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On Rob Spallone's Legend Set
2003-02-18 17:47:30

JMT writes: You've been writing some good stuff lately. Has your team of physicians and therapists finally found the right combination of powerful psychotropic drugs?

Carly: denser and more of a prima donna than most of the porno chicks you've talked to, or just an irony- and sacrasm-impaired Canuck?

Wanker Wang appears to be losing interest in l-keford.com. Now is the time to try to re-purchase the name (get Flashman to float you a loan, if necessary). If WW gives you trouble, start making demands the he put disclaimers re: your non-involvement all over the site, claiming that the guy you sold it to didn't have the right to sell it to him, and generally being a pain in his ass. Tell him that if he sells the site back to you, you'll put a link to his new "Drunk whores passing out and getting corpsed" and "porn stars getting pissed on by gangs of uncircumcized Mexicans in an alleyway" sites on yourmoralleader.com.

DUC says: Carly is just a sweet Canadian chicky.

Al Qwats writes:

1. From your point of view and experience, Is it true that adult industry (key people) dominated by Jews?

DUC says: Jews make up about a third to a half of the most powerful players in porn.

2. How comes sex industry in USA became legal business, while prostitution is illegal?

DUC says: Hardcore porn videos are not necessarily legal. This is hazy area legally. Porners can still be prosecuted for obscenity for making vanilla hardcore.

3. Do most of the performs believe that after death, they will face God judgment, and will go either heaven or hell fire?

DUC says: Most don't think about such things. Few performers are religiously active though most probably believe in God.

4. In general, Are the performers respected by USA society?

DUC says: No.

Friday, 2/14/03, I get this email from Sin City:

Sin City Entertainment is planning a week of unbridled sex that must be marked on your calendar. Two films will be shot during the week of February 17th. The productions mark the Sin City performing debut of the Starr Twins - Taylor & Tyler.

The girls have received a slew of media of attention since signing with Sin City and have been very anxious to earn their keep. Taylor explained, "We love the Personal Appearances and meeting our fans but we're horny as hell and can't wait to start having sex." Sister, Tyler, added, "It's time to get wild!"

The vehicles for the "wildness" will come in the way of 2 Feature Films, Mirror Image and Trouble X 2.

THE DETAILS:

TROUBLE X 2 - Shoot Dates (2/18 - 2/20)

Synopsis

A highly-charged sexual thriller that follows the lives of 2 young twins (Taylor & Tyler). The twins separated at birth are trying to fill a void and inadvertently seek consolation (and consultation) from the same therapist (played by Steven St. Croix), who believes he is treating one multi-dimensional personality.

An All-Star cast shines in this intensely riveting sexual drama. Not to be missed is the 10-person, sweat-inducing sexual free-for-all finale.

Tuesday, 2/18/03, I call Sin City PR rep Scott Stein to confirm the shoot is still on. I leave a message but don't hear back from Scott.

I drive 35-minutes to the Woodland Hills location for the first day of the shoot. Nobody is there but the owner of the house. He informs me the shoot has been canceled. As I'm driving away, I see another journalist drive up. Poor sap.

This is the second time in a month I've driven to Woodland Hills for a shoot I was invited to but that was canceled without notifying me.

I call Rob Spallone. He's shooting in North Hollywood. I drive there.

Rob, with new blond streaks in his hair, steps outside to make a phone call to New York. I'm not allowed to listen in. I'm not allowed to follow him. Who's he calling? The capo tuti fruti?

Ten minutes later, Rob returns and tells me a story: "About eight months ago, I called James Gandolfini's (Tony Soprano) manager and asked him if he knew anybody at HBO or Showtime. He told me he knew a big woman at HBO who was in charge of the Sopranos, Six Feet Under, Sex in the City. He says, 'She won't even take your call.' Let me call you back, I'll make some calls.

"A half hour later, he calls me back. The lady at HBO will take my call. I call her up and I'm on the phone with her for 45-minutes trying to explain [a reality show about the porn industry]. Jim DiGiorgio was in the office with me. She said they'd been approached with similar ideas but they don't really want to do anything with porno.

"About three months ago, Gary was on set for Wicked PAing. He calls me up, 'Rob, you're not going to be believe this but there are these two people here from HBO following the Wicked crew around. They're looking to do your idea.'

