Vanilla Slim: An Improbable Pimp in the Empire of Lust
By Bob Armstrong
From
Publishers Weekly:
Word spreads quickly among Armstrong's co-inmates: "You a pimp? This
is not real! A white pimp. An old white pimp. How ya do that?" Armstrong
(b. 1942), a "low-end journalist" (he reviewed porn DVDs for Exotic
and freelanced for the San Francisco Chronicle) who had run Zen Escort
Service for only eight months before getting busted, was nicknamed Vanilla
Slim (a reference to the legendary black pimp Iceberg Slim). Actually,
entrance to Pimpworld was absurdly easy: Armstrong ran a classified
ad for "escorts" in SF Weekly, auditioned about 50 girls, chose six
or so, charged johns $500 an hour and kept $150. The work was easy;
the toughest part was getting a girl to her client on time; thereafter
he'd loiter in a hotel lobby reading the New Republic and doing occasional
lines of speed or cocaine until she reappeared. Aside from character
studies of the girls, Armstrong passes along some nuggets: most escorts'
capacity for common sense is "zero," lesbians make the best escorts
"since there's no conflict of interest" and gay videos are generally
more erotic and tasteful than straight ones. Armstrong offers funny,
pungent lines interspersed with self-examining digressions, producing
a funny read for the Imus crowd.
Bob writes: "Most of the street girls are black." He says escort
services rarely employ black girls because there's little demand for them.
(pg. 11)
"All escorts have boyfriends except lesbians." (pg. 20)
"All of us who work in the sex industry are cut off from normal
existence. We are remote from other people except our fellow pervs."
(pg. 33)
From Bob Armstrong, author of Vanilla
Slim: An Improbable Pimp in the Empire of Lust:
The flap over Emily Evermoore interests me since I was a pimp. I was
not Emily’s pimp, but had she called me when I was running an escort
service I’m sure I would have given her a slot in my stable among the
pretty ponies. Somebody called “Disgusted Performer,” hereafter, DP
(how fitting!), e-mailed Luke with a rant. DP seems to think Emily should
be sent to the glue factory. DP is upset that boys over at AVN would
consider Emily a legitimate contender for an AVN award on the grounds
she told the trade publication “that she is not a porn star, she is
a ‘HO,’ and basically says that porn stars are Pre-Madonnas.”
Well, Emily is not the first girl in the biz to take a slap at her
sisters. They can slap back if they choose, as DP has done. But DP is
off the deep end on the larger point, that Emily is a “dirty street
walker” and such behavior is a terrible affront to a fine upstanding
industry that celebrates the double penetration. And should Emily be
disqualified as a contender for her honesty?
I doubt many in the industry would share DP’s view on filthy harlots,
but a lot of people in the porn industry are gun shy about prostitution.
This is the line one can’t cross in the sex industry, the line drawn
by the law. In fact, I think the line gets crossed every time an adult
DVD is produced. Porn films and prostitution both involve the exchange
of money for sex.
Wait. The lawyer for a porn company is quick to point out a significant
difference. Emily and her wood dude are acting. It’s a performance.
Let’s be honest here. Maybe acting has something to do with it, but
a porn star is getting paid for having sex in front of the camera. In
fact, most of the girls in the industry, other than contract stars,
get paid for each individual sex act, and this is calculated on a scale,
more money for a gang bang, less for a blow job. That does begin to
close the acting curtain.
I’d say the biggest difference between hooking in a hotel and doing
the deed on camera for money concerns the client. Porn girls get to
know their wood first so they can make it hot on camera. Over time they
build up relationships with the wood. And the wood is not really a client—that’s
the guy who buys the DVD. The call girl and her meatball are in and
out of the hotel room in an hour. (But it is not unusual for a client
to find one hooker he likes and spend a bundle on her over time.)
As far as the sex act itself, porn is far more demanding than prostitution.
Guys who get it on with prostitutes generally want vanilla sex—a fuck,
a blow job, or half-and-half. Most escorts draw the line at anal sex.
