Thursday,
June 21st, 2001
Wendy Shalit writes for FirstThings.com: If you want a nonfiction account of what happens when fathers encourage daughters to get "in touch" with their sexuality because "it is not so big a deal," read Hustled: My Journey From Fear to Faith (Westminster/John Knox), Tonya Flynt–Vega’s sad tale of what it was like growing up as Larry Flynt’s daughter. Flynt was extremely interested in introducing his daughter—now thirty–three—to the pornographic wonders depicted in his magazine, Hustler, and to that end molested her on several occasions when she was young. Needless to say, she did not thrive as a result. Larry Flynt and Alice Walker both want to smooth over our taboos, the better to display—as Walker puts it in her flap copy—"a celebration of sexuality." So why, one might ask, should the incest taboo be any exception?
The artistic failure of By the Light of My Father’s Smile proves that we need these taboos in order for sex to be interesting. Walker advocates a sexuality purged of every last human convention, but humans tend to find it hard to relate to a narrative so devoid of anything like shame, dignity, or even privacy. As one reader posted on the on–line bookstore, Amazon.com, "Ms. Walker is truly one of the most daring writers of the twentieth century . . . [but] I found the details of the lesbian lovemaking to be more than I ever wanted to know about lesbian relationships—and the assumption that my dead relatives spy on me in my bed quite revolting. The story was unique but never ‘captured’ me."
I Thought Alexa Retired?
But she's listed on this escorting site:
A blonde and voluptuous native of Atlanta, Georgia, has made quite an impression on the adult entertainment industry. She’s already performed in many features, including Spellbound, Dream Quest, Wild Thing, Wicked Wishes, and Say Aaah, and loves promoting her designer series of erotic novelty toys, Essensual Elements. Alexa, who danced at the Gold Club in Atlanta under the name "Fantasy," believes that this is the best job in the world and has always wanted to be a XXX star. She loves that she has the opportunity to play different roles and seduce other people - both on and off screen. Her only complaint is that she would like to be able to travel to exotic locations to film. Alexa loves to choreograph dance routines and put together costumes, but her true love is riding horses. In fact, she rode horses for fourteen years and even competed nationally. One of her dreams is to train with the United States Equestrian Team. It's no wonder her most memorable experience is having sex with her ex-boyfriend on top of her horse "Chance." Long term plans for Alexa include opening a strip/night club resembling Studio 54 and an Equestrian Center in Malibu. Alexa plans on staying in the biz until "camera doesn't want to film me." One thing is certain, Alexa will continue to make movies and learn every aspect of the business.
Meni69: wow luke, being listed on an escort site means? NOTHING. Site's LIE. MORON.
Encountering Red Velvet
I notice a striking pale young redheaded make-up artist on the set of Toni English's Naked Hollywood. I wonder if it is the notorious Red Velvet.
Later in the day, I'm with Lauren Montgomery when Red Velvet, 25 years old, walks into the room. I'm dictating notes to my tape recorder. Red Velvet stares at me. "You're Luke F-rd," she says.
She stares. I look back at her. She stares. I feel scared. I tense myself for an explosion.
I know why she's staring at me.
On January 30, I published this:
Here's an excerpt from f---PaulFishbein.com: "Captain Bob, you've got a lovely daughter. Did you know that your bisexual offspring (she also happens to be that 23 year-old redhead we talked about earlier) has been f---ing both Stacy Valentine and Paul Fishbein? Don't worry about your reviews, though. 'cause Mark "I'm In the Pocket of Seymore Butts" Kernes is taking care of them. (Fat-ass kernes winning the reuben sturman award is a big f---ing joke.) C'mon, everybody sing: "She wore Red Velvet, oh whoa, redder than velvet were her eyes...softer than satin her tender thighs..." In the December, 1999 issue of AVN, Paul Fishbein under the pseudonym Max Bloom writes an article about Red Velvet, the woman he was f---ing."
Luke says: Max Bloom is Paul Fishbein. Whether they've had relations, I don't know. One source tells me no. Fishbein does have a reputation for liking redheads.
The article is the only time that I remember AVN giving this much space to a make-up artist.
June 20 Update: So I absorb a piercing look from Red Velvet. I know from experience about the hot tempers of red heads.
Red Velvet sits on the bed with Lauren and tells me the story above is completely false. She's not had sex with either Paul Fishbein or Stacy Valentine.
