| --Sunday, November 16, 2008--
Buck Adams remembered
 Buck Adams, 52, a porn actor and director, was remembered yesterday at a service falling on what would have been his 53rd birthday. He died October 28 in Northridge in the San Fernando Valley following a decade of heart ailments.
Adams was a member of the Halls of Fame of both Adult Video News and the X-Rated Critics' Organization, the porn world's two biggest honors. Adams entered the porn business at the invitation of his younger sister, Amber Lynn, and they kept their relationship secret until they were cast in a scene together, at which point they refused and spilled the beans.
They are the only siblings to be members of both AVN's and the XRCO's Halls of Fame.
Prior to entering the adult business, Adams was a boxer and a club bouncer. The image comes from a scene in The Return of Johnny Wadd in which Adams gets prepared to stomp John Holmes.
Adams won AVN's Best Actor award three times and as a director was able to score large budgets for his films, which he was an early master of chopping into several different versions for cable and XXX release.
Like many porn directors, Adams could often be volatile on set. This was tempered when he entered AA, and he was fondly remembered by his talent and costars as a gentleman.
Performer Cleopatra of the Nile, who attended Adams' funeral, writes this appreciation:
Yesterday I attended a funeral ceremony for a dear friend who passed away from a stroke on Oct 28th 2008. His birthday is Nov 15th.
He died before his 53rd birthday.
This man was a legend. His name was Buck Adams. I fantastic boxer, fighter, actor, film maker....this man did it all. He also shared the best of his heart and soul with everyone. He was very real and loved living life with a passion. I learned a lot from this fabulous man. Even though I didn't know him for a long time. He touched my life very deeply and I thank him for that.
His laughter and his joy brought that very thing to my life, laughter and joy and I wish all of you can take a step back and look at your lives and remember the friends in your life that bring something special to you because if nothing else, what was made abundantly clear to me during the funeral was that life is fleeting every minute. You only live once and you do not get to decide when your time is due.
Savor every moment you have and live it to the fullest. You don’t get it back, you cannot repeat it and remember that if what is in your life isn’t bringing you happiness, you are wasting your precious time.
At the end of it all......you really only want to remember those you loved, those who loved you and all the great things you got to do here on this earth.....
I took yesterday as a day to reflect and started to eliminate everything that wasn't bringing me happiness because at the end of my day when I lay my head down to rest, I want this day to mean EVERYTHING to me, just incase I do not get another.....
I won't dwell on negativity, I won't allow bad things to enter my life. The people who don't really love me or have my best interests in mind - need to leave my life so that the universe can bring those that have truth and love in their hearts into my world. Surround me with all that is good and beautiful.
I do not want to leave this earth with a book full of regret, sadness, pain, anguish or any of those feelings that have stolen valuable moments from my precious time on this earth....
This is what I learned from Buck......you are a gem sweetheart! Even though you may not be able to read this now, I know you can hear this in my thoughts and maybe perhaps there will be people who will read this and change their lives to live it from the depths of their souls and grasp the fruit of life and make it mean EVERYTHING!!
Just as he did
I love you Buck.....you made a difference to me
Adams' death is the most recent of three from porn's so-called "Golden Age." Directors Gerard Damiano (1972's Deep Throat) and Henri Pachard also passed away in the past month.
Previously on Porn Valley Observed: Henry Pachard - "He was one of the greats."Labels: amber lynn, Buck Adams, cleopatra, john holmes, obituaries
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--Saturday, October 04, 2008--
Henri Pachard memorial: "He was one of the greats"
 Proud pornographer Ron Sullivan, known professionally as Henri Pachard, was remembered today at a well-attended Buddhist ceremony in the Panorama City section of Los Angeles. Sullivan, who died September 27, succumbed at 69 to a three-year struggle with cancer.
Veteran performer Herschel Savage moderated the two-hour ceremony, held at the Soka Gokkai International Friendship Center. "Ron and (wife) Deloras embraced Buddhism about two years ago," Savage said, shepherding the group of about 200 attendees through a hybrid ritual of chanting, incense burning, and bell ringing combined with a traditional - and often boisterous - wake.
