Darren Star

Sex and the City

Darren Star's Death and the City

Krash writes 6/22/99 about Darren Star, the gay producer of the HBO TV show Sex and the City, who left behind a dead 19 year old blonde in his hotel room.

When questioned by New York detectives about the dead blonde Star left behind when he checked out of the Mayflower Hotel, Darren Star gave his name as “XXX”--a ruse that enabled the producer of HBO’s “Sex and the City”--in complicity with Star-struck reporters from the Daily News, NY Post and weekly NY Observer-- to embargo the truth about 19-year-old Leigh Zerhmuhlen’s overdose.

And when the Medical Examiner’s report on Zermuhlen was issued approximately two months after her death, it was ignored by the aforementioned periodicals. Only The Staten Island Advance, in an item dated 12-7-95, took note that “texicology tests found a lethal combination of opiates, cocaine and alcohol” in the doomed Staten Island blonde Star met at the nightspot Bowery Bar.

Later that same night, accompanied by Zermuhlen, Star rented the Mayflower Hotel room where hotel workers found Zermuhlen dead of an apparent overdose three days later. When New York City cops reached Darren Star by phone at his home in California, the producer claimed Zermuhlen was only asleep when he left the room at six a.m. on Oct.25 to catch a California-bound flight . Shortly after speaking with the NYPD, Star traveled to Hawaii for a vacation.

Possibly because the 19-year-old decedent’s apparent overdose bore no evidence of violent homicide, there followed a merely perfunctory NYPD investigation in which no charges were filed against Star--enabling Jay Stowe, Joanna Molloy, Richard Johnson and other memebers of Gotham's gossip junta to conceal from their readers and editors the producer’s role in the fatality.

This conspiracy to spin the story into nothingness is evident in clips from the Post and Daily News. [both dated 11- 14-95] as well as Jay Stowe’s Observer piece. Note how Star’s name is omitted from all three items; note especially Star’s omission altogether from the Observer --where, given Star’s HBO executive-producership of vogueish Observer writer Candace Bushnell’s “Sex and the City” column, the conflict-of-interest is most tangled...almost as tangled, as that embodied by the fact that the New York Post's Page Six gossip columnist Richard Johnson's wife Nadine was the paid Bowery Bar publicist who coordinated the entire cover-up.

And what America really wants to know is: Who scored the hot-shot that killed Leigh Zermuhlen? And what was Star, widely believed to be gay, doing with her?

The May 1999 issue of Brill's Content devoted its cover story to gossip columnist Richard Johnson. I quote a couple of excerpts: "Another source of criticism derives from Johnson's marriage to Nadine Johnson, a publicist who promotes events for restaurants, magazines, and others. "In a city that runs on questionable relationships," one competing publicist says, "this probably is the most conspicuous."

"An unspoken rule prohibits competing columnists from writing negative items about each other."

A source describe Leigh: "She was a bubbly, very attractive 19-year-old blond, obviously not visibly underage because she was something of a regular at Bowery Bar. According to Joanna Molloy's evasive report, which attempted to stigmatize the victim while ignoring the victimizer [16 years Zerhmuhlen's senior], the gal was something of a wannabee star-f---er....always bragging about the celebs she saw at Bowery Bar."

From the 5/31/99 New York Daily News: "Spanking, anyone? To celebrate the opening of the fetish-themed restaurant La Nouvelle Justine in the East Village, the owners invited "Sex in the City" columnist Candace Bushnell and some of her friends for dinner last week. During the night, a dominatrix made the rounds and spanked Bushnell, Sarah Jessica Parker, Chris Noth, Darren Star, Bret Easton Ellis, Sandy Hill Pittman and Nicole Miller."

Krash says: According to Joanna Molloy's elliptically written Daily News item, her [Leigh Zermuhlen] mother's name was Kathleen Ryan--and supposedly is an actress. At one of the numbers I spoke to a relative, and at the other, I got some panicked female who said, "I don't know who you are"--and hung up. I'm thinking some sort of quick and quiet financial arrangement was made.

Now when I stumbled into this, I was not looking for Darren Star--in fact, did not know who he was. Rather, I was troubled by the idea of a story in which a nameless "small-time producer" was able to skip out on this thing...all the way to Hawaii. And suddenly the story vanished...only to reappear in the New York Observer in a puff piece on Joanna Molloy--who in fact had deliberately muddied the trail--a suckjob tribute to Molloy's reportorial skills in "getting the goods" on party-girl Zermuhlen.

Here's where it gets interesting: I asked Baird Jones, who was a desk assistant for the "Rush and Molloy" column, who the "small time producer" was. And Baird said, "Darren Star". And I said, "Who's Darren Star?" Quoth Baird: "He's some HBO producer." Baird gave up this info because he was pissed at married couple George Rush and Joanna Molloy for firing him. The Daily News offered Baird a $12,000 hush-hush buyout--and Baird refused it...presumably so he'd be at liberty to leak stories like this one. "I remember the week the Star thing went down. George and Joanna [New York Daily News gossip columnists] were going crazy on the story--not trying to report it, but trying to bury it." And they did...until lukeford.com.

Jay Stowe writes in the 12/18/95 New York Observer:

Our story begins with [New York Daily News gossip columnist] Ms. Molloy hard at work, trying to get the goods on Leigh Zermuhlen, an aspiring teenage actress who was found naked and dead in the Mayflower Hotel after a wild night that included a stop at the Bowery Bar.

Her body was discovered on Oct.27, but the city’s tabloid reporters had missed the story--until Ms. Molloy got wind of it. Ms. Molloy had one little problem with her scoop. To fully report the story, she would have to call the Bowery Bar for comment. And that meant having to talk with Ms. Johnson, who does PR for the bar. Ms. Molloy must have feared that Ms. Johnson might put the duties of love above those of her profession, and spill the story to her husband over at the Post [Richard Johnson, "Page Six].

So Ms. Molloy waited as long as she could. Then she called Ms. Johnson and got a comment about the underage Ms. Zermuhlen allegedly being served at the Bowery Bar. According to sources, before she hung up, she asked Ms. Johnson to refrain from leaking the story to Mr. Johnson as a professional courtesty, so that she could keep her story exclusive. Ms. Johnson apparently agreed to keep mum.

Ms. Molloy’s story hit the stands Nov. 14. And guess what was in the Post that same day? The story of the naked and dead Bowery Bar girl. In the Post, it ran on page 8 and was reported by Phillip Messing and Larry Celona.

Ms. Molloy got mad. Now, there was the chance that the Post metro staff had stumbled on the story of a woman who had died two weeks earlier--but it seems plausible that Ms. Johnson had used her husband as a conduit.

According to a Daily News source who sits within earshot of the gossip desk, Ms. Molloy was heard to shout , “Nadine, the story’s in the Post today. How did that happen?”

And then: “I don’t want to talk to no assistant. I wanna talk to you! How’d this get in the POST” After a good pause, Ms. Molloy was heard to utter: “you’re full of it, Nadine! gottta go.” SLAM!

Now here are excerpts from Joanna Malloy's piece in the New York Daily News. Notice how she ignores the Darren Star angle, seeking to shift the focus to the dead 19-year old girl.

“Mystery of dead student”

[byline: Joanna Molloy] 11-14-95

Police are investigating the death of a 19-year-old college student whose body was found in an Upper West Side hotel, after she partied at the trendy Bowery Bar. Leigh Zermuhlen had checked into the Mayflower Hotel on Central Park West.

Police say she was accompanied by a television producer [Darren Star].

According to Zerhmuhlen’s family, the two had met at the exclusive East Villge restaurant and bar. Zermuhlen was an acting student at the New School for Social Research and the granddaughter of city Public Arts Commissioner Frederick Zermuhlen who along with Robert Moses engineered the city’s 20-year postwar building boom.

The television producer [Darren Star] has not been charged with a crime and could not be reached for comment. He told cops he had left the room at 6 a.m.on October 25 thinking Zermuhlen was asleep, a police source said.

Hotel security personnel entered the room when the Do Not Disturb Sign remained on the doorknob two days later. They found Zermuhlen’s unclothed body on the bed, the hotel manager said. Police have questioned the producer by phone and requested that he return from California to New York for further questioning. The chief medical examiner is awaiting toxicology reports.

The woman’s mother, Kathleen Ryan, said she became concerned this summer when her daughter began frequenting the Bowery Bar, a virtual clubhouse for trendy scene-makers. She was caught up with seeing the celebrities. She’d say, ‘Mom, I met Leonardo DiCaprio” or “I met Laurence Fishbourne.”

