Thursday,
July 19th, 2001
Black porn star Kitten writes Luke: Hey honey, how are you? Ok, so when I read the article about me, it came off to those who don't know me as if I was doggin' ALL black men, and so when I read the responses, thats how they took it too. It was funny but then again it wasn't, cuz all of a sudden I am now a sell-out black whore... It just amazes me who many people really have nothing else to do with themselves.
It's okay for a black man 2 be seen, and date, as long as it's not spoken out right, but as soon as a black woman does it, I'm a sellout, trying to get to something better w/ white men. It outrages me that, I can't be myself without idiots trying to bring me down. I didn't say I DON'T like black men, I just said what I perfer...and for those who think I JUST started doing this, I've been dating interracially for years, way longer than I've been doing porn.
Regardless, I just found it amusing, and those who do know me in this biz, know when I'm joking, and when I'm not. But besides that, the only response I got was from a guy at Wicked, who told me to send in my resume'. So we shall see where that takes me. Thank's your a cool, but strange guy(and I mean that lovingly). Keep it on the hush, hush, and D.L...
Captain writes: This letter makes absolutely no sense. Either she is at the level of a six grader or her letter has been edited. If this hasn't been edited then she should learn to... nevermind again. If she could she wouldn't be doing porn. Unlike Diana Devoe who is educated and in the business, she embraces a variety of audiences no matter what race. This is how she makes her money. Kitten has obviously endorsed the old saying,"If you can't beat them, join them". Ironically she doesn't see that her actions with Mr. Luke Turd, is why she won't progress. He doesn't promote African Americans in that business. It's just another move by an intellectually challenged black female. Very bad move. What is next for her? Maybe blonde hair and blue contacts, I wouldn't be surprised.
In her defense; to be fair: I once read an interview that she did a couple of years ago. She had refused to do a scene with some white guys wearing black face make-up. They changed it to half black and half white face, making the movie about clowns. I think Luke Turd is trying to redeem some white pride in this interview or she is trying to recapture some of the white male audience that she lost as a result.
God's Gift To Women
By Josh Alan Friedman
Intro
The year was 1986. I had just suffered a month hanging out with New York's reigning "strikeout king"--an otherwise brilliant men's magazine editor, whom we'll call Sammy Grubman. Poor Grubman spent his summer dreaming up endless ruses to score women--bogus rock video auditions, swimsuit contests, photo "test shoots" for his mag. Dumbstruck, I joined him in his nightly rounds at the Palladium and Studio 54 as he hit upon ballrooms full of females. In his rumpled suit, skinny black tie, thick glasses and nasal whine with sen-sen breath, I watched him viciously strike out under the rotating disco ball. I got into the rhythm of failure with him, tossing out some dumb pickup lines myself. Losing wind after a hundred No's, we repositioned to the girls' powder room. The most common retort from spandexed chicks exiting, as Grubman propositioned each for a drink, was simply, "f--- you." By 4 am, reeling from the dread of such monumental rejection, Grubman would bomb himself to sleep each night with codeine pills.
I too began wondering whether all women in New York were paranoid men-haters, terrified to smile at a stranger. Or was it just Grubman, rubbing off on me? During this time, a fringe show-biz agent pal of ours, named Shark, began relating tales of the greatest barroom pickup artist alive. Shark reflected upon his own glory years in the 1960's. His organs malfunctioning from middle-aged alcoholism, Shark grew moist in reminiscence over the only activity that really mattered--sliding his pecker into trainloads of girls. He called this perpetual state of scoring a "roll."
"It's a beautiful thing, being on a roll," Shark recalled, his voice hoarse from substance abuse. "Catching the rhythm and keeping it up night after night. While you're f---ing one broad, you're planning tomorrow's menu. You establish your turf, your nightclubs, your clique of celebs, then the broads flock to you each night. But once you're out of the rhythm, Jack, it's very hard to get back in."
Shark definitely seemed to have lost his chops as a pick-up artist, along with his best clients and his dough. He ran a skid-row modeling agency, Stars Models, for mostly unemployable bush-leaguers--A&P checkout girls and bar hostesses with big dreams and bigger tits. Real lookers some were, but cursed by being an inch too short for Ford, a pound too heavy for Elite, unschooled and gawky in their runway gait, some with white-trash bruises that healed slowly.
But Shark had become spiritually rejuvenated by the discovery of a protégé. He referred to him as the Stud. Through the Stud, he could vicariously live out the longest roll of his career.
"The kid's incredible, like DiMaggio on a hitting streak," claimed the agent. "There's no one can touch him. He's got 15 broads a day callin', beggin' to go out, 10 more from last week beggin' for seconds. Walks out of clubs with three, four at a time, the best-lookin' ones. He's not interested in amenities, he don't send flowers. He don't wanna know their names, their jobs, where they're from. . . I hung out with Namath. I hung out with Elvis. I hung out with Engelburt. None of these guys could hold the Stud's jockstrap."
I was suddenly struck by the antithesis of Grubman. The Stud seemed heroic, swimming upstream like an erect salmon against the tide of 80's abstinence in the face of AIDS. The Stud's reputation drove Grubman crazy. I decided to do two articles: One on New York's premier pick-up artist, and then one on New York's foremost strikeout king (a title no man would relish). I would take a journey like Gulliver; I had been to the land of the Lilliputians. Now I would visit the land of giants.
Special thanks to Hustler (March 1990), where the following originally appeared in different form.
God's Gift To Women
Mike Florio is the Stud's name, a special effects man in Local 52 of the movie business. At 31, he's been on a 12-year roll, according to Shark, who passed the Stud my number. On the phone Florio is a far cry from Cary Grant. The timbre and accent of his voice could be that of any Brooklyn garage mechanic. Florio makes it clear, at first, that he hates men. "I always go out alone," he explains. "I don't need dead weight dragging along."
A nephew of rib restaurateur Tony Roma, Florio began his career as a stunt man on Kramer Vs. Kramer. The production chief wanted him fired, Florio recalls, for "bangin' dozens of chicks on the set." So this very morning, a decade later, he reports for work on the new Michael Douglas film, Fatal Attraction. He's setting up special rain effects, which he feels will garner him an Oscar nomination. The same production chief is on the movie, says he's impressed with how Mike's "matured," become professional, not chasing skirts on the job. "Then SAG calls the set this morning," huffs Mike, "claims there are four sex harassment complaints about me, looking up girls' dresses and stuff." The Stud claims to be immune from disease, refuses to wear protection: "The last time I wore a rubber it ended up in 40 pieces." As we talk by phone, the Stud's call-waiting device is constantly clicking. These are the frustrated attempts of girls phoning around the clock. Mike clicks in some of his call-waiting gals, then phones a list of this week's conquests, with me listening on the party line. His voice is a haunting reminder of a night in which they slept with a stranger. In a dozen calls, the Stud arranges dates with roommates of girls who aren't home; a secretary will risk being fired and see him that instant; a girl in bed with fever will come out that night; three girls are each assigned to visit a different club--Arena, Limelight and the Milk Bar--pick up another girl, then come to his apartment, at two-hour intervals. Each girl whispered her willingness to sleep with him again. Mike has f---ed many of them up the ass, he says, within an hour of meeting each one.
Perhaps these were self-destructive wackos, from amongst the exploding buyer's market of girls out there. Nightclubs are bursting with available females. There must be a dozen Studs in every city, I told Shark. Why glamorize the bastard in print?
"You've heard him with one type of girl over the phone," Shark insisted. "But he's a high roller. Take him out. There're a lot of super models at the clubs around Christmas. The Stud's as good at scoring broads as Picasso was at painting."
That Saturday, I made the rounds with one of New York's premier pick-up artists. Strike-out kings, read on.
CAFE PACIFICO, 10pm
We decide to rendezvous at Pacifico, a Columbus Avenue cafe which looks like a rejected state set from A Clockwork Orange. "You'll know who I am," he predicted over the phone. Sure enough, several girls are milling about the front barstool. The hottest blonde in the joint is stroking some bloke's generous brown curls. He's wearing black suede boots, pleated slacks, a T-shirt under a fluffy cockpit jacket that momentarily makes him resemble a St. Bernard pup. It's the Stud. He looks like some indeterminable pretty-boy corporate rock star. Somebody girls can't quite pinpoint.
"I love this chick. She's so sweet." Mike narrates the situation as if she's not in the room. Having just arrived himself, he removes his coat, confessing he loves all his jackets, has dozens. Each jacket carries "a unique vibe," whether it cost 20 bucks or $500. As a matter of fact, some chick wouldn't leave his apartment last night. He finally tossed her clothes in the hall to get her out. But the heap included one of his beloved jackets, a Willywear, which she kept. It was like losing a friend. The Stud had no way to contact her to retrieve the jacket. Why get bogged down with names when you're banging several chicks a night?