After the allegations broke on the web site www.f---PaulFishbein.com, the AVN publisher called Red Velvet to apologize to her that her name had been dragged into the internet war against him.
Paul Fishbein encountered Red Velvet at an internet trade show. He has a reputation for liking redheads. Paul, realizing that he was married and she had a boyfriend, took her to lunch at the Good Earth restaurant to interview her - the only time AVN has run a profile of a make-up artist. "It was probably because Paul realized that an interview was the only context in which he could appropriately take her to lunch," says a source. "Paul and Red Velvet have remained friends."
Red Velvet has had a police officer boyfriend for three years. Red Velvet does not deny having sex with various members of the industry.
Her father, Captain Bob, grew disillusioned with Christianity when she was 12 years old. Red Velvet, however, remained deeply religious until age 18. When she was 16, Captain Bob began working in the porn industry.
Red Velvet completed a double major at Pepperdine University - in journalism and the humanities. She works in makeup around the adult industry and mainstream and aspires to be a actress.
Captain Bob taught his daughter that it is ok to explore your sexuality so long as you: (a) Don't do it behind someone's back. (b) Don't hurt anyone's feelings. (c) make sure they're consenting adults.
Luke: "What was your reaction when the story broke?"
Red Velvet: "I just laughed... Sometimes you get drawn into things you don't want to be drawn into... I've learned to keep my mouth shut about the things I hear, even when it is innocent.
"Of all the things that I've done, I'd thought some of the things that I've been so over the top and over with, would get talked about. Not things I've never done."
When Alexa retired 4/3/01, she wrote about Red Velvet in her farewell to porno letter: "The best thing I found in this business was a girl by the name of Red Velvet. Thank you for believing in me. From the day we met, you told me I didn't belong in this industry, and I should have taken your advice. Now take mine. Get out, you're too good for this. I love you with all my heart."
Red Velvet told me Wednesday: "When people act out, I know that it's because they're in a lot of pain. And Alexa obviously had bad relations with Wicked. And she was young. And the only thing I really gave her was motherly advice. She was adopted. Her first mother divorced her father and her stepmother was really awful. She lacked somebody to teach her how to be responsible and appropriate. She thanked me for giving her self confidence and for trying to show her how to be an appropriate adult."
Luke: "Alexa wanted you to leave porno."
Red Velvet: "I am not too good for anything. I love the people here. If I got a job in mainstream films, the only reason I would want to do it is because there's more money. The mainstream world is not all that it is cracked up to be. Many makeup artists on mainstream sets get $125 a day. I get a lot more appreciation and respect in this industry. But some union scale and some golden time would be nice."
Luke: "Was it tough to grow up in this industry?"
Red Velvet: "I was very religious until I was 18. When dad got into this business, it split the world in half and I had to find my own place. I'm not as extreme as my father. He says that as long as you don't hurt people, you're ok. But as Roussea said in Emile, the only way you can not hurt people is if you live in a cave. Sometimes my dad's extreme behavior is too much just like sometimes the Christian behavior is too much. You have to be aware of the people around you with what you're doing. Because I know the two extreme, I've found a nice middle ground.
"My father is an ordained minister and he was involved in the ministry but he didn't have a congregation. It started going downhill in 1981 when we moved out to California because a brother in the church stole his business from him. He felt betrayed by the church and started questioning his own beliefs. In 1987, when I was 11, he stopped going to church. And five years later, he did his first porno.
"People always think that's such a big turnaround. But it is the opposite end of the same behavior. It's like a pendulum. It's still trying to make everything ok. If this extreme doesn't work, I'm going to totally do the opposite and maybe that will work for me. But people find that that doesn't work either."
Luke: "Boy, does that ever sound like my life."
Bud Lee comes in and we all talk about our therapy and compare notes.
Luke Gets Mail
Vkluj writes: If ah hed Gloria Leonard as a pryvat tooter , I coud probly spayell bayter. Ah does no 1 thang, ah have somthang that wood be sooper-sighzed if she woos teeching mi som stuff. She es a mensuh skuller and looks to be a geefted tooter too.
Luke: This note to board members in paradise. When Gloria Leonard listed prior work experience as:"Got high and tooted on privates," that does NOT read private high school tutor !!!
Helpful writes: For the caption contest.
AVN's New Review Policy
Den@cavr.com writes on RAME: Starting with August issue, AVN will be doing only full reviews on Editor's Choice. All other reviews will be streamlined and contact only a partial list of the stars. And, I called and talked with the AVN Editor in Chief and he said the full reviews will be on their web site. The web site reviews and magazine will be released at the same time. To me this means that the AVN reviews will continue to be 2 to 3 months behind.