Days before her daughter’s death, Ryan accompanied her to the Bowery Bar. “I wanted to see what was going on,” said Ryan. “I couldn’t believe it--the bartender served her a drink. I asked her not to go there anymore....”

Bowery Bar Babble-On

A User’s Manual by Krash

No doubt many of you out there in lukeland are wondering why all the hooplah regarding a dead blond in Darren Star’s hotel room. What, after all, has any of this got to do with porn? After all, only the most erotically challenged shut-in could possibly regard Darren Star’s HBO series Sex and the City as anything other than the most formulaic excuse to show Type-A Jewish women in designer fetish-wear since Yentl.

However, what might otherwise have been a snarky vehicle for second-tier Hebraic screen personality Sara Jessica Parker approaches--via the fatally narcotized shiksa in Darren Star’s hotel room--the perversity of de Sade. Thus when we conflate the winks and giggles of Sex and The City with the presence of Leigh Zerhmuhlen, 19, dead of a speedball behind a “Do Not Disturb” card in the Central Park West hotel room of Sex and The City’s creator, Darren Star--also known for another high-concept TV series aptly entitled “Central Park West”--we enter much the same drug-fueled, sexually exploitative terrain familiar to you, the lukeford.com reader.

And as we reveal, in the days and weeks to come, the facts about how some of Gotham’s best known newspaper writers buried this story beneath a manure heap of lies and prevarications--you, too, will agree that the tale of Leigh Zermuhlen’s overdose is as pornographic as a dwarf-bukkake spuzz-a-thon.

The day they found Leigh Zermuhlen dead in Darren Star’s Mayflower Hotel room was the day the music died--and the dawning of a syntho-truth as pornocentrically offensive as ten-gallon breast implants. Star-smitten drama student Leigh Zermuhlen’s lifeline sputtered out in a tangle of urine-stained Pratesi sheets at the posh Mayflower Hotel--a junked-out, coked-up, whiskey-drenched American Pie. And it is this unappetizing mise-en-scene that we will revisit tomorrow...in another slice of “Bowery Bar Babble-On” ....exclusively at lukeford.com.

The “Rush and Molloy” column was recently caught out for lying and fabricating its “scoops” in Brill’s Content Online earlier this year [2-99] In an item aptly entitled “Sucker Punch”, Michael Kadish writes: “Tabloid readers rely on the reporting of gossip columnists like George Rush of the New York Daily News's “Rush & Molloy “ to give them the dish on exclusive celebrity events - events that readers might assume these insider columnists actually attend. On Tuesday, January 19, Rush ... described the wild celebrity antics in Las Vegas following Mike Tyson's January 16 victory over François Botha - a victory that neither Rush nor Molloy nor their associates were on hand to celebrate. Instead, it seems Rush lifted nearly everything from Sharon Waxman's piece published the day before in The Washington Post... Both columns also featured identical quotes and similar descriptions... ...

"Rush acknowledges that he may have slipped up when it came to the party's guest list. In Waxman's column, there's an anecdote about Showtime producer Jay Larkin describing to dancer Gregory Hines how he had seen Mikhail Baryshnikov eating dinner with Tyson. But when Rush inserted the ballet dancer into his column, he transformed him from a subject of conversation at the party into an actual party guest. However, Baryshnikov was not at the party or the fight....”

NEW YORK POST:

Tuesday, 11-14-1995:

“Cops quiz Hollywood producer in death of ‘star struck’ S.I. teen”

[byline Phillip Messing and Larry Celona]

Police probing the mysterious death of a “star-struck” teenage blonde from Staten Island at a posh Midtown hotel are questioning a Hollywood producer who briefly stayed with her there.

The medical examiner said yesterday a cause of death has not been determined for Leigh Zermulen [sic], 19, whose nude body was found at the Mayflower Hotel on October 27.

The police investigators say they believe the teen --whose mother acknowledges she was taking anti-depressants and suffered from eating disorders--died of a drug overdose.

Police have not charged the “small-time” producer in the death. Butt they have talked with him by phone from his home in California and expect to question him further when he returns from a vacation in Hawaii [!].

Zermulen [sic]’s mother, Kathleen Ryan, said her daughter was taking acting and writing classes at the New School for Social Research. She said Zermulen [sic] met the 35-year-old producer at the trendy Bowery Bar in lower Manhattan after leaving home on Oct. 24.

“She was Star struck,” she said. “She used to go there on Thursday night after her acting class,” she said.

Ryan said the producer rented a room that night at the Mayflower at 15 Central Park West [Darren Star at the time was producing a series called “Central Park West]--where an employee found Leigh’s nude body inside Room 1610 three days later. The producer moved out before her death, Ryan said.

She claimed police officials told her the film producer left because Zermulen [sic] was ‘acting irrationally.’”

“If he’s telling the police that she’s acting irrational, I would like to know why he didn’t call 911 for an ambulance or ask for her mother’s number,” she said. “As far as I’m concerned, he was just unfeeling, uncaring and callous. He was just looking out for himself.”

STATEN ISLAND ADVANCE, 12-7-95

"AUTOPSY: OVERDOSE KILLED ASPIRING ACTRESS”

[byline: Associated Press] An aspiring Staten Island actress whose body turned up in the Manhattan hotel room of a Hollywood producer died from an accidental drug overdose, authorities said yesterday.

Toxicology tests found a lethal combination of opiates, cocaine and alcohol in the blood of Leigh Zurmuhlen, 19, of Tomkinsville, said Ellen Borakove, a spokeswoman for the medical examiner’s office. A security guard found the young woman’s body in a 16th-floor room of the Mayflower Hotel on Oct. 27, more than two days after she and an older man first arrived together.

The man had left earlier without checking out. Detectives later contacted the 35-year-old californian--described by police as a “struggling Hollywood producer”--through his lawyer. The producer was never considered a criminal suspect. But the dead teenager’s mother, Kathleen Ryan, had accused him of “just looking out for himself” by leaving her daughter alone in the room.

Inspired by River Phoenix--the young actor who died of an overdose in 1993 outside a Los Angeles nightclub--Ms. Zermuhlen took night acting and writing classes at a Manhattan college, her mother said. The young woman also was a regular on the Manhattan club circuit, Ryan said.

On the night of Oct. 24, she met the producer at the Bower Bar, a celebrity hangout in the East Village. At 3 a.m. Ms. Zurmuhlen called her mother to say she was spending the night in Manhattan. At 4 a.m., she and the producer checked into the hotel on Central Park West, police said. Her body was discovered Saturday afternoon, behind a door with a “Do Not Disturb” sign hanging on the knob.”

STATEN ISLAND ADVANCE, 10-31-95:

“POLICE INVESTIGATING DEATH OF ISLANDER”

[byline: Craig Schneider]

Police are investigating the mysterious death of a 19-year-old Tompkinsville woman whose body was found in a Manhattan hotel Friday.

Police say there were no indications of foul play in the death of Leigh Zurmuhlen, of the 70 block of Tomkins Circle, who was found on a bed in the Mayflower Hotel on Central Park West at 2 p.m.

“There were no bruises on the hbody and no sign of a struggle,” said Police Department spokeswoman Noreen Murray. Investigators are awaiting results of an autopsy and toxicology tests, expected in a few weks.

Ms. Zurmuhlen had checked into the hotel the day before with a friend, XXX of California, and, when the two people had not checked out on time, security staff entered the room and found Ms. Zurmuhlen, police said. XXX was not on the scene and police are seeking him for questioning, Ms. Murray said...

NEW YORK POST:

Tuesday, 11-14-1995:

“Cops quiz Hollywood producer in death of ‘star struck’ S.I. teen”

[byline Phillip Messing and Larry Celona]

Police probing the mysterious death of a “star-struck” teenage blonde from Staten Island at a posh Midtown hotel are questioning a Hollywood producer who briefly stayed with her there.

The medical examiner said yesterday a cause of death has not been determined for Leigh Zermulen [sic], 19, whose nude body was found at the Mayflower Hotel on October 27.

The police investigators say they believe the teen --whose mother acknowledges she was taking anti-depressants and suffered from eating disorders--died of a drug overdose. Police have not charged the “small-time” producer in the death. But they have talked with him by phone from his home in California and expect to question him further when he returns from a vacation in Hawaii [!].

“She was Star struck,” she said. “She used to go there on Thursday night after her acting class,” she said. Ryan said the producer rented a room that night at the Mayflower at 15 Central Park West [Darren Star at the time was producing a series called “Central Park West]--where an employee found Leigh’s nude body inside Room 1610 three days later. The producer moved out before her death, Ryan said.

She claimed police officials told her the film producer left because Zermulen [sic] was ‘acting irrationally.’”

