Tammy Faye Starlite

Storm Large’s talent as big and gale-force as her name

Jim

First thing Storm Large did when she took the stage at the Cutting Room Wednesday night (Oct. 26) was point to the people at one of the nearest tables, who had come to the show having seen her sing with Portland’s sophisticated pop-jazz band Pink Martini.

“It’s different,” Large said of her own shows, to knowing peals of laughter from the room’s large contingent of Large cognoscenti. Sensing, no doubt correctly, the need to drive the point home, she repeated: “It’s different.”

And so Storm Large solo is—raw, ribald and risque. Yes, she threw in Cole Porter’s “I’ve Got You Under My Skin” as a nod to the classy Pink Martini crowd, though it had howls and Tarzan shrieks within her classic pop songstress context, thereby evoking the earlier part of her unique career. As she explained, she had been a punk-rocker in Portland (fittingly, she fronted a band called The Balls), but her “theater” voice was deemed annoying by rockers as “it wasn’t considered very rock ‘n’ roll” (she emphasized this with a perfectly placed belch).

When it was recommended that she sing Broadway songs, she objected. “This music is horrible!” she had replied, for at that time—the 1980s—her Broadway preferences were Tommy, Jesus Christ Superstar and Hair. As for Porter, she said, “Cole Porter to Suicidal Tendencies—it’s all the same: Ninety percent of songs are about love. They just look and feel different.”

She further related how hard it had been for her to find her “female voice.” Now 47, she recalled the era of eight-track audio (“I’m old enough!”) and male vocal faves John Denver, Johnny Cash, The Weavers and Harry Belafonte to The Kinks, Clash, Stones and Beatles. And while she offered no female singers (she did cover Dusty Springfield’s take on Jacques Brel’s “If You Go Away”), she evoked other fierce female artists like Sandra Bernhard, Judith Owen, Tammy Faye Starlite and Nellie McKay.

Large actually began her set by belting out a jazzy version of “The Star Spangled Banner.” Besides Porter and Brel, she covered, beautifully, Elton John’s “Goodbye Yellow Brick Road,” and performed many of her own best-loved songs. These included “Angels in Gas Stations,” which followed a raunchy story about how Large was “fugly” until she “bought some titties” and immediately developed superpowers, among them the ability to wow an apparently newly-matured male (she didn’t put it that way) gas station attendant into giving her a free can of motor oil while her male bandmates cheered her on.

A predictable crowd-pleaser was her feminist anthem “8 Miles Wide,” introduced as “a suck my dick song” but literally about the figurative dimensions of her female genitalia. Here she was joined in the “Sing it boys!” final chorus by those male bandmates (including pianist James Beaton, who’s worked with her 30 years) and joined by award-winning New York playwright Mark Acito, who appears in the song’s video.

“I love New York City, because it shows you who you are–and who you are not,” Large said. But it being a few days before Halloween, the set’s showpiece was a Portland-centered song that she wrote a while back for a benefit CD, Dearly Departed: True Lies in Song, Unearthed at Lone Fir, to help maintain Lone Fir Cemetery–final resting place of Portland pioneers, city founders and developers, military veterans, firefighters, women’s suffragists, politicians, early Chinese workers, asylum patients, and Eastern Europeans who migrated to Oregon—who had met with untimely departures.

Dearly Departed is comprised of songs about some of the residents of Lone Fir, including Charity Lamb, Oregon’s first convicted axe murderess (a victim of domestic violence, she took an axe to her husband’s head in 1854), and subject of Large’s “Asylum Road.”

“She did the laundry in the penitentiary, then an insane asylum,” said Large, who said a lot of other things about the historical needs of the men of the “Wild West” that was Portland at that time. “After reading all about her, I wondered, ‘Why weren’t you a hooker?’ But she was a frontier wife in the 1800s, and I felt so super-sad about her, and the responsibility to tell her story with respect for her situation and struggle, yet make it musical and entertaining.”

Returning to the 2000s, Large darted into the audience, confiscating cellphones and shooting photos of their owners before switching them up, to be sorted out later. “This is what live music is for!” she railed. “Just be here.”

