| --Monday, May 05, 2008--
XRCO from the outside in
 I have been at the U.N. Conference on Porn, Sex Work, Erotica, and General Waywardness in Trieste this weekend so I did not have the time to write in depth about last week's XRCO awards. Here is the most comprehensive coverage you could ever read.
The Highlands Nightclub in Hollywood has become the de facto adult industry event location in Los Angeles, hosting several events over the past year. There is inexpensive parking, a bank machine two floors down, easy access to the Guinness Book of World Records Museum across the street, and an excellent view of where I interviewed Joey and Evanka Buttafuoco.
 Also, former Digital Playground contract star Adrianna Lynn, now known (again) as Adrenalynn, gave me a visual aid in remembering how to spell her new old name. Adrenalynn is not at liberty to say why her time at Digital Playground was so short and I knew without asking that her reason for leaving involved a lack of access to me.
"It must have been difficult," I said.
"You said it so I won't have to," she said.
Her pose reminded me of this picture of Mika Tan.
The XRCO Awards were one of the first reactions to AVN's yearly adult awards, and are determined by a group of critics from around the world. I am one of the voters but I don't know how they are funded; I only know that they are a very homey awards show that people are nevertheless paying more attention to.
That is not to say people really pay attention at adult awards shows, but this year I checked in about midway through the ceremony and saw that three quarters of the people who were seated at the beginning of the show were seated in the middle. This is a higher percentage than graduation rates in the L.A. Unified School District. It is also better odds than the national divorce rate after five years of marriage, as adult award shows tend to take five years.
 And I'm not saying that I know who won anything, save for Upload, because I saw some Upload people on the stage, Jenna Haze, because she won one of the first awards and I was turned in that direction, and Suze Randall and Shayla Laveaux, who won Hall of Fame awards and I was making my way to the balcony. I also knew that Not the Bradys XXX got Best Porn Comedy because at one point its publicist and director, Jeff Mullen said to me, "Best Porn Comedy two years in a row, huh? Huh?"
 But at no time did I hear the XRCO's genial chairman, Jared Rutter, tell the crowd to shut up, as I've often heard his ousted predecessor, Bill Margold, shriek. The rabble seemed to respect him. So that's something. And when a man can walk into an adult awards show and still see people paying attention 45 minutes into it, well, I'll say the porn business is doing just fine, considering.
 It was important for me to move around because I am like a shark. I need to move or I'll die. I am also like the wind. Also: a lone wolf. By those means I saw much and little. I saw Scott Fayner and thought, Didn't he die? He was sitting with married porn graphic artists Jodie Marie and Dave Goodman. I thought: Didn't I give them the meat hammer? You know, for their wedding? Like in Braveheart?
 I got a grand idea to photograph every porn star I knew with my shot glass of Jagermeister but the project began and ended with Ava Rose.
 Adrianna Nicole refused. I don't know on what grounds. She needs to loosen up more. She needs to know that I won't hurt her. She's so goddamn meek.
I'd been there for three hours when a security guard noticed I didn't have a wristband.
"I just walked in," I told him. We had a conversation in which he repeated everything I'd just said, but changing the pronouns and adding italics and a question mark.
"You just walked in?" he said.
"No one stopped me," I said.
"No one stopped you?" he said.
"I can go get one now," I said, "but I've been here for three hours."
"You've been here for three hours?," etc.
At the front door I told another security guard that I needed a wristband to go back in.
"You need a wristband to go back in?" he said. I'd say the guards were related, but then all security guards look the same to me.
Outside I talked with Ashlynn Brooke, who is from Choctaw, OK.
"I love Oklahoma," she said. "I'd go back and live there if I could. But Tommy loves L.A. too much."
Tommy Gunn and Brooke are dating. I think the world must be peopled.
"Do you cook?" I asked. I don't know why I asked this.
"Oh, yes!" she said. "Chicken fried steak, southern food, fried chicken ... "
"Okra!"
"Yes."
"Do you ever fry anything with another animal, like steak fried steak, or jaguar fried donkey?"
"I could, but I use chicken."
 Veronique Vega came by and I asked them to pose like they were in Gia.
 Then Sophie Dee happened along, barefoot. She posed in a pile of cigarette butts. She has the most beautiful eyes. I imagine her appearing to Mexican children and the community making a statue out of her.
