The AVN Awards show gets bigger every year, and this January the event was covered by Showtime, which is getting chummier and chummier with the adult industry and which recently broadcast the event.

Here are some images from the show.

"You're one of those people I want to rescue," Dave Navarro said to Joanna Angel.

"I'm actually doing quite well for myself, thanks," said Angel.

When he's not hawking New Balance footwear, Navarro has been working with Teravision as a director and appearing at adult industry events.

People in the adult industry have varied reactions to Navarro. Some welcome his Jane's Addiction/Red Hot Chili Peppers fame but others say he is another mainstream celeb who has not "paid his dues" to the porn business.

This sentiment isn't exclusive to porn; it's just more noticeable. Success breeds contempt, especially when you're not "one of us."

A similar contingent within the business begrudges outsiders making money from their takes on porn. The writer David Foster Wallace was beset upon by calling an often vulgar industry "vulgar" and pointing out spelling errors in AVN magazine {excerpt}. "Fight Club" author Chuck Palahniuk had some factual and logistical inaccuracies in his porn-themed book "Snuff" and porn blogger Gene Ross said this:

But in Palahniuk’s novel titled “Snuff,” fiction, it seems, is stranger and, apparently, a whole lot better than truth. Such is the basic fact - that most of what Palahniuk writes about here, bears little resemblance to what you’d come across in the real porn world.

If that’s the case, why should we quibble about minor details getting in the way of a good story, you might ask? Well, for Doubleday to cash in on a really bad, tedious book with Palahniuk’s name attached to it, for one thing. Although I've yet to come across a review that hasn't gone out of its way to kiss Palahniuk's ass which was one of my reasons, aside from the obvious, for grabbing a copy to begin with.

Or put it this way. If some Joe Blow nobody had submitted this idea, the publishing company would have been firing off rejection slips faster than premature ejaculation.

I say that overcoming heroin addiction has allowed Navarro to test in to the porn business. But Joanna Angel does not need rescuing.

Teagan Presley returned to the AVN Awards after bouts of having a family. Red carpet co-host Kirsten Price said, "You look so beautiful! I can't believe how tiny you are!" or "You look so beautiful; I can't believe how tiny you are!"

It looks as if Navarro is talking with a cardboard cutout of Tera Patrick, the way I often talk to a cardboard cutout of Chewbacca. The reality is that Patrick is ready for a pose a millionth of a second before a camera flashes.

Jenna Jameson and Tito Ortiz stop by. Jenna is chipper and talks about the future, what with her company being nominated for 52 awards. She does not tell Navarro of the bomb she will drop onstage.

Jameson's speech, as captured by the Showtime coverage, seemed rambling. Prior to announcing Stormy Daniels as the inaugural Jenna Jameson Crossover Star of the Year, Jameson said, "It's apropos that this award is named after me."

She also talked about being battered in the mainstream press, which had called her skinny and divorced. "But I'm not divorced," she said, and thanked boyfriend Tito Ortiz for taking care of her.

Then she said, "Everything's beautiful...I want to be honest for a second. Honesty is key. Honesty is key. I will never, ever, ever spread my legs again in this industry, ever." (In a previous report I got the number of "ever"s wrong, but I had quoted from AVN).

She moved on after this, and declared Clubjenna to be an adult industry powerhouse. It was an odd moment. Two months later, Clubjenna released a five-year-old "new" Jenna movie.

Navarro with muse Sasha Grey. I am in the background of this shot, thinking, "That Navarro has a look. I don't personally like the look - he looks a little like a bug, but it works for him - but I've got to get myself a look. Maybe I should stick forks in my eyes."

Awards host Greg Fitzsimmons takes a shot at Max Hardcore, calling him the retarded guy who captured Curious George. That seemed harsh to me, but Hardcore took it well. There is a huge Margaret and H.A. Rey fan base in the adult industry, and all know that the guy who caught Curious George was the Man in the Yellow Hat.

Tera is forbidden by law to take a bad picture.

The first AVN Awards were handed out in a room with fewer than 200 people. Hillary Scott goes to collect her Supporting Actress award before a crowd of 6,000.

Larry Flynt is the Christopher Reeve of the porn industry, except Flynt got his injury on the job. People love him.

Guess which person has two children?

My hood ornament.

See my AVN 2008 gallery here.

Previously: AVN Wrap-up 2008
See also: AVN, Showtime

Labels: avn, avn08, awards, dave navarro, events, greg fitzsimmons, jenna jameson, kirsten price, las vegas, max hardcore, sasha grey, teagan presley, tera patrick

posted by Gram the Man at Thursday, June 12, 2008 | 0 Comments Links to this post

"It's a fantasy of mine to be a fantasy of someone else's," said Alix Lakehurst, a Chicago porn actress who is a throwback to a brassier, fleshier time.

Lakehurst makes me think of Gina Gershon, but not because she's little and ropy.

"I took my porn (last) name from the movie theatre I first went down on a guy in," she said.

It was while I was watching Gina Gershon and Jennifer Tilly in Bound when that first happened to me. I should check to see if there's any porn girl working named Susan Showcase Cinemas Lawrence.

Lakehurst is busty and Greek in a way that must make people ashamed for knowing, like if your school crossing guard, postal carrier, or waitress was that busty and Mediterranean. She catches people looking at her when she's on the train in Chicago.