7/6/99

Bowery Bar Babble-On

User’s Manual 2.0 by Krash

Luke has requested that I keep this narrative porn-related. Here goes: Darren Star’s Hollywood Hills home is next door to a house once owned by Fatty Arbuckle, the corpulent silent screen star. Cinema buffs will remember that on Sept. 5, 1921, following a night of drunken revels, Arbuckle allegedly thrust a bottle--either Coke or Champagne bottle, no one knows for sure--into the tender vulva of a starlet named Virgina Rappe, resulting in the massive injuries that killed the 25-year-old Rappe days later.

Although ultimately aquitted of Rappe’s murder, Arbuckle tumbled into shameful oblivion and he died at age 46, broke and broken. For more on this, see http://www.silentmovies.com/Arbucklemania/Scandal.html

This item of trivia is especially apt in light of the dead blond, sans culottes, who turned up in a Darren Star’s hotel room, at Central Park West and 61st Street--only blocks from the Central Park West and 67th Street set [a $2.5 million apartment]--of Star’s much-mocked CBS series “Central Park West.”

Pornography takes many forms--and naked blond teenagers are one of them, dead or alive.

Of course, one of the prime distinctions between Darren Star--who may well turn out to be the Fatty Arbuckle of his generation--and the late Mr.Arbuckle himself, is that, in the latter case, Hollywood ‘s tabloid press descended on the fat pervert with crushing scorn and opprobium for the young Ms. Rappe’s murder. Whereas, regarding Mr. Star’s responsibility in faciliating the coke-and-dope fatality that killed another would-be starlet, Leigh Zermuhlen, 19, the Gotham media corps could, as we’ve pointed out, not have been more eager to cover the matter up.

To perspectivize the gaping informational chasm into which Leigh Zermuhlen’s naked corpse would nearly vanish, it should be pointed out that “Central Park West”--now so utterly forgotten--was one of the most media-hyped TV premieres in recent memory. What wags would later dismiss as “Central Park Waste” was being touted from Gotham’s soaring rooftops as “Melrose-Place-on-the-Hudson”.

Based on the successes of the Star-created “Beverly Hills 90210” and “Melrose Place”, CBS gave the hot, if narcotics-prone, mogul a highly generous 13-show committment and a highly unusual agreement to air Central Park West without a pilot.” Thus the man who, according to Vanity Fair, “was largely credited with bringing Rupert Murdoch’s fledgling [Fox] network into the major leagues of broadcasting” , was at the top of his game, as Fatty Arbuckle had been, when his bedmate stopped breathing.

Ironically, Star--in the weeks preceding Zermuhlen’s overdose--told writer Jesse Kornbluth [who is now a top content exec at AOL] in a worshipful cover story for the suckjob “society” monthly “Manhattan File”: “...the large question we’ll be exploring [in “Central Park West”] is the moral character of these people and what they’re doing to succeed.”

Of course, these words might equally apply to Manhattan’s gossip writers, who--in covering up Darren Star’s culpability in the Mayflower Hotel overdose matter-- exhibited a contempt for their readerships that would be beyond comprehension were it not so transparent.

When Bowery Bar Babble-On continues, we will explore the Star-dusted, perc-filled newsbeats inhabited by such noted gossipists as the Daily News’ Joanna Molloy and her husband George Rush, The Post’s Richard Johnson, and The Observer’s Jay Stowe--henceforth to be collectively known here as “The Gang That Couldn’t Write Straight”.

It is a tale of the very purest impurity--awash in a bestiary of payola, quid pro quo and ditzy, coked-out femme fatales that will make the most jaded lukeford.com reader feel right at home.

Oh, and there’s one other thing: a major news organization has picked up lukeford.com’s lead and assigned a crime writer to exume the truth about Leigh Zerhulen’s last night on the town. Let’s see who gets there first.

August 3, 1999

Reckless Endangerment 90210

By Krash

From the nose on down--he is Darren Star, creator of Beverly Hills 90210, Melrose Place and 1999’s dual-Emmy nominee “Sex and The City.” From the mouth on up--he is XXX, Jr.

This Frankenstein by-product of cosmetic surgery and journalistic payola was the last human visage that the naked blond teenager named Leigh Zermuhlen would ever see--before dying on Oct. 25, 1995 from the speedball she ingested in Room 1610, Darren Star’s room, at Manhattan’s Mayflower Hotel on Central Park West.

Almost four years later, Darren Star’s brother, Marc Star a/k/a Charles XXX--a former Melrose Place production assistant who now graces the masthead of clitically acclaimed Erotic X Film Guide --assaults journo L-ke Ford at the AVN expo, and demands that the tale of his brother’s fatal one-night stand be stricken from lukeford.com.

Shortly thereafter, Marc Star’s terroristic attempt to abrogate L-ke Ford’s First Amendment right to report a legitimate story attracts the LAPD’s attention. The rest is history. Case history.

But first, this post-mortem preview in retrospect: XXX, Jr.--a rising star in the MTM Television Distribution department, receives a promotion in summer, 1990...and disappears from the face of the earth.

Almost simultaneously, a brilliant and profilic screenwriter with the unlikely name of Darren Star materializes. He scores with the 1991 potboiler “If Looks Could Kill”. The new, improved Dean Sheu--morphed into Darren Star via surgical chin implant and an equally synthetic bio--goes on to achieve catalysmic successes with crowd-pleasers BH 90210 and Melrose Place.

It is a sweet ride until October, 1995--when XXX reappears in New York City...on a police blotter re. 19-year-old Leigh Zermuhlen’s overdose.

Against this backdrop, the carefully fabricated tale of Darren Star’s Potomac, Maryland youth--the XXX Brothers are in fact from Long Island-- penned in Vogue by “Sex and The City” author Candace Bushnell, reads as transparently as the post-surgical grafts visible on Darren Star’s chin in his Oct. 18, 1995 appearance on The Charlie Rose Show--only a week before cooking up Leigh Zermulen’s fatal hotshot at The Mayflower Hotel.

Bowery Bar Babble-On, when it continues, will reveal how the summer, 1998 firing of Vogue publisher Ron Galotti--”journalist” Candace Bushnell’s then-lover and the inspiration for “Sex and The City” character “Mr. Big”--is indissolubly linked to the dead blond in Darren Star’s bed. As for Rush & Molloy of The Daily News, Richard Johnson of The New York Post, Jay Stowe of The New York Observer and the various other quislings who sold out their readers to Darren Star--lukeford.com has this advice: If the XXX fits....lick it.

August 6, 1999

Leigh Zermuhlen’s overdose in Darren Star’s hotel room was the kind of story that cub reporters dream of. And by not reporting it, entry-level scribe Jared Paul Stern would cement his place is gossipdom.

Today, Stern labors as occasionally bylined assistant at Page Six under Richard Johnson, the former Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous content-provider whose wife, Nadine, was Bowery Bar publicist in precisely the time-frame that a teenager left the celebrity hangout so frequently mentioned on "Page Six" and died naked in Darren Star’s bed on Central Park West. Alcohol was in the 19-year-old’s blood along with cocaine and opiates, toxicology tests later revealed.

Although Leigh Zermuhlen’s post-mortem report never saw the light of newsprint outside her hometown newspaper, The Staten Island Advance, neophyte gossipist Jared Paul Stern colluded with “American Psycho” author’/ A-list sybarite Brett Eastman Ellis--who, like Stern, attended high-ticket Bennington College--and narcophile Darren Star in fabricating a NY Press story in fall, 1995 depicting the nubile overdose victim as a stalker.

Although omitting details such as the exact circumstances by which the doomed blond stalked Darren Star from East Village to a posh Central Park West hotel, then disrobed in his room, cooked up his dope, and died a stalker’s death--Jared Paul Stern’s “scoop” had author Brett Easton Ellis on the record as claiming that Zermuhlen was stalking him, too.

NY Press’ snarky tribute to “American Psycho” by way of Star’s “Central Park West” would earn Stern a coveted invitation to Bennington co-alumnus Ellis’ celeb-studded annual Christmas party--thus propelling Stern to his current omnipresence as someone who gets invited to A-list parties and writes the kind of “news” that gets him more party invites ad infinitum.

Also at Brett Easton Ellis’ swank East 13th wassail, in addition to “Sex and The City” “journalist Candace Bushnell, was none other than Darren Star.

Star’s presence here is eternalized by a party pic in the Star-friendly “Manhattan File”, dated February 96, to which Jared Paul Stern was a contributor.

