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Wednesday, June 10, 1998

I drove into the Valley at nine AM for a lunch appointment with director Greg Steel but we ended up missing each other, just as I missed meeting with Marc Wallice six weeks ago. We were supposed to meet at Jerry's Deli at noon. I went both times to the one in Encino and my subject went to the one in Studio City.

I drove down Coldwater Canyon at 9 AM to Star World Modeling at 13160 Raymer Street to see my buddies Rob and Joe Spallone, Matt Jade, Wayne Crews and Sal Soldano.

I stood in Soldano's new editing bay watching Don Fernando fornicate with Lennox, who was drunk in the scene, like she usually is when she performs sex on camera. The fifteen minutes of tape (El Chollo Loco will appear in two versions - Spanish and English) took hours for Sal to edit, trying to salvage footage shot by Jim Powers for Notorious Productions.

Jim used the three chip digital Sony camera which weighs about eight pounds.

It took Sal days to configure his fancy new AVID editing bay with his existing monitors and computer equipment. Joe Spallone, Sal and I gave up on trying to figure out a way to phrase who owned the equipment. I think it is owned by Powers.

On the monitor, Don slides his two fingers in and out of Lennox's lubricated vagina. Her large enhanced breasts bounce around, jingling her nipple rings.

Joe Spallone is on the internet while we watch. He's reading the latest industry news on www.l-keford.com. In fact, he's reading my transcription of our 6/5 interview. He had no complaints.

Lennox moans loudly as Don porks her with his unwrapped sausage. Fernando has been in the porn biz since the 1970s. The Spaniard must be pushing 50 years of age.

A group of us talk about agent Reagen Senter. "He's a trip," someone says. "He's upfront. He called me at two in the morning once pushing a new girl. When he tells me a girl is pretty, I suspect she is average. If he says she is great, I suspect she is pretty."

On the monitor, Don ejaculates on Lennox's face. A copper-toned caucasian girl, she speaks English and Spanish.

Luke: "If someone was going to f--- me on camera, I would get drunk too."

Sal says that most people shoot five hours of footage to make an 80-minute video. He shoots for 100 minutes to make an 80 minute video because he mainly edits in the camera. Soldano last shot in late April, Buttwoman 7 for Sunshine Films. A month before that he shot another edition of Sperm Bank, which features old ladies having sex.

Soldano's shot 40 movies for Factory aka Sunshine. His favorite was around 1993 - Laungerie Busters starring Teri Weigel. A 14-day shoot on a $250,000 budget shot and edited on 35 mm film.

Rob Spallone's on the phone to Berlin, Germany to talk to Dru Berrymore, who's working with Rob and a lawyer to get back into the United States to do porn. The small-breasted blonde who speaks perfect English now works in Europe.

"When I come back to the US, I'll be exclusive with you," Dru tells Rob over the speakerphone. "f--- Jim South and those other bastards."

Rob arranges for Dru to visit his brother who's in prison in Barcelona for drug smuggling. "Blow him," says Rob fellatiously.

The Spallones are trying to arrange for bro's release, or at least, regular furlough.

Rob prepares to drive to Palmdale to buy a Rottweiler puppy dog (whom he may call 'bimbo'). I look at pictures of Rob as a skinnier, longer-haired young man in New York with his favorite dog, a great Dane named Joey aka Bruiser after Joe Spallone. "You could've stuck your hand down his throat and pulled his tongue out and he wouldn't have bit you," boasts Rob. He tells me stories about the dog between booking a double penetration scene for Sunday.

Rob phones Kyle Stone. "Lots of acting. Pages of dialogue. I will get you a script tomorrow."

Rob and Joe smoke thick cigars which cost about $12 each.

"I've gained 25 pounds since March 29," says Rob, about the date he quit smoking. "Today is June 10th. By July 15th, I will lose 20 pounds [through smoking cigars]. And I don't do crack."

Luke: Anything new with you and Jim South?

Rob fellatiously: He wants to blow me and I told him he can't.

Sharon Mitchell is taking AIM…and getting out of Jim's office.

Rob's scheduled to shoot two black girls in a scene this afternoon. "Kitten and a brand new girl…"

Julie Rage performed her last sex scene a month ago for a threeway (with a guy and a girl) taped by Elegant Angel. After appearing in over 200 videos, she's retired, frightened by the latest HIV outbreak in the industry.

