| --Friday, April 29, 2005--
Riding the Curves 3: Why it's important to stay hydrated
 Just so you know, porn stars don't spend months preparing for a film and then go on a vacation once they've shot it. There are no boot camps or sauna days for these hard workers, and when they punch the clock at the end of the day, pack their lunch pail, and drive down the 101 to their second jobs as clerk-typists, scoutmasters, and HazMat-certified Superfund Inspectors, they leave their day jobs and the manufactured fantasies of romance at the end of a spoon-fed creampie behind.
It is a sad fact that the business of this industry is business, and that erectile tissue has nothing to do with matters of the heart.
Unless you're Denis Marti and Lauren Phoenix. Something wonderful happened when I walked on to the set of Hustler's Riding the Curves 3 last Saturday: They fell in love. I have that effect on people.
At first, I thought I'd walked in on a scene in progress. I turned a corner of the porn house just up the road from Harvey Korman's place to find a bottomless Lauren Phoenix getting her ass squeezed absently by Dennis Marti, a Nacho Vidal protege who lives in Prague and often shoots with Rocco Siffredi.
After watching them talk to each other for a few minutes, I realized they weren't in a scene. They just happened to be talking while he was casually squeezing her ass. It seems odd now that I didn't realize it immediately. I often squeeze my own ass while talking, so it should have seemed natural to me.
It turns out they were just discussing the next scene, Marti told me. The next scene involved Phoenix walking up the stairs, it turned out, and I really could have explained the whole thing to her in my own special way, but whatever.
Marti was born in Italy, so naturally we spoke entirely in Italian throughout the interview, making everyone who wasn't a polyglot like me uncomfortable. It sounds rougher in the translation, but let me assure you our conversation was witty and delightful.
GP: Hiya.
DM: How are you?
GP: Awesome. What's going on?
DM: Not much. What about you?
GP: I'm asking the questions here!!!
And so on.
 Lauren Phoenix was wearing a selection of doilies and six-inch Lucite heels. I thought it might really work out between us. She stood about 6'3". I didn't realize she was so tall and I told her so.
"I'm massive," she said.�
Dennis Marti is very friendly. Shirtless, he is wearing pressed jeans and blinding white sneakers. He's about 5'7", I think, and when he gets into it with Lauren later he looks like an ant crawling around a delicious ripe peach.
"Nacho Vidal was a big influence on my career," he said. "But not the second part of his career." That means that Denis doesn't do trannies. "He was never afraid to go beyond the limits. Even beyond Rocco."
There are three other people in the room besides the stars and me. One of them is veteran photographer Claudio, who has a last name, too. I didn't want you to get the impression that he just goes by "Claudio" because he's a much cooler guy than that. Denis is technically the director on this picture, but Claudio gently calls the shots throughout the day.
Denis is very cordial and asked me if I wanted a drink or anything.
"No," I said. "I stole some silverware and dishes already." Denis smiled politely.
Later, of course, I find out we're standing in Claudio's house. Nice.
The moment passed. I commented on how laid back yet efficient the set is, and Denis said, "We are Italian; so we have fun."
Claudio is also Italian, so he and Denis discuss the shots as if they were Pope Benedict XVI addressing Vatican Square.
"La preparo per l'anale," Claudio said. That means, "Get ready for anal." And we're off.
I won't describe the sex because it makes me feel dirty and wrong. But there is a reason Lauren Phoenix has won all those awards and has a city in Arizona named after her. Trade publications and award-granting entities tend to recognize people like Phoenix because she is very charming, hot like fire, and dirty as hell.�
As this was a Hustler shoot, there were no elements of surprise, like gunfire, fisticuffs, or uncontrolled sobbing.
"Since we are shooting for Hustler, for America," Marti said, "we don't do anything too out there."
In between scenes, he and Phoenix founded a mutual admiration society.
"You were great," she said. He was, too. More than one performer has not lasted the required nine rounds with Phoenix because she makes them feel like they're watching her from the privacy of their own home with the shades drawn. It's over in five minutes.
"If this happened every day," he said, "I'd be very very happy. I'd be happy man."
They posed for stills. Denis was drinking a bottle of Crystal Geyser water. With his cock in her mouth, he said, "Drink water every day; look at what it can do for you!"
"You have to stay hydrated," Phoenix added.
Back to live action, Phoenix said the following things within ten minutes, which I think are very important things to say to people.
 "You like my big fat ass?"
"You like my tiny pink asshole?"
"Fuck that second cunt."
"Make my ass come."
The house is beautiful. As I walked around, trying to stay out of the shot, I would occasionally appear in a mirror like the dead kid in Three Men and a Baby. Even though there was anal going on and the couches were slipcovered for the inevitability of what the Etruscans call "Ass-water," I found myself tentaive about setting down my Red Bull on any of the immaculate surfaces.
This was the first time Marti and Phoenix worked together and (I hate to use this word but I have to be sincere once in a while) they had real chemistry. It was like me and Iphigenia Squirtz, except our house isn't as nice.
See the gallery here.
posted by Gram the Man
at
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Riding the Curves 3: why it's important to stay hydrated
 Just so you know, porn stars don't spend months preparing for a film and then go on a vacation once they've shot it. There are no boot camps or sauna days for these hard workers, and when they punch the clock at the end of the day, pack their lunch pail, and drive down the 101 to their second jobs as clerk-typists, scoutmasters, and HazMat-certified Superfund Inspectors, they leave their day jobs and the manufactured fantasies of romance at the end of a spoon-fed creampie behind. It is a sad fact that the business of this industry isbusiness, and that erectile tissue has nothing to do with matters of the heart.
