DaVinci Load 12/7, 12/8/05
Dec 8: Missy Monroe Missy Monroe Extras, Myah Monroe (right) Minda, Steve Holmes, extras Extras Minda, Steve Holmes, extras Extras Tori Lane Tori Hailey Page Hailey Hailey Hailey, Tori Hailey, Tori Hailey, Tori Tori Tori Tori Tori Tori Minda Minda Jerome Tanner Missy, Evan Stone Hailey and her favorite porn writer Nelson X Tori Tori Jerome Tanner adjusts Tori's tits, Gino Anthony Petkovich, Editor of Adam Film World
Dec 7: Missy Monroe Missy Missy Hailey Paige, Evan Stone Hailey, Evan Missy Missy Missy Charlotte Stokely Hailey Hailey Jasmine Tame Jasmine, Charlotte Jasmine, Charlotte Jasmine, Charlotte Jasmine, Charlotte Jasmine, Charlotte Jasmine, Charlotte Jasmine, Charlotte Jasmine, Charlotte Gram Ponante Reports
As I drive to the first day of Jerome Tanner's DaVinci Load Dec. 7, I should've been singing:
What a friend I have in Jeff Mullen
All my sins and griefs to bearCan we find a friend so faithful
who will all our sorrows share?
Jeff knows my every weakness;
take it to All Media Play in prayer.
I couldn't believe I'd receive an on-set invite to this big-budget LFP feature after all the nasty things I've written about the company.
Last night, I couldn't get to sleep at all. Last night I got to thinkin' maybe I, I, I Should call you up, Drew Rosenfeld (head of LFP Video) and just forget my foolish pride. I heard your number ringing, I went cold inside And last night I didn't get to sleep at all.
A few seconds after stepping on to the set, I run into the production manager Helen, who turned out to be Jerry T's wife. I figure as soon as she hears my name, I'll be sent home straight to bed without my dinner. But no, I get inside where there is just the lavish catering I have believed in so fervently that I skipped my normally hearty breakfast of fruit smoothie mixed with colon cleanser.
I meet Jerry Tanner for the first time.
"Luke!" he says. "You're the one everyone curses. Or used to."
He laughs.
Everything's going to be ok.
I have entre to the set. I have food and drink. Now all I need are chicks, the younger and hotter the better (within legal and moral limits).
But here comes one more obstacle - a burly guy named Drew.
"Drew Rosenfeld?" I ask.
He nods.
"You're the guy I've been writing nasty things about on my site," I say.
"I've been showing them to my wife and we've been having a good laugh," he says.
Whew.
"So you're not an accountant?" I ask.
"No," he says.
"You've never taken an accounting class?"
"No. I have a calculator on my desk because I'm always running budgets."
I realize that the following admission will strike many of my readers as unethical, but I purposefully did not write about this production until it had wrapped and I didn't need to go back to the set and confront the people I wrote about. I'm chicken that way.
James Deen used to come to sets in grungy sweats, but Mark Yule and Barry Woods made fun of him. So now he dresses up.
Nelson X's script has a girl sucking a dead man's penis. This was missed by everyone at LFP but Larry Flynt who called up Drew Rosenfeld Tuesday night and said, "You can't have that."
I didn't realize Larry read porn scripts and was that deeply involved in the running of his company.
Hailey Page arrived an hour late today and that's set Jerry T back and made him mad.
Jerry's burly assistant tells me, "I'd do anything for Jerry and Helen. If they asked me to break your legs, I'd do it."
He smiles. "They'd never ask me to do that. They're nice people."
Smoking a cigar outside, Jerry yells at Helen for ashtrays. She yells back at him but creates ashtrays made out of aluminum foil a few minutes later.
Jerry tells Evan Stone: "I want you to do one line right."
Hailey: "I need to rinse out."
Jerry: "Didn't you rinse out before?"
Hailey: "Yeah, but I need to do it again."
