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Prisoner of X: 20 Years in the Hole at Hustler Magazine
Allan MacDonell named me as the Hustler Asshole of the Month in the magazine's 1999 Holiday issue. Anyone have a copy of this? Or a JPG of it they could send me? Prisoner of X: 20 Years in the Hole at Hustler Magazine By Allan MacDonell I'm reading an advanced copy of this fascinating book that I've been looking forward to reading since I first heard about it three years ago. Now that I am halfway through it, I can say confidently that it is the best porn-related book I've read in years. MacDonnell writes:
Allan writes that after starting his car every morning while working for LFP, he'd "sit behind the wheel for 10 minutes debating whether or not to open the garage door". It's embarrassing how much I love MacDonnell's writing (his stuff as Christian Shapiro in Hustler Erotic Video Guide was side-splitting). This book is the summit of his literary accomplishments. I'd love to read a memoir by fellow ex-LFP Editor Mike Albo. Mike knocked me around once and banged my head into a lamppost. MacDonnell just sliced me up as Hustler's Asshole of the Month for the holiday 1999 issue. On page 115 of his memoir, Allan meets Cora, a junior high teacher sneaking out of NA. "You work at Hustler?" she said. "That's my students' favorite literature." Allan writes: "My one-sided infatuation with Tori Welles was typical of the emotional fiascos that befell me." Unfortunately for MacDonnell, a dog named Akita had a better chance with Tori than he did (no, Tori and the dog do not get it on). Allan goes on a set where various porners are quoting his devastating film reviews under the name "Christian Shapiro." Ed Powers berates him for his hurtful comments. Allan describes Marc Wallice as a "preening libertine." "Sunny Foxx...claimed Jack Nicholson among her clients -- but then, what L.A. hooker doesn't?" Sharon Mitchell taught Savannah and Sunny Foxx how to shoot up. "In the next millenium, this born educator would be a leading campaigner for safe-sex working conditions among blue screen talent." I average a laugh a page of MacDonnell's book. I haven't had this much fun in porn since skinnydipping with Kendra Jade's friend Shelly Pearson in 1999. In 1987, Allan, 30, spends a weekend at a whorehouse. He doesn't want to bang the owner's wife (near 50). He gets a gift certificate to do one of the working girls. She detects an STD on his penis (and refuses to have sex with him). All the hookers want to see the bump. "Somehow, their scrutiny -- nonjudgmental and sympathetic -- made me feel comfortable with my penis and my sexuality and myself -- with who I was at my core -- in a deeper, more profound way than I ever had before." It's Exhausting Work Facilitating The Reasoned Discourse That Makes Democracy Possible I stole the best part of that line from Allan MacDonell's forthcoming memoir Prisoner of X. If you want to learn how to write, this is a book to read. I'm going to scrawl out some of my favorite sentences as models of clear thinking and wicked humor. (That's a part of British education -- to write out other people's great writing as a spur to bettering your own.) It's no wonder that MacDonnell fathered other great writers such as Evan Wright and was a brother to the great Mike Albo. I interviewed MacDonell over the phone for ten minutes in early 1996 and he was dull. He said at most two interesting sentences. He was a complete corporate cipher. He talked about his dedication to making Hustler magazine even greater. He didn't display a glimmer of introspection. When I met him in person that same month, introduced myself and shook his hand, he was cold and preoccupied. Yet, from his writing, sparks fly. On page 151, Allan recounts Larry Flynt telling him of his elaborate plan to marry a 12-year old Thai virgin. On page 154, Allan's assistant Kristen asks him, "Why do celebrities keep dying after you jokers make fun of them?" "Once an idea for a cruel joke presented itself," writes Allan, "no matter how abominable, we were powerless to resist carrying it out." Allan writes on page 293:
I believe Albo (managing editor of AVN Online) and MacDonell are on friendly terms. Albo probably doesn't have a problem with this description of himself as it comes from someone he likes and respects. On page 180, Allan writes about Suze Randall:
Allan composed a letter on behalf of Hustler cartoonist (Chester the Molester) Dwaine Tinsley who was convicted of sexually molesting his daughter. "What kind of deluded miscreant requests a character reference from the editor of Hustler magazine after having lost a sex crimes case?" MacDonell assured nightstalker Richard Ramirez "that Hustler would be the only outlet on the planet that would present his story free of moralizing." Regarding Hustler Feedback, Allan writes: "Aside from giving readers an opportunity to comment upon their favorite nude models, the "Feedback" forum also hosted an exchange of ideas among the Hustler community, something akin to the reasoned discourse essential to an informed democracy." MacDonell wonders: "Are my brightest and sincerest efforts directed to a mass of toilet-fixated defectives?" Urination shots began in Hustler and Penthouse in the summer of 1997. In 1998:
Circa 2000, Allan visits the Hot Video Awards on the French Riviera to pick up a trophy for Larry Flynt. "Was the world taken in by this ceremony to honor people who made their livelihood by wallowing in dishonor?" MacDonnell is asked if he's sad that Hustler cartoonist Dwaine Tinsdale, convicted molester of his own daughter, is dead (buried at the Presbyterian church at the head of Rodeo Drive). "He's in a better place," replies Allan. "He's happy in heaven with JonBenet Ramsey." In his reign over LFP's magazine, Allan was exhaustively interviewed. His observations are sharp in his memoir:
I spot few typos. MacDonell consistently misuses the word "disinterested" for uninterested. "Disinterested" means impartial. "Uninterested" means not interested in. He also uses the phrase "to the manor born" when it is "to the manner born."
