Speaker 1: Dark Cast Network.
Speaker 2: Welcome to the Dark Side of podcasting.
Speaker 3: Hi guys, I'm Courtney and I'm Lisa, and we are
Speaker 3: the hosts of the Book of the Dead, a true
Speaker 3: crime podcast based out of New Jersey, where we tell
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Speaker 1: Hi guys, Hey, y'all, welcome back to Mountain Murders.
Speaker 2: I'm Heather and I'm Dylan. Hey Dylan, how's it going.
Speaker 1: It's going great.
Speaker 2: You look super happy.
Speaker 1: You know, it's one of those days. It's going to
Speaker 1: be one of those days here in the studio when
Speaker 1: you don't know what's going to happen, you know what
Speaker 1: I mean, Like we're going to be on the edge
Speaker 1: of everything, you know, the edge of everything.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I have no idea what that means. Me neither,
Speaker 2: But I'm interpreting that to mean that you will likely
Speaker 2: say something completely unhinged and out in left field, and
Speaker 2: the rest of us will be left to decipher the meaning.
Speaker 1: Yes, that's exactly what I meant.
Speaker 2: Because you're a philosopher's sizer.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm going to philosophy ze on your face.
Speaker 2: There you go. Okay, okay, it's been a minute, but
Speaker 2: we are back and we are bringing you Part three
Speaker 2: of the Larry Flint Story now.
Speaker 1: And uh, this was one of the more unfortunate things
Speaker 1: about our break. We were in the middle of a
Speaker 1: series here on Larry Flint, a very interesting series in
Speaker 1: my opinion, and I cannot wait for part three.
Speaker 2: Absolutely, Dylan, do not forget. We are part of the
Speaker 2: dark Cast Network. Dark Cast has a big announcement coming
Speaker 2: your way. Make sure you check that out. So many
Speaker 2: good indie podcasts available at the Darkcast Network, including Mountain Murders.
Speaker 1: Yes, there's more, too many to name.
Speaker 2: If you'd like to pick up some funky, fresh merch
Speaker 2: heading into fall spooky season, you want to get yourself
Speaker 2: a little spooky gear, check out our website. That's www
Speaker 2: dot Mountain Murders podcast dot com. Lots of merch available, dyling.
Speaker 1: You can find everything Mountain Murders at that site.
Speaker 2: Directly from our website, you can support us on Patreon
Speaker 2: and do not forget Mark your calendar is September twenty fifth,
Speaker 2: Mountain Murders will be at the fuck Yets Fall Festival
Speaker 2: at the Slide Rog in Ashville. It is going to
Speaker 2: be an amazing evening of punk bands, NonStop balls to
Speaker 2: the wallpunk music. I'm super jazzed about this. And they
Speaker 2: are bringing in all kinds of like spooky themed vendors
Speaker 2: heading into the month of October, spooky season around the corner.
Speaker 2: I just can't say fucking say spooky enough.
Speaker 1: Dylan Home, I feel space. Yeah, I cannot wait for this.
Speaker 1: It's gonna be a great evening. I even burned a
Speaker 1: vacation day at work. That's how much I believe in
Speaker 1: this evening. Because those a few.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I want you guys to pause for a moment,
Speaker 2: close your eyes and think about this. We're in the yard.
Speaker 2: There's a big bonfire. Dylan is naked, oh, only he
Speaker 2: is wearing his like orange safety vest. Yeah, and he's
Speaker 2: literally burning a vacation day and burning it and it's
Speaker 2: right rising up. The smoke, the flames are rising up,
Speaker 2: and he's presenting it to the universe like I'd of
Speaker 2: sacrificing this beautiful vacation day so we can go listen
Speaker 2: to punk music. No, it's more like he okay, right, yeah, okay, and.
Speaker 1: Don't forget the high viz gear. You won't be able
Speaker 1: to look away, Dylan from my body. Yeah.
Speaker 2: Well, I'm just gonna say, I often can't resist gig
Speaker 2: away from your body. I cannot turn away.
Speaker 1: No, I stand in from her neck like this is
Speaker 1: the face of God, stare upon it.
Speaker 2: It's quite delicious. Oh my gosh, the rhymes you were
Speaker 2: given are quite booty delicious. Are you ready to get
Speaker 2: into Larry Flint? I mean, get all up in him,
Speaker 2: get deep inside.
Speaker 1: We need to get We need to finish this Larry Flint.
Speaker 2: You're gonna finish on his on his case, on his story.
Speaker 1: And I'm gonna finish on his chair, right And I
Speaker 1: want to see where it goes. I want to see
Speaker 1: where I end up when this is over.
Speaker 2: Okay, Well, when we last discussed Larry Flint, he'd been
Speaker 2: shot in the abdomen by an unknown sniper. Larry and
Speaker 2: Althea decided to move to Los Angeles, California. The Flints
Speaker 2: purchased a Mediterranean style mansion in Beverly Hills, previously previously
Speaker 2: owned by Errol Flynn Share and Sonny if we have
Speaker 2: to mention him, Robert Stack and Tony Curtis, This is.
Speaker 1: All Hollywood royalty, right.
Speaker 2: Absolutely. I would love to live in a home owned
Speaker 2: previously by Share and Robert Stack. How cool would that be?
Speaker 1: So here we have Larry's been an assassination attempt. There's
Speaker 1: no other description of it.
Speaker 2: If I could buy all Mart.
Speaker 1: For a good price, Okay, Yes. And so from their
Speaker 1: point of view, him and his wife's point of view,
Speaker 1: you have to imagine that they're probably feeling like the
Speaker 1: authorities are maybe not going to try to solve the case, right,
Speaker 1: I mean you have to imagine that they don't have
Speaker 1: a lot of confidence, and he's.
Speaker 2: Been targeted a lot by law enforcement and lawmakers and
Speaker 2: the authorities the man, if you will. So, yeah, I'm
Speaker 2: sure he's he's maybe questioning like do they really care
Speaker 2: about this? Yes, I'm in They've been trying to destroy
Speaker 2: me financially, destroy my career, my business. Do they really
Speaker 2: care if I'm gone to Yeah?
Speaker 1: I mean you give given the high jinks of the
Speaker 1: federal government with that whole thing in Kansas, you know,
Speaker 1: having the materials sent there and trying to get him
Speaker 1: for disseminating whatever through the mail and all that. So
Speaker 1: I'm sure he doesn't have a lot of confidence in
Speaker 1: the system.
Speaker 2: Well Larry's not. He's not done with the government yet, Dylan,
Speaker 2: Larry's got He's got more work to do. Damn on
Speaker 2: the government. But let's get back into this. So moving
Speaker 2: to Los Angeles brought a couple of sense of comfort
Speaker 2: because it was a more progressive city where pornography wasn't
Speaker 2: frowned upon as it was in the rust Belt. The
Speaker 2: hustler offices were moved west as well. Unfortunately, Larry would
Speaker 2: live with chronic pain. The only way to manage the
Speaker 2: constant agony was with pain medications, particularly delauded and morphine.
Speaker 1: Oh Wow.
Speaker 2: A nineteen eighty four Vanity Fair article profiled specifically Larry's
Speaker 2: pain and that it had driven him to these addictive medications.
Speaker 2: During this time, Larry began injecting the medication himself as
Speaker 2: well as ingesting it. Not only did Larry abuse the medications,
Speaker 2: but althea started using them too. Damn, Larry isolated in
Speaker 2: the mansion. He's abusing drugs. And during this time Larry
Speaker 2: will overdose roughly six times due to opioid abuse.
Speaker 1: Well yeah, yeah, Well, for one, he's not a doctor.
Speaker 1: So when you started ministering these very strong narcotics yourself
Speaker 1: intraveniously on top of ingesting them, and you're like, oh,
Speaker 1: you're doing You're doing it, likely more often than prescribed,
Speaker 1: maybe bigger doses than what your doctor would like. It's
Speaker 1: a very dangerous situation. And that's the terrible thing about
Speaker 1: chronic pain. People over the years who live with chronic pain, Yes,
Speaker 1: is the very thing, the one thing usually that brings
Speaker 1: them any type of relief, is also the one thing
Speaker 1: that can harm them. Yes, you know. And and it's
Speaker 1: not as easy as say someone who's purely using recreationally,
Speaker 1: they don't have any pain or any conditions, they can say, Okay,
Speaker 1: I'm done with this. You know, I don't. I can't
Speaker 1: control myself around these substances. Therefore I can't have them
Speaker 1: in my life. I substance, I rebealed you in the
Speaker 1: name of Hessus, and so you get away from it.
Speaker 1: But then, if you are someone who truly has a
Speaker 1: genuine chronic pain, you're left with this agonizing pain on
Speaker 1: you know that you have to deal with daily. So
Speaker 1: it makes them, it has to make it much more,
Speaker 1: much harder to control yourself with these substances.
Speaker 2: Right, Delauded is a a hydromorphone, a very potent opioid.
Speaker 2: Morphine is another opioid. So taking them together produces addictive
Speaker 2: opioid effects such as sedation and respiratory depression, and it
Speaker 2: can result in death or a coma. Now Larry is
Speaker 2: self administering these drugs. As I mentioned before, and for
Speaker 2: anyone who's ever been on like a morphine drip in
Speaker 2: the hospital, you get like a little clicker that's going
Speaker 2: to regulate how much medicine you get, Yeah, how much morphine.
Speaker 1: You can administer it yourself, but it will only do
Speaker 1: it every so often.
Speaker 2: Right, and so you can sit there and click it
Speaker 2: a hundred times, but it's still just going to give
Speaker 2: you the little dose that you're allotted in a specific period.
Speaker 1: Right. But I'm sorry. My only experience I had back
Speaker 1: served you on time and they gave me. I had
Speaker 1: a ruptured disc. I was in tremendous pain, and I
Speaker 1: think it was delauded that they gave me in the
Speaker 1: emergency room, like it off the rip to you know,
Speaker 1: calm me down so they could run some tests. And
Speaker 1: I have to say, you know, I see why people
Speaker 1: get hooked to something like that. Right, just the a'm
Speaker 1: an instantaneous, more euphoric wave that washes over you and
Speaker 1: you know, nothing matters. It doesn't matter if you have
Speaker 1: pain or if you're going through something in your life.
Speaker 1: You're just kind of drifting on this, like, I don't know,
Speaker 1: like a cloud.
Speaker 2: It's it's hard to describe, like a cheeseburger down the
Speaker 2: river ketchup.
Speaker 1: Yeah, maybe, but I understand how someone I wouldn't want,
Speaker 1: let's just say me having issues in the past with
Speaker 1: substances you know, here and there, I would not want
Speaker 1: access full time access to these types of things.
Speaker 2: I don't like those feelings. I mean, I know a
Speaker 2: lot of people are like, yeah, right now, you really
Speaker 2: don't that's euphoric sense or whatever. Look, I am such
Speaker 2: a control freak in my life. I have to have
Speaker 2: like every moment I need to feel like I'm on
Speaker 2: top of it, like the hypervigilance to just like maintain
Speaker 2: a sense of control in my life. That I hate
Speaker 2: those feeling. I don't like feeling out of control. I
Speaker 2: don't like being all doped up, if you will, even
Speaker 2: if it feels good, It's like I I would not
Speaker 2: want to feel that way every day, right Okay, I'm
Speaker 2: a masochist, like I want every day of my life
Speaker 2: to suck, and I want to be fully aware of
Speaker 2: how bad it sucks.
Speaker 1: Okay, you want to give an accurate reading on the
Speaker 1: suck scale, right, Plus, I.
Speaker 2: Don't I don't think I've ever had morphine. Like I've
Speaker 2: not had a you know, like a lot of medical
Speaker 2: problems or surgeries. Maybe just a few little things here
Speaker 2: and there, but I don't think I've ever been given
Speaker 2: morphine for pain.
