Seek the headwaters of the river of pain

Got a lot on my mindgrapes, more than I expected to. I’m just a little black raincloud, hovering over the honey tree. Stuff has been sneaking up on me. Tricksie feelings of Ways About Things hiding and falling out of every closet I open up.

Going to do some State of the State assessment tonight and find out what condition my condition is in, in the best ways I know how. Friendohs, beer, maybe some World Cup or something on the television. Get a feeling of security and normalcy while my wheels are turning. Send vibes and I’ll catch you on the flip!

The Girls of Summer: China Lee, Miss August 1964

Dazzle your friends with correct pronunciation! Say “China” so it rhymes with “Tina,” not the clinical term for bajango.

Photographed by Pompeo Posar.

During Spring Fever!, in the post on Gwen Wong, I mentioned Ms. Lee and promised to give her a post all her own in the future. Happy to say that the future is now.

Ms. Lee is a real trailblazer and true intellect. She was the first Asian-American Playmate of the Month. Not lovely Gwen Wong, and not PR (name removed at model’s request).

Extremely athletic, bright, witty, and outspoken, China (née Margaret) was totally busting up stereotypes well before it was chic to do so. Get it, girl!

Like past-spotlighted comic genius Laura Misch Owens, China Lee began as a Bunny in New Orleans before winding up at the original Chicago Playboy Club. Due to her winning combination of unique looks, well-above-average intelligence, and friendly, talkative nature, she quickly worked her way up to Training Bunny.

As the Playboy empire expanded and Hef opened Clubs in other cities across America, China got to travel and show new Bunnies — and club managers — the ropes all around the country.

Her teaching duties take her to a different location with every new Playboy Club opening — a job which suits her peripatetic nature to a T.

“If I had to describe myself in one word, it would be ‘active,'” China says. “I love to roam, and I love to keep busy!”

(“China Doll.” Payboy, August 1964.)

“Despite the fact that I’m always on the go, success has come to me without my seeking it. I didn’t even apply for my Bunny job — I was discovered in a New Orleans hairdresser’s shop.”

(Ibid.)

Ms. Lee was quite the jock at this time, enthusiastically describing the various sports she participated in:

High on her sports agenda is softball: Last season she pitched and won 12 games (“My windmill pitch is unhittable”), leading the New York Bunny softball team to the Broadway Show League championship.

(Ibid.)

Screeeee. What?! The NYC Club Bunnies had a softball team in a league?! And they were champions? Anyone with more info and especially pictures needs to be my hero and send it along, stat! That sounds wonderful and fun beyond anything the imagination can conjure.

Like icy-eyed Finnish novelist Kata Kärkkäinen, Miss December 1988, China Lee cheerfully reported in her interview that she traversed traditional gender/sports lines not only with that killer windmill pitch but also by handily mopping the floor with the competition at bowling.

“Miss August is also a pin-toppling bowler (she ran up a 217 at the age of 13), prize-winning equestrienne and jumper, expert swimmer and ping-pong player, as well as champion twister of all Bunnydom.

(Ibid.)

Twister like the party game or twister like “Shake it up, baby, now, etc,” with lots of cheerful shimmying around a dance floor? I’m guessing the latter. Seems more her speed!

Very little is made in the “China Doll” article of the fact that Ms. Lee was not exactly your garden variety gatefold WASP model. There is no deliberate, faux-innocent oversight of her heritage in some effort to prove super-open-mindedness, either, which I also consider a point in the magazine’s favor. A good balance is struck.

A native of New Orleans and the only member of her family of 11 not now in the Oriental restaurant line, China says: “Though I was born in America, my folks still follow Oriental ways: They speak the old language, read the old books, and follow the old customs. In this sort of environment, the men dominate and females are forced into the background. I rebelled, and I’m glad I did.”

(Ibid.)

Ms. Lee does not denigrate “Oriental”* tradition, merely comments on the aspect of that traditional environment that displeased her and from which she walked away. It’s done in a respectful and confident way. Very cool.

*When people use this word now it kind of makes my eyes itch for a second. I feel like it’s so high-handed and colonial. It’s like when people say “colored.” The original word meant no offense and is way better than a racial epithet, but we have even better ways of expressing that now, you know? It is a long-running joke with me, Paolo, and Miss D because we all lived in the Bay Area in the ’80’s when “Oriental” and “Hispanic” were leaving the vogue vocab in favor of more specific, group-elected terms. So when we see “Oriental” restaurant or “Hispanic” lawyer on a sign, we all eagerly point it out to each other the way hillbillies’ kids laugh at their grandparents for saying “Worsh.” (I can say that because I am one.)