"They don't know the half of it," she said.

Lakehurst lives in Wicker Park, a community north of the Loop in Chicago, and when she's not working for boobcentric companies like Score in Florida, Big Top, or Homegrown Video, she is making guerilla porn on public transportation or Amtrak.

It was her flashing video on the train that first made me aware of her, then I met her in Las Vegas at the AVN convention, and recently she sent a DVD of her home videos to fans, in which we are treated to her philosophy on boob oiling ("I moisturize them every day") and see her joining the 20 feet high club in the bathroom of a moving train.

Lakehurst's appeal is not that she looks like a porn star. She started getting naked on camera two years ago and now, at 34 and far away from Porn Valley, she has neither the motivation nor the pressure to look a certain way.

"I work out and count calories," she said, "but otherwise I'm lame and geeky. And I don't want to be 95 pounds."

As much as she has created a vocal and supportive fan base on her website, We Could Be Naked, Lakehurst's weight does bring out some surprisingly harsh responses from detractors, who want their porn performers to look a certain way.

"What surprises me is that they go to the trouble of logging in and writing things like that," she said.

Many of Lakehurst's fans compare her to fleshier porn stars of the 80's. One of them, Christy Canyon, became a particular obsession of Lakehurst's, too. A blog and a series of articles for Mr. Skin, The Road to Christy Canyon, detailed Lakehurst's quest to meet her hero, whom she'd first seen in a porn when Lakehurst was 19.

"She changed my life," Lakehurst said. "I thought she was so beautiful."

Lakehurst eventually met and interviewed Canyon on the set of the latter's Playboy Radio show.

Lakehurst is different from other porn stars, too, in that her lack of proximity to America's Great Porn Proving Grounds limit her exhibitionism to her website where, self-directed, her persona is much more vulnerable.

"It's also because I actually like sex," she said. "I know I'll get tired of it if there's no connection, or if it's like a factory down there. I don't want to be desensitized."

Because of this, Lakehurst has not developed a thick skin, or the killer instinct required to either succeed in mainstream porn or at least to not feel personally slighted.

"I know it's a business about bodies and boobs and asses," she said, "but it's hard to get away from the feeling that when someone doesn't like my ass, they don't like me."

Lakehurst is discouraged with mainstream porn after a recent bad experience with the company Bang Brothers, which she wrote about on her site. "I could win a hip and thigh award but not an ass award," she said.

This vulnerability makes Lakehurst worth watching, especially in a business where 18-year-olds can develop the thousand-yard-stare pretty quickly.

"When I was younger I drank a lot," she said. "I was unhappy all the time. I liked cocaine. But now I don't. I want to feel more."

Previously: Riding on the Metro; Urban Friction: Sexual Equality in Chicago
See also: Alix Lakehurst

Labels: alix lakehurst, avn08, chicago, websites, WGL, zaftig

posted by Gram the Man at Tuesday, March 04, 2008 | 8 Comments Links to this post

I took a few hundred pictures at the AVN convention, and also handed my camera around to various lowlifes. I have finally labeled most of the pictures in my gallery, but still need some help. Let me know if you can add names to the faces (and other parts).

(Thanks already to Devanter and Black and Blue Media for some embarrassing but necessary corrections.)

See the gallery here.

Labels: avn, avn08, fotos, stoya, WGL

posted by Gram the Man at Sunday, February 10, 2008 | 2 Comments Links to this post

Each January I spend a week in Las Vegas for both the Consumer Electronics Show and the AVN Expo. The big hits at CES this year were the Taser holster/mp3 player and a software program that allows users to read others’ text messages on a computer. But nothing compares to "I will never spread my legs in this industry again."

Read the exhaustive report after the gap.


Once again, I was very impressed with the lunches served to the press (sponsored by Verizon) but am dubious about the backpack I received from Toshiba HD-DVD. Not only did the one I received last year begin falling apart in June, but HD-DVD is now dead in the water.

CES was held in several buildings across Las Vegas, not only in the Sands/Venetian complex but also at the Las Vegas Convention Center. It was the latter venue that was most crowded and, because AVN would also be held at the Sands on an overlapping Wednesday and Thursday, I visited the LVCC on Monday and Tuesday and wandered over to the much more compact, sedate, and controlled Sands/Venetian area Wednesday, where there was better access to lunch and the press room did not look like a post-Katrina Superdome.

But you’re not here to hear about CES.

What is instructive to remember, though, is that the AVN show was once part of CES. It might seem odd now, as electronic products are a very small portion of the adult industry, but the AVN Expo used to be held in a corner of one of CES’ many rented halls. When that changed, AVN grew and CES attendees became embittered, because they would much rather see half-naked women in high heels than the latest in South Korean metric screws.

To AVN’s credit, its own coverage of the show skimped on hyperbole. There were no stories about the “biggest Expo ever”. Numbers have not been released yet, but it was clear to the naked eye that there were fewer people attending the Expo than in previous years. This made for a more enjoyable trade show, as there was easier access to everything from the performers to the bathrooms to the food.

And numbers were not down so far that the event ceased to be exciting and crowded.

