11:10 AM. Via telephone:
John Bone tells Luke F-rd: You are the single most evil man on the internet and I am about to make you more evil.
Is it true you converted to Judaism?
Luke: Yes, in 1992…
John Bone: I love you man.
Luke: I love you too.
John: Two years ago, I went into partnership with Charley Frey, a dance agent in Florida. We started Cream Entertainment. It ended about three weeks ago with him screaming down the telephone at me that he was going to send the Israeli Mafia around to smash my head in.
All of my contract girls were dancing for his dance agency. My girls are having unbelievable problems with him.
My call to you was prompted by Jasmine who called me in tears two days ago, from New York.
Charley Frey uses JasmineStClair@aol.com, jastclair@aol.com, as his email name… We've had incidents where he was abusing other porn stars in her name including Asia Carrera and Selena Steele…Now he has this whole web setup, with him and his wife Sandy every night pretending to be her.
They are trying to ruin the girls' dancing careers… He calls dance clubs slandering our girls.
I have Zoe sitting here.
I'm doing this for selfish reasons, not because I love you though I kinda do love you. Somebody has to love you. I want you to help me crucify these guys.
Cream Entertainment thinks Charley Frey is a moron.
A month ago, Jasmine and Zoe had enough of him. They weren't satisfied with the gigs and money he was getting them.
He called me in the middle of the nights screaming that we should f--- them over, take their faces off the boxes. We're going to ruin them.
I told him that he was not in the interest of Cream Entertainment to f--- over our primary contract girls. He went nuts, threatening physical violence to me, 'I want my f---ing money or you will have your face smashed in.'
"Two days later, I faxed him with details about setting up a repayment of his investment in Cream Entertainment. He did not answer. He then tried to withdraw money from the Cream bank account to him in Florida. The bank called me and I stopped that. He then froze the account so that a lot of people have not been paid. That business account is mainly my money that I lent the company, Cream."
Jasmine St Clair phones in from New York:
"His wife Sandy has been going on the internet using my name, sitting on the computer pretending to be me… It used to be all positive, now it is negative…
"A woman was writing profiles of girls in the industry. She emailed me, thinking it was me, and received a reply, 'how much are you going to pay me?' I would never do that, charge people for an interview.
"It was in the latest issue of AVN… 6/98. Selena Steele, called her an "over-the-hill porn star…" I would never do that. She's a great performer and a great dancer.
"Selena explained the whole conversation. It's all been coming from Charley Frey in Florida…
I don't own a computer. I'm cheap. I won't even spend $25 on food.
"Charley is telling club owners that he fired me because of drugs. He tells club owners that every time he fires a girl, that the girl used drugs.
"I lost a lot of weight because I work out and go the gym. I will take a hair follicle test or any drug test to prove that I do not do drugs.
"People have come up to me telling me stuff that I've emailed them, and I have not done that."
The Lee Network now oversees Jasmine's career.
"They treat the girls with respect. They don't call them "little whores."
"Charley is calling clubs like the Imperial Theater in Anaheim…saying bad things about me."
John: "I don't think Jasmine is being financially affected. She's a big star.
"The problem with Charley is that he won't go away. How do you deal with somebody like that?"
Jasmine: "He puts his energy into hurting people who want nothing to do with him."
John: "Most of the damaging stuff he is doing is internet related. You [Luke] are connected there… Please inform people, that when someone is saying, "f--- you, you're a piece of s---. Charley Frey is the greatest guy," it is Charley saying that…
"IEG is setting up some great web pages for Cream Entertainment including JasmineStClair.com."
Zoe tells Luke: "I am more financially hurt than Jasmine because I am a new girl. He's telling them that I suck, my costumes suck… And he's never seen my show.
"I get $325 a show. I do anywhere from three to four a day.
Charley is telling people that he's booked me for a $1000 a week. That's a lie. He's trying to ruin my career.
This has been going on for a month, since my lawyer sent a note withdrawing from our contract, because he breached the contract.
"We have lawyers working on this situation. It's hard to prove slander. A lot of girls are coming forward with stories about what he's done.
"I did a club in Florida, the Mirage in Miami Florida. Charley leases it, Charley Frey's All Nude Cabaret. He owed me $1750 for that. He cancelled seven bookings on me…"
Luke: I remember getting complains about things said by the JasStClair@aol.com email address. I remember emailing that address and was told, supposedly by Jasmine though I now realize that it was by Charley Frey or his wife Sandy or an employee, to not talk to Jasmine. But if I wanted to know anything about her career, to talk to Charley Frey.
Fan JTaylor268 remembers talking with Jasmine (though it turned out to be Charley Frey's group, say Jasmine and Bone) via AOL's Immediate Message system: "She said she liked art, so I sent her some pics of my work. She said she wanted me to buy her movies. I said I don't watch those kind and besides, I didn't even know her that well. She said she wasn't interested in a cheapskate who wouldn't support her. "I even apologized to her because I thought I hurt her feelings. I was such a fool. You should see the IMs she sent me swearing at me and calling me names.
"On the order form I got from P.J. Sparx's fan club, there was a place where you could order a 15 minute call from her. I would LOVE to order a call just so I could bitch her out for 15 minutes. Hey, she has to listen to me bitch for that long if I pay for it, right?"
1:15PM: Dance agent Charley Frey speaks from his cellular phone in Florida:
"From the inception [of Cream Entertainment] John Bowen has been writing bad checks from an account I'm responsible for… I'll fax you over the accounts. He's fairly notorious for doing that.
[John Bone has developed a reputation among some persons in the porn industry for writing bad checks. He's probably among the five most hated men in the industry along with Marc Wallice and yours truly, Luke F-rd. Funny thing, we're all Jewish.]
"The money has been mismanaged. The assets in the [Cream] account have been frozen. There's only a pittance left.
"The final straw was the Kendra Jade thing [videotaped seduction of Springer]… Jerry Springer Show was doing us a favor… They've given us a lot of good publicity. Jerry's a friend of mine. Final straw was John Bone intentionally and illegally luring the guy into this thing with Kendra and records it.
"If I wanted to make money any way I had to, including destroying people's lives, I'd sell drugs. This adult entertainment industry is supposed to be about consenting adults. The whole fight we have in this industry is that nobody is ever forced to anything… He [John T. Bone] takes the foundation of our industry and throws it all to hell…
"After that, I said, 'enough is enough.' He'll be receiving several lawsuits from me. He destroyed a company [Cream Entertainment]… You can forget about Jerry Springer or any other talk show do anything associated with John T. Bone.
"He's f---ing her all the time. He's enamored with Kendra Jade. From her first day in the business, he's been f---ing her.
"From her first day in Los Angeles, before she ever shot a scene, he said, 'everybody wait outside… OK, f--- me.' She's 3000 miles from home.
"I guess that stuff goes on in this industry. I'm a business person. I do stuff that is legal. Whenever an innocent has his personal life destroyed, I'm not about that. It's a moral issue. It's not acceptable.
"I am not about destroying someone's personal life [Jerry Springer]. Is it acceptable for me to videotape someone cheating on his wife? No.