Julie spends her time stripping in clubs, assisting her pornographer husband Greg Steel, mothering their daughter (from a previous marriage) and preparing for her mainstream career.

Sharon Mitchell is a woman with a mission. Despite the flu, she's taking AIM (Adult Industry Medicine) at setting up a professional medical facility for the porn industry.

Stress from dealing with porn's 1998 HIV outbreak and industry politics knocked her into the hospital this past weekend though she looked strong and vibrant 6/10/98 when I chatted with her at the PAW office.

She wore a light summer dress covered with various patterns of the beach and ocean. We hugged.

She looked with horror at my broken hand, thinking like many other folks, that it had been broken by someone in the biz angry at what I had written. I assured her it had broken during a touch football game at a synagogue picnic.

A week ago, Bill Margold and Sharon gave me this PR leaflet:

"Under the umbrella of the Free Speech Coalition, we would like to introduce AIM. From its seed at the Protecting Adult Welfare Foundation, we have a new and innovative full service clinic to bring to the adult industry.

· Continued and extended hours of PCR-DNA testing and monitoring as the industry's testing clearinghouse.

· Certified counseling and aftercare for our HIV + participants.

· Drug and alcohol rehabilitation, placement and in-house counseling."

AIM falls under the MAXICARE/BLUECROSS insurance plans that the FSC makes available to performers.

"We're looking for a building," Mitch told me at 11:15 AM, 6/10/98. "We'll be a one-stop shop for the adult industry's health concerns. For example, one day I will have an gynecologist there. The next day, an internist. The next day, a seminar on plastic surgery. We'll give the talent the full benefit of their insurance. Or, we'll find out what they want. Peer counseling, psychotherapy… Parenting classes. Yoga. Whatever the community wants, we'll be able to provide.

"I have chosen at this time to not join up with any existing clinics. I have received offers… I am so tired of the politics. I was in the hospital this weekend…stress-related situation… I have had just about all the bashing, battering, microscopic investigation that I can handle. My intentions are good. My intentions are to help me. I am furthering my education as a counselor…towards a Masters Degree and a Ph.D. I want to provide like skills that I have learned. I care about the people in this industry. I want them to know about their choices. They don't have to just take what they've been handed. I will die trying… to provide a place…

"Moving out of this building [Jim South's World Modeling] will be beneficial for many different reasons and not beneficial for a lot of others. But it is a choice I am making. We do have a constant flow of people in here [PAW] due to the agency next door [World Modeling].

"I can't take the slings and arrows and politics anymore. I feel that if I go with another existing clinic that's affiliated with another agency [the North Hollywood clinic], it's going to cause trouble. So I'm looking for a different place. I've invited doctors from the other clinics to guest serve. And I'm getting a good response from other doctors, psycho-therapists and other health professionals."

Luke looks through some of the letters. A psycho-therapist writes that CCAR (California Center for Addiction Recovery) pledges their help to AIM.

Sharon: "We need drug and alcohol services here. We want everything."

Luke: "I go to counseling twice a week, and my counselor just said how much she'd love to run a support group for people in the porn industry."

Sharon: Get her to write or call me. God, that would be great.

At this time, no one is making me do anything. AIM springs from the need of the community. It needs to be separate from PAW. I have high hopes.

Loretta walks in. We all share a special moment.

Sharon gives me various materials, including a CONDOM-UNITY form whereby talent, directors, producers and photographers can sign themselves up to a pledge to only work with condoms. That way condom-only performers can identify each other.

Sharon is the "Outreach Director" and a counselor for the California Center For Addiction and Recovery at 18663 Ventura Boulevard, #201, in Tarzana, CA, 91356. 818-370-6692

PAW - 800-506-4999. PAW office is 818-501-6139.

I also picked up a newspaper for addicts from the PAW handout table, "Steps For Recovery," located at www.pronex.com… 818-905-7837

Then I walk outside into the sunshine to talk with Steve Austin, who recently moved on from World Modeling. "It was a conflict of interest," Steve says about his termination. The 12-year porn veteran refers to his work as talent and then as Jim's talent coordinator.

Steve: I have nothing bad to say about Jim and he has nothing bad to say about me. Jim is still my agent. I'm going to be doing a little bit of everything from now on - some directing, producing, performing...

Luke: What's a nice guy like you doing in this business?

Steve: I made a wrong turn on Victory Boulevard.

On Van Nuys Boulevard, Luke next introduces himself to tanned bodybuilder Colt Steele, who wears a long ponytail.