DP’s dirty streetwalkers might be more inclined if the money is right.
Porn is a spectacle of anal sex. I suppose two guys could find an escort
for double penetration, but that would be highly unusual. Prostitution
is almost always a one-on-one deal in privacy. The gang bang? Escorts
or streetwalkers would go for that, pulling in a pile of dollars on
the train, but I’d say the chance of this happening is about one in
a thousand. Maybe the fraternity will call for a big bash, although
some years back a frat house at the University of Washington came under
scrutiny when two nervous sheep were discovered in the basement on pledge
night. The case never went to court, so we don’t know if the little
lambs were working.
Overall, it does seem to me getting paid for sex in a porn film is
prostitution. I’m not suggesting all the porn company moguls should
be hauled into the dock and charged with pimping and pandering. I’m
glad the law makes a clear distinction, but we should be happy the law
is silly enough not to recognize the essence of the transaction by Emily
the trollop walking the track in Vegas is identical to Emily’s performance
in “Gang Bang on the Crap Table.”
12/21/06
Bob Armstrong Interview
He's the author of Vanilla
Slim: An Improbable Pimp in the Empire of Lust.
I call him in San Francisco Thursday night.
Bob: "I'm working on a new book. A conventional memoir of drugs
and alcohol in the family."
Armstrong was busted for pimping in 2000. "Even while I was doing
it, I knew I would get a book out of it. I was reluctant to come out of
the pimp closet, so I wrote a novel.
"I told my editor at the San Francisco Chronicle about it. Lynn
Meyers said, 'That sounds like an interesting story.' It's the perfect
response from an editor. I gave her a story on it and that ran in the
Chronicle in December of 2002.
"Novelist Herb Gold saw the story and called my editor and said
he really liked it.
"Herb and I got together. He got me an agent. He convinced to write
the story as a memoir."
Gold blurbed Bob's book.
"I admit in my book that I'm a loser. I've bounced around all my
life. I've had a number of jobs. I haven't been successful in any of them.
I've never made a lot of money. I've never married. I'm a drifter. That
feeling of failure, of being left behind when all your friends you went
to college with, you're not in touch with anymore, but you hear from other
people that they are successful. I've written for a lot of newspapers
but always as a freelancer. A book is a lot more satisfying.
"I don't have a lot of friends. I've moved so much, I've lost touch
with people. I didn't lose any friends from my book. It hasn't changed
my life."
Armstrong began writing for Adult publications in 1993 with Portland's
Exotic magazine. In 1998, it launched a San Francisco edition that only
lasted two years because it could not garner enough advertisers.
"Girls would be coming into the office taking out ads [for escorting]...
I put two and two together and decided I could do it.
"It's like the girl who goes to a strip bar and says, 'I don't mind
stripping. The one thing I could never do is prostitution.'
"Now, she works a couple of years. It's grueling. She sees how much
money the girls make in private booths, much more than lap dances. She
decides to supplement her income with some hooking. She might sign up
with an escort service.
"I've asked some escorts about stripping and they say, 'I would
never do that. I would never take off my clothes and dance in front of
a bunch of people.'"
Bob estimates he's slept with about 150 women in his life, paying directly
for about 20 of them. "I think that's normal."
Luke: "I'm going to ask you some questions to determine
if you are a sex addict.
"One. Were you sexually molested as a child or adolescent?"
Bob: "No. Not at all. My parents were very nice. They were alcoholics."
Luke: "Two. Do you regularly purchase romance novels or sexually
explicit magazines?"
Bob: "No."
Luke: "Three. Have you stayed in romantic relationships after they
become emotionally or physically abusive?"
Bob: "Yes. That ended in my thirties. I've never been violent with
women. I've certainly been psychologically abusive to women as they have
been to me."
Luke: "Five. Do you feel that your sexual behaviour is not normal?"
Bob: "Yes. After all, I've never been married. I run from women
if they get too close."