Before I went back in (now that I was legal), I took a picture of Manuel Ferrara, Flower Tucci, Sunny Lane, and John Stagliano. I complimented Ferrara on his diplomatic handling of Robin Leach's photographer at the AVN Awards red carpet.
"I am a very gentle man," he said.
Earlier in the evening Ferrara had walked by my XBiz colleague Joanne "Cha Cha" Cachapero and she had called out "Manual! Manual!" as if he were some kind of transmission. But maybe that is the way all men seem to Joanne, so hard is her heart.
 Back inside I had another idea. My drinks gone, I would take pictures of women leaving the men's room. The first was former performer/current AVN photographer Gia Jordan.
I am embarrassed to admit that I said something that made her respond thusly:
"All Gentiles think I'm Jewish."
"I'm sorry," I said. "So you're Italian?"
"Half."
"And what's the other half?"
"Pakistani."
I bet that courtship was fascinating. She showed me her shoes as she sat on the bar. I think she said they were Mario Rossis.
"Is that good?" I asked, feeling like I knew nothing anymore.
"Yes," she said. "I got them at Goodwill."
 Speaking of shoes, Aiden Starr was wearing Dana Dearmond's flip flops, and looked so small that, had she not just walked out of the men's bathroom, I would have popped her in my mouth and blew a bubble with her.
The Highlands was closing for the night. I had worn my wristband for about 15 minutes.
After some internal debate, I went to an afterparty and didn't regret it. I left this year's XRCOs secure in the belief that next year Pirates 2 will have won something.
See the gallery here.
Previously: XRCO afterparty blind items; XRCO voting: One patriot's story; XRCO night: A night to rememb; "Shut up, please"
See also: XRCOLabels: aiden starr, Ashlynn Brooke, awards, dana dearmond, events, flower tucci, gia jordan, jeff mullen, joanne cachapero, sophie dee, sunny lane, Tommy Gunn, xrco
posted by Gram the Man
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--Thursday, May 01, 2008--
Blind items: XRCO Awards afterparty
 Around 4 a.m. several L.A. police officers showed up. They were very courteous. I have never seen an L.A. cop over six feet tall, though. Anyway, they proceeded to a locked bathroom door and knocked on it politely.
"There was a report of an attempted suicide," one officer said, knocking. The door didn't open.
Blind Item 1: The bathroom door opens revealing the very person who always talks about having just fucked someone in the bathroom. The fuckee is in a towel and perfectly healthy physically.
A woman says, "That's one good way to get away from (name withheld); just tell the cops you're attempting suicide."
The police leave.
Blind Item 2: "I'm doing an anal scene with Catalina and right in the middle of it she sort of dreamily wanders away toward a lamp. She says, 'Oh, what a nice lamp!' all the while shitting all over the floor. People are looking at me like I'm supposed to do something about it. I'm like, 'I'm not the shit wrangler!' Eventually she wandered back."
Blind Item 3: "I must have jacked off to that picture of your shoe twenty times."
Blind Item 4: "Remember that Blind Item you did about Throat Gaggers?"
Me: "No."
Blind Item 5: "Did you see that girl with the sort of fried blonde hair? She was a little roomy - her tits were hanging out of her dress. She was wearing some kind of animal print dress - she looked like she just got off work at the Body Shop. Did you see her?"
Me: "No."
"I wanted to jump her so bad."
Previously: "Don't you know I have a child?"
See also: XRCOLabels: blind item, events, pornic voices, xrco
posted by Gram the Man
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--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: XRCOLabels: business, events, personal philosophy, xrco
posted by Gram the Man
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--Friday, April 06, 2007--
XRCO Night: A Night to Rememb...
 Of all nights, XRCO night was one of them.
A night, it could be said, with words, and things to describe it, a night. A night, it might later be recounted, by the scholar, the historian, the enthusiast, of all things, in that place - for our time - yes, a night. A night. Words fail. The fisherman, the cleric, the hairdresser. A room. What I'm saying is: it happened at night.
Doors opened at 7, I showed up at 8. I got in at about 8:30, the sidewalk outside Vine Street's Forbidden City pleasantly clotted with adult industry people, also wondering why it was taking so long, people being checked off lists. A being who looked like Spinal Tap's David St. Hubbins pointing its camera at celebrities, being ignored, paparazzi outnumbering the people they covered, penned behind barriers.
"It didn't used to be like this," AVN's Mike Albo said. "Ten years ago, there wasn't a receiving line."