After her Playboy appearance, Ms. Lee kept her ebullience and poise and continued to make friends and influence people. She is the dancer in the credits of Woody Allen’s first film, What’s Up, Tiger Lily?, a part which she supposedly lobbied very hard for with Allen, who was a friend of hers. The film itself is a farcical redubbing of the Japanese movie International Secret Police: Key of Keys; in Allen’s version, the intrigue surrounds the case of an egg salad recipe. China performs a striptease at the end credits for Allen, who plays himself, several dubbed voices, and the projectioner screening the film.

Here is a link to the clip of her dance on the youtube.

Ms. Lee also appeared on television series such as The Man from U.N.C.L.E. and alongside Tony Curtis and Sharon Tate in 1967’s beach movie Don’t Make Waves. The publicity campaign for Don’t Make Waves was of unprecedented size and ubiquity — though the film failed to live up to MGM’s box office expectations, the cultural impact was still very lasting.

As an example, the character Malibu, played by sunny and curvy Ms. Tate, is generally cited as the inspiration for Mattel’s world-famous “Malibu” Barbie, and several Coppertone tie-in ads for the film are still reproduced in text books for marketing classes. I will go deeper in to Don’t Make Waves in August, during Sharon Tate’s ACTUAL LIFE Awareness Month.

Ms. Lee dated Robert Plant for a while, but ultimately she settled with political comedian, activist, occasional Kennedy joke-penner, and all around cramazing dude, one of the Comedy Greats, Mort Sahl.

Sahl’s influence on aspects of comedy from modern stand-up to The Daily Show is basically immeasurable. You have probably seen Fred Armisen on SNL perform a political comedian character he created named Nicholas Fehn who is not a send-up of Sahl, himself, but rather a send-up of Sahl’s admirers who can never quite touch the master. It’s the guy with the pullover sweater and Armisen’s own glasses, an army surplus coat and a light brown longish wig, who shows up on the Weekend Update with a newspaper in his hand and tries to make jokes of the headlines but can never quite finish his sentences: this using the newspaper as a jumping-off point for humorous discourse was a trademark move of Sahl’s.

China and Mort Sahl married in 1967 and remained together until their divorce in 1991. They had a son, Mort Sahl, Jr., who passed away in 1996. R.I.P. to him and condolences to both of them. I’m glad I got to share about some really cool, interesting people in this post. I’m feeling more upbeat than I was. Thanks for coming along!

I suspect that cover is another Beth Hyatt/Pompeo Posar pairing. Note how the pose and her dress make the trademark, cocked-ear bunny silhouette, mirrored by the small logo sketched in the sand by her right hand. It’s similar, though not as racily sexy, to the rear shot one they did where her dress was open at the back and the straps snaking around her shoulders formed the ears. This time it’s her legs and kicked-off shoes. See it?

June is bustin’ out all over — time to jump along with it

Today has gone about as I expected, but with weirdly more zen-like contentment and even restrained happiness.

The principal as much as said at the interview that she would have to go with the more experienced teacher to fill the position at the school where I’ve been working as an aide and substitute, no matter how she felt personally about me, due to parent demand for fully credentialed teachers, as I had anticipated. I assured her I understood that with the parents, it is always a delicate balance and I appreciated that she was in an awkward position. We agreed it was a shame that I can’t in good conscience take out a loan and pursue my credential until I have a job to finance that academic endeavor, and the promise of one in my own field is worth holding out for, but I can’t secure a position like that without proof I am at least beginning an effort to be in a credential program, which puts me in this awful Catch-22.

Brigitte Bardot photographed by Phillipe Halsman, 1951.

But overall it was a really positive, loving, and upbeat interview, and it accomplished my chief goal, which was to demonstrate the sincerity of my committment to the little community she has created at her school. She was really nice and spoke glowingly of things she hoped we would be able to do in the near future. She said frankly that she wanted me on her staff and that once this position was filled according to tradition and political appeasement, there would not be pretty much any competition for whatever new openings may arise next year. It was a good talk.

via Square America.

So. Happy thoughts. Great things happening in my life with these tutoring jobs for the Scamps and kidlet finishing up kindergarten tomorrow, plus my Katohs graduates high school tonight, and all in all I’ve got a million things to be thankful about and a new season in which to celebrate them. And I have decided — no more hiding and tossing in my sleep. No more anxiety and self-doubt constantly wracking me. No more tearing at my fingernails and spitting them out while my mind hashes through all the ways things can go wrong and obsesses over my bank account.

