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F-TYPE: WINNER 2013
WORLD CAR DESIGN
OF THE YEAR

JAGUAR UNLEASHES
А NEW CAT

ARE YOU HER
TYPE? THE NEW
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BEAUTY AND
THE BEAST

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SEEKS SAME.

INTRODUCING THE JAGUAR F-TYPE.
If you're a thrill-seeker whose turn-ons include long fast drives at sunset, going
topless, and embracing life at every turn, you've just found your soulmate. The
new Jaguar F-TYPE. Drive desire today at jaguarusa.com/f-type.

IW ALIVE ARE YOU?

The Final Days of
Macho Camacho
Bernardo
Bertolucci

20 Questions
with Kevin Smith
and Jason Mewes
The Interview:
Chinese Dissident
Ai Weiwei

Eric Church

Ain’t So Country

The Guide to
Summer Grilling

www.playboy.com e JUNE 2013

“Who
Ме?”

Playmate
of the Year

RAQUEL POMPLUN

ER suttivananason tbs.com/sullivanandson

ча |

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THURSDAYS 10/9c veryfunny

"AISISNOdSTM ^NI LI NING

Official Supplier to Mem

ова! drives her wild, you can be surei $ going
` be good. Find your look, your grooming product
and your hairstylist at americancrew.com.

une is a special month for РЕАУВОУ
readers. Each year we offer a sum-
mer kickoff issue brimming with
coolness, including our Playmate of
the Year pictorial. To start with, we're
pleased to publish some scintillating fic-
tion by Lies : Getting My Baby
Tanked. A pair of romantics embark on a
gambling boat out of Florida. He's just out
of rehab. She's one foot out of a marriage.
What happens next will surprise everyone.
Héctor "Macho" Camacho's life is stranger
than fiction. The champion boxer faced the
greatest fighters of his era, but in the end
his biggest foe was himself. Camacho loved
cocaine, and he couldn't keep out of trouble
with the Law—or from getting murdered,
b Dr reports in Macho vs. Camacho.
It's been nearly 20 years since i
mith and. lewes first cracked us
up as Jay and Silent Bob in Clerks. The pair
have since worked on 11 films together,
including the upcoming Clerks ITI. What's
the root of their success? Find out in 200.
As the old song lyric goes, Eric Church is
a little bit country and a little bit rock and
roll, a fact that confuses a few
music fans. “Some people hate
me,” Church says. “We've been
polarizing, and that's okay.” In
The Badass, Rob Tannenbaum
gets up close with one of the
hottest (and most detested)
acts to come out of Nash-
ville in years. This issue also
debuts. new columnist Deborak
Schc man—novelist (4%
Famous), TV writer, former
executive story editor of Girls
and brilliant raconteur. Her
first Women column, “Is She
Hot? Are You Rich?," tackles
the idea of what is attractive.
Guys who go for women just
for their beauty are like women
who go for men because of their
wallets, says Schoeneman. The great Ital-
ian filmmaker , 1 has
released his first film i in eri a decade,
Me and You. In this month's Francofile,
Contributing Editor James Franco gets
the scoop from the director himself. From
film we move to politics. Artist Ai Weiwe
is the most influential dissident in China
today. Ai has served prison time for speak-
ing out against the Chinese regime; even
under government surveillance he uses
Twitter to raise his voice louder. Ai joins
us for a Playboy Interview by David Sheff.
China's neighbor to the north is Mongolia,
which happens to be home to the hottest
black market dealing in dinosaur fossils.
In The Bone Thieves, st goes
in search of prehistoric treasure. Which
brings us to our climactic moment. Who
is our 2013 Playmate of the Year? Drum-
roll, please! Congratulations to R
| who's pictured at right with
phategrenher sha . Well
deserved. So there you hada it: humor,
adventure and plenty of pulchritude. It's
June again, folks. Summer is here.

Liesl Schillinger

ө
Kevin Smith agd Jason Mewes №

Eric Church

with Michael Bernard

ca Know. |
> | d
M UNE
ү N 4

IMMEDIATELY ATS 1 DEXTER? "Tum WTIME

premiere JUNE 30

To order: go to SHO.com

«ғ. .
VOL. 60, NO.5-JUNE 2013

“o CONTENTS:

> FEATURES
- ‚ =» d [|
1 RES 66 “MACHO vs. - >» 84 THERE WILL BE MUD
! He 2 >” CAMACHO u. ` KEVIN СООК drags us
Мә, e 4 wi ^ вов DRURY tells the = “sthrough Tough Mudder,
nw 2 A. story of Héctor “Macho” - the endurance racethat
Р ХАМ ^. Camacho— aboxinglegend + will *pull your balls up into
4 "beloved from Puerto Rico” · ? yourlarynx.”
, tothe Brohx-and] his — <
Eri tragic murder. >» 104 PLAYBOY CLASSIC:
b | >. FRANK SINATRA
1 70 TH E BONE TH IEVES In this 1963 interview
2 Wi . BRETT FORREST goes. - with JOE HYAMS, ОГ
53. to Mongolia to hunt for» " Blue Eyes shows а side of
+ - illegal dinosaur fossils, himself that had not been
2 апаїшга] resource with’ seen before.

. unnatural RC

108 THE NEXT PIG THING
\DASS Beef is for dinner; pork is for
urch rúining an epic feast. Our grilling

-or saving guide will have you going
INBAUM hog wild all summer long.
_ FICTION INTERVIEW
106 GETTING MY BABY 61 Al WEIWEI
хе ts TANKED The dissident artist and
а LIESL SCHILLINGER activist who has shaken
— writes ofa sun-bleached Chinato its core details
weekend and the inter- the price of free expression
section of two listless for DAVID SHEFF.

lives in Florida.

20Q

88 KEVIN SMITH AND
JASON MEWES
The duoruminates with
ERIC SPITZNAGEL on
agingdisgracefully and who
owes his careerto whom.

116

PLAYMATE
OF THE
Y EA R Raquel Pomplun receives

her life-changing call from
Hef. Of course our Rabbit
peeks in, if only to see the
smile on Raquel's face.

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FLOP CONVENTION ON ITS
HEAD AND YOU CHANGE
THE GAME FOREVER.

By the late ‘60s, high jumping had reached its limit. Enter Dick Fosbury. Rather than go front-first like those before, he dared to
jump back-first. He shattered records and changed the sport forever. Conviction. Creativity. Courage. lt changes the game. And
it's how we created the all-new Mazda6, a sports sedan that defies convention. Our SKYACTIV* TECHNOLOGY makes it lighter yet
stronger. Gives it better performance yet makes it more efficient, with a class-leading EPA-estimated 38 highway MPG* Re-engineered
from the ground up, it's meticulously crafted down to the last stitch and equipped with available advanced safety technologies
like a Lane Departure Warning System! to keep you informed and in command. This is the Mazda Way. And this is the all-new
Mazda6, starting at $20,880? What do you drive?

THE ALL-NEW MazpnDac

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PLAYMATE: Audrey Aleen Allen

A BORDER TALE
From Arizona, the epicen-
ter ofracial extremism,

narrates
the paranoid life and grue-
some end of a citizen
border guard.

READER RESPONSE
Bringing logic to the weed
debate; gun owners speak
out; a tobacco-tax primer.

TALKING WITH
BERNARDO
BERTOLUCCI

The Italian director dis-
cusses his controversial
career and latest film with

STRIPPERS VERSUS
PORN STARS

explains why
his sexual fantasies
should stay on the inter-
net, where they belong.

IS SHE HOT? ARE
YOU RICH?

explains why dating only
the hottest women isn’t
always a good policy.

COMING HOME TO
ROOST

relates
how our desperate
recruitment policies pro-
duce dangerous soldiers.

BOARD CERTIFIED
From the boardroom to the
half-pipe, pro skateboard-
ers shred in summer’s
hottest suits. Fashion by

VOL. 60, NO. 5-JUNE 2013

< PLAYBOY

CONTENTS

Am.
NUDE WOMAN > 5
RECLINING = :
Looking for inspiration? * .
We found itin a Dutch

beauty like no other.

PLAYMATE:
AUDREY ALEEN
ALLEN

Hitting the beach with
our vivacious Miss
June makes for a
summer to truly
remember.

PLAYMATE OF
THE YEAR
Raquel Pomplun has
never been as
drop-dead gorgeous
asthis. Say helloto
your 2013 Playmate
ofthe Year.

WORLD OF
PLAYBOY
Playmates go philan-
thropic for a worthy cause;
Woofstock in Beverly Hills;
Victoria Fuller's fine art.

HANGIN’ WITH HEF
Не? celebrates Easter
with his favorite
Bunnies; amasquerade
party to remember.

200: Kevin Smith
and Jason Mewes

PLAYBILL
DEAR PLAYBOY
AFTER HOURS

PLAYMATE NEWS REVIEWS
Nikki Leigh hits TV; Pamela MANTRACK
Horton shows her creative PLAYBOY

side; Kassie Lyn Logsdon ADVISOR
shares a steamy shot. 2. PARTY JOKES

PLAYBOY ON PLAYBOY ON PLAYBOY ON
FACEBOOK TWITTER INSTAGRAM

AL Keep up with all things Playboy at
facebook.com/playboy, twitter.com/playboy
and instagram.com/playboy.

GENERAL OFFICES: PLAYBOY, 9346 CIVIC CENTER DRIVE, BEVERLY HILLS, CALIFORNIA 90210.
PLAYBOY ASSUMES NO RESPONSIBILITY TO RETURN UNSOLICITED EDITORIAL OR GRAPHIC OR
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PURPOSES, AND MATERIAL WILL BE SUBJECT TO PLAYBOY'S UNRESTRICTED RIGHT TO EDIT AND
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PLAYBOY, PLAYMATE AND RABBIT HEAD SYMBOL ARE MARKS OF PLAYBOY, REGISTERED U.S.
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SYSTEM OR TRANSMITTED IN ANY FORM BY ANY ELECTRONIC, MECHANICAL, PHOTOCOPYING OR
RECORDING MEANS OR OTHERWISE WITHOUT PRIOR WRITTEN PERMISSION OF THE PUBLISHER.
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PAGE 142. JAGUAR COVER ATTACHMENT ON DOMESTIC SUBSCRIPTION POLYWRAPPED COPIES.
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LICITUD DE CONTENIDO NO. 5108 DE FECHA 29 DE JULIO DE 1993 EXPEDIDOS POR LA COMISION
CALIFICADORA DE PUBLICACIONES Y REVISTAS ILUSTRADAS DEPENDIENTE DE LA SECRETARÍA
DE GOBERNACIÓN, MÉXICO. RESERVA DE DERECHOS 04-2000-071710332800-102.

PRINTED IN U.S.A.

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HUGH М. HEFNER

editor-in-chief

JIMMY JELLINEK

editorial director
STEPHEN RANDALL deputy editor

MAC LEWIS art director
LEOPOLD FROEHLICH managing editor
A.J. BAIME, JASON BUHRMESTER executive editors
REBECCA H. BLACK photo editor
HUGH GARVEY articles editor

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

TYLER TRYKOWSKI editorial assistant CARTOONS: AMANDA 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 B. DE SALVO, JAMES FRANCO,
PAULA FROELICH, KARL TARO GREENFELD, KEN GROSS, GEORGE GURLEY, DAVID HOCHMAN,

ARTHUR KRETCHMER (automotive), 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 TANNENBAUM, CHRISTOPHER TENNANT

ART
JUSTIN PAGE senior art director; ROBERT HARKNESS associate art director; MATT STEIGBIGEL photo researcher;

AARON LUCAS art coordinator; LISA TCHAKMAKIAN 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; DANIEL FERGUSON manager, prepress and imaging; AMY KASTNER-DROWN

digital imaging specialist; OSCAR RODRIGUEZ prepress operator

PUBLIC RELATIONS

‘THERESA М. 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 G. ISRAEL president, playboy media;

TOM 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
THE W PL AYBOY FOR Ph APP vice president, associate publisher; HELEN BIANCULLI executive director, direct-response advertising
| опе NEW YORK: BRIAN VRABEL entertainment and gaming director; MIKE BOYKA automotive, consumer

electronics and consumer products director; ANTHONY GIANNOCCORA fashion and grooming manager;

Available on the

Ж App Store

KEVIN FALATKO associate marketing director; ZOHRAY BRENNAN marketing manager;
MICHELLE MILLER digital sales planning director; JOHN KITSES art director

LOS ANGELES: LORI KESSLER west coast director; LINDSAY BERG digital sales planner

THE WORLD “с

MANSION FROLICS

OF PLAYBOY Dc ire Notes

If current health statis-
tics were applied to the
photo at right, at least
one of the women pic-
tured would have breast
cancer in her lifetime.
Our Playmates have
been doing their part
through their organiza-
tion Bunnies4theCure.
Recently, the 38 team
members partici-

pated in a Susan G.
Komen race, where
they were one of the
top fund-raising teams.
Thanks to their efforts,
Bunnies4theCure
brought in more than
$16,000.

Crystal and Char-
ie Hefner took in
Beverly Hills' Woof-
stock to support the
Pet Care Founda-
ion. The event, held
at Roxbury Park's
“Wiggly Field,” fea-
ured a parade, face
painting and rescue
adoptions. The
adoptions are dear
o Crystals heart.
“It was a huge suc-
cess,” she says.

Artist (and Miss
January 1996) Vic-
toria Fuller created
11 silk-screens of her
take on PLAYBOY's first
cover with Marilyn
Monroe. Hef signed
one that then went
up on Charity Buzz's
auction block to ben-
efit the Pet Care
Foundation.

HANGIN’
WITH
HEF

Mystery, intrigue and
antasy abounded at
the Kandyland
Masquerade at

the Mansion. Hugh
and Cooper Hefner
navigated the party
behind masks. Among
he women enjoying
he bacchanal were
somewhat) incognito
Playmates Raquel
Pomplun, Jaclyn
Swedberg, Summer
Altice and Hiromi
Oshima. Crystal
Hefner—in a skin-

ight red bodysuit and
bedazzled headphones—
spun a DJ set and was
joined in the booth

by Caya Ukkas
Hefner.

Easter is always a
special time at the
Playboy Mansion as
those in the Playboy
family bring their
children to enjoy an
Easter egg hunt and
a traveling zoo. This
year's highlights
included Playmates
Pennelope Jimenez
and Charis Boyle
flirting with the
Easter Bunny,
Crystal holding a
joey and Amelia
Talon hanging out
with another chick.

» 7
Я adt.
| "A _
58 »
" sa
PU 7
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#7
ed y

THE END BEGINS 6/30 SUNDAYS ue d WTI

FOLLOWED BY THE SERIES ааа OF r>
ERACE WTIME
TO ORDER: GO TO SHO.COM — ^

ا 55

MIDNIGHT IS
EXACTLY THAT.

ШЕТРІЗЕЗЕ ЕЦЕ ЕЭ
SMOOTH FINISH

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ENJOY RESPONSIBLY
©2013 A-B, Bud Light® Platinum Lager (Ale in OR & TX), St. Louis, MO

DIRECT DIAL
Death and Madness at Diamond Mountain
(March) is an enlightening read. I never
cease to be amazed by the eagerness with
which supposedly rational and intelligent
people, long on time and money but short
on happiness, will subjugate themselves to
religious teachers only to find the leaders
are more screwed up than the followers.
In spirituality, as in business, it’s best to
eliminate the middleman.
Dave Cherry
Reno, Nevada

SINGING A DIFFERENT TUNE
І appreciate many of the choices Rob
Tannenbaum makes for The 38 Best Songs
About Sex (April), but the best song about
a blow-up sex doll has to be “Ms. Pinky”
by Frank Zappa. The second-best song
in this category is “Polly Urethane” by
Unknown Hinson.
Frank Burris
Canton, Ohio

Zappa’s “Ms. Pinky,” or possibly “Arti-
ficial Rhonda,” gets my vote
Kurt Reimer
Abington, Pennsylvania

Your list struck a chord, but you forgot
the ultimate and most insistent come-on,
“Could It Be Magic” by Barry Manilow.

Karen Robelen
Scarsdale, New York
If that's what it takes....

I take issue with your claim that the
Beatles’ “I Saw Her Standing There” is
about pedophilia. It's clearly about young
love and dancing. Regardless, the age of
consent in the U.K. is 16, so she wouldn't
have been jailbait.

John Кусгай
Phoenix, Arizona

“Band of Gold” is about impotence?
Hub? It's about an inexperienced young
woman whose new husband is introduc-
ing her to kink. After thinking it over, she
decides she wants him to return.

Larry Padilla
Tucson, Arizona

Where is G.O.A.T. and Your M.O.M.'s
“Quack Like a Duck”?

Anthony Pennza

Cleveland, Ohio

I know it's easy to miss Paul Simon's
“Kodachrome,” which on close listening is
about looking at porn: “If you took all the
girls I knew when I was single and brought
them all together for one night/I know
they'd never match my sweet imagination/
Everything looks worse in black and white."

Emil Novitsky
Tolleson, Arizona

Sadly, you omit the best sex-song band
of all time: Lords of Acid. Their latest
album includes “Little Mighty Rabbit"

Girls! Girls! Girls!

In 20Q (April), you don't ask Lena
Dunham of Girls what I’m sure many
of us want to know—why is she the
only one of the four stars to get naked?

Mark Simendinger

via e-mail

Your interview reminds me of
the time Howard Stern criticized
Dunham's body type. She called in
and then charmed and disarmed him
to the point that he began to furiously
backpedal. Dunham is a powerful new
creative force.

J. Bryan McGeever
Brooklyn, New York

(sex toy), “Long Johns" (cross-dressing),
“Sole Sucker" (foot fetish) and one Hef
will love, "Censorship Blows."

William Fouts

Las Vegas, Nevada

How about "L.A. Woman" by the
Doors? Jim Morrison starts slow and
builds, then slows again to the point
where you can smell the cigarette he lit.

Ron Stokes
Lutz, Florida

While you are correct to credit Lucille
Bogan's homage to unlubricated coitus,
"Shave 'Em Dry," as the source of the line

Isn't every song about sex?

“You make a dead man come,” it also con-
tains the legendary pre-rap boast "I got
nipples on my titties, big as the end of my
thumb." I might go with "Sexy MF" as the
best Prince song, but “Darling Nikki" is
an excellent historic choice because it led
to those parental-warning stickers. For
VD songs I would have gone with Frank
Zappa's "Why Does It Hurt When I Pee?,"

Tom Lehrer's “I Got It From Agnes" and
Shel Silverstein's “Don't Give a Dose to
the One You Love Most." For masturba-
tion, who wants to hear guys sing about
swan throttling when women have been
so vocal on the topic? Listen to “I Touch
Myself" by the Divinyls or "She Bop" by
Cyndi Lauper, for starters.

Randall Crawford

Grand Rapids, Michigan

MISSING MOVIE
I'm surprised The Birth of Redneck Cin-
ema (March) doesn't mention Walking
Тай (1973), the obvious precursor to the
unexpected box-office success of Smokey
and the Bandit. Its success was spurred
by a marketing campaign that likened
it to the countercultural hit Billy Jack,
yet most commentators assumed South-
ern working-class viewers would fail to
appreciate Walking Tall’s antiestablishment
politics. This might explain why studio
bosses also failed to predict how Smokey's
rebellious, populist heroes would resonate.
Derek Nystrom
Montreal, Quebec
Nystrom, who teaches at McGill University,
is author of Hard Hats, Rednecks and Macho
Men: Class in 1970s American Cinema.

The one line I remember from Smokey is
Jerry Reed telling Sally Field, *Nice ass."
Any man would agree.

Rod Cole
Fort Worth, Texas

FREEDOM PANGS

Nicolas Pelham highlights a real crisis
in the Middle Fast after the upheavals of
the past two years (The Cold Arab Spring,
March). Attacks against women in Egypt
are on the rise. Restrictions on social free-
doms are driving religious minorities and
secularists to consider emigration. Tourism
is shrinking. It's not a sustainable model.

PLAYBOY

PROMOTION

PLAYBOY'S
MODEL OF THE YEAR
MEETS JAGUAR'S
MODEL OF THE YEAR,
THE ALL-NEW F-TYPE.

Scan this code to view
behind-the-scenes video from
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Societies in the Middle East will have to
adjust to the demands of the modern world
and the liberalism the Arab Spring has
unleashed or face brain drain, economic
decline and further upheaval. The genie of
democracy can't be put back in the bottle.
Charles Dunne
Washington, D.C.
Dunne, a former diplomat, is director of
Middle East and. North Africa programs at
Freedom House (freedomhouse.org).

The presence and role of women in the
public sphere, as well as their expected
conduct in the private sphere, are two
important and deeply related pieces of
this identity puzzle. Aspirations to build
more equal, free and just societies will not
be fulfilled unless all citizens are included
in the process. Any move to restrict wom-
en's visibility and influence should be
regarded as a threat to the revolution.

Benedetta Berti
Tel Aviv, Israel

Berti, a research fellow at the Institute for
National Security Studies, is co-author of Hez-
bollah and Hamas: A Comparative Study.

MUSIC MAN
I admire Clive Davis, but he's behind

the times. In his Playboy Interview (April),
he never mentions what record compa-
nies need to do to secure money for artists
online, such as when their songs are
placed with ads on YouTube. Instead he
simply dismisses piracy as a crime. Maga-
zines suffer from the same problem, but
at least Hefand others have the creativity
to push forward. Davis should be listen-
ing to their advice instead of the current
Top 40, which is terrible.

Javier Moreno

Oakland, California

MANLY MEN
Nothing is more of a turnoff than some
manly man like Joel Stein who thinks
he can impress women by eating bacon
everything, fermented shark, salted tuna
sperm and other cruelly produced foods
(“You Are What You Eat,” Men, April):
Ill take someone like Joaquin Phoenix,
Mac Danzig or Woody Harrelson any day.
They're all vegetarians.
Paula Moore
Portsmouth, Virginia

So it's settled: Joel Stein is gay. Not that
there's anything wrong with that.
Paul Thiel
Crescent Springs, Kentucky

Lisa Lampanelli has inspired me to be
more manly (“Man Up!,” Women, April).
After reading her column, I may or may
not have done several push-ups, eaten
raw meat and chopped wood.

Rob McComb
Stevens Point, Wisconsin

Thank you, Lisa. Гуе been married for
eight years to a manly man, so there are

no manicures, skinny jeans or hair and
face products. I love seeing him covered
in grease and dirt after fixing the car or
sweaty from working in the yard.
Megan Vanderpoel
Melvin, Michigan

THE PART DOWN THE MIDDLE
Your list of the best barbershops

(“Shorn Again,” Fade In, March) ignores

the entire middle of the country. I nomi-

nate Haney's Barber Shop in downtown

Ogallala, Nebraska. Everybody leaves

happy, and my dad's cuts are 10 bucks.
Shawn Haney
Sacramento, California

CLASSIC BEAUTY
Playmate Jaslyn Ome (Special of the Day,
April) is more like Jaslyn OMG.
Thomas Howard
Harstine Island, Washington

Irene Schaur's photos of Gabriela
Milagre (Obrigado Brazil, April) would

Gabriela Milagre is a work of art.

not look out of place in a museum.
David Burroughs
Port Townsend, Washington

David Bellemere's photos of Karolina
Szymczak (The Muse, March) are outstand-
ing. It's nice to see a model without all the
distracting background details.

Dan Gwizdak
East Brunswick, New Jersey

FAN LETTERS
After years of telling friends I read
PLAYBOY for the articles, I can now tell
them honestly that I read it for the reci-
pes. Your food page in After Hours is great.
Ed D'Alessandro
North Olmsted, Ohio

Bravo for your recent covers, espe-
cially October and March, and for the
After Hours redesign. Keep innovating.

Christian Welsch
Luxembourg

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

GET THE ONES THAT
СОТ AWAY

back issues now for sale on

PLAYBOYSTORE.COM

PLAYBOY INTERVIEWS
SS SSH

ААА ААА WWW. ААА”

Since 1962, Playboy has published
the greatest interviews in history,
Now you can buy 50 of the most

(in)famous exclusively at Amazon.com—
99 cents each. Read them today on your
Kindle App, Kindle Fire and Kindle Touch.

YEA
=

^ the Play, Y
Nterviey `

е #22 и =
E

BECOMING
ATTRACTION

JESSICACLARK

* GOOD AND EVIL
battle it out in the
body of British
actress Jessica
Clark, who plays
virulent vampire
deity Lilith on
True Blood. "She's
the essence of
power, and #5
insanely fun to
play someone who
behaves so badly,”
Jessica says. “But
everything is gray.
She might be
misunderstood.”
Jessica can relate.
“People think I’m
a good girl, even
though I'm naked
and covered in
blood on ТМ” she
says. "Maybe it's
my accent?"

TALK | WHAT MATTERS NOW

Historians will callit
the Great Bluth Binge,
that moment when
potentially half of
America's workforce—
the half with Net-
flix subscriptions,
anyway—ditches work
to devour a marathon of
Arrested Development.
The fourth season
ofthe beloved show
launches on Netflix on
May 26 with all 15 epi-
sodes available imme-
diately, a move designed
to encourage fans to

binge on the Bluth fam-
ily. Welcome to TV's
fast-food future.
Arrested Development
isthe third high-profile
series to debut on the
service. Eli Roth's Hem-
lock Grove and Kevin
Spacey's House of Cards
launched this year amid
headlines declaring the
end of traditional TV.
The death knell may
have been ringing, but
it wasn’t because movie
stars were making
shows exclusively for

every epi: a
atonce andlet viewers
consume the series in
one sitting, like a Big
Gulp of pop culture.
Binge viewing has
been around since
the multi-episode
marathon hit TV. What
makes Netflix's model
different is that it's the
first time shows are
being made to binge on.
Netflix chief content
officer Ted Sarandos
told the Los Angeles
Times that House of
Cards is “the first show
forthe on-demand gen-
eration." That claim is
open to debate, but it is

generation, for whom
findingout what's next
is more important than
what's happening. Our
pop culture appetites
have accelerated from
livingin the now to
livinginthe future.

We talk about trailers
more than the movies
themselves and discuss
spoilers more than

plot points. We seek
out information online
about future episodes
of our favorite shows
instead of waiting to
watch for ourselves.
When you live on
demand, anticipation is
anannoyance.

sion as you want and
never run out. There's
anentire internet
fullofthe stuff, so go
ahead and fast-forward
through the bits you
don’t like. What does a
cliffhanger really mean
ifyou can immediately
watch the next episode
forthe resolution? Who
needs talky exposition
when you can jump to
the next joke, the next
shoot-out or the next
sex scene? It's TV with
a Burger King attitude.
Go on. Have it your way.
—Graeme McMillan

MATT DARTFORD

COVER

VERSIONS

DEREK HESS

A fine artist
with rock roots,
Derek Hess got
his start creating
posters for bands
such as Pearl Jam
and Pink Floyd.
Now his work is in
the Louvre. Of his
PLAYBOY series he

says, “My passion
for drawing the
human figure and
my love of the
classic covers just
made sense to
combine.” Hess
now has piles of
vintage issues—
sans covers. “|

¿PLAYBOY

can't bring myself
to recycle them.
They're just too
cool.” Hess plans
to release He
Ain't No Vargas,

a limited edi-

tion book of his
PLAYBOY designs.
(derekhess.com)

STINKFISH

Colombian
street artist Stink-
fish is known for
creating sprawling,
colorful street mu-
rals, often featuring
portraits of locals.
In between globe-
trotting graffiti
runs to Spain and

HATTIE STEWART

"| had never

really read PLAYBOY
before," says Brit-

ish artist Hattie
Stewart, who
became a fan
after purchasing
vintage issues
on eBay and in
London shops.
"The artwork,
the articles, the
cartoons—it was
brilliant." Stew-
art, who recently
launched a cloth-

ing line with Urban
Outfitters, chooses

the Netherlands,
he began drawing
on record and
magazine covers.
"It's a style that
comes from my
graffiti work but

in another space
and scale," he says.
“One day | found a

her covers care-
fully. "All the cov-
ers stand alone as
remarkable pieces,
but the best ones
to draw over are
the ones where
my characters can
really interact with
the cover star."
She hopes to offer
the series in limited
edition prints. "The
response has been
truly remarkable,"
she says. “I’m
thrilled by it all."
(hattiestewart.com)

PLAYBOY from 1974,
drew on it and
liked the result."
But don't plan on
buying one: The
series, exhibited

at the Carmichael
Gallery in Los An-
geles, quickly sold
out. (stink.tk)

E | ALAN MOORE

Ф | DAVE GIBBONS

CLASSIC
UNMASKED

AN INSIDE LOOK
AT THE GREATEST
GRAPHIC NOVEL OF

ALL TIME

* In the 27 years since writer Alan Moore and artist Dave Gibbons
launched the universally hailed Watchmen series, it has generateda
superhero-size amount of bickering. Moore protested the 2009 block-

buster movie based on the book, describing the idea as “regurgitated

worms,” and cursed DC Comics for last year’s Before Watchmen, а pre-

quel series that offers origin stories for each of the Watchmen heroes,
provided by top comic talent—but not Moore and Gibbons. Moore’s
venom has not diluted the genius of the original work, collected this
month in a deluxe hardback complete with outtake sketches and anew
introduction by Gibbons. ($40, decomics.com)

Y TRAVEL

Tel Aviv,
Israel

VIVA TEL AVIV

Ask alocal about Tel
Aviv's nightlife and
Һе tell you to write
your address inside
your underwear so
the cabdriver knows
where to drop you off
inthe morning. After
48 hours in the White
City, we'd like to post
an addendum: Bringa
Sharpie. Says Tel Aviv
mayor Ron Huldai,
“We have 748 clubs and
barsinthis city—one
for every 220 residents.
Go out after two A.M.
and you'll find out what
kind of nightlife we
have." Um, we're not

TEL AVIV'S

BEST LATE-
NIGHT EATS

sure that math adds up,
but any recommenda-
tions? “Nanutchka!”
the mayor says with a
laugh. “Women dance
onthe bar." Who are we
to argue?

Nanutchka, an old-
school classic, is on a
nondescript street next
toaconstruction site,
which makes it hard
to find but worth the
effort. Antismoking
laws aren't enforced
in Tel Aviv, so push
through Ше cloud and
step into the bar's main
room, which looks like
a bordello you'd find on

9:00PM

Chef Eyal Shani (judge on
Israel's MasterChef) cooks seri-
ously tasty dishes such as lamb
shawarma and purple cabbage
with braised lamb shank.

True Blood. Happily, the
vodka flows like wine.
True to the mayor’s
word, women were
dancing on the tables—
belly dancing, actually.
Tel Aviv is a walk-
ing city, so get moving.
Don’t be fooled by the
café tables out in front
of Rothschild 12. Those
locals sipping cock-
tails are like nightlife
decoys, disguising the
raucous party inside,
where absurdly attrac-
tive Israelis (is there
any other kind?) down
drinks at communal
tables and DJs spin
loud 1990s flannel-rock
mash-ups. If your ears
get tired, the party spills
into the courtyard out
back—the perfect place
to light up. Though it’s
not in any guidebook,
we found the only thing
Israelis care about less
than nicotine is weed.
If you'd rather pray

1:00am

A corned beef sandwich
that’s anything but tradi-
tional: Try yours with chipotle
mustard and a side of warm,
house-made potato chips.

to the gods of the

dance floor, we like
Radio E.P.G.B. in Neve
Tzedek—Tel Aviv’s
answer to SoHo. Radio
E.P.G.B. is the kind of
hybrid dance bar we can
get behind: It’s comfort-
ably on this side of untz-
untz, and they make a
very good cocktail.

The party in Tel Aviv
doesn't really get going
until two A.M., so down
a Red Bull if you're fad-
ing. For after hours, we
like the Orient Hotel,
asubterranean bar
owned by noted DJ
Skazi (real name Asher
Swissa). You'll find
military chicks, good
Israeli beer and enough
Rihanna remixes to sat-
isfy even Chris Brown.
Safe travels. Yalla bye.

PS: That’s Arabic for
“See you later.” Like the
Sharpie, this too will
come in handy. Trust
us.—Mickey Rapkin

6:ООАМ

ВЕАСН
вом

WHERE THE
WOMEN ARE

Order the Florentine Bene-
dict at this 24-hour breakfast
spot. Mop up the hollandaise
with that fresh-baked brioche
that just appeared on the table.

ILLUSTRATIONS BY ROBERT HARKNESS

DON’T WORRY. IT WON’ т BITE.

S Agere § LIME SHOT

— 100% PURO, AGAVE WITH A HINT OF LIME --
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FOOD

THE PERFECT
BURGER

THE SECRETS BEHIND THE BEST
HAMBURGER REVEALED

* There's an ongoing burger battle
ragingin the restaurants of America,

with Shake Shack, Umami Burger and aT
In-N-Out Burger trying to outdo one —

another. Every man can grill a decent
burger, but why leave well enough alone
when restaurant R&D is producing

so many new methods to improve the
summer staple? Here are eight tricks
appropriated from the country's top

burger joints that add up to the best
burger we've ever tasted.

1 à

Shake
Shack uses
Martin's
potato rolls. > Thick
Yep, the same slices of local
stuff you heirloom
cangetina tomatoes add
supermarket. sweetness.

з 4

> Umami > Iceberg

Burger tops remains the
its name- best. It stays
sake with crisp like no

caramelized other.

onions and 52
shiitakes, 1| mm

L.A.’s

Father’s
М Office uses
Nueske’s grated
thick-cut Gruyere and
bacon con- crumbled
tributes rich- blue cheese.

nessanda
kiss of smoke.

8 =

In-N-Out’s

spread is E

approximately 5

> Shake 3 tablespoons 2

Shack's closely mayo, 1 >

guarded tablespoon à

beef blend is ketchup, 1 8
rumored to Бе tablespoon
50% sirloin, pickle relish
25% chuck and and a splash
25% brisket. of vinegar.

Photography by CHARLES MASTERS

ТАКЕ ВАСК
YOUR FREEDOM

A blo eCigs”, the smart alternative to cigarettes.

* Smoke Virtually Anywhere
* No Tobacco Smoke, Only Vapor
* Flavors Made in the U.S.A.

blu" electronic cigarettes are now available
in retail stores nationwide.

Visit us а Бис! igs.com/ store-locator

DRINK

ANATOMY

of a

MARGARITA

HIDE THE BLENDER, DITCH THE MIX.
HERE’S HOW TO MAKE IT RIGHT

* Ifyou've sworn off margaritas because of

a traumatic headache-inducing experience,
don’t blame the drink, blame the drink maker.
Chances are whoever made it used tequila that

wasn't 100 percent agave spirit, added corn-

syrup-based prebottled margarita mix, then є a + ve
blitzed it in a blender to jump-start the pain with “< ГА 24 |
some brain freeze. To offer you a kinder, gentler qne. d;

reintroduction to the pleasures of summer's |
greatest cocktail, we consulted New York’s br
Employees Only co-owner Dushan Zaric, who 1
has sampled dozens of excellent margaritas in | 7
Mexico іп Ше name of research. “This version i
is quite classic,” says Zaric. “We added agave |
nectar for body and mouthfeel. It belongs in the y
daisy family of cocktails, which use a spirit, lime
juice and triple sec. In Spanish, margarita means
“daisy.” Muy auténtico, muy delicioso.
Welcome back to summer.

THE ULTIMATE RECIPE

* 202. 100 percent * Shake hard in cocktail
agave tequila shaker for five seconds.

* % oz. Cointreau Strain over fresh ice into

* % oz. agave nectar a rocks glass. Garnish

* 1 oz. fresh lime juice with a lime wheel.

Agave nectar : я : ч
> Agave nectar (a.k.a. : Hand squeezer : Key limes : Cointreau
agave syrup) adds more Е — Always squeeze the : — Key, or Mexican, limes : -> The deep, sweet orange
body and a richer sweet- : lime juice to order for : are juicier, tarter and more : flavors of Cointreau add more
ness than sugar-based f each drink. Old lime juice : aromatic than standard or : complexity than run-of-the-
simple syrup. : oxidizes and tastes off. 2 Persian limes. : mill triple sec.

Photography by SATOSHI

DRINK STYLING BY DEV JOHNSON FROM EMPLOYEES ONLY, NYC

ILLUSTRATIONS BY ROBERT HARKNESS

WEST COAST CHILL CONGRATULATES PLAYBOY 5 2015

Playmate OF "Year

y RAQUEL POMPLUN

WESTCOAST

@ А

* Before Speedos
shocked the American
male into hidingin
overly long and baggy
swim trunks, there was
a happy middle ground:
the classic boardshort—
that token ofendless
summers, Mediterra-
nean vacations and Cali-
fornia dreaming. Now
old-school boardshorts
are back and in fine form.
Not too short, not too
long and always in style.

FACIAL
DEFENSE
SYSTEM

THE ULTIMATE
SUMMER SURVIVAL
KIT FOR YOUR SKIN

* Blame what you will—
climate change, your
fair complexion—but

there's no denying your
faceis goingtotakea
beating this summer.

And while a single bottle
of bodywash might be
enough to get you through

the winter, you'll need a

more sophisticated bag
of tricks to fight back

the season’s blazing sun,
aggressive bugs and
ocean winds. Before that
first long weekend at the
beach arrives, assemble a
toiletry kit that will keep
your skin safe, smooth
and sunburn free.

САМО КП

— Stash your

gear inthis
Cordura dopp kit
emblazoned with a
woodland camou-
flage pattern.

Jack Spade Swedish
МЭО travel kit
($165)

BUG OFF

-> Spiked with
natural bug repel-
lents such as cit-
ronella, rosemary
and cedar, this
balm is the organic
way to protect
against pests.
Badger Anti-Bug
Balm ($10)

BURN OUT

-> Because we
know you're
going to push
that savage tan a
little too hard at
some point, you'd
better load up

on a restorative,
rehydrating aloe
vera-infused

moisturizing spray.

Sun Bum Cool
Down spray ($12)

Continuous Spray Aloe ve

Sud COODFOR THE SKIN e MU
A с

—
^ Em >

Photography by SCOTT DARLING

dI] азадмно

SAI
x

DAILY DOSE

— Avoid lifeguard
zinc face with this
lotion that goes on
sheer and provides
SPF 30 protection.
Peter Thomas Roth
Moisture Defense
lotion (842)

LIP SERVICE

— You'll want to
keep your lips
smooth and your
Suzy Chapstick
happy with this
SPF 12 lip balm.
Available at
themotley.com.
Buckler's Chapped
Lip Remedy (48)

Y) MAX SHEER
ALL DAY
MOISTURE

2
1

732n

THE SHIELD

— This
performance-
oriented sunscreen
is formulated to
provide long-
lasting protection,
keep your hands
from getting slip-
pery and not drip
into your eyes.

Sun Bum Pro SPF 50
sunscreen ($13)

SCRUB OFF

> Dead skin is
gross skin. Strip it
off with this oat-
meal body scrub.
Kiehl's Ultimate Man
body scrub soap
($15)

MAN OF STEEL

Twenty-six years after Christopher Reeve’s
fourth and final Superman movie and seven
years after director Bryan Singer’s abortive
Superman Returns, director Zack Snyder
attempts liftoff with Man of Steel. The brood-
ing, Christopher Nolan-produced 3-D epic
stars Henry Cavill as Clark Kent-Superman,
Amy Adams as Lois Lane, Russell Crowe as
Jor-El, Laurence Fishburne as Perry White
and Michael Shannon as General Zod. “We
pretended the Superman mythology and
comic book existed but that none ofthe movies
did,” says Snyder. “We’ve respected the Super-
man canon but made a modern movie in which
Superman is still an alien, an outsider, but he's
like the best and worst of all of us—on steroids.

MOVIES YOU
SHOULD SEE >.
THIS SUMMER

THIS IS THE END

As Frank Miller did with Batman in The Dark
Knight Returns, we also shined a hard light on
the Superman mythology to learn why people
love it and what was broken about Superman.
Iended up ready to write a love letter to Super-
man, and I knew why I have respect for the
character.” Do those feelings extend to Cavill,
on whose acting, charm and broad shoulders
the flick could crash or soar? “We screen-
tested Henry in Ше old Christopher Reeve
costume. When he walked out in front ofa
tough crew of 50 people, they not only didn't
laugh, they looked at him and it was, “That's
Superman. It was powerful and awesome. It's
immensely satisfying to see Superman live
again in the way we've made him.”

AFTER EARTH

DVD OF THE MONTH
THE NEWSROOM:

THE COMPLETE
FIRST SEASON

By Stacie Hougland

* Aaron Sorkin mixes drama
and romance in this socio-
political HBO series aboutthe
Atlantis Cable News network's
News Night program, whose
journalists strive for honesty
over ratings in their coverage
of real-life events such as the
BP oil spill. Sorkin's trade-
mark snappy dialogue, team

of skilled directors and excep-
tional cast sell it, including Jeff
Daniels as vaguely Republican
tell-it-like-it-is anchor Will
McAvoy, Emily Mortimer as
his ex and News Night execu-
tive producer, and scene stealer
Olivia Munn as a socially awk-
ward economist with a show
onthe network. No matter how
you feel about the show's left-
leaning politics, it's ultimately
about loving your country while
acknowledging its faults. (BD)
Best extra: Sorkin's commen-
tary reveals some intriguing
details about season two, which
premieres in June. YYY

THE HANGOVER PART III

LIFTHERE }

№
)

www.pacorabanne.com

u
M
MILLION

[
59
Ç

THE LASTOF US

By Jason Buhrr

ester

* There are other ways to wipe
out humanity than the living
dead. A pandemic, not zom-
bies, causes the destruction of
civilization in The Last of Us
(PS3), astellar new game from
the creators ofthe Uncharted
series. Twenty years aftera
virus turns the bulk of human-
ity into deformed and violent
creatures, roughneck Joel is
hired to smuggle Ellie, a teen-
age girl, out of a quarantine
zone and across the ruins of
the country. Quiet moments
scampering through rubble
explode into action when

the pair is swarmed by the
infected, including the semi-
human Runners and the Click-
ers, mutated humans blinded
by fungus who use clicking
sounds to locate prey. Weapons
and ammunition are hard to
come by, so use listen mode,
which turns the world black-
and-white while highlighting
nearby enemies, then decide
whether to engage or navigate
around them. One tip: The
infected are savage, but the
other survivors aren't exactly
friendly either. YYYY

THE INTERNSHIP

-> Those good old wedding
crashers Owen Wilson and Vince
Vaughn regroup to play hot-
shot salesmen tossed out of their
jobs and into last-ditch gigs as
Google's oldest interns. Age-
related hilarity ensues in this
Shawn Levy-directed comedy

TEASE FRAME

Leslie Mann

Leslie Mann tries to spice up her marriage to Paul Rudd with
some impromptu day play in This /s 40 (pictured), writer-
director Judd Apatow's more-or-less sequel to Knocked Up.
See Mann next in Sofia Coppola's celebrity-robbery opus
The Bling Ring, based on a group of real-life fame-obsessed
teens who use the internet to track Lindsay Lohan, Paris
Hilton and others in order to burglarize their homes.