Barry Wood: "Don't rinse out too much. Evan likes it stinky."
An observer: "You are witnessing art in the making. People wonder how this happens. This is how it happens."
Jerry wants to shoot the sex scene between Evan Stone and Hailey Page on the couch with no covers down.
The home owner, a calm blonde woman in her 50s, says that Jerry's wife Helen agreed there would be no sex on the furniture without a covering.
Owner: "If you put covers on everything. I discussed it with your wife."
Jerry: "Bulls---. I don't recall that being mentioned. I wouldn't be in this location. The couch is 50-years old. I can't f--- on it?"
Jerry hates the house, for which LFP paid $2,000 for the day.
Owner: "Everybody uses covers."
Jerry: "I'm not stupid."
Owner: "If you stain it and you're willing to clean it, that's fine."
Jerry says fine.
Owner: "I spoke to your wife. She said she'd put on covers."
Jerry: "No, no. I know my wife. She doesn't have covers."
Drew Rosenfeld, Helen (who confirms the owner's story) and the home-owner separately try to argue Jerry out of his reckless uncovered vision.
Helen brings towels in. "Jerry, I'm not even going to show these to you," she says. "You won't even see them.
Eventually a compromise is worked out whereby the sex will take place on Evan's clothes and a black towel.
I interview Jasmine Tame, 19, who's been in porn for seven months, appearing in about 80 scenes.
"I was broke. I was in college. This was my big break and I liked it."
What did you study in college?
"I was taking the basic classes like math and science and that crap."
Charlotte Stokely says she started college at age 15 (while in highschool). She says she has about two year's worth of credits.
Jasmine: "I like LA because the mountains are pretty and the people are nice. I just like the heat, so I'm never going to leave Miami."
Luke: "What kind of crowd did you hang out with in highschool?"
Jasmine: "It was a mix of people. Geeks, the popular girls, to sports guys... I was a good student through all the cheating. I had a good GPA. I cheated on every test I had. I hated school so I just cheated."
Luke: "When you were a kid, what did you want to be when you grew up?"
Jasmine: "I wanted to be a dolphin trainer. After that, I wanted to be a choreographer, but that's too competitive, so I've just stuck with Adult film."
Jasmine asks James Deen: "What did you want to do? This? Well, you're 19."
Luke: "He's a guy.
"What's the oldest guy you've been with?"
Jasmine: "Sixty."
Luke: "You did a scene with Dave Cummings?"
Jasmine shakes her head. "It was a private. I gave a BJ to some old guy. It was different. Doesn't bother me."
Tame got a breast job last October, moving from a 34B to a 36C.
Luke: "What were you expected to become by your parents?"
Jasmine: "They left it up to me but my dad wanted me to work in healthcare, but I hate blood and I don't want to be near people puking."
James Deen no longer likes to be referred to as "talent." He's a "sexually liberated craftsman."
James: "There's no talent in what I do."
Charlotte Stokely, 19, has been in LA porn for about a year (before then she did some internet porn in Florida).
She says she used to work every day. Now she works every other day.
Luke: "What happened to you in college?"
Charlotte: "I didn't like that I had to wake up early and go to school. I didn't think it was very fair."
As a kid, Charlotte wanted to be an "astronaut or an astrologer because I was really into [stars]. Second was a botanist because I'm really into planets. Third was a medical examiner. Then I realized there was a lot of schooling involved.
"My parents were so excited that I graduated highschool. I was the first person on my mom's side of the family to graduate highschool.
"The only thing I don't like about the [porn] industry is if I go to a party and civilians sexually harass me, sometimes so badly that I have to leave. Just because I'm a porn star doesn't mean I'm slutty. I'm pretty prudish.
"Porn is my career. It's not just for money. I'm trying to work my way up in my career. I want a name for myself. I want a respectful classy elegant name for myself."
In her spare time, Charlotte smokes pot, reads books and plays with her cats.
Luke: "What do you spend your money on?"