Luke: "Six. Does your spouse (or significant other(s)) ever worry
or complain about your sexual behavior?"
Bob: "No."
Luke: "Seven. Do you have trouble stopping your sexual behavior
when you know it is inappropriate?"
Bob: "No. Except for when I was younger, I pushed too much."
Luke: "Eight. Do you ever feel bad about your sexual behavior?"
Bob: "No."
Luke: "Eleven. Have you ever worried about people finding out about
your sexual activities?"
Bob: "No. Only when I was younger and cheating on some girl."
Luke: "Twelve. Has anyone been hurt emotionally because of your
sexual behavior?"
Bob: "Only when I was younger and using women sexually and pretending
it was more than that."
Luke: "Thirteen. Have you ever participated in sexual activity in
exchange for money or gifts?"
Bob: "Yes. In the early eighties, in my early forties, that was
the first time I thought about visiting a hooker. Until that time, I'd
never had a problem finding a woman I wanted to be with. But the age gap
kept getting greater and greater. The pool of younger women who like to
be with older guys starts shrinking rapidly."
"I do have byline fever."
"If I had a bad relationship with a chick, my response was not to
go out to find somebody to bang the next night. It was more to withdraw
for a while, a month or so."
"I fall more into the vanilla sex category. I'm not into anal sex."
Luke: "Seventeen. Do you find yourself having multiple romantic
relationships at the same time?"
Bob: "Not anymore."
"I've never understood Lord Master Damien and his deep affection
for black clothes and latex and leather."
Luke: "Twenty five. Do you ever think your sexual desire is stronger
than you are?"
Bob: "I hope so."
I tabulate Bob's answers and announce, "You're not an addict. You're
far less of an addict than I am. You got a two and I got a twelve."
Bob: "From what I read of your stuff, you don't strike me as a sex
addict at all."
"I always read complaints that you're trashing people, but you just
go out with your tape recorder and tape hours and hours and put them on
a website. In some ways, you are truly an old-fashioned journalist. It's
just straight objectivity. It's rare that I see your opinions."
I May Be A Sex Addict
I took this test and got
a twelve -- midway between addict and non-addict.
Emily
Nevermoore
More musings on Emily Evermoore’s hootenanny from Bob Armstrong, author
of Vanilla
Slim: An Improbable Pimp in the Empire of Lust:
Luke e-mailed Emily: "According to this post, AVN's Mike Ramone left
a message on your machine asking for some sexual favor?" She did not
reply, and when Luke later ran into her at a studio in Chatsworth he
didn’t bring up his e-mail, but Emily quickly button-holed him and said,
"I am not going to confirm or deny." But she didn’t stop there. "Let
me just say that AVN has suddenly decided to do a feature article on
me next month and they're putting me in their awards show and they've
hooked me up with Wicked, Vivid and Digital Playground.”
Now at this point if I were Emily’s agent/publicist/representative/flack/pimp
daddy, the first thing I would do is break into Mike Ramone AKA Lord
Master Damien’s dungeon, make sure the “genetically superior being”
is pre-occupied with another AVN contender worshipping his editorial
throbber, rip off a red rubber ball and a gag to lock down Emily.
Nevermore, Emily Evermoore, nevermore.
But it’s too late for that, the cat is out of the bag. All Emily’s
agent can do now is resort to spin control. It’s so refreshing, she’s
so candid, just says whatever pops into her head. It’s a heartland thing,
a girl from Kansas, all sweet and young and innocent and tasty as apple
pie at the hootenanny.
But as Dorothy said when she landed in Oz, ”I don’t think this is Kansas
anymore.” (Tip for Wicked, Vivid, or Digital Playground: cast Emily
blowing the Tin Man.) We are in Pornlandia now, and given Emily’s not
confirming or denying and then seeming to confirm, it looks like AVN’s
former editor did go for a quid pro quo blow, or, as Todd Hunter has
said of Ramone, this has “his fingerprints all over it.”