Audrey Hepburn photographed by Philippe Halsman, 1955.

Time to start leaping a little. Let’s do it!

Daily Batman: Wings of imagination

“The man who has no imagination has no wings.”

— Muhammad Ali

Spring Fever!: Inaugural Edition feat. Gwen Wong, Miss April 1967

I’ve fallen down completely on the job of keeping up the journal, mainly because I’ve got so many dogs in the fire that I don’t know where to begin to express my feelings about them. Besides being an outlet for emotions, this so-called thought experiment was supposed to be a project that would force me to write something every day, and I have not been doing so. I’ve let feeling Ways About Things totally overwhelm me and paralyze my writing. That changes today.

The one thing that can always get some creative and otherwise positive juices flowing for me is writing about the Playmates, so welcome to Spring Fever! They say April is the cruellest month, but I am going to do my best to make it the kindest every ding-dong day. Starting ……. now.

Venus in argyle.

Photographed by Mario Casilli and Gene Trindl.

This adorable cardigan and knee-socks sporting model is Miss April 1967, the lovely and talented Gwen Wong. I think her photoshoot was really a great one.

Just well-lit, and done so with a striking ambience, not with a lot of artificial lighting, with makeup and styling that is kicky but not overly fetishistic, just a very fun and natural shoot — and, most admirably to my mind, I think it is delightfully and matter-of-factly progressive given the time and place (Cold War America at the end of the Korean War, heightening of the conflict in Vietnam, pitch of the Red Scare, a time when there was still a lot of “otherization” of the unfamiliar, etc) in which it appeared. I wish I could say the same for the text which accompanied the shoot, but overall it is not so bad that Edward Said is calling out hits or anything.

The credit of first Asian-American Playmate of the Month is sometimes erroneously given to Gwen Wong. While Ms. Wong has many awesome merits of her own, she is not, in fact, the first Asian-American gatefold model.

That honor belongs to Margaret “China (rhymes with Tina)” Lee, who was Miss August 1964 and performs the memorable striptease which runs over the credits for Woody Allen’s What’s Up, Tiger Lily?. As further old school and timeless comedy cred goes, China was married to the great Mort Sahl from 1967 to 1991. She also dated Robert Plant.

I think this is as “typical” as the photoshoot got. That’s pretty cool in my book, all appropriate due given to the temporal setting.

But enough about Ms. Lee. I should give her her own entry one of these days, and we’ll cover that then. Don’t let me forget. Back to Gwen Wong, who justly deserves the attention.

Born in Manila during the latter part of World War Two … Miss Wong is, in fact, a startlingly beautiful blend of six nationalities: Chinese, Scottish, Spanish, Australian, Filipino and Irish.

(“Spice From the Orient,” (groan) Playboy, April 1967.)

As you can see, Ms. Wong lists Filipino among the handful of her ethnic identities and it’s clearly stated she was born in Manila, which dramatically undermines the claim to the title of first Filpino-American Playmate made by Playboy in the lovely and talented PR (Miss November 1988, name removed at model’s request)’s write up some twenty-one years later.

If you followed NSFW November, you may remember [model’s name removed at request] as the lovely lady whose entire entry I accidentally spent describing the Thrilla in Manila fight (aka Frazier-Ali III) instead of talking a single bit about the naked girl in the pictures around the text.

I promised then, after I was done gushing about the greatest boxing match in history, that I would try and mention the other another day. That day is now and once again, this is probably not how she’d have hoped that to go — citing someone else as the real titleholder of her one noteworthy (at that time) characteristic. Sorry, kiddo, but who can deny the awesomeness of Ms. Wong?

So when I’m done with this entry on completely radical Gwen, I’ll try and work up some brief copy on the other’s bummer choices in dudes with which I can totally emapthize to appear later in the week because it turns out she’s all kinds of a quite interesting in a glass-ceiling-busting, con-man-choosing kind of way (we ladies must trailblaze). Yet again, most likely not the way anyone would’ve like to be immortalized in google’s search returns, but what can you do!

An expert cook, Miss April is equally adept at whipping up wor shew opp, scungilli or boeuf Bourguignonne. “Cooking has almost become a mania with me,” she says. “I collect cookbooks the same way people collect LPs.” Before becoming a Bunny, Gwen studied painting and ceramics at California’s El Camino Junior College. (Ibid.)

