Playboy Looking For Buyers

It’s no secret the business of print media continues to suffer heavy losses as readers flock to computer screens and mobile devices for content—and that includes looking at naked women.

Citing a net loss of more than $150 million in 2008, as well as the departure of CEO Christie Hefner, daughter of founder Hugh Hefner, interim chairman and CEO Jerome Kern said that Playboy is open to a change in strategic direction.

And that includes the sale of the enterprise.

“Our financial performance is not reflective of [Playboy’s] potential,” Kern said in a statement. “Over the past several months, the company has accelerated the pace of expense reduction designed to bring our cost structure in line with current market realities and the positioning of our businesses going forward.”

The magazine’s revenue in 2008 was $292.1 million, down 14 percent from the 2007 figure of $339.8 million, with a significant portion of the losses being incurred during last year’s fourth quarter. As a result, Playboy expects a 27 percent slide in advertising dollars during the first quarter of 2009.

Kern took over for Hefner after she announced late last year she was going to step down by the end of January.

In a synergistic move to streamline production costs, the company decided last month to combine its print and editorial operations, as well as shut down its New York offices.

Daily News Visits A-Rod’s Childhood Steroid Pharmacy

Sometimes, as a reporter, in order to get the story, you have to put yourself in your subject’s shoes. Even if that means entering the seedy world of the Dominican over-the-counter drug trade.

New York Daily News sports writer Christian Red took it upon himself to investigate the alarmingly easy means by which Alex Rodriguez and other Major League Baseball stars obtained anabolic steroids.

The result: It took two minutes and less than $20 to secure the very anabolic substances that have been swallowed, injected, inserted, etc., by today’s criminally inclined baseball players.

With no need to be coy or flash his press credentials, Red calmly cruised down the baby food aisle of Farmacia Carmina to swoop up some testosterone pills. Mission accomplished. All said and done, Red walked out with a package of 10 Methandrostenolone pills—known to the lay man as Dianabol—100 mg worth of testosterone enanthate, and a complimentary 2.5ml syringe, which was kindly handed out by the concerned pharmacy cashier.

No prescription needed. In the DR, if you have a first name, you can score steroids.

To Red’s surprise, however, not one of the five establishments he visited carried the steroid Primobolan (street name: Boli), one of the substances A-Rod tested positive for and claimed was so easy to obtain in his native Dominican Republic.

What Could Audrina’s Boobs Possibly Have To Say?

We guess Audrina Patridge has gotten so famous that she feels the need to mic herself regardless of where she goes. Either that, or MTV planted the audio cable in the circumference of her areola when she had the Spalding warehouse volleyballed to her breastplate.

Good God!

We’ll rule out a taping of The Hills, since watered down Coronas don’t fit in with the reality soap opera’s club scene of vodka tonics. So, perhaps Patridge is following up the success of Into the Blue 2 by auditioning her ta-tas for an upcoming spinoff destined to fit that 9:30 p.m. ET slot on VH1, smack dab between Rock of Love: Nursing Home of Non-Nubile Whores and Dead on the Outside, starring Mickey Rourke.

Or, as a third possibility, it could just be the arrogance that comes with getting paid $665,000 to do nothing.

[Photos courtesy of the awesome brahs at Brahsome]

D-Wade Leads the Attack of the Wrongfully Diseased

Whatever happened to being satisfied with being married to a financially stable professional athlete? You would think a little rash down south would be canceled out by a husband who brings home hundreds by the handful.

But, alas, Siohvaughn Wade is more preoccupied by all the other things with which her estranged husband provided her.

According to reports, NBA superstar and former Finals MVP Dwyane Wade is suing his wife and her money-hungry lawyers for defamation and undue “humiliation” and “embarrassment” after Siohvaughn last month claimed her husband infected her with an unidentified venereal disease through his extramarital affairs.

She has since withdrawn the STD claim from the couple’s court proceedings concerning the impending divorce. Siohvaughn, however, according to at least one of her lawyers, stands by her allegations, which also include child abandonment, so as to complete the adultery triple-decker sandwich.

From what we can gather, Mr. Wade has not personally challenged the first two accusations, only to release the obligatory denial statement through his legal representation. But calling D-Wade a walking syphilis case is going way too far.

Mr. Wade is seeking $50,000 from his former high school sweetheart as well as her lawyers, Michael Berger and Dorene Marcus.

“Mr. Wade has been the victim of a reckless campaign by Siohvaughn Wade and her lawyers to publicly humiliate him and damage his reputation,” James Power, an attorney representing the Heat player, said in a statement to the AP. “To clear the public record from these false and malicious allegations, we have filed a defamation suit in court … and will seek appropriate compensation for damages.”

We at CF have never inspected D-Wade’s crotch with a fine tooth comb and a blacklight, nor would we ever consider the possibility that the happy-go-lucky Heat forward has any malicious intent, but it’s definitely difficult to discount all of the parallels between Siohvaughn’s allegations and those of Wade’s pissed-off ex-business partner.