"John T. Bone planted a poison pill between Jasmine and Zoe and I. I took her [Jasmine] from being nobody, an average overweight housegirl [stripper] in Manhattan with a big nose… I created Jasmine St. Clair, about the biggest star in the industry. Without me, she'd be a nobody. She's not paying her bills. She owes me several thousand dollars. She's bounced checks on a lot of people. She runs up bills in hotels…
"John T. Bone has Zoe convinced that she is a superstar… But every club I've had her at… You can call them. I will give you their numbers. But the clubs don't like her. I'm happy to be rid of her. The consumers don't like her attitude. She can't dance a lick. Every place that has had her has been disappointed. She has one movie on the stands. In our industry, you're not a star until the world knows you are a star.
"I stopped putting money in [to Cream] as of January 1998. I put in $100,000… I waited to get some out.
"Around that time, John realized that he was not going to get any more money to get his dick sucked… He started planting negative things about me.
"Jasmine is still legally bound to my company.
"Regarding the email thing, AVN covered that. I don't know anything about it. I had somebody working in my office who might've been playing around. I don't know Asia Carrera and I have nothing against Selena Steele.
"I've never heard of the Israeli Mafia. I have never threatened John Bone with physical violence. With civil liability, yes.
"I haven't been calling any clubs about Jasmine. I would not know if she's doing drugs. She may be breaching her contract… That's up to a judge to decide.
"BTW, Metro owns the World's Biggest Gangbang title. John Bone was their director.
"Metro's new contract girl Houston is going to do a real gangbang. Not just run 70 guys through. That's John T. Bone's deal. They just kept upping the numbers every half hour. That was a whole scam. A typical John Bone scam.
"Houston's going to do a real gangbang. The goal is 500 men. Houston has already shot her first movies for Metro including her first anal.
Luke: Where is Kenny Guarino these days? Is he still in the slammer?
Charley: "He's in Rhode Island. To the best of my knowledge, he's out of jail.
"Why don't you ask John Bone how many checks he's bounced on Cream Entertainment since its inception. Ask him about Harmony Grant, who he bounced another check on… She had the check for months. He hasn't paid Jasmine for months.
"Between you and me, he's a manipulator. He puts on the sweetness and light British accent. He says it himself, 'everybody trusts my accent.'
"You and I would talk and we would understand each other from the inflections because we're both Americans [Luke hails from Australia but his Aussie accent is much diminished to the point, at times, of not being noticeable]. We're able to understand what sounds credible and what isn't. By contrast, if you and I were speaking in a foreign language, it's hard… English is a foreign language to you and I. We speak American, which is a dialect of English. I speak several languages. If I speak to somebody in Spanish or German, I can't understand inflections well enough to understand if I am being told the truth. By the same routing, we can understand anyone who speaks English, but we may not be able to understand the inflections. People get taken in by him [John T. Bone].
"I read your site [l-keford.com] all the time. You're very interesting."
From the 6/98 AVN reports that some person is "using Jasmine St. Claire's name on the internet to stir up s---…
"…Frey said he wasn't aware of the Selena-Jasmin incident, but admitted that he had fired a woman in his office recently for doing drugs, who would, from time to time, send e-mails in St. Claire's name… "I apologize to Selelan if that makes her feel better," Frey said, "but, frankly, when was the last time she made a movie."
"…Frey's name made the news again when a fax-issuing tiff began between director John T. Bone and Bill Margold over some alleged "scumbag" remarks that Margold was supposed to have made about Frey…"
Margold: "I loathe the man [Frey] and I have every right…to warn someone against him."
Margold says Frey tried to sexually compromise Morgan Fairlane.
Frey: Of course Margold hates me. One of his girls [Fairlane] owes me money.
Frey denies making sexual overtures to Morgan.
In his fax, Bone wrote that Margold was supposed to have said that he Bone has sex "with all the girls in the industry," does not require HIV tests from the talent, uses AIDS-infected male talent "on a regular basis," and had sex with Tricia Devereaux.
"Bone's never denied his frivolity," says Margold. "While there are no saints in the sewer, this is insane. I never said those things."
Luke F-rd talks to John Bone at 3:30 PM, 6/19/98. Luke suspects there is hanky-panky going on.
Luke: Is it true that you are a fornicator?
Bone: Oh, I wish so. I don't why to deny any of these charges. I love the myth [of boinking all these porn girls]. I enjoy the notoriety.
The last contact I had with Charley Frey was when he called Cream's lawyer to make sure that he got 1/3 rd of the proceeds from the Kendra Jade tape. He wanted my lawyer to testify in open court that he, Charley, wsa entitled to 1/3 of the proceeds.
This pious lying sonofabitch most certainly wants to be sure to get his share of the proceeds.
I believe that he, Charley Frey, has a criminal record for selling drugs.
Charles Friedson is his real name.
Luke: Another Jewish boy.
John: Aren't they all nice Jewish boys?
A newspaper company owns the Kendra Jade - Jerry Springer tape.
"I am enamored of Kendra Jade. I have been f---ing her all the time. I do get off occasionally to go to the bathroom.
The first time I ever met her she was with her stepmother. And has been ever since.
Kendra recounts the night before his wedding, that Charley Frey forced her to give him a blowjob.
Unlike Charley, I do allow these girls to have minds of their own. They can speak for themselves.
Charley has been taking credit for the longest time for Jasmine's success. It is about time he woke up and realized that Jasmine is all about Jasmine. Her success is 70% hers. Charley and I have helped. She is a very self-motivated person.
Jasmine did write him a check six months ago that did bounce. She made good on that. Then, about two weeks ago, he redeposited that check, trying to get money out of her account. He altered the date on the check.
Zoe has already had three major write-ups in AVN, she is on the cover of this month's AVN. She is a shoe-in for the XRCO Best New Starlet of the Year.
Lee Network has five dancing gigs for her at the money she wants. Money that Charley said he could not get for her. This is the superstar of 1998.
Charley put in $35,000 to Cream, half of it from girls' commission. He told AVN $65,000. He told you $100,000. Where are the cancelled checks?
Charley has neither a company nor an agents license.
The email situation. He has been using Jasmine's name as an email address. What does he mean, 'AVN has covered it.' Luke F-rd is now f---ing covering it, and what he is doing is still f---ing wrong.
Make sure that you [Luke] get an invitation as press to watch this Metro gangbang. Let's see if this man can live up to his proud boast. He has never in his life organized a gangbang. For two years he has been claiming that anything I've ever done is to his credit. If he is successful, I will be the first take off my hat to him and eat it.
[John speaks in an elegant British accent.]
Houston has done five anals for me.
Harmony Grant holds a check on the account he put a freeze on. He just needs to call the bank to unfreeze the account. I spoke to Harmony twenty minutes ago, to tell her [the situation]…
I'd like to believe that I am a charming manipulator. I used to be, I'm getting old. The whole world is full of idiots waiting to be manipulated by an old f--- like me.
John begs off the phone for a minute. I hear a prominent Jewish pornographer screaming in the background… "I pay my bills… I don't like it…"
John comes back to the phone: "The check he gave me yesterday is no good. Don't write his name.
"Have you noticed that every time a woman has a complaint against Charley, he says they owe him money. Charley bounced a check on us."
Luke: Have you been bouncing a lot of checks over the years?
John: "No. Wouldn't you have heard about it? We've had some problems over the years like all businesses. But they've been few and far between."
