Your Friendly Neighborhood Pornographer

Soft porn king Joe Francis, one of OC's scariest people, launched a PR offensive this week from his Washoe County Detention Facility cell near Reno. MeetJoeFrancis.com offers a 10-page retelling of his past and current legal woes, including the civil contempt and tax evasion charges that landed him in the clink in April.

In an 18-page bio/rant tracing a Horatio Alger tale that took advantage of a unique special talent ("I loved asking girls to show me their breasts," he says on the site), the Girls Gone Wild impresario tells of getting kicked out of a Catholic grade school in Newport Beach, his first job slangin' scoops at Gelato Classico, and laying low at Laguna Beach High School.

Francis doesn't shy away from offering his take on his sordid past (rape allegations, an infamous kidnapping). But despite his best efforts, he doesn't quite come across as the First Amendment champion, media whipping boy, and women's-empowerment advocate he claims to be. His current legal predicament, as he describes it, does seem a bit unfair, but hearing the man himself extol his own pursuit of life, liberty and boobs, he doesn't come across any less sleazy than his detractors paint him.