Free Hef's Little Black Book by Hugh M. Hefner Page A

weeks. Over a weekend we selected Playboy and the terrific rabbit symbol. I often think—what if Stag hadn’t threatened us until after we’d published an issue or two under the “Stag Party” logo. Like I said, we’ve been lucky.
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    a llow Yourself to Feel Successful, and You Will Be

    It’s all relative. I thought I was hugely successful in the first year of the magazine because I managed to get enough money to publish the second issue and the third. Then the letters started coming in from people applauding the concept of the magazine when it was still being put together with very little money. But what I couldn’t possibly have imagined were the years that followed and what an empire it would become.
    I felt as if I’d been born for it. I felt like Clark Kent going into that phone booth and then bursting out with that big S on his chest. When you accept that feeling, then you can believe a man can fly.
    T hrough the Eyes of the Master: What to Look for When Looking at a Nude Photograph
    It depends very much what you’re looking for. First and foremost, you look at the face. Is she beautiful in the photo? Doesn’t matter how nicely posed the rest of it is. If the face is good, then it’s a matter of body attractiveness. One assumes before you’re shooting a centerfold that she’s a beautiful girl, but has the camera captured that? Throughout most of Playboy’s history, the centerfolds were shot with an 8 x10 camera, which has a slow shutter speed, making it difficult to get spontaneity.
    The best poses are the ones that don’t look too stiff, but should be able to make you stiff. That’s about as good a credo as I can share.

    B ad Times Remind You to Enjoy the Good Times
    So many things can get you down. Then you start feeling sorry for yourself. But the reality is, if you wake up in the morning and you’re alive and healthy and feel good about it, you’re already far ahead of the game.
    I have managed to remain optimistic during troubled times—not simply in terms of romance, but in terms of business and everything else—by the recognition that you can tell how good things are only by comparing them with when they weren’t so good.
    Y oung Dreams Will Age Well Along with You
    You can give up and settle for less if that’s what you want to do. What we call maturity, in many cases, is just compromise.
    For me, my eternal optimism has seen me through. Much of it has to do with staying connected to the dreams of childhood, staying in touch with the boy I once was, and loving that boy and his dreams. It makes everything all the more satisfying. I could be living exactly the same life and be getting a lot less satisfaction out of it if I wasn’t really still in touch with the innocent boy dreaming the dream.
    He decided that he would forever live a boy’s life, a boy’s dream, so as to never become jaded or cynical. He would never allow himself to feel overly sophisticated. “I probably am today and will always remain a little bit of the youngster,” he said long ago and evermore. “This is something that is too soon dead in most all of us, and I’m doing my best to keep it alive in me.” He now wanders his large property and is truly touched by little things that remind him of his boyhood backyard—ants and butterflies and crickets, backyard stuff. Et cetera. And then he gets to go upstairs to his bedroom and see naked women waiting for him. He gets to see all the things his inner boy had dreamt of.
    Try living such a life, and make millions while doing so, and see if the world doesn’t come after you, looking for some retribution. It does, will, and certainly did. He would become among the most censored men in history—for daring to throw sex into sunlight, for pulling it out of shadows and alleys; a simple and revolutionary (and maybe healthy?) notion, since he was the first one to think of it, only to be persecuted for doing so forthrightly, on nice paper stock, accompanied by good