She ranted, too, about driverless cars and iPad-ordering at airports–modern developments that take away jobs from people and make them obsolete. And wishing Hillary Clinton a happy 69th birthday, she suggested that “we all need to brush up on foreign languages, in case we all need to flee.”

Here she listed all the horrors associated with the Trump campaign, surmising that he never achieved “enough pussy to grab, or buildings with his name on it.” Yet here is also where the divide in the Storm Large stage act—ofttimes X-rated, but in a most uplifting way–was most pronounced: “Who hurt you?” she asked of Trump, then humanized him—at least to a degree.

“Like it or not, he’s a human being,” she said. “He’s doing a lot of terrible shit. I’ve said some terrible shit.”

It was an appropriate preface to her song “Somebody to Love,” prior to closing, appropriately, with a reprise of the National Anthem.

Concert Highlights–Tammy Faye Starlite’s ‘Cabaret Marianne,’ 10/15/15

Jim

Lenny
Lenny and Tammy Faye (Photo by James Gavin)

One of my favorite moments in rock ‘n’ roll comes after the first verse of Patti Smith’s “Rock ‘n’ Roll Nigger,” when Patti shouts out, “Lenny!” and Lenny Kaye takes over the vocal for the second verse.

Lenny was special guest at Tammy Faye Starlite’s Cabaret Marianne at Pangea last Thursday night—the third of her Thursday in October residency performances of her terrific Marianne Faithfull tribute–and he had plenty more moments chiming in on guitar and vocals on songs made famous by Faithfull and now infamous by Tammy Faye.

Lenny first joined Tammy Faye’s band (Faithfull’s actual collaborator Barry Reynolds on acoustic guitar, violinist Eszter Balint, guitarist Richard Feridun and pianist David Dunton) on Tim Hardin’s “Reason to Believe,” which Faithfull covered on her 1967 album Love in a Mist. No songwriting slouch himself, Kaye took a verse from Starlite on “Ghost Dance,” which he co-wrote with Smith and sings with her. Gracious as Tammy Faye was to give him the spot, she also, as Faithfull, seemed almost to scold Kaye in extolling Smith, who, she proclaimed repeatedly, “doesn’t take shit!”

But Lenny had to back off further when Tammy Faye, again as Faithfull, knowingly insisted that Kaye was one of any number of men who had sex with Smith—to put it more politely than she did. It should be added that Kaye, of course, denied it—though Tammy Faye would have none of it.

Tammy Faye always stays in character, more often than not scarily so. She was pissed off early on by her scan of Elvis Costello’s newly published memoir and its “slight” by leaving out one of the “l”‘s in Faithfull. She railed angrily at ex-Faithfull love Mick Jagger, lauding his late love L’Wren Scott for successfully getting under his skin by offing herself. She further warped reality with constant bickering with Reynolds, whose “Times Square,” co-written with and sung by Faithfull, provided a high point–and features one of my all-time favorite lyrics:

If alcohol could take me there.
I’d take a shot a minute
And be there by the hour.

But Cabaret Marianne is a Faithfull career retrospective. Tammy Faye/Marianne recalled an early tour of the U.K. with The Hollies and paramour Gene Pitney, whose “penne,” she reported, looking down at someone’s meal at a front table, “was not impressive.” Fast forwarding, she declared that Beautiful, the Broadway hit about Carole King and the Brill Building era, was too conceptually flawed to merit attendance.

“Why would anybody go see somebody pretend to be a singer who’s still alive?” she asked, Reynolds behind her clearly biting his tongue.

Jack Shit’s shitstorm

Jim

www.jasonshaltz.com

(Photo: Jason Shaltz)

Jack Shit took New York, if I may remain in character, by Shitstorm, last Friday (Aug. 8), starting with a 10 a.m. taping, in character, at SiriusXM for later satellitecast on its Outlaw Country channel.

Props to the channel’s program director Jeremy Tepper for a lot of things, first for asking if I was all right with citing Pete Thomas—Elvis Costello’s Rock and Roll Hall of Fame drummer and Pete Shit in Jack Shit (“Pete’s a Shit–Never a beat off!”), as the greatest drummer in rock history. “Yes, Jeremy, I’m all right with that,” I said, momentarily overlooking Ringo.

