Highlights: For once, I'm not starting out by citing the interview (don't worry, I'll get to it shortly) but rather the letter column. In response to reader complaints about the U.S. Postal Service prosecuting individuals over obscenity statues (not involving Playboy subscriptions, I should clarify, but rather a superintendent of schools in South Texas, who was arrested for exchanging dirty letter with adult pen pals across the country) the magazine contacted Senate Majority Leader Everett Dirksen and several others, whose attention prompted a detailed letter from H.B. Montague, chief inspector of the Post Office. Printed by Playboy in its entirety, disavowing any improper or unethical attempts to prosecute folks using obscenity statutes and taking offense at the idea the Post Office might entrap someone:
Only an employee opening dead mail by authority of the Postmaster General, or a person holding a search warrant authorized by law may open any letter or parcel of the first class which is in the custody of the Department.Which is reassuring, until the next sentence, which reads, "Evidence reaches the hands of postal inspectors through many legal channels." Playboy instigated some investigative journalism and revealed that Montague was not entirely honest in his letter to the inquiring senators:
But our own investigation of the case has uncovered an important fact not mentioned in the newspaper acount: It wasn't necessary for the incriminating letter to be "intercepted," because of circumstances that do the Post Office Department no more credit than if a postal inspector actually had tampered with the superintendent's mail prior to delivery. It appears that the pair of passionate pen pals with whom Mr. Morgan had been corresponding were actually a "front" for postal authorities from the outset--established for the specific purpose of entrapping unsuspecting citizens into violations of the postal obscenity law.One could look at recent rulings from the U.S. Supreme Court, along with the platforms of certain political parties in the U.S. and conclude that we, as a society, are not that far from backsliding into this type of intrusive government presence in our daily lives. Remember, SCOTUS ruled not so long ago that there is no such thing as a right to privacy. And on that happy note, Playboy's interview subject for this issue was billionaire H.L. Hunt, someone I suspect would happily approve of those aforementioned SCOTUS rulings. I'd never heard of him before. A quick check of The Google informs me he was the father of Lamar Hunt, who I had heard of--the late Dallas businessman helped found the AFL and was owner of the Dallas Texans before moving the team to Kansas City where it rebranded as the Chiefs. Okay, that gives a little context. What else should I know about the elder Hunt? Well, he started out dirt poor, got lucky with some oil lease speculation and became a billionaire in short order. He was also an arch-conservative absolutely steeped with anti-Communist fervor, making him a prototype for the Koch brothers long before those two were born. He's also folksy and maddeningly evasive with his answers. The interview jumps around so I don't feel sharing a single excerpt would do it justice. Let's start with his thoughts on charity:
Playboy: You once said that you wanted to use your wealth "for the greater benefit of mankind." Do you feel that you have? Hunt: I have never been very sanctimonious along those lines. And so I doubt that I said that, because I feel that people who have wealth should not throw their money around; to do so makes good propaganda for the Communists. When someone who has a reputation for having a lot of money spends it foolishly, the Communists can use that as an argument against private enterprise, capitalism and the incentive system. Playboy: Is it foolish to spend your money for the benefit of mankind? Hunt: People who have wealth should use it wisely, in a way that will do society the most good. They should be careful that in making supposedly charitable gifts their money will not be used to destroy or impair the American system and promote atheism.Let's next consider Hunt's views on politics:
Playboy: How would you label yourself politically? Hunt: I am a registered Democrat who often votes Republican. Playboy: What would you call yourself--a middle-of-the-roader? A conservative? Hunt: A constructive. Playboy: What's that? Hunt: A constructive is simply someone who is trying to do the best that can be done in public affairs and elsewhere. Playboy: You really don't consider yourself a conservative? Most people do. Hunt: Not a particle. The word "conservative" puts a weight around the necks of the liberty side. Playboy: What do you mean by liberty? Hunt: Freedom for the individual to do whatever he likes consistent with organized society and good taste. Now about the word "conservative"--I think it's an unfortunate word. It denotes mossback, reactionary and old-fogyism.Later, Hunt goes on at length how he was a strong supporter of Gen. Douglas MacArthur for president and how disappointing it was when Gen. Dwight Eisenhower became president. Hunt claimed Eisenhower was in the mold of Harry Truman and F.D.R.--the latter of whom Hunt condemned for taking the U.S. into World War II after promising not to involve the country in the conflict during his 1940 presidential campaign:
Playboy: In view of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, do you think Roosevelt can be taken to task for violating a pledge to the mothers of America? Hunt: This is a big subject that would require much more time than we have to discuss it.Yes, that's certainly evasive, and just one of many examples peppering the article. I had a growing suspicion that Hunt harbored no objections to the fascist regimes in Germany, Italy and Japan for the simple reason that they weren't Communist. Let's move on to the Civil Rights movement:
Hunt: Many Negro teachers prefer to teach in Negro schools, and many Negro students prefer to attend Negro schools. Playboy: Nationwide demonstrations to integrate schools would seem to indicate that the majority feel otherwise. How do you feel about demonstrations? Hunt: Demonstrations are not the proper way to enact laws. They should not be incited by agitators seeking power and votes. Playboy: Don't you think Negroes should have the vote? Hunt: I favor suffrage for all 21 years and older. Playboy: Even for illiterates? Hunt: Yes. No one was barred in the mythical country Alpaca. [Note: Alpaca is a political utopian novel Hunt published in 1960] Playboy: Do you regard Martin Luther King as an "agitator seeking power and votes"? Hunt: I share J. Edgar Hoover's opinion of him. Playboy: Are you saying that you agree with Hoover that King is "the biggest liar in the United States"? Hunt: I cannot detect that King has any regard for the truth, religion, sincerity, peace, morality or the best interest of the Negro people.I cannot help but think the late Mr. Hunt would feel right at home in today's political environment, expounding upon the dangers of socialism (the fall of the Soviet Union and capitalism-takeover of the People's Republic of China would not so much as give him pause) while excoriating Black Lives Matter and other demonstration movements as wholly inappropriate. As the saying goes, history doesn't repeat itself but it certainly rhymes.
