Tuesday, May 17, 2005
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James DiGiorgio Stirs It Up On Nina.com
I wrote some stuff on my blog re: the story of the performers in Florida who hunted, killed, and then defiled and had sex next to, the dead bodies of a water bufallo and a goat.
In that entry, I compared the animal-killing content to a snuff movie. I also took the opportunity to compare some of the present state of porn to Sydney Pollack's movie, "They Shoot Horses, Don't They?"
I thought I'd throw the analogy up here, since this is one of the few porn discussion forums that intelligently and incisively talks on the subject (if not the only).
I was wondering what other viewpoints some of you might have regarding this issue of (what I perceive as) so much of porn becoming a "negative business" and lacking "normalcy in its depiction of sexual relationships." And let me say that my version of "normalcy" isn't two people doing it in a missionary position. but at the same time, my version of "normalcy" doesn't include practices like sex next to freshly hunted and killed dead animals or spreading bacteria thru A-2-M or finding out how many penises it takes to rip and draw blood from an 18-year-old's asshole or other freak show content. I don't, generally, judge people who privately and with each other's consent engage in these practices, but i'm willing to judge an industry that seems--more and more each day--so fixated on the fringes of sexual behavior at the expense and neglect of the erotic aspects of sexual behavior and trying to pass it off as, supposedly, common and everyday behavior.
Ernest Greene responds:
I think [killing animals in porn] repulsive, can't imagine being turned on by it and don't think I'd like anyone who was. However, I do think this story is being overplayed in the XXX media, given that it's an isolated situation, not a general trend. The level of indignation it inspires, considering what's going on in the larger world, seems entirely disproportionate. All that howling over a dead animal from every animal-lover in this business, and not one word about the human catastrophe in Darfur? A little bit of perspective please, folks. This is just an ugly anomaly that needs to be stopped. It's not the greatest crime since Cain slew Abel. Okay, the lynch-mob forms to the left.
Now, on to the second part of your question: as to the matter of "so much of porn becoming a "negative business" and lacking "normalcy in its depiction of sexual relationships," as a person whose particular sexual orientation was widely regarded as vile and perverse when first enteriing this industry, I'm instantly suspicious of arguments of this type. Since when is normalcy in the depiction of sexual relationships any kind of priority for porn? What is normalcy where sex is concerned? Frankly, I can't lose a wink of sleep over this kind of thing. I don't regard any kind of sex that is legal - which is to say involving consenting adults and no non-humans - as somehow off-limits for depiction in a medium meant to stimulate people's fantasies.
I'm not alarmed in the least about the faddish popularity of stunt-sex or extreme sex or whatever it goes by these days, though I do have obvious safety concerns about some of the practices involved, simply for the benefit of the performers themselves. I couldn't care less about the image of the industry, as porn will be loathed by those who loathe porn no matter what the content. There's no point in trying to appease porn-bashers by trying to make porn prettier or more mainstream. As I've said about a million times here, porn-haters make no distinction between a Vivid feature and meatholes.com. It's useless to try to make a good impression on people who have already decided that you're the spawn of satan.
I would like to see a bit less of what I consider high-risk behavior (AIM's web site gives some clear examples) that is likely to lead to health complications for performers, but even with what appear to be dicey activities, risk-reduction is possible with a bit of forethought. ATMs and DAPs are only as risky as the individuals engaged in them make them. If you spend some time with the performers who specialize in these acts, I think you'll learn that there is an element of "circus magic" in what they do and many of them seem to rather enjoy the shock and horror their performances inspire, which is a perfectly legitimate artistic motivation in my admittedly somewhat twisted conception of art.
Frankly, I think the whole "trend" toward what you consider "freak show content" is part of a general fad for over-the-top "entertainment" manifested in mainstream stuff like Fear Factor. Don't like it personally. Don't watch it. Don't worry about it. Some other fad will come along to replace it soon enough. What does irk me somewhat in the porn context is the huge ruckus being raised about what is essentially a niche market, obscuring the much larger fact that the great majority of XXX product being made and consumed bears no resemblence to the materials getting so much attention. My feeling about this kind of porn is the same as about any other. If you don't like it, don't buy it and don't watch it. Nobody is forced to produce or consume any of this stuff, so just avoid it an support the kind of product you'd rather see instead. Vote with your money. If consumers spend more on "nicer" material, more of it will get made. By causing such a fuss over the most extreme content available, buzz and curiousity are created, actually promoting that which you wish to see less of.
I guess where we disagree is in the percieved harm done by material of this kind, and some implied responsibility on the part of community leaders to oppose it. I have found myself grinding my teeth at reviews sometimes, particularly in my own genre, when I felt the reviewer just couldn't understand any form of erotic expression more subtle than a baseball bat up the ass. I do think they get numb from watching to much low-energy porn and are inclined to sit up and take notice at anything that seems different, even if it's only different by virtue of being extreme, or even ugly.
However, I think the health consequences of the behavior involved are the only real concern, as I still insist that content is a matter of taste and should not be subject to collective pressure of any kind. There are ways of reducing risk even in seemingly hazardous activities, and when those risk-reduction methods are employed, as they always should be in my opinion, the only rational reason for opposing this or that activity goes away.
Consider the obvious case of internal pop shots. That they can be dangerous was demonstrated all too vividly last spring. However, had no HIV-infected players been involved, the behavior itself wouldn't have presented any exceptional risk. That's one reason I'm reluctant to condemn a particular sex act out of context. Anything is dangerous with a dangerous partner. Very few things are dangerous with a safe partner.
I don't think reviewers or anyone else in the industry is really driving the trend you've observed. I think the market drives it and when the market is saturated, the trend will fade out. It seems to me, from what I read here and on ADT, that this may already be happening. The partisans of ultra-hard-core certainly make their preferences known, but there is plenty of contrary opinion expressed and, as I've mentioned, other kinds of video products seem to sell just fine, with or without reviewer attention. One thing Andrew Blake and I have in common is that, at least in recent times, we don't get treated as "real pornographers" by the powers that be, but somehow our products sell better than they ever have.
Celeste aka Bunny Luv ashamed of her past?
I'd guess ex-performers turned director find it harder to gain industry respect than people who just start out as directors right off the bat . Probably a trickle down from the contempt garnered by "director" stars who have their name attached to product someone else has shot . Maybe she thinks a fresh start will buy her a better chance of being judged on her new job instead of always being seen through the memory of her old one?
Christian, a porn performer, writes:
Celeste (Bunny Luv)'s husband/boyfriend/whatever is Robby D, they recently had their first child....anyway, Celeste and Robby D dont hide the fact that she was Bunny Luv at all. I have heard them mention it on set numerous times. I think being a performer turned director is helpful because of the name recognition factor....it sells tapes.
Family Business - A Sanitized Look At Porn
David Aaron Clark writes on ADT:
By "warts" I meant that his TV crew didn't follow him into the industry conclave at the beginning of the moratorium last year, & capture sobbing actresses, pissed-off male talent, weasley gonzo producers & big-money guys inviting everybody to enjoy LFP's donated coca-cola & chicken-wing spread & don't worry, be happy.
Mr. Butts was in fact one of the only people there to try and address the problems facing the industry from a decent, moral point of view.