WORLD WARZ

— This movie version of Max
Brooks's horror novel about the
zombie apocalypse stars Brad
Pitt as a UN worker and fam-
ily guy who rings the globe
searching for a cure for the
attacks that have brought mass
destruction and chaos

E |

FAST & FURIOUS 6

Our favorite aging fugitive
street racer, Vin Diesel, and his
buds go big in a OO7-size action
movie with colliding planes,
tank battles and a mega-heist
as they attempt to rescue team
member Michelle Rodriguez
from a life of crime

The Walking Dead

BYTE-SIZE
GAMING

Every year Holly-
wood endures pilot
season. New TV shows
are released, evalu-
ated and, if warranted,
killed. Will video games
soon experience the
same? There are signs
that game makers
are interested in test-
ing а new formula by
which games will be
released one episode at
a time. Developers have
attempted episodic
gaming before, but only
recently have they been
successful. Last year
Telltale Games released
five monthly episodes
of its award-winning
Walking Dead series,
and the launch of Halo
4 included Spartan
Ops, a multiplayer
expansion released in
installments. Develop-
ers like episodic gam-
ing because it allows
them to tweak story
lines and adjust game-
play bugs based on
player feedback. And if
апеш game bombs, it
can be killed off, saving
developers millions of
dollars and countless
work hours and gamers
the aggravation of hav-
ing bought it.

Contact us at 1-800-РОКЗСНЕ ог porscheusa.com. ©2013 Porsche Cars North America, Inc. Porsche recommends seat belt usage and observance of all traffic laws а all times.
< -

What happens in Ше corners, stays in Ше corners.

۱ nn

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The Cayman and its driver keep certain things between them. What’s possible in an apex, for
example. And the thrillingly instant response of a sports car born to turn. It’s a feeling that
can't be described. Which is just as well. CaymanCode.com. Porsche. There is no substitute.

PORSCHE

MUST-WATCH TV

BEHIND THE CANDELABRA

By Josef Adalian

» Before Lady Gaga and Elton John,
there was Liberace. “He was way
ahead ofhistime and did many of
the things they do now,” says Jerry
Weintraub, the producer behind
HBO's moving film about the

iconic pianist. Directed by Steven
Soderbergh (in what might be his last
movie) and starring Michael Douglas
asthe man born Wladziu Valentino
Liberace, Behind the Candelabra
isnota strict biography. It's morea

GRACELAND

> USA's latest cop show focuses
on a Cali beach house where a
melting pot of feds chill between
undercover missions. Dig Burn
Notice? Set your DVR.

love story, chronicling the ultimately
tragic romance between the closeted
Liberace and the much younger Scott
Thorson (Matt Damon). Douglas
disappears into the role, capturing
Liberace’s flamboyance without
making him a caricature. Damon

is also great, while Rob Lowe, Dan
Aykroyd and Debbie Reynolds all
pop up in showy smaller parts.
Expect to hear all their names at
this fall’s Emmy Awards. ¥¥¥

KING AND MAXWELL

23 Novelist David Baldacci’s bick-
ering private eyes graduate to
the small screen via Jon Tenney
and Rebecca Romijn. It probably
won’t be Moonlighting.

Savages
Silence
Yourself

SAVAGES

What would it sound like ifwitches started a
band? Something akin to Silence Yourself, the
first full-length record from Savages, a quartet of
black-clad women from London. Their acidic, dis-
orienting blare seems to be brewed from a tincture
of feedback and S&M: “I took a beating today, and
that was the best I ever had,” Jehnny Beth cackles
excitedly over Gemma Thompson's grinding guitar
in “Hit Me”; the singer has also declared enthusi-
asm for songs about “violent things.” Their music
is as Gothic as a Bronté convention at Westmin-
ster Abbey, and it's likely to leave you with purple
bruises on your torso. Savages recall the circa-1978
glory of Bauhaus, Magazine, the Gun Club and other
postpunk illuminati. But the 11-song, 38-minute
Silence Yourselfis no rehash; as much asthe music
sometimes sounds like Siouxsie and the Banshees, it
also evokes the gorgeous anguish of Francis Bacon’s
Head paintings. One last reason we love them: Their
producer is named Johnny Hostile. YY YY

Q&A WITH TYLER, THE
CREATOR

The 22-year-old rapper, video director and
leader of Odd Future discusses his new album,
Wolf, his reputation and the size of his balls

Q: Which part of Wo/f
is going to piss people
off the most?

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Q: When was the last

time you heard a song
that really amazed you?

Q: In the YouTube moment. | don't do
comments on your drugs or drink i
new video for "Domo my high.

(AND EVERY ONE YOU PRETENDED ТО)

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to the latest, only on iPlayboy.

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Help Wanted

Positive drug tests by job
applicants increased

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last year, according to
Quest Diagnostics.

It takes almost
an hour of work to
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* In the United
States it takes less
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of survey respondents would
avoid in real life anyone who
unfriended them on Facebook.

» Weight of
Thor's hammer
according to
Marvel, based on
the legend that
the hammer is
forged from a
mythical metal
called uru.

SIGNIFICA, INSIGM,

AND FACTS

According
to researchers
at London
Metropolitan
University, the
safest song
to drive to is
Norah Jones's
“Come Away
With Me.”
Hip-hop and
heavy metal
were found to
be the most
dangerous.

„Тор Three Female Porn Star First Names.

- Top Three Female Porn Star Last Names -

Dead Han
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of 38 dead bod-

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OS MANTRACK

OVER THE TOP

Lamborghini celebrates 50 years in 2013. Ever since

Ferruccio Lamborghini, an Italian tractor maker by
trade, debuted his first car, the company has been
about exclusivity and power. It's doubtful if even
Ferruccio could have imagined the new Aventador
Roadster, a topless iteration of Lambo's flagship. The
numbers astound: a 6.5-liter V12, seven-speed pad-
dle shifter, 700 horsepower, top speed of 217 mph.
The stylingis a shock of exclamation points joined at

$23,720
w

MAZDA MIATA MX-5

> lts 167 horsepower
may not sound like
much, but this light-
weight beauty flies.
It’s the most fun you
can have for under
$25,000.

$50,400
w

PORSCHE
BOXSTER

> Relaunched for
2013, the Boxster has

won more awards
than Robert De Niro.
A killer in the corners.
Top speed: 164 mph.

sharp angles, and the company engineered color tones
that change according to how the sun hits the car. But
it’s the handling that amazes most, with cornering
that must be experienced to be believed. Efficiency
isn’t the V12’s strong point (about 18 mpg highway),
but the car has а cylinder-deactivation system (it can
run on half its engine when you're trotting through
town). Fewer than 150 of these will reach America in
2013, with a $445,300 tag. Perchance to dream.

ON THE ROADSTER

$TBA
w

CHEVROLET COR-
VETTE CONVERTIBLE
> All new: The
fastest, most hard-
charging base Vette
ever. Too bad the
drop-top won't arrive
until early fall.

$69,000

~
Al
2 77 а

JAGUAR F-TYPE

> Jag's first two-seat
sports car in more
than 50 years. With
340 horsepower stan-
dard (up to 495 for
the V8 S model), this
little cat roars.

STATS

6.5-liter V12
700 horsepower

Torque: 507 ft.-Ibs.
Zero to 60: 2.9 secs.
$445,300

$212,240
w

MERCEDES-BENZ
SL65 AMG

> The six-liter bi-
turbo V12 cranks 621
horsepower, nearly as
much as the Lambo
above. Pricey! Drive it
and you'll know why.

THINK TANK

PUMP THESE FUEL FACTSINTO
YOUR CAR. THE BILL'S ON US

à
AUDI'S

ILLUSTRATION BY ROBERT HARKNESS

Ө THE mix

* Ninety percent of a gallon
of gas is actual gas; the
rest is plant-based ethanol
plus a trace amount of
additives specific to each
brand, explains the Ameri-
can Petroleum Institute's
Bob Greco. "That's how you
distinguish one brand from
another." Which brand is
best? It's up to you.

Ө FLEX FUEL

* Some gas stations, partic-
ularly in farming areas, offer
E85—15 percent gas, 85 per-
cent ethanol, usually made
from corn. Only flexible-fuel
vehicles, about five per-
cent of all cars in the U.S.,
can run on E85. Advocates
argue the fuel creates fewer
emissions and comes from a
renewable source.

Got Gas?

>The next time
you're stand-
ing there, bored,
fueling up, con-
sider this: Only
90 percent of
what you're
pumping into
your tank is gas.
Guess what else
is in there?

ography by MARK LAITA

* Crude oil accounts for 68
percent of the cost of a gal-
lon of regular. (Every barrel
has 42 gallons, so if a barrel's
going for $100, divide that
by 42, for $2.38.) On aver-
age, you're paying another
42 cents in taxes per gallon,
plus the oil company's costs
to transport the fuel and its
profit margin, which vary.

Q How ro SAVE

* Improving fuel economy
is easier than most peo-
ple think. Start by keeping
your tires properly inflated
(remember that tire pres-
sure decreases when it's
cold and increases when
it's hot). Drive moderately
with no sudden accelera-
tion, and keep the junk out
of your trunk.

* An octane rating mea-
sures a fuel's ability to resist
igniting too soon (engine

knock, which wastes power).

Normal engines run fine on
regular. High-compression
(i.e., high-performance)
engines will cause fuel to
pre-ignite, so they need
high-octane fuel to prevent
knock. Check your manual.

» What will gas stations look
like in 10 years? “A lot like
they do now,” says Greco.
“Most projections say that
gas will continue to be the
predominant source of
energy in the transportation
sector. We may see more
E85, some natural gas. But it
takes decades to transition
from one fuel to another.”

ENZO
ROTHFUSS

SECRETARY
OF THE
INTERIOR

RIDE ALONG
WITH AUDI'S CHIEF
COCKPIT DESIGNER

Audi is setting the bench-
mark for automotive
interior design. Here's
a quick-and-dirty on the
process with the company's
interiors chief, Enzo
Rothfuss. On timing: "We
begin four to five years
before a car goes into рто-
duction. What we create:
ideas, far in the future."
On simplicity: “At Audi,
you should be able to
describe a design in three
lines. When you think
about buildings—the
Sydney Opera House, the
Eiffel Tower—they’re easy
to draw in three lines. It
has to be understandable
to everyone.” On detail:
"We never give up on
details. Everything has to
be perfect. This is a tough
fight sometimes because
of money issues. But we
never give up the fight."
On materials: "When you
get in an Audi, the wood
is real wood. We have
very fine aluminum, as
thin as possible. We work
with a leading Italian
furniture manufacturer
with top-quality leather."
On the car of tomorrow:
“In the future more things
will work automatically.
You won't even have a
light switch. This will lead
to a cleaner interior."

LORD OF

THE FLIES

Any landlubber can hook
aworm. Fly-fishing is an art
form reserved for gentle-
men. It's Hemingway and
Thoreau, and ifnothing else,
it’s a quiet day by Ше river
with a flask full of bour-
bon. Like golf, fly-fishing is
simple by design, making it
easy to start but difficult to
master. Luckily Ned Parker,
owner of Breckenridge
Outfitters in Breckenridge,
Colorado, has forgotten
more about fly-fishing than
most of us will ever know.
“The fish don’t care if your
equipment looks good or
not,” he says, guiding begin-
ners to the proper rod and
flies (such as the woolly bug-
ger tied above). For the best
luck, Parker says, "think like
afish and drink like a fish."
Sage advice.—John Marrin

HOT RODS

"The rod is the most
important part," Parker
says. "Make sure the
one you buy hasa
warranty, because
rods break." The Orvis
Clearwater five-weight
nine-foot fly rod
pictured here ($295,
orvis.com) comes fully
rigged with a fly line,
Clearwater LA II reel,
carrying case and—
best of all—a 25-year
guarantee.

REEL SCIENCE

A sweet reel can
make learning to fly-
fish a pleasure instead
of a pain. A basic reel
is fine because your
hands do most of the
work in fly-fishing. But
if you’re after big fish
like salmon, you'll need
a beefy reel with a
powerful drag system
mated to a stout rod.
For most trout fishing,
a five- or six-weight
outfit is ideal.

THE LINEUP

The line you use
should match your rod:
a six-weight line for a
six-weight rod. First-
timers should choose
a floating line, since it
is the most versatile.
As for learning knots
and casting, Parker
suggests a simple so-
lution: YouTube videos.
Hiring a guide also
helps. “It will cut your
learning curve by days,
weeks and even years.”

©)

WADE IN

Don't worry about
your wardrobe. The
days of rubber waders
and a pocket-covered
vest are long gone.
“Those are old-school;
you don't need them,”
Parker says. Instead,
wear good wading
shoes with no-slip
soles. You'll stay cool
while everyone else
sweats. A small hip or
chest pack will easily
fit all your gear.

—

This fly imitates one of

trout waters and can catch
trout coast to coast. Try

the water to lure them in.

Photography by MARK LAITA

the most common insects in

"skating" it across the top of

Fly-fishing legend Lee
Wulff, an artist and Stan-
ford dropout, helped cre-
ate this pattern. It doesn't
resemble an insect but has
caught countless fish.

Fish from trout to carp
love the bead-head zug
bug. The fly's iridescent

design reflects light, giving

it the appearance of a
tasty nymph.

The glistening peacock
feathers hypnotize fish, and
the metal bead glimmers in
water and quickly sinks the

fly. Trout can't resist it.

Actual size
is 30,6 mm

50 Years later the 1964 Silver Proof Set still shines bright

in Dallas, the 0.5. Mint began work on the 90% Silver

Kennedy Half Dollar. It would prove to be one of the
most popular half dollar designs in our nation’s history. Not
surprisingly, when Americans discovered that the brand new
Kennedy Half Dollar was the centerpiece of the 1964 U.S. Silver
Proof Set, demand immediately soared through the гоой

() n November 25, 1963, just three days after the tragedy

By January 11th, 1964, the Mint was forced to halt orders for the
1964 Silver Proof Set, and eventually had to reduce the original
maximum order of 100 Proof Sets down to just 2 sets per buyer
in the face of such staggering demand. Finally, on March 12, even
the limit of 2 sets was halted because the Mint received orders for
200,000 Proof Sets in just two days!

Fifty years later, the 1964 Silver Proof Set is still in great demand.

Why? Because this set is chock full of “Firsts”, “Lasts” and “Onlys”:

1964 Proof Set Firsts, Lasts & Onlys

и The FIRST year Kennedy Half Dollar Proof

¥ The FIRST Proof set to feature a former president on
every coin

w The LAST Proof Set struck at the Philadelphia Mint

v The LAST year the Roosevelt Dime, Washington Quarter
and Kennedy Half Dollar were struck in 9090 silver
for regular production

и The ONLY 90% Silver Kennedy Half Dollar Proof
ever minted for regular production

¥ The ONLY Kennedy Half Dollar Proof struck at the
Philadelphia Mint

As we approach the 50th Anniversary of JFK's 1963 assassination
this year, the 1964 U.S. Silver Proof Set is back into the spotlight
again. Each set contains the 1964 Lincoln Cent and Jefferson

Nickel, along with three 9096 Silver coins: the Silver Roosevelt
Dime, Silver Washington Quarter, and the 1964 Silver Kennedy
Half Dollar—the only 9096 Kennedy Half Dollar ever struck for
regular production.

Saved from destruction—but how many

sets survived?

Collectors know that the key is to find those sets still preserved in
the original U.S. Mint “flat pack" just as issued. And over the past
50 years, that has become more and more difficult! Since this set
was issued, silver prices have risen from $1.29 per ounce to over
$48 per ounce at the silver market's high mark. During that climb,
it is impossible to determine how many of these 1964 Proof Sets
have been melted for their precious silver content. The packaging
on thousands of other sets has been cut apart to remove the silver
coins—so there is no way to know for certain how many 1964 U.S.
Proof Sets have survived to this day.

Order now— Satisfaction Guaranteed

We expect our small quantity of 1964 U.S. Silver Proof Sets to
disappear quickly, so we urge you to call now to secure yours. You
must be satisfied with your set or simply return it within 30 days
of receipt for prompt refund (less all s/h). Limit: 5 per household.

1964 U.S. Silver Proof Set $59.00 plus s/h
ToLL-FREE 24 HOURS A DAY

1-888-870-9343
Offer Code KPS171-01
Please mention this code when you call.

d New York Mint*

14101 Southcross Drive W., Dept. KPS171-01
Burnsville, Minnesota 55337
www.NewYorkMint.com

Prices and availability subject to change without notice. Past performance is not a predictor of future performance. NOTE: New York Mint? is a private distributor of worldwide government coin and currency issues
and privately issued licensed collectibles and is not affiliated with the United States government. Facts and figures deemed accurate as of April 2013. 62013 New York Mint, LLC.

x MANTRACK

TECH

POWER
SURGE

THE NEXT WAVE OF SMARTPHONES—
SLEEKER AND FASTER THAN EVER

* An old computer monitor is molder-
ing іп your garage and a laptop gathers
dust on your desk. Welcome to the age
of the smartphone. These days we rely

on our phones to handle everything
from finding a decent restaurant to
saving us from getting lost on the way
there. They snap photos, capture HD
video, crank music and play games.
Occasionally we even use them to
make calls. Lucky for us, the latest are
powerful enough to handle it all and
smarter than ever, thanks to Google's
Android operating system. Here are
three of our favorite devices.

SAMSUNG
GALAXY 54

— The Galaxy S4 is
so advanced, you
barely have to touch
it. Thanks to motion
detection, videos
pause when you look
away. Tilting it allows
e-mails to scroll auto-
matically as you read.
With a wave of your
hand the Galaxy can
skip asong, answer a
phone call and more.
The built-in language
translator and
13-megapixel camera
(with 12 shooting
modes) make perfect
travel companions.

К.
НТС ОМЕ

> The lightweight
aluminum unibody
of the HTC One
packs in everything
from a 4.7-inch HD
display to thump-
ing sound courtesy
of Beats Audio.

But where the One
really distinguishes
itself is the rede-
signed home screen,
which displays a
mosaic of personal
updates pulled from
your social media
accounts, along with
content from 1,400
sources ranging from
ESPN to Reuters.

LG OPTIMUS
G PRO

Its giant 5.5-inch
screen lands the Opti-
mus G Pro in the
category of “phablet,”
a cringe-inducing
term for devices big-
ger than an average
phone but not big
enough to be consid-
ered tablets. All that
Size means extra mus-
cle, including a 1.7 GHz
processor, two giga-
bytes of RAM and 32
gigabytes of memory.
It's not pocket-size,
but the G Pro could
replace every device
on your desk.

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A.
па ОСОН = Бава ы ы
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Talking
With
Bernardo
Bertolucci

by James Franco

More than half a century ago Bernardo
Bertolucci began making his name as an Italian
film director. With such classics as The Con-
formist, The Last Emperor and Last Tango in
Paris under his belt, he was awarded an hon-
orary Palme d'Or at the 2011 Cannes Film
Festival for his life's work. Bertolucci’s lat-
est film, Me and You, is his first in nearly a
decade. PLAYBOY Contributing Editor James
Franco spoke with the director about the con-
troversial Last Tango, his start in filmmaking
and how he creates his striking work.

FRANCO: How did you become a director?
BERTOLUCCI: Pier Paolo Pasolini was
close with my father and knew I loved mov-
ies. He asked me to be his assistant director
on Accattone. “But Pier Paolo,” I said, “I’ve
never been an assistant director.” He told
me, “Bello, Гуе never directed.” This was
1960, when the first New Wave films were
emerging, and I skipped the Louvre and
went to Cinémathèque Francaise every day
with my parents' money. Working with
Pasolini was like seeing a genius in action,
seeing him invent his own kind of cinema.
He didn't have a culture of film like I did,
always going to the movies. It was fantas-
tic, this director being born in front of me,
and it wasn't just anyone, it was Pasolini.
FRANCO: Ассайопе used nonactors, no?
BERTOLUCCI: All nonactors. He knew
exactly what he wanted. Pasolini didn't
know cinema, but he had his own knowl-
edge and art. His inspiration was the Carl
Dreyer film The Passion of Joan of Arc—its

ILLUSTRATION BY RAUL ALLÉN

epicness, in a way. Accattone used move-
ment in cinematography. It was very
successful. He then had a script called
The Grim Reaper but wanted to work on
Mamma Roma, so the producer asked, “If
you can't do The Grim Reaper, who can?”
He chose Sergio Citti, his former assis-
tant, and myself. We wrote the script in
a month. They asked me to direct, and
three months later I did my first film. I
wrote it like Pasolini, but the style was
completely mine. I wanted it to be dif-
ferent. That’s why my films have a lot of
movement but not like Pasolini’s.
FRANCO: Were you nervous?
BERTOLUCCI: Very. I was 21—the
youngest оп set—and I'd skipped school.
I said, "School is shit. Learn the reality of
directing. Be a director."

FRANCO: You told Marlon Brando on
Last Tango in Paris that you would get
something very personal out of him.
BERTOLUCCI: Yes. He was skeptical,
then a bit sad after he realized he'd given
me his most intimate thoughts. As in all my
movies, it was mostly improvisation, argu-
ing and discussing dialogue changes. The
dialogue was written a few hours before
shooting. It's improvisation in that actors
cannot prepare three months beforehand.
FRANCO: With that film, was it especially
difficult getting actors to feel safe with the
heavy subject matter?

BERTOLUCCI: You know, it's my job.
Every actor is different. Maria Schneider,
for example, hadn't done anything like
it before. Marlon and I decided over
breakfast one morning to use butter in
their sodomy scene, which wasn't in the
script. I decided not to tell her—it was
asking for too much discussion. You can
see how humiliated she is in that scene.
It was somewhat...strong. She was very
upset with both of us afterward. But if she
didn't know about it beforehand, she'd
react as she felt: mortified.

FRANCO: Do you feel bad about that?
BERTOLUCCI: I did. She died two years

ago and I wanted to apologize. It was a
great performance, and I know you need
to use any method possible to get a good
shot, but maybe it was bad manners. Actors
naturally feel deeply about their characters,
because they're bringing life to something
that's black-and-white, and I believe actors
are writers in their films, in a way. But that
film shocked Maria her entire life.
FRANCO: Luna, The Dreamers and Me and
You, your latest film, all deal with youth.
Is that coincidental?

BERTOLUCCI: It’s because I'm 14 at
heart. My brain didn't develop correctly.
I like seeing young people change before
my eyes. The lead in Me and You was 14
when we began, and I watched him grow
up as we filmed. Now he's taller, with big
shoulders and a new hairstyle. You can't
recognize him.

FRANCO: How did the movie come about?
BERTOLUCCI: It's based on a famous
Italian novel, and Г wanted to work in
Italian after 25 years of filming in English.
Italian dialogue is tricky. The weakest
part of Italian filmmaking is the dialogue;
it's too literary. English can be dry; it's
fantastic. So I wanted to approach this
difficult language again.

FRANCO: It's a small space for a film, but
there's a lot of movement with the cam-
era. How did you figure that out?
BERTOLUCCI: It's an evolution. My wife
says I could make a cup of tea sensual. I
don't diagram my shots or plan anything.
I have to invent in the moment, or at least
pretend to, so every shot you see happens
around the movement of the actors.
FRANCO: What would you say to young
filmmakers about subjects they should use?
BERTOLUCCI: There are no rules to this
game. Every film is unique; you have to
be faithful to yourself. When I see films,
I'm with a huge family of directors I love.
I'm made of them. You see the connection
between your work and a scene you loved
20 years ago. I skipped school, but the best
school is the feeling you have on set. №

How to Outsmart
a Millionaire

Only the “Robin Hood of Watchmakers” can steal
the spotlight from a luxury legend for under 8200!

wasnt looking for trouble. I sat in a café, sipping my espresso

and enjoying the quiet. Then it got noisy. Mr. Bigshot
rolled up in a roaring high-performance Italian sports car, drop-
ping attitude like his $14,000 watch made it okay for him to
be rude. That's when I decided to roll up my sleeves and teach
him a lesson.

“Nice watch,” I said, pointing to his and holding up mine. Не |
nodded like we belonged to the same club. We did, but he lit- |
erally paid 100 times more for his membership. Bigshot bragged Ў
about his five-figure purchase, a luxury heavyweight from the `
titan of high-priced timepieces. I told him that mine was the
Stauer Corso, a 27-jewel automatic classic now available for
only $179. And just like that, the man was at a loss for words.

Think of Stauer as the ^Robin Hood of Watchmakers." We believe
everyone deserves a watch of uncompromising precision, impressive
performance and the most elegant styling. You deserve a watch that can
hold its own against the luxury classics for a fraction of the price. You'll feel
the quality as soon as you put it on your wrist. This is an expertly-crafted
time machine... not a cry for attention.

Wear a mechanical masterpiece for only $179! Our customers have out-
grown the need to show off. They have nothing to prove; they have already
proved it. They want superb quality and astonishing value. And that’s
exactly what we deliver.

The Stauer Corso is proof that the worth of a watch doesnt depend on the size
of its price tag. Our factory spent over $40 million on Swiss-made machinery to
insure the highest quality parts. Each timepiece takes six months and over 200
individual precision parts to create the complex assembly. Peer through the
exhibition back to see the 27-jeweled automatic movement in action and you'll
understand why we can only offer the Corso in a limited edition.

Our specialty is vintage automatic movements. The Corso is driven by a self-
winding design, inspired by a 1923 patent. Your watch will never need batteries.
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STRIPPERS

— mm]

PORN STARS

some things about strip clubs, such as

naked women acting as though they
desperately want to have sex, which is
my favorite way for naked women to
act, compared with what famous paint-
ers like to have them do, which seems
to be mostly reclining or eating fruit.

But there's a lot Г don't like. Strip
clubs blast music 1 would suffer through
only if I were out trying to pick up
women. But the women at strip clubs
are already naked, so there's no rea-
son to endure 50 Cent's “Candy Shop.”
Also, I find it hard to get turned on by
even the hottest chick grinding on my
lap when a creepy old guy is staring at
me from 10 feet away. This may be be-
cause Г was never an altar boy.

And unless you really plan in advance,
you have to ask for a bunch of singles in
change when you walk in. Which means
you're getting reused strip club dollar
bills. Ever since my first strip club expe-
rience Гуе pictured our first president
as a moist old man reeking of vanilla
and soused with baby oil and glitter.
And once you get those singles, you're
committed to handing all of them out
at the club because you cannot enter
them into the non-strip-club economy.
“Thanks, housekeeper, for cleaning my
room. Here's some syphilis!”

The problem, in short, is that Pm a
porn guy. There are strip club guys and
there are porn guys. Sure, there are
men who don't like either, to whom ГП
refer, for the purposes of this article, as
“low-testosterone half-men who need
to keep this fact to themselves because
they're making the rest of us look bad.”
And yes, there are men who like both,
whom ГИ call “not getting any.” But
even men in those two extremes have
a slight preference for one or the other.

We porn guys are too self-conscious
to buy into the fantasy that strip clubs
demand. I'd have to take a year of
classes at Second City before 1 could

| like strip clubs. Sure, I like

act as though I believed a woman was
into sliding down my leg, since no one
has ever wanted to slide down my leg.
Paying to talk to a hot woman with a
fake name who is telling me that an-
other fake name is her real name does
more damage to my ego than those
horrifying moments when I notice
there’s a mirror over the hotel-room
desk where I'm enjoying porn.

Far worse than the lap dance is the
pre-lap-dance chat. None of my fanta-

sies involve conversing with a 20-year-
old. My fantasies involve a slutty-looking
woman in a thong telling me about new
experimental fiction. Instead, Mercedes
tells me how cool it is that I’m from L.A.
and how she'd love to move to L.A. since
she's really into spiritual stuff.

Porn establishes a safe distance be-
tween me and women who are pre-
tending to be turned on. Seeing a gang
bang in person would be horrifying,
but I can actually watch one on a small
screen as I drink tea. I'm not respon-
sible for porn stars’ lives, any more
than I have to worry about the child-
hoods of Sandra Bullock or Sally Field.
But you have to interact with strippers,
which means unsexy things like empa-
thy and caring can occur.

Besides, strip clubs come with all the
depressing compromises of actual dat-
ing. You settle for the lap dance from
the girl who walks up to you because
she's pushy or because she's closer to

being your type than anyone else in
the room. You don't have to make such
compromises when looking at porn.
Moreover, porn informs you about
fetishes you didn't even know you
had. And when you accidentally run
across a clip of an unknown fetish that
grosses you out, it's even better. Men
who are turned on by women in high
heels stepping on rodents? Freaks! The
foot fetishists, diaper wearers, clown
fuckers—they make me feel delight-
fully superior. You never leave a strip
club feeling you have a healthy attitude
about sexuality.

Porn stars are so sex crazed they will
do anything a man wants. Lap dancers,
on the other hand, are so in control
they will dance only for the length of a
pop song and will not allow the man to
move. The only part of lap dancing that
seems like a perfect fantasy is the idea
that a woman would ask a guy to dance
and then allow him to sit still. I wish lap
dancing were popular at weddings.

Maybe it's because Г was never in a
fraternity, but I think it's weird to want
to get turned on in front of a group
of your friends. If a woman is rubbing
her breasts in my face and staring at
me, I don't think, This would be much,
much better if Mike were here.

I know we porn guys are the creepy
raincoaters who have our most honest
sexual experiences with a computer.
And I know we're responsible for get-
ting women to do things that are much
more extreme and degrading than
dancing naked. But at least we differ-
entiate between romantic relationships
and financial ones. And at least you can
trust our dollar bills. a

MISS

Is She Hot? Are Yo

| —
па...

—

| Rich?

Sure, it's shallow to lust after only beautiful women. But what about when the shoe is on the other foot?

live in Los Angeles, which means most of my single guy

friends think they should be dating a model or an actress,

or someone who looks like a model or an actress. Who can
blame them? The most gorgeous girls from all over the world
arrive every day, hoping to make it in Hollywood. They might
end up as waitresses, but they're still here.

When these guys ask me to set them up, I tell them I know
women who are smart and successful but civilian attractive
rather than professionally hot. This rarely interests the bach-
elors even though I’ve successfully set up three marriages, with
a fourth on deck. Sure, these guys married pretty girls, but the
women had a lot more to offer than good looks.

You can ask for smart and funny and get hot as a bonus. But if
you ask for just hot, that's usually all you get. Plus, I don't really
know women who are just hot. Why would I want them around?

A few years ago I tried to set up one of my eligible Hollywood
friends with a fun, smart, skinny blonde. He insisted on seeing a
picture of her before he'd agree to a date. I had only a mediocre
iPhone photo to e-mail. (I have other things
to do besides play matchmaker. Honest.)

He thought she wasn't hot enough,
probably because he's used to getting pro-
fessional head shots when he makes this
request. A mutual friend clued the blonde
in on what happened. When my Hollywood friend finally met
her and realized she was definitely pretty, it was too late. She
wasn't interested. He's still single.

If you go for a girl just because she's hot, you'll learn what
it feels like when a girl goes for a guy just because he's rich.
Yes, it's time for the classic role reversal. You're a good guy, a
hard worker, your mom thinks you're handsome. But your wal-
let? It's just average size. And now that nice girl you've just met
looks through you as if you're invisible. How does it feel?

When I was in my 20s I made that mistake. I dated a Wall
Street titan's son who was very sweet, until I had a terrible re-
action to corrective eye surgery. (I thought I was going blind.)
He'd never had to take care of anyone before and it freaked
him out. This freaked me out enough to cancel our upcoming
trip to Aspen. Unfortunately, that was the first and last time I
was offered a ride on a private jet, but there's no bigger turnoff
than a man who runs away when you need him most.

Another winner from that decade was a real estate heir who
lived on a very high floor of a Trump tower. He loved treat-

ILLUSTRATION BY MARGUERITE SAUVAGE

By Deborah Schoeneman

ing my broke friends to fancy dinners, which I thought they
appreciated until they made me choose him or them. Oh, and
if I took a cab to his place, he would make me change all my
clothes before I could sit on the furniture.

Don't even get me started on the guy I ditched in St. Barts
even though he bought me a Pucci bikini. (He brought his own
lounge-chair covers.)

These guys had tons of money, so they didn't have to de-
velop other qualities that women find appealing in men, like
compassion and maturity. It's the same with hot girls. They
can get away with murder. They're usually late. It takes them
forever to get ready and they always wear the wrong shoes for
walking any farther than the valet. Those beige stains on your
white hand towels? That's their makeup. You may not have
heard of the college they attended. They order expensively,
barely eat and don't even pretend to reach for the bill. They're
always cold, and they get headaches at all the wrong times.
You will always have to check baggage when you fly with them.

Remember the hottest girl in high
school? What's she doing now? Probably
not much. Maybe she's married with kids
and lives in your hometown, or at least
near it. She definitely doesn't look as good
on Facebook as you remember her.

Meanwhile, the nerdy funny girl you didn't think was pretty
enough to take to prom may have a cool career and enough
cash to buy a better-looking middle age. Tina Fey was no look-
er until her 30s, when she lost a ton of weight, got on TV and
became wildly successful. Now she looks awesome, thanks to
her stylist, trainer and hair and makeup people. Success makes
women look better with age.

I'm not saying you need to make an ugly woman your wife.
If you're shooting for a nine or a 10, knock it down to a seven
or an eight. You'll get more value added in other departments.

The girl you think isn't hot enough to date could turn out to be
your best friend and a fantastic mother of your children. Go on a
few dates with her even if she’s a size 10. Is your body so perfect?
Hang out with her friends. Let her teach you a few things or at
least turn you on to some cool new movies and music.

Having sex with the hottest girl in the world is a fun fanta-
sy, but if you actually get her, it will eventually get old. She will
snore, fart and complain about what you want to watch on televi-
sion. And she'll probably dump you for a richer guy anyway. №

»4--
WHAT SORT OF MAN

(or Heman)
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When my wife and I met at
the age of 16, her mother said
I wasn't good enough—and she
still says that, even though we've
been married 18 years. I have a
good job, don't abuse drugs or
alcohol and have always taken
care of her daughter. I'm not
sure what triggered it, but the
day I turned 44 I told my wife
Pd had enough and her parents
weren't welcome in our house
unless her mother could be civil
to me. Everything was fine until
yesterday, when a holiday card
came from my mother-in-law
addressed only to my wife and
our sons. To me that is a disre-
spectful jab. My wife's response
was that since I don't want any-
thing to do with her mother,
what's the difference? Am I
being oversensitive?—C.G.,
Elizabeth, New Jersey

This race to the bottom can't
continue. You don't deserve your
mother-in-law's scorn—it's actually
directed at her daughter through
you, and it's too bad your wife
doesn't recognize this and have
something to say about it. Our
suggestion is that you and your
mother-in-law go to couples coun-
seling. We're not kidding. Some-
one has to negotiate a truce, and
it can't be your wife. Alternatively,
if you can stomach it, at least make
a gesture. Forget the banishment.
Ask your mother-in-law to let you
buy her a drink, and attempt to
negotiate a peace. She doesn't have
to like you—you’re pushing for
benign neglect, if that's all she can
muster. But she certainly loves her
grandsons, and they are not judg-
ing either of you well for all this.

In April you responded to a
reader who said he preferred
pussies that look like duck bills.
As a person with labia, I believe
the reader was referring not to
the inner lips, as you assume
in your response, but to the
outer. The labia minora, at
least the ones I've seen, look
more like the rim of an oyster.
Do you mean length or height
when you say the labia minora
ranges from one to four inches?
I was perusing a plastic surgery site and
was shocked to see photos of labia minora
that extend five or six inches. I had no
idea! Т also can't figure out how a vaginal
opening could be five inches. I was happy
to see the word vulva instead of vagina,
which is internal. The use of vajazzled
in another letter is cute, but va-jay-jay
is immature, like calling a penis a cocky
wocky.—D.T., Fredericksburg, Virginia
We'll stop doing that. There are as many
ways to measure a vulva as there are routes

PLAYBOY
ADVISO

One of my wife’s friends has big, beautiful tits and
nice lips. I am considering asking my wife to invite
this friend to spend the night with us. She stayed over
once, and my wife told me she slept in the nude. Does
my wife want me to give her some? Гуе never had a
threesome, but think ГА be good at it. Гуе been fan-
tasizing and planning my moves. I have the tool and
the stamina. Г don't want to ruin our marriage, but Pm
bored and there's not enough sex. Jacking isn't satisfy-
ing, so don't go there.—K.B., Grand Rapids, Michigan

Every guy has the tool, so we don't think your wife will be
impressed by that. You're way ahead of yourself, and your deliv-
ery needs a lot of work. If you’re bored, so is your wife. That's
where you start the conversation. A threesome with the nude
girlfriend sleeping in the spare room may be a fun fantasy, but
it needs to stay there, at least for now. If it ever happens, with
this woman or another, your wife will have to initiate it, or
think she did. That's a move even we haven't mastered.

to explore it. In this case, the minora mea-
surement is height (the researchers didn't
measure extension). Vaginal length refers to
depth. To get a ruling on bills, we turned to
Betty Dodson (dodsonandross.com), a pio-
neer in teaching women about their vulvas.
“Duck bills?" she said. "That's a first. He
must be talking about the inner lips. The
opening to the vagina cannot be five inches
high or wide, because it's not a hole. It's a
cluster of folds that makes a different con-
figuration in each woman and sits at the bot-

tom of the vestibule—the indented
space inside the inner labia. The
vagina is a collapsed space that
must be opened with a finger, dildo
or dick. But this is much ado about
nothing. The vagina provides
damn few orgasms. The hot spot
is the clitoris. Get a grip, boys! Put
an oil-soaked finger or wet tongue
on her clit. Then, when you want
to make a baby, check in with her
first, and if she says “yes, please”
stimulate her clitoris while she's
getting fucked.” Gentlemen, you
have your assignment.

Some of my shirts have a hori-
zontal button hole at the bottom
but no button. What's it for?—
B.L., Los Angeles, California

No button? That’s odd. We
always thought the hole was
designed to allow the button to take
more stress from pulling and move-
ment, as well as to “lock” horizontal
patterns in place. (All button holes
could be horizontal, but it’s easier
to slide a button into a vertical
slit.) However, when presented with
these hypotheses, custom clothier
Alan Flusser, author of Dressing the
Man, shrugged and said, “It’s a
style point." By that he means it has
no purpose other than to indicate
you are wearing a quality shirt. It
does that by suggesting that who-
ever made the shirt had to turn the
fabric to create the horizontal hole,
an extra motion that says “hand-
made." In addition, the hole is often
sewed with colorful thread, a style
point atop a style point.

What sizes would you consider
small, medium and big dicks?—
M.K., Plantation, Florida

How badly do you need to be big?
Based on a study in which scientists
measured 3,300 Italian conscripts
by stretching their flaccid penises
(which other studies show corre-
lates to erection size), supersize is
anything more than seven inches,
which puts a guy in the 99th per-
centile (i.e., he’s larger than 99
percent of men). Large could be
anything over 5.9 inches, which
marks the 90th percentile, or 5.5
inches, which is the 75th. If you
are buoyed by the thought of being
larger than most men, 4.93 inches gets you
a badge. As it turns out, a medium penis fits
nicely into a large vagina.

Come on, Advisor. A woman says her
husband received a wedding invite
addressed only to him, and your
response is the bride and groom prob-
ably had too many guests (April)? Are
you stoned? This guy clearly under-
stands the easiest way in recorded his-
tory to score is at a wedding. Do this

PLAYBOY

woman a favor and wise her up!—P.A.,
West Hills, California

We doubt any woman would take her
partner's word for this unusual breach of eti-
quette without asking to see documentation.
If he's going to the trouble of printing fake
wedding invites, she has bigger problems—
and ше’ need a bigger blunt to respond.

One of my fellow firefighters thinks
his wife is fooling around. He's a good
guy, and it's driving him nuts. Many of
us read PLAYBOY and value your input.
Here are the facts: Married 20 years.
Two teens at home. Wife travels a lot for
work, while he has a typical firehouse
schedule: 24 hours on, three days off.
He found lingerie in her closet that he's
never seen before. She is always tex-
ting. And he noticed once when she got
out of the shower that she had shaved
her pubic hair into a strip. When she
saw him she quickly grabbed a towel to
cover up. He asked about the trim job,
and she said she did it to get rid of the
gray hair. Without more evidence, he's
hesitant to ask if she's fooling around.
What do you think?—J.D., Dallas, Texas
He has to ask, because at this point, after
the landing strip and lingerie tipped the
scales, he's not going to get less suspicious.
Unfortunately, the best he can hope for is a
confession. A denial will still leave him with
doubts. Even if his instincts (and yours and
ours) are wrong, she's lost his trust, so the
relationship has already been compromised.

Ina response in March you imply the
use of weed crimps sexual response in
men. Several years ago Dr. Drew Pinsky
asserted on Loveline that regular use of
weed causes impotency. My husband and
I have been cannabis users for decades,
and about twice a week we provide hard
evidence that proves you both wrong.
When we toke up before sex, he lasts
longer and I get all the orgasms I want. I
believe the Advisor and Pinsky are pass-
ing on DEA-approved versions of the
“big lie” about cannabis that started with
President Nixon.—K.S., Iowa City, Iowa

The big lie? We can’t speak for Dr. Drew,
but marijuana is a drug, and all drugs have
side effects that vary in intensity among indi-
viduals. We’re glad to hear you’re having
great sex, but the science is clear that heavy
use (i.e., more ап your twice a week) affects
sperm production, which is what Pinsky was
probably referring to. Nixon’s legacy is a sys-
tem in which the government doesn't allow
researchers to use marijuana in experiments
to study its effects, good or bad. That makes
it more difficult to know the truth.

Are women okay with manual stimula-
tion instead of oral sex? 1 aim to please,
but with HPV and herpes all over the
place I am reluctant to put my tongue
where it doesn't belong. Women seem to
enjoy my nimble hands, but I don't know
if it’s necessary to use my tongue.—S.S.,
Chicago, Illinois

A woman may be satisfied with your finger-
ing, if fingers are all she's ever known, but we
think you’re both missing out. You’re right to
be cautious, as many STDs, including herpes
and HPV, can be spread through oral sex. In a
study published last year, researchers who tested
5,579 Americans found 10 percent of the men
had oral HPV infections, which have been
connected to throat cancer. That was nearly
three times the number of infected women. It's
not clear why this is the case. Abstinence is the
only guaranteed method to avoid exposure,
but a thin sheet of latex or polyurethane such
as Sheer Glyde Dams works well. In a pinch
you can use a condom cut lengthwise; also,
plastic wrap is better than nothing (a 1989
study found that Glad wrap blocks the herpes
virus). Any barrier will decrease sensitivity,
but everything has a trade-off. You could trust
your partner to inform you if she has НРИ but
she may not know. The virus is so common that
nearly every sexually active adult eventually
becomes a carrier.

The Advisor is my favorite part of the
magazine, followed by guessing the
Playmate's measurements. Гуе never
been more turned on by your responses
than in April, especially the answer you
gave the gentleman who couldn't under-
stand why his wife was offended when he
didn't introduce her to a co-worker. Just
one question for you, Advisor: Will you
marry me?—S.P., Spokane, Washington

We're happy to turn you on whenever we
can, but you lost us at "marry."

Im an attractive, sane 20-year-old
woman who has been fooling around
with one of my classmates. Last night,
in the middle of what I thought was hot
sex, he stopped and said he felt weird.
I asked what was wrong, and he said it
wasn’t me but he didn’t want to be fuck
buddies anymore. I wasn’t attached to the
guy, and I’m pretty sure he isn’t seeing
anyone, but I have no clue why he did
that. Any thoughts?—A.S., Harrisburg,
Pennsylvania

You know how emotional guys can be. He’s
become attached to someone, maybe you.

