Today: Westport Flea Owner Joe Zwillenberg Evokes Playboy Past

You never know what kinda cats are gonna leap out of a 40th birthday bash bag…

Take Westport Flea Market ownerJoe Zwillenberg‘s Friday at The Record Bar in midtown. Open bar, kickass band, wall-to-wall local celebs. Like former Mission Hills mayor David Fromme Jennifer Janesko, Mark Mazzarese and Andy Lewellen, co-owner of Lew’s and The Wellin Waldo.

Speaking of which…

Lewellen and Zwillenberg were college chums at MU back in the days when Tiger basketball coach Norm Stewart still loomed large and Snapple was considered marginally hip. So naturally, who better than Lewellen to pound out a killer Zwillenberg war story to commemorate Joe Joe’s big day .

"Joe, who?" Lewellen quips. "I’m trying to think of something that can be printed. There was a gay bar in Columbia back then called Shattered. But on Wednesday nights at midnight they would play retro music."

Here’s where it gets good…

"Every time we would go I would pick out the hottest girl in there and tell Joe, ‘That girl’s totally in love with you.’ And Joe would go up to them and just start making out with them. And the girls would go along with it. If it was any other guy, the girl would have slapped them, but it was unbelievable – they wouldn’t slap him or anything. No small talk or anything. You know, Zwillenberg, he just has the personality and that way about him. I shit you not, nobody ever pushed him away."

Zwillenberg’s take on his past as a drive-by makeout artist?

"I’d just go up to them and say; ‘Hey, I’m a talent scout from Playboy and if you wanna go do a shoot, we can do it. But let’s just kiss and see if you’re any good.’ And it worked! Hey, it got me girls."