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TANQUERAY LONDON DRY GIN, 100% GRAIN NEUTRAL SPIRITS. 473% ALC/VOL. ©2014 IMPORTED BY CHARLES TANQUERAY 8 CO., NORWALK, (T. 


JJ e all have a primal urge that drives 
us, day by day, to raise our fists and 
f stand up to the things that chal- 
lenge us. We call it our fighting spirit, and our 
November issue unearths enough of it to win 
a world war. We kick off with Neal Gabler's 
Hollywood High, which explores the correla- 
tion between celebrities and the addictions 
they battle with the rehab counselors, law- 
yers and psychologists who know them best. 
Photographer er shot its open- 
ing art, as well as some slick and stylized 
pages for After Hours, A different kind of 
mental fight rages online in the immense 
world of video-game blockbuster League of 
Legends. The surprising part? With 27 million 
daily players, the game has created a legion 
of fanatical spectators who track their ВЕ 
ite gamers with SportsCenter zeal. I 
rg dives into the culture that's chang: 
ing the face of competition in Winners, Losers 
and Legends. is arancher 
turned Montana governor who may be look- 
ing at an even bigger quest: to give Hillary 
Clinton a run for her money and 
become the Democratic candi- 
date for president. He loves guns, 
is antiwar and is one of the most 
unconventional politicians ever. 
He's a dark horse, but as he points 
out in his Playboy Interview, he's 
"just a guy who knows a thing or 
two about horses.” in 
is just a guy who knows about 
photographing beautiful women. 
With Miss November Gia Ma 
his eye captures a woman who 
stops us dead in our tracks. When 
it comes to wooing women in 
2014—Playmate or not—internet 
cating [es changed everything. In 
Talk, 4 rb laments 
the nent death of the bar pickup. Actor 
has fought the whims of net- 
work TV, but with About a Boy, his seventh 
role in a decade, he has found a second sea- 
son (and, finally, stable career footing). In 
200 he reveals the advice that got him there 
and why selling Cutco knives and growing 
up with six siblings both complicated and 
abetted his journey. Thank 
for photographing Walton's handsome ı mug 
to illustrate the interview. For those who 
struggle with threats from enemies both 
known and unknown, / k goes 
inside the deadly yet cuddly protections dog 
industry in Attack! Good Boy, where canines 
worth fortunes demonstrate loyalty beyond 
any bodyguard. And in The Bullet, 
spins a story of a rookie Los Ange- 
les police officer paired with a lifer ready to 
question her every move. How they handle 
asensitive, years-old open case will surprise 
them both. Why are you fighting the urge to 
tear through these pages? That's a losing 
battle. Dive in. 


Michael Connelly 


PLAYBILL 


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Josh Ryan and Gia Marie 


Michael Muller 


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== StVincentFilm.com- 1: MAESTRA 


CONTENT 


MISS 
NOVEMBER 
GIA MARIE 


HOLLYWOOD HIGH 

What drives stars into addiction? 
NEAL GABLER uncovers answers in 
darker corners than you'd think. 


ATTACK! GOOD BOY 

Enter the world of the deadliest, 
best-trained protection dogs on the 
planet. By ADAM SKOLNICK 


PLAYBOY PLAYBOOK 
Want to dress, eat, drink, think, 
travel and live better than ever? 
Here's your new life manual. 


WINNERS, LOSERS 

AND LEGENDS 

Millions scrutinize their gameplay. 
Victors earn seven figures. Are 
video-game e-sports Ameri next 
NFL? HAROLD GOLDBERG dives in. 


THE BULLET 

Can Harry Bosch overcome the 
impossible to solve a 10-year-old 
homicide? By MICHAEL CONNELLY 


BRIAN SCHWEITZER 
Couldthe former Montana governor, 
who's redefining what it means to be 
aDemocrat, be Hillary's biggest 
threat? JEFF GREENFIELD finds out. 


DAVID WALTON 

The About a Boy star explains the 
tall guy's plight and teaches how to 
sellkitchen knives like a pro. By 
ERIC SPITZNAGEL 


Diamondsare 
model Stephanie 
Corneliussen's best. 
friend—and the perfect 
placeforourRabbitto 
enjoy the lap of luxury. 


COVER PHOTOGRAPHY BY TONY KELLY 
PHOTOGRAPHY THIS PAGE BY JOSH RYAN 


PLAYBOYY 
VIP — 


SEDUCTION IS A GAME ONLY TRUE 
PLAYBOYS DARE TO PLAY! 


Choose your match from our Playboy Fragrances 
line & enter the iconic Playboy World 


FP playboyfragrances.com 


“oD Áq asua>y apun pasn pue AoqKeld JO шешәред әле ubisag peəH аде pue AOBAWTd "одеа © 


کے 


— 


THE EROTIC WORLD OF SALVADOR DALi 


SURRENDERING READER 
TO GLOBAL RESPONSE 
Debating the roots of 


WARMING 
¿RIC KLI NBE! inequality; mandatory- 

unravels what Hurricane minimum blues. 

Sandy means for coastal 

America. 


DECODING THE 
MONEYMEN 


BAG MAN 

Murses make us gag. 
Trade up to holsters for 
life's essential tools: 


talks with John 
Lanchester, who is decod- 
ing Wall Street jargon to 
avoid another 2008. 


NO COUNTRY FOR 

TOUGH MEN 

Putin tames bears while 

Boehner sobs daily. JOEL 
N misses the era of 

manly U.S. politicians. 


THE ART OF WAR 
PON prefers 
aman who knows what he 
wants—and will fight her 
tooth and nail to get it. 


brews, blades and more. 


VOL. 61, NO. 9-NOVEMBER 2014 


PLAYBOY 


CONTENTS 


RISE & SHINE 

Polish model Anita 
Sikorska makes even the 
earliest risers look like loaf- 
ersin this sunrise shoot. 


HOME BODY 

Froman iconic L.A. man- 
sion, Miss November Gia 
Marie speaks truth to the 
power of the unfiltered, 
incomparable female form. 


THE EROTIC 
WORLD OF А 
SALVADOR DALI 
In 1974 we melded the 
psyche of the surrealist 
genius with the soul of 
PLAYBOY. The result is as 
sexy as it is otherworldly. 


WORLD OF 
PLAYBOY 

Cooper Hefner, Pitbulland 
midnight masqueraders 
abound at our Midsummer 
Night's Dream party. 


PLAYMATE NEWS 


Dani Mathers launches 


20Q: David Walton 


PLAYBILL 

DEAR PLAYBOY 
AFTER HOURS 
ENTERTAINMENT 
RAW DATA 
PLAYBOY 
ADVISOR 

PARTY JOKES 


ө PLAYBOY ON [v] PLAYBOY ON © PLAYBOY ON 
FACEBOOK TWITTER INSTAGRAM 
Е CIAL Keep up with all things Playboy at 


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


her swimwear line; Alana 
Campos introduces our 
Biofit x Playboy lingerie 
collaboration. 


8: PLAYBOY, 9346 CIVIC CENTER DRIVE 
SSUMES NO RESPONSIBILITY TO RETURN UNS! 


RLY HILLS, CALIFORNIA 90210. 
ITED EDITORIAL OR GRAPHIC OR 


D FOR PUBLICATION AND COPYRIGHT 
BE SUBJECT TO PLAYBOY'S UNRESTRICTED RIGHT TO EDIT AND 
ENTS COPYRIGHT © 2014 BY PLAYBOY. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. 
D RABBIT HEAD SYMBOL ARE MARKS OF PLAYBOY, REGISTERED U.S. 

RT OF THIS BOOK MAY BE REPRODUCED, STORED IN A RETRIEVAL 


15 PURELY COINCIDENTAL. FOR CREDITS SEE 

TIC SUBSCRIPTION POLYWRAPPED COPIES. 
JEEN PAGES 24-25 IN DOMESTIC SUBSCRIPTION 
7570 DE FECHA 29 DE JULIO DE 1993, Y CER. 
ECHA 29 DE JULIO DE 1993 EXPEDIDOS POR 
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PRINTED IN U.S.A. 


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AUTOMATIC 


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PROPILOT 


AHRENS OT AT: 
кыры”! 
De de HH fa fy bo Bee 


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CIGARETTES ©2014 COMMONWEALTH BRANDS, INC. 


SURGEON GENERAL'S WARNING: Smoking 
By Pregnant Women May Result in Fetal 


Injury, Premature Birth, And Low Birth Weight. 


RECONNECT INSTANTLY. ` 


— А <j 
ENTER THE USA GOLD - 
Home for the Holidays (NENN — 


at JOINUSAGOLD.COM 
Use Promo Code PLAYBOY 


Е 


USA GOLD 


Made te AMERICAN ay 


HUGH M. HEFNER 
editor-in-chief 


JIMMY JELLINEK 
editorial director 
STEPHEN RANDALL deputy editor 
MAC LEWIS art director 
JASON BUHRMESTER executive editor 
REBECCA H. BLACK photo director 
HUGH GARVEY articles editor 
JARED EVANS managing editor 

JENNIFER RYAN JONES fashion and grooming director 


EDITORIAL 
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 


STAFF: GILBERT MACIAS editorial coordinator; CHERIE BRADLEY executive assistant; you coi 7 Ze 


TYLER TRYKOWSKI editorial assistant 
CARTOONS: AMANDA WARREN associate cartoon editor 
CONTRIBUTING EDITORS: BRANTLEY BARDIN, MARK BOAL, T.C. BOYLE, ROBERT B. DE SALVO, 


STUART DYBEK, MICHAEL FLEMING, NEAL GABLER, KARL TARO GREENFELD, KEN GROSS, DAVID HOCHMAN, 


ARTHUR KRETCHMER (automotive), GEORGE LOIS, SEAN MCCUSKER, CHUCK PALAHNIUK, 


ROCKY RAKOVIC, STEPHEN REBELLO, DAVID RENSIN, WILL SELF, DAVID SHEFF, ROB MAGNUSON SMITH, 
ERIC SPITZNAGEL, JOEL STEIN, ROB TANNENBAUM, CHRISTOPHER TENNANT, 


DON WINSLOW, HILARY WINSTON, 


AVOJ ŽIŽEK 
A.J. BAIME, LEOPOLD FROEHLICH editors at large 


ART 
JUSTIN PAGE senior art director; ROBERT HARKNESS deputy art director; 


AARON LUCAS art coordinator; LAUREL LEWIS designer 


PHOTOGRAPHY 
STEPHANIE MORRIS playmate photo editor; MATT STEIGBIGEL photo researcher; 


GAVIN BOND, SASHA EISENMAN, TONY KELLY, JOSH RYAN senior contributing photographers; 


MERT ALAS AND MARCUS PIGGOTT, DAVID BELLEMERE, MICHAEL BERNARD, CRAIG CUTLER, MICHAEL EDWARDS, 
ELAYNE LODGE, DAN SAELINGER, JOSEPH SHIN contributing photographers; KEVIN MURPHY director, photo library; 
, photo library; KARLA GOTCHER photo coordinator; 


CHRISTIE HARTMANN senior archi: 
DANIEL FERGUSON manager, prepress and imaging; AMY KASTNER-DROWN senior digital imaging specialist; 
OSCAR RODRIGUEZ senior prepress imaging specialist 


PRODUCTION 


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


PUBLIC RELATIONS 


CONSUMER DISCLOSURE. 


‘THERESA M. HENNESSEY vice president; TERI THOMERSON director NO PURCHASE OR PAYMENT OF ANY KIND 
IS NECESSARY TO ENTER OR WIN THIS 
PLAYBOY ENTERPRISES INTERNATIONAL, INC. INSTANT WIN GAME. A PURCHASE WILL NOT 
SCOTT FLANDERS chief executive officer INCREASE YOUR CHANCES OF WINNING. You 

t yet won, The USA Gold Home for the Holidays 

PLAYBOY PRINT OPERATIONS awe ot ihe m 

DAVID G. ISRAEL chief operating officer, president, playboy media; ited by law) 
TOM FLORES senior vice president, business manager, playboy media ww Joi 1 zama Nay. Cams 
b 4 and ends at 
ADVERTISING AND MARKETING Š | ta Пен тете ways a ау 


MATT MASTRANGELO senior vice president, chief revenue officer; JOHN LUMPKIN senior vice president, publisher; 
š Е MS š : o play, or (2 
MARIE FIRNENO vice president, advertising director; AMANDA CIVITELLO vice president, nly to the automated re 


events and promotions; HELEN BIANCULLI executive director, direct-response advertising А Gold n 


NEW YORK: ADAM WEBB spirits director; MICHELLE TAFARELLA entertainment and beauty director; 
Е depend onthe numb 


KEVIN FALATKO marketing director; KARI JASPERSOHN senior marketing manager; and the order in which such pl d 
$ we JoinUSAGold.com for information on pı and Official 
ANNA TOPURIYA graphic designer; ANGELA LEE digital sales planner A on prizes, and Dia 
Andı \ve., Fort Lauderdale, FL 09. 


CHICAGO: TIFFANY SPARKS ABBOTT midwest director 


LOS ANGELES: DINA LITT west coast director; JENNER PASCUA senior marketing manager 
SAN FRANCISCO: SHAWN O'MEARA h.0.m.e. ACTUAL PRIZES AWARDED AS A CASH CARD OR CHECK 


HEF SIGHTINGS, 
MANSION FROLICS 
AND NIGHTLIFE NOTES 


THE WORLD 
OF PLAYBOY 


Playboy's world-famous 
pajama party ruled one 
August evening, to the 
delight of Playmates, 
invitees and Instagram 
users who were privy 

to the action behind the 
Mansion walls. The sum- 
mer soiree was presided 
over by Hef, whose choice 
of pajama color was 
echoed by his son Cooper 
Hefner, who invited 
Pitbull as the night's 
marquee performer. "Mid- 
summer Night's Dream 

is the most fun, epic, 
amazing party Miss Sep- 
tember 2009 Kimberly 
Phillips explains. "It's like 
Sexy heaven.” 


Ever the patron of the arts, Hef 
helped rescue Roman Polanski's 
financially troubled 1971 film 
Macbeth. The auteur's take 

on Shakespeare was recently 
released on Blu-ray by the Cri- 
terion Collection and features 
Polanski's restoration from the 
negative and two documen- 
taries that include insight into 
Playboy's involvement in the film. 


ROMAN POLANS! 


THE TRAG 


i MACBETH 


by William Shakespeare 


If the American Revolution 
started in taverns, the sexual 
revolution ignited in Playboy 
Clubs. Patty Farmer's oral his- 
tory Playboy on Stage makes 
you feel as if you just walked 
into a cultural wonderland. 


Ж Em 


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Drink Wisely. 


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KING OF SPADERS 
Thank you for chatting with James 
Spader (Playboy Interview, September). 
He comes from a time when actors 
were able to behave as they wanted 
without the risk of being taken down 
by TMZ or someone’s cell phone cam- 
era. I wonder what it was like to be on 
the set of Less Than Zero or Pretty in Pink 
when those young stars were on top of 
the world with hardly anyone policing 
their behavior. Young Hollywood has 
changed so much since then. Today’s 
“bad boys” and “bad girls” seem like 
an act. I feel like a grandpa, but in my 
day (the 1980s) the stories were origi- 
nal and the actors had edge. Now the 
studios make only sequels, remakes and 
superhero films with old actors who 
once had an edge. That said, ГП still 
go see Robert Downey Jr. and James 
Spader in the new Avengers flick—but 
I won't like it! 
Ajay Ali Singh 
Toronto, Ontario 


GIRL POWER 
I’m sensing a theme in Septem- 

ber’s Talk: women who take charge in 
their (spy) careers (“The Spies Who 
Loved Us”) and their (casual) sex lives 
(“Hooking Up”). Women don't need to 
wait for men to approach them, and 
they don’t need to put on a bikini to 
fawn over a hero. It’s way better when 
women swipe right on Tinder to find a 
one-night Bond. Now if we could just 
get Hollywood to make more movies 
for today’s women... 

Ash Kramer 

Los Angeles, California 


FOREIGN EXCHANGE 
Lukas I. Alpert’s look at Steven Seagal 

(Steven Seagal’s Fight for Mother Russia, 
September) proves the “actor” is nothing 
but an enterprising though entertaining 
buffoon. Still, I’m impressed that Seagal 
is trying his hand at international diplo- 
macy. Now let me give it a shot: France 
can have Jerry Lewis, Germany can have 
David Hasselhoff and Russia can take 
Steven Seagal. Please. 

Brian Smith 

Boston, Massachusetts 


PUNTERS ARE PEOPLE TOO 
I enjoyed this year’s Pigskin Preview 
(September), but I believe you forgot 
some players for your All America Team. 
What about a punter, a placekicker, a kick 
returner and an Anson Mount Scholar? 
Darrell Hancock 
Winnipeg, Manitoba 
Here are writer Bruce Feldman’s All 
America picks: Florida State placekicker 
Roberto Aguayo, Texas ASM punter Drew 
Kaser and University of North Carolina kick 
returner Ryan Switzer. Duke offensive line- 
man Laken Tomlinson, who has earned both 
first-team All-ACC and Academic All-ACC 
honors, is our pick for scholar athlete. 


DEAR PLAYBOY 


Blind Justice 


In 2000, my father, Salvatore 
Piazza, was arrested as a central fig- 
ure in a Wall Street mafia bust that 
the then U.S. Attorney Mary Jo White 
called “the largest securities-fraud 
takedown in history.” There was no 
lack of spurious, so-called journal- 
ism about my father that followed 
in the wake of the case: One New 
York Daily News reporter was ballsy 
enough to turn his poorly researched 
and outright false stories into a mass- 
market paperback, which outraged 
my entire family. It’s fair to say that 
I approached your story Full Count 
(September) with some bias, but I was 
relieved that Matt Birkbeck appeared 
to have done his homework in this 
well-researched and in-depth piece. 
However, I do take issue with cer- 
tain angles in the story, particularly 
the outright assertion that Denny 
McLain is guilty of a crime of which 
he was never convicted. Declaring 
someone guilty on paper is a dan- 
gerous business, and it can ruin lives 
that might—just might—not deserve 
to be ruined. 

Jessica Piazza 
Los Angeles, California 


HONEST SCOUNDRELS 
Joel Stein’s column “Selfie Mad- 

ness” (Men, July/August) is proof that 
men who claim to read PLAYBOY “for 
the articles” aren’t entirely dishonest 
scoundrels. Please continue to let your 
writers report on what men are think- 
ing, and we'll continue to loyally buy 
your magazine. 

Zach Freeland 

Hillsborough, North Carolina 


SEPTEMBER SIZZLES—OR FIZZLES? 
Miss September Stephanie Branton is 
a total knockout—from her pure angelic 
face down to her little toes. 
Aris Estupinian 
Milwaukie, Oregon 


First, let me state that Stephanie 
Branton is very pretty, but your pictures 
of her are dull. The cover promises a 
“sizzling pictorial in the heart of Cajun 
country.” Where is the sizzle? I think you 
shortchanged your Playmate. 

Gary Appleton 
Oak Ridge, New Jersey 


BLOODY HELL 
The secret to a good bloody mary 
(Drink, September) isn’t in the spice—it’s 
in replacing the vodka with gin. 
David Spahr 
Gettysburg, Pennsylvania 


Thank you for Matt Birkbeck’s profile 
of Denny McLain and his misadventures. 
From the MLB to the M-O-B, McLain had 
a knack for extremes. How have I never 
heard his story before? It would make 
a great movie, and judging from your 
photo of the (then young) pitcher, Joaquin 
Phoenix would be the perfect star. 

Josh Miller 
Denver, Colorado 


We love that variation, which is called a red 
snapper. It has been around since at least the 
1930s, and many consider it the predecessor 
to the bloody mary. 


LADIES’ CHOICE 
As a woman who thoroughly enjoys 

reading PLAYBOY, I want to thank you for 
the excellent articles month after month. 
When I tell people that PLAYBOY is one 
of my favorite magazines and Hugh 
Hefner is one of my heroes, they look at 
me quizzically. It’s a look that comes from 
someone who has never read the maga- 
zine but is quick to judge those who do. I 
would like Mr. Hefner to know how much 
the magazine has educated me. There 
are articles in it that can only be found 
in PLAYBOY. 

Marilyn Golding 

La Habra, California 


SEEKING A “SAVE THE DATE” 

Hilary Winston makes some great 
points in her “Wedding Party!” column 
(Women, September). It is enlightening 
to learn that the women at these spe- 
cial events are just as eager to hook up 
as the men. Now that I’m aware of this, 
I have just one question: Can someone 
please invite me to their wedding? The 
sooner the better. 

Eric Brown 
Columbus, Ohio 


17 


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TAKING A HIT FOR THE TEAM 
I liked your September Gear story on 
how to up your game so you can “kick 
like Cristiano Ronaldo” and “swing like 
Tiger Woods.” You left one out: You can 
hit like Alex Rodriguez with performance- 
enhancing drugs. 
Fred Thompson 
St. Louis, Missouri 


PUNKY BOOSTER 
Bill Donahue’s exposure of the punk 
rock scene in Iran makes the people and 
the environment more relatable to me 
(Iran Punk, June). A counterculture in 
an unbearably oppressive region makes 
complete sense. Youth and the desire 
for independence from old philosophies 
and norms seem to be a common thread 
among all cultures around the world. But 
Donahue gives the readers such a short 
teaser and leaves so many more ques- 
tions. Is this a movement only among 
the youth of today, or have the past few 
generations been rebelling against the 
Iranian regime with music for decades? 
Are these musicians and their fan base 
organized and big enough to actually 
drive change in Iran? 
Zeenat Patrawala 
San Francisco, California 
We asked writer Bill Donahue for a response: 
“When Ayatollah Khomeini took over Iran in 
1979, stomping on artistic freedom with such 
remarks as ‘The tongue deserves to be impris- 
опей,” it was only a matter of time before rebel- 
lion was fomented. Iran has been a nation of 
artists since the 13th century, when the Sufi poet 
Rumi celebrated the spiritual journey afforded by 
music, poetry and dance. It’s hard to say exactly 
when Iran’s punk movement emerged, but in his 
2008 book Heavy Metal Islam: Rock, Resistance 
and the Struggle for the Soul of Islam, writer 
Mark LeVine suggests it was in the late 1980s, 
when music from groups such as Iron Maiden 
trickled into Iran and spread ‘like a flower grow- 
ing in the desert,’ as one local told LeVine. Many 
Iranian rock bands have Facebook pages replete 
with recordings. Tehranavenue.com provides 
English-language listings of Iranian cultural 
events, and Roxanne Varzi's 2006 book War- 
ring Souls: Youth, Media and Martyrdom in 
Post-Revolution Iran evokes the repression 
engulfing Iran's artists." 


COMIC ART 
Many men say they read pLayBoY for the 

articles; others say they subscribe for the 
pictorials of beautiful women. Me? I love 
both the stories and the pictures—but oh, 
the cartoons. Rare is the publication that 
devotes an entire page to a full-color car- 
toon; with PLAYBOY, I can always expect 
several, plus many smaller ones. It's an art 
form that deserves more respect. Thanks, 
Hef, for recognizing that. 

Earl Davis 

El Paso, Texas 


WRONG FOR REBUTTAL 
I just received my September issue, and 
I'm disappointed with pLayBoY for running 


aresponse to Gary Oldman's Playboy Inter- 
view (July/August) from Abe Foxman ofthe 
Anti-Defamation League (Dear Playboy). 
Foxman has a history of employing the 
word anti-Semitic against anyone who dares 
to articulate any form of legitimate criti- 
cism of Israel. Foxman is not a sincere civil 
rights activist, nor is he viewed favorably 
by the majority of Jewish Americans, who 
criticize his support of right-wing Israeli 
policies. Foxman is a controversial fig- 
ure who on one hand purports to fight 
against unfair discrimination but on the 
other opposed Park51—a plan to con- 
vert a Manhattan high-rise into a mosque 
close to the Ground Zero site—which 
was exactly that, unfair discrimination. 
Although Oldman should have chosen 
his words more carefully, Foxman and his 
increasingly sidelined ADL have burned 
so many bridges and polarized so many 
Americans over the Israeli-Palestinian 
conflict that he should not be in a posi- 
tion to express any outrage, no matter 
how false and decadent it is. 

George Absi 

Laval, Quebec 


An eyeful in eyeglasses: Miss July Emily Agnes. 


SKEPTICAL OF SPECTACLES 
I have a minor complaint: In Miss July 
Emily Agnes's pictorial, why is she wear- 
ing eyeglasses that cover up her beautiful 
face and make her look like a female 
Clark Kent? 
Keith Finley 
Brooklyn, New York 
We find women wearing eyeglasses to be 
incredibly sexy, but to each his own. 


Emily Agnes is one of the most gor- 
geous women ever to grace the pages of 
PLAYBOY. She reminds me of Fran Gerard, 
Miss March 1967. 

Bruce Griffin 
Via e-mail 


CORRECTION 

The photographer for the October 
2014 Playboy Interview with David Fincher 
was Marius Bugge. 


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


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PLAYBOY 


< BECOMING 
3 ATTRACTION 


» “IT IS MY JOB 
to create a fan- 
says model- 
actress Natalie 
Loren. She does 

* her job well. Born 
in London, the 
half-English, half- 
Mauritian beauty 
has appeared in 
campaigns for 
Elizabeth Arden 
and in a music 
video for Jared 
Leto's band, 
Thirty Seconds 
to Mars. Natalie's 
moxie and ra 
are rooted in her 
passion. "Every 
girl has her own 
fire” she says 
"Creativity is 
mine. | have so 
much to give to 
the world 


" Photography by MICHAEL EDWARDS/ 
MEINMYPLACE.COM 


22 


TALK | WHAT MATTERS NOW 


CAN I BUY ANYONE A DRINK? 


ONE MAN'S LAMENTATION ON THE DEATH OF THE BAR PICKUP 


ast week I found myself drinking alone at a 
bar while waiting for a friend. Beside me sat 
a group of four women, friends ostensibly, 
though you wouldn't have known that, 
because they never made eye contact. Heads 
down, they scanned dating apps such as 
OkCupid and Coffee Meets Bagel, lamenting the fact 
that they couldn't find decent men. I was stunned. If 
they had simply looked up, they would have noticed a 
dozen presumably decent men standing around them. 
Unfortunately, the bar pickup is now passé, a thing 
of the past. I’m not talking about drunken one-night 
stands; those still occur, probably more often than most 
participants will admit. But the days when two mildly 
buzzed people randomly met because both happened to 
pick the same bar on the same night seem to be behind 
us. It used to work. There was flirting, some buying 
of drinks, an exchange of numbers, texting (never 
calling), a few dates and maybe even arelationship. 
But according to a study published last year in the 
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, only 
nine percent of couples met at a bar, compared with 35 
percent who met online. Online-dating numbers will 
continue to rise, but why do bar pickups seem destined 
to disappear forever? 
Currently one in 10 Americans have tried some form 
of online dating, and 22 percent of 25- to 34-year-olds 


are active online daters. It’s a booming industry, with 

40 million Americans helping to generate more than 

$2 billion in yearly revenue. But bars remain big business 
too, with more than $23 billion spent annually by, 
interestingly, that same number of around 40 million 
Americans. So why aren't these people hooking up? 

Couples used to be embarrassed to admit they'd 
met online. Now the opposite is the case. A straitlaced 
accountant friend of mine met his wife at a now-shuttered 
dump of a bar. She was there as part of a bachelorette- 
party bar crawl; he was there for the cheap booze. When 
people find out the couple, happily married for nearly a 
decade now, met at a dive called the Village Idiot, they 
laugh as though this method of meeting were a relic of an 
older time. It is—a time when people didn't have their eyes 
glued to smartphones while out socializing. 

Forty-four percent of adult Americans are single. 
Maybe that's because they spend more time swiping 
right and left on Tinder than looking around the bar or 
restaurant they're already in. Sure, your average divorcée 
from Wichita will probably have better success finding 
someone on eHarmony than at the local honky-tonk. But 
for 20- and 30-somethings everywhere, bars still offer 
the best dating app of them all: face-to-face meetings 
with a few drinks already in your system. 

Maybe I'm just biased. After all, I met my lady ata 
bar.—Aaron Goldfarb 


ILLUSTRATION BY JOHN CUNEO 


CHELSEA 
PERETTI 


BROOKLYN NINE-NINE'S BREAKOUT STAR ON 
COMEDY, HUMMUS AND COSBY 


> Chelsea Peretti's career is a flight of fancy. Her first gig in L.A. 
— was writing for Sarah Silverman, the fruits of which led toa 
Comedy Central special, scribing for Parks and Recreation and 
starring on Andy Samberg's hit sitcom Brooklyn Nine-Nine. 
But Peretti shrugs off the perks of fame. “Award shows are 
justa lot of time in hair and makeup,” she says. Instead, 
she reserves all vanity for her first hour-long special, 
One of the Greats, premiering on Netflix this month. 
“It's all about social fantasies,” she says of the title. 
Callit alesson in modesty.—Shane Michael Singh 


BOY: You've Greats, precedes with all these weird 

а successful Netflix’s first special opinions informing 
dian for several by an undisputed it. I'll watch Game of 
Is now. Why did great, Bill Cosby. Are Thrones instead. 
you two equals? 


F : Bill and PLAYBOY: You're 

lare probably Jewish and Italian. 
until I felt good identical. [/aughs] Does that make you 
and ready. | һауе a Seeing side-by- a natural glutton? 
healthy amount of side pictures of ТТІ: | can tell 
self-doubt, and for us in the press alot about some- 
years | focused on makes me happy, one based on their 
letting down my but we couldn’t favorite food. For 
guard, dealing with be more different. example, mine is 
hecklers, developing The truth is, I'm carbonara, which 
my voice and being not well versed in is a great light 
silly. | want people to the work of other snack. | once had 
have fun. This is intel- comedians. It's not an argument with 
ligent with an edge. relaxing to me. Your someone who was 

relationship with anti-hummus. That 
PLAYBOY: Your their material will was rough. A lot of 


special, One of the always be different, feelings got hurt. 


23 


24 


TALK |WHAT MATTERS NOW 


PLEA FOR A SIDEKICK 


osh Robert Thompson has a job 

description that has never before 

appeared on arésumé: gay robot skele- 

ton sidekick on a late-night talk show. 

But after four years as the voice of 

raunchy robot Geoff Peterson on The 
Late Late Show With Craig Ferguson, Thompson 
may be looking for work when the host steps down 
in December. His problem is few people know he’s 
the man behind the blue LED eyes of the sexual- 
innuendo-spouting skeleton. Although Thompson 
is anessential part of Ferguson’s gleefully absurd 
hour of television, he’s generally not seen. Even 
planted in line with the audience waiting to get in 
to the show, he goes unnoticed for 45 minutes. 

“I don't care if people love or hate the character. I 
just want them to know that I doit,” Thompson says. 

Ferguson has upended late-night conven- 
tions during his 10 years on the air. He rarely 
rehearses, tears up notes from producers, prefers 
to have conversations with guests and coaxes 
celebrities into playing themselves off with a 
harmonica. But no move was stranger than stick- 
ing a skeleton on the side of the stage and allow- 
ing a struggling comic free rein to banter with 
Ferguson throughout the show. 

Thompson's modest role originally involved pre- 
recording phrases for the character (“Balls,” “In 
your pants,” “Sex party!”) voiced in an over-the- 
top take on George Takei. When he and Ferguson 
hit it off while filming a Las Vegas skit involving 
Carrot Top, aleprechaun, LSD-infused frozen cus- 
tard and a wedding between host and robot offici- 


ated by an Elvis impersonator, Thompson pitched 
the idea of voicing Peterson live. 

He got his shot in April 2011, handling sidekick 
duty twice a week from a bar stool in a small hallway 
next to the audience, all the while fearing Ferguson 
would tire of the gag and Thompson would be back 
to performing material between acts at a bur- 
lesque show. Five weeks into his tryout, he brought 
Ferguson to tears during a segment. “He went into 
the hallway after the show and said, ‘Fucking great, 
man. We need to fucking do this all the time,” says 
Thompson. “He was legitimately excited about it, 
and that solidified my place on the show.” 

But with the show coming to an end, it’s time for 
Thompson, 39, to step out from behind the robot. 
There are rumors that Ferguson will launch another 
show and possibly take Thompson with him. Oth- 
erwise, Thompson would like to write and star in a 
cable sketch-comedy show along the lines of IFC’s 
Portlandia. He's had the perfect proving ground, 
voicing everything from the robot to show mascot 
Secretariat (two interns in a horse costume) to all 
the members of Alfredo Sauce and the Shy Fellas, the 
show's imaginary band. Almost all of it is unscripted. 
Atthe end ofataping, the studio audience gets its 
lone glimpse of Thompson when Ferguson calls him 
onstage for a quick wave, referringto him as “the 
genius who is every voice you don't see." 

For his next chapter, Thompson wants that to 
change. “People always say the anonymity must 
be great,” he says. “It’s really not. I would defi- 
nitely like to be able to get a VIP table at Olive 
Garden.”— Matthew Kredell 


--- 
BREAST IN 
CLASS 


> To honor her 
40th birthday and 
25 years of model- 
ing, Kate Moss has 
collaborated with 

London-based 

34 restaurant to 
produce a limited 


ition champagne 
55 molded from 
her left breast. It 
vt the first bo/ 
sine (‘bosom 
bowl"); according 
to legend, Marie 
Antoinette's left 
breast served as 
the model for the 
original cham- 
pagne coupe. 
Moss's version 
launched in Octo- 
ber at 34 and its 
sister establish- 
ments, includes art 
deco lines and her 
signature engraved 
the base 
rs to that! 


EYE 
CONTACT 


STOMACH BUG 


HEAD CASE 


MIND 
CONTROL 


— we 


Eye Contact 


/ Head Case 


» From custom 
heart parts to in- 
stant organs, 3-D 
printers are revo- 
lutionizing medi- 
cine. In a recent 
procedure, Dutch 
neurosurgeons 
printed a section 


of a 22-year-old's 
skull, which was 
rapidly thicken- 
ing from a rare 
condition. The 
durable plastic. 
cranium allowed 
for recovery and 
saved her life. 


» Glass is out. 
Google's smart 
contacts, an- 
nounced this year, 
could change the 


reality of diabetes. 


With glitter-size 
circuits, antennae 
thinner than hu- 


man hair and LED 
warning lights, 
they nix the blood- 
drawing ritual by 
measuring blood 
glucose in tears. 
Fair trade for suc- 
tioning Google to 
your eyeballs. 


FOR SILICON VALLEY'S BIGGEST 
PLAYERS, YOUR BODY IS A WONDER- 
LAND—AND THEY'RE DIVING IN 


hebody has potential. At 
the intersection of doc- 
tors who repair it, tech- 
nologists who improve 
its surroundings and 
businesspeople who 
profit from it, a host of swallowable, 
implantable and graftable technolo- 
gies has emerged, while companies 
such as Google and Apple vie for your 
health information. The future of well- 
being promises to be consumer-facing, 
customized and on-demand like never 
before. The potential earnings (and 
power) lie in data: Internet pioneer 
Tim Berners-Lee once warned that 
“data is precious and will last longer 
than systems themselves.” With U.S. 
digital-ad revenue reaching nearlya 
billion dollars aweek and increasing 
about 20 percent year over year, audi- 
ence information equalsinfluence, 
and our biology—internal chemis- 
try, fitness trends, disease history 
and mental activity—is the richest 
untapped data source yet. This is how 
tech will getinside you.—Will Butler 


-2 №. 