My widowed father, who is 88, likes to
visit porn sites. I think it’s healthy—he’s
not dead. I know about his surfing hab-
its because his computer gets filled with
malware and other crap, and he calls me
to clean it up. Since he’s in Florida and
I’m in New York, it’s difficult for me to
help. Are there safe sites you can recom-
mend for him (and me—I’m not dead
either)?—A.C., Melville, New York
Your father is making the same mistake
guys of any age make, and that's trolling for
‚free porn, which always comes with a price. If
he sticks with established subscription video-
on-demand sites—vivid.com, aebn.net and
hotmovies.com, for example, or the sites such
as x-art.com that we discussed in May—
he won't get attacked. Create a free e-mail
account for him to use when signing up so
any porn-related mail flows there. Install

a firewall to block malware; AVG offers an
effective free version at free.avg.com. Finally,
install a program such as TeamViewer (free
at teamviewer.com) on his computer and
yours so you can access his desktop remotely
to tweak settings or clean up. It's always
touching to see a father and son with com-
mon interests.

| have been fortunate enough to dine at
upscale restaurants near home as well
as abroad. Can you tell me the correct
way to signal you are finished with your
meal?—PW., Helper, Utah

Place your knife and fork (tines up) in
the center of the plate, facing toward the
center. This is useful, says Michael Procopio,
an experienced waiter who writes Food for
the Thoughtless (foodforthethoughtless.com),
because it allows the server to pick up the
plate while holding your utensils with his or
her thumb. If you place them any other way,
the server will likely stop to rearrange them,
which may be disruptive. Further, "be aware
of when you finish," Procopio says, noting a
waiter typically will not clear a table until
everyone is done. As a result, he says, "I
occasionally have to let some of my guests sit
with dirty plates for up to half an hour while
their blithely unaware tortoise of a tablemate
chews and chatters as everyone else squirms,
wants coffee or is jonesing for a postprandial
sugar rush."

My husband and I have a great sex
life, except he wants more blow jobs.
I wouldn’t mind, but my mouth, lips
and sometimes throat go numb after
five minutes. I never had this problem
with anyone else. Can you help?—L.C.,
Minot, North Dakota

Have your lips and mouth gone numb
in the same way while licking an ice cream
cone? There’s a lesson in that. You don’t
have to go fast and furious. In fact, a huge
part of the turn-on for a guy, besides eye
contact, is thinking—believing—that you’re
in no hurry. Keep him well lubed, with lots of
slurping and moaning, and use your hands;
the mouth-hand job is Advisor approved. At
the same time, you could test a technique
we learned from Nina Hartley: Give him a
blow job every single time he asks, but com-
mit to only five minutes. Go all out, but if he
hasn't come in five, he’s on his own. That
may sound cruel, but it’s not if you consider
that he will never hear “no” again. Because
really, who can’t spare five minutes?

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

PLAN EVER ЖШ

PLAYMATES, COINS AND SLOT MACHINES,
TAKE A STEP INTO THE PLAYBOY CASINO

apps.facebook.com/playboycasino

РОВОМ а

Fanaticism Xenophobia Murder

ets

"А BORDER TALE

J.T. Ready led a paramilitary group called U.S.
Border Guard. His paranoia led him to tragedy

BY JAKE WHITNEY

ee that mountain range? That's

Table Top. То the west is Sand

Tank." Harry Hughes stands at

the northern edge of the Vekol

Valley, pointing to a stretch of
dirt and cactus between Arizona and Mex-
ico. It is an area he once patrolled with
J.T. Ready and his citizen group U.S. Bor-
der Guard in search of "narco-terrorists."
Hughes is also a regional
director of the National
Socialist Movement. He
wears desert camouflage
and black sunglasses and
has an AR-15 slung across
his chest. Over lunch
two days earlier Hughes
seemed mild mannered
and nonthreatening. To-
day, prowling the desert,
he is imposing. "That's
where they wait for their ride," he says,
motioning to a secluded area of drainage
tunnels that lies directly below Interstate 8.
As Hughes explains, this valley is the base
of a smuggling corridor that leads up the

More recent
border groups
have opted
for veneers of

legitimacy.

John Wayne Parkway toward Phoenix.
According to a report by the Anti-
Defamation League, citizen border pa-
trols have operated in Arizona since
1999. Among the first was Ranch Rescue,
founded by Jack Foote, an ex-Army offi-
cer from Техаз. While Foote and his early
successors were blatantly xenophobic—
Foote declared illegal immigration to be a
Mexican plot to invade the
United States—more recent
groups including U.S. Bor-
der Guard have opted for
veneers of legitimacy. J.T.
Ready registered USBG as
a search-and-rescue opera-
tion. According to Hughes,
Ready deliberately chose a
name that would be con-
fused with the U.S. Border
Patrol, a federal agency.

In launching Ranch Rescue, Foote
tapped into the frustrations of ranchers
faced with immigrants sprinting across
their properties. Because few crimes were
tied to these immigrants, border groups

ILLUSTRATION BY JUSTIN PAGE

READER
RESPONSE

LEGAL WEED

I have no argument with anyone
who prefers medical marijuana
over pharmaceutical-grade alter-
natives. However, it's safe to say
people who consume weed for
medicinal purposes amount to

a small percentage of users, and
if these sufferers were offered a
free, nonaddictive, noneuphoric
pill with no side effects, you'd
have to wonder how many
would switch. Let's cut the pious
bullshit—weed is a recreational
drug and the rest is a farcical side-
show. Filthy lies about marijuana
led to unconstitutional legislation
that snowballed into the mono-
lithic war on drugs. Crushing the

anti-marijuana laws would set in
motion a domino effect that leads
to an American spring.

Fred Bilello
Laughlin, Nevada

A high percentage of substance
users and abusers have tried
cannabis, yet their “gateway”
drugs are overwhelmingly alco-
hol and tobacco. Consumption

EJ Forum

READER RESPONSE

of cannabis provides enor-

mous health benefits—alcohol
and cigarettes do not. Cannabi-
noids appear to kill cancer cells
through autophagy and the
inhibition of tumor angiogen-
esis. Hemp cannabis could feed,
clothe and fuel the world. Flower
cannabis could bring enlighten-
ment and peace.

Charles Waller
Henderson, Kentucky

More than half the population
believes marijuana should be
legalized. I'm one of them. Why
not let Americans purchase per-
mits to grow a certain number of
plants in their homes?

John McCallum
Lucerne Valley, California

HOME ON THE RANGE

Although the First Amendment
fully protects your editorial
discretion, the drumbeat of con-
demnation for those of us who
choose to exercise our rights
under the Second Amendment
is beginning to grate. I belong

to two firing ranges, which are
97 percent male. When the

topic of PLAYBOY comes up, the
magazine is criticized for march-
ing in step with the Democratic
Party. As a union member who
has campaigned for local Demo-
crats, I find that when it comes to
any issue except sex, Democrats
support more control and regu-
lation. They are libertarians only
in the area of sexual conduct.
You need to recognize that the
modern man believes in the full
rainbow of interpretations of the

remained small. But right-wing politicians
and extremist organizations exploited
the nativism sparked by the 9/11 attacks.
Compounding anti-immigrant senti-
ment was the Mexican drug war and the
2008 credit crisis, which saw Latino im-
migrants scapegoated. By decade's end,
Arizona was an epicenter of extremism.
As one local journalist put it, "Arizona re-
mains the most racist state in the nation."

Harry Hughes says the National Social-
ist Movement is a “white civil rights orga-
nization." But he claims USBG isn't racist.
It includes members of various races and
religions, he says, and its intent is to pre-
vent drug and human smuggling. Mem-
bers have even saved lives, he implies.
"We found 11 of them out there once
in the middle of July, and it was 115 de-
grees," he tells me. “Ме gave them 40 bot-
tles of water, and they were still thirsty.”

But border groups have a history of vio-
lence. Two Salvadorans successfully sued
Ranch Rescue in 2005, claiming members
of the group had beaten, robbed and set
a rottweiler on them. In 2011 the leader
of Minutemen American Defense was
sentenced to death for robbery and the
murder of two Mexican Americans, one
just nine years old. And despite USBG's
efforts to maintain a posi-
tive public image, govern-
ment documents describe
Ready and others holding
immigrants at gunpoint
and zip-tying them.

Mark Pitcavage, the
Anti-Defamation League's
top researcher, says bor-
der groups are motivated
by nativism and a “рага-
military fantasy." The jus-
tification these vigilantes give for their
existence—to prevent drug smuggling—
is part of their fantasy, says Pitcavage, in
which they "claim the cartels are engag-
ing in an insurgency within the U.S. They
portray themselves as the main combat-
ants in an actual war to stop the cartels."

ason Todd Ready was a соп-
flicted man. He flirted with a
string of vocations—the mil-
itary, Mormonism, Nazism,
politics, law enforcement—
before launching USBG. At the time of
his death last May, at the age of 39, he
was a candidate for Pinal County sheriff.
Before that he had been a GOP precinct
committeeman, ran for Mesa City Coun-
cil and developed an alliance with former
Arizona state senator Russell Pearce,
author of SB 1070, the most severe anti-
immigration bill in the country. Through
it all Ready remained a white supremacist.

Ready never knew his father. He was
born in Lakeland, Florida in 1973 to
Ladotha Ready, daughter of a Pentecos-
tal minister from Alabama named Ernest
Ready. According to Ladotha, or Dottie,

Ready
was court-
martialed and

thrown out of

the Marines.

THE POLITICS OF HATRED: J.T. READY AT А
NATIONAL SOCIALIST RALLY IN LAS VEGAS.

her son was the product of a short re-
lationship she had while separated from
her first husband. J.T.’s father had no
involvement in his son's life. But Dottie
wasn't always involved either. Court re-
cords show that J.T. was adopted by his
maternal grandfather and his wife and
lived with them in Alabama as a preteen.
J-T., a strong-willed boy who missed his
mother, clashed with the strict minister.

Dottie says Ernest would get so frustrat-
ed with J.T. that Бед periodically “dump
him back on my doorstep,” only to have
him sent back again. At 13 J.T. was sent to
live with Ernest’s brother in Auburndale,
Florida. When he was 15,
Dottie, who had remar-
ried to Gary Lee Davis
and was living with him
and their two children in
Lakeland, finally regained
custody. According to Dot-
tie, Davis abused J.T.

As a lance corporal at
Camp Pendleton in the
mid-1990s, Ready van-
ished for eight days. This
prompted a court-martial that got him
locked up for three months. Soon after-
ward he was court-martialed again, this
time for assault, among other charges.
He was thrown out of the Marine Corps.

“If he was racist, I never knew about
it,” his mother says. Adam Lindgren,
brother of Ready’s ex-wife, Arline, whom
he divorced in 2003, told the Associated
Press that Ready was “very, very opinion-
ated. He would just keep arguing with
you.” Ready became increasingly para-
noid. In 2011 he sent an e-mail that said,
“I sleep with a loaded shotgun under my
bed and a nine millimeter on the night-
stand. Mossad or...the Cartel...or some
antifacist freak may make a move on me.”

Brittany Mederos, the youngest
daughter of Ready’s girlfriend, Lisa
Mederos, says Ready “got a sick pleasure
out of hunting Mexicans.” Cassandra
Olivier, who shared an apartment with
Lisa’s eldest daughter, Amber, and Am-
ber’s baby, Lilly, expressed disgust that
Ready once bullied Lilly’s father, who
is part Mexican, into going on a patrol.
Ready would taunt the sensitive Amber
by calling her baby “50 percent ugly.”

Dottie admits her son changed when
he got to Arizona. “It had to do with that
white supremacist or nationalist organi-
zation,” she asserts. She blames “some-
one out there” for “brainwashing” him
and says he had become nearly delu-
sional toward the end. When he visited
her, she says, “his mind would dwell on
that Hitler stuff, and then he would sud-
denly switch and act normal again.”

n May 2, 2012 Lisa Mede-
ros called the police in
Gilbert, Arizona. Sounding
nervous but composed, she
told the dispatcher she had
had an argument with her boyfriend and
he was “going ballistic.” Mederos lived

with Ready and her daughter Brittany
in a small house about 20 miles outside
Phoenix. The dispatcher heard two
cracks. “Oh my God!” Mederos yelled.
The line went dead.

Two minutes later, 19-year-old
Brittany Mederos dialed 911 from her
bedroom. She had been sleeping when
she heard arguing and what sounded
like gunshots coming from the living
room. When she emerged, she saw the
bodies of her mother, her sister Amber
and Amber's baby, Lilly. She ran back
into her room and locked the door.
“There were gunshots,” she said. “I
think they're dead!”

She was right. Just after one P.M.
Ready took a nine-millimeter Beretta

COMING HOME TO ROOST

Racists, gang members and
criminals get their train-
ing in the U.S. military

uring the long decade of the war on terror,
D he U.S. military turned into a free-for-all.
ald Rumsfeld's extreme vision of a
scaled-down, privatized Pentagon meant that when
the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan kicked off in earnest,
the military had no way to stock the occupations with
the required number of troops. In the absence of con-
scription, which would have been too unpopular, the
U.S. military set about ripping up its regulations on
recruitment and retention. Into the Army came neo-
Nazis, who benefited from a "don't ask, don't tell"
policy whereby recruiters ignored swastikas and SS
bolts. In came Bloods and Crips and Gangster Disciples.
In came rapists and murderers, who benefited from the
"moral waiver" program, despite the military’s code to
disqualify recruits with "significant criminal records."
And in stayed those afflicted with post-traumatic
Stress disorder, who were sent back to the war zone.
This had devastating consequences for the people
of Iraq and Afghanistan, where large numbers of
unhinged race warriors armed with MI6 assault rifles
stalked the streets. In the coming years, U.S. society
will experience similar devastation as these same
unsavories return home. A glimpse of what is in store
was last year's mass killing at the Sikh temple in Wis-
consin. It was carried out by a neo-Nazi veteran, Wade
Michael Page, who had been completely open about
being a white supremacist while serving at Fort Bragg

in the 1990s. During the war on terror, people like Page
operated even more freely. Far-right leaders spoke
openly of encouraging their members to enlist to get
training for the coming racial holy war (called RaHoWa
in neo-Nazi circles). They have never been more suc-
cessful in that mission. One neo-Nazi veteran of гад,
Kenneth Eastridge, is now serving time for his part in
the murder of a fellow soldier in December 2007. His
Myspace page showed him posing with his SS lightning
bolt tattoo visible on his forearm. One of his accom-
plices alleged that Eastridge used a stolen AK-47 to fire
randomly at Iraqi civilians. At least one was hit, he al-
leged. This should not be surprising: It was the explicit
mission of many white nationalists to "kill a brown" in
the Middle East, and the U.S. military rarely demurred.
We often found out about their criminal activities only
when they erred back home, where the rule of law
could not be so easily discarded.

Mexican drug cartels from Ciudad Juárez and other
cities along the border have solicited U.S. military per-
sonnel at Fort Bliss to help traffic weapons and drugs
across the border. Last year the Drug Enforcement Ad-
ministration caught a "kill team" composed of veterans
and active-duty soldiers attempting to carry out an as-
sassination for what they thought was the hyperviolent
cartel Los Zetas. With more than 2 million veterans of Iraq
and Afghanistan soon to be back in the U.S., the toxic mix
of military-trained racists, gang members and criminals
doesn't bode well for our future.—Matt Kennard

Matt Kennard is author of Irregular Army: How the
U.S. Military Recruited Neo-Nazis, Gang Members and
Criminals to Fight the War on Terror.

FORUM

READER RESPONSE

Second Amendment as strongly
as Hef believes in the First.

Eric Sanders
White Plains, New York

We have no problem with guns—we
delight in the elegance and challenge
of a Beretta .20-gauge. We don't,
however, believe gun rights are abso-
lute. The Supreme Court has placed
reasonable restrictions on every other
amendment, including the First. Why
not the Second?

When I was taking the required
class to get a nonresident Utah
Concealed Firearm Permit, the
instructor told me permit hold-
ers are not allowed to possess
pornography. That has left me
wondering whether I should
renew my PLAYBOY subscription.

I have had many interesting
conversations with religious right-
wingers who have no idea where I
get my information, and I would
hate to lose that edge. How do
you interpret the law?

K. Smith
Columbia, South Carolina

Utah does not allow gun-permit
holders to distribute sexually explicit
material that, taken as a whole, is
“patently offensive” and lacks "seri-
ous literary, artistic, political or
scientific value.” According to every
state and federal court that has ever
considered the question, PLAYBOY
doesn't qualify.

UNHAPPY CAMPER

What happened to your magazine?
On the first page of the March
Dear Playboy you print a smear of
Lee Atwater (admittedly, by an
authority on the subject), a letter
suggesting we brought the Cuban
Missile Crisis on ourselves, two
defenses of Richard Dawkins that
slam organized religion and a flip-
pant response to a soldier who
wonders why you chose a Canadian
to represent Uncle Sam. When I
read your response ("She's North
American—close enough"), I threw
the issue in the trash. Liberal spin
is fine, but at least make an attempt
to represent a more encompassing
political and social viewpoint.

Greg Campbell

Eugene, Oregon

FORUM

READER RESPONSE

WHAT GOES AROUND...

A reader complains in April about
taxes going to “pay the medical
bills of the physically irresponsi-
ble.” I have been a tobacco user
since the age of five (in my day
that was possible) but have also
paid cigarette taxes ranging from
a simple 10 percent in 1970 to 600
percent in 1995 to (in some places)
1,200 percent today. The way

I see it, the government should
pay for my medical care for life
because it swore that would be the
sole purpose of the taxes it col-
lected. Instead it squandered the
money on pet projects and war-
mongering. Health care should be
treated like a public utility. Stop
blaming those of us who choose

to live like Americans for the fact
that politicians side with medical
and insurance companies, which

in return pay for those politicians’
ridiculously overpriced reelection
campaigns. Your tax dollars help
pay my medical bills just as my
taxes pay for the education of
American children even though I
don't have any.

Jay Runk

West Middlesex, Pennsylvania

KEYNES WAS RIGHT

In the ongoing discussion in Reader
Response about Keynesian econom-
ics, it is interesting how the far-right
Tea Party group pushes the con-
cept that government can do no
good for the economy. Conser-
vatives may not like the way FDR

and opened fire in Lisa Mederos's en-
tranceway. First he shot Amber and
15-month-old Lilly. While Lisa was talk-
ing with police, Ready shot her twice in
the head. Meanwhile, Jim Hiott, Amber's
fiancé, was outside talking on his cell
phone. Hearing gunfire, he went to the
doorway, where he saw Ready holding
his Beretta. He turned to flee, but Ready
shot him three times. Then Ready shot
himself. Everyone died quickly except
Lilly, who died in the ambulance on the
drive to Maricopa Medical Center.

The reasons behind the shooting
aren't clear. Cassandra Olivier told police
Amber and Hiott wanted to move into
Lisa's house, and Lisa may have asked
Ready to move out. Police say a domestic
dispute sparked a murder-suicide. This
is supported by Lisa's call and by the
medical examiner's report.

As the sole living witness, Brittany heard
not only the gunfire but parts of the argu-
ment that preceded it. The shooter “was

AT THE MEXICAN CONSULATE IN PHOENIX,
2006: J.T. READY PROTESTING AGAINST
ILLEGAL IMMIGRATION.

my mom's boyfriend, J.T. Ready,” she
told police. In an interview with PLAYBOY
she said that when she saw her family on
the ground, she initially thought they
were hiding. “I couldn't grasp it. My
whole body was in shock.” Police escorted
her past her dead family to remove her
from the house, affording her a second
glimpse. Officers described her as hysteri-
cal when she reached the squad car.
When asked what attracted Lisa to
Ready, Brittany says her mom described
him as a romantic who would periodi-
cally take her to the mountains or a lake
to gaze at the stars. As their relation-
ship progressed, his “good, loving side”
was replaced by a quarrelsome one that
picked fights “almost daily.” But Britta-
пу still asserts, “If you were wondering if
any of us had a clue that he was mentally
unstable and capable of murdering, no."
Still, Ready's dedication to the cause
of white supremacy was conspicuous. He

kept a metal swastika as a desk ornament.
He marched in National Socialist Move-
ment parades carrying pictures of Hitler
and named his dog Blondi after the füh-
rer's German shepherd. Regarding bor-
der security, he recommended setting
land mines between Mexico and Arizona.
At the time of his death he was under
FBI investigation for domestic terrorism.

ill Straus sits behind his desk
at the Arizona branch of the
Anti-Defamation League. It
is two days after the Supreme
Court struck down much
of Arizona's SB 1070, and Straus, the
regional director, is in good spirits. He is
discussing a meeting he attended in 2006
with State Representative Russell Pearce.
At the time, Pearce was chairman of Ari-
zona's House Appropriations Committee,
and he was suffering politically for for-
warding an anti-Semitic e-mail and for
praising a 1950s deportation program

called Operation Wetback. The meeting
had been arranged by Speaker of the
House Jim Weiers. According to Straus,
the two Republicans believed if they could
get Straus to forgive Pearce publicly, it
would take the heat off. Straus and Pearce
spoke for an hour, and Straus made it
clear what he wanted in return.

"I confronted Russell about the effect
his rhetoric was having on white suprem-
acists,” Straus says. “He was the new Elvis
to them." Straus asked Pearce to hold a
press conference to repudiate his hostile
language. He handed Pearce a file that
contained information about the neo-
Nazis embracing him, including Ready.
But Pearce didn't hold a press conference
and Straus offered no forgiveness. Pearce
wouldn't denounce Ready for two years.

Pearce had become a star of the far right
by articulating Arizona's rising nativism.
In 2004 Proposition 200 required immi-
grants to provide "satisfactory evidence"
of citizenship before voting or collecting
public benefits. In 2006 the Bailable Of-
fenses Act prevented illegal aliens from be-
ing released on bail if they were suspected

of serious crimes. Another law turned
“self-smuggling” into a felony. And then
came SB 1070, a tenet of which allows law
enforcement to demand the papers of es-
sentially anyone of Latin descent.

As Arizona’s nativism rose, Ready
threw himself into politics. Initially he
lived in Mesa and met Pearce while vol-
unteering for Republican causes. In a
phone interview Pearce
downplayed their re-
lationship, saying, “1
thought J.T. was a decent
kid when he was first in-
troduced to the district.
He was working for a
Christian organization. I
thought he had a sense
of humor and he was
good on the issues.” In a
statement after the shoot-
ings, Pearce said, “At
some point in time darkness took his life
over.” When asked what he thought had
caused that darkness, Pearce said, “How
should I know? Don't ask me.”

The two were closer than Pearce ad-
mits. Pearce attended Ready’s Mormon
baptism and ordained him as an elder in
2004. In 2007 Ready made a speech in
which he suggested putting the National
Guard on the border and jerking judg-
es around by their collars. In a video
Pearce is seen applauding as Ready
rants. In 2010 Ready told an interviewer
he and Pearce shared a political strategy
by which Ready would push extreme
rhetoric as “a bellwether” to see how far
Pearce could go. Ready called Pearce a
political mentor who taught him how to
bring the fringe into the mainstream.

However belatedly, Pearce and the
Arizona Republicans finally expelled
Ready. The last few years of Ready’s life
saw his anger alienate him from almost
every group he had been affiliated with.
By May 2012 he was unemployed and
in a deteriorating relationship. Dottie,
aware of his difficulties, offered him a
room in Florida, but he said he loved liv-
ing in Arizona.

ay 2 was to be a family day

for the Mederos clan. Brit-

tany and Amber had made

plans for lunch at a local

restaurant, and Lisa and

Ready decided to join. But there was

another, less auspicious significance to

the date: Olivier was moving out of the

apartment she shared with Amber, Hiott

and Lilly. The rent was no longer afford-

able, so Amber had mentioned moving in

with Lisa. Olivier knew that wouldn't be

easy: On another occasion, Amber “had

to literally beg” Lisa to stay there for just
one night because Ready opposed it.

On the evening of May 1 a neighbor of

Ready's helped him install screens over

the windows. Ready was “high strung,”

As Arizona’s
nativism rose,
J.T. Ready

threw himself

into politics.

Robert Kalas told police, and worried
about “being invaded.” He also showed
Kalas a new bulletproof vest he needed
to “get used to.” Meanwhile, Brittany
was up all night listening to music and
didn't go to bed until five a.m. When
Amber and crew arrived later that morn-
ing, an exhausted Brittany asked if they
could have dinner instead and went back
to sleep. She was awak-
ened by arguing.

“At first I assumed it was
the same usual fights," she
says. "But then the yelling
turned into screaming. I
caught a few words." What
she heard was a shouting
match between Ready and
the usually nonconfron-
tational Amber. Ready
yelled, “This isn't your
house. You don't have the
right to be here." Amber hollered back,
“This is my father's house. I have more
of a right to be here than you!"

Brittany describes what happened next:
"Suddenly, there was screaming. Then I
heard gunshots. I had never heard gun-
shots before, so it didn't immediately reg-
ister. I ran to the living room. I saw every-
one on the ground. At first I had the ig-
norant assumption that they had fallen to
the floor to avoid the gunshots. I nudged
my sister with my foot. Once my foot con-
nected with her limp body, I realized she
was dead. They were all dead."

ass killers share charac-

teristics. Among them is a

sense of isolation; another is

training in firearms (many

of them served in the mili-
tary). The most common characteristic,
however, is an externalization of respon-
sibility, a belief that others are causing
their misery. Take a person who exhibits
these characteristics, place him in a cul-
ture where intolerance is legitimized, and
it's a recipe for disaster.

J-T. Ready both contributed to and
was a victim of a culture that exploits
fear to cultivate an atmosphere of hate.
Groups like the National Socialist Move-
ment and USBG exploit fear of border
crime to attract members. Politicians
like Pearce stoke nativism for votes and
donations. Even corporations— private
prison systems, arms manufacturers and
security companies—profit from a fear-
ful atmosphere.

There are other victims. “Nobody
truly understands the pain of your clos-
est loved ones being taken from you until
it happens,” Brittany says. “Most people
will hear the story of my family and be
sad for amoment and then forget it. But
I don’t get that chance. I have to wake
up every morning and know this is my
life. My broken, messed-up life. ГП never
stop hurting.” a

FORUM В

READER RESPONSE

expanded the social safety net,

but it is hard to support the claim
that his policies made the Depres-
sion worse. When he was elected in
1932 the unemployment rate was
estimated to be 23.6 percent; four
years later it was 17 percent, which
is still bad but not worse. By 1941,
before the U.S. entered the war,

it had fallen to 9.9 percent. As for

` FORUMS |

LL RESPONSE
A A Im
m \ 4 -

the housing crisis, your correspon-
dents again latch on to a myth. The
policy of expanding home owner-
ship did not lead to no-doc loans,
nor did the government insist that
banks make loans to unqualified
borrowers. Did the feds insist mort-
gage providers not discriminate?
Of course. The problem was in fact
rooted in the quasi-governmental
nature of Fannie Mae and Freddie
Mac. Federal guarantees allowed
managers at those agencies to
create compensation schemes like
investment banks', and the connec-
tion to government meant the cost
of failure ended up being paid by
taxpayers. Finally, we don't often
get to observe real-world economic
experiments. The rapid cutting of
deficits in Greece and the U.K. is
causing those economies to con-
tract, increasing the rate of descent
into poverty. It is playing out
exactly as John Maynard Keynes
suggested it would.

Robert Perry
Cohasset, Massachusetts

E-mail letters@playboy.com.
Or write 9346 Civic Center Drive,
Beverly Hills, California 90210.

|
|

THE BLOODLINE CONTINUED.

INTRODUCING THE JAGUAR F-TYPE.

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the legend for your lifetime: the F-TYPE. The triumphant return of the Jaguar
two-seater. See the glorious bloodline continued at jaguarusa.com/f-type.

ALIVE ARE YOU?

2013 JAGUAR LAND ROVER NORTH AMERICA, LLC

minus AL WEIWEI

А candid conversation with the Chinese dissident about being Beijing’s top
target, using Twitter against oppression and how Nancy Pelosi betrayed him

The artist Ai Weiwei (pronounced. “eye way
way" —Ai is his surname) is the Chinese gov-
ernment's worst nightmare: an internationally
revered art star who uses his work and celeb-
rity to advocate for democracy and free speech
in a nation with neither. The government has
employed a draconian campaign to silence
him. Ai is under constant surveillance. He
has been threatened, placed under house arrest
and physically attacked by a police officer. Av's
incendiary blog, read by thousands of Chinese
citizens, disappeared one day. And so did he: In
2011, state police grabbed him at the airport,
threw a black bag over his head and drove him
to an undisclosed location, where he languished
for 81 days in a tiny prison cell. Despite these
attacks, Ai has continued his virulent criticism
of the Chinese Communist leadership, which he
deems repressive, immoral and illegitimate.
Ai's dissidence is particularly discomfiting
to the Chinese government as it attempts to те-
lain its stranglehold on its citizens while also
cementing its position as a global economic
powerhouse. Ai’s domestic and international
influence is growing. Using art, technology
and civil disobedience in his antigovernment
campaign, he continues to embarrass the re-
gime—and threaten it. Most observers agree
that if it weren't for his international celebrity,
Ai would still be imprisoned, like Nobel Peace

Prize winner Liu Xiaobo, who is serving an
11-year sentence, or he'd be exiled, like blind
dissident Chen Guangcheng. The last time Ai
was imprisoned there were worldwide protests;
world leaders including Hillary Clinton called
for his release.

Ai's political activism and art are informed
by his tumultuous childhood. His father, Ai
Qing, one of China’s most revered poets, stud-
ied in Paris before returning to China in 1932,
when he was arrested by Chiang Kai-shek’s Na-
tionalist Party. With the Communist takeover,
the elder Ai was for a time in favor of Chair-
man Mao Tse-tung’s regime. Then he wrote a
poem that extolled the virtues of a culture that
celebrated rather than repressed multiple voices.
For this he was exiled to a “reeducation” camp,
where he was humiliated, beaten and forced to
clean toilets for nearly two decades. Ai Weiwei
spent his early years in the camp.

After the Cultural Revolution, Ai attended
the Beijing Film Academy. In 1981 he left for
the United States, where he studied English,
worked odd jobs and made art. He returned
to China after 12 years and worked as an ar-
chitect, artist and antiques dealer. He gained
international attention for his collaboration
with the architecture firm Herzog & de Meu-
ron on the design of Beijing’s National Sta-
dium, nicknamed the Bird’s Nest, built for the

2008 Olympics. His reputation in the fine-art
world grew too. His controversial pieces in-
clude a series of photographs in which he uses
the international hand gesture for “fuck you”
to send a not very subtle message to the Chinese
government. He smashed Neolithic pottery,
created a giant sculpture out of Qing dynasty
stools, built a breathtaking art installation in
Munich out of 9,000 children’s backpacks to
commemorate the thousands of students killed
when their schools collapsed in the 2008 Sich-
uan earthquake (he blames the high death toll
on the Chinese government for allowing the
schools’ shoddy construction) and spread a sea
of 100 million porcelain sunflower seeds across
a gallery in the Tate Modern in London.

After being released from prison in June
2011 Ai was placed under house arrest. By
2012 he was no longer confined to his Beijing
compound, but the government held his pass-
port, preventing him from leaving the country.
He was unable to attend the opening of a ma-
jor survey of his work at the Hirshhorn Mu-
seum in Washington, D.C.

Since Ai couldn’t leave China, PLAYBOY
sent Contributing Editor David Sheff to meet
him there. Sheff; who has interviewed Rep-
resentative Barney Frank, journalist Fareed
Zakaria and Apple’s Steve Jobs for us, reports,
“Over the course of the days we spent together,

‘At the beginning I was just putting photos of
my artwork on the blog. Then I realized I could
talk about the social conditions. Yes, I want to
argue. Because nobody else in China argues,
my arguments become relevant.”

“They took me from the airport. A black hood
was put over me and they took me to a secu-
rity detention center. The first question I asked
was ‘Can I have a lawyer?’ They said no. I
said, ‘Can I call my family?’ They said no.”

PHOTOGRAPHY BY TONY LAW

“Twitter is better than a blog. It’s
faster. It’s interesting because of the fast
communication—the immediate person-to-
person response. Also, everybody is watching.
There is a sharing of ideas.”

PLAYBOY

I accompanied Ai on his daily walks through
a Beijing park. He said he walks so he'll be
in better physical shape if he's arrested again.
Following these walks, each afternoon he visits
his young son, who was born in 2009 to a girl-
friend; Ai has been married to artist Lu Qing
for 17 years. Though he lives with the constant
threat of arrest, each evening after his time
with his son Ai takes his place in front of a
computer and spends six or more hours writing
illegal Twitter messages to 200,000 followers.
Helped by a coterie of hackers, he manages to
circumvent the government's ‘Great Firewall’
to send out missives about what he considers
his government’s latest sins.”

PLAYBOY: Other renowned Chinese dissi-
dents have been either imprisoned or ex-
iled. Why are you allowed to remain free?
Al: I don’t know if I am free. There’s a
threat always that any minute I could be
arrested. Why they don’t arrest me now,
I don’t know. I don’t know why they ar-
rested me the last time. I don’t know
why they let me go after three months.
They said I would be in for 10 years.
PLAYBOY: Do you know why they’re hold-
ing your passport?

Al: There has been no explanation. I
don’t know why, because if they don’t
want me to leave the country, they could
stop me at the airport. The government
doesn’t explain. They don’t have to ex-
plain. The Communists who run China
picture themselves as above the rest of
society—as the best men, a superman so-
ciety. They believe they are made of spe-
cial materials. That is their own words.
They’re elite. They tell you only what
they want to tell you. So of course you
will never get any clear answer about any
event that happened in the past 60 years.
My father, when he was sent away, never
knew who made the decision, how the de-
cision was made or why. Three hundred
thousand intellectuals were crushed by a
single political moment with the Cultural
Revolution. None of them got a clear an-
swer about why. Now it’s decades later,
and what surprises me most is that after
being in power all this time, this govern-
ment should have built a better society,
one that’s more open. They should trust
the people. They should explain and dis-
cuss and negotiate. All those things are
completely lacking in this society.
PLAYBOY: Do you assume you were freed
and for the moment remain free be-
cause of pressure from the internation-
al community?

Al: Maybe if the government could get
away with it, without anyone knowing,
you would not see me again.

PLAYBOY: Is it gratifying to know that
Hillary Clinton and other world leaders
called for your release from prison?

Al: It’s very surprising. Yes, it was very
good. But there are so many people ar-
rested. And worse than arrested. Why
does no one speak about them? Just yes-
terday the number reached 92 Tibetans
who have burned themselves to death be-

cause of the Chinese oppression of Tibet.
Most were Buddhist monks. I don’t see
much international outcry for them. It’s a
hopeless cry for them, and no one listens.
PLAYBOY: Then perhaps your celebrity
saves you, the support from political lead-
ers and other prominent people from
the West. Last November Elton John
shocked a Beijing audience by dedicating
a concert to you. Did that surprise you?
Al: I was so happy but also shocked. Such
a pure man. That’s not done; people
don’t say my name out loud in public
like that. The audience would never
think somebody would have that kind of
free, clear expression in a situation like
that. It will always remain in my mind.
PLAYBOY: Do any prominent Chinese
in China stand up for you and other
dissidents?

Al: No. It’s too dangerous. But there are
some in the young generation of artists
who do. Of course they have all been
taken to the police station.

PLAYBOY: While you were in prison, were
you aware of the protests and calls for
your release?

Al: I had no idea. I was just a little piece

Without the internet, no per-
son could say anything and be
heard. It’s not that everyone
can know, because the govern-
ment controls the internet. But
some people can know.

dropped into a dark corner, into a hole.
PLAYBOY: You didn’t know if anyone was
worrying about you?

Al: No, but of course you know your
family is.

PLAYBOY: Why is one man—an artist—
such a threat to the government of a
nation with 1.3 billion people and the
second-largest economy in the world?
Al: Even to question the government can
have a strong impact on its control. All my
father asked for was to have a variety of
expressions in literature and art. Rather
than just one type of flower, he said there
should be a whole garden. It’s so pitiful,
because every flower deserves its own
identity and has its own beauty. That sim-
ple idea is seen as a threat to the Commu-
nist leadership, which is a military-police
type of leadership. They want to take
away any variety of expression.

PLAYBOY: How does free speech threaten
them? They’re firmly in control.

Al: If people question—if people don’t ac-
cept what they tell us—maybe the leaders
will have to go. It’s like during the re-
search we did after the earthquake to find
out who was missing. We simply wanted to

know the names of the victims. We asked
the government for their names, ages
and which school they went to. We made
200 phone calls to government officials.
They wouldn't release any information. I
built up my anger and frustration. One
by one we found the students’ names, all
the information related to them. We in-
terviewed hundreds of parents. It was a
very painful research study.

PLAYBOY: Why would that threaten the
government? Why would officials not
want the names released?

Al: Maybe they worried that if people
knew, they’d question the bad construc-
tion of the structures, the schools and
buildings that collapsed. That can have
some political impact. Next the people
ask, “Who’s responsible?”

PLAYBOY: Your efforts to learn who died
in the earthquake resulted in a list of the
names of 5,000 students.

Al: Fifty-two hundred.

PLAYBOY: You then made an international
statement about the earthquake by cre-
ating a facade on a Munich museum
comprising 9,000 children’s backpacks.
What were you trying to communicate?
Al: The backpacks spelled out the words
of a mother whose daughter was one of
the students killed. The mother said,
“She lived happily for seven years in this
world.” People should not forget this,
and the government does not want it to
be remembered.

PLAYBOY: Where were you when you
heard about the earthquake?

Al: In Beijing, and even in Beijing we
could feel it a little bit.

PLAYBOY: What was your reaction when
you heard of the magnitude?

Al: I was stunned. Speechless. Back in
2005 some people had created a blog
for me. I realized it was a great oppor-
tunity to try to write something. I have
always admired people who write. My
father was a writer. He wrote very clearly
what was in his mind. I think writing is a
beautiful skill. I needed to learn, because
I never had a chance when I grew up in
the Cultural Revolution, when the whole
education system failed. So I felt frus-
trated, and here was this beautiful tool to
write and communicate.

At the beginning I was just putting
photos of my artwork on the blog and
writing a little. Then I realized I could
talk about the social conditions. Each
morning I read the newspaper, and
there would always be quite a few points
to talk about. I'm a person who has many
opinions on everything. People always
tell me, “Oh, you just want to argue.”
Yes, I want to argue, because everything
should be argued. Because nobody else
in China argues, my arguments become
relevant. Suddenly my blog became very
popular, because nobody was so openly
talking about those things. I wrote every
day, day and night, but when the earth-
quake came I was speechless and couldn’t
write a word for seven days. It was such

a big tragedy. I could not write anything.
PLAYBOY: Why did you begin collecting
the names of earthquake victims?

Al: Since they didn’t release the names,
I must. Every day I put our new find-
ings of names that we collected on the
blog. It could be one, it could be 20.
So many people were reading it. They
all had the same questions: Why is
this artist doing this by himself? Why
isn’t the government doing this? What
kind of government do we have? That
really shook the foundation of this gov-
ernment, because they knew nobody
would trust them.

PLAYBOY: Did the government ask you to
stop posting the names?

А: Day after day I did this until one day
almost a year later, 2009, a very high-up
official called and said, “Weiwei, can you
stop?” I said, “Well, it’s a little too late. I
have to find the last person’s name, and
that is the only way I can stop.” I said,
“But there is one way for me to stop,
and that is if you start to announce those
names. Why can't you do it? I mean, once
you do it, then I don't have to do it. It's
not my job. It's not a particularly happy
moment when I do that.” But of course
they would not do it.

PLAYBOY: The earthquake occurred the
same year as the Beijing Olympics. Why
did you object to the Olympics, one of
China's proudest moments, especially
after your prominent role as co-designer
of the Bird's Nest stadium, the focal
point of the Games?

Al: In 2007, one year before the open-
ing, they began a so-called countdown
to the Olympics. I saw this celebration
on a friend's television. The whole show
brought up memories of growing up
under the Communists. They were try-
ing to glamorize the Communist Party.
Also, they were already tightening secu-
rity in Beijing for the Olympics. It was
becoming like a police state. They sent
all the vagrants out of the city. They
took away the visas from all the students
who worked in the city. You could see so
clearly that all they wanted was to throw
a glamorous party for the benefit of the
foreign media and for the world to see
the power of the Communist Party.
They were trying to tell the world, “We
are the same as you." But actually they
were saying, “Ме have more. We can
do something you can never do. You
could never do this grand Olympics." It
made me disgusted. A journalist called
and asked if I watched it. I said yes, and
he asked, "How do you feel about it?"
I said, "I'm disgusted," and he asked,
"Will you be part of a celebration?" I
said no. They published the next day
that the Olympic stadium designer was
boycotting the games.

PLAYBOY: Weren't you proud of the Bird's
Nest, which received worldwide acclaim?
А: I'm proud of the architecture. I love
it, but I hated the way it was going to be
used. I hate the way it was used.

PLAYBOY: When you openly criticized the
Olympics, were you chastised or asked to
get with the program?

А: No. The government people will
never tell you directly, never show their
feelings. It's like a whole table of poker
players. They hate you to death, but it's
like, "We'll get you later," because they
know they will get you later.

PLAYBOY: You once said that your genera-
tion has to do better than your father's
generation in its efforts to change China,
because his "didn't do a good job." What
did you mean?

Al: They sacrificed so much but did not
achieve anything.

PLAYBOY: What has changed between
then and now that makes you think you
can do better?

А: It's a different time. China was
very isolated. Now China is trying to
be global, so there's an opening and a
chance to use a higher standard. And
there's the internet.

PLAYBOY: How significant is the internet?
Al: Without the internet, no person could
say anything and be heard. Now every-
one can know about the earthquake.

It's a different time. China
was very isolated. Now
China is trying to be global,
so there's an opening
and a chance to use a
higher standard.

Everyone can know about a person they
put in prison. No, it's not that everyone
can know, actually, because the govern-
ment controls the internet very well.
But some people can know. It's a small
group, because they must know how to
get around the firewall.

PLAYBOY: How dangerous is it to defy the
government's regulations and use the
internet for political discourse or to or-
ganize political campaigns?

Al: Very dangerous. Most people on the
internet use fake names. 'They don't re-
veal their identities. But of course if they
want, the government can find out very
easily who they are.

PLAYBOY: Your blog was shut down, but
now you're on Twitter. How do you man-
age to use Twitter, which is blocked in
China behind the Great Firewall?

al: After they shut off my blog, a guy said,
“I can set you up on Twitter.” He said,
"You have to use special equipment."
PLAYBOY: A proxy server?

Al: Yeah.

PLAYBOY: How does Twitter serve your
purposes?

А: Twitter is better than a blog. It’s

faster. It’s interesting because of the fast
communication—the immediate person-
to-person response. Also, everybody is
watching. It becomes like a school, like
Buddhist teaching or Zen teaching.
There is a sharing of ideas. You know
people. The people know me as well as
anybody in my family.

PLAYBOY: Do you ever feel frustrated by
the Twitter limit of 140 characters?