Charlotte: "I don't know. It's just gone. A thousand dollars like that. Some months I make $30,000."
Single for a year, Charlotte says her fiance of two years "won't even speak to me. I'm traveling to Florida in a week and staying with a friend in his neighborhood. I'm bound to run into him. He thinks I do it to get back at him but I do it because it is what I want to do. I've been taking dirty pictures of myself since before I was allowed to.
"I started doing porn when we were still together. It wasn't to get back at him. A guy I went to highschool with came across a pop-up with me on it, clicked on the link, and then sent out a massive email about me. I got a phone call when I was at work from my ex's friend. He said, 'I saw something. I don't want to look at it but I'm pretty sure it is you. I'm going to tell him right now.'
"I said, 'Let me tell him.' I called my boyfriend. We still talked for another two months. We tried to keep the relationship going."
Luke: "What did he say about you doing porn?"
Charlotte: "He said a lot of rude and hurtful things. He said that I was a dirty slut who deserved to be punched in the mouth and kicked to the curb. He was really rude about it but you've got to think that he was also really hurt too."
Luke: "Did you tell him you were thinking about him while you were working?"
Charlotte: "No, because I don't think about him. He's the last thing on my mind."
Gram Ponante walks outside. "They asked me to perform," he says. "But I've already done four scenes today. I at least need a burger."
I have a four-inch hole in the crotch of my black pants. I must ask Holly if she'll sew it. That'll tell me what kind of wife she'll make.
I ask James Deen about gossip that I like gossip.
James: "He doesn't like gossip. He puts an end to gossip. When he heard gossip about me, this girl said I was dating her, he called me and put an end to the gossip."
Charlotte develops an allergic reaction to the dildo she's using. Jerry gives her a Benadryl.
Dec. 8.
Missy Monroe teaches a class (filled with unpaid extras) in advanced sexuality, then gets double penetrated on her desk by her students Scott Nails and Steve Holmes (who I did not recognize in his shiny new black hair).
I meet a tatttooed young writer from AVN, Chloe. She's eager to meet the famous Gram Ponante. She asks me if I am Gram Ponante.
No, I fear that I must disappoint her.
An hour later, it is my great privilege to introduce her to the living legend of lyricism.
I'm not worthy to carry Gram's jock strap (not that I want to).
I assure Chloe I won't write about her.
My lips are sealed about the things that happened between us.
I wonder if Mark Kernes would even recognize the kinder, gentler Luke of today, who shines a thousand points of light in Porn Valley?
I chat with Joel Lawrence. His GoldStarModeling.com talent agency will have 50 girls and 10 guys by the end of the year.
Luke: "What made you become an agent?"
Joel: "Age. I don't want to be talent forever. Being an agent has a future."
Joel offers a $500 finders fee for new talent.
He does two scenes a week. "I can only work weekends and nights. I can't do features any more because it takes too much of my time."
Jerry Tanner tells Drew Rosenfeld to include his long shots.
"Just write them in," Drew says.
"They [LFP editors] don't listen to me, so why should I?" says Jerry.
Hailey Page says Nelson X, the screenwriter of DaVinci Load, is the best writer in porn. She says his script is "incendiary."
Hailey: "Nelson, remember that script where I had heroin balloons up my butt and I died? That was my favorite one."
Nelson: "Legend yelled at Jerry about that."
I tell Nelson: "Your parents must be very proud of you."
Nelson: "They're proud that I get up in the morning."
Hailey: "I had a boyfriend a couple of boyfriends back who told me that they didn't put 'gullible' in the dictionary. 'Really?' responded Haily in all seriousness. 'It's such a common word, yet they didn't put it in the dictionary?'"
Yes, she tends to believe everything she's told, which is not a good trait for a porn chick.
Nelson hangs out with a tall guy who I eventually realize is Anthony Petkovich, who I've wanted to meet for a decade (when he was Captain Sid and writing for Hustler Erotic Video Guide). Yet I'm too tired to say more a few words to him.