Stomach Mind 
Bug Control 


» What if a cap- + New technol- 
sule could warn ogy could help us 
of sickness, heart escape our bod- 
attack or even ma- jies, as Harvard re- 
nia? Health-tech searchers learned 
company Proteus when an electronic 
Digital is creating spinal implant 
just that with its allowed a monkey 
digital feedback to move another, 
health system. The sedated monkey’s 
ingestible sensor, arm. Dr. Ziv Wil- 
made of magne- liams hopes such 
sium from fish discoveries will 
and copper from enable paralyzed 
cashews, is acti- people to bypass 
vated by stomach nerve damage 
fluids. It sends a and regain move- 
biorhythmic pulse ment after serious 
to a Band-Aid-like injury. He notes 
receiver on the the futuristic 
skin and relays experiment was 
real-time vitals to inspired by James 
your smartphone. Cameron's Avatar. 


26 


FOOD 


SIR 
MIXALOT 


YES, A BLENDER CAN BE BADASS, 
THE POWERFUL KITCHEN TOOL 
EVERY MAN SHOULD OWN 


hile much has been 
said about the 
virtues ofasharp 
chef's knife, the 
blender remains a 
secret, high-powered weapon in the 
manly culinary arsenal. Step into a 
professional kitchen during dinner 
prep and chances are you'll find a 
blender on duty, often a Vitamix. It's 
also the brand you'll find on the back 
bars of upscale watering holes, in the 
homes of professional bodybuilders 
andanywhere a man needs to con- 
sume something liquefied, fortifying 
and ona regular basis. The reasons 
are twofold: First, it's blisteringly 
fast, with steel blades that approach 
240 miles an hour; second, it's nearly 
indestructible, with a high-impact 
pitcher and a two-horsepower motor 
that refuses to burn out. Gentlemen, 
start your blenders. 


Variable 


Photography by 
DAN SAELINGER 


G Vitamix. 


TOWER OF POWER 


Sure, some competitors 
out there can destroy an 
iPhone on YouTube, but 
eats the classic 
00 for chef cred 
ed good looks. 
щатх.сот) 


SPIN Y 


% 
Freeze! 

Blast up a 
batch of frozen 
margaritas, or 
make snowy 
ice for boozy 
snow cones. 


2: 

Paleo Power 
Blend your 

own nut and 

seed flours 

to bake like a 

caveman. 


3. 
Souper Man 
Combine 
your favorite 
vegetables and 
blend them till 
they're steam- 
ing hot. (Yes, 
it produces 
enough friction 
to do that.) No 
stove required. 


4. 
Smoothie 
Move 

The viciously 
powerful vortex 
can turn any 
protein shake 
into a silky 
smooth elixir. 


FOOD STYLING BY CAROL LADD 


PLAYBOY'S 
SPECIAL COLLECTOR’S EDITIONS 


LEECT 


Available now at 
Barnes 
& Noble 


and other select 
newsstands for 


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т? = 


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y 


DRINK 


FLASK 
FORWARD 


WHY PORTABLE COCKTAILS SHOULD 
BE YOUR GO-TO TO-GO DRINK 


ure, you couldfillaflask 

with your favorite spirit, but 

that’s not much different 

from drinking straight out 

of the bottle. Pour ina fine 
cocktail, and suddenly you have a 
mixological speakeasy in your pocket 
that you can take to the stadium or the 
show. We turned to bartender Matthew 
Biancaniello to create four cocktails 
that taste amazing right out of the 
flask, no martini glass required. Just 
stir the ingredients and funnel them in. 


* Mad Martini 
i 3 oz. Monkey 47 gin 
i Тог, Cocchi Americano Rosa 
i 4 dashes Bar Keep fennel 
i bitters 
¿1 pinch sea salt 


* Bee There 
i 202.123 tequila añejo 
} Тог. apple cider 
| 9 oz. honey syrup (11 ratio 
H water to honey) 
i % oz. lemon juice 
i 1pinch cinnamon 


* | Ryetalian 
i 2 oz. rye whiskey 


i Тог. nocino 
i Orange zest 


* | Guava Lamp 

i 402.123 tequila blanco 
infused with fresh guavas 

(Marinate one pound of 

i guavas cut in half 

i ina bottle of tequila for 

i two weeks.) 


Photography by DAN SAELINGER 


POUR VOUS 


Usagi copper 
shaker ($68, 
cocktailkingdom 
.com); handmade 
copper flask 
($198, kaufmann 
mercantile.com). 


ILLUSTRATION BY ROBERT HARKNESS 


- А new intimates collection-designe 1 
Now. 


STYLE 


d- 


DONT AX 


Even when this 
sheath is snapped 
tight, what's inside 
is obvious. Best 
Made Company's ax 
case is the epitome 
of a man bag. 
($110, 
bestinadeco.com ) 


DITCH THE MURSE 
FOR ONE OF THESE 
PURPOSE-BUILT BAGS 


otes, back- 
packs and 
murses 
abound, but 
carryinga 
bag that looks like you 
mean business is a more 
badass way to lug your 
gear. Whether you're 
an outdoorsman (or 
dream of being one), a 
bibulous boarder (surf 
or snow, that is) or a 
photographer who knows 
asmartphone will never 
outsmart his SLR, here 
are our favorite carry- 
ing cases that are cooler 
than the other guy’s. 


CASE STUDY 


Charge! 
3 This briefcase 
from Filson looks 
old-school but has 
a built-in charger 
to power your elec- 
tronics on the go. 
$425, filson.com 


Photography by DAN SAELINGER 


Beer Bong 
> Raise a toast on 
the chairlift and tote 
your 12-pack with 
Burton's double- 
barreled insulated 
Beeracuda. 
$30, burton.com 


Photo Finish 
> The Bowery is a 
handsome waxed- 
canvas camera bag 
that doesn't look 
like it came free 
with your camera. 
$129, onabags.com 


Knife Fight 


> Messermeister's 
orange knife roll 
holds 12 blades and 
gives Mario Batali's 
Crocs a run for 

their money. 

$62, messermeister.com 


Audrina 
Patridge 
for Curve 


‚Available at fine drug stores and mass retailers. 


Wil SAVE $3 


! | || | II | 1 on any 1.0 fl oz or larger Curve Cologne or EDT 


STYLE 


STRUT 
YOUR 
STACHE 


IF YOU'RE GOING TO GROW A 
MUSTACHE IN MOVEMBER, YOU MAY 
AS WELL DO IT WITH STYLE 


et other men cultivate unkempt 
face caterpillars this Movember. 
If you're going to go hirsute to 
raise awareness of men’s health 
issues, this is your best chance 
to experiment with a look you may want to 
hold on to, or at least inspire conversation 
(or behind-the-back ridicule). Whatever 
the case, you should pick a flattering or 
funky style, get growing a few weeks in 
advance of November and set yourself up 
with the proper gear to keep your activist 
mustache well-groomed. 


© Clip Art 

> Trim your 
mustache for 
Movember; keep 
these in your 
dresser drawer 

for cutting stray 
threads the rest of 
the year. 

$12, tweezerman.com 


THE PORN 
STACHE 


> Orange Is 

the New Black 
revived the kinky- 
cop look. Grow it 
big, trim it square 
and keep it neatly 
combed. 
e Wax On 
> Capt. Fawcett's 
Expedition Strength 
Moustache Wax will 
keep your handle- 


THE RAP bars up and at the 


STACHE ready. 
>A tightly е $17, westcoast 
trimmed mus- 


shaving.com 
tache a la Puff 


Daddy or Frank 

= Ocean looks 

«> dashing dressed 
up with a suit 


е Comb Alone 
— Small enough 
to keep in your 
pocket, this classic 
comb from Kent 

is handmade in 
England. 

$9, grooming 
lounge.com 


THE NEW 
MANCHU 


Steve Aoki 
rocks a shorter 
version of the Fu 
Manchu. It de- 
pends on careful 
trimming rather 
than months of 
growing, 


PHOTO OF LOUISE BOURGOIN BY FREDERIKE HELWIG 


ILLUSTRATIONS BY ROBERT HARKNESS. 


MMP BIS 
ots 
ae 


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We" “UT ER 
чо) 


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34 


TRAVEL 


JOBURG IS 
JUMPING 


A YOUTHFUL CULTURAL RENAIS- 
SANCE MAKES JOHANNESBURG 
SOUTH AFRICA'S COOLEST CITY 


There’s apartyrumblingin 
Johannesburg (a.k.a. Joburg or Jozi), 
the sprawling South African city known 
for beingrough, graffitied and weighed 
down by years of postapartheid tensions. 
The inner city’s derelict warehouses and 
abandoned industrial complexes have 
been repopulated by the young and ballsy; 
there's tons of street style, art happen- 
ings, strong coffee and good music. Keep 
your wits about you and get moving. 


Hot Hotel Café Culture 

* The hippest ad- * If it’s Saturday 
dress to wake up at: morning, you'll 

12 Decades (A), an want to head 
avant-garde hotel straight to Braam- 
that anchors the re- fontein, another 
vitalized Maboneng district pioneered 


precinct, Rooms by developers and 
are designed by lo- creative entrepre- 
cal artists who take neurs. Jozi still 
cues from various has some danger- 
decades of Joburg ous pockets—it's 
history. (The wise to make fast 


Minehaus room, for friends with locals 
example, is inspired who can tell you 


by Bauhaus and where it's safe to 
the 1916-t0-1926 go—but this area 
mining boom.) The is totally, refresh- 
hotel occupies the ingly walkable. 
seventh floor of Mainline caffeine at 
Main Street Life, a the Scandinavian- 
concrete building inspired Father 
from the 19705 that Coffee (B), then 
also houses apart- hit up Neighbour- 
ments, an indie goods Market, a 
movie theater and veritable daytime 
a rooftop boxing drinking party 
gym you can visit where enterpris- 
to jab away any ing Joburgers set 
lingering jet lag. up tables with 


artisanal African 
foods, local 
biltong (addic- 
tive wild-game 
jerky), booze-filled 
coconuts, ironic 
tees, sunglasses 
and the like. All the 
rising millennials in 
Joburg gather here 
to hang out and be 
photographed for 
fashion blogs. 


Street Style 


* From here, stroll 
Juta Street for 
hoodies and Icon 
hats at Supreme- 
being, cool kicks 
at Prime (C) and 
fixed-gear acces- 
sories at Hunter 


Cycling. Then duck 
into the Kitchener's 
Carvery Bar for 

a drink. The old 
saloon has a laid- 
back daytime vibe 
and cute girls sell- 
ing vintage clothes. 
You'll want to circle 
back here in the 
evening, though, 
when it’s jamming 
with bands, bar 
food and DJs. 


Art Attack 


“Нор acab to 

the impressively 
engineered Circa 
on Jellicoe or the 
reworked gallery 
complex 44 Stanley 
(D) for more art, 


design and food. 
But if it's your first 
time in Joburg, 
and if you're not 
suffering froma 
midday hangover, 
the wise move is 
to check out the 
Apartheid Museum 
or the township of 
Soweto, practi- 
cally a city within a 
city with a maze of 
houses, corrugated 
shacks, historically 
significant sites 
such as the Man- 
dela house, and 
makeshift bars and 
food trailers where 
locals will happily 
give you a serious 
South African his- 
tory lesson. 


After Sunset 


* Come evening, 
you'll need to un- 
wind. Back near the 
hotel, the cutting- 
edge Museum of 
African Design (E), 
which showcases 
forward-thinking 


design from the 
continent, will be 
prepping cocktail 
ingredients for the 
Commissioner, its 
newly minted bar 
and jazz club. The 
night, however, is 
still young, and it’s 
worth finding out 
if anything cool 

is happening at 
Afrikan Freedom 
Station (facebook 
.com/afrikan 
freedomstation), an 
experimental jazz 
venue for South 
African artists, or 
the booming club 
Bassline. On any 
given night the lat- 
ter is packed with 
all kinds of people 
swaying to all kinds 
of live jazz, hip-hop, 
Afro-beat, reggae 
or other sounds 
from the diaspora. 
Sweating, drinking, 
dancing together— 
it's the kind of vibe 
that gets into your 
bones and stays 
long after you’ve 
left the motherland. 
—Jeralyn Gerba 


GET THE ONES THAT 
GOT AWAY 


back issues, now for sale on 


PLAYBOYMAGAZINESTORE.COM 


36 


STATS 
MERCEDES-BENZ GLA CLASS 


U NCOM MON Engine: Two-liter turbo four | HP:208 | Torque: 258 foot-pounds 
SENSE Zero to 60: 7.1 seconds | Price: $33,000 base 


MERCEDES-BENZ GIVES THE 
CROSSOVER A STYLE MAKEOVER 


“ Crossovers are the most logical con- 
sumer vehicles on the road. From solid 
fuel efficiency to decent cargo space, the 
CUV is designed for utility. Unfortunately, 
no man wants to be remembered for his 
utility, and this truth has made these intel- 
ligent choices the last resort among male 
car buyers. Enter the 2015 Mercedes-Benz 
GLA class, an attempt at sexy sensible- 
ness. The curves and cues of the GLA 
mimic M-B’s recent, fluid car designs more 
than its trapezoidal trucks. The suits have 
smartly opted to label this fresh little star 
acompact SUV rather than the dreaded 

C word, a stance we'll co-sign thanks to 
the ute’s sport-minded stance and quick, 
nimble athleticism. Powered by a standard 
208 hp turbo four-cylinder engine, the all- 
wheel-drive GLA250 sprints to 60 mphina 
touch more than seven seconds and has the 
ability—via ECO start-stop technology—to 
cut off at red lights, saving its energy (and 
your money) for the long haul. If that’s 

too rational, upgrade to the AMG-tuned 
variant, which pumps 355 horses and 

332 foot-pounds of torque out of the same 
engine configuration and luxe trimmings 
(burled walnut, poplar wood), depending 
on how many option boxes you're willing 
to check.—William K. Gock 


,2%.2%.2%.2%. өө e,95,9,9,0 ° O ө == 

ЦИР БЫШЫР И. ш 

9905; И оа 
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estet oonaz 

ca ca = oc O 

abs 

Dass? 


GEAR 
TAKE A CUE 


RUNNING THE TABLE 15 JUST-A 
MATTER OF HAVING THE RIGHT TOOL 


Photography by 
DAN SAELINGER 


STICK WITH IT 


— Many collec- 
tors have racks full 
of assorted cues, 
but consistently 
using the same one 
will help improve 
your game. “I like 
to keep one stick 
I really like,” says 
Van Boening, “so | 
have confidence in 
its performance.” 
Once you’ve 
chosen a cue, ac- 
cruing table time 
will help you learn 
its tendencies and 
intricacies, Some 
players keep a 
specific cue for 
breaking that has a 
different shape and 
a harder tip, but 
it’s not essential, 
especially if you're 
just starting out, 


BUTT 
SERIOUSLY 


— The butt of a 
cue can be the 
most expensive 
part, thanks to ex- 
otic inlays, but the 
shaft determines 
how a cue plays. 
Most shafts have 
a tip of roughly 
13 millimeters in 
diameter and then 
get fatter as you 
move toward the 
butt. One of the 
most common 
current designs is 
the “pro taper,” 
which stays mostly 
straight for about a 
foot before widen- 
ing; the design 
provides a good 
balance of comfort 
and reliability. 


° 


WEIGH YOUR 
OPTIONS 


-> According 
to Van Boening, 
weight is one 
of the most 
crucial aspects 
to consider when 
choosing a cue. 
The standard 
starter cue weighs 
19 ounces, which 
offers a good mix 
of solid feel and 
control. Lighter 
cues offer more 
action but are 
more difficult to 
control, while 
heavier cues offer 
more inertia but 
can exacerbate a 
missed strike. 


о 


TIP-OFF 
> Most playing 
cues come 
standard with a 
medium-density 
leather tip, 
which should 
perform just 
fine under most 
circumstances. A 
softer tip requires 
more frequent 
maintenance and 
replacement, but 
itkeeps the cue 
in contact with 
the ball for a split 
second longer, 
which makes it 
easier to spin. A 
hard tip needs 
less maintenance, 
but the less 
forgiving surface 
Usually means 
more miscues, 


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EJ ENTERTAINMENT 


THE 
FARRELLY 
BROTHERS 


А CHAT WITH 

THE CREATORS 

OF DUMB AND 
DUMBER TO 


f Dumb 
and Dumber To 
takes place 20 years 
after the first movie. 
How different was 
it working with Jim 
Carrey and Jeff 
Daniels this time? 
PETER: Jim and 
Jeff get along so 
great—because 
of Jeff. Between 
takes, Jim demands 
attention, while 
Jeff gives him the 
room he needs 
and goes off and 
plays his guitar. 
Jeff is so cool and 
the perfect guy to 
work with, and Jim 
appreciates that. 


L )Y: You 
guys had noth- 
ing to do with the 
prequel, Dumb and 
Dumberer. Why 
make a sequel two 
decades later? 
PETER: We're very 
proud of the first 
movie, and we 
didn't want to do 
Dumb and Dumber 
light. It was disap- 
pointing that the 
prequel kind of 


WIGAN NIGHTBREED: ° 
ПО THE DIRECTOR'S CUT ees 


By Greg Fagan 


actors, and after 
that we brought 
in the Family Guy 


When Clive (Craig Sheffer and writers. By the time 
Barker adapted his Anne Bobby as we shot, we were 
novella Cabal into young lovers, and locked and loaded. 
19905 Nightbreed, David Cronenberg P ^ ЕА 5 

едін за youl 

UNE —-. abi forse e 
a the sequel will let 
was more than two same, but the new them down? 
hours long. The material brings the BOBBY: | honestly 
studio then butch- freaky underworld think Dumb and 
ered the movie, Midian to the fore. пита То is En 
andit flopped. In Fans of dark fantasy СН На HH с E 
an unlikely turn of and wild monsters to be watched over 
events, the miss- will be pleased. Best and over. I'm also 
ing elements were extra: a documen- pretty sure it will 
found, апа Barker's tary detailing the play well in Colo- 

See Š rado and Washing- 
visionisfinallyreal- film'slong,strange ton, where recre- 
ized. The core story trip to longer and ational marijuana is 
and performances stranger. ¥¥¥ legal.—S.R. 


MUSIC 


KILLER MIKE OF RUN THE JEWELS 


О: Your partner 
El-P tweeted that 
you two consumed 
two ounces of 
sativa, an ounce of 
mushrooms and 
four grams of hash 
while recording the 
new Run the Jewels 
album, RTJ2. True? 
: For the whole 


album, Га say 
we had almost a 
pound of weed 
and 21 grams of 
hash. No, only 
my wife and El 
smoked hash, so 
Vd say 14 grams 
And shrooms. 


О: What was your 
first impression 
of El? 


: That he’s a typi- 


cal New York guy 
confident, gruff, 


assertive. I'ma 
typical Southerner. 
Even if we're say- 
ing the cruelest 
thing, we usually 
end with please 
and thank you 


О: You're unique in 
rap for your con- 
cern about consti- 
tutional rights. 

I'ma fierce 
fighter for con- 
stitutional rights 
because | like 


pornography, | like 
praising whatever 
god | choose, | like 
marijuana and | 
own guns. I'll even 
defend the KKK's 
right to protest. 


а: You've said Run 
the Jewels is the 
greatest rap duo 
ever. Really? With 
only two records? 
I have to think 
that; I'm a rapper. 
We are the best. 


GAME OF THE MONTH 


NBA 2K15 


El-P (left) and Kil 


MUST-WATCH TV 


ASCENSION 


+ Halfacentury ago, scientists were working on 
a supersized ship capable of transporting hun- 
dreds deep into space in a fraction of the time 

it would take traditional rockets. The upshot: 

It would be powered by nuclear bombs set off 
behind the craft. Not surprisingly, JFK killed 
the program—or did he? Syfy’s limited series 
imagines an alternate reality in which the New 
Frontier meets the Final Frontier: A Cold War- 
crazed Kennedy, convinced of Earth’s demise, 
approves the ship and sends 600 Americans 
(including Battlestar Galactica's Tricia Helfer, 
left) on a 100-year journey to settle a new 
planet. We meet the voyagers in 2014, just as 
their utopian space society has been shattered 
by a mysterious homicide and doubts about the 
mission are arising. Ascension offers a fascinat- 
ing premise—and a welcome departure forthe 
network that gave us Sharknado. 


+ Go easy on Kobe's knee. The updated 
injury mechanics of NBA 2K15 (360, PC, 
PS3, PS4, Xbox One) break down a player's 
body into 16 parts, each with its own dura- 
bility rating. Take Kobe hard to the hoop 
too many times and he’ll end up riding 

the bench. Again. The good news is the 
expanded general-manager mode allows 
greater freedom to trade, sign and draft 
players. Not that it will be easy to find the 
next LeBron. Only four players have a skill 
rating above 90 points, down from 10 play- 
ers in last year’s game. Fewer elite players 
means you'll need better game planning. 
Time to get out the chalkboard. YY YY 


THE WEIRD WORLD 
OF WARCRAFT 


1. Secret Island 
> Beta testers 
stumbled upon 
Developers Island, a 
secret space full of 
unfinished charac- 
ters that was never 
meant to be seen. 


2. Race to Finish 
> Gnomes and 
Trolls were the last 
two playable races 
to be created and 
almost didn't make 
it into the game 


3. Hidden Shrine 
> A floating rock 
on the outskirts of 
the Netherstorm 
zone holds а 

shrine to Nova— 


an homage to 
the company's 
unreleased game 
StarCraft: Ghost. 


4. Word Games 


> World of 
Warcraft currently 
contains about 

6 million words of 
text, roughly equiv- 
alent to 12 copies 
of the Lord of the 
Rings trilogy. 


5. The Gargle 

> The mrgigirgigi- 
glgl! noise made Бу 
the froglike murlocs 
is actually a record- 
ing of a sound 
designer gargling 
with yogurt. 


41 


Y RAW DATA 


Number of new entries in Merriam- 
Webster’s new Scrabble dictionary, 
including qajaq, po and ayaya. 


* Number of 
camera-equipped 
robots fans could 
control remotely 

to view art after 

hours in the Tate 
Britain museum. 


JACK OFF 


CHEAT SHEET ROAD TRIP 


cheat on your 
partner once, 
you're 


Opportunity rover was 
scheduled to drive across 
Mars: 0.62 
Actual miles driven: 25.01, 
setting the record for the 
longest distance a vehicle 
has traveled outside 
of Earth. 
Previous record: 
the Soviet Union's 
Lunokhod 2, which 
drove 24.2 miles on the 
Moon in 1973. 


Listening to music with a heavy bass line can 
increase your sense of power. Researchers suggest 
three “high-power music pieces”: 


ө “We Will Rock You" "Get Ready for This" 
Queen 2 Unlimited 


“In Da Club” 
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HIGH-MINDED 


* The U.S. has the 
highest rates of legal 

and illegal drug use of 
17 countries studied. 


have tried cocaine 
than Eee i other 


Colombia and Mexico. 


ALL TRADES 


umber of 
applicants who 
responded 
within the first 
48 hours toa 
job listing for 
amale 
tester at Brit- 
ish company 
Hot Octopuss: 
more than 
1,000 
Job require- 
ments: “good 
stamina” 
and ability to 
“handle the 
pressure.” 


* Percentage of 
respondents by 
country who h 
gone to the bea 


TOPLESS NUDE 
U.S. 
FRANCE 
GERMANY 
BRAZIL 
AUSTRALIA 


S. KOREA 


Percent of Americans Who Have Tried: 


ALCOHOL TOBACCO CANNABIS 
а 
| 1 ХА № - 


92% 1% 1% 16% 


COCAINE 


NOT JUST 
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DRINK RESPONSIBLY. 


44 


NO COUNTRY FOR 


TOUGH MEN 


HOW CAN POLITICIANS ACT SO HATEFUL AND 
MEAN WHEN IN TRUTH THEY'RE JUST WIMPS? 


e are experiencing our coun- 
try's angriest political division 
since the Civil War, yet our poli- 
ticians have never been softer. 
Senators should be challenging 
each other to duels or at least 
| commenting on each other's 
websites with such slurs as "fawning 
weather-bitten boar-pig,” “bawdy full- 
gorged whey-face," “clouted pockmarked 
nut-hook" or at least ©). Instead, our one 
angry, hard-assed political movement is 
named after a game of make-believe that 
preschool girls play with their dolls. 

Speaker of the House John Boehner 
cries constantly. He has cried during a 
tribute to Arnold Palmer, in the middle 
of singing "America the Beautiful" and 
while watching children running around 
outside a school—something he says 
he avoids for fear of choking up, along 
with, I assume, Arnold Palmer, "America 
the Beautiful" and The Bachelor. Instead 
of ever taking sides, Obama invites both 
sides in a disagreement to the White 
House lawn for beers and silver bowls of 
snacks. George W. Bush drank nonalco- 
holic beer, was a college cheerleader and 
now paints pictures of dogs. Harry Reid 
is so fearful that, instead of enjoying co- 
caine, craps and hookers like a normal 
Nevadan, he continues to be a Mormon. 

Maybe Richard Nixon scared us away 
from tough guys. Or maybe being the 
only superpower made us too comfort- 
able. Countries with more insecurity are 
more likely to get in the globe's face: 
Vladimir Putin, a black belt in karate, has 
shot tracking darts at whales with a cross- 
bow, purposely taken his giant black Lab 
to a meeting with dog-phobic German 
chancellor Angela Merkel and inspired 
Armia Putina, a group of women who 
took off their shirts in support of his can- 
didacy. Meanwhile, that dancing Obama 
Girl from 2007 won't even say whom she 
voted for in 2012. I'm pretty sure that 
wouldn't have happened in Russia. 

Or maybe our politicians' lack of rage is 
just the side effect of 24-hour news analy- 
sis. Anytime a politician does something 
the least bit tough, we scamper around 
declaring him unfit for office, as if being 
in political office were like being the pope. 
Politics is for unpleasant, power-hungry 


- 


people who get stuff done. For most of 


human history you achieved political 
office by killing the man in that office. 
Which is also how you became pope. 
People worried that being а POW might 
have made John McCain unstable, in- 
stead of realizing it didn’t even make him 
tough enough to control Sarah Palin. The 
only reason George H.W. Bush got to be 
president was because people thought he 
was a wimp; he knew not to focus on the 
fact that he enlisted to fight in World War 
II the day he turned 18 and then jumped 
out of a burning plane at the age of 20, 
which he enjoyed so much he jumped out 
of planes on many later birthdays, includ- 
ing earlier this year for his 90th, despite 
being confined to a wheelchair due to 


Parkinson's. When John Boehner turns 
90 he'll need an intravenous saline drip 
to get through his birthday cards. 

Sure, we like to see photos of politicians 
hunting and fishing, but any actual dis- 
play of aggression causes us to wag our 
fingers in shame. When Mitt Romney 
said London wasn't properly prepared 
for the Olympics, pundits worried he was 
too unhinged to represent America. Joe 
Biden is called crazy because he some- 
times curses. If our forefathers voted by 
those rules, we wouldn't have anyone on 
our $20 bill: Andrew Jackson married 
a woman who wasn't yet divorced, said 
on his last day as president that his only 
regret was having "been unable to shoot 
Henry Clay or to hang John C. Calhoun" 
and, when an assassin tried to shoot the 
67-year-old Jackson with two guns, the 
president beat the crap out of him with 


his cane even though Davy Crockett was 
right there in the crowd. 

We also wouldn't have President John 
Quincy Adams (swam naked in the Po- 
tomac every morning; kept a pet alliga- 
tor in the White House), Vice President 
Aaron Burr (killed Secretary of State 
Alexander Hamilton in a duel; kept his 
job) or President Theodore Roosevelt 
(kept a pet bear and lion at the White 
House; had a brown belt in jujitsu; 
formed a cavalry unit called the Rough 
Riders that was so badass it not only has a 
condom named after it but a ribbed one). 

It seems as though we're taking all our 
potential leaders and making them work 
as political consultants. First of all, James 
Carville, Steve Schmidt and Ed Rollins 
could never be politicians today simply 
because, like many other tough guys— 
Dwight Eisenhower, John Adams, Walter 
White—they're bald. But the truth is, 
tough political consultants are nowhere 
near as frightening as the cigar-smoking 
party bosses who used to work the back 
rooms. Al Capone was a party boss. 
Enoch Johnson, the Republican boss of 
New Jersey on whom the main character 
in Boardwalk Empire is based, was respon- 
sible for bootlegging, gambling, prosti- 
tution, the collections racket and wear- 
ing a $1,200 raccoon coat. Do you know 
how many raccoons it would take to be 
worth $1,200? In the 1920s? That's like 
raccoon genocide. 

The future is bleak. As we object to 
tweets, leaked texts and secretly taped 
videos, we're doomed to having milque- 
toast leaders unable to either voice our 
rage or strong-arm their own parties into 
compromise. In the post-Oprah era we 
may one day remember John Boehner 
not as the Speaker who cried but as the 
one who didn't rend his clothing. a 


THE ART OF WAR 


SOME WOMEN WANT AMAN WHO KNOWS HOW TO ARGUE, EVEN IN PUBLIC 


ne summer my boyfriend and I went 
on vacation with another couple. 
We'd all known each other a long 
time but had never traveled together 
before. The four of us rented a 
cabin at a ranch in Colorado, and it 
became clear the first night that we 
were two different kinds of couples. They 
were sweet to each other, offering to sign 
up for fly-fishing or whatever the other 
wanted. They were gentle and kind, even 
after two bottles of wine. We, however, 
weren't that kind of couple. After two 
bottles of wine, we were all watching TV 
and I mentioned I liked a certain actor on 
Saturday Night Live. My boyfriend made a 
rude comment, and I said, “Aren’t you a 
smug dick.” The insult hung in the air like 
a dad fart. After a few seconds of silence, 
the other couple excused themselves to 
go to bed. (“We're so tired. Must be the 
altitude.”) But instantly we heard the TV 
go on. They had left so my beau and I 
could fight it out privately. A few minutes, 
a few insults and a few “Well, maybe your 
tone needs work” type of comments later, 
and we were fine. The next morning, the 
two of them tiptoed out of their room not 
knowing if they were going to find one of 
us on the couch, but everything was great. 
We were ready for some farm-fresh eggs 
and genuine maple syrup. My boyfriend 
and I had more flare-ups between us 
on the trip, but our friends weren't fast 
enough with their excuses to avoid all our 
arguments (you can check the horseback- 
riding schedules only so many times). So 
they had to watch us ride the fights out. 
Sometimes a short ride. Sometimes a long 
ride. But we did try to be entertaining. 
When fights go public, you step up your 
game. (“We don't have to guess. Let's ask 
them if they thought the lube story was 
funny!”) I think the other couple got used 
to it. In my head, it was a lovely trip. It’s 
also possible they remember the weekend 
as Whos Afraid of Virginia Woolf? with 
smores. But I don't regret it. I'm always 
going to be in the couple that fights. 

The reason I will always be in the couple 
that fights is because I'm moody, prone to 
PMS and a little bitchy but also because 
I actually think fighting is a good thing. 
Everyone knows the joy of cooking and the 
joy of sex, but I think a real joy comes from 
fighting in your relationship. It's like two 
chess masters playing each other. You both 
know the game so well, you know each 


other's moves. Anyone сап win, and it can 
be very satisfying at the end. But you do 
need two to play. 

I once got into a fight with a newish 
boyfriend at an upscale brunch place 
where we were literally rubbing elbows 
with the people at the next table. After 
hitting a sour note in a conversation about 
how friends of ours were raising their baby, 
I started raising my voice. He proceeded 


BY HILARY WINSTON 


to shush me (motioning that people could 
hear) and told me we'd talk about it in the 
car. That was the worst thing he could have 
done to prevent a scene, and so I caused 
one. I wasn’t cussing (much) or throwing 
things (other than a sugar packet, which 
was more of a toss), but I did express my 
opinion loudly and with feeling. We broke 
up soon after. If a guy is going to hide 
behind a short stack of ricotta pancakes 


(which we went dutch on), I don’t want 
him. I want a guy who can hold his own 
and not wait until we get to the car. 

We've all been in those relationships 
when you know something has gone 
horribly wrong and you dread the car 
ride home. You just know when that door 
closes behind you and seals you from the 
outside world, the rest of the night is toast. 
But why let it build? Why not just get it over 
with? I once got into a huge fight with my 
boyfriend at an Indian wedding. I told him 
not to chew with his mouth open, which I 
admit was condescending. (In my defense, 
though, saag paneer is not a food you want 
to see someone eating.) He got mad, and 
we argued in front of some Indian aunties. 
He didn’t talk to me for an hour, but by the 
time the dancing came around, we were 
back on and “Jai Ho”-ing to the best of 
our ability. We didn’t have to wait all night, 
tension and passive-aggressive comments 
building until we were finally in private. 
We got it out and enjoyed the rest of the 
(very long) wedding. 

I think "getting along” isn’t all it’s cracked 
up to be. If you spend the majority of your 
time with one person, that person is going 
to get on your nerves. He or she is going 
to hurt your feelings. Its only natural. 
So stop “yes, dear”-ing her and avoiding 
fights. Don’t keep it in. Stop and smell the 
war of the roses. Go public. Get it out. Get 
fired up. Be passionate. Be heated. Hey, 
there's a reason all those terms are also 
associated with a great sex life. = 


Я 
8 
2 
El 


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І recently discovered my 

43-year-old boyfriend of one 
year pays for “erotic massages,” 
which is code for seeing a pros- 
titute. He has an enormous 
penis, but he has trouble main- 
taining an erection. Sex with 
him is difficult, but since we 
began sleeping together we’ve 
had sex every time we see each 
other, which is about five nights 
a week. He takes Levitra but 
thinks I don’t know. When I 
found out about the “massages” 
I asked him what was going on, 
and he lied about everything. 
He has about a dozen contacts 
in his cell phone whom he texts, 
calls and e-mails. He tried to 
hook up with one of them just 
a week after I first learned 
about his secret habits. When 
I confronted him, he said he 
contacted her to test me to see 
if I would react. He has turned 
into a drama queen. I have lost 
respect for him but still love 
him. I’m quite a step up from 
his ex-wife and am not try- 
ing to force a relationship that 
shouldn't be. I own my home, 
earn plenty of money and am 
the opposite of needy. Even 
though I am emotionally strong, 
this has worn me down. Just 
being around him is annoying. I 
look at him now and think he's 
pitiful. He meets any attempt 
at discussion with a full-blown 
temper tantrum along the lines 
of “You know I love you, so 
why are you bringing this up?” 
I think he sucks. Am I on the 
right track or overreacting?— 
T.L., Washington, D.C. 

