I remember Larry.

Man, that was hard to watch, wasn’t it?

I’m speaking, of course, of the daylong testimony in the impeachment trial, culminating with the last hour or so, when the videos from inside the Capitol were shown. With the very compelling graphics that demonstrated just how close to the senators and representatives that the mob came, you’d think this would be a slam dunk for the Democrats, but as we all know, it won’t be.

Nevertheless, I found myself almost incandescent with fury watching, and I thought I’d already pegged the needle on this one. Worst of all was the police, the outnumbered, overtaxed, why-the-hell-didn’t-they-get-more-backup police, their panicked voices on the radios. For them to be terrorized by this gang of scraggly-beard, stunted-penis, mouth-breathing, misusing-who-and-whom-and-never-mind-less-and-fewer bunch of terra-cotta-toothed* shitheads? It’s enraging.

And they’re going to vote to acquit. Because they suck so, so hard.

Seriously, though, how could anyone watch that and not believe Trump was the architect of the whole thing? I was almost physically sickened by it, and yet, just a few days ago, the majority leader of the Michigan Senate called this whole event “a hoax.” I wonder if he’s nauseous today. My guess is not.

Then, at the end of the day, Larry Flynt died, and I was moved to tweet. This is the first of a long thread, so if you want the rest, click on it and read it on Twitter:

Obviously he was more than a colorful punchline. His porn could be incredibly gross, but he had a certain guilelessness that I always liked. And he was a legit First Amendment warrior. He made political satire safe for everyone. Gotta respect that.

I can’t wait to see how the defense answers what was laid out today. That’s a reason to get up in the morning.

* Original witticism credited to Brett Butler. Apologies for not doing so sooner.

Posted at 9:11 pm in Current events, Media |
 

27 responses to “I remember Larry.”

  1. Mark P said on February 11, 2021 at 12:22 am

    I share your anger deeply deeply deeply. The prosecution proved their case today. Trump incited a riot in December with the same kind of language he used on January 6. He used the same kind of language and got the same kind of result. I am already fuming at the Republicans who I know will acquit this criminal Trump. The Republican Party must be destroyed.

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  2. Cathie from Canada said on February 11, 2021 at 1:11 am

    Here’s the scenario that I think was shown in the evidence and events of today:
    1. Though the protest march permits were sought by various outside groups, the actual idea of a march to the Capitol on Jan 6 was engineered by Trump and his team, who had the march permit changed
    2. at 2:15pm, Senator Tuberville told Trump on the phone that Pence had just been rushed out of the Senate chambers. (ie, this meant he was still in the Capitol building.)
    3. at 2:24pm, Trump sent out a lengthy tweet attacking Pence for cowardice Protestors had already been hunting Pence but the mob was told about the tweet and they really went nuts after that.
    If Pence had been killed or injured, and if the vote count had been stopped (which Guiliani was desperate to do), then Trump would likely have had an excellent excuse to declare Martial Law.

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  3. Dexter Friend said on February 11, 2021 at 3:03 am

    Much was held back from us until today, as the videos smashed out our screens into our faces and I screamed “I wanna KILL KILL KILL!” like Arlo Guthrie did when he was summoned off the Group W bench in “Alice’s Restaurant” over 50 years ago. Why were Virginia State Police and Maryland State Police racing to the Capitol at 4:00 PM, so late? The Pentagon is called a city within a city, and there are a helluva lotta soldiers there and it is not far away…why didn’t Pentagon security be dispatched ASAP? There are many military installations close enough, why no Marines, no Army soldiers rushed to help? I heard Trump held back all requests for National Guard help from Maryland and Virginia until it got so fucking disastrous some Guards were sent. I heard a live radio call to a station reporting those Virginia staties were on the freeway at 100 mph racing to help, at 4:15 PM. This shit is deep, I can’t figure out why only one shot was fired , that by a Secret Service agent, which killed the woman who was busting through to enter the Capitol.
    Larry Flynt was a character alright. The last time I saw him on live TV, Don Imus had him on. Flynt said he polled men to determine if he should focus on breasts, butt, faces, or vaginas. Flynt said men were overwhelmingly in favor of seeing all the vaginas he could fit in a glossy magazine.

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  4. Connie said on February 11, 2021 at 5:49 am

    Over thirty years ago at a family reunion I met my husband’s cousin who was the art director for Hustler. She used her first initial on the masthead. And don’t tell grandma. That is the only time I have met her.