Pat Riley adds: You didn't happen to ask how one could access the complete unpublished reviews in one go did you? Sample search argument: "All the reviews for March 2001 that we failed to include in the magazine in alphabetical sequence so that you can print them out and make the magazine complete" Fat chance I suppose.
Did any of the giant brains at the industry's toilet paper ever consider that people might just like to browse through the reviews without having to type in the name of each and every movie? Mind you, given the quality of the ID's and the brilliance of text, one might as well just search Jaded and read the box covers.
Kelly Holland's Naked Hollywood
Kelly Holland aka Tony English thought up the idea for the first porno ongoing series and developed one based on the HBO series "Sex in the City." Adam & Eve and Playboy agreed to fund the productions and the shows began taping earlier this year. Nina Hartley, Dee, Keri Windsor and Lauren Montgomery play the four lead characters.
Holland and her 12-man crew from her company ArtAttack worked Wednesday on day two of the four day two show shoot.
On the first day, Tuesday, a male performer passed out from GHB but cast and crew took a pledge not to reveal the man's name.
I drive to the shoot located off Laurel Canyon in Hollywood. The street names come out of Greek mythology - Mount Olympus, Zeus, Hercules. Appropriate names for a porno shoot which by nature springs more out of paganism than Christianity.
I arrive at 11AM. Tall redhead Kelly welcomes me and makes sure I have a script, a shooting schedule, some snacks, a drink and a chair to sit in. It's like five years ago, when I was going on porn sets for the first time, and I attended one of Holland's. J.B. then served as Holland production manager.
Nina Hartley walks in and greets me warmly. She says a fan of hers told her, "I read on Luke F-rd that you were divorcing and I didn't know whether to believe it."
Nina separated from her partners Dave and Bobbi last November and has now filed for divorce from Dave. The process should take a year.
Hartley says she's found her soulmate. A man.
I record her conversation with her co-star, former Adam & Eve contract boy Dale DaBone.
Nina: "I found somebody who will be my life partner until the wheels fall off."
Dale; "I'm 29. The older I get, I'm not into swinging. I want to be just one on one, emotionally, outside of what I do for a living."
Nina: "Because I'm so unusual in my personality, I never dreamed of ever finding the one. I didn't think "The One" existed for someone like me. I was going to have to satisfy the intellectual parts of myself with this person and the sexual with these persons. I wasn't looking for him. But when he fell into my life, I'm old and wise enough to go, 'I want to spend all my time with this man.'
"And I have the freedom to go on the road and pick up any cute little boy I want. Or pick up a dancer. I don't even take a vibrator on the road. I don't even masturbate because I can't wait to get home and have some filet mignon. Emotionally, I am monogamous right now."
I meet cinematographer Jake Jacobs of Scuzzy Post [a post production facility like ArtAttack].
Kelly: "He won Best Cinematographer, Best Videographer, best shooter at AVN. If there were any more awards for camera shooter, he would've won them. He's the premiere shooter in the business. There's only five shooters in the business."
Jake: "When I shot mainstream, I walked on to a set and people said, 'Are you the Jake Jacobs? The Jake Jacobs who shoots adult?' There are two Jake Jacobs in mainstream who shoot. One shoots film and one shoots television. They were always asked if they were 'the Jake Jacobs who shoots adult.'"
Jacobs began shooting video in 1980 and has worked in adult since 1985 when Charlie Biggs brought him into the industry.
Jake: "I've been shooting mostly for Wicked Pictures for the last six years. I shot DreamQuest last year and Flashpoint the year before. I work with Brad Armstrong and Johnathan Morgan. I've known Kelly for eight years. Usually she does her own camera."
Luke: "What was it like working with Jenna Jameson?"
Jake: "Jenna and I always got along well. The politics of the game of being a Wicked contract game and being the wife, then former wife of Brad Armstrong, and being friends with all of them... I'd hear a little here and hear a little there. It was fun."
Luke: "What does it mean to you to win the AVN awards?"
Jake: "It's a good feeling. I'm one of those quiet guys who prefers to stay in the background. A lot of people have heard of me but not too many people know me. The year before, Johnathan Morgan's Double Feature won ten awards out of its eleven nominations. Well, that eleventh nomination was me.
