PUBLISHER'S STATEMENT Sensible Violence The shooting of Larry Flynt has been to Advertising Age, the five major tobacco before money." I pointed out that referred to as "senseless violence." It companies spent more than $62 million HUSTLER's accepting a cigarette ad kind of makes you wonder exactly what on magazine ads the previous year. In would make Larry look like a public sensible violence is. The difference seems the seven years since the ban took effect hypocrite, since he had already pub- to be that senseless violence isn't per- that figure has surpassed the $800- lished an antismoking article and those mitted by law. million mark. shocking antismoking ads. Sensible violence allows landlords to The American Cancer Society has He replied that if we were to get any ignore peeling paint that, when tasted concluded that since cigarette ads were cigarette ads, they would be published by curious infants, can result in death by taken off the air, more than a million only if HUSTLER could continue its lead poisoning. and a half smokers in this country have antismoking editorial stance. Obviously, Sensible violence enables the liquor died of diseases related to cigarettes. we are unlikely to be offered any lobby to persuade legislators not to pass It was recently stated in the Columbia cigarette advertising under such terms_ a bill that would require funds to be Journalism Review by Managing Editor Well, that's the way the ashes scatter. allocated for the rehabilitation of R. C. Smith: "A survey of the leading motorists arrested for drunken driving. national magazines that might have There is a terrible irony in all this Sensible violence is getting the high- been expected to report on the subject American citizens with compassion for est possible percentage of the popula- reveals a striking and disturbing pat- others are nevertheless busy working for tion hooked on coffee, and then—be- tern. In magazines that accept cigarette tobacco companies and gun manufac- cause caffeine is naturally bitter— there advertising I was unable to find a single turers alike. Somehow they are able to is mass sugar addiction to boot. article, in seven years of publication, separate themselves from the conse- Sensible violence is displayed in that that would have given readers any clear quences of their labor because they haw.. TV commercial in which a famous notion of the nature and extent of the families to support. actress tries to make parents feel guilty medical and social havoc being wreaked The real struggle is not between for not feeding their kids Twinkies, by the cigarette-smoking habit. The capitalism and communism. It is not be- manufactured by ITT, the same folks records of magazines that refuse cigar- tween Eastern and Western religions. who sabotaged the legally elected ette ads, or that do not accept advertis- Rather, it is in the effort to find ways of Allende government in Chile. ing at all, were considerably better." bringing spiritual values into economic Sensible violence is the production Once I wrote in National Lampoon, systems—as well as into bed—so that and distribution of cigarettes, justified "Anybody who buys cigarettes because people can become more important than by a printed warning about danger to they're advertised here deserves to die of products, and every form of violence can your health, a warning that has become cancer." The Lampoon printed my com- be rendered senseless. That is what as meaningless as playing "The Star- ment, but decided to omit "of cancer." HUSTLER is really all about. And it's Spangled Banner" before a ball game. When Larry Flynt first appointed me why Larry Flynt sends this bedside Publisher of HUSTLER, he said, "You message: "I'm coming back stronger Cigarette advertising was banned on don't have to accept cigarette ads if you than ever, fightin' like a bear." radio and television in 1971. According don't want to. Principles have to come —Paul Krassner HUSTLER JULY 5 . 0.07 .14g ' r w W 9111M■I INTERVIEW lh PAUL KRASSNER The Naked Truth At the age of six, HUSTLER Publisher Paul Ellis and asked him if he had any unpub- Lampoon and Crawdaddy. Krassner found himself onstage at Carnegie lished material Ellis submitted articles on Then, in December of last year, Larry Hall with a violin tucked under his chin. the then-taboo subjects of masturbation and Flynt invited Paul to our annual Christmas Considered to be a child prodigy, he made a petting; these are part of Ellis 's book Sex party and not only named him Publisher of conscious decision at that very moment to Without Guilt (Lyle Stuart, $4.95), which HUSTLER but also announced that The become a rebel Paul calls a 'Predecessor to the sexual revolu- Realist would resume publication. As president of his high school's