Playboy After Hours

Henny Youngman never cracked a better one-liner than the San Francisco Chronicle's deadpan report about the gay sequel to Marvin vs. Marvin in which "a Washington man is suing his male former lover for allegedly violating an oral agreement."

Tanks For The Memories

Breaking up is always hard to do, but citizens of the small German city of Bremervörde have discovered that it can be a damned distressing occurrence just to watch, too! When a 21-year-old Dutch corporal stationed in town was barred by her dad from seeing his young sweetheart, he decided to prove his undying love in a public display that combined the essence of Romeo with the grace of Godzilla. Modernizing the romantic nuances of Shakespeare a bit, he broke into his girlfriend's home using a 39-ton tank. His zany act of passion brought the entire house down, literally.

Feeling that imitation is the sincerest form of flattening, the ironclad Casanova pancaked the home next door as well before rumbling off into the night, crushing his girlfriend's father's car, five other vehicles and a youth office the girl had patronized. The paramour of the Panzer division was eventually apprehended by fellow soldiers and brought up on "several charges." The final bill for the jilted lover's moonlight sonata? A mere $120,000. Romeo's reaction to a broken heart was not only quicker and much more permanent but a lot cheaper, too.

De Ol' Caste System

Someone is stealing the black cast-iron lawn jockeys of Connecticut! That's right, folks. The last bastion of middleclass American racism has fallen into the clutches of the criminal element. During a six-month period, 13 of the heavy, red-jacketed, lantern-carrying jockey statues have been snatched off the lawns of white families in two Connecticut communities. The culprits? According to West Hartford police, the perpetrators are a group of radicals calling themselves The Black Jockey's Liberation Army, an entourage that leaves the following note at the scene of each kidnaping: "'Tis the goal of our army to wipe clean from the face of the earth and remove all forms of bigotry...."

Of the 13 lawn jockeys liberated, II were of the black variety. One, a liberal model, was poor white trash. The remaining one, Hispanic-American in features, was later abandoned on the lawn of the official residence of Connecticut's governor, Ella T. Grasso. No note was left when the white jockey was taken and, thus far, no lawn flamingos have been molested.

A possible way station on the B.J.L.A.'s underground railroad was uncovered when a workman measuring a home for storm windows spotted six black jockeys inside. Windsor Locks police raided the house and arrested William T. Butchon, 28, who lives there with his father. The freed jockeys are being held by police as evidence.

According to Connecticut States Attorney Allen W. Smith, suspect Butchon pleaded not guilty and asked for trial by a jury of his peers. No other arrests have been made. "He seems a very normal young man," said Smith. "We have no evidence that this is an international conspiracy, nor does another Civil War appear to be likely in the near future."

Jesus in Every Drain

A lot of people may believe that God is dead, but in the Midwest, He's alive and well and active in private enterprise. Officials of the Concrete Pipe Corporation of Menasha, Wisconsin, elected Jesus Christ chairman of the board in a unanimous vote. How did a carpenter's son from Nazareth muscle into the plumbing biz? The firm's president, born-again Christian Don Koepke, doesn't think the Lord's abrupt change of occupation odd at all. "He runs this place, anyway," he said, explaining the vote.

Next month: Buddha buys controlling shares of Wham-O toy company.

Barely Making it

No one has ever accused the Internal Revenue Service of being particularly understanding when it comes to auditing the returns of hapless taxpayers. IRS official Uta Biedenfeld has reversed that trend, however, showing a good deal of compassion when confronted with the naked truth.

While auditing the 1977 tax return of Broadway actress September Thorp, Miss Biedenfeld ran across a deduction of $465 for "make-up." She was skeptical. "You see," she explained, "under IRS rules, even an actress cannot deduct clothes, make-up or hair styling that can be adaptable to street wear. And for make-up, you must use cosmetics that go beyond what we would call the everyday look."

September was summoned and asked to explain the large expenditure. She did so, showing that, indeed, her makeup went beyond the everyday look. "I'm in Oh! Calcutta! and I have to appear nude onstage every night, so I cover myself with body make-up. I go through a tube every two weeks and it's very expensive."