Colt: "I've been condoms only for three months. Work is slow. My income is 50% what it was. There are still people out there who are shooting without condoms.

"I'm clean and sober now so that helps. 70 days, almost three months.

"With five cases of HIV this year, I don't know why everyone isn't using condoms. We're role models. I was in Loughlin, Nevada. And these 12 and 13-year old kids were coming up to me: "You're Colt Steele." So you know they are watching. So, if we use condoms, maybe they will use condoms, and we might save some lives. But if they see us doing it without condoms… They don't know about our testing [HIV]…"

Luke asks Steve Austin about his condom policy:

Steve: Most of my scenes right now are oral scenes for Elegant Angel.

Luke, Colt and Steve share a giggle.

Steve: I'm totally for the all-condom thing…but right now I don't want to limit myself to condom-only scenes. I don't know any companies that do oral scenes with condoms.

Colt says that he does not use condoms for oral scenes. "You can catch stuff from a woman going down on you. If she has strep throat, she can give you gonorrhea. Or if you have a cut on your dick, and she has bleeding gums, you could catch HIV.

"…If you can't f--- with a condom on, then you should get the f--- out of the business," says Colt, echoing comments by Marc Wallice in February of 1997.

Luke: Some male performers use injections to get erect. Do you do that?

Colt: No, because that is an open wound. I can get wood. Especially being sober. When I was loaded, I had bad weeks. Guys who shoot up their dicks should f--- off.

Luke: Have you ever done a gay video?

Colt: No.

Luke: Have you ever done a transsexual video?

Colt: No.

Luke: Have you ever done a guy dressed as a girl, thinking it was a girl?

Colt: No.

Luke: Are you still with Patti Rhodes [wife number five of veteran pornographer Fred Lincoln]?

Colt: I was never with her. I lived at her house… It was a place to get loaded and hang. Now I'm clean and sober. I now have my own place and my own car. It's amazing what you can have when you're not spending your money on drugs and alcohol.

Luke: What's giving you the strength to stay clean and sober?

Colt: I used to do it for other people, so that the business could know that I was clean…and that BS. Now I am doing it for me. I just got tired of the stuff. Now I have a sponsor. I go to AA meetings. I talk to other people about it. I go to panels at hospitals…

"I've f---ed away too much of my life…sitting in those f---ing motel rooms doing drugs… Cocaine and Jack Daniels whisky. Or you just sit in your house and vegetate for days. You don't want to go out where people could see you.

"I've never used IV drugs. I just snorted. It's hard enough for me to take these blood tests. I can't even look. I turn my head away.

"Now I feel good. I've been working for Kelly Holland [Vivid], Michael Ninn [VCA]… All my scenes have been good. Bud Lee and Adam and Eve."

Bang. A yellow school bus "The Buckley School" on Van Nuys Boulevard runs into the back of a white BMW, heavily damaging the back.

***

I was talking Mafia again today with my friends in porn. Bobby G. was the main topic.

Notice how folks in porn and in the Mafia frequently refer to people by the first initial of their last name? Bobby G. for Bobby Gallagher. Eddie W. for Wedelstedt, owner of Goalie. Kenny G. for Guarino, owner of Metro and South Pointe Enterprises. Joe Spallone is a long time friend of Guarino's. Many folks in porn say the Spallone's are not people to be trifled with, thanks to their "connections...with family."

Anyway, Bobby Gallagher bought Milt Ingley's studio off Chandler in the Sherman Oaks area in L.A's San Fernando Valley.

A group of pornographers gathered around me today speculating about "Bobby G."

Where did he get the money to buy the studio? Gallagher has worked as a gaffer for years, not a high paying profession. To bring the place into conformance with the fire code cost $40,000. Consensus: Bobby has connections with the Mafia back East who bankroll him.

Sin City director James DiGiorgio: "Luke, first off, there's two Bobby G's in the biz. Gallagher and Bobby G (former) owner of Roxie Films. The latter being a guy who mostly works as a seller of product to European buyers (and who also has an Italian last name which oughta cause you to go sniffing for a Cosa Nostra connection). But as for the Bobby G you're speaking of, well, I gotta tell you, Bobby Gallagher is about as close to being a wise guy as you are to being a Chippendale's dancer. Did you ever consider that maybe Bobby G has a connection at his local bank and applied for a small business loan to bring the soundstageup to fire code? And by the way, being a gaffer is not always such a low-paying position, especially on mainstream shoots which *this* Bobby G has gaffed many of. I might also add that *this* Bobby G is one of the hardest working, most competent gaffers/lighting directors I've ever worked with. I'd also point out that running a small soundstage is often a 'loser' financially; not the kind of investment people who enjoy BIG returns on their money usually get into.