I’m the new intruder in this circus, so I’ll give Lord Master Damien
the benefit of the doubt and say innocent until proven guilty. Either
way I have mixed feelings about trashing AVN on the grounds of a trade
out. Isn’t it quite natural that a guy who works for the trade publication
that sponsors the awards ceremony would gobble up some of the apple
pie? Should we really be appalled by this? Is it wrong? Yes, but one
of the delights of both porn and prostitution is that they are wrong
to the core. And if Lord Master Damien is guilty, I get a kick out of
the fact he expects his clients to be on their knees and assume a proper
worshipful attitude before his European fashion designer latexed bod
and then, as he put it, ”gag on my Divine member.” This, while he’s
groveling for pussy on voice mails.
As Emily told Luke, AVN did do a nice feature article on her, written
by Eddie Adams. Emily told Eddie she likes having sex in front of the
camera because it “sort of immortalizes part of my soul…I love the attention.”
But Eddie’s story didn’t really penetrate Emily’s soul. That was left
to Luke.
This is fascinating, because I would assume Emily felt comfortable
and at ease with Eddie, while initially Emily was suspect of Luke when
she talked to him during one of his endless patrols through Porn Valley
while armed with his tape recorder. Wary of Luke, she told him he’d
“twist” her story. “You tell the dirt side,” she admonished him, ”you
only write what will bring out gossip.”
Luke asked her what crowd she hung out with in high school. Her response
was riveting: ”I wasn’t allowed to go to high school, baby. I grew up
a ward of the state. I was in orphanages, group homes, residential treatment
centers. I didn’t get to be in the public. I was (among) the forgotten
children.”
Gossip? No way. That says it all. That is Emily’s story. That is her
soul. Now it could be bullshit, but I strongly doubt it, for it confirms
what we all know about many of the women who jump in the porn biz: they
were among the children tossed by the wayside.
I do think she’s fudging on her education. Not allowed to go to high
school? Emily, give us the straight scoop here. Might you have skipped
many classes and dropped out? Even wards of the state are required to
go to school, and the educational system encourages them to stay there.
Luke ended his conversation with this:
Luke: ”Baby, you can drive my car.”
Emily: ”Really? I just wrecked mine.”
It remains to be seen what will become of this wreckage, but one key
to success nowadays is networking, and Emily sure knew how to network
over at AVN.
Yes, Paul, There
Is A Lord Master Damien
Fred writes:
Luke, isn't it a fact that you are Lord Damien, and this is really
how you earn your living? You use your hovel as a dungeon to torture
and humiliate clients. (I assume that, usually, the humiliation merely
results from being at the hovel.) Further, isn't lukeisback.com just
a front so people won't know the real Luke? Come on. 'Fess up.
Interestingly, Lord Damien's statements urging men to betray their
wives/girlfriends would be good fodder for religious right propaganda
concerning what happens to Christian civilization as gays become accepted.
All things considered, Lord Damien is hilarious.
I got this email:
DEAR EDITOR:
I am 48 years old.
Some of my little friends say there is no Lord Master Damien.
Darren Roberts says, 'If you see it on Lukeisback.com, it's so.'
Please tell me the truth; is there a Lord Master Damien?
PAUL FISHBEIN
9414 Eton Ave, Chatsworth, CA, 91311.
PAUL, your little friends are wrong. They have been affected by the skepticism
of a skeptical age. They do not believe except [what] they see. They think
that nothing can be which is not comprehensible by their little minds.
All minds, PAUL, whether they be men's or children's, are little. In this
great universe of ours man is a mere insect, an ant, in his intellect,
as compared with the boundless world about him, as measured by the intelligence
capable of grasping the whole of truth and knowledge.