Allan used therapy to try to process his feelings about the Jane Fonda-Ted Turner-brunette sex tape. "My colleagues who had shared witness of the Turners' romp also reported disruptions in their ability to digest hardcore fare. Recovery would only come through action, and the first step was to unburden ourselves of this toxic secret knowledge." Go Ask Allan Mark Kramer writes: Would you consider a career in porn? “....besmirchment is the main thing,” revealed Hustler’s editorial honcho Allan MacDonell in an intimate memoir aptly entitled “Satori & Pornography: Canonization Through Degredation.” “..A girl needs no special education to break into boff movies,” elaborated MacDonell, writing under the name “Christian Shapiro” in the 1987 Feral House collection “Apocalypse Culture". “In fact, some degree of blinding ignorance is practically a requirement. Good family background is less important to an aspiring harlot starlet than are abusive primary relationships, a disrupted home dynamic and a history of sexual coercion prior to sensual maturity. Perhaps some women have entered the scum arena with a semblance of self-esteem, but most step into the slime pit in one more desparate attempt at validation as a worthwhile human being... If she’s truly bad, she will garner a Best Actress Award from the Adult Film Association or the X-Rated Critics Organization. All she needs are two valid photo-ID’s, and a willingness to be soiled.... “...The porno talent pool is fed with a steady stream of fresh, belly-flopping, open-mouth, salmon-lipped naiads battling against a current of thrust and cum... “....Pornography has no more sexual appeal than a Price Waterhouse annual report. It’s no longer about eroticism; it’s about humiliation...We have reached a better future through sound bites of trancendent humiliation.” Girls! Why wait? Allan MacDonell and his associates at LFP are standing by to facilitate your personal apocalypse. 8/6/98 Bruce David tells me: "I can't comment on Hustler magazine. Allan MacDonell and I don't get along. We don't communicate. Larry does not ask me for my views on Hustler." 12/17/04 Mike Albo writes on Adult Stars News about the late Jim Holliday: "He had a particular dislike for Hustler Editorial Director Allan MacDonell, claiming he'd "bitch slap" Allan if he ever saw him and that Allan only kept his job thanks to Holliday's benevolence. According to Jim, he could have "anybody fired at any time."" 6/17/05 Mark Cromer (former features editor at Hustler) tells me: "Bruce [David] and I were essentially best-friends and had been for years. Bruce's star at Hustler has shined to varying degrees of luminescence depending on the currents on the tenth floor. For instance, his magazine Brown Sugar was folded the day before Jail Babes. Within two weeks, they brought Bruce back into the company doing Hustler Comix, I think. Then they folded that. Then he was an editor at Hustler under Allan MacDonnell. Larry has always found a job for Bruce. If Bruce had a friend closer than me, it was probably Larry, though it was more of a historical friendship. It wasn't like Bruce was hanging out with Larry on a regular basis, but they certainly had a tight historical bond. "Bruce is sworn enemies with Allan MacDonnell, the editor who took Bruce's place at Hustler. You can't overstate the animosity that flows between those two guys." Luke: "Why do Bruce and Allan hate each other?" Mark: "Professional jealousy. "Before Allan MacDonnell was fired, Bruce was actively working to get him fired, verbally shanking him at every opportunity. It was really death by a thousand cuts. Ultimately Bruce succeeded. I participated in drafting several memos with Bruce, proofing them and offering suggestions. These memos went directly to Larry." New York Times Article On Former Hustler Editor Allan MacDonell Charles McGrath writes 4/30/06:
Author Allan MacDonell - Prisoner Of X Allan (MySpace) calls me Wednesday morning, May 11, 2006. More than a decade ago, he struck fear into the industry while he was writing as "Christian Shapiro." Then the years went by and hardly anybody talked about Hustler any more. Not inside the industry (where people mainly talked about AVN and the internet) and not outside the industry. Between 1995-98, many people in porn hated Mike Albo, the Editor of Hustler Erotic Video Guide. Luke: "How did your life change after you left Hustler? Suddenly you are not going into the office every day. Suddenly there's this huge blank in your schedule. How did you change?" Allan: "I slept better. I look better. I seem happier. I'd meet people a year later and I'd have a lot of anxiety because I haven't got a career going. I'll run into people and they'll say, 'Man, you look better than ever.' "A lot of weight was lifted from my shoulders. "I'm not saying that Hustler was any worse than any other job of that calibre. You have a lot of people working under you. You have a lot of expectations on you. There'd been a lot of strain for years. "I don't mind the void. For the last couple of years, there was a lot of headache. Now I don't have that headache. It's great except for the anxiety about how I'm going to make a buck." Luke: "What feedback did your wife [Theresa] give you about leaving Hustler?" Allan: "She was supportive. She'd sensed that I had burned out on it, not because of the sexual material. Any kind of material, working on it that long, you would've burned out. I burned out because I worked hard for a long time. She noticed the change in me immediately. I became easier to live with. "She's getting a little impatient for me to figure out how to get some money coming in. She has a lot of faith in me and the world that something good is happening. "She's been a really great support to me except for when we fight." Luke: "Are you an easy person to live with?" Allan: "Probably not. I'm not that bad. I'm subject to circumstances. If circumstances are not good to me, I recede within myself and I'm not responsive. For the most part, I have a cynical optimism. This is going to sound like a big surprise to people who've worked for me, because I was known for being temperamental and flying off the handle, but things don't bother me to the level they might bother other people. "But she's not that easy to live with either. She's wonderful. She's a strong personality. I'm a strong personality. I need a strong personality to be with." Luke: "You and God?" Allan: "I'm not an atheist. I have no conception of what God might be like. I have no interest in creating some image for myself of what God is, but I do feel