July 12, 2009
Short-Sheeted
Yet, nobody seemed to be complaining.
Just back from Hustler's 35th anniversary party at Santa Monica Airport's Hanger 8 (The cops told me they had it there so Larry Flynt could fly in on his private jet, which Gregg just missed taking a picture of as it landed, just on the other side of our car).
There, I talked to Flynt and stood in the food line behind Ron Jeremy and Dennis Hof, the owner of The Bunny Ranch and one of the stars of HBO's Cathouse. Dennis told me he makes sex safe for billionaires, who stay out of trouble by paying for it.
The most interesting people at the party were those who looked like they didn't belong -- like two First Amendment lawyers doing a book for my publisher and a reporter who broke a very important story (but may not want to be known by Uncle Google for his attendance at this event). And yes, totally naked girls were everywhere. And yes, I took lots of pictures. Will post more next week (discreetly linking to the naughtier ones so you won't get in trouble at work). Try to make do with this one for now. And I'll post more blog items in the morning.
Comments
I saw a real naked woman once, so this post is completely unnecessary.
I ran into Ron Jeremy once, too. It was in the underground parking garage at an old girlfriend's Hollywood apartment building. His car was shabby, and he was eating fast food out of a paper bag while steering up a spiral ramp with the other hand. I have a better car and a better diet than Ron Jeremy. But he's had a lot more tail. A lot more tail. A lot more....
But wheels are everything in LA. Ask anyone!
No, seriously, I'm over it now. Seriously. It's cool.
Posted by: Crid [CridComment@gmail] at July 12, 2009 2:55 AM
O tempura, o morays!
40 years on, I'm wondering if those nasty old prudish mores might have had some value not obvious to a horny young dude. I miss Patrick Daniel Moynihan, a man way ahead of his time.
Let's see if the mix here changes now that we gonna gotz the pr0n star linkz!
--
phunctor
Posted by: phunctor at July 12, 2009 6:47 AM
Why? Nobody reads Hustler for the articles. Flynt is certainly in the top ten percent of people I'd not care to associate with. Is Hustler going to pick up the column?
Being neither young, nor single, nor invited, this sounds like sour grapes, but it's not. Like the reporter, being there would be cause to question my judgement and nothing I'd care to have publicized. Maybe it's a California thing and I just don't understand, but to me it seems like being there is damaging to your brand.
Posted by: MarkD at July 12, 2009 6:48 AM
Hugh Hefner made nudity safe and accessible. Bob Guccione made it raunchy again. Larry Flynt made it hilarious.
I always loved the fact that the people who become the poster boys for the First Amendment are the ones who are taken themselved the least seriously. :arry, Howard Stern, et al, it's the stuff that people should realize is comedy that gets treated the most seriously.
Posted by: Vinnie Bartilucci at July 12, 2009 6:53 AM
"...it's the stuff that people should realize is comedy that gets treated the most seriously."
If your house is on fire, no one notices your state of dress unless exposure threatens you. A girl in a bikini at a gas station can be an outright scandal, talked about for months.
But the funniest thing I've seen is an otherwise very fine girl in a string bikini, barefoot, climbing over a four-foot chain-link fence at the Orlando dragstrip. Context, context, context.
Posted by: Radwaste at July 12, 2009 7:09 AM
Without the naked chicks there, did a story exist?
Those guys were something in the day, but that day is over. Happens to everyone eventually.
Posted by: Spartee at July 12, 2009 8:06 AM
heh, spartee, the chicks ARE context... and if they like being there, and being paid for it, where's the wrong in that?
MarkD have you stopped to examine your statement? People who have to hide their association form such a thing, are doing so because of what other people think, not because they themselves believe it to be wrong. The reporter wasn't questioning his judgement about the EVENT, rather about all the things everyone else would say, people who might stop reading his stuff. JUST because there were nekkid wimmin there, not because his report on it or anything else he has ever reported on wasn't good.
Are you denigrating this because of what your wife would say? I know that game too. Glad I don't have to play anymore.
Thanks for the sunday morning wakeup, Amy.