Although the homosexual Stern had been slagged by The New York Observer as a “piss boy” for his demonstrated gynophobia--showering verbal vitriol on females unlucky enough not to be models or editors, such as the overweight adolescent girl he impugned in a “Detour” mag style column for choking to death on “a pork product”-- his NY Press editor hailed Stern as “a gifted gossip writer.”

The gifted Jared Paul Stern disappeared from NY Press pages shorty after publisher Russ Smith a/k/a “Mugger” learned the exact dimensions of Stern's role in the Leigh Zermuhlen/Darren Star cover-up.

A source tells lukeford.com: “I emailed copy on Zermuhlen's death from The Daily News, The Post, The Observer and Staten Island Advance to Russ Smith at “mugg1988@aol.com” and he wrote back in acknowledgement. This occurred on Wednesday, June 17, 1998. I never heard from him again.”

At the time, Russ Smith was in an escalating epistolary war of words with Richard Johnson at The Post. Johnson had vowed in a letter to NY Press that neither Smith nor his freebie weekly would ever appear on “Page Six.” Smith responded in writing that Johnson was “a cunt.”

Shortly after this uplifting exchange--and shortly after Jared Paul Stern had departed NY Press forever--Smith, according to sources, used the Darren Star whitewash, of which Mr. and Mrs. Richard Johnson were so inextricably a part, as a means of leveraging his way onto “Page Six.”

Since then, NY Press and/or Russ Smith have had numerous mentions on “Page Six”--something which Richard Johnson had emphatically vowed, in the late spring and early summer of 1998, would never happen. Meanwhile, Leigh Zermuhlen, dead of Darren Star’s euphoriants at 19, would live on in NY Press’ archives as a stalker.

NY Press, which is not archived in any libraries outside their own at 333 Seventh Avenue, did not, as this report went online, yet provide lukeford.com with the requested copy of Jared Paul Stern's fall, '95 Bowery Bar item.

Coming Soon: Why S.I. Newhouse Gave Ron “Mr. Big” Galotti The Big Boot from “Vogue.”

New York Post Page Six columnist Jeane MacIntosh writes me:

Yeah, Jared has been here for about 4 years. He is a regular, but he never gets a byline. So technically, Krash was wrong. (Can you tell I am very protective of Jared.) I went on your site yesterday, so now i know what it's about....realize the piece is probably all in good fun. But really a stretch -- showed it to richard, who laughed out loud, mainly because to think he and nadine could concoct an elaborate plot like that and land Jared a job is hysterical. Actually, Jared was already working here p/t when that piece came out, and the chick was still alive when jared wrote it. So the coverup thing is sorta farfetched. Also, I don't think even Jared knew it was Star, because yesterday I asked him and he was genuinely clueless. He was going to check the clips here and get the guy's name. Also, when that story came out, it was a major brouhaha with Nadine, because she was freaking that everyone, even Page six, was writing about it. (Oh, and Richard and Mugger called a truce a couple years back, so they started writing about each other, but then they got mad at each other again and I forget where it stands now. I can't keep up) But anyway, who cares, right? At any rate, if you do get any good, fact-checkable stuff, particularly crime/sex/hollywood things, give us a heads up. Thanks for reading! Jeane Mac.

From a November issue of New York Press, the alternative weekly edited by Russ Smith, the Time Out For Jared Paul Stern column:

"My social life is killing me" is a casual remark frequently heard at places like Bowery Bar, but for a Staten Island teenager whose death by suspected overdose was reported in the Post Nov. 14, it turned out to be true. Leigh Zurmuhlen, 19, granddaughter of city Public Works Commissioner Frederick Zurmuhlen (who worked with Robert Moses), was a celebrity hunter whose stalking ground was the verdant, fame-rich field of Bowery Bar's main dining room, where she longed to work as one of the boite's sexy, star-f---ing waitresses.

She was also the most ardent fan in a long line of admirers waiting to exchange greetings and have their books signed by author Bret Easton Ellis follolwing a reading from his latest novel, The Informers, at the Astor Place Barnes & Noble October 5. Zurmuhlen, in art-student garb and bleached blond hair, hung around long after the other audience members had gone, chatting up store employees and Suzie Leness, the publicist from Vintage Books, whom she mistook for Ellis' girlfriend. Zurmuhlen gave Ellis her phone number, begging him to call her so they could meet. "I'm not a stalker or anything like that," she unconvincingly assured me - as I was standing behind Ellis in my dark suit and fedora, she had mistaken me for his bodyguard. An observer commented, "She seemed like an extremely obsessive fan."

Zurmuhlen's nude body was found in a room registered to a "small-time" Hollywood producer at Central Park West's Mayflower Hotel on October 27. Her mother, Kathleen Ryan, told the Post that Zurmuhlen had met the man at the Bowery Bar on October 24. "She used to go there on Thursday nights after her acting class."

August 13, 1999

Darren Star-log date Thursday, July 2, 1998: Intragalactic medianaut Krash--not making the obvious connection between the Staten Island Advance and S.I. Newhouse’s Advance Publications, owner of Vogue, Vanity Fair, The New Yorker and other fine periodicals--phones the outer-borough daily for info on late Staten Islander Leigh Zermuhlen.

Staten Island Advance newsroom operative Brian Damiano faxes backstory clips identifying Ms. Zermuhlen’s last date as “XXX.” Damiano, shortly after receipt of faxed clips from Daily News, New York Post and New York Observer, agrees that there seems to be a cover-up and, given its Staten Island angle, says that he’ll pitch the story to his editors.

Darren Star-log date Friday, July 3, 1998: Brian Damiano of the Staten Island Advance, contacted by phone, states that his editors have encouraged him to explore the XXX/Darren Star/Leigh Zermuhlen mystery. Later that day, medianautic Krash places a call to XXX of Sea Cliff, NY--leaving a voicemail message requesting that XXX phone Brian Damiano at the Advance with regard to the dead blond at The Mayflower Hotel.

Darren Star-log date Monday, July 6, 1998: Brian Damiano informs Krash--who still hasn’t gotten the Advance Communications link--that his editor, Tom Checchi, has instructed Daminao, suddenly and in no uncertain terms, to spike the XXX story.

Darren Star-log date Wednesday, July 8, 1998: Ron “Mr. Big” Galotti, Vogue publisher and intimate associate of Darren Star collaborator Candace Bushnell, is summarily fired by S.I. Newhouse for crimes against the empire. Not only has Galotti compromised the distinguished Vogue “brand” with a factually suspect Darren Star profile penned by Galloti’s occasional sex partner Candace Busnell, but also he had transgressed the Newhouse corporate structure by leaning, via a corporate proxy, on Tom Checchi to spike Brian Damiano’s investigation into Leigh Zermuhlen’s overdose.

Since the Ron Galotti termination is largely subsumed in Newhouse’s simultaneous firing of New Yorker editrix Tina Brown--which is what gets the headlines--Krash, using the latest cybernetic modalities and mediamorphic wetware, rescues the following narrative from the gaping maws of negative space:

On Friday, July 3, at about five p.m., XXX, Sr., father of XXX Jr.--of whose existence Krash does not yet know--receives a disturbing phone call from a reporter regarding the dead blond in the Mayflower Hotel. XXX phones his son, now known as Darren Star. Darren Star phones Bushnell, who phones Galotti--and together with the XXX family, they spend much of the weekend plotting how to zap the looming Staten Island Advance story. On Monday, Galotti--his reasoning clearly clouded by the innumerable conflicts of interest wrought by his romance with “Sex and The City” writer and Vogue contributor Bushnell --bullies an Advance Publications underling into ordering editor Tom Checchi to kill Brian Damiano’s Darren Star investigation. This intelligence is not slow in reaching the ear of avenging entreprenur S.I. Newhouse.

Darren Starlog date Wednesday, August 4, 1999: Staten Island Advance editor Tom Checchi denies, in a telephonic exchange of analog signals with Krash, that he is responsible for killing the Darren Star story. Moreover, asserts Checchi, he is “not comfortable” with Krash’s invasive phoner. Krash hangs up, allowing Checchi to make himself comfortable, and places a call to Brian Damiano in the Advance newsroom. Damiano reiterates: Tom Checchi is the guy responsible for killing the Darren Star story. Darren Starlog date Friday, August 13, 1999: A telephonic scan of the Staten Island Advance newsroom reveals that Brian Damiano “doesn’t work here anymore”. More heads roll in the next transmission of Reckless Endangerment 90210.

Reporting for lukeford.com: Krash, going boldly where no maniac has gone before.

Woo-OO-oo-oo-oo-OOOOO.... Woo-OO-oo-oo-oo-OOOOO....