Other thoughts: Have you heard of steam-engine time? That refers to the phenomenon of multiple inventors around the world, with no connection, independently invented a version the steam-engine at roughly the same time. The reasons for this are complex, but essentially coming down to technology and culture reaching the point where inventing such a thing is not only physically possible but there's also a societal demand for it that makes such a thing almost inevitable. With that in mind, I have to wonder if 1966 is Japanese motorbike time judging from the ads in this issue. Granted, there are only two, from Honda and Suzuki, but they're stylish and splashy enough to make these small and relatively inexpensive imported motorcycles appealing, trendy transportation options for the Playboy reader. The Japanese motorcycle craze may have started in earnest with the Beach Boys' "Little Honda" two years earlier, but these ads reframe them as a legitimate option for adults, albeit with different approaches. Honda's ad features five different photographs of a wedding with the bride and groom departing on a red Honda. I mean, is there anything more suggestive of "this is grown-up business, not kids' stuff?" The Suzuki ad, on the other hand, features a single photo of a groovy dude in dark shades straddling his cycle with three different women draped over him. The ad is shot voyeuristically through out-of-focus tree leaves in the foreground, suggesting that this guy pulled over to chat with one of the ladies and the other two were so attracted to him and his bike that they swooped in. Rather than the "this motorcycle is for adults" message of the Honda ad, Suzuki goes for the "this motorcycle is for players" messaging. Interestingly enough, neither ad uses the word motorcycle in its copy.
I am a Christian theologian by profession: I have recently been involved in the death-of-God fuss, and I am, as well, committed to the death of God as a theological and human event. It is hard to know just exactly why the furor started last fall. I had been defending the death of God, off and on for years, on C.B.S. television programs, coast to coast, as the saying goes. But this was in the decent obscurity of the Sunday-morning cultural ghetto, and no one really listens to the words people say on television anyhow. What matters is if you are sincere, like Hugh Downs. A book or two came out in 1963, and in 1964 and 1965 a few articles began to appear indicating a common interest in doing Christianity without God. Ther or four of us seemed to be working similar lines, and critics--both fearful and interested--began to call us a movement, and we looked around and decided that perhaps they were right. This was the first decisive alteration in Protestant theology to take place since the communications explosion of the early Fifties, and no one was prepared for the rapidity of information passing when the snowball really started to pick up momentum.Not that I'm an expert by any measure, but suffice to say theology, as a discipline, has evolved a bit since 1966. But Hamilton was as significant thought leader in his time and shows that religion or theology or whatever you want to call it has never been monolithic. His influence still carries on to this day.
