I always imagined Hugh Hefner's life was 20% boobs, 20% butts and 60% boobs and butts. But then I started reading his Twitter feed and found out he spends every Saturday scrapbooking. Scrapbooking is clearly way more fun than I thought. And since there was little chance of upping the boobs and butts in my life, I decided to learn how to scrapbook--from him.
Normally, the 87-year-old Hef scrapbooks with his 27-year-old wife Crystal, but for my lesson, he met me alone on a Thursday. I showed up at the Playboy Mansion in Los Angeles with a box of old photos and letters and an award I won in 2003 for Best Newspaper/Magazine Article from the International Hempology 101 Society. I also brought a 20-page blank scrapbook whose cover was printed with words like memories, cherish and reflect. I climbed up to Hef's scrapbooking room in the attic, where he greeted me wearing a captain's hat, a red robe over black pajamas and slippers. Hef's uniform never made sense to me, since old men who date young women tend to wear tight jeans and patterned shirts. Now, however, I realize it's the perfect scrapbooking outfit.
Hef's scrapbooking room is staffed by Steve Martinez, who has been his full-time head scrapbooker for 22 years. Hef's completed volumes fill shelves in two rooms and two hallways, where he also hangs his Guinness World Records certificate for the largest collection of personal scrapbooks. Hef has been scrapbooking nonstop since he was in high school, and each Saturday he cherishes memories from the week that occurred exactly three months earlier, so he can make sure all the relevant news clippings have arrived. On this day, he was working on Volumes 2,684 and 2,685. When I later asked Michelle Rubin, who had been the editor of Scrapbooks Etc. magazine and lives in Iowa, how many scrapbooks she had, she said, "Five."
Each of Hef's more recent handmade books are 60 pages. When he was married to Kimberley Conrad, each book covered about a month and looked kind of like mine would, with photos of kids riding bikes. But a few months after their separation in 1998, Viagra came out, and after that each volume covered only about two days. When I randomly took down the book dated Oct. 4--5, 2000, I saw lots of photos of microskirted blondes holding champagne flutes in limousines, plus Paris Hilton and James Carville. It looked like something someone had elaborately staged to blackmail Carville.
Though I had culled my letters and photos down to those I considered important enough for my book, Hef is a bit more catholic in his selections. He includes every one of his tweets ("Keith and I won tonight's game of Gin Rummy with the guys"), plus his e-mails, articles about any Playmate ever, newspaper stories about any of his famous friends, most of every issue of Playboy, and all the photos from Sports Illustrated's Swimsuit Issue to demonstrate Playboy's influence. "Who are they kidding that this is a swimsuit issue?" he asked.