I shuffled through the line with the stunning Jessica Jaymes. She could not wreck my marriage, but I could see how she might do a number on one less stable.
A quarter of the way up the line, I heard the first "Did you call me a fag?" of the evening. It was to be the first of 41. My situation has brought the adult industry together. It is a rallying cry that appeals to the business' seventh-grade recess self. It has united people I used to think were smart with the ones I've always thought were idiots.
"'Did you call me a fag?'" Albo asked, about an hour after we first talked. "How many times have you heard that???"
"A bunch of times in the late 1980s," I remembered. "And a bunch of times just recently." The difference, of course, is back then I also had the taste of state-assisted tater tots in my mouth from lunch the period before.
Inside, the joint was jumping. I saw Ava Rose and Angie Savage. They need to open a really-short-skirted maid service. I think it should be called Really Short-Skirted Maids of America. I was surprised to find that Savage only performs dialogue scenes reluctantly.
"I don't want to stand around all day to say, 'You're the only one who can save me' or something," she said. I have not yet arrived at her pragmatism.
Ava Rose is going to Hawaii at the end of next week to shoot Eden for Adam & Eve. It is to be one of their tentpole movies this year. I want to go. If Eden were "Fantasy Island", I could play a Ted Lange-style guest star, because I am black, have a moustache, and can bartend.
I ate some mints. I didn't drink a thing.
At about 9:30 the show still hadn't started. I set up shop in a courtyard booth, where I spent the rest of the night. Because the show was so late in starting, and because the courtyard gradually filled with people and only got more crowded, I was surprised to hear the show had started and was finished.
Eyewitnesses say former Teravision contract performer Lucy Lee and Tera Patrick, the evening's co-host, got in a scrape involving Lee throwing a drink (not coffee) at Tera and Tera throwing water back at Lee. The motivation is said to have been bad blood about the terms of Lee's departure from the company and, perhaps, a non-compete agreement that had kept Lee from working. Money might have also been involved. I am being vague. Sources say Lee was the instigator but that she was the one who called police. Tera was interviewed by the LAPD inside the club. Lee departed. At about 9:50, Tera and her husband, Evan Seinfeld, opened the show.
Outside I saw jessica drake. "Hi Teagan," she said. Our love began at the 2005 XRCO show. She did not ask if I'd called her a fag.
Inside, I am told, Hillary Scott won everything, even the California Democratic primary. Bill Margold was not there, so the show was short and enjoyable, though sound problems plagued the evening and Forbidden City's stage was not the central area it should have been for the deployment of awards.
Also inside, another writer was jostled into the table of ClubJenna performer Chanel St. James, whose dress was covered with drinks (not coffee).
He apologized profusely. She replied, "I don't care if you're sorry - I'm all wet!" She left early.
It's a good point. While it would have been worse if he hadn't apologized, or if he had somehow tried to blame the situation on her, she was the one forced to leave the venue. I have become an advocate of victims' rights.
Meanwhile, a steady procession of people stopped by our booth. I know plenty of people who go to Las Vegas in January but have long since stopped going to the AVN Awards. I never understood why, but I was missing the awards show I'd arrived to cover. I wish I'd known.
Michelle Aston came by.
"My armpits stink," she said, her armpits stinking visibly. She had been the camera assistant on a shoot that had gone on unnecessarily long, and had only the time to make herself look pretty, rather than smell that way. Sometimes I think I look like Aston's armpits smell.
I was sitting between Albo and The Floating World's Terri Redor. Aston looked us over.
"I could blow all three of you in ten minutes," she observed.
I was feeling uncharitable toward Albo. I was going to ruin it for him. "Then you'd better blow me first," I said to Aston. "Because you will never recover." The Gram-hammer of the gods will drive your ship to new lands.
 Adrianna Nicole, upon whose back I directed the seminal porn scene of this or any century, and who has been extending and then retracting offers to drink in our neighborhood, finished my evening.
Before I left, though, a mock fight broke out between two guys I have never met, and who I didn't know. It happened about 20 feet from where I was sitting.
One asked the other, "Did you call me a fag?" and the other guy said, "Don't take off your shirt."
I heard the show was good. I am sorry I missed it.