Wayne writes:
I had few problems with the show but have recently come to the conclusion that this is probably the best way to go for an introduction to a mass audience to the world of porn and to show that directors and talent are real human being's and don't have horns. In a recent epicode with Julie Night they really pushed the envelope with her having dinner with straight friends of Uncle Stevie and commenting about wanting the Chinese waitress to pee in her mouth. Yes, the show is a lot about his family with his Mother, Uncle Stevie and his son. If he shared custody with anyone except his former ex. Taylor Hayes, also ex porn star she would be asking for full custody. As the envelope is pushed more and more of us Gonzo fans will get off Showtimes's back.
JM Productions Disrespects Porn Stars?
Here's an excerpt of their ad copy for American Bukkake:
Camilla, who had lost her virginity a mere six weeks prior to the bukkake (!), looks like she wants to slit her wrists during her scene, and when questioned on-camera by director Jim Powers, she says it's the worst day of her life. Her pre-scene masturbation scene is completely not erotic, and she looks like every pop on her face makes her die a little bit more on the inside.
David Aaron Clark writes on ADT:
The JM (& much other porn marketing, though rarely as near semi-literate as the sophomoric ad copy churned out by Steward & crew) marketing demographic isn't guys with girlfriends ... it's guys who are unable, by the demand of either personality defect or court order, to get within fifty yards of an actual human female unless they're at their HMO and a colonoscopy is required to survey the damage of all the Happy Meals they've consumed alone with only their beloved downloaded hate-porn collection & horned right hand permanently spasmed into a claw-like rictus for any company whatsoever ...
The kind of crrepy-loner adolescent sense of humor that appreciates the ad copy in question is the same petulant, petty childishness that can drive a person to create an identity on an "enemy" internet talk board in order to try to bolster one's sense of cleverness to try & compensate for other ... deficiencies ...
Gram Ponante's Toned-Down XBiz Blog
The stuff he publishes here is more restrained than what he places on its own blog. XBiz has all sorts of guideliness for good taste which Gram Ponante, in his natural state, lacks.
The Pace and Tempo Quicken: Chronology of the Emerging
Porn Offensive
Number Two on the DOJ Playlist with a Bullet
Attorney J.D. Obenberger writes on his website www.xxxlaw.net:
1. January 6, 2005. Alberto Gonzales nomination hearing, Senate Judiciary Committee: Mr. Gonzales stated six particular goals. Number six was "Obscenity"; The AG-to be explained, "I think obscenity is something else that very much concerns me. I've got two young sons, and it really bothers me about how easy it is to have access to pornography".
2. Fourteen days later, on January 20, US District Judge Gary Lancaster declared the federal obscenity statutes to be unconstitutional - at least as applied to the activities of Extreme Associates, Inc., Robert Zicari, and Janet Romano in shipping obscene material by mail-order and in selling access to a pay website containing material that was conceded by the defense to be obscene for the purposes of the motion. His decision rested strongly on the right to Privacy as articulated in Lawrence v. Texas, 539 U.S. 558 (2003) and Stanley v. Georgia, 394 U.S. 557, 564-6 (1969).
3. On February 14, 2005, Alberto Gonzales was sworn in as the eightieth Attorney General of the United States. He faced an immediate and urgent decision as to whether the government should appeal from the decision in Extreme Associates. One year, to the day, earlier, Bruce Taylor's appointment as Senior Counsel to the chief of the DOJ Criminal Division had been quietly announced in the LA Times.
4. Two days later, on February 16, the Justice Department filed its notice of appeal from Judge Lancaster's dismissal of the Indictment. "The Department of Justice places a premium on the First Amendment right to free speech, but certain activities do not fall within those protections, such as selling or distributing obscene materials," Attorney General Alberto Gonzales proclaimed in a written statement. "The Department of Justice remains strongly committed to the investigation and prosecution of adult obscenity cases."
5. Twelve days later, on February 28, 2005, the Attorney General spoke at the Hoover Institute and laid out a vision of his term: "Another area where I will continue to advance the cause of justice and human dignity is in the aggressive prosecution of purveyors of obscene materials. I am strongly committed to ensuring the right of free speech; the right of ordinary citizens and of the press to speak out and to express their views and ideas is one of the greatest strengths of our form of government, but obscene materials are not protected by the First Amendment, and I am committed to prosecuting these crimes aggressively."
6. Very quietly, a short time later, a publication named DOJ Obscenity Prosecution News made its appearance on the US DOJ Criminal Division web page, ominously describing itself as "Spring 2005, Volume I, Issue 1" of a new periodical edited by Bruce Taylor and apparently dedicated to chronicling a new wave of adult obscenity prosecution. AVN's Mark Kernes wrote an article detailing the newsletter, attributing the tip to XXXLAW. It may be found where it is discretely hosted on the DOJ Criminal Division page, at http://www.usdoj.gov/criminal/obs032604.pdf as well as here
7. On March 16, Senator Brownback's Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights and Property Rights of the U.S. Senate Committee on Judiciary held a hearing in reaction to the decision in Extreme Associates. Senator Brownback first ridiculed the reasoning of Judge Lancaster's decision by observing: "Judge Lancaster cobbled together hand-picked strands of 14th Amendment substantive due process, decisions from Roe, Lawrence and others and ruled that the statutes at issue violated an unwritten constitutional right to sexual privacy."
8. On May 3, 2005, Attorney General Gonzales spoke to a group of prosecutors and law enforcement officers at a conference in Gaitlinburg, Tennessee and significantly addressed adult obscenity, listing the prosecution of obscenity second among his goals as Attorney General:
From street corners to websites, obscenity and child pornography rip at the heart of our moral values and too easily corrupt our communities. I've made it clear that I intend to aggressively combat the purveyors of obscene materials. . . Enforcement is absolutely necessary if we are going to protect citizens and children from exposure to obscene materials. . . I have directed Department officials to carefully review federal laws to determine how we can further strengthen our hand in prosecuting obscenity. Our goal is to assess all the law enforcement methods we use-and identify the tools we may still need-to more effectively investigate and prosecute these crimes.
9. Two days later, on May 5, last week Thursday, the Chief of the DOJ Criminal Division announced the formation of an obscenity prosecution task force composed of CEOS trial attorneys and dedicated exclusively to the prosecution of adult obscenity. Counsel to the task force is Bruce Taylor; The task force will obtain assistance from the Organized Crime, Computer Crime, and the Assets Forfeiture units. In the DOJ Criminal Division press release, the Chief explained that the global traffic in obscenity required a specialized response in the computer age. He pledged to enforce "the laws on the books".
[The foregoing was extracted from an article by J. D. Obenberger that will appear exclusively in the July, 2005 issue of AVN Online, "True North and the Magnetic Declination in Alberto Gonzales's Moral Compass. Another article, "Pleasureboating on the River Rubicon" is nearing completion.]
Yet another model who thinks the internet is scary
So i was mailing with this model. I offered her her own site.
First of all let me tell you she responded to an add where i talked about internet work. I mention this in my ads nowadays because usually when they mail me and i mention internet i never hear from them again. Now i mention the word so i know models who contact me have no problem with internet work....i thought.
She emailed me and actually looked very nice. Which rarely happens. So i mailed her back, quite a big mail how i could offer her a contract and s--- and make her a site. I dont hear back from her for a week. I mail her again asking to at least say yes or no. She mails me back the next day saying she could be interested but doesnt have much time at the moment.
I mail her back another big ass mail, explaining how i could shoot several site updates in 1 afternoon blah blah...
Days pass, nothing, till yesterday.
"hi, i think having my pics on the net would be bad for my future career/work".
