| --Tuesday, July 01, 2008--
Holly West, Savannah Gold when gas cost $3.60 a gallon
 The Vivid movie Watching My Wife was made in July, 2007. Of course we thought gas was expensive then; we were even making adjustments to the way we drove.
But little did Holly West and Savannah Gold, lounging (if one can describe the tremendous upper body strength expenditure required to keep, what, 60 lbs. of material upright lounging) by the pool know that one scant year later they would not only have to use a hands-free device while driving but also pay more than a dollar more for gas.
Portents of high pump prices to come abound in Watching My Wife. There is a car crash involving two cars, some swingers come by (they didn't walk), and West and Gold didn't just drop from the sky - they probably arrived in a vehicle of some kind.
(I know you're not concerned with how I decide what to write, but in case you are this story evolved from the phrase "gallon jugs.")
Previously: Porn economics: vaginas and gas; Belladonna shares views on tank, 2005
See also: VividLabels: gas, holly west, money, savannah gold
posted by Gram the Man
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--Thursday, June 26, 2008--
Mom and pop whores benefit from rising gas prices: Report
 While legal brothels in Nevada, zoned for communities of fewer than 400,000 people and often far from interstates, are suffering from the steady increase in gas prices, illegal prostitutes are doing just fine, the National Network of Johns, Pimps, And Prostitute Teamsters (NNJPPT) reported.
"Corporate prostitution is and always has been the bane of the individual practitioner," said [name withheld], a user of prostitute services in Detroit. MI. "It is only now, when truckers can't get to the Bunnyranch without shelling out an extra 200 bucks for diesel, that any light is being shined on the millions of streetwalkers, escorts, and hot prosties who don't have some gated trailer in Pahrump to fellate in."
A recent Newsweek story said that revenue in legal brothels in Nevada was down by nearly 50 percent across the state, due in part to a flagging economy but also because truckers, who represent a significant amount of bordello customers, could no longer afford to both fill their tanks and clean their pipes.
"And that's fine by me," said [name withheld], a rail-thin Reno prostitute delivering a vigorous handjob to [name withheld] in the Atlantis Hotel lobby mens' room. "America isn't Wal-Mart; it's the corner shop where things might not smell as good but, damn it, you get personal service."
[name withheld] relaxed her grip and effortlessly caught [name withheld]'s issue in a ready Kleenex in her left hand. "I see you've had your Zinc today, [name withheld]," she said as he exited and his successor arrived.
"For generations, prostitutes have given head for little or no overhead," said [name withheld], curator of Miami's Museum of Hookers, "and while state-sanctioned brothels may have conferred some legitimacy on the profession of hookery, the corporatization of whorehouses has by and large neutered the essentially in-call nature that made a prostitute's visit more than just a GFE; it was a cultural event."
[name withheld] said that, when brothels were legalized in Nevada, the retronym "stationary escort" was coined to describe the difference between a mobile prostitute and the kind sequestered in places like the Chicken Ranch.
"We don't want Middle America to believe that the fate of the stationaries is the fate of the mobiles," she said.
[name withheld] also warned that the public should not think that, just because one state's legal prostitution profits are down, that hookers from Freeport to San Diego aren't benefiting from increased walk-and-bike-up traffic.
"It's amazing what you can get done in a bicycle basket," [name withheld] said.
"The only potential side effect to the brothels' money hemorrhage and increased work for truck stop prostitutes is the resuscitation of the career of JT Leroy."
Previously: "The Delivery Man": bodies buried in the desert
See also: Feeling the Pinch: Nevada's Brothels Hit Hard Times (newsweek)Labels: money, nevada, prosties
posted by Gram the Man
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--Wednesday, June 11, 2008--
Belladona shares views on tank, 2005
 "The other day I paid $96 for a tank of premium unleaded for my 2005 Range Rover," said Belladonna.
Experts on porn and fuel warn that refilling the tank from Half results in less gas evaporation than refilling from Empty, and that the optimum time to refill is in the late evening or early morning, when the chill makes for denser gasoline.
It is not apparent at press time whether Belladonna used this map for her refueling.
With the Range Rover's average city MPG of 12 and the Los Angeles subway system so inadequate, is it any wonder why Belladonna doesn't visit you?
And remembering that the 2005 Range Rover's 26-gallon tank only takes 91-octane fuel, I bet you're feeling pretty sheepish that you gave her a hard time for not bringing two coolers of Narragansett to your last barbecue.
Shame on you.
As gas prices rise, Americans are seeking ways to do more with less, hence my squeezing 150 words out of a one-sentence quote.
Previously: Porn economics: Vaginas and gas
See also: BelladonnaLabels: belladonna, money, WGL
posted by Gram the Man
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--Wednesday, June 04, 2008--
Porn economics: Vaginas and gas
 As gas prices increase, people across the country are adjusting their lives accordingly by taking public transportation, riding bikes, or staying inside for longer periods, playing more videogames and watching more porn like the activists they are.