"The next morning, I go into my office and call up this woman. I leave a message. Within five minutes, my phone rings. It's the woman. 'I had a feeling I'd be hearing from you, Rob Spallone.'

"Something beneath her had gotten fired. They hired somebody else and they took on this project and they were out here in California.

"I said, 'I'm not hear to sue you or nothing. You'd said you were approached before me.' And she said, 'Yeah, but it's wrong. I'm going to have them get in touch with you.' Meanwhile, they were at VCA, all over the place.

"Jim South is having a private talent call on March 5. HBO is filming the talent call with Johnathan Morgan and the Wicked crew. Now, I told these people about this. They're doing the whole thing I did.

"So I'm going to New York next week and I will call her and see if she will go to lunch.

"Now my people (writer Michael Kane and Margaret Roberts who started first reality show) don't want to do (reality show on porn)."

Rob Spallone told me 2/6/03:

We speak by phone Thursday at 10AM.

Rob: "This woman (Margaret Roberts, who's planning a reality show for Showtime on porn) was with me from 10:30AM - 3:30PM. She [says she] was the producer of the first reality show ever - America's Most Wanted. She called me last night to thank me.

"She's shooting a reality show next week in Arizona about bull riding. She wants to do a reality show about the shooting of a porno. When we shoot a porno, it's 86 minutes. But it takes us 15-hours to shoot it. That's what they want to do it about. They want me to be a steady character. And the rest are new girls all the time for a weekly show on Showtime.

"It would be a great show. The making of a porno. The fights, the arguments, I don't want to work with that girl, I want to work with this one... Right up to Jim South putting ads in papers and this girl answering an ad.

"I also told her about my wife. When [Margaret] called me last night, she asked if my wife would do it. I said, 'Listen, it ain't a porno.'

"When I come home and my wife yells, 'Where were you all day? With those prostitutes?' My wife would be a great character."

..........

Rob's shooting today some low-budget scenes for Legend with old women, young guys, as well as white chicks blowing black guys.

Tony, a burly black guy who came in with a white porn girl in 1999, walks in. He doesn't want to work with a particular woman, but if I print her name, he promises to come after me.

Tony: "I go on your website all the time, buddy."

Rob says the Margaret Ropberts produced porn reality show for Showtime is on hold because HBO is pursuing a similar time.

Rob: "Michael [Kane] first wanted to do something scripted and I was against it. I was for a reality show, following me and different girls around. Now we're going back to his idea about a scripted show about the porno industry.

"It's pretty f------up that [HBO] ran with the idea on their own."

I see Captain Bob's 53-year old girlfriend-porn star who just had $20,000 worth of plastic surgery.

Rob: "She looks 20 years younger. She had eyes and cheeks and chins."

She's taken on a new porn name to go with her new look. Anastasia Sands. She's done 102 movies, starting in January 2001. She got into porn, met Captain Bob, and moved in with him.

Anastasia: "Little Red got me into the industry. He's 31-years old. He was one of my lovers. He's 5'10 with red hair and piercing blue eyes. I met him when he was 29. He told me to get into the business because of my sexuality."

My tendencies towards agism and lookism arise within my breast as images of a 53-year old woman's sexuality fill my mind.

Anastasia: "I have a lot of fans. I get fan letters all the time. One guy wrote me that he watched one of my movies 50 times. People ask to buy my stuff but I don't have anything to sell.

"I think I'm probably the hottest looking person over the age 40 in the business."

Luke: "You're over 40?"

Anastasia: "I'm 53."

Luke: "Do you have kids?"

Anastasia: "Of course."

Luke: "Do they know?"

Anastasia: "Yes."

Luke: "How do they feel about it?"

Anastasia: "They know how much money I make. They're fine. They think I'm gorgeous. My son doesn't watch it but my daughter just turned 21. She's married. Her little husband is in the Army. And to get points when he was in boot camp, he took ten of my movies. Then I had these little guys in the Army, 18 and 19-year olds, calling me up wanting to talk to me.

"I host swinger parties. I own a playhouse in Van Nuys, CA with my boyfriend Captain Bob."

