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Friday, June 19, 2009
HIV2k9: How the dust will settle
 This month's Porn Valley HIV diagnosis has been getting considerable airplay in local and national media, but the tempest seems to be settling to a less hysterical baseline as the news cycle winds down.In addition to the test results for the remaining secondary performers, the release - if ever - of the name of the company that allegedly filmed Patient Zero with only an expired HIV test, and what AIM will do if it receives subpoenas, what remains to be seen is what everyone might learn from this. My predictions: 1. This will blow over. 2. There will neither be mandatory condom use nor state regulation of the porn industry in any form. 3. Companies will feel compelled to require more frequent tests. This is expensive, and they can argue that performers not on a contract will have to foot the bill as they've always done. 4. The major companies will agree on an increased testing schedule and then, one by one, the schedule will return to what it once was 5. AIM will close loopholes in reporting test results, such as verbal or provisional confirmation, if loopholes exist. If there is a phone call greenlight process, that is probably going to go away, too. This HIV outbreak will likely be limited to one and will not affect sales negatively (though how it could affect sales positively is not a fun thing to think about). What Outbreak 2009 will do is increase again the cost of making porn, and perhaps limit the amount of porn being produced. Previously on Porn Valley Observed: LFP on HIV ¶ Friday, June 19, 2009 2 Comments Links to this post  
Monday, June 08, 2009
Making money at the 2009 XBiz Summer Forum
 In the adult world, it is easy to equate "sedate" with "failure," but the relative calm and low turnout to last week's XBiz Summer Forum in Las Vegas was merely a reflection of doubtful times for the porn biz. In isolated doses, it might have been any adult convention in boom times; there was nudity, drunkenness, suspicion of authority, the gradual breakdown of order, and plenty of wheeling and dealing."I'm not used to this palpable despair," said one longtime porn salesman at the Hard Rock Hotel, as unsuspecting families walked by. Why were they unsuspecting? It was a trade convention, for one, so there wasn't the spectacle of ogling fans. There also was very little overt signage to indicate that the Hard Rock was hosting a convention for an industry that makes its money from the exploitation of vaginas. But fun was had: there were Go Kart races, cocktail hours, a golf tournament, sponsored lunches, and - the one thing that distinguished the XBiz Forum from a Shriners' convention - a beauty pageant. The Miss XBiz Pageant took place by the Hard Rock's pool. Ashley Fires danced with fire, Kagney Linn Karter and Joanna Angel danced with poles, and everyone else needed to do nothing other than stand there in a bathing suit to be appreciated. When Fires was crowned Miss 2009 by Miss 2008 (Vivid contract performer Nikki Jayne), there was grumbling that the contest had been rigged, that others got higher scores, that Fires was given preferential treatment when she, along with a few other contestants, were given second chances to demonstrate their talents. But the XBiz Pageant had something other pageants don't: everyone participating in Miss XBiz was special in her own way, and no one was asked how she would resolve crime in our streets. These opportunities for camaraderie are very important in an insular business where most of the transactions take place over ICQ. But did the free lunches, cocktails, pool parties, and scintillating seminars featuring the likes of me justify the hotel rates, air fare, and $250 registration price tag? Well Yes. As I said, I was scintillating. Jeff Mullen and Scott David, the principals of XPlay and always good for compelling quotes, each said in different encounters that the adult DVD business had two to two-and-a-half years, tops, to survive. "Hope there's room for me at McDonald's," Mullen said. He is in pre-production of a movie tentatively titled "Flight Attendants" starring Hillary Scott, and he'll do fine. Myself, I came home with 57 business cards and three numbers scrawled on napkins, down from 980 business cards (but no napkins) from my longer adult biz Vegas sojourn in January. But I trust that they are 57 quality people (and three sluts). But two things happened that I feel are emblematic of the problems facing the porn industry. I was invited up to Angelina Armani's room for the Mother of All Photos with My First Edition of "Jaws" and she refused to get naked. Her handler, Monstar, explained that nudity would decrease her brand marketability. "Soon there's nude pictures all over the Internet," he explained. Armani is a delightful person who sincerely loves sharks, but I feel that her business is being naked for my camera. It's like this: when people see women naked on the Internet they don't lose interest in them; they want to see more pictures of them naked on the Internet. If they see them persistently clothed, they don't go buy website memberships. "I can see all that down at the Convent," they say. "Or I could, if it weren't for that restraining order." The final thing concerned two gentlemen, one who I know well, the affiliate manager of a major site that I do business with, and a man I don't know very well at all. The latter dude was telling me how he should write for my site and thereby drive traffic to it from his. I explained that I was a Lone Wolf. "I work alone," I said. "It is my curse." At five the next morning the three of us ran into each other again. We were all drunk. I walked out of the elevator as they walked in. "I'll make you money, Bro!" the second guy said. "I won't," my affiliate manager said, and the elevator door closed.
See also: XBiz Labels: "joanna angel", angelina armani, ashley fires, business, commentary, events, kagney linn karter, nikki jayne, xbiz ¶ Monday, June 08, 2009 1 Comments Links to this post
Monday, May 11, 2009
Traffic Dude dead
 After nine years selling and serving ads for many adult sites (including this one), Pueblo Colorado-based Traffic Dude is to liquidate its assets to clients and creditors in bankruptcy court.Like Google Ads, smaller ad server companies provide those banner and text ads on sites that they hope will be of interest to readers. I found my readers were especially appreciative of the "Find Sex in Staunton, Virginia"-style ads, but not the ones that linked to sites that do the same things I already do. According to an e-mail affiliates received on Friday from Traffic Dude partner Antonio Gallardo of Gallardowitz Holdings, "Traffic Dude is closing its doors, and as such you should take down all [Traffic Dude-related tags]. All Traffic Dude and personal assets will be liquidated in bankruptcy thru a court-appointed trustee. All affected parties will be paid from the proceeds of the liquidation of assets." The other half of Gallardowitz Holdings, which company profile site Manta.com listed as a $2 million firm, was Scott Rabinowitz, with whom I had the most interaction. I was very happy with the Traffic Dude service and Scott's help for the short time I was an affiliate, having had the company recommended to me by a colleague. I later found that many other small and large sites in my immediate circle were also affiliates. Cracks were showing in the foundation earlier this year, when I was told Traffic Dude was not taking any more clients and then, earlier this month, I was informed by Galllardo that payments would be coming in late due to a "delay in receivables." Still, when my own daily sales dropped precipitously, I blamed myself. "No one wants to advertise on my site because I am a horrible person," I said. But it wasn't that at all. It was because Traffic Dude had gone bankrupt. I'm not quite sure (and perhaps Traffic Dude's former staff would agree with me) that adult ad serving is a viable business anymore. I hope to be proved wrong, and am open to recommendations. Still, I am not hopeful of being paid out of bankruptcy proceedings. Guess I'll have to buy that boat using actual work. First up: I have to painstakingly remove all metadata related to Traffic Dude, including the banner ads for "Rabbit's Reviews" that no one clicked on over the past three weeks. Gallardo's e-mail concluded, "Sorry for the trouble," and provided the contact info of the attorney handling the case. Previously on Porn Valley Observed: On the Internet, all business is personal; Microsoft unveils "My First Porn Article" software See also: Traffic Dude Labels: business, money, traffic dude ¶ Monday, May 11, 2009 0 Comments Links to this post
Thursday, November 20, 2008
On the Internet, all business is personal
 Webmaster Access is a regular convention of adult webmasters which regularly convenes in Los Angeles. Like many conventions in any hotel or convention center in the country, the morning is filled with seminars, breakout sessions, and blazer-and-dockers networking events, and the evening is filed with drinking.At a morning roundtable on hosting (and I mean this literally: there were about 12 people chatting informally over Sheraton mints around a circular table), I met Brad Mitchell of MojoHost, a Michigan and Florida-based web hosting company. Mitchell's company hosts about 30,000 adult sites in a Tier-4 facility in Miami, perched above the city on 30-foot stilts and sharing space with Google, Yahoo, and the United States Department of Defense. "When we give a tour," he said, "guests need to be on a list beforehand, have passports and driver's licenses, and be accompanied by one security official for every four guests," he said. "There are parts of the facility I have never seen." So the DoD and Google have no objection to sharing space with a Known Pornographer? "Every datacenter in the world is mostly porn," he said. "The Internet runs on porn." He was asked about Denial of Service (DOS) attacks, in which servers are bombarded with information requests that are designed to overwhelm them. A web surfer experiences a DOS-attacked site often enough by not being able to access it. A Denial of Service Attack is not the same as a Cleopatra of the Nile of Service Attack. "DOS attacks are infrequent," he said, "but we sometimes have to rely on our upstream carriers that we have relationships with to help us out and, less often, I'll have to drop a client because he is a magnet for DOS attacks." Why would a client be a magnet for DOS attacks? "Because he has pissed somebody off," answered Ycaza Thrush of Los Angeles' RightHosting. And not only that... "Somebody hacks you and all of a sudden you've got Mexican Donkey Child Porn on your site. And there's a guy from the FBI, a guy from the Secret Service, and a representative of local law enforcement at your door." As a hosting provider, what do you do when confronted by this? "Hand over the hard drives as quickly as possible," Thrush said. Mitchell said that he had a client who was traveling through Thailand and posting his sexcapades with the locals on his blog. "And I guess he angered some of the nationals," Mitchell said, "because whatever hosting company he uses, DOS attacks follow." And what is the busines model of hackers? "What is their business model?" Thrush asked. "Basically to get as much informaion by doing as little work as possible." By holding sites for ransom or by selling customer credit cards to third parties? "Whatever involves the least effort," Thrush repeated, noting that "Russia and Asia-Pacific net is full of hackers with no compunction about fucking you up." And what legal resources do you have when you get hacked? "The Feds will not lift a finger," Thrush said. "Unless they're guys you've helped before." It was interesting that the only red flag these web hosts identified was child porn, but that all other adult content seemed to transcend the moral and ethical objections that would traditionally skeeve out mainstream business partners. I thought about how the mainstream panelists at this week's FSC seminar were antsy about being seen with the adult crowd but, at the terabyte level of datacenters, it just didn't matter. Data was data (unless you piss someone off). Previously on Porn Valley Observed: GP posts tagged "Business" See also: Webmaster Access West, MojoHost, RightHosting Labels: business, events, interviews, seminar, technology, websites ¶ Thursday, November 20, 2008 0 Comments Links to this post
Monday, November 17, 2008
Today in porn disgruntlement: Adam & Eve
 I received an e-mail this morning from a person calling himself (I assume it was a he) "Barock Odrama." The letter concerned his grievances with Adam & Eve's production manager, a woman named Meredith Christopher.I like Christopher. She has always been cool to me. But I get along with everybody. While the letter was better written than most adult business "open letters," it will fare just as well, which is not at all. This is because the dirty laundry in letters like this comes as a surprise to no one. The audacity of Mr. Odrama's hope is that he is writing in a world in which the adult industry is not already thought of as corrupt and incompetent. When I was at AVN (and prior to this) there were several employees who leaked information to the likes of bloggers named Luke Ford and Gene Ross. the bitterati, who, for their own reasons, were only too happy to print it. Later, after AVN information became scarce, disgruntled employees at Hustler did the same thing. Neither episodes of venting to bloggers resulted in anything other than personal embarrassment for the people targeted. And what is personal embarrassment in a business that produced Dirtpipe Milkshakes? And the power of the printed word? Seriously. Think of all the people you know should be fired. Can you think of anyone who actually was terminated due to a letter writing campaign? No, they were only fired when they were recorded trying to trade blowjobs for AVN trophies. Now and then I'll get a phone call from someone who starts to tell me juicy information about a porn performer, director, or executive. I will refer them elsewhere. "Do you expect an apology," I'll ask. "A cash settlement?" But I'll print this letter, because it provides a backstage look at how adult personalities think. You will see that it is not too different from the way anyone thinks who has been thwarted, somehow, by the system. But first an exchange from The Departed: Ellerby: Cui Bono, who benefits? Colin Sullivan: Cui gives a shit? It's got a freakin' bow on it. An Open Letter About Adam & EveBecause the readers of my site are not necessarily the target audience for such an e-mail, I checked around the web (time constraints usually prevent this) and saw the letter posted on the sites of a few usual suspects in the adult blogging community. Here at the office, we have narrowed down a list of five possible authors, each with his own axe to grind, and one of whom I'll call a wild card, like the Cubs. The place where the writer takes offense most personally, it seems, is in Paragraph 8. Everything else seems like foundation building. Are the points about the choices (or non-choices) of contract stars and their handling valid? Porn performers are like delightful butterflies - it is always difficult to herd them. What about movie production? Is it possible there is a porn movie that could have all its sex removed and still not be marked as a porn movie - from as far away as space? No. And as far as poaching people under contract elsewhere else, why do you think people use so many names? It happens all the time. In other words, even if all these charges are true, a letter never changed anything. I wrote a letter to the gmail address of Mr. Odrama asking for some clarification of his points but have received no response. They're good points, sure, but only if there was some embezzling would any heads roll. Previously on Porn Valley Observed: 8th Day; Kayden Kross, jealous boyfriends, and the pitfalls of real estate tycoonery; Tailgunners; Carmen Luvana - the mosaic is the message; Vicky Vette - when boobs are not enough See also: Adam & Eve Labels: "stormy daniels", Ava Rose, bree olson, business, conflict, dirty laundry, eva angelina, jesse jane, Kayden Kross, sasha grey, sic, tera patrick ¶ Monday, November 17, 2008 0 Comments Links to this post
Thursday, October 23, 2008
Shocker: Some Pornorazzi hated
 "They stand there. They get in the way. They gawk. You can hear them breathing."As Santa Ana winds and a tightening ring of fire drive adult casts, crews, and the media personnel that cover them closer together, both sides are chafing at the intrusion of new-school pornorazzi - people with disposables and camera phones itching to get close to their idols at porn parties and sets. A veteran director told me that he used to demand closed sets, but the rise of viral media as well as increased competition between adult publications has forced him to consent to his company's wishes to invite press on set. "But you're all right, Gram," he said. "I'd invite you anyway." (This is because I picked up and hid his old-tymey coke spoon when he had carelessly left it out in front of a TMZ crew recently.) And among the handful of writers and photographers who have covered porn events for years is a genuine anger at the lack of decorum practiced by the interlopers. The appearance of guys with Mini DV cameras nosing in on their turf sparks cries of indignation similar to those uttered by "Golden Age" porn directors angry about being usurped by people who can find the Record button. "They think that all they need is a camera and suddenly they're media," said Dominic X, owner of the EMM Agency, a standby in the porn world for high quality still images that is branching into mainstream red carpet events. "Did you see that guy in the wheelchair?" Dominic and I worked an event recently that was especially lousy with cameras. A man in a wheelchair rolled back and forth and was often underfoot. That was fine, except: "And I have video of him groping the girls," Dominic said. I have heard of two sets of people within the adult industry agitating for a media guild, in which members would have to be invited and might even get laminated press cards for their scrapbooks. "That way the girls are protected and we don't have to keep shoving people out of the shot," Dominic said. Adella O'Neal and Tim Williams, who handle various aspects of the AVN Convention and Awards press experience for different companies, both are overwhelmed by the number of people from dubious media outlets attempting to get into the events for free. "I see the same people show up year after year," Williams said, "and I have never seen any of their coverage in what you might call a legitimate publication." What I might call a legitimate publication changes every year as a business model that was based on pay-for-use photo services has blown up into viral images and videos taken without permission and posted on the cheap. For the performers who want it, it's free publicity. For the media, it is a problem that gets worse at each event. O'Neal said she regularly rejects at least 20 percent of the submissions, whether they are walk-ups or attempted pre-registers. "A lot of them are just fans," she said. Certain fandom engenders a proprietary urge toward performers who are already vulnerable for having appeared so clinically naked in dozens of videos. And, according to some performers, individual members of the media sometimes mask their insecurity by printing hateful things. "They're just jealous," said performer Jack Lawrence. For perspective, I found an interview I conducted with Harvey Levin, the developer and host of TMZ, a Hollywood gossip blog and basic cable show. "We're vultures," he said in 2007. "But these people want us to catch them. That's what they signed on for when they became famous." However much Levin believes his employees have the right to prey on celebrities, adult entertainment "news" culture is actually much more considerate of the talent, mostly keeping a respectful distance. And, as Kayden Kross told me recently, "I like it when people take pictures" and she dresses, or doesn't dress, accordingly. Still, there seems to be a general consensus within the Porno-American community of driving The Other away. This might be difficult because some studios are getting addicted to viral press, even if it doesn't lead to sales. One of the factions hoping to put together a media guild even suggests telling companies they will receive no coverage from guild members if non-guild members are allowed on set. Such an embargo is unlikely to be beneficial to anyone, but it does boil down to politeness. I talked with Richard Montfort, studio photographer and porn director. He acknowledged that the growing pornorazzi issue concerned him. "They eat all our craft services," he said. Previously on Porn Valley Observed: Vicky Vette: when boobs are not enough; Columbia Journalism Review addresses porn megaconglomerates; Twilight of the Hustler studio Labels: avn08, business, Kayden Kross, richard de montfort, tmz, trademags ¶ Thursday, October 23, 2008 0 Comments Links to this post
Friday, October 10, 2008
Whether it's a titpop or a jawbreaker, these milves are on the move!
