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from www.nola.com – Adult-magazine magnate Larry Flynt, these days, happens to have a stake in quite a bit of Bourbon Street.
Besides his flagship Hustler Club at 225 Bourbon St., right beside Galatoire’s, there’s Hustler Barely Legal at 423 Bourbon, and the Hustler-branded Little Darlings, at No. 411. At the gateway to the famous strip, right across from the Krystal Burger, there’s also the Hustler Hollywood store, at 111 Bourbon – a two-story emporium that stocks the platform heels, thongs and abbreviated outfits worn by the dancers at his clubs, as well as T-shirts, motorcycle helmets, baby onesies and other items emblazoned with the familiar sans-serif Hustler logo.
It was inside Hustler Hollywood that a respectable crowd of about 70 or 80 people lined up, at Thursday night at 7, to meet Flynt on the first stop of a three-hour tour of his Bourbon Street interests. The occasion was the promotional tour for his new book, “One Nation Under Sex” – an American political history, co-written through the lens of famous sex scandals, by Columbia University historian David Eisenbach.
Eisenbach did not join Flynt on Bourbon Street on June 21 for the book event, but most of the fans who waited in line to meet the infamous publisher and anti-censorship activist didn’t seem to mind.
A Hustler Hollywood employee was stationed a the store’s entry — by the hand-sanitizer dispenser (a sign affixed to it read, “Hustler Hollywood Promotes Cleanliness”) — to guide each visitor toward the stack of books for sale. Still, at least half of them made it to the front of the signing line empty-handed, intent on simply meeting the man in the flesh.
Carly Hayden, who held hands with fiancé Brandon Alwell as the pair waited on line to meet Flynt, just wanted a photo.
“My grandpa was always a huge Larry Flynt fan,” she said. It was her idea, Alwell explained, to come to the signing.
“I’m just tagging along,” he said.
“I’ve been to New Orleans a few times, and it’s an amazing place,” said Pat Clark, a community development coordinator in town from Pittsburgh for an urban planning conference.
“One of the reasons it’s amazing is that you can walk past this store and find out that Larry Flynt is going to be here,” he said.
Clark killed time on line at the store texting his wife and niece, wondering what souvenirs to bring them. Options included drinking straws shaped like penises, water guns shaped like penises, cake pans shaped like, well you get the idea… He eventually bought “Larry Flynt for President” T-shirts, but not the book.
“Although I perhaps do not agree with Mr. Flynt’s proclivities with regards to sex, I acknowledge him as a giant of the 20th century in terms of preserving our First Amendment rights,” Clark said. “So I’m going to shake his hand.”
The book details incidents in U.S. politics when lust changed the course of history, so once I reached the front of the line I asked Flynt what his particular favorite moment in the history of American sex was. Flynt, of course, was instrumental in at least one political sex scandal, and a scandal with local interest, too: His own offer, during the Clinton administration, to award $1 million to anyone who delivered a sordid tale about a Republican politician. It resulted in the 1998 resignation of Louisiana congressman Bob Livingston, who admitted an extramarital affair and left office.
“My favorite moment in the book, or ever?” Flynt asked.
OK, ever.
“The movie ‘Deep Throat,'” he answered.