After associate photo editor Matt Steigbigel left his desk unattended we swiped (more like hauled off) the tome Playboy: The Complete Centerfolds. We'll be passing it around the office for the next month in order to give each blog contributor a chance to flip through and reminisce about his or her favorite Playmate or Centerfold shot. Today Editorial Coordinator Jennifer Thiele leads off :

Playboy’s raven-haired Playmates are positively remarkable. With their black hair, blue eyes and sultry intensity, these Playmates remind me of two American sexual icons – Elvis Presley and Wonder Woman (ed note: she may be foreshadowing to an upcoming cover…).
 
Bettie Page –  Miss January 1955 (who became a sexual icon, herself!)
Kata Kâkkâinen (pictured here) - Miss December 1988
Traci Adell — Miss July 1994
Tiffany Fallon — Miss December 2004/PMOY 2005

It’s often reported that Playboy pays something like $10 a word for our fiction and nonfiction. We don’t. We do try to do well by our writers; we try to be competitive and more. We are a commercial magazine with the same bottom-line considerations as any other publication (perhaps more because we are a publicly traded company), and yet we are committed to the short-story form, one that is increasingly marginalized, underrated and underfed in this country.    

Sam Lipsyte knows that. He knows that we’ve run fiction by Michel Houellebecq, Tobias Wolff, Margaret Atwood, Tony D’Souza, Nadine Gordimer, J. Robert Lennon and more in the last two years. He’s eager to read the Robert Stone story scheduled for our April issue, and he’s heard about a new Denis Johnson novel that we plan to serialize over the summer.

That’s why he chooses to publish his singular fiction with us (his beautifully calibrated and darkly funny The Gunderson Prophecy ran in our November issue), and unlike lots of writers he’s not afraid to say so. I saw Sam recently at a National Book Foundation event. He was the host of an evening dedicated to honoring five writers under 35. This seemed an arbitrary age cut-off, something that wasn’t lost on Sam. In his introductory remarks, the text of which is below, he shows himself to be the subversive wit we know he is, as well as a con man and a champion of literature. The books singled out were worthy of our standing through the evening of readings (see this link to read about the books). They did not provide chairs, as if to underscore just how enfeebled the rest of us were. Sam certainly gave us courage:

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I’ve always had a strong professional interest in masturbation, so everyone in the office had the same instinct to forward me a link to the now-infamous Wal-Mart flasher.

Apparently a college student going by the moniker BaseballPlaya posted 31 videos at the voyeur site XTube that show him stroking himself inside a Wal-Mart and numerous stores at a mall in Glendale, Arizona. (Calling his mechanical technique “masturbation” is a disservice to the art of self-abuse.) BP removed his videos and profile from XTube shortly after the Consumerist blog first linked to them. Now KTVK-3TV reports that the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office has stepped up patrols inside the mall to prevent any more of what the station calls this “absolutely disgusting” behavior. KTVK also reports that “Glendale police are investigating whether videos posted on the web are in fact legit.” (!) Would love to know how that is done.

BaseballPlaya has visible cojones but is certainly no innovator—this type of deviant behavior has been occurring for years in libraries (and Arizona college students appear to be especially adept). What’s particularly interesting about this tale is that within minutes of watching the video we had located a prime suspect for BaseballPlaya; perhaps the police have done the same. Whether this is the right guy or not, when a real person is attached to the video, any rubbernecking value it may have drops to zero—instead you see a 20-year-old kid who needs help. We hope BaseballPlaya takes the hint before he finds himself with another profile online that he won’t be able to take down.

Since the last time we reported on Playboy’s Polaroid Thursday—that magical time at Playboy Studio West in Santa Monica, California when we have an open casting call for potential Playmates—it has changed from a monthly to a weekly event.

This week we bumped into hopeful Shawnee Harkins (pictured), a 26-year-old Dallas native working as a certified personal trainer and sports nutritionist in Southern California. We were immediately charmed by her energy and positive attitude. “I want to be a Playmate because it is an honor to celebrate and show the beauty of the female body,” she says. So what does she think is her best physical feature? “I would say ‘my girls.’ I love to wear tank tops and fitted shirts to bring them out on display!”

