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It turned out to be Jeff Levine who now runs EVN with his brother Scott, a distributor. In 1986, the Levine brothers ran the sales room for Rubin Gottesman's Excitement Video. Steve Orenstein ran the company at the time. I went in there green. My knowledge of porno at the time was the occasional six-pack of beer and a Hustler magazine. Then I got enough money to buy a VCR and a 30-minute Vidco compilation tape. I used to go to the Pussycat in Torrance. I know which chicks I thought were hot. I knew who Seka was. But I never thought I'd be screaming at these girls, 'Get the hell out of makeup now. You're costing me a fortune in overtime.' It's amazing how the bubble burst. I walked in the first day. They gave me a list of video stores to call. I had never sold anything before. I was at Excitement for nine months until the Levine brothers set up EVN. They have 20 people in a boiler room on the phone, selling product. I was a kid in a candy stores watching flicks. Wow! It was a year before I saw my first porno star - Tracey Adams. It was like talking to Mick Jagger. Back then, they'd bring stars in to help push the movies. The girls would talk to some of your customers on the phone. I didn't grow up wanting to be in porno. I wanted to be a rock star. Once I saw the Beatles on the Ed Sullivan TV show. I've played the drums since sixth grade. I played in bands through the mid '80s. Luke: Were you ever a drug addict? JB: I wouldn't call myself a drug addict. I've tried everything once. I'm 42 years old. I came in at the end of the '60s, with four older sisters. I won't tell you that I'm the Virgin Mary. My drug habits are not as large today as they were ten to fifteen years ago. I've mellowed. I'm acting my age. I come from a strict Catholic family. I grew up in the Rolling Hills area of Palos Verdes. I went to Catholic school until eighth grade. I was an altar boy who used to do the Catholic mass in Latin. Luke: Were you ever raped by a priest? JB: That never happened. I was never molested. I grew up in a high end neighborhood. I had a privileged life. I was an altar boy and attended fifth through eighth grade with Christopher Boyce, who sold secrets to the Soviet Union. As dramatized in the Timothy Hutton movie The Falcon and the Snowman. These are the people I grew with. Halfway through eighth grade I was kicked out of my third Catholic school. My father had some problems. We weren't as well off… The public schools were good. So I went to public schools. My first illusion to go was around 1990, when I first worked a set. I was a seller at Moonlight Video. Gary Todd asked me if I wanted to work a set that Saturday. I picked up trash for Scotty Fox's Low Blows and ran cables. Low Blows starred Jerry Butler and this redhead Jacqueline who sucked on Tom Byron's dick. I can remember that as plain as yesterday though I can't remember who I shot two weeks ago. That's when the fantasy collided with the reality. The girls that you jerk off to are acting. It is not reality. Instead, on sets, they say, 'move your legs. Stop. Get more light in there. Take five. Get your dick hard.' The business is not what people think. I've burst many people's bubbles by bringing them to a set. I had a good friend of mine who came to a set in the early '90s, the days of Lauren Hall and Cheri Taylor. And my friend said, 'this is like the day my mom told me there was no Santa Claus.' That was at Ron Vogel's old place on Lassen in Chatsworth near Canoga Blvd. Then he set up RVP, which VCA took over [Trach Tech], and later sold. Now I've worked on close to 2000 videos. There are only so many different ways that people can f---. I've often crossed paths with mainstream celebrities who you would never imagine would be interested in porno. That's when I realized that almost everybody has a dirty part in their mind… More big hairy dudes want to wear women's underwear, and run around in their own homes and jerk off. I learned this from my time selling, when people from all over the country would call me with weird s--- they'd ask for. There is no bottom. You can never hear it all. I maybe jaded, but there is always one more thing. 