Menage a Snooze

A certain animus towards Hugh Hefner wafts around the place, which is appropriate because he smells like stinky old person. He smells like old person because he is old person, wearing that funky fragrance like it's Old Spice.

The problem with Playboy's playboy-in-chief is his lost relevance. The niche he fills is that of the delusional male baby-boomer, an admittedly large demographic but one with vanishingly small future attraction. The days of women needing media-savvy pimps and a nude portfolio to kick-start their careers are over, although a distressingly large number of babes have yet to get the news. Hello internet, hello digital photography, hello do-it-yourself pimping.

I have a small sneaking admiration for Hugh. His redeeming quality is the ability to raise the ire of the Permanently Outraged. That gormless smile and the ridiculous three-girlfriends-at-a-time lifestyle are a parody of what he used to be - a fact that escapes only those who take it seriously.

And given what I've seen of his taste in chicks, Hugh and regular guys really have nothing in common. Those dopey blonde bimbos Hef likes are so far removed from the kind of sexy captivating non-perfect women I like as to be out of sight. Hugh's a fossil, and that's his only value.



Bottoms Up, Bikini-ed Babes!





Pic of Heidi from Playboy.

One-a-Day

Warren Beatty is an ancient Hollywood star.

There is news - or what passes for news thesedays - about the number of women with whom he had sex in his past single life. The allegation (congratulation?) is that somewhere north of 12,000 different women played hide-the-sausage with Mr Beatty. The source is a newly published unauthorised biography written by Peter Biskind of Vanity Fair.

Mr Beatty claims (via his lawyer) he was misquoted and that the book contains inaccurate statements.

The 12,000 number might or might not be true. It has the smell to me of a publicity ruse; a nice big round number that newspaper 'style' and 'life' sections picked up without question. The number didn't come from 12,000 women coming forward claiming they'd been with Warren, nor were there 12,000 condoms or 12,000 soiled sheets. Mr Biskind takes an unattributed statement that Mr Beatty had sex with a new woman every day for thirty-five years, then multiplies 365 and 35 to come up with 12,775.

In other words, the source of this 'fact' is a pocket calculator.

You will be relieved to know it does not include "daytime quickies, drive-by [encounters], casual gropings, stolen kisses, and so on", writes Mr Biskind.

That is good news.




Photo of Julie Christie, apparently one of the 12,000, from here. [link]

Edited for clarity.

Suburban Romance

Her forearms crossed on the steering wheel, then her head drooped forward so her forehead was resting on her arms. The strength had drained from her neck, like someone had jerked her power cord from the outlet. No energy. No will. No desire but to cry. So cry she did.

Anna couldn't remember any time in her life being so bad. Her mind flipped through the mental dead-end list she'd accumulated for months. Hating every second of it, every day had become a revolving barrel of regrets and recriminations. This bad choice led to a small pot of bad luck. Bad luck meant she'd missed the one opportunity that might have made a difference. That opportunity - or anything remotely like it - wouldn't ever return, which felt like bad karma to her. Hugely bad karma. Intensely bad karma.

That was it. Her karma was so bad, it had spawned her personal hell on earth. And this morning, sitting on the side of the road, with her head on the steering wheel, she decide that it was all her fault. Her fault, and the roses.

The roses had been the start of it. Before the roses, the sun shone. After the roses, the darkness descended. The roses startled her when she saw them. It was like they'd appeared from nowhere, but he had definitely given them to her. She'd been waiting, as usual, in the minivan, in the minivan-and-SUV-line waiting for Jack, her youngest. Talking on the phone to Mardie passed the time, allowed her a moment of escape.

Suddenly he was at the window. It startled her, of course, but didn't scare her. His air was of strength, of knowing. Mardie was still on the phone. Anna let her talk. She was unable to look away from the man.

"Anna" he said. It wasn't a question.

"Yes" she replied.

"I want you to have these".

With that he produced the roses that he'd been hiding below the window.

The roses were straggly, wild looking, with spikes and leaves. The stems had not been cut, but looked ripped from the bush. A tied piece of string kept them together, probably eight or ten in all.

He smiled. He proffered the bunch a half-inch closer. It was a gift. She took them, holding them awkwardly outside the minivan door. One of the thorns nicked her thumb.

She closed her eyes to sniff them, to find their perfume. They smelled odd, like no roses before in her life. Rich and fragrant, sure, but there was a kind of subtle coppery undertone.

By that time he'd started walking away, and was more distance down the street than seemed right for the seconds she'd been smelling. Biggish guy, biggish strides, longish hair. Unkempt.

The roses drew her back. Their colour was odd. The base of the petals was white, but the remainder a kind of rust red. She touched a petal. They were dry, but the colour rubbed off, like they'd been dyed. They had been dyed. She looked back up the street, and the man was still walking away.

"Mardie, are you there?" she asked, back to the phone.

"Sure, what happened, I've been talking for hours here".

"What do white roses mean?" asked Anna.

"White roses? Innocence, I think. Virginity? Oh, wait, I remember: new beginnings".

"And what do red roses mean?"

"Red? Give me a hard one why don't you? Red is for passion. Love. You know, lust. Why?"

"That's what I thought" said Anna, sounding far away.

Novel Romance

I totally need to sit down and write a romance novel. Harlequin, the market leader, sells four books a second. Of all paperback fiction sold in the United States, 55% is categorized as romance. And the biggest romance-hogs spend $40 a month. I want some of that action. It can't be that difficult.

Or maybe it is. The vision of romanticized romance stuck in my head is the formal period piece. The characters are kinda stiff - ahem - and the whole thing is about as distant from real life as can be.

Then again, perhaps that is the point. Real, boring, tedious life is not romantic, so setting a work of escapist fiction in the suburbs doesn't fit the bill. Readers are probably looking for some idealized tale different from their own life, an experience with heightened emotions, lots at stake, and big decisions. That sounds like the same thought process that leads people to buy a gram of cocaine. But I'm a cynic.

Romance Part 1, Romance Part 2, Romance Part 4.