With the unruffled efficiency of a trained servant of the air, she stripped Bond's Levi Strauss one-piece sky-diver jump suit from his lithe, hard body and allowed a bronze, muscular arm to draw her head against his chest. "My name is Israel, O solicitious daughter of the Ganges," he said through cyanotic lips. "Indira," she breathed. "Indira." "Look baby," he snapped. "I know where. I've done this before." "No, Mr. Bond--Indira--it's my name."Two gems from the "Playboy After Hours" column I must share. First up, a musical observation:
Atop the hit parade in Jackson, Mississippi, as we go to press, is an inspiration ballad entitled Jesus Is God's Atomic Bomb.Folks, I am not making this up. This was a for-true gospel song recorded by the Swan Silvertone Singers released in 1947. Why it achieved popularity in Jackson nearly two decades later is anyone's guess. Listen to it yourself:
Like many of television's Top Ten shows, Batman seems destined to become an international hit when it goes into syndication overseas, dutifully dubbed with a dozen tongues. The elemental language of "BIF!" "BAM!" "POW!" is probably universal, but we suspect that the series may lose something in translation--though perhaps in name only. In Germany, for example, the caped crusader would strike terror in the hearts of criminals everywhere as the redoubtable Fledermaus-Mensch. Somewhat more mellifluously, he would be known to French fans as the debonair Chauve-souris-Homme, to Italian high-camp followers as the picaresque Pipistrello-Uomo and to Chinese viewers as the sage Bien-fu-jen. However, in Lithuania--predictably enough--he'd be almost unpronounceably named Shikshnosparnis-Zhmogus. But our super-hero's mouth-filling moniker on Polish TV would be the musical challenge of the lot: Nietoperz-Czlowick. Let's see Neal Hefti, composer of The Batman Theme, put that to music.Finally, as a kid growing up in the 70s and early 80s, pretty much every second pair of pants I wore were corduroy. Seriously, they were ubiquitous. Then, suddenly, they were gone. I haven't seen a pair in decades, much less worn any. The interwebs assure me that corduroy is having a comeback moment in 2024, but I have not seen it. If cords are indeed the trendy new thing, maybe this guy can step up and help newcomers get hip to the concept of wale-count. Remember, folks, the "W" is silent.
Highlights: I have completely accepted the fact by now that the featured interview is invariably the highlight of each issue. If the interview is wanting, then the issue is sub-par. That's just physics, people. I don't make the rules. If you have a problem with that, take it up with Isaac Newton. So, with that out of the way, this month's interview is a humdinger: Madalyn Murray. She wasn't Madalyn Murray O'Hare yet, mind you. To be honest, I had no idea she was such a public figure in 1965. Growing up, I'd always assumed she was more a product of the 1970s. Full disclosure here: I've never much liked her. Part of that comes from growing up Catholic, and to say Murray and the Catholic Church didn't get along is the understatement of the century. But as I grew older, I realized I agreed with her on many issues and that she served a useful purpose in U.S. society. That didn't result in my liking her more than I had previously. Every time I heard her speak, she came across to me as a narcissistic asshole... and that was before I learned she was a holocaust denier. Her abduction and murder was absolutely bizarre and I'd never wish that on anybody, but I find it more than surreal that with all the death threats she received over the years her eventual murder had nothing whatsoever to do with her atheistic views.
This interview is anything but boring. In fact, it's exhausting. She fires off half a dozen answers to a question and skips on to a third topic before the interviewer has framed the second question. She's supremely self-confident, arrognat even, but knows how to tell a story. The interview is at times infuriating, harrowing and alarming--particularly when she describes police brutality that echoes modern incidents. The following doesn't get into that, but was a pretty controversial view at the time. It's less so now but there are plenty of folks who'd like to change that.Playboy: What is the proper remale role, in your opinion? Murray: Well, as a militant feminist, I believe in complete equality with men: intellectual, professional, economic, social and sexual: they're all equally essential, and they're all equally lacking in American society today. Playboy: According to many sociologists, American women have never enjoyed greater freedom and equality, sexually and otherwise, than they do today. Murray: Let's distinguish between freedom and equality. The modern American woman may be more liberated sexually than her mother was, but I don't think she enjoys a bit more sexual equality. The American male continues to use her sexually for one thing: a means to the end of his own ejaculation. It doesn't seem to occur to him that she might be a worth-while enin in herself, or to see to it that she has a proper sexual release. And, to him, sex appeal is directly proportional to the immensity of a woman's tits. I'm not saying all American men are this way, but nine out of ten are breast-fixated, wham-bam-thank-you-ma'am cretins who just don't give a damn about anyone's gratification but their own. If you're talking about intellectual and social equality for women, we're not muchbetter off. We're just beginning to break the ice. America is still very much a male-dominated society. Most American men feel threatened sexually unless they're taller than the female, more intellectual, better educated, better paid and higher placed statusiwse in the business world. They got to be the authority, the final word. They say they're looking for a girl just like the girl who married dear old dad, but what they really want, and usually get, is an empty-headed little chick who's very young and very physical--and very submissive. Well, I just can't see either a man or a woman in a dependency position, because from that sort of relationship flows a feeling of superiority on one side and inferiority on the other, and that's a form of slow poison. As I see it, men wouldn't want somebody inferior to them unless they felt inadequate themselves. They're intimidated by a mature woman. Playboy: Like yourself? Murray: Yes, as a matter of fact. I think I actually frighten men. I think I scare the hell out of them time after time. It's going to take a pretty big man to tame this shrew. I need somebody who can at least stand up to me and slug it out, toe to toe. I don't mean a physical battle> I mean a man who would lay me, and when he was done, I'd say: "Oh, brother, I'd been laid."I once interviewed author Harlan Ellison and afterward described the experience as tossing out a question and then hanging on for dear life. Reading Murray's interview wasn't exactly the same, but it did give me some flashbacks. And having read the entire interview, I still don't like her very much although I must confess a degree of respect.