'I never realized you could stick that there.' That is what the productions have come to, particularly with the proliferation of gonzo. How can we get more bizarre? Many of those who are doing stuff today did not live through the sting operations of the '80s. I came in the week of the Traci Lords scandal [about her being underage]. People were telling me, 'porno is over.' I was there when [this undercover asian LA detective Kashahawa?] he used to come in to buy the tapes. People said, 'he's a friend of Ruby's.' We didn't know he was undercover. We weren't allowed to mix with Ruby and Steve, because Levine did not want us to know what his markup was on the videotapes. They kept everybody separate. You don't need 20 people in a transient workforce complaining all day that they aren't getting paid enough. I don't have many heroes left, now that I have seen so many celebrities chasing porno. Except for big time race car drivers. I so respect them for what they do for a living. The danger level and excitement. I've met professional sports figures from every LA team. I've either partied with them, had them on set with me, or been in the deepest bowels of the arena after the game, with them and people from the business [porno]. It's taken the whole notion of celebrity away from me. Luke: Do you have any heroes in this business? JB: No. Myself. Luke: You did a cool series Radical Affairs. JB: It's funny. When I read about the series now, it's as though I had nothing to do with it. In this business, everybody wants to grab credit. Sometimes I have to ask myself, 'credit for what?' Radical Affairs was an answer to the rising cost of production as opposed to the number of tapes being sold. Radical Affairs began as a way to cut production costs as opposed to the Scotty Fox features. I told Mark Stone, 'Stagliano and Mark Arnold [Ed Powers] are just shooting their own stuff with a High 8 videocamera. Let's just do that.' So Mark Stone went out and put a CanonL1 camera on a credit card. We're creative guys. We were in bands. We decided to make a magazine style show. We'd shoot some stuff, some sex, talk a bunch of s--- and edit it together. It was like working with a huge outline. It grew as we went along. In 1993, I left Moonlight. A business decision. I sold tapes. I had a huge client base. I rented a spot from a local distributor, Buyrite. I had all my accounts on a laptop computer. I brought them daily COD money. They paid my phone bill and processed my orders. I was also a freelance production guy. I'd be a grip, or shoot the camera, or production manager. I shot lower-budget movies. The only thing I couldn't do was catering. I'm such a bachelor. My idea of cooking is sticking it in the microwave for two minutes. I'm such a bachelor that my idea of Christmas dinner is, 'stick it in styrofoam so I can drive around for a few minutes and eat it. So I can digest it right. Waiting in traffic. Sitting at a table doesn't feel it right. I worked with Jim Enright. We did Dream Team. I did Nightclub with Buck Adams. I developed a reputation for getting the job done. I'd stay up to 4AM if I had to… I got along with the talent. So I moved up the ladder, from the boom guy to production manager to producer. The American dream? Luke: What stuff are you most proud of? JB: Radical Affairs, because of the creative process… The jamming mentality we had. We weren't really playing a song. We were more like Cream or The Grateful Dead from the old days. They'd just pick a beat and go with it. And all of a sudden you had 20 minutes laid down on an album. Radical Affairs grew out of improvisation rather than Shot A, Shot B, Shot C planning. The films I produced, and James Avalon directed, for Metro, are second to none. Red Vibe Diaries, Blue Dahlia, Carnal Instincts with Nikki Tyler, and White Angel with Stacy Valentine. This is good softcore that could wind up on Showtime. James Avalon is a great director. We had Jack Remy on camera, Ron Vogel doing the lights, and Arliss Fremont as Director of Photography. Great people who can show what porno can do… Instead of just shooting two people f---ing on a couch… Jace Rocker, Michael Zen are total professionals. They don't just hire ugly hookers to f--- on a couch, with lousy lighting. I maybe talking like a dinosaur. Perhaps today's attention span can't handle anything beyond 'cum in her face and kick her out the door.' Gonzo is cheap.. Luke: How come so many tapes are made, and most of them are crap? JB: Because most people are too embarrassed to complain. When was the last big name person from the straight world, a celebrity or politician or talkshow host, who stood up on a soap box and said, 'I love porno. And we all should love it.' Even rockn'roll stars, who lead f---ed-up lifestyles, won't stick up for us. The basic consumer is not going to come back to say, 'this movie sucks.' The average guy doesn't want to admit that he jerks off. I'll sit in a restaurant nowadays where the dinner is going to be $50 per plate per entrée. And we'll be talking about somebody s---ting during an anal scene without realizing it. And then we look around to see Aunt Betty from Omaha is about to puke in her dinner… And they're thinking, we have to get away from these people. It reminds me of that scene from the Blues Brothers, where they go in the restaurant and start terrorizing the guy. You just can't say anal at the top of your lungs in a restaurant. It'd become so common place. If we worked on engines, we'd sit around talking about carburettors. The sex act becomes common place. We all tend to forget that the whole world is not like this. We live in LA, weirdo central. Go to Utah and tell them