What kind of “man” read Playboy? Young boys searching for titillation

It was a scene towards the end of the 1978 film “Animal House” that seems to be all too appropriate as we note the death this week of Hugh Hefner – the man who gave us Playboy as a magazine and lifestyle, and took the concept of girlie mags away from the ancient images of nudists playing volleyball on the beach.

A four-decade old cinematic moment ...

That scene was the one where the Homecoming parade at fictional Faber College was being thrown all awry by the vengeful Delta House fraternity that had just been closed down by the venal Dean Vernon Wormer.

ONE FLOAT IN the parade got slammed into – and a girl onboard the float dressed in a Playboy bunny costume got tossed into the air, where she went soaring through the sky and into an open window of a nearby house.

... that somehow seems relevant today

Where she came to rest in the bed of a young boy who, from the looks of it, had been sneaking peaks at a Playboy magazine.

“Thank you, God” was his response at the thought of a real-live girl to accompany the photographic images he had been checking out just moments earlier.

An image like this may well be the perfect visualization of the Playboy legacy. Not that I’m saying every kid who ever checked out a magazine suddenly got a real girl thrown into his midst.

Playboy Building and Mansion still stand in Chicago ...

BUT WHILE HEFNER himself liked to claim some sort of high-minded image for himself as a sexual liberator who even made women themselves free to enjoy sex, I wonder if throughout the years Playboy, the magazine, became something that young kids went out of their way to sneak peeks at in order to try to figure out what the big deal was.

Which, of course, meant the generations of kids who got caught, and got punished, for “sneaking a peek” at daddy’s copies of girlie mags.

Just the other day, I saw a rerun of a “Friends” episode – the one in which Courteney Cox’ “Monica” character was obsessed with finding out why she didn’t get invited to her cousin’s wedding.

When brother “Ross” (played by David Schwimmer) tried defending the cousin, Monica got him back on her side by informing him that the cousin had been the one who, as a child, snitched to their mother that Ross had been sneaking peeks at Playboy.

... but their hedonistic days are long past

PERSONALLY, MY MEMORY of first seeing Hugh Hefner’s creation came when I was about 8 (I think). It was something I stumbled across (and inspected) when the parents weren’t around. Because I’m fairly sure my mother, in particular, would have disapproved. I also remember around that same time seeing an episode of "The Odd Couple" in which Hefner himself appeared.

I do recall one other time when a copy of Playboy stirred up some attention – it would be the summer I worked for the Cook County recorder of deeds. The magazine had a feature on Marla Collins – whom hard-core fans of the team remember as the one-time ball girl who on-field worked in short shorts and a tight Cubs pullover jersey.

But for the feature, she appeared in various pieces of lingerie – which is what got the Cubs management all riled up to where she got fired.

Which is why a group of county employees (fairly low-ranking) felt compelled to pass around the magazine copy we had obtained so we could see what the big deal was. A tad too prudish on the Cubs part, was our reaction. Although I'm sure our boss, then-county Recorder Harry "Bus" Yourell, would have had a fit if he had caught us goofing off with Playboy when we were supposed to be working.

Generation of Cubs fans see Marla as glamour girl

I HAVEN’T SEEN a copy of Playboy in years – yes, I’m too cheap to pay the $12.99 newsstand price, and don’t feel compelled to get a subscription. The articles that allegedly are of such a high quality that you want to actually READ the magazine aren’t what they used to be.

Then again, many printed word publications aren’t what they used to be. Too much trash available on the Internet, where the written word somehow loses something in translation.

Besides, I wonder if the younger generation thinks of Hefner as being something more of a “dirty old man” who appeared on television living with various incarnations of three girls at a time. Something more to be pitied than envied.

So as we note the passing Wednesday of Hefner at age 91, it should be pointed out that future generations of youngsters will figure out ways to get at websites their parents don’t want them to see. But somehow, the computer screen and downloading some explicit, trashy video doesn’t offer the same experience as that glossy-paged centerfold, while listening for the sound of parental footsteps off in the distance.

