that'll be the day

 I was recently reflecting on how information is sometimes in our minds and we don't know how it got there.  You know?  Cultural phenomena one is aware of, and then you think, 'How did I become aware of this?  I know I didn't seek out knowledge of this...'

It's in the air, and we find that we somehow know about it.

I can remember reading an article about Hugh Hefner and the "Playboy lifestyle" sometime in the late 1970s or early '80s - probably in Rolling Stone magazine, or People.

        It said Mr. Hefner wore pajamas most of the time, drank a lot of Pepsi-Cola, and entertained guests at parties around the clock.

        The article mentioned that there were refrigerators all over the mansion, with Pepsi in them, for his convenience.

        Something about all those refrigerators stayed with me....

------------------------------------- In a documentary, a guy says people visiting Chicago from out of town liked the Playboy Club because it was an exciting idea:  they would think, "What's gonna happen if I go there?"

        What's going to happen if you go there?  Well - nothing!  The "bunnies" were not allowed to date customers.

That's one of the funny things about the so-called "sexual revolution."  People were going to be free from old constraints and repression, but then as soon as you had a Playboy Club, you had new rules and constraints ... can't date customers, etc.

There's an episode of The Dick Cavett Show where they had Hugh Hefner and feminist Susan Brownmiller as guests.

        You can find it on You Tube.

        Ms. Brownmiller makes a firm, clear pronouncement: "Hugh Hefner is my enemy!"  She says the Playboy bunny costume makes women look like rabbits.  She says, "We're not rabbits!  We're human beings!"

        (To me, the costumes don't make the women look like rabbits.  They look like what they are - young ladies dressed in costumes.  But some of the feminists felt like these girls, working at the Playboy Clubs in what were essentially waitress jobs, were being objectified and even exploited, and the activists had a point.)

Amidst their discussion, Brownmiller challenges Hefner:  "The day that you are willing to come out here with a cottontail attached to your rear end..." - she doesn't get to finish that sentence, because the audience explodes in delighted laughter and applause.

It's pretty funny.

"Humorous History."

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