The blonde stroking his hair has just signed with some new modeling agency. She's dripping with homemade jewelry. Her painfully long legs are twisting around the barstool, and she's terribly bored with everything in the world except this foxy guy who just took the adjacent stool. The Stud whispers in her ear, to her utter delight. Then her girlfriend enters the restaurant. It's the girlfriend's 24th birthday, they're out to celebrate. Round of champagne, says Mike, an $18 pouring for the three of them.
"Yeah, I like this chick," he says aloud of the blonde, "but I like her girlfriend better." And viola, the brunette birthday girl, an expensively decked-out lady with profound cleavage, is slayed by one insincere Mike Florio smile. The Stud reaches around the wall where the bartender unquestioningly allows him to rearrange the mood lighting for the entire bar. In this darkened atmosphere, he takes the birthday girl's hands, introduces himself as her birthday present, and begins soul kissing. The blonde model is miffed, a spurned pout on her haughty face. I feel invisible to both girls. The Stud's girl-mechanic hands travel over the outside of Birthday Girl's body like sonar, taking a reading on what's underneath those Bergdorf threads.
"Let's leave this dump and go to Columbus," demands the Stud, to both dames.
"I don't wanna go," whines the rejected blonde, swaying her jewelry to Huey Lewis on the jukebox.
"I wanna dance at the Palladium."
"I don't wanna," sing-songs the Stud, in mock imitation. "The Palladium's a dump."
In actuality, the Palladium, Stringfellow's and Nell's have banned Mike from their premises--as pool sharks are banned from pool halls.
"You're giving me trouble," spits the blonde.
"The world is full of trouble," counters Mike. "Trouble makes the world go round. But imagine how much fun we can have when the trouble stops. . . ."
The blonde giggles at this lame philosophy. Florio's style is to parody pick-up clichés, with a wink--women love to laugh along, part of a spontaneous joke. Birthday Girl has her hands all over him, and pleads with her stubborn friend to follow us guys to Columbus. But the Stud feels he's given them both too much of his time, and stands to leave. Birthday Girl is deflated. But they exchange phone numbers. She enters his right into her address book in pen. He takes hers on a napkin, which he'll blow his nose with later.
COLUMBUS, 10:45
The way most guys work a bar, Mike explains, reminds him of a moronic stop-action silent film. They flicker around in a circle. Mike centers himself at the middle barstool, where he can track all girls coming through. He sucks them over in two's and three's. "I've got eyes in the back of my head for chicks," he says, surveying the room like a speed reader. "That table's all married; forget the blonde in the corner, she's with a Colombian coke dealer; I already f---ed the s--- outta that table. . . ."
Columbus Restaurant is this year's celebrity hangout on Columbus Avenue. Its vacuous soul is that of a mall--there's no hearth, just unadorned windows for celeb gazing. The Stud comes through like a barroom Frankenstein. Ice-breaking one-liners spew out rapid-fire.
"Hey, I like you, what can I do about it?" Bam, one chick at his side. "A woman is a noun. I am a verb." Zap, a second girl takes up position. "I got brand new bed sheets, never been slept in." Kapow. "Take off your hat, what're you trying to cover up, chemotherapy?" he cracks, grabbing the hat off a passing girl's head.
Before you know it, he's got an admiration society. All are TKO's, any of them ready to leave with Mike should he so desire. I am virtually invisible at his side. Even the two at Pacifico were scored as TKO's. "They'll call," Mike shrugs, matter-of-factly, "I'll bang both of 'em."
Every line he speaks with blushing boyish charm, a sarcastic, Ultrabrite smile, creating instant camaraderie. "I'm married," one girl retorts to his come-on. "That's your problem," says the Stud, quickly disinterested, his St. Bernard puppy expression fraught with disgust, making her feel it really is her problem.
When Florio sees a chick he likes, all he merely has to do is "Give her one of these." He demonstrates waving his finger with effortless superiority, like Buddy Love in The Nutty Professor. This draws the attention of two curious girls. He introduces himself as the "lead singer of Cinderella."
"Yeah, I'm headlining The Garden next week, wanna go?" One of the chicks nervously jots his phone number down, thinking she's scored some heavy metal clod. "Yeah, gimme a call, I'll be waitin' by the phone like a dog." After several Heinikens, the Stud hiccups obnoxiously into every girl's face at the Columbus meat rack. He intermittently apologizes, or snaps at them to "Shut up!"
"Wha'd he say?!" demands some guy, joining his girlfriend after a respite in the restroom. "Should I belt him?"
". . . I hate men," replies the Stud, with a cosmic sigh to the complainant. He leans over in confidence toward two mouseburger girls, out of the side of his mouth: "I'm so horny. Just gotta get laid. But there's no good pussy here tonight, you dig?"
He hiccups in their faces. "Please don't do that in our ears," say the homely girls, unflattered. The Stud gets more obnoxious with each downed beer. "Would you prefer I do it up your ass? Brrappp. You know, you two remind me of Mutt & Jeff. I won't say who's Mutt."
The Stud approaches a group of hardened, out-of-work actresses in their early 30's. They're indignant over his demeanor, having overheard the last 10 minutes. They're onto his game and they don't approve. "I'll tell you something, all you women," he announces, with histrionic presence. "If you didn't own a pussy, you wouldn't have a friend in the world."
After a half-dozen beers, the Stud seems to have slipped. This group doesn't want him. So, he blows his cover and confides to them he's a barroom pick-up artist: "I'm God's gift to women. I really am. That's why he put me here--for you, and you and you. I live for women. I was born for you. I have a great job, in the movies, I work two, three hard days a week. Make lots of money, then come out at night for pussy. If I don't get it here, I go across the street. If I don't get it from you, I'll get it from her. But I'll get it," he shrugs.
The group listens with amused disdain. "I have a great penthouse apartment, full of life. It's filled with plants and Pacific Ocean fish tanks." Indeed, the Stud keeps two sharks on premises in his living room aquarium. One is a one-and-a-half-foot Leopard shark, the other a three-foot Nurse shark. Both are capable of taking a serious bite out of a man, but they have a hypnotizing effect on women. Still holding their attention, Mike quiets down to a soulful confession.
"Don't analyze me in 10 minutes, baby, I got hours." Florio never had sex as a teenager, he says, was rejected throughout high school. Then when he was 19, he fell deeply in love with a girl. They planned to marry. Shortly after, one day, a doctor told him his father had ten months to live. This hit him like a sledgehammer, since his dad was closest to him in the world. Thank heavens his girlfriend's father was chief radiologist at New York Hospital, who could provide the saving care Mike's father needed. But on the same day he planned to ask his fiancee for her family's help, she showed up arm in arm with another guy. Mike was dumped on the spot, at New York Hospital. "From then on," the Stud recalled, "I decided that I'm the one who'll do the f---ing over, not girls."
The actresses are moved. They're talking softly with Mike now. Three more TKO's for the Stud. "I'm God's gift to women!" he bellows, a jungle cry to the bar at large.
"God's gift to women is a dildo!" screams back some drunk.
"Here, here," toast some hearty male voices at the bar.
Florio needs some grub before he can reach a second wind. The hostess seems hot for him and gives us a reserved table. This is an exclusive area at night, beyond the meat rack. The table next to us contains four young, high-toned models, strategically placed at Columbus's front window like an advertisement. Some heavy metal millionaire sits with them. At the table in front of them, however, is a big-time beauty with several male escorts. "Point me to whoever you want, I'll get her," he says, like a hunting dog. I tell him to turn around for the first true 10 of the evening. This knockout will be his target for tonight, he decides, deciphering her bod as if wearing X-ray specs.
The moment the heavy metal idiot goes to the john, the Stud reaches over and taps a model on the shoulder. She's a black-haired heartbreaker with a cute, upturned nose job and pyramid tits.
"What's your name?"
"Courtney."
"Hi, Courtney. Joe Perry," says the Stud, extending a sturdy handshake. For the rest of the evening, he'll pose as a member of Arrowsmith.
"Say, Courtney," he goes, waving her closer in confidence. "Who's that?"
"Why, that's Carol Alt," says Courtney. Carol has a natural, outdoorsy look, without much makeup. She's wearing something like riding pants, as if she just stepped in from an afternoon of British polo. An elaborate fur is draped around her chair, and she's seated with three male chaperones. She's one of the world's five top models, yet she doesn't look so self-consciously modelly as the girls behind her.
The Stud has heard of her. "Look how bored she is," he ascertains, as if she were in dire need of rescue. He can tell she goes to bed by one o'clock from her clear skin. "Got to work fast."
Carol starts table hopping. She stops by Mike Tyson's table, and he rises to kiss her cheek, looking prettier than a GQ cover after his three-round KO over Trevor Berbick. She schmoozes with the owners of Columbus, then Danny Aiello. Then she stops at Courtney's table. Warren Beatty takes a table, sits there innocently, not bothering anybody. "Look at him, he can't even get laid anymore," says the Stud. Neither can a member of Kiss, striking out left and right (anonymous without makeup and costume).