I'd estimate that more than 90 percent of those who attended knew Sullivan from the adult industry, which he'd been a part of since the late 60s in New York. Sullivan directed, wrote, appeared in, or otherwise worked on thousands of adult movies (as well as, as director Jane Waters remembered, in-house documentaries for Colonial Williamsburg). The remaining ten percent appeared to be members of the SGI Center and the family of Deloras, who was Sullivan's fifth wife.
"Ronnie was one of those people who would stand up and say, 'I'm a pornographer,'" said director Freddie Lincoln, looking cool and trim in long white hair and jeans. But Lincoln was representative of most of the guests who, unless they were the children of people who knew Sullivan, all appeared to be older than 35.
Sullivan's was the most recent funeral of men who were integral to this region's fame as Porn Valley: directors Jim Holliday and Clive McLean and performer Jon Dough were all waked within the past five years.
Anyone who harbored fears that the decorum of the tranquil Buddhist ceremony would be shattered by the pornography crowd was quickly proved right.
"I was Ron's penis," said director Paul Thomas, who began as a performer in the 70s. "We started a line of cocaine that didn't end for twenty years. And Ron, I'm still your penis."
But the crowd didn't appear scandalized. As a video montage played, a porn pantheon took the stage to pay tribute to Sullivan. Among them were Nina Hartley and Ernest Greene, Randy Spears, Sullivan's son Jason (a much sought after porn cameraman in his own right), performers TT Boy and Valentino, and former performer and founder of Adult Industry Medical - the de facto Porn Valley STD testing clinic - Sharon Mitchell ("Then I was Ron's vagina").
In the audience were veteran directors Roy Karch, Cass Paley, Jace Rocker, Bud Lee, Rob Spallone, and David Aaron Clark; performers Lynn LeMay, Don Hollywood, and Cameron Cain and Aiden Starr (two exceptions to the Over 35 demographic I saw); agents Mark Spiegler and Derek Hay; and screenwriter/costumer Raven Touchstone, who remembers a time when one could make a living writing porn scripts (hint: it was long ago).
Sullivan was remembered - fondly - by many as a womanizer. Sharon Mitchell said that Sullivan was the first person she called in 1996 when she was attacked by a crazed fan and needed a ride home from the hospital. "And he didn't hit on me," Mitchell said. "He said that he wanted to but he could see I was too fragile."
Another hospital story (as well as numerous video clips) revealed Sullivan's loopy sense of humor.
"I was recovering from an operation and told him that my sides hurt to laugh," Sullivan's younger sister recalled. "We got in the cab and Ron told the driver to go slow and avoid all potholes 'because all ten of her toes have been amputated.'"
Deloras took the racy anecdotes from Sullivan's porn friends in stride, and received glowing tributes herself. "We were all so lucky to have Ron," said Tammy Behan. "But Ron was so lucky to have you."
Sullivan's final years were painful. If the primary theme of the service was what a delightful person he was, the secondary theme was the ugliness of his cancer.
"It was like a fire inside him," Deloras said. "But he doesn't have that body any more."
"I have to admit I'm relieved that he doesn't have to go through this anymore," Sullivan's son Jason said.
For those of us who didn't know Sullivan well, this was a "good funeral." It left us wishing we'd known the departed better.
Director Ernest Greene was one of many who described Sullivan as a mentor.
Greene also said that Sullivan was a great source for the history of the adult business. Even though that history is brief and the business is comparatively small, there isn't really much more than an oral history, whose few remaining interpreters have been reduced by one.
In my own (brief) experience, this has resulted in a reactionary culture of "Don't you know who I am?" among some long-time adult industry personnel, fearing marginalization in an already marginalized business.
But Sullivan was not like that. He was just friendly and supportive.
And humble. David Aaron Clark put this better.
"(Sullivan) never said, 'Don't you know who I am?' He was the guy who you'd be talking to for 45 minutes and then someone else would say, 'Don't you know who he is?'"
It was an uncharacteristically rainy day, so naturally it was a porn screenwriter who said "the heavens are crying." But Deloras Sullivan, who took care of her husband from hale to hollow, was relieved and hopeful, even as she cried.
"He's back," she said.
Update: Toronto-based artist Denise LaFrance painted the 2004 likeness of Sullivan displayed at the top of this story and on the program for Sullivan's memorial. It and several other paintings of adult industry notables appear in LaFrance's upcoming coffee table book "The Golden Heart & Soul of XXX ~ A Celebration of People."
