| --Friday, September 19, 2008--
Savanna Samson 1988 Status Quo song, says 1982 Joe Jackson song
 Vivid contract performer Savanna Samson is the "cream of the crop" of the adult world, according to Steppin' Out magazine, an east coast publication that uses phrases like "cream of the crop" to describe porn stars.
In her interview with writer Chaunce Hayden, Samson also reveals that actor Ken Stafford, who was on "Survivor: Thailand," recently asked her to make a "celebrity sex tape" with her. She refused. "I thought it was so funny. I said, 'I'm sorry, but I can't help you out.'" Because she is an adult star, she said, men almost always expect her to hop into bed with them. "I was kind of taken aback that he thought being with me would be a sex scandal. I happen to be a good girl!" she told the magazine Now I know that you don't actually have to be a celebrity to have a celebrity sex tape, but what weird subgenre of fame was just created by announcing that Savanna Samson turned down an offer of sex that might have become a celebrity sex tape?
In other news, I am thinking of doing a celebrity sex tape with E.G. Daily.
Previously: Obama behind porn endorsements?; The tannens in Miss Samson; Stood Up: Is it good for the Jews?
See also: Jimmy Carter: I have sinned in my heart, Steppin' OutLabels: celebrity, hype, playboy, savanna samson, vivid
posted by Gram the Man
at
|
 
--Thursday, September 18, 2008--
I haven't seen "Juno" but...
 ...I am definitely one of those people who, based on Diablo Cody sightings around Hollywood (and at the Oscars) didn't know what to make of her.
But I guess others did, and voiced their disapproval.
The stripper-turned "Juno" screenwriter wrote a very funny response to her detractors that should be a model for any porn performer who feels victimized by chatboard antagonists.
(reprinted from the Huffington Post and Myspace):
I have a response to those who are still boring enough to lob insults in my direction....
I may have won 19 awards that you don't feel I earned, but it's neither original nor relevant to slag on Juno. Really. And you're not some bold, singular voice of dissent, You are exactly like everyone else in your zeitgeisty-demo-lifestyle pod. You are even like me. (I, too, loved Arrested Development! Aren't we a pretty pair of cultural mavericks? Hey, let's go bitch about how Black Kids are overrated!)
I'm sorry that while you were shooting your failed opus at Tisch, I was jamming toxic silicon toys up my ass for money. I get why you're bitter. I took exactly one film class in college and-- with the curious exception of the Douglas Sirk unit--it bored the shit out of me. I also once got busted for loudly crinkling a bag of Jujubes during a classroom screening of Vivre Sa Vie. I don't deserve to be here. We've established that. But I'm here. Five million 12-year-olds think I'm Buck Henry. Accept it.
(Incidentally, if you were me for one day you'd crumble like fucking Stilton. I am better at this than you. You're not strong enough, Film_Fan78. Trust me.)
I'm sorry to all those violent, semi-literate fanboys who hate me for befriending their heroes. I can't help it if your favorite writer, actor, director, or talk show host likes me. Maybe you would too, if we actually met.
I know my name is fake and that it annoys you. What, do you hate Queen Latifah and Rip Torn, too? Writers and entertainers have been using pseudonyms for years. Chances are, you're spewing bile under an assumed screen name yourself. I'm sorry if you think I'm like some inked-up quasi-Suicide Girl derby cunt from 2002, but I like my fake name. It's engraved on an Oscar. Yours isn't.
 Listen: I've been telling stories my whole life. Even when I was a phone sex operator, I was the Mark Twain of extemporaneous jerk-off fiction. I took every perspiring creep on a fucking journey. I don't know how to do anything else.
I'm going to make more movies and shows. I doubt they'll all be good, but that's the nature of this life. Even though the public only knows me from one book, one movie, and several aborted blogs, I've spent the last few years hustling like Iceberg Slim out here to prove myself professionally. The people I currently work for, and with, are more than pleased with my post-Juno output. My pilot was so good (thanks, Toni Colette!) that it got picked up for series. That is rare, children. That is blue-rare.
In summation: you try it.
This is the last I have to say on the subject, unless I'm provoked by a journalist in which case I'll gladly reload. With relish, as Betty Rizzo might say. That said, I'm a 30-year-old woman with a dwindling interest in blog culture, and I don't have time to address this bullshit every time one of my projects comes out. I'm in love, I just bought a house, and my boss made E.T. I kind of have to focus on reality.
And drinking. I have to focus on drinking. Yes. Let us all focus on drinking.
The main thing is to not write in all caps and to use a spellcheck; everything seems more legitimate after that.
