HOME 

Alec Metro Faces His Detractors
2003-06-26 18:56:28

* I hear John Decker lost an eye.

* I heard Jenna Jameson married Justin Sterling aka Jay Grdna (real name) last weekend.

* Lee Stone totaled his $60,000 motorbike Wednesday evening but he returned to work a few days later. He's already established in this Rob Spallone-produced VCA biker pic Biker Chicks. Dennis Wood, porn veteran, writes and directs.

.............................

It's stinkin' hot, about 100 degrees in the Valley, when I drive up to the Canoga Park studio at 11:30AM.

I run into porn star Aria of www.ariaxxx.com. She's a lot bigger than normal.

Luke: "You're more muscular?"

Aria: "A month ago, I took fourth in the State of California in the figure championships. Then I went from 118 pounds to 139 pounds in two weeks.

"Prior to the competition, I was eating white fish six meals a day for two weeks. Afterwards, Kim Chambers and I hit the Cheesecake Factory. I feel like a cow. I'm still ten pounds over what I was."

She's now 129 pounds. Her normal weight is 125.

Luke: "I couldn't tell any difference."

Aria, astride some fancy motorbike: "You told me the minute you walked in the door that I looked more muscular, which is a nice way of saying, 'Gosh, you look thick Aria.'"

Luke: "Was your husband excited by the competition?"

Aria: "He was excited when it was over because I wasn't a bitch anymore. I was eating almost nothing for weeks and I'd get tired and cranky and lightheaded. I was a bitch. You know I'm a bitch. I was edgy training three hours a day."

A tattooed photographer, Ben Hoffman, tells me: "You want a story? Apparently Alec Metro is going to be here today. Alec burned me, Ron Vogel, Jace Rocker, James...for $7000. He bounced $1300 worth of checks to me on Christmas Eve."

Cronin, cameraman: "And he laughs about it."

Ben aka Vic Alpine: "We're still trying to recover our money."

Luke: "Do you appreciate his sense of humor?"

Ben: "NO. If this were the old West and I could get away with it, I'd hurt him. But this is modern times and I'd go to jail.

"If he shows up today, wearing some faggy pink outfit..."

DUC to Aria: "Are you looking forward to your scene?"

Aria: "I always look forward to fresh meat. Apparently I get to beat him today."

In the Spring of 2001, Alec Metro was on top of the world. He had contracts to shoot loads of video for big companies like Pleasure and Vivid. He had his own production company. The money was rolling in. Then he developed a drug problem, got taken by a con artist, spiraled downwards into methamphetamine abuse, was unable to pay his bills, and wasted a year of his life in a drugged-haze.

Aria: "He wants me to beat him up. He wants me to kick and clock upside the head."

Ben: "He's a bad person."

Cronin: "The money he owed made it so Jace Rocker couldn't make his house payment."

Ben: "He bounced $2400 worth of checks. [Jace] came back from vacation and his bank account was a total disaster and he couldn't make his house payments. Oh, and it was a big joke to [Alec Metro] that this happened."

Cronin: "He laughs about it. He's got a new Bronco."

This does not sound like the Alec Metro I knew who always told me straight up and honestly what was going on. He told me how he was arrested for drug dealing, and because he wouldn't snitch, he did about nine years in prison.

I know Jace Rocker too. He's a good guy.

Ben: "Nicest guy in the world.

"Not that everybody in the business doesn't know about it but it is nice that everybody gets reminded of it once in a while."

I run into Dynamite's husband Gary. They've lived in Colorado since January. Dynamite had a live-in boyfriend for over three months.

Gary: "I was fine with it as long as they kept things honest and everything was above board. But when it changed directions, it was time for him to go. He's gone now. She dances at a local club regularly.

"She's grown up through the industry. If you look at pictures of when she first came in, she looked like a little girl, perfect Max Hardcore material. Now she's a full grown woman, even though she's only 4'10. You can see that she's grown up. Her scenes reflect it. She enjoys it more. As she goes on, it seems to get better for her."