So this made me think about a few things:
1 She responds to an add about pics for the internet.
2 She says shes interested but has little time and suddely a week later it will hurt her career.
3 Were not talking about a porn site but a strictly nonnude site.
Now Holland is full of wannabe models. They all want to work for Elite and other big modelling companies. Its quite sad.
Many of them dont want their pics on the net...its a scary place. But the funny thing is when a magazine like FHM has a contest those same girls send in slutty lingerie and bikini pics which get published in a magazine for 16 yr old guys who do nothing but wank off to them all day. But hey thats alright, that isnt dirty like the internet.
This other girl a while back. Very very hot. She would be a huge money maker if i could get her to do a site. She told me she couldnt do it because her agency doesnt allow contracts with other people. Were talking about a 13 in a dozen mediocre agency who most likely has some s---ty job for her once a month. I could pay this girl more per month than what she makes with that agency in 6 months.
JimmyD Says: Yay, AVN!
While in one breath, I commend AVN for taking a stand regarding these (un)Sexy Outdoor Sports snuff-film producing assholes. But in the next breath, I would encourage AVN to take more stands when it comes to some of the dangerous practices and content that hides behind the 1rst Amendment, passes itself off as consenting adults consenting to harmless and benign activities, and other issues that threaten our lives, our freedoms, our businesses, and our livelihoods.
I fear a slippery slope here. Once AVN and Jimmy take moral standards on animal slaughter and unsafe sex, what could be next? Soon they'll be opposing our very industry.
Pornogossip.com Runs Out Of Steam
It hasn't had anything for weeks. Ever since fingers started pointing at T.J. DeReda and the Vertigo crew as the authors of the gossip blog.
ICANN Finally Posts Notes On Its .XXX Domain Registry Proposal
Although no resolution was offered regarding this issue, their was broad discussion of this matter and the Board agreed that it would discuss this issue again at the next Board Meeting.
ICANN isn't saying when this next board meeting will take place.
'The Thing I'm Most Proud Of In My Entire Life'
I call a porn friend and ask him about last week. "It was unbelievable," he says. "It is probably the thing I am most proud of in my entire life. I can't go into it because of confidentiality but this is going to be huge."
A Chat With Stoney Curtis Of Porn Star Performance
I call him Monday morning.
Stoney (of Lethal Hardcore and Celestial Productions): "I've been in this business for 12-years. I'm sick of people coming over, doing an interview, you book them for a shoot, you have everybody show up, and then they don't show, don't call. They just don't care. The focus of my building this whole site is to prevent that.
"You'll never be able to get rid of it, but there will be repercussions to agents who don't care.
Nina Hartley writes:
I'm with you guys on this one. It will just be a place for dopes to air their grievences and spreakd rumors.
Besides the obvious room for out and out lying, why was nothing said about male talent? I've had my share of prima donna dudes who are also late, on drugs and can't get wood. Will that be mentioned?
Sheesh. Stoney isn't the first "director" to cock block in an attempt to be stunt dick for a day. Why doesn't he just buy a hooker and be done with it? Sleazy, to put it mildly.
We usually take care of these things by word of mouth. More effective that way.
Duke to Stoney: "Would you be concerned if people put up pornproducerperformance.com and started rating producers?"
Stoney: "Not at all. I would encourage it. For twelve years, we've never written a bad check to anybody. We pay the same day and we pay good rates. That's up to the talent to set that site up.
"I started out shooting for Russ Hampshire at VCA under another name. I shot features for a while and then got into the gonzo world in 1996. Then I opened up my own thing in 1998."
Duke: "Did you read that thread about on Nina.com about you and porn star performance?"
Stoney: "No. Everybody has opinions and they're entitled to them. It doesn't change the way the world is run."
Duke: "There's a guy, DCypher, who writes hardcoregossip.com, wrote on Nina.com: 'Sorry to hear that Stoney Curtis, who has been beaten up more than once for jumping into scenes with girls without telling them or finishing the scene, paying the male talent and sending them home, then f---ing the girl and telling her it's still part of the scene, is not privy to this time honored method.'"
Stoney: "If people want to write wild outrageous lies on the internet. Notice that they didn't say who the girl was and the date. Who were the people who beat me up on sets? When did it happen?"
Duke: "He writes: 'My ex told me...'"
Stoney: "I never shot her. We were scheduled to shoot her but didn't. I think there's some bad blood there."
Duke: "This is what he wrote on Nina Hartley's site..."
Stoney: "I don't care what this guy writes. People are entitled to write outrageous things. This whole business is fueled by that stuff. 'I'm also from another planet. I got in a gun fight with the FBI.' If people are going to write outrageous lies, what are you going to do? Get upset? Where's the proof? Who are the girls?"
Duke: "He says it was his ex-wife Bunny Luv. He claims that you cornered her alone in a room wearing a bathrobe, 'opened it to expose himself to her, then told her' that if she didn't have sex with you, you wouldn't hire her. That's what he wrote on Nina.com."
Stoney laughs. "That's awesome. That's funny. That's great. I guess that makes me more of an interesting guy than I really am. That's totally outrageous."
Duke: "Is it true or false?"
Stoney: "It's absolutely false. I don't know what he's talking about. I've never even shot her. What's the name of the movie I shot her in?"
Duke: "No. He says you were at a party at your house and that you cornered her..."
Stoney: "That's true. I was at a party at my house. I think they came. I don't remember being happy that they came and I think I told Jim [South] Jr to tell them to leave. That was about it.
"People, when they feel rejected by your company, they look for all kinds of things to write about.
"I think that was 1998? Why are we talking about 1998?"
Duke: "Because it was just posted a [few] weeks ago."
Stoney: "I had a party back in 1998. That never happened and it is ridiculous for anybody to write about seven years ago anyway. Isn't this 2005? Why are we talking about 1998? We're talking about porn star performance. I think it is only people who have something to hide who don't like it. Because if they show up and do a good and are professional, word is going to spread fast that they are good talent. If you don't show up and you f--- people around who are trying to put money in your pocket, then the truth will come out faster. Maybe some people don't want the truth to come out that fast."
Duke: "Do you think this is already having a beneficial affect on the talent?"
Stoney: "I would think so. Several talent I know who didn't show up on their producer read about it and called that producer back and apologized. The producers were floored to ever hear from them again.
"There were certain agents who had a hard time responding to phone calls and bringing girls back. Now, all of a sudden, are calling and saying they'd like to bring their girls over.
"Most of the items on pornstarperformance are positive.
DCypher writes on Nina.com: "My ex-wife, Bunny Luv, was famous for taking jobs with a chipper attitude and then not showing up and shutting her phone off the day of the shoot. When people would reach her and ask her why she would tell them not to hire her again, but they would still call."
LADirectModels.com Drops Olivia O'Lovely
Derek from LADirect posts: "LA Direct Models booked Olivia O'Lovely to a regular cleint in Florida last week, with her flight departing this morning at 9:30am from LAX. My office has just received (12:30pm) a call from Olivia that she did not go to the airport or get on the flight because "she thinks she might have strep throat." No explanation was offered why this could not have been communicated in a more timely manner so the flight would not have been wasted. Flight cost is lost and will be repaid to client by Direct Models. Olivia is no longer repped by Direct Models."
She posts to XPT: "Hey Guys! So this is it! The last birthday I actually have to look forward to. In less than 12 hours I will be 21!!! I came home to Wisconsin so I could spend it with my friends out here and my family of course. I return to Cali on the 22nd and will be hitting the bars the second I step off the plane. Deja Daire is taking me out for my birthday! I will be careful and no drinking and driving for me!"
