Here’s an alarming video that has been making the rounds of the internets in the past few days.

In it, Bush advisor Karl Rove uses the Radio and Television Correspondents' Association Dinner as a platform to prove that he’s just as adept at rhyming as he is at protecting America’s national security interests.

We can all be assured that none of the men dancing alongside Rove are John McCain’s secret love child, though their status as covert CIA agents is unclear.

Here's the last of the month's reader correspondence:

John Mahoney of Winnipeg writes to protest that Donald Trump has been shown on The Girls Next Door partying at the Mansion. “I have been a lifelong reader of Playboy. I remember the 1960s and 70s as a great battleground for personal freedoms. So it’s hard to stomach seeing Trump embraced by Playboy after he made those ugly remarks about Rosie O’Donnell, calling her a ‘degenerate’ because she is a lesbian. Trump needs Hef more than Hef needs Trump.” John, it’s safe to say that Hef doesn’t share that view of lesbians, or of Rosie.

“One of my favorite lines from the movies is the Crash Davis quote from Bull Durham that you share in Romance 2007 as a way to `seal the deal,’ “ writes Craig Gentile of Albuquerque. “But in order to get laid, if I have to omit, as you did, the part about Lee Harvey Oswald acting alone and the constitutional amendment banning AstroTurf and the designated-hitter rule, count me out. Some of us still hold our principles (and women) to a higher standard.”

Mike Cupertino from Loveland, Colorado believes it’s time to see Tyra Banks in the magazine. “She recently stated she is tired of being called fat and that she wants to prove how good her breasts look,” he writes. “I say that Playboy is the best forum for Ms. Banks to express herself and prove the doubters wrong.” That’s not a bad idea. We’ve asked Tyra a number of times to pose for us, and we can certainly ask again.

One of the most visually arresting and little-seen gems of 2006 was the martial-arts epic Curse of the Golden Flower.

Directed by Zhang Yimou (Hero), and set in 10th-century China during the Later Tang Dynasty, the film chronicles the meltdown of the Imperial Family, who make Al Bundy’s dysfunctional clan look like the Cleavers. For starters, the Empress (Gong Li) is having an illicit affair with her stepson. But that’s the least of her problems—her Emperor husband (Chow Yun-Fat) is slowly poisoning her and she must find out what he’s spiking her tea with and why before she descends into madness. There is betrayal, vengeance and passion galore before the final—and fatal—family reunion during the annual Chong Yang Festival.

Their problems might be all too human, but the Imperial Family’s Forbidden City is an extraordinary sight hidden from the eyes of mere mortals. Lucky for you, Sony Pictures Home Entertainment just released the movie on DVD (or, if you’re serious about your eye candy, wait for the Blu-ray version in May). Even though the story is a bit, well, Melrose Place and its ending woefully unsatisfying, this is a case of style triumphing over substance. The palace’s gilded halls, the lavish Oscar-nominated costumes, a gravity-defying attack by assassins, and soldiers spilling their blood on an ocean of golden chrysanthemums will make your HDTV worth every cent you paid for it.

Now. Right now. This weekend. That’s when tickets for many dates of Morrissey’s summer tour go on sale.

As you may remember from our review of his latest LP, Ringleader of the Tormentors, we’re extremely big on Moz these days. This album, fast on the heels of You Are the Quarry, delivered the follow-up to the most powerful one-two punch of his career. In “Life Is a Pigsty,” from Tormentor, the former Smiths frontman added to his legacy with a colossal mope epic, the scale of which exceeds anything in his solo catalogue: thunderstorm sound effects, somber piano and synth washes, and then magnificent breakdown—complete with tympani—leading into an entirely new part of what is in essence a suite. Oh, and just to cap it all off, some of the best lines he’s ever written: “You can shoot me, and you can throw me off a train/I still maintain, I still maintain life is a pigsty.”

