"Some people hustle pool; some people hustle cars. Then there's that man you've heard about, the one who hustles stars!" Greetings, greetings, fellow stargazers! Looking toward your computer screen today, you'll find Jack Horkheimer: Star Gazer, a five-minute show that has been in weekly production for over thirty years, airing in-betweensies on many PBS stations. Contrary to the cheeky bio on Jack's website, it wasn't always easy for Jack to "keep looking up!" This 9/19/1982 Miami Herald article reveals that he grew up as a sickly boy, eventually meandering to Florida to stumble into his avocation and vocation as Director of the Miami Space Transit Planetarium, only to watch his life's work almost crumble due to a PR nightmare. Since then, however, things have been much better: Star Gazer (originally called Star Hustler, then changed in 1997 due to internet search engines leading people to Hustler Magazine's website) has been nationally syndicated since 1985 (and internationally since 1989), chalking up over 1500 episodes. A book of his monthly cartoons has been published. The Astronomical League sponsors The Jack Horkheimer Award for Exceptional Service by a Young Astronomer. (2008's winner.) So whether you find Jack avuncular or creepy, Jack Horkheimer is, to many, the face of popular backyard astronomy. [more inside]
posted by not_on_display on Dec 16, 2008 - 37 comments

Vanity Fair sits down with Larry Flynt --his history and hits and misses, how much he pays for scandals involving hypocritical public figures, and a new (and limp) Nixon anecdote -- and tons of other juicy tidbits, of course).
posted by amberglow on Dec 20, 2007 - 26 comments

Trent Lott announced today that he will be resigning from the U.S. Senate at the end of the year. His swift and unexpected decision to retire just one year after a re-election that many saw as a comeback from his much disgraced comments at Strom Thurmond's birthday party in 2002 has puzzled many folks. Rumor is spreading that his resignation is due to an alleged scandal: his involvement with a gay escort. [more inside]
posted by ericb on Nov 26, 2007 - 96 comments

The strange saga of Harvey Matusow, "most hated man in America". Said to be the most notorious of the paid perjurious snitches for the Communist witch-hunters, married 12 times, gave LSD to Robert F. Kennedy, tangled with Roy Cohn, was prison buddies with Wilhelm Reich, recorded a psychedelic Jews Harp record, started the rumor that smoking dried banana peels gets you high (as an act of revenge against Chiquita Banana), wrote one of the first how-to books on computer hacking. [via]
posted by nickyskye on Aug 18, 2006 - 20 comments

"Even though everything we did, we made sure was always legal, it still had a sort of illicit quality to it." An interview with Allan MacDonell, author of Prisoner of X: 20 Years in the Hole at Hustler Magazine.
posted by bardic on Jun 3, 2006 - 11 comments

The Pool Hustler. Long an American icon, pool hustlers have all but disappeared. They enjoyed a brief resurgence in the 60’s when pool became popular again, thanks to “The Hustler”. Interest waned through the 70’s, until Newman and Cruise made hustling cool again in “The Color of Money”. Is pool, and by extension hustling, due for a new renaissance?
posted by cosmicbandito on Nov 11, 2005 - 46 comments

"These are 20 of the most awesome trick shots I have created and learned over this summer." Warning: embedded wmv
posted by jonson on Sep 6, 2005 - 21 comments

Hustler's magazine's anticipated expose of closeted congressman David Dreier (R – California) hits newsstands today. Raw Story reports that the article “offers a handful of new details not previously reported, including a charge that high-level California Republicans have been aware of (and sanctioned) Dreier’s gay lifestyle for many years.” The article recounts how Dreier’s gay life was exposed earlier this summer by blogACTIVE.com, RAW STORY, and then picked up by L.A. Weekly (previously discussed here, here, and here). Dreier was targeted because he had repeatedly voted against gay rights measures – all the while keeping his alleged partner on his office payroll. Hustler gave permission to blogACTIVE and RAW STORY to excerpt parts of the article. The full article is only available in the print edition of the magazine.
posted by ericb on Dec 3, 2004 - 40 comments

War is Hell: Generation Kill

Torn by War Porn*? Just can't get enough?

For those of you who stopped reading Rolling Stone some time in the 80's, and therefore most likely missed Evan Wright's war dispatches from Humvee Number One last summer, we bring you: Generation Kill:Devil Dogs, Iceman, Captain America, and the New Face of American War

Reviewed here,and here ("reprint" of NYT review).

*Oddly enough, Evan Wright's journalistic career began as a porn critic for Hustler. True story.
posted by piedrasyluz on Jun 22, 2004 - 5 comments