Unless you're Denis Marti and Lauren Phoenix.
Something wonderful happened when I walked on to the set of Hustler's Riding
the Curves 3 last Saturday: They fell in love. I have that effect on people. At first, I thought I'd walked in on a scene in progress.
I turned a corner of the porn house just up the road from Harvey Korman's place to find a bottomless Lauren Phoenix getting her ass squeezed absently by Dennis Marti, a Nacho Vidal protege who lives in Prague and often shoots with Rocco Siffredi. After watching them talk to each other for a few minutes, I realized they weren't in a scene. They just happened to be talking while he was casually squeezing her ass.
It seems odd now that I didn't realize it immediately. I often squeeze my own ass while talking, so it should have seemed natural to me. It turns out they were just discussing the next scene, Marti told me. The next scene involved Phoenix walking up the stairs, it turned out, and I really could have explained the whole thing to her in my own special way, but whatever.
Marti was born in Italy, so naturally we spoke entirely in Italian throughout the interview, making everyone who wasn't a polyglot like me uncomfortable. It sounds rougher in the translation, but let me assure you our conversation was witty and delightful.
GP: Hiya.
DM: How are you?
GP: Awesome. What's going on?
DM: Not much. What about you?
GP: I'm asking the questions here!!! And so on.
Lauren Phoenix was wearing a selection of doilies and six-inch Lucite heels. I thought it might really work out between us. She stood about 6'3". I didn't realize she was so tall and I told her so.
"I'm massive," she said.
Dennis Marti is very friendly. Shirtless, he is wearing pressed jeans and blinding white sneakers. He's about 5'7", I think, and when he gets into it with Lauren later he looks like an ant crawling around a delicious ripe peach.
"Nacho Vidal was a big influence on my career," he said.
"But not the second part of his career."
That means that Denis doesn't do trannies. "He was never afraid to go beyond the limits. Even beyond Rocco." There are three other people in the room besides the stars and me. One of them is veteran photographer Claudio, who has a last name, too. I didn't want you to get the impression that he just goes by "Claudio" because he's a much cooler guy than that. Denis is technically the director on this picture, but Claudio gently calls the shots throughout the day.
Denis is very cordial and asked me if I wanted a drink or anything.
"No," I said. "I stole some silverware and dishes already."
Denis smiled politely. Later, of course, I find out we're standing in Claudio's house. Nice.
The moment passed. I commented on how laid back yet efficient the set is, and Denis said, "We are Italian; so we have fun."
Claudio is also Italian, so he and Denis discuss the shots as if they were Pope Benedict XVI addressing Vatican Square.
"La preparo per l'anale," Claudio said. That means, "Get ready for anal." And we're off.
 I won't describe the sex because it makes me feel dirty and wrong. But there is a reason Lauren Phoenix has won all those awards and has a city in Arizona named after her. Trade publications and award-granting entities tend to recognize people like Phoenix because she is very charming, hot like fire, and dirty as hell.
As this was a Hustler shoot, there were no elements of surprise, like gunfire, fisticuffs, or uncontrolled sobbing.
"Since we are shooting for Hustler, for America," Marti said, "we don't do anything too out there."
In between scenes, he and Phoenix founded a mutual admiration society.
"You were great," she said. He was, too. More than one performer has not lasted the required nine rounds with Phoenix because she makes them feel like they're watching her from the privacy of their own home with the shades drawn. It's over in five minutes.
"If this happened every day," he said, "I'd be very very happy. I'd be happy man."
They posed for stills. Denis was drinking a bottle of Crystal Geyser water. With his cock in her mouth, he said, "Drink water every day; look at what it can do for you!"
"You have to stay hydrated," Phoenix added.
Back to live action, Phoenix said the following things within ten minutes, which I think are very important things to say to people.
"You like my big fat ass?"
"You like my tiny pink asshole?" "Fuck that second cunt." "Make my ass come."  The house is beautiful. As I walked around, trying to stay out of the shot, I would occasionally appear in a mirror like the dead kid in Three Men and a Baby.
Even though there was anal going on and the couches were slipcovered for the inevitability of what the Etruscans call "Ass-water," I found myself tentative about setting down my Red Bull on any of the immaculate surfaces. This was the first time Marti and Phoenix worked together and (I hate to use this word but I have to be sincere once in a while) they had real chemistry. It was like me and Iphigenia Squirtz, except our house isn't as nice.
posted by Gram the Man
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--Thursday, April 28, 2005--
The woman on the left has no shirt on
 Is your name Ava Devine? Is your name Shane? If so, call Jay Moyes at adult trade publication AVN. The number is 818-718-5788. He wants to talk with you. He wants to give you something that only he can. I don't know what it is. Maybe it's some of his original dominatrix artwork? Maybe it's tickets to a munch? Maybe he wants to paint your fingernails black? I don't know. I just write what AVN pays me to write.
posted by Gram the Man
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How to kick the gong around
 Porn Star Karaoke didn't have a sponsor Tuesday night, and Sardo's met federal sausage party standards for the first time since I've been attending. The gang from XBiz was there, and thought enough to bring the latest issue of their Variety-esque trade publication, in which resided an article recounting lovingly unpleasant things about Keiko's singing. Hence the evil look I got from Herself as I walked in, despite our tearful reconciliation just one month ago. It's not like I wrote the article...
Later Keiko sang "Black Velvet" by Alannah Miles. It was so exquisite that I think she should change her name to Yay-ko. She was deep in secret counsels with Tod-Hunter all evening, like the Ents with Saruman in better times before the power of the Ring waxed anew.