Does Exotica-2000 Bust Violate Original Intent?
Oh my God, this made me burst out laughing. Moronic john crying about persecution, religious intolerance, etc... It reminded me of sitting on the couch--you know what I'm talking about--a few wisps still streaming out of the bong, 16 years old and damned certain that the gubbun'mint should get their hands off my crops and go bust those dudes with the briefcases, man.
Society can be defined--past, present, future--by the laws it makes restricting certain behavior it deems anti-social. Yes, perhaps someday, our looking askance at him paying the average yearly wage of a Sudanese herder to a 50% plastic/50% organic blond for entry into her vagina for an hour will seem ridiculous, and we'll look to future generations like witch-burners look to us. That's life, Johnnie, get a goddamned helmet.
JamesN writes:
another take on why the john can't complain is that making the cost of entry and potential downside of visiting a prostitute high enough isn't some religious-right bull, but rather a really, really smart idea developed over thousands of years. highly-populated urban areas have more pathogens than rural ones and higher immunity, pathogens change faster than immunity does on animals like us with long-gestation times and you're now looking at a large number of nasty stuff that can get nastier fast. we can't do s--- about viral infection, same as 2000 years ago. manhattan goes down if a filovirus hits it. that's an extreme example, but the fact is that too much sex kills-sorry all you sex-positive swinger-types, annie sprinkle/nina hartley and their apologists. look at the percentage of people with some kind of STD--it's f---ing staggering. AIDS has cut the population of many african countries down to the point where the average lifespan is under 40 years.
imagine if something like genital warts or herpes mutated to become more serious. there's nothing evil about f---ing a hooker, i'm not that interested in it, but it makes sense to make it more of a decision than whether you want to have chinese food for dinner.
Ivor Biggun writes: "It's not too much sex that kills, it's too many sexual partners. That's why someone like me chooses monogamy and uses porn as a vicarious outlet for his more polyamorous desires."
AVN.com Editorial: Drawing the Line
Questions about the morality of the legalized hunting of animals aside, combining that practice with pornography, as a south Florida company called Sexy Outdoor Sports has done, is repugnant, depraved and inexcusable.
As detailed on AVN.com over the weekend, Sexy Outdoor Sports had Georgia-based adult performer Daisy Duxxx kill a buffalo with a hunting rifle, then videotaped her having hardcore sex with a man next to the slain animal. Stung by the controversy the story generated, Duxxx and Miami-based Alternative Modeling, which had supplied her to Sexy Outdoor Sports, have now promised to sever all ties to the hunting outfit, a stance we commend.
AVN has always been a staunch defender of First Amendment guarantees of free expression, notably when the material involves consenting adults, but in the case of Sexy Outdoor Sports, we draw the line. Animals cannot consent.
An observer writes: "Is it safe to assume that AVN would have a different take on this subject had Sexy Outdoor Sports taken out ad space in that august publication? Kill a buffalo, eat a steak."
True Or False?
I heard a story that a producer shot a few video for Dustin Flynt but he didn't get paid because Justin said his videos were obscene and therefore unusable. What's the scoop on this rumor?
I heard a couple of directors were fired by LFP last week. Not sure if these stories are related.
Nazi Gash Goosesteps On . . . in one reader's mind
A fan of this week's feature on Bianca Trump's KKKonversion first directed us to the blog of caucasoid-and-flauntin'-it Jessica Darlin, and then treated us to the following groundless hearsay--which we have no means of verifying nor ANY REASON to believe is true (and neither do you). In fact, let us chalk this dispatch up to its author's comical fantasy life. In no way is what follows to be taken as fact:
"The whole white-power-porn-chick thing isn't unknown. I used to hang out a lot with Sid Deuce and she was always railing on "the niggers and spics." Not surprisingly, she lived in Boston for a time. Must have picked it up there. I also caught earfuls from Jasmin St. Claire while drinking with her. After she swilled a few rounds, she'd get loud and obnoxious and start calling out to passing dark-skinned citizens, "Hey, moolie!" Weird, because while Jasmin may be a lot of things, white certainly isn't one of them. Of course, there was also Nico Treasures, who went the opposite route. It was the rare white dude that she'd plook outside of the movies. She preferred the dark meat or the chorizo. I used to go party with Nico and almost got my ass kicked by a soul brother who considered her his personal property. "Hey, bud. She's a whore. That means she belongs to anyone. Recognize." Of course, Nico later discovered she was a lesbian and got ejected from Dodger Stadium a few years ago for making out with her girlfriend during the seventh inning stretch. That got so much press that the Dodgers organization issued a formal apology and (I think) gave the girls some cash. They also sponsored some sort of homo day."
Remember the above is the content of an anonymous email that was posted for its humor content and is NOT TO BE TAKEN SERIOUSLY. Absolutely none of the allegations above are rooted in any kind of provable reality. We love everybody.
Extra special thanks to Robin Bougie, who penned the original piece. Go now to Cinema Sewer.
A Healthy Breakfast For A Porn Journalist
It's important to start a porn day the right way. I took a break at 10:30am to have Cookies 'n' Cream macaroons, soy milk, cottage cheese and four tangelos. DP Della has been eating Wasabi peas.
Craig Valentine Phones
Craig calls at 8:27am: "Rob Spallone told me to call.
"I warned these guys 18-months ago about this sick bastard [Adam Redford who owns Sexy Outdoor Sports and shoots porn around the killing of animals] when girls started getting hurt out here. Everybody knew. I pulled a gun on this sonofabitch when he tried to shove a fish in my wife's pussy.
"He [Adam] was on the The Insomniac Show with Dave Attell. They were doing latenight fishing.
"This guy [Adam Redford] films in Everglades National Park and Biscayne Bay. There are a lot of girls he's hurt."
Adam says this is completely false.
Duke: "How does he hurt them?"
Craig: "He doesn't care about their safety. He took my wife [Summer Haze] out on an airboat [18-months ago]. First, he said chaperones couldn't come. He tried to make every excuse.
"I went. He puts her in the middle of aligator mating season. Then he brings a live snake over and I bring my gun out.
[Adam says this did not happen.]
"I explained to him, 'You booked her for an outdoor calendar shoot. Not for this sick s---.'
"Even the airboat guy stopped everything because he was in fear of my wife's safety.
"Then the sonofabitch books her on another shoot. He does the standard, 'The male talent couldn't make it so I'm the male talent.' He does the simple sex scene. Then he tries to shove a fish in her pussy. She goes to smack him.
"Before I got on the boat, he made sure to disarm me. But, I'm sorry, we're in Florida. I have a license to carry a gun. I always keep a back-up. I told, 'Dude, do this again and I'm going to bust a cap in your ass.'
"Then he kept doing more and more stupid s--- and I made him turn around and take the boat back in. 'Dude, we're porn performers. Whatever's damaged in your head, this is getting weird.'
"Then he started sending her emails about how he wanted to book her in a shoot where he sliced the throat of a pig, f----- her while the pig ran around dying, smearing blood all over her... She flipped. She went nuts. We called the cops.
"When we went to AVN [January 2004], we told Bill Margold. We told Jim South. We told AVN. We told Wankus. We told everybody this sick asshole in Florida. Everybody was looking at us like they didn't believe us.
"Then I saw him [Adam Redford] at the AVN Show. I told Bill Margold, this is the asshole.
"Adam was out there trying to sell his movies.
"Now 18-months goes by, and everything I told everybody is true. And nobody wants to print our story.