I have been very blessed and very lucky throughout my life. I can look back and see dozens of times where I was in somebody's pocket. I feel it now. It's something I don't understand, that's beyond me, beyond my conception, that has my best interests at heart, with a wisdom beyond anything I could know. "I don't have any theology. I'm open to reading about it in other people. I don't disbelieve hardly anyone." Luke: "But you feel like there might have been some divine contact with your life?" Allan: "Yeah, yeah, yeah. At different times." Luke: "Is that a humbling experience?" Allan: "I don't like the word 'humbling' because I equate it with humiliation. It's comforting that there's some kind of divine presence that is going to carry me through this life and into whatever happens later. "I think about dying a lot like anybody would. I have no idea about what's going to happen but I have a feeling that whatever has been carrying me through this life does not end when this life ends. "Let me give you an example. My girlfriend Frankie and I got a dog from the Glendale pound. The dog was going to be killed within hours. The dog was a problem dog. It would lunge at people and snarl at people and snap at people. We kept him. We were consistent with him. We loved this dog and he loved us. I had him for eleven more years. He had this whole life that was very rich for a dog because I extended myself and brought him in. "When I think about that when I'm having all these worries -- what is going to happen with my health? What is going to happen with the wife? I'm not that powerful of a person but I completely changed this dog's life. "This God that I experience is far more powerful than me. If I can shelter this dog, who am I to doubt that I am in good hands." Luke: "Are you sure that the sexually explicit material that you immersed yourself in for 20 years did not take a unique toll?" Allan: "I got tired of it in a way that I would not have got tired of it if I had worked at a general interest magazine. "I enjoyed working on the layouts in Hustler. I'd see people who it bothered to look at that [material] and it would drive them out quickly. But because I liked it, it took a long time for me to become tired of it. "I was interviewed on NPR. It's going to run this Sunday. The interviewer asked me this same question and I was very defensive about admitting that perhaps I burned out on the sexual material. I felt that they might corral me into an admission that the material had some long-term negative effect on me, which I believe it has not. "In the book, I state that you see too much of this stuff, you doubt reality and I was plagued by visions of anus. I denied my own book to not get pushed into this corner. "I did burn out on the material but to the end there was the occasional thing that I would like. I got tired of seeing the same crap over and over. The same poses. Occasionally one of the models or one of the photographers would still charm me. But it did not have a negative effect on my own sexuality. All the way through, I was very interested in sex. I am very interested in sex. I am just not interested in porn. If I look at advertisements, in Vanity Fair or wherever, my eyes still go to women. "I've looked at one porn tape since I got fired [almost four years ago]. We watched it twice. Joanna's Angels." Luke: "Did you enjoy it?" Allan: "Yes. It was great. It was all natural breasts. It was the Suicide-type girls with the tattoos. They're avid about what they're doing. The sex is good. Evidently Joanna Angel is in charge of the production. It's got a lot going for it. "Some people think porn is addictive. When I got fired, I had no withdrawal symptoms." Luke: "Christian Shapiro has written about the soul-destroying nature of pornography." Allan: "I keep hearing that about my Apocalypse Culture piece, but I thought that piece was more about how society as a whole was degrading itself. That pornography might seem like that people wanted to degrade themselves and expose themselves to degradation... Reality TV had not yet started but there were all these talkshows that people go on and revel in their own misconduct. I argued that society as a whole was as degrading as pornography if not more so. "With all this reality TV, with everything that people put themselves through to get attention, my feeling is that a large part of the entertainment industry is a degrading industry. The drive for attention leads people to degrade themselves and there's a huge enabling network that's profiting on it." Luke: "Do you feel a teeny bit protective of the industry or the choice you made to be in it?" Allan: "A bit. You read the book. I'm not a cheerleader for porn. Obviously some people made the wrong choice to be in that. On the other hand, I've known a lot of people who thrived in it." Luke: "You talk about porn the same way you talked about it while you were editor at Hustler. You're talking about it now a little differently than the way you wrote about it in the book." Allan: "Am I? In what ways? When I was questioned at NPR, the interviewer kept trying to edge me back. I felt like I was in therapy. I'd want to talk about something else and the therapist would say, 'What about this?' The therapist wasn't trying to corner me or contradict me but to ease me towards... "I was talking to my wife, 'Why couldn't I just say, 'I burned out on it'?'" Luke: "You don't want to sound bitter about porn and your choice of being in it for 20 years." Allan: "Occasionally you'll get someone who comes out and renounces it." Luke: "You'll bend over backwards not to do that." Allan: "Yeah. I got to do a lot of things. It gave me a lot of chances. I worked in this company and rose from assistant copy editor to making a lot of editorial decisions and artistic decisions. I got to meet a lot of people I would not have been able to meet otherwise. I wrote this book. I don't want to seem like I am renouncing what I did. I'm still very proud of a lot of the stuff I wrote and published. Within this medium, we were working as well as anyone could. "I'm not sure that burning out is a negative effect. It's a message that it is time for you to do something else. A negative effect would be something with lasting repercussions that would effect my personal relationships, turn me into a raving sex predator..." Luke: "How many people do you remember from the industry who had lasting relationships? There are so few lasting relationships in this industry, and I'm not only talking about performers." Allan: "Four I can think of -- Jim Kohls, Larry