Bestextra:a 


sequencethatpacksavisceral featurette on how director Juan 
punch.Youhavetowatch—even Antonio Bayona and his team 
ifonly through your fingers—as created the monster wave. YYY 


30 


ALBUM OF THEMONTH 


FOALS’ 


HOLY FIRE 


By Rob Tannenbaum 


* Why are Foals almost completely unknown outside the 
United Kingdom? Their stirring, arcing guitar rock has the 
kind of heft and Blu-ray clarity that make people buy cow- 
size stereo systems, and their lyrics, in the grand tradition of 
Pink Floyd or Coldplay, would sound great shouted by 13,000 
people in a basketball arena. In fact, Foals’ new album, Holy 
Fire, is what Coldplay would sound like if Coldplay (a) weren't 
simps and (b) had a better drummer. You should savor the 
album’s jittery, aggressive fuck-off song “Inhaler,” then find 


12,999 friends who feel the same. ҰҰҰУ 


By Jason Buhrmester 


* Menhave many 


GAMEOF THEMONTH 


INJUSTICE 


Us (360, PS3, 


you'll wield Won- 


standard argu- WiiU)resolvesthe der Woman'slasso 
mentsthateatup lastbyputtingthe toswingacarat 
hoursinbarrooms mightiest heroes Green Lantern or 
and basements. and villains from use Flash’s speed 
Beatles versus the DC Comics to dodge a blow 
Stones. Thedesig- universein Mortal from Supermanin 
nated hitter. And Kombat-style locations such as 
whowouldwinin grudge matches. the Watchtower 


afight-Batmanor  Thevariety of and the Batcave. 
Superman? Injus- superpowersand  Justdon'tscratch 
tice: Gods Among gadgets means the Batmobile. ¥¥¥ 


RECTIFY ON 
SUNDANCE 


+ Rectify, Sundance Channel's first 
try ata scripted dramatic series, 
isn't based on actual events, but its 
premise has become sadly familiar 
in recent years: A death-row inmate 
finds himself back in the real world 
after DNA evidence results in his 
release. In the case of Daniel Holden 
(Aden Young), freedom comes after 
he's been locked away for nearly 

two decades; understandably, he 
struggles as he shifts from dead man 
walking to walking among the liv- 
ing. But Rectify is just as interested 


in the effect Holden's return has on 
those around him, from the devoted 
sister (played by Abigail Spencer, 
left) who fought for his release to 
the philandering former prosecutor 
(Michael O'Neill) who sent him to 
jail (and is hell-bent on putting him 
back). It’s compelling stuff, despite 
the often glacial pacing (an increas- 
ingly common problem with the new 
breed of cable shows). Young is rivet- 
ing throughout, perfectly capturing 
the essence of aman who suddenly 
hasa future but not a purpose. YYY 


FAREWELL TO THE OFFICE 


It's finally closing 
time for The Office. 
After eight years 
and 200 episodes 
we look at the most 
memorable lines 
uttered by Dunder 
Mifflin’s hardly 
working employees. 


+ "Would I rather 
be feared or loved? 
Easy, both. | want 
people to be afraid 
of how much they 
love me."—Michael 


* "| never really 
thought about 


death until Prin- 
cess Diana died 
That was the 
saddest funeral + “Every little boy 
ever. That and my 
sister’s."—Kelly 


* “I love fake 
boobs. Oftentimes 


you find them on 
strippers."—Kevin 


fantasizes about 
his fairy-tale wed- 
ding."—Andy 


* "Reject a woman 


and she will never 
let it go. One of 

the many defects 
of their kind. Also, 
weak arms."—Dwight 


man is this job. | 
will do whatever 
it takes to survive. 
Like | did when | 
was a homeless 
man."—Creed 


* "The only differ- 
ence between me 
and a homeless 


* "That's what she 
said."—Michael 


31 


Y RAW DAT 


SIGNIFICA, INSIGNIFICA, STATS AND FACTS 


» Time it takes the 2013 Bugatti 
Veyron Grand Sport Vitesse to empty 
its 26.4-gallon fuel tank at 250 mph: 


» Time 
Michelin 
estimates its 
tires will last at 

that speed: 


15 MINUTE 


of singles 
say they've 
had sex by 
the third 
date. 


lO O 


һауе 
enjoyed 

a "friends 
with 
benefits” 


relationship. 


* According to a recent 
Match.com survey: 


44% of single women and 
63% of single men have had 
one-night stands. 


42% 28% |( 


» In a recent Public Policy 
poll, only 9% of Americans 
had a favorable view of Con- 
gress. Head lice, Nickelback, 
colonoscopies, root canals 
Donald Trump, traffic jams, 
cockroaches, France, used- 
car salesmen and brussels 
sprouts all ranked higher. 


EH: 
TTL 


» Leaders attending the World 
Economic Forum ranked "discov- 
ery of alien life” as 1 of 5 possible 
"X factors," or unexpected 
events, that may change the 
world in the next 10 years. 


» Amount of money in the public 
bank account of the Zimbabwe 
government at the start of 2013 


» Number of 
calories a man 
in his early 

to mid-30s 
burns during 
6 minutes 
(the average 
length) of sex. 


4 Number of calories 
) he burns watching TV. 


» Number of 
song downloads 
iTunes recently 

celebrated. 


«Б 


of people born after 
1983 don’t know the 
basis of Roe v. Wade. 


believe it had to do 


with school 
desegregation. 


» Other answers: the 
death penalty and the 
environment. 


* The record- 
setting purchase, 
by a German cus- 
tomer: "Monkey 
Drums (Goksel 
Vancin Remix)" 
by Chase Buch. 
The customer's 
reward: a €10,000 
gift card. 


25 BILLION 


» Amount the 
NFL fined San 
Francisco 49ers 
running back 
Frank Gore for 
wearing his socks 
too low during the 
2012 NFC Cham- 
pionship game: 


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x MANTRACK 


AUTO 


THE BIG BENZ modern-profile France. When you г- STATS 
homage to M-B's pop the dramatic = 6.2-liter Vi 
M-B'S 7 GU JING CK Si T 1950s gullwing—it gullwing doors, it 


POWER. DO ELOOSE lookedlikeitcould like a curtain ris 

be the nextvehicle ing. Drama is about т r 
+ Mercedes-Benz back it up. Until tolandonthemoon to begin. Track- r ‹ econd 
uses the label Black recently only four (itwas named tuned suspension $ 


PLAYBOY's Car of grapples with a 


ribe models in Benz 
its most exclusive history got this the Y 


)Thenew  622hp V8 capable 


of zero to 60 ir 


breed of auto- treatment. Неге? Black Series iter: 1 
mobile, a model theffh:theSLS tionisnothingless seconds. Top speed: 4 и = 


loaded with every AMG Black Series than the most pow- 195 mph. Add to it 
luxury add-onand coupe. The SLS erful production atitanium exhaust 
motorsport upgrade АМС was already M-B in existence. system and the bes 
in the company’: an eye-popping Our test-drive took power-to-weight 
arsenal.It’saudac- piece of machin- us to the famous ratio of any Black 
ity on wheels, with егу. When it аш Ricard race- Series ever. Ina 
the engineering to launched in 2011—a_trackinthesouthof word: outrageous. 


STATS 


Engine: two-liter turbo flat four 


Horsepower: 208 
Torque: 258 foot-pounds 
Zero to 60: 6.5 seconds 


Price: $29,900 


That's cheaper than anything in BMW’s lineup. 
Most Americans first saw the CLA in a Super 


THE PRICE 
IS RIGHT 


Bowl ad. We arranged a more intimate tryst 
LOOK WHAT'S IN on winding European roads. The turbo four- 
YOUR GARAGE: A linder thumps out 208 horsepower, and 
NEW BENZ FOR LESS M-B claims the car's drag coefficient sets an 
THAN 30 GRAND rodynamics world record. Impressed? We 


t the CLA in September. 


е. Ехре 


THE ALFA 
MALE 


IO MARCHIO! 


Fiat-Chrysler CEO 


For Italophiles and 
е, few 
sound bites brought 
more joy than the 
announcement in 
January that the long- 
awaited return of Alfa 
Romeo to the U.S. for 
the first time since 
1995 will finally take 
place before the year 
is out. The first car 
to arrive will be the 
all-new mid-engine 
4C sports car, which 
debuted at the Geneva 
auto show in March 
(PLAYBOY was there). 
A sedan, a crossover 
and an SUV will follow. 
The man behind the 
move—Fiat-Chrysler 
group CEO Sergio 
Marchionne—claims 
it makes sense. Fiat- 
Chrysler owns Alfa, 
which means Alfa can 
use Chrysler's infra- 
structure to hawk 
cars here. “For sure, 
it’s coming back this 
year with the 4C,” 
Marchionne said. The 
question is, will Ameri- 
cans buy Alfa Romeos? 
Are the problems that 
drove Alfa from our 
shores in 1995 still with 
us today? It’s a fan- 
tastic gamble. This we 
know: We can’t wait to 
get our hands on hot 
Italian machinery. As 
they say over there, ci 
sei mancato molto! (We 
missed you so much.) 


PICKUP 
LINES 


HIT THE ROAD (OR ROAR OFF OF 
IT) IN YOUR PICK OF NEW TRUCKS 


+ No consumer product symbolizes 
America more than the almighty 
pickup. We buy more trucks than 

any other nation by far. As the old 
country-song trope goes, you сап 
never trust a lover, butyour pickup 
will never let you down. Of recent, 
nearly all the major players have 
relaunched their full-size trucks. 
Let's start with the new sheriffin 
town. The Ram 1500 (they don't call 
it Dodge anymore) is aserious pickup. 
from aborn-again company that 
knows how to make them. Choose 
from more than 30 variations, from 
the two-wheel-drive Tradesman 
($22,640) tothe four-wheel-drive 
Laramie Longhorn Crew Cab with 
a5.7-liter Hemi V8 ($44,325). Pic- 
tured: the base Laramie ($35,665). 


FORD F-150 
Ford must be to the off-road SVT 
doing something Raptor ($43,630) to 


right; the F-150 is the the top-end Limited, 
best-selling truck of а 3.5-liter 4WD with 


any kind in the U.S nearly every add-on 
The company offers you'll find in a lux- 
many flavors, from ury car ($52,895), 
the bottom-end Pictured: the XLT 


2WD XL ($23,670) ($29,050). 


CHEVROLET SILVERADO 1500 


> GM's all-new eco-friendly engines 
Silverado 1500 (and (topping out with 
its twin bro, the GMC a6.2-liter V8) and 


Sierra) hits show- lots of new interior 
rooms this summer tech (a sweet 4.2- 
(pricing TBA). inch dash display, for 
While the styling example). Pictured: 
isn't revolutionary, the off-road-ready 


there are three пем 271 model. 


TOYOTA TUNDRA 


э The Tundra styling and a choice 
hasn't sold as well as оѓ three engines 
Toyota hoped. Still, (pricing TBA). Most 
the Japanese jug- noteworthy: the 
gernaut is coming TRD Rock Warrior. 
at the competition With its 5.7-liter 

in an all-new 2014 УВ, it'll tow 10,000 
Tundra. It arrives іп pounds. Pictured: 
summer with fresh the 1794 edition. 


35 


x MANTRACK 


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Attvik explains: “We've 
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car or boat from the 
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Built to be asuper- 
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Diddy!), the Torpedo 
sleeps five and dou- 
bles as acruiser. 
Attvik offers a slew of 
custom options, from 
aremote-controlled _ 


company is currently 
working on “abespoke 
==  pairingofaJCraft — - 
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Who says you can't 

have it all and then 
some?—John Marrin 

— 


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MANTRACK 


38 


With 
Frank 
Bidart 

by James Franco 


Frank Bidart is one of America's greatest lio- 
ing poets. As author of Music Like Dirt, the 
only chapbook to be nominated for a Pulitzer 
Prize, and winner of some of poetry's most 
prestigious awards, he still manages to stand 
apart from the poetry in-crowd. In this conver- 
sation with his friend pLAvBoy Contributing 
Editor James Franco, Bidart discusses how 
poetry works, how much it pays and his forth- 
coming book of poems, Metaphysical Dog. 


FRANCO: You've been writing poetry 
for more than four decades. Let's face it: 
There's no financial gain in poetry—the 
competition is for critical achievement. 
How does that affect your life? 
BIDART: Financial and critical capital 
aren't wholly separate in poetry. Famous 
poets get jobs and tenure. “Howl” sup- 
ported Allen Ginsberg for life. Poets 
have two different reputations—what 
the public thinks and what other poets 
think. Anne Sexton and Ginsberg weren't 
respected among poets for much of their 
careers, despite huge audiences. Гуе 
written very little critical prose, for the 
number of books and amount of appro- 
bation I've had, so I've been lucky. People 
don’t know how to judge poems in our 
culture, so they do so through a poet's 
prose. That's why people are impressed 
by Joseph Brodsky, but in his own English 
translations he’s a terrible poet. If I 
wanted to establish my intelligence like 
that, Га write more prose. 

FRANCO: Metaphysical Dog originally had 
a different title, right? 


BIDART: Yes, Hunger for the Absolute, 
which many people disliked, but it gener- 
ated things in me. It’s this hunger, really, 
that’s at the heart of the book. As I see it, 
we live in an essentially secular culture, and 
that’s a good thing; religious cultures are 
much more coercive as to what's accept- 
able to think and say. But secular culture 
doesn't satisfy our human desire for mean- 
ing. Western culture teaches us to make 
money and rest everything in our relations 
with other people, but that doesn’t feed 
our hunger for the absolute. And though 
religion often answers that hunger in cruel 
and terrible ways, the questions we want to 
ask are raised only by religious texts. 
about our constant immersion in the prox- 
imate, the incomplete, the flesh and our 
simultaneous desire for more. It's some- 
thing I've felt all my life, in a million forms. 
FRANCO: In your poem “Queer,” as 
well as throughout the new book, you 
talk about coming out and the disconnect 
between one’s mind and body. Where 
does that idea come from? 
BIDART: I realized I was gay when I 
was seven or eight, and for six months I 
thought, I must be the only person in the 
world feeling this. Then you learn you're 
not. But that inner disconnect from pieties 
about the social world persists. To me, all 
writing is really about making mind and 
body one. In this book I strike at that 
idea in “Writing ‘Ellen West,’” which is 
about wanting to die after my mother 
died. She became upset after I bought a 
condo in Cambridge, Massachusetts; she 
always thought I'd move back to Bakers- 
field, California and teach at Bakersfield 
College. I refused, because that was like 
saying "I want you to die," though she 
didn't know that. But finally she accepted 
it, sent me towels, and a year later she 
died. Of course I thought I'd killed her. 
Writing as deeply as I could in the voice 
ofa character who wants to sever that con- 
nection between mind and flesh was an 
exorcism of that part of myself. But Pm 


still glad I didn't move to Bakersfield. 
We are on these trajectories that we can't 
change. She couldn't change her feeling, 
and I couldn't change mine. I think a 
limitation of this book is that the crucial 
relationship in it is with my mother. It's 
a little sad to come back and obsess about 
it at the age of 73, but I ан 

The last part of that poem is about writ- 
ing and about art and finding one's voice, 
all concepts you've explored in the four 
years we've known each other. You've 
become this Renaissance man, and it's a 
brilliant creation—you're accepted now 
as having a brain, an artist engaged in 
dialogue with the culture. 

FRANCO: Let's talk about that, because 
you're one of the few people to see the 
deeper intentions behind even the pop- 
piest things I do. What's your take on that 
kind of person? 

BIDART: There's a tradition in Europe of 
the intellectual with many capacities, and 
I see only gain in it. Any resistance you've 
encountered is because people feel small. 
And it's that process through which we 
crystallize ourselves, which for me was this 
terrible period lasting from the age of eight 
until graduate school. When I was growing 
up the implication was that by 21 you had 
to find yourself and know what you wanted 
to do for the rest of your life. I wanted to be 
a famous actor when I was a boy; meeting 
you reminds me of answering those "Have 
your picture sent to Hollywood" ads. Then 
I wanted to be a film director. And at Har- 
vard I didn't say I wanted to be an English 
professor, I said, "I'm going to be an artist 
or die, and meanwhile, I'm going to gradu- 
ate school to read Milton." 

So I understand that impulse, to refuse 
to be seen as only an actor and wanting to 
bean artist in a much bigger way. There's 
a line in Metaphysical Dog: "Your body will 
be added to the bodies that piled up make 
the structures of the world." Nobody 
wants to be one of those bodies that piled 
up make the structures ofthe world. № 


40 


FRIENDS 
LIKE 
THESE 


Your Friends Hate Her. 
Her Friends Hate You. 
It’s a Mess 


fter months of bad first dates, failed 
pickups and more masturbation 
than a chimpanzee in a peep booth, 
you've met that special someone. 
She's pretty and smart and, better 
yet, she has sex with you. There's just one 
problem: Your friends hate her. 

Being judged by the friends of your 
significant other is nothing new. Every 
couple has people around them who 
think their relationship is like a romantic 
movie starring Kate and Leonardo and 
others who think it needs to be hit with an 
iceberg and sunk. Finding out that your 
closest compadres hate your girlfriend or 
that her friends despise you can mess with 
your head worse than a trip to Supercuts. 
You worry that before long you and your 
gal will be like a couple of Amish who 
have been shunned from the big barn- 
raising and that your social calendar will 
dry up worse than Judge Judy's privates. 

Well, never fear, loyal reader! There 
are ways to make this unwinnable 
situation at least end in a tie. First of 
all, don’t rush things. Just like your 
girlfriend wanted you to take it slow 
when you were first trying to get into her 
drawers, your friends want you to take it 
slow when you're trying to cram her into 
your group. A circle of friends is like a 
great martini: You need just the right 
amount of gin, vermouth and olives. If 
you suddenly throw some flat Mountain 
Dew into the mix, you'll ruin the whole 
damn thing. Don’t dump her in the 
middle of a dynamic that took years to 
build. We all saw how that went with 
Yoko and the Beatles. 

In fact, it’s usually a good thing if your 
friends don’t fall in love with your new 
girl right away. Your friends” opinions 
are valuable. As friends, their job is to 
stop you from going down a slippery 


slope that can not only spoil your Friday 
night but also ruin the rest of your life. 

If you and your new lady have made 
it to the steady-relationship phase and 
your friends still show signs of disliking 
her, you need to set up a casual, get-to- 
know-her reset. Invite her to hang with 
you and your boys at a place you all can 
enjoy, one that will put her in the best 
light, like a sporting event she actually 
knows something about—or will at least 
ask adorably naive questions about to 
entertain them. 

If the boys still aren’t warming to 
her, turn it up a notch. You know the 
old saying “The way to a man’s heart is 
through his stomach”? Well, the way to 


By Lisa Lampanelli 


geta pal to like your girlfriend is through 
his crotch. Your chick is bound to have 
some slutty female friends, so have her 
bring a few of them along to the next get- 
together your loser friends are throwing. 
Seven drunken hand jobs later, your 
grateful friends will make your gal 
commissioner of your fantasy league and 
captain of the softball team. 

If, after all this, your buddies still hate 
your girl, don’t despair. Our government 
believes in the separation of church and 
state, so you should practice separation 
of friends and girlfriends. As much as 
you enjoy a Saturday of brunch and 
antiquing in a quaint country village, 
sometimes you need to go barhopping 
with your buds. 

Now, what if the shoe is on the other 
foot? What if you get the feeling her 


friends don't like you? You have to nip 
that right in the bud. The crucial time 
to win them over is immediately. Girls 
protect their own like a mother grizzly in 
the wild. If they think their friend is in 
danger, they'll bare their teeth and maul 
you like Mama June eating a pulled-pork 
sandwich. They'll start a nonstop Nancy 
Grace-style smear campaign against 
you, turning into private detectives and 
digging up dirt to discredit you. They'll 
paint a picture of you uglier than a Honey 
Boo Boo family portrait. My point is: Get 
her friends on your side fast. 

If you make every effort and it doesn't 
happen, then you have no choice—they 
have to go! If not, like a horny cell mate 
on death row, they'll be a pain in your 
ass until the end of time. Just give your 
woman an ultimatum. If she chooses her 
friends, you can rest assured she wasn't 
"the one." And if she chooses you, you're 
in great shape because you just got rid of 
your worst critics. 

In the end, if the person you're with 
means enough to you, you'll be willing to 
leave your friends behind, and she'll do the 
same. On the bright side, this means you 
can find new friends—maybe even better, 
funnier and, most important, wealthier 
friends. Sure, it won't be easy. But about 
halfway through the ride in your new best 
friend's stretch limo on the way to your 
free front-row seats at the U2 concert, 
you'll realize it was all for the best. 


Hey, guys, this will be my last column 
in rLAvBOY for a while. It was a blast 
writing one of the articles you swear to 
your woman you buy the magazine for. 
"Thanks for taking time out from staring 
at superhot naked broads to read me. See 


you again soon. в 


am nota vain man. Most of my clothes Not nearly as soon as the guy with the 
are more than 10 years old. I get four comb-over, but still, soon enough. 

haircuts a year. There is a tuft of hair Balding is as close as I will ever come to 

on my lower back that would impress understanding what it's like to be a woman 

the inhabitants of the Shire. and constantly worrying about how I'm 

But I do not like balding. And it’s not be- perceived. Balding is my big butt, my wrong 

cause it makes me look ugly. Or because it mascara, my butchered bangs, my top that 

makes me look old. 1/5 because it makes me doesn’t match my skirt, my other things that 

look like I'm dying. Balding has neither the women are always complaining about that 

charm of sun-beaten wrinkles nor the wis- I'm not really listening to. But now I too see 

dom and class of gray hair. It doesn’t even pictures of myself and cringe. I worry about 

have the acceptability of flab, thinning skin choosing the right hair length to hide my 

or hating dubstep. No, balding is like watch- imperfections. I drip in Rogaine and sprin- 


ing a body decompose in fast-forward. If kle in fake hair powder. I look in the mirror 


you want to scare someone in a movie, you Is vanity manly? and see my beauty slipping away. And un- 


create a villain with hair so thin you can like women, I never had any beauty. 

see patches of scalp through it. The front 9, Not long ago men didn’t worry about 
of my head looks like it belongs to Gollum Don'taskthe man „за crap. And we shouldn't, be- 
or Skeletor. Do you think Freddy Krueger cause vanity is not manly. We should care 


H 
would have worn that hat if he'd had a who's balding about what we can do, not how we look. But. 
luxurious mane underneath it? The whole young boys today are pressured to tan, bulk 
reason Dracula needs the blood of living up and pomade their hair to match the 
humans is to push his hairline forward. caricatures of masculinity they see in video 
True, there is badassery in being full games and animated Disney movies. 
bald, like Kojak, Bruce Willis. Michael By Of the many unsuccessful ways I've tried 
Jordan, extraterrestrials and nearly every to make myself feel better about this, the 


UFC fighter. It shows that you have so much = worst was perhaps looking for advice about 
testosterone it's too heavy to rise above your oot <tein balding at Topix.com, the local-news site 
waist. It makes you look like a robot or a co-owned by the major U.S. newspaper 


soldier, like your body is a tool ready to fight chains. The debate there is titled “Bald 
or swim, unadorned with girlie acces- Men Are So Ugly!” and contains 
sories like hair. These men make hair such comments as “They do in fact 
seem as if it's solely for twirling, tying look like pig fetuses,” “I would rather 
with ribbons and hiding nipples in lesser have sex with a 500-pound dude or a guy 
men’s magazines than this one. with a tiny wiener" and "Bald men are ugly as 

But I am merely bald-ing. In one place—the front hell, especially with glasses. You can see the extra skin 
of my head. As though I nodded off into a bowl of hair- when they turn their necks. The ones I know look like a 
burning acid. When I shave my head, I don't look cool. I possum wearing glasses.” Sadder still is the fact that the 


look like an accountant. Worse, I look like a balding 
accountant—the scariest horror-movie villain 
of all. Trappist monks were the only 
men in history who could grow hair 
but purposely chose this look, and 
it was to prevent anyone from 
wanting to have sex with them. 
Or talk to them. I never un- 
derstood the comb-over 
until I started to lose my 
hair. The comb-over, I 
now understand, isn’t 
meant to fool anybody. 
It’s not a solution. It's 
one step up from just 

drawing lines on your 

head. And yet, it's 

better than forcing 

people to gaze upon 

exposed tracts of 

scalp. The comb-over 

allows everyone 
you see to laugh 
at the balding 
guy instead of 
recoil from the 
reminder that 
we are all going 
to die really soon. 


only retorts from the bald men on the discussion 
board are pathetic, desperate taunts for the 
ladies to admire their “other bald head.” 
There are no good solutions 
to balding. Propecia, which 
supposedly works, can lead 
to sexual dysfunction and 
severe depression—exactly 
the same symptoms as 
going bald. It’s as if us- 
ing Viagra caused men 
to uncontrollably tell 
women they’re fat. 
So I’m going to do 
everything I can to 
embrace the bald me. 
I'm going to shave 
it off, get buff, look 
tough and dress in 
ill-fitting Italian suits. 
But first I'm going 
to enjoy the last 
few months I 
can get away 
with > having 
hair. Because 
its a whole 
lot easier than 
working out. Ш 41 


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Ive always been able to have 
orgasms clitorally, starting with 
pool jets, bathtub faucets and 
now handheld massagers such 
as the Hitachi Magic Wand. IfI 
leave my panties on while mas- 
turbating I can go for hours. 
The only downside is that Гуе 


PLAYBOY 


who have done porn before often 
have to be told to slow down and 
enjoy themselves. 


My girlfriend is a singer. The 
other day she told me we had to 
break up because the producer 
of her debut album doesn't 


ruined myself for sex. My clit is 
so sensitive I don't like to have 
it rubbed, and my boyfriend is 
upset. Will it help if I stop using 
a vibrator? I don’t insert dildos 
during masturbation because 
that would totally ruin sex for 
me. I also have intense G-spot 
orgasms, but he wants to get 
me off clitorally. He says I'm 
the first girl he’s been with who 
can climax from her G-spot 
but not her clit during inter- 
course. I thought he would be 
happy that I come three to five 
times.—D.M., Miami, Florida 
Is your boyfriend auditioning for 
something? He needs to stop focus- 
ing on hitting a shot from every 
spot on the floor and celebrate the 
fact that he is with a woman who 
is highly responsive and knows 
what she likes. You aren't “ruin- 
ing” sex or damaging your clit by 
using a vibrator, and a dildo won't 
do any harm either. Most women 
can't reach orgasm from a thrust- 
ing penis; it doesn't provide enough 
direct stimulation. If your boyfriend 
wants to hit your clitoris, he should 
know he already is. The G-spot is 
very likely the long arms of the clit 
that extend several inches into the 
body. You could invite him to hold a 
small, less-powerful vibrator against 
the tip of your clit (the visible glans) 
during intercourse. Hold it your- 
self first to show him the movement 
and pressure you like. Or keep your 
panties on; he can pull them aside 
but apply the vibrator through the 
fabric. Your clit will become less sen- 
sitive the more turned on you get. 


A reader wrote in March asking 
about porn in which couples are 
“enjoying themselves and show- 
ing tenderness and affection.” 
He didn’t use the term, but he’s 
talking about glamcore. This 


My new girlfriend has two indoor dogs. I love dogs, 
but mine have all lived outside. The shedding, the 
smell, the accidents, the chewing and the destruction 
are driving me crazy. My friends tell me to suck it up 
because she’s a great catch. Should I follow my girl- 
friend’s lead and put these dogs on a pedestal above 
human life and my desires?—F.L., San Angelo, Texas 

You aren't going to get the dogs outside. Keep in mind they 
have outlasted all her previous boyfriends. But all is not lost. 
Trainer Sheryl Matthys, author of Leashes and Lovers, suggests 
using the dogs to strengthen the human relationship. You can 
bathe and brush them together and make dates for walks or trips 
to the park (the chewing and destruction could be a sign the dogs 
are not getting enough exercise). Sign up for a class together 
and/or hire a trainer to correct the more annoying issues. Your 


girlfriend may be a catch, but in this case it’s a package deal. 


want her to date. When I asked 
for specifics, she said, “He told 
me if I didn't want to worry 
about money, I should dump 
my boyfriend and he would get 
me on Country Music Televi- 
sion within a year.” She claims 
this is normal, stating, “My life 
isn't my own right now.” What's 
your take? Is there a standard 
in the industry that says new 
artists shouldn’t date?—H.E., 
Nashville, Tennessee 

Your girlfriend wants out of the 
relationship and this is a handy way 
to avoid taking responsibility. We 
suspect this mysterious social con- 
tract includes a clause that allows 
her to date producers. 


Is there any way to fix my 
s inverted nipples?—F.R., 
Lincoln, Nebraska 

That depends. Do they bother her 
or you? Outside the relatively few 
women with inverted nipples who 
have trouble breast-feeding, there 
is no medical reason for correction. 
However, the condition can affect 
the body image of those who have 
it, including men. The inversion is 
caused by connective tissue at the base 
of the nipples that prevents them from 
extending outward. Some women 
correct mild cases with bar pierc- 
ings. For more pronounced cases, in 
which the nipple can't be “popped” 
ош by squeezing the areola, a plas- 
tic surgeon can cut the tissue below 
the nipple to release it or make small 
skin flaps around it, though the lat- 
ter may leave scars. Doctors typically 
don't recommend surgery for anyone 
under 18 and sometimes 25, because 
the nipple or nipples may emerge in 
the years after puberty. If a nipple 
disappears later in life, see a doctor, 
as spontaneous inversion can be a 
sign of a rare form of cancer. 


type of erotica, with its strik- 

ingly beautiful performers and high- 
end production, was popularized in 
the 1990s by Andrew Blake (whose site 
remains active at andrewblake.com). His 
films have more leather and sleaze than 
you will find at .com sites such as X-Art, 
Joymii, Femjoy, SexArt and Babes, but 
they all have model-quality performers 
and excellent lighting and cinematog- 
raphy. I can’t say any of it is “couples” 
porn, but it is certainly more female- 
friendly than typical hard-core.—A.N., 
New York, New York 


Is a society progressing or regressing when 
quality erotica is considered a genre? X-Art, 
an early example of luxe porn, was founded 
in 2006 by photographer Brigham Field, who 
specializes in artistic nudes, and his wife, 
Colette, who sold real estate before the bottom 
fell out of the market. Today they have teams 
shooting in high-def in Madrid, Prague, 
the Caribbean and exotic Ventura County, 
California. How do you get the chemistry so 
often missing in porn? When the performers 
aren't a couple in real life, it comes from the 
direction, according to Colette, who says guys 


A reader asked in January/ 
February about adults-only video games. 
You neglected to mention Seduce Me 
(seducemegame.com), which combines 
card play with the challenge of bed- 
ding four “seduce-able” characters you 
meet while exploring a Mediterranean 
mansion. The graphics are slick and the 
gameplay is tough and rewarding. We 
need more people to buy this type of 
game so developers understand there is 
an audience and a market. Bring on the 
high-resolution virtual women.—Z.P., 
San Diego, California 


43 


PLAYBOY 


44 


Thanks for the tip. Many developers seem to 
be busy with violence, perhaps because you can 
be challenged easily enough trying to seduce 
women in the carbon-based world. 


| am attracted to one of my professors. 
So far this hasn’t impeded my studies, 
but I am concerned it will. аш in my 
early 20s and she is probably in her 
early 40s. I know she is single and has 
two children. Every few days I fantasize 
about asking her out, but that would 
be stupid. I know the best course of 
action is to masturbate, but I have done 
this several times and it hasn’t helped 
clear my head. Any tips on moving past 
her?—A.G., East Lansing, Michigan 

ИЗ not unusual for a student to fancy a 
prof or vice versa, and in this case we would 
bet you are far from alone. You could ask her 
out after the semester ends—it wouldn't be 
"stupid" but ballsy, because the odds are she'll 
decline, given her position and the differences 
in your life experiences. (What would you talk 
about?) She will most likely remain one of 
many unrequited fantasies, which always far 
outnumber those that are realized. And what's 
wrong with keeping it a fantasy? 


Because I’m a mountain biker and 
weight lifter, I often get sports mas- 
sages. My therapist digs deep and hard, 
which I love. However, I recently got 
a beautiful dragon tattoo that slithers 
from my elbow to my wrist. I'm afraid 
to have it massaged for fear of damag- 
ing it. Should that be a concern?—F.M., 
Boston, Massachusetts 

You're right to be cautious. “Leave the 
tattoo alone for at least six to eight weeks,” 
advises Dr. David Ores, a heavily inked gen- 
eral practitioner in New York who offers laser 
tattoo removal. “That will allow the ink to set 
into the correct layer of your skin. Ink par- 
ticles outside that layer will be removed by 
your immune cells. This is why tattoos become 
clearer and sharper after a few weeks.” 


I am surprised by the results of the 
study you mention in the March issue 
that found marijuana dulls male sexual 
response. My ex-wife and I had some of 
the best sex while high, which usually 
happened three or four times a month. 
We also had sex five or six times a week 
without it, and that was great too. Were 
we an exception because of our high sex 
drive?—G.K., Cottonwood, Arizona 

As with any drug, your results may vary. It 
sounds as though you were two horny people 
who smoked pot, rather than two people who 
got horny smoking pot. For most people, weed 
(like alcohol) lowers inhibitions while dulling 
the senses. For men at least this means you may 
not perform as well as when sober—though 
everyone keeps trying. It can also inhibit your 
judgment about unprotected sex. 


This month I am graduating with а bach- 
elor's degree in marine engineering. I 
can't decide whether to stay in school or 
look for a job. I've been told by relatives 


I should not “overqualify” myself with a 
master’s degree. What does the Advisor 
think?—R.G., Boca Raton, Florida 

Ina job market in which you need a col- 
lege degree to be hired as a file clerk, it’s hard 
to believe you can be overqualified for any- 
thing. Why not investigate a hybrid solution? 
Look for a graduate assistant position or a 
job with an employer who will contribute to 
your tuition. A Compdata survey of more than 
4,500 company benefit plans found 57 per- 
cent include tuition reimbursement, up from 
35 percent just four years ago. 


