The covergirl this month is Kumi splattered all over a windshield in San Francisco. Kumi lives in SF where she danced at the Lusty Lady, the Roaring '20s and the world famous O'Farrell Theatre. She also is a regular at the Trocadero's Bondage-A-Go-Go, and is establishing a great reputation in the fetish modeling world, having been featured in SKIN 2 and MARQUIS. She makes frequent visits to Portland where she is close friends with such social giants as Gustav from 94.7 KNRK and (of course) me. She is also bald and crazy. You can read more about her in Rex's article "The Bald and the Beautiful." The cover picture was shot by famous fetish photographer Steve Diet Goedde, the stylist was Mark Katz, and the clothes were provided by So Hip It Hurts.

So a few people have asked me about the little logo change on the cover last month to from Exotic to Exotica magazine. We’ve talked about it for years and I guess I was just bored... [and maybe a little looped...] Besides half the people already called it Exotica. Anyway, it’s my magazine and I can call it anything I want. [I think you should call it Crackwhore magazine...] I could do that, but it would probably piss off a lot of people, like the girls on the cover and inside. [yeah, and then you’d never get laid...] Yeah, and it would probably piss off some of the advertisers. [yeah, and then you’d never get paid...] Yeah, and I’ve learned it’s not cool to piss off the people who lay you or pay you. [how about if you just called it Penthouse...]

In other random news, the Oregon Liquor Control Commission has decided that Miller Genuine Draft can no longer sponsor our monthly calendar so MGD is running a display ad instead. Apparently the OLCC decided that we can’t mention drink specials even in editorial copy. [so how can you tell everyone about the great time you had last week at the Horny Monkey Bar & Lounge drinking the 25-cent screwdriver specials from 5 to 7pm?] Hmmm... I guess I can’t...

Make sure you catch at least one of the Miss Exotica 1998 contests this month. They are heating up more and more as we get closer to the grand finals on January 24th with over $30,000 in cash and prizes. See ads on pages 3,10, 28 and 29 for more details.

And finally a personal thanks to Josh Feit at Willamette Week who somehow made me sound relatively benevolent in the article he wrote a couple weeks ago. [yeah, and we were only kidding when we called them all morons back in September...]

Till next time, as Bogart says in Casablanca “We’ll always have Vegas, baby...”