The Stud fidgets over the time the young models are spending with Alt. "These chicks are gonna f--- it up for me. They're all like monkeys together." Alt returns to her table, slips on the fur. All the minor models at Courtney's table put on their fur coats. "Like monkeys," he repeats, making his move.
Florio sits right down at Carol Alt's table, introducing himself as the lead guitarist of Arrowsmith, about to leave to play with Gino Vanelli, and headline the Garden next month. He blurts out a few lines from "Walk This Way," with a high cackle. Tells her he took lessons from the guitar player in the Tonight Show Orchestra as a kid. She says she was about to call it an evening at midnight. The Stud brings her back to our table, offering his last forkful of chicken pot pie.
"No, really, I'm just having one Scotch tonight," she giggles.
"A Scotch in Carol Alt's perfect bod?" he gasps, incredulously. She's sweet, innocent and gullible. One of her chaperones is a bulky ex-Hell's Angel and Vietnam vet, keeping an eye on her. The Stud says how much he would enjoy dancing with her at the China Club. Alt agrees to go. She's very polite toward me, who the Stud has introduced as his manager (an incarnation I shudder from).
While she goes through the saying-good-bye ceremonies to friends, the Stud's table is approached by several pairs of women who seem to know him. Some are former one-night affairs. Being invisible next to this caballero, I must suppress my ego. "Just remember," Shark the agent had cautioned, "don't even try to compete. Most guys' egos couldn't handle a night with him." The Stud lays out tonight's situation to the girls, who shrug and wish him luck. They are rooting for him to f--- the model.
The Stud engages two hot-looking chicks as he's about to exit. "C'mon, lets' go dancing at the China Club," he orders, as though they were anything but strangers. Both accept. They're from Oklahoma, and have a BMW outside, offering us a lift there. But the Stud peers first into a double-parked Lincoln Town Car, pretending his chauffeur has disappeared.
Jackie Mason, at a nearby table, was confounded as to why so many broads came and went from our table. His lawyer, Jesse Vogel, one of Mason's entourage of alter cocker flunkies, is propositioning blondes, and asks the Oklahoma girls if they'd like to sit for a drink with a famous Jewish comedian, headlining 16 weeks on Broadway.
"I can play a romantic lead," declares Mason to his table. "Why shouldn't I? That ugly dumb bastard, Dangerfield, was the romantic lead in that last picture, what was it?"
"Back To School," comes the table.
"Yeah, he gets the goil, that Sally-what's-her-name, he was a romantic lead. And you mean to tell me, this skinny putz, wid the big nose and glasses, this bent-over sickeningly ugly weasel, Woody Allen, can play romantic leads, and I can't? He can sleep with Diane Keaton or Mia Farrow?"
Both girls decline Mason's lawyer's invitation, waiting patiently for the Stud. "You think I have a chance? Florio wonders, his first glimmer of insecurity about scoring the super model. Quick deliberation--should he walk Carol Alt's party to China, or get into these chicks' BMW? Best Carol see him exit with other girls, he decides. We hop into the Okies' car. Alt shrugs--oh, well, there goes Mr. Arrowsmith.
The Stud makes the Okies park before a fire hydrant at the side of China Club. They're afraid of getting a ticket or towed. Florio guarantees he'll pay any ticket, and offers them full usage of his "limo" if they get towed, until he can bail out their car. They believe him. The Okies park.
CHINA CLUB, half-past Midnight
The Okie girls expect to be whooshed in for free on the Stud's comet. Instead, he ditches them at the door. Florio claims to have "lost his pass" to the China Club box office marm. He flashes his Ultrabrite smile, and bulls---s past the door charge. It is a matter of honor that the Stud never pays the stiff entrance to clubs. Stringfellow's, for example, is the type of joint that considers it utterly uncool to admit human beings from New Jersey. The last straw occurred when Mike showed up with Miss America of 1980, her sister and an Elite model. "Just because you're with three gorgeous girls, you think you can come in for free?" sneered manager John Hawkins, with a British laugh. "That'll be a hundred bucks." The Stud started a fracas, threatened to hit the guy. The cops hustled Florio into a squad car, telling him he was going to the Pig Bar, a nearby establishment.
"But I don't want to go to the Pig Bar," Florio protested. "You either come with us to the Pig Bar or get arrested." Florio accepted a police escort to the Pig Bar.
Now at the crowded China Club, Florio has bigger fish to fry. Alt's entourage won't arrive for 15 minutes. He has time to exercise his pick-up muscles, do some warm-ups. The Stud grabs a reserved table in a cordoned-off side area. Already, girls are flocking around, something I take for granted, the world is always like this.
A tall blonde hugs him, saying, "Hey, how're ya?" Mike leans to me, whispering, "Never saw her in my life." Girls often approach, acting like they know him. This one's an ex-Playboy Club bunny from the recently defunct New York branch. He plays it as if he remembers her, says she's even gained weight. Her girlfriend eagerly takes a seat on the Stud's right. A third female sits at the table, vying for Mike's attention. She also claims to know him. Reminds him that he f---ed her six months ago, a memorable night. "Sorry," he shrugs, "I guess it wasn't so memorable to me."
The Stud's act is so well oiled, he can slip and slide women through these seats like a Detroit assembly line. As the big blonde is vacating her chair, the Stud simultaneously reaches over to an adjacent table, clutching the hand of a brunette stranger conversing with some fellow. She takes his hand, continuing her talk. Neither have even made eye contact. But then she sort of slithers into the vacant seat within seconds of the blonde's departure. An average-looking girl, overwhelmed by this groovy guy grabbing her hand. But she didn't even see the sucker, she must have responded to some primal musk.
"What's your name?" she asks. "Does it matter?" The Stud isn't interested in names, occupations, he could care less about sentimental dolls girls keep by their pillows, or cooking tips. I remember Shark's initial testimony--"He don't send flowers, he don't care where they're from. He just lives to f---."
"What do you do?" asks the enchanted girl.
"Does it matter? I thought you recognized me. . . Do you wanna f--- me?"
The girl's face closes in until they lock tongues, mouth to mouth. She's a goner, you can see stars around her head. "Your place or mine?" he whispers. She practically comes in her seat, needing a spatula to be removed. She then gathers her composure and explains she visits the China Club often. If she's seen walking out with him, it will be assumed she's going to sleep with him. If the door bouncers see this more than once, they'll think she's a "slut." Therefore, they should exit separately and meet by the corner pay phone. As she runs her hands through his hair, the Stud's head spins to some foxy chick in the aisle, and he excuses himself for a minute.
"You seem to have landed my friend," I suggest.
"I know," she smiles, primping in her pocketbook mirror. "But who is he?"
"All I can tell you is a lot of girls have been after him tonight. But I haven't seen him take to any like you."
"I know," she glows, confident of her big score. I ask if she'll go to his place or hers, and she says definitely his. I ask her what she sees in him, having known him a total of five minutes.
"I love long hair," she says. "I want to run my hands through his hair all night. You know, I didn't really feel sexy tonight. But he brought it out in me. He's very oral, and so am I," she squeals, eyes widening in anticipation, as though I'm not even there.
"Are you ready?" she asks the Stud, upon his return.
The Stud is intently staring off in the distance, whale-watching for Carol Alt. She repeats herself. He gazes beyond, giving her the silent treatment. She looks at her watch, lights a cig, a bit confused, not yet hip to the game.
The Stud turns to me and blurts, "I ain't gonna f--- that," hitching his thumb toward her.
She tugs his sleeve. He swats her hand like a fly.
"Hey, what's going on?" she demands, horrified. "I don't wanna f--- you any more," he says, sour-faced, like he's dealing with total s---. She doesn't believe her ears. "I don't wanna f--- you any more," he repeats. "Get lost."
"What!?"
After it sinks in, she puts her hands on her hips. "Kind of brutal, huh?"
But Mike's not even paying attention, spotting his big-time prey at the entrance. The reject is mumbling incoherently, can't quite bring herself to accept the humiliation.
"Look--" says the Stud, with sympathetic compromise. "You still wanna f--- me, you have to go pick up another girl to come along. One better looking than yourself."
She's shell-shocked, but starts to consider. "Jailhouse Rock" comes over the house speakers, and the Stud lets out a battle cry of "Everybody wants to suck my cock!" in sync with the chorus. He's off in the crowd, lots of familiar faces from Columbus, like part of a duck-breeding migration. "Ya gonna sit in on drums with my band at the Garden?" he asks Mason Reese, passing the orange dwarf whilst following Alt to a prime table.
He's pure gentleman now, won't use any low blows in acquiring the super model. The Stud is past his feeding time--by now, he could have been home and back for seconds. Alt is clearly in charge of her entourage, it's her table. The Stud and I are invited to take seats.