I discovered a thick, coarse hair in my 
beard. It was around the same size as a 
pencil lead. I was horrified yet intrigued. 
Is this common? None of my friends 
knew what I was talking about. What 
causes this?—D.H., Jackson, Mississippi 

Known as pili multigemini, it is caused 
by a rogue hair follicle, usually near the 
chin but sometimes on the scalp, from which 
the inner membranes of two or three hairs 
emerge wrapped together in the same outer 
membrane. In one case reported in the British 
Journal of Dermatology, doctors used a laser 
to destroy the multigeminate hair follicles on 
the face of a 33-year-old because they repeat- 
edly became inflamed. Other than that, the 
only way to prevent such hairs is to have the 
follicles removed by way of a “two-millimeter 
punch biopsy excision,” according to a der- 
matologist at the Cleveland Clinic. We say 


keep plucking. 


М, wife and I have had the same phe- 
nomenon happen twice: After she has 
an orgasm her vagina becomes "prickly" 
(for lack of a better word) and causes 
slight abrasions on my penis. The 
change seems to come very suddenly. 
Any ideas?—S.J., Austin, Texas 

It’s not teeth, if that’s what you're think- 
ing. A prickly vagina can be a sign of a yeast 
infection or lack of lubrication, but if either 
or both were the case, she'd feel discomfort 
long before she came. The "abrasions" are a 
mystery; it could be irritation caused by lack of 
lubrication combined with vigorous thrusting. 
Our prescription is to add lube and see if the 
feeling persists. Of course, "add lube" is our 
prescription for almost everything. If you're 
already using lube, try a new one to eliminate. 
the possibility that it has caused some kind of 
reaction. Let us know how it goes. 


On our vacation to San Diego, my wife 
and I will stay at a hotel that has a $45 
daily valet fee. We will come and go to 
sightsee and eat. Should I tip the valet 
every time I pick up and drop off? Also, 
what is an appropriate tip for a valetz— 
R.T., Tucson, Arizona 

Give $2 or $3 each time you pick up the 
car. In the end, it won't total more than $20 
or $30, and you'll spend that opening two 
bottles of water in your room. If you don't 
have singles, it’s okay to ask for change. 


I watch online porn with my husband 
p y 
because I think it is a good way to let him 


know I am not a prude. However, I can't 
help but suspect he is cheating because 
photos of women who say they live nearby 
keep popping up with invitations for 
webcam chats. Do 1 have a reason to feel 
betrayed?—H.R., Dallas, Texas 

Not at all. The pop-up girls are ubiquitous 
come-ons to entice guys to click through and 
pay for a remote interaction. Your husband 
didn't invite them; they appear in a separate 
window, with sound, anytime you visit many 
adult websites. They're easy enough to elimi- 
nate by turning on the pop-up blocker in your 
browser. Your husband may have taken part 
in a chat with one of these “local” women 
(which means nothing more than that they 
also live on planet Earth), which might consti- 
tute cheating. At the very least it’s odd, given 
his wife is willing to provide a live show. You 
don't need to prove you aren't a prude; your 
husband needs to prove he’s not a slacker 
and that his partner is being satisfied. And 
if you're truly watching porn together, you 
should have a chance to pick the scenes or 
films—or pop-up girls—as well. 


1 nave been married to a great guy for 
five years. However, I recently found 
his stash of high-heel shoes (which are 
higher than mine), pantyhose, wigs 
and makeup. Weird, right? He told 
me they belonged to an old girlfriend, 
even though the sizes are large and she 
wasn't. Then I noticed he has been shav- 
ing his legs. Finally, I found some of my 
dresses torn and not hung the way I left 
them. He made up a story about how 
they had fallen and gotten torn when 
he rehung them. I'm worried the man 
I love may want to be a woman or at 
least dress in my stuff. I don’t think I 
can handle this. What should I do?— 
K.B., Newark, New Jersey 

He doesn't want to be a woman; he just 
wants to occasionally dress like one. And like 
most cross-dressers, he's straight. But your 
husband is desperate to give up his secret, 
which is why he’s become so sloppy about hid- 
ing what is likely a desire he’s nursed since 
he was a teen. Not every woman can handle 
this kind of revelation, and it has destroyed 
marriages. But plenty of wives are able to 
accommodate their husbands’ desires. You'll 
find support groups at crossdresserswives.com 
апа tri-ess.org. The cross-dressing is harm- 
less (except to your wardrobe), but your hus- 
band's feeling that he needs to lie to you is not. 
Relieve him of that burden. And tell him to 
stay out of your closet. 


АЙ 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, perti- 
nent questions will be presented in these pages. 
Write the Playboy Advisor, 9346 Civic Cen- 
ter Drive, Beverly Hills, California 90210, 
or e-mail advisor@playboy.com. For updates, 
follow @playboyadvisor on Twitter. 


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MY FRIEND JOE WAS A REAL ASS. 
THEN HE TRIED PERT. 
NOW THAT ASS HAS CLEAN HAIR. 


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one in public. Pert Plus 2-in-1 does the job. It's shampoo plus conditioner. In. Out. Done. 
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EFORUM E 


Drones Life tracking ExxonMobil 


DEATH BY 
DRONE 


The White House is using 
drones to kill American 
citizens. Where's the 

due process? 


BY MELBA NEWSOME 


n 2008 Barack Obama cam- 

paigned to end Bush-era policies 

that, he said, created a false choice 

between our safety and our ideals. 

Now that the war in Iraq is over 
and the war in Afghanistan is winding 
down, there is no indication the liberal 
constitutional-law professor will be- 
come a peacenik president—or even 
pull back on some of his more aggres- 
sive counterterrorism measures. 

For the first time in more than 40 
years, Democrats hold the advantage 
over Republicans on national security. 
Obama has achieved that distinction by 
escalating the use of drones and order- 
ing the execution of suspected terrorists, 
including American citizens. Those poli- 
cies have led Sarah Khan to sue the De- 
partment of Defense and 
the CIA for the Septem- 
ber 30, 2011 death of her 
25-year-old son, Samir. 

Saudi native Samir 
Khan became a natu- 
ralized citizen after he 
moved as a child to 
Queens with his family. 
By most accounts he was 
a normal teen until the 
summer of 2001, when 
he attended a weeklong 
summer camp sponsored 
by the fundamentalist 
but nonviolent Islamic 
Organization of North 
America. The experience 
turned the religiously indifferent teen 
into a zealot. A few months later the 
September 11 attacks made him a radi- 
cal. By the time his family relocated to 
Charlotte, North Carolina three years 
later, Khan had morphed into a jihadist 
committed to waging war against those 
he considered enemies of Islam. 


In October 
2009 Samir 
Khan left 
Charlotte, 
North Carolina 
for Yemen, 


ostensibly to 


teach English. 


Khan holed up in his parents’ north 
Charlotte basement, publishing anti- 
American and pro-Al Qaeda screeds. 
As his writings became more popular, 
he attracted the attention of federal au- 
thorities yet miraculously never landed 
on the no-fly list. In October 2009 he left 
Charlotte for Yemen, os- 
tensibly to teach English. 
Once there, Khan fell off 
the radar. He resurfaced 
during the summer of 
2010 as editor of Inspire, 
an online magazine that 
sought to recruit Ameri- 
can Muslims to join the 
anti-U.S. jihad. 

A year later Khan was 
killed by a U.S. drone 
strike on his convoy about 
90 miles east of the Ye- 
meni capital of Sanaa. 
Khan’s family took the 
government to task in a 
written statement that 
read in part, “Our late son Samir Khan 
never broke any law and was never im- 
plicated in any crime. The Fifth Amend- 
ment states no citizen shall be ‘deprived 
of life, liberty or property, without due 
process of law,’ yet our government as- 
sassinated two of its citizens. Was this 
style of execution the only solution? Why 


ILLUSTRATIONS BY JUSTIN PAGE 


READER 
RESPONSE 


BACK TO THE BURBS 


James Howard Kunstler, Andrés 
Duany, Elizabeth Plater-Zyberk 
and many other social critics 

have been pointing out for years 
that gas prices and the lack of 
social connectedness leave many 
‘Americans hungering for a more 
satisfying way of life in urban 
centers (“The Suburbs Are Dead,” 
January/February). After living 
outside Philadelphia for 10 years, 
I took the plunge and moved to 
the city center, driven by roman- 
tic visions of walking everywhere 
and having a bit more excitement. 
Instead I found congested and 
dirty streets, charmless concrete 
garages and parking lots on virtu- 
ally every block, the rancid stench 
of garbage and bus exhaust, a 
cacophony of horns, car alarms 


and snorting garbage trucks at all 
hours, feral mice in my apartment, 
a four percent city wage tax and 
a soul-crushing absence of trees, 
grass, open spaces and tranquility. 
Needless to say, I got the hell out. 
Drew Cutler 
Lafayette Hill, Pennsylvania 


47 


48 


EJ Forum 


couldn't there have been a capture and 
trial? Where is the justice?” 

The radical cleric Anwar al-Awlaki, 
marked for death by the administration, 
is the other American referred to in the 
statement. It isn’t clear if Khan was a tar- 
get or collateral damage. 

Al-Awlaki was born in New Mexico but 
spent ncarly a dozen ycars in his ances- 
tral home of Yemen before returning to 
the U.S. to attend Colorado State Uni- 
versity. After the 2001 attacks, he moved 
to the United Kingdom and eventually 
made his way back to Yemen, where he 
became involved with Al Qaeda in the 
Arabian Peninsula. 

The government claims Al-Awlaki 


YOU CAN RUN 


We use drones against 
American citizens, 
on American soil 


n June 23, 2011, Rodney Brossart 
refused to return three cows and 
three calves that had wandered 
onto his Lakota, North Dakota 
farm. A 16-hour SWAT team 


standoff followed, and the Grand Forks police 
department called in an unmanned aerial vehicle 
to pinpoint Brossart's location on his ranch. Brossart 
thus made history as the first American arrested 
with the aid of a drone. 

Do drones now pose a risk to individual 
Americans? The Federal Aviation Administration 
predicts 30,000 could take flight within our borders 
by 2020. At a fraction of the cost of a helicop- 
ter, drones could prove a boon for various public 
and private applications. A push for new airspace 
regulation has ensued, But “demanding the FAA 
address privacy implications,” writes lawyer Tim 
Adelman, "is like asking a car mechanic to perform 
open-heart surgery.” 

Eleven states will tackle homegrown drone mea- 
sures this year. Last term, members of Congress 
introduced two bills regarding drone regulation. 
It’s doubtful the FAA can juggle safety and privacy 
oversight, and it remains to be seen how effective 
federal regulation can be, Unmanned aircraft: com- 
ing soon to a police force near you. и 


ANWAR AL-AWLAKI IN VIRGINIA IN 2001: 
BORN IN NEW MEXICO, HE BECAME AN ALLY 
OF AL QAEDA IN THE ARABIAN PENINSULA. 


instructed Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, 
the so-called underwear bomber, to blow 
up a plane flying to Detroit in 2009, and 
inspired the actions of Army major Nidal 
Hasan, who is being court-martialed for 
killing 13 people at Fort Hood, Texas in 
a 2009 rampage. Despite being linked to 
these planned attacks, Al-Awlaki was nev- 
er charged with a crime. Two weeks after 
his death, his 16-year-old son, Abdulrah- 
man, also an American citizen, was killed 
in a drone strike aimed at Al Qaeda. 
Hundreds of suspected terrorists were 
rounded up after September 11, 2001 
and imprisoned in Guan- 
tänamo Bay, only to be 
transferred or released 
later in a tacit acknowl- 
edgment that they weren't 
terrorists. But when a sus- 
pected terrorist is killed, 
there is no do-over. 
Al-Awlaki and Khan 
made no secret of their 
allegiance to Al Qaeda 
and their desire to wreak 
havoc. Khan's articles in 
Inspire included “Make a 
Bomb in the Kitchen of 
Your Mom” and “I Am 
Proud to Be a Traitor 
to America.” Al-Awlaki's 
blog, Facebook page and many YouTube 
videos were testaments to his terrorism 
bona fides. But the issue is not guilt or 
innocence. Were these American citizens 
accorded due process under the law? 
“The Constitution ordinarily guaran- 
tees American citizens that they will not 
be deprived of life without due process of 
law,” says Jameel Jaffer, an ACLU lawyer 
representing the families of Khan and Al- 
Awlaki. “The administration has claimed 
the authority to carry out the targeted 
killing of anyone, including any Ameri- 
can thought to be engaged in terrorism. 


Thei 


not guilt or 

innocence. 

Were these 
American citi- 


zens accorded 


due process 


under the law? 


It's impossible to reconcile that position 
with the constitutional provision.” 

“The Constitution guarantees due pro- 
cess, not judicial process,” Attorney Gen- 
eral Eric Holder said during a speech at 
Northwestern University’s law school in 
March 2012. “Due process and judicial 
process are not one and the same, partic- 
ularly when it comes to national security.” 

Holder argues that following 9/11, Con- 
gress authorized the president “to protect 
the nation from any imminent threat of 
violent attack.” Because Al Qaeda oper- 
ates around the world, Holder said, the 
rules of conventional warfare no longer 
apply. “The president may use force 
abroad against a senior operational lead- 
er of a foreign terrorist organization with 
which the United States 
is at war—even if that in- 
dividual happens to be a 
108. citizen,” Holder said. 

Candidate Barack 
Obama promised to chart 
a different course. Once 
in office, he set out to 
improve relations with 
the Muslim world, repair 
America’s image abroad 
and renounce the cow- 
boy diplomacy that had 
defined foreign policy 
under President George 
W. Bush. Obama banned 
torture and extraordinary 
rendition and tried to 
make good on his promise to close Guan- 
tánamo and try detainees in federal civil- 
ian courts. But Congress blocked him. 
However, when it comes to drone strikes, 
the president has outpaced Bush, ex- 
panding the program, which had previ- 
ously focused only on Pakistan, to include 
Yemen, Afghanistan and Somalia. 

The Bush administration was criti- 
cized for warrantless wiretapping and 
indefinite detentions without charge or 
trial, but Obama has been given a pass 
for his aggressive measures. The same 
Democrats who railed against the prior 


де is 


administration’s policies have remained 
silent on Obama’s decision to ramp up 
drone strikes and use targeted killings. 

Republicans have a different conun- 
drum. Given their hawkishness and 
persistent claims of Obama’s weakness 
on war and terrorism, they can hardly 
complain about his overzealousness in 
prosecuting the war against Al Qaeda. 

But the rumblings of discontent over 
this administration’s blank check for 
war are growing louder. The wrongful- 
death lawsuits are the most prominent 
example, but the U.S. also 
stands alone on the drone 
issue. In predominantly 
Muslim nations, American 
antiterrorism efforts are 
widely unpopular, and in 
17 of 20 countries, more 
than half disapprove of 
the drone attacks. 

“I used to joke, ‘If they 
can hold you indefinitely 
without judicial review, 
why couldn’t the admin- 
istration also carry out 
targeted killings without 
judicial review?” says Jaf- 
fer. “Now that's no longer 
a rhetorical device. It's reality. It's hard 
to imagine any more extreme claim of 
authority than the power to order the 
killing of American citizens without ju- 
dicial process." 

Obama defended his policy in a Sep- 
tember 5, 2012 interview with CNN. 
“I think there's no doubt that when an 
American has made a decision to af- 
filiate with Al Qaeda and target fellow 
Americans, there is a legal justification 
for us to try to stop them from carrying 
out plots," he said. "It's very important 
for the president and the entire culture 
of our national security team to contin- 
ually ask tough questions. Are we doing 


remain 


Democrats who 


railed against 


theprior 
administration 


on Obama's 


decisions. 


the right thing? Are we abiding by rule 
oflaw? Are we abiding by due process?" 

The U.S. established precedent for 
taking out an enemy leader 70 years 
ago with the targeted killing of Japanese 
naval commander Isoroku Yamamoto, 
who planned and executed the attack on 
Pearl Harbor. When Yamamoto's plane 
was tracked to an island in the South Pa- 
cific, President Franklin D. Roosevelt ap- 
proved the order to shoot it down. 

Jaffer says that while there is no 
moral distinction between orde: ring 
the killing of a U. 
zen and a noncit 
there is a legal distinc- 
tion. "Americans plainly 
have rights protected by 
the Constitution, includ- 
ing the right not to be 
deprived of your rights 
without due process of 
law," he says. "The law 
generally requires that 
there be an imminent 
threat and that the use 
of lethal force be a last 
resort. Was Al-Awlaki an 
imminent threat or sim- 
ply an ongoing threat?" 
More than a year before his son's death, 
Al-Awlaki's father, Nasser, asked a judge 
to outline the circumstances under which 
targeted killing could be authorized. The 
case was dismissed because Nasser did 
not have standing to sue on behalf of his 
adult son. Nasser is now suing the gov- 
ernment for wrongful death on behalf of 
his son's estate, 

“If this case can't be heard, then courts 
are saying the political branches can de- 
cide which Americans are associated with 
terrorism and can be killed—and these 
decisions can be done in secret,” says 
Jaffer. “That's an astonishing and dan- 
gerous proposition and an unchecked 


silent 


IT’S FOR YOUR 


f you ride the bus in Baltimore, Maryland or 
Columbus, Ohio, you'll have to be careful what 
you say—your conversations are being recorded. 


In San Francisco, transit officials recently approved 
a plan to install audio-enabled surveillance systems 
on city buses and trolley cars. Any of these audio 


OWN GOOD 


communications—private conversations among 
law-abiding passengers, in other words—can 
be monitored without a search warrant or other 
court supervision. Authorities contend that such 
monitoring is necessary to help keep the public safe. 
So much for your expectations of privacy. = 


| 


BI ARRAN тр 


W 


FORUM 


Y 


READER RESPONSE 


Are you kidding about the 
suburbs being a plot against the 
races? I hadn't realized you were 
a full-blown leftist rag until I read 
that. I just wish there were a sub- 
urb for the suburbs. 


Tim Driscoll 
via e-mail 


TAX THE RICH 

As we continue to fight undeclared 
wars to support the demands of 
the military-industrial complex, 
we need to tax the rich at the same 
rates we did during World War I 
and World War II, i.e., 80 or 90 
percent. It has only been since 

the maximum rate was lowered 
during the 1970s that the middle 


илүүнү 


А second source of 
probate court records 
‘this material that the 
derived his conclusion 
American families ow 
‘wealth, and that 1 per 
99 per cent. of the w 


The 
Country’s 
Wealth 


Is 99 Per Cent. of it In the Hands 
of 1 Per Cent. of the People— 


tend tnat De Spr 
Lin 


Tabor Statistics ln 18 
firms the Spahr ostim 
of the inventoried рт 
‘of Massachusetts 


Statement Made by Prof. Call 1800, and 180 
Greases Alarm. and’ Provetes De- 830000 and over 
nial—Eminent Sociologists Doubt (01 amount of prop 
Its Truth. en 
С "The third sour of 


tenants rca a ation figures 


Henry Laurens Call 
pe American Амосов 


class has been bearing the brunt. 
In fact, historically the decline in 
the maximum rate always seems to 
precede the decline of the middle- 
incomers. Imagine how the nation 
would benefit if we could raise 
taxes on the wealthy to 90 percent 
and shift the emphasis from mili- 
tary spending to infrastructure. 

By the way, concern about the 
concentration of wealth at the top 
is nothing new: In January 1907 
The New York Times, reporting 
ona speech given by economist 
Henry Laurens Call, ran this 
headline: THE COUNTRY’S WEALTH: 
% ENT OF IT IN THE HANDS OF 1 
PERCENT OF THE PEOPLE—STATEMENT 
MADE BY PROF. CALL AROUSES ALARM 
AND PROVOKES DENIAL—EMINENT 
SOCIOLOGISTS DOUBT ITS TRUTH. 


Who ended up being right? 


Frederick Hart 
Orlando, Florida 


s 


49 


50 


EJ Forum 


y 


READER RESPONSE 


POT DOESN'T KILL... 
Iam a 20-year subscriber who feels 
compelled to respond to the reader 
who argued in March that lives 
will be ruined should marijuana 
be legalized. I smoke pot, but I am. 
able to buy it only illegally. If I felt 
compelled to "advance to harder 
drugs," my dealer would be happy 
to provide cocaine or heroin. Since 
nothing is stopping me from using 
narcotics now, why would it sud- 
denly happen if weed were legal? 
Asserting that pot smokers are a 
step away from lifelong misery 
is insulting and shows an utter 
ignorance of the drug. Legalizing 
pot could save lives: If it weren't a 
crime to possess or purchase, more 
people might sit home and get. 
stoned rather than drive drunk on 
(legal) booze. 

Jason Knapp 

Columbia, South Carolina. 


..BUT BULLETS DO 
In “Ammo Nation” (March) you 
make the same mistake virtually 
all journalists make when writing 
about firearms. What you call a 
bullet is actually a cartridge. A bul- 
let is the projectile part of the car- 
tridge. The other parts are the case 
(or brass), primer and powder. 
Bill Hamilton 
Hurricane, Utah 


You're technically correct, but “Guns 
don't kill people, cartridges do" (as 
Daniel Patrick Moynihan might have 
said) doesn't have the same ring to it. 
E-mail letters@playboy.com. 


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


investment of power to a president.” 

In an effort to take responsibility for 
each death, Obama is said to decide per- 
sonally who is targeted for killing and 
approve every major drone strike in Ye- 
men and Somalia. But should any presi- 
dent be granted such power, regardless 
of his judicious consideration? Any pow- 
er given to Obama will be used by presi- 
dents who follow him in office. Would 
liberals be quiet if a President Romney 
made these calls? 

That possibility obviously concerned 
the president. In the weeks before the 
election, the administration developed 
rules for the targeted killing of ter- 
rorists by unmanned drones so that a 


new president would inherit clear stan- 
dards and procedures. 

But even Obama acknowledged that 
drone strikes are not a long-term solu- 
tion to terrorism. “Our most powerful tool 
over the long term to reduce the terror- 
ist threat is to live up to our values and to 
be able to shape public opinion—not just 
here but around the world—that senseless 
violence is not a way to resolve political 
differences,” he said, sounding more like 
candidate Obama than President Obama. 

We won't know how a different pres- 
ident would exercise such authority. 
But we do know that President Obama 
is unlikely to change course during his 
second term. п 


СНЕСК 
YOURSELF 


Is your most sensitive 
information safe? 
BY TYLER TRYKOWSKI 


wo years ago users of the digi- 

tal fitness tracker Fitbit were 

surprised to find their sex- 

ual activity, as recorded by the 

device, appearing in Google 
search results. “Way to go, Jeff,” tweeted 
columnist Andy Baio, linking to one high- 
performing example. The records were 
promptly removed, but Fitbit faced few 
repercussions for the leak. 

How secure is the data we volunteer to 
tech companies? There's a new movement 
called life tracking, and its proponents— 
who record everything from their moods 
to the quality of their sexual encounters— 
are about to find out. Using 
a variety of digital devices, 
companies like Fitbit store 
and analyze data about 
life trackers’ bodies while 
promising to protect the 
information. The compa- 
nies claim they can help 
people lose weight, increase 
productivity and even pre- 
dict illness. Patientslikeme 
.com and similar websites 
use the data to gain insight 
into conditions including 
kidney disease and asthma. 
But insurance companies 
and employers can use this 
information against you. 

Lawmakers are years behind tech- 
nologies that collect data on the scale of 
life tracking, says Rainey Reitman, activ- 
ism director for the Electronic Frontier 
Foundation. “The Health Insurance 


In 2012 
more than 
1.7 million 

U.S. medical 
records were 


reported as 


leaked across 


223 breaches. 


mm 


am 1 
п д, 


<>. 


Portability and Accountability Act protects 
health information but only with health 
care providers and insurers,” says Reitman. 
“Consumer devices aren't covered.” She 
adds that state laws and privacy policies vary 
widely. A Carnegie Mellon 
University study found it 
would take a person 244 
hours, or roughly 40 min- 
utes per day, to read every 
privacy policy encountered 
ina year. And when compa- 
nies go bankrupt or merge, 
data can be wielded in ways 
users never intended, 

Data this sensitive have a 
tendency to leak, no matter 
how they are regulated: In 
2012 more than 1.7 million 
U.S. medical records were 
reported as leaked across 
223 breaches. And those 
were just typical medical 
files, less detailed than the data logged by 
life trackers. What happens when the move- 
ment goes mainstream? 

“Companies that produce life-tracking 
devices are going to need a self-policing 


association to avoid regulatory crackdowns 
later,” says author Tim Ferriss, who metic- 
ulously tracked his fitness for his book The 
4-Hour Body. He adds that danger lies in 
losing sight of your goals. “Data are just 
numbers,” he says, “but information is what 
you can apply to your own life. And there's 
a big difference between tools that provide 


data and ones that provide information.” 
Such technologies can change lives, but 
the companies that make them can’t be 
trusted with our most personal information. 
Regulators won't protect you, and nobody 
has time to read the policies that apply to the 
data they generate. Fancy pedometers may 
look cool, but buyer beware. = 


Our 
Corporate 
Masters 


DRILL, 
BABY, 
DRILL 


Is ExxonMobil the most 
successful corporation in 
American history? 


BY BRIAN COOK 


n the 1950s, Exxon's profits matched 

those of industrial titans such as IBM, 

General Motors and U.S. Steel. And 

while those companies have either 

disappeared or become also-rans in 
today’s multinational marketplace, Exxon 
remains at the top, regularly setting 
records for quarterly profits. 

ExxonMobil has donated hundreds of 
millions of dollars to women’s education, 
malaria reduction and a center for 
alternative energy at Stanford University. 
So why is the company the leading culprit 
in speeding civilization toward ecological 
ruin? The charge doesn’t necessarily stem 
from the company’s business model: It 
efficiently extracts fossil fuels. The blame 
for a world that runs on oil can hardly be 
placed on one company. In fact, as Steve 
Coll details in his masterful book Private 
Empire: ExxonMobil and American Power, 
ever since the 1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill 
off the Alaskan coast, the company has 
focused on crafting and adhering to 
rigorous safety protocols. 

But Exxon has also been an industry 
leader in funding obfuscation and the 
promulgation of horseshit when it comes 
to climate change. Much of this effort 
has come from the American Petroleum 
Institute, an industry trade group, and 
the Global Climate Coalition, a multi- 
industry effort that sought to convince 
the public that those who favor 1997's 
Kyoto Protocol—which aimed to (slightly) 
reduce carbon emissions—“appear to be 
out of touch with reality.” 


Exxon didn’t stop there. After 
Greenpeace targeted Exxon in direct 
action and public-relations campaigns, 
the environmental group found itself 
under IRS scrutiny. The tax audit—which 
Greenpeace passed—had been instigated 
at the behest of a small nonprofit called 
Public Interest Watch. When Greenpeace 
investigated the group, it learned that 
in one year almost 97 percent of Public 
Interest Watch’s revenue came from a 
single entity. Guess who. 

At the same time Exxon was attacking 
the notion thata scientific consensus exists 
on climate change, its own geologists 
were studying how global warming 
could be exploited for drilling. “Don’t 
believe for a minute that ExxonMobil 
doesn’t think climate change is real,” 
one anonymous ex-manager told Coll. 
“They were using climate change as 


a source of insight into exploration.” 

It's enough to make us think that 
"Exxon Hates Your Children"—a motto 
used by activists critical ofthe company— 
may not be hyperbole. a 


PACKING HEAT: WHERE GUNS ARE GROUNDED 


ast year TSA agents confiscated more than 1,500 guns at U.S. airports—the highest number since 2001, 
when the agency was founded. Florida and Texas led the nation (the figures for select airports are shown 
below). Dallas's Love Field was the only major airport where agents found more than seven guns per 
million passengers boarding an aircraft. Three out of four guns seized at U.S. airports are loaded. № 


Sources: Sit, TSA, Medill National Security Zone 


42 
[о pu 


51 


RGE 


Drink Responsibly. Distilled in Mexico. Hornitos Tequila, 40%Alc./Vol. ©2013 Sauza Tequila Import Company, Deerfield, IL 60015. 


moriens Jo Je ABRAMS 


A candid conversation with Hollywood’s geek king about rebooting Star 
Trek and Star Wars, profiting off paranoia and capturing distracted fans 


Nobody in Hollywood today is as cool for 
so many uncool reasons as J.J. Abrams. А 
film and TV producer, screenwriter, di- 
rector, designer, editor, composer and all- 
around geek god, Abrams is the bespectacled 
creative titan behind projects most likely to 
have fans sleeping outside box-office win- 
dows in itchy space costumes. 

Star Trek Into Darkness, his second big- 
screen contribution to the unstoppable sci-fi 
franchise, arrives this month with a cast so 
young and sexy their parents barely remem- 
ber the launch of the original 1966 series. 
A sequel to the 2009 prequel set when Kirk 
and Spock were still new to the Enterprise, 
this one brings the crew back to Earth to con- 
front a force as devastating as a website full 
of Trek plot spoilers. A third feature film is 
already planned. 

In the meantime, Abrams has another to-do 
item: reboot Star Wars. He will direct Star 
Wars: Episode VII, the first in a new series 
of Star Wars films to come from Lucasfilm, 
which Disney bought from George Lucas last 
year for $4.05 billion. At first the Twitterverse 
cried out that it was too much for one mor- 
tal to oversee both galaxies, but the blowback 
ended fast. Having helmed Trek, Mission: 
Impossible III and TV sensations including 
Lost, Fringe, Revolution and Alias, Abrams 


is probably better suited than anyone to juggle 
both phaser and lightsaber. 

Jeffrey Jacob “J.J.” Abrams was born 
June 27, 1966 in New York City but grew 
up on the glitzier side of Los Angeles, where 
both parents produced TV movies. At the 
age of 13, young J.J.—“Only my father's 
mother called me Jeffrey,” he says—first op- 
erated a Super 8 camera and by the age of 16 
earned the notice of Steven Spielberg, whose 
office asked Abrams to edit Super 8 movies 
Spielberg had made when he was a teenager. 
(Many years later they collaborated on an ac- 
tion adventure called Super 8.) Abrams sold 
his first script in college and later earned his 
cred writing Regarding Henry and Forever 
Young. Felicity made Abrams a TV giant, 
and the script for Armageddon made him 
rich; they also show an unusual range and a 
talent for crossing genres. 

PLAYBOY Contributing Editor David 
Hochman, who last interviewed Fox News 
anchor Chris Wallace for the magazine, was 
the first journalist to sit down with Abrams in 
the aftermath of the Star Wars announcement. 
The two chatted all afternoon in a Santa Mon- 
ica office complex as decidedly geek-forward as 
Abrams himself. Says Hochman, “J.J. main- 
tains a shrine of vintage knickknacks from en- 
tertainment classics like Twilight Zone, Planet 


of the Apes, Close Encounters and the original 
Star Trek and Star Wars. I’m starting to think 
the J.J. Abrams collectibles might be worth 
even more one day.” 


PLAYBOY: Let's begin with Star Trek. How 
the hell can this franchise still go where 
no man has gone before? 

ABRAMS: Well, I haven't seen every epi- 
sode of every version of every Star Trek 
series, but Im sure there are many more 
places to go. What's great about doing an- 
other origin story is that it's all about an- 
ticipating the Star Trek world we know is to 
come. You can play with who Spock and 
Kirk and the crew of the Enterprise were 
before they were Spock and Kirk and the 
e Enterprise. It’s a kind of tease. 
nsidering what a thrill ride 
t movie was, Into Darkness sounds 
like a bit ofa downer. 

ABRAMS: The first film was very much 
about these disparate orphans coming 
together and starting a family. The next 
step has to be about going deeper and, 
yes, as the title indicates, getting a little 
more intense. We're testing these char- 
acters in ways they deserve to be tested: 
Kirk being cocky to a fault, Spock being 
so Vulcan that it raises the question of 


“The pencil-necked geek guys with pocket protec- 
tors are the people who invented the iPod and 
everything else everyone carries with them all 
the lime. There's a general understanding that 
smartphones didn't come from jocks.” 


“Star Trek has to be sexy. That's in keeping 
with the original spirit of the series. Part of 
the fun was playing with the idea that Uhura 
and Spock were a couple. And it's always fun 
playing the womanizing card with Kirk.” 


PHOTOGRAPHY BY DAVID ROSE 


“It’s an age of insane distraction. The fact 
that kids are supposed to do their algebra 
homework on the same device that is a portal to 
every possible piece of entertainment—comedy 
and music and porn—is just bizarre.” 


53 


PLAYBOY 


54 


how he can possibly be a friend or lover 
when he’s that unemotional. 

I learned so much doing the first Star 

Trek movie. Га never done any kind of 
space adventure before or anything on 
that scale. We knew the second one had 
to be bigger and not just for bigger’s 
sake. It was where the story was taking 
us. We got really cool glimpses of the En- 
terprise in the first movie. This time we 
get to see areas of the ship nobody’s seen 
before. And the villain is more complex 
now. In our first film Eric Bana plays 
a wonderfully angry Romulan dude, 
pissed off and full of vengeance. In this 
one, the bad guy is still brutal and fierce, 
but he’s got a much more interesting 
and active story. We have to grapple 
with many layers of his character. He’s 
essentially a space terrorist, and Bene- 
dict Cumberbatch, whom people know 
from BBC's Sherlock, is fucking kickass in 
the role. Kirk and the rest of the crew 
are figuring out how the hell to get an 
upper hand with this guy. The darkness 
is real in this movie, and it's incredibly 
challenging and terrifying, and it can 
certainly be lethal. You need that edge, 
partly because Star Trek has been so re- 
lentlessly parodied over the years. 
PLAYBOY: It’s hard to be a Trekkie. 
ABRAMS: It can be. The key in everything 
we did was to embrace the spirit with 
which Star Trek was approached in the 
1960s. So the design of the props, the 
locations and certainly the characters 
themselves couldn't be mockeries or im- 
personations but had to be as deeply felt 
as Leonard Nimoy felt and applied to 
his interpretation of the character in his 
time. Zachary Quinto, who plays Spock, 
had to do his own version of that, just 
as we never wanted Chris Pine to do a 
Shatner parody. Audiences pick up on 
that stuff. Not only are we post-Star Trek 
the series and movies, but we're post- 
Galaxy Quest, post-Saturday Night Live 
spoofs. We were coming at this post-Trek 
satire, so we needed to be earnest in the 
right places and funny in the right places 
or people would have made fun of us. 
PLAYBOY: One of the things people make 
fun of is the sex scenes. Is there any 
interspecies sex? 
ABRAMS: Star Trek has to be sexy. That's 
in keeping with the original spirit of the 
series. In the 1960s they were limited 
because of the time, but so much was 
insinuated. Part of the fun of our first 
movie was playing with the idea that 
Uhura and Spock were a couple. This 
movie takes that further and asks how 
that's possible. Why would she be inter- 
ested in that kind of guy, and why would 
she put up with him? It’s obvious what 
he would like about her. I mean, it’s 
fucking Zo& Saldana. 

