"George Bailey, do you ever get tired of just reading about things?" says local sassypants Violet Bick in "It's A Wonderful Life."
That's the way I usually feel when invited to erotica readings. I get nervous in a roomful of people who use the phrase "my sex" for their genitalia. But on the strength of participants the adorable Rachel Kramer Bussel, Canadian Carly Milne, and fashion plate Stan Kent I visited the debut reading of In the Flesh L.A., the west coast version of a monthly salon organized by Bussel in New York.
Carly Milne, former AVN writer and porn industry publicist whose 2002 Christmas gift thermos came in handy in this incident, is organizer of the L.A. version of In the Flesh, and last night's inaugural reading at Freddy and Eddy's on Venice Blvd. drew a respectable crowd of people who don't blush easily.
The readings were an interesting combination of blog-based erotica and the more traditional kind, with a couple of stops in between.
Last night's theme was "Survival" and, though not every reader kept to the theme, cross-dresser Willem Belli started the evening with a bang with a searing story of toe-rape at the nether digits of a male prostitute. Then Bussel read her riveting account of a mostly-zipless fuck at the Atlanta airport, which was the evening's most graphic and evocative story.
British author Maxim Jakubowski read a story called "The Summer of Grant Lee Buffalo," a sexual autobiography as it related to music. The title referred to a crush his lover had on the bass player of Grant Lee Buffalo, Paul Kimble.
There was a generational divide that affected my enjoyment of the story; while two people had just read from blogs (or, as I suspect of Belli, extemporaneously), Jakubowski's reading was a chapter of his book. My attention waned as the litany of music and sex continued (Leonard Cohen, jazz, more Leonard Cohen), through no fault of his own, but through my own inability to pay attention to anything that takes more than two revolutions of a scroll wheel.
That Jakubowski referenced Grant Lee Buffalo but not the name of the bass player was also uncharacteristic of the difference between blogging and traditional literature; I found Kimble's name on Wikipedia in three seconds, placed the date of the concert Jakubowski's girlfriend first saw Kimble (1996), and listened to a GLB music sample online.
After a short break came Stan Kent, who also read from his one of his books, but it was a selection from his postpuk "Shoe Leather" series, and he referenced Jakubowski in saying that from now on he would introduce himself at parties as the bass player for Grant Lee Buffalo.
The evening ended with Shana Ting Lipton's essay about revisiting Amsterdam as a tourist after having lived there. The heartlessness with which she dissected her flings made me cross her off the list of potential dates for the lonelyhearts porn performers I know.
In the Flesh L.A. returns to Freddy And Eddy's the fourth Thursday of each month. I will be reading a couple of short stories in July's show.
Here's 20-year-old newcomer Bree Barrett (no relation*) in a couple of Lulu/Goldie Hawn poses that are both retro and graphic.
I was intrigued that one of her talents is Bach parties. As you can imagine, the porn world jumps back and forth between Vivaldi's "Four Seasons" and Holst's "Mars, Bringer of War" with very little Telemann in between. Is today's porn consumer ready for a mathematical, fugal sex style characterized by multiple variations and particularly venerated by Lutherans?
The best part of this resume is that "interracial" is formatted like a fat girl's MySpace page.
Ryder Skye and Roxy DeVille menage to redeem Sex And the City movie
When she was a struggling mainstream actress, Ryder Skye said she would be very nervous before auditions.
"I'd completely psyche myself out," she said. "And for this one, I didn't even know why I was there."
Ryder Skye said the casting agent wanted Asian women when she was called to audition for Sex And the City, premiering in L.A. tomorrow. She also wasn't sure there'd be nudity.
"But then I saw all these porn girls there," she said, "so I knew something was up."
Skye and Roxy DeVille (who is credited as "Roxi Devill') are two-thirds of a menage a trois also involving Gilles Marini, who plays Dante, the lust object of Kim Cattrall's whorish Samantha, one of the four leads in the movie.
