The Funny Thing About Playboy

An idea formed while sitting at a bar, talking to the bartender, drinking Rogue Dead Guy

The funny thing about Playboy is that back in the day, old school--old school--Playboy was a serious, intelligent magazine. Sort of like Esquire. On the forefront of social issues of the day.

On one page you've got Hef talking to Martin Luther King, Jr. about serious, capital-I Issues, like the civil rights movement. Then you turn the page, and oh, look. Naked chicks.

I read the 1984 Playboy interview of Paul McCartney (and Linda, since God knows she could never keep out of anything) and aside from pointless Yoko-bashing it was a well-conducted interview. It having been God-only-knows how long since I've actually leafed through the magazine I have no clue if the quality of writing is as high as it used to be. Maybe if they'd interview important people again and stop trying to be Maxim they'd be decent again. Which reminds me, I should try finding the interview of John Lennon.

It also reminds me that, damn, Maxim is a terrible, terrible magazine. It's like USA Today. To hell with words! I want bite-sized information nuggets and graphs and charts and stuff!

A brief aside: Is my generation the last to have not spent their entire lives online? Is there anybody growing up these days to have had to raid Dad's stash? It's odd to think (and considering the... uh, "variety" of material out there, somewhat horrifying) that the children going through puberty these days are having their first holy crap it's a naked lady moment be some creepy Japanese tentacly-thing.

I wonder what Miss February 1991 is up to these days.

Also, Hef really needs to send a memo to the boys in the art department that airbrushing only hurts the pictorials. These women apparently don't have pores. The "I'm a wax doll" look is unnerving and wrong.

Maybe it's just the models they use. That girl from Flagler, Laura Croft? Not particularly impressive.