"I was working the awards show [January, 2001] and that was interesting. When I won, I guided my gib and waved..."
Luke: "Which of your peers do you respect the most?"
Jake: "The first one that I had any real dealings with was Jack Remy. I was in the business four years out of Arizona and I worked with him one time. And he gave me a look and said, 'I enjoyed working with you. You're talented. I think it is about time for me to hand the baton over to you. Because he was known at that time as the best cinematographer. He was going back and forth between adult and mainstream. Others include Francois, Jason Sullivan, Barry Woods, Jane Waters...
'Jake Jacobs is my real name. I'm proud of the work I do."
Luke: "Do you have family?"
Jake: "Yes. I've been married three times. I'm a grandfather. My first two wives had problems with the adult biz, but my current wife, who I've been with for eleven years, has no problems with it."
Luke: "Are you a swinger?"
Jake: "Not really. If someone puts it out there, yeah, I'll do it. But it is not something I promote myself as being."
Luke: "Do you ever jump in front of the camera?"
Jake: "I've been there many a time. In my early years, I was known as a stunt dick. If someone had a problem, I'd jump in there and take care of business. Anabolic Video - I've always been able to jump in for them. My wife doesn't have a problem with it."
Luke: "Do you know Kahn Tusion, the Anabolic director of the Rough Sex series?"
Jake: "He's an interesting gentleman. I shot something he tried to do - trying to get more involved with the talent and what they were thinking. That didn't go anywhere. Anabolic only uses me now on their big gangbangs.
"I've known Christopher Alexandre for years. He was one of the people I did a lot of stunting for in the '80s. I've assisted him in directing. I'm proud of what he's been able to do."
Luke: "How did you get into adult?"
Jake: "I was working for a rental company in Phoenix. And a gentleman wanted to have a camera package delivered to him. I walked on to the set and it was obvious what the set was about. He asked me if it bothered me and I said, 'No.' He came back the following week and wanted to rent the same package again. He asked me if I shoot. I said, 'Yeah.' He asked me if I'd be interested and I said, 'Yeah.'"
Luke: "He got busted?"
Jake: "He sure did, in 1987 about... I was the one who bailed him out. The industry turned their back on him and it was my family who helped him get out of jail.
"I see him every once in a while. We're still acquaintances. We don't work together anymore. That stopped eight years ago. I needed to make a break. There was just too much history between the two of us."
Luke: "Who do you most enjoy working for?"
Jake: "This [porno] is a small little family and I love everybody. Any time I can help anybody out, I do."
Luke: "How has it affected you to work 15 years in hardcore pornography?"
Jake: "Not at all. It's a job. Every once in a while someone will spike your curiosity and it becomes interesting looking through the viewfinder but most of the time it's a job. You just get in and get out and move on.
"The ones I remember the most are the girls from years past - Debi Diamond, Nina Hartley, Samantha Strong..."
Shawn, an electrician - grip, is a mean looking hispanic. He sports a tattoo across his shoulders which reads, "Today I kill, tomorrow I'm king." He ribs me for writing that he looks ferocious.
Kelly says the crew is willing to put up $50 each so Shawn can get laser surgery to remove the killer tattoo. A production assistant wears a T-shirt that reads "Serial Killer." Kelly remarks that these people are white single males who probably appreciate Rob Black's movies.
"We hired Shawn as part of a government program of gang rehabilitation," jokes Kelly.
In the business two years, Dale DaBone tells me that his appearance on Blind Date was completely scripted by the show's producers. They wanted him to play an arrogant character. Dale's been waiting a month to collect his check from Metro.
A pro baseball player until he was 21 years old and tore up his shoulder, Dale modeled for GQ, Maxim and Details magazines. He says he made the mistake of telling everyone about this during his first year in the business but learned that that made people view him as arrogant. So he's toned down since.
Hartley asks about her character's motivation. Director Toni English explains: "You want to stay professional and not sleep with your boss, but the problem is he's rich and good looking. You're conflicted."
Nina and Dale that most porn acting overacts and the directors on today's shoot keep bringing them down.
Jim, assistant director, tells Nina: "You are not a sexual victim."
Nina: "No, no, not at all. But I am conflicted..."
Jim: "You should have reservations about sleeping with the boss but on the other hand, he's a very attractive man. You are attracted to him. You want this to happen. So you're juggling a lot of balls... We're going from business to pleasure."