It was Pete’s 60th birthday on Saturday, and the celebration began early with cake and special City Winery Jack Shiteaux brand wine. But the big gift was Freda Payne, who was doing an interview elsewhere at Sirius and came in at the end of the Jack Shit set, then when the band switched gears and struck up the opening of “Band of Gold,” went straight to the center vocal mic and sang it straight through, even repeating the frist verse to make sure they got a good take.

It only got better. Jeff Bridges was also in the building doing an interview show, and graciously posed for pictures with the band. All in the Jack Shit camp marveled at how great he looked—and what a great guy he is, in addition to being the greatest living American actor.

The gig that night at City Winery, which had sold out as soon as they advertised Jackson Browne as special guest (guitarist Beauregard “Beau” Shit is Browne’s guitarist Val McCallum), started strong with “Hi-how-are-you?”—a wack greeting song lifted, if I recall correctly, from a Simpsons episode. The set proceeded into the Burritos’ “Christine’s Tune (Devil in Disguise).”

“Gram!” saluted my date Tammy Faye Starlite, a Parsons partison. “Chris!” I countered, preferring Hillman.

It being Jack Shit, there were a lot of shit jokes, that is, Shit jokes. Jack Shit being from Cochtotan, California (don’t ask directions), there were plenty of cock jokes, that is, Cock jokes, presumably relating not only to the hometown but bass player Shorty Shit’s rooster figure on the front of his cowboy hat, which he won at a bird calling contest, for his Tufted Nighthatch call, if I recall correctly.

Shorty, by the way, also moonlights in Costello’s band. Both he and Beau split lead vocals, while Pete gets a lead or two as well, and sounds, well, kind of like Ringo—and that’s not at all a bad thing, Ringo being an arguably better drummer than anyone but Pete, and a hitmaking solo artist on par with his fellow Beatles.

The band played country fare including “Tiger By the Tail,” “Lazy Days” (there went Tammy Faye again with a dreamy “Gram”) and “Long Black Veil.” Then they smoked out a tiny female audience member, Cat Shit, who shined on “Crazy” and “Lonesome Me.”

And then it was Browne Shit’s turn.

“I wonder if your influence wanes the farther you get from Cochtotan,” contemplated Browne before leading his Shit brethren in the George Jones gem “The King is Gone (So Are You)” and his own “Shaky Town,” “Take It Easy” and of course, “Running On Empty.”

“I thought I should have a different Shit name,” he concuded. “But a name like Browne Shit kind of sticks.”

After Browne finished, Jack Shit ended the show with a medley of The Maddox Brothers’ country-and-western classic Ugly and Slouchy, Geoerge Baker Selection’s “Little Green Bag,” Blood, Sweat & Tears’ “Spinning Wheel,” “Jesus is Just Alright,” “Pinball Wizard,” BS&T’s “And When I Die and back to “Ugly and Slouchy.”

But they’d already demonstrated their versatility that morning.

“Freda was doing an interview in the studio next door, and Jeremy hinted that if he brought her in, could we learn ‘Band of Gold’?” said Thomas after the City Winery gig in between forkful’s of Costello-supplied birthday English bread pudding and custard. “So we had a quick run over it, but then within seven minutes he went and brought her in and introduced her.”

“Her assistant said she couldn’t sing, that she had to save her voice for a show later. But Davey started playing the bass line intro and before her assistant could finish her excuses, Freda grabbed the mic and they pushed the record button and got a great version of Band of Gold–and all she could hear were the bass and drums, since she had no headphones on. She just went for it.”

Payne felt she was a little off on the first verse, and when she finished, kept going and tagged the first verse on to be inserted during post-production.

“It was all very professional,” said Thomas. “It’s real proof that there is a God: It was clever of Jeremy to get her in before any of us had time to think about it. That’s really where a lot of great music happens—spontaneously. If we had 20 minutes to think about it, it wouldn’t have been very good. We would have started talking about it, which is fatal. Like Martin Mull said, talking about music is like dancing about architecture.”

