I just got email from Playboy, and no, it wasn’t “Dear Mr. deVilla, please pay up or we won’t renew your subscription.” Here’s the important part:
I am a photo researcher at Playboy Magazine in Chicago. We were on your website and saw the following photo:
We would like to purchase rights to use this photo in the magazine. We will pay $250 american dollars for one time english language use and we will give photo credit in the magazine.
Huh? “We were on your website?”
The optimistic side of me is thinking “Well, if I’m being read by both awe-inspiringly deep Calvinist theologians and Playboy writers, I must be doing something right.” The more realistic side is thinking that thanks to a lot of linking (especially from A-listers like The Reverse Cowgirl), a little Googling will show that I am responsible for this particular meme.
(This is the second major meme for which I am responsible. The first is “Drug Dealers vs. Software Developers”, which started with an email I wrote back in ’95 for a newsletter for the alumni of my engineering class.)
Unfortunately, I didn’t take the picture in question. My friend Karin was sent these photos, and she emailed them to me. I just posted ’em here for your amusement. I’ll email Karin and see if I can’t backtrack and find the photographer.
Now I hope that the people at Playboy magazine realize that they’ve a got a golden opportunity to hire a clever, handsome, worldly-wise bachelor who understands their readers very, very well. Or perhaps Hef might be thinking “you know, I’ve never had an accordion player at the mansion. It might be nice.”
I like my cosmos with just enough cranberry for colour and no more, Hef.