> Pornographers and mobsters speak a similar lingo. "XXX and I are> family," one guy said to me today. You become a 'made guy' in porno like> in the Mob. Eventually, after you prove your trustworthiness, you become> "one of the family." You're inducted into the inner circle and you> promise to never inform.

Many young people these days speak the rapper/gang-banger jargon usually associated with street gangs, but believe it or not, most of these young people aren't associated with a street gang.

> Most of my interviews are set up by other folks I interview, who then> vouch for me.

The word "vouch" is synonymous with the word "reference" (in this context).

If the word "reference" was used, you'd be not searching for a Godfather in the woodpile here.

You published a pretty lengthy interview you had with me. I don't remember discussing what you could or could not write about it (from your audio taped interview). If I didn't want something said, I'd have simply not said it and then whether or not you write about it would be a moot point.

> There's frequently talk in the porno about illegal schemes - ways to> avoid taxes, the government eye, obtain drugs, fake I.D.s, pirated video> tapes of mainstream productions like Titanic. A pornographer lent me a> bootlegged copy a couple of weeks ago... Porn is an industry of outlaws,> gangsters, pimps, actors and hookers.

This same "frequent talk" can be heard in almost any circle...probably even in the Jerry Fallwell camp. Bootlegged copies of films such as "Titanic" come from within the mainstream entertainment community, and are almost always copies of Academy screeners sent out before Oscar time to Academy members in hopes of garnering votes for Oscars. They are copies of copies of VHS screeners that, for the most part, are even of a lesser quality than the average porno duplicated VHS. my copy of Titanic---a film I personally thought sucked--looks like s---. But I'm thankful I saved the $8 I would have had to pay at the theater to sleep through it.

Brandy Alexandre says Luke F-rd doesn't know what he is talking about. "He [Luke] also tends to "embellish" his "interviews" to make them more entertaining. It's more fiction than fact. Next thing you know he'll be saying John Stagliano is a "made man" member of "da family" because he has an EYEtalian last name, too."

Marc: "Agreed, however have you ever seen Bob when he is comin' off a "bender" ?

Last time I was there he was throwin' knipshin' fits at everyone for just about anything that was goin' wrong with his life/studio.. In any case, he sure does seem to care a bunch more than Uncle Milty ever did. :)"

James DiGiorgio: "Bobby [Gallagher] deserves his benders...I'm reserving space for myself on his next one.

Speaking of uncle Milty [Ingley], he's the reason Bobby had to come up with so much bread to bring the stage up to fire codes. For one thing, instead of installing a fire sprinkler system in the place, milt merely screwed sprinkler heads into the plaster ceilings. Since those ceilings are about 25 or more feet up, no one got a really close look at them until the fire marshall--who never managed to discover this while milty was there (gee..wonder how that happened) suddenly decided to have a close look at them.... ...Another strange tale from the porno zone."

Marc: "Funny, I think I was there one time when the fire marshal came and discovered that..! Now that you mention it, I remember our gaffer attaching lights to the sprinkler pipes until I mentioned that it was a violation to do that. Guess it was hard to tell the difference between the lighting grid and the sprinkler lines :) Did you ever notice that the upstairs bathroom drains thru the ceiling downstairs ? Still cheaper than VCA's old place [Trach Tech]."

***

A doctor associated with the FSC supposedly told a performer who tested inconclusive for Hepatitus C to keep performing. The liver disorder can be transmitted through the exchange of bodily fluids such as semen. The disease struck Shyla Foxxx two years ago.

Rocco's American distributor Evil Angel totally denies recent assertions about new HIV positives in Europe. E.A.'s John Stagliano and Jeff Martin recently returned from Cannes. They look forward to the September release of the most expensive Rocco movie ever ($250,000) - Rocco Never Dies.

Blonde male Earl Slate remains the talk of the industry for many reasons including his performance in a "transsexual" video, for shooting up his penis to get hard...etc... Many female performers won't work with him. PAW's Bill Margold leads the charge in Earl's defense.

Earl used the name Zorro and performed with an eye mask and hat.