Perhaps you read that Clay Felker died.  He was 82.  And he was the husband of the writer Gaul Sheehy.  As a magazine editor and idea man, he had a serious and long lasting influence over the path journalism took.

Mr. Felker’s most interesting brainchild was the magazine New York. 

And New York became “indispensable in the 1960s and '70s for those craving the latest on the city's social scene, inside knowledge of its business and politics, and consumer tips from its endless ‘best of’ lists.”

Editors across the country adopted his formula along with “co-founder Milton Glaser's bold layout designs and the equally non-traditional "new journalism" writing style of contributors like Tom Wolfe.”  I suppose every big city has its interpretation of New York magazine.

One of the most successful clones is D Magazine (as in Big D) which was founded in 1974 by Wick Allison and Jim Atkinson along with Stanley Marcus’ daughter as a journalist and investor.  It was that wedge that encouraged Mr. Marcus to send a letter to the Neiman-Marcus charge card holders suggesting they subscribe to D Magazine, even before its first issue was ever written and printed.

Unlike New York, D has chosen to market its endorsements – you buy a certain ad, and what comes with it is the assurance that you will be picked by D as The Best Realtor, The Best Gynecologist, The Best Electrician…you get the idea.  And subscribers by the thousands assume The Best has some academic research behind it.

After all, those articles are framed and hung in the recipients’ offices and businesses all over Dallas.  And the barbeque joint posts that it was chosen as the best with large plastic letters on its back-lighted marquee.

So D Magazine and its sub-magazines now do a great deal toward influencing the taste and commerce of Dallas.  And I suspect it has made Mr. Allison and maybe Mr. Atkinson and Mr. Marcus’ daughter wealthy.

PLAYBOY PLAYMATES, NOW DECEASED

It occurred to me yesterday after I had posted my piece on my Playboy days, that surely some of

Dec 1953 Marilyn Monroe (6/1/1926 - 8/5/1962) [age 36]

Feb 1954, Apr 1954,Apr 1955 Margaret Scott/Marilyn Waltz (11/5/1931 - 12/23/2006) [age 75]

Sep 1954 Jackie Rainbow (6/6/1933 - 6/15/1988) [age 55]

Feb 1955 Jayne Mansfield (4/19/1933 - 6/29/1967) [age 34]

Jun 1955 Eve Meyer (12/13/1928 - 3/27/1977) [age 48]

Mar 1956 Marian Stafford  (?/?/1933 - 11/?/2006) [age 73]

Nov 1956 Betty Blue (8/14/1931 - 8/23/2000) [age 69]

Feb 1958 Cheryl Kubert (? - 4/25/1989) 

Jul 1958 Linne Nanette Ahlstrand 

Oct 1958 Pat Sheehan (9/7/1931 - 1/14/2006)[age 74]

Nov 1960 Joni Mattis (11-28-1938 - 9/4/1999) [age 60]

Mar 1961 Tonya Crews (2/2/1938 - 8/7/1966) [age 28]

Oct 1961 Jean Cannon (10/5/1941 - 11/17/2005) [age 64]

Jan 1962 Merle Pertile (11/23/1941 - 11/28/1997) [age 56]

Mar 1962 Pamela Anne Gordon (2/10/1943 - 9/21/2003) [age 60]

Oct 1962 Laura Young (5/22/1938 - 11/27/1999) [age 61]

Dec 1962* June Cochran (2/20/1942 - 5/21/2004) [age 62]

Nov 1963 Terre Tucker (10/9/1944 - 12/16/1990) [age 46]

Dec 1963* Donna Michelle (12/8/1945 - 4/11/2004) [age 58]

Apr 1965 Sue Williams (11/14/1945 - 9/2/1969) [age 23]

Aug 1965 Lannie Balcom (3/14/1941 - 1/12/1991) [cancer, age 49]

Jan 1968* Connie Kreski (9/19/1946 - 11/18/995) [lung cancer, age 49]

Nov 1968 Paige Young (3/16/1944 - 7/13/1974) [drug overdose, age 30]

Nov 1969* Claudia Jennings (12/20/1949 - 10/3/1979) [age 29]