Tepper couldn’t believe that Faragher and McCallum went back and taped backup vocal overdubs. “No one does that,” he said. McCallum, by the way, is Man from Uncle David McCallum’s son.

Meanwhile, everyone was still marveling about Jeff Bridges.

“He posed for a picture with all of us, and then did one with the booker at City Winery,” said Thomas. “When he saw her, he said, ‘Dig!’ Just like The Dude!”

The Jack Shit Show will air on SiriusXM Outlaw Country (Channel 60) tomorrow (Aug. 16) at 9 a.m. and 5 p.m. Eastern, and Sunday (Aug. 17) at noon and 9 p.m. And the comely gal who books City Winery hopes to make the Jack Shit booking an annual event, no Browne Shit necessary.

Concert Highlights–Colin Blunstone at City Winery, 5/13/14

Jim

Every song Colin Blunstone sings live is a concert highlight—which is my cop-out way of saying that I got to his Tuesday night show (May 13) at City Winery late after Tammy Faye Starlite’s Broken English/Marianne Faithfull presentation at Joe’s Pub, then spent most of it standing in the back hearing it with one ear, the other catching up with old friend Deb Hastings.

I can tell you that “What Becomes of the Brokenhearted,” which he was singing when I walked in, was a revelation. But you knew that.

Same with “I Don’t Believe in Miracles,” which ended with a high note held long and steady, Blunstone exuding a joy in singing rarely seen—Tony Bennett coming to mind.

“That’s the difference between falsetto singing and singing in full voice,” said Deb, Bo Diddley’s longtime bassist/bandleader, whom I’ve known since she was my photographer at the Madcity Music Sheet in Madison, Wisconsin, many eons ago.

The only other singer I knew that can approach Blunstone in this or any regard, I told her, is Howard Kaylan of The Turtles. I then related how several years ago The Zombies and The Turtles were on the Hippiefest bill and shared the same dressing room trailer at Coney Island.

Old friends with The Turtles and friendly with The Zombies, I stood back and took in maybe the most relaxed and fun backstage scene I’d ever witnessed: Here were two bands who’d done it all, one British Invasion, the other an American one that had followed shortly in its wake, both with historic hits—and both with extraordinary lead vocalists. Both were 40 years or so past their prime, yet you couldn’t tell the difference, eyes closed.

And when The Turtles played, Colin and Rod Argent watched from the wings. And when The Zombies played, Howard and Mark Volman did the same.

After The Zombies’ set, Howard came over to me, clearly overcome.

“I can’t do it now,” he said, gravely, “but toward the end of the tour, I’m going to tell Colin how much he influenced me.”

Now I was overcome. I mean, here was one of the greatest singers in the history of rock ‘n’ roll confiding in me how he was so in awe of another one of the greatest singers in the history of rock ‘n’ roll as to be unable to approach him without weeks of preparation.

Making it that much more compelling, for me, was the fact that up until this moment, I never saw the connection, realizing now how obvious it was and is.

Meanwhile, I did make note that Blunstone was singing “Any Other Way” at City Winery—accompanied by a fabulous acoustic guitar solo from Zombies guitarist Tom Toomey (Zombies drummer Steve Rodford was also in Blunstone’s band, which also included, during a brief interlude, a string quintet). He explained that the song, which he wrote, fit in with his preference for story songs.

“I love songs with story lyrics,” he said. “It makes it more interesting if you know the story in the song.”

He then introduced one from his new solo album On the Air Tonight, “So Much More.”

“This one is a deep, emotional, strip-you-naked type thing, about a person who was so courageous and inspirational, who arose out of awful trouble–and then it all went completely wrong and she married me! This song is for Mrs. ‘B.’”

And then he retold the wonderful story of his supernatural vocal quality, where he had learned “voice tricks” from his singing teacher, including “lifting from your pelvic floor” (or in less technical terms, “singing from your ass”), projecting one’s voice from the back of one’s neck, and, in a more arcane tip directed primarily toward female vocalists, presumably, singing “tits over shoulders, girls!”

These applied to specifically “Time of the Season,” which with “She’s Not There,” were the only two Zombies songs Blunstone sung. Closing with the latter, he bore out Toomey’s intro as “one of the greatest voices to come out of the U.K.”

