Hella Nation - Evan Wright [1]
When my father read of the unofficial ambassadorship bestowed on me by Rolling Stone, he phoned to congratulate me on the promotion. “Underbelly is one step up from ambassador to the crotch,” he explained, referring to my previous job as an editor at Hustler magazine. I had started at Hustler in the mid-nineties as a triple-X-film reviewer and reporter assigned to cover the adult film industry. Like other hopeful college graduates in America, I had never had a strong ambition to wind up working in the porn industry. But when I found myself in it, assigned to interview porn starlets and write about the sketchy characters running the adult industry (such as my boss Larry Flynt), I drew on the work of New Yorker writer A. J. Liebling as inspiration.
While I did not delude myself that Hustler was equivalent to Liebling’s New Yorker, I liked to think that Liebling, who reveled in the Depression-era world of boxers, small-time swindlers, exotic dancers—“people getting by,” as he affectionately called them—would have appreciated the rich diversity of characters in Southern California’s Porn Valley. Liebling’s appreciation for the vernacular spoken by his streetwise subjects and his instinct for humor in even the grimmest of situations offered insight for how I might handle my subject matter. Describing his approach to writing, Liebling said, “The humor, as during a blitz, was rueful and concerned with the imminence of individual disaster.”
My career at Hustler began with an overdose of Xanax. I had been working a string of temp jobs in Los Angeles when a friend told me about an opening to be a copy editor at the magazine. I sent in a résumé, and a few days later I was called in for an interview. At the time I suffered from an imaginary form of social anxiety disorder. I had a fear of going into social situations that might induce a panic attack. This had never happened to me, but I had read about it happening to other people and developed a fear it might happen to me—a phobia of a phobia, as it were—which I medicated by popping copious amounts of Xanaxes before a stressful social interaction, such as a job interview. Without the crutch of a massive dose of tranquilizers, I feared that in the middle of an interview I might lose my mind and begin to sweat uncontrollably, speak in tongues and walk in aimless circles through the office of my prospective employer. On the afternoon of my job interview, I overshot the mark. I’d eaten a big lunch that day, and to compensate, I popped several extra pills before getting on the bus that would take me to Hustler’s offices in the Flynt Building on Wilshire Boulevard. Somewhere in Beverly Hills the bus broke down. I had to jog several blocks to make the interview. The exertion must have released a powerful wave of tranquilizer into my bloodstream. By the time a receptionist showed me into the executive editor’s office, I couldn’t feel my face.
Allan MacDonell, the executive editor, sat at a broad, uncluttered desk behind which panoramic windows offered a sweeping view of nothing—low, putty-colored apartment buildings and parking lots. In his late thirties, MacDonell wore thick black-framed glasses that gave him a passing resemblance to Elvis Costello. He had a raspy voice and mumbled like a character in Mean Streets. My difficulty in understanding him was compounded by the fact that the numbness from the tranquilizers was radiating from my spine in warm, liquid golden waves of heat. It was so intoxicatingly pleasant I had to concentrate not to slump face forward. Between MacDonell’s mumbling and the extreme effort it took to remain upright, I