Dec 1969 Gloria Root (5/28/1948 - 1/8/2006) [age 57]

Jul 1970 Carol Willis (4/17/1949 - 11/6/1971) [age 22]

Feb 1971 Willy Rey (8/25/1949 - 8/13/1973) [age 23]

Feb 1977 Star Stowe (3/19/1956 - 3/16/1997) [age 40]

Jun 1978 Gail Stanton (11/19/1954 - 11/21/1996) [age 42]

Apr 1979 Missy Cleveland  (12/25/1959 - 8/14/2001) [age 41]

Aug 1979* Dorothy Stratten (2/28/1960 - 8/14/1980) [age 20]

Jun 1981 Cathy Larmouth (7/15/1953 - 1/4/2007) [age 53]

May 1992 Anna Nicole Smith (11/28/1967 - 2/8/2007) [age 39]

Christa Speck Was the Most Beautiful of All

By Bill Cherry

It was in the days of bachelor pads and Christa Speck...the most beautiful Playmate ever. 

The cool jazz of Ella, Sinatra, Mathis and the Count with Johnny Rivers and Maynard thrown in every once in a while.  The apartment in a complex with as many airline stewardess neighbors as possible.  

Chevis and waters by the pool.  Trying not to look drunk when you were totally blatto.

Hoping to scope out ittsy bittsy, teeny weenie, yellow polka dot bikinied chicks if you stayed by the pool long enough, and even though you had a strange colored tan with dark orange hands, elbows and kneecaps compliments of a five buck bottle of Man Tan.

Trying to cook from the recipes of Playboy chef Thomas Mario (who, although I never saw a picture of him, I know was far cooler and more urbane than Emeril), smoke a pipe and basically live like Hugh Hefner said we should.  And to be sure we knew how, he told us every month in the Playboy Philosophy and the Playboy Advisor columns.

And I never doubted for a second this was the Real Me.  I just had a different name and was shorter than Hef.  And I lived in Denton, Texas and he lived in Chicago.  How could that really matter?  I knew they were nothing more than minor obstructions to Playboy bachelor justice.

So on my limited college budget I decorated my apartment with Danish Modern furniture on top of a turquoise and orange shag carpet, had Ella and the Count playing on the Gerrard record changer, puffed on my pipe and invited the airline stewardesses by for cocktails and a bit of my interpretation of the Playboy philosophy (which they hardly ever bought). 

And I made sure my turquoise and orange shag had been freshly raked before the cocktail hour.

For future reference, I saved every Playboy Magazine.  I've got them from January 1961 through December 1971.  And I had them all professionally bound just like good books.  Leatherette covers with gold lettering on the spines and fronts, sewn and glued

And then after all of that Playboy lifestyle concentration, wouldn't you know, I fell in love and got married, then did it again.  (No, neither time to an airline stewardess. And neither ever wore an ittsy, bittsy, yellow polka dot bikini)

So, I've been toting these volumes around for years.  Now I know it's time for me to accept the fact that my Playboy days are over.  Patty said last year that at 67 it was time for me to stop my sophomoric dreaming.  “It’s not gonna happen for you,” she told me. 

So I put my Playboy volumes up for auction on Ebay thinking that perhaps I had been replaced by another young man who lived in an apartment building with airline flight attendants.  He would surely pay a pretty penny for my vintage Playboys.  (I’d have included my pipe collection and humidor, but I don’t know where they are.)

Maybe he and his friends would come across dear Christa Speck’s pictures and know that she was the most beautiful Playmate (September 1961) every.  And contemporaneously I would have to admit to myself that she was never my real life girlfriend, and I would know for sure that she never would be. 

The Playboy volumes didn’t sell.  They didn’t even get a bid.  So Christa Speck, Hef’s cool bachelor counsel, the recipes of Thomas Mario and the dreams of a 1960s young man are stored again in the plastic tubs in my garage.  And a few days ago I hit 68-years.

One part of Dallas where the more expensive homes are located, has developed the most arrogant approach to sales.  I wonder where these people's heads are.  I wonder if the same approach is being used elsewhere?