I saw Robyn, the woman who has made Self-Hating Lew reevaluate his role in the world, as a man, as a man of faith, and as an ethical journalist. She recently broke his heart with her golddiggery. She was with another man. No wonder Lew wasn't there.
I was talking with someone who wanted to buy my site (saying "blow me" to a porn star doesn't have the same effect as when you say it to anyone else) when Dick Smothers Jr. took the stage. I admit I wasn't paying much attention, but I think the self-described Orson Welles of Porn twice said something like, "If you don't agree with me, you suck cocks by choice."
If anybody reading this was there and knows what the context was, please let me know.
I was tired and was getting ready to leave when Cytherea showed up.
As you know, working in porn is a life of the mind, and you can't blame me for not knowing how to pronounce this woman's name, despite everything I've read and seen about her ability to send her own ejaculate across the room and knock a cigarette out of a monkey's mouth.
And it wasn't like there's any dialogue in her movies along the lines of
MAN: I would like to put my penis in you in a series of impractical ways, but then come on your face anyway, as if I'm masturbating using you as some kind of bio-sleeve.
CYTHEREA: My name is pronounced Cy-ther'-e-a, like diphtheria but with a sigh instead of a diph.
 So I finally learned how to pronounce her name, and she sang a song, and she didn't hose anyone down while pointing her labia at somebody, but that was fine, because one of my major goals in the adult industry had been reached.
Here is an ode to this special night:
There once was a girl named Cytherea
Whose Kegels were hardly inferior
Her long distance squirts
Could moisten your shirt
In Prague while she sat in Siberia
See gallery here.
posted by Gram the Man
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--Wednesday, April 27, 2005--
When in Portland: masturbate
 Portland (Oregon - stuff like this never happens in Maine) treasure Darklady is holding her fourth annual Masturbate-a-thon. I am always put slightly off-kilter when people try to convince me that sex is wholesome and good for me, like at swingers' parties in Orange County or at Carl's Jr., but that spunky Darklady helps me to disabuse myself of the notion that sex can only be fun if it is a direct antecedent of my death.
I have never been to Portland but I can only imagine it is full of patchoulli-reeking free spirits running through the street with toe rings, masturbating at each other. It could be worse, believe me. Has anyone ever been to Bridgeport, Connecticut?
Anyway, attendees of the May 14 event are encouraged to affix favorite "masturbation words or phrases" on the "Wall of Masturbation."
Since I can't go (my powers ebb when I cross the Santa Susanas), here are some of my favorite masturbation words and phrases:
mousepad
lariat
metric screws
neutrino
Jagermeister
Imbruglia
Supertramp's Grammy hopes
mortal sin
posted by Gram the Man
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EXTRA: Lauren Phoenix finds my keys in the couch
 Lauren Phoenix and Denis Marti fall in love on the set of Hustler's Riding the Curves 3. We learn Marti's choice of performance-enhancing spring water, we hear Phoenix's favorite alternate terms for "anus", and we ponder proper etiquette in porn houses, all in this exclusive on-the-set story that I'll write when Lauren finishes the treehouse she's building for us.
posted by Gram the Man
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Listening to America's teens
 I spoke with Digital Playground's contract director Robby D. He didn't want to do it, because he's been hurt before, but my fierce persuasive powers plus the fact that his studio pays me $1 million every time I mention it in my other job as vice president of the United States made him come around to my way of thinking.
Digital Playground has just released the trailer for Jack's Teen America #5, starring Teagan Presley, Devon, Dascha, Jayna Oso, and other people.
I was called by Robby D.'s handler, who guided the interview for a few questions. Finally, the director was reassured I wasn't going to start asking what he wanted to be when he grew up or what he thought about the Mafia or the state of Israel. (For the record, D. loves Israel.)
GP: Tell me about Jack's Teen America #5.
RD: Jack's adventures are part of a series that started with Jack's Playground. Jack's this slacker guy who doesn't have a job in the first series, and then by Jack's Teen America his parents have thrown him out and made him get a job as a documentary filmmaker.
Someone who briefly takes over my mind: I haven't seen the movie because I don't watch porn and I find all pornography detestable. That is why I want to destroy the industry from within.
RD: I want to talk to Gram again. Where is Gram?
GP: I regret that I haven't seen the movies. Does Jack play the straight guy? Do things just happen to him?
RD: He sort of has a running commentary on what's going on.
D. Has made about 60 gonzos and nine features with Digital Playground in the past three years. Prior to that he worked with Vivid. The Jack movies are gonzos, but D. says that the character was profiled before the series began so Jack had a backstory.
"We asked where he came from, why he did what he did, where he got his money if his parents cut him off," he said. "It gives the gonzo just enough sense to be funny."
Maybe because Robby D. has squeezed out so many movies and seen the same locations again and again (it's not much of an exaggeration to say that the same few houses are used by every company in the Valley), and maybe because people like me comment on the fact that there seems to be a lot of sex concentrated in a few addresses (porn fans worldwide have seen Gram Ponante Towers' twin Van de Graaff generators in over 1400 titles, from 1984's Anal Load Lee and the Cum-Gobblin' Quahogs to this month's Piss Congenitally 2), he has incorporated the sparse location pickings into the story.
"A lot of locations aren't available to adult," he said. "So we had to guerilla a lot of things and try to reason with the difficulties. Finally, though, we just called the porn houses Jack's Teen America Corporate Housing."
The next Jack series will be subtitled My First Porn.
posted by Gram the Man
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--Monday, April 25, 2005--
Vague party notes
 Hollywood's White Lotus club, which used to be a great dance bar called Crush, which prior to that was a Greyhound station (the new one is next door), was host to a mainstream entertainment staple that is becoming more and more common in the adult industry: a co-production.