Extensive exit traffic research for this site reveals that at least five women and one gay man read Porn Valley Observed, thus this feature on a television series and movie very few straight men can explain the appeal of.
"The scene was shot in Malibu in January," Skye said, "on the first day of AVN. Samantha is looking through the window and she sees this guy she likes having a threesome."
"So a location in Los Angeles stood in for a location in New York?" I asked. "Impossible."
"No," Skye said. "In the story Samantha comes out here for some reason."
SPOILER ALERT.
Damn it. I should have put "SPOILER ALERT" before that riveting factoid. Now I'll never get a job at Entertainment Weekly.
"Did you meet Kim Cattrall?"
"No," Skye said. "It was one of the last scenes shot for the movie. Everybody else had pretty much gone home. She looks through her window and there we are, but we were never in the same room. They'd cut that in later."
Wow. I said. Hollywood is a dream factory.
Skye is a wholesome-looking porn star, as opposed to the many talented and friendly women in the adult industry who could never be mistaken for anything but a porn star.
"But the chatboards go on and on about how women in porn only play hookers and strippers on film," she said.
Yes. Typecasting is wrong. It was always my desire to star in an all-Thai version of "The Odd Couple," but I am neither Thai nor an actor. The world keeps grinding people down.
"I don't know if the crew knew what to make of [herself and DeVille]," Skye said. "They asked if we wanted the set cleared for our nude scene, and we just took off our robes and got down to it. It took about an hour."
"Did your costar react in any physical way to you and Roxy flouncing around the set?"
"If he did," Skye said, "I didn't notice. I think he was a little nervous. But he was really grateful to us afterward. He thanked us for being so cool."
Skye saw Marini at the gym last week.
"He walked by and I couldn't place him. I thought, 'Have I fucked him?' Then I remembered. He was on his way to the New York premiere that day."
Skye had to buy her ticket, but she will be seeing herself on the big screen tomorrow at the Arclight in Hollywood.
Skye, who will be credited in the movie as Aricka Evans, struggled to get her Screen Actors Guild card as a mainstream model and actress before this opportunity came up.
"I try for years to get my SAG card and then I get it through being in porn," she said.
Adrianna Nicole wishes, in retrospect, that she'd chosen a different porn name, but at least she can try on a new one when she's wrestling.
"If I'd only thought of 'Adrianaconda' sooner," she said.
Visitors to San Francisco (with the exception of school groups and religious zealots) should make a point of stopping by Kink.com's massive Armory building, built in the early 20th century during a time of nationwide worker unrest and featuring - I'm not kidding - a stream running through its basement for the benefit of a National Guard under siege (hint to disgruntled workers of the future: all you need to do is poop in the water; that's what my coworkers did at AVN).
Among the Armory's many charms is an indoor parade ground, dozens of creepy rooms used for water bondage and various flavors of submission with and without straps, and a wrestling ring.
It is there that Nicole, redubbed Adrianaconda, will participate with 15 other wrestlers in the sweaty and pant-astic Ultimate Surrender, fighting against and alongside such bendy and brutal grapplers as Madison "The Butcher" Young, Amber "The Rogue" Rayne, and Ariel X: "The Assassin."
"If you win, you fuck the loser with a strap-on," said Nicole, who has made it to this semi-final round in "The Summer of Vengeance." "My incentive to win early on was I had been in a couple of scenes before my match and I just didn't want to get fucked again."
The wrestling starts off in bikinis and things devolve from there. I asked Nicole if she ever felt fear.
"Well, I'm a little bigger than most," she said. She mentioned Madison Young who, though wily, seemed easy pickings. "I could kick her ass. But her partner is very muscly."
Next week Ultimate Surrender will film matches before a live audience of Kink.com subscribers on specially-erected bleachers, but the matches will be available on line up to and including the final showdown in August.
