Archives for posts with tag: Jan Heemskerk

MR. SPEAK!

July 30, 2015 //

The Quirky Brilliance Of The Head Guru

Haresh Shah

I have just swiped my card and entered the sixteenth floor through the glass door. I see Arthur sitting by himself through the glass wall of his office across the atrium – the bank of offices we have come to call the fish tank, overlooking the square. I hurry to my office, remove my outer garments and pick up the phone and dial Arthur’s three digit inter-office number. Might as well get it out of the way before I chicken out. Having to call Arthur is something of an ordeal, because you never know what kind of mood you might catch him in. But there is nothing I can do about it. I am the one who needs him. Most of our telephone conversations would go something like this:

‘Good morning Arthur!’

‘What’s so good about the morning?’

‘Hi Arthur. How are you?’

‘Why do you want to know?’

‘Hi Arthur. This is Haresh.’

‘I know who you are!’

This has me flustered for a small moment. Both of us breathing on our side of the line. While I am still trying to form my next sentence, I hear his curt

‘Speak!’

‘Hi Arthur, this is…’

‘What do you want?’

And when I try to explain the reason for my call, he would cut me off abruptly.

‘Come to the point. I don’t have all day to talk to you.’ The gruffness of his voice scratches the skin of my ears.

Sitting in my windowless office, I imagine the frown on Arthur’s face, his eyes squinting behind his thick Coke bottle glasses. And when I do get around to tell him why I was calling him, rest of our conversation is brusque.

‘Why do you want me to meet with a bunch of Hungarians and tell them what you have already told them?’

‘Because you’re the head guru.’ Or, ‘So that they can hear directly from the horse’s mouth!’ While I’m just a chela, I am thinking.

He is not in the least flattered.

‘Cut it out. Have Mary (Nastos) call me later and I’ll look at my schedule.’

Done! Whew! And I take a breath of relief. I am on the edge of my chair, but now push my butt backward and make myself comfortable before picking up the pile containing that morning’s faxes from the editions around the world.

Arthur, if you are wondering, was the Editorial Director of Playboy magazine for the thirty of it’s first fifty years up until he stepped down in 2003. He had started at the magazine as an associate editor to A.C. Spectorsky in the mid-Sixties, he took on as its editorial director in 1972, the year I too had joined Playboy, stationed in Munich, Germany. I don’t remember ever having met him up until 1979 when I was brought to Chicago. Even so, in my job as the Production Director for the international editions – if not for Lee (Hall) having handed me the organizing of the annual international conferences, I would have no reason to cross paths with him. And eventually working my way into everything international publishing including assuming the same title as that of Arthur’s, the Editorial Director, albeit of the International Editions. But even years before it had fallen upon my shoulders to orient and train the creative teams of every new edition that were launched over the years, being one of the most frequently traveling members of the division – based on my sheer fondness and acquired knowledge of the magazine, I would end up answering questions that were way beyond the realm of my job description and the responsibilities. Something that didn’t go unnoticed – resulting in me eventually running the whole show.

During my early days in Chicago, one of my most important tasks was to do major in-house PR. International Publishing, then referred to as the Foreign Editions was tucked away on the ninth floor, which most everyone must have passed on their way to the production department without giving much of a thought to our existence. Some of the U.S. Playboy people may even have looked at us if not with some disdain than with indifference. To the most of them, we had become just THEM, the people who came bothering them wanting something or the other.

It took a while, but over a period of time, I was able to establish close working relationships with most of the top editors on the 11^th floor. That is, except with Arthur. As much as I would have liked to have a pleasant and friendly working relationship with him, it wasn’t any consolation to be aware of the fact that neither of my two bosses, Lee Hall and Bill Stokkan were able to crack the hard shell that was Arthur. While Lee was quite reticent and tight lipped about it, I know that it frustrated Bill not being able to communicate with Arthur with both of their hair down and over a couple of drinks. I didn’t know anyone else who did. Bill once told me that on one occasion, he even went as far as approaching him at a party thrown by Christie Hefner for her top executives aboard a boat cruising Lake Michigan. Hi, my name is Bill Stokkan, I run the Merchandizing and Licensing division of the company. Unfortunately, to no avail.

‘Are you kidding me? Him and Ed (Wattlington) get along famously. They even play tennis together!’ Tells me Karen (Abbott), my first heart throb in the U.S. when we worked together at Time, and coincidentally who now worked at Playboy along with Ed, both as photo lab technicians. Similarly, my assistant Mary had absolutely no problems communicating with Arthur. This was a sign of relief for me, because even though as a matter of protocol I would make the first call, Mary would take it over from there, sans any difficulty. And of all of my international editors, he got along famously with Holland’s Jan Heemskerk. Most every time that Jan came to Chicago or during the conferences, they made it a point to get out and hit some tennis or golf balls. I envied them, because I was never included in those soirées. I would often share with Jan my “conversations” with Arthur. He would find them funny. Somewhere along the line, we both came to refer to Arthur as Mr. Speak. And so it continues even today.

I have often wondered why? Because other than his exterior demeanor that can make you feel totally uncomfortable, when the time came, he always came through. He met with the editors, and once we were in his office, he never rushed us out. During the conferences, when he took the floor, he would be the most fascinating and precise speaker of them all. He knew Playboy inside out, from cover to cover. He would define for you the purpose and the philosophy behind every single page, rubrics, the graphic style, the focus of each article and fiction, the illustrations. Now that I think of it, even better than Hefner (Hugh M.) himself did. I have heard hours and hours of tapes of Hefner speaking to the first set of editors that came for the orientation, and spent a couple of days at his mansion in Chicago. Of course, who would know the magazine better than its creator? He was good and he was precise. But seemed a bit bashful when imparting the information. While Arthur was clearer and more emphatic, passionate even.

No one, not even the interview editor G. Barry Golson could define the tone of Playboy Interview as clear as Arthur once did during a conference in Lake Geneva, Wisconsin in the early Eighties: over and above Playboy Interview tries to bring out the human face of the person being interviewed. If we were to interview Hitler, he would come out to be a sympathetic figure. You could hear the silent gasp from the editors. Absolutely admirable, considering this coming out of the mouth of the born during the war time Jew. And he said of the anyone who still had any illusions about the magazine reflecting the current lifestyle of its publisher and therefore the young American males: No one aspires anymore to Hefner’s lifestyle. And I said to myself, right you’re, why would I want to live like Hefner in the self created gilded cage, if I could be sitting at a sidewalk café in Paris and sipping on my pastis, watching the world go by?

He was just brilliant when he spoke. He would be the star attraction of all of our conferences. And our personal relationships or lack thereof apart, I often said to myself that he never once hindered my ability to get closer to the people like Tom Staebler or Gary Cole, or any of his other top editors from devoting as much time as I needed of them. Why then not Arthur himself?

Well, one of those anomalies of life. Something you just accept. Things you accept about your dad or someone you respect, and resign to that’s just the way he is. And yet, I hated to be alone with him face to face. Because he would go without saying a word for the longest time. If not for the entire duration you are sitting across from him. Once I ran into him at my favorite fast food restaurant, Mama San, located in the Water Tower Place. Turned out to be his favorite as well. Seeing how crowded the place was and there was only one booth open, we end up parking ourselves across the table from each other.

‘The damn best fast food Japanese place in the city!’ Is the only thing I remember him saying during the whole twenty or so minutes it must have taken us to do justice to our food. We may have exchanged a couple of uncomfortable sentences at the very best. Realizing that he would not be the first one to blink, I somehow managed to live through those most uncomfortable moments.

The other time I found him towering over me on the other side of the partition in the bathroom of Playboy’s corporate offices. While we are both peeing, I sense his face turn over to mine and hear him utter:

‘You know, with the nose like that, you could be Jewish!’

‘I don’t think so, because my dad’s nose is much flatter. Perhaps I should check with the good old mom!’ I try to be humorous.

That’s as close as I ever got to Arthur.

On my last day at Playboy, Mary organized a going away party for me and invited everyone she could, especially from Chicago office. While everyone else had something to say; be it funny, sympathetic or just wishing me luck, I don’t remember Arthur having said anything that stuck with me. And yet, in the photos that Mary sent me afterwards, Arthur and I are posed together, he has his arm around me and both of us have on our faces the matching happy laughs. Uncharacteristically, Tom is standing next to us, looking a bit removed and looking sad and confused. I put the photo in my personal scrap book, the caption underneath reads: Is that a genuine smile Arthur?

That was the last I saw of Arthur up until three some years ago when Jan came to visit. We got together with some Playboy old-timers to reminisce the shared déjà vu. We meet up with Arthur at his favorite restaurant The Indian Garden on Chicago’s Devon Avenue. The best Indian restaurant on the strip! He proclaims. He is regular at the place and is made fuss over by the staff and the owner. He has now gone vegetarian and frowns at the sizzling Tandoori chicken being served. He has ordered Baingan Bharta which they specially prepare for him. Another proclamation comes: the best baingan bharta! I suppress the urge to say: have you tried the dish across the street at Udupi Palace? But I know better to keep my trap shut. With Arthur, it’s mostly him talking and you listening. And so it is during the lunch. Even so, if you pay attention to what he says, you are more likely than not to part with a feeling of having added something vital to your cache of knowledge. His very presence intimidated me, creating an atmosphere of speak only when spoken to. So it were Jan and Arthur conversing with me pushed in the background. But somewhere along the line, I got to interject and now having acquired distance of time, I confess, I was always intimidated by you.

‘You should have been.’ He answers and even though I would have liked to know precisely why, I leave it at that.

© Haresh Shah 2015

Illustration: Jordan Rutherford

SISTER SITE

http://www.downdivision.com

Other Profiles

FACE TO FACE WITH GABRIEL GARCÍA MÁRQUEZ

FACE TO FACE WITH JAN CREMER

DESIGNING IN HIS DREAMS

TRAVELING AGENT EXTRAORDINAIRE

ABOUT

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Next…

PLAYBOY STORIES ARE FOREVER

This post marks the 100^th Playboy Story. When I began blogging them in the fall of 2012, I thought I had about twenty five stories to tell, at the most. And here we are… I still have a list of about a dozen more and can’t tell how many unlisted would pop up along the way. But the stories that don’t compel me to write, are the stories that are not yet ready to be told. Basically, stories tell themselves, an author is just a medium – the facilitator. For now seems they are going on to an indefinite hiatus. But I am sure one or more of them would pop up and compel me to return to the screen. Hope you all will still be there to receive them. In the meanwhile, I have some other writings that I want to do and the stories that I want to tell. Stay tuned.

Can’t thank each one of you enough for your staying with me for almost three years and keeping me inspired and motivated to roll them out week after week. And you would agree with me that this blog wouldn’t have been as complete as I have tried to make it without my illustrative partners in crime, Celia and Jordan. I feel absolutely lucky to have stumbled upon them.

So long my friends until our wiedersehen.