Bud Lee, make-up artist Red Velvet, Lauren Montgomery and I talk about our therapy and compare notes. Unfortunately, my tape recorder was not running. If it had been, people would not have spoken so freely.
Asia Carrera is still married to Bud Lee even though they've lived separately for years. They spent Sunday, Father's Day, together. Bud was always primarily a father figure to Asia, who did not have good relations with her own father.
Bud Lee's relationship with tall busty blonde Anita Cannibal broke up in August of 1999 when he went off to Hawaii to celebrate another honeymoon with Asia Carrera. Bud says it was a platonic vacation. Asia, her brother, her boyfriend Clark and Bud plan to go to Hawaii again this August.
I've talked with Bud about six times over the years and he's always struck me as a teddy bear of a man - warm, open and funny. Many people wonder how he's been able to land such beautiful girlfriends. Asia always says it is because Bud is nice, which is the only way I've encountered him.
Asia and Ron Jeremy have small roles in the latest Adam Rifkin movie which premiered last night.
In porn since 1980, Bud suffered a heart attack in March of 1998 which prompted him to rethink his life. He quit drinking in August 2000 though he will still have a glass of red wine with dinner. But he says he no longer drink drinks.
After Cannibal, Bud briefly dated the 24-year old black porn girl Mocha. Since then, he's been porn star free.
Lee's also reduced his marijuana intake, which he used to smoke from morning until night. Now he only takes a toke in the evenigns. He can't give it up because he so treasures the taste of marijuana and coffee.
Bud struggles with high blood pressure and stomach pains. But he's boning up on his directing skills by buying and reading books from the Samuel French chain in Los Angeles.
He was particularly impressed by David Mamet's book on directing.
Bud: "David says that the problem with most writers is that they write scenes that can never be shot. The book was helpful and insightful for me. Also a book called "Shot By Shot Techniques" which helps you learn how to set up shots."
Lee shoots about three pornos a month. "Exhausting. But I'm not producing as much as I used to. Just directing. And I like that. The producing is what exhausted me. It's a lot of work. You work for two weeks to do the fun part for two days.
"I'm doing a thing called "Bud Lee's Ass Kissers." It's gonzo and all anal, double penetration, double vaginal penetration. It's proving to those people on that web site that always writes bad things about me and Asia that I can shoot nasty stuff. That I can be harder edged than they imagined. It will be distributed by Jim Lane's Notorious. This is the bad boy Bud Lee. The Bud that yells and screams at people.
"I was lucky that I was raised by a psychiatrist. She taught me how to control my temper. And how to manipulate people.
"It's fun shooting the gonzo stuff because it doesn't have the structure. I like it when they [porn performers] can be themselves. I use big names, people like Kylie Ireland and Dale DaBone in a sex scene. I'm using Charlie and her boyfriend, a gorgeous kid with a huge dick, doing anal. I'm not going out finding new people, but I'm using familiar people doing stuff that people don't expect. Kylie being herself doing Dale who is being himself having sex.
"I want to start a new group called Porn Stars Anonymous. I will have card number one, Tod Hunter at AVN can have card number two, and card number three is available to whoever realizes that they have to break that habit of dating porn stars.
"I never meet anyone but porn stars. When I meet someone outside my business and they find out what I do for a living, they're afraid of me. First of all, they think that they're probably sexually inferior to what I'm used to. Sometimes it is discouraging to believe that I can't be a person to these people but only a persona.
"I get recognized in public a lot. Most of the time, it is people who are much too embarrassed to let anyone know that they know who I am.
"With a friend in the business who's in sales, we went up to Wine Country, an hour north of Santa Barbara, and we visited six wineries. And at five of the wineries, they knew exactly who I was. And they'd give us extra wine."
Thanks to her rigorous exercise regime, Montgomery looks toned. She avoids carbohydrates. When she hears that lunch is lasagna, she moans and says she'll have to settle for a protein bar. Red Velvet offers sympathy and other protein foods. Red Velvet says she needs to lose 30 pounds to be an actress. She asks me to not take any pictures of her.
I step outside into the sunshine. Keri Windsor, Brian Gross and his friend Charlie wonder why I wear black Klondike Klodhoppers with white socks, whacky shorts and a Beverly Hills 90210 T-shirt. The shorts and shirt I purchased three years ago while wondering down Hollywood Blvd with Ed Powers.
Keri: "I want to know what drove you to wear that. You must've known you were going to get comments."
