Old Friends Turn Out For Al Goldstein Memorial in NYC Last Night

NEW YORK CITY—Left Coasters may not have a good feel for how admired the late publisher/curmudgeon Alvin "Al" Goldstein was by New York's sexual freedom community and other pro-sex activists around the country—but a list of some of the celebrities who showed up at last night's Goldstein Memorial at the Museum of Sex, or sent their recorded regards, might help. Start with Penn Jillette, the talking member of the magic act Penn & Teller and the Showtime original series Penn & Teller's Bullshit—and the guy who paid Goldstein's rent for the apartment where he lived after being rescued from living on the streets in the mid-'00s, and later paid his hospital bills. Then there was famous comedian Gilbert Gottfried, a long-time Goldstein follower and supporter, who wowed the crowd (which numbered about 100) with a few choice thoughts and remembrances, told in Gottfried's usual high-volume ranting style with plenty of middle-finger salutes. "I HOPE YOU'RE SUCKING THE DICKS OF JOSEPH GOEBBELS AND JOSEF MENGELE IN HELL!" Gottfried shouted, among other faux anti-semitic jokes. "FUCK YOU! FUCK! YOU!" "I mean, everything about him was disgusting," Gottfried told New York magazine reporter Dan Duray as the comic sampled from the crates of White Castle burgers (a Goldstein favorite). "He could make a story about walking down the street and smelling the flowers disgusting." "Gottfried was fucking hilarious, and Penn actually showed some honest emotion," observed Penthouse editor Eric Danville, author of The Complete Linda Lovelace. "Publisher Judith Regan was there as well, plus John Holmstrom of Punk magazine, former Screw art director Richard Jaccoma, illustrators Danny Hellman and Bob Fingerman, and former screw staff members Kevin Hein (art director), Lenny Aaron (Midnight Blue), and former editors Chip Maloney, Mike Edison and myself. Animator Bill Plympton was there too, and photog Terry Richardson. Most surprisingly (to me at least), Al's son Jordan showed up with his mother." The memorial was largely the work of three people: Viveca Gardiner, Larry 'Ratso' Sloman and Charles Destefano. "There weren't very many of us left in Al's life towards the end, and those of us who were, were mainly the people who organized it," Gardiner told AVN. "So there was Ratso, who's an author—he just wrote a biography of Mike Tyson and he was a dear friend of Al's for years and years, and even had his medical proxy and was very closely involved with Al all along; and Charles Destefano, who was one of Al's lawyers. "I'd met Al a handful of times years and years ago, through Penn Jillette, but I didn't really know him," she continued. "But after Al had his stroke and Penn was in New York visiting him, since he doesn't live in New York, he said to me, 'He's dying and he has no one left in his life except for Ratso and me. I can't imagine a worse fate than to be dying with nobody but Ratso and me, so you would be doing a kindness if you went and visited him.' So I did, as a favor to Penn, and then I kind of fell for the old guy, so for the last two or three years since he was hospitalized and institutionalized, I probably saw him an average of once a week." Gardiner also described the video that Ron Jeremy had sent in to be played during the evening. "Ron's big message about Al was about how many people don't realize that, although they say Al was a fighter for freedom of speech, they don't realize specifically what he did to enable satire or freedom of expression when it comes to corporations and corporate insignia," she recounted. "So Ron talked specifically about Al's lawsuits involving Lotsa Bread, Cabbage Patch Kids and Pillsbury, and he was referring to, for example, a cartoon that Al did of the Pillsbury Dough Boy and Dough Girl fucking and the Dough Girl getting a yeast infection, and Pillsbury sued him, and so our freedom to make fun of companies is what Al did for that. He compared it to what Larry Flynt did for freedom to make fun of individuals, Al got for us the same kind of rights to speak about corporations." Former adult star and sex-positive activist Annie Sprinkle also made a contribution: A letter listing "Ten Reasons Why I'm Eternally Grateful to Al Goldstein," which was read to the assemblage. Reason #1?  "When I was eighteen years old, in 1973, Al Goldstein got me my first job in a fancy Manhattan massage parlor, and rated my blow job with five stars in Screw magazine, which planted the seeds for my now four-decade long career in sex. Thanks Al!" The rest of the reasons can be found here. Several other people spoke of their contacts with Goldstein, including Josh Alan Friedman, who co-wrote Al's autobiography, and Veronica Vera, who told the apocryphical story of how the "fatman" would go to her School for Boys Who Want to be Girls on the down-low and engage in secret corset and high heel sessions under the name Jessica—not a word of truth to it, but it brought down the house. Besides Destefano, who'd once had to explain in a Brooklyn judge's chambers why Goldstein had "faxed the judge some gay pornography with superimposed heads of the judge and the Brooklyn district attorney," there were also Paul Cambria's old law partner, Herald Price Fahringer, who'd defended Goldstein from a 12-count obscenity indictment, and Fahringer's current law partner Erica Dubno. Another highlight of the event was the entire 69ers Motorcycle Club roaring in from Staten Island in honor of Goldstein's life and works. All in all, it was a hell of an evening, and we're sorry we missed it. Photo by John Huntington, showing Gottfried, Sloman (in the "Bad Seed" T-shirt) and Vera, with many more photos here.