Previously: You're not one of us; Mug shot revisited; No Name Jane is born
See also: Diablo Cody on MySpaceLabels: celebrity, conflict, diablo cody
posted by Gram the Man
at
|
--Thursday, March 27, 2008--
Lou & Amy & Joe & Evanka: Coming to terms with your celebrity sex tape
 Two couples, both alike in dignity
In Chatsworth and Long Island where we lay our scene
From ancient scandal break to new celebrity
Which one deems wholesome and the other obscene
Joey Buttafuoco said, "I didn't know the place was wired for cameras."
Lou Bellera, husband of Amy Fisher, said, "We wanted to make a video of a couple in love."
Both men and their wives were the stars of sex tapes released within three months of each other, distributed by the same company, Red Light District, that sold sex tapes of Paris Hilton, Pam Anderson, and "Saved By the Bell"'s Dustin "Screech" Diamond.
But only one couple admits they did it on purpose. Bellera and Fisher shot their movie in front of a stationary camera Bellera had set up in their home and rented ones on Long Island. The Buttafuocos claim they were literally caught on tape in May, 2007.
"Here's how it happened," Evanka Buttafuoco, 45, told me. "Joseph had been out of jail for a month and we went over (adult director) Rob Spallone's house for a barbecue. (Spallone) was shooting something down by the pool and he had release forms that everyone entering the house had to sign. So we signed them. It was a standard thing like when you go to a club and have to sign a 'You may appear on film' form."
Evanka told me this after I had already watched the movie and had determined that it had been staged.
"So - and this was my fault - I wanted to take Joseph upstairs for a quickie, and we just searched around upstairs," Evanka said.
"And that was the room (Spallone) had set up with webcams or whatever," Joey Buttafuoco said.
The couple have a 40-minute sex scene, Evanka in high heels and leading the action. Joey, 52, seems grateful. He says "I love you" several times. This is the part that's real.
Spallone, so the story went, later combed through the "webcam" footage and discovered the Buttafuocos' tryst, and sold it to Red Light District using the blanket permission of the releases the Buttafuocos had signed on entering.
 I met the Buttafuocos on Hollywood Boulevard. We talked outside the Jimmy Kimmel Show theatre.
"So that wasn't staged?" I asked.
"No," Joey said. "We had no idea."
Joey met Evanka when the latter brought her friends' Land Rover into his Chatsworth car shop. He gave her his card, which didn't list his last name. Having worked for 17 years in car repossessions, Evanka exhausted most of the means at her disposal to turn up any information about him, but found nothing. Finally, when he took her to dinner, she first heard the story of Amy Fisher, "The Long Island Lolita."
"But that is so far behind us now," Evanka said. "Everybody is friends now. We just had dinner with Lou and Amy and we wish them the best."
Since losing his business for insurance fraud - resulting in the jail time that ended just before the filming of their tape - Joey has been a host on the Internet radio station Let's Talk Recovery.
"I've been sober since 1988," Buttafuoco said. "I didn't even use (drugs) all through 1992 and everything that happened then."
Because of the tools he learned to use in his recovery, Buttafuoco said, the release of the sex tape hasn't sent him over the edge.
"I'm the only one who's mad at Rob Spallone," Evanka said. "Joey's still friends with him."
Rob Spallone did not respond to e-mail requests for his side of the story.
After meeting the Buttafuocos, who were a charming couple, I watched the tape again and knew without a doubt that it had been staged. Webcam technology has not evolved to the point that it is capable of complex zooms.
"Yeah, they had a guy with a camera at the foot of the bed," a source with knowledge of the filming of "Joey Buttafuoco: Caught on Tape" said. "Maybe they just wanted some documentation of this time in their lives. Evanka's pretty hot."
Celebrity sex tapes are cheap to produce and, by virtue of their "caught on tape" marketing, are forgiven for any technical glitches. Paris Hilton's 1 Night in Paris sold millions but appeared to have been shot using the night vision goggles from "Silence of the Lambs." Vivid's Kim Kardashian: Superstar tape sold very well for the company despite having very little actual sex in it.
One element of celebrity sex tape culture is deniability. Kim Kardashian and Paris Hilton both have disavowed knowledge that their tapes were being marketed by the rapper Ray J. and Rick Salomon, respectively.
Accepting money for appearing in a sex tape can be swept under the rug by denying you knew the tape was being made (Hilton) or that it would be sold (Kardashian and the Buttafuocos), because the bigger shame in a cool-obsessed culture is appearing to be attention-seeking.