Shawnee certainly knows her way around a gym, but does this upbeat trainer get gruff at one of the fitness boot camps that she oversees? “As a trainer I motivate with high positive energy, rather than the old-school yelling techniques,” she says. “Yes, I am very vocal, but I always keep it friendly and fun. For example, when hosting my Saturday boot camps on the beach, I must make it fun for clients who want to get up on Saturday morning to workout. But don't think for a second that I won't push you past your limits, because I will...but always with my Southern smile on my face!”

If you want to see more of Shawnee, leave a comment and send her some love and encouragement.

As mentioned in our November issue, we teamed up with Movember to support the fight against prostate cancer. The cool thing about the event is that we collected pledges in return for simply growing moustaches during the month of November, while other charities ask you to do things like run a 5K. The other night we had our Movember Gala at Capitale. Sadly, my Tom Selleckesque ‘stache with scruff (below) didn’t win best in show, but we had a badass time. Pictured here are our own Lisa Kolodny, Traci Coulter and Jessica Sigelbaum along with Miss May 2007, Shannon James.

 

Jonathan Littman (jonlittman@earthlink.net) checks in with his second bit on Barry Bonds. If you missed part one, click here.

The Indictment

Four years after a search of BALCO and months of grand jury testimony, the government handed down a perjury indictment against Barry Bonds full of holes.

Here’s the government’s problem. Bonds told the prosecutor he took “the cream” and what he thought was flax seed oil. He made no bones about the fact that he was taking some unknown substances. That leaves the government’s perjury case resting on narrow threads. Did Bonds lie about the dates he admitted he took “the cream” and flax seed oil? Did he know all along that these substances were steroids?

The government is telling a story, but it’s not easy to follow the plot. The indictment underlines certain Bonds statements without explanation, and then abruptly clips his testimony with ellipsis. One wonders:  Why all the deletions and omissions? Might a more complete selection of Bonds’ testimony hinder the government’s case?

Let’s begin with the facts. Steroids are legal with a prescription and millions of Americans take them legally.

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If you are winning a game, do you run the clock or go for the score?

Well, now it depends on by how much I am winning the game by. If I was like New England who can win a game by 30 points, then heck, I'd go for the scoring. Why not try to beat a record win? I might even consider just re-enacting the college game where Trinity University scored a touchdown by throwing something like 5 backwards laterals, just to give the fans something to talk about. If I was far enough ahead of the other team and didn't need to worry about the ball being intercepted, then I'd try and score some extra touchdowns and have some fun. However if it was a close call, I'd run the ball and waste the clock as much as possible. It's a conservative way to play. I know many times when I have watched my Dallas boys play, all I kept thinking was “OK guys, there is just 3 minutes left. Hold on to that ball, now is not the time to try and score. Just run down the clock and let this game be over right now!!!"

Hugs ~Pilar

 

We’ve been fans of rx since he first barged into our brains with his explosive political mashup album Dick Is a Killer (NSFW). The Imagine/Walk On The Wild Side track is thoroughly piercing satire, and if you haven’t seen the video that goes with the Sunday Bloody Sunday track, it’s certainly worth a
look. But that was 2005, this is now, and a new rx mashup/documentary has
popped up, starring former Alaska senator Mike Gravel of all people,
responding to not being allowed to participate in the Democratic candidate
debates held by CNN and MSNBC. As is typical of an rx joint, it is filled to the
brim with awesome. As atypical of an rx joint, the subject was a willing
participant. Long live YouTube democracy.

Even with rumors circulating of a writers-strike-ending deal, walking the line continues to be en vogue with stagehands in New York, miners in Namibia, TV writers in Los Angeles and transportation workers throughout France.

The writers strike is particularly fitting for the U.S. considering the American appetite for TV. But while Americans can live with repeats for a while (go, Seinfeld) the French transportation workers strike is absolutely devastating.

Imagine what would happen if every gas station attendant walked off the job demanding a livable salary, a health-care plan and a 401(k)? We’d be up le creek de merde with an useless combustion engine, that’s what.

Viewers who need their TV bakery fresh will salute Last Call host Carson Daly for crossing the line. He’s breaking ranks with his late night competitor colleagues and could be in a prime position to snag adrift viewers. But if the strike were to end in the next day or so, we can only imagine TV land is going to be a tough town for Daly.