 With the worsening economy I'm experimenting with writing headlines the way I would for Good Housekeeping. Do you think it will work?My continuing quest for authenticity and MILF-transparency yesterday found me in northwest Porn Valley to watch the filming of the latest installment of Northstar's Minivan Moms. Northstar is the Orange County-based company of Peter North, and there were three milves in attendance for the purposes of the movie, directed by Oliver Ashe. Earlier this year I was outraged by the utter absence of even a mention of a minivan in Minivan Moms 7, so I felt like a UN MILF observer or Jimmy Carter yesterday, checking to see that everything was on the up and up and sinning in my heart. Director Ashe is a New Jersey transplant. Prior to moving to Northstar, in Irvine, four years ago, he worked for IVD, one of the largest distributors in the adult industry. Another IVD alum is Jules Jordan. Ashe thinks California weather is brutal and the traffic is stupid. I agree, but do you know how much a good burrito costs in Newark?  On hand in the hidden studio facility (it was located in a warehouse that also includes a tire outlet) were Vannah Sterling, Anjanette Astoria, and Nina Hartley, who would be featured on the boxcover.Both Sterling and Astoria have been in porn for less than a year, but as they were a little older, the vibe on the set seemed less ready to explode in flames, cops, and gun-toting boyfriends. It was relaxed. "I like working with the older women," Ashe said. "They're doing it less for the money than for the fun." Vannah Sterling was being fucked on a towel in the bathroom by John Espizedo. The bathroom was also part of the set, so one could fuck in the shower and then actually take a shower. It's smart when things are functional.  Espizedo was wearing shoes, Sterling wasn't. I liked that she wasn't, because the Greek-American New York native had her feet planted firmly on the floor, ready for all comers, the way her ancestors probably did in the showers of Athens."Do you still cook Greek food?" I probed, America's Beloved Porn Journalist. "Yes," Sterling said. "Moussaka." Ashe zoomed in for staged hardcore stills, the kind of photos you'd find on the back of the box that are difficult to capture when the actual sex is taking place. He placed Espizedo and Sterling in blowjob position, took a couple of pictures, and then asked her to do a jawbreaker. "What's that?" she asked. "When you can see the cock plumping out your cheek," he explained. "Got it," she said. I asked Sterling what happened in the scene prior to the jawbreaker. "[Espizedo] borrowed my husband's minivan," she said. "He's a kid from the neighborhood that I haven't seen in a long time. And then we - " she trailed off. It really is hard to explain, once you get right down to it, the things that lead to getting or giving a jawbreaker. These things just happen. I don't know how many times I have had to convince juries of this. I asked Sterling what her definition of MILF was. "A hot mom," she said. "So a MILF has to have given birth, right?" I said. "Yes," she said. Even the newest arrivals to porn seem to know this. Why, then, is there such rampant abuse of the MILF label? In another room was Nina Hartley. Her scene with Will Power would involve his returning her minivan late and Hartley extracting some pleasure for the inconvenience. "Your girlfriend's not going to know," she said. "Well, I might get fired," he said. "Your boss doesn't need to know, either," she said. "My day just got better," he said.  The dialogue was improvised but Ashe had them repeat it as he moved the camera to each of their faces. That way the movie will not look like a panning, sloppy mess."Our budgets aren't too big," he said. "I think this is the most people we've ever had on a set." In addition to the cast, Ashe, Stacie the makeup lady, me, and second cameraman Rich Zaye, Astoria had brought her husband, who watched the proceedings avidly. Not like Frank Sinatra watched Mia Farrow on the set of Rosemary's Baby, bust as a man intensely proud of his hot wife about to be banged by Dino Bravo. The production equipment included four lights - two for each scene being shot concurrently - two video cameras, one still camera, and some towels. "So it's the cast and the location we pay for," said Ashe, "and me and Rich are on salary, so we keep the overhead low." If Sterling needed a primer on the terminology, Hartley had been down this road so many times that she sounded like a porn field manual or an OSHA supplement. "If there's anything you say to me on camera," she said to Power, "I'll believe you and do it. So don't say 'That's it!' or 'Go faster!' if you don't mean it." Later Hartley discussed with Ashe where the popshot would go. "I think the other girl got in on the neck," Ashe said. "I'm just wondering if we should do a facepop, neckpop, or titpop," she said. I believe they settled on the latter. See Hartley's leveraged definition of MILF here.  Because the lights were bright and the rooms were small, Ashe took off his shirt while filming. I would have done this too had I been wearing more than socks.Astoria showed up with most of her makeup applied already. A dancer at The Embers in Sacramento, she travels several hours from her home in the Modesto area to appear in movies. She has been filming scenes for eight months.  "What is a MILF?" I asked."Well, she's gotta have children," she said, a slight Virginia accent surfacing. "Are your boobs fake or real?" asked the makeup lady, who until two years ago was the performer Alaura Eden. "They're fake," Astoria said, "but I just turned 35, and after five kids, well, you need them." "You have five kids?" I think I spat out my appendix. When she dances, Astoria can lift herself up the pole by her calves. (I left before seeing her scene with Bravo but I assume he's dead now.) While there were - again - no actual minivans in this movie, I was pleased that minivans were at least mentioned in each scene. And Astoria has so many kids that she could have easily loaned them out to anyone on the set who wasn't a mom. So things are looking up. See the Minivan Moms gallery here. Previously on Porn Valley Observed: Minivan Moms 7 review; Lexington Steele tries to be all things to all people; Sex on the nest with Nina Hartley See also: Northstar Associates Labels: anjanette astoria, business, dino bravo, john espizedo, nina hartley, northstar, oliver ashe, set visits, vannah sterling, WGL, will power ¶ Friday, October 10, 2008 3 Comments Links to this post
Wednesday, October 08, 2008
Microsoft unveils "My First Porn Article" software
 Redmond, WA (GP:PVO) -- Software giant Microsoft today launched the Porn Article template for its Microsoft Word application.The template contains all the elements standard to anyone's first article about the porn industry, including the writer's general skittishness, Paul Thomas, fist-shaking at the Internet, the word "dire," blanket acceptance of a quote about how much money porn makes annually, Paul Fishbein, a reference to the AVN Awards as "the Oscars of Porn," Steve Hirsch's tan, the death of the DVD, and the cameraman's ennui. "This is the biggest template modification since we would Auto Complete with 'troubled' any sentence with the phrase 'Britney Spears' in it," said a Microsoft spokesperson. The template was beta-tested for several months with the help of the Symantec Corporation, which dispatched its Norton Anti-Virus team to quash an annoying and repetitive strain of the Margold Worm. See the template in action in this article from London's Financial Times. Previously on Porn Valley Observed: My own first article about the porn industry (back then I had to use the ClarisWorks template); Monique Alexander gets a call from Santa See also: Rude Awakening Labels: "paul thomas", avn, britney spears, business, celebrities, monique alexander, paul fishbein, steve hirsch, vivid ¶ Wednesday, October 08, 2008 2 Comments Links to this post
Friday, August 29, 2008
Vicky Vette: When boobs are not enough
 Erotic Scandinavian among erotic Scandinavians Vicky Vette, whose wholesome sauciness evokes the pornstars of the 90's, is in a near dead heat with someone named Tera Patrick over a Best Boobs contest on a site called Booble. At this writing, Vette is ahead.But there seems to be a Clintonesque backroom campaign designed to snatch that title away from her, Vette thinks, involving the willingness of the adult press, as represented by trade publications AVN and XBiz, to give more press to Patrick, and Patrick's evoking her own (dubious, Vette says) charity work to an appeal for votes. Me, I'd just be happy to be mamminated. Having spent time working at adult trade publications, I know that squeaky wheels get the grease, and the squeakiest wheels can get their merest queef printed as a headline article. I reprint Vette's Open Letter to the Porn Press as an example of how, even (and especially) in the tiny world of porn, boobs don't go as far as you'd like them to. AN OPEN LETTER TO THE PORN PRESS & INDUSTRY FROM VICKY VETTE I like Ms. Vette, but the next time I misspell AIDS please remind me to challenge my editor to have the balls to print it. Previously: Porn stars in my past, nipples in the news; Recovering Vette; No Morals! See also: Vicky Vette Labels: boobs, business, conflict, philanthropy, sic, tera patrick, trademags, verbatim, vicky vette ¶ Friday, August 29, 2008 3 Comments Links to this post
Monday, August 18, 2008
After the Kiss Attack, there is only silence
 Kiss Attack is one of those porn movies that, characteristic of adult marketing, had a lot of pre-release hype and then was never heard from again. This is because most porn movies, unless they are Pirates or Deep Throat, conclude most of their sales in pre-orders or immediately after release, at which point the market is primed for something else.Another reason that porn publicity is disproportionately weighted before a movie comes out is that directors and performers don't collect residuals.. That is why people like me got several press releases and photos even as Kiss Attack was in production.  It is almost anti-climactic when the movie hits shelves, because the combination of post-release ennui and inability to live up to hype conspire to hustle a movie into obscurity. It is the same in Hollywood, but in the smaller pool of porn, where there are fewer people making more movies, the vanishing effect can be dramatic unless a movie is exceptional.Worse still, Kiss Attack, which was a movie with several great sex scenes (see my review and gallery), was shot for a studio that no longer exists. "Independent Adult Cinema" was an arm of Adam & Eve that got lopped off in a recent downsizing. UPDATE: While there was a downsizing at Adam & Eve and while I had been told by a company employee from its North Carolina office that IAC was given the axe, Adam & Eve director and production guru Wit Maverick tells me (in the Coments section) that Independent Adult Cinema is alive and well and actively promoting Kiss Attack and "deserving projects." I apologize if I have contributed to any confusion.  Then there's the version issue. Director Batts will sell a cable version of Kiss Attack on Amazon starting in September (pre-order here ) but the XXX version, with more profits going to Adam & Eve, is already in stores.Finally, because IAC isn't around anymore (see UPDATE, above), there will not be a Kiss Attack 2, which is unfortunate, because the original ends abruptly, with a strip-tease in an alley, and a "to be continued" tacked on. It's like Remo Williams: The Adventure Begins with Sasha Grey as Wilford Brimley. That said, Kiss Attack is worth seeing, and for almost none of the reasons proposed in its pre-street hyperbole. It is a photographically exquisite movie in places, especially in scenes with Grey and Vandella, and April Flores is always a pleasure to see. Read the review and see a gallery here. Previously: April Flores and Carlos Batts at Comic-Con; La Cholita in ink; Young Hollywood and the birth of the United States Labels: april flores, business, carlos batts, pirates, sasha grey ¶ Monday, August 18, 2008 3 Comments Links to this post
Monday, June 16, 2008
Michael Ninn looks for a more congenial spot