    I discovered my first issue of Hustler in college, in the back seat of my now husband’s friend’s car on a drive up north. The most memorable part was an illustrated article about syphilis symptons. I was totally creeped out.

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  5. Deborah said on February 11, 2021 at 5:50 am

    Flynt is another person I thought had died ages ago, not that I’d thought about him much. I remember seeing the movie and having respect for him, which surprised me. Enjoyed your Twitter thread, Nancy.

    I’m still walking around rhapsodizing about my perfect vision. I especially love watching the glorious sky over the lake in the evenings. I remember having a conversation with my husband a few months ago that the evening sky didn’t seem to have that vivid purple/blue color anymore and wondered if it had something to do with global warming. And here all along it was still there, it was just that my eyes wouldn’t let me enjoy it. It’s hard for me to concentrate on making dinner these last few weeks because I keep staring out at the sky. Before I retired, I’d walk home from work, heading up Michigan Ave enjoying its hustle and bustle, after I’d walk past the Hancock building I’d turn on Delaware and face the east, where I’d be bowled over by the color of the evening sky. Now I get to see that again. Lucky me.

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  6. David C said on February 11, 2021 at 6:05 am

    I didn’t watch the Capitol videos. I just couldn’t. I’ve been good all winter but I’m in the grips of SAD at the time I’m usually pulling out of it. Hearing Aqua-Buddha, Cruz, Hawley, and others were playing with their phones while the video was playing sends me into a white-hot rage. I’d like to say truss them up and make them watch it Clockwork Orange style but they probably weren’t watching because it’s exactly what they hoped for.

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  7. alex said on February 11, 2021 at 7:31 am

    I once read that Larry Flynt, as a product of the south, had a very deep understanding of southern psychology and taboos and therefore knew exactly what buttons to push when he wanted to shock and enrage. His parody takedown of Jerry Falwell, Sr. hit all the right notes and probably had more than a grain of truth in it. Hell, as we’ve just seen, bad apples don’t fall far from the tree.

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  8. Suzanne said on February 11, 2021 at 7:33 am

    I honestly thought Flynt had died years ago.

    I watched some of the impeach trial. News reports say many of the senators had never seen some of the footage and were shaken. Not my senators!

    Anyone who doesn’t vote to convict is a traitor, pure and simple. Would their minds have been changed if the mob had gotten their hands on Pence? I doubt it.

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  9. ROGirl said on February 11, 2021 at 7:46 am

    I’m in a very Trumpy workplace and yesterday 2 people tried to draw me in about how troop levels have been restored to pre Obama levels and Kim Jong whatever is no longer launching multiple test nukes. And Biden really is part of the secret world order of child kidnappers.

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  10. Jeff (the mild-mannered one) said on February 11, 2021 at 8:28 am

    Deborah, that’s wonderful. Thanks for sharing your vision with us.

    I have all the same strong, visceral feelings about what I heard (the impeachment was on my car radio for four hours coming home, I only saw the tail end and video replays on the news), but the compelling case to me for impeachment is the simple set of facts — it’s not even what Trump said, exactly, and I know the “defense” will try to focus on “Dems said mean things too” — Donald Trump specifically called together on Jan. 6, one mile from the Capitol, a large body of people whom he then instructed to go “stop” a formal, official process of government by at minimum their physical presence, and by clear implication by physical force whether with violent intent or not. That choice, to ask partisans to gather so that at the end of your speech they would be at the exact time and place to then turn and force a halt to the legal proceedings by interposing themselves between initiation and completion: it wouldn’t matter if no one had been killed, no one had used pepper spray, no one had laid a finger on a Capitol police officer, that’s impeachable behavior. That’s the literal definition of insurrection. No guns or broken windows or bloodshed needed, just the clear intent to physically cause the interruption of the transfer of power. In fact, if somehow enough cops and troops had been in the right places (or a few more had been shot earlier as they broke down barricades into restricted areas), and the crowd dispersed, and the joint session had not paused a minute, I think you’d still have a case that the Jan. 6 rally at 11 am and the instruction at the end on the threshold of 1 pm to march on the Capitol to “stop the steal” and “save your country” and “strengthen the weak” would still constitute insurrection and impeachable offenses. Add in the direct attempts to intimidate and focus violence onto Vice President Pence, and it’s as clear cut a case as I ever get to handle in juvenile court work.