Yes, PAUL, there is a Lord Master Damien. He exists certainly as love
and generosity and devotion exist, and you know that they abound and give
to your life its highest beauty and joy. Alas! How dreary would be the
world if there were no Lord Master Damien! It would be as dreary as if
there were no PAULS. There would be no childlike faith then, no poetry,
no romance to make tolerable this existence. We should have no enjoyment,
except in sense and sight. The eternal light which childhood fills the
world would be extinguished.
Not believe in Lord Master Damien! You might as well not believe in fairies!
You might get your papa to hire men to watch in all the chimneys on Christmas
Eve to catch Lord Master Damien, but even if they did not see Lord Master
Damien coming down, what would that prove? Nobody sees Lord Master Damien,
but that is no sign that there is no Lord Master Damien. The most real
things in the world are those that neither children nor men can see. Did
you ever see fairies dancing on the lawn? Of course not, but that's no
proof that they are not there. Nobody can conceive or imagine all the
wonders there are unseen and unseeable in the world.
You tear apart the baby's rattle and see what makes the noise inside,
but there is a veil covering the unseen world which not the strongest
man, nor even the united strength of all the strongest man that ever lived,
could tear apart. Only faith, fancy, poetry, love, romance can push aside
that curtain and view and picture the supernal beauty and glory beyond.
Is it all real? Ah, PAUL, in all this world there is nothing else real
and abiding. No Lord Master Damien! Thank GOD! He lives, and he lives
forever. A thousand years from now, nay, ten times ten thousand years
from now, he will continue to make glad the heart of childhood.
Lord Master Damien:
'CHEAT ON YOUR WIFE, SERVICE MY GIANT COCK'
With the
departure of Editor Mike Ramone from Adult Video News, I was feeling
low Thursday afternoon. In need of some discipline, I put "Lord Master
Damien" into Google.
The first two links went to lukeisback. The third read: "Find Bisexual
Men for Adult Phone Sex at NiteFlirt"
I
clicked on the link for details and found this:
I am evil, wicked, supreme LORD MASTER DAMIEN, the only real-f---ing-deal
Master on Keen (not some clown in a t-shirt and sneakers calling himself
a 'Master') and you will cheat on your f---ing cunt wife or girlfriend
you closet faggot by servicing My huge f---ing cock; you know you can't
resist; you're tired of that fat old hag and fantasize about sucking
cock all the time; betray her love and trust by worshipping Me; I don't
give a f--- about you loser; I only want to use and abuse you for your
money and to get off on corrupting you and making you betray everything
you hold dear. doesn't that make you tiny little "thing" stand at attention?
you know you can't resist My wicked power, pig, so call Me now for My
greater glory! I'll laugh at you while you gag on my Divine member and
blow My load all over your f---ing face, then send you home to your
fat-ass bitch....And if you're ever in L.A., cum see Me for real in
My private, killer, fully-eqipped dungeon and I'll force you service
Me in the flesh...AND CHECK OUT MY OTHER NASTY RECORDINGS YOU CUNTS:
BRAND NEW!!! COCK WORSHIP: FAG FACE f---ING (Men Home Alone >Gay); Cum
Worship a REAL Master bitch, not some phony (Find Men>BDSM/Fetish>Submissive
Males); Rim My Asshole Bitch (Find Men>BDSM/Fetish>Masters); Greedy
Master Will Gag You on My Huge Cock (Find Men>BDSM/Fetish>Masters);
I Will Impale Your Ass with My Giant Cock (Find Men>BDSM/Fetish>Leather);
Extreme Verbal Abuse: Listen at Your Own Risk Fag (Find Men>Men Home
Alone>Gay); Verbal Fag Bashing: I'll Break You Bitch (Find Men>Men Home
Alone>Gay) Cum Worship Your Master's Sweaty Feet Slave (Find Men>BDSM/Fetish>Feet/Shoes)
OR, IF YOU'RE NOT TOO MUCH OF A PUSSY, CALL ME LIVE; COPY AND PASTE
MY HOMEPAGE URL - http://www.keen.com/Lord Master Damien - ONTO YOUR
BROWSER TO FIND ALL MY LIVE LISTINGS WIMP. Now hop to it.