"Are we mixing in London or L.A.?" The Stud asks me.
"Whichever city will let you in," I say, cringing at the thought of it. Sometimes Mike forgets which rock star he's already impersonated, and blows his cover with the prey. But this more likely happens at home, by which time he can convince the girl she should be flattered he went through the trouble.
The Stud guides the super model onto the China Club dance floor, where they appear like royalty. The get along famously, doubled up with laughter after four dances. She even requests "Walk This Way" from the DJ. But then the million-dollar model reveals she is happily married to hockey star Ron Greschner of the New York Rangers.
The Stud trudges back to our table. "Something's wrong with the way she feels," he confides. "She doesn't have as great a body as I thought. If she was available, I would have had her already. . . There's not a woman on this earth I can't pick up when I'm hot as a pistol."
The Stud professes a code of honor that respects newlyweds or women in love with other men (unless they so much as wink first). And so, the Stud disappears into the horizon to divide and conquer new female territory. He leaves me with the super model.
She's out celebrating her father's birthday tonight, though she vowed to be home by one o'clock. He was a decorated fireman who passed away several years ago. I ask her a stupid question, like how many endangered species went into her fur. "It keeps me warm," she sighs, curling an eyebrow with interest. "So, you believe in things?"
God's Gift To Women reappears 10 minutes later to take his last shot. He tugs on Alt's elbow like a child trying to get a grownup's attention. But she doesn't respond. Never the less, he's lined up a pair of sisters, two barroom Doublemint twins in their early 20's. Both are running their hands over his leather cockpit jacket, caressing his neck, purring and anxious to get back to his big brass bed. They look like two dumb little lambs being led off to slaughter. He'll give them the thrill of a year, then show them to door after he comes. Maybe he'll hit the Milk Bar before 4 am for another score. Valuable minutes are ticking away, and he has to make his quota. Carol, meanwhile, has rejected him. But she engages me in an awfully friendly conversation, and it's the first time tonight I don't feel invisible.
POSTSCRIPT:
Several months after my rounds with the Stud, I spotted a most unusual patron slumped down in his seat in the dank third-floor Triple Treat Theatre at Show World. It was the Stud! He slumped further in his seat, leather cockpit jacket unfurled around his neck, hoping I didn't see him. Like a dejected puppy dog, he finally owned up that it was indeed himself and shook my hand. In the company of dreaded men--legions of unlaid masturbators, to boot--he looked around, sizing up the place. Some porn starlet was onstage.
"You come here?" he asked. I was making my weekly rounds for Screw's Naked City listings, my weekly column. "Hey, this is my first time here," he swore. "My first time ever." And then he let out a trademark sarcastic chuckle, a little sadder than usual, like he was caught with the stolen goods in hand.
If Luke F-rd's website finds it of interest, I will next recount my misadventures (a prequel) with New York's most prodigious Strikeout King.
Jeff Goodman, the Sammy Grubman in the article above, New York's most prodigious Strikeout King, writes Luke:
I recently saw a Japanese-made movie that almost got me dumbstruck with recognition...it was like old times....a couple of producers who had phony "auditions" to meet girls....except one of the girls was an insane killer with a hideous only-in-Japan steel-needles-in-the-eyes ending.
I am reminded by all these postings, and also from some recent contacts that I've had from long-lost college friends, that in late middle age we seek to re-establish what we once were....if only to reconstruct lost identities of one's barely conceivable and irretrievable youth.
If I remember correctly, there was a story by Herman Hesse about a visit he took to see his brother, and, on the train, leaving he looks into the sky and sees some fireworks briefly light the sky and fade....the fate of us all.
You could launch a whole new website or sub-website full of tortured creative writing by desperate jews in pursuit of shiksa women.
Actually, on reflection, I think 90% of pornography was created with the profit motive as secondary. It represents the finest efforts of Jewish minds to acquire and f--- deranged, huge-breasted blonde trailer-park women from inferior gene pools who have temporarily been turned into desirable Goddesses by dint of the same efforts of same Jews that created the media that thusly elevated them. It's like a former gourmet building a Burger King and then becoming addicted to the Whoppers. Sort of a tail wagging the dog on a Mobius Strip variety of twilight zone reality.
Amanda Incorporated
By Jonathan Miller, author of the novel Rattlesnake Lawyer (Rattlesnakelawyer.com)
Management Secrets of a Very Risky Business copyright 2001
Amanda is smarter than you are.
She scored 1520 on her SATs and 34 on her ACT. She graduated from high school early and is just a few semesters away from a degree in "technical communication" from a top notch Engineering program. At only 20 years old, she's on pace to gross nearly 100,000 a year and she rarely works more than 30 hours a week. And with a slight giggle, she admits that the current tax cut won't have much of an impact on her earnings...she doesn't pay taxes.
Like a very young Tom Cruise in the film "Risky Business," she works in the field of human fulfillment -- but as labor, not management. She's a stripper at a club somewhere in the southwest who recently branched out into a few very lucrative gigs as an escort. And like Mr. Cruise, she plans to make even more money in fewer hours next year.
In a recent telephone interview (interaction in person, even fully clothed interviews, are "on the clock)", she describes herself as only a "7," yet she is obviously a "10" at maximizing profits. 5'5" German-Irish background -- pale, lean and attractive in a girl-next door way. Her eyes are either "forest or emerald green," depending on the week, and the personal ad in the local alternative papers.
She was a "smart girl" growing up in a modest middle-class household with her mother. She confesses that not many of her classmates at a tough public high school viewed her in a sexual way. Her entree in the industry began as a birthday gift to a then boyfriend when she had just started college. She took him to a local club, and after a few more visits, she finally had the guts to try a private audition for the manager. She found that she enjoyed it, soon switched clubs and switched boyfriends. Ironically, she is too young to drink in bars, so she can only worked in fully nude clubs that don't serve alcohol.
She enjoys the sex industry because of the money of course, but it is not without costs. Although the numbers might sound extremely high, she has to "tip out" a sizeable portion to the various bouncers and DJs at the club, and sometimes has to pay for the privilege of working at the clubs. She noted that these figures constantly change with each change in management. She might only work three nights a week, but it is still physically and emotionally draining to walk around in heels in a smoke filled room, talking to drunken strangers until 5 in the morning. She realizes that once she gets her degree, she will probably earn much less, even in a high tech field.
She did not say anything negative about her current employers. To no one's surprise, she notes that people who own strip clubs tend to view profit as a priority. Owners might have to be a bit ruthless, she surmised, because they don't get the psychic rewards that come with other professions. "They can't brag about it to their mothers, so they do like to make a lot of money."
Perhaps like the late Sam Walton or a Bill Gates, she is the entrepreneur who understands what her customer needs, even if the customer doesn't know what that is yet. She attributes her success, often as the club's number 1 or 2 earner on some nights, to the obvious secret -- She approaches her work as a business. Walton opened Walmarts in underserved markets, small towns off the beaten track. Amanda's undeserved market is often the "guys that creep the other girls out."
She deals in volume on most nights, approaching all the men in the room, even the "creeps," at least once, often many times. She has danced for many men that "smelled bad." Some were even mentally ill or handicapped or just had problems relating to real women" Often these men with seemingly limited means can spend considerable sums of money for a few moments of fantasy. "It's not like their spending it on their wife or kid."
The future technical communicator defended her business practice in much the same way a lawyer can defend someone he knows is guilty. "It's not that I believe that they are always doing the best thing for themselves. I believe anyone should have a right to purchase my time." she said. In a strange way makes about as much sense as most lawyers.
She often lands the big accounts, the men with hundreds, even thousands of dollars to spend in a single night. She postulates that her money comes from these men for three reasons. The first, they are trying to "support" her. They've developed a rapport with her, talked with her through several long throbbing songs and feel that they should at least contributes something for her time and attentive ear. Much like those who support a local greasy spoon, rather than the chain restaurant down at the mall.
Second, she feels that the truly big spenders each night sometimes part with their money in the ironic quest to show how rich they are. Often, the man making 20,000 a year will be the one stuffing the hundred dollar bills into her g-string as means of conspicuous consumption.
Finally, another subset of men invest in her in the anticipation of getting something sexual. In order to keep the money coming from such customers, she sometimes copies the business models of one of America's most successful corporations -- McDonalds.
The men have already paid for their main course when they shell out the ten bucks for a cover charge. As a "McStripper," she feels she had to ask men if they'd like to "add fries to their meal" which involved luring them back to the VIP room in the back of the club for the exclusive "private shows" at a premium price. Sometimes it even becomes a happy meal, when she adds another dancer into the mix. Still she is firm -- there are no special orders and the customers do not entirely get their way.