And after being made aware of his effect on Kaylan, Blunstone, with all modesty, said, “He’s so wonderful.”

Concert Highlights–Tammy Faye Starlite’s ‘Broken English’ at Joe’s Pub, 5/13/14

Jim
Tammy Faye Starlite as Marianne Faithfull at Joe's Pub (photo: Kevin Yatarola)
Tammy Faye Starlite as Marianne Faithfull at Joe’s Pub (photo: Kevin Yatarola)

With Tammy Faye Starlite’s Broken English/Marianne Faithfull presentation, which she reprised Tuesday night (May 13) at Joe’s Pub after debuting it in March at Lincoln Center, she takes her embodiment of brilliant but troubled rock chanteuses—the first being Nico—to a new level.

Her interpretation of Faithfull is indeed that, to be sure, but the monologues that lead into the songs give her more of a chance to extemporize with topical material, being of course, that unlike Nico, Faithfull is still alive. Different, too, is that while both were once beautiful, drug-besotted blonds who struggled to step out from the shadows of iconic male artists, Nico was a tragic figure, Faithfull triumphant.

Fearless as ever, Starlite held nothing back, even making light of the recent suicide of Jagger’s lover (“Too soon!” groaned one audience member, though not without full approval) and jabbing at name writers in the house–hitting this one especially close to home when singling him out for not really living so much as observing. Ahead of John Lennon’s “Working Class Hero” she even gratuitously broke character in referencing “Jew New York”—a standard crack from her uproariously anti-semitic, pornographic and Born Again Tammy Faye Starlite country shows—and still in Faithfull English accent, copped to the confusion.

As a whole, Broken English is a masterwork. But listening to Starlite’s verison some 35 years later, the lead titletrack takes on new significance.

First, was there ever a song more fitting of the word “roiling”? Or “churning”? That’s how it opens, that’s how it stays. Faithfull singing—often croaking–with stark directness lyrics including

It’s just an old war,
Not even a cold war,
What are we fighting for?

Lose your father, your husband,
Your mother, your children.
What are you dying for?
It’s not my reality.

Don’t say it in Russian,
Don’t say it in German.
Say it in broken English,
Say it in broken English.

Starlite sang it perfectly, as she did with the entire album, as she did with Nico.

Reagan ratcheted up the Cold War when he took office shortly after Broken English came out in 1979. He ordered a massive military buildup, condemned the Soviet Union as “an evil empire” and instituted the so-called Reagan Doctrine of foreign policy, which heavily supported Afghanistan’s pre-Taliban mujahideen groups in their war with the Soviets, and engaged in the illegal sale of arms to Iran in order to fund the anti-communist Nicaraguan Contras (the Iran-Contra Affair).

Who knows what’s going on clandestinely today, that is, besides the use of drones—often with tragic collateral damage consequences. But we do know that we have a president—a “Dahomeyan pinko octaroon,” as Starlite has identified Obama in her Tammy Faye shows–who hasn’t resorted to name-calling, or to any kind of nationalist adventurism. In fact, he’s done everything he can to avoid the militarism of the previous administration, much to the contempt of those of it and its supporters.

In hearing the classic antiwar anthem “Broken English” at this juncture and upon reflection, we have much to be thankful for, for not fighting for.

Tales of Bessman: Al Goldstein, Easter Bunny

Jim

My friend Tom Carson, far and away the best writer I know, seemed to be courting controversy when he posted a “Happy Easter” greeting last night on Facebook, accompanied by a photo of Piss Christ, Andres Serrano’s extremely controversial 1987 photograph of a plastic crucifix standing in a glass filled with his urine.

“I am not being obnoxious,” Tom insisted. “I will believe until the end of my days that Piss Christ is one of the greatest images of Christ ever created. That’s because it proves that the glory of Jesus can triumph over any context, piss included. And I think Jesus would have liked that.”

I make no such defense of my Easter Sunday greeting: A heartfelt “Fuck you!” in the name of Al Goldstein.