Ramone gets five stars from 16 happy customers on the Niteflirt.com website.
Nburrows writes: "Everything in the recording came as advertised...i
am embarrassed to have called and i don't know if i'll be able to look
at my fiancee the same way now. Very dominant, very controlling...the
recording was so intimidating i hung up early, but i am scared, because
i think it may have changed me..."
JHC writes: "Wow! ! ! Lord Master Damien is awesome. He really knows
how to push my buttons, laughing at me as I betray my wife… cause he knows
I want to suck his cock so bad."
It costs only $2:29 a minute to get a recorded call from Ramone which
seemed like a bargain to me. So I filled out my credit card information
and sat by the phone for Mike.
This
is what I heard (.wav file).
Mike Ramone responds:
Sorry to disappoint you Luke, but I've been out of the Lord Master
Damien business for a few years now, But even if I wasn't, so what?
Porn is all about fantasy - fantasy that more times than not has little
to do with reality. Speaking of which, let me take this opportunity
to say that I always find it amusing that in the porn industry of all
industries, the fact that a male who is into fetish and BDSM is still
grounds for attempted ridicule by some of the industry's more conservative
elements. I mean, the banking industry might be one thing - but even
there, as in all segments of society, there are BDSM adherents - but
the porn industry?!? Cut me a break, why don't you? The fetish scene
based in downtown L.A. that I was an integral part of several years
ago was a sexually highly sophisticated one composed primarily of female
tops and male bottoms (but not exclusively - there were some male tops
and some female bottoms) and it, well, actually, fetish in general,
has had an explosive influence on porn in the last half decade (a little
movie from a few years ago named The Fashionistas, for starters, up
to and including this year's Fashionistas Safado, The Story of O, Corruption
and many others). There's hardly a porn release these days that doesn't
have some fetish content, if not a lot. Fetish has always been part
of the adult video scene, going back to Femmes De Sade and probably
even further. And it always will be. Only now more than ever.
Tara emails: "Congratulations, you've hit an all-time new low even
for you! Get that .wav file of Lord Master Damien's off your site, it's
theft, because you're not a niteflirt.com affiliate. You are f--king horrible
and I hope you get punched in the gut for this soon!"
That Ho Emily
Evermoore
From Bob Armstrong, author of Vanilla
Slim: An Improbable Pimp in the Empire of Lust:
The flap over Emily Evermoore interests me since I was a pimp. I was
not Emily’s pimp, but had she called me when I was running an escort
service I’m sure I would have given her a slot in my stable among the
pretty ponies. Somebody called “Disgusted Performer,” hereafter, DP
(how fitting!), e-mailed Luke with a rant. DP seems to think Emily should
be sent to the glue factory. DP is upset that boys over at AVN would
consider Emily a legitimate contender for an AVN award on the grounds
she told the trade publication “that she is not a porn star, she is
a ‘HO,’ and basically says that porn stars are Pre-Madonnas.”
Well, Emily is not the first girl in the biz to take a slap at her
sisters. They can slap back if they choose, as DP has done. But DP is
off the deep end on the larger point, that Emily is a “dirty street
walker” and such behavior is a terrible affront to a fine upstanding
industry that celebrates the double penetration. And should Emily be
disqualified as a contender for her honesty?
I doubt many in the industry would share DP’s view on filthy harlots,
but a lot of people in the porn industry are gun shy about prostitution.
This is the line one can’t cross in the sex industry, the line drawn
by the law. In fact, I think the line gets crossed every time an adult
DVD is produced. Porn films and prostitution both involve the exchange
of money for sex.
Wait. The lawyer for a porn company is quick to point out a significant
difference. Emily and her wood dude are acting. It’s a performance.
Let’s be honest here. Maybe acting has something to do with it, but
a porn star is getting paid for having sex in front of the camera. In
fact, most of the girls in the industry, other than contract stars,
get paid for each individual sex act, and this is calculated on a scale,
more money for a gang bang, less for a blow job. That does begin to
close the acting curtain.