August 19, 1999

Krash writes: How many millions does it take to exorcize a dead blond’s restless spirit? Consider the plummeting valuation of The New York Observer--venue for the factually challenged report on the teenage overdose victim found “naked and dead in the Mayflower Hotel after a wild night.”

Consider the sudden about-face of Canadian media magnate Conrad Black, who pulled out of negotiations last month to buy the troubled Manhattan weekly, which was already losing $2 million a year.

Gossip insiders blame Rolling Stone’s recent "Summer Hotlist", which featured both L-ke Ford and “Sex and the City” skin siren Kim Cattrall...attracting to lukeford.com untold thousands of Kim Cattrall fans--including the entire editorial staff of Rolling Stone and several members of Conrad Black’s Hollinger International, Inc.

None of this has been lost on Kim Cattrall fan and former New York Observer senior editor Jay Stowe--who vanished inexplicably from the publication’s masthead soon after his role in the Darren Star cover-up was exposed by lukeford.com.

New York Observer editor-in-chief Peter W. Kaplan did not return L-ke Ford’s calls regarding Jay Stowe’s termination specifically, and the Darren Star matter generally. Of course, it was Kaplan himself who signed off not only on Candace Bushnell’s “Sex and The City” column, which was soon to be a Darren Star Production, but also on Jay Stowe’s published efforts --in the Observer’s notorious puff piece---to deepen the already egregious conflict-of-interest...by recasting Leigh Zermuhlen’s death as a source of cheap special effects meant to glorify the George Rush/Joanna Molloy gossip franchise. It is therefore with a poignant sense of fare-thee-well that lukeford.com expunges Jay Stowe from “The Gang That Couldn’t Write Straight” Active Files.

Taking the publicly discredited Stowe’s place in this proud pantheon is “Page Six” gossipist Jared Paul Stern, the transparently closeted, fedora-wearing homosexual and Brett Easton Ellis groupie whose fiction-posing-as-journalism account in NY Press of the late Leigh Zermuhlen as a stalker has earned Stern an enduring place in the canon of Darren Star studies. Summarized a June ‘98 Details magazine profile of Jared Paul Stern: “As surely as velvet ropes drop and P.R. girls flutter at his approach, the epithet “asshole” seems to bubble up to people’s lips whenever his name is mentioned.”

Meanwhile, the ghost of Leigh Zermuhlen-- dead at 19 of Darren Star-related causes--continues to haunt the necropolitan purlieus of “Sex and City” in a way that perhaps only Edgar Allen Poe or H.P. Lovecraft fans can appreciate.

"Is it any wonder that the self-absorbed, the promiscuous, the drugged and the drunk ... lead lonely, empty lives?" speculated The Wall Street Journal, hitting almost clairvoyantly close to home, or at least The Mayflower Hotel, in a review of the Emmy-nominated, morbidity-steeped Darren Star/Candace Bushnell creation. Observed Daily Variety, “After the announcement that “Sex” was nominated for the nom, some high-profile critics stated the show was not worthy of the nom.”

And the Washington Post had this to say about vixenish “Sex and The City” star and Emmy nominee Sarah Jessica Parker: "She's in love with the camera. Unfortunately, it's unrequited." Stay tuned for more icy-fingered objectivity from beyond the grave...when Bowery Bar Babble-On continues. Exclusively at lukeford.com

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

Porn journalist Marc Star www.stickygreen.com devotes his "The World From From a Porn Point of View" column in the February 1999 edition of Erotic X Film Guide to the internet. I first met Star via email in early 1998 and recommended him to the newsgroup rec.arts.movies.erotica where 3/10 he posted this query: "I am writing an article for Erotic X-Film Guide on the possible connection between the gangbang and latent homosexuality, and I would love to get any feedback you all might have. I am simply exploring the connection, not necessarily asserting there is one. But the implication can't be ignored. I'm sure if any of you have seen a gangbang video or two, you must have given the idea some thought."

Star proceeded to get reamed. Bitter about the experience, he published this 2/99 column entitled "The Internet Strikes Back: Internet gossip hound, L-ke Ford, has turned porn's favorite medium into it's most dangerous enemy."

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

By Marc Star of www.stickygreen.com

I cannot tell a lie. The internet has been my saving grace. Whenever I'm called to do a story that requires even a scant bit of background knowledge, I dial into my trusty world library and search around for a few hours, gathering bits and pieces to sustain my musings. It's rarely as effective just making your point as it is framing it within the context of others. With the internet at hand, there are plenty of others - and they all seem to have diarrhea of the mouth.

Simply because it's posted on the 'net, of course, doth not truth it make. But how much easier is it now to get a first person perspective on literally any topic you can dream up? Hell, it's an anti-social reporter's fantasy come alive! I don't even have to talk to these folks. Such was the case when I went researching some opinions on a previous topic I covered in the Angle:

Homosexuality in the gangbang. Could there possibly be any link between latent gay desires and participation in a gangbang. Dozens of naked guys standing around sharing a woman. The topic was a firebreathing dragon, sure to incite and spread like a foul virus. I expected convulsive reactions. Anger. A vile torrent of slurs. To get going, I dropped the word "gangbang" in the Alta Vista search engine. In moments I was linked to a number of sites. Most of them were picture sites. Few were informational. Only one was voluminous.

lukeford.com. It was a text-only site, but was packed with information on every aspect of porn: every position, every act, nearly any actor or actress from porn's outlaw past to its multi-billion dollar present. I felt I had gone on a blind date with Pamela Anderson - only to find out later she was a post-op transsexual with a fantastic plastic surgeon. The man had hundreds of pages detailing the history of the business. He intimately described the lives of its players. And somehow, he kept his updated with breaking gossip, exposing HIV cases before they broke, giving out performers' real names. He appeared like the Matt Drudge of the porn industry, only Drudge's inside information tends to be more accurate. I learned of Luke's poor standard of fact checking (or rather, complete disregard) too late.

I e-mailed Luke for his comments on the gangbang. Perhaps in his vast research of porn he had stumbled upon some mention of this, or perhaps he had developed an opinion already. Ford enthusiastically and promptly replied. Though he couldn't lend any insight, he wrote, he suggested I post the query to the newsgroup RAME, rec.arts.movies.erotica.

RAME was born by a handful of adult movie diehards who used to converse in alt.sex.movies before the internet explosion, the adult website explosion and scads of advertising spam flooded the newsgroup with unceasing noise. Trying to carry on an intelligent discussion on porn became as infuriating as trying to hold a conversation across the length of a sold-out football stadium right after a touchdown. RAME, however, was to be a moderated, mature discussion area where men and women could seriously discuss porn. It has developed today into an arena where industry folks can listen to what the public has to say and where fans can sometimes grab the ear of a porn insider, oftentimes drawing him or her into an engaging discussion.

RAME is Luke's home. But when I dropped by for cocktails and unleashed my query to the guests, I would never have been able to guess the backlash my simple speculation would cause. Everybody who replied to my query misunderstood the question, thinking I was suggesting that viewers of the gangbang were gay, rather then the male participants. RAME took my post personally! Instead of gathering comments on the gangbang, a flurry ensued over the meaning of my post. My journalistic ability was picked apart, raked over and it was suggested that my post was a backhanded attempt to come out of the closet. In the end, L-ke Ford appended the comments to his site, tacking them onto his own column on the gangbang:

"Porn journalist Marc Star wondered aloud on RAME if love of gangbangs indicates latent homosexuality. Ted Stanulis demurred. He wrote satirically:

"I assume that you, My. Marc Star, will end up writing some similar sounding drivel. You will most likely convince watchers of Vivid flicks and like garbage that us filthy viewers of gangbangs are all really a bunch o'queers. He will write "These gangbang people all really want to be f---ed by Ron Jeremy. He is large and hairy and has a really big dick. He is the essence of masculinity and these viewers, in their unconscious fantasies, become the hapless female subject of the gangbang, becoming enveloped in a sea of hairy assed, big dicked, wisecracking Ron Jeremies, yearning for his precious bodily fluids."

"Dithering voices a similar view: "Here I was, naively thinking I enjoyed watching Trixie Tyler in Anabolic's GangBang Girl 1 because she tenderly received and swallowed 8 gooey cum-shots. It turns out, the REAL reason I liked that movie, and several other Anabolic Gangbang Girls is because I am a latent homosexual. I was subconsciously watching Ron Jeremy's hairy asshole, wishing it was me there; with Ron, instead of Trixie Tyler."

Now, I'm well aware that Ford understood my question when I first emailed him. However, the juicy bits of reply that the RAME participants offered up were apparently too golden to pass up for the sake of journalistic accuracy. The least he could have done was, perhaps, offer up the viewpoint of a handful of RAME readers that challenged the offended for misinterpreting my question.