In terms of companies represented at the Expo, there was not a noticeable drop from last year. It seems that the companies most in need of maintaining a strong presence at the Expo, like Wicked, Vivid, Digital Playground, Hustler, Adam & Eve, and Evil Angel, kept their booths in the same place. If any of them had been gone, people would have thought something was up.

“Put it this way,” an Evil Angel employee told me, “no one makes money from being here. But we’ve got got be here.”

Smaller companies literally on the fringes of the Expo floor did well with foot traffic, such as Juicy Entertainment, as did companies with gimmicks, like classic porn company VCX, which posed its models on a ’68 Camaro.

The Naughty America booth, as always, was the most striking with its multiple backdrops. Upload producer Sex Z Pictures continued with its open-ended booth design which created confusion as people mistakenly walked in and out of it. It looked less like a studio booth (there were no screens playing its movies) than it did an improvised business area.

Unlike previous years, the space of the Expo floor was managed more efficiently. Whereas previously there were large chunks of open space, this year the dividing curtains were pulled up almost to the back of Andrew Blake’s booth.

Expo newcomer Abby Winters received a lot of attention with the company’s AstroTurf motif, with the barefoot Aussies clamoring over each other in cotton underthings with an innocence belying the horrible secrets detailed in the comments of this post.

As always, the AVN Expo was a chance for people who’d been talking by e-mail and telephone all year to meet face to face and, based on looking each other over, strike or not strike business deals.

In that way Las Vegas in January becomes a much-needed boost of adrenaline for industry players on the verge of being forgotten. For them, they need to come to the AVN show so that people will remember they’re alive.

“I just need to show my face in a few places so nobody thinks I’m selling dishwashers somewhere,” one director told me, even though he would be a better dishwasher salesman than porn director, in my opinion.

For others, Vegas is nothing more than a yearly reunion in a familiar place with a captive audience; if everyone is going to be in the same casino complex, it’s much easier to get them in the same room than if you’re trying to collect them in the San Fernando Valley.

Otto Bauer became the Man in America for a Dutch hardcore company, several independent producers switched distributors, a number of attendees were hoodwinked into a free bus ride to a Pahrrump-area brothel and then told that the hookers were extra, and a surprising number of people told me they’d picked up products at the unlikeliest booth of all: a company selling 400-threadcount Egyptian cotton sheets.

The most thought-provoking booth was that of the West Las Vegas Libertarian party.

“Everyone tells me that the Republicans should be kicked out,” the rep said, “and that the Democrats were better for the porn industry. But just as many, if not more, lawsuits were brought against the adult business during the Clinton administration than in Bush I or II.

“And maybe Jenna says she supports Hillary, but would Hillary ever support Jenna?”

Press

For the past several years press concerns have been handled by several organizations. Home Entertainment Events, which actually owns the Adult Entertainment Expo, takes care of press registration for the Expo.

“A woman came in from some scrapbooking publication in Sandy, Utah,” said HEE’s Sean Devlin. “And she wasn’t pre-registered but she showed us her publication’s website with her byline and picture, and she told us that our industry was on top of technology and so on, and that today’s scrapbooks employ technology, so we started registering her, despite misgivings about how she could cover us. She started looking around at the posters in the press room and she said, ‘You have a lot of porn in this room,’ and we said, ‘Well, it is a porn convention’ and she got very red and told us she thought we were CES. She ripped off her bracelet and demanded we take her out of our database and then ran out of the room.”

How this woman walked the hundred yards from the entrance of the hall to the press room without figuring out there was something seriously porny going on says a lot about Utah.

Sue Procko PR handles both red carpet access and show tickets for press, so any media representative who wants to visit the Expo, get on the red carpet and go to the AVN Awards needs to register three times. This aspect of the system is seriously flawed, but within its constraints the staffs of both companies were very efficient dealing with multiple requests from freelancers, even brilliant ones, like me.

Among Procko’s other clients is Anchor Bay, which re-releases horror classics like “Dawn of the Dead”, “The Evil Dead”, and “Phantasm”.

“We’re still looking for that great crossover between Angus Scrimm and the AVN Expo,” said Procko’s Tim Williams.

My advice to potential press attendees of this series of events is to never trust that an AVN employee will make the call for you. AVN employees are not only overworked and overstressed, but also it is not in their best interest to help you. A colleague thought that it would be a good idea to go through a high-ranking AVN employee to get show passes and watched his tickets evaporate the day of the show.

AVN v. XBiz

Competing adult trade puiblication XBiz has been covering the AVN show for years, and this year sent its largest contingent ever to Las Vegas. The difference between the two staffs was striking: I never saw an XBiz staffer not dressed well, whereas many AVN employees walked the floor or attended dinners in t-shirts, jeans, and ball caps.

A visitor from another profession would conclude that the XBiz kids were all go-getters and that the AVN staff were slackers, but this is porn, an industry founded on the principal of Clothes Don’t Matter. Still, it was impossible to look at the two staffs and not think of a Before and After photo.

XBiz has for the past two years accelerated its acquisition of properties that are more similar than different from those AVN possesses. While next month’s XBiz Awards does not have nearly the number of nominations AVN announces, its awards are getting bulkier in number and also covering more of the same ground. It sponsors the novelty show LoveLA in Los Angeles at the end of the month (this is a correction from an earlier post in which I said XBiz was launching this show) and, like its rival, has a magazine each for the video and Internet sides of the adult business.