6/18/98 Update
The Free Speech Coalition is taking its time finding a location for its new porn health clinic which will be run by Sharon Mitchell, who earns about $650 a week from the FSC. Mitchell feels the strain of all the industry politics combined with the inevitable regulations that come with setting up a clinic.
The FSC may need to get far more documentation and go through far more legal and political hurdles to achieve this clinic than the FSC initially expected. Meanwhile, the PAW/AIM clinic located in Jim South's building will surely run into legal challenges. The Health Department is investigating.
Performer Shawna Edwards has broken up with her boyfriend Gary (who's left the internet sex company XPICS) and returned to her ex-husband Joey, who, until recently, languished in jail. Gary, whose spent thousands of dollars on Shauna over the past two months, is contemplating suing her.
A fan of Shawna's, moby.d@usa.net, writes: "Last I saw Shawna, she was looking even better having had her right breast re-done. Unfortunately she has returned to Joseph Haverland aka Joey Edwards for some more abuse. Our fear is that the next time he will kill her. Must be some kind of disease to return to that kind of pain and suffering. She supposedly has taken a "normal" day job.
"Joey Edwards (Joseph Haverland) was arrested twice in the last four months for felony spousal abuse. There is a restraining order in place to stay away from Shawna....but reliable sources tell me they are seeing each other again..... Some people never learn."
John Bone has split from Charley Frey, his partner in Cream Entertainment. Frey books strippers out of Florida. Cream owes (for two weeks now) Herschel Savage $400 and many other people.
I watched one porn talent agent instruct Herschel to go over to John's office with a baseball bat and do some damage until he gets paid.
Recently HIV positive porn babe Kimberly Jade languishes in jail. She was pulled over for a traffic violation. The officer found that there was an outstanding warrant for her arrest.
She and her agent Rob Spallone plan to hit the talkshow circuit.
At 2:30 PM, 6/18/98, I, Luke F-rd, arrived at PAW (Protecting Adult Welfare - a division of the porn trade group THE FREE SPEECH COALITION) located next to Jim South's World Modeling at 4523 Van Nuys Blvd. The place was quiet. PAW assistant Loretta, who ran Larry Flynt's photo studio for four years, stood outside in the sun with Stephanie Rand (Rosenthal) who draws the blood in the PAW clinic.
I show Loretta a copy of a new book on porn - Pornocopia by Lawrence O'Toole. A pro-industry moderately interesting new book.
Stephanie asked me: Are you the Dennis Prager [Jewish theologian] fan?
Luke: Yes.
We talk about Dennis Prager and Judaism for 15 minutes. Steph's parents are holocaust survivors. Her father helped collect evidence for the Nuremburg Trials (where leading Nazis after World War II were prosecuted for crimes against humanity). Steph's parents were so traumatized by the Holocaust that, upon moving to America, they changed their name from Rosenthal to Rand.
"My dad was a great admirer of the Rand Corporation [a right of center think tank based in LA]."
Steph's older sister, her only sibling, is an Orthodox Jew who speaks fluent Hebrew.
Steph is now exploring her Jewish heritage. "My mother [who had a Jewish father but not a Jewish mother] feels guilt that she survived. My dad lived in Vienna. He escaped…One night the Nazis came knocking at his door. He was in bed with his brother sleeping. He saw the handle on the door move… He heard the Nazi officer calling headquarters to say that he had a truckload of Jews downstairs. My dad's escape was a miracle.
"He and his brother escaped to England. His mom went to Singapore and his dad somewhere else. He never saw or heard from them again. My dad worked for the British army. After he came to America, he got into plastics [a la THE GRADUATE].
"We weren't raised with any Judaism. We did not even hear the word God… Nothing. Then my sister, in her early 20s [1975-76], decided to go live (for six years) on a kibbutz in Israel. She studied and converted [because she was not born of a Jewish mother in the halakhic [Jewish law] sense].
"She hates it when I go over to her house. She always tells me, 'I don't want you to say anything about my conversion, or my first marriage…Or my nose job.
"I lived in the fast lane… I graduated high school in 1975. I got into the cocaine, quaaludes, clubs, Sunset Strip and the whole glamor thing. In the '80s, I became a Heroin addict."
Stephanie, a former Interior Designer, must've been a stunner as a young woman for she is still most attractive - a tall slim blonde with a great figure. At age 18 she was asked to become a Playboy centerfold. "You had to f--- Hugh Hefner at the time and I didn't want to be controlled. I could maybe do it now, their '40s issue.
"Sharon Mitchell is a good friend of mine."
Luke: Oh, you guys met in recovery [from drug addiction].
Steph: Yes. I've been working at PAW since March 9. I think it is great. I love doing this. I think the people are great. They are all nice. I am a people person. You need a certain kind of person to work here. Someone who is not judgemental. They are nice people."
It's almost 3PM, and Steph needs to run to pick up her daughter from a Jewish Day School. "To a Reform school. I found it through 12-step program. My recovery program coincides well with Judaism, and Catholicism for that matter. My daughter is a blonde shiksa looking girl. She speaks Hebrew. I was not brought up that way [in Judaism], so I have long been searching for some sort of spirituality. I think my kid should have that foundation. She can grow up to practice whatever she wants, as long as it is not satanic. I had to find out [about God and religion] through reading and talking to people…and listening to Dennis Prager on the radio. I agree with most everything he says.
Luke reads a sign outside the PAW offices: "AIM now offers the following: For $85 you can now get tested for Hepatitus A, B, C and STDs. 818-981-5681.
Veteran Joey Silvera, distributed by Evil Angel, wanders by to chat with Bill Margold. Silvera is greying, tanned and handsome with an amiable eccentric manner. He mentions that www.joeysilvera.com should be up soon, and he particularly wants beautiful women to email him. A company called Pixis will be doing his site as he is computer illiterate.
Luke: Is it true that John Leslie got many of his best ideas from you?
Joey smiles, a little taken aback. "We borrow from each other."
Luke: What else is going on with your career right now?
Joey: I've got a few of them [videos] out. I don't know…[ what my latest stuff is ]…
Bill: Joey has become the Salvador Dali [famous 20th Century painter] of X.
Joey says that John Leslie will soon be coming out with a new CD of his saxophone? music. It is being mixed now.
Luke, Joey and Bill wander into a porn shop next door to World Modeling. We look at a collection of classic tapes like Little French Maids, Taboo… Bill looks for tapes with him in it.
Bill picks up the tape JAMIE LOVES JEFF, starring Jamie Summers and Jeff Stryker.
Bill tells me: "There's a scene in here that is unparalleled. A lesbian scene between Jamie and Erica Boyer. Erica slams Jamie up against the window."
Luke to Joey: Are you going all condom?
Joey: I am, what do you call it, condom-optional. If a beautiful girl wants to wear a condom, that happens. I don't like to use condoms.
Bill picks up a classic. "I was cut out of that movie." Bill picks up LITTLE FRENCH MAID. "This was an interesting movie. I was the voice of John Holmes. Connie "the pig" Peterson. [The movie contains]…one of the first great anal-to-oral experiences, about a dozen times in this movie.
Luke: Wow, without cut?
Bill: Yes. A literally yuckable movie. Connie the Pig.
Bill picks up a video entitled A TRIBUTE TO THE KING [John Holmes]: Look at this. VCX. I wonder what this is.