Previously on Porn Valley Observed: Cancer benefit for Henri Pachard; Hair apparent: he Violation of Claudia; Is the feature dead?; The Pornograher at 60; Nina Hartley And Ernest Greene: O (the power of submission) The Places They Go; Take me to the FIP
See also: Henri Pachard on the Internet Adult Film DatabaseLabels: "david aaron clark", "paul thomas", "roy karch", aiden starr, classic, ernest greene, events, henri pachard, jane waters, lynn lemay, nina hartley, obituaries
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--Monday, September 29, 2008--
Wanker Wang's death + one year
 Inkyo Volt Hwang, a porn director and webmaster who went by the aliases Chico Wang and Wanker Wang, was found dead a year ago today in a motel room in Morgan Hill, California. He was 38.
For many, the discovery of Hwang's body cleared up the mystery of the death of Maryam Haley, also known as the porn performer Haley Paige, who had been found dead more than a month before in King City, up the road from Morgan Hill. Haley and Hwang had been married in August, 2007 and they were both dead less than two months later.
Hwang had gone missing from Porn Valley and it was assumed he was traveling to King City to be questioned in connection with Paige's death. His body was found halfway out of bed in an Economy Inn, and no foul play was suspected.
Paige's father, Ken Haley, has been active on message boards piecing together his daughter's other life. As the father of a woman who went into porn, he is just as often called on to explain himself, which he does humbly and articulately.
On the website The Bastardly, Haley describes an incident when his daughter was young that included a bad uncle. He also describes how he learned, from Hwang, that his daughter was in porn:
The story about her uncle has also gotten twisted. She was 2 or 3 when the incident took place, and I doubt that she remembers much about it. A year or two after it happened, while her mother and she and I were living in southern Baja California, the uncle died of a liver ailment brought on by drinking. The incident never came up until just before Maryam's death, when Wang called me in Oregon and started accusing me of allowing the uncle to molest her. Maryam's voice was in the background, wailing and crying. Wang called 6 or 7 times, and I never spoke with him. I have his rantings still on the message machine. When Maryam ran away from him last summer (after she claimed he pistol-whipped her), she wrote to me and said that she was sorry for what he did, that he forced her to go along with him to harrass me. (Wang also called my sister and Maryam's mother with the same accusations.) He wrote me an email about that time and said that he would forget the story if I paid him back for the money he spent on her (he claimed she owed him $100,000). In that email he attached photos of her in porn poses, and that was how I learned about her career. That was June or July, 2007. Sure, things fell into place, and those so-called hints she had given me made sense. But until that moment, I definitely was not consciously aware of the truth. Read a longer story here.
Previously on Porn Valley Observed: Remembering Haley Paige, a littleLabels: haley paige, obituaries, wanker wang
posted by Gram the Man
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--Wednesday, September 24, 2008--
Anastasia Blue, 1980-2008
 Porn star Anastasia Blue, 28, who stopped performing several years ago to settle down in Bremerton, Washington, has died.
Blue, to whom a tribute was printed by her husband in Washington's Kitsap Sun here (under her real name), died on July 19.
In April of last year I was sent a re-released copy of Max Hardcore's Hollywood Hardcore 7, (originally filmed and released in 1999 when Blue was 18), and wondered who Blue was. The article I wrote sparked a lively debate concerning shady agents and vitaligo.
Someone claiming to be Anastasia Blue even wrote in, saying that she had left the business seven years ago to get off drugs and that she was living a peaceful life "on the water" in Washington (the obituary said she worked at a marine construction firm). It sounded true enough, and I decided not to pursue it. The comment was left in May of this year, two months before the woman formerly known as Anastasia Blue died.
On July 22, an anonymous poster (who earlier had confirmed Blue's birthdate) wrote to say she had passed away three days before. No one responded to confirm, but later comments to that story backed up the anonymous poster's assertion that she had died. "Not of natural causes," one poster said. "Drugs" another said.
Seemingly to that end, the picture supplied with the obituary reveals a still-beautiful woman, Slavic in features, but the choice of picture seems like it might have been the best choice out of a poor group. It doesn't seem to be a happy picture.
