Path: bloom-picayune.mit.edu!snorkelwacker.mit.edu!news.media.mit.edu!americast.com!americast.com!usa-post Newsgroups: usa-today.bonus,americast.usa-today.bonus From: usa-post@AmeriCast.Com Organization: American Cybercasting Approved: usa-post@AmeriCast.com Subject: bonus Wed, Sep 16 1992 Date: Wed, 16 Sep 92 04:36:01 EDT Message-ID: 09-16 0000 BONUS: Maxa exploring other mediums USA TODAY Update Sept. 16, 1992 Source: USA TODAY:Gannett National Information Network The man who helped ferret out Congressman Wayne Hays' mistress-on-the-payroll deal with Elizabeth Ray reclines on a couch in a hotel foyer wearing a satyr-like come-hither grin. "Tell me to make love to the camera - I love it when people say that," Rudy Maxa deadpans to a female newspaper photographer snapping his picture. "Nobody's ever said that to me." WHAT DO PEOPLE SAY TO MAXA? People tell him practically everything else, though. Especially titillating gossip about Washington's power elite. A one-time columnist for The Washington Post, Maxa has twin passions - dishing the dirt and traveling. And he makes money at both. Described by friend Vivian Deuschl as someone "who would check into a Motel 6 and ask for an upgrade," Maxa hosts two-minute shows on travel for National Public Radio and will begin taping a half-hour program next year. The Savvy Traveler will have tips and listener call-in. WHAT DOES MAXA HAVE TO SAY ABOUT TRAVEL? "What really irritates me is that I travel all the time and I see so many Americans who don't know the first thing about travel, don't know how to read an airline ticket," he says in a mellifluous baritone. "I said, `There's got to be room for a consumer-oriented kind of travel thing in radio.' " WHAT DOES MAXA WANT THE PUBLIC TO KNOW? Nice hotel rooms are still available in downtown San Francisco for only $109 a night. That's the rate of the Hotel Diva, which also extends free health-club privileges to customers and has free limousine service to the business district. Of the current crop of cheap airline fares to Europe, KLM's merits special attention. The carrier doesn't require restrictive seven-day minimum stays or Saturday-night stays. WHAT ABOUT ADVICE FOR VACATION TRAVEL? With the dollar under siege in Europe, Puerto Rico represents an excellent vacation bargain. Three-day packages to Puerto Rico are now as cheap as $500, including airfare. "I love reading that agate type at the bottom of all those airline ads," Maxa says, beaming as though he's stumbled across Watergate II. "I love that little, fine type," he repeats dramatically, sotto voce. IS THIS THE NORM FOR MAXA? This is pretty tame stuff for a guy who chronicled the spewing of amaretto down a woman's cleavage, as performed by former Jimmy Carter White House aide Hamilton Jordan in a Washington bar. He also wrote of a night on the town in Palm Beach, Fla., enjoyed by a fun-loving group including an attractive lobbyist named Paula Parkinson and a handsome, then-obscure senator named Dan Quayle. WHAT ELSE IS MAXA WORKING ON? Not to worry. Maxa's bite, as well as his nose for news, is still sharp. The Washington bureau chief for Spy magazine, Maxa has just written a piece titled "Congressional Wives From Hell." He's also writing travel stories for other magazines. And talking about gossip on several national TV talk shows, including Geraldo. And doing his NPR travel segments. HOW DOES HE MANAGE THIS SCHEDULE? Someone who talks fast, writes fast and maintains a frenetic, peripatetic lifestyle, Maxa, 42, allows that he's "real organized." "I write on trains, I write on planes, I write at night. I work the phones all day." When on the road, he checks his answering machine religiously and returns all calls. The result is a phone bill seldom less than $1,000. IS THIS MAXA'S TRUE NATURE? Maxa's meticulous nature doesn't just extend to returning calls, says Washington restaurateur Mo Sussman, an occasional traveling buddy. "If you were to go into Rudy's apartment, all of his socks would be lined up by color, all of the shirts are arranged by color, all of the hangers have exactly one quarter of an inch between them," Sussman chuckles. "When we travel, he cleans up the hotel rooms before the staff does." WHAT IS MAXA REALLY LIKE? A self-professed lover of journalism, Maxa is now the interviewee instead of interviewer, a reversal he characterizes as strange. A picture of studied casualness, Maxa is clad in neatly pressed khaki pants, loafers and a stylish yellowish-green jacket over a white T-shirt. A trim 6-foot-2, he strides from the foyer of the Ritz Carlton Hotel into the Jockey Club restaurant, one of Washington's better-known see-and-be-seen locations. He asks to be seated toward the rear, where the lesser lights rub elbows, orders a Perrier and squeezes a few drops of lime juice into his glass. "The front room of the Jockey Club is the status room," Maxa says in a bemused tone. "Gotta be seen in the front room or why go on in life?" WHAT IS UNDER ALL HIS ENTHUSIASM? Maxa's neatly trimmed salt-and-pepper beard fails to camouflage a dour expression. That's because he's about to launch into The Unpleasantness, which is how Maxa refers to his forced departure last year from the monthly magazine Washingtonian. An irresistible force in Washington gossip circles, Maxa encountered an immovable object in the person of Washington Redskins owner Jack Kent Cooke. In 1989, Maxa wrote a piece about Cooke based on observations gleaned from Cooke's chauffeur. Cooke filed a $30 million lawsuit alleging that the story falsely accused him of condoning the fixing of pro football games, of using his influence to get a traffic ticket fixed and of having racist viewpoints. Adding to Maxa's consternation was a revelation by Cooke's lawyers that the chauffeur once told a West Virginia newspaper that he'd been aboard a UFO. WHAT HAPPENED TO MAXA? After initially fighting the suit, the Washingtonian settled it. Maxa's column was unceremoniously dropped, and a new gossip writer was hired. Maxa responded by filing a suit of his own against the Washingtonian. "The net result was they gave me a nice sum of money not to file a lawsuit for defamation of character," says Maxa. "And, uh, I never apologized to Mr. Cooke." HOW HAS MAXA RECOVERED? Maxa views the experience as an occupational hazard. His upcoming travel show should provide a less controversial forum. But Maxa doesn't pull punches in that realm, either. "His travel pieces are good because he will include the blemishes, if there are any," Sussman says. Cabbies, hoteliers and civic leaders, beware. Rudy Maxa may be coming to your town. Bonus Editor: Kate Coughlin. (1-919-855-3491) Making copies of USA TODAY Update (Copyright, 1992) for further distribution violates federal law. This article is copyright 1992 Gannett News Service. Redistribution to other sites is not permitted except by arrangement with American Cybercasting Corporation. For more information, send-email to usa@AmeriCast.COM