Al: In Chinese, 140 characters is not like
140 characters in English. In Chinese,
you can write the whole history of one
dynasty in 140 characters. It's so mean-
ingful for us. It's very poetic, because one
line can jump from one subject to anoth-
er and sometimes it's five subjects mixed
together. It is so effective. I have 200,000
followers. If everyone in China could get
on Twitter, I would have a minimum of
2 million. Today those who follow me
are all technical people or people who
are dedicated to the political.

PLAYBOY: They took down your blog.
Why haven’t they stopped you from
using Twitter? Even though you have
techies helping you and you use a proxy
server, it would seem the government,
with a reported 50,000 internet police,
could intercept your tweets.

Al: They always try to stop it. They can-
not do it. It is very difficult. They can
shut off one kind of connector, but we
build another one.

PLAYBOY: Was there any warning before
your blog disappeared?

Al: In 2009, before June 4, an official
asked me, “Can you promise not to write
anything?” The government always gets
nervous on this date.

PLAYBOY: That’s the anniversary of the
1989 crackdown in Tiananmen Square.
Sources say 200 to 2,600 people were
killed, while the Chinese government
claims there were no student fatalities.
Al: Yes. This man was such a high official.
I answered, “I never planned to write
anything. It doesn’t affect me so much.
I have so many everyday happenings
to deal with that normally I don’t write
about history.” But then I said, “But if
you ask me not to write about it, I cannot
say yes. I may write something because
you ask me not to.” The next day my
blog was shut off. Police also came to my
mom's home. My mom called me. I was
in the American Embassy because [Rep-
resentative] Nancy Pelosi was in China.
She had changed her tone, because she
used to be a human-rights defender.
Now she talks about how beautiful China
is. I was quite disappointed with her, and
I just left. I answered the phone and my
mom said, “Weiwei, there are a few ро-
lice here asking for your address." I said,
“Just wait. I’m coming over."

I was full of energy and ready to
have some kind of fight, because Pelosi
had just said how beautiful this nation
has become, and I was so mad. At my
mom's house, this guy is very arrogant.
He's undercover. He said, “I just want

PLAYBOY

to know where you live.” I said, “First,
show me your badge. Who are you?”
That got him, because he didn't have
a badge; he forgot to bring it. I said,
“Then just leave. Get out of here. Bring
your identification.” He said, “You have
no right to ask me for my identifica-
tion.” Nobody ever does that to them.
Once they say, “Police,” everybody is so
scared they do whatever the police say.
He wouldn't leave. I said, “Okay, wait.”
I dialed 911. I said, “There’s somebody
intruding into my home, and I think
it's а robbery or something.” Two ро-
lice came. They walked in and saw this
guy was their boss. It's embarrassing
for them. This new guy said, "Okay, we
have to go to the station." I said, "Show
me your badge." He said, "I don't have
it." I asked, "How do I know you are po-
lice?" They said, “We have uniforms."
I said, "Anybody can have a uniform."
They said, “We have police cars parked
outside." I said, “Who knows if you stole
this car?" They went away and came
back with badges, and I went to the sta-
tion. Later they told me in detention,
"You're watching too many Hollywood
movies." I did something ridiculous and
stupid, but I had a good time.

PLAYBOY: Did they officially arrest you?
Al: They interrogated me. It took hours
because they're not very educated. They
wrote everything down very slowly,
but finally they let me go. They didn't
bring charges. I said, "The next time
you come, you should bring handcuffs."
Those were my last words to them. Then
they shut down my blog.

PLAYBOY: What was the public reaction
when your blog disappeared?

Al: There was no way to talk about it.
There's no independent press, so you
cannot make a story. No one knows.
PLAYBOY: Might that kind of suppression
and repression soften under the leader-
ship of the new president, Xi Jinping,
who took over this year?

Al: He gave a speech at the beginning.
The main idea was: If you are weak, you
will be beaten. I think it's a very uncivi-
lized rule. It's like jungle rule. Nothing
will change.

PLAYBOY: As China has opened to the
West, what's the impact of a nondemo-
cratic system in which the Communist
Party selects its leaders from within?

Al: The way to survive in this party is
to hide yourself or to become a person
who obeys orders from above. These
are not people with new ideas who are
bold. One generation chooses the next,
and one is worse than the former. It's
like inbreeding. After so many genera-
tions, it becomes weaker and weaker.
You can see in the first generation—
Chairman Mao's generation, Castro's
generation—the first revolutionaries are
strong characters, maybe crazy but a bit
romantic. Idealistic. Now you see noth-
ing. They cannot even remember what
their ancestors said.

PLAYBOY: Along with your Twitter mes-
sages, is your art largely a result of frus-
tration with the current political system?
А: Pm a person who likes to make an
argument rather than just give emotion
or expression a form and shape in art.
I became an artist only because Г was
oppressed by society. I was born into a
very political society. When I was a child,
my father told me, as a joke, “You can
be a politician.” I was 10 years old. I
didn’t understand it, because I already
knew that politicians were the enemy,
the ones who crushed him. 1 didn't un-
derstand what he was talking about. But
now I understand. I can be political. I
can say something even though we grew
up without true education, memorizing
Chairman Mao's slogans. I memorized
hundreds of them. I can still sing his
songs, recite his poetry. Every morning
at school we stood in front of his image,
memorizing one of his sentences telling
what we should do today to make our-
selves a better person.

PLAYBOY: What's an example of a sen-
tence you learned?

Al: “Today I want to be a servant of the

The moment I saw New York
City, I was so happy. Never
in my life did I imagine it
could be like that. When
I grew up, there was no
energy, no electricity.

people, so I want to clean up my neigh-
bor’s street front,” or “Really study hard
to become a useful person to society to
prepare myself to fight against capital-
ism,” or “Build yourself as a strong per-
son for the bright Communist future.”
Every day we repeated those sentences.
In the evening we stood in front of Mao
to confess what we did wrong. “Today
at school I had slightly selfish thinking.”
It's called self-criticism. For meals, I went
to the commune dorm, to the cafeteria.
When you give the empty bowl to the
cook, before they give you the food—
normally just one spoonful of one food,
boiled corn or something—you say one
sentence of Chairman Mao. The cook will
say another sentence, then give you food.

While you're a child, you have to au-
tomatically follow this. You don't know
enough to question anything, because
your knowledge is so limited. You don't
even know there's another way. You have
never read a single novel, poetry or other
writing or heard a song that is different.
It’s like North Korea today. So there's no
way you can question it. My father could
question it because he had some experi-

ence in Paris. But of course he could not
say anything about it. So when my father
said I should be a politician, he was say-
ing I should be something different. Be-
cause of my father's experience, I expe-
rienced the complete story of what a na-
tion or human society without justice or
fairness can be. If I talk about my youth,
that deeply affected me—the society lack-
ing essential right or wrong or justice.
PLAYBOY: Did your father encourage you to
question Chairman Mao's teachings?

At: No, if he said something to me, he'd
be putting me in danger, because I may
react differently and then be crushed.
He would never say anything to us. But
we talked about that life later. I hated
society when I was 17, 18, 19. I wanted
to escape. Only art created some way
to express something different. I had
a kind of corner. First I got into art be-
cause I wanted to escape the politics. It's
through certain kinds of acts that you
can fully express your feelings.

PLAYBOY: When your father was incarcer-
ated in the labor camp, what happened
to your mother?

Al: Our whole family was sent there. It
was a difficult time.

PLAYBOY: What do you remember?

Al: I remember a lot. My father tried to
commit suicide every time they put him
in more difficult situations. I remember
in the hard-labor camp he called me af-
ter his work one day. Our home had no
light. It got dark very early. After work,
he just laid down on the bed. He had
never really done physical work before he
was 58. After a day of heavy work, he was
exhausted, in pain. He thinks he's going
to die. He called me to the bed and said,
"I'm going to die very soon." He wrote
down two names. He said, "After I die,
you should go to see these two persons
and they will raise you." I was speechless.
I didn't know what to say. I was 10. But I
showed no emotions because at that mo-
ment I had no emotion; I just accepted it.
PLAYBOY: Were you traumatized by expe-
riences like this?

АІ: It's hard to measure that kind of thing.
PLAYBOY: Why wouldn't your mother
have raised you?

А: My mother was with my younger
brother and they went away. She could
not take care of two children, I guess.
PLAYBOY: Is that why you were sent to
New York in 1981? Were they worried
and wanted to get you out of China?

Ak I went to New York because I had a
girlfriend who went. Her relatives sent
her outside to study, and she asked them
if they would also help me. By then I was
eager to go out.

PLAYBOY: What was your first impression
of the U.S.?

Al: The first time, the plane landed at
nine in the evening. Our airplane circled
the city. The moment I saw New York
City, I was so happy. All the propaganda
from the Communists was about how
bad and corrupt (continued on page 130)

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“Always like this?”
“Dunno,” I say. “He only died once.”
I downshift from sixth, fishtailing at 60 into the turn
off First Avenue onto the Willis Avenue Bridge. A black
Ford SUV blaring salsa almost clips me as it screams
past in the bus lane. Teenager, white Kangol pulled
tight, leans out the back window and pumps his fists to
the bomba beat. Screams, “It's Macho time.”
She says, “I mean the...whatchacallit?”
“Cortege.” I count at least 100 vehicles.
“Yeah. Funeral cortege.” Jennifer is her name. Young,
cute. Photographer for one of the tabloids. Asked for a lift
from the church in Spanish Harlem to the graveyard in

“Pops, let me ask
you a question.
How many days
you been up?”

the Bronx, Héctor “Macho” Camacho’s final resting place.
The record of his life gilded in fable and sentiment. “What
time is it?” he'd ask. “Macho time!” his Greek chorus would
answer. Sure is now.

Jennifer lifts her Leica, dented
lens, points at a rust-orange BMW
doing 70 as it noses between me
and the Ford. Puerto Rican flags
fly from all four windows. Uni- Three t
formed NYPD cops hold cross атаспопова
traffic at the light where the
Bruckner Expressway runs up
to the Throgs Neck. Shake their
heads and laugh at the madness.

She snaps half a dozen shots of
the Beemer, says, “Хо cortege like
I've ever been in."

Last night she'd staked out St.
Cecilia's for the public viewing. Bit-
ter November wind whipping off the
East River as Macho's body rolled
down 106th Street in a glass carriage
pulled by two white stallions. Show-
mantothe (continued on page 132)

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Chinzo filtered through

the maze, and I followed.
Mongolia in December was
minus 32 degrees Fahr-
enheit, Ulaanbaatar the
coldest capital in the world.
My local fixer, Chinzo, a
slender self-taught man of
many languages, knew his
way around the Narantuul
Market. The place had the
look of the illicit, a ram-
bling frontier bazaar of Rus-
sian and Chinese attitudes
and goods. We skated the

markets icy pathways, past vendors
wrapped in furs and wearing felt boots.
They sold bear claws, medicinal nar-
cotics, ammo, magenta brassieres, the
heads of vultures. My breath crystal-
lized on the black fur of my collar,
turning it gray. People barged around,
shoving one another in that desperately
Asian manner. This hinted at the rise
of the illegal trade in dinosaur fossils,
the frantic irresistibility of the treasure
clasped in Mongolian soil.

I trailed Chinzo to a stall behind
a rusted fuel truck, where the mass
thinned out. He traded whispers with a
man counting a stack of tugriks, the local
currency. Pewter camel miniatures
were marshaled on the stall's table,
mixed with Soviet military medals
and metal swastikas. A sharp wind
picked up and sliced through the
stalls. The vendor looked Chinzo in
the eye, explaining that the criminal

It had as many a5
bl teeth, some
more than three
inches long. № was
the Gobi's prime
predator.

case in New York had changed every-
thing. A man was on trial and facing 17
years in prison for smuggling dinosaur
bones from Mongolia. Now here we were,
hunting for bones ourselves. But the fos-
sil dealers were spooked. The black mar-
ket had gone further underground.

If we were serious about buying dino-
saur fossils, the man said, we should go
to the Gobi Desert, along the Chinese
border. That was where the action was.

The man gave Chinzo a phone num-

72 ber, saying we could give it a try in

29 ;
=. E.
A Е

мъ

Ше meantime. Chinzo dialed. “I have
a skull,” the man on the line told him.
“T can’t show you right now. Let’s meet
tomorrow. I'm in the middle of a poker
game.” There was something to buy.

I had come to Mongolia for the same
reason most outsiders do: adventure.
The world’s largest virgin coal deposit
and the biggest untapped copper and
gold mines are found here, in the Gobi
Desert. But I was no miner. What inter-
ested me was the Gobi’s other natural
resource—one of the richest dinosaur
fossil beds in the world. It is illegal to
export these bones, but some who have
done so have sold them for six, even
seven figures. I posed as a buyer, telling

1. Paleontologists sweep layers
of sand from Mongolia's Gobi
Desert near the Flaming
Cliffs, a vast cemetery of
dinosaurs and home to coveted
tarbosaurus bones. 2. Another
paleontologist works a fossil
out of the ground on a bluff
at the Flaming Cliffs. 1. Eric
Prokopi leaving a Manhattan
courtroom in 2012. He
pleaded guilty to smuggling
a tarbosaurus skeleton from
Mongolia. His specimen fetched
$1.05 million but was seized
by U.S. Customs agents.

1. Dinosaur eggs and bones оп
display at the Flaming Cliffs.

5. Prokopi's tarbosaurus bones.

people I planned to smuggle the fossils
by rail over the northern border, where
my Russian clients waited.

Since the fall of Genghis Khan's em-
pire in the 14th century, Mongolia has
assumed the role of cautious survivor.
The country is fastened between two im-
movable powers—Russia and China—
with no access to the sea. In the 20th
century the Soviets acted as Mongolia's
patron against Chinese intervention.
When the Soviet Union disintegrated,
the Russians fled Ulaanbaatar, foment-
ing chaos. Mongolia free-fell into pover-
ty. Only now, as the country prepares for
a boom in natural resources, is Mongolia
ready to join the economies of the world.

For decades, however, the nomadic
herders living (continued on page 142)

ed to be only saucers?”

“Remember when there us

(TO WITH си =>
JACK DANIEL'S,

WEED AND METALLICA.
THE RESULT:

THE NEW FACE OF COUNTRY MUSIC |

TIN A

PHOTOGRAPHY BY DAN MARTENSEN ©

> ма ИИ <<

Ейс Church’s concerts are loud and heavy оп
pyro and go well with alcohol. Kip Moore, one
of Church's opening acts, says, “| drank a whole
lot more than usual during that tour. Watching

Eric made me want to drink. An Eric Church
show creates rowdiness.” While he was watching
Church’s set, Moore saw a couple screwing in the
audience. “That was a first for me.”

"I don't like to fight, but I ain't scared to
bleed./ Most don't mess with a guy like me.”

The one time Eric Church played
Madison Square Garden, he was fired.

Church was a new artist promoting a
debut album, and he landed a plum po-
sition as the opening act for Rascal Flatts,
a trio who play a goopy, mild simulation
of country music. Their shows were full
of frenzied, fainting female fans—a kind
of Beatlemania in boots—and that year
Rascal Flatts sold more albums than any
other country, pop or rock act.

The two were not well paired: It was
like matching biker boots (Church) with
a silver cape (Flatts). For years, Church
had played smelly bars for a dozen
people who ignored him while they
watched TV. Now that he'd hit the big
time, he was playing for nearly 11,000
people who ignored him.

Opening acts work in a kind of veal
pen. Contractually they are allowed to
use only part of the stage. They have
to limit their volume to between 80 and
90 decibels so the star act will always be
louder. And most important, they can't
exceed their allotted time. If they go
even 10 seconds over, they are repri-
manded. Those are the rules.

After only three shows with Rascal
Flatts, Church was unhappy. He'd got-
ten used to doing things his own way,
and now he had to follow rules. So he
celebrated the biggest show of his career
by doing things he knew would get him
fired. He played too loud and tossed in
a bit of Ozzy Osbourne's “Crazy Train.”
He strutted in areas of the stage he
wasn't allowed to use. He played an ex-
tended, eight-minute version of his best-
known song, “How 'Bout You." By the
time he exited the stage, he'd exceeded

and хоП Шап anyone else.

That’s why traditionalists

have a problem.”

his 20-minute limit by 10 minutes. Be-
cause Madison Square Garden is union-
ized and has curfews, his antics cost
Rascal Flatts about $30,000 in penalties.
As soon as Church came offstage,
Rascal Flatts’s manager fired him. (He
was quickly replaced by a pretty 16-year-
old named Taylor Swift, who was much
more willing to play by the rules.)
Church shadowed the tour for a
while, playing clubs in the same cities,

often for a dozen people, losing money
while carrying expenses of about
$5,000 a day. The Rascal Flatts tour was
called Me and My Gang; to tweak them
Church called his tour Me and Myself.
A month later he was opening for
rock legend Bob Seger, which was a bet-
ter fit. But in the country world, Church
had earned himself a reputation as a
disrespectful jerk. It's been a long time
since being a rebel was a good business

strategy in Nashville, which—despite
the frequent use of cowboy imagery—
is a go-along-to-get-along industry.
Church’s record label was angry. Other
bands refused to tour with him. And ra-
dio programmers decided they didn’t
want an asshole in their format.

“We ended up banished to the wil-
derness,” Church told a reporter a few
years later. “Nobody would touch us.
It's like we were nuclear.”

Only a few months after his debut
album, Church had already ruined his
career by being prideful and obstinate.
Or had he?

“Give me a crowd that’s redneck and
loud. / We'll raise the roof.”

Exactly six years after Church was
fired from a great job he hated, he's in
the middle of another arena tour—this
time as the headliner, with two open-
ing acts of his own. "Your job tonight,"
he tells the audience in a brawny
North Carolina accent, "is to drink
and sing and party your asses off."
The folks in the Friday-night crowd
in Biloxi, Mississippi began drinking
long before (continued on page 146)

A TRIBUTE TO
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After three hours of climbing walls,
crawling through tuñinels, scrabbling
under barbed wire, swimming in ice
water, hoisting cement blocks and other T
| cruelties, you come to a 50-foot trough of

icy mud. Dozens of yellow wires hang from ©

its wood-plank roof like jellyfish tentacles.

The wires sting like jellyfish too, because

they’re electrified. This is Electroshock

Therapy, the last of 32 obstacles on

the 10-mile course. You’re wet, freez-

ing, wheezing, bruised, cramping, spent.

There’s only one thing to do. €, +
Actually two. You could crawl under

the wires, gargling muddy water and wast-

ing time. But that’s not you, is it? No, you

‚charge through the live wires ага run, yell-

ing “Piss! Shit! Bite me!” and assorted

аре grunts as Ше wires kick sparks off
your face and aching limbs. Finally, six
seconds later, it’s over. Yes! Now it’s a
half-mile jog to the finish line. You’re
rounding the last turn into the stadium,
where loudspeakers pound Guns N’
Roses as you wave your mud-caked paws
at the crowd. Fans cheer; your buddies
hug you. You just survived the World’s
Toughest Mudder, the ultimate test of
the world’s most rugged new sport. Now
you can strip off this wet suit, rinse off,
grab a blanket and a parka and a beer.
And sit down.

Unless you want to win. In that case
you'll need to start over. To win you'll
need to run the 10-mile obstacle course
again. Eight more times.

"Tough Mudder is the worst day you'll
ever have. And the best," one mudder says.

A cross between endurance race and boot
camp, the world's fastest-growing sport
inspires extreme descriptions. It's been
called a masochist's marathon and more:

"Probably the toughest event on the

lanet."

“A real-life fight club.”

“Ironman meets Burning Man.”

“Trial by fire, ice, dirt, monkey bars,
electric shocks—and more fire.”

There are plenty of other extreme
sports—the traditional 26.2-mile mar-
athon, plus ultramarathons of 50
kilometers and up, triathlons (swim, bike
and ride), Ironman triathlons (swim 2.4
miles, bike 112 miles, then run a mara-
thon, you nut), and newer events such
as Spartan Race, Muddy Buddy, Dirty
Dash and Rugged Maniac, most featuring
obstacles, some involving tree chopping,

vegetable slicing, beer drinking, fighting
American Gladiators-style bodybuilders
armed with Nerf lances, even memoriz-
ing the names of U.S. presidents. The
boot-campy ones have been growing
quickly, challenging older events the
way MMA beat down boxing a decade
ago. And Tough Mudder, with almost a
million adherents, leads the field. Which
fits its cocky corporate goal: “We aim
to replace Ironman as the preeminent
brand in endurance sports.” Not bad for
a concept dreamed up four years ago
at Harvard, like (continued on page 124)

“Ride ет, cowboy...!”

JAY AND
SILENT
BOB ARE
STILL ALIVE
AND HAVE
PLENTY

TO SAY
ABOUT BEN
AFFLECK,
BRUCE
WILLIS
AND NEIL
PATRICK
HARRIS

Q1
PLAYBOY: Most people know you as Jay and
Silent Bob, the slacker best friends from the
movies Clerks, Dogma and Jay and Silent Bob Strike
Back, among others. The characters have also
been in comic books, a TV show and a feature-
length cartoon that came out this spring. What’s
next for them, a musical?
SMITH: We want to do a projection—you know,
like they did with Tupac Shakur. We're going to
record a lot of shit now so that when we’re gone,
they can bring us out onstage.
MEWES: I think a video game would be
pretty cool.
SMITH: Oh yeah. We’ve done some app
games, but maybe a game where we’re
shooting at each other. Jay vs.
Silent Bob—that might be badass.
Can you imagine those guys
armed to the teeth? All
right, we just talked
ourselves into it.

Ihr

en —

Q2
PLAYBOY: You've done 10 films to-
gether, not counting the upcoming Clerks
III. Who owes their career to whom?
MEWES: I definitely owe everything
to Kevin. I never would have thought
to write a script or direct a movie or
put somebody like me in it. It was all
Kevin's idea.
SMITH: I truly feel my biggest creative
influence is Mewes. The guy is unfiltered
and fucking unfettered. I grew up in
a world where things happen up here
[points to head] and they go through a
filter and get sifted before they come
out here [points to mouth]. 'The beauty of
Mewes is somebody pulled his filter out at
birth. A thought pops into his brain and
it immediately falls out of his mouth.

Q3
PLAYBOY: You two met in your home-
town of Highlands, New Jersey. Were
you instant BFFs?
SMITH: Not really. At first I was jealous
of him. I started hanging out with him
when I was 18 and he was 14. I inherited
him from my friends Walter and Bryan.
We were going to a comic book show
in New York, and I was driving. So I
showed up and Mewes was with them.
He was Dennis the Menace but way

dirtier. Everything was "pussy, pussy,
pussy," even though he obviously hadn't
seen a pussy since he'd sprung from one.
And then, while we're on the highway, he
takes out his penis.

Q4
PLAYBOY: Because...why exactly?
MEWES: I thought it was funny.
SMITH: He was like, ^Man, is it cold in
here or is it me?" And you look down

and he's pulled his pants to his knees
and he's sitting there with his dick out,
flapping it, going “Naauugggg!” At first it
was like, “Put that away!” After months of
hanging out with him, you realize that's
just what Jason does. Гуе seen his dick
more than I've seen my own. So yeah, we
weren't friends right away. It took a while
to percolate, but now he really is my best
friend. Every morning we get up at

10 a.m. and walk in the hills with our
dogs. If you're driving around the Hol-
lywood Hills, periodically you'll turn a
corner and see Jay and Silent Bob walk-
ing their fucking dogs.

Q5
PLAYBOY: You co-host a podcast called
Jay & Silent Bob Get Old. You're 38 and 42.
Is that what counts as old now?
SMITH: The title is more about making
fun of ourselves before somebody else
does. It steals their thunder. I remember
suggesting the title to Mewes and he got
really defensive and uptight about it. He
was like, “We're not old!”
MEWES: I don't feel old, but I'm definite-
ly feeling older. For me, the "get old" part
is more about our history. We've been
doing this shit for 25 years. We've had ups
and downs. We're not necessarily old, but
you know.... (continued on page 150)

What Really Matters

OW ой, ВАУ
Y Namaste
E «ell

fi
JUN МАМКА, PREC

Summer's here! Hit the beach in

alibu with radiant
H APHY BY
SA ISENMAN

ometimes a trip Out West is just what
the doctor ordered. Ask Miss June.
"You can't benäked in Colorado,”

she calls her idol, Playm
Sara Jean Underwood. “$
tiful light on rrarsor foi
innocence and sweet 5
“She had this natural glow!
to, and I thought, I have:
for me too!” After she

last fall, the second-year
nizational psychology ma
to materialize, culmii

tion of sunny seaside
shoot does a great job of
says. ‘Tm young, play
immodest, sensual too.” А:
comes alive in front of th
mate experience reached
alter her shoot. She was.

Sara Jean Underwood up." '

officially a Playmate. I did itl |]

DOE NT

[ Click for з,

ни :

MISS JUNE

ке
PLAYBOY’S PLAYMATE OF THE MONTH i |
4
aff

PLAYMATE DATA SHEET

BIRTH DATE AS BIRTHPLACE:
a ра

ООО О spe Career Di

make а di
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TURNOFFS: Stink i € Qr ett,
wretch ond aus Dith ho A
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SH MIOS NA UbSTONCeS )-
DOWNTIME HEAVEN: 2} Jove boks because £ toke ме o
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leo oF Manari and digen EST. A

aio ае (бо 0 ОГ. INT o до хе

s$ sh à Г. ee те рама
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PLAYBOY’S PARTY JOKES

Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice,
shame on me. Fool me 862,593 times and
you’re the weatherman.

Fatherly advice: Never get on one knee for a
girl who won't get on two for you.

А woman complained to her husband, “Our
new neighbor said her husband has sex with
her twice a day. Why can't you do that?”

He answered, “I haven't even introduced
myself to her yet.”

Females are the only objects that defy the law
of gravity—the heavier they are, the easier they
are to pick up.

Losing a wife can be hard. In many cases it is
almost impossible.

Over breakfast, a man said to his wife, “Were
you faking it last night?”
“No,” she said. “I was really asleep.”

A guy met a girl in a bar and they went back
to her apartment. When she brought him into
her bedroom, he saw it was filled with shelves
of fluffy toys. He thought that was odd, but
he quickly put it out of his mind once they
started fucking.

After they finished he asked, “How was 1?”

She replied, “Take anything from the bot-
tom shelf.”

When a man showed up at work an hour late
for the second time in a week, his boss called
him into her office. She asked, “What's your
excuse this time?”

He shrugged and said, “I slept in.”

“For fuck’s sake,” she screamed, “at least tell
me something I haven’t heard before!”

He replied, “You’re looking lovely today.”

Why is being in the military like a blow job?
The closer you get to discharge, the better
you feel.

Dia you hear about the gay dwarf?
He came out of the cupboard.

| wear Ше pants in my relationships,” awoman
said to one of her friends over tea.

“Well,” her friend said, "I'd rather be in a
relationship where no one wears the pants.”

A man said to his friend, “I was so upset when
the doctor gave us the bad news about my wife
that I can’t remember if he said she has AIDS
or Alzheimer's.”

“I have a simple solution,” his friend
offered. “First you drive her to the other side
of town. Then if she finds her way home, don't
fuck her."

While alcohol might not always be the answer,
it certainly helps you forget the question.

Dia you hear about the flasher who was think-
ing of retiring?
He decided to stick it out for one more year.

What do you call a couple who uses the
rhythm method of birth control?
Parents.

Before you insult a man, walk a mile in his
shoes. That way, when you insult him, you'll be
a mile away and you'll have his shoes.

Once a month, women go completely crazy
for about 30 days.

Two cows were out to pasture. The first one
said, "Moo."

The second one said, "Damn, I was going
to say that."

Going to a fast food restaurant for a salad is
like going to a prostitute for a hug.

А woman in a supermarket rushed to the
express line with a few items. The clerk had
his back turned to her, so she said, "Excuse me,
Im in a hurry. Could you please check me out
real quick?"

The clerk turned, looked her up and down
and said, "Nice tits."

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

“Collateral? Well, now, how's about Friday nights for six months?”

103

m FRANK SINATRA

544

ОГ Вше Ецез 15

still considered the
greatest singer who
ever lived. In 1963
he showed himself
to be a lot more than
a typical celebrity
when it came to
politics, religion
and human nature

Frank
Sinatra

DFIELI

EAD WOO!

WILLIAM Ri

rank Sinatra

ОГ Blue Eyes, the Chair-
man of the Board, the Voice—is consid-
ered by many to be the greatest singer
ever. As Elton John put it, Sinatra “was

simply the best—no one else even comes close."

Even unlikely fan Jim Morrison of the Doors once

said, “Хо one can touch him."

At the height of a career that spanned five de-
cades, Sinatra was the highest-paid nightclub

performer in show business and the biggest of the
businessman-stars (with a fortune of $25 million,
considered an empire in 1963). He sold more than
150 million records, won 12 Grammys (includ-
ing three honorary awards) and was a seven-time
winner of PLAYBOY'S All-Star Jazz Poll. His biggest
hits—“My Way,” “New York, New York," “$
ers in Ше Night”—still sell.

Sinatra didn't soar only in music. He was also

rang-

one of his era's biggest movie stars, an Academy
Award winner whose now-classic movies include
The Man With the Golden Arm, From Here to Eter-
пиу and the original, brilliant Manchurian Can-
didate. He was a founder of the Rat Pack, a group
of show business pals that included Dean Martin
and Sammy Davis Jr., and he was a close friend
s, including John F. Kennedy. Their
relationship lasted until the president severed
ties with Sinatra because of the singer's connec-

of preside:

tion to Mafia boss Sam Giancana. Among Sinatra’s

four wives were the actresses Mia Farrow and Ava

Gardner. He had an affair with Marilyn Monroe.
In 1963 PLAYBOY approached Sinatra to sit for
an interview. Our interviewer, Joe Hyams, spent
an entire week with the star. The interview took
place on the set of the movie Come Blow Your
Horn, in Sinatra's Dual-Ghia, during breaks at a
recording session with Count Basie, in corridors
heading to and from staff summit meetings on up-
coming movie and recording projects and in his
PLAYBOY points out in the
introduction to the interview, “The conversation

Beverly Hills home. А

that emerged from these catch-as-catch-can tap-
ing sessions is a courageous public declaration

of private convictions from a major figure in a
business wherein most stars seem concerned less
with earning good reviews for their performances
than with avoiding offense in their personal lives.
Many people will be shocked by what he has to
say, but many more, we aver, will feel that the
candor of his insights adds a new dimension to
their understanding of the complex, articulate
and thoughtful man who is the chief executive
of his profession." When Sinatra died of a heart
attack in 1998, the writer Gore Vidal summoned

one of the singer's legacies: *I would say that half

the population of the United States over the age
of 40 was conceived while their parents were lis-
tening to his records."

PLAYBOY: Many explanations have been offered
for your unique ability

apart from the subtleties
of style and vocal equipment—to communicate
the mood of a song to an audience. How would
you define it?
SINATRA: I think it's because I get an audience
involved, personally involved in a song—because

Fm involved myself. It’s not something I do delib-
erately; I can't help myself. If the song is a lament
at the loss of love, I get an ache in my gut. I feel
, the

the loss myself and I cry out the lonelines:
hurt and the pain that I feel.
PLAYBOY: Doesn't any (continued on page 139)

105

ME WAS $0 GENEROUS, AND SO MESSED UD

hey had been on the gambling boat outside of Fort Lauderdale for two
hours, and Carl had gone to order Greta a third margarita, which she
didn’t want. She lay on the deck chair, drowsy, expectant and slick with
Bain de Soleil, a towel thrown over her midriff, where she rested her
greasy forearms as she leafed through a Graham Greene novel for the
third time. The pages were translucent with orange gelée smudges.
“Here we are.” Carl showed up, grinning, blocking her sun, holding
up a plastic mug with a winking whale and the words BAHAMA MAMA
printed on it. Three umbrellas bobbed among the ice cubes. He hovered
over Greta for a moment, a tall, rumpled figure in an ink-stained madras
jacket and a battered fishing hat, then handed over the margarita and
sank bonelessly into the deck chair next to her. (continued on page 136)

ILLUSTRATION DU JACOB SANDERS ———————— — —— MI

Де нон” =
*GRILLING GUIDE е

» y | З аав 208% AAA

: e y

a ANYBODY CAN COOK А. а

3 STEAK. PORK IS THE TRUE `
„ — TEST OF A GRILL MASTER.
dE HERE'S THE RIGHT WAY ТО

L^ я ^ ; а С
ereinthe middle of Ue. withall. ^

«things hog-related rulingrestaurant menus
and filling up the butcher case (likely lorded
over by a butcher emblazoned with bacon
tattoos). Rare heirloom breeds marbled
with fat and packed with flavor are making a
comeback, besting the chewy factory-produced varieties that go _
from raw to rubbery on the grill. But now that the other white
meat Has become the noble white meat, let lesser men strut
their grilling skills with burgers and steaks. That's mere child’s
play compared with the challenges and attendant rewards of
- perfecting your pork-grilling prowess: Yow! need the right meat, ^
the right recipes and the right techniques. Our guide will elevate; .
‘a at your next party from humble cookout to a pig-out for the ages, а E
*

= m
DISH 1 ; i

BOURBON-ROSEMARY
PORK CHOPS

Try tracking down Berkshire pork for this
recipe. The heirloom breed has a higher fat
content than most supermarket varieties
(nimanranch.com and heritagefoodsusa.com
are excellent sources). If you strike out, the
bourbon-spiked brine will yield flavorful results
with any kind of pork. Recipe serves two.

DIRECTIONS
®

+ Combine brown sugar,
salt and rosemary in a large
bowl. Add hot water and
whisk until brown sugar and
salt are dissolved. Let steep
five minutes. Stir in cold
water, bourbon and oil. Pour
this mixture over chops,
turning the meat a couple of
times to coat evenly. Refrig-
erate for two hours, turning
once after an hour. Pat dry
before grilling.

% Build a two-zone fire on
your grill. Ifusing a charcoal
grill, mound hot charcoal on
one side, leaving other side
cold. If using a gas grill, turn
halfthe burners to medium-
high. Cook chops on cool
side, covered, about 15 min-
utes. To finish cooking, move
chops to hot side and cook
until grill marks appear and
aninstant-read thermometer
reaches 140 degrees—about
five minutes per side. Let
chops rest another five min-
utes before serving to keep
juices from spilling out.

INGREDIENTS

* 3tbsp. brown sugar
* 3 tbsp. kosher salt

Ном TO GET THE HEAT JUST RIGHT * 4 sprigs fresh rosemary
E * 1cup hot water

Beef can stand up to a blazing grill, but pork requires a more moder- * 2cups cold water

ate heat to coax out its flavors yet remain unctuous and tender. High E. 1 й #4 tbsp. bourbon
heat can dry out lean cuts of pork or cause fatty cuts to flare up $ Б * 2tbsp. canola ой
and scorch. Get the right temperature Бу letting the coals cool down E * 2 one-inch-thick bone-in
or setting your gas grill to medium. Place the palm of your hand Ave A x 5
inches above the grate. If you can count to seven before having to # * pork-rib chops
pull it away, you’re good to grill. P

AAA

DIRECTIONS

In a large mixing bowl add oil, soy
sauce, sambal, sugar, garlic and ginger;
stir until combined. Add pork belly and
mix until all pieces are well coated.
Refrigerate for two hours. Set up a two-
zone fire to medium heat. (For a charcoal
grill, rake coals to one side; for a gas grill,
turn on half the burners.) Allow grill to
reach correct heat—see our “Hot Tip” on
the previous page. Grill pork-belly strips,
uncovered, until cooked through and
nicely browned, about five minutes per
side. If flare-ups occur, move pork belly
to the cool side of the grill until flames
subside. Once cooked, chop pork belly
into half-inch pieces. Warm tortillas
on the grill, then top with pork, kimchi,
scallions and cilantro.

INGREDIENTS

1tbsp. sesame oil

3tbsp. low-sodium soy sauce

1tbsp. sambal oelek or other chili paste
2 tbsp. brown sugar

4 garlic cloves, finely chopped

2 tbsp. fresh ginger, chopped

116. thick-cut fresh pork belly, cut into
quarter-inch strips

12 corn tortillas

2 cups kimchi

1cup scallions, chopped

1% cup fresh cilantro, chopped

ya PORK-
“X | BELLY
DISH 2: TACOS

Inspired by the Korean
tacos served by L.A.’s Kogi
food trucks, this dish has

THE THREE BEST WINES TO SERVE WITH OUR MENU

become а street-food clas-
sic. Pork belly is essentially
uncured bacon. Give it a
bath in a spicy marinade,
put it ona tortilla, top it
with kimchi and you've
tripled the deliciousness
factor. Recipe serves four.

ТОТО

PRIORAT RED
Don’t grab a cab. Opt for
red wine from Spain’s
Priorat region, made
primarily with gutsy
grenache grapes, to stand
up to juicy pork chops.

Try:

DRY RIESLING
No, not all riesling is
sweet. Dry (trocken)
riesling from Austria
has intense aromas and
a tart backbone. Serve
with pork-belly tacos.

ROSE
Real men drink pink.
Rose is actually more
badass than beer: It’s
sharper and has twice
the alcohol. Serve with
cured pork.

FOOD STYLING: FRANCESCO TONELLI; PROP STYLING: LYNN TONELLI; ILLUSTRATIONS BY ROBERT HARKNESS

DISH 3
KILLER APP

Serve the king of cured meats while your
guests watch you play Iron Chef at the grill.

Jamón Ibérico is Spain's rightfully revered ham. Until а
few years ago it was illegal to import. While basic Ibérico
is amazing, the best of the best is spectacular. You want
jamón Ibérico pata negra bellota. Pata negra is the black-
footed breed of pig considered the superior jamón pig.
Bellota means “acorn,” which is what the pigs feast on.
The combination of the two yields the sweetest, nuttiest,
deepest-flavored results. Wham, bam, thank you, ham.
{$48 for three ounces of jamón Ibérico de bellota, tienda.com}

ОООО

BIG ON PIG

Three artisanal pork products
that will blow your mind

PROSCIUTTO AMERICANO

Made in Iowa from organically raised pigs, this зай
sweet cured ham gives the Italians a run for their mone
{$16 for three ounces, zingermans.com}

SECRETO IBERICO

In Spain, the secreto (or “secret”) cut is what we call skirt
steak. When sourced from a Spanish pig that foraged for
acorns in the forests of Córdoba, this cut has a baconlike
richness that’s perfect for a quick sear on the grill.
{$38 per pound, tienda.com}

OLYMPIC PROVISIONS SAUSAGE

Portland’s Olympic Provisions takes dried sausage to an-

other level with versions such as Italian finocchiona made

with fennel and garlic and Greek loukanika made with
cumin and orange zest.

{$10 per sausage, olympicprovisions.com}

Г 9 E‏ ا ووی نے کک

FASHION BY JENNIFER RYAN JONES v4 PHOTOGRAPHY BY TONY KELLY Z STYLING BY CHRISTOPHER CAMPBELL FOR ATELIER MANAGEMENT

PRO SKATEBOARDERS
STEVIE WILLIAMS, TONY
ALVA, ARTO SAARI AND
BRANDON BIEBEL TO A
SUN-BLEACHED POOL IN
SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA,
DRESSED THEM UP IN
THE FRESHEST SUMMER
SUITS AND TURNED THEM
LOOSE. FASHION HAS
NEVER LOOKED SO NATTY
OR SO GNARLY

THE KICK-STARTER
Stevie Williams skated
his way out of the mean
streets of Philadelphia,
hitchhiking across the
country to launch his pro
career in San Francisco.
Once homeless, he's now
considered the Michael
Jordan of skateboarding.
Williams is also a
successful entrepreneur,
overseeing the thriving
DGK (Dirty Ghetto Kids)
skate-brand empire,
which is inspired by the
principles of struggle and
112 self-reinvention.

THE CHAIRMAN OF

THE BOARDS

Tony Alva is the elder states-
man of modern skating. As
a member of Venice, Cali-
fornia’s legendary Z-Boys,
Alva developed a revolution-
ary aggressive skating style
(refined in empty pools like
the one used for this shoot)
that gave birth to many of
the aerial tricks that remain
the foundation of the acro-
batic styles of today.

{OPPOSITE

PAGE}

Suit: Calvin

Klein Collec- {THIS PAGE}
Поп, $7,250. Vest and
Shirt: Ralph pants: Ralph
Lauren Purple Lauren Purple
Label, 3450. Label, $5,995
Sunglasses: (part of

Carrera, 3740.

suit). Shirt:

Tie: Ralph Ralph Lauren
Lauren Purple Purple Label,
Label, $275. $450. Tie:
Tie bar: The Ralph Lauren
Tie Bar, $75. Purple Label,
Belt: Hugo 3215. Shoes:
Boss, $715. Vans, $65.
Shoes: Supra, Skateboard:
$95, Skate- Alva Skates.

board: DGK.

114

А
THE VISIONARY
{ABOVE AND OPPOSITE PAGE, SEATED}

As a teenager in Finland,
Arto Saari sent videotapes of
his street skating to American
companies, eventually land-
ing sponsors and becoming
regarded as one of the top
skaters in the sport. It wasn't
the last time the camera
would lead him to great
things. In addition to hav-
ing a thriving skating career,
Saari is an accomplished pho-
tographer and recently shot
an ad campaign for Hurley.

Evening suit: Paul Smith,
$2,325. Shirt: Turnbull & Asser,
available at mrporter.com,
$330. Sunglasses: Oakley,
Saari’s own. Pocket square:
Ralph Lauren Black Label,
$115. Shoes: New Balance,
$75. Skateboard: Flip.

THE ROAD WARRIOR
{OPPOSITE PAGE, SKATING}

“Always be skating” could
well be Brandon Biebel’s
motto. Clocking thousands
of miles a year skating for
sponsors Red Bull, Girl,
Dakine and others, Biebel
embodies the wheel life as a
technically adept master of
street skating.

{ON BIEBEL}

Suit: from Golyester Vintage
Clothing, $248. Shirt: from
Golyester Vintage Clothing,
$225. Hat: Stetson, $775.
Scarf: Burberry London,
$375. Watch: Victorinox,
$395. Shoes: Lakai, $70.
Skateboard: Girl.

{ON SAARI}

Suit: Gucci, $2700. Shirt: from
Golyester Vintage Clothing,
$148. Tie: from Golyester
Vintage Clothing, $88. Pocket
square: from Golyester
Vintage Clothing, $28. Belt:
Barneys New York, $745.
Shoes: New Balance, $75.

AÑ

SO HOT WE HAD TO COOL
HER DOWN! THE AMAZING

RISE OF RAQUEL RAQUEL

POMPLUN

PHOTOGRAPHY BY MICHAEL BERNARD

a full course lo
50-hour-a-week job, whe
she saw some graffiti:
DON'T FOLLOW YOUR DREAMS,
CHASE THEM. “So I did,
damn it!" says the 25-year-
old Mexican American,
who grew up in the hills
of Tijuana. She sent a few
pictures to PLAYBOY. The
next thing she knew, she
was shooting the cover of
the April 2012 issue with
R&B superstar Bruno
Mars. Raquel was just
getting started. Riding the
momentum of her PLAYBOY
cover, she quickly nailed a
job hosting Rockin? Rounds
on the MMA network
Blackbelt TV. She also
started hosting a show

on Playboy Radio called
Playmates, with Miss May
2012 Nikki Leigh. “Our
chemistry was so amazing
on air that the producers
gave us our own show,”
Raquel says. “We inter-
view up-and-coming bands
every Wednesday, and
Nikki has become one of
my best buddies.” Next,
she booked parts in two
movies, one called Snake
and Mongoose, which tells
the story of drag-racing
legends Don Prudhomme
and Tom McEwen, and a
second film she can't name
as of yet, in which she ap-
pears on-screen flashing
her gorgeous breasts at

an Oscar-winning actor.
Which brings us to her
latest—and greatest—
success: Raquel Pomplun
is your 2013 Playmate of
the Year. “PLAYBOY has
taught me a side of myself
I didn't know before,” says
Raquel. “When the world
sees this pictorial, they'll
see me as sensual, kind
and, I hope, classy." АП of
the above, Raquel, and so
much more.