Tags Arthur Kretchmer, Bill Stokkan, Editorial Director, Jan Heemskerk, Karen Abbott, Lee Hall, Mary Nastos, Playboy, Profile

Categories Arthur Kretchmer, Editor, Memoire, Playboy, Profile

UNLOVED IN THE LANDS OF L’AMORE L’AMOUR

November 13, 2014 //

Haresh Shah

My Not So Intimate Encounters With Italy And France

The first time I landed in the land of Ciao Bella and O sole mio, they dumped our baggage on the tarmac next to the aircraft, barely said sorry and told us we would have to carry it to the terminal ourselves – that the ground personnel had just decided to go on a strike. A bit different story when I first arrived at Charles de Gaulle in Paris. I am met at the airport by Gerrit Huig and the editorial assistant Ann Scharffenberger. They talk me into and I unwittingly agree to drive us through the city in our rented little Citroën. Though I had taken lessons in driving a car with manual transmission, this is my first time trying it out without an instructor sitting next to me. I haven’t yet gotten the knack of synchronizing the gears with the accelerator and the breaks. The car would shudder, stall and come to an abrupt stop in the middle of swirling rush hour traffic. Happens several times on the Arc de Triumph round-about. I get furious faces, obscene yelling that I don’t understand, French version of the finger and then silly mocking giggles from my two passengers. But I somehow manage to survive both welcomes. Not exactly j’taime.

Now years later, I wonder whether my first flights into Milan and Paris were symbolic of my not so close relationships with the romance lands. I can’t even remember how I was welcomed when I first flew into Rome years later. Quite in contrast to the recent Lufthansa ad proclaiming: Seduced by Paris. Inspired by Rome. And I can see why. What is there not to love about the countries with the history so rich, the languages so sweet and sexy, so languid and full of l’amore and l’amour. And yet, no matter how many trips I would end up taking to the either over the next two decades, they never warmed up to me. Likewise, as natural as I am with learning languages, as hard and long as I have tried to learn the Italian and the French, they both have eluded me.

And so have the people. Beyond the business, people just went home. Of course there were some dinners and a bit of socializing now and then, but by and far when I think of the huge amount of time I spent in Milan, Paris and Rome, what I remember the most are the evenings when I often found myself sitting in elegant restaurants all by myself, slowly savoring their delicious Euro-Mediterranean cuisine, sipping on their exquisite wines and contemplating life. In Paris, when I finally managed to get Annick Geile, the editor-in-chief of the French edition out to lunch, while we have hardly set down at our outdoor table, she turns her wrist to look at her watch, and as if talking to herself, whispers: my days are divided in segments of twenty minutes. The message was as clear as can be. Though I wondered how many segments I was allotted, I totally ignored her utterance as if I didn’t even hear it.

While I still lived in Munich, I couldn’t wait to return back to my home town every weekend, catching that around eight o’clock flight back. How could you be in one of the three most alluring cities in the world and not want to spend weekends there? Especially if you have to be back first thing Monday morning, and you’re staying in some of the most exclusive hotels and every penny you spend is paid for?

Because, after you have seen all of the historical monuments; passed through Duomo umpteen times, admired the glamour of the Scala, climbed up and down the Spanish Steps, sprawled St. Peter’s Square in Vatican, have been in awe of the Coliseum and have crossed the river Tiber in Rome and paid your tribute to the Notre-Dame, smirked back at Mona Lisa in Louvre, looked down at the breathtaking view of the city of light from the top of the Eiffel Tower and gawked and wished at the shop windows along Champs Elysees and have sat in enough cafes and restaurants all by yourself, you are done with them. For who I am, I can barely begin to relate to the places without meaningful connection to their people.

Not that I didn’t try to connect, but then you learn that like love and friendship, people either click or they don’t. And the sad truth remains, we just didn’t.

Ironically, my most memorable weekend in Italy remains to be the rain drenched and bone cold long Easter weekend I spend with Rainer and Renate (Wörtmann)in their newly acquired Mill House in Tuscany’s Pontremoli. Not Rome, nor Milan.

My memories of Paris are not that dismal. Walking around by yourself in Paris is a different kind of experience. Even with no other human being walking next to you, the city itself accompanies you wherever you choose to walk, especially the left banks of Seine and along the cafes of Boulevard Saint Germain, conjuring up the lives of some of my favorite authors. Françoise Sagan, Jean-Paul Sartre, Albert Camus and Simone de Beauvoir. And then Earnest Hemingway, Zelda and Scott Fitzgerald and Henry Miller. Just thinking of them you could while away a snifter or two of excellent French Cognac or the cooling tall glasses of Pastis. They all come alive at every step in Paris. But in Rome and Milan? Nah! The only one I could think of is Alberto Moravia and his The Woman of Rome. Probably also because I have had a pleasure of shaking hands with him after a speech by him in the courthouse gardens of the University of Bombay.

In the backdrop of my non-relational acquaintance with Milan and Rome, the two cities I least looked forward returning to, it was then quite amazing for me to hear the following story almost twenty years after my last trip to Italy.

It was two years ago when Jan (Heemskerk) came on a visit to Chicago, we got together with some Playboy old-timers to reminisce the shared déjà vu. Among them, Arthur Kretchmer, the recently retired editorial director of the US Playboy. As much as I respected the man the super editor, Arthur and I at the very best had mostly perfunctory professional relationship. But Jan and him got along really well and so we meet Arthur at his favorite restaurant The Indian Garden on Chicago’s Devon Avenue – a stretch of which is also named Gandhi Marg. With Arthur, it’s mostly him talking and you listening. And so it was during the lunch. Just his very presence intimidated me, creating an atmosphere of speak only when spoken to. So it were Jan and Arthur conversing with me pushed in the background. But somewhere along the line, I got to interject and now having acquired distance of time, I confessed, I was always intimidated by you.

‘You should have been.’ He answered and even though I would have liked to know precisely why, I left it at that. But then Arthur decides to smooth things over and asks me: Do you remember Mario in Rome?

Of course I do. In Italy, Playboy’s trajectory included three different publishers. We started out with Rizzoli in Milano. Some years later, the magazine was moved to another legendary Italian publishing family, Mondadori. Or more precisely, to the independent Georgio Mondadori, who had split from his family to go solo. When that relationship didn’t quite work out, the magazine was licensed to Edizioni Lancio SPA, in Rome. Also family owned – albeit much smaller. Lancio specialized in photo novellas that were and probably still are extremely popular all over the world. Curiously, in India, those novellas were distributed by my uncle Jaisukh’s Wilco Publishing Company, which is where I had first started learning the ropes of the publishing, when a teenager.

Lancio proclaimed the re-launch to be Nuova Edizione Italiana. The new Playboy in Italy had a semblance of small editorial team under the mild mannered aging journalist, Alvaro Zerboni, but it was the company’s president Michele Mercurio who wielded the total control over the pages of the magazine. From the very first meeting it became clear to me that Lancio was not the right kind of publishers for our beloved bambino. The years that I was subjected to work with them, we constantly collided over what direction the edition should take. As diplomatic as I would try to be, we never came around to see eye to eye, thus creating a constant tension between Rome and Chicago. Being able to develop any sort of personal rapport never even came into the play.

Even so, I was accorded a certain protocol like status. Always being picked up from the airport and brought back in the company Mercedes Benz sedan by Mario. Picked up from the hotel and whenever needed brought back also in the Benz. Mario barely spoke any English, but I was trying hard to learn the Italian. So other than the editor in chief Alvaro Zerboni, my real human face of Rome was Mario, a very pleasant, ever smiling of the angular round face, very white of the skin and of a stocky built, he played the role that of the executive chauffer, a messenger and a sort of unofficial PR person for his employers. Mario for one, had high curiosity level and the fact that he spoke no English and I spoke only rudimentary Italian never inhibited him from asking me questions and manage somehow to wrangle out answers from me in my odd mélange of Italian, Spanish and English. He was interested in me. He was interested in the mystic of India. He was charming and sweet in the way Italians can be and somehow felt close to me. I liked him and he liked me. But that was the extent of it. The rule was that his schedule was determined by Michele’s executive secretary Christina Schlogel and had to have her command for him to ferry me around, he often took it upon himself to pick me up or bring me to the airport even over the weekends. For which he did get into the trouble with Christina for a couple of times. But he sloughed it off with a hearty laugh.

‘Of course I know Mario,’ I answered Arthur.

‘You know, he really liked you?’

‘Yah, probably he was the only one, other than of course poor Alvaro.’

To that Arthur begins to tell the following story. Which he would repeat a year and a half later in an email before answering my queries for the blog entry Perfectly Unbound.

But even before that, I have a little ‘playboy story’ for you. The 2nd or 3rd time that Patricia and I were in Italy in the early ’90’s — so ’93 (probably 1994) would be my guess — I met Don and Louisa Stuart as well as the Mercurio’s. For a reason I no longer remember, I ended up being driven somewhere in the Lancio Mercedes 300E by their driver.

I spoke a small amount of Italian. He spoke no English. As we rode along, he asked me some questions that I stumbled through. When he figured out that I was with Playboy, the next question he asked was if I knew Haresh Shah.

I said yes. He rattled off a bunch of Italian that I didn’t get, but ended on a partial sentence that I understood to the effect that Haresh Shah was a wonderful man.

I did my best to acknowledge your wonderfulness in Italian when he said, in hesitant English, “When Haresh come… the best food, the best wine, the best girls.” He waved his hand in the air, and didn’t say another word.

Good old Mario. He really did like me:). Who am I to argue with his perception of me? Thanks Mario. True or false, it even impressed Arthur and he remembered to tell it to me almost twenty years later.

© Haresh Shah 2014

Illustration: Celia Rose Marks

SISTER SITE

http://www.downdivision.com

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Net Friday, November 21, 2014

THE NAIL THAT STUCK OUT

Deru kui wa utareru, literally means: The nail that sticks out, gets hammered down! This aptly defines the psychology of the group in the Japanese society. To be different is to be hammered down. In the society where individuality has no place, I knowingly decided to commit the ultimate social faux pas, at the risk of alienating my Japanese hosts.

Tags Anick Geile, Arthur Kretchmer, Edizioni Lancio, Gerrit Huig, Jan Heemskerk, Mario, Michele Mercurio, Milan, Paris, Rainer Wörtmann, Rome

Categories Culture, Food & Wine, France, Italy, Loneliness, Memoire, Playboy, Profile, Women

TENDER TRAPS

March 6, 2014 //

Sweet, Silky And Slippery

Haresh Shah

I flash my room registration card at the receptionist who is busy talking to a young man and a sort of pretty, short dark haired young woman in white, both of whom stood on the other side of the counter. ‘Room 416’, I tell him. He hands me my key. I throw a quick glance at the girl, making perfunctory eye contact and walk to the elevator. As I press the floor button, I notice the girl waving at me as if to wish me bon voyage. But the sliding doors have already closed and I am on my way up. I see her smiling face through the transparent glass door and wave back at her.

I am staying at the hip Hotel Americain in Amsterdam. I am not too impressed with the place, but built in 1900, it’s listed as one of Amsterdam’s landmarks with its turn of the century art deco and the roaring twenties atmosphere and because of its proximity to the theatre DeLaMar, it has an illustrious history – something I am often attracted to. And it’s frequented by the actors, directors and other art types of the city.

The window of my room looks down on the most popular town square, Leidseplein, which is filled with hoards of people engaged in multitude of activities. Rock & Roll band blaring out the sounds from their portable amplifiers, a group playing African drums, the flute players, a magician, the lone guitarist strumming in the early morning rain and an audience as attentive as it is appreciative. It feels like a multi-ring circus, a happy carnival. The grinding of the gears and the screeching of the trams somehow blend in harmoniously with the sounds of the street side shows. Wafting in through my room windows is the sad soothing sound of a violin. The lukewarm breeze carries-in with it a mild fragrance of the pink roses that Playboy Netherland’s editor designate Jan (Heemskerk) has so kindly delivered to my room to welcome me to Holland, as I eventually doze off for a while.