"Jennifer Worthington did a shoot with him and won't come anywhere near him. Shauna Banks says he is a strange guy. When he couldn't get any more girls, he started pimping himself out as male talent.
"We're bad people for owning racing greyhounds but these people can kill animals?
"On the good note, we got the May AVN and we're number 71 (Couples Fantasy) out of the top 75 renting DVDs."
Cutting Ties With Sexy Outdoor Sports Over Animal Slaughter
Gene Ross reports. AVN reports.
Girls Night Out
The "sex issue" is a tired alt-weekly mainstay. One of the hoarier cliches is the writer who hangs with a stripper (dominatrix, porn actress, pick one) and reports back that, gee, they are people too — typically adding a chaste disclaimer of personal disinterest on the part of the writer. CityBeat's current "deviant sex issue" ventures off that well-worn path. Andy Klein reads for naughty bits between the lines of Strunk and White's Elements of Style, and when Erika Schickel and a friend leave their kids and men at home to go out for midweek lap dances, cool detachment is not their intent. The West L.A. strip club they choose is all nude and thus alchohol free, so "feels like the calm eye of the male sexual storm that rages outside in the world...here the man are calm" and leave them alone. Schickel realizes "the challenge of choosing a dancer lies in the fact that these girls were not created with my aesthetics in mind," but "Ava" turns her on and they go to a back room. The usual no-touching rules are thrown out:
My husband has a weakness for cool blondes. He'd want me to go for her. There is a strange crossover between my desire for my mate and my desire for this stranger that creates a circuit in my libido. For the first time this evening, I feel a jolt of arousal.
Jack writes:
Haley Page is a relatively new porn starlet - been around about 1 1/2 years - one of very few in the crop who - to me - is interesting enough to remember the name. Yeah, I know it's in the eye of the beholder, and this probably isn't the most flattering picture.
She's shot gonzo for high production value stuff in the valley and she's made the obligatory Florida internet circuit, appearing, too on cumfiesta and probably other website programs. There's a certain je ne sais qua about her face and mannerisms that reminds me of an old-time minor porn starlet from the days of Taboo and Debbie Does Dallas - Tawny Pearl, real name Pearlman. Wonder what's become of her? Probably a grandmother by now.
What's Going On With DOJ's Porn Initiative?
Lawyer writes:
Lots and lots of stuff coming out of DOJ about a porn initiative. Have you been reading Mark Kernes' articles? Bruce Taylor has put out an Obscenity Prosecution Newsletter, Spring 2005, Vol. I, Issue 1. It's on the criminal division page rather than the CEOS page. Some very interesting and almost strange language formulated in the press release establishing the task force. Compare and contrast closely what Gonzales said in Gaitlinburg Tenn. on May 3 with the press release on May 5. Go back and look at his speech to the Hoover Institute in March. (It's all on the DOJ home page, Speeches of the AG). Compare all of that with the testimony at Sen. Brownback's latest hearing and what Bruce Taylor is putting out.
The Persian Porn Mafia
By the term "mafia" here, I don't mean any criminal activity. I mean "mafia" as in a group. There's Alec Helmy at XBiz, and the sisters Moss (Bonnie and Holly, internet consultants), and Joone of Digital Playground (DP's former internet head Donna was Persian). They all gathered at a GigaCash.com party Friday night at 8840 Beverly Blvd. Who else in the biz is Persian?
Do Porn Fans Go Too Far?
Nina Hartley's husband Ira Levine writes:
I've been following this thread on ADT as well, and I've observed what Julia Ann is talking about first hand, though I have to say (and Nina will corroborate this) my SO never seems to have this kind of problem. Of course, she's had many years to perfect the martial art of Fan-Fu and knows how to subtly and sweetly take control of the physical contact with each fan as he or she approaches.
What I think we're seeing is simply a product of porn's greater reach in society at large. AEE gets more crowded every year and draws a more diverse sampling of consumers. At one time, the comparatively small number of fans who showed up for what was essentially an industry trade show were more inclined to treat the far rarer species known as porn stars with rather more awe, in part because of the intimidating novelty of encountering such exotic women face to face. With porn performers now everywhere from Howard Stern to People Magazine, there is a greater degree of familiarity, and we know what familiarity breeds.
Sadly, I think what porn performers are discovering is something that mainstream stars have known for years - if people see you often enough they get to feeling like they own you and are entitled to relate to you in a personal fashion. You appear in their living rooms with a certain frequency and the audience begins to confuse you with the characters you play. In short, in a celebrity-crazed culture where far too many people want nothing more than to make some kind of contact with a real, live famous person, boundaries have a way of blurring.
Also to be considered is the general decline in public manners that makes life a misery for most celebs. A polite person would treat a stranger in a public situation - even if the stranger's name and image is familiar - with the respect due at any first encounter. Unfortunately, polite people are something of an endangered species.
In short , I don't think what I've seen at AEE is porn-specific. If you put that many mainstream players in a huge room full of tourists who had been drinking at 24 hour bars and allowed those tourists to get within touching distacne, I'm pretty sure you'd see a lot of similar bad behavior.
I do not agree with Christian, much as I love the guy, on this subject. I don't think the kind of porn we've been producing has created some new, mutant strain of rude fan. I just think if you have more fans you have a greater absolute number of assholes. I don't think the percentages have really changed.
And Anthony, I most definitely do not agree with this:
"But considering that some porn women do indeed welcome or thrive upon such intimate contact with their close fans, and that considering the attraction of sexual pleasure that porn/erotica does indeed forment as its basic instinct, is it not expected that some fans would take the fantasy overboard and actually act on their instincts??? And how fair is it to take good money from consumers of porn by promoting their talent as slutty, sex-crazed women, then grumble and complain when they act on those fantasies that they have about such women???"
Ahem - do we not know by now that porn is fantasy material meant to be consumed in the privacy of one's home? Do we not know that the real human beings who make it are not to be confused with the characters they play? Are we somehow falling into the madonna-whore trap of believing that because a woman acts "slutty" on camera she somehow loses her claim to respect for the privacy of her person in a public situation? Do we agree with those anti-porn type who maintain that exposure to porn inspires anti-social conduct? Have we somehow come to expect that performers "owe" it to fans to allow themselves to be groped and mauled by strangers at will because, after all, what more can "loose women" anticipate from the male beasts they've stirred up with their wanton behavior in pictures?
That just doesn't sound like the kind of thinking I associate with the Anthony I know. A porn performer is a human being first. Whatever she does or does not do on camera should in no way affect the way she's treated when out in the world. Rudeness is rudeness, no matter what the object of that rudeness does or does not do for a living.
How fair is to take money from an audience for playing a character and then grumble because that audience expects to find you in that character whenever it encounters you in public? Unless the consumers are paying the performer directly to play her character, I'd say it's perfectly fair.
Years ago, Steve Martin did a biting SNL sketch about trying to order in a restaurant from an obnoxious fan-boy waiter who kept trying to do shtick with him all through dinner. I can't blame any performer for sharing Martin's annoyance at such impertinence.
As to the AEE situation, what's needed is better security. The crowds have gotten so huge at this point it's nearly impossible for the girls, sitting exposed in front of booths, to manage them on their own. I say, put a barrier between the performers and the crowd, allowing the girls to step out for photo ops if they feel comfortable, and have plenty of bouncers handy to toss the guys who can't keep their hands to themselves. Some girls may like being mashed, but that shouldn't put pressure on the ones who don't.
Sorry, but on this deal, I think the public needs to behave itself better and that none of the blame lies with either the performers or the industry itself. This is just another example of the pathology of celebrity culture.