хозлута

PLAYBOY

124

MUD RACING

(continued from page 86)

Facebook, by a pasty entreprenerd, like
Facebook, with a big boost from Facebook.

In 2009 Will Dean, a tall, sleepy-eyed
veteran of the British government’s
counterterrorism unit, sat in a chair-desk
at Harvard Business School, defending his
entry in the school's famous Business Plan
Contest. His pitch: an endurance sport
based on British Special Forces training,
one that could top what he termed the
“grim monotony” of marathons and tri-
athlons with the bracing variety of military
conditioning—plus music, killer blogs, pic-
tures and podcasts, friendship, even fun.

A marketing professor flipped through
Dean’s proposal. “Коре ladders. Crawl-
ing through mud,” he said. “Who would
do this?”

“Ithink I can get 500 participants to pay
about a hundred dollars each.”

“And if they survive your obstacle
course, what will they win?”

“A headband.”

Dean lost the Harvard contest to a team
whose idea became CloudFlare, now a
web-security firm backed by investors to
the tune of $20 million. But he kept plug-
ging. He moved to Brooklyn and brought
in an old boarding-school chum, London
attorney Guy Livingstone, as chief operat-
ing officer. They pulled together $20,000
in seed money, $480,000 short of Face-
book's start-up stake five years before. In
their first and most crucial investment,
Dean and Livingstone spent $8,000 on
Facebook ads. “They were still cheap in
2010,” Dean says. Soon Tough Mudder
had 11,000 Facebook likes. The found-
ers spent the rest of their stake renting
a ski resort in Pennsylvania, hiring con-
struction crews to build obstacles, checking
the obstacles for splinters and stray nails,
and rounding up a medical team, cleanup
crew and volunteer firefighters to keep a
lid on the wall of flames at the last chal-
lenge. “Then we started worrying.”

They opened registration. As the online
tally shot into the upper hundreds, Dean
thought there might be a bug in his web-
site. No, there were just more weekend
warriors and cross-training jocks than any-
one knew, a Generation P90X hungry for a
killer workout. Instead of 500 entrants, the
number Dean had pulled out of his hat at
Harvard, the first Tough Mudder boasted
a field of 4,500. Entrants paid from $70 for
early-bird entry to $100 for “Lazy Ass Late
Entry,” adding up to a gross of more than
$250,000. Dean and Livingstone had just
made 10 times their investment in a week.

All he had to do now was stage the
thing—a new sport anxiously awaited by
4,500 highly motivated customers who
didn't realize that Tough Mudder LLC
consisted of Dean, Livingstone and a few
interns. “We were incredibly naive. We
thought everything would go according
to plan,” Dean recalls. Then the sun came

up on Sunday, May 2, 2010, the dawn of
the Tough Mudder era. “We found climb-
ing walls that were supposed to be 12 feet
tall were only five feet.” Instead of scaling
the walls like marines, entrants hopped
them. “And we'd mismeasured the course.
It wasn't the seven miles we promised but
more like five and a half. Which seemed
like a blessing when we ran out of drink-
ing water.” Somehow everyone made
it to sundown. Happy mudders talked
пр the event. The founders put on two
more Tough Mudders that year, grossing
$2.2 million. Three years later they're
knee-deep in mud money.

As a business Tough Mudder is almost
evilly simple. It's an experience, not a
race. As Dean says, “If you climb a moun-
tain, nobody asks how long you took to
do it.” Nobody pays you either. Dean
and Livingstone bet that Tough Mud-
der T-shirts, tattoos and the now-iconic
orange headband that goes to each fin-
isher would mean more to their public
than cash prizes. And with no cash prizes,
they kept entry fees low and revenue high.
After expenses, including a free beer for
everyone who finished—one beer—the
rest was profit. They banked enough in
2010 to expand to 14 events in 2011. Total
revenue: $22 million. Last year's sched-
ule jumped to 35 events in 16 states plus
Australia, Canada, Scotland and England,
for a take topping $70 million. This year's
schedule features more than 50 events in
those countries plus Germany.

The wires at Electroshock Therapy might
spark and bite, but it's not the toughest
Tough Mudder obstacle. Nor is Arctic
Enema, a jumbo tub of ice water that
mudders have to swim, ducking under a
wall festooned with barbed wire. Tougher
still is Everest, a greased quarter pipe 15
feet high, and here's where Tough Mud-
der differs from Ironman and every other
race. Some mudders may be fast and sure-
footed enough to run halfway up, grab the
rim and pull themselves over, but others
can't make it. Six and a half miles into the
course, their legs are jelly. They’ll take a
running start, charge up the ramp and
fall just short. Some get their fingers to
the top, then cuss and groan as they lose
their grip and slide back. Another run-
ning start, another try. This can go on
for 10 tries over 20 long minutes. Everest
is so steep, you'd probably find half the
mudders in a writhing mass at the base
of the ramp if not for Ше pledge that sets
this game apart.

“I put teamwork and camarade-
rie before my course time,” reads the
Tough Mudder pledge. “I help my fel-
low mudders.”

When the curved wall proves too steep
for some entrants, others wait. They yell
encouragement: “С” mon, you're killing it.
You got it this time!” They perch at the
top of the wall, reaching down to grab a
hand or wrist and haul the next mudder
to the top. Something similar happens at

the 20-foot climbing walls elsewhere on the
course: Stronger mudders form human
ladders, letting weaker ones climb their
backs to the top, where war whoops and
bro hugs ensue.

“That's the spirit!” Mark Givens yells.
A tall, mustached Iraq war vet decked
out in a poncho and sombrero, Givens is
new to the sport—“I ran my first Tough
Mudder this year”—and isn't entered
this day. He doesn't know anyone who
is. "Don't need to know 'em to support
ет,” he says, ringing a cowbell for every
mudder going by. “ГИ tell you something.
I was in the U.S. Marine Corps for 28
years, and these bastards right here are
the toughest 1 ever saw. Гуе run nine
marathons, and you know what? Mara-
thons are boring. With this thing, you
got variety. Fun! Those electric wires? It's
like a rattlesnake bite—you do the funky
chicken, check to see you're still alive and
keep going. And maybe you can't get over
Everest, but the other guys pull you up.
Teamwork—that’s what makes this thing
cooler than a marathon."

Like a lungfish rising from Mesozoic
muck, this thing evolved. It might have
died with a name like Badass Ninja Jog,
a name Dean actually considered. He
was sitting in a Boston bar with friends
four years ago, feeding his laptop a list
of words that might fit his still-nameless
sport. Challenge. Ninja. Badass. Run. Jog.
Dash. “Warrior Challenge. How's that
sound? Or Ninja Battle. Check to see if
Ninjabattle.com is available."

“Try this," Dean said. “Badass Mudder.
BAM for short."

"Its better than your other lame
names, Will."

Then it hit him. Like a spark. “Tough
Mudder. ‘I want to be a Tough Mudder, ”
he said, trying out the sound of it.

That first Tough Mudder on Pennsyl-
vania ski slopes featured awards for best
mullet and best costumes: Most Bad-Ass
for the best, Most Ass for the skimpiest and
Most Likely to Have Been in the Village
People for cops, leathermen and Native
American chiefs. One early obstacle, Blood
Bath, called for entrants to eat a fiery
habanero pepper and plunge into a pool
of red ice water. The founders dropped
Blood Bath when mudders began puking
in the water. Puking and worse. Hence an
unofficial pledge: Challenges should not
be digestive.

Tough Mudder comes complete with a
corporate wink. Over photos of “ridicu-
lous team costumes," Toughmudder.com
announces that "Mudders do not take
themselves too seriously." Even as eight-
figure revenue and corporate sponsors
make the sport more respectable, you
can still see the occasional SpongeBob
or Batman costume at Tough Mudder
events. You still run past jokey signs on
the course:

IF YOU'RE HUFFING AND PUFFING NOW, WE
FEEL SORRY FOR YOUR BETTER HALF

LEAVE YOUR DIGNITY HERE

REMEMBER, YOU SIGNED A DEATH WAIVER

“But, George, you’re always encouraging me to try for multiple orgasms.”

125

PLAYBOY

126

The death waiver, at least, is real. A
three-page, single-spaced release describ-
ing Tough Mudder as “a hazardous activity
that presents the ultimate physical and men-
tal challenge,” the death waiver is both a
legal document and a sales tool. Signed by
every entrant, it holds Tough Mudder LLC
blameless for injuries due to “smoke and
open flames, barbed wire, pipes and elec-
tric shocks, inadequate first aid and/or...
errors in judgment by personnel work-
ing the event.” Mudders agree that it’s
their job to inspect every inch of the 10- to
12-mile course and hold themselves liable
for “broken bones, torn ligaments, concus-
sions, exposure, heat-related illness, mental
stress or exhaustion, infection and concus-
sions.” Maybe concussions make the list
twice because you may be concussed. The
waiver goes on to absolve Tough Mudder
LLC of any responsibility for mudders”
“spinal injuries and paralysis, stroke, heart
attack and even death.” A subsection adds
possible death sites, “including but not lim-
ited to stands, sidewalks, parking areas....”
The list includes “restrooms,” presumably
in case some poor mudder makes a toilet
bowl his final Arctic Enema.

Still, the grungy spirit of Tough Mudder
gets a little less ironic as Under Armour,
Dos Equis and other brands sign on as
sponsors. Less like a party, more like a
business. This year the empire will expand
into 70,000-square-foot headquarters in

Brooklyn, where Dean, now 32, still lives
with his fiancée and rides his bike to work.
His company outgrew its old HQ by grow-
ing from eight employees to more than
120 in less than two years. They tend to be
young, fit and resolutely on-message about
the Tough Mudder experience, one that
arrives engineered from the mud up for
a generation that values experience above
all else and craves the social ammunition—
photos, videos, tweets—events like Tough
Mudder provide. Climbing a mountain is
sweet, but posting a photo from the summit
to the envy of your Facebook friends is even
sweeter. You can buy a ticket for Coachella.
You have to survive Tough Mudder.
“Experience is the new luxury good,” one
lean, T-shirted executive says, showing off
a Lego model of a climbing wall, a gift from
a Tough Mudder fanboy, and a photo of
another fan who hung yellow wires on his
head and went out on Halloween as Elec-
troshock Therapy.
“We live the brand,” says another.
“We're not like our parents’ generation,”
says a third. Meaning not settling for a suit-
and-tie job and saving up for a McMansion.
“We're about what we do, not what we own.”
Tf it sounds a little canned, it's not because
they don't mean it. It's because staying on-
message is part of the curriculum at Tough
Mudder University, the corporate training
program. Employees read Starbucks com-
pany history for tips on how to expand

“Wake up! Who's Bruce?”

while maintaining quality control. They
study the way JetBlue formed a “coun-
tercorporate” culture and how companies
mine data on consumer habits. They discuss
how the reality show The Ultimate Fighter
helped UFC establish its brand. (Don't
be surprised if Tough Mudder turns up
on cable as a reality show pegged to the
season-ending World's Toughest Mudder.)
They discuss how their brand is more like
Harley-Davidson—a social club, a state of
mind—than like any lame-ass traditional
sport. And they prefer to avoid questions
about Mr. Mouse.

Billy Wilson, a.k.a. Mr. Mouse, is a retired
British soldier who claims Will Dean stole
his idea. In 1986 the colorful, quotable
Wilson, who once ran the London Marathon
in costume—as the back end of a horse—
began hosting military-style obstacle races
on his farm in England’s Midlands. “I did
not invent cross-country running nor army
assault courses,” he says. “What I did was
put them together, then added my own
quirky names of terror-testing tortures.”

Dean visited Wilson and studied his
Tough Guy races prior to developing his
Tough Mudder business plan. He also
researched other obstacle runs and insists
he couldn’t “steal” such commonplace
ideas. A Harvard review found no clear
wrongdoing but cited Dean for bending
the university's standards of honesty and
integrity. So Mr. Mouse sued Tough Mud-
der in 2010. Dean's company settled the
lawsuit by paying a reported $725,000, but
that didn't stanch the bad blood between
them. Mr. Mouse, who has called Dean “a
scoundrel" and a “squelchy plagiarist,” sent
PLAYBOY an e-mail promising he'd expose
Dean once and for all in 2013.

Another rival, Spartan Race co-founder
Joe DeSena, told Outside, “There's not a per-
son 1 despise more than Will Dean. Every
day I wake up just out of spite for the guy.”

Meanwhile Dean seems as cool as an Arc-
tic Enema. “We're building a brand,” he
says. End of story. For now, anyway.

On Saturday more than a thousand mud-
ders gather at Raceway Park, a rusty old
drag-race and motocross arena in English-
town, New Jersey, for the World's Toughest
Mudder marathon. The goal: Run as many
10-mile laps as possible in 24 hours. The
format makes WTM more demanding than
any Ironman triathlon. In fact, the annual
Ironman World Championship has gotten
easier since it began in 1978. That year's
winner took 11 hours and 46 minutes to
swim 2.4 miles, bike 112 miles and run a
marathon, while today's Ironman champi-
ons do the same in a little over eight hours.
At the 10-hour mark they're getting mas-
sages and reading congratulatory texts.
Tough Mudder is harder, or at least
hard longer, which happens to be a motto
of one of the best teams in the competition,
Nine Inch Males. At WTM, efficiency only
makes the ordeal more demanding. Last
year’s winner, Junyong Pak, an engineer
from Beverly, Massachusetts, completed
seven laps. It will take more than that this
year, and who knows how many laps the

champion will have to run in 2020. Fifteen?
Twenty? Twenty laps would be 200 miles
and 640 obstacles at a seven-minute-mile
clip, which may not be humanly possible.

“We're testing limits,” Dean says.

Only the top five percent at 34 regional
events qualified for this Mudder. Those elite
1,200, la creme de Гепета arctique, stretch and
crack their necks behind the start-finish line
a little before 10 А.м., wishing each other a
happy Mudder's Day. Then loudspeakers
blare “Go, go, go!” and the race is on.

Twenty-three hours, 59 minutes and 45
seconds to go.

Defending champ Pak zips ahead at a
quick jog. Pak, 34, thinks eight laps might
win—80 miles by this time tomorrow. “If it
takes more, I'm ready," he says. “Because
I'm really competitive." A lean-muscled run-
ning machine with a 2:33 Boston Marathon
to his credit, Pak says he's not a great ath-
lete. “But if it comes down to who wants it
more, the other guy better have a Ph.D. in
hurting." Calling Tough Mudder *volun-
tary torture," he says he's the man to beat.

Two hotshots dog his steps in the early
laps. Nikolay Nachev and Bryce Wilk,
skinny upstarts with family and friends
Jogging along the course with them, cheer-
ing them on, stick with the champ through
three and a half laps. That's 35 miles—more
than a marathon, more than most of the
other mudders will complete in the next 24
hours. Pak, Nachev and Wilk are already an
hour ahead of the rest of the pack. "Those
two guys were sticking with me step for
step, like it's a footrace, which was pretty
annoying," Pak later recalls. “I had two
thoughts. One was, It's gonna be a long
night. The other was, They're gonna lose."

When Nachev ducks into a warming
hut, one of five heated tents on the course
stocked with drinking water, bananas
and energy bars, Pak speeds by, picking
up the pace. “Pm thinking, I'm going
to drop this guy." Soon Pak and Wilk,
a skinny park ranger from Virginia, are
dueling for the lead, going stride for gooey
stride through Funky Monkey—where
mudders monkey-bar their way over an
icy water hazard—while the sun and the
temperature drop.

Leaders don't rest.

Pak finishes lap five at 9:14 on Saturday
night. This is when the cold starts to pull
your balls up into your larynx. Early pace-
setter Nachev, nursing a sore foot, drops
out. Ranger Wilk takes the lead, stretch-
ing his margin over Pak to an hour, but
Wilk is starting to show signs of strain, his
eyes glassy as he maintains a killer pace,
stride after stride, 20,000 strides per lap,
colder every step.

Pak dashes into his tent on pit row. He
peels off his wet suit and trades his cold, wet
shoes and socks for dry pairs. “Gotta hustle,"
he says. "It's easy to burn 10 minutes on a
pit stop." It takes almost that long to pull a
dry, skintight wet suit up his legs, over his
chest and arms—at which point he remem-
bers, "I've really gotta pee."

Full-bladder disclosure: Mudders pee in
their wet suits. That quick shot of warmth
is a pleasure in the middle of an icy night.
Unfortunately for Pak, a team of Tough

Mudder videographers is tracking his every
move with lights and a boom mike. It won't
do for the defending champ to grit his teeth
and soak the crotch of his wet suit to the
tune of sibilant relief, so he peels the suit
down again, turns away from the camera
and fills a Gatorade bottle. Zips back up,
hurries back to the drag strip to start his
next lap, only to realize he's misplaced the
timing chip that tracks his progress around
the course. That's a 20-minute penalty. Pak
cools his sore heels in pit row, waiting out
the penalty, kicking himself for his men-
tal error, “I just made two mistakes that
cost me 30 minutes," he says. "Wilk's an
hour ahead of me. That puts doubts in your
head. Maybe I just blew it."

He could quit. No disgrace in that: Out of
the 1,200 who started on Saturday morning,
only 237 will be running at the end.

Pak shrugs. ^Here goes." Jogging from
his tent to the blacktop drag strip that leads
to the first obstacle, a mud hill called Cliff-
hanger, he gives the videographers a wave.
Ninety minutes behind the leader, he takes
off at a run.

“This is the fun part,” says Amelia Boone.

Boone, 29, leads the women's division.
A round-faced blonde beauty with broad
shoulders and eight-pack abs, she was a
schoolgirl softball and soccer star before
law school and an alpha career at Skadden,
Arps—one of the nation's top law firms—
left her dying for a physical challenge. Now
she handles corporate bankruptcies dur-
ing the week and runs endurance races on
weekends. Her office in Skadden's sleek
Chicago branch features several dirt-caked
Tough Mudder headbands and a skull she
won at a Spartan Death Race.

Boone is the women's favorite because
Juliana Sproles, a personal trainer from
Ojai, California, got frostbite on her
foot while winning the female division
in the first WTM. A year later Sproles is
nowhere to be seen, leaving Boone and
77 other women to measure themselves
against Pak and more than a thousand
other men. Some say women have a bet-
ter chance in obstacle races than other
sports, due to the role of determina-
tion over sheer strength or speed, and
maybe the insulating power of body fat.
(Male athletes average about nine per-
cent body fat, females 17 percent.) Not
that this is easy for anybody. According
to one woman who's both a mudder and
a mother, "getting through a Tough Mud-
der is harder than childbirth."

Nobody expects Boone to stay close to
the men's-division leaders. "I go as hard as
I can before nightfall,” she says, jogging into
her third lap. "This is the fun part. From
here it gets harder." Boone, who admits
she's a “gearwhore” on her blog, Race Ipsa
Loquitur (hydration tip: "Grape Pedialyte
is the bomb"), jogs on as night falls. She
keeps going by plotting the course in her
head, using the same mud tunnels and
monkey-bar routes each lap, never slowing
down enough to let the cold sap her energy.
She stays alert by singing Macklemore's
"Thrift Shop" under her breath hour after

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PLAYBOY

128

hour, lap after lap: “Pm just pumped up on
some shit from a thrift shop.”

Ten hours into the race she's still mum-
bling Macklemore: “That's a bargain bitch,
I'ma take your grandpa's styl n

The course looks eerie after dark. By
midnight most of the field has pitted to eat
and sleep or at least rest. Some eat cold
soup right out of the can. Some gossip
about the tightest sort of Tough Mudder
teamwork: loud sex in pit-row tents. Only
the toughest keep trudging the course.
They wear headlamps that bob like fire-
flies over the dark, muddy landscape.
Follow one to the four-mile mark and you
hear labored breathing as a weary mudder
approaches. A crunchy tread as he reaches
Boa Constrictor, an array of black plastic
pipes. A curse as he kneels and chooses a
pipe to crawl into. All silent for a minute
as he clambers ratlike downhill and then
up, emerging with a splash in a pool of
freezing mud.

Who wants to spend Saturday night like
that? Hundreds of thousands of guys in
their 20s and 30s trying to prove they're
not wimps, apparently. One used to won-
der if his girlfriend doubted his manliness.
“I never punched a guy to protect her. I
never built a fire or skinned a rabbit,” he
says. After he ran a Tough Mudder, “we
both liked me better.” Another weekend
warrior told The New York Times that the new
sport is “the only chance for a guy like me to
feel like King Leonidas.” The paper quoted
a sociology professor who called obstacle
events “the physical representation of mas-
culinity. By associating themselves with
military training, these men are becoming
masculine by association.”

Mudder macho turns up everywhere
from the bodybuilder in the WTM logo
to obstacles emblazoned BALL SHRINKER,
DONG DANGLER and HOLD YOUR WOOD. There
is no TOUGH TITTY. Still it's Amelia Boone
passing men, not the other way around,
as the night wears on. A little before mid-
night Boone, wearing an orange bib that
marks her as the women’s leader, passes
a pair of exhausted guys hobbling to the
end of their third lap. She’s on her fifth.
The founders, monitoring the race, can't
believe Boone’s performance. They never
expected a woman to finish in the top 10
percent, much less the top 10.

As Boone laps the cramping, limping men,
one of them croaks, “Amelia, marry me.”

Near dawn, it’s 30 degrees out. Scots-
man Mark Stirrat reaches Funky Monkey,
where contestants negotiate monkey bars
over frigid water. Shite, he thinks, a man’s
not meant to see his breath when he swims.
Stirrat and his ruddy, jolly teammates, the
Fuddy Muckers, came all the way from Aber-
deen, Scotland for this. Like most mudders
they slip off the monkey bars, then splash
and wade the rest of the way. Climbing out
shivering, Stirrat does jumping jacks to keep
his blood going. He then ducks into a heat
hut and comes out smiling. “Hot broth and
ibuprofen, these are welcome gifts!” He still
has six miles to go.

Soon Steve Larson bites the mud. A
zookeeper at Sedgwick County Zoo in Wich-
ita, Kansas, buzz-cut Larson is one of the

toughest mudders in the field, an ultra-
jock who thinks marathons are for wusses.
“Once P. Diddy and Oprah ran marathons,
I thought, Anybody can do that,” he says.
So Larson, 33, ran an ultramarathon. He
tried the competitive eating tour and won
$100 for gulping 14 hot dogs in five min-
utes, then “had a blast” at a regional Tough
Mudder event. Larson has the best descrip-
tion of the electric shocks on the course:
“They hurt worse than a penguin bite.” But
tonight he cracks a rib on one obstacle and
spends 45 minutes trying to climb a 20-foot
wall a mile from the finish. At last, weeping
with frustration, he quits.

“Not my night,” says the onetime contender.

The hour before dawn is the worst. The
course is almost empty, with only the lead-
ers and a few dozen sleepless, dripping
diehards plodding through subfreezing
cold under a moon the color of ice. Now
is when the occasional mudder succumbs
to hypothermic shock. His eyes glaze. He
mumbles. These hypothermic zombies
sometimes curl up in the mud and might
die there if other mudders didn’t stumble
over them and call for help.

Amelia Boone’s still humming along. She
conserves cranial heat by keeping her head

His eyes glaze. He mumbles.
These hypothermic zombies
sometimes curl up in the mud
and might die there if other
mudders didn't stumble over
them and call for help.

above water during ice swims and stays alert
by talking to the volunteers manning obsta-
cles and medical tents.

"Doing great, Amelia!"

"Am I?"

"Pak just went through here half an
hour ago."

Pak had outslogged Wilk. Earlier in
the night the park ranger, slowed by the
cold, ducked into his tent after six laps.
He wound up leaving pit row—and the
race he led for more than 12 hours—with
help from his mother and fiancée. When
a course worker gave Pak the news, he
pumped his fist. “Гуе got him now," he
thought. “You don't take a pit stop with an
hour lead. At this point you take a pit stop
if you're broken."

With Wilk down and out, Pak relaxes.
He's sailing through a record eighth lap,
one more than his winning total last year,
while the sun and rising temps draw mud-
ders from their tents for one more go-round.

Passing the inflatable arch at the start-
finish line, Pak rolls into his ninth lap.
Eighty miles and 256 obstacles down, 10
miles and 32 left.

Two hours later, trudging toward Ever-
est, three and a half miles from the finish,

he hears a fan call, "You've got all the men
beat!" This is good news for Pak, who's suf-
fering. Tendinitis in one knee, frosty feet,
cramps—he can barely walk, much less
run. It's good news until the fan adds, "But
Amelia is five minutes behind you."

"What?"

One of 13 women still in the race, law-
yer Boone has been chipping away at
Pak's lead since midnight. Singing under
her breath, chatting with other mudders,
forcing herself to jog while they walk, she's
pulled within four minutes with three miles
left. She's close enough to see Pak at Elec-
tric Eel. He saves time by rolling sideways
through the mud, under the live wires,
then stands, wiping black goo from his eyes.
Visibly gathering what strength he has left,
he takes off at a trot.

Mudders, fans, friends, family, videog-
raphers and volunteers gather at the finish
line, hooting and ringing cowbells, craning
to see who'll round the last corner and enter
the stadium first. It's Pak, stretching his lead
over Boone at the end. He waves, bends at
the waist, catches his breath as a volunteer
with a garden hose pats him on the back,
then rinses him off.

Boone jogs in nine minutes later. The two
hug and pose for pictures. Pak's official mar-
gin of victory, eight minutes and 56 seconds,
represents six tenths of one percent of the
race. Boone had him running scared.

As men's and women's champions they
win $15,000 apiece. But it's Pak who's called
to the winner's platform to shake hands with
founders Dean and Livingstone, to be pre-
sented to the crowd as "the toughest human
being on this planet!"

"Maybe next year," Boone says.

Other mudders are still out there, strug-
gling toward the stadium. At one end of the
course Scotland's Fuddy Muckers trudge
toward Electric Eel. Pak rolled through the
mud to save time here, but the wheezing
Scotsmen are long past technique. When
one catches a sparking wire inside a nos-
tril, Stirrat laughs his semicoherent butt off.
"We've done many a fitness race," he says,
"but nothing beats this for awesomeness."

Two weeks later a regional Tough Mud-
der south of Tampa caused a 10-mile traffic
jam outside the venue. Dozens of mudders
jumped out of their cars and—why not?—
jogged the last few miles to the starting line.

Three years in, Tough Mudder was
looking less like a sport and more like a com-
munity. Less like a brand, more like a cause.

One mudder motorist got stopped for
speeding after the Florida event. "I was
wearing my orange headband with pride,"
Jim Redmond posted on Tough Mud-
der's Facebook page. The cop who pulled
Redmond over demanded his license
and registration, and noticed his Tough
Mudder headband.

“You run the Tough Mudder?” he asked.

“Sure did," Redmond said.

The officer returned to his cruiser. When
he came back he was wearing an orange
headband of his own.

"Slow down, mudder,” he said. He gave

Redmond a fist bump and sent him on his way.

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AI WEIWEI

(continued from page 64)
capitalism is. I saw New York and saw a
river of light, and it was like moving in a
dream. Never in my life did I imagine it
could be like that. When I grew up, there
was no energy, no electricity. I always re-
member the image of New York.
PLAYBOY: What did you do in the U.S.?
You were 23. How did you earn a living?
Al: I found jobs to make some money. I did
housecleaning and repairs. I worked as a
gardener and babysitter and whatever kind
of job I could find. I was also in an English
program for half a year. Then after that I
went to my girlfriend's. She was at the Uni-
versity of California, Berkeley. I went to the
Berkeley Adult School to study English.
PLAYBOY: Were you also making art?
Al: I occasionally did some drawings. Then
I went to Parsons the New School for De-
sign one year later in New York to do art.
PLAYBOY: Some of your art involves per-
formance. Early pieces involved break-
ing or transforming ancient Chinese an-
tiques. Were you expressing your anger at
Chinese culture?
Al: For people from the West, that was quite
a shocking act, but for me, it's quite natural.
It goes back to when I was a child and had
to burn all my father's books during the
Cultural Revolution. Those books were so
beautiful. I burned them all in front of him;
we had to. Otherwise it would cost us our
lives. I tore every page. Beautifully printed
books, art books he brought back from
Paris. Page by page. So I know how to de-
stroy. Chairman Mao taught us, so I know.
PLAYBOY: You've created pieces in which
you literally say "fuck you" to China—or at
least to the Communist Party. In one you
flip off Tiananmen Square with the Forbid-
den City looming in the background.
Al: Yes. That's so terrible to them that I
would do that.
PLAYBOY: Were you also saying fuck you to
the government when you photographed
your wife holding her dress up in Tianan-
men Square?
Al: For the first few years after I came back
to China from New York, I went with her
to Tiananmen Square just to walk on the
June 4 anniversary. There were so many
undercover police, and I told her, "Let me
take a photo of you." We did the Marilyn
Monroe pose, just lifting her skirt like that.
PLAYBOY: More recently you went on a new
antigovernment attack, this time in anoth-
er medium: rock and roll. Have you always
been an aspiring rock star?
Al: I've never sung a song in my life except
the songs forced on us during the Cultural
Revolution. I went to the Elton John con-
cert and was very much inspired by his
voice as a kind of star penetrating the dark-
ness of the sky. I decided it doesn't matter
that I cannot sing. I am 55 years old, and
maybe ГП be the oldest person to start in
rock and roll. I made nine songs. They
are about the current condition in China.
One is about my confrontation with the
police during the earthquake research on
the dead students. Another is about Chen

130 Guangcheng and the Great Firewall.

PLAYBOY: Why did you choose heavy metal?
Al: I love metal music. It's as powerful as
nature. It's poetry within a storm.
PLAYBOY: Do you use your art to publicize
events like the earthquake or persecution
of dissidents, or is it an expression of your
frustration and anger?

Al: When there's an extremely difficult
situation, I think it's a unique opportunity
for me to make some art. Something ex-
treme gives me a strong reason to react to
it, to respond to the situation. So if they do
something extreme, then I'm sure I'm go-
ing to come up with something.

PLAYBOY: Students were murdered and dis-
senters brutally crushed when tanks rolled
into Tiananmen Square in 1989. That
must have reinforced the message that you
don't speak out.

Al: Yes. A few hundred thousand people
were there. My father was there.

PLAYBOY: In a wheelchair, we read.

Al: Yes, and also my mom with steamed
dumplings she brought to the students.
PLAYBOY: What was your reaction to the pro-
tests as you watched them from New York?
Al: There was a moment of great excite-
ment. Dan Rather and all those people
saw this moment, and we watched and
were all very excited. It's so unbelievable,
the whole thing.

PLAYBOY: Were you in touch with your fam-
ily during that time?

Al: Yeah, I talked with them. I could hear
the helicopters flying above them. At the
beginning they were excited. Then they
felt shocked. Of course everybody was shat-
tered by such a brutal reaction.

PLAYBOY: What's the legacy of the demon-
strations? Did they change China?

Al: Maybe most young students don't even
know it happened.

PLAYBOY: In Beijing we tried searching the
internet for the words June 4, and infor-
mation about the protest and crackdown
appears to be blocked. Do you think the
government doesn't want people to know
about the protests because of the massacre
it perpetrated or because it doesn't want
people to know it's possible to organize?
Al: Both. First, government officials don't
want people to know they can unite and
have such powerful expression. Also, they
don't want people to know they crushed
the masses with tanks. It's why some peo-
ple in this country still don't know they ar-
rested me. Many people don't know.
PLAYBOY: How did your April 2011 arrest
unfold?

Al: They took me from the airport. A black
hood was put over me and they took me to
a security detention center. I do not know
where. We have tried to find out, but I still
don't know. The first question I asked when
they started to talk to me was "Can I have a
lawyer?" They said no. I said, "Can I make
a phone call to my family?" They said no.
PLAYBOY: Were you worried about your
family? Your son was two at the time.

Al: I blamed myself. I thought, Why did I
put myself in this position, to deal with a
government that has no respect at all for
human rights, human dignity or even com-
mon sense? So many people warned me,
and I knew my condition was quite fragile.

They told me I would be sentenced for a
very long time. They told me quite clearly,
"When you leave jail your son will prob-
ably be 14, 15 and will never recognize
you. And your mom may be passed away
already." I was very sad to think about that.
PLAYBOY: When you became a father, did
you think differently about your political
activism? If you remained imprisoned,
your son would grow up without a father.
Al: I didn't think about that until I was аг-
rested. When I was arrested, when they
told me I could not make any phone calls
for at least half a year, I felt very sorry.
PLAYBOY: How else has being a father
changed you?

Al: You have someone who very much de-
pends on you. And for another 30 years, you
could be some kind of influence on this child.
You discover how the human species doesn't
have to learn, that something is already
there, and how it struggles to grow. It's kind
of a miracle to see. Quite gradually it has to
build up a kind of logical way of behaving,
how to deal with life, which is sad in some
ways. But yes, I felt very sorry about him
when I was arrested and could not even call.
PLAYBOY: What were the conditions of your
imprisonment?

Al: Two guards stood over me every min-
ute. It's a tough situation. I think it was
a kind of psychological warfare. You are
watched every moment, even while you
sleep, and when you sleep your hands have
to be outside the blanket. You cannot turn.
PLAYBOY: Why would they care how you
slept?

Al: I think it's a punishment.

PLAYBOY: How do they prevent you from
turning?

Ak: If you turn, they order you. You have
to sleep like this, like a cross. [holds his arms
out] The camera has to see your arms. You
don't know how to respond to this kind of
degradation.

PLAYBOY: Could you exercise?

Al: No, no. You can't move near the door.
PLAYBOY: Did you become depressed?

Al: I think I was more than depressed.
You're alert because the situation is so un-
known. You don't know their intentions.
And you don't know what the future is.
PLAYBOY: Could you write or draw?

Al: I could not do anything. When I was
sitting, I had to sit in one position, like this.
[sits erect with hands on thighs] Before you
make any move, you must report it to a sol-
dier. If you need to scratch your head, you
must ask. I must ask if I want to go to the
table to have a sip of water.

PLAYBOY: Did they bring meals to your cell,
or did you eatin acommunal area?

Al: They brought the meals to me. The
meal would never come with chopsticks. I
had one plastic spoon.

PLAYBOY: Did they prohibit chopsticks be-
cause they could be a weapon? Were they
worried you might try to harm yourself?
Al: Yes. In my morning food there was al-
ways an egg. The egg had no shell. After a
while I realized there was a little bit missing
from the egg. Why was there always like
a little mouse bite missing from the egg?
When we became familiar, I asked a guard
about this. He said, “We leave a sample of

every dish you get in a box.” Later, if some-
thing happened to me, they could examine
it in the laboratory. A doctor came three
times a day. Sometimes seven times a day.
PLAYBOY: Did you become hopeless?

Al: I felt I would never be released.
PLAYBOY: Were you ever officially charged?
Al: They announced different crimes—
taxes, violation of exchange of foreign
currency to Chinese money. Just excuses.
I think they wanted to get the people
thinking badly of me. They charged me
with having a double marriage, which 1
never had. I have a son with a girlfriend,
but we were never married. They charged
me with obscenity for putting nude photos
on the internet.

PLAYBOY: Were the obscenity charges
based on the art pieces you made in which
you are nude?

Al: They weren't even art. People always
come and want to take photos, so as a kind
of joke I said one time, “Okay, let's take a
photo.” I took off my clothes. I jumped. I
used this thing, a doll called a grass mud
horse, to cover my dick. It's а joke, really.
PLAYBOY: A grass mud horse?

Al: It's a fake thing created for the internet
to fight government censorship. You can
say cdonimd, or “grass mud horse," which
isn't a real animal; it's internet-made. It's a
fake animal's name, so you can say it, but it
also means "fuck your mother." You can-
not say "fuck your mother" on the inter-
net in China, but you can say this animal's
name. So I made this photograph and
someone put it on the internet and people
got excited about it. It was for fun, just for
some excitement at the moment. You have
a combination of meaning there, "grass
mud horse" and "fuck your mother." Say-
ing this to the central government will be
the most brutal thing you can say in China;
you can be killed for doing that.

There was another photo of me and
these four women who came to see me one
day. I try to avoid seeing so many people, so
Ijoked, "Okay, we'll have to take nude pho-
tos." I thought that would scare them away,
but everybody agreed and we did it. One
of the women is an activist for sex workers
who speaks out about AIDS, and others are
students. It was a kind of statement.
PLAYBOY: Does the reaction to the nudes say
something about Chinese culture in gen-
eral compared with Western culture when
it comes to sex? Is China more puritanical?
Al: I don't think so. I think China is an old
culture and sex is very developed. It's just
as rich as any old culture. These photos are
not about sex. It's about privacy. Someone
put this photo online and called it One Tiger,
Eight Breasts. Sounds like a porn title, right?
PLAYBOY: While you were imprisoned, were
you ever harmed physically?

Al: No, just intimidated.

PLAYBOY: Earlier you'd been hit by a police
officer when you went to testify in the trial
of Tan Zuoren, the Sichuan writer and ac-
tivist who had also been investigating the
earthquake. He had been accused of incit-
ing the subversion of state power. You were
accosted in a hotel and struck on the head
by an officer. What exactly happened?

Al: There was a bang on the door, "Open

up. It's the police!" They locked us up for
11 hours so we couldn't go to the trial. Tan
Zuoren is in jail now, serving a five-year
sentence. I was going to court to support
him. I brought my materials to show he
was innocent.

PLAYBOY: How severe was the blow?

Al: I felt pain and went to the hospital with a
friend and two police. I had a regular check-
up and nothing was wrong, but later it de-
veloped into a hemorrhage. The doctor said
if I came to see him any later I'd be dead.
PLAYBOY: Are there any aftereffects of the
hemorrhage?

Al: You hear my way of talking—it's slow.
I can sense it's slower; the words jump out
slower than they should. My memory is
very bad now.

PLAYBOY: After that assault and your arrest
at the hands of the state, do you still con-
sider yourself a patriot?

Al: Even though maybe I am, I will never
announce myself as a patriot. You're not
entitled to say you're a patriot if you don't
have a nation.

PLAYBOY: Don't you consider China your
nation?

Al: No. You have a nation when you share
the nation itself, when it holds up your be-
liefs or you're identified with it. If a country
ignores your right to vote, you're not a citi-
zen. You cannot make any kind of decision.
You cannot relate to other people because
you cannot support each other. You cannot
share joy because there's no way to commu-
nicate freely. How can you call yourself a
citizen? You don't bear responsibility. Any-

thing that happens is not because of you; it's
because of the government. The nation is
not the people; it's the party. It represents
only the party's ideas. The party controls
the army. It controls the judicial system. It
controls the natural resources. It's a group
of elites, maybe 500 families, maybe fewer.
PLAYBOY: Finally, when you were released
from prison, were you again hooded so
you wouldn't know where you were?

Al: Yes, everything was the same. Two po-
lice sat on two sides and one military soldier
in the front. They brought me to a local po-
lice station and there I met my mom and my
wife. My mom had to sign a paper to guar-
antee my release for one year of probation.
PLAYBOY: What are considered violations of
your parole?

Al: Before I was released I had to sign an
agreement with about nine different prin-
ciples, including that I cannot go on the
internet, cannot talk about what happened
inside the detention center, cannot talk to
journalists, cannot meet with people who
are activists, cannot write articles.

PLAYBOY: It seems you've ignored every one.
Al: Basically yes. First I tried to do less. They
have said, "We can always arrest you again
and we don't ever have to release you."
PLAYBOY: Doesn't that warning scare you?
Are you tempted to cease speaking out?
Al: Of course it scares me. It's not a joke.
But I cannot gradually let my life deterio-
rate without talking about what's on my
mind. That's not possible. I will not stop.

“No, I didn’t say these are studies for a painting I'm doing. I said
they're studies of a waitress Гт doing.”

131

PLAYBOY

KNOCKED OUT

(continued from page 68)

end. Coffin draped in the Puerto Rican flag,
his three championship belts polished for the
occasion. Four, five deep on the sidewalks,
the roses of Spanish Harlem all weeping.

Jennifer, all the cameras, hoping for
a scene like the one a few days earlier at
the wake in Puerto Rico. Open casket, the
mortician having spackled over the bul-
let hole in Macho’s head. One of Macho’s
girlfriends on the receiving line bent and
kissed the waxy corpse on the lips. That set
off another girlfriend, and they got into a
brawl right there in the chapel. In New
York they knew enough to keep all the girl-
friends separated.

Back on the Hutch a dozen or so Harleys
blow past me, the Hygrades and Nuyorican
Original motorcycle clubs. Puerto Rican col-
ors flying. I am edging 75 miles per hour.
“This is like a drag race," Jennifer says. “The
Indy 500 or something."

'That is the description I use later, when
I meet Héctor Camacho Jr. His father's
funeral cortege like the Indy 500.

Héctor Jr. grins. Not wistful. Wry. Machito,
they call him. Boxer like his old man. Says,
"Exactly how Pops woulda wanted it."

THE SON

Héctor Camacho Jr. was training for a fight
in Kansas City last November when his wife
took the call. His father was on life support
in a San Juan hospital. Coma. Brain dead.
Abuelita Maria ready to pull the respirator
plug. "My wife didn't say nothing at first,"
Machito says. "But I could tell the moment
I saw the look on her face. Didn't even ask
how. Went out for a walk. Prayed and cried
all night. Next day I asked what happened.
She said, “Не got shot.’”

Single bullet. Entered the left side of
50-year-old Héctor Sr.'s jaw, sliced his
carotid artery, destroyed two vertebrae in
his neck, lodged in his right shoulder. Shot
while sitting in the passenger seat of a late-
model Mustang outside a bar in Bayamón,
Puerto Rico. Seven at night. The driver,
Adrián Moreno, capped three times, died
on the scene. Moreno's pockets stuffed with
nine glassine envelopes filled with cocaine.

"Damn streets," Machito says. "I told
him to stay the hell off the streets. I'd say,
"You're old now. You have granddaughters.
Change your life around, Pops.' He'd just
smile and say, ‘Everything’s good. I'm the
Macho Man.”

Bayamón is scary, dangerous at night.
Particularly along the infamous 167 Ave-
nue, the town's main artery that runs just
west of San Juan. Bakery near the bar in
question; Pentecostal church and paint-ball
arcade flanking the very spot, in front of
a lawyer's office, where Macho was shot.
Seems an innocuous enough neighbor-
hood in daylight. “But once the sun goes
down it's like two different countries," says
a former New York City narcotics detective
who worked in Bayamón on the DEA's joint
drug task force. "That strip of road, that
whole area, turns. People buying heroin

132 and coke. We were cops, for Christ's sake,

and they used to warn us never to stop at
a red light after dark in Bayamón or else
we'd get carjacked."