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T-R-U-M-P – all a matter of perspective

The Trump-less way many would prefer to think of Chicago skyline

I had to be at the Daley Center courthouse last week for another hearing in an ongoing lawsuit I’m writing about these days, and one of the things I like about trips there is when I can cover something in one of the top floors of the 30-plus story building.

You can get some up-close and personal views of the Chicago skyline – such as being able to look DOWN on the First United Methodist Church building located across the street.

Trump contribution to Chicago

BUT BY CHANCE in a bit of down time during a court hearing, I happened to catch a glimpse out of a window facing to the north of what has become an architectural controversy (or travesty, depending on one’s opinion).

The Trump Tower right on the Chicago River that is one of the city’s tallest buildings (albeit not as big as the Willis Tower that so many of us still call Sears).

And from my perspective on the 25^th floor, I could look down on the building and see the letters that are getting so many people riled up.

T-R-U-M-P. As in The Donald wants to ensure that EVERYBODY knows this is his building in Chicago. One with a riverfront view as such that everybody along Wacker Drive can see it – as well as anybody coming in from Lake Michigan into the city on the river.

 

Looking down from Daley Center

THE BUILDING IS just like the man himself – all about garishness being mistaken for class. Just like way too many rap and country/western music stars!

Yet I have to admit that from my Daley Center view, the lettering that gets so many people all worked up seemed to have a proper perspective.

It is, after all, one of the city’s tallest buildings (nearly 1,400 feet tall). So the idea of letters that are 20 feet tall is a matter of perspective.

The “TRUMP” sign wasn’t any more ostentatious than the letters atop the building advertising that Kemper Corp. insurance is located at 1 E. Wacker Dr. I noticed their sign as well.

 

Palmolive Building view before iconic sign

I’LL BE THE first to admit that the New York-based real estate developer is way too overbearing for us to have to put up with. Particularly since he comes across as though he believes the structures he is erecting are permanent reminders of his existence on this planet.

Does Trump believe his tower in Chicago is his reminder to the Midwestern U.S. that he was here? That the structure will still be standing some 3,000 years from now?

As though it makes him immortal?

Heck, I’m old enough to remember when the Palmolive Building bore the name of PLAYBOY, and had that “Bunny Beacon” atop the structure that could be seen from several hundred miles away.

NOW, WHO REMEMBERS that the magazine’s sign was ever there. Or even that Hugh Hefner’s attempt at a sophisticated girlie magazine was ever a Chicago-based company?

A large part of the reason I can’t get too worked up at the sight of T-R-U-M-P on the Chicago River is that I know full well the day will come when the sign will be no more.

Do I think Mayor Rahm Emanuel is letting himself get way too worked up with his governmental efforts to try to force the sign’s removal? Of course. If anything, he’s merely feeding into Trump’s ego by making him think he’s all the more important on the Chicago scene.

 

A real iconic sign

Emanuel ought to let this fight go. He’d find out just how quickly Chicagoans would learn to ignore this bit of garishness. Heck, we manage to ignore a lot of tacky (the remodeled Soldier Field, for example) items that exist in our city.

IN THE END, Trump will get his comeuppance when his attempt at a memorable structure winds up getting lost in the skyline shuffle.

And a century from now, nobody will be remembering the T-R-U-M-P lettering as anywhere near iconic as the Magikist lips!

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Is the Playboy Club’s place in Chicago a couple of lines in the history books?

It seems that Hugh Hefner is making a serious bet that the proposed television show “The Playboy Club” will be a success.

The program to air this autumn on NBC is set at the Playboy Club of old on Walton Street back in the early 1960s when the concept of waitresses showing ample cleavage (with uniforms designed in a way to push-up and accentuate their assets even further) was something new.

IF THE PROGRAM becomes a success (it is supposed to be about the culture clashes that were beginning to take place in those early years of the decade), I could well see some people wanting to check out “the real thing.”