Flynt, Bruce David and myself." Luke: "Why didn't you name Bruce in your book?" Allan: "There were a whole bunch of guys who were the same guy to me. I just dumped them all together. I didn't want to single one person out." Luke: "You were pretty gentle in not naming people." Allan: "I named people who were public. There were people who were more private or people I worked with on the political thing. The contractor we hired [in 1998 LFP hired investigative journalist Dan Moldea who was public about his participation but Allan does not use him name], he didn't want his name on. I felt like I committed to him to not put his name in there. It wouldn't gain me anything. There was another guy when we did the abortion thing who didn't want his name in there. The two journalists who did the research for us in Texas. They were always anonymous. I honored that. The guy I called Features [David Buchbinder] is working for the Christian Science Monitor. He's working for something along the lines of the peace corps. He doesn't need to have his connection with Hustler brought up." Luke: "You could've been a lot more vicious." Allan: "I could've been a lot more vicious. In various drafts, I was a lot more vicious. We went through this thing eight times. There'd be entire sections I wrote just to show that I was smarter than this other person. As a person who's not related to you reads through, he's put off by that. It didn't help whatever narrative momentum I had. I excised a lot of that and I'm glad I did. If I saw something that was just me settling some score, who's interested in that?" Luke: "Me." Allan: "But the wider audience does not care. You want them on your side but you do it by baring yourself. You have to treat the other people like you treat yourself." Luke: "What was your relationship like with Mike Albo and how did he react to his section of the book?" Allan: "I like Mike Albo. Initially, I was opposed to his hiring [as Editor of Hustler Erotic Video Guide]. Reb [Sawitz, porn agent] recommended him, but I felt like I was being railroaded on this guy. I wanted to hire David Aaron Clark at Screw or some other guy who worked at Screw. They were great writers, which Albo also was. The other two guys didn't want it, so we got Albo. "Once I met Albo, I was just charmed by him. I loved that guy. We were colleagues. Eventually, I got promoted to Editorial Director of LFP Publications. He was working for me. He was very smart. He was volatile. He had some volatile relationships with people in porn. I always had a nice relationship with him." Luke: "Wasn't there some concern at LFP about him calling up people and leaving death threats?" Allan: "I didn't know he was leaving death threats. People would call him and leave amazing threats. Those are the ones I heard. You'd go, 'Wow, Mike, you need to back off. Take it down a notch or two.' "After I stopped writing porn reviews, I realized our audience was fans of the people we were writing about. They were enthused about this stuff. The harsher descriptions I had been doing as Christian Shapiro, perhaps they should be done more judiciously. With Mike, I felt there was a bit of slagging on the porn industry that, especially for his magazine, were contrary to our best interests and to the porn industry's best interests. I talked to him about softening some of that. He was receptive to what I said. He would have these personality conflicts with people that got out of hand." Luke: "How much heat did you take for his stuff?" Allan: "I didn't take any. [LFP leader] Jim Kohls would direct it right at Albo. I talked to Jim a lot and he knew what I was trying to do to best serve the magazine. When the heat came, it went directly to Mike." Mike Albo (now managing editor of AVN Online magazine, he's causing no waves at AVN or within the industry) and company composed (in early 1997) a list of the industry's most powerful people that caused a furious reaction when many industry leaders heard about it. There was talk about getting Albo fired. The industry leaders feared that such a list would give the government better targets. About two years after it was first composed, a version of the list was published in Hustler. Many of the selections were screwball, just to mess with Albo's enemies such as Jim Holliday (leaving him off the list in favor of virtual unknown historian Sam Stetson). Luke: "Mike wrote some great vicious stuff." When I read something he wrote about me to my therapist, she collapsed in laughter because of its accuracy. When my friends and I want to signify that something is not for publication, we flag it "Mike Albo." Allan: "He was great. There was a lot of creativity in his work." Luke: "How did he like what you wrote about him?" Allan: "He's accepted it. I showed it to him in a draft. If it was going to offend him or hurt his feelings, I would've changed the name and changed some characteristics so he could've had plausible denial." Luke: "I figured that because he liked and respected you, he was fine with it." Allan: "I think he thought it was funny. We know each other well enough that we make fun of each other. I love Mike Albo. He's a great guy. A little volatile. He never focused any of that on me." Luke: "Tell me about Jim Kohls." Allan: "I enjoyed working with Jim [who now owns Pulse Distributors]. He was a very reasonable person. Sometimes, like Larry, he'd get hardheaded about something. You could always use reason on Jim. If he didn't go along with you, he had a reason. You then had a choice -- do I want to go along with Jim's vision of how to make this company more profitable or do I want to sulk? It's best not to sulk. "Most people who've gone through LFP will complain that they were grossly underpaid and are somewhat bitter. I ended up getting well-paid [circa $150,000 a year at best is my guess though Allan won't say] because of my cooperation with Jim Kohls. We worked out policies where I would get paid for freelance stuff. My salary was very low [$70,000 per annum at best is my guess]. When I got started [as editor] of Hustler, I got paid less than $40,000 per year. "Scott Schalin worked for us. He got stolen away [along with Evan Wright] by Seth Warshavsky. When that happened, LFP realized there were some key people who needed raises. "Jim seemed to appreciate the amount of effort I put in as editor. When I'd make a mistake that had a temporary effect on distribution, he'd realize that I was attempting to follow the vision of early Hustler that was set up by Larry Flynt to maintain the integrity of the magazine and keep