Speaker 1: And that's a good thing because but you know, and
Speaker 1: I was also on the morphine drip that you're describing
Speaker 1: at post surgery a little bit, all recovered. But I
Speaker 1: have to say, even me with my issues in the
Speaker 1: past and now just was I was a kind of
Speaker 1: stimulant guy, so you know, pills and all that.
Speaker 2: God, that's what I don't need.
Speaker 1: No, oh no, it's great, it's super cool. I'm very social.
Speaker 1: No we should just you're like.
Speaker 2: That without stimulants, look broke when you're like kind of manic. Yeah,
Speaker 2: you get on my damn nerve. So I cannot imagine
Speaker 2: you on stimulants like fully manic all the time.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you would be.
Speaker 2: I would tie you up. You would be in the
Speaker 2: trunk of my car, be up here, and my car
Speaker 2: is very small, so I'd have to fold you up
Speaker 2: like a fourth grade love note to stick you in
Speaker 2: the trunk.
Speaker 1: But I went to my doctor and I was like,
Speaker 1: I don't want these anymore because I was getting you know,
Speaker 1: a multiple things prescribed large amounts monthly, and just I mean, gosh,
Speaker 1: it really affected my system in a negative way.
Speaker 2: Bro, you should just like gotten more. You just sold it.
Speaker 1: Well, yeah, I know I should. That's I saw some
Speaker 1: video and I know this is the right thing to do, Okay,
Speaker 1: But I saw some videos like a home health care
Speaker 1: nurse was like doing a skit, but I guess just
Speaker 1: you know, some reality she deals with and she's like, oh,
Speaker 1: I see your father's passed away. Where's all his medicines
Speaker 1: that are usually on the not stand by this and that.
Speaker 1: Oh some of that stuff's really powerful. We need to
Speaker 1: dispose of it properly and all that. And people's in
Speaker 1: the comment is like, nah, that's not how that's gonna work.
Speaker 1: But what's funny is what a lot of people said,
Speaker 1: and this is true. No, I'm going to take that,
Speaker 1: I'm going to put it back and if I do
Speaker 1: have serious pain of any sort, get injured or something
Speaker 1: like that, I'm going to take it myself because it's
Speaker 1: almost impossible to get a doctor to prescribe you something
Speaker 1: like that if you truly are in pain.
Speaker 2: Well, no, I'm not saying I haven't heard people say
Speaker 2: things like that before, and I'm not saying that's okay,
Speaker 2: but you know.
Speaker 1: Right, yeah, I would sell.
Speaker 2: Hey, I would get caught like right off the bat
Speaker 2: in this. It would I would like try to sell
Speaker 2: it to someone and then come to find out, like
Speaker 2: my best friend of one hundred years is like an
Speaker 2: undercover cop and I knew it and they arrest me
Speaker 2: or something.
Speaker 1: So yeah, okay, maybe you should just turn him in
Speaker 1: at the first apartment.
Speaker 2: I'm not a like, I'm not a I'm not a drug.
Speaker 1: Dealer, all right. So here we have Larry of self
Speaker 1: medicating with very powerful medicines and uh that has amazing
Speaker 1: stat He's overdosed at least six times. And this is.
Speaker 2: Back in the day and they didn't even have narcir
Speaker 2: Yeah I.
Speaker 1: Know, so that's pretty wild, right though.
Speaker 2: I Mean, he could just be like narc canning himself
Speaker 2: at the dollars store like every every hour if he
Speaker 2: wanted to. Yeah, it's like wheeling around the doll tree.
Speaker 2: Oh now they take they canning himself.
Speaker 1: Keep the nark can in your drug kit so you
Speaker 1: can actually push your high further than you ever could before.
Speaker 1: And you just have your buddy bring you back from
Speaker 1: the edge of death. Awesome, and you can get extra.
Speaker 2: That's not enabling people, Okay, it's althea. It takes over
Speaker 2: the day to day operations of Hustler because Larry is
Speaker 2: struggling with this chronic pain and substance abuse. She's under
Speaker 2: immense pressure. She's running a full time corporation with many
Speaker 2: employees and ensuring legal requirements are met. Plus she's got
Speaker 2: an invalid husband at home who is high on pain medication.
Speaker 2: This is a very stressful situation, and her courtisol level
Speaker 2: it goes all the way up to eleven.
Speaker 1: Eleven.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I like to play a game like how many
Speaker 2: spinal tap references can I make in a day? Yeah? Okay,
Speaker 2: so it goes all the way up to eleven, Doyling,
Speaker 2: which I have to say, my courtisol level has been
Speaker 2: at eleven for like almost two weeks now, and I'm
Speaker 2: really starting to feel it's like taking over my body. Yeah,
Speaker 2: and I just feel so stressed out. Well, you know,
Speaker 2: like I'm just a big tense muscle, you know what
Speaker 2: I mean.
Speaker 1: See now, this is where the way I'm wired, this
Speaker 1: is that when it helps me, like when I should
Speaker 1: be all to hell, like if the stuff's happened. I'm
Speaker 1: dealing with some things. You're going through some stuff, and
Speaker 1: I really should be concerned, like trying to figure out
Speaker 1: how to make it better and like a plan forward,
Speaker 1: a path forward. I don't worry about any of that stuff, right,
Speaker 1: I just you know, we'll just see what happens tomorrow.
Speaker 2: I've never seen you worry about anything since I met you.
Speaker 2: You just go where the wind blows you.
Speaker 1: Yes, And you.
Speaker 2: Know what they say, dealing ignorance.
Speaker 1: Is bliss It truly is.
Speaker 2: And I've come to realize that maybe you're one ignorant
Speaker 2: ass motherfucker because you seem very blissful like a lot
Speaker 2: of the time.
Speaker 1: It's true, and I'm not.
Speaker 2: And I I just maybe I need to be dumber.
Speaker 1: So you just gotta let it go. Dude.
Speaker 2: Somebody needs to drop me on my head a few
Speaker 2: times so we can be I can be on your level.
Speaker 1: You got yeah, you gotta get it with my mama.
Speaker 1: See it exactly how she got my head squared up
Speaker 1: from throwing me around and dropping me on my head.
Speaker 1: She didn't do that on purpose, that she's admitted, damn.
Speaker 1: But yeah, you've just got it. Will or it won't, Okay,
Speaker 1: it will or it won't.
Speaker 2: You know, my cortisol levels like through the roof, and
Speaker 2: I'm so fucking stressed out and on edge. And it's
Speaker 2: not even anything related to me. Nothing that's like other
Speaker 2: people's other people's stuff stresses me out.
Speaker 1: You're like a tuning fork because I.
Speaker 2: Fucking care so much. You know I am a tuning fork.
Speaker 1: You're gonna carry yourself into sick.
Speaker 2: Yeah, this is why I just have to like isolate
Speaker 2: because all y'all's feelings it affects me.
Speaker 4: Okay, I tell your feelings and leave her loft.
Speaker 2: A little sponge over here crying.
Speaker 1: Don't soak it up. Somebody squeeze this bitch.
Speaker 2: Yeah, somebody squeeze. Please squeeze my spongebody.
Speaker 1: Let's squirt out something. Sponge juice a running everywhere.
Speaker 2: She's over here squirting her feelings like that.
Speaker 1: She was slapped full of it.
Speaker 2: Okay, but what's not gloss over the fact that Althea
Speaker 2: was more than qualified for the job. She'd been by
Speaker 2: Larry's side for years and the top position within the company.
Speaker 2: Althea takes command of Hustler and the sister magazine, Chic,
Speaker 2: which is rarely mentioned.
Speaker 1: I've heard of it.
Speaker 2: I had not heard of Chic either.
Speaker 1: I thought it was gonna be called like Balls or
Speaker 1: something like that. So was a Sheic their elegant version
Speaker 1: where they tried to be more classy, like you know,
Speaker 1: Playboy early on.
Speaker 2: And I have no idea because I did not for
Speaker 2: the research Chic, because believe me, I I got enough
Speaker 2: eye fool when I was researching Hustler.
Speaker 1: I imagine by the name Alonge that that probably is
Speaker 1: the case.
Speaker 2: And this wasn't merely au Thea as like a figurehead
Speaker 2: signing off on work that professional managers did. Althea occupies
Speaker 2: a large, glass walled office acting as publisher. She's involved
Speaker 2: in how ideas are presented and laid out, and can
Speaker 2: be even more stubborn than Larry about editorial decisions. Althea
Speaker 2: had to function around Larry's addiction, but eventually she joined
Speaker 2: him in nineteen eighty three, there was an interview that
Speaker 2: gets published with UPI like United Press International believe what
Speaker 2: UPS stands for anyway, Althia explained that Larry took drugs
Speaker 2: because of pain, and that she was taking them essentially
Speaker 2: to share the experience with him. She described their drug
Speaker 2: use as eventually becoming something of a mutually reinforcing ritual.
Speaker 2: Their home life became extraordinarily dysfunctional. A later account by
Speaker 2: Rudy Maxa described the couple using methadone, cocaine, marijuana, sleeping pills, morphine,
Speaker 2: and delauded. Both suffered multiple overdoses during this time, and,
Speaker 2: according to his account, out the cocaine habit alone reached
Speaker 2: an estimated twenty thousand dollars per week.
Speaker 1: Damn, damn, this.
Speaker 2: Is like jagging. Now, that's a lot, like a mountain
Speaker 2: of coke.
Speaker 1: That's a lot of blow. And that was that really strong.
Speaker 1: I'm not even being funny, but that was that really strong.
Speaker 2: Like they're just shut like they've got big snowshovels and
Speaker 2: they're just shoveling this coke into her face.
Speaker 1: I mean, that'sn't really shot of money strong cocaine back
Speaker 1: in the day.
Speaker 2: And this isn't like the early eighties. So twenty thousand
Speaker 2: dollars is what like two hundred thousand by today's money.
Speaker 1: I mean, I mean maybe, oh, easily one hundred thousand
Speaker 1: if you account for inflation and all that. But you know,
Speaker 1: this is the kind of cocaine that literally can eat
Speaker 1: your entire nasal cop and you have like that hole.
Speaker 2: Oh, you'll be like that guy, the comedian what's his name, Artie?
Speaker 1: Oh?
Speaker 2: Yeah, already he was like on Howard Stern show a lot.
Speaker 1: Yeah, he's kind of gross, yeah, but he went hard
Speaker 1: in to pay. Yeah.
Speaker 2: Bro, it's like missing half his nose.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And this is the stuff that will eat all
Speaker 1: your sonuses out in your deviated septim right, Yeah, that's
Speaker 1: what it's called.
Speaker 2: No, that's what it's called. Althea's involvement often gets downplayed
Speaker 2: or becomes background to Larry's story, But she was a badass,
Speaker 2: Like I really want to talk about Althea here. Like
Speaker 2: I've mentioned before, she played an important role at Hustler
Speaker 2: even before Larry's injuries, Like in the nineteen seventies, she
Speaker 2: was earning five hundred thousand dollars a year as an
Speaker 2: associate publisher, which was just unheard of for a woman
Speaker 2: at that time. Althea has been described as a gatekeeper
Speaker 2: within the organization. She wielded considerable power. Althea could fire
Speaker 2: senior staff without Larry's permission. Paul Krasner, a renowned subculture
Speaker 2: writer and the founder of the Realist, was briefly named
Speaker 2: publisher of Hustler, and Althea fired him.
Speaker 1: Damn, I guess she just and like him.
Speaker 2: And Krassner himself said that Althea told him readers wanted
Speaker 2: Larry's name on the masthead, not his.
Speaker 1: Oh so, not.
Speaker 2: Only is she a shrewd businesswoman, but she genuinely has
Speaker 2: Larry's back in all facets of life.
