rdu_voyager: And still the best thing to come out of Chicago is I-65 south.

Ever see a map?

My dad worked at the Playboy building in Chicago. He worked for a unrelated magazine but as a kid, going in to that building was cool. Officially, it was just an office building full of people in suits doing stuff but the story I told when I got back to kindergarten included nearly nekkid women walking around and people drinking and doing stuff (you know... stuff!)

In actuality, I sat in his office and watched them build the John Hancock tower. We had hot dogs for lunch ("Don't let him put ketchup on that dog in here, mister!") and riding the El back home, I nearly got off at the wrong station.

The unfactual story: "But, fellers, let me tell ya. You go to the Playboy building. You know, The Playboy building. You gotta know someone or they won't let you in. Did I tell you my dad works there? His secretary looked like her! She wore an outfit just like that with the stockings and everything! A guy came in and took her picture!"

Was in competition with the kid whose dad worked at Brachs and brought home boxes of candy. Could not win that one.

Playboy is a pretty good read. I still subscibe. I don't know what happened, though, but the magazine took a horrendous nose dive in the 21st century and still hasnt recovered (if they ever will) I'm not talking about the chicks, but the writ9ing has seriously suffered. The worst victim? The jokes are pretty bad and recycled and the playboy adviser is not near as sharp as he (they) used to be.

SirEattonHogg: Actually, in its day, their interviews of politicians and celebrities were pretty good stuff. We're talking the seventies and earlier.


Even into the 80s, they had some excellent interviews and articles, but it died out during that decade.

Oh, and art too. Patrick Nagel and LeRoy Nieman were virtually unheard of until discovered and embraced by Hugh Hefner who to this day has the largest collection of original Nagel prints. They're not worth much now, but his kids will have a nice asset there in about 20 years +/- when the 50-year style nostagia kicks in (think of the art deco fad in the 1980s and the early-60s popularity now).

SirEattonHogg: Actually, in its day, their interviews of politicians and celebrities were pretty good stuff. We're talking the seventies and earlier.

Yeah, it was good. It was like The New Yorker with a few photos of girls and some risque cartoons. For anyone who forgot or didn't know how good it can be, they should check out the Playboy Archive - there's a whole bunch of free issues from the various periods of Playboy online.

thespindrifter: stripping for some random coke dealer

Man, that sounds classy.

RexTalionis: For anyone who forgot or didn't know how good it can be, they should check out the Playboy Archive - there's a whole bunch of free issues from the various periods of Playboy online.


If you can, check out the interview with Ted Turner in August 1978. It is an amazing snap-shot of time. Everything for which we think of him now had not yet happened nor even been predicted, and yet he was already famous for entirely different things like winning the America's Cup regatta and being banned from baseball for a year because of some of his comments. He talks about how he had been uplinking WTCG to a satelite for a couple of years in order to broadcast Braves games nationwide but nobody was downlinking it. Broadcasters were required back then to show x hours of news and public information per week, but "nobody likes the news," he said, "so we have fun with it ... sometimes we throw pies."

Within a few months, he started building CNN and got the FCC to rename WTCG to WTBS. Coincidentally, the issue featured not only this interview with one of the founders of cable/satellite TV as we now it, the "Girls of the Office" spread included a radio station secretary and voice-over reader who would become one of the original MTV VJs, Nina Blackwood (as a brunette with 70s bush).

Another great read anything Alex Haley wrote, of course. Not only did Playboy publish the first elements of what would become his signature opus, Roots, but they sent him, a Negro, to interview George Lincoln Rockwell, head of the American Nazi Party - and the result was an outstanding job.

enderthexenocide: playboy is about as pornographic as maxim

Playboy's got just a bit less fabric and a lot more class. I saw an article in either Maxim or FHM (same difference, right) a few years ago about what to do when you shiat your pants. Yes really. I've never seen a more useless article.

Fuggin Bizzy: enderthexenocide: playboy is about as pornographic as maxim

Playboy's got just a bit less fabric and a lot more class. I saw an article in either Maxim or FHM (same difference, right) a few years ago about what to do when you shiat your pants. Yes really. I've never seen a more useless article.

How would you know? Have you soiled yourself in the meantime to assess the merit of the article?

Harry Freakstorm: My dad worked at the Playboy building in Chicago. He worked for a unrelated magazine but as a kid, going in to that building was cool. Officially, it was just an office building full of people in suits doing stuff but the story I told when I got back to kindergarten included nearly nekkid women walking around and people drinking and doing stuff (you know... stuff!)

In actuality, I sat in his office and watched them build the John Hancock tower. We had hot dogs for lunch ("Don't let him put ketchup on that dog in here, mister!") and riding the El back home, I nearly got off at the wrong station.

The unfactual story: "But, fellers, let me tell ya. You go to the Playboy building. You know, The Playboy building. You gotta know someone or they won't let you in. Did I tell you my dad works there? His secretary looked like her! She wore an outfit just like that with the stockings and everything! A guy came in and took her picture!"

Was in competition with the kid whose dad worked at Brachs and brought home boxes of candy. Could not win that one.

Indeed. A few years ago n employer leased temporary office space in the same building, and I was depressed
that it looked more like the typical inhabitant was an account rather than a buxom aspiring model/actress.

IBelieveYouHaveMyStapler: Not that I ever bought one, because, well, there's the same thing for free on the internet. I think their main problem started in the late nineties when someone in management thought "[insert bimbos name here] is in the news, we should get her to pose nude!" and it is still going on today. How good looking is Lindsay Lohan and when was the last time she was even close to famous?


To be fair, that was how Hef launched the magazine in the first place, with the pre-star pics of Marilyn Monroe he bought. Hef and Christie continued to attract celebrity women to pose nude throughout their respective tenures. Remember Bo Derick? She was but one of many. They and Penthouse raced each other to press when the old photos of a hairy-armpitted Madonna surfaced in the 80s.

Waxing_Chewbacca: So they'll show anal now?

dkimball: I saw the leaked Lindsay Lohan pics.
.

Waxing_Chewbacca: anal

dkimball: leaked

dkimball: Lindsay Lohan


Waxing_Chewbacca: anal
dkimball: leak
dkimball: Lindsay Lohan

What the hell is a magazine?