Posted by: SwissArmyD at July 12, 2009 9:14 AM
You're welcome, Swiss. And MarkD, Hustler has published articles by me a number of times, and they've been very, very nice to me. In fact, they're a bit responsible for my writing this book I have coming out on the collapse of manners. The LA Times' Rick Wartzman, then editor of the Magazine, wouldn't publish my pieces on the collapse of manners, like a piece I pitched on how, when telemarketers call me, I track down the owner of the company they're selling for, call him at home, chew him out for calling me at home, and then invoice him for the use of my time and my phone line...and get him to pay. No, this would be of no interest to LA Times' readers -- unlike the pieces on cow farts in Kern county that they were publishing. I told Bruce David this, just in passing. He thought they were nuts, and he said, "We'll publish it!" And they did. And it made me realize I could turn this into a book.
Cathy Seipp (who wrote for Penthouse) and I used to joke, "If you want to be exploited, write for a women's magazine." Writing for women's mags, you have your stuff changed in stupid ways, and then you hear, for months: "The check is...somewhere in accounting"...like accounting is some faraway underground labyrinth with a moat.
Posted by: Amy Alkon at July 12, 2009 10:15 AM
I thought everyone knew, that after you cross the moat (mind the alligators) the check is just past the sign, "beware of the leopard" in a locked file cabinet. They key to the cabinet... well, just bring a crowbar.
"Hugh Hefner made nudity safe and accessible. Bob Guccione made it raunchy again. Larry Flynt made it hilarious."
Well said. I finally let my Playboy subscription lapse this year after subscribing on a lark a few years ago (no shame reading it as an adult vs as a young teen). The pictures were interesting for the first few issues, then I actually found a few good articles here and there and now I see it as nothing but silly social commentary (often of a Cosmo/women's type mag mentality) with nekkid air brushed airheads.
Posted by: Sio at July 12, 2009 10:45 AM
As as woman who buys Playboy and Hustler, I don't get why people are so upset about the existence of these mags or Flynt or Hefner. Try reading Cosmo or Glamour. How many articles can you read telling you how to snare a man by cooking the best chicken, or how to tell what type of boyfriend he'll be because he wears boxers or briefs. And I'm not sure why these mags aren't slammed with their diet of the week or sex positions to drive him mad. I happen to enjoy reading the articles in Hustler and Playboy, and the pictures are pretty nice too. If someone has a problem with a naked woman or a steamy story, then don't buy the magazine. Isn't that simple enough?
Posted by: Kristen at July 12, 2009 10:46 AM
More public schizophrenia: objecting to Playboy while clutching a copy of Cosmopolitan.
Posted by: Radwaste at July 12, 2009 11:29 AM
Awww geez. The fun kids never invite me to the cool parties. And I've started showering and brushing my teeth and EVERYthing!
Posted by: BlogDog at July 12, 2009 1:17 PM
Good god, I swear that woman looks just like my old linear algebra T.A.! Dare I hope?
Posted by: Paul Hrissikopoulos at July 12, 2009 1:46 PM
Guys love lots of naked, good-looking woman. Get over it. I wish I was there. Guys love recreational sex. Get over that too.
If some of the whiners here want to spend a day sizing up merchandize at The Grove or other mall, fine. I'll not snipe about it. Recreational shopping is a girl's thing. I never knew of a (heterosexual) man who did recreational shopping.
So, are men morally superior, or deeper than women? Vice-versa? No. Just different.
Posted by: i-hole at July 12, 2009 2:39 PM
Am I the only one who thinks tons of sweaty naked bodies and a food line don't go together? I've never understood people who eat at strip clubs. Gross.
Posted by: momof4 at July 12, 2009 4:24 PM
M4- Agreed. But I've heard (but not confirmed) that in Texas, there really are high-class titty bars. And they call them "high-class titty bars", and you can order food without fear.
Posted by: Crid [CridComment@gmail] at July 12, 2009 4:37 PM
I wonder if those women have a .7 waist-to-hip ratio?
Posted by: Snoopy at July 12, 2009 5:44 PM
> Am I the only one who thinks tons of sweaty
> naked bodies and a food line don't go
> together?