Whatever Nicole is doing with her left arm here doesn't seem like it would be in accordance with FILA standards, but whatever.
Other wrestlers in this season of Ultimate Surrender have included Annie Cruz, Delilah Strong, Bobbi Starr, and Harmony Rose, none of whom seems stoppable by mortal hands.
See a gallery of Ultimate Surrender's Season 5 here.
I am glad Nicole was not "Adrianaconda" from the start; the name seems to negate her sweet and gentle nature.
Surewood arraigned on eight charges, pleads not guilty
Porn performer Brian Surewood and co-defendant Armando Ayon appeared in Los Angeles Superior Court, Van Nuys Division today for a joint arraignment. Their case was continued for a pre-trial conference on June 26.
A high profile case that has raised awareness, through tragedy, of both the everyday nature of road rage and of its often-unexpected outcome, Surewood's dilemma is one that, but for a few details, is one that could happen to most Los Angeles drivers.
Read more about Surewood (born Brian Barnes) here.
Surewood and Ayon both pleaded not guilty to the same five charges: Murder in the first degree, Vehicular Manslaughter, and three counts of Reckless Driving Resulting in Injury or Death. Surewood also faces three additional charges of Hit And Run.
Cancer benefit for Henri Pachard, veteran porn director
Donations to Henri Pachard's Cancer Fund are now being accepted. And, for the next 30 days, every adult store order of Not the Bradys XXX results in a percentage donation, as do purchases of Pachard titles from my store on Gamelink.
Like workers in any industry - but perhaps more so than mainstream entertainment, which they are often compared to - Porn personnel work from job to job and, if they're smart and lucky, put money away for rainy days.
Director Henri Pachard (born Ron Sullivan in New York), though responsible for hundreds of porn movies over five decades as well as dozens of Times Square grindhouse movies, is suffering from cancer and, because cancer is expensive and directors do not get residuals, has watched the disease eat through his savings.
Pachard wrote a regular column for AVNInsider called "The Pornographer's Journal" when I edited that website, covering his current projects but mostly talking about Porn's so-called "Golden Age" and before. He was always entertaining, compelling, and the kind of gentleman who would say "fuck" a lot, which made me trust him more than the gentlemen who didn't.
Here is one of his columns about his early days as a director and the making of the classic Babylon Pink.
At my first AVN convention, I asked 100 youngish (ages 18-21) porn performers what "Deep Throat" was and, aside from a number of people telling me it was a style of blowjob, only two knew that it was the standard-bearing porn movie.
Knowing that, it is easy to believe that the porn world and the world at large often forget pioneers in the porn business; there is no real objective journal and its employees are often all too eager to hide their roles in the business once they are done, making for a business with no solid institutional sense of history.
But Pachard is and was a walking history lesson. He is a reminder of a time when people got into porn because they were film fans and fast-talking east coast players and, in a way, radicals. He is a beloved presence to those who have been around long enough to see him at work.
And, like many of the adult world's established behind-the-scenes workers, Pachard got his son a job: Jason Sullivan shoots camera for most of Porn Valley's big productions.
But Pachard and his lovely wife, Delores, are struggling. If you are a porn fan of a certain age, chances are Henri Pachard has helped form some of your earliest impressions of the San Fernando Valley.
Henri Pachard Cancer Fund Mail: C/o All Media Play 1680 Vine St. #1118 Hollywood, CA. 90028 Ph-323.467.9900
The sequel to O: The Power of Submission will be released in September, just in time for submission for AVN award consideration. The new version stars Bree Olson as the title character, and I think her facial expression here says it all.
Two angles of the same picture. Either way there are some strong adhesives at work.
We all know that bathrooms are romantic, but Joanna Angel believes that they erase Time. I talked with her about her personal water closet philosophy on the joyful release of her Fuck Me in the Bathroom part DEUX.
Angel: It was shot in bathrooms in New York and L.A. And it's much better than the first one. The first one was a practice round.