Dirk (de Moei), the art director designate and his live-in lady Ans pick me up at nine. We drive a few blocks to the restaurant de Warstein where Jan and his wife Gemmy join us for dinner. Towards the tail end of the evening, we run into the bad boy of the Dutch literature, Jan Cremer of Ik Jan Cremer fame and his girlfriend Babette. Him and Babette join our table and Cremer treats us to a couple of after dinner drinks. It is after three in the morning by the time Dirk and Ans drop me off at the hotel.

The elevator moves upward. I wonder about the girl’s sweet smile as I get off on the fourth floor. Those last two Remy Martins and the entire evening has put me into a very pleasant, if not euphemistic mood and I don’t even feel tired in the least. As I walk towards my room, the key in my hand at ready, I hear a female voice coming out of nowhere

‘Hello,’ it says.

I don’t see anybody around. The entire hallway is deserted. I look around and respond to the voice.

‘Yes!’

A smooth sentence floats in the air like a streamer, which I don’t understand a word of. It sounds very much like French, and now there is a face to the voice. It’s the girl from behind the reception. I am amazed at how she made it up to the floor so fast. She must have jumped right away into one of the two idle elevators waiting across from the receptionist. I stop briefly and turn around to took at her.

‘I thought you might like some company. ‘ I hear her say, with that certain sexy and seductive smile on her face.

I am tempted for a second. But the answer that rolls out of my mouth on its own is: ‘Thanks lady but not tonight! I am just too tired.’ I lie.

‘Maybe tomorrow?’ She persists.

‘Maybe! I don’t know.’ To which she throws a sugary goodnight at me, turns around to go back to her post downstairs.

●●●

Even before I have had a chance to sit down, Luis (Moretti), Playboy partners Editorial Perfil’s corporate counselor hands me a piece of paper. Crudely torn from a notepad, it’s crumpled. I smooth it out on the table and read the scribbles. It says, Rosario, and underneath is what looks like a phone number.

‘What is it?’ I ask.

‘She wants you to call her.’

‘Who is Rosario?’

‘The girl on the other set of the studio where you were photographed.’

I am in Buenos Aires during my routine South American trip. One of Perfil’s weeklies, La Semana wants to do a profile of me as a part of their in-house cross promotional efforts. They are photographing me with another girl, the skin on whose bare butt I am scrutinizing with a large magnifying glass. On my way out, I notice a buxom blonde with big head of bleached blonde hair fanned out on a pink pillow, scantily dressed in Victoria’s Secret like sexy lingerie, she is curled up seductively on the bed, her voluptuous figure spilling out of her small frame. I don’t remember even having made as much as a quick eye contact with her.

‘What does she want?’

‘I guess she has taken liking for you. You will make her very happy if you called. She said she will be up and around late in the night.’ Answers Luis with a sly smile on his face, a bit envious perhaps?

I have landed in Buenos Aires that morning after an all night flight from Miami and have put in the whole day. I meet Luis for dinner at Las Nazarenas, my favorite steak house in the city. All I want to do is to have an early dinner, walk across the street to the Sheraton, where I am staying and hit the sack. That’s precisely what I do. When in the room, I empty my pockets and out comes the crumpled piece of the paper with the phone number. I look at the phone on the bedside table. Temptations, temptations.. But do the right thing and soon I am snoozing. On that trip, I spend several days in Buenos Aires, and yet never call her. She just wasn’t my type.

Or could it be that my encounter the night after had her pushed back in the obscurity?

The lights are dim. The music is slow and soothing. The dance floor is well-attended, but not crowded. Dancing close to me is Dulce. She is sweet, just like her name. We are dancing close but not too close. I can feel the contours of her female form and then feel her head gently drooping on my shoulder. I pull her closer ever so lightly. She allows herself to be nudged into a slight squeeze. Her perfume is pleasant – not overbearing. She is dressed modestly in a pair of well fitting pastel peach slacks and a black low necked top. Nothing glittery like most other girls in the crowd. She is down home pretty with shoulder length dusty blonde hair that smell of a faint whiff of shampoo. She fits snugly under my arms. It feels good to hold and feel so close her female form. It’s been a while.

The night is young. It’s little after midnight. That’s early for the disco world. The place, if not as crowded as earlier, is still buzzing. It’s Playboy Argentina’s anniversary that we are celebrating at Hippo – the “in most” night spot in Buenos Aires. As we dance to the whatever soft melody they’re playing, I am wondering. Perhaps I get to take her back to my hotel. That would be nice. With every dance and every whisper, I’m liking her more and more. Even falling for her tender, almost motherly ways. When the music stops for a minute, she lifts her face to look at me and I feel a sudden melting of my reflection into her honey brown eyes. When the disc jockey finally decides to take a short break and when I walk her back to the table where she sat with some friends, the booth is empty. I look around for some Playboy people still around. I don’t see anyone I recognize. For a moment we stand there, wondering.

‘I guess our friends have abandoned us.’

‘I think so too. One of them was going to give me ride back home.’

‘I can drop you off by cab on my way back to the hotel.’ I offer.

‘That would be nice. Thanks.’ And then there is bit of hesitation. ‘Don’t you just want to take me to your hotel room instead?’ I see a pleading mellowness in her eyes. Almost heartbreaking somehow. Not up until that very moment does it cross my mind that she could be anything but a young society woman out on the town with her friends.

‘Let’s sit down for a while and have a drink.’

‘Bueno!’ She says and snuggles next to me.

Dulce is a single mother who works in a small boutique on Calle Florida, the city’s most popular pedestrian shopping zone. The job barely pays for her living expenses. She doesn’t walk the streets to make ends meet, instead frequents high end places like Hippopotamus in the ritzy and popular tourist district of Ricoleta as well as five star hotel bars. I like it that she is in no hurry and we’re able to talk. I appreciate what I perceive to be her honesty.

But taking her back to my hotel room is no longer an option for me. Not that I have never been out with one of them, but a couple of times that I did was at the end of the long nights of eating and drinking and with a friend or two having wandered out kind. I don’t regret those outings, mainly because those women and the experiences were pleasant. But as a matter of not even some moral principal – but the sheer fact that I am very romantic at heart, I just wouldn’t/couldn’t bring myself to forge such a liaison.

I am being honest and I tell her how very much I like her and was even falling for her charms and the sincerity, but taking home a profi wasn’t something I did.

‘Pero soy buena!’ She urges. ‘But I am good!’ Even sounding like a saleswoman in a boutique.

‘Lo siento!’ ‘I am sorry!’ She doesn’t say anything to it, just scoots closer to me, takes my hand in hers and lets her head fall on my shoulder. It feels good that she feels at ease doing that. That perhaps in my small way I am a comfort to her as she is to me.

‘But I can still drop you off if you want?’

I get out of the cab in front of her home to see her off and press into her fist a $50.- bill.

‘It’s not much, but…Gracias!’

‘Gracias.’ She echoes, and gives me a quick hug. I watch her opening the front door and disappear inside her building.

© Haresh Shah

Illustration: Celia Rose Marks

SISTER SITE

http://www.downdivision.com

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Next Friday, March 14, 2014

IN THE DEPTH OF HIS EYES

Up until my first trip to Spain in the fall of 1978, I only had a vague knowledge of the Spanish Civil War and how Franco ruled the country for almost forty years with his ruthless iron fist. In fact it was the dictator’s death that would make possible even to think of bringing any western publication in to the country, let alone a local edition of Playboy. A poignant personal account.

Tags amsterdam, Buenos Aires, Dirk De Moei, Hotel Americaine, Jan Cremer, Jan Heemskerk, Ladies of the Night, Prostitution, Travel

Categories Memoire, Playboy, Prostitution, Relationships, Travel

MY WINTER VALENTINE

November 21, 2013 //

Haresh Shah

Of Pinot Noir And The Burlaping in Boonville

The year is 1995 and talking of California wines to the Europeans is somewhat of a joke like the early transistor radios made in Japan were to everyone. Never mind that almost twenty years earlier on the day of America’s Bicentennial on July 4, 1976, the world’s wine experts were asked in a blind tasting to compare six California Cabernets and Chardonnays along with as many of Bordeaux and Burgundies and to everyone’s horror and American wine makers’ delight, California’s best stood shoulder to shoulder with the French on everyone’s scorecards, putting them instantly on the world map.

While the wine professionals of Europe took a note of it, the wine consumers of the Continent remained oblivious to even their existence. Frustrated, California’s vintners decided, the time had come to make the world aware of the lush Napa Valley and its wines that were growing by leaps and bounds off the northern California Coast.

As a part of the broader push, California Wine Institute has invited the Dutch edition of Playboy to experience California’s wine country in all its glory, including its rapidly emerging cuisine and enjoy their steadily growing warm hospitality industry, in hopes that Playboy would take the message to its upscale demographics in Holland.

The editor-in-chief Jan Heemskerk himself takes upon the project and picks me to accompany him and assigns me to write a major piece for his edition. Not because by any dint of imagination I am a connoisseur or even an expert of wines, but because he thinks of me as someone who knows his wines, especially the ones from California.

He certainly doesn’t expect me to write something like what is on the back label of the 2011 Ménage à Trois I just picked up from the store: Ignite the romance with our silky, smooth Pinot Noir. Made with grapes from a trio of top California growing regions in a lush, fruit-forward style. It’s utterly irresistible. Bright cherries mingle with sultry violets and hints of toasty oak in a delicious slow jam on the palate. Whew! Enough to induce an instant wet dream!!! Nothing like that. You haven’t picked a wine that I didn’t like. I’m obviously flattered and pleased. Not to mention all the fun we would have traveling together. Also to get out of Chicago’s bitter winter during the month of January is nothing to sniff at.

Over the next eleven days, we did the wineries of Napa Valley that included Sonoma and Mendocino counties. We met with the owners, wine makers, PR people and tasted a whole slew of what California had to offer in terms of wines paired to what has come to be known as California Cuisine, and enjoyed tremendously the hospitality of exquisite small, quaint and cozy boutique hotels, such as Vintners Inn and Medowood and others dotted along the wine trail. I hope to write of them in detail some other time, but the story I want to tell you today is that of the evening we spent with Pinot Noir farmers in the little hill-top town of Boonville.

With Ken Beck of Fetzer, a group of us drive up the long and winding mountainous route 128 to the place called The Sound Bite. It’s a down home all American small town restaurant and bar, complete with the pool table and serving very basic food. We have what looks and tastes like minced meat pie baked with a layer of mashed potatoes. The place is buzzing with the wine grape growers and winemakers of Mendocino County. They have gathered here to present, taste and talk about their own Pinot Noirs, for which the region is renowned. More than any other varietal, they tell us, Pinot Noir is very site specific if truly great wine is to be made.

Through the evening, we taste total of twenty one Pinot Noirs, including three sparkling varieties. The tasting is divided into six flights. Each flight contains wines from three to four wineries. Most of the wines presented are of ’93 and ’94 vintages and to our un-educated pallets they taste more like Beaujolais Nouveau. For us, non wine-growers, the most interesting thing is to be among the wine farmers and the producers themselves, instead of the owners and the PR people describing their wares. The men and women we find ourselves surrounded by are the real farmers, they till the land, harvest the crops, press the grapes, make the wines and bottle them. You can see a definite parental pride and joy in their eyes as they fondly fuss over the wines that cross our lips and titillate our taste buds.