Seeing Morrissey perform live is a quasi-religious experience, and because his cult is a remarkably diverse phenomenon, the sensation spreads across the entire crowd, mopester, fratboy, East LA gangbanger—you can never predict the audience, but you can always count on leaving the place practically shaking with Morrissey’s particular brand of rock and roll fervor. With his music and confidence at new peaks, the time to see Morrissey is now. (He also throws in a few Smiths’ tunes these days.) And with an artist whose goal is a sort of group catharsis, large scale outings are a rare plus in Moz’s case, so his recent successes—allowing him to play venues like Madison Square Garden here in NYC—will make the concerts that much sweeter. In the current, splintered music scene, artists genuinely worthy of adulation and also able to create a large-scale experience are rare. With the possible exception of Radiohead, there is probably no other Gen X or Y act to fit that bill like Morrissey. Don’t miss out.

As an added bonus, Morrissey is bringing a handpicked opening act called Kristeenyoung. Moz discovered the combo by accident while recording Tormentor. His  producer Tony Visconti was reviewing a video he was working on with Kristeenyoung, not having realized Morrissey had come into the room behind him. Morrissey asked them to accompany him on his European tour, and now U.S. audiences will get a look.

Morrissey’s 2007 U.S. tour, with ticket on-sale dates:
 

Continue reading »

Whenever a magazine runs a list, it generates commentary. It’s why we do it! Our compendium of the 25 Sexiest Celebrities in March has proven to be no exception. Here, then, is a list of celebrities that a great many of our readers thought ought to have made the cut:

Jessica Biel
Christina Ricci
Maria Sharapova
Jennifer Love Hewitt
Salma Hayek
Jessica Simpson
Jordan

Here’s the one whose inclusion provoked the greatest protest:
Paris Hilton

DOING THE XANGO
We received a number of angry emails from XanGo reps before Jonathan Black’s March article on the fruit juice even appeared in print. A typical missive accused him of “the highest form of ignorance.” Criticizing an article you haven’t read seems to top that. Tony Belmont of Los Angeles, who wrote *after* he read the article, points out an interesting website that he says “describes very well how MLM companies work. This, in addition to Black’s article, may save many of your readers a lot of time and money.  There are now juice blends which contain mangosteen, acai, noni and wolfberry. I wonder what will be next?” We’ll have more letters about the XanGo piece in our June issue.

FAN LETTERS
Like anyone, we love fan mail. Cheri Kass of Benton, Pennsylvania tell us, “I have been reading the magazine for 20 years and especially love the interviews, cartoons and jokes. Thank you for sticking with your high standards.”

Dane Marx of Jacksonville, North Carolina writes “I am a 21-year-old Marine who has just recently returned from the Middle East. I wanted to tell you how much your magazine helped me on this deployment. I could not wait for each month to pass so I could see the next issue. Not only did Playboy offer me these pictures of beautiful, classy women, it also allowed me to keep up to date with what was happening back in the States. So thank you for giving me something to look forward to in a place where I was surrounded by death and destruction. It helped me feel more at home just by reading your magazine.”

Are you 18 years or older? Are you a virgin? And more importantly, are you lacking any shame? MTV is casting “Suburban Virgin,” a reality show version of “The 40-Year-Old Virgin.” According to Reality Blurred (one of the better websites covering reality TV), potential cast members, besides being losers, “must live within driving distance of the Los Angeles area and have limited to no experience with the opposite sex.” And be willing to have that limited experience broadcast to millions of MTV watchers who, should they to run into one of the show’s stars, would never, ever make fun of an adult virgin under any circumstances.

There was a piece in the January issue’s After Hours section about Pamela Anderson’s appearances on Playboy covers around the world—that amazing silver Sante D’Orazio shot was her 12th US Playboy cover, sure, but counting foreign editions it was actually her 143rd. Which is just a big, huge number any way you slice it. The data came from a site called pbcovers.com run by a nice fellow named Mitch Courtright, and it’s truly impressive. If you’re even a moderate Playboy fan and you’ve never perused it, have a look.

We got an e-mail today from Mitch regarding a page he put up in response to the Pam cover counting. It’s a list of who’s done the most covers around the world. 

With 85, the rabbit head comes in a distant second to Pam, and the late Anna Nicole Smith an also-distant third with 46.