Gram: Is it true for bathroom water like it is for bagels and pizza, that east coast water is just different and tastes better?
Angel: That's gross.
Gram: When someone says, "I want to do do you in the pooper," do you naturally assume that it is in the ass or in the bathroom?
Angel: I think the ass. But generally people don't say that. It's kind of rude. Even to a porn girl. It sounds like a Red Light District movie.
Gram: So when someone says, "Fuck me in the bathroom," it has to be the girl saying it or it's rude?
Angel: It's OK to say "Fuck me in the bathroom," not "Fuck me in the pooper." Bathroom=hot. Pooper=not hot.
Gram: Do me a goddamn favor and pretend that we're doing this interview in person.
Some scenes in Fuck Me in Bathroom part DEUX were shot in the lavatories of a skate park and a school. But not the TARDIS, though that would have made sense.
Angel: One of the first times (I had sex in a bathroom) I was really drunk. Which is OK.
Gram: I don't need your permission to be an alcoholic.
Angel: It was with this dude in this band.
Gram: Was it Kansas? The Hoodoo Gurus? Was it Sade? Dokken (rhymes with Rockin')? The Everly Brothers?
Angel: No. He was married and was having issues deciding whether he should have sex with me or not.
Gram: I would have no such issues. Not because I'm married but because I would need to say "pooper."
Angel: So I told him we could go to the bathroom and talk about it. And then we did it in there. And then he ran out and called his wife and wished her a happy anniversary.
Gram: So are you saying -
Angel: Since it happened in a bathroom, I think it's almost like it never happened. It's the perfect place to fuck someone you aren't sure if you should really be fucking or not.
I like Stoya because she reminds me of an Edward Gorey character with all the working parts Gorey himself wasn't interested in. I also think she has a wonderful face, reminiscent of my Soviet forebears. I have recently begun a Stoya immersion program (it's even better than you think) and talked with her via interweb technology at her home in South Philadelphia.
Gram: Why have you left me?
Stoya: I didn't move to offend you personally. I lived in L.A. for a year a couple of years ago, but I wanted to get back to my friends in Philadelphia. I have locational ADD. If any landlords are watching, I'll probably skip out on you in ten months or so.
Gram: The Man doesn't read this website; only The People.
Stoya is in the two-disc DVD Cheerleaders. In the first disc she hangs by a locker and listens to the other girls talk dirty. In the second disc she reluctantly agrees to cheat on her boyfriend with Brianna Love and Manuel Ferrara.
Gram: There was some dramatic tension in Cheerleaders that you don't normally see in porn movies. You were what the movie became about.
Stoya: Oh, I'd say Jesse Jane was the star. I think you're biased.
Gram: Goddamn right I'm biased. But you knew what Jesse Jane would be up to through the whole movie. You had a character arc.
Stoya: Those girls had big breasts.
Gram: That they did. That also set you apart. You worked with the only other woman (Brianna Love) whose breasts wouldn't put out your eye.
Stoya: I have breasts. They're not humongous but they're fine. They've done fine for me as an adult in her breeding years. But when they sit me next to a girl who's 5'4" and has a couple of Double Ds I feel like a gawky teenager.
Until her wireless signal ran out, Stoya led the computer on a guided tour of her neighborhood.
Gram: Do you eat Philadelphia cheese steaks?
Stoya: No. I'm not in a vegetarian phase right now, but all that meat still makes me sick. I like pierogies. And spinach nuggets.
Gram: What about California? We don't really have pierogies here.
Stoya: Well, I like avocados. In fact, I love avocados.
Gram: I don't suppose you can go to the beach. You look translucent on this Interweb device.
Stoya: I have to cake on a lot of SPF-50. I don't care if I look like a jackass. I just don't want to combust. My mother gave me three rules: As long as you don't chew gum or stick anything in your butt you'll remain a lady. Well, I don't chew gum. Also: Don't use heroin. Check. Finally: Stay out of the sun.