And it’s always fun playing the wom- 
anizing card with Kirk and seeing him 
in bed with girls who might not be com- 
pletely human—you know, green skin 
or whatever. Nobody’s going to force 


Kirk to be a romantic and settle down. 
That would feel forced and silly. Kirk's a 
player. We like him that way. 

We also have Alice Eve joining us; 
she's an incredibly wonderful, versatile 
actress and definitely in the sexy catego- 
ry. She's a great complement to Uhura. 
Hey, it wouldn't be Star Trek if there 
weren't some hot young actors, women 
and men, in various moments of either 
undress or flirtation. 

PLAYBOY: Did Leonard Nimoy or William 
Shatner drop by the set? 

ABRAMS: Leonard did. 1 love him; he's 
always a joy. The cast and crew got to 
applaud him and give a fraction of the 
thanks he deserves. He's just an absolute 
gentleman. Shatner? [sighs] 1 haven't 
spoken with him in a long time, but 1 
did read something where he gave me 
a fantastic underhanded compliment. 
Something like our movie was a fun ac- 
tion ride and maybe one day it'll have 
heart. A great compliment only to pull 
the rug out in a way that only Shatner 
can do. I adore him. 

PLAYBOY: It’s hard to explain the endur- 
ing love for this franchise that has been 


The darkness is real in Star 
Trek Into Darkness, and it 
can be lethal. You need that 
edge, partly because Star 
Trek has been so relentlessly 
parodied over the years. 


around almost 50 years. Is it true you 
screened an early cut of Into Darkness for 
a terminally ill Trek fan whose dying wish 
was to see it? 

ABRAMS: Yes. That was such a tragic mo- 
ment and so sad. It’s incredibly touching 
that the stuff we happen to be working 
on means enough to people that in those 
extreme, ultimate moments a movie like 
ours would even be a consideration. But 
it reminds you that these entertainments, 
these characters can and do touch people 
on the deepest level. Somehow their ex- 
istence is made to make some sense or 
given an order they might not otherwise 
feel. You certainly don’t make movies for 
people who are sick or in real trouble. 
You just make movies. But people take 
these stories and characters to heart and 
believe they matter on some larger level. 
PLAYBOY: Nothing matters more to mov- 
iegoers than the stories and characters 
from Star Wars. In your wildest, geekiest 
fantasies, did you ever imagine yourself 
helming the two biggest sci-fi franchises 
in the universe? 

ABRAMS: It is preposterous. Ridiculous. 
Completely insane. It really is. 


PLAYBOY: Star Wars and Star Trek are 
church and state in Hollywood. Can you 
really be loyal to both? Star Trek fans 
cried out on Twitter that you were cheat- 
ing on them. 

ABRAMS: I mean, I get it. The worlds are 
vastly different. Honestly, that was why 
I passed on Star Wars to begin with. I 
couldn’t imagine doing both. But when 
I said that my loyalty was to Star Trek I 
was literally working on finishing this 
cut. I couldn’t even entertain another 
thought. It was like being on the most 
beautiful beach in the world and some- 
one saying, “There’s this amazing moun- 
tain over here. Come take a look.” I 
couldn't balance the two, so I passed on 
Star Wars. 

PLAYBOY: What happened between say- 
ing no and saying yes? 

ABRAMS: It was a wild time. I was near 
the light at the end of the tunnel with my 
work on Star Trek. I felt I needed a bit of 
a breather, actually. But then Kathleen 
Kennedy [the new Lucasfilm head who 
oversees Star Wars] called again. I've 
known her for years. We had a great 
conversation, and the idea of working 
with her on this suddenly went from be- 
ing theoretical and easy to deny to being 
a real, tangible, thrilling possibility. In 
the end it was my wife, Katie, who said 
if it was something that really interested 
me, I had to consider it. 

PLAYBOY: There's much to discuss, such as 
the rumors of old cast members returning. 
ABRAMS: [Smiles] 

PLAYBOY: Will this be a distinct new trilogy? 
ABRAMS: [Smiles] 

PLAYBOY: Can you do away with Jar Jar 
Binks? 

ABRAMS: You won't like this answer, but 
it’s so early it would be insane to discuss 
details or get into plot points about what 
this unfilmed movie will be. And I'm not 
going to give my opinion on the original 
movies or characters. 

PLAYBOY: But as a lifelong Star Wars fan, 
surely you have broad ideas about what 
needs to happen going forward. Three 
quarters of planet Earth came down on 
George Lucas for practically ruining 
Star Wars in Episode I. The Star Wars uni- 
verse revolted. 

ABRAMS: Here's the thing. I try to ap- 
proach a project from what it’s asking. 
What does it need to be? What is it de- 
manding? With Star Wars, one has to 
take into account what has preceded it, 
what worked, what didn’t. There are 
cautionary tales for anything you take on 
that has a legacy—things you look at and 
think, I want to avoid this or that, or I 
want to do more of something. But even 
that feels like an outside-in approach, 
and it’s not how I work. For me, the key 
is when you have a script; it’s telling you 
what it wants to be. 

PLAYBOY: Star Wars needs to look differ- 
ent from Star Trek, certainly. 

ABRAMS: As with anything, because these 
are very different worlds, they shouldn’t 


feel the same aesthetically. They can’t. 
You’re right. But again, I don't apply 
aesthetics first and fit a movie into that 
aesthetic. If I had come into Star Trek 
with those eyes, I would probably have 
been paralyzed. The advantage here is 
that we still have George Lucas with us 
to go to and ask questions and get his 
feedback on things, which I certainly 
will do. With Star Trek it was harder be- 
cause I wasn’t a Star Trek fan; I didn’t 
have the same emotional feeling, and I 
didn’t have Gene Roddenberry to go to. 
But I came to understand the world of 
Star Trek, and I appreciated what fans 
felt and believed about this universe and 
this franchise. 

PLAYBOY: As recently as last fall you said 
that directing a new Star Wars comes 
with a burden of “almost fatal sacrilege.” 
Do you feel that? 

ABRAMS: I meant if I viewed this from a 
fan’s point of view—and no one’s a big- 
ger Star Wars fan than I am—or from a 
legacy standpoint, it would scare the hell 
out of me. But instead of trying to climb 
this mountain in one giant leap, I'm just 
enjoying the opportunity and looking to 
the people I’m working with. I've known 
Kathy for years. I've worked with the 
screenwriter, Michael Arndt, for a long 
time. I've known George for a number 
of years and he's now a friend. Even if 
this wasn’t Star Wars, I'd be enormously 
fortunate to work with them. 

PLAYBOY: How much of your personal vi- 
sion can you put on this? 

ABRAMS: For me to talk to you about 
what the big themes or ideas are before 
they exist is disingenuous, but naturally 
I have a big say in how this gets put to- 
gether. When I get involved with some- 
thing, I own it and carry the responsibil- 
ity of the job. 

PLAYBOY: Star Wars, Star Trek, Mission: 
Impossible—you're the king of the reboot. 
Don’t you want to make something orig- 
inal again? 

ABRAMS: I have to say, as someone who 
almost to a point of embarrassment has 
associated himself with a number of proj- 
ects that preexisted, I'm not looking to 
do another reboot. There’s one project, 
which I can’t talk about yet, that we are 
going to do in the TV space that is an ex- 
ception. But the truth is, one of the rea- 
sons I at first easily said no to the notion 
of Star Wars was the thought that I had 
to do something original again. I mean, 
it’s what Гуе done on TV with Felicity, 
Alias, Lost, Fringe and everything else. It’s 
the thing I was looking forward to doing 
next. The best-laid plans, you can say— 
but when something like Star Wars comes 
along, you either roll with it or not. 
PLAYBOY: What's the spirit of an original 
project you’d want to do? 

ABRAMS: I’m open. My favorite movie is 
The Philadelphia Story. 1 love Hitchcock 
movies. I’m a huge fan of Spielberg, and 
I love David Cronenberg. I’m all over 
the place in terms of stuff I like. There’s 


an amazing book called Let the Great 
World Spin that we've been developing 
with Colum McCann, the writer, and Га 
love to do that. Not because of anything 
other than I feel the characters are beau- 
tiful and alive and have incredible heart 
and soul. But I’m open to anything. 
PLAYBOY: How do you juggle your vari- 
ous responsibilities? In addition to the 
movies, you're executive producer on 
Revolution and Person of Interest on TV. 
Earlier this year you wrapped Fringe 
after five seasons. You have a wife and 
three kids. You write music, you design 
things, you've given a TED talk. Presum- 
ably you eat and sleep too. 

ABRAMS: I like to work hard, and I sur- 
round myself with people who are bet- 
ter at what they do than I am at what I 
do. And as much as we say yes to many 
things, we say no to almost everything. 
We're very selective. We know how to get 
things done. For Star Trek it was Damon 
Lindelof, Bryan Burk, Alex Kurtzman, 
Bob Orci and me. With Jonathan Nolan 
on Person of Interest, he was someone we 
were dying to work with. He came in 
with a great idea, but he had never done 


With Star Wars, one has to 
take into account what has 
preceded it, what worked, 
what didn’t. There are 
cautionary tales for anything 
you take on that has a legacy. 


TV before. He and [co-executive pro- 
ducer] Greg Plageman have been run- 
ning that show beautifully. Eric Kripke 
is running Revolution. We had a team of 
talented producers on Fringe. So it’s not 
like I'm in the room and running opera- 
tions on these shows. 

PLAYBOY: So in the final days of Fringe 
you weren't bounding into the writers’ 
room, yelling, “We have to explain who 
those creepy people chasing Peter were 
in the first season!” 

ABRAMS: By the time we got to the fifth 
season my involvement was zero. It's like 
with Lost. Damon and Carlton Cuse were 
running that show spectacularly and de- 
served to end the series as they saw fit. 
If I saw something really objectionable, I 
might jump in, but they knew what they 
were doing. 

PLAYBOY: Were you satisfied with how 
Fringe ended? There were certain ques- 
tions that never got answered, such as, if 
the Observers were wiped out, why was 
Peter still in our universe? 

ABRAMS: Right. [Fringe co-executive 
producer] Joel Wyman and I had long 
discussions about points like that. But 


I don’t know of any movie, including 
Back to the Future, despite the clarity of 
that film, that deals with time travel or, 
in this case, an alternate universe and 
time travel, that doesn’t have issues with 
such paradoxes. And given the enormity 
of the issues Fringe was dealing with, it 
was an amazing finale. After everything 
that transpired in that last season, for 
Peter to swoop up Etta at the end and 
have that moment with her and see that 
couple with their kid, there was a kind 
of profundity and emotional satisfac- 
tion. Walter's sacrifice allowed for his 
son’s and Olivia’s ultimate happiness to 
come true. That was a far more mean- 
ingful ending than explaining how the 
Observers work into that time frame. 
What exactly happened with amber, and 
does it make sense? These are questions 
you could ask, but I would hope the au- 
dience is smart enough to figure things 
out for themselves and allow for unex- 
plainable situations. 

PLAYBOY: Your biggest TV hit, Lost, 
got some groans at the end for leaving 
things open-ended. People are still ar- 
guing over it. What was the “sideways” 
world? Were the passengers of Oceanic 
Flight 815 actually dead the whole 
time? Looking back, do you think Lost 
fans deserved a less ambiguous ending? 
ABRAMS: No. I loved the ending. I 
thought it definitely provided an emo- 
tional conclusion to that show. There 
may have been specific technical things 
people felt they wanted to understand, 
like what the island was exactly or why 
it was. But it’s like the briefcase in Pulp 
Fiction. If you show me what's in there, I 
promise you it will disappoint me. 
PLAYBOY: It’s like the mysterious pendant 
in Revolution that’s the key to explaining 
what disabled electricity on the planet. 
ABRAMS: Yes. If you're looking for the 
thing that ultimately explains what the 
answer is, or, let's say, what God is, no 
matter what physical manifestation you 
see or hear, you'll never be satisfied. 
Could our shows answer every question 
people have? Maybe, but I'm guessing 
the answers won't be as satisfying as try- 
ing to figure out the answers. 

PLAYBOY: Do you actually believe there 
are alternate universes? 

ABRAMS: I'm definitely fascinated by the 
possibility. Whether it's alternate uni- 
verses or time travel, the idea that reality 
isn't exactly what we assume it is is the 
sort of primordial ooze of any great out- 
there story, certainly in sci-fi and argu- 
ably in non-sci-fi as well. The idea that 
just around the corner something un- 
believable might exist, that behind that 
door might be something you could nev- 
er imagine. I've always been obsessed 
with the feeling that there's another level 
of understanding in the world, whether 
it's something as fantastical and fanciful 
as The Wizard of Oz, as dark and freaky as 
The Ring or as wild and thrilling as The 
Matrix. The idea that this world we know 


PLAYBOY 


56 


isn’t just this world we know but that a 
package might arrive at your door or a 
phone call might come in, and suddenly 
you’re in a portal to a different realm. 
PLAYBOY: Paranoia also figures into your 
work. Do you really think the govern- 
ment or corporations are watching us in 
ways we should be concerned about? 
ABRAMS: Oh yeah, for sure. I’m not say- 
ing in this instant they are. But I defy 
anyone who lives in any size metropolis 
to travel 20 minutes and not see a bunch 
of surveillance cameras. Those cameras 
aren’t there to ignore you; they’re there 
to see you, and all that information is go- 
ing into banks of digital recorders and 
oftentimes facial-recognition software. 
We're all being tracked. When you have 
a fairly average life and you're not do- 
ing anything particularly interesting or 
illegal or wrong, why should that bother 
you? Well, it means we're all being re- 
corded, our activities are being watched, 
and our privacy is being compromised. 
I think that’s something to be aware of, 
at the very least. It’s the premise behind 
Person of Interest, which is a show about 
being observed. On the positive side, the 
heroes of that show are good guys, since 
it's also a show about wish fulfillment. 
PLAYBOY: You're certainly cautious about 
sharing information. It's not just Star 
Wars you don't want to talk about. You 
famously withhold almost all spoiler 
information on your projects. What 
prompted that? 

ABRAMS: That's a paranoia I've devel- 
oped since the Superman script I wrote 
years ago was reviewed online. I always 
had a sense of how I enjoyed entertain- 
ment, which was to sit down in front of 
a TV or inside a darkened movie theater 
and be surprised by everything that hap- 
pened on the screen. It used to be that 
to get a spoiler you had to really seek it 
out. Now you have to work to avoid it. 
If something happens on Downton Abbey 
or Homeland, you practically can't speak 
to another human being or you'll hear 
what happened. The truth is, people 
don't like spoilers. When we were doing 
Lost, fans would ask me what was going 
to happen. Before I could even open my 
mouth, often they would say, "Don't tell 
me." Would I have wanted to hear from 
Rod Serling what was going to happen 
on each episode of The Twilight Zone? 
No way! The buy-in with entertainment 
like that—or with any great thrill—is 
that you're going on an adventure and 
you don't know where you're heading. 
"That's the stuff of show-business magic. 
PLAYBOY: You grew up in a show- 
business family. How did it affect you to 
know from a young age that the magic of 
showbiz was fake? 

ABRAMS: It wasn't fake to me. It was real 
seeing Hollywood people do what they 
do. My father worked as a producer at 
Paramount. I'd go to his office and look 
at the call sheets of everything that was 
shooting on the lot. This was back in the 


day when shooting in Los Angeles was a 
given, so there would be a dozen things 
filming. It was the time of Happy Days, 
Laverne & Shirley and Mork & Mindy. ГИ 
never forget seeing Ron Howard, Henry 
Winkler, Tom Bosley and the whole 
cast of Happy Days with their scripts and 
Garry Marshall on the floor, rehearsing 
an episode. I felt a desperate, deep hun- 
ger to be on the floor with them. I was so 
jealous that their job was to put on a little 
play and figure it out. 

PLAYBOY: What were some moments that 
left you saying, “Never meet your heroes”? 
ABRAMS: Seeing Robin Williams being 
completely off-color freaked me out. 
It's funny when you're an adult, but it's 
creepy and weird when you're 12 and 
he’s dressed like Mork. Even weirder 
was going to the set of Eight Is Enough. 
I really liked that show, but I remember 
walking onto the set—again, I was proba- 
bly 11 or 12—and seeing the mom, Betty 
Buckley, aggressively negotiating some 
deal for a commercial with her agent. 
That was strange. Then I went onto the 
bedroom set and there was Willie Aames 
lying in his Eight Is Enough bed, passed 


I defy anyone who lives 
in any size metropolis to 
travel 20 minutes and not 
see a bunch of surveillance 
cameras. Those cameras 
aren't there to ignore you. 


out facedown from, I’m sure, a night of 
insane partying. Then Adam Rich came 
skateboarding by and 1 heard people in 
the crew swearing at him under their 
breath after he passed. That was ugly. 
My point is, there was a sense of 
creepy dysfunction that was the opposite 
of what you'd see on TV. So I knew it 
wasn't all roses, but I also saw how fuck- 
ing cool it was. If I were better at math, 
I might have gone to medical school. 
If I were a better artist or architect, 1 
could have gone in those directions. But 
I knew from a young age I couldn't do 
anything else than be involved in this 
crazy world I’m in. 
PLAYBOY: What happens when you're 
working on a production and someone 
is crazier than you thought they were in 
the casting session? 
ABRAMS: That has happened on a couple 
of occasions. If it's someone who's in 
three scenes in a movie and they're do- 
ing a good job but they're nuts, you kind 
of think, Let's just ride it out and we'll 
deal with it. If they're signed on for six 
episodes of a show and they're making 
people on the crew cry, you have to ad- 


dress it and deal with it, but it has hap- 
pened only a couple of times. For the 
most part you do your due diligence and 
get to know who you’re working with be- 
fore the crazy happens. 

PLAYBOY: What about Tom Cruise? What 
was your experience with him on Mis- 
sion: Impossible III? 

ABRAMS: Here's what happened on Mis- 
sion. Before I started, I called Cameron 
Crowe, whom I know, and asked him 
his advice, since he'd made two mov- 
ies with Tom. He just said, “Brother, 
you are going to be spoiled.” I was like, 
“All right,” not quite knowing what he 
meant. I now know he was right. Tom 
is the hardest-working, most focused, 
generous, passionate-about-the-form 
collaborator I could imagine. He’s some- 
one who gave me my first shot directing 
a movie. No one would have done that 
but him. It was a huge first movie to do, 
but I was never scared. I was always ex- 
cited about it because I felt everything 
I had been working on was sort of pre- 
paring me for that. And Tom made it an 
amazing experience. I was a first-time 
feature director, and before we started 
shooting Tom said, "I'm your actor; 
you're the director." 

I remember being warned by a num- 
ber of very experienced people in the 
business that a producer-star with a 
first-time director gets really ugly, so 
get ready. I'll tell you that there was 
not a day on that movie when Tom was 
not supportive, encouraging, collab- 
orative, excited. He never mandated 
anything. He never insisted on things 
going a certain way. There was nothing 
I ever asked him to do that he wouldn't 
do. There were things I asked him not 
to do because he was so willing to put 
himself physically in danger. 1 would 
be like, "There's not a fucking chance 
you're going through that window. If 
you get сш...” But he was always about 
the better idea. 

PLAYBOY: Then what are we to make of 
the Scientology Tom or the jumping-on- 
Oprah's-couch Tom or the psychiatrists- 
are-evil Tom? 

ABRAMS: He has never in any way man- 
dated or tried to push any of that. You 
heard stories that there were Scientolo- 
gy tents and things on War of the Worlds. 
That never existed in my experience 
with him, ever. All I will say is that he's 
got a huge heart, and he's a generous 
and good guy. 

PLAYBOY: What about Michael Bay? You 
co-wrote the screenplay for Armageddon. 
What are your memories of that 
experience? 

ABRAMS: I know Michael's a guy who can 
be abusive and crazy and all kinds of stuff. 
I remember hearing things like “Oh my 
God, he's so intimidating." But when I 
was driving over to meet him for the first. 
time, someone called and said, "He went 
to Crossroads," which is a private school 
down the street (continued on page 132) 


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LIKE A MODERN-DAY DESCENT INTO DANTE’S 
INFERNO, AN UPPER-MIDDLE-CLASS WHITE 
AMERICAN COLLEGE BOY FINDS HIMSELF 
SOUTH OF THE BORDER, RUNNING 
DRUGS FOR ONE OF MEXICO’S 
MOST VIOLENT CRIME CARTELS. 


The 
shocking 4 
true f 
story 
nf... 


he mirror crashes to the floor and Rigo 
is in the doorway with his nine in his 
hand—We’re at war! We’re at war! 

The Gringo bolts from his bed. He’s 
been in the cartel seven months, a 
college-educated American kid from the 
suburbs of Portland with a shaved head 
and the massive shoulders of the offen- 
sive tackle he once was. It started out 
pure fun, easy money, gorgeous women 
and the camaraderie of soldiers. They 
called him La Flama Blanca, the white 
flame, which somehow inspired a series 
of Talladega Nights jokes. We know how 


60 


man, did they party. But lately t the Grin- 
go’s been getting paranoid. That’s why 
he put the mirror against his door, the 
only alarm system that still works after 


Rigo freaked out and smashed all the 
alarms, thinking they were spy cameras. 

We're at war! Rigo shouts again. 

As usual, Rigo’s out of his mind on 
coke and ecstasy and massive quanti- 
ties of booze. He’s 30, skinny and good- 
looking, with the vagued-out sweetness 
of someone nursing many inner wounds. 
His uncle gave him a job cleaning meth 
when he was When he was 15 he 
watched his grandfather stab a man to 
death. When he was 18 he stabbed a 
man and then spent five years in prison. 
In the past few months he’s become the 
Gringo's best friend. 

Calm down, the Gringo Tell me 
what happened. 

What happened is Rigo went to the 
projects to score coke and some guy sold 
him a $10 bag that seemed light, so they 
had words and Rigo punched him in the 
face. According to the narco code, the 


‘We killed 
his whole 
family, just 
walked into 
the house 
and started 


shooting. 
кес сс сыш 


guy is going to have to come back hard. 
The alternatives are ostracism or death. 
те coming for us, Rigo 
ng at war right now. 

Then Rigo sits down on his bed and 
starts to pass out. Thinking there’s a 
gang of killers on the way, the Gringo 
says, Motherfucker, what the fuck? 

Rigo wakes up for a second. I just need 
some milk and cookies, Mon 

After that, nothing will rouse him. 
So the Gringo takes his gun and stands 
watch all night, (continued on page 116) 


world. El Gringo Loco 
was running drugs 


guard over a selzed 
shipment of cocaine 
In Manzanillo, a Pacific. 
coastal town where El 


been killed in drug 
violence In Mexico 


"I'm so glad that our door is open to the girl next door.” 


to my likes, to my hatred А e с Ask Monika about her 


| п a slave to my emotions, at beach and into the 
of boredom, to most of my Яя Teat love, and she says, “АП my 


desires,” F. Scott Fitzgerald wrote in 12; ; i 2 Is." Her favorite thing'to do: 
his first novel, This Side of Paradise. He $ spare time? “I make others 
might һауе been speaking for any of us. m 77 ў өру.” On hatred? "That's a big word!” 
What would Fitzgerald have made of 25-year- ч “Someone I might hate doesn't 


old model Monika Pietrasinska of Lublin, Poland? 4 Clearly she is delightful, inside and 
We'd guess he'd make a tall glass of scotch and soda ош. Just the kind of woman with whom you’d want 
and add a garnish of his own tears. Go ahead, pour to spend a day in paradise, as a matter of fact. As 
yourself one. We photographed Monika on the white Fitzgerald wrote at the tender age of 23, “Beauty 
sand beaches of a Caribbean isle—our own version of means the scent of roses апа then the death of roses.” 
paradise. Step into the photograph for a moment— Let's add Monika to the list, shall we, Scottie? 


C 


Eden awaits on a tropical isle with Polish 
model Monika Pietrasinska 


PHOTOGRAPHY BY 
MARZENA BUKOWSKA-FILUK 


Жеж 


CLAP le 


His special talent made him popular 
with a certain kind of girl 


his is him. This is how he goes, the captain of the Red Team. He's all, “Listen 
up.” He's desperate because they're still choosing sides. Because all the good 
picks are already taken, the captain says, “We'll make you a deal.” 
He folds his arms across his chest, and the captain of the Red Team yells, 
“We'll take the fag, the four-eyes and the spic—if you'll take Cannibal.” 
Because phys ed is almost over, the Blue Team confers, squeaking the 
toes of their court shoes against the gym floor. Their captain yells back, 
“We'll take the fag and the four-eyes, the spic, the Jew, the cripple, the gimp 
and the retard—if you'll take Cannibal.” (continued on page 122) 


ІШ)! 
ШІ) 


Тһе badass Game 
of Thrones star 
talks about the 
perils of his 
stature and tells 
what happens 
when fans 
stampede 


1 


20 


BY ERIC SPITZNAGEL 
PHOTOGRAPHY BY GAVIN BOND 


er 


e — p. 


"d 


"o ume 


г: You play Tyrion Lannister, a major character characters get killed thi p have read 

О series Game of Thrones, a show that kills off major. George R.R. Martin books Matthe Show is based on tell me 
Жет» all the time. Are you worried about your job? Tyrion's still alive. We're only on ad there are 

_ five books. Tyrion hasn't been killed'et, $61 feel pretty secure; 


KLAGE: I don't think Tyrion is going anywhere. He once ы 
said that he'd like to die “in my own bed, at the age of 80, with | _ d Q2 
/ abelly full of wine and a girl's mouth around my cock.” I like ( өк” a 
to think that was a premonition, That's how he's going to go. » PLAYBOY: Do you feel like a badass when you're swinging 
He's a survivor. But you're right; it’s amazing how many major a sword, orisitjustawkward and weird? — 
W. af " 


A ; E 


2 „Аш E 


72 


гез a scene in the show 
when I chop a man's leg off from behind. 
Тһе gentleman was probably about 70 
years old. They filmed him from the back, 
so you don't see how old he is. Also he's 
an amputee. He had one leg, so basically 
I just knocked out the fake leg. I had a 
big dull sword, and I knocked a wooden 
leg off an amputee who was 70 years old. 
So to answer your question, no, I don't 
feel like a badass. The fight scenes are all 
a big lie. The whole time, you're trying 
not to get hit in the eye with a sword, and 
you wish you had on a welding helmet. 


Q3 


PLAYBOY: When you won an Emmy, 
the announcer said that Game of Thrones 
is “filmed on location in Awesome 
Land.” Tell us more about this magical 
place called Awesome Land. 


DINKLAGE: It's in Northern Ireland. 
And Croatia, Morocco and Iceland, but 
mostly Northern Ireland. We shoot in a 
studio in Ireland where the Titanic was 
built. Not the movie but the ship that 
sank. That can’t be a good omen, can it? 
I love being over there. It's like getting 
paid to be a tourist. Not that we have a 
choice. You can’t shoot a show like this 
in New Jersey. 


"They ll say, ‘Oh, he's sexy,’ 
but women still go for guys 


who are six-foot-two. 


Q4 
PLAYBOY: There's a video on 
YouTube called “Peter Dinklage Gets 
So Much Pussy” in which two guys 
talk about how much you've been 
getting laid since Game of Thrones. 
They estimate your sexual activity has 
increased 600 percent in the past few 
years. Does that sound about right? 


DINKLAGE: It depends. By “pussy” 
do they mean actual pussy? Or is it a 
metaphor, like for gardening? Because 
if that’s the case, then yes, Гуе been 
doing a lot of gardening lately. If they 
mean sex, they might be getting me 
confused with somebody else. But if 
pussy means wearing old-man sweaters 
and watering my herb garden, then 
absolutely, I’m getting so much pussy. 


Q5 
PLAYBOY: You are aware that you're 
a sex symbol, right? Some might even 
call you a DwILF. 


DINKLAGE: DwILF, as in Dwarf 
Pd Like to Fuck? That's very clever. 
Honestly, I think there's an irony 
in all of this. I take it with a grain 
of salt. They'll say, “Oh, he’ 
but women still go for guys who are 
six-foot-two. It's пісе that people are 
thinking outside the box, but I don’t 
believe any of it for a minute. 


Q6 


PLAYBOY: We notice you have a 
few scars. Do any of them have inter- 
esting stories? (continued on page 131) 


“Get ready for the thrill of your life, honey!” 


Matthew Cox always wanted to make 
his father proud, but he didn’t think it 
would land him on the top ofthe Secret 
Service's most wanted list. His scam was 
real estate fraud, and he was the best. 
For five years during 
the peak of the housing 
boom, he crisscrossed 
the southern United States, hustling 
home owners and banks for as much a 
$26 million—with the help of a revolv- 
ing cast of female accomplices. 

Weaned on heist films, he went to 
cinematic lengths to succeed, becoming 


ІШІ 


DAVID KUSHNER 


a master forger, assuming dozens of 
identities and spending tens of thou- 
sands of dollars on plastic surgery to 
alter his appearance. It’s one of the cra- 
ziest crime sprees in recent memory. It 
also offers new insight 
into the mortgage cri- 
sis from which we're 
still reeling. Cox surfed the tidal wave of 
greed in the housing industry right up 
until it crashed, helping lead America 
into one of its worst recessions ever. He 
epitomized just how reckless lending 
practices were (continued on page 124) 


Ze BACHELOR 


АР. 1 RESULT IS А DECAL 
/-PRIMITIVE КЕЛ E 
THAT'S WITHIN YOUR REACH 


McIntosh 275 


Sometime in the past de- 
cade the bachelor pad lost 
its personality in an over- 
abundance of midcentury- 

modern mediocrity. It 
was in need of serious 
manscaping. To conceive 
а masculine makeover we 
turned to Taavo Somer, 
the man who nearly 
single-handedly butched 
up the urban male. If 
you've seen a taxidermy 
head ona restaurant wall, 
anew but vintage-looking 


barbershop or a young SKIP THE GYM Now — DRIVE IN 
man ina classic tweed Somer filled the BOARDING * Sliding-glass 

suit accessorized with a garage with objects + The finished garage doors bring 
watch fob, you can thank that are both func- ground-floor garage natural light into the 


tional and beautiful. doubles a: 


a hangout industrial space. A 


Somer, whose Freemans > pe 

ear and dores Before CrossFit and space. Surfboards collection of vintage TAAVO 
ни other exercise fads, are a symbol of motorcycles and SOMER 
BU HONORE a maño there was the manly leisure and oneness cars serves as stylish New York City 


wide obsession with the 

well-worn and classically 

gentlemanly. Welcome to 
his fantasy. 


with the elements— 
even if you just 
ve them propped 


art of pugilism. 
Hanging a heavy 
looks cool and will I 
keep you toned. 


transport, instant 
decoration and a 
statement of timeless 
sophistication. 


» After a 
decade working 
as an architect in 
Minneapolis and 


against the wall. 


WARM THINGS UP 


A fireplace, reclaimed wood 
and a textile sculpture by 
artist Sheila Hicks warm up 
the industrial space. Yes, 

that couch is suede. Yes, it’s 
tufted. And no, you and your 
guests will never want to get 
up from it. The chessboard 
would be right at home in the 
seduction scene in The Thomas 
Crown Affair. 


DITCH THE DIGITAL 


* Sure, you just press PLAY on 
Pandora. But wh: тібсе 
quality for quantity? In Somer's 
bachelor pad, an old-school 
hi-fi system complete with 
turntable and McIntosh tube 
amp produces the rich analog 
tones that nothing digital can 
touch. A low-slung credenza is 
filled with vintage vinyl LPs so 
your guests can play DJ. 


New York, Somer 
partnered with 
William Tigertt to 
open Freemans 
restaurant in 
downtown 
Manhattan. The 
nostalgic space 
offered early- 
American fare, 
spawned count- 
less imitators 
and launched the 
Freemans em- 
pire: a clothing 
line, a chain of 
barbershops and 
more restaurants. 
Somer has con- 
sulted on the de- 
sign of some of 
New York's more 
modish restau- 
rants and hotels 
and now runs 
a design firm 
called Friends 
and Family. 


77 


v 


POOLSIDE 


* A saltwater pool on the 
roof is kept at a balmy tem- 
perature by a solar heating 
system. The pool sits under 
a grotto-like structure for 
year-round aquatic fun, 
come rain or shine. 


78 


¥ 


y 


PITCH A TENT 


* А canvas tepee provides in- 
stant privacy whenever you 
need it. Not much room on 
your rooftop? No problem. 
Tentsmiths.com sells tepees 
in a range of sizes, starting at 
about $700 for a 12-footer. 


Y 


SMOKING HOT 


+ In this era of culinary 
one-upmanship, you need 
to bring your A-game. Go 
beyond the grill and invest 
in а smokehouse to show 
you can compete with the 
other foodie dudes. 


LIVING LARGE 


A living roof, planted with 
grass and an edible garden, 
softens the urban landscape. 
A collection of comfortable 
chaise longues and attendant 
bathing beauties add to the 
natural appeal of the space. 


BITCHIN KITCHEN 


2 


OPEN BAR 


OPEN SESAME 


nd champagne, 
ts to help them- 
The self-serve 


“What is this thing with you about dinosaurs?” 