    As I’ve already told Sen. Portman. We shall see.

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  11. Julie Robinson said on February 11, 2021 at 9:06 am

    David C, I know exactly how you feel, and the need for protecting your psyche when it’s already under attack. What are your fight-back strategies for SAD? I’m using my therapy light daily and taking my Lexapro, but I don’t feel safe going to the pool, so I’m missing an important component.

    But the sun just came out, so it’s gonna be a good day today.

    I’ve never seen a Hustler, but I love how Flynt skewered people like Jerry Falwell. How many church-sex scandals have we seen? Flynt was prescient.

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  12. alex said on February 11, 2021 at 9:28 am

    Lady G and other GOP senators are taking cover behind the bullshit argument that BLM did the same shit all summer and Democrats had no problem with it.

    ROGirl you have my sympathy. Batshittery in the workplace is every bit as bad as any other kind of harassment.

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  13. Linda said on February 11, 2021 at 10:24 am

    Re: Larry Flynt. He had a Hustler club in Lincoln Park, MI. A Foursquare review included this hat made me LOL:
    “ Definitely an anything goes policy though. You’ll never touch a $1 bill again.”

    From:

    Larry Flynt’s Forgotten Michigan Legacy – the Hustler Club | https://wrkr.com/larry-flynt-hustler-club-detroit/?fbclid=IwAR1Dxh1JVc5Ql4Q2SzAfYXQoI2I6jU7R7UNXjACqtAAqI3YaDrt696NJPXQ&utm_source=tsmclip&utm_medium=referral

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  14. David C said on February 11, 2021 at 11:06 am

    Julie, nothing much works for my SAD other than waiting it out. I’ve tried light therapy and it didn’t help. If I can get outside that helps some. It isn’t usually debilitating so I don’t feel going on SSRIs is a good idea. This is usually the time I start feeling better so I don’t expect this patch to last very long.

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  15. Dave B. said on February 11, 2021 at 11:49 am

    I’m a Hoosier business owner, so most everyone in my circle thinks I’m a Trump fan…including my customers. But I don’t dare tell them how I loathe Trump or they would choose another supplier.
    Larry Flynt knew how to take porn over the top. But, wasn’t it he who found dirt on Henry Hyde, the Clinton impeachment prosecutor from Illinois. Flynt found that Hyde had had an affair and broke up a marriage. To which Hyde proclaimed “that was just youthful indiscretion.” Hyde was in his forties at the time. Also, I think at the same time Flynt came up with a cancelled check written by Georgia Congressman Bob Barr where he had paid for an abortion. Of course, Barr was a big big “Right to Lifer.”

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  16. Sherri said on February 11, 2021 at 12:08 pm

    Dems may have said mean things and BLM may have protested, but only the GOP has tried to overturn democracy. They got tired of doing it the slow way through voter suppression and decided to move to insurrection.

    The Republican senators won’t vote to convict because they no longer believe in or feel bound by the Constitution.

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  17. Jakash said on February 11, 2021 at 12:19 pm

    Ohio Magazine, the “Highlights” of the state-fluff genre, was founded by Larry Flynt? I take that news about the same as if you’d told me that Franklin W. Dixon wrote Myra Breckenridge.

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  18. Julie Robinson said on February 11, 2021 at 12:51 pm

    David C, I’m sorry you haven’t found anything to help. I was dysfunctional in the past and I still don’t operate at anything like 100%. But all shall be well once we get ourselves moved to Orlando, with lots of sun and a large garden to work in everyday, and a pool to swim in everyday. Well, almost everyday.

    Speaking of Orlando, we finally got our permit approved after waiting since early October, and the concrete guys are there today.

    And in even better news, Dennis is signed up to get his first Covid shot on his birthday, March 10. Indiana is still at 65, and I just took a chance that since it was so close, I could sign him up. I put in his birthday, and it worked!

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  19. alex said on February 11, 2021 at 1:48 pm

    Wow, this day in history 2013 was quite a fun confab ranging all over the place from Cardinal Ratzi to Lena Dunham to this:


    BigHank53 said on February 11, 2013 at 10:55 am

    Prospero, Howard Stern has a great deal of money. That’s good-looking enough to a lot of people. I hear a fat wallet can do a great deal to enhance any other male shortcomings as well. Case in point: Donald Trump.

