Today's Gazette bring news of more troubles at Banana Joe's Island Party bar on Capitol Street, its liquor license in jeopardy because of complaints of serial fights and rowdiness. The story brought to mind another time Banana Joe's was in the news, back when two "Girls Gone Wild" buses drove into Charleston on July 8, 2005 to sponsor an evening at the club, captured in a gazz photo slideshow. Bare breasts ensued inside, as is the "Girls Gone Wild" way, and some women were invited into the buses. That's where supposedly willing, usually very drunk, girls go to be filmed sans clothing, encouraged to fondle self and others for videos. These are the videos that have made founder Joe Francis (above at left) and his Mantra Entertainment Co., so rich he's got his own Gulfstream jet and Mexican estate, where he hangs with the likes of Paris Hilton and Vince Vaughn.

Complaints ensued, the club got spanked in the press and Francis and his buses were invited never to return (though we spotted a "Girls Gone Wild" bus in Huntington a few months afterward). Banana Joe's found religion and vowed never, never to do it again. Now comes a story this Sunday from the LA Times, in which reporter Claire Hoffmann hangs with Francis and writes a fairly damning piece titled "Baby, Give Me a Kiss." Francis proceeds to demonstrate millionaire megalomania, crassness, maybe cruelty and possibly some legally actionable sexual behavior (a charge he seems always to be just dodging) all the while Hoffman tries to figure out exactly what's going on inside the buses and why women do it. It's not a pretty portrait. It comes at a time when the 33-year-old smutmaster has been trying to make himself over into a kind of Myspace-era Hugh Hefner. You'll feel a little dirty after reading the piece -- not the fun kind of dirty.