 But Fisher and Bellera embrace their sex tape, as evidence by quotes like the following:
"I look even better in person than I did on the video," Bellera, 55, said. "But Amy looks great no matter what."
Every commercial porn title must gather signed documentation that its stars are over 18 and that they have agreed to be filmed for the working title of the movie in question. They must also provide identification like driver's licenses. Every "reality" porn, from Couples Seduce Teens to Bang Boat to (to a lesser degree) Girls Gone Wild has a file cabinet full of performer releases stating that each actor knew what was happening.
That the Buttafuocos didn't knowingly provide this information would have been grounds for a fantastic lawsuit if the events of May, 2007 had happened as the couple said they had.
"We came to a settlement (with Rob Spallone and Red Light District)," Joey Buttafuoco told me that day. "That's why we're more or less actively promoting the movie."
 From Long Island, Amy Fisher talks about her own sex tape (which, according to the managers of several local video stores and online outlets like Gamelink and Adult DVD Empire, is easily outselling the Buttafuoco tape) as a cathartic experience.
"People come up to me and tell me how good it was," she said. "People seek me out. A lot of my publicity because of 1992 (both couples use "1992" as shorthand) has been negative, but this has really been positive."
Bellera and Fisher have promoted the tape extensively and in only a few occasions, Bellera says, have interviewers failed to be polite.
"We tell people that we want to talk about today and to be positive," Bellera said. "And I establish ground rules before every interview." Fisher walked off the set of the Howard Stern show when the shock jock took a call from Joey Buttafuoco's still-sngry daughter.
"But we cleared that one up later," Bellera said.
 Both couples know that their celebrity is not from Buttafuoco's Internet radio job or Fisher's post-prison stint as a Long Island newspaper columnist, but both try not to dwell on the source of the celebrity that made their sex tapes a marketable commodity.
"Anything having to do with my 'story', so to speak, I can never earn a dime on," Fisher said. "I have learned through the years to make lemonade out of those lemons. I keep a positive attitude and make the best out of what I have to work with."
But why the Buttafuocos denied knowing their romp was being recorded and the Lou Belleras freely admitted it seems odd. Maybe the Buttafuocos weren't happy with the finished result and wanted to disavow it? They shouldn't have - they seem like they're very happy together.
"I suppose it'll be good to look back when I'm 70 and say 'My 45-year-old ass looked good,'" said Evanka.
Previously: Kim Kardashian Superstar; Screeched; Joey Buttafuoco Caught on Tape; Amy Fisher and Lou Bellera: How to quit worrying and learn to love your sex tape
See also: Amy Fisher, Joey ButtafuocoLabels: "red light district", amy fisher, celebrity, evanka buttafuoco, hype, interviews, joe francis, joey buttafuoco, kim kardashian, legal, lou bellera, paris hilton, vivid
posted by Gram the Man
at
|
--Sunday, January 06, 2008--
Amy Fisher and Lou Bellera: How to quit worrying and love your celebrity sex tape
 "Well, honey, I have something to tell you."
Amy Fisher and Lou Bellera were having marital problems in April of 2007. They had separated and divorce papers had been filed when Bellera read that she was again seeing Joey Buttafuoco.
"I was buying flowers for her one day, hoping to reconcile, and I saw it in the New York Post," Bellera said. That gave him an idea.
After the gap: Bellera's unlikely scheme to win Fisher back.
"People know me," Bellera, an event producer and wedding videographer, said. "I've got to listen to people talking about what they see in the Post? Eight years we've been together, two children? Now this?
"I thought, 'She embarrasses me, I'll embarrass her back.'"
Bellera, now 57, had been making home sex tapes with Fisher, 25 years his junior, for a few years. Now he planned to share them with a wide audience.
"They were intended entirely for our own enjoyment," he said, "until this happened.
"I contacted Red Light District and made a deal."
Red Light District has made millions distributing Paris Hilton's sex tape as well as those of Pamela Anderson and Dustin "Screech" Diamond.
Didn't Fisher have to sign anything?
 "I didn't give a shit one way or the other," Bellera said. "They (Red Light District) said everything was cool, whether or not they had the right to."
Soon after Bellera made the deal, he and Fisher reunited. It was then that he told her.
"She told me what she'd been up to. I said, 'Well, honey, I have something to tell you.' You can imagine that didn't go over too well.
"She started screaming and yelling. Finally, I said, 'I'm not O.J. - I didn't kill you.'"
Bellera and Fisher met on Match.com. He didn't realize who she was until they were sitting across from each other at dinner.