Luke to Bill: The other night, I watched a movie with you in it. Marilyn and the Senator. You and Serena…
Bill: 1974. I was the Senator. Nina Fause, Diana St. Claire, Sharon Thorpe… Serena only did softcore at that time.
Luke: Who was that little blonde girl that was with us [in the PAW office] upstairs?
Bill: She's been in the business, and is now coming back with her boyfriend. They are only going to work together. Allison Chains. Joey's done her.
Joey looks around for an Evil Angel section but can't find one. Rocco Meats Kelly is the only Evil Angel tape he can find.
Bill: All the tapes these days are compilations. We should be fighting back with quality. With titles like, Truman Shows It All or Sucking Ryan's Privates.
Joey: You are going to be surprised, but I didn't like The Truman Show [mainstream film].
Bill: You didn't think Ed Harris was magnificent.
Joey: He was great, and everyone was great. They've got more talent than I could ever dream of, but it was predictable. I knew everything that was going to happen.
Bill: Then don't see the X-Files movie.
Joey: I am going to see THE OPPOSITE OF SEX. And that lesbian heroin movie.
Bill: What lesbian movie? High Art with Ally Sheedy? How do you know that is about heroin?
Joey: Wasn't she doing drugs?
Bill: How do you know it's heroin?
Joey: I think Sheedy's on heroin.
Bill: Why would you want to believe that?
Joey: It makes me want to go see the movie.
Bill: My review of THE TRUMAN SHOW just came out [in the LA Xpress. Bill writes mainstream movie reviews.]
I did not find THE TRUMAN SHOW predictable. I was kept on the edge of my seat.
Joey: I saw the documentary on Woody Allen. It was good. He was all over Europe.
Bill spots a compilation tape boasting 69 stars in four hours called Star 69. "That looks like something Carriere would put out. A sexual smorgasboard. The company is WAVE. That is Vivid."
Bill takes out the box inside. It looks like an egg crate. "Very suspicious," Bill says.
We all wander outside. Joey stares at me. "You look a little bit like Kris Kramski at Sin City… And Don Mattingly."
We're standing on Van Nuys Blvd below Jim South's office. It's about 85 degrees and we're sweating lightly. Luke, 6' tall and 160 pounds, wears white jeans and a blue-grey striped T-shirt. Luke carries his little black $20 Sony tape recorder.
Luke: When I was at UCLA, various people thought I looked like Troy Aikman.
Margold snorts.
Luke: You don't see the resemblance, Bill?
Bil: No.
Luke: The way I'm built.
Bill goes up to his PAW office. I schmooze with Joey Silvera for half an hour before he drives off to edit some of his tapes.
Joey returned a month ago from Budapest, Hungary where he shot over two weeks eight scenes with numerous beautiful girls.
Joey: I have not gone to the Czech Republic yet.
Oh man, the girls there… Things happen there. Here, it takes forever to find a new girl and book a scene.
Luke: Do you use condoms on your own dick for a scene?
Joey: No, unless the girl wants it. If she's good, and she wants a condom, what am I going to tell her?
Luke: Do you think condom use will hurt sales?
Joey says the phrase "I don't know" four times in a row and about 200 times in our conversation.
Joey: "I'm surprised that people buy these things [porn videos]. My new stuff is different.
Luke: You're always coming out with a twist.
Joey: It's been out three weeks. I did a couples tape. For couples. Hardcore. For girls to watch.
Joey stares at girls walking by.
Joey says he doesn't watch much porno. "I watch the Spanish station when I want to see girls. You've seen them. They're incredible. They have some dance shows on the weekend. Every Saturday night, Salvador Gigante. Ever seen that?
Luke doesn't watch TV. Luke is an elitist who generally looks down on popular culture, TV, radio, popular music and the like. Luke prefers Judaism, Talmud study, classical music, and the pursuit of virtue, depth and integrity (which still eludes him).
Joey: Tell your readers, the cute girls, particularly the ones in Brazil, to email me at www.joeysilvera.com. Make sure they are really girls though.
Luke: You don't want to mess with any of those South American transsexuals.
Joey: It depends… Email me, man. (3x)
I tried that in Italy and did not get one response.
I've been on the web once or twice but I am not knowledgeable. I goofed around with Patrick Collins once. He was into it, man. He started talking right away to this girl. Then another girl. Then we're thinking, 'Is this really a girl?' Perhaps this is a guy living out a fantasy, which is all good too, man. Yeah man. I think this internet is incredible. Downloading pictures and s---, man. It's too bad the quality is not that great. You get a video, frames and stuff…
Luke: It's slow.
Joey says I remind him of Ken Cotton, a San Francisco sex performer in the '70s.
Jim South walks out the door with TT Boy. TT shows Jim his brand new Grand Cherokee.
Luke to Joey: That's a hardworking young man.
Joey: He's the real thing, man. The real thing.
Joey to Jim: You've got to get that blonde to do something?
Jim: Who?
Joey: The blonde. The unbelievable blonde.
Jim: Everybody's talking to her…
Joey asks Jim to get him a gorgeous small-breasted blonde that came into Jim's office earlier this afternoon only interested in magazine work. No hardcore video.
TT Boy and Joey agree that they will put up several thousand dollars between them for her, if she will do a scene for each of their videos.
Jim says he will relay the offer (Joey asked me to not disclose the exact amount). TT Boy told Jim that he would pay him a bigger agent fee if he could get the girl. Jim refuses, says he only wants his $65.
Out of deference to the porn superstars around me (TT Boy, Joey and Jim), I shut off my tape recorder and only relay here the comments of theirs that I don't think they would object to my publicizing.
Jim South relates that Raymond Pistol of Arrow productions is willing to pay $100,000 for a contract girl skilled at deepthroating.
Joey tells Luke to tell girls who want to work in porno to email Joey. "Tens… Tell me how much they think they should make and we'll take it from there. Rather than me offering them. I like to hear what they think. I've had girls say, 'I want $100,000.' They think that's normal. I have to say, 'oh sorry…' They think I make a million dollars per tape.
Luke: It's rare for a girl to earn over $1200.
Joey: Yeah, sometimes though it's well worth it.
I haven't paid that much yet. I wish that I had, paid someone $2500 who looks like this girl.
Luke: Do you shoot many scenes that you don't use?
Joey: Yeah. I had series called Fashion Sluts which went up to eight editions. I am going to start editing number nine. Old scenes I haven't used. When I started looking at the girls, I thought, 'I have to put this in my series.' Fashion Sluts is sold through Evil Angel (All Blue Shirts) but does not have the Evil Angel logo. Because it was first sold through Rosebud.
One will be Sabrina, the English girl who is popular. But all the rest, you won't know these girls unless you are a total conoisseur. They've done only a few other tapes. Some only worked for me. Never worked again.
Luke: Do you shoot much stuff that you can never use because the guy or girl doesn't perform?
Joey: There were a couple of scenes I can't use. I've been lucky with guys [they perform].
Luke: You seem to get a lot of new girls. You seem well connected with Jim South.
Joey: Yeah, you go through Jim, or Florida…
Luke: Charley Frey?
Joey: I haven't talked to him for a while but he's had some unbelievable girls. Tell him to call me. I don't know these guys [talent agents] that well. Once you start shooting, you become less successful [at getting new girls] than when you were a performer. When you're a performer, you never know who you are going to run into. You meet people on the set. But when you're a shooter, you become a hermit. You don't know what's going on. You're in your own world.