In a growth cycle marked less by invention than copying AVN’s ideas and executing them better but with less of AVN’s charming fandom, XBiz’ biggest innovation this past year was its Erotic Film Festival, something AVN has never attempted and which was generally well received. Its most egregious copycatting was the launch of a website called Adult Video Index, or AVI. Sure AVN doesn’t have a copyright on the term “Adult Video”, but AVI seems grasping.

XBiz engineered its presence at the AVN show by donating banner space on its site. It would be interesting if AVN covers next month’s XBiz Forum and Awards with the same zeal XBiz displayed last week.

Parties

I lost my voice early this week from spending too much time at parties that were loud. Having been born already, I never understood the fascination of spending too much time squeezing through sweaty obstacles. I wear a suit, I look good; why do I want to emerge from a party with your body spray and eyeliner all over it?

The only party I attended of this nature this year was XBiz’ Players’ Ball (which, naturally, was once an AVN staple) at the Empire Ballroom. I hung out in the VIP room with people dressed as pimps like historical interpreters. Even pimps don’t dress like pimps.

The best part of the party was the means by which I got there. Best Retail Site winner SugarDVD rented the largest vehicle in Las Vegas short of a plane. Named The Intimidator, the Ford vehicle held 22 people in slightly cramped comfort. It is the type of vehicle to overwhelm and terrify enemies.

Do you know how to tell people in rented limousines versus people in limousines they own? People in rented limousines don’t drive down The Strip screaming “I’m so wasted!”

Business-related parties I attended included a Digital Playground fete at which I met Adrianna Lynn and was seated next to Stoya. Both women are great fun, but I have to give the edge to Stoya because she stole my camera when I visited other tables and made me some memorable shots. I feel like the hobbyists who first shot Bettie Page when I downloaded the photos.

On Wednesday I ate with Fleshbot. Since its employees live in different parts of the country we rarely see each other. This trip, in that it also included staffers from Gawker Media sites like Jezebel, Defamer, and Gizmodo, featured the biggest collection of my coworkers I have ever met. Our main discussion was about what would be this year’s “Dirtpipe Milkshakes”.

Later I attended an Adam & Eve dinner at which I sat next to Jamye Waxman and across the table from Ira Levine and Nina Hartley. I wish conversations like this on my dearest friends. At one point Playboy Radio’s Farrell Hirsch, who had lost his voice too, leaned over with a note that read: “Shouldn’t Nina be required at every party?”

Nina told me that my dimples wouldn’t go away if I became fat. This is why the world has a crush on her. She also told us how, at conventions, she gives everyone ten seconds of undivided attention.

The next night I went to Morton’s Steakhouse with Harmony Films. It was the best steak I ever ate, save for the cow I hunted, killed, and cooked myself during my vision quest. If Harmony’s Gazzman were American, he would be a national treasure. Since he is Scottish, I think I’ll have to check the CIA’s field book but I’m pretty sure he’s my enemy.

I couldn’t make it to Tera Patrick’s or Jenna Jameson’s party, was detained on the way to Nikki Benz’ party, and was not invited to Wicked’s and AVN’s parties. Vivid-steve hoodwinked (my words, not anyone else’s) Fleshbot into “sponsoring” their party, but I did not attend. I was not invited to a Village Voice party because I’m not cool enough.

I stopped in at a number of other parties and I wish I could have stayed, but the meter was running.

Finally, an annual Venetian suite party hosted by a mysterious cabal was my final stop of the convention. It was a fitting way to cap a week of aberrant behavior. People drifted in and out. Sunny Lane, a gloriously naked Satine Phoenix (she wasn’t nude – she was naked), Abby Ehmann, whom I sent sobbing from the room, Joe Gallant, who was there and then he wasn’t, Jamye Waxman, who had to catch a plane and I cursed the plane, a lot of sexy checkout girls from Albertson’s, and Ron Jeremy, who interrupted a conversation I was having in the only way he knew how, were just a few of the characters.

But the only thing I found shocking was this: in response to not finding herself on the guest list, a colleague of mine called security. I would have taken the little “press” card out of my hatband and mashed it into the carpet in disgust, but instead I went back into the party and had, like, ten more drinks.

People

I especially enjoyed my conversations with Adrianna Lynn, Stoya, Nina and Ira, Jamye, and the delightful Alix Lakehurst. I enjoyed, despite everything, meeting the Abby Winters girls and Jean Laconia, or whatever her name is. Gazzman and his partner Dave West are people to watch, even in PAL format. It is always great to see Lorelei Lee and the people in her orbit, like Bobbi Starr, Adrianna Nicole, Madison Young, and Annette Schwarz. I also enjoyed the comic stylings of Porno Jim and once again didn’t talk to his wife, Dicey, enough. I talked with Sasha Grey and Kimberly Kane outside of a bathroom, because that was all G-d had ordained. Aiden Starr couldn’t come to the final party, despite her dress, and that ensaddened me, but at least I met Hillary Scott’s mom at the dollar slots, and I'm hoping Gia Paloma and Tommy Pistol will let me name their child Amerigo Ponante the Destroyer.

The only person who refused a photo was Matt Zane. I asked him if he would wave to me, while suspended from hooks, as if I was a guest at his barbecue.

"No, I won't do that," he said, and somehow managed to twist away. Some people have standards.