the core audience. "I haven't spoken to Jim since I got fired. I was surprised that I've never heard from him but then I've never called him." Luke: "What did your [LFP income] top off at?" Allan: "You've had it in there before but I'd rather not say, but it was pretty good." Luke: "You were a good corporate soldier. You were a team player. You were an organization man. You worked with concern for the good of the porn industry." Allan: "It wasn't just that I did what my bosses said. My bosses, after a point, started asking, 'What do you think?' They would take into account what I thought about things. I had influence on policies. It was a collaborative thing. I wanted what was best for Hustler magazine. I loved it. "There's a perception by people who haven't read the book that it's all about how much I hated working there but I loved working there. We were presenting a viewpoint that's sorely underrepresented in the American media -- my viewpoint. Luckily, my viewpoint and Larry's viewpoint were very similar. We had a similar view on the structure of society and where the inequities are. What should be made fun of and what should be praised. "Being a good corporate soldier, I take it as a compliment. It's a strong quality for someone if you're going to be working for a company that you feel that way. "I had much of myself involved in making this product the best it could be and not just some tossed off thing, though for most people buying the magazine, it was a tossed off thing. "You wanted to think that you were creating this thing for an audience somewhat like yourself. I hired people who were somewhat like me. And then all the feedback was from people, ohmigod. What am I doing? Why am I bothering?" Luke: "You write about starting your car and wondering whether or not to raise your garage door?" Allan: "I got discouraged at the end. I was very depressed. If you work at a job for 20 years, you are going to get tired of it. There were aspects of it that were quite annoying to me. The political aspects were very annoying. I thought Larry should've protected me from them. "At the end, there were three different factions conspiring on their own and together to get me out. I don't know what they were telling Larry but I know it wasn't true. It's been proven subsequently by what's happened with these people. "Whatever they were telling him, I thought Larry should've been able to see through it. Even though I was burning out, I was still a very loyal person. I was still very committed to trying to keep Hustler vital and the company vital and he should've cut me a break. "When you sense people trying to undercut you, you have to address issues with Larry that you anticipate they'll try to discredit you with so Larry knows you've run it through. You can't bring it up directly because that makes you look like you're paranoid. "That is time-consuming. It takes a lot of energy. And it's just annoying. Particularly when you're working on a men's magazine and that particular niche of the market is getting harder to sell. You have to figure out how to reach out to new readers when they have so many more options. "At one point, I just stopped my sly rebuttals. I would see what a photographer was taking, and I'd say, 'Larry, if you want this, go with it. I'm done defending myself against being defamed.' "At the same time, I've got this guy in Afghanistan. People are being murdered. In my mind, he's an innocent. If I had had Evan Wright over there, I would never have worried about Evan Wright because he's streetwise, while this guy was a do-gooder. That was a continuous source of anxiety for me. I was afraid I was going to have to meet his mother at his funeral. I saw that tape of Daniel Pearl being murdered. That had a big effect on me. "The morale was bad." Luke: "How close did you come to committing suicide?" Allan: "Not very close. It was just something to divert me, to amuse myself. I have black humor. You can see it in my writing. I have it when I talk to myself too. It's an indulgence, a form of masturbation." Luke: "Was Hustler worthy of your love and loyalty?" Allan: "Yeah, why not? It was the venue I had. No one else had hired me. I was predisposed to it. When I first started working there, I'd read 'Asshole of the Month' and think, 'This is me. I want to write 'Asshole of the Month.' That became my big ambition. Eventually I wrote it every month for ten years. Yeah, I think it was. "I had a movie agent who read my book and said, 'You were too good for that magazine.' I like hearing that. It's flattering. At the same time, that was the magazine that suited my frame of mind. "Now, if I was so great, why aren't people lining up to recruit me? "I'd hire people with decent degrees and they would come in and you could tell that they thought they were too good and they'd give half-effort. Those people either shaped up or they didn't last. "I used to tell people that David Mamet used to write girl copy for Oui [magazine]. If someone wrote something that I could tell was half-assed, I'd tell them, 'Do you think David Mamet half-assed his girl copy for Oui?' "Obviously David Mamet was way too good for Oui. But I believe that when he worked there, he wrote some great girl copy." Luke: "How many friends did you keep from porn?" Allan: "None. "I didn't make a lot of friends in porn. I was good friends with Greg Dark for quite a while and then we both got really busy and fell out of contact. "I saw him at the Grove around Christmas but I had bad laryngitis. I thought to myself, 'That guy looks like Greg Dark. It is Greg.' I [croaked], 'Greg, Greg.' When he couldn't hear me, by the time I realized I really wanted to talk to him, he moved into the crowd. I went running after him like in a movie but was unable to locate him. "A lot of people I worked with, I'm still in contact with." Luke: "What are the implications that you made no friends in porn?" Allan: "I was isolated at Flynt in a way that was perhaps deliberate. I would meet people but I was sorta like a journalist covering them. I was never that intimate with them. I didn't get girlfriends out of the porn industry. I didn't hang out except with Greg." Luke: "You write that your relationship with Greg was mutually beneficial?" Allan: "Yeah, plus I liked Greg a lot. Greg's hilarious." Luke: "Yeah, I like Greg a lot too, but he used you and you used him." Allan: "To some extent. Even beyond that, we had a good time with each other. But then he got really busy with the rock videos." Luke: "Do you think Larry Flynt had sex with at least one of his daughters [Tonya Flynt-Vega]?" Allan: "I have no idea. I can't imagine it. The girl who made the accusation seemed like a troubled person." Luke: "Did you insult Islam to the degree you insulted Christianity?" Allan: "Maybe a little bit here and there. We didn't have a reverse jihad going. We would insult individuals than a religion. One of those individuals was Jesus Christ but I feel that Jesus Christ has a good sense of humor. He might've enjoyed the 'What Would Jesus Do?' thing we did. The old joke about M&Ms -- They don't melt in Jesus's hands because they fall through the holes." Luke: "You understand the deeper meaning behind the question? That you can insult Christians and their god with impunity." Allan: "We insulted a number of [Muslims]. We insulted the Mullah behind the first World Trade Center bombing [in 1993]. I don't know how we would've handled the [Mohammed cartoon controversy of a few months back]." Luke: "What effect did working at Hustler have on your social life?" Allan: "Not bad. Before Hustler, I worked at Slash magazine. The people my wife and I know are askance from the mainstream. For most of them, it was never an issue. People would meet me and realize I would not be inappropriately slobbering on his wife. They'd judge me on my own. "My friends are public defenders, teachers, lawyers, people in the garment and music industries... To them I was doing something interesting." Luke: "The way you speak is completely different from the way articles were Hustlerized under your reign." Allan: "Well, yeah." Luke: "A guy would turn in a regular journalistic article and it would get Hustlerized. All articles while you were editor got Hustlerized." Allan and his editors would change the adjectives to make them more shocking. Porn stars would become "porn whores" or "porn sluts." Women were usually referred to in demeaning terms. Various people (including Tony Lovett, Editor of AVN Online magazine) who wrote for Hustler would keep their original article in their portfolio as well as the version published in Hustler. "Hustler would rewrite their writers horribly to fit the company manifesto -- that women were dirt," says a former Hustler writer. "Women are nothing but sex objects." Allan: "We competed to come up with different ways that were shocking. We liked to make language shocking. It was fun. It was what we did. If you are with a like-minded person, that's how you entertain one another. Or if you want to appall somebody...with that kind of vocabulary. "I know who I am and I know who the Hustler persona was. "The article on the handicapped? Was that a sex play about having sex with handicapped people?" Luke: "It was about the sex lives of handicapped people. I didn't read the actual [Hustler] article. I read the account of the author who said he turned in a straight journalistic piece and then when it came out, it was Hustlerized and all the people he had talked to and told he was doing a serious piece were upset. And he was upset." Allan: "A lot of the articles were generated within our editorial area. I can understand how for somebody coming from the outside, that would've been a jolt. We had to get a salacious element into everything. "The way the template went for sex plays was you'd start off with a scenario illustrating what you were going to talk about. You'd have someone having sex with a handicapped person. You'd sensationalize it. You'd think about the jerk-off reader and try to grab that guy. Then perhaps you'd get some real information coming and you'd perhaps get to see a new viewpoint. I can understand how that would offend someone who turned it in." Luke: "Did you make any apologies to anyone after you left Hustler for what you did at Hustler?" Allan: "Not that I can think of. I would never apologize to anyone I wrote an Asshole of the Month about." Allan did one about me in the Holiday issue of 1999 and I'd never expect an apology for it. I feel it was an honor to be selected for Allan's poison pen. Allan: "There may have been inadvertent times when someone's feelings were hurt or the writer mistakenly believed that a straight dry piece of journalism would fit in with the Hustler format. "I can't really picture things that I have to apologize for. Things where I deliberately set out [to slam someone] or were deliberate parodies or were deliberately set out to mock somebody, I'm not going to apologize for them. 'Oh sorry, I should've been a nicer person.'" I asked a former writer for Hustler for his thoughts on Allan. He replies: "I have no printable thoughts on MacDonell." Luke: "How possible is it to have an open discussion on race and how successful do you think you were at Hustler pushing forward this open discussion?" Allan: "Race is one of the biggest dilemmas in this country. It's difficult on any level of medium, whether it is refined academics, or left-wing opinion makers or right-wing opinionmakers, it's an inflammatory subject. It's beyond opinion. People are emotionally attached to their positions. It's very much an emotional rather than an intellectual topic in this country." Luke: "Honest discussion of race is more taboo than pornography?" Allan: "Yes. You can be friends with someone from another race, but then if you try to talk to the person about racial issues, you can endanger your friendship. "As for Hustler, I don't think we helped at all." Luke: "What happens when you try to get work as a writer since you've left Hustler? What reactions do you get?" Allan: "I've gotten a little bit of acceptance but I don't have the persistence I need. It would be easy for me to say that it's because of Hustler that people won't accept me but a lot of it is just that I have not followed up enough. "I got two years of free-lance from MrSkin. They paid me well. I wrote a lot of biographies and a lot of movie reviews. The difference with what I wrote at Hustler is that everything for MrSkin is positive. You are not there to critique them. You are there to say here's the nude scene. You don't want to alienate the people who are supplying you with grabs, the material of your success. "If someone is looking up a particular actress, he doesn't want to hear your opinion that she can't act or that her tits are sagging. He likes her. Whether it's Rosie O'Donnell or Selma Hayek, they're both great." Luke: "What are the blocks you have to go through to write non-porn for mainstream publications?" Allan: "There is stigma from Hustler. There is a big resistance. When I first got fired, about three weeks after I got fired, there was an interview on the Internet with Art