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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Some people are way too touchy!

Where’s the Tylenol?

I feel like I need to reach for a bottle, after learning of the things that get some people all worked up.

WHETHER IT’S JENNY McCarthy, or the bomber who took out the Boston Marathon with one of his explosive devices. The degree to which some people are upset makes me wonder if they’re just determined to be miserable.

As if they’d be upset with themselves if there wasn’t something (anything) for them to get all upset about.

I think I’m more bothered with the people who have nothing better to worry about than the cover of Rolling Stone magazine – which quite often does serious reporting about issues of great significance to our society.

In the upcoming issue, they’re publishing a story about Dzhokhar Tsarnaev – one of the suspects in the explosion in Boston that killed a few participants in the marathon; while also injuring many dozens of others.

I HAVEN’T READ the story yet, although it seems the magazine is trying to write a serious piece of reporting that shows just how an individual can sink to such a contemptible level.

Because it’s the big story, it is the “cover.” Which means Tsarnaev gets his picture on the cover of the Rolling Stone.

That has the kind of people who spend way too much of their time on the Internet making hostile comments. They don’t want him being “glorified,” even though I don’t see how this is glorification.

I wouldn’t be surprised if Tsarnaev himself were to view this as demonification of his persona. I doubt he’s going to be pleased with the image that will be presented of himself.

YET THE OVERLY touchy amongst us want to complain. And they even got at least two significant business interests – the CVS and Walgreens drug-store chains – to say they won’t carry the magazine’s upcoming issue.

Personally, I don’t buy magazines at either store (their selections aren’t that impressive -- I just don't care about "Shape" magazine). But I’m appalled by both actions.

In the case of CVS, they say their roots as a New England-based company make them sensitive to Boston’s feelings on this matter. So now, Rolling Stone can claim they were “banned in Boston.” Maybe sales elsewhere will compensate for the loss, because such a status makes this appear to be a big deal that it really isn't.

I suspect the people who do wind up reading the story will find themselves disappointed. Which is why I wish the Chicago-area-based Walgreens had not made such a decision. I’d always like to think Chicago interests are more common-sense than the rest of the country.

APPARENTLY, THEY’RE NOT always such.

Then, there’s the case of McCarthy – who earlier this week got herself a bigger media platform than the weekly advice column she writes for the Chicago Sun-Times. She’s going to be on Barbara Walters’ television creation – The View.

She’s going to be a regular hostess. But while most of us think of her as nothing more than the Mother McAuley girl who turned a Playboy spread into fame as a not-quite actress but definitely a pop-star, she has in recent years come up with the theory that her son’s autism was caused by vaccinations.

That has the medical community now upset that McCarthy would get a permanent place on a prominent daytime TV show. Even though I’d like to think that real people are too busy working during the day to actually watch The View, it seems they think Jenny is now going to be using the airwaves to spew her theories on the matter.

PERSONALLY, I THINK the people who actually watch the program would be bored to death if she actually did become the single-note clown that they’re predicting she will be. She'd get fired if she actually tried to use the program for an autism crusade.

Do I see the fate of the Republic being threatened by McCarthy’s new job? I can’t!

I’m actually more frightened by all the people who felt compelled to pounce on this issue right when it happened at the beginning of the week. Talk about having way too much free time on their hands.

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EDITOR’S NOTE: No, I don’t really see any resemblance to Jim Morrison. Then again, I’m the type of person who never really thought one-time Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin bore any resemblance to Tina Fey. I just don’t see it.

 

In either case!

 

Change isn’t always for the better, or worse. It just sometimes happens

The faces of the two major metro newspapers that are the skeleton of much of the information we get in the Chicago area are on the verge of changing significantly in coming months, and I’m trying to figure out if it’s evolution – or degradation.

The kind of people who are all too eager to see newspapers wither away because they think the Internet will offer sufficient replacement for information are enjoying this – they want to believe it is evidence that the Chicago Tribune and Chicago Sun-Times will soon die off.

THEY’LL ALSO CLAIM that this is all natural in the way that people change with the passage of time – accept it!

But I can’t help but think many people don’t really get what is happening with the changes; the fact that the Chicago Tribune will drop use of the Associated Press and that the Chicago Sun-Times plans to have all the editors of its suburban newspaper publications centrally located on the banks of the Chicago River.

Personally, I’m not bothered by the fact that the Tribune is dropping a wire service – although I’ll be the first to admit that my personal bias (I’m a former United Press International newsperson and bureau manager who thinks that AP is overrated) may be coming into play.

Many newspapers are overly-reliant on AP wire copy to fill their pages. Yet the Tribune is the newspaper that has the largest (by far) staff to write stories, and also subscribes to so many other wire services that they’re still going to have a plethora of copy to pick from when putting a paper together.

I’M SURE THE massive AP ego that thinks it is all important is hurt. But I honestly don’t see the loss. In fact, the part of this move that I don’t comprehend is that the Los Angeles Times (also a Tribune Co. newspaper) feels the need to keep the wire service – even though they use it less than the Chicago Tribune does.

So I don’t believe all the reaction that has arisen on the Internet to this move – the idea that the Tribune will be sold off to a new owner who will immediately renew a subscription.

I fully expect that whoever owns the newspaper in the future will see that the pages get filled without all those wire service bugs (ie., AP) in the paper, and will see the expense as one that could be done away with.

If anything, it is the other move that I find more troublesome – the restructuring of the Sun-Times and all of its sister newspapers. Although I concede that it really does nothing more than take the actions of recent years to the next step.

FOR THE SUN-TIMES and the suburban newspapers have been sharing stories to the point where the bulk of the Sun-Times these days is filled with suburban briefs. Those suburban publications have the feel of suburban-zoned editions of the Sun-Times.

It’s like we don’t have to read anything like the Post-Tribune of Merrillville, Ind., or the Herald News of Joliet because if they come up with a worthwhile story, it will run in the Chicago Sun-Times as well.

Now, the editors of those suburban papers will be working out of the Sun-Times offices downtown. The reporters will still be in the suburbs, but there won’t be newsrooms. A lot of suburban reporters are going to feel incredibly isolated from their publications – which never does any good.

It all has the feel of the Chicago Sun-Times using its suburban publications (some of which have a century-plus of history in their communities) to prop itself up – such as trying to perpetuate the nonsense that the Sun-Times has a larger circulation figure than the Tribune.

PERSONALLY, IT FEELS like a mismatch and that the assets being shifted to downtown will wind up not fitting in.

Of course, considering how Sun-Times leadership always likes to talk about the need to shift to an emphasis on digital sources for information, perhaps they’re not really concerned about the mish-mash they’re going to create.

Because I suspect that when it comes to news media organizations, there are too many people who look to Newsweek – which published its last edition, but plans to continue to exist as a website – and are trying to think happy thoughts.

I wonder how long such a website can continue. Just as I’m curious to see how long the DNA Info and Reboot Illinois websites can survive economically – even if they do manage to create worthwhile news reporting.

THE SAD PART is that too many people don’t realize how inferior, or third-hand, the information is that they’re getting free-of-charge from other websites that don’t have their own newsgathering resources.

Let’s not forget the Chicago News Cooperative, which did very high-quality reporting and commentary during its two-plus years of existence – only to have it wither away because people weren’t willing to pay what it was worth.

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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.

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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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