Speaker 1: We'll say, when you have a partner like this, who's
Speaker 1: really been hands on in a large organization that's continued
Speaker 1: to grow, I'm sure this is almost a natural fit
Speaker 1: for her to, you know, slide into Larry's job, you know,
Speaker 1: because he's unable to do it. And I'm sure even
Speaker 1: with everything going on in their lives and her worrying
Speaker 1: for Larry and everything that's happened to him, she probably
Speaker 1: has also had a lot of stuff on the shelf
Speaker 1: ideas that she would like to implement or try, and
Speaker 1: this has really given her the opportunity to do just that.
Speaker 2: Althea had real editorial instincts, like if she hadn't been
Speaker 2: at Hustler, she could have easily slid into a role
Speaker 2: at like Vogue or like a fashion magazine, because she
Speaker 2: really knew like what, Like she knew what she wanted,
Speaker 2: She knew what looked good, she knew styling, she knew
Speaker 2: set design like she knew the angles, the shots she wanted,
Speaker 2: like everything, she cared about how the magazine looked. In
Speaker 2: a Washington Post interview, those who worked with Althea told
Speaker 2: journalist Cynthia Gorney that if Althea had an idea for
Speaker 2: something that should appear in the magazine, she was extremely insistent.
Speaker 2: And though Althea didn't transform herself into a conventional corporate executive,
Speaker 2: she maintained a somewhat more informal style. She wondered freely
Speaker 2: between being owner, publisher, employee, and sort of the resident
Speaker 2: eccentric at Hustler offices, she sometimes spent long stretches in
Speaker 2: the mailroom talking to eighteen year old employees and listening
Speaker 2: to whatever like mixtapes they brought into work. Okay, really
Speaker 2: into music. She would nap on her sofa in the office.
Speaker 2: She kept Jack Daniel inside a wooden globe on her desk.
Speaker 2: She sounds like a CEO.
Speaker 1: To me, No, she sounds like a CEO who's actually
Speaker 1: got their finger on the pulse of the company, right anyone.
Speaker 1: And I've seen this to a small smaller degree in
Speaker 1: my years of working in blue collar trades and being
Speaker 1: in factories. Any manager that's willing to get their hands
Speaker 1: dirty or take the time to talk to the lowest member,
Speaker 1: the least senior member on the team and work their
Speaker 1: way up the line, they're really getting a genuine idea
Speaker 1: or outlook on how the company is doing, how policies
Speaker 1: are being implemented in the real real world, not the
Speaker 1: boardroom or not somemra rob meeting of upper management. And
Speaker 1: it's really a smart thing to do. It's it's really
Speaker 1: a good way to figure out how your company, how
Speaker 1: people feel about working at competible.
Speaker 2: That and I think it also like creates a really
Speaker 2: positive culture that that Larry started that everyone whether you're
Speaker 2: the janitor or you're the vice president, he treats everyone
Speaker 2: the same. Everyone's important, everyone matters, and so Althea just
Speaker 2: kind of continues that philosophy in running this business and
Speaker 2: it seems to be really effective.
Speaker 1: Well, any place that claims to have an open door
Speaker 1: policy as far as your access to upper management and
Speaker 1: they truly follow through with that. It's always been a
Speaker 1: positive thing from my and from my experience.
Speaker 2: Well, you know Timothy Leary O, mister like LSD Daddy himself, Yeah,
Speaker 2: well he knew the Flints very well after their move
Speaker 2: to Los Angeles, and he described Althea as being bright, shrewd,
Speaker 2: and intellectually curious. She was also flamboyant and drawn to
Speaker 2: outsiders and dissent. Althea understood Larry, the Hustler audience and
Speaker 2: the company's strange culture. She didn't need to turn Hustler
Speaker 2: into some high fashion magazine like Vogue. She understood what
Speaker 2: Hustler was supposed to be, and she knew exactly how
Speaker 2: to give the people what they wanted.
Speaker 1: And that's very smart. You know, it's really easy to
Speaker 1: lose sight of your lane if you will right unit,
Speaker 1: you have customers who expect a certain thing from your product,
Speaker 1: and anytime you get too big for your breeches or
Speaker 1: you get real egotistical about it. You might lose sight
Speaker 1: of that. So it's very important to keep that in mind.
Speaker 2: Right Well, after Larry was shot, there was an internal
Speaker 2: power struggle that ensued. Althea and Larry's brother, Jimmy became
Speaker 2: involved in a dispute over ownership of the Hustler business.
Speaker 2: The dispute was settled when Jimmy accepted leisure Time Products
Speaker 2: a mail order operation, and released his claims to the
Speaker 2: other companies. The entire matter was ultimately resolved through federal
Speaker 2: litigation over the company's ownership. So that can be a
Speaker 2: little messy. Family family fighting family's business for sure.
Speaker 1: That can get that can turn hateful, can be ugly,
Speaker 1: it can it can poison the entire company.
Speaker 2: I'm poison water in horror. Yeah, when stuff like that happens,
Speaker 2: there's just snak in my boot. Yes. Althea also wanted
Speaker 2: a magazine of her own. She proposed a publication called
Speaker 2: The Rage, and this was a magazine like she had
Speaker 2: had in mind for a while. Althea wanted to create
Speaker 2: a non pornographic magazine centered on punk culture that was
Speaker 2: happening like during the mid nineteen eighties. The project ultimately
Speaker 2: didn't materialize and it is tempting to interpret Althea entirely
Speaker 2: through Larry, which a lot of people do, but their
Speaker 2: professional relationship seems more complicated. And in roughly twelve years
Speaker 2: she had a substantial publishing career really, so she was
Speaker 2: like a force to be reckoned with. Like she wasn't
Speaker 2: just Larry's wife who just happens to work there kind
Speaker 2: of flitting about. I mean, she's she's actually like she's
Speaker 2: a visionary and she's there. I mean this magazine is
Speaker 2: also like she's a big part of this, you know,
Speaker 2: like she helped create it and make it what it
Speaker 2: is today and what it was for years. You know.
Speaker 1: Well, it's like you said earlier, she had real talent.
Speaker 1: She did and no matter where or what type of magazine.
Speaker 1: And I'm sure it helps if she's passionate about her
Speaker 1: you know, whatever the magazine subject matter is. But it
Speaker 1: sounds like she would have done fine and it, yeah,
Speaker 1: risen through the ranks.
Speaker 2: Well. Eventually, Larry grows concerned about Althea's drug use and
Speaker 2: starts cutting her off from his supply, But Althea is
Speaker 2: hanging out. I mean she's in Los Angeles and she's
Speaker 2: hanging out at the whiskey and the roxy. In LA
Speaker 2: where there's plenty heroin and.
Speaker 1: Cocaine, she's not gonna have a problem.
Speaker 2: She had problem getting these drugs. And for those who
Speaker 2: don't know, Los Angeles in the early nineteen eighties had
Speaker 2: one of the most important and volatile punk scenes in America.
Speaker 2: It was less a single scene than several overlapping ones.
Speaker 2: You had like the aready first wave punk crowd, then
Speaker 2: the aggressive hardcore scene. There were these suburban and city
Speaker 2: like beach bands that were also kind of punk. Then
Speaker 2: you had Latino punk scenes in East LA and then
Speaker 2: the darker post punk death rock underground.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and all these scenes would overlap at times, right.
Speaker 2: Exact, Yes, that's what I just said.
Speaker 1: Bud in the crowds.
Speaker 2: So the earlier Hollywood scenes centered around bands like X,
Speaker 2: the Weirdos, the Germs, and the Bags. I love the
Speaker 2: Germs like I'm a big Germs fan. Then hardcore arrived.
Speaker 2: You get bands like Black Flag, the Circle, jerm Sphere,
Speaker 2: the Adolescence, TSOL, and the descendants that made music faster, louder,
Speaker 2: and more confrontational. A lot of the Second Wave wasn't
Speaker 2: actually coming from Hollywood. Black Flag, for example, came from
Speaker 2: Hermosa Beach, the adolescents were from Flords in California, and
Speaker 2: a lot of other bands emerged from suburbs scattered across
Speaker 2: southern California if you're interested, because I could talk about
Speaker 2: this all day, but this is not a music podcast,
Speaker 2: and I'm sure people don't want to hear my thoughts
Speaker 2: on the La punk scene. But anyway, if you are
Speaker 2: interested in learning more about this, I highly recommend watching
Speaker 2: The Decline of Western Civilization Part one. It's a wonderful documentary.
Speaker 2: There's actually three of them, but the first one focuses
Speaker 2: solely on the La punk scene during this time in
Speaker 2: the early eighties, and it's really great.
Speaker 1: No, it really is a great it's a great documentary,
Speaker 1: and it really exposes you to exactly what you just
Speaker 1: described in an intimate fashion.
Speaker 2: Now, Althina's interest in punk wasn't a fleeting thing, and
Speaker 2: so that's why I bring all of this up, because
Speaker 2: you hear like she wanted to start a punk rock magazine,
Speaker 2: and you know, people might roll their eyes and be like, oh, yeah, okay, well,
Speaker 2: but but the thing is like it was a big
Speaker 2: deal at this time, and she's kind of you know,
Speaker 2: I guess sort of submerged herself into this scene and
Speaker 2: she can see how important it is and what it's creating,
Speaker 2: and how it's attracting all these young people, and you know,
Speaker 2: it's pretty awesome.
Speaker 1: No, and I'm sure you know people could roll their
Speaker 1: eyes like, oh, like it was some pet project of hers.
Speaker 1: But I think that the fact that she did consider
Speaker 1: for I'm sure quite some time this magazine and it
Speaker 1: being about that she saw an opportunity, and she also
Speaker 1: probably felt very strongly about it, right.
Speaker 2: And I mean it definitely would have, you know, kind
Speaker 2: of like been a niche magazine.
Speaker 1: It would have been nice.
Speaker 2: I think a lot of people would have been interested
Speaker 2: in it.
Speaker 1: It would have been niche and CULTI but having real
Speaker 1: money and experience and talent behind something representing the punk
Speaker 1: scene at that time would have been monumental.
Speaker 2: Honestly. I would love I would love to have seen
Speaker 2: like I would have loved if this magazine had taken
Speaker 2: off and we could see, like I'm just imagining all
Speaker 2: the cool photos and interviews and like, how badass this
Speaker 2: magazine could have been.
Speaker 1: Yeah, just when you see if you were to watch
Speaker 1: that doc some a couple of these clubs are basically
Speaker 1: holes in.
Speaker 2: The wall, empty warehouse space.
Speaker 1: People that came through there that ended up turning into legends.
Speaker 1: I mean, it's just mind.
Speaker 2: Boggling to see these young artists.
Speaker 1: Where was the one place where Jane's Addiction was basically
Speaker 1: the house band?
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, I can't remember the name of the little club,
Speaker 2: but yeah.
Speaker 1: So you, as a young person could pop up at
Speaker 1: this cool little spot you're hearing about and see a
Speaker 1: young Jane's Addiction who was basically the house band for
Speaker 1: quite some time there. I mean, are you kidding me?
Speaker 2: Exactly?
Speaker 1: Oh wow?
Speaker 2: Super cool. Now, Larry's legal troubles are far from over.
Speaker 2: Penthouse magazine publisher Bob Guccione was married to a woman
Speaker 2: named Kathy Keaton, and Kathy Keaton sued Larry for defamation
Speaker 2: because the nineteen seventy six issue of Hustler contained a
Speaker 2: cartoon of Kathy implying that her husband, Bob, had given
Speaker 2: her an STD Oh damn. Now the case was dismissed
Speaker 2: when it was revealed that Bob had in fact given
Speaker 2: his wife a venereal disease.
Speaker 1: So it's not slander, right.
Speaker 2: Right, So it's not defamation because it was fact Kathy's
Speaker 2: first suit ended up being thrown out of court, one
Speaker 2: because it was factual, and two because by the time
Speaker 2: she filed this lawsuit in the eighties, the statute of
Speaker 2: limitations had expired.