They’re going to want to go to the Playboy Club to see if it is truly as lush, luxurious, elegant and sophisticated as Hefner always claimed it was – or if it is really nothing more than tacky kitsch.

The reality, of course, is that the Playboy Club is nothing. The club in Chicago closed down in 1986 (which also was the year that I first could have legally entered the club – I never went), along with all the other large-city clubs. It took a few foreign sites to keep the brand name going, but even those have all been gone since 1991.

So there’s nowhere to go.

UNTIL EARLY NEXT year, perhaps.

For it seems that Playboy Enterprises Inc. is working out a deal by which a private company would operate a nightclub that would be allowed to use the name “Playboy Club.” It won’t be run by anyone connected with Playboy, but they’ll get a share of the proceeds in exchange for use of the brand name.

Crain’s Chicago Business reported Monday that Boston-based Tremont Realty Capital LLC is the company that would operate the club, and that they are considering a one-time mansion on Dearborn Avenue just south of Division Street.



Can a modern-day namesake match the original Playboy Club image?



So the new Playboy Club would be a part of the Gold Coast neighborhood. It would be just a couple of blocks from the original club on Walton, and just about five blocks from the old State Parkway mansion where Hefner himself presided during his Chicago years.

CLOSE YOUR EYES, envision a few decades past, and you could almost envision Hefner walking these very same streets – on those occasions when he wasn’t holed up in his office, engaged in an all-night binge putting together the magazine, followed by a mid-day romp with a bunny or two.

The key word in this paragraph being “almost.”

Because somehow, I can’t help but think that the idea of a sexy, but sophisticated nightclub is passé – if not a complete contradiction of terms.

Not that sex won’t sell. But I’m wondering how many people of today will walk into a Playboy Club and will think the waitresses are wearing bathing suits with funny ears? Compare it to a “Hooter’s Girl” and that’s probably what many people are going to think.

IS THE PLAYBOY of old still sexy enough? Or perhaps the real question is, Do things have to become raunchy these days before they are considered titillating?

I couldn’t help but notice the observation of Wirtz Beverage Group Chairman Rocky Wirtz, whose father rented to Hefner the site of the original Playboy Club. He thinks the whole Playboy image is irrelevant to people under 30.

While at 58, he still recalls what Playboy once was, he told Crains, “You don’t want to open a place that would attract my age group.”

I could see a club that people visit once, just to see if it really is an over-luxurious orgy. When they figure out it isn’t, they’ll quit coming back. Which means I could see the new Playboy Club being gone within a year.

AND THAT’S ONLY if the television show becomes a hit. If it winds up flopping to the point where it doesn’t even last five episodes, I could see where the brand name becomes a serious drag on the club.

They won’t be able to ditch the name quickly enough.

Will a new Playboy Club be the butt of as many wisecracks as New Comiskey Park was? Photograph provided by State of Illinois.

For the old-timers, there will be nothing more enjoyable for them to do than to compare this new club to the original Playboy Club, and list all the ways in which the 21^st Century version pales in comparison to the original.

It won’t matter how nice a place the club might be or what luxuries it will offer. The modern reality will fall short of the sepia-covered memories of the “real” Playboy Club.

IT’S NOT LIKE we in Chicago aren’t familiar with this phenomenon. Take the Chicago White Sox, who began playing in a new stadium with modern amenities some 20 years ago, and even put the same name – Comiskey Park – on the building as the old stadium carried.

Even though the old building had its flaws, the old-timers will still insist that the new building falls far short.

Which makes me wonder if “Playboy Club” will become to sex what the White Sox became to stadiums – something that can never live up to the original.

Perhaps it is best to leave the Playboy Club imagery in its place in Chicago history books.

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EXTRA: The wedding is off!

Gee. Playboy founder Hugh Hefner is not getting married after all.  There won’t be a “June wedding” come Saturday at the Playboy Mansion. The girls and games and images of orgies will continue.

What a shock. And that is meant with the heaviest of sarcasm. Now we can get on with our lives.

  -30-

Will Hef make it to the altar?