About 17 companies (including Nike and the Vatican, by accident) sponsored this shindig, which among other things featured a dance performance by Shy Love and Kelli Erikson in an act they called "Heaven & Hell."
As you know, the adult industry is nearly bankrupt, so it was no surprise that all these PornCos pooled their pennies for what would probably be their last evening to have any fun at all. What is getting more and more dispiriting, however, is that they invited Hollywood.
As my grandpappy in Bogue Chitto was fond of saying, "Never mix your weasels." By this he of course meant that putting Hollywood weaselry in the same room with pornskum is a bad idea. Each on their own is charming and a delightful part of the rich American tapestry, but once you throw Melrose Ave. gay men posing as metrosexuals into a teeming room full of the spiritual heirs of the east coast legbreakers who built the adult industry, well, it's not as fun as it could be.
 Not that I didn't have a grand time, because I have fun wherever I go™.
I was able to add one more finger-in-the mouth picture to my collection of Why Is This Sexy?
As has become my habit, I checked in with veteran director Roy Karch to get the lay of the land. That guy is a babe magnet. He cursed being single at 58, but every woman in that room (who wasn't a nervous, butterfly-tattooed, belly-shirted, other arm clutching, slumming script coordinator from HBO) made a point of getting face time with him.
"Father my child, Roy?" one asked.
'I don't even know you," he replied, again and again.
I sought a point of clarification on something he'd said a month ago.
GP: What is second-position anal?
RK: Well, it's the second position of anal a couple gets in. There can't be a second without a first.
GP: Oh! My thinking has been so uptight, dude. I thought it was like ballet positions.
RK: No. Whatever the first position is, whether it's anal missionary, a pile driver, whatever, the second position is the next variation. But it is like a dance, so you're right.
I expected him to call me Grasshopper, but he was interrupted by another peroxide blonde he needed to be polite to. Roy was under the mistaken impression that I was once lead singer for Rage Against the Machine, an impression that, regrettably, he gleaned from this very site. I was merely the lead singer of Dokken.
There was a red carpet with some klieg lights that allowed entering celebrities like Danny Bonaduce to be photographed by a press of fotogs appropriately kept behind a metal barrier.
 I ambled up to International Pimp (and Under Pimp Arrest star) Mr. Johnson and his cousin. Both are about 6'6". Johnson was dressed floor to ceiling in white, and had some rhinestone glasses that I coveted.
GP: Are those prescription?
MJ (taking them off and checking): Naw, man.
I had a followup question from our interview back in the day.
GP: What kind of pimpmobile did your dad drive?
MJ: Dad had all kinds of cars. His name is Tricky. The next movie's gonna have him in it.
posted by Gram the Man
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--Friday, April 22, 2005--
Girls for Freedom
 I spoke with Paul Interlandi, Freedom Distributing's president, to RSVP to Jacklyn Lick's Home Party Fantasies DVD release party.
PI: Are you a girl?
GP: No. I am Gram the Man.
PI: We need girls to come to the party.
GP: I understand.
PI: Joey (Strange) and I talk about, you know, we talk about too many guys at a party being a, being a, you know, a "sausage party."
GP: I know. I'll try to -
PI: We need girls there.
GP: So, on my site, I'll say -
PI: Because if it's only guys - you know, Jacklyn being who she is, she invited Lee Stone, Evan Stone -
GP: Sly and the Family -
PI: And it's all guys.
GP: That's too bad. Are there any porn girls going to -
PI: We've got Ariana, uh, Aria, Aria -
GP: Aria Giovanni?
PI: Yeah.
GP: That's great. So I'll say on my site that only girls should come. Can I RSVP with you?
PI: No, use our website.
GP: Then why do I have this number?
Jacklyn Lick, who codes her own HTML, is big with the bondage crowd. People who hand-code things are ALL into BDSM. I'm more a GUI person, if you know what I mean, but I respect everyone™. Home Party Fantasies is advertised as a female-produced movie. Freedom is distributing her movie, and Joey Strange's Moonlight Entertainment is co-producing the party.
Once again, the only people who should go to this party, other than me, are women. The guy on the phone seemed adamant about this. I get the distinct impression that if you are a guy and you show up to this party, you will be murdered.
Jacklyn Lick responds: Men are MORE than welcome to show up, and will not be murdered.
posted by Gram the Man
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Busta Nut: what it is right now
 VCA Excessive, which is apparently Larry Flynt's version of Dimension Films, is proud to release Busta Nut, in which sistaz from around the way show how they do.
"Hazel Berry, Beauty, Taya Silver, Tamani and Tia Sweets pack a horniness not seen in many white girls today as sucking, humpin’ and all-out fucking are high on their daily ‘to-do’ list. The great Mandingo along with John E. Depth, Dwayne Cumminz, Nat Turner, and Cuntre’ provide the meat for this ethnic sandwich," says the press release, written by Porn's Whitest Man.
I like the name "John E. Depth," but why is there sucking and all-out fucking but only humpin'? Why is Mandingo holding out on the G?
Well, this G won't be holding out. As you know, I am an old school hood rat from back in the day, and I will buy a truckload of Busta Nut and immediately begin creating shorties.
It's true what the press release says about white girls, too, I'm afraid. The bar has really been lowered on White Girl Horniness. If only Elizabeth Cady Stanton were alive, maybe she could help white girls find their way again.
posted by Gram the Man
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It's a beauty way to go
 Carly Milne is not leaving the adult industry because of me.
Carly's announcement on her soon-to-be-defunct groundbreaking web diary, Pornblography, was simple. "This is my 500th post...it's time to say goodbye."