Of the five women sitting at our table of eight, four are grape farmers with their own Pinots, the fifth, Leisha is Ken’s daughter, and even though Ken too is a wine maker, he is with us as an observer – the other two men being Jan and I. Curiously, us three men are either married or committed, whereas all five women are apple heads–the Boonville slang for single women. I will call the four farmer femmes, Sally, Nicky, Christine and Mandy. They are all in their early to mid-thirties. Good looking even, in rustic sort of way. While they are dressed up for the evening, you could see and feel that they are true farmhands, wholesome and strong of toned muscles. After a couple of flights and after the ice has been broken between us, the women let their hair down and begin to educate us in the local secret language called Bootling.

‘You know what an apple head blanketing means?’ Asks Nicky. Seeing that we’re shaking our heads, she continues.

‘That means, a single woman getting laid. Like our Mandy here.’

‘Nicky! Please!!’ Mandy throws a faux embarrassment.

‘Actually she got burlaped, didn’t you Mandy?’ quips Christine.

‘What’s that?’ either Jan or I ask.

‘That means…’

‘No, don’t you dare! You are embarrassing me,’ squeals Mandy. Nicky throws a friendly wicked smile at Mandy and continues.

‘That means she got taken on top of a burlap bale,’ we see Mandy’s face turning water melon red.

‘Ouch, that’s got to scratch your sweet little booty good!’ It’s Christine again.

And while we are trying to imagine Mandy getting burlaped, the girls break out in a roaring chorus of a laughter, joined by Leisha and Ken, and then also by us while poor Mandy tries to hide her still reddening face behind the shield of her hands. The rest continue with how about, and throw at us some more Bootling slangs, such as Bucky Walter, Horn of Zeese, and Bal Gorms. They mean public telephone, cup of coffee and good food. And not to forget Madge and Moldunes meaning a whore and big boobs. Madge because in the days past, a woman called Madge ran the local bordello. Moldunes comes from the early Hippies that had migrated to the region and their women let their pendulums hang out and down – braless. There’s a story behind all of them and there even exists a book or two to keep the lore alive. While we’re all having lots of laughs interspersed with different Pinots, Sally somehow seems withdrawn, lost and a bit out of it. She is directly in the line of my vision and I can’t help but notice and observe the sadness settling on her face.

‘Poor Sally here, she’s sad tonight. She just broke up with her boyfriend of two years.’ Interjects Mandy, probably to shift the attention from her being blanketed on the burlap. But realizing that perhaps she has touched upon a raw nerve, the girls switch back to talking about their wines.

While I am busy conversing with Leisha, who’s sitting next to me, my attention keeps drifting to the sad face of Sally. She is the runt of the group, perhaps even youngest and wears shorter hair that hugs closer to her neck. She has been quiet all evening long. She looks so sad that I feel she may just break down and cry. The passive pain of her face makes you want to caress and comfort her. I see her excusing herself and slowly walking out of the restaurant.

‘She probably needs a smoke and wants to be alone for a while,’ says Christine. I wonder about Sally all alone outside the restaurant, smoking. Something draws me to her and I find excusing myself to go to the john and than casually step outside in the open. Sure enough, she is smoking, leaning against the hood of one of the parked pick-up-trucks.

‘Are you okay?’

‘Yes. Just needed bit of fresh air.’

We engage in small talk. I ask her discreet questions about her break up. She gives me a feeling of being welcoming to have someone to talk with. The night is crisp and clear, the stars are bright and the mountain air is refreshing. Our subdued voices waft in the air like mellow musical notes. The stray light illuminates and deepens the sadness of her face. Us both leaning on the hood, seem to have slid closer. A sweet whiff of her perfume and her gentle breathing feel somehow intimate. I imagine her face tilting and resting over my shoulder, sliding down and buried in my chest. Out lips are so close, fluttering. We’re at that certain now or never moment of either sealing or quelling of our suddenly awakened ardor.

And then I think of Susan, two thousand miles and two time zones away in Chicago, probably sitting in front of a television. We’ve now been together for more than two years. Something similar must have been going through Sally’s mind as well. We consciously and slowly retract and step back.

‘It was wonderful meeting and talking to you. Hope you write a nice article about the Pinots.’

I wait until the taillight of her pick-up disappears in the downhill slope.

●●●

I do write a nice article about the California Wine Country. I write a series of them. A few days before the Valentine Day, Susan and I are having Sushi at Kama Kura in Evanston. We both are quiet or making polite low key conversation to fill the void that seems to have dawned between us two since my return from California. I sense it, but can’t quite put my finger on the possible cause.

‘You’re too sophisticated for me.’ I hear her say. Right!

She obviously has given our relationship some serious thought during these days. We talk for the umpteen time the perception and reality – misunderstandings and interpretations. But we both know, there is nothing more to say.

‘You know, you’re right, I have middle class values,’ she concedes. I’m disarmed.

Two days later, its Sunday and two days before the Valentine Day. The night before I have cooked an elaborate Indian meal. We have washed it down with a bottle of Cuvee Fumé Preston. We have spent another one of the most loving and passionate nights. We are sitting at the round glass top table in the breakfast nook of my kitchen. There are tears. No more words. Laying in the middle is a bouquet of a dozen champagne roses – more my style than the traditional red ones.

And then she is gone. Emptiness begins to fall like the fluffy snow flakes. Slowly accumulating and settling on the ground.

Illustration: Celia Rose Marks

SISTER SITE

http://www.downdivision.com

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Next Friday, November 29, 2013

“HE’S A SON OF A BITCH’

That’s me they’re talking about. The question most asked of me time and time again is: How does one get a job at Playboy? Or more to the point: How did you get to work for them? Other than joking around, I have always avoided giving a straight answer to these questions – lest it may end up sounding like a boast.

Tags Boontling, Boonville, Breaking Up, California Wines, Haresh Shah, Jan Heemskerk, Napa Valley, Pinot Noir, Relationships, Romance, Travel, Wine Farmers

Categories California Wines, Food & Wine, Pinot Noir, The Netherlands

ALL IN A DAY’S WORK

September 12, 2013 //

Haresh Shah

Eat Your Heart Out!

Imagine this! Puerto Vallarta. Chicago is in deep of the winter of 1986. It’s bone chilling cold as the city has a reputation of being every February. And here we are, the sun is shining bright, the sky is blue as can be and the waves of Bahia de Banderas off the Pacific Ocean are rushing towards the shore breaking and splashing. Wandering around in our shorts and t-shirts and the girls frolicking au naturell most of the day, Pompeo (Posar), Jan (Heemskerk) and I are conferring by the poolside, deciding on the next dramatic but a fun shot, with eight of the world’s most beautiful women lined up in the water by the edge of the pool, holding on to the railing and ready to lift their bare butts in action, their faces turned sideways to their left, bursting with laughters and their legs and feet elevated, kicking the surface of the water in a choreographed harmony of synchronized swimming.

Right now we are on the lunch break. We have just availed ourselves of the sumptuous buffet and are sipping on our chilled to perfection Pacifico beers while the girls have retracted under the shade of the arch separating the private pool and the villa made available to us by Hotel Krystal for our exclusive use. A little earlier, the girls have emerged out of the pool and while waiting for the next shot, have not bothered to dry themselves nor cover up. Instead they are sitting and standing around a low table swarming with exotic drinks. They are an animated bunch, gossiping and in general making a ruckus despite language barriers.

We are in Mexico to produce this incredible pictorial as the warming up act for the Football World Cup – Mundial 1986, to be hosted by this land of the mystical Aztecs. Brainchild of Jan, I am the one in charge of bringing it all together with Playboy’s then existing twelve international editions. I am able to get only nine to participate. Missing most notably are Italy and Spain, and sadly Holland, which didn’t even qualify. Quite an emotional blow for Jan to contain, while cheering everyone else. He brings instead Chantal Aarts of Belgium, because the Dutch edition is also distributed in Belgium. Bebe Martinez of Argentina either couldn’t afford to or wasn’t able to find an appropriate candidate, or both to send a girl of his own. I find one for him from our files, the beautiful Evelyn Escalante from Costa Rica and put her in the Argentine blue and white stripes. It would have been devastating, had we not been able to include Argentina, as they went on to win the Cup 3:2 against West Germany. This wasn’t an international cricket tournament, so Australia obviously wasn’t enthused. But Japan’s Emi Kojo, Turkey’s Sumer Ilken and America’s Andrea Huber came along for the fun of it and in the spirit of cooperation to partake in what Jan calls Playboyesque World Cup happening. The logistics are abominable. But we don’t think about the difficulties we may encounter, we just take a plunge, because the exotic scenario I have described above is all in a day’s work for us.

Jan and I arrive in Mexico City on Sunday, February 24^th. Meet with our Mexican publisher Irina Schwartzman, and the editor-in-chief Eduardo Velazquez. On Monday, the rest begin to trickle in and check into Hotel Krystal Rosa – the meeting point from where we would begin.

The first one to arrive is Sumer (Ilken) from Istanbul. She has picked up a wrong suitcase and has walked through the customs without realizing it. Those friendly Mexicans!! They don’t care what you walk out with from the airport as long as you spend your tourists $$££¥¥€€ in their country. How dumb can you have to be? She is only twenty one. Only? But this is not the time to ask questions. However, Sumer seems to have a thing about forgetting things. A few days later, she loses her sun glasses and then she arrives without her uniform to the stadium in Querétaro . This follows the last minute rush for someone to run down to her hotel room and bring the uniform to the stadium where we are preparing to shoot various mock tableaus to give the upcoming World Cup some real sex appeal. Sumer gets away with everything with disarming smiles and cuddles.

The shoot goes swell with the girls playing like a team of the friendly rivals and we stage various soccer situations such as dueling for and heading the ball, kicking a penalty shot, which results in Luiza shooting the ball so hard that it lands on the face of the West German goalie, Michaela Probst, knocking her down flat. There is a tender shot of Luiza bending over and comforting Michaela in pain, lying on the ground. Sweet! The sexiest shot is that of all the girls taking off their shirts at the end of the game and swapping them with each other in good old football tradition of leaving the field with no hard feelings.

All goes well and without a hitch, that is; until at the last minute Jan comes up with the idea of perhaps do some sexy shots of the girls showering, getting out of their uniform, sitting around on the benches – sort of doing post game unwinding. Even though we have official permission to shoot in the stadium, soon as the maintenance staff realizes that we are photographing the girls in the locker room, with their uniforms serving as mere props, something triggers in them and they rush to get a sideway glances at the bare bodies and then promptly and unceremoniously throwing us out with, Señor, eso no se puede ser .

Déjà vu of the couple of days earlier when we had gone to the Pyramids to do some group shots of the girls playing tourists, fully draped of course, albeit short shorts and tight fitting tops. Along the way, Luiza decides to make those tops sexier. As it turns out. she is very handy with the pair of scissors and t-shirts are slashed up this way and that to selectively reveal what the Pyramid authorities deem to be a bit much for the innocent eyes of the watching Mayan Gods. So off we’re sent on our way back to the hotel.

But mostly we’re welcomed all over with a lot of enthusiasm. Our press conference attracts 300 print and television journalists and the limelight shines on all of our girls with their elegantly dressed glamour shots flickering on television screens and on the society pages of most prestigious of the newspapers. Sumer of course is the most popular with her full head of floating blonde tresses and her sweet and seductive smiles and according to Jan, also because of her extravagant décolleté. They also love the French, Nathalie Galan, whom the prominent daily El Universal calls despampanante rubia – a stunning blonde.