I’m not about to mercilessly mock Hugh Hefner for getting engaged yet again, even though a part of me isn’t sure this stunt is something real.

For one thing, the founder of Playboy magazine and all its business offshoots is of an age where I seriously have to wonder if he’ll make it long enough to have a wedding. Unless the engagement that was announced on Christmas Day (via Twitter, by Hefner himself) is going to result in a quickie wedding.

NEW YEAR’S EVE in LasVegas? Hefner could be wed by an Elvis lookalike, with a Wayne Newton impersonator standing in as the “best man.”

If you think that image is a bit cheesy, I’d say it is totally in character with the event itself.

For what we have here is an 84-year-old man deciding that his current female partner in life ought to become his legal wife.

People all over the Internet have been making snide comments about the age difference (such as how he’s old enough to be her great-grandfather, or one person who wrote on their own Twitter account “Does Hugh Hefner realize that his fiancé was younger when ‘Schindler’s List’ came out than he was when Schindler’s actual list came out?”

PERSONALLY, I SAY that if Hefner can actually attract women that much younger than himself and they both want to go along with this, then why not? It’s their life.



If it turns out that Hefner’s bride-to-be (who would be his third wife, intermixed with many thousands of girlfriends, mistresses and one-night-stands throughout the decades) winds up somehow taking the company for some sort of serious financial settlement in the future, then that is Playboy Enterprises’ dumb luck.



Hugh Hefner's latest "fiance" wasn't even alive when the ultimate underage girlfriend ruled the Playboy roost.



For all we know, we could someday see a court battle right here in Chicago to try to undo such an act (Hefner daughter Christie, along with husband – and former state legislator William Marovitz – both are Chicago residents). Such a trial could very well get screwier than the legal hijinks we saw last summer in U.S. District Court when former Gov. Rod Blagojevich was on trial.

The reason I’m finding this “story” so laughable is that a part of me really feels like it’s somehow a fix. A stunt, meant to draw attention to Hefner or Playboy, the company.

THE IDEA THAT Hefner feels the need to have a legal wife at this stage in his life feels almost like the time that then-Chicago Bull Dennis Rodman let it be known he would be involved in a wedding. Sure enough, at the appointed time and place, he showed up wearing a wedding gown. It was all a stunt to promote his attempt at autobiography.

Then again, Rodman was once married to the actress Carmen Electra. So I guess anything is possible.

One part of this saga amuses me – the age of the bride. Just about any account of Hefner’s life will recall his relationship back in the 1970s with aspiring actress/singer/model Barbi Benton, whom he supposedly started dating when he was in his early 40s and she was 18.

She supposedly told Hefner she had never dated anyone in her life older than 24, to which Hefner is famously said to have replied, “Neither have I.”

IT SEEMS THAT some things don’t change. For the “bride-to-be” is, depending on which source one wants to check, either 23 or 24. Perhaps Hefner is maturing in his old age? Just a few years ago, any woman trying to gain the magazine publisher’s attention would likely have been about 19.

If Hefner really wanted to scandalize us, he’d get himself engaged to an 18-year-old. Then, we’d find out in the days after the wedding that she had lied about her age and was perhaps only 17.

Just picture the image of the police being called out to the Playboy Mansion. Underage girls! Hef taken away for possible prosecution! Let’s not forget that Cook County officials once tried to prosecute Hefner and Playboy when one of its girls turned out to have fudged her age upward a few months to appear to be 18. It could be a case of, “The more things change, the more they remain the same.”

So what should we truly think about the fact that Chicago native (who hasn’t actually lived among us since before the Days of Disco) feels the need to take on another wife – one who happens to be six decades younger than himself? I haven’t named her in this commentary, mainly because I can’t tell any of the Hefner women of recent decades apart – they all fit that generic bleached blonde look. The only one that had any real personality of her own was the one who later married a football player now with the Indianapolis Colts.