Speaker 1: Well, yeah, I mean you could argue that, hey, it
Speaker 1: was actual, that was satirical that. I mean, I'm sure
Speaker 1: you'd come at that from ten different director, ten different.
Speaker 2: Ways, right, And I don't know why, but it's kind
Speaker 2: of funny to me, Like people suing because somebody dunked
Speaker 2: on them.
Speaker 1: Yeah, because it's a crude cartoons, Like, so what.
Speaker 2: You got owned? Because like the more a person insists
Speaker 2: something isn't true, the more it makes them look like
Speaker 2: it is. And they're like you know what I'm saying.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, Like the more you deny it, then what
Speaker 2: it actually makes you look guilty or like, no, it's
Speaker 2: the truth.
Speaker 1: Well, and you certainly make a bigger deal a mountain
Speaker 1: out of a molehill, and way more people hear about
Speaker 1: it than it's right, the few people who knew who
Speaker 1: you were when they read the cartoon in the magazine, right.
Speaker 2: So like, yeah, you might have a few thousand people
Speaker 2: who read it and are like whatever, But then when
Speaker 2: you make this big fuss about it. It's like you
Speaker 2: want the whole world to know, and then they all
Speaker 2: find out that this is the true I mean, come
Speaker 2: on anyway, Like, come on, Kathy, you got dumped on.
Speaker 2: Take it now. She ended up suing Larry in New Hampshire.
Speaker 2: And here's the thing. Hustler wasn't published in New Hampshire,
Speaker 2: and that's not where Larry resided. But she didn't reside
Speaker 2: in New Hampshire either. She specifically picked New Hampshire because
Speaker 2: they sold Hustler there and had the longest statute of limitations,
Speaker 2: which was six years, so she would be within the
Speaker 2: window to sue him there. And New Hampshire ultimately threw
Speaker 2: the case out of court as well, but then Kathy
Speaker 2: took it to Federal Court and eventually all the way
Speaker 2: to the Supreme Court.
Speaker 1: So at this point she spent a considerable amount of
Speaker 1: money on attorney fees alone.
Speaker 2: To look really stupid, and.
Speaker 1: Political capital or social capital certainly, to look stupid, just.
Speaker 2: So everyone could find out that, like, hey, guess what
Speaker 2: like so.
Speaker 1: We can have a Matt Locke moment, she.
Speaker 2: Had the crowds or whatever, I don't like. So he
Speaker 2: gave her the clap. I mean, I don't I'm not
Speaker 2: sure what he gave her, but I'm just saying.
Speaker 1: Yeah, So matt Lock's a one moment, ma'am. And the
Speaker 1: door is sling open and a big crab comes down
Speaker 1: the afice. Oh gosh, yeah, that's the big Matlock moment.
Speaker 2: When Larry showed up in Washington, d C. He was
Speaker 2: hell bent on representing himself in the courtroom. There was
Speaker 2: a lawyer that had been appointed to represent Larry, and
Speaker 2: this made him really mad. How does that go? So
Speaker 2: I'm just curious, does Kathy show up with photos of
Speaker 2: like her healthy genitals, like see, look there's no discharge. Like,
Speaker 2: I know it's silly, but look if one of my
Speaker 2: haters said there has an STD, like, I'm not even
Speaker 2: gonna be mad because I'm just like, it's so lame.
Speaker 1: The people's exhibit of clean.
Speaker 2: I mean, a lot of people have or get STDs, right,
Speaker 2: I mean, it's not like it happens. It's uncommon. It's like,
Speaker 2: what one in every four people get something or has
Speaker 2: something right.
Speaker 1: Oh my god, do I have something? Satistically, So if
Speaker 1: there's two more people in this room with us one,
Speaker 1: you're probably ate up I'm not up.
Speaker 2: Well, you do have a big old' herpie on your
Speaker 2: lips sometimes?
Speaker 1: Well no, but I've had that since I was a kid.
Speaker 1: So you're saying I was a little kid whore. I mean,
Speaker 1: what are you talking about? A little kid slut.
Speaker 2: I'm not sure what you're weird.
Speaker 1: That's your thought, that's your thought. We're describing where you
Speaker 1: let us you're weird. No, anyway, you're trying to bring
Speaker 1: out my fever blisters. Okay out here.
Speaker 2: Yeah, eighty five or whatever.
Speaker 1: My lawyers will be contacting your team and we'll see
Speaker 1: where this actually goes in court whatever.
Speaker 2: I have them to bro, I've had them since I
Speaker 2: was a kid, and who knows where I know call
Speaker 2: them from, because like both my parents have cold cold
Speaker 2: stores or fever blisters or whatever you want to call them.
Speaker 1: Right, I mean, now I have to say a lot of.
Speaker 2: People have the mouth herps. It's fine.
Speaker 1: It's a thousand wonders that I never did catch anything.
Speaker 1: I can tell you that, So I mean maybe there
Speaker 1: is a god.
Speaker 2: Oh, so you are admitting that you were like a
Speaker 2: big old, crusty chapter slut. Is that what you're telling me?
Speaker 1: A crusty lip slut.
Speaker 2: What is that crusty lip.
Speaker 1: Car mix all over my body?
Speaker 2: Now, Dyle, I'm confused because you say this and I
Speaker 2: know you're joking, because deep down we both know that
Speaker 2: that little guy, he needs a lot of encouragement to
Speaker 2: like work.
Speaker 1: He has to know you. Yes, Oh no, I will.
Speaker 2: Say, your penis needs to have a deeply personal relationship
Speaker 2: with someone before he decides to like pull out in
Speaker 2: the direct and start like fancying hello exactly. Otherwise he's
Speaker 2: just hiding before he's the WB frog. It's just hiding. Yes.
Speaker 1: Now, I attempted at times in my life when I
Speaker 1: was going to be single man and you know, tear
Speaker 1: it up. I tempted one night stands.
Speaker 2: I tempted things like you left a trail of disappointment.
Speaker 1: I left a trail of awkward.
Speaker 2: I've heard some of the stories from you, Dylan, sound
Speaker 2: very disappoint.
Speaker 1: The women because they're just trying to hook up. You
Speaker 1: know how it is when you go out to a bar.
Speaker 2: Just now, I don't because I'm not a big old whore.
Speaker 1: You're a damn lie. You're a damn lie.
Speaker 2: Oh now you're calling your what are you saying about
Speaker 2: your wife?
Speaker 1: Yeah? I know, well it's true.
Speaker 2: What are you implying, Dylan, I'm a lady motherfucker who
Speaker 2: I'm fighting words.
Speaker 1: Anyway, let's get back to the story. Okay, I won't
Speaker 1: get too deep into this.
Speaker 2: Hey, I ain't never caught nothing either, but my.
Speaker 1: My area is healthy, it's pristine.
Speaker 2: So, like Kathy, I could bring in pictures of my
Speaker 2: very healthy parts and be like, see, look, there ain't
Speaker 2: no sores or nothing. There ain't no cankers or nothing.
Speaker 1: On there no crotch cankers.
Speaker 2: Now, okay, so we've got cat. Yes, we actually have. Kathy.
Speaker 2: So her husband gave her an.
Speaker 1: STD, which is unfortunate.
Speaker 2: So again it's even more kind of silly that she's
Speaker 2: dragging this thing out.
Speaker 1: She knows what happened, she knows that she had to
Speaker 1: get some palicillum. Like, bro, just let it go, Kathy, Yeah,
Speaker 1: just take your shot. What the fuck, go down to
Speaker 1: your local health bok.
Speaker 2: Again, Larry, they're trying they're trying to force Larry to
Speaker 2: take legal advice and legal representation, and Larry is like
Speaker 2: pissed off about the whole situation, and then this lawyer thing.
Speaker 2: It just makes him really mad and he actually screams
Speaker 2: from the audience at the Supreme Court justices quote, you're
Speaker 2: nothing but eight assholes and a token cunt. Damn because
Speaker 2: Sandra Day O'Connor had recently been appointed to the highest court.
Speaker 2: So Sandra was indeed the token kunt and you know,
Speaker 2: the first woman appointed to the Supreme Court. Own it girl.
Speaker 1: He screamed this from the crowd out open Supreme Court.
Speaker 2: Oh yes he did. Wow. Larry was held in contemptive court.
Speaker 2: They took him to the like back area because they
Speaker 2: didn't have a holding cell or anything like that, so
Speaker 2: they have to like take him to this little like
Speaker 2: area to like, you know, hold him. He's in contempt.
Speaker 2: Larry needed to go to the bathroom, but they did
Speaker 2: not have a handicap stall available.
Speaker 1: Oh wow.
Speaker 2: They decided they would have to transport Larry to a
Speaker 2: nearby hospital in order for him to use a handicap bathroom.
Speaker 2: But then they ran into the problem that there was
Speaker 2: not a vehicle available for transporting Larry and his wheelchair
Speaker 2: to the hospital to use the bathroom. And I'm just
Speaker 2: imagining in the meantime, Larry's over here, like you know,
Speaker 2: I gotta take a whiz or he had Mexican and
Speaker 2: he's just like, oh god, you know, he's doing Lama's breathing,
Speaker 2: like trying to hold this in like I don't know,
Speaker 2: I don't know what's going on, but it's but it's
Speaker 2: like a whole thing.
Speaker 3: Well.
Speaker 1: It's also pointing out that even if at this point
Speaker 1: I know that the what is it, the.
Speaker 2: Uh hey, we need some American with Disabilities Act. Yeah,
Speaker 2: you need to make this the Supreme Court handicap accessible, right.
Speaker 1: Yeah, this is pointing out that everything you've been saying
Speaker 1: about all this stuff is basically lip service because at
Speaker 1: the highest parts of our government and our system, we
Speaker 1: don't even have a damn handicap bathroom or wheelchair accessibility.
Speaker 2: Somebody get this span of portable toilet. Okay. So Larry
Speaker 2: is like, Okay, problem solved. We can take my limo
Speaker 2: to the hospital, you know, otherwise I'm just gonna ship
Speaker 2: my pants right here. And at that point it was
Speaker 2: this whole production. So they agreed that Larry could take
Speaker 2: his limo to the hospital in order to use the
Speaker 2: handicap bathroom that's right now. While on his way back
Speaker 2: from the hospital, Larry decided he needed a clothing change,
Speaker 2: you know, Larry's a very fashionable guy, and though he's
Speaker 2: wearing a suit to court, he decides to take off
Speaker 2: his like dress shirt, his suit's dress shirt, and he
Speaker 2: changes into a custom made T shirt that says fuck
Speaker 2: this Court in huge black lettering. Wow, and I have
Speaker 2: a photo. I will post it on Instagram. It's a
Speaker 2: pretty great photo. Now, when he returns back to this
Speaker 2: like holding area, the marshals tell him, like, you cannot
Speaker 2: wear that into the courtroom. But Larry's like, fuck, yeah,
Speaker 2: I can. Who's stopping me.
Speaker 1: This free speech bud?
Speaker 2: And they tell him no, and Larry said like, well,
Speaker 2: I'm sorry, I don't have another shirt to change into.
Speaker 2: Is this or nothing? It's this or I'm naked. And
Speaker 2: they said fine, but you have to wear your jacket
Speaker 2: over it, your sports coat. But when he's seated back
Speaker 2: in the courtroom, Larry removes the jacket. So he's seated
Speaker 2: in front of the Supreme Court wearing this T shirt
Speaker 2: and it's just an indescribable scene. Right, it says fuck
Speaker 2: this Court. But you know, Larry was exercising his First
Speaker 2: Amendment right. And I also forgot to mention above the
Speaker 2: lettering fuck this Court. There's also a drawing like a doodle,
Speaker 2: if you will, of a penis oozing semen onto the lettering.
Speaker 1: Oh my god, hey, like you can take this T
Speaker 1: shirt that says fuck this court in the early this
Speaker 1: is what early eighties. Yes, this early eighties America is
Speaker 1: still rather conservative throughout the entire country, especially when it
Speaker 1: comes to obscenity and things like that in public. And
Speaker 1: the only way you could ever elevate a shirt like
Speaker 1: that is said penis oozing its hot load out onto
Speaker 1: the leather lettering.