The Show

A lot of industry people like to say they don’t and won’t attend the AVN Awards, but I always enjoy myself. This year (again, with no official figures) saw the highest attendance for a show more streamlined than in years past, and with some great hosting from Greg Fitzsimmons and Tera Patrick.

If I am correct, this was not actually the 25th annual awards but actually the 25th anniversary of AVN. Next year will be the 25th annual awards. Regardless, few chose to correct this and as such the show could have done better to hype its history. While there were a few Best Of clips, they were not comprehensive. What would have been interesting is something like an onstage reunion of the “Scoundrels” cast from the first awards, or a group picture with the last several years’ worth of Best New Starlets and Male and Female Performers of the Year.

Either due to a lack of organization or the inadvisability of a porn star showing his or her age, this will never happen.

Jenna Jameson

Having met Jenna only three times, I was impressed with how nice a person she seemed. Distancing herself from porn the way she is doing, but making her announcement of never again spreading her legs for the porn industry at that industry’s biggest function shows how hopelessly tied to that industry she is. But cut her some slack. The adult industry made her, but doesn’t own her.

A reader writes:

“I watched the clip and don't understand the hoopla. Yes, she was inelegant and dismissive and perhaps could have been more articulate, but at the end of the day she's a porn star. Regardless, the crowd that sat there snacking eagerly on finger foods and drinking champagne as they waited to find out who won Best Anal expected something more from their creation and lashed out when they didn't get it. The industry media that trashed her for the last year erupted when they weren't shown more respect from the girl who would be nothing without them. (They should have been thankful that she gave them a moment of entertainment during the never-ending show.) How can Jenna ever thank them enough for letting her suck cock in the adult industry? Seems only sucking more cock will do. Just like the mainstream, the adult industry will never see her as anything more than a whore. And we wonder why she wants out?”

Rumors and blind items

I heard that the entity who said to a reviewer that “There’s an army of people who like my movies” is also going to be out of a job next month. I heard this rumor via a person who has been known to present wishful thinking as fact, so I am, as ever, dubious that the Right Thing will happen.

A number of companies are royally regretting their decision to release exclusively on HD-DVD versus Blu-Ray. If it’s any consolation, porn on either format looks like ass. Hard to appreciate the deeper blacks on your MRSA patch.

I heard the AVN show got/is being sold to HotMovies. No confirmations.

I heard the AVN Expo is moving to Los Angeles. No confirmations and I hope that never happens. If it does and AVN starts poaching former XBiz employees, the power has shifted.

While Playboy broadcasts the red carpet, Showtime filmed the AVN Awards. Whether or not this type of show can ever be aired is a question no one at Showtime is answering. They did very little to promote Vivid’s “Debbie Does Dallas” miniseries and, with no official releases touting their involvement (it should have been all over the news for the past month), I doubt anything significant will happen. AVN deserves a more involved broadcast partner.

See also: Gram's Gallery

Previously: Gram's Index: The only numbers you can trust; AVN 2007 - last words; AVN 2007 - "A fine spray of legitimacy"; AVN wrap-up 2006

Labels: avn08, satine phoenix

posted by Gram the Man at Thursday, January 17, 2008 | 3 Comments Links to this post

The reason that there is no Oscar presented for Best New Starlet is because novelty is not as important in Hollywood as it is in Porn Valley. in fact, Hollywood prizes known quantities more than untested talent.

That doesn't mean people wouldn't rush to buy movies with Penny Flame in them (I would, if I had to pay for such things), but the idea of being the first to commit to film some new porn talent is one of the few things in the adult industry that is still looked on with wonder and awe.

Such was the feeling I had when I and a few other gentlemen thought we were witnessing the first scene ever by an 18-year-old named Jean.

Read more after the gap.



Since I work in the media I am lied to all the time. This is a story of my trying to not pass on those lies to you.

Some people lie so much that I am safe in the knowledge that the opposite of everything they say is true. This applies to certain porn publicists like Jeff Mullen. When I run his press releases, they come with disclaimers. He is OK with that (and he has no choice but to be) because he believes that all publicity is good publicity. Also, he believes that readers of other porn news sites are stupid enough to believe him, and he doesn't worry about the five people who read this site.

After the director Jennifer James lied to me - repeatedly - in a story I wrote for XBiz, I began interviews with porn people by saying, "I will not repeat off the record information, but don't lie to me. If there is something you don't want to talk about, let me know and I will not press it. You are fascinating enough, and my words are scintillating enough, that together we can work around that unpleasantness without drawing attention to it. Just don't lie to me or I will make sure people know it."

Most of the lying in porn, and in mainstream entertainment, is of the self-deluding variety. "I'm going back to school," "I can maintain a relationship with someone not involved in pornography," "People respect and are not creeped out by you if you give them teddy bears," or "I use cocaine recreationally" are all examples of self-deluding falsehoods, and I cut them slack.

I, for one, say that I am America's Beloved Porn Journalist when I am actually the World's Beloved Porn Journalist.

Then there are business-related lies, such as sales charts of trade magazines, the existence of Abby Winters or Simon Wolf, or our deeply-buried lede of the day, the feigned inexperience of Jean Jacobs, aka Jean Laconia.

