Porn Valley Observed: Home of Gram Ponante, America's Beloved Porn Journalist

As America's Porn Journalist, it is important to me to go to as many parties as possible over the holiday season to spread goodwill and whatever else I can.

The party thrown by LA Direct Models in Studio City, hard by the mighty L.A. River and guarded by giant guys in red suits, met my expectations immediately, as I was greeted by four women wearing nothing but holiday body paint.

"The drink of the house is Cock Nog," I did not say, "and it's Ladies' Night."

Inside the joint was jumping. It was not the crowd of reprobates I normally hang around with, but a different crowd of reprobates, with a little reprobatial overlap. I bumped into my publicist and cousin Wayne Hentai as well as the charming Mika Tan.

"I am looking for hot Asian guys to do a movie with," Tan said, "but they all get scared and chicken out at the last minute. They worry about their parents seeing them."

"You should get Wayne," I said, joining their hands like Bill Clinton in a photo opp. "Wayne is the Honolulu Cthulhu: he'll eat your mind."

"Sorry," Hentai actually said to Mika Tan. "I don't like Asian girls."

"As your attorney, Wayne," I said, "I advise you that you are a fool."

Tan took it with equanimity. I am still scratching my head, and learning origami.

I talked with Dean Sussman, salesman for Nick Manning's Platinum Blue Productions. Sussman, when he was at Sineplex a few years ago, introduced me to Belladonna. For this I bought him a house and pay him a sizable monthly fee.

I asked him if he thought video would die and give way entirely to cable, podcasts, pay per view, etc.

"I walk into two or three video stores a week," he said. "And no matter how long I've been going in, there's always at least three guys in there."

Sussman is from Medford, MA, near where they put the new Krispy Kreme. He looks a little like "Blow Your Face Out"-era Peter Wolf. He's cool as shit.

"The same guys are there everywhere in the country," he said, "so the video stores aren't going away."

I had been warned that LA Direct owner Ben English was severe and hostile. Instead, he was British. "Happy Christmas," he said to the crowd after demanding it quiet down.

It often happens that I will read people's names and assume they are a different color without having met them first. I had heard about the scriptwriter Fozzi and thought he was orange. Similarly, I had read about "Brother Love" in New Sensations press releases and assumed he was black.

"Why are you not black?" I asked, probing.

"It just didn't come up," he said. "Brother Love" is a Sacramento stoner reference. I don't use narcotics, so it was lost on me. I was further disappointed it was not a Neil Diamond reference.

Love has several P.O.V. titles to his credit, and is lobbying New Sensations to create a reality series, like Bang Bus, except woith a different vehicle.

"I want to get a van that looks like the one in 'Scooby Doo'," he said. "But if the money doesn't come through, it's just gonna be my Pathfinder."

I saw Holly Randall. Our eyes met.

"I'm sorry," she said.

"I'll be all right," I said. "But save yourself."

I need to keep walking. I am like a shark. A shark who walks. A shark who must walk or die.

While walking, I almost tripped over Sunny Lane. In past encounters she has worn shoes that lifted her in the air like Elton John as the Pinball Wizard. But she is so small she had to lobby the UN for three-dimensional status.

"What are you doing for Christmas?" I asked.

"I will be staying here with my family," she said.

Lane is a frontrunner for Best New Starlet and is very media savvy. She always speaks in full sentences, unlike me.

Despite her professionalism, someone kept grabbing her breast from out of frame. It wasn't me.