I’ve been thinking a lot about Al lately, and I know he would have liked that. As he used to tell me, “Every day when you wake up, the first thing you should say to yourself is, ‘What can I do for Al Goldstein today?’”

As one of his many disciples, I did a lot for Al, and wish I had done a lot more. At least I wrote a couple memorials to him when he died last year, one relatively clean one at examiner.com, and another more personal one on this site.

In keeping with the joyousness of today’s holiday, then, I will relate, in addition to the two “Fuck you!”s Al sent out to me on his infamous Friday night New York cable show Midnight Blue, his weekly Hitler tributes.

God, I wish I had taped them-and the time I brought on Tammy Faye Starlite, only for Al to use me as his idiot comic foil! The “Fuck you”s—perhaps Al’s most famous Midnight Blue segments, where he ranted against anything that upset him (which was just about everything) derived from my telling him how much I enjoyed the widely panned 2003 The Look of Love Broadway Burt Bacharach-Hal David musical revue, prompting him to go. He hated it, and let me—and everyone watching—know in no uncertain terms, so much so that a week after the first “Fuck you!” to me, he lost his train of thought on another “Fuck you!” and came back to me to finish it.

I find that I bring up the Hitler bits semi-frequently, whenever anyone is talking about  someone or something that is almost entirely bad.

“We all know the bad things about Hitler–but what about the good things?” said one of the irreverent Midnight Blue producers in voice-over while footage of der Fuehrer, on a terrace, was repeatedly programmed forward and in reverse to make it look like he was dancing to upbeat music. The producer would then go into an over-the-top German accent in finishing the bit with some ridiculously tasteless tripe that like everything else on the show was uproariously funny.

And, yes, I know that by invoking the name of Al Goldstein on Easter Sunday, I’m going to Hell. But that’s A-OK. I know that when I get there, Al—and the great majority of my many other deceased friends—will be there to greet me with a well-earned and much-deserved “Fuck you!”

The Great (Al) Goldstein

Jim

I’m not much for wishing anyone “RIP.”

Rest in peace? What the fuck is that supposed to mean? That no one robs your grave like some Egyptian pharaoh?

But I’m close to wishing a peaceful rest for my dear, dear friend Al Goldstein. Maybe the most restless mess of a man I ever knew, and surely, in spite of himself, high up among the most lovable.

You could easily shrug him off as one big id, but there was so much more to him than his voracious appetites for sex and food and maybe above all, freedom of expression.

I loved the quote in The New York Times obit, from “the manifesto” in Screw’s debut issue in 1968. “We will apologize for nothing.” And it rightly pointed out how he ‘lived to shock and offend.” But to my mind, at least, those he sought to shock and offend had it coming, way more often than not—on two occasions, myself included.

But really Al, am I so bad because I’m such a huge Burt Bacharach-Hal David fan that I told you how much I loved the 2003 Broadway production of their musical revue The Look of Love, which was so soundly thrashed by the critics that it closed after only 48 performances—one of which you went to, on my recommendation, and hated, so much so that you did the first of two golden Al Goldstein Midnight Blue “Fuck You”’s to me?

Obviously, yes.

But was I really so bad that in the middle of another “Fuck You” the following week, you lost your train of thought, then reverted back a week and went after me again?

“Jim Bessman. You visited me in two hospitals. You took me to concerts. You got me CDs. This is the thanks you get: FUCK YOU!”

If you never watched Midnight Blue, Al’s legendary cable access program that came on Friday nights at midnight and mixed hardcore porn footage with Al’s fever-pitched rants against ex-wives, lawyers, restaurants, movies, the government and good friends, well, you missed out on the LOL genius of Al Goldstein.

One year I turned him onto Tammy Faye Starlite. Real name Tammy Lang, Tammy Faye most recently has won acclaim for her portrayals of the late German rock chanteuse Nico, of 1967’s legendary Velvet Underground & Nico “Banana Album” fame. But the former yeshiva student first found her own fame—make that infamy—in her Tammy Faye Starlite guise as an overwhelmingly obscene and biased evangelical Christian country rock ‘n’ roll act that is either blasphemous or hysterically blasphemous depending on your sense of humor.