Somebody who I will not name kept me up all last night doing very bad things (and I don't mean studying the works of atheists and heretics), things I've never done before, things I'd only seen in Max Hardcore movies.
Suffice to say there was no Air Supply playing in the background when things peaked.
Vilnii writes me:
That right there is your unique voice...the voice of an innocent being corrupted by the world, knowing things you were specifically warned not to know, one whose soul has been tickled by porn ....a very intriguing voice in its own right, no need to write like Gram Ponante.
Tori Lane wants to get her ass insured. "So that if it gets blown out, I can collect one point two," she says.
She tires of me photographing her in a bathrobe smoking. She also doesn't like it when I peer in her windows when she's making love to her husband Rick Shameless.
Why must I try to write like Gram Ponante?
When Tori does a scene with a guy she's not interested in, she just looks at the penis and the camera. The more interested she is in the guy, the broader her lens.
Jerry tells Nelson that the hardest dialogue is after sex when the actors can barely talk.
Nelson's script tend to be dialogue and vowel-heavy (such as "priory").
Jerry tells him he won't include his "putrid pussy" comment in the script.
Nelson: "Putrid pussy is an integral part of who I am as an artist. That's my vision."
Jerry: "It's not sexy. This is a sex film."
Using baby wipes, Tori Lane cleans off the white bench upon which she will have sex with Gino. "See! I'm a good whore," says Tori.
Old Raven Touchstone limps around set the past on a cane. She's doing wardrobe. The red hooker outfit Tori's wearing has appeared on numerous magazine covers and in various pornos.
The LFP Studios on Osborne Street in Chatsworth are a clean well-lighted place. There are flowers everywhere. The place smells good. It's filled with happy helpful people intent on making a better world.
Missy Monroe (who's been in every Jerome Tanner shoot the past couple of years) says she spends more money on food than on pot, and she spends $500 a week on pot.
Missy's boyfriend calls her. "I know you're working with Steve Holmes today," he says. "That's ok. He can be your boyfriend for today. But you're coming home to me."
The asian chef knocks on the window outside. Missy says to him, "You cook for me. I let you in."
It's a deal.
In one corner a publicist helped out a cub reporter by explaining to her that a FIP is a "fake internal popshot". Cubbie then asked the director, Jerome Tanner, which actor was playing Da Vinci. I felt curmudgeonly and disgusted about feeling curmudgeonly at the same time.
A new reporter from AVN, Chloe, was there. I briefly vented my disenhappinessment that my former employer has blocked me from commenting on their blog. I only wanted to tell them that I forgave them, and it's OK. But I guess they don't feel they deserve my forgiveness in the form of a validated Typekey identity.
AVN Editor Mike Ramone responds to Gram and Tod Hunter:
Don’t Flatter Yourselves, Fellas
A pair of ex-AVN types whose post-AVN careers in part consist of (ex-AVNer #1) bashing and (ex-AVNer #2) more deftly needling their former employer, are both complaining on their respective sites all-self-important-like that we have blocked them from commenting on this here blog in violation of their First Amendment rights. Hate to burst your balloons guys, but that just tain't so. The truth of the matter is that the comment function has simply been inoperable across the board for the past week or so, but should be up and running again any minute now. I know you've both been waiting with bated breath, so you may now both exhale.
LFP Studios in [Chatsworth] is this labyrynth of long hallways, sharp turns and loads of interesting rooms. And, like the Roman catacombs, you never know what body you're going to run across. Somewhat surprising, still, is the fact that one of those bodies is director Jerome Tanner. In all my years in the business I've never been on the set of one of Jerry T's movies. Might as well be this one, he says, since Tanner thinks this is one of the best projects he's ever seen come across his desk.
At the Adult Film Awards circa 1986, Suze Randall came out to the Christian porn protesters, held up her dress and flashed her vagina.