79 


= 


NEW GRAND TOUR 


YOU'VE PLAYED OUT PARIS AND ROAMED THROUGH 
ROME. IT'S TIME TO HIT THE NEW CAPITALS OF COOL 


INES > 


«Indian Ocean 


22 


ravel remains а rite of passage for the 
modern gentleman, but the traditional 
stops on the grand tours of yore have become 
more about history than currency. Dive into the 
global good life in the cities that are setting the 
pace for style, culture and nightlife. So ditch the 
backpack, bring your best blazer and upgrade 
your worldly experience to first class. 


— ILLUSTRATIONS BY STEVEN NOBLE — 


II 
HESS 


> Let's once and for all 
dispel the notion that 
Mexico City is in its en- 
tirety a dangerous town— 
especially if you focus on 
the chic Polanco neigh- 
borhood, a hotbed of 
style, culture and cuisine. 
BOOK EM 

* Mexico City is full of 


preening, look-at-me 
hotels, but affairs are al- 


together more discreet at 
Las Alcobas, an intimate, 
35-room establishment 
that values attentive- 
ness and service more 
than attention-getting 
and scene-making. The 
rooms are luxurious but 
not ostentatious; the 
bathrooms are outfit- 

ted with every great 
amenity, most notably 
space. Its palette features 
soothing creams, grays 


and lavenders offset 
with warm woods and 
geometric stone accents. 


GIMME CULTURE 

* Some men buy their 
wives paintings for big 
occasions. Business mo- 
gul Carlos Slim honored 
his late wife with a mu- 
seum. (Don't try to keep 
up, hermano.) Museo 
Soumaya opened in 2011 
in Plaza Carso with a 
strikingly modern facade 
made of some 16,000 
hexagonal aluminum 
tiles. The slick exterior 
stands in contrast to the 
classical European mas- 
terworks collected within, 
a list of which reads like 
an art history textbook 
befitting, well, a Mexican 
billionaire: Da Vinci, 


Matisse, Monet, Picasso, 
toretto and nearly 
400 pieces by Rodin 
(Slim’s wife was a fan). 


DROP THE CHALUPA 


* Michelin has yet to dis- 
cover Mexico, but when 
it does, the good inspec- 
tors will have but a short 
stroll between Pujol and 
Biko, which are currently 
holding at numbers 36 
and 38 on San Pel- 
legrino's World's 50 Best 
Restaurants list. Pujol is 
particular noteworthy. 
Its minimalist decor 
(dark woods and stark 
white spotlights) focuses 
diners on chef Enrique 
Olvera's inventive twist 
on traditional Mexican 
cuisine: caviar soufflé, 
fried frog leg with po- 
blano chili, guava sorbet 
with mezcal and worm 
salt. The showstopper is 
the piñata, a sugar orb 
filled with chocolate, tiny 
marshmallows and cara- 
mel. The defense rests. 
Easily —Pavia Rosati 


M: 
culture is а 

well inside the old city 
walls—you'll recognize 
the jumbled cast of 
snake charmers, 5 
rytellers, hawkers and 
hagglers. But the city's 
postcolonial patina 

has been rubbed clean 
by boutique hotels 
deluxe hammams and 
high-end restaurants. 
"These days a stop- 


access to the gardens, 
red-clay tennis courts 
and glass fitness 
pavilion, a spa treat- 
ment at the zellige-tiled 
deluxe hammam, an 
opulent lunch and a 
few laps in the enor- 
mous turquoise pool. 
An afternoon aperitif 
at the hotel's Le Bar 
Churchill keeps things 
cool and civilized (the 


- 


Africa is a must for any 
modern-day prince. 


LIVE LAVISHLY 


* Fora е of imperial 
splendor, head to La 

Mamounia, an insanely 
good-looking he: 
tage hotel that mixes 
Berber-Andalusian 

architecture with the 
best modern amenit 
A day pass gives you 


British prime minister 
was a hotel regular). 


GO SUPPER CLUBBING 


- After a requisite trip to 
the night market, take 

a taxi outside the city 
center for dinner and 
drinks in the garden 
lounge at Bo & Zin 
supper club. There’s 

a fire pit, champagne 


cocktails, sushi ap- 
petizers and private 
tents. Somehow, some 
way you'll end up at 
rose-petal-strewn Le 
Comptoir Darna to 
appreciate (along with a 
posse of pretty French 
girls and well-dressed 
Moroccans) the art of 
belly dancing. Some tra- 
ditions are too good to 
give up.—Jeralyn Gerba 


WHO NEEDS FLORENCE WHEN BERLIN 
15 HAVING A MODERN RENAISSANCE? 


> The German capital is undergoing a 
cultural revival. Berlin is flush with artists 
and musicians as well as tech geniuses 
and gentrifiers who are building a new 
brand for the city. Underground goes up- 
scale as art, commerce and cash merge 
into a more polished (or deliberately 
unpolished) design-driven experience. 


GET HIGH CULTURE 


* Jüdische Mádchenschule, a heavily 
restored landmark building, has become 
something of a cultural lab for Jewish- 
inspired gastronomy and ultramodern 
art. Contemporary galleries line the 
floor above Mogg & Melzer, a modern 
pastrami sandwich shop run by a club 
‘owner and a DJ intent on elevating the 
experience. In the same building, be- 
tween Kosher Classroom restaurant and 


a museum dedicated to the Kennedys, 
there's Pauly Saal, a classy dining room 
in the Weimar style that pays homage to 
old-fashioned foods such as homemade 
wurst and rotisserie meats. 


GET HIGH STYLE 


* A 215% century church of sneakerology, 
Generation 13 features a new museum, 
café and shop housing high-end, hard-to- 
find and historical kicks, Top off the night 
by tapping into the city's best export: the 
party as art form. Das Gift is a new pub 
with video installations, whiskey, DJs and 
a jukebox stocked with specially mixed 
CDs by musicians including Robert 
Smith and Mogwai.—Jeralyn Gerba 


60 GANGNAM STYLE IN THE BOOMING 
KOREAN COSMOPOLIS 


> No, the locals aren't really hippity-hopping 
around Seoul in tacky blue tuxedo jackets. But 
they are flexing their style in Gangnam, the 
high-rise district south of the Han River that 
encompasses the neighborhoods (or dongs) 
of Samseong-dong, Apgujeong-dong and 
Cheongdam-dong. You'll get used to it 


CONSUME CONSPICUOUSLY 


* Go shopping, because that's what every- 
one else is doing, in vast department stores 
like the Galleria Luxury Hall and temples to 
luxury like Maison Hermés Dosan Park. The 
more interesting action is at concept shops 
like Koon, a multistory boutique that sells 
European, American, Korean and Japanese 
brands—sweaters from Howlin, the indie divi- 
sion of Belgian label Morrison, and puffy vests 
from Rocky Mountain Featherbed. If you're 
shopping for your lady, get her something 
from Yohji Yamamoto's daughter Limi Feu. 
60 BEYOND GALBI 

+ After the inevitable barbecue binge, you'll 
have a meat hangover like you haven't had 
since that ojo de bife fest in Buenos Aires. 
That’s when you'll head to Gorilla in the 
Kitchen for something healthy made without 
butter and served in a sleek room filled 

with reflective surfaces. You need a drink. 
Maybe makgeolli, the rice-based fizzy drink 
traditionally enjoyed by farmers that all the 
kids are crazy about now. Order it at Lound 
a chic late-night bar where the action starts 
out mild at the ground-floor wine bar and 


gets rowdier as you make your way to the 
clubby fourth floor.—Pavía Rosati 


> If conveyor-belt 
sushi and tendo 
still have a place 

in your heart, you 
can bet your Bape 
sneakers Tokyo is 
the place for you. 


60 FISH 


make your jet lag work 
for you and set out at 
3:30 лм. for a pilgrim- 
age to the holy land 

of sushi, the Tsukiji 
fish market. Leave any 
later than that and 
your chances of being 
one of the 120 bleary- 
eyed witnesses at the 
predawn tuna auctions 
are approximately 

nil. While the bidding 
rages on (a record 

was set on January 

5, 2013: 488 pounds 
of bluefin tuna for a 


cool $1.8 million), wait 
patiently (read: two 
hours) for a spot at the 
bar at Sushi Dai, in 
row six of the market. 
The 12 seats fill up 
and—thankfully— 
turn over relatively 
quickly. The toro is 
the stuff of legend. 


HIT THE STREET STYLE 


* Get your wits about 
you at Daikanyama 
T-Site. The multimedia 
complex from book- 
seller giant Tsutaya 
offers a one-stop design 
education. Wind your 
way around art and 
architecture books, 
past wall after wall of 
magazines and peri- 
odicals and through 
lounge areas fit for 
having a philosophical 
tête-à-tête or drooling 
over travel tomes; all 


routes seemingly lead 
to either the in-store 
Starbucks or Muji. The 
courtyard hosts live 
music, performances 
and weekend pop-up 
markets where locals 
linger after eating pasta 
and flatbread pizza at 
nearby Ivy Place. 


HIT THE BARS 


* Erase any cultural 

1Q points you might 
have accrued earlier 

in your trip with a visit 
to Robot Restaurant 
for a manga spectacle 
writ large. How can 
you pass up a trip to 
Kabukicho (the red- 
light district)? How can 
you say no to acrobatic, 
bikini-clad girls? Who 
are you to turn down а 
ride on а robot? Espe- 
cially when the beer is 
so cheap.—Crystal Meers 


THE TOP 14 
COCKTAIL- 
MAKING 
SECRETS 
BARTENDERS 


DON'T WANT 
YOU TO KNOW. 
BUT WE GOT THE 

BEST ONES 
TO SPILL 


As cocktail king Dale Dev Johnson, head 
DeGroff, pioneering bartender at New York 
bartender at New York speakeasy Employees 
City's Rainbow Room Only, suggests you try 
and author of The Graft a flip, a classic cocktail 
of the Cocktail, has said, made delightfully 
“the oversize martini 


frothy with nothing 
more fussy than an egg 
white. Herewith, the 
clover club...blowing 
minds since 1911. 


glass has ruined many 
an evening.” For more 
reasonable portion sizes 
and the option to try 
more than one kind of 
cocktail without getting 
soused, buy a set of 
8.25-ounce Libbey Retro 
coupes (pictured, $44 for 
a set of 12, amazon.com). 


2 


Combine ingredi- 

ents and ice ina 
cocktail shaker. Shake 
vigorously for 10 
seconds and strain into 
a martini glass. To give 
this drink some Playboy 
flair, cut a Rabbit Head 
stencil from a mar- 
garine lid and spritz 
Angostura bitters on 

4. top with a vermouth 
atomizer. 


In the bartending 
boom a new cocktail 
is born every minute 
(and usually involves 
impossible-to-find 
ingredients such as 
house-made sea- 
buckthorn tincture). 
But few can top the 
classics collected in 
Jerry Thomas's 1887 
Bar-Tenders Guide. 
Handsome reprints are 
available for about $10. 


PHOTOGRAPHY BY SATOSHI 


hile the state of the American cocktail is 
better than ever, you’d think you need an 
advanced degree in mixology to decipher the 
drinks menus at some of the more pretentious 
lounges. You know, places where olives are “spherified,” 
eyedroppers are used and the bartenders take 15 minutes 
to mix your drink. We’re going to let you in on a little 
secret: The old ways are the best ways and are easy enough 
for you to be your own bartender. To give you the essen- 
tial tips and tools that are the foundation of a good drink 
(principles that have remained relatively unchanged since 
the 19th century) we checked in with some of our favorite 
bartenders from around the country, people who know 
how to maximize a drink with minimal fuss. 


4 
GET BITTER 


+ Bitters are one of the 
est cheats a bar- 
tender can use to add 
complexity to a drink. 
Mix classic Angostura 
with gin to make a pink 
gin, one of the simplest 
traditional cocktails 
around. And stock up on 
modern versions such 


as Regans' No. 6 orange 
bitters to add citrus 
essence without sweet- 
ness or aci 
termens mole-flavored 
bitters for a chocolaty 
spin on a margarita. 


Bittermens Xocolatl Mole 
bitters, $25, amazon.com 


‚and Bit- 


Sa 


5 


m 


CHERRY 
ON TOP 


“ No red dye no. 5 was 
used in the making of 
the real-deal Italian 
maraschino cherries 
from Luxardo. The 
intense syrup is an 
ingredient in its own 
right. Stir into a tom 
collins for subtle 
sweetness. 


Luxardo cherries, $17, 
kegworks.com 


STIR THINGS UP 


—— 
6 James Bond was wrong; the rules 
— — of cocktail making are thus: Shake 

cocktails that include fruit juice (shaking 
blends the juice and alcohol better). Stir 
cocktails that are simply spirits over ice (e.g., 
a martini or a manhattan). For the latter 
category, this mixing glass from Japan is just 
the right size. Thirty revolutions with a stir- 
rer will blend and chill all the ingredients. 


Yarai mixing glass, $39, cocktailkingdom.com 


PERFECT MANHATTAN 


With equal parts * 2 ounces rye or 
sweet and dry bourbon 
vermouth, this is a * Ya ounce sweet 
drink for all tastes. vermouth 
* % ounce dry 
vermouth 


* Angostura or 
orange bitters 
+ maraschino cherry 


Combine liquid 
ingredients over ice 
in a mixing glass. 
Stir 30 times. Strain 
into a cocktail glass 
and garnish with 
maraschino cherry. 


85 


[BACHELOR 2] 


Schoettler also gets 
creative with cubes: 
For the Cape Cod fizz 
he freezes organic 
cranberry juice into 
cubes and pours 
vodka and soda over 
them for a twist on the 
vodka cranberry. 


* If your tap water 
tastes off, skip the 

ice maker and freeze 
your own cubes using 
neutral-tasting water. = 
“No one is going to be 
able to discern if you 
use Evian,” Schoettler 
says. “Filtered water is 
just fine.” 


Aviary in Chicago. 
“Whatever you put 
nto your drink is 

going to get con- 


* There’s no easier 
way to ruin a glass of 
expensive liquor than 
to add a few shriveled 
ice cubes from your 
malodorous freezer. 
“Good ice is a crucial 
ingredient,” says 
Craig Schoettler, the 
26-year-old prodigy 
who launched the 
groundbreaking 


sumed.” Schoettler, 
who now runs a less 


high-concept setup at 
Drumbar in Chicago’s 
Gold Coast neighbor- 
hood, recommends 
making ice with the 
best water possible 
and not storing it in 
the freezer for too 
long. You want the ice 
to taste pure, not like 
last month’s leftovers. 


Tovolo ice cube tray, $7, 
cocktailkingdom.com 


Сұ BARREL UP 


beverage program at 
When Jeffrey Morgen- 
thaler, bartender at 
Clyde Common in Port- 
land, poured a negroni 
into an empty whiskey 
barrel on a lark, the 
ultrasmooth result sparked a nationwide 
trend. “We barrel-age only cocktails that 
have some sort of fortified wine in them, like 
vermouth or sherry,” Morgenthaler says. When 
a spirit-driven cocktail (read: no fresh ingredi- 
ents) sits in an oak barrel, the wine oxidizes and 
picks up notes of grass, citrus and mushroom. The 
aging also pulls out hints of vanilla, caramel and 
wood. And the process is remarkably simple: Just 
dump the ingredients into a barrel and wait. 


Morgenthaler recom- 
mends using a one-liter 
Tuthilltown Spirits barrel 
($60, tuthilltown.com). 


11 * 11 ounces Tanqueray bine liquid ingredients 

~ or Beefeater gin and pour into barrel us- 

BARREL- * 11 ounces green ing a funnel. Seal barrel 
AGED BIJOU Chartreuse and let ingredients 
AN + 11 ounces Cinzano age for three weeks. 


sweet vermouth 
* 1 teaspoon orange bitters 
* lemon peel 


Decant barrel through 
a double-mesh strainer 
into a large bottle or 
pitcher. Shake ingre- 
dients and strain into a 
martini glass. Garnish 
with lemon peel. 


Soak barrel in warm 
water for 48 hours to 
swell the wood. Com- 


86 


MUDDLE THROUGH 


* Muddling (a.k.a. smashing) fresh fruit 
and herbs in a glass infuses a drink with the 
flavors of the season (think lime- and mint- 
redolent mojito). Matthew Biancaniello, 

the L.A.-based mixologist who holds court 
at Cliffs Edge, uses his muddler as much 
as his cocktail shaker. To create the drink 
below, he mined a farmers’ market for 
botanical inspiration, The result is spicy, 
sweet, herbaceous and bracing. 


TAG bar muddler, $18, barsupplies.com 


13 
SAGE HEAVEN 


* 3 sage leaves vodka or gin and 


* 5 raspberries shake. Strain into 
+ 1 slice ginger root, a collins glass over 
1/s inch thick ice. Garnish with 
* И ounce fresh blackberries. 

lemon juice 


* J ounce agave syrup 
(1:1 ratio water 
10 agave) 
* 2 ounces vodka or gin 
+ 4 blackberries 


Muddle sage, 
raspberries, 
root, lemon juice 

and agave syrup in 
a mixing glass. Add 


m 


THE BARTENDER'S 
BOTTLE 


are designed to be 
smooth and sippable, but bartend- 
ers Dushan Zaric, Simon Ford and 
Jason Kosmas yearned for liquor that 
would stand up for itself in a well- 
made cocktail. They tweaked recipes, 
upped the proof, designed an oversize 
yet ergonomic, bartender-friendly 
bottle and launched the 86 Co. We 
can attest that the resulting spirits 
make damn fine drinks. To achieve 
this, the partners consulted some 
of the best minds in the bartending 
world. Here’s how they dialed in 
the design. 


Tequila Cabeza, $43, Fords gin, $38 
Caña Brava rum, $35, and Aylesbury Duck 
odka (not pictured), $31, theS6co.com 


LOWER RING ERGONOMIC NECK THE FORMULA 
ERIG ALPERIN WILLY SHINE LYNNETTE MARRERO JASON KOSMAS FRANCISCO J. FERNANDEZ 
Bartender, the Beverage consultant Co-founder, Speed Cocktail consultant, Distiller and former 
Varnish, Los Angeles New York City Rack, New York City Dalias Cuban minister of rum 
® Bartending can get 8 Shine tested every © The one-liter © The ruler helps ® Fernandez mod- 
athletic. Alperin sug- version of the neck bottle is wider than with inventory con- eled the Caña Brava 
gested a ridge on the behind the bar and a standard bottle, so trol. It also allows you rum recipe on Cuba's 
neck to keep fingers chose this one for Marrero requested an to use an empty bottle embargoed Havana 
from slipping during comfort and consis- indentation to accom- to premix cocktails Club rum, Heming- 


a two-bottled pour. tency of pours. modate smaller hands. for parties. way’s favorite. 


MISS MAY HEADS TO MEXICO FOR A CINCO DE MAYO BASH 


absolutely love to travel and see the 
world,” says Miss May Kristen Nicole. 
“Spain, Rome, Venice, St.-Tropez—I can 
never get enough.” As grand as those des- 
tinations may be, sometimes the greatest 
escape is closer to home. "Mexico is my 
favorite getaway of all,” says the statu- 
esque California-born-and-bred beauty. 
“And it’s right in my own backyard. From 
my airport to a Mexican beach is four 
hours.” Naturally we wanted Kristen to be 
happy, glowing and hot as a chili pepper for her pictorial. 
So off we jetted to a beachfront villa in Punta Mita on 

the Pacific coast, just in time to celebrate Cinco de Mayo. 
Says Kristen, “I love Cinco de Mayo. Why? Because I 

love tequila. It’s my drink of choice.” When we got to the 
beach, Miss May didn’t need any tequila to loosen up in 
front of the camera—no surprise since she’s an accom- 
plished bikini model. As for her Playmate status, she'll 
drink to that: down the hatch with a shot of Patrón. “I'm 
ecstatic, and I want to show everything I’ve got,” she says. 
“I want to be sexy, to be beautiful, to be smart—I want to 
be the girl every guy wants.” 


PLAYMATE DATA SHEET 


Kristen Nicole 
e LAD A АМЕ M. 
"moa Е 12088680 М _ 
BIRTH a MARA BIRTHPLACE: Escondido, CA 
ausırions. VESIAN interiors For Wigh-end nomes Modeling 
and appreciatinng oM tite mas то offer. 

SON IN e than wnen An attentive 
man is Kissing my neck and breasts. Yreoven N 
rurnores:L.. MON VANO Cft Carry on 0. Conversation. 
2.Bad drivers Wave Zew Chance of getting into my 
Hants} you've been warned! 

2. Мей expect me Xo marry them for 

а Shot of Patrón. Us 

quer rme: OQ) X love AD party and 4vawe), E also 

rave а Calm, ai Side. Reading by the fireplace, 
COOKING A romantic dinner or {0+ vedazzling 


whatever 8 in (ас brings me rve Serenity. 


wr purtosopmr: MON And Nails aye a \egirimate Wobiau!t! 


en ысын: 


q SANS 


PLAYBOY’S PARTY JOKES 


Ап old miser read in an advertisement that 
the new whorehouse in town charged $50 for 
the first visit and $25 thereafter. The first time 
he visited he knocked on the door and the 
madam replied, “Who's there?” 

The man promptly answered, “It’s me again.” 


Could I try on that dress in the window?" a 
woman asked a store clerk. 

“Certainly,” the clerk replied, “but Га prefer 
that you use the dressing room.” 


I think we should go dutch,” a woman told her 
date. “You pay for dinner and a movie, and the 
rest of your night can be on me.” 


Why does every man want a son? 

Because with a boy you have to worry about 
only one penis and with a girl you have to 
worry about all of them. 


Two men were drinking together in a bar 
when one said to the other, “I think I’m going 
to divorce my wife. She hasn't spoken to me in 
more than two months.” 

“You'd better think it over,” his friend told 
him. “Women like that are hard to find.” 


While they were chatting over coffee, a woman 
said to her friend, “I have to be very careful not 
to get pregnant.” 
“I don’t understand,” replied the friend. “I 
thought your husband had a vasectomy.” 
е woman answered, “Exactly.” 


The irony of a blow job is that even though you 
have her on her knees, she has you by the balls. 


A man told his doctor, “I haven't slept for 
three days.” 

“Good,” the doctor replied. “Sleeping for 72 
hours would be very unhealthy.” 


What do you get when you take MDMA and 
birth control? 
A trip without the kids. 


What do you call female Viagra? 
Jewelry: 


A recent study found that 64 percent of 
women have used vibrators. The other 36 per- 
cent have new ones. 


A man was pouring his date a cocktail. “Say 
when,” he told her. 
She replied, “Right after this drink.” 


If you could have Bill Gates's entire fortune 
or solve world hunger...what color would your 
Lamborghini be? 


Every fight is a food fight if you're a cannibal. 


Two guys were discussing their old flames. “I 
once dated a dwarf,” the first one said. 
“What was she like?” the second asked. 
The first said, “I was just nuts over her.” 


What do you call a bunch of women who hang 
around prostitutes? 
Support hoes. 


A teenage son asked his father, “Pop, did you 
follow your dreams in life?” 

“No,” the father replied, “my dreams were 
shattered years ago.” 

“How many years ago?” the boy asked. 

The father asked him, “How old are you?” 


Concerned that her daughter was dressing 
too provocatively, a mother asked, “Dear, are 
you hooking?” 

“Yes, Mama,” the daughter replied. “I made 
$400.05 last night.” 

“Who gave you the nickel?” the mother asked. 

Her daughter replied, “They all did.” 


Two men were discussing their weekends. 
“I got so blotto that I forgot my girlfriend’s 
name,” the first said. 

“That's nothing,” the second responded. 
“Saturday night I was so drunk that I walked 
across the dance floor to use the bathroom and 
I won the dance contest.” 


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 8100 to the contributors whose 
submissions are selected. 


“I have certain criteria for the men I date, Charley...and I'm afraid you came up a little short.” 


ишн ALI 


He dubbed himself 
“the Greatest” and then 
proceeded to live up 

to the title—both inside 
and outside the ring 


uhammad Ali was “the Greatest,” a 
title no less accurate for having been 
bestowed, with characteristic swage 
by Ali himself. Indeed, Ali was among 

the greatest and most beloved boxers in the history 


s the only boxer in history to defend the 
world heavyweight championship 19 times. In 1999 
Sports Illustrated, which featured Al 
times, named him sportsman of the cei 
In the ring Ali wa 
oppor 
he would 
dancing around his competition 
as he landed hammer blows. Outside the 
became a larger-than-life c 
with politicians and movie 
Smith portrays him in one « 
Ali's 
zed his name when he joined 
the Nation of Islam), Ali began fighting at the age of 
enge, 
and a police office learn to fight. A se 
ries of local matches led him, at 18, to the Olym- 
pics victory. He was drafted in the 1960s during 
the Vietnam war but refused to enlist. (He said, 
1 ain't got no quarrel with them Vietcong.”) Не 
was arrested, found guilty, stripped of his heavy- 
weight crown and barred from boxing, a suspension 
that lasted until he won an appeal in front of the 
U.S. Supreme Court. Fighting again, he went on to 
win some of the most memorable bouts in boxing 


history—against Joe Frazier, Sonny Liston, Leon 


pinks and Geon man—though his car 
ended after a series of humiliating defeats. 

As a Muslim, Ali became politically active 
working in the civil rights struggle. Last year 
football legend Jim Brown said, “America started 
with slavery and ended up with a black president 
Muhammad Ali was a part of that...a big part. 
Shortly after the end of his b Ali be- 

ill with Parkinson's disease but continued to 
as a philanthropist. He also tried his hand at 
diplomacy. In 1990 1 y and met with 
addam Hussein to secu American 
hostages. Ali, who has nine 
fourth marriage, now lives near Phoenix. He has 
received two presidential awards for his public 
As a fighter, you were something sf 
Barack Obama told Ali on his birthe 
You shocked the world, and you inspi 
it too. And even after all the titles and legendary 
bouts, you're still doing it.” Our interviewer, jou 
ist Lawrence Linderman, met with Ali in 1975 
pric win against the fav cong 
Foreman, in the famous Rumble in the Jungle in 
Zaire (now the Democratic Republic of Congo). 


What's the physical sensation of really 
being nailed by hitters like George Foreman and 
Joe Frazier? 
аке a stiff tree branch in your hand and hit 
11 feel your hand go 
gg. Well, getting tagged is the same kind 
of jar on your whole body, and you need at least 
10 or 20 seconds to make that go away. You get hit 
again before that, you got another boingggggg. 
r you're hit that hard, does your 
body do what you want it to d 
e your mind controls your bod: 


and the moment (continued on page 137) 101 


102 and leather aromas 


А PLAYBOY FRAGRANCE GUIDE 


LIQUID ASSETS 


SIFIED 


Photography by 


SATOSHI 

1. HOT TIP 

Bulgari MAN Extreme, $79 

The woodsy and citrus note: 4j 
in this inv ) cologne 


office a good day. 


2. MUTUAL FUN 
Versace Eros, $80 


A seductive blend of fresh 
herbal top по 
cedar arorr 


and deep 


3. CLOSE THE DEAL 
Gentlemen Only by 
Givenchy, 578 

Spicy peppercorn, nutmeg and 
orange make this a dinner 
date-ready fragrance 


4. STANDARD 
AND POUR 

Fan di Fendi Pour Homme 
Acqua, 575 
This sophisticated өседі 
combines lemon, Laval 
and masculine musk 


5. DOLLARS AND 
SCENTS 

Reserve by Original 
Penguin, 555 
Balancing dark spice 
bright citrus, this is a 
fragrance to deploy for day 
or night 


6. PRIVATE EQUITY 
Acqua Essenziale by 
Salvatore Ferragamo, 580 
The lemon and rosemary 
scents in this cologne make 
for a Mediterranean vacation 
in а bottle. 


7. THE GOLD 
STANDARD 


1 Million by Paco Rabanne, 
$59 

Go bold with this 
combination of grapefruit. 
mandarin orange, cinnamon 


^7 FX- EFFECTIVE INDICES 


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THE 


НЕ TELLS PEOPLE NOT TO BUY HIS PRODUCTS. 
HE DOESN'T SHOW UP AT WORK FOR MONTHS 

AT A TIME. NO WONDER YVON CHOUINARD IS 
AMERICA’S MOST UNCONVENTIONAL CEO 


ACCIDENTAL 
ШИША 


It's not easy to get ahold of Yvon 
Chouinard, the legendary climber, 
adventurer and founder of Patagonia, 
the wildly successful apparel company 
headquartered in Ventura, California. 
He's 74 years old, fit, 
rich and very cranky 
about the destructive 
smudge humans continue to lay on 
the planet. His efforts to mitigate the 
damage by making his company and 
others ecologically responsible have 
cast him as the Galahad of the green 
revolution. And it turns out, saving 
the environment is a good excuse to 
be out in it: Chouinard spends six 
months a year out of touch around 
the world—wherever the surf is good 
and the fish are biting. 


. BY CRAIG VETTER 


"We haven't seen him in five months," said his assistant when 
I called. "He's off surfing and fishing somewhere. He doesn't 
own a cell phone. There's no way to get in touch with him." 

I met Chouinard 30 years ago in Moose, Wyoming at his 
house—a log cabin with a chimney made of river rocks set in 
a way that allowed his then eight-year-old son and three-year- 
old daughter to learn to climb to the top. I spent three days 
there with Yvon and his wife, Malinda, whom he met during 
an argument over a Yosemite campsite. We talked about his 
days in that famous cathedral of rocks where he and a ragtag 
gang of lost boys authored the first climbs of El Capitan, Half 
Dome and other famous monoliths in the valley. It was there, 
out of the trunk of his Chevy, that he used a portable forge to 
hammer out pitons for his climber friends, his first business. 

I still had the number for the cabin, and I dialed it on the 
off chance that I might catch him there. He doesn't own an 
answering machine, so it rang till I gave up. I phoned half 
a dozen times over the next two weeks, until one afternoon 
in September Malinda answered and called 
Yvon to the phone. He was stopping there 
for a week before heading to New Haven for 
a panel at Yale University to discuss his new book, The Respon- 
sible Company. Then he was off to fish in Canada for a month. 
We made a date to meet in early November in Ventura. 


The Yale appearance took place in a wood-paneled theater- 
style classroom that held 500 adoring students. They watched 


as a moderator introduced 
Chouinard, who was wearing 
a travel-anywhere Patagonia 
sports coat, one of more 
than 600 products the com- 
pany manufactures and sells. 
Also on the panel was the 
book’s co-author, 61-year- 
old Vincent Stanley, novelist, 
poet and marketing direc- 
tor of Patagonia. He is also 
Chouinard’s nephew, and his 
face, though less sun-weath- 
ered, bears a resemblance. 
This wasn’t Chouinard 
first trip to Yale. In 199 
school of forestry awarded 
him an honorary doctor of 
humane letters degree for his 
work on many eco projects. 
When he received the let- 
ter announcing the award, 
he was cranky as usual, but 


ts 


"I LOVE RECESSIONS. DURING 
THIS LAST RECESSION WEVE 
NEUER HAD SUCH GROWTH.” 


his response was tinged with 
the wry humor that often 

ompanies his crankiness. 
hey didn't know what to 
give me because I didn't have 
a degree in anything. So when 
they said humane letters I told 
them I didn’t even like hu- 
mans. It was really just a smart remark.” 

A smart remark, sort of, but with an undercurrent of cynicism 
evinced by the fact that he will tell you evil is stronger than good. 

“I still believe that,” he says. “Whether or not it's true it’s a 
good way to think. It keeps you from getting hit in the back of the 
head. Like I've said, if you want to do good, you actually have to 
do something. Good doesn't just happen; evil does, without your 
doing anything. It’s all around us. In sports, for instance, you're 
always being pulled to cheat, to make it easier to get one up on 
somebody else, whether you're doping or using extra-sticky rubber 
on your climbing shoes. You have to resist it, and if you want to do 
good you actually have to act.” 

He has designed his company to be an ongoing act for good, 
and the book he and Stanley were at Yale to discuss is a detailed 
blueprint for bringing companies toward the Patagonia model: a 
laid-back, committed and enlightened approach to corporate con- 
sciousness that brought the company $600 million in sales last year. 
Patagonia has 1,500 employees worldwide and 900 applicants for ev- 
ery job. It's been described as more of a movement than a business. 

The Responsible Company includes chapters on pay and benefits, 
transparency about products’ social and environmental impact, en- 


+ RIGHT: 


106 ergy use and reducing toxins, a point Stanley illustrated by holding 


up his ring finger: “To make a wedding 
ring generates 20 tons of mine waste,” he 
said. The second half of the book contains 
guidelines that detail how companies can 
move toward the corporate responsibility 
that Chouinard champions with the evan- 
gelical energy of a tent preacher. 

“I hate the word sustainable,” he told the 
audience. “Responsible is the word I use. 
Society is always pushing us to exceed our 
resources. We’re not citizens anymore, 
we're consumers. We don't have to stop 
being consumers; we just have to become 
better consumers.” 

To make the point, on Black Friday in 
November 2011 the company had run an 
ad in The New York Times that featured a 
photo of a Patagonia coat and the headline 
DON'T BUY THIS JACKET. It was part of a part- 
nership called Common Threads, which 
urges customers to buy only what they 
need and promises to fix or recycle what- 
ever wears out or is unusable. 

Regarding the weak economy, Chouinard 
told the students, “I love recessions. During 
this last recession (continued on page 128) 


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TAMARA ECCLESTONE 
A private affair with the “Billion $$ Girl,” the dashing 
daughter of Formula One boss Bernie Ecclestone 


CSD 


n the U.K., Tamara Ecclestone is known 
as the Billion $$ Girl. She's famous as a tele- 

vision presenter, a dashing reality-TV star 
and heiress to an auto-racing fortune. (Her 
father, Bernie, is the U.K.'s 12th-richest man, accord- 
ing to Forbes, and the CEO of Formula One, the world’s 
most lucrative and popular racing circuit.) Tamara is 
also famous for her jet-setting, her nights out on the 
town in London, her recent engagement to a stockbro- 
ker boyfriend—all delicious tabloid fodder. 