"And at that point it didn't matter," he said. "She's intelligent, she's beautiful. And she's very low key, believe it or not."
The sex tapes were made at home and at locations around the south shore of Long Island.
"And maybe they're not the highest quality," Bellera said, "maybe they're not white-balanced in every scene, but they're real."
 Despite Bellera's humility, the couple's video effort is the most effective celebrity sex tape available due to its rigid adherence to pornic standards as set forth in the Barcelona Council of 1997.
Bellera said that Red Light president David Joseph proclaimed what would become Amy Fisher: Caught on Tape to be the best celebrity sex tape he'd ever seen.
But what about Fisher's alleged lawsuit? Was that a publicity stunt?
"Red Light settled with Amy," Bellera said. "They now own AmyFisher.com, too, which I originally owned. Since it's out there already and it's getting such a big response, she's getting used to the idea. She resigned herself to go with it."
In fact, Fisher is now taking an active part in the tape's publicity; she will be appearing at this week's Adult Entertainment Expo in Las Vegas at the Red Light District booth. Bellera will be with her.
The silver-haired Bellera is proud of his work, and Fisher.
"It keeps you young, having a young wife," he said. "It motivates you to not turn to that retirement mentality.
"I'm a physical specimen for my age," he said. "If a guy stays in shape and takes pride in his appearance, that breaks a social taboo, to have an older guy in a porno."
Bellera said there is a dditional footage but he is keeping silent about the possibility of releasing it, or even making more movies now that Fisher is on board.
"The possibilities exist," he said, "but we'll see."
Previously: Amy Fisher Caught on Tape; Gram Ponante announces the Oscars of porn
See also: Amy FisherLabels: "red light district", amy fisher, celebrity, hype, interviews, lou bellera, MILF
posted by Gram the Man
at
|
--Friday, January 04, 2008--
I'm with Britney
 I try not to patronize the mainstream media, what with its "tan bodays" and all, but I am currently getting my tires rotated and am watching Britney Spears' latest travails on television, ambulanced away from her Porn Valley house after locking herself in a bathroom with Jayden Jaymes.
I don't know about you, but if I were in a bathroom with Jayden Jaymes I, too, would lock the door for three hours. I would let neither police nor Kevin Federline's bodyguards in. No one says I have to share.
I don't think this incident is a sign of Spears' continued unraveling but instead evidence of her growing understanding of appropriate behavior.
Now if she got high and barred herself in the crapper with her kids, well...
Previously: Here's that Jayden Jaymes
See also: Britney Spears is hospitalized after child custody disputeLabels: britney spears, celebrity, jayden jaymes
posted by Gram the Man
at
|
--Monday, November 12, 2007--
Amy Fisher: "I always wawnted to be a pawn staw"
 Regardless of whether celebrity sex tapes are any good - and the ones I've seen are not - they sell huge.
I was dismayed to learn that the Kim Kardashian video is the most rented tape in many Los Angeles stores. I would like to think that, once consumers reach the five minute mark and realize that nothing is happening, they go back and get the Anabolic or Red Light District movies that are routinely number two. You know, that actually have sex in them.
"Long Island Lolita" Amy Fisher, now 31, has taken 15 years to succumb to the inevitable and 1 Night in Paris distributor Red Light District has snagged the filmic documentation thereof. An actual viewing of the movie will determine if, like Kardashian, Fisher's is an empty sex tape, too.
Fisher made the movie, now called Amy Fisher Caught on Tape, with her husband, Lou Bellera, and red herring hype indicates that Fisher didn't give Bellera permission, etc., and that she is suing Red Light, etc. This is standard procedure for sex tapes.
But Fisher looks good; her prison regimen paid off. And her accent can peel paint. Here's hoping she doesn't give blowjobs with her voice.
Previously: Screeched review; Kim Kardashian review
See also: Amy Fisher Caught on TapeLabels: "red light district", amy fisher, celebrity, hype, kim kardashian
posted by Gram the Man
at
|
--Thursday, November 01, 2007--
Halloween leftover: Ashley Laurence vs. Britney Spears in Hell
 "We have such sights to show you."
Feeling poorly and doubting the power of any Halloween party to approximate the costumes I see all year long, I watched the 20th Anniversary Edition of Hellraiser last night and realized that Cenobite-buster Kirsty (Ashley Laurence) foreshadowed Britney Spears' look by 15 years.
Despite Kirsty's strivings with Pinhead and other members of the Lament Configuration to protect her immortal soul, she showed no flesh whatsoever, despite audience demand. Why? Clive Barker is gay.