A footnote to the Senate’s move to establish a withdrawal date from Iraq that would influence the spending of a proposed $122 billion for maneuvers: The American military budget for 2007 is currently $561.5 billion. The British, for the sake of scale and comparison, come in a distant second with a budget of $60 billion. That’s a nine-fold difference, and literally off the charts.

Conor remarked after the first weekend that this was shaping up to be a boring NCAA tournament. Has it been?
 
Gary Cole, Photography Director: I don't agree unless you think it is boring that the higher seeds fairly consistently thumped the lower seeds. There have been so many incredible comebacks--Ohio State's snatching victory from the jaws of defeat against Tennessee, Kansas slipping by Southern Illinois in a great game, Georgetown coming back against Vandy and then against North Carolina. The three-point shot has totally changed the name of the game. There was a time when I would have turned a game off if a team was up by 20 points in the first half. Blow out. Now, three possessions, three quick 3-pointers and you're right back in it.  And how about human interest. John Thompson III with Patrick Ewing, Jr. against North Carolina? Florida trying to repeat. A chance for Florida and Ohio State to play for a national championship in basketball when they just met on the field for the national crown in football? Boring? I don't think so.
 
Conor Hogan, Fashion Assistant: The tournament is never boring, it has just lacked the suspense that usually comes with the NCAA's. There haven't been many massive upsets or shocking buzzers beaters and no Cinderellas advanced past the second round. That being said, I've loved the number of high profile games down the stretch, and there are three more guaranteed for this weekend. Like the Duke-UConn semi-final in 2004, the tournament's most exciting game will happen two days before the true championship, with the Florida-UCLA rematch.
 
Rocky Rakovic, Junior Editor: As I stated in the previous discussion sure there is no Cinderella story but most games have been to an extent evenly matched and competitive; isn’t that part of the beauty and excitement of sports?
 
It’s actually nice for a change that an underdog didn’t progress far in the brackets. Normally around this time SportsCenter is running one of their long segments on the “little school that could.” While the features can be interesting they cause the entire country to back George Mason or Vermont and I feel uncomfortable rooting (loudly) in bars for the higher seed. In this Final Four there really isn’t a dark horse and that makes for competitive games and evenly matched rooting sections (save for watering holes in Gainesville, Los Angeles, Columbus and D.C.) and isn’t that part of the excitement of watching sports?
 
Josh Robertson, Associate Editor:  I do think it’s been a little boring, or at least repetitive. A lot of the high seeds played stretches of pretty weak ball (Wisconsin’s 19-point first half against TA&M-CC being the rock bottom), but too few were made to pay for it. And to me, that’s not fun tournament basketball to watch. I’m not a fan of Cinderellas for their own sake, but I think that if you’re a 1 or 2 seed and you’re not playing like one (or worse, you look like you aren’t taking the game seriously), I don’t want to see you wake up with five minutes remaining and win it. Ohio State should have lost to Xavier. UCLA should have lost to Indiana. Memphis should have lost to Nevada. Pitt should have lost to VCU. Oregon should have lost to Miami of Ohio. Kansas should have lost to Southern Illinois. Ohio State should have lost to Tennessee. We spend too much time and ink heaping praise on the little guys for their noble efforts, win or lose, but I’ve never seen a basketball David that didn’t win without a hell of a lot of help from an inept Goliath. The little guys are pumped at the thought of winning one game. The big guys seem blasé about the chance to win the whole tournament. I’m not tired of seeing high seeds win, but I am a little tired of seeing them win ugly. Tennessee-Ohio State was when it really hit me. Tennessee looked so good—but even though they were up 17 at the half, given the way the tournament had been going, I couldn’t convince myself the Vols would actually win. And they didn’t. I’ve never felt this fatalistic about a tournament, and I’m actually feeling a little depression.
 
Of course, I could just be depressed because every bit of “wisdom” I have posted to this blog turned out to be wrong. (Here I must give a tip of the hat to Stanford, Texas, Boston College and Kentucky.) Oh, and I’m also depressed because my team stunk this year. Yes, folks, I am … [takes off mask] a Dukie!

