Amid a buyout attempt by the owner of rival Penthouse magazine and decreasing fortunes at the hands of free internet porn, Playboy founder Hugh Hefner remains defiant in his attempts not only to buy the portion of his nudie empire he doesn't own, but in maintaining the smoking-jacket lifestyle well into his '80s.

Steve Appleford gets an audience with Hefner for an inside look at the man who personifies the Playboy mystique in this week's LA Weekly cover story. Writes Appleford:

The dream that sustains him, as it does his most committed readers, is a small one. It is not movie star Hef. It is not Hef in the White House. Hef on the moon. It is a dream that can fit comfortably inside the mind of any American male: big house, naked girls. This is a dream that can carry you for many years, from adolescence and apparently well into your 80s. But is the dream still a dream after half a century of uninterrupted wish fulfillment? Does Hef still look at his bedside bottle of baby oil with the same level of enthusiasm?

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