With all the bad news out there right now – Lebanese militants opening a second front in Israel, economic doom and gloom in New York, near-zero interest liquidity trap on the horizon – it’s always nice to know some asshole can find a way to have a good time. In this case, that asshole is the asshole for all seasons, Larry Flint. I love that dude.
I’m sure if I worked with Flint and had to see him every day, I’d hate him. But you’ve got to give some credit to a guy who has the balls to send a letter to the very same Congress that tried to shut him down a few decades ago, demanding that they financially support his entire industry. Yes, it seems that he and the Girls Gone Wild mogul, Joe Francis, have sent a letter to Washington to petition Congress for $5bn in bailout money.
Actually, I’d be curious to find out what the effect of the economic downturn actually is for the porn industry. The normal rule of thumb with all things entertainment is that when the economy sags, movie ticket, CD, video purchases and the like actually go up. The theory is that, since no one’s buying the big ticket items, they have more free cash to enjoy a movie. You would expect that the same would hold true for porn.
Except that porn sites like YouPorn.com and PornoTube.com (I sense a theme) have made a huge volume of amateur porn freely available on the web, which is cutting into their bottom line, so to speak. And those pay-to-play-with-yourself websites still left out there are monthly fee-based, so I suspect customers seeing climbing credit card bills are taking the opportunity to cancel such accounts.
Oh, no! Does this mean the end of Dee Del-Mar?