Alec Metro walks in. He wears a cross and has to be reminded by Aria to take it off before doing his scene.

Aria to Luke: "I love it when you show up on sets. Controversy just oozes from everybody. Everyone cringes or, 'Oh boy, do I have something to tell you today!'"

DUC to Rob Spallone: "I heard you had a lot of bad things happen yesterday?"

Rob: "We started off with the first girl (Brooke Lane) four hours late."

Brooke is a beautiful blonde Penthouse Pet who had a problem with alcohol.

Rob: "Then we had a girl (Lee Stone's GF) who didn't feel good and had to go home. Then Lee got in an accident."

Luke: "That was inconsiderate of him."

Rob: "I was thinking the same thing. But we had three good sex scenes yesterday."

Rob orders a ton of bikers for 7PM, including some Hells Angels. Joey Buttafucco and his brother Bruce are expected to come and play cops.

Ronald Anthony Bolino stops by. A former heavyweight boxer, he used to collect money. He's like the Chili Palmer - John Travolta character in Get Shorty.

Ron gives Rob his final paperwork on his new house. Ron does not appreciate my last write-up of him. Rob persuades Ron not to kill me.

Joey and Bruce don't want to play cops.

Rob: "You'll do it for Snoop Doggy Dog but you won't do it for me?"

Rob says Joey did a nice job at his body shop this morning helping a girl, Kimberly, who got in an accident.

Rob: "Kimberly is a friend of mine."

Luke: "Is she a friend of ours."

Rob: "No."

Ron: "Watch that stuff. I want to stay far away from all that stuff."

Rob: "I'm shooting Sopornos 5&6 next month at a boxing gym."

Ron has been married 29 years.

Rob, married 15-years: "She don't like him. Just like Helena.

"They didn't think I'd live past 15."

Ron: "Me too."

Rob: "If you are home watching television in the dark and your television starts to levitate, what do you say?"

Luke: "Holy hell?"

Rob: "Nigger, put that TV down."

Luke: "How come black people can use the n-word with each other but we white people can't use it?"

Rob: "I don't know. I don't get that."

12:20PM: Inside, Aria twists the collar around Alec's throat until he almost passes out. They take a water break.

Rob's too tired and hot for me to bait. It's disappointing. I struggle to find interesting material.

I ask Dan, the make-up artist, how he should be made up.

Dan: "To look more like a woman or more like a man?"

Luke: "More like a man."

Dan: "Like for a soap opera?"

Luke: "Yeah."

Dan recommends straightening and diminishing his eyebrows, which he's already done in part. He'd use stuff on Rob's skin to stop it looking red and dark.

Rob makes up a ditty: "Dan, Dan, the make-up man, makes up faces as fast as he can."

Rob gets Dan to dial Red Velvet's phone number. She's living with her boyfriend in a place Rob found.

Alec Metro's chest is covered with red welts from Aria's scratches.

Aria: "I managed to get a ride from Larry Flynt's birthday party to the Barfly in the back of a cop car, handcuffed, half-naked, just for the hell of it.

"I did a U-turn on Sunset Blvd. The cop pulled me over and said, 'Where are you going?' Then he looked at us and said, 'I know you and you and you.' Keri Windsor and Kaylynn were in the car.

"So we invited them to Larry Flynt's birthday party. They came and gave us a ride back to the Barfly."

Alec Metro has put in a number on his cell phone and he asks me to click it on to call when they begin the anal. "Payback's a bitch," says Alec.

I sit down with Alec Metro.

Alec: "So why don't you ask me, is it true that drug addiction f---ed up your directing career?"

DUC repeats the question.

Alec: "I could say yes or no. I was in control of the addiction. As far as not paying attention to what was happening in the business world, to my company Surf n'Sand, yes, drug addiction had a lot to do with my not paying attention to the finances and what was going on in the company.

"The drug spin was working out as far as being a creative writer and getting the stuff going.

