Hugh and Cry - Playboy Ain't Playing Anymore

If it ain't broke, don't fix it, and if it's making money, DON'T SELL IT.

And so, Playboy decided to remove TWAT from their pages as a fix, and now they want to just find some rich Mexican or Arab to take over completely.

Yes, everybody's talkin' about it. I don't care a word they're saying. It only echoes: "It's over, it's over, IT'S OVERRRRRRRRRRR."

How's that for a segue from Nilsson to Orbison? From amiable country rock to county rock hysteria. From a whisper to a scream.

Look: been there done that. It's the beginning of the end. Selling a sex mag doesn't work. In the past, it worked for a year or two. Now? Things move even faster toward disaster. What happened to Penthouse will happen to Playboy.

Some years ago, Bob Guccione, the Hefner figurehead who ran Penthouse, ended up bankrupt. How could it happen? Bad management? Excess? Letting his stupid son run a rock magazine into the ground? Bankrolling shitty films that failed?

Back then, the failure of Penthouse was simply seen as a fluke, and "new money" could correct it. Know what? It worked. For a while. Because "The Gooch" did sort of fuck things up. He himself became fucked up even worse, including cancer that forced the removal of part of his tongue, leaving him sounding pretty garbled. His saving grace was he was allowed to stay in his mansion until he died. Which he soon did. (Right now Hefner is being offered the same consideration, should Playboy find a foolish billionaire to buy it.)

Under new management, Penthouse skipped along till it tripped, thanks to the Internet. Many writers and photographers suddenly found themselves waiting for checks. And waiting. Some refused to submit new material. The editors promised some kind of settlement...and found new people via the promise, "We're going to be bought again! You WILL be paid."

Miraculously, it was true. Owner #3 stepped in, and some people were optimistic that mistakes could be corrected, and a new direction found.

Except nobody had an answer for THE INTERNET, and people getting porn FREEEEEEE. The best idea was to stuff a porn DVD "freeeee" into every issue of Penthouse AND Forum, the "digest" mag full of dirty letters that everyone swore were actually real. (Tee hee).

Unfortunately, the plan didn't work. DVDs were a dying media. What ha saved the digest mag was that that it was portable. You could buy one, stick it in your pocket, read a dirty letter, jerk off, and all was well. But with every fuckhead on the planet owning a cell phone, people could take their porn anywhere...FREEEEEEEEEEEE.

Not too many months ago, Penthouse and their digest mags went under. They promise to endure as a website, but there are too many fucking porn websites (and most are FREEEEEEEEEEE).

Now, Playboy.

The likely scenario is it'll go bankrupt. A possibility is that some lunatic will buy it and run it into the ground in no time. Oh, ps, this already happened in Playboy's history. Hefner bought OUI, with the intent of making it the pubic hair competition to upstart Penthouse. Amazingly, OUI couldn't catch Penthouse and Hefner sold it to somebody he knew would fuck it up and go under. And that's exactly what happened to it. He sold it to a guy named Murray whose nickname was "Shit for Brains." But back to the current debacle.

It'll take a megalomaniac with a ton of money to buy Playboy. He'll want the "prestige" of owning a failing mag, a bad cable channel, a few resorts, licensing to put a stupid bunny logo on socks, and the chance to have starlets, models and whores give free blow jobs to get the "prestige" of being called Playmate of the Month. Christ, you can own a yogurt company and spit your cream over a dozen hot bitches' faces. Who needs the "prestige" of owning something that makes less money, but supposedly makes you "famous?" PS, anyone even know the name of the guy who bought Penthouse from Guccione? No, nobody finds that kind of fame so appealing.

Adieu. Playboy hasn't been Playboy in DECADES. When was the last time they broke new talent? When was the last time they discovered a hot babe? Was it when Barbi Benton posed nude in the 70's? When was the last time an exciting new cartoonist began appearing each month? Gahan Wilson? When was the last time they ran an interview that had everyone buzzing? When Bob Dylan did one? It's been a long time.

So the world keeps changing for the worse. It's all about FREE. It's not about good fiction, good humor, good cartoons, or even interesting naked women. And it's horrible to realize what would've saved Playboy: "Adele, posing naked!"