February 28, 2005

-The following are a series of postings from the weblog Swimsuit Confidential, a site filled with notes from a mysterious anonymous source who works behind the scenes for Sports Illustrated and shares his/her revelations about the inner workings of the annual Swimsuit Issue.

Swimsuit Confidential

-DeepThong here, and am I the only one tired of the crass over-commercialization of the S.I. Swimsuit Issue?  This year everyone from Budweiser to Mr. Peanut has a hotted up supermodel with her ta-tas hanging out shilling for their products in the pages.  It all seems so trumped up and overblown, a far cry from the Golden Age when everything was pure and simple and it was all about the nipples with none of the sell-out bullshit compromising the artistic integrity of the annual peepshow.  If you think the endless plugs for resorts, cars, and Nike are bad, you should have seen what almost made the cut this year.  I saw the pages that wound up on the editing room floor, and believe me it wasn't pretty.  Thank goodness the issue was running long since the editors were pushing hard for a "We Thank Our Sponsors" five page spread to be buried in the back twenty pages alongside the Viagra and athlete's foot ads.  The photos pairing swimsuit models with sponsors ranged from the marginally acceptable to the truly horrifying.  Czech cutie Loofa Petrovich spread eagle and fondling herself on the glistening hood of the new 2006 Corvette parked on a beach in Honduras was not too bad though it looked like something from an auto parts calendar.  More disturbing was the shot touting Wendy's new line of "Get Skinny Salads."  Using state of the art digital trickery, we see back-from-the-dead pitchman Dave Thomas smiling and crouched behind topless supermodel Mandalay, cupping her ample breasts in his hands somewhere in the Bolivian wastelands with only a strategically placed head of romaine lettuce at waist level coming between Mandalay and the readers' imagination.  The most deeply troubling image was a photo of Ronald McDonald and the Kentucky Fried Chicken Colonel pulling a nasty double team, smiling and rubbing suntan lotion on the glistening backside of floss-thonged newbie model Katrinka Z., the high school swimsuit model phenom from the war-torn Republic of Estlotvlakia, poolside at the Palms in Las Vegas.  Clearly the fine line between kicky, fun sensuality and the dark, troubling realm of the subconscious had been crossed.

-DeepThong here with another revelation.  This year's swimsuit issue theme is "S.I.'s Swimsuit Issue Gets Hotter."  It looked to be just another installment of the cheesecake classic, but for a brief period of time the editors unsuccessfully attempted to make the issue more topical.  A series of spreads called "S.I.'s Swimsuit Issue Heats Up the Hot Spots" was planned with teams of top models, photographers, and stylists dispatched to Afghanistan, the Gaza Strip, and Baghdad among other places.  Instead of burying its head in the sand, the issue was to use its bully pulpit of hot girls in thongs to call the world's attention to our bigger global concerns.  Sadly, Belgian sex bomb Noutra Yankolickova pulled out of the headlining Baghdad shoot at the last minute citing unspecified bikini waxing issues.  In quick succession, all the other projects fell by the wayside save one.  The team sent to the strife torn Nepalese interior managed to somehow complete their mission against all odds.  Given the current civil war, the team of twenty hair, wardrobe, and makeup techs, photographers, and model Suzuki Minh had to be airdropped into the scenic heartland of Nepal where they set up their shoot at the stately, decaying Old Plantation Resort.  The shoot was rushed into a brief one-day session as it became clear the region was becoming more unstable by the hour.  As the steady crump, crump, crump of the rebel forces' mortar fire sounded in the background, Suzuki did her best to project that devil-may-care earthy sensuality that is her trademark decked out in a series of minute camouflage bikinis as the cameras clicked and small arms fire rang out on the outskirts of the heavily fortified compound.  As sunset came not a moment too soon,  the lightly-thonged model and her crew were evacuated in a daring helicopter extraction by a team of crack Burmese commandos.  Back in the USA once the contact prints came out, it was clear that the photos would never run.  In the few shots that were not marred by muzzle flashes or smoke, poor Suzuki, though putting up a brave front in the tiniest of tops, was clearly transfixed with fear throughout the session.  When she was informed that the photos obtained at such great personal risk would never see the light of day, Suzuki was understandably upset and candid in her remarks to me.  "This sucks," the tiny Vietnamese hot girl groused.  "I nearly got my ass shot off, and they won't run my spread.  You know what it is, don't you?  They just hate the Asian models.  They hate us. Everybody knows it, and they screw us over every chance they get.  If this keeps us, next year Isis Tranh and I will be working car shows, but I bet you'll never see Svetlana Kruugerborg or Afrodite Green dodging shrapnel in a goddamned jungle, will you?"  Though clearly disappointed at missing out on this year's issue proper, Suzuki did, however, land a coveted and lucrative modeling assignment that will place her prominently in the pages of S.I. this year as the new face and body of the Cialis ad campaign for 2005. 

-DeepThong here, and if I hear another crack about how our hard working S.I. swimsuit models are just brain dead party girls stuffed into bikinis, I might just blow a fuse.  The average reader thinks that these girls just roll out of bed at eleven, go for a dip in the ocean, and then take off their tops, and loll around the beach drinking mai tais while a couple of lucky bastards with cameras take a few snapshots of them.  Well, you couldn't be further from the truth.  I was on the shoot that produced this year's cover pic of Kiki Van Der Plotz, and I was amazed at the tenacity and drive of the plucky Dutch girl.  In fifteen years at S.I. I've seen it all - Super Bowls, triathlons, and heavy weight prize fights - but I've never seen a gutsier performance than the one put on by that superbly conditioned, nineteen year old, bleached blonde athlete/model.  The conditions at Cabo were punishing.  The temperature was a boiling hot 89 degrees, the humidity was nearing 70%, and Van Der Plotz was faced with a daunting array of some of the most physically challenging swimwear I have ever seen assembled in one place.  By two in the afternoon, Kiki was exhausted, yet the photographers and stylists maintained a breakneck pace with challenging set ups in pools, on the beach, in up to half a foot of surf, and even on a banana boat.  By three o'clock, the team physician was called in.  Though dangerously close to dehydration and toughing it out through painful, intense butt cramps brought on by the incredibly tight and demanding thongs and tops, Kiki Van Der Plotz never gave an inch.  As the shoot went into its grueling third hour, the crew set up for the final arduous "kneeling in the waves" shot.  With the action stopped to reload the cameras, Kiki had to be physically carried off the set to a nearby cabana where she received an IV and two liters of fluid.  By the time the stylists somehow managed to get her wired back into the final, brutal chain mail thong, Kiki was gritting her teeth and fighting just to hold on as the light began to fade.  Physically spent and at the end of her incredible reserves of strength and determination, Kiki toughed it out on guts alone.  Then when the lighting was perfect, she rallied for an amazing final comeback series of poses, managing to spend the last fifteen minutes as the cameras whirred and clicked fiddling with her hair, cupping her nipples, and sucking on her fingers like she didn't have a care in the world.  When the light finally faded, the crew threw a blanket over the completely spent supermodel and carted her back to her luxury suite.  By the time it was all over, I realized that I had been in the presence of greatness.  The little Danish hellcat is five feet, eleven inches and eighty-six pounds of pure champion, but shamefully, most readers just see a skinny, bottle blonde with big lips, breast implants, and no pubic hair.  If only they knew the real story.  But of course, that is why I am here:  to share these tales of the power, the glory, the pain, and the poorly-fitting swimwear that turn scrappy little foreign models into magnificent legends of sport.  Just call me DeepThong.