IT STRIKES ME as being more trivia that got attention beyond its significance because it became known on a slow (the Christmas holiday weekend) news day. I’m sure there are people who give it extra credence because it was initially learned about through Tweeter – although I consider that to be a source of trivial blather (Did we really need to know that the Sunday night movie shown at the Playboy Mansion is “The Fighter”)?

If anything, what shocks me the most about this whole thing is that it makes me realize how long the whole Hefner persona has been with us. After all, the original ultimate underage Hef girlfriend was Benton herself, who next month will turn 61.

Now, the two would be the perfect pair age-wise. The only scandal would be that Hef was messing with a married woman. Then again, that would fit the Playboy image of old just as well.

  -30-

Could we someday see a broke Playboy?

Chicago’s own Hugh Hefner (who hasn’t actually lived in Chicago for nearly four decades, if you want to be exact) managed to work his way into the news on Monday. He wants to “buy” Playboy.

The man who founded the magazine (the first issue supposedly was put together on the kitchen table of his then-Hyde Park apartment) and turned it into an iconic brand that Chicagoans like to brag about whenever it suits our public image desires is determined to ensure that the company that has evolved from his brand name lives on – regardless of how much longer he may have to go.

HEFNER IS 84, after all.

Now why should Hefner, whose official title is editor in chief and chief creative officer, have to buy what he created?

It’s like everything else when it comes to media companies. The trend back in the 1970s was to turn to Wall Street. Go public. Take advantage of the potential for huge revenue streams that can come from having stock traded publicly. People who buy in and cash out at the proper time can become very wealthy.

Look at Hefner. He is a wealthy man and the company has to be taking in serious amounts of money to maintain that suburban-Los Angeles mansion and the constant parties that perennially take place there on assorted cable television shows.

THE PROBLEM WITH “going public,” however, is that one becomes susceptible to fulfilling the whims of Wall Street – which have very little interest in the actual product.

Shareholders buy stock because they want it to continually go up. When it doesn’t, they become upset. The concept that there are up and down quarters in the operation of any business is not one of interest to stockholders. The idea of Playboy controlled exclusively by Hugh Hefner brings to mind the days when the magazine was published from the former (and now once-again) Palmolive Building. Does Hefner know something that could pull off this idea? Or is the long-term fate of the company as dead as the one-time Bunny Beacon? Photograph provided by American Architecture.

Thinking about it that way, it makes Wall Street sound like organized crime, at least as described by the “Henry Hill” character in the 1990 film “Goodfellas.” Businessmen who get pressured into taking on the mob as a partner now have a financial obligation to meet, and the mob isn’t interested in anyone’s problems.

As actor Ray Liotta’s “Hill” character said, “the guy’s gotta come up with Paulie’s money every week, no matter what. Business bad? (Obscenity) you, pay me. Oh, you had a fire? (Obscenity) you, pay me. Place got hit by lightning, huh? (Obscenity) you, pay me.”

THE SIMPLE FACT is that the “stockholders” ultimately don’t care about the long-term fate of the company, because when things get really bad, they will hope to have sold out long before and made a nice profit. Some people who invest even take on the attitude that nothing is meant to last forever – and that everything must come to an end.

Even Playboy magazine, and all the merchandise that attracts people because it carries that “bunny” logo (which company officials admit is probably worth more than the magazine itself).

It would seem that Hugh Hefner is sick of being told “(Obscenity) you, pay me.” Which is why Playboy Enterprises issued a statement Monday saying that company founder Hefner told the Board of Directors that he wants to buy all the outstanding shares of common stock that he does not currently own.

According to a statement issued by the company, there are two classes of common stock, and Hefner currently owns 69.5 percent of one class and 27.7 percent of the other. In short, Hefner is going to have to be willing to risk a good chunk of his wealth in order to get back control of the company.

IN SHORT, HE wants to make one big payoff now so that he can get rid of all those people who aren’t devoted to the concept of keeping alive the magazine that some view as a symbol of sexual liberation, and others think of as an essential part of wet dreams (I still remember the scene from the film “Animal House,” where the Homecoming Parade is disrupted and a girl dressed as a Playboy bunny is flung from a float, through an open window, and onto the bed of a young boy reading a Playboy magazine).