Luiza Brunet from Brazil is stunningly beautiful and yet the Mexican press doesn’t pay her much attention probably because she is a mulatta, dime a dozen with the Mexican streets filled with their own pretty morenas. But Luiza is already a super model in her country and the official mascot of the Brazilian team. She considers Pele to be her friend, with whom she is to make a movie in the near future. She is low key, unpretentious and soft spoken, but when she first appears, she is accompanied by her boyfriend Armando. To have boyfriends and husbands around is always pain in the butt. She is a professional so she is there when we need her, but then she has “him” waiting for her. But he stays in the background and I don’t remember any major disruption. Except that Armando is robbed of US$ 2400.- in cash. You can’t completely ignore it. You have to try to help him – one more thing to worry about.

One evening when our group walks into the restaurant El Refugio, Jan observes the look on the faces of the crowd gazing at us as them having witnessed a bunch of Martians having landed in their valley. We begin shooting in little Venice, that is the remote town center of Mexico City and goes by an exotic name, Xochimilco – literally soft milk. Once a lake, it has evolved into various canals filled with flower bedecked gondolas called trajineros, They are actually built flat like pontoons. We hire two of them. The girls in one and the crew in another one. We let the girls loose sans script and let Pompeo and his assistant Steve Conway just point and shoot. The girls are getting into the spirit, some on the deck even taking off their tops. The poor gondola drivers and the young onlookers on the canal banks. Only if the girls know what they are doing to those poor bastards!! Fortunately there are no keepers of the morality around in this little paradise of Mexico City to throw us overboard.

But if only everything would go that smooth. That night we witness the Japanese candidate Emi Kojo and her chaperone/interpreter, Yuko Kato suddenly break out in a violent cat and dog fight. No idea about what, because it is obviously all in the Japanese. We are sitting in a café and everyone gets to experience the war of two beautiful roses. I butt-in like a thorn in the middle and play referee. Détente comes with hugs and me taking them to San Angel Grill, where Mexican edition’s top executive, Alfred Amescua is hosting dinner to welcome the group. But the peace is short lived. Two nights later, we are in Hotel Real de Minas in Santiago de Querétaro, one of the World Cup venues. In middle of the night, Jan calls my room informing me that Emi is complaining about a serious stomach ache. She is hysterical and wants us to call a doctor for her. We are practically in the middle of nowhere. Besides, I am not convinced of how serious her ache is. So I sit her down on the bed and reason. Ask her a few questions and tell her to drink a glass of warm milk, which we promptly order from the room service. I tell her that is what my mother would have done. But she continues to squirm. To which I respond probably a bit sternly that I want her to try it and go to bed. Should it not work, I promise her we would get a doctor for her. She doesn’t call during the night but continues to complain about her stomach and refuses to join the other girls at the stadium in the morning. So we go ahead and shoot with the remaining eight. The individual nudes are to be shot in Puerto Vallarta, and it becomes clear to me that Emi would be more trouble than she would be worth. I have her to be the first to be photographed soon as we begin in the morning and ship her back to Tokyo on the first available flight. A month or two later, I receive a sweetest little letter from her:

Dear Mr. Shah,

I send my apologies for having been behaving like that.

Recalling the time when you gave me a scolding, I thing(k) of what father is. Having grown up without my real father, when you gave me hugs, I learned the warmth of father.

Sincerely Emi

●●●

One afternoon while I am strolling the properties of Krystal in Vallarta and enjoying bit of solitude, I run into Michaela. She is in tears. I feel like a cow! She cries out. Apparently one of the poses Pompeo had requested in the huge bathtub was for her to get down on all four. While we are still standing on the path, I notice Nathalie walking towards us, she too is in tears. I will talk to Pompeo. I don’t want any of you to do what you are not comfortable with. I appease them with hugs, put my arms around the both and we stop for a glass of wine.

On our first evening in Puerto Vallarta, we are all sitting around a long table at Krystal’s Japanese restaurant Kama Kura, enjoying the dinner hosted by the Alfonso Vasquez M., the corporate manager . I am sitting either right next to Nathalie or close enough. We are all animated and getting into the spirit of things when suddenly we hear Nathalie making bird like squeaking sounds. Both of her hands are wrapped around her neck and the horror on her face conveys that she is choking on something. Her face is turning white and contorted and she is certainly in pain. She kicks off the chair and stands up. I grab her by the waist. She is pointing her finger at the partially bitten piece of chicken she has thrown back on her plate and then to her mouth. Fortunately, all it takes is for her to bend over my arm and me slapping her back a couple of times. Out comes a chicken bone, her face smeared with tears, her nose running. But after a glass of water and a sip of wine, our despampanante rubia is back to life, her face once again radiating.

On any project away from home, the entire group becomes your sole responsibility. You want to make everyone feel comfortable, well fed and motivated. Build a team. Even though when you get a group of the most beautiful women together, its hard sometimes, because each one of them thinks that she is the most beautiful of the bunch. Thus there is always a bit of competitive edge to such groups. In this case, enter also the nationalistic pride because they are representing the fierce game of the world soccer. But by and large they behave phenomenally well, even helping each other. During a couple of small crisis, the 23 year old Andrea Huber has established herself as the pleasant and cajoling peace maker. Mexico’s own Belén Balmori at 28, plays caring mother, They are big help.

The thing the producer has to worry most about is that all girls get a good night’s sleep and are rested and relaxed the next morning. Keep them together, never giving them or one of their admirers a chance to get closer and sneak away. Because you don’t want to have those elements interfere with work. Seems ironic coming from Playboy executive, but when you are involved in such a project you have to constantly strive for the balance which tilts heavily towards work.

But how do you keep the Cupid away from trying? Alfonso, (not the hotel manager) tall, suave and handsome is one of the people brought along Irina – the social director of sorts – who is assigned to help us with anything and everything. Pat Tomlinson is a part of our Chicago team and is the most efficient and able stylist/make-up artist. Jan is a big golf aficionado and Alfonso has organized a t-off at the nearby Flamingo course and is to join Jan and Michaela for a round of golf that morning. While the two have already arranged a cab and are waiting for Alfonso to join them, he is nowhere to be found. Not in his room, nor in any of the likely resort restaurants where he could have been having breakfast. Where do they finally locate him? In Pat’s roomJ

© Haresh Shah 2013

Illustration: Celia Rose Marks

SISTER SITE

http://www.downdivision.com

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Next Friday, September 20,20123

WHATEVER IS HOT!!

Let it be a surprise for both of us. Can’t decide which of the ones in works I want to or will inspire me to finish first.

Tags Haresh Shah, Hotel Krystal, International Pictorial, Irina Schwartzman, Jan Heemskerk, Mexico Tourism, Mundial '86, Pompeo Posar, Puerto Vallrta

Categories World Cup '86

SCENES FROM MISS PLAYBOY INTER-NATIONAL BEAUTY PAGEANT

July 4, 2013 //

Haresh Shah

Glamour And Glitter,Trials,Turbulence,Tears And Joy

If anyone, it had to be Albert Cheng – our dynamic publisher in Hong Kong – to pull it off as swiftly and smoothly, the Herculean task of the first and the only Miss Playboy International Beauty Pageant within a little over a year of launching Playboy’s first Chinese language edition on this city state of the fragrant harbor.

It all began over an elaborate lunch with Hong Kong’s TVB executives, Bernard Cheung and Sophia Chan. The thing I remember the most about that lunch now twenty six years later is the table-side preparation of the tiger shrimps tossed live in the hot frying pan and them shooting up above our heads, some even higher, before landing back into the sizzling hot pan to meet with their instant demise and immediately turning into the most delicious dish sautéed in the restaurant’s exquisite sauce. I must confess that as tasty as they turned out, I found it hard to swallow them. It certainly gave a new meaning to the culinary tradition of from farm to the table. Thanks to the excellent Chablis pairing that helped washing them down while hiding my apparent discomfort from showing on my face in front of my most gracious hosts. Albert and I had met them to discuss the possibility and the logistics of staging the beauty contest in which the contestants would come from then existing fourteen international editions of Playboy.

Albert has done his part of conceiving and selling the idea. TVB executives had done their numbers, and now it was upon me to agree and get excited about and have all the editions enthusiastic and then have my superiors back in Chicago buy into it. TVB would bankroll the project and will do their part in producing and broadcasting it live as one of their prime time pre-Christmas offerings. Albert and his staff would take care of the logistics and the organizations in Hong Kong. And I would have to be the one to deliver the fourteen most beautiful women hand picked by the editorial teams of each one of our editions.

Our meeting took place on 22^nd of May of 1987. We all had a little over six months to bring the project to life. Soon as I had gotten Chicago’s approval, each one of our editions went to work. This is the kind of a project, if you stop to think of the enormity of the task, overwhelmed, you never would do it. So the best was to just begin. I am not quite sure how the idea of tying-in a major pictorial came about, but I believe it had to be Jan Heemskerk, the editor-in-chief of our Dutch edition. We had partnered a year before in producing of Mundial ’86 – the soccer world cup in Mexico, and now we would work together to do the same with the Beauty Pageant. Gary Cole – the photography director of the mother edition loaned us his star editor and producer Jeff Cohen, we got Tom Staebler – the art director as a bonus. In addition, Gary hired and made available to us the renowned British photographer Byron Newman, who as it turns out, also went to London College of Printing to study photography, probably around the same years as I was studying Photolithography also at LCP, and his wife/stylist, the French actress Brigitte Ariel, who played Edith Piaf in the movie, Piaf: The Early Years. And he would contribute substantial sum towards the expenses of the photo production. My division and the editions would pick up the rest.

●●●

The infrastructure in place, on December 2, 1987, Jeff, Tom and I, accompanied by Playmate Lynne Austin (July 1986) – who is to represent the United States – board Tokyo bound Japan Airlines Flight 009, which would connect us with an onward flight to Hong Kong.

Us four are sitting in the middle row – happy to be pulling away from our respective day-to-day grinds, we are looking forward to our two week long adventure in Hong Kong. Half way through the flight, Jeff and Tom have either drifted away, snoozing or have withdrawn within themselves, while Lynne and I are quite animated, chatting away. I love her down home southern natural self. And her Texas twang. We talk about things and the conversation veers towards the beauty pageant. She asks many relevant questions about the contest and its organization. I tell her what I know and then she asks.

‘Who will be the judges?’

‘Albert Cheng, our Hong Kong publisher for one, and other local dignitaries.’

‘Will they all be men?’

‘I am not sure, but of the group, I think one or two are women.’

‘Hum!’ She grunts and then looks at me with an impish smile on her face.

‘Do you think Chinese men like blow jobs?’

She is of course kidding. Or is she? Anything to win? The more I get to know h, the more I like the real woman that she is and I am charmed by her natural beauty and her sense of humor.

●●●

There is absolutely no rest for the wicked. We left Chicago the day before at around noon, arriving in Hong Kong at three in the afternoon the next day. Soon as we check into Hotel Prince, the instant meeting breaks out and lasts until one in the morning. Already there or arriving simultaneously are Byron and Brigitte, Jan and Lucienne Bruinooge of Holland. There is no time to waste, so we get into the production of the pictorial the very next day. Most of the themes are conceived by Byron and Brigitte and are discussed among us. The concepts basically present the stereotypes of each country, which makes their nationalities easily recognizable.