So aside from these photos, what else should Amer- 
icans know about her? “Every time I come here,” 
‘Tamara says, “people say to me, ‘Oh, you're 
the European Paris Hilton.’” She wrinkles her 
nose. “I’m the opposite of that.” Tamara says 
she hits the clubs only one night a week. Her 
focus is on launching lifestyle businesses in the future. 
"I know I'm never going to be as successful as my dad,” 
she says, “but I get bored doing nothing. I couldn't go 
from vacation to vacation and have no motivation.” 

Tamara, dressed in pink polka-dot pajamas, is sitting 
on a couch in her deluxe suite at the Peninsula hotel in 
Beverly Hills. Outside her room are multiple layers of 
private security, dramatically raising the hotel’s quo- 
tient of wireless earpieces and glowering expressions. 


[ BY GAVIN 
| EDWARDS | 


PHOTOGRAPHY BY TONY KELLY 


In Los Angeles, Tamara would ordinarily stay with 
her sister Petra, who bought Aaron Spelling’s mansion 
two years ago for $85 million—with more than a hun- 
dred rooms, it probably has enough space. The best 
thing about her sister’s house? “Probably her bowling 
alley,” Tamara says. “Visiting her, Гуе gotten really 
good at bowling.” But today Petra is back in London, 
so Tamara will have to wait for another trip to pick 
up that spare. 

So why is she posing for млувоу? For one thing, to 
please millions of our readers around the globe. “I don't 
have a problem with nakedness,” she says cheerfully. 
Her mother, Slavica, is a beautiful former fash- 
ion model from Croatia who did her share of 
nude shoots back in the day. “She'd be a bit of 
a hypocrite if she told me not to,” Tamara says. 

"Tamara's valuable skin has some discreet tattoos (so 
discreet, in fact, that you can’t see them here). The 
most meaningful is a Marilyn Monroe quote: “Some- 
times good things fall apart so better things can fall 
together.” She also has a tattoo of her own name inside 
а tiara. What's up with that? 

“People always joke that I’m a princess,” she says, 
flashing her billion-dollar smile. “I thought I'd make 
the joke first.” 


енеке 


a 
"mittit 


PLAYBOY 


116 


GRINGO LOCO 

(continued from page 60) 
hoping this nightmare will dissipate in 
the light of morning. 

No such luck. In the light of morn- 
ing, Rigo still wants to kill the guy. He 
calls his cousin Demente, a hit man who 
shows up with an extra Glock. Rigo says, 
Tl talk to the guy, but ГИ probably shoot him. 
And Demente holds out the gun to the 
Gringo. 

This is it, the point of no return. If the 
Gringo doesn’t take the gun, his brief, 
improbable career as a white American in 
a Mexican cartel is over. 

Let’s do it, he says. 

The Gringo from Portland is going 
to war. 


Before he went to Mexico, the Gringo 
was an athletic kid from a prosperous 
American family with two beach houses. 
Life was good until he was 11, when his 
parents divorced and his mother mar- 
ried a much younger man, leaving the 
Gringo with a fatherless ache that lasted 
all through his teen years. But he poured 
his energy into sports and never took ille- 
gal drugs till he was 23. He made all-state 
in high school and got a football scholar- 
ship to Portland State, where he picked 
up a bachelor's degree in communication 
and a painkiller habit. His biggest rebel- 
lion was a taste for Latin American revo- 
lutionary history. After college he found 
work as a high school football coach. 

He's telling this story at his mother's 
house in Portland. He's been back from 
Mexico for two and a half months, found 
a job doing telemarketing from a sterile 
cubicle and taking shit from a snotty boss, 
and he’s trying to sort out his feelings. 
Should he go straight? Should he go back 
to the cartel? You get burned if you stand by 
the fire, he says, but who wants to be cold? 

His dilemma began soon after he 
graduated from college, when he started 
selling painkillers to pay for his habit. He 
started to think of himself as an “illegal- 
ist,” his term for a revolutionary without 
a revolution. He read Mao and Castro 
and Chomsky and Kropotkin, cultivating 
а rage against а society that is created to keep 
us from thought and from being happy. 

Three years later everything fell apart. 
One of my friends is in a mental institution, 
one got addicted to heroin, and I introduced 
them to pills. He felt so bad, he stopped 
caring if he lived or died and did reck- 
less things that attracted the attention of 
the police. So when his mom saw an ad 
for English teachers in Guadalajara, he 
jumped at the chance to escape. Emiliano 
Zapata! Pancho Villa! What better place 
to clean up than sunny Mexico? 

He arrived in October and got a job 
teaching English at a factory, waking up 
at 6:30 and catching the train, a period he 
now thinks of as the time I was trying to pre- 
tend to be a normal person. But one night, he 


and another teacher were in a club and a 


guy came up with a tray of free beer, said 
he was a hit man from Michoacan who 
had decided to protect them—and lifted 
his shirt to flash his gun. The Gringo was 
fascinated. In the circles he was running 
in, narcos were Robin Hoods who battled 
the corrupt government and refused to 
abide by social norms. Ballads memorial- 
ized narcos’ deaths. What could be cooler? 

That November, the same teacher took 
him to a party in a big house on a tree- 
lined street near the Expo Guadalajara. 
The host was a skinny young guy who 
spoke perfect English. Call me Rigo, he 
said, launching into the fantastic story of 
his life as a fourth-generation narco. One 
of his first memories was his dad kicking a 
hole in the wall and digging out two cases 
of money and a shotgun. He was eight. 
Next time they met, he was 16 and his 
dad gave him an ounce of cocaine for a 
Christmas present. 

Another night in another club, one of 
the Gringo's friends bought some ecstasy 
from a guy whose boss then came up to 
their table. He was in his 30s, a good- 
looking, relaxed dude, six feet tall, big 
for a Mexican, with the Buddha belly of 
а man who loves to drink and party. Call 
me Cuz, he said. 

Cuz and the Gringo hit it off. Cuz was 
funny, an outgoing party guy everybody 
instantly liked. He grew up in Juárez 
and loved Americans, was a huge music 
fan and rave promoter. Soon they were 
exchanging stories about their back- 
grounds, and it was amazing because 
they were both the black sheep of wealthy 
families with elder brothers who were the 
favorite. They both loved Scarface and 
Pulp Fiction and American Gangster. They 
talked about the bad things they had 
done and the lives they were destined to 
live. You can correct yourself all you want, 
Cuz said, but you're still going to be that per- 
son, the person you are. 

That night, Cuz made out like he was a 
little guy who sold a few pills at raves. You 
hang out with these teachers; you could sell to 
these teachers, he said, giving the Gringo 
half an X to try. Remember, call me tomor- 
row. Don't forget. 

The Gringo did as he was told. 


A week later, Cuz called back. Let’s get 
some beers and go to this little party. So they 
gathered some of the Gringo's friends and 
hopped in a cab and drove till they were 
40 miles out of town and starting to get 
nervous. Suddenly, at the top of a hill, a 
squad of federales appeared. They searched 
everybody but Cuz, who walked right past 
them as if he were invisible. The Gringo 
and his friends followed him over a ridge 
onto a mountaintop lit up like a night- 
club with 5,000 people dancing. A line of 
gunmen in ski masks stood guard around 
the perimeter with AR-15s. The Gringo 
turned to Cuz. Are those more federales? 

No, those are our dudes. 

The Gringo was starting to realize 
that Cuz was connected in a big way. He 


walked from one hug and high-five to the 
next. He seemed to know everybody. He 
led the Gringo to a tent with heat lamps 
and black leather couches and beautiful 
women who all seemed to be wearing 
big fat gold men’s watches—the sign of a 
narco princess, as the Gringo would soon 
learn. You see one of those watches on a girl, 
you steer clear. 

They were in the narco tent. Famous 
DJs from Europe chatted nervously with 
the gangsters, who tended to fall into 
categories denoted by the drugs they 
sold—the coke guys were the scariest, 
dancing like maniacs and giving you 
that cold coke stare. But the Gringo was 
oblivious, bopping up to the most dan- 
gerous guys and babbling like a goof- 
ball. He had a way of twisting his face 
into comic expressions that contradicted 
his football body and made him hard to 
pigeonhole: Was he a thug or an idiot? 
Not always in a friendly way, the narcos 
asked, Who is this guy? 

Cuz wanted them all to take acid. The 
Gringo had never done hallucinogens 
before but found it hard to say no. Cuz 
just laughed at everything. There was no 
darkness in him, no judgment. Nothing 
was true, so everything was permitted, 
as the old Russian anarchists used to say. 
Fuck it, the Gringo said. Let's do it. So the 
sun came up as the acid came on and they 
were in this beautiful Mexican country- 
side where everything seemed to fall into 
place and Cuz seemed like a prophet. 
The world was divided into good and evil 
and light and dark, he said, but all divi- 
sions were profitable to somebody and 
it was the same with the cartels dividing 
the world into families, raising prices in 
collusion with the cartel of the U.S. gov- 
ernment. But some day the world would 
be one, and all the countries and cartels 
would go away. That's why Cuz didn't 
use hit men or deal heroin or speed or 
crack, because that ruined people's lives. 
If it was his destiny to be a criminal, he 
could at least improve his karma by stick- 
ing to softer drugs. 

If we're dealing coke to a girl, he said, what 
will she do? Break into her parents’ room and 
steal money out of her dad's wallet. If she's on X, 
she sneaks into her dad's room to give him a hug. 

Oh, how they laughed! In the Gringo's 
mind, it all made perfect sense, as if his 
whole life had been leading up to this mo- 
ment. Stuck between being a bad son and 
a good son, he could make up for the sins 
of selling those horrible painkillers and 
getting his friends addicted and still fol- 
low his illegalist destiny. He could have a 
stretch of lawlessness in a place where lawless- 
ness still exists. In his addled mind, it was 
a strange kind of self-improvement pro- 
gram that might finally purge his suicidal 
impulses. His Che Guevara quote tattoo 
said it all: We cannot be sure of having any- 
thing to live for unless we're willing to die for it. 

Still, the good son had to teach the 
next day. So Cuz walked him down to a 
little mom-and-pop stand to catch the bus 
back to Guadalajara. While they waited, 


> nA 


“Wait, isn't he the one who's supposed to shake his finger at me and go “Tsk, tsk’?” 


117 


PLAYBOY 


Cuz turned his wild-eyed grin on the 
cashier. Рт on acid right now, he said. 
The cashier smiled. The 1970s are back—nice. 


Cuz started him off at a high price, $7 a 
pill, supplying acid, X and molly, which is 
X so pure you can snort it or put it under 
your tongue. The molly sold for $15 each. 
Тһе Gringo could make $400 in a single 
night, almost as much as he earned for a 
whole month of teaching. He also started 
hanging out with Cuz a couple of days a 
week, helping him sort and package pills 
and move money from place to place. 
Soon after, his mom came down for the 
holidays, and Cuz took them out to lunch 
at a fancy Argentine steak place. She asked, 
Is Mexico safe? Cuz said, Oh, don’t worry; 
we're just geiting rid of all the dirt balls, rap- 
ists and killers to make a better society. They hit 
it off, even became Facebook friends, and 
that helped seal the Gringo’s bond with 
Cuz, because Mexico is all about family. He 
didn’t tell his mom that 18 headless bodies 
had just been found a mile from her hotel. 
By January he had stopped teaching al- 
together. He worked parties and gay clubs 
and hung out with hot French girls. He 
was their peek into the glamorous narco 


lifestyle—a dancing bear, as he puts it. 

But more and more, he found himself 
hanging out with Rigo. Talk about an ille- 
galist! Rigo would walk out of a club and 
shoot his gun in the air. He would fire offa 
couple of rounds at the front door instead 
of ringing the doorbell. He had been a 
meth addict, a heroin addict, a professional 
killer who took payment in cars. He never 
judged and never criticized, accepting the 
craziest behavior with a laugh and a shrug. 
I always like having people around who are cra- 
zier than I am. More important, he was the 
dauphin of a powerful cartel family, and 
as long as he was around, nobody would 
touch them—as the Gringo learned one 
night when he got into a club dispute with 
a thug who threatened to slit his throat. He 
went straight home and called Rigo. 

This fucking guy from Sinaloa threatened to 
kill me, he said. 

Don't worry, Rigo said. They'd have to 
get permission to hit a white guy and his 
uncle would hear about it. // put the word 
out; nothing will happen. 

And nothing did. 


Around March, the Gringo moved in with 
Rigo. Their housemates included a Satanist 


death-metal fan who had been arrested for 
manslaughter, the burned-out son of an- 
other powerful family and a hot-dog sales- 
man who doubled as muscle in dangerous 
times. There were bullet holes in the palm 
trees and rumors of bodies buried in the 
backyard, left by a former owner who led 
one of the cartels. They called it the House 
of Pain, and the Gringo made it his mission 
to turn it into the Happy House. To Rigo, 
he was a minty blast of American optimism. 

For the first month, they did a lot of 
coke. People would come by, drink a beer, 
buy some pills. Or they’d go to one of 
the nightclubs Rigo's uncle owned, hang- 
ing out in a private lounge with bottles of 
champagne and Johnnie Walker Black, the 
narcos’ favorite drink. Rigo's uncle would 
come by with his fancy watch and $300 
shoes and give them a big bag of lavada, 
the narco drug of choice, coke double- 
washed to clean out the chemicals. It had 
no bite and didn't make you hunger for 
more, just lifted you up on a waft of soft air 
and deposited you in a fluffy cloud—and it 
smelled like strawberries. 

Hour after hour Rigo would explain the 
business. Somebody always runs the plaza, 
which is sometimes an actual plaza and 
sometimes just a part of town. Rigo knew 


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how much things cost, how to move things, 
how things worked in the U.S. and what 
groups you needed to make alliances with. 
He taught the Gringo how to recognize 
other narcos, the flashy ones who wore 
designer sunglasses and glittery shirts and 
the kind who looked like skate punks. Al- 
most always they carried three phones: one 
for the boss, one for the customers and one 
T And you have to know your 
history, he said. The narcos get offended 
when you don't know the history of Mexico 
or the cartels. 

The management of violence had a 
single rigid rule: If they lay their hands 
on you, come back tenfold. That's how 
Rigo's cousin was killed. He set up a meet- 
ing between two guys who were fighting, 
and one of the guys slapped the other guy. 
The guy who was slapped killed the guy 
who slapped him and then killed Rigo's 
cousin just for setting up the meeting. So 
Rigo and his hit-man cousin Demente had 
no choice. They burst into the man’s home 
and killed him along with his entire family. 

After that, Rigo went out of control. His 
uncle was dropping off kilos of crystal and 
Rigo was such a good cleaner he could save 
a tenth of the product, which he smoked. 
He got so para time 
in his room with his gun. He cheated on 
his wife and she left with their three kids. 
Finally his uncle came to him and said, 
You're skinny; you don’t look so good. I hate to 
see you like this. I'm not going to do business with 
you till you clean up. 

Rigo got a job as a bellhop, got fired and 
got another job and got fired again. And an- 
other. And another. Finally his uncle called 
and said, What are you planning on doing? 

I want to do whatever you want me to do and 
gain your trust back, Rigo answered. 

That's why Rigo was so obsessed with the 
rules he was always breaking. Under his 
training, the Gringo felt militarized. They 
were soldiers in a war, brothers in arms, 
and nothing in his white-bread American 
life had ever felt so real. 


All that winter the Gringo continued to 
work as Cuz's sidekick. Sometimes Cuz 
would say, You want to make some money, just 
drive this down the street. One time he drove 
15,000 pills to a guy's house. Once, Cuz 
came out with a black ba 

of bread, a million pes 
made it all seem like a rolling party, blast- 
ing his beats on the car radio. You hear this 
part? You hear this part? 

One day Cuz was flipping through a 
magazine called Proceso and he came to a 
picture of Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzmán, 
leader of the Sinaloa cartel and a billionaire 
who has appeared on Forbes magazine's list 
of the world’s richest men. He asked, What 
do you think about this guy? 

1 don't know what to think, the Gringo said. 

He'll fuck you over, but he has a big heart, 
Cuz said. He'll fuck you over if you need to be 
fucked over. 

That was the first hint that the Gringo's 
chain of command ultimately stopped with 
El Chapo himself. The next hint came from 
another regular at Rigo's house, a volatile 


39-year-old gangster named Roberto who 
dated an Argentinean stripper and loved 
to talk about killing people. If I was hav- 
ing lunch with your mom, he said with an evil 
grin, J would tell her, “He's with Chapo now. 
So the Gringo was working for the 
Sinaloa cartel, the most powerful drug- 
trafficking organization in the world. So 
be it, he thought. He had come to see ev- 
erything through the eyes of his friends, 
whom he loved for their loyalty and 
straightforward, no-bullshit way of liv- 
ing. The other cartels were the dickheads. 
Worst of all were Los Zetas, a cartel from 
southern Mexico that was making a big 
push on Guadalajara and the north. They 
use a lot of poor people to do their shit, guys 
‘from the projects, Central American guys, guys 
who are willing to kill for nothing. Chapo ran 
the good cartel. He buys things for people and 
helps with public works projects and stuff. To 
this day, the Gringo always calls 


But the sane part of him, the part that 
wanted to live, started to live in fear. At 
one of the mountain parties, he saw a guy 
hit on one of the narco princesses and 
get dragged out into the night by two big 
guys, never to be seen again. At another 
Cuz was in the narco tent, chatting with 
a former MMA fighter, when the Gringo 
looked too long at his girlfriend and made 
ajoke about his fighting skills. Are you chal- 
lenging me? the MMA fighter asked. The 
tension lasted all through the long night. 
And Rigo's house kept getting crazier. 
One guy named Manuel was so out of con- 
trol they'd put Xanax in his drink to calm 
him down. One time he opened the refrig- 
erator and pissed in one of the drawers, 
so they beat him up and threw him in the 
street. An hour later he came stumbling 
back. Rigo said, I’m sorry I hit you, but you 
can't piss in the fridge. 

Manuel looked confused. / pissed in the 
fridge? 

By the night the mirror came crashing 
down, when Rigo roared his war cry and 
the Gringo made his decision to take the 
gun, all this seemed almost normal. They 
prepared for the gunfight by doing coke 
and listening to heavy metal for 10 hours. 
That made perfect sense too. When they 
finally got to the projects, it was three in 
the morning and the Gringo was so wired 
he pissed on a gang sign and shouted, Come 
out, motherfuckers. We're here. 

The coke dealer appeared with 10 bud- 
dies. They fanned out behind him as Rigo 
walked up to the guy, his nine in his back 
pocket. The Gringo moved his hand over 
his piece, ready to draw. 

For a long moment life and death hung 
in the balance. 

Finally the dealer stepped forward and 
held out his right hand. I’m so sorry, he said. 

Не had discovered who Rigo's uncle 
was, and he was scared to the point of shak- 
ing. That’s when the Gringo finally had a 
flash of sanity. What the fuck am I doing here? 
How did I get into this? But it passed quickly 
as they left in triumph, Rigo and Demente 
laughing at the crazy Gringo pissing on the 
gang sign. El Gringo es loco, said Demente— 


MAGNUM BLOOD-FLOW 


SEXUAL PEAK 
PERFORMANCE 


MAGNUM BLOOD-FLOW - 
SEXUAL PEAK PERFORMANCE 
FOR MEN 


SAVE 53 


MANUFACTURERS COUPON 


PLAYBOY 


120 


high praise from a guy whose nickname 
translates as “insane.” 

Asa reward for his service, Rigo revealed 
his real last name. From now on, bro, you are 
‘family. “La Flama Blanca” was no longer 
enough. The crazy white boy from Port- 
land deserved a new name: El Gringo Loco. 


All that summer, protected by Rigo's name, 
El Gringo Loco worked a circuit of three 
beach towns—Manzanillo, Puerto Val- 
larta and Sayulita. By now he was paying 
$4 a pill and selling them for $25 each. He 
quit drinking and cut back on X and even 
looked into a job selling time-shares at in- 
flated prices but decided it was too dishon- 
est. You get a pill from me and it’s a good pill 
and you pay the same price everyone is paying. 
Taking money from people in a fraud, I couldn't 
fucking do it. 

That's the paradox he still can't get over. 
In Portland he might have done it. But in 
this world where violence settled disputes, 
the Bob Dylan rule applied: To live outside 
the law you must be honest. 

But the paranoia got worse. At night his 
mind would go to the worst thoughts— 
torture, death, dismemberment, dishonor. 
One night in Sayulita he was selling in a bar 
and a guy with a pit bull took him into a back 
room, where a group of men were waiting 
for him. The boss pointed a finger at him 
and pulled an imaginary trigger. You need to 
leave—you need to leave now. Another night 
in Puerto Vallarta a Zeta chieftain cornered 
him in a restaurant. / know where your fucking 
pills come from, man. You shouldn't be working 
here. This is past your border. Another night he 
was at a party, and Roberto announced, This 
is the boss from the dragonflies. This is the dis- 
tributor. He was pointing at the Gringo. The 
problem was, dragonflies were a superior 
brand of X controlled by another cartel. The 
Gringo wasn't supposed to be selling them. 

Shut the fuck i he told Roberto. You're 
going to gel me killed. 


Roberto gave him the cold eye. You're 
lucky you're my friend. 

The beautiful girl who gave blow jobs for 
X was no consolation. To get his mind off his 
troubles the Gringo started to write poetry. 
I need to get the crazy out of my life, he thought. 

Instead, he moved back into Rigo's 
house for the three craziest months of his 
life, partying his way into narco legend. 


In November it all came crashing down. 
Cuz sent him to Mexico City with 10 kilos of 
weed and he came back with 50,000 pesos 
in his pocket, and no sooner did he arrive 
back at Rigo's house than he ran into a pha- 
lanx of cops. Hey, gringo, we need to see ID. 

A year had passed since he started the 
narco life. The cops searched him and 
found the money. What the fuck is this? He 
put on an innocent face. That's my rent. The 
cops searched further and found an X. 
What the fuck is this? He said, Guys, these aren't 
my jeans. They cuffed him and put him in 
the car. From the backseat he tried to make 
a deal. Take half the money and we call it a day. 

No deal. 

Still afraid to give his real name, he pre- 
tended to be German and demanded a 
translator. That pissed the cops off so much, 
they sent him to one of the most notorious 
prisons in Mexico, Puente Grande. On the 
bus another prisoner warned him, Gringo, 
you better get ready. These guys don't play. 

Walking in, he was shaking inside. They 
put him in a tiny cell with six other men. 
The showers didn't work; you had to pay 
for your food, phone calls, weed—that's all 
they did in prison, smoke weed. He found 
his way to a neutral area called Beverly 
Hills and made friends with some cholos, 
who saved his ass when he got into a fight 
with another narco. Finally Rigo called his 
mom, and his mom found Cuz on Facebook 
and they hired a lawyer, who got him trans- 
ferred to an immigration prison to wait for 
his papers. It took 17 days. One day a guy 


“T hate to tell you this, but you’ve got a peanut allergy.” 


from Honduras brought up the Zetas, and 
El Gringo Loco couldn't help repeating the 
Sinaloa line: Their own mothers don't love them. 
Yo soy los Zetas, the Honduran said. After 
a tense moment, the Gringo twisted his face 
into one of his goofy expressions and cracked 
a joke. Oh, but I don't know any from Honduras. 
Laughter saved him once again. The 
next day he was ona plane back to Portland. 


Now he’s going back to Mexico. It has been 
10 weeks since he was deported, and he's 
already sick of his cubicle job. He’s sitting 
in his mother's elegant suburban house, 
skimming the internet for news about 
Guadalajara, where a cartel prince called 
El Changel just got wounded in a gun 
battle with police, unleashing violence all 
over western Mexico. Still, he thinks it’s a 
fine time to slip back down for one more 
taste of the narco life. The complication is, 
he's bringing a reporter who looks alarm- 
ingly like a DEA agent—me. Hopefully his 
friends won't think he got turned in prison, 

The night before he leaves he sends me 
this message: 

1 feel nervous, good and excited, mostly ner- 
vous. I mean, I trust my people, but these are 
killers—if I was not nervous then I suppose I 
would need to check my pulse. I did not sleep 
well last night, I have to get my war face on. In 
the end I am a soldier and I have trained my- 
self for this. I have said good-bye to my friends, 
and if I go then it has been a hell of a ride. I 
get to go from being a normal white guy who 
works a nine-to-five and stands in line at the 
grocery store to a man who is feared, respected 
and loved. I look forward to it with an absurd 
amount of excitement, In the end I would rather 
die on my feet than live on my knees. 

After his plane lands, the Gringo meets 
me in a hotel lobby. / can't believe I'm back 
here, he says. It’s definitely not a world I want 
to come back to. 

But he's going to go see Cuz tonight to get 
some acid and X and do a few little deals. 
And Rigo is coming over in a few minutes— 
in fact, there he is now, just as the Gringo 
described him, a skinny, good-looking guy 
who looks about 25, if 25 were as sad as 70. 
He's tweaked out on something, fanning 
his neck and impatient to go see a hostess 
who used to be a narco wife—yes, she has a 
gold watch. A nice one, the Gringo says. 

Rigo doesn't care. He's supposed to meet 
her in eight minutes. No, seven minutes. And 
man, what an ass she has. She's siting on it. 

They drain their beers and go. 

The scariest part is the anticipation of 
meeting Cuz for the first time. The car- 
tels really don't like journalists—according 
to the Committee to Protect Journalists, 
they've beheaded, tortured and shot at 
least 45 of them in the past seven years. 
Many more have disappeared. 


The next afternoon the Gringo takes me 
to Rigo's house. This too is just as he de- 
scribed it, a two-story place on a pretty, 
tree-lined street. Inside it's just raw walls 
and a couple of sofas around a glass coffee 
table, some weights against a wall, a brown 
lawn out back. Rigo points out a big hole 


where a friend shot the wall. The doors 
have all been kicked in; not a single one 
closes properly. Out back they show off the 
bullet holes in the trees. 

Odd as it may be, Rigo really does seem 
like a sweet guy, eager to like and be liked. 
Maybe that’s why he starts telling his back- 
story, his teen years cleaning meth and the 
lessons his father taught him: It’s better to 
have a gun and not use it than to need a gun 
and not have it, for example. Each story has 
sub-stories and punch lines to illustrate 
the ridiculous glory of narco life. Over 
and over he insists the narcos are good 
people and kill only people who need to be 
killed—except the Zetas, of course. 

When we part that night, Rigo pushes a 
button on his dashboard and then another 
button to release a secret compartment— 
in some narco cars you have to tune the 
radio to a certain station before you push 
the buttons. Inside is a space that spans the 
width of the car, big enough for 40 kilos. 
He takes out a bag of X and hands it to the 
Gringo—to El Gringo Loco. 


Saturday, Rigo and the Gringo head 
downtown for some six-peso tacos. Rigo's 
already on his second or third beer of the 
day. Every few minutes he spots some hot 
girl. Look at that ass. She's sitting on it! Walk- 
ing toward the city’s big open-air market, 
they stop for Cuban cigars and some gifts 
for the Gringo's nieces. At the taco stand 
Rigo brings up the guy who shot his cous- 
in. We killed his whole family, just walked into 
the house and started shooting. 

In the same detached voice, he says he 
killed one of them from about as far away 
as those poles across the street. It’s not like 
the movies. You pull the trigger and he falls 
down. There's no blood. 

How does he carry that around? No prob- 
lem, he answers. I had nightmares for a couple 
of weeks, but they were about my cousin dying 
alone in the street. I don't have any remorse. 

Cuz calls and the Gringo is already 
laughing by the time he picks up the 
phone. They make plans to meet at a steak- 
house so he can introduce me. Before the 
Gringo hangs up, he asks, Do you have any 
wash? Meaning lavada, the double-washed 
strawberry cocaine of the narcos. Great, 
bring me some. Yeah, I got the money. 

A few more hours, a few more beers, and 
it's time to meet the boss. At the steakhouse 
they get a table in the back and shoot the shit 
until he shows up—a big guy with a small 
forehead and a Fred Flintstone jaw dark- 
ened by a five-o'clock shadow. His girlfriend 
is a green-eyed beauty with major cleavage 
and skintight leatherette pants. After some 
teasing about Cuz's Polish soccer jersey—I 
just bought it to go with ту shoes; I didn't even look 
at the logo—the Gringo asks if he brought the 
wash. Cuz hands over a little plastic bag filled 
with white powder, and the Gringo turns 
aside to take a quick snort off the tip of Rigo's 
ignition key. Nobody saw me, did they? Cuz says, 
Yes, they saw you. He thinks it’s funny. 

After lunch we walk out of the restaurant 
with beers in our hands. A waitress stops 
us, so we chug down in the doorway and 
head for the car. Another bump off the 


ignition key for everyone and were off, 
following Cuz's black SUV—leaving the 
safety of a public place, putting our lives 
in his hands. Adrenaline mixes with the co- 
caine, and every nerve is thrumming with a 
heightened sense of being alive. There’s the 
club where I shot off the gun, Rigo says. There's 
the doorway where my cousin got killed. 

Cuz leads us to a house in a suburban 
neighborhood with a pool and a bunch of 
attractive people drinking, an oddly domes- 
tic scene with a little kid running around 
the pool and five narcos huddling across 
the yard. There's a mountain party tonight, 
and they're partying here until it starts. The 
narcos slip outside to smoke a little dope, 
slip into the bathroom to snort the lavada. 
Cuz wants everyone to stay cool so they can 
make it to the mountain party tonight. 

Standing behind his boss, the Gringo 
shakes his head—Please, God, no. Cuz al- 
ways wants to hang out in the narco tent, 
and you're stuck out there in the middle 
of nowhere with all those guns—no thanks. 
But he doesn't say this to his boss. 

Cuz doesn’t take anything too seriously. 
His family is so rich, he says, that his older 
brother, the chosen one, is one of the five 
biggest landowners in Mexico. When Cuz's 


"In the end I am a soldier 
and I have trained myself for 
this," says El Gringo Loco. 
"I have said good-bye to my 
friends, and if I go then it 
has been a hell of a ride." 


father dies, he'll inherita fortune. So he keeps 
his business low-key, running the pill market 
in Guadalajara and on the coast. As long as he 
sticks to pills and avoids the cocaine and meth 
other families control, he's all right. 

And El Gringo Loco? Why him? Was 
it his white skin? His brains? His twisted 
sense of humor? 

He's my little brother, Cuz says. 


After a couple of hours the Gringo, brim- 
ming with relief, says good-bye. Bro-hugs 
all around, plus promises to stay relatively 
straight and rise at dawn for the second 
phase of the mountain party—Cuz is a 
hard guy to say no to. 

Now the real party begins. We head 
downtown to the club district, and man, is it 
hopping. The streets are jammed with sexy 
young women tottering by in high heels and 
short, tight skirts. Rigo leads the way into an 
American-style bar, and the shaggy young 
bartender spots the Gringo, comes around 
the bar to greet him with open arms. Where 
the fuck have you been? He gives them free 
beers and shots and after a while takes the 
Gringo into the bathroom to do a little deal. 
The Gringo loves the action, it is dear, loves 


being the American all the Mexicans want to 
see. He says he’s thinking of doing six months 
in the U.S. and six months down here. You 
should come down for spring break, Rigo says. 
Yeah, that's when the six months would start. 

There's a stubborn core deep in that 
skinny body of Rigo’s that just doesn’t give 
a shit about living. It's oddly endearing. 
He wants to get healthy and be good but 
deep down can't believe that he deserves 
it, so he protects and punishes himself with 
booze and drugs and lays his neck bare to 
the knife of existence—which is, when you 
think about it, pretty much how you’d want 
а man who has killed 15 people to feel. 

Outside, the Gringo sighs. You see how he is. 

Never mind. The night goes on. Another 
cerveza. Another snort. The true El Gringo 
Loco is coming out now, sliding free in the 
haze of intoxicants. On the great avenue of 
trees and fountains called Lopez Mateos 
there's a street party with a reggae band, 
and the crowd is like Times Square on New 
Year's Eve. One of Rigo's girls shows up— 
very pretty and sweet—and then it’s on to 
a rock club called Barramericano, where a 
good band is playing the Strokes note for 
note, then on to his uncle's club with the 
pretty girl driving. 

Here we are at one of the best clubs in 
Guadalajara. Do you want to go through the 
front door or the narco door? Rigo asks. 

The narco door, of course. It’s black 
steel with a little speakeasy barred window 
and opens wide for Rigo. Еуегуопе so 
happy to see him. Inside the club is huge 
and packed with beautiful women and 
sharp men and spinning lights and a sound 
system as fancy and expensive—Rigo says 
it cost a million bucks—as ones in the best 
clubs in New York. 

Ah, Mexico. El Gringo Loco is in his ele- 
ment now, hitting on the prettiest women. 
With his massive shoulders and goofy ani- 
mated face, he is the dancing bear, and you 
can't help but laugh when he shimmies into 
yet another gaggle of beautiful women. 
And now Rigo is hitting on a stunning little 
thing in a skintight micromini while his 
date waits at the table. Dude, you already got 
a hottie right there! He laughs. Yeah, but look 
at that ass. She's sitting on it! 

This goes on till five in the morning. 
Then Rigo takes his hottie home and drops 
another X. Good times, he says. 


Two days later El Gringo Loco flies back to 
Portland and his telemarketing cubicle. In 
the morning he writes this note: 

For now, I will try the "normal" life and see how 
it fits. I will try to laugh at the guy who talks shit to 
те at the club, listen to my boss belittle me in front of 
ту employees and remember this is not Mexico and 
I can't just call one of my friends to teach him his 
final lesson. The days of El Gringo Loco are done. 

Then, thinking again of Mexico, glori- 
ous tragic Mexico, where the women are 
beautiful and life is sweetened by the pres- 
ence of death, he adds a final line: 

But never say never... 


Names have been changed to protect the reporter. 