Luke: "How many lovers have you had in your life?"

Anastasia: "I was married at age 19. All of my life? Over 400 aside from the business. I got divorced [at age 49] because I was seduced over the internet. I allowed myself to get talked into it."

Luke: "What about STDs? Isn't it dangerous to have that many lovers?"

Anastasia: "Not if you practice safe sex.

"I star in a $70,000 feature last October that was so popular I am going to be doing a sequel for Simon Wolf Productions and The Erotic Network."

Luke: "This is not a good place for you to sit."

Anastasia Sands sits in the middle of a narrow hallway as she struggles to put on her high heels and avoid getting stepped on. Her stuff, including a cell phone, lie on the floor. Rob Spallone comes through. Stage workers walk by.

Anastasia: "I am a public exhibitionist. When I got in front of the camera for my first scene, that was my stage. I like the attention. I like being noticed. I like walking down the street and having people look at me. I dress to be undressed. I flirt. I'm one of the older women who work all the time."

DUC to Rob: "What's your artistic vision behind shooting old woman having sex? What are you trying to communicate?"

Rob: "Old women being with these young guys?"

Luke: "Women don't buy porno."

ROB: "Then why is the biggest time for the adult porno channel from 10AM - Noon? You don't think it's housewives home playing with themselve?"

Luke: "No. I don't trust that statistic because it violates common sense."

Rob: "I like that. It violates common sense."

Rob has shot only one scene today and he's running way behind.

Rob: "I wish I could take a pill and relax a little."

Rob pops a pill.

Rob: "My wife has me on these things. I don't know what they're called. Some kind of valium. I had to eat a quarter of the pill for the first three days, then half a pill for the next three days, and then a whole pill every day."

Rob likes taking pills. He's been doing them since I've known him. Pills for losing weight. Pills to make him relax and not be so angry. He likes to get shots too - right in the ass.

Ron Sullivan: "This guy calls every day begging for work. Then he calls this morning at 7:30. 'I can't shoot today. I have a cold.' He started to give me a routine. I said, 'No, you don't have to tell me.'"

Anastasia Sands says that was her porn name before she had surgery. Now she wants to be known as Gigi.

Gigi: "I don't even look like the same person. Everything except my nose changed on my face. I look so young. I had my hair colored."

Gigi says she doesn't want to work with anyone ugly or strange.

Ron: "You're a jinx Duc. Whenever you show up, we're running behind."

Rob gets in a discussion over the phone about casting for a Jim Holliday movie. Will it star Bill Margold, Jim South or Rob Spallone? Or all three?

2PM: Back at Rob Spallone's shoot. I realize that Skip, Jim South's assistant, is veteran male performer Blake Palmer.

I meet 20-year old blonde from Sacramento, Cherry. She's been in the industry for 10 weeks and done about 20 scenes. She smokes a cigarette. We stand as we talk.

Luke: "How long do you plan to stay in the industry?"

Cherry: "For at least six months. I'm going to find a place by the beach."

Luke: "What do you like about the industry?"

Cherry: "The money and the opportunities to travel. I went to Hawaii with adult.com. Jim South called me to go to Hawaii for three weeks for $10,000. I can get a new car."

Rob: "Why don't you sit down and do this interview?"

Luke: "I've got to get her when she's vulnerable."

Rob: "Before she finds out who you really are."

Rob turns 40 years old next month. Cherry turns 21 on May 20th.

Luke: "What do you hate about the industry?"

Cherry: "I wish that we could use condoms more often."

Rob: "Have you caught anything yet?"

Cherry: "No, I have not caught anything."

Rob: "How many guys did you sleep with before you got in this industry?"

Cherry: "About 30."

Rob chats with his wife Helena.

Luke: "Hello Mrs Spallone, don't forget to check out my new website."

Rob gives me a dirty look. "He's a funny guy. He's charming."

Luke: "Ready, set, go."

DUC to Cherry: "Rob doesn't want his wife to know my new website [so she can't check up on him]."

Cherry: "Why?"

Rob: "Helena, you don't want to talk to him. He'll put pictures on the internet of me with girls."

Helena is Rob's opposite in many ways - private and self contained. She won't let me quote from our conversation.