Our March issue contains a letter from Brian Russels about December’s Gore Vidal’s article about the Gore family. Russels notes that Abraham Lincoln suspended habeas corpus during the Civil War, “an action so dangerous it has never been repeated.” Eric Kielser of Montezuma, Iowa, writes to argue that it has been repeated with the signing into law last year of the Military Commissions Act by President Bush, which suspends habeas corpus for “unlawful enemy combatants.” Says Kiesler, “While I am sure Russels does not consider himself an enemy combatant, it is no longer for him or the courts to decide,
but rather a secret, three-person panel.”

Next, Jeremy Johnson of Dallas takes issue with a letter from Andy Jordan that appears in our February issue. “Jordan states, `The underlying philosophy of Islam is the Muslim belief in the faith’s superiority,’ and proposes this is an underlying flaw that results in violence. But all religions think that they are superior. Christians and Americans in general are too quick to point out the flaws and failures of other religions and cultures and too slow to examine their own.”

Finally, Angela Grosko from Fredericksburg, Maryland disagrees with an April letter from Elliot Marcus, occasioned by Jimmy Breslin’s article in January, who believes the U.S. should help Mexico to improve its economy so that fewer immigrants will cross the border. “I work for the largest candy company in America and Mexico is getting 1,500 of our jobs as we lose approximately 3,000 here,” she writes. “Isn’t that nice of us to help them out? Let’s save jobs in the U.S. before we create more of them in Mexico.”

A number of readers took issue with the Neal Gabler article in January in which he compares Pamela Anderson to Marilyn Monroe. “Why does Gabler feel the need to use easy comparisons that are unflattering to either party?” asks Michael H. from the Netherlands. “Anderson is not `Marilyn without the tragedy’ or `Jayne Mansfield without the accident.’ She is unique. Whether or not Marilyn languished in a `tragic backwash of broken relationships, drugs and alcohol, enforced bimboism and self-abasement’ has been debated endlessly, notably in your excellent January 2006 cover article. But in this context the description seems tasteless and unnecessary.  Pamela may indeed be the ultimate sex symbol of the 21st century, but she isn’t Playboy’s only iconic blonde bombshell.”

Jamie Moberg of Bridge Lake, British Columbia, thought Gabler did a great job capturing the essence of Pam. “When we met in 1988, she was the `girl next door,’ literally, who would rather stay home and watch movies on the couch and eat popcorn. But Pam always had the gift to sell anything, so to see her sell herself to the world is no big surprise. I knew from the beginning she would be a success.”

In our “Cars of the Year” feature in January we named the 2007 Ford Mustang Shelby GT500 as the “best bang for the buck.” That did not sit well at all with Jason Smith of Greenwood, Indiana. “For the average automobile buyer this vehicle is nowhere near attainable thanks to the greedy dealers and their $20K to $40K `market value additions,’ “ he writes. “Don’t get me wrong--I am a long-time Mustang enthusiast. But a vehicle that the manufacturer says should sell for $42K but is instead being offer by dealers for $65K or more is hardly a bargain. If you want value, look at the hot cars that Steve Saleen and Jack Roush are putting out with this new generation Mustang. Most enthusiasts and the car-buying public alike would consider a base Mustang GT plenty of bang with 300 ponies at less than $30,000.” We would counter that any cost rising above the MSRP only attests to the popularity and success of this Mustang. We judged the car when it hit market and adored it. Apparently we were not alone, as reflected by the rising prices.

If you get the chance, take the opportunity to catch Ken Loach’s The Wind That Shakes the Barley. Set in Ireland in 1920, the film is a well-done account of a small group of people who are being subjected, and their contributions to a larger effort to throw off the oppression.

Loach keeps a tight focus on a young doctor named Damien (played by Cillian Murphy) and a group of men from his village, which keeps the story very immediate. When Damien has to kill someone, the moment does not get carried off by a swell of music or on a flight of rhetoric; you feel the cold steel trigger on your fingertip, too.

