Larry Flynt

RETURNING from a preview of "The People Vs. Larry Flynt" last week, I stopped by a convenience store and picked up a copy of Hustler magazine, Flynt's flagship publication and perhaps the raunchiest skin rag in America. I wanted to make sure whatever I said about Flynt and the movie about him bore some relation to the reality at the newsstand. For this I was punished severely.The other patrons gave me a wide berth as I walked to the checkout counter.A couple in front of me took snide delight in prolonging what seemed an interminable transaction involving a Lotto ticket and a carton of milk.

Sorry to break it to you, Baltimore. But you may have seen the last of Larry Flynt 's stripper-mobile. The converted U-Haul truck advertising Flynt's Hustler Club is outfitted with a Plexiglas box, sort of like the Popemobile. But this vehicle is outfitted with a stripper's pole and a bunch of itsy-bitsy-bikini-clad dancers doing – what else? – pole dancing. It was last seen rolling around Camden Yards as a game was letting out, treating fans to more action than the Orioles seem capable of providing.

The King of Porn arrived on Baltimore Street last night, diamond watch sparkling, to promote his new Hustler Club. His entrance into the loud club was less than grand, as an attendant wheeled his gold-plated wheelchair through a back door and to one of the red crushed velvet chairs. Most of the clubgoers hardly noticed -- their attention was turned to the women on the club's three stages. But the throng of reporters waiting to talk to the magazine publisher pounced, circling the expressionless man in the blue suede jacket.

I need absolute proof before disclosing more names but we're working on it!" So says Hustler publisher Larry Flynt regarding his revelations about prominent politicos who have been customers of the Washington, D.C., madam. My inside tip from Flynt's office is that Larry is getting ready to drop at least 30 more names! A hair-raising duet Do go to see Hairspray if only for one reason - John Travolta at the top of his experimental and daring-to-do-anything game and his Fred and Ginger dance/love song with co-star Christopher Walken.

I need absolute proof before disclosing more names but we're working on it!" So says Hustler publisher Larry Flynt regarding his revelations about prominent politicos who have been customers of the Washington, D.C., madam. My inside tip from Flynt's office is that Larry is getting ready to drop at least 30 more names! A hair-raising duet Do go to see Hairspray if only for one reason - John Travolta at the top of his experimental and daring-to-do-anything game and his Fred and Ginger dance/love song with co-star Christopher Walken.

THAT THE RIGHT to free speech has acquired something of a cult status is evident in the deification of the pornographer, Larry Flynt, in the much ballyhooed movie, "The People vs. Larry Flynt."The would-be hero is the publisher of Hustler magazine, who has struck it rich by bringing his audiences such breakthroughs in free expression as a cover photo of a naked woman being fed through a meat grinder and bootlegged photos of Jacqueline Kennedy sunbathing in the nude. The movie's champions are apparently nostalgic for the old days, when unorthodox political speech could land people in prison or result in their deportation - as was the case when the socialist Eugene Debs and the anarchist Emma Goldman publicly spoke out against World War I. They are tripping over themselves to praise Flynt.

Larry Flynt is the primordial man you hate to love, and the case for his canonization is pretty tricky, if a case at all. The best thing about "The People Vs. Larry Flynt" is that nobody bothers to make it very hard.The movie is instead a bright purple polyester celebration of the oozing vulgarity, the corpulent greed, the sick, out-of-control ego of that infected bedsore on the butt of the body politick that is Flynt himself, founder of Hustler magazine and its wall-to-wall, full-color gyno-vision school of publishing.

Hustler magazine publisher Larry Flynt, a man both hailed as a free speech advocate and loathed as a smut peddler, is headed to Baltimore in a big way. Flynt is a partner in what will be the largest "gentleman's club" on The Block, the worn row of strip bars in the heart of downtown. A hot-pink neon sign on East Baltimore Street will blare the presence of Larry Flynt's Hustler Club. The full-nudity show bar, originally to be called Deja Vu, is still months away from completion. Once finished, it will fill the upper two floors of the graceful old Gayety theater building, one block south of City Hall.

After a public grand jury, they want a semisecret trial.Henceforth, Republicans will clear their leadership choices with Larry Flynt.There never will be another Michael Jordan. Doesn't need to be. There will be a Tamir Goodman. Or somebody.Israeli voters will have the chance to make a clear statement for peace. Of course, Israeli voters never make clear statements.Pub Date: 1/13/99

Sorry to break it to you, Baltimore. But you may have seen the last of Larry Flynt 's stripper-mobile. The converted U-Haul truck advertising Flynt's Hustler Club is outfitted with a Plexiglas box, sort of like the Popemobile. But this vehicle is outfitted with a stripper's pole and a bunch of itsy-bitsy-bikini-clad dancers doing – what else? – pole dancing. It was last seen rolling around Camden Yards as a game was letting out, treating fans to more action than the Orioles seem capable of providing.