Macho's oldest son, one of four boys,
nods his head. АП of them sensed it. Their
father's high life a movie set waiting to
be struck. Subtraction by addiction. “The
cocaine was his downfall," Machito says. "He
loved that fuckin' drug."

I catch up with Héctor Jr. on a brisk,
sunny February morning in upper Man-
hattan, the edge of El Barrio. Making a
promotional appearance at a milk and
soda warehouse. A handsome and bearded
light-middleweight, Machito flew to New
York from his home in Panama to fight on
an undercard in Brooklyn. But one of the
headliners busted a rib in training and the
entire slate was postponed. His lawyer set up
the promotional gig to salvage a few bucks
out of the trip. "With what happened to his
father, he's got about a year left to capitalize
on his пате,” the lawyer tells me. "Less if he
loses his next fight. He's no kid."

Machito is thoughtful, funny, honest. A
convert to Islam, he holds no illusions about
the fight game, about his old man, about his
own shadowed space between the two. At 34
years old, with a 54-5-1 record that includes
29 knockouts, he recognizes he is on the
downside of a prosaic career. Still, not many
fighters can say they fought on the same
card as their dad three times—both winning
all three. The sparring together, the tips in
the ring, the life lessons on the street, per-
haps they make up for the fact that Macho
wasn't much of a father.

“I don't think he knew any better,” Machito
says. "He didn't have his own father around."

The pattern repeated starting with
Machito's birth. His father, then 16 and com-
ing off the first of his three amateur Golden
Gloves boxing titles, missed the occasion. He
was doing his first stint in New York City's
infamous Rikers Island detention center for
car theft. A few months after his release he
was back inside, convicted of being an acces-
sory to a carjacking.

“The kid was trouble," says retired NYPD
detective Juan Checo, who worked Span-
ish Harlem during Macho's teenage years.
"He would have been just another of the
hundreds of skels we put away who nobody
would have ever heard of if he hadn't
become such a great boxer."

Macho had arrived in America at the age
of three after his mother, María Matías, sep-
arated from her husband and moved her
four children at the time from Bayamón
into a New York City housing project.
She doted on Macho, then her youngest,
and he grew up spoiled and wild, run-
ning with gangs, street fighting. His idol
was Bruce Lee, and when one of his high
school teachers noticed his flair for karate,
he convinced Macho to channel that ath-
leticism into boxing.

"I may not have agreed with the way he
lived his life outside the ring," says Machito
of his father. "But he was still a special man.
And you want to know something? He never
lied to me, no matter what the circumstance.
He was always honest. His heart was great.
He enjoyed life, and the people loved him.
He was just an overgrown kid. He had toys.

All his karate things. His nunchakus. His
fighting sticks. Played with them all the time.
At home he would change clothes four or
five times a day. Put on a Superman outfit,
then walk out dressed like a ninja. Then the
Spider-Man costume."

Despite his success in the ring, commit-
ting felonies was another habit Macho never
outgrew. His rap sheet is long and varied,
drugs and alcohol inevitably involved. A
warrant was issued for his arrest as recently
as last year in Florida for allegedly assaulting
his youngest son. Perhaps the most bizarre
incident occurred in 2004 when Macho
was convicted of clambering through a sky-
light to burglarize a Gulfport, Mississippi
computer store. He pissed on the rug and
made off with a pile of laptops. Police found
ecstasy pills when they caught up with him
in a hotel in Biloxi. Seven-year sentence was
commuted. Served less than three weeks.
А notorious tax scofflaw over his lifetime,
Camacho owed several states and the fed-
eral government more than half a million in
back taxes, with New Jersey still going after
him for $300,000 at the time of his murder.
Didn't seem to bother him. Not much did.

"One time he had to take a drug test,"
says Machito. "He was on probation, and
he had been getting high for a couple of
days. We were driving, and I said, “What
are you, fucking crazy? You got a drug test
today. You're gonna get caught.”

"So he pulls over into a project. Sees this
little kid, calls him over. 'You behaving in
school? You being good with your mother
and father? You want some money?' Kid
nods his head yeah. He says, “ГЇЇ give you a
hundred dollars if you pee in this cup right
now.' The kid peed in the cup and he gave
him a hundred dollars and we left."

I mention to Machito that I've been
trading phone calls with Shelly Salemassi,
Macho’s fiancée. I'd met her at the funeral.
Pretty blonde from Detroit, her cheeks
stained by the tears smudging her mas-
cara. Shelly met Macho 15 years ago. He
was training at Emanuel Steward's Kronk
Gym in Detroit. She didn't even know he
was a boxer, much less a celebrity. It wasn't
love at first sight, she says. But he grew on
her. She finally fell, stayed fallen. Hard not
to. Trim, hard body topped by that gorgeous
face. "He still took my breath away after 15
years," she says.

Shelly tells me a story; I tell Machito. About
his dad and Shelly's jealous ex-husband.
Early in their relationship, the ex rings her
house. Shelly is out; Macho answers. "Who
the hell is this?" demands the ex.

"Who's this?" Macho replies.

"What if I were to come over and ask you
that question in person?"

"My brother, then it's Macho time!"

Shelly echoes Machito—Macho's not a bad
guy, just forgot to grow up. Oh, she's got
stories. Time she bailed him out of jail after
he'd pushed his orange Jag all night from
Florida to Michigan. Time she dragged him
out of a saloon by his famous spit curl after
she'd kicked in a bathroom door and found
him with another woman. Says she knew
about all of them. Dozens, scores.

"He called me his white Puerto Rican. He
wanted me to marry him and move to Puerto

Rico. But I couldn't yet. My kids came first.
That's why I accepted the other women. Peo-
ple never got that. They said, “You know, he's
cheating on you.’ I said, ‘I know, but he loves
me.' He was with a lot of women, but there
was no intercourse except with me. Oral sex,
yeah. And he had toys that he liked to use. I
would not let him use them on me."

It was for Shelly that Macho tattooed a
unicorn on his prick. “We had a deal. I got
a tattoo with his name. He was in New York
and he called me and said, “ОКау, Mama, I
got a tattoo.’ I said, ‘Oh, sweet. Му name?’

"He told me, “Хо, I got a unicorn.' I asked
him, “How the hell did you stay hard long
enough for them to do it?' I guess the tat-
too guy's wife.... I don't know what she did
or how she did it."

Then there was the cocaine. Shelly didn't
like it and didn't like Macho doing it. But
she couldn't help herself. By then she was
hooked. On his beau-
tiful body. On his
blithe persona. On
his generous spirit.
"He'd give a stranger,
some hobo, his last
hundred dollars if the
guy asked for it."

But most of all,
Shelly was hooked
on Macho's tender-
ness. During one of
our conversations
her voice seemed to
float as she described
sneaking away with
"Mach" for one of
their long weekends.
Booking a quiet hotel
room. Spending the
days and nights order-
ing room service and
slow dancing naked.

The tale makes
Machito smile again.
Melancholy this time.
Lost in his own recol-
lections. Then, "Shelly
loved my dad. And I
think he loved her.
He just couldn't stop
himself from foolin'
around. Was his
nature. Shelly would
tell me, 'I hate that
motherfucker. But
his heart is good and
Ilove him.’ That was my dad. Yin and yang."

As Machito grew up, the father and son
seemed to reverse roles. "Not too long ago
I see him and I say, “Рорз, let me ask you
a question. How many days you been up?’

"He says, "Three days, goin’ on four.’

“I said, ‘Pops, you're 50 years old. How
much more time you think you can do these
kinds of tricks? How much more you think
you'll be able to take before you die?’

"He told me, 'Let me tell you something,
motherfucker. I've done 10 days. I'm fuck-
ing strong. What you talkin' about?’

“Не still didn't get me, didn't get what
I was trying to say. That he wasn't a kid
no more."

Silence for a while. Both of us lost in

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Describe for Machito some of his father's
early fights. Fights I saw, fights Machito
was too young to remember. The old Felt
Forum. The Sands in Atlantic City. The fast
and savvy southpaw circling and jabbing, a
louche and graceful predator owning the
ring with his cobra quickness. Banging
through Johnny Sato, Melvin Paul, Greg
Coverson, good fighters all. Then, 1983,
the 21-year-old Macho blasting Bazooka
Limón in San Juan to win the World Box-
ing Council super-featherweight title.
Machito and I laugh; Bazooka did have a
bazooka. Macho moving up in weight to
take the lightweight belt. Even beat legend-
ary trainer Freddie Roach. All leading to
the first grand showcase three years later.
Macho, unbeaten in 28 fights, barely out-
lasting Edwin Rosario on Madison Square
Garden's big stage to retain his title.

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Machito shakes his head. “Не got hit
good in that fight. First time. Changed
him, changed his style. He never thought
in the ring before. Just throwin' punches.
Now he'd say, ‘Nobody knocking me out.”

'THE TRAINER

The Rosario fight. A war. Larry Merchant
calling it for HBO, Mike Marley covering
it for the New York Post. (Me in the second
row.) Four rounds of Rosario stalking, mea-
suring, a human drill bit. He opened the
fifth with a straight right and a crushing
left hook that buckled Macho's knees. Did
it again in the 11th.

Macho gobsmacked. “Fought me like he's

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mad at me,” he told Sports Illustrated. That
never happened before. Macho danced
and ran, took a close split decision. Crowd
booed, turning on the skittish Nuyorican in
favor of the slugging "true" Puerto Rican. A
right and a left turned Macho into a dancer
for the rest of his career.

“Не went from somebody with dreams of
being great to the reality of trying to make
the most money he could," says Merchant,
retired now, on the line from his home in
Santa Monica. “Не found out in that fight
that he didn't like getting hit. Given how
Camacho had soared up to that point, just
his being in a close fight, his being chal-
lenged, his being hit, in that sense it was
a defeat. He had never gone into the ring
where he couldn't just dazzle with his
dominance. So when you run up against a
fighter like Rosario who just hits you like
that, sometimes it seems like you lost, even
if you didn't lose."

Marley you don't
telephone; Marley
you meet for drinks.
Jimmy’s Corner,
Times Square. Maybe
the last boxing bar in
New York City, not
counting the taque-
rias north of 110th
Street. Fight posters
and publicity shots,
ragged-edged news-
paper stories framed
in smoky glass, sepia-
tinged boxers staring
back at you from
every inch of paint-
peeled wall.

Marley, fast talk-
ing, smart. Now
a successful Man-
hattan defense
ffer attorney. Goes back
with Macho. To the
amateurs. Remem-
bers the trainers Billy
Giles and Bobby Lee
Velez, “old-school,”
he calls them. They
molded the kid who
had been in and out
of Rikers. Guided
him from the Golden
Gloves to a profes-
sional career. Made
him a name, a hero,
a champion. Then the bitter break. Giles
claiming Macho was “drowning in drugs.”

“New York is famous for its neighborhood
fighters.” Marley lifts a Beck’s, takes a long
swig. “Rocky Graziano from the Lower East
Side. Mike Tyson coming from Brownsville.
Mark Breland from Bed-Stuy. The old Jew-
ish fighters, Benny Leonard, Bummy Davis.
Camacho came up after that time. But he
would have fit perfectly on Eastern Park-
way or the Sunnyside Gardens or the old St.
Nick’s arena over on the west side. Quintes-
sential New York fighter.”

Like Machito, like Merchant, like just
about everyone around the fight game,
Marley talks about the two Machos. Pre-

Retail Value 5113

Rosario and post-Rosario. “Не was а 133

PLAYBOY

134

changed guy after that. Decided not to
take the risks.

“Now when people remember Macho
they think of the carnival,” Marley says.
“The gladiator outfits and the tiger-striped
loincloths. The spit curl. The pretty-boy
face and the naked weigh-ins. And it was
true. Nobody enjoyed being the Macho Man
more than Macho. Impossible not to like.
But people forget. He was so well schooled
in the fundamentals. He was unhittable.”

Until Rosario hit him.

Couple nights later. Across the Hudson in
Staten Island. Teddy Atlas’s kitchen. Voice
like a crow, singing a broken song. “You
know I paid for the guy’s burial?”

I did not.

Atlas, maybe the best trainer left in the
game. Runs a charity, the Dr. Theodore
A. Atlas Foundation, in honor of his late
father. Has helped, literally, thousands of
underprivileged New York City kids. Lately
hundreds of Staten Island families rocked
by Hurricane Sandy. The night I meet him,

he’s just returned from putting up new
roofs in one of the borough’s most storm-
shattered neighborhoods.

“Сога call the night before the funeral,”
he says. “Old friend, a fighter. I'm in a nice
restaurant with my wife." Elaine Atlas nods.
She is at the stove, ladling chili over rice and
slicing a ball of mozzarella. Her look says,
My Teddy, the soft touch.

"I never trained Macho, never worked
with him," Atlas shrugs. "Everybody knows
I have the charity foundation. Anyway, the
guy tells me the Camacho family needs
$3,000 or the cemetery won't bury him. Pm
like, $3,000! This after I see on the televi-
sion they got a glass carriage for a hearse
and white horses pulling him through Span-
ish Harlem. How much did that cost? Why
don't you skip that and pay the cemetery?

"Next morning, Saturday morning, day of
the funeral, I have my assistant in the founda-
tion call to make sure. Nope, won't put him
in the ground without the money. I guaran-
teed 'em a check. You believe that bullshit?"

"That's his chauffeur. Go take him for a spin."

"Eat your dinner," Elaine says. Puts down a
plate of chili and cheese. "What's done is done."

Like Macho, Atlas was a rough kid. High
school dropout. Street fighter. The half-
moon scar that arcs down the left side of his
face comes from a knife wound that took
400 stitches to close. Did time in Rikers on
an armed robbery beef. So he can relate.
But Macho never grew up. Atlas did. Now,
at 56, he possesses a deep and innate intel-
ligence masked by the dese, dems and dose
of his Bowery Boy delivery. When he pulls
back the curtain, whether breaking down the
mechanics of a George Foreman uppercut
or a Twyla Tharp arabesque, a listener walks
away from the conversation illuminated.
Which is why I pay special attention when
Atlas uses the terms genius and pioneer to
describe Héctor Camacho's boxing prowess.

First there was Macho's ungodly ring speed
and quickness, he says. “А guy with pure
speed can intimidate. You're afraid of pure
speed. Afraid of the timing. Afraid to do things
you normally would do. Camacho's mobility,
his confidence and obviously his technique—
he could put punches together—were there.
But it was all predicated on his great speed.

"Also, he had a great chin. He was on the
floor, what, three times in 88 fights? And
never knocked out. He never gets credit for
his chin."

Now Atlas is into the subject, a physicist lost
in a reverie of string theory. That speed, he
says, that chin—combine them with Macho's
"signature move, his trip-hammer jab."

Quick as a mongoose Atlas leaps from the
kitchen chair and throws one. His knuckles
brush my right cheekbone. Most fighters,
he says, "have the jab where they turn it
over, the fist rotates counterclockwise. That's
the conventional, traditional way. But if you
look at Camacho, he would just drop the
jab like this."

Aims another at my face, this time no rota-
tional torque. Downbeat of an ax. "It got
there maybe a millisecond quicker. What-
ever tenth of a second he bought by doing
that allowed him to discombobulate the guy,
to throw the guy's rhythm off. It was his own
little mark of what separated him, his own
little genius. I don't use that word lightly."

This “first Camacho," Atlas says, "fought
on his terms." Rose to the top on "aggres-
siveness. He always thought he was the boss."

Then came Rosario. Atlas gives a sad
shake of his head. “Не gets caught with that
left hook and he gets hurt good. He moves
and he grabs, and the new Camacho showed
up. We didn't know that at the time. But he
never fought with that confidence anymore,
with that bravado. He still had the speed,
but he didn't have that aggressive mind-set.
He didn't have that confidence. His world
was thrown off its axis."

Macho stepped into the ring 59 more
times after the Rosario bout. Fought into his
late 40s, taking another legitimate title as his
physique inevitably grew thick. No one ever
knocked him out—an accomplishment about
which he often boasted. Yet he was never the
same. "Still talented," says Atlas. "But for the
rest of that time he was just gonna survive."

A long night. Time to go. “I liked Macho,”
Atlas says. “There was a sensitivity to him. No
maliciousness, no mean-spiritedness. He was

а knucklehead. But considering everything,
I think he wasn't a bad kid inside. Maybe a
kid that was hiding things, insecurities that
maybe he was never able to deal with. So the
way he dealt with them was to talk and to be
real fast with his hands and to be a cham-
pion. But that didn’t mean those doubts were
taken away. Doesn’t mean that the money
and the Corvettes and the machismo and the
skirts that he wore and his outrageous behav-
ior took away those inadequacies.”

This last hangs in the air as I rise from
the kitchen table. Atlas stands too, hesitates,
motions—wait. Walks to his living room,
returns with a scrapbook. “Wasn’t sure to
mention this.”

Flips to a page, a yellowed newspaper
clipping. The sportswriter Dick Young’s
column in the New York Post. Small item
reporting that the 30-year-old trainer Teddy
Atlas and the lightweight boxing champion
of the world Héctor Camacho threw down
in Gleason's Gym. A week before the Rosa-
rio fight. “He got the gist of it right,” Atlas
says. “Not all the particulars.”

Tells the story. Training one of his fighters,
paid for the ring time. Macho and his entou-
rage roll into the gym. Macho wants the ring.
Gets in, won't leave. Atlas politely asks him
to get out. Macho: “It's Macho time!” Atlas,
not so politely now, tells him to go fuck him-
self. And then they went at it. Bare knuckles.

“He's flicking that jab. Landing a few. Not
hurting me. But I know I can't let this go on
too long. 1 got maybe 20 pounds on him. 1
lunge for him, try to get him in a headlock.
But he's so lathered up in baby oil he slips
out of my hold. Now he's doin' all that Macho
shit. Taunting, jabbing, dancing. I think he
drew a little blood over my eye. I fake a jab
and lunge again. This time I get him by the
hair with both hands. Pull him into my body.

“I got him in a headlock. 1 hit him two
solid uppercuts, lefts, then two more, still
holdin’ on to his hair with my right hand. I
bring my knee up and drive it into his gut.
Do it again. I heard later that some of his
posse tried to get in the ring, break it up. My
guys kept ет out. I knee him again, hit him
again. Now he's bleeding. My fighters are
yelling, ‘Break his arm, break his face.” Не
says, real low, like a whisper only I can hear,
“Okay. Enough.” I let him go. The whole
bunch of ет slink out of the gym like pussies.

“The next day he shows up at Gleason’s.
Alone, leaves his entourage outside. Walks
up to me in front of everybody. Says he
wants to apologize like a man. Out loud, so
everyone can hear. And he does.”

We are at the front door now, Teddy Atlas
seeing me off. “I tell you what,” he says.
“Héctor Camacho was a stand-up guy.”

In Atlas’s worldview that’s the highest
compliment. I understand why he paid for
the funeral.

THE INVESTIGATOR

Not long ago, New York City. Guy thinks
he recognizes Héctor Camacho Jr. “You
Macho’s son?” he asks.

“Yeah.”

“Your father stole my hubcaps when he
was a kid.” В

I repeat Ше story, and Angel Jiménez,

police commissioner of Bayamón, breaks
into a sly grin. “You hear about all his legal
problems in the States,” he says. “But he was
never in trouble in Puerto Rico.”

Jiménez, 22 years on the job. Former
Puerto Rico state policeman. Narcotics,
intelligence, a year with special operations.
Good-looking man, in buff shape for 45
despite complaints about “the beer belly
Pm growing.” Cruising down 167 Avenue,
pulls his SUV over in front of the bar where
Macho was drinking that night.

“He came out, walked to his friend’s car
over there.” Points. “We think it happened
right after he got in.”

Macho was famous on the island. Like a
male Kardashian, touching fire to what was
left of the candle. Swanned on Mira Quién
Baila, the Spanish-language Dancing With
the Stars. Appeared regularly on the Univi-
sion entertainment program El Gordo y la
Flaca ("The Scoop and Ше Skinny"), a Latin
mash-up of TMZ and Entertainment Tonight.
Starred in a reality dating show titled, of
course, Es Macho Time. Posed twice for
Playgirl, the last time a mere three years ago.

"One of my sergeants is the first on the
scene," Jiménez says. ^He calls and tells
me that through all the blood it looks like
Macho Camacho is one of the guys shot."
Shakes his head. "I didn't believe it."

Jiménez throws it into reverse. “Let's go see
the captain," the state police investigator in
charge of the case. Not talking to the press,
but for his old partner Angel Jiménez a little
favor. Rain heavy, traffic light. Jiménez points
out the Bayamón Art Museum, the engineer-
ing museum, obvious pride in his hometown.
Doesn't mention the crime. Passes the sta-
dium where he last saw Macho alive. “Back in
August, at a Wilfredo Vázquez Jr. fight," he
says. "We were both guests of honor."

Up into the hills, driving east. Crossing
from Bayamón into Guaynabo. Two-lane
road wending through copses of Spanish
elms, African tulips, royal poincianas. Now,
taller hills, a small village at the summit. Pull
over, duck under crime-scene tape, hike the
last 100 yards. Uniformed cops milling about.
In Puerto Rico, Jiménez explains, local offi-
cers, the police who work for him, handle all
crimes except murder. Homicides are the
province of the state police. Captain Rafael
Rosa Córdova. Plainclothes brown suit, stand-
ing outside a small, single-story home where
earlier this morning a junkie son robbed
and killed his father. Córdova and Jiménez
embrace. Been too long, they both say.

If there were a Law & Order: Puerto Rico,
Captain Córdova would be its Jerry Orbach.
Hangdog, seen-it-all homicide investiga-
tor. Dark, heavy-lidded eyes that dart like
a basilisk's. Deep, husky voice; probably
speaks English, just not to me. Commis-
sioner Jiménez interprets. "Unlike previous
published reports, my investigation shows
me that Camacho was not the target of this
attack. From what we've learned so far it was
a simple robbery."

So the rumors that Macho was bankroll-
ing the drug dealer who died in the car with
him are false?

Córdova, sad smile. “The other man in
the car was the intended victim. The shoot-
ers had no idea that Héctor Camacho was

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136

sitting in the car with him.” He adds that
Adriän Moreno, the other man, had a sheet:
drugs, a weapons charge. Macho did not—
at least not in Puerto Rico. “From what we
understand, Macho and the other man were
just having a few drinks together.”

And probably a snort. I ask if the assail-
ants were after money or drugs. “When the
shooting began the perpetrators had no idea
that Macho was sitting in that car. Macho
took the very first shot. He was just in the
wrong place at the wrong time.”

And so it goes for half an hour or so. Small
talk about the neighborhood where the shoot-
ing occurred, the early news reports that had
two suspects in custody. False alarm, Córdova
says. He admits that the police know what
kind of car the murderers drove, though he
won't tell me the model. This implies there
are witnesses. And yes, he says, his investiga-
tion has narrowed to two suspects.

"I am a professional," the captain tells me
before I depart. "I put the same amount of
energy into any homicide investigation, no
matter the victim. That said, I do feel bad.
Héctor Camacho was beloved here on the
island. I am not unaware of that."

Now he gives his old partner Jiménez a
half smile and clamps a hand on my shoul-
der. My invitation to leave. "It's an open case
right now," Córdova says. "But yes, we're
going to get them."

As we walk back down the hill I tell Com-
missioner Jiménez that I sense there is
pressure—on the state police in general, Cap-
tain Córdova in particular—to wrap this up.

"If you spoke Spanish you would have
been able to read between the lines,"
Jiménez says. "That last thing he said? I
took it to mean that there is going to be an
arrest in this case soon."

In fact, two months later several members
of Macho's family phoned me. A teenager,
I was told, had been taken into custody in
Puerto Rico and charged with the shoot-
ing. The killings had been, as the captain
had predicted, over one of Moreno's drug
feuds. I felt then as I felt the day Commis-
sioner Jiménez and I walked down that hill
in Guaynabo. Macho. Wrong place at the
wrong time. Probably inevitable. Still pro-
saic. Jiménez and I had driven away from
Córdova's crime scene lost in our own
thoughts, until the commissioner broke the
silence. "Such a damn waste," he said.

The Bronx. St. Raymond's Cemetery. Cold,
gray, overcast. Sad. Thousands of mourners.
Old pugs, bent noses, cauliflower ears. Kids
hawking Macho T-shirts from the trunk of
a Chevy beater. Flowers, tons of flowers.
Macho's younger brother, Félix, organiz-
ing the procession. Keeping his stooped and
keening mother, María, upright. She won't
leave the grave. Has to be dragged away.

Couple of NYPD uniforms off to the side.
Crowd control. So young. One says, "So this
guy was a famous boxer, huh?"

I nod.

"Before my time. What was he, like,
known for?"

"It's Macho time," I say and turn to leave.

GETTING MY RADY TANYLD

(continued from page 107)
A damp unlit cigar hung from his lip. “I’m get-
ting my baby tanked," he said, satisfied, and
started to slurp his fifth Diet Coke. Putting it
down on the deck, he leaned over, drew his
hands across her belly to soak up some sun-
tan oil, rubbed his face, then leaned back into
his chair. He picked up The New York Times
and began reading, gumming his cigar. Greta
opened her novel at random and began to
read. "In human relations, kindnesses and
lies are worth a thousand truths." She sipped
her drink and started spacing out, watching
the gulls through her sunglasses. Carl had only
been out of rehab for a couple of months, and
Greta was still married. Well, separated. They
were both on holiday from themselves.

She remembered the day Carl had shown up
at her office, three months before—in Decem-
ber, not long after they'd met. It was the day
after her birthday, and he was late. She stood
in the lobby, wearing a new coat, a fur hat, a
new red handbag. He was taking her to the
Rangers game as her present. Greta felt exhil-
arated; here was a man who made plans. Box
seats. He was 25 minutes late, and still she
didn't lose heart; she felt condescendingly
magnanimous: Carl would come. And then
he was there, sheepish, determined and in
motion, streaming through the lobby, a cloud
in khaki, long loose legs bobbing forward like
the jointed limbs of a wooden dancing doll.
He grabbed her arm, linked elbows, whooshed
them through the revolving doors and glided
her to the curb on a soft carpet of excuses. "I
am disgruntled,” Greta said teasingly, think-
ing she should seem to be, at least a little, out
of self-respect. “Oh darling—be gruntled,” he
wheedled, not noticing she wasn't angry. He
liked to be in the wrong with girls and be for-
given, she guessed: to be the kind of guy for
whom exceptions were made.

At Madison Square Garden, the seats were
fantastic, 12 feet from the ice. Stewards bus-
tled about, bringing them everything Carl
wanted—burgers, fries, chicken, Cokes. “I
got you a present," he had said exultantly
as soon as they sat down, and before Greta
could react, he started fumbling through a
shopping bag he had brought and pulled out
a silver-wrapped box. “I got it at Barneys,”
he said. In his excitement, he began unwrap-
ping it as he gave it to her, but she grabbed
it from him in time so she could open it
first. She unfolded the protecting white tis-
sue paper. Inside was a soft, smooth pair of
chocolate-colored chamois-suede hand-sewn
gloves. She never shopped at Barneys; she
couldn't afford it. Carl beamed at her, trans-
ported to a rapturous plane by his thought-
fulness. Done with the present, he pointed to
the ice and began to explain to Greta about
hockey. And she saw that the players moved
on ice the way Carl moved on land: skating
through life with clumsy male grace, intent
disguised as carelessness.

That morning in South Beach, they had
both looked terrible. The hotel with the art
deco name had turned out to be hideous—

a Thousand Island dressing-colored hulk
looming over a cement courtyard through
which a neon-lit wading pool meandered,
wrapping around a bar that served keg beer
and cocktails in plastic cups. College boys
with nitrate-red tans and Big Mac bodies
clustered around the bar, braying and bel-
lowing, buying vodka tonics and cosmos for
women who laughed too loud and had coarse
mouths. When they'd arrived the previous
night, they'd both found the scene funny for
five minutes; then the irony petered out and
they wished they could go someplace else,
but it was spring break (which they hadn't
realized when they had booked the flight to
Miami the day before, on a whim) and there
was nowhere else to go.

Carl and Greta's room was on a high floor
overlooking Ocean Drive. Greta had looked
forward to throwing the curtains open the
first morning and unveiling the beachfront
below waiting like a tropical Disney welcome
mat: the fringe of emerald palms dividing the
black stripe of asphalt from the golden stripe
of the sand; the Aquafresh-blue water; the
lavender sky. But in the morning, the room's
sheetrock walls sucked up the white early light
like a drain, and the color that washed over
the room was gray and leaching. When they
woke up and saw each other they shuddered.

"Do I look as bad as you?" Greta asked.

"Worse," he said and, covering his eyes,
tried to give her a jokey kiss. Greta pushed
him away and ran to the bathroom to throw
water on her face, trying to splash away the
рай. “Let's get out of town," Carl said. And so
they drove to Fort Lauderdale.

It was a gorgeous day—hot, with the sun
sweating overhead. The white-painted rail-
ings of the gambling boat looked so nautical,
Greta thought. "Yar," Katharine Hepburn
would have called it—was that right? Fat va-
cationers in overly bright clothing lolled like
seals on white plastic rocks, eating. At the back
corner of the deck, a steward in a white uni-
form began speaking through a bullhorn.

"Skeet shooting starts at noon on B deck,"
he announced.

Carl and Greta turned around.

"That's in five minutes. Do you want to
shoot?" he asked, moving his cigar to the
left of his mouth, holding it in place with
his molars.

“Гуе never done it,” Greta said. “And I
don't want to kill anything." She thought skeet
were birds; someone would release them from
a bag or a box, they'd fly up in terror, they'd
be shot down.

"No, they're made of clay," Carl said. “Хо
blood."

He was amused, and she felt stupid. “ГП
show you how," he said. She followed him
to the steward, they were first in line, it cost
something, and Carl paid. He let her go first
and showed her how to hold the gun, cra-
dling her body in his, folding her shoulder
and gun into his long arm. She loved how
small he made her feel, like a child, his chin
grazing her head. She remembered how he
had skated backward at the Wollman Rink
in December, holding her by the waist so
she could travel backward with him. She had
never done that before.

The steward set up a practice shot so Greta
could feel the kick of the gun. Then she went

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to Ше railing, and the steward put a disk in
the slingshot arm and released it. An orange
blip shot into the sky. Three times he released
it, three times Greta shot. She hit the target
each time. Carl took the gun from her, dis-
pleased. Greta was embarrassed. She would
have missed on purpose if she hadn't assumed
she'd miss no matter what she did. It was
important for a woman to lose when losing
didn't matter. That's why she liked pool. Carl
shot three times and missed everything. They
went back to the chairs. Greta looked down at
the deck, not wanting to look Carl in the face,
in case he might read some expression in her
face that would annoy him, and he went to get
them more drinks. “Getting my baby tanked,”
he said, returning, and they sat and read, and
in a while, he ordered sandwiches.

There was something furtive about the two of
them. They were good at keeping silent. They
were also good at talking, but it was the silence
that drew them together. Knowing when the
other was not really there, knowing when
conversation wasn't necessary.

"You're so pretty," Carl had said the night
they met, at a dinner with friends. James
hadn't been there; he'd stayed home to work,
or to read, or because he knew Greta wouldn't
care if he didn't come.

"And you're kind of vicious, aren't you?"

“I'm married," Greta had retorted. Which
was technically, though not really, true.

"I'm crestfallen,” Carl said.

He had walked her home after the dinner,
talking about rehab and the grand vision he
had for Eastern Europe. When she told him
about a trip she was taking to Prague, he
started talking about the ambassador, and she
realized with confusion that he knew the am-
bassador personally. She was thinking about
this when Carl grabbed her and kissed her, in
front of her house, where her husband could
have seen, where all the neighbors were.

"I'm married," Greta said, pulling away
from him angrily, and he smiled at her,
turned and walked away. He didn't know that
her marriage was over, Greta thought sulkily.
It was disrespectful. It was true that the only
reason James hadn't moved out was that he
kept putting off finding a place to move to,
but Carl didn't know that. Maybe Carl will
do it, she thought; maybe Carl will make it
so James leaves. But she resented him all the
same, for assuming he could kiss her, for as-
suming she wouldn't stop him and for being
right about both things.

'The next day Carl had called her at work,
when she was on deadline. "Come out with
me tonight. I want you to meet my mother.
We're going to a fund-raiser for a senator
who's a friend." "I can't," Greta said, "T've got
to finish an article." ^Oh come on," Carl said.
"Don't be afraid. It's early. You can get home
to hubby by nine and finish your article later."
Greta hated being called a coward, hated the
word hubby and hated Carl for patronizing
her husband, even if James's rights to that
word had run out.

“Хо,” she said.

"I just want you to meet people; you'll
enjoy yourself," Carl continued. "Come. Or
don't come. It's totally aboveboard."

Туо hours later, at an imposing old hotel

on Park Avenue, Carl introduced Greta to his
mother, who looked searchingly at her, smil-
ing anxiously, as if to say, "Are you a woman
who could be a safe custodian of my son?"
Then she met the senator and the mayor, and
after that she ran into far too many people she
already knew, who also knew James. She told
them she was so sorry James couldn't come
that night; he was at the office but would join
her later. She felt frightened. Irreversible
things were happening.

Carl dragged Greta out of the reception
into an empty adjoining parlor, an echoing
room with high ceilings, oil paintings of cap-
tains of industry on the walls, Brunschwig
curtains at the tall windows, deep lush car-
pets on the parquet floors, massive marble
fireplaces. He steered her onto a leather sofa
and began to kiss her extravagantly. Greta
felt helpless, like a hare being coursed by a
sportsman who knew the forest better than
she did, who had all the marble, wood, leath-
erand guns of the establishment behind him.
She tried to believe her defenselessness exon-
erated her. The senator's wife came into the
room, and Carl jumped up, beaming, and
introduced Greta as his "date." Greta smiled
and shook hands, then excused herself. Once
out ofthe room, she crept toward the marble

The doorbell rang at
8:30, and there he was,
arriving like good times,
to be embraced, not ques-

tioned. Greta felt a rush of
childlike elation.

spiral staircase to the lobby, then hurried
down the stairs, stepping lightly so her heels
wouldn't click. Carl ran after her, easily catch-
ing her up with long, loping steps. "When
can I see you again?" he asked.

"Let go of me,” she said desperately and
ran out the door. He didn't follow. This hap-
pened several times, things like it. And then,
one Saturday morning, Greta and James were
at home, getting ready to throw a Christmas
party, when Carl called. ^I have to see you,"
he said. Greta's throat caught. James was in
the shower; what if he had answered? At the
same moment, she remembered that James
would be leaving the apartment right after
the party; he was seeing a play in midtown
with an old friend.

“All right,” she whispered. “We're having
people over this afternoon, but James has to
be somewhere at eight. Do you want to come
over? Г make dinner."

That afternoon, while making mulled wine
and quiche and cookies for the party, Greta
stealthily prepared a secret dinner while James
was out getting the tree. She hid the dishes
under the bed—the wedding china they'd
never used. She made a casserole and hid it
in the back of the oven, parboiled pork chops
and stowed them in a Dutch oven, tucked a

salad in the back of the fridge. Dessert would
have to be leftover Christmas cookies.

The party began at four. Soon after it
started, a heavy snowstorm descended on the
city. Perhaps because of the lulling seasonal
diorama—their piney tree glossed with orna-
ments and white lights, the cinnamony, savory
heat from the kitchen, the melting pastries,
the clovey, sweet wine, the blizzard through
the window—the guests settled snugly in for
hours, showing no signs of wishing to head
into the whirling snow. At seven P.M., with
frantic gaiety, Greta encouraged a snowball
fight on the street to kill the partys momen-
tum. It worked. When the last guests left at
7:30, taking James with them, Greta smiled,
kissed cheeks and good-byed, and once the
door shut behind them, she collapsed on the
bed and wept from tension and relief.

After a minute or two, she recovered
herself, patted her cheeks and rose to get
ready for Carl. She showered, she moistur-
ized. She put on velvet, silk, a soft long skirt,
high heels. Misted herself in perfume. Put
on a glittering crystal necklace. Removed the
china from under the bed, set the table, lit
candles and put Gershwin on the CD player.
"Funny Face" came on; it was his song, she
thought. Whenever she went running and
it popped up on the playlist, she thought
of Carl and smiled and ran faster: "Though
you're no Handsome Harry/For worlds I'd
not replace/Your sunny, funny face." The
doorbell rang at 8:30, and there he was, ar-
riving like good times, to be embraced, not
questioned. Greta felt a rush of childlike ela-
tion. Carl looked at her silently, let the door
slam shut behind him, picked her up and
carried her to the bedroom.

Greta hadn't known James long before he
became her husband; James was handsome
and kind, she was romantic and on the re-
bound; they married on impulse. After the
wedding, she found out she'd contracted
herself to a chaste game of house with a diffi-
dent stranger, perhaps for eternity. A couple
of years passed before she gathered the cour-
age to have the hard talk. It had happened
last summer, almost a year ago now. They
both had cried. James had agreed the mar-
riage hadn't worked, had agreed he would
leave. Only then, he didn't. Greta didn't
want to be unkind; she wanted to give James
time to detach and leave on his own terms,
rather than wrench him roughly away. But
now his lingering had become a kind of cru-
elty. She was worn out from worrying about
hurting him. Why didn't James go, since he
didn't want to kiss her?

Maybe she should have felt guilty, she
thought, as she admired Carl, so jubilant, so
sure, lying beside her on the bed. But she
didn't feel guilty. She didn't feel she was there
at all. It was as if they were a movie she and
Carl were watching, of someone else's life.
They ate dinner by candlelight in silk bath-
robes. The china was gorgeous. Greta drank
wine, Carl drank shirley temples—she'd got-
ten maraschino cherries for him. By 10:30 he
was out of the house, and by 11, when James
returned, there was no trace of the second
party. But Greta felt queasy from deceit. She
was unaccustomed to underhandedness. The

137

PLAYBOY

138

worst was that James hadn't suspected any-
thing. It shouldn't have been so easy, so con-
sequenceless. A week or two after the party,
she confronted James; at last he moved out.
She wondered if she would ever marry again.
She wished she could unmeet James, rewind
and walk down a different street, where she
might have met a different man, one who
could have kept her ideals of marriage intact,
her faith in male confidence unbowed. Her
marriage hadn't felt real. But she supposed
her divorce would.

The cruise had a couple of hours to go, and
Carl started to fidget after he finished the
Times. "We could get a cabin," he said. "What
for?" Greta said and knew she shouldn't
have. They looked at each other spitefully.
She was getting back at him for having said
she looked awful that morning, even though it
was true. But she wasn't really in a bad mood,
so she smiled and said, “Or...,” but Carl was
already saying, "Well then, let's gamble!" He
stood up. Greta pulled on a sundress from her
beach bag, and they descended into the dark,
air-conditioned interior of the boat, where
the metallic pinging of slot machines and
the tinny jingle of taped theme songs echoed
above flashing lights. Old women in polyester

“Yes, I did say “Fall her up.’ However, I was speaking about the car.’

pants and men in short-sleeve Cuban shirts
stood at the slot machines, cigarettes in one
hand, jumbo plastic cups in the other to catch
falling coins. They pulled the machine arms
with their smoking hands. Their faces were
expressionless. "Outstanding," Carl crowed.

With his baggy jacket, slouchy hat, khakis
and cigar, Carl looked like a young old man.
Rubbing his hands together theatrically, he
stuck his cigar between his teeth like FDR
and strode toward the roulette table. The
felt-covered table brightened in welcome as
he approached. The croupier at the wheel
nodded deferentially. Carl bought chips for
himself and separated out a couple hun-
dred worth for Greta. He began to place
bets scientifically, according to his theories:
a heap on odds, a heap on evens, a heap
on black, a heap on red. His piles began to
increase, to double, to triple. Greta watched
disapprovingly but with respect. She wasn't
a gambler; she left her chips untouched.
But Carl knew how to bet. Onlookers be-
gan to encircle the table, watching Carl
play. And then Greta had a presentiment.
She knew it was ridiculous, but she couldn't
keep herself from telling him.

“Ри it all on black 29," she said. Carl
looked at her impassively, completely un-
interested. "Put it all on black 29," she said

again, knowing it sounded silly but feeling
too sure to keep quiet. He ignored her and
kept on distributing the piles his way. The
croupier watched, the spectators stared.

“All right, then just put half of it on black
29,” she said. As the roulette wheel started
spinning, the croupier glanced at them both
questioningly. He dropped the silver ball into
the whirring wheel; it bounced and bounced,
and the numbers flew under it, around and
around. Greta looked at Carl, Carl looked at
Greta, the croupier looked at Carl, and finally,
as the whir slowed to a spin, the croupier said,
“All bets are off.” The ball skittered and leapt,
the wheel slowed and slowed, and finally the
ball came to a rest, in black 29.

“Holy hell, you're bad luck, that's it,”
Carl said. He cashed in what was left of his
chips, and they went back to the deck. Greta
wondered if the roulette wheel had been
rigged. The croupier was probably having a
little joke on her, playing God. Still, she felt
dizzy, knowing that if Carl had done what
she'd said, he might have broken the bank.
And even if he hadn't, the winnings would
have more than paid him back for the vaca-
tion. Everything would have been her treat,
then, many times over.

“Waiter,” Carl said once they'd climbed
back to the sunny deck and found new chairs.
“Another Bahama Mama for my girl. Pll have
a ginger ale.” “Margarita?” “Yeah,” Carl said.
The waiter nodded and went off. As the waiter
left, Greta noticed that she was in an excellent
mood, which probably meant Carl was too.
In the settling afternoon sunlight, he looked
splendid, at ease, manly, in himself. She avert-
ed her eyes. Once, Carl had caught her ad-
miring his body at his loft in Manhattan, and
he hadn't liked it. She had watched him in
the dark, lit only by the glow of a streetlamp
through the blinds, as he walked to his
dresser, where he kept an open box of con-
doms, scores of them, arranged in rows, like a
prophylactic card catalog. At the time, feeling
guilty about James, she'd found the profusion
reassuring, as if what she and Carl got up to
hardly counted, a rounding error.

Naked, Carl was surprisingly lithe and
muscular. He was broader shouldered and
more athletic than he looked in his floppy
clothes. In the black-and-white light of the
night, he looked like a statue to her, pure,
clean, alabaster lines, a David. Turning, Carl
had seen Greta eyeing him appraisingly
and frowned; he shrugged off her regard.
He was the one who was supposed to do the
staring. So now Greta knew not to look at
Carl, but she thought about the body under
his khakis and his ink-stained madras jacket,
and wished they'd taken the cabin after all,
but it was too late. She took off her sundress,
re-oiled and leaned back into her deck chair.
She was just reaching for her novel when
Carl looked over at her, cupped her bobbed
hair in his palm and said, “Hey. What are
you doing so far away?” And he dragged
her chair against his and pulled her half
into his arms. She leaned her head into his
soft collar. He took the dangling cigar out of
his mouth, looked into the sun, then leaned
down and gave her an upside-down kiss.

“Outstanding,” he said.