"I had a one-year spin on drug, from June 2001 to June 2002."

Alec and I are sitting in a room alone but I can tell there's a crowd of people listening to us outside the door.

Alec: "Shooting schedules were being met. Everything was fine. I had a contract with Pleasure Productions. I had Lisa Schmidt selling my cable stuff and constantly finding me investors. I was turning down investors.

"As soon as I signed the Pleasure contract, I met up with a gentleman through Lisa Schmidt named Phillip Star. I now believe that is an alias. He claimed to be an IRS attorney from New Orleans, Lousianna.

"I chose this gentleman because my father lives in New Orleans, Louisiana, and as a younger adult, stole my inheritance from my grandmother. I want to pay him back for that.

"The deal was going to be, two pictures a month sold to Playboy for X amount of dollars, along with my Peasure contract and another contract.

"A couple things he said to me were peculiar. He claimed to be a super-wealthy guy with houses here and there. Yet he was renting a room in Encino and he drove a 1989 Saab convertible and had horrible hair pieces. I still didn't clue on because he had an intellectual and strong presence. He felt like an IRS attorney so I discounted it.

"The day of the shoot, I show up. The lighting crew is setting up (John Carady). The camera operators were Kelly Holland and Jake Jacobs. Two female make-up artists. The equipment is Kenny Hurt's.

"Two hours into the set-up, the investor Phillip Star decides to stop by the set. As he walks through the set with a couple of his own investors, Kenny Hurt and Kelly Holland approach me. They say, 'If that is your investor, that guy took us for a certain amount last year.'

"I took the investor, Phillip Star, outside and profiled him. He did all the classics of lying - his eyes started to dart, he couldn't look at me, he got nervous, he looked at the ground, his mouth was drying up.

"We get Francois Clouseau from VCA on the phone who backs up what Phillip said - that the crew would get paid when the movie sold. I heard the movie had already sold to cable but nobody got paid. Francois had heard that the video had sold but he knew that Playboy could wait up to 90-days after airing before paying.

"The crew was packing up because they wouldn't work for Phillip Star. Phillip says, 'Let them walk.' There's a problem with that. I have to pay the kill fees.

"I tell him to wire the $30,000 into my account.

"I have a group meeting with everybody. They all said to me, 'Alec, we trust your judgment on this. Whatever you think is best.' We take a one-hour lunch break.

"Within 15-minutes, he hands me his cell phone and a guy with a Louisianna accent, 'Hi, I am so and so from so and so bank of commerce. I'm asking for permission to wire in $30,000 to your account.' I say, 'Permission granted.' I figure the money is in the account.

"We shoot for two days. They have me rip off my own series for Vivid TV called Alec Metro's Success. It was me and Dale DaBone owning our own porno company and f---ing all the chicks. Playboy and Vivid were going psychotic over the series, offering me ten picture deals upfront for it.

"I rip it off for the lawyer. I do two of them. Great sex. Exotic cars, Ferraris, the whole nine yards.

"On the day off from my Pleasure shoot, I meet up with Phillip Star. He takes the masters and the stills and takes off to New Orleans.

"The production for Pleasure is an expensive one - a $40,000 feature. I have hospital, ambulances, crew, 20 Hollywood extras, the boiler room to Freddy Krueger's nightmares... I'm cutting checks left and right.

"At the end of the shoot, I go down to the bank and cut myself a check for $1000. It bounces. I can't believe it. Usually crew waits three or four days before they submit their checks. Talent is quick to run down to the bank to cash their checks.

"I had a mental picture of at least $20,000 in the account, with Phillip's $30,000 and Pleasure's $40,000 and my own $10,000. The bank tells me I am $15,000 in the hole.

"What do I do? Do I sit there and call my bank and get paperwork? No. I go to my drug addiction. I lock the house down...in that big 3000-square foot home on Wilbur, with my current girlfriend, one of the lead actresses in my movie. We hit the drugs."