In other words, she was right up Al’s alley. Sight unseen, he asked her on the show, and asked me to sit there while he interviewed her, in character, going back and forth between asking her questions and hurling insults my way. And he liked her so much that he kept there long, so her segment would appear in two parts.

I had to leave after the first part, unfortunately before Penn Jillette showed up. An atheist saint for standing up for and caring for Al in his final years of dire need, an uncomfortably put-off Penn sat in on the second part of Al’s Tammy Faye interview, not realizing it was all brilliant born-again shtick. He challenged her religiosity at all turns, yet failed to dent Tammy Faye’s facsimile of impenetrable piety. Al just lapped it up until nearing the end of the interview, Penn finally got the joke.

Of course not even Tammy Faye Starlite could be as utterly repellant Al Goldstein, but there was always something somehow adorable about Al, even cuddly. And most of Midnight Blue was his producers making fun of him: I still crack up thinking of the bit where they liften the scene in Apocalypse Now where Martin Sheen’s Willard is being instructed to “terminate with extreme prejudice” Brando’s Kurtz.

“He’s out there operating without any decent restraint, totally beyond the pale of any acceptable human conduct,” Willard is told.

“Al Goldstein?” he asks, thanks to the magic of Midnight Blue voiceover. Cut to footage of Al sitting at his desk, gleefully thumbing his nose at the camera.

That was Al.

And then there were the “Fuck You”’s.

I was there on several occasions when they’d set up a video camera to tape the segments. Al would have a sheet of paper with half a dozen or so topics, then go through them extemporaneously and rapid-fire, climaxing at the end of each one with both hands outstretched, middle fingers angrily thrusting upwards along with the most disdainful “Fuck you!” deliverable. It was truly breathtaking to behold.

When he died yesterday after spending the last few years in hospitals and nursing homes and deteriorating from numerous physical ailments, Penn Jillette tweeted, “My friend, and hero, Al Goldstein is dead. I will miss him and the world will be a little less free and honest.”

He was my hero, too, and in 1999 I somehow managed to squeeze in an article in Billboard about how record companies were advertising on both The Howard Stern Radio Show and Midnight Blue—though I can’t for the life of me remember which label used the latter. But Al was thrilled to get noticed by such a respected publication, and from that point on I was invited to every Screw/Midnight Blue staff meeting, which always was well stocked with pizza.

He’d invite me to his frequent dinner parties, too, where he’d pick up the tab for 10-20 friends at his favorite delis, Korean or Chinese joints. Gilbert Gottfried was a regular, so was “Uncle” Al Lewis and author Larry Ratso Sloman—another deeply caring friend of Al’s.

His kindness and generosity knew no bounds: I brought a couple girlfriends over the years, and he told them how beautiful they were–though he did question their soundness of mind for being with me. And I took him everywhere: to Joey Reynolds’ radio show, to see Sandra Bernhard and the Oak Ridge Boys; Al loved country music, and the Oaks were thrilled to meet him.

Then again, everyone was thrilled to meet Al Goldstein. His outgoing personality was as big as his obese girth, and even after he had his stomach stapled, lost a ton of weight, and actually looked great, that personality was no less big.

And big as he was, Al always stood up for the little guy and those, like him, who were maligned and misunderstood. Like Phil Spector. He loved Phil, and was ecstatic when I had Phil send me an autographed Spector box set to give him. They had a lot of good in common, unbeknownst to the general public.

“Yes, Al. You are missed. So missed,” tweeted Penn, calling him “one of the greatest proponents of free speech of my generation.” Yes, he was that, and so much more.

My biggest regret is that I was unable to make his voice heard again after he went bankrupt. I failed in attempts to interest people in putting new “Fuck You”’s up on their websites, and could never figure out how to do it myself. With his passing, a thunderous voice shouting out in the wilderness has been silenced.

I’m just lucky to have known him, and glad that he made it to 77—when he could have given up long before. Besides all that weight, he’d lost his home and all his possessions (what I wouldn’t give for DVD copies of Midnight Blue!)—but never his fighting spirit and sense of humor.

Bedridden and deathly ill, Al Goldstein was still a joy to be around. He went out the giant that he was.