As midlife crises go, this one 
sounds critical, at least in terms 
of how it affects your happiness. 
Your boyfriend’s defensiveness and 
outright denial in the face of what 
sounds like overwhelming evidence 
add yet another layer to what is at 
the very least a twofold fiction he 
is perpetrating on you—and on 
himself. Some people accept their 
partner's behavior no matter how 
far it goes beyond what is consid- 
ered the norm, but your boyfriend's 
self-deception is exceptionally trou- 
bling, and it clearly hurts you. He's dishonest 
about his physical condition, the medication 
he takes and his sexual activities apart from 
you; one can only imagine what else he might 
be lying about. If these issues were in his past 
and he were willing to work on them, we 
would be more hopeful than we are. This is 
one of those situations where you must decide 
whether you're going to attach your happiness 
and sense of well-being to someone who is not 
only out of touch with the realities of his own 
behavior but also thoroughly dismissive of 
your desires. By no measure does this sound 


PLAYBOY 
ADVISOR 


Im 32 years old, and until a few months ago I was 
a hopeless womanizer. I seduced countless women, 
had threesomes, swapped partners and even made 
amateur porn. I keep a dresser drawer full of tro- 
phy panties. But a few months ago I met a woman 
Pm so taken with that I have stayed committed and 
monogamous. I want to propose to her. Should I get 
rid of the panties and not tell her about my past, or 
should I come clean and tell her everything?—J.D., 
Jacksonville, Florida 

Congratulations on your wild youth and your newfound 
love. We suggest you give the relationship at least a few more 
months before you propose. If you still feel the same way 
after the relationship has been road-tested and the novelty 
has subsided, you should come clean so that in your married 
years you'll be able to come with a clean conscience. 


like a healthy partnership. Additionally, if 
your boyfriend is indeed seeing prostitutes 
regularly, you have an increased chance of 
being exposed to STDs. You say you think he 
sucks; given your account of your relation- 
ship, we can’t argue. 


| have two questions, if you'll indulge 
me. Both are related to pubic hair. First, 
have sexual psychologists or the Advi- 
sor coined an expression, either scien- 
tific or lighthearted, for the condition 
that induces a complete loss of arousal 


when confronted with bald 
genitalia? Second, could you 
settle a dispute between me and 
my friend? We want to know 
whether the Advisor regards 
it as poor taste or unnecessar- 
ily indelicate to inquire as to a 
possible bedmate’s “fur status” 
in the same way one would ask 
about tattoos, piercings and 
other intimate preferences. — 
S.P, Oceanside, California 

The Advisor is much better at 
creating punny headlines (Wane's 
World, Hirsute Yourself, From Hair 
to Eternity, Up in the Hair, Pubic 
Enemy Number One, Fear of a Bald 
Planet, Trim Shady) than coining 
medical terms. But borrowing from 
the Germans, we have attempted to 
cobble together a compound word 
for you: unbehaartsehenangst. It’s 
no schadenfreude, but it'll do in a 
pinch. As for your second question, 
it is absolutely in poor taste—and 
tacky, rude, creepy, shallow, ungen- 
tlemanly, etc.—to ask prospective 
partners about their piercings, 
“fur status” and other genital aes- 
thetic preferences in advance of a 
potential hookup. 


Every once in a rare while, 
the tip of my penis accidentally 
touches the toilet rim. I don’t 
mean the seat; I mean the rim 
of the bowl. When this hap- 
pens in the bathroom at work, 
I feel as though a billion germs 
and viruses have landed on my 
penis. What is the best thing I 
can do to clean off? Should I 
rub it with toilet paper? Hide in 
my office and put hand sanitizer 
on it? I don't want to stand at 
the sink washing my penis.— 
TR., Langley, Virginia 

Much has been said about the 
relative cleanliness of the toilet 
seat in comparison with the kitchen 
sink (a dry seat harbors few germs; 
a wet sink can be a bacterial breed- 
ing ground). But you present a 
less cut-and-dried scenario. It’s 
entirely possible that contact with 
a toilet bowl can expose your pe- 
nis to many germs. But provided 
you don't have an open sore on 
the tip of your penis and have a 
strong immune system, you're probably go- 
ing to be okay. (From what you say it sounds 
as though this has happened a few times 
already—and you're doing fine.) Do not use 
hand sanitizer on your penis; it contains 
alcohol as an active agent and can burn. If 
you plan on having sex the same day your 
penis has touched a toilet, we suggest tak- 
ing a nice hot soapy shower beforehand as a 
courtesy to your partner. 


I have read that when storing cigars in a 
humidor it is best to leave the wrappers 


47 


PLAYBOY 


48 


on until shortly before smoking. Until 
recently I always did. (I’ve been a serious 
cigar smoker for only a couple of years.) 
However, last month I did an experi- 
ment and stored several cigars—Partagas 
Black Labels, CAO Italias, Brick House 
Maduros—without wrappers in one of the 
three humidors I own. When I smoked 
them, they tasted better, with more flavor 
and perhaps a slightly fuller body. Is this 
possible, or is it all in my imaginationz— 
PD., Morgantown, West Virginia 

As with so many questions regarding how 
best to enjoy the finer things in life (from wine 
lo cigars to clothes), it often comes down to per- 
sonal preference. Kudos to you for not accept- 
ing the dictates of so-called experts in the field 
(some of whom we've found extremely dull in 
conversation; we tend to prefer the renegades 
who find pleasure in gently and thoughtfully 
breaking the rules). Cellophane wrappers do 
slow the rate at which an improperly stored 
cigar will dry out and lose flavor, but they are 
far from perfect. In a properly calibrated humi- 
dor a wrapped cigar won't dry out, but it won't 
absorb any of the humidor's moisture either. It 
seems you prefer the flavor of a moister cigar. 
One reason some cigar fans keep their cigars 
wrapped is to prevent flavor transfer between 
brands. A compromise is to open the ends of 
the wrappers, which theoretically allows some 
moisture in yet prevents the exchange of flavors. 


lama 45-year-old male and have been 
single my entire adult life. The women 
Ilike tell me they take my interest as a 
compliment but that they aren't inter- 
ested. My last heartfelt attempt to start a 
relationship was 20 years ago. While at- 
tending college I was attracted to one of 
the girls in my dorm. We usually talked 
casually when I came back from class. 
After a while I decided to ask her out to 
dinner and a film. She responded by re- 
porting me to the director of the dorm. 
I have never been able to get past the 
fact that she reacted this way. Are there 
any standards regarding how a woman 
should reject a man and whether it is 
appropriate for a woman to have some- 
one convey the message for her?—K.S., 
Azusa, California 

There is no standard practice for how to 
appropriately reject someone. But lingering 
too much on an incident that transpired two 
decades ago isn't going to help you with your 
current situation. One of the wonderful things 
about internet dating sites such as Match.com 
and eHarmony.com is that they use extensive 
personality-matching algorithms to pair po- 
tential dates, even those who have been per- 
petually dateless. Additionally, they play the 
role of dorm director, which is to say they're a 
go-between that handles the rejection at some 
distance with minimal embarrassment to ei- 
ther party. Explore these sites. Who knows? 
You might find someone who dealt with the 
same type of rejection you did 20 years ago. 


You advised a reader to cook scallops 
with balsamic vinegar as the perfect 
second-dinner-date dish (September). 


The recipe you provided was great— 
except for the $45 balsamic. I don't 
consider myself a foodie, but I do like to 
cook and eat great meals. I wholeheart- 
edly agree that one should not cheap 
out and buy a $5 bottle from the local 
supermarket, but there is no need to 
spend $45 for a great bottle of balsamic 
or flavor-infused extra virgin olive oil. 
I used to travel to Salt Lake City a few 
times a year, and I visited Mountain 
Town Olive Oil every time for its great 
selection of oils and vinegars—plus you 
can taste them before buying. Most of 
the bottles are 375 milliliters for $15 
(some of the flavor-infused selections are 
more expensive). I liked to buy the out- 
standing 18-year traditional. Now that I 
have stopped traveling west so much I 
have found something closer: Taste Oil 
Vinegar Spice in Fredericksburg, Virgin- 
ia has 375-milliliter bottles for $18. Small 
shops specializing in spices, oils and vin- 
egars seem to be popping up all over 
the place. Since the letter writer is in the 
Los Angeles area, I'm sure he can find a 
great shop to buy just what he needs.— 
M.S., Fredericksburg, Virginia 

There certainly are fantastic midpriced 
balsamic vinegars. We suggested the Villa 
Manodori brand because it is by far the best 
of the dozens we've sampled. It has a perfect 
balance of sweet and sour and is so good it 
can make even a mediocre cook’s food taste 
profoundly delicious. It is produced exclu- 
sively for Massimo Bottura, who is widely re- 
garded as not only the best chef in the Emilia- 
Romagna region of Italy (where balsamic 
vinegar was invented) but the best chef in the 
world (his restaurant Osteria Francescana has 
won just about every award possible). Don’t 
want to spend the money? Here’s a cheat for 
getting great aged-balsamic-vinegar flavor 
out of a $5 bottle: Simmer a couple of cups 
over low heat in a saucepan until it reduces to 
a syrupy consistency. The flavors will deepen 
and intensify. It won't be the same as the best 
stuff, but it will be damn good. 


Ive heard semen can be used as a face 
cream. Supposedly it improves the skin 
because it contains protein and other 
natural ingredients. Is this true?—I.T., 
Montreal, Quebec 

In theory, it’s not the protein in semen that 
would improve the quality of your skin but its 
proteolytic enzymes, which can break down 
protein—in this case, dead skin. Presumably 
with repeated applications you could break 
down the outer layer of skin, making it easier 
to remove and thus revealing the smoother 
skin beneath it. But there are much less in- 
volved ways of achieving these benefits. You 
could use a gentle exfoliant, followed by a face 
cleanser and an over-the-counter moisturizer. 
Whoever told you semen can be a skin treat- 
ment seems to have their facials confused. 


Can you please advise me about wheth- 
er there are humane ways to encourage 
bees to leave their hive permanently? 
My niece rents a house where a colony 


of bees has built a hive inside a cavity in 
an outside-facing wall, having gained ac- 
cess through a vent in the masonry. My 
niece worries that if she calls in a pro- 
fessional, he will simply kill the bees be- 
cause there is no way to reach the hive 
without knocking a hole in the wall. Is 
there any way to get the bees to abandon 
their hive, such as buying plants they 
don't like or using smoke?—R.F., Cape 
Town, South Africa 

Apart from relocating the hive with the help 
of a professional beekeeper, there’s no surefire 
way to humanely remove an entire colony of 
bees. In your case, it would unfortunately 
require knocking a hole in the house (which 
many people opt to do if they can afford it). 
If your niece is adamant about not killing the 
bees, she will need to contact a beekeeper who 
can determine whether the insects are honey- 
bees and therefore of value. For a small fee the 
beekeeper might remove the bees with the help 
of a carpenter. You are fortunate the hive is 
in an outside-facing wall, as the bees are less 
likely to invade the house if disturbed. 


І disagree with your advice to W.K. in 
Springfield, Illinois, who asked how to 
tip a bartender who has given a cus- 
tomer many drinks on the house (Sep- 
tember). You said to leave the price of 
the drink as a tip, but this is bad advice. 
As an employee of the bar, a bartender 
is not authorized to “comp” drinks—it’s 
stealing from his or her employer. My 
answer would have been that comped 
drinks should not be accepted; drinks 
should always be paid for. My daughter 
and son-in-law own several taverns, and 
free drinks handed out by bartenders 
are a great expense and loss of money 
for them. —K.T., Austin, Texas 

You're not the only reader we heard from 
who believes comped drinks at a bar always 
constitute employee theft. But every bar has 
its own rules. Some have house accounts or 
promo tabs that bartenders are allowed to use 
with discretion; others allow a certain percent- 
age of an evening's sales to be comped, and 
some don't allow comping at all. We surveyed 
the owners of several profitable bars around 
the country to get their opinion, and they re- 
soundingly said allowing bartenders to comp 
drinks is part of their success. They see comped 
drinks, or buybacks, as a sort of informal ver- 
sion of a frequent flyer program. They train 
their employees to use them sparingly and with 
discretion. An occasional gift from the bar to 
big spenders and regulars encourages loyalty 
and makes customers feel special. To the savvy 
bar manager it can mean more money in the 
till and in the tip jar. 


For answers to reasonable questions relating 
to food and drink, fashion and taste, and sex 
and dating, write the Playboy Advisor, 9346 
Civic Center Drive, Beverly Hills, California 
90210, or e-mail advisor@playboy.com. The 
most interesting and pertinent questions will be 
presented in these pages each month. 


Can we win by losing? 
BY ERIC KLINENBERG 


here is, and has always been, a 
bold American way to respond 
to major disasters: We don't 
merely rebuild; we build big- 


ger and stronger than before. 

We do this regardless of what hits us. 
Chicago, incinerated by the great fire 
of 1871, quickly became the nation’s 
fastest-growing metropo- 
lis. San Francisco, which 
crumbled and burned 
in the 1906 earthquake, 
transformed into the cul- 
tural and financial hub 
of the West. New Orleans 
grew larger and more 
prosperous after the Mis- 
sissippi River flood of 
1927, and since September 
11, 2001, real estate devel- 
opment in lower Manhattan has boomed. 
Climate change forces us to abandon 
the rebuild-bigger strategy. The oceans 
are rising steadily, and storm surges are 
growing more powerful by the year. We 
can neither armor the entire coastline nor 
build walls to protect all our cities. The 
costs are too high and the consequences 


Climate change 
forces us to 
abandon the 


rebuild-bigger 


strategy. 


too severe for adjacent communities that 
would be affected by spillover. 

As water traverses coastlines and 
riverfronts, the millions who have settled 
on the dry side will start asking whether 
they can stay there. In many cases—from 
small towns in Maine to significant por- 
tions of Miami, New York City and San 
Francisco—the answer will 
be no. 

It's time to start plan- 
ning the unthinkable: 
a strategy for returning 
some of the most precious 
and valuable land we've 
developed back to our 
oceans and rivers. And in 
time, but sooner than you 
may think, we'll need a 
program for resettling mil- 
lions of people to higher ground. 

After Hurricane Katrina, several earth 
scientists and a few brave political officials 
argued that New Orleans should never 
have been built on such vulnerable land. 
They called for the government to shrink 
the city down to its safest areas, lest the 
next megastorm again batter those who 


ILLUSTRATIONS BY JUSTIN PAGE 


READER 
RESPONSE 


OF MARKETS AND 
MANATEES 


I agree with Curtis White that 

the top one percent are robbing 
us, but that has little to do with 
capitalism in a true free market 
("Designated Suffering," Septem- 
ber). It has everything to do with 
government working hand in 
glove with giant corporations to 
deny the common man easy entry 
and real competition in most mon- 
eymaking enterprises. Government 


DESIGNATED 
SUFFERING 


continues to exist to protect the 
power and perks of the ruling 
elite. The socialist paradigm seems 
to assume more government will 
cure the problem of big govern- 
ment in bed with big business. Yes, 
giant corporate thieves (oligarchs) 
should return the 85 percent of 
the country's wealth owned by the 
top quintile to those it was stolen 
from. But the anti-individualism 
of socialism destroys human incen- 
tive. The most successful system 
thus far is the approximation of the 
free market found mostly in West- 
ern culture—not the corporate 


49 


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READER RESPONSE 


tyranny of today. Socialism works 
well only when it is voluntary, as 
in the American commune or the 
Israeli kibbutz. The same is true of 
the free market. The government- 
controlled “capitalism” we have 
now is the modus operandi of the 
ruling elite's continuing control. It 
is not a true free market, which, if 
instituted, has the potential to cure 
most of the world's problems. 

Fritz Knese 

Harrison, Arkansas 


Curtis White writes that taxpay- 
ers will have to pay for a new 
planet and the “rich and power- 
ful” will be “glad to have someone 
else pay to fix it.” He fails to real- 
ize that the wealthiest members of 


our society are the ones who pay 
the vast majority of taxes. And by 
the way, manatees [which suffer, 
White says, as capitalists benefit] 
are a nonnative species respon- 
sible for legislation that has put 
generations of hardworking dock 
builders out of business. 


John T. Johnson 
Punta Gorda, Florida 


‘Two countries that are among the 
biggest polluters and that have 
done the least to abate pollution are 
China and Russia—neither of them 
purely capitalist. As for “nature’s 
whipping boy,” the growing mana- 
tee population now exceeds 4,800. 
Joseph Kutch 
Pineville, Louisiana 


HOME OF THE 
INCARCERATED 

Thank you for “Cruel and 
Unusual” (June). Take it from me, 
prison sucks. Mandatory mini- 
mum sentencing, such as Oregon’s 


have already been beaten. But the low- 
lying neighborhoods that suffered most 
from Katrina had heavy concentrations of 
African Americans and the poor, and these 
communities were woefully neglected dur- 
ing and after the storm. In the real politics 
of that disaster, refusing to help rebuild 
these communities was perceived as down- 
right discriminatory. And 
though it hasn't been easy, 
the most precarious New 
Orleans neighborhoods 
are returning. 

The aftermath of Sandy 
is different. The 2012 hur- 
ricane killed 117 people, 
72 of them in the U.S., 
damaged or destroyed 
some 650,000 homes, left 
more than 8 million house- 
holds without power and 
generated more than 
$60 billion in damages. 
Sandy took aim at Staten 
Island, the largely white, 
middle-class and politically conservative 
borough that sits like a bull’s-eye at the 
center of the New York Bight. The storm 
delivered about 500 million tons of water 
to New York City at roughly 80 miles an 
hour, and Staten Island got the worst of it. 
More than 75,000 people along the east- 
ern and southern shores were flooded 
out when storm surges up to 14 feet high 


Rather 
than build 
back bigger, 
neighborhood 
associations 
demanded 
buyouts from 


the city. 


deluged their homes. Twenty-three peo- 
ple died there; the small island accounted 
for more than half the state’s fatalities and 
nearly one third of the national toll. 

The death and devastation on Staten 
Island may have been unsurprising, since 
the borough is a barrier island by nature 
and as such has absorbed the blows of 
many previous hurricanes. 
But residents’ response was 
startling. Rather than build 
back bigger, neighborhood 
associations demanded 
buyouts from the city and 
state. They loved their 
neighborhood, the local 
culture and the beach, but 
they'd grown weary of liv- 
ing in a floodplain and 
had lost the will to live 
with that risk. As Oakwood 
Beach resident Joe Monte 
told the press, “I’m done. 
I can't handle it no more. 
Just get us out of there. I 
want to feel normal again.” 

Improbably, New York governor 
Andrew Cuomo agreed to bail out Monte 
and his neighbors—and at pre-storm mar- 
ket prices. Cuomo proposed buying out 
every homeowner in the three Staten 
Island neighborhoods that had mounted 
the most aggressive campaigns for Sandy 
relief: Oakwood Beach, Ocean Breeze and 


REFUGEES AT SIX FEET 


Sea levels will rise four to six feet by 2100, according to 
the National Climate Assessment, a White House report 
released this May. For four of the most at-risk coastal 
states, this means a world of trouble. 


K 


A | 4 


California Louisiana New York 
People who 
i 603,305 1,127,633 2,685,967 480,807 

Percent 

of state 2% 24.9% 14% 2% 
population 
in the zone 

Number 

of homes 252,427 520,801 1,444,827 209,800 
in the zone 


Source: Climate Central (climatecentral.ora) 


WELCOME TO THE AGE OF ADAPTATION. 


Graham Beach. The buyouts, part of a 
$400 million state pilot program, averaged 
$400,000, a price the governor deemed 
worth paying. “There are some places 
that mother nature owns,” Cuomo said. 
"I want to give this parcel [of land] back.” 

Cuomo’s announcement delighted 
the successful petitioners, who called it 
“absolutely unbelievable” and declared 
themselves ecstatic. But residents in other 
vulnerable Staten Island neighborhoods 
left out of the pilot program have spent 
the past two years fighting, angrily and 
anxiously, for public support to move out 
of harm’s way. 

For most of that time, their major oppo- 
nent was former New York City mayor 
Michael Bloomberg, a skeptic of buyout 
programs for densely populated water- 
front cities. “We cannot 
and will not abandon our 
waterfront,” Bloomberg 
stated. “It’s one of our 
greatest assets.” He 
pointed out that the lat- 
est FEMA maps place 
400,000 New Yorkers and 
70,000 buildings in areas 
at high risk of dangerous 
flooding. He didn’t believe 
public agencies could pay 
to relocate all of them to higher ground, 
and he didn’t think they should. 

In Bloomberg’s view, sustainable 
urban planning requires denser devel- 
opment, even along the flood-prone 
coastline. Just as a century ago engi- 
neers began to design buildings that 
were more fireproof to reduce the risks 
of conflagration, today they’re designing 
stronger, more water-resistant structures 
and infrastructures to withstand com- 
ing storms. With these technologies, the 
Bloomberg approach to climate-change 
adaptation is the latest variation on the 
classic American recovery theme: Build 


Mother 
nature doesn’t 


care if we 


believe the 
science. 


bigger, build stronger, continue to grow. 

Dense urban development is indeed 
important for reducing our carbon foot- 
print and curbing climate change. It’s 
also politically convenient, because the 
growth machine—builders, real estate 
agents, developers and the like—supports 
it. But it doesn’t have to happen every- 
where. It is folly to rebuild in places that 
may be submerged within half a century 
or in places that are under threat of dan- 
gerous flooding every day. 

The pilot program to buy out home- 
owners on Staten Island is only beginning, 
and it’s too early to know what kind of 
model it will establish. But there are 
already a few clear lessons. 

First, drawing boundaries that separate 
those who will receive public funds to 
relocate and those left to fend for them- 
selves will be difficult and contentious. 

Second, not everyone 
who should move will 
want to, and it’s impossible 
to manage a retreat from 
dangerous land if residents 
won't give it back. 

Third, it’s going to be 
expensive. The govern- 
ment will never be able to 
buy out residents at full 
market value if the mar- 
ket doesn’t price in climate 
risks, About 124 million people, or 39 per- 
cent of the U.S. population, live in coastal 
counties. The $400 million New York pro- 
gram is a drop in the bucket compared 
with the price of relocating Miami or New 
Orleans. And when those cities go down, 
they won't go alone. 

Of course, there are other ways to 
adapt to climate change. An exciting 
design movement involves building 
water-resistant structures, such as homes 
with floodable first levels, and infrastruc- 
tures, such as permeable street surfaces 
and resilient power grids. In 2012 policy 
makers in Congress began scaling back 


FORUM 
¥ 


READER RESPONSE 


Measure 11, has destroyed due 
process and favors the prosecution 
so heavily that a fair trial is a thing 
of the past. Please publish more 
articles like this. 
Sam Paul 
Pendleton, Oregon 


When will legislators and prosecu- 
tors who play fast and loose with 
taxpayer money realize that being 
“tough on crime” is really just 
tough on budgets, bank accounts 
and the social fabric of America? 
As fiscal shortfalls nationwide cause 
municipal bankruptcies, school 
closures, reductions in essential 
social services and government 
shutdowns, the populations and 
budgets of prison systems across 
the country continue to increase 

at unsustainable rates. The num- 
bers cited in “Cruel and Unusual” 
are appalling, but the life-without- 
parole movement is only part of 
the problem. The push toward 


CRUEL AND. 


Thousands. 
of people are. 
serving life in 
prison without 
parole for 

olent offenses 


longer and harsher sentences has 
led to a 700 percent increase in 
incarceration rates since 1980, 

to more than 2.4 million on any 
given day. This is despite a 45 per- 
cent drop in the overall crime rate 
since 1990. Many institutions fail 
to provide meaningful or effec- 
tive treatment or rehabilitation 
services—and let's not forget that 
95 percent of offenders will even- 
tually be released. Their successful 
and productive reintegration is in 
society's best interest. 

Although it is by no means the 
sole cause, it is undeniable that 
America's pitiful ascent to unri- 
valed incarceration king of the 
industrialized world coincides with 
the decline of American excep- 
tionalism. We no longer lead the 


51 


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world in education; Russia doesn't 
respect us; we haven't even been 
home to the world's tallest build- 
ing for some time now. But look 
on the bright side: If we continue 
down our current path, we will 
always be number one at some- 
thing. There are, without a doubt, 
countries where oppression and 
injustice far outweigh our own, 
but at least they don't claim to be 
the land of the free. 


Vincent Bitetto 
Concord, New Hampshire 


AMERICAN DREAMING 
Is equality possible in a democracy 
(‘All Men Are Created Unequal,” 
September)? I don't think it's 
achievable today, and I don't think 
it was in the past. Edward Tenner's 
article brings to mind a clas- 
sic of American literature, Upton 
Sinclair's The Jungle, in which 
immigrant Jurgis believes if he 
works harder—longer hours, less 
pay, in grueling conditions for dis- 
honest employers—he can improve 
his lot. What follows is a tragedy 
that I can't help think is not so dif- 
ferent from today's reality. 

Julian Jefferson 

Boston, Massachusetts 


CREATED 


ENA a 


L 
TI 
TNNT 


Inequality is the status quo and 

a fact of life; equality has always 
been a Marxist myth. Frankly, no 
one except a pie-in-the-sky com- 
munist would want everyone to 
get the same pay. Unions once ful- 
filled a great purpose. Today the 
union label basically means things 
made by overpaid people who 
don't care and cannot be fired. 


the federal flood-insurance subsidy pro- 
gram to remove dysfunctional incentives 
to develop new coastal property. And 
after Sandy, federal relief funds were 
restricted to projects rebuilding at least 
one foot above local flood guidelines. Not 
every coastal community needs to move, 
but even if only a small fraction does, the 


math becomes overwhelming, especially if 
we refuse to plan and invest in a climate- 
change strategy today. 

Mother nature doesn't care if we 
believe the science. She has already nar- 
rowed our options. We can either slowly 
give her coastal land back or wait for her 
to take it. a 


DECODING THE 
MONEYMEN 


Economist and writer John Lanchester 
translates how Wall Street talks 


BY JEREMY REPANICH 


n the wake of the 2008 economic 

crisis, writer John Lanchester set 

out to understand how the entire 

financial system col- 

lapsed. In his 2010 
book 1.0.U.: Why Everyone 
Owes Everyone and No One 
Can Pay, he explained the 
history and mechanisms 
that brought the world 
economy to its knees. His 
latest book, How to Speak 
Money, addresses the lan- 
guage used by financial 
professionals—an esoteric 
vocabulary that hampers real industry 
reform—and hopes to bridge the knowl- 
edge gap between Wall Street and Main 


feel they don’t 
know what 
the hellis 


going on. 


Street. His belief, as he explains below, 
is that doing so can give Main Street a 
fighting chance to make our banking 
and financial policies more 
equitable for all. 


People still 


PLAYBOY: What com- 
pelled you to write a book 
that tackles financial vo- 
cabulary for the everyday 
consumer? 

LANCHESTER: When I 
finished 1.0.0. I said ГА 
never write another book 
about finance again, be- 


cause the credit crunch was unique and I 


expected economics would fade in impor- 
tance in people’s lives. But for many it still 


feels like 2008. Things 
haven’t changed, and 
there’s a great feel- 
ing of being squeezed 
by circumstances that 
began with the credit 
crunch. On top of that, 
there’s a gap in knowl- 
edge. People still feel 
they don’t know what 
the hell is going on. 

PLAYBOY: You under- 
stand people’s frustra- 
tion, but your book isn’t 
seething with anger. 

LANCHESTER: I 
wanted this book to be 
a tool kit, an explana- 
tion of financial and 


-MICHAEL LEWIS 


HOW TO 


WHAT THE MONEY PEOPLE SAY— 
And What It Really Means 


LANCHESTER | 


LANCHESTER: Debt 
has been treated as the 
cure for inequality. If 
you can’t have some- 
thing you used to be 
able to afford, just bor- 
row to buy it. People 
reach for an unattain- 
able lifestyle that’s all 
around them. Politi- 
cians have no proposal 
to fix the wealth gap, 
and the economy is 
completely flat. Medi- 
an income is flat; your 
opportunities and 
prospects in general 
are flat. But you can 
have the things you 


economic vocabulary 


want by borrowing. In 


that would give people 

room to make up their own minds. Some- 
times if you're too hard-line and angry, 
readers won't follow. They get the gist 
early on and then stop reading, without 
the tools to make their own conclusions. 
PLAYBOY: Most people’s eyes begin 
to glaze over at the mere mention of 
economics, which can be convenient 
for financiers, because then the public 
doesn’t know enough to pry into their 
business. Do you think the financial 
sector is intentionally using esoteric 
language to obscure information from 
everyday people? 
LANCHESTER: From 
the point of view of the 
person who doesn’t know 
what the words mean, 
intentions don’t matter. 
If RMBS-based CDOs 
come up in conversation, 
it doesn’t matter if some- 
one is using that language 
to bamboozle you or as a 
utilitarian way of talking 
about collateralized debt 
obligations made out of 
residential-mortgage- 
backed securities. 
PLAYBOY: So if you don’t understand 
someone’s jargon, you're lost, whether 
they’re trying to screw you or not. But 
some Wall Streeters are intentionally 
screwing people, right? 
LANCHESTER: Oh yes. Let me be 
clear: Some people in the financial in- 
dustry are deliberately ripping people 
off all day, every day, every week. 
PLAYBOY: What do you find to be the 
most surprising gap in public financial 
knowledge? 

LANCHESTER: Debt has been re- 
branded as credit. The single most con- 
sequential area of change is the fact that 
we can all stick our hand out the window 
and grab as much debt as we want, and 
that is historically unusual. 

PLAYBOY: What has been the fallout 
from that? 


Once we 
start having 
the right 
conversations, 
we can start 
finding the 


right answers. 


a strange way, there's 
a profound link between increased in- 
equality and increased debt. 
PLAYBOY: Did Reaganomics and the 
past 30 years of policies fueled on debt 
cover up that growing inequality? In- 
equality increased, but people didn’t 
feel it because they could just borrow 
more money. Then the chickens came 
home to roost in the form of the finan- 
cial crisis. 
LANCHESTER: That’s exactly one of 
the ways in which it played out. But I 
think there’s also a link through deregu- 
lation. The policies led to 
a rise in inequality and 
also to a rise in deregula- 
tion in the financial indus- 
try, which led to a wave of 
new ways to make money 
by lending money. And so 
there are two prongs to 
that particular offensive. 
One is that the rich get a 
lot richer quickly. And the 
other is that the finance 
industry has the shackles 
taken off and looks at a 
whole new set of ways to 
lend everybody money. 
PLAYBOY: Will increased financial lit- 
eracy on Main Street push back against 
policies like that? 
LANCHESTER: I think the correlation 
between inequality and inheritability in 
our country would see more attention. 
In more unequal societies, inheritance 
determines the outcome of your life, 
and that’s central to political debate. In 
terms of its history and self-conception, 
America is the land of opportunity, but 
does it matter that it actually isn’t, as a 
plain statistical fact? This is the land of 
your daddy’s daddy determining what 
your life is. If that matters, how do we 
fix it? I don't know the policy specifics, 
but I think that larger framing is more 
important, because once we start having 
the right conversations, we can start find- 
ing the right answers. a 


FORUM 


y 


READER RESPONSE 


Unions are growing in the public 
sector; what is that about? Unions 
for government workers should be 
banned—if the government needs 
unions to protect its workers from 
injustice, why should we have 
any trust in government? I know 
unions—my father was a union 
organizer and head of a union in 
the days when they represented 
skilled workers. I was in several 
unions and helped organize one. 

I grew up in some of the poor- 
est neighborhoods in Houston. 
My mother had been a sharecrop- 


per on a farm with no electricity 
or running water. When she was 
12, her mother died and she had 
to raise six siblings. My father’s 
family was run out of several coun- 
tries due to religious and political 
oppression before finding freedom 
and opportunity in the U.S. They 
taught me the value of hard work, 
education and honesty. No one 
should be discriminated against. 
Nor should anyone get handouts 
from vote-buying politicians. The 
real inequality is that hardworking 
Americans are taxed to the max 
to support people who have made 
welfare a generational business, 
while the media try to convince 
people that values have no role in 
success or failure. The biggest gaps 
in America are not necessarily 
income-related; they are the gaps 
between those who take responsi- 
bility for their lives and those who 
do not, and between those who try 
to live worthy lives and those who 
are basically lazy uneducated fools. 
Pablo Solomon 
Austin, Texas 


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


53 


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s BRIAN SCHWEITZER 


A candıd conversation with the former Montana governor about his 
dark-horse quest for the presidency and his Wild West approach to politics 


From the moment he entered the Montana gov- 
ernor's office in 2005, Brian Schweitzer made 
it clear he was going to be a very different kind 
of politician. In place of a tailored suit and 
repp tie, he wore jeans and a bolo tie. One of 
his frequent companions in his inner sanctum 
was Jag, his border collie. When he vetoed 
bills sent to him by the Republican legislature, 
he used a branding iron. Whether it was his 
branding iron or his brand of Democratic 
politics—he's a tax-cutting, pro-gun social 
liberal —Schweitzer was reelected in 2008 by 
a two-to-one landslide and remained one of 
the most polarizing governors in the nation 
throughout his eight years in office. That same 
year he all but tore the roof off the Democratic 
National Convention with a speech that had 
political experts asking, “Could this be where 
a Schweitzer presidential journey begins?” It 
was the most improbable of journeys for the 
descendant of German and Irish immigrants, 
whose parents never finished high school and 
who had worked as an agronomist, a soil sci- 
entist and a rancher before his first run for 
political office at the age of 45. 

Barred by term limits from running again, 
and passing on a Senate bid he was more than 
likely to win, Schweitzer returned to private 
life. He has kept his public profile high, sign- 


ing on with MSNBC as a contributor and 
pledging to visit all 99 counties in Iowa—site 
of the nation's first presidential caucuses. 

But in typical Schweitzer fashion, the 
59-year-old has been highly critical of the 
Democrat now in the White House, on is- 
sues ranging from health care to privacy to 
foreign policy. When asked to name Obama's 
successes, he said, “My mother told me, if you 
can't think of something nice to say about 
something, change the subject.” 

That sentiment hasn't stopped Schweitzer 
from offering off-the-cuff comments that have 
landed him in hot water. He compared Cali- 
fornia Democratic senator Dianne Feinstein's 
recent complaints about NSA spying to those of 
a streetwalker “with her dress pulled all the way 
up over her knees” now shouting, “Pm a nun!” 
After House majority leader Eric Cantor's pri- 
mary loss, Schweitzer said, “If you were just a 
regular person, you turned on the TV and you 
saw Eric Cantor talking, I would say—and 
I'm fine with gay people, that's all right—but 
my gaydar is 60 to 70 percent. But he’s not, I 
think, so I don't know. Again, I couldn't care 
less. Im accepting." (He now claims he was try- 
ing to mock the homophobic attitudes of right- 
wing Republicans and adds, “On or off the re- 
cord, I will never joke with a reporter again.”) 


We asked veteran network-TV political 
analyst and best-selling author Jeff Green- 
field to check in with the potential presi- 
dential candidate. Greenfield reports: “The 
hours I spent with Schweitzer—in between 
blizzards—confirmed his standing as a 
unique political figure. Whether at the Seven 
Gables café, his spacious home on George- 
town Lake or kicking back with a beer in 
a Philipsburg tavern, Schweitzer seemed 
to know pretty much every customer, waiter, 
store owner and passerby he saw. But as our 
conversations revealed, behind the folksy 
‘regular guy’ persona is a passionate policy 
wonk. He rises at 4:30 every morning to vac- 
uum up the news; he will talk in sometimes 
numbing detail about his ideas on health 
care and education. He is a fiercely popu- 
list politician who combines a skeptical view 
of orthodox big-government liberalism with 
an old-fashioned belief that government can 
level the playing field for people who grew up 
the way he did.” 


PLAYBOY: What makes a Democrat from 
Montana different from a Democrat 
from New York, Chicago or California? 

SCHWEITZER: A Democrat in a place like 
Montana is one who can sit down at a 


“Honest to God, look at these corporate types 
who say we ought to run government the way 
they run it. Really? We ought to screw the 
shareholders-taxpayers and pay ourselves and 
our pals big salaries? No, no, no.” 


“What we have is the result of the Keystone 
Cops who've been running our Middle East 
policy. The people at the most risk from ISIS 
are the rulers in Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Egypt. 
To go back into Iraq is ludicrous.” 