Alec speaks like he needs to get this all out on the table. Lucky for me, Alec and I have always had a good relationship, so I'm pleased to be able to tell his story.

Luke: "What kind of drugs?"

Alec: "Methamphetamine.

"We're three weeks out from CES. Pleasure hasn't found out yet but checks from the Pleasure shoot are bouncing. The phone is ringing off the hook. I've set up a surveillance system so that I can watch people come by and flip me off. I'm sitting there tripping out.

"My next budget was tentatively Hustler. I was looking forward to that. They are huge. I thought their big budget would save me.

"As time goes on, people found out about what happened. My deals dried up.

"CES hits. I am supposed to represent Pleasure at the booth, bring a group of girls and head up their signing team. I don't show. The Pleasure booth becomes a complaint booth. People are lining up to trash me.

"I have Frank [Koretsky] calling me from Pleasure, screaming at me. 'Alec, we gave you $40k to shoot the movie. Why are you overbudget? Why are people suing us?' I tell him that I will fix it.

"Nevertheless, career down the toilet. Three months later, I'm spinning out of control. I have enough money in my personal account to survive. I survive at the Wilbur house until I can't anymore. I downsize to a condo at the Summit. Four months at the Woodland Hills summit, I get evicted out of there."

Luke: "Were you working as a performer at this time?"

Alec: "I was doing some performing but I was so under drugs. I didn't want to go outside. My seratonin level was in the basement from the drug abuse. If I wasn't high, I was completely depressed or asleep. I go from pills (like Xanax, pain killers, anti-depressants) to speed, pills to speed.

"I don't know how I was supporting myself. I think I was dating a big time drug dealer and she would make me good deals on s---, and I'd sell that and do whatever I could to survive. I'd do a few scenes and that would be enough for half the rent.

"Finally, as most people know, my Mom is the director for drug and alcohol abuse of Santa Barbara County. I call her up and tell her the truth. She's smart. She said, 'I was waiting for you to tell me that.'

"The deal with her was 90-days at home or one year in rehab at a Phoenix House in Northern California. I did 90-days at home. She cleaned me up quick with in-home piss testing. I get back out into the world. I live on the beach with a good friend of mine.

"I look through all my bank statements. I decide, it's time for me to get up and when I do a scene, pay a crew member 20% every time I see him... I gotta do it. I still think I'm responsible. Phillip Star had never deposited any money. Therefore, I started spending Pleasure's money and was $15,000 in the hole.

"It's ironic because Frank knew something about this guy Phillip Star. Frank asked me on the phone, 'Did you shoot that lawyer's movie with our money?' At the time, I defended the guy.

"Two other companies in the industry caught Phillip Star in a similar scam. He's being prosecuted under criminal law for stealing. As soon as there is a trial and the evidence is brought forward, I won't have to do much of the legwork. Then I'll do my lawsuit and start all over again."

Rob Spallone walks in: "He's taping this."

Alec: "I know."

Ben Hoffman walks in. He's steaming mad. It feels like a scene from a movie.

Ben: "This is fascinating listening to this whole story. Why didn't you contact any of us?"

Alec: "I didn't..."

Ben: "You know what?"

Alec: "Did you hear the story?"

Ben: "Yeah, I've been listening. I've been f---ing around with this for about 16-months."

Alec: "Hey, hey, hey. Wait, wait."

Ben barrels on: "No. No, I'm not going to f---ing wait. The second you walked in, I wanted to push your f---ing face into a wall."

Alec: "Why don't you do it? Why don't you do it? Why don't you do it? Why don't you f---ing do it?"

Alec leaps from his chair and gets in Ben's face.

Ben: "Because I'm not going to do it."

Alec and Ben are both almost hysterical and almost in tears they are so angry and upset.

Alec: "Why don't you f---ing do it? Don't f---ing say it if you are not going to do it? A year I spent on f---ing drugs dealing with this situation too, asshole. Then I spent three months in rehab."

Ben: "Why didn't you just call and apologize?"

