Bill was a great guy who knew a lot of the inside happenings in the industry. He interviewed lots of people for his magazine Sleazoid Express. He gave me tips and stories. He was an interesting guy. He died last week of a heart attack. He was awfully young for that ( not yet 50), but he had some demons in his past and possibly in his present that might have contributed to his early demise. Sometimes of the e-mails I got from him were undeciferable, but others were gold. Here are some snip-its of our correspondence…
Hey Bill, Haven’t heard from you in a while! How ya doin?
Very bumpy ride Cindi. Last month I had to recouperate from 3 broken fingers on the right arm which was stuck in a cast until 2 weeks ago Chicago is not pedestrian friendly and I tripped after of all things having an ice cream on uneven pavement in not the best area of town by a strip mall of all places. Thinking it was just a bruise, it got really swollen and lo and behold, it was fractures.
I did explain to you about the conflict with the original Luke Ford who I really think is a fucking jerk for reproducing my story in the Voice violating all copyrights and eventually resulting in a legal action by that paper against him.
The Sleazoid Express book is STILL selling and the new method used to drive authors nuts is putting it in "print on demand: instead of returning the rights (besides the fact that it is being sold new by sellers on amazon, thus recycling itad infinitum).
Frankly, I’ve been really active about writing for a long time (since 1980 when I was 21 and started Sleazoid and had a column in the weekly Soho News that was the "other" NY paper besides the Voice at that time,
then began writing different urban color pieces for the Voice) – and found myself stymied at this point.
I don’t know what your dealings with mainstream companies are like – but Sleazoid Express sold really well
I’ve been writing a huge amount on films again (I was approached by
one small but notorious publisher to redo that old – I can only call it camp – chestnut Sadism in the Movies so I knocked off a 60 page sample of that. I work very fast when I have the circumstances to.
I completely appreciate your help with my projects, and also believe strongly that favors be reciprocated.
FYI when Body For Rent came out I was working rather straighlaced temp gigs at law firms in NYC. Wh en one of them hired me, I was rather horrified that LukeFord plagarized it word for word! I immediately contacted the Voice lawyers and he put a paragraph or two summary of it. His company wanted me to "talk" to him,probably to get a transcript of how much it had upset me. Also I had a newborn child at the time (one myth shattered in many ways – people AREN’T necessarily nicer to you when you have a newborn, they take advantage of you in the workplace financially; and also can do the cruelestthings.).
I sincerely HOPE you are not carrying on his"flame" so to speak – he was one of the opportunists who saw a career for himself in something he
knew nothing about.
For a while we wrote Alpha Blue’s catalogue, including the infamous Avon Dynasty story. We did not know he would later use it to market the box set of Phil Prince’s criminal home movies. Alpha Blue, since I’m an oldies music fan, was like our Morris Levy.
One last thing I’ll include – we worked for Taschen books for the Vanessa del Rio bio – we don’t have an author’s copy because it sells for some $800 price range but we did the story on the roughie auteur Joe Davian, who was a Dacchau survivor on top of it, aside from making some of the most imaginative films in that genre. We had a most amicable time working with Dian Hanson there.
The “original” Luke Ford was a very unusual individual indeed. I believed his family background haunted him deeply…his personal demons were and are very intense. He and I have shared similar crossroads…Peace~ Happy New Year.
Luke lacked basic empathy for other humans. There was something seriously unbalanced about him.
The real Luke Ford seemed to be the closest to being fair and balanced of any porn industry reporter, and still is IMHO. No offence to NL or anyone else.
Even as a fan of Luke Ford I can say that he did hurt some girls on purpose while caring too much about others. So Tara might be right on that. I do not know why he elected to care about some girls and hurt others.
I always liked Luke, although I thought his “poor me” stuff was him crying out for attention. He also would be a candidate for the “I am crazier than Sophia Mounds Club”
BigLee, Tara, Rics, and MissB, I agree with you guys. He is bipolar. It’s pretty easy to tell from what he wrote and did over the years. Real Luke Fan, yes, he was objective at times, but very malicious at others.
Luke, if you’re reading this, do the best you can to deal with this problem. Happy New Year, and take good care of yourself.
A (very) basic description from Wiki:
Bipolar disorder is a psychiatric diagnosis that describes a category of mood disorders defined by the presence of one or more episodes of abnormally elevated mood clinically referred to as mania or, if milder, hypomania. Individuals who experience manic episodes also commonly experience depressive episodes or symptoms, or mixed episodes in which features of both mania and depression are present at the same time. These episodes are usually separated by periods of “normal” mood, but in some individuals, depression and mania may rapidly alternate, known as rapid cycling. Extreme manic episodes can sometimes lead to psychotic symptoms such as delusions and hallucinations. The disorder has been subdivided into bipolar I, bipolar II, cyclothymia, and other types, based on the nature and severity of mood episodes experienced; the range is often described as the bipolar spectrum.
While you must take their studies with a grain of salt due to their antiporn stance Landers and Farley in separate studies has said that bipolar disorder is after PTSD the most common mental disease in the Sex Industry.
Luke is bipolar in my opinion. Shelley Lubben is (or was since she claims to be cured) bipolar. Many PWs and behind the scenes guys are bipolar. I believe that in XPT Mia Rose and Hailey Young recognized the are bipolar.
80% of Bipolar people abuse alcohol and drugs.
yup
rics: after I caught a dui I went to a psychiatrist to see why I used to get fucked up so much and he told me I was bi polar… it’s a coping mechanism…impulses to use drugs and alcohol can be triggerred just as suddenly as mania and depression, and unfortunately the perpetuate each other
I had an aunt who was bipolar, she abused tobacco, but gladly she did not touch other drugs including alcohol.
She was a huge chain smoker. She died of Cold that her damaged lung could not handle.
Most of the porn chick I talk to in private seem to be bipolar. Some of them seriouly.
I think the term gets thrown around very loosely, and many who get labeled bi polar are really just emotionally immature.