I thought it was something I said. I thought it was because we used the same font, Verdana. I thought it was because everyone else was sending her pictures of his cock but me.
Carly said that it was a number of things that led to a little epiphany on a plane. "I was flying home from New York. I'd just pitched a job to Playgirl. The pitch had gone really well. I was reading Legs McNeil's The Other Hollywood - it's a hard book - and I thought, 'I've done all I want to do here.'"
Carly, like Tina Tyler, Dorothy Stratten, and Rush, is Canadian. She started writing for teen magazines and other assorted publications in addition to some television work when she was a teenager herself, eventually getting into the Internet and parlaying that into a job with Yahoo Canada after consulting with @Home. In 1999, she started a network of women's sites called Moxie.ca. Moving south to San Francisco in late 1999, she weathered the bursting of the Internet bubble. Upon moving to Los Angeles in 2001, she applied for and landed an Associate Editor job at AVN, an adult industry trade publication, and let Moxie die in the process.
Carly worked for AVN for a year, meeting (the former) Frank Majors, GramPonante.com BananWatch editor Steve Ochs, and Tod-Hunter, all of whom she says she'll keep in touch with when she Leaves the Industry Forever.
Carly left AVN in 2002 and went to work for Metro as the company's publicist. "When working for Metro, you should have your resume dusted off before you first sit down at your desk," she said. Carly left Metro after four months and started her blog, Pornblography, as well as her own PR agency, SinSpin, repping clients from Zero Tolerance to Pussy Pucker Pots.
"The mark of a good publicist is someone who can build strong relationships," she said. In porn, an industry which is very small compared to the amount of money it generates (luckily, the wealth is concentrated among no more than six people, so it doesn't get lost), good publicists are as identifiable as the companies they sell.
"Everybody knows Adella O'Neal is Digital Playground," Carly said. "Everybody knows Brian Gross is Adam & Eve. Everybody knows Jeff Mullen is New Sensations. A publicist needs a strong presence."
Especially since a lot of the product a company is selling, let's face it, looks similar to that of other companies. By the time Carly got a job at PurePlay Media, her contacts from her short time in the porn world, along with her blog, had made her a below the line celebrity. Pornblography got a lot of traffic. Her thoughtful, sporadic tirades and observations were read in both the adult and mainstream worlds. Carly was in a very small club with Rebecca Gray and Susie Mid-America: Porn Valley women with distinct confessional voices. And Pornblography was the first blog of any of the current or previous crop to describe life in the Valley in a way accessible to sniffers from over the hill or around the country.
This might have also proven to be Carly's undoing with PurePlay Media. After what she describes as a "debacle" at this year's Adult Entertainment Expo in Las Vegas, in which she says everyone from the PurePlay party's venue's doormen to the management gouged the guests, taking bribes and ignoring the VIP list, she was fired. One of the reasons given was that she spent more time promoting herself than the company.
"From my perspective that's not true," she said. "But I suppose I can see why they said it. The way my mind works as a publicist is "How can what I'm doing benefit the company?' I write press releases, I go out with clients, I write about it on the blog. For me, it became part of the job."
When Pornblography closed down this week, Carly also decided to let go of her SinSpin clients, too. She is going to keep Eros Boutique, but she has since given notice to both Pipedream and Spice. She plans to step up her freelance writing career and she has hired someone to publicize the book she is editing, Naked Ambition (Carroll & Graf), due this fall. She also has "one or two books" left in her about the industry as she knows it.
She won't say a bad word about anybody. People burn bridges spectacularly in porn, but she refuses. Her advice to thoughtful people breaking into the biz is simply "Have fun."
Fellow Canadian (and adult director) Mike "Quasarman" Quasar posted, " (Carly is) the only person with a verifiable three-digit IQ in the entire industry. I'm surprised that it's taken (her) this long to realize that she's too smart to continue this nonsense."
Others, preferring anonymity, referenced the "Porn Stigma." This isn't the Netherlands or Prague, and a porn bullet on one's resume is tough to overlook. For that reason, an anonymous poster said, "she'll be back."
Carly talked about the difference between the first time she attended a porn set (Sin City's Quiver with jessica drake and Evan Stone - 2001) and the final time (they all blend together). "The first time I said, 'Oh God, I shouldn't be watching this; this is a private act between two people!' And then the last time I said, 'Oh, God, I shouldn't be watching this; I've seen it so many fucking times now.'"
She will miss the characters in the industry, she said, and, like checking sports scores for a team she once followed, she said she will pop in on the old sites every now and then. She will renew her domain name to prevent squatting (I was going to buy it and publish my rants under my real name, Pagan Mentor). She will stay in Los Angeles. Beyond that, she says she will never be a publicist again.
She did reveal that a number of people, on hearing her plans to leave the business, asked to be taken with her. Like a publicist, though, she's keeping her real plans cryptic.
"I would like to start writing a series of haikus about shoes," she said.
posted by Gram the Man
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--Thursday, April 21, 2005--
Sexy is: my finger in my mouth
 In other naked women wearing white socks news, Malou went to Porn Star Karaoke the other night. I was not there because Lisa Sparxxx won't stop giving me little cakes and recording mix tapes for me with Cat Stevens and Squeeze on them. But all sorts of things happened at the monthly Black Widow night, including the Danish star's debut.
"Ich möchte Gram Ponante wie ein stempel anbringen," Malou did not say in German, because she can't speak it.
This Malou, she is very attractive, I hear. But what is this whole thing about the finger in the mouth, like she did something bad? From Desperate Housewives billboards to Britney Spears to actual porn, one can't escape the finger in the mouth method of telegraphing wanton sexuality.