The film is not just a traditional drama. Loach makes real the connection between the fighting (and the pain, and the suffering) and the larger political issues, the ever-dimming line that defines what’s worth dying for, and as importantly, what’s worth killing for. There was a time in this country when that seemed like a fairly easy question to answer, but as we’ve seen in Ireland, in Israel, in Iraq, in the Balkans, in Africa, as we’ve seen in John Muhammad and Timothy McVeigh, once the killing starts, it’s very hard to stop.

There is no way to print all the mail we receive each month. Prior to the launch of this blog, we had to make many tough decisions; fortunately, we now have a forum where we can express many more of your views.

The March issue contains some eloquent letters about our January 2007 interview with oilman T. Boone Pickens. Among the most interesting was one from Scott Pugh of the Association for the Study of Peak Oil & Gas USA, which we were forced to cut considerably for space.
Here’s more of what he had to say:

 “While I have tremendous respect for Pickens’ efforts to focus the country on alternative energies, the problem we face is not running out of oil, that will not happen for many decades or longer. The problem is that production is declining in 54 of the world’s 65 oil-producing countries, despite advances in exploration technologies. The last time the world found as much oil as it used was in about 1980.
Pickens says ethanol never seemed realistic because it has to be so heavily subsidized. He is right to point out that the energy economics of using corn to produce ethanol are questionable, as much or more energy is used to fertilize, grow and harvest the corn, then produce the ethanol as is contained in the ethanol itself. Additionally, it’s doubtful we could grow enough corn to feed livestock, people and fuel enough cars to reduce the demand for oil. But he ignores the more promising work being done by government and industry to produce ethanol from cellulosic plant matter (biomass).”

We also heard from other readers about the interview just after our deadline passed.

“Pickens’ view that price of gasoline to be higher to kill the demand is understandable,” writes Prashaanth Ravindran of Arlington, Texas. “I feel that people driving gas guzzling monsters should be appropriately charged a luxury tax instead of giving tax sops. I drive a Honda Civvie and my friends have told me that it is uncool, but it is easier on my wallet on 30-34 mpg. But I do not see a reason why I should pay extra for gas just because my neighbor drives a Hummer and has to be convinced otherwise."

"We shouldn’t pursue alternatives to oil based on which will make the most money for the fat cats,” adds Patrick Scanlon of Tarpon Springs, Florida. “That seems to be Pickens’ strategy, especially when he dismisses the benefits of ethanol.”

“Pickens states that he doesn’t even think oil was a factor in our decision to go to war in Iraq,” writes James Devoy of Evansville, Indiana. “What is he talking about? If oil has nothing to do with why we are in the Middle East, why are we not more interested in the atrocities that are being committed in Darfur, North Korea, or any other region of the world where more people are dying? Because we need black gold to fuel our economy, and those other countries have nothing to offer. If a tycoon like Pickens is going to sit down for a serious interview with a respected magazine, he should try not to insult the intelligence of its readers.”

More mail tomorrow.

We all dream of flying, but a lot of us aren’t willing to freefall out of a plane at 11,000 feet. Well, this editor isn’t. But during a weekend in Sin City, fate—or a hangover in the desert heat— helped my posse stumble upon the Flyaway Indoor Skydiving facility right off the Strip near where the Stardust imploded. For $70 a person, you can rent some gear, get some coaching and fly suspended six to 12 feet in the air above a gigantic fan generating a 120 mph wind column. Sound fun? It sure is, but there is more skill involved than just being blown around like a fly caught inside a monster-size hairdryer. If your body is too tense and rigid, you probably won’t get very high; if you’re too relaxed, you’ll fly into the padded wall. Handily, there is a seasoned coach in the room with you to guide your body safely over the fan and keep you in position.

In addition to the Vegas building, Flyaway has another one in the curiously titled Pigeon Forge, Tennessee with possible plans for one at Universal Studios in Los Angeles as well as other locations. We’re told it is a popular training resource for skydivers, competition teams and military units (add thrill-seeking, judgment-impaired tourists to the list). The next time you’re in Las Vegas and need a break from all the casino chaos, we highly recommend you take the plunge at Flyaway. You know you lost $70 in five minutes at the craps tables—this is a better gamble.