DOWN-on-his-luck smut sultan Al Goldstein has finally hit rock bottom.
The former Screw magazine publisher, who has lately faced destitution, legal woes and homelessness, called us from a shelter at Bellevue Hospital yesterday and said he was fired from his job as a greeter at the Second Avenue Deli.
"I got fired Monday night, after I slept there on Sunday," he said. "The owner got mad at me. I feel terrible. I loved that job. It kept me out of the shelters. Now I have nothing. Last night in the shelter, a homeless guy actually gave me $5. He said, 'Don't have pride. Take the money.' I'm humiliated. Everyone who hated me should be gleeful because my life has become a true horror. Like T.S. Eliot, I'm one of the empty people. I once was Al Goldstein, now I'm a pathetic homeless person."
Goldstein, 68, once a multimillionaire porn pioneer, is now penniless. His company, Milky Way Productions, which published Screw and ran his cult classic cable show "Midnight Blue," went bankrupt last year.
He was forced to sell his mansion in Pompano Beach, Fla., which featured an 11-foot statue of a raised middle finger in the backyard. He is on probation for harassing one of his four ex-wives in the pages of Screw. And his son, Harvard Law School grad Jordan Goldstein, refuses to speak to him.
"He must really hate me," Al said of Jordan. "We haven't talked ever since he didn't invite me to his graduation from law school three years ago. He's sold my collection of wristwatches, which was all I had left. And I was a good father. I sent him to magic camp. I took him to horse ranches. I gave him everything he wanted."
Goldstein also complains that his porno peers have shunned him: "Larry Flynt won't hire me. Bob Guccione is bankrupt. The business I created has turned its back on me." He said the only one who has offered help is roly-poly porn legend Ron Jeremy. "He tried to get me a job selling porno DVDs in California, but I can't go there because I'm on probation," Goldstein said.
Before he was fired from his two-month gig at the Second Avenue Deli, Goldstein tried his hand at stand-up comedy in "What I Like About Jew," a music and comedy revue. He recently applied for a job at Cigar magazine. "It's my last hope," he said.
Still, Goldstein claims to have no regrets: "People ask me would I trade it, if I knew 35 years ago what would happen to me? I wouldn't. It's been a fair trade. I had the best women, the best wine and the best cigars."