I’d say the biggest difference between hooking in a hotel and doing
the deed on camera for money concerns the client. Porn girls get to
know their wood first so they can make it hot on camera. Over time they
build up relationships with the wood. And the wood is not really a client—that’s
the guy who buys the DVD. The call girl and her meatball are in and
out of the hotel room in an hour. (But it is not unusual for a client
to find one hooker he likes and spend a bundle on her over time.)
As far as the sex act itself, porn is far more demanding than prostitution.
Guys who get it on with prostitutes generally want vanilla sex—a f---,
a blow job, or half-and-half. Most escorts draw the line at anal sex.
DP’s dirty streetwalkers might be more inclined if the money is right.
Porn is a spectacle of anal sex. I suppose two guys could find an escort
for double penetration, but that would be highly unusual. Prostitution
is almost always a one-on-one deal in privacy. The gang bang? Escorts
or streetwalkers would go for that, pulling in a pile of dollars on
the train, but I’d say the chance of this happening is about one in
a thousand. Maybe the fraternity will call for a big bash, although
some years back a frat house at the University of Washington came under
scrutiny when two nervous sheep were discovered in the basement on pledge
night. The case never went to court, so we don’t know if the little
lambs were working.
Overall, it does seem to me getting paid for sex in a porn film is
prostitution. I’m not suggesting all the porn company moguls should
be hauled into the dock and charged with pimping and pandering. I’m
glad the law makes a clear distinction, but we should be happy the law
is silly enough not to recognize the essence of the transaction by Emily
the trollop walking the track in Vegas is identical to Emily’s performance
in “Gang Bang on the Crap Table.”
Mike South replies to Bob Armstrong:
I read your book and your screed about Emily Evermoore. You are a
pimp about like porn chicks are prostitutes..both of you are sorry excuses
for the title. While I'm not one to pass judgement on your choice of
livelihood you are a pitiful excuse for a pimp. A real pimp would laugh
at you in the same way that a real prostitute would laugh at a porn
girl being accused of turning tricks when she makes a movie. I suggest
you read Donald Goines or Robert Beck, call yourself a pimp to one of
those guys and they'd have laughed you out of your cell block.
Bob responds:
On your My Space page I noticed you described yourself as a "Gun Totin
Libertarian Pornographer." That's cool, but I don't quite understand
why you unloaded your shotgun on me. At least you were good enough to
read my book before the blast.
You suggest I read Donald Goines or Robert Beck and both would have
laughed me out of the cell block for calling myself a pimp. Under the
law, I was convicted for being a pimp. Legally, that is what you are
whether running an escort service from a house or hanging out on the
street. But you have a point, and that is one reason I used the phrase
IMPROBABLE PIMP in the sub-title. No doubt Goines and Robert Beck, AKA
Iceberg Slim, would view me as a pretender, and I made that quite clear
in my book, which includes a quote from Iceberg and a riff on his stature
among young blacks. Why would you suggest I read Iceberg Slim when my
book makes it clear that I have? What blew my mind in the slammer was
the respect I got from black dudes in their twenties who, even if they
thought I was a pretender, wanted to know all the details of my crime.
You say: "A real pimp would laugh at you in the same way that a real
prostitute would laugh at a porn girl being accused of turning tricks
when she makes a movie." Your use of the word "real" implies that Iceberg
is a real pimp while a guy running an escort service is...what? A "pitiful
excuse for a pimp" and therefore not a pimp? If not a pimp, will a facilitator
for performance artists do?