Our intern Nicole DeLuca has been reading the police blotter. Here’s her report:

Don’t ask the Kardashian sisters what time it is or to take pictures—not that they wouldn’t be polite enough to help you. They were robbed.

On November 8, our sexy December cover girl, Kim (pictured), and her reality-TV-star sister, Kourtney, were at JFK airport heading to Las Vegas (right after our December launch party here in New York) when some kleptos stole a Cartier watch, digital camera, laptop computer and diamond baubles from their luggage. Grand total? Fifty grand worth of Kardashian goodies. Reps say that complaints will be filed against Delta airlines on Monday. 

Looks like intern Ben Conniff has been just marking time. Here’s his report:

George W. Bush hasn’t been a “sexy” president. But a new calendar by photographer Burke Heffner (no relation to our Hef—Burke’s got an extra “f” in there) suggests that you don’t have to be having sex with someone to be in bed with her. Or him. Or them.
    Each month of the calendar assigns a pinup girl to a different form of Bush corruption. Miss July bathes in a tub of oil, and thanks Georgie for starting a war for her. Miss April rolls nude in a pile of money, celebrating Bush’s tax breaks for the rich. The pictures include vital stats like income ($12.2 billion for February’s girl, “Mrs. Wal”) and turn-offs (Michael Moore for Miss June, a.k.a. “Robin DeSyck”). The calendar also points out fun dates like August 30, 2005, the day Dick Cheney ordered crews to fix oil pipelines running to the Northeast instead of restoring power to hospitals serving Hurricane Katrina victims.

Heffner’s love of vintage pinups goes well with his affinity for film noir; he likes innocent-looking girls getting dirty. The photos, like the subject matter, are pretty dark. But the combination of humor and beautiful women makes it all less depressing. And the end is in sight: the calendar finishes on January 20, 2009, the last day of Bush’s presidency.

A quarter of the calendar’s profits are going to go to watchdog groups to try to stop Dubya—and future presidents—from hopping in bed with special interests. Buy it at Heffner’s website. One warning: I’d skip March. The photo focuses on Miss Hal E. Burton, and he isn’t quite as fun to look at as his counterparts.

A.D. of Missoula, Montana, writes: “This is for KB in Atlanta, who wrote in November because his wife had become upset when he said he fantasized about having a threesome. I expressed the same fantasy to my wife years ago. She eventually decided that, with the help of one of her best friends, she would make it come true. It was a wonderful, exciting and scary experience. Scary because I did not think about what would happen if I appeared to have more fun with her friend than with her. It was a fine line to walk, but we all enjoyed it.”

In response to our response in December concerning “bloodless diamonds” and the fact that you can never be sure about a diamond’s origins unless you dig it up yourself, several readers wrote to say that Canada produces diamonds. The letter from J.D. in Barrie, Ontario was typical: “While there is no doubt that cultured diamonds are more ecologically sound, the Northwest Territories Government Monitoring and Certification program in Canada tracks each individual diamond from the initial mining stage through to the final cutting process. One company even brands their gems. Polar Bear Diamonds can be distinguished by a microscopically laser engraved polar bear on the girdle of each diamond.”

Benign character actor and sometimes-presidential candidate Fred Thompson ...

 

... and Beowulf's monster, Grendel?

 

Film nerds have been having fun lately pretending to be Brett Ratner, who’s signed on to direct a biopic of our own pajama-clad genius, Hugh M. Hefner. They don’t mind Ratner directing the movie, but they think they should cast the leading role. Monsters and Critics gleefully reported that Tom Cruise was angling to play the role, which pretty much takes some of the wind out of those Leonardo DiCaprio rumors that we’ve been hearing.

The contributors to the Playboy Mailing List (the granddaddy of the magazine’s fan boards) have been full of casting ideas—their main concern seems to be that whoever plays Hef should be Hef’s height (that’s about 5’ 8” or so). Hugh Jackman (another name frequently mentioned) is too damned tall for their tastes and they seem to have mixed emotions about Heath Ledger and Eric Bana. Meanwhile, over at Film Stew, Richard Horgan is putting a perverse spin on things: coming up with his own suggestions. His dream list includes Adrien Brody, John Cusack, Benecio del Toro, Ryan Gosling and (this is our personal favorite) Drew Carey.

If we were Hef, we’d be asking: What, no Brad Pitt?