 The director Michael Ninn, known for his artful pornography, last year entered a partnership with the gentlemen's club chain Spearmint Rhino to thematically link those two companies. Ninn has ended his relationship with the fraught-with-turmoil result of that partnership, Ninnworx_SR."A Ninnworx movie delivers overwrought porn with a complex storyline and editing that prevents masturbators from getting a good look at the crucial parts," I said in my unsuccessful bid to be Ninnworx_SR's marketing director, "and Spearmint Rhino delivers listless strippers for an outrageous cover charge and drinks minimum. "You should really get together." After months of contract stars being announced and then dropping out, a move to the non-strategic Riverside County town of Norco and, according to Ninn associates, checks going unpaid by the Spearmint Rhino corporate office, Ninnworx_SR only remains as a website. In truth, Ninnworx was never a real partner with Spearmint Rhino. No one visiting any of the club's stateside or international locations would be greeted by Catherine-branded pinball machines, Sacred Sin nonalcoholic cocktails, or Neopornographia lap dances. The Spearmint Rhino customer would never know Ninnworx existed. On the other hand, every Ninnworx movie was labeled with the Spearmint Rhino logo. In a Camelot-invoking mea culpa that is unusual for porn (but which also left no doubt about where the real blame lies), Michael Ninn changed his name to IMNinn and apologized to anyone who believed his previous press releases. "I would first like to apologize to the people who believed in me over the last eight months as I made my path through a journey called Ninn Worx_SR. I publicly apologize to Brea Bennett, Cassidey, Jana Jordan, Nikki Kane and Renee Perez, who believed in me and a dream I had, called Ninn Worx_SR. You did not deserve the way you have been treated, the half-truths you were told, nor the lack of respect you were given. My support for you, my crew and every other person that believed in me and my dream never failed. However, because of my belief in what Ninn Worx_SR could be, I find myself on the outside of my own company, looking in. A place I never imagined I'd be, but a fitting place none the less for me. I join you on the outside of Ninn Worx_SR, not a broken man, but a person who choose conscience over wealth, respect over disrespect and truth over half truths," stated IMNINN.Ninn, who has worked in the adult industry for 16 years, then continued with the righteousness of a man burned in a business relationship. "There comes a time in most people's life when you must make this choice; to put the better good above ones self, that wealth is not as important as well being and doing the right thing makes you a better person in spite of the out come. I say to you today, I stand on the outside of Ninn Worx_SR along with my contract stars and my crew, knowing that I no longer have to live with the lie that the check is in the mail or that the corporate committee will get back to you, as soon as they have reviewed your invoice and have reached a decision on paying you. "I feel this is not an end at all, but just the beginning. I enter the next phase of the Ninn Worx_SR relationship with a positive attitude and a firm belief in our legal system and welcome the challenges ahead."(I especially like the "firm belief in our legal system." That's a badass thing to say. That's something I would say as I dropped my cigarette on the floor and crushed it under my boot. I would also add "Baby." So as I walked away from an onerous business relationship I would drop my cigarette to the floor, crush it under my boot, and say, "I have a strong belief in our legal system, Baby.") Ninn's straight porn homage to 300, The Four, will be released under the Ninnworx_SR label in August. Previously: In a wet room with black curtains; Sacred Sin; Brea Bennett a witch; Ninnworx makes squatting sexy; Rhino to get Ninn skin See also: Ninnworx Labels: business, fraught with turmoil, legal, ninnworx, strippers ¶ Monday, June 16, 2008 0 Comments Links to this post
Monday, May 12, 2008
Striking while the iron is hot: Meet Rylie Cyris
 While Gary Glitter did not forward this picture to me, and while I support creative expression as fundamental to maintaining our First Amendment Freedoms and for getting chicks (since cologne won't adhere to my skin, I need to resort to Creative Expression), I am a little weirded out by the fact that a Michigan model has chosen to parody an underage celebrity's name with her nom de porn choice.Rylie Cyris does not look any more or less like Hannah Montana than did Jessica Sweet or Hillary Scott look like Britney Rears, which just goes to show that there are other things at work in porn marketing than accuracy, but I do think that Ms. Cyris, 20, is the first person to choose a porn name based on the name of a minor. Previously: XBiz panels tackle piracy, butt piracy; It was you all along, Britney See also: Alternative Modeling Labels: agency, business, celebrities, commentary, legal, rylie cyris ¶ Monday, May 12, 2008 3 Comments Links to this post
Wednesday, April 30, 2008
Columbia Journalism Review addresses porn megaconglomerates
 With today's announcement that Magna Publishing, parent company of furtive, raincoat-wearing gentlemen's magazine Genesis, has purchased bestubbled, bathrobe-wearing gentlemen's magazine Gallery, media watchers are concerned that a large segment of print medium porn consumers will no longer be represented at the corner, cheap cigar-smelling news stand."This happened in 1994 when Sexonaut merged with Clam," said Columbia Journalism Review manging editor Darren Perch-Tounge, "and suddenly a whole generation of gentlemen who smelled like their dogs and day-old despair was voiceless. "Notice the number agreement of 'generation' and 'was'," Perch-Tounge added. "That's the difference between us and the Middlesex Community College Journalism Review." As in the world of mainstream media mergers and acquisitions, today's announcement by Magna Publishing, which also purchased the magazines and websites related to Fox and Lollypops, sent ripples of concern through populations fearing they will be underserved by the new monopoly. "Mmmmm. Pussy," one vagrant said. "The vagrant is right," Perch-Tounge agreed. "What does a celebrity publisher like Tera Patrick (Genesis) or Stormy Daniels (Velvet) know about the needs of the average Gallery reader who just wants to masturbate to pictures of Oklahoma housewives?" Perch-Tounge noted that the decline of the DVD and the increase in oil prices are only going to make mergers more common in the coming months. "You need trucks to drive those magazines to the nation's 7-11s and Store 24s," he said. "And when Rupert Murdoch buys AVN and XBiz next week, there goes the audience for interpretive DVD sales charts." Previously: Report: Stormy Daniels appears on magazine cover; Tera Patrick: The new black See also: Genesis Online, The Gallery of Forgotten Girlie Magazines Labels: "stormy daniels", business, genesis, hype, jenna jameson, tera patrick, trademags ¶ Wednesday, April 30, 2008 0 Comments Links to this post
Wednesday, April 23, 2008
Twilight of the Hustler studio
 Not the Bradys XXX 2 might be the last adult movie filmed in Hustler's warehouse and studio in Canoga Park, a building used for office space and filming for the past 15 years, and which had an in-house stage crew that built sets for dozens of Barely Legals, Hustler cover shoots, and hundreds of movies.Larry Flynt Publications, parent of Hustler, made the decision to sell the property late last year. Prior to this, when Vivid shifted its distribution from Hustler to Pulse (freeing up warehouse space), and when the few remaining sales staff and office workers were relocated to the LFP "dark tower" over the hill in Los Angeles, the 20,000 sq. ft. facility was still being used as a distribution warehouse and production center. Now the Osborne Street building on the market for $3.8 million. Built in 1979, LFP purchased the building in December, 1993, well in advance of the DVD era. When LFP bought Russ Hampshire's VCA Pictures a decade later, it assumed some of its staff and all of its catalogue. At that time, Hustler and VCA's warehouse was still chock full of bulkier VHS boxes. According to L.A. County records, LFP made about $700,000 worth of improvements to the building, and the structure and lot it stands on have been assessed at nearly $1.8 million. Since LFP's decision to sell the building, however, both California's commercial and residential real estate markets have slid, and the building stands unused most of the time. Kenny DeMartines, who has been Hustler's set designer for 25 years (and who supplied several of the pictures in this story) has spent the last few months as part of a two-person cleanup crew, getting the building ready for its eventual sale. But when producer Jefff Mullen was looking for a place to film the sequel to last year's Not the Bradys XXX, most of which had been shot in the same location, DeMartines rebuilt the set and added some flourishes. "They weren't using the building," Mullen said. "That's a lot of money they're spending in other locations that they could save."  Clearly LFP believed the building would sell a lot sooner and that it would no longer have to pay the maintenance fees on such a large property. Vivid, Digital Playground, Red Light District, Wicked, and Adam & Eve rarely shoot movies or scenes on their own properties, instead choosing to rent space across Porn Valley and Los Angeles like their smaller competitors. Only Hustler had an in-house location and set builder.The Not the Bradys XXX 2 shoot contained several DeMartines sets, including the (Not the) Bradys' back yard and several bedrooms. Once the building is cleaned out, DeMartines will be out of a job. "I have worked with a Who’s Who of adult directors from (late Barely Legal director) Clive McLean to Jerry T (Jerome Tanner), and even Ron Sullivan (aka Henri Pachard), John Bowen (aka John T Bone), and Greg Dark back in the old days of the 1980s," DeMartines said. "I make things look the way people want them to look." For those of you with an extra $3.8 million (sources say the price might come down), the building boasts the following amenities: Racked warehouse space, ceiling heights between 13' and 17', 800 amp, 3 phase 4 wire delta power and 120/240 volt circuit, controlled parking area, fenced, three 13' roll-up doors, woodshop and painting area with ventilation, five restrooms, washer/dryer hookups, carpeted and sunny reception area and several offices set offf from studio, woodshop, and warehouse spaces. "In a time when everyone is under increasing budgetary constraints, we were actually able to save a lot of money over the years," said DeMartines, "because we had a lot of our own materials already in stock that other companies would need to go out and buy each time they shot."  On the set of Not the Bradys XXX 2, veteran performer Mike Horner (he shot his first adult movie in January, 1978), who plays Mike (Not the) Brady, said that the Old Ways Are Changing."I got into the business with Ron Jeremy, John Leslie, and Jamie Gillis," he said. "Back when L.A. would be hot for a time and then the police would crack down and we had to go back up to San Francisco. When the state told the L.A. police that breaking up porn sets was infringing on free speech (1993), that's when the Valley became the porn capital." And that was the year LFP bought the warehouse. Mullen (using the directing alias Will Ryder) posed with Kasey Jordan (Cindi), Aurora Snow (Jan), Teragan Presley (Marcia) and Alana Evans (Carol) holding a copy of adult trade publication AVN. Its cover story was an advertiser-soothing "Big Budget Is Back." Mullen wanted to recreate the shot with a copy of rival adult publication XBiz, but there wasn't one available. In an article in adult retailer trade publication Adult Store Buyer, Vivid co-founder Steve Hirsch acknowledged the precipitous decline of the physical movie. "(In 1984), 95 percent of our sales came from VHS tapes," he said. Vivid celebrates its 25th anniversary next year. "Last year, less than 30 percent of our sales came from DVDs." While many companies make big budget movies (the just-wrapped Pirates 2 cost more than $1 million and standard features like Adam & Eve's Rollerdollz and Dark City had budgets of $75k to $100k), most major studio porn is produced for $30k for glossier vignette films or five or six scene gonzo movies, in which several or all of the scenes can be shot in one day in several rooms of a Porn Valley McMansion rented for about $1200.  The impending closure of the Hustler studio says only that the the company has made a decision to adapt to the market; an increasingly Internet-driven industry needs fewer people to keep it alive, and less space.That doesn't mean the DVD or the feature is going away tomorrow, but the demand is shrinking. People with staying power have to make do with less. Contrary to the AVN article, demand for big budget features has also contracted, even though a well-made high budget porn spectacle still has the novelty to draw consumers. In addition to Horner, the multigenerational Not the Bradys XXX 2 features veteran performer Lynn LeMay (first adult movie: 1988) as well as Aurora Snow and Teagan Presley, who have bucked traditional porn career expectations by staying active in the business for seven and four years, respectively. On the set, Horner talked about how he has personally adapted. "When I started I was a college student," Mike Horner said. "Now I'm the one playing the Dad roles. Luckily there's Dad roles ... " See the gallery here. Previously: This is how porn guys live; Not the Bradys XXX review See also: Hustler Labels: below the line, business, hustler, jeff mullen, kenny demartines ¶ Wednesday, April 23, 2008 0 Comments Links to this post
Tuesday, March 25, 2008
XRCO voting: One patriot's story
 The conversation went like this:"Grams," said a director, "I see you're on the voting committee for the XRCO." "Do you mean the X-Rated Critics' Organization which, since 1984, has been a true critics' organization like the Golden Globes?" I said, "Not susceptible to politics and suspicion of venality?" "Yes," he said. "Then Yes," I said. "Which movie do you think is most likely to win top honors in the (omitted) category?" he asked. "Why, (omitted 2), of course," I said. After five movies or performers are nominated in each of the XRCO's 26 categories, voters then arrange the five in order of preference. There is no "#1 with a bullet" option, so the fifth choice simply receives the least preference, rather than no preference at all. "Would you mind voting for my movie first and putting (omitted 2) last?" he asked. That's how it is around here. The director didn't even offer to send me a fruit basket or reload my Starbucks card. "That might work in Hollywood," I said, draping myself in a nearby American flag, "but it doesn't work in Porn Valley, U.S.A. Now get off my plane. I'm President of the United States." I only had trouble voting in the categories Orgasmic Oralist and Best Male Performer. "I like all these people equally," I fretted, "and their achievements are uniformly towering, if you were to consider 'towering' as not a comparative term." In these cases I consulted the ghost of Arthur C. Clarke. "Go for the people who have blown you personally or given you cigars," he said. "Rebeca Linares never gave me cigars," I said. The XRCO Awards will be announced April 30. Previously: XRCO Night: A night to Rememb See also: XRCO Labels: business, events, personal philosophy, xrco ¶ Tuesday, March 25, 2008 0 Comments Links to this post
Tuesday, February 19, 2008
Porn Screenwriting: Money Can Buy a Happy Ending
I wrote a porn screenwriting article for XBiz and it was published there a few months ago. Since then I got a complaint from a director who felt I misrepresented him, so I've left his name out of my edit of the article.