Gram: Prior to becoming Stoya of Digital Playground, what did you do, or has your previous existence been suppressed?
Stoya: I shot for GodsGirls.com and Razordolls.com, and I was a go-go dancer at clubs. It was like getting paid to work out while drunk. It was the best job. (Photo by Nikola Tamindzic)
Gram: What do you drink?
Stoya: Candy drinks and old man drinks. I like pomegranate schnapps. I could drink a whole bottle. And I used to walk into bars and slap my Marlboro Reds down on the bar and ask for whiskey. The bartender would say, "Really, Little Girl? Are you sure you're not an 80-year-old man?"
Gram: Well are you?
Stoya: Fairly sure.
Gram: Because if you were an 80-year-old man, I'd be asking myself some hard questions. Pirates II just wrapped. I would have gone to the set but only a select few were invited.
Stoya: People talk about how massive an undertaking it was, but I was only there for a few days. I did get fisted by Belladonna, however, which was magical and amazing.
Gram: In terms of the big Digital Playground movies that are not about pirates, is there a pattern? What's the next logical step in the sequence that goes from Babysitters to Cheerleaders to ... ?
Stoya: They don't tell me because they don't want me leaking it, because I would. I don't know. Librarians?
Gram: Not that I advocate MySpace (now that I have reached my early 20s I have settled down for a more Facebook sort of life), but is your MySpace blog really yours?
Stoya: At first it wasn't, but now it's all me. Someone was writing it for me. I had to say, "It hurts me to see someone writing with two Ts and eight exclamation points pretending they're me." So I do it now.
Gram: That's greatt!!!!!!!! So, you're staying in Philadelphia between movies?
I love pregnant women. That is why I am so intent on creating them. But National Treasure Nina Hartley, who trained as a midwife before embarking on a career in a different service industry, declares that the road to MILFhood can be both bumpy and delightful. In her Great Sex During Pregnancy DVD, Hartley (who has not been pregnant herself) moderates as two glowing porn stars share their favorite on-the-nest tips and positions.
Hartley is joined by Violet Blue and Tiffany Mynx, both of whom happened to be pregnant and wearing lingerie at the time Hartley came knocking.
Gram: Three hours. You're masturbating for three hours.
Hartley: I've never been motivated to masturbate for three hours, either, so we'll have to see! My orgasmic threshold is quite high, and I'm only really good for one O per session.
Hartley: No. Orgasm. Really, two a week is fine for me, no matter how many times I fuck anyone. The benefits of sustaining pleasure is the reduction in blood pressure, etc., as well as heightened mental effects. Pleasure/orgasm are altered states of consciousness, akin to the drug experience, so the longer you stay "in" it, the more woozy from the endorphins you'll be.
The longer you can hold off from coming, the stronger the eventual pop will be.
Gram: I'm afraid of my own orgasms. People have died.
Sabrina Deep to (be a bukkake) surface in 12 cities
"Sex should be free," said Sabrina Deep, who last year hosted, both in her home and in her vagina, a 77-man gangbang.
This summer Deep will take her philosophy around the world, stopping in 12 cities to be the focal point of bukkakes from London to Berlin to Rome to Vancouver, culminating in a 110-man Tokyo bukkake on September 11, her 30th birthday.
Japan was the country that invented the bukkake, so September 11 will be a Canterbury pilgrimage of sorts with Deep as the Wife of Cum Bath.
"I take it like I'm going on little holidays," Deep said. "Sexually there is probably more roughness in cities like Berlin and London, more "Can-I-date-you-after-we've-finished-with-this" in Italy, more I'm-glad-I-have-unloaded-my-balls" in cities like Toronto and Vancouver. I'm not sure about the United States and Japan. I'll let you know."
"I already know what it's like in the United States," I said. "I own this place. At my house it's like Bukkakalypse Now."