Lucienne is photographed as the cellophane wrapped bouquet of Tulips who among the real colorful dozen tulips is the prettiest centerpiece. Similarly, Shannon Long in the outback Aussie gear, Jenny Vergdou of Greece dressed in blue with a pile of plates for her to smash, Spain’s Nuria Posariza Dobon as the torero, Marta Duca of Italy in a glittery green dress pulled by paparazzis posed by Jan and me, Lynne in her American West cowboy garb complete with the Stetson hat and Luma de Oliveira of Brazil in all her Samba School gold and glitter. The fun fantasy stuff. Except that editors of Germany and Japan are upset at the way we have planned to portray their girls. The German girl is decked out in all black leather, the bustier with three straps, a leather scarf and thigh high leather boots and her entire arms covered with tight leather gloves. There are rhinestone studs and she is wearing dark sinister looking sunglasses. The only image the props conjure up is that of a brutal Nazi officer. The Japanese girl is propped up on a chair with red ribbons sprouting out from a spoke, symbolizes The land of the Rising Sun. They are more than offended and the German editor Bernd Prievert even threatens to pack up and leave with his girl. Don’t ask me how I was able to pacify and convince them that those were meant to be funny and not meant to communicate anything else.

When I look at those photos today, I must confess, there is nothing funny about those two concepts. However inadvertently, in the place of Bernd and the Japanese editor, whose name escapes my memory, I too would have not only been upset, but would have forced the creative team to change the concepts. Probably put the German Fräuline in Dirndl and the Japanese girl in a revealing Kimono. I would have not threatened to up and leave, because that would be against my nature and the team spirit. If anyone, me having lived in Germany, I should have known the sensitivity of what even a remotest hint at Nazism would make me feel. But I am glad that however I was able to resolve the conflict, the harmony and the spirit remained in tact. Perhaps the readers too saw those props as self-mockery instead of symbolizing anything so grave. Because as far as I know, there was no negative reaction to those shots.

●●●

Not withstanding minor day-to-day crisis, the major crisis erupts when the waiter in the Royal Garden Hotel’s atrium (We have now moved to Royal Garden) where I am having drinks with the editors, informs me that I am wanted on the phone. Its almost two in the morning. On the line is Holland’s Lucienne.

‘Stella and I need to talk to you urgently.’ Now what? I look at my watch and walk over to the elevator.

‘We girls had a meeting earlier, and we won’t do it. Wear those ugly one piece swimming sacks they want us to.’

And I thought we had resolved the crisis that threatened cancellation of the pageant. The Christian Theological Society of Hong Kong had made waves about the Playboy show allowed to be aired in the prime time. They had threatened to protest outside the Queen Elizabeth Stadium from where the show would be broadcast live in the presence of Hong Kong’s 2000 who’s who audience. TVB would stand its ground by going ahead with the show live as planned, but was sufficiently worried about the aftermath and it was decided to tone down the presentation by having girls wear hastily made white single piece swimsuits with its flimsy conservative cuts that would make nuns look racier. Only distinguishing element among them would be different colored satin bands wrapped around their waists tied in large bows dangling in the back. This was the compromise nobody liked, but we had to defer to the decision by TVB. It seemed the only way to quell the fire the show could otherwise cause.

The girls were obviously devastated. They were there for a beauty pageant and nothing can allow them to show off their wonderful figures as much as their own handpicked bikinis. They had grumbled and registered their displeasure at this change, but seemed accepting it however reluctantly. But obviously not.

Stella and Lucienne are sitting on one of the beds. I am sitting across from them. We are like forty-four hours from going live on the air and from the tone of Lucienne’s voice, it becomes clear to me that the girls had long and serious talks about it. They are angry and they are adamant. After all, they were not competing to show which one of them looked most homely and unattractive. If they indeed go on strike and even one of them don’t show up, that would spell disaster of a major proportions. Something I cannot allow to happen.

‘Okay. You girls are absolutely right. This is the beauty contest and the routine has to include you to parade in your bikinis. After all, each one of you is beautiful with near perfect bodies and they are going to read out your vital statistics when you’re presented. That’s what was planned and that’s what we want. I want. But the situation we’re facing is not about being right or wrong. When you are dealing with the religious zealots or hostile feminist groups, the logic goes out of the window. Believe me, they are in mini-minority at the very best. But they have apparently made enough noise to be noticed. And what they are demanding is to cancel the show. TVB is determined to go ahead with the show, at the risk of perhaps even losing their broadcasting license. But have come up with a compromise, should it come to that, they would have a convincing argument. Now if us from Playboy family cause the cancellation, I don’t even want to imagine what the cost of that would be to each one of our editions.

‘As for taking all the glamour out of the swim suit routine, look at it this way. You will all have the same handicap. The judges are well aware of that. And each one of them would have seen the special issue we have put out containing your original nudes as they appeared in your country’s edition. So they would know. We would ask them to pay closer attention to those’

I see expressions on their faces soften a bit. As angry and disappointed as they are, we have been working together and living under the same roof for now almost two weeks. We are a team and we are becoming a family. Plus, we still have the opening spread to shoot. We are to shoot it on the classic Chinese Junk while sailing around Hong Kong harbor. There is likely to be the press, and even television coverage. ‘You can show off your bikinis in the bright daylight. Fuck those bastards!’ The prospect of having the last word and to end it with the fuck you moment before returning home puts a smile on theirs and my face.

‘Look, I can’t force you to do anything. But we are in this together. And I need you to not let those disgruntled few to force us into a devastating defeat.’

Lucienne and Stella still unhappy, but seemed to understand the gravity of the situation. They agree to talk it over again with the girls in the morning and ask me to be there with them. I pretty much repeat what I had said the night before. Nobody is feeling really hot about it. We all understood what we had to do and left for the rehearsal.

Bikinis or not, the show went on the air promptly at 9:30 PM on the night of Sunday, December 12^th 1987 and kicked off TVB’s special Christmas offering. And 95% of Hong Kong’s television viewers tuned into TVB’s Miss Playboy International Beauty Pageant. There were some protestors outside the stadium, mostly ignored and the show concluded without a stitch. Good times had by all. TVB and Playboy crew exhausted and elated met for the midnight dinner at the Royal Garden.

To add bit of a drama to it, earlier in the day, Jan had landed at the Adventist Hospital with a sudden swelling in his foot and was subjected to watch the show on TV from his hospital bed. The Japanese editor loses his briefcase containing lot of cash, his passport, credit cards and all. And soon as the lights dim on the specially built outdoor set and all the girls have walked off the arena, France’s Nathalie Galan remains at the edge of the stage, tears rolling down her eyes, utterly devastated at not even making it as one of the two runner ups, let alone winning the title. She refuses to go have dinner with us. I put my arm around her and hold her while she breaks down in sobs. We stand like that when rest of the stage lights are turned off and when the crew arrives to dismantle the set. In excitement and in hurry, everyone has rushed back to the hotel, having totally forgotten about the two of us missing. Streets are dark and deserted outside the stadium. We stand there for a while. Confused, when a lone cab slows down in front of us. There is an applause when we walk in to the dining room.

●●●

THE WINNERS

Luma de Oliveira – Brazil – Miss Playboy International 1987 & Editor’s Choice

Marta Duca – Italy – First Runner Up

Lynn Austin – USA – Second Runner Up

Illustration: Celia Rose Marks

SISTER SITE

http://www.downdivision.com

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Next Friday, July 12, 2013

PLAYBOY AND WOMEN IN MY LIFE

No one, even the women in your life understand that working for Playboy is like any other job – just making a living. That its not any different than working for Time or Life magazines. Personal anecdotes about working for living and matters of the heart.

Tags Albert Cheng, Bernard Cheung, Bernd Prievert, Hong Kong, Jan Heemskerk, Jeff Cohen, Lynn Austin, Playboy Beauty Contest, Playmates, Tom Staebler, TVB

Categories Beauty Contest, Playmates, Uncategorized

TEMPTATIONS…TEMPTATIONS…

May 16, 2013 //

Haresh Shah

Yes, It Happens

Don’t lie. I know you’ve been dying to ask me – no matter in what form and the words – but have been afraid to or are just being too smug or polite to ask. And I have been knowingly ignoring or just stringing you along, instead of just come out and get it over with. But the time has come for me to face up and come clear. The answer is: YES, in bold CAPITAL letters.

It is the New Year’s day in the year 2000. The first day of the new millennium. Jan (Heemskerk) and I are taking a walk in the woods of the Dutch countryside. Not too far from his home in Alkmaar. It’s wet and it’s muddy and it’s bone chilling cold. But we are bundled up and the crisp cold fresh air does us good. I don’t remember what lead him to ask, but out of a clear blue sky, I hear his words amble in the air.

‘Shah, have you ever regretted having slept with someone? ’Almost in the exact words that I remember an author asking another in an article in The New Yorker – I think the question was directed at John Updike, but I am not sure.

‘Nope! But I certainly have regretted not having done so when I could have.’ I repeat pretty much what Updike or whoever it was had answered. My response puts us in reflective mode. We continue walking in silence. I don’t remember much being said about it. We probably drifted away talking about something else – or more likely picked up the thread of whatever conversation we were having.

Had we stayed on the subject, it probably would have become the hour of truth as is known to happen on any given New Year’s day. What could have been more appropriate than the first day of the new millennium? Had we gone on, this is what I would have liked to share with him.

‘Do you remember the Dutch starlet you sent to Chicago to be photographed? What was her name? Yeah, her, right. Ans. I think it was the second or the third day of the shoot. We had built this elaborate set for her. Sort of Spanish Colonial arch in the background, and a huge king size bed perched atop the specially built stage. There are potted flowers, pastel pink and the bed is covered with usual props to selectively and enticingly hide and reveal the languishing shapely female form. During a short break, everyone was dispersed off the set. No one had gone far. Pat (Tomlinson), the stylist was in the props room, futzing around. Pompeo (Posar) was probably talking to his wife at home. Do you believe he calls his wife at least a dozen times every day just to tell her I love you? Steve (Conley), the assistant was somewhere else. And then I walk in on the set. Ans has climbed down the bed and sitting at the edge of the stage, relaxing with her legs dangling. Other than her turquoise choker and the matching earrings and the bracelets and a long shawl loosely hanging from her arm, she has not bothered to cover herself.’

‘So how is it going?’ I approach her.

‘Oh, good! They are taking a little break!’ And we indulge in small talk. I am standing in front of her, her face and my waist parallel to each other. And suddenly, like the head of a cobra springing up from the snake charmer’s basket, she drops the shawl and her hand is cupping my crotch and affectionately squeezing my family jewels. I back up. She looks up at me with a wicked smile. Nothing is said. We just exchange looks. Amazement on my face, lust on hers.’ I know, Jan would have given me a knowing smile at the mention of family jewels, because as good as his English is, when we first started preparing for the Dutch Playboy, scheduled for the US edition was an article titled Family Jewels by Roy Blount Jr.. Everyone in the department would remember the hilarious telex traffic between him and our rights manager Jean Freehill (Connell), trying to explain to Jan what the family jewels meant. To keep it simple, everyone in the department got a copy of all the incoming telexes. So Jean had to be extra careful in answering, oh so delicate a subject matter.

‘And remember Nicole? When we were doing 1986 World Cup pictorial in Mexico and staying at Krystal in Puerto Vallarta? It was about seven in the morning when Pat calls me.