I met Jean Laconia last week on a small shoot run by Porn Week and Harmony Films. She told everyone assembled that she would be shooting a movie for Vivid this week but that the scene she was shooting in a small room at the Treasure Island Hotel and Casino - our special scene - was to be her first porn film ever.

"If there's something you don't want to say, just let me know, rather than lying," I said to her at the bar. "Just say, 'Gram, I don't want to talk about that'. Is this your first porn scene?"

"Yes," she said.

I found Laconia charming and sexy and dirty beyond her years. She said things to Dave West's camera that seemed characteristic of someone who'd gone to the L.A. Direct Models' School of Intensive Pornology.

Laconia (as camera zooms in on her parts): Do you like this?
West: Yes
Laconia: Do you love it?
West: Is this my audition now?

Laconia said she was in Vegas for the first time. A stripper from Connecticut, Laconia said she worked at a club in Oxford, MA. She got the name "Laconia" from her street. She can speak Romanian and she likes Jagermeister.

She lamented that she had not been told how expensive Las Vegas was, and Gazzman said that at least he would pay her in cash. He also had the following helpful tips we should all employ:

"It's good when you shake your tits," he said in a Scottish brogue, and, "It's good when you bring your legs back as well."

Laconia had been booked for the Harmony solo shoot by Fox Modeling, a local talent broker. Knowing that she was shooting for Vivid in a few days, I wondered if it was for their Brand New Faces line, which has its performers sign a quasi-legal affidavit confirming they'd never performed on camera before.

In an intervierw with Brand New Faces director B. Skow, he told me that once or twice he had been able to find out at the last minute that women saying they'd never performed before in fact had. "We're putting together a 'Caught' section on the DVDs and website," he said, "for people we catch in a lie."

When Laconia shot for Brand New Faces on Monday she used the name Jean Jacobs. Shortly after I wrote a story on Fleshbot (in which I noted my suspicion about Laconia/Jacobs never performing before), I received a letter from Woody West, the partner of a Connecticut company called Real Passion Productions. He said that Laconia had shot both solo and lesbian scenes for them before and had been paid to do so. He also provided a link to her promotional work for a production called Adult Toy Story.

"We shy away from calling what we do 'couples' movies'," West (no relation to Harmony's Dave) said. "But it's hardcore that we think women will be comfortable watching."

Indeed, Laconia talked a pretty hardcore game.

Working with a vibrator, she said all the right things for the audience assembled. "I've got a pretty small pussy so let's see how it goes. That's kinda big," she said, looking right at me.

Laconia turned 18 in April of last year and, as everyone knows, no one thinks sexually until it is legal for them to do so. How did she get the lingo down in just eight months?

The one loophole in Brand New Faces' contract is if a woman has never done a scene with a man before. So in this case Laconia/Jacobs might actually be paid for the Vivid scene she did.

Still, as you can see by these pictures, Jean will have no trouble getting work. Why she had to lie - and I ask this of any person in porn, where the truth is almost always more compelling - is a mystery.

Jean Laconia in Gram's Gallery.

Previously: Postcard from Porn Week
See also: Real Passion, Vivid, Gazzman

Labels: avn08, dave west, gazzman, harmony films, jean jacobs, jean laconia, las vegas, real passion, WGL, woody west

posted by Gram the Man at Wednesday, January 16, 2008 | 3 Comments Links to this post

Number of subscriptions to BurningAngel.com Joanna Angel gave to a fan who brought her some cold medicine: 1
Number of times Eon McKai was overheard saying "I'm sorry my work confuses you": 3
Number of times Performer of the Year Sasha Grey said "fucking" to CBS' Bill Geiss: 2
Number of seconds it took: 2
Estimated airings this 20-second interview will receive on CBS: 0
Number of terrible, wonderful things I want to do to Unsung Starlet Gianna: 35
Suite number of the party at which Satine Phoenix was naked: 211
Temperature of that room, in fahrenheit degrees: 102
Number of fans in wheelchairs spotted at the AVN Expo: 46
Number of dwarves, midgets, and assorted little people: 23
Number of morbidly obese: 8
Number of these who were also in wheelchairs: 2
Percentage of AVN Awards I agreed with: 21
Face value of AVN Awards tickets being scalped in Mandalay Bay Events Center: $212
Scalped value: $150
Number of sales of scalped tickets I witnessed: 4
Times Ann Marie flashed me: 3
Number of pictures I was able to get of this: 0
Pieces of tape on Stoya's nipples: 4
Jagermeisters consumed by me between Wednesday and Sunday morning: 36
Things I did over the week that I now consider "inappropriate": 4
Percentage of these that occured on Sunday morning: 100
Number of times I met Abby Winters: 0
Number of times I met Mr. Skin: 1
Number of people who walked the red carpet: 203
Number of times Eva Angelina walked the red carpet: 2
Price, in dollars, to amply feed four grown men at the Ellis Island Casino: 42
Price for same group at the Grand Lux Cafe: 213
Price of one dinner at Morton's Steak House: 183
Height, in feet, of Aiden Starr: 5
Feet from the ground at which a certain part of me tops off: 5
Number of "circle bar"s in Las Vegas that are actually circles: 0
Number of interview requests turned down by Robin Leach at the red carpet: 3
Number of times Leach's photographer asked Jenna Jameson what her name was: 2
Bodyguards from Detroit hired by Digital Playground: 3
Number of AVN awards won this year by people with whom I've had feuds: 0
Rank of seashell as shape of pasties on display: 1
Number of times I was refused a posed photograph: 1
Number of times it was Matt Zane who refused it: 1
Age, in months, of Jean Laconia, performing her first scene (for Gazzman and Dave West) on camera: 220
Amount of years I assumed she'd been doing porn, what with her filthy mouth: 5-10
Increase of awards, in percentage, since last year: 0
Increase of awards, in percentage, since 1984: 700
More years required until the actual 25th anniversary of the AVN Awards, as opposed to the 25th anniversary of AVN: 1
Order, in Google entries, of Britney Spears, Jenna Jameson, Tera Patrick, Jesse Jane, Jamie Lynn Spears, and Stormy Daniels: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6
Amount of hours I slept during the week of CES and AVN: 14
Amount of hours I slept the night I returned home: 14