 How do we recognize good screenwriting in a business that, sales show, has no need to value it? Porn's screenwriters say that there are more differences than the presence of the word "blowbang" between the scripts of Porn Valley and Hollywood.EXT. CHATSWORTH APARTMENT - AFTERNOONThe first rule of writing is to write what you know. This either means that fast food delivery personnel across Los Angeles are the luckiest men in the world or that porn screenwriters are breaking the first rule of writing. It is probably the latter, and that is because screenwriting for porn follows a different set of rules. It is a cliche to deride porn's scripts in the same way it is fashionable to dismiss awards for acting in adult movies. But while it is a disservice to porn to make it play by the rules of mainstream fare - for budget reasons, if for no others - we will see that porn scripts face their biggest challenges when attempting the quality of the least Hollywood script. This makes it difficult for screenwriters who know the expectations but who stalk the elusive quality porn script regardless; the script that seamlessly blends the required sex with a compelling reason to have it. "I know that I can write the best porn script in the world and it will still be judged below the lowest piece of Hollywood crap," said director Eli Cross, whose "Corruption" (written with Alvin Edwards) won the Best Screenplay prize at this year's AVN awards. The grim tale of the moral unraveling of a U.S. Senator also picked up numerous acting awards from adult outlets, with Cross routinely recognized as Best Director. Writing often seems at odds with the goals of porn producers, who strive to deliver as much sex as possible. Managers of several L.A. area video stores interviewed for this story reported that their top ten rentals were all all-sex titles, with couples movies like Digital Playground's "Pirates" far down the list. Sales of scripted porn movies are far brisker on the Internet, said Ron Austin, buyer for Inglewood's Wildcat Distributors. "The stores are still the home of the raincoat boys," he said, "and they look for theme or girl or sex act, not script. "People who come to the stores are obviously the ones who are not too embarrassed by it," he said. "But even people who want the tamer Wicked Pictures products tend to go online, as do the people who want the really nasty stuff we can't sell in stores due to local ordinances." Purveyors of scripted materials also have to contend with the emerging pay-per-scene or, even more threatening, pay-per-minute VOD markets. But that doesn't mean porn's screenwriters will be out of a job. "The feature isn't dead," said Vivid veteran Paul Thomas, whose feature "Debbie Does Dallas ... Again" recently won top honors at Berlin's Venus Fair, "but it doesn't have the market share it once did." Further, fetish stylemaker Ernest Greene, who directed last year's "O; The Power of Submission", points out that "every new technology and format convinces people of the death of the old ones, but that isn't always true." So if the feature isn't dead and most studios, for reasons of prestige, boredom, or genuine interest, aren't planning to give them up, what are the secrets of a successful porn script? The most important is that a porn script is a different animal from a mainstream script, a play, an infomercial, or a Powerpoint presentation; it is a genre unto itself. "We ask, 'How does the sex find its way into this movie?'" said "Upload" co-writer Edwards. The sci-fi script called for a cast of more than 40, and the film was almost a month in production. "'What does the sex reveal about the characters?' 'How do we make sex and the story one and the same, where a deficit of one will mean the deficit of another, and vice versa?'" Edwards said that "Upload"'s reported $375,000 budget helped preserve the creative elements that would otherwise get stripped away from a standard porn with a budget of $30k. "The money made it happen," Edwards said. Indeed, Paul Thomas' AVN acceptance speech for 1996' "Bobby Sox" thanked the money as much as the actors. "If the right people had the right budgets, as I did here, there would be more great movies," he said. As a large percentage of today's porns are gonzos with setups as limited in length and character development as the snippet that opened this story, many performers would rather not be bothered with dialogue. "I show up on set and of course my agent hasn't told me that there's dialogue," said one female performer known mostly for gonzo roles but who lately has been showing up in features. "So I'm not motivated to learn lines; it's not like I'm being paid any more for it." The actress, who chose to remain anonymous, makes a good point. She can earn just as much money in a gonzo with no dialogue, where she will be in and out, as it were, in a few hours, and possibly even make it to another shoot the same day, as she would in a feature that would require her to turn down other work. Performers are paid by the blowjob, or the double penetration, or the race of their partner. These are notated as "BJ", "DP", and "interracial" on the various adult talent booking sites. Not one mentions "dialogue". Since performers are not paid to act in this most capitalist of businesses, it is not incredible that they don't. "So sometimes, when I know it's a feature, I conveniently get sick," the actress said (and this is why she chose to remain anonymous), "and shoot web content instead." "You have to think of the performers as dollie heads," said director Gazzman, production manager of London's Harmony Films and winner of AVN's Best Foreign Feature for "The Scottish Loveknot". "You're never sure if someone isn't going to be there on the day of filming, so you need to make the parts as interchangeable as possible." Cross echoes this sentiment almost to the exact wording (except the American says "doll" rather than "dollie"). "One consideration when writing the script is being conscious of the real possibility someone won't show up." Despite comparatively huge (for porn) budgets for "Corruption" and this year's "Upload", Cross still contended with the no-shows and flakes ubiquitous in the porn industry. "You can have someone locked and then suddenly she'll get a boyfriend who only wants her to do girls," Cross said. "So there goes your anal scene." This does not happen in Hollywood, where performers would do double, or even triple anal scenes if the money was right. Porn scripts, once written on doomed napkins the day of filming, are now computerized. Some even make it to the cast before the shoot. "But it's not like they courier it over," said the actress. Even though many porn screenwriters type their scripts into Hollywood-standard screenwriting programs like Final Draft and Movie Magic (and Cross and Edwards used the Hollywood term "pink pages" to describe one part of the revision process, which is understandably ambiguous in their chosen industry), most feature porn scripts are 15-to-20 page affairs saved in Microsoft Word. "I write it down and have my secretary type it up," said one industry veteran who thought I wasn’t painting him in the right light so I took out his name, whose recent feature script ran to nine pages and was filmed in one day, along with most of another movie. "There were sex scenes going on all over the house." But most feature directors bemoan the limited budgets and tight deadlines of a studio system afraid of breaking the formula of five-to-six sex scenes in a movie in which one needs to be girl/girl and another needs to be anal. "I know a lot of people who end up putting their own money into their movies (directed for other studios)," said "O"'s Greene, "just so they can retain a semblance of honesty to the script." Jim Powers makes movies for Sin City and JM Productions. Most are filmed in a day. "I know there are limitations," he said, "and I work within them." Powers, who is a prolific moviemaker, is representative of porn's writer/directors who aren't aspiring to Great Art. "Porn is what it is," he said on the set of a MILF movie. "Guys watch porn for five to seven minutes at a pop, then hide the DVD, then watch it the next day. I guess your dialogue needs to fit in there somewhere." One way to handle dialogue that actors don't want to learn and that directors don't have time to direct is by layering on a blanket of voiceovers. "It's a shortcut to at least approaching an effective narrative," said Rebecca Gray, whose script (with Ren Savant) for Vivid's "Seven Deadly Sins" won AVN's 1999 screenplay honor. "If you can't get actors where you want them to be, you can solve a lot of problems with a voiceover." Gray recalls hiring out of work Hollywood voice talent for several films for this purpose. "They charge less than porn actors," she said, "and they're motivated to do a good job because a voiceover is the most anonymous thing you can do in porn and still get to brag about being in porn. It's all the glory with none of the consequences." And as Hollywood has a fascination with porn, so does porn relentlessly attempt to go Hollywood. Wicked Pictures is the most earnest of the Hollywood wannabes, with director/writer/contract girl Stormy Daniels churning out high gloss porn versions of Hollywood movies, most recently "Operation Desert Stormy", a hybrid of "Mr. and Mrs. Smith", and the "James Bond" and "Austin Powers" series. The budget was reportedly $250,000, which Wicked used for screening parties, creative swag boxes for press, and both an airplane and a live camel in the movie. Daniels, like Paul Thomas before her, maintained that the money was essential to the success of the movie. "This is an expensive movie because it needs to be expensive," she said on the first day of shooting. Most of the writers and directors interviewed for this story highlighted workarounds like voiceovers and interchangeable characters, and each mentioned money as integral to the success of a feature. Working independently of studios, or working as autonomously as possible within studios, was also considered a plus. "I appreciate the freedom Wicked gave me," Daniels said. And it was only when constraints of time and budget were relaxed that some felt they could do their best work. "We had money, so we could buy time," said Edwards. "And with the time, Eli (Cross) could direct, and the actors didn't have six other sets to go to that day." "And we had people on set who weren't 'feature' types," Cross added, "who hadn't had the opportunity to do a lot of acting in porn before." Here Cross mentioned Eva Angelina, who he said not only auditioned (this is what a $375k budget buys) but also "did a brilliant job." Another porn cliche is that of the failed artist who cannot get work anywhere else but who succeeds in porn as the smartest monkey in the zoo. This serves as a cautionary tale to screenwriters writing for their employers and not their audience. "Porn has become more acceptable to educated people," said Wayne Hentai of Hentai PR, a marketing firm for porn companies and personalities. "The Internet has made porn safe for women and couples who don't want to go into the dirty bookstores. But they come to the picture with higher expectations." Hentai mentioned misspelled boxcovers and movies with boom shadows and audible offstage banter. "You can put on airs and talk about Nabokov all you want in your porn movie," Hentai said. "But if you can't get your lead actress to pronounce 'Lolita' properly, the jig's up." A veteran director says porn movies need to be simple. "You need the hot girl, and everything else is just you winking at the camera. But the viewer is looking at the hot girl." Everyone agrees that the porn script is its own thing; it has a structure particular to it. Whether that structure is populated with five or six simple setups and sex scenes or if it is, like "Upload", a film Edwards calls "a porn movie for sci-fi geeks, complete with a lexicon on disc four," the structure has to compell viewers beyond those five to seven minutes. And the script is as important an investment as a perfect under the muscle boob job (though porn scripts are far less expensive). Justin Kane, the writer/director of this year's comedy "Spunk'd", shopped around the treatment of his "Punk'd" parody to several studios but couldn't get the budget he wanted. So investors who also happened to be friends put up $90,000 for the project and Kane wouldn't have it any other way. "I wrote (the main part) for Nick Manning, and I'm glad he agreed to it, because he was perfect," Kane said of the ensemble project, uncharacteristic of most porn. "But in retrospect I couldn't have made that movie anything but independently. I think it would suck the life out of me not to have the final cut or to do a job for hire. The extra time was important for the actors to get to know their lines." Kane said that writing the script presented challenges one would not encounter in Hollywood. "You'd think that writing a group sex scene would just be about the choreography, right?" he asked. "But each performer is contracted for a certain thing, so I can't have somebody get anal who was only hired for a blowjob, or I'd get their agents mad. I had to be precise in writing who got what, and where. A cock in the wrong place would have meant the difference of hundreds of dollars." Previously: Gram Ponante announces Oscars of Porn Labels: "eli cross", "paul thomas", "stormy daniels", business, directors, ernest greene, interviews, justin kane, xbiz, xbiz articles ¶ Tuesday, February 19, 2008 0 Comments Links to this post
Saturday, December 29, 2007
Dana Vespoli recompiled
 I think I have seen this scene between Dana Vespolie and Mark Ashley compiled in, like, 10,000 movies.I was talking with someone the other day about how porn directors and talent by and large do not fight to own their own content or at the very least seek residuals. It might have something to do with the fact that people don't think of making money in the future on something they might find shameful today. But if Ashton Kutcher is still making money on "Butterfly Effect", Dana Vespoli should get a cut of every movie this scene shows up in. (I encountered this scene the other day in a movie called something like Anal Addicts 5, but Pat Myne's X-Rated is probably the best value.)  Previously: Dana Vespoli from 2004 - just because Labels: business, dana vespoli ¶ Saturday, December 29, 2007 0 Comments Links to this post
Tuesday, December 18, 2007
Prod of the O.C.: eXtreme Restraints