Helena doesn't like the industry. She wishes Rob would get another job. She feels sorry for the girls in it.

Luke: "I won't put it on the website."

Rob yells: "Yes he will. He's lying, Helena."

DUC to Cherry: "You haven't had any horrible experiences in the industry?"

Cherry: "Just one crappy one. It was a Gag Factor thing I didn't really get told what it was exactly. It was not a fun thing. I was able to complete the scene but I started crying when the thing was done.

"What do you think about my skirt? Be honest. My friend says it's hideous."

Cherry wears a black skirt with a fin.

Rob complains that he's going to be stuck on a porno shoot for 11 of the next 12 days.

Kat Kleevage walks in. She's had plastic surgery on her face and looks several years younger.

"Always be kind," she says to me, "when talking about my behind.

"I'm so fat right now."

She talks about her boyfriend.

Rob and Kat fly to New York at the end of the month to appear on the Howard Stern Show.

Luke: "Will you stay in the same room?"

Rob: "No. Kat stays in a hotel and I stay in a house."

Kat: "He stays with a family."

Rob: "I call to check on you to make sure that everything is good."

Kat: "I'm going to be working in New York. I put my ad up. I have a girlfriend who lives on the East side. She wants to meet you because she's looking to do an odd type of porn movie. But she's real fat."

Rob: "We need to come up with an odd thing between the three of us right now because we are doing the Stern show. Will she do horses? I want to do something with horses. How old is she?"

Kat: "Do we have to go into the age thing again? She's not your typical porn girl. She's 40-something. She has a Sophia Loren look."

Rob: "We need midgets."

Kat: "But they want a lot of money. They're expensive."

Still photographer comes in. "The scene is going bad. You want to come over?"

Rob: "Just finish it without me."

Lawrence, the newcomer in high heels and some weird gay outfit, can't keep wood for the woman.

Kat has booked everything for Rob in New York - plane tickets, rental car, etc - with Rob's credit card.

Kat: "I have an AIDS test if they want to see it."

Rob: "Do they have an AIDS test?"

Kat: "They get a condom."

Rob: "What happens if it breaks?"

Kat: "Then I go to the doctor and I get tested for everything under the sun. These guys don't break our condoms. They know what we do. They may want a bareback blowjob but as far as sticking it in, they want condoms. Come on, we're hookers."

Rob: "I'd want eight of them."

Kat: "No, you only want one. Two condoms rubbing together cause friction and may break one."

Lawrence still can't get wood.

Ron Sullivan: "They don't know how to do this. I've got nothing to shoot."

Rob orders that the woman strap it on and do Lawrence or else they don't get paid. The scene has been going five hours.

Kat: "Your wife is so nice to me now."

Rob: "I'm going to hell anyway."

Kat: "That's ok. If you do something good... My mother says that as long as you believe in God and the right ones, or something to that effect, you're going to heaven."

Rob: "You?"

Kat: "Anybody."

Rob: "You suck d--- for a living."

Kat: "I may not make it."

Rob: "The Devil is going to want you to blow him."

Kat: "Your wife is so nice to me on the phone. What did you do? What did you say? I think I love her. I'll take care of her for you."

Rob: "That's my job."

Kat: "I want to be friends with her."

Rob: "No. My wife doesn't do the porno hangout thing."

DUC, referring to the struggling scene: "Are they a new couple trying to make it in the industry?"

Rob: "No, they just met. I shot her [Heather Simms] last week and he came walking into the office looking for work. He came in with an old ugly woman and said he was talent looking for work. I made him dress up today in high heels and stockings."

There's a mad search in a box for a strap-on. I wander outside and talk to black man Duane Cummings, who I call "Justin" for some reason in the pictures. He has a BA in business administration. In the industry a few months, he's done about 20 scenes.

Duane: "I was jumping from job to job after I graduated from college."

Luke: "Do you find a lot of directors insist on someone having a college degree before they will shoot them?"

Duane: "Nope."

There aren't many college graduates in porn.

Luke: "What do you love and hate about the industry?"

Duane: "I love the money and the sex. I hate that it is not unionized."

Luke: "Do you prefer to work with white girls or asian girls or what?"

Duane: "No sir. I don't discriminate."

