<i>N.Y. Times</i> Reviews Al Goldstein&#8217;s Book

A former colleague of Screw magazine co-founder Al Goldstein hails the porn pioneer’s autobiographical book, "I Goldstein: My Screwed Life," in a recent the New York Times book review .

Steven Heller, who served as Screw’s first art director back in the 1960s, serves up a good helping of nostalgia and memories of his time with Goldstein whose often chaotic life would seem to make a good read.

Effectively summarizing Goldstein’s career, the article recalls Heller’s time as a 17-year-old art director at the publication and how he would later be subpoenaed for an obscenity prosecution of Goldstein in the mid 1970s.

Though Heller complains about the fact he’s only mentioned twice in the book, he generally recalls the heady days of Screw magazine: “The first issue of Screw was a ragtag assemblage of typo-filled articles and stock photographs of simulated carnal congress,” as well as its “porno movie review column, with its unorthodox ratings system; and a mildly pornographic comic strip which I drew, which caused some trouble during my freshman year at New York University,” Heller says.

Founded by Goldstein and Jim Buckley in 1968, Screw arrived at a time when the Beatles were at their height and political upheaval was in the air as the Vietnam War raged and the Johnson Administration was in its last days.

Goldstein’s cigar-chomping, loudmouthed liberalism fit in well with other radicals of the time like Henry Miller and Lenny Bruce before him. Heller writes that Goldstein’s magazine attracted many luminaries of the period such as Gay Talese, Philip Roth and Jerzy Kosinski, who Goldstein says accompanied him to Plato’s Retreat sex club for an evening of debauchery.

But Heller says that despite his role as the king of porn, Goldstein made an art of self-loathing, making it his most destructive and driving force. Even with a funny writing style, Goldstein often doubted his own intelligence.

Having grown up as a self-described bed-wetting stutterer from Brooklyn, Goldstein was frequently a punching bag for local toughs, even as he feared becoming milquetoast, as he frequently referred to his father, who himself had been a photojournalist in World War II.

The book also reminds the reader just how uncertain Goldstein was about his future, pointing out how he renewed his taxi license every year just in case his magazine would fail.

During this time he hosted the cable TV show, "Midnight Blue," where he managed to offend the likes of Andrea Dworkin and other feminists.

Despite being at the forefront of the sexual revolution, Goldstein’s magazine began losing ground to his better managed competitors. Even as he amassed a fortune, with a Florida mansion and a town house in Manhattan, Goldstein’s reversal of fortune slowly began with expensive lawsuits, divorces, criminal cases and eventual jail after being convicted of harassing a former employee.

In 2003, Screw closed and Goldstein’s fortune was long gone. Today, he resides in a Staten Island apartment paid for by comedian/magician Penn Gillette and Screw is back in business.