 Because I am the coolest person you know, I knew that my trip yesterday to the Orange County headquarters and warehouse of hardcore adult products purveyor Extreme Restraints would not yield medieval scenes of people zapping each other's nipples while archiving QuickBooks files.Still, in the way certain people will make a show of wiping their hands upon learning that I am America's Beloved Porn Journalist, I felt compelled to be That Asshole when I walked in. "Don't tase me, Bro," I said. Read more about my visit after the gap. Extreme Restraints was founded in 2000 by Ari Suss and Kelly Eberhard. Both are knowledgeable about the BDSM lifestyle but both, contrary to popular depictions of BDSM fans, are approachable, businesslike, and not terrifying. "I was living in Oklahoma and he was in Maryland," Eberhard said. "I was doing the sales and he was doing the shipping." "...and our first warehouse was in a 10' x 10' spare room," Suss added. The current warehouse occupies 15,000 square feet of XR's building in Huntington Beach. Warehouse Manager Corey Jarvis has added seasonal help to his regular staff. "From around November to Valentine's Day is our biggest time of year," he said. "Not Halloween?" "No," he said. "People into this stuff don't keep it to one day a year. This is a big time because people are giving these products as gifts."  I took a hog crop, a sturdy cane staff with two leather flaps at the end, to maintain discipline at the office. "The two flaps make a really satisfying sound when they connect," Eberhard said. "They get you a little red." "Do people use this on hogs?" I asked. "No," she said. "The hog refers to being a Pain Pig." "Gotcha."  In addition to the lubes and jellies, standard issue and high-end vibrators, and a small cache of DVDs from enema movies to Pirates, XR specializes in heavy duty bondage gear and, more and more, muscle stimulation, TENS, and electrosex devices adapted from less sexy pursuits, like cattle drives."They got me with this when I started," said Jarvis of a three-foot cattle prod. "They got me right in the neck." I looked at a stack of cattle prods and pulled one down. The four-"C" battery tool was made for cattle but appropriated for BDSM enthusiasts. What was weird is that the prod is sold by veterinary supply stores as the "Magic Shock Cattle Prod" and XR simply calls it the Large Shock Prod. I noted the lack of taffeta and prettification on the products. "Naw, the people who buy from us are serious," Jarvis said. It is fun to imagine a leather-clad vegetarian dominatrix in her L.A. dungeon and George W. Bush on a whistle stop to Crawford using the same device at the same time. One of the most intriguing aspects of the adult industry is its extraction of the sexual from everyday life. No longer do all porn stars look like hookers; niche porn capitalizes on the people in your neighborhood who might not be hookers. And now cattle prods have moved from factory farms to the bedroom, where they should be. I asked to see some of XR's bondage models but they more than often contract out for them, using sites like Fetish Nation. A couple of the guys in the warehouse now and then model some of the products, but I am not a groovy enough person to want their pictures. I asked about demographics. Who buys what kind of products? "We send a lot of butt plugs to military addresses," Jarvis said, the top two branches being the Navy and Marines, respectively. The rest of the office looked like any corporate office. Cubicles, carpeting, a water cooler, strap-on phone headsets for the call center. There was a room with a plasma TV and a Wii setup that "the warehouse guys monopolize." No one hanging from the ceiling. "Is everyone here into BDSM?" I asked. "Not everyone," I was told, "but no one hates it." Marketing director James Medina summed it up. "We're the same type of business you'd see anywhere else, except with huge dongs." Previously: Counting floggers on the wall: Mr. S Leather See also: Extreme Restraints Labels: BDSM, business, fetish, interviews, orange county, retail ¶ Tuesday, December 18, 2007 0 Comments Links to this post
Monday, November 26, 2007
AVN to announce nominees today, grousing set to begin thereafter
 Nominees for the 2008 AVN Awards will be announced today, sources say, with other sources confirming plans for a 45-day stretch of bitching to commence immediately thereafter."We usually announce the Awards just before Thanksgiving, then go on vacation so we don't have to listen to the phone calls from irate producers and performers," said an AVN staffer who wished to remain anonymous. But AVN employees sometimes give out their home phone numbers during less vulnerable times of the year, so they are often subject to bitching during the holiday weekend. "It's hard to defend your employer's decision to not nominate Gape Fisting Fucktards for an acting category while saying grace over a turkey," the staffer said. So the 25th annual awards will be announced later today instead. "I've already got several numbers on speed dial," said one producer. "I plan to start with, 'So this is what a full-page ad gets me?!' and devolve from there. I do this every year." AVN will announce a multitude of nominees in a multitude of categories, but company president Paul Fishbein noted that "not everyone will be happy." "You're damn right I'm not happy," said the producer, who expects his Sybian Anime Dwarf series to be nominated in "at least 20" categories, including lesbian, though there are no lesbian scenes in any of the titles. "I pay money, I expect a lesbian nomination," he stated. When informed that nominations would be announced later, many AVN employees wished that they would not be announced at all, the staffer said. "People will complain irregardlessly," he said. "I AM GOING TO DECRY THE HATERS," stated one male performer on the message board Somebody Fuck Somebody. "IN THEIR GROWING NUMBERS. I HAVE BEEN IN THIS INDUSTRY LONG ENOUGH TO AT LEAST GET A BEST LESBIAN SCENE FOR MY EFFORTS." Publicist Bill Mullet, who was recently diagnosed with a degenerative condition requiring him to send out no fewer than 50 press releases a week, nevertheless has a plan in place in case his client's film is not nominated. "If it doesn't get nominated, I will say it is breaking sales records," he said. "If it does get nominated, I will say it is breaking sales records. It is a win/win/win situation." At least one director is sanguine about the possibility of not being nominated. "My hart is too big for this buienesss," he said in a prepared statement. "I cannt expektorate to be nomminated by corpirate MSM porn LOL. Thay dont recnize Art or alternativ bodays. The peepul who push things forward are nvr apreshiated in tahyr time." The 25th AVN Awards will be held January 12 in Las Vegas. I will be co-hosting with Tera Patrick. Previously: Male Performer of the Year*; Extended XBiz Awards still a fraction of AVN's; Tasteful "Ambition" See also: AVN Awards, Also-Rannies 2007 Labels: avn, awards, business, sic ¶ Monday, November 26, 2007 1 Comments Links to this post
Wednesday, November 21, 2007
Exclusive: Porn writers' strike enters 30th year
 CHATSWORTH, Calif. -- The corner back booth of this Lamplighter restaurant franchise has, since the Carter administration, served as the war room for San Fernando Valley's former porn screenwriters.From a dwindling coffer of residuals eight men and one woman purchase coffee and sandwiches while poring over picket sign slogans. "Back when I wrote The Erotic Moods of Monique for Erotic Moods Video I was assured that every iteration conceivable for pornographic delivery, from movie theatre to second-hand description on the street, would be covered," said Lou Dirigibilio, nursing an omelette with bits of his toupee in it. "I even put in a clause for wax cylinders." But the porn business has moved on, with the now-famous Invisible Ink Utter Buyout language included in every contract, guaranteeing non-payment to writers for presentation in every past, present, and future medium, from dirty black and red line art delivered in displays on pizza boxes to aboriginal smoke signal porn (including Digital Playground's Maize God Gets Lucky with Sophia Santi). "These studio moguls continue to make so much money off my words," said Gertrude Sploins, writer of over 400 "erotic mysteries" from the early 1970's. "Just yesterday my grandson showed me a clip of Murder in Her Dark Woman-Grotto on his iPhone. I didn't get paid for that. "The most erogenous erogenous zone is the mind," she added. So with the advent of video technology, porn screenwriters went on strike in 1977, promising to hold out until the smut business ground to a halt or paid dividends to writers from profits on the new technology. "And we haven't worked since," said Harvey Quim, who won the 1975 Philadelphia Porno Critics' Award for his erotic adaptation of "The Joy of Sex", Things in the Erotic Paunchy Man's Beard. Porn industry insider Loup Perch-Tounge points out that there are no scripts in adult films anymore "the way the general public understands scripts," saying that porn movies are created with a blend of cocaine, Keith Johnstone-style improv, and divine inspiration. "Have you seen Alpha 15: Reform School Girls?" Perch-Tounge asked. "You can't say someone wrote that." The striking porn writers have long since abandoned picketing studios because, as Dirigibilio says, "I'd rather eat a reuben than stand in front of a Van Nuys warehouse all day." But socialist fervor still grips the small group, whose median age is 65. "The other day I popped my dentures out at Sasha Grey," said Quim. "But the nice lady popped them right back in." In addition to meager residuals from theatre screenings in communities serviced by Peace Corps volunteers, the members of Porn Screenwriters Union Local 2 (Locals 1 and 3, based in New York and Cleveland, respectively, both folded in 1981) subsist on toasting hundreds of teddy bears stolen from Protecting Adult Welfare and pallets stacked with steveporn stickers. Many adult industry workers have never heard of Local 2, and regularly avoid its members when they stand with donation cans outside Los Angeles area adult conventions. "These people don't know their own history," said Clevon Pudendiferous, writer of the early Mitchell Brothers' film Through the Red Keyhole. "They're so involved with their own little moneymaking schemes that they pay no attention to anyone else." In that way the members of Local 2 are true members of the adult community. When asked about the parallels of his strike to the one being carried out by Hollywood writers, Pudendiferous replied, "Who? I thought we were talking about me." Previously: Don't shit where you eat; One is the gooiest number Labels: business, hollywood, interviews, lamplighter, strike ¶ Wednesday, November 21, 2007 2 Comments Links to this post
Friday, November 16, 2007
Male Performer of the Year*
 As a nation is reflected in its pornography, so does its pornography draw from the society that creates it. That is why the country's ultimate arbiter of porn standards, The San Fernando Valley Gaping Collaborative, has decided to place an asterisk next to the award listing of any male porn performer who has used erection enhancing drugs."It is time," said Collaborative Interim President Loup Perch-Tounge. With Home Run record holder Barry Bonds facing an asterisked entry in his likely Baseball Hall of Fame induction, everyone from many of the last several years of AVN Male Performers of the Year to the XRCO's Unsung Woodsmen to the nominees in any of the 40 other adult award shows planned for next year face a qualifying mark after their name. Veteran porn dude Kyle Stone lauded the measure. "First it was a skill," he said. "Now it's a pill." The august SFVGC was itself embroiled in scandal this summer when it was learned that president Gram Ponante used Viagra while typing. "I needed my hands to point and wildly gesticulate," he said at his resignation. Male performers found to have been under the influence of drugs like Viagra, Levitra, Cialis, Caverject, Caverjet, Cavetol, or "coke dick" while submitting award-winning performances will have their Hall of Fame entries amended and be required to coordinate with their states' Departments of Motor Vehicles to add asterisks to their SWRDFTR license plates. Several performers, such as Dick Rage, vowed to withdraw their names from the rolls of an awarding body if they had to submit to asterisks. "It's like you're asking Sherlock Holmes to detect without heroin, Coleridge to write without cocaine, or Our Lord Jesus Christ to commit miracles without the Holy Spirit," he said. "I mean, have you seen Iphigenia Squirtz lately?" See also: New copy of XBiz World contains mousepad; Industry shocker: AVN redesign doesn't look like ass; Caverject makes women grow; Gargantuan cock public toilet Labels: business, legal, loup, toilet ¶ Friday, November 16, 2007 1 Comments Links to this post
Friday, September 07, 2007
Area code impurity to destroy Valley identity, porn
 Since the beginning of recorded time (1984) the area code of Porn Valley has been 818. It is reported that upon beholding the Valley below him in 1769, Spanish explorer Gaspar de Portola said, "Reventaré mi tuerca aquí 818 veces," or "I will bust my nut here 818 times."That proud heritage will be no more if the California Public Utilities Commission has its way, adding a 747 exchange to the mix and destroying Porn Valley's identity. Read more after the gap. So associated with Porn is the number 818 that erections have been detected in laboratory rats who have been fondled by unscrupulous assistants 818 times. Indeed, the Tongva Indians, a Shoshone affiliate native to the area, called the Valley Pornga, or "Place of 818 Gapes". It is whispered that available 818 numbers will be exhausted in two years, and that the CPUC is deciding whether to assign new phone customers in the Valley a 747 area code or to divide the Valley and redistribute 818s according to which side of the divide customers fall on. Two harrowing scenarios, obviously, but the latter is far worse. I talked with Loup Perch-Tounge of the Chatsworth Fisting Collective, a porn industry think tank. "People's identities are caught up in their area code," he observed, imagining a world in which performers and porn company owners are not taken seriously depending on the first three digits of their phone numbers. "It's tough enough if Caller ID tags you as living in Vegas or Tampa, which are like porn farm teams." "Somebody calls from (downtown LA exchange) the 213, I let the phone ring," Vivid co-founder Steve Hirsch did not say, "just on principle." A coalition not comprising trade magazine AVN, the Free Speech Union, Red Light District, and Pamela Peaks is lobbying the National Park Service to designate the 818 area code a National Historic Landmark, and trade publication XBiz is not using its political capital from the .XXX top-level domain fight to designate 818 as "porn only". "If someone walked into my office with a business card reading '747'," didn't say porn impresario Max Hardcore, "I'd send her down the street to work at the Cheesecake Factory (after pissing in her eye sockets.)" Canadian Tina Tyler, quoting Rush's "New World Man", emphasized the need to "keep (our) nature pure." "You don't want to get a blowjob from someone with a 747 on their Blackberry," she didn't say. "You might as well fuck the carpeting." Virginia-based NeuStar, which operates the North American Numbering Plan Administration, estimates that 818 numbers will run out by 2009. Previously: Still, don't expect more for taking one in the ass See also: 747 to land on top of Valley's 818 (dailynews.com) ¶ Friday, September 07, 2007 0 Comments Links to this post
Monday, August 20, 2007
AVNAds breaks up with AdBrite
 AVNAds, the completely transparent and bug-free ad-serving program that was the shadowy adult side of AdBrite, has broken from its mainstream partner, which is now seeking adult signups via its Black Label Ads program. Both AVN and AVNads were down over the weekend, but both seem to be functioning properly now. No news as to why Mom and Dad parted ways, but I've got dozens of dollars in allowance at stake here, so I hope things get patched up soon.