“Frankly,” she says, “most modern art confuses me, although I wouldn’t classify myself as a traditionalist. I try not to be swayed by other people’s opinions when visiting a gallery, but that’s not always easy. I like to think if a canvas is good I’ll know it — because, well, I’ll feel it.” (Ibid.)

So true.

Special K and I were at her Humboldt orientation this weekend and it happened to be the Arts! Arcata night on Friday, so while she was attending a mixer for incoming freshmen, I slipped from the campus downtown to the Arts! events so as not to be That Guy hanging around outside waiting for the kid they are chaperoning and embarassing the crap out of said kid.

The work being shown at various galleries and makeshift exhibitions inside boutiques and bars was a real mix of media as far as form, but the content and thrust of the work was generally what I think can be termed “modern” art. Some of what I saw really resonated with me, while there was other work to which I felt zero connection. But I don’t think subjectivity alone can explain why some people buy certain modern art.

I’d like to think that everyone who buys a piece buys it because they love it, but I doubt that’s so. I think there is a combination of snobbery and peer pressure, too, from other collectors and from people in the business. I hope to never buy something because I’m told it’s cool. So what I’m saying is, I understand where Ms. Wong is coming from with her statement.

Miss Wong is also a jazznik and prefers the singing of Morgana King and Ella Fitzgerald among at least a score of recording artists she admires. (Ibid.)

“Jazznik.” That is somehow quaint. Besides being a textbook great in jazz history, Mo King would also go on to feature in the Godfather movies as Carmella Corleone, second wife of Don Vito Corleone and mother to Fredo, Connie, and Michael (and I guess kind of, you know, a foster mom or whatever to Tom Hagen), positively double-cementing her perpetual place in my heart. Well-called, Ms. Wong!

According to the wiki, Ms. Wong is an artist these days. She specializes in body-casting. The wiki entry on her calls it that, but I’m more familiar with the term Lifecasting. Body casting makes me think of, like, broken hips and stuff. Bad scene.

Anyway, this has been your inaugural edition of Spring Fever! and I hope you enjoyed it.

NSFW November: Tonja Christensen, Miss November 1991

And Then There Was One.

Your final Miss November is Playboy’s November 1991 Playmate of the Month, the lovely and talented Tonja Christensen. She is last because, next to Monica Tidwell and Bebe Buell, I think she is the prettiest of the girls of November. Someday I will examine my feminine beauty ideals, but not today because I’m busy. Anyway, I am afraid that, though I saved her for last because I thought she was beautiful, it is a mixed blessing; she bears the brunt of my boredom and busy-ness, because I’ve not got time nor inclination to say much about her. Going to let the interview with her do most of the talking.

Photographs by Stephen Wayda

Blonde, blue-eyed and gutsy Tonja Marie Christensen, who just turned 20, has come a long way in the past two years — 5800 miles, to be exact, the distance from West Valley City, Utah, a sleepy suburb of Salt Lake City, to cosmopolitan Barcelona, Spain’s second largest city. There, while the Catalan capital gears up for the 1992 Olympics, she’s diligently pursuing a dual career in modeling and acting. (“A Blonde in Barcelona,*” Playboy, November 1991)

Dang, I forgot there even was a Summer Olympics in Barcelona. There are new ones coming up, you know. Everyone hurry and get jingoistic about sports! Also, buy Doritos!!

*Gracious, that is just a damned ridiculous title. Barcelona is from where many a blonde Spaniard hails. Everyone knows that there are tons of hot (and not) fair people in Spain. With over 3 million people living in the city at the time of Tonja’s residency, I sincerely doubt she stood out because of her hair color in any way, shape, or form. You may just as well have said, “A two-legged person,” or even “A person from another country who lives” … “in Barcelona.” Jesus. What a stupid, Americanized view of what Spanish people look like to advance. Shame on you, Playboy: I expect you to be more international and dashing and man-of-foreign-knowledgey than that.

Our Miss November was one of nine children, an example she doesn’t plan to follow. “I believe families should be three or four children at most,” she says.

An intriguing viewpoint for a girl from Utah. Goodness knows, I know the playmates do not like it when assumptions are made about their religion (see last entry for a brave girl who was not embarassed to be of an identifiable faith and culture) … but … come on. Hint, hint, ya know?

Two things weird me out totally about the above shot.

Her arm hair has, like, its own set of dewy crystalline eye lights shining in it.

