Al Goldstein, 1936-2013: New York City's All-Time Greatest Smut Peddler
R.I.P. (That "P" can stand for pretty much any word you can think of in this situation. Al wouldn't mind.)
A great New Yorker has died. He was also a great publisher. And also a great fighter for first amendment rights. That's "great" in a certain sense of the word. Lots of people would choose another word. Lot's of people never found him to so "great." He was, as he'd surely have been the first to admit, truly disgusting.
I'm talking, of course, about Screw magazine founder Al Goldstein. As Choire Sicha writes at the Awl:
Disgustingness is a part of the human condition (a pretty big part, if you think about it), and therefore, important to document. Al Goldstein dove headfirst into the job, wallowing in the yucky stuff like some kind of Jewish hippopotamus. (All the nicest hippopotamuses are Jewish.) He was a real pioneer at the in-your-faceness that has become such a part of American culture—he probably flipped the bird at more cameras than any rapper ever has. And if you can find any man from the tri-state area who was a teenager in the '80s who says he never stayed up late to watch Al Goldsteins "Midnight Blue" at the lowest volume possible, ready to change the change the channel at the first sound of parental footsteps coming down the hall, I'll find you a liar.
Al Goldstein was 77.