Cherry: "Guys love asian chicks. I don't know why."

Duane: "Because they're different."

Cherry: "They're unbreakable."

I meet Amanda, a beauty from Brazil. She's been in America for a year, appearing in a handful of movies. Her male friend translates most of my questions and most of her answers.

Luke: "What do you like and dislike about the industry?"

Amanda: "Dinero." She doesn't like anal and won't do it.

Amanda is shy and sweet.

Luke: "Do you prefer to work with white guys, black guys?"

Amanda, quickly and enthusiastically: "White."

Amanda says she was with only five guys before entering the industry.

I meet a slender smart 43-year old blonde Emerson Style, mother of two kids, 19 and 17. She did two years of work on a PhD in English literature.

Kat: "I love Scrabble. It's not about how you spell. It's knowing the words."

Emerson: "Xi is a word."

Kat: "Qat."

Style, who sports a nose ring and tattoos, is friendly with Ed DeRoo, who's about ready to sell his business and retire from porn.

Independently wealthy, Style is in porn for the sex and fun. "Rampant sexuality and rampant curiosity. Just a desire to see what it would be like. It's fascinating. To preserve my dignity, this might be my last hurrah. If a nice person comes and asks, like Henri Pachard, I will always come out for him or Ed."

In the business two years, Emerson has done 25 movies.

Luke: "Do you think your nose ring and tattoos led you into pornography?"

Emerson: "I think my gestalt led me into pornography. The spirit was willing but the flesh is getting weak. If you pick the right people and keep your wits about you, it doesn't have to be the sad sordid thing they portray it as. The industry hasn't compromised any aspects of my life. It hasn't compromised any of my relationships. Only lately it has gotten hard on the ego. At my age, you work in movies and the stuff comes out and you wonder, 'Who's that old granny? That fossil?' I'm not Grandma Moses. Not yet.

"Do my children know about this? No they don't. I think it would be a bit shattering to their world view.

"A fair number of people in my private life know about [my porn involvement]. I try to surround myself with non-judgmental friends. They know all my foibles."

Luke: "What have you learned from the industry?"

Emerson: "That most people are good. Probably the more progressive you are, the better you will fare. If you're a pleaser like me, you are always going to be slightly underpaid. I think most people [in porn] are honest and professional.

"If someone wants to go into it, I'd have to say - know where your moral standing is, know how comfortable you are with your body... There is an element of acting. Everyone wants to think there isn't - that we are all there having this lust fest."

Emerson opens a beer.

Luke: "Do you open a beer before most of your scenes?"

Emerson: "No. It's been a long day."

Porners prefer me to turn my tape recorder off and just act human. While it's running, they feel uptight. When I'm on the job, they feel judged and under pressure.

...........

Ex-Journos Paint Reporters as Artful Liars

On page after page, authors Al Guyant and Shirley Fulton portray journalists as a cynical and manipulative bunch who ingratiate themselves with their subjects and then trick them into saying something "stupid, guilty, foolish or worse." It is possibly the most unflattering portrait of the press since Janet Malcolm declared every journalist a "confidence man."

These are some of the tricks reporters might use to "coax information" from a source, according to the book: ask for your opinion, banter with you, and put the results in the story—even though they never include their own "snide remarks," "use prolonged silence . . . to get you talking," throw "rumors, accusations and distortions" at you, and repeat things someone has allegedly said, in hopes of making you "lose your cool."

Chapter three offers snapshots of the personality types that work in the media. For example, the typical TV reporter "craves pressure and attention," "asks leading, loaded, speculative, and fight-provoking questions to confirm his biases," and "vigorously criticizes others but is . . . loath to accept criticism." The average newspaper reporter "fights for underdogs," is "scrappy" and "skilled" at ingratiation, but has "little conception of what it feels like to be the subject of scrutiny." And the Internet reporter is typically a "dangerous loner" who is "not known for writing skills" and "can cause enough rumor or consternation that the traditional [media] feel compelled to report both the allegations and the controversy."

Those damned journalists. According to this book, they say their aim is true, but their only real agenda is to get attention—and to that end, they regularly end up printing stories that are not only not accurate, but "false, petty, mean-spirited, and deliberate character assassinations."