Previously: AdBrite, AVNAds See also: Philip Kaplan's AdBrite loses porn-ad network (valleywag.com) Labels: avn, business, trademags ¶ Monday, August 20, 2007 6 Comments Links to this post
Tuesday, August 07, 2007
Wayne Hentai: Pornslinger
 Now that Hillary Clinton has stood up for a vilified profession, the "real Americans" known as Washington lobbyists, I finally have the courage to put in a good word for a class of people that, but for several bad apples who smear the whole profession, are hard-working, bright, and conscientious folk: Porn Valley's publicists.I speak with the Dean of Adult Industry publicists, Wayne Hentai, after the gap. Only one of the publicists working in the adult business today has a journalism background. Wayne Hentai, director of Hentai Public Relations of Canoga Park, ran the news desk at the University of Hawaii student newspaper and, following his graduation with a degree in journalism, worked as a stringer for Pacific Business News. After a year in Taiwan employed by an export company, he accepted the newly-created DVD editor position at Adult Video News, a trade publication. "Business reporting is very good training for an understanding of money, retail, law, technology, and distribution," he said, "which, along with naked ladies, is what the adult industry is all about." In the mid-1990s, when adult company heads realized that competition and cheap, increased replication had increased to the point that porn no longer sold itself, they took a cue from Hollywood and hired publicists to tell the world, which at that time meant AVN, that their product was better. Prior to this, company sales reps and the owners themselves acted as publicists, but in the face of an onslaught of comparable content from competitors, Publicist became a job description unto itself. The publicist's job, at first, was to get articles into AVN. The good publicist's mailing list has increased by one with each media outlet that has appeared to address AVN's deficiencies or to take a run at AVN's dominance. "Respecting the editor's job is the key to getting your client's stories published on a website or print publication," Hentai said. "If an editor has to rewrite press releases because they don't appear to be in English or if there's no news enclosed, that tends to breed ill will." Hentai is correct, but bad or not, press releases still get printed. Editors have resorted to creating aliases to hide their shame of printing these things as news stories or have, like AVNOnline and XBiz, created a PR ghetto where press releases languish unedited. At a recent seminar conducted by XBiz editors in Las Vegas, Hentai's work was singled out as the type of material magazines look for. "I don't care if we get nine press releases from Wayne a day," Associate Editor Anne Winter said. "We print them because they are relevant and well-written." And because they are not filled with references to Hentai. "The most important thing to remember is that the person signing the checks should be the person getting the publicity," Hentai said. "I stand in the background. Writers don't want to write 'Lexington Steele's publicist said'." Then why do publicists get away with that? "No comment," Hentai said. I think because porn is a visual medium that adult companies and the publicists they've hired have not emphasized a command of English as a priority of the job. Instead, a steady stream of newsless "press releases" have issued from companies, and because trade publications nominally need words that will go along with the advertising, these press releases provide excellent filler. So trade publications and the publicists that fed them created a mutually parasitic relationship that threatened the real news editors tried to print. As in the mainstream world, a story unfavorable to an advertiser was toned down or killed. Eventually editors, who were never the managers of the publications, learned to avoid particularly thorny issues within the industry and instead pointed their anger outside, at external threats to the adult industry, such as the government or annoying copyright law. Most publicists, then, thrive in an industry ducking for cover under a low ceiling of expectations, hence press releases an eighth grader would be embarrassed to write (or for which would at least get a D). Hentai is different, and frustrated. "There's no shame in using a spell-check," he said, "but I wonder when people will start connecting poor press with poor sales?" I think this a long way off. I recently had a conversation with a porn director who said that he reads the various adult sites every day, hoping his name will be mentioned. I had counseled him that I would not run a press release that was written just for the sake of having a press release out. "You don't invent a reason to send out a press release," I said. "But everyone else is sending out press releases," he said, and he meant it, and it's true. "But they look like idiots," I said, and I meant it, and it's true. "The adult industry is a bubble," Hentai said, "and the people in the bubble aren't the ones buying adult products. Are you getting all your porn for free?" "Yes," I sobbed. "Presss releases need to be written for the people actually buying the product, because they are judged by the same standards as any other press release." "So 'Good enough for Porn' isn't a business model that works anymore?" I asked. "Five years ago, maybe," he said. Hentai currently represents several clients, including Lexington Steele's Mercenary Pictures, American Xcess, Third World Media, Sinsation, and Lethal Hardcore. He works for smaller companies on a case by case basis. I mentioned my conversation with the director who just wanted to see his name in print. "Can't you feed someone's vanity and take their money at the same time?" I asked. "I tell my clients that putting them in the best light sometimes means not writing something every other day," Hentai said. "You need a good balance of actual information to publicity or the project is doomed to collapse under its own hype." Previously: Iran calls porn performers "Corruptors of the World"; Adult industry to sic itself on bad grammar; Passages; Continuing education credits See also: Hentai PR Labels: business, hype, interviews, lexington steele, sic ¶ Tuesday, August 07, 2007 3 Comments Links to this post
Friday, July 27, 2007
Rhino to get Ninn skin
 Director Michale Ninn and NinnWorx have been contracted to art up the 34 worldwide locations of the Spearmint Rhino peeler chain, and the studio will function as the clubs' production arm.I'm hoping that Spearmint Rhinos will become more Innocence Brat and less Sacred Sin, because who wants to go to a strip club and see someone raging around his apartment weeping about the death of his wife? Full story on the next page.  Ninn says that this deal, with its roots in meetings between himself and Spearmint Rhino owner John Gray at January's AVN Convention, includes NinnWorx contract performers Jana Jordan and Heather Vuur appearing at the clubs.The partnership has resulted in the creation of a third company, NinnWorx_SR, which will be headquartered in the city of Norco in Riverside County. Norco sounds like the soulless name of a company town, but it is actually short for "North Corona" - uninspired, but California is a big place, and you don't get a gem like "Hesperia" every day. In Norco, you can ride your horse to dinner, and many businesses have hitching posts. Riverside County, famous for being a hotbed of despair, is now changing its image to a porn destination (though it is doubtful you will find that in Chamber of Commerce literature). The headquarters of Pornfidelity are just down the street in Corona. NinnWorx has recently signed Lena Nicole to a contract, and for a while flirted with the idea of signing former Adam & Eve implosion Sophia Lynn. This will probably not happen due to a recurrence of the same things that scuttled her Adam & Eve deal, sources say. Recent rumors of NinnWorx' financial instability are exaggerated and incorrect, say company spokespeople. The company co-sponsored its "Gathering" party last year with Eddie Van Halen in support of Sacred Sin. Van Halen went into rehab shortly thereafter, but I should have as well. That's how good the party was. Previously: An awkward conversation with Heather Vandeven; In a white room with meat curtains; Good Friday at the Filth Factory See also: Ninnworx, Spearmint Rhino Labels: business, heather vandeven, jana jordan, ninnworx, pornfidelity, strippers ¶ Friday, July 27, 2007 0 Comments Links to this post
Friday, July 06, 2007
XBiz Summer Forum next week
 Because my car has better air conditioning than my house, and because a four-hour drive in a car with leg room is better than three hours waiting for and flying in a plane that has none, I will be driving to Las Vegas next week for the XBiz Summer Forum.Even though the Hard Rock Hotel and Casino has air conditioning of its own, it is still an odd choice to hold a convention in a city that is officially hotter than Hell in the middle of July, a month Satan described as "a hot, hot month, especially in Vegas. Jesus Christ." Activities at the XBiz Summer Forum include sweating, parties, and numerous seminars including the inevitable 2257 regulations breakout session, a two-part Distribution How-To, Information and Content Security panels, and How to Generate Free Traffic, at which I will speak. I'm a little worried about what I'll say. Should I demand that webmasters "Provide quality material"? "More boobs, Less Dumb"? These people don't want to hear that. XBiz staff will moderate a seminar on How to Write a Press Release. I am looking forward to this. It is understood that conferences and trade shows make money for the entities sponsoring them, but the Press Release seminar will be the most self-serving; it is a plea by the staff to stop sending them For Immediate Release pieces about a hat giveaway. I will admire their balls if they say, "Do not, for the love of G-d, write press releases like 90 percent of the people who write press releases in the adult industry." Previously: Gram Ponante announces iLick; Breaking: New copy of XBizWorld contains mousepad See also: XBiz Summer Forum, Treatment of heat prostration Labels: business, events, xbiz ¶ Friday, July 06, 2007 0 Comments Links to this post
Thursday, June 28, 2007
Sixth time is a charm for Donny Long
 I got a message this morning from a person who sent me a MySpace blog post that he said was written by the performer Donny Long.Long often recruits new female talent to the adult industry, rechristens them with his last name, and shops them around to producers. The blog post dealt with some of the pitfalls of that approach but ends with a success story. The Weinstein Company should option it for its positive arc. Because I am currently at the Vatican, however, my immediate thought was "Cui Bono?" - it concerned me that someone else was sending this message around. I contacted Long, who said that the blog post was indeed his. The person who sent it to me identified himself as a male performer who has worked with several women who have also worked with Long. "This just proves that Donny is just in this all for himself," he wrote. "What do you expect when you bring such young talent on board?" Many people in the adult industry believe that the minimum age for porn talent should be raised three years to 21. They feel that, while some 18-year-olds are very mature and while many 37-year-olds still have a lot to learn, that teenagers in general should get some sexual experience under their belts before they start getting paid for it. "It all depends on the person, and if you (are) a good judge of character you should know who is mature and dependable no matter what age they are," the anonymous source wrote. Long's full post is below, unedited. What do you think? agents and their pimp handsPreviously: No easy way out for Body Magic; Glenn Beck: What's Wrong with America; The Princess Has Come of Age; The Whipping Hour; Porn rumors and how to handle them See also: Donny Long on MySpace Labels: agency, business, donny long, interviews, male talent, news ¶ Thursday, June 28, 2007 1 Comments Links to this post
Monday, June 11, 2007
The Black Toilet of Lust
 When I write my book implicating you all, this is what I'll call it.I was at the property of performer/entrepreneur Lori Lust the other day, the house having been rented for a shoot. It was an elegant but not ostentatious house in Northridge, near the faultline of the 1994 earthquake and across the street from a church. There were Beanie Babies in their original packaging in glass display cases as well as coffee table books in the bathroom. There was Wi-Fi Internet and a two-story living room. There was also a black toilet. The porn scene was going on behind me but I didn't care. "I have never seen a black toilet," I said to myself. "Neither a white toilet painted black, nor a toilet so dirty that it had become black. This is a toilet that has always been black." I wondered if this were an omen of some kind. If so, did it bode well or ill that the seat was up? "There's no toilet paper," I added. Previously: Lori Lust Agency explodes, survivor writes press release; Lori Lust: Girl wrangler See also: Lori Lust Agency Labels: business, found, lori lust, toilet ¶ Monday, June 11, 2007 2 Comments Links to this post
Monday, June 04, 2007
Don't leave Larry Alone
 Perhaps the adult industry's most passionate advocate is Larry Flynt. Alone he seems to have the credibility to persuasively argue that viewing dirtpipe milkshakes is our right.Each of the porn world's established or ascendent organizations has tripped over itself to bring Flynt out to deliver his winning stump speech, the money shot being "The greatest thing a government can do for its citizens is recognize their right to be left alone." Flynt has his good and bad days, and it is hard to watch him struggle with his speech. It is also difficult to separate the crises within Hustler, the shakeups among its underbosses, and the fact that employees have to pay to park in the the building that bears his name with the simple fact that thousands of people previously or currently allowed to make their living off this odd business owe the privilege to him. Flynt past (looking a little like Vince Vaughn) and present stars in the new documentary Larry Flynt: The Right to Be Left Alone, from New York's Midtown Films. View the trailer here. Previously: Barely Legal 75: Stacks of nudes spotted in Sunland; 2007 AVN wrap-up: "A fine spray of legitimacy" See also: Larry Flynt: The Right To Be Left Alone Labels: business, documentary, hustler, larry flynt ¶ Monday, June 04, 2007 0 Comments Links to this post
Wednesday, May 23, 2007
Case Study: Porn rumors and how to handle them
 I try to get a few independent sources before I print anything I hear as a rumor. That is why I print very few adult industry rumors; it makes for a less titillating site but I comfort myself that at least I can spell "titillating" and I have a huge schlong.I am on the august "Board of Governors" for the June 9 debut of the Adultcon Awards. That means that I had a part in selecting from a list of pre-nominees the final nominees for awards in various categories. Now that the nominees have been chosen, the dignified American Academy of Adult Arts and Entertainment chooses a winner. Also on the BoG are my acting partner Roger Pipe from Rog Reviews, someone from AdultDVDEmpire, and someone from Gamelink (the world's largest online retailer of adult films and one of my employers). Last night I got an e-mail from April Storm, who is Tera Patrick's publicist. April had received an e-mail from Evan Seinfeld, who is Teravision's CEO and, more importantly, Tera's husband. He was angry that Tera didn't get nominated; wasn't April supposed to be on top of that? Evan knew that Roger Pipe and I were people who regularly covered April's clients, so he mentioned us by name as people who had stiffed his Tera (and not in the good way). This concerned me, because all I had been told about the Adultcon Awards was that they weren't fixed; that ballots were secret and tamper-proof. Adultcon's CEO, Renaud West, had assured me of this. If what Seinfeld indicated was correct, West or someone at Adultcon had divulged voting records. Here's the twist: I had given Tera a high vote in her category for Teradise Island. Why was I being thrown under the bus? I won't say what anyone else voted, but I did some checking. While I gave Tera high marks, and one other person definitely did, yet another gave her a low mark. If the fourth vote was either very low or otherwise not high, that's how Tera didn't make it in. Wide differences of opinion are felt the strongest in small groups. The following questions emerged: Did Evan lean on Adultcon to find out the votes? It would be in character for someone like Jaz Hoyt. And did Adultcon then cave in? If so, why would my vote be misrepresented? I'd have no problem with Seinfeld trying to find out voting records; that's how we East Coasters roll. We are from a land of political machines. It's how the Brooklyn Bridge was built and how Harry Truman became president. But I couldn't stay on the esteemed BoG if my votes were divulged. So I called and e-mailed Renaud West. He e-mailed me back that, while the BoG members were known to freedom lovers everywhere, their votes were not. He also asked if I got this "BS" from my "good friend April Storm". I contacted April Storm. If someone had spilled the beans about votes, then someone was lying. How did Evan know about the voting, and why would he have been given the wrong information about mine? "I have no idea," she said. "That's what confuses me." She said that she knew of at least one other voter who gave