121 


PLAYBOY 


CANNIBAL 


(continued from page 68) 

Because when this school grades you on 
Participation they mean: Do you take your 
share of the social rejects? And when they 
grade you on Sportsmanship, they mean: 
Do you marginalize the differently abled? 
Because of that, the captain of the Red 
Team shouts, “We'll spot you 100 points.” 

Hearing that, the captain of the Blue 
‘Team shouts back, “We'll spot you a million.” 

Cannibal, he thinks he’s such a stud be- 
cause he’s just looking at his fingernails, 
smiling and just smelling his fingers, not 
even aware of how he’s holding everyone 
hostage. How this is the opposite of a slave 
auction. And everybody knows what he's 
thinking. Because of what Marcia Sanders 
told everybody. Because Cannibal is think- 
ing about a movie that’s chopped up in his 
head, some black-and-white movie he saw 
on cable TV where hard-boiled waitresses 
in olden times slung hash in some roadside 
diner. Because Cannibal's thinking how 
they popped their chewing gum, these 
waitresses. They smacked their chewing 
gum while they yelled, “Gimme slaughter 
on the pan and let the blood follow the 
knife.” They yelled, “Gimme an order of 
first lady with a side of nervous pudding.” 

You knew it was olden times because 
in diner talk two poached eggs on toast 
were “Adam and Eve on a raft.” And “first 
lady” meant an order of spareribs because 
of something from the Bible. An order of 
just “Eve with a lid on” meant apple pie be- 
cause of the story about the snake. Because 
nowadays nobody except Pat Robertson 
knew anything about the Garden of Eden. 
Around here, when the captain of the base- 
ball team talks about eating a fur burger 
he's talking about chowing down on a muff 
pie, and he’s really bragging about his 
tongue lapping at a blue waffle. 

Because girls have their own food too, 
like when they talked about Marcia Sanders 
having a bun in the oven, what they meant 
was she'd missed her red-letter day. 

Otherwise most of what he knew about 
sex Cannibal learned from the Playboy 
channel, where ladies never rode the cot- 
ton pony, so when kids whispered about 
gobbling a bearded clam or snacking on 
a meat muffin he knew it meant what the 
Bunnies do to the Playmates, the same way 
a rattlesnake flickers its tongue to smell 
something it plans to bite on Animal Planet. 

Because Cannibal had seen those Cen- 
terfolds. You know the ones, of an old 
Miss America drinking from the furry 
cup. Those dirty pictures of her being a 
confirmed clam digger, because it was just 
those two ladies without a single tube steak 
or bald-headed yogurt slinger standing 
there to make it a real marriage. Because 
that’s how girls do, sometimes, when their 
crotch cobbler needs gobbling. 

Because nobody ever explained oth- 
erwise, he was ready to go neck-deep in 
Marcia Sanders’s jelly hole. Because his 
dad, old Mr. Cannibal, only ever watched 
the Playboy channel, and Mrs. Cannibal 
only liked The 700 Club, so it wasn’t lost on 


122 their boy how sex stuff and Christian stuff 


looked the same. Because when you turn 
on cable TV, it never fails. When you tune 
in and see an almost-beautiful girl almost 
acting on a set that looks almost realistic, 
Cannibal knows that her story will end by 
her being touched by an angel. Either that 
or she'll get a heaping helping of hot baby 
gravy sliding down one side of her face. 

Because of that, Cannibal was already 
sporting a Spam javelin when Marcia 
Sanders looked at him in American Civics 
one day. No matter how he tries to hide it, 
his skin is polka dot with goose bumps, be- 
cause he'd been remembering that hard- 
boiled diner talk yelled through a little 
window. The same way Catholics lined up 
in church to talk dirty through their own 
little window. 

Because no matter how they called it, 
dirty talk made Cannibal drool. Those 
words picturing a whisker biscuit like those 
lunch-meat curtains kids talk about when 
they really mean a camel toe soufflé. 

In middle school when they grade you 
on Community Spirit, they mean: Do you 
cheer at pep rallies and football games? 
And when kids joke about Cannibal, 
they're talking about the one time when 
Marcia Sanders was a senior about to grad- 
uate. Because she was such a stone fox, 
she was the most popular and she was the 
head yell leader and because she was class 
president and because she was such a dish. 
Because she had nothing in fourth period 
she was the TA in American Civics, where 
she approached Cannibal, because he was 
still only in seventh grade and because she 
knew he'd never say no because he was so 
stoned on puberty. 

She's all, “You like my hair, don't you?" 
Her head rolls to swing her hair like a spa- 
ghetti cape, and she goes, "This is the lon- 
gest my hair's ever been. 

Тһе way she says this sounds dirty, be- 
cause everything sounds dirty when it 
comes out of a sexy girl's mouth. And be- 
cause Cannibal doesn't know any better, 
Cannibal agrees to rendezvous with Marcia 
Sanders at her house because Mr. and Mrs. 
Sanders are gone to the lake that weekend. 
She only asks him because she says her 
boyfriend, the team captain of every sport, 
won't put her on like a gas mask. This is 
her, here's her, she says this, Marcia Sand- 
ers, she says, "You really want to do me, 
kid?" And because Cannibal has no idea 
what she means, he says, "Yeah." 

Because then she says to come by her 
house after dark on Saturday and come to 
the kitchen door because she has a reputa- 
tion to uphold. And because Marcia Sand- 
ers says he can be her secret boyfriend, 
Cannibal doesn't think twice. 

Because at Jefferson Middle School 
when they grade you on Good Citizen- 
ship, they mean: Do you wash your hands 
after launching a corn canoe? Because half 
the time Cannibal doesn't know what he's 
thinking, he goes on Saturday night and 
Marcia Sanders folds the bedspread back 
on the king-size waterbed in her parents’ 
bedroom. She spreads two layers of bath 
towels across the waterbed and says to 
make sure his head goes in the middle of 
them. She says not to take off his clothes, 


but Cannibal figures that comes later be- 
cause she unzips her jeans and folds them 
over the back of a chair, and because he's 
looking at her panties so hard she says to 
shut his eyes. Because Cannibal only pre- 
tends not to peek he sees her kneel on the 
padded rail at the edge of the waterbed, 
and he can see why it's called a ham wal- 
let. After that he can't see jack because she 
slings one leg over his face and squats down 
until the room is nothing but fish taco blot- 
ting out everything except the underwater 
sound of Marcia Sanders's voice telling him 
what to do next. 

Cannibal finds himself sunk head-deep 
in waterbed with sloppy waterbed mattress 
squeezed up around his ears, hearing the 
lap of ocean waves. His body rocking from 
head to toe, hearing his heartbeat, hear- 
ing somebody's heartbeat. Because Marcia 
Sanders, out of nowhere her voice tells 
him, “Suck, already, you stupid dummy,” 
Cannibal sucks. 

Because she says, “Let's get this over with,” 
he sucks like giving her insides a big hickey. 

Cannibal can’t put up a fight because 
when kids say his legs are thick as tree 
trunks, they're talking about willow trees. 
And when The 700 Club talks about delight- 
ful, inspiring life stories, this ain’t that be- 
cause the harder Cannibal sucks the harder 
it gets because the suction is sucking back. 
Because he's battling her wet insides in this 
tug-of-war over nothing. 

Cannibal is wearing Marcia Sanders like a 
gas mask, sucking on her like she’s a snake- 
bite, with her thighs so ear-muffed tight to 
the sides of his head he can't hear why she's 
screaming. Because on the Playboy chan- 
nel, screaming is what you strive for. Can- 
nibal's freaked out because a blue waffle on 
cable only smells like whatever your mom's 
cooking upstairs. Because a ham wallet on 
television never fights back, Cannibal sucks 
the way a tornado on the Weather Channel 
will bust one window and turn your entire 
house inside out. 

Because Cannibal’s never eaten a muff 
pie, he thinks the waterbed’s sprung a leak 
because he hears a pop inside his head. It’s 
like your ears pop when you ride a fast el- 
evator to the top of the Sears Tower. Like 
when you snap your chewing gum or bite 
down on a ripe cherry tomato. 

He figures the mattress is popped be- 
cause what happens next is he’s coughing 
water that tastes like tears. Because it's gal- 
lons, like Tammy Faye Bakker's cried a 
hundred years inside his mouth, and be- 
cause Cannibal's never chowed down on a 
blue waffle the next thing he knows is that 
he’s killed her because it’s her insides gush- 
ing down his throat. Because she’s holler- 
ing like a truck-stop diner. All this happens 
in not even two heartbeats, but because 
he’s watched the Playboy channel the next 
thing Cannibal knows is that he’s made 
her gush buckets of lady soup straight into 
his gullet. Because he’s seen those videos 
where ladies geyser from jerking off, big 
spumes like Animal Planet whales spouting 
or those fire boats hosing down the Statue 
of Liberty during a Bicentennial Moment. 
Because he’s seen their big sprays of lady 
gravy soaking into the orange-cheese- 


colored shag carpeting they always have in 
Playboy movies, Cannibal knows enough 
about lady juice not to spit it out, because 
the worst way to insult somebody is not to 
swallow what she’s serving up. 

Because his only experience with lady 
sauce is from cable TV, Cannibal doesn’t 
realize there's a chunk of something solid 
mixed in. Not right away. Because bump- 
ing between his tongue and the roof of 
his mouth, right now, is this salt-flavored 
jelly bean. It's а kidney bean that tastes like 
the water in a jar of pickles. It’s knocking 
around like the last green olive in a jar of 
boiling-hot olive water. And because it's so 
small Cannibal just gulps it down. 

Because half the time Cannibal doesn't 
know what he's thinking, he says, “You did it." 

Marcia Sanders is fishing a fresh cot- 
ton pony out from her purse and goes, 
“I swear to you I didn't know." She never 
even takes off her top, and already she's 
zipping up her jeans. 

And Cannibal goes, “I made you come.” 

She opens her mouth but doesn't say 
anything because then the doorbell rings, 
and it’s her real boyfriend. 

Because Cannibal makes Marcia Sanders 
geyser so hard she has to take a Tylenol and 
strap on a pussy plug, Cannibal knows he’s 
a stud. Because Marcia Sanders must brag 
to Linda Reynolds because Linda Reynolds 
sidles up next to him outside the chemistry 
modules and asks if he can be her secret 
boyfriend too. Because Cannibal gobbles 
meat muffin so good Patty Watson wants 
a piece of his action because he makes ev- 
ery fur burger spout heaping helpings of 
special sauce. Because the quickest way to a 
woman's heart is through a man's stomach. 

Because how far would a high schooler 
go to get back the rest of her life? And be- 
cause Cannibal is giving everybody anoth- 
er shot at being virgins. He's everybody's 
dirty little secret, except he's not so secret. 
Because he's not so little, not anymore. Be- 
cause Cannibal's getting fat on the mistakes 
high schoolers make, it's Marcia Sanders 
who says they have to shut him up. Linda 
Reynolds campaigns to meet Cannibal 
out behind the Vocational Building with 
a swift tire iron to the head some Friday 
night because Cannibal's strutting around, 
too smart for his own good but too dumb 
to know he's total evil. Because now when 
Cannibal belches, it's your poor choice he's 
tasting. And when Cannibal farts that's the 
smell of your parents' dead grandbaby. 

Because if you believe Pat Robertson, 
The 700 Club says that Jesus, one time, bade 
a legion of unclean spirits leave an afflicted 
man, and those demons went into a herd 
of swine. Because then those swine had to 
throw themselves off a cliff into the Sea of 
Galilee, that’s how come Cannibal has to 
die. It's the only decent path to take. 

Because even the priests who eat sins 
through the kitchen window at Catholic 
church, when they're filled full even they 
need to be destroyed. That's why a scape- 
goat goes to slaughter. Because if you be- 
lieve in evolution the world is just everybody 
prancing down a yellow-brick road in Tech- 
nicolor singing, “Because, because, because, 
because, because....” When the real truth 


is in the Old Testament, where the seven 
tribes wander around, lost, always saying, 
“Begat, begat, begat, begat, begat.. 

Because the upside is that maybe Can- 
nibal will go to heaven since except for his 
mouth he's still a virgin. 

Because at this school no matter who 
the team captains pick now it's always not 
Cannibal, who personifies that thing that 
eventually comes for us all so we say, "Give 
us seat belts and give us pap smears and 
we'll take poverty and we'll take old age, 
just don't let Cannibal come stand next to 
us. Don't let Cannibal’s shadow fall over 
our house." 

Choosing sides, the captain of the 
Red Team says, "We'll give you our best 
pitcher..." 

And we'll take the kid who picks his 
nose and eats it. And we'll take the kid who 
smells like piss. We'll take the leper and the 


left-handed Satanist and the HIV-infected 
hemophiliac and the hermaphrodite and 
the pedophile. We'll take drug addiction 
and we'll take JPEGs of the world instead. 
of the world, MP3s instead of music, and 
we'll trade real life for sitting at a keyboard. 
We'll spot you happiness and we'll spot you 
humanity, and we'll sacrifice mercy just so 
long as you keep Cannibal at bay. 

Because Marcia Sanders doesn’t begat 
anything, her real boyfriend graduates and 
gets to go to Michigan State for an account- 
ing degree, because of all this Patty Watson 
makes a date to meet Cannibal on Friday 
night behind the Vocational Building and 
Linda Reynolds says she'll get a crowbar. 
And they all agree to wear latex gloves. 

Because maybe they can all go back to 
playing games once Cannibal’s gone. 


“ have to practice someplace when the club’s closed.” 


123 


PLAYBOY 


SALE OF THE CENTURY 


(continued from page 74) 
over the past decade. For everything we 
hear about the bad loans that Wall Street- 
ers peddled, this one horny young con artist 
in Florida had them beat. “I’m going on 20 
years as a federal public defender,” said his 
attorney Mildred Dunn, “and I don’t know 
that Гуе ever seen anyone quite as imagi- 
native as him.” 

Despite Cox's ingenuity, this globe- 
trotting fugitive failed to take one thing into 
account: that he would end up in prison. 
That’s where I found him one sweltering 
afternoon last summer, sitting in a bare con- 
crete courtyard at the federal correctional 
institution in Coleman, Florida. A short, 
clean-cut 43-year-old with spiky brown hair, 
green eyes and a graying soul patch, Cox 
stood out from the tattooed prisoners mill- 
ing nearby. “It’s depressing,” he told me as 
he glanced furtively around. “This is not a 
good environment.” 

For the next 21 years, however, it’s his, 
and I had come to get the first full account 
of his inside story. How did a dyslexic kid 
from Florida become one of the greatest 
swindlers of our time? 

If you ask Cox, he'll give you two answers. 
Told by his father that he'd never amount to 
anything, he had an insatiable need to prove 
himself. And as he discovered, he had just 
the power he needed to do so: an ability to 
look at a system and artfully exploit its flaws. 
As he told me, “I see something, and I just 
see the holes in it.” 


Cox first saw holes every time he picked 
up a book. Dyslexic, he hated the fact that 
he couldn't read like other kids. To make 
matters worse, he was put in a special pro- 
gram where some of his classmates had 
Down syndrome, which compounded his 
insecurities. A teacher told him he'd never 
graduate from high school. “That almost 
made him more determined,” recalled his 
mother, Margaret. 

Ashamed of his condition, Cox became an 
expert actor. To avoid the embarrassment 
of not being able to read a menu quickly, 
he realized he could just order chicken all 
the time and go unnoticed. It was a key 
insight for the future con artist. “You come 
up with ways around things,” he recalled. 
“It’s diversion.” Cox's dad, an insurance 
agency manager and alcoholic, was less than 
sympathetic, “You grow up being called a 
loser and ‘you stupid пота,” Cox told 
me with a grimace. “The only way to fix all 
your problems is with money.” 

Despite his troubles, Cox grew to be 
charming and ambitious, a people pleaser 
with a taste for fast cars, sexy women and 
fine art. To compensate for his diminutive 
frame, he began obsessively working out. 
He also taught himself to paint. Although he 
graduated summa cum laude from the fine 
arts program at the University of South Flor- 
ida, his dad told him the best he’d do was 
to become a caricaturist at Disney World. 

Determined to prove his father wrong, 
Cox set out to look for a future. His girl- 


124 friend, who worked in the mortgage 


industry, suggested he take a job as a broker. 
Despite the recent dot-com crash on Wall 
Street, a housing bubble was beginning to 
grow— particularly in Florida, where aging 
boomers were eager to retire. Cox saw 
an opportunity to join the 28,000 other 
people in the state with mortgage-broker 
licenses. He got a job and a cubicle in a 
mortgage-brokerage office. 

Though a natural salesman, he couldn’t 
earn enough to maintain his increasingly 
expensive lifestyle. With credit card bills 
going unpaid, he fell into debt, warding 
off repo men and foreclosure—and facing 
the crushing reality that he'd have to move 
in with his parents. 

Then his fortune changed. Cox had a 
sizable deal that wasn't closing. His client 
had been late on her rent. Now she wanted 
to buy a place, but banks were wary. His 
boss offered a solution: Take a bottle of 
Wite-Out and doctor the application so it 
looked as though the rent payments had 
been made on time. Cox had never done 
anything criminal before, but he felt desper- 
ate enough to dab Wite-Out on the page. 
“That decision changed the course of my 
entire life,” he later recalled. 

When the tweaked application closed 
without a problem, Cox became a con 
artist—in the truest sense of the word. With 
his steady hand and eagle eye, he discovered 
his fine-art training made him an expert 
forger. He began to meticulously craft bogus 
documents he needed to close a loan: W-2 
statements, pay stubs and canceled checks. 
He even figured out how to make his own 
notary stamp. 

Before long Cox left his job and opened 
his own company to cash in on his skills. 
He had reason to be inspired. By 2002 
America’s real estate market was, as The 
Washington Post put it, “roaring.” To beef 
up the economy, mortgage rates dropped 
to their lowest in 30 years, fueling a wave of 
home purchases and refinancing. Although 
some had concerns about an overextended 
bubble, Federal Reserve chairman Alan 
Greenspan told Congress not to worry, 
attributing the boom to the “demand of low 
mortgage rates, immigration and shortages 
of buildable land.” 

But the boom, as Cox knew, was also 
sparked by scams like his own. Remark- 
ably, Cox later recalled, his forgeries were 
“caught all the time” by various underwrit- 
ers and banks. But, he said, despite people 
making vague threats to report him to the 
FBI, no one ever did. Everyone was making 
money, so why fuss? 


Cox soon realized there was a way to make 
even more cash. Instead of doctoring appli- 
cations of real people to get them loans, 
why not make up fake identities and use 
them to take out loans for himself—loans 
he would never pay back? 

Using his access to home loan applications, 
Cox stole Social Security numbers—even 
from toddlers—and then created false 
identities to go along with them. He got 
so brazen that he named some of his ficti- 
tious people after colors, 
of his favorite crime movies, Reservoir Dogs. 


“I thought I was being clever, but it was 
obnoxious,” he recalled. He was also pen- 
ning his own loosely autobiographical novel, 
The Associates, about a mortgage-fraud con. 

But Cox couldn't outrun his scams for- 
ever. Eventually one of his counterfeit 
canceled checks caught up with him, and 
he pleaded guilty in 2002 to one count of 
conspiracy to commit wire fraud. The plea 
only emboldened him. The sentence, he 
marveled, was remarkably light: a $1,000 
fine, 42 months of probation and the loss 
of his mortgage license (which he had never 
needed to pull off his dirty work anyway). 

His crimes continued unabated as he 
picked up new counterfeiting tricks, such 
as using sandpaper and an X-Acto knife 
to create fake driver's licenses. Soon Cox 
devised an even bigger plan: inflating the 
value of homes he bought in bad areas 
so he could refinance them and pull out 
heaps of cash. With the help of allies in the 
industry, Cox refined a system. He'd buy 
a crappy house and have his accomplices 
create inflated warranty deeds. Then other 
aides would refinance the homes so Cox 
could make a fortune. 

Housing prices in Florida were heading 
for an astonishing 56 percent increase com- 
pared with five years prior. The Department 
of Commerce soon reported that new-home 
construction had hit its highest point since 
the mid-1980s. With money flowing in, Cox 
became a party-hopping playboy known 
around town for rolling up in his silver Audi 
ТТ Quattro and charming women and wan- 
nabe brokers alike. Kevin Stuteville, one of 
his early employees, found him to be "a 
very personable smooth talker. He makes 
an impression quickly." 

Business continued to grow, and Cox 
maintained laser-sharp focus to stay on 
top of all his scams. Still, he needed help 
staying organized and found just the right 
office assistant in a pretty blonde named 
Alison Arnold. A young mom with a New 
Age streak, Arnold had her work cut out for 
her. "Nothing was organized," she recalled. 
Cox sensed something in Arnold that was 
"sweet and innocent," he told me, liken- 
ing her to “a babe in the woods." To keep 
her onboard, Cox paid for her apartment 
and showered her with compliments. “No 
one ever believed in you like I believe in 
you," he'd say. 

He took Arnold to his stylishly furnished 
apartment, which seemed to her more like 
an elaborate lair out of a crime movie. "He 
always had a dark side,” she recalled. “He's 
like Batman." There was a back exit in case 
he had to flee and a picture frame on a wall 
that gave way to a secret room. "This is 
where I'm going to hide," he told her. Her 
suspicions were confirmed when he con- 
fessed that the "investors" in his properties 
were a ploy to acquire more properties. "My 
investors are me," he said. "They're ficti- 
tious, aliases, characters." 

He was still ripping off identities from 
real people too. Cox had stolen the iden- 
tity of a woman, Rosita Perez, and wanted 
Arnold to start withdrawing funds from 
bank accounts he'd opened in Perez's name. 
Arnold claimed she wanted to back out, but 
Cox leveraged her apartment to make her 


comply. “You owe me,” he told her. Ner- 
vous but with a son to support and hungry 
for money, Arnold dyed her hair brown, 
donned glasses and a baseball cap and tried 
to pass herself off as Latina. As she walked 
into the bank, she recalled, “I felt like my 
life was a movie.” 

But the movie was quickly turning dark. 
When the bank clerk told Arnold she'd have 
to wait a few days to withdraw her funds, 
she panicked and quit working with Cox. 
It was good timing. A task force out of 
Tampa was on his trail, sending hundreds 
of subpoenas around town and estimating 
that he had inflated the value of more than 
100 properties, equaling millions of dollars 
in fraud. It was, as one investigator put it, 
“one of the largest, most flagrant displays of 
public-records and banking manipulation 
we've ever seen.” 

When Cox got word that the local paper 
was preparing an exposé on him, he felt his 
throat constrict. Rather than face going to 
what he called “the federal rape factory,” he 
devised another plan: assume a new identity 
for real—and run. 


“Free home loan applications, 100 percent 
financing available, good credit/bad credit, 
no problem." This ad in a Tampa Bay flyer 
seemed too good to be true, but so did the 
real estate market. By 2004 housing prices 
in nearly half of America's major metropoli- 
tan areas were showing double-digit annual 
increases, a record achievement. And six of 
the 10 areas posting the biggest gains— 
increases of more than 25 percent —were 
in Florida. 

Eager home buyers who answered the 
flyer ad, however, weren't being patched 
through to a legitimate broker. They were 
talking with a fugitive. With $83,000 in 
cash in his pocket, Cox had fled Florida 
for Atlanta, on a mission not just to evade 
the law but to find a permanent identity he 
could hide behind. Using his ad as a front, 
he was conning callers into turning over all 
their personal information. 

Meanwhile, lying in bed beside him was 
a new sidekick, a sexy and rambunctious 
blonde named Rebecca Hauck. Cox had met 
Hauck, a single mother who had recently 
relocated from Las Vegas, on a dating site, 
and the affair was passionate and intense. 
Cox told her of his crimes and his need to 
escape Tampa, but she didn't care. She sent 
her young boy to live with relatives so she 
could be the Bonnie to Cox's Clyde. 

They were soon traversing the South, 
stealing identities, opening fake accounts 
and scamming hundreds of thousands of 
dollars from mortgage lenders and credit 
card companies. They blew the cash on 
designer bags, laptops, Rolexes and plas- 
tic surgery for Hauck. There was so much 
cash around they had to hide it in air- 
conditioning vents and in their freezer. 
But the feds had recently raided his office 
in Tampa, and Cox was buckling under the 
stress of life on the run. He was numbing 
himself with Xanax, trying to dull the pain of 
disappearing from his family without a trace. 

‘Jacked on sex, money and drugs, Cox was 
on the prowl for a lucrative pool of victims: 


the homeless. Stealing an identity always 
involved the risk that the real person would 
track him down, but, Cox realized, peo- 
ple on the streets rarely had the means. 
Pretending to be a survey taker for the Sal- 
vation Army, Cox would pay a homeless 
person $20 to answer a series of questions: 
where he was from, his mother's maiden 
name, his Social Security number and so 
on—the details Cox needed to take out 
credit cards and loans. 

On a trip to Vegas, he pried the details 
from a male prostitute, Gary Sullivan. Cox 
drove off with a new identity and a grin on 
his face. “You know,” he told Hauck, “the 
homeless are widely underutilized.” 


One day Cox took a long look in the mirror. 
He barely recognized himself. His nose was 
thinner, his hair thicker, his teeth whiter. 
Even his man-boobs—“bitch tits,” he called 
them—were gone. That's what $27,000 in 
cosmetic surgery, hair grafts and dental 
work had gotten him. The physical changes 
weren't just for his ego. They were for his 
survival. By now Cox was at the top of the 
Secret Service list, and wanted posters of 
him and Hauck hung in more than a thou- 
sand banks and real estate companies in 
several states. 

With a new face and a new identity, 
complete with forged documents for Gary 
Sullivan—his birth certificate, state ID, even 
а new Social Security card—Cox was eager 
to fatten his wallet. He opened up several 
bank accounts, enough that he could easily 
fill with a couple of million in home-equity 
loans. He gobbled up homes at full price 
using owner financing (a system by which 
the buyer finances the home through the 
seller rather than a bank, taking possession 
of the property while paying the seller off 
in monthly installments). Then he could 
take out mortgages against the homes. For 
just a $12,500 down payment he could 


borrow more than $500,000 against a home. 

His victims never knew what hit them, 
especially not Dr. Bruce Brown, an ophthal- 
mologist who was on active duty in the Army, 
and his wife, Bridget. The couple badly 
needed to sell their house in Columbia, 
South Carolina. Their baby boy was born 
with a birth defect that had required 50 sur- 
geries so far, To make matters worse, they 
were eager to move to Georgia for a new job 
and were unable to find a buyer for their 
home. Their real estate agent suggested they 
consider owner financing—and there was 
Gary Sullivan, ready to do the deal. 

At the closing Sullivan seemed nice 
enough, though, as Brown later put it, “a 
little cheesy.” He also seemed to have “a 
little inferiority complex,” Brown recalled. 
“He said he had to be good in one area to 
make up for being short." But Sullivan's 
$20,000 deposit went through without 
a hitch, and he gave the Browns a year's 
worth of payments in the form of postdated 
checks. Using Sullivan's identity, Cox took 
possession of the home and immediately 
refinanced, pulling out cash. Brown came 
back from a trip to Disney World and found 
a message from a Secret Service agent on his 
answering machine. "I thought it was some- 
one at work playing a prank," he recalled. It 
wasn't, and as the Browns painfully learned, 
they'd fallen victim to Cox's ruse. 

In a daze, the Browns went to the house 
they'd sold Cox, and what they found was 
chilling. It looked like a model home that 
had been staged, since of course Cox didn't 
actually live there as he'd claimed. There 
was some spare furniture. Upstairs, they 
found a bed made with a comforter and pil- 
lows, but when they pulled back the blanket 
there were no sheets underneath. The bath- 
room contained clothes and toiletries, as ifa 
woman lived there, but the Browns noticed 
the clothes still had price tags on them. 

By early 2005 Cox's relationship with 
Hauck had become volatile, and one 


"Hey! None of that till happy hour!” 


125 


PLAYBOY 


morning after an argument he walked 
out for good—just as she was threatening 
to call the cops on him. The investigators 
were already close on Cox's trail, however. 
To help legitimize his fake identities, he also 
created fake voice-mail systems for his fake 
employers—just in case anyone checked his 
references. But now when he dialed the voice 
mail, Cox heard a message from the Secret 
Service looking for one of his fake identities. 

Soon after, in Charlotte, North Caro- 
lina, Cox was buying coffee at a Starbucks 
when he noticed two employees of the 
nearby apartment complex where he 
lived. They were eying him so intently that 
Cox assumed he owed them rent. He was 
wrong. One began shouting, “Right here! 
Right here!” Cox turned to see two men in 
suits running toward him. He had always 
loved crime films, and now he was living 
the part for real, hopping in his car and 
flooring the gas pedal. 

He escaped this close call, but he wasn't in 
the clear. He was addicted to the scams, the 
adventures, the sprees—and the women. He 
soon fell for a new single mom he'd found 
online, Amanda Gardner, a pretty blonde 
who'd recently left the Army and had a 
young son. This time Cox refused to reveal 
his real name and instead passed himself off 
as the latest homeless person whose identity 
he'd stolen, Joseph Carter. 

Gardner didn't know Cox's real name 
or that he was a wanted criminal, but he 
was falling hard for her. Using the fake 
passport he'd created for himself, the two 
traveled to Italy and Greece, buying Cart- 
ier jewelry and Dolce & Gabbana clothing. 
Dreaming of a life with Gardner, Cox 
hatched a plan: As soon as he got $2.5 mil- 
lion in cash, they'd run off together. "I 
thought I'd get a chunk of money and 
leave the United States," he told me. "I 
was in love." 

He and Gardner found a new home in 
Nashville, and they met a sexy and fun- 
loving blonde computer saleswoman. Cox 
had had his share of sexual adventures, but 
he was soon living his biggest dream yet: 
à three-way relationship with two women. 
He began to suspect the blonde was falling 
harder for Gardner than for him, but he put 
it out of his mind—until one afternoon when 
he got an urgent call from Gardner. 

Gardner had just gotten off the phone 


with their friend, who was "acting really 
strange," she said. "She started telling me 
about how much I mean to her. I think she 
might have done something." 

On November 16, 2006 Cox felt as if he 
were in a movie again, but this time it was 
the inevitable ending. He heard squealing 
tires. Saw a black car pulling up. Another 
car blocking his way. The agents with their 
guns trained on him. The firm hands on his 
shoulder. His face slamming the pavement. 
But it was a face that, after all the plastic 
surgery, even the feds couldn't be sure they 
recognized. 

"You think it's him?" he heard one Secret 
Service agent ask another. 

“It’s him,” the agent replied. “Look at his 
eyes. It's him." 


Cox wasn't the only one crashing hard by 
2007. So was the overheated housing market 
he personified. After years of easy credit, the 
American economy finally buckled under 
the weight of all the bad and unpaid loans. 
The worst economic downturn since the 
Great Depression was soon upon us. 

Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac—which 
owned almost half the country's $12 trillion 
mortgage market—were collapsing. Nearly 10 
percent of mortgages were said to be either in 
default or in foreclosure by late 2008. As the 
ripple effect took down Wall Street stalwarts 
such as Lehman Brothers, the so-called global 
financial crisis became a reality, and the party, 
for Cox and everyone else who had lived high 
during the bubble, was over. 

When asked later about his capture, 
Cox said, "I was relieved briefly. I didn't 
realize how much stress I was under." 
He remained convinced that the blonde 
turned him in out of jealousy over Gard- 
ner. All his plans and ploys couldn't 
overcome something truly uncontrollable: 
a threesome gone bad. 

Facing 42 counts of fraud and more than 
400 years in prison, Cox copped a plea that 
got him a 26-year sentence and an order to 
pay almost $6 million in restitution. Authori- 
ties estimate he stole as much as $26 million. 
He wasn't the only one who went down. 
Both Hauck and Arnold have served time, 
and the two have since met and traded sto- 
ries about Cox. “He always had a fantasy of 
being wanted,” Arnold told me. “He found 


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it more exciting than living this boring life.” 

Cox has dealt with the boredom of prison 
by writing a memoir and teaching a real 
estate class to the prisoners in his plentiful 
spare time. He has been in demand outside 
the walls too. Denis Kelly, a former bank 
partner and the founder of ID Cuffs, an 
identity-theft protection service, has con- 
sulted with Cox to improve his product. “It’s 
surprising that we’re working together at 
all,” Kelly told me. “Here's the guy who was 
our nemesis for so long.” 

The Florida Mortgage Broker School, 
which administers required exams and 
education for industry hopefuls, has also 
worked with Cox to improve student train- 
ing. According to Jim Montrym, head of the 
school, Cox's insights were essential and the 
moral of his story remained clear: "That you 
can go to jail for 26 years when you pull 
this bullshit." 

But the *bullshit" is still being pulled by 
others, experts say. "As far as the scams I 
was running," Cox told me, "nothing has 
changed that could have stopped anything 
I did.” 

Before I left the prison, I broached the 
touchiest subject for Cox: his dad, who was 
suffering from Alzheimer’s and couldn't 
tell his side of the story. Cox glazed over 
as he recalled the day his father had come 
to visit him in prison. The two sat across 
from each other, awkwardly trying to con- 
nect over the din of vending machines and 
shuffling guards. 

Since his childhood, Cox had desperately 
craved love and respect from a man who 
never seemed able or inclined to give either. 
The son's memories of his father were of 
drunken nights and insults. But on this day, 
his father had surprised him. “The things 
you know how to do are incredible,” his dad 
had told him. “You lived an incredible life. 
I'm proud of you.” 

As Cox recalled this story, his eyes welled 
up and his shoulders slackened. These were 
the words from his father that he'd been 
waiting for his whole life. He just never 
expected it would take going to prison to 
hear them. 

“So how did you feel when he said this to 
you?" I asked. 

"Horrible," he said. 


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PLAYBOY 


ACCIDENTAL CAPITALIST 


(continued from page 106) 
we've never had such growth. People be- 
come conservative. They'll buy products 
that last a long time. We have loyal cus- 
tomers. We let them tell us how big we 
should be and what to make. We grew 
30 percent last year. This year we de- 
cided that’s too much and жете going 
to go for 15 percent. The truth is that ev- 
ery time we've done the right thing, it’s 
made us money.” 