Previously: "Shut up, please"
See also: XRCOLabels: events, WGL, xrco
posted by Gram the Man
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--Wednesday, March 28, 2007--
XRCO Night at Forbidden City
 The X-Rated Critics' Organization Awards will be held at Forbidden City on the corner of Hollywood and Vine on Thursday, April 5. Doors open at 7 p.m.
The Awards used to be held in Century City, an area of Los Angeles reachable only by accident, and then Hollywood's CineSpace. Why they have been moved yet again is a mystery to me, but then the XRCO, of which I am a member, is also a mystery to me.
(This photo of Jenna Jameson is from the 2005 XRCOs; I believe this was the year Jenna started winning different varieties of Mainstream Crossover Star awards.)
Previously: XRCO announces nominees; XBiz Forum and Awards: Us v. Them; "Shut up, please": the 22nd annual XRCO Awards
See also: XRCOLabels: awards, events, xrco
posted by Gram the Man
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--Saturday, March 03, 2007--
XRCO announces nominees
 As you know, I am a member of several elite organizations, including the Activision Barnstormers Club, AAA, and Costco. I am also on the august Board of Governors of the American Academy of Adult Arts and Entertainment.
But since ought-5 I have also been a member of the XRCO, which is the X-Rated Critics' Organization. Each spring the XRCO throws a fete to honor adult personalities and it is always a boisterous affair if you attend with the right attitude. As the XRCO has always been inclusive of everyone who writes about the porn business, and since it was the first organization put together in such a way to issue awards democratically, it occupies a unique place in this business.
Democracy has its pitfalls; despite my boosterism, O: The Power of Submission didn't make it into the nominees.
Below is the (undoctored) list of XRCO nominees for its 2007 awards:
BEST RELEASE:
CURSE ETERNAL - Wicked Pictures
EMPEROR - Vivid Entertainment Group
SACRED SIN - Ninn Worx
SEX CITY - Private U.S.A./Pure Play Media
THE VISITORS - Wicked Pictures
BEST EPIC:
CORRUPTION - Sex Z Pictures
FASHIONISTAS SAFADO: THE CHALLENGE - Evil Angel
ISLAND FEVER 4 - Digital Playground
MANHUNTERS - Wicked Pictures
TAILGUNNERS - Adam & Eve Productions
BEST DIRECTOR (Features):
BRAD ARMSTRONG
JAMES AVALON
ELI CROSS
MICHAEL NINN
JOHN STAGLIANO
BEST DIRECTOR (Non-Features):
ROBBY D.
JACK THE ZIPPER
MIKE JOHN
JULES JORDAN
JAKE MALONE
BEST COMEDY OR PARODY:
BRITNEY REARS 3 - X-Play/Hustler Video
DA VINCI LOAD - Hustler Video
JOANNA'S ANGELS 2: ALT THROTTLE - VCA
PORN WARS - Private U.S.A./Pure Play Media
SHE BANGS - Red Light District Films
BEST GONZO RELEASE:
CHEMISTRY – Vivid Entertainment Group
RACIAL TENSION - Mike John Productions/Jules Jordan Video
JENNA HAZE DARKSIDE - Jules Jordan Video
NAOMI: THERE'S ONLY ONE - John Leslie Productions/Evil Empire
SLUTTY AND SLUTTIER - Manuel Ferrara Productions/Evil Empire
BEST GONZO SERIES:
CONTROL - Digital Playground
JACK'S TEEN AMERICA - Digital Playground
JOEY SILVERA'S SERVICE ANIMALS - All Blew Shirts/Evil Empire
COLLEGE INVASION - Shane's World
