FILE - In this Oct. 28, 2003 file photo, Screw magazine publisher Al Goldstein sits for an interview at a coffee shop in New York with his longtime assistant Terre Galizio. Goldstein, the bird-flipping publisher who helped break down legal barriers against pornography and raged against politicians, organized religion and anything that even suggested good taste, died at a Brooklyn hospice Thursday, Dec. 19, 2013 after a long illness, according to a friend, attorney Charles C. DeStefano. He was 77. (AP Photo/Mary Altaffer, File)
December 19, 2013 - 6:24 AM
NEW YORK, N.Y. - Al Goldstein, the publisher of Screw magazine, has died in New York after a long illness.
Attorney Charles C. DeStefano says Goldstein died early Thursday at a hospice in Brooklyn.
The bird-flipping Goldstein helped break down legal barriers against pornography and raged against politicians, organized religion and anything that even suggested good taste.
His angry humour, garish attire, numerous divorces and X-rated mind made him an infamous national figure.
He took potshots at sacred cows in the magazine's pages and placed an 11-foot-tall (3-meter-tall) sculpture of an extended middle finger outside his former Florida home.
DeStefano says Goldstein was an "intellectual who cared about the world and geopolitics."
But after a lavish lifestyle, Goldstein fell on difficult times, landing in a homeless shelter and a veterans hospital.
News from © The Associated Press, 2013