The MLS listing instructions more frequently than not read like this:  Listing agent must accompany all showings.  Appointments must be made 24 hours in advance.  Owner's baby naps between 2 and 4 so no showings can be scheduled then.  Please do not request showings on weekends or before 11 AM or after 4 PM.  Dog will be pinned up in the master bedroom, so that cannot be shown.

I see these listings expire and renew over and over for months.  No one seems willing to grasp that it could easily be because they are not accommodating the prospective buyer, and quite frankly, in sales, the one with the money to buy is the one who is supposed to trump.

So what useful purpose accrues by expecting the guy with the prospect to deal with the schedule of the listing agent as well as the unreasonable demands of the seller?

Exactly what does the listing agent accomplish by being at the showing other than 1) getting in the way 2) offering a subtle but obvious insult to the showing agent and the client that the listing agent is there to keep them from stealing or breaking something and 3) interfering with the rhythm of the showing agent's sales presentation?

So to reevaluate this scheme, let's do this.  When Mr. Sewell initiates a similar plan in the sales departments at Sewell Lexus, Sewell Infinity, Sewell Cadillac and Sewell Hummer, go for it. 

Until then, the way the million buck home should be presented and sold is no different than the way the Century 21 agent presents and sells the hundred thousand buck home.

BILL CHERRY, REALTORS

DALLAS

Our 43rd Year Selling Texas

214 503-8563

On the Web

When I was in high school, Galveston Ball High School Class of ’58, our speech and drama teacher, Arthur Graham, insisted that to be and remain educated and cultured persons, there were three requirements that should be at the top of the list.  They were that we subscribe to and read the Sunday edition of the “New York Times,” the “Saturday Review (of Literature)” and “The New Yorker.”

So for most of the past fifty-two years I’ve done just that, save and except the “Saturday Review” which stop being published in 1986.

But I’ll admit that from time to time I’ve become so disenchanted with “The New Yorker” that I’ve discontinued my subscription, sometimes for several years at a time.  I think I'm at that point again.

In the June 23^rd issue, writer Peter J. Boyer brings pseudo-intellectual political commentator, Keith Olbermann into commentator sainthood.  Olbermann's credentials are that he was a sportscaster and has a vulgar mouth.

My problem is this:  “The New Yorker’s” paid subscription audience is made up of people of all political and religious persuasions, yet rather than to inform and inform with a neutral agenda, the magazine chooses to represent and hawk only one side, its side. 

Paid readers aren’t buying the magazine for its one-sided political editorializing.  I think it’s time for me to let my subscription run out again without sending in a renewal.  I'll go back to subscribing to "New York."

BILL CHERRY, REALTOR

DALLAS

Our 43^rd Year Selling Texas

214 503-8563

In the early 1960s I lived in St. Louis and worked for a bank in Clayton, a suburb.  I was fascinated that the U.S. was moving toward total non-isolationism and what was sure to end up being a member of a very active global economy.

The bank was very generous with its financial assistance of employees who wanted to continue their education, especially if it had to do with banking and business.  So I decided I’d take them up on their offer, and go to a local university to explore what this new economy could have in store for America.

Interestingly, we learned that Mexicans would probably devour our culture as they would move by droves into the U.S. for employment and a better life for them and their families.

And we learned that the U.S. was certain to trip up by not producing commodities it needs to all but sustain life.  Sources of power would probably be the major one, the professor speculated.

So here we are.  More than forty years has passed, and by golly, it’s exactly as predicted.

This was one time when the old joke about how economists make predictions – “On one hand blah, blah, blah; but on the other hand blah, blah, blah” – didn't hold up.  What was predicted was straight forward and exactly what occurred.

1. Most people think their banks give them good service at a fair price
2. Most banks are continually looking for ways to raise and add fees

From the time we were just children, most of us were taught that our character as well as the degree of our acceptance in society are greatly influenced by the company we keep.  "Hang around kids who use drugs, and you soon will, too."

That’s why it’s such a mystery to me that Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama has managed to accumulate a list of people with questionable backgrounds as what seem to be his only close friends.  It's shocking.  It really is.

Of them, the Reverend Jeremiah Wright seems to be the most incendiary in the minds of those who are uncomfortable with Obama.  For most people who are members of conventional denominations, Mr. Wright’s preaching is offensive. 

