September 20th, 1961: The Day that Changed His Life       On September 20th, 1961, while reading an Italian newspaper in his mother's house in Milan, Braun learned that a young man, with the same surname as one of his Milanese girlfriends, had been arrested in Genoa by Italian state police after having been caught with three suitcases filled with so-called pornographic material bought in Montecarlo. (Read The Bad Boy for an exciting narrative of the events, which lead Braun to a new direction.)       Lasse Braun (LB) calls his girlfriend. Sobbing, she confirms that the arrested man is indeed her 27-year-old brother, a guy who Braun had never personally met before--call him Gino. LB gets from his girlfriend the name of the girl's family attorney, and pays a visit to his office. As the lawyer has had no experience with this kind of unusual felony involving pornography, Braun suggests a line of defense based on the fact that the representation of natural sexual behavior cannot be considered illicit by law. Especially since Dino's suitcases were mainly filled with French magazines portraying girls in bikinis, plus some French explicit novels, and about 30 poorly-reproduced 8mm copies of old b/w porn flicks, and a few dozens of Swedish magazines for nudists. Perfect Opportunity       LB saw in the arrest of Gino the pornographer a perfect opportunity to enrich his dissertation with a research on a real judiciary case based on the concept of "obscenity" related to sexuality. Through his diplomatic connections, Braun finds a way to visit Gino in prison. There, LB discovers that the guy hadn't realized the significance of his deed: he considered himself guilty of possession of "obscene" materials and didn't want to recognize that what he did was instead a revolutionary act. Nevertheless, LB gets from Gino the address of the Montecarlo connection. He quickly drives to the Principaute' and discovers that the local porno dealership is a regular newspaper agency getting the illegal merchandise from of all things... a tobacco shop in Brussels, Belgium. Multilingual Diplomat and Obstinate Fighter       To digress a bit, by this time, AGF was himself a registered Member of the Diplomatic Corps in Austria. He was well off monetarily, he was fluent in the five major European languages, he drove a Mercedes with diplomatic license plates, and could pass through customs with total immunity. No customs officer would even dare checking his luggage.       Because of these exceptional advantages, Lasse Braun was to become the most obstinate fighter for sexual liberation in Europe and in America, deserving the title of "Father of Modern Pornography" bestowed on him by the New York magazine 'Escapade' in 1981. The Belgian Connection       In the fall of 1961, LB located the Brussels tobacco shop, and befriended the shop's two owners. He discovered that they were publishing and printing the aforementioned French libertine books from a dirty basement underneath the tobacco shop. They were then smuggling these books to Paris by train or car chancing arrest, confiscation and even being hijacked by armed robbers and underworld figures. They were also smuggling a few thousand nude magazines from Scandinavia, and reproducing old b/w photos along with a few copies of the same short 8mm porn flicks found by Italian police in Gino's suitcases.       All together, since that was the only sizable publishing and trading facility dealing with explicit sex products in Europe (and also in the world over,) LB realized that the joyous representation of sex which he enjoyed in his teenage years, had fallen into a disgusting state of degradation represented by the insignificant content of Gino's suitcases and by the poor clandestine operation of the two courageous yet rudimentary Belgian publishers. Secret Strategy       From the very beginning, enraged by the humiliating level of production and organization of the few disconnected pornographers of that time, Braun decided to revolutionize the whole poor business on sexual matters and get it out of the closet. Consequently, he devised a super-secret strategy for the legalization of pornography. This wasn't easy at all, but was the conditio sine qua non for the sexual revolution to reach the large public and win its battle for freedom.       Since Braun was a fan of John F. Kennedy, he was impressed by the President's 1962 public declaration that before the end of the (Ô60s) decade the USA would land a man on the Moon and get him safely back to Earth. Following JFK's bold proclamation, LB thought that sending a man on the Moon while sex was forced into the underworld by insane laws, couldn't possibly help the cause of human progress.       Shortly thereafter, Braun organized a dinner with his former college colleagues, and boldly proclaimed that before the end of the decade he would get at least a single European country to officially legalize pornography. All of Braun's friends laughed and scorned him. They tried to no avail to discourage him to pursue such a foolish, impossible task. LB proposed a bet over who, between JFK and himself, would first achieve victory in their respective endeavors. The race was on. More LB Photographs Orginal diplomatic ID issued to AGF by the Austrian Department of State, Foreign Affairs, in Vienna, 1962. AGF alias Lasse Braun, diplomat and smuggler, wit a girlfriend at Milan Theter LA SCALA - Inauguration Opera Season, December 8th, 1963