PHOTOGRAPHY BY MARIUS BUGGE 


“They spent the first year and a half I was gov- 
ernor complaining about me being disrespectful 
of the office, bringing my dog to the office and 
wearing jeans. But almost everybody in Mon- 
tana wears jeans to the office.” 


55 


PLAYBOY 


56 


table with a bunch of miners and fit in. 
He buys a hunting license. Fifty percent 
of Montana residents buy hunting and 
fishing licenses, so that means—well, 
you know what that means. That doesn’t 
look like a California or New York Dem- 
ocrat. But here’s what I believe—this 
country consists of 20 percent hardcore 
Democrats and 20 percent hardcore 
Republicans, the kind of loyalists who 
always vote one way or the other and 
will defend their side, wrong or right, 
all the way to the end. And then there’s 
the 60 percent of Americans of varying 
stripes. They’re distrustful of both sides. 
On the one side, Republicans are cor- 
poratists. They’re in bed with insurance 
and pharmaceutical companies. They’re 
jingoists; they're always prepared to get 
into the next war. Democrats believe 
there ought to be a safety net for elderly 
people and disabled people; 60 percent 
of America believes that. Sixty percent 
of Americans believe that for us to con- 
tinue to be the country of opportunity, 
that opportunity has to be available not 
only to children of someone like you, a 
guy who was educated in a big-shot uni- 
versity, but children of a grandma who 
lives on the Cheyenne Indian Reser- 
vation and is raising four kids because 
her daughter died at an early age. They 
believe in public education to the core. 
They believe in a lot of things Demo- 
crats believe in, but they don’t want 
their taxes to go up. And Democrats 
admit, “Yeah, we’re not very good with 
money. You know, what's a few percent 
more? If you really want these things, 
you're going to have to pay for them.” 
In Montana, a Democrat like me says, 
“You know what? We're going to have 
these same programs. In fact, we're go- 
ing to improve those programs, but no 
fees or taxes will go up, because we're 
going to cut the cost of delivering the 
programs.” That’s what we did in Mon- 
tana. I didn't raise taxes or fees for eight 
consecutive years. I had eight years in 
a row with the largest budget surplus 
in history, and I went after every single 
part of our government with a fine- 
tooth comb. I'm the only person in the 
history of Montana not to have held any 
elected office before becoming governor, 
and I was outside the whole Democratic 
establishment. But I was committed to 
running it like a small business—like 
a ranch, not a corporation. Honest to 
God, look at these corporate types who 
say we ought to run government the way 
they run it. Really? We ought to screw 
the shareholders-taxpayers and pay 
ourselves and our pals big salaries? And 
if we're successful, we take even more 
money, and if we're failures, we take a 
lot on our way out the door when we 
get fired? No, no, no. The way a small 
business runs is you challenge every ex- 
pense, and you make sure before you 
put one penny down that that penny's 
getting at least a penny back. 


PLAYBOY: Your background is also very 
different. In fact, it seems right out of 
American political mythology, where the 
kid grows up in a tiny town. 
SCHWEITZER: Not even in a tiny town, 
not even in a town. Havre is where I 
was born, but I grew up in Geyser and 
Raynesford. Geyser was a town of 200, 
and Raynesford was a town of 30. There 
were about six to nine kids in a class. We 
were all farm kids. People rode a bus 20 
to 30 miles to get to that little town. 
PLAYBOY: Did you dream of something 
bigger? 

SCHWEITZER: I wanted to see the world. 
I didn't even know what it was. I'll tell 
you when it happened, and I'll tell you 
who made it happen. We had a teach- 
er, I think it was fourth or fifth grade. 
She came in one day and said, "Now, 
class, we're going to write a term pa- 
per." She had a bowl, and in it she had 
nine separate topics, and everybody 
pulled a name out. I pulled Argentina. 
Remember, I was driving a tractor by 


There ought 
to beone year 
of national 
service required 


of every high 
school graduate. 


the time I was six years old. I was mak- 
ing hay, plowing fields, milking cows, 
working cows, breaking colts. That 
was my world. I read about Argentina, 
and it had mountains higher than any 
mountain in Montana. And the riv- 
ers? Well, the rivers were even bigger 
than the Missouri River. And the na- 
tive grass of Argentina grew as high as 
the saddle horn of a horse. Suddenly 
I wanted to see Argentina. I wanted 
to see the world, I guess, but I really 
wanted to see Argentina. And so I went 
off to study, and when I went to college 
I studied agronomy. 

PLAYBOY: That was the late 1960s—a 
tumultuous time in our culture. 
SCHWEITZER: Without my even knowing it. 
PLAYBOY: Sex, drugs and rock and roll. 
If you think broadly about the cultural 
revolution, were you a foot soldier, a 
conscientious objector, an onlooker or 
an eager participant? 

SCHWEITZER: I was an ag student [laughs], 
so I wasn’t leading the charge. But I lived 


in a dorm room. I listened to a range of 
music—I still do. I listen to everything 
from country to Western. I was probably 
more of an observer than anything. 
PLAYBOY: We know Bill Clinton didn't 
inhale. We know Barack Obama did in- 
hale. We kind of know George W. Bush 
was somewhere between the two. On 
that spectrum, where were you? 
SCHWEITZER: I'm right there with the 
three of them. [laughs] 

PLAYBOY: But you weren't passive. You 
followed through on your desire to see 
something other than Montana. 
SCHWEITZER: Yes, I got my bachelor's de- 
gree in international agronomy. During 
my senior year, I started looking around, 
and people said, “Well, if you're going 
to get an international position, you're 
probably going to need a master's de- 
gree." So I got a master's degree in soil 
science. The day after I defended my 
thesis, I got on a plane for a job in Libya. 
Libya wasn't exactly Argentina, but it 
was international; it was Africa. 

PLAYBOY: After Libya, you moved to Saudi 
Arabia, working to make that country 
self-sufficient in food. 

SCHWEITZER: This industrial farm I had 
been active in building became the 
model for the whole world. In the mid- 
dle of the Saudi desert we were feed- 
ing 25,000 head of cattle with crops 
we were producing from drilling deep 
wells and irrigating. Now the king gets 
an idea. He announces they're going to 
be self-sufficient in food in the next five 
years, and it's going to start by subsidiz- 
ing wheat at $32 a bushel, which was 
10 times the world price. So I started 
a company. I said, "You don't pay me 
anything. Pll take 15 percent of the 
crop, and I'll write a three-year con- 
tract with you. I'll find the land. I'll buy 
all the equipment. I'll hire the staff. ГП 
plant the wheat. ГП harvest the wheat 
and deliver it to the silo, and when you 
get your check, you pay me 15 per- 
cent." That was my model. I built farms 
from the Iraqi and Jordanian border to 
the Yemeni border, all the way through 
central Saudi Arabia. I did business di- 
rectly with the Saudis, so I had to rap- 
idly learn conversational Arabic. 
PLAYBOY: All of which left you with a 
perspective on the region that's made 
you highly critical of decades' worth 
of U.S. policy—including George W. 
Bush's invasion of Iraq and Obama's 
post-invasion policies. How do you 
view the current situation, especially 
the rise of ISIS and the threat this ul- 
traviolent group poses? 

SCHWEITZER: What we have is the result 
of the Keystone Cops who've been run- 
ning our Middle East policy. Until we 
invaded Iraq the first time, Saddam 
Hussein had been our ally, maintaining a 
balance of power and serving as our pro- 
tection against Iranian incursions into 
the region. Once we overthrew Hussein, 
we spent all our time training and 


equipping Iraqi forces. What happened? 
Those characters from ISIS spilled over 
from Syria, and in most cases those 
“elite” forces ran away and gave ISIS all 
those American arms. 

Now you have people clamoring for 
us to send more military, more forces. 
But the people at the most risk from 
ISIS are the rulers in Saudi Arabia, 
Kuwait, Egypt. That threat is a Middle 
Eastern threat to Middle Eastern coun- 
tries. We can say to them, “We'll be 
happy to sell you equipment and arms,” 
but for our leadership to go back into 
Iraq is ludicrous. It’s not in our strate- 
gic long-term interests, because within 
years, maybe months, the U.S. and its 
North American neighbors will be net 
exporters of energy—not just tradition- 
al sources of energy but new sources 
like electric cars and fuel cells for auto- 
mobiles. Why should we spend trillions 
of dollars to maintain the status quo in 
the Middle East when the dynamics are 
changing so completely? 

PLAYBOY: Do you think the previous wars 
were about oil? 

SCHWEITZER: No question about it. It was 
100 percent completely about oil. At the 
end of World War II the deal was cut. We 
got Saudi Arabia, the French got Iraq, 
and BP got Iran. Then, not long after 
that, the elected government in Iran 
said, “Well, we don’t understand why 
British Petroleum and Shell get to have 
all our oil. We’re pretty sophisticated; 
we’re Persian. We were a society 3,000 
years ago when these people were living 
in caves in Europe. We don’t see how 
England gets to have us just because they 
cut that deal.” So they started national- 
izing. BP first came to President Harry 
Truman in his waning days and said, 
“Hey, we need you to overthrow this 
government. They’re trying to national- 
ize their oil.” And Truman wouldn't do 
it. Dwight Eisenhower turned out to be 
a pretty good president for a lot of rea- 
sons, but he rolled in with BP and the 
CIA and overthrew an elected govern- 
ment in Iran. We installed a playboy, the 
shah, and then we helped him torture 
his own people until he was overthrown. 
Americans can’t understand why Irani- 
ans are a little distrustful of us. They see 
us as distasteful. 

PLAYBOY: In 2008 the Democrats nomi- 
nated the one candidate who had, at 
least rhetorically, opposed the Iraq war. 
It’s fair to say that’s one of the big rea- 
sons Obama won. When you look at the 
United States in Afghanistan and Iraq 
today, what’s your reaction? 
SCHWEITZER: W...T...F In 2008 we 
couldn't remember why we were there. 
The generals say we have to stay there 
until we can stabilize Afghanistan, until 
it can defend itself. If you ask a barber if 
you need a haircut, what's the answer? If 
you ask a general whether you need to 
stay in a war, what's the answer? There 
is no compelling interest for us to have 


been there or to be there. Our ally in Af- 
ghanistan, Hamid Karzai, is one of the 
biggest crooks, and his brother is the 
largest drug smuggler. That's our part- 
nership there? When we leave, we will 
have battled it to a draw, because there 
was nothing to win to begin with. Karzai 
will be on one of the first helicopters out 
of there, because otherwise he will most 
assuredly have a bullet in the back of his 
head within an hour of the last American 
helicopter leaving. What is the compel- 
ling reason we're there? We don't know. 
And this president now owns half this 
war. He's been there almost as long as 
George Bush. 

PLAYBOY: Supposedly Bill Clinton said to 
Hillary, “You have to vote to invade Iraq 
if you want to be president because it’s 
the only way people will believe you're 
tough enough.” Do you think there's 
something about Democrats that is per- 
ceived as weak? 

SCHWEITZER: Democrats are scared 
of the military-industrial complex. 


Ijust carved 
my own way. I 
don't have an 
image creator 
around me. I 
am who Iam. 


The military-industrial complex says 
they’re weak. They say, “Democrats 
aren't good with money, and they're 
soft. All they’re doing is talking about 
taking care of disabled people; they 
don’t understand how important it is to 
be strong to the world.” 

PLAYBOY: Do you think that scares 
Democrats? 

SCHWEITZER: Sure. Well, there’s anoth- 
er thing that freezes Democrats—and 
Eisenhower warned us about this. There 
are 435 congressional districts, and 
when you build an aircraft carrier—the 
one the admirals said they didn’t need, 
but you build it anyway—components 
from at least 430 congressional districts 
go into it. Every one of these representa- 
tives has somebody in the military busi- 
ness in their congressional district. Do 
you think that’s by accident? 

PLAYBOY: We're assuming that’s a rhetori- 
cal question. 

SCHWEITZER: It’s by design. I don’t know 
that it makes you weak when you stand 


up to the powerful and say, “Hell no, we 
won't go!” 

PLAYBOY: Let's talk about your approach 
to politics. You weren't running for stu- 
dent body president at the age of 16; 
you weren't dreaming of a staff job in 
Washington. To what extent does the 
instinct to talk in ways other politicians 
don't—in simple, clear, understandable 
language—account for how you do poli- 
tics? Did it help that you came into poli- 
tics as a greenhorn? 

SCHWEITZER: It was probably an advan- 
tage and a disadvantage. A lot of suc- 
cessful politicians have figured out that 
it’s not that good to take a strong posi- 
tion for or against things, because every 
time you take a position, you lose a cer- 
tain percentage of the population. So 
you want to talk in language that at the 
end of the day, people say, “Gee, wasn't 
that a great presentation? Wasn't that a 
great speech? 1 really like him.” So you 
say, “Well, what'd he say he was for or 
against?” [pauses] “I don't know. Uh....” 
And you can make a career out of that. 
But I came from the private sector. I 
didn't study political science in college or 
go to law school. 1 didn't hang around 
people who were involved in politics, so 
I just carved my own way. People say I 
have a different style, but this style wasn’t 
created by anybody; it’s just who I am. 
PLAYBOY: You didn’t sit in an office and 
think, Bolo ties—that’ll tell people 
something. 

SCHWEITZER: No. I didn’t even know it 
might be taboo. [laughs] I just know I 
don’t like buttoning the top button. It 
works for me. 

PLAYBOY: Some of your political adver- 
saries have suggested that it is quite 
conscious on your part to be Brian 
Schweitzer, the plainspoken rancher 
guy, and that it’s all politics. Any truth 
to that? 

SCHWEITZER: No. You know, I don’t have 
an image creator around me. I am who I 
am. They spent the first year and a half 
I was governor complaining about me 
being disrespectful of the office, bring- 
ing my dog to the office and wearing 
jeans—"How dare һе do such a thing!” 
The problem is they started finding out 
that almost everybody in Montana wears 
jeans to the office, and they all wish they 
could bring their dog, and if it was a little 
better behaved, they would. 

PLAYBOY: Let's talk about a different of- 
fice you might be thinking about: presi- 
dent. You supported John McCain in 
2000. Did you vote for him? 
SCHWEITZER: No, I didn't. I said I liked 
his style, and I said I might support 
John McCain. 

PLAYBOY: You said in 2006 that you might 
support Mitt Romney, that you thought 
he was a good guy. 

SCHWEITZER: Yeah, he is, and let me tell 
you about that. Mitt Romney and I 
went to Kuwait, Iraq and Afghanistan 
together. When you spend a week with 


57 


PLAYBOY 


58 


somebody in a war zone, you talk about 
a lot of things. The Mitt Romney I know 
agrees there ought to be one year of 
national service required of every high 
school graduate. They all ought to learn 
emergency medical procedures, then 
they can be in the Peace Corps, VISTA, 
AmeriCorps or the military, but one year 
of public service would be a good idea 
for everybody. His notions about public 
education are pretty close to mine. We 
agree on a lot of things. Of course, the 
Mitt Romney who had to win a Repub- 
lican primary ultimately became some- 
body else. I don’t want to be disrespectful 
about that; I don’t mean it that way. 
PLAYBOY: Nice words about John 
McCain, nice words about Mitt Romney. 
You’re an environmentalist who be- 
lieves we ought to be using our coal 
resources. You received an A rating 
from the National Rifle Association, 
and Wayne LaPierre of the NRA cam- 
paigned for you. Perhaps most aston- 
ishingly, when you were asked fairly 
recently to say something nice about 
Barack Obama, you said, “My mother, 
God rest her soul, told me, ‘Brian, if you 
can't think of something nice to зау...” 
It’s reasonable to ask, what the hell kind 
of Democrat are you? 

SCHWEITZER: ГП start with the Obama 
administration. Guantanamo Bay is still 
open. I can't say that they're still tortur- 
ing, but when you incarcerate somebody 
and don’t give them a trial, I’d say that’s 
torture enough. We’re still in Afghani- 
stan, in a war that, when the Democrats 
took control of the White House, we 
didn’t know why we were there—and we 
haven't left yet. We passed health care 
reform that was written by the Heritage 
Foundation for the Republicans, and it 
empowered the insurance companies, so 
we've just transferred your tax dollars to 
the insurance companies. We continue 
to pay the pharmaceutical companies 
two and three times as much for our pre- 
scription drugs because we didn’t chal- 
lenge that in this health care bill. We’ve 
cozied up to the insurance companies 
and the pharmaceutical companies. You 
know, ask somebody who was hopeful, 
like I was when I watched Clinton and 
Obama, thinking, My God, either way 
we win. I’ve watched some of the other 
things they’ve done that have not been 
helpful to things we tried to accomplish 
here in Montana in terms of the envi- 
ronment, in terms of saving the wild bi- 
son herd, in terms of saving the North 
Fork of the Flathead River, protecting 
that from mining pollution. We had an 
Obama administration that was working 
against us. 

I give this administration credit for 
something else, and it’s so complicated 
that ГП be criticized, I’m sure. But re- 
member I talked about Iran and how 
we installed a dictator there so we could 
protect British Petroleum’s profits. 
We're now very close to being energy 


independent, and even more important, 
within five or six years we'll be net hy- 
drocarbon exporters, so why do we have 
to protect the Persian Gulf anymore? 
Why do we have to protect the Saudis 
versus the Iranians? Why wouldn't we 
try to have a more balanced relationship 
with the Iranians? 

Why wouldn’t we sit down with the 
Iranians and say, “You know, our future 
isn’t necessarily joined at the hip with 
the Saudi royal family”? We could be 
as equal in our treatment of Iran as we 
are with the Sunni sheiks and kings and 
princes. We tell Iran, “You’re going to 
have to quit the nuke business, because 
that destabilizes the whole Middle East. 
If you're willing to do that, we think we 
could find a balance. Because actually 
our future is going to be less military 
in the Middle East anyway, and if the 
Europeans and the Asians need this 
oil and want to maintain these ship- 
ping lines, they’re going to have to do 
it. Because now we’re going to be your 


The NRA 
wants to sell 
more guns 
and ammo 
and to elect 
Republicans. 


competitors in the oil business." This is 
an area Obama has right, trying to shift 
that balance in the Middle East and try- 
ing to engage the Iranians. I'll give him 
credit for that. 

PLAYBOY: Let me ask about 2016 in a dif- 
ferent way. The general theory is that 
Democrats in the presidential years 
benefit from what is called the coali- 
tion of the ascendant—more blacks, 
more Hispanics, more college-educated 
young people, more single people, 
more secular people—whereas rural, 
older white folks are a diminishing 
part. That's how Obama won twice, and 
that's why 2016 looks good. Were you 
to decide to run, it's not obvious that 
you speak to the coalition of the ascen- 
dant. There are virtually no blacks in 
your state, virtually no Hispanics. It's 
an older, rural population. 

SCHWEITZER: Montana is about 90 per- 
cent white and nine percent Indian, and 
that leaves one percent. But if you go 
to any Indian reservation, any Indian 


leader, anybody who is associated with 
the Indian leaders in Montana or the 
rest of the country, and ask who has 
been the best governor in the history of 
this country for Indian causes, they'd all 
say Brian Schweitzer. I had more Indian 
people working for me in my admin- 
istration than all 22 governors before 
me combined. I supported the Indian 
Education for All program so that every 
child in every school in Montana—from 
kindergarten through high school— 
will take classes in the rich cultural his- 
tory of the people who have lived here 
for 10,000 years. I allocated money to 
all the tribal colleges to write their own 
story. When Cesar Chavez led those 
marches with the United Farm Workers, 
we didn't march in Montana because we 
didn't have Hispanic people living here. 
And when they integrated that school in 
Little Rock, we didn't sit in front of that 
school with them, because we didn't have 
many black people here. And when the 
Freedom Marchers walked from Selma 
to Montgomery, there weren't Montan- 
ans among them. But in Montana, we've 
co-existed, white and red, for 150 years 
now, and it's been a difficult relation- 
ship. Those towns that are on reserva- 
tions or next to reservations where white 
and red are looking at each other, work- 
ing with each other, the relationships are 
tougher and tougher all the time. So our 
walk from Selma to Montgomery will be 
in every one of those classrooms. 
PLAYBOY: Do you think that argument 
will resonate with African American and 
Hispanic voters, who make up a signifi- 
cant part of the Democratic Party? 
SCHWEITZER: I suspect so, because this is 
the kind of leadership—again, we're 90 
percent white and nine percent Indian, 
and I stood with the one out of 10—that 
is the kind of leadership they're looking 
for. I was heavily criticized every step 
along the way. I had Republican leader- 
ship calling me every name—including 
Indian lover—along the way. But right is 
right, and wrong is wrong. I had people 
come to me and say, "Why all this Indian 
stuff? It's not helping you politically." 
My mother was the only white person in 
her class. Indian people worked on our 
farm. I grew up not only curious about 
Indian culture but very respectful. To 
have people decide they don't like some- 
body just because of where they come 
from or who their parents were or the 
color of their skin—even though I grew 
up in a completely white community, I 
never liked it, and this was a way I could 
display it in Montana. 

PLAYBOY: Let's turn to some social is- 
sues. Washington and Colorado voters 
legalized recreational marijuana. There 
are people who say maybe this isn't the 
healthiest thing to do and other people 
who say, "If people want to get stoned, 
people are going to get stoned." 
SCHWEITZER: I'm more to that side. I 
watched (continued on page 122) 


FOLLOW THE BUNNY 


0000909 


/playboy @playboy @playboy playboy + playboy 


ШІ 


THE NEWS IS FULL OF CELEBRITIES AND THEIR DRUG PROBLEMS. ARE STARS REALLY MORE PRONE TO 
ADDICTION? THE ANSWER IS YES, AND THE REASONS MAY SURPRISE YOU BY NEAL GABLER 


ШШ 
DAN SAELINGER 


62 


So here is what everyone knows about 
Hollywood: People there often behave 
badly—sometimes so badly they pay 
the ultimate price. In the past year 
alone, Cory Monteith, Chris Kelly of 
Kris Kross г 
man all 
of celebriti 
Trace Adki s 
Brown, Lindsay Lohan (again!)—got 
treatment for drug or alcohol prob- 
lems. Most shocking, Robin Williams, 
who had struggled with drug and al- 
cohol addiction for decades, commit- 
ted suicide in August after a brief trip 
to rehab intended to keep him on the 
straight and narrow. Go back a decade, 
and the list of addicts reads like a Hol- 
lywood who's who. Of course by now it’s 
an old story with a few minor variations. 
Sometimes it’s barbiturates, sometimes 
barbiturates and alcohol, sometimes, as 
with Hoffman, heroin, though usually 
not in Hollywood (stars have access to 
better, legal stuff) and usually not at the 
age of 46 (heroin usually kills you soon- 
er than that). Always there is the rehab 
that didn’t stick and the DUIs, the bar 
fights, the mug shots, the empty hotel 
room or apartment. 

Addiction experts are quick to tell you 
addiction isn’t just a Hollywood prob- 
lem; it’s a national problem. According 
to a 2012 national survey from the Sub- 
stance Abuse and Mental Health Services 
Administration, there are an estimated 
23.9 million addicts in America—one 
in 10 people over the age of 12, about 
one in four if you include nicotine 
addiction—and more people die from 
drug overdoses each year than from auto 
accidents. Even at the tony Malibu rehab 
centers that cater to A-list entertainers, 


celebrities constitute no more than 15 
percent of the clients, though they ac- 
count for 100 percent of the headlines, 
and for a few of them, including Lindsay 
Lohan, addiction has superseded per- 
formance. Being addicted is what she 
does. So some of the seeming Hollywood 
drug epidemic, experts say, is largely a 
product of visibility. TMZ doesn’t care 
about addicted truck drivers. 

But only a part ofit is visibility, because 
some things about Hollywood do seem to 
give rise to addiction—things that go all 
the way back to Wallace Reid, a silent- 
film star who died during morphine 
detox. Everyone seems to agree that the 
sources of addiction in the entertain- 
ment industry are complicated, with a 
whole lot of moving parts—a combina- 
tion of biology, psychology and culture. 
In fact, there are so many moving parts, 
you could almost devise an algorithm for 
Hollywood addiction. 


Before we get to that algorithm, let’s 
start at the beginning. When it comes 
to the course of addiction, it doesn't 
make any difference if you’re a movie 
star or a plumber. In fact, most movie 
stars weren't movie stars when they be- 
gan using. (Look at Hoffman and Wil- 
liams.) Constance Scharff, research 
director of the Cliffside Malibu rehab 
center and a recovering addict herself, 
says the vast majority of addicts were ex- 
posed to drugs and alcohol as children 
or teenagers—Lohan and Drew Barry- 
more, to name two—though they didn't 
necessarily develop a dependency. The 
addiction can be, and usually is, dormant 
for years. Which, physically speaking, is 
where painkillers come in. One of the 
refrains of Hollywood addiction is that 
an actor or singer got hooked on pain- 
killers. To the layman, it doesn't make a 
whole lot of sense. What pain must they 
medicate for? (continued on page 118) 


“Play our song. You know what I want to hear....” 


THERE'S SOMETHING TO BE SAID FOR BASKING IN THE SUNRISE md 
IN AN UNMADE BED. JUST ASK POLISH MODEL ANITA SIKORSKA 


FOR $100,000 MAN'S BEST FRIEND CAN BECOME 
MAN'S BEST WEAPON. INSIDE THE BIZARRE WORLD OF 
THE EXECUTIVE-PROTECTION DOG INDUSTRY 


BY ADAM SKOLNICK 
PHOTOGRAPHY BY JARED RYDER 


door and turns the brass knob. Disco. 
We hear it right away, toenails clatter- 
ing on the hardwood above, an ominous 
growl, then an explosion of rapid barks 
behind a door at the top of a darkened 
staircase. Cinnante’s brown eyes flicker 
with delight as the door opens and Mako, 
a four-year-old Belgian Malinois, lunges 
at us from above, tethered to a leash held 
by Dr. Timothy Franklin. The surgeon 
stands tall, his eyes locked on ours, re- 
laxed yet alert. He shouts commands at 
Mako, who is foaming at the mouth. 
“Attack!” shouts Franklin. Mako 
charges, launches into midair and latches 
onto Cinnante’s biceps. Cinnante pounds 
Mako's flank and tries to shake the dog 
loose, but he just bites down harder. 
Franklin stands like a proud dad at the 
top of the staircase, taking it all in. The 
week his family moved in to this house, 
it was vandalized. A mob of teenagers 
emptied 100 gallons of water through 
his front door in the middle of the night. 
The flood caused more 
than $20,000 in damage 
and sent Franklin rush- 
ing into the darkness, 
wielding a baseball bat 
and lusting for blood. His 
wife and two children 
had been threatened, 
and he was spun out. 
“I honestly don't know 
what I would have done 
to them,” he says, sound- 
ing like a guy who’s lucky the kids outran 
him. A few days after his house was van- 
dalized, he began a search for a guard 
dog that led him to Canine Protection In- 
ternational, an elite executive-protection 
dog company, and Cinnante, one of 
CPT's top trainers, who delivered Mako 
in four months. 
Cinnante stares lovingly at Mako, who 
is still attempting to rip him apart. Despite 
the bite suit Cinnante can feel the pres- 


sure and pain, but it seems to transport 
him to the happy place he discovered 
when he was 16 years old and got paid a 
few bucks to let the first Belgian Malinois 
he’d ever seen tackle him from behind. 
That initial thrill—the addictive burn 
and wild animal adrenaline—was some- 
thing Cinnante began to 
crave, and finding it over 
and over again led him to 
his life’s work: burrowing 
into and then building the 
brains of the deadliest, 
and some of the cuddliest, 
dogs on the planet. 
“Okay,” Cinnante says, 
breathless as the dog 
continues to sink his 
teeth into the Michelin 
Man bite suit, his gums bleeding, bloody 
foam gathering in the folds. “That was 
excellent, Mako. Call him off!” 

“Aus!” calls the surgeon. The dog hears 
it and seems befuddled for a moment. 
“Aus!” Franklin tries again and hits a re- 
mote that fires the dog’s collar, stimulat- 
ing Mako with electricity to emphasize 
his point. Mako hustles over to his master 
to catch his breath when, with a flash of 
recognition, he realizes who he has just 


tussled with. It’s as if he has shaken off 
his preprogrammed rage like so much 
bathwater, and he begins to wag his tail. 

The golden dog’s natural personal- 
ity has returned. Sweet and charming, 
with his tongue hanging out of his gap- 
ing mouth, he rubs his head against 
Cinnante’s thigh. Cinnante prepared 
Mako at CPI's kennel in the Boston sub- 
urbs for just such a moment, to defend 
his family against intruders and immi- 
nent danger. Cinnante kneels and gives 
his old pal a hug. 


While our unofficial ranking of canine 
ferocity places pit bulls at the top of the 
list because of a common myth about 
having powerful locking jaws, German 
shepherds actually bite harder, and Bel- 
gian Malinois have those same jaws but 
are smaller and faster, with an endless 
motor. They will literally work them- 
selves to death. That’s why they staff po- 
lice and military units the world over. In 
fact, the first SEAL Team Six warrior to 
reach Osama bin Laden in that midnight 
raid wasn’t man, it was Malinois. And 
with increasing frequency, trainers are 
selling both shepherds and Malinois as 
protection dogs to private citizens who 
crave added security. 

Trainers like Cinnante comb the cities 
and villages of Europe, building rela- 
tionships with (continued on page 124) 


С) 


WALI 


al 


PLAYBOY: On About аи УФ ау a bachelor who be- 
comes a surrogate ао an 1 year-old boy. Have you 
learned to be a better dad by playing a half-assed parent? 

WALTON: In a way Гуе learned what not to do. For 
instance, Will, my character, takes Marcus to a party that 
basically has prostitutes at it. I’m definitely not going to 

do that as a parent. But in a weird way Will can be a good 
dad. Alot of people talk to kids like they're idiots. Despite 
the fact that Marcus is half his size and prepubescent, Will 
talks to him as an equal. I try to do that with my kids. 
When I'm telling my two-year-old that you don't throw a 


dish on the floor, I explain it as if she’s a 25-year-old who 
hasn't quite figured it out yet. This method isn't working 
at the moment, but I'mfgoing to stick with it. 


PLAYBOY: Your co-star ЕШ Шіп Stockham is 14 years 
old. Do уоц ва һ as a peer? 

WALTON: I do, yeah. And it's ey, because he acts like a 
70-year-old man. He's very smart. When we're on set, he's 
either studying or arguing with adults, using deductive 
reasoning and powerful logic. He outwits me constantly. 
I've been studying Socrates just so I can keep up with 
him. Next time I see him, I'm going to bust out some old- 
school argumentative rhetoric on his ass. 


78 


PLAYBOY: About a Boy was originally a 
novel and then a 2002 movie starring 
Hugh Grant. Convince us your show is 
better with some trash-talking. 
WALTON: Hugh has such a charming 
way about him. But he has that quin- 
tessential butt-cut floppy hair. It’s not 
good. It really does look like buttocks, 
don’t you think? I need to talk to the 
hairstylists on our show to see if we can 
do an ode to Hugh. Га like to have one 
episode where I inexplicably have his 
butt-cut hairstyle. Let's see if Hugh and 
І can go toe-to-toe. 


PLAYBOY: TV is unpredictable. Your 
show—any show—could be canceled at 
any time, so let’s cover our bases. First, 
let’s assume About a Boy is doing well. To 
what do you attribute its amazing success? 
WALTON: It really comes down to 
the stories and the writing. The char- 
acters are relatable, and it’s hard not 
to fall in love with them. That’s the 
main reason the show is such a mas- 
sive hit. It’s because it balances laugh- 
out-loud humor with gut-wrenching, 
heartwarming stories. It just feels like 


you've gotten a big sweet hug at the 
end of your 30 minutes. And we all 
want hugs, right? 


PLAYBOY: Okay, now the less sunny 
option: About a Boy is canceled. What 
happened? 

WALTON: Well, it’s one of those things 
where the writing was so good and so 
sophisticated that people just didn’t 
understand it. We were ahead of our 
time. I mean, it’s a shame, but I guess 
people in America just want to turn on 
their TVs and not think. 


PLAYBOY: Over the past decade 
you've starred in six TV shows that were 
quickly canceled. Are you cursed? 
WALTON: It really did feel like that 

for a while. But if you look at the 
numbers, only one in 10 series goes on 
to a second season. And we’ve made it 
to two seasons with About a Boy. It’s my 
seventh show, so in a way I beat the 
odds. Mathematically, I’m a lucky guy. 


PLAYBOY: Did you have a plan B? If 


the TV career went down in flames, 
how would you make a living? 
WALTON: I had two plan Bs. For a 
while I was convinced I was going to 
become an investment banker, because 
I went to Brown and a lot of my friends 
work on Wall Street. There was an- 
other time, after a long drought, when 
I seriously considered going into the 
cold-calling business—basically a tele- 
marketer. I went in and started learning 
how to cold-call, which is just about the 
most depressing thing you can learn to 
do. All day you’re being hung up on by 
people who hate your guts. 


PLAYBOY: You grew up in a large 
family, with four sisters and two 
brothers. Did your parents not know 
about birth control? 

WALTON: I'd rather not think about it, 
if that’s okay. [laughs] Actually, the story 
that gets told is that after the fifth child 
they were all done. But then, when I was 
about nine months old, a little surprise 
came, and my mom took my dad out 

to his favorite restaurant in Boston, at 
the Ritz-Carlton. He was like, My wife is 
wining and (continued on page 128) 


“This guy wants to know how much I would charge to take off my skin and dance around in my bones.” 


ТНЕКЕ 5 NO BETTER EXCUSE TO STAY INSIDE THAN HANGING WITH 
MISS NOVEMBER AT A MODERNIST LOS ANGELES MANSION 


ould there be a more subjective 
word than bad? Take Miss November 
e Gia Marie’s “bad girl” tale, for 
example. “Growing up in Calabasas, 
California,” the model says, “my 
crazy friends and I would ‘borrow’ 
PLAYBOYS from my neighbor's garage, ogle the 
gorgeously made-up girls and think, We're so 
naughty—we’re so bad!” Gia was actually forming a 
now highly evolved aesthetic that led to her becoming 
one of L.A.’s top makeup artists; she’s buffed faces for 
TV ads, fashion spreads and even music videos for 
bands such as the Black Keys. Though a fiery profes- 
sional success and self-confessed Hollywood-nightlife 
mainstay, she was haunted by a nagging question: 
“Why is it taking so long for me to become a Play- 
mate?” Once the auburn-haired hottie hooked up 


with us on Instagram, we knew she had the goods 
and that her long-awaited shoot had to happen at 

a site worthy of her über-coolness. Behold Gia in 
the legendary Sheats-Goldstein residence overlook- 
ing Benedict Canyon. (Movie buffs will recognize 
architect John Lautner’s concrete marvel as Jackie 
Treehorn's manse in The Big Lebowski.) “That house 
is so iconic, and I felt so hot and sexy there, I never 
wanted to leave,” says Gia. “November is the perfect 
month for me, because I associate it with fall's warm 
colors—like my hair. Lots of guys tell me they love 
redheads because when they were young they 
opened a PLAYBOY, saw a nude redhead for the first 
time and were hooked.” Then Gia smiles slyly. “I’m 
pretty sure some guy will see my pictorial here, and 
my red hair will resonate for him and give him a 
fetish for life. My mission will be accomplished.” 