Most human cultures haven't the slightest notion what to do with sexuality and I include my culture, the American culture in that statement. In fact, the American way of life is riddled with guilt and shame when it comes to sex and no one escapes that, not even myself. Unless you were raised in a bubble, our society has shoved it's sexual propaganda down your throat and in one way, or another it affects aspects of your life.
KatjaKassin writes: "I might take whatever number of dicks in my holes for a living but I still make the choice who I allow to touch me, f--- me or call me names. Just because I do it with James Wellhung on camera doesn't mean I wouldn't mind every other guy from the audience doing it to me."
The owner of Black Widow Productions writes:
One of the reasons that girls are not allowed to flash is that some of us provide alcohol to our customers from our booths and the convention center does not have a cabaret liquor license. After my first AVN show with Metro, I realized the problem some girls had with fans, and designed my booth so that access was limited. This past year only one person at a time could come into the booth for a picture with the girls and there was always one of us guys watching the interaction.
Everyone's Pretty By Lydia Millet
I'm reading this novel (published February 2005) set in and around LA's porn industry.
I find it hard to get into. There are no quotation marks (is that a mark of Modernism?). Instead, dialogue is indicated by the use of dashes, as in:
-- How long do I have to read this book to decide I don't like it?
-- You were sent a review copy. It is your duty to finish it.
-- But are there going to be any nuggets in here to share with my readers?
A friend told me months ago that the protagonist (Dean Decetes, a porn writer with messianic delusions) is a combination of me and Mike Albo, but 50-pages in, I recognize nobody in this book.
Rodger Jacobs writes: "I didn't like it either. I received a review copy a long time ago but I'm not sufficiently enthused enough to write anything about it. I've been reading Walter Mosley's "Six Easy Pieces" and a biography of Chester Himes by James Sallis."
Not only are there no quotes, there are no characters I care about.
At page 66, I give up.
Gregory Dark Update
He was born Gregory Hippolyte Brown. He was married to dominatrix and porn star Ruby Richards aka Star Chandler from January 1997 until their divorce in 2001.
In 2002, he married a professional civilan girl - Sharlotte Blake, who works in the music industry.
In 2004, he shot a horror movie in Australia -- Goodnight -- and is now in post-production on it. This is his biggest budget feature.
According to the plot outline on Imdb.com: "A group of delinquents clean a hotel to fill their community service. Unfortunatly for them they are not aware a maniac is also in the hotel. He locks them in and begins to hunt them down."
James Bourke writes: "Gregory Dark is actually being employed to film a horror movie from the people behind WWE etc, interesting to note, when you consider all the movies thus far from the wrestling supremo Vince McMahon and starring mostly The Rock, have been geared towards the teenage or family market. Besides all that i didn't really think making a movie most likely to be distributed by a big major would have been Gregory Dark's bag!"
I am sick and tired of EVERYONE knocking this movie just because the main charicter is in the WWE. you think that just because he wrestles that this movie will suck. i have news for you, most wrestlers are intelegent people, and fairly decent actors. they have to be. also, just because McMahon is producing (putting up the cash) for this film does NOT mean that it will suck either. the same goes for the director. he did direct porno, but he does have directorial experiance, and is trying to make it in legitimate film. so in conclusion, all you people who think otherwise, please, do us all a favor and SHUT YE OLDE PIE HOLE!
Nina Hartley - Dirty Girl?
I don't like ink for ink's sake, but I do enjoy a pretty tattoo. I don't like it when women tattoo their breasts or belly, though, as those will never age well! I do have that one tattoo on the base of my neck, but it's easy to cover with hair. I didn't do mine to be trendy, though it's in a trendy spot. It's just that the base of my neck was the only spot to put this particular tattoo.
When I'm offcially fully retired from porn, I may just get myself a 'dirty girl" tattoo, which are the tattoos low down on the back, right above the butt. Ernest would like it very much, and my fans won't get all upset. Some of them are still mad about the boob job, and it's been 16 years! I still get letter lamenting the loss of my tan lines, too.
I've only seen one of Dark's movies, "New Wave Hookers," and I only remember one scene, the DP with Ginger Lynn, Tommy Byron and some other guy. It was very hot and sexy, and then it was completely ruined for me with tin-ear editing. After Ginger's super-hot orgasm, there should have been a cut to both guys coming. Instead, I had to endure several minutes of more f---ing. The climax of the scene was over, why didn't he just cut to the come, for goodness' sake? It was a real let down, and turned me off to any of his other movies. I remember at the time being a bit peeved that the Great New Director didn't use me, but I'm glad now, as I see his vision is too grim for me.
I'm with Ernest, though, that porn can never be hip. No matter what they may do between sex scenes, porn's raison d'etre is deadly serious, at least for the viewers.
Ernest...went through his feature phase back in the early-mid '90's and is over it now. His scenes start with usually no more than 4-6 lines per person and then onto business. A simple set up is all that's needed. As Henri Pachard used to say, "Give the audience 80% and make them contribute 20%. They like it that way." So, we set up the bare-bones scenario, and let the viewers fill in the blanks where they need to.
Ernest Greene writes:
I've seen some of [Gregory] Dark's soft-core "features," though admittedly not Animal Instincts, and I didn't like them much better than his soft stuff. There's one with Ona Zee that's so bad, it borders on self-parody, with dialogue like: "She always hated funerals, especially her own." I mean, really.
I like Dark personally, and I think he has superb technical chops as a filmmaker, but when it comes to dealing with human beings in human situations, he doesn't seem up to the task.
I can certainly testify to Blake's virtuousity, having watched it in action through six years as his AD (including on Sensual Exposures and Femme Erotique). I've often joked with him about having met a gentleman in a black suit at a crossroads in order to obtain his incredible facility with a camera.
It's hard to imagine, looking at the smooth, sweeping shots in his pictures that virtually all of them were shot on a hand-held, key-wound Bolex that needed reloading every two and a half minutes. I'd see him scrambling around the set with that thing, bouncing off the walls like a monkey on Ritalin, and wonder how all those little snippets could ever be edited into anything coherent. Of course, Blake edits his own stuff, so he already has a place in mind for every clip before he shoots it. I've never met a better organized director, in terms of getting what he wants precisely, even when he's improvising and riffing.
Another important thing about Blake, pertinent to this discussion, is that his work, however slick it may appear, is entirely a product of his own fantasy life. He just happens to fantasize a world that looks a lot like Helmut Newton's photographs. But his work is every bit as personal as John Stagliano's. Blake shoots exactly what turns him on, and nothing more. Like the best of us, he shoots the picture he would want to watch.
As to his perceived state of hipness at any given time, he couldn't care less, of course. He's very au courant on fashion, photography and architecture, and some visual influences from media culture are allowed in from time to time (he's borrowed from the Japanese photographer Araki a bit and likes Roy Stuart in small doses) but in the end it's all about Blake and his friend "Mr. Bolex."
Thus, for a number of years, he was quite voguish for his stylish approach to the material and his shamelessly elitist pitch toward those who appreciate good taste in their smut. However, his very sincerity has predictably made him somewhat unfashionable among the Cahiers du Cinema porn crowd, who are now all about shock effects and brutal literalism. Blake has always tended to be deliberately oblique, which still sells in huge numbers to his fans, but is considered too soft by the kinds of viewers who consider themselve arbiters of what's cool in porn. Blake doesn't care about MTV, hates hoky pseudo-goth affectations and basically continues to shoot what turns him on.