Tera a high vote. It was still possible that Tera wouldn't get nominated if she got two lower marks. Evan, she said, was upset. I needed to talk with Evan Seinfeld. I had his number somewhere, but I asked April for it. If she didn't give it to me, or if she stalled, that would have been a problem. She might be making up scores to appease her boss. She gave the number to me immediately. So Seinfeld is a businessman, regardless of the business he's in. It is in his interest to want to know who voted what, even though he shouldn't be given that information; as long as he's not told, it's OK that he asks. I needed to know if he was given the voting tally, because if he had I wouldn't have anything to do with Adultcon. "Renaud told me who was on the Board of Governors but he didn't tell me the votes," Seinfeld said. "I assumed it was you and Rog (who voted low on Tera)." Seinfeld then explained why he assumed these things. "There's a lot of bullshit in this business," Seinfeld said. "I don't believe rumors." So Seinfeld was looking out for Tera. When West found that Tera hadn't been nominated, he called Seinfeld. "I didn't want to make that call," West said. "If this thing was fixed, wouldn't I fix it for Tera?" So much trouble can come from irresponsible research and the willingness to believe everything one reads. In the wake of an incident on a movie set two months ago in which I was assaulted by a performer who said, erroneously, that I'd called him a "fag", the blogger Luke Ford posted a libelous and ill-conceived story on his site, attributing the homophobic words of Ann Coulter (referring to John Edwards), to me. Ford then wrote that, because of this, I was dumped from several of my writing gigs. He falsely attributed his story to the Associated Press. I was called by several people, including an LAPD detective, who had read Ford's story, which was at that time not labeled as "satire". "You told me you hadn't called (the performer/defendant) a fag," the detective said, fuming (it would have meant I'd lied on a police statement). "No," I said, for the fifth time that day. "It was mostly a fabrication. The story would have been a complete fabrication had he not used actual quotes, but they were someone else's quotes attributed to me." "Does he do this sort of thing a lot?" I was asked. "It wasn't even funny." "Yes," I shrugged. "Why do people still read him?" "The adult industry has very low self esteem." When I returned to my office that day there was an e-mail waiting. It was from Adultcon. "Without going into details and due to certain outside influences, we have decided best to let you go. In light of the curent situation, it is the best way maintain the integrity of the show.It turned out that West had read the Luke Ford piece and believed it immediately. It got resolved, but I am still defending myself against this story. Someone wrote me about it last week. That story has wasted as much time for me as the assault that preceded it. "Crazy story," AVN president Paul Fishbein said when I mentioned it to him. I also asked him why AVN didn't seem to have any interest in covering physical assaults on porn sets or juicy libel cases. "Ultimately, you know Luke's real colors. Always an agenda and usually not nice." I'll continue to send Luke Christmas cards. In the end, I told Seinfeld the vote I gave Tera. It was easier than telling him I gave her a low vote, but I would have done that, too. I realize that in telling Seinfeld my vote, even in the effort of trying to determine if the Adultcon Awards were easy to sell out (they're not), I made it easier to figure out how the other three entities voted. That was a mistake I won't repeat, but it was for a larger goal. That's the latest from the rumor mill. In other news, the Kim Kardashian sex tape is still an awful movie. Previously: InTERActive: choosing the blue pill, yellow bikini; Mooninites descend on Boston; Cleopatra of the Nile wants you to die See also: Adultcon, Tera Patrick Labels: "tera patrick", adultcon, awards, business, sic, teravision ¶ Wednesday, May 23, 2007 3 Comments Links to this post
Thursday, May 17, 2007
Still, don't expect more for taking one in the ass
 Despite predicted job growth of 1.5 percent and a projected earnings increase of three percent for workers in Porn Valley this year, there was no mention at this week's San Fernando Valley Economic Summit of the area's orgasmic analists, gay for pay over-the-hill twinks, or adult trade magazine workers receiving raises."Things are humming along nicely," said Daniel Blake, who wrote the Summit's forecast, not adding, "but not for the people giving the hummers." Jack Kyser, chief economist for the Los Angeles County Economic Development Corp., pointedly omitted the porn business, which adult industry insiders say makes upwards of $10 billion a year. "In the Valley, what people are wondering is what is going to happen with the entertainment industry," Kyser said (italics added). I have added a graph representing projections for anal scene earnings versus growth prospects for commensurate labor (radiator flush and replacement) in the private sector. As you can see, anal scene earnings often go down depending on your agent and elasticity, while radiator replacements are expected to net more cash by the end of 2008. Previously: Today in porn swag; Report: Internet profitable See also: Valley growth called slow, steady (dailynews.com) ¶ Thursday, May 17, 2007 0 Comments Links to this post
Friday, May 11, 2007
Wankus out at KSEX, fired by phone on air
 It is hard to imagine KSEXRadio without Wankus, the person who undisputedly made the station the unvarnished garage band of porn industry discussion."Well," Wankus qualified today, "if you think KSEX sucks, that's me, too." Wayne "Wankus" Lewis joined KSEXRadio in late 2000 after years as a radio DJ in regional markets around the country. He joined at the request of former owner the late Mike Rick. "I coached his kid in Little League," Wankus said, "and he called me up when he'd bought the station from the former owner in late 2000. He said 'I'll stay out of your way.'" Wankus brought an abrasive, incisive, often hilarious East Coast style to the airwaves, building a loyal fanbase with "PJ"s ("Porn Jockies") that worked for $20 an hour. Wankus is responsible for most of KSEXRadio's identifiable trademarks, from its music to its commercials. Following Rick's death, Rick's brother, Chris, took over the station but he eventually sold to a four-person partnership that included Sean Trotter, a shareholder in Adam & Eve, a "silent partner" named Gene who was a restarauteur, Josh Aaron, and Jon Belinkie. There was talk of taking the station to satellite radio, moving the station to larger quarters from its current Burbank location, and a general restructuring managed from afar. Wankus continued as Program Director. "There were big plans," Wankus said of the new regime, which began early last year. "But (despite Trotter's involvement) the new owners were outsiders trying to run a porn business." Tyler Faith, who today resigned her PJ gig in protest of Wankus' firing, concurred. "It has been a very rough year," she said. I asked what the biggest problem seemed to be in outside ownership. "This is a west coast industry and you have to respect that," Wankus said. "When I moved to Santa Barbara from New York, it took me four years to talk without people wanting to fight me." (I had earlier asked Wankus to please slow down; I'm from the East Coast myself and I have grown used to people talking at a leisurely pace since I moved here.) "...so I understood the difficulty," he said. "They have very New York-y, hard-sell tactics. You can't yell at (AVN president Paul) Fishbein about the AVN ads. I had to do a lot of apologizing for them. But you can't manage a business by vacation, which is what these guys were doing. You have to get in and get your hands dirty." On Thursday night, PJ Lorrainiac's show started with a call from partner Jon Belinkie. He informed her on the air that Wankus was fired and that she was the new Program Director. "I hired Lorrainiac six years ago," Wankus said. "She had just started the show, everybody was having a good time..." Wankus and Faith are dubious of the station's continued success, because they don't feel the owners know the territory. But this pales in comparison to the method of the dismissal. "(Wankus is) responsible for KSEX getting to where it is now," Faith said, "and you don't treat someone like that." Many companies in the adult industry are notorious for shortchanging their employees, but this reflects the entertainment industry in general, and maybe even Los Angeles (that is why I work for myself). These companies might survive based on short-term disrespect to the people who work for them, but it could be argued that they'd do a lot better if employees were treated better. "(Belinkie) and I would have these screaming phone calls that we'd end with 'I'm hanging up now. I'll call you tomorrow,'" Wamkus said. "We didn't see eye to eye on a lot of things, but we all wanted the success of KSEX." Both Wankus and Faith admit they feel relieved after what they think of as a year of struggle and butting heads with the new owners. "Now he can devote 100 percent of his time to my company (Team Tyler)," Faith said. The couple are negotiating a new series with a major studio, the details of which will be announced soon. "I'm getting my ducks in a row," Wankus said. I asked what the secret of success in the porn business was. "You can tell who's going to succeed when people stop getting the googly eyes with naked girls all around them," he added. "These guys still have the googly eyes after a year." Previously: Tyler Faith, awake and asleep; Tyler makes honest man out of Wankus; What makes boobs real? See also: Wankus, Tyler Faith Labels: business, ksex, news, tyler faith, wankus ¶ Friday, May 11, 2007 2 Comments Links to this post
Tuesday, April 24, 2007
Hunters gather funds, but don't hit lotto at grotto
 "I guess I knew it before," Nicki Hunter said, "but it took cancer for me to realize how many friends I have."Hunter might unwittingly become a poster girl for lymphoblastic lymphoma, because despite several rounds of chemotherapy, she looks good. How she feels is a different matter. After two benefits held in her honor last week, by Saturday's culminating event at the Playboy Mansion she was looking a little tired. Money has been pouring in for Hunter from friends in and out of the porn industry. This week Kylie Ireland and Ginger Lynn (I keep saying "Gina Lynn", and I apologize) cash in on a $3,000 double date they auctioned on eBay, there are currently two benefit all-sex DVDs in production or in the works, one of which is a Cousin Stevie's Pussy Party, and random cash comes in via everything from lap dances to autographed DVDs donated by various hot friends. All of this to combat medical fees deep in the six figures. The business of charity in the entertainment industry is often ambiguous and confusing. How much money raised goes to the intended recipient? Organizations like PAW (Protecting Adult Welfare) have been criticized for their overhead. People like Asia Carrera, who was widowed last year, was in the days immediately after her husband's death chided for letting her fans know she was broke. People get sensitive about being asked for money; they forget that famous doesn't always equal rich. Amber Peach received death threats from a spelling-challenged MySpace reader when she encouraged donations to Hunter's charity, HunterCARE. And sometimes philanthropic efforts break down. Last Saturday HunterCARE was to have been the beneficiary of a party at the Playboy Mansion. The ACE Entertainment Group, which throws upwards of ten events at the Playboy Mansion during its 70-event yearly party season, was contracted by Sacramento's Maddbacker Foundation, a group founded by former Cincinnati Bengal Adrian Ross, to coordinate an event there that would feature a silent auction and other fundraising efforts for everything from HunterCARE to the Make A Wish Foundation. More than 30 female adult performers, mostly coordinated through Lighthouse Talent, were to roam the Playboy grounds in Holmby Hills selling autograohed DVDs and lap dances to the mostly-football fan crowd, who would also be entertained by Snoop Dogg and VH-1 personality Hal Sparks. According to people connected with ACE, reps of the Maddbacker Foundation gave away more tickets than they were allotted, and further told celebrity guests to just show up at the Playboy Mansion, whereas other ticket holders, the press, and adult performers waited for shuttles at a UCLA parking structure a mile away. I was told to arrive at UCLA by 6:45. I did, and was later joined by AVN's Peter Warren, Brian Uptgraft from the Hardcore Source, Tony Batman, and four representatives of XBiz (two of whom were from XFanz; I later found that organizers weren't aware they were all from the same organization). Immediately we found that none of us was on any list kept by StubHub, the ticket seller, or Maddbacker. As we were a collegial group, we waited in the warm parking structure. Some of us waited over four hours, while others stayed just one or two and wisely went home.  By 10 p.m. only a few press were left in the parking structure. Cousin Stevie, who negotiated Nicki Hunter's part in the event with ACE, was joined by a limo full of girls, including Jada Fire, Amber Peach, Bettie Rage, Cossette Angel, Shannon Kelly, and Veronica Rayne. Nicki Hunter and her entourage had driven directly to the Mansion around 9 p.m., and by virtue of the grounds not yet being at capacity (that night's capacity was 500 guests) and the fact that the entourage consisted mostly of hot girls like herself and Tory Lane, were let in.We at UCLA had by this time been informed that we were not on any list and that tickets were not available for us. Some of the girls had been given tickets but were told they could only get to the Mansion via shuttle buses, so the limo they arrived in was useless. At 10:30 ten of us got in the limo and decided to drive to the Mansion. We were stopped by a Mansion guard who didn't know who we were (I wisely did not show myself because I have hairy legs and no breasts). Cousin Stevie explained that he was a co-producer of the Nicki Hunter benefit. He was not let in. Veronica Rayne explained that the girls were there volunteering for the benefit, you know, to give lap dances. The guard did not acknowledge Rayne, but instead said to the limo driver, "Take them back where you found them." This was unforgivable and rude, no matter how much Playboy tries to convince itself it is not an organization that sells sex. Still, when Rayne shouted that "this is why I work for Hustler" I doubt the guard went back to tell Hef. "It was the largest traffic jam in Holmby Hills history," said Cousin Stevie, on whom security was called and who snuck around to the back gate, where he was finally let in after ACE owner Max Soto paid an additional thousand bucks. There Stevie joined his wife and Nicki Hunter. By this time it was 11:30 and the in-house caterers were dismantling the party. Nicki Hunter had dragged a table into a corner and decided to enjoy herself. "It is what it is," she said. At UCLA, over a hundred StubHub ticketholders, who had each paid over $1000 for tickets, were still waiting for shuttles. They never got in. Celebrities personally invited by Maddbacker publicist Jameela Jackson and told to just show up at the Mansion, met with mixed results. Miami Dolphin and Maddbacker partner Joey Porter chartered a bus for friends. A StubHub rep told me that StubHub had oversold the event. At the check-in area in the parking structure, I was told, a fight broke out and tickets were stolen from ACE representatives. I didn't see this. What I do know is that by the time I got to the Mansion, no one was being let in, and that any communication between the Maddbacker reps and the ACE people had broken down. No one knew who was on the correct list, and by a certain point it didn't matter. Playboy, meanwhile, had planned for 500 people and was letting no one else in. When the limo dropped me off at my car at 11:15, there were still people at UCLA waiting for shuttles. "It's not happening," I told one guy from San Diego. "Who's going to refund my ticket?" he asked angrily, getting in my face (he had seen me step out of a limo). I told him I wasn't sure; I don't think anyone broke even other than Playboy. ACE owner Soto said that the Maddbacker partnership was a one-time event. "Our other events we handle on our own," he said. So charity doesn't necessarily begin at Holmby Hills.  "One important thing is that Nicki got into the Mansion," Cousin Stevie said, "and she knows people care about her. There were a lot of people out in force to support her ... even if none of them got in."This is, in its way, encouraging. Perhaps the individual, thoughtful donation route is the way to go. Hunter is upbeat and is a tough chick. She is currently the adult world's object of philanthropy, and there is no one better. Donations can be sent via HunterCARE, where there will be a PayPal link available soon. Previously: Wig flipping with Nicki Hunter; Double the Nicki Hunter benefits; The Playboy Mansion in a nutshell See also: HunterCARE Labels: "nicki hunter" "cousin stevie", business, philanthropy, playboy, WGL ¶ Tuesday, April 24, 2007 3 Comments Links to this post
Wednesday, April 18, 2007
Sex and commerce in Las Vegas
 I happened across an article in the Las Vegas Review Journal about the Sin City Chamber of Commerce, an affiliation of businesses dealing loosely or directly with the skin trade.These companies have had difficulty benefiting from business partnerships enjoyed by mainstream firms.