Both the quality and the quantity of the VIP room product depends on outside economic factors. Every time Amanda takes a customer back, she balances how much she can earn with how much is out there in the rest of the room. She estimate the size of the night's crowd, the number of competing girls that night, and the number of other men out there with money to invest.
Despite her cold calculations, she's had some emotional connections along the way. She claims that she does truly like men and feels that she provides a valuable service to a needy population. One long time customer actually became a friend and then a roommate. She has had lunch with a few others in non-sexual situations outside the club. She occasionally gets presents from her admirers, but she would rather that they buy an extra dance. She claims that her customers do understand..
Her current boyfriend, a recent college grad looking for a job in a professional field, is well aware of her current profession. He will pick her up at the end of her 4:00 AM shifts, but he will not set foot inside the smoky confines of the club. She feels that he does not mind her dancing nude, yet has a problem with the concept of the "intimacy" -- the blowing in someone else's ear, the touch on the shoulder. Amanda was a bit vague on whether she's violated these guidelines in her dancing, but she firmly declares that in an industry filled with the promise of unsafe sex, she never initiates the most intimate of sexual acts -- she never kisses her customers.
It would bother her boyfriend, and subject her to a possible cold, or worse a cold sore.
Much like the food industry, the sex industry also has another market in addition to the "dine-in variety," and that of course is "delivery." She has forayed into the "escort" or "outcall" market on a few occasions, although she politely declined to say exactly all that she delivered. She met another dancer at the club who had her own agency and recruited her with the promise of supplemental income.
"It was just the two of us," she said with a smile. "And when the guys called up and asked for something special, he got either me or her no matter what." Apparently in the escort service, the custumer wasn't always right.
She eventually decided to cut out the middleman, and soon opened her own franchise. She relied on word-of-mouth rather than print advertising in getting her name out there to the public, and it seemd to have worked.
Amanda had already done several private shows at a flat fee for a set time. Usually she employs additional labor -- a driver who was sometimes armed, who waits outside. While inside with the potential customer, she would go through an elaborate ritual of calling her driver ten minutes in and with five minutes to go. Time is very strictly enforced, because in her field as in all fields, time is most definitely money.
Ironically she feels in completely control at these events. "The men don't know me. They are worried that I will destroy their homes, break their TV, kick their dog or leave incriminating evidence for their wives. They fear the guy outside waiting for her, who may or may not have a gun. I don't focus on being kidnapped."
She admits that in the town she works in, the escort industry is a seller's market. She rarely sees repeat customers, so had little incentive to try to "go the extra mile." She estimates that the majority of escorts in her town are not really prostitutes because sex is not always delivered.
"We don't give refunds" she stated without apology. "And we definitely don't make change. It's a shame, that consumers don't stand up for their rights."But then she took a long pause "...but it's good for me."
She was understandably vague on her future as an escort and exactly what her prices were for the services that would be rendered. She hinted that there might be some price points on the graph where supply of certain services might intersect with the demand.
There are several economic factors at play in whether she increases her share of escorting, or continues to focus on the higher volume market dancing in the club. Currently over 90 percent of her income comes from dancing in the club, but that could change. She anticipates a downturn in the local market for the next few months. The market should get better in time for the holiday season. There are other considerations as well, if her boyfriend gets a high paying job in another city, she might move with him.
She notes that she is probably better off on the East Coast then the west, because they are more open to her more natural body type.
She has minimized her expenses. She hasn't sprung for the breast implants because, she doesn't know if they would truly increase her marketability. She also factored in the time away from work as her surgery heals. She keeps a tight rein on her money, avoiding the perils of hard drugs or alcohol although she does admit to taking stimulants to make it through the end of her shift.
She doesn't know if she will dance until she's thirty or leave tomorrow if the a suitable alternative comes along. She's sticking with her current club, the premier nude club in a smaller market for a the foreseeable future. She's avoiding the larger markets like LA or Las Vegas because the competition is so much fiercer.
In a subsequent e-mail, she did reveal some personal experiences that illustrated the severe problems within her industry, almost as if she was sending an addendum to an overly optimistic annual report. She notes the extremely high turnover of workers which is clearly a symptom. Sometimes, co- workers, friends she's known for months, abruptly quit and disappear. Rumors of arrest, drug abuse and domestic violence, harassment, serious illness, and even pregnancy often follow. In an industry filled with fake names, it is hard to know exactly how much is true, but bad things have happened to a lot of people she's known. All industries have their Chernobyls or salmonella outbreaks, but in a labor-intensive enterprise, it is the laborers who suffer when things breaks down. And in her club, there are certainly no union reps or shop stewards.
Amanda has avoided arrest, illness and exhaustion...so far. She has kept her spirits up and claims that she doesn't hate men after all her hours on their laps. "Most girls are as happy stripping as they would be doing other jobs that they were trained for." Amanda has no doubt that she will be successful in any field that she enters.
It remains to be seen how long Amanda remains fulfilled in this field of human fulfillment. There may be a Hollywood glamor to her work, with its bright lights and background music. But like everything else in the American economy, the sex industry is a very risky business
Why Does Porn Have To Be So Sleazy?
Joey Dice writes on RAME: Why does the business side of porn have to be so sleazy? Does the "filthy" subject matter attract people with "filthy" business practices? Whether it be false advertising on video boxes and directors cuts, credit card fraud, or general lack of customer service, I can't think of another industry that has a greater loathing for "Joe Customer" than porn.
I do mainstream music production and work with a lot of independent and corporate studios. I rarely ever hear stories about these companies ripping off customers through mailorder, stiffing talent, etc. Yet, I hear porn industry ripoff horror stories on a daily basis.
I've been buying mailorder concert video bootlegs for the past 10 years from many shady underground companies and never once got cheated. I can't tell you how many times I've been screwed over by multi million dollar porn companies who lie about the content of their product. Why does the business of porn have to be so sleazy?
Drugs, Money, Porno
I arrived at Bobby Gallagher's studio in North Hollywood at 9:30 Wednesday morning.
Bobby's doing laundry. He pulls out a sheet and says, 'See, I wash my sheets, unlike some other places.'
I hear numerous negatives remarks about other soundstages. One nearby is purportedly run by drug users who are funded by a rich man who lives in the Virgin Islands.
I found Rob Spallone talking with Gallagher about making money. Rob plans to start his own line and to do his own distribution. He'll need to sell a 1000 tapes of each release to turn a profit. He recently shot his own movie for $20,000 and sold most of the rights to it for $25,000.
Rob: "Russell Hampshire [VCA owner] will give me $30,000 to go shoot a movie. He knows I won't rob him. Russ has been great to me and I've been great to him. The thing is, I shoot a movie for him over three days. Then it's in editing for 15 weeks and I don't get another movie until it is edited. Jim's worked on Succubus for 20 weeks already.
"I give him movies for $10,000 less than he gives other people but I ain't complaining.
"You make a bunch of money at once [when you make a porno], but if you don't shoot again, that bunch of money becomes a few hundred a week."
Bobby: "Who's Knobhill?"
Rob: "That's some new company. That's all I've been hearing about all week. Somebody with a lot of money."
Nikki Steele's husband walks in carrying her suitcases.
Hubby: "Some of the guys she's worked for before told me, 'You don't look like a Laura?' I reply, 'Only after five.'"
Rob returns to talking money.
Rob: "Russ will pick up the phone for me and say, 'I've got Rob Spallone here. The kid's honest. And boom, I get another shoot out of that. I just don't want the editing."
Luke: "Is it because Jimmy is such a pain in the ass?"
Jim and Rob shot Kylie Ireland yesterday. She's still pumping after eight years in porno.
Nic Andrews recently told her to lose ten pounds and he'd hire her. Jim says she should tell Nic to lose 100 pounds and she might work for him.
Girls now make about $500 per lesbian scene, up about $200 over five years ago. Top girls like Kylie can make $600 per scene.
Jimmy, who weighs about 250 pounds and thus puts much pressure on his knees, walks around with a limp. His knee went out on him a couple of weeks ago and he's now got it in a brace. He takes a Vicodan and mellows out.
Rob: "These girls act like they're movie stars and big s---. They're good people but just f---ed up in the head. Can you imagine doing this while you have kids? I know they love their kids but this is going to f-ck them up.
"They go out and give their pussy away for free. Then you want big money for porno. You charge one guy $1000 and then you have no money and you work for another guy for $500. And you start working for sh---y companies doing sh---y scenes.
"Working for me is easy and clean. Nobody gets abused. They can say who they want to work with. I'm so nice they take advantage of me and show up late."
A member of the band The Monkeys came by Gallagher Studios last week because he wanted to see a porno shoot.
Bobby says he's tired of f--king all these porn chicks.
Bobby went to pay his bill at the Department of Water and Power the other day. Warner Brothers was shooting a movie. Bobby parked his car and a security guard told him he couldn't park there. Bobby said there are no signs posted. The guard punched Bobby, bloodied his face and knocked out a tooth. Bobby's suing Warner Brothers for a million dollars. The guard plead guilty to criminal charges.