Uta carefully reviewed the facts and allowed the deduction to go through, commenting sagely, "There are always extenuating circumstances." Miss Thorp, meanwhile, says that in the future, she will continue to take the $465 as the bare minimum off her taxes. On another front, it is reported that Loni (WKRP in Cincinnati) Anderson's deductions have reached six figures for 1979 alone.

No Parking: Twilight Zone

Alexandria, Virginia, police proved that there's no way out of parking fines when they ticketed a blue van on three separate occasions before noticing that the driver was sitting, quite dead, in the front seat.

Sergeant Archie Hall explained how the terminal ticketing came about. The driver of the van suffered from multiple sclerosis and used a special device to fasten himself behind the steering wheel. "Because of the equipment," the sarge stated, "if you just glanced, you really couldn't see the man unless you were looking very hard."

Judge Crater could not be reached for comment.

Stop The Music

Some days it just doesn't pay to get out of bed. Disco dancing has been proved hazardous to your health. It's true. Disco dancing is currently crippling its devotees on two fronts, at different ends of the body. The American Podiatry Association is currently warning groovy guys and gals about an epidemic of the dread "disco foot" syndrome. Disco feet, it seems, aren't happy feet. According to the association, they are fraught with aches, corns and calluses. Eventually, excess boogying can even cause sprains, stress fractures and inflammation.

Meanwhile, the respected New England Journal of Medicine is warning disco dervishes of "disco felon": a lamentable state of medical morbidity equal to Frisbee finger, judo itch and jogger's nipple. Basically, disco felon is an inflammation of the finger tip caused by snapping one's fingers to the beat of the music. And Dr. Frederick W. Walker of Johns Hopkins Hospital warns that the malady that arises with a snap can not be dismissed as easily. One 17-year-old girl, for instance, popped her fingers to the music so much and so hard that the middle finger of her left hand developed calluses. Eventually, they cracked and infected the girl's finger tip--and the dreaded disco-felon cycle was completed.

So take heed, disco dancers, and snap and tap no more. Gee. Wonder what happens to people who play musical chairs for kicks.

Checking In

We asked free-lance writer and film, critic Susan Granger to talk withChristopher Reeveon the set of his forthcoming movie, "Somewhere in Time."

[Q] Playboy: Your Superman image is so squeaky clean, yet you smoke, you drink and you aren't exactly the all-American boy in real life. Do you believe you have an obligation to maintain a wholesome image?

[A] Reeve: It's my life and I'm free to do what I want. I don't see myself as any kind of symbol. I've been an actor for 15 years, playing killers, a Nazi and even a grandmother. I've done many characters and I'm not more one than another. I'd go crazy if I tried to please everyone. If I want to drink or not drink, smoke or not smoke, it's a private decision, and I can't think whether or not little Johnny from Iowa is going to be happy about it.

[Q] Playboy: Do you see yourself as somehow different from the current crop of young actors?

[A] Reeve: Definitely. I'm not of this generation. I'm not a brooding young Brando, and I'm certainly not a De Niro, Pacino or Hoffman. I think the only way to succeed in this business is not to be like somebody else. I'd like to bring back the screen image that was popular in the Thirties and Forties, a less complicated, less introverted leading man--like Jimmy Stewart, John Wayne, Henry Fonda, Robert Taylor.

[Q] Playboy: Females of all ages turn on to you. How do you explain it?

[A] Reeve: I've noticed that the response is directly proportional to the age. Under ten, they squeal; from ten to 15, they giggle; from 15 to 20, they kind of hang back and act cool; and over 20, they ignore me. Young girls have a media-hyped image of me, and because they're awakening sexually, they focus on the first reasonable object, whether it's Shaun Cassidy, Andy Gibb, John Travolta or me.

[Q] Playboy: What do you find sexy in a woman?