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  20. nancy said on February 11, 2021 at 2:25 pm

    Ohio magazine was indeed founded by Larry Flynt. As I said, he wanted it to be a hard-hitting regional publication in the mold of Texas Monthly. One of my other friends who worked there said it was troubled from the start, because Larry was at the peak of his power and, some might say, mania. He insisted that A LARRY FLYNT PUBLICATION run under the nameplate, and no amount of crying from the ad salespeople would move him. Finally he relented, but moved the phrase to the masthead inside, only marginally better.

    Speaking of which, one of his big problems early on was, no magazine distributor would handle his stuff, because it was so out there. So he formed his own distribution company, undercut his competitors and built a tidy little business handling not just Hustler, Barely Legal, etc., but lots of craft magazines and many innocuous titles. Sometimes he’d buy them outright if they were for sale, which is how Kathie Lee Gifford ended up on the cover of a Larry Flynt publication, something like Knitting Monthly.

    If you worked at a newspaper of any size back in the day, the paper may have had a copy kid whose job it was to go to the pressroom and fetch copies as the presses started, which he or she would then lay on every desk in the newsroom. If you worked at Ohio, though, you would get a copy of Blue Boy, Hustler, etc. on your desk, too. My friend saved all of them, including the ones like the meat grinder cover of Hustler. I wonder if he kept them long enough to sell them on eBay.

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  21. nancy said on February 11, 2021 at 2:44 pm

    Dr. Laura Schlessinger made a non-porn Flynt publication a cause a few years ago, too.

    I’ll give him this: He really had an eye for niche publications, and understood how small audiences could be monetized.

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  22. Dave said on February 11, 2021 at 5:06 pm

    Check out this article from The Columbus Dispatch:
    I saw this and remembered that our hostess was a college roommate. I thought it might be of interest.

    Meanwhile I called Rubio’s office today and expressed my extreme dissatisfaction with his current performance and attitude, and how I’m sure he doesn’t care.

    Local children of ‘The Queen’s Gambit’ author reflect on father’s life, legacy

    https://www.dispatch.com/story/entertainment/television/2021/01/30/children-queens-gambit-author-clintonville-julie-tevis-mcgory/4254801001/

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  23. Jakash said on February 11, 2021 at 5:50 pm

    The confluence of Hustler and Ohio on the same floor is funny, indeed. A dildo over the punch bowl at the combined-staff party, copies of Hustler and Blue Boy put on all the desks, etc. Uh, that stuff wouldn’t quite fly today, would it? It feels like it would almost be sexual harassment to make people read about it! A swell thread, regardless. That being said, I’m inclined to disagree with his 1976 quote kicking it off.

    Alas, given the proprietress’ attitude toward mistakes in usage, I’m disappointed to have foolishly capitalized magazine in my prior comment. Mea culpa and/or d’oh!

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  24. Deborah said on February 11, 2021 at 6:07 pm

    Speaking of series on Netflix, have any of you seen “Abstract”? It’s all about art and design and it’s fantastic. Of course I would like it but I think it’s so well made that even if you’re not into that, you’d like it too. It’s in the middle of the second season but I just found out about it recently so I’m watching season 1. Each episode is a documentary of a different artist/designer from all different aspects, Illustrators, athletic shoe designers, set designers, car designers (in Detroit for Chrysler) etc etc. I find it fascinating, but maybe it’s just me as a designer myself.

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  25. Brandon said on February 11, 2021 at 6:52 pm

    He really had an eye for niche publications….

    Near the end of the nineties, Flynt published Code, a style magazine for African American men.

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  26. Suzanne said on February 11, 2021 at 10:08 pm

    Un freaking believable

    https://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/the-sicknick-truth-movement-takes-flight-on-the-right

    “…a new ‘truth movement’ has begun to crop up on the right suggesting Sicknick’s death was unrelated to the insurrection and may even be part of a cover-up to tarnish the reputation of Donald Trump and the MAGA movement. It’s ugly and utterly predictable.”

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  27. David C said on February 12, 2021 at 5:44 am

    Dave Ramsey is still an asshole.

    https://www.mediaite.com/tv/fox-news-guest-argues-against-stimulus-by-saying-if-600-or-1400-changes-your-life-you-were-pretty-much-screwed-already/

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