Ron Jeremy is opening comedy concerts for folks like Adam Sandler.
I hear that Jack Hammer pounded Damian Tuesday at The Wet Spot, a Chatsworth bar on Canoga and Roscoe Avenues.
Luke: "I thought Jack Hammer was in jail."
Jim: "No, but he's apparently trying to go back, isn't he?"
Gary tells me that his porn star wife Dynamite will soon appear in her first feature film for a company called Standard Digital, who recently bought All Good Video.
Gary: "She's got three scenes in their next feature movie. She's doing a boy-girl, a girl-girl and a boy-girl-girl. She's really excited. She's got an entire day's worth of dialogue. It's the first chance she's had a real feature movie. She's going to give it her best.
"She's going to be interviewed by Rob Seven from Las Vegas for AVN magazine. Rob Seven requested her because she's extremely susceptible to the hypnotism. She's done it [hypnotism] two times in her personal life. Once to try to alleviate her problem of talking dirty and her gag reflex and the other was to use key words to help her become more aroused with whatever partner she was working with at the time. It really seems to work. Rick Masters says that she would try to pull away from him after a while. But the last time they worked together, he looked at me with a big smile on his face and said, 'Christ, I couldn't pull away from her.'"
Rob talks to the manager of James Gandofini, the actor who plays Tony Soprano. Rob pitches the manager on what a great actor Rob is.
Rob says his friend Phyllisha Anne has changed her name to Bethany Alexander because nobody could spell Phyllisha Anne.
Venus, a former Penthouse Pet turned hooker, came into Blue Light Pictures Tuesday and offered Jimmy $50 for the privilege of blowing him. Jim said no. "But if there'd been nobody there, I might've told her to keep the $50."
Rob partied Tuesday night with Phyllisha Anne and her girls.
I rib Rob and Jim about the FBI agent who stopped by Tuesday looking for a big black hulking friend of Jim's named Donell Williams.
Luke: "How are you connected to this criminal?"
Jim: "I met him at a strip club he ran in North Hills [north of Roscoe Blvd] three years ago. We hung out a few times. He asked if he could use me as a reference for employment. I told him yes. The club's been out of business for two years. It burnt down. It was owned by some Russians."
Rob: "What are you lying for? You know you know him. Tell the [FBI] guy the truth."
Jim: "No. That would be giving the guy up. And I haven't seen him in three months."
The FBI agent was involved in the 1979 MIPORN bust.
Luke's confused.
Luke: "Isn't it honorable to tell the FBI everything you know?"
Jim: "From your point of view."
Rob: "You're not giving anything up on me."
Luke: "I don't know anything that could get you into trouble."
Rob: "There were a couple of times when I was in court they brought out a stack of papers from l-keford.com [in Rob's case with Sydney Glassberg]."
Jim: "He goes, 'What do you know about the guy? Have you seen his rap sheet?" I go, 'No, I haven't seen his rap sheet.'"
Rob: "No, but I know he used to do this and that."
Jim: "I know he went away once.
"He said, 'Oh, one of the drug things.' I said, 'I don't know anything about drugs. I know he went away for manufacturing silencers. Which the army taught him how to do. The army says that if you come in, they'll teach you a trade."
Gary: "Be all you can be."
Jim: "The guy goes, 'He's a five strike loser. Did you know that?' I said no."
Luke: "How much time did you spend hanging out with this black man?"
Rob: "Jim was dating him for a while."
Jim: "I knew him pretty good."
Luke: "What sort of services would he provide for you?"
Jim: "Security."
Rob: "Collections."
Luke: "Do you think the darker skinned people tend to be more criminally inclined?"
Jim: "No, not at all. I think they tend, sometimes, to involve themselves in the more basic crimes rather than crimes that take a little more thought."
Luke: "Doesn't it disturb you that you've befriended a five strike criminal?"
Jim: "I judge people by how they interact with me."
Luke: "You don't care about what they do to other people, just how they treat you?"
Jim: "He didn't do anything to anyone else. All he did was manufacture silencers."
Rob: "Don't look at me, Luke. I was with The Don yesterday. Don Carmine."
I gather that Carmine is a reputed New York mobster now living in Los Angeles.
Rob: "Where's Earl Slate?"
Luke: "He held up a porn store."
Rob: "And, he shot a cop."
Gary: "He's doing ten years."
Rob: "He held up a video store and they pulled him over."
Gary: "He was trying to get away so he shot the cop. I guess it was a Federal Express driver who saw him putting the hood on before going into the store. He recognized him from his videos. He thought it was weird. He said about two minutes later, Earl came running out, pulled his hood off. And drives off. The guy called 9-1-1 on his cell phone and reported his license plate number, the model of the car."
Jimmy says he knew director Gus Van Sant (director of My Private Idaho) when he was a loser like Jimmy.
Jimmy directs his first lesbian scene of the day featuring Kristy Love and Nikki Steele.
Jim: "You work for Kylie. You're one of Kylie's girls. She has an agency called Kylie's Girls that people book on the internet. Kyliesgirls.com. It's a lesbian escort service. You, Nikki, are a regular client of Kylie's Girls. You've called Kylie and asked for a specific type of girl. That would be Kristy. I'd like a burst of conversation of how do you like working for Kylie...
"You can tell her to get up, turn around, drop her straps, drop her top. We'll eat up some tape with that. The more you eat up the tape with some dialogue, the less I'll have to eat it up with the actual softcore sex."
Kristy's been in porn since February, appearing in 25 movies. Nikki's been in porn since 1996 and appeared in about 70 movies.
Jim: "Put it this way. The movies she first appeared in - they were black and white and silent."
Rob: "Nikki used to deliver tapes and magazines for us. She worked for Paul Wisner's World News."
Jim: "She was a truck driver."
Nikki: "I started at the top. I dealt with the company presidents, then worked my way down. I worked for Paul Wisner for three years."
Jim: "She was letting all these company owners in her pants and so she figured she might as well get paid for it."
Luke: "Ladies, have you had any bad experiences in porn?"
Nikki: "I had one bad experience in the first year but we keep those names hidden away. Let's just say that one person went a little too far when the word no meant no. Even for a porn star. On set."
Luke: "Rape."
Nikki nods. "There are a few people in the industry who know about it, so let's just leave it at that."
Nikki refers to English porn stud Dick Nasty.
Rob: "Do you want me to kill him?"
Nikki: "He's already taken care of."
Rob says a friend of his robbed a jewelry store and he's waiting for him to arrive on set.
Rob: "Come on Luke."
Luke: "That's what you said."
Jim: "There's robbery and there's opportunity."
Rob: "I like that."
Jim: "Did he walk into a jewelry store with a gun and hold it up? No. Did somebody leave the door open and he walked in and helped himself? Maybe."
Rob complains that I sometimes put him at the bottom of my column. He wants permanent reign at the top. He doesn't like to scroll down my site.
About 30 minutes later, a feeble old man comes by selling watches that are fakes of famous brand names like Rolex.
I get Rob talking about Deputy DA "Lynne" with the Los Angeles District Attorney's office. This is not Deborah L. Sanchez, says Deborah Sanchez who says she does not know Rob Spallone.
Rob: "The DA liked me so much. I talked her into dropping the suit on me and just putting everything on him [Adam Sacks, the production manager for Chuck Martino]."
Rob's talking about something that happened January 19, 1999, when he operated a shooting house on Grimes that became increasingly unpopular with its neighbors and was repeatedly harassed by police.
From my archives:
Chuck Martino's shoot Tuesday night at Rob Spallone's new studio in Encino Hills was busted by the police. They stopped by initially because of an excess of cars parked on the street. They stayed because they could see through a front window Sylvia Saint blowing Alec Metro (due to a chair in the window opening up the blinds). Saint and Metro were taken to the police station in West Valley. Saint was released immediately. Metro had to pay off a warrant and then was released. No charges were filed.
"I opened up the door," remembers Rob Spallone, "and saw this little guy. 'Who the f--- are you?' Turns out it was an undercover officer. He didn't like that. They took my shooting permit so I have to go get another one today. No problem."
JB writes: "On every filming permit issued to the adult industry
for location shooting by the County and City of Los Angeles Entertainment
Industry Development Corp. are the following instructions, on the front
page, in bold, capital letters:
NUDITY AND/ OR SEXUAL ACTIVITY MAY NOT BE VISIBLE OR AUDIBLE BY THE
PUBLIC.
And:
PRIVATE RESIDENCE - BUS CAST AND CREW; NO CAST/ CREW PARKING ON AREA
STREETS - OFF
STREET PARKING MUST BE PROVIDED.