PHOTOGRAPHY BY JOSH RYAN 


PLAYMATES.COM/GIA-MARIE 


MISS NOVEMBER 


PLAYBOY’S PLAYMATE OF THE MONTH 


PLAYMATE DATA SHEET 


ик AMA 0 - 

EA ЗБЕ OT o 

HEIGHT: мав WEIGHT: — Usilie № 

BIRTH seen BIRTHPLACE: Malibu California 
amsrrions: lo launch an логлалолад line ОҒ Makeup Dags 
ana AaccesscrieS, model and to ost Playmate c£ the 20105! 
товм_омѕ: L 100 MEN With his lips ancl strona vous, Al , 

1 dont hate Smart dudes wno mare me louen and buy me di Mee Y 
nor таат COS ANd nuce Сімс Y and 
NAWSPOU CAPS - X eps \ Мага © 0 es dont 
Nave G. placo In mu world ол - lek mo пара 2 
COMFORT zones: 27/0. watched Almost Famous and ie WiantS 


amui SO times loves Eating mintchocolode chip ico 
CRAM IN mu ped While Mune Shopping = perfect ` 
MY FOUR must-naves: TNE baadh , mu ооо), Mincon Food and _ 
0n mbuna. 
I'M GRATEFUL FOR...— MU cack famil ne ei Mu do 
And boyS-uno always Kae ma on mu toes ! CO 


AL Tu bo s 
I made sue m Aca Ponds of 
Tam imal. а eram mardud Mi ae fun | 


PLAYBOY’S PARTY JOKES 


IrRay Rice and Chris Brown were both on fire 
and you had only one fire extinguisher, where 
would you hide it? 


A maid of honor mistakenly invited the 
bride-to-be’s grandmother to the bachelor- 
ette party. After hours of спашра пе, one of 
the bridesmaids drunkenly asked the older 
woman, “Have you ever tried 69 in your life?” 

“No, no, no,” the grandmother replied. 
“But I did have 56—that’s all the sailors I 
could screw in one night.” 


When you go into court, you’re putting your 
fate into the hands of people who aren’t smart 
enough to get out of jury duty. 


I have three companies after me,” a man told 
his boss. “If you don’t give me a 15 percent 
raise, I can’t stay at my current ponen 

"Well, you are invaluable, so I'll give you that 
pay increase," the boss told the man. "By the 
way, which companies are after you?" 

The employee replied, “The gas company, 
the cable company and the electric company." 


When I was a kid my dad sat me down and 
showed me pictures of why I should always 
wear a condom," a man told his buddy. 
“Your dad showed you pictures of venereal 
diseases?" the friend asked. 
"No," the first said, "they were all pictures 
of me." 


Daaay, how much does it cost to get mar- 
ried?" a little boy asked his father. 

“I don't know, son,” his father replied. “I’m 
still paying." 


This weekend I set up a double date that 
turned into a mind-blowing date-swap," a guy 
told his buddy. 

“I actually organized a threesome last 
night," the friend said. "There were a couple 
of no-shows, but I still had fun." 


How do you know you're the ugly one of 
your friends? 

When it comes time to take a group picture, 
you get handed the camera. 


What is the difference between in-laws 
and outlaws? 
Outlaws are wanted. 


A woman met a man at a club and went back 
to his place for sex. 

“You must be a good dentist," she said in 
the afterglow. 

“How did you know I’m a dentist?" he asked. 

She responded, "Because I didn't feel 
a thing." 


A woman complained to her psychiatrist that 
her husband was 300 percent impotent. “I 
don't think that’s mathematically possible,” 
the psychiatrist said. 

“Well, the first 100 percent you can imag- 
ine,” she said. “Plus, he burned his tongue 
and broke his fingers.” 


Three guys stayed at a ski lodge that had only 
one room, so they had to share a bed. The 
next morning, over breakfast, the man who'd 
slept on the right side of the bed said, “I had 
this wild, vivid dream of getting a hand job!” 

The guy who’d slept on the left said, “That's 
unbelievable—I had the same dream!” 

“Huh,” the guy who'd been in the middle 
said as he took a sip of coffee. “I dreamed that 
I was skiing.” 


> > 
= ww 
í< 


This is 911, what's your emergency?” the 
operator asked. 

“I masturbate too much,” the man replied. 

“Sir, that's not really a problem,” the 
operator said. 

The man shouted, “Did you hear that, 
Mom? Now get off my case.” 


A tourist double-parked his car in downtown 
Washington, D.C. He said to a man stand- 
ing near the curb, “Would you watch my 
car while I run into the store? ГІ be only a 
couple of minutes.” 

“Don’t you realize I'm a member of 
Congress?” the man huffed. 

“Well, no, I didn’t,” the tourist answered. 
“But that’s all right. I trust you anyway.” 


Send your jokes to Playboy Party Jokes, 9346 
Civic Center Drive, Beverly Hills, California 
90210, or by e-mail to jokes@playboy.com. 


“Here are my shoes and my belt. If you want me to remove anything else, you'll have to buy me dinner first.” 


91 


VVVVVVVVVVVVV VV VW * 


UI 
BUDE 


WHEN A MUSICIAN DROPS DEAD 10 YEARS AFTER BEING SHOT, FINALLY 
SUCCUMBING TO A BULLET LODGED IN HIS BACK, LAPD INVESTIGATOR HARRY 
BOSCH BEGINS HIS SEARCH IN THE WORST OF POSITIONS—WITH NOTHING 


МАААААААААААААА АА А А А А А АА. 4 


Fiction by Michael Connelly 


А À. À À À А. À А. А. À À À À À À À À À А А А А А А 


t seemed to Bosch to be a form of tor- 

ture heaped upon torture. Corazon 

was hunched over the steel table, her 

bloody and gloved hands deep inside 

the gutted torso, working with forceps 

and a long bladed instru- 
ment she called the butter knife. 
Corazon was not tall and she stood on 
her tiptoes to be able to reach down 
and in with her tools. She braced her 
hip against the side of the autopsy 
table to gain leverage. 


silent scream. His eyes were directed upward as if 
beseeching his God for mercy. Deep down Bosch 
knew that the dead were the dead and they no 
longer suffered the cruelties of life, but even so 
he felt like saying, “Enough is enough.” Asking, 
“When does it stop?” Shouldn't death 
be the relief from the tortures of life? 

But he didn't say anything. He 
stood mute and just watched as he 
had hundreds of times before. More 
important than his outrage and the 
desire to speak out against the con- 


.............. 


ILLUSTRATION BY 


Scott Bakal 


What bothered Bosch about the grisly tableau 
was that the body had already been so violated 
for so long. Both legs gone, one arm taken at 
the shoulder, the surgical scars old but somehow 
raw and red. The man’s mouth was open in a 


93 


А À А À А А А À AA A A A A A À 4 


tinuing atrocity inflicted on Orlando Merced was 
Bosch’s need for the bullet Corazon was trying to 
pry loose from the dead man’s spine. 

Corazon dropped back on her heels to rest. 
She blew out her breath and temporarily fogged 


94 


her spatter shield. She glanced at Bosch 
through the steamed plastic. 

“Almost there,” she said. “And ГП tell 
you what, they were right not to try to 
take it out back then. They would have 
had to saw entirely through T-12.” 

Bosch just nodded, knowing she was 
referring to one ofthe vertebrae. 

She turned to the table, where her 
instruments were spread out. 

“I need something else...,” she said. 

She put the butter knife in a 
stainless-steel sink, where a running faucet 
kept the water level to the overflow drain. 
She then moved her hand to the left of 
the sink and across the display of steril- 
ized tools until she chose a long, slender 
pick. She went back to work with her 
hands in the hollow of the victim’s 
torso. All the organs and intestines 
had been removed, weighed and 
bagged, leaving just the husk formed 
by the upturned ribs. She went up on 
her toes again and used her upper- 
body strength and the steel pick to 
finally pop the bullet loose from the 
spinal column. Bosch heard it rattle 
inside the rib cage. 

“Got it!” 

She pulled her arms out of the 
hollow, put down the pick and 
sprayed the forceps with the hose 
attached to the table. She then held 
the instrument up to examine her 
find. She tapped the floor button for 
the recorder with her foot and went 
on the record. 

“A projectile was removed from 
the anterior T-12 vertebra. It is in 
damaged condition with severe 
flattening. I will photograph 
it and mark it with my initials 
before turning it over to Detective 
Hieronymus Bosch with the Open- 
Unsolved Unit of the Los Angeles 
Police Department.” 

She tapped the recorder button 
with her foot again and they were 
off the record. She smiled at him 
through her plastic screen. 

“Sorry, Harry, you know me, a 
stickler for formalities.” 

"I didn't think you'd even remember.” 

He and Corazon had once had a brief 
romance, but that was a long time ago, and 
very few people knew his real full name. 

“Of course I would,” she said in 
mock protest. 

There was almost an aura of humil- 
ity about Teresa Corazon that had not 
been there in the past. She had been a 
climber and had eventually gotten what 
she wanted—the chief medical examin- 
er’s post and all of its trappings, including 
a reality-television show. But when one 
reaches the top of a public agency, one 
becomes a politician, and politicians fall 
out of favor. Teresa eventually fell hard, 
and now she was back where she started, a 
deputy coroner with a caseload like anyone 
else in the office. At least they had let her 
keep her private autopsy suite. For now. 


She took the bullet over to the coun- 
ter, where she photographed it and 
then marked it with an indelible black 
pen. Bosch was ready with a small plas- 
tic evidence bag and she dropped it in. 
He then marked the bag with both of 
their initials, a chain-of-custody routine. 
He studied the misshapen projectile 
through the plastic. Despite the dam- 
age, he believed it was a .308-caliber 
bullet, which would mean it had been 
fired by a rifle. If so, that would be a 
significant new piece of information in 
the case. 

“Will you stay for the rest, or was that 
all you wanted?” 

She asked it as if there were something 


else going on between them. He held up 
the evidence bag. 

“I think I should probably get this 
going. We've got a lot of eyes on this case.” 

“Right. Well, then, ГЇЇ just finish up 
by myself. What happened to your part- 
ner, anyway? Wasn't she here with you 
in the hall?" 

"She had to make a call." 

"Oh, I thought maybe she wanted us 
to have some alone time. Did you tell her 
about us?" 

She smiled and batted her eyes and 
Bosch looked away awkwardly. 

"No, Teresa. You know I don't talk 
about stuff like that." 

She nodded. 

"You never did. You're a man who 
keeps his secrets." 

He looked back at her. 


“I try,” he said. “Besides, that was a 
long time ago." 

"And the flame's gone out, hasn't it?" 

He pushed things back on subject. 

"On the cause. You're not seeing any- 
thing different from what the hospital is 
reporting, right?" 

Corazon shook her head, able to move 
back as well. 

“No, nothing different here. Sepsis. 
Blood poisoning, to use the more common 
phrase. Put that in your press release.” 

“And you have no trouble linking this 
back to the shooting? You could testify 
to that?” 

She was nodding before Bosch was fin- 
ished speaking. 

“Mr. Merced died because of blood 
poisoning, but I am listing cause of 
death as homicide. This was a 10-year 
murder, Harry, and I will gladly tes- 
tify to that. I hope that bullet helps 
you find the killer.” 

Bosch nodded and closed his hand 
around the plastic bag containing 
the bullet. 

"I hope so too,” he said. 


osch took the elevator 

up to the ground floor. 

In the past few years 

the county had spent 

$30 million renovating 
the coroner’s office, but the eleva- 
tors moved just as slowly as ever. He 
found Lucia Soto on the back loading 
dock, leaning against an empty gur- 
ney and looking at her phone. She 
was short, well-proportioned and 
110 pounds at the most. She wore 
the kind of stylish suit that was in 
vogue with female detectives. It let 
her keep a gun on her hip instead of 
in a purse. It said power and author- 
ity in a way a dress could never say 
it. This one was dark brown with a 
cream blouse. It went well with her 
smooth brown skin. 

She glanced up as Bosch 
approached and then stood up hur- 
riedly like a kid who'd been caught 
doing something wrong. 

“Got it,” Bosch said. 

He held up the evidence bag contain- 
ing the bullet. Soto took it and studied the 
bullet through the plastic for a moment. 
A couple of body movers came up behind 
her and pulled the empty gurney toward 
the door of what was known as the Big 
Crypt. It was a new addition to the com- 
plex, a refrigerated space the size of a 
Mayfair Market where all the bodies that 
came in were staged before being sched- 
uled for autopsy. 

"It's big,” Soto said. 

Bosch nodded. 

“And long,” Bosch said. “I’m thinking 
we're looking for a rifle.” 

“It looks like it's in pretty bad shape,” 
Soto said. “Mushroomed.” 

She handed (continued on page 114) 


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from the whales 
and high rollers but 
still know how to 
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re 


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middle. Don't overstuff. 


TILT, TAP, FLIP, SLIDE 


* Tilt the pan, tap it on the stove so 
the omelet slides up a bit on one 
side of the pan. With the help of 
gravity and a spatula, fold one half 
of the omelet over the other (if 
you added fillings, be sure to cover 
them all), then slide it onto a plate. 


99 


A PLAYBOY 
ORDERS 
A DRINK. 


k 
` q 
== 532 


More people watched these 


^ guys play a video game than 
‚watched the highest-rated | 
games of the NBA finals, ~ ) 
the NHL finals or Sunday 
Night Football: Welcome to thi 
— | future of sports. 


1 


Wooh. WooOHH. 
Woooohhh! This 


because they're to- 
gether and no one 


> they do, 

all together as one. 
Words 
а ant s 


ceiling: DOMINATING, 
GODLIKE. LEGENDARY, 
The words, loaded 
with macho power, 


At dominating the 
crowd is cheeri 


explosive с 
stomping from the 
front row to the 
back bleachers, the 


turned up, nerdy 


| Mad Men glasses 


perched on his nose, raises his fist in the air. The crowd 
chants his name: “Bjergsen, Bjergsen, Bjergsen!” 

The kid hasn’t sung a song, rapped a rhyme, 
ripped a blazing guitar solo or spun a killer DJ set. 
He hasn’t sunk a game-winning three-pointer or 
buried a last-second slap shot into the goal. 

But Søren “Bjergsen” Bjerg, this adored kid from 
Denmark who now lives near the beach in Santa 
Monica, completely rules at a video game called League 
of Legends. His ability is buried within the hyper-turbo 
click-click-click-click of a mouse. Put simply, the game in- 
volves two teams of five intense guys as they try to cap- 
ture the other team’s base. In this multiplayer online 
battle arena, gamers choose avatars from a roster of 120 
graphic-novel-like characters, each with unique abilities, 
such as Yasuo the Unforgiven with his sharp, damaging 
sword that causes a whirlwind of injury, or Blitzcrank 
the Great Steam Golem, with his clanky rocket grab, a 
speedy death grip. To the uninitiated, it all looks like a 
cartoon without a narrative. To those who know, it’s like 
playing a brilliant mash-up of Lord of the Rings meets 
chess meets soccer meets UFC meets religion. 

Created by Santa Monica-based Riot Games, League 
of Legends is played each month by a whopping 67 mil- 
lion people worldwide. It’s the new rock-and-roll gos- 
pel, a gospel whose word is the fever pitch heard from 
the Church of Constant Gaming. And the word never 
lets up. Day into night, sunup to sundown, 27 million 
people play League in any 24-hour period. More than 
32 million people watched last year's world finals, held 
at a sold-out Staples Center in Los Angeles. That's 
more than the highest-rated games of this year’s NBA 
finals, NHL finals or Sunday Night Football. 

This has turned e-sports into big business. Amazon 
recently paid $970 million in cash for Twitch, a mas 
sively popular video service on which millions of fans 
watch live streams of games including League of Legends. 
Coca-Cola and American Express signed on to spon- 
sor this year’s League of Legends Championship Series. 

It’s all good for the 20 or 
so young League gods with 
such names as Doublelift, Hai, 
Meteos, Faker, Crumbzz and 
WildTurtle. They make seri- 
ous money as the all-stars of 
competitive online gaming, or 
e-sports, as it’s called. Many, in- 


Day into night, sunup to 
sundown, 27 million people 
play League of Legends in 
any 24-hour period. 


But it’s about the fans too. They also play to the 
death, because whether you're Peter Dinklage short or 
Blake Griffin tall, League is accessible. But fans know 


how damn tricky it is to win. Their love of the pros is 
more like adoration. Sure, it’s because the pros possess 
enviable skills, the cougarlike reflexes and the Bobby 
Fischer strategies. Even more, 
this fame is about a digital cult 
of personality stoked by social 
media that encourages fans to 
feel extraordinarily close to 
their idols. All the pros inter- 
act with fans on Reddit, Twitch 
and Twitter (though the con- 


cluding Bjergsen, will likely be 


millionaires before the age of 25 through winnings of 
up to $1 million for the world finals, sponsorships and 
extras including $1,000 daily revenue from streaming 
their play sessions on Twitch and other sites. (Imagine if 
LeBron James or Kevin Durant did that with solo prac- 
tices. They'd be Dr. Dre rich quick.) 


stant bashing when players 
don't do well has driven some to retire early). At its 
best, it's a AAA-baseball fan-appreciation day where 
players mingle and sign autographs—except this is 
online 24/7. And it pays off. Deep down, fans from 
Texarkana to Seoul yearn to have the rapid-fire syn- 
apses of a champion, to win, to win big, to be revered 
simply for playing games. They want to be heroes. 
They want to be remembered. And with that online 
rhapsody comes the money. 


It’s worldwide, and as Riot Games vice president of 


e-sports Dustin Beck says, it’s the “world’s biggest phe- 
nomenon that no one truly understands.” He means 
parents, politicians, mainstream journalists, movie 
producers, anyone who isn’t part of the League scene. 
Fans love this punk-ass game featuring monsters and 
wizards because they can play it for free. And they love 
it because it’s hard. With the deep strategy involved in 
choosing everything from characters (called champi- 
ons) to the innumerable spells and abilities, it can take 
a year to learn properly. 


At the All-Star Paris 2014 event, fans waited for hours 
in the pouring rain even (continued on page 130) 


Members of 
Team SoloMid 
celebrate their 
victory at the 
North Ameri 
can finals of 
the League 

of Legends 
Championship 
Series 


2. 

Thousands 
watched 

the finals 

live at the 
Washington 
State Conven 
tion Center 
while millions 
viewed an оп. 
line broadcast 


3. 

Fans at 
the North 
American 
finals. 


“Before we landed on the planet, I understand they were a pretty big deal.” 


L 


WORLD» 
ALVAD 
ALÍ 


FORTY YEARS AGO THE MASTER SURREALIST 
BROUGHT SOME OF HIS UNIQUE FANTASIES TO 
LIFE IN OUR PAGES. REVISIT THE RESULTS, ALONG WITH 
PREVIOUSLY UNPUBLISHED BEHIND-THE-SCENES PHOTOS 


alvador Dalí. Surrealist genius of 
limp clocks and moonlit deserts. 
Having commissioned Dalí to com- 
pose these photographic surrealities, 
we sent staff photographer Pompeo 
Posar to Dali’s Mediterranean villa 
in the small Spanish village of 
Cadaqués. Upon arriving, he was ushered to a 
poolside throne. Dali rose, offered his hand and 
began yelling, “Butterfly! Butterfly!” A bemused 
Posar returned the greeting and they became a 
loud duet, pumping clasped hands and shout- 
ing cheerfully, “Butterfly! Butterfly!” The shoot 
itself was both businesslike and bizarre. When 


Dali emerged from his house, his gaggle of wor- 
shippers and protégés bowed, chanting, “Master! 
Master!” He acknowledged them with an imperial 
wave and got down to work. 

Dali set up each shot, based on his preliminary 
sketches, while issuing supervisory commands. 
The villagers congregated on the surrounding 
hilltops as word spread through the town. It was 
quite an event—for Cadaqués and for PLAYBOY. We 
asked Dali what these compositions meant. He 
replied, “The meaning of my work is the motiva- 
tion that is of the purest—money. What I did for 
PLAYBOY ry good and your payment is equal 
to the task.” We think we got our money’s worth. 


ORIGINAL PHOTOGRAPHY BY SALVADOR DALÍ AND POMPEO POSAR 
ORIGINAL ARTWORK BY SALVADOR DALÍ 


OPPOSITE PAGE: While searching his property for props, Dali chose one of the many eggs that dot the landscape of Daliland and made a quick 
modification so it was ideal for a pLarsoy shoot. THIS PAGE: In these never-before-published photos, we see the master at work: directing models, 
sketching out the next shot and finding the perfect way to tether a beautiful woman to an egg, using a giant serpent. 


Sprawled seductively around 
and on top of a camel's back, 
Dali's subjects are carried 
toward a statue on his 
personally created horizon. 


ABOVE: Daliseems 
somewhat startled 


by the odd trio he 
has created, recalling 
ing he once 
know what | 
eat. | know not what | 
do.” He obviously knew 
very well; otherwise, 
he wouldn't have 
been able to eat—and 
live—so lavishly. RIGHT: 
Dali’s rough sketches 
that were translated 
into the compositions. 
FAR RIGHT: Dali looked 
around his villa, then 
eclectically combined 
bits and bottles wi 
swans and ripe-bodied 
bathers. OPPOSITE 
PAGE: One of the many 
eggs found all over 
Daliland looms large 
on a roof behind float- 
ing women, castles, 
chairs and water. 


PLAYBOY 


114 


THE BULLET 


Continued from page 94 


the bag back and Bosch put it in his 
coat pocket. 

“There's enough there for a compari- 
son, I think,” he said. “Enough for us to 
get lucky.” 

The men behind Soto opened the 
door of the Big Crypt to wheel the gur- 
ney in. Cold air carrying a disagreeable 
chemical scent blasted across the load- 
ing dock. Soto turned in time to see a 
glimpse of the giant refrigerated room. 
Row after row of bodies stacked four 
high on a stainless-steel scaffolding sys- 
tem. The dead were wrapped in opaque 
plastic sheeting, their feet exposed, toe 
tags flapping in the breeze from the 
refrigeration vents. 

Soto quickly turned away, her natu- 
rally brown face turning white. 

“You okay?” Bosch asked. 

“Yes, fine,” she said quickly. “That just 
grosses me out.” 

“It's actually a big improvement. The 
bodies used to be lined up in the hallways. 
Sometimes stacked on top of one another 
after a busy weekend. It got pretty ripe 
around here.” 

She held a hand up to stop him from 
further description. 

“Please, are we done?” 

“We're done.” 

He started moving and Soto followed, 
falling in a step behind him. She tended 
to walk behind Bosch, and he didn’t know 
if it was some sort of deferential thing to 
his age and rank or something else, like a 
confidence issue. He headed to the steps 
at the end of the dock. It was a shortcut 
to the visitor parking lot. 

“Where do we go?” she asked. 

“We get the slug over to firearms,” 
Bosch said. “Speaking of getting lucky— 
it's walk-in Wednesday. Then we go pick 
up the file and evidence at Hollenbeck. 
We take it from there.” 

“Okay.” 

They went down the steps and started 
crossing the employee parking lot. 
The visitor lot was on the side of the 
building. 

“Did you make your call?” Bosch asked. 

“What?” Soto asked, confused. 

“You said you had to make a call.” 

“Oh, yes, I did. Sorry about that.” 

“No problem. You get what you need?” 

“Yes, thanks.” 


Bosch was guessing that there had 
been no call. He suspected that Soto 
wanted to skip out on the autopsy 
because she had never seen a human 
body hollowed out before. Soto was new 
not only to the Open-Unsolved Unit but 
to homicide work as well. This was the 
third case she had worked with Bosch 
and the only one with a death fresh 
enough for an autopsy. Soto probably 
hadn't been counting on live autopsies 
when she signed up to work cold cases. 
The visuals and the odors were usually 
the most difficult things to get used to 
in homicide work. Cold cases usually 
eliminated both. 

In recent years the crime rate in 
Los Angeles had decreased markedly 
across the board, including and most 
dramatically the number of homicides. 
This had spurred a shift within the 
LAPD’s investigative priority and prac- 
tice. With fewer active murder cases, 
the department increased its emphasis 
on clearing cold cases. With more than 
10,000 unsolved murders on the books 
in the past 50 years, there was plenty of 
work to go around. The Open-Unsolved 
Unit had nearly tripled in size over the 
course of the previous year and now had 
its own command staff, including a cap- 
tain and two lieutenants. Many seasoned 
detectives were brought in from Homi- 
cide Special and other elite units within 
the Robbery-Homicide Division. Also, a 
class of young detectives with little if any 
investigative experience was brought 
in. The philosophy handed down from 
the 10th-floor OCP—Office of the Chief 
of Police—was that it was a new world 
out there, with new technologies and 
new ways to look at things. While noth- 
ing beats investigative know-how, there 
is nothing wrong with combining it 
with new viewpoints and different life 
experiences. 

These new detectives—the Mod 
Squad, as they were derisively called 
by some—got the choice assignment to 
the Open-Unsolved Unit for a variety 
of reasons ranging from political con- 
nections to particular acumen and skills 
to rewards for heroism in the line of 
duty. One of the new detectives had 
worked in IT for a hospital chain before 
becoming a cop and was instrumental in 
solving the murder of a patient through 
a computerized prescription-delivery 
system. Another had studied chemistry 
as a Rhodes Scholar. There was even a 
detective who was formerly an investi- 
gator with the Haitian National Police. 

Soto was only 28 years old and had 
been on the force fewer than five years. 
She was a “slick sleeve”—not a stripe 
of rank on her uniform—and made the 
jump to detective by being a twofer. She 
was Mexican American and spoke both 
English and Spanish fluently. She also 
punched a more traditional ticket to 
the detective ranks when she became 
an overnight media sensation after a 
deadly shoot-out with armed robbers 


at a liquor store in Pico-Union. She and 
her partner engaged four gunmen. Her 
partner was fatally shot, but Soto took 
down two of the robbers and held the 
second pair pinned in an alley until 
SWAT arrived and finished the capture. 
The gunmen were members of 13th 
Street, one of the most violent gangs 
operating in the city, and Soto’s hero- 
ics were splashed across newspapers, 
websites and television screens. Police 
Chief Gregory Malins later awarded her 
the department's medal of valor. Her 
partner received the award as well, 
posthumously. 

Captain George Crowder, the new 
commander of the Open-Unsolved 
Unit, decided the best way to handle 
the influx of new blood into the unit was 
to split up all the existing partnerships 
and pair every detective who had OU 
experience with a new detective who 
had none. Bosch was the oldest man 
in the unit and had the most years on 
the job. As such he was paired with the 
youngest—Soto. 

“Harry, you're the old pro,” Crowder 
had explained. “I want you watching 
over the rookie.” 

While Bosch didn’t particularly care 
to be reminded of his age and stand- 
ing, he was nonetheless happy with 
the assignment. He was entering what 
would be his last year with the depart- 
ment, as the clock was ticking on his 
DROP contract. To him, every day he 
had left on the job was golden. The 
hours were like diamonds—as valuable 
as anything on earth. He thought that 
it might be a good way to finish things, 
training an inexperienced detective and 
passing on whatever it was he had to 
pass on. When Crowder told him his 
new partner would be Lucia Soto, Bosch 
was pleased. Like everybody else in the 
department, he had heard of Soto’s 
exploits in the shoot-out. Bosch knew 
what it was like to kill someone in the 
line of duty, as well as to lose a part- 
ner. He understood the mixture of grief 
and guilt that would afflict Soto. He 
thought that he and Soto could work 
well together and that he might train 
her to be a solid investigator. 

There was also a nice bonus for Bosch 
in being teamed with Soto. Because she 
was a female, he would not have to share 
a hotel room when on the road on a case. 
They would get their own rooms. This 
was a big thing. The travel component 
to a job on the cold case squad was high. 
Oftentimes those who think they have 
gotten away with murder leave town, 
hoping that by putting physical distance 
between themselves and their crimes, 
they are also outdistancing the reach of 
the police. Now Bosch looked forward to 
finishing his time in the department with- 
out having to share a bathroom or put 
up with the snoring or other emissions 
from a partner in a cramped double at 
a Holiday Inn. 

Soto might not have been hesitant 


“Hold on, Harriet. Some stupid cop is trying to flirt with me.” 


115 


PLAYBOY 


116 


when pulling her gun while outnum- 
bered in a barrio alley, but watching a 
live autopsy was something different. 
She had seemed reluctant that morning 
when Bosch told her they had caught a 
live one and had to go to the coroner's 
office for an autopsy. Soto’s first ques- 
tion was whether it was required that both 
partners in an investigative team attend 
the dissection of the body. With most cold 
cases, the body was long in the ground 
and the only dissection involved was the 
analysis of old records and evidence. 
Open-Unsolved allowed Soto to work the 
most important cases—murders—without 
having to view a live autopsy or, for that 
matter, a homicide scene. 

Or so it seemed until that morning, 
when Bosch got the call at home from 
Crowder. 

The captain asked Bosch if he had read 
the Los Angeles Times that morning, and 
Bosch said he didn’t get the paper. This 
was in keeping with the long-standing tra- 
dition of disdain that existed between the 
two institutions of law enforcement and 
the media. 

The captain then proceeded to tell 
him about a story on the front page that 
morning that was the origin of a new 
assignment for Bosch and Soto. As Bosch 
listened, he opened his laptop and went 
to the newspaper’s website, where the 
story was similarly receiving a lot of play. 

The newspaper was reporting that 
Orlando Merced had died. Ten years 
earlier, Merced became famous in Los 
Angeles as a victim—the unintended tar- 
get of a shooting at Mariachi Plaza in 
Boyle Heights. The bullet that struck 
Merced in the abdomen had traveled 
across the plaza from the vicinity of Pleas- 
ant Avenue and was thought to have been 
a stray shot from a gang confrontation. 


The shooting occurred at four P.M. 
on a Saturday. Merced was 31 years old 
at the time and a member of a maria- 
chi band for which he played the vihuela, 
the five-string guitarlike instrument that 
is the mainstay of the traditional Mexican 
folk sound. He and his three bandmates 
were among several mariachis waiting in 
the plaza for jobs—a restaurant gig or a 
quinceañera party or maybe a last-minute 
wedding. Merced was a large man, thick 
in the middle, and the bullet that seem- 
ingly came from nowhere splintered the 
mahogany facing of his instrument and 
then tore through his gut before lodging 
in his anterior spine. 

Merced would have become just 
another victim in a city where the media 
hits and runs—a 30-second story on the 
English news channels, a four-paragraph 
report in the Times, a little more longev- 
ity in the Spanish media. 

Buta simple twist of fate changed that. 
Merced and his band, Los Reyes Jalisco, 
had performed three months earlier at 
the wedding of city councilman Armando 
Zeyas, and Zeyas was now ramping up a 
campaign for the mayor's office. 

Merced lived. The bullet damaged his 
spine and rendered him both a paraple- 
gic and a cause. As the mayoral campaign 
took shape, Zeyas rolled him out in his 
wheelchair at all of his political ral- 
lies and speeches. He used Merced as 
a symbol of the neglect suffered by the 
communities of East Los Angeles. Crime 
was high and police attention low—they 
had yet to catch Merced’s shooter. Gang 
violence was unchecked; basic city ser- 
vices and long-planned projects like the 
extension of the Metro Gold Line were 
long delayed. Zeyas promised to be the 
mayor who would change that, and he 
used Merced and East L.A. to forge a base 


“Undocumented immigrants!” 


and strategy that separated him from a 
crowded pack of contenders. He made 
it to the runoff and then easily took the 
election. All the way, Merced was by his 
side, sitting in the wheelchair, clad in his 
charro suit and sometimes even wearing 
the bloodstained blouse he wore on the 
day of the shooting. 

Zeyas served two terms. East L.A. 
got new attention from the city and the 
police. Crime went down. The Gold 
Line went through—even including an 
underground stop at Mariachi Plaza— 
and the mayor basked in the glow of 
his successes. But the person who shot 
Orlando Merced was never caught, and 
over time the bullet took a steady toll on 
his body. Infections led to numerous hos- 
pitalizations and surgeries. First he lost 
one leg, then the other. Adding insult to 
injury, the arm that once strummed the 
instrument that produced the rhythms of 
Mexican folk music was taken. 

And finally, Orlando Merced had died. 

“The ball’s in our court now,” Crowder 
had said to Bosch. “I don't care what the 
goddamn newspaper says, we have to 
decide if this is a homicide. If his death 
can be attributed medically to that shoot- 
ing 10 years ago, then we make a case 
and you and Lucky Lucy go back into it.” 

“Got it.” 

“The autopsy’s gotta say homicide or 
this whole thing dies with Merced.” 

“Got it.” 

Bosch never turned down a case, 
because he knew he was running out of 
cases. But he had to wonder why Crowder 
was giving the Merced investigation to 
him and Soto. He knew from the start 
that it was suspected the bullet that had 
struck Merced had come from a gang 
gun. This meant the new investigation 
would almost wholly center on White 
Fence and the other prominent East L.A. 
gangs that traversed Boyle Heights. It was 
essentially going to be a Spanish-language 
case, and while Soto was obviously fluent, 
Bosch had limited skills in the language. 
He could order off a taco truck and tell a 
suspect to drop to his knees and put his 
hands behind his head. But conducting 
careful interviews and even interroga- 
tions in Spanish was not in his skill set. 
That would fall to Soto, and she, in his 
estimation, didn’t have the chops for it 
yet. There were at least two other teams 
in the unit that had Spanish speakers with 
more investigative experience. Crowder 
should have gone with one of them. 

The fact that Crowder had not gone 
with the obvious and correct choice made 
Bosch suspicious. On one hand, the direc- 
tive to put the Bosch-Soto team on the 
case could have come from the OCP. It 
would be a media-sensitive investigation, 
and having Soto, the hero cop, on the 
case might help mold a positive media 
response. A darker alternative was that 
perhaps Crowder wanted the Bosch-Soto 
team to fail and very publicly undercut 
the police chief’s edict to break with tra- 
dition and experience when he formed 
the new Open-Unsolved Unit. The 
chief's jumping of several young and 


inexperienced officers over veteran detec- 
tives waiting for slots in RHD squads did 
not go over well with the rank and file. 
Maybe Crowder was out to embarrass the 
chief for doing it. 

Bosch tried to push speculation about 
motives aside as they rounded the corner 
and entered the visitor parking lot. He 
thought about the plan for the day and 
realized that they were probably less than 
a mile from Hollenbeck Station and even 
closer to Mariachi Plaza. They could take 
Mission down to First and then go under 
the 101. Ten minutes tops. He decided 
to reverse the order of stops that he had 
told Soto they would make. 

They were halfway through the lot to 
the car when Bosch heard Soto’s name 
called from behind them. He turned to 
see a woman crossing the employee lot, 
holding a wireless microphone. Behind 
her a cameraman struggled to keep his 
camera up while he negotiated his way 
between cars. 

“Shit,” Bosch said. 

Bosch looked around to see if there 
were others. Someone—maybe Corazon— 
had tipped the media. 

Bosch recognized the woman but he 
could not remember from which news 
show or press conference. But he didn’t 
know her and she didn’t know him. She 
went right to Soto with the microphone. 
Soto was the better-known quantity when 
it came to the media. At least in recent 
history. 

“Detective Soto, Katie Ashton, Channel 
Five, do you remember me?” 

"Uh, I think...” 

"Has Orlando Merced's death officially 
been ruled a homicide?" 

"Not yet," Bosch said quickly, even 
though he was not on camera. 

Both the camera and the reporter turned 
to him. This was not what he wanted, to be 
on the news. But he did want to get a few 
steps ahead of the media on the case. 

