By Michael Miner
You reminisced. “It was the day after New Year’s, and I was thinking I ought to try something new and outrageous this year–like I do every few months. I typed out a short letter, sent them a picture, and completely forgot about it until they called me two weeks later….I’m not typical Playboy material. I’m too old–31, which is a sad commentary on Playboy, I think–too thin, too pale, my hair color is natural, and I’ve never modeled or stripped or done anything remotely like this.”
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One thing You represents is the other side of the tracks. She says she grew up poor, the daughter of a downstate dairy farmer and a farm wife who’d married him at 16 to get out of the house. She graduated from Columbia College in 1989, and after a year of grad school went to work at the Tribune as a part-time switchboard operator. She moved up to editorial assistant, spotted an opportunity, and began freelancing reviews of heavy-metal concerts. She’s still remembered for her miniskirts and a sheer blouse–which she says she wore only once and then under a blazer. KidNews was launched in 1992, and she was named a staff writer; soon she moved up to Tempo. Meanwhile, she’d married a martial arts instructor and begun learning to speak Korean (since they split she’s forgotten most of it). She defied the curse of most writers at huge urban newspapers–anonymous redundancy.
Suddenly she disappeared. Indifferent to the fussy old canons of propriety, she’d started writing for supermarket tabloids on the side and had been caught lending them Tribune file photos. The Tribune investigated, and in summer 1994 it got rid of her.
I dropped by playboy.com and got back to her. Dubious career move, I said.
“I also worked a lot on getting exclusive interviews with people who didn’t do TV. I had exclusives with Jeffrey MacDonald–the Fatal Vision killer–with Bernhard Goetz after he lost his civil trial, etc. I also produced ‘The Mole People,’ where I spent 11 hours in the underground tunnels of NYC. I went there first and found the people, and then Jerry came in and spent a day doing the show. I went to death row in Huntsville, Texas, to do a taped piece of serial killer Henry Lee Lucas. The show was called ‘I’m in Love With a Serial Killer,’ and Henry’s girlfriend came on and defended him. We showed his outrageous comments, the girlfriend’s daughter told her mom to give him up, the family of his victims confronted Phyllis (and watched Henry’s comments about those specific victims), and it was great. It showed a whole different side to this issue, that a serial killer can have a girlfriend who is completely devoted, that he can be a nice guy–he was such an act–and that families of victims don’t all want to be the Kennedys. These families shouted and yelled and cried. They had waited 15 years to tell him off, and I think it really helped them.”
These are the views of Brenda You on journalism, which come to our attention thanks to her foray into ecdysiasm. “I would say this is an age-old way for any person without power to get listened to, whether it is through being on a talk show, posing nude, or going from being a flamboyant wrestler to a governor,” she asserted. “Even for people with some amount of influence, many need to do something outrageous to compete in our packed newspapers. Without a few of his extreme views, Pat Buchanan’s candidacy would not get the attention it does. It may not get him elected, but to never be heard of at all guarantees he won’t get elected.