SINATRA

(continued from page 105)
good vocalist “feel” a song? Is there such a
difference
SINATRA: I don't know what other singers
feel when they articulate lyrics, but being
an 18-karat manic-depressive and having
lived a life of violent emotional contradic-
tions, Г have an over-acute capacity for
sadness as well as elation. 1 know what the
cat who wrote the song is trying to say. Гуе
been there—and back. I guess the audi-
ence feels it along with me. They can't help
it. Sentimentality, after all, is an emotion
common to all humanity.
PLAYBOY: Of the thousands of words that
have been written about you on this subject,
do you recall any which have accurately
described this ability?
SINATRA: Most of what has been written
about me is one big blur, but I do remem-
ber being described in one simple word
that I agree with. It was in a piece that tore
me apart for my personal behavior, but the
writer said that when the music began and
I started to sing, I was "honest." That says
it as I feel it. Whatever else has been said
about me personally is unimportant. When
I sing, I believe. I'm honest. If you want to
get an audience with you, there's only one
way. You have to reach out to them with to-
tal honesty and humility. This isn't a grand-
stand play on my part; Гуе discovered—
and you can see it in other entertainers—
when they don't reach out to the audience,
nothing happens. You can be the most
artistically perfect performer in the world,
but an audience is like a broad—if you're
indifferent, Endsville. That goes for any
kind of human contact: a politician on tele-
vision, an actor in the movies or a guy and a
gal. That's as true in life as it is in art.
PLAYBOY: АП right, let's start with the most
basic question there is: Are you a religious
man? Do you believe in God?
SINATRA: Well, that'll do for openers. I think
I can sum up my religious feelings in a cou-
ple of paragraphs. First: I believe in you and
me. I'm like Albert Schweitzer and Bertrand
Russell and Albert Einstein in that I have a
respect for life—in any form. I believe in na-
ture, in the birds, the sea, the sky, in every-
thing I can see or that there is real evidence
for. If these things are what you mean by
God, then I believe in God. But I don't be-
lieve in a personal God to whom I look for
comfort or for a natural on the next roll of
the dice. Pm not unmindful of man's seem-
ing need for faith; I'm for anything that gets
you through the night, be it prayer, tranquil-
izers or a bottle of Jack Daniel's. But to me
religion is a deeply personal thing in which
man and God go it alone together, without
the witch doctor in the middle. The witch
doctor tries to convince us that we have to
ask God for help, to spell out to him what we
need, even to bribe him with prayer or cash
on the line. Well, I believe that God knows
what each of us wants and needs. It's not nec-
essary for us to make it to church on Sunday
to reach him. You can find him anyplace.
PLAYBOY: You haven't found any answers
for yourself in organized religion?
SINATRA: There are things about organized

religion which I resent. Christ is revered
as the Prince of Peace, but more blood has
been shed in his name than any other fig-
ure in history. You show me one step for-
ward in the name of religion and ГП show
you a hundred retrogressions. Remember,
they were men of God who destroyed the
educational treasures at Alexandria, who
perpetrated the Inquisition in Spain, who
burned the witches at Salem.

PLAYBOY: Hasn't religious faith just as often
served as a civilizing influence?

SINATRA: Remember that leering, curs-
ing lynch mob in Little Rock reviling a
meek, innocent little 12-year-old Negro
girl as she tried to enroll in public school?
Weren’t they—or most of them—devout
churchgoers? I detest the two-faced who
pretend liberality but are practiced bigots
in their own mean little spheres.

PLAYBOY: But aren't such spiritual hypo-
crites in a minority? Aren't most Americans
fairly consistent in their conduct within the
precepts of religious doctrine?

SINATRA: I've got no quarrel with men of
decency at any level. But I can't believe
that decency stems only from religion. And
I can't help wondering how many public
figures make avowals of religious faith to
maintain an aura of respectability. Our civi-
lization, such as it is, was shaped by religion,
and the men who aspire to public office
anyplace in the free world must make obei-
sance to God or risk immediate opprobri-
um. Our press accurately reflects the reli-
gious nature of our society, but you'll notice
that it also carries the articles and advertise-
ments of astrology and hokey Elmer Gantry
revivalists. We in America pride ourselves
on freedom of the press, but every day I
see, and so do you, this kind of dishonesty
and distortion not only in this area but in
reporting—about guys like me, for instance,
which is of minor importance except to me;
but also in reporting world news. How can a
free people make decisions without facts? If
the press reports world news as they report
about me, we're in trouble.
PLAYBOY: Are you saying that
SINATRA: No, wait, let me finish. Have
you thought of the chance I'm taking by
speaking out this way? Can you imagine
the deluge of crank letters, curses, threats
and obscenities ГП receive after these re-
marks gain general circulation? Worse, the
boycott of my records, my films, maybe
a picket line at my opening at the Sands.
Why? Because I've dared to say that love
and decency are not necessarily concomi-
tants of religious fervor.

PLAYBOY: If you think you're stepping over
the line, offending your public or perhaps
risking economic suicide, shall we cut this
off now, erase the tape and start over along
more antiseptic lines?

SINATRA: No, let's let it run. I've thought
this way for years, ached to say these things.
Whom have I harmed by what I've said?
What moral defection have I suggested? No,
I don't want to chicken out now. Come on,
pal, the clock's running.

PLAYBOY: АП right, then, let's move on to
another delicate subject: disarmament.
How do you feel about the necessity and
possibility of achieving it?

SINATRA: Well, that's like apple pie and
mother—how can you be against it? After
all, despite the universal and unanimous
assumption that both powers—Russia and
the United States—already have stockpiled
more nuclear weaponry than is necessary
to vaporize the entire planet, each power
continues to build, improve and enlarge
its terrifying arsenal. For the first time in
history, man has developed the means with
which to expunge all life in one shudder-
ing instant. And, brother, no one gets a
pass, no one hides from this one. But the
question is not so much whether disarma-
ment is desirable or even whether it can be
achieved but whether—if we were able to
achieve it—we would be better off or per-
haps infinitely worse off.

PLAYBOY: Are you suggesting that disarma-
ment might be detrimental to peace?
SINATRA: Yes, in a certain very delicate sense.
Look, I'm a realist, or at least I fancy myself
one. Just as I believe that religion doesn't
always work, so do I feel that disarmament
may be completely beyond man's capacity to
live with. Let's forget for a moment the com-
plex problems we might face in converting
from a cold war to a peace economy. Let's
examine disarmament in terms of man's
political, social and philosophical condition-
ing. Let's say that somehow the UN is able
to achieve a disarmament program accept-
able to all nations. Let's imagine, a few years
from now, total global disarmament. But
imagine as well the gnawing doubts, sus-
picions and nerve-racking tensions which
must, inevitably, begin to fill the void: the
fear that the other side—or perhaps some
third power—is secretly arming or still
holding a few bombs with which to surprise
and overcome the other. But I firmly be-
lieve that nuclear war is absolutely impossi-
ble. I don't think anyone in the world wants
a nuclear war—not even the Russians. They
and we and the "nth" countries—as nuclear
strategists refer to future nuclear powers—
face the incontrovertible certainty of lethal
retaliation for any nuclear strike. I can't be-
lieve for a moment that the idiot exists in
any nation that will push the first button—
not even accidentally.

PLAYBOY: You foresee no possibility of
world war or of effective disarmament?
SINATRA: I'm not an industrialist or an econ-
omist; I know I'm way out of my depth when
I attempt even to comprehend the complex-
ity of shifting the production of a country
from war to peace. But if somehow all those
involved in production of implements of
destruction were willing to accept reason as
well as reasonable profit, I think that a shift
in psychology might be possible. And if this
were to happen, I believe that the deep-
seated terror in the hearts of most people
due to the constant threat of total destruc-
tion would disappear. The result would be
a more positive, less greedy, less selfish and
more loving approach to survival. I can tell
you this much from personal experience and
observation: Hate solves no problems. It only
creates them. But listen, you've been asking
me alot of questions, so let me ask you a ques-
tion I posed to Mike Romanoff [famed Bev-
erly Hills restaurateur who falsely claimed
to be a Russian prince] the other night. You

139

PLAYBOY

140

know, Mike is quite a serious thinker; when
we spend an evening together, we play an
intellectual chess game touching on all top-
ics, including those we are discussing here.
Anyway, I asked Mike what would happen
if a summit meeting of all the leaders in ev-
ery country in the world was called, includ-
ing Red China, at the UN. Further suppose
that each leader brings with him his top
aides: Kennedy brings [Secretary of State
Dean] Rusk, Khrushchev brings [Minister
of Foreign Affairs Andrei] Gromyko, Мао
brings [Vice Chairman] Zhou Enlai. All these
cats are together in one room, then—boom!
Somebody blows up the mother building. No
more leaders. No more deputies. The ques-
tion I asked Mike, and the one I ask you, is:
What would happen to the world?

PLAYBOY: You tell us.

SINATRA: I told Mike I thought it might be
the only chance the world has for survival.
But Mike just shook his head and said,
“Frank, you’re very sick.” Maybe so. Until
someone lights the fuse, however, I think
that continuation of Cold War prepared-
ness might be more effective to maintain
the peace than the dewy-eyed notion of
total disarmament. I also wonder if “total”
disarmament includes chemical and bacte-
riological weapons—which, as you know,
can be just as lethal as nuclear weapons.
Card players have a saying: “It's all right to
play if you keep your eyes on the deck”—
which is another way of saying “Eternal
vigilance is the price of liberty.”

PLAYBOY: Do you feel, then, that nuclear
testing should be continued?

SINATRA: Absolutely not. I think it’s got to
stop, and I think it will stop—because it has
to stop. The name-calling in the UN and
the finger-pointing at peace conferences
is just a lot of diplomatic bull. Both sides
have to live on this planet, and leaders in

all countries know that their children and
grandchildren have to live here too. I sus-
pect that when the limits of strontium 90
in the atmosphere get really dangerous,
scientists in both camps will persuade the
politicians to call a final halt to testing—
probably at precisely the same time, with
no urging from the other side.

PLAYBOY: You spoke a moment ago of the
fear and suspicion that might nullify any
plan for lasting and effective disarmament.
Isn't continuing nuclear preparedness—
with or without further testing—likely to
engender these emotions on an even more
dangerous scale?

SINATRA: Fear is the enemy of logic. There
is no more debilitating, crushing, self-
defeating, sickening thing in the world—to
an individual or to a nation. If we continue
to fear the Russians, and if they continue
to fear us, then we're both in big trouble.
Neither side will be able to make logical,
reasoned decisions. Г think, however, that
their fear and concern over the ideologi-
cal balance of power in some areas is far
from irrational. Our concern over a sovi-
etized Cuba 90 miles from Key West, for
instance, must be equated with Russian
concern over our missile bases surround-
ing them. It is proper that we should be
deeply concerned, but we must be able to
see their side of the coin—and not let this
concern turn into fear on either side.
PLAYBOY: On a practical level, how would
you combat Communist expansion into
areas such as Cuba, Laos and the emerging
African nations?

SINATRA: It strikes me as being so ridiculously
simple: Stop worrying about communism;
just get rid of the conditions that nurture
it. Sidestepping Marxian philosophy and
dialectical vagaries, I think that communism
can fester only wherever and whenever it is

“T just think we should start seeing other soul mates.”

encouraged to breed—not just by the Com-
munists themselves, but by depressed social
and economic conditions, and we can always
count on the Communists to exploit those
conditions. Poverty is probably the great-
est asset the Communists have. Wherever
it exists, anyplace in the world, you have a
potential Communist breeding ground. It
figures that if a man is frustrated in а mate-
rial sense, his family hungry, he suffers, he
broods and he becomes susceptible to the
blandishments of any ideology that prom-
ises to take him off the hook.

PLAYBOY: Do you share with the American
right wing an equal concern about the sus-
ceptibility of our own country to Commu-
nist designs?

SINATRA: Well, if you're talking about that
poor, beaten, dehumanized, discriminated-
against guy in some blighted Tobacco Road
down in the South, he's certainly in the
market for offers of self-improvement. But
you can't make me believe that a machinist
in Detroit, ending a 40-hour week, climbing
into his 1963 Chevy, driving to a steak bar-
becue behind his $25,000 home in a tree-
lined subdivision, about to begin a weekend
with his well-fed, well-clothed family, is go-
ing to trade what he's got for a party card.
In America—except for tiny pockets of pri-
vation which still persist—Khrushchev has
as much chance of succeeding as he has of
making 100 straight passes at the crap table.
PLAYBOY: In combating Communist expan-
sion into underdeveloped areas here and
abroad, what can we do except to offer
massive material aid and guidance of the
kind we've been providing since the end of
World War II?

SINATRA: I don't know. I'm no economist.
I don't pretend to have much background
in political science. But this much I know:
Attending rallies sponsored by 110 percent
anti-Communist cultists or donning white
sheets and riding with the Klan—the one
that's spelled with a K—isn't the answer. АП
I know is that a nation with our standard of
living, with our Social Security system, TVA,
farm parity health plans and unemploy-
ment insurance can afford to address itself
to the cancers of starvation, substandard
housing, educational voids and second-class
citizenship that still exist in many backslid-
ing areas of our own country. When we've
cleaned up these blemishes, then we can go
out with a clean conscience to see where else
in the world we can help. Hunger is inex-
cusable in a world where grain rots in silos
and butter turns rancid while being held for
favorable commodity indices.

PLAYBOY: Is American support of the UN
one of the ways in which we can uplift
global economic conditions?

SINATRA: It seems to me that a lot of us
consider the UN a private club—ours, of
course—with gentlemen's agreements just
like any other exclusive club. Only instead of
excluding a person, a race or a religion, the
members of the UN have the power to ex-
clude entire nations. I don't happen to think
you can kick 800 million Chinese under the
rug and simply pretend that they don't exist.
Because they do. If the UN is to be truly rep-
resentative, then it must accept all the nations
of the world. If it doesn't represent the united

nations of the world, then what the hell have
you got? Not democracy—and certainly not
world government. Everybody seems to have
forgotten that President Kennedy, before he
became president, in his book Strategy of Peace,
plainly advocated recognition of Red China.
So I'm not too far out on the limb, am I?
PLAYBOY: With or without mainland China
in the UN, what do you feel are the pros-
pects for an eventual American rapproche-
ment with Russia?

SINATRA: I’m a singer, not a prophet ог
a diplomat. Ask the experts or read the
Rockefeller brothers’ reports. But speak-
ing just as a layman, an ordinary guy who
thinks and worries, I think that if we can
stay out of war for the next 10 years, we'll
never have another war. From all I've read
and seen recently, I'm betting that within
the next decade the Russians will be on the
credit-card kick just as we are. They're going
to want color TV, their wives are going to
want electrified kitchens, their kids are go-
ing to want hot rods. Even Russian girls are
getting hip; Гуе seen photos of them at Rus-
sian beach resorts, and it looks just like the
Riviera. They're thinning down, and I see
they're going the bikini route. When GUM
department store in Moscow starts selling
bikinis, we've got a fighting chance, because
that means the girls are interested in being

girls and the boys are going to stop thinking
about communes and begin thinking connu-
bially. Гуе always had a theory that whenev-
er guys and gals start swinging, they begin to
lose interest in conquering the world. They
just want a comfortable pad and stereo and
wheels, and their thoughts turn to the good
things of life—not to war. They loosen up,
they live and they're more apt to let live. Dig?
PLAYBOY: We dig.

SINATRA: You know, I'd love to visit Russia
and, sometime later, China too. I figure the
more I know about them and the more they
know about me, the better chance we have
of living in the same world in peace. I don't
intend to go there with a mission, to sell the
American way of life; I'm not equipped to
get into that kind of discussion about gov-
ernment. But I'd love to go and show them
American music. Га take Count Basie and
Ella Fitzgerald with me and we'd do what
we do best. We'd wail up a storm with real
American jazz so that their kids could see
what kind of music our kids go for, because
I'm sure that kids are the same all over the
world. I'm betting that they'd dig us. And
that's got to create some kind of goodwill, and
man, a little goodwill is something we could
use right now. All it takes is goodwill and a
smile to breach that language barrier. When
the Moiseyev dancers were in Los Angeles,

Eddie and Liz Fisher gave a party for them,
and although I couldn't speak a word of
Russian, I got along fine. I just said, "Hello,
baby" to the dancers and they shouted, "Allo,
babee" back at me. We had a ball.

PLAYBOY: Frank, you've expressed some
negative views on human nature in the
course of this conversation. Yet one gets
the impression that—despite the bigotry,
hypocrisy, stupidity, cruelty and fear
you've talked about—you feel there are still
some grounds for hope about the destiny
of Homo sapiens. Is that right?

SINATRA: Absolutely. I’m never cynical,
never without optimism about the future.
The history of mankind proves that at some
point the people have their innings, and I
think we're about to come up to bat now. I
think we can make it if we live and let live.
And love one another—I mean really love.
If you don't know the guy on the other side
of the world, love him anyway because he's
just like you. He has the same dreams, the
same hopes and fears. It's one world, pal.
We're all neighbors. But didn't somebody
once go up onto a mountain long ago and
say the same thing to the world?

Excerpted from the February 1963 issue.

uck

Rey, Dear, MY FRIEWD WAS 2
Раа GRAPHING Your LoVELINESS
FROM OUR APARTMENT WHEN KE

FELL OUT TRE WIRdoW-

We DoT СМЕ AROUND Hers Me Duck.

a (Е x (oc HER

Yord KC

PARAS TER
SHE Wen Фут
WAVE BELIEVED

141

PLAYBOY

142

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BONE TRIEUES

(continued from page 72)
in the Gobi Desert have known of the trea-
sure buried in their midst, embodying the
hope of a better life. A single discovery of
the right sort of dinosaur bones can turn a
man's fortunes forever.

The presence of this prehistoric materi-
al came to light in the 1920s, thanks to an
American scientist named Roy Chapman
Andrews. Some claim Andrews was the
inspiration for Indiana Jones. A dashing
adventurer and an early director of the
American Museum of Natural History,
Andrews was instrumental in the devel-
opment of paleontology. When he first
ventured to Mongolia, Central Asia was
nearly as difficult to reach as the North
Pole. In 1922 he came upon a large U-
shaped cliff formation in the Gobi Desert.
This area would become one of paleontol-
ogy's most significant sites.

"Everyone was enthusiastic over the
beauty of the great flat-topped mesa on the
border of the badlands basin," Andrews
later wrote. "The spot was almost paved
with bones and all represented animals
which were unknown to any of us.... The
great basin with its beautiful sculptured
ramparts would prove the most impor-
tant locality in the world from a paleonto-
logical standpoint. We named the spot the
Flaming Cliffs."

During five expeditions to the Gobi
Desert, Andrews and his team discovered
several new species of dinosaur, including
protoceratops, oviraptor and velociraptor.
At the Flaming Cliffs he became the first to
discover a dinosaur egg.

Communism enveloped Mongolia in
1924, shutting off the Gobi to outsiders. It
wasn't until the early 1990s, after the coun-
try shifted to democracy, that Western
paleontologists returned. Drawn by the
Gobi's rich bed of dinosaur fossils, these
scientists hired locals as drivers, porters,
diggers and spotters.

While the scientists encountered one
fossil and then another, their Mongolian
helpers watched, learning several valu-
able lessons: how to locate and recognize
dinosaur fossils, how to extract them from
the ground and, most important, how to
craft friendships with foreigners. Outsiders
with deep pockets, not scientists but poach-
ers, were hanging around the edges. The
international trade in Mongolian fossils,
a black market, became one of paleontol-
ogy’s open secrets.

I had come thousands of miles to ex-
plore this black market myself.

"Come downstairs," Chinzo said over the
phone. It was past midnight. I left the
apartment and walked outside. The only
movement was the exhaust that billowed
out of the Toyota SUV parked at the end
of the lane. Behind the right-hand steer-
ing wheel an old man swung his head
around to assess me as I slid into the
backseat. He grimaced. The deep inlays
of his face folded in on one another like
a bellows.

This was the man we had phoned ear-
lier. His poker game was over.

Chinzo sat next to me as the car passed
silently through Ulaanbaatar’s sleeping
hours. We drove along potholed roads,
the smoke of coal fires curling beneath
the streetlamps that guided us to the edge
of town.

Already the day had been eventful. We
met with one man behind a row of shops
on Peace Avenue. Sitting in the back of
Chinzo's Land Cruiser, he pulled a tam-
pon box out of his jacket. Reaching in, he
produced an oblong object about eight
inches long, reddish brown, lined and
pebbled. He handed it to me. It was the
egg of a theropod, a grouping of carnivo-
rous dinosaurs. The egg weighed close to
10 pounds. I rolled it over in my palms. I
knew from my research that it was at least
65 million years old, and here it was, still
intact. "We're looking for something big-
ger," Chinzo told the man.

Now we were in the Toyota, on the hunt
for something bigger indeed. The driver
approached a metal gate and honked the
horn. A man with an alcohol-blurred face
appeared through a door in the gate, his
eyes squinting into our headlights. We
passed through the opened gate and drove
into a yard of industrial castoffs: a Kamaz
truck on blocks, snow-dusted piles of metal
scrap, a factory's rusted furnace.

We got out of the car. The air was bit-
terly cold, to the point of distraction. The
old man led us to a shipping container in
a corner of the enclosure. He gripped a
flashlight between his teeth, fumbling with
the lock. Our footsteps echoed through the
container's metal interior, which was filled
with boxes labeled in hanzi and Cyrillic.

Quickly the old man snatched a crow-
bar. I realized the drunken man who had
opened the gate now stood between us and
the exit of the shipping container. The old
man brandished the crowbar. I looked at
Chinzo, but he betrayed nothing.

The old man turned away from us. He
placed the crowbar's pronged end into
the lid of a crate. The box measured five
feet long, three feet tall and two feet wide.
He leveraged the crowbar, popping the
lid off the crate.

In the flicker of his flashlight I saw that
the crate was filled with sand. The old
man began scraping away at the sand,
spilling it onto the floor. Little by little a
shape began to reveal itself. There was
something there.

The old man gripped the object with two
hands, straining with the effort required to
raise it from the box. As the object caught
the illumination from the flashlight, I saw
what it was—a dinosaur skull.

The mandible was missing, as were the
teeth, but the eye sockets and nasal cavities
were evident. The skull was four feet long
and two feet wide. The old man struggled
to hold it. He propped the skull on a buck-
et. As he did so, he chipped off a slice of
bone, which clattered to the floor.

I looked over the specimen. I took a
few measurements. “Twenty-five million
tugriks,” the old man said, which was
about $18,000. I balked. The old man's

voice echoed in the shipping container.
So we wanted something bigger? He said
he had a contact in the Gobi for us, near
the Flaming Cliffs.

Eric Prokopi is the reason the dinosaur-
fossil black market in Mongolia had gone
underground. A world away from Ulaan-
baatar and the Gobi, two days after Christ-
mas in 2012, Prokopi entered Magistrate
Court 5A in the U.S. District Courthouse on
Pearl Street in lower Manhattan. I watched
him walk in that day. He had the deep tan
of someone who lives in a tropical climate.
He wore a black suit with a white shirt but
no tie, as though the court didn’t deserve
his spending any extra time in front ofthe
mirror. It had in-
convenienced him
enough already. On
October 17 police
had arrested Pro-
kopi at his home in
Gainesville, Florida.
He now faced 17
years in prison.
Prokopi described
himselfas a “commer-
cial paleontologist.”
He was not a scientist,
and he had complet-
ed no formal training
in the excavation and
study of dinosaurs.
Yet like others in
what is occasionally
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70 million years ago, at the end of the
Cretaceous period. Scientists consider the
tarbosaurus the Asian cousin of Tyrannosau-
rus rex, nearly identical but for slight varia-
tions. Prokopi had connected with Heri-
tage through David Herskowitz, a contact
from the Tucson shows who was head of
the auction house's natural history division.

The Gobi Desert is the only place Tjran-
nosaurus bataar has ever been found. Head
to tail, an adult measured up to 40 feet. It
had as many as 64 teeth, some more than
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community. Mark Norell, chairman of
paleontology at the American Museum
of Natural History, crafted an open letter
denouncing the auction and e-mailed it
to a lengthy list of influential contacts in
science and the media.

In Ulaanbaatar, political leaders were
taking steps of even greater import. An
engaging academic with a Stanford de-
gree, Oyungerel Tsedevdamba served as
an advisor to the Mongolian president,
Tsakhiagiin Elbegdorj. When she learned
of the proposed auction, Tsedevdamba
phoned Elbegdorj. “Why are you call-
ing me about dinosaurs?” the president
asked. Tsedevdamba said it was a matter
of Mongolian sovereignty. “Fossils are
protected in the Mongolian constitution,”
she argued. “It’s
a piece of land, a
piece of our territo-
ry. It belongs to us.”

Parliamentary
elections were be-
ing held in 2012
in Mongolia, and
Prokopi’s dinosaur
could spark a debate
on national identity,
with Elbegdorj and
his party at its cen-
ter. Elbegdorj be-
lieved the time was
right to take a sym-
bolic, international
stand.

The tarbosaurus
sold at auction on

bone trade, Prokopi
traveled across the
country and around
the world, scout-
ing for fossils that
he could ship to his
Florida home. There
he would clean them,
mount them on metal

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frames of his own
construction and sell
them on the growing
fossil market, where
the most attractive
specimens could fetch
millions of dollars.

That market 15
most vivid in Tuc-
son, Arizona, 70
miles from the Mexican border, at the Tuc-
son Gem and Mineral Show. The exhibition
has been held every year since 1954. It as-
sembles a comprehensive collection of dia-
monds, rocks and fossils, along with every
manner of prospector, scavenger, scientist,
smuggler and bone hunter ever to реек
under a rock. Prokopi was a regular at the
Tucson show. There he became acquainted
with Mongolian fossils, mingling with those
international bone hunters who openly dis-
played their Gobi prizes for scientists, deal-
ers and the scouts who worked for auction
houses. Soon Prokopi began to appear in
Tucson with Mongolian bones of his own.

Early last year Prokopi consigned a
largely intact Tyrannosaurus bataar skeleton
to Heritage Auctions, a Dallas company that

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measured eight feet tall, yet it was big
enough to cause a stir. Any paleontologist
could have told Heritage where Prokopi's
bones had come from; the company's idle
research into provenance revealed the cor-
ner cutting that has dogged the auction
business for years.

"Prokopi had been a dealer for more
than a decade, and he had a good repu-
tation,” Greg Rohan, Heritage Auction's
president, told me. *He warranted in writ-
ing that he had clear title. He lied to us co-
lossally, and now he's paying for it."

Prokopi's tarbosaurus was set for auc-
tion in May 2012. Paleontologists have
discovered only about 20 intact speci-
mens of tarbosaurus, so its appearance
in such a public sale woke the scientific

Security impounded
the skeleton, while
American and Mon-
golian investigators
began unraveling the
path the tarbosaurus
had taken from the
Gobi to Gainesville.

Mongolian border-
control documents
confirmed that Prokopi had traveled to
Mongolia in 2008, 2009 and 2011. The
case's lead investigator in Mongolia,
Narankhuu T., told me Prokopi's local
partners had broken down the dinosaur
into several boxes and trucked it to Ulaan-
baatar, labeling the contents as minerals
or salt. From there they likely shipped the
boxes on commercial flights to Japan. A
source in the U.S. Attorney's Office told
me Prokopi had partnered with British
and Japanese dealers. They sent the tar-
bosaurus from Japan to England and then
to the U.S., obfuscating its origin in a web
of falsified shipping documents that took
months to untangle.

Prokopi spent almost two years at his

Gainesville home, cleaning and assembling 143

PLAYBOY

144

the tarbosaurus bones into a standing
skeleton. Five months after the Heritage
auction, federal agents arrived at his home.

They arrested Prokopi on charges of
conspiring to illegally import fossils, mak-
ing false statements to customs officials and
transporting illegal goods. At the time of
his arrest, the U.S. Attorney’s Office char-
acterized Prokopi as a “one-man black
market in prehistoric fossils." Typically,
the government had either misunderstood
the subject matter or overstated its case.
The truth was the market in illegal Mon-
golian fossils involved scores of individuals
like Prokopi, enabled by online sales out-
lets, lax enforcement and the biggest auc-
tion houses in the world.

But it was Prokopi alone who was in
jeopardy as the doors to Magistrate Court
5A opened. Lumbering toward the defen-

I, 7
ЖАШ ПШ ШЇ

dant’s table, he looked like he could use a
drink. He looked like a fall guy.

I jumped on a quick flight from Ulaan-
baatar to Dalanzadgad, the biggest settle-
ment in the Gobi Desert. About 20,000
people live here, caked in the dust of mine
shafts and sandstorms.

Hanging around the café at the Khan
Uul Hotel, I eyed three men at the next ta-
ble. Their boots were covered in grit, their
table strewn with empty beer bottles. It was
possible they had spent the day digging
for bones, and Г listened in on their con-
versation. Two were Australians, the other
from England. The Englishman spoke up.
“There are three things that are important
in my life,” he said. He was drunk. His
accent was heavy. “English foo-bawl. The

“Mother!”

law-a-ry. And smow-kin.” Too loud to be
poachers, I thought. They must be miners.

My phone rang. It was Chinzo. I laid a
few tugriks on the table. On the way to the
door, I heard one of the Aussies say, “What
about masturbating?”

Outside, the town of Dalanzadgad stank
of exhaust. A thousand pipes, residen-
tial and commercial, reached into the sky,
coughing clouds of black coal powder. Des-
ert threatened on all sides of the settlement.
Motorcycles were scattered around town,
goatskin pulled over the handlebars to pro-
tect hands during winter riding. Hundreds
of trucks carried thousands of tons of coal
from here to China every day. Police sources
had told me that dinosaur bones were some-
times buried among the mass of black min-
eral. But where did the bones come from?
And who could take us to find them?

Chinzo had arranged a ride out of the
settlement and into the desert. The car was
a UAZ 2206, a Russian approximation of
the VW Microbus. The driver, Bold, was a
chubby local guy in his 20s. An old woman
joined us for the ride, along with a young
married couple, the wife clutching a baby.
Bold had difficulty starting the engine, but
eventually we got moving. Through the
back window, Dalanzadgad disappeared in
the dust cloud kicked up by our tires.

Bold told us he had grown up in the Gobi,
in a family of nomadic herders. “I see these
guys looking for bones all the time,” he said.
“There are local guys like me. But we don’t
know how to get a really big dinosaur out of
the ground.” He mentioned a local family.
He said this family would phone people in
Ulaanbaatar, former paleontologists or mu-
seum workers, people who possessed the ex-
pertise that would enable them to excavate a
substantial fossil. “This family is very danger-
ous,” Bold said. "They're organized crime.
They have their hands in everything.”

There were no roads across the Gobi.
There was nothing around us, only the open
space of desert in winter. We passed between
two cow skulls on the sand, the heads mark-
ing the way. The young mother unleashed
her right breast and her baby began sucking
from it. We drove for three hours.

At last we reached а ге; a traditional
Mongolian tent, circular and made of felt.
We entered through a small door. The
family that lived here would put us up for
the night. We sat down on the floor, near
the camel-racing trophies on the dresser.
It was getting late, time for bed. In the
flickering candlelight the man of the house
brought out a bedroll. He unrolled the fab-
ric. Inside were several thick, heavy dino-
saur fossils, the bones of a tall vertebrate.

We were looking for something bigger,
Chinzo told the man. “A carnivore.” The man
shook his head. He couldn't help us. I lay
down beneath a camel blanket and blew out
the candle, hoping for better luck tomorrow.

In the southeastern turret of the Ameri-
can Museum of Natural History, on New
York's Upper West Side, Mark Norell be-
gan his workday. The chairman of paleon-
tology at the museum and one of the most
important figures in the field, Norell was

instrumental in reopening Mongolia for
study in 1990. In the Gobi he found the
first theropod embryo and has contributed
to the discovery of feathered dinosaurs.
Norell gives the impression that he is con-
stantly on the move, whether to lecture
in Shanghai or to drain a pint at the dive
around the corner. Dignified and lettered,
he resides at the far end of the dinosaur-
hunter scale from Eric Prokopi, and he re-
gards the Gobi as a special dominion.

“We used to find skulls sticking out of
the ground there,” he told me in his office,
not long before I departed for the Gobi.
“Not anymore. Nearly every fragment has
been picked up off the ground. It's been
hammered by looters the past six, seven
years. I’ve seen holes crudely dug into
mountains. I’ve seen sites that have been
dynamited. We’ve found detonators and
wires on the ground.”

Skeptical, I asked Norell why any of this
mattered—why paleontologists should
have exclusive rights to bones that belong
to Earth’s prehistory. This kind of poach-
ing didn’t harm anyone. It didn’t even
harm the animals; they were long dead.
What did we lose when a poacher ripped a
fossil from the ground?

Norell catalogued the many pieces of
data that a paleontologist collects at a site,
including soil samples, geological info,
geochemical analyses, pollen data. “These
rogues destroy the site and its context,” he
said. “They’re not interested in scientific
value. They’re interested only in aesthetic
value.” Lost is information about the evo-
lutionary tract of a fossil, an understanding
of pathology and disease, a snapshot of the
Ше of an animal. You are left with a curios-
ity, a wall hanging, an amulet.

Norell had been instrumental in bring-
ing Prokopi's activities to light. I was sur-
prised, then, when he pulled out several
drawers in his office and told me the origin
of the fossils lying there. “These are Mon-
golian,” he said. “Some of them have been
here since Roy Chapman Andrews.”

The line between paleontology and
poaching is visible only to the expert. To
the rest of us it all looks like the same bunch
of bones. According to Norell, poaching is
so widely accepted and policing so lax that
even serious collectors are often unaware
of what they're buying. “A guy came in and
wanted to donate his collection,” he said.
“He had spent hundreds of thousands on
it. I looked at it and told him, ‘It’s illegal.
I can't even have it on the premises. He
said, ‘But I bought it at Tucson.” "

Norell walked me down the back hall-
ways of the museum, a musty warren of
interlocking corridors. We passed into his
lab, the inner workings of the world's larg-
est collection of dinosaur fossils. Several as-
sistants hovered over a delicate collection
of fossils encased in plaster. It looked like
a jumble of bones extracted from a clothes
drier. “This was an entire group taken out
by a collapsing sand dune,” Norell said.
“Гуе seen fossils from this find in Tucson.”

He led me through a doorway and into
the public section of the museum. We
walked behind a man leading two small chil-
dren into the Hall of Saurischian Dinosaurs.

The kids stopped and gaped, as did I, at the
Tyrannosaurus rex in the middle of the room,
a massive beast. Norell pointed out a nest of
oviraptor eggs in a nearby display case. It is
one of the first dinosaur nests ever discov-
ered, found by Andrews in the Gobi in 1923.

"Many of these are Mongolian," Norell
said, gesturing around the room at vari-
ous specimens. "Roy Chapman Andrews
collected these back in the 1920s. They
formed the basis of the museum's collec-
tion." I thought of the Flaming Cliffs and
what the deposit must have looked like be-
fore poachers picked it clean.

It was daylight when Bold picked us up at
the ger. A friend of his, Jamyan, was sitting
in the car. Fifteen minutes into our drive,
the car's engine stalled. We rolled to a stop.
Bold said we were close enough to walk the
rest of the way.

We walked for a while across the Gobi's
red-brown sands, Bold and Jamyan lead-
ing the way. It was a clear, sunny, cold day.
We stopped in front of a pile of stones.
Jamyan carefully moved each rock. I no-
ticed a white object protruding from the
surface. It was a skull, cracked and some-
what crumpled. The body, if there was
one, lay buried beneath the surface.

Bold knelt by the skull. He picked up
what looked like a bone fragment and
placed it on his tongue. Jamyan explained
that this was a test. If the bone stuck to your
tongue, that meant it was a dinosaur fossil.
If the bone did not stick to your tongue,
that meant it was the bone of an animal
that still roamed the land. The fragment
stuck to Bold's tongue.

Using small twigs, the two men began to
dig around the skull, blowing away the sand
as they progressed. “I heard you can sell one
for 20 million tugriks," Bold said. That was
about $14,000. "I want to buy a car." The
two worked at the skull, removing dirt with
the twigs and their fingernails. Dust flew
into my eye, and I stepped aside to blink it
away. When my vision cleared, I noticed we
were enclosed in a U-shaped collection of
cliffs. We stood in the undulating valley be-
low them. I had been so engrossed with the
fossil in the ground I hadn't realized where
we were. It dawned on me only then that
we were standing at the Flaming Cliffs.

Ilooked back at the fossil. It was evident
that Bold and Jamyan didn't possess the
tools or the knowledge to remove it from
the earth. Without assistance they would
end up only destroying the fossil. Bold
knew it too. Frustrated, he gave up. He
rolled over onto his back.

He yelled up at the sky, "I want a new car!"

I took in my surroundings, where An-
drews had been, where Norell had been and
where Prokopi had also been. I realized my
focus had been narrow. Now I could see the
Flaming Cliffs, what they must have been
for Andrews and for Tyrannosaurus bataar.
I realized then that my search was over. It
had led me to this place, where it was the
time of dinosaurs in the time of man, the
Flaming Cliffs witness to it all.

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145

PLAYBOY

THE BADASS

(continued from page 77)

this encouragement, and they roar hap-
pily as Church and his five-piece band play
“Drink in My Hand,” a raucous celebration
of alcohol's relaxing properties.

Church’s third album, Chief, was his
breakthrough. It included two songs that
hit number one on the country charts
(“Drink in My Hand” and “Springsteen”),
sold more than a million copies and was
named 2012’s best album by the Country
Music Association, an award voted on by
the same Nashville industry that not long
ago thought he was an asshole. Church,
now 36, deserved the award: Chief wasn't
just the best country album of the year; it
was the best rock album too.

How is that possible? Since the 1980s
country has been, well, “expanded” if you
like the change—"ruined" if you don’t—
by influences outside its own traditions.
Garth Brooks, who has sold more albums
than anyone else in the past 20 years,
was an avowed fan of James Taylor, Dan
Fogelberg and Billy Joel, not to men-
tion Kiss, Boston and Styx. A decade ear-
lier, Waylon Jennings sang “Are You Sure
Hank Done It This Way,” in which he won-
ders why country should stay unchanged.
That battle has long been lost.

Country has evolved because the South
has evolved. The family henhouse has been
supplanted by Walmart, whose ubiquitous
stores add to the homogenization of the re-
gion. Family-owned general stores have been
replaced by Cracker Barrel, which has fake-
rural and faux-retro restaurants at highway
exits in 42 states, grossing $2.6 billion last year
by simulating a rustic down-home experience.

Similarly, the country music industry in
Nashville creates a packaged and polished
product out ofan authentic culture that once
existed only on porches and at barn dances.
This is wonderful, but it's also problematic.
Fans constantly (sometimes viciously) ar-
gue about who is or isn't real country. The
debate is idiotic, because country now has
many different traditions, some represent-
ed by singers who, in their day, were viewed
as untraditional (Patsy Cline, Waylon Jen-
nings, Willie Nelson, Johnny Cash).

The fight about whether a singer is or isn't
real country illustrates what writer Tracy
Thompson describes as “the Southern genius
for living in an imagined past.” In her book
The New Mind of the South, Thompson—a
Georgia native and Pulitzer Prize finalist—
notes that historians have been “lamenting
the death of Southern identity for 50 or 60
years now.” Symbols that once defined the
region—tar-paper shacks, muscadine vines—
have vanished. And the once predominantly
Republican states of Virginia and North Caro-
lina voted for Barack Obama in 2008, though
voters there were “just doing what the South
has always done,” Thompson writes, “which
is to morph into something else.” (Virginia
continued to morph, voting for Obama again
in 2012.) In other words, the South's many
traditions include a tradition of change. Con-
fusing and contradictory, right?

Authenticity is a phantom, even in coun-

146 try, seemingly the most genuine of genres.

George D. Hay, the announcer and guid-
ing force of country's venerable Grand Ole
Opry radio show, was a PR genius who cre-
ated a hillbilly image for the music, even
when it was fraudulent. He rechristened
Dr. Bate's Augmented String Orchestra as
the Possum Hunters, instructed musicians
to wear overalls rather than the tailored
business suits they usually wore and posed
them in cornfields and pigpens for promo-
tional photos—even though they weren't
farmers. (Humphrey Bate, leader of the
Possum Hunters, was a physician.) None
of this has anything to do with the quality
of the music, any more than Dolly Parton's
“Jolene” is less of a great song because the
singer has breast implants and wears a wig.

As late as the mid-1950s, drums were
officially banned from performances at
the Grand Ole Opry because they weren't
traditional country instruments. But lately
country has entered its heavy metal phase.
Here's small-town Georgia boy Luke Bryan
onstage, wearing a Mötley Crüe T-shirt,
covering Metallica and (as Church did years
ago) “Crazy Train.” There’s Jason Aldean,
recently called “a country singer with a hair
metal heart” by a Houston Chronicle writer,
singing Guns N’ Roses songs in concert.

No one in Nashville leans as close to rock
as he does, Church declares. “Not even
close. A lot of people are trying to now, be-
cause it’s working for us. They do a Guns
N’ Roses or an AC/DC song because they
want to look like they love rock and roll.”

There are two guitar players in the
Eric Church Band. One was in the Black
Crowes for four years. The other, who’s
husky and tattooed, came from a Tennes-
see thrash-metal band called Bush Hog. If
a crowd seems a little bored, Church slaps
them with a cover of Pantera’s “Walk.” His
lyrics mention Jennings, Hank Williams
Sr., Johnny Cash and Merle Haggard
while using gobs of distortion, drum loops
and other digital tricks.

“I don’t believe country singers should
make the same fucking music over and
over. Some people hate me. We’ve been
polarizing, and that’s okay,” Church says.
(“We” is the pronoun country singers use
instead of “I.” It's a way to acknowledge
that others have helped you become suc-
cessful and to declare a humility that might
or might not actually be there.)

"I love the heavy backbeat in his music,
and he's got a lot of attitude," says Seger.
"His records sound hairy and strong. And
God, his band is really good. It's heavy
country-rock, as close to rock and roll as
you can get."

Church's new live album, Caught in the Act,
is ornery and rough, and it smells like beer.

"We're further into rock and roll than
anyone else, and that's why a lot of tra-
ditionalists have a major problem with
me," he says. "I don't have a fiddle player
or steel guitar or the things purists think
country is supposed to sound like. I have
a banjo—and we distort it through two dis-
tortion pedals. I didn't grow up listening
to Hank Williams Sr. or Ernest Tubb. Well,
I did a little bit, but mostly I grew up with
rock and roll, from the Band and Little
Feat to Seger and Metallica."

It’s not just that Church likes Metal-
lica; Metallica likes Church too. When the
metal band organized the first Orion music
festival last year, his was the only country
act out of 37 bands. (Church and Metal-
lica are managed by the same company.)
When they're unhappy, Metallica fans
express their feelings by throwing bottles,
coins and other injurious objects. Before
their Orion set, Church gave his band a
curt instruction: "Put the hammer down."
Metallica singer James Hetfield introduced
Church as *a rebel," and when the show
was over, he said Church "fit right in."

“ГИ maybe break out that old rock and
roll, / Drink a little drink, smoke a little smoke.”

At the close of the Orion set, Church's
band added the riff from Black Sabbath's
"Sweet Leaf,” an ode to marijuana, at the
end of “Smoke a Little Smoke," his own
pro-pot song that had pretty much sal-
vaged his career.