Luke: "Well, I need to wear these special shoes because I have plantar fascitis and I need to wear these plastic orthodics in my shoes..."
Keri: "What came over you this morning when you went to put the shorts and shirt on?"
Luke: "These are about my only shorts..."
Keri: "f--- your porno tour. Let's go on a shopping tour."
Luke: "What types of shorts should I wear with these shoes?"
Brian: "You shouldn't wear shorts with those shoes."
Keri: "You should wear an athletic shoe. Those shoes are meant to be worn with jeans."
Brian: "Don't wear socks..."
Toni English aka Kelly Holland spends much of Wednesday morning on the phone with her bank trying to get new business checks so she can pay everyone.
Holland wrote all 12 episodes of Naked Hollywood. "I can't stand to direct other people's writing."
Kelly's a big fan of "Sex in the City" and is astounded I've never seen the show. I don't watch TV.
"You've got to watch it. It's pretty shocking for mainstream TV. Why don't you watch it? It's good comedy to begin with."
Holland makes sure to use a gentle light when it comes time for closeups on Nina Hartley who's now in her 40s.
Bud Lee stops by with an older female who serves as an executive at Adam & Eve. Bud remains in constant touch with his ex-wife Hyapatia Lee. His two boys, aged eleven and thirteen, live with her, though they're about to spend three weeks with Bud. I overhear Bud tell Nina that his eleven year old got in trouble at school for offering a girl $5 to see her ass. The boy was suspended for a week. "Like father, like son," says Nina.
A reporter from a Washington D.C. newsagency called Stuff is going to talk to Hyapatia Lee about her scamming in December of 1998 of faking her own death. According to Hyapatia, "Hyapatia Lee" the porn star is dead.
Hyapatia now regrets ever working in porn. She's been in therapy for years. She's been on Social Security Disability for years for emotional suffering. She lives off that and Bud Lee's constant child support payments which she calls "dirty money" because it was earned in porn.
In preparation for Wednesday's two sex scenes (Chris Cannon and John Decker), Lauren Montgomery has abstained from sex for two weeks.
Five years ago, Montgomery began performing sex on film. She says this will be her last year in the industry. She wants to get on with her corporate career, marry, and have kids.
Lauren says she's realized that she can't sustain a relationship while working in porn. She ended a two year relationship because she saw how much it hurt him when she went off to work to have sex.
In 2002, Montgomery will rejoin corporate life and, on the side, strip at private bachelor parties to support her shopping for clothes.
From the press release: HOLLYWOOD, CA: Adam & Eve, producers of the award winning Dreamquest, as well as Search For The Snow Leopard, the largest adult film production to date, will continue production of Naked Hollywood, shooting episodes 5 & 6 next week in Los Angeles.
Directed by femme fatale Toni English, the first season of Naked Hollywood consists of twelve feature-length episodes, starring Nina Hartley, Dee, Keri Windsor and Lauren Montgomery. With this cast, it's not difficult to fathom why Naked Hollywood is quickly becoming one of the most highly anticipated "sexcoms" of the year.
Softcore versions of each episode are slated to air as a film series on Playboy Television. For those who look for more, a lot more, from a certain risqué ladies' show on sexuality and the big apple, Naked Hollywood just might be the answer you are looking for in another city that truly never sleeps.
Naked Hollywood follows the lives of four upscale twenty-somethings living in Los Angeles. Lindsey, played by Nina Hartley, is a radio talk show sex therapist whose independence, intelligence and thoughtfulness sometimes get the best of her. Monica, played by Keri Windsor, is a hypersexual interior designer who loves to shock her friends with blunt discussions of sex. Kim, played by Lauren Montgomery, is a junior partner in a law firm. Conservative and uncomfortable with sexuality, Kim secretly suspects that there is something wrong with not being married at 28. Annie, played by Dee, is an iconoclastic artist whose bi-sexuality doesn't lend to anyone's belief that she is either straight or gay.
Norm Wilson's Internet Fulfillment
Norm Wilson's toiled in the porn industry since the early 1970s.
In 1996, he started the company Internet Fulfillment (IFC2000.com) which eluded his control on April 20th.
Norm: "It was, until my departure, the largest affiliate shopping system out there."
Luke: "And you pioneered that."
Norm: "Yes. It was like branding a Cadillac. You could put your own logo on there. Design your own buttons, control the colors. We had big accounts like RJB Telcom, Sex Toys, Python, and IGallery. We took it from nothing to a half-a-million dollar a month company."