But two adult performers signing at this weekend's Erotica L.A. have found that, unlike their vaginas, the price of gas is inelastic.
"Gas is like food," said New Sensations contract performer Ashlynn Brooke. "You have to pay whatever it costs to get it."
Brooke therefore declared the inelasticity of gas. Despite an average price of $4.20 across Porn Valley for a gallon of 87 octane fuel, she said that she would buy it regardless.
In her native Choctaw, OK, it's different. "I was talking to my aunt and it's $3.79 there today," she said. "Plus, it's easier to walk around in Choctaw."
Cementing the inelasticity of gasoline is the sheer size of Los Angeles and the unreliability of public transportation.
Sasha Grey, who grew up in similarly spread out Sacramento, recently topped off her Volvo's tank for $76.
"Oh Jesus Christ," she said. "It's disgusting."
But despite the horror at the pump (Brooke filled up her SUV for $80), Grey says the geography of Los Angeles doesn't allow her any options.
"It's not like I'm going to carpool to a porn set," she said.
Unlike their vaginas and the demand for goods that can be easily substituted, which are highly elastic, the demand for gas will be inelastic until more porn can be shot at a central location, such as Gram Ponante Towers, Stationary Taqueria, Cyclotron, Heliport, and Refinery.
Brooke does have one solution to oil consumption. At Erotica L.A. she will probably go barefoot to skip around the L.A. Convention Center's low-pile carpeting, eschewing petroleum-based Lucite heels.
"I'm from Oklahoma," she said, a likely Green Party candidate. "So I don't care."
Previously: XRCO from the outside in; Sasha Grey: A day without porn; Erotica L.A. 2007 in review
See also: Erotica L.A.Labels: Ashlynn Brooke, erotica L.A., events, money, sasha grey, WGL
posted by Gram the Man
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--Tuesday, January 30, 2007--
"Porn flatters itself," sniffs Blu-ray
 Blu-ray Association spokesman Andy Parsons, a vice president of Pioneer, suggests that adult's notion of itself as a technology Taste Leader is exaggerated, even if the industry helped decide the VHS-Betamax war in the 80's.
"Adult content should be appreciated for what it is," Parsons told Variety, "but it is not mainstream and it will not drive the mass market."
Porn was much less mainstream - in fact, producing it had not yet been decriminalized in California - when the first porn shot on video was released in 1979. Parsons sounds like he is defending Blu-ray sponsors' moral choices to not work with the adult industry with unsupportable business justifications.
Porn is King of Flimsy Justifications, Blu-ray; don't mess with it.
The Variety story is notable for its reliance on the opinions of four big companies: Wicked (whose Camp Cuddle Pines Powertool Massacre was the first porn out on HD DVD), Digital Playground, Vivid, and Evil Angel. All have chosen HD DVD, though Digital Playground once sided with Blu-ray and Vivid is hedging its bets by releasing Debbie Does Dallas...Again on both new formats.
The problem is, as one Porn Valley Observed reader points out:
"For every one Pirates, there's at least another hundred titles like Fuck My Gaping Asshole Vol. 3,459, and the companies releasing them range in opinion from 'Sure, we'll do HD eventually' to 'Nope, no plans for HD.'" That does not mean that those four are not industry leaders with sensible plans for the future, but their sales are but a fraction of those of the combined smaller companies that have no immediate plans for either new format and/or that only care about shooting for VOD, cable, and Internet.
And don't forget that companies that edit for HD might not actually be shooting in it, and the Variety story does not address the questionable demand for HD content on the web.
It also uses "camp" six times to describe technology representatives. I think Variety should ankle that word.
The bottom line is that anyone in adult who has made a choice has gone with HD DVD, and it seems as though the technology has chosen porn (by way of less restrictions and a cheaper price) rather than porn having chosen the technology.
(Thanks to Jamie Lynn for providing a face for the name.)
Previously: Concentric circle jerks of porn profits; Wicked decides on HD DVD; Pirates: "For the love of God let me die."
See also: HD DVD pressing the flesh (variety.com)Labels: money, technology
posted by Gram the Man
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--Friday, January 05, 2007--
Concentric circle jerks of porn profits
 The next-most-useless thing to the inflated revenue declared by Big Porn is people blogging about it.
The thesis statement of Boing Boing's story about how the adult industry couldn't possibly make $13 billion a year is that the organization offering that number, AVN, is the only source people go to for verification of that number.
Among a group that includes Lurk Ford and the Original Violet Blue, Boing Boing editor Xeni Jardin cites Tony Comstock, who says, "
Previously: Perceived money; Adult industry writers wait for check
See also: Boing BoingLabels: blogs, hype, money, trademags
posted by Gram the Man
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