See also: Gram's Gallery

Labels: avn08, satine phoenix

posted by Gram the Man at Tuesday, January 15, 2008 | 4 Comments Links to this post

When the one person who stands a chance of refuting the belief that porn stars are interchangeable and anonymous says, "I'll never spread my legs in this industry ever again," you know something is broken.

That it was Jenna Jameson who said this, sounding a little bitter but no more incoherent than anyone else on the stage at the 25th annual AVN Awards, means something. Where others have said this and come back to the porn business for want of money, ejection of a boyfriend, or simple change of heart, Jameson means it.

Read more after the gap.



Jameson has had a tumultuous couple of years. In no particular order, she authored (with ghostwriter Neil Strauss) "How to Make Love Like a Porn Star", sold ClubJenna to Playboy, had a miscarriage, broke up with husband Jay Grdina (who still runs her eponymous company), hooked up with fighter Tito Ortiz, began appearing in mainstream gossip blogs and, most famously, underwent a series of surgeries that have radically altered her appearance.

Like Tera Patrick, Stormy Daniels, and Jesse Jane, each of whom has a chance at Jameson's name recognition, Jameson's relationship with the porn industry runs hot and cold. Each owes her fame to porn, but each has aspirations beyond it. Finally, each embraces what she hopes will be her porn past with varying degrees of tightness.

After Jameson vented, Daniels accepted the Jameson Crossover Star of the Year award with all the graciousness one could expect. "I plan to be spreading my legs for the porn industry for some time," Daniels said.

Wicked made Jameson an icon in the 1990s. Daniels' achievement with Wicked is even greater, as she writes and directs her own movies and has essentially set up her own imprint within the company. Jane's name is copyrighted by Digital Playground, which licenses her out to Playboy for hosting duties, and Tera Patrick, whose celebrated break from Digital Playground is the reason many of the company's new starlets have registered trademarks as names, is the best set-up of all, with her own company and a club appearance fee that rivals that of many celebrities.

But they are all eyeing the next move, and the extent to which that move succeeds depends on the level of comfort which exists between them and their porn careers.

Sadly, Jameson's bitterness about the porn industry is probably a result of the ground she has broken in making "former porn star" an acceptable title in mainstream media. She has taken the brunt of the scrutiny from that front as well as the inevitable ridicule that goes hand in hand with the uneasy titillation porn provides.

Patrick and Daniels have watched this and learned from it; their public personae and porn choices are much more controlled as a result.

Porn awards-granting organizations shouldn't present "crossover star" honors because it is a tacit devaluing of what porn is. If anything, they should make a crossover TO porn award for people like Amy Fisher and Dave Navarro.

But if there has to be a mainstream crossover award, it is appropriate it be named after Jameson. After Saturday's valedictory speech, however, it seems like she doesn't feel honored by it. It is up to her successors to figure out if there is anywhere to go from here.

Previously: Tera Patrick: "I want world domination"; A messy situation for Daniels; AVN08 gallery
See also: Club Jenna

Labels: "stormy daniels", avn08, jenna jameson, jesse jane, tera patrick

posted by Gram the Man at Monday, January 14, 2008 | 4 Comments Links to this post

I asked Sunny Leone about adhesives, as is my wont.

"There's no tape," she said.

"So you have to keep walking, moving forward constantly, to keep your nipples from showing (which is how I do it)?" I asked.

"No," she said. "It just stays there."

This is how much loyalty Leone inspires even in inanimate objects.

Labels: avn08, fotos, sunny leone, vivid

posted by Gram the Man at Saturday, January 12, 2008 | 1 Comments Links to this post

At the Fashionistas party the other night a woman innocently took her breasts out and began fondling them. Then a bunch of photographers showed up. A symbiotic relationship, yes, but cui fucking bono?

I understand Vegas' consumer entertainment economy because I often wear an America's Beloved Porn Journalist costume in front of Grauman's Chinese Theatre to the delight of tourists.

Still, scenes like this solidify my belief that women undergoing routine (but still disconcerting) mammograms would be cheered if only their health insurance paid for a gaggle of paparazzi to materialize and say encouraging things like, "Honey, look over here," and "More lips, Bright Eyes."

Fashionistas producer/director John Stagliano told me that the dance show will be closing in a few months.

"It's been running for three years, and it's an expensive show to keep afloat," he said. Several performers have been with the cast through its entirety. I imagine the leather cleaning bills are astronomical.

