Bob Guccione [by Mitch Sisskind]

 

Oh, don’t mind me. I come from a time

When new issues of Playboy magazine

Sold out in one day, when the windows

Of coffee shops on Broadway were piled

High with Playboys at eight o’clock in

The morning and by early afternoon

Not one Playboy was anywhere to be had.

I also lived to see the day when Playboy

Was the kiss of death for any enterprise

Foolish enough to display the rabbit while

A million sodden cab drivers had rabbits

Hanging from their vehicles’ mirrors

And then of course Guccione appeared

With his willingness to show pubic hair.

Comments

[Joel Weiner]

Thanks to you, Mitch, i just found my November 1972 copy of OUI Magazine
Published by Playboy with initial run as of October 1972
I don't remember why i didn't get that one
It was cheap enough at $1 per
Oh look, i also saved a December 1966 Christmas issue of Playboy
Sue Bernard as Playmate of the month... where is Sue today?
Ford Motors advertised , on it's back cover, Mercury, the Man's Car
On page 19, an ad for the '67 Mustang ..Bred first...to be first
Sorry for me, i never bought either a Mercury or Mustang back then
I was shy one year of manhood, just a 17 yrs old kid too young to fight the war in Vietnam
But mature enough to appreciate Penthouses' September 1972 interview with Xaviera Hollander
More candid than The Happy Hooker
I saved that copy too
I wonder what ever happened to her
50 years hence, i appreciate more the advertisements in these publications than centerfold pics
I wonder what ever happened to me

[Tony Paris]

What a charming comment -- inspired by a fascinating poem.

[Kenneth Rosen]

I so thoroughly appreciate the cunning of Mitch Sisskind's attititude and the pianissimo of his attack, as encountered in my Best American Poetry Blog Feed, that I bought a copy of his COLLECTED POEMS, but let me put in a word--seizing such opportunities, putting in words, or as if dining with the devil, putting ivory-hard, pale pitted ones into those ominous oracles, holes framed with grit, fringed with grass, yielding to meadows and sandpits, token trees and ponds, perniciously analogous, perhaps, to our more glorious and sublime, yet desperate and ornery compulsion to write poems, cognate hazards of our Covid era--put in a word or two, that is, for Joel Weiner's jazzy and bluesy poetic chops. I don't know Joel Weiner either, but I'd look him up. I'm old enough to remember the first edition of Playboy--8th grade, 13 or 14, riding the Elevated from downtown Philly to 60th St., to join my parents for dinner at my Great-uncle Garabed and Great-aunt Satanig's house off 60th Street in West Philly--my astounded eyeballs converging on the soulful and consummate, hypnotic opulence of the first editions Playmate-of-the-Month's naked flesh's focused message to my nascent (jung and easily freudened), trembling, sin virguenza tremulous soul, Marilyn Monroe famously naked and blonde on blood-red crimson shadows and folds of satin, not yet or already oscillating in her whirpools of marriage and misery between Joe Dimaggio and Arthur Miller, I don't know either.

[mitch sisskind]

I appreciate these very thoughtful comments! We share
the same kind of memories of Playboy, Penthouse,
and perhaps even Oui. I was about ten years old
in Chicago when Playboy first came on the scene,
and it seemed like such a very different vibe.
The whole concept of girls plus "sophistication"
was revolutionary. And it just kept coming with
a TV show and the Playboy club and a giant mansion
in the most expensive area of the city. I've always
been fascinated by the whole arc of Playboy's
history. It was very influential.

For me, Guccione was a more attractive character
than Hefner because he was a real artist and also
more of an adventurous wildman in his career.
He started that Forum magazine where (assuming
it was authentic) people submitted their
experiences and sex questions, and there was
also the Xaveria Hollander component. Guccione
also produced the Caligula film which was
a financial nightmare -- and also not a very
good film from what I can find on YouTube,
although it does have historical interest.
Somehow the "Playboy" Hefner seemed kind
of dry to me compared to Guccione. Alas,
both men eventually paid the price for
their profligate ways. Not exactly a
surprise. Thanks again for your interest.
Onward...

[Joel Weiner]

To Kenneth Rosen, as per comment above. Thanks for citing my name..No need to look me up.
David Lehman and i go back over 60 years, as childhood buddies.
We both could go public and provide "jazzy and bluesy" insights into each other's early years.
We would have both Hugh Hefner and Bob Guccione blush with envy if they only knew our
adolescent repertoire.