s I entered the Playboy Mansion last week I flashed back to headlines of a quarter century ago. Hugh Hefner had purchased the place for a phenomenal amount of money. The neighbors were torn in their reaction to his acquisition of the stately home, on its thirty-something acres, in the elegant Holmby Hills section of Los Angeles. What would it be like having parties of the sort for which the CEO of Playboy Enterprises was famous ? On the other hand, look what it would do for their property values. His was, I'm told, the first home in Los Angeles to sell for in excess of one million dollars! Now his aviary would cost more.

Hef has hardly changed over the years. He was a gracious host and welcomed our microphones for a fairly far-reaching conversation, which can be heard in its entirety on our podcast. He will be 80 this coming year, living the fantasy life of an adolescent schoolboy. As we sat in his library there was a most lifelike and revealing bust of one of his loves, Barbi Benton, over his shoulder. Behind me was a very graphic picture of his wife, (No, they are not divorced. In fact she lives next door with his three current "loves").
He had no difficulty handling any of my questions, for over the past half century I'm sure he has heard them all ...except one. I asked, "Having slept with over a 1000 women. Knowing so much about them, if you had ten lives to live, how many would you choose to live as a woman". He admitted that he had never been asked the question or thought about the issue. He had no response.
We have names for women who sleep with a thousand men ...Society admires the male equivalent.
"Just a few months and you'll be an octogenarian, would you ever consider dating a woman of your own age?" I think you can guess the answer.
My opening statement was simply, "these are good times for you" and he went on to document just how his company was booming and expanding. He said, "at last we've got it right". He has "got it right" in many ways over the years. Somewhere I have a long-playing record of a conversation I recorded in the same room, in the same mansion, a quarter century ago. Nothing felt any different. The man wore his silk pajamas and silk robe, the furniture was unchanged, and much of the staff was the same. Now, many of his Playmates are great grandmothers.
This week gone by has presented me with a marvelous variety of guests from many walks of life and their conversations were frequently most revealing. There was Andrea Mitchell of NBC, their senior political correspondent, speaking about everyone, from her husband the Chairman of the Federal Reserve, (Alan Greenspan), to Saddam Hussein and other scoundrels, as she called them.
There was James Young of the multi-decade musical success, STYX. I spoke with Gail Abarbanel of the Santa Monica Rape Treatment Center. No one has done more to aid the rape victim than Gail. Gary Marshall, a man as funny as he is talented, about changing direction, yet again, in producing/directing an Operetta for the L.A. Opera Company. Brian Wilson of the Beachboys, Comedian, singer Sandra  Bernhard, super chef (and super person) Wolfgang Puck and several others. In edited version they are broadcast at various times throughout the day on KNX/CBS. In their entirety they are podcast and can be downloaded at this website.
In the next journal..back to politics and the continued saga of The Hammer; Tom Delay and others.
Speaking of times past, it was exactly eleven years ago this week that the Republicans unveiled the "Contract with America". They pledged "to restore accountability to Congress." They were going to end "this cycle of scandal and disgrace," Oh the arrogance and the corruption of power. Now it appears that the Republicans are emulating many of the people they ousted in the Democratic Congressional Majority.