But such is the style of L-ke Ford. And it's that style which has infiltrated his name through the porn business. When the man slanders professionals and often publishes outright lies, he is going to garner attention. You have to give him credit. In only a few short months, L-ke Ford has made himself impossible to ignore.

Mike Albo (Editor Hustler's Erotic Video Guide): "That dickhead? His skills as a writer are seriously lacking... Most of those geeks on the internet are [losers]."

Jim Holliday (in AVN): "[L-ke Ford is] probably unaware that those who violate the code of privacy get no second chance in pornoland. Much of the industry is now hip to [his] smarmy groveling act, the complete insincerity, the posturing of phony blithe innocence to hide the deviousness and the squirrelly, plagiaristic mindset methodology of this dumb f---."

Gene Ross: (VP Editorial Operations AVN): "Though he proclaims himself an 'accredited' journalist, I still contend that Ford's one of these smear tactic commandos who deploys cryptic sources to do his dirty work, but, himself, isn't able to discern a facto from a fortune cookie."

Rarely have I come across any positive comments on Mr. Ford. In fact, I really only came across one, and with a little insight, it seems quite telling.

Mike South: "You know, it's only a matter of time before 60 Minutes or someone is gonna get a hold of a story about this biz and Gene Ross, Mark Kernes and others are gonna beg for the day when L-ke Ford's journalism was considered a problem. If they think Luke is a problem, wait until they have to deal with a real attack dog like Mike Wallace. Luke should be considered training. Go Luke, we need ya."

As much as I respect Gene Ross, I have to think he's got it backwards. Rather than Ford deploying cryptic sources to do his dirty work, I suggest that Ford is being used as the mouthpiece of folks like Mike South and Rob Spallone, being fed all sorts of rumors and half-truths to discredit all save themselves.

Ford had to have dug up his information from someplace. Though he publishes his autobiography on the internet (just a facet of his self-promotional blitz in his somewhat successful attempt to squeeze himself into the biz), he leaves out any detail regarding his compilation of such an enormous amount of information on porn. Undoubtedly, his first foray from porn fan to porn writer began as an attempt to chronicle porn's mysterious history. I don't think anybody has accomplished what Ford has in that regard, though I don't know if anybody (like Jim Holliday, Bill Margold or Gene Ross) has read the pages for accuracy. Nevertheless, chronicling porn is an excellent way to make friends in the industry, especially with Bill Margold who is more than willing to tell every last detail of his story to nearly anyone with a pen. It's not too much of a stretch to see how Ford could have made a few friends. It's not too far fetched to understand how he could have started getting his gossip. And it's awful easy to see how certain folks within the industry could have pinpointed Ford from the get-go as a weak-minded fan willing to print anything to give himself an ounce of recognition. After all, it's an industry he lusts after enough to have devoted such a huge chunk of his life chronicling.

If you read Ford's site today, you'll find it filled with quotes from Mike South and Rob Spallone. I don't know much about Mike South or whom he is out to get, but I do know something of Spallone's motives. Spallone is the man behind Star World Modeling and a serious competitor to Jim South's agency stranglehold. I have run into Spallone only once and sat through a half-hour tirade on South's ineptitude. That tirade continues on Ford's site.

Nothing comes for free. If Ford wants his juicy gossip, he needs to keep his sources happy. And you only need a couple of good insiders to keep your pages filled with information. But let's call a spade a spade. Ford's page has two types of content: a researched history of porn and a soap opera filled with gossip. Sure, the soap opera is far more interesting, and a less informed reader will take Ford's word as fact. That's what has most of the industry up in arms. The only solution is to convince Ford to police himself. He has accomplished what he probably initially set out to do: He made himself a name in the biz. Now that he has the power to get folks to talk to him, it's about time he start checking his sources a little more carefully, though he indicates he may do that. Ford closes a recent update with a fake conversation with god:

"The entire industry hates you. You've betrayed the trust of the talent. You've betrayed the trust of the movers and shakers. Have you no shame, L-ke Ford?"

"No."

"I didn't think so. Listen, try to do the right thing. Don't be so quick to post your new updates, maybe check the spelling. Make a few phone calls and verify the information. I mean, like, what's the rush? Is the world going to stop if you update your site a few hours later?

Perhaps Ford is indicating that amends will be made. Or perhaps, as Jim Holliday would say, that's just the posturing of phony blithe innocence to hide the deviousness and the squirrelly, plagiaristic mindset methodology of this dumb f---.

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

L-ke Ford replies:

After initially friendly e-mails from Marc Star in early 1998 which led me to recommend him to RAME where he got reamed, I did not hear from Marc again. In late 1998, I met him at the Hustler Hollywood opening where he mentioned this article. Despite repeated requests that he send me a copy, none was forthcoming until Erotic X Film Guide (EFG) Art Director Wes Trails finally sent one to me this week.

I never heard of the article from sources outside Star and Trails. In fact, I don't remember anyone ever mentioning the magazine Erotic X Film Guide (available at newsstands or at 9030 W. Sahara Ave, Suite 455, Las Vegas, NV, 89117) or Marc Star's porn journalism.

The most influential industry magazine is the only industry magazine - Adult Video News. EFG resembles other periodicals for porn consumers such as Adam Film World, Hustler Erotic Video Guide, New Rave and Swank's Video World.

I rarely reply to articles about me, but I have a few thoughts on Marc's article:

1. Regarding the gay & gangbang issue. I posted above Marc's query to RAME, "...on the possible connection between the gangbang and latent homosexuality..." It is by no means clear that he was suggesting, as he asserts in his 2/99 column, that he wondered about the homosexuality of participants as opposed to viewers. Though Star believes I understood his question the way he says he meant it, I did not. I think that many of RAME's answers to his query were sharp and funny. I think that underneath his 2/99 column one can read his hurt at being verbally raped by RAME.

When bad things happen to us, we usually tend to blame others. Rather than take responsibility for either asking an unclear question, or asking what was clearly on his mind and than not liking the response, Star blames me for quoting on my site the juiciest replies to his query.

Star writes that he expected "convulsive replies." Why if he was only asking about the supposed homosexuality of porn studs partaking in gangbangs? People generally only get angry when you threaten them or values and people they cherish.

Regarding the issue of gangbangs and homosexuality, it seems to be the view of many of the most intelligent porn journalists and porn observers that to enjoy watching gangbangs indicates homosexual tendencies. I doubt it. I think it is more likely that porn journalists, who tend be on the left socially, support more fluid sexual identities or, perhaps, project their own.

Does participating in a gangbang indicate homosexual tendencies? I doubt it, though I do think that about half of the heterosexual male performers have had gay sex. And I believe that exposure to porn and participation in it weakens sexual boundaries and makes deviant behavior like homosexuality more likely.

Email: "Luke, here is a fun test to give to porn savvy conservatives and liberals. Have them compare female and male bisexuality. A conservative (right leaning) would stress the huge disease risk difference and perhaps the way a bisexual female can avoid some of the negative social aspects of much of the lesbian lifestyle (disproportionately high domestic abuse, alchohol tobacco and drug use etc). A liberal (left leaning) will tend to have the fluid definitions, minimise the general/disease/social differences and tend to catagorize all bisexuality as the same. As a example, envision telling Rob Spallone that a porn actress is a "rug muncher" and consider the non-reaction. The opposite would probably occur if Rob was told a male performer is bisexual. The flaming of Mars Star is well deserved. In my case I have had long hair since 1968 and this caused a lot of inferences of "latent homosexuality" which invariably said a lot more about them than me."

2. When Star writes that I "slander professionals," I wonder who he's talking about? Himself? Because he writes for Erotic X Film Guide, he's a professional but I am not because I write for my own site on the internet? Is Star referring to other porn journalists like Albo or Ross? Porn makers? Performers?

In my view, there are few "professionals" in porn (exceptions, like publicist Joy King, director Gregory Dark and producer Jane Hamilton, can be found at Vivid, Wicked, VCA and a handful of other companies). Most people who are truly professional would never work in the porn industry. In common parlance, professional in its restrictive sense means doctors, lawyers and accountants.

3. Star writes that "In only a few short months, L-ke Ford has made himself impossible to ignore." And later, "And it's awful easy to see how certain folks within the industry could have pinpointed Ford from the get-go as a weak-minded fan willing to print anything to give himself an ounce of recognition."

I spent two years researching the porn industry before I published anything, and then only to internet newsgroups and later an awkward web site of my notes and ramblings. I came to prominence (first in early 1997 and then in 1998) with my internet reporting on porn's latest cases of HIV. I came into the biz to write a quick history of porn, but ended up getting entangled here and gaining a reputation for circulating a combination of breakings news, gossip, and rants on my front page (beginning in April, 1998).