But people call me. I check around. Outcast had some asian girls. It's hard work finding these girls. I love Asian girls. Latin girls. The ones you see walking home from school and s---, you know what I mean? College. You cannot get them into porno, man. The ones that wear the big pants, that show their stomach, and the shorts with the white socks. I love latin women. Yeah man, Fashion Sluts #9. People will definitely get off on these new girls.
Luke: What's the HIV situation like in Europe?
Joey: So far, nobody's turned up positive, that I know of. They responded to it like here. They have the condoms optional thing there too. They are getting tested like crazy with the PCR/DNA. I can't speak for any other place, but Budapest is a very serious place. They all went to condoms for a month or two when the problems [the US HIV positives] came out. There are some tremendous guys [great sex performers] over there.
Luke: What volume are you on now in your Butt Row series?
Joey: There aren't really volumes now, but there are 14 of them. But I never wrote numbers on them. I did it with Fashion Sluts, but I got so tired of counting, you know. I can count pretty high, but it was hard remembering the numbers…after seven… So I said, I never again want to go above eight.
Luke: Do you ever have problems getting wood?
Joey: No, man, no. I work so seldom that I have no trouble at all. The right girl. No. I've had my days [when Joey had trouble getting wood]. But not since I've been shooting my own stuff. It's a whole different ball game. When you're there, and your girl is there, and you camera guy… I don't think anybody would have trouble getting wood, if you hire the girl you want to work with… Towards the end of my performing days, it got repetitious.
Luke: So Jim's going to call that blonde girl?
Joey: Yeah, he'll do it real slow because he's good at that.
It's amazing that you [Luke F-rd] didn't go on hardcopy with the HIV story. But maybe it isn't amazing because nobody really cares [what happens to porno people].
Luke: It's a business of outcasts.
Joey: You have to be, man.
Luke: And if people want to kill themselves, this is the place to come.
Joey: Yeah, yeah. That's why Bill developed his PAW thing. To stop people from killing themselves. That era, the cocaine era, is basically done. Shauna Grant and Megan Leigh [did cocaine]. Their minds were diluted with that stuff. The girls now, I don't know what they're doing. I don't know what the drug of choice is.
Luke: Do you do drugs?
Joey laughs: Everybody knows I smoke.
Luke: You couldn't perform if you did harder stuff.
Joey: I wouldn't even think about it [performing]. Do I get stoned when I work? No. I feel stoned when I'm doing it. I'm 46 years old working with an 18-year old girl, man. That's pretty intense, man. Think about that. And the girl probably likes it. Anyone can find an 18-year old hooker… But to find an 18-year that you can kiss and be with, that's the biggest high.
Luke: You still love your work.
Joey looking around at different girls. "Yeah."
Luke: People were probably doing drugs to get this latest HIV.
Joey: I've heard that, man. I can tell you 100% that there is zero evidence [of what caused the HIV outbreak]. I sound like Tommy Lasorda now. [Tommy was a big porno fan known to many people in the industry for inviting porn stars to the Dodgers lockerroom and socializing with them…]
This HIV thing came, it had a huge impact, and I don't know if anybody [in the mainstream media] cares.
I don't think there is any proof about who infected who. Nobody has been put under a lie detector. There's been no investigation at all.
Luke: Tricia Devereaux and Brooke Ashley were thought to use drugs.
Joey: Was it ever substantiated? It's all, she said, he said… They [the five performers who tested HIV positive in 1998] have all said that they didn't know where they got it.
Luke: There's been a lot of talk about Marc being patient zero.
Joey: Well, he hasn't made a statement either. It's all good for the internet, right? That's all it's good for. Nobody has said a word.
Luke: It's good for the internet in the sense that people are concerned and want to know what happened. And people in the industry want to know what happened, so they go to the internet.
People in the industry, over a week before Marc tested HIV positive through PAW, were telling me that they were concerned that Marc was HIV positive. On March 22nd, I put it on the internet, and about a week later Patrick Collins, from Europe, made him come in and get a PCR/DNA test.
Joey: "Made him? How could he do that?"
Luke: Patrick Collins is Marc's boss.
Joey: I was there. I was with Patrick in Budapest [when Pat told Marc Wallice to get a PCR/DNA test]. Marc was going to come in anyway. He didn't want to face it but he was definitely coming in. It was just a long road in. He took a few detours on the way, but he was coming in. I think Bill [Margold] had a big deal to do with him coming in. Patrick was huge too. Pat was strong [with Marc]. I wish that Marc would say something.
Luke: He's been taking his AIDS tests at a funny little clinic that nobody has heard of. And he won't release his previous tests. We know that he has faked his tests before.
Joey: We don't know.
Luke: We do know. VCA and Russ Hampshire caught him.
Joey: Yeah, I know a little bit about that.
Luke: He admits he faked them. That he did it to save money. He told me.
Joey: You talked to him?
Luke: Yeah.
Joey: Well, it all leaves a big suspicion. The clinic can't say anything.
Luke: He may well have been the person who gave it to the other girls.
[Luke is struck how the dialogue on RAME increasingly mirrors the dialogue of the porn industry.]
When you test the girls, and try to see when they were infected, with the exception of Kimberly Jade, it all traces back to when they worked with Marc. And while everyone else that could've infected them had tested PCR/DNA HIV negative, Marc had not taken that test yet… So people were talking about Marc. So if I had to bet money, the odds are that it was probably Marc who infected the girls.
Joey: Yeah, yeah. But you know, we don't know. Until somebody does a legitimate medical study on it, which I thought they were going to do, but they haven't.
Luke: Maybe they have. There is a big report coming out on this thing next week.
Joey: Oh, so they are the ones who took all the blood samples and crossed them.
Luke: I don't know.
Joey: I heard that there was a way that you could cross-sample blood… And they only had the last three girls [Kimberly Jade, Caroline and Brook?]… They don't have the old people [those who tested HIV positive prior to 4/98]? Is that what they are going to do? Test everybody and see what they can make of it? Luke: Yeah.
Joey: I heard they didn't do it.
Luke: I know that there has been an investigation, and that there will be a government report next week. I don't know how they did the investigation or what blood tests…
That's why all the big guys want to go condom-only. They fear getting sued, government investigations, crackdown, shutdown…
Joey: Are the girls complaining yet?
Luke: I don't know.
Joey: It doesn't look like that.
Luke: The girls, generally, aren't talking to the media.
Joey: That's amazing. Probably smart of them not to. If someone is taking care of what is going on.
Luke: Someone is probably taking care of them financially.
Luke makes a sign with his fingers, wondering if people have been paid off. Joey shakes his head.
Joey: "I don't think so. Nah, I think… I don't know what they're thinking.
"They're [the production companies] are not going to have a choice once the Health Department takes an opinion on things. It's going to get serious. You know something? You're the first person to tell me that [about the forthcoming Health Department report].
Luke: Well, no one else knows except for a handful. I've just hinted about it on the internet.
Joey: How did they [the CA Health Department] get a hold of all this [information]? They [the porn industry] had to cooperate. The people upstairs [PAW and World Modeling]…
Luke: Jim knows a lot, but I don't know how much he knows about this. He's getting a lot of investigation. He's in a lot of trouble. All the people that tested positive this year, except for Kimberly, are represented by Jim. For what that's worth…
Joey: There's never been a law that a performer has to take an AIDS test. Maybe that will be the new standard. The Health Department says that as of this month, you legally have to take a test… Which will mean that people's can't just go get a test at PAW unless they get certified.