Deep says that the events have all been set up by fans who live in those cities, but Tokyo's bukkake session will be more regimented, adhering to that country's sacred bukkake traditions.
"I'll have to stick to the rigid rules of classic Japanese bukkake," she said. "No fucking, collected come, final drinking. I believe that a Japanese lady will be the official collector during the process."
Bukkakador attendance is often limited, and several cities are already booked. Participation is free to healthy men who can prove they are over 18.
Deep's World Bukkake Tour begins Monday in Toronto. The first currently available day is June 12 in Rome. The two US dates, in New York and Columbus, OH, are in August, in case you're interested. I'd say, "What are you waiting for? Sign up now!" but that would be pandering.
In a display of strength and iron will, Nina Hartley will masturbate on camera for three hours tomorrow afternoon. What's more, she will be doing this in Calabasas, Spanish for "pumpkins."
Hartley will launch Gamelink's Pornstar Masturbation Marathon Wednesday, May 21, from 5 to 8 PST. May is, more than any other month apparently, National Masturbation Month. A portion of the proceeds from the event will be donated to San Francisco's Center for Sex and Culture (CSC) to continue their work promoting masturbation as safe sex.
"National Masturbation Month," you might say. "I don't know if I can masturbate more than I already do."
Stop whining. Are you against our troops?
The powerful Masturbation Lobby has a lot of competition to raise awareness. May is also Asian/Pacific American Heritage Month, Mental Health Month, Allergy/Asthma Awareness Month, National Good Car Keeping Month, National Strawberry Month, National Chocolate Custard Month, Foot Health Month, National Physical Fitness and Sports Month, National High Blood Pressure Month, (and, flying in the face of the previous one) National Hamburger Month, Arthritis Month, Better Sleep Month, Correct Posture Month, National Salad Month, Older Americans Month, National Barbecue Month, National Bike Month, National Mine Month, National Egg Month, National Artisan Gelato Month, National Asparagus Month (this month's upper-level directive is "Stop Talking about Urine"), National Macaroon Day, National Salad Month, National Salsa Month, and National Share A Story month (this month's upper-level directive is "Start Talking about Urine").
There is so much wrong with the world that even I, America's Beloved Porn Journalist, am often guilty of filling these virtual pages with the reflected sadness of western civilization.
But I am happy to report that JM ("Don't Call Us Obscene") Productions has heard my demands for MILF movies with actual MILFs in them and has responded with a new series, Mother of the Year.
In the porn/metal interview DVD Radium 2, Kristina Rose (as well as Camryn Kiss, Dana DeArmond, and Devon) are asked what their favorite metal music is to fuck to (DeArmond says Pantera).
But Rose cites Nine Inch Nails' "The Fragile," explaining "It's for the ladies."
I think if you got 100 people in a room to listen to that double album it would be very unlikely anyone would say, "It's for the ladies," but she's right.
Rose's review of "The Fragile" is right up there with my friend Sherman's review of Jaws 4.
"Jaws 4 makes Jaws 3 look like Jaws 2," he said. I had to wipe away a tear.
Another interesting thing about Radium 2 is Devon and Camryn Kiss. What sweet faces, I thought. And look what they're doing to themselves.
L.A. art world stunned by whimsy, porn, lack of stabbings
What I meant to say in the last entry was "When is the last time you went to an art show - and didn't get stabbed?" My new answer to that rhetorical question is now "Why last Friday night, of course."
A few people (well, no one) wrote in to express their concern that in an increasingly violent art world, especially an installation in which porn stars would be revered in whimsical textual displays such as those created by Margie Schnibbe (aka Vena Virago), they might get caught in the crossfire of one of that savage demimonde's many feuds, or that they might go on a punching, stabbing, and boot-kicking spree themselves.
But no such thing happened Friday, as Schnibbe's "Honey Bunny" show opened to a packed but peaceful house of milling hipsters, poseurs, Germans, New Romantics, old queens, and angry young men.