To that end, Hefner is talking with financiers, who presumably would find some way of putting up that much money to buy back all that stock.

Does this mean Hefner is risking putting himself in so much debt just so he can claim to be the sole owner of Playboy that he’s risking bankrupting himself? If the thought of Playboy going bankrupt sounds absurd, just think, who would ever have thought the Tribune Co. would have to declare bankruptcy?

I’m sure financial experts, particularly those being paid by Playboy Enterprises, will claim I am oversimplifying my explanation of what Hefner has in mind, and that there are elements of the deal that will reduce Hefner’s financial risk.

BUT I CAN’T believe any deal would eliminate it, which means it sounds like Hefner is making the same move that many newspaper companies did in recent years by continually buying more properties and expanding – thereby creating so much debt that they now owe more money than their publications are taking in during this current period of economic struggles.

Some newspapers have had to cease operations as a result. Could this ego-driven business move have the same ending for Hefner’s magazine (which no matter how much they want to boast has an image that sells merchandise in China is the item that props up the whole company).

Would anyone buy a “bunny” logo sweatshirt if not for an association with the centerfold?

I’d hate to think of the sight someday of an auction at the Playboy Mansion, with all of its contents and the property itself being put up for the highest bidder (would the Gucciones show up just for kicks) to try to repay some of the debt incurred just because Hefner has dreams of once again being the sole boss – just like the days when he lived and worked out of the Near North Side.

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Some random thoughts ...

Let me say up front that I would not eat foie gras. Not because I feel some desire to be sympathetic to the physical suffering of ducks and geese, but because their fatty livers sound unappetizing – and unhealthy for human consumption.

To me, the idea that foie gras (along with caviar, if you must know the truth) is considered some sort of elite delicacy is just evidence that having money and a “sophisticated” palate does not automatically translate into common sense.

THEN AGAIN, I am a fan of that Mexican soup known as menudo, and I have known many people in my life who get repulsed at the thought of eating a soup based on tripe – with a pig’s foot thrown into the mix to add some flavor.

So what one manages to consume in the name of nourishment is a personal taste. I suppose in theory I should be pleased that the Chicago City Council this week repealed the ban they imposed nearly two years ago on the serving of foie gras in city-based restaurants. I’m not.

Personally, I find the way in which the political geeks who walk the halls of City Hall went about this issue to be an embarrassment – besmirching the city’s reputation almost as much as the losing ways of the Chicago Cubs.

It was here that the City Council twice managed to make itself look ridiculous -- back in '06 when they banned foie gras and again this week when they strong-armed it back onto the plates of a tiny minority of Chicagoans.

City officials imposed the ban in 2006 amidst high-minded talk of being disgusted by the cruel treatment given to ducks in order to get their livers so that foie gras can be produced. It put the City Council in line with the animal rights activists of the world and gave the government body a touch of sophistication.

WHO KNEW THE “shot-and-beer” type of guys who make up a majority of the City Hall crowd even knew what foie gras was?

But the word going around political circles is that Mayor Richard M. Daley has been embarrassed by the national attention given to the city because of the issue. So he thought he would undo the embarrassment.

But using parliamentary procedures to push for a vote with NO debate permitted is the true embarrassment. If anything, Daley had the city repeal its high-minded moment of sophistication with a political maneuver worthy of the old days of “The Machine.”

And now, people really will laugh at the mention of Chicago, whose officials behaved like a batch of hicks dressed in slightly nicer suits. It looks like one-time alderman "Paddy" Bauler is still right, “Chicago ain’t ready for reform.”

So what other random thoughts am I flushing from my mind so as to clear me out fresh for next week?

I GUESS HE’S ALREADY LOOKING TO TERM TWO: People have accused me of having a morbid sense of humor when I joke that the current War in Iraq will deliberately be dragged on beyond the political terms of the government officials currently in office.