‘Haresh, can you please do me a favor and call Nicole and Emily and make sure they come in for makeup as soon as possible. I am waiting for them. Pompeo wants to get in as many shots as possible before ten so the light is still soft?’

Obviously Pat could have coaxed them out of bed herself, but at times chemistry between the makeup artist/stylist and the models is not the most congenial. Instead of wasting my time calling, I just pull up my shorts, put on a T-shirt and walk over to their rooms. First I knock on Emily’s door. She is already up and about, dressed only in her undies and the Krystal t-shirt, having huevos rancheros for breakfast. We brush cheeks. As beautiful as she is, the whiff of scrambled eggs wafting from her mouth is disillusioning. But okay. I put her on alert, telling her to be in Pat’s suite for make up no later than in fifteen minutes. Leaving her to get ready, I strut over to the different building of the complex to Nicole’s room.

It takes a few knocks and some sleepy grunts from inside the room before I sense her getting out of bed and shuffle over to open the door. She is similarly dressed or undressed. Shouldn’t really matter. When you have seen them in the nude, day in and day out for several days. But it does. They are their most attractive and the most seductive when they are dressed. When they show up in the evening for dinner in their “street” clothes, squeezed into their tight fitting jeans and the tops or wrapped in their revealing evening dresses. And when they are not modeling. Just being their own natural self makes them ever so alluring and dangerous. Ditto, when they are scantily dressed like Emily was while ago and Nicole is right now.

Her eyes half closed, she flings her blonde tresses – twists her entire body like a cat waking up from a snooze. ‘I’m so tired. Let me sleep just a little more,’ she says and climbs right back into bed and curls up like an escargot. Pulling up the blanket, bottom of which is squeezed between her legs.

‘Let me sleep just a little more, pretty please!’ She repeats herself and gives me a poor little girl look.

‘I’m sorry Nicole. Come on. Get up. Pompeo will be waiting for you on the beach promptly at eight. All ready to roll. ‘ I sit down at the edge of her bed and prod her more. She slowly and seductively uncoils herself, sits up and leans slightly towards me and gives me a hurt look. Her cloudy green eyes darted into mine like a double arrowed bow pulled by multiple cupids hovering up above our heads. She seems lost in deep thoughts for a moment and then twirls her torso in the most languid slow motion.

‘I was wondering what would it feel like to make love to you?’ The sentence comes out seamlessly – in a drawl, like a streamer unfurling in a slow billowing motion . And even before I have time to process what she said, her lips are precariously close to mine – fluttering. Our eyes blend together. And I am pulled on the bed. Or was it me who nudged her down? Doesn’t really matter. Just a small detail. And I am on top of her. Squeezed underneath me, and our lips locked, cradling in my arm is Nicole. Beautiful, beautiful Nicole. And then as suddenly I untangle myself and jump out of bed with; ‘come on Nicole. Get up and get ready!’ She gives me a hateful look. I give her my hand, look into her eyes. ‘Please Nicole!’ I plead. She lowers her gaze and as she climbs down the bed, looking hurt, I hear her subdued grouse: ‘you’re so cruel!’

Was I thinking of Carolyn back home? Yes. Is that why I peeled myself away before she could find out what it would feel like to make love to me? Or me finding out how sweet would it feel to have made love to her? No.

There were other reasons. The guilt I would feel and the lies I may someday tell. But trickier yet, in my position as the leader of the project, I just couldn’t afford to get involved with one of the twelve girls of the team. It would change the complete logistics and the attitude not only that of Nicole, but of every girl. And Nicole would suddenly feel and behave like the queen bee. That was very apparent that very evening. Normally aloof, that night during the dinner, she makes it a point to sit next to me, if not exactly snuggling up, but with a bit more familiarity than up until then.

Let’s pause here for a sec to consider: What if? Most probably the answer would be: Nothing. I knew that both Nicole and Ans had boyfriends back home. Both of them Europeans; probably had kinds of relationships in which they could include a bit of frolicking in their narration, get a chuckle or two at having seduced a Playboy editor. None of us would have followed up or tried to keep in touch and would be cordial if and when we ran into each other. Never uttering a word about our little secrets. And for me, had Carolyn asked me, I probably would have told her. Or not. Because at the early stages of our relationship, we had brushed upon the subject and she had said: I would rather not know.

But in nutshell, these liaisons happen only in the moment. Like delicious little bonbons and the bright little rainbows floating off a bubble wand, or the dazzling bouquet of light rays sprouting out of the sparkler. But soon, the bubbles burst, the blinding rays of the sparkler die and the sweetness of the bonbons dissolve on your tongue. So do those short sweet moments fade into the past and then they are gone. Puff!

Illustration: Celia Rose Marks

SISTER SITE

http://www.downdivision.com

Next Friday, May 24, 2013

BEAUTY AND THE BREASTS

What is this with women and their breasts? And why are we so obsessed with them? Help, Herr Dr. Freud. Because all I feel qualified to contribute is to report on the state of affairs vis-à-vis, you know?

Tags Flings, Haresh Shah, Jan Heemskerk, Lynne Austin, Pat Tomlinson, Playmates, Poempeo Posar, Shannon Long, Soccer World Cup 1986

Categories Playmates

FACE TO FACE WITH JAN CREMER

April 11, 2013 //

Haresh Shah

The Bad Boy Of Holland And The “Future Husband” Of Jayne Mansfield

For those of you who have no clue who is the bad boy of Holland, here is essential Jan Cremer in his own words. ‘ I am the best painter, I am the best writer. I am for sure the best journalist of the Dutch language, and certainly one of the best writers in the world’. He said to the writer and ex Playboy Holland editor, Guus Luijters for his book, Jan Cremer in Beeld.

He once famously said: ‘Rembrandt? I never heard of him. I’m not interested in sport.’

You have to be brilliant to utter such arrogant and provocative words. Sounds more like something coming out of the big mouth of Cassius Clay a.k.a. Muhammad Ali, who said in his October 1964 Playboy interview: ‘I’m the greatest, I’m so pretty. People can’t stand a blowhard, but they’ll always listen to them,’, than from the mouth of a gentle Dutch writer and artist. Jan Cremer too must have realized the shock value of his utterances spewed out in sound bites the way before there was a sound bites. Or could it be that he was just reading off the script laid out by Cassius Clay?

And get this: He dedicated his book Ik Jan Cremer thus: For Jan Cremer and Jayne Mansfield. About which he said to Jules Farber, in Holland Herald, ‘It was the era when Jayne, Marilyn Monroe and Jane Russell were the big American sex symbols. For me, Mansfield was it – the voluptuous contemporary. Rubens woman.’ To coincide with the publication of I Jan Cremer in America, his New York agent arranged a meeting between Jayne and Jan for a publicity photo. ‘And wham! We went to South America for six months…and then we lived in Hollywood for another half year. Jayne introduced me to everyone as her future husband.’ And this isn’t hype or a boast.

●●●

My first awareness of Jan Cremer came on the very second day of my first arrival in Holland in the summer of 1965. I was offered a summer internship by Drukerij Bosch in Utrecht. The printing plant specialized in producing paperbacks. I come from a family of pioneers in paperback publishing in India. And I loved books. To see all those many books piled high on their pallets all across the plant was for me like the kid let loose in a candy store. Among the piles, the biggest one was what looked like an unassuming book titled Ik Jan Cremer. A very simple black and white cover with the image of a menacing looking young man dressed in an all out denim outfit, perched atop a motorbike, his gloves clad hands gripping the wide handlebars, his head covered also with the denim version of the Dutch fisherman’s hat, complete with biker’s goggles, looking tough in the image of James Dean, the bike moving dangerously towards you, as if to run you over.

What I realized over a period of time was that Bosch had devoted one printing press exclusively to printing nothing but Ik Jan Cremer, day in and day out. Published just a year earlier, the book was now in its fourth printing and there was no end in sight, because they couldn’t print and bind them fast enough to fill the shelves from where they immediately flew off. A month later, I was assigned a statistical project to track the sales of the paperbacks published and sold in various markets . When I returned to resume my internship during the Christmas break, Ik Jan Cremer, as months earlier, hadn’t budged from its # 1 spot on the Dutch bestseller list. The same press still devoted to printing those same pages. The only difference was an appearance on the cover of a wide red band across the upper left hand corner screaming BESTSELLER and a bit lower, a round, larger than a postal stamp like image saying 300,000 copies sold, 350,000 copies sold, the numbers climbing with every subsequent printings. When I ran into him quite by an accident in the summer of 1983, the book was translated into thirty some languages and it was still going strong in Holland after almost twenty years of its publication, with forty plus printings and sales of more than 800,000 copies in Dutch only.

It was the most controversial book of the time, and everybody – everybody was talking about it. And I also remembered how I wished I could read Dutch. But I had to make do with merely touching and feeling the bound volumes every time I passed by the pallets piling higher and higher. As if touching it would make its contents instantly understandable to me.

It came out in its English translation only a year later, but once back in England and buried into my studies and figuring out my future, I never got around to reading it until the summer of 1978, when quite by an accident, I ran into I Jan Cremer while browsing the used bookstore in the shopping mall near my home in Goleta, California. By then, there was also Jan Cremer Writes Again. I bought both and devoured them like a famished dog.

I was taken by his vivid descriptions of growing up during the second world war, the raw sex and the harshness of the post-war European life and the angry forcefulness of his narration had me spellbound and had left an everlasting impression on me.

●●●

I was having dinner at the restaurant de Warsteiner in Amsterdam, with Jan Heemskerk and Dirk De Moei, the editor-in-chief and the art director designates of soon to be launched Dutch edition of Playboy. Accompanying us were Gemmy, Jan’s wife and Ans, Dirk’s live-in lady. With us all settled, Dirk noticed Jan Cremer sitting at the bar with his girlfriend Babette.

‘Look who is here. Jan Cremer and Babette.’ I hear Dirk whispering to Jan.

I expressed the desire to go and say hello to the Dutch Legend. Instead, Dirk invited him and Babette to join us. Jan pulled up a chair next to me and Babette sat at the other end of the table. Cremer wore burgundy red short-sleeved shirt and a pair of blue jeans. At forty two, he didn’t look anything like my image of the young and rebellious biker, married to his fast and furious motorbike and the connoisseur of female of the species from all across the European continent. He looked and behaved no different from any other respectable Dutch man his age and like them spoke fluent but accented English.

Jan Cremer impressed me as being very down to earth, charismatic, self-confident and a friendly sort of guy. He seemed to feel very comfortable with his success, and very natural with the freedom it offered him with homes in New York, Switzerland and Amsterdam. Had replaced fast motorbikes with the fast cars. All this on just two major books and I would later find out, his art, which sold for large sums. Except for one of them, his 1960 painting of the Japanese War, on which he put the price tag of one million guilders – which at the time would have been quarter of a million dollars. Jan Heemskerk tells me that he is still holding out, for one of these days some sucker just might roll out the dough.

We talked about his books and how much of what is contained in them is true and how much is the product of his “depraved mind”. At the time he was working on a travel book, his third major effort and supposedly the best he had written so far. But he seemed not in a hurry to finish it.

The conversation switched to Playboy and the kind of women it ran in its pages, especially the Playmates. To put it more or less in his own words: The girls you run in Playboy are too young, too beautiful, too glamorized and too perfect. I like women who have stretch marks on their stomachs, the breasts that sag and asses big and fat. I like to see wrinkles on their faces, feel roughness on their skins and be able to touch the flaws in their bodies.