In other words, he's the opposite of ironic. His style may be slick, but he's by no means detached from this subject matter. If anything, his recent work is more inward looking than any of what are considered his most popular pictures. He's stripped his productions down to a few girls he likes playing the games he enjoys in swank hotel rooms. He's gotten a bit raunchier, thankfully, in terms of shooting all of the girls' anatomy in detail, but hot women still rule his world and the lack of BG scenes may bother some of his viewers, but he doesn't much miss them.
I guess part of my definition of alterna-porn is an ambition to be seen as avante-garde. Blake could never belong to that genre, because he just can't be bothered to worry about how he's regarded by others.
..........
You can make art from many emotions, but not from none. There must be feeling present that's palpable to the viewer. If we think about all the art in history that has truly moved us, every single work was intended from one heart to another. This is why some art from very long ago still speaks to us today. Emotions are timeless. Modes of expression change, but underlying feelings do not. The tragedy of oedipus, the comedy of the Marx Brothers, the unbridled passion of Mozart, the innocent enthusiasm of The Beatles - these things do not age. And style in the right hands only facilitates the expression of emotion, as opposed to obstructing it. Cole Porter is certainly a lovely example, but so is Toulouse-Lautrec - stylish but never detached, the pathos of the world he knew comes off of every painting. Even the abstract work of Jackson Pollack is filled with emotion, an element absent from so many of his drily academic imitators (see Tom Wolfe's The Painted Word for the best explanation of what went wrong with Abstract Expressionism - in a word - irony). Slickness will never compensate for a lack of feeling. We look to art to connect with what is eternal in human experience. If we don't find it, we move on, unsatisfied.
James DiGiorgio writes:
How intellectually important is it to intellectualize something that is designed primarily as a masturbatory aid?
Havethere been examples of intelligent, artistic porn? I suppose. Should porn even enter the realms of the artistic and the cerebral? the jury (in my head) is out on that one. Have I ever attempted porn as art? Yeah, I guess I have. Why? Probably more out of the sheer boredom (from all the repetitive exercises in mediocrity that most porn companies prefer from their directors) than anything else.
The true milestones in porn tended to be measured by a specific porn flick's financial success. I think both Ernest and Jay [Grdina], as examples of long-term practitioners of the porno arts, completely understand that notion.
The only porn mogul who seemed to sometimes have any interest in porn that transcended the ordinary was Russ. And Russ was one out of how many porn moguls?
I sometimes think there's a bit of shame experienced by many porn consumers, i.e., strokers, and when those consumers/strokers happen to also be people who are art critics or journalists or others I'm neglecting to mention, they sometimes feel compelled to intellectualize porn as art to reduce the pangs of their shame.
I would say that the above theory might also apply to some pornographers.
Nina Hartley writes:
I don't doubt that some of the intellectualization of porn stems from the inner conflict of some consumers. Our culture makes it difficult for one to embrace fully, without shame, that which makes us hard/wet. Yet, hard and wet we do get from seeing the things that are our thang. The more we can accept that which gets us the most aroused, the less we have issues with the existance of porn, since our arousal, and that which facilittes its expression, doesn't invoke guilty feelings.
As Ernest has said before, quoting Bruce Seven, "Behind every good porn movie is one guy's hard-on." So, if real feeling infuses the shots of pussy and dick, then real feeling will flow out to the consumer who is open to that feeling. I always knew that I had no influence over any scene that I wasn't in, so I just set my goals to making my scenes the most fun, honest and enthusiastic as I could make them. I went for what turned me on, and did my best, via my performance, to transmit that arousal to the viewers at home, since I couldn't be there in person to f--- them. In my fantasies, I still f--- each of my fans personally. I seem to have been on to something, as I've had fans now for twenty years, and they still like what I do.
Some viewers are content to just see the particular body parts in motion. I have fans who are just ass fans, or tan-line fans, or Big Baby Blue Eyes fans. The surface appearence is enough for them and their needs. Other fans are fans of my essence, as distilled through the lens of commercial porn. The ones who are looking for feeling along with their blowjob, see that I put feeling into mine and become fans of my work.
While sexuality can be, and has been, a worthy subject of capital "A" art, porn's raison d'etre keeps it from being Art. The sexual imperitive is not seen by our culture as a worthy, positive energy or force in the world, so any blunt depictions of it will never get any respect from intellecutals. Most people may like their art to be high, but they prefer their porn to be low, since many people like the down 'n' dirty feeling of wanking and orgasm. So, they don't need porn to be uplifting, they like that it joins them in their sybriatic pleasures, encourages them to be their bad selves, and extols the orgasm as a worthy effort.
People will always talk about porn, but will not influence it much. The reason for porn is to inspire masturbation. Weird makeup and pig-nose masks will never enhance that activity. Folks like to see good looking people having hot sex, and that's not a bad thing.
She calls me Sunday afternoon. She has a new boyfriend. Met him on a trip to Catalina a few weeks ago with Billy Glide's production company. He works with Billy. She seems happy and drama-free. Her roommate of the past two months is Kevin Korey.
Skeeter Kerkove's kissin' cuzzin writes:
Bitter, bitter, bitter. Comfortable old sell-outs hate seeing the dim reflection of their youths in the mirror & being reminded of the promise they once held but subsequently squandered in pursuit of the chimera of mass appeal. Glad to know that any true validation is REALLY all about the gross numbers, Ira.
Would the fact that you've never produced anything that people remember & still argue over -- such as NIGHT DREAMS, which with its satirical dancing cereal boxes & straight-faced visions of hell was ANYTHING but "slick & mainstream;" CAFE FLESH (actually the more conventional narrative of the two films, & considered brilliant for its premonition of "erotic entertainment" in a post-HIV society such as our own); the entire NEW WAVE HOOKERS series, which like CAFE FLESH were certainly considered viable enough franchises for VCA to have house hacks continue the lines after the creators moved on; as well as crossover underground stuff like Richard Kern & Beatty which is still in print & perennially available at non-porn outlets including Tower & Virgin -- doesn't have a whit to do with your passing off the efforts by the young & idealistic with such airy smuggery as "There will always be Alterna-Porn, and by definition, it will always be the kind that's defined by its very nature as a minority taste. It's what it's alternative to that will always constitute the working model for porn as the rest of us know it." In other words, "we are one with the status quo; those who would rebel or react against us are by definition lesser, because we are more in number."
Your use of the pronoun "us" is a pretty definitive marker of which side of the line you affiliate with ...
On what is obviously a TOTALLY DIFFERENT topic, isn't it fascinating as the news seems to prove day by day that the most floridly perverted among our elected officials are generally the most conservative, hard-line control freaks?
Ernest Greene aka Ira Levine responds:
This slam might actually have found its target, had I ever been the least bit interested in making pictures of the type described. In fact, I'm hardly bitter over anyone's attempt to create what he or she considers original and interesting porn. But I was always motivated to capture images I considered beautiful and hot. When it came to making art-house shows, I never had any promise to squander, as this writer suggests. I'm not an experimental "film-maker" motivated by a desire to provoke controversy. I like to turn people on.
And yes, porn is a commercial medium whose primary mission is to entertain. Unlike mainstream movies, which can enjoy great respectablility without moving very many tickets, porn that doesn't sell doesn't connect with its audience and thus fails. That doesn't mean that all porn that sells well is good, merely that porn that tanks at the store is unlikely to be better for it.