You've never watched Seinfeld? Just add in television and you've got The Trifecta.
Posted by: Snoopy at July 12, 2009 5:48 PM
In the land of the SillyCones, the Saleen is king.
Posted by: Jay J. Hector at July 12, 2009 5:55 PM
I'm no lady, but I always had great experiences doing freelance illustration work for the Flynt family of naughty magazines.
They always paid fast and handsomely, with a minimum of art director fiddling (mostlythey just asked me to drawbigger tits!) I was treated far more shabbily by the New Yorker and Rolling Stone, (and paid less) in fact.
Posted by: COOP at July 12, 2009 6:53 PM
COOP, I hear that from other people who've written for them, too. Are you one of the cartoonists I met last night?
Posted by: Amy Alkon 
at July 12, 2009 7:39 PM
> I wonder if those women have
> a .7 waist-to-hip ratio?
I'm afraid you're in over your head, Snoopster.
(Yes, I've been saving that link for months. Amy seems to have surrendered her fascination with the factoid.)
Posted by: Crid [CridComment@gmail] at July 12, 2009 7:46 PM
OK, I'll chime in. You couldn't give me a subscription to Playboy. Plastic air brushed Blondes and "articles" tilted further left than Nancy Pelosi. Hugh Hefner gives me the creeps and that show of his with his inane girlfriends made me want to slit my wrists when my ex used to watch it.
I always was a fan of Penthouse though and it's true that there is some funny stuff in Hustler. Along with some gaping you know what.
And I've never eaten in a Strip Club but that's only because I needed my money for the girls. Some of the clubs in the South I'd have no problems eating a meal in. The Cheetahs off 14th st in Atlanta comes to mind.
Posted by: sean at July 12, 2009 7:56 PM
> Hugh Hefner gives me the creeps
Yes. The magazine's aimed for young men, and you can tell... That's not a crime. It's amazing that it's still being printed at all, it was the butt of jokes thirty years ago. As Raddy noted, Cosmo's pretty despicable too, and they're still in business as well.
To credit Hugh Hefner for having liberating ideas about sex is like crediting McDonald's for having liberating ideas about cholesterol.
(Hey! That was good! Someone write that down!)
Posted by: Crid [CridComment@gmail] at July 12, 2009 8:05 PM
yeay for naked girls!
larry flynt huh? would have been interesting to talk to him. not a big fan though.
Posted by: mlah at July 12, 2009 11:51 PM
> I'm afraid you're in over your head, Snoopster.
Nice one Crid!
Posted by: Snoopy at July 13, 2009 2:57 AM
I don't know about high-class clubs in Texas, crid. Plenty are advertised that way, but I've been in them, and they have the same nasty stripper smell and "thank god the lights are low" grime the rest of them have. I've never been in any of the Dallas ones though, they might have a high-class one there. Class, of course, being a relative term.
Posted by: momof4 at July 13, 2009 7:12 AM
Thanks, Amy. You answered my question. I might not agree with you about everything, but I usually respect your judgement. Not having all the facts made this seem out of character.
Swiss, you assume way too much. My job is not only at the will of my employer, I can be removed for any reason at the request of our client. If that makes me some sort of slave to convention in your mind, so be it.
My knowledge of Mr Flynt is merely what I read in the paper. I've seen his "daring" magazine during my youth, and I wasn't impressed. His actions during the previous presidency crossed the threshold of acceptable behavior. It would be hypocritical of me to pretend otherwise.
My wife is Japanese. It's a mistake to impute your traditional American values to her. Nice insult, not remotely correct.
Posted by: MarkD at July 13, 2009 12:54 PM
Heh, MarkD, that's funny, I didn't mention anything about your job. Congratulations on your wife and the serious mis-apprehension about what was said... I was imputing the values to YOU, not her. Based on the tone of what you said, was I wrong? You were acting like going to a party like that would require you to wash off the grime afterward. Maybe you could ask your partner about some of the fertility festivals in Japan. They don't seem to be near as uptite.
Posted by: SwissArmyD at July 14, 2009 10:54 PM