I could tell that Jan was serious. At the same time, I couldn’t help glancing across the table at gorgeous Babette, and appraise her in the light of what Jan was telling me about the kind of women he prefers. Babette looked anything but the description of his favored women full of flaws. She looked to be in her mid-twenties, with beautiful blonde hair tied back neatly in a pony, with very proportionate pointed nose, softly darting eyes and from what I could tell, she possessed a delightful figure, a pretty face, she could have easily been a Playmate. Ironically, he was working on a photographic collection of nudes and just a couple of months after our meeting, those of Babette’s appeared in the premier issues of Playboy’s Dutch edition. I certainly couldn’t find any flaws in her young and flawless beauty. Much as I would have liked to, I didn’t get to talk much to Babette. But from what I understood, she was an ex-model and was now living and traveling with Jan, they gave me a feeling of a very loving couple, with her assuming a lower profile, which perhaps was also a part of her natural personality.

●●●

Up until now, I hadn’t thought about that night again. Perhaps when I saw something by Jan Cremer appear in the Dutch Playboy, such as when he did the cover for the edition’s fifteenth anniversary in 1998 and prior to that when his portfolio of erotic paintings of no other than Babette appeared in the pages of Playboy in all her carnal glory. And when I read about the publication of what is hailed as his masterpiece, 2000 page opus The Huns. Beyond that he seemed to have faded into the backdrop of my consciousness. That is, until very recently, when I was scanning the spines of the art books in my collection, I came upon a volume of what basically is a complete catalogue of his life and works spanning from 1957 to 1988, published to coincide with the opening of his retrospective art exhibition at the Rijksmuseum in his home town of Enschede, from where it was scheduled to go to France, Germany, Switzerland and finally to the National Museum in Budapest.

There were mentions of his life as a fine artist in his Cremer books, but it never quite recorded in my memory. The catalogue is dedicated to me with the inscription: October 11, 1988 to Haresh Shah in Friendship, Jan Cremer. I have absolutely no recollection of ever having seen him again or been in touch with in any other way since our one and the only encounter in Amsterdam. Could it be that Mick Boskamp, the service editor of the Dutch edition who was spending a few days in Chicago around the same time brought it along? Mick too has absolutely no such recollection. How did it then get to me? On the facing page to the dedication is a New York City address, written also in the same handwriting, is the name and address of Sterling Lord Literistic – probably of his agent in the USA. Could it be that he was in New York that day and thought of me? Bit of a mystery to me, but it still pleases me to know that I could have left a positive impression with one of my favorite authors. Who as it turns out is as big an artist as he is an author. And in retrospect, it would be fair to say that he is a bigger artist than he ever became a writer.

I am not a good judge of art by any dint of imagination, but the only way I can describe his paintings in the catalogue is that they are abstracts with broad strokes of pleasing colors splashed across huge canvases. And it impresses and overwhelms to think how incredible it is for a single human being to be all that. His writing has often been compared with my all time favorite, Henry Miller, and now when I see his art, not the style and the objects he paints, but the idea of a writer also being an artist also puts him next to the old master, because Miller too picked up the brush in his sunset years and produced some beautiful watercolors.

Even though Cremer is an entire generation younger than Henry Miller, his I Jan Cremer would have never been allowed to be published in the United States if not for the battles fought over the publication of Miller’s Tropic of Cancer in 1961, which wasn’t allowed to be distributed freely in his own country up until 1964, more than thirty years after it was originally published in France. The very year when Ik Jan Cremer came out in Holland and in 1965 in its English translation in the United States.

Illustration: Celia Rose Marks

SISTER SITE

http://www.downdivision.com

Next Friday, April 19, 2013

SEX EDUCATION À LA JAPONAISE

As excited as I was when my boss assigned me to work in tandem with the Japanese editorial team, I also knew that Japanese were unlike any other people I had ever worked with and that I needed to know about them beyond the books I read. So before meeting with them, I embarked upon a weeklong journey of the country on their famed Shinkansan bullet trains. Crisscrossing the country, meeting people, visiting places, a university and pachinko parlors, staying only at the inns and eating only Japanese food, and yes, spend an afternoon watching striptease.

Tags amsterdam, Artist, Babette, Dirk De Moei, Haresh Shah, Henry Miller, Holland, Jan Cremer, Jan Heemskerk, Jayne Mansfield, Playboy Netherlands, Playmates, Writer

Categories Artist, Writer

IN THE NAME OF LOVE

February 14, 2013 //

Haresh Shah

Every Picture Tells A Story

Its crispy cold December morning. The sun is shining bright outside and I am having my usual Sunday breakfast of Shahmolette – so christened by Jan Heemskerk – our friend and at the time editor-in-chief of Playboy’s Dutch edition. Because in addition to mushrooms and onions, my recipe includes finely chopped, insanely hot Thai peppers and cilantro. Also our Sunday morning feast included freshly baked bagels from Skokie’s famous and the best in the world, Bagels & Bialys, and their home made cream cheese with chives. Carolyn is futzing around the kitchen when the phone rings. I hear her making a perfunctory but pleasant conversation with the caller. Not knowing or caring to know who she might be talking to, I flip the pages of that week’s Time.

‘Sure! He’s right here. Just a minute.’ She covers the mouthpiece of the receiver and mouths ‘Lee Hall.’

Lee Hall? That’s my boss. What is he doing calling me at home on a Sunday morning? It sure couldn’t be good news. I take the receiver and lean against the credenza by the phone.

‘Mr. Shah!’ I hear him say. Once in a while he would call me that endearingly. But still…

‘Sorry to bother you at home on Sunday morning – but as you know I’ve just returned from my far east trip and thought I fill you in on Hong Kong before things get crazy tomorrow morning at the office.’

A sigh of relief! ‘Sure. You want me to come over?’ I offer.

‘No that’s not necessary. But I was wondering if not too inconvenient, I could stop by at your place and we can talk over a cup of delicious masala chai. You know, my body clock is upside down and I am wide awake. Would do me good to take a ride along the lake.’

About an hour or so later, his unpretentious burgundy Chevy Malibu pulls up in front of our house in the Chicago suburb of Evanston. His tall frame stoops down on our relatively low sofa. As we sip on our tea he gives me run down on his visit with our Japanese publishers Shueisha.

‘They love you down there,’ he tells me and also compliments me on the job well done.

‘That brings me to Hong Kong. We are about to conclude an agreement with Sally Aw of Sing Tao Newspaper Group. I would like you to take a trip there at your earliest convenience soon after the holiday rush is over, and help them set up and launch the Chinese edition.’

Hong Kong!!! In The World of Suzie Wong! He tells me in detail about the two principles. Sally Aw and the Playboy’s publisher designate, dynamic Albert Cheng. He shares with me what he has jotted in his notes and gives me Albert Cheng’s direct phone number and asks me I should call him in a day or two and establish initial contact. It all sounds so wonderful that I am absolutely thrilled. But at the same time, I sense in Lee a certain amount of discomfort. Telling me everything in minute detail, almost stretching it, giving me a feeling that there is something else hidden behind all of that nervous energy and that he is somehow having hard time leading up to it.

‘Well, I have taken up enough of your family time on this weekend morning. I better be going.’

‘Not at all, we are delighted to have you in our home.’ I say sincerely. Following that he says his goodbye to Carolyn and thanking her for tea and probably pats Anjuli on the head and prepares to leave.

‘There is something else…’

‘Yes?’

‘Come on out with me. There is something I want to show you. A bit confused and a bit curious, I follow him to his car. He opens the trunk to the car and lifts out of it what looks like a framed painting. He shows it to me. It’s a water color of an Indian temple perched atop a steep hill, with the stone stairs leading up. He rests is against the open door of the trunk and lifts up two more paintings. One that of an Indian village iron smith working on his anvil right outside of his thatched hut and another one, a bit modern-ish of a woman with an infant raised up above her head.

‘They are beautiful.’ I say. Thinking he is showing them to me because of their origin.

‘I acquired them when growing up in India. As you already know, my father was in diplomatic service in Delhi. I just love them. Makes me nostalgic about the times I spent in your beautiful country.’ The way he stares at them with such fondness demonstrates one of those rare emotional moments of his otherwise stoic demeanor.

Still not getting why he is showing them to me, I wait.

‘I would like to ask you for a big favor. If you can. If its alright with you, I would like to loan them to you.’ He must have noticed a confused look on my face.

‘See, the thing is; Sarah is decorating our new apartment and she absolutely hates them!’ I am speechless. I had of course known Sarah and liked her the way you like your boss’ pleasant spouse. But other than when thrown together during the required company social gatherings, our talks never went past perfunctory pleasantries. Neither was I personally that close to Lee. Our relationship was congenial and warm but mainly based on mutual professional respect. Other than his foray in India, we also shared a common thread of both of us having worked at Time Inc., where he was editor-in-chief of Life en Espanol. He worked out of the editorial offices in New York and I think also in Paris and Tokyo. I worked in Time’s production offices in Chicago. Our paths had never crossed during our Time & Life days. Of his personal life, I knew only bits and pieces. That he was married before and had three kids and had been divorced – must not have been that pleasant. From his accidental comments, his relationship with his kids too seemed more obligatory than warm. That he have had a serious bout with alcoholism, which too I was only somewhat aware of at the tail end. But the ones who knew him better, would tell me that it was real bad until after he married Sarah. All of them were in agreement that it was Sarah who had helped straighten him out. And that she loved him and had been good for him. That she was the reason Lee has been and was dry for some time now.

They had just moved from their matchbox of a highrise on the North Lake Shore Drive to a vintage lowrise on the short strip at the curve of the lake on Oak Street, from whose windows you could practically touch the water. An elegant place. Sarah’s own domain. And as much as Sarah had done for him, even having mostly given up drinking herself and whatever else it must have taken for her to steer Lee in the right direction – and as much as Lee seemed to love her, giving up those three paintings was the least he could do for the woman who meant so much to him.

All that scrolled through the screen of my head as I heard him continue: ‘I would be grateful if you would agree to take them. This way I would know that they are in good hands and I am sure that you and Caroline (sic) would appreciate and enjoy them. And whenever I feel homesick for them, I can always stop by and look at them.’

That was in 1985. I still have those paintings occupying very prominent spots in my apartment. Lee never looked back, never reclaimed them or visited to admire them. The sacrifice he made turned out to be worth his while, because Sarah and Lee remained happily married up until indeed death did them part. And now he is no longer among us. But when in 1997, I wrote about the incident in my book, Of Simultaneous Orgasms and Other Popular Myths: A Realistic Look at Relationships, as an example in the chapter titled, Little Things Make Big Differences, and sent him a copy of the book – he wrote back. Thank you for the dedication as well as the mention in the book (including the nicely disguised one about the Indian Paintings.)

Illustration: Jordan Rutherford

SISTER SITE

http://www.downdivision.com

Next Friday, February 29, 2013

BY THE TIME I GET TO AMSTERDAM…

Not every relationship problem is resolved by giving away paintings. There are times when the only solution is to go your own separate ways. Here is the story of a dramatic escape of someone not waiting until the death did them part.

Tags Albert Cheng, Carolyn, Hong Kong, Jan Heemskerk, Lee Hall, Love Story, Relationship, Valentine's Day

Categories Uncategorized