"The instructions that call for a parking lot to be utilized and
a shuttle bus used to bring cast and crew to the location (a regular
practice on mainstream productions) are usually, due to budget limitations,
circumvented by spreading the cars out throughout the neighborhood,
thereby maintaining a low profile and not drawing attention to the filming
location. The instructions pertaining to sexual activity are plain old
common sense. Any experienced producer/ production manager knows this.
First rule of business - keep the neighbors, police and fire department
happy, and you can operate free of hassles and legal problems."
7/18/01
Rob: "She [Lynne] gave him [Sacks] everything. We go back into the courtroom. The judge says, bulls---, I ain't doing that for you. We each took a year probation for lewd and lascivious conduct.
"Dane was shooting at my house [ early January, 1999]. They had about 40 people there. I told them no cars on the street... I think that was the day Bo [John Kenney] came up. Dusty [from KBeech] put a big sign on the back of his car reading 'I'm gay' and on his windshield a picture of a naked chick.
"You remember the Grimes house? You couldn't see in the front door unless you walked all the way up between the bushes. But if the lights were on inside and you put your head in the window, you could see. So the cops were outside for a few minutes looking in.
"When the cops came in, I was in my office. Somebody said there were cops. I said I would be out in a minute. I get out of my chair and I open the side door in my office. And there are two guys standing there. I said, 'Who the f--- are you?' They looked at me and said they were undercover cops. They had badges around their necks. They asked me to come out front.
"I'm out there in the living room. There's about 30 of us. They asked for my permit. They grabbed the bullets on my desk. I used to use them as a paperweight. So he says, 'Where do they go?' I said it's in the left bottom drawer. I gave him my permit.
"So we're in the living and Alec F--king Metro gets up on the front of the couch staring at the cops. The cop says, 'You look familiar.' Alec says, 'Yeah, you were at my house last week.' They bring him outside and handcuff him and a foreign girl, a beautiful girl [Sylvia Saint]. They took them in.
"I took pictures of where the cars were parked and I had two pictures where they were having sex near the front door. It was Chuck Martino's shoot but he wouldn't take the bust. So Adam and I got called down to court. The kid was crying.
"So I'm talking to the lady [Lynne]. Here's the proof. She says it doesn't matter. She says: 'We want to stop this pornography. I handle all the pornography cases.' Blah blah.
"I show her the pictures and tell her about the parking and she offers to plea it down. She was going to give me three years probation. I said, 'Wait a minute. I shoot these things every day. Anything can happen.' Why don't you just put it all on him [Sacks]. It was his shoot. I told him not to park out front. So she does.
"So we're gone for 15 minutes. We come back into the courtroom and she says, 'Your honor, I'd like to postpone this case...' The judge says, 'What? Are you crazy? I've got enough cases. Let's finish it right now.' So she tries to get me off and the judge says, well, you've already mentioned his name. He gets a year probation too. I went clean for a year anyway.
"The same cops came up to the house. So I go out to the backyard and I'm talking to them. They say, 'We want a bookie.' I say, 'What are you talking about?' They say, 'Come on. We've got your rap sheet from New York. Come on, you know people.' I say, 'I don't know anybody.'
"He says, 'Come on. You're from New York. You know everybody.' I say, 'Listen. I've been out here for five years and I don't know anybody.' He gives me his card and says, 'Well, you better call me.'
"So the next day, I'm in my office by myself. Who's living up there? Stevie, Kendra, Shelley Pearson. They're out. The cops come up. They come in like cowboys now. Four of them. Nasty as can be. Why didn't you call us? I said, 'I told you yesterday I didn't know anybody.'
"They said, 'Well, we'll come up here every day. We know you shoot here.' I say, 'I have a permit. I'm all legit.' They say, 'We can stop you from earning your living.'
"So they come up for three weeks, twice a week. So I called up the DA, Lynne something and say, 'Can I come see you for lunch?' She says yeah. She goes, 'I really like you, blah, blah, blah.' I say, 'Yeah, I'm married. I have two kids.' I tell her how I came out here.
"She says, 'You shouldn't do this.' I say, 'I know. I don't like it either.' She called the cops into her office and told them to leave me alone. And they did.
"We're at the Grimes house. I had the house on Calderon [in Woodland Hills]. And the cop says to me, 'Listen, you have another house.' I say, yeah, in Woodland Hills. The cop says, well, we can't find it. I say, it's a private house. A private road.
"Somebody was shooting at the Grimes house. Tyce Bune was shooting at the Calderon house with Jim. We get a phone call. The cops are here. They're looking for you. Where's the permit? I say, what cops? Jim's on the phone. The cops are right there. I say, Jim, are they the same cops? He says yeah. I say, tell them to go f--- themselves. To suck my f---ing dick.
"And Jim says, well, Rob, do you know where it is? And I go, Jim, tell them to suck my f---ing dick. And he's trying not to laugh.
"They had come up to the Calderon from the back side, cutting the chain link fence. That's right when we gave up the houses. We said fine, we're not shooting on this side of the hill anymore. And we went to the house on Tuxford in Sunland.
"The best was the night with the helicopters. I leave the house. Billy and Natasha live in the back guesthouse. I go to get icecream with my wife and kids and fathers. I come home two hours later and my pager's going crazy. I call Billy.
"He says, SWAT was just here. Two helicopters and 40 cops.
"Here's what happened. There was a helicopter and it sounded real low. So Billy came out. He's all tattooed. He has only his underwear. The cops say, 'You. Hands on your head and get to the front of the house.' They bring him out to the front driveway. All of a sudden, ten cops come out of the bushes and they've got their shotguns on him.
"They went through the whole house. My office used to be locked when I wasn't there. Kendra [Jade] was the only one that I trusted to go in the office to use the computer and stuff. Because I had money in there. So they went through the whole house because they'd heard there'd been a kidnapping.
"They don't go into my office because it's locked. They leave. I say, Billy, I want to come up there. Are the cops still there? So I go with Jim. I said Jim down to the house first because I was afraid. Jim goes out and comes and gets me. We talk to Billy. I go to the police. I take my permits.
"We walk in. They send me to another police station. We walk in at 11PM. I say, listen officer. My name is Rob Spallone. I'm in the porno business. I shoot movies. And I have a house in Encino [on Grimes] and I have permits to shoot there. And one of my kids who lives there says there was a SWAT team there. And he goes and comes back and says, 'I have no record of that.'
"I say, 'No record of that? There were two helicopters and 40 cops?' All the neighbors that hated us, they were all out there complaining that we shoot pornos. He goes on the computer and says, oh yeah, that shift went home already. They searched the house and they knew it was the wrong place."
XXX writes: "I know what the kidnapping thing was all about. This old guy Walter owed Rob and a lot of people money. A couple of times he came to Rob's house with his father-in-law. He came to the house that day and told Rob that he needed to meet with these guys and pay them. Rob says, 'Do you have the money? Are you sure?' He says yeah. Rob says, well, pay them and pay me next week. He leaves.
"Walter called Rob that night, before the SWAT team, crying. 'They're not letting me go. They're punching me.' Rob said, 'You went there without their money? You told me you had their money?' Rob hung up on him. Four times.
"Walter was being held in a warehouse in Canoga Park. They punched his stomach, so it wouldn't leave any marks. Walter kept calling Rob for help and Rob wouldn't help him. So he called his father in law who had no money. Walter's father lives in Connecticutt, New York, and is loaded. Walter's father in law called Walter's father and said, 'Walter's in trouble. He got into trouble with these bookies and loan sharks and he owes them a lot of money. They're not letting him go until he pays them.'
"Father says, who has him? Father in law says, I don't know. But I've been bringing him up to this guy's house Rob Spallone, on 4330 Grimes. The father in New York called the police and the FBI and said his son was kidnapped at Rob Spallone's house.
"The next day, Walter is let go. He goes home. He lives on Van Nuys in a big beautiful house with his father in law, his wife and his two kids. Rob goes there. Walter is still shaking. He borrowed $30,000 and has to pay them back $50,000.
"Rob meets one of the loan sharks and tells him he's only getting his $30,000, not the $50,000. You've got a problem because the cops came to my house. You got me involved in this. So Rob brokered the deal. And that was the end of it."
Luke asks Rob: "What's your take on this Lynne woman?"
Rob: "She don't like porno. She's a church woman. She does good at her job. She was very nice. I went out with her. She really tried to help me. I told her I had a wife and kids and we went to church. She said, 'Why do you do this?' I say, 'My father got sick. I came out to help him and I got sucked in.' She said, 'You should try to get out.' I say, 'I'm always trying to get out.' But she could've f---ed me over.
"And then I got busted again [for no permit]. I could've gone away for eight months. But she dropped the case. She got it squashed. I met with her several times. She's never married. She's never had kids. But she has a niece who she's in love with. She's a nice woman.
"Any time there's any kind of case with us, it goes through her."
A man calls Rob to get a referral to the Bunny Ranch for a girl.
