Image from Paper Magazine

My best friend Ed and I were recently talking about Levi Johnston posing for Playgirl and Ed threw down the gauntlet like this “Show a dick or get lost.” Well, I’m guessing that Levi heard our prayers from the inside of Ed’s car at the In and Out Burger drive through because Levi’s agent is reporting that there’s about a 90% chance that Levi’s spread in December’s Playgirl will include full-frontal nudity. Damn! Gotta wonder how the Palin’s feel about that. (My money’s on “not happy”.)

Levi hired a trainer to help him get in to extra good shape for the shoot, which should be going down in just a couple of weeks. The trainer suggested that he eat moose meat because it’s full of the right proteins. Of course Levi, an avid hunter, already has plenty of that on his hands.

I also hope that after this spread Levi bows out of the limelight for a minute, because there’s only two ways this can go: He can back off, try and be normal while saving that money he makes from the Playgirl spread and maybe get a real job OR he can be on Celebrity Rehab in two years. Those are his choices: be normal or Celebrity Rehab.

I know, I know, everyone’s going to be making that joke today. It’s okay. It’s funny. And I’m just delighted to hear that Levi Johnston is going to pose for Playgirl. I totally thought Playgirl had folded. What a fantastic way to make porn for “women” relevant again. To prepare, Levi is training three hours a day, six nights a week at an Anchorage gym with a local body builder. (That local body builder is not Sarah Palin.) He hasn’t reached a formal agreement with Playgirl, but his attorney says that it’s “a foregone conclusion.” Which may mean he’s bullshitting this whole thing for publicity, or to strong-arm Playgirl into paying him more money. Which, again, is totally okay with me.

I have to admit, I love Levi Johnston. I mean, the poor guy was just trying to fuck the hottest girl at his high school without a rubber — a common teenage pursuit — and then her mother had to go and run for Vice President of the fucking United States and drag him into a national spotlight, force him to propose to the aforementioned hot girl (whom he was just trying to fuck without a rubber, not freakin’ marry), and then the whole family treats him like shit and nobody will even let him see his baby. He got dealt a fairly crappy hand here, and I love that he’s dealing with it by making every possible exploitative penny and attempting to muddy the Palin name in the process. It’s how I like to think I’d behave in similar circumstances.

I have to admit something else. The AP’s headline for this story is “Father of Palin’s grandson to pose for Playgirl.” I read that like ten times wondering to myself who the hell was posing for Playgirl. “Father of Palin’s grandson” is just way too much dot-connecting for me. I didn’t understand it was Levi until I read the article. I’m still laughing to myself about that one.

Levi Johnston is sure making a crap load of money these days by making a complete ass of himself. The former Alaskin Governor’s daughter’s baby daddy is featured in this commercial for pistachio nuts which doesn’t really tell us anything about the nuts, but does mention that Levi Johnston now “uses protection”. Get it, guys? As opposed to before when he wasn’t and he got that chick pregnant and now he’s kinda famous and we’re going to have to hear about him for at least another year?

I want us all to think about something: The fact that everything I wrote above is true is much, much sadder than the fact that Sarah Palin was once a vice presidential nominee, and that was pretty sad too.

After his last bout of press from attending the Teen Choice Awards with the hilarious Kathy Griffin, Levi Johnston clearly felt his star was fading because instead of just slipping in to obscurity like he’s supposed to, he’s now dishing to Vanity Fair about all kinds of scandalous crap going down in the Palin household.

Johnston touches on some hot topics and while not much of this is a surprise, it’s interesting to hear Palin inside information from someone who’s actually been inside of a Palin. Oh God, that was gross. Sorry.

Here are some choice quotes pulled from People.com:

• On Sarah and Todd’s parenting skills: “Even before she was nominated, there wasn’t much parenting in that house. Sarah doesn’t cook, Todd doesn’t cook – the kids would do it all themselves: cook, clean, do the laundry, and get ready for school. Most of the time Bristol would help her youngest sister with her homework, and I’d barbecue chicken or steak on the grill.”
• On the possibility of a divorce: “There was a lot of talk of divorce in that house … times when Sarah and Todd would mention it and sound pretty serious.”
• On Sarah giving up on her role as Alaska’s governor: “A week or two after she got back she started talking about how nice it would be to quit and write a book or do a show and make ‘triple the money.’ She would blatantly say, ‘I want to just take this money and quit being governor.’ “
• On Sarah wanting to adopt Bristol’s baby: “That way, she said, Bristol and I didn’t have to worry about anything. Sarah kept mentioning this plan. She was nagging – she wouldn’t give up. She would say, ‘So, are you gonna let me adopt him?’ I think Sarah wanted to make Bristol look good, and she didn’t want people to know that her 17-year-old daughter was going to have a kid.”

While giving away private family details and conversations only further proves that Levi isn’t Mensa material, it is interesting to think about how much the Palin family must have alienated him in order for him to speak out so publicly. There is already an on-going battle for Levi to spend time with his child, and sharing these details, in his mind, must have been worth further risking his ability to see his son.

In Levi Johnston’s continuing attempt to extend his long-expired fifteen minutes of fame, he spoke at a press conference last Thursday in which he claimed that Sarah Palin resigned for financial reasons. 

Johnston recounted tales of the Palin family lamenting their inability to accept book and reality television deals due to Sarah’s political obligations.  He believes that is the motivating force behind Palin’s hasty departure from government.

Levi — and this dude’s only accomplishment has been to sperminate a politician’s teenage daughter, but he is working on some book and acting deals – has withdrawn his support for Sarah Palin, claiming he wouldn’t vote for her in a presidential race after she abandoned Alaska.

If that weren’t enough, he appeared on the Today Show where he basically said all the same stuff.  You can watch that here.

Oh, man. That Palin family. I thought they’d stop entertaining us after this last Presidential election wrapped up, but I should have known better.

Here’s a clip of Levi whining to Tyra Banks about how Bristol is mean to him and won’t let him take the baby anywhere. Poor Levi. He really has that “pathetic” act down pat right now. I almost feel bad for him. Almost. And I love how Tyra is just coaxing out every sob-story word of it, letting every little drop of mock-tragedy fall like water down her silly, silly extensions.

So what does Sarah Palin’s camp have to say about all this? “We’re disappointed that Levi and his family, in a quest for fame, attention and fortune, are engaging in flat-out lies, gross exaggeration, and even distortion of their relationship,” her rep said in a statement. Dude. That’s a really poorly written statement. It’s not clear what “their relationship” and its corresponding “distortion” refers to. The Palins can’t even get a publicist who can write?

People magazine won the bidding war for the first pics of Bristol Palin’s baby — for a $300K price tag, reportedly.

According to one source, bidding for the baby photos began at $100,000. People won out in the end, but In Touch was the only other weekly to make serious bids, according to several sources involved in the process.

The price didn’t soar immediately, according to the sources, because Sarah Palin stories just didn’t sell all that well for the weeklies on newsstands.

“Sarah was on the cover of People, Us Weekly, and OK! the same week, and really only People saw a bump in sales,” says a source.

The drug-related arrest of Johnston’s mother, however, caused the price tag for the photos to go up.

“The bidding started well before the baby was born, but once Levi’s mom was arrested — well, then you had a story,” says one editor.

What do you guys think Bristol and Levi will do with the cash? I mean, you can’t buy class, and I have a feeling this kid ain’t going to college, so they’ll probably just buy a bunch of cars.