I used porn magazines in my teens but I had only seen about eight X-rated videos in my life before deciding in September of 1995, at age 29, to write a history of hardcore.

Porn titillates and excites me about as often as it disgusts me and bores me. I am part fan, part critic, part historian, part journalist, part gossipmonger, part satirist, part interviewer... In other words, I am a complex human being (like my readers) who writes what he wants to on his own site. My forthcoming book, A History of X, is more conventional and more filtered (through a publishing company and an editor).

Generally speaking, the profiles, analyses and history on the inside of my site fall under the rubric of journalism, while my daily updates are a mixture of journalism, gossip, and satire. Part of the fun for many readers is that I do not label which is which. I ask that people think when reading my site. I don't offer predigested news like CNN or the USA Today. If you want conventional porn journalism, go to www.avn.com.

Do my sources use me? You bet they do just like they use Marc Star and other journalists. Here's the main difference - on my site it is transparent that I am being used. I frequently don't filter the BS I'm served.

I have not sought to make friends in the porn industry nor to insert myself into it any further than I need to to write on it. I rarely socialize with the industry. I've rarely, if ever, been accused to trying to schtup porn chicks, though I'd be happy to have sex with many of them. I won't lead however.

My sex life has become more boring since I began writing on porn.

In the year before I started researching this industry, I slept with about 30 women. In the past two years, I've slept with three women. In the past year only one and almost always with the lights out. I used to like raunchy experimental sex. Since researching porn, I've come to more highly prize monogamy, safety, modesty and tenderness. My number one personal goal is to get married to a nice Jewish girl and lead a monogamous Judaic life. I would ten times prefer such as an achievement than sex with a dozen of my favorite porn stars (thought that would be great too).

I've often said in interviews that the only way I now see myself quickly leaving this industry is if I fall in love with a woman who demands it. Otherwise, I'm here for a while (though I frequently change focus to material that I find more interesting and meaningful). When asked to choose in the Spring of 1998 between my favorite synagogue and writing on porn, I chose to remain in porn. When asked to choose between a couple of friendships and writing on porn, I chose to remain in porn. When asked to not embarrass my family, I chose to remain in porn.

4. Luke and Fact Checking: I have thousands of readers who fact check my site every day and email me corrections. The material that has been up on my site the longest, therefore, is most likely to be the most accurate as it has been read by the most people.My frontpage updates are the least accurate.

I regard most of the issues and news in the industry as unimportant in its surface meaning. Who wins the AVN Award for Best Anal Sex Scene is meaningless to me. There's no forthcoming video release that I am looking forward to. I see little significance to many of the debates between porners. Therefore, I happily quote people at length in my updates without worrying much about checking the factual accuracy of what they say (with exceptions). I fequently operate more as a talkshow host taking calls than as a journalist. I largely finds meaning underneath the surface of what people say through the way their words reveal themselves, the industry, and the human condition.

When I write as a journalist, as in my profiles and historial riffs, accuracy is important. When I simply quote the rants of porners, I worry most about quoting them accurately and generally worry little about the factual truth of their claims (though this depends on what they say and in what context I quote them). For instance, if Suzy Jean tells me she's "most proud of my roles in Anal Action 32 and Butt Banged 15," Luke is unconcerned (at least initially) with verifying that Suzy truly appeared in those productions and gave a good scene. I simply want to give the reader a taste of Suzy and what is important to her. If I later find out that she did not appear in those scenes or was mediocre, that becomes interesting too and worthy of comment.

Marc Star is right when he comments: "Ford's page has two types of content: a researched history of porn and a soap opera filled with gossip." But he may not be right when he says: "...a less informed reader will take Ford's word as fact." I think my readers are more sophisticated than than. And most of the stuff on my updates does not come from me. I rarely give opinions or pronouncements. I don't regard myself as a paragon of porn knowledge. My daily updates do not pretend to be the gospel truth of porn news. They seek rather to reveal the deeper truths of what motivates and interests porners and porn users.

I strive to offer something different from the industry magazines and websites.

Porn journalists, like most trade journalists, quickly imbibe the values and perspectives of their industry, and hence rarely challenge them. In some cases, like Larry Flynt Publications, porn company actively censor and restrict its writers. Generally, however, it's not so much a matter of porn journalists not being allowed to write certain things as it is that most of them don't question the assumptions and values of the people they cover. Most of the best porn journalism (e.g., Nick Ravo on Paul Little, LA Times 6/82 series on the Perainos) has come from outside the industry.

5. Star writes: "Nothing comes for free. If Ford wants his juicy gossip, he needs to keep his sources happy." Good point.

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

7/99

After L-ke Ford published information linking TV producer Darren Star (real name XXX) to the death of a 19-year old blonde aspiring actress in a New York hotel room in October of 1995, Luke was assaulted by Darren's younger brother Marc (Charles XXX), a porn journalist.

Marc Star punched Ford around 2:30 PM, Friday, July 9th at the AVN Expo (part of the VSDA show) at the Los Angeles Convention Center.

From http://www.geneross.com/archive/july1999/7_12_99.html

Regarding the celebrated Star-Ford confrontation, you may have read Ford's version of the incident. Ford had been writing stories about Star's brother, Darren Star, a Hollywood producer responsible for such shows Beverly Hills 90210, Melrose Place; and Sex in the City. Ford has connected Darren Star with the murder of a 19 year-old actress several years ago in New York. Marc Star says the story is bulls--- and demanded that Ford take the story off his sight. Star claims Ford said no, it was a legitimate story. That's when Star hauled off and struck Ford on the convention floor. Star, a photographer, who has acquired instant cult hero status, has this to say about the incident.

Star: "It felt good. The story was an Internet rumor that started about a year ago. There are no newspaper articles about this woman. There are no newspaper stories in the New York Post or the Observer that says she ever existed."

G. Ross: "How come I never saw you on Beverly Hills 90210."

Star: "Maybe you could have spotted me at the bar at Melrose Place....what happened was that I was in a space about this [Ford's story]. It was an instant reaction. It was something inside of me. I just happened to see him on the floor. I never read Ford's site. Somebody told me he was writing about my brother. I checked it out and decided the next time I see him I gotta say, you have to take this down. It's not true. It's not right. He refused. The truth is my brother has never seen L-ke Ford's site. He's never seen the story. He probably wouldn't even care. But this is a guy [Ford] who I've dealt with on different business levels for about a year. I know the guy. He can't be printing lies. It happened. I did what satisfied me. I walked over to the bar, got a drink....then Brick Majors and another guy came over and tried to intimidate me. They came over as I was getting my drink. They came on either side of me. Whoever the guy Majors was with said he was going to do the same thing to me. I go, whoa, I'm standing right here. They ended up running over to the security guards pointing me out to them...I never figured there was much to get away from."

To make things really interesting, Star is supposed to be covering a Knob/Ryder shoot in Hollywood today. Ford's supposed to be there, too.

"I found out Ford's going to be there...I'll be shooting my photos...until the security guards come," Star quipped. "He Ford] deserves ongoing antagonism. I don't know if I'm going to hit him every time I see him. I may have been inspired by the moment. I can't leave him alone while he's promoting slanderous lies." Brick Majors offered this comment Saturday afternoon:

Majors: "I'm not happy with L-ke Ford. I told Star if you're going to fight the guy, don't take cheap shots. If you're going to fight the guy, step up and fight the guy."

G. Ross: "I heard that you called security on Star."

Majors. "No. I never talked to security. I never saw security....honest. Somehow it got back to L-ke Ford that security's asking me if I saw the fight. No. I saw them discussing something. I didn't see anybody swing. All I heard is that Marc Star took a cheap shot. I told Marc Star if you have a problem with somebody, step up. Then security came up to me. I said, hey, I didn't see anything."

From http://www.geneross.com/archive/july1999/7_16_99.html:

The Brick Majors Controversy

Realizing that this is acquiring the texture of the Warren Commission Report on the Kennedy Assassination, we're going to try and wrap things up this morning on the Mrc Star/L-ke Ford story. Brick Majors who's fast becoming Lee Harvey Oswald in all of this, has been getting the cold shoulder from sectors of the biz supposedly stemming from Rob Black's comment posted earlier this week that Majors was a "rat" for allegedly giving up Marc Star to the security gendarmes at the Summer Expo after Star's tiff with L-ke Ford.

This is what Mark Webb, an apparent eyewitness has to say about the whole thing: "Common sense would tell me to just stay out of this, but I must reply as I have seen Brick Majors take an undeserved bashing over this whole incident.

