ALTADENA, Calif. - Max Hardcore has been invited for the first time ever to appear on "The Howard Stern Show," in a Sept. 24 segment that will present him, Jim Powers and Pariah Pictures' Mike Sullivan as porn's "most outrageous" trio of producers.
Hardcore will be bringing along favorite porn gal Layla, and hopes to use the appearance as a fun but informative platform to speak his mind about the federal obscenity charges currently leveled against him by the Department of Justice.
"I look at it as a real good opportunity to get the word out on our case," Hardcore told AVN. "The setup for the show is we're going to be, as I understand it, interviewing a woman who's either considering getting into the business or is just starting out and wants to get hired, and we grill her to assess if she's ready for primetime or not. So that opens up a lot of interesting possibilities, and we could really have some fun with that.
"Part of my strategy in my current legal battle with the government," he continued, "[is] to take the offensive, and get the message out that we're outraged that the government would file against me in an attempt to shut me down and silence my voice because they don't agree with what I have to say. And going so far as to come up with outrageous lies, the number one lie being my movies portray severe violence towards women. I don't know what movie they were watching, but my movies have no severe violence in them of any kind, especially directed towards women. There's no hitting, there's no beating, there's no heavy choking. Of course there's spanking and light slapping and so forth, but far, far from what any reasonable person would conclude is severe violence. If they want to see severe violence towards women, all they have to do is turn on the television during primetime or go to the movies, and they're gonna see stuff that's a hundred times worse than anything I would do.
"So the only thing I can think of," Hardcore speculated, "is that they interpret me riding a girl like a crazed cowboy and spanking her ass as inflicting of severe violence towards them. And I can only conclude from that that, well, they just never had good sex before!"
Hardcore was required to request special permission from the Tampa, Florida judge presiding over his case to travel to New York for the "Stern" appearance, and he said that while he expects the request will be approved, having to make it in the first place angers him even more.
"This is another outrage," he said. "I'm effectively, in direct contrast to the Constitution, I'm presumed to be guilty before I've been convicted. So part of that is, they restrict my travel. They've taken my passport; if I want to travel out of the southern California area, I have to make a formal request to the presiding judge well enough in advance that they can take their leisurely time and grant me permission. I think that's pretty outrageous.
"There's no reason they shouldn't grant it," he surmised, "and if they do deny it, it would cast them in a pretty bad light."
Hardcore said he expects to receive an answer to the request within a week or so, and that because he was already granted permission to travel to the Internext convention in Florida, he sees no problem with this request being approved, as well.
"I'm expecting to be on ['Stern'] with Layla," he asserted, "and I'm hoping that we can make a really memorable and funny and informative show, and hopefully one of the best shows that they've had in a long time."