“The coroner's office is evaluating Mr. 
Merced's medical records and will make a 
decision on that. We hope to know some- 
thing very soon." 

"Will this restart the investigation of Mr. 
Merced's shooting?" 

“The case is still open and that’s all we 
have to say at this time." 

Without a further word Ashton turned 
90 degrees to her right and brought the 
microphone under Soto's chin. 

"Detective Soto, you were awarded the 
department's medal of valor for the Pico- 
Union shoot-out. Are you now gunning for 
whoever shot Orlando Merced?" 

Soto seemed momentarily nonplussed, 
then replied. 

"I am not gunning for anyone." 

Bosch pushed past the videographer, 
who had swung around to film over Ash- 
ton's left shoulder. He got to Soto and 
turned her toward their car. 

“That's it,” he said. “No further com- 
ment. Call media relations if you want 
anything else.” 

They left the reporter and videographer 
there and walked quickly to the car. Bosch 
got into the driver's seat. 


“Good answer,” he said as he turned 
the ignition. 

“What do you mean?” Soto responded. 

“Your answer to her about gunning for 
the Merced shooter.” 

“Oh.” 

They drove out onto Mission and headed 
south. When they were a few blocks clear of 
the coroner's office, Bosch pulled to the curb 
and stopped. He held out his hand to Soto. 

“Let me see your phone for a second,” 
he said. 

“What do you mean?” Soto asked. 

“Let me see your phone. You said you 
had to make a call when 1 went into the 
autopsy. I want to see if you called that 
reporter. I can't have a partner who's feed- 
ing the media.” 

“No, Harry, I didn’t call her.” 

“Good, then let me see your phone.” 

Soto indignantly handed him her cell 
phone. It was an iPhone, same as Harry 
had. He opened up the call record. Soto 
had not made a call since the previ- 
ous evening. And the last call she had 
received had been from Bosch that morn- 
ing, telling her about the case they had 

just caught. 

“Did you text her?” 

He opened the text app and saw the 
most recent text was to someone named 
Adriana. It was in Spanish. He held the 
phone up to his partner. 

“Who's this? What's it say?” 

“It's to my friend. Look, I didn't want to 
go into that room, okay?” 

Bosch looked at her. 

“What room? What are you——” 

“The autopsy. I didn’t want to have to 
watch that.” 

“So you lied to me?” 

“I'm sorry, Harry. It's embarrassing. I 
don’t think I can take that.” 


Бїгд 


Bosch handed the phone back. 

“Just don’t lie to me, Lucia.” 

He checked the side mirror and pulled 
away from the curb. They were silent until 
they got down to First Street and Bosch 
moved into the left-turn lane. Soto real- 
ized they were not heading to the regional 
crime lab with the bullet. 

“Where are we going?” 

“We’re in the neighborhood. I thought 
we’d check out Mariachi Plaza for a few 
minutes, then go to Hollenbeck for the 
murder book.” 

“I see. What about firearms?” 

“We'll do it after. Is this related to the 
shoot-out—your not wanting to go to the 
autopsy?” 

“No. I mean, I don’t know. I just didn’t 
want to see that, that’s all.” 

Bosch let it go for the time being. Two 
minutes later they were approaching Mari- 
achi Plaza and Bosch saw two TV trucks 
parked at the curb with their transmitters 
cranked up for live reports. 

“They're really jumping all over this,” 
he said. “We'll come back later.” 

He drove on by. Half a mile later they 
came to the Hollenbeck Station. Brand- 
new and modern, with angled glass panels 
creating a facade that reflected the sun in 
multiple angles, it looked more like some 
sort of corporate office than a police sta- 
tion. Bosch pulled into the visitor lot and 
killed the engine. 

“This is going to be pleasant,” he said. 

“What do you mean?” Soto asked. 

“You'll see.” 


Excerpted from the novel The Burning Room, 
to be published this month by Little, Brown 


and Company. 


“Relax, lad. Once you've seen one flying fish, you've seen them all.” 


117 


PLAYBOY 


HOLLYWOOD HIGH 


Continued from page 62 


But experts say a lot of addiction is 
sparked by a legitimate medical reason 
and then escalates. Dr. Timothy Fong, di- 
rector of the UCLA Addiction Medicine 
Clinic, recounts the story of a patient of 
his, a studio head, who dabbled in alcohol 
when she was young. Years later, when she 
had her wisdom teeth extracted, she got a 
Vicodin prescription for the pain. As Fong 
describes it, “She said, ‘Wow, Гуе never 
felt so good since I had alcohol back then. 
As soon as I had that first pill, I knew I 
was going to be off and running with this 
stuff.’ She blew through that first prescrip- 
tion, went back to the dentist, got another 
prescription—'Oh, it's so painful’—blew 
through that, then started asking around 
on the set. People started giving them to 
her because she was the studio head. The 
rumor mill got started, ‘Hey, she likes pills. 
You should bring her some pills. You might 
curry some favor.’” Indeed, the new for- 
mulations of these painkillers are so effec- 
tive, the addictive process begins almost 
immediately, and when it does, it hits hard. 
Another doctor told me of patients who 
gobbled 50 to 60 Vicodin a day. 

The proximate reason an addict takes 
drugs or drinks isn't all that mysterious. It 
makes him feel good—hell, it makes him 
feel more than good. Fong describes an- 
other patient of his, who said, "Every time 
I drink alcohol, I have more confidence. I 
feel energized. I feel invincible. Every time 
I go out there when I'm not drinking, I’m 
double-checking everything. I'm anxious. 
I'm stumbling over my words." The pa- 
tient added, ironically, "I'm not as good 
as I normally am." A former addict puts 
it more simply: "The voices in our heads 
quiet." And we all realize that if it stayed 
that way, if the addict could continue in this 
euphoric state, there wouldn't be a prob- 
lem. The problem, says the recovering ad- 
dict, is that "it ends badly. The story always 
ends badly." It may take a few years, years 
in which the addict is constantly upping 
the ante as his body demands ever-higher 
dosages, but eventually the wheels come 
off. Another former addict states it more 
poetically: "Drugs put the soul to sleep." 

The reason we aren't all wolfing down 
Vicodin, Percocet or OxyContin after we 
have our wisdom teeth extracted, or gulp- 
ing down drinks or snorting lines, has a 
lot—roughly 50 percent for alcohol, 60 
percent for cocaine and 70 percent for 


118 opiates—to do with genetics. Some peo- 


ple, perhaps 10 percent to 15 percent, ac- 
cording to Dr. Greg Skipper, director of 
medical health services at the Promises re- 
hab center in Malibu, are predisposed to 
respond to drugs. It's a function of brain 
chemistry. They just go off. They don't 
have any choice. 

But here's where show business makes 
its appearance. If there are genetically en- 
dowed characteristics that make one more 
susceptible to addiction, some of these 
same characteristics make one more likely 
to be drawn to show business and even 
to succeed in it. In effect, Hollywood is a. 
community of train wrecks waiting to hap- 
pen. According to Dr. David Sack, chief 
executive of Promises and a psychiatrist, 
studies have shown a correlation between 
risk taking, which has a significant genetic 
component, and drug taking. "When you 
talk to actors," he says, "they frequently 
talk about having to take risks with their 
work, to emote or behave in ways that are 
uncomfortable or dangerous to them." A 
similar correlation exists between drug use 
and impulsivity, which psychiatrists define 
not as acting on the spur of the moment 
but as not valuing a future reward. Per- 
forming, in which you are constantly mov- 
ing from one thing to the next, is one of 
the few professions that invites you to focus 
on the here and now. Most people can't af- 
ford to do that. 

Far more important than either of these 
is the high correlation between mental ill- 
ness, which has a large genetic component, 
and addiction. Depression is so allied to 
addiction that doctors even have a name 
for the combination: dual diagnosis. Robin 
Williams suffered from deep depression. 
No one has studied the prevalence of men- 
tal illness specifically among entertain- 
ers any more than they have studied the 
prevalence of addiction in Hollywood, but, 
says Sack, "It is at least tempting to specu- 
late that some of the mental disorders seem 
to have an unusual relationship to certain 
forms of creativity." Performing artists may 
have abnormalities that travel with addic- 
tion. (Studies have shown that top athletes 
also exhibit a higher incidence of depres- 
sion as well as a higher degree of addiction 
than ordinary people.) 

Finally, there are those areas in which 
the effects of drugs are actually seen by 
performer-users to be advantageous in a 
way they would not necessarily be to people 
in other, more workaday professions. "A lot 
of guys come in and want to be on their A- 
game seven days a week—confident, funny, 
charming, social," says Fong, because the 
industry celebrates and practically de- 
mands it. "The pathological thought there 
is, I must have it all." The more common 
comment among entertainer-users is that 
drugs lift their inhibitions, which of course 
they do. "They wouldn't have any street 
value if they didn't," says Fong. Some en- 
tertainers go so far as to say that drugs are 
what enable them to perform. As Fong sees 
it, people take drugs for only two reasons: 
the obvious one, which is to get high and 
experience a pleasurable time, and the less 
obvious one, which is to feel normal, “to 
take away the feelings of suffering." He ad- 


mits Hollywood puts a premium on both, 
which he believes is the reason addiction is 
so prevalent there. You can attempt to es- 
cape the pressures and insecurities, or you 
can attempt to control them. In short, you 
can try to medicate your way out of the oc- 
cupational hazards of the industry. 
At least you can for a while. 


Even at 66, Michael Des Barres looks and 
sounds like a rock-and-roller, which is what 
he was and is as the lead vocalist for half 
a dozen bands over the years. He is lean, 
chiseled, his gray hair short and stylishly 
coiffed, his accent British, and he is dressed 
in black from head to toe. Most people in 
entertainment won't talk about addiction. 
Des Barres is one of the very few who will, 
and when he does, he knows whereof he 
speaks. "I've done every drug known to 
man or woman," he says, “have had ev- 
ery sexual experience known to man or 
woman." A good deal of that sybaritic life- 
style, he believes, is part of what he calls 
the "rock-and-roll mythology." "How can 
you be a rock star if you're not fucked-up? 
"That's like being a rock star with no mu- 
sic." Des Barres wound up living within 
a heightened persona that obscured his 
person. "I was in a state of euphoria for a 
couple of years," he says. "It felt perfect. I 
was fulfilling the rock-and-roll role." 

But then came the reckoning. After a 
two-day binge that began with Jack Dan- 
iel's and ended with Listerine, he looked 
in the mirror. "It didn't look anything like 
me. Bloated. My makeup was running. My 
hair was coiled. I had that moment of clar- 
ity." It was 1981. Des Barres quit drugs and 
alcohol cold, and he has been sober now 
for 33 years. He calls it a "divine thing." 

He will be the first to tell you, though, 
that it isn't easy to be a sober rock star. 
"I was a leper. I went from being Aleister 
Crowley to Mr. Rogers overnight—with a 
better wardrobe." Everyone, he says, en- 
couraged drug taking, and that didn't end 
with the cocaine-fueled 1970s and 19805. 
No matter how much drugs are stigmatized 
elsewhere, they still have a cool factor in 
Hollywood and are part of the culture and 
community there. Fong says he has young 
patients, aspiring actors, who admit to go- 
ing to parties and doing a line with a writer 
or director to create a connection and ad- 
vance their careers. And that's where Des 
Barres thinks Hollywood really is different 
from so much of the rest of America. It isn’t 
just the lack of stigma. It's that Hollywood 
has enablers. Lots of them. 

It begins with doctors. "Star-fucking 
doctors are on every corner of Beverly 
Hills," Des Barres says. Dr. Damon Raskin, 
who was a child TV actor and is now an 
internist at Cliffside Malibu, agrees. "I 
think there is a problem with doctors 
who suck up to celebrities in this town. 
‘Oh, you need the Vicodin? I want to go 
to your concert.'” As a result, Raskin be- 
lieves, "celebrities get worse medical care 
than you or myself." Skipper remembers 
getting a call from a doctor friend who had 
been contacted by a member of a famous 
singer's entourage in Atlanta who wanted 


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PLAYBOY 


a prescription for painkillers, even though 
the doctor had never seen the entertainer 
in his office. The doctor was tempted, and 
Skipper had to talk him out of writing it. 
After all, she was a star. The singer died of 
an overdose a month later. 

But even worse enablers than doctors, 
Des Barres claims, are the managers and 
agents and entourage members, because 
they have a stake in the stars not going into 
rehab—in their continuing to work to earn 
money. They also have a stake in facilitat- 
ing whatever the celebrity wants, because 
it is a way to hold on to their jobs. “Where 
are the people who say no?” Raskin asks. 
“They're just afraid they're going to get 
fired or be outcasts or not be part of the 
group.” So just about nobody says no. In- 
deed, one of the appurtenances of Holly- 
wood addiction is the “sober companion,” 
who is hired by a manager to keep a star 
company while he or she performs. And 
the fact is, most entertainers can function 
well enough under the influence of drugs. 
“How is he going to do the tour and make 
$50 million?” Des Barres asks. “Oh, we 
need a sober companion! The whole no- 
tion of a sober companion is at odds with 
getting yourself straight through work and 
meditation and spiritual practices.” And 
when the tour or movie is over, the sober 
companion leaves. Such is drug addiction 
among the stars. 


High up a hillside in Malibu, at the end 
of a winding road and across from the 
azure Pacific, is Cliffside Malibu, one of a 
handful of rehab centers with a wealthy 
clientele that includes occasional stars. 
It is quiet. It is always quiet at Cliffside. 
But Cliffside’s founder and CEO, Richard 
Taite, is anything but quiet. Tall and 
athletic, he is animated, especially when 
talking about addiction. Taite, 48, like so 
many in the rehab business, is a recovering 
addict himself. “From 12 to 32,” he says, 
“I never drew a sober breath. I never even 
fell asleep. I just passed out.” There were 
six-month runs, he remembers, when he 
would smoke an ounce of cocaine a day 
and eat a Big Mac once a week just to 
stay alive. Eventually, in 2003, he sobered 
up and decided to open his own Malibu 


mansion—he had made a fortune in the 
hospital billing and collection business—as 
a sober-living center. A year later he con- 
verted it into a rehab center. 

As at Promises, Passages and other 
Malibu retreats, treatment at Cliffside 
doesn’t come cheap. Taite charges $73,000 
a month for a private room, $58,000 for 
a semiprivate one, and the recommended 
stay is usually three to four months. (Like 
most upscale L.A. centers, it is nearly al- 
ways filled.) He has had so many celebrities 
during the facility's 10-year existence there 
is a sign warning patients when they might 
be in the line of sight of a paparazzo. It is a 
tough line to toe—the line between being a 
celebrity and being a patient. Being treated 
like ordinary folk may be necessary to ad- 
dress the underlying causes of the addic- 
tion, but stars are stars, and they don't geta 
lot of tough love. Quite the contrary. They 
have their own network of therapists— 
four doctors, Taite says, who minister to 
nearly every big star. He adds, “If I told 
you the celebrities 1 see going in and out 
of my therapist's office, you'd fall down the 
hill.” They have their own interventions, 
often conducted at a swanky Beverly Hills 
hotel, sometimes by Taite himself. They 
even have their own AA meetings, which 
are called “off-the-book,” where they can 
mingle with fellow stars. 

You may think that with all these ame- 
nities, addicted celebrities would be lining 
up to enter rehab. But that's another thing 
about Hollywood addiction: The stars are 
their own best enablers. Few—virtually 
none—seek help on their own. They have 
to be forced into rehab by family, friends 
or their lawyer, typically the one member 
of the support group who doesn't work 
on commission. “I don't think I’ve had an 
actual entertainer call me for themselves,” 
Taite says. “I’ve had the children, wives, 
girlfriends, cousins, brothers, sisters of ev- 
ery major movie star. I’m talking about the 
world's biggest-grossing movie stars ever. 
I get them all calling. But not for them- 
selves.” And why don't the stars call to in- 
stitutionalize themselves? Because of those 
enablers, Taite says. Nobody in Hollywood 
talks truth to power. Cliffside, like the 
other rehab centers, gets CEOs, athletes, 
high-powered attorneys and physicians. 


UP LAST NIGHT 


T HOOKED 
AND DID IT SIX TIMES? 
THIS MORNING SHE MADE 


But Hollywood, he says, “is the only indus- 
try I’ve seen where you can be drunk or an 
addict, act badly and still have everybody 
kissing your ass.” 

Taite subscribes to a theory of addiction 
devised by the psychologist James Pro- 
chaska. While it is by no means exclusive 
to Hollywood, it certainly has application 
there. According to Prochaska, most ad- 
diction is trauma related, and most of that 
trauma is rooted in childhood—in neglect, 
abuse or loss. "I've worked with thou- 
sands of addicts and alcoholics," Constance 
Scharff, Cliffside's research director, says, 
"and I know one person who said, 'I had 
a really great childhood.'" Sack of Prom- 
ises concurs, adding this Hollywood rider: 
Childhood abuse "may contribute to why 
performers are attracted to the creative 
arts, like maybe looking for redemption or 
acceptance or recognition they didn't get 
in childhood." Put another way, people 
who didn't get attention as children may 
be more likely to become professional 
attention-getters, and the same emotional 
deficit may push them toward addiction. 
If anything, it is only worse for folks like 
Lohan and Efron, who may not even have 
had childhoods to speak of. 

And here is the surprising thing. Al- 
though addiction almost always begins in 
childhood or adolescence, as many of us 
can attest from our own high school and 
college years of watching binge drink- 
ing, toking and even hard drug use, the 
vast majority of those abusers outgrow 
their misbehavior—"mature" out of it, as 
some experts put it. The recklessness of 
youth, the imposition of responsibility, 
the constraints of life are transformative, 
which is why the frat-boy beer guzzlers 
seldom turn into alcoholics. But not in 
Hollywood, where recklessness is often 
rewarded, irresponsibility is actually en- 
couraged and the only real constraint is 
being so wasted one isn't able to work. 
That means addicted performers are al- 
ways poised on the precipice. The indus- 
try's infantilism puts them there. 

All it takes is a trigger—some stress, such 
as a failed romance or a career setback— 
that reactivates the childhood trauma and 
leads to self-medication for relief. It doesn't 
take much. So when you think of stars as 


train wrecks waiting to happen, you’re on 
the money. It doesn’t make any difference 
how long they’ve been clean when the trig- 
ger is pulled. Hoffman had been sober for 
23 years. Then he wasn't. 


Kristen Johnston doesn’t buy it. She 
doesn’t buy that Hollywood is all that dif- 
ferent from the rest of America. Johnston is 
the two-time Emmy-winning actress from 
3rd Rock From the Sun who is as hilarious 
describing the indignities of her past addic- 
tion as she was playing an alien. She has 
written a best-selling book about it, titled 
Guts, which refers not only to what it took 
for her to recover but also to the time she 
almost lost hers by splitting her insides 
with drugs. She is now eight years sober 
and has been traveling the country talking 
to other addicts, none of them celebrities, 
though she has had celebrities call and 
e-mail her for advice and to offer thanks. 
She's convinced Americans latch onto cı 
lebrity addicts as a way of pretending it's 
just a Hollywood thing so they don't have 
to face the truth. 

But that doesn’t mean she believes per- 
formers don’t have some predispositions 
toward addiction, not because they are pro- 
fessional attention-getters but because they 
are professional targets. “You're asked to 
be vulnerable and open and be all these 
different people and cry at the drop of a 
hat," she says, "yet you're also supposed 
to be able to survive when people tell you 
you're ugly, you're fat, they hate you. To 
survive without medication or help is very 
difficult." Drugs, she admits, allowed her 
to mask her vulnerabilities—"to be large 
when I didn't want to be." 

And Johnston says something else that 
other celebrity addicts echo: "Ambition is 
the best painkiller." While this certainly 
isn't true only of performers, it is more 
graphic with them. When they're 
ing, they're fueled by ambition. That is 
the drug—trying to be famous. Then, if 
they're lucky, as Johnston was, they suc- 
ceed. "All of a sudden, everything was 
free," she recalls. “I had a huge home, I 
was in Los Angeles, and I just was lost. I 
had nothing else to work for." And that is 
when her habit really kicked in. 

Which leads to the algorithm. In varying 
degrees, genetic predisposition plus child- 
hood trauma plus availability of drugs plus 
an emotional trigger plus encouragement 
or lack of discouragement is a pretty likely 
formula for addiction. Hollywood hits it on 
just about all cylinders. It is the disease of 
the lost in the industry of the lost. 

“We all have this hole inside of us 
Johnston says. "And we all try to fill it in 
some way. Some do it healthily. They write 
or they run or they have hobbies or what- 
ever. Unfortunately, addicts find the easy 
road, which is really the hard road." She 
says this isn't just an addict thing. It's a life 
thing. Johnston says, "Perhaps this pro- 
cess of filling the hole is what life is really 
about." Though it may sound like psycho- 
babble, the hole, of course, is that emp- 
tiness inside that can only be filled with 
identity—with knowing who you are. The 


trouble with performers, especially young 
performers, is that they are practically in 
the loss-of-identity business. They may be 
less likely to know who they are, less likely 
to be grounded, than most other people, 
which means the holes in Hollywood may 
be bigger than holes elsewhere—dug 
deeper by those childhood traumas, those 
vulnerabilities, insecurities and disap- 
pointments. The hole alienates you from 
other people, even as it alienates you from 
yourself. Johnston will tell you that is the 
pain the painkillers are really meant to 
dull: the pain of that gaping hole. (That is 
also why opiates are the Hollywood drug 
of choice.) "You are attempting to fill an 
unfillable hole," Des Barres says. "There's 
not enough water in the Pacific Ocean, not 
enough coke in all of Peru to satisfy it." 
Not to put too fine a point on it, but while 
it is easy to caricature addicted celebs as 
being self-indulgent and out of control, it 
is much harder to see them, even some- 
body like Lindsay Lohan, as people who 
don't have a clue who they are. 

Johnston says that was the big change 
in her life: finding her identity. In addi- 
tion to starring on the TV Land series The 
Exes, she now fills the emptiness by talking 
with addicts and lobbying for a sober high 
school in New York City. She is at peace 
and is confident she will stay that way. But 
ay the relapse rate among en- 
tertainers is higher than the rate among 
non-entertainers, which is a very high rate 
itself—as high as 60 percent—and there 
are lots of reasons. There is the money that 
sible and the fawning 
s drug use, alongside the 
critical scrutiny of one's work that attacks 
ilities, the ongoing pres- 

г ing a project that costs tens 
of millions of dollars and, perhaps above 
all, the enablement. Stars are more likely to 
leave rehab before the hole-filling process 
is complete. Although Richard Taite 
he has never gotten a call from an a 
or manager asking him to institutionalize 
an addicted star, he gets calls from them all 
the time begging him to release stars after 
a short stay. Too much is riding on them to 
keep them tucked away in Malibu. 

One thing those who believe in 
Hollywood-addiction exceptionalism and 
those who don’t may agree on is that what- 
ever else it is, Hollywood is America writ 
large. Everything there may be more dra- 
matic, more excessive, more expensive, 
more exposed, but it is all just more. In the 
end, no matter how we try to deny it, the 
awful truth is that Hollywood is us, which 
means that though its addictions may be 
another form of entertainment for jaded 
Americans, they are really no different 
from our own. Take away Lindsay Lohan's 
beauty and notoriety, and she’s just an- 
other pretty young girl trying to find her- 
self. Take away Philip Seymour Hoffman's 
enormous talent and recognition, and he’s 
just another middle-aged man in a desper- 
ate midlife crisis. Take away Robin Wil- 
liams’s manic humor, and he’s just another 
depressive staring into the abyss. 


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PLAYBOY 


BRIAN SCHWEITZER 


Continued from page 58 


while we reformed the corrections de- 
partment here. We were filling our jails 
with people who were smoking pot, and 
it didn’t make a lot of sense to me. We 
had Prohibition for alcohol, and it didn’t 
work. Pot's not perfect by any stretch of the 
imagination; neither is alcohol. The most 
abused drugs in Montana right now are 
made by pharmaceutical companies, the 
OxyContins and all those. Those are the 
drugs that are really dangerous and killing 
people. Pot slows people down. I basically 
lean toward being a libertarian. 

PLAYBOY: When you were talking about 
Mitt Romney, you said you agree with him 
on compulsory national service. That's 
hardly libertarian. 

SCHWEITZER: Here's the way I would en- 
force it. I would just say, “Once you gradu- 
ate from high school, we're not going to 
have you as a college freshman for one 
year, and we want you to do national ser- 
vice.” Compulsory, I’m not exactly sure, 
but something like that. We want to heav- 
ily encourage it, maybe through offering 
scholarships for college. I think it’s a good 
idea. ГЇЇ add that if we're going to go to 
war, we ought to have a draft. That way the 
elected, the powerful and the rich would 
be sending their children at the same rate 
as those of us who drive tractors and trucks 
for a living. We need to have this discus- 
sion and debate at every coffee shop before 
we go to war, during the war and when we 
decide to get out of a war. 

PLAYBOY: When you ran for election, NRA 
CEO Wayne LaPierre came to endorse 
you. Democrats will argue that he’s taken 
that organization and turned it not just 
into a gun-rights organization but into an 
extremist and far-right organization. 
SCHWEITZER: And a tool for the gun manu- 
facturers. Let's be frank here. 

PLAYBOY: But you were comfortable hav- 
ing Wayne LaPierre endorse you? He's 
accused Obama of wanting to confiscate 
every gun. 

SCHWEITZER: The NRA has gone well be- 
yond what it claimed its initial mission was, 
and its mission is twofold now. One is to sell 
more guns and ammo for the gun manu- 
facturers, and two is to elect Republicans. 
I believe in the Second Amendment. I’m 
a gun owner. But the NRA? Not so much. 
In fact, the NRA itself a dozen years ago 
believed that we shouldn't have loopholes 
for the mentally ill. It didn’t believe a doz- 
en years ago that we ought to be able to 
buy guns online. The guns I own I bought 
at gun shows. You go to a gun show, and 
there's a guy—I haven't any idea who he 


122 is, and he hasn't any idea who I am—and 


he's got a gun I’m interested in buying. 
PLAYBOY: Is that okay with you? 
SCHWEITZER: Well, I bought a shotgun with 
a Montana reporter next to me. 

PLAYBOY: We'll repeat our question. Is it 
okay with you? 

SCHWEITZER: No! We ought to close that 
loophole. We ought to close the loophole 
of buying online, and we ought to close 
the loophole of the mentally ill being able 
to buy. If we decide we're going to have 
background checks, it needs to be fair and 
equitable. Gun dealers have to do that, 
but in most states all they have to do is go 
to a gun show and they don't have to do 
any checking. 

PLAYBOY: How do you defend your position 
on gun control to your party? 
SCHWEITZER: ГП tell you what I said on 
Current TV with Jennifer Granholm. 
She’d finished being governor of Michi- 
gan, and she said, “Now, Brian, you’re a 
Montana guy, and you've got guns. But 
surely now you have a different opinion, 
right?” And I said, “Well, Jennifer, let's 
just talk about the two of us for a moment. 
Remember when you were governor, and 
you had a security detail that knew about 
people who might want to harm you? And 
remember you had some level of security 
around, taking care of your children and 
your spouse, so that you never had to 
think about it while you were in the gov- 
ernor's mansion? And remember that day 
you packed up the last of your stuff, left 
the governor's mansion and drove over 
to your private residence? You're unpack- 
ing your things to sleep in your own bed, 
and there's no longer any security; it’s 
cold turkey. And remember sleeping in 
your own bed and thinking, Wow, if one 
of those guys shows up and starts beating 
our door down, I'm going to call 911, and 
in about six to eight minutes there will be 
somebody here, law enforcement, to solve 
this problem?” 

Now, in my case, when 1 moved out 
of the governor's mansion I moved 
to a mountaintop. If I called 911 and 
my phone was working, it would be 40 
minutes—if they could find my place. So 
by the time law enforcement arrives at my 
place in Montana, somebody's body's go- 
ing to be at room temperature. Now, Гуе 
never pointed a gun at a human being in 
my life, and I pray to God I never do. But 
in that circumstance, I'd be happy I had 
a gun. Not every state is the same. In big 
urban places, do you need people to have 
lots of guns in their houses? Probably not. 
But I may actually have to shoot a bear 
who's digging into my garbage. [laughs] 
PLAYBOY: Many people have been amazed 
by the speed with which the gay marriage 
issue has changed. As far as you’re con- 
cerned, are we going in the right direction? 
SCHWEITZER: Yes. If two people in America 
love each other and want to commit to each 
other that they will support each other 
for the rest of their lives, I would say two 
things. God bless you, because it’s a won- 
derful thing to have a lifetime mate. And 
secondly, good luck, because only about 
half the heterosexuals have managed to get 
it done. [laughs] 


PLAYBOY: What about the relevance of a 
politician’s private life to his or her public 
performance? Do you think a voter can say, 
“He might vote right, but his behavior in 
private renders him unfit for leadership”? 

SCHWEITZER: It’s easy for those of us who 
are in office to tell voters what they can 
and cannot consider. I do know that when 
voters decide who they’re going to vote 
for, unbeknownst to them or others, they 
consider a lot of things. Values are among 
them. Because issues are so complicated— 
and politicians and third parties make 
them even more complicated—it’s difficult 
for them to figure out. So they're look- 
ing for somebody who will take the time 
to decide the issues, who also shares their 
values. The way they determine whether 
they share their values is they look at the 
person’s words, actions, family, back- 
ground and a few other things, probably 
including the way they dress. If they're a 
woman, they care about how she does her 
hair, which is completely unfair. I walk in 
the room and they say, “Oh my God, his 
jeans—it looks like it’s the second day on 
those jeans.” My shirt is wrinkled, and my 
hair is all wrong. But even in Montana, if a 
woman did that, women would look at her, 
more than even men, and they’d say, “You 
know, I really agree with her a lot. I think 
she has a wonderful family. But did you see 
the dress?” Let's get beyond not agreeing 
with the dress and the hair. 

PLAYBOY: Let's return to a more fundamen- 
tal question: If you're thinking of running 
for president, how do you explain to the 
Democratic Party why it needs a president 
who is a clear break from the last Demo- 
cratic president? 

SCHWEITZER: Well, if I decide to run for 
president, my message has to be very crisp 
and clear—one, two, three. There's no 
four, five and six; it's one, two, three. And 
that message has to be what I say each time 
I'm asked a question. If the question is “Is 
the window dirty?” then I say, “Yup, and 
that's why we have to create jobs for the 
next generation.” 

PLAYBOY: And yet you relish the complex- 
ity of issues. You're a genuine policy wonk. 
SCHWEITZER: Sure, and that would be a dis- 
cussion in the long form. But if I’m in a de- 
bate with four other people, well, you can't 
possibly discuss all the things I’ve thought 
about and all the ways we can reform. But 
you can say, “Look, these are the three 
things we're going to get done during the 
first year, and this is why.” 

PLAYBOY: Should you be on that stage with 
two or three or four other people and 
somebody asks, “Do we really want a Dem- 
ocratic president who can't find a single 
good thing to say about the eight years of 
Barack Obama?” 

SCHWEITZER: I can think of some good 
things. 

PLAYBOY: Those are? 

SCHWEITZER: We have mostly left Iraq. Un- 
fortunately, Guantánamo is still open, and 
we're still in Afghanistan. 

PLAYBOY: Well, there you go again. [laughs] 
SCHWEITZER: There we go. You know 
what? Which of the Democrats in that 
room are going to disagree with me? 


There’s getting to be fewer and fewer 
people in America who are going to dis- 
agree with me. I’m going to say, “I’m not 
sure we’ve had much change at the NSA 
between administrations. What the Bush 
administration put in place, this admin- 
istration continued. We are an extraordi- 
nary country with extraordinary rights, 
personal rights, personal liberties, and 
I’m not so sure our NSA respects that.” 
Now, does that sound too much like Rand 
Paul, or does he sound like me? I don’t 
know. [laughs] 

PLAYBOY: It sounds as if you think privacy 
is one of those issues that may cut much 
deeper than other politicians realize. 
SCHWEITZER: I think it resonates more in 
some states than others. I think maybe in 
states with large urban populations, they 
figure, well, there are 14 houses on their 
block already, and there are certain priva- 
cies you just give up to be part of society. In 
amore rural place, part of the reason you 
live there is because you get to live your 
own life and you're not living on top of or 
next to a lot of other people who are pry- 
ing into your business. 

PLAYBOY: Two of the past three Democratic 
presidents have been small-town folks— 
Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton. Obama's 
the first from a big city. When you look at 
where the base of the Democratic Party is, 
which is different from Montana, do you 
have confidence that what you have to say 
resonates with those folks? 

SCHWEITZER: I know what it means to give 
a generation an opportunity. I grew up in 
a family that was poor but didn’t know it 
because everybody else around was poor. 
On our little farm we would have quali- 
fied for every kind of social assistance 
you could imagine right now. But I don’t 
know that it even existed then. We raised 
our own food, and I don’t think I was ever 
in a restaurant until I was in fifth or sixth 
grade. I didn't have the liberty of sleep- 
ing in my own room, not even my own 
bed, as I was growing up. That's a story 
like a lot of other families that are pray- 
ing for upward mobility for the next gen- 
eration. It doesn’t matter whether you’re 
brown or black or white or yellow or red. 
The dream is for your children to have 
an opportunity to be able to get places 
you weren't able to in your life—and that 
comes with education and by kicking open 
some of those doors. I've lived that, and I 
want other people to be able to live that. 
The rich, the powerful, the highfalutin, 
they'll find their own way. We don't need 
a government for them. [laughs] The rich 
need a strong national currency. They 
need a defense system that keeps a third- 
world country from coming and stealing 
their house. They need a road they can 
get to work on. The rest of that stuff, they 
probably don’t need. Government should 
make sure the rest of the population gets 
a fair shake. 

PLAYBOY: And yet, when pollsters ask the 
question “Do you think the government 
should provide health care for all?” the 
number who answer yes is declining. Are 
conservatives getting the better part of 
the argument? 


SCHWEITZER: It’s easy to say government 
doesn’t work, because everywhere you 
look you can find an example of gov- 
ernment not working. But then where 
are those people who said, “It certainly 
does work, because what about Brian 
Schweitzer and all his siblings, who came 
from the most humble of family farms? 
They managed to make it through the 
system and get advanced degrees. Who 
could’ve imagined that?” I didn’t get 
there by myself. It was public education 
systems. And you’re a farmer and you say, 
“1 don't need any damn government.” So 
how are you going to get your grain to 
market? “Well, I need a road.” That’s the 
damn government! How do you think 
you're going to get a fair deal from Mon- 
santo if there isn’t somebody regulating 
the quality of what they're selling you so 
you know you're going to get a seed or 
an herbicide that actually works? You're 
a proud owner of a small industrial plant 
someplace in the Midwest and you need 
rail service in and out, and that rail ser- 
vice was given that concession by the gov- 
ernment, and you need roads in and out, 
and you need certain services to protect 
you from your competitors who unfairly 
dump toxins in the water or the air and 
are able to manufacture for less money 
than you. Some regulatory agencies level 
the playing field and say, “No, we're all 
going to have to produce under the same 
rules.” That’s called government. 

I ran a government by challenging 
every expense. I was able to put money 
aside because I was able to go in and make 
it more efficient. We didn’t grow govern- 
ment here. Do I think government is ef- 
ficient? No. Some of it’s inherently inef- 
ficient, and you'll never fix that. But take 


MARRIAGE 
COUNSELOR 


our military—I don’t think there’s any- 
body even asking them to be efficient. If 
you want to start comparing the levels of 
inefficiency and fraud between our food 
stamp program and our military, there’s 
no comparison. 