[A] Reeve: First, she's got to be tall. I'd have a hard time with a girl 5'2" tall. I'd feel like the Jolly Green Giant. It's agony for me when I'm around short people. Second, intelligence works magic on me. I really like a woman who can do more than I can. If I learn a girl is at secretarial school just hoping to catch a husband, I go right under the table. One of the best relationships I ever had lasted three years: a girl who played beautiful violin, could sail and climbed mountains. I've always had relationships with women I could learn something from.

[Q] Playboy: Is living together important?

[A] Reeve: Of course. There's a tremendous number of things you don't find out about somebody until you start living together. Another girl I was attracted to thought that fun was making soup! I didn't know that, of course, until we started living together. That was back in our artsy-fartsy student days at Juilliard in '74, when we were moving in and out at the drop of a hat. There were 25 actors in a class and by the end of the year, if any two people hadn't slept together, it was a big surprise.

[Q] Playboy: You're about to be a father. How do you feel about it?

[A] Reeve: Gae Exton and I have been together more than three years now. She's got everything--brains, looks and a marvelous, uncomplicated view of the world. She's an open, direct person with a great deal of spunk. It's likely we'll be married soon, depending on when Gae's divorce from her first husband, David Iveson, is finalized in the British courts. I'm delighted and proud about our baby. I'm not really worried if the baby comes before we can make it legal. It's no problem for us, and I'm sure it won't be a problem for the child. But I'm old-fashioned at heart, so I do hope we can be married as soon as possible.

[Q] Playboy: Tell us about your childhood.

[A] Reeve: I was brought up by a committee. I had a lot of parents. My mother and father were divorced when I was four and both remarried immediately. I was shuttled on the train between New Haven and Princeton, and I learned a kind of shuttle diplomacy between my two families. My father is a professor of creative writing and poetry at Wesleyan and Yale; my mother is a newspaper reporter in New Jersey. However, the people I really owe my upbringing to are the repertory actors at the McCarter Theater in Princeton. In that atmosphere, I learned to think for myself.

[Q] Playboy: Did you start out with big roles in the theater or did you have to work, your way up?

[A] Reeve: I was the definition of the word extra in the theater. On the bottom of every Shakespearean cast list, where it says "Lords, Officers, Messengers, Etc." I was the "Etc." for years. One of the biggest compliments a director ever paid me was that I could make the noise of a crowd all by myself.

[Q] Playboy: Your co-workers term you a real pro. How do you feel about the profession of acting?

[A] Reeve: I'm religiously square about it. If the call is at seven, you should show up at 6:55 and not a moment later. I can't suffer people who don't know their dialog. When I was an extra, I knew every word in the entire script backward. We had some people on Superman, who shall remain nameless, who felt it was cute to drink six bottles of champagne before they'd come and do a scene. I cannot comprehend it. We're all little children--insecure--and should have been veterinarians or something like that, but--damn it--why discredit acting, which has had such a bad rap since John Wilkes Booth?

[Q] Playboy: Do you indulge in alcohol and drugs when you're not working?

[A] Reeve: Sure; I like my drinks straight--vodka or Scotch, never messed up with water. I also enjoy good wines and Dom Perignon champagne. The wine must be fine, though; I can't take that sweet stuff you buy for $1.39 a bottle. I occasionally smoke grass. When things are happening, you happen with them. I try to stay a bit away from the snow. I think snow storms are bad for your health. But none of these things are essential or important in my life. It's strictly take it or leave it.

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Why does the University of Mississippi football team have such incredible spirit? Coaching strategy like this advice under the heading Rebel Tips On Quarterbacking: "Put right hand under center's butt with middle finger in the middle of his crack." All they need now is a tight end who uses Right Guard.

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At Ed's Steaks in Levittown, Pennsylvania, you can get the best steak sandwich in the world, or so they tell you. Its advertisement encourages customers to "try our free Famous Condom Counter," which includes "hot peppers, hot sausage and Jewish pickles, Etc." The point, we suppose, is to put a little spice back into your love life, not to mention some Jewish pickles, Etc.