People do indeed still remember many pictures I've made. I hear from those people all the time. I agree that they don't argue over them, as I never meant to make polemical artistic statements, only visually attractive and exciting porn that viewers like to watch. I'll happily accept the validation of twenty years of good numbers as evidence that I can make the kind of show that turns me on and still appeal to a wider audience. If that's selling out, I did it early on.
Moreover, I made it clear that I think Alterna-porn is not without its charms, but that it will never draw like porn that fulfills its primary mission to arouse and entertain. While I hardly call Maria Beatty's work, which I admire and of which I've written favorably many a time, a huge crossover, despite the fact that you can buy it at hip record stores. Likewise with Kern, whose pictures I also very much enjoy. I don't claim these movies have no market - merely a small one. I hope they keep making them.
If I had to guess, I'd say Skeeter Kerkove's kissin' cuzzin is the one who sounds bitter - and his style sounds familiar. Too bad if you can't get funded for artsy projects nobody wants to see, but that's not my fault. I've always made the videos I wanted to and I wouldn't be "comfortable" if my particular approach didn't find resonance with lots of others.
One thing you can count on in this business - if you do too well, there will be plenty of hecklers out there to hate you for it.
I could say more about this, but I have to go wash the Jag.
Jenna Jameson's husband Jay Grdina writes:
I had a few extra minutes this lovely Sunday morning and decided to surf the gossip sites; yours was on that list. I was very interested in Earnest Greene's (who is a friend of mine) article regarding "Alterna Porn" and it's lack of market sustainability.
He referenced Café Flesh and New Wave Hookers, which 20 years forward are still talked about and selling. In their day they were cutting edge and had mainstream appeal; someone took a chance.
I have been in the industry since 1992 and have produced every style of movie possible. I watched one company after another go out of business because they got into the- produce as many s---ty "one day wonders" as possible and over saturate the market.
My company, Club Jenna, producers a multiple variety of movies, even though I am more sided towards edgy, hard style, new school movies. I still have the philosophy against comedy movies (I have never laughed so hard I came) but, I still produce a few just to appease that market.
Last year we won best film, The Masseuse (couples style shot on film), and best video, Bella Loves Jenna (extreme "Alterna Porn"). The new style of movies that are coming out are trying to emulate Bella Loves Jenna.and why not? It won Best Video and is selling incredibly well. I shoot, direct and edit my movies and consider our movies to be some of the best in the industry, setting a new bar for quality. I feel we have the sales and the accolades to support that comment.
As with any business, you have to evolve and adapt to the market place in order not to become a dinosaur and extinct. I sadly watch all my older director friends going broke because they refuse to adapt. This makes them bitter and angry at the changes in adult. Listen, we all complain about how adult has changed and not for the better, but sharpen your skills throw out the tissues and develop a new style that ensures revenues.
I believe life is about constant learning; the day you stop learning the end is inevitably drawing near. What I did in my last movies I will better in the next and so on. I support anyone in this industry that tries!, whether I agree with what you do or not if you are putting you heart into it .PROPS.
I do not agree with making light of people putting forth an effort to put out good product and I don't think Mr. Greene should either. He is a very talented writer and director and definitely deserves his accolades for his success.
Ira Levine responds:
I've worked with Jay and Jenna over the years and I consider both enormously talented. In fact, their success tends to prove rather than invalidate my point, which is that audiences connect with sexy pictures, which both excel at making.
Furthermore, I never meant my observations to be interpretted as a diatribe against all attempts to break out of stale genre conventions in porn. I've done plenty of that myself, having pretty much single-handedly demolished those conventions regarding BDSM videos as they existed when I came in here. I also think my pictures have continued to evolve over the years and that my work of today is substantially different from what it was ten years ago. However, it's core intent has no more changed than that of Andrew Blake, John Stagliano, John Leslie or other directors whose work I celebrate. We're still out to turn people on. We just look for new ways of doing it.
I dislike cookie-cutter, by-the-numbers porn as much as anybody could, after sitting through so much of it over the years, and admire those directors who find ways of bringing fresh ideas to the medium.
But that's not really what I'm talking about. It's one thing to work some changes on viewer expectations with a smart, edgy picture like Bella Loves Jenna, which most certainly doesn't qualify as alterna-porn by my definition. BLJ is just a great picture with a modern style. It's quite another matter to make an ego-driven project that resembles a film-school demo reel and completely lacks sexual heat. This is hardly a charge that could ever be leveled against any of Jay and Jenna's work. Jay is a very inventive and accomplished picture-maker, but he still gives the audience plenty of turn-on content. And I think he'd agree that we owe those who come to our pictures for that kind of content the respect of not mocking their primary motivations. My particular beef is with cultish, pretentious material that its openly contemptuous of porn's principle mission objective.
I never intended to make light of those attempting to put out good product, though I hardly consider making light of any form of popular entertainment much of a sin. I merely pointed out, from long observation, that self-conscious art-porn that isn't arousing to watch and works too hard at trying to be hip and cool is likely to be rejected by the larger porn market.
Jay and I are both products of the school of experience. I'd expect him to raise a skeptical eyebrow at self-styled "auteurs" who try to disguise their inability to shoot a hot scene with all kinds of pseudo-intellectual posturing, just as I do. Jay has the resources to shoot anything he wants, and though he pushes the stylistic envelope most capably, he never forgets why we're here. I believe as much could be said of Andrew Blake, John Leslie and all the other pioneers who have helped expand the creative horizons of the form. They did what they did without leaving the audience behind.
No offense intended in any of this. Surprised to find it taken. For the record, I am not bitter, angry or anywhere near broke. Check out the sales charts, my friends. I have two of the biggest selling lines in this business. What have I got to cry over?
Hot Newbie: Sunny Lane
I instantly thought Sunny was cute, but not quite in a "I have to see everything she's in now" kind of way like with Karina Kay or Taryn Thomas. However, the more I looked at her modeling pictures and the more upcoming releases and boxcovers she landed in or on the more infatuated I became. She reminds me of a weird combination of Lysa Thatcher and Cherry Mirage with a little bit of Vanilla Sky. That spells out to that "everyday girl" appeal as opposed to the "she should be a supermodel" kind of thing (if that sounds backhanded, I really don't mean it to). Now she has been cast in James Avalon's first RLD feature and the press release stated she used to be a professional ice skater.
The type of girl, like Kinzie Kenner, that you want to take home to meet the parents on the Holidays and then have crazy sex with in your old bedroom.
Kinzie Kenner, Taryn Thomas, Faith, Karina Kay, and now Sunny Lane. Just when I think I'm out, they pull me back in.
Wicked's Sydney Steele Only Does Girl-Girl
"One day, I had finished a movie and it was awesome and I had had a good time and I just felt really weird being with my partner. The next day, I was scheduled to do another scene and all I could think was, 'I don't think I can do it.' I have actually fallen very, very much in love and I don't know if I should be saying that in this business but it's true. I have never experienced this kind of feeling before and I didn't feel like sharing myself. My guy didn't have anything to do with it...I don't think I can take a dick properly the way that I used to, on camera," Steele said of her choice and hell, I can't blame her. Steele's face was all light when she talked about the guy, a non-industry civilian that she's keeping anonymous.
XTV Box
Confucy writes:
Have you tried the XTV box? I am getting ready to try it, and it seems like there is lots of controversy surrounding the ownership of the company. I think it will make a significant difference in the way many view porn, but $29.95 seems a little high to pay each month. The promoters of the box seem very vague about the titles of the videos they are offering. Perhaps you can interview them and get the information they are not giving us on the boards.