PLAYBOY: When you look at the field of 
other potential Democratic presidential 
candidates, what do you think? 
SCHWEITZER: I think the better question in 
2014 is, would someone who is thinking 
of running for president look at the other 
potential members of the field and ask, 
“Where would I fit in?” 

PLAYBOY: Yes. 

SCHWEITZER: Well, that would be a fool's 
mission, because you don’t even know 
who’s in that race. It’s like a doggone 
horse race. When you come out of the 
gate, there’s a five-to-one posted there, 
a six-to-one posted there, a three-to-one 
posted there; there’s a 15-to-one, a 30-to- 
one and a 50-to-one. The only advice I can 
give you about horse racing is never pick 
the three-to-one, because they have over- 
estimated the likelihood of that animal 
making it around the racetrack without 
slipping or breaking a leg. Bet the 30-to- 
one or the 40-to-one, because people have 
underestimated their potential of having 
something happen in front of them and 
them running right on by. 

PLAYBOY: If we were cynical, we'd say 
you're making an analogy that might apply 
to the potential Democratic field. A candi- 
date such as Hillary Clinton might be the 
three-to-one, versus the 30-to-one, which 
might be you. 

SCHWEITZER: You know, I’m just a guy who 
knows a thing or two about horses. 


“I, for one, think your wife is very nice.” 


123 


PLAYBOY 


124 


ATTACK! GOOD BOY 


Continued from page 74 


top breeders, whose detailed genetic 
records span hundreds of years and who 
train shepherds and Malinois to compete 
in Schutzhund, a German dog sport, and 
French Ring Sport, an arguably more dif- 
ficult version popular in France, the Czech 
Republic and Germany. Championship- 
level events in these countries draw tens of 
thousands of spectators to watch dogs com- 
pete in obedience, protection and tracking 
or agility exercises developed 100 years 
ago to maintain the desired intelligence, 
physical structure (yes, looks matter), abili- 
ties and temperament (so does personality) 
in the bloodline. 

But nature is one thing. Nurture mat- 
ters too, and these pups are trained to 
bite with the entire jaw—which is both 
a learned and a genetic trait—from the 
time they are six weeks old. When they’re 
two or three, the animals are sold for any- 
where from $3,000 to $20,000 to trainers 
such as Cinnante, who then import them 
to the United States and train them for an 
additional six weeks to six months, tailor- 
ing their behavior and abilities to dovetail 
with the lives of demanding clients with 
high disposable incomes. 

Prices are so high it’s shocking, rang- 
ing from $35,000 to $230,000. To hear 
Cinnante tell it, what these new owners get 
is quite possibly the perfect animal. Like 
the best family pets, these dogs enjoy a 
snuggle and are good with kids, and when 
they play fetch, you don’t have to chase 
them down to get the ball back. But they 
have another layer of training too. If you 
want your dog to check on toddlers in the 
backyard, they'll do it. Walk them off leash 
and they will never leave your side unless 
instructed. When you get home they'll in- 
spect every room in the house, clearing it 
the way a police dog might, before barking 
that the coast is clear. They pee and poop 
on command, and most important, they 
will attack and disable anybody who breaks 
in to your house or threatens your family. 

The size of the protection-dog market is 
anybody’s guess, as there are no industry 
groups, nor any state, county or federal 
certification protocol to meet in order to 
become a dog trainer. That’s true for the 
folks who market themselves as simple obe- 
dience trainers at the local park or kennel, 
and it’s true for Cinnante and his peers. 
But according to the American Veterinary 
Medical Association, the market is growing. 

Harrison Prather, 64, has been in busi- 


ness since 1975. Back during the Vietnam 
War, he was drinking at an enlisted men’s 
club when a vicious brawl broke out. A 
team of MPs stormed in to restore or- 
der and took an ugly beating themselves. 
“Then the K-9 unit showed up,” says 
Prather. “We're talking one guy with one 
canine, and that crowd parted like the Red 
Sea. That’s when it hit me. It was like a 
calling.” After the war a friend introduced 
him to a man who had designed the De- 
partment of Defense patrol-dog program. 
“I paid him $9,000 to work for him for 18 
months," says Prather. 

"Two years later he was training dogs for 
police departments and foreign militaries 
in England, France, Brazil and Colombia, 
but they were hard to please and paid 
little. On a lark he ran an ad in the Robb 
Report, and it didn't take him long to realize 
its readers had money and liked to spend 
it. For the past 30 years Harrison K-9 has 
maintained a full-page ad in the maga- 
zine that grew his business, which grosses 
$4 million annually. 

Even John Whitaker, one of Cinnante's 
mentors and the owner and founder of 
CPI, Prather's closest rival, concedes that 
Prather was a pioneer. "Harrison created 
the industry. He was the first to sell Euro- 
pean dogs as protection dogs, and he un- 
derstood there were affluent clients who 
didn't want the same old guard dog. They 
wanted something more." 


A town laced with 900 miles of dirt roads 
lined with single-story brick homes and 
horse corrals, Aiken, South Carolina is 
the second-biggest polo destination in 
America. Prather's clients usually fly in to 
the local airstrip developed for private jets 
carrying the polo-loving public. I fly com- 
mercial, so I make the long drive from At- 
lanta and am greeted by Prather's charm- 
ing facility manager, November Holley. She 
takes me to the kennel, which is half full 
with about 30 German shepherds yipping 
and barking. Patrick Ashley, 28, a staffer 
with a chiseled jaw and a buzz cut, rips off 
a hot whistle. Total silence. It is the loudest 
sound ГП hear out of Ashley all day. 

Ashley grew up with animals and spent 
his high school years mucking horse stalls 
for $25 a day. At 21, he came to work for 
Holley and Prather. He started by cleaning 
the dogs' private cages, but within months 
he was on his way to becoming one of Har- 
rison K-9's best trainers. 

For the next hour I watch Ashley and 
another staffer, wearing only a protective 
sleeve and playing decoy, work Axel, an ath- 
letic 90-pound black sable destined for one 
of the spectacular mansions in the moun- 
tains around Aspen, Colorado, where he'll 
hike the high country with a new master. 
Axel is trained to obey English, German 
and sign language. He charges the decoy's 
arm and bites down hard. When the dog is 
set loose a second time, Ashley calls him off 
before he attacks. The dog obeys. 

“You can't recall a bullet,” says Holley, 
"but you can recall a dog." On the rare occa- 
sions when Axel fails to listen, Ashley doesn't 
respond with anger, force or bribery. Unlike 


other protection-dog trainers, they don't 
use electric collars at Harrison K-9, and 
they don't use treats or toys as reward. 

"They get rewarded through my praise 
and my affection," says Ashley. 

“There's a lot of love, a lot of hands-on,” 
says Holley. “That's what makes you a bet- 
ter trainer, to have that relationship with 
the dog, to make it your buddy, your part- 
ner.” Of course there are penalties too, but 
the only tool Harrison K-9 uses to modify 
behavior is a pronged collar, a barbed 
chain that with a slight tug distributes a 
pinch evenly around the neck. It looks like 
a Game of Thrones torture device, but Holley 
claims it's more humane than a choke col- 
lar, and most vets agree. 

Harrison K-9 sources all its dogs from one 
man, a top Schutzhund trainer in Germany. 
After the dogs arrive, Ashley or Holley brings 
them home for days at a time to see ifthey're 
fit for a household environment. When they 
return to the kennel, they're trained once 
daily for just 30 to 60 minutes. 

The rest of the day the dogs relax, and 
they're rather good at it. After the training 
session, Ashley and I take Axel to lunch in 
downtown Aiken, where the leafy streets 
are dotted with historic stone buildings. He 
sprawls at our feet as we lunch at a street- 
side table and Ashley tells war stories about 
delivering dogs to the superrich—like the 
time he delivered a dog to a Mexican mo- 
gul with questionable friendships and a 
heavily armed entourage. The dog, which 
Prather had sold for $65,000, turned out to 
be for the family's protection in case their 
bodyguards turned on them. 

Through it all Axel is sweet and ap- 
proachable, and the gentleman at the next 
table can't resist his exposed belly. He 
reaches down and starts to rub it, then no- 
tices the harness identifying Axel as a ser- 
vice dog. 

“Are you training him to be a Seeing Eye 
dog?” he asks. Ashley demurs. 

“Axel is a personal protection dog,” I say. 
“A trained killer. You can have him if you 
want. It'll cost you only about $60,000." 
The man laughs and keeps petting Axel, 
who basks in the attention. 

"Please, who on earth would pay that 
kind of money for a damn dog?" 


Imagine for a moment you're a woman 
in public service. You work at the DMV 
or the welfare office. Maybe you're a 
public defender or a mid-level hospital 
staffer. You're not rich, but you own a home. 
You're happily married with children, 
and you're satisfied with your job serving 
the community. Still, not everyone you deal 
with gets what they want, because some 
things are impossible or even illegal. Over 
the years you've become accustomed to 
delivering bad news and the negative reac- 
tion it inspires. It's never fun, but it hasn't 
been life altering until you meet him. 

He seems so sweet and harmless at first. He 
wants you to bend the rules, but you aren't 
going to risk your security for some charmer. 
You're firm but polite and forget him almost 
as quickly as you file him away and shut the 
drawer. But he doesn't forget you. 


He becomes fixated and develops a plan 
to get back at you. He recruits accom- 
plices, sends you a packet of information 
and leaves lurid and haunting voice mails 
detailing your rape, torture and murder. 
They involve electric probes and a slit 
throat. He'll do the same to your children, 
he says. And your husband will receive 
photos and instructions on where to find 
the bodies. 

You call the police and get a restraining 
order, and soon he’s arrested, but he’s held 
for less than four hours. The voice mails 
keep coming. “A sheet of paper isn’t go- 
ing to stop me,” he says. His messages go 
on to describe your comings and goings. 
He's watching you. You don't eat or sleep. 
When you're not at work, you stay home 
with the doors and 
windows locked and 
the security system 
on. You've become 
his prisoner. 

Then one day a 
colleague suggests 
you get a dog, and 
not just any dog. He 
slips you the phone 
number of the train- 
er who helped him, 
and soon you meet 
Cinnante for dinner. 
He's flown in from 
Miami to quiz you 
about your habits 
and hobbies. "I want 
to help you," he says, 
"but I'm not here to 
sell you a dog. I'm 
giving you a mem- 
ber of your family." 

The price tag is 
$65,000. 

That night you 
crunch numbers. 
You factor in the cost 
of a security detail, 
years oftherapy and 
lost liberty. Under 
the weight of stress 
and fear, the price 
shrinks to manage- 
able. By morning, 
there isn’t a question 
left in your mind. 

Over the next sev- 
eral weeks Cinnante 
e-mails photos, videos and written updates 
about the German shepherd he has found 
for you. You don’t know this yet, but unlike 
other outfits, Cinnante lives with the dogs 
he sells through Advanced Canine Solu- 
tions, the company he launched after leav- 
ing CPI. Like a Method actor, Cinnante has 
molded his life to yours so the dog will be- 
come attuned to your habits before it even 
meets you. 

By the time Cinnante delivers Brutus, 
you’re emotionally invested. Cinnante 
spends four days training you to control the 
dog, which involves a litany of commands. 
You start with simple ones—sit, stay, lie 
down (which the dog obeys in English, 
French and German)—before you learn 
how to make the dog circle and defend 


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then stand outside as Brutus inspects your 
house and barks to let you know it’s safe to 
come inside. Cinnante is patient and kind, 
and Brutus is adorable and doting. Wher- 
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breakfast or water the garden, the dog is 
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At the airport, Cinnante offers one more 
piece of advice. “Unless you're under pres- 
sure, don't turn the dog loose. He's not 
here to attack someone. He’s here to de- 
fend you.” 

One afternoon you see your stalker on 
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look down at Brutus, and both you and the 
dog look up at your stalker. Flustered, he 
disappears, and you never see him again. 


That’s a true story. Before I met the client 
and her dog under the condition of ano- 
nymity, I’d considered protection dogs to 
be souvenirs for the one percent. Sure, the 
surgeon in Georgia was building his nest 
egg, but he was still highly compensated. 
The woman with the stalker wasn't. She 
was an average, middle-aged, middle-class 
American who needed help. 

Prather tells me a story about a client in 
Virginia who bought a dog 15 years ago. 
“She had an estranged husband who said 
he was going to kill her,” says Prather. One 


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week after Prather delivered the dog, the 
client’s ex crawled through the back win- 
dow in the middle of the night. “He was 
carrying a big O.J. Simpson knife, but that 
dog got him right square in the middle, if 
you catch my drift.” The would-be attacker 
went to the hospital first, then state prison. 

Such episodes are rare, however. Of the 
thousands of dogs Prather has sold, that is 
the most glaring instance of self-defense he 
can recall. For most clients, a protection 
dog is simply a deterrent or just another 
wonderful toy. 

Consider Jose E. Souto, a Cuban immi- 
grant who, after selling at peak value one of 
the biggest coffee companies in the United 
States, moved in to Ray Allen’s neighbor- 
hood and the mega-yacht tax bracket. Cin- 
nante and I meet 
Souto at his Itali- 
anate villa in Coral 
Gables, perched on 
the lip of Biscayne 
Bay, where he parks 
his yacht. His villa 
is stocked with art 
from such giants as 
Fernando Botero 
and Eugéne Boudin, 
a mentor to Monet. 
He has a screen- 
ing room, an Aston 
Martin, a Ferrari 
and a Lamborghini, 
and he has Denzel, a 
100-pound German 
shepherd that may 
be Souto's favorite 
plaything. 

We are here to 
put the dog through 
his paces, and it 
doesn't take long for 
Cinnante to see that 
Denzel, who spends 
his days lazing on 
cool marble floors 
in his south Flor- 
ida palace, is out 
of practice. Souto 
originally bought 
Denzel from CPI to 
keep his new wife 
company while he 
was away on busi- 
ness. Upon delivery, 
Souto was shocked 
to meet a friendly dog without a hint of ag- 
gression, but when it came time to show off 
Denzel’s protection skills, Cinnante turned 
the dog on. 

“All of a sudden, he was transformed,” 
says Souto, beaming. 

Denzel has never been called into duty, 
and over the past four years Souto hasn't 
maintained the dog's skills. But after a few 
minutes with Cinnante, the dog sharpens 
up. Souto invites me to handle him next. 

I take the dog’s collar as he sits calmly by 
my side. When I say “Steck,” sweet, pudgy 
Denzel begins barking with ferocity. Cin- 
nante nods, and I issue my next command: 
“Attack!” I let go and Denzel barrels to- 
ward Cinnante, who's wearing his bite suit 
and takes the punishment with glee. Souto 


125 


PLAYBOY 


126 


watches with a giddy smile. Denzel is soon 
spent and happily collapses on the cool 
marble of his daydreams. 

That night Cinnante and I meet at a 
swank raw bar in midtown Miami. He la- 
ments Denzel’s current physical state. “He 
needs to be worked. Ferraris need to be 
tuned up,” he says. He confesses that many 
clients let their dogs get out of shape, and 
sometimes he suggests they put them on 
treadmills for exercise. Considering the 
lazy factor inherent in all humans, I won- 
der if his clients aren't wasting their money. 

CPI’s website is stocked with video tes- 
timonials from rich guys flaunting cuddly 
Killers. Among the videos is one from best- 
selling romance novelist Nicholas Sparks, 
author of The Notebook. He has two dogs. 
Another comes from Steven Seagal, who 
has bought several protection dogs over 
the years. Harrison K-9 made internation- 
al news when it sold a German shepherd 
to a Minnesota man for $230,000 after he 
sold his debt-collection firm for millions 
in a deal that closed mere weeks before 
the stock market crash. Souto, for one, is 
philosophical about his motivation. “I’m 
not perfect,” he says, “so I look for mate- 
rial things.” 

Cinnante doesn’t bother with such ques- 
tions. “My job is to serve, not to judge clients 
for why they bought their dogs,” he says. 
“Tm here to bring them something amaz- 
ing, something they haven't seen before.” 


Colombian and Cuban by descent, 
Cinnante was born in Spain to a couple in 


the upper echelon of the cocaine business. 
His mother was a 24-year-old flight 
attendant when she met and married his 
father. Together they used her knowledge 
of airlines and airports to become elite 
drug smugglers. 

His parents split when Cinnante was 
four years old, and his mother married 
a rival lieutenant in another cartel. The 
pair traveled frequently and often left 
Cinnante to his own devices, which in- 
stilled in him an independent spirit and 
a strong will. By the time Cinnante was 
in middle school and his mother had left 
the drug business, he'd become a young 
man in a boy’s body. 

He got his first working dog when he 
was 16 and enjoyed teaching it tricks. He 
took it to a dog-club event in Miami to 
learn more. That’s where he met a local 
K-9 officer with a Belgian Malinois and got 
attacked for the first time. Soon after that 
the cop offered Cinnante $50 to break in 
to his house to further sharpen the dog's 
skills. Other dog owners started doing 
the same, and soon Cinnante had a nice 
little after-school enterprise breaking in to 
homes with permission. 

It was his ability to test and evade dogs 
that made him so popular as a fake burglar. 
By the time he turned 20 he was one of the 
best decoys in stateside French Ring Sport 
and was earning clients and star turns at 
events around the world. 

His secret? He loved it. There was some- 
thing about the attack that thrilled him, and 
after we broke into the surgeon's house to 
test Mako, he showed me why. That’s when 


“No way! Are you trying to tell me that you can eat this stuff too?” 


I donned the bite suit for the first time. 
Cinnante took the leash. I was barefoot, 
which concerned me, but Cinnante built a 
barricade around my lower half to protect 
my vulnerabilities. He also gave me a last 
piece of advice: “The dog will lunge for 
whatever part of the body you offer first.” 

Mako barked, growled and foamed at 
the mouth. Then he attacked and headed 
around the barricade, straight for my bare 
feet. I lunged forward to defend myself 
with my elbow, and the dog leapt at my 
arm, nearly tugging me to the ground. I 
felt a burn as his teeth dug farther into the 
material, into my skin. Cinnante called the 
dog off for a break, then sicced him one 
more time. This time Mako latched onto 
my upper arm. I spun, his feet dangling 
above the ground as he tried to pull me 
down. Gravity was his friend. By the time 
Cinnante called him off, I was bent over, 
gassed and thrilled but also relaxed, as if 
the dog’s adrenaline and endorphin rush 
had been transferred to me. 


Cinnante eventually caught the eye of 
Ludovic Teurbane, a former professional 
lightweight boxer who'd become a heavy- 
weight in dog sport. He took Cinnante to 
Europe, introduced him to breeders all 
over the continent and showed him how to 
select the best dogs available. Cinnante re- 
turned from his second trip with four dogs, 
and his training career was launched. 

By the time he was 21 he already had 
a growing business in south Florida and a 
reputation to match, but John Whitaker 
enticed him to Boston with a job offer and 
a promise to teach him the most advanced 
protection techniques in the industry. 

Whitaker's love affair with canines began 
when he was a bullied 15-year-old in North 
Smithfield, Rhode Island. His solution was 
a rottweiler. “You don't get bullied as much 
when you have a protection dog by your 
side,” he says. 

He soon began to train German shep- 
herds and found that breeders in East Ger- 
many produced the most impressive ani- 
mals. He was just 21 when he negotiated 
an exclusive deal with the East German 
government to import German shepherds 
into the United States. 

After the Berlin Wall crumbled Whitaker 
hooked up with German SWAT teams that 
trained dogs to enter hostage situations and 
attack the gunmen without posing a threat 
to hostages. The SWAT teams were known 
to sometimes slice the dogs’ vocal cords to 
make them stealthier. He also saw the po- 
lice dogs perfect the wachen, or “guard,” 
exercise, in which the animal positions it- 
self between its handler and the threat. It’s 
not just the positioning (in which the dog 
sticks to the master’s side and points in the 
direction of the threat at all times) but what 
the dog does next that is intimidating. It 
turns on, which means it begins to bark 
with gums raised and canines exposed. It’s 
not a single bark either but a loud, rapid- 
fire fit that will raise the hair on the arms 
and stoke fear in the heart of the attacker. 
Sometimes the dog foams at the mouth, 
and often this display of strength and 


ferocity is enough to drive any bad guy to- 
ward retreat. Otherwise it may get worse. 


Inspired, Whitaker contacted folks he 
knew in the executive-protection field, 
including bodyguards for the Saudi royal 
family, to see where a dog might fit in an 
overall security detail. Next he developed 
a system of informal and formal commands 
that enable handlers to speak in a pleasant 
tone and have the dog obey. At CPI, formal 
commands must be obeyed without ques- 
tion, and if they aren't, a reprimand is is- 
sued in the form of an electric jolt. 

Prather has a problem with remote col- 
lars. “Our dogs are working because they 
want to please you,” he says. “Those other 
ones are working because they're scared to 
death you’re gonna fry their ass.” 

Madeline Bernstein, president of the 
Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to 
Animals Los Angeles, agrees. “There is no 
reason for remote collars,” she says. “If you 
use positive reinforcement, you don't need 
to use pain to train.” 

Whitaker dismisses such statements. 
“The way we train is the most humane,” he 
says, “the most compassionate. The reality 
is most trainers don’t produce functional 
results. We do, because we link tremendous 
amounts of pleasure with obedience, and 
we use stimulation at low levels as a conse- 
quence. There are 127 levels on the collar. 
We start at one, and most dogs begin feeling 
it at 10. That's exactly the same kind of stim- 
ulation chiropractors use in therapy. Then 
we increase it to levels that can be unpleas- 
ant but not overwhelming, which makes 
obeying both pleasurable and habitual.” 

Whitaker believes Prather’s dogs lack 
sound protection skills. “They sell sport 
animals, and training for dog sport doesn’t 
prepare them for everyday life,” he says. 
“Our dogs have a very high level of long- 
term performance without further train- 
ing. Off leash, they obey the first time, 
every time. If they don't, the dog is not 
trained.” It’s true Whitaker’s CPI offers 
maintenance packages, but according to 
Whitaker the packages “maintain a very 
high level of training at the highest level” 
but aren’t necessary to preserve the dog’s 
protection skills. 

Jim Alloway, president of the United 
Schutzhund Clubs of America, the larg- 
est dog-sport association in the U.S., isn't 
buying it. “There's no such thing as a dog 
that's trained and boom, you’re done,” he 
says. "You'll always need maintenance.” 

Bonnie Beaver, a professor at the Texas 
A&M University College of Veterinary 
Medicine and Biomedical Sciences and for- 
mer president of the American Veterinary 
Medical Association, agrees. She believes 
if the dogs’ training isn't maintained they 
lose it, which can be dangerous. “If the 
owners aren't practicing,” she says, “the 
dogs don't shut off as easily.” 

“It’s really important the dog is con- 
stantly maintained by its handler,” says 
Bernstein. “If a dog is trained to be lethal, 
it can be lethal. It’s like having a loaded 
gun in the house.” 

Horror stories are hard to find, but 


they’re out there. The worst happened in 
1995. California K-9 Academy, a company 
that still exists under new ownership (it ig- 
nored repeated interview requests), sold a 
dog to a 27-year-old Los Angeles woman. 
When she took its muzzle off during rou- 
tine training, the dog mauled her, biting 
her face several times. She required re- 
constructive surgery. California K-9 had a 
poor reputation among its competitors at 
the time, and dodgy outfits still abound. 

“There’s no certification for dog trainers,” 
says Beaver. “It’s a big problem for the in- 
dustry, and it's a big problem for the public.” 

Harrison- and CPI-trained dogs have 
never harmed anybody in their households 
or communities, but the dogs I visited 
weren't as sharp with their owners as they 
were with trainers. And there are other is- 
sues to consider. Mako, the Malinois I met 
in Georgia, suffered a persistent infection 
in his foot that had still not healed when 
we met, despite frequent visits to the vet. 
Jose Souto's dog in Miami had a prostate 
infection at just six years old. 

Sandy Bentley, a Harrison K-9 client 
(and former PLAYBOY model) I met in West- 


Mako foamed 
at the mouth. 
Then he 
attacked and 
headed around 
the barricade. 


lake Village, California, has two German 
shepherds and recently made a trip to Ai- 
ken to visit a forthcoming addition. One of 
her animals was in rehab recovering from 
hip surgery. 

Harrison, CPI and Cinnante's Advanced 
Canine Solutions all claim to incorporate 
extensive veterinary checks, X-rays and 
bloodline evaluations before they import 
a dog from Europe, but if injuries and ill- 
ness can strike even the highest-caliber and 
most-vetted animals, what about dogs from 
lesser breeders and trainers? 

Then there's the question: Are protec- 
tion dogs even necessary at all? Set aside 
the stalker cases and the surgeon whose 
house was vandalized and you'll find the 
vast majority of protection-dog owners 
are über-wealthy people with no cred- 
ible threats. Sure, income disparity is at 
its highest since the Great Depression, 
but violent crime is at a 42-year low. Why 
then are so many people adding that ex- 
tra layer of security? Is it fear bordering 
on paranoia? 

“I don't think it's a matter of paranoia 
or threat. It's a matter of what-if. Home 


invasions do take place, and what then?" 
Whitaker asks. “Our dogs deter crime, they 
detect crime and they defend." 

But Beaver says all dogs deter, detect 
and defend. "Many dogs will instinctively 
protect their owners if the owner gets into 
trouble," she says. "If the owner is emitting 
fear pheromones, which have an odor hu- 
mans can't detect, the dog is going to be 
there. Fear pheromones will drive almost 
all dogs into attacking an intruder." 

Cinnante disagrees that most dogs are 
equipped to handle serious threats. Many 
of those he evaluates, including some 
champion dogs in Europe, don't pass his 
tests. If a dog passes the medical exams 
and Cinnante's eye test, he'll examine it 
in a number of other ways. In one test, 
Cinnante places the dog in a dark room by 
itself for 15 minutes before entering, using 
intimidating eye contact, sharp movements 
and threatening body language to see how 
the dog responds. 

“Not just any dog is equipped for pro- 
tection work," he says. "You'd be surprised 
how many tuck their tail and look for an 
escape. Some even piss on themselves. But 
that's okay. I love finding that diamond in 
the rough." 


Alex certainly qualified. On the day before 
the summer solstice, I meet Whitaker and 
Cinnante in a Malibu park to test their lat- 
est gem. Alex is a black German shepherd, 
one of two Whitaker brought to a hedge 
fund manager who was looking for that ex- 
tra layer of protection at his beach estate. 
Cinnante, who just moved to southern 
California, still works for CPI on a contract 
basis and is here to help train the client. I'd 
hoped to witness the dog delivery, but the 
finance guy nixed it. To assuage my disap- 
pointment, the guys promised me another 
session in the bite suit. 

I'd suited up with Mako in Georgia, but 
that was in a confined space and the dog 
couldn't get a running start. This time I'm 
on a vast manicured field on the bluffs 
above the Pacific. A layer of low clouds 
obscures the falling sun. Unlike the other 
protection dogs I've met, Alex is in a surly 
mood when he arrives and growls at me as 
he gets out of the car. 

"He's a serious guy," says Cinnante. 

He doesn't present the easy charm I've 
come to expect, but I like that he's angry. 
Ever since that first session, I haven't been 
able to forget the feeling of being attacked. 
There was something primal about it. It 
made me growl and resist and inspired in 
me a twisted Fight Club impulse to shatter 
the numbing shell of the day-to-day with 
the real risk of bodily harm. It turned me 
into an animal. 

This time Cinnante has a camera and 
Whitaker handles Alex, who is still growl- 
ing as I take my stance. 

"Platz," says Whitaker, and the dog lies 
down about 30 feet away. We lock eyes for 
a long beat before Whitaker issues his final 
command: "Attack!" 

The dog comes flying. 


127 


PLAYBOY 


128 


DAVID WALTON 


Continued from page 78 


dining me; this is so sweet. But it was be- 
cause she was planning to break the newsto 
him that not only was she pregnant again, 
but she was carrying twins. I’m pretty sure 
the evening ended with him storming out 
of the restaurant. 


9 

PLAYBOY: What "T psychological abuse 
did your sisters inflict on you? 

WALTON: I can't even get into it, because 
they have lives and I don't want to tar- 
nish their good reputations. But on the 
very light side, they'd do things like pin 
me down, let their spit dribble inches 
from my face and then slurp it back up. 
They’d be having trouble with the boys 
at school, so they'd take out their frustra- 
tions on their cute little brother who had 
glasses. We're not talking anything illegal, 


but we're definitely talking things that 
were weird. They'd cross-dress me and 
take pictures, and I always looked super 
happy, which is really confusing. 


10 

PLAYBOY: You ee in а church pag- 
eant when you were four years old. Did it 
give you a messiah complex? 

WALTON: Not really, but it was a great les- 
son in comedy. I took it very seriously. 
It was a retelling of some Gospel story, 
and I was supposed to be Jesus pulling 
on a big net of fish. It weighed like 3,000 
pounds and was really hard to pull up, 
but I put everything I had into it. I was 
intensely focused. I guess the congrega- 
tion was expecting something different. A 
four-year-old goes up there, he should be 
shy and giggling and not really that into 
it. But I was fully committed to the task. 
They started laughing. I had no idea why 
they were laughing. I wasn't trying to be 
funny; I was just trying to lift this god- 
damn net of fish. And that’s really when 
comedy works best, you know? You can't 
be trying to be funny. As an adult actor, 
sometimes I muddle it up by overthink- 
ing things. I try to remember, What 
would four-year-old Jesus do? 


11 
PLAYBOY: You WE in a ninth-grade 
production of The Taming of the Shrew, in 
which you played Petruchio, a character 
who has also been famously portrayed 
by Peter O'Toole, Richard Burton, John 


Cleese and Morgan Freeman. How did 
your performance compare? 

WALTON: I'm not going to get cocky and 
claim I was just as good. But it was close. I 
was 14, and I'm pretty sure my voice hadn't 
changed yet. I don't think those guys knew 
how to do a prepubescent Petruchio, but I 
sure did. The plot is quite sexual, so that 
made it even more confusing that my voice 
was high-pitched and girlie. I'm glad there's 
zero video footage. I made sure of that. 


12 

PLAYBOY: You're ER which 15 
ridiculously tall. Have you ever had prob- 
lems kissing shorter actresses or shorter 
women in general? 

WALTON: I never think of it as an issue, be- 
cause I can just lean down and do it. But 
when you're kissing on camera, it becomes 
an issue visually. It looks like a skinny di- 
nosaur creature is trying to kiss someone. 
It does not look like a classic romantic kiss. 
If an actress is five-foot-three and I don’t 
bend down, she'll probably be kissing my 
lower sternum. If she stands on an apple 
box while wearing a nice four-inch stiletto, 
we're in business. 


Q13 

PLAYBOY: When did you become a giant? 
Were you a tall kid? 

WALTON: It happened when I was 13. In one 
year I shot up eight inches. I went from five- 
foot-four to six feet. The doctor examined 
me and said I was going to keep growing 
like that. He predicted I'd grow to a mini- 
mum of six-foot-nine. Which, as a teenager, 
was devastating. I felt like a freak. I walked 
out of his office and just sat in ту mom's car 
and cried. But then I started lifting weights 
and smoking a lot of pot, and my growth 
spurt slowed down. It all worked out. 


Q14 

PLAYBOY: Many celebrities have taken out 
insurance policies on their famous assets. 
Fred Astaire insured his legs for $75,000 
each. Dolly Parton insured her breasts for 
$600,000. What defining part of you needs 
to be insured? 

WALTON: I have a Cro-Magnon forehead, 
so I don't think Га insure that. According 
to my wife I need to insure my eyebrows, 
my lips and my hair, in that order. Wouldn't 
that be easy insurance fraud? I could just 
shave off my eyebrows, right? Cash in on 
the policy? I guess the lips wouldn't be easy. 
It would be hard to be a lead actor if I didn't 
have lips. Those are tough to graft back on. 


Q15 

PLAYBOY: One of your first jobs was selling 
knives. You were the number one knife 
salesman for Cutco for one month in 2003. 
Do you remember your sales pitch? 

WALTON: Oh yeah. Are you currently en- 
joying your knives? Well, let me tell you 
something: The most dangerous thing in 
the kitchen is a dull knife. A lot of the extra 
effort you use to cut things is actually what 
makes the knife go askew, and you cut your- 
self. What you really need is 440-gauge, 
stainless-steel, triple-rivet technology in 
a thermo-resin handle. Because without 


those things, you’re going to be doing a lot 
of slipping around. And honestly, if it isn’t 
a Cutco knife, you’re just playing with fire. 
We could start you out with a Studio set, 
which is a nice beginner. It won't cost you 
more than a couple hundred bucks, and ГЇЇ 
even throw in the Super Shears, which can 
cut a penny and are dishwasher safe. 


016 

PLAYBOY: Wow. That’s pretty impressive. 
Were you ever tempted to sell knives dur- 
ing an audition? 

WALTON: I actually did. I probably owe my 
whole acting career to knives. I was in this 
off-off-Broadway play called One Day on 
Wall Street. A Fox executive came and saw 
it and got me a meeting with a casting ex- 
ecutive. I sat down with her and we started 
talking. At the time I was pretty broke, so 
I was trying to sell knives to any person I 
saw, and she was no different. She liked the 
pitch so much she bought a set of knives 
and she gave me a $75,000 holding deal at 
Fox, which meant they flew me out to audi- 
tions in Los Angeles. 


017 

PLAYBOY: Amanda Peet has called you 
“George Clooney mixed with Matt Dillon.” 
Are those the two actors you'd pick to best 
describe you? 

WALTON: Maybe there’s some similarity in 
the eyebrows. Both of those actors have 
bushy eyebrows. The comparison I get 
most often is C. Thomas Howell mixed 
with some Ace Ventura, because of the 
hair. I traveled to Italy once, and the own- 
ers of this small restaurant on Ischia—a 
tiny island off the coast of Italy—were con- 
vinced I was Jim Carrey’s brother. Not just 
convinced, they demanded that I was Jim 
Carrey’s brother. They made me take pic- 
tures with the entire staff in the restaurant. 
So I guess the answer to your question is, I 
look exactly like Jim Carrey’s brother. 


Qis 

PLAYBOY: You've been shirtless a lot, from 
the Christina Aguilera film Burlesque to 
several episodes of About a Boy. Do you do 
anything special to make sure your torso is 
screen-ready? 

WALTON: In the case of Burlesque, I wasn’t too 
disciplined about working out prior to that 
movie. I remember walking into the trailer 
and seeing Stanley Tucci sitting there with- 
out a shirt, just completely jacked. The guy 
is shredded. We had a morning-after scene 
together where we're both shirtless, and 
I made the call right then and there that 
my character had to wear a blanket for the 
entire scene. For About a Boy I have a no- 
shirtless clause in season two, so now I can 
eat without having to worry. But there are 
ways. When I did Think Like a Man Too, all 
the guys in that movie were doing push-ups 
the entire time. We're talking thousands of 
push-ups a day as a group, just getting nice 
and disco pumped for every single take. If 
you ever see an actor in a shirtless scene 
where his face is bright red and he’s breath- 
ing hard even though he’s supposed to be 
relaxed, you know what happened right 
before the cameras started rolling. 