Though I may have pirated the super-heroes, I never went near their boy companions. If the theory behind Robin the Boy Wonder, Roy the Superboy, The Sandman's Sandy, The Shield's Rusty, The Human Torch's Toro, The Green Arrow's Speedy, and Captain America's Bucky was to give young readers a character with whom to identify, if failed dismally in my case. The super grownups were the ones I identified with. They were versions of me in the future. There was still time to prepare. But Robin the Boy Wonder was my own age. One need only look at him to see he could fight better, swing from a rope better, play ball better, eat better andlive better; for while I lived in the east Bronx, Robin lived in a mansion, and while I was trying, somehow, to please my mother and getting it all wrong, Robin was rescuing Batman and getting the gold medals. He didn't even have to live with his mother.I mean, when Feiffer writes about comics, you have to pay attention. He was probably the most widely read editorial cartoonist in the U.S. at one point, and won a Pulitzer in 1986. But ultimately, despite his obvious depth of knowledge, this piece is merely nostalgic rather than insightful. That's a pity, but maybe the world wasn't ready to think of comics as a legitimate art form in 1965. I've mentioned before how big a deal James Bond was in this era. The movies were a huge cultural event and Ian Fleming serialized new Bond novels in Playboy before they reached bookstore shelves. There is not a new James Bond story in this issue. Rather, we get the fiction parody Loxfinger by Sol Weinstein. I can't say I'm a fan. A quick check of The Google tells me that Weinstein wrote several parody novels featuring Israel Bond, secret agent for the fledgling state of Israel. The Google tells me these were well-received at the time. I dunno--to me it just comes off as ham-fisted and a bit cringe:
In that service he was known as Oy Oy Seven, a status which gave him license to kill. Not only was an Oy Oy holder licensed to kill, but he was also empowered to hold a memorial service over the victim. Bond thought of M, the head of the Secret Service, the only person to home he had ever given his total love and trust: M, who had bestowed the Oy Oy rank upon him. But now, Bond reflected as he gazed into the menacing O of the Olivetti, the sallow-complexioned, wiry Levantine type in the bellhop's uniform who held it had that license to kill. And he would use it. From a corner of a glazed eye, Bond caught the girl's face. No longe was it the sweetly obedient face of the lissome Priental Bond had picked up a few hours ago. Its lips were now curled into a contemptuous sneer. Of course! She was part of the cabal. He'd been had/ As if she'd overheard his rueful thought, she responded with an insolent, "How big swinger rike his rittle Oriental praymate now?" And she spat into his face.Maybe it'd read funnier had I grown up in the northeast and had more direct exposure and interaction with Jewish culture, but I doubt it. Austin Powers, it ain't. Heck, it's not even Spy Hard.
Highlights: Last time out, I learned that an issue without one of the famed Playboy interviews is an issue with a large intellectual hole in it. This time out, I learn that all interviews aren't created equal. That's a shame, because for June 1964 the featured interview should be a Jim-dandy one: Legendary Swedish filmmaker Ingmar Bergman. Alas, this one just didn't do it for me. The questions and answers came off as rote and offered little insight into the famed director--other than the fact that he doesn't like interviews and had a fairly short temper earlier in his career:
Playboy: You've been criticized not only for barring and even ejecting intruders from your sets, but for outbursts of rage in which, reportedly, you've ripped phones off the walls and thrown chairs through glass control booths. Is there any truth to these accounts? Bergman: Yes, there is--or rather, was. When I was younger, much younger, like so many young men I was unsure of myself. But I was very ambitious. And when you're unsure, when you're insecure and need to assert yourself, or think you do, you become aggressive in trying to get your own way. Well, that's what happened to me--in a provencial theater where I was a new director. I couldn't behave that way now and hope to keep the respect of my actors and my technicians. When I know the importance of every minute in a working day, when I realize the supreme necessity of establishing a mood of calm and security on the set, do you think I could, or would have any right to, indulge myself that way? A director on a movie set is a little like the captain of a ship: he must be respected in order to be obeyed. I haven't behaved that way at work since I was maybe twenty-five or twenty-six. Playboy: Yet the stories of temper tantrums continue to circulate in print. Bergman: Of course they do. Such stunts as ripping out telephones and hurling chairs around make the sort of copy that journalists love to give the editors and their readers. It's more colorful to read about a violent temper than about someone instilling confidence in his actors by talking quietly with themIt's to be expected that people will go on writing--and reading--this sort of nonsense about a man year after year. Do you begin to understand why I don't like to talk to the press?.And by choosing that passage to excerpt, I suppose I have proven Bergman right nearly 60 years later.