"Irregardless to whether or not L-ke Ford deserved to get clocked at the Expo, the timing and place were inappropriate. Had a serious melee broken out as this was happening a lot of people could have gotten hurt, including talent and others that just happened to be floating by. The incident took place in front of the AVN & Knob/Ryder booths.

"Neither myself nor Brick called security, that was done by someone else. Brick and I did however locate Mr. Star in the food court area and question his misguided actions (or heroic actions as some of you feel). While we were talking to him, security approached us and led Mr. Star away. His badge was confiscated and I believe he was not let back into the venue. It was I who asked him how he would feel if I just "layed him out right there" for his actions, so he would understand where we were coming from. I mean what would be the difference. I wasn't personally involved and neither was Marc Star, the whole incident involved L-ke Ford & Darren Star. WE WERE NOT STANDING UP for L-ke Ford, I am appalled that "sucker punching" is an accepted practice in this industry and that Mr. Star was upset for his believing that we were defending Luke.

"So if Mr. Star reads this, just remember what I truly said to you that day about how it is your brother that needs to defend himself against accusations and falsehoods posted by Luke. Your "family vigilantism" has no place on the floor of an industry presentation where we are all represented. I truly don't believe that anyone in this industry advocates physical violence to solve matters. Brick and I showed restraint by not becoming physically involved at the requests of Kristen and others who so vehemently testified to your innocence. You were chased down for your actions, not your beliefs.

"L-ke Ford plays with fire on a daily basis, we know this and I believe that he knows this. Everyone in this industry fuels his fire by responding to his posts, rumors and innuendo. Hell, we even respond to his truths. "On a weekend when we are fundraising for the free-speech coalition, someone was attacked for their remarks and posting on the internet, which last time I checked, albeit tasteless and irresponsible at times, were still covered under free speech.

"Brick, sorry we got involved, we probably aren't the most popular people right now, but I am sure that we did the right thing and I personally would do the same thing if it happened tomorrow. Gene sez: "

The question is, who was the gunman on the grassy knoll. If Major and Webb didn't call security, then who did. [Most likely Ford himself.] But here's where we get the conflicting stories. Majors says no, but Marc Star still claims it was Majors who took his badge, as this e-mail and a follow-up phone call to Marc attests:

Marc Star's e-mail: "Gene: The following was sent to me by L-ke Ford. I see no point in responding to him directly so I am sending this on to you. Apparently L-ke Ford believes the burden of proof is on the innocent: [Star quotes Ford]: 'I will quit "journalism" and take down my darren star stuff if you or anyone can show me that Darren had nothing to do with leigh zermuhlen's death, was not in the hotel with her, etc... Peace..LF

"Also, I don't want Brick Majors to be in hot water and want to retract my statement claiming that he went and flagged down security. He simply grabbed my convention pass and made off with it. (L-ke Ford actually printed on lukeford.com that Brick flagged down security. I am yet another reader suckered in by his string of false truths.) Brick had no idea what he was stepping into and is absolved in my eyes.

-Marc Star in a follow-up phone conversation:

Star: "Brick grabbed my convention pass."

G. Ross: "What the f--- was that all about?"

Star: "That's what he did. I never got my pass back. That's the primary reason why I never showed up at the convention the rest of the weekend. But I don't want to get Brick in hot water. He didn't know what he was doing."

G. Ross: "Did you go to that shoot Monday?"

Star: "Yes."

G. Ross: "Did Luke ever wind up showing?"

Star: "No..I got word that he called one of the girls on the set, I don't know who, and asked if I was there. When he found out I was there he decided not to come. That's what I heard."

Brick Majors called yesterday afternoon to say that he'd been in contact with Rob Black about Black's comments.

Majors: "I didn't even know who L-ke Ford was before this thing happened including Marc Star. I never saw security, I never called security. I guess he's [Rob Black] already had somebody call you to get whatever statement he made about me withdrawn from your website. I talked to Rob's secretary or his assistant, whatever it is. On top of it, when security came back to me after the fact and asked me what I saw I said, buddy, I didn't see a thing.

"Did you get a letter from Mark Webb? Because Mark Webb's the one who asked me to go over there with him. He goes I'm going to find that guy. I said who are you looking for? The guy that just hit him [Ford]. I said what did he look like. Did you see him? He said, yeah, I don't even know who he is. I followed him over there. I said is that the dude. He said yeah. Mark Webb gets in his face. Mark Webb's the one who called me. He's the one who said here comes security. I'm looking at the guy's [Star's] badge. He pulled it out of his back packet. I take the badge, look at his name. It says whatever it says. Then here comes security. Then everybody went their own way. I never saw security.

"Mark Webb calls me and says Brick you're taking the heat for all this. I better step in and clear things up. After the incident happened, Mark Webb had me go with him, when we came back, I never saw L-ke Ford again. L-ke Ford can't say I did anything. He was the one at the front door telling security, supposedly making a police report. And they came back over and asked me if I saw anything. I was with Dayton Rain, and Dayton sat there and both of us said no, sorry, we didn't see a thing.

"I didn't want to get anyone in trouble. I don't know either one of these guys. I don't know what the beef is. I have nothing to do with it. I guess Rob Black's comments are going upon what he's reading from everyone else. If he's going to bring my name up he should talk to me first before he starts shooting his mouth off about it. This is ridiculous. [The Star incident occured Friday afternoon. Black was interviewed Saturday morning on a whole other issue when he brought Majors' name up as the "rat" in the wood pile.]

Rob Black: "The guy's [Major] been calling. He can't get work now. Marc Star called me up, he was like thanks for the support, but I don't want to be the guy who gets this guy black listed. So, finally Brick Majors called me like eight times Thursday. I'm like fuhgedaboudit...I don't know..Brick Majors is a wonderful guy..everybody should use him. There's the retraction. Everybody should use him, and pay him more than what his rate is, and he's not a f---ing rat."

From http://www.adultstarsmagazine.com/blow.htm:

At the 99 AVN Adult expo, in Los Angeles, California L-ke Ford was visiting the ASM booth when out of the blue a person struck him and sent him flying across the floor. The concerned Vice president of ASM, David Bernstein picked Luke up and carried him to the couch at the ASM booth were he was revived by the beautiful Daisy Chain and the remarkable Angela Summers and was pronounced in sore but stable condition.

From http://www.adultstarsmagazine.com/south.htm:

Quickly now, who is the most despised person in porn? If you said L-ke Ford, you are correct, but while everyone says they hate him they also read his site, religiously. Seems Luke recently uncovered some dirt on Darren Star. Star is the director of HBO's hot new series "Sex in the City". It seems Star is directly linked to a dead 19 year old girl in a hotel room, autopsy reports revealed illegal substances in her system. What Luke didn't know is that Star has a brother in the porn biz, Mark Star is editor of an industry review magazine and he confronted Luke in front of the Adult Stars Magazine booth at the recent VSDA show in Los Angeles. Star then proceeded to sucker punch Luke, security was summoned, police were called and Star was ejected, Luke did not choose to press charges.

From the October, 1999 issue of Hustler Erotic Video Guide. Sid Deuce's gossip column on page 25:

L-ke Ford Punched Out!!!

Passive-aggressive pseudojournalist L-ke Ford, who, for the past year has been posting hyperbolic ramblings, wild accusations wiht no basis in fact, and other disturbing nonsense on his Web Site, has confounded a number of industry observers for the sheer luck of not being attacked by any of his victims. Well, his luck ran out at the recent VSDA show when he met up with Marc Star, the editor of the Las Vegas-based Erotica X-Film Guide. It seems that Ford has been on a campaign to smear Star's brother Darren, a television producer who has done several episodes of Beverly Hills 90210 and HBO's Sex and the City. Briefly, in 1995 a young woman of Darren's acquaintance OD'd at the Mayflower Hotel in New York. While the authorities have never considered Darren Star a suspect in the young woman's death, Ford, as per usual, has decided that there is some sort of dark coverup taking place and that it is up to him to expose "the truth." Marc Star, unhappy with the way Ford has been portraying his brother, confronted Ford at the show and their meeting culminated in a blow to Ford's midsection. Both men were escorted out by security and were questioned by authorities. Ford declined to press charges. For his part, Marc Star has stated that as long as Ford keeps posting "lies about my brother, I'll do the same thing to [Ford] every time I see him." It was a rough weekend for Ford who, besides being punched, was ridiculed for posting nude photos of himself on his Web Site in addition to being denied the complimentary admission that other press received because the organizers of the show did not consider him to be a valid journalist, but rather a demented fan boy with a Web Site.