I can't picture Jim and them getting into legal trouble for this. I can't picture that argument holding up in court. It'd be difficult to get the producers into trouble for a certain guy faking his tests because there is no law that people have to take tests.
Luke: What if the girls simply showed that some shooters acted with reckless disregard for her health? I'm not a lawyer.
Joey: I don't think it will hold up.
Luke: Well, the big boys are worried. They went condoms-only because they care about their bottom line.
Joey: Yeah man, it's a pretty bizarre thing.
IDs are required but not tests. Now we'll probably have to put a disclaimer on our videos that everyone has been tested.
Luke: Or on the models release.
Joey: Yeah, the release saying that they… Yeah. That will be very interesting.
Luke: Yeah, Monday. The same day that the Free Speech Coalition goes to Sacramento for a big lobbying gig. It could turn into a huge disaster for them.
Joey: It doesn't sound too good, does it?
I'm not political. I have no stand.
I have to take off.
Tell Bill Margold something: That you look like Ken Cotton aka Ken Scudder.
You look like Kris Kramski here [points to the jawline], Ken Cotton here [the eyes] and Don Mattingly [the cheeks]. That's a compliment. You're 40-50 times better looking than Ken Cotton, but you look a bit like him around the eyes.
It's amazing. I haven't seen anybody in a long time who looks like you. You just remind me of a lot of people. I bet people say that to you all the time. People walk up to you…
Luke: You know who I look like a bit? I look like you.
Joey: Me? You look better than me.
Luke: You are how I am going to look at age 46.
Joey: I hope not, for your sake.
Luke: See you later.
Luke is overwhelmed. Luke goes up the stairs to the PAW office to talk to Papa Bill Margold.
Luke: Why do you call Joey the Salvador Dali of porn?
Bill: Joey's eccentric. His images are complex, a combination of shadows and lights. He's a good man. I've known him since 1985. He was in New York then San Francisco. He'd come down to work here. I'd pick him up at the airport and he stayed at my place.
[Bill speaks quietly as he reminisces. Luke and Bill, recognizing a lot of themselves in the other person, feel comfortable together.]
Joey spent some time with Brandy Alexandre in the kitchen one night. I don't know if he ever worked with her or even dated her.
He told me afterwards that he had been "drilling her skull," which I found rather interesting.
I remember that Viper and I were rolling around on the living room of our apartment house while Joey was in the kitchen with Brandy. I remember saying, "Maybe we should go in there and help her." Viper said, "She can take care of herself."
Then Joey came out and said, "I was drilling her skull."
Bill and Luke chuckle.
Bill: "Maybe that it was turned her into the internet enigma that she is. She's queen of the net. Brandy reigns supreme there, or at least did until you [Luke] came along [1/97]. I think, in a strange way, you stole a lot of her thunder. She was controlling the destiny of the industry until you showed up and took away a lot of her clout. Maybe that's the reason she doesn't like you.
Luke: Maybe.
Bill: You threatened her throne. More power to her. It's not something I want any part of. I look at the internet when I have to. Somehow you got involved in the Randy DeTroit, Regan Senter, Reb Sawitz thing. That's a minor nightmare. Then you dug up that ten year old article on Reb being charged… Why did you do that? What reason? Unless they are convicted for something. Anybody can be arrested for anything in this society. Trumped up charges.
Luke: I want to find that Lloyd Martin guy, the former [LAPD] terror who supposedly owns an adult store in Lancaster.
Bill: If you can find him, I'll be happy to put him on one of the panels at the World Conference of Pornography. The Real Boogie Nights. As one of the persons who persecuted us, perhaps he can tell us why he did that? What his motivation was aside from zealotry. I don't think he'll say, 'I was just doing my job.' They needed some form of driven motif to try to eradicate a letter in the alphabet [X]…
We had no idea of how to fight back. The vice cops were bullies. We thought we could hide behind the first amendment… Then the Freeman decision in 1989 gave legitimacy to this industry. The administrative vice cops basically lost their teeth at that time. It is too late to legally stem the tide [of porn]. Maybe we'll stem our own tide. I've always said that we're our own worst enemies.
It's going to take a while for AIM… AIM may have decided to run before it crawled.
[Later, in the background, I hear poor Sharon Mitchell in the room next door bewailing the bureaucracy and politics she has to deal with to set up AIM - Adult Industry Medicine. She's under great stress.]
I think Spallone's braggodocio about how he is going to help AIM set up their clinic… When you are the man, you don't have to tell everybody. Now, the rumor is that he is going to lower his PCR/DNA price even more [at the North Hollywood clinic]. My response: 'You get what you pay for.' We acquiesced and cut down to $85. There is no reason for us to go lower. We're the Rolls Royce because we give added care. Here, you get more than a blood test. You get people who've lived in the trench [Bill and Sharon and company]. People who can empathize and sympathize and console better…
You can't just open up a garage. If AIM is going to do it, let them do it right. If AIM has to leave here, a graceful parting period, easing the kids from one place to another is a lot less disruptive to their souls.
Sharon Mitchell walks in. At my psycho-therapy session this morning, my therapist Donna B. (an Orthodox Jew) thanked me for setting her up with Sharon Mitchell. Donna watched the tape I lent her, Sharon and Nina [Hartley] Tell It All. Sharon and Donna had a good talk. Donna runs a support group for people with chronic pain, and another for people with terminal illness. Maybe soon she'll start a support group for victims of Luke-journalism.
Mitchell walked into the room where I was talking with Bill Margold. Sharon thanked me for setting her up with Donna.
Bill: Trying to force a place would be a breach birth. Summer in X is slower because of the San Fernando Valley heat. With two conventions, the VSDA and the World Conference on Pornography… It's going to be September before we know it… Then they'll [AIM] find a place. There's funding, legalistics involved in setting up a business. Even the word 'business' is loathsome to me.
I've been much maligned for saying that PAW is the soul and AIM is the heart of the adult industry, but that is the way it is. Whether the internet likes it or not.
Luke: Donna Maestro has been going on there and doing well for herself.
Bill: She's a good kid. She wants to be a journalist. She was attacked immediately for being a spin doctor for [Free Speech Coalition]. You spin what you see. If we give you strands of honest truth, and you spin a web of truth, rather than of deceit, then these people who thrive on webs of deceit will strangle in their own deceit. What web do they want to climb into?
You are now the Matt Drudge [of internet porn]. I saw an ad in the LA TIMES that he now has his own talkshow. You would find the truth anyway, so why not just give it to you to play with. Eventually you may find out that you are accused of being a spin doctor for us as well. You can only miscontrue the facts so much before you end up construing them properly.
[Luke is overwhelmed by the compliment.]
Luke: I just record what you say and type it up.
Bill: Yes, you sometimes spell things wrong or get the dates wrong and a few other problems. You are the Ivory Soap reporter, 99.44% pure.
We're having a benign fundraising event Sunday night for industry only. You are industry so you are invited. It is to call attention to the health care plan available for anyone who joins the Free Speech Coalition.
[Luke is honored to now be considered a member of the industry. Luke figures on the PAW fax list of about 20 industry entities who receive regular faxes.]