What does this have to do with Porn?
Well, perhaps if Britney were sent "The Box", she'd stop flashing her own.
Previously: SugarDVD tries to enter friend-of-celebrity sex tape market; Britney Rears: Time Lord
See also: The Hellraiser CollectionLabels: celebrity, cenobites, geekery
posted by Gram the Man
at
|
--Friday, August 17, 2007--
Navarro film to explore duality, empowerment, avoid grandiosity
 Rock star Dave Navarro is directing porn, as was inevitable considering his proximity to this world over the past few years.
Dave Navarro: Broken was shot this summer for Teravision and features Sasha Grey, Jenna Haze, Victoria Sin, Audrey Bitoni, Kayla Page, Lisa Daniels, Tommy Gunn, Marco Banderas, Mark Davis, and Spyder Jonez (but not Tera Patrick).
Read more after the gap.
Porn world shorthand for Navarro's music career has always mentioned his role as guitarist for Jane's Addiction (currently broken up) and also the Red Hot Chili Peppers. Navarro has been with Jane's Addiction through all its incarnations but only played with the Chili Peppers for 1995's "One Hot Minute" album.
But his work as a hired gun has also been impressive. He has played with Christina Aguilera, Marilyn Manson, and was featured on Alanis Morrisette's 1995 "Jagged Little Pill". Currently, he fronts the band Panic Channel, hangs around porn, and is involved in a number of new media ventures, including Spread Entertainment.
Navarro's dabbling in porn was an open secret this year, and the question was which side of the camera he'd show up on.
"We're trying to get him to perform, but I don't know if he'll do it," Teravision president Evan Seinfeld told me in July. Navarro does not perform in Broken.
Navarro, whose father was a Spanish immigrant, grew up in Los Angeles and has led a rich and varied life. Married and divorced three times, most recently to Carmen Electra, Navarro co-authored his biography, "Don't Try This At Home", with "The Game" author and Jenna Jameson's ghostwriter, Neil Strauss.
Even more autobiographical is Navarro's solo album "Trust No One", which is excellent.
Teravision decribes Broken's protagonist, Sasha Grey, as "a young woman torn apart by the duality of control and powerlessness in her life." Navarro told adult trade publication XBiz that he wanted the movie to contain themes of empowerment without being "grandiose".
Dave Navarro: Broken will be released September 27.
Previously: Jameson and Navarro: Hosting duties left vague; XFanz porns burlesque
See also: Rock Star Dave Navarro Directs for Teravision (xbiz), Teravision, Dave NavarroLabels: celebrity, dave navarro, sasha grey, teravision, xbiz
posted by Gram the Man
at
|
--Tuesday, May 15, 2007--
Kim Kardashian: The Revenge
 More from the Oh Shut Up dept.
The following press release is reprinted without edits or comments, save for the one above:
VIVID ENTERTAINMENT TO STOP SELLING KIM KARDASHIAN SEX VIDEO "It’s not legal, it’s personal," says Vivid Co-Chairman, Steven Hirsch
LOS ANGELES – (May 15, 2007) – Vivid Entertainment Group says it will stop selling a controversial sex video featuring socialite Kim Kardashian to retailers across the country. Starting Thursday, May 31st, the company says it will no longer ship "Kim Kardashian Superstar" DVDs.
Ms. Kardashian made the steamy video three years ago with her then boyfriend, R&B artist Ray J. A suit she brought against Vivid to try block the release of the video was dropped recently after the company reached a financial settlement with her.
"After several conversations with Ms. Kardashian we have decided to stop selling the DVD after May 31st," said Steven Hirsch, co-chairman of Vivid Entertainment. "We have always believed we have the right to sell the tape, but I’ve made a personal decision to suspend sales."
Ms. Kardashian, daughter of O.J. Simpson lawyer Robert Kardashian and a close friend of Paris Hilton claimed she had not authorized release of the video, for which Vivid had paid an unidentified third party $1-million. As part of her commitment to drop the suit, Ms. Kardashian agreed to a lump sum financial settlement for the sale of the DVDs (Well, one more editorial comment: "This time it's personal" was the logline of the similarly awful movie Jaws: The Revenge.)
Previously: Lessons in quitting while ahead; Kim Kardashian, Superstar; Vivid does Kim again; Vivid halt; Wrangling a sex tapeLabels: celebrity, hype, sic, vivid
posted by Gram the Man
at
|
|
|
While GramPonante.com is written for a tenth-grade reading level (in some countries), you must be 18 years or older to visit this site. Sorry.
 |
| |