Does anyone agree with me that it doesn't look so sexy as it does dumb? I'd like to think that the 9/11 terrorists arrived in the afterlife only to find that each of their 72 virgins had a finger in her mouth. What a turnoff.
Still, you should go out right now and purchase all of her films in which she has sex with people (she's only doing solo scenes right now, I understand, but she might work up to it).
posted by Gram the Man
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Teagan fronts Front
 The life of a porn publicist must be tough. Professionals like myself learn to read between the lines of press releases and will gradually understand that a PR person's day is not all about chasing naked starlets around with feather dusters, pleading with them to stop eating their carrots off of Gram Ponante.
Digital Playground's recent release about Teagan Presley's gracing the cover of the U.K.'s Front magazine does not begin with the usual 18 pt. DIGITAL PLAYGROUND. Instead, it asks, "if posting, please use attached art."
If it weren't for my fear that Digital Playground, like Birnam Wood, would move to the Dunsinane that is my house and burn it down, I might post another picture, maybe of Welcome Back Kotter's Marcia Strassman. But I shan't. Do you know why? Because Digital Playground pays me $250,000 every time I mention their company.
But the question remains: What made Adella plead for attached art? Did someone post some non-Teagan art?
God! I wish I had a comments section so someone could give me the answer!
In the meantime, let's look at Teagan. She's wearing a tie and shoes but no suit. How did she get the suit off without removing her tie and shoes? She is one talented lady. You should go out right now and purchase all of her films in which she has sex with people.
posted by Gram the Man
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--Wednesday, April 20, 2005--
Cautionary tale
 It's important to remember that faulty 2257 documentation, shooting without a permit, or "consensual" sex with someone under 18 (by law it's never consensual) can land you on this website. It isn't, necessarily, that you molest children.
(Though that would help.)
There is some interesting reading here.
In the interest of full disclosure, Skeeter and I were responsible for the 1970s terror regime in Uganda.
posted by Gram the Man
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#990000 Verdana
Carly Milne has ended Pornblography. She asks that I hold off printing our epic interview until the end of the month.
posted by Gram the Man
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Why, Suze Randall, Why?
 Just to prove to you that I play fast and loose, just to prove to you (my public) that I (Gram Ponante) am in no one's pocket and play by my own hard-hitting rules, just to prove to you that I don't really have a first paragraph, I will follow up my ingratiating story about Holly Randall with this nitpicky little entry about her mother, Suze.
Three's Cumpany has to be the stupidest porn title I've ever heard this week. I'm sure it's a good movie, but how do you expect intensely cerebral guys like me to ask for it by name at our local video outlet?
Wait a minute.
A thought presents itself.
YOU'RE NOT MAKING MOVIES FOR PEOPLE LIKE ME. (Plus, I get all my porn for free.)
posted by Gram the Man
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--Tuesday, April 19, 2005--
I, Pimp
 I spoke with California Pimp (and star of Under Pimp Arrest) Mr. Johnson recently, and have determined to do how he do. I am checking my schedule to see if I can become a full-time pimp sometime next quarter.
"I am cross-country pimpin' in all 52 states," he told me. "I got hos workin' the blade and doin' the Ho Stroll on tracks across the nation. I am an international pimp."
GP: Uh, well so am I.
MJ: Stop makin' mistakes and fuckin' wid Frosty Flakes.
I asked him what was the difference between actual hos and porn chicks.
"Porn hos is just lying there. I take (UPA star) Amina Blue in there, and say, 'This is what real ho do!'"
After the Big Hollywood Porn Party on Friday night, Johnson and some hos plan to swoop to Atlanta, which be crackin'.
I will say it again: I am in the wrong line of work.
posted by Gram the Man
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Holly Randall has always been a pervert
 I spoke with Holly Randall as she drove through the Valley to the Rndall family ranch in Malibu. Our cell phones kept giving out. We talked very briefly about the reissue of her mother's classic porn films from the 1980s - that was the reason I called - but we mostly discussed Holly's own life in the porn industry, from getting an eyeful of Randy West when she was three to her impromptu counsel of the dissolute of the adult journalism racket.
We started by talking about her mother, veteran photographer Suze Randall. I get the impression that a lot of conversations with Holly begin that way, but she seems not to mind, and the conversation quickly veered off.
"For some reason, my parents never discussed my name in all the time my mother was pregnant," she said. "When I came out, all they could think of was the Hollywood sign."
"Good thing you weren't born in La Crescenta."
Holly is working with her mother now that Suze has returned to directing. Suze Randall has a distribution deal with PurePlay Media. Drew Dixon, PurePlay's head of sales, marvels at Suze's ability to attract talent. "Everybody in the industry loves Suze; she's been around so long," he said.
GP: Suze, Suze, Suze. That's all anybody ever talks about. What's it like working alongside your mother? Are there significant differences in your styles?
HR: At first it was odd. We'd both be in side-by-side director's chairs. She'd drive me insane. She was air-humping, shaking her hips, getting really into it. When she shouts, she's really loud.
The two Randalls have since worked out an arrangement in which Suze sets up the shot and takes still photos and Holly steps in to shoot the video.
"She feels she's too old to do it in the first place," Holly said. The Randalls' deal with PurePlay calls for one new title and one reissue a month, Dixon said, "until the reissues are done."
Holly has said that her work gets better every time she does it, and that she's ready to branch out on her own. She's not sure of her chances, though.