Working with Scott Nails and Steve Holmes, Missy squirts several times. Once she gets it on the camera lens.
I interview Hailey Page, 23, while she smokes outside with Tory Lane.
At age 18, Page stopped working at Blockbuster and started nude modeling because she needed money to pay for college. "I didn't get into video until I was 21.
"I've already paid for my bachelor's [she says she will soon graduate with a degree in Pyschology from Southern California University, which has a distance learning program]. Now I'm working on [paying for] my master's [also at SCU]. I want to get my doctorate from an actual school."
Hailey wants to become a sex therapist.
As a kid, she wanted to become a veterinarian for cats. "My dad wanted me to be a writer because he's a writer. He's written a bunch of novels, none of them published.
"For a while I wanted to be a writer because when you're little, you want your parents to be proud of you. But it's not really for me."
Hailey says she hung out with a "weird" crowd in highschool. "People who didn't have a certain group. We were just different."
Luke: "What do you love and hate about porn?"
Hailey: "I love the flexibility, freedom, the sex, how open everyone is, and basically honest. I can have as much time off as I want. I don't like how female porn stars are stigmatized. They don't give us a chance to be something else. It'd be hard for a girl like me to start directing."
Luke: "How has being in this industry affected you?"
Hailey: "It's made me more picky about men. It makes me think, 'If I'm not getting paid, what's the point?' It's given me more self-respect."
It's been a couple of months since Hailey had sex for free. "It's hard to date. If I wanted to date someone outside the business, this would be hard for them to accept, even if I wasn't doing it anymore. It's hard to date someone in the business, because when I quit, are they still going to be in it?
"I just broke up with someone."
Luke: "How has porn affected your sex life?"
Hailey: "It's numbed me. Nothing's a novelty anymore. You can't try something for the first time with someone."
I chat with Minda, an extra, in the kitchen. Just 19, she's had sex three times in her life (with one guy). She's a Journalism major at Cal-State Northridge.
Evan Stone: "How would you like to be with a professional?"
She says no.
I lie into my taperecorder: "Her face flushes bright red. She starts crying."
Minda giggles.
Girl, you are the sun. I am the moon. You are the words. I am the tune. Play me.
I say into my recorder: "James Deen says, 'Get me in too.'"
James: "That's not what I said. It was a lot more sleazy and perverted than that."
Luke: "I'm trying to save this young girl's innocence."
Evan: "I'm trying to save her too. Imagine if she fell in with Joey Ray. At least this way she'll be with gentlemen."
During the first sex scene of the day, Steve Holmes asked Minda if he could feel her breasts. She said, "No."
"Just a little bit?" he persisted.
"No," she said. "I'm just an extra who you can't touch."
The guy holding the C-light for the penetration shots asks Minda out. She says no.
Last night, she was an extra in a cowl watching a six-person orgy.
She says the past 24-hours have opened her mind and given her a good feeling.
4:40pm. I walk down the corridor and past Barry Woods (former husband of dead porn star Trinity Loren, I believe the James Davenport in this story has kicked the bucket, possibly an overdose).
"Are you still after [Minda]?" he asks.
"I'm just doing my job."
Jace Rocker (camera monitor and assistant director) says he's doing great. He owns his own home and two cars and has "an awesome civilian girlfriend. She has a master's degree in business. I've never been happier. She laughs at all my stuff.
"I've only [directed] one show a year for the past six years and every single year I've been nominated [by AVN]."
Why do only one show a year?
"Because there are too many dogs at the feedbowl, all growling for little morsels. Most releases are gonzo and I don't do that crap. I don't do sex movies. I do movies with sex in them."
Photographer Richard Montfort walks Tory Lane down the hallway in her red hooker outfit. "Make room for the star," he commands. "Don't look directly in her eyes."
Missy has an impossible time pronouncing "Shangrila" and "priory."
Jerry yells at her. "Missy, I gave you the script two weeks ago."
Missy: "I know."