Speaker 2: Yes, I mean, Dylan, it's twenty twenty six, and we
Speaker 2: still have people clutching their pearls when they hear us
Speaker 2: say fuck on this part.
Speaker 1: It's true.
Speaker 2: So I can only imagine back then kind of hoop
Speaker 2: law if you will, the hullabaloo this caused. Also, I
Speaker 2: was thinking, maybe we need some merch that says fuck
Speaker 2: this court, or I don't know, maybe a shirt that
Speaker 2: says fuck this podcast.
Speaker 1: Okay, yeah, yeah, I would wear that. I'd wear it.
Speaker 5: Well.
Speaker 2: Kathy Keaton ended up winning the lawsuit and was awarded
Speaker 2: two million dollars. Really, yes, so the Larry story is
Speaker 2: about to take another.
Speaker 1: Ou See that's crazy, I know, because it sounds to
Speaker 1: me like he pissed the justices off and they found
Speaker 1: a you know, ruled against him outside of law and precedent.
Speaker 2: Well, don't worry, Dylan, this is not the last time
Speaker 2: that Larry will sit before the Supreme Court.
Speaker 1: I mean it's almost like they were hell bent on
Speaker 1: him taking an l in court, no matter what that was.
Speaker 2: Okay, So Larry's story is about to take a turn,
Speaker 2: and I have to say, Dylan, it is the most
Speaker 2: nineteen eighties turn ever. Are you familiar with John Deloorian?
Speaker 1: I am? Okay, the Filled Car Company.
Speaker 2: Well, there you go. John Delorian, like Larry Flint, was
Speaker 2: one of the most colorful and controversial figures, and not
Speaker 2: just automotive history, but I would wager to say American history.
Speaker 2: He's a pop culture icon. At least his car, the
Speaker 2: DeLorean is. He was a celebrated engineer, like an engineering
Speaker 2: executive at General Motors, and he created the futuristic DeLorean
Speaker 2: sports car. His ambition was to build his own automobile
Speaker 2: company with a sports car that was beyond anything Detroit
Speaker 2: was producing at the time, with the.
Speaker 1: Gold wing doors, the stainless steel body.
Speaker 2: Why are you jumping ahead, ma'm oh?
Speaker 1: I'm sorry.
Speaker 2: The DMC twelve was a stainless still body, a wedge
Speaker 2: shaped car with gold wing doors dn't and underneath the
Speaker 2: hood was a two point eight to five liter PRVV
Speaker 2: six which was developed by Puijo, Renault in Volvo, which
Speaker 2: are all European car companies.
Speaker 1: Oh wow, they all like joined.
Speaker 2: Forces to create this, you know, this engine or whatever.
Speaker 2: Production began in dun Murray, which is near Belfast, Ireland,
Speaker 2: in nineteen eighty one, but unfortunately the timing was not
Speaker 2: good and the car ended up costing about twenty five
Speaker 2: thousand dollars, which in nineteen eighty one was considered expensive,
Speaker 2: putting it into the luxury car territory. The early cars
Speaker 2: had quality control problems and performance didn't quite live up
Speaker 2: to the like exotic appearance of the car.
Speaker 1: No, that's the thing. It looks fast, it looks sexy,
Speaker 1: but it's actually a lumbering. It doesn't live up to expectations.
Speaker 2: Well that's exactly what I just said, But thank you
Speaker 2: for man spinning. I'm I'm going to compare it to
Speaker 2: like the band Kiss. You see them and you're like,
Speaker 2: fuck yeah, this is going to be hard as fuck.
Speaker 1: YEA face off and then they're like, well, can look.
Speaker 2: I love Kiss, and I'm not downing the boys right
Speaker 2: because I love some ace freely. I want to be
Speaker 2: in a New York groove. Kiss has its place, but
Speaker 2: I mean, come on, they look way cooler than their
Speaker 2: their music sounds.
Speaker 1: Their music's way softer than they appear, and people back
Speaker 1: in the day parents were just like, oh my god,
Speaker 1: kiss that means not to shade and service, and you're like,
Speaker 1: have you actually listened to the songs because it's pretty.
Speaker 2: My dad and his brother shared her room, my dad
Speaker 2: and my uncle, and up until my grandparents passed away,
Speaker 2: there was a big like around. It was a circular
Speaker 2: kiss sticker. Oh yeah, in the back of the bedroom
Speaker 2: closet door.
Speaker 1: I wish we had that now. It'd be awesome, asked.
Speaker 2: My actual what she did with it when she inherited
Speaker 2: the house. But yeah, anyway, I just remember my nana
Speaker 2: because as a kid, I was like, kissed, you know, yeah, Nana, no,
Speaker 2: and my nana being like, that stands for nats and
Speaker 2: Satan's service, and I was.
Speaker 1: Like, hm, no, it does.
Speaker 2: Linda Gale, I don't think so, but all right, anyway,
Speaker 2: Nanny was convinced it was Deevil's music.
Speaker 1: Well between Jean's tongue and the face paint, and.
Speaker 2: They wanted to rock and roll all night and party
Speaker 2: every day.
Speaker 1: And the big boots, I mean they in order to
Speaker 1: think of it, they have big boots. I know you do.
Speaker 2: I think I actually have a pair of kiss boots.
Speaker 1: I'm sure you do have stars on them.
Speaker 2: They're pretty stompy. Anyway, sales plummeted and the DeLorean company
Speaker 2: burned through cash. It's a disaster.
Speaker 1: Well yeah, I mean him going overseas with his production
Speaker 1: to get outside of the big three in Detroit and
Speaker 1: the markets here in America and their influences. Actually, all
Speaker 1: he did was create an expensive luxury import that did
Speaker 1: not live up to its specs and to all the hype.
Speaker 2: And perhaps we have some younger listeners out there who
Speaker 2: as we're describing the Dolorean, they still are like, what
Speaker 2: the fuck are y'all talking about? It sounds like a
Speaker 2: gross cyber truck or something with the goal wing doors
Speaker 2: and stuff. It's the back to the future car.
Speaker 1: Yes, if surely you've seen at least a poster for
Speaker 1: Back to the future, you know the concept of back
Speaker 1: to the future that's certainly.
Speaker 2: Look and if you're a young person and you're you're
Speaker 2: sitting there like heathern zul and I have not seen
Speaker 2: back to the future. I'm very disappointed in you. And
Speaker 2: you have homework.
Speaker 1: You need to watch those watch all three of them.
Speaker 1: Why not are you in there? McFly?
Speaker 2: Okay, okay. So then the cocaine happens. By nineteen eighty two,
Speaker 2: his company, Delorean's company, was hemorrhaging cash. Delorian became involved
Speaker 2: with this guy named James Hoffman, who was secretly cooperating
Speaker 2: with federal authorities during the FBI sting. Delorian was secretly
Speaker 2: recorded to using a cocaine transaction supposedly worth tens of
Speaker 2: millions of dollars.
Speaker 1: He was desperate to get cash to keep his company afloat.
Speaker 2: In October of nineteen eighty two, Delaurian was arrested in
Speaker 2: a Los Angeles hotel room after agents produced a suitcase
Speaker 2: full of cocaine. So now he's charged with conspiring to
Speaker 2: distribute cocaine. And it was a sensational story. However, there
Speaker 2: was a problem. And this is where Larry gets involved,
Speaker 2: because you're probably like, what does John Dolurian, what could
Speaker 2: that possibly, how could that relate to Larry Flints.
Speaker 1: Now this part I do not know, So I'm very
Speaker 1: interested to hear this.
Speaker 2: Well, I'm about to educate you. Dylan. An anonymous sore
Speaker 2: sent Larry the videotape that showed the sting operation. Oh wow,
Speaker 2: so evidence, and it revealed what the FBI had done
Speaker 2: was entrapment. The tape implicated the FBI agent was not
Speaker 2: only responsible for supplying cocaine to DeLorean, but the undercovers
Speaker 2: had like coerced de Laurian into selling it in the
Speaker 2: first place. Yeah, or tried to encourage him to sell it.
Speaker 1: This is the FBI handbook. How many times, how many situations,
Speaker 1: how many huge stories in our history as a country
Speaker 1: have they done this very thing?
Speaker 2: Cough cough, Ruby Ridge cough cough. Okay, Well, they didn't
Speaker 2: have any real proof that John Delaurian was selling cocaine,
Speaker 2: and so the whole thing, I mean, it's just like
Speaker 2: suspicious the FBI set him up. The tape in Larry's
Speaker 2: possession ended up being broadcast on Sixty Minutes Why, which
Speaker 2: at the time was like an enormously popular show book,
Speaker 2: and like everybody watched sixty Minutes and this caused a
Speaker 2: media uproar. People were like, what the hell is going
Speaker 2: on with the government, the FBI.
Speaker 1: Isn't it crazy to think back when these large news
Speaker 1: shows and organizations newspapers actually did investigative journalism.
Speaker 2: Oh, they weren't just like ainion and propaganda.
Speaker 1: Machines and they would drop a dime, they would bust
Speaker 1: these huge stories.
Speaker 2: And objective journalism.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, because that's damn rip and that scare you
Speaker 1: because that is so important for a truly healthy, functioning society.
Speaker 2: I agree, Dylan. All I ever wanted to be from
Speaker 2: the time I was a little, just a little sprout
Speaker 2: with my little toe head run ground. I wanted to
Speaker 2: be a reporter. I wanted to be a journalist, and
Speaker 2: I would make little fake newspapers and interview my neighbors
Speaker 2: and write articles and then try to sell my newspaper
Speaker 2: to my parents for like a quarter. Yeah, it's all
Speaker 2: I ever wanted to be. So yeah, I find it
Speaker 2: deeply disappointing that we don't really have news anymore, that
Speaker 2: it's all just pop propaganda and it's bullshit. It is,
Speaker 2: but it's like biased and they don't present a true story,
Speaker 2: and it's just ridiculous. What passes as news today.
Speaker 1: It's entertainment, right, entertainment news. But the one bright spot
Speaker 1: we'll get back to it. But the one bright spot
Speaker 1: is with the this billing journals, the citizen journal journalist online,
Speaker 1: and I mean.
Speaker 2: Surely is probably like some kind of sip or whatever,
Speaker 2: but he's probably a fed but like I mean, at
Speaker 2: least he seems to be kind of doing a bit
Speaker 2: of that. And of course you have podcasters and grounded
Speaker 2: News is a really good They need to support our show,
Speaker 2: but they kind of like, let you know, hey, this
Speaker 2: is real, this is crap. Read this, don't read this right. Well,
Speaker 2: there's another audio tape that Larry got his hands on,
Speaker 2: but it wasn't very clear because it's like a cassette tape.
Speaker 2: The technology back then, I mean, obviously cassette players. You're
Speaker 2: recording a conversation, it's kind of shitty, staticky.
Speaker 1: Well, especially if you try, if you make recordings of
Speaker 1: the recording rush shit like that.
Speaker 2: So there's this audio tape that Larry has and it's
Speaker 2: just kind of floating around out there, but it also
Speaker 2: is evidence in this Dolorean case. So the judge presiding
Speaker 2: over the case ordered Larry to produce the tape, which
Speaker 2: had mysteriously gone missing according to Larry, and that Larry
Speaker 2: was to appear in court, but Larry refused to do so.
Speaker 2: Larry was arrested because he's like, I'm not coming to court.
Speaker 2: I'm not revealing my source and I'm not handing over
Speaker 2: the tape like I'm protected as a journalist or whatever.
Speaker 2: So Larry's arrested, but still he resists. Larry was like,
Speaker 2: you know, fuck you, You're not getting the tape. He
Speaker 2: refused to give up the source, like he's just doubling down.