Cooper, who'd been the longtime editor of GQ. He'd been inducted into the magazine hall of fame. He was speaking about his tenure at Penthouse. How he'd been lured away by the money at Penthouse. He was there for a while but at one point he realized he had to get out of that field because another magazine came along that was going to ruin everything for that field. He said it was a 'disgusting magazine.' Hustler magazine. "I respected Art Cooper's opinion. When he said Hustler was a disgusting magazine, I realized I was going to have a hurdle getting my job at Vanity Fair." Luke: "What are the most interesting responses you've received when you've pitched stories? I bet most people won't even acknowledge you." Allan: "Mostly you get no response. Not even, 'We'll pass.' Some people consider your ideas. From my experience as an editor, I've given people a stream of ideas that I think would be exactly what they want and I felt that if my experience had been at the auto-club magazine, I would've had a better chance. But since it's Hustler, they're predisposed to think it won't work. I had one guy say, 'I'm concerned that you wouldn't have the journalistic standards that we have here.'" Luke: "Is there any part of you that is worn down by this or ashamed of your Hustler past or afraid to launch into the non-porn world?" Allan: "I feel worn down. I get discouraged easily. There are people who have gone from Hustler who had the persistence and thrived. "I love working at magazines as an editor. I've never been attracted to the life of the freelancer -- having to crank out story after story. All the travel. I'm 50. As a magazine editor, you're in the middle of things. You have to keep up with current events, the new trends in music and art, depending on your field. You feel that you have an impact on things as they are happening." Luke: "The story of great magazine editors is a sad one. Most of them descend into alcoholism." Allan: "I haven't read about that. "My favorite contemporary editor is Lewis Lapham from Harpers. That guy was brilliant. After 9/11, he wrote an editorial that nobody else at that time was voicing those concerns. A lot of the things he laid out came to happen. "The breadth of interest he had in that magazine. Even if I had not always agreed with his political views, there was always something interesting in the magazine." Luke: "Why don't you have a blog?" Allan: "Because you don't get paid. Can I make money on a blog?" Luke: "You could. It'd be great promotion for your book. But you're 50. I'm 39. I don't like it when people 11 years older than me tell me what would be good for me." Allan: "I don't mind. At Hustler, you're not paying these people much. You're hiring the same age group. I was getting further and further away from it. I liked having young people around." Luke: "I haven't read a negative word about your book?" Allan: "Not yet. Spin magazine's review was negative, but I felt it was inaccurate. I felt the person had not read the later chapters." Luke: "Were you aware of how vicious the LFP organization could be to ex-employees? Following them around, stalking them, harassing them." Allan: "Who did that happen to?" Luke: "I'm thinking of one woman who worked there." Allan: "I was not aware of that. They have not harassed me. They've had no interest in me whatever." Luke: "You're not aware of them setting out to ruin the lives of former employees?" Allan: "Not that I am aware of. "I only wanted my former employees to succeed. There are a few people I fired who could have a case that I should've fired somebody else. One of them has put an ad for my book on his website. "I was certainly not involved in any harassment. I have great relationships with people who used to work for me." I email former Hustler writer and editor Evan Wright: "What advice would you give [Allan MacDonell] about pursuing a writing career outside of porn?" Evan: "Try not to jack off too much when working at home during the day." Luke: "How did you overcome your Hustler background?" Evan: "I never tried to overcome my Hustler background, since I have always been proud to have worked there." I talk to a former writer for Hustler who has not read Allan's book. "Everybody hated and fear Allan MacDonell. That's why I don't buy any bile that he's putting out, that he's some victim of the LFP empire or how horrible it was to work there. Everybody at LFP I ever talked to said Allan was the one who made it impossible to work there. He was the one who so hard to pitch stories to. If I was dealing with an editor, the editor then had to go pitch to MacDonell. MacDonell was always a hard sell. Of course MacDonell was answering to his higher-ups but MacDonell was the brick wall that people came up against. "Allan was the ogre under the bridge. He was the one all the editors feared. If they didn't pitch something right, it wasn't going to be flown up the flag pole." Luke: "Have you read any of his writings?" Source butts in: "I have no desire to." Luke: "Did you ever read his writings as Christian Shapiro? I find it amazing what an organization man Allan was at LFP. He was that organization. He embodied it." Source: "That's exactly what I'm saying. If Allan tries to paint himself as any kind of a victim in his book... Everyone who leaves LFP immediately goes on this PR campaign to portray themselves as victims of this corporate behemoth." Luke: "He doesn't portray himself as a victim. "He's still able to snap right back into the mindset of the LFP organization man." Source: "He's been doing it for so longer. If it wasn't for MacDonell, I would've stuck in longer at Hustler. I got tired of hearing from my editor, 'I've got to sell it to MacDonell.' I've never had that experience with another magazine before. "It's that MacDonell was at odds with his editors, that he created an environment of hostility, a climate of fear. "MacDonell was always toeing the company line or creating the company line. "Working for Hustler was the most 'I need to go take a shower' experience I've had in the Adult industry. They really do make you feel like you are down in the gutter." I know many people who've worked for LFP and for AVN and from what I gather LFP was the worse experience. "AVN is a trade magazine that fellates the business it covers," says my source. "Hustler is the opposite. Hustler has absolute contempt for the Adult industry and contempt for women." Luke: "Though LFP will pull its punches if it's going to hurt their bottom line." Source: "Mike Albo and Evan Wright had nothing but contempt for porn. Putting Albo as