I have deliberately not associated Blue's real name with this porn site, and her family requests that they be left alone. But Blue's fans will miss the person her husband described as "a wild and free spirit with an intensity and zest that could never be tamed," and we can close the book on wondering where she is.
The sleuthing was done by a young man who calls himself Serf Tewl who is a presence on many adult chatboards and who says he "has a knack for tracking down lost porn stars." Indeed, he dug up photos of Blue when she was performing under her actual maiden name (this site publishes a few real names of established performers, so beware) and received initial confirmation under a strange quid pro quo agreement with a man named Killray.
Previously: Anastasia Blue, where are you?
See also: Obituary for Anastasia BlueLabels: anastasia blue, max hardcore, obituaries
posted by Gram the Man
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--Monday, September 15, 2008--
David Foster Wallace, 1962-2008
 David Foster Wallace, a brilliant writer and thoughtful educator who was found hanged on Friday in an apparent suicide, devoted his essay "Big Red Son" to the 1997 AVN Expo.
Ms Jasmin St Claire allows butane gas to be pumped via PVC into her colon and set afire on expulsion, resulting in a 3.5-foot anal blowtorch for Cream Productions' 1998 Blow it Out Your Ass.'
While the heavily-footnoted article was not received well by the adult industry (Wallace poked fun at everything from AVN's awards-voting system - back when there were only 108 categories - frequent misspellings of words like "irresistible," and said the magazine's articles were more like "infomercials"), it did provide a comprehensive if intellectually condescending first-time view of an event that to the newcomer is often overwhelming and hard to process.
AVN's response to the original article ("Neither Adult Nor Entertainment" was first printed in the magazine Premiere in 1998) can be found here. It quotes publisher Paul Fishbein and senior editor Mark Kernes as well as former associate editor Rebecca Gray. While the responses often prove Wallace's point, they do mount a serious counterattack on both Wallace's journalism in particular and mainstream impressions of an industry that feels unjustly burdened to prove that it should be taken seriously.
Wallace spent the last several years as a professor at California's Pomona College and is remembered by his colleagues and students as rigorous, caring, and unaffected by the raves he received for works like his thousand-page "Infinite Jest" and his first book, "Broom of the System."
Wallace also authored several collections of essays ("Big Red Son" is from "Consider the Lobster") and released a book of short stories called "Girl with Curious Hair" which, though less ambitious than his other works, is both smart and accessible, revealing without hyperbole what a great writer he was.
Wallace was 46.
Previously: AVN 2008: Reliving the dream
See also: David Foster Wallace,Labels: avn, david foster wallace, obituaries, writers
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--Tuesday, August 29, 2006--
Rest in Peace, Jon Dough
 There had never been a male contract performer before Jon Dough, who originated that position with Vivid and appeared in movies spanning porn's late "golden age" to its gonzo phase.
Dough, who died on Sunday of an apparent suicide, had appeared in over a thousand porn films and directed almost a hundred. He will be remembered, as any male performer would who has had steady work from the mid-80's, as solid.
He leaves behind a wife and four-year-old daughter.
The former Chet Anuszek was born in Pennsylvania in 1962. Upon moving to Los Angeles, he tried breaking into soap operas, but a photo shoot at Hustler quickly resulted in steady work in the adult industry.
Dough maintained his longevity in the business due to his dependability as a performer. He was known for his lack of "bad days." He was married twice, the first time to the Dutch performer Deirdre Holland and since 1994 to the performer Monique DeMoan.
It was DeMoan who discovered the body and who said Dough, the father of her daughter, had taken his own life. Industry rumor is that the method was pills.
The full story will no doubt emerge over the next few days, but interviews in the AVN.com article announcing Dough's death hint at a depression that built as DVD sales dropped and work became harder to find. Friends Randy Spears, who joined the adult business around the same time, and Ron Jeremy, said that Dough was a good man who often needed to be talked out of low moods.
See also: Jon Dough's IAFD listingLabels: jon dough, monique demoan, obituaries, randy spears, ron jeremy, vivid
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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.
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Buck Adams, 52, a porn actor and director, was remembered yesterday at a service falling on what would have been his 53rd birthday. He died October 28 in Northridge in the San Fernando Valley following a decade of heart ailments.