As far as the "real prostitute" is concerned, I do think she would
laugh at the porn girl being accused of turning tricks when she makes
a movie, not because the hooker thinks the porn girl is doing something
different than what she is doing, but because she is doing the same
thing. And I made it clear the wood guy is not a trick. It is the exchange
of money for sex that defines prostitution. Both of us agree there is
a legal distinction here. The difference is, you agree with the distinction
and I do not. But as I said, I'm glad there is such a distinction. I
do not want porn to fall under the laws of prostitution. On this matter
my position is libertarian. Your position is liberal because you agree
with a twisted law. But I assume you would advocate both prostitution
and porn be legal, as I do. (Well, I do have some reservations. Legal
prostitution will drive the price down for pussy.)
1/17/06
Bob
Armstrong: Darker
Gray’s not in The New York Times
The Times’ piece on December 31, “The Graying of the Naughty,” was a
triumph for porn PR. And it was a smooth fit for newspaper demographics,
readers over 50. De’Bella is the featured player in the story on older
women in adult films. “De’Bella’s husband, Larry Schwartz, is fully supportive,”
the story notes, and their daughter, Jewell
De’Nyle, “started her mother down the same path.”
The paper of record leaves its readers with the impression of a happy
porn family. Only those in Pornlandia who have followed the blow-by-blow
accounts of this family saga know otherwise. On ADT, two months before
the Times story ran, Jewell declined an appearance on the Howard Stern
show with her mother, reiterating that her mom, “riding my coat tails
makes her look plain stupid.” Jewell also went after her father big time,
saying “He lost his job in politics that I took the liberty of trying
to cover up for him because he slept with his 16-year-old adopted daughter,”
Jewell’s step-sister.
Now the Times should not be faulted for leaving out a charge of statutory
rape. But it does sound credible given the background of De’Bella’s supportive
husband which could have been mentioned in the story, and was detailed
in the Rocky Mountain News on August 7, 2004. Schwartz served as a Republican
from 1995 to 1997 in the Colorado state legislature, was then appointed
by the Governor to a seat on the Colorado State Parole Board. In 2001
a therapist told the police Schwartz had molested one of her clients and
said two other members of his family had been victimized. The police raided
his house, carting off porn mags and video tapes, many of them with pics
of Jewell, and 15 comic books alleged to depict children having sex.
No charges were ever filed against Schwartz, but he was fired from his
job on the Parole Board, and needless to say, it was time for the conservative
politician to bolt out of Colorado. So out of a job and sunk in a scandal,
where does he go? Porn Valley to set up shop with his wife and daughter.
Jewell said she started Platinum X to give both her parents jobs, put
all her life savings in the company to “get them back on their feet.”
I believe she is telling the truth, but here’s what I don’t understand.
Along the way did her parents get control of the company? If so, how did
that happen? In effect, did they rip Jewell off? Maybe I missed details
on this in trolling the adult web sites. In any case, I’d like the answers
to these questions.
Aug. 1, 2007
Bob
sold 2,500 copies of his memoir, which is 2385 more than I sold of
XXX-Communicated.
Life is cruel that way. It doesn't always reward quality, often preferring
the cheap and tawdry.
I call Bob
Tuesday afternoon, desperate for content, no matter how low the quality
and how irrelevant to my readers.
I wanted to get back on his good side so he'd continue to feed me free
stories.
Bob's finished his second memoir. "It's on drugs and alcohol in
my family."
"My father was an alcoholic. My step-father was an alcoholic and
my mother was an alcoholic. I call that the triple crown.
"My father's still alive. He was married three times. He has a step-son
(now about 60) and a daughter who have been heroin addicts for about thirty
years."
"It's a memoir that goes to a broader audience. Vanilla Slim [about
pimping] goes to a niche market."
"I'm working on another book, something like Jim Goad's Gigantic
Book of Sex."
Luke: "A collection of your writings?"
Bob: "Right. I want to turn it into one long narrative, rather than
a collection of discrete essays. I've stolen the title from David Aaron
Clark -- Pornlandia."
A few weeks ago, Armstrong was turned down by The New Republic. He'd
always wanted to publish in there so it was a bitter blow, leading him
to consume massive quantities of pornography to stem the pain.
He's living on the Oregon coast, 100 miles west of Portland. |