Other thoughts: First off, let me say I absolutely hate the cover designs that use this furry, bourgeoisie rabbit mascot. The character himself looks more than a little creepy and cover designs using him are lazy and uninspired every single time.
With that out of the way, it's time for "Uncle Shelby's Scout Handbook" from Shel Silverstein. I've not mentioned much about Silverstein's illustrated cartoons from previous issues. Although I count myself as a casual fan well aware of the sprawling diversity of his creative output, many of his Playboy cartoons struck me as unfocused and generally weird for weirdness' sake. Not this time. Here, Silverstein serves up four pages of delightfully subversive panels tinged with macabe humor. Would I ever be a Shelby Scout? Never. But I'll happily read about their ill-fated exploits.
One thing I like about these old issues is the insight they offer into cultural styles of the era, and that holds true here. In "Playboy's Gifts for Dads and Grads" we get a glimpse into what the hot, trendy must-have items are for 1964. Below we see the self-contained stereo unit Claritone for $1,600, which seems pretty pricey even by today's standards, even though there's no denying it's wow factor. Another must-have, pictured on a different page, is a 1964 Ford Mustang convertible with optional white-wall tires for $2,780. If you doubt what a huge cultural impact the Mustang had, skip down to the next image.
Highlights: I just learned something of significant import--the very first Playboy interview appeared in the September 1962 issue. It was conducted by the legendary author Alex Haley with the equally legendary musician Miles Davis. Before that, Playboy did not run interviews. This issue is from April of that year, and let me tell you folks, the absence of the famed interview is sorely noted. Up to this point, I did not realize how essential that feature had become in my exploration of back issue articles. That's not to say there's no thoughtful prose here, but rather, nothing quite so immediate and arresting.
The cream of the crop this outing may be Arthur C. Clarke's science column, "You Can't Get There From Here" in which the famed author considers the challenges of "probing the proximate regions of Earth and sun." The science is, of course, dated--at once point Clarke references Mercury as being tidally locked with one side of the planet always facing the sun with the other side perpetually facing away--but it is all intelligent and even heady subject matter, which makes me wistful for a time when popular science articles were, well, popular reading. Here are some selections that stood out for me:At the Earth's center, the pressure is estimated to be over 3,000,000 tons per square foot, or 3000 times that at which Trieste [the first bathyscape to descend into Challenger Deep] encountered. Under such pressures, rocks and metals flow like liquids. In addition, the temperature rises steadily toward the interior, reaching perhaps 6000 degrees Fahrenheit at the center. It is obvious, therefore, that we cannot hope to find a ready-made road into the heart of our planet, and the old idea of a "Hollow Earth" (once put forward as a serious scientific theory) must be reluctantly dismissed--together with a whole host of subterranean fantasies such as Edgar Rice Burroughs' At the Earth's Core.It makes me happy to know Clarke enjoyed reading Burroughs. Clarke goes on to discuss the impossiblity of physically exploring the mantle and core of the Earth but then posits indirect observations. Gravimetric and seismic obvservations have given up amazingly detailed (yet incomplete) understanding of the interior of not only Earth, but also the moon, Mars, Venus and outer planets and their satellites as well, something that would've surely stunned 1962 Clarke.
Something equally penetrating is that most peculiar and elusive of atomic particles, the neutrino. All other particles are stopped by a few inches, or at most a few feet, of materials such as lead. But the incredible neutrino, having no mass and no charge (to put you out of your misery, it does have spin), can shoot through lead 50 light-years thick without being noticeably inconvenienced. Torrents of them are sweeping at the velocity of light through our so-called solid Earth at this very moment, and only one in a million million notices the trifling obstruction.And finally...
Ray Bradbury, in his short story The Golden Apples of the Sun, described the descent of a spaceship into the solar atmosphere to obtain a sample of the Sun (which we now know, incidentally, to be 90 percent hydrogen, 10 percent helium, plus a mere trace of all the other elements). When I first read this story, I dismissed it as charming fantasy; now I am not so sure. In one sense we have already reched out and touched the Sun, for we made radar contact with it in 1959--and how unbelievable that would have seemed a generation ago! Even a close physical approach no longer seems completely out of the question, thanks to the development of the new science of plasma physics, born within the last 10 years.Now, 62 years later, I can only wonder what Clarke might's thought about the Parker Solar Probe
Lenny Bruce - American (Fantasy) is the unlikely title of a very likely LP. A stiletto-sharp Bruce discourses (in almost antiseptically expurgated fashion, we might add) on a traumatic gig in Lima, Ohio ("The first day you go through the five-and-10; the next day, you walk through the park and look at the cannon. I stayed at the show business hotel; they got a guy there who's the movie projectionist; another guy sells Capezios. I was held over for spite."), runs through a helpful how-to on the right way to relax colored people at parties (High points of Bruce's party conversation: "Joe Louis was certainly a helluva fighter... That Bojangles sure was some dancer... You all have a natural sense of rhythm... Have you had anything to eat? Can I get you some watermelon and fried chicken?... I'd like to have you over to the house, but I have a sister... But comeon over, anyway--after dark."), offers a ploy to throw a motel desk clerk off the track ("How much is it by the month?"), and delivers a Mexican-American youngster's brotherhood plea to his ethnically-comingled gang ("We all have to stick together--and beat up the Polacks"). Bruce's tag-off is a beautifully enacted travesty of the Hollywood prison movie that is a comedic classic.All of that may come across as offensive out of context--and even in context, that's the point--but the end result is an Archie Bunkeresque sendup of racists that is pretty funny.