Church's first album, Sinners Like Me,
was not a big success. One of the singles,
"Two Pink Lines," was about a pregnancy
scare. In a typical country song, pregnancy
would be celebrated as a blessing. But in
"Two Pink Lines" (based partially on an ex-
perience he had at the age of 19), Church
and his girlfriend express delight when her
pregnancy test is negative.

"Radio didn't like the song," he says.

For his second album, Church wrote a
song he knew was dumb. It's in the same
mold as other predictable rural-pride
songs that work well on radio because
they celebrate the consumer goods that
are iconic in Southern life—call it a Coun-
try Checklist song. In this subpar effort,
Church lays it on heavy: He mentions beer,
barbecue, Jack Daniel's, college football,
fishing, trucks, chewing tobacco, NASCAR
and cowboy boots. The only thing missing
is something about hunting or tractors.

Church wrote it "almost out of anger or
spite,” says his manager, John Peets. Church
had seen similar songs amass a lot of airplay,
according to Peets, “and he said, ‘If this is the
shit that works, let's just write one.”

"That was my Hail Mary," Church says.
"And the sad truth is, it works." Although
"Love Your Love the Most" became
Church's first top 10 single, it didn't boost
his career, because it was so generic. Ra-
dio play was up, but record and ticket sales
were flat. He felt he was his record label's
redheaded stepchild because it was focused
on more popular acts, including Dierks
Bentley, a friendly and gregarious singer
who could have a fine career in politics.

Church sensed his record company was
on the verge of dropping him. His first
seven singles hadn't done much. If he was
going to fail, he wanted to go down with a
song he liked: "Smoke a Little Smoke."

"Everyone said, “You're crazy. It's an
openly pro-pot song. Radio's not gonna
play и,” says Church. There have been
plenty of weed anthems in country—by
artists including Waylon Jennings, Hank
Williams Jr., Randy Houser and Toby
Keith—but they are rarely released as

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singles, and they certainly aren’t expected
to save a singer’s сагеег.

Church would not be dissuaded. “I re-
member the label saying to me, ‘Okay,
it's your funeral,” he says. The label sent
"Smoke a Little Smoke" to radio. It didn't
chart as high as "Love Your Love the
Most," but it had a much bigger effect.

"It immediately moved records," says
Church. He had finally distinguished him-
self from the other male singers in Nash-
ville: He was the guy with the pro-pot song.

"I've thrown a punch or two and gave a few
black eyes,/ But Jack Daniel's kicked my ass
again last night."

"There are some drunk motherfuckers
out there," says Marshall Alexander,
Church's cheerful production manager.

Church is on his tour bus, wearing
sweatpants, a cigar in his mouth. His wife,
Katherine Blasingame Church, and son,
Boone, who was born in late 2011, are back
home. They regularly tour with him, and
Church says Boone keeps rock-star hours:
"We've trained my son to sleep until noon
and go to bed at midnight, after my show."

He is still an hour away from his set prep-
arations, which involve the same rituals ev-
ery night, including a substantial plastic cup
of Jack Daniel's and Coke. Church proved
his devotion to JD by writing “Jack Daniels,”
an ambivalent love song, and Jack Daniel's
gave him a barrel of 94-proof Tennessee
whiskey. Every barrel produces about 250
bottles. Church is on his sixth barrel.

The Chief emblem, a shadowy image of
Church in sunglasses, looks like a police
sketch of a mugger who targets old women,
or a guy you'd see loitering at one A.M. in
a convenience store parking lot. It's a cari-
cature of Church, who's a sturdy six-foot-
three with a confident oval face, a quick wit
and stylishly messy hair.

The sunglasses weren't originally a fash-
ion statement: While playing four-hour
sets in bars, Church's contact lenses dried
up because of the smoke and stage lights.
Someone suggested sunglasses to block the
light. It worked and had the added benefit
of making him look like a badass.

Without the glasses and hat, fans don't
recognize him. This afternoon he put on
a T-shirt and shorts and ran a few miles
near the beachfront venue while the park-
ing lot filled with partiers playing his music
in their trucks. No one spotted him.

"When it's showtime, I better be the
baddest motherfucker on the planet. And
a lot of it, honestly, has to do with the hat
and sunglasses. They put me in a different
mode mentally. Take them off, and I'm
not in that mode," Church says. "Now, if
people say that's crazy, fair enough. I know
that probably sounds like I need medica-
tion. Maybe I do."

He bought the Von Dutch cap about five
years ago for $6 at a truck stop in Mississip-
pi and has worn it at every show since. He's
tried to find an identical replacement cap,
but it doesn't exist. He searched on the in-
ternet. He contacted Von Dutch, which has

148 norecord of manufacturing the cap. It's ei-

ther a cheap knockoff or a magical talisman
right out of The Twilight Zone: Mississippi.

Church says he fought with his record
company about his look. “You have good
hair," they told him, “and good-looking
eyes. The girls want to see them!" But since
he was wearing the cap and sunglasses on-
stage, he wanted to wear them in photos
and videos for consistency. So Church
ignored the label.

He has even tried to duplicate the hat.
“We had a designer come in—I can't be-
lieve I’m telling you this. We had a design-
er try to duplicate the hat," Church says.

"Do you wash the hat?" I ask.

"No, I do not. Katherine, my wife, has
tried. No, no, no, I—I can't," Church stam-
mers. "I mean, if something happened to
the hat...." His voice trails off as he pon-
ders the hypothetical tragedy.

"When you're not onstage, where's
the hat?"

"Im afraid to tell you." He laughs.
"There's a place on the bus. We made a
little cubby for the hat."

I have to ask: "Can I put the hat on?"

"No. Hell no. It's locked up. It's in bed.
It's asleep."

During tonight's show, which I watch

"Everyone said, “You're
crazy. It's an openly pro-pot
song, ” Church says. But
he had finally distinguished
himself from the other male
singers in Nashville.

from the soundboard, the manager of
one of the opening acts says he's seen an
average of three or four fights per night.
A large part of Church's success has come
from filling a niche in the country market
for a rugged, masculine singer. Among
Garth Brooks's other achievements, he
converted a lot of women to country music,
and by 1997 radio programmers referred
to country as a "female format."

Because women were listening to coun-
try radio, the stations played a lot of songs
they thought women would like. Because
the stations were playing songs they
thought women would like, record com-
panies signed singers they thought women
would like. In the old days, a photo of the
10 top country singers would look like a
convict lineup. These days it might look
like an Abercrombie & Fitch catalog shot.

Among hardcore traditionalists, this
change hasn't been popular. One highly traf-
ficked country website routinely erupts in in-
sults aimed at handsome singer Luke Bryan,
who's apparently perceived as too feminine.
The blogger who runs the site has referred
to Bryan as a woman, claimed the singer has
a vagina and alluded to Bryan as gay.

"When we started," Church explains,

"male country fans were being ignored. I
hunt. I fish. I drink beer and watch foot-
ball. I love NASCAR. I'm a guy's guy."

His concerts are loud and heavy on pyro
and go well with alcohol. Kip Moore, one
of Church's opening acts, says, "I drank
a whole lot more than usual during that
tour. Watching Eric made me want to
drink. You're not gonna see a lot of alco-
hol at a Carrie Underwood concert. But
an Eric Church show creates rowdiness. I
don't think there's a deep science to that:
Testosterone and alcohol don't mix, and
that causes fights."

In the middle of his second encore,
Church sings "These Boots" (another song
that mentions weed), and fans hold up their
boots in celebration. One fan near the stage
gets a little carried away, tosses a boot on-
stage, then climbs up to retrieve it. "We've
got a climber," a crew member shouts into a
walkie-talkie. The one-booted climber isn't
arrested, but he is tossed out of the arena.

While watching Church's set that night,
Moore saw a couple screwing in the audi-
ence. "A guy pulled a girl's skirt up, and
the dirty deed was going on," Moore re-
ports. "That was a first for me."

It's not a first for Church. He recounts
a show last year in Battle Creek, Michigan
where "half the crowd was fighting. And I
saw guys who had girls bent over the rail,
screwing." His lighting designer—a guy
who'd toured with nearly every major
metal band, including Van Halen, Metal-
lica and Guns N' Roses—was shocked. "He
said to me, 'You should call this the Fuck-
ing and Fighting Tour.’”

Compared with Battle Creek's, to-
night's audience doesn't impress Church
much. "There wasn't mass bedlam, which
is what I usually see." Tomorrow will be
wilder, he predicts.

"These boots have counted off many a
band, / Playing one-night roadhouse stands for
tips in empty rooms."

When he wasn't auditioning for the
school play by singing a Garth Brooks
song, Church played basketball at South
Caldwell High School in North Carolina,
and he's studied the state's greatest hoops
player, Michael Jordan. In particular he
likes Jordan's 2009 Hall of Fame induction
speech, a smirking 20-minute tirade in
which Jordan taunted everyone who ever
doubted him, including his two brothers.

"I've never seen a person hold grudges
like that. And I like that, because I carry
a hell of a chip on my shoulder." Like
Jordan, Church has memorized a list of
those who stood in his way. “I carry that list
onstage with me. If you don't have a chip
on your shoulder, you're just happy to be
there, and I fucking hate that.”

And then he starts to tell the story of what
happened when he moved to Nashville.

“I come from a long line of sinners like me."

"Sinners Like Me," about coming from
a family of badasses, is the Church song

E "an A

mM a " —
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Make someone happy with
a Gift Subscription to

PLAYBOY

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that's closest to autobiography. One of Ше
singer's grandfathers was chief of police in
Granite Falls for 28 years. Everyone called
him Chief, which is also Church's nickname.
“But he was the kind of chief of police that
partied. He was a good old boy.”

Chief came from a family of moonshiners
who brewed white lightning and sold it
in nearby counties. On the other side of
Church’s family were the Stillwells, who “are
notorious where I'm from,” he says. “They
were rough and did a lot of fighting—
drunk fighting. The Stillwells were big, like
six-foot-six and six-foot-seven. They would
get drunk and beat up everybody in a bar.”

But Chief had been a boxer in the Navy.
“And he was the only guy who could whip
the Stillwells' asses.” So one side of his fam-
ily regularly fought with, and arrested, the
other side. “He'd beat up the Stillwells, get
them in cuffs, put them in jail, and when
they sobered up, he'd let them go. So yeah,
I am from a long line of sinners.”

After high school Church wanted to
move to Nashville and become a profes-
sional songwriter. His dad, a disciplined
businessman, promised to fund Church's
first six months there if he graduated
from college first. So Church went to Ap-
palachian State and formed a cover band,
the Mountain Boys, with his brother and
a few friends. His first semester, his grade
point average was 0.7. He was kicked out
of school a few times, “but when Г had to
get an A in calculus, I got an A.” It took
him six and a half years to get a degree in
marketing while playing clubs six nights a
week. As he tells the story, it's unclear what
this has to do with the chip on his shoulder.

Church spent a lot of late nights in
brown-bag clubs, where patrons bring
their own liquor. One night a girl was flirt-
ing with his brother during a song, which
was fine until her husband noticed and
charged the stage. Eric told his brother,
who'd been a football lineman, “Go take
care of it. Take him outside. Just be back
by the next song.” His brother came back,
a little disheveled, but in time. Years of
experiences like that, Church says, turned
him from a good kid into a troublemaker.

“When you have to whip their ass during
a song, that's fucking weird,” he says.

Нед been the best songwriter in Granite

ME. IVE

Falls, so after he moved to Nashville, he as-
sumed he'd step into an open-mike night
and quickly be discovered and showered
with garlands. “I was so fucking naive,” he
says. “I got my head handed to me. It was
rough.” His best song at the time was “Sit-
ting in the Middle of Love.”

“Fucking terrible. Don't laugh,” he says.
“It was about a town called Love, Texas.”

He worked at the Shop at Home net-
work, taking phone orders on the night
shift at a call center. One night when the
network was peddling a $49.99 set of
knives, “a guy called me, drunker than hell,
at three A.M.," Church remembers. “Не
says, ‘I’ve just got to have those knives.’ I
said, “Why don't you go to bed. If you wake
up in the morning and still want them, ГП
take your credit card.” They monitor the
calls, so after he hung up, I got fired. That
was the lowest point.” It's still not clear
what a set of knives has to do with the chip
on Church's shoulder.

A good Nashville song combines struc-
ture, a series of hooks, narrative shifts and
small twists on familiar phrases. It seems
easy but requires a high level of cleverness,
which is one reason Bon Jovi's country al-
bum was laughable. Church was learning
the craft, but he was broke and discour-
aged. Even when people in Nashville liked
his songs, they told him no one would re-
cord them. His engagement to a girl back
in North Carolina had fallen apart. His
hometown friends had careers and wives
and fully formed adult lives. Church had
an acoustic guitar and a rented apartment.

“It was like, Fuck this. I was ready to go
home. There was one publishing company
that had been courting me, and I'd had
meeting after meeting with the second in
command. I finally got to meet the guy in
charge, and I played him four songs. Dur-
ing my last song, he stopped me. I thought,
This is it; this is the moment I get a deal.
And he said, ‘I don't know where you're
from, but I'd go back there. I don't ever
see these songs working in Nashville.”

Church walked to his car, listened to
Kris Kristofferson's “To Beat the Devil”—
about a broke and busted songwriter who's
been spurned by Nashville—and decided it
was time to go back to North Carolina. He
thought about leaving that night, but his

YOURE му
My WIFE IS CHEATING ON
DETECTIVE FRIEND. WHAT

HADA

brother had moved to Nashville, so the two
went out and got drunk. The next morn-
ing, Church got a call from Sony Tree Pub-
lishing, which signed him to a songwriting
contract and launched his career.

Church would have missed that call if he
had listened to the expert who told him to go
back home. And now Church comes to the
point of his story: “I mean, you talk about
the list? That guy is on the fucking list.”

After he got a record deal, other obstacles
blocked his way for five years, from indiffer-
ent crowds to club owners who refused to
pay what they owed the band. (One night
in Idaho, Church took revenge by spray-
painting the venue’s brand-new fence.)

“Most sane people would have said,
‘This is stupid. This is no way to live.’ We
ain’t bathed, we’re eating Doritos, and
we're in El Paso on a Wednesday night.”
He laughs. “The coveted Wednesday night
show in El Paso. But it beats the shit out of
Shop at Home, I’m telling you. And it puts
gravel in your gut.” Church says he was a
well-behaved kid when he left North Caro-
lina; people back home “are shocked what
I turned into.”

After they did about 50 shows together,
Kip Moore realized Church was perform-
ing every night with a chip on his shoulder.

“He never talked to me about it, but you
can tell it’s there,” Moore says. “You think
about the years of frustration, the shit-hole
gigs you played, the people who shot you
down. All that stuff festers inside you until
you're out to prove something. ‘I told all
you motherfuckers what I was gonna do.
And now I’m gonna show you.’ I don’t
blame him one bit.”

“You sing about Johnny Cash;/The Man in
Black would’ve whipped your ass.”

It’s a Saturday night in Birmingham,
and 11,000 people are filing into the lo-
cal arena. Fans are eight deep at the mer-
chandise tables, choosing among different
tour T-shirts. Some have human skulls,
many feature pot leaves, and one says
ERIC FUCKING CHURCH. The guy who designs
Church’s merchandise came up with the
idea after seeing him in concert, thinking,
That’s the gist of the show—Eric fucking

149

PLAYBOY

150

Church. At first the idea was rejected as 100
profane. Now it’s his top-selling shirt.

Wearing his sunglasses and Von Dutch
cap, chewing gum and carrying a cup of
JD and Coke, Church strides briskly into a
small conference room and plays two acous-
tic songs for about 100 people who paid
$200 each for a VIP package. “You’re so
hot!” a woman yells. He encourages the fans
to drink a lot and sing loud tonight. After
six minutes, he’s done, his drink back in his
hand. He proceeds quickly to a room with a
private bar and snacks, and schmoozes with
local radio DJs. When that’s over, he washes
his hands thoroughly.

Last year Church created a stir by de-
nouncing геашу-ГУ singing competitions
as fraudulent. This prompted angry tweets
from Blake Shelton, a judge on The Voice,
and his wife, Miranda Lambert, who was
a contestant on Nashville Star. Church's ar-
gument has some validity—Lambert writes
and sings great songs, but Shelton is better
as comic relief than as an artist—but he'd
broken a cardinal rule of Nashville: If you
talk shit about people, do it behind their
backs, not in public. One country radio
personality accused him of trying to be "the
Kanye West of country music." As a result,
my meeting with Church was postponed
several months until the uproar passed.

"Everybody flipped the fuck out because
Isaid it the wrong way," Church says. "But
I don't have anything to apologize for. I've
been kind of a lone wolf, and I'm okay with
not having a lot of friends in the commu-
nity.” His point was this: A TV show that
offers a shortcut is a sham; artists have to
tour, endure, learn and get tough and an-
gry. And if he sees Shelton or Lambert at
an awards show? Church shrugs. “ГП prob-
ably say hello. Or not."

Of the 11,000 people inside the Bir-
mingham arena tonight, 10,500 seem
drunk. The other 500 are security. Some
people are fighting, some are celebrating,
and it's hard to tell which is which. The last
song in Church's set is "Springsteen," an
unusual song (it doesn't really have a cho-
rus) that ties music to memory and roman-
ticizes the idea of a superstar songwriter
and performer. In his shows, Church—a
huge Bruce Springsteen fan—adds a bit of
"Born to Run" at the song's end. Again, the
admiration is mutual: Bruce Springsteen
wrote a fan letter to Church on the back
of an old set list. It ends, "I hope we cross
paths along the way." Church keeps the let-
ter in a locked drawer at home.

When the concert is over and the fans
are back home and the roadies are loading
out the stage, Church is inside his tour bus.
It's two А.М., and he switches from whiskey
to water so he doesn't ruin his voice. He
was happy with tonight's crowd, but he's
brooding about a show he did about four
years earlier, when he was scuffling and
headed for failure, at a Birmingham club
called WorkPlay.

"It probably held 200 people, and I
couldn't even fill и.” He remembers the
exact number of people who showed up:
126. Church doesn't forget these things.

SMITH AND MEWES

(continued from page 90)
SMITH: [Laughs] You're still defensive about
it. You're old, dude.
MEWES: Fuck that.

Q6
PLAYBOY: Jason, there have been more
death rumors about you than about Paul
McCartney. Is the sixth time someone re-
ports you're dead as scary as the first?
SMITH: The first was definitely the scariest, I
think for both of us. People magazine called,
I think it was during the Bennifer era, when
I was shooting Jersey Girl, and asked "Do you
have a statement on the death of your friend
Jason Mewes?" I hadn't seen Jason in months
at that point. He was MIA, and I was like,
"Oh God!” I gave a statement and hung up,
and seconds later the phone rang again and
it was fucking Mewes. He was like, "People
are saying that I'm dead. But I'm not dead!"
MEWES: I had left California and was driving
to Jersey to turn myself in.
SMITH: He had an outstanding warrant in
New Jersey.
MEWES: It took me almost four months to
drive across the country, because I kept stop-
ping and partying. My sister called to tell me
people were saying I was dead. My cousin
passed away and I guess people thought it
was me. They found him OD'd on the beach.

PLAYBOY: In your podcast and live shows,
you both share intimate details about your
sex life. How do your wives feel about that?
SMITH: My wife learned early on that our
life was fodder for conversation. She heard
me tell a story about the first time we had
зех—Т cut my dick on her jeans zipper and
it started bleeding and we had sex anyway—
and she was like, "What the fuck is your
problem? You told people we had unpro-
tected sex and you had an open wound on
your dick." I was like, "Yeah, but it's sweet.
We fall in love, we wind up together. It's a
good story." It was baptism by fire for her.
MEWES: I told a story the other night about
how my lady was doing hot yoga at the gym
and she queefed and it was so loud the per-
son next to her heard it. Afterward she was
like, ^I didn't say you could share that story!"
She was embarrassed and a little upset.

8
PLAYBOY: You've worked with Ben Affleck
and Matt Damon in Dogma, Chasing Amy
and other films. Which one has the filthiest
sense of humor?
MEWES: Ben.
SMITH: Absolutely Ben! I've kept e-mails
from him from back in the day, just because
they're so hysterical and filthy and wrong.
Ben is one of the dirtiest people I've ever
met, dirtier than Redd Foxx. He's probably
cleaned up substantially now that he's mar-
ried. I don't think his wife, Jennifer Garner,
likes me very much. I worked with her on
Catch and Release, and you could just tell she
did not dig me or my sense of humor at all.
MEWES: Did you ever say anything to Ben?
SMITH: I talked to him about it at one point.
I was like, “I don't get it. I say the same fuck-
ing shit you do." And he goes, “You don't

think I say that kind of shit to my wife, do
you? Kev, you have to know your audience."

Q9
PLAYBOY: А regular part of your live show
is "Let Us Fuck," when you act out strange
sexual positions with audience members.
Has life ever imitated art?
SMITH: Have we tried any ofthose positions at
home? I haven't. None of them look comfort-
able. There's never been one where I'm like,
"Honey, tonight we're trying the Ewok Cock
Block and the Donald Duck Mouth Fuck."
MEWES: The Ewok Cock Block would be the
one to try.

10
PLAYBOY: Kevin, Pind claimed that Jason
had sex with Nicole Richie in a public bath-
room. The tabloids reported it and caused a
minor controversy. Jason, did that discour-
age you from having sex in public restrooms?
MEWES: I can't do stuff like that anymore.
My lady is definitely not into it, even in my
bathroom at home. I try, and she says, "I
don't want to fuck in the bathroom."
SMITH: These are married women with
beds. "Why should we do this?"
MEWES: Nothing against beds, but if I was
still single, I'd be trying to do some bath-
room situations. I can't remember the last
time I had sex in public.
SMITH: What about on the beach in Australia?
MEWES: Oh yeah, right.
SMITH: The sad thing is, he did it more for
the story. We were in Australia, and he said,
"I'm going to try to have sex with my lady
on the beach." I asked why, and he said,
"Just so I can tell the story on a podcast."

PLAYBOY: You both ы at a Quick Stop
in New Jersey, which became the setting
for Clerks. Were the high jinks as outra-
geous as in the movie? Did anybody ever
have unwitting sex with a corpse?

SMITH: Never. Working at Quick Stop was
like working at a fucking library. It was
quiet. People would come in, buy their cig-
arettes and fucking go. The closest thing to
reality in the movie was the motherfuckers
who were always just leaning outside the
building, smoking dope. Jay and Silent
Bob came from those people.

012
PLAYBOY: Jason, you apparently had а dif-
ficult time with the Jay character in Clerks
even though it was based on you. What was
the problem?
MEWES: It was just weird to say that dia-
logue. ГА look at the script and read a line
like “Snooch to the nooch.” Even though I’d
said those things a thousand times before, it
was weird to say it when it’s lines in a script.
SMITH: He froze up like Cindy Brady on
camera.
MEWES: When I was just being me, I didn't
think about what I was going to say. It wasn't
like I was thinking, Okay, I'm going to say
this crazy thing and blow this guy’s mind.
SMITH: The character is a cartoonish version
of who he was, and he was pretty cartoon-
ish to begin with. He looked at it and was
like, “Why would (concluded on page 153)

NIKKI LEIGH

When Miss May 2012
Nikki Leigh interrupts
your program, it's a wel-
come distraction. Nikki
recently became the new-
est host for independent
ТУ station KDOC (chan-
nel 56 in Los Angeles),
where she will cover stories
that focus on the L.A. area.
“It's funny,” she says. "I

was more nervous the first
time I taped with KDOC
than when I posed nude."
Nikki's segments will be
about everything from Ana-
heim Ducks hockey games
to the San Diego Zoo's new
animals. "I grew up here,
so there's a lot of culture I
hope to share,” she says. "I
also want to give viewers
new experiences when
they explore SoCal
with me." Who doesn't
like new experiences?

@MissKassieLyn
Miss May 2010
Kassie Lyn Logsdon
has some good
clean fun steaming
up her mirror.

1. Miss April em WE.
2006 Holley Ann 3
Dorrough enchants at

Hollywood’s AV Night- "

club for the launch of е Ф “

Има Glam Magazine's I x 3 `
April issue. 4 Ñ 1

2. Playmates Valerie
Mason, Rainy Day
Jordan, Kelley
Thompson and Leola
Bell hosted a St. Patrick's
Day party at the MGM
Grand's Tabü Ultra
Lounge in Vegas.

3. Congratula-
tions are in order
for Miss December
1979 Candace
Collins, who won
a Telly Award for
her show Candid
Candace Chicago.

THE ARTIST

Before becoming Miss
October 2012, Pamela
Horton wanted to be an
art therapist. Now that
we have anointed her
the Gamer Next Door,
she has her sights set
on video game design.
Here's a Bunny Pamela
drew with concept
artist Katie De Sousa.
See more of Pamela's
artwork for sale at
misspamelahorton.com.

PLAYMATE*
FLASHBACK

Twenty years ago this month
Miss June 1993 ALESHA
ORESKOVICH posed for our
Centerfold, saying, “Clothes are
a pain.” The Tampa native pre-
ferred to allow the Florida sun
to shine where it often doesn't.
Alesha continues to bask in
the Florida rays, as well as
model on TV and in print for
fashion and beauty clients.

You can book a
Playmate? Yes, you
can liven up your
next party or photo
shoot with the
sexiest girls next
door, including
Miss October 2011
Amanda Cerny,
who recently hosted
a night at Aura

in the Bahamas. |
For details, visit
playboyevents.com.

SMITH AND MEWES

(continued from page 150)
I say 'Snooch to Ше nooch’?” And I’m like,
“That's a good question. Why do you say
“Snooch to the nooch'?"

013

PLAYBOY: Kevin, Ше hockey movie Ни
Somebody was supposed to be your final film.
Now you're turning it into a TV miniseries
and Clerks III will be your final film. Why
are you so eager to retire? What's the rush?
SMITH: The only reason we're having this
conversation, the only reason 1 got here,
is because 1 fell in love—desperately, head
over heels in love—with cinema. But one
day, around the time 1 was doing Cop Out,
I started to realize I'd taken my first love,
Lady Cinema, and cheated on it by turning
it into an ATM. It was what I did because
I needed to pay bills. Film had been a pas-
sion, and then it became a job. It became a
right and not a privilege.

Q14

PLAYBOY: You’ve told stories about you and
Bruce Willis almost coming to blows on the
set of Cop Out. Now that a few years have
passed, do you have more insight into what
happened? Was it his fault or yours?

SMITH: He’s called me a whiner for talking
about it, but fuck him. He whined on set ev-
ery day. “You want me to shoot before noon?”
So if I'm a whiner, fuck you, you're a bigger
whiner. It was the first time I worked with
somebody who was a paycheck player. Me,
Tracy Morgan, Marc Platt the producer—all
of us took massive pay cuts to make the movie
because we wanted to work with Bruce Willis.
Bruce took what he said was a massive pay
cut and let us know repeatedly throughout
the shoot that he wasn't getting paid nearly
enough for "this shit." We really got into it at
one point and I thought he was going to deck
me. He was like, “You want to take a swing at
me?" I was like, “Гуе worked with children
who don't behave like this."

015
PLAYBOY: Can we point out Ше irony of a
guy making a miniseries called Hit Somebody
declining the chance to hit somebody?
SMITH: Yeah, that’s true. I might not have
punched Bruce Willis, but I punched an
owl, man. That happened.

016
PLAYBOY: You punched an owl? Please let
there be an explanation.
SMITH: I was out on my deck one morning,
everybody else was asleep, and I see this
fucking owl coming at me. It looked like
something out of an old Ridley Scott movie.
And he wasn't flapping, he was gliding in. It
was fucking spooky. I put the math together
and I was like, "It's going after my dog!" I
did the bravest thing I've ever done or will
ever do in my life. If Bruce Willis was going
for my dachshund, I would have punched
Bruce Willis like I punched that owl.

Q17
PLAYBOY: Jason, you were struggling to
beat an addiction to heroin and painkillers
around the time Kevin discovered he really

enjoyed smoking weed. Did that put a strain
on your friendship?

MEWES: Weed is awesome, but it's not tempt-
ing to me because I never craved it.

SMITH: It would be like me being on a diet
and somebody bringing in a flourless cake.
Technically it’s sweet and it's got sugar, but
I don't like flourless cake.

MEWES: If he'd started doing coke around
me, that would've been different. Heroin,
coke, speed—those were the drugs I craved
and chased and woke up every day wonder-
ing how I was going to get more.

SMITH: I thought it was fair. You know what,
motherfucker? I had to deal with you on fuck-
ing drugs all those years. Now it's my turn.

O18

PLAYBOY: Kevin, it's been three years since
you were kicked off a Southwest flight for
being, in your words, "too fat to fly." Has
anything changed? Have the airline's seats
gotten bigger or your butt smaller?

SMITH: There were real-world repercussions.
Icouldn't go near an airport because I didn't
want my picture taken. But shortly after it
happened, I had these O&A gigs coming
up in Texas and I had to get to them. So I
rented a bus. I talked to the bus place and
they were like, “Нои many people in the
band?" I'm like, "It's just me." There was a
long pause, and then they said, "Are you that
'too fat to fly' guy?" The bus was a revelation.
I realized I could go anywhere. I could tour
little clubs all over the country. I could bring
my friends. Because I can't get on a plane, I
take a bus. Because I take a bus, hey, ГП take
a bus with my friends and do this. It changed
my life for the better. Not that I'm thankful
or appreciative to Southwest. They're still
fucking awful. But things worked out.

019
PLAYBOY: Kevin, по offense, but you’re too
fat to fly, and yet you landed a hot wife.
Share your secrets.

SMITH: It’s all about the sense of humor.
Also, when I met Jen [Schwalbach], I’d just
come off an all-liquid diet I'd been doing
for four months. Mewes was kicking heroin
and I was on Optifast. But I looked good.
If I was ever going to land a fucking wife,
that was the window. She was working for
USA Today and she interviewed me. And af-
ter the interview we sat around talking for
two more hours. I did everything I could
to be interesting and funny and human. I
was in a zone. I asked her to be my date
to the Independent Spirit Awards. I was
nominated for Chasing Amy. She said yes,
and then I remembered later I'd already
asked Salma Hayek. I was working with
her on Dogma, and she was going to come
with me as a friend. So I literally had to go
to Salma Hayek and tell her I wasn't taking
her to the Spirit Awards. She was stunned.
I think it was the first time somebody ever
canceled a date on her.

Q20

PLAYBOY: You once got into a Twitter feud
with Neil Patrick Harris. Was that just a pub-
licity stunt, or were you really pissed at him?
SMITH: He did some interview for that Harold
& Kumar movie, and he was like, “The guys
in our flick are real actors, not like that Jay
character from the Kevin Smith movies." He
called Jason a drugged-out mess who just got
stoned and did crazy shit and then we filmed
him. It was offensive. This is a guy who hosts
the Tonys and shit, criticizing another actor's
performance. I know for a fact that Jason is
a good actor. I know who he is, I know what
he does onscreen, and I know what it takes
to do that. I threw some tweets out, calling
Neil on it. And to his credit, he said, "Yeah,
you're right. In retrospect I was wrong,"
blah blah blah. Regardless, you don't go
after another actor like that, because what
you're quietly saying is "I'm a better actor."

COCHERAS!

“Т admire a man who can cry, Marvin. But not when
he gets the check.”

153

154

THE ULTIMATE COVER STORY.

THE RIGHT STUFF—IS SEAN HANNITY AN OUTRAGED CONSERVA-
TIVE, OR IS IT A $100 MILLION ACT? IN THE PLAYBOY INTERVIEW
DAVID HOCHMAN SPARS WITH THE FOX NEWS HOST OVER
“RADICAL” OBAMA, GUN CONTROL AND THE CLIMATE CHANGE
“CROCK.” LIBERAL TOLERANCE WILL BE SORELY TESTED.

MODERN LIBRARY—BREWSTER KAHLE IS A WEALTHY BIBLIO-
PHILE GONE MAD: HE HOPES TO COLLECT A COPY OF EVERY
BOOK EVER PRINTED, IN EVERY LANGUAGE. WHAT DRIVES
HIM? ROB MAGNUSON SMITH BOARDS KAHLE’S ARK OF IDEAS.

HI-YO, SILVER SCREEN—THAT MASKED MAN IS ARMIE HAMMER,
STAR OF THE LONE RANGER. BRANTLEY BARDIN SITS WITH THE
ACTOR (THOUGH NOT ON A HORSE) IN A FAST-PACED 200.

STRANGER ON A TRAIN—RILEY RODE АМТКАК TO ACCEPT
A WRITING PRIZE FROM THE GREATER STUYVESANT AREA
CHAMBER OF COMMERCE. BUT HIS WELCOME AT THE ALBANY
STATION WAS UNLIKE ANYTHING HE COULD HAVE IMAGINED.
DEVILISH FICTION BY MASTER STORYTELLER T.C. BOYLE.

LOW T, INC.—LOST YOUR LIBIDO? FEELING OLD BEFORE YOUR
TIME? IF YOU BELIEVE THE COMMERCIALS, YOU HAVE LOW
TESTOSTERONE. BIG PHARMA SAYS IT HAS A CURE, BUT IS
HORMONE THERAPY SAFE? CHIP ROWE INVESTIGATES.

CAN SEAN HANNITY SAVE AMERICA?

NEXT MONTH

THE FIRE BEHIND THE DRAGON.

BANISHED WARRIOR—HECTOR BARAJAS SERVED HIS NATION
ADMIRABLY. BUT AFTER A MINOR SCRAPE WITH THE LAW HE
WAS DEPORTED TO MEXICO, WHERE HE FOUND OTHER FOR-
LORN VETERANS. LUIS ALBERTO URREA AND ERIN SIEGAL
REPORT ON A PUZZLING SITUATION SOUTH OF THE BORDER.

FIGHT CLUB—THE WILDEST SCENES IN ENTER THE DRAGON,
STARRING BRUCE LEE, TOOK PLACE OFF CAMERA. FORTY YEARS
LATER MATTHEW POLLY SHARES THE GRITTY STORY BEHIND
WHAT 15 EASILY THE GREATEST KUNG FU MOVIE EVER MADE.

HAWAIIAN GOTHIC—FAST EDDIE ROTHMAN, LEADER OF THE
DA HUI SURFER GANG, HAS A NEW FOE: MONSANTO, WHICH
IS PRODUCING GENETICALLY MODIFIED SEEDS. CHAS SMITH
PROFILES THE TOUGHEST MAN IN THE ISLANDS.

AFTER THE DICE AGECANDREW DICE CLAY WAS ONCE THE BIG-
GEST STAR IN COMEDY, EVEN SELLING OUT MADISON SQUARE
GARDEN. HIS INSANE SUCCESS ENDED, BUT HIS CAREER DID
NOT. NEAL GABLER LOOKS AT THE LIFE THAT CAME NEXT.

PLUS—25 BEST BARS, A GUIDE TO MODERN MOONSHINE, COOL
BACHELOR PADS (SMALL, MEDIUM AND LARGE), A SELECTION
OF OUR GREATEST COVERS, MISS JULY AND MISS AUGUST HEAT
UP AN ALREADY SIZZLING SUMMER DOUBLE ISSUE, AND MORE.

Playboy (ISSN 0032-1478), June 2013, volume 60, number 5. Published monthly except for combined January/February and July/August issues by Playboy in national and regional editions, Playboy, 9346
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5 Reds for JUST $69.99
| (worth A

m BEER

VILLA FARNIA
FARNESE

IFFULCIANO
DABRUZZO

FOR

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№ ый
‘Brilliant’ Triple-Gold ~~~ Top-Rated ^^" ‘Stunning’ -
Washington Cab Cótes-du-Rhóne Italian Charmer Aussie Pinot Noir
Charles Smith is “a brilliant Head to the Rhóne Valley Robert Parker has called As you'll soon taste,
winemaker who knows for France's richest reds. Farnese's Montepulciano Tom Carson is "a serious
where the best fruit is From a top Cháteauneuf- "a steal at the price." Today producer making stunning
hidden." (Parker) This du-Pape producer, this has you'll pay just $5.84 for Pinot" (Dr. Jamie Goode).
exclusive has everything three gold medals, layers of their cherry-packed, pasta- His award-winning 2011
Cab fans look for: ripe ripe blackberry and a lovely perfect 2011. It's so good, bursts with fragrant cherry
cassis and toasty oak. wild herb edge. you'll need two bottles. and ripe strawberry.
The Black Crown 2010, Le Prince de Courthézon Villa Farnia di Farnese 2011, Spotlight 2011,
Columbia Valley 2011, Cótes-du-Rhóne Montepulciano d'Abruzzo Strathbogie Ranges

or visit laithwaiteswine.com/4248003

om ET

Privacy seal — moisten here

PRIORITY ORDER FORM

Complete and return with payment in this postage-paid envelope

YES, please send me my introductory 4 Seasons case for just $69.99
а (plus $19.99 shipping & tax combined)

| I will SAVE $100 and receive:
[Y 12 Bottles of Premium Wine
[v] 3 FREE Bottles of Top-Estate Chianti

PROMO CODE:

4248003 [V FREE Tasting Notes & Binder

My preference is: (please check one box)
П] All-Reds Case Г] Mixed Case Г] All-Whites Case

If you do not indicate which case you would like to receive, we will automatically send you the all-reds case.

1. Your details (please print clearly)

Name

Address

_ [м
Оауйте Рпопе:

E-mail:
By submitting this form, | understand that Lalthwaltes Wine may contact me with order status updates and news of special wine offers.

2. Where to deliver ГО To the address above
Preferred shipping address: (if other than address given above; no P.O. Boxes please)

Name
Address
A SEE BA с

Contact Phone for Delivery:
All shipments are delivered by FedEx or private courier and the signature of an adult, over 21 years of age, is required а! the time of delivery.

3. Payment information

Charge my: O O E О o

Credit Card # Exp. Date

Г] Check enclosed payable to Laithwaites Wine for $89.98 ($69.99, plus $19.99 shipping & tax combined)
Signature required for all orders. | certify that | am at least 21 years of age,

Signature X

INFORMATION ON FUTURE CASES: | understand that every three months | will be notified about the next 4 Seasons selection and will automatically
receive it unless | request otherwise. | will be charged the appropriate amount for each shipment, currently $139.99 (plus shipping & tax).
Onceeligible,each year willbe offeredtwoextra-specialcases—onein summerandone forthe holidays Again, will be notified about theseinadvance. There
is no commitment whatsoever and may cancel my membership at any time. PLEASE NOTE: Voucher not redeemable for cash. Offer available to first-time
4 Seasons customers only and limited to one case per household. In the unlikely event of a wine becoming unavailable, a substitute of similar
style and equal/greater value will be supplied. Licensed retailers only accept orders from adults at least 21 years old and have the right to refuse
orders. All orders are processed and fulfilled by licensed entities and applicable taxes are paid. Delivery available to AZ, CA (offer may vary for CA
residents), CO, CT, FL, lA, ID, IL, IN, LA, MA, MI, MN, MO, NC, №, NE, NH, NJ, NM, NV, NY, OH, OR (not eligible for gift), SC, ТМ, TX, VA, WA, WI,
WV, WY and DC. Void where prohibited by law.

Plus FREE Gift

3 bottles of
fine Chianti
worth $47.97

Order now and we'll also

send you three BONUS bottles
of Chianti from our favorite
Tuscan winemaker — the
great Paolo Masi. Packed

with chocolate and cherries
and too good to miss.
Collezione di Paolo 2011, Chianti

Your wine. Your choice.

Prefer an all-whites case or a mix of reds and whites? No problem.
Check the appropriate box on your order form or online, or let us know
when you call. (See online for details of the wines in each case.)

Mixed Case Option — $69.99 All-Whites Option — $69.99

100% MONEY-BACK GUARANTEE

If you are disappointed with any bottle, for any reason,
you will be refunded in full. It’s that simple.

i E
Ye A - Tony Laithwaite
? \ IRA Founder, Laithwaites Wine

L ith NO POSTAGE
altnwaites | | | NECESSARY

Y V ше? UNITED STATES

BUSINESS REPLY MAIL

FIRST-CLASS MAIL РЕКМП NO. 11 MONTOURSVILLE PA
POSTAGE WILL BE PAID BY ADDRESSEE

lle UTI LOI Чу И И LET ETE
LAITHWAITES WINE

PO BOX 264

MONTOURSVILLE PA 17754-9935

3 FREE
Chianti

$47.97
value

Our special gift to you
— 3 FREE bottles of
this top-estate treat
from famous Tuscan
winemaker, Paolo Masi.

Plus FREE
Tasting

Discover better wines,
starting today

Hello. I'm Tony Laithwaite, founder of Laithwaites

Wine. My team and | have spent the last 43 years
traveling from vineyard to vineyard, searching for

the world’s best wine values. Today you're invited
to taste some of our absolute favorites.

Enjoy a dozen world-class reds
for only $69.99. You save $100.

Take a look. There's gold-medal Bordeaux, rich

Argentine Malbec and more. All are from small,
quality-obsessed estates and all are under $6 a
bottle with the attached $100 Wine Voucher.

Why the huge savings? Because | think you'll
love the wines and want to try more. This is our
4 Seasons Wine Club and it's totally flexible.

Delivery to your door and a
100% money-back guarantee.

If you like what you taste, we'll tell you about
a delicious new dozen every three months.

If ever you're not ready, just say no thanks.
You can change wines too. Or cancel anytime.

== _ | Each future case is just $139.99 (you always

IL
Packed with tips and ~~
serving suggestions from
the winemakers to help
you get the most from
every bottle.

save at least 20%) and comes with full tasting
notes and our 100% money-back guarantee.

If you enjoy opening even just one good bottle
a week, give 4 Seasons a try today. Cheers!

Tony Laithwaite

ORDER TODAY AND SAVE 5100

3 bottles of
delicious
small-batch
Chianti from
Paolo Masi's
famous Tuscan
estate.

THE EASY WAY TO ENJOY BETTER WINE

PINOT
Nou

Straight-from-
the-vineyard
tasting notes
(with serving and
food pairing tips),
plus a special
storage binder.

е AN EXCLUSIVE 12-BOTTLE CASE reserved for you every three months.
е ADVANCE NOTICE OF EACH SELECTION — you decide whether to take it or

not, change the wines or delivery date.

е SPECIAL DISCOUNT of at least 20% on all future club cases.

е 100% MONEY BACK GUARANTEE — if ever you’re not happy with a wine, for

any reason, just let us know and you'll be refunded in full.

Order now at laithwaiteswine.com/4248003
|

Or call 1-800-823-7727 Quote Promo Code 4248003

Lines open Mon - Fri 8am-11pm ЕТ, За! 4 Sun 8ат-8рт ЕТ

187313.

SURGEON GENERAL'S WARNING: Cigarette E pr] Restricted to Adult Smokers 21 or Older.
^ Е d Lu АЙ Newport, Pleasure, Newport Pleasure, Menthol Gold, Menthol
Smoke Contains Carbon Monoxide. BL Ce ИВ ae ee EIC.
ЧЕ elements TM Lorillard Licensing Company LLC Reg. U.S. Pat.

° & Tm. Off.

ЗЕРНОНА, sephora.com

ОК ЕУ

THE NEW FRAGRANCE FOR MEN ГВ

GENTLEMEN
ON

LY
GIVENCHY

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