Playboy and John Mayer

So I mentioned recently that I was awaiting the arrival of the newest issue Playboy magazine for the articles and this is proof I wasn’t kidding. Now don’t misunderstand me I am not claiming to be Holier (hornier?) Than Thou and making some moral claim that I ignore the pictures in said magazine (hell, I’m “reading” it after dark on Valentine’s Day, need I say more?) merely that many of the non-naked components are quite good and I actually do “read” it monthly. My praise for these non-naked components doesn’t however include when women gracing the cover do not appear in the buff within Mr. Hugh M. Hefner’s glossy pages, TALKING TO YOU OLIVIA MUNN.
My tendency to present Playboy as a legit magazine comes from the fact that I discovered it later in life than most. You see, my dad was a Penthouse man (I include this for the chuckle of the few that know the adventure behind me finding this out), so at the time when I needed to discover all the parts of a woman while simultaneously having no idea what do with them, there was Penthouse. Aside from the occasional flip through, I only became completely familiar with Playboy 2 years ago when I decided; spur of the moment, to become a subscriber. I did this primarily because it struck me as some necessary rite of passage into manhood, or, as some way to become Hugh Hefner by osmosis. The closest I have gotten here is a love for old movies and the fact that I am never properly dressed around the house.
Once you subscribe, due to repetition and almost by accident, you begin to realize there are actually words on the pages not containing fake breasts and heavily air brushed bodies. When you start to read them out of mere curiosity, you may discover they are not half bad. For the true crime buff, there is almost always some “investigative” piece around drug or some other form of smuggling. For the fictionally inclined, they often run (sometimes exclusive) content from well known’s like Dennis Lehane, Elmore Lenard, Stephen King and even legends like Kurt Vonnegut, Norman Mailer (posthumously with those two), and Valdimir Nabokov for God’s Sake. There is the pop culture stuff too, for me film writer Stephen Rebello is one of only two out there (Peter Travers of Rolling Stone being the other) whose reviews are worth the paper they are printed on. Most importantly there is the Playboy Interview which is probably it’s most famous fully clothed feature (for you political history folks, think Jimmy Carter) and it is this month’s interviewee that brings me to the second part of this editorial missive.
For the record, I have never liked John Mayer (with the one caveat being that his Your Body is a Wonderland and the Plain White T’s Hey There Delilah are two songs I wish I wrote so I would never have to worry about getting laid), he always struck me as goofball with stupid hair that while possessing some musical talent is not nearly as high up on the cool meter as someone like Jack White. That said however I will not use this space to comment on what this interview says about the state of race in America but rather as an example of the common American tragedy that occurs when someone who is not funny, makes an attempt to be so and fails… miserably. The ironic good news is that it makes the whole thing hilarious for the rest of us.
Surprisingly, most of the interview was actually fairly interesting; while he talked way too much about his masturbation habits (I suppose appropriately for the magazine of record) he did have some interesting things to say about his love for music and his motivations for making it, but soon after he proved he had the social IQ of Sarah Palin. Most people over the age of 4 understand that, if you are white, the road to becoming a social pariah starts with the phrase “Black People Love Me,” But without fail that is exactly what John Oscar Mayer Weiner declares to us all. Jesus Man, c’mon, I have black friends, most of us outside of Michael Richards do, but that doesn’t give me the right to declare myself to be in Bill Clinton territory. Listen Wonder Bread, black people deserve the right to decide when you’re more than the guy that they pick my in the car so the cops leave them alone. Just because Jay-Z thinks your music is not bad doesn’t make you James Brown.
As to offer further proof he has no idea people actually publish interviews, he continues to elaborate that people think he has a “hood pass” because of his music’s acceptance in the African American community. My man, you could have stopped there, we all know what “hood pass” means. Nope he keeps going, sees the cliff coming and steps on the gas, clarifying for us all that “hood pass” should really be called a “nigger pass,” I swear I don’t think this guy has ever left the house. BARACK OBAMA IS BARELY BLACK ENOUGH TO USE THE WORD, so unless you’re talking about Terrell Owens (I made a few calls to check this) just don’t use it knucklehead. The man didn’t even have the decency to put an “a” on the end of the word, everyone knows that would have made it ok, silly bastard.
Lastly he‘s says the thing that I have no choice but to quote in full, when asked “do black women throw themselves at him,?” Booker T. Washington responds, still without a hint of awareness…
“I don’t think I open myself to it. My dick is sort of like a white supremacist. I’ve got a Benetton heart and a fuckin’ David Duke cock. I am going to start dating separately from my dick,”
CLUNK……….shit sorry I just felt out of my chair from laughing again. First off, if you don’t know who David Duke is, look it up, because it really helps capture the utterly bizarre nature of this statement. I don’t even know where to start. I’m not quite sure I even know what it means. I’ve heard things like “it’s the way I was raised,” but “Only my penis is racist,? You have to admit it’s so dumb it’s almost genius, the scariest part to me is that I have this feeling he had thought of that answer in the past “Hmmmmmmmm if my dick was a person who would it be,?........I GOT IT, DAVID DUKE!!! (By the way, my penis is Ron Howard) I really don’t even think David Duke could have come up with that. This guy is John Rocker with a guitar pick. Then again without people like him with there would be less to write about, so in some perverse way, those of us with twisted senses of humor need Goobers like him

In the end, no I don’t think John Mayer is racist, just perhaps the stupidest son-of-bitch ever to date Jennifer Aniston. The funny thing is he did inspire some racist thought in me, when I began writing this last night I was listening to Jimi Hendrix and the song “Bold as Love,” came on and I remembered then that John Mayer covered that song and my immediate thought was “who let this fucking Honky near this song,? In fact the world would be a better place if we could bring Jimi back long enough to impale Johnnie with the flaming Monterrey Pop guitar topping it off by saying (with a smoothness only Jimi could) “Here’s your hood pass my man,”

That’s it for now, headed uptown to shoot dice and drink malt liquor