Jack Stevenson (1)

Jack Stevenson’s book is a fine read and an excellent evocation of a lost age of sleaze and although I left it with an excellent picture of Al Goldstein in all his gratuitous glory I’m not sure if I have any real insight into what made Al tick and what made him the great iconoclast that he undoubtedly was. The self-made sultan of Times Square, Goldstein ruled over “The Deuce” for decades chronicling its forbidden pleasures in the pages of his insane sex paper “Screw” and becoming in the process one of the most outspoken figureheads of the sexual revolution. “Beneath Contempt” colourfully chronicles Goldstein’s rise out of the counter-cultural underground to become a multi-millionaire and tireless opponent of all things establishment before losing it all and becoming a homeless vagrant. A tireless battler against censorship and for the “First Amendment” – he was the last soldier standing in the fight for freedom of speech, after his leftist, hippy colleagues had departed the field and after Rolling Stone and such-like had long since sold-out. Goldstein was described by the New York Times as “insightful, irrational, generous, self-absorbed, vindictive, funny, obnoxious and eloquent” – never have there been so many contradictions so alive within one man. Jack Stevenson (a brilliant scholar of filth) captures many of these contradictions in this unauthorized biography and has many sensational and sordid stories to tell. Stevenson tells the story well, with beautiful prose and an easy style, which produces an excellent and provocative read. As I finished the book, however, I don’t think I’m really any the wiser about what drove the rage and self-hatred of America’s last angry, dirty old man.… (altro)