Her pubic hair has been either dyed or cell-painted to match her fake (though lovely!) head-hair color. In the previous shots it is dark.

See, I have a couple rules of thumb for gentlemen who want to imagine ladies sans clothing — I know you are few and far between because that is like, so gross, what with our widely-documented girl cooties and all, but bear with me for the sake of those perverse and unhappy freaks among you who actually picture women naked — and I am happy to share them. First, a lady’s pubic hair is nearly always the same shade as the coarse hair of her brows. So lay the drapes aside altogether, discard their color completely, and, unless you are pretty sure the gal you are gawking at has bleached or somehow cosmetically altered them, her eyebrows are your best bet as to the color of the carpet.

Similarly, the color of her lips without the aid of gloss, lipstick, rouge, permanent surgical lining assistance, or any other type of makeup is your leading predictor of the color of her nipples. Finally, a few shades darker but in the same family of hues as the lips and “nips” follow the labia (those can get rosier/darker brown depending on her arousal level and whether she is Northern European or has stronger Sapphardic Jew DNA — Caucus mountains and Eastern/Southern Europe are less pink and more browny-purple, and obviously your ladies from Africa and its subcontinent follow suit in deeper shades as well). Take those tips to the bank, y’all. You’re welcome!

Wow, I did not even realize there was a time when LaToya Jackson did not look like a total freak made of 90% post-consumer recyclable parts. She looks comparably human here. You’d think one of her psychic friends would have warned her of the Madamism syndrome of too much plastic surgery! Better luck in your next life, LaToya.

NSFW November: Lindsay Wagner, Miss November 2007

Do not confuse Miss November 2007, Lindsay Wagner, with the 1970’s-era Bionic Woman star and mattress spokesmodel of the same name. This one hails from Nebraska and was a ring girl for the Omaha Fight Club (she’s not in it, so it’s okay for her to talk about it, I guess).

Photographed by Stephen Wayda

I think this may be the first Miss November we’ve seen with a total and complete lack of hair, you know, Down There. Gosh. Pubic alopecia in one so young (barely legal at the time of this shoot) is a tragic thing to see. Breaks the heart. Maybe next time you get a haircut, you could sweep it up and send her a little merkin? Just to keep her warm. Hardwood floors get cold in the winter, y’all.

This Lindsay can’t bend steel, but she’s got a straight right that will have you seeing stars. “We have an Omaha Fight Club,” she says, “and I’m a ring girl when my brothers compete. I don’t fight, but I train in self-defense and practice with a lot of guys.” (“Nebraksa Knockout,” Playboy, November 2007)

“I thought I’d never make Playboy in a million years,” Lindsay says. “I’m confident in the way I look, but you know how girls sometimes have the feeling they’re not good enough to accomplish something?”

I think a shade of that concern shows, but only a shade. I don’t know what these girls think that Playboy is, that they get so nervous. Unless it’s the money that freaks them out — I mean it is a big shot at some pretty good cash if you don’t blow it. I guess that could be spooky. Still, it’s not like a firing squad: it’s just a camera.

The only shot that I think in this spread has any merit, composition-wise, is the centerfold up top. It’s pretty hackneyed at this point to have the girl in men’s clothing like she has just come from raiding your closet, but it’s still cute. And she manages to make it look fresh. The best thing about all these pictures is that she has a nice smile and good eye contact. She doesn’t look frozen or fearful or dramatic. Just friendly and fun-loving. That’s appropriate for her age and how she’s been styled and sold in the interview. Good stuff all around, just not, like “great,” which is totally outside of her control. Her end of the quality is solid. And that is me being really strong and not crazy, because the truth is, she looks to me like my dear friendoh the Cappy’s ex, who you need to know is a no-good slack-cunted slagwhore cumdumpster, and I am battling to keep the strong association I have with her appearance out of my opinion of this nice girl, here, and be fair and not let my head get hot and melt my brain. (I get really, really protective of my friends, to the point that if I find someone has injured them in some way I can turn on that person on a dime *snap* and try to set them on fire with my thoughts.)

You can hit Ms. Wagner up on the myspace (current mood: “sad :(” — that is no good at all, maybe you could send her a glittery graphic or something, okay?), but I cannot, as she breaks my Movie Dating Rule: she was born after the release of Mannequin (1987). She can throw me a wink in a couple years, when I’ve once more lowered my standards! I’m thinking next stop, The Sandlot (1993).