Alec: "Because I didn't know the situation. I didn't come here to explain the situation. That's why I'm doing the interview, so morons like you can read it. Now do you mind and step out before I get pissed."

Ben: "I'm the moron?"

Alec: "Listen, you heard the f---ing story. Step out before I get pissed."

Ben: "You should have told us. There's only seven of us. That's all I'm saying. There could've been a call a month ago, a week ago, anything. If I had just known, I would've been like, 'Ok, I can deal with that.'

"Just imagine me Christmas Eve, $1400 bounces."

Alec: "I was on drugs, dealing with it. Trust me. I lost a lot."

Ben: "I hear that now."

Alec: "I lost a $100,000 month account and now I'm back to doing talent at $500 a scene."

Alec's voice breaks and he's about to cry. "I don't need to hear about last year's Christmas."

Alec sighs. "I think I've suffered enough."

Ben: "You may want to let people know."

Alec: "That's why I am doing interviews. I can't run around telling people anything."

Ben: "It's only seven people."

Alec writhes in pain on his chair. "The whole thing is to do the interview and then to track the people down.

"I don't mind explaining things to people but I need to wait for a court date... You can talk about it but there's no proof. If I have a US government paper saying we're indicting the guy, it's just more credible.

"I think most people do know. When I went to the show this year, for the first time coming out of my drug rehab, everybody said the same thing you [DUC] did, 'We heard something. We want to hear your version.'

"I told them my version and they said, 'That's what we thought.' Enough people know that I am in the clear but there are still enough who want to kick me down because when I was up cruising, it was making a lot of people nervous. I can shoot a whole entire feature and be wrapped by 10PM. Two camera crews, no waiting, every day of the week.

"I'd like to tell any party who thinks I've done them wrong to approach me personally. I am out here on the sets again. I will gladly discuss what happened. Don't threaten me. Don't tell me you are going to push my face into a wall and don't deliver. All that will get you is an ass-whipping. Ask me nicely what happened. I will gladly tell you and where the guy lives. I don't take kindly to threats. I only play a bitch on TV."

3:10PM: Rob stands out in the hot sun with several guys and photographer Roxy from Armenia. Rob yells at Alec, "Bring me a chair."

Alec is emotional and tired and worn down. He flips Rob off. Everyone laughs.

A minute later, we're all surprised when a chair is placed outside the door by Alec.

......................................

Stevi, the busty beautiful brunette with long hair down to her waist, walks in after noon. She says she's been out of the industry for two years and has just come back. She doesn't want boxcovers. She doesn't want the notoriety, not that she can do much about it now.

Stevi negotiates a price for the services of Dan, the make-up artist, to make-up six porn girls before a shoot. Dan says $600.

Stevi walked into Jim South's office on October 25, 2000, and shot regularly from then until December 28, and then irregularly for next six months. She called me once to complain about Ona Zee bouncing checks.

"I shot strictly gonzo coming in. I didn't want box. I didn't want any notoriety. Then the next thing I know I am all over Playboy, Spice, on boxcovers everywhere, recognized. I think, oh God, this will destroy me."

Strange to hear a smart girl saying she wanted to do pornography - both movies and layouts - but didn't want any notoriety. That's impossible. Porn is about the most notorious thing you can do.

Stevi tells me about all her medic certificates.

Luke: "When you deal with dying people as a medic, do they ever say, 'Hey, I saw you on Spice.'"

Stevi: "No because I don't do that now. I'd have to go to a small town."

Luke: "When did you quit working as a medic?"

Stevi: "Right after I got into [porn]."

Luke: "What have you done the past two years?"

Stevi: "Invested wisely and traveled.

"I went in to a fire station to volunteer and the firemen said, 'Oh we know you. Come on in. We're having lunch. Sit and stay.'

"I say, I'm serious, can I volunteer? They say, 'We're not going to have any problem with it at all. You can come here anytime you want, but you have to go through the bosses.' Because nobody is going to take you serious.

