The X-Man's Last Stand

Former Hustler editor Alan MacDonell exposes himself.

David Weigel | July 31, 2006

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But seriously, sex sells itself, and the adult-entertainment industry attracts a lot of people who don’t have the greatest skill sets. There are also residual holdovers of an organized crime presence. Their manners are blunt.

A half-bright person can find work at a men’s sophisticate and become convinced that he or she is totally brilliant, which leads to arrogant behavior. Take me, for instance. The same syndrome is prevalent in the popular-music industry, and among people who work with models and actors.

Reason: How often did you feel guilty about something you published, like the Princess Diana parodies before and after her death?

AM: Perhaps I should have felt guilty more often than I did, but even the Princess Diana parodies fail to shame me. A former colleague reminded me that we actually did three Diana gags, two following her death. They are still funny to me, and to him. I like horrible humor. The comedians who appeal to me use material that is just as indefensible as what we did at Hustler. MTV’s animated shows and South Park crack jokes that are every bit as wrong as those Princess Diana parodies. I don’t expect the South Park guys to feel guilty either.

Reason: You took some heat for publishing the article on "Mayhem Manuals." Explain yourself.

AM: This is something I feel bad about, although I never could have predicted what happened. We did a story on a publishing niche that marketed how-to books on guerilla street fighting, insurgency, kitchen sink explosives, torture techniques, things like that. These booksellers seemed to be exercising the First Amendment in an interesting, controversial way, and we wanted to present to our readers exactly what these pamphlets contained.

Unfortunately, somebody grabbed a kid in the Southeast and committed one of the atrocities described in the article upon this kid. This happened within weeks after I had been promoted to the head of Hustler. The only outside heat I took for it was from a convenience-store owner in the town where the kid was abducted. He had been selling Hustler for years, and he was very upset about what happened. No one ever proved a link between the magazine and the attack, but I tend to assume the link was there. We did everything we could to assist in the pursuit of whoever did this crime to this child.

I don’t feel bad about the Princess Diana parodies, but I would alter that “Mayhem Manuals” story if I could go back.

Reason: What was the motivation for scoring an interview with “the Night Stalker,” Richard Ramirez?

AM: To sell magazines. The same motivation Tom Snyder, or whoever it was, had when he interviewed Charles Manson on network TV. People, especially in Southern California, were fascinated with Ramirez. The Night Stalker had been on TV and in our newspapers for a couple of years. I wanted to get close to him and look at him and see what a notorious serial killer was like. The odd thing was that he seemed almost like anyone else; similar to how working at Hustler seemed almost like a regular office job.

Reason: You recreate a number of situations where Hustlerhad the goods on a scandal or celebrity and the rest of the media followed in your wake. What was Hustler's relationship with the mainstream media?

AM: I felt a bit of scorn coming from that sector, and there was certainly some scorn coming from my end as well, as is evidenced in this interview. There were times when the media bit and followed a lure that was a complete deception, such as the notion that we had evidence of Speaker-elect Bob Livingston’s extramarital affairs.

During the impeachment months, in the wake of Livingston’s bluffed-out resignation, producers from the major networks would phone and ask me, “What do you have on Tim Hutchinson?” Tim was in the Senate, effectively the jury to the impeachment, which was prosecuted by the House Managers, one of whom was Tim’s brother Asa. Some reporter would call me and say, “What do you have on Newt Gingrich having an affair with an aide to Representative Steve Gunderson?” Gunderson was a Republican from Wisconsin. You may remember that Gingrich kept an uncharacteristically low profile during the impeachment.

After the impeachment, if I remember correctly, both Tim Hutchinson and Newt Gingrich embarked upon new marriages. These romances overlapped with previous marriages during the impeachment hearings where the President was accused of lying about adulterous sex. That should have been news, right? It would have been compelling TV to watch Hutchinson, Gingrich and even Gunderson being given the opportunity to tell the truth about adulterous sex.

These mainstream news outlets seemed to want to cover the scandalous stories on guys like Tim Hutchinson and Newt Gingrich, stories that they had reason to believe were true, but they wanted Hustler to do the dirty work. So they gave us those hints. Too bad we weren’t doing any investigative reporting. We were just waving sacks of money to lure in potential sex snitches.”