One explanation that seems to crop up over and over is that the big mega-churches that direct their messages to blacks are primarily sympathetic to Mr. Wright’s style.  We are told that we shouldn't be concerned about whether or not Mr. Obama is sympathetic to Mr. Wright's theology, teachings and opinions.  All of the successful black-based churches are teaching the same things.

That simply isn’t true.  There are no black congregations in America who have received better spiritual leadership than the 30,000 members of Bishop T.D. Jakes’ The Potter’s House in the Dallas suburb of Oak Cliff.   Bishop Jakes ministry would make a great subject for a doctoral dissertation by a theology student at say, Yale or SMU. 

FOLLOWING YOUR REALTOR'S LEAD -- THE MAP TO SUCCESS

There are some components of a real estate transaction that separate it from so many of the others:

• A listing agent who knows what he's doing
• A seller who rabidly does exactly what his listing broker instructs
• A buyer's agent who knows what he's doing
• A buyer who rabidly does exactly what his buyer's agent instructs 

Yesterday, Dallas agent, 20-year Keller-Williams veteran Cindy Huitt and I completed our representation of our respective clients in what was an extremely complicated deal from beginning to end.  Without going into the details, we sold and closed my listing to her clients for full price.  Very few agents could have replicated our success, I'll promise you.

And that happened in a Dallas neighborhood of other for-sale homes that have remained unnoticed by potential buyers during the two months my client's home was listed until it sold and closed.

Ironically, for the heck of it I went to one of Craig Proctor's free real estate sales seminars last week.  The leader of our group told us and then reinforced many times throughout the seminar, "It doesn't matter whether you like Craig's wording of this ad.  We know the ad works.  Why would you change it?"  And so it goes with the mechanics of a real estate transaction. 

And that's what came to my mind yesterday as my client, Miss Dorothy and I completed our visit to the title company.  From the day she and I met for the first time, the day that I gave her my listing presentation, until yesterday when she got her check, she had done exactly what I had told her to do.  Exactly.  Some complaining, I'll admit, but nevertheless, she let me win every time.  That tact was primarily because she is a good business woman.  Intuitive.

Yesterday the reward and how we got it was apparent.  Miss Dorothy had let me do my job, and Cindy Huitt's clients had let her do her job.  Neither interfered.  Simple.  A formula I always recommend to anyone planning to sell or buy a home.

"A Realtors's Secret Weapons" is an hour-long CD of a radio question and answer program I did with KAAM-AM's famed Money Doctor, W. Neil Gallagher.  We send copies with our compliments to anyone in the U.S. and Canada.  It tells you exactly what you should expect from your Realtor and how to work with him.  Email or phone  for your copy.

BILL CHERRY, REALTORS

Our 43^rd Year Selling Texas

Dallas

214 503-8563

THE IDEKER TWINS -- LOOKING FOR SUMMER JOBS IN LAKE HIGHLANDS

J.P. and Hank Ideker are twins, and live in our neighborhood, in fact at the top of Rustleleaf Drive just off of Robin Hill.  They are sophomores at Jesuit College Preparatory School.  For those of you who aren't familiar with Jesuit, it's a great pedigree.

Today I was puttering around a bit before I went to a listing appointment, and I saw one of the boys and his dog walking up our front walkway.  He had a hand full of paper, so I figured he and his dog-pal were going to leave one of them at our door.

Sure enough when I checked later in the day, there was the boys' flyer.  They're looking for summer jobs around our neighborhood.  Full lawn service, for an example.  They'll water the plants and take care of your pets while you and your family are on vacation.  They also have the supplies and the stencils to paint addresses on the curb.

So why pick them?  "Customer satisfaction is our highest priority, and we have a flexible schedule.  We do the job right with reasonable prices for each job." 

Now J.P. and Hank have been providing all of these services for a long time, and they've collected "multiple references." They'll be glad to show them to you.

Here's their phone number:  214 340-7948.  Hiring them will put your mind at ease.  And P.S.:  Realtors, these guys can take care of your vacant listings, too.

BILL CHERRY, REALTORS

DALLAS

214 503-8563