I enjoyed Playboy in college. I lived at home (so I couldn’t subscribe), but I worked at a bookstore (so it was easy to read).
A couple of months ago I read a feature story on Hugh Hefner, and it piqued my curiosity about Playboy‘s current state. So I checked it out. Turns out it’s practically free anymore by subscription. It’s $6 per issue off the rack, but you can have it sent to your house for two years for $27.
Oh, all right. Lea’s okay with it, and surely it’s worth $1.13 a month.
Well, you’d think. I’d think.
The magazine still presents a cross-section of features that is interesting enough, I suppose. Seems like I read an issue for 30 or 45 minutes. At the same time, it’s about like a decent fast-food hamburger: it’s an acceptable item for consumption, but there are more satisfying choices. Music and movie reviews? Yeah, they’re okay, but I have several online locations I prefer for such. Humor? Sports? Interviews? Ditto, ditto, ditto.
And one more thing—and really, this is hardly worth mentioning—but it seems there are photographs of naked women in Playboy. Did you know that?
Oh, my. Sigh. This is sad. They’re just not my thing. Two factors severely limit their appeal:
- For the youngest of them, I really am old enough to be their fathers now. I have nieces their age. Ummm…not so much, you know?
- I know how mushy and green their heads are. Self-confident is sexy. Self-reliant is sexy. Humorously cynical and cynically humorous is sexy. Enough life experience and intelligence to flirt cerebrally is sexy. A figure unlike that of a malnourished heroin addict is sexy. Translation: Ain’t much under 35 or so that really appeals to me. (Except Beyoncé.)
I’ll keep it. It was almost no money, and it’s already spent. I’m passing them along to a friend, and there’s always a chance that sometime during my subscription they’ll do some mega-story (like Jessica Hahn was 20 years ago) that will appeal to the salacious white-trash big-hair too-much-eyeliner rose-tattoo bubblegum-smacking multiple-ear-piercings cut-offs drugstore-perfume fetish I pretend I don’t have.
But I really rather doubt I’ll renew it.
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Yeah, but are the cartoons still good?
Bo, you are great for my ego.
I’ve been feeling out of sorts lately (I think it was the cookie incident that started it all). Then you come around with:
“Self-confident is sexy. Self-reliant is sexy. Humorously cynical and cynically humorous is sexy. Enough life experience and intelligence to flirt cerebrally is sexy. A figure unlike that of a malnourished heroin addict is sexy. Translation: Ain’t much under 35 or so that really appeals”
Blessings upon you, my friend…
‘seester: They’re okay, but they don’t stack up very well against the consistently funny stuff available online. I’m guaranteed at least one out-loud laugh per week at The Onion, for example.
Mrs. Chili: Hugs atcha. 🙂 I was aware when I wrote it that it would have a suck-up-to-my-friends-in-that-demographic vibe about it, but it’s the truth. The “prevailing” beauty ideal tends to be a good 30-40% too thin for me. And the mind is by far the most powerful and stimulating sexual organ, and there’s just not much of it there yet at 18 or 19.
I think the pictures in Maxim are better.