The Larry Flynt Roast

As a kickoff for the Hustler Casino's first major tournament, the Grand Slam of Poker, proprietor Larry Flynt was the willing victim of an X-rated dinner roast held at a nearby Holiday Inn.

The invitation read, "Larry Flynt will be the butt of our jokes," and featured a drawing of a tiny Flynt in a wheelchair perched atop the scantily clad butt of a young woman. "Come laugh your ass off with us," the invitation continued, and a capacity crowd of 360 poker names and representatives from casinos such as the Bicycle, Commerce, Hollywood Park, Hawaiian Gardens, Bellagio, and Pechanga did just that.

One of the roasters at the bawdy proceedings was presidential brother Roger Clinton. He got the biggest laugh of the evening when he sang a ditty to the tune of The Beverly Hillbillies theme song, which ended with a complaint about the guests having to pay for their own drinks: "If he was such a - - - - - - - sport, he'd get an open bar."

Hustler General Manager Yosh Nokano opened the festivities by warning the audience that anyone who was easily offended or a Republican should leave. No one did. He then explained how he got his post: by putting in more hours playing poker at the Hustler than anyone else, even though some people wouldn't consider stud, his game of choice, to be a real poker game. He emphasized how dedicated Flynt was to poker by noting that once, after surgery, he played for 17 straight days in a gurney while hooked up to an IV.

The master of ceremonies was poker player/TV star Gabe Kaplan. He tactfully referred to the Hustler magazine publisher as an exploiter of women, and a sleazy, low-class, chubby, cheap pornographer. He then backtracked, saying he didn't really mean it. "He's not that chubby," Kaplan pointed out.

He said Flynt had once invited him to a no-limit seven-card stud game. The publisher, he related, had come to Las Vegas with five suitcases - one for his tee shirts, and the other four for drugs, and was so drugged up that he'd play only one hand a night. "He would stare for 45 minutes whenever I bet $200 on third street or $500 on fourth street. Then, on fifth street, he'd raise and shove in his entire $50,000."

Film clips of Flynt's remarkable life were then shown, accompanied by the casino owner's croaking rendition of the song, I Did it My Way. Highlights included the notorious Hustler cover that drove feminists into a frenzy by depicting a woman being fed into a meat grinder; his arrests on pornography charges; the infamous advertising parody that "quoted" the Rev. Jerry Falwell as saying his first sex experience was with his mother in an outhouse; the trial that resulted, ending in Flynt's acquittal and a landmark victory for freedom of speech advocates; his court appearance wearing American flag diapers as a sign of protest; his shooting by an attempted assassin that left him confined to a wheelchair; shots from The People vs. Larry Flynt, the critically acclaimed film about his life that starred Woody Harrelson; a photo of Flynt's impressive office building in Beverly Hills housing his numerous enterprises and evidencing his massive business success; and, finally, a closing photo of the revolutionary Flynt appropriately garbed in Revolutionary War garb.

After the clips, Kaplan described Flynt's humble beginnings. He said he grew up in the backwoods of Kentucky in a shack near the Unibomber, and his first condom was made of bark.

The first roaster was Mike Parker, one of his bodyguards. He said people expected that the job gave him the opportunity to pick up a lot of women. "But in the last eight years, all I ever picked up was Larry Flynt." The Jewish bodyguard also said he was asked to be a male model, assured he would never be shown without his clothes on. As a result, he told of how his parents were thrilled to see a photo of him in the next Hustler issue dressed as a Nazi S.S. officer. One of his duties, he continued, was to bring Flynt 50 to 75 cups of coffee a day. "You'd think someone who drinks so much coffee would talk a little faster," he observed. Flynt's demeanor, he related, depends on how he does at poker. "When he wins, he sometimes remembers my name. When he loses, he just says, 'Hey, Jew boy, take me home.'"

The next speaker was Hustler Casino Advertising Director Al Underwood. His talk centered on his first encounter with Flynt in his runway-sized office, and how he had to clamber like a monkey over Flynt's massive desk in order to shake his hand.

"Very funny," Kaplan cracked dryly when Underwood sat down.

The next speaker was a surprise. Arch enemy Jerry Falwell had been invited, the audience was told, and had responded by sending a representative by the name of Jeff Farley from his Lynchburg, Virginia, church. Farley said that the Rev. Falwell had asked him whether he believed in free speech, and when Farley responded, "Yes," Falwell said, "Good, because knowing Mr. Flynt, you'll be giving one." Farley explained that he was there as Falwell's emissary because, despite their differences in everything from sex to religion to politics, a certain bond of friendship had developed between the minister and the sex-magazine publisher.

Kaplan then read some "testimonials" from noted figures, including a two-word obscenity from Hugh Hefner, and another that read: "Larry Flynt, you are an evil, decadent pornographer who lowers the moral values of the United States … (signed) Osama bin Laden. P.S. Enclosed find a check for a new month's subscription."

The next roaster was one of Hustler magazine's editors, Alan McDowell, who praised Flynt's generosity in giving him a Christmas bonus that might be enough to pay for a new toaster.

Roger Clinton took the podium to express his thanks to Flynt for bringing a "quality publication" like Hustler into Arkansas, since all that young boys had to read until then were such magazines as Field and Stream and Mobile Home Monthly. The material got hard sometimes, he said, but the lesson he learned was that anything hard was worth working on.

The Clinton family, he noted, had been through some tough times, and he wanted to thank America's "number one atheist pornographer" for standing up for the Clintons during those times. He then read a message from his brother: "The next time any of us get in trouble, will you stay the - - - - out of it? I'd rather have O.J. Simpson or bin Laden."

He then expressed his sincere thanks for what Flynt did. (When the Senate was considering impeachment after the president's testimony about his extramarital affairs, Flynt turned the tables by running an ad in the Washington Post offering a $1 million reward to anyone who could prove that any congressman had had an adulterous affair. The ad ended up outing one congressman and putting the heat on several more.)

Clinton said that his brother wanted to be at the dinner, but couldn't make the long trip … from the lobby. He then sang the ditty he composed, starting out, "Come listen to the story about a man named Flynt/ A hometown boy who could barely pay his rent/ Then one day through the picture of a honey/ Next thing you know he was rolling in money."

He closed by praising Flynt for helping America by standing up against hypocrisy, calling it one of the worst vices in the country.

The final roaster was Kelly Montith, a professional comedian. He described hanging out with Flynt 35 years ago, when all Flynt wanted to do was drink, gamble, and cruise gay bars. Flynt, he said, explained that you weren't really gay unless you were having sex with a guy and thinking of another guy. He also praised Flynt's generosity for once sending a woman to his room who gave him something he never had before: gonorrhea.

The Hustler Casino owner closed the proceedings. He said that he and the Rev. Falwell actually had become good friends. He then explained that he decided to get involved in the Clinton impeachment proceedings when polls showed that 70 percent of Americans didn't want the president removed from office, and no one was speaking for them. So, he took out the ad, which, he said, changed the tenor of the Senate trial, because, up until then, even Democrats were asking for Clinton's head on a platter.

Concluding, he described Kaplan as "a washed-up comedian looking for something to do," a man who can usually be found trying to fleece some honorable poker player. He blamed Kaplan for introducing him to poker, after which his life was never the same.