Speaker 2: The more this judge is like, I'm gonna punish you,
Speaker 2: the more Larry's like, I'm ready smack me, big daddy,
Speaker 2: step on me. Yeah, okay. So journalist's ability to protect
Speaker 2: confidential sources is often known as like a journalist's privilege
Speaker 2: or a reporter's privilege. In the United States, it is
Speaker 2: not an absolute right, and the level of protection depends
Speaker 2: heavily on whether the case involves state or federal law.
Speaker 2: And since this is a federal case, obviously the judge
Speaker 2: is like, yeah, you don't have you don't have that,
Speaker 2: you don't have protections. Oh shit, right when Larry argued
Speaker 2: about his right to protect his source. The judge ordered
Speaker 2: him in contempt of court and find him ten thousand
Speaker 2: dollars a day for every day he did not produce
Speaker 2: the tape. Damn and now always true to himself, Larry
Speaker 2: pulls a number from the old playbook and he decides
Speaker 2: he's gonna pay his fines in one dollar bills. So
Speaker 2: what does he do. He brings in one dollar bills
Speaker 2: ten thousand one dollar bills and just dumps them out
Speaker 2: in the courtroom like out of a garbage bag, like
Speaker 2: here you go, fine.
Speaker 1: Paid, dude.
Speaker 2: He's such a like back in the day when he
Speaker 2: rolled the pennies into the bank.
Speaker 1: Yeah, something the pt Barnhum element of Larry the showman.
Speaker 1: Oh he's a showman, right, but it's really smart and
Speaker 1: and shrewd actually, because back then with the limited you know,
Speaker 1: news outlets and things like that, just making this big spectacle,
Speaker 1: it would be everywhere. It'd be in all the newspapers,
Speaker 1: all the major news shows, everyone would be talking about
Speaker 1: something like this.
Speaker 2: Well, the following day, Larry was scheduled to be photographed
Speaker 2: by famed photographer Annie Lebovitz and in these food in
Speaker 2: these photos, Larry is nude draped in an American flag.
Speaker 2: Because Libavitz is known for like, you know, pushing the envelope.
Speaker 2: These very uh, I guess you could say editorial, very
Speaker 2: stylized photos portraits.
Speaker 1: Okay, right.
Speaker 2: One of my favorites is of the portraits she did
Speaker 2: of Meryl Streep where she's just like wearing this white
Speaker 2: face makeup. It's really cool. Anyway, So Larry's due to
Speaker 2: reappear in court that same that he's got this photo
Speaker 2: shoot scheduled. So he decides, well, he's got a little
Speaker 2: something of his sleeve, right, so he decides he's gonna
Speaker 2: take this flag with him. Larry rolls the flag up
Speaker 2: and you know, rolls into court in his wheelchair and
Speaker 2: he's wearing the American flag fashioned as a diaper.
Speaker 1: Now, this is one of the scenes I remember from
Speaker 1: the movie.
Speaker 2: I was just gonna say, Dylan, if you've seen The
Speaker 2: People Versus Larry Flint, this is one of the like
Speaker 2: probably most widely known scenes from that movie. Is Woody
Speaker 2: Harrelson wearing the American flag as a diaper and Larry
Speaker 2: actually did that.
Speaker 1: I mean, the balls on this guy, Well, I should.
Speaker 2: Can imagine this was outrageous and people were not happy,
Speaker 2: including the judge. Larry ended up speaking with the judge
Speaker 2: without incident, but on his way out of the courtroom,
Speaker 2: Larry was arrested for desecrating the flag. During the arraignment
Speaker 2: for this flag charge, Larry had an outburst in court
Speaker 2: and this caused him to be sentenced to a fifteen
Speaker 2: months stay in a psychiatric facility.
Speaker 1: Damn, so he's.
Speaker 2: Been pushing his leg a little too.
Speaker 1: Much, Dyne, Maybe you could have done without the flag stunt.
Speaker 2: In nineteen eighty three, Larry underwent surgery which would alleviate
Speaker 2: the chronic pain he had had since being shot. And
Speaker 2: it is successful, you.
Speaker 1: Said ninety three, eighty three? Eighty three.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm sorry, I thought I said eighty three. But
Speaker 2: in eighty three, so he undergoes with surgery and so finally,
Speaker 2: like for the first time in years, Larry is able
Speaker 2: to like function with you know, pain free, without all
Speaker 2: out the tripioids. Yes. Now, that same year, Larry decided
Speaker 2: to shock the masses with the ultimate publicity stunt to
Speaker 2: promote his new magazine. It's a news magazine called Rebel.
Speaker 2: Larry threw his hat in the ring to run for
Speaker 2: President of the United States. So in December's nineteen eighty
Speaker 2: three issue, Larry appeared wearing a Larry Flint for President
Speaker 2: campaign t shirt with a big caption that says, who
Speaker 2: will be our next president? Now? All the while he
Speaker 2: is still locked up at this psychiatric facility. While he's
Speaker 2: doing all of this, really, yes, he Now, in this
Speaker 2: December issue he calls out President Ronald Reagan and calls
Speaker 2: him quote a dumb, fascist, bigoted motherfucker. Well, Larry, I
Speaker 2: might hate to tell you, but just hold your horses,
Speaker 2: because a lot of people will will have more to
Speaker 2: say in a few, you know, decades about another president. Now,
Speaker 2: when Larry is finally released from the facility, which by
Speaker 2: the way, he does not have to spend the entire
Speaker 2: fifteen months in the facility, he is released early, Larry
Speaker 2: takes it upon himself to send every member of Congress,
Speaker 2: every Senator, and the Supreme Court justices subscriptions to Hustler Magazine.
Speaker 1: Nice, yeah, what, I bet more than one to him
Speaker 1: up on And by the way, I.
Speaker 2: Checked into it. And you can actually get yourself a
Speaker 2: year subscription to Hustler Magazine for like eight ninety nine.
Speaker 1: For the physical magazine. Pretty sure, Yeah, eight dollars ninety
Speaker 1: nine cents.
Speaker 2: I was thinking we should get we should get.
Speaker 1: A subscription due we should just keep a stack of
Speaker 1: hustlers on the coffee table when people come home. Yeah,
Speaker 1: people be like, what the fuck?
Speaker 2: Well, I was thinking we could also gift subscriptions WO
Speaker 2: to my dad.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that'd be sweet.
Speaker 2: Maybe one to your mom. Your mom would probably think
Speaker 2: it was funny.
Speaker 1: She would now.
Speaker 2: By fall of nineteen eighty three, Althea is experiencing serious
Speaker 2: health problems. She was addicted to drugs, yes, but Larry
Speaker 2: felt like there's more to her declining health, right, so
Speaker 2: he urges her. You know, Althea, I don't think it's
Speaker 2: just the drug use, Like, you really need to go
Speaker 2: see a doctor. After a series of tests were performed,
Speaker 2: it was determined that Althea had contracted AIDS. Oh shit,
Speaker 2: AIDS in the nineteen eighties was a death sentence, and
Speaker 2: as we know, the AIDS at pandemic of the nineteen
Speaker 2: eighties was both a medical catastrophe and a profound social
Speaker 2: and political crisis. People were initially dying from a disease
Speaker 2: that doctors didn't yet understand, and many institutions were painfully
Speaker 2: slow to respond. Tens of thousands of Americans died from
Speaker 2: AIDS during the decade, and it was a global epidemic.
Speaker 1: You know, some people say that the main medicine they
Speaker 1: were prescribing back then were actually killing people.
Speaker 2: Does that surprise you?
Speaker 1: And guess who had a big hand in this epidemic?
Speaker 1: Faulci Fauci wasn't it?
Speaker 2: Was it Fauci?
Speaker 1: Like I thought, so I cannot.
Speaker 2: I'm pretty sure it was him.
Speaker 1: I plead the fifth. I want to reserve my right to.
Speaker 2: Sell your diary. Kim Kardashian, he's my friend. Yes, fucking
Speaker 2: piece of shit guy anyway.
Speaker 1: But yes, it was Fauci. But yeah, I mean at
Speaker 1: Dallas Buyers Club that.
Speaker 2: If you watch that movie is so o moving, visceral,
Speaker 2: very tragic. I mean, it's like a movie that really
Speaker 2: like left the mark on me.
Speaker 1: But it's true. People were trying to circumvent.
Speaker 2: The Ryan White story.
Speaker 1: Trying to circumvent the America's system to get these access
Speaker 1: to these other medicines that people who took them claimed
Speaker 1: had a lot more healthier impact on the disease.
Speaker 2: And that's what I guess today. I understand they're like
Speaker 2: medications and it's not a death sentence in twenty twenty six.
Speaker 2: But the fact that the HIV doesn't even come up anymore.
Speaker 2: Know that when you're talking about safe sex and you know,
Speaker 2: birth control options and protections, like, people don't even mention
Speaker 2: HIV venereal disease. And I know we've discussed this before,
Speaker 2: but just we grew up watching people die. I mean
Speaker 2: we you know, I knew people who died of AIDS
Speaker 2: when I was a kid. Right, It's just mind blowing
Speaker 2: to me that it's not part of the conversation. I mean,
Speaker 2: fifty percent of the population in Atlanta, Georgia has HIV.
Speaker 2: It's got like one of the highest rates of HIV
Speaker 2: in the country.
Speaker 1: That's crazy.
Speaker 2: Yet what's being done about it.
Speaker 1: Nobody even talks.
Speaker 2: Nobody even talks about it. It's like not a big deal.
Speaker 2: And I just don't I can't understand that they.
Speaker 1: Just show prep commercials if you're poor enough to have
Speaker 1: ads on your streaming service, which is true, which it's crazy, dude.
Speaker 1: So we've been trying to trim our streaming because everybody
Speaker 1: knows it's out of control, the pricing if you have
Speaker 1: multiple ones. I mean, now what's the difference than me
Speaker 1: having a cable bill. I mean, it's all that.
Speaker 2: Well not only that, but I just feel like they're
Speaker 2: not updating content, They're not fast enough, and like some
Speaker 2: of these services, especially the ones that seem to charge
Speaker 2: most money, Like I don't know, Netflix are the stalist.
Speaker 2: It's like the same shows that have been on there
Speaker 2: for ten years, the same movies that have been on
Speaker 2: there for ten years.
Speaker 1: It's true, like toob is fresher than fucking Netflix. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and it's free. But anyway, so we're ending up with
Speaker 1: the lower tiers the ads and some are more aggravating.
Speaker 2: I don't even care because it's like I'm so bored
Speaker 2: with like streaming anyway. Yeah, I know that I don't
Speaker 2: even care to watch the prep commercial over or or
Speaker 2: the psoriasis medication commercial.
Speaker 1: That's what's crazy. That's the only people paying for this
Speaker 1: advertisements are is the pharmaceutical industry. Yeah, and it's really
Speaker 1: weird to me.
Speaker 2: It reminds me I need to check my A one
Speaker 2: C right you too? Now, althea getting this diagnosis, you know,
Speaker 2: she felt hopeless and she just snds further into a
Speaker 2: drug spiral.
Speaker 1: Well, I could I could see that from her point
Speaker 1: of view, like, why does even matter? Now? I'm gonna die.
Speaker 2: November of nineteen eighty three, Hustler decided to run a
Speaker 2: satirical like parody advertisement mocking televangelist and conservative activist Jerry Folwell.
Speaker 1: Wow, they were always around the edge of all these
Speaker 1: big things happening in our society. Okay, I mean growing up,
Speaker 1: I remember all this stuff, right, well, yeah, Fallwell and
Speaker 1: the Bakers and all that stuff.
Speaker 2: That's one reason why I like, I mean, there's a
Speaker 2: lot of reasons why I thought we should cover Larry
Speaker 2: Flint's story. He's a hillbilly, he's from the mountains.
Speaker 1: There's an assassination a time.