Editor of Hustler Erotic Video Guide is like naming Tammy Bruce as Editor of Playboy." Allan's publisher Adam Parfrey emails me: "Luke: Interesting but perhaps overlong piece with Allan MacDonell. This "Source" you quote on your site about Allan MacDonell being an ogre is obviously uninformed and holds a grudge for getting some piece of his canned for incompetence. I know over a dozen people who worked with Allan at Hustler, and every single one of them regarded him highly. I must have written a couple dozen articles for him from the '80s and '90s." 5/18/06 Allan MacDonell, Evan Wright, Jason Leopold Talk To LA Press Club Thursday Night Listen to a .wav file of the hilarious discussion. Video of Evan Wright, Allan MacDonell, Jason Leopold Video of Evan, Allan, Jason Video Evan used to the Entertainment Editor of Hustler Magazine. Former Hustler writers and editors Tim Kenneally, Dan Kapelovitz, and Mike Albo attended as did AVN's Mark Kernes and Variety's porn journalist Dana Harris. Here's an excerpt from the official invite:
I arrive at 6:30 p.m. Dan wears these bizarre '70s-style plaid pants and Neal wears this bizarre red stain around his lips. Dan, a freelance writer, appears energetic while Neal, the Editorial Director of Rock Star magazine, appears paranoid, hunched over, and hammered on drugs. A couple of his female friends come up and ask if it is OK to smoke pot at the Press Club. In the end, the ladies go to their car to get stoned. Jason Leopold looks like death warmed over. He's sweaty and nervous. The discussion begins in the Steve Allen theater. Jason: "It's really hard for me sitting up here. I feel horrible. This is a book I wrote in search of redemption. The difference now [with the book] is that I did everything right." Leopold has a class-E felony conviction for grand theft and felony. He was a drug abuser while working as a journalist and his publishers had a couple of prominent retractions. "One of those two has since been proved true," says Jason. "Unfortunately, nobody has said, oh, you were right. "I wrote over 2,000 stories but those were huge corrections, retractions." Allan: "My name is Allan MacDonell. I've never been convicted of a felony. But I have been interested all my life in the underside. "There are a lot of people here tonight who used to work for me at Hustler. One thing they all have in common is that they all left. "I was fired after performing at a roast for Larry Flynt." Evan: "Because you weren't funny?" Allan: "I was funny. "I wrote a book proposal. Finally, Adam Parfrey, publisher of Feral House, who wrote articles for me at Hustler 15 years ago, took a chance and gave me a huge advance -- two mortgage payments. I wrote the book in nine months while we were remodelling my house. It was written to the sound of jackhammers and tearing walls and a lot of Spanish. "After Larry fired me, he offered me four weeks severance. The standard is one week per year of employment. That seemed punitive. The nice thing about that is that since I turned it down, I didn't sign anything. There are things (the Ted Turner, Jane Fonda sex tape and the scam on Republican representative Bob Livingstone, the then-speaker-elect of the House) in this book that people would never have known about and gotten me play in the press. Larry did me a favor." James Frey wrote a blurb for Leopold's book that was hastily withdrawn by Jason's publisher when Frey's scandal broke. When Jason called the police for his criminal record, the officer asked him if he was writing a book. Allan says the most embarrassing thing he revealed his book was when he told Larry Flynt, in front of 500 people, that he loved him. Allan says you shouldn't profess love in front of a crowd unless you're getting married. Allan: "I like that the magazine was completely independent. There's no corporate sponsorship for Hustler magazine. You can write anything you want. Initially Larry was very drugged. There was no input there. After a while, I started making money. "There aren't many magazine jobs. It's a tight fraternity. "You got to do everything at Hustler that you can do at a high-grade magazine only it was this low-grade magazine. "I have this thing about criminals. Larry knows criminals. I met this high-end book at Larry's house. I remember Larry being on the phone with Reuben Sturman, the highest-ranking unindicted mobster in the US." Evan: "He was like the George Washington of porn." Allan: "I felt like this big-shot. I got this attitude. It was like the Sopranos only no one was getting killed. You could use profanity. I loved it. "Larry created the template for Hustler. The things that irritated Larry irritated me -- corporate structure, celebrities... "I wrote Asshole of the Month for the 1990s, 13 a year. The column was sarcastic and assaultive. It was the next thing to libel [though Allan was never threatened with a libel suit over it]. Writing Asshole of the Month saved many of my relationships. It was a great outlet. I got to give a point of view sorely underrepresented in the mainstream media -- mine. "I was to Larry Flynt what Josef Goebbels was to Hitler. I was at his wedding, he was at mine. "The book wasn't written with any malice to Larry Flynt. In ways I admire Larry. He's a tough guy, a force of nature. For some time, he was so catatonic on drugs, people thought he wasn't there. Because of my own experiences with drugs, I knew he was there. He had thoughts. He just couldn't get them out." Evan: "We used to call him Humpty Dumpty." Allan: "He was just Humpty." Jason: "I'm able to cultivate sources by being vulnerable." Evan notes that this is a trick of con men such as Ice Man Slim. "When you do that, it immediately ages the friendship." Jason: "I would tell them my secret [his felony] and thus they could destroy me..." About Larry Flynt's war on Republican politicians in 1998: "We weren't doing any reporting at all. We were just paying people money for information." Wright says that Allan's book reads like a tale of his unrequited love for Larry Flynt. Allan: "Many conspiracy theorists believe that Woody Harrelson's father was the gunman on the grassy knoll [who killed President Kennedy]. And they make a compelling case." German guy in the audience: "Why does Hustler make their cover girls look like they're dipped in oil?" Allan: "They dip her in oil." Evan: "Then they kill her afterwards." Allan: "It's motion enhancement. It makes her look so excited that she's exuding this oil." MacDonell says Hustler magazine is "indefensible." Allan compares the environment at LFP to the Sopranos. |