I usually arrive at such gallery openings shaking my fist and mumbling about the various ways in which my vision has been repressed by h8ers. But something about the comforting pastels and intricate swirly patterns juxtaposed with large, bare singularities of wall, cushions, and a sign that read "Today is a good day" made me gently place my broken bottle down with the plastic cups of white wine.
Schnibbe's show contains a stylized wall of AVN Hall of Fame inductees, and the entire exhibit will serve as the backdrop of the upcoming Vena Virago porn outing Honey Bunny, which will star Page Morgan as a woman obsessed with the art of a woman named Vena Virago, rabbits, and having sex.
But it was strange to walk through a gallery and not be confronted with violence around every custom-painted corner. There were no ear-slicing mobs, drunken honor killings, or installation-related bloodletting, like the time when I shaved off my nipples for my performance piece "Xiphoid Process" at Soho's Gallery Elephantiasis, of which David Bowie remarked, "They grew right back" (and they did).
Schnibbe attended CalArts in the mid-1990s after a career as an artist and a dominatrix in New York. She currently lives in Silver Lake.
Hollywood's Circus Gallery is the art gallery arm of the venerable GLBT bookstore Circus of Books. The gallery has operated since last April, and "Honey Bunny" will be up until June 14.
Vena Virago, who in some circles is known as Margie Schnibbe, will open her "Honey Bunny" show tomorrow night at Circus Gallery on Lexington Ave.
I'm waiting for my man Twenty-six dollars in my hand Up to Lexington, 7065 Feel sick and dirty, more dead than alive I'm waiting for my man - Lou Reed
Virago has directed a couple of movies for VCA and Vivid-steve, such as Silverlake Scenesters and Eastside Story, and will actually film a scene for her newest movie at the gallery some time before the show closes in mid-June, making the "Honey Bunny" show a quiet piece of porn world/art world convergence without any of the overhyping or poseur elements that have sullied such attempts in recent years.
Honey Bunny the (eventual) movie will star Page Morgan (pictured).
Porn performer Brian Surewood's case moves toward a May 28 arraignment with the completion of the discovery phase of his murder trial, in which no significant charges were dropped.
The case has achieved significant media exposure as a tragic example of the results of street racing; both defendants claim that at least the other defendant was racing.
I attended Surewood's trial on Wednesday on the ninth floor of the Van Nuys Division of Los Angeles Superior Court. There were about 30 people in attendance, representatives of the family of the late Ayman Arif, friends and family of Armando Ayon, and friends and family of Surewood, including his mother, an uncle, and some cousins.
Each person in attendance had reason to be powerfully sad. No one wanted to be there and would have gone back and changed the circumstances if he could.
Which is why the jovial atmosphere beyond the bar, as lawyers for the defense and prosecution, court officers and stenographers, joked and drank coffee, seemed indecorous. We'd been warned to arrive at 8:30 sharp, so when the doors weren't open until 8:50, and court didn't start until 9:15, it appeared that, even as it was just another day in court for its employees, some measure of respect should have been paid to the grieving friends and family of everyone involved.
There were five quick cases before People vs. Barnes and Ayon, and another quick case, involving two guys who were found with a trunk full of 95 stolen credit cards (their lawyer tried to defend them by saying that they had "strong ties to their community," which made me laugh because I come from that community), just after the recess.
But at 9:44 the case was finally called, and first Ayon, and then Surewood, were led into the courtroom and were seated and handcuffed side by side. Surewood is a little heavier than people in the adult community remember him; he has been in a 6' x 8' cell since October, and his characteristic beard, which he cultivated since his decision to be a "character" porn actor, is gone. Instead, he looks like a sadder, aged version of his mid-90's self, as if the Surewood who looked like he capered around with a pan flute never existed.