Ugh, thanks Playboy cover, for reminding me that, besides being a cheating fuckface in his sporting life, Barry Bonds is also a cheating fuckface off the diamond. He even bought That Woman a house in Scottsdale so he could boff her during spring training while his wife was home with their daughter. Meanwhile, he drug his first wife through a humiliating series of court battles to keep her from getting his earnings, which she wanted to continue to sock away in savings for the education of their two sons. Gar, what a dishonorable goddamned waste of a human being all around he is. Such potential, so many opportunities handed to him, and such terrible choices he has made. Terrible choices. That is so weak. Ugh! Now I’m in a bad mood.

NSFW November: Miss November 2000, Buffy Tyler

Your Y2K Miss November was Buffy Tyler, who posed for her Playboy centerfold and soon joined Hef’s at that time very large posse of girlfriends, coming and going at the mansion in Holmby Hills as she pleased, because what’s a 70-something old man with a business to run and seven other girlfriends going to say about it?

Photographed by Stephen Wayda

Eventually, somebody had something to say about it, of course. Buffy got the boot when everyone else did, which is to say around February, 2002 when (until recently) brilliant Holly Madison dug her french-manicured fingertips deep enough in to Hugh Hefner’s inner circle to become his number one gal and, with Kevin Burns, select two other distinct women — Bridget Marquhardt, the sweet, quiet one, and Kendra Wilkinson, the sporty, brash one, both of whom were clearly coached to play second fiddle to Holly’s alpha status as brains and beauty of the operation — and sell him on the idea of the highly marketable “Girls Next Door.”

Thus began a very clever publicity juggernaut, including well-covered frequent trips to Disneyland and the Bajas, film crew coverage of which eventually got them all on cable television and has essentially revived the then-flagging company. The Girls Next Door and its spinoffs and specials have established a firm and even semi-legitimate toehold for Playboy television projects on more channels than merely their own, opening a wide door for expansion of their corporation. Unfortunately, the recent dips in the market across the board have meant that, despite their being more famous and popular than ever, proportionally, Playboy has suffered some losses and seen their stocks drop.

The Gentleman even mentioned to me over soosh bombasticos not long back that he’d heard it was rumored that Hef, who is a 70% shareholder, was finally looking to sell. This does not mean that he is trying to totally get out from under Playboy like it is some lead balloon that is falling fast, do not mistake the feelers for that, but rather that he recognizes they are presently holding on to an unfortunately precaroius top in a notoriously difficult business (its ups and downs mirror the economy and, as a businessman, you are constantly threatened by cheap and abundant competition; think about it).

With their recent highly-public successes, despite their shaky numbers in the last year, now’s still the time to finally start taking some of the bids from media mega-conglomerates like Hearst and Conde-Nast, who have approached Hef time and again over the years hoping to acquire his empire under other names and start reaping the benefits while still appearing not to have their hands soiled by the skin-rag trade. (Don’t be fooled by articles that have other corporations listed as the top bidders — media peoples is veddy tricksy, okay.)

Again — *sigh* — I am so disappointed in Holly Madison for abandoning her project right when she was on top. This could have all been hers to share! This is partly her victory! What a time to develop short-sighted integrity, over a sleazy scumbag magician, no less. I thought she was flintier and more patient than this. I mean, I empathize: I have loved me some rotten, rangy, skeevy, drug-addled assholes in my day. But they totally ruined me, so, it’s like, what is she thinking. Whoa. Maybe that’s part of my disappointment. I’ll have to think about that.

Back to Ms. Tyler. Hit her up on the myspace (current mood: “flirty!”) or gawk at pics of her with sometimes-girlfriend and present roommate Suzanne Stokes (Miss February 2000). And may I add that, when it comes to sexual behaviors, one of the few things I hate more than overly-slowly-paced foreplay — get a move on and let’s do this!, is how I see it — is chicks who only lez out when there’s boys around. I’m not surprised, given the dates of their Playboy appearances, that they’re trotting out this tired gimmick, though. Remember in the early 2000’s when faux lesbianism in front of men was all the rage? Girls all half-heartedly tonguing at every barstool, not even closing their eyes. Lame. If you’re not going to do it in the dressing room, then don’t dry hump on the mainstage, you know what I mean? False advertising: I decry it!

I like to do really outrageous things – I jump headfirst instead of feetfirst. I cannot sit still.” Oh really? “I was dating this guy and had his name tattooed on my rear,” she confesses. “The next morning I said to myself, ‘Oh, Buffy, what did you do?’ Now that I’m no longer with him, I’m going to have to get and arrow drawn through it or something.” (“She’s So Buffy,” Playboy, November 2000.)