Luke: "What happened to you April 20?"
Norm: "I was at the bank and found out my accounts were frozen. And then I got a call from my office which said, 'You better get over here. It looks like a porno raid.' There were about 20 guys running around with headsets on and a receiver. And the receiver served me with a lawsuit the size of a good city phonebook. My partners apparently had sold their share of the company without telling me. Because we were all friends, we were a little loose with the formal shareholders agreement. Because there was no formal agreement, they were within their rights to sell.
"But it was a dirty deal. They sold out to Castle Superstores, which had been trying to buy us for a long time. And I hadn't been interested in selling to them. I guess they did the deal without me and told a lot of lies. And the next thing I know, I'm the out the door with a restraining order and I can't go within 200 yards of the company.
"I'm put all that behind me and I am trying to work out a settlement with them. I resigned from having any claim to management there so I could pursue my new ventures without any duty to the old company.
"We're launching two projects at the show [AVN's IA2000 in Las Vegas later this month]. One is another shopping system with all the bells and whistles I'd built to have with IFC but we're going to have now with the new system. We're not just going to have toys, we're going to have girls demoing the toys. Not just a bare box video for sale but a clip from it. All the things I wanted to do with the old company but I never had the capital or the enthusiasm of the programming staff to do. I've put a good team together now and they've done the impossible in taking us from scratch to launch.
"The other thing we're launching is Cyberdate - the first live avertar chat, where the avertars can have sex. An avertar is a human form in virtual reality. Picture you go into our system and it's like entering a video game. You go in there with a first person perspective. You go into this rotunda and there are these statues there, the avertars. And you choose your body with which you will appear to other people in the chatroom. After you've chosen a body, you can look at yourself from all kinds of perspectives.
"Then you can go mingle with the other avertars in other environments and have sex with them in about 60 odd positions. HBO is going to do a thing on it. I'm going on Sam Phillips Show on FM 97.1 in Los Angeles Friday night."
Luke: "How much of the original company was yours?"
Norm: "Fifty percent. And that is still the status quo. I'm hoping for a settlement. I think they need to settle with me more than I need to settle with them. I felt we could've taken this to trial. The problem is that this has cost us $60,000 in legals since April 20, and the company is only doing a fraction of the business it was doing when I was there. How much money do you want to spend over a dead puppy?
"Apparently now my new partners in IFC2000.com are AdultWebFulfilment (controlled by Taylor Coleman) and Yvette Momot. They launched a multi-millionaire lawsuit against me. I had let Yvette Momot, an active partner for a time, go last year for padding expenses and basically stealing from the company.
"What I didn't know was that she was already in on the plot. They first met in July of last year. I didn't let her go until November. There was a lot going on that I didn't know.
"Now they've put a receiver in there who has no experience with the internet business or the adult business. They haven't taken care of priorities and done what needed to be done and they've basically unravelled in six weeks what took me five years to build.
"I've been in the adult industry for 30 years. I was a magazine distributor first in Canada (TransMedia Group) and then New York City (Trojan Distributing and TriCity News). I sold TransMedia Group in 1991 and it is still going. They're not so much in adult anymore. What I used to do was self published about 50 American titles that weren't getting through customs. There were no "assholes" in Canada at that time. You weren't allowed to talk about them or say "ass" or "f---" in the same sentence. That took care of the entire gay market.
"I did a lot of editing. I was partners in the 1970s with [large porn magazine publisher] George Mavety who died of a heart attack last year. I was his neighbor in Sparta, New Jersey. I'm just selling my house this week. I ran a mail order company as well. I consider myself one of Rudy's [Mayor Rudolph Guiliani] refugees. The heart of my business was 42nd Street and when they closed 42nd Street [to pornography], I evolved into the internet.
"I was still doing magazines. So I got involved in audiotext [phone sex] in 1995 which led the adult web business. I was around in the R.J. Gordon show days and when Steve Hearn broke away [with IA2000], that was the time the internet was starting. I saw the internet as a wonderful thing. I'd been running mail orders and spending all that money with the post office setting up mailers and printing flyers.
"The only brilliant thing I did, if I've got to pat myself on the back, is that I recognized right away that no single site was going to generate the kind of revenue that you needed to run an efficient fulfillment center. And I started the affiliate system and I think I was the first one. I wanted what I would've wanted from a fulfillment center. I wanted it to look like it was my store. Right from the get-go we designed a system so that it ran off third level domains so the clients could switch over to our servers...and tweaked things.