19 

PLAYBOY: You md with Zooey Descha- 
nel in a bathroom stall on New Girl. 
WALTON: Zooey's a friend of mine now, but 
that was literally shot on day one. It was 
like, “Hey, nice to meet you." Aaaaaand ac- 
tion. Two and a half minutes after shaking 
her hand for the first time we're slamming 
up against a bathroom stall. That was very 
weird. I've done a few kissing scenes, but 
I've never had to do the—ugh, I cringe 
just to think about it—the full sex scene. 
I honestly don't know how people do it. I 
know it's super technical and whatever, but 
I don't know how graphic I can.... I guess 
this is PLAYBOY, but to mimic the act of pen- 
etration makes my skin just.... It gives me 
goose bumps. Ugh. 


Q20 
PLAYBOY: What's the best piece of wisdom. 
you've ever received that you've actually used? 


WALTON: It's a cliché, but it boils down to 
this: Figure out what you love to do the 
most and do only that. Also, no one cares 
what you do in your 20s. They really 
don't. So take as many risks and stupid 
chances as you want. But you mean the 
best wisdom I've actually used in my 
life? I met this former Hells Angel, a re- 
covering crack addict, who explained to 
me in a very gruff voice [rasps], "Every 
man needs 10 hugs a day to be happy." 
So Гуе tried to do that. Ten hugs a day. 
And for the most part, I've done it. It 
gets a little awkward when you're on a 
TV show and you see the same people 
every day. They start to get suspicious, 
but what are you going to do? I gotta 
get those 10 hugs a day. Sometimes ГЇЇ 
just hug my stand-in about five times. It 
really does make you feel better. 


129 


PLAYBOY 


130 


ЕШ 
NL 


A 


WINNERS, LOSERS AND LEGENDS 


Continued from page 104 


though they held assigned seats. The event 
sold out its four-day stint in 72 hours. Some- 
one sold a one-day pass in the nosebleeds 
online for nearly $1,000. Fans milling in the 
lobby are in complete awe. “These guys,” 
says one French teen, “I could never play as 
good. I love Cloud9 the best.” 

That ardor is why the Cloud9 team’s in- 
trepid leader, Hai Lam, is stoked to play 
here with the other big boys of e-sports. 
Cloud9 beat all comers, including the fear- 
some Team SoloMid (for which Bjergsen 
plays), to be part of the all-star matchups. 

Hai and Cloud9 dutifully practice up 
to 12 hours a day in a group apartment 
less than a mile from the Santa Monica 
surf. But Hai rarely hits the beach, be- 
cause the work ofa Leaguer is never done. 
That work ethic is one reason Hai's lung 
collapsed during a dinner with friends 
and members of rival Team SoloMid a 
few weeks before the Paris tourney. Hai 
wasn't crushed only physically. His illness 
affected his body—and his head. He was 
emotional, smacked hard by the possibil- 
ity of missing All-Star Paris. His position, 


mid-laner, is like that of an NFL quarter- 
back. He calls the shots for the four other 
team members, each of whom has a task 
in this monumental beat-down. Hai made 
a go of it, though. Loaded with tubes and 
sporting an oxygen mask over his face, he 
played League of Legends in his hospital bed 
for five-hour stretches, because if you don’t 
practice—even when seriously ill—you’ll 
lose your mojo. It didn’t matter. “Cannot 
go to All Stars anymore, sorry everyone,” 
he tweeted to his 170,000 followers. 

“Tt really sucked to watch my team play 
without me,” Hai says later. 

Cloud9 members give it their all in Paris, 
making it to the semifinals. Without their 
main man, however, they go down to OMG 
(Oh My God), a Chinese team known for 
rocking a cocky gangster pose in photos. 
The Chinese, who later go on to the finals, 
are so tough, so in the zone, that team mem- 
bers avoid shaking opponents’ hands after 
they lose a match. They're said to be masters 
of mind games. Even more than in China, 
League rules in South Korea, where 80 per- 
cent of kids between 15 and 25 play at least 
three hours a day in internet cafés called PC 
bangs. One guy played so hard and for so 
long he had a heart attack and died. 

It's no surprise players expect to take a 
beating from the South Korean teams. In 
fact, SK Telecom T1 K, a formidable South 
Korean team with players nicknamed 
Faker, Piglet and PoohManDu, goes 9-0 
in Paris. Even more so than Bjergsen, they 
bring down the house when they win big. 
Girls hold up signs reading FAKER, WILL U 
MARRY US? One woman posts on Twitter that 
she plans to throw her panties on the stage. 

Backstage, Faker, a steely-eyed 18-year- 
old, says his team practices up to 15 hours a 
day. Polite, serious, rarely cracking a smile, 
he's asked how he and his teammates avoid 


"Harley wasn't her first choice, but he was the only one who didn't 
leave town when she got pregnant.” 


burnout. Tired and nearly zombie-like 
from the frantic competition, he explains, 
“Even though it’s 15 hours, it’s still not as 
big as my passion for League of Legends. 
Even after 15 hours I'm still focused, be- 
cause I enjoy playing League of Legends so 
much. But after the all-star games, we'll 
have a very long holiday.” 

How long? 

“A week, maybe two weeks.” 

Outside the cramped hellhole of an in- 
terview room, things heat up. Workers 
scramble to remove groupies from the 
backstage area. But as soon as their backs 
are turned, the ladies return. 

“Just go for it,” whispers a pretty Asian 
girl. Doublelift is taken aback. 

“This girl is aggressive,” he says to no one 
in particular. They continue to flirt, eventu- 
ally making their way to a couch upstairs. 

Peter “Doublelift” Peng, a League of Leg- 
ends star from Mission Viejo, California 
who plays for the Counter Logic Gaming 
team, takes his name from a magician’s 
sleight of hand in card tricks. Outspoken 
and smart, he tells the woman he was a re- 
bellious kid, his parents “were particularly 
strong-worded about video games and how 
much a waste of time they were” and he 
“was constantly being kicked out of the 
house” for playing League. 

It’s not bullshit. Peng’s background 
is Legends lore. It’s not a stretch to say 
League of Legends saved Peng's life—just 
as it almost destroyed it. In 2011 Peng's 
parents pressured the then 18-year-old to 
quit playing. Many League pros, including 
Bjergsen, tell the same story. When Peng's 
parents had had enough, they kicked him 
out the door. He claims he was homeless 
and ended up sleeping on a bench. In a 
long post on Reddit, he wrote that he se- 
riously needed help. Fans sent Doublelift 
thousands via PayPal. Travis Gafford, a 
League aficionado who reports on the 
scene and hosts the State of the League pod- 
cast, finally took Doublelift in and taught 
him skills beyond winning at League. “No 
matter how long you stay,” Gafford ad- 
vised, “learn how to get a credit card. Deal 
with your finances.” They’re still friends. 

Just as there’s camaraderie between 
players, there’s envy and trash-talking 
as well. At the Paris event, Gafford inter- 
views both Bjergsen and Doublelift at the 
Mercure Hotel near the Parc de la Villette, 
where the world’s teams have gathered to 
duke it out. 

“I can't wait to kick some Doublelift 
butt,” says Bjergsen, smiling. 

They even share a hotel room, some- 
thing that probably wouldn't happen in the 
NBA or NHL, even for an all-star event. 

“When Bjergsen's sleeping 1 whisper, 
like, horrible things in his ear, trying to 
get into his head subconsciously,” jokes 
Doublelift. “Bjergsen is a bad boy. He's a 
naughty little boy.” 

Doublelift explains that while the all- 
star event is competitive, it’s not intense 
enough that “we would try to screw each 
other over.” It would be different if they 
were at the world finals, he says. 

Later, at the hotel restaurant, Bjergsen 
is mobbed by fans who discovered his 


location. “I ended up signing autographs 
for two hours,” he says later. “I love 
League of Legends.” 


League of Legends was created by Riot 
Games, a scrappy game developer estab- 
lished in 2006 by two entrepreneurial 
20-somethings, Brandon Beck, the then 
24-year-old CEO, and Marc Merrill, the 
26-year-old president. The pair met while 
at the University of Southern Califor- 
nia and bonded over games, particularly 
the more elite hardcore games such as 
StarCraft. They realized that few games 
were being made for players like them, the 
hardest of the hardcore, who enjoyed in- 
dulging in games with others online. 

It was as if publishers were leaving 
games and players in the lurch in order to 
make the next game. Games didn’t update 
nearly enough, and you could be stuck 
playing the same maps forever. 

In the refashioned entryway to an apart- 
ment near USC where the two had their 
gaming rigs set up, they rhetorically asked 
why someone didn’t make a hardcore 
game that continually evolved. When they 
decided to raise money to make such a 
game themselves, their idea was to outdo 
the big boys in everything from game de- 
sign to servicing the community. But with 
little game-making experience, they “didn’t 
have the cred” of established game mak- 
ers, admits Beck. They made up for that 
with detailed proposals that changed with 
each venture capitalist they encountered. 
It took them four rounds of financing, 30 
employees and three years to make and 
release League of Legends. It also required 
firing key people within Riot, including the 
development head who ultimately didn’t 
believe in their vision. 

Released in late October 2009, League of 
Legends was far from an overnight success. 
Riot had horrible defeats after which it had 
to redo its back-end technology and online 
store. But Beck and Merrill were quietly 
confident, so much so they adopted seem- 
ingly strange nicknames. Beck's “Ryze” 
and Merrill’s “Tryndamere” are game 
characters, the latter “a wrathful barbar- 
ian king seeking revenge,” the former a 
“rogue mage who's tattooed with spells 
and seeks the wisdom of hermits, witches 
and shamans.” 

With 40 characters and worldwide on- 
line play, League of Legends saw an ambi- 
tious debut. “We were flying by the seat 
of our pants. Our work was nowhere near 
done. We were painfully aware of that,” 
says Beck. The first day didn’t exactly set 
the gaming world on fire. There wasn’t 
even much of a launch party. “We didn't 
really celebrate with more than some yells 
and screams,” says Beck. “The next day 
we got back to work, back to firefight- 
ing.” More gamers came onboard, though 
not enough. But as the weeks passed, one 
thing gave Beck and Merrill hope. Play- 
ers weren't leaving. The retention rate was 
over the top. Indeed, it was "incredibly 
higher" than the industry average. In 2009, 
at the height of the recession, a constantly 
morphing, ever-challenging, free-to-play 


game was what players needed and want- 
ed. Elsewhere, big console games such as 
Brutal Legend and Rogue Warrior were tank- 
ing, and gamers were tiring of the rhythm- 
based music game Rock Band. Even World of 
Warcraft, Blizzard's lauded juggernaut, was 
peaking. By July 2011, Riot had amassed 
15 million players. It snowballed from 
there—especially the e-sports aspect—so 
much that 2011 seems like eons ago. The 
company ballooned to more than 1,600 
employees and is readying a bigger space 
to house its already immense headquarters. 

The big bang came when Chinese firm 
Tencent, the world's fifth-largest internet 
company, bought a majority stake in Riot 
for what Bloomberg Businessweek reported 
was between $350 million and $400 mil- 
lion. (Tencent later stated the sum was just 
over $231 million.) Whatever the price, 
opening the game to the Chinese is prov- 
ing to be a cash cow. "That entrée would 
have been difficult without Tencent," says 
Riot CFO A.J. Dylan Jadeja. "Look at the 
problems Twitter and Facebook have faced 
in China." 

While Beck, Merrill and the other 
Rioters always intended League to be an 
e-sport, the first major competitive season 
didn't begin in earnest until July 2010. 
That August League became part of the 
World Cyber Games finals (albeit with an 
admittedly low $6,000 first prize). The first 
season concluded with a bang in mid-2011 
at Sweden's DreamHack, where a then- 
dorky Doublelift made himself a legend. 
Then, with the 2012 launch of Spectator 
Mode, enabling every fan to watch live 
games, League came into its own. 

Riot saw the future of e-sports. So much 
so that the company gives each of the pro 
teams $175,000 in yearly sponsorship mon- 
ey so players have a base salary. It also pro- 
vides money for housing and travel. And it 
teaches these usually shy guys how to open 
up in front of the cameras at twice-yearly 
player summits. The owner-managers of 
some teams employ part-time sports psy- 
chologists and life coaches. You need them, 
they say, when you spend most of your time 
indoors, playing just one game profession- 
ally. To some it can seem overbearingly 
cultish. To Riot Games employees, who go 
through training called "denewbification" 
while wearing green hats with ears based 
on the game's Teemo character, the way 
it works is the way it works. If they don't 
like it, Riot offers employees 10 percent of 
their yearly salary if they leave the compa- 
ny within 60 days. Most are happy to stay. 

Although the game remains free to play, 
Riot makes money by selling optional vir- 
tual goods such as skins to customize the 
appearance of a player's character, which 
are purchased with $10 to $50 gift cards. 
Rare packages are known to sell for as 
much as a grand in online marketplaces. 

But the primary reason the game re- 
mains popular isn't because players are 
addicted to dressing up their characters. 
It's because the game continually changes. 
With a console game such as, say, Call of 
Duty, downloadable updates become avail- 
able every few months. League of Legends 
changes every two weeks. Those tweaks are 


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PLAYBOY 


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both wonderful and maddening to fans, 
especially to the stars. Cloud9's William 
“Meteos” Hartman says, “They'll take the 
really good champions, nerf them, make 
them really not good. That's one of the 
most annoying things that can happen. 
You have to keep practicing a ton.” 


It’s a postcard-perfect summer morning in 
Santa Monica. Joggers and cyclists hit the 
boardwalk. Kendrick Lamar blares from a 
passing convertible. The beach teems with 
hot bodies. 

A mile away, inside the modest two- 
bedroom apartment where Hai and 
the rest of Cloud9 live in a spartan, 
college-dorm-like setting, the first-floor 
practice room is darkened by shuttered 
blinds. Team members sit at computers, 
preparing for the day's scrims (practice 
against other teams). Piled on a chair are 
wristbands, T-shirts and other team para- 
phernalia, the products of marketing guru 
and team owner Jack Etienne, 41, a lifelong 
game aficionado who recently quit his sales 
job to work full-time with Cloud9. Etienne 
continually checks his phone for messages 
in a place that looks lived-in yet temporary, 
with laundry hampers here and mattresses 
on the floor there. Some teammates share 
a room, and none of them have many pos- 
sessions. But it's better than their last head- 
quarters, where one team member slept in 
a bathroom closet just to gain some privacy. 

Yet this is gaming nirvana circa 2014. 
Each Cloud9 member is generally thrilled 
about playing League of Legends. Optimism 
is at the team's core, says Hai, who began 
playing League in earnest in college when a 
floor mate “started shit-talking” him. The 
team took time to develop. Hai washed 
his hands of a player who was physically 
confrontational and one who disappeared 
for an entire week before a tournament. 
After adding Meteos, an affably sarcastic 
Virginian “who basically made this giant 
play with a damage-over-time spell that 
kept us from losing” during a crucial game, 
Cloud9 was ready. They began to win every 
match they competed in. 

Hai named the team Cloud9 because, 
he says, when you're on cloud nine you're 
feeling happy and euphoric. Other teams 
don “dark colors and they wanted to be 
badass, right? I'm a gamer, dude. I'm not 
200 pounds. I don't look like a badass foot- 
ball player. But I am a very happy person, 
and I feel people can relate to that.” An 
example of the team ethos? They wear 
hoodies and T-shirts colored sky blue and 
cloud-like white. “Bright, because that's 
how the game is. It’s bright and makes 
everyone else feel happy,” says Hai. 

Now, post-lung collapse, Hai relaxes on 
his balcony near a hot tub that has been 
used just once or twice for parties. He 
talks about his sudden interest in working 
out at a local gym with Cloud9 member 
An “Balls” Le, a small, reserved guy who 
keeps extraordinarily fit. Hai began work- 
ing out after his injury. “When guys grow 
up skinny and tall,” he says, “they get these 
little air bubbles on their lungs. They could 
pop at any time. By working out, I’m try- 


ing to avoid being sick from now on. I’m 
still recovering.” He'll never be able to do 
anything that involves dramatic pressure 
changes, such as deep-sea diving or high- 
altitude mountain hiking. He shrugs. “I 
probably wouldn't do that anyway.” 

Three months after the incident, Hai, 
though a speedy talker, still appears frag- 
ile. The team hasn't performed to ex- 
pectations since the all-star event, and to 
make matters worse, a new team called 
LMQ is kicking serious ass and currently 
tops the standings. 

Later, Meteos, who is celebrating his 
21st birthday with a visit from his family, 
who made a feast for the team, sits on the 
balcony, praising Hai. Playing with him, 
Meteos says, is “super intense, because he's 
super decisive with his shot calling. He has 
a good idea of how to win games. He knows 
what we should be doing at almost any 
time.” But, Meteos says, if things aren't go- 
ing well during practice, Cloud9 can be in- 
volved in “lots of arguments about what we 
should be doing.” That doesn't last long. 
“It can be a little stressful, but no one ever 
storms off and says ‘Fuck this’ or anything.” 

Just outside the apartment, owner- 
manager Etienne mentions he flew in from 
San Francisco to serve as a kind of father 
figure until Hai gets back up to speed. To 
boost morale, he does everything from 
grilling chicken and steaks for the team to 
taking them to see 22 Jump Street. He even 
manages to organize a rare trip to the beach. 
“If they lose a match, there's less bickering 
when I'm here,” Etienne says. “Hai’s still 
getting stronger, but he's not there yet. He 
will be.” There’s hope in Etienne’s eyes— 
along with the merest hint of desperation. 

Beyond the apartment, beyond the 
beach, in this world of League of Legends 
everyone is counting on Hai. Even teams he 
battles weekly pull for him to recover—just 
not enough that Cloud9 will beat them. 


Although there were earlier experiments, 
competitive online gaming rose in popu- 
larity two decades ago. It took the popu- 
larity of 56K modems, which provided 
enough rudimentary bandwidth, to drag 
players en masse down the rabbit hole to 
play Ultima Online, Doom, Quake and, soon 
after, Counter-Strike. 

Dennis “Thresh” Fong, the wiliest of 
professional gamers, began his dominance 
in 1993. He remembers the thrill of win- 
ning a Ferrari at E3 in Atlanta after a Quake 
tournament. It wasn’t just any Ferrari. It 
was a hot red Ferrari 328 with Pirelli P7 
tires and a removable roof panel. Not only 
that, it was owned by one of the geniuses 
behind Doom and Quake, John Carmack. 
“Carmack was pretty amazed,” says Fong. 
“Thresh means to strike repeatedly. Peo- 
ple coined this term Thresh ESP because it 
seemed like I was two or three steps ahead 
of my opponent—all the time. I was viewed 
as the Michael Jordan of video gaming.” 
It's no brag. Thresh never lost a tourna- 
ment, not once. 

Today Fong, who still owns the Ferrari, 
has bought and sold various companies— 
enough to make him a multimillionaire—and 


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PLAYBOY 


134 


is now CEO of Raptr, a social community 
for online gamers. In a dark hotel lobby 
in downtown Los Angeles, Fong, whose 
company is about to release a survey 
stating that nearly 17 percent of all PC 
gamers are League players, says, “The 
success that pro gaming is seeing came 
a lot faster than I thought it would. The 
reason League appeals is because people 
on a mass level appreciate what goes into 
playing and winning.” Now 70 percent of 
players watch League online. 

Fong and others like him inspired 
Michael O’Dell, a former pro who 
owns Team Dignitas, one of the oldest 
competitive-gaming teams. O’Dell re- 
members his first sponsor offered his team 
$10,000 back in 2003. “It wasn’t enough to 
support one player for a year, let alone a 
full team,” he says. Once, he didn’t have 
$3,000 to pay for the team’s hotel rooms. 

In 2007, DirecTV, British Sky Broad- 
casting and Asia’s STAR TV put e-sports 
on cable with the Championship Gaming 
Series. They hired O'Dell, who eagerly 
hopped on the gravy train. His team won 
$500,000 in the world championships. “But 
they didn’t do it right and spent $50 mil- 
lion on God knows what,” says O'Dell. It 
wasn't just the lavish spending that led to 
the series’ demise. It tanked because it fo- 
cused more on the broadcast aspect than 
on player and fan needs. 

With League of Legends e-sports, Etienne, 
O'Dell and other owner-managers feel 
their ship is about to come in. Etienne 
points to what he sees as a more digni- 
fied sponsor, the Air Force Reserve, which 
recently signed up with Cloud9. “It can 
only grow from here,” says Etienne. A few 
years from now, O'Dell believes, e-sports 
will be massive. Megacorporations will 
buy the teams “for hundreds of millions of 
dollars.” That's the hope, anyway. At that 


point, cautions O’Dell, the pros won't be as 
accessible. "They'll have security,” he says. 
“Fans won't be able to get close to them 
like they do now.” 


Mid-June 2014. Game day is a Saturday 
afternoon at a Manhattan Beach, Califor- 
nia soundstage, and if you dare park in 
filmmaker Joss Whedon's spot, you will 
be towed immediately. Autograph-hungry 
teens await their League heroes outside 
stage 22. Inside the dressing rooms there's 
smack talk among the North American 
teams competing. This weekend the most 
compelling attraction is Team SoloMid, 
featuring Bjergsen, versus Cloud9, led by 
Hai. Despite their eminent stars, neither 
team has lived up to its potential. But it’s 
Hai and Cloud9 upon whose shoulders lie 
the heaviest weights. 

Its not a good day for Cloud9, not even 
close. During a 36-minute game, they fall 
behind, and once they do, they keep get- 
ting clobbered. You can see it on their 
hangdog faces as they battle. As Bjergsen 
and SoloMid shine, Cloud9 becomes sad- 
der and sadder. Clearly Hai still isn't up to 
par. At one point he appears out of breath. 
They lose 21-8 and trudge the long walk 
to greet their fans as every team must do 
after a match. As the dark of the studio 
turns into the blinding sunlight of L.A., 
Hai tells teammate LemonNation, “I’m 
really sorry. I apologize.” 

Fans, though, seem to prop up Hai and 
the gang with cheery buoyancy about their 
chance to top the North American stand- 
ings. “You'll win next time,” says one girl to 
Hai. She pauses for a moment, then asks, 
“Can I take a selfie with you?” Hai obliges 
and manages a small smile. “You'll win 
next time,” she tells him again. 

Later, in the maze of spaces above the 


BURNS 


“We're screwed—the women just invented something called 
a ‘headache.’” 


broadcast studio, Doublelift sits alone in 
the middle of the room. Even though CLG 
won, it was against a minor team, and 
Doublelift seems annoyed when he’s of- 
fered congratulations. He's ready to blow 
off steam as well. “I do feel a lot of play- 
ers don't deserve to be professional play- 
ers, because they don't put in the practice 
time. But ГЇЇ tell you one thing—Cloud9 
is the team to beat. They have a brother- 
hood that other teams don’t have. When 
you play against them, you feel like you’re 
playing against one person, not five. We 
fear no team but Cloud9 right now.” 

The weeks pass as quickly as a mouse 
click. Even though Cloud9 is improving, 
it is one of five teams, including Team 
SoloMid and Counter Logic Gaming, that 
are virtually tied in the standings. Beyond 
them all is LMQ, a Chinese team, named 
for its founder’s wife, that moved to North 
America last year to vanquish the U.S. 
teams. The team had financial problems 
and sketchy ownership issues through- 
out the year, but those outward pressures 
never reveal themselves during competi- 
tion. In July LMQ seems utterly unstop- 
pable. On message boards, some fans 
expressed surprise that LMQ, a foreign 
team, was allowed to play in the U.S. at all. 
But Riot allows any amateurs a chance to 
make the pros through a series of playoffs. 
Brandon Beck puts LMQ's dominance in 
perspective: “Last year Cloud9 completely 
blew out everyone else when they were 
new. With LMQ it’s like a new pitcher in 
baseball. You have to figure out how to hit 
their pitches.” 

As the season ends in August, Cloud9 
has indeed figured out the new pitcher to 
mount an amazing comeback. Hai is com- 
pletely well, and everyone is performing 
together like a well-oiled machine, anni- 
hilating foes with an accuracy and speed 
they haven't seen since February. When 
the regular season is done, Cloud9 has tied 
LMQ. They're headed to the nerdy Pax 
Prime game conference in Seattle to be one 
of six teams that will compete in the North 
American regional finals for one of three 
spots at the world finals in South Korea 
and a whopping $1 million team prize. 


Late August. Thousands of fans file into 
the Washington State Convention Center 
in Seattle for the North American finals. 
Outside, a man wearing a floppy-eared 
Teemo hat buys loose joints from a grungy 
couple. The overflowing audience spills 
into the streets, giving the atmosphere a 
festival vibe, and viewing parties sponta- 
neously spring up at local bars such as the 
Pine Box, a former funeral home. 

Inside, the thousands in attendance stand 
in stunned silence, thundersticks by their 
sides. Counter Logic Gaming has fallen to 
Team Dignitas. Onstage, CLG leader Dou- 
blelift appears older, haggard, tired. With 
the defeat, he and his team now have to 
beat powerful amateurs or face relegation, 
banishment from the League forever. Mean- 
while, across the world in South Korea, 
Faker and his SKT team, both slumping, 
go down to a (concluded on page 137) 


PHOTO BY TRISTAN KALLAS 


ڪڪ 
DANI MATHERS GETS‏ 
COMFORTABLE IN NEW‏ 
SWIMWEAR LINE‏ 


hen she’s not 
donning her 
birthday suit 
in the pages of 
PLAYBOY, Miss 
May 2014 Dani 
Mathers pre- 
different kiı 
о SE 
designs swimsuits that 
make you feel next to 
naked,” she says. Dani 
was introduced to the 
line by her friend and 
Lézard Swim co-owner 
Aly. ulya Smith. 
When pouring her- 
self into the brand’s 
Outlaw bikini for the 
first time, Dani says 
she felt as though she 
were wearing nothing 
at all. “I decided these 
suits need to travel 
with me, shoot with 
me and pool-hop with 
me.” Dani is a natural 
fit to be an ambassador 
for the Los Angeles- 
based company. “The 
swimsuits are like my 
second skin,” she says. 
“I feel so feminine 
and comfortable—so 
comfortable I may 
have had a nip slip or 
five without noticing 
for a while. Oops.” 


è 


PERFECT #8 
| MATCH 


* In a collabora- 
tion that seemed 
destined to hap- 
ге teamed 
ntimates 
designer Bendon 
for the Biofit x 


Alana Campos 
loves the proprie- 
tary SecretSer 
suede-touch 
lining. "It makes 
all the differ- 


"he line 
comfortable 


"Growing up, survival- 
ism wasn't something I 
watched on TV; it was 
something I lived," says 
Miss November 2003 and 
Alaska native Divini Rae. 
For those who want to 
shock their system with 
an outdoor adven- 

ture, she offers life 
advice (“Value people 
over things, but be self- 
sufficient") and health 
and fitness ideas for the 
weekend woodsman at 
DiviniRae.com. 


> birl alk 


PMOY 2014 
Kennedy 
Summers 
(@misskennedys) 
holds an 
advanced degree, 
but she can still 


stun in a sexy 
schoolgirl outfit. 


E! updated 
Miss August 2001 
Jennifer Walcott’s 
True Hollywood 
Story: Football 
Wives episode 
this summer after 
the addition of 
daughter Piper 
to her and Adam 
Archuleta’s family. 


E PMOY 2013 
Raquel Pomplun 
was on hand for 
the HollyShorts 
Film Festival's 
10th anniversary 
opening-night gala 
After Cooper 
Hefner accepted the 
ALS Ice Bucket Chal- 
lenge, he nominated 
Bill Maher, Pitbull 
and the Playmates 
Among the women 
who stepped up 
were Val Keil, Anna 
Sophia Berglund, 
Amelia Talon and 
Dani Mathers, who 
in turn nominated 
their almost 1 million 
social media fans. 


WINNERS, LOSERS AND LEGENDS 


Continued from page 134 


savvy Samsung White team, meaning SKT 
won't be attending the world finals either. 
League of Legends and e-sports seem 
to be stumbling too as a year of growing 
pains pile up all at once. Bjergsen was 
fined $2,000 by a highly concerned Riot 
Games for trying to persuade a player to 
change teams, and some pros privately feel 
the penalty is too low. Behind the scenes, 
some are calling for player unionization, a 
scenario to which Riot Games CEO Beck 
doesn’t know how to respond. Riot is also 
contending with the meteoric 


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lenger, Defense of the Ancients 2. The first 
version of Defense of the Ancients was among 
Riot’s inspirations for League of Legends, 
and Valve Corporation, DOTA 27 seasoned 
publisher, is vying to topple League from its 
throne. And everyone is still reeling from 
a South Korean pro’s attempted suicide by 
leaping from a 12-story building after his 
manager pressured him to throw games. 
"It's still a bit like the Wild West out there,” 
admits Team Dignitas's O'Dell. 

None of this matters to the thousands 
inside the convention center who are now 
screaming louder than ever. Cloud9 hand- 
ily wins its first game against Bjergsen and 
Team SoloMid, and pundits are predict- 
ing a 3-0 shutout. But TSM parries, led 
by Bjergsen. By game five, Hai and Balls 
appear twitchy, a slight panic in their eyes. 
Jason “WildTurtle” Tran takes advantage 
of Cloud9’s missteps with four succes- 
sive kills (a “quadrakill”), and TSM pre- 
vails. Hai and Cloud9 are beaten after a 
close, five-hour, five-game match against 
Bjergsen and TSM, who are now the 
North American champions. 

As TSM celebrates onstage under swirl- 
ing lights and artificial fog, Hai sits alone 
backstage, angry, reddening, dejected. 
"It's about pride,” he spews. Nonetheless, 


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as one of the top three teams, Cloud9, 
along with TSM and LMQ, is heading to 
South Korea for the world finals and a 
chance to win the $1 million team prize. 
Hai knows Cloud9 has to stay focused. 
The teams will vie in a sold-out 60,000-seat 
stadium that was home to the 2002 FIFA 
World Cup. Seoul will be louder than 
Paris, the groupies more numerous and 
the hometown fans less hospitable to any 
North American team. 

Cloud9 leaves the next day for Korea, 
where the team plans to practice and 
scrim 12 hours a day. “It's like boot camp,” 
says Hai. Bjergsen and TSM are at it too. 
Bjergsen, now meditating for focus, has 
removed his beloved dog from the team 
house so it won't be a distraction. Becom- 
ing supremely triumphant by bringing 
home the $1 million team prize weighs 
on their minds, anvil heavy. Winning the 
big one would mean financial stability for 
the team, the possibility of being remem- 
bered, even the hope of being respected 
by their parents for a life spent playing 
video games. All it takes is 50 fingers of 
brilliance, locked on mice and keyboards, 
click-click-clicking. 


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MISS DECEMBER NEEDS A DOUBLES PARTNER. 


LEGAL STANDING—WHETHER YOU CALL HIM A WHISTLE-BLOWER, 
A BULLY OR JUST ANOTHER LAWYER, MICHAEL HAUSFELD IS 
THE MOST VICIOUS MAN IN THE COURTROOM. HE HAS SUED OIL 
COMPANIES, DRUG DEALERS, THE NCAA AND EVEN GERMANY, 
TAKING ON CASES WORTH BILLIONS OF DOLLARS IN SETTLE- 
MENTS. AND HE MAKES ENEMIES EVERY STEP OF THE WAY. NEAL 
GABLER EXAMINES THE IMPETUS OF A MAN WHOSE ROAD TO 
JUSTICE IS PAVED IN GUTS AND GLORY RATHER THAN GOLD. 


JOAQUIN PHOENIX—IN THE PLAYBOY INTERVIEW THE RECLUSIVE 
ACTOR OPENS UP TO STEPHEN REBELLO ABOUT HIS ERRATI- 
CISM, HIS REJECTION OF CELEBRITY AND HIS LATEST ROLE AS A 
STONED P.I. IN PAUL THOMAS ANDERSON'S INHERENT VICE, THE 
FIRST BIG-SCREEN ADAPTATION OF A THOMAS PYNCHON NOVEL. 


COOKING CLASS—MEET THE BONS VIVANTS BEHIND NEW 
YORK’S MOST NOUVEAU CATERING COMPANY, GHETTO GASTRO. 
THE THREE RENEGADE CHEFS FROM THE BRONX REDEFINE 
STODGY, HIGH-CONCEPT CUISINE FOR ELITE CLIENTS WITH A 
PINCH OF HIP-HOP, A DASH OF FASHION AND A COLLECTION OF 
RAW YET REFINED RECIPES. (THINK CURRIED CHICKEN SERVED 
WITH COCONUT WAFFLES AND MANGO BUTTER.) 


THE LIGHT OF DAY—IN ANTICIPATION OF HORRIBLE BOSSES 2, 
CHARLIE DAY TELLS ALL TO TAFFY BRODESSER-AKNER IN 20G, 


"ly Hills, California 90210. Periodicals postage paid at Beverly Hills, С 
0005: 


CHARLIE DAY LOOSENS UP IN 200. 


NEXT MONTH 


TALKING VICE AND VICES WITH JOAQUIN PHOENIX. 


THE NBA'S HEYDAY: SHORTER SHORTS AND BETTER PLAYERS. 


INCLUDING HOW HE GOT FIRED FROM A PIZZERIA, HOW HOL- 
LYWOOD BIGWIGS IGNORE HIM AND HOW HE GETS REVENGE IN 
REAL LIFE. (NO, IT DOESN'T INVOLVE KILLING ANYONE.) 


MISSION OUT OF CONTROL-IF CHASING ZOMBIE SPACECRAFT 
SOUNDS LIKE THE PLOT OF THE NEXT BIG CABLE SHOW, THINK 
AGAIN. ONE TEAM OF CIVILIAN SCIENTISTS WORKING OUT OF 
AN ABANDONED MCDONALD'S IS TRYING TO BRING HOME A 
VESSEL LOST IN SPACE FOR ALMOST 20 YEARS—AND THEY MAY 
JUST PULL IT OFF. PAT JORDAN TAKES ON A JOURNEY THAT IS 
LITERALLY OUT OF THIS WORLD. 


A BOY NAMED SHEL—ON ASSIGNMENT FOR PLAYBOY IN 
THE 1950S AND 1960S, WRITER-CARTOONIST-GENIUS SHEL 
SILVERSTEIN USED HIS INKY WIT TO RELAY HIS IMPRESSIONS 
FROM AROUND THE WORLD. IN A RETROSPECTIVE, WE PAY 
HOMAGE TO HIM AND HIS LOONY TOONS. 


MISS MARY'S ROOM—WHEN A TRIO OF JUVENILE POT PEDDLERS 
BOTCHES A ROUTINE SALE AND GETS LOCKED UP, LOYALTIES 
BEGIN TO WEAR THIN. IT'S A TALE OF LOST INNOCENCE BY 
CRIME NOVELIST AND W/RE SCRIBE GEORGE PELECANOS. 


PLUS—A MANSION VISIT WITH MISS DECEMBER, KEVIN COOK 
REMEMBERS THE GOLDEN AGE OF HOOPS, AND MUCH MORE. 


, November 2014, volume 61, number 9. Published monthly except for combined January/February and July August issues by Playboy in national and regional editions, Playboy, 


fornia and at additional mailing offices. Canada Post Canadian Publications Mail Sales Product Agree- 


the US, $32.97 fora year. Postmaster: Send all UAA to CFS (see DMM 7074.12 5 nonpostal and military facilities, send address changes to Playboy, PO. Box 37489, 
357-0489. From time to time we make our subscriber list available to companies that sell goods and services by mail that we believe would interest our readers. If you would rather not receive 
138 such mailings, please send your current mailing label to: Playboy, PO. Box 37489, Boone, IA, 50037-0489. For subscription-related questions, call 800-999-4438, or e-mail plycustserv@cdsfulfillment.com, 


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