As much as I just bashed Ms. Tyler (sorry, chitlin!), I do think that’s a cute and a fun story right there. I’m not an illustrated lady, myself, but if I can say I admire a thing about those with tattoos, I guess it’s that they feel things passionately, and that is always a sweet and endearing quality in a person.

I note that Chyna is the cover model. As much as I admire an all-around kickass lady and good-time-gal, I have to say that these days I would more likely pay her to stay dressed than to take it off. Sorry, Chyna. Please don’t come and squash me.

NSFW November: Lorraine Olivia, Miss November 1990

I never thought I’d say this, but I am getting pretty well sick of these Playboy posts.

But a commitment is a commitment. I told myself I’d do all the Miss Novembers this November, and I am damned well going to. The fact that I’ve found my energy is flagging is all part of the experiment, and I need to see it as a challenge to my creativity to keep it poppin’ fresh for myself as I finish the month. I have only a few days left and something like ten or eleven more ladies to do, so let’s blow this up. Lovely and talented Ms. Lorraine Olivia, Playboy‘s Miss November 1990, won’t you please take it away for us?

You may guess what her day job was (flight attendant), but her hobby is sports. Besides being an avid athlete herself, she passionately avowed her love for the teams in Chicago, her home base.

In fact, in her Playmate interview, Ms. Olivia says that she used to ditch her high school jobs so frequently to go down to Wrigley to catch a Cubs game that she had to try and keep track of which excuses she had already used.

She started rooting for them during their big 1984 season; they were the cause of frequent no-shows at the car dealership and the pharmacy where she held jobs: “I always had to ask myself, Did I use that excuse last week?” (Note to future employers: Lorraine’s favorite excuse was that she had to “check out colleges.”) (“High Flier,” Playboy, November 1990.)

I can get behind that: quit your job and go on tour! Though I generally used to say this only in reference to what any musician with a day job ought to do, I have recently begun to apply it across the board in the general spirit of “follow your dreams.” As my brother-in-law says that my husband taught him, “Don’t follow the money and look for the love: do what you love and the money will follow.” This is interesting to me because, presently, my husband has not returned to finish his Bachelor’s of Fine Arts in painting despite our separation meaning that he has more free time, money, and less obligation than during our marriage and that there is therefore literally no time like the present to pursue his dreams — instead, he still works for the heartless banking corporation he got a job with after we got married and he deferred enrollment at his art school. I’m not sure why. I do not ask him difficult things until I think he is ready to talk about it.

In addition to modeling and appearing in Playboy videos (notably their “Women of Color” collections — oh, that PC prince of porn, Hugh Hefner; lord love him!), she has had one other acting part. She appeared in an episode of Fresh PRince of Bel-Air as “Playmate.” She clearly has a stunning range, and I hope you consider her for your next big part. Speaking of flicks:

FAVORITE IN-FLIGHT MOVIE:
Fabulous Baker Boys.

WHAT THEY DON’T TEACH YOU IN STEWARDESS SCHOOL:
How to deal with five unaccompanied children who like to play with the call button.

CUTEST CHICAGO CUB:
Mike Bielecki.

Really, Bielecki? Was he super-cute back then? Hmm, let’s find an old card and take a little look-see, shall we?

Yes. Bielecki cuteness affirmative. I approve. Love me some cornfed baseball-boy hotness. Speaking of which, Ms. Olivia, if you are ever giving yourself the ol’ googly-moogly and run across my blog, please give me a holler in re: current Cubby Mike Fontenot, because, just personally? I believe him to be the beginning and end of all tiny but mighty strawberry-towheaded heat and possibly an alternate source of energy whose adorableness could power the nation’s ballpark lights well in to the 2020s. Your thoughts?

Please, Mike Fontenot, don’t hurt ’em. They call him Little Big Man. He is the BOMB!

And your man Ryan Thierot is nothing to sneeze at, either! On the other hand, you may keep Alfonso Soriano, and may you have better luck with him than my team did. He still holds the Yankee record for most strikeouts in a season evah (157) — a dubious honor if I ever heard one.

NSFW November: Miss November 1988

The lovely and talented Miss November 1988, was reported in her interview to be the first Filipino model to appear in Playboy.