"We had over 8000 affiliates. The internet business is worse than the real world. It's worse than the 80-20 principle. It's more like 95-5. Ninety five percent of your business comes from five percent of your customers.
"With IFC2000.com, we spent a eight months in development. In those days, you couldn't just buy the software off the shelf. We developed everything from scratch.
"I was good friends with Paul Wisner for over 25 years. I was honored to be seated at his table at his 75th birthday and I was supposed to have had dinner with him the night he died in Germany. He stopped off in Dusseldorf to see Hans, and that was the night he died. He was a great man.
"AVN has been very kind to me through all this. I've had a lot of support from the industry. It sounds like one of the worst things that could ever happen to you but in some ways, it is one of the best things that could ever happen to you. It was one of those moments of clarity in your life when you know who your friends are. And you know who's not. I've been humbled by the support. And I had less than $100 when that happened to me on April 20th. I was living and breathing that company. And I've paid the $60,000 in legal so far and I've been able to put together the money to start these projects and it's been with the support of people who've known me a long time..."
Luke: "What has AVN done for you?"
Norm: "They were kind enough to let me continue on... I wasn't a stranger to them. I was able to get my booths. I paid them all for my booths but they knew I was struggling and they let me get my money together..."
Jason Hatlelid, System Administrator for Internet Fulfillment, LLC, writes: "Mr. Ford, I have forwarded your email along to Clay Dunning, who is the court appointed receiver Mr. Wilson mentioned when you spoke with him. Mr. Dunning speaks for the company now, so I will let him talk to you tomorrow afternoon. Thank you."
Davia Ardell Sighting
The Ahaz Dial writes: Lukey! As they say on Boston Talk Radio shows, "Long time listenah, first time callah!"
Anyway, I live in New York City now, and I have been exploring the night life here for some time. Yesterday evening, I happened upon a very swank restaurant-club called Asia De Cuba. Nice place: very hip decor, no men under six-foot-two (except for me), and a plethora of ambulatory tit-jobs, a majestic abundance in higher concentration than I've ever seen in one place, even here. I looked closer at the owner of one of these passing sacks of pseudo-flesh, as she was also sporting a mane of electric white hair, and I recognized Davia Ardell. I couldn't believe it.
My shock arises out of the fact that I assumed that all porn girls lived in California. Obviously, there are exceptions, and sometimes they take trips, but Davia had the air of someone who either lives here or comes here often enough to feel at home. Luke, what's the deal with her? Also, how many porn stars live and / or work in NYC? Is there a significant arm of the industry here?
Despite the protests of my nether regions, I didn't approach her, as she was being escorted on an obvious date by a swarthy, stock-brokering moose-cock. They were dressed sort of up-down, in that quasi-casual way that chic people dress on the sixth or seventh date, or beyond, well after they've gotten each other in the sack. Again, my guess is that her man was a stock-broker, or some other finance f---er. Those guys seem to date a lot of porn stars and strippers, and the latter seem to like to prey on them. Symbiotic relationship. Can you confirm or deny this assumption of mine? Perhaps that would explain the unlikely porn star presence in New York.
Her date was a total cheese-ball. Very Bally's gym, Sicilian tan kind of guy. He was wearing Italian loafers sockless, and he had a not-quite-normal freckle configuration that looked like the result of too much time in the tanning salon. But damn, Davia was looking good -- in a very fake, porny way, but she definitely had my s--- going. My inability to reconcile the image of her ass being slam-f---ed by Max Hardcore with the frail and quiet (and yet admittedly classless) girl in front of me kept my libido humming nicely for the entire night.
Jenna Jameson Sells Her Car
Jenna Jameson writes: "Hi Luke, I figured since you are doing so well now, you must be in the market for a new car. I am selling my Dodge Viper on ebay. You would look great in it. Either search under Vipers or Jenna Jameson. Cough up the money :)"
MikeSouth.com says: Well Luke to those who say that Jenna's sense of self worth is too high...her asking price (52K) is right in line with the Kelly Blue Book retail price for said car. Her minimum is a very fair price. She isn't even charging extra for the fact that she parked her hot little puss in the seat. Wonder if it's in bad taste to ask to sniff the seat before buying?
Davina Hardman writes: I read on your site that Jenna Jameson's wheels are for sale on eBay for $ 50,000. Well, my wheels are also for sale on eBay and they're MUCH cheaper.