Highlights: Just so we're clear, in no reality was I ever going to follow up last week's disappointing Billy Carter issue with anything other than the Playboy that appeared exactly one year prior. That's right, this week I take a deep dive into the November 1976 issue, which featured what quite possibly is the most famous of all Playboy interviews, with the future president, Jimmy Carter. Fun fact: Playboy, like most magazines, mails out subscriber copies several weeks before the issue is available on newsstands. On rare occasions, when said issue made headlines in other media, Playboy would capitalize on this by slapping a sticker on the newsstand edition highlighting the content that was generating buzz as a way to juice sales. This issue features a big white sticker with blue and red type drawing attention to the Carter interview. Subscriber copies are more sedate.
As for the interview itself, well, it's a mixed bag. Carter discusses his Baptist faith at length. Again and again. But thisisn't necessarily his fault. The prevailing attitude at the time seems to be a deep fear that Carter woud implement some sort of fundamentaist Baptist-flavored Taliban on the U.S. were he elected, which Carter, exhibiting remarkable patience, calmly denies and offers his time as governor of Georgia as evidence that he is not prone to go mad with power and impose his own religious beliefs on others. In a companion article, a complaint is made that all Carter seems to talk about is his religion, to which it is correctly pointed out that religion is the only thing most national media actually asks Carter about. So there's that. The "interview" is also annoying to me in that it is a compilation of multiple interviews conducted over a period of months. Although I understand this can be standard practice, I don't feel it's entirely honest and context and mood can affect an interviewee's answers and by stretching things out so long gives the interview a skewed ability to cherry-pick answers to suit a particular agenda. So here, at the tail end of an extended months-long interview, Carter takes a throw-away question and goes off on a soul-baring monologue that is absolutely stunning in its raw honesty. This would never, ever happen today, and there are mixed opinions on whether it helped or hurt Carter in the election, but damned if it isn't a landmark conversation:Playboy: Do you feel you've reassured people with this interview, people who are uneasy about your religious beliefs, who wonder if you're going to make a rigid, unbending President? Carter: I don't know if you've been to Sunday school here yet; some of the press has attended. I teach there about every three or four weeks. It's getting to be a real problem because we con't have room to put everybody now when I teach. I don't know if we're going to have to issue passes or what. It almost destroys the worship aspect of it. But we had a good class last Sunday. It's a good way to learn what I believe and what the Baptists believe. One thing Baptists believe is in complete autonomy. I don't accept any domination of my life by the Baptist Church, none. Every Baptist church is individual and autonomous. We don't accept donations of our church from the Southern Baptist Convention. The reason the Baptist Church was formed in this country was because of our belief in absolute and total separation of church and state. These basic tenets make us almost unique. We don't believe in any heirarchy in church. We don't have bishops. Any officers chosen by the church are defined as servants, not bosses. They're supposed to do the dirty work, make sure the church is clean and painted and that sort of thing. So it's a very good, democratic structure. ... The thing that's drummed into us all the time is not to be proud, not to be better than anyone else, not to look down on people but to make ourselves acceptable in God's eyes through our own actions and recognize the simple truth that we're saved by grace. It's just a free gift through faith in Christ. This gives us a mechanism by which we can relate permanently to God. I'm not speaking for other people, but it gives me a sense of peace and equanimity and assurance. I try not to commit a deliberate sin. I recognize that I'm going to do it anyhow, because I'm human and I'm tempted. And Christ set some almost impossible standards for us. Christ said, "I tell you that anyone who looks on a woman with lust has in his heart already committed adultry." I've looked on a lot of women with lust. I've committed adultery in my heart many times. This is something that God recognizes I will do--and I have done it--and God forgives me for it. But that doesn't mean that I condemn someone who not only looks on a woman with lust but who leaves his wife and shacks up with somebody out of wedlock. Christ says, Don't consider yourself better than someone else because one guy screws a whole bunch of women while the other guy is loyal to his wife. The guy who's loyal to his wife ought not to be condescending or proud because of the relative degree of sinfulness. One thing that Paul Tillich said was that religion is a search for the truth about man's existence and his relationship with God and his fellow man; and that once you stop searching and think you've got it made--at that pointyou lose your religion. Constant reassessment, searching in one's heart--it gives me a feeling of confidence. I don't inject these beliefs in my answers to your secular questions.It is a shame that for this thoughtful, philosophical answer Carter only received mockery for "Lust in his heart." Forty years removed, the contrast between Carter's statements and religious right couldn't be starker. I'm not going out on a limb by saying the Carter presidency was troubled. He didn't get along well with the Democratic congress and foreign relations bedeviled him, although he achieved a major victory by brokering peace between Egypt and Israel. In many ways he was too honest to be president, and his eschewing of typical political compromise and horsetrading seriously undercut his chances at a second term. That said, there's a convincing argument to be made that Jimmy Carter has been the greatest ex-president the U.S.A. has ever had. The mad has lived a life of service and even now, more than a year into hospice, he continues to inspire as a Good Person.
