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Book of the Month... January 2003 |
by
Leif Ueland
Sometime journalist Leif Ueland has hit rock bottom as a straight single male: not only does he not have a girlfriend, but he's also a really nice guy who's visibly uncomfortable in the presence of overt he-manishness. Combine that with no job, money, or decent apartment, and the result is acute insecurity. How, he wonders, can he expect to decode women's sexuality if he can't even understand his own? Then, the opportunity of a lifetime comes along: The world's leading men's magazine needs a Fearless Reporter to travel cross-country for six months on the "Playboy Bus" in search of the Playmate of the Millennium. Dozens of cities. Thousands of women, willing to take it all off for cheesecake immortality. One man, covering it all: Leif, the anti-Hefner, the only son in a family of feminists, who finds himself at the center of a vortex of erotica, sexual harassment, plastic surgery, stripping, and, always, beautiful women.As the cross-country journey progresses and the overwhelming sense of vertigo increases, Leif struggles to figure out what it is to be a heterosexual single guy. Is it being sensitive to women's needs, like his mother and women friends taught him? Is it being a "man's man," full of machismo and meaningless sex? Or can he find some kind of utopian meeting place, preserving a liberal, enlightened sensibility while at the same time giving his libido a "ticket to ride"?
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Book Excerpt... Accidental Playboy |
CHAPTER ONE... by Leif Ueland
Los Angeles, California
My journal from this day only makes passing reference to the conversation, a sentence amid paragraphs of writerly woe. Understandable, really. First, friends-whose-friends-know-a-guy leads are as likely to pay off as discarded lottery tickets, especially when the job in question is one I imagine every normal male writer would go to extreme lengths to land. Second, I have no intention of giving up on the novel. Third, there's no way I'm descending to the world of she-had- very-above-average-breasts writing. Not with current life expectancy rates and lack of convincing evidence for reincarnation. And yet. . . Miss Millennium. The title alone is so rich, so historic, it would be difficult to dismiss it outright. I mean, if Lewis and Clark called up looking for a writer-photographer to chronicle their expedition, would I say without a moment's hesitation, No way. I've got a bestseller to write?
Go to Excerpt
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A few truths about men... |
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Columns and Articles... |
GUEST ARTICLE... by Glenn J. Sacks
Families and the War
As the United States prepares for war against Iraq, tens of thousands of fathers who serve as reservists are preparing to say goodbye to their families and serve their country overseas. Yet, America's enemies abroad are not the only danger these dedicated men will face. Upon return, those with child support orders will face a threat here at home — the war that is being waged against "deadbeat dads."
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JEFF'S LIFE... monthly column by Jeff Stimpson
Glistening Once Again
In the interests of teaching the boys where both of their parents come from, we celebrate a little Christmas. I indoctrinated the boys to "A Charlie Brown Christmas" shortly after Halloween. I have a few presents for Jill, including a wooden spatula and a water bottle for her to take to the gym, and Ned still has scads of gifts left over from his birthday, and Alex can have a few of those. Again this year, I also picked up a little tree, on December 23rd.
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COYOTE... monthly column by Dick Prosapio
What's So Merry About Christmas
Here we are, living in the richest nation the world has ever seen where holiday car commercials feature somebody getting a $40,000 SUV as a present and Christmas is most often portrayed on TV as taking place in some really BIG house in a very up-scale suburb somewhere (at least not everybody is white in these mansions any more) and everyone is getting some high tech something actually usually more than one. And yet, all the heart tugger stories we see about now concern themselves with very poor people getting some (very) little something, the moral of the tale being that the little things, the gifts of love, manifest the real Spirit of Christmas, with or without the historical religious roots.
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THE NEW INTIMACY... monthly column by Judith Sherven, Ph.D. and James Sniechowski, Ph.D.
Dream Big, Dream With Love
The celebration of the new year is the oldest of all continuing holidays. It was observed 4000 years ago by the ancient Babylonians and has continued, with only minor interruptions, into modern times.
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Reviews Archive... Reviews of men's issues books by J. Steven Svoboda.
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