BIG WET ASSES! - Elegant Angel
BEST GIRL-GIRL RELEASE:
BELLADONNA - NO WARNING - Belladonna Productions/Evil Empire
COUSIN STEVIE'S PUSSY PARTY #15 - CSI/Pure Play Media
EROCKTA VISION #5 - Dana Dane Productions/Pulse
GIRLS LOVE GIRLS #2 - Darkko Productions/Evil Empire
GIRLVANA #2 - Zero Tolerance
BEST POV RELEASE:
3 ON ME POV - Vouyer Media
FRANK WANK POV #5 - Pariah
JACK'S POV #5 - Digital Playground
POV PERVERT #7 - Red Light District
TUNNELVISION #2 - Jules Jordan Video
NEW STARLET:
AUBREY ADDAMS
SASHA GREY
NAOMI
AVA ROSE
MIA ROSE
NEW STUD:
JAMES DEEN
JENNER
JERRY
DERRICK PIERCE
TOMMY PISTOL
UNSUNG SIREN:
ALANA EVANS
KIMBERLY KANE
MIKA TAN
LUSCIOUS LOPEZ
MARIE LUV
UNSUNG WOODSMAN:
MARK WOOD
MARK ASHLEY
MR. PETE
JOHN STRONG
ROD FONTANA
FEMALE PERFORMER OF THE YEAR:
GIANNA
JENNA HAZE
SUNNY LANE
TORY LANE
HILLARY SCOTT
MALE PERFORMER OF THE YEAR:
ERIK EVERHARD
MANUEL FERRARA
TOMMY GUNN
RANDY SPEARS
EVAN STONE
SINGLE PERFORMANCE - ACTRESS:
HILLARY SCOTT - Corruption (Sex Z Pictures)
BELLADONNA - Fashionistas Safado: The Challenge (Evil Angel)
JESSICA DRAKE - Manhunters (Wicked Pictures)
KIMBERLY KANE - The Visitors (Wicked Pictures)
KYLIE IRELAND - Corruption (Sex Z Pictures)
SINGLE PERFORMANCE - ACTOR:
STEVEN ST. CROIX - Wonderland (Cal Vista)
RANDY SPEARS - Curse Eternal (Wicked Pictures)
ROCCO SIFFREDI - Fashionistas Safado: The Challenge (Evil Angel)
ROCCO SIFFREDI - Emperor (Vivid Entertainment Group)
EVAN STONE - Sex Pix (Red Light District Films)
CREAM DREAM:
AUBREY ADDAMS
SASHA GREY
JENNA PRESLEY
MIA ROSE
WHITNEY STEVENS
SUPERSLUT:
ANNETTE SCHWARZ
SASHA GREY
TORY LANE
SANDRA ROMAIN
HILLARY SCOTT
BEST ON-SCREEN CHEMISTRY:
AMY REID/VINCE VOUYER - Breakin Em In 9 (Vouyer Media)
GIANNA/JENNA HAZE/ROCCO - Fashionistas Safado: The Challenge (Evil Angel)
SASHA KNOX/MARK DAVIS - It's a Daddy Thing 2 (Elegant Angel)
HALEY PAIGE/NICKI HUNTER/JACK VENICE - The New Neighbors (SLLAB)
MIA ROSE/MANUEL FERRARA - various couplings
ORGASMIC ORALIST:
BELLADONNA
JASMINE BYRNE
JENNA HAZE
TORY LANE
HILLARY SCOTT
ORGASMIC ANALIST:
HILLARY SCOTT
FLOWER TUCCI
KELLY WELLS
KATJA KASSIN
SANDRA ROMAIN
KURT LOCKWOOD (Honorary Mention)
MILF OF THE YEAR:
LISA ANN
KRISTAL SUMMERS
RAYVENESS
KYLIE IRELAND
JANINE
BEST CUMBACK:
LISA ANN
CASSIDY
SHYLA STYLEZ
SUNRISE ADAMS
TOM BYRON
MOST OUTRAGEOUS DVD XTRAS:
THE VISITORS - Wicked Pictures
MANHUNTERS - Wicked Pictures
EMPEROR - Vivid Entertainment Group
CORRUPTION - Sex Z Pictures
TERADISE ISLAND - Teravision
MAINSTREAM ADULT MEDIA FAVORITE:
STORMY DANIELS
JENNA JAMESON
JESSE JANE
RON JEREMY
TERA PATRICK
HALL OF FAME:
5TH ESTATE: MARK KERNES
FILM CREATORS: RINSE DREAM
MOVIE: LATEX (Michael Ninn - VCA)
FILM PIONEERS: LONI SANDERS, MAI LIN
SPECIAL AWARDS: ANNA MALLE, CHRISTI LAKE (Actress, Director, Industry Supporter)
ACTOR: STEVEN ST. CROIX, MR. MARCUS
ACTRESS: JANINE, SERENITY, FRANCESCA LE'
XRCO MEMBERS' CHOICE: ASIA CARRERA
Previously: Gram Ponante Announces Also-Ranny Winners; XBiz Forum and Awards; Report: Adult Industry to even ratio of awards shows:movies
See also: XRCOLabels: awrds, dvd, events, kurt lockwood, WGL, xrco
posted by Gram the Man
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