There were two witnesses called during the day. The first was L.A.P.D. Detective David Millan, who had taken statements from Ayon and Surewood the night of the accident. Ayon had given his statement at 8:30 p.m. (the accident happened just after 3 p.m.) and Surewood, who had just turned himself in, gave his at around 9:30 p.m.
Surewood's attorney through this phase of the trial (it is uncertain if he will continue through the arraignment, due to financial agreements) was Peter Korn. Korn appeared on top of his game, if a little cocky (at one point judge Leslie Dunn corrected him on a statement that was "cumulative," or comprised the spirit of a series of other statements, but hadn't actually been uttered. Korn replied to the judge, "Yes, I just wanted to see if you'd heard it.")
The main battle of the day was between Korn and the prosecutor, James Falco. Ayon's attorney, Howard Levine (no relation to the longtime Pulse/Vivid salesperson) appeared incoherent at times. Levine and Korn were concerned with exculpating their clients and reducing their charges, and Falco needed to make them stick.
As such, both Levine and Falco tried to paint Surewood as the aggressor in the case. No one contradicted that it was Ayon who actually struck the cars that injured the Arif family, but both defense attorneys painted their clients as trying to get away from the other, belligerent driver.
Surewood actually had one more charge against him than Ayon: leaving the scene of an accident. Korn tried to get this charge thrown out by pointing out that Surewood had called 911 immediately after the accident, and tied it in with a refutation of the murder charge, arguing that no one who had intended to commit murder would have bothered to stop and dial 911.
The actual call was not played in court, but Falco pointed out that Surewood had not identified himself in the transcript, if it was Surewood at all. In any case, there did not seem to be a real dispute that Surewood had called 911, but the goodheartedness his lawyer had tried to establish with that fact was not enough to get the leaving the scene charge dropped.
It seemed to me that a lot of the prosecutor's attention was being paid to Surewood. While both defendants were charged with the same things (murder, second degree murder, reckless endangerment, reckless driving), it seemed that extra effort was being made to emphasize Surewood's role.
Testimonies of previous witnesses was brought up to prove that Surewood had "slammed" on his breaks in front of Ayon, causing Ayon's Maxima to go out of control, while Surewood's attorney maintained that Surewood had merely "tapped" his brakes to keep Ayon off his bumper.
After a lunch break, Korn called an expert witness, Robert Ockey. Ockey was a tall, courtly, soft-spoken former L.A.P.D. officer who in retirement had continued working in accident reconstruction. He claimed 25 years experience piecing together accidents after the fact, and he had his facts in order.
Ockey was convinced that there was no way Surewood had slammed on his brakes, and that damning tire marks on Sherman Way could not have belonged to Surewood's Camaro.
The problem was, and it was apparent, that Ockey was not a great public speaker. He was put out by Falco's bulldoggery, appeared to become quietly offended, and his testimony was subverted by his shyness.
Korn tried to establish that Ayon was thrown out of control by accelerating and trying to pass Surewood on the right, rather than because Surewood had stopped suddenly.
But after more than four hours of testimony, the judge was not convinced that Surewood should receive lesser charges than Ayon (although one charge, relating to direct grievous bodily injury, was dropped).
Judge Dunn was unconvinced that premeditated murder charges should be dropped against Surewood and Ayon.
"By virtue of the fact that they're driving vehicles, they know the power, force, and violence they produce," she said.
The charges against Surewood and Ayon, if made to stick, carry sentences of 25 years to life, according to California Penal Code sections 187-199:
(a) Every person guilty of murder in the first degree shall be punished by death, imprisonment in the state prison for life without the possibility of parole, or imprisonment in the state prison for a term of 25 years to life.
I don't know what the precedent is in road rage or reckless driving cases in California, but it did feel like Barnes' defense was being shot down by the judge out of proportion to his co-defendant.
"It seemed like she made up her mind beforehand," Korn said later.
"George Bailey, do you ever get tired of just reading about things?" says local sassypants Violet Bick in "It's A Wonderful Life."