The King of Porn arrived on Baltimore Street last night, diamond watch sparkling, to promote his new Hustler Club. His entrance into the loud club was less than grand, as an attendant wheeled his gold-plated wheelchair through a back door and to one of the red crushed velvet chairs. Most of the clubgoers hardly noticed -- their attention was turned to the women on the club's three stages. But the throng of reporters waiting to talk to the magazine publisher pounced, circling the expressionless man in the blue suede jacket.

Larry Flynt, the man who made America safe for pornography, will open a new "gentleman's club" in Baltimore tonight with a promise to add some class to the seedy strip-joint center known as The Block. If nothing else, Larry Flynt's Hustler Club will bring a new architectural feature to the city's tenderloin, one block south of City Hall: a glass dance floor that allows patrons on a lower level to look up performers' skirts. Except they won't be wearing skirts. The club is all nude. "It's not a sleazy operation," the Hustler magazine publisher said in a telephone interview yesterday.

CHICAGO - In 2000, Congress identified a grave national problem and took firm action to squelch it. Alarmed that some youthful library patrons had gained access to online pornography, it passed the Children's Internet Protection Act (CIPA). The problem was solved, the panic subsided, and we all went on to other worries, serene in the knowledge that children were no longer being exposed to vile smut. In fact, though, the measure never took effect, thanks to a court challenge that held it in abeyance.

Hustler magazine publisher Larry Flynt, a man both hailed as a free speech advocate and loathed as a smut peddler, is headed to Baltimore in a big way. Flynt is a partner in what will be the largest "gentleman's club" on The Block, the worn row of strip bars in the heart of downtown. A hot-pink neon sign on East Baltimore Street will blare the presence of Larry Flynt's Hustler Club. The full-nudity show bar, originally to be called Deja Vu, is still months away from completion. Once finished, it will fill the upper two floors of the graceful old Gayety theater building, one block south of City Hall.

WHY IS IT so difficult for politicians to deal with The Block? When Alex. Brown was thinking of relocating its headquarters from downtown in the mid-1990s, then-Mayor Kurt L. Schmoke pledged to phase out the red-light district. But that goal has been lost, and the authorities have pretty much adopted a hands-off attitude. This noninterference started three years ago. In an action hailed for toughness at the time, the zoning board ordered three clubs permanently out of business and six others closed temporarily.

LOS ANGELES - His ex-wife, Jane Fonda, has found religion and divorced her latest husband. His most famous co-defendants in the Chicago Seven trial, the courtroom confrontation between anti-Vietnam War protesters and the establishment, are dead. And Tom Hayden himself? At 61, he's still thinking globally. The former 1960s radical is a marquee speaker at protest rallies against global trade. But time and circumstance are forcing him to act more locally than ever before. Barred by term limits from remaining in the California legislature, he's fighting hard for a seat on the Los Angeles City Council in today's runoff election.

According to the movies, Eva Peron was noble, Larry Flynt was a hero and Snow White married the prince.The idea is to turn city schools over to private groups before the state gets them.Trashing House of Representatives ethics, $300,000; kicking a TV cameraman in the groin, $200,000. For a price, live your fantasy.Since we won't get a minor-league arena in south Baltimore County, how about a major-league arena in Baltimore City?Pub Date: 1/24/97

BOSTON -- I have long regarded Larry Flynt as the curse of the First Amendment. He's the catch that comes with the freedom of speech. The asterisk on the Constitution.The right to publish a cartoon about Bill Clinton and Paula Jones on the editorial page comes with the curse of a sexual satire in Hustler about Jerry Falwell and his mother. The right to an unauthorized wedding photo of JFK Jr. and his bride comes with the curse of a photo of Jackie O in the buff.You want the freedom to say whatever you want?

After a public grand jury, they want a semisecret trial.Henceforth, Republicans will clear their leadership choices with Larry Flynt.There never will be another Michael Jordan. Doesn't need to be. There will be a Tamir Goodman. Or somebody.Israeli voters will have the chance to make a clear statement for peace. Of course, Israeli voters never make clear statements.Pub Date: 1/13/99

AUSTIN, Texas -- The deepest secrets and innermost thoughts of America's most famous atheist are for sale.Madalyn Murray O'Hair, who founded the nation's leading atheist group, American Atheists Inc., in the 1960s and vanished in 1995, left behind a stack of diaries that will be sold next month to satisfy a claim against her estate brought by the Internal Revenue Service.The handwritten diaries, more than a thousand pages long, begin in 1953 and end abruptly seven weeks before O'Hair disappeared with her son, Jon Garth Murray, and granddaughter, Robin Murray-O'Hair.