Other thoughts: Oh geeze, here's Larry L. King again. Look, I've read lots of Larry L. King--more than most living humans, I'll wager. You may have heard of his Playboy article from a few years prior: "The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas." Yeah, that one. I wrote a book on it, you know. The actual brothel, not King's article. In this issue King's piece is called "The Great Willie Nelson Commando Hoo-Ha and Texas Brain Fry." King's got a thing for titles, amirite? This one's ostensibly about the third Fourth of July picnic Nelson ever put on, but the thing with King is that he seldom actually writes much about what he purports to be writing about. Instead, he normally dicks around and misses most of said event, so resorts to writing about dicking around and exaggerating the hell out of the details he doesn't make up from scratch. Is it entertaining? Sure, but after reading two or three of his pieces you start to see the pattern. Sadly, Nelson doesn't make an appearance here, although fellow Outlaw Country star Jerry Jeff Walker does, sort of:
Dub said, "Then there's Jerry Jeff Walker. One time--" I groaned. It was not necessary for Dub to inform me of Jeffy Jeff Walker, a.k.a. Dr. Snowflake, a.k.a. Jacky Jack Doubletree, a.k.a. Scamp Walker. He is the man who got reasonably rick off writing Mr. Bojangles, which Richard Nixon claims as his favorite song; this gives Nixon and Walker something in common besides their having been born natural outlaws. Once I was hosting this sedate cocktail party at Princeton, see, for delicate literary types and their proper wives, when Jerry JeffWalker--who'd beenplaying a club in New York--appeared very much unnanounced, dressed like a buffalo hunter and looking like three months on field bivouac complicated by the blind staggers. Jacky Jack Doubletree proved that he was a natural showman by immediately imitating the walks and lisps of sherry-sipping academicians; he crashed about, stepping on long gowns and howling for Lone Star beer. He asked a highly placed faculty wife her relative expertise in the cocksucking discipline and generally cleared staid old Maclean House as efficiently as a drunk spade with a switchblade. He left in a snowstorm, at supersonic speeds and in a rental car charged to my American Express card. The car was found abandoned in midtown Manhattan, long on traffic tickets and short on operable parts. Jerry Jeff's explanation was that he couldn't remember being in a car that night. No, Dub need tell me but very little of old Scamp Walker. But he was saying, "And after these rodeo cowboys beat Jacky Jack up--I mean, stomped a mudhole in his ass--he lay there in a buncha broken furniture and looked up through the blood and said, 'Y'all ain't so fuckin' tough. I been beat up worse than this by motorcycle gangs.'"Elsewhere in the issue, Playboy is somewhat less entertaining. I believe the term popular with younger generations these days is "cringe." Yes, Playboy is inarguably cringe for its helpful "Guide to Black Slang." I'm not making this up, folks--predating Barbara Billingsley's "Excuse me, I speak jive" moment in Airplane by four years, this piece manages to be neither funny nor insightful:
Why do black people talk the way they do? Some linguists (white) answer "Because they have thick lips." Black linguists demur: "Say that again, turkey, and I'll go up 'side yo' head." ... American Express: A man who suffers premature ejaculation. Used exclusively as a put-down for white males. Conversely, a Master Charge is one who has great staying power--that is, all black men. We leave it to your imagination what Diner's Club means. ... Negro: Formerly a black person. Now any fair-skinned middle-class white man or woman who has every record the Shirelles ever made. ... tough maracas: Depending on voice pitch, either the highest compliment or the grossest insult that can be directed to those of Hispanic descent. A low-register delivery means praise, a high-pitched "reading" can mean a gang fight. Some of the most accomplished insulters are male singers who are adept at falsetto.One can only presume Playboy had a negligible African American readership. Yikes. Somewhat less controversial is an article about various video recorders and video discs newly available on the market. In this era of DVR and streaming-on-demand this doesn't seem like that big a deal, but VCRs were game changers in an era of three channels and no repeats until summer rerun season. These things were crazy expensive until the early 80s and video rentals didn't take off until the mid-80s. Looking over the offerings, I can't help but smile to see a Sony Betamax for $1,260. We had a Betamax in the Blaschke household, until VHS undercut it with a lower price point. I think my mom has a bunch of taped-from-TV Betamax movies stashed away in cabinets somewhere. There's also JVC and Panasonic offerings, which I have no memory of. Both had proprietary tape formats. There's also an early laserdisc player from Phillips and MCA, which is kind of amazing when you realize it predates digital by decades, and an RCA SelectaVision disc player limited to 30 minutes per side. Both disc players retailed for around $500. My, how technology flies!