The Sin City Chamber of Commerce is sponsoring a golf tournament and "brothel barbecue" at the Chicken Ranch this weekend. Some of the proceeds from gift-bag sales, balloon rides and the barbecue will go toward the Desire Alliance, a nonprofit that lobbies for the rights of workers in the sex industry, and The Center, a gay-rights group. The chamber has booked a block of rooms at the Pahrump Nugget hotel and casino. It is encouraging to see business leaders pooling their resources in the face of adversity; it makes sense that performers can unionize, too. Previously: Report: Internet profitable; Last words on AVN 2007; Gaped Crusaders; San Francisco sex workers seek to unionizeSee also: Sin City chamber means business (lvrj.com), Sin City Chamber of Commerce Labels: business, events, las vegas ¶ Wednesday, April 18, 2007 0 Comments Links to this post
Monday, April 16, 2007
Plucky Gonorrhea to antibiotics: "Porn has made me strong"
 Gonorrhea, like the Spartans in 300, has overcome fierce opposition and prevailed, proving resistant to traditional treatment in over five percent of cases in 26 cities, including Los Angeles.The Centers for Disease Control have recommended that fluoroquinolones, a family of antibiotics that include ciprofloxacin, ofloxacin, and levofloxacin, no longer be used to treat the disease, which is second only to Chlamydia in infectious diseases reported in the United States. Instead, the CDC now recommends cephalosporin injections, as opposed to the previous method, which was oral doses of fluoroquinolones. A few days ago I was called to suggest a last-minute replacement performer for the filming of what will be a very big movie. "X has Gonorrhea," I was told. "It's going around again." I caught up with Gonorrhea at CDC headquarters in Atlanta. Earlier in the afternoon there had been a small ceremony at which the feisty, green-discharge-characterized disease had been awarded its Five Percent Resistance trophy. GP: Dude, how do you feel?Gonorrhea, or "The Clap", is one of the most common maladies within the Porn world. Adult Industry Medical (AIM), which administers the brunt of the medical tests that clear performers for work, includes a Gonorrhea/Chlamydia test within its $120 adult performer special. Previously: Lighthouse 1, Hansen's Disease 0 See also: CDC Changes Recommendations for Gonorrhea Treatment Due to Drug Resistance (sciencedaily), Adult Industry Medical Labels: business, health, news ¶ Monday, April 16, 2007 0 Comments Links to this post
Wednesday, March 28, 2007
A brief and non-hysterical history of the .XXX domain
 If everyone from (many) conservative Christian groups to (many) Internet pornographers oppose creating a domain extension specifically for porn, though for (many) different reasons, and if the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names And Numbers (ICANN) has twice turned the proposal down, Ars Technica wonders why the proposal is being reheated yet again.The answer is that registrars and their business partners stand to make a great deal of money from the creation of a porn-only top-level domain, so registrars will continue seeking its adoption. How many other pure examples of profit with no communty benefit can you think of? (I suggest credit cards for students.) Previously: Utah: No Star '80 on Port 80; .XXX will have to wait See also: Proposal to erect XXX domain faces stiff opposition (arstechnica.com), ICANN Labels: business, ICANN, legal ¶ Wednesday, March 28, 2007 0 Comments Links to this post
Wednesday, March 21, 2007
Adult industry to {sic} itself on bad grammar
 Bill Mullet, publicist for Iphigenia Squirtz, calls it "A FULLON ASSAUTL."Vapid Pictures marketing manager Voom is preparing for "an exxxxtra dose of significant shit." These PR gurus are preparing to cash in on the biggest trend in adult entertainment since Blu-Ray: individual and corporate sponsorship of poor spelling, bad grammar, and cliches. "Publicists have been setting the stage, if you will, for this, if you will, campaign, if you," said Mae Scirocco, president of Chatsworth's Porn Publicist's Guild (PPPG), on its website, "will, for years, and now they are ready to capitolize on it." It is a simple formula: for every instance of an extraneous X in a porn title, headline, or performer's name, an amount up to four cents (US) is deposited in an account. The account will be maintained by industry watchdog Gram Ponante. Similar charges apply to misuse of the word "your" or the employment of "enthused" in place of "said". In a business model designed to jump-start Porn's flagging economy after five years of decreasing DVD sales, individuals and companies can also sponsor each case of poor English, hyperbole, or an outright lie. "Let's say Publicist A writes of Performer B, 'Performer B has a good credit rating and no drug problem, and is starring as Parris Hiltop in AutoFellater Productions' Production of 300 (Cumshots), which will be distributed by Hustler,'" said Loup Perch-Tounge from the Nordhoff Alliance, an adult industry trade group, "well, there's at least 10 sponsorship opportunities in there." Perch-Tounge believes the industry's historically-recognized shortcomings can now be monetized. "Performer B doesn't have a good credit rating, so let's say Vivid can pay for that one, Performer B eats meth for breakfast, so Digital Playground can take a crack at that, 'Parris Hiltop' is a stupid name - maybe AVN or XBiz can get a revshare on that. AutoFellater isn't even a legal company and never had a distribution deal with Hustler, so maybe Hustler can sponsor its name being taken in vain! Everybody wins," he enthused. Through a Web 2.5 system of "intelli-tagging", Perch-Tounge continued, as soon as the misspelling or other sponsorship opportunity hits the web, it will immediately be hyperlinked to the sponsoring entity's website, which will then be charged similar to Google's Ad Words model. The PPPG's Scirocco sees the need for regulation. "Of course we'll have to impose controls on unscrupulous publicists deliberately misspelling things or lying just to increase traffic for various companies they might be, if you will, 'in bed with'," she said, "but test cases have proven that when many of them try to spell something wrong, they actually spell it correctly." Scirocco didn't see the need for people who could write well in the new economy. "Their dinosaurs," she said via e-mail. Perch-Tounge concurs, but also envisions room for exponential expansion. "Why limit sponsorship to grammar, unnecessary letters, or cliches?" he asked. "We could open it up to fake MILFs, fake teens, calling someone an 'industry veteran' or 'director' when they aren't, misuse of the term 'viral marketing', whatever. The whopportunities are endlessless." The change can't come fast enough for Mullet, who has resorted to writing press releases about himself. "Look," he said, "I'll be the first one to say I'm an idiot." Mullet was about to continue, but decided he didn't need to elaborate. Previously: Summer Haze wrestles for the dead, lost causes; Images of Heaven (that take me to Hell); Eye Candy; Enough rope; Continuing education credits; The most insightful and provocative press release ever written; Porn and spelling; Return of the Tounge; Mind your boxcovers ¶ Wednesday, March 21, 2007 1 Comments Links to this post
Wednesday, March 14, 2007
Solving for (anal)
 A porn producer I know (r) has an anecdote that, since I didn't confirm the allegations with the other parties involved, I am forced to relate alegebraically:"So we start shooting at (x)'s house and she says, 'Am I doing anal today?' and we said 'No,'" he said.This reminds me of the rogue windshield cleaners in New York City that America's Mayor cracked down on; they would wash windshields without asking motorists at a traffic light, then they would spit all over the windshields if the drivers didn't pay. The difference, of course, is - and this is in the Bible, I think - : you can't unfuck your ass. So if (r) equals Ron Royster, are you surprised? (This photo of Alisha Tyler's ass from Rico Strong's Back Shots has nothing to do with the incident, but I love the picture.) Previously: "Now I've seen everything"; Ron Royster: Escape from the Valley of the Dutch! See also: Eroticist Films Labels: "ron royster", business, directors, found ¶ Wednesday, March 14, 2007 0 Comments Links to this post
Monday, February 26, 2007
Hustler to take care of its own European distribution
 As you know, Europeans are often mysterious and furtive, ordering Coca Cola with their cellphones and riding around on scooters. That is why Hustler/LFP has decided to send one of its own to Germany to set up a distribution arm for the company.Hustler had previously used a third party distributor in the region, but the distributor was having money problems, making it difficult for Hustler product to get to stores and those little cafes where Europeans like to gather and smoke their cigarettes. "Our reputation suffered," said LFP senior vice president Jeff Hawkins. "The third party frankly was not getting the job done and had really tarnished the name due to the lack of capital spent to advertise and promote us." Helen Clyne, a longtime associate of Hustler, will head the distribution office and warehouse in Krefeld, Germany. "It should be noted that although this company is opening initially to distribute Hustler Video, VCA, and our distributed lines," Hawkins added, "by no means is that what it will stay. In other words it will become Hustler Europe: the European office of everything Hustler, such as lingerie, retail, clubs, apparel, et cetera." Previously: All about All About Anna; Austyn Moore's Secret Society; Wrangling a sex tape; Sandee Westgate to not appear in There's A Black Man in My Ass 2; Ninn to self-distribute in 2006 See also: Hustler Labels: business, commerce, hustler ¶ Monday, February 26, 2007 0 Comments Links to this post
Friday, February 23, 2007
Gram Ponante launches International MILF Registry
 As you well know, a porn teen and an actual teen are rarely the same thing, but that is a problem that is too big for us to tackle.That is why we at Gram Ponante Towers, Rotisserie, Clambake, Crematorium, and Salmon Ladder are proud to announce the International MILF Registry, which will solve the "What is a MILF?" question for consumers. After lengthy discussions with porn luminaries, clergy, and The Hague, we have determined a set of MILF standards; 1. In order to be considered a MILF, a woman must have physically borne a child, whether vaginally or by cesarean section. Children born from the forehead, as was Jupiter from Saturn's, also qualify, in addition to immaculately-conceived children, provided they actually exit the mother. 2. All parties must be cognizant of the MILF's motherhood, whether she be 18 or 50. This can be established contextually by dialogue like "So you're my hot daughter's boyfriend?" or "So you go to school with my Joey?" or "Do you want to see where Tammy came from?" or "De Bella, you're embarrassing your daughter."  From now on, only movies whose "MILF"s meet the above criteria can receive this coveted and epilepsy-triggering seal of approval.This "first-time MILFs" movie, asserting actual motherhood, seems on the level. Until proven otherwise I will grant it a seal. If I find out different May God Have Mercy on Its Soul. Now if we can only do something about the Asians... Previously: VCA embraces pixelation; Because I could not wait for MILFs; Michelle Aston will eat your girlfriend like a chicken sandwich; Your mother should probably be arrested; Your week in MILFs; Cheyenne Hunter: the loneliness of the long-distance biker-MILF ¶ Friday, February 23, 2007 6 Comments Links to this post
Thursday, February 08, 2007
An inconvenient truth
 I was sitting in this seminar about affiliate programs and the only person to talk about about bodily fluids, the liquid foundation of this businesss, was Karl Edwards, the representative of the gay affiliate program YouKnowJack.How to dream up a successful affiliate program? the panel was asked. "You just need to sit down with a bottle of lube and your fantasies and figure it out," Edwards said. We aren't that different, really. How do most big things get done? There was also a certain amount of amateur webmaster-bashing going on, with panelists saying that "some webmasters think that they can sign up for your affiliate program and then start making money without doing any work." Moderator Alec Helmy added, "I don't even know if these people can be called webmasters anymore." If we substitute "webmaster" with "human", the next step is genocide. Steve Lightspeed of LightspeedCash broke the hearts of Tawnee Stone fans. "I get these letters for Tawnee Stone (Lightspeedcash runs her affiliate program) saying, 'I hope I'm not talking to some fat, bald, 40-year-old webmaster,'" Lightspeed recalled. "I'm like (making his voice high and squeaky), 'No way, honey, it's me!'" Previously: AVN 2007; "A fine spray of legitimacy" Labels: business, events, xbiz ¶ Thursday, February 08, 2007 1 Comments Links to this post
Thursday, February 01, 2007
Report: Internet profitable
 A live auction of domain names - Internet addresses with no content included - was the high point of last month's Internext convention in Las Vegas.Domain names like Kinkysex.com and Shemale.com (apparently purchased by the same company if you compare them) went for $88, 500 and $525,00, respectively, proving that kinky's got nothing on she-males. Internext's Renee Johnson said that the auction was conducted just like any other auction, whether for art or cattle. "Bidders knew what they were bidding on beforehand," she said, "and they each had little paddles with numbers." Aspects of the auction were like a fire sale. The sexy-sounding Opportunity.com sold for $150,000, but its original owners appeared to have gone out of business. "It was a fun ride while it lasted (but) Opportunity.com has been forced to shutdown," read a placeholder on the site. That Opportunity.com was being sold at a porn Internet convention is interesting, but that TeenModels.com, which sold for $80k and listed (as of today, anyway) "Child modeling" next to "Amature porn" among its services was creepy. The auction netted just under $2 million. A spokesperson for Moniker, the organization that sponsored the auction, noted that this was the first time the company had worked in the adult space and that more mainstream-sounding titles like Opportunity.com, which wasn't originally an adult site, are excellent ways of keeping the porn entrepreneur's portfolio "vertically integrated". Previously: Report: Porn industry to utilize Internet; Why CES and AVN broke up; Ireland overwhelms InterWeb See also: Moniker Labels: business ¶ Thursday, February 01, 2007 0 Comments Links to this post
Wednesday, January 17, 2007
SugarDVD enters friend-of-celebrity sex tape market
 SugarDVD, the adult rental e-tailer that last year consoled Tori Spelling with an offer of free porn for life, has offered to pay $2 million for the rights to distribute the sex tape being shopped around by Kim Kardashian.Q. Grams, Who is Kim Kardashian? A. She is Paris Hilton's best friend, apparently. Q. Why is that sexy? A. I don't know. Kardashian, a spokesperson for SugarDVD said, is shopping her DVD via a third party, though Kardashian has intermittently denied the DVD's existence as well as said it is not being shopped. The tape also features Ray J (no relation to Shay J), brother of "Moesha" star Brandy, by all accounts a fine girl. The raven-haired stepdaughter of Can't Stop the Music star Bruce Jenner is no stranger to faulty judgment: her late father, Robert Kardashian (cue rolling in grave) was OJ Simpson's defense attorney. SugarDVD is all over the possibility of this tape coming into their hands, but they do not have it, nor are they confirming or denying that anyone at SugarDVD has seen it. Porn site TMZ.com claims that the tape involves water sports. Do Armenians like curling? I spoke with SugarDVD CEO Jax Smith about the process of purchasing friend-of-celebrity sex tapes, a field currently dominated by Red Light District (whom unconfirmed reports say was also approached with Kardashian's goods). "We have developed sources over the years for press and business," Smith said. "As we grew, some of these sources have seen us as a place to go for a lot of things." This sounded intriguing, if cryptic. I leaned closer. "One such source contacted me about the tape two months ago," Smith said. "He knew we had the money, and he felt we had the ability to do a good job promoting the tape." So Kardashian desires promotion beyond cashing the check? One can purchase all sorts of nasty content with lovely young women for about $5, so the question is whether celebrity-by-proximity-to-a-minor-celebrity Kardashian's video could be worth $2 million. SugarDVD thinks it is. If SugarDVD doesn't land Kim Kardashian, I will sell them my sex tape for $2 million. After all, I know Tina Tyler. Previously: Tori Spelling mourns loss with porn; Britney Spears continues to hold out hope of immaculate conception See also: SugarDVD Labels: business, celebrities ¶ Wednesday, January 17, 2007 0 Comments Links to this post
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