Speaker 2: But there's just so much and I mean, honestly, you know,
Speaker 2: you can be like, oh, he's just a snut pellar,
Speaker 2: but he's so much more than that, and he really
Speaker 2: has led one of the most fascinating lives I think. Right, So,
Speaker 2: this ad was a parody of a real Campari campaign
Speaker 2: ad that featured celebrities like being interviewed about their first
Speaker 2: time drinking the beverage.
Speaker 1: From what I understand, okay.
Speaker 2: The ad featured a picture of a young Jerry Folwell
Speaker 2: discussing his first time, but it's incest with his mother.
Speaker 1: Oh my god.
Speaker 2: Jerry Fallwell was displeased with this joke. Not only did
Speaker 2: the ad insinuate that he was drinking campari in an outhouse,
Speaker 2: but that he also was having sex with his mother.
Speaker 1: What is campari?
Speaker 2: It's some sort of liquor spirit. It's a beverage, dylin. Okay,
Speaker 2: it's an alcoholic beverage. I have no idea because I
Speaker 2: don't drink it, and I don't even know anybody who.
Speaker 1: Drinks CAMPARKI I've never even heard of it.
Speaker 2: Think it's kind of a thing of the past, right,
Speaker 2: But I'm sure you can go to some hipster bar
Speaker 2: and they'll try to give you some like campari with
Speaker 2: like a side.
Speaker 1: Of activated charcoal and like a.
Speaker 2: Basil ice cube or something.
Speaker 5: Yeah, you have to blow through this stick into the
Speaker 5: drink to activate the little gold fishing side.
Speaker 1: What are you doing, man, The chemistry's not even done, dude.
Speaker 1: You gotta let that drink breathe for like forty five
Speaker 1: minutes before you drink it.
Speaker 2: Okay, moving along time, So, Jerry Folwell filed a forty
Speaker 2: five million dollar lawsuit against Larry Flint and Hustler magazine.
Speaker 2: Fallwell seued Larry for libel, using his image without consent
Speaker 2: and causing emotional distress. Now this is this is again.
Speaker 2: If something embarrasses you, why do you go to great
Speaker 2: links to let even more people know about this humiliating
Speaker 2: thing that embarrasses you? Because Jerry Folwell sent photocopies of
Speaker 2: the parody to one million of his quote prayer partners.
Speaker 1: Okay, okay, that makes sense. Yeah well, And honestly, someone
Speaker 1: like Fallwell, he was a fucking sleeze bag. I always thought,
Speaker 1: even as a young person, he seemed gross to me,
Speaker 1: and he certainly didn't seem to be a true man
Speaker 1: of God or anything like that. But it's probably a
Speaker 1: money grab for you know, a tempted money grab as well,
Speaker 1: because you sufered this forty five million back then is
Speaker 1: a crazy amount. It's a crazy amount now well backgain.
Speaker 2: It's like one of those lawsuits where you know, Fallwell
Speaker 2: like hoping he can bankrupt.
Speaker 1: Hustler bankrub them or for millions of dollars. Yeah, okay.
Speaker 2: Fallwell holds a fundraiser to pay for his legal fees
Speaker 2: and raises about seven hundred thousand dollars Jerry Fowell then
Speaker 2: hires Bob Guccioni's lawyer to represent him, and Larry is like, oh,
Speaker 2: so you're gonna hire the guy who defends a pornographer
Speaker 2: Fallwell to defend you against a fellow pornographer, even though
Speaker 2: pornography is so bad. But you're going to hire a
Speaker 2: lawyer that is basically Bob Guccion's like personal attorney, right right,
Speaker 2: So he's like, isn't this ironic or hypocritical or don't
Speaker 2: you think what? Yeah, maybe it's all the things. Now,
Speaker 2: Larry featured Fallwell and his lawyer, this guy named Grutman
Speaker 2: as asshole of the Month in Hustler magazine. This was
Speaker 2: a regular feature and it kind of picked on different folks,
Speaker 2: so he nominates them for Asshole of the Month. Larry
Speaker 2: pokes fun at Fallwell for taking little old ladies social
Speaker 2: Security money through his television ministry, which of course really
Speaker 2: pisses Fallwell off, Like, how dare you they want to
Speaker 2: send me that money?
Speaker 1: Like you send one thousand dollars now we can have
Speaker 1: a prayer circle.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Well, he's just like, you know, here, you are predatory, dude,
Speaker 2: you know, asking like these little old ladies to send
Speaker 2: money to donate to your legal fund.
Speaker 1: For a suit that you initiate.
Speaker 2: Yeah, over a joke, right, I mean, whether you agree
Speaker 2: or disagree.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's pretty Larry.
Speaker 2: He's just like what the fuck you know, Like you're ridiculous.
Speaker 2: Larry filed a countersuit claiming that Jerry Folwell had infringed
Speaker 2: on copyright law because Jerry Folwell had reproduced the parody
Speaker 2: ad as part of a fundraiser without permission from Hustler magazine.
Speaker 2: And it's a very clever move on Larry's part. And look,
Speaker 2: I'm not saying what Larry did was right. I mean
Speaker 2: it's honestly juvenile, and it is distasteful in my opinion, Like,
Speaker 2: regardless of how anybody feels about Jerry Folwell, Yes it's
Speaker 2: a joke, but I mean, come on, like incest with
Speaker 2: his mom, it's too much. It's like, okay, I mean,
Speaker 2: it's not even it's not even really that funny.
Speaker 1: It's not even that funny. It's not even making moan.
Speaker 2: I guess at the time, maybe we're looking at it
Speaker 2: through a twenty twenty six lens. Maybe at the time
Speaker 2: it was so salacious and people found it funny. I
Speaker 2: don't know.
Speaker 1: I think, you know, obviously shock value there, but it's
Speaker 1: not even that good of a parody of what Fallwell
Speaker 1: was and what he was doing or anything like that
Speaker 1: that clever. To be honest with you, it's really just
Speaker 1: shocking and right over the top.
Speaker 2: But I guess you know what it boils down to is,
Speaker 2: you know, does Larry have the right to do this?
Speaker 2: And is this protected under the First Amendment, which is
Speaker 2: you know, I mean, those are very very important questions,
Speaker 2: especially considering that our free speech is under attack and
Speaker 2: we may not have it in a couple of years.
Speaker 1: Oh I'm always gonna have mine.
Speaker 2: Yeah, me too.
Speaker 1: They can't never shut me up.
Speaker 2: They'll like, they'll cut your tongue out. Oh gosh, please
Speaker 2: don't now. The trial beginning December of nineteen eighty four,
Speaker 2: in a humiliating round of questioning, a lawyer asked Jerry Fallwell, quote,
Speaker 2: did you and your mother ever commit incest? Nice Fallwell
Speaker 2: categorically denies the accusation, saying absolutely not. At no point
Speaker 2: did I fuck my mom in an outhouse while drinking
Speaker 2: can party, nor outside of the out house exactly. I mean,
Speaker 2: that's again.
Speaker 1: That's great, that's on the record, bro I yuess.
Speaker 2: I mean it's almost like maybe he's a massacres, Like
Speaker 2: do you want to be humiliated further with this? Right?
Speaker 2: I mean, who wants to to sit in a courtroom
Speaker 2: in front of a judge and a jury talking about
Speaker 2: whether or not they fucked their mama?
Speaker 1: Now? Is this before Fallwhell's fall from in disgraceful fall
Speaker 1: from public life and all that.
Speaker 2: Well, he didn't really have a disgraceful fall.
Speaker 1: I thought he had like a mistress or something come
Speaker 1: out that was pretty greasy.
Speaker 2: Now, I think you're maybe confusing that with like Jimmy
Speaker 2: Swaggert or Jim Baker, or maybe Fallwell Junior. There was
Speaker 2: some story about Fallwell Junior and his wife and a
Speaker 2: pool boy that was just that in the last like
Speaker 2: ten years. I don't know.
Speaker 1: I thought Fallwell Feill No, not really.
Speaker 2: No, no, No, he went onto you know, Liberty University.
Speaker 2: I mean no, he was a he was a I
Speaker 2: guess a respected minister and all up until he wasn't.
Speaker 1: I may be thinking of because he was close friends
Speaker 1: with Baker when all that shit went down, one to
Speaker 1: Tammy Baker. Jim and Tammy Baker, Right, I think he
Speaker 1: was in that.
Speaker 2: I think you don't know what you're talking about, so
Speaker 2: you should probably just sit over there and look beautiful.
Speaker 1: Well, then sue me for slander. I don't know what
Speaker 1: to fuck to tell you. You can sue me for forty
Speaker 1: five meal if you won't.
Speaker 2: You're exhausting.
Speaker 1: I don't have it.
Speaker 2: You're exhausting.
Speaker 1: I don't have forty five dollars.
Speaker 2: You just stop, You're exhausting. So of course you know,
Speaker 2: he's like, this is all not true. I did not
Speaker 2: fuck my mom in an outhouse. I don't drink and
Speaker 2: PARI if I was gonna fuck her, wouldn't be the
Speaker 2: out house. And I'm just kidding, Senator Jesse Helms. I'm
Speaker 2: also an equally terrible person, testified on Folwell's behalf. And honestly,
Speaker 2: those of us who are from North Carolina might know
Speaker 2: the name Jesse Helms. And again, no, he's maybe not
Speaker 2: the best person.
Speaker 1: I thought he always thought he was a dirt bag.
Speaker 2: Well, he's a character witness for Jerry Fallwell.
Speaker 1: Well, that makes sense. That makes sense.
Speaker 2: Larry testified in his defense that the ad was a parody,
Speaker 2: as it stated at the bottom of the advertisement. Hustler
Speaker 2: had ran several parody ads in the past. Like one
Speaker 2: of those ads, for example, featured the Marlborough man like naked,
Speaker 2: lying in some hay next to his horse, smoking as
Speaker 2: if like.
Speaker 1: They had sex, he had fucked his horse, And did
Speaker 1: the Marlboro man have to go to court and say no, indeed,
Speaker 1: I did not fuck my horse.
Speaker 2: No, but the horse sued Larry.
Speaker 1: Ah.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Larry's point was like, we do this to everybody,
Speaker 2: and you know, take.
Speaker 1: A joke, dude, public figure.
Speaker 2: The defense attorneys argued the parody was too ridiculous to
Speaker 2: be taken seriously and no one would genuinely, genuinely believe
Speaker 2: that Jerry Folwell had sex with his mother in an outhouse.
Speaker 2: Larry and Hustler were found not guilty of libel. He
Speaker 2: was found guilty of emotional distress, though in order to
Speaker 2: pay Fallwell two hundred thousand dollars, Larry appealed the emotional
Speaker 2: distress ruling to the Fourth Circuit Court. That appeal was denied,
Speaker 2: so Larry took it to the Supreme Court because of
Speaker 2: course he did, yes, because he's not told the court,
Speaker 2: you know, fuck this court.
Speaker 1: Enough, damn I bet the justices are like no.
Speaker 2: But then tragedy would strike Larry. In the summer of
Speaker 2: nineteen eighty seven. Althea and Larry had been in bed
Speaker 2: together watching television when she tells him she's going to
Speaker 2: go take a bath. Larry couldn't tell really how much
Speaker 2: time had passed, but suddenly kind of realized that the
Speaker 2: water was still running in the bathroom, so he starts
Speaker 2: to worry. When their nurse comes in to check on Larry,
Speaker 2: he asks her, like, will you go look in on Althea?
Speaker 2: And the nurse finds Althea submerged in water. She wasn't breathing.
Speaker 2: Paramedics were called, but they were unable to revive her.
Speaker 2: Althea had died of a heroin overdose. Basically, she overdosed,
Speaker 2: went unconscious and then like you know, drowned, slash overdosed underwater.
Speaker 2: She died, Yes, she passed. She was buried in the
Speaker 2: Flint family plot in Lakeville, Ohio. Larry was devastated. In
Speaker 2: his book, he wrote, quote, how could I go on?