"Let's say you show up on the scene of a heart attack. And you're walking in, and granted the guy will be incapacitated and you've got the family weeping. You're walking around and the Mom or wife recognizes you and she's not going to let you touch him."

Luke: "That would be a great scene."

Stevi: "There were a couple of shoots I had to turn down because they wanted me in firefighter gear, or medic gear. It's disrespectful. It's spitting in the face of everything I've trained hard for."

Luke: "Do you regret getting into this [porn]?"

Stevi is silent.

Luke: "Because it sabotaged all your hard work."

Stevi: "No, because mountain rescue or something in a small town."

Luke: "Brooke Lane has come back."

Stevi: "She's going to put out a couple of movies. It's not her childhood dream either."

A few years ago, Stevi worked as a medic and a stripper. A lot of firefighters came in to see her dance. I had so much saved. I lived off that while I went to school in Miami for a year. Then I moved to LA [in the summer of 2000]. Within two months I was broke. So I was flipping through the paper and I saw this ad for figure modeling. I say, I can do that. I can dance. It's no big deal. I walked in [to Jim South's office] and it was total porn.

"All the time that I danced [ten years], we'd have porn stars who'd come in to feature. We didn't want them breathing on us. It was their own mannerisms. They looked hard. They were always trashed.

"I had the misconceptions that a lot of people do, that porn is disgusting and revolting. I was shocked when I went to my first set. Though there are things that really concern me about coming back into it. But I'm on a six month plan and then I'm done. Right now I'm going through some stuff with the IRS.

"I'm going to buy a house. I'm going to take my excess money and diversify into three money-making accounts and go back to work as a medic in a small town."

Luke: "But you will leave your mother behind?"

Stevi: "That's the only bad thing."

Luke: "But you will leave all your friends behind?"

Stevi: "I don't have any friends. I really don't. I don't have one friend. I don't talk to anybody."

Luke: "Because this industry is socially isolating."

Stevi: "How can you be friends with porn people. And with real people, you have to hide your other life.

"I want to have a kid. I don't need to have a husband or a boyfriend for that. I need a bar with some drunk guy."

Steve Hatcher walks up. I ask him how his beat-up blonde girlfriend Anna Mills is doing. He says she's getting better. They're not boyfriend - girlfriend anymore.

Aria walks in dripping with sweat from her scene with Alec. I tell her to stay away from me. She chases me. I flee from her. She grabs me and rubs her dripping body all over me. I shriek with horror. I'm squeamish about sharing bodily fluids. I don't even like going down on a woman.

Cronin works on a coffee table softcore book of porn stars. No text, just pictures.

Aria, who grew up in Rhode Island, says when she was 17-years old, she was propositioned by the head of the state's most popular strip club chain, Foxy Ladies, to come dance.

The chain offers the "legs and eggs breakfast show."

When she turned 20, Aria moved to Florida. Her Mafia friends offered her protection. She said no.

Aria's husband Jack Spade is doing scenes again.

I hear Chloe Dior is pregnant.

I hear Britt Morgan has returned to LA and is working in porn behind the scenes. She was operating a dump truck business with her boyfriend. She has a baby.

....................................

I speak by phone with Aria April 30.

Aria: "I'm competing on Saturday near San Francisco. The state championships are May 23-24."

Luke: "Is it a prerequisite that contestants do porn?"

Aria: "No. It is not required but it is accepted. There are a few. Kim Chambers placed third in the Orange County show last week. Rhonda Lee is competing. Devon Michaels competes. Racquel Darrian has done it.

"My trainer trained Racquel Darrian, Stacey Valentine, Pamela Anderson."

Luke: "How much do you workout?"

Aria: "Normally I do 45-minutes of cardio in the morning and an hour of weights plus eat fish and chicken and vegetables."

Luke: "How does your husband like your hard body?"

Aria: "He loves it. It's sexy to him. What do you think?"

Luke: "Can you pick him up and carry him around?"

Aria: "No. I'm not masculinely huge. I'm still small. I'm just lean and strong."