On politics he again turned cranky 
and provocative. “The United States 
is too big to govern,” he said. “Califor- 
nia is the ninth-largest economy in the 
world. It should be its own country. We 
have a flawed Constitution. There isn’t 
an emerging country in the world that 
wants to copy our electoral process.” 

The panel opened to questions, and 
the subject turned to how Patagonia en- 
listed 50 of the world’s largest clothing 
companies (including Walmart, Levi's 
and Nike) to create the Sustainable Ap- 
parel Coalition, which is developing the 
Higg index—a rating system that will al- 
low buyers to compare products” envi- 
ronmental impact. 

“The index gives ammunition to the 
consumer,” Chouinard tells me later. 
“They can look at five pairs of jeans on a 
table, and if one is a two and the other a 
10, they'll be able to tell which was made 
more responsibly. I think the coalition 
is the most exciting thing we've done.” 


Chouinard was born in Maine to a 
tough, mechanically talented French 
Canadian father and an adventurous 
mother, and for his first seven years he 
spoke only French. In 1946 the family 
made a Grapes of Wrath-style trip in an 
old Chrysler to Burbank, California. 
Speaking no English and stuck with a 
girl’s name, he had a hard time in gram- 
mar school. He was an all-around ath- 
lete in high school but found what would 
become lifelong passions in the solitary 
sports of fishing, climbing and surfing. 
He is a small man—five-foot-four, 
about 140 pounds—and has a sense of 
humor about his size. When Yale asked 
him how they could improve the uni 
versity, “I told them to lower the uri- 
nals,” he says. “They are too high.” He 
is nevertheless a smooth and powerful 
athlete: nimble, quick and tenacious 
on the tennis court, able to turn small 
waves into long rides in the water, and 
strong, graceful and daring—at a level 
of difficulty that would make spiders 
sweat—as a rock climber (one of the 
most celebrated in the world). 
Chouinard began climbing on small 
rock piles around southern California 
and then moved on to hobo summers 
in Wyoming's Tetons, driving there in a 
1940 Ford he'd rebuilt in auto shop. One 
summer he and a friend ate cat food and 
slept in an old incinerator they'd cleaned 
out. “I can sleep anywhere,” Chouinard 


128 says. At 17 he fell in with a hard-climbing 


bunch of Yosemite beatniks who were 
using soft-metal pitons, the spikes from 
which safety ropes are hung, to make 
the first climbs of the great valley walls. 
Chouinard, an obsessive toolmaker, got 
busy ona better mousetrap. He bought a 
junkyard forge and anvil, installed them 
in his car and began making harder, re- 
usable pitons out of chrome molybde- 
num, a material that made it possible for 
climbers to remove the pitons from the 
cracks after climbing past them. Euro- 
pean pitons cost 20 cents each and had 
to be left in the rock. Chouinard’s hard- 
er spikes cost $1.50 but were reusable, 
and the enterprise began to pay for his 
climber's lifestyle. 

These were the glory days of Yosemite 
climbing. The great granite faces of El 
Capitan, Half Dome and others still stood 
unclimbed. “We didn’t know if these 
things could be summited or not,” says 
Chouinard, looking back on the most 
perilous of the early big-wall efforts. “We 
had to face the fear of the unknown. We 
just went for it.” He and the others rev- 
eled in the fact that climbing rocks that 
could kill you accomplished nothing. “It 
was the 1960s,” he says. “We climbed 


“The only fun is breaking the 
rules and making it work,” 
Chouinard says. “And since 

I own the company and have 

no stockholders, I can do 
what I want.” 


out of rebellion.” They called themselves 
“conquistadors of the useless.” 

One of his most famous first ascents 
pushed him to his absolute limit and left 
him hanging in a hammock 2,000 feet 
up on the sheer, blank face of El Cap, 
his fingers so swollen he couldn't tie a 
proper knot, out of food, out of water, 
hallucinating. The route was called the 
Salathé Wall, after a legendary Yosemite 
climber and blacksmith. 

Chouinard and climbing partner Tom 
Frost, carrying the minimum supplies 
they thought they'd need, spent nine 
days hammering, carving a way up— 
“becoming one with the rock in a way 
you don't get when you're up there for 
just a few hours or a few days,” he says. 
“You're hungry and freezing and it be- 
comes like you're in the mountain. I love 
the big walls for that.” 

About the hallucinations he says, 
“There are different ways to get there, 
that deep Zen moment, but they all take 
a lot of time and effort. I've experienced 
it in the shed, at the forge, the repetitive 
pounding out of pitons one after anoth- 
er, then throwing them in a barrel. After 
a while the barrel starts to glow.” 


The tin shed he’s talking about still 
stands among Patagonia’s other build- 
ings in Ventura. He and Frost rented it 
from a meatpacking company and incor- 
porated as the Great Pacific Iron Works. 
They expanded their catalog into soft 
goods, including rugby shirts, jackets 
and shorts, as well as the climbing hard- 
ware, and in 1972 incorporated as Pata- 
gonia. The first employees were a dozen 
climbing friends. 

Becoming a businessman has been a 
long struggle for Chouinard, who to this 
day calls businessmen “greaseballs” or 
“pasty-faced corpses in suits.” Working 
with money, he likes to say, is “getting 
doo-doo on your hands,” and Patagonia’s 
early success embarrassed him in a way. 

As Chouinard writes in his 2005 au- 
tobiography, Let My People Go Surfing, 
“The typical young Republican's dream 
of making more money than his parents, 
starting a company, growing it as fast as 
possible, taking it public and retiring to 
the golf courses of a leisure world has 
never appealed to me. My values are 
the result of living a life close to nature 
and being passionately involved in what 
some people would call risky sports. 
My wife, Malinda, and I and the other 
contrarian employees of Patagonia have 
taken lessons learned from these sports 
and our alternative lifestyle and applied 
them to running a company.” 

He takes great pride in being contrar- 
ian. “If I'd done all the things the busi- 
ness people have told me to do, I’d have 
gone out of business a long time ago,” he 
says. “The only fun is breaking the rules 
and making it work. And since I own the 
company and have no stockholders, I 
can do what I want.” 

In fact, there was a moment about 20 
years after he started the company when 
its runaway success came perilously 
close to sinking the business and forced 
Chouinard to put both hands deep into 
the doo-doo. Company earnings were $80 
million, and it took galloping expansion 
to keep up with demand for the clothing. 

“Those were the toughest times we 
ever went through,” says Stanley, who 
as head of marketing was in charge of 
putting together the highly praised cata- 
logs. “It was 1991. We had very strong 
sales and were committed to growing. 
We launched new product lines. We had 
almost unlimited credit with the bank, 
and we were using it. Then the country 
went into recession, and our bank wasn’t 
prepared and we weren't prepared. 
There was a cutoff of credit. We had too 
much inventory and not enough inven- 
tory control, and we had to let 20 per- 
cent of our people go.” 

Chouinard still suffers from the mem- 
ory of firing 120 people, many of them 
old friends. “It was absolutely a feeling 
of failure,” he says. “It was certainly my 
fault. I took my eye off the ball, and we 
just got lost going for growth. Since then 
I've done everything differently.” 

In 2001 the good that Chouinard 
built into his business became a program 
called 1% for the Planet, which mandates 


that one percent of company sales go to 
small environmental activist groups. Last 
year that amounted to $750,000 for Pa- 
tagonia, not including the contributions 
from individual stores, which now num- 
ber 60 worldwide. Today the program 
has expanded to include 1,300 other 
companies, which have contributed more 
than $45 million since its founding. 

In the early 1990s Chouinard decided 
to examine the pollution and energy use 
involved in producing Patagonia’s cloth- 
ing line. The company looked closely at 
the four major fabrics and all the dyes 
being used. It began to recycle plastic 
soda bottles to make fleece jackets. And 
in 1994 it made the risky decision that 
the only kind of cotton it would use in 
its clothes would be organic. 

“It wasn’t easy to make the transi- 
tion,” says Chouinard. “Cotton had been 
grown for most of its 4,000-year histo- 
ry without the use of all the poisonous 
chemicals currently in the process. But 
we found there weren’t many organic- 
cotton growers in the world. It’s very la- 
bor intensive, and we knew it was going 
to be expensive. 

Patagonia's cotton T-shirts cost an 
average of $10 more than conventional 
cotton shirts. Patagonia customers, how- 
ever, have been willing to pay the price. 


h town about 70 
of Los Angeles, and 
Chouinard chose it for his tin-shed 
forge because the local waves were good. 
He's been surfing here since 1958. He 
and Malinda own a house on the water, 
but these days he does most of his surf- 
ing about an hour and a half north at 
a place he calls the ranch—100 gated 
acres of pristine coastal hills dotted with 
huge old oak and eucalyptus trees where 
he built his dream getaway. It’s a small 
three-bedroom house with a view of a 
perfect reef break 100 feet below that 
is accessible only from the private land 
or by boat. The 1,500-square-foot house 
was built to extreme green standard: 
Nearly all the wood and stone is recy- 
cled, and 600 toxic materials Chouinard 
says are ordinarily used in home con- 
struction were painstakingly excluded. 

It’s a handsome, comfortable place so 
energy efficient he’s never had to heat or 
cool it. When I ask him how much it cost, 
he says, “The materials were nothing— 
broken sidewalk and old railroad-trestle 
beams. But the labor,” he rolls his eyes, 
“I don't even want to know." 

Chouinard had returned to Ventura 
for two reasons: because Patagonia’s 
board of directors (which includes Yvon 
and Malinda and their two children, 
Fletcher, now 38, and Claire, 33) sched- 
uled a meeting, and because Claire was 
about to deliver his first grandchild, a 
girl named Arrow. 

I've been to the headquarters prop- 
erty they call the campus half a dozen 
times over the years. I've watched it grow 
from two buildings to five, but the feel of 
the place remains pretty much what it 


Ventura is a b 
miles northwest 


was 30 years ago. The fuel-efficient cars 
in the parking lot have surfboards and 
kayaks on roof racks for when the surf 
is up. The company flex-time policy al- 
lows employees to pursue their sports. 
Young staffers, dressed mostly in Pata- 
gonia, move without hurry past a sand- 
box and a large, grassy play area for the 
50 kids, 16 months to five years old, who 
are part of the company's child-care 
program. All the 300 employees here, as 
well as 1,300 others around the world, 
full and part time, have health insur- 
ance. Women make up more than half 
the staff. Chouinard, who has two older 
sisters, says, "I think women are smarter 
than men, more intuitive, more loyal. 

"he most amazing thing about this 
place," Vincent Stanley tells me the 
morning I arrive in Ventura, “is that it 
hasn't changed in 40 years. When I got 
here in 1968 it was this tiny culture of 20 
climbers and surfers, and it had this feel- 
ing for equality and excellence that has 
survived into a company of 1,500 people 
with a very sophisticated management 
process. I think it’s because Yvon and 
Malinda’s spirit, and what they consider 
important, hasn't changed. And the day 
care,” he points to three women shep- 
herding 15 preschoolers across a lawn, 
“which Malinda is instrumental in, is a 
big part of the reason for the feeling of 
community. It’s hard to be hierarchical 
around kids. They soften the culture, 
keep us honest.” 

On the way across the campus I stop 
by the Quonset hut that houses Fletcher 
Chouinard Designs, where Yvon's son 
builds Patagonia surfboards. I'd heard 
Yvon complain for years about the 
shoddy quality of the boards he was 
breaking around the world, and 20 years 

is son began to design boards out of 
‚ sturdier, nontoxic material. Son had 
followed father into risky sports, surfing 
big waves, 20- and 30-footers, including 
at Mavericks, northern California’s noto- 
rious garden of breaking monsters. 

really enjoy riding the big waves,” 
Fletcher tells me as we talk over the 
noise of computerized machines grind- 
ing boards out of nontoxic Styrofoam. 
“Mavericks is a scary place, but it’s fun 
being terrified. And I don’t let anything 
come out of here that I haven't ridden.” 

“What Fletcher has done with surf- 
boards is what I did with climbing gear,” 
says his proud father. “He's reinvented 
the surfboard, making the best boards 
out of totally different, stronger ma- 
terials. He's got a great reputation for 
big-wave boards because he rides them 
himself, does his own testing. I’m his 
old-guy tester.” 

“He's a real innovator,” says Fletcher 
of working with his dad. “It doesn’t even 
matter whether he’s involved in an in- 
dustry, he always has an idea how to im- 
prove on everything.” 


I meet the old-guy tester in the com- 
pany lunchroom, where the staff has the 
choice of a long salad bar or a hot menu. 


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PLAYBOY 


130 


As we sit we're joined by Rick Ridgeway, 
an old Chouinard friend, award-winning 
photographer and long-famous adven- 
turer. He has worked off and on for Pa- 
tagonia for 40 years and is currently vice 
president of environmental projects. 

“Nice to see the two of you alive and 
well,” I say, remembering the story ofan 
emblematic moment in their outdoor ca- 
reers: An avalanche nearly killed both of 
them and left them profoundly changed 
in its deadly wake. I hear the fear in 
their voices as they describe their terror. 

Itwas 1980 and China had just reopened 
to mountaineering. Chouinard, Ridgeway, 
climber Kim Schmitz and photographer 
Jonathan Wright were at 20,000 feet on a 
24,700-foot peak called Gongga Shan. It 
was midday and just warm enough to loos- 
en the snow, and they were roped together 
as they started down toward base camp. 
Just before the steep snow slabs broke 
loose, Chouinard had a premonition. 

“I was right in the middle of a sen- 
tence, saying "This snow doesn't feel— 
and, boom, it happened. It was a feeling 
you can't describe; like a safecracker try- 
ing to describe how to crack a safe, you 
can't do it. It's a seat-of-the-pants feeling, 
like when you're surfing in sharky waters 
and the hair on the back of your neck 
stands up. You don’t know why, but you 
know you should get out of the water.” 

The four were engulfed, swept down 
and over a 40-foot drop into a steep 
gully. Then it stopped, 20 feet short of 
a 300-foot cliff. They didn’t know it yet, 
but Wright's neck had been broken. 

“We'd been tumbled, wrapped in our 
rope, crampons on, trying to extricate 
ourselves, and then it started again. At 
that point I knew a 300-foot cliff was 


coming up, and I thought we were dead. 
I expected to die.” 

The slide stopped for a second time, 
30 feet short of the death plunge. 

Chouinard, who says he stopped 
counting his dead friends when the 
number reached 50, tells me he was par- 
ticularly depressed after the avalanche, 
not because he had almost died but be- 
cause he had come back from death. 

“I had accepted death,” he says. “I was 
dead and I was okay with that. And when all 
of a sudden I was back, it was depressing.” 

After lunch Chouinard and I sit in the 
sun at a picnic table in the middle of his 
success, surrounded by the fruit trees— 
apple, fig, kumquat, mango—that he has 
planted all over the property. He hasn't 
changed much in the 15 years since we 
last spent time together. His hairline 
is ebbing, and the lines in his face are 
carved deeper into his wind-roughened 
tan. He carries an almost shy aura, but 
he’s not shy when you hit his cranky 
zone or one of his passions. 

He still climbs but not as much as he 
used to, and his approach has changed. 
“Гуе done a lot of first ascents in the 
past 10 years that I've never written 
about or even bothered to name. It has 
taken a while to get there. In the begin- 
ning your ego is involved and you want 
to tell the world about it. But the goal 
isn't the point. Who gives a shit what the 
holy grail is? It’s the quest.” 

His current greatest passion is a dif- 
ferent way to fly-fish. It’s called tenkara, 
and he can talk the side of your face off 
about it. It's a Japanese technique devel- 
oped hundreds of years ago that uses a 
telescoping pole with no reel or runner 
eyes. Picture Huck Finn with a bamboo 


“I used to be very stressed out, so Sharon insisted that I get a hobby. 
My hobby is Amanda." 


pole. Chouinard's excitement about the 
method borders on the sexual. 

"The tip of this 10-foot pole is so sen- 
sitive that with the smallest move I can 
make the fly do a lap dance in front of 
the fish," he says, demonstrating with 
his hands. “They go absolutely crazy. 
I've been going out with some of the 
best fly fishermen in America, and at 
the end of the day they'll have caught 
six or eight fish and I'll have caught 50. 
It's exciting because I've always believed 
in simplicity, though the hardest thing 
in the world to do is simplify your life." 

Chouinard applies tenkara to bigger 
issues and has used it to draw out the 
heart of his economic theory. “I take it 
as a metaphor for society," he says. "We 
think all our problems will be solved by 
technology, when what we have to do 
in a lot of cases is turn around and take 
a forward step. Technology destroys 
jobs. The lesson for the next economy 
is that we have to go back to the old 
handcrafted, high-quality stuff." 

When I ask if he thinks his business 
philosophies would translate to larger 
companies, he says, "If they're making 
the best stuff and they've got their shit to- 
gether. If they're just making crap, people 
Will buy somewhere else. Every problem 
we've had at Patagonia has been solved by 
doing one thing: improving quality." 

Despite the fact that he has designed 
Patagonia to be here in a hundred years, 
his outlook for the planet remains dour. 

"Sometimes I think it's hopeless," he 
says about the lack of progress toward 
meaningful environmental change. "We 
have to try to get a grip on global warm- 
ing. They told us 20 years ago that we 
had 30 years to get it together or else, and 
even if we did it would take a thousand 
years to repair the damage we've done to 
the ocean. The storm that hit New York 
ought to be a real wake-up call." 

Chouinard has been a Zen adept since 
the beatnik days, though he doesn't 
meditate. "Mine is a Zen of action, not 
contemplation," he says. And, he claims, 
it keeps him from despair. 

"Thinking dark thoughts doesn't de- 
press me," he writes in Let My People Go 
Surfing. "In fact, I'm a happy person. I'm 
a Buddhist about it all. I've accepted the 
fact that there is a beginning and an end 
to everything. Maybe the human species 
has run its course and it's time for us to 
go away and leave room for other...more 
intelligent and responsible life-forms." 

“Still,” he tells me, “you have to do 
something to save your soul. I want to 
bea person who sleeps at night knowing 
I'm part of the solution." 

A young staffer stops by and leans into 
our conversation. He's wearing shorts 
and a T-shirt, has longish hair and says 
he heard there's a nice swell building at 
the ranch. 

"Probably ought to check it out," says 
Chouinard. Then he turns to me and 
smiles. "Nothing's changed. All I really 
want to do is go surfing and fishing." 


DINKLAGE 


(continued from page 72) 
DINKLAGE: I have a pretty big scar that 
runs from my neck to my eyebrow. I was 
in a band called Whizzy for many years in 
New York. We were this punk-funk-rap 
band. We played a show at CBGB, and 
I was jumping around onstage and got 
accidentally kneed in the temple. I was 
like Sid Vicious, just bleeding all over the 
stage. Blood was going everywhere. I just 
grabbed a dirty bar napkin and dabbed my 
head and went on with the show. We didn’t 
care much at the time about personal 
safety. We were smoking and drinking 
during our shows, and one time my bass 
player fell off the back of his amp because 
he passed out. It was one of those bands. 


7 

PLAYBOY: Have you FON anything from a 
movie or TV set, such as your armor from 
Game of Thrones? 

DINKLAGE: I wouldn't want it. We've all 
been hurt from the armor so much more 
than saved by it. It really hurts. If you fall 
over while wearing that armor, you could 
get your throat slashed. We had a guy fall 
off the back of a horse, and if he hadn't 
been wearing the armor, he would've been 
fine. But because he was covered from 
head to toe, he got banged up. It nearly 
killed him. That stuff is dangerous. 


8 

PLAYBOY: During your Golden Globes ас- 
ceptance speech, you mentioned Martin 
Henderson, who was partially paralyzed 
during a dwarf-tossing attack in Britain. 
Did you ever hear from him? 

DINKLAGE: No. And he doesn't need to call 
me. It’s fine. The whole thing was spon- 
taneous. The morning of the awards my 
wife and I were having coffee, and she 
saw a story about him on the internet. 
She's the one who told me, “You should 
say something.” And I was like, “No, no, I 
don't want to be one of those actors with 
their political causes.” But the world is 
kind of fucked-up, and sometimes you 
have to put a Band-Aid on the broken leg. 
My friends were less concerned with what 
I said than that I apparently brushed off 
Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie on my way 
to the stage. When you're in that moment 
and you're about to accept an award and 
you have no idea what you're going to say, 
you don’t notice that Brad and Angelina 
are reaching out to say hello. All I saw was 
a sea of people I needed to get through. 
Friends don't care about issues like dwarf 
tossing. They only care about “Dude, you 
dissed Brangelina.” 


9 

PLAYBOY: You're dep a biopic of the 
Fantasy Island actor Hervé Villechaize, in 
which you'll likely star. Other than being a 
dwarf, what do you have in common with 
Villechaize? 

DINKLAGE: I guess not much. We're very 
different personalities. He had a desire 
that was definitely thwarted by the world, 
but I'm fascinated by him. He was quite 


outrageous. My friend the movie direc- 
tor Sacha Gervasi has been working on 
the script for a while, basing it on an in- 
terview with Hervé he did when he was a 
journalist. A magazine hired him to do a 
puff piece, but they ended up talking for 
hours. At one point Hervé pulled a knife 
on Sacha. He was like a pirate, an incred- 
ible character. Hervé killed himself about a 
week later, so Sacha realized the interview 
was actually a suicide note. It's a terribly 
sad tale, but there’s something fun about 
getting into the skin of a guy like that, pre- 
tending to be him for a few months. 


10 

PLAYBOY: eee to be called a 
midget. Do you consider the word offensive? 
DINKLAGE: 105 like the N word among 
short-statured people. The etymology of 
the word is not good, but some of us have 
made it our own. We add an e with an ac- 
cent at the end, so now it's midgeté—sort 
of a French version. I have a friend—not 
a dwarf—who's an alchemist of sorts. He 
concocted a men's cologne that he calls 
Midgeté Midgeté. He gave me a bottle as 
a gift. I was thinking, We should totally 
put this on the market. You know how 
Jessica Simpson and Beyoncé have sig- 
nature perfumes and make a mint? I'm 
thinking this cologne could be my ticket to 
fortune. When this Game of Thrones thing 
winds down, Midgeté Midgeté could be 
my next thing. 


11 

PLAYBOY: You're еп New Jersey. Was 
your upbringing more like a Bruce Spring- 
steen song or the reality show Jersey Shore? 
DINKLAGE: It’s funny you mention Springs- 
teen. I was born in Bay Head, New Jersey, 
and his manager lived next door to us. 
Bruce used to come over to his house and 
hang out and play guitar. This was when 
I was two, so I don't remember any of it. 
My mom and dad went to a wedding at a 
surfboard factory, and Bruce was in the 
wedding band. He was about 17 years old 
at the time. My mom didn't think he was 
that great. She told me he was too loud. 


Q12 

PLAYBOY: You went to high school in New 
Jersey. How well did you deal with that? 
DINKLAGE: High school is a funny thing. On 
one hand you're so fragile. But I thought I 
was William Burroughs by the age of 13, so 
I had this massive ego as well. Everything 
in high school feels like it's life or death. 1 
went to a pretty athletic high school, and 
I didn't have many friends. I remember 
once talking to my best friend, and we 
came up with the idea that we should hang 
ourselves off the bell tower. “That'll show 
them.” We totally had no inclination to 
commit real suicide at all; we just liked the 
idea of the whole town responding to this 
tragedy, how the school would mourn. Oh 
God, we were so dramatic. 


оз 
PLAYBOY: As kids, you and your brother 
would perform puppet shows for your par- 
ents. Was that your first taste of — 


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DINKLAGE: Whoa, whoa, just hold on! That 
sounds like Pm Ed Gein or John Wayne 
Gacy. [haughtily] “When I was perform- 
ing puppet shows for mother and father.” 
Good God, man. “When I skinned the 
squirrels and made puppets out of their 
carcasses and performed them for Mother 
and Father." Is that the impression you're 
trying to give people? 


014 

PLAYBOY: So it’s not true? There were no 
puppet shows? 

DINKLAGE: [Sighs] Yes, it’s true. But it was 
for the neighborhood, not just Mom and 
Dad. Everybody in the neighborhood 
would come over and watch my brother 
and me do puppet shows. We basically 
did little puppet musicals with the loud- 
est songs we could find. We did a pup- 
pet version of Quadrophenia, the Who 
album. We made drum kits out of tuna 
fish cans. It was fun. We would have 
haunted houses too. My brother, who's a 
violinist now, was the real ham, the real 
performer of the family. His passion for 
the violin is the only thing that kept him 
from being an actor. 


15 

PLAYBOY: You said no for a lot of years as an 
actor: no to playing elves or leprechauns, 
no to any role you thought was degrading, 
even if you were starving or unable to pay 
your rent. What's the trick to saying no 
when your bank account says yes? 
DINKLAGE: It was never easy to say no. 
There were consequences, of course. I 
think I was more arrogant back then. I 
had this clear image of who I wanted to be, 
maybe too clear. I didn't allow anything to 
break the outline of it. I was very protective 
and defensive, mostly because of my size. I 
expected the entertainment business to see 
only my size and nothing else, so I wanted 
to pretend my size wasn't who I was at all 
and do roles that had nothing to do with it. 
But I was completely limiting myself and 
my career, because it is who I am. Look at 
roles like Tyrion. My size is obviously why 
I got the part. I wouldn't be playing Tyrion 
if I wasn't this size. 


PLAYBOY: How did you make peace with 
that? 

DINKLAGE: I didn’t for many years. I basi- 
cally just decided not to have a career. That 
was my only option, or what I thought was 
my only option. And then I started meet- 
ing friends who were writers and direc- 
tors, and I found a back door. They put 
me in independent films, such as The Sta- 
tion Agent and Living in Oblivion. I came to 
terms with using my size rather than being 
exploited by it. 


017 
PLAYBOY: What's your secret to being poor 
in New York? 
DINKLAGE: I don’t think I have a secret. 
Back then it was so cheap to live in Brook- 
lyn. That's why we went there, because 
we could afford it. There was nothing hip 


132 about it. I don’t know how people do it 


these days, because Brooklyn isn’t cheap 
anymore. At the time, we were living with- 
ош any heat, not even a stove. I'm a baby 
now. I like my comforts. But in my 20s my 
friends and I took suffering for our art to 
an extreme. It sounds so ridiculous now. 
“In my day, we ate grubs and had a book 
of matches for heat. We made soup out of 
drywall.” Shut up, young me. 


18 

PLAYBOY: You Ка: Tina Fey's boyfriend 
on 30 Rock. She reportedly wrote the 
part for you because she wanted a “show- 
mance” with you. How do you politely tell 
Tina Fey, “I'm sorry, but I’m married"? 

DINKLAGE: Well, she's married as well. 
And also, this is what we do for a living. 
You've blurred the line here, buddy boy. 
Seriously, though, even if she were sin- 
gle, I wouldn't have a chance. The line 
of people who want Tina Fey's attention 
is already way too long. We shot most of 
our scenes on the street in New York, 
and this was around the time she was 
doing her Sarah Palin impersonation on 
Saturday Night Live. She was like royalty 
at that time. I mean, she's always royalty, 
but especially at that time. You've never 
seen somebody more beloved by an en- 
tire city. Strangers were constantly walk- 
ing up and saying hello or telling her 
how much they loved her. It was insane 
to watch. I've never seen anything like it. 


PLAYBOY: You've never had fans approach 
you on the street? 

DINKLAGE: Well, yeah, but not in that vol- 
ume. I don't know if I could deal with that. 
I did Comic-Con in San Diego once, and 
I couldn't even leave the hotel. Game of 
Thrones fans are the nicest people ever, but 
a thousand nice people coming at me gives 
me claustrophobia. And I can't wear a pair 
of sunglasses and pull my hat down and 
just disappear. I'm four and a half feet tall, 
so I sort of stand out. 


Q20 
PLAYBOY: Last year you gave a commence- 
ment speech at your alma mater, Benning- 
ton College, and walked onstage with a 
mace. You mentioned that a student gave 
it to you. Was that true? 

DINKLAGE: It was. His name was Ben, I 
think, and he just handed it to me five 
minutes before I went out. He said it was 
a gift. It was actually quite heavy. That kid 
knew what he was doing. Hopefully he's a 
successful sculptor right now. The interest- 
ing thing was, the ball part of it, which he 
had bronzed or silvered or whatever, was 
an artichoke. He had dipped an artichoke 
in bronze. So if you smelted it, you could 
probably have a meal afterward. I left the 
mace with my mom. I think it’s on her 
mantel right now. The next day I had to 
fly out to do a job, and I couldn't take a 
mace on the plane with me. My mom of- 
fered to take it off my hands, and it’s still 
there. I think she’s using it as protection 


out in Jersey. 


J. J. ABRAMS 


(continued from page 56) 
from here in Santa Monica. I thought, He's 
a Crossroads kid? Growing up in Brent- 
wood, I knew kids like him. I had never 
met Michael, but this idea that he was a 
Crossroads kid suddenly demystified him 
for me. I met him and immediately started 
giving him shit, and he was giving me shit. 
He liked me because I wasn’t afraid of him 
and I understood who he was, which was 
someone who was a little freaked out by 
how big he’d become so fast. 

PLAYBOY: Who’s an up-and-coming direc- 
tor to keep an eye on? 

ABRAMS: Rian Johnson. I love what he did 
with Looper, the scope of the movie and the 
emotion—and that moment when we dis- 
cover who the Rainmaker is is one of the 
most chilling, awesome moments I've seen 
in movies in a long time. He has a big ca- 
reer ahead of him. 

PLAYBOY: Your career is about as big 
as anybody's in Hollywood right now. 
You're as famous as many actors in your 
films and shows. 

ABRAMS: First of all, I don't feel I'm re- 
motely famous. But secondly, with what 
I'm doing and what I'm involved in, I feel 
I'm obviously riding coattails and working 
on projects that are bigger than all of us. 
A by-product of that is sometimes some 
notoriety, but it's all worthless if what's be- 
ing made isn't of some quality. I certainly 
never wanted to become a director because 
I was looking to be famous. I look at people 
I know, certainly actors like Tom, who lit- 
erally cannot go anywhere. That's a miser- 
able thing. I go out all the time, and people 
don't recognize me at all. 

PLAYBOY: So women aren't throwing them- 
selves at you? Isn't that what's supposed to 
happen when you get big in show business? 
ABRAMS: It's not happening. What's that 
about? [laughs] What I usually get isn't 
a sexual thing. It's usually some dude 
with hair too long in the back giving me 
a Vulcan salute or, more recently, saying, 
“May the Force be with you." I haven't 
gotten a lot of the more appealing ver- 
sions you're referring to. 

PLAYBOY: You went to Sarah Lawrence, 
which was traditionally an all-women's col- 
lege and still skews heavily female. As a 
straight guy at Sarah Lawrence, you must 
have been quite busy. 

ABRAMS: The ratio was spectacular, I won't 
lie. But I also got to be in rooms with a lot 
of women and, no joke, a lot of interesting 
conversations. It was almost like being a 
fly on the wall, where you'd actually get to 
hear and see what it's like to be a woman. 
As a writer it was a cool opportunity. The 
rhythm of conversation. The way women 
are with one another in private. 

PLAYBOY: Is that where Felicity came to you? 
ABRAMS: Felicity really had nothing to do 
with my college experience; it was much 
more about my time in high school. A 
young woman who was in my class was an 
amazing artist. I had never really talked 
to her, but she did the posters for all the 
plays and stuff. At graduation I finally said, 
"Listen, we've been at this school for years 


together. I just wanted to say hi and say 
your work is unbelievable.” The look on 
her face was so incredible. Her face liter- 
ally changed. She was so stunned and kind 
of awkward and then very sweet about it. 
For some reason her reaction stayed with 
me. I always thought that was a cool story, 
about someone who approaches someone 
at the very end of high school. There was 
another girl at the school, whose name 
was Felicity, and I always thought that was 
a great name for a character. That's how 
ideas happen sometimes. 

PLAYBOY: How did you go from Mr. Sensi- 
tive to action-movie guy? 

ABRAMS: Look, all of it's me. Felicity was 
an idea I was excited about. But when we 
were doing the show, what struck me was 
there were no bad guys. It was frustrating 
to do a show where the biggest threat was 
whether Felicity was going to get a D or be 
late to class or kiss the wrong boy. Lovely 
and romantic and fun, yes, but incredibly 
low stakes. What you're always looking for 
on a TV show is the act-out, what makes 
you go “Ooh!” It was a hard thing to do 
because there were no murderers or vam- 
pires or villains. 

So as a joke I pitched to the writers’ 
room: What if Felicity were a spy? It would 
be awesome because she'd be going off on 
these crazy action adventures and could 
come back and tell Julie what she'd really 
done. Or she has these bruises and she'd be 
lying to Ben or Noel about what they were. 
Everybody looked at me like I was crazy. 
Then ABC said it was looking for a show 
with a young female lead, and that was why 


nifer Garner from Alias, 
Evangeline Lilly from Los, Anna Torv 
from Fringe. You certainly know how to 
find gorgeous unknown newcomers and 
turn them into gun-toting badasses in 
supertight clothing. 

ABRAMS: Well, I was in love with Batgirl as 
a kid. I thought she was the sexiest thing 
in the history of time. In the beginning of 
Batman, whenever the cartoon version of 
Batgirl would swoop through and you'd 
know she was in the episode, I'd be hugely 
excited, because she was so unbearably 
hot. And then, obviously, on The Avengers, 
Diana Rigg was just so completely...yeah. 
It’s a funny thing, because when I was 
growing up, usually men were the main 
characters and women were trophies. You 
know, the Bond girls were just kind of eye 
candy and fun. But I was always drawn 
to a different kind of woman, like Jenny 
Agutter in Logan's Run. There were certain 
women who made you go, "Oh, she was 
beautiful but also just as fierce as Logan." 
"Think about when Alien came out. There's 
Ripley at the end in her underwear, getting 
into the space suit—rewind, please. Those 
are the women who grabbed me as a kid. 
PLAYBOY: Did you ever have a wild-oats 
period? 