Rob's supposed to have lunch with Theresa Flynt this week so he can set her straight about Sharon Mitchell's AIM.
Rob: "I got two phone calls this week from people who called me last week saying I should leave Sharon alone. They found out the true story now. That she started this. Sharon didn't tell them the whole truth. And they're on my side now. Sharon should stick with the drugs and alcohol anonymous thing and forget the bulls---."
I hear that Skye Blue and Summer Cummings have opened a stage next to Wicked Pictures on Eton Avenue in Chatsworth. They charge $500-$800 per day which is typical.
Rob Spallone phones at 6:30PM.
Rob: "I'm going to pick up my wife and we're going to dinner with Marty and Ed from VCA."
Luke: "You wouldn't use Lola Lane today because she's black."
Rob: "I don't use f--king monkeys, that's why. Where was I shooting? At the zoo? I'm going to Colin Malone's party tonight and if there are any monkeys there, I'm walking out."
Luke: "Did Jimmy make it or did you have to call an ambulance?"
Rob: "He doesn't look good. I don't know what's the matter with him."
Aghast writes: Shame on you Luke F-rd for suggesting that Rob Spallone fired Lola Lane from his "Fat Dog Lesbian" shoot just because she was black. As you no doubt remember from your March visit to a "Fat Dog Lesbian" shoot with Gina and Dusk. Spallone has high ethical standards and only the fattest lesbian dogs will do!
Lynne L-patin: In the last month you've done more in-person reporting than you did for the entire last year. What got you out of hibernating in your hovel and into the world in such a major way?
Luke says: I ventured out for the XRCO Awards in April. I had such a good time, I've kept going to porno events.
putativejew: i need to get out there to hang out on a porn shoot one
day
putativejew: you're jaded, i know i would dig it
putativejew: it's strange because the women you photographed today all
look unappealing in their own right ... but that makes it seem more
intriguing to observe, i think
[ Lynne writes: Did it ever occur to you that Luke is just a lousy
photographer? Or that he deliberately chooses those photos that make
the girls look bad, just to make a point?]
putativejew: i think that's the point with porn chixxx .. they're supposed
to look weird and skanky. if i was around a stephanie swift type i'd
probably just start feeling upset. she looked so lost and forlorn in
those pics you had of her from sunday
putativejew: anyway, i suggest you take this publicity (particularly
the article from friday) to move into the mainstream at least on a level
that you can deal with. how about each day next week you attempt an
interview with some media-savvy jewess who's obviously NOT in porn but
with whom you can address the issues familiar to the LF.com family.
draw from the list i sent you, and throw in jamye for good measure.
putativejew: just do it. it's so easy. if you can spend the day schlepping
around listening to rob spallone ramble on, how can it be any more difficult
to approach all these women and ask them to do an interview for LF.com.
email, even. you've broken the ice with strasser, so just ask nicely.
THIS IS HOW YOU GET BEYOND WRITING ABOUT PORN FROM YOUR HOVEL FOR A
LIVING AND GET SOME OPPORTUNITIES IN THE MEDIA TO DEAL WITH THINGS YOU
REALLY CARE ABOUT. if an article is gonna draw specific people to LF.com
(i.e. jews) then you've gotta give them what they want, keep coming
back. what do jewish males want to read about? NOT JIMMY DIGIORGIO ...
but JEWISH WOMEN!
putativejew: THIS IS HOW YOU WILL GET THE FOX NEWS CHANNEL CALLING YOU OFFERING A SHOW. OR A RADIO STATION. OR WHATEVER. YOU NEED TO MAKE IT CLEAR THAT YOU CAN DEAL WITH MORE THAN HANGING AROUND WITH SLEAZEBAGS, BUT CAN BE TRUSTED TO A CERTAIN DEGREE. I MEAN, NOBODY TRUSTS DRUDGE, RIGHT? BUT THEY SEEM TO TRUST HIM WITH THEIR $$$$
putativejew: YOU HAVE TO MAKE IT EVIDENT THAT YOU CAN INTERFACE WITH THE MAINSTREAM. PORN STARS IN AND OF THEMSELVES ARE NOT GOING TO MAKE A LICK OF DIFFERENCE TOWARD FUTURE OPPORTUNITIES. YOU CAN TAKE A PAGE FROM RON JEREMY'S BOOK AND UNDERSTAND THAT IF YOU'RE SEEN AS CUDDLY ENOUGH, THAT YOU CAN PLAY THE MEDIA GAME ON ITS OWN TERMS, THEN YOU WILL NOT BE REGARDED AS A DEVIANT ANY LONGER.
Amalek: Author Amy Sohn would be your type. Tall, big breasts that cry out to be further expanded with the milk with which to nurse jewish children - YOUR jewish children, children whose religious bonafides cannot be challenged by any bet din. Smart as a whip. Talented writer who is in touch with her jewish roots. LOOKING FOR A JEW, but attracted to gentiles. You could be the solution to many of her problems, just as she could be the solution to many of YOUR problems. Luke, trust me on this (when have I ever been wrong re you?), you would be good for each other, you would cancel the other's problems out. Please meet her and marry her. Please invite me to the wedding.
Amalek: One year from now you could be, at this exact corresponding moment, in the arms of Amy S. Ford, or even cuddling your child. OR you could be exactly where you are, talking to Jimmy D, interviewing porn skanks about their SAT scores
Amalek: You two would make a very cute couple. VERY cute. You two could become a MEDIA couple, like Tina Brown and that old guy she married, only not as obnoxious.
Amalek: She has an enormously well endowed brain and chest. And she
is very literate and takes judaism seriously. If a nice jewish boy like
you does not pursue her, she might fall into the clutches of feminism
or a goy
Amalek: Luke, that is all I have to say. Trust me on this. Either you
make the effort to get to know her throught the pretext of doing an
interview for your web site, or one year from now you will still be
hanging out with Jimmy D on porn shoots
Amalek: Trust in Amalek. Trust in Amalek. Trust in Amalek.
Amalek: I WANT TO MAKE THIS HAPPEN NOW. RIGHT NOW. I WANT YOU TO CALL HER ON THE TELEPHONE RIGHT NOW.
Lynne L-patin: What's wrong with hiding out in your hovel, writing about things you are really interested in, like porn? Because these nitwit losers you befriend want you to live vicariously for them....and THEY don't wanna live in a hovel and sleep on the floor and hang out at Bobby Gallagher's studio.
Here some photos from today's Rob Spallone - James DiGiorgio lesbian shoot for Fat Dog.
Sewing Machines For Hookers
Rumdar writes from Thailand: "I am involved in a "sewing machines for orphans and hookers" charity. I am serious, no joke. I think this is a great way to give something back in life for the wonderful fortune the Great Buddha has bestowed on us all. I am fine tuning my plans to join this organization. I'd like to see you guys get involved as well. I asked Dan if he could sign Popsicle Toes up (as a favor to me) when her hooking days are over. The girls get a machine and formal training. He said Pop is a lazy slut and would probably sell her machine and continue marketing pussy. He has a point. Oh! Well...Perhaps I should stop worrying about her. Nothing much is new. Just enjoying the good life. Pattaya rules!! Sure I could go to Pukett and rent a cabin on the beach or whatever, but I enjoy being close to the mayhem....
"Luke this is a portion of an E I just sent to some friends. Could you pass this E on to the Advisory Committee? Time is short and the computers slow. I am very serious about the "Sewing Machines for Hookers and Orphans" program. I see now that I should spend the rest of my life doing "mostly" good deeds for people, especially hookers and orphans. I would love it if you would lend the prestigious Luke F-rd.com name to this effort. Perhaps your porno friends could have a fund raiser to help out. What about Amalek? Wouldn't he get his lazy ass in gear and do some good work for the needy women who will benefit from a skill other than sucking dicks. I'll get back to you on this. I am very enthused that I have found my calling in life. We all have to give back to those in need for the good fortune we have in life (It is Torahistic No?) And don't worry, I am sure there will be many hookers left who do not have the slightest interest in learning how to sew."
Luke replies: I forwarded this as per your instructions...and I am deeply touched by your charitable instincts.
Rumdar replies: "Thanks buddy. it goes to show that no matter what our religious calling we can all help make this world a kinder place to live in. Many of these women turn to the so called "oldest profession in the world" because their husbands desert them and they have to support themselves. They have kids and mothers to feed and someone has to make the water buffalo payments. The "sewing machines for hookers and orphans" program offers them a way out of this dreadful existance. I can't imagine any fate worse than having to service some fat, beer swilling, loud mouthed, tatooed Aussie lout, unless it is having to service some obnoxious German Nazi or an Arab who hasn't taken a shower in six months. I'll provide more details as the occur."
Helpful writes: Could work. They all laughed when Heather Barron branched out into script doctoring and see how well that turned out. Bravo Dan!