Highlights: sigh. Okay, I will confess that this specific issue is the one that put the idea of revisting these old back issues for the editorial content into my mind. I mean, Billy Carter? The ultimate 1970s D-list celebrity scored a coveted Playboy interview? That. Is. Astonishing. My first decade of life was lived through the 1970s, and I remember Billy Carter as the president's idiot brother who went broke with a beer company. Neither of which, in hindsight, are true. A little digging revealed that Billy never ran a beer company, he only endorsed a novelty brand at one point. And he wasn't in the craft brew vanguard, either--he drank Pabst because it was cheap, and would happily trade that for anything cheaper. He also graduated from Emory, which isn't exactly a diploma mill. Back in the day, Billy earned a reputation as a type of redneck sage, bluntly telling it like it is with back country wisdom that left those on the receiving end steaming over his lack of diplomacy. In reality, I think Billy was just a mean drunk. He eventually went into rehab but only a few years sober cancer claimed him.
"When did you get over being prejudiced?" I asked him the first time we talked. I assumed that he had gotten over it, since Miss Lillian and Jimmy said they had and since Billy had sued the members of the public school board to try to require them to send their children to public schools instead of to priveate segregated schools. "I'm still prejudiced, I guess," he said. "It would still bother me for my daughter to marry a black man." ... Billy undoubtedly makes a point of avoiding anything resembling a lofty liberal pronouncement. After I got to know him better, though, he confided, "You're the first one I've ever told this. Why I left the city council. I ran in the first place to change the vote against me getting a beer license. I won and got the license and then I told everybody I was going to run again. So nobody else qualified against this black man. He was running for my post and everyone figured I'd beat him. The, when it was too late for anybody else to qualify, I withdrew and he got on. It was a flim-flam deal. I figured it was time the blacks got some representation."Wow. I wouldn't consider that ethical behavior, but it is... interesting. My take is that Billy was more self-aware than he liked to admit. He wasn't able to overcome his ingrained racism on a personal level, give or take, but made efforts to overcome it on a societal level. If nothing else, he marched to the beat of his own drummer. Which brings us to the actual interview in the issue, with Henry Kyemba. He's not exactly a household name these days, but at the time had freshly defected as a cabinet member from the brutal, murderous regime of dictator Idi Amin in Uganda. The interview is harrowing, to say the least:
Playboy: When did it become apparent that Amin's killings were not individual cases but mass murder? Kyemba: That was not until late 1972 Playboy: And you started to see bodies at that stage? Kyemba: Everybody started to see bodies. There were so many that they couldn't be buried, so they were dumped into the Nile. The main road that connects Kampala and Jinja passes over the River Nile. Thousands of people passed that place every day. Time and again, you would find bodies floating down from the source of the Nile, through the dam, and piling up in the still waters on one side. There was a boat on full-time duty removing the bodies. You would find people physically lifting those rotten, ballooned-out bodies from the river. Playboy: Why do you think they were thrown into the river rather than into the lake? Kyemba: That was one of the stupid things that Amin's boys did. Obviously, they thought that by dumping them into the river they would be eaten quickly by the crocodiles. They did not realize that once they dumped the bodies in such numbers, the crocodiles could not eat them all. Nor did they think that the bodies would be floating, all puffed up, to the surface. I saw bodies that were left on the riverside for days, because people became hardened to the sight. Then Amin announced on the Ugandan radio that all those bodies must be removed by teh police as soon as they appeared. He accused the police of being lazy because they were not removing them fast enough!
Other thoughts: This issue contains Playboy's inaugural college basketball preview, accompanied by a ridiculously distorted two-page spread of the 1977-78 pre-season All-American team. I mean, what were they thinking to elongate the photo to make the already-tall players look taller? I mean, that's something a high school newspaper would do. It is interesting to note a very young Larry Bird second from the right, long before his glory years with the Boston Celtics. The pre-season top 10 is mostly a mix of the usual suspects with a couple of outliers sprinkled in for interest: 1) North Carolina, 2) Kentucky, 3) San Francisco, 4) Marquette, 5) Purdue, 6) Arkansas, 7) Kansas State, 8) Alabama, 9) Minnesota, 10) Notre Dame.