“I am an ethnic jumble,” says [name]. … “My parents had their Filipino friends — my Mom was always cooking this smelly fish — but I grew up like a white suburban kid. I played lacrosse, basketball and tennis. (“Thrilla from Manila,” Playboy, November 1988)

They called her article, “Thrilla From Manila,” but actually she grew up in Havertown, Pennsylvania. In case you don’t get the title (which makes you absolutely no son of mine), it is a reference to the third and final fight between heavyweight boxers Cassius “Muhammad Ali” Clay and Joe Frazier for the title of Heavyweight Boxing Champion of the World, which took place in the Philippines on October 2, 1975.

The fight finally brought to a conclusion a bitter rivalry that had been going since 1971, that for my money is one of the best stories in the history of sports (where is its movie, Hollywood???). This one’s got it all, guys: draft-dodging, personal jealousies, the backdrop of major historical events, the freaking President getting involved, even. And through it all, two very different but very contentious personalities, Frazier and Ali, duking it out verbally and physically, in the press and in pre-fights. In the Thrilla in Manila, they went fourteen grueling, brutal rounds, both fighting to the point of almost total physical exhaustion before boxing official Eddie Futch declared Ali the victor (he said at the time it was to spare Frazier’s life, although really either could have gone).

Frazier protested stopping the fight, shouting “I want him boss,” and trying to get Futch to change his mind.

Futch simply replied, “It’s all over. No one will forget what you did here today”, and signaled to the referee to end the bout. Ali was therefore declared the victor.

He would later claim that this was the closest to dying he had ever been, and also stated, “Joe Frazier, I’ll tell the world right now, brings out the best in me. I’m gonna tell ya, that’s one helluva man, and God bless him.”

In a brief post-fight interview with one of the commentators, Ali announced, “He is the greatest fighter of all times, next to me.” (the wiki)

Do you even understand how major all of that is? Boxing is not as violent as you think, and it’s not always just big fat guys hugging (I always say, “Get a room or start punching”), not when you have two men in the ring as skilled as Frazier and the Greatest. Though you seldom see it at the heavyweight level, you see it more often with middle and welter (not bantam as much cause they’re so quick it’s like the cockfight from which their category’s name comes), it’s a graceful and carefully plotted series of moves, like a bloody ballet, it’s like … like art. It’s a dance. And you have these two combatants who are so equally matched that they are like hell-soul-mates, made to fight each other. That’s just, it’s just — like… god… oh, man, I honestly get misty just thinking about that event. That is some great motherfucking sports right there. I wish I had been born to see it firsthand, but I’ve watched clips of it on ESPN classic. (Boy, I miss having that) Le sigh.

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As an epilogue, this story gets even better, in my opinion, because dig this: In June of 2001, guess who met for a grudge match on the Thrilla in Manila fight? Their freaking daughters. The fight was re-enacted, sort of, in New York by Laila “She Bee Stingin'” Ali and Jackie “Sister Smoke” Frazier-Lyde in what the press called Ali/Frazier IV. Laila, sixteen years younger than Jackie and with a little more training under her belt, took it in eight. But I love that both of them went for it! What a great story.

Finally, dig the Jessica Rabbit cover! God bless ya, Roger Rabbit and all of 1988. And to Miss November 1988, about whom this entry is not even at all remotely concerned, sorry. It’s not your fault that I think boxing is more interesting than whatever your little turn-ons and ambitions were. I feel kind of badly now. How about this? I will try to make it up to you another day, I swar to gar. You will get more attention from me later. Unless I forget.

This is me listening to Joe Buck (now with 80% more concentrated vitriol)

Listening to Joe Buck, actually listening to the words he says and attempting to string them together, is like staring into the Ark of the goddamned Covenant. Face all melting, eyes all exploding, regret the last thing you ever have time to feel …

Ugh. Even with the Yanks up, I am still turning that twat OFF and following the game from the slow but silent safety of Gameday on mlb.com, away from his inaccurate facts and banal, inane comments like, “I don’t like Kazmir’s pace.” Guess what, Joe Buck? He doesn’t like you. Not even Conan’s charity challenge can make this man’s incessant patter palatable to me.

Thanks for going with your usual shitty announcers who know nothing about the AL for its goddamned Championship Series, Fox. (two finger-pop) PEACE.

Apologies for the hateration. I try to be nice. But I simply think that, when you look at the empirical evidence, and consider all the facts together with a cool and reasonable head, it becomes apparent that Joe Buck is a total cockring.

edit: I turned off the game, ate, and turned the TV back on just in time to hear A-Rod called “Posada.” BLARGHGHGHGHGHGH (flesh bubbling, eyes dangling before being consumed in flame) ….