Speaker 2: What was there to live for? He went on to say,
Speaker 2: you know, he owned one of the most lucrative publishing
Speaker 2: empires in the world and was wealthy beyond his dreams.
Speaker 2: The Supreme Court would soon be hearing his appeal, an
Speaker 2: important First Amendment case that could change history, and that
Speaker 2: he was just a poor heill billy kid from Kentucky
Speaker 2: and has succeeded, you know, in every way imaginable. But
Speaker 2: that losing Althea, Larry felt life as he knew it
Speaker 2: was over because he lost his wife, his best friend,
Speaker 2: and his business partner. Larry saw Althea as his soulmate
Speaker 2: and this loss for him was just incredibly crushing. Well,
Speaker 2: I think he never truly you know, like recovered emotionally
Speaker 2: from losing Althea.
Speaker 1: Well, yeah, it sounds like she was his one and
Speaker 1: if you lose your one, you're never going to be
Speaker 1: the same.
Speaker 2: Yeah. And so you know, as much as people, you
Speaker 2: know might think Larry's just a smart peddler and whatever,
Speaker 2: I mean, he did genuinely have love for this woman.
Speaker 2: And people may not have understood their relationship, but it
Speaker 2: worked for them and they truly were like in love
Speaker 2: with each other. They were deeply in love. So you know,
Speaker 2: it's just a really sad situation. Oral arguments began in
Speaker 2: front of the Supreme Court in December of nineteen eighty seven.
Speaker 2: Alan Is Isaacman, Larry's attorney, addressed the court regarding the
Speaker 2: First Amendment. He argued that if Jerry Folwell, a public figure,
Speaker 2: can sue for emotional distress, that you know, this opens
Speaker 2: up a door for anyone in the public eye to
Speaker 2: be able to sue for emotional distress agerous president at
Speaker 2: any time, like if something, you know, if someone says
Speaker 2: something they don't like, they can sue for emotional distress.
Speaker 2: And like, how do you really measure emotional distress?
Speaker 1: Right? Right, right? It's a dangerous president and it's something
Speaker 1: that can't even be policed.
Speaker 3: Well.
Speaker 2: Larry won the case in nineteen eighty eight, and it
Speaker 2: was a huge win. Finally, around the same time, it
Speaker 2: was revealed that serial killer Joseph Paul Franklin, who we
Speaker 2: covered years ago on the pod if you want to
Speaker 2: go back and find that episode we cover his case,
Speaker 2: he confessed to shooting Larry Flint. Franklin was executed by
Speaker 2: lethal injection in twenty thirteen. In two thousand and three,
Speaker 2: Larry ran for governor of California during the recall of
Speaker 2: Gray Davis, and at this time there were a ton
Speaker 2: of Dalists celebrities running for governor, like I remember this.
Speaker 2: It was just a big mockery. There was like Gary Coleman,
Speaker 2: porn star mayor Carey.
Speaker 1: Nice.
Speaker 2: There was something, you know, like seventeen people running for governor.
Speaker 2: Most of them were like it was either like these
Speaker 2: dealerss celebrities or like unknowns. But at the end Arnold
Speaker 2: Schwarzenegger won.
Speaker 1: Oh wow, Yeah, We're going to make California wacky times.
Speaker 2: Larry's slogan for this campaign was vote for the smut
Speaker 2: peddler who cares?
Speaker 1: I like it now.
Speaker 2: At this point, Larry is an aging, very wealthy businessman.
Speaker 2: He rolls around in a gold plated wheelchair. He increasingly
Speaker 2: treated American politics as another arena for publicity stunts, ideological fights,
Speaker 2: and attempts to embarrass powerful people, like in nineteen ninety eight,
Speaker 2: he offered money for like, you know, information and evidence
Speaker 2: about Bill Clinton's mini sexual exploits. He remained at the
Speaker 2: home of Larry Flint Publications and continued expanding the Hustler
Speaker 2: brand into retail stores, clubs, websites, videos, and television. He
Speaker 2: opened the Hustler Casino in Gardenia, California, Guardina, California. His
Speaker 2: fortune was later estimated to be more than one hundred
Speaker 2: million dollars, and in case she wondered how Larry fared
Speaker 2: in the election for governor, he received about seventeen thousand
Speaker 2: votes and came in seventh place.
Speaker 1: Nice, yeah, I would like.
Speaker 2: To meet the people who voted for Larry. Right. Larry
Speaker 2: Flint later directed his attention to Donald Trump. Before the
Speaker 2: twenty sixteen election, he offered one million dollars for recordings
Speaker 2: showing Trump engaging in illegal or sexually degrading behavior. The
Speaker 2: award went unclaimed. Then he dramatically increased the amount to
Speaker 2: ten million dollars for any information that would lead to
Speaker 2: Trump's impeachment. So, even in his late seventies, Flint had
Speaker 2: not lost his flare for shock value and going after politicians.
Speaker 2: In twenty nineteen, Larry Flint Publication sent some Republican members
Speaker 2: of Congress a Christmas card depicting President Trump lying dead
Speaker 2: in a pool of blood, accompanied by a joke referencing
Speaker 2: his famous line that he could shoot someone on Fifth
Speaker 2: Avenue without losing supporters. Flint was pleased with the outrage
Speaker 2: it generated. As usual, Flint was surprisingly serious about some
Speaker 2: political issues. He was a staunch opponent of the death penalty,
Speaker 2: He supported same sex marriage and opposed the two thousand
Speaker 2: and three invasion of Iraq. He described himself as a
Speaker 2: civil libertarian. Free speech was especially important to him. His
Speaker 2: proudest achievement was winning the case Hustler Magazine versus Jerry
Speaker 2: Folwell in front of the Supreme Court. And in old age,
Speaker 2: Larry still lived like Larry. He operated from an enormous
Speaker 2: Beverly Hills office us used an extraordinarily pricey gold wheelchair,
Speaker 2: which cost eighty five thousand dollars nice. By the twenty tens,
Speaker 2: Larry's health issues had left him incredibly frail. He experienced
Speaker 2: more personal tragedy in twenty fourteen, when his daughter Lisa
Speaker 2: Flint Fuget died in a car wreck at the age
Speaker 2: of forty seven. Flint nevertheless kept working and giving interviews
Speaker 2: well into his seventies. He died in February of twenty
Speaker 2: twenty one, at the age of seventy eight. The cause
Speaker 2: of death was heart failure. So my sources for this
Speaker 2: three part series mostly Larry's autobiography, which was co written
Speaker 2: by Kenneth Ross, called An Unseemly Man. There's also a
Speaker 2: book called One Nation Under Sex, and then of course,
Speaker 2: various interviews with Flint, Vanity Fair, other publications.
Speaker 1: Okay, wow, what a character.
Speaker 2: What a character. So that is the story of Larry Flint.
Speaker 1: Well, thank you. That was a very interesting story and
Speaker 1: a bit of a break from what we normally do.
Speaker 1: But you know, we have had some just horrific cases
Speaker 1: we've covered in recent months.
Speaker 2: You know, it's nice to have a little bit of
Speaker 2: a palate cleanser. Larry was obviously a controversial figure. There
Speaker 2: were crimes surrounding Larry. Not only was he the victim
Speaker 2: of a crime, crimes, but you know it was also
Speaker 2: charged with crimes, convicted of crimes.
Speaker 1: But I mean, he was a very big, big figure
Speaker 1: in some pretty major issues in our country for many years, right,
Speaker 1: And I have no doubt that he passionately. He felt
Speaker 1: very passionately about the thing things like free speech and
Speaker 1: basically your right to pursue the American dream.
Speaker 2: And fuck your mama now house if you want to.
Speaker 1: And while you drink campari, I betaris like what the
Speaker 1: fuck is catching strays? Bros?
Speaker 2: Like what the fuck do we did to Larry?
Speaker 1: Dude?
Speaker 2: The outhouse is like what do we do to you?
Speaker 5: All?
Speaker 4: I've been I've been taking people's ship all these years
Speaker 4: and some bet and you're gonna put me on blast street,
Speaker 4: all right till all right, So thank you for that, Heather,
Speaker 4: And then we will return with a more traditional case,
Speaker 4: I'm sure in the very near future.
Speaker 2: Oh, we had a case ready for next week. It
Speaker 2: is going to be, well, your your standard true crime case,
Speaker 2: and it's it's a sad one, but I think it's
Speaker 2: important to talk about. It's one of those cases I'm
Speaker 2: actually surprised doesn't have more coverage. Okay, it's a more
Speaker 2: recent case. So yeah, we got that in the works
Speaker 2: for you guys. Until then, we just dropped our midweek
Speaker 2: or sometimes week. Everybody's an expert. Go check that out.
Speaker 1: Yes, please do, and we'll have another edition of sometime
Speaker 1: this week, sometime this week, sometime this week. All right.
Speaker 1: So until next time, stay safe and we hope this
Speaker 1: podcast find you healthy and fed.
Speaker 2: No, no, we don't.
Speaker 1: Didn't you want people to be unhealthy and yell bitch?
Speaker 2: Yeah that's right.
Speaker 1: She wants you to be hungry.
Speaker 2: I'm the token khunt of this podcast.
Speaker 1: You are.
Speaker 2: I want people to run around saying, fuck this podcast.
Speaker 1: She wants you to just be starving? Why you listen.
Speaker 2: But I do want to take a moment to give
Speaker 2: a shout out to some of our awesome listeners out there, Carrie,
Speaker 2: h Courtney, folks who reached out and were like, look,
Speaker 2: we were starting to wonder.
Speaker 1: If you were coming back, if we.
Speaker 2: Needed to get a welfare check on you guys, So
Speaker 2: thank you for that. It's nice to know we're missed,
Speaker 2: and I have to appreciate that.
Speaker 1: I have to say also, in our little tiny Discord family,
Speaker 1: I got to say this right quick. They were having
Speaker 1: some very in depth discussions of Holly Alyssa Angie about
Speaker 1: the Clancy case and honestly making some really good points,
Speaker 1: okay about the case and some of the really you know,
Speaker 1: the details of that case. And I think maybe there's
Speaker 1: a little more to it than our point of view
Speaker 1: represented on our sometime this week. And I do find
Speaker 1: that interesting and I appreciate.
Speaker 2: Them, well, I appreciate different points of view, And I mean,
Speaker 2: I'm not discounting what other people's thoughts are subject.
Speaker 1: I'm not saying you were, and no.
Speaker 2: I'm just saying, like you know, I do appreciate and
Speaker 2: always welcome, you know, opinions and different thoughts and feelings
Speaker 2: about the case. It is definitely a hot button issue.
Speaker 2: It is. It's definitely something people are debating and discussing
Speaker 2: heavily on social media. So it'll be interesting to see
Speaker 2: what the outcome of this trial is. And I'm always
Speaker 2: down to just, you know, hear different points of view
Speaker 2: and how people come to that conclusion.
Speaker 1: Speaking of our Discord family, if you're a patron and
Speaker 1: I want a link to get in our little our,
Speaker 1: our our it's a little family. Sometimes we talk, sometimes
Speaker 1: we don't.
Speaker 2: Someone's gonna have to send me a link because I
Speaker 2: have managed to get myself like kicked out of the
Speaker 2: server and can't get back in. Oh god, I've been
Speaker 2: trying for a few days.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: See, I'm goofy and I'm like not very technically savvy.
Speaker 1: So I think I can send you a link.
Speaker 2: So I'm just like what and just keep clicking, like
Speaker 2: why does it work?
Speaker 1: I think I can send you a link anyway, Just
Speaker 1: hit us up at Mountain Mers Podcast at gmail dot
Speaker 1: com and we'll get you in the Like I said,
Speaker 1: we'll get you in our tiny Discord family. They rock
Speaker 1: all right. Until next time, Bye Dylan, Bye,