student tion of the '60s." While at The Independent, though the news came as a complete court, the young rebel made a name for him- Krassner free-lanced artits---jor Mad surprise—Krassner assumed he was invited self by subpoenaing the principal and charg- magazine and wrote skits for The Steve to perform a comedy routine—it appears in ing him with conflict of interest: The educa- Allen Show. At the same time, heTvaTs—ding retrospect to have been inevitable. Like Larry tor came from a rival school In 1954, need- occasional stand-up comedy in the New York Flynt, Paul comes from a long tradition of to complete only one course to graduate, area and at colleges around the country. iconoclasts and truth-seekers. As he points Krassner dropped out of the City College of In 1958, Paul began publishing The out, with some tongue in cheek, "When the New York. A year earlier he had begun his Realist. For Me next 16 years he put out the first so-called leaders of cavemen were writ- apprenticeship in journalism at Expose magazine fairly regularly—in his words, ing on cave walls, there was some upstart (renamed The Independent), a publication "shocking the shit out of the Establishment outside writing something else on the rocks, run by Lyle Stuart in New York City. The and the readership." He managed to subsi- in opposition to what was officially being tabloid covered topics — cancer research, dize the publication throughout this period written on the cave walls." So it's little government corruption, monopolies, to name by taking on additional assignments: con- wonder that Paul Krassner is now Publisher but a few—that 25 years later are still hot tributing editor to Playboy; editor of his of HUSTLER. the current "opposition stone" items in the media. Eventually, Paul became friend Lenny Bruce's autobiography. How to in America. Our Editorial Director, Bruce managing editor of The Independent. Talk Dirty and Influence People; film critic David, questioned Krassner about how he Through his association with Lyle Stuart for Cavalier magazine; co-editor with Ken will maintain his iconoclasm at HUSTLER and The Independent, Krassner came into KeseTTT-he Last Supplement to the Whole (under the stipulation that Paul keep his contact with sexual-ethics pioneer Albert Earth Catalog; and columnist for National clothes on during the interview). HUSTLER: For the benefit of our readers who may not be living room or bedroom and not have to answer to anyone familiar with The Realist, could you describe the magazine but yourself, you should be able to do the same in print. and explain how it evolved over the years? But I learned that there was a lot of compartmentalization KRASSNER: The Realist was simply a magazine that pub- among people who called themselves free thinkers. They lished stuff no other publication would touch. I was doing might think freely about religion but not about sex. There stand-up comedy in the early '50s, when Lenny Bruce and were a lot of prudes in the free-thought movement, just as Mort Sahl were, but I didn't have the same show-business there are a lot of prudes in the nudist movement. They drive as they did. My bits about accept the anatomy but not the music to masturbate by and Senator physiology. Joe McCarthy weirded out the club HUSTLER: How did the sense of owners. humor and irreverence you intro- That type of humor and satire duced to this tradition eliminate that made The Realist. There were only compartmentalization? two humor magazines in this country KRASSNER: By being consistent. If then: Mad, which was aimed at teen- • irreverence applied to anything, it agers, and The New Yorker, which I would apply to everything. That was too lazy to read anything in but became a challenge because there are the cartoons. things in which you have a vested HUSTLER: In 1958, when you be- interest, and you have to apply gan The Realist, you were among a irreverence to those things as well. small faction concerned with freedom HUSTLER: For that time wasn't The of the press in America. Wasn't The Realist a radical publication, which Realist born out of a traditionally lib- caused a great deal of controversy? eral sensibility? What some people KRASSNER: Well, people have de- called the free-thought movement? fenses that are built up from early KRASSNER: Well, I've always felt childhood, and if you present an idea that freedom of the press is a logical to them in a way that makes them extension of freedom of speech. If laugh, quite often those defenses are you could talk about things in your dropped.: Suddenly, they may discover Photography by Frank DeLta HUSTLER JULY 39 they're holding onto a truth that's too questioned whether this was just an admit they were unaware of, because _„„,,hot to handle, and they get offended.