Hey, No by the fifty five carri CD talk station. Happy Friday, looking forward to the bottom of the hour with Kimberlee from sant Anthea Patowa's Church regarding the Mediterranean Festival and hopefully bearer of Kibbi and Taboulie in the meantime. Happy to welcome to the fifty five Carssey Morning Show. Understatement to say controversial Larry Flint. We all know him, especially here in City Cincinnati. His wife, of course, Larry passed away. Liz Flint is joining the program. She currently
runs the entire Empire. She is behind the book and author of the book Hustler Fifty Years Hustler fifty fifty Years of Freedom. Liz Flint, Welcome to the fifty five Carsee Morning Show.
Well, good morning to you.
It's a pleasure to have you on and what a perfect timing to have you on the show.
Now.
I know my listeners, being of the more conservative mindset, may not believe in and find the material that has been featured in Hustler now since I guess nineteen seventy four when it was first published to their liking or tay. But as a staunch defender of the Constitution and first Amendment. You know, different strokes for different folks, if I may be so bold, And I know that Larry Flint was subject to a lot of litigation over his life and fought a hard challenge, ended up in the Supreme Court
in the name of free speech, and actually prevailed. You feature that in the book, do you not.
Yes, I too, well. You know what free speech is, all speech, even hate speech. Well, we can't start slicing and dicing. Well, it's fit. So it's called toleration. We have to tolerate those that we don't necessarily like. But at the end of the day, we'll always find a common ground to.
Agree on exactly. And I'm a listen you speak in my language on that. You know, I appreciate the free speech, including you know, there is hate speech out in the world, but the freedom of speech allows people to make such utterances, and in so doing we at least can identify and choose to agree or disagree with him, or at least engage in a debate about the merits of what they
are saying. In a society without free speech, you can't even engage in a debate, which is why I am appreciative of the first Amendment.
You know.
The other thing is speaking of litigation, and Larry was in a lot of cases. The Jerry Follwell litigation that turned out to his advantage as well, and it's an important Supreme Court case. Remind my listeners about that particular one.
Well, Larry put out a parody satire in Huster magazine back in eighty three, and it was a compari ad and at the bottom of the ad it said not to be taken serious and it was making reference to Jarry follow his first time in an outhouse with his mother. Well, obviously he didn't like that, and he sued Larry, and Larry lost a Laura cart and then Larry appealed in went to the US Supreme Court and they accepted his case, and well Larry prevailed and had the Chief Justice Rehnquist
write the majority opinion. Larry was very shocked too, because it was the preacher versus the pornographer. But we all benefit from this landmark case. It's taught in all law schools all over the country.
Right of course, I went through that case when I was in law school, and I mean, Liz, can you imagine the internet had Larry lost that case considering. I mean, every single day you're confronted with parodies of all shapes and forms. You know, quite often they're informative, quite often they're extremely funny, sometimes offensive. But I just can't imagine a world with the Internet age without that particular case.
As president absolutely so's comedians all over the country like Bill Maher, Jeffrey Ross even back then Jay Leno that you could say something to hurt someone's feelings and not be charged or prosecuted or jailed.
Now I have to ask you this, considering you know this is the greater Cincinnati area. Does former Hamilton County Prosecutor Fred Cardolano or Simon LEAs Junior's name come up in the book by any chance?
No?
They Okay, I know that Simon Least was not a fan of your late husband.
No. But you know, at the end of the day, this coffee table book, it is five decades of Husser magazine and the brand meaning the best cartoons, illustrations, publisher statements, and there's a lot more are his political views. And what makes it so nice it's you see the change in the decades and it's the best of And I think that I'm bringing something to Cincinnati that they lived through it.
Yes, we certainly did. It was a much more Victorian era, and it wasn't even that long ago. I mean, I'll be sixty in September, Liz, and I remember when all these cases were pending, when he was being prosecuted for obscenity and by Simon Leees, and of course I remember, and he was having to go through the Supreme Court era with the free speech case which was in that the movie featuring Woody Harrelson, who I understand did a forward in your book.
Absolutely, I reached out to Woody and asked him he could write the forward for this book because obviously he played Larry in The People versus Larry Flint, and Woody is from Ohio, Lebanon, Ohio. It made perfect sense and he will. After the movie, him and Larry became very close friends, and it was just a beautiful friendship, relationship, loving relationship, and he did write a beautiful forward and tribute to it.
Larry Flint, how about that? Now you know the story, you know the movie. Is the movie accurate? I mean quite often movies of Hollywood take liberties with facts and issues, And I'm just wondering if the movie accurately depicts that that period of time, If I may boil it down to that, well, I.
Asked my husband when they were filming down in Nashville, Tennessee. I said, Larry, how would you see this movie? Would you say they've got a lot right or obviously Hollywood's selling a movie. They got to embellish it a little bit. And he said, for what was their list, they just about got a lot of the scenes, especially at the court scenes. And yes, that profile of Simon Leeese was
depicted thereby James Carmel, and I think that. I think Milos Forman did a very excellent job portraying Larry and all the other characters in the movie.
No, I thoroughly enjoyed the film. Again, I just was asking, for the sake of historical accuracy, if I should view it with a measure of skepticism. I interviewed one of the World War Two veterans who was in stalog I was three the story behind the Great Escape, and he said, with the exception of the motorcycle stunts, that movie accurately depicted everything they went through and in escaping from the prison camp in World War Two. So nice to know
the information I see. I have notes here Liz the author again of Excuse Me, Hustler fifty to fifty Years of Freedom. Pete Rose's name is listed here another local icon.
Yes, so Larry knew him back in the day when he had the Husser clothes down Sound downtown Cincinnati. And then later Larry got in touch with Pete Rose. He was living in Las Vegas and whenever you would come to Los Angeles, he would have lunch with Larry at the Peninsula in Beverly Hills. So it was very nice to meet him and Larry was It was very beautiful for him to connect because Larry passed away and so did Pete.
So yeah, very nice. Well local icon. Pete Rose was and a fan of Charles Bukowski, I am. I noted from the notes that there were features by Charles Bukowski in Hustler. Hustle was not just photographs of scanty or without closed women, also contained a lot of interesting writing. I think of a guy like Hunter S. Thompson, very cutting edge, you know, gonzo journalist, but he also had a lot of interesting articles like that Timothy Leary as well.
Yes, so you know, when my husband was publishing the magazine. He was very passionate about his political stories and illustrations, and that's where part of the magazine got its vitality. It wasn't just a magazine of photo sets of women, but it had a little bit more to offer. And that's why I call it this book of fifty years in entertainment. I know there is something for everyone. There