"I don't have the clout to shoot a feature film," she said, but that's a little hard to believe. She is good friends with Wicked head Steve Orenstein, and Wicked, she said, would be her first choice for a feature product. She mentions another company, too, saying, "basically they stole a bunch of our shit."
Around this point in the conversation I realized that my original reason for calling was dumb, and that I couldn't print half of the things Randall was saying. Offending people was not her concern, however. (It is often mine.)
"I don't give a fuck what you write," she said, and I immediately signed her up to sponsor the inside and back covers of my trade publication. "I just went back on birth control, and I have bitched out so many people in the past few weeks. It's great."
GP: When you get the contract with Wicked or New Sensations or whomever you choose, what do you want to produce?
HR : When I was at UCLA I had affairs with some professors. Not UCLA professors, but sort of visiting professors. I am going to write a script about the teacher/student relationships that I have fantasies about. I've always had a thing for teachers.
I mention a feud between an adult industry trade magazine and one of its former employees, a long-time editor and current pornbloggeur . The publication refers to him as a "frustrated English teacher." He refers to the publication equally harshly.
GP : That sort of fantasy? An English teacher fantasy?
HR : More of a dominant teacher-type thing. My dream cast would include Ben English as the teacher.
Speaking of trade publications, Holly mentions that her boyfriend is AVN's Acme Andersson, a cool guy and friend to Gram Ponante.com's BananWatch editor Stephen Ochs. Randall said that Ochs will be writing a profile of her in a coming issue of XBizWorld. The world is small.
GP : Who else is in your dream cast?
HR : Jana Cova, Cytherea, Devon, maybe. I need someone to play the headmistress who, you know, has to give the girl some extra counsel when the teacher catches the girl masturbating. It needs to be realistic so I need a kick-ass chick. Maybe someone older.
GP : So you're writing the script this weekend?
HR : We'll see how that goes.
Randall can't escape her second-generation porner status, but she has been accepted on her own merits.
Her obituary on AVN's blog about Hustler photographer Clive McLean was very simple and touching, and she relates well to people in the porn world.
"I am the world's fucking therapist," she said. We talk about guests at McLean's funeral, and how Scott Fayner's blog has been sad recently, like the last episode of M*A*S*H , as he undoubtedly prepares to pull another Eddie Tour or Eton Veterans. "I saw him the other night. I spent half the night being his shrink. He said he was a hack. He said people didn't respect him.
"I said, 'Just because you work in porn doesn't mean you aren't a human.'"
Still, she constantly encounters people who knew her when she was a little girl.
"I was at Jenna Jameson's birthday party the other night. Jenna goes, 'I remember you when you were this big !' and I was like, 'You're not much older than me, Jenna.'"
Holly was three when she caught Randy West masturbating in her parents' garden.
"I'd gotten away from my nanny or something and Randy West is in the yard getting himself hard for a Playgirl shoot my mother was doing. I said, 'Ewww! What are you doing ?' That was the quintessential example of my youth."
Her parents taught Randall that sex wasn't shameful or something to be hidden. "My mother told me that sex is a beautiful thing and not to let anyone tell me it isn't."
GP : My mother taught me just the opposite.
HR : I've always been a pervert. Am I into porn because I was raised in it or because I'm just a pervert? I don't know.
posted by Gram the Man
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Holly Randall Has Always Been A Pervert
 I spoke with Holly Randall as she drove through the Valley
to the Randall family ranch in Malibu. Our cell phones
kept giving out. We talked very briefly about the reissue
of her mother's classic porn films from the 1980s - that
was the reason I called - but we mostly discussed Holly's
own life in the porn industry, from getting an eyeful of
Randy West when she was three to her impromptu counsel
of the dissolute of the adult journalism racket.
We started by talking about her mother, veteran photographer
Suze Randall. I get the impression that a lot of conversations
with Holly begin that way, but she seems not to mind, and
the conversation quickly veered off.
"For some reason, my parents never discussed my name in
all the time my mother was pregnant," she said. "When I
came out, all they could think of was the Hollywood sign."
"Good thing you weren't born in La Crescenta."
Holly is working with her mother now that Suze has returned
to directing. Suze Randall has a distribution deal with
PurePlay Media. Drew Dixon, PurePlay's head of sales, marvels
at Suze's ability to attract talent. "Everybody in the
industry loves Suze; she's been around so long," he said.
GP: Suze, Suze, Suze. That's all anybody
ever talks about. What's it like working alongside your
mother? Are there significant differences in your styles?
HR: At first it was odd. We'd both be
in side-by-side director's chairs. She'd drive me insane.
She was air-humping, shaking her hips, getting really into
it. When she shouts, she's really loud.
The two Randalls have since worked out an arrangement
in which Suze sets up the shot and takes still photos and
Holly steps in to shoot the video.
"She feels she's too old to do it in the first place," Holly
said. The Randalls' deal with PurePlay calls for one new
title and one reissue a month, Dixon said, "until the reissues
are done."
Holly has said that her work gets better every time she
does it, and that she's ready to branch out on her own.
She's not sure of her chances, though.
"I don't have the clout to shoot a feature film," she
said, but that's a little hard to believe. She is good
friends with Wicked head Steve Orenstein, and Wicked, she
said, would be her first choice for a feature product.
She mentions another company, too, saying, "basically they
stole a bunch of our shit."
Around this point in the conversation I realized that
my original reason for calling was dumb, and that I couldn't
print half of the things Randall was saying. Offending
people was not her concern, however. (It is often mine.)
"I don't give a fuck what you write," she said, and I
immediately signed her up to sponsor the inside and back
covers of my trade publication. "I just went back on birth
control, and I have bitched out so many people in the past
few weeks. It's great."
