Dave Weigel’s Reason interview with longtime Hustler editor Allan MacDonell is fascinating. A couple of tidbits I found fun:

The only real anxiety I had about repercussions coming from something we published was when Larry Flynt ordered up a photo set that depicted a black slave having sex with a plantation owner’s daughter. In the last panels, the slave was shown being bullwhipped and boiled in a big cauldron. My art director and I expected mobs of extremely offended African American picketers outside the Flynt building, but none materialized.

Sorta’ reminds me of my reaction to The Aristocrats. Or at least my reaction to the reaction to The Aristocrats. It’s amusing and telling (of something — I’m not sure what) that of all the sick parodies, raunchy humor, and odd sex acts to cross the pages of Hustler, MacDowell’s tensest moments came after running a racially-loaded pictoral.

The behind-the-scenes stuff on the Clinton impeachment is great too:

During the impeachment months, in the wake of Livingston’s bluffed-out resignation, producers from the major networks would phone and ask me, “What do you have on Tim Hutchinson?” Tim was in the Senate, effectively the jury to the impeachment, which was prosecuted by the House Managers, one of whom was Tim’s brother Asa. Some reporter would call me and say, “What do you have on Newt Gingrich having an affair with an aide to Representative Steve Gunderson?” Gunderson was a Republican from Wisconsin. You may remember that Gingrich kept an uncharacteristically low profile during the impeachment.

[...]

These mainstream news outlets seemed to want to cover the scandalous stories on guys like Tim Hutchinson and Newt Gingrich, stories that they had reason to believe were true, but they wanted Hustler to do the dirty work. So they gave us those hints. Too bad we weren’t doing any investigative reporting. We were just waving sacks of money to lure in potential sex snitches.

I also like this line about the difference between politicians and smut peddlers:

I mean, Representative Dan Burton can probably dial up a great table at the Palm anytime he wants, and he’s addressed as ‘the right honorable’ or some crap like that. Is he any less creepy than some loser hanging around the mall with a camera trying to persuade 19-year-old girls to take their clothes off?

The answer, of course, is “no.”

This entry was posted on Tuesday, August 1st, 2006 at 12:11 pm by Radley Balko and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.