Playboy After Hours

After glomming Patrick Chase's International Datebook for the past several years, avid reader John Langley informs us that he was suddenly smitten by the vapors, went into a high fever and whipped up a kind of Irrational Datebook, the ultimate word in let's-get-away-from-it-all vacation spots. He tells of a mystic spa on the shores of Dire Straits, near Rising Gorge, on the top of Crucial Point, where sits the luxurious Hotel Last Resort. As the visitor strolls the grounds, crossing a bridge before he comes to it, he can see large stables full of horses of different colors. In the trees (principally for barking up, and all of them wrong), the birds are in hand (except for the two in the bush) and the rippling streams are full of the ones that got away. The leaves on the ground are all newly turned, and straight-and-narrow paths of primrose lead from one pitfall to another.

Mornings at the spa are taken up with group activities, and usually begin with a quiet round of Breaking the Ice, Swallowing Pride, Looking Down Noses, Viewing with Alarm, or perhaps the rather bouncy game of Lumping It. Next, sides are chosen for Making Both Ends Meet, Laughing on the Outside or Plumbing Depths.

A light lunch is then served, which may consist of:

Carle Before the Hors d'Oeuvres

Hot Well Bred with Buttered Up

Olives Drab

Sitting Duck Eggs (in one basket)

with Minced Words

Unhatched Chicken (counted) with

Curried Favor

Mixed Fruit (Polished Apples, Tone-Shaped Pears and Broken Dates)

Spilled Milk of Human Kindness

Afternoons are usually given over to Exercising Everything but Discretion, as well as such vigorous and exciting sports as Launching Pads, Breeding Suspicion, Meeting at the Summit, Feeling No Pain, Jumping at Conclusions and, after shovels are passed out, Filling Long-Felt Needs. Later, it's Batting Eyes, Heaping Scorn, Casting Aspersions, Hurling Insults and Grasping at Straws.

We feel that a short, perhaps very short, stay at Hotel Last Resort will make all the difference in the world, and that you will return to your job feeling a great deal more like you did when you arrived. For further information on rates, etc., contact the hotel, but the management, we are informed, cannot assume responsibility.

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Our Research Department thinks it may have unearthed the source of The New Yorker's famous 1953 "Kindly take us to your President" cartoon (you know the one: two weirdies from outer space, obviously just stepped out of the rocket ship in the background, are directing the line to a horse). Ten years before that, in the October 1943 issue of Fantastic Adventures, appeared a cartoon with the caption, "I must say I am a bit disappointed in you Earthmen!" The picture? A weirdie from outer space, obviously just stepped out of the rocket ship in the background, directing the line to a horse. The gag-writer? A 14-year-old kid named Charles Beaumont, making his first professional appearance. His latest professional appearance begins on page 35 of this issue.

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A well-established haberdashery currently doing business on 16th street in Sacramento, California, is called The Brick Shirt House.

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Almost every other day, it seems, we read scolding articles in the popular periodicals telling how mediocrity and conformity are blighting the vigor and enterprise of the current generation. We are happy, therefore, to counter this doomshouting with the following example of admirable entrepreneurial vitality. A young Denver woman appeared in Municipal Judge George McNamara's court recently, charged with prostitution. The judge found her guilty and fined her $100, but granted a 10-day stay. The final day, the woman appeared before McNamara. "I've got $91," she said. "Could you give me a few more hours?"

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Viewing 1958 in retrospect, Advertising Age, the commercial creator's bible, said: "The least pleasant aspect of the year was the rash of novels about advertising, all depicting the wenching, guzzling, irresponsible adman at his worst. There was one exception -- Martin Mayer wrote a non-fiction report on advertising, Madison Ave., U.S.A. [Playboy After Hours, April 1958], which most admen felt was a sensible, accurate portrayal of the ad business." We assume that Mr. Mayer's book depicted the wenching, guzzling, irresponsible adman at his best.

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Sign observed in a beat bistro: "We do not serve women at the bar. You have to bring your own."

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Used to be, in Coronado, California, that an ordinance on the city books allowed groups of up to five unrelated persons to live together in a single family dwelling in certain zones. Recently, though, the City Council passed an amendment changing the permissible number from five to three. Thing that makes these minor legalistics newsworthy is the unassailable air of virtue lent them by the names of some of the men involved: City Attorney J. R. Goodbody suggested the council members make an intensive study before passing the amendment, and Councilman Robin Goodenough attempted to have the study expanded into a survey; Councilman Don Spicer made it clear that the action was not directed against bachelors, and a law barring the building of new guest houses was urged by Councilman Walter Vestal. We trust the good City Fathers will not be annoyed, but the proceedings have suggested an irreverent and irrelevant motto to us: a vestal goodbody should be a goodenough spicer for anyone.

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Continuing our occasional culling of carefree classified curiosa: From the Blair (Nebraska) Enterprise: "Lost: light-blue dress night of Share-the-Fun Contest." And from the Los Angeles Times: "Single expectant mother desires housework or baby sitting. No bachelor considered."

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When our December Playmate, Joyce Nizzari, recently visited Julius Monk's sophisticated two-level New York show-club (Playboy, Upstairs at the Downstairs, May 1959), she was invited into the kitchen bar to autograph her Playmate picture, which turned out to be the only decoration on the wall. As she signed her name, she noticed that an accident had ripped the portrait in the area of her posterior. Over the tear, tender hands had placed a Bandaid.