that you're a porno star and how happy you are about it, and they'll come out and kill you. We are not universally loved. Almost everybody watches it. But put out a petition asking, 'Do you love porno?' and see how many blank sheets you get back. Luke: Do you date mainstream women? JB: I haven't dated someone outside of the business in ten years. I've been around a lot with the talent. One of the upsides of the business, is that I've been laid a bunch. Luke: What are porno stars like in bed? JB: They tend to be more experienced. You don't have to coerce them into sucking your dick. Anything goes in bed. They're professionals. It's like playing tennis with your neighbor when your neighbor is Pete Sampras. But porno girls have the same insecurities, wants, needs of any other girl. It just maybe closer to the surface. They know all the right tricks. They know when to moan. They know what to tell you. They say you have the biggest dick they've ever seen. I got a good basic education. I read a lot. I can trust my feelings about people. The porno girls still get jealous of you looking at someone else, even if they've just taken a cumshot in the face. If they've just finished f---ing Tony Tedeschi in front of you, but she's your girlfriend. And they take a shower and you go home. And you talk to some other chick on the phone, they may get jealous. You ask them why. They say, 'I'm working while you are actually interested in someone else.' So sex is not the ownership issue of the relationship. It becomes what it really is. Do you feel more for someone else than for me? Porno girls are still looking for love. Few of these girls would give me the time of day when I was holding the boom. I'm no better looking than I was a few years ago. I'm older and fatter. But now I'm a producer or production manager. No one has to suck my dick for work, but the opportunity for sex is always there when you're a producer, director or even a camera guy, because you're so close to them. When you're the guy who can determine wages or who is on the boxcover, you become like Mel Gibson. It's transparent and I know it. I retired from Metro three weeks ago. I am weighing my options. I am open to doing anything else, including mowing lawns. I would cut my lifestyle and pay rate by 75% just to regain some peace of mind and sanity. Running sets for the major productions companies is like standing in the batting cage, taking 100 mile an hour fastballs, without a bat. All you can do is knock the balls down with your hand, and take a lot of pain. It's not worth it any more. I'll mow lawns now if I can have peace of mind. I've learned a lot about psychology, filmmaking, how men will throw away millions of dollars for their dicks… When you're a producer, not an executive producer sitting behind a desk, but when you're on the set, the guy putting it together, getting the permits, ordering the catering, getting the location, getting the camera gear, hiring crew and talent, making sure you have the right type of film, getting the wardrobe, all that it takes to make a movie… When you're that guy, you're life is hell. You have no life of your own. People will call you 24 hours a day for most assinine reasons… I've had five years of nothing but monumental 200-mile an hour s---. Think of the companies I've worked at? Metro, Vivid, Sin City, VCA, Wicked… Who was the guy who fired Jenna Jameson off of Satyr? I shut down the shoot because she was so out of control. Do you know how much s--- I've had to eat from porno stars over the years, then I have to go home to puke, because I can't be the guy who loses it on the set. I've got to hold it together and get it done. Everyone else is freaking around me but I've got to be strong and get them through it. What kind of hole does that put in your stomach? Taking crap from people like Jenna Jameson and the Vivid Girls... They are created. They're a f---ing barbie doll. But I have to take that. I have to eat a plate of s---. I challenge any human being to stand there in those conditions and be a better man than I. Everyone sits back and goes, 'this is how it should be done. You should do this. This shouldn't cost that.' Then they go to bed at 10PM. I'm shooting my third sex scene, and I've got 50 more pages of dialogue. Nobody gets it who doesn't live it. They don't understand the bleeding hell you go through on a major production. 5/21/00 Veteran porn production manager J.B. is riding off into the sunset of mainstream work: I am in pre production on a project which will shoot in L.A. July-August for 18-24 days, and then September-October will start principal photography on #2 of a 4 picture deal (film #1 was what I just wrapped), most likely to be shoot outside of the state of California, due to economic incentives offered by other locales. Gotta be movin on. Time to ride off into the sunset. Dominus Vobiscum Et Tu Spiri Tu Tuo
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