Can hipster clothing conglomerate American Apparel and its balls-out CEO Dov Charney never have a normal, peaceful, lawsuit, which is settled quietly and forgotten about? Most recently, the company was fighting back against a lawsuit by ex-employee Roberto Hernandez by trotting out his ex-lovers and leaking documents showing that Hernandez himself recently defended Charney from the very charges he's now being sued for. And now AA is playing more legal hardball! The company is trying to prove to the world that Keith Fink, the lawyer for another ex-employee suing Dov for sexual harassment, is in fact an extortionate scumbag himself. Leaked internal emails below:

Earlier today we told you how oft-sued American Apparel chief Dov Charney is being sued again—this time by Roberto Hernandez, an ex-AA employee who says he was fired from his IT job in 2006 after he refused Dov Charney's request to cook the books to make the company look more financially attractive. His complaint also includes descriptions of AA as a pervy workplace where Charney held staff meetings in the nude. But there's a new development: a source at AA has just sent us a statement that they say Hernandez himself wrote in August, 2006 defending Dov Charney from an earlier lawsuit, contradicting some of same allegations that Hernandez himself is now making: According to our source, Hernandez wrote this statement in 2006—just three months before he was fired—to counter the allegations of Mary Nelson, who sued Dov claiming sexual harassment. Hernandez defends the work environment at AA:

Oh Dov Charney, when will you stop being sued for various sexual and financial shenanigans? The pervy, pacing American Apparel boss has been sued yet again. Just last month he was dealing with a sexual harassment case from an old employee; now, another former employee says that Dov tried to get him to inflate the company's books in order to draw in outside investors. Just your average financial fraud allegation, until Dov trotted out his accuser's old "lover":

Who did (troubled?) business magazine Portfolio select to put on its cover this month, in the midst of the greatest financial upheaval since the Great Depression? Dov Charney. Pervy, pacing, dog-loving American Apparel chief Dov Charney. There must be an explanation for this, right?

Well, our faith in the reliability of photography has been shattered, a decade after it should have been. The porny American Apparel ad spoofer, whose sexy ad remixes we have thoroughly documented, has been revealed as an art project by the graphic design aficionados who run Stereo Hell, as expected. More importantly: the spoof "posters" plastered throughout the city, and on AA stores, weren't posters at all; they were just Photoshop mockups. They existed only in imaginary pixellated form! No wonder none of them ever turned up on Ebay. I suppose this says something about the true nature of art; but I must admit that the achievement seems less impressive now. There is no Santa Claus either, btw. After the jump, two Photoshopped photos of the spoofer's final big reveal. We'll miss you, you fake bastards:

Miracles do happen! While driving on Sunset last night, we just so happened to glance up at the "lost dog" billboard erected by American Apparel founder Dov Charney, and we were pleased to see a huge "FOUND" sticker hastily slapped on, finally bringing to a close the missing pet drama that had rocked Echo Park. Did little HedKayce really make the incredible journey back home to Charney's East LA warehouse, or was it all a publicity stunt meant to promote American Apparel's new line of brand-free clothing for slutty, hipster dogs? We'd like to think it was the former, even if we shudder to think of the Charney scent that could have lured the pup back home. [Previously: 'American Apparel' Owner Wants You to Find His Dog, Maybe Buy its Clothes]

• About 24 million people watched Joe accept the Democratic nomination for veep on Wednesday night. [TV Decoder]

So yesterday we posted what seemed to be a new work by the anonymous American Apparel ad spoofer—this one featuring Obama being menaced by a big dick, with the familiar slogan "The Assassination of Barack Obama" and an American Apparel logo. Then we heard that it might not be a work by the actual spoofer, which was confirmed by the spoofer's own blog, then confirmed again by Copyranter, who thinks the Obama piece is a Photoshop fake. Now the spoofer himself has sent us a statement, of sorts, saying he welcomes copycats as long as it's clear they're different copycats (and he's not a Dov Charney employee, thank you):

We hear (third-hand) that the actual anonymous American Apparel ad spoofer has denied making the Obama Porn-sassination poster we put up earlier today. If the spoofer would like to issue a first-hand denial, he or she can email us.

We have to say this for the porntastic anonymous American Apparel ad spoofer: he or she is just so god damn aware of the vagaries of pseudoculture that it is impossible not to admire his or her attention-getting sensibility. Unless, of course, this all turns out to be paid for by Dov Charney, in which case you can expect a very sternly worded rebuke from us. So watch out. Today, the personal (wear) becomes political; it's The Assassination of Barack Obama as imagined not by a publicity-seeking artist Yazmany Arboleda, but by publicity-seeking artist "anonymous spoofer." And of course a big dick is involved, for reasons we can't quite understand:

American Apparel CEO Dov Charney acted out as a young man before he became a defiant adult fashion maven. Everyone knows this. So why is he "super pissed off and embarrassed" and "ranting and raving," according to an associate, about a scene from an absurdist documentary that reveals him as a crafty, charismatic little capitalist? In 20th Century Chocolate Cake, a young Charney talks about how he hides money from the redistributionist staff at his "communist" summer camp and about how all the food in his care package was given away to ungrateful poors. Maybe Charney's worried his childhood ramblings will tarnish the labor-friendly American Apparel brand. He should just be grateful he didn't talk about anything else he may have done at summer camp. UPDATE: The credits in the video above misspell the name of the filmmaker. It is Lois Siegel. [Anittah Patrick]

The anonymous, sex-positive American Apparel ad spoofer's latest conquest: the windows and front door of an upcoming Soho American Apparel store. Verily, our wayward artist has decided to strike Dov Charney right where he lives. Is this further evidence that the spoofer might be in cahoots with the company-the manifestation of the CEO's inner desire for ads unfettered by his dreary clothing? It's time to reveal yourself, poster-person. Click through to see the, um, seductive (?) re-imagining of the store's entrance:

You thought that all American Apparel clothing was inspired by Dov Charney's endless parade of sexual fantasies? Not true. Some of it is inspired by Africa! Or as Bambaataa and fey hipsters spell it, Afrika. Is it bad that the company doesn't use any black models for these products? It might be worse if they did use black models, actually. Check out more of this season's most authentic adornments for those in the struggle, after the jump. Real hipsters still have their Cross Colours from '92:

A new survey shows that shoppers at Wal-Mart, Kohl's, and JC Penney favor McCain, while shoppers at Target and Macy's favor Obama. American Apparel shoppers, of course, favor Spank Rock. [Ad Age]

After paying homage to Jeff Koons, the anonymous American Apparel ad spoofer attacks Andy Warhol with paint and boobs. [Stereohell via Copyranter]

Meet Chris Renfro. Last month, in a case that went wholly unnoticed in the company's unending news flow of highly credible sexual harassment accusations and that lost chihuahua story, he sued American Apparel for race discrimination. (I know, like you put it past them.) We just took a look at his complaint and wondered if it might hold some deeper meaning for hipsterkind. Renfro contends that, while working on the "industrial design and construction" of an American Apparel store (context: said job pays $11.25 an hour) he was called the N-word incessantly by a co-worker named Sean Alonzo who allegedly said they "could use more" N-words at American Apparel (ha ha ha ha) and then proceeded to neg him by bringing a friend he described as "really racist," — along with said friend's vicious dog! — to a store they were opening. Reading the complaint, I remembered how there once was a time when this Vice magazine hipster racism thing used to shock me. Now it just seems sad! And it looks like Renfro agrees, judging from a Malthusian MySpace post he wrote the day before the suit was filed maintaining his hipster tormenters need to develop actual skills. After all, "what is graphic design going to do for you when you're starving?"

The anonymous American Apparel ad remixer has consistently shown-along with a love for pornography and a belief in the dildo-ness of AA boss Dov Charney-a marked devotion to actual "art." We're not dealing with just another vandal here; we're dealing with a vandal who may have gone to art school at some point. This valuable education enables not only the clean, porny line drawings on the ads, but now, a new frontier: a reference to pop artist Jeff Koons. And a nude woman! I don't think it's exaggerating the case to call this fake postermaker an educator. The seminal work: Jeff Koons' "Equilibrium":

Dov Charney, the self-stimulating CEO of American Apparel, is wondering if you've seen his dog HedKayce. The little guy went missing in the Echo Park neighborhood of Los Angeles for at least the second time since April, when he was feared eaten by the local coyotes. Oy maybe Charney has been looking for the same dog for more than three months. In any case, the creepy clothier presumably holds out hope the dog has not become canid food, because he has "slammed" the surrounding area with "Lost Dog" flyers, LAist reports. Charney even switched some of his billboard advertising from scantily-clad young women to the plea for help seen at left. Awww, sweet and sad all at once. But how did a neurotic obsessive like Charney misplace his dog in the first place? Maybe he was somehow distracted?? [LAist]

In the worst news to befall a local chihuahua since Disney cut loose with its trailers for the Beverly Hills breed, we hear today that American Apparel kingpin Dov Charney has lost his dog. Again. Or perhaps the pooch is still missing from that troubling time in April. In any case, Charney appears to finally be getting serious about finding and keeping poor little HedKayce close by — or at least about selling dog shirts. After the jump, find the enlarged billboard photo and a memo scattered far and wide by the inspired guerrilla marketers search party:

Skanky-chic clothing retailer American Apparel reached nearly 48.9 million unique Web surfers with 489 million display ad vews in the month of April according to ComScore, with 24 percent of those impressions being garnered on MySpace, 19 percent on Facebook, and another 12 percent on AOL's banner-laden AIM software client. The ads have stirred controversy for the prurient use of Helvetica. How's it affecting the bottom line?The company raked in $111 million last quarter, a 50 percent increase year over year — though the company's bookkeeping is notoriously unreliable, the share price is down to an all-time low, and a fifth sexual harassment suit is still pending against visionary pervert Dov Charney, founder and CEO. That explains why American Apparel is so happy to advertise on the social networks that frighten more staid brands: The rates are cheap, and the company doesn't have to worry about tarnishing its reputation.