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FROM THE ARCHIVES - SCREWING AL GOLDSTEIN

Considering he hasn't even mentioned it on his blog in the last however many months, it's probably safe to say that Al Goldstein's campaign for president has pretty much fizzled out. It's a shame. Not only have we been jonesing for a regular dose of the old crank ever since Screw went under, but we were actually one of the first publications (besides Screw I'm sure) to suggest the idea, way back in the Voice days. Don't believe us? Read it and weep, cynics…

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I didn't expect a couch dance. I dialed the Florida number hoping for at least a few minutes of decent talk from Al Goldstein: porn legend, publisher of Screw, host of mostly-naked cable talk show Midnight Blue, candidate for Sheriff of Broward County, Florida and subject of a new documentary called Screwed. I figured I'd probably get the equivalent of a strip-club table dance if I got lucky and caught him in a talkative mood, that he'd tell me a story or two, flip the bird to a few politicians and moralists and get back to the real business of pornography, publishing and politics. I slunk into the long-distance nudie bar, switched on my tape recorder and hoped for the best. I hit the jackpot. Al was definitely on the ball as he leapt into my journalistic lap, tore off his clothes and writhed up a storm. The man clearly loves to talk and he almost hijacked the interview once or twice.

Voice: I have some questions all ready for you here…
Al Goldstein: …And I'm gonna lie about the answers.

All right. I haven't seen your documentary, Screwed, but I've heard the soundtrack. Have you seen or heard either?
I have a copy, I haven't looked at it. I have the soundtrack, I haven't listened to it, which is the story of my life. They invented sex, I've never done it, I'm strictly a voyeur who doesn't live a life. I just live at the deli counter in New York City. But the guys who made the film seem bright. Hopefully they'll make me into the legend I believe I am.

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How would you characterize yourself?
Godlike.

Godlike?
A godlike Renaissance man. I want my girlfriend to call me "Milord" because I just saw Richard III… No, but I generally see myself as a godlike Renaissance man who transcends mere flesh. I'm not making this interview hard for you. You have to roll with the punches.

I've got a follow-up question: Do you think you scare people?
Yes, because I'm bigger than life. I'm a big fat Jew. If I were a big fat black man they'd figure I was going to mug them, but since I'm a big fat Jew they figure I'm gonna steal their wallets. Also, they figure, because I've been publishing Screw since 1968 I have the key to the greatest mystery of life: sex. So it both repels them and attracts them. But I am intimidating, some people have described me as "the Fred Flintstone of flesh."

So why does porn scare people?
America is filled with hypocrites, Jimmy Swaggart, Jim Bakker, Pat Buchanan. These people, these retards, feel that since sex is pleasurable and positive and life-affirming it's dirty. Pornography repels people because it's sex-positive. And Canada is the most retarded of all. You have less freedom than the Germans in Berlin in the late 30s.

Well then, what do you have to say to Canadians? They don't have a First Amendment-style law.
I would tell them: Move out. The idea that you cannot have hate messages delivered is ridiculous. Your country urinates in the face of free speech. I favor hate literature, I believe a Nazi has the right to say "Burn the Jews," and that I have the right to say "Let's kill the Nazis." In other words, I believe in Hyde Park.

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Right, Speakers' Corner.
Everyone has a soapbox, everyone has a point of view, everyone can speak and no one is muzzled. When you guys (Canadians) were thinking about passing a constitution I spoke at about 40 colleges in Canada and I couldn't believe the feminists were opposed. It's your fault Canada because you elect hypocrites who are sex-hating…

In Canada, Andrea Dworkin and Catherine MacKinnon made a censorship law and it stuck. [Canada's censorship law was based on Minneapolis statute 24, theorized by Dworkin and MacKinnon.]
Yes and the greatest thing of all was that Andrew Dworkin and MacKinnon, who were behind it, got hoisted by their own petards, hoisted by their own censorship, and now the stuff being censored is lesbian stuff, homosexual stuff. I am thrilled because the feminazis are despicable. At least in America we spit at them and threw out their rancid point of view. But you Canadians are so stupid, you bought it and therefore you have no freedom. Dworkin, who is so ugly that I'd rather be gay in a prison cell with a big black lover than have sex with her, has driven so many heterosexuals to homosexuality. She is frightening. Of course she hates sex, no one wants to have sex with her. She looks like a mountain…

You were just referring to the episode when Andrea Dworkin passed a censorship law in Canada and got a shipment of her own books held up at the border.
Yes, isn't that poetic justice?

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A step further, what about prostitution?
Legalize it! I just got my fourth divorce. Hookers charge less than wives who rip me off. I pay for it all the time. At least the price is fair with a hooker and she goes home at night. To me whoring is a dignified, bona fide career. Somebody who charges for sex, I love the honesty of it.

Why aren't you running for President?
I'm going to run for Congress here in Broward County in three years and I know I'll be very popular with the other congressmen because I'll have all the best hookers' names in my wallet. I can sort of dole it out—hopefully not to Senator Dole!… And Clinton, I love Clinton. He's a womanizer, he loves women. What do we want, a homosexual in there? No. I want a heterosexual guy who wants to cheat on his wife. If I were married to Hillary, I'd be cheating too. Have you looked at those legs?

Uh, yeah.
Yeah, you'd be cheating too. I'd be doing everybody, I'd probably be doing guys also. Hillary, she's from the Andrea Dworkin school. I think Andrea Dworkin does her makeup.

Oh, boy.
Wind me up, I'm ready.

You're scarin' me. So, how about the First Amendment? What about the Telecom Bill?
It's ridiculous, it'll be ruled unconstitutional. Midnight Blue, which I've been doing for 20 years, we go before the Supreme Court tomorrow. The censors—the Hitlers, the people who burned books in the late '30s – always go too far. They go from explicit representations of sex, which to them is dirty because their wives never saw an erection, then they go to things such as blasphemy and bad taste. America is bad taste, so how can you make it illegal? You cannot regulate another person if what that other person is doing does not hurt you.

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How about censorship of the internet?
It is absurd. In fact… leading that censorship issue was Germany. Isn't that hilarious? The country of Hitler and Himmler and Goebbels and 6 million dead Jews, homosexuals, and Gypsies. They were gonna regulate everyone's right to read and reach material and surf. Of course, you know CompuServe backed down.

Right.
Censorship is fascistic. It's by people with little minds who are afraid of alternate points of view. It's absurd…

Another question…
…Eight inches soft, 12 inches hard, Mark.

Ha ha. OK, I was reading Linda Lovelace's book Ordeal
She's a moron… She choked on my you-know-what. I made her throw up. That's why I've loved her ever since. She is brain-dead and the feminists adopted her. She was a part-time hooker living in Florida. She was very good at the oral sex thing—she was famous for Deep Throat. But she's a total idiot who takes no responsibility for anything, everyone makes her do something. It's pathetic. What I like are women who at least take responsibility for what they've accomplished or failed at.

Last question: Who's the next big thing in skin flicks?
Good question. Well, it can't be Ron Jeremy because we're sick of him. You know, I'm too old, but I'm big. The guys don't matter. They have to be well-endowed and able to ejaculate in front of a crowd. The women are interchangeable… these girls are getting bigger and bigger boobs, you know, so maybe the next big porno actress will be a 19-year-old girl with like 60-Ds and she'll have three breasts; one on her back for balance. When she lies down she'll be comfortable. So I think that we're gonna see a future of three-breasted women.

MARK LAZAR