Attendees were treated to a 15-minute snippet of the show, which was titillating, symmetrical, and fleshy, loosely following the plot of the first Fashionistas movie.

Labels: avn08, events, evil angel, john stagliano

posted by Gram the Man at Friday, January 11, 2008 | 2 Comments Links to this post

1. They don't look like Kiss
2. There's only three of them
3. They're not the most overrated band until Radiohead
4. They look like you might want to hang out with them
5. There are no blondes in Kiss

In fact, I don't know why this picture reminded me of Kiss at all.

Labels: avn08, blonde, fotos

posted by Gram the Man at Friday, January 11, 2008 | 1 Comments Links to this post

What makes the hundreds of porn starlets cavorting through the Sands Expo Center so distinct from one another, even though they may be wearing the same Stripper Surplus thongwear, emanating the same melon body spray from the big vat out by the loading dock, and glittering with sparkles shot from the same hose, is their facial expression.

Here we are lucky enough to have two reactions to fucking huge cocks, mine and an augmented poster version, validating again the rich pornic tapestry that is the AVN Expo.

Labels: avn08, fotos, found

posted by Gram the Man at Friday, January 11, 2008 | 2 Comments Links to this post

Prior to today I had never heard of Abby Winters or the women in her employ. But when I happened upon several grain-fed, exuberant, barefoot Australian girls frolicing on a rolling expanse of Astroturf, I realized something had been wrong with my life beforehand. Seriously wrong.

I immediately began pumping them for information, as it's no longer legal to pump them for kangaroos.

Q. Is INXS without Michael Hutchence really INXS?
A. They should be ashamed to call themselves INXS.

Q. What do they call Outback Steakhouse in Australia? "Steakhouse"?
A. I've never heard of it.

Q. What have you done with Yahoo Serious?
A. I think he's in a gutter.

Q. Dirty Deeds...
A. ...DONE DIRT CHEAP! We were born knowing those words.

Q. When you all get together in one room, what happens?
A. We roll all over each other.

Q. What is your favorite American expression?
A. "For shizzle."

Previously: Products for your down under from down under

Labels: abby winters, australia, avn08, interviews, WGL

posted by Gram the Man at Thursday, January 10, 2008 | 12 Comments Links to this post

Walking through the Venetian lobby I tried to heed the advice I gleaned from porn personalities while writing this article, such as never try to take a picture of a performer when she's clearly on her way somewhere else.

But I could not help myself when I saw Lux Kassidy. I thought it was 1986 and I was at the best Bon Jovi concert ever (the kind without people from Delaware). I watched this hair approach me and was barely able to stop myself from grabbing huge fisfuls of it.

Lux waited patiently while I stood back and adjusted my lens to take it all in.

Finally, spent, I asked, "Were you on your way somewhere?"

"Yes," she said.

I thought, Whoa, I'm really part of the problem.

Previously: Fiat Lux Kassidy

Labels: avn08, lux kassidy

posted by Gram the Man at Thursday, January 10, 2008 | 0 Comments Links to this post

Gianna and Nikita Denise shared today's Strongest Handshake award at a quiet ceremony that didn't involve manual stimulation of anything with fewer than five digits (Sadly, my awards don't require that).

Both deliver crushing, vigorous handshakes.


"I hate the little fishy hands," said Denise, who recently returned from retirement and was walking the floor, mightily grasping people.

"I'm pretty strong," Gianna noted.

Previously: Jack's POV 9; Nikita's horosho show

Labels: avn08, gianna, nikita denise

posted by Gram the Man at Thursday, January 10, 2008 | 3 Comments Links to this post

Meet Melrose Foxxx. Although this is her second AVN convention, she is still a little overwhelmed when the outside doors open and the fans come in.

The fans break into phalanxes just inside the door (after four levels of security) with Wicked and Vivid directly in front of them.

Foxxx was standing at the booth of Juicy Entertainment, which was along the south wall. Those early attendees, seeing the line forming in front of Sunny Leone, made straight for Foxxx.

As today and part of tomorrow are reserved for (such as it is) press, today's stampede was not as dramatic. The next day will be much different.

"It's gonna be off on Friday," she said.

See also: Juicy Entertainment

Labels: avn08, juicy entertainment, melrose foxxx, sunny leone

posted by Gram the Man at Wednesday, January 09, 2008 | 0 Comments Links to this post

Princess Diana might have chosen to call it a minefield, but I call the AVN Expo a delightful collagen dessert with fans as the gelatin and your favorite porn personalities as the marshmallows suspended within. Plus, Princess Diana is no longer with us.

If you plan to attend, you will be pleased that organizers of the event have published two comprehensive guides to who will be appearing and at what booth and time, organized by star and location. Each guide is 47 pages long.

As porn personalities might be alighting on several booths over the course of the week, I suggest you download and print both lists, fold them as many times as you can, stop in the middle of the aisle to check and recheck, and approach each porn star with "WHICH ONE ARE YOU?"

Everyone from John Wayne Bobbitt to Christy Canyon to Summer Cummings to Memphis Monroe will be there, though the guide does not mention Vivid at all.

See also: Adult Entertainment Expo Signing Guides

Labels: avn08, memphis monroe, summer cummings

posted by Gram the Man at Tuesday, January 08, 2008 |