ABRAMS: I've never done anything remote- 
ly serious in that regard. 

PLAYBOY: Ever been arrested? 

ABRAMS: Never been arrested. 

PLAYBOY: Wrecked a hotel room? 

ABRAMS: Nope. 


PLAYBOY: Let's see—the Dharma Initiative, 
the parallel universes, the mystery boxes, 
galaxies far, far away. Call us half-baked, 
but some of your ideas sound as though 
they came out of smoking pot. Maybe a 
little? Or LSD? 

ABRAMS: I have to say, I’m not a big par- 
tier, though I don't have anything against 
it. I’m kind of uncool. 

PLAYBOY: When the Star Wars news broke, 
Entertainment Weekly wrote, "Disney didn't 
just pick a beloved director: They picked 
a guy whose name is synonymous with the 
whole millennial rise of geekdom as a cul- 
tural force." 

ABRAMS: Here's the thing: The pencil- 
necked geek guys with pocket protectors 
and tape on their glasses are the people 
who invented the iPod and the iPad and 
everything else everyone carries with them 
all the time. The digital age was foreseen by 
a group of short-sleeved, buttoned-down, 
white-shirted guys and their female equiv- 
alents who were designing the very stuff 
that’s now ubiquitous. It's not that there's 
this millennial rise as much as we're incor- 
porating into our daily lives the technol- 


ogy that is fulfilling our need for instan- 
taneous communication and information. 
And there's a general understanding that 
smartphones didn't come from jocks. 
PLAYBOY: What's your favorite game on 
your iPhone? 

ABRAMS: Right now it's probably Letter- 
press, though Scramble With Friends is a 
close second. 

PLAYBOY: How would your life have been 
different if you'd had an iPhone and a 
MacBook Pro instead of a Super 8 camera 
when you were starting out? 

ABRAMS: I don’t know. It’s an age of insane 
distraction. The fact that kids are supposed 
to do their algebra homework on the same 
device that is a portal to every possible 
piece of entertainment—comedy and mu- 
sic and porn—is just bizarre. 1 don’t know 
an adult who, if 1 gave them a laptop and 
said, “Go do your algebra,” would spend 
more than five minutes doing their alge- 
bra. On the other end, you have things like 
the Khan Academy that are rocking the 
world and giving people access to learn- 
ing like never before. The good definitely 
outweighs the negatives, but it's weird. The 


“My compliments to the chef—but mostly to the bartender.” 


PLAYBOY 


134 


other day I was walking with my iPad Mini 
and thought, When I wasa kid, just having 
a flashlight would have been cool, let alone 
something like this. Then you get into 
things like Final Cut Pro and After Effects, 
and they rival what's happening in big 
studios. We're starting to see evidence of 
people making movies with these tools in 
ways that rival professional moviemaking. 
PLAYBOY: What have you seen lately? 
ABRAMS: Oh my God, so many great short 
films. There was one called Plot Device— 
very funny. A guy named Andrew Kramer 
has a site called VideoCopilot.net that shows 
people how to do visual effects and after- 
effects. What he does is just incredible. I've 
since brought him over to my production 
company, Bad Robot. He's a genius. He did 
action-movie effects that until recently you 
could do only with a huge budget and com- 
plicated technology and teams of people. 
‘And he was doing it on his phone. 
PLAYBOY: Hollywood is now an app. 
ABRAMS: Not completely, but the idea that 
you can put in a missile attack or a car crash 
or whatever using this—it's all in fun. The 
point is, we've gone from Super 8 films, be- 
ing limited to that frame, editing by hand, 
visual effects being zero—basically nothing 
unless you did back-winding on the film, 
and you were lucky if it worked—to liter- 
ally making movies with an iPhone. So the 
question becomes, What are you going to 
do, since you can now do everything? 


PLAYBOY: Do you think we'll still be going 
to the movies in 25 years? 

ABRAMS: I do. We have a house in Maine, 
and when we go to movies there, the 
theaters have the worst projection and 
sound quality you could imagine. So places 
like that will need to improve the sound 
and quality of the screen to justify the ex- 
perience. Гуе said before that 3-D isn't 
necessarily the answer. The best movies 
I've seen are so much more dimensional 
than 3-D. Having said that, I've seen some 
new 3-D technology that is impressive and 
could be fun. But like anything, doing it 
well is hard. To me, if every movie I got to 
do from this point on was not 3-D I'd be 
thrilled. Either way, I'm a big believer in 
the communal experience of seeing a mov- 
ie, and that’s not going away. It goes back 
to the very first storytellers around a camp- 
fire. The truth is, we need that campfire 
experience now more than ever. People 
need things to do beyond looking at their 
phones or Twitter or Facebook. 

PLAYBOY: Do you track what people say 
about you online? 

ABRAMS: A little. With Star Wars I glanced 
at some things here and there just to make 
sure I wasn't getting my ass kicked, and 
the response was kinder than I expected, 
which was nice. It's a funny thing. I feel 
very analog as a human being, which is of 
course ironic because I love editing, sound 
design and visual effects. 


“How many wonderful nights are gow planning on staying, 
Mr. Smith?” 


PLAYBOY: Let's talk sequels for a minute. 
Since you're doing Star Wars, does that put 
you out of the running to direct the third 
Star Trek movie? 

ABRAMS: No. I would say it's a possibility. 
We're trying to figure out the next step. But 
it’s like anything: It all begins with the story. 
PLAYBOY: What about an Alias movie? 
ABRAMS: We discuss it. In the right circum- 
stance and situation I would definitely be 
open to it. 

PLAYBOY: Cloverfield II? 

ABRAMS: Part of me just wants to let it go, 
though we've had a couple of discussions 
about cool ways to do it. I'm looking for- 
ward to seeing Pacific Rim this summer. It 
feels like there are some really big mon- 
sters coming down the pike that could in- 
spire something we do. 

PLAYBOY: You're brilliant with reboots. Is 
there anything else you've thought about 
remaking? A company perhaps? Maybe 
a country? 

ABRAMS: There was a company called Info- 
com I actually tried to reboot. People com- 
ing out of MIT started it and created these 
interactive fictional text adventures—really 
clever stuff, wonderfully packaged. I went 
to see if I could buy it, but some other dude 
got it literally the week before. I was also 
sad to hear that Atari declared bankruptcy. 
Atari represented the excitement and po- 
tential of what video games could be when 
I was a kid. It had an allure and a sense of 
future-looking cool. 

PLAYBOY: What do you see in your future? 
ABRAMS: I know it sounds like bullshit, but 
I feel so lucky that I've gotten to do every- 
thing I've done that nothing immediately 
comes to mind. The closest thing is travel. 
I've never been to Israel or India or Africa. 
I would love to spend more time in Japan, 
certainly with my famil 
PLAYBOY: And professionally? 

ABRAMS: Would it be nice to work with 
Meryl Streep? Yes. Would it be great to 
work on a movie that was considered an 
important film as opposed to a big enter- 
tainment? Sure, I would love it. But I feel 
I'm still at an age when a lot of that stuff is 
within reach. Again, it has to be the right 
thing at the right time. I’m not good at 
planning five years in advance, but there's 
still a lot I want to do before, you know... 
PLAYBOY: Let's say it all ended tomorrow. 
What would you hope to find in heaven, or 
the sideways world or whatever you want 
to call it? 

ABRAMS: Well, Steve Jobs and Thomas 
Edison would be in a huge wrestling match 
in the corner. Rod Serling would be smok- 
ing, writing a screenplay for something we 
all couldn't wait to read. My grandfather 
would be around and driving my mom 
crazy. There's an endless list of actors who 
would be fun to see in terms of creative 
people. And there would be a lot of art sup- 
plies and maybe paper and some pens in 
case inspiration struck. 

PLAYBOY: You'd still be working in the 
hereafter? 

ABRAMS: If a great idea hits me, yeah, 


why not? 
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ALI 
(continued from page 101) 


you're tagged, you can't think. You're just 
numb and you don't know where you're at. 
There's no pain, just that jarring feeling. 
But I automatically know what to do when 
that happens to me, sort of like a sprinkler 
system going off when a fire starts up. When 
I get stunned, I'm not really conscious of ex- 
actly where I'm at or what's happening, but 
I always tell myself that I'm to dance, run, 
tie my man up or hold my head way down. 
I tell myself all that when I'm conscious, and 
when I get tagged, I automatically do it. 
PLAYBOY: [Before your recent fight with 
George Foreman] you called him all kinds 
of names. How does that help? 

АП: You mean when I called him the Mummy, 
"cause he walks like one? Listen, ifa guy loses 
his temper and gets angry, his judgment's off 
and he's not thinking as sharp as he should. 
But George wasn't angry. No, sir. George had 
this feeling that he was supreme. He believed. 
what the press said—that he was unbeatable 
and that he'd whup me easy. The first three 
rounds, he still believed it. But when I started 
throwing punches at him in the fourth, 
George finally woke up and thought, Man, 
I'm in trouble. He was shocked. 

PLAYBOY: Do you think Foreman was so 
confident of beating you that he didn't 
train properly? 

ALI: No, George didn't take me lightly. Who- 
ever I fight comes at me harder, because if 
you beat Muhammad Ali, you'll be the big 
man, the legend. Beating me is like beating 
Joe Louis or being the man who shot Jesse 
‘James, George just didn’t realize how hard 
Tam to hit and how hard I can hit. 
PLAYBOY: Foreman claims he was drugged 
before the fight. Did you see any evidence 
of that? 

ALI: George is just a sore loser. The truth is 
that the excuses started comin’ as soon as 
George began to realize he lost. He couldn't 
take losing the championship. Now that I got 
it back, every day is a sunshiny day: I wake up 
and I know I'm the heavyweight champion of 
the world. Whatever restaurant I walk into, 
whatever park I go to, whatever school I visit, 
people are sayin’, “The champ's here!” When 
I get on a plane, a man is always sayin’ to his 
little boy, “Son, there goes the heavyweight 
champion of the world.” Wherever I go, the 
tab is picked up, people want to see me and 
the TV wants me for interviews. That's what it 
means to be champ, and as long as I keep win- 
ning, it'll keep happenin’. So before I fight, I 
think, Whuppin’ this man means everything. 
So many good things are gonna happen if I 
win I can’t even imagine what they'll be! 
PLAYBOY: Did you like the idea of Zaire as 
the fight site? 

ALI: When I first won the championship from 
Sonny Liston, I was riding high and I didn't 
realize what I had. Now, the second time 
around, I appreciate the title, and I would've. 
gone anywhere in the world to get it back. To 
be honest, when I first heard the fight would 
be in Africa, I just hoped it would go off right, 
being in a country that was supposed to be so 
undeveloped. Then, when we went down to 
Zaire, I saw they'd built a new stadium with 
lights and that everything would be ready, 


and I started getting used to the idea and lik- 
ing it. And the more I thought about it, the 
more it grew on me, and then one day it just 
hit me how great it would be to win back my 
title in Africa. Being in Zaire opened my eyes. 
PLAYBOY: In what way? 

АП: I saw black people running their own 
country. I saw a black president of a humble 
black people who have a modern country. 
There are good roads throughout Zaire, and 
Kinshasa has a nice downtown section that 
reminds you of a city in the States. Build- 
ings, restaurants, stores, shopping centers— 
I could name you 1,000 things I saw that 
made me feel good. When I was in training 
there before the fight, I'd sit on the river- 
bank and watch the boats going by and see 
the 747 jumbo jets flying overhead, and I'd 
know there were black pilots and black stew- 
ardesses in “еш, and it just seemed so nice. In 
Zaire, everything was black—from the train 
drivers and hotel owners to the teachers in 
the schools and the pictures on the money. It 
was just like any other society, except it was 
all black, and because I'm black oriented and 
a Muslim, I was home there. I'm not home 
here. I'm trying to make it home, but it’s not. 
PLAYBOY: Why not? 

ALI: Because black people in America will 
never be free so long as they're on the 
white man's land. Look, birds want to be 
free, tigers want to be free, everything 
wants to be free. We can't be free until we 
get our own land and our own country in 
North America. When we separate from 
America and take maybe 10 states, then 
we'll be free. Free to make our own laws, 
set our own taxes, have our own courts, 
our own judges, our own schoolrooms, 


our own currency, our own passports. 
PLAYBOY: Since it's unlikely they'll get one 
carved out of—or paid for by—the U.S., 
are you pessimistic about America's future 
race relations? 

ALI: America don't have no future! Amer- 
ica's going to be destroyed! Allal's going 
to divinely chastise America! Violence, 
crimes, earthquakes—there’s gonna be all 
kinds of trouble. America's going to pay for 
all its lynchings and killings of slaves and 
what it's done to black people. America's 
day is over—and if it doesn't do justice to 
the black man and separate, it gonna burn! 
PLAYBOY: Elijah Muhammad preached that 
all white men are blue-eyed devils. Do you 
believe that? 

ALI: We know that every individual white 
't devil-hearted, and we got black people 
who are devils—the worst devils I've run 
into can be my own kind. When I think 
about white people, it's like there's 1,000 rat- 
tlesnakes outside my door and maybe 100 
of them want to help me. But they all look 
alike, so should I open my door and hope 
that the 100 who want to help will keep the 
other 900 off me, when only one bite will kill 
me? What I'm sayin' is that if there's 1,000 
rattlesnakes out there and 100 of them 
mean good—I'm still gonna shut my door. 
I'm gonna say, "I'm sorry, you nice 100 
snakes, but you don't really matter." 
PLAYBOY: Didn't white freedom riders of. 
the 1960s—at least four of whom were 
murdered—demonstrate that many whites 
were ready to risk their lives for black 
rights? 

ALI: Look, we been told there's gonna be 
whites who help blacks. And we also know 


"I don’t know who she is. Howard just had her painted in one day." 


137 


PLAYBOY 


138 


there's gonna be whites who'll escape 
Allah's judgment, who won't be killed when 
Allah destroys this country—mainly some 
Jewish people who really mean right and 
do right. But we look at the situation as a 
whole. We have to. 

Yes, a lot of these white students get hurt 
"cause they want to help save their country. 
But listen, your great-granddaddy told my 
great-granddaddy that when my grand- 
daddy got grown, things would be better. 
Then your granddaddy told my granddad- 
dy that when my daddy was born, things 
would be better. Your daddy told my dad- 
dy that when I got grown, things would be 
better. But they ain't. Are you tellin’ me 
that when my children get grown, things'll 
be better for black people in this country? 
PLAYBOY: No, we're just trying to find out 
how you honestly feel about whites. 

1: The only thing the white man can offer 
me is a job in America—he ain't gonna offer 
me no flag, no hospitals, no land, no free- 
dom. But oncea man knows what freedom is, 
he's not satisfied even being the president of 
your country. And as Allah is my witness, I'd 
die today to prove it. If I could be president 
of the U.S. tomorrow and do what I can to 
help my people or be in an all-black country 
of 25 million Negroes and my job would be 
to put garbage in the truck, I'd be a garbage- 
man. And if that included not just me but 
also my children and all my seed from now 
till forever, I'd still rather have the lowest job 
in a black society than the highest in a white 
society. If we got our own country, Га empty 
trash ahead of being president of the U.S.— 
or being Muhammad Ali, the champion. 
PLAYBOY: You've earned nearly $10 million 
in fight purses in the past two years alone. 


Would you really part with all your wealth 
so easily? 
ALI: ГА do it in a minute. Last week, I was out 
taking a ride and I thought, I'm driving this 
Rolls-Royce and I got another one in the ga- 
rage that I hardly ever use that cost $40,000. 
I got a Scenicruiser Greyhound bus that 
sleeps 14 and cost $120,000 and another bus 
that cost $42,000—$162,000 just in mobile 
homes. My training camp cost $350,000, and 
I just spent $300,000 remodeling my house 
in Chicago. I got all that and a lot more. 
Well, I was driving down the street and I 
saw alittle black man wrapped in an old coat 
standing on a corner with his wife and little 
boy, waiting for a bus to come along—and 
there I am in my Rolls-Royce. The little boy 
had holes in his shoes, and I started thinkin’ 
that if he was my little boy, Га break into 
tears. And I started crying. 
PLAYBOY: How has Elijah Muhammad's 
death affected the Black Muslims? 
ALI: Naturally, it was saddening, because 
it's bad to lose him physically, but if we 
should lose him in ourselves, that's worse. 
PLAYBOY: What difference did he make in 
your own life? 
ALI: He was my Jesus, and I had love for 
both the man and what he represented. 
Like Jesus Christ and all of God’s prophets, 
he represented all good things, and hav- 
ing passed on, he is missed. But prophets 
never die spiritually, for their words and 
works live on. Elijah Muhammad was my 
savior, and everything I have came from 
him—my thoughts, my efforts to help my 
people, how I eat, how I talk, my name. 
PLAYBOY: Do you think you could ever lose 
the faith? 
ALI: It's possible that I can lose faith, so I gotta 


“You can’t ALL have headaches!” 


pray, and to keep myself fired up, I gotta 
talk like I'm talkin’ now. It's the kind of talk 
that keeps us Muslims together. And you 
can tell a bunch of Muslims: no violence, no 
hate, no cigarettes, no fightin’, no stealin’, all 
happy. It’s a miracle. Most Negro places you 
be in, you see folks fussin’ and cussin’, eatin’ 
pork chops and women runnin’ around. 
You've seen the peace and unity of my train- 
ing camp—it's all Elijah Muhammad's spirit 
and his teachings. Black people never acted 
like this before. If every one of us in camp 
was just like we were before we heard Elijah 
Muhammad, you wouldn't be able to see for 
all the smoke. You'd hear things like “Hey, 
man, what's happenin’, where's the ladies? 
What we gonna drink tonight? Let's get 
that music on and party!” And hey, this isn’t 
an Islamic center. We're happy today. And 
we're better off than if we talked Christian- 
ity and said, “Jesus loves you, brother. Jesus 
died for your sins, accept Jesus Christ." 
PLAYBOY: You find something wrong with 
that? 
Ай: Christianity is a good philosophy if you 
live it, but it’s controlled by white people 
who preach it but don't practice it. They 
just organize it and use it any which way 
they want to. If the white man lived Chris- 
tianity, it would be different, but I tell you, 
I think it’s against nature for European 
people to live Christian lives. Their nations 
were founded on killing, on wars. France, 
Germany, the bunch of 'em—it's been one 
long war ever since they existed. And if 
they're not killing each other over there, 
they're shooting Indians over here. And if 
they're not after the Indians, they're after 
the reindeer and every other living thing 
they can kill, even elephants. It’s always vio- 
lence and war for Christi 
Muslims, though, live their religion—we 
ain't hypocrites, We submit entirely to Allah's 
will. We don't eat ham, bacon or pork. We 
don't smoke. And everybody knows that we 
honor our women. You can see our sisters 
on the street from 10 miles away, their white 
dresses dragging along the ground. Young 
women in this society parade their bodies 
in all them freak clothes—miniskirts and 
pantsuits—but our women don't wear them. 
A woman who's got a beautiful body covers 
it up and humbles herself to Allah and also 
turns down all the modern conveniences. 
Nobody else do that but Muslim women. You 
hear about Catholic sisters—but they do a lot 
of screwing behind doors. Ain't nobody gon- 
na believe a woman gonna go alll her life and 
say, “I ain't never had a man,” and is happy. 
She be crazy. That's against nature. And a 
priest saying he'd never touch a woman— 
that's against nature too. What's he gonna do 
at night? Call upon the hand of the Lord? 
PLAYBOY: Are Muslim women allowed to 
have careers, or are they supposed to stay 
in the kitchen? 
ALI: A lot of ‘em got careers, working for and 
with their brothers, but you don't find ‘em 
in no white man’s office in downtown New 
York working behind secretarial desks. Too 
many black women been used in offices. And 
not even in bed—on the floor. We know it 
because we got office Negroes who've told 
us this. So we protect our women, ‘cause 
women are the (concluded on page 141) 


CLAIRE SINCLAIR 


Tala I 


Claire Sinclair, 2011’s 
Playmate of the Year, takes 
her talent and her curves 
to Las Vegas’s Stratosphere 
theater for the burlesque 
show Pin Up. “It has always 
been a dream of mine to 
be part ofa show based 

on the iconic pinup girl,” 
she says. Claire is being 
humble: She’s not just 

part of the show, she's the 
girl front and center, with 
stockings, red lips, bangs 
and a coquettishness not 
put together so delight- 
fully since Bettie Page. 
“This show brings the clas- 
sic pinup-girl calendar 

to life month by month 
through live music, dance 
and variety,” 

says Claire. 

“Its classy, 

sexy and, 

most \ 

important, NY 


< 


@Ciara_Price 
Miss November 
2011 has cur- 
tains but doesn't 


close them. 


1. PMOY 2012 Jaclyn 
Swedberg looked 
rocker chic in her Bunny 
outfit at the NAMM 
music trade show in 
Anaheim in January. 

2. Miss February 2013 
Shawn Dillon hosted 
the Wahoo Smackdown, 

a fishing contest at Bimini 
Big Game Club Resort and 
Marina in the Bahamas, 
Shawn also went into a 
shark cage. She's 


one brave woman, ШШЕ 
3. Miss Septem- HE 


ber 2012 Alana > 


Campos and 
Miss May 2012 
E Nikki Leigh 
b^ shot extras forthe Y 
1 Parker DVD. Ё 
Ы | (а 


Carrie Stevens, Miss June 1997 and owner of Centerfold 
Chefs, tried her spatula on MasterChef. We'll let her have the 
last word on judge Gordon Ramsay: “Happy, healthy, well- 
adjusted people don’t make careers out of bullying,” Carrie 
4 says. “Не clearly has small-penis syndrome.” 


en 


PLAYMATE* 
FLASHBACK 


Fifteen years ago this month 
bank manager DEANNA BROOKS 
became Miss May 1998 after 
slipping her nude photos to a for- 
mer classmate who worked as 

a butler at the Playboy Mansion. 
Shortly thereafter Deanna lost 
her gig at the bank but went 

on to become one of the most 
active Playmates working at 

our hottest parties and events. 


House of Style 


“To hire Los Angeles 
designer Kelly Wearstler 
is to buy into her sin- 
gularly bedazzling, 
high-chroma style,” 
wrote Architectural Digest 
in an article high- 
lighting a Bel Air 
home outfitted by 
Miss September 
1994. The new 
layout? Closets 
bigger than the 
girls’ apartments 
on Girls. 


ALI 
(continued from page 138) 


field that produces our nation. And if you 
can’t protect your women, you can’t pro- 
tect your nation. Man, I was in Chicago a 
couple of months ago and saw a white fella 
take a black woman into a motel room. He 
stayed with her two or three hours and then 
walked out—and a bunch of brothers saw 
it and didn't even say nothin”. They should 
have thrown rocks at his car or kicked down 
the door while he was in there screwing 
her—do something to let him know you 
don't like it. How can you be a man when 
another man can come get your woman or 
your daughter or your sister—and take her 
to a room and screw her—and, nigger, you 
don’t even protest? 

But nobody touches our women, white 
or black. Put a hand on a Muslim sister and 
you are to die. You may be a white or black 
man in an elevator with a Muslim sister, 
and if you pat her on the behind, you're 
supposed to die right there. 

PLAYBOY: You're beginning to sound like 
а carbon copy of a white racist. Let's get it 
out front: Do you believe that lynching is 
the answer to interracial sex? 

ALI: A black man should be killed if he's 
messing with a white woman. And white 
men have always done that. They lynched 
niggers for even looking at a white woman; 
they'd call it reckless eyeballing and bring 
out the rope. Raping, patting, mischief, 
abusing, showing our women disrespect— 
a man should die for that. And not just 
white men—black men too. We will kill 
you, and the brothers who don't kill you 
will get their behinds whipped and prob- 
ably get killed themselves if they let it hap- 
pen and don’t do nothin’ about it. Tell 
it to the president—he ain't gonna do 
nothin’ about it. Tell it to the FBI: We'll 
kill anybody who tries to mess around with 
our women. Ain't nobody gonna bother 
them.... Let me ask you something. 
PLAYBOY: Shoot. 

АШ: You think I'm as pretty as I used to be? I 
was so pretty. Somebody took some pictures 
of me and they're in an envelope here, so 
let me stop talking for a few seconds, ‘cause 
I want you to take a look at 'em. 

Hey, I’m still pretty! What a wonderful 
face! Don't I look good in these pictures? I 
can see I gotta stay in shape if I want to stay 
pretty, but that’s so hard. I've been fighting 
for 21 years and just thinkin’ about it makes 
me tired. I ain't 22 anymore—I'm 33 and I 
can't fight like I did eight or 10 years ago. 
Maybe for a little while, but I can’t keep it up. 
I used to get in a ring and dance and jump 
and hop around for the whole 15 rounds. 
Now I can only do that for five or six, and 
then I have to slow down and rest for the next 
two or three rounds. I might jump around 
again in the 11th and 12th rounds, or I might 
even go the whole rest of the fight like I used 
to, but I have to work much more to be able 
to do it now; weight is harder to get off, and 
it takes more out of me to lose it. That means 
getting out every day and running a couple 
of miles, coming into the gym and punching 
the bags four days a week and eatin’ the right 
foods. But I like to eat the wrong foods. ГЇЇ 


go to a coffee shop and order a stack of pan- 
cakes with strawberry preserves, blueberry 
preserves, whipped cream and butter, and 
then hit them hot pancakes with that good 
maple syrup and then drink a cold glass of 
milk. At dinnertime, I'll pull into a McDon- 
ald’s and order two big double cheeseburgers 
and а chocolate milk shake—and the next day 
I weigh 10 pounds more. Some people can 
eat and not gain weight, but if I just look at 
food, my belly gets bigger. That's why, when 
I'm training, about all I eat is broiled steaks, 
chicken and fish, fresh vegetables and salads. I 
don't even get to see them other things I like. 
PLAYBOY: Since you've already told us that 
age has been steadily eroding your skills, 
what makes you think you'll still be cham- 
pion when you're 38? 

ALI: Hey, Jersey Joe Walcott won his title 
when he was 37. Sugar Ray Robinson 
fought till he was in his 40s, and Archie 
Moore went until he was 51. 

PLAYBOY: At which point you took him 
apart with ease. Would you want to wind 
up your career the same way? 

ALI: Archie didn’t end up hurt, and he’s still 
intelligent—in spite of thinking Foreman 
could beat me. Going five more years don't 
mean going till I'm 51, and I can do it just 
by slowing down my style. You also got to 
remember I spent three and a half years in 
exile, when they took away my title because I 
wouldn't be drafted. That's three and a half. 
years less of tusslin’, trainin’ and fightin’, and 
if not for all that rest, I don't think I'd be in 
the same shape I am today. Because of my 
age, I don't have all of those three and a half 
years coming to me, but I have some of them. 
PLAYBOY: Was that ре! of enforced idle- 
ness a bitter part of your life? 

АШ: I wasn't bitter at all. I had a good 
time speaking at colleges and meeting the 
students—whites, blacks and all kinds, but 
mainly whites, who supported me a hun- 
dred percent. They were as much against 
the Vietnam war as I was. 

PLAYBOY: When you returned to the ring in 
1970, most boxing observers felt you'd lost 
a good deal of your speed and timing. Did 
you think so? 

ALI: Nope, I thought I was about the same, 
maybe even better. 

PLAYBOY: Does your claim of being the 
greatest mean that you think you could 
have beaten every heavyweight champion 
in modern ring history? 

ALI: I can't really say. Rocky Marciano, Jack 
Johnson, Joe Louis, Jack Dempsey, Joe 
Walcott, Ezzard Charles—they all would 
have given me trouble. I can't know if I 
would've beaten them all, but I do know 
this: I'm the most talked-about, the most 
publicized, the most famous and the most 
colorful fighter in history. And I’m the fast- 
est heavyweight—with feet and hands—who 
ever lived. Besides all that, I'm the onliest 
poet laureate boxing's ever had. One other 
thing too: If you look at pictures of all the 
former champions, you know in a flash that 
I'm the best-looking champion in history. It 
all adds up to being the greatest, don't it? 


Excerpted from the November 1975 issue. 


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141 


WHO WILL BE OUR PLAYMATE OF THE YEAR? 


MACHO CAMACHO'S TRAGIC FINAL ROUND. 


NEXT MONTH 


WAYLON JENNINGS + METALLICA = ERIC CHURCH. 


THE BIG REVEAL—THERE ARE 12 FINALISTS BUT NO SWIVEL- 
ING CHAIRS. INSTEAD, ONE MAN, WITH THE HELP OF MILLIONS, 
HAS SELECTED ONE WOMAN TO JOIN THE LIKES OF SHANNON 
TWEED, JENNY MCCARTHY, BRANDE RODERICK, DALENE 
KURTIS AND JACLYN SWEDBERG AS PLAYMATE OF THE YEAR. 
WILL YOU BE SURPRISED? ONLY IF SHE ISN'T YOUR CHOICE. 


ART OF REVOLT—FOR MANY CHINESE, Al WEIWEI IS A HERO 
WHO USES HIS ART AND GLOBAL CELEBRITY TO CALL FOR 
FREEDOM. TO THE CHINESE GOVERNMENT, HE'S A PROVO- 
CATEUR AND SERIOUS THREAT. WE SENT DAVID SHEFF TO 
BEIJING FOR THE PLAYBOY INTERVIEW, AND AS YOU WILL 
SEE, Al COULD BE THE SPARK THAT STARTS A FIRE. 


DOWN AND OUT—NO ONE EVER KNOCKED OUT HECTOR 
“MACHO” CAMACHO, A FORMER CAR THIEF WHO DOMINATED 
THE RING IN THE 1980S, WINNING TITLES IN THREE WEIGHT 
CLASSES. IN NOVEMBER POLICE FOUND HIM WITH A BULLET IN 
HIS HEAD AND A BAG OF COCAINE IN THE CAR. WHO FINALLY 
TOOK DOWN THE CHAMP? BOB DRURY INVESTIGATES. 


GETTING BACK TO NORMAL—CARL HAS BEEN SOBER FOR 
ONLY A FEW MONTHS, AND GRETA IS MARRIED, BARELY. YET 
HERE THEY ARE, TOGETHER BUT APART, SUNNING, GAMBLING, 
NEGOTIATING A RELATIONSHIP THAT FEELS RIGHT AND 


WRONG AND HAS NOWHERE TO GO. IT'S A STORY OF MIS- 
GUIDED LOVE BY LIESL SCHILLINGER. 


JURASSIC HEIST—ERIC PROKOPI IS A “COMMERCIAL PALEON- 
TOLOGIST." THAT MEANS HE'S A BUSINESSMAN, NOT A 
SCIENTIST, AND IT EXPLAINS WHY HE HAD JUST SOLD A 
TARBOSAURUS BATAAR SKELETON WHEN HE WAS ARRESTED. 
BUT WHO REALLY OWNS THOSE BONES? BRETT FORREST DIGS 
DEEP INTO A MYSTERIOUS BLACK MARKET. 


MAD MUDDER—WHO BETTER TO SEND THAN OUR RESIDENT 
RACER KEVIN COOK TO THE WORLD'S TOUGHEST MUDDER, 
WHICH IS THREE HOURS OF CLIMBING, CRAWLING, SCRAM- 
BLING, SWIMMING, DRAGGING AND WINCING, EIGHT TIMES 
OVER? IT'S AN ENDURANCE RACE FOR PEOPLE BORED WITH 
TRIATHLONS. OH, DID WE MENTION THE ELECTRIC SHOCKS? 


LICENSE TO GRILL-THANKS TO A FOOD REVOLUTION, THE 
FINE ART OF GRILLING IS MORE REFINED THAN EVER. WE TAP 
TOP PIT MASTERS AND CHEFS FOR TIPS ON FIRING UP THE 
BARBECUE AND SHARE A JUICY MENU FOR CARNIVORES. 


PLUS—A CLASSIC PLAYBOY INTERVIEW WITH FRANK SINATRA, 
200 WITH KEVIN SMITH AND JASON MEWES, COUNTRY STAR 
ERIC CHURCH, THE BEST PRO SKATEBOARDERS TRICKED OUT IN 
THE SUMMER'S BEST SUITS, THE ENTICING MISS JUNE AND MORE. 


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Arrives in a custom 
case with gift box and 
Certificate of Authenticity 


ADA 


www.bradfordexchange.com/family 
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BRADFORD EXCHANGE | || 


NO POSTAGE 
NECESSARY 


BUSINESS REPLY MAIL 


POSTAGE WILL BE PAID BY ADDRESSEE 


THE BRADFORD EXCHANGE 
PO BOX 806 
MORTON GROVE IL 60053-9956 


“(әне brilliance of genuine diamonds sparkles 
in an exclusive jewelry creation that is a beautiful 
and meaningful presentation of the love you 
cherish most. Introducing our “Family of Love” 
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of the most precious bond of all! 

Personalized with the 

Names of Your Choice 
Exquisitely hand-crafted, this stunning bracelet 
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24K gold-plated accents. You create a special 
keepsake by personalizing your bracelet with up 
to 10 elegantly engraved names. The bracelet is 
adjustable from 7” to 8” and features a 24K gold 
and silver plated heart charm at the clasp. 


A Remarkable Value ... 
Available for a Limited Time 
The beautiful “Family of 
ove” Personalized Diamond 
racelet is a remarkable value at 
119,* payable in 4 installments 
f just $29.75 each, and backed 
y our unconditional 120-day 
uarantee. To reserve, send 
0 money now; just mail the 
eservation Application. This 
ersonalized bracelet is only 
wailable from The Bradford 
Exchange. So don't miss out— 
rder today! 


IF MAILED 


IN THE 
UNITED STATES 


SUPPLEMENT TO PLAYBOY MAGAZINE 


EC. M 
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ALL DIRECTV OFFERS REQUIRE 24-MONTH AGREEMENT.” Offers end 5/1/13. Another offer wil be available after 5/1/13. Credit card required (except in MA & 
PA] New approved customers only lease required]. Programming, pricing and offers are subject to change and may vary in certain markets. See details on back. 


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