We are the family of X. I know people make fun of that too. I'm not exactly sure what the people on the internet want except hatred. It's very sad.
Someone wrote, 'what is Margold going to do? Break our legs.' You can't break legs on the internet. But you can erase. Cyberspace is erasable. There are ways of getting into cyber-situations where people can be erased. At what temperature does air burn? If they make it hot enough, they will go up in their own smoke.
It will be interesting where all this goes. I haven't gone on in a couple of days. People have said that you've been up to things lately…
Bust redhead Ruby walks in. "I'm going to be a dancer with Chloe [at an industry fundraiser]…"
Bill gives me a 1996-97 PAW calender so that Ruby can autograph for me her picture. She does with grace.
Ruby wants to lose ten pounds. She's a featured stripper at Bob's Classy Lady in Van Nuys.
Luke: Are you the one that has those intense orgasms?
Ruby with a giggle: That would be me.
Around 4:20 PM, Regan Senter called Bill Margold to complain about discrimination from VCA/Vivid/Wicked Video. Regan supposedly had just talked to Jane Hamilton aka Veronica Hart at VCA who supposedly told him, "I don't think we'll be using you anymore."
VCA, Vivid and about eight other companies now require the use of condoms in their shoots. Condom-only performers and companies want to only work with others who are condom only.
Regan: "I am concerned that they won't hire my talent, on the level of, say, An Arab who would not buy Israeli goods."
Bill: I think you are suffering from paranoia. If you have an A or B grade girl, I don't think a company will cut off its economical nose to spite its moralistic face.
I thought you were going to come by to pick up some materials.
Regan: I couldn't. It got too busy here. Could you fax to me?
Bill: I would be happy to fax the current talent and company list [that are "condom positive"] to you.
Luke: What was that about?
Bill: I don't know. At times, Regan suffers from minimal paranoia. He tends to be the third man on a two rung ladder [two rungs being World Modeling and Pretty Girl] and hangs on desperately. I don't know what Star World does. They don't have the industriousness of someone like Regan.
The man is the hardest working "job getter" in the business. He spends 25 hours a day in his car. He just wants to make money for his kids. As loathsome as he may appear to some in the industry, Regan serves a purpose. Who are we to judge? There are no saints in the sewer. We've all stuck our finger in the pie. It just varies how much of the crust we've come away with.
Luke: Do you have a list of companies that mandate condoms?
Bill: I am not a fan of the term mandatory. I did not come into this business to do anything mandatory except to check the age of people to make sure they are over 18, and don't have four feet and a tail. Anything else between adults is fair. I believe in the word 'optional' and freedom of choice. I think common sense, or condom-sense, prevails when it comes to anal sex. Condoms are called for there. Other mainstream companies, the Vivids, VCAs and Wickeds, cringe at the term 'mandatory.' None of them came into the business to tell people what to do.
These companies are asking for 'condoms-only.' With no cum shot, you come in the rubber. When you have sex with your partner, do you pull out, pull off your rubber and come in her face.
[Luke has sex once a week with a nice Jewish girl, usually on the Sabbath. Luke leaves his condom on all the way through intercourse to his surging pounding orgasm that floods his condom with little lukies as he penetrates to the utter depths of her furry fun zone. Luke has no children that he knows of, certainly no non-Asian kids. I've never knocked up anyone. Luke's solitary sex life has been much more awkward since he broke his left wrist (as a righty I usually prefer to stroke with the left) playing football. That's my story and I'm sticking to it.]
I ended some interview recently; asked what is the best way to not transmit disease, I answered 'celibacy.' Unless you break your wrist jacking off. Which people will think that you did.
You write about yourself in this strange, almost a fourth person voice. You write about Luke coming up here with chocolate… You write from outside yourself. You will now be known as the person who broke his wrist, not on the football field, but in private…
Luke chuckles and shifts awkwardly in his chair, nursing his broken arm: "Too much arduous research."
Bill: The best research is done with one hand on your dick and one hand on your typewriter. Damiano once said that he edited film with one hand on his dick and one hand on the editing machine.
When I wrote much of my jackoff journalism, that is exactly what I did. If it couldn't get me off, it wasn't going to get anyone else off. Much of the stuff that you read in my scrap book was written with one hand on my dick. Good hardcore writing for its time.[No wonder the pages stick together.]
I've outgrown that. I don't think our industry, or mainstream Hollywood, knows how to create erotic terror any more. Instead of doing something remotely subtle, they blow you up.
I'm not sure I want to make another movie.
Ruby returns.
Bill: How come your hair isn't as red as it was.
Ruby: My natural color is brown and I want to return to my natural color.
Jim South Jr pops in to talk to Ruby.
Bill says he still has 600 PAW calendars left.
Ruby talks about her beautiful wig. She wants to lose ten pounds. She's on a health kick. She's quitting cigarettes.
Bill tells her that PAW recommends a trainer named Thomas, the iron guru. "Not an ounce of fat on his body. The woman who takes the blood here, Stephanie, works out with him regularly. Mitchell. Alyssa Allure."
Ruby leaves and Bill and I resume talking about Regan Senter.
Bill: If girls come to him and say they want to work with condoms, he will send them to one of those companies. Regan has some A and B girls. They are not all Ds just because they associate with Regan. I have never painted this man as vile as many others think he is.
Back in the early days we got away with a lot more. I think the agencies now envy Regan because he follows no rules. I envy that he can do what he wants to do. Reb and South have family and overhead.
I went to his apartment once, a gloomy place in Santa Monica. I watched how he handled the people… Even though he looks disheveled and seems incompetent, there was a sense of care about the people he had there. One was bouncing off the walls, and he was concerned about her, trying to calm her down. If he was evil as people say, he would've sunk a long time ago.
Phil Berman calls.
Bill: "I'm here till they pick up the blood. I have no place to go. I have no movie to go to. I'd as soon stay in here. There is no game on tonight. There is nothing to go home to. I don't want to eat hot food tonight. What's up, kid?"
Bill to Luke: I talked to Laurie Holmes. I haven't yet seen her new book on John, THE PORN KING. She's going to serve on my panel on the real Boogie Nights. I'm going to see her in Las Vegas at the VSDA. I will help her promote the book any way I can.
I introduced Laurie to John during the making of the movie Marathon in the December of 1982. Her statement: 'I can't wait to get that man up my ass.' She did.
I was stuck in a hospital bed in the second half of the movie. Laurie and John have sex on top of me and Drea.
This was after John had gotten out of jail. He showed me his legs which were full of pencil marks. He said that he'd been stabbed a lot with pencils while in jail.
Luke inserts a new tape, erasing over a two year old interview with Jeremy Steele. "I remember him telling me that you don't need to pay taxes," Bill says.
Bill: I directed Laurie and John in California Valley Girls. Harold Freeman got the directing credit.
Laurie was part of the hole-in-the-wall gang which lived on the second floor of 6912 Hollywood Boulevard. Photographer Sam Menning, who moved in in 1973, ran the [porn] studio with a whole bunch of faceless nameless men and Laurie.
Ed Nash owned the building. On the first floor he operated the Polynesian style nightclub THE SEVEN SEAS.
They were known as the hole in the wall gang because they had taken one office on the second floor, then, as they expanded, they simply knocked down walls. They began by knocking holes in the walls, then kept going through. They kept all these animals. There was an earthquake. Place fell into a state of disrepair by 1985.