But now, there’s evidence that even the prospective new politicos will use the concept of the United States at war as their on-the-job status quo.

Republican presidential hopeful John McCain said this week he doesn’t see an end to the war until (at earliest) early 2013, which is about the time that McCain would like to be taking the oath of office for his second term as president.

I guess he’s already committed to being a “wartime” president who will “talk tough” with the rest of the world. In reality, it would make him more of a buffoon, quite possibly making George W. Bush look downright eloquent by comparison.

As far as I’m concerned, that one comment by McCain alone ought to be enough reason to vote for Barack Obama – even though I’m realistic enough to know the U.S. is stuck in this Iraq situation indefinitely. No one (not even Obama) is going to be able to give the American people what they really want – an immediate end to the conflict and return home of U.S. troops.

JAMAICA?!?: I have family in and around Tinley Park and spend enough time in the area to know local residents are disgusted that an arrest has not yet been made in the Feb. 2 quintuple slaying at a Lane Bryant store in the southwest suburb.

I have heard it pass through the rumor mill that the suspect managed to get out of the continental United States, and supposedly was last seen in Jamaica. Who knows if there’s any truth to that? Probably not.

What police are trying to do these days is go over every single bit of forensic evidence, making sure that there isn’t some stray hair or partial fingerprint that could tell them for sure who they are looking for (on the theory that anyone crazy enough to kill five people on a calm Saturday morning likely has committed other crimes).

That got some locals worked up when they saw television news crews hanging around the police station and the Brookside Marketplace, wondering if an arrest of some sort had been made. It hadn’t.

All that came out of it was the words of wisdom of Tinley Park Police Commander Phil Valois, who told the Chicago Tribune and other news organizations that the delay in making an arrest is understandable. “It’s not like CSI. It doesn’t happen that quickly.”

WHAT A BATCH OF NIT-WITS: How can anyone not think that a t-shirt mocking the physical characteristics and accented English speech of Japanese people is not offensive?

Yet that’s the argument we get from Chicago Cubs fans and the street vendors who peddle the t-shirts at stands outside of Wrigley Field. For once, the Cubs themselves deserve a little praise – using their economic muscle to crack down on vendors who sell licensed merchandise to get them to stop selling the t-shirts.

Yet we have all those unlicensed vendors – who could face arrest for violating copyright laws (the t-shirts are a takeoff on the Chicago Cubs logo, which is property of Major League Baseball. They are justifying their “product” as a way to make money, and something that is “not blatantly racist.”

Yet Cubs outfielder Kosuke Fukudome, the man to whom the shirts supposedly pay homage, has called them offensive. What more do they need to hear?

AND ON A FINAL NOTE: Playboy put together a listing of the sexiest governors in the United States, to be published in their next issue. Our very own Rod Blagojevich did not make the list.

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EDITOR’S NOTES: Don’t come crying to me when eating foie gras clogs your arteries and causes (http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/15/us/15liver.html) health problems years from now. Here (http://www.vivacincodemayo.org/recipe.htm/) is a true delicacy.

Republican presidential hopeful John McCain wants to convince the roughly one-quarter of the electorate that still respects George Bush the younger that he will not undermine the memory (http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5hbCmBtngjhCgiSJi5lKfvNXxOqNw) of the war that will be “Dubya’s” political legacy.

More than one quarter of a year has passed since five women were slain at a Lane Bryant store (http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/chi-lane_bryant_16may16,0,782025.story) in suburban Tinley Park. Here’s hoping this does not become the 21st Century version of the Brown’s Chicken slayings in Palatine, which took nearly a decade to solve.

Fifty bucks on e-Bay? Some people (http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/chi-16-cubs-fukudome-kosuke-chicmay16,0,6636753.story) just have too much expendable cash to spend.

Patti Blagojevich can relax; the strippers hired by Playboy to pick out the “sexiest” governors (http://www.startribune.com/politics/18928314.html) had no interest in her husband. If anything, she’d make a list of the sexiest gubernatorial spouses.