GP: When you get the contract with Wicked
or New Sensations or whomever you choose, what do you want
to produce?
HR : When I was at UCLA
I had affairs with some professors. Not UCLA professors,
but sort of visiting professors. I am going to write a
script about the teacher/student relationships that I have
fantasies about. I've always had a thing for teachers.
I mention a feud between an adult industry trade magazine
and one of its former employees, a long-time editor and
current pornbloggeur . The publication refers
to him as a "frustrated English teacher." He refers to
the publication equally harshly.
GP : That sort of fantasy? An English
teacher fantasy?
HR : More of a dominant teacher-type
thing. My dream cast would include Ben English as the teacher.
Speaking of trade publications, Holly mentions that her
boyfriend is AVN's Acme Andersson, a cool guy and friend
to Gram Ponante.com's BananWatch editor Stephen Ochs. Randall
said that Ochs will be writing a profile of her in a coming
issue of XBizWorld. The world is small.
GP : Who else is in your dream cast?
HR : Jana Cova, Cytherea, Devon, maybe.
I need someone to play the headmistress who, you know,
has to give the girl some extra counsel when the teacher
catches the girl masturbating. It needs to be realistic
so I need a kick-ass chick. Maybe someone older.
GP : So you're writing the script this
weekend?
HR : We'll see how that goes.
Randall can't escape her second-generation porner status,
but she has been accepted on her own merits.
Her obituary on AVN's blog about Hustler photographer
Clive McLean was very simple and touching, and she relates
well to people in the porn world.
"I am the world's fucking therapist," she said. We talk
about guests at McLean's funeral, and how Scott Fayner's
blog has been sad recently, like the last episode of M*A*S*H ,
as he undoubtedly prepares to pull another Eddie Tour or
Eton Veterans. "I saw him the other night. I spent
half the night being his shrink. He said he was a hack.
He said people didn't respect him.
"I said, 'Just because you work in porn doesn't mean you
aren't a human.'"
Still, she constantly encounters people who knew her when
she was a little girl.
"I was at Jenna Jameson's birthday party the other night.
Jenna goes, 'I remember you when you were this big !'
and I was like, 'You're not much older than me, Jenna.'"
Holly was three when she caught Randy West masturbating
in her parents' garden.
"I'd gotten away from my nanny or something and Randy
West is in the yard getting himself hard for a Playgirl
shoot my mother was doing. I said, 'Ewww! What are you doing ?'
That was the quintessential example of my youth."
Her parents taught Randall that sex wasn't shameful or
something to be hidden. "My mother told me that sex is
a beautiful thing and not to let anyone tell me it isn't."
GP : My mother taught me just the opposite.
HR : I've always been a pervert. Am I
into porn because I was raised in it or because I'm just
a pervert? I don't know.
posted by Gram the Man
at
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--Monday, April 18, 2005--
Toys from the smithies of Barad-Dur
 Doc Johnson has been around for an age of Men and has been outfitting cave trolls, wargs, the domme Ungoliant, the Nazgul, and all manner of fell beast with sex toys and marital aids. Now it has released its most fiendish invention, worse even than Grond, the Hammer of the Underworld. How will the blood of Numenor survive with this up its ass?
Behold and quail before the Enspiral Swirl Top Anal Toy. As the Balrog says, "It hurts more when it comes out!" I believe Doc Johnson came over to my house and pulled the ends off my curtain rods to make this cruel device.
Don't go to the Brown Havens without one.
posted by Gram the Man
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Goodbye comments section
It's not that I don't care what you think; it's that you only think sporadically.
posted by Gram the Man
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A very special box
 When Tod-Hunter took me and Corey Feldman to the Emmys, our gift bags were lavish and obscene. Mainstream Hollywood knows how to distribute swag.
When the boys in Receiving delivered the Britney Rears goodie box/press kit to the penthouse of Gram Ponante Towers, Iphigenia Squirtz and I settled in for a long weekend of downloading Legs McNeil audiobooks to the Britney Rears-branded iPod, devouring the chocolate-covered anal cherries, and throwing gold "I Wanna Get" inlaid daggers at each other.
Alas, the box only contained the Britney Rears Wild Back Stage Sex Party DVD, a Jolly Rancher lolly, and a bottle of Sutter Home, the kind one finds on trains.
Iphigenia opened the wine, which came with a card reading "Until we meet."
GP: How was it?
IS: It was good.
I ate the lollipop which was tart per Jolly Rancher standards. It was also the same squarish stick-based candy that Ms. Rears is seen slurping on the boxcover. That was important. As Bill Margold is to whatever it is he does, so am I to continuity. As I reached the center of the Jolly Rancher lolly, I was surprised to find a chewy center like Blow-Pops of eld. In fact, it was exactly like a Blow-Pop. I will notify Acacia's lawyers.
Porn Valley is not in the habit of giving goodie bags to journalists. Only listless blowjobs. That is why I herald the Britney Rears goodie bag as a step in the right direction for our industry.
Thanks, Britney Rears!
posted by Gram the Man
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Just so you know, porn stars don't spend months preparing for a film and then go on a vacation once they've shot it. There are no boot camps or sauna days for these hard workers, and when they punch the clock at the end of the day, pack their lunch pail, and drive down the 101 to their second jobs as clerk-typists, scoutmasters, and HazMat-certified Superfund Inspectors, they leave their day jobs and the manufactured fantasies of romance at the end of a spoon-fed creampie behind.
Lauren Phoenix was wearing a selection of doilies and six-inch Lucite heels. I thought it might really work out between us. She stood about 6'3". I didn't realize she was so tall and I told her so.
"You like my big fat ass?"