One animal fell into a hole and splattered all over the ground. There were dogs like Caesar, a blind poodle, and Katie, a Schnauzer. I adopted a cat Smack, and a dog, unbelievably unattractive, who went with me to the premier of a mainstream film, Wan Ton Ton - The Dog Who Saved Hollywood. Sally Kellerman, who played Hot Lips on Mash TV series, borrowed the dog to take on the Merv Griffin show. In the Spring of 1976, after we got busted, we took the dog to Sacramento to march for freedom of expression. We pinned pickets on the dog…
Mark Kernes phones in. Because Mark is my buddy, I won't reveal the scandalous things he said.
Sam Menning works as an extra these days in mainstream Hollywood. A fascinating man, never without a beer, a cigarette and a story to tell. He was one of my patriarchs. He always allowed me to work in various scenes. Many of the magazines took to covering me up, using parts of my body.
Laurie lived in one of the rooms around 1981. She was everybody's adopted sister. Everybody knew everybody and took care of each other. Never a dull moment.
Reb gave me his office in March of 1973. And until it went to the San Fernando Valley in March of 1982, I ran it. Then Drea said, I want to go to the valley. I said I didn't want to go to the valley. I warned Reb, why are you going within walking distance of Jim South when we controlled the other side of the mountain. She took it to the valley, on Ventura Blvd.
Reb was down here on Ventura from 1982-84, then from '85-90? on Woodman and Sherman Way. Viper went to Reb and he couldn't get her any work, so she went to South. South saw value in her and got her work. I began to direct many movies in 1989.
I made movies with Drea but she got all the credit. I didn't mind. Mark Weis and I wrote many movies for her. Hart Williams wrote some good scripts.
Luke: What happened between John, Laurie and Bill Amerson and the theft of $200,000?
Bill: I don't know anything about that. I don't think it is good to do business with friends. Many people talk about money that never existed. Reminds me of the movie Beaugeste.
Mark Weis is the closest thing I've ever had to a brother in my life. I set him up with photographer Justice Howard in 1987? Marc died of liver cancer.
Mark was a genuinely talented remarkably good person who I met in the March of 1982. He carried a load of scripts. He said, 'I'd like to write for this industry.' I had Detroit Lions memorabilia on the wall and he said,
I'm a Packer fan.' So I adopted him.
Mark was too good for this business. I sensed immediately that this would be the writing partner I had never had. What made him special was that he knew so little about sexuality that he fantasized it. I gave him the elements of plots to work with and he created beautiful characters.
He wrote a 135-page script for California Valley Girls Take It To The Max that I read on a place coming back from Philadelphia where we edited Fantasy Follies. I was laughing out loud at the brilliance of the script. And so was this teenager sitting behind me. She said, 'that's how we talk.'
Laurie Holmes was in CVGTITTM. I think she had the line which sums up Mark's brilliance: She was in a car of four girls driving to school. And she had forgotten to do her homework. And she said, 'I wish there were things like learning dots that you could eat and you would know everything.' Laurie played the stupidest of the four girls, with Cindy Shepherd, Kim Carson, Desiree Lane and Misty Dawn.
John got paid $1500 for one scene - a six person blowjob. Laurie learns to give a blowjob, so she blows into his dick.
Mark wrote this tremendous character for me in the movie… But I declined… I don't have the huge ego that people say… We shot one scene at Harold Freeman's old studio (Hollywood Video) which is now Vivid on Califia St. in Chatsworth.
Eric Edwards and Kim Carson have a scene in a hot tub in Altadena. You will hear fireworks going off because it was on Super Bowl Sunday, 1983, when the Redskins beat the Dolphins at the Rose Bowl.
On that morning, we shot some scenes in the Pasedena Galeria, (a mall) figuring that nobody would be about.
I think the creativity, ingenuity and spontaneity of the industry was greater before legalization. Now they have a license to thrill, they don't even try to shock.
We used to try to make real movies, which brings us back to Mark, who wrote the script for Blue Ice before Raiders of the Lost Ark, which is very similar. Mark won an award from AVN for John Leslie's Catwoman.
It sprang from a Sunday that Mark and I went to a Raider-Packer game. We always went to a museum before we went to a game. We looked at an African Watering Hole Diorama - those big alive-looking animals behind glass. And I said to Mark, 'wouldn't it be interesting if we did this with human beings?' Which was the bases for Catwoman.
I could give Mark twelve plot points and the next day I would have a script.
Luke: I see a psycho-therapist twice a week.
Bill: Because of the persecution that you get?
Luke: In part. Because of all the people I piss off…
Bill: If you didn't piss people off, you wouldn't be happy. You like dropping boulders and birdbats like I do. The internet is the quintessential bird bad filled with bird brains. You better mention that you cackled as I said that. [True] You're having fun with this. You know damn well that you are tying as many knots in their tail as I am.
You will get tired, however, of being hated. After a while, the butterfly is no fun to poke pins into anymore. The people who follow you… You better analyze them, because they loathe you as much as they loathe me. I happen to thrive on hatred. I don't think you have the psychological make-up to thrive on hatred. Hatred fuels my passion. Hatred makes my blood boil. But right now, it is marginally tranquil in the playpen of the damned. Though recess is over. A mainstream journalist took that as the last line for his forthcoming article. The guy said to me about that line, 'It's as good as it gets.'
Everywhere I've lectured recently, I've written on the board, since the Marc Wallice thing "Recess is over in the playpen of the damned."
It's not a good time for the industry because the kids are scared.
Luke: Do you know whatever happened to that Mark Kernes hit piece on me for AVN?
Bill: I suspect that whatever he wrote about you will probably see print in some form in August. A lot of it is going to stem from your continual use of real names which are not up for grabs. These are stars known as Joey Silvera, Marc Wallice…
Does writing real names provide you with a malicious satisfaction that you could cause misery for somebody?
Luke: No.
Bill: What prompted you to publish articles about the Erotic Eleven five years after the fact?
Luke: I write about the history of the industry. I just happened to run across those articles in a newspaper database. Last week I ran a search on Reb Sawitz and five articles came up. So I ran excerpts of them on my site.
Bill: The Erotic Eleven experience validated who I was. We put on that event to fight for your rights to watch adult entertainment. We made $15,000 in four hours and went to jail. We never saw any of that money again along with $2400 (including money orders and checks made out to the Adult Video Association) taken out of my pocket that I had raised that day on the floor of the convention.
Luke: Did you know that a bust was going to happen that night?
Bill: NO. If I had known that, I wouldn't have gone there. How vaingloriously stupid do you think that I am to go into my own trap? What purpose would it have served? I was more surprised than anybody.
I believe that Pure Pleasure may have gotten itself busted for the publicity of it. We'd had two previous shows elsewhere that were not busted.
That bust validated me for fighting what we believe in. Free Speech, as we well know, did not bail me out. Ray Pistol did. He was the great savior. Free Speech would've left me in there the whole weekend for they denied knowing anything about the whole event. I've always been amused by that denial for the name "Free Speech Coalition" was on the flyer. And at the previous event, the FSC essentially extorted $1000 from Pure Pleasure… Afterwards, Pinky aka Bill Stollbach said, 'Now you're one of us.'